#gonna preface this with none of us are normal when it comes to are work environment lol its chaos and we're hr nightmares (affectionate)

[mongoose-king]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (excited, genuine)

[obscenely-overdue]

[OOC] Weighted Pregnant Belly Instructions

Hi everyone! For those interested, I've jerry-rigged a method to pad/simulate/wear-a-fake-pregnant-tummy-for-kink-purposes with some real weight and firmness to it that I think people would like! It works very well for me but is also functionally a prototype/first pass at the idea, so there are certainly areas that it could be improved. (which is me saying "experiment and improve upon this, we can make it better!")

I'll preface this with the fact that, if you pay full price for everything involved, assuming you have NONE of it to start, it's probably about $120. That said, about $20-25 of that comes from a specific kind of pillow and blanket, which you very well may have, which would bring it realistically down to $100, and some of it is stuff which can be bought on sale pretty easily, which would land you in the neighborhood of $80. Again, it isn't cheap, but it has something not even a fancy Roanyer tummy has:

WEIGHT and BULK

It's also made of inconspicuous or otherwise easily hidden items, so if you have roommates or family who could see this stuff, it's great at being tucked away or hiding in plain sight. If you're curious, I have pictures, a shopping list, and step by step instructions, as well as some further tips and info. It's pretty long so I'm putting it under a cut...

Let's get started!

What you'll need:

One piece of fully body shapewear (the mauve one on top) and one piece of "tummy tuck" shapewear (black on the bottom). The full body one is about 2 sizes too big for what it's meant to do normally (so for me, an XXXL. This is the same shapewear I use for my squishmallow tummy for RP blog pictures), and the tummy tuck one is the "correct" size for my body (XL). The tummy tuck one gives you all the support, so you don't want it too oversized. DON'T GO UNDERSIZED EITHER as what we're going to load this up with is gonna cause some compression, and too much pressure on your abdomen can be harmful. When in doubt, go at your size or maybe one size bigger, but no farther. Both of these run $20-30 a piece at a target but also can be found on sale for $10-20. Target is going to charge you more than Walmart, and it doesn't have to be top of the line.

One soft, round pillow. This is like a $6 pick up from Walmart. It's not just soft from it's fabric, but it's specifically not firm to the touch. It's all give and is very malleable. Technically you could use a regular pillow too, but this being roughly disk shaped helps it do its job as basically the "lower belly" that keeps the weight from shifting too low.

An averaged sized blanket. Softer materials that fold and bunch up easier are preferred. You PROBABLY already have something that will work for this, but if you don't, again, Walmart will charge you like $15-20 for one.

And finally...

A 20 lbs kettlebell. This BASTARD is the single most expensive thing you'll need, and unfortunately is required if you want it to be properly heavy. This one came from Target, and ran me $55. You might think you want to go heavier, but trust me, this thing has all the heft you'll need. If you really want to, you could feasibly go for a 25 lbs. one, but those are even more expensive. The kettlebell shape is important because it's mostly round, unlike a dumbbell, so we can wrap it up and use it for a reasonably pregnant-shaped belly. A dumbbell of this weight might be a little cheaper, but if you're already going to drop $40 on an oddly shaped weight, another $15 so it can fit the tummy shape is worth it.

Putting it on:

[DISCLAIMER: If at any point something HURTS while putting this thing on or while wearing it, safely but quickly remove it. The weight is supposed to be cumbersome and a little uncomfortable for the fantasy of it, but if anything HURTS, something is wrong, and you need to take it off. If you lay on your back with this thing on for too long, get ready for ab muscle aches, possibly the next day, as your tummy will be supporting 20 lbs of external weight just pressing on it, and those muscles don't get used unless you work out. I've never worn this thing overnight to sleep, but I don't advise it, as extended period of compression can be harmful. Same logic as to why AFAB people who don't want visible boobs shouldn't bind for too long.]

Start by putting on the fully body shapewear, and then putting the tummy tuck shapewear over that. The fabric under my shapewear here is my sports bra, which isn't part of the belly process.

Next you're going to load the soft, round pillow into the full body shapewear. It's going to kind of fold in on itself and that's not an issue, if anything it gives a nice little landing zone for the next thing we're going to add.

Don't fight trying to get the pillow under the tummy tuck shapewear, right now just roll it down to your waistline under the pillow bulk like so.

Next you'll take your blanket, lay it out, set the kettlebell inside of it, and wrap/bunch it up. You want it something approximating 'round', making sure the kettlebell isn't going to roll/fall out when you pick it up.

Next, you load the wrapped up bastard in, setting it on top of the pillow. The kettlebell is going to shift, and try to sink deeper, that's fine, just maneuver it so it sits on the pillow, allowing the pillow to spread the weight more evenly.

Before you pull up the tummy tuck shapewear, it's going to look like this, notice how the bottom of it is lighter because that's all pillow, with the blanket over top.

Now comes of trickiest/most strenuous part, you gotta pull out the tummy tuck shapewear and get it out and around the bulk of your "tummy". You'll have an easier time if you pull the back part up a little first, so it's not fighting you, which you can see in the above photos. If anything starts to hurt during this process, stop and take it out, because likely something is too tight or too heavy.

Once the tummy tuck shapewear is pulled all the way up, it should look about like this, and you're loaded up and ready to waddle!

Notice how much more contained it all is? It's not spilling off of me anymore, it's firmly held against me. Now, just top with your favorite maternity shirt!

Or don't!

Now, clearly, it doesn't LOOK very pregnant. It's lumpy and awkward and it'll come out downright lopsided your first few times. But this isn't for taking pictures for an RP blog, this is for simulating something close to the feeling of carrying something heavy like a pregnant belly around. For those of us who can't or don't want to actually get pregnant, this is a decent approximate that's reasonable to buy and easily hidden. This is for nights after everyone else is in bed or you're home alone, and it can be a LOT of fun.

Great, now what do I do with it?

This is the end of the instructions and is more just ideas for some fantasy fulfillment. Feel free to drop your own ideas in replies or reblogs!

So something that sets this belly apart from just a pillow, or bunched up clothes under your shirt, is that it's very firm, and independently held against you. A pillow under your shirt is dependent on the shirt for structure. If you lift the shirt, pillow falls off. That is not the case here, so suddenly, you've unlocked the ability to put on too small clothes, or button ups, or robes, whatever, that's too small for you now, and can fuss and mess with it without affecting the stability of the belly. You can wear pants that don't button or simply bunch up under that heavy, firm underbelly. Hell, you can simulate getting dressed with a 20 lbs mass hanging off of you. Put on socks around this thing, it's the stuff of preg kink dreams!

Getting up and down, laying in bed and rolling over, the shit that's easy to do now, takes a LOT more effort all of the sudden. Again, I urge you not to lay flat on your back too much, because I did that while padding before bed, and woke up with some muscle aches centered on my tummy, in muscles that I hadn't used in god knows how long. Don't over exert yourself with this thing. I'm bringing this up a lot because I don't want anyone getting hurt.

Taking the stairs is nuts. Going up is way more effort, and going down feels almost hazardous as you wont have vision of your feet anymore.

If you're into the domesticity of pregnancy, try doing some household chores with this thing on! Loading a dishwasher, doing some laundry, maybe some tidying. I personally have found it weirdly exhilarating, waddling around loading the washing machine around this heavy bulk. Have fun bending over to pick up something you dropped!

Even just chilling and gaming with a lap full of heavy belly feels kind of new and exciting. When you're not used to it, even the mundane shit gets hotter with a tummy like this

That's about all I got. If someone else gets everything and tries this out, let me know your experiences with it and how you've improved it! I've had an ask suggest a weighted medicine ball, so that could also work if you have one you're willing to test out. Please enjoy, and share with your pregnancy loving mutuals! Thanks for reading!!!

[femmescripter]

The Maxley/Trigun/Duck Tales(2017)/Darkwing Duck Crossover that none of You Asked For or Thought Of...

But by golly you're gonna get it anyway! I can't preface this amalgamation of fanfic 🥃💃🏽🦊(whiskey, tango, foxtrot for those who couldn't decipher the emojis) any other way besides what happens when you're stressed as Hell, in your early 30's, working through a blur of college assignments and listening to 2000's era pop music and nerdcore raps to keep from hitting the ceiling. So just listen to me! ___ Bradley Uppercrust the 3rd. Businessman. Beloved son of two wealthy, esteemed parents. Heir to the Uppercrust Shipping conglomerate.

Maximilian "Max" Goof. Professional extreme sports athlete and part-time research assistant. The dear, only son of a retired actor and widowed single father. Goes wherever the wind takes him.

Based on these descriptors - they have nothing in common. But they do share one thing. The lab in which they were created in. You see, neither Max nor Bradley are normal anthros. They're actually the products of the Hybrid Anthropomorphic Reproduction Via Ecological Splicing Technology, or H.A.R.V.E.S.T for short, program. This program was the brainchild of botanist Reginald Bushroot. He wanted to create an alternative for people who wanted to have their own children but were unable to do so naturally or didn't want to go through the hassle of adoption. And in the case of Bradman Uppercrust and Eloise Uppercrust, who were investors of the research and development department of the laboratory where Reginald worked at, they were an unfortunate pair who couldn't conceive children of their own. And so, after choosing an orchid as it was their favorite flower and splicing it with their DNA, Bradley was "born". As for Max, he was more or less made on a whim. Reginald's assistant happened to be Vanessa Goof, who was freshly married to the still acting G. G. Goofy Goof. And after the successful "birth" of the first hybrid Reginald wanted to try at making another child - but no one else seemed keen on providing raw materials. Both curious and wanting to ensure that she and her husband could have a child, Vanessa volunteered hers and Goofy's DNA. And the flower she picked was the lily. Shortly after that Max was brought into the world - the second successful H.A.R.V.E.S.T "birth". It seemed like Reginald's research was on the fast track to becoming a phenomenon in fertility.

Sadly a horrific fire at the laboratory would go on to not only destroy decades worth of research on the H.A.R.V.E.S.T program and make it unable to be recreated, but it would also claim the life of Reginald Bushroot. So much so that his body was never found. That was ten years ago. Now, years later, Max and Bradley are young adults living their lives. They're completely unaware of each other and their respective parents have told their children that they're not the same as other anthros. However, one news announcement will soon bring the hybrid canines together. Over the past week there's been a series of gruesome incidents where anthros have been drained to husks, and all of the victims have one thing in common. They have strange, vine like patterns around on their necks. As if someone had inserted an odd cable of some sort into their bodies. Upon seeing this news coverage from their own parts of town Bradley and Max immediately recognize the markings shown from the pictures taken from the body of the latest statistic. It's the mark of a siphoning vine that they themselves would use on occasion when they want to consume fluids without needing to use their mouths, and just have to use their secreted vines. But that would mean that there's another H.A.R.V.E.S.T anthro. That's when Bradman and Eloise tell Bradley about Max, and Goofy likewise tells his son about the first hybrid anthro.

From there Max and Bradley arrange to meet face to face, and they come to like what they see in each other. After talking for a bit, it's clear that neither of them had anything to do with the attacks. Which leaves only one other possibility, slim as it may be. There's a third hybrid anthro on a rampage. Now Bradley and Max have to utilize their respective talents both from their canine halves and their plant halves in order to combat this threat that's taken root. But they're not alone in their endeavors. Max's cousins Huey, Dewey and Louie along with their Uncle Scrooge are more than willing to provide their assistance. And Bradley is not without connections of his own. One such being Mallard Drake, the unassuming man beneath the mask of Darkwing Duck. During all this a romance between Max and Bradley starts to blossom.

[jtwritesstuff]

New Game+ - Chapter 1

This is my first commission story and first patreon reward for Joey! This is a look into the life of two teenage best friends, one with RARS and the other looking to support him the whole way,  I hope you all enjoy and as a preface, this will be a slower story to come out as it is patreon rewards, thus leading to some skipped months. If you want early access to all of my works, a vote in my monthly story poll and currently I still have two spots open for monthly comms, please check out my patreon! Starts at as low at 3$ a month for votes and early access! patreon.com/JTwritesstuff

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The alarm clock buzzed loudly in her room and the only other noise heard at such an early hour was a groan from an overly tired middle schooler rolling over to slap the alarm silent. Lily sat up with a sigh, first day back from spring break, but even worse, first day back without her best friend. Quinn and Lily had been friends since grade school, and were basically attached at the hip through thick and thin. They learned soccer, instruments, video games, everything together…but for the first time seemingly since kindergarten, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t be riding the same bus, they wouldn’t talk about the few days they spent apart like they were years apart, nor would they be in the same classes they were in together just two weeks prior.

Lily had found out during spring break that Quinn had gotten what was coming to be known as the RARS virus, or Rapid Age Regression Syndrome. He was in the middle of regressing and was one of the youngest known people to get the virus, hence why she was up so early, to quickly hop on her computer before school and message him on Discord. She did just that, yawning and rubbing her eyes as the computer booted up before quickly clicking his name and typing: LRay12: Hey Quinn, you up? QtheQing: Yeah. LRay12: You okay? This hitting you as hard as me? QtheQing: Oh, I dunno, I mean just a week ago I was preparing the rough draft for a science paper, now I’m struggling to not wet the bed and none of my clothes fit, so what do you think Lily? LRay12: Sorry…I know this is hard on you too, harder even just…it’s weird…you’re not gonna be waiting at the bus stop or…at school at all, ya know? QtheQing: Yeah…sorry, just, didn’t sleep well, been anxious all night. LRay12: You need to go to bed then dingus, I may have to go to school but you aren’t even allowed out of your room rn. QtheQing: Believe me..I know… LRay12: Do…you want me to bring you some snacks? Maybe a few pops? QtheQing: If you could…mom’s cooking isn’t cutting it, especially with her being so stressed about my virus. LRay12: I’ll get stuff around and stop by before school, K? QtheQing: Alright, just use the pulley system, I’ll wait to grab it til you’re gone, just to be safe. LRay12: Alright…I’m sure we’d be fine, it’s like 10 feet though. QtheQing: I don’t wanna chance it, just ring the bell when you get here, okay? LRay12: Yeah, see you soon. And just like that she was back offline.

Quinn sat back in the chair that was now a size too big for him and sighed deeply. He was around 10 now he guessed, he’d been 14 just a week ago and he was slipping farther fast. He looked solemnly out his window, two weeks ago he’d been glad spring break was starting and was wishing it’d last longer, now he was wishing he could go to school just to get outside. He watched as lights flicked on across the neighborhood and all the while he was stuck in here, unsure if he was still contagious.

It wasn’t until he heard the footsteps of his older sister walking by the door that it really hit him that she was gonna leave too, head to school and live a normal life without him. He felt the tears welling up again, he couldn’t tell Lily that’s why he’d been up, but if she could see his bloodshot eyes she’d know, she always knew. Whether they were tears of sadness or of anger at what he’d lost, he didn’t know, all he knew was they were coming back, and it took all his willpower to shove them back down.

As he sat, staring at the now gray circle next to Lily’s discord name, he heard a knock at his door and sighed as he shakily answered back. “Yes…?” His mom pretty much shouted through the door, sounding as if she was across the hall “Breakfast is in front of your door hun! You can grab it-” Quinn cut her off and grumbled “In two minutes when everyone is out of the upstairs, we do this every day mom, I get it…” He sighed again and just curled up in his chair, he probably wouldn’t even eat today, given how  anxious he’d been all night and his mom just reinforcing just how scared she was to be around him just…made him feel awful.

He just sat there, counting down the seconds before going to grab the food, to at least appease his mother, opening the door was like opening a forbidden lock, seeing the rest of the house was so close, yet so far. He leaned down and grabbed his tray and brought it into the room, a pretty normal breakfast of bacon and eggs with orange juice this morning. He sighed, setting it on his bed and just staring at it, another sign of the outside world he wasn’t allowed in right now, and when he finally was…it would be all different.

He stood there for a while, just lost in thought and staring at the food as if it might magically fix him, when he was snapped back to reality by an all too familiar sound, a bell. He looked over, seeing the pulley system that’d been in his window for years creaking and moving. The bell had been put in as a “Hey! I’m sending something up!” kind of system, and right now, it was his access to the outside world. He walked over, making sure to stay away from the window as best as possible, not wanting Lily to see his diminished state. He watched as the bucket came up and felt his heart flutter as he saw a freshly made PB&J, something he loved but his mother vehemently kept out of the house as she counted it as junk food, along with red pop and a few odds and ends of snacks and candy.

He smiled and waved out of his window as he pulled everything in, hugging it close as if it might vanish at any second as he heard Lily call out “I’ll stop by later!” before he heard her leaving, her shoes running on the pavement. He pulled the PB&J out and felt like he might cry, even if it was something so simple, it made him soar to the moon with glee. He opened the sandwich and quickly started to eat, sitting with his back against the wall near the window. He sat and enjoyed the first thing that wasn’t his moms cooking in a week when he heard his Discord boop and got up to check it.

He opened discord, seeing a few messages from servers, but specifically one from Lily, he opened it:

LRay12: Hey, so people are asking where you are at the bus stop and on the bus…what do you want me to tell em?

QtheQing: I dunno…that I’m sick or something? Unless someone told em, no one should know I’m sick.

LRay12: Well your sister is on the bus, but she’s dead quiet like always so…I don’t think she did? 

QtheQing: She better not or I’ll cough on her in her sleep.

LRay12: Lmao, well, I’ll just…tell em you got super sick and had to take some time, then I’ll also tell em you’re like…super contagious and could get anyone sick.

QtheQing: Well…least one of those is true, I think.

LRay12: Want me to bring you anything after school? I have some cash my dad gave me for cleaning the kitchen, could maybe get us some mcdonalds or something…could always get you a happy meal.

QtheQing:...Really…

LRay12: What? I’m joking Quinn, you gotta lighten up a bit about this, or it’s gonna drive you crazy.

QtheQing: Kinda hard when soon enough I’ll barely be able to finish a happy meal.

LRay12: Sorry…look I’ll get you a burger or something and a shake, deal?

QtheQing: Deal…see you then…think I’m gonna try to nap.

LRay12: Sounds good, peace

QtheQing: Peace

Lily sighed as she put her phone into her lap, seeing the bus so lively and people acting like nothing was going on, while all she could think about was that kid she briefly saw in Quinn’s window, looking depressed and alone. She watched out the window as the town rolled by, this being the first time in years she didn’t have her best friend to talk about stuff with. It felt wrong, like she’d entered a different dimension and now for some reason, Quinn basically didn’t exist. It would probably only get weirder in school, one desk in each class constantly empty and everyone would act normal, or ask once before moving on.

The bus rode along, picking others up and Lily kept an unneededly sharp eye out for anyone else who might be missing. Not seeing anyone quite yet, though she was sure there had to be others, a sickness doesn’t just hit one kid and then stop. She sighed, wondering how dangerous it might be going to school right now, how many kids might be just at the beginning of their regression. As her mind drifted she felt the bus come to a stop in the bus line at the school and the door opened as everyone started to stand.

She slowly stood, gathering her backpack from the floor and shuffled out in the line of kids heading into the school, she noted that some were wearing masks today. Something must’ve gotten out about it going around the school, and she felt her anxiety spike a bit at that, just how many kids might have it, and was she one of them? She shook her head a bit, trying to calm her nerves as she walked to her locker, opening it quickly and putting her bag in before grabbing some books for her first two classes and quickly making her way to Algebra 2. 

The morning went pretty much normal as Lily noted other than Quinn, around 4 people from each class were missing as well, though she couldn’t be sure it was due to RARS or just a common cold going around. She made her way to lunch, this time trying to just see how many were missing from her class entirely, and while she didn’t know everyone…she had to guess it was close to 20. That was a lot, even for a common cold, she sat and ate, her mind running through the possibilities.

As she thought her mind drifted to the thought of her having the virus possibly, what that might be like…what it might do. She sat and thought about Quinn and how he was feeling, and if she had it, she’d be like that soon as well. Her thoughts also drifted in a positive direction though, maybe her and Quinn would be the same age again..maybe they’d be able to go to the same daycare or preschool…maybe they’d be able to have another go at being best friends. As she thought and the lunch bell rang, she started to realize something deep inside her, she almost…wanted that, to be with Quinn again, to be best friends again, and for it to be just them, as they’d always been, just smaller. 

She had to pull herself away from such a weird fantasy, blushing as she sighed, knowing it was probably just her brain looking for any way to try and keep things as normal as possible. She threw her tray out and shuffled to her study hall, bringing some books with her and of course, her phone. She spent the first half of study hall actually doing work and getting all her homework done before spending the second half doing research on RARS, seeing how contagious it was and what were some of the warning signs for it.

She found out quickly that about 9 out of ten people are immune, but those who aren’t can quickly catch it and once it’s caught, the regression starts within a few weeks of getting the virus. She sighed a bit, so not only was Quinn an unlucky 10 percent chance, she’s likely in the 90 percent who are immune, she’d have to watch her best friend regrow up and likely go separate ways soon enough. She kept looking to see what the age ranges were, finding out that people end up mostly between 2-5, with some outliers a few years younger or older, and a story about a boy who actually stopped at 15.

She scrolled and scrolled and the thing that stopped her was a discord notification from Quinn, she quickly opened it to see what he said.

QtheQing: Hey…just woke up, still getting younger, seems to happen faster when I sleep and of course, I need more as I get younger…

LRay12: I was looking stuff up during study hall…do you want the good or the bad news first?

QtheQing: I don’t know if there can be any bad news to make this situation worse, but I guess go for it.

LRay12: Well…from what I’ve read it looks like you’re gonna be a toddler around two at worst and a kindergartener around five at best.

QtheQing: …Okay so I was wrong, that’s awful, what’s the good news then…?

LRay12: Uh…well, the good news is someone only regressed like…11 years and got stuck at 15.

QtheQing: Lily…you realize 11 years for us is 4 years old right?

LRay12: …Look it’s just a hope that maybe you’ll stop at like…8 or something.

