#but the others that come to mind don’t really have notorious or even big fandoms

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

You don’t understand, when I was at my worst with my depression, and every time I looked up at the night sky and grew scared of how small we are, how alone we might be, how short our time is, how I couldn’t comprehend infinity, how everything will end eventually, how everything I see way out there is long gone, I would panic. I would break down. The stars themselves scared me. But one day doctor who was put on Netflix and a comment on a deviant post reminded me of a deal I made with another user. If I watch doctor who they’ll watch the time travel show I thought was cool. I watched it on a whim, I’m not sure I’d even encountered it much on tumblr yet. But it made me feel less small. I began to actually look at the night sky without abject terror. I thought about how if you looked at it more like, idk, a learning adventure? When you heard new things about it, it wasn’t as scary. Something that could inspire writers to create such adventures and have normal people characters tag along… I got less scared. When everything started being galaxy print I thought it was pretty and not horrifying. It’s long been a trendy pattern of the last decade or so, perhaps a bit less, but I still see cool looking art inspired by images from space telescopes that were made to have different colors for invisible wavelengths so that humans could see… idk. It makes me happy. It’s like I’m less scared, and now I don’t even feel like I need there to be life on other planets for me to stop feeling alone, because there is so much life on this one! Even if I was the only human on earth, I still wouldn’t be alone just from being on this life filled planet. And I’m not the only human.

That’s not an experience I’ve had from many stories, it was one of those things that you encounter at just the right time for your view of the world to be changed for the better. Something that lodges itself inside of you and makes you better than you were before. I’ll always remember it fondly because of that. I know there is a lot I never watched and maybe one day I’ll catch up, but the fact is that what I DID see was enough to change me as a person. To make my existential dread just a little bit less all encompassing and inspire more curiosity in me.

[9w1ft]

ever since the jaylor break up, i've been seeing a lot of swifties become receptive to gaylorism subtly — for instance, they're more willing to accept when songs radiate queer vibes and they're hopping on the "boyfriend taylor" trend even though that's kind of our joke 🤣 as much as it annoys me a little to see swifties act like they're the pioneers of something us gaylors, kaylors, and related sub communities have come up for years now, i would hate to gatekeep it as that'd create an obstacle in their path to actual gaylorism, you know?

oh dear im sorry anon i went on a free-form tangent that i’m pretty sure isn’t aligned with your ask but i’m gonna keep it anyway because i wrote a lot 😆

i know what you mean about the attitudes and i do agree that sometimes it can feel annoying to see people lift things from tumblr, for example, and then these people get credited for the idea by their peers and they don’t correct or cite sources, which can be awkward

and sometimes i will see people reinvent the wheel when the answers are already available and written better here by all of us.. and i want to be like! come here!! there are some incredible things for you to find here!! you know? i know these feelings can often come off as gatekeeping, and, because i don’t really have any big issue with things spreading like folklore because that can become a haze to hide in, i do agree with you that it’s best not to try to micromanage things in general.

here’s the tangent… your ask made me think about how there were similar patterns to this in spring-early summer 2019, as lover promo was rolling out and it (the promo) was markedly optically gayer than rep. i remember seeing an incredible heel turn from some otherwise notoriously hostile swifties, where suddenly they were like yeah maybe taylor is bi, etc. i also remember there being a whole new generation of wide eyed gaylors on tumblr at the time—because taylor was still here—and so many were in my inbox and my friends inboxes asking and researching and it was all good and fun for the most part..

so i will say this from the perspective of someone that has experienced mass onboarding in the past and has seen how it can and cannot work

contemporarily speaking, kaylors can’t really gatekeep gaylorism. because we’re kinda already gatekept from gaylorism by Gaylorism tastemakers. lowercase g gaylorism exists in concept but i think that as it currently stands, it’s actually a pretty on-rails ride that is curated by some that would seek to influence their own worldview onto gaylorism subtly, that positions an onboarding to their benefit. and i don’t think it’s something always done with strategic intentions.. humans tend to want to tell and guide others to what they believe is right, and strive for an environment that works for them as opposed to against them, it’s human nature in a way.. still, Gaylorism presents gaylorism as something objective but, it’s actually done pretty subjectively, imo.

and i haven’t minded standing on the periphery as a kaylor because, one, i think that it’s better in some cases to gatekeep (or keep niche) parts of kaylor because, given it is true, taylor and karlie probably don’t want it going full-on mainstream. at least not right now. so i might see rumors or theories that make up stuff or use incorrect dates or just in general takes that feel so wrong and needing correction but i try to accept it existing as a way for lots of otherwise clever people to be distracted from seeing what kaylors see.

and also, i think it’s best for people interested in kaylor to come to conclusions on the basis of their own research, and at times be incorrect, yes, but for it to be first and foremost something people come to believe of their own volition. because if it’s directed under one tent pole then weird interpersonal dynamics can happen, as is the nature of fandom.. id rather a thousand people have all different slightly incorrect understandings of kaylor but an understanding that is unified by and grounded in love for taylor and karlie, than a thousand people have the same understanding of kaylor but for people’s feelings to be defined by one single source.

and separately, i worry about trying to make kaylor too approachable or to not gatekeep (maybe the word isn’t “not gatekeep” maybe the word is “overshare”) certain ideas because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. if kaylor gets too mainstream then you get a huge wave of people and statistically some of them will inevitably be people that are into kaylor not for the girls but because its the trendy thing to do. that can lead to a disconnect wherein people engage with kaylor as an endeavor for us to analyze and not an idea that is grounded in the lives of real people. and that disconnect can produce frenzied behavior…

sorry i don’t have a good way to tie these feelings together into one conclusion but basically, i don’t think we as kaylors can really gatekeep gaylorism but i think that’s fine and i also think that at times kaylor might benefit from holding back a little and maybe that difference is because of what each thing has as an end game, maybe. if that makes sense.. yeah.

i think what i mean to point out is, i think there has been an influx in people who see gaylorism as a concept without orchestrators, for better or for worse. the word gaylorism didn’t exist even three years ago, and nobody new seems to know why or think about it. for better or for worse.

[beardrabbles]

silence.

characters: GN!reader, mammon

warnings: like.  .  . one curse word

word count: 1,157

notes: oh, hey, another new fandom! :D this has probably been done before, but i’m weak as all heck for mammon. this is incredibly self-indulgent. i rarely write for myself, but one of his home screen lines made me wonder ‘cause i’m a quiet person, even on the phone.

‘ Ya know how sometimes you're on the phone with someone, and suddenly it goes quiet? I hate that. ’

You weren’t sure why at first, but you’d fixated on that off-hand comment the moment it reached your ears. Mammon was a notorious complainer, griping about anything and everything if it meant getting a speck of attention from you or his brothers. While you had learned during your time in the Devildom that it was best to acknowledge his grievances but never take them to heart, this one stuck with you — wasn’t until you’d thought about it over and over again that you realized why.

Whether you intended for it or not, you were not a noisy person. Not only were you soft-spoken, but you rarely spoke if the situation didn’t require you to. Peaceful moments of pure quiet were your forte, which made communicating with Mammon a challenge at times. His mind and mouth were always trying to outrace each other, but you tried to keep up. You wanted to keep up.

You sat against your headboard, DDD trapped between your ear and shoulder and fingers picking nervously at the fluff on the pillow you were hugging. Only a few moments ago, you had eagerly listened to his newest scheme, humming here and there to let him know you were taking in his every word. You always did. His voice, coupled with the enthusiasm behind it, was mesmerizing. You were capable of resisting a demon’s charms, but you weren’t immune to just how brightly his entire being glowed when inspiration struck him.

So when you found yourself met with the same silence during a late night call, you wondered if his patience had finally worn thin.

“Mammon.  .  . ?”

“Mm?”

“Are you alright?” You chewed at your lip, little and irregular spikes of anxiety making your chest tingle unpleasantly.

“I’m doin’ great! This plan is foolproof. Come tomorrow, we’ll be rollin’ in grimm!” He didn’t lack enthusiasm, but the sudden silence from seconds ago still bothered you. “Why are ya askin’?”

“No reason!” You paused, hesitated around the lie, then let out a miniscule grunt. “I mean, you got really quiet. You were all excited, then you stopped talking.”

Mammon huffed on the other end of the call. “So? I don’t see what the big deal is.”

You shifted in bed, face half-buried in your pillow. “It’s just.  .  .”

“Just what? Come on, spit it out, will ya?”

“You said before that you hate when it gets quiet on the phone! I know I don’t talk a lot, and it gets annoying. I thought because you were quiet now that you were getting irritated with me.” You swapped your phone from one shoulder to the other, the hot screen pressed to your even hotter cheek.

“You remembered I said that?” Came the demon’s small, mumbled response. It wasn’t the reply you expected, but it was a question you could easily answer.

“Of course I did!”

“And that’s what ya’ve been worryin’ about the whole time we’ve been talkin’?”

“Y—Yes?” You chewed at your lip, concern still sitting like a heavy, lead ball in your chest.

“You’re dumb, y’know that?” A sharp bark of laughter on the other end of the call made you flinch. Normally, his laughter was a comfort, but the sound of it and his words made you feel worse. You sunk into your bed, eyes growing downcast.

“Gee, thanks, Mams. Glad to know I can be open and honest about how I’m feeling with you.”

“Wait, I didn’t——! I didn’t mean it like that!” From his end, there came a muffled but rapid string of curses and muttering. You thought you caught a vague ‘ idiot! ’ somewhere in there, but it was hard to tell. “I just meant that ya don’t gotta worry about dumb stuff like that. I know what I said, but.  .  .”

It was your turn to push now. “But what?”

“I dunno,” grumbled Mammon bashfully, “I guess I don’t mind when you’re quiet. I know you’re listenin’ to me, even if ya don’t say much. And I —  Ilikejustsittinghereandlisteningtoyabreathecauseitmeansyou’resafeandhereandrealandIcanpretendyou’remineforalittlewhilebutitwouldbecreepyashellt’saythat.”

“Woah, Mammon. Slow down, I didn’t catch any of that.”

“That was the point.” Mammon sighed. “Do I really gotta repeat myself?”

“Please?” You knew it was never wise to beg around the Avatar of Greed, but just this once you didn’t care.

“.  .  . If I say this, ya can’t use it against me! And I ain’t gonna repeat myself!”

“I know.”

“Ya promise ya won’t laugh?”

“I promise a hundred times over.”

Mammon sighed, and you could feel him preparing himself. When he spoke next, his voice was small and honest, and the sound of it alone made your heart skip. “It ain’t ever bothered me that ya get quiet. I like just sittin’ here an’ knowin’ you’re there. Even if ya don’t say much, I know ya ain’t ignorin’ me like my brothers do. On the phone or when we’re sittin’ t’gether, don’t matter. Just.  .  . makes me real happy t’think ya might be comfortable enough t’be yaself around me. I know my mouth runs a mile’a minute sometimes, but ya’ve never once made me feel bad about it. I like this.”

“I like it too.” You weren’t sure how you managed to speak around the lump in your throat, but the words squeaked past. “And I’m never gonna make you feel bad for talking a lot. I want to listen.”

“I know ya do. And I wanna listen too, I swear! O—Only ‘cause I’m provin’ how thoughtful I can be! S’just, sometimes I get goin’ and——!”

“It’s alright. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. If you wanna talk, talk. But.  .  .”

“Hmm?”

“My phone’s getting kind of hot. Do.  .  .” You trailed off, nerves getting the better of you again.

“I’m all ears, treasure.” The nickname was new and had caught you off guard the first time, and it still proved to knot your stomach when you heard it every time after that.

“Do you mind if I come be quiet in your room for a bit?”

“Ya know I don’t mind. Oh, but ya know that new series ya said ya wanted t’binge watch?”

You were in the process of grabbing your charger from the wall when the seemingly random question caught you. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Ya don’t get here in five minutes, I’m startin’ it without ya!” You could hear his toothy grin and knew for an absolute fact that he relished in making you rush, especially when the line died and gave you no room to argue. Quiet you may be, but you weren’t above muttering a curse when the situation called for it.

“Ass.  .  .” Yet you said it with a fondness meant only for him. He could be an ass, but you wouldn’t have him any other way.

[fermented-writers-block]

PART 1 of 6 of the Owl Deity Hooty Theory

[NEXT PART]

[OWL DEITY HOOTY THEORY MASTERPOST] (in development)

(TLDR at bottom of post)

Over several long months of research and analysis since March of 2020, I have been following an utterly fascinating thread of potential misdirection and subtle details throughout The Owl House, and today, I would like to start weaving together of what I believe could become one of the biggest and most cleverly disguised twists in the entire show.

To begin, let’s take a look at the B plot of Understanding Willow:

On first glance, it’s an ultimately inconsequential sidestory with the sole purpose of justifying an excuse to keep Luz and Amity in Willow’s mind, as well as providing some well-needed room to breathe and release tension after the veryemotionally charged confrontation with Inner Willow. After half an episode of Eda and King outdoing the other in ridiculous ways to win Gus’ vote and Gus running off in frustration at the end of the episode from Hooty’s inane rambling, it’s easy to laugh off Gus’ pick and assume that nothing/of value was said when he closed the door for the interview.

However, if one pays close attention to that very scene, Hooty actually canstill be heard (if faintly) underneath Eda and King’s grumbling, interestingly talking about how “It all started with a hunt. Blood red skies. That’s right, I was created-.”

Now, while it may seem silly to focus on dialogue from Hooty of all characters, this A) tells us that there was an event in the past involving blood red skies and a hunt of some kind, B) that Hooty had been created close to said event, and C) implies that what he knows but can’t tell as a story worth a damn is EXTREMELY important to be included and be hidden in such a manner.

For comparison, the only other instance of dialogue being tucked away in the background in the entire show is in Wing It Like Witches:

During the lecture at the beginning of the episode, the history teacher openswith lore on Belos appointing a head witch to each coven over 50 years ago, immediately cluing in the audience to try and decipher the rest of the lecture as it moves to the background. Adding to this is how the musical sting when Luz shows off her movie obscures what he says even further, making it even more of a intriguing puzzle that the creators clearly intended for viewers to pick up on and attempt to solve.

In contrast, the hidden dialogue of Hooty’s interview is much shorter and not as hard to decipher as the teacher’s history lesson, but at the same time, there are few to no indicators whatsoever in that scene to clue in the audience to even check for something like that. It comes at the end of an episode where most viewers would have been paradoxically tired out and driven abuzz by the revelations of Amity and Willow’s relationship, doesn’t attempt to draw much attention to itself, and frames itself as a comedic subversion of audience expectations with neither the “greatest witch who ever lived” or the self-proclaimed king of demons being picked by Gus.

Instead, he picks someone that the show portrays constantly as an oblivious and gullible idiot after being described as a “state of the art defense system” at the very beginning of the series. Someone who, despite it being played for laughs, is scarily capable of casually subduing Lilith offscreen one episode and then beating her and an entire squad of Emperor’s Coven members without even the slightest change in personality or temperament.

Someone who, due to being the Owl House itself, could be considered the titular character of the entire show, yet is taken for granted by those who inhabit him and barely gets any respect from even the cutely patronized King - including when Hooty could be interpreted as having potentially been full on DEAD for a time given the use of extremely cartoony X eyes and a lack of vital signs in The Intruder.

And someone who Eda at best tolerates and at worst abandons in personal interactions and only occasionally acknowledges him when he’s actually doing his job. Yet at the same time is so implicitly trusted beyondprotecting her home to the point where - when up against the closest person Eda has to an equal outside of likely Belos - the only actually recognizable spells Eda used in combat were 1) stereotypical energy blasts, 2) a single shield spell in Covention, and 3) a noticeably large reliance on imitations of Hooty above any other spells she could have decided to use instead.

In short, the show repeatedly tells us he is just an idiotic gag character through and through, but at the same time demonstrates he has immense power through both onscreen and offscreen demonstrations, implicitly tells us his importance ahead of time through Eda’s imitations in actually serious situations, and treats his interview and origin story as - if not even more- important to keep secret than a long lore dump about how Belos’ reign works.

After all, there being only two instances of hidden background dialogue in the entire season is already intriguing on its own, but for one to get plenty of clues to draw in people’s attention and for the other to be treated as just another gag about a “mere comic relief character” - aka a good way to draw away attention and lower one’s guard - heavily suggests a far deeper significance buried under layers of misdirection, comedy, and conditioned audience expectations.

I mean, when Eda bragged about being “a bad girl living in a secret fortress,” Hooty followed with a remark about how “I’m the secret.” While that line may sound like Hooty simply being confused as part of a one-off on the surface, it’s an odd dialogue choice for the writers to pick when you think about all the other reminders of his nature as the house itself throughout the season. With the precedent these moments set, it would have been much more appropriate for him to latch onto the “fortress” side of “secret fortress” AND it would have been just as equally funny of a joke about his awareness skills, but instead, Hooty broke away from the established trend to say something that would make people suspicious were it to come from anyone else.

In a way, this reminds me much of the many subtle bits of foreshadowing strewn across the show, like Luz unknowingly describing Amity in Witches Before Wizards and Eda burning a hole through Luz’s coven type quiz that coincidentally selected the same track she had taken at Hexside as “a punky potionist.” At the time of airing, these initially seemed like one-off jokes, but eventually came back in full force several episodes later with Amity’s hidden sensitive feelings and love for the Azura books becoming clear in Lost in Language, and the reveal of Eda’s school track in Something Ventured, Someone Framed with her school misdemeanor pictures.

That said, compared to these individual bits of minor foreshadowing, the jokes about Hooty in Understanding Willow appear to simply be the most obvious pieces in a giant puzzle, implicitly and outright telling attentive viewers that there’s a major mystery to be uncovered here.

In fact, I feel bold enough to say that we could be looking at a twist on a similar scale to that of the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz and Stanford Pines twists in Steven Universe and Gravity Falls respectively, what with this particular puzzle piece coming from how Gus wanted to make THE greatest interview of all time, and how he was looking for someone who was “interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy:”

Note the emphasis on the ‘and’ here, as Gus had made a big deal that “people aren’t meantto be all those things” at the beginning of the episode, so as a result, stripping away all the comedic framing of his subplot leaves the intriguing implication that whoever - and, perhaps, what- Hooty is, they really are the most interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy person out of everyone.

I could go further and talk about why I suspect the mystery surrounding King’s origins, whether true or not, is partially meant to misdirect us from paying attention to Hooty, or how the TOH crew’s could be disguising legitimate clues to his nature among made up and highly meme-able joke answers in order to proliferate said concepts throughout the fandom - thus letting us do all the dirty work of getting ourselves used to the ideas and used to dismissing them at the same time - but to bring things to a close for now, I’d like to leave you all with a question that I’ll start answering next time:

What does it mean when both the most powerful and notorious witch on the Boiling Isles and the possible actual king of demons/the Titan itself/something don’t match up to a house? And what do you think it is that makes him so special to warrant such misdirection?

TLDR: Between Eda’s golem spells, the show stressing his nature as the titular house, his implicit strength, and the odd dialogue and structure of Understanding Willow‘s subplot in relation to him, I believe I have good reason to suspect the show has been giving us many hints towards Hooty being much, much more important than it would like us to currently believe or even joke about. Particularly, through clever uses of comedy to establish and enforce a strong audience bias against looking closely at him or unironically taking him seriously, and to potentially plant the seeds for something I will start exploring in Part 2.

[archies-litterbox]

Whumptober No. 2: Talking is Overrated

Garotte | choking | gagged

Summary: Zoe wakes up in rather inhospitable custody, as well as in magic-nullifying shackles. She wants nothing more than to make her escape as soon as possible without relying on anyone to find her, but the fatigue and headaches brought on by a certain nullifier cast in the metal of her chains makes that rather difficult. And to make matters worse (or better?), she’s not alone.

Words: 7k

A/N: Welcome to Day 2! This one is a much longer piece than Day 1, but I was actually working on this for like a week before I realized it fit one of the Day 2 prompts, so I figured it worked! (“Garotte” is italicized because although this is written for the theme “gagged”, garottes are mentioned coincidentally). The next piece is gonna be for another fandom, and I won’t get back to ToA until likely Day 4, but for now, I hope you enjoy! Also this may be from Zoe's POV, but be fooled not - Douxie's the one getting whumped the most here. I mean... you know me.

[CW: Kidnapping/Capture, Muzzle, Chains, Swearing, Creepy Whumper (Antagonist acts creepy to Zoe but never lays a hand on her)]

--

It had been, by most conventional standards, not a particularly pleasant afternoon.

It started out fine for Zoe, going about her typical herb-collecting in the woods, but getting a sharp pain in her neck and waking up with cuffs on her wrists pretty much threw a wrench in things. The shackles were generously - as generous as shackles could get, anyway - tethered by a long chain to a stake in the ground, giving her enough length to lay back against a tree. Such was an opportunity she took without hesitation, for something - whether the sedative or some magic nullifier in her shackles - left her feeling drained. 

Drained, but not alone.

No, she woke up with another person in her predicament - another magic user, most likely, judging by the way that shackles were clamped on his wrists the same as hers, linked by a long chain to that same blasted stake in the ground.

But unlike her, he was unconscious. Whatever sedative they used must have been doing more of a number on the boy than it did to her. At least, that’s what she figured while the gangly kid laid knocked out on his side.

