#i am a simple little dragon and i like being given affection

[hummingbird-games]

2023 In Review (Indie Games)

Last year's! | 2021

I apologize in advance for how long this might be. As a reminder, I don't bash games here so even if I hated something with every fiber of my being...I ain't sharing. As a second reminder, my more in depth reviews and live blogging has moved to Gem's Game Gems so I don't clutter the HBG's main blog. Okay. ON WITH THE REVIEW!!

DEMOS

Diffraction (Demo)- A rainy day otome indeed. I love the quiet gentleness of this game, the two romance options, and the fact that our MC is a photographer and struggling with her art and stack of life "failures" (because...SAME!!)

Alaris - I was asleep and now I am awake: I came late for the advertised fae and dragon lore, stayed seated and waiting for Fenir zjgjdf. Oh, and I guess the mystery surrounding our MC's abilities LOL.

The Summit Library - When I say I was maaaaaad when I realized I blew through chapter 1 and would have to go back to waiting for more content??? LOL, I was very miffed. Anyhoo, check out this title for the gorgeous art, another intriguing mystery (like what is *up* with the magic in the poor library?? who or what is to blame?? 👀) and of course the lovely characters we've been introduced to thus far.

Of Sense and Soul - I'm a regency romance girl. Like after you strip away the other stuff, I am but a poor woman with simple needs: a good ass love story 🤧💛 It's about the yearning and the slow burn and the will they/won't they/PLEASEEE they...I've never been so charmed by a demo, and the full game is going to be amazing I just know it!

Made Marion - This project is a game I've been keeping tabs on for a hot minute but hadn't taken the time to sit and properly enjoy the demo. I'M SO GLAD I DID!!! It's in early access now, so I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to carve out some time to play, but guysss Velvet Cupcake is doing the Thing?!? No idea which love interest I'll go for first, but I had a fun time meeting the Nottingham peeps in the demo.

Herotome (Super Demo) - Oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh oh my GOSHHH. Where do I even began?? (Really the question is where the hell do I end because this is one of those projects I talk about a lot/think about a lot and surprisingly haven't run out of things to say zkjfksjd). Another game I've been following for a while, it 100% lives up to the superhero genre in its aesthetic, the characters you interact with, the music and sound design, and of course the slowly unfurling story. Jade and Mia had come out as my top faves, Warden is still there, like hovering in the backgroud, shhhh but I have a special place in my heart for Griffin too (that conversation we have with her?? I have so many screenshots just so I can go back and reread and sear the words in my brain. Like a weirdo. Yup.)

Celestial Crowns - Stats building, celestial royalty, dating sim where you fuck around and find out your choices directly affect your MC's personality?? I'm sat. I supported the Kickstarter and now I try to practice patience for the full game's release siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighh.

OTOME/JOSEI JAM

Please note this is a SUPER abridged list for my sanity and I fell a little more in love with these 2 jams with each entry I played...

Intertwine - As embarrassing as it sounds, I've never given much thought to the "red string" thing, and I consume more than enough romance media LOL!! But Van is suuuuuch a beautiful man, the UI for this game is so interactive and lovely, the music is ALSO lovely, just lovely-love all the way around teehee. (Also this game encourages replayabillity so like, do with that info what you will.)

Spring Boy [Demo] - I believe this game is going through a complete rehaul, so my thoughts and feelings refer to the original jam entry I played. The art is bright and cute and it's a super super short demo, but I was intrigued by the other student we meet on our mission to plead with our professor about our bombed exam lol!

Assignment Due: Project Blue - IRl group projects??? Suck absolute ass. Group projects with a guy name Asher?? Suddenly it's my new favorite thing in the world 😁

Cryptid Campaign Manager [DEMO] - Remember the last time I looked over a cryptid dating sim??? Remember how I was SUCH a fool?? Good thing I didn't make that mistake again!! The prologue is such a tease but you get an idea of what the full game is gonna be like, and I'm excited to see where my career involving love (and politics) goes!

Heart Cage [Demo] - Yoooooo I stay my ass far far far away from yanderes (could never get into the trope or the character type). WELP. Guess I just needed to keep searching because I really downloaded this off a whim--well, the whim being one of my fellow dev peers playing and rating-- and proceeded to get sucked in 🤧I thought being a detective would be the highlight, but I guuuueeesssss I was more into the romance options than I thought. Oops.

Evernight - I tried to explain what this game meant to me on the side blog, but words failed me. I still don't know what to say other than I loved it?? Which is like ummm I say I love everything, and yeah I'm easy to please BUT Y'ALLLLLL if you play no other game, play this one. Please. Date a werewolf. Or a vampire. Or a fae. Plz. Also figuring out the mystery of your MC's abilities and past is just delightful, ugh.

Bright Oak (demo) - Anotha one I wrote about on the side blog!!! Play this one!!! The writing is lush and atmospheric and the characters are all delightful and it's another game with a mystery to untangle!

The Faithfulness of the Universe- This one gets the award for most unique all around entry that I played. Theeeeee prettiest pixel art to bless my eyeballs, and this tasty mystery concerning Fate and witch Faustina's future (or lack thereof 👀) and what it all means. As a player I very much want to know what it all means!

A Cup For All Seasons - Another game that needs its flowers y'all. It's short but super healing and super cozy and the voice acting and music really tie the gaming experience together???

The Working Woman's Guide to Burning Bridges - DEMO - It's the way I played the demo twice and I've been thinking about it ever since 😭😭😭🙃 obviously life happens and things come up, plus this was a demo. But. BUT!!! I am on my hands and knees prayinnggg the team gets together again to finish the game. I love playing as a stressed, lowkey bitter hot mess who doesn't have her life together 😂somehow the fictional version is soooo much more entertaining!!!

Keyframes (Spring Demo) - After the game College Craze, this is legit THE college, slice of life visual novel of my dreams. I cannot wait for the updated demo next year, and the Kickstarter whenever that rolls around. And now that the developer is on Tumblr, I've definitely been stalking the account and reading each new post like it's my day/night/weekend job 🤧

Hello Counsel 💋 - Okay I take it back, Evernight is like a 20/10 but Hello Counsel is like an 100/10 👁️👄👁️ This game is necessary for my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, alright? The banter ✅ the character designs ✅ the music ✅ the sizzling chemistry between Poise and Salem ✅ I wish this game had more buzz because IT'S SO GOOD!!! (also the dev, Miseri, is who I wanna be when I grow up. I've made it through almost their whole backlog of games and there are no misses and EVERY game is different from the rest and it makes it hard for a toodler dev--ME--to cope LOL)

Candied Hearts - Isekaied into a candy themed game?? Sign me TF UP!!! (Peppermint I love you dearly, you must understand.)

Fully Released & Played (at least 1 playthrough)

The Knight's Dilemma - I don't even know how I originally stumbled upon this??? I just know it had been in my backlog for a hot minute and I was intrigued enough to save it way back when. Y'ALL WHY DIDN'T I PLAY SOONER SKJFHFJFH! There's a couple different endings, I loved the voice direction, AND it's such a simple concept of a game that was just executed beautifully.

Trouble Comes Twice - If I had to make a top 5 list of romance VNs, guess who makes the list?? Guess. Guess guess guess. Have you guessed yet??? LOL! I have been in love with TCT since it's development days and with each passing month, waiting in anticipation, playing the Pateron beta builds, screaming on the main blog about every single thought I had about Jace and Hazel (shoutout to Jace for helping me figure out *me*) Lol if you're curious about said thoughts, those posts are on this blog and not the side blog.

Aelfric the Wondrous - 10/10 would love to forget my first play through JUST to have that experience fresh again 😭😭💛Cute and funny and a wonderful parody type game all around.

A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 - Goodness, there's no excuse for why this took me years to finish but anyhoo, I finished, I loved it, I recommend it! It's romantic and achingly authentic and the art is soooo gorgeous I literally can't stand it 😭

The Things You Do For Love - Unhinged yandere manages to entertain and garner sympathy and laughter from Gemini. And that poly ending is chef's kiss too????

Band Camp Boyfriend - There are a handful of games I found and loved before I began my game development journey, and this is one of them. BCB is so dear to me, because of the story and characters but also because of the Dynamic Duo creators and their team behind the scenes. I was never a band kid I was a chorus kid but just as the band geeks loved this game to pieces, us normal folks do too!! Even the boys who I didn't like I STILL managed to find joy in playing their routes (still have a few more to finish at the time of this posting lol, GOTTA GET THE FINAL ROUTE YO). Anyway, this game more than delivered for me and I hope more people keep discovering it!!

Belle Automata: Chronicle I [RELEASED] - While only Chronicle 1 is out at the time of this posting, I already know that the 2nd and 3rd parts are going to be just as amazing???? I wrote about this one on the side blog, so here's my copypaste that still rings true:  

I love TNP (The Nightmare Prince) but Victor’s route hit the sweet spot for me. Maybe it’s the slow(er) burn nature of this route, maybe it’s the reserved nature of Victor and watching him slowly start to care (AND NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE FEELINGS TEEHEE) for me.

A Date with Death - I wrote about this on the side blog--again--. The demo. And then right after finishing a route. And then again where I was fully awake and still managed to sound deranged. No copypaste for that, I shall be nice. But yeah!! Another game where I was screaming at the sky about how much I love it and how I'll never know peace as long as I live.

Our Life: Baxter DLC - I need to offer an official apology to both Cove and Derek because falling head over heels, down the stairs, crashing into the parking lot, falling again but down a manhole for Baxter's infuriating ass was NOT on my 2023 bingo board??? HELLO???? I bought his DLC just to complete my OL collection. Was not expecting to love it this much. Was not expecting to be called to write fanfic and abandon all responsibilities to do this. WHILE DOWN WITH COVID TOO. Allow me to play the song of my people. *Send in the Clowns plays*

Our Cinderella - (this is so funny I'm taking about a side game before the main game LOLOLOLOL) Guys. Guysss. You guyyyysss 🥹if you're looking for a cozy, hilarious, equally oddly and wonderfully sweet short game, this is the one!! You may have your personal favorite Iggy ship (like me) but all the pairings are so amazing and just make sense lol!

Wylde Flowers - This is the only non visual novel game on here but it gets the spotlight because I did NOT spend 90+ hours on this game to gatekeep this beauty. No. It the coziest, the funniest, the funnest, the most addictive Switch game (after Teacup) I've ever played.

Fully Released (& still on 1st playthrough)

Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin - Life kicked my butt and then sat on me SO while I finally got my grubby hands on the full copy, I still have only played the entirety of the demo. But. We will return to this in 2024 and hopefully I'll have a full review for the next wrap up!

Our Wonderland - I looked back at the side blog and I can't believe it was only THIS year that I started OW??? Because I'd known of the game and the dev for longer than that??? So basically what I'm saying is that I was chicken shit for longer than I've been in love with this world that Developer Carrot has created kjzhhshggj. But OMG to get me, who is scared oh so easily to get hella invested in this clearly labeled horror game??????????????? And even with shit gets super absurd and hella disturbing, I cannot stop playing. At the time of this post, I'm only in Act 4, hence the category above, but it's only because I play each act in a sitting and lose track of space and time and myself. That's a compliment btw.

...

Okie!! That's 2023 in a nutshell! I played a looooot of really good games this year and while I would have liked to talk about them all, I think this list provides a nice overview.

Let me know if we share any favorites!

- Gemini 💛

[lets-try-some-writing]

I really enjoy your writing and thoughts on Cybertronian culture and wondered how you think the bots would show gestures of affection, what I mean is I feel that humans are very tactile and touch oriented but transformers may be just as much but in a far more subtle ways such as a little head pat or a stroke down the spinal strut,a gesture of complete trust and friendship or the gently brush of a EM field, I just wondered how you think the bots would do this and perhaps how they would try and communicate this to the kids. :0 I hope your well, no rush!!

A good idea! So sorry it took so long to get to it! I love culture tidbits, I am just a tad overwhelmed right now! Also I have a bad habit of hoarding requests like some dragon on a pile of gold.

Displays of Affection

Affection on Cybertron is far different than how it is for humanity. There is little need for touch to signify things due to the presence of fields and proximity sensors. The only reason for a mech to be touching another individual is to examine them for injuries or to make a point, be it good or bad. Touch is reserved for important things and thus is kept to a minimum amongst the most civilized mecha.

That is not to say that Cybertronians do not enjoy touch. No, due to the sheer number of sensors and other alerts that they are constantly swamped in, a loving touch means a great deal. However to preserve their sanity and to not be overwhelmed, touch is kept quiet and often very gentle. Between strangers, touch is nonexistent, it simply isn't a part of life. Words and EM field communication are the preferred method, and even then EM fields are very sensitive so most often they wouldn't use those either. It takes time for touch to be given, and it is always a gift, thus never being seen between those who do not know one another.

For co-workers and those bound together by circumstance, touch is still not part of life unless absolutely required. If necessary, touch is accepted with begrudging understanding between co-workers, however at most it is EM field communication that is used as a replacement if touch must be used at all. A quick flare of a field as a warning or a swift mingling to soothe a worried spark is about the limit of what is seen amongst acquaintances and wary partners. Perhaps there may be a swift tap to the shoulder plating, the least sensitive part of the body to catch the attention of a mech unable or unwilling to be aware of EM fields, but beyond that there is no other interaction.

Amongst friends touch begins to happen, but always with fields first. A gentle touch of fields to show affection and a constant soothing wavelength going back and forth to keep the other happy and content is fairly common. Shoulder touches are also something seen amongst friends since it is a sign of trust, a show that one believes the other willing to guard them. Of course touching does not go much farther than that. The shoulders are the limit die to how armored they are and how difficult it would be to cause pain through touch in that area. Even still, it is a far greater act of trust than that offered to simple co-workers.

Amica bonded get special treatment when it comes to touch. They are bound together by spark and are like siblings in all but CNA and thus know each other better. Fields mingle and share emotion in a way no others do, touches are gentle and loving, often running along back struts and along limbs in a kind manner. Words are less often used and instead replaced by the unspoken communication that comes from bonds. Soft songs are uttered in the dead of night and soft almost fearful hugs are exchanged during the darkest times. Every moment is cherished and every touch remembered.

For any sort of familial bond, be it between a caretaker and their charge or a bonded Conjunx pair, touch is common but quiet. Hugs are soft and loving but never done publicly. Quick but silent caresses of the frame along the back and face are regular and the odd servo holding is also something commonly seen. Fields eternally mingle in family units, projecting emotion, love, and projection at every moment alongside thoughts and desire. Cybertronians don't kiss as more often than not, it is simply an impossible task with their facial structure. However their equivalent emotionally is a soft touch of the helm crests, an act seen amongst all sorts of familial units and known to be the highest form of affection.

Touch is a gift, one only rarely given. While it is offered to other races freely, amongst Cybertronians, touch is something kept for deeper relationships and reasons.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Metal Mario

Debut: Super Smash Bros.

You may think me a fool and an oaf for not listing Super Mario 64 as the debut game, but in reality, I am oh so enlightened. I would like to in advance give a shout-out to the 1-Up World Discord server for being the place I learned so much about this situation in the first place! This post is not about the Metal Cap, for this is not Mario at all. This is Metal Mario. And he is real!

Super Smash Bros. is merely the first of many games that would make the decision to present Metal Mario as not just a Mario form, but a distinct entity, and I am glad they did! From the beginning, he is a mysterious, somewhat eerie character, a Mario who exists for some reason… but why? He sure isn’t going to tell us, because he just wants to beat us up here. He reappears in Melee, where he now, even more creepily, falls from the sky lifelessly before animating, and I must say this is awesome! There is just a Mario devoid of any origin or motivation that exists in voids sometimes!

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s World of Light, Mario is seen having a clone made by some sort of molten liquid copying his shape and solidifying, and while this isn’t REALLY Metal Mario at all (I don’t think the real one is made of melted cheese), I have to wonder if it is intentionally evocative of him, given his status as a “Smash Villain!” 

Metal Mario would go on to appear in a bunch of spinoff games, but Mario Kart 7 is when it becomes truly fascinating! This is Metal Mario’s first playable appearance in a long time, and he is described as Mario’s “rival”, and now even has his own voice clips! He isn’t just Mario with a filter, but has his very own voice clips, like “Papa!” and “Mia mama!” It wouldn’t be too strange for a simple alternate form of Mario to be playable, but we are learning that they are really going out of their way to distinguish him as a distinct entity wherever they can…

For example, look at these keychains based on various power-up forms of Mario! Here, we can see a little design detail they use lately: Mario with the Metal Cap here has visible pupils and irises, to reinforce that this is in fact the real Mario!

That’s not all! In Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, Metal Mario is an unlockable leader, and in fact uses the standard Metal Mario render… with eye details added to it! This cements that the eyes on the keychain are absolutely intentional. A whole new guy! Also it is so funny how he is just leaning on some matchable orbs here. He had to lean on something.

So what’s the big idea here, bub? Where did Metal Mario come from? Maybe he came from Meta Crystal or Behind the Waterfall, his “home turf”, but how? Let’s think about Behind the Waterfall! It is a mysterious location already intrinsically linked to the Metal Cap itself. Where did the cap come from? This isn’t just a case of a powerup that could affect anyone (like the Metal Box itself does in Smash, for example), it’s a very Mario-specific item, for activating Mario’s ability! Maybe the bond was sealed when Mario was the one to activate the ! Switch here, establishing him as the one who can now become metal, but in doing so… the concept of Metal Mario was brought into the world, free to manifest independently… and then I guess it showed up at Mario’s house one day and wanted to race him?

They’ve also made him Soft

[targaryenimagines]

Tempering the Storm

Daenerys Targaryen x Reader

Word Count: 2,164

Summary:

Notes: For @alphawolfworld— I hope you enjoy it. I decided to make my own little spin on it, which I hope you enjoy.

The harsh winds of the North whip at your face as you step from the rowdy Great Hall. Your eyes watering slightly because of it. Pulling your cloak tighter to your body you begin to make your trek back towards your room. Thick plumes of your breath being the only thing that accompanied you on your journey. 

You could still hear the faint sound of laughter and drunken shouts. Something that brings a small smile to your lips. Even if you couldn’t stand to be around the drunkards that inhabited the Great Hall, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of warmth that they were able to be so happy. That they were able to find something to be so carefree about. You just hoped that they didn’t end up regretting it in the morning. 

With a smile, you hunker down against another strong surge of wind as you cross the courtyard. Your body canting to the side as you tried to right yourself. Alas, your body wasn’t used to the conditions that you had put it in. Something that you quickly discovered as your foot hit a patch of ice underneath the snow and your entire world flipped upside-down. The breath leaving your lungs in a whoosh of air as your back made contact with the cold stone of the ground. Thankfully it was slightly cushioned by the snow that made up the entirety of the North. 

Groaning, you flop your head down-- not having the energy to rise from the ground. Trying with all your might to ignore the cool liquid seeping into your clothes. Your eyes slip shut on their own accord as you imagine that you were simply resting against the warm sands of Meereen. The sound of crashing waves taking the place of howling wind. The harsh bite of the weather giving way to the gentle touch of the sun. When your eyes open once more you could feel the way your mood drops when you’re not met with the crystalline blue sky of Essos. A sight that you never knew you would miss so much. What I would do for this snow to become sand.

The soft sound of laughter pulls you out of your thoughts. Craning your neck, you had to squint through the thickening barrage of snow to see the figure approaching you. Even though as it drew closer and closer you could make out the familiar silhouette of Sansa Stark. A woman that you had grown rather fond of during your time in the North. You watch as she stops next to you with a gentle smile curling her lips. The blue of her eyes standing out against the stark fairness of her skin. Familiar waves of auburn being kept in a simple braid. Her soft voice filled with both amusement and concern. 

“Are you doing alright? I can’t imagine that you’re comfortable laying on the ground like that.”

You allow your own smile to appear as you looked up towards her. “I am doing quite alright down here. Why don’t you join me?” 

Her nose wrinkles at the offer. Her blue gaze tracing the lines of your clearly soaked cloak with a disgruntled air. “I would much rather stay where I am.” She turns her head towards the Great Hall-- a slight frown furrowing her brow. As if she was piecing together a puzzle that didn’t make much sense to her. After a moment her gaze meets yours once more. “Where is Lady Daenerys? Should she not be out here with you also?” 

A surprised look blossoms on your face at the question. Your own frown appearing as you mull over the words. The familiar warmth spreading through your chest as you thought about your dragon-- your Daenerys. But it quickly turns sour when memories of recent events come to the surface within your mind. Seemingly sensing your mood change, Sansa glances at the snow-covered ground with a pointed glare before she gingerly sits. Her back ramrod straight as she tried to ignore the feeling of it melting underneath her. 

Offering Sansa a weak smile, you begin to speak. “Dany has a lot on her plate right now. With the impending battle with the Night King and Cersei being a constant threat in the background.” You pause as a small sigh escapes your mouth. “It’s enough to make anyone feel pressured.”

“Has she been neglecting you?” Sansa seemed enraged by the thought. 

“No.” You shake your head at the mere thought of Daenerys doing so. “I just don’t see her as much I used to, but I know she tries her best to make time for me.”

Blue eyes darken at the thought. An expression flashing across her face that you couldn’t quite decipher. “I see.”

A silence settles over the two of you-- only the howling of the wind and far-off laughter permeating it. Opening your mouth, you try to figure out what you could possibly say to Sansa to soothe the situation. Even though you weren’t exactly sure what situation you were in. However, before you could, Sansa turns to you with a slight smile. Her expression much clearer than it had been a moment prior. 

“Why don’t we start heading towards your chamber? I think a change of clothing and wine between friends is more appealing than sitting out here. Don’t you agree?” 

Not knowing what to truly say, you simply nod. 

And with more energy than you were expecting, Sansa springs to her feet and holds out her hands towards you. Her normally closed off eyes sparkling with affection. 

“Then let’s go.” 

---------

“Did Jon truly do such a thing?” You ask in an incredulous tone. Not believing that the silent brooding man could ever do something like that. 

Sansa lets out an airy laugh. “I promise you it’s all true. Jon and Robb got into such mischief together.” A sad look flashes across her eyes before she can hide it. “I miss those days.”

Setting down your goblet of wine, you gently take Sansa’s hand in your own gentle grip. A look of complete understanding washing over your face. “I can understand that, but do you know who can also understand that. Better than anyone I have ever met?” 

She shakes her head in response, but there was the same look in her eyes from before. 

“Daenerys.” You frown at the small scoff that Sansa lets out in response. “I’m serious Sansa. Daenerys knows better than anyone how it feels to long for days long passed. To wish for a different future than the course you have been put on.” 

Sansa lowers her head-- her voice dropping to a low whisper. “You seem to old the Dragon Queen in high-esteem.” 

“I love her, Sansa,” you whisper back. “She has saved me more times than I can count. Has been there for me when I didn’t even know I needed someone. She has never given up on me. Has never faltered in her devotion for me. And I will never do so either.” 

An almost pained look appears on Sansa’s face at the clear conviction within your tone. It was a look that you suddenly understood. For it was a look you had seen many times before. A look that many potential-suitors held when they finally understood your complete devotion to Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen. 

Sighing softly, you offer Sansa an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Sansa.”

She offers a weak smile in return. “Not as sorry as I am.”

Tightening your hold on her hand, you pull Sansa into a warm hug. Wrapping your arms securely around her as she buries her face into the crook of your neck. A silent understanding passing between the two of you in that moment. That everything was going to be okay in the end. 

The sound of your chamber door causes you both to jump away from one another. Your eyes widening at the slim figure standing at the threshold of the room. A furious violet gaze meeting your shocked one. 

Standing you take a slight step forward. “Daenerys?” 

You pause when her gaze seemingly freezes you in place. Her eyes turning to the woman behind you. A harsh look taking over her features at the sight. 

“What in the Seven Hells is she doing here?” 

With widening eyes, you begin to speak-- desperately wanting to salvage the situation. “Sansa and I met earlier in the courtyard, and after a brief discussion we decided to convene in my chambers for some wine.” You gesture behind you towards the goblets. “And after another brief discussion I decided it best that I should hug her farewell.”

Daenerys’s eyes narrow. “Then why is she still here if you were simply hugging her farewell?” 

You flounder for an answer. Your brain seemingly short-circuiting as you tried to speak. Luckily, a soft voice speaks up behind you.

“I was just leaving.” You wince internally at the sharp quality to Sansa’s tone, but you smile gratefully towards her as she passes you. Thankful that she was able to speak when you couldn’t.

Pausing for a brief moment beside you, Sansa murmurs. “I shall see you tomorrow.” She shoots Daenerys a thinly-veiled glare. “I hope you sleep well.” 

With that she exits the room. The banging of the door being the only sound in the room for some time. Taking a chance, you glance towards Daenerys’s still figure. Only to find that she was still staring at you with an expression you couldn’t decipher. 

You take a small step towards her. Your expression open and honest. “Dany, I promise what you saw isn’t what you think it was. I was simply offering her a hug as a friend. Nothing more.”

Her mouth twists down in a frown. “I am well aware of your intentions, my love.” She turns from you and moves towards the window. Her expression pensive as she takes in the sights just beyond the glass. “It’s hers that I am vexed with.” 

You frown. “What do you mean, Dany?” 

She turns to you with a slight smile curling her lips. The first she had offered you since entering the room. “Oh you must realize how she stares at you, my love. Must realize how she speaks towards you without a care of who overhears.” She turns her gaze back towards the outside world. “Her gaze is filled with that of longing. A deep-rooted longing for something that she can never have. The type of longing that keeps one awake at night. Her words simply highlighting the fact. For they show no inkling of self-perservation as she tries to take something that is already someone elses.” Sighing, Daenerys moves towards the bed where she gingerly sits down. “So, no, it’s not you I am worried about, my darling.” 

Clearly seeing the anguish within Daenerys’s violet gaze, you move to sit beside her. Taking her still gloved hands in your own. Your eyes pleading with her to listen to you. 

“Dany,” you mumur with a soft look on your face. Your hand coming up to caress her cheek. “There is no other person that I could ever see myself with. No other person that I could ever see myself loving as much as I love you.” You dip your head as your next admission comes out. “I am aware of Sansa’s feelings towards me. Even though I had no knowledge of it when I entered this room with her. She has since become aware of my complete devotion towards you. Something that will never change.” 

Daenerys’s eyes flash with various emotions. Though you could tell clear as day that her insecurities were eating away at her. 

“Truly?” She asks with a small tilt of her head. “Even when my plans have to take me away from you for long periods of time? When I can’t spend time with you like I used to?” 