QtheQing: Yes because 8 is SOOOOO much better than 5, thanks, I can’t wait to be a weird third grader obsessed with…I dunno…FNAF or something.

LRay12: Hey! Don’t be dissing FNAF, we both had that phase, and were literally gonna go see the movie before all of this, so shush.

QtheQing: I guess…yeah it could be worse, could be like…an Ipad kid or something.

LRay12: That’s if you don’t just…keep your same personality dingus, which most people do, even if they’re full mental regressies.

QtheQing: And since when did you become the RARS queen of info?

LRay12:...Since I looked it up.

QtheQing: Ah yeah, cause Google never lies.

LRay12: Look, at least it’s something to hope for.

QtheQing: I suppose.

LRay12: Look…I just wanted to tell you that, I gotta go to social studies (Blegh) you try to rest so you stay old enough we can hang out still, got it? I’ll talk to you later when I come by with that burger for you.

Quinn sighed deeply as before he could even start typing his response, she was offline, he rubbed his eyes tiredly and sipped one of the red pops. He sat in just a pair of basketball shorts tied much too tight as he was roughly around nine currently. He could also feel his brain starting to be affected by the virus, it wasn’t terrible or scary just…odd, like a soft blanket being put over the stuff he wouldn’t know at this age, but if he thought real hard about it, he could access that knowledge again.

Unfortunately the regression was making him less and less interested in the stuff he’d normally watch and play and more interested in the stuff from this age. He’d only brought up FNAF to Lily because it was fresh on his mind, having caught himself watching an old playthrough of it with such excitement, he only came back out when the video ended and he realized just how fuzzy his head felt. 

Now he sat quietly, a bit nervous to do much as he wasn’t sure what it might do to him while in this state. He’d closed youtube and now just sat with some lofi playing from his spotify as he thought, trying to think of something that might help him jog his way out of this brain funk. He sighs a bit as his brain immediately jumps to minecraft, the first thing to excite him since watching a “scary” video, at least in that he could do some building or redstone or something rather than just sitting here letting his head run in circles.

He sat up and started the game up, picking a new world and starting to play, smiling a bit as he felt an odd sense of nostalgia. As if it was his first time opening the game even though he had well over hundreds of hours in it, with tons of worlds with many years of builds in them. He decided he was gonna make a treehouse in a jungle for this playthrough and spent most of the afternoon doing just that, working his way through the world, picking woods to build with and just enjoying his time.

He got so sucked into the game he didn’t even hear the handle of his door jiggle and rattle and by the time he did, his door was wide open. He yelped as he spun around, only to see Lily standing there, McDonalds in hand as she had a smile. “Heya Quinn!” She said, setting one of the bags with a strawberry shake next to him as he stared in awe. “H-How did you get in?! Why are you in here?! You realize how dangerous this is?!”

Lily just sat on his bed, pulling out some nuggets and starting to eat, dipping them into barbeque sauce, shrugging a bit. “I mean, I was looking stuff up, and like, if I’m not immune, I already have the sickness so, what’s it matter ya know?” She looked at him and smiled as he just stared, feeling his emotions welling up as this was the first human contact he’d had since he started regressing. She chuckled “You gonna say something? Or you just gonna-” She was cut off and let an oof out as Quinn jumped off his chair and ran over, hugging her. She smiled at him and chuckled as Quinn just hugged his best friend, realizing just how much she was risking, just to see him. He just chuckled and sniffled back tears of joy, letting out a soft “Thank you Lily….” She nodded and smiled, “Anything for you Quinn.” She patted his head and they sat, in silent realization, no matter what now, they were in this together.

[tenderdean]

i was talking to @andromedaskyline about how we just know whatever this ending is gonna be will be—well, a punch to the gut at best, but then it got us thinking about what kind of ending we want for dean and listen. listen.

when all is said and done, dean is alive and well, and he drives off into the sunlit horizon, and at the end of that road after however much time he needs to recover—

he starts a halfway house.

a halfway house for hunters, yes, but mostly for kids.

kids like claire and krissy and josephine, and alex and patience. kids that fell out of their normal lives and into hunting, with no feasible way back out. kids like dean.

it’s a place to crash and recuperate, where there’s a roof over their heads and a bed to call their own and a food-stocked pantry (it never runs low. dean never lets it run low.) but also: a waypoint.

dean’s still got sonny’s number, and if there’s one person who can help a kid find a future or a family or a purpose, it’s sonny. (it’s also dean—but he’s not used to advertising himself; it’ll always feel like overselling.) he sits up late at night working through college applications, scholarship applications, to help these kids through the nightmare that is lying convincingly on paperwork. he teaches these kids all the things he had to learn by his lonesome: how to cook, how to clean and mend clothes and treat wounds and hustle pool without getting decked in the face. and if they’re set on hunting—and he gets it, he does, because retiring was never an option for him when there’s lives to be saved, and he knows how—then he rolls up his sleeves and he teaches them.

hunters are a special kind of people, too rebellious for their own good, but he knows not to push. anyone can leave, but anyone can also stay. and when they do, he’s got things to tell them: the fastest way to decapitate a vamp and torch a wendigo, where to park their getaway car, which weapons to always have on hand and which to leave in the motel room, never to leave a case too early to miss something or late enough for the cops to get you. who to call when they do. basic skills, survival skills, but there’s nothing basic about them anymore when they’ve amounted to his entire life and he’s perfected them, had to perfect them to stay alive through it all.

he’s seen things, butted heads with things that go unmentioned in even the thickest of lore books, and he makes sure they know how to take all of them down, or else how to sweet-talk it back where it came from. he makes sure every kid knows the vampire antidote by heart. he also tells them about purgatory, and to think hard before mercy-killing anything into an existence of blood-slash-blood-no-rest-no-peace. some things can save themselves: if they want to, let them, but make sure they follow through. it’s about the saving, not the killing, and if the two of them become muddied you have to save yourself first.

dean has a bed for you, in that case. a bed and a mean burger and an ear tilted in your direction.

sometimes, sam calls: dean lets it go to voicemail, and that’s a gift to them both. dean will leave a voicemail of his own, in time. he’ll talk for however long he wants to, about whatever he wants to, answers the questions he likes and doesn’t answer those he doesn’t. talks about the kids, all the time, about how much he wishes he could’ve done this for kevin. there’s no interrupting in voicemail, no pointed glares, and the new routine is maybe the healthiest they’ve ever had.

he still goes out on hunts, as a teaching outing with the kids or to let off steam or because it’s an all hands on deck sort of thing. he can’t let himself get rusty, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t indulge: memory foam on his bed, a monthly road trip in the Impala planned and followed through with, a nice, slim pair of new boots perhaps more often than he needs. it’ll take a while, but someday in the future, he even goes to the beach. leaves the united states to do it, and comes back toasty and bug-bitten and about fifty tons lighter by way of his soul.

it evolves, as kids leave and new ones come in, because no one can leave dean’s house without his number. it becomes a hub. dean makes sure there’s a weapons arsenal in the garage, stakes of various obscure woods and silver bullets by the thousand and machetes besides. they’re all for borrowing—he’ll get new ones if some don’t return. the rest of the garage is divided: the impala and all that’s needed for her upkeep, and a workbench, a visor, a torch. he works on side-projects. lets his inner inventor out to play. EMFs that can detect hex bags, glasses that fracture the light just weirdly enough that no ghost can slip past the wearer unnoticed.

that’s how, in ten years, he’ll reinvent the Colt. he makes as many bullets as he can, and it’s expensive, slow work, but it’s the largest ace any of them have ever had up their sleeves and he wants it to be available to anyone who needs it.

knowledge isn’t something to hoard, not when it can save lives. and fuck if holding the world together with his bare hands more than once, more than twice, didn’t leave him with some unconventional wisdoms, some hard-earned truths and bits of trivia that could never end up being useful but also very well could. he’s prepared for that. makes sure his kids are prepared, too.

it’s not just the kids anymore, though, not when the hunters among them have branched out and met other hunters and the world knows his name, anyway, for all kinds of reasons, good and bad. his is not a name that slips someone’s mind when it’s mentioned in passing. hasn’t been for a long, long while, and that was never a good thing until this: until it just grows around him, not murder-plots or resentment or a heathy dose of fear of being associated with him, not like a snare drawing tight but a garden. (he keeps one, out back. hasn’t really got that much of a knack for it, but some of the kids like ripping roots out of dirt, and hell, so does he.)

it’s not replacing bobby. he doesn’t pretend to be the FBI superintendent or social services or someone’s lawyer, not when he’s not out there in a suit. when a phone rings, the person on the other end always knows his name.

it starts out messy, and it’ll always be messy, but it becomes more structured as they go. a demon case comes in: they’ve got people specializing in that, send them out. a rugaru: the same. and if it’s something that’s truly Out There, they send dean, and he’ll handle that. when he comes home, he’ll make sure that next time, it won’t be just him who knows what to do.

some kids start penning down comprehensive lore books, his dad’s journal with the volume turned up, with only the stuff that’s true and none of the fluff, the muddied waters. dean contributes to that more than he expects, at first, and suddenly they’re crowding and crawling around him, eager for his input. turns out he has a lot to say.

not enough for the kids, though, it seems, because they keep sneaking carver edlund’s books into the house when he has banned them, has made it a bold point on his penned-down list of house rules. he finds them stuffed under mattresses and as pdfs on phones. he burns what he can. but he also says, okay, all right, i’ll write a fucking memoir if that’s what it takes to get you people to stop smuggling this trash in. and he lays down the basics: azazel’s plot and meddling angels, an apocalypse or two, what’s there besides the earth and how to make sure you never go there. nothing warranting gaudy pulp covers with half-naked men on them. if anyone wants to know which brother did what, they’ll have to be damn good at reading between the lines, because dean’s too over it to point fingers, especially not when his words might stick around for other generations to read and judge and point their own. he doesn’t put his name on it. leaves it anonymous.

what he doesn’t count on are the notes in the margins, the whispered conversations after dinner or the glances he’ll get: that he’s the hero of that story, he’s just too humble to write it down.

he only yells about that once.

in the end, it’s like this: there’s no american men of letters, but there’s people of action, and they all cluster around the heart of the country where the drive is about the same to each coast, and at the heart of that is dean.

in the very, very end, it’s like this: his memoir goes into print, and there’s a preface telling his name in bold letters, and clarifying the details he had made sure to leave extra vague. if you’re in a roadhouse bar somewhere—and there’s more of them now, run by those who wouldn’t stay but wouldn’t leave, either—there’s a solid chance you’ll run into a dean or deanna or ten, and they can tell you exactly who they were named after and why.

but right now, it’s just a chance, something to build out of nothing, something he wishes he had back when. something to turn his north towards, to pour all his strengths in that have grown from pain and weakness. they do always say the best leaders are those who never wanted to lead. out of all the rubble, something that’ll hold up without him there to keep it together, though he’s the heart that beats in it, anyway. he’s the home it grew up in.

[alleiradayne]

Hey, I just read your comment about witch hazel and how you had a c-section. You announced that you were pregnant a little while ago (congratulations again btw) but I'm curious if you plan on another c-section or are going to try VBAC? I ask because my first was a c-setion (bugger was upside down and refused to turn so it was planned) and I VBAC-ed with my second. So I'm curious how other people might make the decision or if it's even available. If this is too personal feel free to ignore!

HI. YES. LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS. I HAVE NO SHAME OR PERSONAL BOUNDARIES WHEN IT COMES TO TALKING ABOUT CHILDBIRTH. :)

Preface: Childbirth used to terrify me. Now on the other side of it, it's absolutely fascinating so I'm going in with eyes wide open on Round 2 and stoked for it.

So first, you need to know the reason I had a c-section to begin with. And honestly, I feel like if I had had a dula and a midwife with me I might not have ended up having one. Maybe.

My water broke at 4:30 AM without any contractions on Thursday, November 15th (2018). I... I am not smart. Nobody, not a single person in any of the classes I had been to had ever said, "Go straight to the fucking hospital if your water breaks, even if you're not in labor." In fact, since then, I have had plenty of people be like, "if you weren't in labor there was no reason to go to the hospital". But that's a different issue altogether. I digress.

I did not go to the hospital immediately because I wasn't in labor. But I called the doctor's office later that morning and they were like, "Wtf is wrong with you go to the fucking hospital" (exaggerated, obv). So I went to the hospital only to find out what I already knew: I was not in labor, not dilated, but water broken.

This is the part where I wish I'd had a dula and a midwife. Within an hour of getting admitted the nurses were like, welp, you're not going into labor on your own, you're not dilating at all, so it's time to induce you. Gotta get the baby out, broken water increases risk for infection.

I kinda wish I'd had someone to push back. I knew nothing about pitocin, had no clue what was about to happen (I mean, I understood it induces labor/dilation/contractions, but that's it). UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, I ended up with UNCONTROLLABLE ROLLING contractions with no reprieve in between. Normal contractions are about five minutes apart. That's about as close as they ever get naturally. They last about a minute, then you get a breather in between. And usually, pitocin can mimic this, but for some people (e.g. me) no dose will get it right.

If the nurses reduced the pitocin drip, my rate of dilation slowed down drastically. If they turned it back up, I got uncontrollable rolling contractions, but I kept dilating at a rate they approved of. So they opted for uncontrollable rolling contractions versus the former, slower dilation.

Since you had a VBAC, Nonny, you know what contractions feel like. There is no pain on earth I have ever felt that comes remotely close. They're kinda like a really awful IBS bowel movement. But multiply that by like a boogagillion. Now imagine them just one after the other. No time in between. No chance to catch my breath. The pain went up, peaked, came back down, then started right the fuck back up the mountain.

I demanded an epidural after an afternoon of that shit.

Which is fucking stupid because epidurals ALSO slow down labor! They slow down dilation so like, why couldn't they have just left the fucking pitocin a little lower so I could have avoided the epidural and having to push on my fucking back (I wanted to push in a squatting position so I wasn't working against gravity). I didn't end up getting to 10 cm until THE NEXT DAY...

Anyway, I digress again.

The end of the story is that I couldn't push my child out because, as I have known for a very long time, I suck at being a cis woman. If you can't tell, I am still WILDLY pissed about this. My OBGYN tries to tell me that the shape of my daughter's head and the shape of my pelvis were not a match but I was never diagnosed with CPD (small or narrow pelvis).

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY

I met with the same OBGYN a couple weeks ago and she was like we should talk about delivery, what are you thinking considering what happened the first time? And I'm glad she asked that. So that gave me some hope that she'd like, listen to me. And I told her I want to try a VBAC under specific circumstances. Those circumstances are:

1. I go into labor before my water breaks, or, if my water does break before going into labor, we can kickstart labor naturally, no pitocin.

2. No emergencies occur that would actually require a c-section (breach/head up/distress/lack of fluid/etc).

If an emergency does occur or we can't get labor to start properly again, then yeah, it'll be a c-section. I won't deal with the pitocin or the rolling contractions or an epidural that'll just need to be redone with a full spinal block for the c-section. So much shit went so wrong last time (and yeah I use the word "wrong" because I really do feel like none of this shit had to happen this way) and I don't want it to happen again but I don't think just scheduling a c-section is necessary.

I have a lot of trauma/emotion/frustration tied to my first childbirth because I like failed to do the one god damn thing my body was ACTUALLY like built for? I'm not saying my entire existence/purpose is to push a baby out of my vagina, but my cis female body is technically designed for it, and yet, I couldn't fucking do it for like no reason. Not because of any emergency or situation that required it. Just because I couldn't push. My body, a thing I once trusted and believed in and thought was so damn strong, failed me. And I'm still dealing with that.

Hoping for a VBAC is like... I'm worried I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. Even though I know this is what I want to do, I'm struggling to stay positive. I feel like I'm convincing myself of something that's just not gonna happen or was never possible in the first place. March is so far away, ugh.

So that was a lot to say, yeah I wanna do a VBAC and I had the option and spoke with my OBGYN about it. Thank you for asking!

[lgbtqlegends]

how do you think Sara and Ava would celebrate thanksgiving?

thank you for the ask n hope you enjoy! also i'd like to preface this with: i did actually get this ask on thanksgiving lmao and my apologies for the super late reply. my system for answering asks is to answer the ones that have been there longest and then work my way up towards the top of our inbox, and I tend to stick to that pretty closely, so that's why I'm just now answering this after new years lol. but anyway, onto the headcanons now:

-ok so i think they'd probably have like,,, a thanksgiving breakfast type thing with the team in the morning, bc they all wanted to spend at least part of the day together bc they're each other's found family, but a few of them also have other things they're doing with their other families, so they decide to have thanksgiving breakfast

-after breakfast (they had it pretty early compared to what they would normally on days they're not doing anything), they'd head over to star city, bc they'd probably spend thanksgiving with quentin, bc sara makes an active effort to spend more time with him after having lost him and got him back again, and ava genuinely enjoys quentin's company, so they spend a lot of holidays with him when they can

-but before they go to quentin's, i think sara would wanna stop by and visit felicity for a bit bc she knows it hasn't been easy on her since oliver died, and ava's met like all of sara's star city friends at this point and she really likes felicity so they go over and have lunch with her and mia and william, and it's a good time and felicity really appreciates it bc if oliver can't be with her then it's nice to have some of her friends with her

-and then after lunch (and a couple of hours of talking n catching up) with felicity, obviously they go over to quentin's to spend the rest of the night with him

-the food is pretty much done by the time they get there so after the initial hugs and "it's great to see you"s and everything they sit down to eat n talk n catch up. sara and ava tell him a few stories of what they've been up to traveling through time and it kinda still confuses quentin but the stories are entertaining, if a little worrisome, and they just look so happy telling him about their lives and their adventures so he listens to every word

-after dinner they move to the living room, and ava and sara settle down on the couch while quentin makes them all hot cocoa and then settles on the armchair next to the couch and then they put on some old movie they used to love, knowing full well none of them are gonna pay much attention to it, especially considering sara's already finished her hot cocoa and is half asleep on ava's chest

-sara's out like a light no more than 30 minutes into the movie, and quentin and ava take the time to talk quietly (bc they don't wanna wake sara). quentin asks how ava's podcast is going (bc he definitely started listening to it after the first time ava mentioned it to him bc she was so excited and he really cares a lot about ava n sees her as another daughter since it's so obviously clear just how in love sara and ava are)

-so they just sit n talk for a while, about a bunch of different things, while sara sleeps n ava absentmindedly runs her fingers through sara's hair. at some point their topic of conversation ends up on sara and they just talk about how much they both love her and how much she's been through and how far she's come and how proud they are of her n all that. n sara is still asleep but she stirs a bit n smiles a little as if she knows/can hear what they're saying. that makes them both pause for a minute n they just look at her fondly for a min before going back to talking abt whatever

-quentin ends up going to bed a little while later after grabbing a couple pillows and blankets for ava n sara. he tells ava that they can either move to the guest room or stay on the couch n then he kisses both of their heads n says goodnight before retiring to his room. ava debates whether to wake sara up for a couple minutes so they can move to the guest room or just stay on the couch. eventually the guest room wins out bc ava knows they're both getting a little old for sleeping on the couch and at least one of them will regret it in the morning

-she wakes sara up gently, n sara grumbles n tries to snuggle closer but ava just heaves her up n then picks up the pillows n blankets n they make their way to the guest bedroom (with sara still being very snuggly bc ava woke her up n she's still sleepy). as soon as they're in the room, sara crawls into the bed, and ava follows her immediately bc she knows sara wants cuddles n she knows she's gonna get impatient soon lmao. sara is cuddled up to her as soon as she's in the bed and then she's out like a light again, and ava's not awake much longer either n they both feel super warm n happy n safe

-they both wake up late the next morning (like,, 10 or 11 or smth), and they probably would've slept even longer than they did if quentin hadn't came in n woke them up bc the pancakes n cinnamon rolls were done

-they end up saying goodbye soon after breakfast bc they figure they should probably get back to the ship before the legends do,, smth,, they don't know what but they figure they should get there before it happens lol

[kineticallyanywhere]

I'd love to hear those fusion thots :eyes: the pacific rim ones were V good

If you’ve been around this house for a hot minute you might know that fusion aus are My Entire Jam Garden so you might imagine I’ve already put some thought into this and you would imagine right. The following was brainstormed in consort with @aryashi my second brain. 

The basis for this au is that fusion is possible in the forgotten realms and is just a thing people there can do. This also applies to sudden interdimensional travelers. 

tl;dr I wrote basically a one-shot’s worth of words down there but in short fusion is rad but also there's an unexpected amount of drama. which is basically a summary of the podcast but replace "fusion" with "fatherhood"

(preface: fusion is not a sex metaphor, just like pacific rim. Platonic fusion is normal. Familial fusion is normal. Okay, continue.) 

First inter-dad fusion: “I silence his dumb ass with a kiss” except its “I silence his dumb ass by accidentally fusing our bodies and consiousnesses into a single being w h o o p s” 

I like to name fusions as something other than their romantic ship name so let’s call him… o h yeah we named all of Henry’s fusions after animals. So this guy is Hare (like Darryl). Hare is pretty stable from the outside, but their internal dialogues clash really hard so they're incredibly slow to make decisions. 

Internally, Henry feels like he's crossed Darryls boundaries. They have to hold it, but he lets Darryl take the wheel and all similar mistakes are made. They make it through the thing with the Lance before unfusing. Darryl has no idea what that was and already has a lot of intimacy issues, so he’s not particularly inclined to try that again for funsies. Henry is curious, but there’s a buried part of him that’s making him deeply unsettled by the whole experience. He can barely have a straight thought about it, much less articulate the feeling, so he doesn’t try. He lets it go. 