She decided not to wake him, instead resolving to try to think of a way out of this. Sure, hedge-witches were well-networked, and one of them was bound to track her down to this literal neck of the woods, if there was one thing Zoe Ashildr loathed, it was being at anyone’s mercy. The sooner she got herself out of here without waiting on anyone, the better.

As they sat around a campfire some meters away, the gang that must have been her and this guy’s captors didn’t even notice she was awake, and she hoped to keep it that way. The longer she wasn’t noticed, the longer she’d be left alone to think.

Well… to try to think, anyway, but it was hard to get any clever escape schemes going with the horrendous pounding behind her eyes.

Besides, her attempts to think through what almost might have been the start of a plan were interrupted by a groan beside her.

“Ooooh, Fuzzbuckets.”

...What was a fuzzbucket?

She’d been looking right at the ground at her feet before, but she shifted her gaze to the stirring boy next to her. Zoe couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Great, now she’d have to keep this kid calm, as if fighting through her brain fog wasn’t difficult enough on it’s own.

He lifted his head and sat up, still too dazed to realize his circumstances yet. But when he did, his big hazel eyes widened at the sight of the shackles on his wrists.

His eyebrows upturned, and he opened his mouth like he was going to scream, but Zoe reached out, almost lunging over to do so, and put a hand over his mouth before he could.

“Mh!” he squeaked behind her palm. His eyes were still widened for another second, but then they glanced down to her hands that were shackled just like his, and when he seemed to realize she was a fellow captive and not his captor, his eyebrows furrowed as if he were confused, if not a little affronted.

“The longer they go,” she whispered, nodding to the still-unawares gang that sat grumbling around their fire, “Without knowing you’re awake, the better. Don’t be loud.”

The boy nodded apprehensively and moved his head back to get away from her hand.

“What are we doing here?” he asked, fortunately lowering his voice.

“Right now…” she crossed her heels over each other, sitting back against the tree, “...sitting. And messing with these stupid shackles.”

He rubbed the side of his head, “How long have I…”

Zoe shrugged, “Beats me. Half an hour, at least - that’s how long it’s been since I woke up, anyway… what were you doing before?”

She wasn’t sure why she asked. His squeaking, even when he spoke quietly, was already worsening her headache.

Well, whatever - the question was out there.

The boy looked down to recollect what happened.

“Well… I was picking herbs. My master sent me out to do it. He’s probably in his study going,” he changed his voice to mimic what sounded like a surly old man, “Hisirdoux, what’s taking so long? They’re easy to spot, even for you!”

Zoe tilted her head, “Hisirdoux, huh?”

He nodded, as if remembering he hadn’t thought to introduce himself yet, “Hisirdoux Casperan! Apprentice to Merlin. But I like going by Douxie. It’s shorter, and people usually don’t sound like they’re scolding me.”

Ugh, great. 

Not only was she chained here, but she was stuck with an apprentice for a wizard synonymous with snuck-up snobbery.

“I was doing the same thing. Looks like that’s how they got the drop on both of us.”

Douxie - it was better, she admitted, and much less pretentious-sounding than Hisirdoux - tilted his head, “Don’t you have a name?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.” she said.

“Come on, I told you my name.”

“Not like I asked for it.”

Douxie scrunched up his face in an adora-

NO.

Douxie scrunched up his face in a definitely-not-adorable pout.

“Fine, be all secret-y.” He curled his legs up and hugged them close to his chest with his shackled arms.

And that’s what she wanted to do. She didn’t want to say anything beyond what she had to say to Douxie. Not only was she apprehensive - for all she knew, he was some sniveling kid that knew just as much of the struggle of surviving as a magic user outside the sheltered walls of the castle as that privileged Arthurian toolbag did, which couldn’t have been much - but names were risky. If someone knew your name, they knew how to ask around for you. And she tried avoiding that as much as she could. If Douxie wanted to introduce himself, that was him, not her.

There was more she had to worry about besides introductions. Thinking of a plan… getting these cuffs off… not freezing…

She tried to tuck her hands under her underarms as best she could. These shackles drained her energy, and in addition to her magic’s obsoletion and the awful headache, it made her get cold easily in these woods, under the shade.

“...Are you cold?”

She turned her head to Douxie, who looked genuinely concerned. As skeptical as she was, she nodded.

“Not like I can whip up a fire… neither can you, so don’t try it.” she quickly added, holding up a pointer finger, “Draining Dust in the shackles. It’d just hurt.”

His eyebrows upturned, and he took a shaky breath. Merlin must have told him how poisonous it could be if it gets in the system.

“It’s toxic…” he mumbled, “It… it’s poison.”

“It’s not too bad just in the cuffs.” she said, almost to reassure him, “It shouldn’t actually poison you unless it gets in your system. Maybe if they rub against a cut, or something. Don’t worry about it - there’s enough to be scared of right now.”

Douxie nodded, swallowing, looking at her arms before glancing down at his hands.

“If your hands are cold… I could…”

He blushed, hesitation choking him up as he shook his head, leaning back against a tree of his own, next to the one Zoe was using for support.

“Agh, never mind.”

He tapped the back of his head against the bark, squishing his… manbun when he did.

“What do they even want?”

Zoe shrugged.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” she said, “For all I know, we could be going off to the highest-paying witchfinder… I just hope they don’t want our magic.”

“Well, they obviously don’t want it right now.” Douxie grumbled, shaking his cuffs. Assuming him to be truly clueless, rather than purposefully obtuse, she shook her head.

“I mean to do their dirty work. Keep the cuffs on until they need a spell or something, make us do it. We end up like vessels.”

Douxie looked down.

“Oh…”

Zoe stared down at her cuffed hands in her lap.

“I don’t think there’d be anything worse.” she huffed, “That’s the thing about everyone who hates magic. They say they want it eradicated, pushed out of their sight, crushed underfoot… until it helps them get what they want. Then they rip it from whoever they want, autonomy be forsaken.”

“And what if that’s…” Douxie asked, obviously worried now that he considered the prospect of being forced to use his magic against his will.

“...I'd rather they just get rid of me.” Zoe said, “Maybe taunt them until they do. No way they're getting my magic… especially not with these on.”

She lifted her shackled hands.

Douxie lolled his head back against his tree again.

“Urgh, it feels like they’re making me sick…” he whined, “I’ve got an awful headache.”

“Me too.” Zoe groaned, “Thought it was just from hearing you all along.”

Something panged her heart when she saw the way the boy’s eyebrows upturned. It wasn’t from the shackles, but something else… remorse.

“Ugh... sorry.” She lolled her head back against the tree for what felt like the fiftieth time this afternoon. “Uncalled for.” The apology felt foreign coming from her throat.

But Douxie only shrugged, “‘Salright. I’m notorious for causing headaches. And spills. And spikes in blood pressure. Merlin says so…”

His eyes widened with hope - faith, even, an odd thing - shining in his eyes.

“Merlin! He’ll find us! He’ll know I’m missing.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. Did he really have that much faith in that Arthurian toolbag?

“Sure.” She huffed. Douxie's eyebrows upturned.

“Come on… don’t you have anyone who'll miss you?”

Zoe lifted her head.

“A lot of people, actually. Hedge witches are pretty well-networked.” she said, immediately wanting to bite her tongue for mentioning what she was.

Douxie looked like he had stars in his eyes, which was… not the reaction she expected. She thought Merlin would have led him to think hedge witches were lesser in comparison to pristine magicians who managed to slither their way into King Arthur’s begrudging tolerance, but Douxie seemed… impressed? In awe?

“A hedge witch?” he asked in admiration, careful to keep his voice down. It caused a flutter in her heart that she wanted to beat down with a stick, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction that could’ve come with her being flustered, so she nodded.

“One goes missing, the rest pick up on it. Just a matter of tracking down from there…”

Douxie’s mouth formed an “O” and his eyes widened, like he had an idea (which must have been something of a rarity, if this afternoon was anything to go off of).

“Oooh, like a game!” he said, “It’s just like waiting to see who gets here first! Guess we’d both win though, ‘cause we’d… y’know…” he lifted his hands, “Not have these on anymore…”

...Wow, he was an idiot.

“Yeah, sure. A game.” she said, sardonic, “Whoever’s people show up to save our sorry butts first wins.”

It was quiet for a little while after that. Zoe still kept trying to think up an escape plan, despite the headache that messed with her head, and Douxie had either gotten the hint that she wasn’t too giddy for conversation, or he’d grown too worried of his predicament for words.

Judging by the way he sat curled up, hugging his knees against his chest as he stared down at the grass, it might have been the latter.

Douxie’s head snapped up at a noise - one that made Zoe’s heart spike as she whipped her head forward; the sound of one of their captors heading over to them.

He was one of four of them, the other four still sitting around their fire and blathering on with cantines abound in their hands, and he was quite the nasty specimen. Big, burly, greasy-looking, but pretty typical, as far as most people who would kidnap two teenagers out on errands tended to look. He glowered down at Zoe, not paying the curled up moppet next to her much attention.

“You’re awake.” he said to her.

She leaned back against the tree, unimpressed.

“Took you and your drinking buddies long enough to notice.” she said, “It’s bad enough you chained us here, but seriously, you’re going to keep us waiting?”

Douxie, still curled up and now shaking, glanced between her and the… bandit, she wanted to presume? These kinds of guys were always bandits, or something.

The man scoffed, “Rather confident for a hedge witch.”

Zoe tilted her head, “Mm… nah, we’re all pretty much this cocky. What do you want? I was in the middle of something back there.”

“And I was too! Something very important!” Douxie squawked. Zoe grit her teeth.

This isn’t the time to try to be included!

“What you���re in the middle of now,” the supposed bandit said, “is a trip to a rather high-paying witchfinder.”

Wow, she thought, I hit the nail on the head. Great. Can I hit this guy on the head too, while I’m at it?

(But she couldn’t.)

Zoe huffed, “If he’s sending you around, then he’s not much of a witchfinder, is he? I mean, he didn’t even find me, a witch - you did.”

“So, er…” Douxie started, “He’s more of a… send-weird-bad-guys-to-find-witches...er.”

Zoe looked at him for a beat, confused by how much of an idiot he was. Really, he kept surprising her in this respect.

The bandit turned his head to Douxie, too.

“Actually, me and my boys-”

“My boys and I.” Zoe corrected, earning a growl.

“-weren’t sent out to find a witch.”

Zoe didn’t understand, and by the looks of it, neither did Douxie.

“Nah, the guy said he’d pay a rather high price for the apprentice to, say, Merlin Ambrosius…”

Douxie’s eyebrows upturned as he shrunk into himself. Wait, he’d been demanded? Then… what about Zoe?

The man turned to her, as if to answer her question.

“But when we saw a pretty little hedge witch going about nearby…”

Zoe’s stomach turned. Her magic, however suppressed, instinctively thrummed at her fingertips in an attempt at defense. She didn’t let it show how much it burned.

“...Why not get more out of the deal?”

So… she was the one that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Zoe almost felt a little insulted, but it was drowned out by anger and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, fear.

“If the “more” that you want is a bunch of hedge-witches after the sorry, ugly mugs of you and your “boys”, then go for it.” she said, keeping her voice cool despite clasping her hands to suppress the magic that would only hurt her, as long as those cuffs were on.

The hunter huffed, “I’d take the chance, I think. Worth the money.”

He knelt down. If Zoe could’ve backed against the tree any further, she would have. She gripped the chains on her shackles, wondering how good of a garotte the chain between them would make.

“I mean, I don’t see why anyone would turn that down…” his voice was lower now, and Zoe hated that. She really, really hated that.

“Maybe because they don’t have deathwishes.” she said, much more shaky than her liking as the man leered at her. “Do you?”

He brought up a hand.

“...Maybe I d-”

“DON’T TOUCH HER!”

It all happened so fast.

The screech next to her that sounded so unlike the quivering moppet from the past hour.

The slinking of chains moving fast against the ground.

The thumping of feet getting up on the grass.

The blur of brown, blue, and black that moved to her right.

The yowl from the hunter.

The last thing to finally catch up to her senses was a shocking sight, even more so than her own electric magic.

It was the fury in those hazel eyes as Douxie’s jaws clamped down hard on the hunter’s hand.

Zoe dove away from the scene, but mostly the hunter, as much as the chains allowed. Getting out of the space between those two and the tree, she got right to her feet. She wanted to shout something, do something, but she was too shocked by the scene for words. Here he was, some boy who she thought was a pretentious whiny little moppet who couldn’t do anything without Merlin’s approval, huffing and almost growling with his teeth locked onto the man’s hand like a dog’s on a piece of meat.

But as daring (and stupid, and possibly a tad feral) Douxie had been, he was light and gangly, and the hunter swinging his arm hard was enough to slam Douxie’s head against the tree, stunning him so his jaw opened so the hunter could pull his hand away.

Zoe hated that sound of skull meeting wood, and it made her wince, but it wasn’t as bad as the cry from Douxie. It seemed that ferocity was dormant now, smacked out of him as he lay slumped against the tree, somehow still conscious.

“What the hell…” she panted, still standing still as the weight of her shackles pulled her arms down, “What did you do?”

But, for once, Douxie didn’t say anything back.

“So, the little stray Merlin took in has a bite, now does he?” He said, kicking Douxie in the side on the emphasized word. The boy whimpered, grimacing with blood on his teeth, and with every ounce of the self-preservation that had been ingrained in her, Zoe fought tooth and nail against the urge to protect him. He was a stranger, just a kid caught up in the same messed-up predicament she was. It didn’t matter if he got himself in more danger than he was already in for her sake; she had no loyalty to him, and even if she did, her loyalty to herself was greater.

“...Well, I have something for that.”

But her stomach still dropped when she heard that.

The other three of the captors had already been running over, and when they got to their leader, he held out his hand. Without a word, one of the lackeys rummaged around in a bag for something that, whatever it was, Zoe desperately - no, why desperately? Why was she desperate for Douxie’s sake? - hoped he wouldn’t find.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, panting, her feet still planted to the ground.

The leader of the hunters, who still towered over Douxie, grabbed a fistfull of hair on the back of his head and yanked his bun loose.

“What you always use for dogs who can’t help but bite.”

The realization hit Zoe like a smack to the face. She started shaking her head, however minute the action was.

A second later, the realization apparently hit Douxie too, judging by the way his eyes widened and his breath quickened.

Both of them darted their eyes to the lackey with the bag, both knowing what he was looking for and hoping to anything they could that he wouldn’t find it.

But a damning “Aha!” from him all-but-confirmed their fear only a second before he pulled it out.

Zoe saw the straps. She saw the metal clasps. She saw -

Oh, no no no-

She saw the piece of metal that all the straps connected to; that was big enough and shaped just right that it could - no, it would cover the lower half of Douxie’s face and curve just under the chin to keep his jaw clamped shut.

A muzzle.

“NO!”

The scream/plea from Zoe sounded foreign to her, but she didn’t care. Laying eyes on that thing made her own, and she tried lunging forward, just like Douxie did for her, but two of the lackeys stopped her before she could take as much as three steps. They held onto her arms, both stopping her from moving forward and making her cuffed hands dig into her abdomen the more she thrashed against their hold, but she didn’t care. Not as her heels dug against the ground, not as the fabric of her dress sleeves chaffed against her sleeves with how tight the hold on her was, and not as magic thrummed under her skin despite the cuffs.

Douxie curled up and shook his head, clamping his hands over his mouth as if to block the muzzle from being put on. But once the leader had the muzzle in one hand, he used the other to yank on the chain for Douxie’s shackles to pull both the boy closer and to and pull his hands away from his face, stomping on the chain to keep it pinned. Douxie’s hands were forced down now, a mere inch or two off the ground, but even though he was practically stuck on his knees, he kept trying, trying, trying to tug himself away.

“No, no, no! Don’t! Please don’t!” Douxie pleaded.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Zoe screamed, louder than him. It probably wasn’t a good idea to scream at the man holding a muzzle, but she didn’t care. Not while she thrashed and tried pushing forward and yanking her way out of the grip of the men on either side of her.

Until a blade to Douxie’s throat made both him and Zoe go still.

Douxie froze, save for the sharp rise and fall of his chest, and Zoe stopped her thrashing in an instant. The one who’d rummaged around and found the muzzle in the first place was the one holding it, and the angered look in the leader’s eyes made the demand clear:

“Stay still and shut up, both of you, or he gets his throat slit.”

Zoe shook with anger, but stayed still on her feet, glowering at the man so she didn’t have to look right at Douxie.

But she could still see him.

Douxie was just as frozen as her, shaking more with fear than Zoe’s fury, until he tried to shy away from the blade on his neck (and inadvertently pressed his head closer to the man with that damn contraption in his hands), minutely shaking his head.

But when the one holding the blade put it closer to his throat, pressing it against the skin with enough force that so much as a mere twitch would cut him, he went limp (as much as his trembling allowed), squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded minutely - a silent resignation, a nonverbal “I won’t move, just don’t hurt me.”

Zoe closed her eyes, too. The sting of tears was overpowering, and she couldn’t… she couldn’t bear to watch.

“He’ll kill you.” she heard Douxie hiss, “Merlin will kill you, he’ll kill-”

A sharp intake of breath and a muffled whimper made Zoe’s stomach twist, especially when no more sound followed but those of tightening straps and the “chk” of a lock.

Zoe never thought a sound could hurt so much to hear.

Fortunately, oh so fortunately, the leader went back to his fire, and the others followed suit.

When the men on either side of her let her go, the first thing she did was fall to the ground. The way she unconsciously tried using her magic despite the nullifier winded her, so she ended up kneeling on the grass, further staining the skirt of her dress as she stared at the unfocused green mess underneath her.

She wanted to think that was the reason, anyway. Definitely not because of what she knew she’d see once she lifted her head.

But when she heard Douxie’s shaky breathing through his nose - the only way he could breathe, she knew - she straightened up and looked at him. How could she not?

For the first time today, Zoe realized that all she wanted to do was cry.

His mouth and some of his cheeks were covered by dark, dark grey metal that spread ear to ear, reaching just up to his nose. It was likely cast with Draining Dust, just like the cuffs on both their wrists that shared it’s hue. Two little straps on either side of his nose met at it’s bridge, with a ring that had another strap coming from it, too - one that stretched all the way down the middle of the top of his head (hence why the leader tugged his bun loose). Two straps, one on either side of Douxie’s jaw, met the end of that strap at the back of Douxie’s head, Zoe reasonably guessed. Just as well, she assumed that locking noise she heard was the lock being put on back there.

But guessing was all she could do about that, because she wasn’t looking there. No, all she could look at was his face - at the eyes of the muzzled boy that stared at her like he didn’t know what to say, even if he could speak.

In those heavy-lidded hazel pockets of quiet desperation, nearly hidden by messy strands of black hair, Zoe saw what she could only describe as the poor man’s despondence - so close to being checked out of all this, but not quite there, not quite lucky enough to lose awareness of the situation.

She got closer, so she sat on her knees right in front of him while he stared at the ground. She felt more at a loss for what to say than Douxie, even though she was the only one out of the two of them that could say anything.

“He… you…” she started, but none of the words felt right.

Douxie’s eyes drew up to hers, as if he just realized she was in front of her.

And his breathing picked up, and his eyes widened, as if, although he knew there was a muzzle on his face, the realization sunk in, like fangs into skin, that there was a fucking muzzle on his face.

Desperately, he brought his hands to his head, yanking at the straps in desperation only made quiet by the very thing making him desperate. After a second or two, he forwent pulling at the leather bindings in favor of pulling at the metal on his face, almost digging his fingers underneath it and starting to scratch his face in the process as he clawed near-hysterically at it, making high-pitched whining noises behind the muzzle. His eyes weren’t heavy-lidded anymore. No, they were like a wild animal’s (a resemblance only furthered by the muzzle), wide with the fact that he needed, needed, needed to get it off.

But he couldn’t. Not like this.

“Wait! Stop!” she grabbed his hands, and pulled them down. “You might cut your face! You’d only make it worse!”

The image popped into her mind of somehow, some-bloody-how, traces of that nullifying powder ending up in his blood, and if he got poisoned on top of all of this…

No, she couldn’t bear to think of it.

Douxie tried pulling his hands back, but however gentle Zoe was, she was firm in keeping them away from his face.

It took a few moments, but eventually, his attempts in vain subsided and his arms relaxed… only to start trembling with the rest of his body.

The whimpers and whines from before were nothing compared to the keening wail he let out as the futility of his struggling let in, made all the more awful by how muffled it was; as his torso lurched forward and his head hung low.

(Now, Zoe got a good look at the lock binding all the straps together, but she didn’t pay it much mind.)

Douxie let go of her hands in favor of balling his own into fists, but she still felt his tears fall on her arms as he started to sniffle.

No, no, not good. If started crying any harder, and his nose stuffed up, he wouldn’t be able to breathe through his nose due to the congestion and… well, obviously he wouldn’t be able to breathe any other way. And the last thing she wanted to count on - even less so than that armored, bearded, weird-metal-head-plated embodiment of pretentiousness caring enough to send help for his errand boy - was these guys being merciful and trading the muzzle for something more breathable, let alone just leaving him ungagged.

No, it was too much of a risk.

“No, no, no, no. Don’t cry. Please.” It only made Douxie sob behind the metal again, the thought of something else being taken, but she explained, “If you cry, you might plug up your nose. You’ll suffocate.”

But that only scared him more, she realized as his eyes widened, his eyebrows upturning as he shook his head again, whining behind the metal that made the sound near-inaudible. She put her hands to either side of Douxie’s face, despite herself, despite the coldness she carried with her like a switchblade.

