#differently but that's also. like. a separate problem. AUGH. i hate it here!!!!

[v-arbellanaris]

tbd later

i think tht pisses me off the most abt the dalish in terms of how theyre written is the conflation between like. land back movements when it comes to the dalish vs zi onism and how basically this is addressed in truly horrific ways no matter which route you decide to go down

others have done loads of posts on the dalish being allegorical for indigenous peoples, so i wont reiterate that too much. but the problem is that with the addition of datv this is... simply not true. the elves are not the first peoples of thedas -- the dwarves are. the elves, mirroring z ionism, literally show up in the waking world, and violently colonise the space and hoard the resources. im still 98% sure that solas' orb in dai was a titan heart, and the elves were literally mining for lyrium. there are direct parallels between the arguments that z ionists make for settler colonialism in p alestine vs the in-world justifications for the "war" on the titans & dwarves. the ancient elves literally steal the bodies of the titans, mirroring i srael's history of stealing organs and even skin from p alestinian prisoners. elves' arguments of the lands being theirs etc is simply... untrue. and land back movements for the elves when we take this history into account is... an argument for settler colonialism. the land they were "given" by maferath, i.e. the dales, was literally never theirs but it gains such a sinister overtone, and again, parallels western nations "giving" p alestine to z ionists who demanded a state, with the assumption it was "theirs" first. and it wasn't.

at the same time, bw has gone out of it's way to draw clear parallels to the history of the j ewish peoples - between things like the long walk, the exalted march on the dales (harding even says "never again" when you get to the exalted plains), history of slavery for modern elves, etc - all create such a frustrating conflation between j ewish people and z ionism that pisses me off to no fucking end.

it's damn near impossible to solve for me as someone who is neither indigenous nor j ewish, because this representation is not for me. either i ignore datv and the end half of dai to draw more strongly on parallels between indigenous peoples and the dalish, at the expense of ignoring j ewish representation in the narrative. or i buckle down and directly address the z ionist nonsense, which leaves me with a horrible argument for indigenous land back movements. like how do i rework this!!!!!!!!!!!

when i fucking get you, bioware. when i fucking get you, david gaider!!!!!!!!!!!

[splicejunction]

Please tell me about shatterstar's Childhood

oh my god anon okay I’m assuming in context of what I’ve recently posted you want like... my version of events rather than what’s canon but just in case I hope you know that there’s basically zero canon material that actually describes his childhood/young adulthood beyond “I was a warrior born” or whatever the fuck. if you want to know about that idk go on the fucken... marvel wiki page or something

also--I hate that I have to put this out here and I doubt anyone would actually do this but just in case--I have spent like 1 million hours thinking about this because I have brain disorders and it is very close to my heart so please do not A) use this in fics, etc without letting me know/getting my permission in advance or B) reblog this post

anyways. this is a can of worms so I’m going to do a cheeky lil

first we have to get something out of the way: I hate the “shatterstar’s his own grandpa” paradox. I am sorry if this angers people but it makes me mad so I ignore it. the reason it bothers me is because it means alison blaire essentially married her grandson, which is A) weird and B) bad from a genetics perspective.

in my version of canon ‘star IS the biological child of longshot and dazzler but longshot wasn’t cloned using ‘star’s DNA because..... oh god... another whole separate post can be made about this but... in my head, on mojoworld the way genetic engineering works is not really the same as it is here. here genetic engineering generally means taking an existing genome and inserting or deleting genes. this is how they make, for example, animals that glow, or confer pesticide resistance to plants.

but on mojoworld I think the way they genetically engineer is more like... the way we mechanically engineer. like the entire organism is built from the ground up. there’s a master genetic blueprint which is essentially the “minimal genome” required for a functioning humanoid. this was created by study of Earth humans by arize and the other genetic engineers. they can then go in and customize by adding elements to the genome that code for the signals/building blocks that control things like height, strength, hair color, eye color, having hollow bones etc. so in my head longshot was sort of... designed with ‘star as the inspiration, but not directly cloned. that wouldn’t even make sense anyways because A) different hair color and B) LONGSHOT HAS 3 FINGERS ON EACH HAND and shatterstar has 4!! thats NOT HOW CLONES WOULD WORK!!!!

(side note, the concept of a minimal functional genome is a real thing in biology! some scientists have taken a bacterium that already has a small genome and reduced it to the minimum size required for viability. here is a wikipedia article on it and here is the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5447.2165) which I can explain in more detail because I took a class on synthetic biology which this technically falls under and I had to read this paper very closely).

fuck I’ve written 4 paragraphs and not even talked about his childhood yet. I am so sorry. anyways. so the way I think they raise the gladiators on mojoworld is they create them in batches of 5 to 10 identical copies of a certain “model”, place each copy in a different “class” with a set of 2-3 mentors/teachers, and train them to fight until they are 13 or 14. until this time the only names they have are the names that identify the “model”--like for shatterstar that would be gaveedra-seven where the model identifier is “gaveedra” and he is (in the lore that I have come up with) the 7th of 8 total.

the reason they create multiples and put them in different classes is each mentor is going to have a slightly different style of teaching which is going to work better for some and worse for others, so it allows them to have more mass production while increasing the chances of creating a truly great champion. it’s classic nature versus nurture--the genetic engineers create your nature, but you don’t end up exactly the same as others of your model. maybe you get an edge, maybe you don’t.

another thing that happens is different mentors believe in different ways of raising the kids in their care. shatterstar specifically was raised in a class where there was absolutely zero emotional development at all and no attachments allowed beyond fighting alliances. that’s not the case in all classes, and it also had the effect of making him somewhat of an outsider even within the other gladiators as he got older.

at 13 or 14--and yes I realize this is very fucked up but dude its fucking mojoworld idk what you expected--they start participating in fights. the first ones aren’t to the death and they’re as teams and they’re not usually televised they’re more like high school sports games that are attended by scouts (here, they’re “sponsors”--I think that’s a canonical term but I honestly can’t remember) and if you get sponsored you leave your class and join a new “team” that’s really just a bunch of people who all have the same sponsorship. this is where things can get interesting because they’ve all been raised with slightly different fighting styles but more importantly, slightly different degrees of Personhood.

also at this point I should mention that by this time, there are usually only 2, maybe 3 of each model left. either they died or were recognized as not having talent so they were sent to eventually fulfill other roles in the network. in ‘star’s case there was just him and gaveedra-five. once you get to the stage where you’re sponsored and you’re actually fighting to the death one of the first people you’ll fight is any remaining members of your model group.

by the time you’re the only one left of your group, you’re also eligible to earn a stage name. this usually happens if you have a particularly epic fight with a lot of viewers, you win and the commentators will typically say something like “Let’s give this crowd a real name to cheer!” and they’ll have a few candidate names and they’ll kind of just pick one. AUGH I actually have this scene written out in story form but its too long so I think I’ll save it.... :) 

after you get a name you also get a cool outfit and usually some kind of mark or tattoo that serves as a brand. this brings me to another important point--shatterstar inherited the X-gene from alison and therefore he IS a mutant. his mutation is the swords vibration thing and the glowing eye. the star mark is a tattoo and teleportation is benjamin russell’s mutation (how he fits into all this is... for another post). basically after he got his name the costuming department guys were like “hey your eye glows, you look like the Legendary Warrior of Old, Longshot, we’re gonna pattern your look after him” so they gave him the star tattoo and the outfit that’s literally inverse colors of longshot’s.

also this brings me to another aside: you’re probably wondering “if he’s the biological kid of longshot and alison how are there 8 gaveedras?” when the genetic engineers got a hold on him as a baby they were like Sick! free baby! free genetic material! thats our job done for us! so they cloned him (in the traditional sense) and made 7 copies. this was also to kind of conceal his identity as technically being from outside mojoworld, which would make him stick out and thus be a target. they DID edit out the x-gene in the other gaveedra models though. this wasn’t a problem for ‘star because his mutation didn’t manifest until he was already sponsored.

I think that’s .... pretty much it for macroscopic lore on what it was like to be a kid gladiator on mojoworld. now let me give you some Tidbits of his life specifically:

like I said he was raised in a particularly cold and ruthless class. the mentors that raised him are like well-known by everyone to produce some of the best warriors but also there’s discourse on mojoworld because some people say perfectly emotionless killing machines aren’t as fun to watch. when he was sponsored there were 4-5 others in the same sponsorship and they were like Theres Something Wrong With You LOL

they speak earth languages on mojoworld because they’re imitating the broadcasts they (the spineless ones) used to hear from earth. however, most of the lower-class as well as almost all arena fighters and other television personalities speak cadre or other languages which are native to the planet. the stage names are all vaguely in english, but the gladiators don’t really understand them at first.

shatterstar got his name before he got the glowing eye, and when he learned what stars are, and saw his eye as a little star, he was like wow :) this is Me :) which is why that name is so important to him. it’s also one of the first things that wholly belonged to him.

(you can’t see stars on mojoworld because of light pollution and also because it’s a pocket dimension and there just aren’t that many stars to see)

I hate to bring up the s**ley miniseries but I do think it would be interesting to have him have a sort of ... mentor/first friend, similar to the concept of gringrave but they were NOT in a relationship. it was more like... another kid who was a year or so older than him got a soft spot for him and helped him not be so clueless. she didn’t make as much progress as xforce did, obviously. but they were.... something like friends.

unfortunately she was used by spiral to get shatterstar to murder the first rebel guy who tried to get him out of there. then she got switched sponsors (this can happen) and he had to kill her, and he was like well I will simply never develop any kind of attachment to anyone ever again.

he almost didn’t make it out of the first training session with his sponsorship group (this is semi-canon--there’s a reference when he’s teaching terry to swordfight to almost not surviving the first time he was in a gladiator class or whatever it was).

the closest he ever came to losing was the day he got the name. that’s why the crowds loved it so much.

the double-bladed sword was a gimmick weapon but when he got his mutation they realized it works way better if there’s resonance between two parallel blades so they redesigned it as an actual weapon.

(forgot this but I feel like I should include it) at 17 he escaped the arenas and joined the cadre alliance. two years later he came to earth and joined xforce.

I think that’s going to have to be it for now because it’s literally almost midnight and I have work tomorrow and I did NOT intend to stay up this late but I did. thank you for this opportunity anon :) feel free to ask me any other questions and also I realize a lot of this probably makes no fucking sense and that’s because I am not a writer or anything I’m just a biochemist with brain problems that cause me to obsess over stupid shit

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun

Eighteen: Thalia

Love Bites (But Not Literally!)

             Saying Thalia’s insides felt jumbled would be like saying you might want to wear sunglasses if you’re going to look directly at Apollo’s chariot during his peek time.

           They finished up their separate forts. Axel had removed their door barrier and tried the door a few times to see how thoroughly the Lemnians had barred it. Considering they heard something being bolted into the door, she imagined facing these creeps was becoming more and more of a heroic task set out for two other heroes, maybe child of Hephaestus or Athena. She wished Annabeth were here. She could think of the tragedy the children of Dionysus would write about them now, titled: Lieutenants of Artemis and Kronos, Murdered by a fandom.

