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wolfcha1k · 3 years

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Fear Has No Sense, a Fanfic

"What if they're not what I expected?" Ratchet asked her, propping his fist on his chin, contemplating the question once again.

Rivet leaned back on her palms before casting him a little look. "Well, was I what you expected?"

Ratchet has some unfinished questions he needs to get off his chest, who better to understand than his other half of the rift?

Author's Note: Important note, only thing I know about this series is Rift Apart, so kept my horizons very small for this story. Just was a little plot bunny that was nagging me, so I spewed it out. I'm hoping its not too sappy or ends too abruptly, stuff like that, as well as the whole "plz sound like you guys are in character" thing. Lemme know what you think, I love feedback.

She found him sitting on top of his ship outside a good distance away, seeming lost in thought. There was a celebration to be had, it wasn't everyday you saved two worlds and many more in what felt like a few short days. It'd been suspicious when Ratchet had wandered off, passed the fan fair and practically evaporated from the scene. She thought him to be a guy who loved a good party.

If you had asked Rivet she would have thought he'd used that Dimensionator to scurry off somewhere.

But thankfully he hadn't, she was rather done with dimension chasing for a while. Now she just wanted to relax and digest the peace she never thought she could have ever lived to see. It'd cost her an arm quite literally but within her bones she knew she would sacrifice it again to know the world was safe.

She put a hand on her hip, hesitant on interrupting what seemed to be a private moment. Music played muffled behind them from the celebration being had, far too peppy for the mood he seemed to be in. He didn't look sad persay, merely deep and lost in his thoughts, whatever they might be they were clearly making him chase his own tail in circles.

Taking a courageous breath, she took the plunge into the metaphorical rip tide. "Hey!"

His orange head turned to look at her, slowly blinking at her once the surprise wore off. "Oh, uh, hey." The moonlight made Rivet's fur burn silver.

"Yeah, uh, hi." Smooth, she told herself with a strained grin, waving a hand as she gestured at the space next to him. "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure, knock yourself out," Ratchet replied, shuffling away to make room. Rivet began to climb up, jumping onto the ship to sit down beside him.

Neither said anything, just exchanged a quick smile before glancing away to look at something else. She sometimes wondered how they could both have seamless and awkward conversations all at once. It wasn't like either of them were shy people, so what was it? They were pretty familiar with each other now too, unlike back at their first face to face introduction at Zurkie’s.

Instead of lingering on the nagging thought and joining Ratchet in his wandering mind, she spoke. "Nice night, huh?"

"Yeah, it's great to look at the stars and not see time and space tearing apart for once," he mused, jokingly as he recalled their adventure.

"Yeah, it's a major bummer when the dimensions collapsing on themselves ruins a good full moon," she joked back, smiling.

"Ugh, tell me about it." He shuffled his weight to get more comfortable, drawing his knee up. "I'm not complaining about retirement again anytime soon. Meeting you and Kit was a nice compensation though."

"Are you saying that because you like my company or because I'm another Lombax?" She copied his casual posture a moment, tipping her head to the side coyly.

"Uh… both?" He scratched the fur at his neck absently, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't know, I think I'd still like you even if you were a three eyed frog."

She gave him a look, amused. "You would make for an odd three eyed frog since we gotta match and all, so good thing you and me are Lombaxes."

"Yeah, yeah," he scoffed, large ears flat as he suppressed a snort. "Either way… it's nice not being, yanno, alone."

"Alone is something I know all too well," she told him with empathy highlighting her face and words. Of course, her loneliness had been different from what she imagined his to be like. He gave her a sympathetic look, the starlight reflecting in his gaze. "I never thought I'd actually meet someone like me… uh you?” She made something of a comical face. “It’s a bit over–”

“It's a bit overwhelming, huh?” Ratchet grinned at her when he realized they’d jinxed each other yet again. He suppressed a chuckle best he could but it was all for naught. “I think I owe you a lot of sodas at this point, sorry.”

“I could use the sugar so I’ll take you up on that offer, it's fine,” she joked, rolling her eyes with a huff. “Anyway, It’s been an adjustment period, yeah,” she replied with a sheepish look, grasping her palms together to distract herself. “My first impression wasn’t the most brilliant.”

“At least you knew how to say hi at all,” he teased her. “I didn’t peg you as the shy type.”

“Hey, neither did you!” She started in a firmer tone before it broke off into a more trickling voice. ”I don’t think I would have been able to break the ice if I didn’t have Clank,” she admitted, lifting her palm to scrub it down the back of her neck, embarrassed.

Ratchet still looked at her with a mixture of amusement and fondness. “Am I really that scary?”

“Depends how you define scary,” Rivet replied, giving him something of a knowing look that suddenly made him uncomfortable. She decided now was as good a moment as any, curious of just why he was out here. “So… uh, I’m not the best at this but…”

He sighed, already knowing what was coming when his smile came back in a more somber fashion. “My head won’t shut up,” Ratchet told her, not bothering to deny anything.

“Well, there is a really smart mouth attached to it.”

“Har, har, har, you’re funny,” he quipped, nudging her with a childish huff and pout. “I know I promised our pit stop but–”

“Is this about the other Lombaxes?” She was never one to beat around the bush, always direct, somethings ruthlessly so. Her words weren’t spoken harshly though, a gentle inflection to the question.

“Ah, sorta?” Rivet arched a brow at him in a telltale manner that made him doubletake his answer, backpedaling. “Okay, maybe a lot sorta.”

“You wanna elaborate?” She encouraged him, cocking her head with a curious blink of her intelligent eyes.

There was a pause, Ratchet taking the moment to figure out what he wanted to say. Rivet was patient, shifting between focusing on the intense frown of his brows to the matching frown on his lips. He eventually took in a breath and faced her.

“What if they’re not what I expected?” He asked her, propping his fist on his chin, contemplating the question once again. His eyes looked at the starry expanse of sky, endlessly stretching farther than the mind could imagine.

She leaned back on the back of her palms before casting him a little look. “Well, was I what you expected?” The words were laced in good humor and she grinned once she saw his startled face.

He wasn’t expecting that, big eyes round as an owl before he gave a grin of his own. Rivet was relieved to see it there, melancholy didn’t do justice to his face. “No, actually, you weren’t.” The words were honest but hardly negative, some warmth tingling them.

“I’ll assume that’s a compliment,” she teased him, her robotic hand making contact with his arm in a playful punch of camaraderie. She was sitting up again, elbows on her knees as she continued to speak. “And before you ask…”

“Ask what?” He rubbed at the spot where she’d socked him, wondering if she had any idea how much strength she really had in that cyborg hand and arm of hers. She must be a champion arm wrestler. “I think you’re pretty solid too. Those other Lombax would be dumb to not see it,” Rivet assured him and this time it was him who bumped shoulders with her.

It was only the pressure against her shoulder she felt from the nerve endings pressed into the machine, she’d lost the ability to feel much else since losing that arm despite his warm arm brushing against her. It was strange but she was used to strange. She almost had a phantom sensation of his touch.

“Thanks,” he chuckled before arching a brow playfully. “Are you reading minds now too?”

“If I’m you and you’re me, it’s a pretty obvious conclusion, right?” She challenged him, ears pricked forward.

“Man, that still makes my head hurt,” he exclaimed, pushing a palm against his forehead with a chuckle.

He wondered if there was more to that besides being shadows of one another, recalling Mags' diary entries of how other Lombaxes had been cast out into different pockets of time and space. To say the least, his mind wasn't ready in the slightest to start going down that rabbit hole just yet. There would be plenty of down time now to do so later, the excitement of peril was done.

They filled the silence that followed with what felt like calm and peace a good friend brought, content in the lull of the conversation; it didn’t feel suffocating or awkward.

Ratchet broke the quiet moment, his voice musing. “Yanno… for someone who’s been a real lone wolf, you sure know how to talk to people.”

“Hey, lone wolf doesn’t equal socially degenerate,” she quipped, shaking her head with a smile at him lifting a hand in mock defense. “Besides, I honestly get how you feel about… the whole scared of the Lombax thing.” She let her face become serious, brows furrowed as she rubbed her hands together. Ratchet could hear the purr in the motors of her robotic arm as it moved. “It wasn’t fair I threw that in your face back at Zurkie’s–”

Automatically he interrupted her, shaking his head and catching her gaze. “No, it’s alright. It wasn’t right of me to call you a coward either when you had your own fears.”

“Yeah but fear does nobody any good when it hurts people,” she told him, lifting her eyes to glance at her arm, seeing her reflection on the golden sleek metal. She turned back to him not long after, somehow feeling a sense of peace wash over her despite some of the jitters. “Guess fear just doesn’t make no sense sometimes, huh?” They shared a look, a somber smile on each other's faces.

“Yeah,” he agreed, sighing with something that almost sounded like a chuckle.

She took a moment to find what she should say next, knowing the conversation wasn’t going to end right there. A good friend did what she could to support each other, not snuff out their insecurities and ignore their needs. Her thoughts absently flew to Kit and Rivet didn’t want to make that mistake again. “Meeting you was honestly one of the most intimidating things I ever did, I can’t imagine adding to it an entire race of who knows how many more of us out there,” she confessed at last. "Fighting Emperor Nefarious was a cakewalk compared to that."

He studied her curiously, a bit surprised. Considering their argument prior to the conclusion of this whole mess, he hadn’t really expected her to have her own qualms about finding their kin. “You worry about what they might think of you too?”

“I mean, maybe a little,” Rivet started, trying to sound casual, being vulnerable wasn’t her strong suit but she was going to try her hardest. Breathing a sigh, she found her words again that were heavy on her tongue, relaxing the tension that had suddenly found itself coiled down her spine. “Well, I don’t anymore, least not like I did before we met,” she replied, meeting his eyes, mischief twinkling like a star. “You like me well enough, right?”

“You seriously need to ask me that?” He rested his elbow on his knee that was curled up close to his chest, the other leg comfortably laying under his relaxed slouch.

“That answers that,” Rivet said, sighing extravagantly in good humor before taking on a more serious tone. “Anyway, if one Lombax thinks I’m good enough, then that must mean others will think of me that way too. If not, well, then I got just the one and your approval is plenty for me.”

He smiled at her. “You think that highly of me? I’m touched.”

“Yeah, I do, and I’m not saying that because you’re the only other Lombax I know,” she told him, returning his smile with one of her own.

Ratchet seemed to consider his words, quiet for only a moment before he said anything. “Hey, Rivet?”

“Yeah, Ratchet?” “Thanks, for tonight, I mean. It helps,” he told her, appreciative as he met her eyes. “Kit and me dished some talk but guess I hadn’t gotten it all out, too much mayhem at the time.”

“It’s what friends are for, right?”

“Right,” Ratchet said, nodding his head.

They fell into a short silence, just looking at each other before Rivet decided to speak. "So… think you're finally ready for that little pit stop soon you promised me?" She arched a brow at him, a challenge he met with a toothy smirk teetering on a grin.

"I've been ready." He reached a hand out to her, bicep raised as Rivet met him halfway, robotic palm pressed into the glove of his as they met in a firm clap.

She squeezed his hand, mindful to not crush it with their arms pressed together from the grip. "That's what I like to hear."

"Good, because you'll be hearing a lot more from where that's coming, Rivet."

#ratchet & clank #ratchet and clank #ratchet and clank rift apart #my writing #my fanfiction

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ibelonginthepast · 3 years

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okay I need your klance fic recs(i feel like you have really good taste)(i mean your icon is literally THE keith of course you have god tier taste)

okay so the thing is.. that when i say am kinda messed up and disgusting sometimes... and becoming a madwoman... am not over exaggerating or saying it in a funky way.. i actually am getting like that .. and that's how i got into the klance fandom initially. i project through lance and read really langsty fics.. and they are messed messed with like violent nsfw, gore, horror, serious mental health issues etc? so if u want those... i'll only send them if u want?

yeah tho i entered with this thingy that klance is gonna be like my guilty pleasure or some shit but them i inevitably fell in love with some GORGEOUS fanfictions out there and KEITH KOGANE in all shapes sizes genders and ages so lol...

but they aren't flowery. that's just not my taste. Some of them might be "problematic"? it's in quotes because i don't agree with it. it's not going to be problematic in plain ignorant sense like racial issues or blatant sexism or mental abuse.... but they might have like stuff which people dont always agree with like drugs. most of them would have nsfw it's just something that i need to have for feels and that's why i asked if u minded it. some things are like more subjective,, characterizations for example, cause like some people dont think keith is a skirt guy cause he isnt in fashion but i think he is petty and rebellious so he will defo do that? some of them would have like physical fights and stuff.. or keith and lance being mean to each other.. some ugly habits which aren't necessarily condemned like anger or drugs.? but with how i see it, it's not glorified, so i see them as human. i love the raw and ugly in these or idk its just human to me (but some people dont like which is completely valid cause we are all different from different environments and think different and resonate with different stuff.)

wait addition: i think some of them will have sexist themes? which i have complained about a lot before. i dont know why authors feel the need to somehow put women down to show how a mlm relationship without any women is superior or some shit it's annoying as fuck i hate it. i dont think i would have any especially sexist fics here, but there might be some with lowkey themes and bad handling of those issues. some of them mau have that subtext of disgusting heteronormative standards, but in subtext uk like bottom lance having a small waist and being giggly and all in contrast to big bulk keith.

here are some that i had bookmarked... but i may remember some more and then send them to u and or add them here...

a heads up.. i dont remember all of them very well. its been a while and i read fanfictions A LOT so yeah.. incase one slips up here which isnt very good am sorry dont judge me

the bold ones are the ones u should really check out if our taste is similar.

to begin with plain f l u f f,, my first klance bookmark was How Could I Say No? by Padfoots_Pawprint. tws for violence, bullying, injury BUT it's not actually gory or something like that it's just keith being keith and getting hurt and lance helping my boi like he should. it made me feeeeeeeel ksksk

this was one that kinda really touched me,, Wasted youth, Cryptids, and Waterboys by Baea THIS HAS EXPLICIT NSFW in it, the first chapter kicks off with it.. its a good fuck buddies to lovers in my opinion.. i love the writing style, the choice of how it's just a couple entries of random days in their lives. i love keith's characterization.. he is a hobo and a conspiracy nerd.. i love how down for him lance is, very dedicated. i love their growth.. i love how they help each other grow,, and it's so like real and usual day to day and human and down to earth idk how else to express it. this is INCOMPLETE. it's 12 chapters and discontinued as of now,, but it's not a deadly cliffhanger

similar in style and approach to the above. tho i think here is where it gets dubious. Easy, Tiger. by @/WhatTheBodyGraspsNot ... this is INCOMPLETE too and as of now discontinued. this has that sorta murky vibe with it's drug usage, them being teenagers in school and engaging in stuff like this, bad boy keith and all. this has nsfw too. i just remember really liking it and its very raw and unfiltered. tho it's incomplete it's not an open ending for now.

okay so i am restarting this but am upset as fuck that it all got deleted so i am gonna be lazy and not put as much effort as i did.

i have also Crowd Pleaser bookmarked by the same author,, this one's complete and it has some serious issues around gaslighting if i remember correctly... i really liked it then. keith is literally an angel here, i want to kidnap him and marry him literally. the s h w ee t e s t shit ,, and i like how lance gives him all the support and space to get his shit together

Drummer boy by klancekorner,, i think it's similar to the prev one, but lance's pov(which is what i prefer ngl). this authors fanfics are all just wholesome. i had put links to all their fics before, but imma now just say that u should go and check all their fics out. i have them all bookmarked, i must have seen something in them (can't remember what now tho and i cant be bothered to skim through them like last time *rolls eyes*)

War of hearts? idk why honestly, just ik keira has made me gay, and lesbian rejection angst? garrison? yes :) it's incomplete, conveniently left at the point where lance's heart is broken lol

Fuck buddies with benefits. THE NAME IS BAD I KNOW but i just love the idea of a dedicated mess of a keith and lance taking care of him. that's it that's the fic if i remember correctly. oh wait yeah u might think keith is not treating lance right, but i think it's fine if lance is treated a bit stupid. this is a bit too sex driven tho i dont like it but just SLEEPDEPRIVED KEITH TO TAKE CARE OF IMMA SIGN UP (ik this maybe coming off toxic but lol look at me)

Rambling: THIS WAS ME.

Last Defense: TW SUICIDE this is literally the langst i have for canon lance

I want something else: bad boy keith can break my limbs and cut my face and i will thank him

A thank you would be nice: keira damn

game-set-match: b a d b o y

I swear to go the devil made me do it: my typically fav trop, hardcore pining lance, literally perfect angsty keith. very similar to the top ones ig? idk also this one is one of my comparatively recent sane bookmarks so that's something. it starts off weird, u think it gon be subtly sexist but it turns out better so hold on

you've got me locked up: i think it's delinquent keith,, its floofy

Dad lance and tattoo artist keith: the name says it

damn while going through my bookmarks i realized that there are a lot of things i never bookmarked? i am pretty sure i loved a lot of long fanfictions, flower shop aus and tattoo artists shit wtf-

wait here's one, it's not complete: Blood jumps in the sun: it's very heavy has a lot of growth and kinda wholesome,, tags and summary will give u an idea what u getting in.