Douxie put his hands over hers. She tried to ignore the flutter in her heart - anything to help him get grounded.

“I need you to breathe. I need you to take deep breaths for me, and I need you not to cry. Just - just keep that nose of yours cleared up, okay?” She rubbed her thumbs over the little bit of his cheeks still uncovered by cruel, horrendous metal. “Can you do that for me, Douxie?”

Douxie’s eyebrows raised, and he seemed to relax a little with a certain realization - one that made Zoe fight back heat in her cheeks…

That was the first time today she’d called him Douxie.

And it was enough to help calm him down; to help his breathing slow, and to help the tension leave his body, even if it was just a little bit.

His eyes became heavy-lidded again, and however strange it sounds, Zoe thought it was a relief. It meant that he’d calmed down; that he was less of that frenzied, near-wild person from moments before and more of that moppety boy he’d been all this time.

Really, it was hard to believe they were even the same person, and if Zoe hadn’t seen it for herself, she wouldn’t have.

And even now, she still couldn’t wrap her head around the way he clamped down on that man’s hand, biting like a wild animal. It wasn’t his being daringly stupid - or stupidly daring? - that unnerved her, but the way he’d been as such…

How was she supposed to expect that from anyone? Especially Merlin Ambrosius’ sniveling errand boy?

“Why…” she huffed, “Why did you do that?”

Douxie couldn’t rightly answer, but he gestured to their captors again, bringing up a shaky hand to do it. Looks like Zoe would have to fill in the blanks.

“You…”

She sighed.

“You just didn’t want him to hurt me, did you?”

Douxie nodded, his head lolling with each motion because of the weight from the metal across half his face.

“...You know,” she started, “If he got close enough, I would’ve just tried using these chains as a garrote.”

Douxie tilted his head, mumbling something unintelligible in confusion.

“Something you wrap around someone’s neck to choke them out.” she explained and shrugged, “...Probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway.”

Douxie shrugged, noncommittal.

“I didn’t expect that from you, but I guess that goes without saying, huh?”

The look Douxie gave her was almost deadpan - enough to let her know that was the wrong choice of words. Oops.

“Heh, sorry…”

When she realized her hands were still on his face, a realization that made a pink tint come to her own cheeks (the same hue she’d eventually dye her hair, which was still brown now), she started taking them off…

...But Douxie put his hands on hers with a muffled whine.

“M’kay…” she gently rubbed under his eyes again, “Alright…”

She humored him, kept her hands on his cheeks. Not because she pitied him, or felt like she owed him for that stupid way he leaped and bit for her sake, but… he was scared, and if she let it show - if she brought forth even a sliver of the fear she felt today, he wouldn’t hesitate to comfort her, just like he didn’t hesitate when that bandit brought his hand up...

And she couldn’t turn down that sad look of helplessly quiet desperation in his eyes, no matter how much she wanted to.

Zoe sighed.

She wasn’t much for reassurance, but for his sake…

“...We’ll be okay.”

Douxie cast his gaze down, clearly not believing the statement as much as she did (even though earlier, the inverse was true). No, no no no - he couldn’t get discouraged; Zoe couldn’t let him.

“I mean it.” she insisted,  “You’re Merlin’s errand boy, right?”

Douxie mumbled something - a correction, a muffled “apprentice” - behind the metal clamped cruelly over his mouth.

“Then he’ll know you’re missing, and he’ll come for you. And the hedge-witches will come for me. Like a game, remember? Like you said?”

Douxie nodded, a little of the light returning to his eyes, as if he were happy that Zoe remembered what he said so naively earlier.

But despite that light… Zoe could tell that Douxie was exhausted.

“...It makes you more tired, doesn’t it?” she said, and it was obvious what “it” was. Douxie nodded, moving her hands with the motion. Of course it did - again, it didn’t take much to reasonably assume that it was cast with Draining Dust, just like the shackles, and now that more of it was on him, it just made him more miserable… 

Douxie moved his head out of her hands and started to lay down on the ground, but he still looked miserable, curling his arms around himself and curling his legs. And Zoe couldn’t take it. If she had any way of making him more comfortable…

...Well, at the very least, she had an idea.

“Sit up, Douxie,” she said to the boy that lay curled up next to her. Obviously a little confused, he sat up so he sat up and put his heels underneath him.

Zoe stretched her legs out and gauged, just by looking, how well her arms could fit around him. Even with his vest, he was rather skinny, and her arms were long, so she figured it would work. 

“I have an idea. I can try to make it a bit more comfortable.” she held her hands up, “Can I…”

Douxie didn’t look like he knew what she’d try to do, but he nodded all the same.

Her back had been laying up against the tree before, but she sat up a bit to get closer to Douxie - close enough to raise her shackled arms and put them over his head and down so they lay somewhat loose around his torso, like she was hugging him from behind. 

He looked a little confused, but didn’t recoil, so she laid back against the tree and gently pulled Douxie with her, so the back of his head laid against her shoulder, and he could rest it there, against the softness of the cloth that made up her dress.

And that’s what she did. As much as he still didn’t seem to get this (and to be fair, Zoe didn’t get why she was doing this, whatever this was, either) and his arms were somewhat pinned to his sides by the embrace, he still seemed relaxed.

“How’s this?” she asked, “If you don’t like it, I can-”

Douxie brought up his own shackled hands, his arms still sort of pinned to his sides by Zoe's embrace, to hold hers, only nestling further against her.

It was a clear enough answer - one that made Zoe feel relieved that she wouldn’t have to let go of him. She hated that relief, as good as it felt. It meant that if she did have to let him go, if something took him from her arms, it would hurt. And that knowledge - the looming threat of that pain - was dangerous.

But she found that right now, for once today, there was little she could bring herself to hate.

“Oh… ‘kay.” she rubbed one of his fingers with her thumb, “Okay…”

Despite the way one of the straps of Douxie’s muzzle - which she wanted nothing more than to blast right off - dug against her collarbone, the slow, steady breathing against her helped calm her as much as her hold calmed Douxie.

Zoe laid her head back against the tree, feeling fatigue weigh on her own eyelids once again.

“...It’s Zoe, y’know.”

Douxie lifted his head a little and looked up at her, “Mmh?”

Zoe brought her gaze, which lay aimlessly at the sky above the forest, down to the boy in her arms.

“You asked my name before.” she said, “It’s Zoe.”

When he seemed to finally understand what she was referring to, he hummed in contentment and squinted his eyes a little - the closest thing he could convey to a smile.

Zoe tried to ignore the way her heart fluttered, trying to at least keep any traces of it off her face.

Douxie closed his eyes and nestled his head against her again.

...She was just tired. That’s all this was. It was the cuffs, the stress, the circumstances. They were the only reasons she felt her heart warm when he saw that he looked content, despite the shackles on his wrists and godawful contraption clamped on his face; the only causes for her relief that his tears were drying under his closed eyes, his pretty lashes. Certainly, it wasn’t because he’d managed to make himself someone who meant something to her, to bumble his way through her barriers. And most definitely, it was not because she loved-

DAMN IT.

Zoe sighed, as if in defeat, and rested her head atop Douxie’s.

“Let’s just… sleep.”

“Mhm…”

And that’s what they did.

--

Zoe woke up some twenty minutes later, she guessed. It got chillier, and apparently, she’d been asleep long enough for thick clouds to form overhead. She hoped it wouldn’t rain - it was the last thing she needed.

She looked down at Douxie, and of course, he was still asleep. Her arms ached a little - something that would have driven her up a wall before - but she didn’t mind much now. Not while she listened to his slow, quiet breaths as his chest rose and fell in her hold.

Zoe huffed, grateful that the boy's breathing was still clear; she didn't calm him down earlier just for his nose to stuff up now.

She could hear footsteps - hulking, stomping steps - come her way. As her stomach dropped, her gaze picked up. She steeled it when she saw the leader of those damn hunters standing over her, glowering. He was pissed, and over what? Over the fact that she tried to comfort Douxie when he made the child miserable?

Gritting her teeth, she held Douxie a little tighter. Not enough to make him stir. Instinctively, she could feel her hands burn as her magic tried to surge to her fingertips, an unconscious attempt brought forth not of desperation, but of resolve.

Just like Douxie protected her, Zoe would protect him, even if she had to shatter these shackles and set this whole forest alight with a lightning strike to do it.

And when that bastard reached down to Douxie, she feared it would come to that.

...but it didn’t.

With a blast of a green magic poofing out around him like an aura, the man froze. That same green hue of magic surged down both her and Douxie’s chains, and when it reached their cuffs, they snapped right open.

With a sigh she felt like she’d been holding in since she first woke up here, Zoe’s hands relaxed and fell to her side, free of that godawful metal.

Naturally, they also dropped Douxie, who, without that little support, flopped on her lap. Thankfully, his head landed on his side, rather than directly on that lock on the muzzle, which hadn’t been affected by that blast of magic and still remained clamped on his face. The last thing anyone needed was the lock getting damaged to where unlocking it would be impossible.

“Mh!” His eyes snapped open, and his eyes darted around in confusion. Zoe couldn’t blame him. Once he seemed to realize his cuffs were off, he rubbed at his aggravated wrists. Zoe couldn’t blame him for that either.

She looked up at the still… still man in front of her.

“He’s frozen.” she said and leaned to the side to see that the same quick work of immobilization had been done to the rest of the hunters, “They all are.”

Douxie lifted his head, as trying a task it was, and he squinted when he saw the green aura around the hunter and the bright green cracks surging through their old chains like glowing veins, as if inspecting - trying to figure out if this was real. If he could really hope.

But Zoe knew he could.

“Looks like he found you first, didn’t he?” she asked.

And seconds later, she heard new footsteps getting closer this time - armored, urgent footsteps - and she knew that she was right.

“Hisirdoux!” Zoe heard a grouchy old man’s voice call out. Of course, he sounded just like that silly impersonation Douxie did of him earlier.

Speaking of Douxie (which he still couldn’t do at all yet), the boy sat up as fast as he could. Swaying with the extra weight on his head, he got up so he was sitting on his knees, and he whined in an odd mix of desperation and relief behind the metal over his mouth, as if - after the horrible, awful afternoon this had been - Merlin Ambrosius could not get over to him fast enough.

“Heh…” Zoe huffed to herself, rubbing her own wrists. Really, she thought her fellow hedge-witches would track her down in these woods way faster than anyone from that ever-pristine castle, but that didn’t matter. A rescue was a rescue.

“Looks like you won.”

[earlgreytea68]

Hi EGT! *waves* I know not to quote you on anything but as a lawyer and a fandom veteran, could you shed any light on the attitude difference between monetizing fanfiction versus fanart? I know it's ALL ILLEGAL, technically. But what's the difference in copyright law for words versus imagery? How do you make art transformative enough to pass muster? (No need to respond if you don't feel like it, I'm just on a research binge and I loved your perspective on the omegaverse case)

Hello!

Okay, yes, first: no legal advice here! This is just some information!

First of all, technically fanart and fanfiction (as I understand those terms to identify) are not necessarily AUTOMATICALLY illegal, even if monetized. Fanart and fanfiction are protected by the fair use doctrine. Fair use is a notoriously unpredictable, fact-specific defense based on a number of factors. One of those factors has to do with transformativeness, as you reference above, so, do you have a different purpose or have you altered the character of the original work. This is why AO3's nonprofit is Organization for *Transformative* Works.

Another of those factors has to do with commercialism, and that's where the monetization comes in. While commercialism is not automatically infringing, uses that are *not* commercial are more likely *not* to be infringing. (The flip side of this is that non-commercialism is not automatically okay, either. There is never anything automatic about copyright fair use. No bright line rules!)

Another factor of the fair use analysis is whether the fanart or fanfic affects the copyright holder's market, which is another question entirely. Commercialism can play into that, but not always.

Okay, so with that as background, a couple of things:

--The attitude difference seems more cultural to me than anything else, at times. Sometimes I think it's even generational? Theoretically, commercialism is taken into account in all fair use analyses. Theoretically, commercial uses are less likely to be considered fair than non-commercial uses (although, again, commercial uses can be fair and non-commercial uses can be infringing). So legally there really is no difference between a fair use art analysis and a fair use fic analysis afa commercialism is concerned; they would both be taken into account. As far as I can tell from my years in fandom, fanartists could monetize more easily, selling at cons, and before the rise of Patreon, etc., fanfiction writers didn't have a clear path to monetization, and so it happened that fandom got more used to the idea that fanartists get paid and fanfic writers don't (this is obviously an extremely broad generalization). But that's just a matter of the way technology developed and not actually a legal statement.

--That said, are there differences in copyright law between words and imagery? Yes. Inevitably. They are different creative media. The same reason why not everybody who writes can draw is the same reason why the law is slightly different between them: they're just two different things. To be clear, the law is the *same,* it's just that in application it's a little different. So, for instance, one of the enduring questions in copyright law is how much a character is copyrightable? Important for fanfiction and fanart, right? Since often they're just borrowing characters? We have a test but the test is different for graphically depicted characters than for characters that only show up in books. And this makes sense, right? Recognizing a character as depicted in a television show is using an entirely different set of signals than recognizing a character you've only ever seen in your mind's eye. So figuring out what makes a character in a television show copyrightable is slightly different than figuring out what makes a character who exists only on a page copyrightable.

--So, finally, how can art be considered transformative? Vs. how can fic be considered transformative? I can't really set out guidelines, because of how finicky fair use is, and also because I don't want anyone to think I'm giving legal advice (I'm not!) and make them think there's some foolproof algorithm to make sure your use is transformative. Analyzing the transformativeness of art vs. text can be a little different, because, again, they're different media. I teach a course on fair use and I actually divide the cases up by creative medium because I think it's interesting to see how it plays out.

The answer ultimately is: It depends. We have a bunch of appropriation art cases, many of them involving Jeff Koons or Richard Prince. In some of these, the courts have found the art transformative, when it recontextualized the art in a new collage, or added some Photoshoppy graffiti over the art. But in others of these, the courts have either found infringement or been dubious about transformativeness, when the art just recreated the original in different colors, or printed the original out with just a caption added. We have fewer cases about text. One of these is the Harry Potter Lexicon case, where the court actually basically found fair use with just a few minor changes to decrease how much of Rowling's text was quoted. There's another one involving a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye" called "Sixty Years Later." The court found it was infringing, not transformative enough of the original because it borrowed too much and didn't change enough. And there's the "The Wind Done Gone" case, which was a retelling of "Gone with the Wind" from the POV of a new enslaved character. The first court thought this was infringing, but the appellate court disagreed and thought it was fair use because it was providing valuable social commentary on "Gone with the Wind" and didn't take more of "Gone with the Wind" than was necessary to make its point.

And it's always important to remember that, as in the "The Wind Done Gone" case, often courts themselves disagree strenuously about fair use. We recently had a big fair use case involving an Andy Warhol painting of Prince, and one court thought it was transformative fair use, and another court thought it was infringing. Such is fair use.

[scrawnytreedemon]

Can’t sleep, mind going precisely 56 miles an hour, so I think I’ll finally get around to writing this.

Couples days back, I went ahead and finally psyched myself up to do the Zant bossfight.

Because I’d picked up where I’d left off yesterday, which was just before the boss room, obviously I was taken back to the beginning of the area. This gave the whole ordeal a trek, if a short one, what with the Palace of Twilight’s laughable length, and me more time to think.

I didn’t want to do this.

It sounds stupid, but I really didn’t want to do this. I’d cried the day before trying to psych myself up and failing, and I’d cried then, before the boss door, stalling by sweeping away the crystal-fog as best I could-- A meagre attempt at housekeeping, and a futile one. Of course I couldn’t. This isn’t that sort of game. This isn’t a game for failed attempts at kindness, at least trying to clean this awful, awful place for an awful, awful man going through awful, awful things. I was supposed to be a hero.

Heroes don’t make beds.

They don’t wash dishes, or hang laundry, or hold a rival’s hand,

They kill.

The trek didn’t stop past the door, either.

We still had to walk up the stairs. To the throne.

To him.

And I was there, laugh-crying, wishing I didn’t have to. That I could skip this pathetic ordeal.

I tried to turn around and leave.

Despite it only looking like a larger one of the many, many doors we’ve passed through this awful, nonsensical, poorly-designed excuse for a palace that no one could ever live in, it didn’t budge. There wasn’t any turning back. I had to go forward, because this is an action game, and violence is key.

The game takes the reigns. Link walks up to the throne, sword drawn, despite my deliberate decision to sheathe it. The narrative begins again. Midna sneers, and throws a taunt at him.

Zant sits, and smiles. Smiles like he thinks he still has some form of control, or knows full well he’s lost it.

You know, when I was working through the Palace of Twilight, I’d come to the realisation that... Zant locked himself in the throneroom. From the outside. Logistically, despite the good laugh I had over this guy locking himself in from the fucking outside, where his opponents can grab the key, he could get out easily-- teleportation and all. But even that aside, it still spoke to a level of hasty panic, that he would even keep the key outside, behind a waterfall of yet more shitty fog-crytals in the hopes that would deter them. Deter us.

How long had the guy been here, alone in that room?

We all know what happens next. Despite this being my first playthrough, I’ve probably seen this cutscene a dozen times. Zant has what amounts to an overly-dramatised autistic meltdown expositing himself and his motivations. That he was upset and felt like everything he’d worked for had been taken away from him. That he was angry, angry and fed up of being relegated to a half-existence. Midna retorts, Zant wails some more.

What gets me is that, when Ganondorf visits him, engulfs him in this flaming ball of fucked-magical-fuckery, he just. Stares. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. Ganondorf speaks as though he’s already decided that, yes, you will do, we will make a pact and rule Everything together; I will live on through you.

Did Zant even agree to this?

I think, subconsciously or not, he accepted it, but it begs the question of whether or not Zant was capable enough to partake in it.

Whatever the answer, he’s clearly not capable enough to partake in this. This fight.

It’s laughable, that I’m expected to find victory in this.

The fight was a fucking slog, 90% of the time. Some of these boss-battles I hadn’t played in nearly two years thanks to the impromptu hiatuses I’m so fond of taking, so I didn’t know what the fuck I was meant to be doing half the time-- And when I did, it lagged to shit everytime this poor bastard fired projectiles, because I was playing on the gamepad, because why on earth would I play this on the goddamn TV? It was a sad, pitiful encounter that I had to laugh my way through and also mumble “what the fuck“ on several occasions because I guess somebody at Nintendo ate cheese before bed and the dev team were so desperate to patch something together for this guy’s sudden crisis that they threw it in-- I’m obviously having a good laugh, but What The Fuck.

I knock the guy down in the last phase of the battle, the only one where he isn’t mimicking something else and dizzies himself spinning like a hyperactive child, and the game takes the reigns again. Midna prepares her hair. I look away-- I’ve seen it before, many times before, and it’s cartoonishly grotesque for a game that relies heavily on somber semi-realism. Midna has her own crisis-- And yeah, yeah bossbabe, I feel it.

It cuts back, and there’s a Heart Container on the guy’s throne.

I.

I killed a guy, and now I’m collecting his lifeforce. I stormed into the bunged-up attempt of a fortress conjured up as a last defense by a man who’s fallen head-first into insanity, tore through any meagre security measure like butter, murder the guy when he’s having an episode, he dies a fucked up death, and then I collect his lifeforce.

Is that fucked up or what?

For all of Zelda’s endless violence, rarely do you actually kill “people.“ It’s the kind of stuff reserved for the end, for Ganondorf, or some other corrupted nigh-demigod on the brink of losing their humanity, or never having possessed it.

We kill Zant.

Zant barely puts up a fight, and we kill him. Zant gets summoned from the netherworld by Ganondorf in Hyrule Warriors; we put him there in the first place.

If we were to view this from a literal, like this shit actually happened and these characters are to be held accountable standpoint, then what we did was justified-- If not wholly, then mostly. Zant got power-hungry, committed what amounts to a bio-terroristic coup on the government, disfigured his rival, a woman notorious for her beauty, then proceeded to attempt the same thing with Hyrule, leading to the indirect death of at least the people who got transfigured into Shadow-Beasts in Kakariko, and attacks you first, then yeah, no biggie?

But I’ll be fucking real with you chief, I don’t find it... I don’t know, persuasive? Effective? Compelling, would be the best word, to think of it that way?

What Zant is, is a narrative tool. One that was set up to be this big, bad interloper who you need to Take Down and Save Everything, as per usual Zelda format. The justification for why we should hate him, if I’m going to be honest, feels contrived, most of the time. He does some bad thing off-screen, Midna gets pissed, Midna and everyone within a 12-mile radius explains why we should be pissed in a way that often feels borderline developer-hand-y-- And that’s. Well that’s how Zelda usually is.

It’s justification to commit violence.

--To be clear, I don’t say this in a political sense. I mean it in the very literal “hit/kill a guy“ sense. And in all honesty, that’s kinda inherent to the ethos of action games. We enjoy catharsis-- We enjoy taking down big things, it’s satisfying! I’ve played a little Hyrule Warriors-- Loved the feel of it. Violence is inherent to even the most benign of action games, and it is what it is.

Where it falls short for me, is that with Zant, I don’t feel like I’m taking down some great foe that I should justifiably hate.

I feel like I’m a clearly more equipped person breaking into a room, and bludgeoning a mentally ill person.