           They discussed pretending to have fallen in love with Phil and Hypsi. Thalia even tried, excited by the prospect of wringing the guys’ neck. Apparently, such inspiration made her flirtation come across as disingenuous and “homicidal” to Hypsi and Phraxa. Pft. They’d never flirted at a concert before.[1]

           So, Axel and Thalia sat on either side of half-a-massage table (that had been split in half for makeshift shields) with a sheet from the cabinet pinned to the ceiling as high as Axel—with his six foot Oh-My-Gods inches—could reach.

           Not that Thalia found his height attractive, but being around preteen girls didn’t lead to the most vertically advantaged tent making.

           Earlier, Thalia had been pondering out how to tell Euna that Artemis said girl-to-girl relationships were still a no-go, something that both made Thalia happy—since girl-to-girl romances should still be considered romances and taken seriously—but also disappointed, since Thalia was interested in Euna and wasn’t sure how she felt about potential loopholes. That already left the Lieutenant of Artemis questioning her feelings on being a huntress.

           Of course, she was terrified for Euna. Euna had seemed… broken when they spoke at Camp Half-Blood, and—despite Axel’s assurance that time moved differently here—time could also be moving differently on whatever path that psychotic talking head was taking Euna.

           “Time,” Thalia demanded.

           There was a small tear in the sheet where the ends met the top of their table divider, making a tiny hole in their oh-so-impenetrable wall. Axel hesitated, then slipped his hand through, so his wrist was visible.[2]

           Like last time, she kept telling herself it was to check to see how far away Euna could have gotten. It was, she growled angrily, eyes flicking to that stupid half-empty glass of pink liquid before looking back to their divider.

           This was not to look at his hand or touch it.

           His index and middle finger were missing most of his nail. Although the healing springs must have cleaned up the blood and wound, it was weird to see a fingertip with scarred skin instead of a nail, especially with how long, sharp, and feline his other nails were. (When checking the time previously, she’d made him lower the Mist on his fingers, since she accidentally cut herself on one.)  

           That must have hurt way more than he feigned.

           Thalia took his hand to twist his wrist into better view. She wanted to annoy him, to make him complain that she was being childish or bratty, to get into an argument and agree how much they disliked each other.

           He was in mid-comment, “—ventilation shafts are way too small to squeeze through.” He did little more than grunt when she bent his arm further. “No secret passages found on your side?”

           Stupid Axel with all of his stupid plans and ability to stay focused.

           “Nope, fresh out of secret passages. Any other brilliant ideas?” she snapped, hoping it sounded mean instead of desperate.

           Eleven minutes had passed. Thalia’s head felt like it was swimming. This feeling could get worse? Hypsi said this would become unbearable in fifteen minutes!

           His laugh sounded pained. “Thalia—”

           “Lieutenant,” she tried to distance their names, but felt like her comment had come out weaker than she wanted.

           “Maybe it’s because Luke told me how you used to flirt with him, but you’re really bad at pretending to hate me.”

           Thalia growled in anger, “I told you that I didn’t drink that stupid potion—“

           Axel squeezed her hand. Her heartbeat skipped to see that they’d enlaced their fingers, without her even realizing they were moving. His calluses were rough, like hers and the gentle pinch of his remaining claws was comforting, reminding her of the cute paws on Artemis’ silver wolf pack.

           The wolf pack.

           The Hunt.

           A dulled sense of panic made her tremble.

           “Thalia,” Axel said gently, “Even without… current circumstances—” She could hear him squirm on his side of the table. “—we’re still friends. You pretending to hate me or be mad at me isn’t going to help. Though… you might undo the healing spring’s work if you keep bending my wrist like that.”

           He tapped his two fingers without nails against the top of her hand.

           “I don’t have to pretend to be mad at you,” she whispered, glaring at his hand. She tried not to think about how he was seated on the other side. They’d agreed to stay on opposite sides of the rooms. That worked when they were searching around for other potential exits. Also without intending to, they both sat as close as possible once they were done searching.

           Thalia clenched the grip on her bow with her other hand. Axel had instructed her to shoot him with a knock-out arrow if he tried to come to her side of the room, with the warning that he’d had much more of the potion than she had. But, what if she came to his side of the room? Would he be able to fend her off when he’d run away from Hypsi like a little kid?

           Not that she would admit to drinking any of the potion. Or having any problems. She just wanted to go over there and sock him in his dumb, ruggedly handsome face for almost dying by the hands of a hidden monster and almost drowning and getting them into this mess.

           “Axel,” she said.

           “Leonis Caput,” he offered.

           After hearing his chuckle, she realized he was teasing her for the “Lieutenant” thing. “Shut up,” she said.

           “Yes, Lieutenant.”

           “I’ll break your wrist.”

           “I’m sure you will.”

           She rolled her eyes. “You asked about why I didn’t side with you guys, uh, during the Titan War.”

           “Yes…” his voice was soft again.

           Thalia frowned. She wished she could play with her choker, but knew she should keep her hand on her bow.

           “When I woke up from being a tree, Percy was the first person I saw. He brought me back. He and Annabeth updated me on the years I’d missed and taught me how to be a person again. They told me about how Luke had sold his soul to evil or whatever. Camp Half-Blood was the first safe place, outside—outside of being with Luke and Annabeth… that I could call home. It was safe. Before that, I was always running and hiding, either from my mom or other monsters…”

           She took in a shaky breath. “Even if I wanted to fight against my dad, or how the gods treated their children, Luke’s path wasn’t the way to do it, and I couldn’t turn my back on my new family. How would you feel if Pax joined Camp Half-Blood?”

           “I’ve been trying to convince him to for months now,” Axel said, sounding defeated. “As he’ll tell you, he’s like a parasite that’s impossible to get rid of. And he knows I’ll never join Camp Half-Blood.”

           “You guys are so weird,” she said and sighed. “You won’t join Camp Half-Blood, but you’d become a hunter or join the legion?”

           “The legion was different…”

           Thalia felt a spike of resentment tighten her chest. She knew for whom Axel wouldn’t mind compromising his beliefs. Normally it made her happy to think of Reyna finding a guy who properly cared about her…

           “And I still think being a hunter would be incredible,” he said.

           She snorted. “How long before you fell in love with Lady Artemis?”

           “With you around?” he teased. She could see the sheet tremble as the shadow of his other hand traced the cloth. Then he flinched and withdrew his hand. “Sorry. This is…” He cleared his throat. “Difficult.”

           Thalia felt her cheeks get red. “At least our wall has a hole in it.”

           “Yes, so we can plan our escape,” he said with that same hint of amusement from earlier.

           “Our super successful escape that doesn’t result in us being captured by non-combat creeps,” she grumbled. “Augh, this is just embarrassing.” Thalia checked the time again, groaned, and pressed her face against their enlaced hands.

           Axel let out a soft noise. “Thalia, don’t…”

           “Hey.”

           “Mm?”

           “It’s been thirteen minutes,” she said. While she knew time was moving faster in their section of Tartarus—or the Labyrinth?—than outside, it felt like Kronos was making each second take forever as one last middle finger to Thalia—or at least a slow moving “second” finger.

           Axel swore under his breath. She could hear him pop his cheeks, a cute, self-conscious noise. His nails dug into her hand for a tense moment, piercing her skin, before he released her and stood up. His silhouette loomed behind the sheet, the shadow of his ears perked and alert.

           “Axel?” she asked uncertainly, lifting her bow.

           “I’m going to try to get them to open that door,” he said, lowering his voice. He picked up the second half of the table—propped alongside the one they’d been leaning against—and lifted it up as a shield. Thalia flinched as a piece of their boundary line disappeared. “This is around the time they thought we’d break, and, even if they don’t believe you with Phil, Hypsi seems to think I looked at her.”

           Axel took a step forward. With the second half of the table gone and the sheet too short to touch the floor, his feet and the animalistic arches of his calves came into view. Thalia could feel her heartbeat pounding in her head. She thought about the humanoid monsters she and the other girls tracked down.

           Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Axel, do you think you could survive if a huntress hunted you as prey?”

           He stepped to the edge of the sheet and half-peered around with a devilish smile. “After we get out of here, you’ll have to find out, huntress, won’t you?” His golden eyes glistened. “I should warn though, it’s hard to force a predator to stay prey.”

           Axel began to push the sheet back and froze. One of his towels was coiled around his shoulders, the other wrapped around his waist. Now that she was looking at it, the spa garb and table-shield made him seem weirdly domesticated, like Disney decided he looked too militaristic with his lion pelt and leather skirting and replaced them with some last minute, bad CGI cover-ups. She found herself staring—as she’d struggled not to before—at the horrific scarring along his hip and that annoying V indent of muscle along his abdomen.

           Stuff Thalia might have typically observed with the same interest as a math review book, at least as a huntress. That’s what she kept reminding herself, though his presence made it difficult not to think about how attractive she’d found Luke or Apollo before she joined the Hunt.

           Axel cleared his throat, puffed up his cheeks, popped them, and looked away. The hand he had on the sheet trembled. “Tha—Lieutenant. I need your help making this sound convincing.” His voice was low as he took a difficult step away from her, towards the door.

           Thalia reflexively leaned forward. She was terrified to realize that she’d let go of her bow upon seeing him. She scooped it back up, slung her quiver over her shoulder, adjusted the towel she’d wrapped around her chest for extra coverage, and approached him as casually as possible.

           Each step felt like it came with little Huntress of Artemis chastity road signs of Danger this way! and Hot Man Ahead! Proceed with Caution and maybe speed readers that just said SLOW DOWN in place of a mph.

           Was he having as many problems as she was? He looked so calm.[3]

           Keeping her bow between the two of them made Thalia shake with effort. This whole thing was so stupid!

           “How can I help?” she choked out.

           Axel was trying to keep his eyes on the door. His shoulder and back muscles quivered as much as his hands. He walked up to the entrance. “Assuming they open the door, we need to strike fast—”

           “Yea, I know the combat plan, Cat Breath. How can I help with Hypsi?” she hissed.

           “Stand here.” He vaguely gestured to the wall beside the door. A good tactical spot for sniping anyway.

           Thalia complied, trying her hardest not to touch him as she got into position.

           He chuckled painfully. “Normally, I don’t let emotionally compromised people go into battle.”

           She rolled her eyes. “Are you serious right now?”

           Again, Thalia told herself to wait on pummeling Axel until after the potion wore off. She had so much excess, pent-up energy, she was in perfect condition to wreck Phil and the Lemnians. Smashing people’s faces in was the perfect distraction from… this. Something to use as a strength and not to mark her as “comprised.”

           “You’re not the one I’m worried about bursting into Mayan love poetry,” Axel said.

           Thalia choked on a laugh. “You have Mayan love poetry memorized? Who are you? Apollo? Is there even that much of that?”

           Thalia pictured Axel reciting a romantic haiku and giggled.

           Axel mumble something in Mayan before saying, “Shut up.” His cheeks were bright red as he glared at the door. “Hypsi!” he called, much louder.

           “Axel!” Thalia hissed wearily. He never said what else she could do to help.