You smile. “Even then. For I know that you will be just as miserable as I am. That we will both be wishing for the day that we can be in each others arms once more.” You bring your lips to hers in a small, chastised kiss. “I am yours, Daenerys. For now and forever.”

Daenerys smiles back at you. Her violet eyes sparkling with warmth and affection. “And I am yours, my love.” She wraps her arms around your neck and pulls your body flush against hers. Her mouth ghosting across your cheek towards your ear. Her warm breath fluttering against the shell of your ear. “I just hope you realize that the next time Sansa Stark tries anything I won’t be so forgiving.”

Chuckling, you turn your head and press your lips against hers. Relishing the feeling of having her in your arms. Any other thought leaving your mind as your hold her tightly to you. 

For there would never be anyone else you would ever need.

Not as long as you had her.

[a-edgar-allan-hoe]

The Last Chthonian

Bucky x Reader, Sam x Reader, Zemo x Reader

Part 10

A/N: I can’t believe I’m already on part 10 for this series and to be honest it’s fun to write. And in all seriousness, the tumblr mobile app needs to allow you to put a read more link. But anyways love you all and let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list! Mwah! 🖤🖤🖤

Summary: Imagine being Hekate, the Greek goddess of magic and witchcraft, the night and the moon, doorways and crossroads, creatures of the night, and ghosts and necromancy. You stumbled upon Earth many centuries ago and since then have resided on the foreign planet. During the recent years you created an alias for yourself to hide your true identity, and after the war against Thanos you chose to live out your days in the Scottish countryside, until a certain trio appear at your doorstep one day.

Warnings: language, some violence, and blood

“Im sorry, did you just say Madripoor?” You blinked at Zemo, dreading the destination ahead of you.

“What’s up with Madripoor? You talk about it like it’s Skull Island.” Sam questioned, looking between you and Zemo.

“Imagine Mos Eisley from Tatooine but without the aliens and blasters.” You tried to make an analogy. “In other words, a shithole. And to be honest, I’d rather be in Mos Eisley.”

“It’s an island nation in the Indonesian archipelago. It was a pirate sanctuary back in the 1800s.” Bucky explained to Sam.

“It’s kept its lawless ways.” Zemo added before turning to James. “But we cannot exactly walk in as ourselves. James, you will have to become someone you claim is gone.”

You had a feeling Zemo would suggest all of you going in with different identities, and being the only woman in the group, you already had a wild guess you weren’t going to be ecstatic about yours. You looked to Bucky with a frown on your lips. You knew what Zemo had meant towards him, and you didn’t know how it would affect him to transition back into the person he tried so hard to deviate from. Bucky saw the sympathetic smile you gave him, and he returned it with a look that reassured you that he would be fine.

“Y/n.” Zemo now spoke to you, tilting his head to meet your eyes. “I’m sure you are aware of the conditions.”

“Zemo if you...” Bucky trailed off as he glared at him, silently warning him to watch what he says next.

Sam and Bucky kept their eyes on Zemo, waiting to hear what his suggested persona for you was and ready to beat his ass if he dared to suggest something that would be demeaning to you.

“No way in the pits of Tartarus. I am not going in as an escort.” You voiced with a clenched jaw. “And if it’s eye candy you need, you have Sam.”

Sam gave you a surprised look from your comment, flattered to have you recommend him to be the designated eye candy before going back to the topic at hand. “Hell no Zemo. You’re not having y/n pretend to be an escort.”

“I’m afraid Sam is already going as someone.” Zemo sat back with his hands folded in his lap. “And don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on having you go as an escort, it isn’t befitting of a baron like me. Plus, I figured it would be uncomfortable for you, so I was going to suggest you act as my fiancé, if you are willing of course.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, pondering on the subject. You were a bit relieved in all honesty. But to pretend to be Zemo’s fiancé and be in close and almost physical proximities with him?

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to y/n.” Sam uttered to you.

“I’ll do it.” You confirmed.

“Are you sure?” Zemo asked you again, making sure you were comfortable with acting the part.

“I thought Zemo might step out of line with this one, but we don’t want you to do something that will make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m sure. I’ve had to do things I wasn’t comfortable with plenty of times in the past.”

Once you had all landed, Zemo decided to stop by a place so that you all may get dressed. You had already packed a dress and a pair of heels with you just in case for situations like these, since this wasn’t the first time you had to dress up for a mission. The dress you wore was a black, burned velvet silk slip-like dress with the velvet print being dark red roses. The dress wasn’t too tight to be constricting of movement and fit perfectly around around your curves. If the situation should arise that you needed to defend yourself, you needed the freedom to be able to move. Going down, the fabric flared slightly at your hips, brushing barely against the floor with your heels on. The skirt was slightly sheer from the bottom of your thighs and down with the floral velvet print, and had a slit going up your right thigh, perfect for kicking and concealing your dagger. The top torso portion of the front of your dress was a spaghetti strap cowl neckline that stopped just above the curve of your breasts, allowing for just a bit of cleavage. Your back was left bare, stopping at your mid back with thin straps that came across in a pattern. Your dress almost had a Grecian/witchy look from the way it draped over your chest and hips. It wasn’t too formal or too scandalous, it was elegant and classy, and showed just the right amount of skin where it wouldn’t be too revealing.

Even though you completely loathed and detested heels of any kinds, your heels were fairly simple, made of black velvet with straps that came across your ankles and toes. You dreaded heaving to wear them but at the same time you’d stick out like a sore thumb if you wore your docs with these. Perhaps you should’ve brought your nicer sandals, but it was too late now. You kept on your mother’s necklace and wore a set of amethyst drop earrings, throwing on a silver cuff bracelet on each wrist. Your hair was let loose to conceal your short sword that you hid on your back underneath your dress, the hilt resting right between your shoulder blades. You prayed that having your hair down would cover the scars and the sword you had on your back. But you were mostly focused about the scars, you failed to mention them to the guys about it since it was something that was hard for you to share. The only makeup you had on was some eyeshadow and mascara to darken your eyes, very little blush, and a lip tint.

The last thing to do was to put on some perfume, so you spritzed on your favorite oil based one that you had from Olympus on your pulse points. The scent was filled with incense-like scents like dragon’s blood, sage, crushed red roses, sandalwood, ghostly white musk, absinthe, almonds, and heady gardenia. It wasn’t as harsh as the common alcohol based ones, this one was more earthy and ancient, and every time you wore it, the scent lingered and heads turned. You gave yourself a once over when you were done, taking in a deep breath before heading out to join the others.

You became nervous as you saw them gathered together, talking amongst themselves as they haven’t noticed you yet. You rarely ever wore dresses these days, especially of the kind you were wearing now which left you feeling bare and exposed even though the dress wasn’t at all much revealing. So as you approached them, you couldn’t help picking at your fingers in anxiety.

The men turned at the sound of your heels clicking against the ground, and when they laid their eyes on you, they couldn’t help but gawk with their mouths parted open, as if they had seen the most beautiful creature to ever walk the earth. You chewed on the inside of your cheeks as you saw how they stared at you.

“Wow.” Sam was the first to say something. “You look like a million bucks.”

“What? Never seen a woman in a dress before?”

“No, I’ve just never seen you in a dress before.” Sam answered. “You’re always dressed like some hippie/librarian, with your bands shirts, sweaters, plaid pants and jackets.”

“Haha vary funny.”

“Also since when did you have muscles?” Sam noticed as he poked your bare arm. “And since when did you have a tattoo?” He observed the mark you had on your upper right arm, right below your shoulder. It was the mark that was given to you to signify your Olympian status and what you represented. It was about the color that henna left behind after you wiped the paste off your skin, the color of ginger and bronze. The center of your mark was a lightning bolt, which represented a child of Zeus. Below that was your symbol, the torch and the triple moons.

“Since when did you start asking so many questions? But yeah, I’ve always had muscles Sam, I was trained in combat since I was, you could say 9 years old in human years. Also, technically everyone has them, it’s what allows us to move and lift things. And that.” You pointed to your tattoo. “Is my goddess mark, not a tattoo. Every Olympian god has one and they each have their personal symbol that represents them.”

“Wait, so you’ve been trained since you were a kid?” Bucky looked at you to clarify what he heard as they all started to head out.

“Technically, everyone on Olympus starts training that young. Then, when they become of age, a tournament is held to display their skills, following a ceremony after, to celebrate their victory.” You explained as you walked beside them.

The four of you were currently walking on the bridge that led to Madripoor. You could see the city’s skyline out in the distance, the cyberpunk like buildings lighting up the night sky.

“Do you need my coat?” You heard Zemo say beside you, making you look at him.

“Sorry?”

“Do you need my coat?” He repeated himself, referring to how your arms were bare against the cool night. “I wouldn’t want you to get cold.”

You stared at him, stunned from the kind gesture as you tried to form words to say. “Oh uh.....I appreciate the gesture, but I’m fine actually. I’m not that cold.” Though you didn’t want to admit it, you actually would’ve liked to try on his coat, because in all honesty it was a damn nice coat.

“We have to fix this.” You heard Sam say with irritation visible in his voice. “I’m the only one who looks like a pimp.”

“Only an American would assume a fashion-forward black man looks like a pimp. You look exactly like the man you’re supposed to be playing.” Zemo mentioned as he pulled out his phone to show Sam. “The sophisticated, charming African rake named Conrad Mack, aka the Smiling Tiger.”

“He even has a bad nickname. Hell, he does look like me, though.” Sam observed the photo.

“You smell this?”

“Yeah, what is that? Acid?” Sam sniffed the air as you did the same.

“Smells rancid.” You scrunched your nose at the smell.

“Madripoor. No matter what happens, we have to stay in character. Our lives depend on it. There’s no margin for error.” Zemo instructed as a black car pulled up in front of you. “High Town’s that way. Not a bad place if you wanna visit, but Low Town’s the other way.”

“Let me guess. We don’t have any friends in High Town.” Sam remarked as he opened the door for the back seat.

“Y/n. A moment please, if you will.” Zemo uttered to you.

You stopped in your tracks, seeing Bucky and Sam stand on either side of the car doors, looking between the two of you and especially Zemo, with caution. You nodded your head at them, signaling you were fine and that they can get seated. And though they sat themselves inside the car, that didn’t stop them from keeping their eyes glued to Zemo to make sure he didn’t pull anything stupid.

“What’s the issue?” You turned to Zemo, giving him your attention.

“Since you will be portraying my fiancé, there’s a certain key element you will be needing to complete the image.” You watched as he pulled out a ring from his coat pocket, displaying it in front of you. “If I may?”

You stared at Zemo blankly before nodding your head and holding out your left hand for him. You knew this was only for a show, but you couldn’t help but stiffen as he delicately held your hand with his gloved one before slipping the ring onto your ring finger.

“There.” Hi smiled softly at you, his hand still holding yours. “Now you look the part.”

The two of you stood there for a moment, his thumb brushing against your knuckles, leaving behind a trail of warmth as he gazed down at you. Zemo swore he could have gotten lost in the violet swirls and gold flecks of your eyes forever, which now sparkled against Madripoor’s lit up skyline, the neon city and the places he’s visited not even coming close to the beauty he held before him.

You tried not to blush under his gaze as you gave him a polite smile before slipping your hand out of his. “I should probably change my eyes huh.” You remembered, changing your eyes to a normal color known to earth. “Should I hide the scar?” You asked him, referring to the one on your face.

“I think you should leave it. It suits you, and besides, you never know who might recognize you without it.”

Nodding your head at him, you headed to the car and settling in beside Bucky as Zemo followed, getting in the passenger seat in front of you. In the car ride there, you glanced down at the ring Zemo slipped on your finger, it was definitely a beautiful elegant ring, with a rose gold band and a pear cut garnet in the center that had diamonds that accented the bottom. Once you arrived in the city, you walked through the neon lit streets beside Zemo while Sam and Bucky followed behind. You loosened up your body as you went, swaying your hips slightly as you tried your best not to walk like a bodyguard and look threatening as everyone’s eyes followed the four of you strolling through the streets.

“Here we are.” Zemo announced, stopping in front of a bar before speaking to Bucky in Russian. “Ready to comply… Winter Soldier?”

As you went in, Zemo leaned in to whisper in your ear, his warm breath tickling your neck and startling you as he spoke in a hushed tone. “I want to apologize in advance, forgive me.”

You looked at him with furrowed brows to question what he meant until you felt his gloved hand slide across your back before resting on your waist, pulling you closer to his side. You noticed how his hand fumbled after brushing across your sword as he gave you a questioning look. What was that on your back? Did you really conceal a full on sword on your back underneath your dress? On your way to the bar table you saw people stare as you went through, some of them gawking in surprise at Bucky, or the winter soldier as he was now portraying, while the slimy men in the area roamed their eyes over your body hungrily. Zemo noticed your uneasiness from the way your muscles tensed, though your face didn’t show a sign of it, and glared at the men who dared to lay their eyes on you, only pulling you closer to him to prove that you were with him while Bucky and Sam noticed this as well and positioned themselves where you were blocked from the view of your peers, allowing you to breathe a little better as you approached the bar.

“Hello, gentlemen.” The bartender greeted you all. “Wasn’t expecting you, Smiling Tiger.”

“His plans changed.” Zemo answered for him. “We have business to do with Selby.”

“The usual?”

Sam nodded his head.

“And for the lady?”

“Um Something fruity.” You answered with a flirtatious smile, silently hoping they had something like that on the menu and that you hadn’t blown their cover by ordering the wrong drink.

The bartender handed you what looked to be a pineapple martini and you internally thanked the gods for your sheer bit of luck, taking the drink and thanking the bartender with another smile. You watched as he went to work on Sam’s drink, pulling out of a jar what definitely was a snake. You gulped, your stomach feeling nauseous as you saw the bartender cut open the dead snake, taking out its guts and throwing it in the shot glass. You were mortified to say the least, snakes were one of your symbols and you had owned plenty of the gentle little creatures. You shot Sam a sympathetic look once you saw his expression.

“Cheers.” Zemo held up his glass while Sam stared at his before gathering the courage to drink it all in one go. If Sam wasn’t going to throw up, you were going to do it for him.

While your eyes were trained on Sam’s expression, you felt someone breathe over your neck before feeling a clammy hand graze across your ass.

“Hey baby-“

Your eyes widened before you grabbed the wrist of the man behind you in one quick motion, twisting his arm to an unnatural position as you yanked it away from your body, causing the sleazy looking individual let out a yelp of pain. You would’ve crushed his wrist like crumpled paper if Zemo hadn’t put a cautionary hand on your arm as he whispered to you. “Careful now.”

You let go of the man’s wrist before shoving him aside like a pile of garbage. If their identity wasn’t at risk of being revealed, Zemo, Sam, and Bucky would have gone over there and beat the guy up after you were done with him.

“I got word from high. You ain’t welcome here.” You watched from behind Zemo as a bearded man approached him.

“I have no business with the Power Broker, but if he insists, he can either come and talk to me…” Zemo gestured towards Bucky.

“New haircut?”

“Or bring Selby for a chat.”

The man glanced between Zemo and Bucky before leaving.

“A power broker? Really?” Sam turned to Zemo.

“Every kingdom needs its king. Let’s just pray we stay under his radar.”

“Do you know him?” You asked.

“Only by reputation. In Madripoor he is judge, jury, and executioner.”

Another man was approaching in your direction, most likely to kick you all out or worse, and after following your gaze, Zemo turned to Bucky, speaking to him in Russian just as the man laid a hand on his shoulder. “Winter Soldier. Attack.”

You stood back, watching as Bucky grabbed the dude’s arm and twisted it back. You refrained yourself from intervening as Bucky took down the men that fought against him.

“Didn’t take much for him to fall back into form.” Zemo commented to you and Sam.

Bucky slammed one of the men down on the counter. And as you heard the clicking of guns being loaded, your defensive mode nearly kicked in as you almost reached for your sword before Zemo stopped you.

“Stay in character or the whole bar turns on us.” Zemo whispered to you both before turning to Bucky and speaking in Russian again. “Well done soldier.”

You let your arm drop back down to your side, not a single change in your expression as you eyed everyone around you.

“Selby will see you now.” The bartender spoke up after getting off the phone.

Zemo gave him a thanks, nodding you over and holding out his hand for you to take as you went to his side again, Bucky and Sam following after you. You went through a back door, going down a dark corridor with Zemo’s hand on your back as he guided you through.

“You should know, Baron. People don’t just come into my bar and make demands.” You heard a woman’s voice speak, turning your head to see an older woman in a suit with short white hair lounging back on the coach with her security around her.

“Not a demand. An offer.” Zemo sat down on the couch before waving you over when he saw you standing near Sam. “Come sit schatzi.”

You straightened up, plastering a smile on your face as you went over to him. Selby’s eyes followed you curiously as you placed your hand in his, your eyes rapidly moving in nervousness for what area would be the most appropriate area to sit. Were you......were you supposed to sit on his lap? Is that how couples work? No, that would be inappropriate. Before things got awkward, you quickly plopped down on the empty spot next to him, crossing over your leg in a way so that it draped over his, leaving your thigh completely exposed from the slit in your dress, save for the dagger that still remained hidden. Sam and Bucky widened their eyes at what you just did, while Zemo stiffened at this sudden movement from you as you also draped one arm around his shoulders, bringing yourself closer to him. Were you even doing this right?

“A lot has changed since you were here last.” Selby observed the two of you before her eyes landed on your ring. “Who’s this pretty little thing?”

“This.” Zemo looked at you with a loving look, throwing an arm around your waist to draw circles on your bare back, while his other hand rested on your thigh, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps on your skin as you felt shivers go down your spine. “Is my fiancé. Gorgeous isn’t she?”

How long has it been since you were this close and personal to someone? The last you could remember, women still wore corsets and people still rode carriages. You felt your body heat up from being this close to him, and from the way he stroked your back. How was a mortal man able to leave you feeling like this? If he was able to send shivers down your spine with the mere touch on your back with his gloved hand, you wondered how it would feel to have his bare hands on you, just skin to skin. And if you were being honest, you never really were a fan of cologne but his smelled of a deeper earthy tones with hints of musk, and you were surprised and almost ashamed to say you liked how he smelled. You returned the same loving look to Zemo, trying to make it as believable as possible as you ran your fingers through the hair on the back of his head before placing a kiss on his jaw close to his ear. Sam and Bucky couldn’t believe their eyes at the scene before them, the same you who preferred to be a hermit and didn’t go on dates because it involved human interaction, was cuddling up to none other than Helmut Zemo himself. Zemo’s breath faltered a bit from from your touch as he swallowed the lump in his throat, struggling not to break character. Being this close to you, he was able to get a whiff of your perfume and my goodness, Zemo felt as if he could drown in your scent, you smelled like the heavens, not overbearingly sweet, but dark and luxurious and even seductive. Is this what vampires and sirens smelled like when they lured people to their deaths? You raised a brow at Zemo, your heightened senses were picking up on his breathing patterns and heartbeat. Was he getting nervous?

“Extremely.” Selby commented, smirking at the two of you before roaming her eyes over your body. You could feel her taking you in but you kept your eyes trained on the side of Zemo’s face. “Where did you pick this one up? She looks like a fighter.”

“As they say, why not get a woman who can do both. She was part of the Sokovian armed forces, I met her through there.”

“By the way, I thought you were rotting away in a German prison. How did you escape?” Selby added after finally taking her eyes off you.

“People like us always find a way, don’t we? I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I’m here for.”

“You’re taller than I’d heard, Smiling Tiger.” Selby turned to Sam with a flirtatious grin, using her hand in a claw like manner as she let out a purr. “What’s the offer?”

“Tell us what you know about the super-soldier serum.” Zemo got up off the couch, going over to Bucky and holding his chin between his fingers. “And I give you him, along with the code words to control him, of course. He will do anything you want.”

“Now that’s the Zemo I remember. I’m glad I decided not to kill you immediately. Yeah, you were right to come to me. Arrogant, but right. The super-soldier serum is here in Madripoor. Dr. Wilfred Nagel is the man you wanna thank. Or… condemn, depending on what side of this you’re on. The Power Broker had him working on the serum, but… things didn’t go as planned.”

“Is Nagel still in Madripoor?”

“Oh. The bread crumbs you can have for free, but the bakery is gonna cost you, Baron. And before you get all cute, don’t think you can find Nagel without me. But.....” She turned you with a sly smile which made your insides turn. “Throw her in with the package and you have yourself a deal.”

Zemo, Sam, and Bucky turned to look at you with dread upon hearing her words. This wasn’t at all part of the plan.

“No, no no. That wasn’t the deal.” Zemo stepped over to where you sat, blocking you from her. “She’s not for sale.”

“Why not?” Selby raised her brow at Zemo. “I’m pretty sure a man like you could pick up someone else to be your plaything or fiancé or whatever. I like this one in particular.” She turned to you again.

“That’s not-“ Zemo started before he was cut off by Sam’s cellphone vibrating.

You breath was caught in your throat and it felt as if the room had dropped in temperature. You could feel the tension floating around the air as everyone’s eyes were trained on Sam now, making you sit up straight and uncross your legs so that they were planted firmly on the ground. Your hand rested on your thigh just above where the hilt of your dagger was as your eyes darted around the room, watching each and every person like a hawk about to swoop down on its prey. You had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well.

Tag List: @girl-obsessed-with-things @aerynchromie @sunshinepower17 @viviace @kakimakiloh @thebivirgin @gambitsqueen @spookycereal-s @lulu-yuming @mochminnie @gabitanaka47 @s00nhi @vanteguccir @tomhollandsslilslut @dracoxxyoflam @suchababie @uhhhcrypticbastard @on-my-way-to-erebor @thewinterrbucky @mylifeispainandiloveit @fillechatoyante @padmoonyfeorge @montypythonsholysnail

[emerald-amidst-gold]

Hello there friend! It is a me once again 😌 Dare I request some fluff?

27. piggy back hugs

MY FRIEND! Of course you can request some fluff since I broke your heart with my last drabble! >:D

BEHOLD, Fane, the chivalrous dragon! >:3

***

The Emerald Graves bore a duality that Solas found was a persistent theme in his life. Blissfully serene, but beautifully chaotic. Laden with sorrow, but thriving with joyous life. Awash with scars of the past, but still with the peace of the present. The lush forests with their tombstone trees, the various creatures that frolicked and loped, the babbling streams with old Elvhen monuments or statues lining their banks, and ruins upon ruins of a home that was taken as readily as it had been given. All of these things held the duality of nature, the light and dark, but there was, perhaps, one thing he found himself only seeing the dark side of an otherwise shimmering gold coin.

And that were roots, gigantic and jutting as surely as the wooden bodies that bore them. The trees within the Graves were large, towering, and their sturdy, ancient roots matched that tenacity, tearing through the verdant ground and bursting upwards as if those who had fallen were rising from their hallowed grounds.

However, it had not been the hand of a fallen Emerald Knight that sought Solas now as he walked beside Fane; his dragon's emerald eyes glistening with quiet gold as they stared forward, occasionally darting towards a rustling bush before a nug would scurry from it, eyeful march resuming its forward steps. It was just the two of them, Fane having ordered a split of their party to cover more ground, mark more landmarks for later observation and consideration, and as per usual, he took his place beside his dragon; always beside, never behind. It was an arrangement they both had declared silently, but knowingly, the bond of centuries answering for them.

Sadly, it was proving to be increasingly difficult to keep that arrangement as they proceeded deeper and deeper into the grove they had stumbled upon, the path narrowing, but only bringing them closer together, not apart, even if the alternative would be easier, but truthfully, Solas had no one to blame but himself for their venue, ancient energy making itself known within his mind and along his skin. It was a beautiful area, however, laden with colorful blooms of Embrium interspersed with Prophet's Laurel and Royal Elfroot. He would have to make note of this particular spot, but once they found the Elvhen artifact, it would be no issue relocating the prosperous path they tread.

Or rather, the treacherous path they tread, the ground rife with thick, winding roots that made it difficult to traverse without stumbling or getting caught up for a moment. Fane was having no trouble, long legs easily stepping over or a heavy boot merely crushing the wooden with a crack before its bearer would continue onward. He, on the other hand, was a little less...assured, occasionally catching the tip of his foot along a loop from where his leg would draw up short.

Solas let out a quiet growl of frustration as he, yet again, felt his foot catch, nearly stumbling and tumbling into the taller man beside him. These roots were truly irksome! He had traipsed into many a forest, many a crumbling ruin laden with obstructions all their own, but these specific obstacles were proving to be cunning and infuriating!

"You said it was around here, right?", Fane's voice sounded in his ears, deep and mildly flat as usual. The shifting of metal and leather telling Solas arms had been crossed. "Usually I can sense them, too, but I don't this time. Huh."

Solas glanced up from where he was glaring at the ground to see one pale, freckled cheek jutting out slightly as his dragon did his normal habit of pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek, but unfortunately, he was unable to wax poetic over it as he was trying to traverse the maze of roots they had wandered into. Why were there so many?!

"It is...", Solas began, halting his words as he carefully side stepped and tiptoed over a rather pesky bunch of gnarled wooden arms. He kept his eyes glued to the ground as he continued, "..deeper in. The Veil has various abnormalities in these forests, so perhaps it is affecting your--", he tried to finish, but was cut off as another thick root had one of his feet twisting like it was twisted, looping and aggravatingly elegant. "Fenehdis lasa!" The curse spilling out unbidden as sudden pain had him grimacing and stumbling forward a bit.

Solas nearly tumbled forward due to having to take the majority of his weight off his foot, but, as quick as vipers, Fane's hands shot out to grab a hold of his shoulders, digging into fur and cloth to pull him back from meeting the earth. He winced a bit, pinching pain radiating through his foot and up to his ankle as he leaned towards Fane. Curse it all! How he managed to walk through life at times was a mystery! If this were the Fade he could disperse these blasted roots without growing tired!

"You okay?", Fane asked, voice dropping deeper with worry as his face came into view, eyes sparkling like iridescent runes and pale visage holding a sunlight glow from the sunlight filtering from down from above. Those all encompassing eyes held concern and typical protectiveness, the hands gripping Solas' shoulders tightening a bit.

"I..am fine..", Solas managed to get out, but winced in the next moment when he tried to ease his foot onto the cool ground, sharp, searing pain shooting up through his ankle. "I..merely twisted my ankle a bit." It felt more than a bit, scorching and throbbing, but the last thing he wanted was to induce more worry onto Fane, but with the way emerald eyes seemed to narrow with exasperation told Solas that that was but a dream.

"Describe the pain.", Fane said, practically demanding, inherent growl working its way forward from concern and Solas' attempts to divert.

Solas sighed, turning his head up a bit more to connect their gazes more completely. Emerald and gold flowed and shone as emotions began to run high within his dragon, snowy eyebrow twitching, lips down turned into a displeased scowl. He should know better than to hide from a dragon, but still he tried. Foolish.