I’m autistic. I may slot in easier to NT society than most, but I am autistic, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable to see something I’ve fucking gone through be used carelessly as flavour for a prelude to violence. I have meltdowns. They’re relatively rare, and mostly in my room, alone, but I’ve also experienced one out in public. It was only sobbing, but there’s a special kind of horror, of humilation in knowing other people, strangers, family, what have you, are seeing it, and all you can think is how much you failed.

I can’t fully articulate why I cried so much during this, quite frankly, menial ordeal. I’m half-embarrassed to even talk about it-- Because then that means caring too much, and I can’t care too much over a poorly-justified character that wasn’t even intended to be sympathised with and that most of the fandom laughs at. And I can’t say I blame them.

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to the ever-present pity; some strange, childish commiseration I’d indulged in ever since I was six and cooing over Bowser and how awful everything was for him, that despite my continuous efforts, I can’t ever seem to explain.

I didn’t like the Zant fight. It felt empty,

And all did was sweep cobwebs and try to turn back.

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter 20: Second Assist

Characters: Captain Logan “Sy” Syverson, Shane Benton (OFC), various other original supporting/secondary characters

Summary: Shane reunites with friends and family, hashes out some feelings, and gets real with Sy. Can their relationship survive her trauma? And the threat that still looms above them?

Romance and Smut Abound HERE!

Word Count: 4500

Warnings: Mention of rape, alcoholic beverages, violent imagery…feels out the butt.

Author’s Note: You guys are so splendid and beautiful! I can’t thank you enough for your support and encouragement to finish this piece. First, welcome to new readers! I know poor Henry’s injury and subsequent physiotherapy has driven some of you here, and while I’m sorry for him, I’m glad I can consider myself something of a pioneer in this particular genre and provide you some help for your newfound thirst. To my OG readers, it is to you I owe this entire work, parts written and incomplete, and I hope an eventual book deal. I mean to mention you in my acknowledgements, should this ever reach a willing publisher. You’ve inspired me so supremely that I cannot quantify it, even with the words I hold so dear.

Since my last chapter was posted, we’ve said a relieved goodbye to 2020 and a tentative hello to 2021. To be honest, this year has started out worse than last year. Lots of bad weather in my area this winter, my sister is currently on her way to a new life in another state, and my grandmother, the last grandparent I had, passed away in February. Those last two things have been especially difficult to shake off and recover from, both coming to fruition pretty suddenly. Amongst all that, I’ve been pretty distracted by my other fandoms, especially Marvel, and I’ve been reading a killer book series that I’m utterly in love with. (The Throne of Glass novels by Sarah J. Maas. 10/10 recommend.) But I knew I needed to get back into Shane and Sy’s story, especially given the new and rekindled interest in the subject matter. In all honesty, I’ve had most of it written for months. It’s just been a matter of finishing it off to set up the rest of the story.

I really hope you all enjoy Chapter 20, Second Assist, and would love your feedback and notes. You are all so important to this story, and your notes, reblogs, and comments are cherished. Thank you so much for reading! Love from Hannah!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism. This is an original work by me, Hannah. Please reblog if you wish to share. Please do not repost either in whole or part, as the work of anyone but myself. Thanks so much for reading!

Tags:

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If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although…their lackadaisical notification system might…sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Shane woke in her warm bed, late morning sun streaming in through her sheer curtains, the heavier drapes parted to let in the light. She wished she'd remembered to close them before now. She really was not ready to be awake.

She was sore. Achy. Her sleep had been fitful and full of shadowy nightmares and muffled screams. Beyond that, she didn't try to remember images or events. She knew the general premise of the dreams. It would take a lot of time, effort, or a miracle to make her forget those traumas she'd been through in the last week. Not even forget. She knew she never would. But move on from them. Accept them. And heal from them…even that seemed a mighty obstacle. One she was not sure she could surmount.

Through the open bedroom door, she could hear Lynyrd Skynyrd and the clanging and sizzling of pans, and she could smell bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Sy had left the room, but had not, it seemed, gone far. She gingerly sat up, stood from the bed, and donned her robe as she walked out into the hall and down the corridor to the kitchen.

The sight before her warmed her heart. There was Sy. In only his boxers, daringly frying the notoriously dangerous breakfast meat. Upon her entry to the kitchen, she could also smell pancakes, and she thought syrup, as well. He seemed to be warming a bottle of the maple unction in a pot of hot water. He turned as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and grinned widely at her.

"Mornin' sunshine." And she was struck by the irony of someone with such a radiant smile calling her sunshine. Especially when she didn't feel much like beaming. But she couldn't help return the expression, even through her pain.

"Mornin' bear. Did you go to the store?" She knew she couldn't have any bacon in her fridge, and she doubted her eggs and milk were still good at this point. But she also couldn't think that he would leave her for any reason.

"Nah, some of the guys brought over some provisions. Matt worked on your car all night, too, and filled up the tank. It's as good as new. He and Nate brought ‘er over as well as the groceries. I just had ‘em get stuff I knew your family wouldn't be bringing later. They've had tons of food given to them this week, and they're ready to share. You should have seen your mom loading me down with sandwiches and chips and whatnot when I visited them."

"I still can't believe you met them. I really wanted to introduce you personally." Shane's face fell. She would never be able to get that back. She wanted to cry. Sy had poured her a cup of coffee and sat it in front of her with her favorite creamer.

"Darlin' I’m so sorry. I had to talk to them."

"I know." she sniffed. "I'm not mad. Not at you. Just…"she didn't want to say Elliott's name. "I'm disappointed that the experience was stolen from me." That so many things had been stolen from her. By that monster. There was no other way to describe him. Sy growled. As if he could read her mind. He really just knew her well enough and shared her thoughts.

"Well, don't worry, we'll have a nice dinner with them one of these days, and we can pretend. Sound good?"

"Yeah, and I can feign nervousness." she laughed.

"And I'll pretend too. That I'm scared to meet your dad." he chuckled. "What if he threatens me with his shotgun?"

"I'll pull the ol' 'Daddy, no, I loooooove him!' line, as I throw myself between you!"

"That oughta work." he laughed and kissed her on the forehead as he stepped toward the stove and flipped a pancake.

As they sat eating their late breakfast, Shane's mind wandered. Nothing had changed on the surface, but everything was different now. This cozily mundane breakfast with her boyfriend felt like an out of body experience. As delicious as it was, as wonderful and comforting as it should feel, her guard was up. Even through her amiable façade. She was not the person she was two weeks ago. She was not the same woman who said goodbye to Sy at the base. Maybe that was the real transformation. Maybe that was why nothing felt normal. It wasn't the world, but her own self coming back into it.

"Shane?" Sy asked, gently, but it felt like he was speaking through a megaphone directly into her ear. She was so startled, she nearly dropped the half full mug of coffee that was paused midway to her lips. A bit sloshed out onto the table and splashed her shirt.

"Shit!" she chided herself. It wasn't a big deal, but she felt stupid jumping at the sound of her own name.

Sy reached for the closest towel, hanging from the oven handle, grabbed it and started for her clothes with it. She stopped him. But she couldn't think about why the intimate act made her uncomfortable.

"No, don't, it's fine. These clothes have seen better days, anyway." She pulled the towel from him and began to mop up the small puddles of coffee around her plate.

Sy seemed to note the stains already present on the shirt, as if trying to divine their history. She was something of a messy eater, so the battle wounds of many a barbecue, spaghetti dinner, and hurried breakfast peppered the now off-white SATB club tee she'd gotten her second or third year in college choir. She thought back to a huge room with high ceilings. White, cinder block walls, flecked tile floors, a beautiful, glossy, black baby grand in front of a long whiteboard with black lines to resemble sheet music. She thought about the mnemonic device she'd learned to help her remember what notes appeared on each line, and in the spaces between them. She pondered the deeper meanings and implications of these devices. EGBDF…every good boy does fine. She thought about the "good boys" in her life. She knew many. Her dad, her brother Ethan, Sy, obviously, her many male coworkers and friends…and honestly they did far better than "fine." They were wonderful. But she was letting the "bad boys" she'd encountered dictate her mood. Permeate her psyche. Tear her down. She didn't want to be like this. Then FACE came to mind, and above their purpose of indicating the notes between the lines on the staff, they called her to action. To face these newly minted demons with all the strength she knew she possessed, and she too would "do fine." But as with almost all actions, this was easier said than done.

She felt a warm presence on her left hand which had paused it's torture of the now coffee-infused kitchen towel. Sy's hand was squeezing hers gently.

"Shane." he uttered, barely above a whisper this time. She looked at him through tears that she had not realized had formed. He continued.

"Shane, what can I do, darlin'? I'll do anything."

"Babe, you're doing everything you can, and more. This…this is all going to have to come from me. I…don't know when I'll be myself again…" she paused, tears streaming now. "I'm…I'm different."

"You're not though." he reached for her face, but she pulled away.

"I am, damn it! Sy, I was…" Words had power. And the one she was thinking of had more power than she thought was warranted. She knew that uttering it would take away it's power…and yet mustering the courage and strength to actually do so…seemed impossible. She took a deep breath, and disassociated herself from the statement, even though it was about her own past.

"I was raped." She refused to cry. She felt it all again. She had never said the words. She had never thought it necessary. Everyone understood. Sy, his friends, and she was sure her own loved ones had made the connection. But she knew she needed to say it now to drive home the points she was about to make.

Sy, looked at the table, nodding, not needing to be told in so many words something he already had surmised from the clear evidence. He remained silent. She went on.

"I love you, Sy. I have since the day we met, on one level or another, and I believe that I always will. But I…right now I can't be a proper girlfriend to you. I can't…be with you, touch you, be touched by you, in the way we used to be. In the way you deserve…and I don't know when…or even if…I ever will. Not that I don't want to. That's ALL I want in the world. To go back. To be the woman who fell in love with this…incredible man. To make love with you, but…I can't."

Sy's eyes were full of tears, their predecessors already descending his round cheeks and disappearing into his thick, dark beard.

"Sy, I don't want to lead you on and keep you tied to a relationship with no life in it. You deserve someone who's whole. Someone who can be a fully invested partner for you, and not this broken, damaged--"

"You stop that, Shane. I won't hear no more of this kinda talk. Y'hear? You're my girl. My woman. My person. No matter what. You gotta know I'd never leave ya just cuz you aren't ready for sex again. You don't think that I would, do ya?"

"Well, you went to Virginia…you took that job…knowing the distance it would put between us. Literally and figuratively."

"Biggest mistake of my life." Shane raised her eyebrows in surprise as Sy elaborated. "I couldn't focus on my classes without wishing you were there. Wishing I could team up with you for discussions and hand to hand combat training…that thought got me a little too excited, if you catch my drift." He smirked, pulling a sheepish smile from Shane. "Then in that forest. I dreamt about you every night. I thought of you constantly. I could barely breath sometimes, I missed ya so damned much. I was an idiot. I was insane to think that I needed anything other than you. Any MORE. There IS no more. You're it. You're the MOST! The most important thing in my life."

The declaration hung like vapors in the air, more felt than seen. Tangible yet ethereal.

"And when I found out that you were missing…I was…well, I think I looked like death…and not warmed over. You can ask the program director I met with after I got the news. She could tell I was just sick over it. And as I thought about it on the way home, pieced things together, started thinking about who'd taken you, I got murderous. Shane, I have been in dozens of battles, skirmishes, firefights, you name it. War. But…the sheer bloodlust I felt thinking about what you could be going through…I've never experienced anything like it. Everything was red. Everything. For days. Until I saw you, alive. And then it went red again when I saw the fear and damage on your face." she could tell he was doing his best not to talk about the farmhouse and that basement, but she still flashed back to the moments before and after his appearance there. The moments when she simultaneously prayed to live and hoped to die.

"You don't owe me anything, Shane. I just want you in my life, and I don't care what your presence looks like. Romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between. I'm here for you. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Shane felt the urge to wrap her arms around her boyfriend, but could not seem to move more than one arm to place her other hand on top of his. She hoped the gratitude and love behind the small, but heartfelt gesture landed. It was all she had in that moment, no matter how abundant her affection.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shane's family's arrival was a complete blur to her. It was joyous, tearful, and the happiest she'd been in a long time. The moment she opened the front door for them, she was surrounded, engulfed with hugs from her parents and siblings. They stood in their affectionate huddle for several moments before Peg waved Sy over with marked insistence. He'd been standing by, observing happily, but not wanting to intrude on the familial reunion.

When they finally dispersed, John asked the two younger men to help him bring in groceries. The women headed into Shane's bedroom for a more private setting in which to talk. Shane filled her mother and sister in the best she could given the rawness of the wounds left on her mind by the events.

She leaned against the headboard cuddling with Gabby while her mom rubbed her feet. She had insisted on doing this thing that had always comforted her children, and made them feel much better when they were younger.

"Well, I'm very proud of you, pumpkin." The girls both looked at their mother, who rather uncharacteristically hadn't spoken in some time. Shane was nonplussed. Peg elaborated.

"You survived something that many women don't. You're talking about it now, which even more women don't. You may think you're broken, but you're just a tree damaged by a storm, but standing stronger than ever." Trust her mom to lay such wisdom on her. When she felt like giving up. When she just wanted pity. When she could only see defeat. Her mother had always found a way to encourage and buoy her and show her the victory.

"Mom's right." Gabby affirmed, and it was Peg's turn to be nonplussed, as the two women, though similar in so many ways, never seemed to see eye to eye. "It's true. Shane I've seen a lot of women come into the clinic in shoes very much like yours. And trust me…some of them…they don't make it to this point. You've got a long way to go before you're fully recovered, don't get me wrong, but you'll get there. You have us. And you have Sy."

"And then there's Sy." She diverted. "How am I supposed to plan any sort of future with him when…" She looked at her mom, and hesitated. Peg rolled her eyes.

"Shane, I know what the two of you get up to when you're alone. You don't have to be shy with me."

"Still…" she took a breath and spoke. "When I can't bring myself to…sleep with him?"

"Look at him, you're kidding, right?" Gabby chided, insensitively, but recanted at the pained expression on Shane's face. "Sorry, sis. Trying to lighten the mood a touch. Too soon. But seriously, I don't think this reluctance you feel will be permanent."

"And even if it is," Peg took over, "that man is out-of-his-mind in love with you, Shaney." She kissed Shane's toe before putting a sock on her foot. "He almost seems to worship you. Now, you know how I feel about using that term outside of religious context, but that is exactly the kind of love I want for you. Devout, and unconditional."

"But, mom, I can't--"

"Did you hear me? I said 'unconditional,' sweetie." Peg interrupted. "No matter what. No matter the obstacle. No matter the distance. No matter the circumstances. Love unwavering. That's what Sy has for you. I've seen it in him. Trust the momma."

The insistence her mother placed on trust had always ruffled Shane's feathers. Gabby's too, who she could feel stiffen slightly beside her. But Shane, for once, really wanted to trust her mother, hoping against hope that she was right. And that she, herself  wouldn't screw up the best relationship she had ever been in or was likely to ever be in again.

The girls had begun talking about some of the coworkers who'd brought food in the past week, and Peg couldn't resist remarking on the character of her favorites and judging the ones she didn't care for…oddly enough, getting more or less, the correct measure of them, as Shane saw it.

After what must have been an hour from the time they'd arrived, they heard a knock on the slightly ajar bedroom door. John poked his head in.

"Ladies, we've put a casserole in the oven, and completed various manly projects around the house--"

"Oh, daddy, what projects?" She cringed. She hated that the men had felt the need to "fix" things.

"Babe, your guest bathroom had not one, but two leaky faucets, your kitchen table seemed to be more of a teeter-totter, and half the light bulbs in the living room were out. Among other tiny things. You're welcome." he smirked his crooked smirk so similar to her own, and she returned it as if he was looking in a mirror.

"Thanks, dad."

"Anyway, lunch is almost ready. So, when you've finished your confab, let's eat."

Dinner passed amiably, Shane found a reserve within herself to allow some quasi-normal behavior, as long as you didn’t look too closely. She was talking animatedly with her siblings, making their parents and Sy laugh riotously. Shane noticed some odd looks passing between Sy and her father, but chalked it up to paranoia. She wished at least Gabby and Ethan could stay, but Heather would be over soon, and she deserved her own dedicated time. Shane wanted to give that to her.

She said her farewells to her family with promises to visit them the next day, and at least one more time before her siblings went back home, if she could work it out.

Sy was so wonderful the whole time. Standing by her, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder as they waved goodbye to the departing vehicle. He made her feel so safe. They went into the kitchen and cleaned up from lunch. Well, Sy cleaned. Shane was texting Heather about when she'd be over.

"Heather says she'll be here in about a half hour. She's picking up wine and pizza." Shane told Sy without looking up from her phone. She could see out of the corner of her eye, though, that he had just closed the dishwasher and was selecting a cycle.

"Sounds great. Do you want me to get out of here? Give you guys some time, one on one?" He asked as he dried his hands, wet from preparing dishes for the machine.

She thought about it, and shuddered. She played a scene in her head that startled her. In her mind's eye, she saw Sy leave and then moments later heard a knock on the door. Presuming it was Heather, she opened the door with abandon, only to see Elliott standing there under a flickering porch light, smirking maliciously at her and ready to overpower and abduct her again. She shook the thought from her head, but remained uneasy as she answered his question.

"Uh, no. Thanks. I'm sure she'll want to talk to both of us. She likes you." Shane grinned softly at Sy in an attempt to mask her trepidation over the thought of him leaving her alone for any period of time. She thought it had worked.

"Okay, well, whatever you think, sunshine. I don't wanna get in the way." He was wiping down the countertops. She felt so impossibly full of love for him, she was starting to wonder how she hadn't yet burst with it. She couldn't bear the thought of holding him back from a fulfilling relationship. He deserved everything she couldn't give him right now. And she knew she should make him leave her. Cut him loose. But she was, as she'd been since she'd met him, a weak woman. She couldn't stand the thought of being without him. Of him no longer being hers. And somehow worse, of not being his, herself. She would always need him for so many reasons, not least of which being her love for him. Maybe one day, she'd recover from this trauma, and be able to be who he deserved. To give him what he needed.

"You're never in the way, bear." She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed him as tight as she could. He placed a loving hand over hers, sighing and smiling, though she had no visual proof of the latter. It was just a feeling.

Heather's greeting was no less exuberant than that of Shane's family, but it was more joyful and less emotional, even though she was immensely relieved to see her best friend after so long. They talked as if no time had passed, and Shane mustered up the dregs of her former self to have one more interaction for the day. Thank God it was Heather and not someone who would require more. She wouldn't have it to give.

"I am so glad you're okay, Shane! Things around the clinic have been bleak as fuck. Susan is loosing her mind, Anita is beside herself with concern, and the rest of us just plain ol' miss the hell out of you. And not just because of all of the overtime everyone has been pulling to get your patients seen."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize…wow, I'm awful. I didn't even think---"

"That you'd be missed? Think again, sister. The place would fall apart if you ever really left. But don't feel guilty. It's the least everyone can do, and they've all said it themselves. We all love you, and know that you'd do the same for any of us if you could at all. Hopefully you won't have to, though!"

Shane nodded, eyes wide in agreement. She wouldn't wish the last week of her life on her worst enemy. On the worst person in the world. Except maybe the people responsible. Tit for tat.

"Well, I'm sorry my absence has caused extra work for all of you." Shane looked into the deep glass of Chardonnay Sy had poured her from the bottle Heather had brought. She felt about as small as the air bubble making it's way up the sloping curve of the stemless vessel. She felt a guilt that she knew was fully void of logic. It made no sense for her to feel guilt for being kidnapped. But she had always had this notion, this nagging voice in her head that told her that her misfortunes were a direct result of her decisions. That she'd inadvertently stepped on the butterfly that resulted in the monsoon she was currently experiencing, and whatever cataclysmic events she would face next.

"Why in God's name are you apologizing for this, Shay?" Heather's tone was kind, but still mildly scolding.

"If I'd never been with Elliott, none of this would have--"

"Bitch, are you a fortune teller?"

"No, but--"

"Soothsayer?"

"No."

"Time traveler?"

"I wish!" Shane chuckled. But she really did wish.

"Have you any real and proven success at consistently predicting the future?"

"I don't, but--"

"No. No buts. No howevers. You had no idea what becoming involved with Elliott could have done. Were there signs, sure. But you can't look on the past as a rubric to judge the quality of your decisions. You know that. You can only learn from your mistakes. And you have."

"Heather's right, sunshine. You really have learned. You look for Elliott's behaviors in mine and shut me down quick if you see 'em. You're not going to let yourself go down that road again. And I'm proud of you for it."

Shane silently worried her wine glass. It was hard to argue with such truth. But it was hard to agree when her own feelings were in such stark opposition. So she did neither.

"Well, I've preached my sermon for the day." she laughed. "I've taken up enough of your time. Oh, your phone. It's in my purse. I think it's fully charged, but I turned it off."

Shane thanked her friend, then Heather hugged them both and took her leave.

"Y'okay, bug?" Sy asked her after what she surmised was several minutes of silence. Minutes she didn't notice as they passed.

"Mmm…" she trailed off.