First sons fusion: When the Lord of Chaos throws back his robe, yelling “Dad! !” it’s a GIANT Lark&Sparrow. They’re like trying to fuse two rubies together, you just get a bigger ruby. This changes a bit later, when the twins start to diverge from each other vis a vis Love Wolfism, but basically the Lord of Chaos is an Oak Twin the size of their dad. But still looks 12. It probably actually takes the Love Wolf speech from Henry and their divergent reactions to get them to unfuse. 

Second inter-dad fusion: That other time Henry and Darryl smooched while high on drug flowers. It was very unpleasant, they don’t talk about it, they don’t try that again for a while. 

They get a book on fusions from the Library that reads almost like a birds and the bees talk and there is minor culture-shock panicking about whether fusion is Like That, but something in Henry is telling him “No. It’s not Like That.” He doesn’t really know why he’s so solid in that belief. He understands that fusion is unique and powerful and a wonderful thing, but something about doing it is just… getting under his skin. 

Third inter-dad fusion: Glenn and Ron. I’m not even sure the exact context or anything. Maybe they were just vibin’. All I really know is that I imagine these two occasionally fuse for the weirdest things, like

Fourth inter-dad fusion: also Glon, fishing magic items out of a giant toilet. They needed to be taller. 

Glon is… gosh, what the heck is Glon. Performative out the ass, for sure. Down for basically anything. Allowed to wear bootie shorts. 

Back up a hot minute though, because first dad-son fusion: almost happens on the Tower of Terry. It comes so close. They’re in that hug, and Ron thinks maybe if they fuse, the magic won’t take TJ. Or even if it takes them both, that’s better than TJ getting taken alone. They don’t have to say “I’m sorry” or “I love you, son” out loud, but before it really takes, Terry gets ripped away. Because Willy can’t have that, can he? 

Fifth inter-dad fusion: is Glon again, but the circumstances are way different because Ron just saw the mummy of his wife and Glenn is trying to help him breeze past it and it works until it doesn’t and they fall apart with Ron a crying mess. 

Sixth inter-dad fusion buckle up because we’ve reached Ravenloft. Before dad-fusion 6, Henry gets caught in his dad’s claws. He feels something very familiar and rejects it with everything he has, and escapes to grab Glenn. Then he gets hit by Calm Emotions, Glenn reaches up, trying not to fall, and Henry is already super chill about everything all of a sudden, so when Glenn tries to fuse out of panic, Henry goes for it. 

Gila—Henry and Glenn—can do actual bard magic. They’re like Opal, in that a single moment of disconnect is enough to snap them apart and finding that disconnect is not difficult. But when the situation is saving their kids and telling their asshole dads to get lost, that’s plenty enough connection to cast an actual magic-ass thunderwave with a guitar and maybe a bit more. 

(Barry didn’t like that.) 

So another fun thing about adding this factor to cannon is that this lets the dads have glimpses inside each other’s heads. So certain conversations could change a little bit. For example, in the van while they’re driving away from the Ravenloft fight and Henry’s explaining a few things. 

Henry: I don't have a lot of memories from that time in my life—  Glenn: Not a lot? Try "not any.” Henry: Glenn—  Glenn: Dude, none of my business, but your brain was weird.  Henry: Glenn.  Glenn: Like did the government get to you when you showed up on earth or—   Henry: Glenn what the fff—rick are you even saying just shut up Darryl: …

Darryl had noticed, too, but Glenn has other fusion experience to compare with. Henry could catch glimpses and imprints and trains of thought which ground in different points of Darryl/Glenn’s entire life, and Glenn and Ron can do that equally with each other. But a bunch of things for Henry, if you try to backtrack to where the decision comes from it just. Stops. Especially with using magic, which Glenn got to do. And Henry’s thoughts on fusion end dead hard. 

(filtering all of this through Freddie’s headcanon that Glenn always figured Henry was from Faerun but was just wildly wrong about all the details is so much fun)

This is the part in the fic series where there’s a one-shot about Henry having a panic attack just outside of the camp at night, and the most he can explain is just that something about seeing his dad again set him off. 

And then we get to a lighter turn for first dad-son fusion but for realsies this time: Ron Stampler nat 20s to hug his son and then also is the son. And that dad. And dads are supposed to be inside to do a ritual for a demon cow. 

RJ is the sweetest dude. Also if you don’t sit on him he will wander off and do the most extreme version of the first thing that comes to his mind for a problem solution or release from boredom. And he will not tell you about it in advance, so seriously. Sit on him. 

So they stand there for a second like "yes... Yes. Yes... Okay. Im... I'm the dad. But I'm the kid? But im. The dad. And all the other dads are also the kid so... Dad... Trumps kid status. And I'm the dad... Cool." and they go in to help with the demon cow. 

The kids are flipping out outside. 

Henry spots them and drops the cage, almost like he’s Garnet and just spotted Stevonnie. While all the other dad’s are freaking out/fawning/curious, Glenn lifts their glasses and theres four eyes and he drops the glasses and never mentions this again. 

Rj: hi um. I'm a dad.... Yeah. So I'm here tooooooo frickin kill a demon cow let's do this Rj: got the good dad vibes comin out of my butt

For realsies though Terry should be outside, so they unfuse for the cow thing and the bbq but then Dennis happens. 

Second dad-son fusion: Dennis: are you sure you've got this?  Ron: i can do it  TJ: he can DO it dad GIVE ME YOUR HAND

RJ’s an arcane trickster and it’s real cool and Dennis looks so jealous ha ha ha and also they separate after the fight and suddenly Terry’s unsettled and needs to talk to Ron for a second because “Hey Dad is Dennis not real????????” 

Third dad-son fusion: is way less eventful, but who the heck can say no to more reasons to cry about the Wilsons at the tail end of the Supper Bowl arc? 

Fusion is not a replacement for talking, but it is a bit smoother in communicating emotions. It doesn’t happen until the end of their talk, when Darryl’s got his arm around Grant. I don’t think either of them are super attached to this whole fusion thing, (If Grant is, it certainly wasn’t his dad he’d been thinking about trying it with. Maybe one of the other kids… “maybe Terry.”) so they may not even pick a name. Henry certainly cries at least twice as hard, but when they want to just get something to eat and maybe just hang out for a while, nobody pushes. 

I think the most important part of this is that it gives Grant a kind of… emotional break. Lets him feel something nice again— like he does in the show, too, but in a way that’s a bit more stable while it lasts. Like the feeling when you’re a kid on a long car ride with your parents, one that ends in getting home late and you’ve fallen asleep and they carry you out of the car. 

Good things for Grant Wilson for til forever. 

Somewhere in that arc, though, Glenn approaches Henry by themselves. Glenn’s not really a feelings guy, but whatever’s going on in Henry’s head is a problem. It’s a one-up the o-dads have on them, and they can’t afford that right now. 

Glenn: so you like... Really don't hardly remember being a kid?  Henry: Glenn, I don't want to talk about it  Glenn: I bet your dad's gonna wanna talk about it  Henry: well... i don't care what he wants  Glenn:... You seriously don't know how you got to earth?  Henry: [exasperated] the frick are you-- I got to earth like anyone else, Glenn. You know where babies come from, right?  Glenn: of course i fucking know where babies come from. A mommy and a daddy love each other very much and then their kid runs away so hard he skips dimensions  Henry: wh-- wait you-- do you think I'm an alien?  Glenn: obviously  Henry: Glenn that's-- [sighs, rubs his face] Glenn this isn't the kind of time for your conspiracies  Glenn: hey as far as I'm concerned, a man who sleeps with an axe under his pillow is a fool every night but one. and you shoot poison from your hands and shape shift into bears

Which adds nicely to the slide of heading to Oakveil next

Henry: y'know what. When we leave here, we can get my kids next.  Glenn: your interdimensional kids  Henry: to prove to you you're being crazy. Again.  Glenn: De Nial is a river man, and we left it back on earth

And one more dialogue bite, because…

Glenn: claim your powers latched onto you from this world all you want. But that language you and your dad spoke, didn't come out of the air, it came out of the door in your head

...fusion means the other dads get to learn about the metaphorical brain door. 

This brings us into the most recent arc, heading into Oakveil. He and Ron sneak in, and Beary tells Henry he’s home, and pieces start to click together. Henry’s from this world, so he understands why he’s had such a particular view on fusion and that basic cultural understanding. That it’s considered normal. And that it’s even normal for a kid’s first fusion to be with their parent. Their parent who loves them and knows them wants to see them grow. 

Bear Ry’Oak is not that. 

First O-dad fusion: Henry’s first fusion was with his dad. 

I think the worst thing is that, when fused with his dad, Hen doesn't feel like he's not himself. one of the interesting things about the Oaks is that they're kind of all slight alterations on the same traits. Like as gross as it feels to admit, Beary is just Henry but with the condescension turned up to a billion and his high horse is basically an elephant and no self-awareness or care for how others might have different perspectives from him

But Beary is still so overwhelming to Henry that it just flattens pretty much anything that makes Henry, Henry. Specifically the parts that Barry dislikes. like Henry's anger. To directly quote Aryashi: “Beary thinks using fusion for combat is barbaric. obviously fusion is for Conflict Resolution. Fuse with Beary so he can sort out your disagreement with him!”

(and then bathe in bleach)

So Beary finds them in Oakveil and Henry starts panicking and he tries to Handle Henry like he did when Henry was a kid, fusing with him to stomp down on his feelings to cut a panic attack or outburst off at the pass. If Henry's in no place to fight back it usually works, but if Ron's there--literally pressed against Henry's back--to see the fusion coming, maybe he reaches for a fusion, too, and lets Henry's instincts choose which pull to follow, and Henry's instincts choose Ron.

Seventh inter-dad fusion: Wren is suddenly there before Beary can even start his attempt to coach Henry through breathing (his half-effort to help Henry and be able to say that he tried freakin hate him) and is sitting on the ground and the disgusted look Beary gets seeing this. (Fusing with an outsider is something he considers so beneath his son.)

Beary:... Ah. Ronald.  Wren, existing, suddenly, and mostly being Ron's processing power as Henry's mental wheels try to slow down to match Ron's pace (cultivated through a childhood of dealing with Willy) rather than amp them both up: uhm... It's just Ron, actually Beary: would you mind... (there's other people around so he can't say "decontaminating") liberating my son. (as if ignoring the role his son had in choosing this fusion over his) Wren: Henry is uh... (me? Not me? Yes me, not up for this, we should go somewhere else that usually works fine, we can just leave and find the others and that'll be fine) he's good. We're good, we're gonna... (looking at the other people who look like Henry and the "not amping each other up” thing is working less and less)  Wren: bye

And then they just stand up and fast-walk away

Wren is either chill af and rolling with every punch or the living equivalent of a coke bottle that you popped a whole roll of mentos in and then closed immediately. At this moment, it’s very much the coke bottle side. Beary lets them go because he knows Henry will be back, and they make it just outside of town to where the others have just shown up before they fall apart. 

Ron: We found the door!  Darryl: what door?  Ron: the one in Henry's head!  And all the dads know what he's talking about Glenn: did you open it?  Henry: no  Ron: a little bit  Henry(probably now starting that panic attack): the anchors in there  Ron: his dad came out of it  Darryl: his dad???????? Henry, vulnerability, Oak: I AM FEELING VERY VULNERABLE RIGHT NOW AND I HATE IT  [chorus of mumbled sorrys] Ron: oh also Oakvale is Henry's home Darryl: WHAT Glenn: Uh hey anyone gonna pick up the phone cause I FUCKIN CALLED IT Henry: That's not my home! My home is with Mercedes back on Earth! Glenn: Yeah, this is just where you were born.  Henry: Glenn I swear to God-- Glenn: Dude lay off, I was agreeing with you! Home's where the heart meds are and all that jazz Darryl: Wait, you have heart meds? At home? When was the last time you took your heart meds? Glenn: Uhh... not since I came here? It's fiiiiiine. Never felt better! Ron: Not to interrupt but Henry's on the ground breathing funny. Glenn, are you sure you don't have any heart meds? Henry: being hugged by both of his sons in a simultaneous way that is not their normal simultaneous way (i.e. the Lord of Chaos way): WHY ARE MY SONS TALLER THAN ME Glenn: I'm more surprised that they're hugging you  Lord of Chaos: to assert dominance! Any moment now, we will turn this hug into a suplex!

And that basically brings us to now? I want a Triple Oak Fusion (the King of Chaos) but with how the fight with Beary went I’m not sure where it’ll go. OH YEAH. 

Autumn stopped fusing with Hen even when he was a kid because she couldn’t stand to see how much her son craved the approval of that evil man who stole her life away. And whether or not Henry ever fuses with anyone ever again after finding out he’s got Eldritch in him has gotta be up in the air. 

And at this point I could easily be convinced that the next inter-dad fusion is Darryl and Glenn, those beautiful idiots. They could be… Denn. Glarryl? We’ll workshop it. 

[radishaur]

can u do a zuko x reader high school au where the reader (female or gender neutral) is part of the gaang's friend group and is a huge nerd? (in math or science or english or everything because there aren't enough nerd readers mam) feel free to do anything you want with that! ty!

As a fellow nerd, I am so in love with this idea! I actually love this idea so I think I’m gonna be turning this one into a series! I hope you enjoy this!

- Zoe

•••

Highschool AU (Zuko x Reader)

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff, Highschool AU, some angst

Part: 1/?

Summary: Zuko was, by no means, your typical student. He was super popular despite having relatively no friends. He was quite shy and mostly kept to himself. Every girl was swooning over him, but he never noticed. He also was pretty much barely passing every class he was in, besides PE and Theatre. So when the school appoints you as his personal tutor, you wouldn’t say you were surprised. What did surprise you was how well the two of you got along.

•••

The soft sound of the alarm going off brought you out of your sleep. You groaned in annoyance before sitting up. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but that didn’t matter. School started at 7 AM sharp, no excuses.

You swung yourself out of bed and hit the off button for your alarm. Stretching, you found yourself walking into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

It was the same routine every day. Get up and get ready for school. Eat breakfast and go straight to school. Go to your classes as expected and don’t cause trouble. Keep your grades up or else. Look out for your sister because she’s blind and “can’t take care of herself” (total bullshit). Come home and do your homework. Go to sleep. That was the routine for Y/N Beifong.

Having parents in politics meant you were constantly having to meet these insane expectations. You had to be perfect. There was no room to be a normal teenager. Not for me.

I sighed and got dressed before heading over to Toph’s room. She was usually a heavy sleeper and I had to wake her up.

“Toph! Sokka, Aang, and Katara are gonna be here any minute now,” I exclaimed as I turned the lights on in her room.

She grumbled slightly before sitting up. Her hair was everywhere and I giggled slightly.

“Come on. Get dressed so I can do your hair,” I told her before heading to the kitchen to make some food.

I put some fruit into the blender along with some ice and milk to make us both smoothies. I let it mix before pouring them into two cup and handing one to a sleepy Toph who shuffled into the kitchen.

“Rough night?” I asked as I began taming her hair.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she replied as she hastily drank her smoothie.

I pinned her hair into her usual style. As I was placing the last bobby pin in, I heard a honk from outside. Definitely Sokka.

Toph and I both grabbed our bags before running outside and jumping in the car. The rides to school were always my favorite. We could just laugh and be ourselves. It was incredibly refreshing.

When we pulled into the school parking lot, we all went out seperate ways to class. I was the oldest of the group, a whole grade above everyone else. Sokka and Katara were only one underneath me and then Aang and Toph were both freshman. How is that even possible you might be asking?

Well, both Aang and Katara skipped a grade. They’ve always been slightly smarter than their age group so it didn’t really surprise anyone. As for Toph, pretty much everyone was surprised to find out that she was practically a genius. She didn’t care about school in the slightest, but she was incredibly smart. She had to take special classes because of her blindness, but she was a part of the school nonetheless. Honestly, it worked out great for me. I had all of my friends in the same place, even if I didn’t have any classses with them.

I went about my day as usual, vigorously taking notes and listening to the different lectures. Everything was going by as normal until I was called to the principals office before lunch. My teacher handed me the note before continuing his lecture.

The walk there had been absolutely nerve wracking. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and yet I still couldn’t calm down. Mostly out of fear for what my parents would do if they found out I was called there in the first place. I took a deep breath before opening the door to the principal’s office.

“Ah! Miss Y/N,” Principal Williams greeted with a welcoming smile, “Have a seat.”

“Good morning Mr. Williams,” I replied as I sat down.

I shifted nervously in my seat as I waited for him to tell me why I was here.

“Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble,” he prefaced, sending a wave of relief over me, “We’re just waiting on another student to arrive and then I’ll explain why you’re here.”

I cocked my head curiously, wondering what could possibly be happening. It wasn’t maybe a minute long before the door creaked open once more. Stepping inside was the last person I expected to see.

“Mr. Zuko! Late as always,” Principal Williams greeted, noticeably less friendly.

Standing in the doorway stood Zuko. He had a red cardigan with a button up underneath, black jeans, and a brown book bag slung over his shoulders. My eyes flicked to the scar that covered almost the entire left side of his face before looking over the rest of him. His brown hair fell lightly over his face and he shifted nervously in the doorway before sitting like he was told to.

“This is Ms. Y/N. I’m sure you’ve seen eachother around school before,” he said, pointing between the two of us.

Zuko nodded slightly before averting his gaze. I had indeed seen him around before. His father was also in politics and his sister, Azula, was one of the top students in the school and the two were never seen together at school. His scar was the spark of many gossip filled conversations you could hear while walking down the halls. Zuko himself was quiet. He kept to himself and didn’t have many friends.

“Zuko here is in need of a tutor. He’s barely passing any of his classes and his father is paying us to find him a student tutor. Seeing as you’re one of our top students and the same age, it only made sense to pick you,” he explained to me, barely even paying attention to Zuko at all.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say.

I had a million thoughts running through my head. I didn’t even know what to say.

“We’ll pay you for your efforts of course and the school will provide you with library space to work. All you need to do is tutor Zuko until his grades go up,” he continued, leaning back in his chair.

Zuko hadn’t said a word. You could see him blushing slightly out of the corner of your eye, presumably because he was embarrassed. You two had never spoken before and now he was getting bad mouthed right in front of me. I couldn’t help but feel somewhat sorry for him. Principal Williams did really put him in an uncomfortable position.

“When would I be tutoring him?” I asked, bringing my attention back to the situation at hand.

“Every day after school starting today until his grades improve. Then we can adjust the schedule as needed,” Principal Williams said before handing me a sheet of paper and adding, “That’s a list of all the subjects you’ll be covering.”

I nodded to conform I had heard him, but my head was elsewhere. This was a huge commitment I was being thrown into, but I couldn’t really say no. Besides, judging by the list of subjects I’d be teaching him, they were all ones I actually enjoyed. I would have to tell my parents and Toph about the new arrangement though and that wasn’t a conversation I was particularly looking forward too.

“Great. Why don’t you two exchange phone numbers so you can communicate and then you can be on your ways,” he said before ushering us out into the waiting room.

I stood awkwardly in front of him. He was only slightly taller than me, but it was enough to make me feel slightly intimidated. Despite his social awkwardness, he looked like someone you didn’t want to piss off. I shook my head and decided to introduce myself properly.

“So, I know that probably wasn’t the best way to get introduced. My name is Y/N,” I said, giving him a friendly smile.

“Zuko,” he said back.

This was the first time I had heard his voice. In all honesty, it sent a swarm of butterflies off in my stomach. It was quiet and held this almost gravelly tone that made my knees weak.

“It’s nice to meet you. Why don’t I give you my number so I can text you later,” I suggested, shoving the funny feeling in my stomach down.

He took his phone out and looked at me. His amber eyes met my (E/C) one’s expectantly. I repeated my number for him and then pulled out my own to get his. I was putting his contact name in when he spoke again.

“I’m sorry for getting you forced into tutoring me. My family was insistent on having a student tutor,” he apologized, a small blush dusting his cheeks as he did.

“That’s alright. I don’t mind. I’m actually really passionate about most of the stuff I’ll be teaching you anyways,” I assured him as I stuffed my phone back into my pocket.

He hummed to let me know he had heard me but he didn’t say anything else. I looked down awkwardly by my feet, unsure of what to do next. I was scrambling for what to say when the lunch bell rang.

“Well, I better get going. I don’t want to keep my friends waiting. I’ll text you after school,” I said before making my way to the lunch room.

I met my friends and we all got in line to grab lunch. I was grateful that our school provided actual food. Granted, this was a private school. It was incredibly prestigious. You had to either pay to attend or be here on a scholarship.

“So, I heard that you got pulled out of class to go to the principal’s office,” Toph taunted, poking me in the side with her elbow.

“Ms. Goody-two-shoes got sent to the office? No way,” Sokka said, grabbing his tray as we all began walking towards our table outside.

“What did you get called down for?” Aang asked out of curiosity.

We all sat down at the table and I began eating as I answered.

“I’m going to be a tutor for another student. I’m getting paid and everything,” I explained.

“Oh wow! Who is it?” Katara asked as she took a bite out of her sandwich.

“Zuko,” I answered casually.

Sokka choked on his drink and looked at me with wide eyes. Pretty much everybody at the table did besides Toph who just continued eating like nothing had happened.

“You’re going to be tutoring Zuko? Like the Zuko?” he asked in disbelief.

I rolled my eyes. Everybody at school acted like this. Sokka really needed to stop gossiping so much.

“I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s just like the rest of us,” I argued, taking another bite of my food.

“You’re insane, Y/N. Zuko is the mysterious hottie that everybody wants to date. Do you know how many people would kill for the opportunity you were just handed?” he exclaimed, waving his hands out to gesture to the many students milling around.

“Don’t tell me you’re crushing on him or something. Are you jealous?” I teased, kicking his leg slightly under the table.

Everybody laughed as Sokka scowled.

“Haha. You know I’ve had my eyes on Suki since day one,” he sighed, looking off in the distance dreamily.

We spent the rest of the lunch period like usual, just discussing our days and making plans to hang out this weekend. I went through the rest of my classses more anxious than usual, though. Normally I would be completely focused, but I couldn’t get my mind of tutoring Zuko.