           Axel balled his fist, pressed it firmly against the doorframe closest to her, and leaned down until his head was about six inches from the door. With how he’d leaned down, if he turned to her, their faces would be at the same height. If he took one sidestep to the right, or if she ducked under his arm to tiptoe left, Axel’s arm would be positioned perfectly at the crook of her neck, and his face…    

           Thalia went silent. If her cheeks could get hotter, she was pretty sure they could melt the door down.

           While they still weren’t touching, this was the closest they had stood since taking the potion. They’d agreed to keep more distance…

           Thalia was annoyed to catch his cinnamon-chocolate scent.

           “Don’t hit me until this is all over with,” he whispered, “Me crying out in pain or being interrupted might shatter the illusion.”

           Shuffling sounded outside the door. There was some whispering. Thalia wondered what the Lemnians had been doing this whole time, though couldn’t focus on it while staring at how Axel had braced his arm.

           “What?”

           Hypsi’s voice was shaky, like she’d still been crying. If Thalia could have broken her eyes away from Axel, she’d have rolled them at the Lemnian’s tears. Sure, get really upset that a guy you tried to force to love you didn’t really love you. (Shocker.)[4]

           Axel took a deep breath. “I know… we haven’t known each other well for very long,” he said, loud enough to project through the door, but quiet enough not to blow out Thalia’s ear drums. “And I know these emotions are sudden, and that… that I shouldn’t want you, that I shouldn’t feel this way… and that they’re coming from… from magic…”

           Thalia wanted to flick Axel’s nose. Maybe she’d been out of the romantic business for a long time, but this didn’t sound the best way to woo a girl. When they got back to camp, she’d have to tell Piper and Calex to give him pointers, else he was doomed.

           Then she noticed how his eyes kept trailing to her.

           He wasn’t talking to Hypsi. Thalia swallowed. His arm was straining against the wall to keep from touching her, just like he was struggling not to keep eye contact.

           “You were right. This… is unbearable. I’m slipping. I just want to touch you, to give you the hugs you never got when you were feeling insecure or vulnerable. To remind you of how amazing you are for handling all the incredible things that you brushed off as being part of your family, or being who you are. I know you don’t need me, and you already know you’re strong, but I…”

           Axel’s voice broke.

           Thalia’s stomach felt like it decided to dive into a trampoline park without her permission.

           “Sorry,” Axel whispered to Thalia. His jaw clenched. While keeping his fist firmly against the door—as another barrier, Thalia realized—Axel leaned his head to the side, pressing his forehead to her shoulder.

           Her breath caught. Thoughts clogged to a halt. She tried to think about Artemis, about her huntresses, the wolves, the camping, the wild, Luke—she tried to think about how much it hurt to have someone she loved so much betray her and become a monster—

           She tried to remember this was one of her friends, someone Reyna had a thing for, someone she didn’t want the troops of Artemis to hunt down in vengeance and that didn’t need her death (by the hands of a vengeful goddess) on his conscience. What would she do if this were happening to a friend? Maybe one of her sister-huntresses reaching out for emotional support to get through some horrific trickery?

           Thalia awkwardly patted Axel’s shoulder, in the best, most platonic there, there motion she could muster. And to not curl against him and ask for that hug, since she definitely didn’t want or need that.

           And he’d been talking to Hypsi to get out of here. Not her.

           Thalia glanced at his wrist. They were at the fifteen minute marker. For a startled moment, she realized her eyes felt warm and wet.

           “Yes?” Hypsi said softly on the other side of the door.

           “I need out of this room right now,” Axel’s voice was still soft, but it was enlaced with an inner, threatening growl.

           Whispers erupted on the other side of the door. With how close she and Axel were, and how excited the Lemnians were talking, she could make out what they were saying.

           “Phil! Phil! It worked!”

           “I don’t know, Hypsi. What if he’s faking it like the girl?”

           “No—that’s almost verbatim how Medea’s How To pamphlet said he’d feel. I mean—yea, he knows he drank the potion, and it came with the warning of amorous side effects may vary—“

           “I don’t know…”

           “You’re just sad the girl’s potion ended up being a dud.” That was Phraxa.

           “Either that, or she just realized you’re too gross to like even with a love potion,” Hypsi’s voice was lighter, the tears were gone. She sounded hopeful.

           Maybe this would work.

           “Come on,” Phraxa continued. “The lightning rods are installed in the hallway, so the girl can’t hurt us. If he’s a Mayan sorcerer, he can’t perform magic without any fire. We’ve got the nets all set up. If they end up still rejecting us, we’ll just hack them into pieces and toss them into the river—”

           Axel punched the door, making a thud loud enough to make Thalia jump.

           “Hypsi, let me out. I can’t handle being in here any longer,” he said. The undertone of his voice took on that gravely quality.

           Hypsi giggled. “Oh! He sounds impatient!”

           “I’ll get the drill,” Phraxa said.

           Thalia guessed the noncommittal grunt came from Phil. “Okay, fine. Everyone else, stand by to decapitate a hero if they come out fighting.”

           There came a cheer from at least five or six other voices.

           The door shuddered with the sound of some power tools.

           Axel and Thalia released sighs of relief.

           He turned his head to look up at her. They should have been getting ready to rush the Lemnians. They may have been outnumbered, but both Thalia and Axel agreed these weren’t exactly primed warriors. Even if they were, they’d rather go out fighting than be captured (again).

           Ready to be decapitated? Axel mouthed, nuzzling against her shoulder. The hairs of his goatee tickled her skin, making her heart leap.

           She wanted to tease Rather that than hear your Mayan poetry, but she couldn’t bring herself to tease him. Maybe to knock his lights out for all those… nice and horrifically inappropriate things he had said (though, only to trick Hypsi, right?) but she couldn’t do that yet since she needed him conscious for this fight.

           The door gave a loud thump as it came loose from some exterior barrier. The knob jiggled.[5]

           “Oh, jaguar warrior, you locked the door,” Hypsi sang.

           Axel stood up straight, his eyes glistening with excitement. He squeezed Thalia’s shoulder and picked up his table-shield and makeshift table-leg-club.

           Thalia felt like a normal girl would be offended by how easily he’d withdrawn from her shoulder, since the love potion must have taken full effect. However, Thalia could sense the same thing he could while she prepped her bow with an arrow: beating the snot out of these jerks would be the most romantic outing either of them could possibly go on at that moment.

           Axel carefully unlocked the door. “Ready for me to take you, Hypsi?” he asked.

           Thalia could see him choke back a laugh. She did the same at the double entendre.

           What they saw when they opened the door was not what they were expecting.

           One moment, they could see Hypsi standing there—looking relatively normal in her chiton, though she was now armed with two daggers—with two people in imposing mechasuits behind her. One held a crossbow trained on the door, the other held a net gun. Phil grumpily leaned against the wall, almost out of sight, gripping a sword.

           Looking at the suits, their table-shields felt a little unprepared.

           Before the door was open enough for Axel to lunge forward, someone down the hallway screamed in alarm.

           A familiar voice let lose a crazed, boisterous laugh. “Trying to use love spells on me?”

           The person in the mechasuit with the net gun repositioned to whatever bigger threat was down the hall.

           Axel didn’t have a chance to take advantage of the distraction. A silver greyhound with ruby eyes slammed into the mechasuit, knocking Ms. Net Gun to the floor.

           Before the person with a crossbow could fire at Argentum, Thalia shot a knockout arrow at the second mechasuit. While it didn’t damage the armor, it did ruin their aim, their cross-bolt harmlessly slamming into the wall.

           The second mecha suit didn’t have a chance to reload as a golden greyhound knocked them to the floor.  

           At the same time as this onslaught, a golden bolt struck Hypsi’s shoulder from down the hall. She went rigid, noticed something, and sprinted out of sight, all while shouting, “Wait—fly! Your wings are so beautiful! Nothing could compare! My love for you, I must declare!”

           Thalia was ecstatic that Axel hadn’t burst out like that.

           Phil was half-way through drawing his sword when a tall boy with a black scarf and a red-and-black beanie nailed him over the head with one of the pink punch pitchers. The glass shattered, spilling the love potion all over Phil’s head. Before waiting to see if that was enough to take out the creepy Lemnian, Calex followed through with a solid punch to the side of Phil’s head.

           Phil crumbled onto the floor.

           Calex dusted off his hands on his Camp Half-Blood sweater and unslung his golden bow from his back. He beamed at Axel and Thalia. “Hallo! Lovely day to be seeing you in an inter-dimensional plane.”

           He poked his head back into the hall to shout, “I win! You’ve gotta get rid of this rubbish.”

           Clatters and panicked shouts came from the location.

           Reyna just sounded annoyed when she spoke back. “There’s a lot of it,” she sighed, then, louder, “Aurum, to me! Argentum, stand guard!”

           The golden greyhound took off down the hallway while the grey one stood by the door like one of the Lemnian sculpture sentinels. From the looks of it, one mechasuit wearer was unconscious and the other had crawled away.

           Calex returned his grin to them. “We had a running bet on who would find you first and who would need to find your gear. The first bloke we threatened at the front said they were in two different places.”

           Axel clapped Calex’s shoulder, beaming with—Thalia blinked—pride? Thalia suddenly felt like she was intruding on a moment where a commanding officer distinguishes a soldier for his bravery, or, really, a moment of bromance.

           “Thanks, Calex. And you used to be worried that you wouldn’t be a commendable hero.”

           Calex glanced away in pleased embarrassment, noticing Thalia. His eyes widened, and he glanced from Thalia to Axel. He took a step back, pointing between the two of them in confusion.

           Thalia felt her chest constrict again. Yea, it was taking every fiber of her being not to walk up and bump her shoulder against Axel, but it shouldn’t have been that obvious. There was no way Calex could tell—

           They were both mostly naked.

           Thalia felt her cheeks go bright red again. Another boy on the Eye Gouging to-do list.

           An understanding hit Calex, making him snap his fingers. “Ah, right. Love potion. But, how did you two—and why—?”

           The smile fell off Axel’s face. “Fix us,” he hissed with more desperation than she’d ever heard from him.

           Thalia felt dumb for forgetting who Calex’s father was.

           Calex put a hand to his beanie, examining them. “Um, I’ve never… taken away someone’s—”  

           “Do it,” Thalia snarled, taking a threatening step towards Calex. The motion brushed her shoulder against Axel’s, sending a tingling sensation down her spine. Axel went rigid.

           “Can’t you two…” Calex shrugged. “Wait it out?”

           “No!” they both said at once. If they tried that, Axel would be spouting out Mesoamerican sonnets and she’d end up killing him, since there was only so much punching he could handle once she resorted to that to avoid hugging him. And to save his self-respect, since no one should know love poetry.[6]

           Calex tentatively touched his bowstring, giving Axel a critical stare. “Aphrodite tried to seduce you, mate,” he said skeptically, “and you can’t handle a love potion?”

           Thalia was about to yell at Calex to hurry up, but paused.  “Is that why she cursed you?”

           Axel frowned. “Better story to tell when we’re not under the influence.”