"It is...uncomfortable.", Solas finally said, reaching up to give one of Fane's clawing hands a pat and a soothing stroke of a thumb. He smiled a bit, reassuring and calm despite the pain he felt in his foot. "That is all, ma'isenatha. A simple healing spell later on will suffice in soothing it." He hoped that would ease a draconic mind, but with the same emerald and gold sharpened told Solas otherwise, letting out a tiny sigh. And he was the worrywart of the two of them?

"You can't walk.", Fane growled, no question in it, only fact.

"I can walk perf--"

"Try it, then."

Solas gaped a bit, fumbling for another deflection, but came up short as another sharp surge of pain had him hissing, squeezing his eyes shut to the point where he saw static. Okay, so it would appear he would not be chancing strides any time soon. He sighed again as the fiery pain slowly ebbed again, cracking his eyes open to stare up into firm, but deeply worried orbs that reflected the mightiest of jewels. Fane was frowning with concern rather than scowling with irritation, inked vines of Sylaise seeming to wilt along with otherwise youthful muscles. Solas felt himself smile a bit despite not finding pleasure in such a sight. For his dragon to always be so concerned for his welling being, for everyone's well being, was truly touching, even if it was unnecessary at times.

"It would appear you are right in that I cannot walk.", Solas admitted, letting out a tiny chuckle as he shook his head. "But, there is a task yet, and I can endure." The Elvhen artifact was the priority at the moment, and it would be wasteful to them both if they had to abandon the grove now because of his gracelessness.

Fane scoffed, rolling his eyes. "On one foot? Yeah, okay. I'll just let you hop around until you bite it again.", he said with an exasperated growl before continuing, voice softer, but no less annoyed. "Don't be a fool.", he admonished before a large frame gingerly let go of him, but staying close as it descended onto a knee, turning from him. Solas tilted his head, blinking a bit and bracing himself on broad shoulders to keep himself steady.

"Fane? What are you doing?", he asked, brows knitting together in confusion as emerald and gold met him again from over a shoulder. It was unusual to be the 'tall' one in the relationship, Fane about a foot taller than he was.

It was...quite interesting, truth be told, warmth not born of bruised muscle making itself known across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. Solas swallowed a bit as a knowing smirk turned up one corner of Fane's mouth, the heat rising, the interest spreading it. Oh, yes. This was...this was very interesting. So interesting, that he almost tuned out his dragon's next words.

"Get on.", Fane commanded flatly, motioning to his back with a jerk of his chin. "You point the way towards the artifact, and I'll take us to it." Snowy hair swayed as he turned his head forward again, but glimmering eyes continued to watch from the side, observing his reaction oh so typically, but not unwelcome.

"You wish to...carry me?", Solas questioned, the heat upon his face rising evermore when his inquiry was met with silence and a tiny smirk upon tender lips. "You..do." His voice eking up slowly, somewhat sheepishly. Again, this was interesting, interesting, interesting. This deciduous forest suddenly felt like a rain forest, hot and sweltering, his collar feeling tighter than usual, the layers upon him feeling like there were far too many, that they were far too heavy.

Fane chuckled, dutifully waiting on bent knee. "This is your chance to ride a dragon, my sky. Best take it.", he joked, smirk growing ever wider.

Solas let out a shaky chuckle of his own, hands upon sturdy shoulders gliding forward to find a niche before he carefully, so as not to aggravate his ankle, as well as the scars he knew laid beneath metal and leather, hopped forward a bit to straddle a wall of a back. He lowered himself gingerly, leaning in to press their bodies together before shifting his arms to wrap around Fane's neck. Hands appeared to pull and grip his thighs gently so that they hugged a toned waist before Solas felt himself rise along with Fane, the endeavor effortless, the motion fluid without a grimace of pain or a grunt of exertion.

In. Ter. Est. Ting.

Solas felt his face go deadpan, mind whirling, thoughts bordering on impure as large hands squeezed flesh and their bodies seemed to meld and mold together perfectly, his arms tightening around Fane's neck to where he was practically hugging the man of his intense, intense, interest. He felt oddly weak all of a sudden, and almost unbearably hot.

"Comfortable?", Fane's voice pierced his scorching thoughts, timbre and baritone making Solas shudder lightly before he sighed, actively burying his face into the black leather of the dragon's jacket. It smelled of the forest, oddly, snow, and familiarly of chamomile. He could die smelling those scents and be happy. Yes, he could.

"You are..", Solas mumbled into Fane's coat, taking a deep breath as he tightened his hug around his neck, but careful to not choke the man. It would not do for them both to be out of commission. "...strong.", he finished, internally berating himself for his lack of eloquence. It would appear his ankle wasn't the only thing beginning to numb with heat.

Fane chuckled deeply. "Like that, do you?", a tease slipping out, its cadence holding a, no doubt, intoxicating smirk, but Solas couldn't will himself to look up, to bask in its snowy disposition for his face was burning, a blush spreading all along the expanse of his face and down to his neck, he knew, but Fane didn't have to.

"I..", Solas paused, shifting a bit as strong hands squeezed at his thighs, movement beginning as Fane effortlessly strode forward, boots crunching through treacherous roots with far more force than was necessary. "..merely believed you enjoyed the benefit." He was fumbling, falling, and frazzled beyond belief, his only stabilizing influence the sturdy shoulder, that was flexing on occasion from gentle shifts and general movement, that his face was now practically burrowed into.

"Mm.", Fane hummed, knowing and pleased. The arms holding Solas' legs jerked a bit, repositioning him deftly without breaking strides. That action nearly had Solas growling before he took in a deep breath, chamomile and nature cooling him a bit, but not by much. He couldn't even feel the heat of his ankle anymore, the inferno now coursing throughout his entire body, his blood.

And that had him acting bold as he shifted his head a bit, peeping out from his hiding spot to immediately see a sidelong glance of glittering emerald and delicate gold watching him, observing him, their depths holding wells upon wells of unbridled emotion. Concern, love, devotion, and most of all, acceptance. Solas smiled a tiny smile, eyes going hooded as Fane's did in turn. How foolish of him to act the damsel when he understood the knight holding him would never look at him adversely for his softer habits. No, if anything, they were both on equal footing; walking beside, never behind.

"But, since you asked..", Solas whispered, leaning up a bit to nuzzle at a pointed ear, smirking a bit as it twitched and hands clawed into his thighs, goosebumps rising even underneath leather to where he let out a quiet, but heated sigh. "..I do like such undiluted power, ma'isenatha. Do you wish to show me more of it?"

The Elvhen artifact was but an afterthought as roots snapped along with a draconic leash and Solas, too, felt his shackles break as surely as waves against a rocky shore, chaotic, but wholly beautiful.

***

Did it get away from me a bit? Is it slightly spicy? Did I twist Solas' flirting dialogue to adhere to him and Fane's dynamic?! *gasp* I DIIIIIID! AHAHAHAH! *coughs harshly* E...Enjoyyyy! <3

[dragonheartftherpays]

Twi’lek Skin Color Genetics

Hello naughty children, a few weeks ago I spent five hours or so hashing out how Twi’lek skin color works genetically, and now I’m here to make that everyone’s problem. This is going to be a very long post, so I do apologize for that, feel free to hit J on desktop to skip. But it’s interesting, and it’s actually worked for every canon Twi’lek family I’ve tried it for so far (not that there are many to try), so here we go!

And yes, I made APA citations for this. Because I’m a nerd.

How Does Twi’lek Skin Pigmentation Work, Anyway?

Because it’s not as simple as humans. After all, Twi’leks come in a huge range of colors. The first challenge I had to deal with was figuring out how exactly Twi’lek skin coloration works in terms of pigmentation, before I could even start to figure out the genetics behind that.

See, in Earth mammals, most if not all pigmentation comes from melanin. Melanin comes in two forms, eumelanin (black/dark brown) and pheomelanin (reddish), and between the two of them in various concentrations melanin can produce colors ranging between black, brown, gray, red, yellow, and tan (Douma 2008).

Problem: Twi’leks, obviously, come in a lot more colors than that. See, mammals don’t generally produce blue or green pigments. However, you know what does produce green and blue colors? Reptiles and amphibians.

(No, I’m not suggesting Twi’leks are reptiles or amphibians, put that pitchfork down. They can hybridize with Humans, I think it’s pretty solidly canon that they’re mammals.)

So how do reptiles and amphibians produce blue and green colors? Well, instead of their coloration being based solely on melanin like us, many reptiles and amphibians have cells called chromatophores, cells containing certain types of pigments. Chromatophores generally come in three layers, from top to bottom: xanthophores, which contain yellow pigments called pteridines, iridophores, which don’t contain a true pigment but instead contain platelets which reflect mostly bluish light through physical structure and thus act as a blue “pigment,” and melanophores, which produce melanin. The topmost layer can also contain erythrophores, which contain reddish-orange/orange pigments called carotenoids (aka the reason you’re always told that if you eat enough carrots you can turn orange). Between differing amounts of each of these cells and their respective pigments, the three layers of chromatophores can produce a wide array of colors (Douma 2008).

Wide enough to cover all known wild type (naturally occurring, without mutation or intentional genetic manipulation via breeding) Twi’lek skin colors? Let’s find out.

Thanks to Wookieepedia, we do have a list of canon colors Twi’leks can come in, although I take issue with some of them (Twi’lek 2020).

Known wild-type colors: blue, green, tan/pale, orange, pink, purple, teal, yellow Known mutations: Albinism, leucism, red (erythrism?), vitiligo

Cosdra seems to have vitiligo, but it might be paint - it’s hard to tell (Cosdra 2019). Technically, since pink/red eyes do exist as a wild type in Twi’leks, it’s possible Bib Fortuna isn’t actually albino and just happens to have white skin and red eyes, but given how rare white skin seems to be and how he’s portrayed, I’m assuming him to be albino (Bib Fortuna 2020). Leucism, partial loss of pigmentation that most often results in white skin/hair/fur and dark eyes, is also a guess, technically speaking. We see what appears to be leucism in Lyn Me, with “true white” skin and dark eyes, but it’s not confirmed officially; however, due to how rare white skin seems to be, I am comfortable assuming Lyn Me to be an example of a leucistic Twi’lek (if she isn’t, she may instead be an EnEnii genotype with very little melanin production, as discussed later) (Lyn Me 2020).

Wookieepedia claims Twi’leks can have black skin, but it doesn’t have a citation, and I took the time to click through the entire list of canon Twi’lek characters and didn’t find a single black-skinned Twi’lek (”true black,” not dark-skinned). If a Legends character exists with “true black” skin, I feel comfortable assuming that to be an example of a melanism mutation or something similar, rather than a wild type color morph, due to its rarity.

Red being labeled a mutation is interesting, and I believe it’s technically Legends instead of strictly canon material, but I also didn’t find any counterexamples in canon, which leads me to believe it may as well be considered canon (Lethan 2020). I’ll talk more about the “true red” color mutation later in this post.

For now, we have a list of wild type skin colors. Can chromatophores, with variation between the various pigment cells, account for all the different colors Twi’lek skin can take on?

The answer is yes.

I didn’t take the time to chart out a hypothetical melanophore variation chart, since in most phenotypes how much of each type of melanin is present merely affects the saturation and brightness of the dominant color. Anyway, I imagine melanophore genetics would be more similar to human skin color genetics to begin with.

But Dragon, I hear you ask, I don’t see teal on this chart! Patience. We’re getting there. Because in order to talk about teal skin color, we have to talk about the actual genetics - teal comes from two incompletely dominant alleles being expressed together, rather than being a trait with its own allele.

So let’s get into the genetics, then!

The Genetics Behind It All

I’m going to put the Punnett square hell I went through beneath a cut at the bottom of this post for anyone who’s interested in seeing my evidence for this conclusion, and for everyone else I’m just going to put my conclusions.

I’ve assigned each allele an abbreviation, although they don’t display properly on Tumblr because I don’t know how to do subscript and superscript or if Tumblr supports that in the first place:

Ex: Xanthophores (yellow pigment) present. Ee: Erythrophores (reddish-orange/orange pigment) present. En: Neither xanthophores nor erythrophores present/both nonfunctional.

I: Iridophores (blue “pigment”) present. i: Iridophores not present/nonfunctional.

For the purposes of figuring out this system, I actually used a hybrid family, the Lawquanes.

Wait, hold on, why a hybrid family? Well, first off because they’re the ones who started all this, because someone pointed out how the hell did a pink mom and Human dad end up with a teal-and-tan child and an orangey-tan child? So I wanted to answer that question in a way that also fit any other canon Twi’lek families.

However, using this family had another advantage, as I quickly realized: because Cut Lawquane, the father of the children, is Human, we know his genotype for the purposes of the relevant first two layers of chromatophores: he doesn’t have them. He’s homozygous for both non-expression traits: EnEnii. That simplified figuring out the genotypes of the children and his wife a ton - in fact, I’m not sure it would have been possible to extrapolate those answers, if not for the fact that we know his genotype for these traits 100% for certain.

So without putting you through the whole process, this is what I came to:

Suu Lawquane (mother): EeExIi (pink phenotype) Cut Lawquane (father): EnEnii (tan/melanin-only phenotype) Shaeeah Lawquane (daughter): ExEnIi (teal phenotype*) Jek Lawquane (son): EeEnii (orange/tan phenotype**)

* I’m not dealing with the patching Shaeeah has going on because I’m assuming that’s an effect of hybridization on her phenotype, since we haven’t seen markings like that on any canon full-blood Twi’leks. I’m assuming teal to be her “base” phenotype as far as Twi’lek genes go, since teal obviously isn’t a color we see in Humans. ** I’m genuinely not sure whether to call that skin color orange or tan, nor do I know whether Ee or En is dominant or if they even have a simple dominance relationship - more on that in a moment - so I’m leaving that be. The point stands.

So these are the rules of dominance we end up with:

1. I (iridophores present) is dominant over i (no iridophores present/functional). Evidence: Suu Lawquane must be heterozygous Ii in order to have produced both a teal (I phenotype) and tan/orange (i phenotype) child with her homozygous ii husband. Furthermore, Shaeeah would be yellowish-tan if i were dominant over I, since she must be heterozygous due to having a homozygous ii father and yet displaying the I trait as her phenotype.

2. Ex and En are incompletely dominant with each other. Evidence: this is how you get teal children, a mix between blue (EnEn) and green (ExEx). An EeEx x EnEn pairing is capable of producing an ExEn child (Shaeeah), which tracks with this logic.

3. Ee (erythrophores present) is dominant over Ex (xanthophores present). Evidence: Suu Lawquane must be heterozygous EeEx in order to have produced both a teal (ExEn phenotype) and an orange/tan (Ee and/or En phenotype) child with an EnEn husband while still displaying the Ee phenotype (pink) herself. Since she displays a strong Ee phenotype and must also have an Ex allele, the Ee allele must therefore be dominant over the Ex allele.

These rules can be applied to other Twi’lek families, as well - for instance, the Syndullas (not counting Jacen Syndulla, both because he wouldn’t be an interesting addition due to his Twi’lek influence being Also A Green Phenotype and because I will never forgive Rebels for that horrible boring hybrid design) work out to:

Cham Syndulla: EeExii (orange phenotype) Tislera Syndulla: ExExIi or ExExII (green phenotype, not enough data to prove conclusively whether she’s heterozygous Ii or homozygous II) Hera Syndulla: ExExIi (green phenotype)

Because En and Ex are incompletely dominant, neither Tislera nor Hera can be ExEn, and they must be homozygous ExEx because Ee is dominant over Ex. Because Ee is dominant over Ex and his daughter must be homozygous Ex, Cham must therefore be EeEx, showing the Ee phenotype but carrying the recessive Ex allele which he passed on to his daughter.

There is one small problem: We still don’t know for sure the relationship between Ee and En. I just don’t have enough data to figure it out. I went through the entire list of canon Twi’lek characters on Wookieepedia and didn’t find a single family with the right color combinations and enough data to figure it out. I even went through some Clone Wars crowd shots in hopes of finding some, only to discover that apparently the Clone Wars series doesn’t really use child models in their crowd shots, only adults. Maybe someday I’ll go through the entire list of Legends Twi’lek characters in hopes of finding a family with the right genetics to solidify my guesses, but for now, all I have to go on is how common various phenotypes are. Which isn’t perfect, because how common a trait is doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with whether it’s dominant or recessive if it’s an advantageous trait, but it’s all we have. My current hypothesis is that En is dominant over Ee, because blue and tan are both more common phenotypes than purple and orange, but that wouldn’t hold up to the standards of biology by any stretch of the imagination. I simply don’t have enough data to give you a better answer, unfortunately. Maybe some of the new media coming out, like the High Republic series, will give me that - I don’t know. They might not even have a simple dominance relationship; they might be incompletely dominant with each other like Ex and En are, producing bluish-purple, though I find this unlikely given the phenotypes we’ve seen in Star Wars media thus far.

So Why is Red Skin a Mutation?

It’s an oddly specific thing to be labeled a mutation, because you’d think it would just be a variation of the Ee-i phenotype, which normally produces orange or reddish-orange. In order for this to make sense, we have to assume one of two scenarios:

a) Erythrophores in Twi’leks are typically more orange than red, or b) The melanin produced in orange Twi’leks (the Ee-i phenotype) prevents a “true red” from showing as the final skin tone.

In the first option:

1) True red is produced by an erythrophore mutation that causes the carotenoids produced to be more red than normal.

In the second option:

2) True red is produced by a lack of melanin, leaving the final visual color completely dependent on the red/reddish-orange carotenoids rather than mellowing it to orange, or 3) True red is produced by a mutation in the melanophores that cause them to produce only a very red pheomelanin with no eumelanin to balance it out.

Alternatively to both of these:

4) True red is produced by a mutation in the xanthophores in a Twi’lek lacking iridophores (the Ex-i phenotype), causing them to produce a true red pigmentation rather than the yellow pteridines they would normally produce.

Even in Legends, as far as I could find, we don’t have any families of Lethan Twi’leks (Twi’leks with the true red mutation), so I have no evidence to support any of these possibilities (Lethan 2020). However, in any of these cases, the mutation would be rare, not only because the genetic mutation itself is rare, but also because it must occur simultaneously with a specific set of other conditions to produce the true red coloration: 1) and 2) must occur in conjunction with the Ee-i phenotype (and in the case of 1, presumably with melanin that’s light enough to not obscure the true red coloration), 3) must occur either with the Ee-i or En-i phenotype, and 4) must occur in conjunction with the Ex-i phenotype. Since I is dominant over i and seems to be the more common trait, that helps explain why the true red mutation(s) is/are so rare.

Bonus: Why Do Twi’leks Come In So Many Colors, Anyway?

(This section is entirely conjecture and headcanon on my part.)

Because, really, most species tend to consolidate until they’re almost identical color-wise, because the environment tends to select for a given color scheme. However, there are instances in which this is not the case. Personally, my headcanon explanation for this is that Twi’leks as a species tend to have a preference for the unique - if you’re the only person in a group with your skin color (or some other notable physical characteristic), you’re more likely to be found attractive than if you’re in a group of people with the same skin color (or other physical characteristic). This is a form of negative frequency-dependent selection, in which the fitness of a given trait or genotype decreases as it becomes more common (Frequency-Dependent Selection 2020). Negative frequency-dependent selection is itself a form of balancing selection, which serves to actively maintain multiple alleles in a population rather than selecting preferentially for one trait (Balancing Selection 2020).

(What’s the evolutionary advantage behind finding the unique attractive? Who knows. But the point is, it is feasible, and negative frequency-dependent selection is something we see out in the real world.)

In Conclusion

In conclusion, it turns out there actually is a system that works consistently to predict the genotypes and phenotypes of Twi’lek families, with the small exception of not having enough data to determine the dominance relationship in one out of the four allele pair relationships yet. If you know of a canon or Legends Twi’lek family, feel free to try to apply this! If it doesn’t seem to work, feel free to poke me about it, and I’ll see if I can make it work - if I can’t, I’ll have to take another look at the system. (Heck, apply it to your own OCs and see if it works, if you want - or use it to predict offspring traits of various pairings, if you like.) I learned a good bit about chromatophores and pigmentation in animal biology while doing this, and I hope you enjoyed the ride and maybe learned something too. Reblogs are always appreciated if you enjoyed yourself, found this interesting, or learned something! Thank you for reading! (And don’t forget, if you’re interested in reading about the process of how I figured all this out, the screenshots of that are below the cut!)

References

Bib Fortuna. (2020, April 4). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bib_Fortuna.

Balancing Selection. (2020, April 18). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_selection.

Cosdra. (2019, September 9). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cosdra.

Douma, M., curator. (2008). Biological Pigments. In Cause of Color. Retrieved 30 March 2020 from http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/7I.html.

Frequency-Dependent Selection. (2020, April 15). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-dependent_selection.

Lethan. (2020, April 13). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lethan

Lyn Me. (2020, April 4). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lyn_Me.

Twi'lek. (2020, April 20). In Wookieepedia: the Star Wars Wiki. Retrieved April 20, 2020, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Twi%27lek.

Bonus: The Process

Because y’all deserve to see my screaming in full. This was a five-hour process, do remember. Everything from hereonout has been just copy-pasted from the Discord server where I liveblogged the process of figuring this system out. Some things I said at various points were wrong, because that’s how the process works. Please note that I was also using different notation for the top-layer alleles at this point: E instead of Ee, X instead of Ex, and e instead of En. This did get confusing at one point because I forgot that it was X (Ex) and e (En) that had the more complicated dominance relationship and not E (Ee) and e (En), which was my fault.

[bookwyrminspiration]

So. Chapter 11. I have many thoughts.

First things first, absolutely amazing, every interaction the characters had felt so natural and fit together so well, and gosh I just...do not have the words to describe how much I adore your writing.

Now time for what I'm here for: you've got me all fired up again! It's been quite a hell of a while since I've done any real theory or predictions, so I might be slightly out of practice, forgive me if I get any details wrong!

And I don’t really know what all of it means yet, but let’s try to get the simple facts laid out first:

Bronte and Oralie send cryptic messages.

Sophie finds a dragon scale in a random desk.

Linh has a connection to the dragons, like Marella.

Dragons are connected with thunderstorms.

So, are we getting dragon!Linh? Because I am so here for dragon!Linh. At the very least, there’s some connection between them. But there’s…something else.

So, the messages from Oralie and Bronte are absurdly cryptic, and that’s so fucking cool and I love it, but I really really want to dig into what they’re saying now. So that’s what I’m gonna do!

Bronte’s message: Secrecy and redundancy compose the toolkit of those trying to hide. It takes a special someone to see the darkness in the world and not participate. Your infectious light is spreading.

Oralie’s message: Secrecy and redundancy compose the toolkit of those trying to hide. Play a melody for me, and tell me what it says. History will have something sweet to say about you.

And you (via Sophie) put a special focus on the words “infectious light” and “history”.

And I will eat my boots if that is not connected to some grand underlying secret underneath the entire story. Now, given that these two are Councillors and have access to confidential files, and Bronte as old as dirt, and the focus on the word history, I’m willing to bet there’s some dark secret within elven history (shocker, I know) that somehow relates to all this monster business. Cause like…it’s hard to make monsters! It’s crazy that the Neverseen and whatever the new group is called have managed to make so many!

(And I haven't figure out the Secrecy and Redundancy part yet, but I will tell you when I think I may have understood it.)

And what’s even weirder is how easy it was for Sophie and the rest of the kids to develop specific monster traits instead of just. Literally dying. And from weird potion mist, too.

Is there something about elves that allows them to turn into monsters? We know the monsters are unnatural, and when I’ve brought up the idea that elves are being turned into monsters you haven’t really denied or confirmed it, just kind of skirted around the topic. And this could also be the reason the humans haven’t been attacked by the monsters- the monsters are made of elves because elves are…somehow compatible with whatever the Neverseen are doing, and they attack other mythical creatures because I’m assuming they share traits similar enough to elves that the monsters have an interest in them.

But it’s also weird how Bronte’s letter (while actually being kind of a compliment, which I find so funny because it absolutely does not read like it, 100/10 characterization points) implies Sophie is spreading something, something infectious, and I’m sure the usage of the word “light” isn’t coincidence either.

Light is really important to elves, like really important, and it doesn’t seem like something Bronte would say, either, what with his…seeming respect for it (from how he acted when at the Point of Purity and journey back). He’d more likely say something like “bravery” or “strength”, given that (iirc) he’s even used those words to describe Sophie before. So there’s something about the word light specifically that was important, and something about the light being infectous.

And now, elves are living underground. And the monsters were said to appear out of nowhere, too, just…out of the blue. Are the Neverseen using the light to create more monsters? What are the monsters for? Can they turn whatever they’re doing off? Are the Council somehow aware of what the Neverseen is doing because they have access to lots of knowledge the main crew don’t, and that’s part of why they fled underground?

And what’s the connection with the dragons?

(I nearly forgot about the dragons.)

From what you’ve posted, you seem to really enjoy the part of dragons that is unknowable and out-of-reach, so much greater than pretty much every other creature in the world. And that also sounds like a way you could describe the void!

And if dragons could access the void, then that would explain how they appear and disappear so fast, and if they control weather that would be how the thunderstorms don’t come in over the horizon, and simply just happen.

But what does it mean? Why did Marella go to them in…what chapter was it again? I can’t remember. Why did Linh react to strongly to the dragon scales?

And Marella may have the wings, but Linh has the scales on her face (although iirc they’re a different color to the one Sophie picked up, so I don’t think it’s hers and I don’t see why she’d attack if it was), so is she a dragon as well? And if they are, are they different kinds of dragons? And since dragons are extremely territorial (from what we’ve seen and can infer so far) is that going to create problems? Linh already reacted terribly to another scale, so if her and Marella’s dragon instincts get worse, I can see how that would go terribly. Or is Linh a different kind of creature?

There’s just…so many thoughts. I barely got into any actual theories here, oops. But that’s…most of my thoughts for now. Hope you enjoyed? I know I personally enjoyed Chapter 11 immensely, thank you for this wonderful AU!

- pyro

woa this is a lot!! pyro!! i am speechless!! I am. I am ahhh!!! I'm glad the interactions felt natural, I was a little worried they'd feel too out of character but sometimes my need to let them mess around with each other takes over

those first four facts you've laid out do seem to be what I'm hinting at--whether you're correct though, I'll let you find out in later chapters. I have more to say about Bronte and Oralie's messages but I'll get to that later. also, I do have more planned for the dragons, which will be fun!!

will be entirely honest i forgot you all don't know what wings Linh has--but!! her connection to the dragons may be related to her wings! everyone has a pair of wings unique to them, so how that translates to her remains to be seen. Marella with the dragon wings and the interests may seem more obvious, but I think Linh is gonna have a lot more mysterious, confusing connection to the way everything works.