His awkward demeanor did nothing to hide his look. I hated to agree with the opinion of the student body, but he was undeniably good looking. I also couldn’t stop thinking about how I had to spend the next however many hours trying to tutor him. I was nervous to see if I would be any good at it. What if we didn’t get alone well?

I was brought back to reality by the final bell. My heartbeat began to accelerate slightly, but I forced myself to calm down. I texted the group chat I had with my friends to remind them of my tutoring session and then made my way into the library. It was completely empty save for Zuko. He was already sitting down at a table and was fidgeting nervously with his sleeve. He had headphones in and I made sure to walk in front of him so I didn’t startle him.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down in the chair next to him.

He plucked the earbuds out of his ears carefully and turned to look at me. He gave me a halfhearted smile before shoving his headphones into his bag.

“Hi,” he mumbled.

“So, I feel like I should preface this by letting you know I’ve never been a tutor before. I’m not really sure how this is supposed to work,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

I pulled my textbooks out of my bag and set them down on the table. I thought for a moment before deciding on what to do.

“Why don’t we get to know eachother better?” I suggested.

His good eye widened a bit in shock before his expression changed to one of confusion.

“Aren’t you supposed to be tutoring me?” he questioned me.

“I will. I just think it would help if we actually knew a little bit about eachother. That way we aren’t just total strangers,” I explained, turning my chair to face him.

He shifted nervously before finally facing me. He was definitely incredibly awkward. Luckily for both of us, I found it endearing. Besides, growing up with Toph you kind of have to learn to adapt. She’s not exactly known for being the most social.

“Alright,” he agreed.

“Great. I guess I’ll start. Ask me anything you want to know,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

His brows furrowed in thought. I had to hold back at laugh at his determination. He was taking this very seriously it appeared.

“What uh.....what do you do for fun?” he asked finally.

“I actually love to read. That’s usually what I do after school if I’m not hanging out with my friends. I also love studying environmental science,” I answered honestly.

“Oh. I’m not very good at either of those,” he admitted sheepishly, his cheeks growing pink.

“What are you good at?” I asked.

“I guess I’m good at sports. I used to take martial arts when I was little. Now I mostly just um......” he trailed off before mumbling something under his breath, his embarrassment growing clearer and clearer.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear the last part,” I admitted.

“I uh......I really enjoy theatre,” he admitted quietly, averting his gaze from mine.

“Oh! I didn’t strike you as a theatre person. That’s cool! My sister and I used to sneak out and watch some local plays before we got caught,” I admitted, laughing at the memory.

Toph used to insist on going, even though she couldn’t see. She said it was a good chance for her to practice her version of seeing. At first, I thought it was ridiculous, but she surprised me like usual. As long as her feet were on the ground she could sense where everything was.

Zuko was surprised. He had expected you to make fun of him, but instead you seemed completely unfazed. Theatre, as his father said, was for girls.

“You don’t think that’s weird?” he questioned, testing the waters.

“Why would that be weird?” you asked, your head cocked to the side in confusion.

He seemed to be relaxed slightly by your answer and for the first time, a genuine smile graced his features. It was small, but even that sent a small flutter alight in your stomach. You smiled back and continued to get to know him. After a while, you finally began tutoring him. You spent almost 2 hours there before you two decided to call it a night.

Now, you were laying in bed. Normally you would be out like a light, but tonight you couldn’t get a certain someone out of your head. You guys had clicked almost instantly after Zuko relaxed. You guys had more in common than you would have expected.

You sighed and turned on your side to look at the stars. As you drifted off to sleep, you couldn’t help but be excited to see him again.

[lillupon]

So, I've got a very long rant/opinion here and Idk really know how to say this without coming off kinda bad but I'm gonna say it anyways. I agree with the fact that the seventeen tag has been kinda dry lately on most fanfic places, but it's really only in the smut area. It's the sane way with other groups too I feel like. All of the nice little innocent tags are boomin to this day and thats completely fine. I think the smut tag is dry tho bc lately I feel like a few social issues (like sexualizing people and disrespecting them and their identity) have crossed over into kpop and have been ?blown out of proportion? Lately there's been a rampage of people who like to say that writing smut about someone is disgusting and is dehumanizing because people want to assume that it would make the idols uncomfortable which could equate to some morality issues on how you are reducing someone only to their body without their consent and a bunch of stuff like that. It kind of pisses me off bc this is fiction. About grown adults. Clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life. I think a shit ton is wrong with the world we currently live in, and deciding to come after something that isn't even real bothers me. Like what does that actually accomplish. But yeah, I think thats a reason why smut has been dying down. I mean, on youtube almost every video about unpopular opinions, or things they dont like about kpop will include something about shipping idols in fanfics. And then everyone in the comment section will talk about how its all fine and dandy in moderation, but once people start writing smut it's crossing the idols personal boundaries. It's something I've been seeing a lot more often and I think people who are interested in writing smut are being turned away from it bc we've gotten to a point where people are being called disgusting for having fantasies.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending in this Ask. 

I want to preface this by saying: when I write or talk about Mingyu and Wonwoo fucking on my blog, it is a fantasy. I am not speculating about what the real Mingyu and Wonwoo might be like in bed. I am imagining the versions of Mingyu and Wonwoo that I have created in my head, that exist only in my stories. None of it is real. I understand that this can be a blurry boundary for some people. But for me, the separation between fantasy and reality is well-defined. Now, on to your Ask!

You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. You’ve also touched on many of the issues I have been struggling with myself as of late. It’s difficult to argue about morals since everyone has a different set of values, as well as different comfort levels. Some people think real person fiction (RPF) is a gross invasion of privacy. Others are fine with it. And others don’t care one way or another. There is no single answer; I can only offer my answer. Which means, of course, people are welcome to disagree with it, or parts of it. 

In this essay (LOL But forreal: this is an essay), I will be sharing my experience in the k-pop fanfic community from 2014 to present, the etiquette I personally abide by as a reader and writer of RPF, as well as my stance on RPF in general.

I started reading and posting fanfics back in 2014/2015 on a website called AsianFanfics (AFF). Obviously, no one on that site had a problem with RPF, since AFF is a platform made specifically for sharing stories about Asian celebrities. For many years, I read and enjoyed RPF with zero guilt. I scribbled away by myself in my own corner of fandom and curated my own content. I didn’t interact much with other fans, readers, or writers. I didn’t have a Twitter, and I only used tumblr to reblog memes. As a result, I’ve been able to avoid a lot of anti-shipping discourse, as well as purity and cancel culture. I had no idea there were so many negative opinions about RPF. It wasn’t until I became active on the subreddit r/Fanfiction last year that I learned about all the discourse surrounding RPF. 

This newfound ‘awareness’ does make me feel guilty at times—but only because after mulling this over, I still don’t think this is something to feel guilty about.

Here’s what I remember, first and foremost, when I create and consume RPF: fanfics and my favourite ships are fictional, and fiction is fantasy. This is basic etiquette when it comes to RPF, and most people in the k-pop fandom understand this. Delusional fans exist, of course, but they are not representative of the entire k-pop community. 

Another point of etiquette is to keep fanfics within fandom spaces. I would never push my fics into celebrities’ faces, or go around claiming that my fanfics are accurate representations of a k-idol’s life or personality, in any way, shape, or form. I would also discourage directing ship-related questions to official accounts, or bringing them up during fansigns or other face-to-face interactions; I believe that in these instances, shipping does have the potential to strain real-life relationships.

So with basic etiquette out of the way, let me share my approach to RPF in general.

As much as we like to think we know our favourite celebrities, we really don’t. All we see is their public persona. And this public persona is intentionally controlled, managed, and curated by a team of people: directors, tabloids, editors, makeup artists, publicists, etc. How “real” are these celebrities? We are so distanced from them that they may as well be fictional.

I draw from the public persona that idols project, and I work them into my own writing. But at the end of the day, these personalities are my own interpretation. My interpretation is probably nothing like an idol’s actual personality. I just use the “public persona/character” that idols portray as inspiration for my own stories, which are set in wildly different universes.

More than anything, I think of k-pop idols as “actors” in my fic. You know how when you write an original novel, you scroll through Google images, looking for the perfect person to portray your original character? RPF is literally that, except you might build upon pre-existing dynamics and personalities.

When it comes to explicit fanfiction, two main concerns are prevalent: one of consent, and one of sexualisation.

If we argue against explicit RPF due to lack of consent, we should be willing to apply the same lens to all explicit works. How do we know that the creator of a movie, book, series, etc., is okay with us using their characters in our stories, explicit or not? We don’t. Perhaps some creators encourage fanfiction, but don’t want their lovingly crafted characters engaging in sexual acts or experiencing trauma. We just don’t know. I feel this line is even more blurred when we talk about characters from movies or TV series.

Let’s take Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, as portrayed by Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, from the Captain America movies as an example. I am willing to bet that when people consume and create explicit fanfiction about Steve and Bucky, they are imagining Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan in their heads. I doubt many people are imagining the 2D cartoon versions of Steve and Bucky, even though they’re technically the exact same characters. Why? Well, it could be because movies are more readily and easily consumed than comics, and so people are unfamiliar with comic book Steve and Bucky. But it might also be because fans find Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan attractive. Is this really any different from RPF, where fic authors make up everything about a celebrity’s life?  

When readers and writers of fanfic talk about how hot Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes is, those comments are about Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan’s bodies. When reading explicit stories, fans are going to picture Chris and Sebastian’s bodies in their head, doing sexual things. Can we say, “Well, it’s not really you, Chris/Sebastian”, when in a way, it is?

The reality is, people are going to thirst over celebrities, regardless of whether or not explicit fanfiction exists. They’re going to post thirst tweets on Twitter. They’re going to talk to friends and strangers online about how hot [insert celebrity name here] is. They’re going to fantasize about dating and having sex with their favourite celebrity. Or, as it is in my case, they’re going to make up stories in their heads about their favourite idols dating and banging each other. People are going to do all of this without ‘getting consent’ from the celebrity. Cracking down upon and shaming writers of RPF isn’t going to change any of that.

To be honest, I’m not sure why people think it is disgusting to imagine sexual scenarios about real people. It is okay and normal to have these kinds of fantasies. I suppose the alternative is to fantasise about having sex with cartoon characters instead? It’s a very binary way of thinking to say that if you imagine/write real people in explicit scenarios, you are immediately sexualising, dehumanising, or objectifying them. There is more to dehumanisation than writing smut about our favourite celebrities. For one thing, you can love someone and appreciate all parts of them, and still want to fuck their brains out. And generally, fanfics come from a place of love—love that is not only sexual in nature.

Is it the sharing aspect inherent to fanfiction? The possibility that a celebrity might stumble upon explicit works about them? The chances are very low, I think, of the k-pop idols I enjoy writing about coming across my English fics. But I also believe in curating your own content, and that applies to celebrities too. Perhaps a celebrity should not go searching for fanfics about themselves. And of course, people should not show celebrities their fanfics, unless invited.

Another argument I hear against (explicit) RPF is, “How would you feel if someone wrote fanfiction about you?” First off, I don’t like this argument because there’s a difference between someone who decides to be a public figure versus someone who decides to remain a regular private citizen. Celebrities should and do know what they’re getting into when they choose their occupation. (This is not to say, “They are celebrities; sexualise them all you want because that’s what they signed up for.” Here, I am only acknowledging that people might have sexual fantasies about celebrities they are attracted to. Presumably, celebrities are cognizant of this.)  

If someone (whose existence I am not even aware of, mind you) decides they want to write explicit fanfiction of me in some tiny corner of the Internet, I wouldn’t care so long as: (1) they don’t shove it into my face, and (2) they don’t harass me and ask invasive questions about my personal life and relationships. It’s not hurting me or negatively affecting my life, so it wouldn’t even register as a blip on my radar. When fanfiction remains within its appropriate spaces, it is largely harmless. 

Now, if a k-pop idol were to ask their fans to stop writing fanfiction about them, would I? Yes, I would. However, I can’t imagine that happening. Judging by the number of ‘sexy’ concepts, fanservice moments, and variety shows such as ‘We Got Married’, I am certain that k-pop idols realise they are the stars of many fantasies—some of which are explicit in nature. Considering the prevalence of shipping in the k-pop industry, I would argue that shipping is subtly encouraged.

It’s sad that so many talented writers are shamed out of fandom, or feel that k-pop cannot be the medium through which they tell their stories, or explore their sexuality, or cope with trauma, or simply have fun. Professional works and Hollywood love their RPF—readers and writers of fanfics should be able to, as well. 

As you said Anon, “clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life” (this is a lovely sentence, by the way). The kind of person who dehumanises another and reduces them to a sexual object will do so some other way, if not via fanfiction. I don’t think the issue of fetishisation can be fixed simply by telling people not to write explicit RPF. In my experience, people who read and write RPF are more respectful and thoughtful about these things than the general public. We’ve all seen the general public say highly sexual things about celebrities in the media and to their faces, or tag celebrities in their thirst tweets. Are these things less invasive than fanfiction? Personally, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, there are more pressing and damaging issues in stan culture than fanfic.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating and consuming RPF, both explicit and non-explicit so long as we:

Remember we are writing fiction

Keep RPF within its appropriate space, and

Do not harass celebrities about their personal lives and relationships

RPF is not for everyone. There may be people who enjoy RPF, but draw the line at explicit stories. This is fine. Everyone has their own personal preferences. What is not fine, however, is attacking people for creating things you don’t like. I’m not sure what kind of moral crusade people are on and what they hope to achieve by shaming writers of RPF, explicit or otherwise. Ultimately, fic authors are writing a fantasy. It’s not real; no one is being hurt. I think it’s important for people to curate their own content, and AO3 makes it very easy to filter out explicit works and unwanted tags. 

Maybe this is me trying to justify my own participation in explicit RPF—I don’t know. What I do know is that I love k-pop, and fandom is an important part of my media and entertainment experience. I adore the k-pop idols I write about, and I just want to imagine them being happy and getting lots of love and orgasms. Let a bitch be horny, goddamn… 

Some bonus fun facts!

At the time I am writing this, on AO3:

26.2% of Stray Kids fanfics are rated M or E

26.3% of Seventeen fanfics are rated M or E

29.0% of Merlin fanfics are rated M or E

34.9% of Captain America (Movies) fanfics are rated M or E

40.1% of BTS fanfics are rated M or E ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Coincidentally, I saw this post on Reddit this morning: Can we have a RPF positivity post?

[todororororokiy]

Voltron is trending so here’s how I’d remake Voltron: Legendary Defender

I’d like to preface this with a few things 1) I loved season 1 and 2, I was a die hard Voltron fan from the second I started watching, and while I had issue with season 3-6 I was ok with them 2) I never watched season 8 and I only watched half of 7. From what I hear, this was a good decision 3) I spent six hours straight working on this, so I apologise for any spelling mistakes or errors 4) None of this belongs to me.

Ok, basic setup is the same except for one thing, Shiro is aged down. It never made sense to me to have Shiro be 25, and the rest of them be 15-18, it seemed like a very big gap, and as we can see from Fandom it caused a lot of discourse. So every bodies aged as such, just for reference:

Shiro: 20

Allura: 22

Keith: 18

Lance & Hunk: 17

Pidge: 16

One more note, all seasons would be about 11-13 episodes long. It has never made sense to me why four of the eight season were 6-7 episodes and the rest were a normal length.

Season 1 & 2

Both of these seasons were great. Voltron was a really good show for these first seasons. There’s nothing to change here.

Season 3

Plot Changes

Nonoe at the moment. There would be more scenes added and obviously some scenes would be altered but over all the plot is intact.

Shiro’s Disappearance

In this version everyone has a different opinion on Shiro's disappearance, I never felt like they did in the show.

Keith, obviously, thinks he’s alive and so does Pidge.

Hunk and Coran remain doubtful, though they each have a little hope, Coran more so than Hunk

Allura and Lance both think the worst. Side note: this is where we see Lance and Allura properly transition from slightly awkward coworkers to friends. Their shared grief and angst helps them bond and open up a route for them to start communicating. They kind of got over him being a creep reallysuddenly, and that doesn’t happen, even if he had stopped the behaviour, I think she’d take some time before she allowed him to be her friend.

Pidge and Her Family

Pidge is super isolated in the original show. While her arc, I felt, was about trusting the team and leaning on them more for support. To come out of her shell, and be defined by something greater than her family and love for technology.

In this version everyone wants to help find Matt and Dr. Holt. Having her connect with the team by them wanting to help, and especially them wanting to help in the wake of Shiro’s disappearance feels like a logical move. Everyone’s devastated about Shiro one way or another, and they want to see Pidge get her family back. It brings the team members hope for Shiro.

Lion Swapping and My Many Issues with it

the lion swap should have been temporary. Something they had to do but would try to avoid as much as possible.

Originally everyone wants Allura to pilot Black. She’s their commander and so should take up the mantle of leader. But black refuses her entry.

In this version everyone in the team says that they’re making do with what they have. That Allura is their commander of their operation, Shiro their leader. We see in this episode there’s almost a bit more of an understanding between the paladins, we seen that each has grown to see one another for the person they are rather than the person they initially thought they were.

We see struggle both in the team as they can’t make voltron, and having no real commander as Allura’s been forced to pilot the Blue lion. We also see a major issue arise because Allura CANNOT connect with blue. Keith, Allura and Lance can fly in them, but they can’t unlock any of their elemental powers. It’s impossible. We see through this season moment where ice or fire or teleportation might be useful but the paladins have to find ways around it because of this handicap. The emphasise that the lion swap isn’t something to be taken lightly and is a real issue.

Lance and Feelings of being Inferior

Lance feels like he’s he’ll never match up to Keith throughout this season as Keith has started to prove that he’s more of a leader than Lance has.

Because lance’s friendships with everyone have deepened, they start to  encourage him a bit more, be more supportive towards him.

We see Lance stand up for himself as well when Hunk and Pidge make comments about his intelligence that actually really hurt him, we see them being surprised, but then they profusely apologise and say they were joking, we see an absence of said jokes after this point. This helps build Lance’s self esteem a little

Keith and Lance’s friendship also has room to breath as Keith is y’know, around, and not off with the blade. Through this friendship Lance comes to realise Keith isn’t all perfect and that he might be holding himself up to unrealistic expectations, though he still doubts himself a lot

The Clone Plot Line/The Lance and Shiro Plot Line

The clone plot line? Loved that soooooo much, it could’ve been so good, we could’ve had so much interesting stuff, and we did, The Black Paladins is fantastic, but they did nothing else, and I feel like even in that episode the clones were set dressing.

There was also the issue of Lance breaking down into tears in season six. What was that? He didn’t have the emotional connection to Shiro I felt the show was implying he did. We’re gonna fix that.

We see Lance and Shiro become closer friends while he’s a clone.

Clone Shiro is a lot more vulnerable and less guarded with his emotions than original Shiro was, and a little more willing to joke and be more lenient, even if this can also back fire when he explodes into fits of rage.

This allows everyone to get closer to him, but especially Lance, who I feel up until this point was just always at a weird point in his relationship with Shiro where they were friends, but Lance got the impression Shiro didn’t like him a whole lot and Shiro got the impression Lance found him very intimidating and scary, and had zero idea how to deal with this.

Keith and Leadership

Keith’s time as a leader helps teach him some things and really gets the ball rolling on showing the audience that he can be a leader even if he initially struggles  

season 4

Plot Changes

Keith floats between the Blade and Voltron for maybe an episode of two.

Everyone is convinced that once Shiro can fly black, things can go back to normal.

After returning from a mission the castle ship gets attacked and everyone runs to their lions. Allura and Lance pipe up over the comms on their helmets that they can’t access Blue or red. Lance runs to see if he can convince Blue to stop being like this

Meanwhile Keith has a talk with Coran and comes to the realisation that he wants to be apart of the team while Pidge, Hunk and Shiro try to deal with the threat themselves. He gets the message from Allura who comes running into the room saying they can’t access red. Lance was able to get into blue however. Keith rushes off with his mind decided, he hears red in his mind. They form voltron for the first time since shiro’s disappearance.

Everyone’s helping Pidge look for her father and brother and at the start of an episode we get a scene of them all discussing some potential clue while they train.

The episode where Pidge finds her brother follows the same outline, but everyone’s there helping her. However the really emotional scenes ie the graveyard scene and later on when they’re reunited, take place with only Pidge and Matt so the moment isn’t ruined

Instead of Keith discovering the trap at the end of the season, it’s Allura as Keith is with the Voltron team on the planet, trapped.

Shiro gives some “this isn’t the end of the line” speech and talks about how they’ve all connect more over the past few months, and they’ve become a real family and nothing can change, even if it all ends here. That causes the others to all connect with their lions on a deeper level, and it helps them raise out of the field, but only a little. Then Shiro asks black to trust him, to put her faith in him once again. He tells her he knows somethings wrong with him, that he doesn’t know how to fix it. That what they did to him was terrible- and she flashes something in his mind telling him off for such negative thoughts and they connect. Voltron rises.

Keith, Conflict, and Starting to become a Leader

The season begins with Keith still struggling to decide how to spend him time. We see more of this struggle, that starts in this episode. He’s trying to spend as much time with Voltron and as much time with The blade as he can.

He feels connected to the blade due to his heritage and believes somehow he’ll be able to find some sense of family. But he’s more connected to his team and Voltron. We, as an audience, know that he’s already found his family in Voltron at this point.

We also see everyone deeply worrying and missing him. With frequent calls and messages exchanged back and forth between everyone and Keith. He feels this worry and doesn’t know what to do, because for the first time in his life he has a family that cares about him.

As the season goes on we see Keith prove himself as a leader without being the leader of Voltron. When Shiro’s incapacitated we see him take charge and guide everyone.

One particular moment would be Keith having to command a group of alien soldiers, and get them all to follow him and help fight off some Galra from their planet. In this we see Keith struggle slightly to control everyone, before he gets the hang of it and leads everyone to victory and safety.