"Can I do something for ya?" And she really thought about the question. He could probably do a lot of things for her. He could make love to her until she felt whole again, even if it hurt her at first. Not an ideal option. He could probably get them both some new identities and enough money to spirit her away to somewhere her past wouldn't follow. If she became someone new, literally, would she have to bring that old baggage, those old scars, with her? Again, suboptimal. But he could definitely take the source of all grief and turmoil in her life far into the Missouri back country, somewhere not even the hunters would venture, some fallow field or forgotten cistern, and end him. Snuff out his spark of life like a candle caught in a tornado. Spill a fatal amount of his monstrous blood onto the unforgiving earth and send him to the Hell to which he was undoubtedly destined. But did she want that? Did she want another soul as a scar on that of the man she so deeply cherished? He'd say it was worth it. He'd say he'd take a thousand more for her. A million. That was Sy.

"Nothing comes to mind." She lied. And he knew it was a lie, but didn't push it. She was so grateful that he respected her, not for the lie itself, but for the reason she wasn't giving him the whole truth just now.

His phone went off and he picked it up as he stood from his seat at the table. She could only hear that it was Matt, the guy she thought she understood had the car place, before she heard tension in Sy's voice. Even from the next room, she could tell something was wrong, though he was talking too quietly for her to make out words.

She heard him suddenly shout a stream of profanities that he rarely said at all around her, at least, let alone together. There was a bang, and the walls of her kitchen quaked like the tectonic plates beneath them were shifting.

Sy walked back in, his face was red, as were his knuckles. He was shaking an injury out of his hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked, deep concern at his appearance and demeanor, suddenly ominous.

"I need to fix your wall in there." he grumbled, evading, without success. She'd be doing therapy on his hand, next.

"What's really wrong?" she repeated, sternly.

"That was Matt. Elliott's…escaped, somehow. He's in the wind."

Shane's heart became so heavy, she could almost feel it smashing through the kitchen floor and burying itself deep in the cement floor of her basement.

"Oh, God! No! What if he goes to the police!?"

"Fuck that, I'm more concerned about him coming after you!"

The two stared, faces full of equal measures of concern for the other.

Up Next: Chapter 21-Patient Education

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Confession Time

TW: For talks of mental illness as well as a mention of suicide.

This has actually been on my mind for quite a while but I was worried about how it would be taken. However this has actually come up several times in the Azula tag now so I might as well talk about it. And before I get to the point I just want to say that I’m very much open to respectful discussion. Please don’t rip me apart over this. 

So here we go; Azula/Therapy makes me rather uncomfortable.

And it does so on a rather personal level and for several reasons. I can’t really get into my biggest reason because it’s very deeply personal and I don’t feel comfortable sharing it online. So I’m gonna start with the less personal reasons as to why I think that Azula/Therapy is kinda sketchy imo.  

I feel as though most people who ship Azula/Therapy don’t really realize how it affects real people? For one thing I feel like it makes a joke of therapy. It’s kind of hard to explain but therapy isn’t some cute and quirky thing. It’s a very serious matter and to ship Azula/Therapy like it’s the next Drapple (Draco/Apple) just doesn’t sit right with me. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I feel like most people who ship Azula/Therapy don’t particularly mean any offense. I feel like to a degree it comes from a place of innocence. But and its big but, I think that Azula/Therapy got its origins from a not so wholesome place. In fact I think that the ship was  born from a place of hate. I think that the first time I encountered Azula/Therapy it was from a very notorious Azula anti. It gained traction with the anti crowd as a means to harass and guilt people for shipping Azula with anyone. And that’s not okay. I think that somewhere down the lines, the Azula fandom kind of reclaimed it but. I am damn near certain that this started as an Azula anti thing.

It’s one thing to ship Azula/Therapy because you don’t feel like Azula is sound enough to be in a relationship. But don’t try to guilt others for disagreeing. And this kind of leads me to my main problem with Azula/Therapy.

I think that it’s kind of, sort of (dare I say) ableist? Just because someone has a mental illness doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be loved. I’ve been kind of keeping tabs on discussions on this and I came across one anon who literally say something about how “Azula would just be a burden to her lover.” NGL that had me floored because this is the exact line of thinking that puts depressed people in a bad place. Speaking from experience, people with depression feel like burdens/like they are bringing people down. And to see this line of thinking being affirmed in fandom spaces does not help real people who are experiencing the same thing. God forbid someone shares disorder traits with Azula and they see that. 

I am 100% that there are some relationships where a person just isn’t stable enough to be in a relationship and it would be detrimental for them to have one. But for other people finding a lover can be instrumental to recovery! So by all means, this is definitely a matter of something being a case by case thing. Getting a littler personal (but without getting into too many details) I know two people who literally saved each other. And by this I mean, one was super depressed and the other was ready to kill themself. Finding each other was what rekindled their will to live again. That’s why it really bothers me to see Azula/Therapy being tossed around so carelessly. To me there’s this underlying implication that mentally ill people shouldn’t be allowed to date and get love. And that’s just not fair?  I feel like people maybe don’t think about this when posting Azula/Therapy stuff. 

“Well Azula specifically shouldn’t be in a relationship yet because she’s not in a good place for it.”

Okay fair but consider a few things; 1. some people specifically write post-redemption Azula ship fics 2. some people enjoy writing out fics where romance helps her heal. 

I have seen it come up that someone (I won’t mention names because I’m not sure if this user would want that) mention that they ship Azula/Therapy because they aren’t up to writing a fic that involves an arc of Azula getting to a place where she can have romance. Which is totally fair. But, that doesn’t mean that other people can’t. And I feel like this fandom has been trying to guilt people for shipping Azula with anyone. As mentioned, this isn’t fine. (@ mentioned user, feel free to reply). 

Another thing that I saw was an anon saying that being anti Azula/Therapy is aro/acephobic. I’m going to put my foot down as someone who has been very openly aro/ace and say, don’t try to speak for all of us. Yes romance isn’t the solution for everyone because romance isn’t what everyone is looking for. And I absolutely agree with this. However Azula is a fictional character and not everyone headcanons her as aro/ace. For some people, writing Azula in a romance as part of the healing process is what makes them happy. It doesn’t make them aro/acephobic. 

One more thing that I saw come up regarding Azula specifically. And I think that they made a wonderful point; Azula’s breakdown (as I interpreted it) came from a lack of love. Azula craved genuine affection whether she realized it or not. So I would argue that Azula would be one of those people who could strongly benefit from being in a relationship as part of the healing processes. By all means, make therapy a part of that healing process! She can be in a relationship and she can still go to therapy. She can use that therapy to help her keep that relationship healthy. I guess what I’m trying to say is I could get on board with Azula/*Character*/Therapy as an OT3. 99.99% sure that this is really common in real life. Actually 100% sure because (again without sharing too much personal info) I have seen a rather unstable person get into a relationship and use therapy to help them make sure that said relationship stays healthy. 

A person doesn’t have to be 100% mentally sound to be in a relationship. And having a mental illness while  being in a relationship doesn’t automatically make it a toxic or dangerous relationship on principal. I think that (depending on the disorder) some long discussions need to be had and some boundaries need to be put in place. Speaking from experience, I have heard someone say something akin to, “alright, I have *disorder* if I ever do *bad habit* then take these steps and don’t let me push you around...” Things like that. 

TL;DR: I feel like Azula/Therapy (even if it comes from a well meaning place) can be disheartening for people who relate to Azula & people who already feel like a burden in their real life relationships. Ship Azula/Therapy if you want and if it makes you comfortable but don’t try to shame people for shipping her with other characters. Also be weary of people who ship Azula/Therapy  as a means to belittle others.

I think that’s it for now.  If I think of anything else, I’ll add it. I’ll just end by saying that I don’t mean this to be antagonistic or yell at anyone but to offer a new POV.

[101flavoursofweird]

Fic Questionnaire

Thanks for @sixtyfourk for tagging me! I’m putting the questions under a cut because it’s quite long :’)

I’ll tag @northernscruffycat, @northelypark, @edward-elbowlick, @vermontwrites, @asa-liz, @yoshi-g-teh-first, @call-me-rucy, and @aquamarineglow but if there’s anyone else who wants to do this, please go ahead!

How many works do you have on AO3?

107… but a lot of these are just reposts or prompt-inspired fics that are 10 lines long!

What's your total AO3 word count?

378242 words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Professor Layton, PLvsAA, Layton Brothers Mystery Room, Rhythm Thief, Voltron: Legendary Defender (I only watched the first two seasons, haha…), The Ancient Magus Bride (I was in it for the cute dragon mage— not for the main romance), Steven Universe, Ace Attorney (only as a part of PLvsAA), Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, My Hero Academia

…10 fandoms altogether, but some like PLvsAA and LBMR fall under the PL category.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Aizawa Doesn’t Give Hugs - MHA- 1111 kudos - (Why can’t I update my most popular fic?)

Fireflies - Steven Universe - 221 kudos - (Again, WHY DID I NEVER UPDATE THIS?)

Reset - PL - 134 kudos - (This is the one I feel the worst about because it’s an ongoing long fic for my main fandom and I’ve had so much support from readers but I just can’t find the strength to update it…)

Worth Fighting For - PL - 86 kudos - (My incomplete Whumptober fic!)

Mending - Voltron - 85 kudos - (I think this was one of the first fics I posted on AO3 and I was really happy about the response it got! And for a fandom I’d never written for before!)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I usually respond to comments pretty quickly because I want to show my appreciation for people who take the time to comment :) If I’m ever slow to respond it’s probably just because I’m busy or I’m trying to formulate a long response. If a person leaves a longer comment, I try to make my response longer!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

That’s probably ‘To Boldly Flee’. It’s a fic I originally posted on FF.net but it’s now part of an Aurora & Luke oneshot series called ‘Looking Foward’ on AO3. The fic stars Aurora and Luke in an AU set during Azran Legacy. It diverges from canon after Descole steals the Azran keystone in the Nest. Aurora doesn’t want to go to the Azran sanctuary and face her ‘duty’ as the Azran emissary— she also doesn’t want to get STABBED IN THE HEART— so she decides to run away with Luke.

Aurora receives even more angst in this AU than in canon. After Descole’s betrayal, she starts to doubt herself and her friends, aside from Luke.

With a bit of help from Rook and Bishop, the two of them fly to London and then to Misthallery when they hear Targent have taken over the town. During this time, Aurora has her identity crisis about being a golem and having the fate of the world resting on her shoulders. She eventually decides to help Luke save his hometown because Luke is worth the world to her.

This all culminates with Luke getting fatally(?) wounded and taken to the Golden Garden. Aurora is so distraught by this point that she almost ‘floods the whole world’ in a kind of failsafe doomsday device the Azran may have implanted in her. Luckily, Descole and Layton show up to assure her that Luke is alive— but just barely. Aurora returns to her normal self and they get Luke to hospital. Aurora waits by Luke’s bedside for him to wake up. Aurora mentions that Emmy’s fate is unknown, but they still mourn for her.

In the original FF.net ending, Luke wakes up.

In the AO3 ending, Aurora just keeps waiting for Luke. ‘She could not age, so she would wait until he awoke. Even if it took forever...’

If I ever did write more of this story, Aurora and Co would probably go to the other Azran sites (Ambrosia, the Infinite Vault of etc) to search for a cure for Luke. But at it is, the fic is left open-ended as to whether Luke ever recovers.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really hate but there was one anon review that may have been ‘too brutal’ (their words). I can’t say it hasn’t affected the updates on that particular fic.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I wrote a couple of light smut fics back when I really shipped Layton/Emmy. I think I’d cringe if I went back to read those fics (but then again, I do that with a lot of my old writing). I can’t see myself writing smut now.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I can’t say I’ve had a fic stolen, but I was reading a fic a while ago and the wording was veeery familiar. I’m not sure why because the fic was already good up to that point? Why would they bother copying my writing? XD I can’t complain, though! We’re all technically stealing the original creator’s characters and concepts by writing fanfic.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, for my Rhythm Thief AU, Déjà Vergier! In this AU, 16-year-old Raphael gets taken in by the Vergier family. A Deviantart user called BakApple kindly translated my writing into French. With the help of Google Trabslate, I started translating their French Rhythm Thief fic— ‘July the Fourteenth’— into English, but I didn’t get around to finishing it. My translating skills are nowhere near as good as BakApple’s!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a PL fic with called ‘If You Only Had Time’ with an awesome writer called Glowbug. It’s an AU (of course) where Rachel Bronev survives and she runs away from Targent with eight-year-old Emmy. Glowbug doesn’t seem to be active online anymore, which is a shame, but I don’t mind! I’m just glad we were able to write 6 chapters.

I don���t think I’d co-write any more fics now… but more for the co-writer’s sake than mine! I’m notoriously bad at updating long fics and I struggle to write under pressure or within a time limit. There’s a reason why I don’t enter Big Bang events, as much as I’d like too :’)

Writing fics is a hobby first and foremost. If I don’t feel like writing something, I’ll leave it and come back later, hopefully with renewed inspiration.

But I’m always happy to discuss fic outlines/ideas/characters’ with other people!

What's your all time favorite ship?

Apparently the ship I’ve written the most fics for is Janice/Melina on AO3?

There seems to be more content for them recently and that makes me SO HAPPY.

Ranhengela might be a close second favourite… Sometimes I literally forget both of these ships aren’t canon.

My favourite characters tend to be those who are so selfless and would sacrifice their lives for the ones they love— e.g. Janice and Henry— even if their significant other is presumed to be dead. I want these characters to be happy but I also want them to through ANGST.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I don’t want to say Reset… but maybe Reset? I haven’t given up completely but I’ve lost a lot of confidence with this fic. What I wanted most out of this story was for Luke to bond with other characters aside from Layton— his parents, Arianna, Emmy, Flora etc.— and to give these characters a chance to shine. But I guess I realised I can do this without all the crazy plot twists and time travel mechanics… like in Ready Now, for example. Most of that fic is just Arianna bonding with Luke, Layton and the others, and it’s hopefully giving Flora her chance to shine too! I guess after giving Arianna her own chapter in Reset I just really wanted to write about her, haha.

What are your writing strengths?

Someone mentioned in a nice review that I often fuse canon with fanon? That’s usually just me poking fun at the series— like when Arianna’s mother asks about Flora’s age and her adoption status, Arianna and Tony just shrug at her comedically. Who knows, really? :’)

I’ll often just make two character sit in a room TALK about their feelings.

Dialogue is an easy one, but I like writing dialogue for characters and getting their voices down. (I will forever portray Dalston with his official Yorkshire accent— not the fake posh accent they gave him the the US version of Miracle Mask.)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it’s cool! …If it’s not used to mock another language— apart from English. Please make all the English jokes you want. I’ll probably agree with you and laugh at them.

I remember when I was re-reading Goblet of Fire and I cringed every time J. K. Rowling wrote about a character who wasn’t English.

I’ll occasionally throw French words or sayings into Rhythm Thief fics especially because that’s what they do in the game. It’s hilarious how Charlie has an English accent but then she’ll sprout a random French phrase.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Pokemon, but that short oneshot is long gone.

What's your favorite fic you've ever written?

I’m going to be boring and say Bonds Left Unbroken— an AU where Layton and Desmond both get adopted by the Laytons. I think I enjoyed the earlier chapters more, focussing on younger Desmond and Hershel, and especially their time in Stansbury. The later chapters don’t really branch out from canon that much, aside from the fact that Hershel and Desmond are on the same page during Azran Legacy.

I feel bad that I never got around to finishing the ‘bonus’ episodes, but it kind of just felt like the original series with Desmond phoned in :’) But I’m still proud of the original fic!

[lightns881]

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 2):

What does DTeamblr look like, what does it have to do with MCYT history, and why does it look like a rainbow?

I’ll make an educated guess here and say y'all enjoyed my last post (totally unrelated to the way I gained almost 50 followers overnight). Anyhow, thank you so much for the overwhelming support! I’m so glad a lot of you felt you could relate to my deep-dive into the leading personality type on DTeam Tumblr. It took me so many hours to write and research, and as a math major and honors student, it’s no easy feat, so I’m so grateful for the attention it got!

Today we’re discussing the general demographics of DTeam Tumblr and why they might look the way they do. Number 8 will blow your mind! So make sure to keep reading and hit that little grey heart and arrow at the bottom if you like it, so more people get to see it! Thanks for your support! Now, let’s jump straight into the post!

Your Daily Dose of Data

From the 449 responses we received, these are some pie charts displaying the gender, age, and sexuality of all respondents.

Image Description: Female (52.8%), Non-Binary (37.4%), Male (9.8%)

Image Description: 16-17 (37%), 13-15 (31.4%), 18 and over (29.4%), 12 and under (2.2%)

Image Description: Bisexual/Pansexual (54.1%), Homosexual (16%), Asexual (14.7%), Other (7.8%), Heterosexual (7.3%)

Mmhm, delicious! Y'all ready to dig into these stats? Because I don’t know about you, but they certainly don’t strike me as what the general population looks like!

Welcome to Tumblr, the Only Community Where Straight Men are the Minority

So these statistics certainly didn’t take me by surprise. Mostly because the DNF Shipper Survey I took some time ago revealed a similar trend. Not to mention, Tumblr is probably the QUEEREST internet community on the planet. 

Funny enough, the survey revealed a shocking number of ZERO heterosexual males respondents. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. ZERO straight males were recorded out of 449 respondents for this survey!

Now, this isn’t surprising for the Tumblr community by itself, but I can say I’m somewhat surprised in terms of the MCYT Tumblr community. (Obviously, the survey specified DTeam Tumblr, but there is a big overlap between both communities, so I will be using them interchengably when it seems relevant.)

Let’s break this down. The survey reveals the largest age population is 16-17, though it’s not by a great margin in comparison to 13-15 and 18 and older, which doesn’t surprise me either. Some of the major critics of the DTeam Fandom and other MCYT Fandoms love to claim the fanbase’s majority age range lies with children and pre-teens. While it’s an undeniable fact children are drawn to Minecraft, it’s also a misconception to paint it as solely a community for younger viewers.

In the MCYT Tumblr and DTeam Tumblr communities, specifically, we see this is not the case. Only 1/3 of the respondents of this survey are under the age of 16 (you could attribute part of it to the fact younger people might be less inclined to participate in this survey, but it is still a notable difference). I can’t say these age ranges are similar in other parts of the community like DTeam Twitter, Tik Tok, or Reddit, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say Tumblr lies toward the older of the bunch, with Reddit being the oldest and Tik Tok being the youngest (I do hope to perform this survey on some of the other communities, so please stay until the end if you want to help with that).

One of the likely explanations to why the ages for DTeam Tumblr look this way is the fact a big chunk of the community has likely been watching MCYT for a long time (even with breaks in between). I, myself, used to watch channels like PopularMMOs, Aphmau, and PrestonPlayz as a kid, and I presume many of you are familiar with them as well. With the resurgence of MCYT in the past year, it likely drew a lot of the older viewers in addition to the new ones.

But enough about age. What I really want to highlight on this post is the attraction of queer individuals to DTeam Tumblr and MCYT as a whole.

Why is the current MCYT Fandom so queer in comparison to the previous generations?

This is a huge open-ended question and considering I can only capture so much of the DTeam and MCYT community, the rest of this post should be taken solely as a theoretical analysis as opposed to fact.

With that out of the way, let’s start by discussing the shift MCYT has undergone over the years (I promise this will circle back to the question of queerness in the MCYT fandom, but we need some background before we can come up with a decent theory).

When Minecraft was first released, it proved to be a monumental change in the gaming industry. This simple little indie game took the world by storm. It was so vastly different from what the general population generally viewed gaming as (first-person shooters, story-driven games, action games, etc.) Not to mention, it didn’t exactly solely appeal to only a small margin of gamers, those being white cis males.

The gaming industry has notoriously been known in the past for its heteronormative community and general prejudice toward minorities. Though it has gone through a significant change over the decades, we certainly can’t say it’s fully gone.

Yet for whatever reason, the recent MCYT has taken the interest of so many queer people in comparison to other gaming YouTube communities. Why? Why are queer people so drawn to this community? And, more precisely, why does it feel so different than the old MCYT? Lastly, how does this relate to the conclusion about the leading personalities of this fandom we made in the last post?

The Niche Communities of MCYT Over the Years

MCYT has always been a huge, over-saturated genre of YouTube with content appealing to a variety of audiences. It’s dominated gaming content for years, and I think we can all safely say it’s never been bigger than it is today.

So why is it that just now it feels like the queerness of the fandom is popping off? Why now as opposed to say five years ago when MCYT was at another one of it’s strongest stages?

It seems like the community has made a tremendous shift in relation to breaking gender norms and LGBTQ+ subjects, not only in the fans but within the creators themselves. Was flirting and calling a pretty-boy streamer pet names as normal in the past as it is today? Were straight gamer guys putting on dresses and a full-face of make-up as supported back then? Were “marriages” and “pregnancies” within Minecraft boys an everyday occurrence like they are now? How is it that MCYT has dominated a Twitch dating show where flirting with the gay host and among straight contestants themselves is just another bit of entertainment? Where is this all coming from?

Recently, I watched a 2 hour documentary depicting all of the stages of Minecraft YouTube and how it has changed over the years. If you haven’t seen it and you have some time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s very informative, and it honestly gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia that makes me choke up every time I think about it. I’ll link it below.

The documentary does a great job at exploring the different niche communities that dominated MCYT since it first took off. Some of such communities include the basic Let’s Players, the team-based Let’s Play channels like How2Minecraft, the roleplay story-centric ones like Aphmau and Samgladiator, the tutorial, building and technical side like Mumbo and Grian, the PVP-centric Bedwars or Hypixel channels, the Machinima community, the comedy side like ExplosiveTNT, the parody music videos, and so many more. All of the mentioned communities have dominated Minecraft at one point or another, many of them still having a rippling effect and/or a loyal community today. All of these communities have certain aspects that define them, some of which parallel the current overtaking content in the present.