Now! onto Bronte and Oralie's messages!! these stumped me for a while because I needed them to be cryptic, but also riddle-like with some kind of meaning that sophie could figure out if she gave it enough thought. of course, as of chapter 11 she hasn't even tried to figure it out, but it's planted that seed in her mind

a cool thing that I just want to point out: there are a few lines throughout the au that i have taken the structure of directly of from the books and altered their wording. One of those was in a previous chapter where I took the "but her mind was stronger than her body" from book one and changed it. I don't remember exactly what i changed it into as it's been a while, but I know that's one of them. and i did it again in this chapter! if you remember the message Bronte had Mr. Forkle give Sophie, "It takes a special someone to see darkness inside of someone and not condemn them," that's the quote I based his unique portion of the message off of. Oralie's also has a meaning tied to an interaction with her, but it's not tied to a specific quote.

for the "infectious light," you are right, that does have a meaning, and it was important it was those exact words. what it turns out to be, however, may not be entirely what you're expecting. and then there's the "history will have something sweet to say about you" which is a little hint to Sophie, whenever she figures that one out. they are trying to send her a message but she needs to figure out what they're trying to say first!! also, the secrecy and redundancy part does have something more to it, but I'll let you continue theorizing about that one.

my apologies if i'm focusing on this part for too long, but I legit spent like half an hour trying to figure out how to word this to set up future scenes and reveals, so I want to share some of that process!

and it is curious how the elven world is the only one affected...

there's a lot of theories for why it was so easy for them to develop those features, maybe their minds adapt to abilities so suddenly that they're predisposed to other changes as well, or they go quicker. maybe it's fragile, guilty minds that enable them to be taken over by horrors like these, whereas humans are exposed to violence and guilt and grief on a daily basis. I might touch on this later in the chapters, so I don't want to spoil anything, but there so many possibilities!!

moving on to the dragons!! you're right, i do think very highly of dragons and like the inachievability of them in this context. they're not just mindless creatures, they're a lot more complex, as we saw with them having abilities like elves. Sophie doesn't know exactly what it was, but she thinks it was tied to the explosive sounds she heard and the change in the weather. and I could tie them to the void! if we going with intelligent creatures having access to the void (like silveny, though her intelligence is very different) then it would make sense to continue that pattern. and it could explain a few of the mysteries left behind after chapter 7 (6? i forget which one)

like i mentioned before, I do have more planned for the dragons, and that does involve both Linh and Marella specifically. so!! I think some of your questions will be answered in the upcoming chapters, but for now I can't exactly answer without spoiling. but! you are asking the right questions!! you are on the right track!!

and it wasn’t exactly scales on linhs face, more they had they same pattern (the iridescent one) but I might've worded it weird so I can see where that came from. as for whether or not she's a dragon, the only thing I can tell you right now is that she doesn't have the exactly same wings as Marella, and i told you in chapter 9 (i think?) that she could easily hide them like Sophie, Wylie, and Biana. The whole mystery with the scale, however, is one of the things that i can't answer without spoiling, so I guess that tells you there's a lot more to that too.

i also have so many thoughts about the au and !! I loved reading all of yours!! I enjoyed it thoroughly!! chapter 11 may seem slower than some of the more action packed chapters, but it sets up a lot of the lore and background we'll need for future endeavors, so i'm glad you liked it!! I think i introduced a lot of questions in this one too...

I might've missed some of your points (there were a lot, which is excellent!!), so if there was something important I glossed over feel free to send another ask so I can go back over it!!

but thank you for reading this au!! talking about it motivates me to write more and make it more complex!! I mean, we're about 84,000 words in and I'm still going, so. there's a lot more to come!!

[appleb18]

I Wanted Believe in Steven (A Critical Steven Universe Post)

Steven Universe, a popular show that has won the hearts of so many people. It had good songs, talks about mental health and relationships, a lovable cast of characters and it’s revolutionary for representing LGBT. As the show finally wraps up with Steven Universe: Future being the series finale, I want to say this… I used to believe in Steven Universe. I truly got into it when it first came out and then I started to appreciate it more as the show progressed even with the flaws. However, as time moved on, the show’s flaws have outweighed the strengths, making my enjoyment decline and become critical and nitpicky towards it. So I believe it’s time to point out the many problems with the show.

The Glory Days of Steven Universe 

Before I begin ranting about the show, I want to talk about when I actually liked Steven Universe back in seasons 1-3. It was when everyone actually enjoyed the show before it went downhill. 

- So before Steven became really annoying, I actually liked him when he was developing in season 1. He was very immature at first but he gradually grew. He became a member of the Crystal Gems and finally summoned his shield. 

- Peridot’s redemption was handled very well and I enjoyed her character throughout the whole show.

- The show once balanced filler and plot. 

- I enjoyed the Crystal Gems chemistry back in seasons 1 - 3. They acted like a family with Garnet being the wise guardian, Pearl being overprotective, Amethyst laidback and Steven maturing.

- The songs are great.

- The messages are relatable such as “Love Letter.” Garnet tells Jamie that love-at-first-sight doesn’t work. It takes time and a lot of work. You must know the person first before you begin to love someone.  

Those are the reasons why I enjoyed the show back in the day. Now it’s time to talk about how the Crewniverse messed up everything. 

Inconsistencies. Are. Everywhere 

Steven Universe is well known for having no consistency and that’s one of the major problems with the show. While I can forgive season 1 animation because let’s face it, not every show has good animation like Phineas and Ferb. Though having characters go off-model consistently gets really irritating to watch. It’s irritating because most of them are professional storyboard artists and yet they’re doing a very sloppy job.

The reason behind unprofessional animation is Rebecca Sugar wanted her crew to have artistic freedom and have their own stylistic choice. They can draw whatever they want as long as the viewers can recognize the characters. There are many problems with this. 

While it’s nice to see the artist's own style it doesn’t work with a cartoon that’s story-driven. You’ll probably argue that some shows like Adventure Time and American Dragon go off-model. However, it’s just redesigned and they stick with it till the very end of their respective series. 

Also, shows like Ren and Stimpy and Flapjack go off-model because for comedic effect.

So stylistic choice doesn’t mean artists can draw whatever they want. It means that a character has their own style. 

Terrance and Philip from South Park 

Elmore characters from The Amazing World of Gumball 

Each of them has a unique character design. It’s not the Korean animator's fault for it, they’re given what the Crewniverse drew, trace it and just animate it and they can’t fix their errors. What makes it upsetting is that animation pilots and shorts made by a single person or independent team with very little funding have more consistent and appealing animation than Steven Universe. 

I ain’t an animator, but I know when animation goes off-model. Sadly, it’s not just inconsistent art that the show suffers from, but inconsistent writing and discontinuity as well.

Such as in “Are You My Dad?” Aquamarine and Topaz knocked out Steven and then she abandoned him while they took Lars, Sadie, Onion, Jamie, and Connie. Then in “I Am My Mom” they lure him and The Crystal Gems out for information to find Greg. So if you wanted to get information to find him, why didn’t they just grab him when he was knocked out? 

Also, why did Aquamarine agree to Steven’s terms? Her wand is the most broken weapon in the show. She could’ve grabbed everyone including The Crystal Gems.

Garnet couldn’t tell Steven about her future vision because it wanted him to go more? If she just told him about Greg's capture, he would have understood. Also, she gave him future visions in “Jailbreak,” “Snow day” and “Future Boy Zoltron.” Why didn’t she do that for that kind of situation? 

The Crystal Gems, who have special abilities, summon weapons and powers that fought Gems and Corrupted Gems and yet they were beaten by a freaking Steven Catus, Really? 

We saw Lapis control the freaking ocean in “Mirror Gem”, “Ocean Gem” and “Why So Blue”, so why didn’t she use that to remove the injector?

After 6,000 years of waiting for Pink Diamond, Spinel got news about her Diamond and that she gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. It changed her appearance from happy go lucky to edgy. Now she wants vengeance. So I’m wondering how was she able to get an injector and a scythe, then go to Earth in under a few hours? 

In “Giant Woman,” Pearl explains that two gems have to decide to fuse together and they have to sync with each other to do it. In “Change Your Mind,” Steven fuses with the Crystal Gems midair while they are in their gem state.

How the hell did Connie get affected by Blue Diamond’s pathokinesis when Lapis Lazuli arrived in “Reunited”? 

She was fine when BD did it the first time.

Mean Lapis and Bluebird are still on the loose. I know most shows leave things unanswered but you can’t leave two villains out there. They can still do harm to others 

I really wish the Crewniverse showed more professionalism because there are so many errors in the show and some of them are so simple to fix, yet they don’t and that’s what I call lazy. 

The Cast of Characters Don’t Do Much

I used to like the cast of characters, even the humans I enjoyed watching. When season 4 - Future came in, they got ruined. Most of them don’t do much in the show. I feel like they got sidelined because the Crewniverse had no idea what to do with them. 

Let’s first talk about The citizens of Beach City and how they are the most boring characters in the show. At first, they weren’t so bad because they did have a role to play in the story like when The Cool Kids talked to Steven about his mother when he found out that she was a war criminal and he blamed himself for his mother not being around anymore. They also helped him not get scolded by The Crystal Gems when they found Peridot’s escape pod. 

There’s even some slice-of-life episodes that I did enjoy watching such as

“Sadie’s Song” 

 And “Historical Fiction”

But now they don’t react to any Gem situation anymore. They just stand around and serve no purpose to the plot. Look at “Future”, throughout the whole epilogue mini-series, the humans didn’t do a dang thing in the series. For example, The Cool Kids, Lars, Sadie, and Shep don’t talk to Steven about his mental health when he was about to crush them with his force field. It just makes it feel that they don’t care about him or oblivious about that experience

Then they didn’t do squat when Steven became a monster and I know they're just humans but their friends and the show focus on them a lot, so they have to use them. It made me wonder why they even focus on them in season 4 and season 5 if they're not going to serve their purpose in the story. 

Now let's talk about the more interesting characters and how the Crewniverse wasted them. Many Gems and few human characters (Lars, Greg, Connie) get them characters to grow, face struggles and have moments that can make a character likable. After all that, the Crewniverse had no idea what to do so they just left them. 

Peridot’s redemption was well written. from season 1 - season 3. From a villain that has unknown technology and feels more alien than the Crystal Gems to a member of the Crystal Gem. As much as I love her development and she’s my favorite, however, she doesn’t do much in the show. Most shows that give a lot of development to a character are part of the main cast but in Steven Universe's case, she gets put in the barn with Lapis Lazuli and does nothing. She’s never involved in major story arcs such as she didn’t come along to help Steven to get his dad back in Zoo Arc and didn’t help with beach city citizens getting kidnapped in Wanted Arc. 

Even in the Pink Diamond Arc, she has no part to play. All she was in that arc was a punchline and a hyperactive character with no defining moments. While it’s nice she has a new outfit, it doesn’t change anything. 

Peridot had the potential to be a really great character but she got wasted because they had no idea what to do with her.

Pearl and Garnet never got their own character arc. When they fused with Steven to become Rainbow Quartz 2.0 and Sunstone it was rushed. I know they didn’t have time to do their arcs but if they cut townie episodes and focused on their bond it would’ve felt more impactful for him to fuse with them. Season 4 could’ve been Garnet and Season 5 could’ve been Pearl. Just look at Amethyst where she finds mutual respect and love for Steven and that’s really great to see. With them, we don’t have a moment like that.

A good example of using characters is Regular Show. They used their characters pretty well, giving each of them a good amount of screen time. 

Benson’s drum solo 

Getting to know more about Skips history

Muscle Man setting his ashes free at Great Trucker Graveyard 

High Five Ghost reunited with his love interest 

Pop’s proving that he’s part of the guys for Guys Night 

Rigby graduates high school

Mordecai painting for Benson

And what I like the most about is they all have a moment together as best friends. Such as in “Parkie Rewards,” although Benson doesn’t win an award, the gang made their very own award and paper trophy. Benson made a speech about how he appreciated his staff workers. 

I really wish Steven Universe had something like that and I really wanted to see more of Lapis, Garnet, Amethyst, and Bismuth but sadly the writers aren’t giving them much to do anymore. 

A Shift of Pacing 

Steven Universe really wants to tell a story like most cartoon shows are doing such as Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time, Owl House and many more. They keep adding episodic episodes in the middle of unresolved conflict and have the concluding rushed. An example of this is the Cluster arc. 

Peridot tells The Crystal Gems that the Cluster will emerge at any time… AT ANY TIME! So the gang planned to create a gem drill to destroy it to save the Earth. So instead of working on the drill, they kept delaying it like 

Garnet told her story to Steven of how Ruby and Sapphire met 

Celebrating Steven’s birthday 

Peridot processing on becoming a “Crystal Gem”

I know Peridot was working on the drill and I like Peridot’s redemption but it’s a life or death situation. You can’t do other things when the Cluster can emerge at any time. The way they resolved the arc was really rushed. The Crystal Gems finally locate the whereabouts of Malachite and so Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl go to Watermelon Island and fuse to Alexandrite to defeat her. Then the Cluster emerges and it’s up to Steven and Peridot to deal with it. Instead of destroying the Cluster, he talks to it and it stops itself from emerging by bubbling itself. The way the writers conclude the arc was so anticlimactic and rushed. It ended two major plots, Malachite and Cluster in two episodes and Steven just talking to it was ridiculous. The Cluster arc should’ve at least had two episodes and Malachite should’ve come after the event because she was briefly mentioned in three episodes. 

Adventure Time has a mini-series that primarily focuses on plots. It resolves conflicts and it doesn’t waste any time such as Islands, Stakes, and Elements. 

People tend to blame the network for the inconsistent schedule and hiatus. While it may be true, however, it’s not really a big issue with the show. Gravity Falls isn’t consistent with its schedule but it has better pacing than Steven Universe. From Nov. 26, 2014 - Feb 16, 2015, the ep “Northwest Mansion Noir” was released, another month of waiting for “Not What He Seems.” Then we have to wait for four months, July 13th, 2015, for “The Tale of Two Stans.” Then there’s Steven Universe where we have to wait for six months for the next episode and it is just Towney episodes and it doesn’t even matter to the plot. So I pretty much don’t understand why people are complaining about the Steven Universe hiatus when Gravity Falls, a well-written show, has a hiatus as well. 

They could’ve had a well-written story if only they weren't so focused on the human side of Steven and cut most of the filler out. 

Action Doesn’t Have Consequences 

In most shows, movies, and video games, characters will make rash decisions that have other characters disagree and even have a bit of a falling out.  

Look at Gravity Falls “Land Before Swine.” Stanley doesn’t like Mabel’s pet pig, Waddles, and he left him outside when there was a Pterodactyl in town. Stan left Waddles unattended and caused him to get captured.

Soos messed up a lot in the episode. Without thinking, he barged in as Dipper developed the film which ruined a good picture of the dinosaur.

He tries to be optimistic when Mabel finds out Stanley left him out however it ineffective when he ravels the yarn back up and thus cut the clear path and accidentally break the lamb

To prove their worth is by Stanley fights the pterodactyl to save Waddles 

And Soos and Dipper make up when he apologizes and he admits he made mistakes.  Dipper and Mabel then took Soos advice to follow his lead and walk in a straight line as for dinosaurs' eyes are so far apart and that it can’t see in front of itself and the plan went well. 

So with Steven Universe, most characters in the show have done pretty terrible things and the show never atoned for their actions. 

In “Island Adventure”, Sadie trapped Lars and Steven on an island by hid the Gem portal with leaves so she can hit on him.  Although she saved his life by poofing the gem monster with a pointy stick, it doesn’t help the fact that she trapped them for a month! It is also idiotic that the show treats Lars as he’s the bad guy where in reality, Sadie is! 

Amethyst, although I do like her character development in the show, however, she did pretty a messed up thing and they never resolved it. In “Maximum Capacity”, Greg finds out that he’s missing the fireworks and Amethyst shapeshifts from Steven to Greg to cheer him up. She changes back and gets mad at him for not spending time with her. So she shapeshifts to Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond which causes Greg to look away and it’s the second time she has done it, and then Steven comes in to stop and question both of them. Amethyst feels guilty and left. So in order to make things up, she came up with an idea to clean that the Crystal Gems can clean out Greg storage. So this is really messed up. She shapeshifted as his wife and not only it scarred Greg but Steven as well and yet the writers never decided on how they can properly make it up. That’s so horrible. 

Lapis Lazuli took the Earth's water, almost killed Connie, broke Peridot's tape recorder and called it garbage, and she took the barn. When she finally comes back to help the Crystal Gems to fight against the Diamonds. Her response to everyone was “hey”. She never apologized for anything she has done. I know she has PTSD but it doesn’t excuse her actions. 

The only character that actually feels guilty and has to make amends of her wrongdoing is Pearl. She deceived Garnet by keeping rebuilding Gem communicator so she can fuse with her to form Sardonyx to make herself feel better. Steven and Amethyst find out and spill the beans which gets Garnet mad and Pearl feels guilty. In the last episode of the Sardonyx arc, they get trapped by Peridot. When they were about to get crushed, they two finally talk and Pearl apologizes to her and calls herself “just a pearl” and Garnet tells her you are your own gem and that makes her feel better and fused to Sardonyx once again. 

Now it’s time to talk about the second major gripe with the show that everyone has and it’s the Diamonds being redeemed. The Diamonds are tyrannical fascist dictators that caused genocide many species, colonized many worlds, corrupt gems, shatter gems that don’t obey, have an army, gems that are off-color are put to the underground, and force fused shattered gems into a Cluster. After what they have done, you think they need to pay, right? Unfortunately, since Rebecca Sugar said ``there are no villains' ' and the show is about empathy, the Diamonds, especially White Diamond, get a clean slate. So it’s fine to have a villain be sympathetic and have a sad backstory, it makes them more human but having them redeemed is something you should never ever do, especially what they’ve done. They have very little screen time to show their development and have doubts about their empire. 

Then they made them worse when in Steven Universe: “The Movie” and “Future” 

In Steven Universe: “The Movie”, The Diamonds become clingy aunties to Steven and tell them don’t do evil things anymore like calling other species “equal lifeforms”, disband their arms and not shatter gems.

In Steven Universe: “Future”, The Diamonds abilities have a completely opposite effect towards Gems such as 

Yellow Diamond’s ability to change from poofing gems to fixing 

Blue Diamond’s ability to change from sad blue orbs to happy blue clouds 

White Diamond's ability changed from manipulation to control her for a brief moment. 

Having them become good and having emotions won’t cut it. They can’t atone for what they’ve done for the past millions of being fascist dictators and just saying “I’m a good Diamond now” can’t wipe away their past actions. It doesn’t work like that! 

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, A SHOW FOR LITTLE GIRLS, have a better-written villain redemption than Steven Universe and I ain’t kidding. Discord was the main antagonist for “Return of Harmony”. All he wanted to do is cause chaos. He was defeated by the mane six at the end of the second part of the episode.

In season 3, “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, Discord was reformed by Fluttershy because Princess Celestia believes he can be a good ally and knows that she can do it. 

Throughout season 4, everyone still doesn’t trust him even though he’s friends with Fluttershy.

In the season 4 finale, he sided with Tirek and he betrayed them because he thought he’ll be rewarded for it. 

Then he was betrayed by him. After Tirek and Twilight fought, she gave up her magic to save her friends, including Discord. It made him realize that friendship is more precious than anything of what he’ll give him and that’s when he’s been fully accepted as a friend to the mane six. 

I also want to talk about Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. While many fans in the community and the Crewniverse always point that she’s terrible and I agree she is. Such as leaving Spinel for 3,000 years, cracked her first Pink Pearl, abandoned her Diamond duties to be free, started a Gem war that cost many Gems to shatter to pursue her own goal, bubbled Bismuth, gems got corrupted, and left Steven with the burden. It is indeed bad but when compared to the Diamonds, she’s more of a saint than them. At least she does develop, doesn’t shatter gems and save the Earth from the Diamonds. 

With story pacing being all over, villains and even characters aren’t paying for their actions and a cast of characters aren’t doing much, what’s the most problematic of the show? Well, it’s a combination of all my problems into one and that is…

Steven “Center Of” Universe

The major problem with the show, the one that brings down the show a lot and it’s Steven Omnipresence. First off, I don’t mind when a show has a protagonist point-of-view like Ben 10, Phineas and Ferb, Over the Garden Wall, etc. As long as it's written well and keeps the story moving, it’s fine but with Steven Universe, it has tons of problems. Steven's point-of-view is the cause of all its flaws and I can’t stress it enough about it. 

So let’s first talk about the obvious one and how it’s only Steven's perspective. The problem with this is we only see things if Steven is there to witness it. The show introduces a fascinating world of Gems and yet the show doesn’t dive into that because Steven doesn’t care about and all he does is hang around Beach City. Steven will never explore unless he chooses to and some major plot points are offscreen which you should never do, especially it’s a story-driven show. An example of this is “Wanted Arc’” and yes I’m using it the third time as my example because it really is a terrible arc. When Steven comes back home, he had some information about Homeworld, discovered that there’s a mystery about Pink Diamond shattering, Off Colours, Steven can bring back people from the dead and Lars in space. With all that, what does Steven do? Nothing. Throughout his adventure in space, he never mentions it to the Crystal Gems and instead of that being the main focus, it’s townies and Connie. While Steven is doing Beach City fluff, Lars is actually progressing the plot by him developing and escaping Homeworld with the Off Colours. I truly wonder why the Crewniverse believes that Beach City is more important than Gems? 

They got interesting lore and I truly want them to explore it more but they had to waste all that and have the most major plot points be offscreen for Steven's perspective. 

The second problem with Steven p.o.v is his contestant presence. The show will always be about him, no other characters get the spotlight or do anything unless he’s there. There’s rarely a scene that doesn’t have Steven and it’s frustrating when there’s a well-rounded cast of characters that I want to see more than him. We’ll never see them interact with other characters nor explore different parts of the world. Other shows have done it such as 

Amazing World of Gumball - “The World”

Adventure Time - “Varmints” 

Avatar: The Last Airbender - “Zuko Alone” 

Rick and Morty - “Tales From the Citadel”

Imagine how great it will be if explore more of the cast like  

Uncorrupt Gem characters and Curley Lapis going by their day in Little Homeschool. 

Lars becoming a space pirate 

Lapis and Peridot becoming friends 

Pearl meeting up with Mystery Girl

Volleyball recovering from her trauma

Ruby and Sapphire being their own individuals 

They got a lovable cast of characters that I want the show to further explore and yet the Crewniverse don’t do anything with them and that’s such a missed opportunity.  

Then the third most egregious problem with Steven p.o.v is he’s the communicator. The show tries to message that talking things will work but no one really talks to each other unless it’s Steven. Characters barely make their opinion or a chance to speak for themselves while Steven's opinion will and shall always be in the right and we barely see characters talking to one another. Examples of these are…

When Steven bubbles Bismuth, Pearl and Garnet don't say a thing and just let him. They don't question why he did or lash him out for it. They just went along with it. Steven decided to unbubble her in “Made of Honor “ for a wedding without talking to anyone else about it and again, they still haven’t asked questions and they just went along with it. 

In “Reunited”, instead of Crystal Gems look at each other to find their strength like Garnet telling Pearl she’s her own Pearl, Pearl telling Amethyst she’s isn’t an accident, and they tell Garnet that she’s a great leader, Steven has to remind them what they are supposed to be. 

Blue and Yellow had issues with the Gem Empire but too afraid to say to White Diamond. Until Steven arrived and that’s when they tried talking to her.

The Diamonds become good because Steven tells them being a fascist dictator is bad and they agree. They disbanded the Gem Empire and changed their abilities to help Gems under two years. 

Steven made Pearl talk to Amethyst. 

The message the show tries to tell that people should communicate is completely flawed because rather than have other characters improve their lives by talking to one another, they made Steven the messiah that every character looks up to. Steven will change your mind and you have no choice in the matter. 

Conclusion

With the end of Steven Universe, I  want to say that this show could’ve been better. Steven Universe was created by Rebecca Sugar, a former storyboard artist for Adventure Time and the one who mainly writes episodes about Marceline and wrote songs for the show. When she announced that she's left AT to make her show, I was excited and had such high hopes for it. I really want this show to succeed and it could’ve been the next Adventure Time, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or Gravity Falls but sadly it failed to do so. The show flaws outshined it the strength by it was handled unprofessionally, wasted their characters, the pacing is all over the place, no character pay for their past actions and Steven’s point-of-view. I don’t think it’s the worst show I’ve ever watched nor a masterpiece, it's just a disappointingly average show in my personal opinion. I hope Rebecca Sugar and her crew not just see this as their progressive show by representing LGBT and messaging but also see what they would have approved of on the show and how they could’ve made it better. I had a lot of good memories when I first watched the show. It had the potential to be better but it never filled the promises they made.  

[emachinescat]

By Night My Mind

A Tales of Arcadia: Wizards Fan-Fiction

by @emachinescat ​

@febuwhump​ day 19 - sleep deprivation 

Summary: Sequel to “Dying Is Easy.”  In the aftermath of the final battle against the Arcane Order, Douxie is plagued by guilt and nightmares about his part in Merlin’s death, and decides that he’s better off staying awake, which his battered and weary body does not take well.  Written for Febuwhump on Tumblr. Day 19: sleep deprivation

Characters: Douxie, Archie, Jim, Claire

Words: 4,719

TW: None

Notes: Sequel to “Dying Is Easy, Living (Without You) Is Harder,” and set in the same universe as “That I Could Fear a Door” and “Lest Back that Awful Door Should Spring.”  In this version of events, Douxie doesn’t have to leave with Nari, and is trying to adjust back to life in Arcadia after the events of “Dying Is Easy.”

Keep reading here, or on AO3!

If you enjoy, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging, and you can follow me for more content like this! :)

- From “Sonnet 27” by William Shakespeare

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired…

Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

The night after his battle with the Arcane Order, Douxie slept more soundly than he could ever remember.  His near-death experience had left him with a litany of aches, pains, cuts, bruises, a couple of fractured ribs and a lot of unanswered questions - it should have been impossible for him to survive a fall from that height; every bone in his body should have been broken, and no one knew how he was still alive - but still he slept, his final meeting with Merlin and the restored Morgana fresh on his mind and a soothing balm through the night.