The Clone Plot Line

Because Shiro is a clone he cannot access the black lion. This is sort of implied to be because she knows he’s a clone and refuses to let him in because his quintessence is screwed up.

Lance and Shiro are seen to confide in each other a lot, and Shiro tells Lance things he feel he can’t tell anyone else, even Keith, for fear they’ll worry too much.

We see the start of Shiro’s headaches in this season, and Lance helps soothe them.  

Shiro does eventually access the black lion, but only because of some hard core begging and Keith being back

When we see Haggar we realise she’s spying on the paladins through Shiro. Some way or another we also learn that they were able to make this clone using DNA samples from Shiro amputated arm that they preserved.

The audience can also come to the conclusion that the reason Shiro gets a headache’s is because of Haggar looking through his eyes.

Pidge’s Family

Pidge gets a lot of clues about her family and the team helps her track down Matt and Dr. Holt.

We see a lot of team bonding over this as they try to break down clues and discover where they are, and how to get to them.

The whole arc surrounding her brother and father is a little more in depth.

As this arc goes on in this season we also see Pidge being to come to see the other paladins as her family. Pidge is the last one to have this realisation and it really solidifies them as a family unit

The team all have a really sweet moment where Pidge announces that she’s glad she had the help of her family to help find her brother.

Lotors motivation: what are they?

Before we get into the next four season, I’d like to specify Lotor’s motivations, and the reasons behind why he does what he does.

Lotor is troubled. He was abused as a child. His parents were corrupted and evil, and there was nothing he could do about. He suffered greatly emotionally and physically when they raised him. He was desperate to please them.

As he grew and tried to both find a balance between acquiring large supplies of quintessence and keeping the local people of the planets they were mining happy, he was punished for these digressions. He became angry, and started to hate the Galra. Blaming them for everything wrong in the universe. Believing that without them his parents would not be like this.

Lotor wants to bring back Altea, he comes to believe that they’re absence in the universe has caused the Galra to take over. He thinks they’ll be able to undo, and fix everything bad in the universe. The problem is, there aren’t a lot left of them. There are a few, scattered, and hunted down by the empire and eventually all will be caught. It scares him and when Altea was destroyed, along with millions of Alteans so easily.

Lotor realises he can no longer try to convince his father and mother that what they’re doing in wrong. He decides to make the colony to protect the remaining Alteans. To hide them away in a far, far off planet in an odd section of space the Galra don’t have interest in.

He comes to learn of alternate realities and ways to reach through and get to them. He believes, and in his mind he knows, that what he has to do is find some reality where Alteans are the ruling class, and not any Alteans, these Alteans, the version that existed just before Altea was destroyed. He won’t bring all of them over, just some, slowly and efficiently until there’s enough to defeat the Galra empire and bring back peace to the galaxy.

Lotor comes to realise the sheer amount of power this will require however, and comes to a dark realisation. He harvests some of the Alteans for their quintessence. Because the ends justify the means. He will bring peace and harmony to the universe if it’s the last thing he does. Even if it means a few sacrifices.

Back to our scheduled programming

season 5

Plot Changes

Keith is still with the team.

Zarkon doesn’t die in the second episode of the season. Cause what was that. Like seriously.

Allura and Keith are the first to like and trust Lotor for different reasons

Everyone else is far more sceptical. They still don’t trust Lotor. He seems sketchy.

The team have more direct encounters with Zarkon and a lot of different fractions of the Galra empire this season due to Lotor. While the Galra all unquestionably follow Zarkon.

Many Galra say that Lotor “has all the thirst for power that Zarkon does, all the thirst for quintessence but none of the courage to stand up and take it” which paints him in a better light as they all interpret this to mean he’s not anywhere near as cruel as Zarkon.

We see in a sort of one off shot of them post saving a planet that Shiro still cannot figure out what’s wrong with him, while Lance tells him that there isn’t anything wrong with him. A shallow comfort as they both at this point don’t believe that.

The blade offer Keith a mission right before the battle where Zarkon dies, a mission to do with something important, and is too take place after their current mission. Keith believes it may be his mother, and Lotor and the team pushes Keith to take the chance. He doesn’t want to leave the team but Lotors words about seeing his mother for what she truely is. Lotor means this in a really sinister way we later find out. Keith asks Red to once again give her command to Lance and both Blue lion and red accept the changes.

Zarkon dies at the end of this season, a fight between Lotor and him, we see a lot of emotion, and tense fighting. Zarkon dies to his son.

Pidge’s Family

The whole thing with Pidge’s father remains, and so does going back to earth. It’ll take a long time, but Pidge’s father feels he doesn’t belong here the same way his children do. He’ll be back, they’ll see each other again some day soon.

Alongside this we get the confirmation that Pidge really does feel that the team is her family just as much as Matt, and her parents are.

The Clone

On the Shiro front, he feels terrible, things have only gotten worse for him, he feels completely unlike himself.

Because of the severity of his headaches, the team puts him in the healing pods a few times, but they do nothing, everyone is worried.

Lance especially had a few fears as he hears more and more worrying information from Shiro about nightmares he keeps suffering. Shiro asks him not to tell anyone.

While Shiro doesn’t tell even Lance, we the audience learn of his illness and his ex boyfriend and the issues that arose because he wanted to go to space.

Keith, Galra Heritage and Leadership

Keith warms to Lotor surprisingly quickly. He finds comfort in talking with someone like Lotor about his Galra heritage. Lotor is half Galra, and while the rest of the paladins are supportive. They don’t understand it in the way Keith believes Lotor understands it

While Keith does hear some worrying comments from Lotor, he ignores them, as he doesn’t want to lose this connection.

We see Keith act more as a leader this season as well, with him again leading planets of aliens, and at a few points, Voltron when Shiro’s headaches incapacitate him

Lance and Self Esteem

Through this season we see Lance come into himself a little more. As per the last season he’s been more honest with everyone and it’s made him happier

We also see Lance realise he doesn’t really want to be a big leader like Shiro and Keith. That while he can, he doesn’t want to. He prefers taking a step back. In this realisation he becomes a lot more confident in himself as the teams sharpshooter, something everyones been calling him since season one. His gun transforms into a sniper rifle with this realisations and he and the team are amazed.

being back in blue also helps reaffirm this as he and blue continue to power up together.

Allura and Lotor’s Developing Relationship

Allura warms to Lotor after some initial hesitation, as she comes to believe he wants the same thing as her, the return of a peaceful time, and harmony in the universe. He wants desperately to find some way to restore the universe and they bond and develop genuine romantic feelings.

Allura and Lotor start sorta dating in this season towards the ending, before everything goes to shit, and he slowly begins to want to reveal his true plan to her.

We also see Lotor’s many conflicting emotions surrounding his father. Him killing Zarkon at the end of the season serves to cement Lotor as a good guy to everyone, and a symbolic way of freeing him from his past.

Side note: the monsters and mana episode takes place in this season before Keith leaves and things take a nose dive into serious business

Season 6.

Plot Changes

This season begins with Voltron fighting a small army of Galra fighters.

Many Galra, in preparation for the Kral Zera, have started to prepare their armies and followers so they can take over the Galra empires at the kralzera

Lotor, with the help of Voltron takes his “rightful” place as ruler, this is because, while Shiro and Lance are still a little skeptical all the other have at least become friendly.

This season follows the paladins as they attempt to be Voltron while Keith is out on a long mission. They miss him, and just like at the beginning of season 3, we see a litany of messages and texts, and voicemails and a few videos sent to him. Even though they don’t get a response. The blade informs the team that Keith will not be able to contact them for some time. The team continues to message him in spite of this.

Lance dies. Lance fucking dies and everyone has a major freak out and there is visible grief and horro among the paladins. Allura brings him back much to everyone’s relief.

we see a lot of angry aliens in this, both over the fact they’re siding with Lotor and over the fact they’re not doing anything immediate

After they come out of the quintessence field, Lotor reveals his true plans to her. She’s horrified and disgusted, much to his chagrin and takes off in one of the Sincline ship.

At the same time as Allura is having this moment, so too are the paladins. Keith has returned with his mother, and an Altean to back up his story Shiro starts having a progressively major headache as time goes on, Lance tries to comfort him.

Allura does manage to get back to the castle of lions. In tears she tells everyone what they already know and they all share a moment of shock before Allura frantically says that Lotor was right behind her.

Shiro’s programming activates and he knocks everyone out and takes Lotor.

The black paladins is a great episode. It’s the same episode in this version. Everything else after this episode stays the same too. It’s pretty good. I’d like to note, Voltron didn’t fail because it couldn’t hit these big emotional beats. It failed because it could never hit the small ones.

The Clone  

While dead, Lance sees Shiro.

Not for the first time, he worries that maybe the Shiro on his team has a point about feeling different.

Shiro and Lance have a moment where Lance is telling him as Shiro is breaking down to “look at me,” to try and give him a grounding spot, and then in this moment Shiro looks away and Honerva’s programming comes through. He knocks out everyone and we get a shot of Lance looking crushed by the realisation, he starts to cry.

Keith, Galra Heritage and Leadership

We see, just as we do in the original show, a lot of time with Keith’s mother

Keith is incredibly conflicted on her return. For one, he wants answers and she seems incredibly unwilling to provide any at all, but on the other hand he’s so great full to have her in his life.

Keith and his mother eventually talk

Keith finds himself feeling guilty about missing his team. Worried and concerned for them, and how they’re coping in the power vacuum caused by Zarkon death.

We again see Keith be a leader with far less effort now. Instead of struggling where he had before, we see Keith take being a leader in stride. Even on one of the smaller planets they pass, helping organise so that food can be brought more easily, and aiding with fending off a particularly nasty creature that has been pestering them.

Keith over this trip gets many lessons about the Galra, and finds comfort in the knowledge, event he parts he can’t stomach. It brings him some closure on this part of his life he’s been yearning to understand for years.

Lance and the Red lion

Throughout the season, we see being in the red lion, and Keith’s absence chip away at Lance a little.

He begins to once again doubt himself and compare himself to Keith.

We also see Shiro help Lance the same way Lance has been helping him for the past couple of season. With support and guidance and helping Lance once again realise he’s his own person

before Lance can truely again be confident in himself, the whole thing with the clone blows up in his face and he’s forced to suffer the consequences.

Conflict in the team

Throughout this season we see the dilemma of what they should be doing versus what they are doing. To many it seems that they are doing nothing, while behind the scenes there’s a lot of stuff going on, coordinating between multiple governments, and a lot of smaller battles occurring that few see or hear of as they don’t require Voltron.

The paladins mostly believe they should be striking a balance, but Allura and Lotor keep attempting to convince them that what they’re doing is sufficient. It frustrates the team to no end.

We see how Lotor manipulates each of them through this season too, more obviously as the audience has at this point been let on that he’s doing something bad.

However we also see Lotor very pointedly not talk about anything hinting at his real plans in front of Shiro, letting the audience know that Lotor knows something is wrong with him.

Allura and Lotor

Lotor and Allura are very close at this point. They have shared their relationship with the team, and  Lotor believes she will side with him if he tells her.

Instead Allura is disgusted by what he’s been doing and tries to get away from him. She fundamentally disagrees with what he’s been doing.

Season 7

Plot Changes

Shiro’s new body doesn’t reject him

the lions are depleted of power. They’re recharging slowly according to Allura, thanks to the strong bonds the paladins share, but it’s unlikely they’ll be fully charged any time soon.

Eveyrone’s depressed and having a lot of feelings of betrayal about Lotor and mixed feelings about the fact they’ve been living with a clone for a long, long time and they had no idea.

Shiros death does a singular good thing. Shiro is more connected with Black then ever. He can now teleport

The whole scene where Keith fights Macidus is with Shiro and it shows them being back insync after being a little lost with each other.

They all find out it’s been three years. In that time Lotor has ruled fiercely, demanding the quintessence mines across the galaxy be drained as quickly as possible. Why? Because of the stunt Voltron pulled three years ago, he can no longer access the quintessence field.

Hunk off Handedly remarks that Keith could be the new ruler of the Galra empire. Keith scoffs.

The flight home takes about half the season.

Through this half season they find a few things out. One is that the rebels have splintered and lost a lot of communication between groups since Voltron disappeared. Two they learn that Lotor found the location of earth. Three Lotor has a high, high price on their heads, far higher than even Zarkon has put upon them.

The paladins eventually all come together as a team, and become even further connected and that charges the lions enough that Shiro can create a wormhole far closer to earth.

They find nothing

This horrifying realisation comes accompanied by a signal from Matt Holt who has a specific bot designed to responds only to Voltron. Lance helps Pidge get it.

The next episode is going to find Matt.

There’s a teary reunion between the two of them and they find a massive colony of those who fled earth when they realised it was to be destroyed when Lotor was attempting to find Voltron, and flew into a rage when they were not there.

Everyone’s family is safe as they were some of the first taken from earth. They have a reunion.

Shiro gets parents, and an older brother (because I did notice the show gave him any biological family) and also gets to see Adam. While it’s still Cleary over, both men get closure, and are happy to see one another alive.

The season from now focuses on Voltron sorting out the coalition and trying to organise everything.

They contact the blade and begin preparing on how to defeat Lotor.

They find some of the blade, but as previously mentioned in the series many were killed in the three years they were away. However they do find a lot of very disempowered Galra soldiers who have been treated awfully by Lotor.

Lotor discovers their alive, and makes a very public announcement that anyone supporting Voltron will be destroyed.

The season ends in a semi big battle between Lotor and the paladins, one on one in a large mech only he pilots.

Both parties are wounded.

The Clone

Everyone feels awful and has no idea what to do

Shiro too feels pained. He has all the memories of the clone in his mind, and he doesn’t know what to do with them. How to sort through them

Lance out of all of them feels the worst as he was the closet to Shiro out of all of them. He believes should’ve seen something and starts to beat himself up over it.

Hunk and Pidge both feel they should’ve done something, or noticed, though Pidge is much more torn up about it. With Hunk knowing that none of them realised and it’s unreasonable that he would’ve any sooner than this.

Keith is shocked and hurt, and worried about Shiro first and foremost. He reassures Shiro that while it may not have been him, the clone acted like Shiro for the most part, a little more personable, but the real Shiro.

Lance and Self esteem

Due to his failure to pick up that Shiro was a clone, Lance begins questioning everything that Shiro ever told him as a clone.

He questions his whole self worth and no one can seem to help him out of the whole he’s emotionally digging for himself.

While recovering Shiro notices this, however, they keep getting interrupt before Shiro and Lance can have a proper talk

Keith kicks a little sense into him and they have a pretty heartfelt conversation which helps Lance a little, but he still can’t shake the feeling someone else would’ve seen it and sorted out the issue sooner.

Lance gets the blue lion back and she talks some sense into him, and tells him he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, it kicks a little sense into him, but again, he still feels terrible and he feels like Shiro’s been avoiding him.

Keith and Leadership

Shiro tells Keith, while still recovering that he’ll be able to take over pretty soon and fly the black lion.

Keith is actually disappointed this time round and feels instantly ashamed because it is Shiro’s lion and they have a great bond.

We come to learn that Keith quite enjoyed the small amount of time her led the team and found he wanted to keep being a leader.

Keith through this season connects to many Galra soldiers and people. He comes to find understanding with them now that he knows about his culture. Many joking comments he should be running the empire.

Season 8

Plot Changs

This season is filled with small battles, and lots of talks with previous allies.

Allura becomes the commander of the Atlas and enlists several humans and other aliens alike to help her command the ship side by side with Voltron. They become a formidable force.

They begin to fight Lotor’s forces in an attempt to bring him down by weakening his army thought they quickly discover he’s dug up enormous amounts of quintessence somehow.

Lotor should become more enraged and mounts larger attacks upon them, yet he doesn’t worrying everyone.

We then discover with the team that with their return so too had the return of the alternate universes, and Lotor was planning on using all the energy he harvested.

No one knows what happened to the Altean colony, and Allura and Coran, unsurprisingly, seem most torn up about. They both hope that it’s safe, and Lotor was more obsessed with his need to preserve the few Alteans he did have if he could never get more.

The team comforts both of their friends through this best they can but they start to realise it’ll be hard to stop Lotor.

Lotor does end up ripping huge holes in the space time continuum.

The last two episode are a battle between team Voltron, Atlas, and crew coalition all battling Lotor and the formidable amount of crafts he’s able to fuel thanks to the insane amounts of quintessence he’s mined over the past three years.

Eventually he starts universe hoping and team Voltron and Atlas all rush in to stop him. We follow them through trying to communicate with Lotor and get him to stop.

Allura pleads with Lotor and says she loves him, he stops and says he loves her too but he must finish his mission. Atlas has to go back because switching universes is ultimately destroying the ship and they’ll die if they stay any longer.

Eventually after wading through a million battle fields, and see a million alternate version of themselves, they end up somewhere quiet. Lotor’s shop is destroyed. This seems like the end of the road.

Keith makes a plead to Lotor, one last stand. Lotor Denys him and tries to jump one last time. When they follow him, he isn’t on the other side.

The go back.

Unfortunately when they do, the forces have stopped fighting and time seems to have slowed greatly. Voltron is badly damaged and they all split apart.

The team lands together. Harsh winds battle ahead thankfully the lions somewhat stop this.

They’re all scared.

The battle above is at a standstill, shots caught in mid air, shuttles paused mid explosion. The faces of both friend and foe paused in a climatic battle.

The large, white wholes keep getting bigger.

Shiro looks to them all.

They all agree that they feel the same thing. The silently look around at their lions and at one another.

They hold one another tight as their lions are sacrificed to stop this.

A second later there’s no wind.

They look over.

In the vastness of space, the fighting has stopped, everyone shocked by what just happened.

Voltron is no more.

They get picked up by the Atlas

We see a planet that everyone lands on.

Somehow despite all this, at least for a second, the world is at peace as soldiers care for one another and count the wounded.

Team Voltron, now joined by Allura and Coran stand alone

There’s talk of what could be done, and what is now down.

They all smile and reminiscence

Someone calls for them. Team Voltron

They don’t need to have the lions to still be a team.

The universe doesn’t need them anymore. .

Lance and self esteem

Shiro and Lance finally have that talk at some point in mid season 8.

Shiro points out to Lance that everyone lived with Shiro every day. That they spent practically every waking moment, that they shared almost everything

Lance feels a little better and with this talk with Shiro it properly solidifies Lance’s faith in himself. He feel confident in his ability as a paladin, and as his own person. He’s the blue paladin. The sharpshooter. He doesn’t need to be anyone else.

Shiro and Lance have a hug, and Shiro thanks Lance for being there for him when he really didn’t have to be. They stay like that for longer than they really need to.  

Allura the commander

Allura feels useless coming along with the paladins and Coran, he also laments that he doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do with himself.

Thus presented to them, early in this season a mech from one of the few people who are willingly to support them at the beginning.

Allura has been a commander the whole way through but in this season we see her, independent of Voltron, become that commander.

Allura’s people are alive, a few hundred of them. But alive. She becomes their ruler, and takes her rightful place as their queen, helping guide them through an unsteady time.

Keith and Leadership

Through this season we see the meeting place of Keith’s search to be a leader, and his search to learn about his Galra heritage.

Many Galra begin looking to him, despite his less than Galra apperance. He builds more connections with many Galra through his season, and with the help of his mother converts a lot of Galra to seperate from the empire and Lotor and join the coalition

With Lotor dead. We see Keith at the Kral Zera and he becomes the leader

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 09.10.20 lb

lol, lemme preface this by telling you what i know about the show from my out-of-context insta-viewing:

kabir sends his gf riddhima in to spy on vansh RAISINGHANIA (naam ka wazan check karein ji. kaafi hi bhaari-bharkam, just like the fake baritone the actor playing the character is being forced to put on.) vansh is some kinda shady, but idk WHAT SPECIFIC KIND of shady..... like is he just your garden-variety-evil-capitalist-ala-ambani-bezos, or is he into shit like drug smuggling and human/organ trafficking???? no one knows. maybe a little bit of both. but kabir’s a COP, and we all know that those fuckers are the shadiest shits around (#ACAB) so yeah, true to type, kabir shadyyyyyyyy. he’s actually the secret illegitimate son of vansh’s stepmom and together they wanna ruin vansh and take all his monies. so anyway, kabir sends in riddhima, who’s just a whole special brand of dumbass, but also extraordinarily determined in the way only tellywood heroines are. so she’s basically sticking her nose everywhere that doesn’t belong and being a pain in the ass of literally everyone in the show, including her own (coz she seems to get injured in novel and entertaining ways in every second episode.) kabir ultimately manipulates her into marrying vansh, while vansh has apparently married her KNOWING that she’s a spy and is probably playing the long game to see who her puppet-master is. long story short, heterosexuality is too potent a force and the Stupid Spy Girl and Gangsta Guy are currently slowly giving in to the Feelz™, despite missing that one-little-teensy-weensy-who-even-needs-it-in-a-real-relationship thing. y’know, that little thing called, idk, i think it’s called “TRUST” or some such strange unheard-of concept.

oh, in between all this there’s also some bizarre plot about some ex of vansh’s called ragini, who’s dead??? missing? idk. kabir is real interested in that and wants to jail vansh for it, but we’ve long forgotten about ragini by this point #RIPSis anyway, there’s some kinda statue of her’s in the attic or some shit, coz vansh is some kinda modern day gender-reversed medusa who turns women who cross him into statues??? idk man, idk. so riddhima is pretty much in constant danger of being statue-d.

also vansh has a requisite irritating famiy in tow, that he’s burdened with being in charge of (coz no rest for the unfortunate eldest son who lives in this godforksaken mansion, be that an oberoi or a raisinghania) feat: a dadi who is well-meaning, but as annoying as the one in IB was, constantly spouting platitudes about how vansh and Spy Girl trooooooly lurrrrrrrrrrve each other *kissy noises*; some chachi/chacha who are all “HEY WHY DOES HE GET TO BE THE BOSS, WE WANT CONTROL OF THE CRORE-ON KA BIJNESS TOO”, some very fake kanji-eyed siblings/cousins who are supreme bitches, and ofc one (1) normal sibling who is sweet but really does nothing around here. oh and there’s his right hand man/bff too, who seems to be not 100% (maybe just 83%?) incompetent like everyone else. that poor sod just got suckered into marrying Kanji Aankhon Waali Bitch Sister, who is pregnant with some total rando’s baby, and is just an all-round asshole to Riddhima/Right Hand Man, because “ugh, yeh do kaudi ke middle class naukar log, cheeeeee.”

ok now that the sasta, not-at-all-useful recap has been done, LET’S GET INTO THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

———————————————————————

the chachi is screaming her goddamn headdddd off coz her room is on fire. ofc it is. when has anything good ever happened in this manhoos house of horrors.

lmao the kanji eyed cousin has like 3% concern that his mom will be fried like a taaza jalebi. he's literally sauntering luxuriously towards his mom's room jaise park mein tehel raha ho.

chachi's screaming is getting on my nerves. aunty you're wasting valuable oxygen this way.  

riddhima is behind some secret box that aryan and chachi stashed in the room.