           He turned back to Calex. “I hated Aphrodite, and she wasn’t a brave, beautiful punk warrior that I’d been told amazing stories about since I was fourteen,” Axel hissed. “And the Leonis Caput wanted to murder Aphrodite, not go on some weird date-hunt thing because he knows she’d be into it.”

           Thalia’s head spun, trying to gauge how old Axel was and exactly how often he had conversations with a murderous cat-creature in his head. Good reason to join the huntresses of Artemis—when all the guys you like end up being partially possessed. “Luke had been telling you stories about me since you were fourteen?” she asked.

           Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. When the jaguar warrior blushed, Calex looked like he couldn’t decide if this was hilarious or disturbing. “Right,” Calex said, pulling back his bowstring. “Let’s shoot you two.”

           A burst of grey energy exploded to life on his bow. The volatile vortex tightened and solidified into a scarily thin, black metal arrow.

           Calex paled. Sweat broke out on his brow as he struggled to pull the bowstring to full draw. He took aim, point blank, at Axel’s heart and paused.

           Axel didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes locked on Calex’s. One of his hands slipped down to link a pinkie with Thalia’s.

           This felt wrong. Thalia suddenly wondered if they should be reversing the potions effects or if the potion just wanted her to think—

           “This is a bad idea,” Calex said, his arm shaking. “A leaden arrow might… might make you incapable of being friends. And…”

           Calex dipped his point to the floor. Slowly, he relaxed his arm. The black arrow dissipated into smoke.

           Argentum growled.

           “Calex,” Axel said in a tone similar to the greyhound.

           Thalia felt the same, wanting this over with. Not that it should matter, but the crashing down the hall had stopped.

           Calex shook his head. “We can’t have you two hating each other on this trip. Let me try something else. I think I can… hyper accelerate the effects? It might make you feel like rubbish for a bit.”

           Axel nodded. “Just… please don’t not shoot me this time.”

           This time, when Calex drew his bow, the bolt was fiery white and gold, sparking madly. There was no hesitation or struggle in Calex’s stance. This seemed natural for him. He drew his bow and immediately fired.

           Axel may have mentally prepared himself to be shot.

           Thalia hadn’t.

           The arrow split. The second half arched and struck Thalia in the chest.

           For a moment, she thought Calex’s arrow would be fatal. Because the arrow had glistened like a mirage of light, she thought it wouldn’t hurt.

           The force of the impact made Thalia stumble back. Her chest felt like someone had jammed a knife into the impact spot and twisted it to crack open her ribcage. Instead of going through her or vanishing like she thought the arrow would do, the arch of light liquefied and burrowed into the wound, like a flaming snake that wanted to fill her insides until they splintered.

           Everything shook. Thalia felt like she’d been hit with a falling anvil. Emotions stuck on fast-forward: the months of seeming isolation with the huntresses, the guilt and shame of wanting to betray Lady Artemis and abandon the way she honored Zoe, her once-tranquil solitude turning into a maelstrom of loneliness and ache, finally reaching the catharsis of getting over Luke’s treachery while crumbling under the distance between she and Axel and the fact that they could never be together and the pain of knowing he only wanted her because of some stupid love potion and what could have happened if she’d joined Luke’s side of the war and the confusion and—

           Thalia could hear Axel collaps to his knees.

           She crumbled soon after.

           Tears streamed down her cheeks. Thalia clutched at her chest, wishing she could tear the liquefied arrow out.

          ��“Holy Maiden Artemis,” she gasped, “Love bites.”

           From the brief glimpse she got of Calex, he had slung his bow over one shoulder, leaned against a wall, and folded his arms. “You two still want to thank me?” he asked, watching them—with some concern—withering in anguish.

           Axel had curled into a ball, but managed to withdraw one hand for a thumps up. “Thank you,” he choked out.

           Thalia nodded in begrudging agreement. She couldn’t imagine living all of that in real time.

           The pain eased. Her breathing returned to normal as did her heartbeat. When she glanced over at Axel, she no longer had that annoying butterfly feeling or empty wanting. Instead, she saw an embarrassed friend straightening out of a crouched position with as much dignity as he could muster.

           And fumbling to grab his towel when it slipped to the floor.

           Thalia was relieved that her genuine reaction was, “Axel! Gross!”

           Axel gave her a relaxed smile once he was covered. “Sorry to offend your eyes, huntress.” He stood fully and offered her a hand. “Things don’t need to be weird between us, right?”

           Thalia snorted. She glanced at Calex, who had respectfully become engrossed looking down the hallway. She took Axel’s hand—glad again that it felt no different from taking that of a huntress—and said, “Just don’t tell anyone I gave you CPR, and we’re good.”

           Axel blinked as he helped her to her feet. “You gave me CPR?”

           Thalia scowled, feeling her cheeks redden form embarrassment that had nothing to do with the potion. He was joking, right? “You didn’t know!? Between the drowning and the electric shock—why do you think I’ve been calling you Cat Breath all day!”

           After Hypsi and the others completely disarmed them, Thalia hadn’t trusted Hypsi or the others to touch Axel and her electrical surge was what made him need CPR. But—she thought he’d politely pretended not to remember.

           “Is… my breath that bad?” Axel asked, cupping a hand over his mouth to check. He frowned self-consciously.

           Thalia remembered his soft scent of spices and chocolate, but she wasn’t about to admit to that, especially after the day’s events. “Yes,” she said firmly.

           “Leonis Caput, you need a tracking device on your clothing,” someone said from the doorway.

           Thalia jumped when Reyna jammed Axel’s clothing, lion pelt, and weapons into his arms. He startled.

           Reyna turned to Thalia. “Huntress,” she greeted, offering Thalia her clothing and weapons in a much gentler fashion. Aurum trotted up, proudly shouldering their supplies packs.

           There was no anger in Reyna’s voice, but, from the scarily controlled tone and hardened expression, Thalia suspected Reyna knew everything that happened, or Reyna thought she did.

           Thalia took a deep breath. Reyna wasn’t an idiot. If Thalia judged her humor correctly…

           “I had to give Axel CPR because he got his ass kicked by a slime pup. Would you say Cat Breath is an appropriate nickname for him?”

           A terrified moment of silence passed, but Thalia knew Reyna was awesome. There was no way—

           Reyna’ face cracked into an appreciative smile. She looked relieved.

           Axel looked mortified, clutching his towel to himself as Calex choked back a laugh. “I—um—”

           “Get dressed, Cat Breath,” Reyna commanded. “We need to make up time in our hunt for Euna.”

           “I—” Axel started.

           Calex patted the stunned boy’s arm, then dragged him out the hallway to find a different changing room. “Looks like you’ve got a new name for the rest of the trip. Let’s see if it catches on the surface world.”           

               The moral of this story is, don’t consume food or drink from strangers in their creepy Grecian bathhouses. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

So Many Footnotes:

[1] Jack disclaimer: Depends on your concert. Metal heads? Utter gentlemen and gentleladies that know how to have a good brawl. Punk concerts? Prepare to be punched in the dick.

[2] Mel immediately called out what play-within-a-play this is referencing. Our conversation, “A lion keeping them apart.” “Despite wanting to be ly-ng on each other!” Pax *cry laughing* Jack *applauds Mel’s pun*

[3] MelBetaComment: “Just don’t look too far down.”

Jack: *ehem* “I can neither confirm or deny Mel’s assumption until I’m several oceans away from a certain Mayan warrior.”

[4] I’d like to think, “Shocker” is one of Thalia’s favorite expressions.

[5] Definitely wrote “the door knob giggled” in my original draft. Mel took it literally and was quite confused.

[6] False. Jack should know love poetry *wink*

[awfully-sadistic]

The enemy of my... wait.

“If someone told me I’d be working together with you, I would have laughed.” Dot’s tone didn’t give any indication that there had been any laughter behind her statement and the bite following caused Ada Wong’s hands to still in her task. But it was only a flicker of a moment because deft fingers worked to attach the muted mine onto concrete and Ada hurried back, taking Dot by the shoulders to usher her a safe distance away before it exploded.

“And told them they were stupid. And to stop talking to me ‘cause I hate liars.  But we promised to save some kids and that’s the only reason why I’m doing this--!” Dot was still talking as Ada placed her arms around Dot’s petite shoulders, curling herself over the younger woman to ensure nothing touched her when the mine activated, spouting debris everywhere. There was a timer ticking a countdown and something amazing soon happened afterwards. But the next thing Dot realized was that there was a hole in the wall and sound coming back to her ears.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, looking up at Ada. Then, realizing the other woman’s closeness, Dot began to shake her off her shoulders. Ada didn’t seem to mind, instead opting to answer Dot’s question.

“It’s a mute charge,” she whispered, turning back to the hole in the wall which the mine had cleared. She stuck her head out and looked up and down the darkened halls to ensure that no one was coming to give them any more trouble. “I manged to swipe some of the military tech lying around the facility and figured it would be useful.” It definitely did prove to be useful since there had been a wall standing in their path between here and the children. “We don’t want to draw anymore attention to ourselves and had agreed to let Leon do the heavy lifting, but we needed to get through. It emits a vibration-dampening field and mutes the noises of gunfire and explosions.” Once Ada saw and heard that no one had been alerted to their position, she turned to give Dot a smile. “Pretty useful, huh?”

Dot folded her arms and muttered something under her breath like, “I guess.” There was no way she was giving Ada any props or the satisfaction that things were going pretty well... considering the dangerous environment they were in and the fact that anyone could start shooting at them at any minute. And though Dot didn’t like to admit it, she had preferred prowling and stealthily moving around as opposed to standing around in a fire fight. Leon and Monica seemed to have that front covered as much as she worried about the two and as much as she would rather be with them at the moment helping in any way she could, she was with Ada. But she couldn’t deny that that stealth and cover was going to be needed to evacuate a dozen or so kids from the building.

It was somewhat by choice, too. That was what frustrated Dot the most. Once everyone had heard there were children being held captive in the building, finding out that they were being experimented on, Dot had already knew where she was heading. She knew where she was needed and there was no changing her mind no matter how much Leon protested they get rid of the bigger threat first. But Dot’s heart had always been with children (especially those in need!) and there was no guarantee that the children would have been safe to see this entire thing through. There were so many perils in this underground facility, Dot didn’t want to be around it another minute. She can only imagine what those kids were going through.

“I’ll go with her,” Ada had compromised. It had shocked Dot to hear that Ada was volunteering on doing something selfless and for children, no less. 

“I’m surprised you want to do anything to help anyone.” Dot couldn’t help the snarky response that flew from her mouth despite being vaguely grateful for the help to persuade Leon to let them go. If it bothered Ada, she didn’t let it show. She was used to the hostilities Leon’s partner and girlfriend harbored for her. Something about not treating Leon right? Instead, she gave Dot a fairly confident smile bordering on smug that Dot wanted to pop her one in the mouth and smear that red lipstick she wore so perfectly applied all over her face.

“I never said I was coming along to help the kids.”