The lessons we learned: can't remember much other than florist keith, sad keith, smart keith, really long, pining

damn i think i have a lot of happy ones i didn't bookmark cause my brain was like u dont deserve the serotonin :( i'll add if i have more)

some actually angsty, detailed nsfw and messy (according to the way u interpret these) ones... lemoninagin.. they have some very detailed and explicit nsfw stuff but i am not there for it. some of it has the kind of angst i like? an actual one that i love and they recently posted and the reason am putting them here is infinitesimal. best friends to lovers and tho usually it's not my cup of tea.. it's a character study, an interpretation of klance in a modern world i dare say,, which is very similar to mine. the thing about them is that i like their characterization a lot, and in no love in this, i like what kind of background stories they give to klance in their aus. i haven't read many by them, so if u want u can check them out.

i just realized i have put some lowkey sad/fucked fics here... i did remove 5 rn... i hope its all good damn why am i doing this i feel like am putting myself naked out there when i recommend my favs

#dont reblog

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uselessundertalefacts · 5 years

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This is a (sort of) fanfic for that one comic where gaster is very mean by the artist whose name starts with Z

More or less an extended version of this. Warning for vague discussion of abuse and trauma.

StrongFish91 likes a post from 20XX:

(pic of Alphys)

W. D. Gaster likes this.

———

Papyrus: HEY ALPHYS

I DIDNT KNOW YOU KNEW THE OLD ROYAL SCIENTIST?

Alphys: ……yeah i did :/

i had NO idea what he was doing, he never told anyone anything

im so sorry you can unfriend me if you want x.x

Papyrus: IT’S FINE

I JUST NEVER KNEW HE HAD UNDERNET

HE DIDNT SEEM LIKE A VERY SOCIAL MONSTER

Alphys: he wasn’t really???

i helped him set up his profile actually

so we could chat more easily and stuff

he didn’t use it a lot… just commented on other people’s posts

are you mad at me? im really sorry

Papyrus: NO

THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME THIS

———

CoolSkeleton95 updated status: Taking a break from UN for now.

ALPHYS commented: hope youre doing ok ^^

StrongFish91 commented: Come back soon punk!!!! OR whenever you’re ready. I’ll text you!!!!

———

Sans: hey i saw your UN post?

u doin ok?

Papyrus: yeah

Just need to take a break

Sans: okay

is anything going on?

Papyrus: No.

sans: lmao sure

Papyrus: Just leave it Sans.

I’m sorry. That was rude.

Sans: it’s fine just

you kind of… always say that when you’re upset

and I try to help and you get mad at me

so can you be honest with me pls

Papyrus: I don’t want to get into an argument.

sans: ….oh

so it’s about /him/?

…did you turn off your phone

welp

screw you too then I guess

———

sans: so im never gonna have kids but if russ ever has them im gonna use my brotherly authority to make their middle names foo bar and baz

sans: thats a programming joke

sans: al please clap alphys: ASJKFHKAJHSDKJ

sans: thanks for the pity al.

alphys: NO ITS GOOD

alphys: how is papyrus anyway? saw he’s taking a break from undernet sans: not talking to me lol

sans: i think he’ll be ok its probably just old stuff

alphys: yeah……

alphys: so please dont be mad but

alphys: he saw some of my old UN posts that your dad liked

alphys: and he asked me about them today so maybe thats whats bothering him?

alphys: im sorry i never told you but we used to be friends sort of. well he was my boss and i thought he was cool i swear i didnt know what kind of person he really was until after he died

alphys: ill delete all those posts he liked. i just feel so bad i hope papyrus is ok

alphys: are you ok?

alphys: are you still there? fuck im so sorry

sans: im still here. dont worry about it

sans: i was looking up his profile. looks like a cool guy lol

sans: kinda reminds me of papyrus and me

alphys: NO youre nothing like him!

sans: gtg im gonna talk to papyrus.

sans: im not mad at you

alphys: ok take care….. <3

———

dear papyrus,

writing this on paper because im 99% sure you turned off your phone. but i know you’re in your room. i saw you let the dog in. you dont have to talk to me right now but please at least read this.

alphys told me about what happened earlier. i looked at his profile too. i saw his comments. alphys said she thought he was cool and i sorta get why, if he talked and acted like you.

but youre not like him. youd never hurt someone on purpose. youre not arrogant and youre not cruel.

honestly, im more like him than you are. he used to say that all the time. he said i’d understand why he did all that to us one day. must have been a real idiot if he thought i understood him better than you did.

im gonna shove this under your door. ill be in my room when youre ready to talk. or you can text me.

love, sans (corny but true)

————

papyrus: Thanks for the letter.

papyrus: Please don’t think of yourself that way. You’re not like him at all.

sans: oh dang that was fast. thought you wouldn’t talk to me for at least another day lol

papyrus: Can we just drop this for now?

sans: sure thing.

sans: youre not mad at alphys are you? she means well

papyrus: I’m not mad. But I also don’t want to talk about this anymore.

papyrus: And I just sent you a letter.

sans: awwww for me?

papyrus: You can keep it if you want.

sans: ...

sans: you can have it

------

My name is Papyrus. I am a skeleton who lives in Snowdin with my brother, Sans.

Sans and I were created and raised by W. D. Gaster. He used us for experiments with magic. He died when we were still young.

Gaster and I have some things in common.

He used all-caps while typing, like I do. He would focus on small pursuits for long periods of time without breaks, just like I get absorbed in my puzzles. Many people liked him.

This does not mean that we are exactly the same. I would never do what he did.

Gaster also had some things in common with Sans. They both loved mathematics and physics. Both of them often felt depressed. Many people loved and supported Gaster, and many people love and support Sans.

Gaster thought they were the same, but they could never be the same. Sans is too kind, too compassionate, to be anything like Gaster. Even when we fight, it’s clear how much he cares about me.

We are better people than Gaster ever was. And we can help each other be even better if we support and love each other.

Love, Papyrus

(P.S. Sans I didn’t write this for you at first, but I want you to see it.) (P.P.S. I’ll start writing in all-caps again eventually.)

#holy shit its been a while #this is not necessarily an invitation to talk to me aboht this au #im still very conflicted on it and havent been keeping up #but ive been thinking about it a lot so. here we are #undertale fic #my fic #papyrus #sans #alphys #not tagging gaster because he deserves better

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hunter-the-sad-skeleton · 4 years

Text

Darkwing Duck Fanfic Chapter 2

Summary: “Hunter and Bushroot learn more about each other. But at what cost?”

Warnings: Implied swearing, implied abuse, implied depression, self deprecation, implied self-harm, stim shaming, ask to tag.

Final word count: 4757

Tag list:(Feel free to ask to be added or removed!) @pidayforpi

Chapter two “Full disclosure, I am a monster!”

Hunter woke up early, almost sneaking out before remembering she hadn’t gotten the new passcode for the door yet. Hunter looked around for another exit, eventually sneaking out through a sewer grate. Getting into hiding, Hunter oriented herself, eventually pinpointing where she was in the city. Hunter remembered the city layout, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a list and her wallet. Taking a deep breath, Hunter walked off to the flower shop to replace the flowers she’d lost the night prior.

Hunter read the flower shop’s sign, boasting bright, colorful letters saying “Flora’s flowers and bouquets!”. Hunter took a deep breath, walking in, trying to occupy as little space as possible, despite the shop being relatively empty. “Can I help y’all?” A voice asked from behind Hunter.

“O-O-Oh, I-I-I-I-I uh….” Hunter stammered, fumbling for her list. “Flowers…?” Hunter asked sheepishly.

“We have those in excess, or else we wouldn’t be in business right now!” She joked.

“Duh! Sorry, don’t people well…” Hunter apologized.

“Oh, don’t worry hun, you’re fine!” She chuckled.

“I, uh, ooh…” Hunter stammered.

“I’m Flora, this little shop’s owner!” Flora said, holding her hand out.

Hunter drew back a bit, but eventually took her hand in a handshake. “I...H...n...Hunter…!” Hunter stammered.

“Hunter, huh? What’re ya lookin’ to pick?” Flora asked.

Hunter stumbled to look at her list, listing off a few flowers. “Do ya have any of those…?” Hunter asked sheepishly.

“Yeah, we have Roses, Chrysanthemums, Carnations, Hydrangeas, Daffodils, and gardenias!” Flora nodded.

“Where might they be…?” Hunter asked nervously.

“Right this way, Hunter!” Flora said, gesturing for her to follow.

“Okay..!” Hunter nodded, following sheepishly.

“Say, do ya happen to know Elmo Sputterspark by any chance?” Flora asked, grabbing the flowers Hunter requested.

Hunter froze, weighing her options. She couldn’t say she knew him through the fearsome five! “Uh….I...did, in like, High School.” Hunter stammered.

“I thought as much; ya have some of the same mannerisms as him!” Flora beamed. “You’re nervous around people, ya stumble over your words, ya fidget, I sorta figured you ‘n’ him knew each other!” Flora said, finishing up the bouquet, walking over to the counter, Hunter following behind, pulling her wallet out to pay for it.

“How much?” Hunter asked.

“$25.89, Hun!” Flora said.

Hunter nodded, paying for the flowers.

“Have a good day, hun!” Flora said, waving goodbye as Hunter left.

Hunter walked out, putting the flowers safely in her backpack and getting ready to head home. “I’m telling you, Gosalyn, flowers are going to make home seem more homey!” Drake sighed. Hunter moved out of the way, letting the three walk inside.

“Yeah, yeah-wait, Dad, did you see that?” Gosalyn asked, realizing that Hunter was outside.

“See what? You trying to get out of an errand?” Drake asked sarcastically.

“No, Dad! I saw one of the Fearsome Five outside the store!” Gosalyn protested.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s nice hon-WAIT WHAT?!?” Drake gasped.

“Yeah, I saw Hunter outside putting something in her backpack!” Gosalyn explained.

“No doubt stolen goods! Come on, crew! Home decor can wait!” Drake said, walking back out.

Hunter smiled softly, making sure the flowers were safe inside her backpack. “I hope he likes ‘em…! I picked ‘em out just for him!” Hunter smiled softly.

“I AM THE TERROR THAT FLAPS IN THE NIGHT!!” A voice announced, instantly filling Hunter with dread.

“Oh, come ON!!” Hunter groaned.

“I AM THE DANDELIONS YOU CAN’T REMOVE FROM THE GARDEN OF CRIME!!” Darkwing continued, Hunter rolling her eyes.

“I AM DARKWIIING DUCK!!” Darkwing finished.

“Look dude, I ain’t here to cause trouble; I’m JUST getting flowers for my friend.” Hunter scoffed.

“Getting in ILLEGAL ways, I’m certain!” Darkwing announced.

“Nah. Paid legally.” Hunter shrugged.

“As I-wait what?” Darkwing asked, confused.

“I. PAID. LEGALLY. FOR. THESE. FLOWERS. SIR.” Hunter annunciated.

Darkwing shook his head. “Surely not, villain!” Darkwing announced dramatically.

“Look, if ya want evidence, ask Flora inside, arright? I have somewhere to be.” Hunter scoffed.

“Exactly!” Darkwing said, grappling onto a nearby object and preparing to swing towards Hunter. “Behind bars!” Darkwing finished, swinging over and knocking Hunter over.

“Ow!!” Hunter yelped, holding her left arm as she landed on it. “Why you little-” Hunter started before getting decked in the face. “What the Helenium, Cactus?!?” Hunter snapped, cradling her arm.

“Did you just swear in PLANT NAMES?!” Darkwing gawked.

“What the FICUS did you just say to me, you Moluccella?!” Hunter snapped.

“Okay, this is just getting weird.” Darkwing groaned, pulling out his gas gun. “Suck gas, evildoer!” Darkwing announced, firing before Hunter could cover her beak.

“Hey!! Kaff kaff!!” Hunter coughed. Darkwing saw his opportunity, taking it and landing as many hits on her as he could.

“Your petal pilfering is past its prime, you puny problematic private parasite!” Darkwing smirked.

Hunter looked up, seeing that the flowers fell out of her backpack and were once again, destroyed in the skirmish. “Daisy it!!” Hunter growled. “I was SO CLOSE this time!!” Hunter lamented.

“You’re finished!” Darkwing announced.

“No…..I’m not.” Hunter growled. Hunter slowly got up, picking up her backpack and standing up straight before collapsing onto one knee. “FAGUS!!!” Hunter yelped, dropping her backpack and practically collapsing.

“Whoa, what happened there?” Launchpad asked, confused.

“I...Don’t know, LP.” Darkwing shrugged.

“I know what it is!” Gosalyn said, looking around in the Ratcatcher for something.

Hunter tried standing up again, collapsing again as pain shot through her leg. Hunter tensed up as Gosalyn walked over with a small suitcase. “What are you doing?” Hunter asked suspiciously.

Gosalyn held up the small suitcase showing that it was a first-aid kit. “I’m not gonna hurt ya, even if you’re a bad guy. When someone’s hurt, they’re hurt, and I highly doubt ya have health insurance.” Gosalyn explained.

Hunter remained cautious, Darkwing pulling Gosalyn away. “Gos, what are you doing? She’s a VILLAIN.” Darkwing lectured.

“Darkwing, she’s HURT! You’re supposed to help people!” Gosalyn scolded.

“UNless they are a VILLAIN. Which she IS.” Darkwing scolded.

Gosalyn looked between Darkwing and Hunter, noticing how badly Hunter’s leg looked. “Darkwing…” Gosalyn whined.

“I don’t wanna hear ANY OF IT, young lady, back into the Ratcatcher with you.” Darkwing warned.

Gosalyn huffed, stomping over to the Ratcatcher and plopping down inside it. Darkwing turned to look at Hunter. “As for you, VILLAIN, you’re coming with me.” Darkwing scowled.

Hunter shook her head, getting up and almost collapsing again, picking her backpack up and hobbling back to the hideout. “Come on, LP, let’s-” Darkwing started.

“DW, come on, she’s hurt! Let’s leave her be!” Launchpad said.

“What!? You too?!?” Darkwing bawked.

“Yeah, DW. Ya may be a hero, but a true hero knows when to leave things alone!” Launchpad advised.

Darkwing grumbled to himself, eventually giving in. “FINE! I’ll leave her alone!” Darkwing sighed heavily.

Hunter hobbled back to the hideout, despite the sheer pain shooting through her leg. Hunter sat down on a bench near the hideout, resting for a bit. “Fagus, my leg hurts…” Hunter whimpered. Hunter looked down at the water below her, tearing up at what she saw; a complete and utter FAILURE. She couldn’t even get FLOWERS properly. What made her think she could work alongside Bushroot and the others? Hunter rubbed the tears away, only for them to be replaced tenfold.

Before she knew it, she was sobbing heavily, not in the right mindset to pay attention to her surroundings if anyone was around or watching. Hunter hiccuped, blowing her beak in her hoodie. “Why am I such a failure…?!” Hunter hiccuped, beating herself up. Hunter sniffled, wiping her eyes again.

Hunter froze, hearing a familiar sound; tiny leaf-paws hitting the ground. She perked up slightly, but the happiness was gone as soon as she realized that Bushroot would most likely be disappointed in her for sneaking out again. Hunter felt something bump against her leg, but didn’t respond, she didn’t have enough energy to. Hunter heard something whine; she didn’t respond. She didn’t have enough energy to.

Hunter jumped slightly as she felt something plop into her lap, looking down at Spike’s head looking up at her. Hunter teared up, gently grabbing Spike and pulling him into a hug, sobbing heavily. “I’m so sorry-hee-hee, Spi-hi-hi-hiiike!!!” Hunter sobbed, hugging Spike tightly.

Spike whined, gently nuzzling Hunter in an attempt to make her feel better. Hunter sniffled, slowly starting to calm down. “Oh! Spike! You found her! Good work, boy!” Bushroot sighed in relief, speeding over.

Hunter hiccuped, standing up and struggling to make eye contact. After a few moments of silence, Hunter hugged Bushroot, apologizing heavily. “Hey now, it’s okay, I was just worried is all! You didn’t leave a note or anything!” Bushroot assured, patting her on the head. Hunter looked up, worry and sadness wrought all over her face.

“Y-You’re not mad at me…?” Hunter asked sadly.

“Oh goodness no! I typically never get mad! Especially over something as little as this!” Bushroot smiled softly.

“Bushy, I’m gonna cry again…!” Hunter chuckled dryly.

“That’s okay, get it all out!” Bushroot nodded, not getting that Hunter was sort of joking. Hunter chuckled, eventually breaking out laughing. “There’s that sound I like to hear!” Bushroot beamed.