THESE PPL ARE SO CHILL ABOUT A WHOLE ROOM ON FIRE (note: it’s shivaay's room in IB) and they're just hanging out in the living room (which if you’ll remember, IS ATTACHED TO THE ROOM THAT WAS SHIVAAY’S) as if fire doesnt have a tendency to y'know..........  SPREAD RAPIDLY.

riddhima is fighting with the bloody fireman saying ki i need to save the box. #priorities

aaaaaaand the fireman is kabir, who has come to haath maarofy on Box of Secrets.

and we know this coz he did a DRAMAAAAAAAAATIC reveal by taking off his mask. in a room FULLY ON FIRE. idhar non-flaming rooms mein bhi ab mask nikaalna danger ho gaya hai, and this guy justtttttttttt dgaf. tum jaison ki wajaah se hi we can't bloody stop the spread.

my god this house has been decorated soooooooo fucking tackily. never thought the oberois would be the classy ones.

shady saasumaa and riddhima stinkeye-ing each other over a bowl of shehed. lol, what even. truly some "rasode mein kaun tha" lvl of politics.

oh ho, saasumaa and kabir lagaaofied the aag.

saasumaa gloating over the fact that riddhima will now never get her hands on Box of Secrets.

flashback time: hahahahaha KABIR LITERALLY LOBBED A MOLOTOV COCKTAIL INTO THE ROOM AND CHACHI DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING HEAR IT OR ANYTHING. lmao everyone in this show is a dumbass. how blissful life must be with just one (1) working brain cell.

riddhima runs into flaming room. ofc now we will have a prolonged sequence where kabir tries to keep his identity and riddhima being the dheent that she is, will give chase.

please note, that not even 48 hours ago, this woman walked barefoot on a bed of coals AND a hallway full of broken glass. AND NOW SHE'S RUNNING FULL SPEED BEHIND KABIR AS IF SHE’S PT USHA. SIS, TUMHARE PAIR HAIN KI KYA HAIN? YOU'RE LONG OVERDUE FOR AN INTENSE PEDICURE AFTER THIS WEEK.

and ofc, he got into a getaway car and made it away.

yeh lo, iss beech mein dadi behosh. ouff.

whooooooooops, dadi has some weird blue nishaan on her neck.

LMAO KABIR SHOT AT RIDDHIMA WITH A POISON BULLET OR SYRINGE OR SOME SHIT, WHICH HIT DADI INSTEAD. LMAO MAN THIS SHOW. IT'S SO FUCKING DUMB, I LOVE IT.

some more stinkeye politics between saas bahu.

bahu is passive-aggressively giving saasumaa roses to congratulate her on winning this round.

riddhima is dheent!max. she's like kuch bhi ho, i'll find the secret anyway and your victory will witherrrrrrr awayyyyyyyy like these flowerssssss and you will be left with the thorns that will prick youuuuuuuu!!!!!!!

LMAO SAAS IS FULLY ROLLING HER EYES AT RIDDHIMA'S DRAMATIC ASS #SAME

just looking at helly's ears is making my ears hurt like a bitch. 

hey riddhima, have you ever thought that maybe this secret child of hers is NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS?????? like honestly, the entitlement desis have to know the workings of other ppl’s wombs.

lol dumbass mummyji crumpled the flowers in her hand and played right into riddhima's stupid kaante waala metaphor. #ramMilayiJodi

hero ko covid hai toh ainvayi ke phone calls se kaam chalaana pad raha hai.

the dude left his house for literally the first time in months and the place is on fire and dadi got shot in the neck with poison. and the wife doesn't think she should tell him so that he doesn't become "pareshaan". sure, this seems like a dude who'll take this kinda thing real light when he finds out later.

(hint: he’s not. he’s a crazed, overprotective weirdo about his family. sound familiar?????)

this guy's dialogue delivery is so dodgy. idk what it is, it just seems so affected.

that plus the ainvayi ka editing just showing him in some random car (clearly from the earlier eps)  is just adding to the jankiness of the scene.

husband dude seems to know wifey's quirks quite well. kinda cute, kinda creepy. 

lol kal tak toh yeh banda itna romantic nahi tha. like he had a smooth moment here and there, but he was mostly real awkward and robotic and unsure how to handle These Strange New Feelings™. now he’s spouting cheesyass lines about being able to see the one who is special to you with dil ki aankhein and idk what.

who are these people who like SHARING their room with another person? #unrealistic

but i also i get you, riddhima. he was pretty much the only thing worth looking at in this room, coz the rest of it is so damn fugggggg. this room should be the one set on fire.

dang, some steamy scenes between them in the flashbacks. ouff abhi jaake episodes dhundne padenge. coz #tharkiTTisTharki

riddhima doing dadi seva. boooooooooring.

ofc dadi ki sui is always atkofied on playing cupid for pota, taaki she can score some par-pota/potis.

riddhima ki best friend ka happy birthday hai.

riddhima is like a lottttt has happened in my life, can't really tell you over a call. yup, that’s for sure. 

ok apparently sejal who said she’s in dubai now is NOT in dubai?? she's just up and flew to mumbai to "surprise" riddhima...... on HER OWN birthday? #doesNotCompute

lmao kabir's annoyance with mummy's useless glass of water. WHY DO MOMS THINK EVERYTHING CAN BE SOLVED WITH DRINKING MORE WATER?!?!?!!

now he's yelling at mom about how she's ruined everything. sure. blame the only one who's actually doing shit around here, while you sit on your ass in this room, glaring and growling like a hangry bear.

some menacing dialogue about how he needs to thikaane lagaaofy riddhima's hosh.

which has been overheard by bff sejal, who went and dropped a showpiece from shock. cool. so she gonna die. bye sejal, hardly got to know ya!

sejal being here doesn’t even make sense. she thought he was a PT teacher. then why did she show up here at his police waala office? also how did she connect the dots about the whole damn story with like 0.04% context that she got from what she overheard? kuchhhhhhh bhi.

[ssfghfrrggf]

Day 1

I finally got around to writing about my first day of survival and rescue training from a month ago. I know some of y'all were intrested in reading it! So here's day one:

Preface

Being a firefighter isn’t a task to be tackled by the faint of heart, the training alone will test your character and strength and your heart. Training is where all the people crazy enough to pursue their dream of spending their life running into burning buildings and dancing with death for the sake of saving others discover whether they are actually crazy enough to do it. And you do have to be crazy to do it.

Firefighter survival and rescue training is to teach you how to survive when survival isn’t looking like an option and it’s to teach you how to save your buddy too, it also just so happens to push you to your limits and then push you further, to test your will and dedication. It not only teaches you how to survive, but whether you can actually survive the job you so desperately want to do. Day one is all about you and your survival. Day two is about learning to save your friend, your brother or sister, your fellow firefighter.

This is my account of Day 1

The Importance of a Mayday

The class starts at 8:00 AM. I live a half an hour away from where the first part of the day is going to take place. I get up at 5:30, which in my humble opinion is way too early for any living thing to be awake. I stay in bed for a good 20 minutes before I finally crawl out of my cozy warm bed and get dressed in my cloth that I have specially laid out for the day: my fire department t-shirt, my black cargo pants, and my fire department issued beanie. Then I make my way down stairs. Despite the butterflies in my stomach I eat a big breakfast and go off to load my 40 pound bag of firefighter gear in the car. That all takes me a good half an hour. I shouldn’t leave the house until at least 7:00. I end up leaving at 6:45. I am almost an hour early to class. An hour I spend with sweaty palms and nervous jitters. I’ve been amped up all week worrying about this class and dwelling in the existential fear that I won’t physically be able to survive this weekend. (it’s a back to back class. 8 hours on saturday and 8 hours on sunday (sunday ends up being closer to 10 hours))

In the classroom we are taught a lot of things. Mostly all the ways in which things can go horribly wrong for us, and all the ways we can die. We watch videos, some of which rattle me to my core, and I wonder if I'm the only one who’s shook as I look around the silent room of firefighters from all different departments in the state. I think that maybe I am. Most of them have seen a thing or two, and been on their fair share of calls. Even my buddy Adam has seen his first structure fire and he's younger than me. I am the newest person in the room, hell I'm not even allowed out on calls yet. In a lot of ways I'm right where I should be, in other ways I feel wildly out of place.

We're told about the old days of old mustache endowed men running into fires and eating smoke (literally, most trucks back in the day only carried one or two air packs, and if you took one you were a pussy). In the old days wearing an air pack and calling a mayday were held on the same level of "you wimp!" Right along with therapy. How the times have changed. Now if you go in air pack free, Osha will have you, your captain, and probably your chief too (just for good measure)’s asses. And if you get cancer the department won't do jack because "sorry buddy, you should've had an air tank" (every truck now has more than enough tanks to go around). Therapy has also become encouraged (you'll still occasionally get the big ol' old timer with a big white mustache who will tell you to suck it up), now we know bottling up feelings can be just as deadly as a flashover. And finally the importance of calling a mayday. It used to be shameful to have your ass dragged out by your buddies, but now it's encouraged. If you're in trouble you had damn well better call that mayday. We're told to practice calling one every morning in front of the mirror, because if you can't piece together what you need to say while you're standing safe at home there's no way in hell you're gonna be able to do it when you're fearing for your life.

Mayday's aren't pretty and neat like they are on tv, and they're certainly not that calm or audible. We listened to a few videos of maydays, and half the time you can't hear half of what's being said, hell you're lucky if you make out one of the three maydays (you always say it three times, then call your name, last known location, what kind of trouble your in, and what your air's at. That's the ideal mayday anyway). There's even a story of a firefighter that called a mayday and the only reason they knew about it was because a civilian heard it on their scanner and called 911 wondering if it was something to be concerned about. We were also told once you call your mayday keep trying to get out but keep reporting your location so RIT can find you. Calling a mayday can save your ass. You might get made fun of for it, but that’s a whole hell of a lot better than dying. The only place egos get you is dead. So when in doubt, call the mayday and if you get yourself out of trouble you can always radio in and cancel it. You’re buddies would rather haul your ass out of a fire than have to burry you.

There's so much more we went over in that class and so many important things, but if I try to go into all of it, it will take hours (3 or 4 is about how long we were in that classroom). So I'm going to get onto the better stuff.

Morning Line Up

I hook a ride to the outdoor training ground with my buddy Adam. We get McDonald's on the way there as our lunch (it’s about 11:30 maybe 12:00). I know I should hydrate before we start off the day of hard work ahead of us, but there are no bathrooms at the training ground and I really don't want to have to go pop a squat behind a bush and try to do it in bunker gear. I drink a little water, finish up lunch in Adam's car with him and then we get geared up and head toward the group of firefighters beginning to gather around the big red training building. The building is really a little breath taking. It's constructed of red shipping containers and about three stories tall. It looks a little like a fort (sadly none of us will end up going into it. Our work is all done outside.) 

It takes some time for everyone to finally get gathered around the instructors, but we finally do and then we're split into two lines and told to stand there. Then a big tall guy, we'll call him Hodge, steps in between the two lines and begins to walk the length of them. I feel a speech coming, and I'm right, and it's glorious. He walks up and down our lines, his breath freezing in the morning air and catching the sun light, and joining with the breath of everyone else there. It's really a beautiful awe inspiring sight. One i won't forget. For  the life of me I can't remember what all was said, but it was awe inspiring  and if I hadn't been surrounded by close to 30 other firefighters i probably would've cried. What i can remember is he told us today- the whole weekend really- would kick our asses (it did) and that we're really just a big group of crazy people with a purpose. He told us that it's okay to be scared, any normal person would be especially when it comes to diving head first out a second story window onto a ladder or lowering yourself out a second story with nothing but a rope, your own two hands and a halligan. He said it was okay to be scared, but what matters is what you do in the face of that fear. That's what sets us apart. That's what defines us. He also told us the day would test us and push us to our limits, but "can't" isn't something that should ever be said. He told us what can't means. Can't means you don't make it home. Can't means maybe someone else doesn't make it home. Can't means he doesn't get to see his kids again. Can't gets people killed. Can't is not an option. And i would later discover deep down, can't is something i just don't have in me.

You Want Me to be The Group Leader?

After the lineup and the speeches are over, each line is split into 3 groups and we are all given air tanks to wear for the day (you don't know back pain until you wear one of those things for close to 5 hours while being on your feet). Then we each line forms a circle over in the grass, we're taught how to go low profile in our tanks. The gist of it it is: you loosen your straps, and slide the tank over so it's between your side and your arm so you can fit through tight spaces. It's pretty simple. Then we are told to split off into the groups we were assigned and one of the instructors b-lines for me, points to me and says "you're the group leader". I am shook to say the least, and the least qualified person in the group to be the leader, but no one says anything. I get everyone's names (and can't remember them now), but i can remember distinguishing features for all of them. There's the guy who likes Jack from station 19, the german guy, another girl, and the super quiet guy in the black turnout gear who frankly i kept forgetting existed and looked like a middle schooler (what a great group leader i am). 

Our first drill is diving through a hole a wall and then climbing and hanging out a window cill. I have no problem getting through the hole, i have some problems getting turned around in the tight space and i have a lot more problems getting up to the window cill because i am very short. I use the halligan as a step stool and manage it. Everyone else in the group goes after me. If you ever want to be amazed just watch firefighters do this drill. There are still some guys that i still don't know how they fit through that hole in the wall or back out the window. But as i like to say, you'd really be amazed what firefighters can fit into. After everyone in the group goes, i go again. It's smoother this time, and I know how to properly use the halligan as a step stool. Everyone else goes again, and then we go to the next station: following hoselines. 

It's really pretty cut and dry. You keep both hands on the line at all times, if you're in a mayday situation you make sure the people outside know what color line you're on so they can find you easier. If you come across couplings on the hose, the easiest way to figure out if your heading outside is to recite a helpful little phrase (one that i love) "smooth bump bump to the pump". One coupling has a smooth part then a bump, the second coupling only has a bump. If the order that go is smooth, bump, bump, then you know you're heading to the pump which is outside. They teach us how to figure that out by just feeling aka we're blind folded for the drill. Also I'm slowly discovering that my job as group leader is moot. The group doesn't need much direction. Not that I'm really qualified to give it anyway.

The next skill on our little skill itinerary is learning how to untangle yourself when you can't see anything. When we do this skill the group splits into two sections to save time. Me and two other firefighters (the german and the guy who looks like jack from station 19) go to one instructor, the rest of the group goes to the other. I go first. How the drill goes is you crawl along blind folded and then the instructor will use two ropes attached to side of the shipping container building to get you nice and tangled up. Your job is to not panic and get yourself free from the rope. I, by some miracle, manage to do it pretty well both times. Then the German goes, and i gotta say it's more stressful to watch than it is to actually do it. You can see exactly what needs to be done, but the person doing it can't, and you're not allowed to help. The german frees himself pretty easily and then leaves to go stand with his buddies who are all cheering on the last member in that section of the group who appears to be struggling a great deal. I stay and wait while the who looks like Jack goes through the drill. He has a hard time of it. At one point he has the rope wrapped three times around his air tank. I stay right where I am waiting for him until he's done. I feel an obligation to stay, i'm the group leader, and I'm not gonna leave him alone. He eventually frees himself and we all regroup. Then it's time for the ladder and rope stuff.

Head First Out the Window

It's a scary concept, and a scary practice, all done to prepare you for some future scary situation. They want us to dive head first out a window, hook your arm on one rung, grab two rungs below that with your other hand and then use gravity to twist around so you're upright, all while a good 20 feet in the air. If you do it wrong you could dislocate your shoulder, break your arm, fall off the ladder or do all three. They have you hooked up to a safety harness just in case, but it's still scary standing in that second story window and staring down at all the people below you and then diving out the window. It goes against human nature. You are not supposed to dive out of anything 20 feet in the air and you're not supposed to go head first down ladders and yet- that's exactly what we're supposed to do… TWICE

I have butterflies in my stomach waiting to go up to dive out the window. My buddy Adam is a head of me in line and he seems to just be absolutely PUMPED. I watch him go through the window and he doesn't hesitate, he just dives down the window and flips around like he's done it a million times. I'll discover Adam is Just Like That. Before long it's my turn. I'm standing next to the window getting hooked up to the safety harness and I'm looking down at everyone and I'm beginning to question my life choices. I've done some crazy things in my life, but this is by far the craziest (it will shortly be one upped). I don't just go straight out the window, I take my sweet time and i go slow. But I do it and… it's actually a blast! I don't just want to go one more time, I wanna do it for the rest of the day! The second time waiting in line to do it again me and Adam are vibrating a chattering wildly because it was fucking awesome! Adam goes, I go again, this time with a little more speed. But my end result isn't as pretty. I end up with one foot on the ladder and the other off. When i get on the ground I am informed by an instructor that they thought I was gonna fall. 

Just Tip Out the Window

If I thought diving head first out the window was the craziest thing I'd do that day, I was really very wrong. That prize goes to me lowering myself out the window with just my own two hands, a rope, a halligan, some physics, probably a little bit of luck, and a whole ton of guts. How it works is: you sit on the window cill like you're sitting on a horse, one end of your rope is attached to a halligan that is anchored into place in the corner of the window, you drop the long part of your rope out the window behind you, then you hold the two sides of the rope together in front of you kind of like a belt (this process is way easier to show than explain using just words on a page). It's kind of like you're making a horseshoe around yourself. Then you lean forward and tip out the window, kind of like how you'd dismount a horse. If done properly you should be facing the sky and have your back to the ground. Then to lower yourself you just loosen your grip on the rope a little and to stop you tighten your grip. The friction is what stops you from falling full speed and hitting the ground. I know all that babble doesn't sound simple, but it really is very simple and straightforward. And you're attached to a safety harness just in case something goes wrong, which should be comforting but really isn't.

You discover something about yourself when you're sitting 20 feet in the air getting ready to entrust yourself to mere physics  (and a safety harness that somehow doesn't even register as existing). I'm sitting there thinking about how absolutely right good ol' Hodge was right about having to be crazy to do this. And as I sit on that window ready to tip out in all ways except for mentally, I'm wondering if maybe I am not as crazy as i thought i was and if i'm actually crazy enough to cut it. I've never been a fan of heights, so looking down at the ground and all the other firefighters looking up at me is absolutely terrifying. And there is a moment where I seriously consider saying nevermind and getting off the window cill and walking back down safely. This skill isn't even required to pass the class. But as I sit on that window cill i discover a very important part of myself, i discovered my point of no return, which was probably all the way back on the first step leading to the window. Once I start I can't stop. I wanted to climb off that window cill and run back down to safety, but I was incapable of doing so. I had come this far, so I was going all the way. I had started so I wasn't going to stop. Once I start something that I am truly passionate about or want really badly to succeed at,  I can't stop until I've seen it through all the way, and I think that is going to carry me through the rest of my career. My inability to back down. There’s no can’t.

I gripped my rope tight and tipped over out the window. I lowered myself down and the whole thing probably only took 10 or 15 seconds. As soon as my feet hit the ground I wanted to go again, sadly we were only allowed to do it once. Adam however managed to worm his way through the line a second time. Lucky sneaky bastard.

I still want to lower myself out more windows and whenever anyone does it on tv i get jealous.

Closing Speeches

No one's allowed to leave the training grounds until everything was cleaned up and put away. Once clean up is done the instructors all gathered us into a big group and we get some nice closing speeches from the different instructors about how we did a great job. Surprisingly enough the only thing Hodge says is a curt "good job", i guess he used up all his speech giving for the day that morning. Once all the instructors are done talking to us, Hodge stands up and very loudly says, for all to hear, "Like they say at the end of classes in the academy. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here so get the hell of the property." And with that we are released.

[peter-nureyev-kinnie]

Hi, I'd like to take a moment to talk to you all about boom! Shadow :)

I'd also like to preface this by saying I have nothing agaisnt boom and I dont actually understand why people dont like it when it's just a fun series. (Its not even canon cmon)

I'll talk abt the series first, since shadow appears more than once there.

His first episode is, hm, to say the least. Rouge and omega arent canon characters in boom, leaving him with absolutely no friends, and I'm also gonna guess that gun and Maria werent canon either. (This brings up alot of questions on how he came to be but that's for another day.)

His first episode has eggman manipulating footage of sonic "slandering him", he falls for it pretty easily (again, gun worker shadow would never) and goes on a mini rampage to attack sonic and friends.

This is, out of character, to say the least, shadow going so far as to try and not fight tails in sonic x when he was trying to get to Cosmo. He also holds a great respect for Amy, (and I dont think he has a solid opinion on knuckles, it changes from annoyance to tolerance on a whim.)