The trouble came the day after, when he nodded off while curled up on his couch with The Sword in the Stone distracting him from some unpleasant thoughts and a nagging guilt that had begun to crop up, slowly but steadily, over the course of his day.  No one knew that the hokey, mostly plotless Disney movie was his favorite, and he preferred to keep it that way.  It had always amused him, Merlin as a bit of a crackpot and Arthur a poor young boy running around after a magical master who only halfway knew what he was doing at any given time - it reminded him of himself, and of home.

But he was exhausted from the muscle relaxer he’d been prescribed when Jim and Claire had practically kidnapped him and forced him to let Jim’s mom, a doctor, examine him, and he fell asleep right when Mad Madam Mim issued her challenge to Merlin and for a few wonderful moments, there was nothing, and he could rest.

He woke with a yell only minutes later (Merlin was now turning into a germ to outwit the atrocious purple dragon), fighting desperately against the effects of the muscle relaxers that were already trying to pull him under again.  He couldn’t even remember what it was that woke him, what he’d seen in his dreams, but it didn’t matter.  Whatever it was - and he had a good idea - it left him trembling, short of breath, on the verge of tears.

“Douxie?”

Archie padded into the room and hopped up on the couch beside his friend, eyes full of concern behind his glasses.

“I’m fine, Archie.  Just a nightmare.”

“I miss him, too,” the cat said solemnly, reflective gaze compassionate and sad as he observed his human friend.  “Perhaps we should talk--”

“Talking won’t bring him back,” Douxie snapped, and Archie flinched back the tiniest amount and fell silent, looking more like a chastised pet than Douxie had ever seen him.  The wizard sighed.  “I’m sorry, Archie.  I just don’t want to talk, that's all.”  He rubbed the furry head with distracted affection, then moved from the couch and pulled up a hard-backed kitchen chair, and sat in that.  

He didn’t feel like sleeping so much anymore, even if the burning of his eyes told him otherwise.  He turned off the movie - it suddenly held no appeal.  The Disney+ main screen took its place, and he clicked on something at random.  He was so caught up in his bleak mood and dark thoughts that he didn’t even realize for a solid ten minutes that he was watching Hannah Montana. 

***

Dr. Lake called him at five and asked how the muscle relaxers were treating him - “Are they keeping the pain and back spasms at bay? Are you taking them with food? Have you been able to rest?” Douxie placated her with lies on all accounts, but the truth was that he was sore even with the medicine, he hadn't taken it with food because he couldn't bring himself to eat, and every time he closed his eyes he felt the unfathomable pain of being run through all over again, or, worse, he saw Merlin kneeling over him, sacrificing his life for Douxie’s stupid mistake, and that wasn’t worth any benefits rest gave him.

***

He did finally fall asleep that night around eleven, not by choice - he’d been forced to take another muscle relaxer when the pain in his ribs and back crescendoed to nearly unbearable levels, and the drug worked quickly despite his best efforts to stay awake.

The dream was, at the beginning, not good, but not nightmare material, either.  He found he was reliving his final conversation with Merlin, in that Nowhere between life and death where his mentor had waited patiently for him to arrive before moving on at last, after 900 long years.  

At first the conversation was much the same as it had been, and Douxie found a thread of comfort in Merlin’s reassurances - I told you, my boy, I chose to die for you.  I want no part of a world without you in it.  And I am happy, reunited with my dear friend and first apprentice, ready to step into the next chapter.  

But this time, right before Merlin stepped through the door into the light, he turned and contemplated his grieving apprentice with a cold look.  “Although,” he said, accusation seeping from every word, “it is true that I wouldn’t have had to give my life for you if you hadn’t bungled things up so much in the first place.”

Douxie felt his heart stutter to a stop and he stammered, “W-what?”

“Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Merlin hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously.  “It was my fight.  And if you were going to interfere, why not cast some other spell that kept us both out of harm’s way?”

Floundering for any purchase on solid ground, Douxie finally managed, “I didn’t know how - the magic, it just responded -”

“You were always good at making excuses, Hisirdoux,” the wizard snarled.  “The faith I thought I had in your abilities was obviously misplaced.”  A terrible, eternal beat of silence.  Then - “Perhaps I should have let you die after all.  It’s no more than you deserve.”

“But Master -”

“I’m done with you.”  With a dismissive wave of his arm, Merlin stomped into the waiting light of the unknown, muttering, “Might as well enjoy your life since you ended mine to save it.”

And Douxie was left alone in the between-space, and the tower crumbled around him in time with his soul, and he let it bury him, book after book crashing on his head, and he hoped that this time, he wouldn’t wake up at all….

It’s all my fault.

He woke up crying, not screaming, and shortly after he flushed the muscle relaxers while Archie wasn’t looking (the wise familiar would most certainly have not approved), splashed his face with icy water, and grabbed his well-read copy of The Catcher in the Rye and forced his eyes across the familiar words in a vain attempt to distract him from the loathing and pain and guilt that screamed through his aching head and pounded out a tattoo of shame that persisted through the lonely, sleepless night.

***

Two days later, he returned to work, and his manager stared openly at his disheveled appearance.  Douxie had slept a grand total of four hours since he’d tossed the pills, and those had been intermittent catnaps that his body had forced him to take.  Eventually, though the thought of using his magic made his skin crawl now after what it had done to Merlin, he conjured a simple alarm clock that sensed when he fell asleep and screeched metal core at him every time it happened.

He knew he looked bad - he’d seen a glimpse of himself in the mirror before he left.  His face was thinner than usual, pinched in pain that tylenol just wasn’t cutting through - but anything else would make him fall asleep.  Although all of the bruising was centralized around his back and chest and invisible beneath his rumpled t-shirt, it looked like he’d been punched in both eyes, with the dark, puffy circles accenting each one.  He’d been too out of it to properly bother with styling his hair, or brushing it, if he were honest, and he was pretty sure he was wearing two different combat boots.  They were both black, though, so maybe no one would notice.  He didn’t have the energy to care if they did.

“Damn,” said his manager, Jeff.  “I think you came back from sick leave a little too soon, man.  You look awful.”

Douxie shrugged, not trusting himself to speak.  He’d been screaming from one emotion to the next with no warning ever since he woke up, and even though he felt rather empty at the moment, he knew it was distinctly possible that if he opened his mouth he might start crying against his will.

“I think you should go back home.  Have you seen a doctor?”

Douxie grunted in affirmation.  

“Go home until you’re feeling better, Douxie.  Seriously, man, you have to take care of yourself.”

The hollowness inside of him filled with irritation at the dismissal.  “I’m fine,” he growled sullenly.  

His manager blinked, surprised at the tone.  Douxie had always been a model employee, respectful and fun to be around.  

“You’re going to scare customers away,” Jeff insisted.  “You can’t wait tables like this - people will be afraid you’ll give them whatever plague you’ve come down with.”

With a snarl, Douxie spat, “Why can’t things just go back to normal?”  He stormed out before his bewildered manager could answer.

***

The next afternoon, someone knocked at his door.  He cast a suspicious side-eye at Archie, who sat innocently on the table, tail tucked contritely around his carefully arranged paws as he studied Merlin’s magic book, the one Douxie had refused to touch since returning home.  Archie had disappeared for a short time earlier, flapping out of the window in dragon form and saying that he was just going for a short flight to clear his head.  Now Douxie wondered if the dragon had actually gone out and told someone of his worries about his wizard familiar.  After all, Archie had been on his case constantly over the past few days, practically begging his friend to sleep, to eat, to talk, and Douxie always ignored him and had even yelled at him on a couple of occasions.  

Douxie was picking at a bowl of dragon-popped popcorn listlessly, the small desire for food that he’d felt earlier having been immediately usurped by a fresh waves of undulating guilt and devastating emptiness.  A smattering of empty cans - soda and energy drinks - lay crumpled on the coffee table around Archie, and the dregs of his latest cup of coffee were still warm.  He seriously considered just ignoring the knocking until whoever it was went away - they’d promised to give him some time to recover, after all - but then they started ringing the doorbell and his head already hurt so badly it made his stomach curdle, so he made the tremendous journey to his feet.  He swayed, his limbs like pool noodles, head swimming with dizziness at the effort to stay upright.

Each step toward the door - that incessant, too-loud doorbell was going to drive him mad! - was a hard-fought battle, and by the time his hand reached for the doorknob, he felt like he was going to be sick, and his vision was blurred, and he was having trouble remembering why he had gotten up in the first place.

Then the doorbell rang again, and a muffled voice called his name from the other side of the door, and he remembered.

It was Claire and Jim.  The moment they laid eyes on him, their expressions went from concerned to relieved to something Douxie couldn’t quite identify but that might have been a kind of shock, or even horror.

“Douxie!” Claire half-shouted, and Douxie fought the urge to cover his ears as her voice, normally pleasant and soothing, tried its hardest to split his head in two.  “What happened?”

Douxie squinted at her in confusion.  Shouldn’t she know what happened?  She had been there, for parts of it, at least.  She’d heard about the rest.  He could barely stand up straight anymore, and his eyes started closing of their own accord.  This had happened so many times before, but as soon as sleep started to stake its claim, the memories and nightmares and things that might have been memories followed, mixing up into a blur that he couldn’t navigate, and then his magic alarm clock would blare, and he would wake up, and drink another Mountain Dew or Monster or cup of coffee, and try to do something to take his mind off of sleep and pain and Merlin.  Then the whole process would start over again.

This time, it didn’t look like he would make it back to the couch before he passed out - the arduous trek to the front door had drained him, made him breathless and dizzy - and he was toppling forward, trying to force himself to wake up, battling sleep and the panic of sleep, or worse, hitting his head and being knocked out and forced to sleep.

“Whoa!”  He startled awake to a hazy reality as Jim caught his stumbling form and propped him up the best that he could given how much taller Douxie was than him.  Distantly, Douxie heard, “Claire, help me get him inside.”

And then Claire slung his other arm over her shoulder and they half-supported, half-dragged him back into his house, and though his eyes were on his couch, he realized that they were taking him past it, further into the house, in the direction of his bedroom, and he began to struggle against them.

“No, not there,” he gasped, knowing that if he had a mattress under his body and a soft pillow under his bed, there would be no way he could resist the siren call of sleep.  He’d been avoiding his bed for days now.

But they didn’t listen, and soon they helped ease him onto his bed, perpetually unmade, and he scrambled up clumsily into a facsimile of a sitting position and shook his head to clear it of the gummy cobwebs that infested it.  Archie, having followed the trio closely, literally hovering right over their shoulders, perched on Douxie’s desk and kept his lamp-lit eyes on his human, watchful and protective.  

As soon as their charge was no longer in any immediate danger of hurting himself, Jim pulled out his cell phone.  “I’m calling my mom.”

“No, no,” Douxie said, forcing his burning eyes open as far as he could and making a feeble swipe at the phone in his friend’s hand.  Jim hesitated, his thumb hovering over the send button.  

“You are obviously not feeling well,” he said.  “And you look sick.  You need to see a doctor before --”

“I’m not sick,” Douxie explained, trying to project an air of wellness that he couldn’t even muster within himself.  At their doubtful looks, he clarified, “Just a little tired.”

“You don’t look like you’ve slept in a month!” Claire exclaimed worriedly.  “We promised to give you a few days to yourself to heal and rest, not turn into one of the living dead!”

“It’s only been a few days,” Douxie assured her.  “I just need to sort some things out in my head, that’s all.  Then I’ll sleep.”  It was a lie, but he needed them to believe it, needed them to go home and go on with their lives and not sit here worrying about him - or worse, try to make him sleep.  He appreciated their concern, and was touched that he had friends who cared so much about his well-being, but they had more important things to deal with - Jim’s transition from being half-troll to enslaved hulk troll to fully human and the loss of his amulet, for starters.  And he had made this mess on his own, this was his fault, so if his punishment was to never sleep again, it should be his to bear alone.  He didn’t deserve to be worried about, he suddenly realized - that was the crux of why he wanted to be left alone so badly.

“A few days without sleep will wreck you, man,” Jim said seriously, his blue eyes offering nothing but concern.  He did pocket his phone again, though, for which Douxie heaved a sigh of relief.  “Trust me, I know.”

Douxie didn’t know the details, but he had heard stories from Claire and Toby about how Jim had, over a year ago, willingly gone into the Darklands, a hellish nightmare-scape beneath the skin of this world, and Claire had told, her own eyes haunted, of how he had come back not himself, traumatized, and how he’d barely slept nor ate and had become a shell of his former self.  

So he asked, voice far more unsure than he felt comfortable with, “How did you move on?  How did you get back to normal?”

He hated himself for sounding so weak.  He’d lived 701 years.  He’d lost people he cared about so regularly that he’d eventually tried to avoid personal connections.  Such was the curse of being a wizard, and being functionally immortal.  The world around him would turn, but he would not age - or rather, he would age slowly, at the pace of his own choosing - and people would die, wars would rise up and die down, and still he would live, watching it all, alone.  That wasn’t true.  Even if Merlin had been entombed for much of that time, he hadn’t been dead, not really.  The knowledge that he would see his mentor again had kept Douxie going during the loneliest of times, during the most devastating losses.  

And, of course, he’d had Archie, a constant companion who even now had done everything he could to help his friend, and when that hadn’t worked, when Douxie had been too stubborn to listen, he’d taken it upon himself to gather more of Douxie’s friends and staged an intervention.  If Douxie hadn’t been so exhausted and his mind hadn’t been so muddy, he might have been grateful or touched by the gesture and loyalty, but right now, he just felt irritated, like his privacy had been infringed upon.

Jim blinked.  “Well, uh,” he stammered, glancing at Claire before continuing, “it took time, first of all.  But, honestly, it was my friends.  But it took talking to someone who had gone through the same thing as me, who understood what I was going through, to first start the healing.”

Douxie shook his head.  “Everybody loses people,” he said slowly.  “But this feels different.”

“Just because everyone deals with loss doesn’t make your experiences any less important, Douxie,” Archie said sagely.  He was the only one in the room who had a true scope of all the heartbreaks Douxie had accumulated over his centuries of life in a world of short-lived mortals.

“It’s not that.” Douxie was desperate now for them to understand the truth. Then maybe they would stop being so kind to him.  Dream-Merlin had been right.  He didn’t deserve it.  “Don’t you see?  It’s my fault Merlin’s dead.  I killed him.”

Jim froze at his words, looking like he’d just been struck across the face.  For a moment, Douxie wondered why he reacted the way he did, but then remembered that Jim had been the one to hold Douxie down when Morgana was going to kill him.  He hadn’t been in his right mind, had been enslaved by the Arcane Order, but still, he had, in a small way, been the reason that Douxie had been forced into doing the switching magic that he had.  Still, Douxie could find no ill will in him against the Trollhunter.  He’d not been in control of his own mind.  Douxie had.

“I am so sorry,” Jim started, but Douxie immediately cut him off.

“It’s not your fault.  You weren’t you.  But me…”

“You have to see the truth,” Jim insisted urgently, now moving to take a seat on the bed next to his older friend.  Sure, they hadn’t known each other all that long, but going through the things they had and saving the world together tended to bring people closer together rather more quickly than usual, in his experience.  “It wasn’t your fault.  You did everything you could to save Merlin.  You took a sword in the gut for him.”  Douxie flinched internally at the reminder of the agony, the feeling of dying, the cold and the dark.  

“Yeah, Douxie,” Claire chimed in.  “You’re a hero.  You saved him.”

“If I’d had more control over that magic, if I’d channeled it a different way or done a different spell, then we might both be alive.”  He was so tired, but the conversation held him in its grip, and he couldn’t sleep anyway, he’d go back to the sword and Merlin’s death and the wizard’s tower where Merlin would tell him again that he’d failed.

“Douxie, you’re the one who’s been teaching me more magic!” Claire reminded him.  “One of the things I learned from my Shadow Staff - and that you’ve continued to show me - is that magic is emotion.  You can’t always control what magic is going to do when you are in a moment of fear or anger or desperation.  Magic reacts to your emotions.  And Jim’s right.  What you did was very brave and selfless.”

“That’s why Merlin gave his life to save you in return,” Archie added.  “That, and because he loved you, very much.”

Douxie felt the sting of hot tears carving pathways down his face and didn’t bother to wipe them off.  He felt like having a full-on temper tantrum, flopping onto his stomach and screaming and sobbing and slamming his fists into the ground and letting his magic explode out of him with all the force of the emotions and exhaustion that had built up inside.  He knew if he did that, though, he would just end up hurting someone else.

So he asked a question he was ashamed to ask, because it made it sound like he blamed Merlin instead of himself, “If he loved me, why did he leave?  Why didn’t he let me make my sacrifice?  It was like what I did didn’t matter.  I saved him because I don’t want to live without him, but that’s just what he forced me to do.”

Archie flapped off the desk and landed on the bed on the other side of his friend.  Placing a paw on Douxie’s leg, he spoke gently, as if to a lost child, “Merlin was a great wizard” -- Douxie sobbed -- “but he was also very selfish sometimes.  That comes with great power and an ego left unchecked paired with a very long life.  Merlin saved you because he couldn’t bear to think of a world without you in it.  Nor,” said the dragon, nuzzling Douxie’s elbow affectionately, “can I, for that matter.”

“But if I --”

“No buts,” said Archie.  “This was not your fault.  And I know Merlin told you the same.”

“He did,” Douxie admitted.  “But then he didn’t.  Every time I sleep, I see him, and he tells me… he tells me that I f-failed, that he’s d-dead because of me, and that I don’t deserve to live.”

“Oh, Douxie,” Claire breathed softly, sinking down into his desk chair.

“That’s not Merlin telling you that,” Jim spoke up.  Something raw lingered in his eyes.  “It’s the lies you are telling yourself.  I know because for weeks after the Darklands, I…” He cast his gaze briefly at Claire, and even in his semi-conscious state, Douxie got the feeling that he hadn’t even told his girlfriend this before.  “I had dreams every night of Claire, Toby, Blinky, Aaarrrgghh, everyone telling me I should have stayed in the Darklands.  Should have died there, because I wasn’t strong or brave enough, and I went in alone and betrayed them, and that they were better off and happier without me.  For a while, I believed them.”

Claire was crying quietly now, her hands pressed against her lips.

“But then,” Jim continued, “the more time I spent with my friends, and talked to them, I began to be able to separate their truth from my own lies.  Like I said earlier, you really need to talk to someone who gets it, you know.  And even though we’ve experienced a lot of the same things, it’s not me.”  He looked pointedly at the small black dragon who was currently in the same place he’d always been - at Douxie’s side.  

“I miss him too.”  Archie repeated his words from a few days ago.  “And I am here for you, Douxie.”  He must have seen the doubt festering in Douxie’s eyes and he reassured, “I do not blame you for what happened.  No one does.  The Merlin in your dreams is not real.  He is spitting your own self-doubts and guilt right back into your face, but deep down, you know the truth.  The real Merlin told you.  Jim and Claire told you.  And I am promising you - Merlin died because he chose to in order to save you because after all he had seen and done and all the years he’d lived, the one thing he was terrified of was having to light your funeral pyre.  And Merlin never did anything he didn’t want to do.  No one could have stopped him from making that choice.”

The words struck something deep inside of Douxie, and he felt the tiniest fraction of weight shift in his chest.  “M’be,” he slurred, so tired that his friends were all now blobs of blue, black, and purple.  A giant bruise.  He chuckled, a bit madly.  

“Okay, Douxie,” came Claire’s voice, distant and very close at the same time.  “I think you really need to lie down now.  You’ve been awake for too long.”

She and Jim helped him lie down.  Weakly, he protested, “I cn’t sleep.”

“You can,” said Jim.  “Take Archie’s words with you if you end up facing that dream-Merlin again.  Remember that we’re here for you.  None of us will leave you while you sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, we’ll be right here when you wake up, and if you have nightmares, we’ll remind you of the truth,” Claire promised.

“And I will guard you,” Archie vowed, retaking his cat form and curling up protectively over his closest friend’s heart.  “You are safe here.”

Douxie could resist the call of sleep no longer.  He closed his eyes and let it take him, and he felt the warm weight of Archie on his chest and the presence of his friends around him and the slightest of smiles curved his lips as he drifted off.

***

Thirty seconds after Douxie grew still upon the bed, his three friends let out a collective sigh of relief.  

Thirty seconds after that, Jim and Claire let out a collective yell of shock and Archie leapt to his paws, hissing and arching his back, as a giant, misty alarm clock appeared out of thin air and started screeching a terrible cacophony of wailing guitars and screaming vocals at top volume.

“What the--?” Claire shouted over the racket, slamming her hands over her ears.

“I forgot,” Archie called back, “he cast this spell to wake him up when he fell asleep.”

And yet, this time, Douxie still slept.

“Can you turn it off?” Jim yelled.

“No, only Douxie can undo the spell.”

Jim considered this for a moment and shook his head.  “Let him sleep.  He needs it.”  

And despite the loud, jarring music, he, Claire, and Archie kept their promise and stayed faithfully at their friend’s side until, four hours later, he woke up long enough to blessedly vanish the clock.

Then, like a little boy with a teddy bear, the already fading Douxie pulled a startled Archie into his arms and held him tight, curling up on his side with his furry prize.  Although uncomfortable in his new position and robbed of his draconian dignity, Archie snuggled in and purred, content to listen to the steady breathing of his deeply sleeping familiar.

[iamjustyouraveragefander]

One is Company, but Two is a Crowd

WARNINGS!: Remus, but he doesn’t do much aside from ask Logan if he eats books. Other than that, nothing in here but soft boys being soft.

Paring(s): Inturlogical (Platonic or Romantic)

Word Count: 1408

Summary: Logan is spending some quality time in his part of the mindscape, when someone interrupts him.

Logan let out a small hum, pulling one of the many books off of the book shelf and briefly flipping through it, a peaceful air about him.

He paused his movements, blinking several times and closing the book, "May I help you, Remus?" he asked, turning to face the dark side that had made himself comfortable in one of the empty tables of the library. While it wasn't unusual for Logan to sense the darker side of creativity's presence in his area—in fact, he'd run into him making book forts and sleeping in them—it was still odd to see him in a place where his power held no long lasting affect.

"Nope! Just thought I'd drop by!" Remus replied, a wide grin on his face, "Or am I not aloud in your little area after pulling out your teeth and shoving them up your nose?" he asked, resting his head in the palm of his hand.

"Personally, I don't care if you're here," Logan stated flatly, offering a curious look to Remus, "I do, however, find it odd that you would come to a place where your power is the weakest."

Remus gave a small shrug in response, as if that was somehow a decent enough answer. If he was being honest, he wasn't sure why he came to visit Logan either. Maybe it was because his powers were weaker here. After all, Remus had, unadmittedly, been rather tired the past few days, and coming to Logan’s area of the mindscape always made it easier for him to sleep because his powers were reduced so significantly. It was that, or, maybe he wanted to find some way he could pester the logical side and be a minor inconvenience to him in different ways.

"Well, if you're going to be here, please remember to keep things in their proper place," Logan ordered, taking a seat across from Remus, placing the book on the table and flipping to the page he had previously been looking at, losing himself in the information present on it.

"Have you ever consisted eating books?" Remus suddenly asked, leaning forward on the table, gaze occasionally shifting from Logan’s face to the book he was reading.

"No, I have not," Logan replied simply, gaze still focused on his book.

"Not even a little bit?"

Logan sighed, quietly standing up from his seat at the table, "Books, and information in general, is rather important to me, so I like to take care of what I have here," he explained, pushing in his chair before starting his walk down one of the many rows of bookshelves in search of a more comfortable spot.

Without a second thought, Remus got up to follow Logan, practically at his heels, "So, you don't think about eating books or pencils?" he asked, gaze fixed on Logan's face for any type of reaction, "Oh! How about those note cards you carry around? Do you eat those?"

A small sigh escaped Logan's lips, expression still of unbreakable indifference, "Are you just bothering me because you're bored?" he asked, stopping his walk and swiftly spinning around on his heels to face Remus, "Because if that's the case, I would appreciate if you'd leave me be."

Logan didn't exactly mind Remus' company, but constantly being bombarded with questions was distracting when you were trying to enjoy a book. Remus could stay here all he’d like, but Logan would be much more appreciative if he took his presence elsewhere.

"Well, someone is in a mood," Remus muttered, still somewhat frustrated that Logan had that indifferent look on his face. It was always annoying when Remus had no affect on him, but he supposed being in the well organized mindscape wasn’t helping, "And for your information, I'm not bothering you because—"

"Then why are you bothering me?" Logan cut in, the question genuine, to Remus’ surprise.

Remus opened his mouth to reply, but found no words coming out. He gave a simple shrug just as before, gaze flicking to the book Logan had tucked under his arm, "What are you reading?" he inquired, turning his body to better examination the cover of the book that was slightly visible under Logan's arm.

"That didn't answer my question," Logan replied, adjusting his hold on the book, "Look, Remus, I'm trying to relax, so, could you please leave me be? You can still be here, I don’t mind that, but if you keep bothering me I’ll get Roman."

Remus hummed, tapping his chin with his pointer finger, thinking over the options given to him. Either continue to annoy Logan and risk being dragged home by his brother, or just go make another book fort and let the nerd read...

Finally, he huffed, sinking out of the general area. He was still in the library, Logan could tell, but as long as he wasn't destroying anything or recking havoc, he didn't mind.

Logan hummed in satisfaction, continuing on his walk until he found the cozy area he had set up in the middle of the library. It was a gently lit area with a massive, plush blue rug draped on the floor. A coffee table sat in the middle of the area, with a couch in front of it, and several beanbags surrounding the outskirts of the table. Patton has placed them there in case the couch got too full.

He made himself comfortable on the couch, leaning back and taking a deep breath before returning to his page in the book.

As he read, he slowly felt Remus creeping back in his direction, possibly out of boredom. So, he began to read aloud, "The prince stared at the dragon with sorrowful eyes, placing a gentle hand on it's damaged wing, questions flooding his mind..."

Remus had taken a seat next to Logan, slowly leaning against his side, staring at the pages the logical side was reading off of, curious as to what would happen next.

"Despite not knowing the dragon for very long, the prince felt a bond with the creature, as if their souls had met in a past life," Logan read, a content air settling between the dark and light side, “Who was this dragon, and why had it risked it’s own life to save the prince?” Logan shifted his head slightly as Remus gently started to nuzzle into his shoulder.

Despite not knowing why he had originally came to Logan’s mindscape, Remus came to the conclusion that he just wanted someone to spend time with. He and Roman didn’t always get along, plus, he was busy on his own adventure. Deceit was looking after his snakes for the day, and when it came to his snakes, nothing was going to distract him. Then there was Patton and Virgil, who weren’t too fond of his company to begin with. So, who better than to go see Logan for some company?