Hunter went to stand alone, but collapsed back onto the bench, yelping in pain as pain shot through her leg. “OW!!!” Hunter yelped, tearing up again.

“O-O-O-O-O-Oh my goodness, are you alright?” Bushroot asked, rushing to her side.

“L-Leg…” Hunter whimpered, tears running down her face again.

“Wh-What happened?” Bushroot asked.

“Dorkwing….” Hunter grumbled, forcing herself back up and ignoring the pain shooting through her leg, not allowing herself to give up until she was somewhere safe.

“How did you even get out? I didn’t tell you the new door passcode, did I?” Bushroot asked, staying close by just in case Hunter collapsed again.

“There was a sewer grate a little whiles away that I snuck out through.” Hunter explained.

Bushroot sighed heavily. “I know you probably had a good reason, but I feel...a little...Hurt,” Hunter’s heart HURT hearing that. “That you sneak out so often.” Bushroot lamented. Bushroot stopped Hunter, making eye contact. “You can talk to me.” Bushroot started.

“Did I do something wrong?” Bushroot asked sadly. Hunter’s heart shattered.

“N-No-N-No! Not at all, Reggie! I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I promise!” Hunter stammered, breaking eye contact on accident as anxiety started settling in.

“.....I did, didn’t I…?” Bushroot asked, remembering that breaking eye contact typically meant the other party was lying.

Hunter stumbled for words, unsure of what to say. She couldn’t tell him why she snuck out, that would ruin the surprise for him! She didn’t wanna do that! “A-Any plans for the day, B-Bushroot?” Hunter asked sheepishly.

“No, not really. I’m...not really feeling up to it today.” Bushroot sighed.

“A-Are ya sure…?” Hunter asked gently.

“Yeah, pretty sure.” Bushroot said, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe ya just need to get out there…!” Hunter said, smiling nervously.

“Hunter. NO.” Bushroot warned, frowning slightly.

“I mean, it always makes me feel better…!” Hunter urged gently.

“N. O. NO.” Bushroot warned darkly.

Hunter, still ignoring the pain in her leg, tried pushing Bushroot away from the hideout. “C-Come on, bud…!” Hunter urged.

“Hunter, NO. Why are you being so WEIRD recently?!” Bushroot asked.

“I-I just wanna help ya out, Bushroot! You help me out, I wanna return the favor!” Hunter explained.

“Hunter, stop it.” Bushroot grumbled.

“Come on, Bushroot, one crime and you’ll be back in a good mood…!” Hunter said sadly.

“Hunter, I said NO. Give it a rest.” Bushroot warned.

“Bushroot, please…!” Hunter whimpered.

“Hunter, something’s going on, and I, quite frankly, want to know WHAT. Now SPILL.” Bushroot growled.

Hunter whimpered, biting the bullet and pulling the long past dead flowers out of her backpack. “............Dipwing screwed it up...AGAIN.” Hunter whimpered.

Bushroot sighed, running his hands through his petals. “You went off to grab flowers AGAIN?” Bushroot asked, trying to stay calm.

Hunter grimaced, tensing up. “I know it’s stupid and I KNOW I should give up on it, but it’s so important to me that I do it and….” Hunter took a deep breath, calming down. “And...I wanna prove that I can get tasks done, if I put myself to them.” Hunter finished, making eye contact again.

Bushroot froze, all past thoughts of anger and frustration gone and replaced with understanding and sympathy. “Why don’t you ask me for them?” Bushroot asked.

Hunter shook her head. “No, I wanna show I can perform simple tasks like going to the flower shop to buy flowers.” Hunter declined.

Bushroot hummed, holding his chin in thought. “I can see how I’m feeling later, but I’m not promising anything.” Bushroot said.

“Gotcha, Bushroot!” Hunter nodded.

“Good. And Hunter?” Bushroot asked.

“Yeah, Bushroot?” Hunter asked.

“Go back to calling me Reggie, it feels weird hearing you call me Bushroot.” Bushroot said, laughing gently.

Hunter sighed in relief. “Okay, Reggie.” Hunter said, smiling tiredly. Bushroot ruffled Hunter’s feathers, earning a squeak of protest as Hunter tried swatting his hand away.

“Sorry if I got a little heated there, it just hurts is all…” Bushroot apologized. Bushroot could have sworn he saw Hunter’s smile drop for a moment, but when he looked again, she was still smiling. Weird.

(Later, in a hidden room in the hideout.)

Hunter shoved herself in a corner, Anxiety, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and self hatred all hitting at once in an all-out-assault on her psyche. If this were any other occasion, she would have asked Bushroot for his help, but that’s any other occasion. Bushroot was the reason Hunter’s psyche was being destroyed by itself.

Hunter hadn’t had an anxiety attack this bad in ages, why was it so bad now? She wanted to ask for help, but she’d already inconvenienced Bushroot once, she didn’t want to do it again. Even if she was on the brink of blacking out.

Hunter tried stilling her breathing, but only made her hyperventilating worse, Hunter falling forward onto her hands and knees, gasping desperately for breath. Hunter mentally screamed at herself to call out for Bushroot, but nothing more than choked breathes were heard.

Tears rolled down Hunter’s face. Why’d she have to be so selfish?! Why couldn’t she just let it go?! Hunter coughed and wheezed as she tried to calm down, but her breathing didn’t improve. She noticed her vision start to go blurry and her panic only furthered.

After a while, Hunter’s arms and legs gave out and she fell to the floor, blacked out cold.

(Elsewhere.)

Spike looked around the room, whining as he noticed Hunter wasn’t in the room with them. “What’s the matter, Spike?” Bushroot asked, looking over from his experiment. Spike whined, gesturing that Hunter wasn’t in the room.

“Hmm...that is odd and concerning…” Bushroot hummed. Spike whined, worried about her disappearance. “She probably isn’t outside...Spike, go look around for her, would you?” Bushroot asked. Spike nodded, setting off to find Hunter.

(With Spike)

Spike sniffed around, picking up Hunter’s scent quickly. Picking up Hunter’s scent, Spike sped up, following the scent to a dark, hidden room, whining before going in and finding Hunter blacked out.

(With Bushroot)

Bushroot perked up at hearing a far off barking, but shrugged it off as Spike finding a butterfly or something. “Spike, stay focused!” Bushroot scolded.

The barks kept going, but seemed more panicked than distracted. “Spike, calm down!” Bushroot called. Bushroot grew worried as the barks were more frantic and set everything he was holding down to go run over to Spike to see what the problem was.

“Spike, what’s happened that’s causing you to cause such a ruckus?” Bushroot asked, walking in. As soon as Bushroot saw what was in the room, he froze dead in his tracks. He held onto the doorframe to remain standing, shock trailing through his cells.

“Sp...Sp...Spike…? What happened…?” Bushroot asked, legs slowly moving him closer. Spike whined, trying to wake Hunter up, but not succeeding. Bushroot collapsed next to Hunter, taking her pulse. He sighed in relief; something was still there.

Bushroot assessed the situation, deducting that she just had a really bad Anxiety attack and passed out due to lack of oxygen. Bushroot whistled for some of his smaller trees to come into the room so Hunter could regain oxygen quickly.

After a while, Hunter eventually shifted, Bushroot feeling hope well up in his chest. Thank goodness she was okay. “Mm…” Hunter groaned, rubbing the extra sleep from her eyes.

“You’re okay!” Bushroot exclaimed, wrapping his arms around Hunter in a tight squeeze of a hug. Hunter wheezed as the air was squeezed out of her, but quickly gained it back.

“R-Reggie…?” Hunter peeped.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything? Water? Food? Backpack? Spike? Flowers? Notebook?” Bushroot asked, worried that his friend may have gotten hurt.

Hunter was astonished; after everything, he still wanted to be friends with her? “Reggie...I….” Hunter stammered. Hunter rubbed her head where she landed when she fell. “Ow…” Hunter grimaced.

“Hmm...looks like it’s bruised...Hold on, I think I have some Arnica around here somewhere…” Bushroot hummed. As Bushroot thought, an Arnica bush hopped up to him. “Oh! Why, thank you!” Bushroot smiled at the bush, making an ointment for the bruise.

“Wow...You’re a real plant whisperer…” Hunter gawked. Bushroot gave Hunter a look like ‘bud, really?’

“I should hope so,” Bushroot started, rubbing some of the concoction on the bruise. “I AM a plant duck hybrid after all.” Bushroot finished, wrapping the bruise so it could be covered until it was fully gone. “There we go! Should clear up in a fairly good time frame!” Bushroot smiled gently.

Hunter smiled back, saying a silent thank you. “Just one question though…” Bushroot started, Hunter’s heart dropping. “I know you approved us being Best Friends Forever and all, but…” Bushroot sighed.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” Bushroot asked.

Hunter grimaced. “Before you say ‘I didn’t wanna burden you, I’ve already bothered you once today’, I don’t care about that. We’re Best Friends Forever...Best Friends help each other out more than once a day. Be as blunt as you need for explanation.” Bushroot said sternly.

“I…...I felt super guilty about earlier today…” Hunter admitted.

“What? Why?” Bushroot asked, gobsmacked.

“Because….B...Because...I hurt you...Not physically, but...emotionally...That’s not a thing Best Friends Forevers do…” Hunter frowned.

“Hunter..” Bushroot gawked.

“When you said I hurt you, I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I felt so horrible…! I-I-I-I felt like I was the worst person on earth…! I felt like scum…! I felt less than scum, I felt like a worthless fungal parasite…!” Hunter frowned.

Bushroot frowned, sympathy washing over him. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I felt SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO bad afterwards that I holed up here to deal with my whole Anxiety attack cause I didn’t wanna bug you again…!” Hunter rambled. Hunter continued rambling, only to stop when Bushroot put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him.

“Hunter Artemis Puddles, you are one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. I understand not wanting to bother me, really, I do! But when it’s something this horrible, it’s not a bother at all. We’re Best Friends Forever. We’re here for each other. Through thick and thin, through hardships big and small. We can be there for each other through it all.” Bushroot said seriously.

“R...Really…?” Hunter asked.

Bushroot nodded. “Hm...You mentioned your memory works better with song...How about a little melody to remember?” Bushroot asked.

“Nah, dude, I can’t sing!” Hunter said shyly.

“Well, I can, if you would like.” Bushroot informed.

“O….Okay…!” Hunter nodded. Bushroot took a deep breath, already thinking up lyrics.

“Best Friends Forever, bothersome never...shoulder to cry on, here together to get by on...Thick and thin, hardships big, hardships small, together we can make it through it all…~!” Bushroot hummed.

Hunter hummed along, thinking up a beat. “Hmm…” Hunter hummed. Bushroot raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Best Friends Forever, you’re my first one ever...All alone I feel dry as bone, but with you I feel brand new….~!” Hunter added.

“Wowza, you’re good at this!” Bushroot smiled.

“Oh, no, I’m-I’m really not!” Hunter blushed.

“I think it’s a lovely little melody!” Bushroot nodded.

“Yeah, short, sweet, and to the point!” Hunter nodded.

“You know, you said you can’t sing, but you sang pretty well!” Bushroot complemented.

Hunter chuckled shyly, rubbing the back of her neck. “Aww...You too..!” Hunter chortled.

Bushroot chuckled, mood lighting up.

Hours passed and the two eventually decided to spend the night just planning instead of doing stuff.

“By the way, Hunter,” Bushroot started, pausing the planning. “Do you know what those flowers you picked up meant?” Bushroot asked.

Hunter froze. “They...look...Pretty…?” Hunter lied.

Bushroot chuckled. “No, no, no! They have meaning! Chrysanthemums symbolize happiness, longevity, joy, and loyalty, light red Carnations symbolize admiration, white Gardenias symbolize purity and gentleness, Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings, and purple hydrangeas symbolize a desire to deeply understand someone!” Bushroot explained.

“O-Oh…! I just thought they looked pretty..!” Hunter lied.

“Oh, they do! And then the roses you picked yesterday, dark pink roses, symbolize thankfulness for appreciation!” Bushroot added.

“Huh…” Hunter hummed, despite knowing this already.

“Oh! Oh, oh, oh! If you wanna show someone admiration, just give them a good old fashioned Camellia! Those babies mean love, affection AND admiration!” Bushroot rambled.

“Really?” Hunter gasped, humoring the other duck, seeing as he listened to her for a good portion of the day.

“Oh yes, yes, yes! And not to mention they’re beautiful, too!” Bushroot nodded eagerly.

Hunter smiled softly, listening to him infodump about plants and flowers and the symbolism some of them had. “What’s your favorite flower, Hunter?” Bushroot asked.

Hunter was taken back by the sudden question. Someone wanted to know more about her? Normally, she never was able to hold a conversation! “Well, uh, I, uh...I like violets and bluebells…” Hunter said shyly.

“Ah! Some good picks!” Bushroot beamed. “Those two have WONDERFUL meanings!” Bushroot nodded.

“What do they mean?” Hunter asked.

“Well, Violets symbolize truth and loyalty while Bluebells symbolize gratitude and humanity! But, they could ALSO symbolize constancy and everlasting love!” Bushroot informed eagerly.

Hunter’s eyes sparkled like sapphires left out in the rain as the sun came out, sunlight bouncing around on each cut. “Whoa…” Hunter gawked.

“Sorry, have I been rambling too much?” Bushroot asked nervously. Hunter shook her head.

“No, no, no! This is interesting to me! You’re WAAAY better than my english teacher was with teaching me this stuff!” Hunter explained.

“Oh, really?” Bushroot asked, surprised.

“Yeah! Like, he was nice ‘n’ all, but nothing he taught me stuck with me for dirt!” Hunter chuckled.

“Oh my!” Bushroot smiled softly. “Would...Would you mind if I rambled for a little bit longer? Sorry, it’s just I never really get to talk to anyone about this stuff and I don’t know what to do with the information and-” Bushroot worried.

“Reginald, I’d love to hear you ramble more about plants! You listened to me, why don’t I do the same?” Hunter asked gently.

Bushroot’s eyes sparkled with joy, excited that he could talk about plants as much as he wanted-and someone would LISTEN to him! “Well, if you’re so sure…!” Bushroot grinned, vibrating in excitement.

Hunter smiled softly as Bushroot launched into an excited ramble about plants, flora, whatever plant crossed his mind. Hunter felt something she hadn’t felt in ages. She felt...Genuinely happy. And all it took was two days of failure, an Anxiety, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and Panic attack, a leg injury, a mutant-no, a duck, and a cute venus flytrap that had a good sense of smell.

But even so...Something was still in the back of her mind. Something was telling her that she didn’t deserve this, that she was too horrible to be happy. Others were in worse straits than her, why should SHE be happy?

Hunter snapped back to reality, paying attention to Bushroot again, hoping she didn’t miss much. Hunter smiled again, glad that Bushroot didn’t notice she spaced out for a bit there. “Wow, that felt...Amazing!!” Bushroot squealed, hopping in place.

Hunter chuckled, a genuine smile crossing her face. “Oh! Look at that! You’re happy too!” Bushroot beamed.

Hunter froze a moment, realizing that he was right. She felt her face for a moment. He...He was right. The smile...It wasn’t forced! It was a real smile! She felt a rush of energy and-”no, stop, stop flapping, that’s weird, people are going to laugh at you.” Hunter’s mind screamed.

Hunter froze, shoving her hands into her hoodie pockets and mumbling out a ‘sorry’.

“What for? That was adorable!” Bushroot smiled.

Hunter had to do a double take. “Really? It’s not...Weird?” Hunter asked.

“No, of course not! If anything, it adds to my understanding of you!” Bushroot said.

Hunter chuckled dryly. “C-Can I…?” Hunter trailed off. Bushroot nodded.

“Yes indeedy!” Bushroot nodded.

Hunter squealed, flapping to get the extra stim energy out. Eventually, Hunter got it all out and her smile was wider than before.

“Aw...You’re happy! And you thought today was a bad day!” Bushroot joked.

Hunter didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but she just...Burst out laughing. She had no reason to, she just...felt like it. “Why do I feel so fuzzy?” Hunter laughed.

“Oh! You’d be feeling ‘Euphoria’!” Bushroot explained.

“Euphowhat?” Hunter asked.

“Euphoria! It’s a state of feeling intense excitement or joy!” Bushroot explained.

“Huh?” Hunter asked, confused.

“Basically, you feel really happy!” Bushroot simplified.

Hunter squeaked, eyes brighter than earlier. “It’s so weird how you make me feel so...so..s-so…” Hunter stammered.

“At peace? Happy?” Bushroot asked.

“Yeah! Why is that?” Hunter asked.

“Well, it could be that the excess of trees is helping to clear your mind and make it easier for endorphins to pass into your mind!” Bushroot suggested.

“What…?” Hunter trailed off.

“The extra air is making you think clearly, so you are able to feel happiness easier!” Bushroot explained.