How can we compare MyStreet to the Dream SMP?

Taking Aphmau as an example, her MyStreet series had a TREMENDOUS success a few years ago, racking in millions of views and bringing in a lot of money that eventually allowed her to hire voice actors and increase the production of mentioned episodes. The roleplay series was so successful it ran for six seasons!

Now, let’s compare that to the Dream SMP. It seems like a big comparison to be making considering they appear so different at first glance. For once, Aphmau is just one channel whose audience caters toward girls and younger people who enjoy romance. The series is set-up in an episodic-format that resembles more of a TV series than actual Minecraft videos.

Meanwhile, the Dream SMP is a collection of content creators with a mix of improvised storylines and the occasional regular video that resembles more of a Let’s Play series than a RP series.

You could say the only true comparisons to draw out of these two are the popularity they had/have and the profit they brought to their respective creators. 

However, there’s two other key similarities that you’ll find not only within these two specific examples, but many other channels and communities as well. Story and characters.

MyStreet’s story aspect is fairly obvious seeing as it’s a episodic series that focuses on a fictional story. The Dream SMP’s story aspect isn’t as clear, but it’s evident there is a story playing out in the foreground and background, whether intentional or unintentional, or improvised or not.

Character is where some of you might start to question me. It’s obvious MyStreet has characters. I mean, it is a fictional story, after all. But the Dream SMP? Light, they’re obviously people!

Well, my answer to that is yes and no--sort of. The Dream SMP’s story heavily relies on roleplay, bits as you might call them. Events that aren’t necessarily planned out as a fictional plot like the typical MyStreet episode is, but they aren’t exactly real. Schlatt is obviously not a villain in real life, he just likes to impersonate as one for the narrative. Wilbur isn’t crazy, but it’s a way to spice up the heroic story surrounding Tommy and him.

It’s video-game improv. Except the actors behind the content just so happen to be real people playing off the personalities and “brands” they have obtained. 

Brands. It all boils down to this. In the entertainment business, without a clear vision of your project and a clear way to brand what your consumer intakes, your project will likely not find a lot of success.

There’s a reason why Tommy plays off his loudness, using an overexaggerated laugh that although may not be completely fake, it is likely not the laugh he uses everyday. Or why BadBoyHalo is this supposed innocent muffin who doesn’t understand the crafting table meme and other references that are fairly easy to google and find the meaning of. Or why Sapnap is this chaotic being who loves starting pet wars and we love to paint as an arsonist in the Dream SMP. While all of these personality traits may be a part of their true selves, they’re played up for the camera--for the story. They act as the personas that define their characters in the narrative.

They have a clear brand and vision that appeals to the audience and makes them tune in on the daily to see how they all come together. It’s like roleplaying a more extreme version of yourself, one that brings home the money.

Story and characters run across every entertainment outlet. They define their brand. Aphmau has her characters and series. Hermitcraft has a set of memorable personalities and episodic videos that formulate its own story that is less like a narrative and more of a history of the server. ExplodingTNT has his recurring cast and comedic sketches. Most of these niche communities have a form of story and character defining them. It’s how they achieve a clear sense of branding and cater to a specific audience.

Queer Theory in MCYT

Having said all that, why does the MCYT of today draw in so many queer viewers?

Let’s think about this. In my last post, I ended by mentioning DTeam Tumblr is a sort of safe haven for INFP and INxx types who might be placed in the “other” category by society. INFPs, specially, are predisposed for escapism--one common form of it being fiction and entertainment. Not to mention, INFPs are feeling types who, as introverts, seek a personable connection. It’s why it’s so easy for them to obsess over book characters or fall in love with content creators.

Now, let’s imagine a whole community of LGBTQ+ INFP and INxx types. Actually, scratch that, we don’t even have to imagine it.

It’s what our community looks like today.

And why are so many so drawn to the DTeam and Dream SMP of all things? It’s a personable storyline that essentially forms a direct tie to the viewer. Unlike pre-recorded fictional TV series you tune into on your device, the Dream SMP is a whole load of chaos that blurs the lines between reality and fiction where fans can directly connect to creators and get to know them as people through a storyline that features sub-textual queer themes and non-conforming behaviors.

The MCYT content creator community of today is more non-conforming than ever before, and knowing this whole fact, knowing that many of them might place themselves in the “other” category or at the very least aren’t afraid to break the norms and be seen in that light, is a comfort in itself for LGBTQ+ INFP types. Once again, it’s a safe space that helps you escape from the troubles of real life, one you relate to.

Okay. So although this does answer why the fans look like they do, what about the creators themselves? Are we really supposed to believe this all came through naturally? That a bunch of straight guys suddenly decided wearing dresses was something they wanted to do?

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, and I’m in no way trying to insinuate creators have solely some sort of corrupt ulterior motive. Things are never as simple as they look. However, the truth is, a part of it lies on the attention it’s gotten.

I’ve talked a lot about DreamNotFound and the way Dream uses it as a marketing ploy. I stand by my point. However, he’s not the only one who does this in the MCYT community. Why did Finn suddenly go from wearing a dress to cross-dressing as a girl for a whole week? Why are so many creators suddenly deciding wearing dresses is fun? Why does every freaking straight MCYT actively want to flirt with George nowadays?

Let’s just let Techno’s favorite word answer this for us: clout.

It gets attention from one of the largest historically underserved minority community in the entertainment business. We might not be able to see gay flirting in every Netflix TV show or guys not minding dresses and getting fake marriages, but you are certainly going to get at least one of those in every Dream SMP stream and video you tune into. It gets attention. It brings home the money. And do I blame them? Not really.

Interestingly enough, there’s a lot of analytical posts on the MCYT Tumblr community that discuss the dangers of these tactics and why gay jokes and the way queer subtext is treated by MCYT creators is harmful. Despite this, it still attracts such a huge community of queers. So why exactly would queer people actively watch something that’s offensive or harmful to us?

I have a lot more to say about this topic and the morality behind Dream’s tactics, but I’m out of breath for today, so I’ll talk about it in my next post. What better way to start the conversation about the DNF and Karlnap questions of the survey than a good ol’ discussion on the morality of queerbaiting and the likes?

If you got this far, I’d appreciate it if you liked and reblogged this post if you enjoyed it and/or learned something new! Also, important news, I would really like to perform a similar study on the DTeam Twitter Community to measure the differences in demographics across platforms. I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could go like, retweet and share the link I posted on my Twitter about it (tweet will be linked in the reblog below) so it reaches more of the DTeam Twitter community!

However, if you filled out the survey yourself here or you associate more with DTeam Tumblr than DTeam Twitter please DO NOT fill out the survey again! I’m trying to make sure it reaches the audience that mains on Twitter, but I need a little help with that since I don’t have as big of an influence on Twitter than on here for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, thank you so much for all your support! I really appreciate y’all and make sure to hit the follow if you want to lookout for the next demographics post! <3

(Pssst, I’m releasing a MCYT DNF superpower AU longfic next month... You should totally go check out the post on that if you’re interested in it...)

[mythandlaur]

whatever the cost whether it works out or not i’ll follow you, i’ll follow you with my heart

OC-tober Day 1 - Journey Prompt list by oc-growth-and-development

Fandom: Warframe Canon Characters: Spoiler Character (Cephalon Fragments) Original Characters: Istha Merreth Warnings: None

Notes: Soooo, I’m doing this! Not sure how consistent I’ll be, but I at least want to throw out some short things for it. And no, this isn’t going in any main tags and I’m not mentioning the blog because hahahaha...haha...h a haha...

-

Things had never been terribly easy for them, it’s true--but their circumstances had only weighed harder on them in recent years, as the Orokin Empire’s growing stranglehold on the system and the clan’s deserted location made it harder and harder to keep people fed on their own. All they really had going for them was their steel and their freedom, and, though she did not wish to say it, she harbored doubts that the golden bastards wouldn’t come for both of those things sooner rather than later. The Orokin couldn’t stand anyone not under their control.

But that was a problem for the future. The current problem was supplies, which mostly came from other settlements on other planets. And, while they could occasionally pay passage on ships with “mercenary” work, it was harder to get into the heart of Orokin territory in such a way.

Which was why Istha is currently sitting in a shipping container in the cargo bay of a dingy Grineer mercantile transport vessel.

The Grineer were often chosen as ferries for goods within the empire, as they were less likely to sell said goods than the Corpus--and, for the purposes of herself and her companion, they were much easier to infiltrate. Not that she’d ever personally done it before, but he apparently had some experience with it, and she was willing to trust him on this.

What she wasn’t willing to trust him on was how long they were intended to stay in the damn boxes. Istha lets out a long sigh and tries not for the first time to shift into a more comfortable position; her feet hit the wall while her head hits the inside corner and she groans in growing frustration. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed, but she’s starting to lose her patience, and kicks one of the metal crate walls as best she can, letting out a satisfying clang. She hopes that will serve as enough of an indication to her partner that she wants out.

There’s a long silence, and then a muffled, matching clang from somewhere nearby. Istha decides to take this as an affirmative and begins to push her lid open. The Grineer weren’t always the best at handling their cargo, and so her own crate had wound up on its side (luckily for both her and the Grineer who’d set down the box, as most fragile cargo could not brace its feet and arms into the walls and wait for a safe moment to crawl to the newly-reoriented ground).

It doesn’t take long for Istha to force the crate open, and she crawls out on her hands and knees into the cargo bay proper. The cargo bay isn’t much brighter than the inside of the crate, but in the emergency lighting, she can make out the glint of a crimson blade sticking out of the top of a crate in the next row, and she grins.

Yeah, she figured he was starting to go insane, too.

He hadn’t gotten as lucky as her with his crate’s orientation, so she watches as he laboriously pries the lid open and pushes it back so it’s barely balancing on one of the crate’s walls. The sword is thrown over the edge so he doesn’t impale himself on it, before he lifts himself over the edge as well, balancing awkwardly on his stomach and trying to get his hands to reach the ground. Istha covers her mouth to try and hide her snickering, but this quickly dissolves into full-on laughter as he loses his balance and tumbles onto the ground in an awkward somersault, ending up on his back.

It takes Istha several seconds to calm down enough to speak. “I am forever grateful that you chose to train me.”

He drags himself into a sitting position, glaring at her with a sort of muffled growl that just makes her burst out laughing again, doubling over on herself. Blood and bone, she thunks to herself, I was trapped in there too long.

“If you’re finished.”

Istha snorts, but slowly manages to pull herself together and sit up properly, though she still throws a smirk in his direction. “I liked the landing. Is it a new technique?”

“You know me, the notorious blade in a box.” He huffs a sigh, but she catches a quiet chuckle following it. “You all right?”

“Pretty much.” Istha stretches her arms over her head. “How do you do this?”

“Usually, about the same way we did it this time. Except once or twice when I went on these trips I was smaller.”

Istha wraps her arms around herself as the chill of the cargo bay hits her. At least the air is somewhat less recycled, but the ambient temperature makes her question just how much steel the Grineer actually put between the cargo bay and the ravenous void of space. “How far do you think we are?”

He shrugs. “We had an early stop, that was probably the Phobos station, and we should’ve translated once already. Maybe Europa?”

Istha winces, but looks away quickly to try and hide it. It’s not a big portion of the trip, but she already feels like she’s missed so much. She’d never seen a ship void translate before. “So a while yet to Uranus, then.”

“Yes. What’s wrong.” She can feel his piercing gaze on her and hunches her shoulders. Damn it, was she that obvious? “Body language,” he adds, again as if reading her mind. “You’re defensive. Lacking confidence.”

Istha scrunches her face up in frustration and makes a conscious effort to open up her posture towards him. Confident, but not stupid. You hold your chest high, but never, ever forget that it’s a target.

“...I’ve never been off-planet before,” Istha admits. She’d learned a long time ago that it was useless to lie to him; he was much too good at reading the little twitches and quirks of others. It was part of what made him as capable a warrior as he was--he could read his opponents like a book without even thinking about it, while she was often more...single-minded. “Mama told me that we used to move around a lot more. Pack everyone up on a ship and hop to another planet.”

“You know I can’t remember the last time we did that, either.” Right, she often forgets that he’s not really that old--not much older than her. “But I know that was when there were less of us, and there was more of the system out there.”

“Golden bastards,” she grumbles, and he nods in understanding. The Orokin had gotten a reputation for destroying most everything they touched, not that anyone would say it within earshot of a Dax. “Do you really think these trips will be enough?”

“For now, they have to be.” His tone is grim and brokers no argument. “What troubles you.”

Istha sticks out her tongue in his direction. Stubborn as a mule, all the better to match with her. “You’re not going to be dissuaded, are you.”

He smiles. “No.”

“Couldn’t we go up top? Smash a few heads, look out the window?”

“Let’s see, there’s about...a hundred Grineer on this ship, and two of us.” He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow knowingly. “We shouldn’t, not with those numbers. Wouldn’t want them to feel too bad about themselves.”

Istha barks a laugh, but it’s short-lived. “Seriously. We could handle them.”

“We could. But the Grineer like their manual ships, no fancy Orokin navigational system or what-have-you. Can’t risk the pilot dying.”

“Don’t you know how to pilot?”

His eyelids lower. “Istha. I wouldn’t be caught dead flying this kind of bucket.”

“Well...” She shrugs. “I could probably figure it out.”

“Don’t. For the sake of all that is still good in this system, don’t try to figure it out.”

Istha grins, languidly leaning forward so her chin rests on her hands. “Have a little faith in me, friend~”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you worried I’d put you to shame?”

“I’m worried that I would be caught dead in this bucket.”

Istha lets the sly act dropp, shifting so her cheek rests on one palm. “Really, though. I don’t want to go my whole life without seeing the stars from here, you know?”

He presses his lips together into a thin line, and glances off to where one of the far walls of the cargo bay should be. Her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline.

“...We’d have to wait,” he cautions. “Can’t risk springing something like that too early.”

“But you want to.”

“I may want to put some Grineer in their place. That’s all.”

He folds his arms, ostensibly shutting her down, but Istha’s eyes crinkle in amusement as he continues to stare into the distance--she knows she’s going to get exactly what she wants, and she’s not even going to have to drag him along behind her. He knows it, too, judging by the faint turn to his lips he tries to tamp down.

If waiting is his only condition, she’s willing to go along with it, just as long as she gets out of the cargo bay. Really, she doesn’t mind the waiting now that she’s out of that crate and with him, even if they sit in silence for most of it.

She’ll pass the journey entertained by the mental images of the surprised looks on the Grineer’s faces when they realize what they’ve done, and that’s quite enough for her.

And she isn’t actually going to try and pilot the ship.

...Probably.

[firelordzukohere]

Interior Décor- Epilogue

Hello! I’m sorry I uploaded late! I planned to post this yesterday, but it was a busy weekend! But, it’s here! I really hope you like this and it gives you an ending you appreciate. 

I’m now opening requests. If there’s something you’d like to see, maybe related to Zuko and (Y/N) or anyone else, please feel free to send me an ask with a request or a prompt! I will gladly try and take a shot at it!!

Finally, I’d like to genuinely thank everyone for everything. Every single like, reblog, comment, and ask just seriously makes this so much better! I truly appreciate everyone in this fandom and I love each and every one of you!

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

Zuko X Fem!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Slight Aangst(heh), and some implications

Word Count: 4k

Summary: Iroh felt it was time for the Palace to reflect the time of Peace and Love that Zuko promised five years earlier at his coronation. He takes it upon himself to hire an interior decorator to help his nephew out and work together. What he didn’t expect was for Zuko to possibly find his own peace and love in the process.

Chapter 4: Trompe l’oeil >> Epilogue

"When the world is at odds and the mind is at sea, then cease the useless tedium, and brew a cup of tea," a familiar voice whispered behind her, breaking her from her thoughts as she stared at the mural on the wall of the shop. Turning to him, she smiled and accepted the cup of tea he held out for her. He winked at her before turning to examine everything else going on around them. Following his lead, she watched the people within the shop mingle and enjoy their tea.

The grand opening of the Jasmine Dragon Fire Nation location was in full swing. After Iroh had bought the property in the middle ring of the nation, he hired (Y/N) on to decorate the place from top to bottom. It had taken a couple weeks as there was some structural and code issues.

Now the establishment was a beautiful, grand tea shop with hand painted murals of dragons, intricately carved out pillars, quaint seating, and the smell of tea filling every corner.

"Where do you get this stuff, Iroh?" She giggled after taking a sip of her tea. Iroh smiled to himself as he stared at his customers seemingly enjoying themselves in the brand new store.

"All old people know the perfect proverb or sentiment to say," he teased, "it comes with the age." (Y/N) let out a hearty laugh and nodded her head, accepting his claim. "This place looks wonderful, dear," the general complimented. "Your hard work has definitely paid off."

(Y/N) blushed and took another drink of tea to hide the warmth on her face. "It's your hard work General Iroh, the Fire Nation has come along way thanks to you and the Fire Lord, you both deserve success." It was Iroh's turn to blush, now.

"Speaking of my nephew, I thought he would be here with you?"

It had been exactly a year since Zuko and (Y/N) had stopped being idiots and had gotten together. They spent as much free time as they could with each other. Dinners were often spent in the garden, which the turtle ducks enjoyed due to getting spare bread chunks. Days off from the throne and decorating were usually done walking through the city in street clothes enjoying the public and the lack of advisors and guards breathing down their necks. Some holidays were spent visiting his friends in their Nations, getting to know them. After their first meeting, which was simultaneously a mess and a success, (Y/N) couldn't get enough of the GAang and insisted to always be around whenever they visited or Zuko went to visit them.

The easiest of the four to get along with was Aang, obviously since he was kind to everyone, followed by Toph who appreciated her blunt comments, closely behind was Sokka who enjoyed playing pranks on the rest with her and her sarcastic comments, but the hardest to break was Katara. Katara was protective of Zuko and she didn't want anyone to try and take advantage of the Fire Lord.

It took (Y/N) four months to convince Katara that she wasn't with Zuko for the fame and status. It had been a process but she came out victorious when Katara began sending her letters often and ended up being her closest friend of the group.

They would all tell her how apparent it was that Zuko loved her. The way he would look at her, talk about her, or even how he'd be around her.

The two had grown together over the last year.

(Y/N) learned that Zuko needed care and words of affirmation to reassure him that she was still there for him. He enjoyed cuddling and affection, which was something that was apparently new to him according to the group, as he wasn't much like that with Mai other than a few kisses here and there. Learning what kind of day he was having just based off of the way his eyes were set or how his shoulders felt, sometimes how he kissed her said it all. It was the rough days that she knew he needed extra care and she'd try to make him laugh, or show him extra attention.

Zuko discovered quickly that (Y/N) was very easy going. She went with the flow on his busy schedule, never complaining about not being able to see each other and she was always there for him whenever he needed it. Her strong attitude and demeanor to get everything done thoroughly and thoughtfully, while also compassionately was exactly what he wanted in a future Fire Lady. She still cared a lot what people thought of her, definitely having a people pleaser attitude, he figured came with the job of working with interior décor, but she had been working on it a lot since the start of their relationship, especially after the rumors grew about her possibly getting the Palace job to sleep with the Fire Lord. The rumors had been shut down quickly, especially after the people began to see how desperately in love with (Y/N), Zuko was. Soon enough, the people of the Fire Nation adored her and Zuko couldn't have been happier about it.

Now, after a year, they couldn't image their lives any other way. Zuko was finishing up big projects with Aang on making the world peaceful, and (Y/N) had several clients, including General Iroh, who were eager for her to work her magic on their interiors.

(Y/N) was definitely in a wonderful place in her life, and she couldn't help but smile and think about the man who she loved so much, causing Iroh to grin in return at the look on her face.

"He's in a council meeting, apparently he had some business with them that just couldn't wait," she teased, "he said he'd be here after."

"Knowing my nephew, it must be important, he'd come up with any reason not to meet with the Sages," Iroh chuckled. "I'm going to brew some more tea, take care of yourself dear." He said before making his way to the back.

The party was packed, people from all over the nation came to see the notorious General Iroh's brand new tea shop in the Fire Nation. She'd seen several familiar faces and some new ones. It was nice to watch as people admired her decor and the hard work she had put into making the perfect place for Iroh.

At one point, a woman walked up to her, with an apparent nervous look on her face, "Excuse me? Are you the Palace decorator?" The woman asked, causing (Y/N) to internally roll her eyes. T

hat was a new title Iroh and Zuko came up with to tease her. It had caught on quickly that Zuko had begun dating the Palace decorator and that was officially her title to anyone who wasn't in on the joke. While it helped with the business, it definitely annoyed her to think that people only wanted her because she had the official title.

"I did decorate the Palace, yes," she responded the same as she did for everyone who asked her.

"You did this place too, correct?" The woman said, gesturing to the tea shop. "As well as Captain Yuzai's home?"

"Yes, I did both," (Y/N) beamed proudly.

"I was wondering, I have a home in Ba Sing Se that just does not feel comfortable to me, would we be able to discuss the possibility of you going out there and updating it for me?"

"Absolutely! I have another possible job in Ba Sing Se, so to do both at the same time would be simple enough!" The woman grinned in return before giving her, her address in the Fire Nation and setting up a meeting next week.

Watching the woman walk away, (Y/N) couldn't help but smile before she gasping as someone covered her eyes with their hands.