Dot’s gaze narrowed and she frowned deeply. It figured she had some ulterior motive and one she wasn’t too keen on sharing since she didn’t elaborate on it. Leon looked helpless switching his gaze between the two women and Monica, who was awkwardly shuffling on her feet and looking anywhere else but in front of her, didn’t ask any further. The both of them were supposed to provide Leon Kennedy the backup he needed and running into Ada was just, yet again, another inconvenience. Dot wanted to argue but Ada was the only one who volunteered to go.

“Sorry, Dottie, I have one half of the EMP resonator Leon needs to install. I’d go with you but...”

“That’s alright, love,” Dot said, turning her gaze to give her best friend an encouraging smile. “Ada and I will go rescue the kids. You just need to give us a time frame to work with, we’d need the extra time to escape with them as well as an escape route before all the power cuts out and we get trapped somewhere stupid.”

Leon looked pensive as he thought the situation over. He was iffy about letting his girlfriend and Ada Wong, a rather un-trustful person, go off on their own. But he understood Dot’s worry. And he also cared about the fate of these children as well. There was proof they were still alive and caged in another part of the compound but...

“Splitting up is always a bad idea...” He finally said, raising his worried gaze to Dot. They weren’t setting off a bomb, but they were shutting off all the power to the compound as a means to hinder the private military company using and even trading B.O.W.’s around the globe. Experimenting on these children had produced faster, smaller, and deadlier B.O.W’s as much as it broke Dot’s heart to hear it. However, this EMP will also incapacitate the power on safety measures, shutting down or locking down some areas and restricting the exit points they could use as a means to escape. That was why it was so important Dot and Ada find a couple of reliable escape routes for their side mission. Their main goal had been to shut down any B.O.W.’s in production, stalling them in their test tubes and cryo-chambers. Leon had no doubt they’d get this task done but he did not know exactly what entails from shutting the entire place down. However, from his experience in things like this, it usually means it opens gates for bigger and larger obstacles. That was what scared him the most, being separated from Dot during one of those times.

“But right now, it’s the only option we have.” Dot pointed out. She agreed with Leon that splitting up was a terrible, terrible idea and she also knew the importance of this mission, but since there were four of them, it’d be no problem to focus their efforts on this one little thing. It was probably safer from actually doing the main mission.

“You’re right,” Leon stated, shaking the hair out of his eyes. He sighed deeply and settled his gaze on Dot. She could see the worry still etched on his face, the way he looked troubled at the turn of events and then finally having to make a decision to send his beloved girlfriend off to go through unknown elements but knowing they must do anything they could for those children, too. “they have to be saved and I can’t think of a better person to help them.”

Dot beamed proudly, reaching down to give Leon’s hand a squeeze; one he immediately returned. Leon and Dot were too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other that they missed Ada’s curious glance between the two, it had almost went unnoticed. Monica rubbed the back of her neck, wondering if Ada knew that she was openly staring, wondered if Ada realized she wasn’t as great at keeping a poker face as she had thought. There was blatant jealousy in the way her gaze lingered over their linked hands and Dot’s soft expression, her happy smile, and the minute Ada turned her gaze to lock with Monica’s, her facade was back up. That mask was on again. Monica gave the other woman a nervous smile and looked down at the handgun in her hand suddenly finding it much more interesting. It wasn’t like she could say anything about what she just saw. 

“How about if we...” Dot settled the map down on a nearby crate and Ada and Leon stood hunched over a map for the next half hour, going through all the escape points the girls could go through that’d support the escape of a dozen kids. They took into account how the children might not be at their best, either, weak and malnourished until they finally came up with a plan.

That was what brought the events up to now. Dot was still struggling to get along with Ada but she couldn’t help but notice something was different about the other woman when it was just the two of them. Ada seemed a lot more relaxed, not quite as cocky as when Leon was around. And Ada never addressed Dot in that same cocky tone she would use on Leon, either. Dot was open about her distaste about the woman but Ada never showed her the same treatment. It was almost enough for Dot to feel guilty about how hostile she was treating Ada when it seemed she was doing nothing wrong... but she has been around Ada for many years now, been privy to her attitude whenever she and Leon ran into her. Not to mention the many times she’s double-crossed them or done something to suit her own ulterior motives. 

Augh. That reminded her.

“What did you want, anyway? You don’t even want to help the kids, it’s clearly something you’re after. So what is it?” Dot brought up the question that was left hanging in the air from the small enclosure they had been in several minutes ago. Ada stood on the other side of the hole made by the mute mine, holding a hand out while the other supported herself on the wall as she leaned in towards Dot. 

“What did I want?” Ada asked, puzzled. When she saw that Dot was staring at her hand, she wiggled her fingers enticingly. “Come on, I just want to help you over.”

“Wha--” Dot blinked, “I can do it...” she argued a little confused. Dot wasn’t the type that was usually stubborn when it came to things like this. People helping her, extending hands to place in theirs. But this was Ada and she didn’t trust her.

Ada didn’t say anything but she didn’t retract her hand, either. She did, however, watch as Dot stepped over huge piles of concrete and rubble, stopping just before crossing over. Ada’s hand was still extended and she glanced down at it, still perplexed. Why???

Hesitantly, Dot did take Ada’s hand. If Ada wanted to help her across, fine. That’s her thing. Dot wasn’t going to be hearing about this later when Ada turned it around and made her look the bad guy for this--

“Wuh!” Ada had pulled Dot across the concrete barrier and was apparently a lot stronger than Dot had anticipated. She now stood IN Ada’s space, pressed against the other woman’s front, head craned back having to look UP at her.

Was Ada always this tall? No, it had to be the high heels, right? Yeah. That’s it. High heels.

Ada had that stupid smug grin on her face again and Dot made to move away, to push herself away, but she didn’t move anywhere. Ada’s other hand snaked around her back, her waist, holding her close.

“Were you asking what I wanted?” she asked. Her gaze roamed Dot’s face, taking in the way her lip curled, the obvious distrust, maybe even hate on display, for all to see. Ada couldn’t blame Dot. She has screwed Leon over many times. She just couldn’t help if Leon brought his girlfriend with him and she got caught up in things. It wasn’t what Ada wanted, well, for Dot anyway. She didn’t give a care for Leon S. Kennedy. if anything, he was like an annoying little brother who kept popping up and trying to get into her business. But Dot.

You know how sisters get crushes on their brother’s friends? It was something like that. 

Ada Wong had never been attracted to men yet they found her attractive and she used that against them; wasn’t it their own fault for being so gullible? So easy? She thought she could use it against someone like Leon when she had first met him but Leon jumping in front of her to save her many times and his selfless nature changed her mind and genuinely allowed her to see the man as nothing more than a good guy; one of the real ones out there. For as much as she deceived Leon, she also cast a helping hand too, and she felt like a big sister trying to guide a dumb puppy of a brother from getting himself seriously harmed. But when Leon started to bring his girlfriend around, it was like the world stopped for a moment as she settled her eyes on Dot Dreadful. Perhaps she was a little more cruel to Leon in those times when Dot was around because she was jealous.

Dot was a very attractive woman and Ada could find herself in the shoes of all the men she had deceived in the past if Dot had wanted to turn the tables on Ada one day.

Dot may have been asking what Ada wanted but Ada was never one for straight answers. But, like Leon, perhaps she’d cast a line to help Dot understand on her own. Slowly, she slid her arm out from Dot’s curvy hips yet taking the time to savor the feel of her in her arms.

“Its true what I said back then. I didn’t come along because I’m helping the children.” she paused before she turned around, starting to walk off to lead Dot to where she wanted to go. “I’m doing this because I’d rather help you.”

[buffyverse-rewind]

S6 E5 “Life Serial”

Augh, I hate this episode. Is this review probably going to be biased?  Yeah, probably.  I’ve literally put off watching this episode for weeks.  

Right off the bat we have Buffy coming back from her off screen rendezvous would Angel, bringing home a bucket of chicken, taken by surprise by the fact that the others have already eaten.  

(Sigh) Seriously, I know this was early 2000s, and Buffy may or may not have had a cellphone, but who comes back from out of town after, what, at least a day or two, and stops to pick up a family dinner without first checking with the family if you should?

But never mind that, what the actual hell Giles?  Buffy’s home a minute and she’s supposed to have her life plans figured out?  He’s not necessarily wrong to want to engage her on that subject, but come on, asking her out of the blue like that, apropos of nothing and in front of everyone?  Why right then?  Why not give her a little after whatever drama you know probably went down with Angel, and more importantly, why wait until you can have this conversation with Buffy privately, when the two of you are alone?  

But of course the segue into Giles’ question is that “they’ve been talking about Buffy’s plans” – meaning that Giles and the others were discussing what Buffy should do with her life without her; which is super classy.  Girl was dead for months, back a week and everyone’s so concerned she doesn’t have life all figured out.  Fuck you Giles.  What happened to the tactful, thoughtful Giles from season 3, who was the only one in the group with concern for Buffy’s emotional well being; and actually took the time to draw out from her the issue that was bothering her about how things went down with Angel at the end of season 2, so that she wouldn’t feel pressured or backed into a corner?

And then there’s the fucking Trio…. God I hate this season.  Like, Warren was pretty much an asshole from his first episode, so him as a recurring villain doesn’t surprise me.  Andrew is… Whatever.  He was invented for the purposes of this plot and he continues to serve whatever purpose the plot dictates.  But come on, Jonathan should arguably be better than this.  Yeah, he’s done fucked up on a couple of occasions, but the idea that he would out and out be on board with intentionally being a super villain or criminal is ridiculous.

A bigger issue here of course, as is often the case with the conventional depiction of most “super villains” is the sheer redundancy of their goals.  They want to be rich and powerful yet have all of these resources that already suggest they already are.  I mean, Jesus Christ, with all the shit Warren can do, why does he even need to mess with the Slayer?  Why does he have to do any of this?  He could go to Silicon Valley and practically print his own money and do whatever the fuck all he wants to do; legal or not and he’d be rich enough to get away with it.

The time dilation part of the episode makes zero fucking sense.  What exactly is happening with Buffy from Tara’s point of view that she continues to go about her day like Buffy isn’t just frozen in place?  At one point she even just leaves Buffy behind.

And then there’s Buffy’s day with Xander.  Can I just say, “Fucking Xander.”  It has nothing to do, necessarily, with what’s happening in the plot, just in general that Xander is a fucking tool.

Now of course, there’s the scene itself and Xander…. Well, he’s not strictly a tool in this scene, but he does seem to be a fucking idiot.  I mean, Jesus Xander, have you only just met Buffy?  You’re acting like you haven’t fought demon possessed robots or been possessed by a Hyena; and feel the need to tell Buffy not to talk about the strange things you all encounter on a regular basis.  Although considering that “Tony” the foreman also lives and works in Sunnydale, evil lint is probably the least crazy sounding thing he’s heard about or seen firsthand.  For that matter, neither should the creatures that attack them later.  This show loves to have its cake and eat it too; Sunnydale is a hotbed for paranormal activity, high mortality rates, all manner of demons casually going about their day; yet it’s still supposed to be like any other run of the mill city where no one has ever seen nothin’ out of the ordinary and skepticism abounds.