“Oooh!” Hunter drawled. “I get it!” Hunter nodded.

Bushroot chuckled, finding the sudden mood shift from Hunter adorable. “Why don’t I see ya this happy often?” Bushroot asked innocently.

Hunter hid a flinch, returning to how she was acting. “Oh, I dunno! Maybe I’m just having a good day or something!” Hunter grinned. Bushroot nodded, unaware of the reaction Hunter had.

“You should Smile more.” Hunter’s brain lectured. “Frowning brings everyone down.” Her brain added. “Why aren’t you happy more often?” It asked.

Hunter kept up the appearance despite wanting to break down then and there.

The two talked a little longer, Bushroot eventually heading off to get some rest, leaving Hunter alone. Hunter sighed, not quite feeling tired yet, so she headed out to stargaze for a bit.

Hunter sat outside, despite the cold temperature, watching the stars intently. She felt like she was greeting an old friend, since the stars were practically all she had to talk to aside from her stuffed animals as a kid. She knew the constellations by heart, as that was the only thing she learned in school aside from art stuff that interested her.

As Hunter stargazed, she started spacing out and thinking about things. How large was the universe? How many people were in it? How FEW people were in it? Are they living in a pocket dimension? Is existence meaningless? She shook herself out of it; she didn’t need to be thinking about that right now. She already went down that road once earlier, and it still hurt a little bit, thanks to the cold.

Hunter sighed in relief, staring up at the night sky, taking it all in. It was beautiful, almost like a painting. As she scanned the horizon, her vision settled on the docks and the water surrounding it. She wondered how long she could be down there before she had to give up. She shook it off again.

Eventually, she started to feel the exhaustion of the day start to hit and she slowly started drifting off to sleep, too tired to walk back inside. She let her eyes shut and her body relaxed.

She felt slightly warmer, but didn’t bother to check why, at least she was warm.

Then she heard a Splash.

#My writing #Darkwing Duck Bushroot #Darkwing Duck Ocs #My Ocs #Hunter Puddles #Flora Peonia #Darkwing Duck Drake Mallard #Darkwing Duck #darkwing duck gosalyn #Darkwing Duck Launchpad #Ask To Tag #Tw: Implied swearing #Tw: Implied abuse #Tw: Implied depression #Tw: Self deprecation #Tw: Implied self harm #Tw: Stim shaming #sorta #Darkwing Duck Spike

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qweeby · 4 years

Text

What’s your Deepest Thought-Part 3/???

Warning: This fanfic uses the Dabi is Toyua Theory also Angst

Dabi sits on the floor while he holds Y/N's body. "It looks like burn marks are gone" Dabi looks up Toga with a sorta worried expression, "Wow Dabi you seemed worked up over this new girl doncha think?" he scoffs at the schoolgirl "Don't get your hopes up Toga" Toga beams as light radiates off of her "Maybe it's love~! It has to be right, Tomura!. Shigaraki is at his computer playing an RPG currently he's fighting a boss and he's destroying it, "Yeah....it does seem like Dabi as a soft spot for the newbie". Dabi stands up and walks to the door, Twice throws his hands up in the air "Annnnnd where are you going Dabi !?! please don't leave!". "That's none of your concern just watch over the kid, I won't be long" and with that Dabi leaves the hideout and walks off to who knows where. A few minutes go by as you slowly open your eyes as you start to hear the thoughts of the league members. You hear a girl "Hmm~ her ears were bleeding I wonder what she tastes like~" after hearing that Y/N hops up and quickly backs up into a corner. "D-Don't eat me!" Toga tilts her head. "Eat you? don't be silly! I wouldn't eat you but cut you up and watch you bleed!" Y/N looks around scanning, the room, "W-Where is Dabi?" Kuroguiri puts his hand on Y/N shoulder. "Dabi has stepped out momentarily he'll be back". Y/N takes a deep breath as she holds Kuroguiri's hand. "Why would-" she thinks back to when Dabi was thinking about the sports festival and thinks back to what he said, " I'm going to look for him ". Twice jumps in front of Y/N "BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHERE HE IS!!!" suddenly tears shoot of his mask "HE'S GONE FOR GOOD!". Toga comforts Twice by hugging him tight "Awww you just miss him don't worry he'll be back", " Don't worry I know where he is..." Y/N says that as he walks towards the door. Toga and Twice wave at Y/N and she does the same then leaves. "Come back not dead ok!~" Y/N walks through japan as she looks for Dabi, bumping into people as while she wanders the streets. " So many people...so many...voices..." she digs through her pockets searching for her phone but feels nothing "No No No No NO! Where is it! No no DAMMIT! Y/N covers her ears as through a crowd of people crossing the street "Shut up Shut up Shut up!" Y/N's mind starts racing as she thinks of the worst things possible without her phone. Without it, she won't be able to watch Stains video how will she feel ok in tight spaces with the words of true hero giving her hope but most of all....what about her father. After many minutes she runs into a nearby building, she walks in she sees that there are many chairs scattered around the room with people sitting in some of them. "Excuse me, miss? are you ok?", Y/N turns around and see's a lady wearing a mask. "Are you a nurse..this is a hospital?" the nurse's thoughts flow through Y/N " Well no shit dumbass I'm a nurse geez who let his stupid bitch in here?". Y/N stares at the nurse, clenching her fist "You wanna say that again" the nurse rightfully confused scratches her head "Hm I did say anything" Y/N continues to walk onward ignoring the nurse while she's walking she's trying to pinpoint Dabi's thoughts " Where is he why can't I hear him...He's here I know it but why would he come to the hospital unless... does this have something to do with the Todoroki kid-" then in a blink of an eye someone pulls Y/N into the nearest room. "Let me GO! Let me Go", "Woah Woah Woah calm down Doll!" he turns Y/N around revealing himself to her. "What the hell are you doing here", "I was looking for you, the other league member said you stepped out and-" Dabi snaps at her " I don't need to be looked for like a lost child I'm fine by myself this isn't anything new". Y/N looks down "I was worried about you...with what happened in the elevator" Dabi sits in a chair and stares out the window "Yeah yeah I know burn you a little but you're a tough doll you'll be ok". Y/N focused her eyes on Dabi, "You know that's not what I'm talking about! Dabi no Touya! You're connected to the Number 2 pro hero Endeavor, aren't you! Dabi sits there at the moment he's scratching his neck. "For a girl that only talks to herself, you never seem to mind your business" "I just thought that there's no need to dance around the truth since I can just hear what you think, I know that you aren't that type of guy and that you rather get straight to the point". Dabi smirks just as he rolls his eyes " You don't know me Doll but I know you pretty well" he takes a phone out of his pocket once he's done that he waves the phone back in forth. "Were you looking for this?". Y/N looked pleased to see her phone " DABI YOU FOUND IT! oh thank god I thought I'd lost it forever! I was gonna go crazy without it, can I have it back please"," No that won't be happening, what's with you and Stains video? the number of times you watched this thing you might as well gave it millions of view just on your own, trust me I believe in his ideals but I don't praise them like a religion". Y/N blushes as this is the first time someone called her out for watching Stains video, "Well it gives me all the motivation I need to be a villain! and plus... when I'm in a crowded area or in a room full of people hearing all of those thoughts there too much to handle but when I listen to stains words...it makes me feel calm and everything else fades away." Dabi gets slowly started to get filled with rage, "That's fucking stupid" "HUH?!!! HOW" Dabi stands up from the chair but in the prosses making it fall as he does so. "If this phone were to break it means you lose all purpose of being a villain that's what you're telling me" "T-that's..." Y/N stands there unable to respond because when thinks about if the video wasn't a thing if she never saw the video she would never be where she is now. "That doesn't matter so what if it is" Dabi raises his voice, " OF COURSE IT DOES YOU IDOT" and with that statement said Dabi throws Y/N phone to the floor it starts to crack and chip away as it reaches the floor completely breaking. The room falls silent. As Y/N looks at her broken phone her world crumbles apart, she thinks back to when she was young and she had a conversation with her dad back to when times were simpler. "Y/N I know what having this power may be hard and it will hurt a lot but I'm gonna tell you how to stop all of the pain" Y/N dad pats her head "It's love. When Mommy and Daddy go do hero stuff Daddy can't help put to hear all those people, Japan has so many people with thoughts rushing every day but the one thing that keeps me focused and quiets out all the noise of the world is your mom. I know one day you'll find someone that will be your sound". Dabi grabs Y/N's shoulders " A video shouldn't be what give you meaning! it should be the league! You shouldn't have to look towards some video to feel safe and ok you should be looking for me! Hearing those words snapped you back to reality as you stare up at Dabi blushing as your chest feels warm and your eyes begin to get puffy. "Are you crying!? what the do-" Without a second thought, you grab onto Dabi hugging him tight as you sob in his chest. Dabi stands there for s second deciding what he should do before deciding to hug you back. "You're gonna be a handful huh... it's fine, I like how you keep me on my toes kid" Suddenly the door opens "I'm not interrupting anything am I Touya?" "No No Mom you're fine I was just about to leave until my little friend here came over, well leave I don't wanna bother you Rei holds Dabi's hand "See you is never a bother you know that Touya" Dabi looks down at you and then sighs, "Sorry I'm gonna have to call the visit short I kinda got my hands full" he says that as he pats your back. "Ok make sure you use the exit next time and stop using the window to get in you'll get caught", Dabi smiles as he has already opened the window with Y/N on his back. "Me? get caught? I think you confused me with Natsu". Rei stares at the amaryllis flowers that Endeavor dropped off last month, one of the flowers has wilted with a single red petal while the other flower next to it is in full bloom with it all its petals showing off a blue color Rei thinks about Toyua and how he has changed after all these years. "Toyua.....is dead..." Dabi stares at Rei stunned. "I can't wait for your next visit Dabi' Rei gives her "new friend" a warm smile. Without saying anything Dabi takes to the streets with Y/N on his back. "You feeling ok Doll?" his voice calm and clear you can tell from his voice that you're his biggest concern at the moment. "I'm feeling ok now that you're here..". You think back to what Dabi said...maybe stains ideals..wasn't the best way to relieve your problems. "Dabi I-" He cuts you off, "I meant what I said back there about the whole Stain thing...Look Stain failed as a hero and as you can see he failed as a villain but I won't because I'm with League and because I'm with you we're a team. WE will change society you won't be alone I'll be there to make sure all these heroes hear your voice, so don't have any doubts". There it is that feeling again, the feeling of warmth...could it be his quirk that's taking my breath away no this feeling is stronger than a quirk... but I can't find the words. "Since when did you get so sweet Dabi?" Dabi tries to hide his smirk, " Don't get too excited all you did was catch me on a good day be careful Icarus don't fly to close to the sun " Y/N starts freaking out, "HUH WHAT'S THAT'S SUPPOSE TO MEAN! CAN'T YOU BE NICE FOR MORE THAN 2 SECONDS I MEAN SERIOUSLY YOU THINK YOU KNOW A GUY BUT THEN HE'S A TOTAL DIC-" Dabi snickers to himself, "Man I love how chaotic you are" he sighs "Too bad it's the only thing you got going for you" You stare at Dabi with murderous intent. "Calm down Doll that was a joke, of course, there are other things about you that many men (Not saying myself) would like about you like how weird you are." "DABI!" "Ok Ok I'm sorry for real, Hows you head do I have cut through an alleyway if there too many voices" The voices, talking with Dabi let alone being near Dabi you don't even hear the other around you. For the first time, you hear silence no for the first time it's just you and Dabi and with that, you are completely overwhelmed with emotions all you can do is cry as you clench Dabi's coat. "You really are gonna be a handful huh?" he smiles "Just how I like it totally chaotic. You really something special Doll I must've got the limited edition!" "Dabi...Touya is till there right he's not gone you are him...yes you have moved on with your life and you changed but that doesn't stop what you once were...maybe the time I asked this last question wasn't clear... " As the world you have known filled your head with thoughts and questions finally one else feels your pain, Dabi stands there looking down waiting for her questions "What's your deepest thought, tell me about feeling that you never experienced before..." Dabi looks up at the night sky as he continues to walk forward,"My deepest thought huh...I think it's the thought....that I might be in love".

#my hero academia #bhna dabi #dabi #dabi x reader #dabi is touya #boku no hero academia #boku no hero x reader

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julia-highstorms · 6 years

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Jane Is Here (ILITW AU) - Chapter 5

Summary: Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Jane had survived the game and got a chance to grow up with her friends?

Disclaimer: all the characters belong to Pixelberry Studios.

Note: Gender neutral MC. BACK FROM HIATUS (I mean, sorta, because I have no idea when I'll upload next chapter but oh welp!)

Pairing: Noah x MC/Jane x Lucas

Rating: T

Word count: 3122

Tagging my "If Jane Was Here" readers because I don't remember who read this fanfic lol @kurbqa-deactivated20180730 @miragemeister @yertletheturtle04 @mysteriouslady4 @klaudiana-beaumontkkreal @katiehawkeyebishop @melchann @hippiekiyay @lovethemarshalltwins @american-duchess @jadedpixiescribbles @gameofstrangerwars @american-duchess @blackheartdreams @indiacater @nuttatulipa @lcnelywclf @sazanes@mmmmmmyyyah @ietss @choicesaholic @spectrelier

Chapter 5 – House Party

It's Saturday afternoon and Noah Marshall finds himself in his bed, distractedly reading a magazine.

"OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG!" - Jane's screams can be heard through the walls.

Suddenly, the door of his bedroom opens with a loud bang, startling the boy. He looks annoyed at where his twin is standing.

"Okay, what the hell is all this—"

"I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!" - she interrupts him, her ginger hair in a messy bun, her face free of make up. He just rolls his eyes and goes back to reading his magazine.

"This is bullshit, you have plenty of clothes—"

"OMG Noah, you don't get anything in this big head of yours, do you?!" - she sighs dramatically, plopping down in his bed. Jane Marshall never exactly knew the concept of privacy. - "This is like, our first party as seniors! Don't you get how a big deal it is?! And we were invited by Dan!"

"Of course we were invited by him. We're his childhood friends."

"Yeah, but he's our school's best quarterback! This means something. God, how would you survive high school without me?" - she stops talking for a second, noticing what Noah is reading. - "'Recipes'?! You're such a nerd."

"Shut up."

Sighing once again, Jane climbs down her brother's bed.

"Alright, since you're so busy, I guess I'll have to ask MC to help me decide which outfit to wear to the party."

"Suit yourself." - he doesn't look up from his magazine.

Jane stops by his door and looks at him again.

"You're not going to wear this for the party, are you?"

"No, because I'm not going."

And in the next second, Jane's already by his side, shaking him:

"WHY AREN'T YOU GOING?!"”

“Why would I want to go there? There’ll be people from school and I can’t stand them. Parties are just excuses for—”

“...futile and empty teenagers in an attempt to burst their ego in a meaningless social gathering.” - she finishes his sentence for him. - “Yeah, yeah, I’ve already heard this before. You can just say that you hate people, Noah. It’s not a secret, you know.”

“It’s not that I hate people. I just… don’t like most people from our school. And I don't like small spaces with many people.”

“Yeah, but our friends will be there. Aren’t they enough?” - before Noah can say anything, Jane keeps talking: - “MC will be there. And I heard that Connor Green was invited.”

"Who?" - she rolls her eyes annoyed.

"Stacy's brother. You know, blonde, a couple of years older… and totally interested in MC."

The girl bites back a laughter as she sees her brother sitting straight in the bed.

"He… what?"

"Oh Noah, you really know nothing, do you? Did you know he gave MC a ride in our first day of school last week?"

He stares at her for a few seconds, before going back to read his Buffalo chicken wings recipe.

"Huh, okay. Whatever. Who cares? I don't care."

"Oh my God, Noah, stop pretending you don't like MC! Are you really letting Connor get them?!"

"MC dates whoever they want!"

"Well, they don't want to date Connor! They want to date you, you idiot!"

"S-shut up!" - Noah's face turn a shade pinker.

"Oh my God, don't you ever get tired of telling me to shut up?! Now, stop acting like a boring old man and come to the party!" - she tries to pull him from the bed, but Noah pulls back.

"Leave me alone, Jane!"

"NO! You're coming with—"

"UGH, okay, fine! FINE! I'm coming to this stupid party!" - Noah finally gets out of the bed and throw his arms up in the air. - "Happy?!"

"Very much." - she smirks at him and turns to leave the room. He slams the door after she exits. - "And if you wear that stupid denim jacket again, I swear!" - she shouts from the other side of the wall.

"What's the problem with my jacket?!"

"Oh hey, Marshalls! I thought you wouldn't come!" - Dan greets them by the front door of his house.

"Yeah… me too." - Noah murmurs and Jane elbows him on his ribs. He lets out a low curse.

"Anyway, thanks for inviting us, Dan!" - Jane says, entering the house. The party is already rolling, people dancing in the living room, others chatting.