More time had passed as Logan read the story, all too award that Remus' eyes had become droopy with sleep, "With one swift kiss on the dragon's head in thanks for all it had done, it had become engulfed in a bright glow, and changed into a handsome, young knight. The knight immediately thanked the prince for breaking his spellbound curse, bowing his head and promising to forever stay by his side as his loyal bodyguard. The End." Logan finished the last few lines slowly, gently closing the book and seating it in his lap, flicking his gaze to Remus, who was sleeping soundly, face relaxed.

Logan couldn't help but smile at the Duke. He may seem scary and, can be very obnoxious when he wants to be, but sometimes he could be rather... Sweet?

That didn’t seem like the right word Logan was looking for, but decided to leave it be, sitting back against the couch and closing his eyes. He wondered what the others would think if they saw them together like this. Virgil, Patton and Roman may possibly have a figurative mini heart-attack. After all, what had the dastardly Duke done to manipulate Logan into such a vulnerable state?

He bit back a light chuckle at the thought, opening his eyes and shifting his gaze to Remus once more, still sleeping. Logan silently wondered if he should wake him, ask him his thoughts on the book, but decided against it. He hummed a soft lullaby, closing his eyes once again, waiting for sleep to grab hold of him as it had done with Remus.

[lilith-lovett]

Found Families - Home is Where the Hart is - Chapter Eighteen

Finally. This chapter was a mess at the beginning, I had a horrible case of writers block and spent most of my days playing Dragon Quest XI but now the spark is back and I have already started the next chapter which I am really looking forward to. Thank you all again for your continued support and I hope you enjoy this chapter xx

Masterlist

Summary: Shopping trip - Part 2 (they are still stressful)

Word Count: 9081 (I am sorry sorry this is so long)

Warnings: Past child abuse, past physical abuse, past physiological abuse , anxiety, implied controlling behaviour, self-deprecation, description of injuries, description of scars, panic attack, disordered eating, implied depression, discussion of weight, hospital mention, implied self-harm, neglect, negligent parents.  (If I missed anything pleased let me know)

The morning passed by too quickly. Roman and Virgil left for the school bus at 7:27am exactly whilst Patton prepared breakfast for Logan and Declan. Though Logan found he didn’t have much of an appetite. Considering the events ahead he ate far less than he originally would have, to avoid erasing the content of his stomach due to the intense churning in his abdomen. Unfortunately, the almost still full plate didn’t escape Patton’s keen eye.

“Logan, you haven’t eaten very much. Are you feeling alright?” Patton asked his voice laced with concern as he pressed a gentle hand to Logan’s forehead as he fought not to flinch away from Patton’s touch. “You don’t have a fever,”.

“I am fine Patton, I just seem to have lost my appetite this morning,” Logan said with a shrug though it didn’t seem to ease Patton’s anxieties. “Please, do not worry,”.

“O-okay, do you still want to go out today?” He asked taking a seat adjacent to Logan’s. “We can do it another day, if you’d like?”.

Logan considered his options. He could refuse and simply prolong the inevitable, of Patton spending money on him. He didn’t want to disappoint Patton any more than he already had. Patton had evidently been looking forward to this activity and Logan was ruining it. Would Patton be mad at him for refusing? For being ungrateful for everything he had done for him?

“No, I want to!”Logan exclaimed. Too loud. Too quickly. He swiftly retracted, bringing his hands to his lips and averting his gaze to the floor. Patton studied him for a moment before reaching out a tentative hand to Logan’s which still covered his mouth. He allowed Patton to take them, fighting the urge to flinch away and continue to hide his burning face but instead he allowed Patton to cradle his quivering hands - that he desperately attempted to conceal but to no avail - in his much larger ones.

“Are you sure, I won’t be upset, all I want is you for to be comfortable,” Patton said rubbing reassuring circles into his palms.

“I want to go,” Logan repeated forcing himself to meet Patton’s kind gaze, hoping he would cease this topic of conversation and allow Logan to retreat to his bedroom in order to mentally prepare himself from the day’s events.

“Okay…Okay, we’ll go. But if you want to leave at any point, please tell me and we will leave right away,” Patton assured Logan, giving his hands a final squeeze before withdrawing and returning to the sink of dishes. Logan stared into his palms for a moment. A strange tingling sensation prickled through his hands and wrists from Patton’s gentle touch and an alarming warmth flowered within his chest as he froze. Appreciation and affection for Patton flooded his chest cavity. Logan had always described himself as a cold and callous individual, unphased by simple emotions and mushy…feelings but he hadn’t quite been himself as of late; becoming more susceptible to new and wildly changing emotions - he struggled to comprehend - ever since becoming acquainted with Patton and the indescribable warmth that Patton possessed had filled him ever since.

The remainder of the morning passed rather uneventfully. Logan escaped to his room to prepare for the dreaded outing, looking to the lifeless stuffed animal - sat at the head of his bed - for support before shaking away the childish notion of receiving any applicable advice from a toy. He had already dressed before heading to breakfast, in his typical outfit, much like the ones his mother always purchased for him. It was simple yet smart, concealing much of his skin and the injuries inflicted by their hands. Perhaps Logan could choose similar items of clothing? To avoid straying too far from his own rules. The idea calmed him somewhat, providing him with some sense of control and making the overwhelming task seem considerably less frightening.

Logan brought out the large pair of headphones Patton had gifted him on their second ever meeting from his rucksack, it seemed so long ago now. Certainly a lot had occurred between them since. He traced his fingers carefully across tape which secured the break, smoothing down the peeling edges and placed them around his neck. The familiar weight helped in calming his nerves. Logan lifted the galaxy printed fidget toy from his bedside table which Virgil had given him, pressing the buttons. One. Two. Three times before depositing it in the pocket of his trousers. With a final glance around his room which seemed much fuller and more…lived in since their shopping trip yesterday, though certainly not as decorated or personalised as Roman’s or Virgil or Declan’s but he felt an unusual sort of attachment to the simple items which now inhabited it. Particularly the little bear. He longed to bring it with him but he hastily dispelled the childish thought from his mind as he quickly turned and left. Taking a deep breath and then another before returning downstairs.

Patton was waiting from Logan at the bottom of the stairs. He was dressed in his normal outfit, grey cardigan peaking out from beneath his intensely bright yellow raincoat and holding a similar appearing garment in a much more muted blue colour.

“Hey Logan, I picked out one of Roman’s old jackets for you. He never really wore it, it wasn’t dramatic enough for him,” Patton said with a chuckle as he handed the jacket to Logan. It was a durable material which would successfully protect his clothing from the elements and in a simple and satisfying shade in which he would not draw much attention. He put it on and it was…far too big. Falling past his hips and the sleeves concealing much of his hands leaving only his finger tips visible. He had to zip it up to just below his chin to prevent it from slipping off of his shoulders but it was warm and had been gifted to him by Patton so he found that he did not mind the sizing issue.

“Aw, you look so cute kiddo, it is a little bit big but it will do until we can get you your own one,” Patton stated with a smile. “Well, are you ready to go?”.

Logan disregarded the compliment with a grunt. He wanted to protest. Logan didn’t know the exact cost of a coat but he was certain it was far greater than he deserved. Roman’s raincoat was a substantial upgrade from the paper-thin jacket given to him by the orphanage as previous to that he had never owned a jacket or coat as his parents viewed it as an unnecessary expense and preferred to watch him suffer whenever they allowed him outside, forcing him to bear the brunt of the bitter conditions. He did not need it but Logan was sure Patton would simply brush off his concerns with comforting words and Logan did not wish to anger Patton any more then he presumably already had due to his actions. So he kept quiet and nodded.

 Patton decided last minute to drop Dee off at Dot and Larry’s house so that he could focus his attention on Logan, who had been extremely on edge all morning. Logan remained in the car as he was concious of Logan’s anxiety surrounding change and believed that consistently bombarding him with new faces would overwhelming him and Emile’s parents could at time be a little over the top, particularly with affection and having learned from past experiences with Virgil he made the decision to allow Logan to have some time to settle in before introducing him to his honorary grandparents at Roman’s upcoming birthday which Dot and Larry thankfully agreed with. Upon returning to the car, they set off again.

Logan remained silent for much of it but Patton did not fail to note the overwhelming tension he held within his body. In his poker straight posture, muscles drawn so tight, Patton feared he may injure himself. He also noticed Logan was wearing his noise-cancelling headphones around his neck, something he only did when he was anxious - Logan told him the weight on his neck acted as a suitable grounding method - and rested in his lap where his hands which were unconsciously fidgeting with Virgil’s old fidget cube. Fingers moving quickly over each of the four sides producing a continuous clicking sound. Another sign Logan was nervous. Perhaps this was a bad idea? Logan had expressed he didn’t want Patton buying him anything but he only owned at most three complete sets of clothes, none of which fit him correctly and all appeared to be well worn and tattered because of over use and age. Though maybe he should have waited until Logan was more comfortable? Patton was supposed to be returning to work soon so he could begin in his new position but with Logan’s arrival he had thankfully been given a few weeks for him to help Logan settle in but was he moving too quickly for Logan?

Patton switched on the radio, hoping some lively music would drown out his thoughts and lift his mood. He found himself humming along to the infectious tune, nodding his head and tapping to fingertips on the steering wheel to the beat which drew Logan’s attention.

“Like the song, kiddo?” Patton asked as Logan jumped at the sudden mention of his name. “Oh, I’m sorry Logan, I didn’t mean to scare you.”.

“It is alright, I was merely distracted. Yes, the melody is quite appealing,” Logan replied his fidgeting slowed and some of the tension relived itself from his shoulders.

“It is, isn’t it,” Patton agreed before pausing for a moment. He didn’t know what would happen when they arrived at the store. How Logan would react? Patton knew Logan had a dislike of people spending money on him, presumably stemming from his parents treatment of him. He had been stressed out for the entirety of their outing yesterday, Patton had done what he could by encouraging him to pick out items he wanted instead of allowing Roman or Virgil to decide for him, reiterating the fact that money was not an issue and that he wanted to buy him nice things but he worried it hadn’t made much of a difference in Logan’s outlook. “Hey…So, is there anything specific you want to get?”.

“Some shirts and trousers would be adequate, thank you,” Logan eventually said in a whisper after an elongated silence, in which Patton feared he wouldn’t answer at all but he was pleasantly surprised by his answer.

“Of course we can and if you see anything else you like just tell me and I’ll get it for you,” Patton explained beaming at Logan who did not meet his gaze, instead remained routed in his curled up position, eyes fixated on his hands fisted in his lap. His confession clearly took a lot of courage which only made Patton happier. “I’m so proud of you Logan,”.

Logan didn’t respond but Patton felt content nonetheless. They had a tiny breakthrough. Though it may have appeared insignificant and though Logan immediately retreated back into his shell afterwards, it proved Logan still trusted him and that small bond of trust pleased Patton more than anything. They continued the rest of their journey in a comfortable silence with only the pretty sounds of the radio playing until they reached their destination.

The mall was quieter than it had been the previous day which Patton was thankful for considering Logan aversion to crowded places and noise. Though there were still a few individuals who wandered from store to store, carrying bags filled with items. Logan remained close to his side, the fidgeting had returned so Patton quickly ushered him into the first clothing store they came across which was much quieter than the busy shopping centre. With only a couple of people mulling around the store and an instrumental piece playing from the speakers overhead. They immediately walked towards the young boys section, located between the men’s and the shoe section of the store.

Patton looked towards Logan in an attempt to gauge his initial reaction of the wealth of clothing items which surrounded him, searching for any indication of any pieces he was immediately attracted to but his expression remained blank as he briefly glanced around him, taking in his surroundings before looking to Patton for instruction. Despite how independent Logan appeared, he was so accustomed to blindly following orders, obeying their rules to a fault no matter the consequences to his own physical or mental well-being. Never just doing something for his own benefit or enjoyment. It pained Patton to witness but he was going to ensure Logan knew truly how incredible he was. Like how Patton saw him.

“How about we start with shirts and go from there?” Patton suggested hoping a little guidance would encourage Logan to explore some more options without Patton coaxing him into making a decision.

Logan nodded and together they ventured over the small selection of shirts for his age-group. They were apart of a much larger collection of colourful t-shirts, sweaters and hoodies, Patton hoped that something within the vast of choices would pique Logan’s interest. The shirts were displayed and categorised by colour and size, beginning with the simple white, black and grey shirts, moving into brighter colours with a range of pattern shirts located towards the end of the rack. They were further divided into smaller sub-categories by sleeve length. Short. Three-quarter length. Long. Patton remained quiet for a moment, to allow Logan to make his own decision without any interference. Logan moved cautiously towards the rack, eyes carefully studying each shirt. The style. The fit. The colour. Patton believed they may have had a breakthrough until Logan glanced back towards him. He had been skilfully disguising his anxiety until now. Patton could see the worry lines etched between his brow and the conflicted expression he wore. Patton didn’t know why Logan found choosing clothes so difficult but what he did know was that he was support Logan throughout it.

“Is there any particular colour you would like?” Patton asked providing some of the direction that Logan appeared to be searching for. Logan paused for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, before turning his gaze once more onto the rack of shirts. Passing by the more vibrant shades to the simpler ones.

“Either black or navy would be preferable,” Logan answered as he studied those colour categories more closely.

“Great, let’s pick up a couple of sizes and you can try them on,” Patton said as Logan picked up a couple of different sizes in each of the colours but Patton failed to notice how he initially reached for the long sleeved shirt before freezing, snatching up the short sleeved one instead before depositing them in the basket without a second glance.

Choosing trousers was much easier, as Logan had a clear visual of the style and colour he wanted. Black. Simple cut. Again they picked up a couple of sizes before moving on. The same occurred with pyjamas and a coat given that it was almost the exact colour and style as the raincoat he was currently wearing. Logan had began to aimlessly wander the boys section, evidently struggling with the vast array of choice following the few items he presumably deemed to be necessary. These items were also incredibly similar to the outfit he wore on near daily basis and Patton had started to suspect that Logan’s aversion to clothes out of his comfort zone may have been a result of his parents abuse. Patton placed a gentle hand on Logan’s taut shoulder, stopping him from pacing and led him to a quiet corner of the store, free of other customers and employees.

“Hey kiddo, I can tell you are struggling with this and I just wanted to tell you that it is okay if you want to stay in your comfort zone but it is also okay if you want to experiment. Clothing has no rules and it only matters if you feel comfortable and happy in what you are wearing,” Patton explained rubbing small circles into the tightness building in Logan’s shoulder, feeling the muscle tense and relax under his hands. “Like how I wear my cardigan tied around my shoulders, that is my choice because I like it.

“Despite the fact others may view it as unusual?” Logan inquired with a tilt of his head.

“Exactly, wearing it makes me happy so I do,” Patton answered with a smile. “Now, how about we see if we can find something you love,”.

And they did. Patton spotted Logan’s attention wandering over to one particular display in the men’s section. The ties. Patton wore ties exclusively for work or when the occasion required a formal attire and he had a variety of brightly coloured ones, in a ton of interesting patterns. Though he had never met a child who had any interest in wearing a tie but Logan wasn’t like most other children.

“Hey Logan, would you like to look at the ties?” Patton asked snapping Logan out of his distracted state.

“Um…Yes, I would,” Logan said in a near inaudible whisper but Patton heard it and his face immediately broke into a grin. Yes, another breakthrough. They were finally making progress.

“Of course, lets go,” Patton exclaimed stretching out a hand towards Logan which after a moment of hesitation he took. Patton had to fight back a squeal at the adorableness.

Together they walked into the men’s section, towards the display of ties, where each tie was laid out, pre-tided in a variety of colours, patterns and materials. Patton watched as Logan’s expression lit up as he examined each tie, fingertips tracing delicately across the fabric before selecting a simple striped tie in an array of different shades of blue.

“I would very much like this tie,” Logan said a small, glowing smile stretched across his face as he held up the tie towards Patton.

“Of course but I have never met a twelve year old who wanted a tie so badly,” Patton said with a chuckle as he held the basket out towards Logan who dropped in the tie.

“Intelligent and serious people wear neckties and I have always had a desire to be taken seriously,” Logan stated raising his chin, pushing his chest forward and stretching to his full height presumably to appear serious or imposing but it only made him look more adorable and this time Patton didn’t fight back his squeal which resulted in a huff of annoyance from Logan but Patton saw the minuscule smile he was disguising.

They continued to wander around the section, Patton encouraged Logan to pick up a couple of t-shirts which he did somewhat reluctantly, choosing ones in similar colours to the shirts, completely free of any designs or patterns but Patton was proud of him nonetheless. With their basket full and Logan seemingly unwillingly to experiment any further, they made their way to the changing rooms. Patton took a seat in the waiting area while Logan approached the young woman standing at the changing rooms before disappearing into an empty stall. As soon as Logan was out of sight he exhaled deeply, allowing his head to fall back. Today had certainly been difficult but they were making progress, it was slow but he had expected it would be. Logan had been abused for almost the entirety of his short life. He had a severe distrust of people, years of constantly being put down and told he was…worthless he began to believe it, began to believe he didn’t deserve anything. Patton had seen Virgil struggle with the symptoms of his abuse for the past three years but he knew Logan’s situation was different. He had walls. Walls built up to protect himself and though it would take time, Patton was both willing and prepared to take that time to break them down and uncover the real Logan hidden underneath.

After almost ten minutes, Patton began to grow concerned. Logan had been in the changing room for an awfully long time, he wanted to give him privacy and the option to decide whether or not he wanted to show Patton anything he was wearing but he couldn’t help being worried. Another minute went by and Patton decided to check on him. He approached the young woman stationed by the changing rooms.

“Hello, I was wondering what changing room my son went in?” Patton asked.

“It was the large one of the end there,” She responded gesturing to her right at one of the changing rooms which appeared to be considerably larger than the rest.

“Thank you,” Patton said with a polite smile before making his way towards the stall she directed him to. Knocking twice upon the closed door. “Hey Logan, it is me Patton. Are you alright in there?”.

“Um…yes, though I believe I may require a smaller size,” Logan eventually replied in a small voice. Patton sighed sadly. Logan was definitely noticeably underweight for a boy of his age and after discovering how food was kept from him as a punishment at the orphanage, he only hoped he would be able to help Logan reach a healthier weight.

“Okay, can I see?” Patton asked perhaps he could determined Logan’s correct sizes from what he was wearing now.

“I-I…guess,” Logan answered with a shaky breath before opening the door.

Patton gasped as Logan revealed himself, dressed in one of the short-sleeved t-shirts. It hung off of his fragile frame. The sleeves ended just beneath his shoulders exposing the dozens of scars and injuries that littered his arms; cigar burns mixed in between sparse freckles, small white lines etched into his skin stretching from his wrist to far past his elbow, the discoloured bruises still healing from his stay in the hospital. But even worse was the neckline which fall far past his collar-bone, revealing much of his chest, including much of the horrible, raised scar reading the word…worthless carved into his chest. Patton instantly pulled Logan back into the changing room, closing the door quickly behind him. Logan had flinched away at the suddenness, the body trembling all over as he curled in on himself, his breathing growing short and erratic. Beginning the descent into a panic attack.

“Hey, hey, it is okay. You are okay, you are safe,” Patton whispered kneeling in front of Logan, decreasing the distance between them while still giving him space. Why would Logan force himself to wear clothes he knew would reveal his scars? Patton lifted an item he didn’t recognise from the pile of pristinely folded clothes. It was a an incredibly soft, blue jumper, detailing an image of starry night sky and a variety of constellations. Logan must have picked it up while Patton was distracted.

“Here, put this on,”. Patton assisted Logan in pulling the jumper over his head, it completely drowned his tiny frame but it fully concealed his scars. Additionally, Patton lifted the headphones placing them around Logan’s neck to further ground him.

Patton led Logan to sit on a the small bench and knelt in front of him, placing a tentative hand on Logan’s trembling knee, attempting to cease its incessant bouncing. Logan wound his hands deeper into the fabric of the jumper, digging his nails into his arms, his eyes squeezed shut the shaking only intensifying.

“You are okay, just breathe. You are safe here,” Patton repeated hoping to ease his anxiety. “Can you look at me please, Logan?”.

After an elongated silence, Logan opened his eyes slowly, forcing them to meet Patton’s. They were bloodshot and filled with tears. Patton’s heart clenched at the sight. He couldn’t bare to see Logan this way. So terrified he completely withdrew into himself. Even with Logan’s eyes now open his hands tightened around his upper arms, to an extent in which Patton believed he was hurting himself.

“There you are, can I touch you?” Patton asked to which Logan responded with a tentative nod and Patton immediately reached out, gently unwinding Logan’s hands from the vice-like grip on his arms, holding them in his own and rubbing small circles into the pulse points on his wrists. “Now, I need you to breathe for me. You are doing so well,”.

After several rounds of the breathing exercise, Logan’s breathing eventually evened out and his grip loosened on Patton’s hands as he slumped against the wall evidently exhausted from the whole ordeal. Patton released a sigh of relief. He glanced around the changing room, hoping to discover what had triggered Logan’s panic attack. Instantly, he spotted a pile of clothes had been discarded in the far corner of the room. This struck him as odd as Logan was typically meticulous with his organisation and cleaning, with all of his clothes being perfectly folded. On closer inspection of the pile Patton noticed that it was made up entirely of the shirts they had picked up…short-sleeved shirts Patton noted. Why would he purposefully choose clothes he knew would make him uncomfortable?

“Okay, could you tell me what happened?” Patton asked though he already had an idea of what was going on in Logan’s head. Logan simply shrugged and averted his gaze to his lap. “Okay, would you like me to get you some long-sleeved shirts and t-shirts to try on instead?”.

“No!” Logan exclaimed before snatching his hands out of Patton’s and slapping them over his mouth, seconds after the word came out. The suddenness of Logan exclamation surprised Patton. Perhaps something else was going on?

“Can you tell me why? You are clearly uncomfortable,” Patton urged hoping to understand why Logan was intentionally triggering himself by forcing him to bare his scars for the world.

“I’m fine,” Logan whispered lowering his hands from his mouth, leaving angry red indentures behind on his cheeks.

“No, you’re not. Logan, you need to be honest with me. Why are you forcing yourself to wear this?” Patton questioned choosing to keep his hands settled in his lap, hoping Logan would open up with him.

“I…I…It is less expensive for a shirt with short sleeves,” Logan admitted nearly inaudibly, physically deflating following the confession.

Patton sighed. He had expected that yesterdays discussion about Logan’s relationship with money wouldn’t be the end of the problem. But how hadn’t he noticed it sooner? He was so proud that Logan was breaking out of his comfort zone that he hadn’t seen the reasons behind his deliberate actions. A burning hatred grew within his chest. A hatred for those people who attempted to destroy the beautiful spark in Logan. They made him believed that he was a burden on those around him and he did not deserve such a simple act of kindness.

“No, kiddo. I…That isn’t something I care about, I am doing this because I want to,” Patton said fighting against his urge to pull Logan into his arms. “You deserve to have clothes you like and feel happy and comfortable. Me, forcing you to show your scars and struggles to the world. That would hurt you and that is the last thing I want to do, do you understand?”.

“But…” Logan began but Patton quickly cut him off.

“No, Logan, there is no but…you deserve more than I can give you. You deserve to feel safe,” Patton said once again placing a hand on Logan’s knee. “Stay here, I’ll go and get you some long-sleeved shirts,”.

“No! Please don’t,” Logan yelled, leaping to his feet, his hands winding into his hair.

“Why?” Patton asked.

“It’s too much!” Logan shouted pulling harshly at his hair, his entire body was trembling violently. Patton wanted so desperately to understand and to help him but he couldn’t. He was only hurting Logan more. “It’s too much. Too much. Too much. I don’t deserve this. You are wasting your money on me and I need it to stop. You have already given me so much but I cannot accept any more,”.

Logan fell back against the wall once again, slowly lowering himself onto the bench but his hands remained wound tight in his hair, his eyes refusing to meet Patton’s. Patton’s heart seized at Logan’s confession. He was right. He had been moving too fast, without taking into account how Logan would react to such drastic changes so quickly. It was his fault. He should have been more careful. Should have noticed something was wrong sooner. This was all his fault and now Logan was suffering.

“I’m sorry Logan, I’m sorry I put so much pressure on you. But I know those…people who hurt you made you believe that, that you don’t deserve nice things or even the smallest shred of human decency. I don’t want to do that to you. You are so incredible and intelligent and you deserve to be loved Logan. Okay?” Patton said once again reaching out to take Logan’s hands, which he allowed, removing them from the tight grip on his hair, simply holding them in his own.

“Okay…I-I apologise for my…outburst,” Logan mumbled just loud enough for Patton to hear and tightened his grip on Patton’s hands.

“You have nothing to apologise for. This road will be long and difficult but we’ll walk it together,” Patton promised placing a gentle kiss on his forehead before they were interrupted by a sharp knock on the door of the changing room.

“Um…Excuse me, is everything alright in there?” a female voice asked, Patton assumed it was the woman who had been standing by the changing rooms when they first entered. Patton stood and partially opened the door to the changing room, revealing the same young woman he had spoken to previously, an expression of concern painted across her face. 

“Yes, we are alright, thank you,” Patton said with a polite smile which the woman returned and then an idea came to him. He collected the crumpled pile of t-shirts and shirts off of the floor and returned to where the employee was waiting. “I was wondering if I could exchange these for ones a size smaller and with long-sleeves?”.

“Of course, I’ll do that right away for you,” She said taking the items from Patton, disregarding their crumbled state.

“Thank you so much,” Patton replied a beaming smile stretching across his lips.

“It is no problem. I’ll be back in a moment,” She said before disappearing into the clothes racks.

A few minutes later the employee returned with the new clothes and Patton left the changing room to allow Logan to change in private. After a moment of waiting, the changing room door opened and Logan stepped out, dressed in one of the black shirts. It fit him perfectly, it was a couple of sizes below his age group but this was only the beginning.

“Aw kiddo, it looks great. Do you like it?” Patton asked hoping Logan would answer him honestly.

“I do,” Logan responded averting his gaze to his shoes, a soft pink glow beginning to develop on his cheeks.

“I’m glad to hear it, kiddo,” Patton beamed, releasing a squeal of joy. “Come on, put everything back in the basket and I’ll pick up a few more,”. Logan nodded and after he changed back into his own clothes he began to collect the various shirts and pairs of trousers scattered around the changing room, dropping them into the basket, leaving one distinct item behind. “What about the sweater, Logan?”. Patton manoeuvred around Logan, into the changing room and lifted the sweater which been left perfectly folded sitting in the bench.