And then Xander introduces Buffy to the less than enthusiastic crew, gives her no kind of job orientation and promptly ditches her to work elsewhere; so… yeah… even when he’s doing Buffy a favor getting a job, Xander’s kind of a tool here too.

(Sigh)  Why do you have to go and ruin a perfectly fun Groundhog Day-esque time loop trope with this crap?  And come on, this causes Buffy to never want to work in the magic shop afterwards, that she’d rather work at the fucking Double Meat Palace?  She’s at the shop all the fucking time otherwise, why not get paid to fucking be there?  

And she didn’t include shipping, well that’s on fucking Giles and Anya for not properly training her, or making sure her first sale was done right.  Jesus tap dancing Christ, this episode pisses me off.

And if the fucking hand can move on its own, why is it just out where it could escape or something? How did Anya or Giles expect to find it when they need it, let alone catch it or package it?  How was it transported there in the first place? Why didn’t Buffy fucking ask for help?? God, I hate when writers have to resort to making the characters idiots in order to make the plot happen.

And was Buffy saying the hand was just “playing dead” a nod to Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch? Because if so, fuck you.  Don’t besmirch the Python with this shit. (Warren’s line pretty much confirms this.  So yeah, fuck you.)

If time is looping, how are the Three Amigos watching each loop?  Is time only looping within the shop? If so, how does the unsatisfied customer keep coming back?

And fucking playing poker for God damn fucking kittens…. Fuck season 6.

 Does this episode get credit for introducing us to Clem?

…. No… Because what the hell do they actually do with him, other than use him for comic relief?  He becomes Spike’s funny looking sidekick.  

Because drunk Buffy was such a comic winner in “Beer Bad,” the writers felt the need to revisit it.

Now, you see Giles, this is when you should be talking to Buffy about her life and her plans; you’re alone and these things are on her mind. She doesn’t need to have the answers, but you could be helping her find the path that might lead to those answer. THAT is what she needs.  The check is arguably appreciate too in the meantime, but given that he’s so concerned about her being dependent on him that he soon leaves the fucking country, this last scene may or may not be misstep for you. You could be making the case for her to come back to the magic shop.  You could be helping her figure out other ways of supporting herself financial that wouldn’t interfere with her Slaying; which no matter what anyone else is says, is her job; one for which she doesn’t get paid, but takes first priority over everything in her life, including her life and expecting her to find a job that she can live on that won’t conflict with that is just absurd.

Let her using the training space in the back of the shop to offer self-defense classes.  My personal preference would be for the two of them to open a funeral home together.  It makes all sort of sense as a front for a Slayer; you have early access to the recently deceased, it explains you coming and going from all of the cemeteries.  I say mix some holy water in with the embalming fluid and the instant a new vamp turns they go poof.

But barring that, just sign your fucking share of the magic box ownership over to Buffy.  Maybe that’s too unfair to Giles.  After all, it’s his business, his income, but he doesn’t apparently need it.   The only reason he bought the business in the first place wasn’t because he needed the money, but because he was bored; and now he intended to be a silent partner in the business while he did fuck all in England.  His status as a reinstated Watcher is ambiguous at best, but at the very least he got some hefty back-pay and may still be receiving a check from them. Meanwhile, if Buffy got his share of the magic shop business, it may not be much, but it would ostensibly be enough to keep Buffy afloat.  She could be as much of an active or silent partner as Giles was.

But oh, no, that would solve all the contrived problems that Buffy is facing this season.  Giles wouldn’t have a reason to leave (which would presumably cement his status as active Watcher, meaning he’d definitely still be receiving his own separate income from the Council, while ensuring Buffy’s financial security.)  Buffy might have found the strength to confide more so in Giles than in Spike and avoid that toxic relationship. Who knows if Giles being around would have made much of a difference with Willow, seeing as he was there for Tabula Rasa, but maybe he would have stepped in before things escalated following Amy’s return. But I digress.  I hate this episode.

[frankireads]

meet cute diary by emery lee / 391 pages / 3.5 out of 5 stars

(cw for mild transphobia and description of panic attacks)

the short version: noah ramirez, a newly openly transgender teen, finally gets the chance to live the meet cute romance he’s been writing about on his popular tumblr blog, the Meet Cute Diary. what started as personal romantic fantasies quickly grew into a source of hope for many trans readers, and noah is determined to do anything he can to continue doing that after a troll exposes his “anonymous stories” as nothing but fiction—even if it means fake-dating-to-real-dating drew, a fan of the blog and noah’s first real meet cute. but can noah balance his new boyfriend, his now long-distance best friend, and a summer job with devin (who seems to be more tolerable than noah originally expected)? it’s a romcom with a trope twist that gets you in your feels. what more can i say?

the long version (with spoilers!) + full breakdown under the cut

the long version: so, noah’s spending the summer with his brother at college while their parents perform a cross country move throughout the background of the book. he’s got a pretty popular tumblr blog, the Meet Cute Diary, where he posts trans meet cute happily ever afters...except they’re not real. they’re all fake, and when a troll starts to poke holes in his stories, noah scrambles for something to grab on. that something happens to be drew.

drew, the ideal meet cute worthy boyfriend, works at the bookstore that noah interviews at (he does not get the job). after posting a meet cute to his blog based on interactions held with drew, their next interaction has drew confronting him about it--and then offering to fake date, all in the name of saving the blog. after all, what’s a little summer fake romance to save the hopes and dreams of trans teens? if noah’s got anything to say about it, it’ll end with them happily in love, so there’s really no harm being done in the long run.

at the same time, he’s dealing with his best friend, becca, being on the other side of the country from him. their relationship starts strong enough at the beginning of the book, but after being sidelined a few too many times in favor of calls about drew (and later devin), becca puts her foot down and calls for a break in their friendship, as noah’s selfish tendencies have made it harder for her to handle the fact that he is gone. he’s also dealing with his brother’s new girlfriend who characterized by her love of “exotic” things and being the true sole transphobic rep in the entire novel. noah’s brother, brian, shut their relationship down fairly quickly after the event--and is all-around a great big brother to noah, who’s maybe a little slow on the pick=up to some of noah’s jokes but loves him and supports him regardless.

then there’s devin--who enters the scene in one of the most charmingly disgusting moments i’ve ever read in my life. using the first set of neo-pronouns i’ve ever read in a book (e/eir/em), e manages to really steal the show (as well as mine and noah’s heart) as e figures out what’s most comfortable to em, while becoming a new and positive pillar in noah’s life.

as noah and devin’s friendship progresses, his relationship (or lack thereof) with drew deteriorates, and while at first noah thinks it’s cute that the diary brought them together, it also becomes one of the things that tears them apart. this, drew’s borderline obsession with being apart of the blog, drew’s inconsiderate date choices, and a big lie on drew’s part that he used to manipulate noah into spending time with him (which is a whole separate issue) help noah to realize that sometimes relationship don’t work out because you meet all the imaginary requirements and checkmarks. sometimes the best relationships are the truly unexpected one, the ones that you fight for in the end, and when the book concludes with another extremely charming gesture on devin’s part, there’s signs of growth and hope for noah’s future.

what worked for me: the relationship between devin and noah is really strong throughout, even at the beginning when noah’s in his “ugh i don’t want to work and i don’t want to be friends with this person who puked on me” phase. i think i just ultimately really liked devin as a character? e was really earnest, didn’t really play into noah trying to start fights, and was generally more enjoyable than more of the cast (unfortunately). i also liked that noah gave em space to try out different pronouns and see what worked best for them. it’s moment like this that were really the strongest parts of the book--when noah shined best was when he was supporting his friends and listening to them, like a good friend should. oh, and i really enjoyed reading a book about a trans character that wasn’t like...riddled with transphobia. the problems were not being of noah’s transness (or his triracial identity), but situational things, and i really enjoyed not having to brace myself for dread every other minute.

what didn’t work for me: the tone of the book in noah’s pov read a bit too young on the ya side of things for me, which is totally fine! i know i’m probably not the intended audience here. however, a side effect of this was that noah came off way more self-centered and i don’t feel it was resolved well-enough in the end. that, and the entirety of his relationship with drew was just. augh. was literally cheering along with his best friend when they broke up. i also hated there was no real closure to it? drew lied to him about something fairly big and i get it, you can just not have closure with relationships, it happens, but for this to be the romance that was marketed on the book as well the central focus for 3/4th of the book...it fell flat for me, and made the ending feel rushed.

to read or not to read: honestly, if you’re not in the target demographic you might not have the intended view of this book, which at its core is a very sweet message of living one’s truth and finding happiness despite. i don’t regret reading this book, but i don’t think i’d read it again? still, i’d be willing to check out whatever emery writes next.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Short stories, Nightmares

Well, I had a lot of fun writing this fic about Logic experiencing a nightmare, and Roman helping him with it, so I decided to explore Roman helping Anxiety, Patton, and himself with nightmares. @sanders-snippets had an idea of Roman helping Anxiety during nightmares on this thread and that’s what prompted me to write this. @corystssides also wrote a fabulous fic based off of that same thread and you should go and read it.

Tip Jar

Warnings? Well, they’re nightmares. They’re meant to be distressing. There’s abandonment themes and extremely painful but non fatal physical injury, a blood mention, and falling. Also, stressful situation having to do with a car.

Abstract: If you don’t remember your nightmares, its probably because either its not a problem you can deal with consciously or your dream self successfully took care of it. In this setup, Anxiety is the source of all nightmares whether he wants to be or not, and Roman is the one that helps the subconscious overcome the problems.

Anxiety’s Nightmare

Roman hated it when Anxiety was the one experiencing the nightmare. Okay, he usually did. Part of the time, Anxiety’s nightmares were easy to deal with. They were social nightmares. Accidentally coming to school in your underwear, forgetting your line on stage and having people throw things at you, uncomfortable romantic or sexual situations, things like that. Things that were easily remedied by getting Anxiety out of there or simply giving him a pair of pants to put on.

Then there were the abstract nightmares. Good God, did he hate those.

Roman tried to find where Thomas was being represented in the dream. If he could do that, he could pull Anxiety out and give him slightly more control. If the personality trait experiencing the dream could think consciously instead of riding along that made things much easier.

He suddenly found himself standing upside down on a ceiling over an auditorium. Wait no. It was a field now. And, he wasn’t on a ceiling anymore. Okay.

He started wading through the field, which seemed to be changing color, and bleeding paint? No, not anymore. Now it was a house that looked like it had stepped straight out of the 1950s. What in the name of sanity was any of this supposed to represent?

He heard inappropriate noises coming down the hallway of the house and decided to follow those.

He opened a bedroom door that seemed to have a mind of its own and saw Thomas standing there like a statue as a woman without any eyes made unwanted advances.

Roman pushed her out of the way and she warped and spasmed until she disappeared. He took dream Thomas by the hand and spun him around. As he spun around, dream Thomas turned into Anxiety, eyeshadow and all.

Anxiety fell over and Roman made no effort to catch him. As soon as Anxiety hit the floor, it began to warp and made a solid effort to swallow him.