"Finally!" - Stacy exclaims, walking toward them. - "Jane, this party is not the same without you! Let's show these amateurs some real moves!"

"Oh, you're on!" - the redhead laughs loudly and the other cheerleader pulls her to the improvised dance floor in the middle old the room. - "See you guys later!"

Noah grunts. Dan tells him that there are foods and drinks in the kitchen before being called by some of the guys from his football team. The boy with a beanie walks toward the other room - he sees Lucas talking to people in one corner; Jane, Stacy and Lily dancing; and Ava making 'magic tricks' in another corner -, finding a group of cheering people gathered around Andy and Tom, who are competing each other to see who drinks faster. Andy burps loudly when he finishes his soda just seconds before his best friend and people goes nuts. The two best friends bump their fists. Noah just rolls his eyes and walks outside, to the Pierce's backyard.

He hears a whimper and sees a black Labrador Retriever walking toward him, its tail wiggling furiously. It's Dan's dog, Nemo (Dan was obsessed with Pixar movies when he was a kid and named his dog after the fish character). His face is all white now and he walks slowly, showing how old the dog is. Noah clearly remembers that Nemo was already a year old when they met Mr. Red...

"Hey, boy. You okay?" - the boy asks. The dog throws himself by his feet, his belly upturned, his big dark eyes shining expectantly. Noah chuckles and crouches, stroking the old dog's belly. - "Good boy."

"Maybe coming wasn't so bad at all. At least I can hang out with Nemo." - he thinks to himself.

Unlike his twin sister, Noah never has been a people's person. He likes his friends a lot, but he feels more comfortable when it's only him, his sister and… MC. The whole gang remained together after that fateful day ten years ago, but MC and the Marshal twins got even closer.

Although Jane and MC had always said that they were best friends, the boy was great friends with MC too. Growing up, he always felt that they had a deep connection. As if only MC could understand him, even better than his own twin.

And lately… those feelings started to change a little.

Noah knows that he might be liking his friend more than just a friend. You shouldn't want to cuddle or kiss them, right? You shouldn't smile like an idiot whenever they laugh, and your heart shouldn't take a little leap every single time you see them, right? I mean, he's known MC for twelve years! They've seen each other practically every day for the last decade. Why would he start feeling all anxious with just the thought of seeing them? Why he's been searching for a recipe of Buffalo chicken wings for the last couple of days simply because MC mentioned that they wanted to eat it? Why he got jealous when Jane mentioned Connor earlier (he would never confess it out loud to his sister, because she surely would never let him forget it, but, yes, he got jealous)? Why he wants to be with MC, but is deadass afraid of getting rejected?

That could mean only one thing: he's crushing hard on MC. His friend. Jane's best friend. He'd never liked anyone like that before. Noah was pretty sure that those kind of feelings weren't for him. It wasn't his nature or whatever. But then they started to change, both slowly and suddenly at the same time.

...And he's almost sure that they like him too. He's like 95% sure. That's a high number. Then why he can't simply just talk to them? They've never had secrets between them. They've always told each other everything. Then why—

"I knew I'd find you here alone. With Nemo." - a voice he knows well suddenly snaps him out of his thoughts.

Noah looks up and sees MC walking toward them. They're grinning.

"Uh, hey..." - Noah feels that heat rising to his cheeks, as it always happens whenever he sees them. Thankfully it's dark outside and the light is dim there. MC crouches by his side, Nemo sniffing them happily. - "Uh, you cleaned up nice."

"Thanks." - Noah doesn't know, but MC's face is burning too. They start stroking the dog's fur too. - "You too."

Noah looks down, remembering what he's wearing. Jane forced him to wear a flannel shirt and his Blink-182 tee. No denim jacket.

"Oh. Uh, thanks. Jane prohibited me from using my denim jacket." - MC chuckles. Crap, why did he say it? - "Uh, but why are you here? I thought you wanted to party, not spend your time outside patting the party's owner's dog like some sort of loser."

"Well, maybe Jane ordered me to come here outside, to be sure that you didn't jump inside the pool and drowned yourself due to boredom… and to make sure that I would distract you while she's making out with Lucas inside."

"She what?!" - Noah immediately stands up, ready to go back to the house, but MC grabs him by the wrist.

"Oh hell no, you're not getting inside!"

"Yes, I am!" - but MC's grip is firm. - "What?" - he looks annoyedly at them.

"Beanie Boy, please. Let Jane have a moment with Lucas. You know for how long she's been having a crush on him. And he likes her too. And how they both have busy schedules. Just… let them enjoy it, you know?"

They look at each other's eyes for a few moments, until the boy finally lets out a resigned sigh.

"...Alright, alright." - they both go back to sit on the floor, Nemo already showing his belly to them. - "...Jane and Lucas."

"Yep."

"I knew she's been in love" - he rolls his eyes. - "...with him for the last few years since they shared her first kiss in freshman year… but I didn't know he liked her too."

"Well, who doesn't like Jane? I just feel bad for Stacy."

"What? Stacy?" - MC chuckles.

"Yeah. She has a crush on Jane. Poor Stacy."

"...Damn. I didn't know Jane had so many fans." - MC laughs louder, and Noah smiles by the sound of it. - "Anyway, I know Lucas is a nice guy and all… but… well, I don't like the idea of anyone dating Jane."

"Aaaw, aren't you a great big brother?"

"I'm not her big brother. We're twins."

"You know what I mean." - they both share a chuckle. - "Jane told me you didn't want to come?"

"Well, yeah. You know I'm not the most sociable person. And crowded places overwhelms me." - MC nods.

"...She also told me that you only agreed to come after she told you that Connor gave me a ride last week and that he was invited here?"

"No, I…! That's not…" - and MC sees Noah's cheeks reddening under the dim light outside. - "Ugh, when she told you this?!"

"She texted me just before the party, asking me to help her find an outfit since you weren't going to help her." - the boy rolls his eyes. He should have known that his sister would do something like that. That’s so Jane. - "So?" - they raise their eyebrow. - "Is this true?"

Noah just wants to disappear. Even his ears are burning beneath the beanie.

"Uh… and… what if it's true?" - he finally speaks, avoiding MC's gaze, pretending to be too occupied stroking Nemo's fur.

And then, next thing he knows, MC is pulling him in by his T-shirt and he feels their lips on his.

It's all too quick, lasting just a few seconds. But he felt it. MC's lips are as soft as he expected them to be.

"I… what?" - he murmurs, looking back at them, astonished. MC is grinning from ear to ear, their cheeks flushed too.

Did they just kissed? Did that just happened? What's happening?

And then, MC leaned in again, their soft lips meeting his again. And this time, they didn't pull out.

Noah awkwardly cups their face with his trembling hands, pressing his mouth against theirs, believing that that's how you kiss someone. He'd never kissed someone until now. MC's lips expertly kiss him back, more eagerly this time.

He knows MC has kissed before. He reminds of when MC and Andy kissed, when they were in 10th grade, and how things turned a little awkward in the group, until they both decided that they were better off as friends.

The boy suddenly pulls out, feeling his head dizzy.

"Beanie Boy…?" - MC asks, their lips a little swollen. Noah feels that he's hyperventilating.

"I… Uh… I… what..." - he doesn't know what to say. Realization seems to suddenly hit MC hard.

"Crap! I'm so sorry, Noah! Was this your first…? I… I don't… I didn't intend to… I… If I knew…. you didn't want… "

They both don't know what to say, their cheeks burning. Nemo looks from one awkward teenager to the other.

Noah wants to say that it's not that he didn't want it. He kind of wanted it. But… would that make things weird between them? What about the gang? Wouldn't it be awkward? Like what happened between MC and Andy for a while?

Ugh, he was thinking too much. As always.

But before any of them can say anything, they hear sirens approaching.

And the cops shut the party down and everyone is forced to go home.

MC is awaken by the sound of their alarm. It's Monday.

They know they have to go to school, although they really don't want to. Because Noah will be there.

"Stupid!" - MC curses themself under the blanket.

They shouldn't have kissed him. MC suspected that beanie boy liked them too, but… well, they should have only kissed him when they were fully aware of his feelings.

...Crap. How they wished they could turn back in time.

Summoning all their courage, they go out of bed, change their clothes and fetch a breakfast before leaving the house.

Outside, MC meets Cid again, and the neighbor tells them that he's going to stay out of the city for a couple of weeks and asks if they can take care of Hilda for him while he's out. MC agrees; they've always liked Hilda, plus, she was a very good dog.

The teenager resume their trajectory to school, their mind flicking back to the party, the sensation of Noah’s rough and cold hands on their face...

"MC? MC, is that you?" - they hear a woman's voice calling for them. They turn, seeing Mrs. Garcia, their neighbor from the end of the street, walking outside her house.

"Good morning, Mrs. Garcia." - MC greets her. Her eyes are puffy and she seems like she hasn't had much sleep. - "Is everything okay?"

"Tell me… haven't you seen… Samuel?" - the woman asks, with shaky breaths.

"What…?" - MC doesn't know why, but they feel a terrible shiver down their spine.

Mrs. Garcia eyes starts watering.

"Y-you know how Samuel likes playing outside, you know?" - the teenager slowly nods. - "Yesterday he went to play with some friends… in the woods." - MC's heart starts pounding inside their chest. Oh no… - "He told me he was going to spend the night in his friend's house… but turned out that… he even isn't friends with this boy. I called his mom and she told me that Sam never been there. That she didn't know they were friends, since her son never talked about him." - the woman is sobbing now. - "H-he lied to me. Y-you know how shy he is, don't you? And he's been even more secluded after me and his father divorced… I… I'm desperate. I don't know where he went. I've already called the police… a search party is on their way to the woods…” - oh no. - “Oh, God, I'm so sorry. You were on your way to school, right? I'm so sorry. " - MC doesn't know what to say. They feel overwhelmed by the woman's revelation. Their head's spinning and their blood goes cold. And they can't help but think… think about Mr. Red. Oh no. - "Oh God, I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm delaying you to school. I just needed to ask you since you always comes here to babysit him and he seems to like you. So I needed to ask if you knew something or--"

"I-I'm sorry, Mrs. Garcia. But the last time I saw him, Samuel was playing, right here. But this was last weekend. I… I haven't seen him." - the woman nods. - "But… don't worry. He'll be back. Okay? Don't lose hope." - they squeeze the desperate mother's shoulder and gives them a reassuring grin. - "He'll be back."

"Thank you, MC... " - she tries to smile through the tears. - "Maybe… maybe it's just a prank. Eight-year-old boys do this, don't they? They like pretending to run away from home, right? But they're back after a few hours, right?"

"Yeah… sure."

By the time MC enters the school building, the five-minute bell has already rang. They wander toward the English classroom and sit on their desk, not noticing their surroundings, their mind filled with Samuel and Mr. Red thoughts, memories of Dan’s party and what happened between them and a certain Beanie Boy completely forgotten.

"MC, finally! I thought you wouldn't come today!" - Jane exclaims, hovering above their desk. - "And you've been ignoring my texts since Saturday, after the cops came and shut the party down! Noah has been acting weird since then, but he won't tell me anything!! Did something happen?" - she notices that her best friend seems miles away, a blank expression on their face, as if… they’d seen a ghost. - "Hey… is everything okay? MC?"

MC looks up to Jane.

"Ja—"

"Alright, class, quiet. Let's hear today's announcement." - Mr. Cooper enters the class and turns on the TV. Jane sits on her desk, casting a worried glance to her friend.

"Good morning, Westchester High! It's 8 o'clock on Monday, and here's your Wolves announcements!" - Lucas's face shows in the TV screen, talking confidently. - "I'm your host Lucas Thomas and-- ksssshhhhhhhhhhhkkk!"

A burst of static suddenly cuts him off and the lights flicker before shutting off completely. Surprised screams and gasps can be heard throughout the school. Some students vibrate in their desks, already ready to leave, but Mr. Cooper orders them to sit back down. Others start chattering nervously.

In midst of the chaos, the doors are blown open by a frigid gust of wind… And then, they all can hear it… all nine teenagers who used to play in the woods when they were kids… can hear a sound that snatches all the breath from their bodies and leaves them cold.

The sound of a voice… a voice that is completely alien… and horribly familiar.

Everyone… plays… together...

#ilitw appreciation week #jane is here #jane marshall #noah marshall #choices it lives in the woods #ilitw #playchoices #noah x mc #ilite fanfic #choices fanfic #playchoices fanfiction #choices fanfiction #playchoices fanfic

44 notes · View notes

anxaanya · 6 years

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Chapter 1

Ok hi, this is gonna be a long intro so no on has to read this. But, very unrelated to what I am posting. I am super down at the moment? I literally have no friends and feel very pathetic rn so I wrote something? My life is literally a downhill spiral rn and I don’t even have anyone to talk to about it. Literally no one so I wrote bc I want to be in a another world so bad(preferably a really chill happy shojo anime where everything is pastel). Its not the best, i just wrote this on a whim and no one has to read this seriously but I want to be a writer and just wanna get myself out there.

But anyways this is a part of a bigger story. I basically created a whole new character that i was debating on making it my own thing or just do a fanfic but I decided on fanfic bc it’s too similar to bp lol. So basically it’s about this girl named Amale who escaped like a slave trade and lost everything but years later she becomes like a warrior who wants to over throw the royal family bc they don’t do shit about it and like it keeps happening. And shes apart of like a girl warrior group like the Dora Malije and Erik comes and helps them lol. Its stupid but its not meant to be romantic. It’ll get there but rn I just want it to be super badass with badass women. And I want this to be comic(bc comics are basically fanfics, they just write different stories for the same characters lmao)

But also Amale is inspired by Sumrider, this cool badass martial artist I love, check her out and also catwoman cuz animals are a big influence(I love animals) used later on and shell be really graceful and I just think catwoman is the coolest ever lmao

So here we go also trigger warnings: blood, human trafficking, rape, murder, death

I smiled as I dug my fingers deep into the bowl of wooden beads. They clanked beautifully against each other and in evidently calmed my nerves. I finally took one out the bowl and marveled at the walnut colored wood that was painted with ascents of red. I glanced in the mirror and met my eyes in the reflection. My cornrows were fresh and neat and ran down head, twisting, turned and overlapping each other along the way. The hairstyle allowed for my round forehead to be on display but I didn’t mind. They were painless yet tight enough to pull my already almond shaped eyes back to a smaller squint. I slipped the last bead on the end of my braid that fell over my ear, allowing it to move freely. I marveled at my bead work, shaking my head, letting the plaits dance as I closed my eyes.

“Amale.” Startled from my trance, I spun my head to the call of my name. My eyes were met with Sa’diyah’s. They were round and kind and shone through the only light in the dim room allowing for me to see her dilated pupil that swam pools of amber. Her locs were rolled into a secure updo and in the graceful way she walked, she began to saunter towards me, and folded her long legs under her as she sat.

“I really think you should have choose a more practical hairstyle,” she laughed as she softly pushed my long braids behind me.

“I did. It’s way more practical than an afro.” I retorted. “Which makes no sense. You know my hero is afro samurai,” I continued and she laughed again, still running her fingers through my braids breaking the quiet of the night with the clacking beads.

“Are you ready for this Amale?” She asked as she dropped her hand from my hair and stared at me again.

I bit my lip and turned away. “You know I have to.”

She didn’t speak. Her unakite stone pendant glistened in the light. The crystal I gifted to her. The crystal that belonged to my sister. The crystal I could no longer hold because of the memories it held.

I remembered the last day I saw her wear it.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Amale come!” My sister tugged at my wrist. My ears rung and my sister’s desperate plea voiced. I was frozen. I stood and never took my eyes off of my father’s body that lay in front of our front door. I stood as I watched the blood seep out of his still body. I watched as men in heavy uniforms and thick boots shot carelessly around our village. Their boots stomping on everything. Our crops. Our animals. Or lives. With giant guns strapped to their back, they killed those that were of no use to them and took those that were.

One of those men lay dead on our floor in the living room. He barged in uninvited. We were home alone. I sat on the couch watching afro samurai, one of my favorite shows and in that moment would finally witness merciless murder like those in this show. My sister hated that show and would never understand why our father would let me, a 10 year old girl watch something as violent as this. He always replied with, “Maybe she’ll learn something.” But I knew it was because he didn’t have the heart to tell either of us no. Spoiled was an understatement. My older sister was at the table, brewing a cup of tea for my father for when he returned from work. The sun was close to setting and he loved his cup of tea at the end of a long day. The tea sat on the counter as my sister washed dishes and talked on the phone to her boyfriend. I think they were fighting. He was cheater and I ever understood why my sister didn’t just leave him. Everyone wanted her. She was beautiful or I guess whatever was considered beautiful in these parts. We both shared a signature almond eye shape with a feminine slant and large full lips, two traits we inherited from our mother. My sister had long beautiful locs that contrasted amazingly with her skin. Her hair was as black as night and her edges were often free and curled in naps and kinks. (She didn’t care much for re-twisting.) Our black hair is another trait we had in common, although mine was much wilder, never done, and could barely hold a curl. My sister’s skin was a light golden brown, (that kind of reminded me of a lion’s coat which I would tease her for) and she has a cute button nose. I was told I would eventually grow into my forehead. My skin was a rich mahogany brown, kind of like…the rich beautiful brown of an antelope (My sister also hated my weird possession with animals.)