“It is unnecessary,” Logan stated but Patton saw the way Logan’s anxiety eased somewhat after wearing the sweater and how even now his gaze lingered on item.

“Do you like it?” Patton asked Logan plainly.

“It…It possess a unusual calming affect,” Logan answered after another period of silence.

“Well I’d say that is a pretty good reason to get it,” Patton exclaimed putting it into the basket before Logan could protest and to Patton’s surprise he didn’t. Logan simply smiled, albeit small and almost unnoticeable but a smile nonetheless and slipped silently from the changing room but in that moment Patton couldn’t have been prouder.

 Logan was exhausted. After his admittedly embarrassing outburst, his body felt - speaking figuratively - as heavy as lead. Perhaps this is how Virgil often felt, given his tired disposition. Once they paid for the clothes which Logan still believed was too much both in the quantity and ultimate cost of all of the items together but it appeared Patton couldn’t be reasoned with yet Logan did appreciate his kind words and actions whilst he was in the midst of his panic. They had lunch and Patton asked if Logan would prefer to return to the house or progress onto their final location. Despite his fatigue he agreed to continue on, so not to disappoint Patton any more that he believed he already, regardless of Patton’s claims of the opposite. Following lunch, they continued further into the mall. It was far busier now than it had been that morning, so Logan remained closer to Patton to avoid becoming swept away in the crowd of bodies. Patton seemed to be in a relatively upbeat mood, humming along to the lyric-less muzak playing from the speakers, swinging the shopping bag with each bouncy step, his free hand swayed by his side. And before Logan could comprehend what he was doing, he reached out and took Patton’s hand but once he realised what he had done and attempted remove it Patton had it squeezed within his own and a blinding smile lit up his face. It only took a short while to reach the final location. A opticians.

“I thought we could get your eyes tested because I noticed you tend you squint a lot to see even when wearing your glasses so I think it might be time for a new prescription and we can get you a new pair of glasses as well,” Patton explained. It made sense. Logan’s current spectacles were now far past the point of usefulness, potentially damaging his vision more than not wearing them at all. So new glasses seemed to be a necessity.

They were greeted by an assistant almost immediately and they instructed them to sit in the waiting area for the optometrist, who also arrived in a matter of minutes following which they were led to an examination room where the questioning began. It was relatively difficult to explain why he did not have an official opticians record or why he hadn’t had a check-up for the past six years or why he was wearing glasses which were both broken and a much weaker prescription than he actually required, without disclosing the fact that his biological parents refused to have his eyes tested until they received several notices from his elementary school urging them to do so however, following this they also removed him from formal education. But Patton managed to clarify the situation without revealing too much private information. Logan found the physical eye examination quite straightforward. It was like a test he took in the Orphanage and he was very good at tests. A test like this was simple especially as he knew all of the answers. The optometrist attempted to make small talk throughout the examination, asking about his hobbies and interests but Logan was far too focused on the projected images to provide any detailed answers but thankfully Patton seemed to note his disconnect and quickly entered the conversation. What Logan didn’t enjoy was the copious amount of physical contact. Every time the optometrist’s hand approached his face he had to fight against the near uncontrollable urge to flinch away from the contact, sinking his nails into the flesh of his thighs to maintain any sort of self-control.

After the lengthy and extremely detailed examination, they discovered that Logan’s eyesight had severely deteriorated and he would required a considerably stronger prescription to be able to see properly. It was concluded that a combination of the natural decline of his eyesight over the years and him wearing the incorrect prescription for so long was the ultimate cause for the significant deterioration. The next step was the selection process, where he would be able to choose a new pair of glasses. They were brought back to the main floor by a different assistant, who led them to one of the many displays which filled the main front of the opticians.

“Now, since he is under the age of sixteen, he will be entitled to free glasses,” The woman explained. The fact that the glasses would be without charge was extremely comforting as Logan had already cost Patton a considerable amount today and he would rather not add to that total. “Here, we have our boys glasses for you to choose from. If you need anything at all or have any question just call me over,”.

“Alright, thank you,” Patton said to the woman as she left to greet another customer. “Now Logan, do you see any you like?”.

Logan studied the display. The selection was relatively limited with many of the styles primarily consisting of bright colours and designs depicting characters and symbols he did not recognise detailing the temples, presumably suited towards the vast population of twelve year old boys but Logan knew he was different. Perhaps if he had Patton as a father since birth, would he have turned out differently? Would he have been less robotic? Less aloof? Less…broken. Logan swiftly shook those thoughts from his mind, turning attention back onto the display, particularly towards the bottom of it where the ‘plainer’ spectacles were located. He tried on a couple of pairs and every time Patton would either squeal or compliment him in some over-the-top fashion before Logan found some sort of fault with them and decided against them. Until he selected one pair. It was a simple black with no elaborate pattern or design, a straight rim but slightly curved lenses and when he put them on they fit him almost perfectly.

“I believe these are satisfactory,” Logan said into the mirror before turning towards Patton for his opinion. Who after a moment of silence burst into a fit of giggles and Logan was taken aback, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. Did he really look so bad that Patton would laugh at him. “Might I ask what you are laughing at?”.

“Sorry…I’m sorry kiddo…It-it is just that I think you have chosen the same glasses as mine,” Patton said in between snorts and giggles. Logan glanced up at Patton glasses, they were different from the large circular frames he recalled. They were…exactly the same frames as Logan had selected. He immediately took them off, placing them back onto the display.

“I apologise, I’ll pick another pair,” Logan said.

“No, no, it is alright. It just thought it was funny that is all. If you like them you should get them, then we will be matching,” Patton exclaimed a beaming smile stretching across his lips.

So Logan did. The assistant returned. Logan had his measurements taken and Patton filled out and signed yet more forms and then they were on their way back to the house as it would take a couple of day before Logan’s glasses would be ready to collect. Back in the car, Logan found himself struggling to keep his eyes open which did not escape the notice of Patton.

“You can sleep if you like, I’ll wake you up when we get home,” Patton said softly turning down the volume of the radio and Logan fell instantly to sleep, lulled by the quiet rumbling of the car’s engine and the soft notes of the radio.

Logan awoke abruptly with a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. It was Patton. Oh, they must be back at the house now. He unbuckled himself and exited the car, a little unsteady but Patton quickly stabilised him and led him into the house and up to his room where Logan immediately collapsed onto the bed. Much to the amusement of Patton. He had brought up the shopping bag of clothes they had bought and began to put them away into the empty wardrobe and drawers, which Logan had neglected to fill with the clothes he had brought from the Orphanage, choosing instead to keep them tucked away in the rucksack he had hidden beneath his bed.

“Hey Logan, do you think I could get the clothes out of your bag? I just want to put everything away,” Patton asked. It seemed Logan hadn’t been as secretive with his belongings as he originally believed since Patton seemingly knew he had been purposefully hiding them. Logan nodded, removing the bag from underneath his bed and the clothes from within it, giving them to Patton without an explanation. “Thank you Logan, I’ll let you sleep in a minute but I think we need to talk about something first,”.

Logan silently agreed despite how much he wished to avoid this topic of conversation. Patton presumably already knew much of Logan’s past from speaking to the matrons at the Orphanage, Dr Hastings at the hospital and seeing Logan’s own injuries for himself but despite all that, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Patton any of it himself. Once Patton finished putting the last of the clothing into its correct drawer he joined Logan on the bed.

“I know today was really tough for you but you got through it and I am so proud of you for that,” Patton began placing a gentle a hand on Logan knee. “But I think you and I both know it won’t be the last hard time we’ll face but I promise you that I will never leave you alone ever again. Okay, we will need to talk about what happened today, not right now but sometime soon and if you ever want to talk to me or tell me about anything I’ll be happy to listen. Okay?”.

“Okay…Th-thank you Patton, truly, thank you for everything,” Logan said the strange, indescribable warmth returning to his chest, filling his abdomen with an odd bubbling sensation seemingly intensifying depending on his proximity to Patton. It was new but not unwelcome.

“Get some sleep now, I’ll come get you when dinner is ready,” Patton said pressing a light kiss into Logan’s hair which only strengthened the feeling within his body and with those words and the warmth enveloping his body he drifted peacefully off to sleep.

Patton did as he said and woke Logan once dinner had been prepared and he found that he had a far greater appetite than he did that morning though he still kept to his rules. Roman, Virgil and Declan were also present having returned from school and their grandparents house. They carried much of the conversation, talking about their experiences at school, classes and clubs. While Logan simply listened. He could scarcely remember his own experience at a public school, given that it was six years ago now. Maggie had taught the children at the Orphanage to the best of her ability but there were limits so Logan began his own studies outside of Maggie’s lessons. Due to his own heightened intelligence, he knew information far beyond his years and he was lucky Maggie decided to nourish that talent. She gave him textbooks, would mark pages and pages of his work, providing constructive criticism on every piece. But what now? Would he attend school with Roman and Virgil? If so when?.

Once dinner was finished, Logan was ushered off back to his room after he attempted to assist Patton with the dishes and he found himself kneeling in front of the drawers Patton had previously filled. Searching for one item in particular. Each drawer was neatly organised and each item perfectly folded and the item he was searching was located at the top of one of the drawers. The dark blue jumper detailing a night sky theme and various different constellations that Patton urged him to get. Logan couldn’t explain what drew him to picking up the simple sweater when she was so averse to Patton purchasing him anything. Perhaps it was the colour - navy blue was his favourite colour - or maybe it was depiction of one of Logan favourite subjects or was is the pleasing texture? Whatever drove him to selecting the sweater, when he put it on he felt overcomes by an unexplainable warmth similar to the one which entered his body whenever he was around Patton and the simple piece of fabric seemed to possess some of the same calming qualities Patton did, obviously not the same extent but he never wanted that feeling to leave him. Logan undressed, replacing his simple black shirt with the incredibly soft sweater and sat on the edge of his bed as a air of tranquillity washed over him but just as he was about to grab one of the books and begin reading their was a sharp, short knock at the door.

“Hey…uh…um…It’s me…Virgil. Can I come in?” Virgil asked evidently anxious in anticipation of Logan’s answer.

“Yes, come in,” Logan answered and Virgil entered holding a small computer device, carefully in his arms. “Why did you knock?”.

“Uh…because it’s your room,” Virgil stated as if it were obvious. “And Roman always barges into my room with another stupid nickname, so don’t do that,”.

“Alright, is there anything anything I can assist you with?” Logan asked assuming there was a purpose to Virgil’s visit and it wasn’t a random occurrence.    

“Oh yeah, dad is letting me use his laptop and I was going to look for a present for Roman’s birthday…I was wondering if you wanted to help me look?” Virgil asked fidgeting with the cuff of his hoodie sleeve. Logan recalled Roman mentioning something in regards to his upcoming birthday. He had almost forgotten how ‘normal’ birthdays were celebrated, since he had never had one throughout his time living with his parents and living at the orphanage.

“Okay,” Logan responded and Virgil grinned.

“Cool, budge up,” Virgil said as he walked over to where Logan was sat. Logan moved over to accommodate the additional person. Virgil took the spot Logan had offered, leaning against the wall with the laptop balanced on his lap, Logan shifted to sit beside him. “I thought since dad hasn’t set up your allowance yet, we’ll just say whatever I get is from the three of us. Me, you and Dee,”.

“Allowance?” Logan inquired.

“Oh…you know…money your parents give you every month,” Virgil explained as he began to type something into the computer.

“Oh,” Logan said Patton was going to give him more money, even after everything he had already spent on clothes and furnishings for his room. A ball of anxiety began to grow within the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah…I don’t like it either but dad will just do it anyway, I don’t normally spend any unless it is for birthdays,” Virgil said growing quieter as he spoke until he shook his head, refocusing his attention on the screen. “I want to get him something good,”.

“I thought you disliked Roman yet you are here asking for assistance with gift ideas. Why?” Logan questioned, Virgil and Roman’s relationship was a strange concept to him, they appeared to resent each other, goading one another with nicknames but at times respected, cared for and protected each other. It was a rather confusing relationship.

“Nah…we get on most of the time, making fun of each other is kind of how we bond. I don’t know…we don’t hate each other, he helps me a lot so I want to get him something he will like…so yeah,” Virgil explained continuing to type and scroll on the computer.

“That is understandable, what did you want to get him as a gift?” Logan asked.

“I think dad is getting him an easel so I was thinking about some art stuff, you know,” Virgil answered Logan knew Roman enjoyed art and was a competent artist, so purchasing supplies which would assist in pursuing that passion made logical sense. “Like a sketchbook, paints and stuff like that,”.

“I believe that is a good idea, a gift associated with his passion would surely be appreciated,” Logan said. Virgil nodded and brought up a specific website of various art materials and began to scroll through the assortment of products displayed on the website.

After a period of time of scrolling through the items, discussing potential options for suitable gifts and what Roman would think of each specific item either himself or Virgil pointed out. They found a few particular gifts that Logan and Virgil believed Roman would appreciate; a large, red leather-bound sketchbook, a watercolour palette which contained a variety of vibrant colours and a selection of stickers that according to Virgil all made some sort of witticism in regards to the artistic field.

“And we’re done, thanks L,” Virgil said closing the laptop and leaping up from his sitting position on Logan’s bed, a series of pops are clicks were emitted from his spine as he stretched. Logan once again noted the use of ‘L’ in reference to himself.

“There is no need for your thanks, this was an enjoyable experience, “ Logan responded with a polite smile. He had initially worried that neither Roman or Virgil wished to associate with him, following his intrusion into their family and lives but that seemed not to be the case, at least in regards to Virgil so far.

“Alright,”Virgil said with a smirk. “Uh…well, I’ll see you later…Um…your jumper is cool by the way,” Virgil spoke the last section of his statement so quickly, Logan nearly missed what he said entirely but before Logan’s brain could compute Virgil had disappeared into the corridor, presumably to return to his own room.

Now alone, Virgil’s final words rang throughout his mind. He glanced downwards at his hands which were nearly entirely concealed by the soft blue material and he smiled. It may not be what Logan considered to be an necessity but Patton was right, like his cardigan this simple piece of fabric made Logan happy. That was its purpose. To bring joy.

Perhaps the unnecessary does have a purpose after all.  

Notes: Where I live glasses are free if you are under a certain age and I don’t know how it works in America so that is my reasoning.

Taglist: @i-do-not-dislike-fudge @poems-art-darkness-n-more @skylark-cain @amber1594 @darkrainbow333 @falseh0od @lovingcreatorstrawberry @gr3ml1n-loser @callboxkat @tacochippy @love-angel-03 @comicsimpson @harrypotternerdprincess @cobythinks @whatschooldoesntteachyou @fandomkitty8 @coloursintheblur @read-write-inspire-repeat @clinicalawesomeness @janus-sanders-deserves-better @scared-ghosthunter @silverstarlinedart @winterrose42 @dumbgayemo @imalwaysthatoneperson @glitchybina

If you would like to be added to the taglist or have a question or request for me about the series please do not hesitate to ask.

[youllgocrystalcrazy]

   November 14th? Gosh what time does to a person sometimes. It hadn’t even fully registered in the genius’ mind that it was already drawing close to the years end. Halloween had come and gone, but he’d hardly batted an eye at it, even with it’s vampiric perks. Plus, it didn’t help that he’d spent the last twenty-some-odd years in a distant crack in time to the past. The sweltering heat. The chasm he was forced to reside in... All alone. With N. Tropy and Uka Uka... Of course his internal clock was off!! It’s only tonight that it fully strikes him what day it is. What month it is... It’s his birthday. Hair sagging at the idea of it, Cortex sighs, resuming his business. Nothing good EVER came from his birthday. Oh, the notion of just having ONE year, just ONE where he could celebrate it while on top!! Or in the lap of luxury! With the world at his disposal or just a simple island vacation, either or would be lovely... But why celebrate the day where everything started to go wrong in his life? He’d been trying to preoccupy himself with organizing and tidying his room; Try to make heads or tails of all the stuff his alternate had amassed during his stay in this city. Sitting bow-legged on the floor while rummaging through various boxes in his closet, expression flat.

   Peeking inside the closet, the most noteworthy thing he can see are those very same items he was met with on his arrival. Teddy Bears. The Ushanka. The scarf. Not to mention some of the other brick-a-brack. The most damning thing though... The photo of the golden knight. It lies face down on his desk, tossed aside haphazardly in a desperate attempt to stay out of sight. Embarrassing. It’s a little too embarrassing to look at; head down and eyes fixated on the box before him, Cortex desperately tries to ignore the photo. All it did was force a heat to rise to his cheeks, recollecting that humiliating and pathetic display. A ‘heartfelt’ reunion? Greetings and being toyed with? Hugs and... Kisses? The latter generates a chill to run throughout his body. Cortex hasn’t the foggiest idea of the last instance anyone has given that level of affection, and he’d rather not be reminded of it. Such a breach in personal space. “Better now, Doctor Grumpy-wears~?” He paraphrases. “I’d rather bide my time waiting to return to the End of the Universe than be met with such treatment again... Really!! DO I LOOK the sort to rub shoulders with someone like... THAT?! A King? ...Knight? King Knight?! Ah, what did I do to get myself into this situation?! That lout!!” He crosses his arms, snorting at his alternate’s endeavors. He wants to curse his own name so terribly, but what good would that do? At least he’s found SOME Things of use his alternate had prior in the box before him.

   Holding up the wires in his gloves hands tenderly, Cortex analyzes what it is. A Surveillance system; One used for the confines of their home. Ah, to spy on everyone. Maybe he’ll set this up when Crash isn’t home. Hair drooping again, the genius scoffs. He’s never going to get used to that is he? Living with Crash Bandicoot. Why? Whatever force placed him here must have thought it a funny little joke to pull. He’s hardly laughing. Setting the cords aside, he continues to root around in the box again. A Pharaoh Costume? Really? He owned something like this?! The Headdress even has an ‘N’ Embroidered onto it!! “...Fine. At least my other self seemed to have impeccable taste in costumes.” Bringing the linen to his face, he gives it a light whiff. “Smells sweet. Halloween costume, no doubt. ...I didn’t go to a party in this, did I?” Setting that aside now, hands return to poke around in the container. This time, an ugly holiday sweater is removed, and honestly what it reads makes Cortex’s face twist in confusion. “‘I survived Empatheorem.’ ...What?” The hell’s ‘Empatheorem’? Well, whatever that meant, he balls up the sweater and tosses over his shoulder with reckless abandon. 

   Another box he begins to hunt through. “OW!!” Having something jab his finger, pinch it, results in him sucking on his finger comically. What the hell? Oh, It’s a tool box. He couldn’t see the wrenches and screwdrivers beneath the scrapped sheets of blueprint paper. Plucking one of the sheets from the pile however, Neo skims over it. Plans for a ‘Memoryraser’, as it’s called. Something to, well, wipe the memories of anyone it’s used on!! Looks to have been scrapped however. Clicking his tongue, he sets the paper back down and sighs. “Nothing of note yet... It seems. That Memoryaser idea sounded quite scintillating however. Perhaps if I revise it?” 

   One last box. Hopes are rather low, for answers, but maybe something? Anything at all? The Tupper clicks, and what he sees inside is- “A laptop. Hm. A little outdated too, if you ask me. Ah, it’s better than nothing... Let’s have ourselves a little looky-loo~” Charge cord plugged into the wall, Cortex sits himself at the desk, opening the device up. 

   ...He sees it out of his peripheral vision. A small groan, flushed cheeks, and eyes darting to the nearest wall, a gloved hand paws at the desk until it makes contact with the photo, quickly stowing it away where he won’t see it again for a bit. Beneath the desk. Of course! Ideal! Deep breaths and eyes focus on the screen again. “Now... If I know Me. And I AM Me, Hmhmh~ The password is...” A twenty-two letter word. Atomic number 119. Of course. It’s no surprise he uses that at his password. A bit of loading and... He’s in! “HAH!! Take that!! ...Me! ...” No one heard that, right? It’d be embarrassing if anyone, especially Crash, heard that. And should he really be trying to rub it in his own face that he had the password to his own laptop? Tossing his hands in the air nonchalantly, fingers hastily type away at the keys. Oh, there’s already quite the plethora of stuff in here to discover!!! Files on the citizens of Spirale! Well... a select few of them, but did their information shine!! Especially the information on Rosa. 

   ...This island wasn’t some sort of strange place overruled by some higher force?! But just a faction of individuals?! Some group calling themselves ‘The Island Stars’?! A new wave of anger washes over him. He was pulled here?! For what reason?! As part of an experiment?! A Game?! What were they doing this for?! To make fools or everyone?! To make a fool of him?! He wants to lash out and curse them, in his usual Cortex Fashion, but there’s still more information to uncover. 

   ...He- ...He had plans to take over this place. Well, it’s not unexpected, but it’s still surprising how much information on this strange city he’d gathered in his short amount of time!! Dating back to mid 2019 even!! What blows him away the most is his plans on The Cortex Vortex Redux. The N.E.O. How he planned to use a workshop called ‘Facet Five’ to his own machinations. Rosa and why she played such a significant part in it all!! Amazing!! Simply amazing!! Of course this was Dr. Neo Cortex’s own thought process being laid bare before him. Of COURSE He thought it was Perfect!! “My, my, and here I was beginning to think something was terribly wrong with my other self!! Still... Who is this ‘Rosa’? The photo of her is so blurred I can hardly make a thing out. I only have description to go on... An Underground shark dragon woman?” Well, one good thing about this city was that he wouldn’t need to make a brand new Evolve-o-ray. All the strange folk here made the need for such a devastating device pointless!! Why not just get right to the brainwashing after all?!

   One thing was clear. That little well deserved vacation could wait. Cortex, now filled with a new desire for revenge, a new ambition, and a new hope to turn everything in his favor, was grinning maliciously from ear to ear. Yes. It might take some time, more studying, and an arduous process, but he’d make this city his... It was like a reverse Rift Generator after all!! Bringing everything to him and isolating them from where they belonged. Underneath his rule... YES!!! IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER!!! ...Oh. But, Crash. And N. Tropy...

   Quickly peering out his bedroom doorway, he scans the house. No sign of anyone or anything. Still, to be safe, he stows the laptop away in the closet again, sandwiched between some of the boxes of his belongings. The last thing he needs is them snooping and finding out what he’s planning. Crash would no doubt try to stop him before he could even try.... And Tropy might try and steal his plans. No. Even improve them!! Hypocrite that he is, between the pair of them, Cortex is more known for hijacking anyone’s plans... Still, with these worries bouncing around in his skull, that smile remains on his face. The laughter is welling up inside him... But not here. He can’t!! He has to hold back... at least a little bit.

   So he laughs. And laughs, and laughs and laughs. Chuckling devilishly to himself about his new discovery. Soft, low, villainous laughter can be heard from within... Looks like this birthday went well for him for once... 

Happy Birthday, Dr. Cortex. Don’t get too Cocky, though!!

[chupitulpa]

It's me again, permaswitch guy.

TW: depression, suicide

The same anon from the last post asked:

Hey, thanks for your reply and for uploading it so fast. I come here to answer your reply and add a little something after.

First of all thank you for your acceptance and kindness, as a tulpamancer but also as a depressed person. Come to think of it it is ridiculous how long we took to reach this point, over 6 times longer than most, but then it’s logic too because of how randomly I forced over time. To lazy or extremely lazy hosts, there is hope. I don’t encourage laziness on anyone of course, but you can still achieve progress if you give it enough time. This may sound counterproductive, but trying so badly can cause a lot of stress and doubts, while giving your brain time to accomodate to a new mindset might be helpful. Ideally hosts should find a balance between forcing and letting the mindset in.

Next let me talk about your proposed alternative solutions. I find it strange that you encourage me to step further into my comfort zone. It’s probably because I haven’t told you anything, but this is already what I’m doing as much as I can and I keep being told this is only making things worse because I have to step out of it to make changes and go anywhere in my life. However in contrast, you think more like me. I’m so much going into my comfort zone that I’m avoiding talking to anyone or leaving home ever. May expand on it later. About groups to fit in: I don’t work well on 1-to-1, leave alone on groups. That’s why I prefer being away of tulpa Discord servers. I always go unnoticed and/or misunderstood. Looking for friends or relationship outside of our system is something I’ve finally given up on, after continuous failures. May expand on it later. Lastly I’ve been to therapists for almost all my life and while this sounds like nonsense, they and medications have never proven to help me personally. I find a simple talk with my tulpa to be much better than years of medication and therapists.

Before I go with the last issue I’d like to say that unlike many would think I have morals too, so yeah, it’s probably a better idea for us to switch than for me to create another tulpa yet for the sake of switching.

Now, I’ve had this issue going on for my entire life and specially since 2020. This is not strictly related to tulpamancy but I think many tulpas will be able to relate to this, unlike most hosts. I, however, am host, and am dealing with this.

Many people like to think of themselves as something else than humans or even feel as if they were also something else. Most notably the furry community, which I’ve been interacting with for years, is full of people who besides humans would like to be a fursona, or even feel more as if they were their fursona than a human. I, however, take this to the next level. I have been both unvoluntarily and voluntarily distancing myself from the concept “human”. It is not something positive to me being one. As such I’ve been suffering of “species dysphoria”, or am trans-species. I bet many many tulpas who have fronted have had this issue if they weren’t made after humans to begin with. However I cannot say the same for hosts. Indeed I’m the only host I know so far who thinks they aren’t human and would rather be some yellow dragon drawn by a furry artist. This issue is easily fixed with a switch. Not saying I’m switching because of this, but it is something nice knowing that I can stop being trapped in a human body and just be myself. Believe me, species dysphoria can get to the same points or even worse than gender dysphoria. Fortunately I never had the latter. So maybe now you understand why I am isolating myself too.

Looking back at my old asks here now I know much more about tulpas than I used to back then. Yeah I’m happy we made progress too, but I wish things would have been different. I wish I could be more consistent and this wouldn’t have took or take nearly as long. Not only for seeing it as a chore, but also because we run out of time to survive. Some pressure to live on. Thanks to my tulpa I’m more hopeful and relaxed, and we’re trying our best to delay another suicide attempt for as long as we can. But we can’t do that forever so ultimately it’ll happen. Thanks to him I also think about it twice since now it’s two of us.

Say, may I ask if you’re religious? What do people tend to think on tulpa afterlife? It’s not a topic you hear much about in the community.

Oh I almost forgot. I want to get rid of this life, the human life, 100%. This means after switch I don’t care what happens on this side. Giving the fronter full permission to do as wanted, as opposed to other cases where the original host wanted to leave but also still cared about their human body’s life, bringing unnecessary worry and ultimately a regret of permanent switch. I think this is something important. I always think of this life as a burden that was put on me, and have been despising it since 2008. As such, I see my parents in the same eyes as you would see a tulpamancer who creates a tulpa solely to have them switch. Totally unacceptable behaviours. Of course, I understand a child can never choose to be born or not, while a tulpa can choose whether to switch or not. But my parents could have refrained from having a son in the first place, specially if they were going to be neglectful parents. This world is one unjust place.