Roman jumped down the pit to retrieve the emo persona, threw him out of the pit, and jumped after him just as the ground snapped shut.

“What is going on here? What does any of this mean?” Roman asked, panting on the ground.

“Princey!” Anxiety said urgently.

Roman stood up and wheeled around to find himself facing a giant spider. He held back a scream and then hit it with his sword. As soon as he did so, the spider exploded into several thousand more spiders.

Roman let out a shriek of terror and grabbed Anxiety’s wrist. He dragged the other side away as quickly as he could. Anxiety was secretly grateful for this,  because a moment before he couldn’t bring himself to move out of sheer terror.

The two personality traits found themselves running down a mountain that only grew steeper as they went. Soon, they fell over each other and the drop swiftly turned to a 90 degree angle. Soon, they were free falling. That was quickly brought to a stop by a tree that was growing out of the side of the wall of a mountain they had fallen off of.

Anxiety landed next to Roman at a strange angle and both heard a snap.

“Anxiety, what was that? What does any of this mean? Tell me!” Roman said, trying to stay calm.

“My leg just snapped, genius,” Anxiety said, “Ow, augh. And even I’m not sure what it means. We’ve got a lot of issues, Princey,”

Roman gently helped Anxiety turn into a sitting position. It was true. Anxiety’s lower leg had snapped clean in half and was now turned at a horribly unnatural angle. It would go back in place once the dream ended, but for right now the pain was very real.

“We need to get out of here,” Prince said. “Perhaps there is a trail, or a door, or…”

“Forget it, Princey,” Anxiety said. “We can’t fix any of this. Just let it happen. There’s no point,”

Roman stood on the trunk of the tree and angrily looked down at Anxiety. “I am really growing sick of your unbearable, defeatist…”

They heard a snap. Then a crunch. Then the tree shifted.

“Told you. Ow,” Anxiety said, trying to move his leg.

Roman grabbed Anxiety by the waist and ignored the other’s cries of pain and proclamations of stupidity as he desperately tried to reach the mountainside before the tree fell off of it.

He didn’t make it. The tree uprooted itself and everything else disappeared, leaving Roman clinging to Anxiety as they fell into an abyss.

Roman held Anxiety tighter. “What does this all mean? Tell me!” He cried out over the rushing wind. “I’m supposed to help you!”

“Shut up!” Anxiety said, unable to hide the terror in his voice. “You don’t have all the answers! None of us do! There’s no point!”

Roman took a deep breath and concentrated with all his might. “Hold your breath!” he cried out.

Anxiety hated this, but did as he was told. Roman shifted them around so Anxiety was on top of him as they fell, so when they hit the water, Roman was the one that took the brunt of the fall.

Roman moved despite the pain in his spine and dragged Anxiety to the surface of the water. They were now swimming in a dark ocean that seemed to be filled with ink. There was a sky above them full of stars though, and a shore was in sight.

It took the prince far too long to drag Anxiety to the shore. They kept going under, because of how tired and injured they were. The murky saltwater stung at their eyes and at times even Roman felt like giving up and sinking to the bottom.

When they reached the shore, the sand was mercifully forgiving and Prince moved Anxiety into a sitting position.

Anxiety coughed up seawater and pounded his chest until it was clear.

“You really are an idiot,” He said hoarsely. “Ow, ugh. I hate this,”

Roman gripped Anxiety’s shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he said, as everything faded to black.

Morality’s Nightmare

Morality was experiencing the dream through Thomas’ eyes but couldn’t really do anything. It was like his voice and body were moving of their own accord. Like he was trapped in his own skin.

Thomas was wandering through a large house. It was ornately decorated and seemed bigger than it should be. Or maybe he was a foot shorter than he normally was. It was hard to tell the difference.

“Hello?” he called out. “Is anybody there?’

The words seemed to disappear on his lips and fizzle out inches from his face. He felt weak.

“Um? Hello? This isn’t funny!” He called out.

He walked into another hallway. It was full of paintings, none of which had people in them. Another hallway was full of mirrors that didn’t reflect anything. It led to a large ballroom with no windows.

Morality wanted more than anything to run, to find an exit, to stop the dream, but he couldn’t. The body he was trapped in was moving slowly and cautiously. It barely talked over a whisper and it weighed on him like a coat made of lead.

“Hello?” he called out again.

This time the words echoed around the gigantic room, spitting his word back at him.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” the room echoed back at him.

Morality went to cover his ears. Wait. He could move!

He looked down and saw he was wearing his blue polo shirt and cardigan. He felt his face. There were glasses there.

“Roman, where are you?” Morality called, looking around.

“I’m over here, Patton,” Roman’s voice called from everywhere at once.

“You’re gonna have to concentrate, Kiddo!” Patton called out. “I can’t tell where you are,”

“Oh, now I’ve lost track of you!” Roman said, his voice still coming from everywhere at once.

“That’s okay, Roman!” Morality called out. “You’re doing a great job!”

“I am aware of that, you incompetent dolt. Now stand still so that I may find you,” Prince said.

“I dunno if I can do that, buddy,” Patton said,

“And why not?”

“Well, the ceiling’s coming down. I’m just gonna go out into that mirror hallway, m’kay? You’re doing a great job!”

Morality took off at a sprint as the ceiling began to come down like an elevator. Decorations were pushed off the walls and the chandelier hanging from the descending ceiling shook and shed pieces of crystal that shattered as they hit the floor.

As soon as Patton reached the mirror hallway, he tripped. The ceiling was about a foot away from him when he was forcibly dragged into the hallway.

Roman picked Morality up and placed him on his feet.

“Wow, Princey, Nice save!” Patton said.

“I am aware of that Morality. May I ask how this does not scare you?” Roman said, brushing rubble off of his shirt.

“Oh, I’m scared kiddo. I’m terrified. This mansion doesn’t have an end and I’m all alone. Can’t lie about that,”

Roman looked around. “And we appear to have gotten even smaller,”

Now they seemed to be a foot and three inches shorter than normal.

“Yeah, that happens,” Morality said.

“I remember,” said Roman, recalling the last time they had this dream. “I do not like it one bit,”

“Roman?” Patton said, “Hate to be a downer, but these mirrors give me the creeps. Is it okay if we get moving?”

“Always so polite. Very well,”

The two of them held hands as they walked cautiously through the mansion so they wouldn’t be separated. Morality was concentrating on breathing normally, while the prince held his sword in the hand that wasn’t keeping track of Patton and stayed on guard.

But there was nothing to guard against. The house didn’t do anything else and they stayed at the same height. It simply didn’t end. There were no doors. No windows. The rooms only had door frames and it wasn’t entirely clear where exactly the light was coming from.

“We’re alone,” Morality said finally. “We weren’t able to find anybody. Do you have any ideas, Roman?”

Roman stopped walking and sighed. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Morality,”

They stood there, feeling the emptiness of the large dining room they were sitting in. All the chairs were too big. They seemed to have shrunk another few centimeters.

Morality didn’t look happy anymore. He was the one that had nightmares least often out of all of them. Except Logan of course. He never did know how to deal with it. He expressed his distress openly, like he always did.

Roman sat next to Morality on the floor and rubbed his back as the father character cried quietly. He would never bring this up later. What happened during dreams stayed there.

After a few minutes Roman looked up.

“We seem to have gotten even shorter,” he noted.

“Yeah, it happens,” Morality said, drying his eyes. “On the bright side, that means it must be almost over, right?”

Roman smiled. “You always did conquer your problems quickly,”

He pointed dramatically to a door frame, and an actual door appeared there.

Roman helped Morality up. “Well? Are you going to try it?” he asked.

Morality’s smile returned, and it was as genuine as ever. “You bet! Let’s get going!”

He grabbed Roman’s hand and they sprinted for the door. When they got there, Patton didn’t hesitate for a moment, and flung the door open, putting an end to the infinite house.

Prince’s Nightmare

Why didn’t Prince ever tell anybody about his solo nightmares? Well, they may be terrifying, but they were also just so… normal. And Roman could not have anyone thinking that anything about him was normal. Tonight’s nightmare, although ordinary, was the most terrifying he had experienced in a very long time.

Thomas was driving down a road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. He was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that he was late for something, but what he couldn’t remember.

This was getting ridiculous. He was supposed to be somewhere. The headlights barely cut through the inky blackness of the country road. Where was he? How did he get there? What was he late for?

Roman slowly but surely became aware that this was his nightmare. He felt even more lost. He couldn’t get control. Dream Thomas continued to drive down the road, completely lost. He turned every corner that came up and tried to find a highway or a freeway or a town or anything, but there was nothing. Nothing ever changed. The same landscape passed him over and over again.

Finally, Roman got himself together enough to take over. The pleather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans Thomas was wearing were replaced with regal attire and Prince took the wheel.

However, as soon as he did, a sinkhole appeared directly in front of him on the road. Roman slammed on the breaks in a panic and veered to the right. As soon as the car came to a halt, he heard a cracking noise behind him.

The Prince looked behind him, and in the dim glow of the break lights he saw giant cracks appearing in the ground. The creative side slammed on the gas petal and the tires screeched off into the night.

The asphalt behind him continued to crack, and somehow he knew that he was always just a few inches in front of the canyon that was swiftly forming behind him.

Another sinkhole appeared in the road. He swerved and barely missed it. He still didn’t know why he felt like he was late for something. Being late was clearly not his biggest concern right now.

Suddenly he saw a fallen tree over the road. The break decided that now would be a good time to stop working, and the car went flying into the air.

Mercifully, the car landed upright, but the airbag didn’t go off, and Roman hit his head on the steering wheel. The break resumed working and he shakily put a hand up to his head and hit a wet spot. He took his hand down and saw to his horror that his fingers were covered in blood. He absentmindedly wiped his hand off on his white shirt and swallowed.

He went for the door, but then the car lurched forward. Another sinkhole was opening up. Slowly this time.

Roman quickly put the car in reverse, got a few feet away, and then changed into drive again. The tires skidded loudly and then he shot off into the night again as the canyon resumed its growth behind him.

“What is wrong? What does this mean? Curse you, Anxiety!” He yelled to no one in particular.

He knew that Anxiety couldn’t hear him, and that he didn’t necessarily always want to cause these nightmares, but he often found yelling to the sky helped him think better. And his general philosophy towards problems was, when in doubt blame someone else.

The blood was dripping down his face now. It was disgusting and he wished he could stop, if only to wipe his face off. He swerved around another sinkhole and yelled out a curse at the top of his lungs.

There was only one thing to do for this. He was going to have to crash the car. He had no idea where he was supposed to be going or what he was late for, but right now that didn’t matter. The car had to stop.

He made a sharp right turn and drove into a field. He hit the breaks and the car skidded out until it ran into and completely totaled a shed.

This time, the airbags deployed and the wound on his head wasn’t aggravated. He pried open the door and stumbled out into the night air. There was no longer any indication that the ground had been falling apart. Everything was quiet.

Roman wiped off his forehead on his sleeve, not caring about the consequences. He briefly thought about how much of a concussion he would have if this was real. Thankfully, it only felt real.