“Afia, I’m sorry, you know I love you,” I could hear the man on the other end speak as his voice was deep and booming. I could see why she liked him, he was super tall and muscular and I was too scared to ever look him in the eye when he spoke to me. “I hear you Oko just let me think about it.” She was now done with the dishes and leaned on the kitchen counter, playing with the unakite stone in her pendant that belonged to our mother. The stone aids in health and healing especially within pregnancy, which I find ironic as she died right after I was born.

The man that lay dead by our coffee table, barged in. And went straight to my sister, and yanked the phone from her fingers. “You’re a pretty little thing aren’t you,” he spoke through clenched teeth as he held her face tight towards his. I jumped from the couch attempting to pull him away from her. He glanced down at me and kicked me, sending me flying. “You’ll also do well in time little girl,” he spoke as he pushed my sister aside and began stomping toward me.

Out of nowhere I heard a loud boom. I screamed as blood flew from the man’s chest onto my face and he fell with a thud next to me. I shivered in shock as I just witnessed a real life murder. Afro Samurai still playing in the background and the sound made me sick to my stomach. My sister began to run to whoever stood behind me, tears streaming down her face, I heard the figure voice out, “Afia wait,” he called out to my sister.

I turned my head to see my father, shaking in fear. He held a tiny gun in front of him aiming at the man that lay next to me. He bleed out through his hip, the only spot without armor. He wasn’t dead.

“Father! Watch out!” I managed to scream. It was too late. The world moved in slow motion. My hearing was gone so I couldn’t hear myself scream in terror as I watched my father’s body drop. Blood spilling from his head. My sister’s screams were muted and I watched as she ran towards him and cried on his chest. I quickly remembered the man and grabbed my father’s hand gun that was soaking in a puddle of blood. I aimed at this man’s head and pulled the trigger.

My ears rung and the world was silent. Tears streamed down my face and I felt my sister grab my wrist, knocking the gun from my hand. She shook me to and fro as she screamed something I couldn’t hear. Her heavy pendant knocked against my shoulder as she yelled and I turned my attention to my father who I didn’t take my eyes off of. The sound returned and I finally heard my sister urging me to come and get out of here. All I could think of was the tea on the counter getting cold.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Amale, I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” I unconsciously played with Sa’diyah’s necklace.

“For bringin up-“

“It’s fine.” I cut Sa’diyah off and dropped the pendant.

“I just…please don’t be mad at me.” She continued.

I looked into her large round eyes. “I could never,” I retorted. I meant it. “You’re like my little sister Sa’diyah. I could never.” I glanced down. “My older sister was never mad at me. Or she never made it obvious at least.” I forced a laugh. And she laughed too.

Silence filled the room.

“So as your sister,” Sa’diyah’s began as she broke the silence. Her posture straightened and she smiled exposing her larger, straight white teeth. “I can tell you anything right.” She continued.

“Of course.”

“Um, I’m not gonna tell you now, but it’s about you know...”

“No I don’t know,” I answered trying to hide my annoyance.

“You know the guy that came out of nowhere kind of sorta leading our group in this rebellion.” As she spoke, I wished I weren’t this annoying at sixteen…

“What Sa’daiyah? What about him?” I said with a tone that showed my displease.

“Well it’s just, I was thinking that maybe-“

“He’s an amazing asset to this team. He knows everything about the royal family and he can get us in. Overthrowing them is essential. He’s essential. Remember, they took my sister. They did nothing when my village was taken over. My father died-“

“My village was invaded too,” Sa’diyah spoke with an attitude.

“I know Sa’diyah, all the more reason.” I touched her shoulder but she brushed it off.

“I’m just saying, I don’t trust him.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice shifted to a hushed tone. “You better be right about him. If he-“

We were interrupted by melodic clanks. We both looked to see a large hand move away the beads that hung down the doorway. In walked a tall man, heavy boots, military pants and a tight tee. His weapons decorated his large solid body and his dreads where braided in two cornrows a top his head.

His deep voice boomed. “Y’all ready?”

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a-writing-bear · 6 years

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[AmeriPan - Permission To Date]

This is a Request fic written for @lonelymarblesoda !

Note: I am so very flattered by your sweet compliments! I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I did writing it. It was a great stress reliever for me and your prompt was very cute that I got carried away with fluff honestly <3 Sorry there’s more dialogue than intended!

Ao3 Link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009922

This Has been cross-posted onto FF & Ao3 under Aliases: BearBooper

You can read this Fic on Tumblr under ‘Keep Reading’

Fandom: Hetalia Axis Powers

Pairing: America and Japan

Word Count: 2,742

Age Rating/Mature: All Audiences :)

Prompt: “Howdy, I'm the anon from earlier! Sorry for being shy (^^;) Since you're still taking requests, I was wondering if you were willing to do a fluffy ameripan fanfic where their relationship is revealed at a world meeting (or something along those lines)? Ψ(´▽｀)Ψ”

With an exhausted sigh and soft smile, Alfred pulled into the driveway of his Virginia home; the ignition silencing as he crossed his arms and rested his head on the now-still driving wheel, gazing upon his tall red brick house. Amused at the pristine garden and the open porch - This was another estate that his Government had preened and made proper, All the way to a point where it almost looked too perfect off a pamphlet. Unlike his apartment in New York, this house had been filled with some sort of personalisation yet Alfred still felt no completeness towards it. Alexandria was an old but beautiful charming town and it felt fitting to have his work home so close to DC. It was embarrassing to admit its old Victorian real estate made him feel much calmer compared to other parts of the city, A piece of his past residing within the restored cobbled paths.

His little thoughts drifted away as he slowly got out the car, humming to himself. It was a short drive back from work and after a long day of going over tomorrow's preparations made him gutsy and giddy. Tomorrow he'd have to fly into New York for a UN Personification meeting - undoubtedly with the expectation to make some more pesky deals and fix it what was going on with discussions of some new global catastrophes. Ah. One more look at his front door he delved into the wish he was a normal person. He wouldn't have to deal with such messes if that were the case.

However, he thought as he jammed his key into the mahogany door, there was one good thing about having a meeting tomorrow...

"Hey, I'm home!" His voice rang out loudly and through the living room doorway he heard a ruffling and a quieter voice muffled through what he assumed was a pillow.

"Welcome home.." Whenever they had a New York UN meetup, Kiku had an excuse to come over early and spend some more couple time. They weren't exactly the conventional couple who could enjoy each other's company constantly but he supposed this was enough. He wouldn't want to take Japan away from his livelihood anyway.

The blond padded his way to the living room after shedding his coat and shuffling off his boots. His smile growing wider as he finds Kiku lazing around on the comfy couch in his bright red sweats with Pochi on his chest. Plopping down onto the couch, nearly on the Japanese man's legs, He pulled Pochi off carefully. The hairy creature wriggling in his arms huffed as he released it onto the floor; Obviously, Pochi was not as excited to see him as the creature scampered off somewhere further into the house. Kiku had insisted on bringing his dog over as it would whimper without him. America Leaned down, almost tipping over to lay on his boyfriend.

"Have you been laying here all day Keeks?" locks of hairs splayed onto the shorter man's shirt as Alfred squirmed his way to lie down beside him- it was quite cramped and a miracle he didn't push Japan straight off his tiny couch.

Kiku opened his eyes, the charcoal eyes seemed to dull as he stared unamused at the man who had wormed his arms onto him. Kiku never really was that good with cuddling but he made compromises for his affectionate American lover.

"No. I did work for tomorrow and called the embassy to forward some papers back to Japan," he whispered as he craned his head over to Alfred's face. The two basked in each other’s embrace for a while as the American sneaked in a few kisses while talking about their days, Japan lamenting the lack of interesting tv shows to watch and Alfred venting about the new intern who spilt coffee in his office. Comfort hung in the air happily.

The two spent the evening packing up work papers and tapping away at tiny shiny laptops, documents astray across the bed in preparation for tomorrow. Alfred had just finished and settled under his comforter while watching Keeks still typing away, legs crossed on the blanket and brow furrowed in concentration when it hit him.

He hadn’t told any of his closest allies about his newfound relationship (well- newly established, he and Keeks had been dancing around each other for centuries). Should he be freaking out over this detail? In terms of relationship milestones, Immortals such as them had very few; living long left very little opportunities for firsts and to be honest getting a stable relationship wasn't a thing people like them did. He'd admit, he was the one who would make a deal out of these sorta events whereas Japan was more reserved of their close relationship. Alfred gulped, thinking hard whether or not it was necessary to say the words that were already spilling from his lips

"Can I tell Matthew about us?" clicking and clacking came to a halt and Kiku had looked up but still ahead, gazing at the painting opposite him hanging loosely on the wall - some Italian painting obviously gifted by Feli. America felt disappointed all of a sudden, letting out a breath he didn't realise he had captured. Maybe he should have left the topic for another day. A few seconds later Kiku had resumed typing on what looked like some new policy proposal and with absently minded disinterest had replied with so much but a passing glance.

"He already knows Al.” voice slightly airy with cocky amusement as Alfred spluttered and shifted in the shared bed. Kiku suddenly felt uncomfortable as he felt cerulean blue depths bury themselves into his back; shutting his laptop and discarding it on the bedside table he fell backwards onto the feather pillow next to his boyfriend - the word felt foreign on his tongue (A bit immature? Boyfriend sounded kiddy.). For a while, they exchanged nothing but awkward glances before Alfred caved and intertwined his palm with Kiku’s.

“You know I’m traditional. I had to ask him if he would all-”

“You asked my brother if you had permission to date me?!” Kiku’s blank face did nothing but Make Alfred laugh even harder. “Kiku. We aren’t like- we aren’t teenagers. I’m literally hundreds of years old, fuck your Millions-” the black haired man shrunk further into the bed in annoyance of his age and quickly pushed a pillow between himself and his cackling lover.

“It’s how I do things. It’s polite and you're brother was kind about it. Did he not tell you?” Alfred threw the pillow barrier towards the bottom of the bed before scooting over closer to the Japanese man, who was getting more embarrassed and flustered by the minute.

“Nah. Mattie knows when there are times I don’t need to know things. I’m surprised that’s all.” he felt breathlessly in love and voiceless with contentedness at the other nation’s admission. It felt oddly nice to be…’courted’ in such an old way. “Besides, If anything, I expected you to bring it up with old man Artie or even Francis…”

Kiku turned, puzzled expression painted prettily on his face- which was only inches away from Alfred’s. “...I’m not marrying you. Why would I ask Mr Eng-”

A pillow cut him off unexpectedly as Alfred nearly fell off the bed in complete hilarity. Kiku was about to pout and say something more. With a few attempts at explaining why there was no point to marriage due to their immortality, Kiku floundered. As he peeked over the edge of where America had fallen off, he himself broke into a small smile. Alfred’s glasses had gone askew and were currently red in the face from the overexerting giggles. As the pair quieted down for the night they felt secure; Tomorrow would be fine, for now, America just wanted a cuddle.

Alfred’s feet tapped violently as he basically bounced off each step of his creaky staircase. Bounding off into the kitchen to pack some last minutes notes he had left on a table. He shouted out impatiently:

“KEEKS COME ON! WE’VE GOT TO GET TO NEW YORK!” he was in a complete flurry as he zoomed around, enthusiastic and frantic to get to their private plane on time- his bosses would skewer him if he delayed any longer, and no doubt Japan’s embassy would be in a fit if he were late too.

Speaking of the Asian nation, the man himself with all the grace and peace in the world came down. Dressed in a western style suit, Kiku readjusted his red tie and tutted himself for his messy morning hair, stoic glance nitpicking every corner of his newly tailored clothes. At the sight of Kiku’s very neat and smart look, Alfred swooned a little, puppy eyes widening as he quickly stole a kiss - which was received with a red face and another ‘tsch’ of shyness - before pushing his cute partner out the door and practically throwing both their briefcases into the car. The plane ride was uneventful and even when the planes kissed the clouds the only view that captivated the Alfred was the silly way Kiku had tried to keep himself occupied; sudoku books were the way to go apparently.

As the other nations began to file in, one by one, Alfred appeased his boss’s anxiety by greeting them all, including old-time allies such as the NATO nations and even the newer ambassadors. Japan had been lost in the mix, both had agreed to carry on as if they had entered separately - not because they didn’t want to show off, but instead to avoid making it difficult to sort out guest arrangements. Alfred fiddled with his watch as he made his own way to the front of the table. Familiar faces filled the large room. England had already buried his desk area with paper as France somehow charmed an admin into getting him a coffee. One look at the other end and he witness Germany scribbling incessantly and the myriad of eastern Europeans personifications huddled up avoiding the Russian. Witnessing Denmark and Sweden already debating on new guidelines, Alfred gulped. It was going to be a tiring day.

Talk after talk, speech and updates floated by and although his hands were writing his notes and his voice kept him engaged in conversation, his heart had decided to tether his brain to the thought of Kiku. The beauty who was sitting on his left. Already Kiku had resigned himself to a conversation between China and South Korea and was looking adequately bored over the talk of generic ocean trade talks. Coughing as inconspicuously as possible Alfred signalled to his partner and took his hand under the table, smoothing his thumb to reassure him of the time not being wasted. Both had shuffled in the movement and although Alfred was rambling on in response to something Arthur had spoken, the ever diligent Matthew noticed such a carelessly romantic gesture. Canada had been seated on Alfred’s right, and with only a second to glance at what had occurred he snorted and rolled his eyes before nudging his brother in utter glee. He was happy his overly ambitious brother found something as calming as a relationship for his very hectic lifestyle.

Matthew whispered to his brother and bordering Ally, “Congrats Alfie, however, If you think you’re being smooth you’re- as usual- idiotic.”

“You’re just jealous Gilbert is stuck in Germany holding the fort. Anyway, when were you gonna tell me Japan asked you for permission huh?t” with a shrug and a kick to his knee under the table the two merely laughed it off, Francis and Arthur were confused at the NA brothers sudden cheeriness. Noticing this, Kiku turned to his secret partner, squeezing his hand tight enough that Alfred nearly yipped when he went to turn to him:

“I’m not sure if your conversation with Matthew-san is appropriate right now.” Matthew gave a sheepish glance as if to say sorry but suddenly just as the 3 of them tried to get back to task Francis had enough of missing out on a joke before quizzically pushing in to ask rather loudly.

“May I know what was not appropriate? It’s rude to leave friends out of a conversation is it not?” next to him even the Englishman nodded, interested in what was going on and before Alfred could deflect he hear a subtle Japanese swear roll of Kiku’s breath and something he thought he’d never hear even within his long-ass lifetime:

“I was telling Matthew how my relationship with Alfred was not of matter as of this moment.”

The room fell into silence. America’s suit felt too tight and he was unsure if it was the nerves of so many countries falling to a standstill or if it was his heart pumping way too hard after hearing Kiku practically announce out their very private relations. In a bit of shock, Alfred had stood up hastily, but his laced hands with Kiku dragged the Japanese delegation up with him- making the situation look even more entertainingly obvious. With a loud slap on the table, Arthur pushed his chair out and stood up as well, the man had a very irked expression.

“How did you tell Matthew about this before me?!” At this point Francis had broken out into a wide mouth smile, still seated and leaned his head onto England’s hip while trying to soothe the seething British man with a couple pats on the back. The long-haired Frenchman calmed Arthur down, chattering away about the etiquette of young love and it’s failure to respect their elders. For once in his lifetime, it almost seemed like Arthur and Francis were a couple of genuine parents lamenting over a son who had eloped without any contact. They all sat down slowly and Kiku had already turned to sort out the gaping look from his Asian counterparts. The conversation ceased to exist as the situation dissolved back into the murmurs of the nations. Soon, the conference ended and as each country left with a joyful congratulatory smile over fruitful debate and strong handshakes with closed deals. Even his least friendly connections gave him a note of thanks and wishes for the best. He saw Arthur and Francis alongside Matthew gathering in one corner of the now empty room, whereas Kiku was purposely packing away at a snail’s pace, stalling till Alfred came over.

“Keeks. You didn’t….why did you do that?”

“It’s not a secret. You said you wanted me to tell your former mentors Alfred. They have a right to know.” The American squished the smaller man into a close hug and a chaste kiss on the forehead before hearing a distinct “ahem”. Shaking Kiku’s hand firmly, Arthur looked Japan up and down before smiling uncharacteristically and pulling him into a hug- catching an unaware Japan quite well. Granted he had known England for while but he never knew he would be greeted with such glee and care. France had given Kiku some good pats and a big hug before chanting some famous French proverb and singing a dilly-dallying rendition of “la vie en rose” much to England and Canada’s despair. The other NA brother merely nodded proudly at Kiku and the short man appreciated that; he had enough hugs for today honestly.