"You look beautiful tonight," he whispered in her ear before moving his hands away. Turning to look at the Fire Lord, (Y/N) blushed. "I'm sorry I'm late. I hope Uncle doesn't hate me too much." She shook her head with a giggle.

"You know he could never hate you!" She chastised before standing up and pressing her lips to his scar affectionately. "I'm glad you're here. How was your meeting?" Zuko's body tensed. "That bad, huh?"

He brushed a strand of (Y/H/C) from her face and shook his head, "it was good, we got everything done, properly. I don't want to talk about some boring old men though, I'd much rather you and I smile a bit, mingle and then go back to the Palace and have a proper dinner." His lips pressed to hers, immediately warming her body with his affection.

"Mmm... I'm not sure" she pulled back slightly and smiled, "I'm having so much fun here. I've been getting new job offers and I think I heard Iroh brought ice cream from the Water Tribe," she teased. "You'll have to do some real convincing to get me to go back with you."

Zuko chuckled, "if you come back with me, I can convince you much more thoroughly" his voice low and raspy. (Y/N)'s cheeks burned and she looked down at the cup in her hand, attempting to gain control of her brain and her body. "Plus, I have a present for you." Her attention whipped right to him and she frowned, her brows furrowed deeply and her lip pouted out just barely.

"No! We promise we weren't going to do presents! I thought we agreed to wait until you were on your leave and go to Ember Island and that would be our present to each other!" Zuko rested his hand on her elbow and shook his head.

"It's not that kind of present, just trust me," he whispered, attempting to reassure her. "We're still going to Ember Island in the summer. Just you and me." He pecked her nose gently. She let out a breath and nodded her head. The one thing she could do was trust him. "I love you," he whispered before pressing his lips gently to her forehead, "Now let's go mingle so I can take you back to the palace, the turtle ducks are hungry." He teased making (Y/N) let out a giggle.

"We’d be horrible parents if we left those poor dears starving," she winked before following him toward a group of people to talk with.

People fawned over Zuko, like they always did, and he accepted it with such humility. Instead of allowing people to talk about him and his accomplishments as a young Fire Lord, he would turn the discussion on others, asking them about their businesses, their family, aspirations in life, all of it. He didn't just nod his head and deafly listen, instead he would ask questions about their answers, or follow up with a story of his own to relate, letting them know he was thoroughly listening to them. He was a caring Fire Lord and (Y/N) couldn't help but fall in love with him more and more. Zuko was a natural at being the lead of the Nation and she knew it had a lot to do with his past and what shaped him into the man he was today, the wonderful, compassionate, handsome man.

"So Fire Lord Zuko," one of the elderly woman interrupted a conversation about farming in the outer parts of the Fire Nation, "it has been almost a year hasn't it?" She asked, gesturing to (Y/N) and him. "Any thoughts about the future? You know those single women are getting restless about if this is serious or not." The woman winked and (Y/N)'s body stilled. She couldn't believe this woman was implying that their relationship wasn't serious. Zuko, seemed a bit taken aback by her question as well, clearing his throat several times.

"I'm not sure what that means, Ume," Zuko responded diplomatically, "I can assure you though, I will not be getting rid of Miss (Y/N) here, anytime soon," he wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her closer, producing a blush onto her cheeks.

"Ah, young love," Ume fawned, "I'll have to tell my granddaughter that there's no chance then," she playfully pouted before turning her attention to the other ladies who were gushing over Zuko's declaration.

With the distraction, Zuko leaned toward (Y/N) pressing his lips to her ear, "let's find Uncle and then get out of here." She nodded desperately and allowed him to lead her toward the back of the shop, where Iroh was talking with one of his workers with delight.

"The earnings tonight will carry us into next month and we'll make a large profit in no time! Your hard work has been greatly appreciated, Iruna," Iroh complimented, "you can leave for the night, go enjoy your evening with your family." The woman bowed gratefully and rushed out the door before Iroh could change his mind. When the General caught Zuko's form in the corner of his eye, his smile grew, brightly. "Fire Lord Zuko!" He wrapped his nephew into a deep hug. When they released Zuko returned his arm to (Y/N)'s waist. "How did your meeting with the council go? Did you get their approval?" Zuko nodded his head and his Uncle grinned. "Wonderful! The future of the Fire Nation is looking bright!"

"Uncle, we were just coming over to give our congratulations. I'm going to go take (Y/N) to dinner at the Palace, if you don't mind." Iroh shook his head and began shooing them toward the door.

"Go enjoy your evening. One year together is a great feat for anyone, celebrate!"

With quick goodbyes and hugs, (Y/N) and Zuko made their way to the Palace. It was a nice evening out and neither complained about walking side by side back.

"I can't believe it's been a year," Zuko said after a few minutes of silence. "It feels like it's been a couple of weeks," he confessed. "I know I've been busy, but I feel like everything in the Palace is still so new since you changed it up. I'm still finding small details you've added, like the dragon carvings inside my wardrobe, or the flames painted inside of the sconces." (Y/N) smiled at her boyfriend.

"Good, that means I've done my job properly, each day should feel like a fresh one inside of your home." Zuko chuckled and pulled her closer as they walked. "I can't believe it's been a year either. So much has happened in such a little time. We went from client, decorator, to fighting the council on if I was a proper courtship for you, to dealing with the public about my true intentions, to meeting your friends, becoming friends with your friends, and now we're at a year." She reminisced. They had definitely hurdled over many obstacles in their relationship, but nothing stopped them from being together. There was never a doubt over their feelings for each other.

"I'm interested to see what our future looks like," Zuko's voice was soft. (Y/N) nodded and they returned to their comfortable silence as they walked toward the Palace.

When they arrived, Zuko had everything already prepared. Dinner in the garden was a sweet little picnic full of food. It was their favorite foods and desserts piled onto a maroon blanket placed nicely next to the pond. (Y/N) was ecstatic at the site and leaned over to her boyfriend, pecking him on the cheek affectionately before grabbing his hand and walking with him toward the spot.

After their dinner outside in their garden, (Y/N) was kneeled next to the pond, playing with the turtle ducks while Zuko walked around. She didn't say anything, but he seemed to be on edge after the food and she wondered if maybe something hadn't sat right with him. To help ease his tension, she tried humming a bit, pretending it was for the turtle ducks, when in fact, she knew he enjoyed her tunes as well. He had said it reminded him of his mother the first time he caught her doing it.

Zuko turned to look at her, while her attention was on the duck, he couldn't believe he was lucky enough to have been with such an amazing and beautiful woman. While he was annoyed at the question Ume had asked during the tea shop's opening, he was also grateful because it gave him a chance to set the boundary that (Y/N) wasn't going anywhere. He was in love with her.

"General Iroh's shop looked wonderful," he complimented her softly as he walked behind her, leaning against the tree that hung over the pond. She looked up at him and grinned before turning her focus back to the pond.

"Thank you, I'm glad you think so, I really hope people enjoy it and it helps Iroh's business out."

"People weren't able to keep their eyes off of the décor, (Y/N)," Zuko said, trying to let her know that she didn't have to be modest.

"I guess that's true…I did have a woman come up and ask me to take a job with her in Ba Sing Se, I already have a job there next month with that Nobleman's wife, I'm sure getting both done at once would be great." Her voice proud as she discussed her business, another thing Zuko couldn't help but adore about her. "However," her tone turned playful, "I could do without the 'Palace Decorator' silliness I keep hearing," she teased.

"That's what you are," he joked back, "no one else on this planet will ever be allowed to touch the Palace while I'm Fire Lord, I might as well let everyone know that now," he poked fun, "though, if you don't like that title…" he began, reaching into his pocket while she was still looking into the pond, "I'm sure a promotion is in order." He pulled out the object he had been carrying around all night, holding it just perfectly that the light glinted onto the golden surface.

Not seeing this action, (Y/N) snorted out a laugh, "A promotion? Oh come on Zuko, there's not much else I can get promoted to," she turned to look at him as she spoke, "other than the--" that's when her eyes caught the object in his hands and all words escaped her. Her mouth formed into an O, all amusement washed away.

"Fire Lady?" He asked, attempting to keep his voice level as he held up the royal headpiece typically worn by the Fire Lady.

(Y/N)'s eyes darted between Zuko and the crown, attempting to decipher if he was joking or not.

"Zuko, you can't be serious…" her voice low and filled with uncertainty as she spoke her thoughts out loud. He couldn't actually be implying this.

"Dead serious," he said, taking a step toward her, still holding the piece in his hand as he did. "I want to spend every day with you, go back to our room after a long day and relax with you, redecorate the Palace every single year with you, make fun of the Sages with you, dance every night with you,, all of it...with you." He whispered. "There's nothing I've been more sure of in my entire life. Which isn't saying much, since it's been filled with more than enough uncertainty, but you…" he finally reached her, "are the only certainty I've ever known."

"Me? Fire Lady?" She looked down at his chest, unable to focus on his molten eyes or the crown in his hand. "I…" All logic escaped her forcing her to dig through her mind and figure out a reason behind all of this. "The Sages, they'll never agree to it."

"They already did, this afternoon," his tone calm and collected. He knew this was a shock to her, it was a shock to him, but he had known that he wanted this since the first time she smiled at him and giggled.

"That's what your meeting was about?" Her eyes darted up to him, surprised at this revelation. It wasn't some meeting about the nation, it was to get their approval on her being Fire Lady. Then Iroh's words rang in her head.

Knowing my nephew, it must be important, he'd come up with any reason not to meet with the Sages.

How did your meeting with the council go? Did you get their approval?

The future of the Fire Nation is looking bright.

Iroh knew.

"(Y/N), am I just going to hold this thing all night, or are you going to say yes?" Zuko teased as he watched her try to reason through everything in her mind.

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she loved this man more than anything in the world and here he was before her, asking her to spend the rest of his life with her. It was everything she had ever hoped, but still somehow felt like such a dream.

"You didn't ask me," she smiled up at him, her tone completely void of panic now.

"(Y/N), my love, my Palace decorator," he winked causing her to giggle, "marry me. Become the Fire Lady that this nation, this world, needs, the Fire Lady I need." Resting his forehead against hers, he smiled.

"Yes," she whispered and immediately his lips slanted over hers, pulling her into an intense kiss. After a few moments, they separated slightly, catching their breaths, when he placed the crown into the half topknot she had luckily decided to wear that day.

"I love you," he purred into her ear, before placing a chaste kiss on her temple.

"I love you too Fire Lord Zuko," she giggled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Lady (Y/N)," his goofy grin plastered across his face, "I like the sound of that." Before she could respond, Zuko captured her lips with his again.

(Y/N) couldn't help but think back to what Zuko had said earlier that night:

I'm interested to see what our future looks like.

She couldn't agree more.

Master List 

Tag List: @royahllty​ @mangoberry43​ @mrskeishasdead​ @taeeemin​ @blushbadger​ @shortmexicangirl​ @fire-lady-livi​ @jujugentle @nnon-it-up​

[sugar-petals]

Can u introduce yuzuru to us the caro way?👀

so you want to know about the one and only. ♡😌

yuzuru hanyū (25) of sendai, japan: the most beautiful ice prince with a heart of gold.

….an artist clearly not of this world, he’s been sent to us from another realm. 19 world records, two olympics won, dubbed the greatest figure skater of all time. and the most precious bean on top of that.

but let’s start from the beginning, shall we ♥︎

so, want to spot yuzu on the ice? use this checklist. slender silhouette, an even slimmer waist, feather-like outfits (he sketches those himself; the fandom lovingly calls him swanyu), soft blushy face. he has great androgyny.

outside of performances, you see him either with a deer’s gaze or the brightest, biggest eye smile. also, he’s usually found sitting with his wife: 

which is the ice 😄 these two are together forever. you can discern yuzu from a mile away by how he treats his working ground. 

there is a purity to him. you’d not guess that this is one of the most ardent athletes if you didn’t see what’s around his neck after competitions. the guy’s cuteness is as compelling as his skating technique.

look for it: yuzu’s face is super suave and rosy up close, even after his most energetic performances. some men are handsome, others pretty, he is both. 

even acoustically, he’s hard to miss. applause is all around, and he’s highly expressive. if you see a crying young man getting the high score, that’s yuzuru hanyu. you’ve not seen more beautiful happy tears.

and score reactions, anyway:

so, aye loves, the rumors are true. a cutie-pie off the ice, animated, a real unabashed meme — yuzu is easy-going, talkative. cheery, cheeky, one of a kind. his facial expressions are a league of their own.

if you thought this is the sort of guy who watches cat videos, you are correct 😄

yuz-uwu hanyu, everybody:

his undoubtedly feline behaviour is often unexpected, it stands out with its adorableness, too. a sweetheart par excellence. 

and, how else could it be: vice versa, the big beast on the rink. he’s cutesy, dorky, very well-spoken in daily life, but when it comes to skating, his seriousness escalates. you blink once and suddenly hanyu is a bedazzling, strutting lion :’D his performances stun with confident elegance.

he becomes full of ardor, drama, and focus. you’d never suspect so much fire burns in him. a showman and ambition icon, hands down. 

his skating is dynamic, perfected, and emotional. if you want to see art and the extra mile, tune in when hanyu competes.

the downside is; more light, more shadow. it leaves him crawling on the ice afterwards. yuzu performs so hard, it’s worrying.

he delivers it all. you won’t believe it:

this guy is an asthmatic.

the symptoms aren’t as bad as they used to be, but there are still regular attacks. he said that he’ll never take it as an excuse and often recalls how he started skating because of it. he’s a badass, extremely inspiring. yuzuru defies all limits, including gravity. his jumps have legendary status. 

off the rink, you guessed it: he turns into a wholly different person. 

it all dissolves completely when he’s dorking around again. 

don’t let it deceive you, he’s the no other option than first place type. he could not be any more decorated with titles, he achieved the grand slam in all competitions as of 2020. and still, king of sportsmanship hanyu is respectful and smiley towards all colleagues and never lets anyone feel left out. especially when it comes to his juniors (e.g. yuma kagiyama, 16, below) which says a lot about him.

he bows in every direction before an audience, too. lower than a 90° angle, even. this is more polite than any existing formality in japan.

talk about audience: i introduced fellow japanese skater shoma uno last week, who’s more uncomfortable with social contact and aggression. yuzu, extrovert he is: the exact opposite. he withers away with no people and competition. he’s befriended rivals, had crises over not having someone who could challenge him. when a competitor retires, he’s the one crying in their arms (e.g. with team mate and bff javier fernandez from spain below).

beside his competitive spirit and princely wow factor, hanyu is popular for his winnie pooh tissue box that he caresses, squeezes, and carries everywhere. he loves good luck charms & rituals, pooh is the most important one.

fans throw pooh plushies on the ice after his performances because of it. since it’s gotten so intense, yuzu recently started cleaning them up himself on top of the flower girls for the upcoming skater who could get delayed otherwise. (more about what happens with the piles of plushies later.)

so, the burning question is. 

what made yuzuru hanyu emerge so outstanding an entertainer? how does someone causing so much uproar become like that? it’s not just what kind of appearance he was given, although he really looks his part to a T. you don’t have to be an insider to see it right away.

like literally to a fault. and you can tell the way his blades sound on the ice is different. it’s soft even if he does the most hardcore quadruple jumps. i think it’s because his drive to do this is a higher one, hanyu has an altered relationship with the ice. where his devotion comes from has a more severe reason so, massive trigger warning. 

this is no exaggeration: yuzuru is considered a hero to the japanese. a survivor of the earthquake 2011, he narrowly escaped the collapsing rink in his hometown on that very day. he’s often talked about how the ice shattered underneath his feet and it was the moment that defined his life forever. he could have been dead by the age of 16. his motivation has been set ever since. this man is compelled by something bigger, that’s why you hear it and you feel it. he wants to skate not just for himself but others and seize every day. 

much of his copious charity work — that’s where all the pooh plushies go — went to mend the consequences of the tsunami ever since, he’s looked upon as a great hope in japan. the minister gave him the people’s honor award in 2018. 

now you know why yuzuru has such a fanbase and treats the ice as sacred, you see it in every gesture. his manners are without a single flaw, he helps staff repair the ice after performances. 

you might think it’s odd, but he honors the ground. he’s invested in the integrity of it. that’s why he’s the best skater. it’s gratitude and the will to live fully.

he hates to fall on the ice, he hates to damage it. alongside his feathery weight, that’s why the sound he makes while gliding along is so tender. 

i think that’s also why hanyu’s signature element is the ina bauer. it doesn’t rely on brutal force, instead this element slides across the rink like a swan. yeah, oh my god.

it’s his most well-known dramatic move. the way he surrenders into it. 

hanyu’s back arch and perfect split allow him to do elements no other male skaters can. his biellmann spin, for instance. i know, it’s ridiculous.

and those are just two elements of dozens and dozens. hanyu is a kinetic wizard. i highly rec this record-breaking delivery of his olympic program. in front of his home crowd! he’s just�� mind-boggling. i live for his smiles here.

exceptional skater, exceptional mentor: it’s time we look at another puzzle piece that made yuzu the way he is. the masterful brian orser is hanyu’s beloved coach. missing gold by just one mistake at the olympics 1988, brian is now committed to give others what he couldn’t have— successfully so.

orser took the ice prince to gold twice, this hasn’t happened in 66 years. brian is the nicest and most supportive pooh carrier and yuzu’s utmost rock. hanyu’s talent rests safely in these hands.

he gets strict about punctuality lmao! but other than that, his guidance is gentle. canadian he is, brian’s courteousness mixes well with yuzu’s politeness. their bond is strong. as. hell. 

brian picked up yuzu from rock bottom several times. most fateful being hanyu’s accident with a fellow skater during competition warm-ups nov 2014. they collided at a high speed, it was unspeakably nasty. yuzu got knocked out for half a minute and had grave breathing problems but still decided to skate on with what later turned out as an almost-concussion. brian was the most worried ice dad in the world that day.

yuzu cried and crouched and bled like mad and my heart has been broken ever since. i hope he never suffers like that again. promise me you don’t search up the video, it’s a harrowing watch like a stab to the chest. sadly enough, hanyu’s body has still been a notorious wreck, esp. ankle issues regularly give him a hard time 😔

it hurts like a bitch with every jump landing but he takes meds and still manages to win, god knows how. sometimes even with crutches on the podium. at his worst, he’s still the best, it’s a tragedy.

he’s been recovering, or always is, but he pushes himself through injuries. his ambition and perfectionism are boundless. the cause is more important to him than his well-being. this is not an easy guy to stan once you see how he sacrifices and self-destructs. so, it’s good someone protects him. 

mostly from himself because nobody has profoundly surpassed hanyu. he has let himself no choice than to contest himself. not even health, only age can stop yuzu. i think that brian understands this ‘curse of a genius’ effect. his mere presence can make hanyu say these rare words:

his two other coaches contribute to that. tracy wilson (left) has proven to understand his playful side the best while ghislain briand (right) helps yuzuru deal with his fears. so you got 3 people taking care of the golden boy. brian once said: “he is very sheltered” and you can see it’s true.

yuzu eased into learning english and communicates well with his coaches. like with everything, he studies hard and often forces himself to speak during interviews to practice. his skills are astounding. his speaking voice is also very soothing, very amicably low and high alike. yuzu is highly intelligent. he always says something eloquent and interesting.

now, privately, hanyu is very much like you’d expect someone so devoted to skating would be like. he doesn’t go out, has no social media, can’t eat nor sleep very well. no cameras allowed during practice. it figures he is attached to winnie pooh, think about it. in the cartoon, pooh is someone who sleeps, eats, and engages with friends plenty. 

these are the things hanyu can’t do, doesn’t have time/energy/incentive for. he is barred from balance in life but can at least admire this little carefree plushie for it. especially because pooh represents eating lots while yuzuru doesn’t have a good relationship with food (he says it doesn’t go well with jumps etc.), hanyu lives vicariously through him. 

what’s more, you have to see how he throws himself onto others and never wants to let go, yuzuru is extremely cuddly. 

to the degree that mere social customs can’t meet how much he really needs. so, what else can he resort to, he loves mascots and plushies. it’s how the tale goes in japan generally, tough work ethic, high responsibility, high pressure, so people turn to cute fluffy things.

he always fondles pooh’s head, even pretends he’s come to life so he has someone to snuggle with. i think that his isolated lifestyle doesn’t help. so, he gets his affection at least there, you can see how happy it makes him. and again: he does this all for charity.

that’s why fellow skaters are so important to hanyu. it really brings out his social spirit and comforts him best, it’s so wholesome. i’ve not seen someone react so relieved to being embraced, like he’s not been touched for months. skating this, skating that. at the end of the day, hanyu wants love.

as he once said, what motivates him is to express himself in the first place. hanyu is a romantic. it’s written all over him. it reflects in his music choices, his elegant motion, how he designs his outfits:

… and how thoughtfully he talks about marriage. he has big plans for starting a family and coaching after he retires. i won’t be the only one squeezing lucky charm pooh in my imagination so it turns out well for him. please make this heart of gold heal and see all his wishes come true ♡🐻

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Today in Strongly Worded Opinions (That You Didn't Ask For), I'm going to assert that there are too objective ways to measure whether or not a relationship is strong in story terms – by which I mean, unrelated to whether or not readers/viewers personally like the dynamic or the chemistry of the actors (in such cases as there are actors involved).