The fact that sonic is genuinley confused as to why shadow is randomly attacking them is also incredibly telling that a. His character is wrong and b. Shadow is not normally like this, but then again, shadows character has more flip flops than a Florida man.

The second episode he appears in is mostly just him being angry at eggman and wanting to beat up sonic, which, okay, wanting to be better than sonic is (unfortunately) part of his post adventure 2 character arc. It's a pretty entertaining episode if you havent gone into shadows character too much. He also says the next time they fight it will be on his terms, which.. no it wont sadly boom was cancelled.

Honestly though, hes just lonley, it also canon in boom that he lives in a cave alone, (couldnt even give the man a house huh?) So hes bound to be just a lil lonley.

To the games then because that's all we get from our boy in the series.

Rise of lyric is pretty generic when it comes to shadow being in the game, he appears for a boss fight and a cameo at the end, the boss fight is.. interesting, honestly.

Theres a brief cutscene with shadow and eggman, but shadow dosent speak and hes not seen again till the boss fight.

The cutscene before has pretty "normal" shadow dialogue, calling sonic weak because he has friends, which I'm starting to see a pattern here. Sonic also knows who shadow is, and tries to dismiss him pretty quickly.

He does get angry when shadow insults his friends however, which is pretty in character, and they initiate the boss fight with shadow saying hes going to prove how weak sonic is.

(Obviously, you win, your the player.)

The last we see of shadow for the rest of the game is him awkwardly stumbling after being beaten. (they animated his ears to droop too, not relevant, just cute <3)

Hes kicked through the portal and you go about your game. Sonic also does ask what time he was sent too, so he does care, even a little.

He appears again at the end of the game, no explanation as to how he got back, and is immediately ready to fight until he sees the defeated lyric. He then stops and walks away, claiming that sonic and co got the job done.

(We're never explicitly told what side hes on in this game, but hes certainly not working for lyric.)

Shattered crystal is up next, again, pretty generic, but better than the last.

Sonic actually greets him sarcastically in this game, as if he were a friend, and gets confused when shadow (who's being mind controlled) acts strange. He initially is not hostile, but on the assumption that shadow knows where the kidnapped Amy is, he does get briefly angry.

Then a mini boss fight, and shadow wakes up, no longer mind controlled, and acting like a feral cat that's been caged, hes just as confused as sonic and friends are and it probably didnt help that knuckles wanted to knock him out again.

Then when they start trying to question him about Amy, he gets defensive almost instantly, and insults sonic, before remarking that he was talking to lyric before he blacked out. He then tells sticks very firmly that he is not working for lyric and passes the mind control device to tails.

(Again, very calmly passes it, flip flop flip flop)

Once they figure out lyric mind controlled shadow, hes angry, and immediately sets off to find lyric to fight him for using him. Sonic tries to stop him, but theres no stopping shadow when his minds set on something.

We don't see him again for the rest of the game, until he shows up and actually deals the final blow to lyric, he sticks around to listen to sticks get the concept of teamwork wrong, and then leaves, insulting them all again. (Are we seeing a pattern here?)

Sonic then tries to say that they did beat lyric as a team, but shadow is having none of it, and leaves, calling himself Sonics superior. Sonic then says he'd make a great member of team sonic if he werent such a hard case.

Shadow dosent appear in fire and ice, so.

The main theme of boom shadow is pretty much just a massive inferiority complex around sonic, and a whole bunch of insults towards his friends.

Again, shadow has 0 canon friends in boom, and is seemingly annoyed by just about everyone, but it's also not out of the question that he'd end up sucked into the friend group should he ease up on his temper.

For all his talk of being weak for having friends, its my guess that he dosent want to be seen as weak, given how quick he was to fight sonic for such minor (and fake) insults against him. He has no friends and distances himself because he wants to be "strong".

Boom!shadow is certainly not the same as sa2 shadow, and I think if they met, sa2 would be, very embarrassed to say the least.

I could talk about shadows character all day but this has been long enough so uhh, yeah :)

[bluepenguinstories]

Happiness Overload Epilogue II

There was an abundance of color which burned through me. Weary, I looked up and saw the clouds in the sky, a gentle chill ran over me. To think that the outside world could be beautiful, I never would have imagined before. It made tears well up, and for once, it felt good to let them out.

“Do I belong here? Is it right? I don’t know, but I’m glad to be back,” those words sounded strange aloud. As if spoken by someone with a little more life in them. It wasn’t that I was in denial, it was just surreal to me to feel such things and allow myself to enjoy them.

As I began to pick myself up, I realized where I was: that same rooftop where I fought with that woman named Rhea. That stung, the memory resurfaced, and although she was not in front of me, for a second, I thought I could see her corpse.

“I’m sorry. I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” I took a deep breath and picked myself up off the concrete surface. “It would bring me just a little bit of joy if I could set some flowers down here.” Of course, none came. That was just something I would have to get used to.

Near me was the door down, into the building, and back onto the street. When I went to turn the handle, the door turned out to be locked. Foolishness and frustration, I continued to try to open it. I knew what excited me wasn’t up here, but no matter the use, I could not open the door. That was another thing I would have to get used to.

So for the moment, I slid down and sat. How I got back home in the first place was nothing short of a miracle, or a wild coincidence that I had to suspend my disbelief for. In short, all that happened was that I found a Time Cube inside a desk drawer. It took some tinkering with, and even then, I wasn’t sure how I managed what with my mental state, but it looked like it worked.

Not long after I had sat and tried to recall how I made it back, the door opened behind me: it was a security guard. Afraid, I told him that I didn’t know how I got there, but I found myself locked out. Yes, it was a flimsy excuse, but maybe the guard felt sympathetic, or just didn’t care.

“Just try not to wander too far off next time,” was all the guard said in response. I nodded, then made my way back down. “Oh, and you should be careful. We found a dead body lying here just a few days ago.”

In shock, I turned around. “Did you happen to catch what happened?”

“No, that’s the weird thing. I was off that day, but apparently the footage feed that day was having technical issues, otherwise it would’ve caught whatever happened.”

“That’s scary. I just hope no one else was hurt.”

“By the looks of things, it was self-inflicted. There were weapons at the scene, but from what I heard, only her fingerprints were found. I also heard no one could identify her, so she’s been marked a Jane Doe. Strange case all around. Funny thing, too, we had this whole area blocked off until just yesterday.”

It must have been due to the entity that I wasn’t caught on camera. As an institution, I despised his presence, but I was just glad to be out of there. Down each flight of stairs I went, with hurried steps, while others in their offices paid no mind to my presence. Once I was out of the building and into the streets, I became overwhelmed.

The crowds, the noise, the sea of buildings. It was too much to take in at once. I heard too much, I saw too much, and it left me in a panic.

It’s okay. You’re not too far from home.

Was what I told myself, but I didn’t even know whether or not it would work out. Rather, it was just the one goal I had and the one tool at my grasp to manage the sensory overload.

Familiar apartment complex, familiar feeling. Hesitation all over me, just like last time.

Still, I repeated the same action and knocked on the door.

What if she doesn’t live here anymore? Or I ended up in the wrong universe by mistake and she doesn’t know me? Damn it, I’m so scared. Have I always had such levels of anxiety? Is it just exclusive to this one situation? Maybe I shouldn’t be here after all. What if she hates me? No, she doesn’t. Or won’t. But maybe she should. No. Stop that. Haven’t I learned anything? I’m at least going to give this a try.

The door slid open.

She was right in front of me. It was her.

“I recognize that knock anywhere,” was the first thing she said, before the door was even fully open. Wow. She’s got me right down to how I knock, huh?

There we were. Face-to-face. I was about ready to break down then and there. I looked down, my lips quivering, and watched as her expression turned from a dull one to one of excitement; eyes widening, lips spreading to a smile.

“Hey, I know you!” She beamed.

I felt incapable of saying anything in response, even though I wanted to.

“So, uh, did you,” was she stumbling on the words too? “Did you figure anything out while you were away?”

I wanted to nod my head, say yes, but all I did instead was continue to look down. When I tried to speak, all that came out was a whimper.

“This is a bit awkward,” she sounded nervous as well. “I mean, you’ve probably been through a lot, so it would probably be bad to say that I kind of just assumed you’d be back sooner or later, wouldn’t it?”

I took a step forward, dived in, and hugged her tight. I didn’t even realize that it had turned into a tackle before it was too late.

“Hey, hey! Watch out!”

We both fell over onto the floor.

I remained on top of her, my head buried in her shoulder as I began to break down in tears.

“There goes my spine,” she croaked. “Can I move my arms? Nope. Too tight.”

I continued to sob, my face pressed against her neck. She reached a hand up and stroked my hair.

Liar. You said you couldn’t move your arms!

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. I missed you too.”

For whatever reason, hearing that just made me cry more. She continued to stroke my hair. I didn’t know whether or not it was okay, but I began kissing her cheek.

“Aw, she’s kinda cute. Can we keep her?”

“She’s not a dog. You’re married to her,” I heard Trent say.

“Wait, really?” She acted confused.

“That’s it. I’m outta here,” I leaned up and saw him walk out the door. “No, but really. I got work. So, see you two later. Unless some other crazy shit happens.”

I got off of her and sat up. As I tried to wipe my face, I managed to finally speak.

“After last time, I didn’t think I would come back. I wasn’t even sure if I should. For a long time, I just thought it was an act. I told myself I didn’t care what happened to us because I didn’t think there was anything that could be done. To know I once told myself such things, it hurts to think about. That I left last time and I thought I had done too much damage. I didn’t think myself worthy. I –” I stopped myself. I was getting too worked up.

“It’s okay. Didn’t I tell you that last time? It’s okay if you’re not okay, so,” it looked like her eyes were getting misty. “I wasn’t okay. I know you said that you hoped there was some universe where both of us were happy, but I was still worried about the you that I know. That’s why I kept hoping the whole time you were gone that you would be safe. It looks like it reached you,” she laughed, even while a couple drops of tears ran down her face as well.

“I’m sorry. I know myself a whole lot better, but it still doesn’t change the past.”

“I know. But I think it’s better than thinking you’re no longer you,” she gave a little laugh again, then pointed at my arm. “Oh hey, cool bracelet! Did you get that at a gift shop or something?”

Right! The bracelet! I forgot all about that, being so caught up in the moment.

“Um, actually...maybe I should tell you everything that happened while I was away…”

“Sure! But first, grilled cheese! I haven’t had breakfast all day and you’re probably hungry, too!” She got up to head to the kitchen.

“Wait!” I reached my hand out. “Shouldn’t I do that?”

“Why? You’ve probably been through a lot, and they’re easy to make, anyway.”

“Because! Um...someone told me to!”

“Well screw that person.”

I felt like hitting my head against something. Couldn’t I have come up with a better excuse? I had missed her so much and yet I was letting her do everything. Well, it wasn’t like I hated it…

Once she came back with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches for me, we moved to the couch and sat next to each other. I told her all the different things I experienced and the people I met. I prefaced with “okay, but it might be hard to believe,” and she sat and listened until I was done.

“Wow, you’re right. If not for all the crazy stuff like time-travel, weird stalker mercenaries, and monster girls, I wouldn’t believe you. Oh! By the way, can you still turn into a monster girl?”

“No.”

“Aw! That’s it. I wanna break up.”

I balked. “Come on!”

At least I could tell she wasn’t being serious.

“Still, to think there’s another me out there. I mean, makes sense, right? But still wild to think about. It’s kind of a relief, though. That she’s like that.”

“Yeah, and she figured it out, too. That was something else.”

“Of course. I’m more surprised no one else did. You sure did drop a lotta hints.”

I let out a heavy sigh.

“I guess I’ve become easy to read now.”

“You’ve always been the type to wear your emotions on your sleeve, or at least to me. I’m glad you’re no longer trying to hide it.”

I sniffled. “Thank you.”

We kissed, then I said, “I’m glad to be back, but I think I need some rest.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “I hope you rest well.”

Later in the afternoon, not yet evening, Trent came back. He was only on break, but he came back to get some stuff from home. I tried to fill him in real quick.

“You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m gonna miss all the crazy stuff surrounding her. It’s gonna feel real normal now.”

“Oh. Hm. Yeah. You’re right,” I got out my phone and started clicking.

“What are you doing?”

“Hiring a clown to come over and scare us.”

“Okay, that’s it,” he tried to grab my phone from me.

“Nooo!” I wrested it away.

Yeah, maybe it would be a little quieter and less dangerous, but that didn’t sound so bad.

In the bed, I was curled up, equal measure smiling, and in tears. It was just an expression of joy, even if it still felt intense.

“I can’t believe it...I’ve found home…”

The tears soaked the pillow, but soon, my eyes closed, and I was able to drift off to sleep. I knew it would still be difficult, now that I was much more emotional, but I felt like with time, I could manage, and find greater joy from it.

[cheswirls]

it’s your extension (let me extend) 1/6

[ small preface: this is one giant 30k oneshot. its meant to be read as a oneshot, especially with the formatting. ive divided it up for sa week bc i think it fits all the themes collectively, but on day 7, ill post it all together as a oneshot. probably definitely on another platform, ill link it here, though. each piece is around 5k words, and i cant promise each one will fit the day’s themes exactly. collectively, all the themes are in here somewhere. it’s not gonna align perfectly. 

with that all out of the way, i hope you enjoy! ive been working on this for a little over a month, now. if you recognize the au it is, you won’t notice many changes, but i like how it came out anyway. if you don’t recognize it, get ready for a ride.

also thanks to @saboace-week​ for hosting ! ]

he reminds ace of his mother.

light, blond hair hanging just past his nape; piercing eyes that hold an array of emotions, none of them harsh; fair, fair skin, and if he squints he can envision a smattering of freckles dusted onto his cheeks, not unlike his own. he cards a hand through the hair; his eyes narrow. 

he can see her.

the scar catches him off-guard. it’s not noticeable until he parts the hair a little, but then there it is, stark as day, red ragged lines breaking up the pale skin. it’s not until he takes off the old sweatshirt functioning as a pajama top that he realizes the extent of the damage.

the red ran all down his left side. cutting into his shoulder, up his neck; circling around his ribs, and he turns to see it nearly to his spine on his back; down to his thighs, to his knees, just barely on the border of red on his calves; his arm is littered with white scars and red burn marks, and he finds himself growing curious. whatever it was from, it was Big. 

it was intentional.

ace blinks and the movement echoes in the mirror, blue eyes gazing back at him. and he blanches, finally waking, finally realizing no, this was not normal, this was actually happening he brings both pale hands up to his face, tries to hide his eyes. his breath stutters.

a shrill alarm sounds and he jumps, spinning around to find a discarded phone on the bed going off. he moves over to it and it reads koala on the id and he panics and taps ‘ignore’ and lets his heart calm down.

the alarm goes off again and he jumps again and picks up the phone, almost ready to turn it off, when he finds its an actual alarm going off. ‘you’re late at this point’, it reads. ‘good luck’, it reads. 

ace turns it off and takes a seat on the bed, head falling into his hands. stringy blond locks fall around him. 

what the fuck. this isn’t what he wished for. he wanted-

and he sits up, sudden, limbs jerking in protest. he climbs the rest of the way onto the bed, towards the small window in the corner, and pulls a blind open, peering out.

a view of goa greets him. traffic, towers, teems of people absolutely everywhere.

ace slowly closes the blind, turns around, and sinks back onto the bed. he takes a deep breath, in and out. 

“THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!” he shouts from the top of his lungs. when he said he wanted to live in the city, to be in the city-

when he wished he were reincarnated as-

“am i dead?” he breathes. only the quiet answers him back.

-

sabo rolls over in his sleep, prying his eyes open. he breathes out in a huff, squinting as he realizes he can see through the slats of the door. what, did he fall asleep at his desk again? and then fall out of the chair? that seemed a bit impossible, so then why . .

he tips his head, and his cheek brushes fabric, and he hums, realizing there was something under him under the floor. 

before he can process that, the door slams open. sabo’s eyes widen as he’s met with little feet, and then he looks up, meeting the gaze of a scrawny kid.

“ace, get up already!” the kid snaps. “we already ate all of the food! if you’re not ready in ten minutes, i’m leaving you.”

he slams the door back into place, and sabo lies there, eyes blown and mind wide awake.

he’s so taken in by the kid’s words that for a second he finds himself scrambling up, counting down the seconds, remembering the time limit.

then he turns around and realizes he was asleep on a futon and he was in a wooden room and he trips on his way to look out the window before grasping the sill, raising his head above it, and his jaw drops as he’s met with a sprawling lake view, and of a whole community painted into the sides of a mountain. no, not a mountain, his mind helpfully supplies. the sides of a crater.

he blinks and his gaze zooms until he’s gazing at his own reflection, except it’s not him in the window. it’s a boy with tanned skin and long, black hair that fell just to his shoulders. they were broad, and he frowns, looking down as he runs a hand down the washboard chest, bare. damn. his eyes catch on a red band looped around his wrist, tied in a sloppy knot. he tugs and it comes loose, unraveling easily, and he hums as he spies a few other colors near the end.

“ace! let’s go!” a voice calls from somewhere deeper in the house, and sabo scrambles to his feet again, dropping the band on the ground. he swivels his head until he spots a uniform hanging from a closet door. it’s nondescript, so he hopes there’s only one school in this small town, else he go to the wrong one.

. . on second thought, with the kid leading him, maybe not.

he patters over to it, pausing once he grabs the hangers to look at his reflection in an actual mirror. oh. okay. so this was actually happening. he was in the body of someone named-

he stops. blinks. no. this had to be a dream, right?

he throws the white shirt over his head, tugging the collar down, and hums to himself in affirment as he works on the pants. right. this was a dream. had to be. 

he’s slipping on the jacket when the kid barges in again, comes over, grabs him by the back of the jacket, and begins to shove him out of the room. “now! come on! we gotta go!”

“o-okay,” he voices, marveling at the change in pitch to what he was used to. deeper, slightly. he spies the red band again and lunges for it, tumbling out of the kid’s hold for a moment. “wait,” he breathes, grasping it, and then the kid’s on him again, pushing him towards the door.

“ace!” he whines. “come on!”

“luffy!” a voice calls from somewhere below. they exit the room and sabo spies a figure near the bottom of a staircase. “you’re going to be late!”

“coming!” luffy yells, still pushing him as sabo struggles to get his bearings, still grasping at the change in scenery. he clutches the red band tightly.

-

ace stumbles from the room, marveling at the change in height. the guy had a few on him, that was for sure. he moves down the hall, passing the simple furnishings until he’s in the frame of the kitchen entry, nose twitching at the smell of stale food.

a woman looks up from her phone at the small table for two, eyeing him for a moment before humming and looking back down. after another moment, she removes herself from the chair, shuffling around some dishes. “what was that shouting about earlier?” she asks, gesturing for ace to take her seat. he does, sliding down and picking up the extra pair of chopsticks.

“uh, nothin’,” ace mutters, mouth already full of leftover food.

“right.” the woman rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling a moment later. “well, i’m out. there should be another train leaving in half an hour. you have until then to get ready.”

“‘kay,” ace mumbles, nodding as she waves and exits the room. a moment later, a door shuts from the end of the hall. ace finishes the food soon after and sighs, setting the chopsticks down. 

school, then. 

he wanders back into the bedroom and approaches the uniform hanging from the back of a chair. the first issue was getting there, which . .

he glances at the phone. koala would know, right?

but, as soon as he thinks it, he lets the thought go. 

he opts to take a picture of the crest stitched to the blazer instead, doing a reverse image search to determine which goa school it belonged to. a result pops up pretty handily, and he hums, putting it into a map. oh. so, it was pretty far. he glances to the window again.

after a moment, he searches the map for the nearest train station. not close either.

  . . . his gaze moves back to the window.

ace sighs, slumping where he stood. there was no way he was catching that next train. he’d be lucky if he made it there by noon.

why was city life so hard?

after he’s gotten dressed and grabbed a bag, he stuffs whatever he can think of down into it. phone charger. notebook. wallet. pencil. sketchbook? he blinks, eyeing it for a moment, then shoves it in as well. no harm, right?

he moves back across the apartment and pauses at the mouth of the kitchen, gaze fixed on the small dishes still set out on the table. sighing, he slides the backpack off his shoulder and steps forward. right. there was no gramps to clean them up, so he’d have to do it himself then.

he pauses again after locking the front door, keys halfway shoved into his pocket. he didn’t even know this guy’s name. well, it probably wouldn’t be long until he did, but hopefully it wouldn’t cause any problems.

catching the train is a rush. ace sits in a seat very close to the door, sighing as everything begins to move. while he waits, he takes out the phone again and looks through it, trying to find anything to help him out. he ends up tapping on a social media app, and when the screen loads, hums.

“sabo, huh?” he mutters under his breath. okay. he could work with that.

-

sabo doesn’t have to worry about luffy guiding him, because they run into some people he apparently should know.

“ace!”

the word is a single, concise syllable, spoken loud and with momentum, and, more importantly, from right behind him. sabo jumps, just about crawls out of his skin, and spins around to see a girl just about his height looking at him funny, lips pursed, and a hand poised to chop his head. he steps back more, glancing over at luffy, who huffs out a sigh.

“i’ll meet you at home,” he says, motioning to a fork in the path ahead. one slopes down, curving a little around the cliffside, and the other continues upward, towards the crest. “whatever’s going on, i hope you’re over it by then.” with another odd glance, luffy tightens his hold on his backpack straps and takes off down the path. sabo is left alone, and turns to watch as a boy approaches the girl, and therefore him, as well, pushing a bike at his side.

“nothing’s going on?” he mutters, even though that’s an obvious lie. whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it wrong.

“are you sure?” the girl says, crossing her arms. “because it looks like you couldn’t even be bothered to brush your hair this morning.”

sabo blinks, reaching up to tug on one of the black strands. he thought it’d been naturally unruly. guess not.