Meekly he commented, already pulled close by a bashful Alfred, “I hope this won't interfere any deals in the future, Mr England and Mr France.” but his serious tone was met with only more exhilarated kindness.

“Enough with formalities for now. Of Course not Kiku. Here we are no longer Countries but ourselves. It is not America and Japan who are together in the way Alfred and Kiku are. Don’t let work change that.” Not really understanding but still thankful for the sentiment, the couple bid the 3 other men off and hopped back onto a plane. This time it was bound for Japan, and Alfred had already packed a bag and Pochi was already running down the walkway of the plane. The 2 sat patiently together on the flight, bathing in each other’s solitude before being interrupted by Japan’s phone dinging erratically- Yao had been calling.

So much for being quiet about things, Alfred Mused as his now public boyfriend fumbled to pick up the call. He only hoped China didn’t mind that he never ask for permission to date Kiku.

Oh well.

#aph japan #aph america #ameripan #hetalia axis powers #hetalia #Hetalia Fanfiction #prompt fic #fanfic #oneshots #request #america x japan

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saphirecross · 6 years

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questions. fandom questions. questions in which i am too lazy/tired to use grammar. but questions none-the-less i think maybe. But yes, on to these questions, where i may occasionally use actual words how they are supposed to be used. Anyway, yes.

1) Are you ever in a fandom and there is a ship that you don’t necessarily like, but you don’t hate (or maybe you REALLY don’t like it) but at like 3 A.M. you are sitting at your computer just doing whatever it is you people do on your computers at 3 A.M. and you are just like man, i really want to look at fanart/read fanfics/headcannons for this one ship that i haven’t even come across in forever but like, i must remember the right way to search it NOW? Like, you know the feeling? THAT one? and you know that eventually you are going to go to sleep and when you wake up it will be another back burner ship because there is that one that is just absolutely precious and you fully support it, but for right now, for this slot of time while you are surrounded by media it is the #1 ship and it is the best. (honestly this is me with the Cinder/Emerald stuff. i mean... it exists but like... white rose also exists...) you know?

2) or maybe you aren’t even part of a fandom but you were on the internet and hey that couple looks cute and now you don’t know how you ended up passing so much time clicking through a path of pictures and you don’t know where you are anymore, but while you don’t know all of the deets because you never watched/read/played/whatevered the source material you are still pretty aware of what is going on and you absolutely love these two disaster children and no you don’t even know who they are but you have to protect them because you are pretty sure that that ones mom wants them both dead. (i have no clue what i found but chick with green hair and blonde chick are adorable, i love them, i don’t know who they are, i have no desire to, but they are my children)

3) or you are scrolling through tumblr, just being bored, and you see a fanart/fanfic/whatever for something and you have no clue what it is from, or what it is about, you don’t fucking know, but you NEED to find out. You have to involve yourself with the source material and you need to find more stuff from this fandom because DAMN it just looks GREAT. Like, you don’t know why, but this pretty black bird with the weird red mark and that blurry football player in the background make you really want to hunt down this show/book/whatever. but it isn’t in the tags. So you hunt through the blog and finally find the same raven except again, no tags. But now there is a clear image of a boy so now you are looking for this boy, etc, etc, until finally you are on what you think based on context clues is a shape-shifting psychic wolf and you finally find tags that tell you what it is from and you go and consume the source material and now you are tits deep in a new fandom and it is fucking precious. (the ravens name is Caleb, the girl is Lilliana, the wolf’s name is bane, and i love them all. Also, Xev is a precious baby and he doesn’t deserve this shit... ANyway,)

4) Or like, randomly NEEDING to revisit a fandom you haven’t seen in forever. Nothing happened to push you in this direction but you have chocolate and sprite and you want to go back and look into THAT fandom and maybe its from a cringey phase in your life and maybe you think it is stupid but regardless, you need to check in and then its an hour and a half later and you realize you ran out of andies candies. and fuck is it really that late already, i was just dropping by, whoops. (... Black Butler... I don’t know why. It just sort of happened.)

5) or like, you started a thing a while ago and kinda liked it but like... eh so woo now its time to finish that thing. Wait it has TWO WHOLE SPIN OFFS NOW uh... OKAY BINGE READING THIS SHIT TONIGHT. (Started reading a fanfic for a thing it had like 6 chapters. i bookmarked it. i was clearing out my bookmarks and i found it. it has 36 CHAPTERS and seriously two whole additional spin off serieses and like... yes. this was like a year ago and i don’t know why i am remembering this now but it deserves it’s place on the list)

6)or finding a fandom and loving the fandom but having no interest in the ships or anything or even the source material to the point that you don’t even really go watch the source material. you just sorta read all the fanfics that you happen across on this hell site and enjoy the headcannons and fanart and stuff because it seems cool but not like... something you would binge watch ( i am not stating what it is here because... as much as i love the fandom it scares me too. pretty sure they could kill me. Love you guys)

7) or starting a thing and getting really immersed in the fandom but not ever really finishing it so now you are like here but you don’t entirely know what’s going on so you just kind love everything and smile and die a little. (Hunter X Hunter. I started watching it with a friend. We never finished it. We got about halfway through what is on Netflix. I honestly don’t even remember the last thing to happen. but i love Killua and Gon and Hisoka is a fucking creep)

8) or like, you see a fandom/interest come across your dash so much that you just assume it was something you were interested in at some point and followed some poeple but then you like... forgot about it... and you don’t really remember anything about it. So like... you don’t really know. Maybe the people you follow just collectively started liking stuff they hadn’t before, which is fine, but you can never be quite sure. (i have seen A LOT of witchy stuff recently, and like... it seems in character for little fourteen year old me but like... i can’t quite tell...)

9)Or like, you see a post that is really random and it reminds you of that one thing you used to be really into but they are completely unrelated and you have no idea why that thing popped into your mind but you remember a surprising amount about it. (I really wanted to play trumpet. i did all of the bok studying but i was shit at playing. I practiced a lot... but it didn’t really work out. I saw a post about shoes the other day and i just kinda laughed for a minute remembering the trumpet thing and then i started remembering little facts and i just kinda... huh)

you know those feelings? like... those things that are like... is this something i am/was/could be/should be interested in? or is this just meh? you know the feeling? these are my questions. questions. fandom questions. questions in which i am too lazy/tired to use grammar. but questions none-the-less i think maybe. But yes, questions, where i may occasionally use actual words how they are supposed to be used. Anyway, yes.

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elexuscal · 7 years

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Fanfic: Guidance

Summary: Sometimes a person can become so lost, they don't even realize they've gone astray. Thankfully, Steven finds someone who's walked this path before. Fandoms: Steven Universe and Legend of Korra Warning for discussion of depression and suicidal tendencies Ao3 link As a birthday present for the awesome @swordtheguy!!

Guidance

The world around Steven is beautiful.

It’s a forest, bigger than any he’s ever seen, with trees that would tower even over Alexandrite. The sun that filters through its canopy is a vivid, shimmering green and gold. There are other lights, too-- fluttering things, birds and dragonflies and winged rabbits. The air is cool, but pleasantly so, like the first days of spring, and rich with the smells of bark, soil, and something almost electric.

Steven’s pretty sure he’s dreaming. After all, he’s never seen anything like this before, on Earth or off of it.

Thing is, he doesn’t usually realize he’s dreaming when it’s a regular dream. Which means this probably isn’t one.

“Hello?” Steven calls out to the world at large. The flittering critters react like a stone thrown into water, radiating away from him. “I’m really sorry for wandering into your head! I didn’t mean to!”

Nobody answers.

With nothing else to do, Steven sets off exploring. Walking along the mossy forest floor, occasionally trying to reach out to one of magical dream animals, but they all flinch away from him. He sighs, and tries calling out names for whose dream this could be. “Dad? Amethyst? Lapis?” Then, a little hopefully, “Connie?"

No answer.

“Fine,” Steven sighs. He flops down on a massive most pillow on the root of an absolutely massive tree.

Now what? he wonders.

He could wake up. Probably best. He’s learned the dangers of wandering in a sub-conscious where he’s not wanted.

But the thought of lying in his dark room, sleepless, is incredibly unappealing. Keeping his eyes shut tight, pretending he can’t hear the Gems creeping around, watching him. Wondering why everyone’s so freaked out, when he’s home and he’s safe. Worrying about the Lars, the one who actually deserves it.

Something flickers in the corner of his eye.

Steven turns. It’s a little plant-flowery-vine thing, pale translucent white, it’s little frond wiggling.

“Oh, hello!” Steven says.

It seems to hear him. At least, it wiggles a little more, stretching towards him.

“I’m Steven,” Steven says, ever polite. “I don’t suppose you know where I am, huh?” If it does, it can’t say, which is maybe to be expected of a plant. Still, he’s not giving up yet. “I was kinda hoping this is the mind of my friend, Connie. She kinda ran off earlier, and…”

The plant seems to look at him expectantly, which is impressive for something without eyes.

“She’s being… frustrating,” Steven confesses. “And I don’t know why! I was gone doing something dangerous, but it was something to save her. And when I came back, she was mad at me! It makes no sense! Doesn’t she get I was protect everyone? Her, my friends, the whole planet... “

The plant reaches out, closer to him, and Steven knows it can understand him.

“She said Stevonnie coulda defeated Aquamarine. But that’s stupid. Alexandrite couldn’t defeat Aquamarine! And she’s the size of godzilla! So if we’d tried, no way we coulda won. We just would have gotten carried off into space, and now we’d be trapped in a zoo. I couldn’t risk everyone. I couldn’t risk her."

The plant stretches, a leafy tendril coming to lay on Steven’s hand. It’s cool. Comforting.

It wants him to keep explaining.

“And I mean-- all the Diamonds really want is Rose Quartz. And who can blame them? She’s a killer. Or maybe she is… I wonder if Zircon is right? That someone else shattered Pink Diamond, and covered it up?” Steven sighs again. The plant squeezes his hand in response. “But then… why does everyone think my Mom did it? Did she lie to them? It wouldn’t be the first time…”

Suddenly, all those thoughts-- those thoughts he hasn’t had the time to look at, the one’s he’s actively been avoiding-- come spilling out of his mouth. Steven lets them. The plant won’t get angry at him, or start crying, or tell him he was irresponsible, or run away. The pant will listen. The plant will understand.

Korra is sharing tea with Fire Lord Izumi and about ten of the highest ranking noble families in the Fire Nation, when a transparent woman appears in the middle of the table to tell Korra that she needs to come quickly.

The nobles erupt into a mixture of surprised expressions, scandalized gasped, annoyed frowns and curious questions.

Korra herself remains completely calm. She’d gotten pretty used to Jinora and other air-benders with spiritual projection.

She catches Izumi’s eye. The Fire Lord nods. m“Do what you must. I am sure we can carry on without you.”

Within five minutes, Korra’s in a nice, quiet, private chamber, eyes crossed, breathing deep, letting her spirit float out of her body and into a whole other world entirely.

What she finds there: vines.

Lots and lots of vines.

“So I’m guessing this is the problem?” Korra asks.

Jinora nods. “Furry-Foot said that it started showing up… well, spirit time doesn’t always correspond perfectly to our world’s, but a few days, at least. It’s spreading fast, snaring everything it touches. Won’t be long until it reaches the Northern Spirit Portal.”

Korra nearly swears. But keeping a positive outlook is important in the Spirit World, so she doesn’t.

She does wish this had happened at basically any other time. When she was at home in Republic City, or visiting family, either in the North or South Pole. But no. It had to have hit while she was in the middle of a tour of the Fire Nation. While she’s gotten better at this spirity stuff, she still would have preferred to actually walk into the Spirit World in her real body. She always feels so… naked, without her bending.

Whatever. No use grousing.

Jinora wants to come, but her form is flickering at the edges. Apparently she was at this for hours, not wanting to interrupt Korra. It’s late in Republic City. She needs her rest. After a little resistance, Jinora’s form vanishes, and Korra heads off alone.

She has to weave and duck her wave through the waves of spirits rushing from the ever encroaching vines-- until, suddenly, she doesn’t have to at all. They’ve all fled, or have become trapped.

Korra makes sure to float a good few feet above the surface.

She stares down at the vines. It doesn’t look like a dark spirit, all roiling blacks and purples, like oil on water. These vines are bright. Shimmering pinks, with sparks of yellow and blue just beneath the surface.

More to the point; they don’t feel like a dark spirit. Those are all-- rage and impotence and frustration and righteous fury turned sour. This-- well, Korra’s not great at sensing emotions, and she’s not going to say there’s no anger there. But more… sadness, maybe… And something almost earnest.

Korra shakes her head.

“Hello,” she says. “I’m the Avatar!. I’m here to talk to you about all the, well, attacking.”

An almost invisible ripple seems to pass through the vines as its attention shifts to her. One of its might tendrils raises up, reaching towards her.

“Woah woah woah!” Korra flings herself back; not sure if this thing can trap her in the Spirit World, but she’s not gonna risk it. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re hurting a lot of other people. Can you tell me why? Maybe we can figure something out.”

Curiousity. Confusion. Those are the feelings Korra’s sensing from it.

“Did something upset you? Or hurt you? If something did, I’ll try my best to fix it. But right now, you’re hurting others, and I can’t allow that.”

The plant doesn’t answer.

Because, obviously, it’s a plant. But this is the Spirit World. You never know. Korra really wishes this was one of the spirits which can talk, since it’s a lot harder to do peace negotiations with something with no words or expressions.

The vines ripple and pulse, a pattern moving deeper into the core of its roiling tangle. Korra squares her shoulders, and follows it.

“This better not be a trap,” she mutters.

The vines’ lights glitter in a way that feels like it should be reassuring. Somehow it does little to reassure her.

The lights begin to accelerate, and Korra moves faster in response-- faster and faster. She feels like she’s being pulled-- not by the vines themselves, but by the instinct inside of her, Raava’s light recognising this is where she needs to go.

Around her is a forest, or what used to be one. Now every single inch of it is covered in vines, so thick she can’t make out anything beneath it. Looming in front of her is what must be the core. It reminds her of the great Banyan tree in the swamp, or a distorted reflection of it. A a core of vines, the heart from which this all radiates out.

Korra’s drawn towards it.

Instead of planting painfully straight into it, she flies through, insubstantial. Finds herself in a small chamber. A cocoon, almost.

There’s someone inside. A human face, thick vines from the neck down.

“Hi,” the person-- a boy-- says. At least, he looks and sounds like a boy, although it’s not helpful to assume that kind of thing with spirits. “Were you trying to talk to me?”

“Yes,” says Korra.

“Oh, okay! Sorry, I couldn’t hear you very well.” He peers at her curiously. “Is this your dream?”

“My… dream?”

The boy nods. “Yeah, when this kind of stuff happens, it’s usually because I’m in someone’s dream, and you’re the first person to come and talk to me. Except, when I do end up in someone’s head, it’s always someone I’ve at least heard of before…”

Korra crosses her arms. “This isn’t a dream. This is real. You’re in the spirit world.”

“Spirit world? What’s that?”

“It’s the… world for spirits,” Korra says, unbalanced.

“Wow,” the boy says, eyes going very wide. “Spirts, like ghosts? I didn’t know those were really real.”

The surprise in his voice is so genuine that it makes Korra take a second look at him. “Are you… human?”

“Sorta. I’m half-human.”

“Half human,” Korra echoes.

“How about you?” he asks, looking her up and down. “Are you human?”

“Sorta,” Korra repeats, unable to resist herself. “Half too, I guess. Half-human, half-spirit. I’m the Avatar.”

The pronouncement had earned Korra many responses over the years, from surprise, respect, annoyance and scorn. This boy just smiles and says, “Nice to meet you! I’m Steven.”

“Well, Steven,” Korra says, after a pause. “Are you part-spirit, like me?”

(Maybe it’s possible, after all. Korra’s not sure how, but if Raava managed to fuse with Wan, and again with her, why couldn’t some other spirit figure out some way with another human?)

“No, no. I’m half Gem.”

“Half… gem?” Korra’s mind filled with images of the many jewelry shops she’d visited with Asami. “Like, jade or diamond or something?”

This was probably the wrong thing to say, because Steven grimaced and shook his head vigorously. “No no no no. My Mom was a Rose Quartz.”

“Right,” said Korra, carefully not asking how someone’s mother could be a hunk of pink rock. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter what you are. What matters is right now, you’re hurting a lot of people.”

“What?”

“You’re hurting a lot of people,” Korra repeats. “And you have to stop.”

He shakes his head, looking genuinely surprised and panicked. “No, no-- I wouldn’t. How?”