He put pressure on the wound and sat next to the totaled car. Maybe the dream didn’t have to end quite yet. Maybe he could just sit here for a while. Maybe.

Somewhere in the field, crickets were chirping. He let them keep going on as he slowly drifted out of consciousness. Maybe now he could sleep. Really, truly, sleep.

[cgmayra]

You should do a spicy boom!sonamy prompt ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Ok for real tho, would you write some cute, fluff, slightly angst boom! Sonamy prompt? I need some feels! Btw you're awesome I love all of your work. Is the only thing I've been reading for the last week and I'm obsess <3

Haha, just kidding! I would love to do some fluff~ I’m still not quite sure on the definition of ‘spicy’? But I think it means ‘steamy’ right? Well, I think you were kidding, right? Cause you said, ‘but for real’ so I’ll go with fluff, cute, and some mild angst. Boom is hard cause it’s not very easy to place these two in a moment of vulnerability besides-….

Besides-

…..Oh my gosh.

(Also thank you so much!!! XD I know it’s a deep pool of prompts to swim through since 2 or 3 years of writing these suckers but I thank you for liking them so much~<3 I love you for your love and support! XD)

Prompt:

Sonic walked with a wide swing in his step, looking around before directly to Amy, and seeing what she was doing on the ground.

“Uh… Ames? Not that I’m trying to be a bother to your… ‘experimentation’ thing or whatnot, but…” he shook his hands in the air, looking a little bored before leaning over to see what she was doing, fiddling with what looked like puzzle pieces placed in a slider.

“Sorry, Sonic. I know I called you over here for your speedy abilities, but I honestly can’t seem to figure out this… stupid… errkk!!!” she tried to slide one more square piece over, tugging and struggling before getting it’s rusty self in place.

“Ha!” Amy was forced back by her own power, but the titles in the small square glowed suddenly, and Sonic’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as he leaned back.

“I did it!” Amy jumped back forward, holding her hands up triumphantly. “Okay, now I need you to- AHHH!!”

The two were suddenly pulled into the small, miniature vortex and spiraled into it, becoming small and only pint-sized selves.

“Oh no!” Amy looked herself over, “The effects of those ancient geared tablets must have triggered some form of…. of an ancient shrink ray!” she gripped her head, looking worried. “I must have misread it!” she suddenly ran over to a large book, hitting it open and then looking down at the page as Sonic raced up to look at her.

“It’s no use… it’s all the way on page 380…” she looked at all the pages, seeing how hard it was to flip each individual one separately.

Sonic jumped up, gesturing to himself and for her to move as she smiled and got by his side.

She laughed as she jumped while he ran over the pages, having them flip quickly under his speedy shoes before she was finally able to see the right page.

“Oh! Stop, stop, stop!” she motioned her hand out before dropping to her knees, using her hand to read over the now large printed words.

“Shoot!” she hit her hand to the paper, “I thought it said sight array, not shrink ray!”

“How could you mess those up?” Sonic had his arms folded, before parting them with a shrug and leaning his head back, “They don’t even sound the same!” He then looked back at her with the expression that he was somehow smarter at getting this than her.

As he shook his head in complete haughtiness, she just stared at him as if he had no idea what the difference was in hieroglyphics and modern language.

“Some things can mean a number of things, Sonic.” she rolled her eyes, and continued to read. “Now… let’s figure out how to fix this…”

“Pfft, boring!” Sonic jumped down from the book, taking off a ways.

“W-wait! You can’t just go! It’s dangerous!” Amy stood up, looking upset and worried before he about faced, hearing her words, and coming back.

“Did I hear dangerous?” he gave her a funny look, “Amy, I’m magnetically pulled to dangerous!”

“I really hope you weren’t just winging words there.” Amy insulted, as he did in fact looked offended.

“What’s your problem?! You act like I can’t understand anything!” Sonic put a hand to his hip and then gestured up to her, “Like, what? You’re some sort of ‘high scholar’ above of me?” he turned around, folding his arms and looking behind himself, pouting in a grumpy way.

“Well… yes.” Amy nonchalantly answered, even looking up a moment to bounce her shoulders as if that was ‘matter-of-factly’ a true statement, and then looked back at him with drooped eyelids. “And you’re point is?”

“Augh! I don’t need this!” Sonic threw his hands up in the air, fed up with her attitude as he was about to take off again.

“Wait!”

“Sorry comes after the brooding, Amy. You know this.” he stayed bent down in his running pose, arms up and ready to swing out like a running man and his toe tipped up to start the first step.

“No, not that! I mean, how am I gonna get around if you take off like that?” she jogged to the corner of the book, and looked down over at him.

“Sonic… we can’t just abandon each other!”

He slid his mouth to the side of his muzzle, narrowing his eyes and drooping his eyelids as if he wasn’t really disagreeing on that comment… but he could just go if he wanted too..

“…Sonic?..”

Her voice turned more desperate.

He looked down, his frown slowly stretching out and untensing.

“Please?”

He shook his head and ruffled his hands in his quills, getting up and waltzing back to her. “Ahhh.. fine! FINE! But you have to say you’re sorry!” He stuck a finger up at her, still looking upset.

“Fine.” Amy nodded, liking that deal as she sat pretty up top, tilting her head slightly side to side to rustle her own quills into a neater place from looking down. “I’m sorry for referencing that most men are blind idiots who state their opinions as fact.” she smiled down to Sonic.

She acted so innocent…

He hated it.

He glared and puffed up his own chest, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m sorry for referring to all women as pompous and stubborn!” he folded his arms, turning away. “Acting so high and mighty… but then needing someone to cuddle with in the dark~” he suddenly mocked her by throwing his arms around himself, then placing his hands together and to the side of his face, as if doting or acting ‘feminine’ as he pretended to sleep and close his eyes.

His eyes shot back open when he heard a battlecry and looked up, jumping a bit in shock and parting his legs, racing away as Amy came down with a hammer.

The dust piled up and he coughed while fanning it away.

She breathed loudly, looking ticked.

“YOU WANNA GO!?”

“Yes. Thank you. Adios!” he nodded, saluted her with a flick of his two, put together fingers goodbye, and was about to race off.

“STOP!”

“WHHHYYY…?” he groaned, swinging his arms down and back around himself in a huge, over-exaggerated whine.

He looked to her with arched eyes, as if so done with fighting her already.

“I thought that’s what you want!”

“We need to get that-!” She pointed to the tablet’s holder. “To Tails!” she threw her pointed finger down, looking ready to chew his head off.

“Hmph. And why should I help you?” he folded his arms, sticking his tongue at her before turning his head away. “All you ever do is unappreciated me.”

“Excuse me?” she raised an eyebrow, confused by his wording.

“You never listen to me!” he suddenly over-acted, flinging the back of his hand’s wrist up to his forehead, leaning himself back. “I’m all alone in this big empty world, and all I ever wanted was for you to notice me! Ah!” he suddenly dropped to his knees, laying with an arm supporting him up, looking helpless, and clearly seeming to reference a previous conversation he must have had with Amy Rose…

“I’m just a woman! With feelings too!” he kept mocking, and as he did so, Amy’s face shifted from anger to hurt, as if he was making fun of her feelings when she had spoken those words long ago.

“But of course! You wouldn’t understand!” he hit his hand down in a fists, “Because, what? What!?” he suddenly threw his hands up to his face, shaking his head back before glaring at her, turning back to his old self.

“Because men don’t understand love!?”

He bounced himself up and walked over to her, looking much more serious as she stepped back, a little afraid that he wasn’t just acting anymore…

“I came here to help you! Not be told I’m stupid!” he thrust a finger at her, and she tripped over the side of the book’s cover, hitting the stacked papers to break her fall.

“..A-Ames?” he suddenly pulled away, worried.

She looked down, sniffing as she rubbed her nose and got up.

“Is that what you think of my feelings?” She walked past him, before looking up as she did so, “That their a drama to be acted out?” she looked deeply hurt, and turned away as she squinted her eyes shut, before running off to get the tablet, pushing it as it started to jut-forward.

“…H-hey now… hold on! I’m the one that’s suppose to be offended and hurt here!” he stomped his foot down. “Don’t suddenly make this about you!”

She kept struggling to push it, but little by little, she got it going.

“Just don’t come, Sonic! I get it! You’re better off alone…” she looked away from him as she passed, before his face drooped and he watched in sorrow as she pushed the square puzzle passed him.

He outstretched an arm, “Amy..?”

He had taken it a bit too far, and looked away, scanning the ground as if he could find answers there.

“Ah, man…” he rubbed his head again, before he moved down to his neck, looking regretful.

“Amy… Ah, Ames. Don’t push it yourself!” he gave in to his better nature, rushing up and helping her push, causing the square to go must faster.

“I said I didn’t need your help anymore!” Amy felt the ease on her shoulders while she pushed, but it didn’t change the fact of how she was feeling toward his little act back there…

“Look, okay, I have feee… feeel… feelllllingggsss toooo…” he contorted his face and mouth as if saying that was difficult, before shaking his head and sighing as if relieved he got it out.

“Ah, there. Now we’re doing what you love to do. Talking about the inner-crisis of our teenage lives!” he kid, still shoving the darn thing forward.

“At this rate, we’ll get to Tails’s soon enough!” he then stated, as Amy looked back at his expression…

She smiled.

At least he tried.

The two finally made it, with a sandy and dirt trail behind them, to Tails.

Changing them back, just before he did so, Amy and Sonic stood in the box that Tails had closed the door on.

She bounced her feet, looking up and waiting expectantly for the beam to change them back to normal.

Sonic looked away, as if nervous, before scratching the tip of his head, and turning back to her, putting his hands together.

“Umm… A-about what I said…”

“Forgiven. Now brace yourself.” she happily squinted her eyes.

He looked back up to her, almost sorrowfully, before chuckling lightly and leaning closer to her.

“No.. about not treating your feelings fairly.”

“It’s in the past! Afterall, you’re a ‘solo-rider’ I get that.” she continued to let it all go, but Sonic just frowned more, trying to be real with her.

“…Ames, I wasn’t lying when I said I liked danger.”

The computer started rotating a countdown.

“Yeah? So?” Amy kept her eyes closed, still acting cheery like she didn’t care what he said.

He looked more gently to her, his eyes showing more in them then what he was saying.

If only her eyes were open to see.

“I mean…” He leaned closer, as tenderly as he could, he leaned his head behind her shoulder.

“I’m not afraid of the most terrifyingly, dangerous adventure any hedgehog could ever go on…”

The computer started counting down from 3…2….1…

“What’s that?”

“Loving a stubborn woman.”

Her eyes shot open, turning to look at him as he moved his head, acting as though he hadn’t done or said anything.

“Geronimo!”

The two zapped back to normal sizes, as the door was flung open in a light of blue.

Tails raced up before watching Sonic spin out the window, and then went to open the swinging close door for Amy, but she just knocked it clear off it’s hinges with her hammer, chasing after him with large smiles on her face.

And if there could be, hearts piling out around her from thin air.

“Soooooniiicccc~<3″