“whatever. let’s go already.” she turns and nods to the other boy, then grabs sabo by the arm and pulls him into a walk alongside them. her eyes turn down and she makes a little noise in the back of her throat. “you brought your ribbon and you’re not even using it?”

sabo glances down as well, spying his impulse grab hanging from his hand. he lifts it. “ribbon?” it didn’t look like it.

the girl shrugs, waving a hand. “might as well be. look, if you didn’t have time to do your hair, you can just say so. but we’re not even there yet. i have a mirror if you need it.”

she fumbles for her bag, searching through it, and then frowns. “nevermind. hey, kidd, you got one?”

“always,” he boasts, passing over a small pocket mirror with ease. sabo takes it, frowning. he looks down and attempts to pat the hair down, and then glances again to the band in his other hand. so, if it functioned like a ribbon . .

well. that made sense.

he hands the mirror back and holds the band in his teeth, using his hands to situate the long black hair. then he grabs the red with one hand and strings it around, until it held the hair in a loose knot. he glances over at the other two after finishing, waiting for approval. the girl shrugs after a moment. 

“good enough, i guess.”

sabo sighs out in relief, and then they’re in front of the school and kidd’s parking his bike and something chimes in the far distance. they grab for each of his arms and pull him through the front doors, moving quickly to a classroom. it’s not until they’re inside that he realizes another dilemma. people were still moving in, and there were open seats.

he reaches back to grab the girl’s arm, a small look of panic fixed on his face despite his best efforts. “where do i sit . . ?”

her eyes widen, and she stares at him. and stares. stares.

then, very calmly, she blinks and points to a desk near a window, almost in the corner of the room. sabo just nods, head down, and moves toward it.

-

ace moves down the hall slowly, still paging through a twitter feed on the phone. there were background shots of a classroom, and it had a high window, which meant the second floor. if only there was a glimpse of a number, then he’d really be set-

“sabo!” a shout echoes down the hall, making ace throw his head up. a redhead marches toward him, looking pissed, and he blanches, turning the phone off and trying to straighten out.

“uh, whatever i did, i can explain,” he says, because ace has always been about resolving conflict. then he mentally slaps himself, because that was the worst possible thing he could’ve said. he didn’t know the first thing about sabo, much less what he did to piss off the girl so much.

“you better!” she huffs, stabbing a finger into his chest. ace takes it with a wince. “ignoring my call like that! how dare you.”

so it was his fault, then. “i thought it was my alarm,” he says quickly. “it went off right after your call. sorry.” okay, so maybe not exactly true, but it would work. he eyes the girl in a new light. so this was koala.

she crosses her arms over her chest. “which one? had to be the ‘you’re late anyway, so hurry up’ one, right? how can you be here at noon?” she sighs. “it’s lunch, for god’s sake!”

“sorry,” ace says again.

her lips purse. “fine. i won’t press. c’mon, it’s stuffy in here, let’s eat outside.”

eat. his expression changes as he realizes. koala glances at him and rolls her eyes.

“you forgot lunch, didn’t you?”

he did, and he’s kinda hungry. he claps his hands together. “please share?”

“you’re lucky i like you,” koala mutters, jerking a door open.

koala insists he come to a cafe with her after school, and ace’s mouth waters at the thought. the closest they had out in fuusha was an old vending machine on top of the crest. inside, it’s crowded with people, but koala squeezes them into a two-seater and props up a menu, then begins rambling about the day. ace tunes her out, eyes widening as he glances at all the pictures. he wanted to try them all.

“that’s a lot of money,” koala comments, and he realizes he’d spoken aloud. ace looks up, then digs in his bag, looking into his wallet. he lets out a sigh.

“yeah, guess you’re right.” he hums, flipping the page and spotting a piece of cheesecake dripping with strawberry sauce. his mouth waters again. “then, i’ll just take this one.”

halfway through their meal, ace’s phone pings. he picks it up carelessly, smiling, too busy enjoying his cake. the text makes him reconsider.

koala pauses in her movements upon noticing his expression. “what’s wrong?”

“i’m late for work,” ace tells her.  apparently.

“oh, you had a shift?” she waves him off. “go, then. i don’t mind.”

“yea, thanks.” he stands, pocketing his phone, and stuffs the last of the cake into his mouth in a big bite. koala doesn’t comment.

he walks off a few paces, spins around on his heel, and comes back to tap koala on the shoulder. “uh, where do i work again?”

her brows raise to her hairline.

-

sabo wakes slowly.

he’s balanced on the edge of the bed, curled up like he doesn’t know there’s supposed to be a drop. it’s jarring, and as soon as his phone begins to vibrate, his body jerks and he’s on the floor, crashed in a heap with the comforter curled around his legs.

with a moderate groan, he reaches up and silences his phone.

the door opens a moment later, as he’s rubbing his head. red hair is his only giveaway before shanks is fully in the room, peering down at him. “whoa there, kid. took a tumble, huh?”

“i’m good,” sabo mumbles, sitting up. he blinks, screwing his eyes to cast the sleep away. “had the strangest dream.”

“let’s talk about it over breakfast, kay?” he jerks a thumb over his head. “makino has it ready.”

makino is already gone, too, apparently, because it’s just him and shanks at the table. it only sits two anyway, so it’s not often all three of them eat together. still.

sabo squints, picking up his chopsticks and trying to recall. “i was some kid living out in a mountain village for a day. had an annoying little brother and everything.”

shanks hums, swallowing his bite of food. “sounds boring.”

sabo snorts. “great, thanks for your input.” he pauses again. “it just . . felt so real.”

later, sabo will go back to his room and pick apart his backpack, confusion on his face for every random item he pulls out. he pauses at one point, hand wrapped loosely around the spine of his sketchbook. definitely didn’t remember taking that out of his room. what did he even draw, he thinks, flipping through to the last filled page-

he stops. his hand trembles. the forgotten page flips over, and the front half of the book hangs limp in the air. he stares at the page.

‘who are you?’ is written there, in big, blocky letters, scratched over and over by a worn pen.

-

“are you gonna play with your hair again?” luffy asks, entirely unimpressed, as he pulls open the door to ace’s room, looking to his elder brother warily. ace blinks the remaining sleep from his eyes, sits up fully.

“what?”

luffy huffs. “nevermind.” he begins to slide the door shut. “at least you’re up today.”

ace frowns at the comment, then immediately turns to look out the window. the sun was barely peeking out over the edge of the crest, as usual when he woke. he sighs and stumbles to his feet, electing to ignore luffy’s comment. 

breakfast with garp is a quiet affair. he eyes ace warily, but doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary, more of the usual. ace has to pull luffy away from the table, again, per usual. he sighs as he closes the front door, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck. luffy grumbles at his side, wiping rice from the corner of his mouth.

he takes luffy halfway to school, then watches as he runs down the path with zoro and nami, sprinting in a race to see who can reach the grounds first. ace continues up the slope by himself, and doesn’t stop until he’s sliding his classroom door open, tugging his scarf a little looser in the heated environment. 

he’s sitting his bag down on his desk when the door slams open, and he turns calmly while a few others jump, entirely expecting this kind of entrance. lami pinpoints him immediately and stalks up to him, kidd not far behind. ace stands at attention, turning to face her-

and makes a noise of protest as she grabs his cheeks, pulling his face closer to hers for easier inspection. 

it’s a few tense moments of silence before he frowns, features distorted. “can i help you?” he says, words muffled by the pull of his lips. lami’s frown mirrors his own, and she releases him.

“are you back to normal?” she says, hands on her hips. ace only turns to look at kidd behind her, silently asking for help. the edhead steps up with a muffled snort.

“you were . . weird, yesterday,” he admits. “your hair was a mess, you were all spaced out, you couldn’t remember where you sat-”

“you got all of crocus’ questions right!” lami snaps. “his insanely hard, out-of-thin-air pop questions! you got them all right. answered like it wasn’t even a challenge. like you knew the ins and outs of the material already.” she crosses her arms. “you better not upstage us all again today.”

ace blanches. “what? you’re lying. that’s impossible.” and his hair . . ? he reaches up, fingering the braided cord that held the black locks in a high ponytail. 

lami shakes her head. “no, i’m serious. you were weird yesterday.” she echoes kidd’s words and the redhead nods, confirming. 

“well, whatever,” he grumbles, turning away, a bit put-out. “i’m fine now. okay? let’s just forget about it.”

the door opens, and in ambles crocus, old hips still in desperate need of replacement. he takes a stand behind the podium and pauses as he finds ace. “hm. portgas.”

ace lifts his chin, eyes narrowing. after a few tense moments, their teacher turns away, looking back down to his papers. everyone finds their seats after that. 

-

‘who are you?’ echoes over and over in sabo’s mind, as much as he can allow it. school is vicious today, the teachers going hard and not leaving anyone a moment’s rest. it’s not until everything is done for the day that sabo can break away, and that’s when koala approaches him, a wary look marring her gaze.

“what’s up with being late yesterday?” her eyes narrow as she comes to a full stop right in front of him. “y’know, if you were gonna show up halfway through the day, why’d you even come at all?”

“late?” sabo blinks. as he could recall, he was here a half hour early, like today, like always. 

“yeah.” she huffs. “you were late to work, too. listen, are you feeling better, at least?”

sabo’s hairs begin to stand. “yesterday,” he says, very slowly, “i didn’t have a shift.” 

“what?” koala’s eyes begin to ignite. “then you just ditched me? what the hell, sabo!”

“what are you on?” sabo snaps back, trying to make sense of it all. “we were together all afternoon. we split crepes! remember?”

koala’s mouth opens, but she remains silent. her brows scrunch, and the fire dies out. “that was monday,” she recalls. 

sabo shrugs, still off-put. “yeah?”

“sabo, it’s wednesday.”

he blinks. blinks again. “no-” he begins, but before he can finish, koala’s whipped her phone out and is showing him the date.

he stands very still. a shiver runs through his body.

“why . . can’t i remember?” 

-

lami and kidd wrangle him away for the afternoon, walking while the bite of the cold wasn’t too bad. unluckily for him, the path they take leads into a head-on collision with one of dragons’ rallies. ace can hear his speech before he sees the crowd, and then he’s hissing to himself in panic, ducking down behind kidd’s lanky form. the redhead scoffs, but doesn’t move.

“i guess it is election time,” lami notes, gaze wandering over. 

“wonder why he bothers,” kidd says. “he’s bound to get reelected anyway.”

ace frowns, eyes still facing the ground. he doesn’t want to hear dragon, or see him, but most importantly, he doesn’t want dragon to see him.

a pause in the speech reaches his ears. lami moves closer to the pair. “hey, heads up-” she begins to mutter.

“ace!” dragon calls, and he closes his eyes, jerking to a stop. slowly, his eyes move until he meets his father’s over the heads of the crowd. he doesn’t look very pleased. “straighten out already!” he calls.

ace forces out an exhale and moves out from behind kidd, standing taller. he turns his gaze back to the road and starts moving, quicker this time. he feels dragon’s eyes on him all the while, but what’s more, the eyes of the crowd as they turn to face him, as they turn to witness the town mayor mocking his eldest yet again-

“don’t let him bother you,” lami says, once they’re out of earshot. she turns to kidd, giving him a pointed look. “hey, let’s go to your mom’s shop?”

“diner,” kidd corrects. he frowns, knowing more than anything that it wasn’t a question. but, well, it was still too early for dad to be home. “sure,’ he sighs, giving in. immediately, ace perks up at the prospect of food.

“sacha!” lami calls, just as they burst through the doors. an older woman comes out from the back room, wiping her hands with a towel. her gaze brightens as it lands on the three.

“oh! come in, come in.” she puts her hands on her hips as they all pile into a table. “so, how was school?”

“horrible!” ace groans. “crocus kept asking me all these questions i couldn’t answer. and only me!”

from beside him, kidd snickers. lami pokes ace with her elbow. “it’s because you were a smartass yesterday.”

ace huffs, slumping to the tabletop. “sacha, they’re being mean to me!” he whines. “please, the only thing that can help is food! please feed me!”

sacha rolls her eyes at the act. “sure. whatever you say.” she winks to the other two, already turning towards the back. “i’ll bring some stuff right out.”

“thanks, mom!” kidd calls. lami echoes his words, and then they’re both turning to ace, who’s still slumped against the table.

“hey,” lami says suddenly. “fuck dragon. don’t think about it.”

ace hums, head still buried in his arms.

if only.

-

sabo has the dream again.

he sets upright, and everything is at a lower angle, and pieces of stiff, black hair fall in front of his eyes. he hums, thinks nothing of it. okay. so it was a do-over dream. maybe he could do better this time.

luffy opens his door with a short bang some time later, and pauses for a moment to eye him with trepidation. sabo cocks his head to face him, but otherwise continues bouncing his newly-acquired black locks. he couldn’t help it -he’d never had hair this long. 

“breakfast!” luffy snaps. he closes the door with the same amount of force he’d opened it with, and it hits the frame harshly. sabo’s hand drops from his hair, finally.

breakfast is, unfortunately, not a quiet affair. sabo has to fight over rice, fish, soup -everything, really- until it’s all properly dished out. a little radio in the corner of the room blares out about town hall news, and sabo cocks his head to it as he nibbles on some meat, swiping his chopsticks out to keep Luffy from his rice.

“also, in regards to the upcoming mayoral election-”

garp has already stood up by this point, and pulls the plug on the old machine before the announcer could continue. he comes back to the table in the newly quiet atmosphere, and luffy sets down elbows up on the glass top, sighing.

“you really should make up with him already,” he grumbles. “both of you,” he adds, turning that glare to sabo. sabo only blinks, not knowing the context of the words, and chooses to resume eating in quiet rather than respond.

“it’s an adult problem, kid,” garp grunts, setting down his empty bowl. “go on, now. get ready for school.”

luffy lets out a long-lastings sigh as he throws himself to his feet. “right,” he says, letting the word drag out, and drags himself from the room. sabo sets down his rice bowl after his last bite, nodding to garp.

“thanks for the food,” he mumbles, standing as well. garp grunts, but grabs for sabo before he can pass by completely. sabo pauses, looking over his shoulder.

“don’t forget, the ceremony is in a few days.”

that’s all he says, then he releases sabo. he doesn’t know the context, again, so he just nods and hurries up the stairs back to ace’s room.

the red band isn’t around his wrist this time, and it takes a bit of digging around, but he does find it in a spare drawer. he takes a brush through the thick locks, then binds it into a low ponytail at the base of his neck. if a knot wasn’t right last time, maybe this was. he uses the band in place of an elastic, pulling it tight, and nods once he’s satisfied.

luffy is waiting for him downstairs. he bounces on his feet, using both hands and a loud voice to say bye to their grandpa. sabo just nods, and garp nods back, letting them go. 

lami and kidd run into him before the pathway splits, and luffy looks on in indifference until lami has him on her shoulders, and then he’s squealing with delight or annoyance -sabo can’t tell. it only takes a moment for her to set him on the handlebars of kidd’s bike, and the redhead breaks out into a jog, balancing luffy, who does enjoy this one -evident by him throwing his arms over his head and shouting in joy. lami loops sabo’s arm through her own and they follow at their own pace. when the pathway splits, they help luffy down and he waves them off, continuing towards his own school.

sabo finds his seat by the window, but once class starts, he can’t focus. it’s all stuff he’s learned already, so he spends time instead jotting stuff down in a blank page of the notebook. ace’s family was two people. his brother, luffy, and his grandfather. there’s a third person him and ace share in conflict with. he has two close friends, lami and kidd. kidd is the son of a electrical contractor -the guy who controlled all power out here in the town. which, technically speaking, seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. the high school sat over the ridge, and it was all sabo could see for miles around -that was, nothing but rolling hills. 

“portgas,” a voice says gruffly, enough to grate sabo’s ears, and he looks up to find the entire class staring at him. his brows furrow, until he meet the teacher’s gaze, locked on him. sabo swallows, setting down his pen. 

“yes?”

crocus lets out an overdue sigh. “nice of you to finally respond. define ‘twilight’ for me.”

sabo blinks, then stands in one clean motion, nodding. “it’s . . a time between night and day,” he finally settles on, unsure of what the man was looking for. he’d gotten all the questions right last time, but they only served to annoy him. and also bring on more questions. sabo wasn’t exactly sure how to respond here to get it right this time.

crocus grins, and sabo feels a little nervousness run about. “not quite what i was looking for.” he gestures with his hand, and sabo sits down, confusion growing.

“‘twilight’ is neither day nor night. it’s a time when the two become blurred. where all the funny stuff happens. afterlight, in other words. right before dusk.”

“what about half-light?” kidd pipes up, hand slightly raised. crocus allows the outburst, humming.

“that’s more local dialect, but, yes.”

sabo lets down his guard again, and goes back to doodling, scribbling notes in the columns. 

he finds the diary after school.

it’s a small pocketbook, easily overlooked. call sabo curious, though, for upturning the room. ace is organized, and his small script is neat. reading through the entries doesn’t help, though. sabo sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. guess he had to do this on his own. well, for a do-over dream, he thinks he did rather well. if it happened again, maybe he’d get to finish learning what he only discovered this time around.

he’s settling down on the futon when a stray thought comes to mind. the words ‘who are you?’ scribbled in his sketchbook hit him out of nowhere, and sabo stands on the thin matress, gaze falling to the desk in the corner.

after a moment, he walks over, feet carrying him and hand reaching out for a small marker. he hesitates for a moment, then presses the ink to his skin, writing his name carefully.

-

sabo jerks awake, head fuzzy. shanks opens his door at the same time, and the blond has a conniption, about doing a front-somersault off the mattress. he lands on the ground in a heap, groaning.

“relax, kid,” shanks says. “it’s just me.”

sabo’s leg twitches. he lies there for a moment, only vaguely thinking about going back to sleep.

“ . . you okay?”

his phone starts ringing and sabo forces himself up to silence it. “fine,” he mutters, waving shanks off. with a shrug, the redhead leaves, closing the door behind him.

sabo’s gaze is fixed to his arm, now that he’s stopped waving it. his brow furrows, and he grasps his right with his left hand, bringing it closer. he squints.

there’s writing scribbled onto the skin. ‘sabo?’ it reads. ‘who are you? what are you?’

it was a dream.

right?

makino frowns at him as he enters the kitchen. “don’t cause trouble today,” she says quietly. sabo blinks, eyes widening and heart racing.

“what? what did i do?” he stammers. she only looks at him again, sighs quietly, and exits the room. down the hall, the front door closes.

“what did i do?” sabo asks koala, who frowns upon spotting him in the hall before class was due to start. 

“you got home too late, is my guess,” she muses. “makino called me, y’know. wondering where you were.”

sabo blanches. “did i have a shift?”

“ i think so?” she squints. “you headed off in a hurry. saw something, i guess. are you okay?”

he waves her off. “fine, fine.”

she looks at him for another moment before shoving the door open. “right.”

sabo goes straight home before his shift at the restaurant. on impulse, he flips to the back spread of his sketchbook, where the last note was. his eyes widen.

“i can’t believe i got to stop a real-life goa robbery attempt last night,” he reads. “sorry, i may have gotten scuffed up?” sabo takes a step back, and the sketchbook falls from his hands. it’s loud when it hits the floor. “what the fuck?” he breathes.

he pads over to the mirror, but there’s no marks on his face. without any airs, he strips of his shirt, twisting this way and that. ah. there, on his left side, was a small patch of bruising. luckily for him, it was on his burns, where all the skin was nerve-dead. he couldn’t feel a thing.

suddenly feeling lightheaded, sabo falls to his knees. his right hand comes up to trace the bruising.

“oh, sabo!”

he turns on his heel, empty plates balanced in outstretched hands. robin walks over the last few steps. “yes?”

“thanks for the other night.” she nods. “and for making sure i got home safe. that was really nice of you.”

the pieces connect, rapid-fire, and he works hard to only nod back. “no problem,” he murmurs, then ducks quickly through the door to the back. so, robin was the one almost mugged. she must live pretty far, for him to take her and be back late enough to cause makino to worry.  . . . that would also explain the weird looks he received from his other co-workers when he arrived. 

sabo sighs, taking a moment to pull his arms on top of his head, open his airway. then he’s poked in the back with a ladle, and his eyes open back up. moment over. he turns to see thatch eyeing him, a lazy grin on his face.

“what’s got you worked up?” he asks. before sabo can even think about not replying to his cheshire grin, zeff is yelling for him from across the kitchen. he moves quickly, picking up dessert trays and swinging out of the room once more.

he gets a text from shanks that has him calling as soon as he’s clocked out, pressing his phone between his shoulder and chin. it takes one ring for the redhead to pick up. “yes?”

“sabo! come straight home today, okay?”

“yeah, got it.” he sighs. “sorry . . about yesterday.”

“nah, don’t worry about it.” shanks pauses, and sabo can picture him physically waving the words off. “i know you didn’t mean harm. still, makino’s a little worried, so do her this favor.”

“got it. see you soon.”

sabo pockets his phone and pulls out his metro card in place of it, stepping fully into the train station. his head is spinning. 

it was a dream, right?

-

ace finds the diary, and it makes him sad before it gives him answers.

so i don’t forget again.

he’s found three, similar, pressed into the back of a crammed bookshelf. all of them have the same title. he finds his fingertips pressing into the burn scar around his eye. was it to do with this? was it all part of the same thing?

the last entries of the diary confirm his worries. sabo wasn’t aware of what was going on. he was slowly realizing it, but slowly was bad for ace, who knew from the first event what was happening.

i’m not dead. we’re switching bodies.

he was switching bodies with sabo triste, a boy his age living out in goa with his two guardians, makino and shanks. ace goes to sleep, and wakes up as sabo; he’d spent more time as the blond this week than he had himself.

‘stop writing in my sketchbook!!!’ is written right under his script on the same page, and ace traces the words carefully. he takes a pen and writes, right underneath, ‘surely one page is okay.’

he hesitates, then he writes, out to the side - ‘it’s not a dream.’

it can’t be a dream anymore.