My reply:

Don't worry about how long it took to get there. Some people barely force at all and have a talking tulpa in a day or two. Others work at it for years before hearing a peep. Laziness happens too and definitely contributes. Stress, doubts, laziness and working too hard at it can all produce slower progress. And depression contributes to all of the above as well.

As a depressed and socially awkward person, I have to say I can relate to the urge not to go out or talk to people. The current situation in 2020 has not helped either. Like you, I didn't get a whole lot out of meds or talk therapy. Tulpa stuff does help a great deal, but I keep falling off it and back into the awful depression.

I do think that full isolation isn't healthy. However, as far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to apply as much to tulpas if the host/whoever is fronting interacts with people some. Whether the tulpas are fully active and thinking or just snoozing in the background, they seem to benefit from the interaction the same way the host/fronter does. Or at least that's our experience. I don't know whether it works like that because they're in the background experiencing it to some degree, or if it affects something that's shared between all of us; my tulpas seem to think it's a combination of the two.

If the tulpa you already made is able and willing to try switching, give it a shot. I don't know how many other tulpa systems this applies to, but I think there's a special bond between the original host and their first tulpa: You discovered all the stuff you know about tulpamancy together, encountered and overcame the obstacles together, and discovered a lot about your minds together. If he's unable, doesn't want to, or tries it and decides it's not for him, you could (together!) try making another. But be sure to value them as a person and friend first and foremost, and emphasize that the switching thing is entirely optional.

I actually know more than one person who, for one reason or another, wishes that they would wake up in a world where they're a dragon, pony, canine, etc. The species dysphoria is certainly tied in with depression one way or another though I'm not sure which starts first. I can see why you won't care to interact with humans if you don't identify with or relate to them.

I am not religious. If there is an afterlife though, I would certainly want to be together with my tulpas in it. I haven't seen a lot of discussion on it, particularly since I've really just been involved with Tulpa.info which takes a secular, scientific viewpoint.

I'm curious. What would you like to do after switching? Be basically like a tulpa, doing your own thing in your wonderland and interacting with the new fronter when he has time?

Since you mention suicide, I feel obligated to mention the crisis text line. Text HOME to 741741 (US), 85258 (UK) or 686868 (Canada) to start a chat with an understanding person who can help you through your moment of crisis. I know people who have used it and they had positive experiences. Or there's 1-800-273-8255 (US) if you'd rather talk. Or a list of similar services in more countries than I can count.

[rwbyremnants]

Sorry for that sort of ominous down-note. It's where the story went!

And thanks to everybody who's hung in there and kept reading. I wish I still had other active members but basically it's just me still in this fandom. Pretty soon I'll have some brand new fics for you - if I get them finished and polished up sooner rather than later. Hope you're all staying safe and having a good 2021 so far!

=Chapter 31

Sleep did not come easily to Weiss that night. Already, she had been having trouble with that lately, but the impromptu inter-gang meeting robbed her of a few precious hours. Tossing and turning did even less good than usual, so many things were swirling around in her mind.

Her father was evil. So evil that he didn’t care if he burned down a building with dozens of women in it, didn’t care if he made a hapless girl commit a crime without any control of her actions. A man was dead. Didn’t he have any remorse whatsoever? The answer was “no” - and she knew why. His religious superiority complex wouldn’t let him see gangsters and thieves as human; they were beasts, demons that he had to cast out and they would deserve it when he did. The more time went on, the more sure she was that trying to reason with him was an exercise in futility.

Then there was Neo. Maybe Salem saw things as simple and black-and-white, but she somehow couldn’t bring herself to look down on either her or Emerald; they weren’t truly to blame. The man on the slab and her father, and whoever was their go-between, were the true culprits. How could anyone be so careless with human life?

Even harder to think about were people like her mother, and Pyrrha, and Ruby… innocent bystanders affected by these ugly turf wars. It was as if there were three gangs now, and one of them was completely made up of Jacques Schnee and anyone on his secret payroll. Maybe she should spend a little more time focusing on helping her non-Dragon friends; after all, they were precious to her and deserved happiness.

The next morning came far too early. The only silver lining was her mother’s smiling face, encouraging her to wake up. Maybe she was worrying too much; even though she had nightmares every night about being stabbed, everything was getting better now. And how much worse could it get than a near-death experience?

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

“So I was wondering about something,” Penny said out of nowhere at lunch that day.

“Yeah?” Ruby piped up before shoving half of her sandwich in her mouth. Weiss goggled at the sheer ability she had to devour everything in sight. Where did she put it all?

“Would you like to go to the dance with me?”

The entire table went silent. By now, that table was the Dragons table; it was looking a bit empty without Cinder or Emerald there, so Ruby, Penny, and Pyrrha were welcomed as temporary fill-ins — given that Cinder was probably the only one of them who would bother to protest. Blake and Coco were still very slightly skeptical, but also too unconcerned to bother trying to run them off.

“U-uhhm… the dance? What dance?”

“Nice try, sis,” Yang muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

“You know! Homecoming! We can paint our nails, and do our hair up, and have a great time! Doesn't that sound swell?”

Ruby looked highly uncomfortable, glancing at Weiss and Pyrrha, the girls besides her sister she felt closest to. Other than Penny, who was the source of her discomfort at that exact second.

“Go on,” Coco laughed. “Unless you have some secret fella you're hoping will ask you?”

“Nope! No fellas, I promise! But I… isn't it going to be against school rules? Two girls showing up together? People will talk! So while that, um, that really does sound swell, I don't know if it's such a good…”

Penny looked positively dejected. Her eyes swivelled down to her tray as she moved the food around with her fork. “Oh. Well, that's all right. It was just an idea.”

“Wait! Umm…” The poor girl looked around at her friends, seeking some sort of solution to this problem, but most of them were content to smirk in slight bemusement. “We could try it? Like, there's enough of us, I g-guess…”

Weiss decided to bail her out. “I, for one, will most certainly be attending with Yang. And I am pretty sure Coco and Velvet will also be going. Isn't that right?”

“Well… normally we would skip it, but sure,” Coco said easily as she cracked open her milk carton. “That way, I can show off my best girl.”

“How many other girls do you have?” When she only tilted her sunglasses down to waggle her eyebrows at the cheerleader, Weiss sighed, “I withdraw the question.”

The others were still laughing at that when their table was approached by one of the teachers. She certainly didn't seem pleased that she had to, but had a duty to perform.

“Miss Schnee.”

“Yes, Miss Goodwitch?”

“Your presence is requested in Mr. Ozpin’s office.” She scarcely shot a disapproving look toward the other girls before returning her gaze to Weiss.

“Oh. Now? I haven't finished my-”

“I'm afraid it can't wait. You may as well collect your things; you likely won't be back for the remainder of the school day.”

The feeling of dread that had begun to rise in her enjoyed a drastic increase. She glanced around at her other friends, hoping they could offer some help, but all of them except for Yang and Pyrrha were suddenly quite interested in their lunch trays.

“I'll… see you later, then,” she began in a meek voice as she stood, gathering her books.

Once they were in the hallway, Miss Goodwitch spoke up again. “Thought I recommended against you continuing to associate yourself with those… ruffians.”

“They really aren't as bad as you believe, ma’am. Honestly! And… well, I think Pyrrha and I are a good influence. As you can see, we're all getting along just f-”

“This isn't about them,” she cut her off in a clipped voice. That was simply her normal manner of speaking; Weiss didn't take it personally. “The principal will explain everything.”

Weiss had been expecting to have to wait outside his office for some time, since that seemed to be the standard procedure. Not that she knew from personal experience. However, Miss Goodwitch escorted her directly past the other students waiting on the benches and into the office itself.

“Ahhh, Miss Schnee,” the gray-haired man said immediately, a genial smile on his face. He looked a bit too young to have so much gray, but still carried himself with the poise and dignity expected from an older gentleman who was in charge of an entire school. “We've been anxious for you to arrive.”

Who the ‘we’ was turned out to be something of a surprise to the girl. “Mother?”

Willow definitely looked like she had had better days. Though her overall health had improved quite a bit over the past weeks, she was currently shaking like a leaf, clutching the straps of her taupe purse as if it were the edges of a life raft in shark-infested waters.

“Hello, Weiss. We… have an appointment this afternoon.”

“Allow me to express my profound apologies,” the principal told her, smile fading to a serious yet friendly expression. “Had we been aware of your situation at home… well, perhaps we would have encouraged you to pare down your extracurriculars. Or intervened in some way.”

Weiss held up a hand to forestall any more talk before she understood what the subject was. “Wait, wait… what's going on? Mother, you told the principal about Father?”

“I had to. You see… I'm afraid you and I will have to go and visit the courthouse today.”

“What?!”

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

The judge was a crotchety old man with a receding hairline and a permanent scowl etched into his wrinkled features. The way he looked at Weiss and her mother the minute they entered his courtroom smacked of mistrust and derision. He had clearly already made up his mind how he was going to rule before striking the gavel a single time upon his bench.

“Insufficient evidence” was the official reason handed down for the dismissal of the charges leveled against Jacques Schnee. No matter how much time they wasted bantering back and forth, pointing to Weiss's scar on her cheek or corroborating stories, the judge sat with his head propped up by one arm, bored as if by a particularly dull radio program. He expressed similar disinterest in the counterarguments of their ties to the Dragons - which had terrified Weiss at first, but didn't seem to matter to anyone other than her and her father. The proceedings droned on and on into the late afternoon, until a completely arbitrary point at which the judge announced that he would retreat into his chambers to deliberate.

“I don't know,” Willow whispered in a quiet voice as they waited. Their state-appointed lawyer, a young man with mousy brown hair who looked like he ought to still be apprenticing rather than representing clients yet, had been largely no use and had no reassurances for them now. “Maybe… we'll still win after all.”

“Do you really think so, Mother? Father seems to have that judge completely wrapped around his little finger! It's as if nothing we said made its way past his ears and into his brain! Why even bother having a trial at all if it was going to go like this?”

“To keep up appearances.”

They both whirled to see Kali approaching, clothed in a dress much more conservative than typically graced her figure. Willow rushed forward and clasped hands with her, grateful to see a friendly face. “Kali, dear!”

“I came as soon as I heard. Blake phoned when you never came back from lunch, and I did some asking around.” Then she turned to rest a hand on Weiss's shoulder. “How are you holding up? Both of you.”

Weary to her core, Weiss told her, “Been better. I don't think we stand much of a chance… but I guess we'll know soon, won't we?”

Very soon. Not more than a handful of breaths after that, the bailiff came back out and waved for the waiting parties to return for the verdict. Kali bade them luck and let them wing off toward the courtroom.

Jacques looked slightly more haggard than when last Weiss saw him, but still not quite so wrung-out as one might expect him to after a stint in the local jail. His grey hair and mustache were much the same, cheeks and chin impeccably shaved. But there was a cold emptiness in his eyes that stretched far beyond what it had been when last they talked. She found herself recoiling from the sight, unsettled by the intensity. Her mother had looked at him so rarely during the civil trial that one might almost wonder if she failed to notice his presence. The complete lack of passion with which he spoke to both the judge and his family sounded like a completely different man than she remembered helping to raise her and her two siblings.

“Alright,” the judge sighed with a boredom that somehow outstripped the levels from before. “This court has reached its verdict.”

Both Schnee women held their breath. Things didn't look good, but sometimes people could surprise you. Maybe the judge always looked like that. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe…

“On the count of spousal assault, we find the defendant, Jacques Schnee… not guilty.” Even as an exasperated noise sounded from the rear of the courtroom, where Weiss was sure Kali had seated herself, the man went on, “On the count of child abuse, the court also finds him not guilty. As to the countersuit of assault leveled at Willow Schnee, the court rules that groundless. All charges against all parties are hereby dismissed.”

An instant later, Weiss shot to her feet and screeched, “You can't do this! He was going to kill us! And now he's going to do it, anyway!”

Her father chuckled as the bailiff approached to unlock his handcuffs, and the sound was sickening and awful. “Dear daughter, will have to have a talk about that mouth of yours once we get home. Perhaps I'll send you to bed without supper.”

Even while both Weiss and her mother opened their mouths to protest, the judge banged his gavel on the bench. “Order, order! Enough! You women can’t ever accept your place, can you?” Even while Weiss was feeling her eyebrows hiking upward into her hairline, he went on, “All families fight. Every time you get a little testy, that’s no call to haul us all in here for nothing. Go home and get used to each other again. This court is adjourned.”

Disbelief flooded through her veins. He actually won. In the face of irrefutable police evidence, he won the court case and was freed…

Except there hadn’t been any evidence. The officers testified as to the state they found the man, but somehow, any and all records of Weiss and her mother’s injuries had vanished. The entire thing had been a mockery, a circus meant to appease the legal procedures but still manipulate things to her father’s advantage.

“Hello, family,” Jacques said with a wide smile as he approached the both of them. A chill ran down Weiss’s spine but she held her ground; she knew that with so many policemen around - and some of them likely in his pocket - it would be suicide to do anything else. “I’ve missed you.”

“Husband,” Willow whispered. Weiss could hear the terror in every syllable.

“You made a little mistake, didn’t you? Ah, well. We all make mistakes. Now… let’s go home, shall we?”

As they turned toward the door, Kali moved to block their exit. The fear already in Weiss’s throat increased by a thousandfold - this could only go horribly.

“Excuse me,” her father bade her in a smooth tone.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Kali said with a curtsy. “Kali Belladonna.”

“Charmed. And why should I care?”

“That isn’t my place to say. But you should.” She stared at him evenly. Weiss glanced at her mother to see if she would introduce them further, or to remark on the situation… but she didn’t. And Kali didn’t glance at the other women at all.

“Mmm.” He gestured toward the doors, and after a moment, she bowed her head slightly with a polite smile and let him pass. “Thank you.”

“Oh… you shouldn’t do that at all.”

By the time her father turned to look at Kali again, she was making her way into a neighboring hallway. Weiss had the strongest feeling that she had engineered that entire exchange purely to unsettle the man, but without her around to ask, she had no way of knowing.

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

The ride home was extremely tense. A few times, Jacques attempted to engage in small talk, and his wife would give one-word answers that never lent themselves to further discourse. Weiss stubbornly refused to say even that much. As far as she was concerned, this was even worse than having to pack into a hot, sweaty bus with the other cheerleaders to attend the away games.

“Now then,” he finally sighed as they pulled into the drive. “Things are going to be a bit different around here.”

“In what way?” his wife asked calmly.

“For starters, I insist I be treated with a little respect. The both of you seem to have forgotten who is the patriarch of this family - who is the breadwinner. As such, I believe that entitles me to a certain amount of deference. I expect my orders to be carried out, not argued with or refused.”

“Hmm.” That was it: just “hmm”. Weiss knew that her mother was disagreeing without openly stating as much.

Her father knew it, too. “Willow, this is not the time to be stubborn. Unless you need me to remind you of the judge’s words to us of less than an hour ago?”

“No, Jacques. I don’t.”

“Good. Glad that’s settled. Furthermore… Weiss, you will stop associating yourself with those nasty women immediately.” No response. “They are a criminal element, whether or not you wish to acknowledge that. It won’t do to have a Schnee connected to such matters.”

“Really?” Weiss piped up. “Doesn’t seem to stop you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Father, let’s not play games,” she went on in a falsely sweet voice that even turned her own stomach - not that it wasn’t turning all on its own. “You paid to have a man, pay a woman, to drug another woman, to stab me. Whom exactly is associating themselves with the criminal element?”

His already-chilled gaze dropped a few more degrees as they locked eyes in the rearview mirror. “Careful, young lady. Remember what sort of punishment you’re earning yourself.”

“Oh, you won’t be punishing me like that ever again. Ever. I may be your daughter, but I am no longer a child. And neither is your wife. Keep your meathooks to yourself!”

“I am the head of this family. If you girls can’t fall in line with the way things ought to be, the way things must be to ensure we all enjoy a respectable and prosperous future, then certain… corrections are in order, regrettable as they are.”

The both of them were still glaring at each other half a minute later when Weiss’s mother spoke up, “I’m not a girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not.” Blotchy red patches were flaring up in the cheek Weiss could see from her position in the back seat when she turned to glare daggers at the man. “I am not a child, Jacques.”

“I never said you were. But if you insist on behaving like one, you will be treated like one.”

“No, I will not. I won’t be… bent over your knee like a baby! That is beneath a w-woman of my age, and I am sorry if you find that frustrating, but… but I just can’t. Not anymore.”

He bared his teeth. “That tears it. You will be punished the moment we get inside the house. Both of you. And let’s not entertain any more ideas of you breaking vases over my head; I’ve had a word with the police department. Any further incidents such as those will be handled very differently. You would be the one behind bars, not I. So you will prostrate yourself before me and take your punishment for such insolence!”

“Ah,” she said as calmly as she could. “Then in that case, I won’t be going inside the house.”

Again, he was forced to ask, “Excuse me?”

“Weiss, we’re leaving. Come along.”

“Of course, Mother,” she said sweetly. She was tempted to repeat a rude gesture she had once seen in her father’s general direction, but decided that a poisonous smile worked just as well.

They both could easily guess that he wouldn’t let it go so easily. The women had scarcely reached the end of the drive when he boiled out of the car and stomped toward them, incensed. “You get back here this instant! I will not be ignored, and you will not destroy this family over some… some petty squabble!”

“Jacques… you’ve already destroyed this family.”

“Get back in that house now, Willow, and all will be forgiven,” he attempted, changing tactics. His anger still pulsed inside every word, but he was attempting to mask it with ice. “Your last chance for amnesty. The judge instructed us to start fresh, and we’d best attempt it now.”

“I don’t believe you. And,” she added when he opened his mouth to speak once more, “I have a promise to uphold. A promise I made myself.”

“Oh? And what promise might that be?”

Her arm draped over Weiss’s shoulder, drawing her close to her side. “That I would never fail to protect my daughter from you again. You do not see women as people. Whitley may choose for himself if he wishes to stay with you, or come with us; we’ll ring him at the school. But for now, I refuse to step foot inside the same house as you. I… may have been blind and deaf and dumb before, but that was cowardice, and my parenting was… I was inadequate. You took advantage of that, and kept me under your thumb. No more.”

“What?” He laughed, arms spread wide as he tried to work his way through his wife’s words one at a time. “I’m baffled. You’re talking utter nonsense. What advantage have I taken? Oh, perhaps what you mean is that I did my best not to allow your weakness to ruin my attempts at grooming our daughter to be a responsible citizen! That I have tried my best, against your combined efforts and inaction, to keep her from turning into a delinquent!”

“Think what you will. But any man who arranges to burn down a building, whether or not his own daughter is there… no. We won’t be living under the same roof for a moment - a second longer. Goodbye, Jacques.”

As they walked away, he shouted at their backs, “HAH! Where will you go, then? Nowhere! Imagine, my pampered little princesses living on the streets, hand-to-mouth! Absurd! You’ll be back, and then you’ll suffer the consequences of your… your betrayal! This house belongs to be, it's in my name, and you are at my mercy! Whether you like it or not!”

“Don’t look back,” her mother whispered in a trembling voice, trying to stay steady in her high-heeled pumps. “Keep walking.”

“Where are we going?” Weiss asked softly.

“To see if your friend is home. If she is, she can take us somewhere safe.”

A little flutter of fear welled up in her stomach. “What if Pyrrha’s still at practice?”

“Then… we’ll keep walking," she answered in a voice so close to tears that Weiss clutched her hand even tighter. "I don’t care where we end up, but it won’t be in his house. Never again.”

[ask-de-writer]

KURIN’S FOLLY : World of Sea : Part 4 of 15

KURIN’S FOLLY

Part 4

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

23,699 words

© 2020 by Glen Ten-Eyck

writing begun  2006

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  Part 1 is here

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Seriously Kurin replied, “I have one hundred and fifty seven complaints of violation behavior that were serious enough to be written on parchment and given to me.”

“I would expect no less from the crew of the Grandalor,” sneered Master Juris.

Kurin looked at him with a disturbing compassion and said, “Not one is from a Grandalor crewman.  Twenty two were given to me by Captain Sarfin, who relayed them to me in his capacity as head of the Captain’s Council. Fourteen were given to me by Master Addison the Secretary of the Fleet Craft Council and the balance came from individual booth keepers and the Pursers of all twenty eight ships that you spent time on during the Gathering.”

She cocked her head and regarded him carefully for a moment.  “All of these people want to see how this Wergeld thing will work out in our fleet.  They are thinking of adopting it as an alternate to law courts.  The only thing that kept me from filing a slander case against you was that it would have destroyed the Wergeld and a ship that I am very fond of.”

“Then why did you leave us, if you are so fond of us?” Master Juris asked in genuine puzzlement, finally reaching towards one of the cores of his hurt feelings and looking for an answer.

Kurin came near to tears remembering the incident.  There were times that having a Dragon’s Memory was a curse.  “I had no choice.  Captain Sarfin was writing your execution order for threatening an officer of the court.  By leaving, I changed his tack and distracted him long enough to cover you in the Wergeld.

“I have been around you long enough to know that you were just being mean because I’d made you feel foolish about some of your testimony.  You still run the best boat shop in the fleet and I hoped that you’d come about and be my friend again.  Instead, you seem to be dealing with me with the same kind of life long hate that you turned against Silor.”

“Craft Council members complained of me?  Fellow Masters?” Juris said plaintively.

“I brought the entire lot with me,” Kurin said, shaking her head. “Just to be safe, these are attested true copies.  The originals are still on the Grandalor.”

“What did you expect of us?” asked Mistress Daeron, shocked at the implication that they might destroy original documents as important as these.

Kurin was fishing in one of her bags as she responded, “After you sailed three hours early and without me, I had no idea what to expect.  It seemed like you were all gone onto dry land.  At that point, I could have simply filed a full violation, as Captain Sarfin and Master Addison both urged me to do.  I resisted that because I had to know what really happened and Blind Mecat sent Dari to ask me to try to save you.”  She produced a bulky package of paper fish parchment and handed it over to Alor.

As Alor’s aged hands reached for the complaints they were shaking for the first time in Kurin’s eidetic memory.  Alor began to look through the stack and said in a small voice, “These are very well organized, Kurin.”  She sorted off groups of parchment leaves and began handing them about the Council.  In an empty voice she said, “We will get through these quicker if everybody helps.  I fear that the Longin’s existence is near to it’s end.  How can we survive this, Kurin?”

Kurin had a prompt answer.  “We work to resolve the underlaying problem.  As the Grandalor’s sole owner, I have to file the complaint.  I don’t want to do that. There is something that I do want to have answered though, and it is not addressed in this parchment work.”

Master Juris tugged gently at her sleeve with his bandaged hand and leaned close to whisper, “Did you mean that about me running the best boat shop in the fleet?  After all of this,” he gestured at the array of parchment being passed about the room, “you can say that?”

Kurin looked him straight in the eye and said judiciously, “Sure.  It’s the truth.  Even if you are hard to get along with sometimes, nobody is better at organizing the work of others.  Your shop always keeps everybody busy and brings all the work together exactly when and where it’s needed.  What organizational skills I have, I owe to you.”

Master Cerde, of the weaving shop looked up, puzzled.  “Master Juris, every one of these complaints names you, yet Kurin says that what she wants to know is not here.” He shifted his gaze to Kurin and added, “What else do you need? There’s enough here to sink us a hundred times over.”

Kurin was in tears as she asked, “Up north, in the Dragon Sea, Captain Tanlin brought something up during the investigation but other things sidetracked it.  I never had a chance to ask again until now.  Why, if you were all so proud of me, didn’t anybody just love me?  Why did I go six Gatherings with almost no hugs?  Didn’t anybody care?”  She hugged her arms close and High Cloud anxiously preened her hair and stroked along her jaw with his beak.

Clard, Master of Drums, finally broke the embarrassed silence.  He said one word.  “Fear.”

Kurin looked at him in amazed scorn and said, “Of a child?”

Baring his arm and showing four long scars, Master Clard answered, “No, not the child.  The mother.”  He looked about the mess for confirmation and Kurin saw heads nod all about the room.

“Kurin, do you know how far onto dry land your mother is?”

She shook her head and said, “She sits and stares.  If she is told to do a simple task, sometimes she does it.  Otherwise she is non-responsive.”

Master Clard nodded and replied carefully, “And guarded.  Guarded at every moment of the day and night.  Lissa is far more responsive than you know.  She can and does hear and see.  Those tasks that she is given never let her near to any sharp thing.  She tracks you like a Strong Skin following blood in the water.

“You are old enough now to know what we have shielded you from.  Since your father died, your mother Lissa has blamed you for his death because you found his body in his hammock.  You know that.  What we hid was simply this.  Ever since that time, for six Gatherings, she tried to kill you or attack any person who showed the slightest affection toward you.  After she did this to my arm, we have forced her to have her finger and toe nails trimmed as short as possible.  This is why she is under continuous guard.”

Mistress Daeron said, “Kurin, do you remember that I gave you a hug when you showed us the new charting system?  I paid for it.”  She turned and lifted the hair behind her right ear.  There was a jagged scar plain to see.

All around the tables others chimed in with their stories.  The weaving shop, where Kurin had played and learned to weave had been vandalized.  Even Master Juris had his tale to tell.

He held up his bandaged arm. “Just about where you got me with your knife, I bore Lissa’s teeth marks for months from keeping her out of the shop.  It healed without a scar but I’d rather go up into rigging during a Coriolis Storm than try to subdue your mother single handed again.  There’s a reason that watching her is a punishment detail for the deckhands.”

Alor looked beseechingly at Kurin.  “What else could we do?  No other ship will take her. Lissa is insane.  She’s not responsible.  All that we can do keep her under guard and hope that some day she can relaunch herself into safe water again.”

Captain Mord said softly, “We do love you, Kurin.  Why do you think that everyone was so angry and upset when you didn’t show up for your party?”  

Kurin shot a hard look at Master Juris, who shrank under her gaze and with little grace said, “I’m sorry about that.”

Tartly, Alor shot back, “But not sorry enough to pay Kurin back for the losses that you have caused.  As I recall it, we had to sort out the Grandalor’s actual ship-time value during that sorry mess up in the Dragon Sea and it was more like sixty three skins, eight and a half blocks per ship-day.  Kurin knows that and tried to let you off with only fifty skins.”  

TO BE CONTINUED

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