So for the sake of clarity, be ye advised: this isn't about shipping, fuck it, ship whatever you want idc.  Shipping a strong relationship isn't inherently better than shipping a weak one – heck, you could just as easily argue that it's the lazier, less creative route.  Also, I don't care?  I don't care, it's just fandom.  Follow your arrow.  This is about ways to discuss whether or not a relationship introduced into a text succeeds or fails as an element of the story – or really as I'm going to prefer calling it, if a given relationship forms a strong or weak story element.

For this I'm presuming that you're creating a relationship between a protagonist and a secondary character introduced as a piece of the protagonist's overall story – protagonist/protagonist relationships aren't really a different situation, but they do have more moving parts, so for simplicity's sake, let's   stick with a Main Character (we'll call that M) and a Significant Other (S for short).  Also, these relationships by no means have to be romantic; any relationship can be measured as weak or strong in story terms.

Also, I'm going to say everything here as though it were factually true, even though it's just my opinion, which is correct, but if you disagree then it's only my opinion, but I am correct.  Ready?  Okay!

Strong relationships have story functions; in reality nothing means anything and people just like each other because they do, but fuck reality, it's a huge narrative mess.  And my basic premise here is that the story function of a strong relationship falls under one (or more, if you wanna get real fancy) of these three categories:

The relationship can unlock under-explored elements of M's story or character through mirroring or intimacy (often shows up as “friends to lovers”).  There is backstory that hasn't been unearthed yet, or some reaction or experience in M's life that could advance the story, and S can serve as a means to get at it.  Maybe M and S share a similar trauma or life story; maybe S is the first person M feels able to open up to about something profound and relevant.  Maybe part of M's story is a conflict between how they seem to others and how they see themselves or their own potential; maybe S is the person who sees them the way they see themselves...or sees M as the person they're afraid they'll never be.  The story goal being met here is giving M a boost toward successful completion of their story arc, so even though there could be conflict, S is fundamentally pulling on the same side as M in the major story conflicts, in such a way that by the end, the reader should feel like M's success is at least in part because of what they gain from their relationship with S.

The relationship can function as a piece of the story's overall conflict, or as a secondary subplot conflict (often shows up as “enemies to lovers”). Traditional romance novel plotting effectively slots the love interest into the role of “antagonist,” because the romance's conflict is generally driven by people not getting what they want from each other until certain win conditions are met.  In this kind of relationship, M and S might be actual-facts competitors, or be divided by ideological concerns, or they might be forced into proximity by the plot but clash on some personality level.  The arc of this relationship is typically going to be about the M softening up as the relationship develops – if M starts out ruthlessly single-minded, maybe realizing that they're running roughshod over S in the process is part of their character breakthrough; if the story is about M realizing that they've underestimated the complexity of the world around them, maybe coming to recognize S as an equal is how that gets concretized for the reader.  Basically this is a story where S presents a problem that M has to solve, and the more central to the narrative solving that problem is, the stronger the relationship is.

The relationship can serve to divide M's goals (often shows up as “love versus duty”).  This is a story where M has to accomplish two separate things in order to fulfill their arc, but those two things aren't easily integrated. One of M's goals might be fulfilling a vow, or filial duty, or seeking revenge, and the other goal is some form of protecting or obtaining S.  If the story puts M in a position of having to choose, then the relationship is inherently strong; it's providing narrative drive, whether or not S is especially well-developed as an individual character.  This one can be tricky, because a very weak relationship can serve a superficially similar purpose, by demonstrating M's devotion to duty or obsessive pursuit of whatever when M rebuffs S to keep them out of harm's way or to avoid distraction or whatever. The difference is that in those superficial cases, the audience is meant to recognize that aw, that's sad, M has really had to Make Sacrifices – but there's really no dramatic tension involved; we know all along that M is going to Make Sacrifices in purusit of the real goal.  When this is done seriously with a strong relationship, the audience is meant to feel divided as well; Romeo and Juliet just doesn't work as a story unless the audience likes Juliet and Mercutio, unless they fully identify with the dilemma that Romeo is in when he has to either avenge Mercutio's death or spare Tybalt for Juliet's sake and the sake of their future together. That's a big fucking story moment, and it only works because the audience buys both relationships – Romeo's with Mercutio and with Juliet – as narratively strong, to the point where Romeo's choice is not a forgone conclusion.  This one is much easier to get wrong, I think, than the other two are!

What I'm saying here is that a strong relationship isn't really determined by how personally compatible two characters seem to be; a lot of movies that fridge a character's wife, for example, rely on actors convincingly portraying, in a brief window of time, two compatible people who care for each other – I'm thinking of, like, Richard Kimble and his wife in The Fugitive, who I think do sell the idea of a loving and happy marriage, but the relationship itself is a weak one.  The story only really needs the bare fact of it – “Kimble had a wife that he loved and then this happened” – to kick off the actual story; the relationship between Kimble and Gerard is a stronger one narratively, because much of the emotional tension of the movie, what makes it more effective than just a series of chase scenes, is the way their mutual respect evolves as they compete against each other, and the story question of “Kimble really needs an ally, is this the right person for him to trust?”  It's such a strong relationship that it comes as a huge relief of tension when he does make that gesture of trust and it turns out to be the right choice.  The audience is happy that Kimble will be exonerated, but the audience is equally happy that the conflict between these two charcters is over – we didn't like them being at odds because we didn't want either of them to lose!  Now, would these two people ever be close friends, let alone come to love each other?  No? Yes? Who cares?  Kimble loves his wife more, but has a stronger relationship in this story with Gerard. From a writing perspective, it's trivially easy to introduce an S and say “M loves this person,” but it means relatively little.  It's harder to introduce an S and say “some part of this story now hinges on how M navigates knowing this person,” but that's kind of what has to happen in order to create a payoff that's worth the effort.  A strong relationship provides skeletal structure for the story; it can't be stitched on at the margins.

This is an even tougher sell in something like a television series, where the introduction of S may come in well after the story is underway and the bulk of M's characterization is already in place.  That's why introducing a late-season love interest is a notoriously dodgy proposition!  To demonstrate weak vs strong relationship in action, I'm going to take an example of what I think was a failed attempt and pitch some ways to doctor it up into a strong relationship: Sam Winchester and Eileen Leahy.

This is objectively a weak relationship.  She doesn't materially affect the metaplot of the series, or drive any major choices, or reveal anything about Sam's character.  She's just, you know, generally nice and attractive and Sam likes her, which is a fine start, but then the writers just leave her idling in the garage forever.  But it didn't have to be that way! Say we wanted to make it a Type 1 relationship: super easy, barely an inconvenience!  Eileen is very like Sam, actually, in that she lost her parents as an infant and then had the entire rest of her life shaped by the trauma and the pursuit of revenge.  That's amazing.  How many other people, even hunters, share that specific experience with Sam Winchester?  Sam was physically changed by drinking demon blood in infancy; Eileen was physically changed by being deafened by the banshee or whatever it was in infancy.  Even just allowing them to talk about that would have made the relationship stronger.  Sam is affected by the fact that there is no Before Time for him; even now that they've long since had their revenge on ol' Yellow Eyes himself, he grapples with the fact that he's forever robbed of any memories of innocence or safety or a life that wasn't lived in the shadow of this killing.  Eileen also has had her life's quest for revenge fulfilled, and also has to reckon with the fact that it doesn't actually give her access to the innocence that was stolen from her.  Maybe she struggles with that.  Maybe Sam can open up to her because she knows what it's like to look back on your child self and feel that however strong you've made yourself, you're never strong enough to protect that child.

What if you want to write something spicier than Sam and Eileen talking about their sad feelings?  Okay, let's take a Type 2 story.  Eileen has been a lone hunter with a disability all her life; it's fair to guess that even if she can't match Sam's physical strength, the fact that she's survived at all means that she's pretty indomitable.  Maybe she's had to be ruthless, even brutal in her hunting style; maybe she has a shoot-first-ask-questions-never approach to hunting that she credits with her very survival, but that Sam finds excessively rash and bloody.  Maybe they fight about it.  Have her kill some ambiguous, maybe-not-dangerous monstery types, a werewolf or something, and Sam's like, hey, we really can't just-- and Eileen is like, look, I hunt how I hunt, come with me or don't.  I mean, this is a retread in some ways of early season conflicts about who to kill and when, but everything in the latter seasons is a retread anyway, so whatever, and it provides something interesting to have Sam deal with this whiplash of how there seem to be two Eileens, the smiley, jocular sweetheart who eats pancakes with him and the one who kills like she's swatting flies.  What if he wants one but not the other?  It doesn't really work that way, does it?  Is this something he can dismiss as a foible, or is this a dealbreaker? The dude is almost forty, if he distances himself from Eileen, how many more hunters does he think he has a chance to meet and marry?  If she won't even listen to his concerns seriously, is it really a good relationship anyway, or will Sam's needs always end up taking a backseat to Eileen's?

A Type 3 fix could just come down quite plainly to, what if Eileen is ready to retire?  She's had her revenge.  She's lived her life on the hunt.  Maybe she's done, and maybe she wants Sam to be done with her.  Doing this in season 15 would circle Sam back to his season 1 story conflicts in a nice way, I think – why does Sam do this at all, if it's not for revenge any longer?  Does he feel personally responsible for every dead person he could've saved but didn't – is that a reasonable boundary, or lack thereof, to set?  Is a compromise possible – could he continue to coordinate hunts while also getting out of the field and starting a family, or is that still putting his family in the shadow of too much violence and danger to tolerate?  What's Dean going to say?  He's pitched a fit in the past when Sam said he wanted out, but he's mellowed with age, hasn't he?  Maybe he'll get it now?  But maybe Sam also feels guilty and fearful, because he knows Dean will hunt without him, so now he's in more danger because of Sam's choices, if Sam makes this choice.  It's a little heteronormative, as story conflicts go, but it's thematically appropriate to Supernatural, and the fact that Eileen isn't speaking out of timidity but out of the same weariness that Sam has so often felt about the whole endless cycle makes it feel a little less “the little lady won't let me go on adventures anymore.”  This might not be my pick of the three, but the point is that it makes for a strong conflict, a legitimate divided loyalty for Sam to wrestle with, and one that doesn't have a clear right answer.

Anyway, hopefully that helps illustrate what I mean when I say that the narrative strength of a relationship doesn't have anything to do with how likeable an S character is – Eileen is very likeable! But that doesn't substitute for building her into the fabric of the story in some way.  My expectation is that a serious protagonist relationship should bend the story arc in a way that requires response, and if it doesn't, I don't take that relationship particularly seriously.  Canon can declare a relationship real by fiat, but it can't automatically declare a relationship meaningful without, you know, making meaning of it.

Oh, and there's not anything really wrong with weak relationships – most M's are going to have several in the story.  My point is just that the difference between a weak relationship and a strong one isn't really a matter of taste or preference, but has a functional meaning that can be tested and measured, and if there's argument to be had about it, the argument can take place on evidentiary grounds.  Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[uaklauslovesdave]

Hi, thank you for sending me asks, I really appreciate it! :D Could you do 002 for klave, I always want to hear your thoughts about them <3

my buddy, my dude, it’s been roughly 17 years since you sent this ask, and i’m oh so sorry for taking this long to answer. it got to be one of those situations where i wanted to do it Properly, which of course brought the anxiety, which of course then brought the avoidance. But we’re here now! it’s a new era and i have a whole bunch of klave thoughts to dump on my unsuspecting followers. let us begin.

when i started shipping it:

Pretty much immediately! I remember first watching s1 and getting that slow confirmation that Klaus time traveled to the Vietnam War. We saw him on the bus with his fatigues and bloody hands and I was like ‘oh god oh no he went to Vietnam didn’t he.’ And then later we have Klaus experiencing flashbacks in the bathtub and there are echoes of the noises of war but also a strong and clear “Dave!” And in that moment my interest was piqued. Dave, he said? Who is this Dave? Is this someone he loved? Did he have a war-time romance with another soldier? And I was hopeful but I also didn’t want to get too ahead of myself because of Queer Baiting in Media reasons (like, I was in the marvel fandom, ok? I went through the whole stucky dance routine). But then, but then! We got more. We got roughly five minutes (or less?) of scenes of Klaus dropping down in front of a disoriented soldier, of this soldier introducing himself as Dave on a bus, of Klaus and Dave dancing in a bar, of Klaus and Dave sharing a kiss in a quiet corner, of Dave bleeding out and dying in the middle of combat as Klaus sobs above him. And it was quick and it was short but it was meaningful and it was tender and immediately I knew that I was gone for them. There was no turning back at this point. I was all in on the Klave Train.

my thoughts:

My thoughts? Where do I even start? I have many! Some are incoherent! Some are devastating! Some are sickeningly sweet! Some are raunchy! Stay tuned to find out!

what makes me happy about them/what makes me sad about them:

So I decided to combine these two questions because, well, I Do Not Know how to untie the happy and the sad when it comes to klave. I tried and I cannot do it. They’re two sides of the same coin with these two. Because their entire relationship is tinted by tragedy, you know? They only met each other because Klaus was tortured and then flung into a notoriously traumatizing war in the 1960s. And who knows what number tour Dave was on. Had he been there for just 2 months or was this second or third time around? I’m not sure which option is more painful, really. And it’s unclear, did Dave genuinely want to serve in the military? Did he truly subscribe to those values instilled by his family? I’d lean towards no, based on the conversation Klaus tries to have with the Younger Dave in the diner. But I think it took Dave some time to get there, as he grew older and came to better understand and accept himself and perhaps grew more and more disillusioned with the life he was pushed into. And then there’s Klaus, whose own experiences somewhat parallel Dave’s (they just happened on a different timeline). Klaus, who grew up under Reginald’s reign of terror, who was taught to be a soldier just like Dave was. But his own disillusionment was expedited and he was able to rebel and remove himself from that scene more easily than Dave could (but at the expense of losing shelter and security and stability). And we have some insights into what it was like for Klaus to grow up in that environment, constantly surrounded by death. When we first meet him he is a person who clearly does not do genuine attachment or sincerity, because that is far too vulnerable and far too dangerous in his experience. He looks out for himself and he does what he needs to do to get by, and he approaches things from a casual, crass (safe) distance. And then there’s Dave, who we learn a little bit about from his interactions with Klaus in 1963 Dallas. He appears earnest and kind, just a Really Good Kid. He seems somewhat confused by Klaus, but also intrigued. Pretty much every time we see Klaus interact with someone in the 1960’s who is not a member of Destiny’s Children they approach him with disdain (referring to him as “pretty boy,” kicking him out of the diner, etc.). But not Dave. Not until he is pressured into it by Uncle Homophobe. And after that Dave seeks him out and apologizes, says that’s not him. And he and Klaus talk, and we see that they really knew each other, they really had a relationship, but by the end of the conversation Dave has been pushed too far. He’s not quite ready to rebel yet, he’s not quite able to make that leap into living as his true self. Just like Klaus, Dave grew up trapped and restricted and surrounded by ghosts. Not literal ones, no, but the ghosts of dead war heroes who came before him, the ghosts of the Ideal Man and Good Son that he thought he had to be, that he thought he had to prove he could become. And it’s not quite clear how and when Dave finally got to that point where he could rebel, where he could finally push past the fear, knock down the walls of the box he had been shoved into. But by the time he and Klaus crossed paths in 1968 Vietnam he was ready. And Klaus was ready. And they brought that genuine, true, real love out in each other. Something both of them probably thought was never possible. Something both of them probably thought was just a myth. Just turning themselves inside out and sharing that with each other. Trusting the other to take care of it and hold and keep it safe. All in the middle of a deadly war. It’s beautiful and it’s painful and it’s why I love them.

things done in fanfic that annoy me:

Nothing really specific comes to mind. Generally if there’s something I don’t like in a fanfic I’ll stop reading and move on. There is, of course, the Fanon Klaus Problem that makes its way into klave fics, so I suppose that annoys me. Or stories where Dave is one-dimensional and seems to exist just to comfort and take care of Klaus. But really, I don’t wanna hate on anyone who writes fanfic in a particular way. You do you. If it appeals to me I’ll read it and if it doesn’t I’ll just pass it by. No big deal.

things i look for in fanfic:

It absolutely depends on the day and what I’m in the mood for in that particular moment. I’m a sucker for angst so I absolutely do not mind reading something terribly sad and tragic. I like hurt/comfort with an emphasis on the hurt. I’m a fan of the GhostDave Watches Over Klaus Through the Years genre. I like stories that explore their time together in Vietnam. I’m into AU’s that include AliveDave traveling back to 2019 with Klaus and they hang out in Klaus’ room in the academy and Dave meets the siblings and Diego gives him a shovel talk. Sometimes I just want that sweet, sweet smut. Mostly I look for something that is both lovely and sad, which is not hard to find because that is, essentially, their relationship. There’s lots of good stuff out there. All y’all writers are talented. I salute you.

my kinks:

Alright, I’m just gonna preface this by saying that I will try my best to be unapologetically open about this, but at my core I am both shy and repressed. My easy and safe answer to this is that my kink for klave is love, happiness, and tender intimacy. That’s what I really want for them. But also. But also! Let them be smutty! Let them find places to sneak away and fuck, Dave’s hand over Klaus’ mouth to stop him from making noise that will alert the other soldiers to their activities. Or maybe they’re sitting under a tarp in the pouring rain and Klaus sees how far he can take it, and Dave doesn’t back down, and it ends up with Klaus blowing Dave while some other guys are sitting just feet away, oblivious to what’s going on between Katz and Hargreeves just over there. And then there’s that time they get to take leave together, and they’re able to get a hotel room, just to themselves, with real walls and a door that locks and a bed and everything. And the digs aren’t great but it feels like a palace compared to what they’re used to, and they absolutely do not waste this opportunity. Dave fucks Klaus into the mattress, and Klaus gets to learn what it’s like to have someone take control because you actually want them to and you feel safe with them, and Dave gets to learn what it’s like to have someone trust you implicitly and be willing to be vulnerable with you. And it’s not perfect, of course, sometimes their histories and understandings of sex and intimacy bump heads, but they love each other, they really do, and they work through it. And they both cry during sex at some point. For Dave it’s the first time he’s done so, for Klaus it’s not (but this is nothing like those other times this is because he wants to be here this is because he’s overwhelmed with love this is a release this is being seen this is being cared for).

who i’d be comfortable with them ending up with if not each other:

Let me be real and say that I really, really, really want them to end up with each other, and I think that this is where the show is headed. But, if that is not the case, as long as they are happy I will be happy. Perhaps that is cliche, but oh well. Just let them experience love and support, whether that’s with each other, someone else, or just on their own.

my happily ever after for them:

I don’t know how and I don’t know when (like seriously, when in the timeline is a big question), but I want them to find a way to be together. Maybe it involves some time-traveling, maybe it involves some timeline-hopping, maybe it involves some Commission interference, maybe one or both of them will be dead, maybe (most likely) it involves something that has not even crossed my mind as a possibility. But, like I said, I think that somehow there WILL be a (perhaps nontraditional) happily ever after for them. It might take some time to get there and I don’t think it’s gonna be a smooth road, but I do think that’s the ultimate destination. And I’m looking forward to the whole process.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Good question! My first instinct was Klaus as little spoon. Because he is Klaus but also because of the Bar Kiss scene where Dave tenderly cradles his face and those Very Important blurry behind the scenes instagram photos of Klaus resting his head on Dave. But I also think it would be really nice for Dave to be the little spoon? Because Klaus gets to hold him and act as a Protector and maybe he can feel Dave’s heartbeat beneath his (hello) hand and he gets to wrap around him and hold on tight and he can let go when he wants to but he doesn’t want to, he wants to stay right here as long as Dave will have him. And Dave will have Klaus wrapped around him, holding on, as long as Klaus wants to stay. Dave gets to be held and cocooned in the arms of this beautiful person he loves. Dave doesn’t have to be strong right now, he doesn’t have to put on the face of the Good Soldier. All he has to do is fall into the space between them.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I’m gonna say that they had a lot of time to sit together and talk while they were in Vietnam. Sure, they had their duties and sometimes they were in the shit but there was also a lot of down time, just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. And so they’d sit and they’d smoke and they would talk. About their interests, about where they come from, and eventually about the life they would build together after they got out of there. But here’s a specific image that I have: they’re sitting close together, maybe it’s dark, there’s no one nearby. Cigarette smoke lingers in the air, mingles with the fine mist. The conversation has turned to music, somehow. Conversations have a tendency to meander when Klaus is involved, and Dave follows him step for step, never tripping, never questioning how they got there. And Klaus asks Dave about his favorite song, and Dave hesitantly mentions “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” like he’s embarrassed, but he’s loved it for years and he wants to be honest with Klaus. And Klaus hums and says he doesn’t know it, hasn’t heard of it, and he leans against Dave, lays his head against his chest. And Dave says, that’s ok, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a stupid old song anway. But Klaus says, no, you should sing it for me, I want to hear it, I want to know it. And Dave scoffs and laughs, but Klaus looks up at him, and then Dave looks away, and his mouth lifts into a smile, something small and fragile. He turns back to Klaus, looks him the eye, and softly, so softly, starts singing, “When Liberty Valence rode to town, the womenfolk would hide…” And Klaus drops his head and shifts closer to Dave and hears the words slip from Dave’s mouth and feels the words vibrate in Dave’s chest. He closes his eyes. There’s a war going on. It’s 1968 and he’s in Vietnam and his clothes are damp but he’s right where he wants to be. The song is not romantic, but it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. He never forgets the words.