“Those vines,” Korra says, pointing at them and then spreading her hands to encompass the whole plant cocoon around them. “They’ve been spreading out, catching spirits and dragging them dow-”

“What? Where did-- how--” He looks down and his eyes widened. “Where did these come from?” He begins to struggle and struggle. “I can’t get out!”

“I-- know. Well, not exactly.” He bites his lip, still squirming and struggling. “I… I knew the plant was there. I was talking to it. But… it looked different. It was all white and translucent… and then it touched me… And…” He blinks. “I don’t know. Everything’s hazy, until you showed up.”

Korra hums in the back of her throat. Maybe this Steven isn’t the cause of monster-vines after all, but just another victim. Maybe even the very first.

She wills herself to become more solid, more tangible. Gravity pulls her down. The plant-floor beneath her was firm, but slightly springy, like a dojo mat. “I’m gonna try and get you out,” Korra tells Seven. Wrapping two, strong hands the vines where the boy’s shoulders should be, she pulls.

Nothing happens.

She pulls and pulls and pulls, with all of her (quite substantial) strength, and those vines do not budge.

“It’s no use,” Steven says.

“Don’t give up so easily.” Korra pats the vague area of his shoulder. If there’s something she’s learned about spirits, sometimes you need to be indirect about these things. “I’ll figure something out.

“It’s okay,” Steven says. “Don’t worry. It’s not a big deal.”

Korra’s first instinct to point out yes, it is a big deal, and just barrel through to her next idea. This she pauses, and looks the kid over. “What do you mean? You can’t stay here. You must have friends and family to get back to, right?”

“Well… yeah… But don’t worry. They’re all angry at me anyway…. I just put them in danger. They’re better off without me.”

Korra’s frown deepens.

The vines used to be white, but they became pink. That seems important somehow. In the spirit world, a person’s emotions affects the world around them.

She sits down and crosses her legs, like she’s going to meditate, and asks, “Steven, when you were talking to the plant, what exactly did you tell it?"

Steven finds that explaining things to Korra is a lot harder than explaining things to the plant.

That’s her name. Korra, not ‘Avatar’. That part is a title, it turns out. It’s apparently kind of a big deal, where she comes from. There’s only ever one Avatar at a time, and it’s their job to help keep the peace and make sure everyone is protected and happy.

That’s part of the reason explaining things is so hard. The world Korra comes from is really, really different from his. Everything sounds super old fashioned, and there’s no TV or internet or video games. Also, a whole bunch of humans have super powers, and use it to fight and build stuff and heal people. Also, as far as Korra knows, there’s no such thing as Gems. When Steven explains about them, she says it sounds like something out of the “pulp science books” her wife likes.

But that’s only part of the difficulty. Most of it is because… well, the plant just sat there and listened. But Korra can talk, and Korra has things to say.

“So let me get this straight,” Korra says, fixing him her two piercing blue eyes. “You turned yourself in to these space empresses for your Mom’s crimes, and only escaped by a pure miracle?”

“Uh, basically.”

She throws up her hands. “Well, of course everyone is upset with you!”

“Well, they shouldn’t be.” Steven would have crossed her arms, except he couldn’t actually feel or move them anymore.

“Kid,” Korra says, her voice soft. “How would you feel, if one of them had gone and done that in your place?”

Well-- well. That-- he’d have been scared, of course, but the Gems and Connie have all gone and done scary things for him before. Lots and lots of times. But they’ve come back, safe and sound each and every time, and there’s no use worrying about what might have happened. You just smile and put that behind you and move on.

“I’d be happy they’re back,” Steven says, as firmly as possible.

Korra’s expression is skeptical.

Steven huffs and looks away. “You just don’t get it. No one does.”

“But I do. I really, really do.”

Steven hesitates, and glances back at the woman. When he does, her eyes are solemn, distant.

“It happened… oh, ten years ago now? Twelve?” Korra shakes her head, mouth briefly twisting in wry amusement. It fades quickly. “There was group going around; called themselves the Red Lotus. They believed in… well, a lot of things. Some of it was maybe even good. But their methods…” A heavy sigh. “They kidnapped a group of civilians, and threatened to murder them if I didn’t give myself up.”

As much as he can, Steven leans forward. “What… what did you do?”

“A few of my friends thought we could take them. Get to the civilians before they were killed. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

“So… you turned yourself in?”

“I turned myself in.”

The story which followed is horrifying and breathtaking. The battle sounds… brutal, with lava and explosions and flying, and it would have been really cool if people hadn’t died.

But even with poison in her veins, Korra had fought back, and she had one, and clearly everything had turned out just fine.

“So you did the same thing I did,” says Steven.

“Yeah, I did. But here’s the thing… As soon as I woke up, and realized what was going on, I did everything I could to escape.”

“So did I!” exclaims Steven.

“Because of your friend. Lairs, was it?”

“Lars,” he corrects.

“Right. Lars.” Korra nods. “As soon as you realized he was with you, you escaped to make sure he escaped. But the way you were talking…. Steven, when you turned yourself in, did you really plan on fighting back?”

The memories flood him, too strong to ignore; the fear kicking in his chest, the seething anger at himself, the desperation, the determination, the wish wish wish that this could all just go away…

… and despite everything, the paradoxical relief somewhere in the back of his brain, that at least this would be over, at least he wouldn’t have to worry any more, at least…

No. He hadn’t been expecting to ever come home.

Steven doesn’t say it aloud, but it must show on his face. Korra’s expression shifts into-- something. Not a frown, not a smile. She stands.

“You did the same thing as me,” says Korra, “and that’s why I’m so concerned.

“Because after that battle… I was really messed up. Both in the body and the head. I was weak, I could barely walk-- and I hated myself for it. I kept hearing things about what was going on in the world, about what the Red Lotus had done… People were dying, and I was stuck in a bed. I was so, so tired. Of everything. Sometimes I thought… I’d be easier to just… let go. Let another Avatar takeover. A better one.”

Steven wants to say something, but he has no idea what, and there’s no breath left in his lungs.

“It took a couple of years, but with a lot of hard work, my body got better. This--” she tapped her head-- “Not so much. I was sure I was… missing something. So I went looking for it.

“But… I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I just lied to them, took a boat, and…. Well, I told myself it was for the best. I was getting better. And if they knew what I was up to, then they’d just worry. That was the last thing I wanted. They’d already done so much for me, and I was just dragging them down. They were better off this way.

Steven doesn’t want to listen to this. He wants to close his eyes and put his hands over his ears and block it all off. Or run off. But he can’t do either. He’s just stuck here, listening.

“Here’s the thing,” says Korra. “I wasn’t actually getting any better. I was just-- wallowing. Being angry and sad, and in a weird, terrible way, kinda enjoying it.”

None of these words seem to fit the strong, confident woman standing in front of him. Steven manages to say, “How did you…?"

“I managed to find… well, let’s call her an old friend. She knocked some sense into me. Literally.” Korra laughs. “Then some other friends found me, needing my help. After three years, I finally went home. And let me tell you: my friends were pissed.

“And I can’t blame them! I’d blocked them out of my life and lied to them! It wasn’t fair to them… and it wasn’t fair to me. And they knew that. They were all worried, and one of the ways that came out was anger.”

Steven licks his lip. “So you’re saying…. You think that I’m…"

“Yeah. Look at this.” Korra lays her hands on the thick, pink vines enveloping his body. “In the spirit world, a person’s emotions affect the spirits around them. Anger and sadness can turn spirits dark. Make them attack others.

“From what you’ve told me today, Steven, you seem very caring. You want to protect and help others. You’re sad and angry-- but that sadness and anger is aimed inward, at yourself.

“But that can still hurt ones around you, even if you don’t mean for it or even notice. The vines are lashing out at others the same way. But they’re also hurting you.” She tapped his chest. “What happens if they grow over your mouth, or nose?”

“I…”

Steven wants to argue back. Tell her she’s probably misunderstood. That it’s okay, it’s fine.

But he has to admit, it’s not normal be trapped inside a mass of magical vines.

He stares down at the shimmering, swirling pinks of the plants around him. “Did I really do this to you?”

He thinks he feels a yes, rustling through the plant’s mind.

Steven sags. There are people out there, being hurt, and it’s all his fault.

Just like it was his fault that Aquamarine came for his friends. His fault that Lars is trapped in a Homeworld kindergarten. His fault that he left his family crying in the ocean. His fault that Connie doesn’t even want to talk to him.

The vines creep further up his neck.

“Steven, no.”

Korra’s voice voice is urgent and firm, and close enough that Steven can feel the heat of her breath on his face.

“Are thoughts like that helping anybody?” she asks.

“I-- I guess not,” says Steven.

He’s done things like this before. When Garnet first told him about Future Vision, when he fell off the Sky Arena with Connie.

Connie. She’s always been there, to help him through, when he’s sad or angry or afraid.

And he’d just told her… It was all fine. He hadn’t really tried to-- ask why she was upset. He’s just thought she was being weird and told her to be happy.

She’d never do that to him.

He feels terrible, and for a moment, he wants nothing more than to just curl up in a ball here.

But that won’t actually help her.

Suddenly, he can breath easier. The vines have retreated, and a pressure he hadn’t even

Noticed vanishes from around his chest.

“There you go,” says Korra, warm and encouraging.

She stays with him and talks with him, to help shrink away the rest of the vines. Giving him gentle reminders about how it’s okay, it’s alright, he can do this. Asking him questions about his life. What does he like to do with his spare time? What’s his favourite things about the Gems and his Dad and his friends? What kind of stuff is he looking forward to?

The vines get smaller and smaller and smaller. The pinks and yellows and blues fade and fade and fade.

He’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually he’s left standing where be began. On that patch of moss underneath a giant tree, with that tiny white flower at his feet.

Those flying creatures-- spirits, he knows now-- are getting back up. Stretching their legs and wings and other appendages, fluttering off as quickly as they can. Steven watches them go through slightly watery eyes.

A warm hand presses down on his head.

Steven looks up at Korra. “Sorry,” he says. To her, to the plant, to the whole spirit world around him.

Korra smiles, and nods.

“Now,” she says, straightening a little, “Let’s see if I can get you home.” “That’s alright. I think I can manage that part myself, now.” Already he can feel it-- a sort of tug, a sense of the world fading, as his real body begins to wake up.

But first…

He throws himself forward, and wraps Avatar Korra’s legs in a hug. The fur of her clothes is soft and comforting.

“Thanks,” he mumbles into her stomach.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, leaning down and hugging him back. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Steven says, and he’s left of the image of her warm, smiling face.

And then he’s in bed, eyes closed, wrapped in a soft duvet. He can heard people moving around downstairs-- clicks and clangs accompanied by sharp whispers, suggesting the Gems are trying to make him breakfast without disturbing him. The thought makes him smile a little.

His stomach growls. He would really appreciate having breakfast, and then going back to bed for an actual, proper sleep.

But he can’t, not yet.

Eyes opening, he reaches out for his phone, resting on his bedside table. He finds the right number near the very top. He types,

Hey Connie I’m sorry Can we talk?

#steven universe #su #lok #korra #fanfic

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musicinneverland · 7 years

Text

Here’s a shitty sorta fluff piece that I wrote because I’ve been reading far too much fanfic lately

I close my eyes and allow the wind to hit me full on. While I know that it’s not exactly wise to be walking when the rain has no intentions of slowing, it’s hard not to. The forty minutes to work is the only time I can take to think and be truly aware of myself. The calming effect of today’s weather is an added bonus. This time I take to breathe and listen to my music and decompress are so important. Without it I’d probably be institutionalized. There’s some hope, though. I don’t think I’m as sad or stressed anymore. The loneliness comes in waves that tend to drown out other potential feelings. If we’re being honest here, these walks probably make it worse. They just enable me to replay the past over and over.

You see, I’ve created this routine. It’s one of many, but it’s the one I follow the most strictly. No matter how many scenes unravel in my head of bumping into him, either at work or on the street, I need to remind myself that it’s just a fantasy. And it would break my routine.

First

First I find myself remembering the day we met. That is where most people start, after all. My hair swayed behind me as I walked down the city streets I passed nice-yet-affordable dining, antique shops, and high rise buildings. My destination was a small record shop nestled right in the middle. That’s where my first routine began. Greet the store cat, put my bag behind the counter, and make my way on to the floor. The walk around was pretty simple; make sure the records were in their proper place, the store looked at least sortve put together, and take the albums I wanted for my stash before the customers could get to them. The coffee maker would hum along to whatever vinyl my boss, Harvey, deemed to fit that day’s ‘vibe’. He’d usually pick from my stash, but the record always found its way back by pay day. From there, we’d move on to more important things. On a normal day that would consist of feeding Bob Meowly, cleaning the large windows upfront, and then arguing about what’s actually a classic as opposed to what was just popular.

The day this routine changed was a year and a half into my time at the small shop. In hindsight I probably should’ve known that something was off. Meowly didn’t meet me by the door, the record of the day was different from the usual style, and Harvey sat at the counter with an amused look. The same grin he got when he knew I’d have an entertaining reaction to something was plastered on his face that morning. And yet, I continued as normal. It was until I stood face to face with a tall, brown haired boy around my age that I realized what exactly was so strange.

“It seems the cat has taken a liking to you,” I said, arms crossed.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He was obviously flustered by the appearance of a new person in the room.

A short silence ensued before he finally asked “Actually, do you work here? I was hoping for some guidance…”

The awkward poured off of him and, with pity in the back of my mind, I decided to take him under my wing. If he wanted to broaden what he listened to, who was I to stop him? By the end of his visit, I’d shown him my hoard, which he affectionately nicknamed the “Holy Grail”. From that day on, I’d grab two records for my stash; one for me and one for him. It wasn’t for another year that I realized that he didn’t actually need any help whatsoever in the music department, it was just an excuse to talk to me.

Second, I’ll think about when things changed. We slowly began to talk about things other than music. We started calling or texting when one of us couldn’t make it to the store that day. It was rare to not hear from him. Pretty soon, he decided that he needed guidance with movies, too. I’d be a bad person if I didn’t help. After a few hours of arguing of which movie to see, we went to the theater. Which led to a long discussion after about how it was so bad it was funny. Which led to the two of us sitting on the roof of his apartments until dawn talking about anything and everything.

So many people think that love is something slow, built upon over years and years until all of the pieces fit. That’s not how it happened for me. That night felt like someone flipped a switch. He had gone from someone I enjoyed talking to, to someone I couldn’t picture not in my life. The light began to shine over the buildings around us, highlighting his curls and the speckles in his eyes. We had stopped talking a while ago, but it was comfortable. That was when I knew I loved him. Pretty ironic, come to think of it. Shortly after, I went home and replayed the night’s events over and over. What I didn’t realize was that there would be plenty more occasions when he wouldn’t leave my mind.

Third.

Number three is where I begin to reach an overwhelmed state. This is when I recall our firsts: first kiss, first fight, our first everything. With the amount of times I’ve overanalyzed all of these, I now know that it’s not so much the memories as much as it is the emotions. There was so much passion and love in all of those instances; that’s what I’m longing for. That and the way he smelled like cedar and mint gum. The way he always tasted of green tea. The way he was always warm and gentle. At this point in my walk I begin to wonder if that tightness in my chest was love, or if it was just lust. If those silly fights were because I cared or if they were simply a defense mechanism. If I was actually capable of loving him, or if I was too fucked up to know how. Luckily, these thoughts don’t last long as they’re generally triggered by a sadder song on my playlist. Shortly, I’m onto step four of my routine.

As soon as I’m calm again, I’m able to reassure myself that I did love him, it was just too much. That’s probably why I pushed him away.

Two thirds of the way into my walk, I remember some of the most random events in our relationship. These memories probably have a lot to do with how helpless I’m feeling on a given day. Yesterday, I was transported to the carnival he took me to on our first official date. A cliché, I know, but it’s one of the best nights I’ve ever had. There wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t have a smile on my face. His face was lit with excitement and neon lights as we walked from stall to stall. It had grown darker and colder, and he insisted I wear his jacket. Once engulfed in warmth and his cologne, he grabbed my hand and ran to the nearest ride. After regaining our balance from a very intense ride on the tilt-a-whirl, he became determined to win me something to remember the night by. It turned out to be a small stuffed elephant, which I still have hidden somewhere in my apartment.

Today, I recall when I found myself sat in front of him and his guitar. His calloused fingers were picking at the strings nervously as he sang one of the most beautiful melodies I’ve ever heard. I remember thinking that he’d never told me he could sing that evening. Once he finished he looked at me with full, hopeful eyes.

“Do you think I could do this? Like, actually do it?”

“Yes. 100%. You’re going to make it big.” My heart fell as the words left my mouth.

It was selfish, I know. I didn’t want to have to share him with anyone, let alone the thousands of people I knew would love him nearly as much as I do. Did. Even worse was the thoughts that clouded my brain the nights following our conversation. He’d be gone seven, eight, nine months out of the year. Did I really expect him to always come back to me? There would most definitely be more attractive, famous even, women that would throw themselves at him. How could I blame him for not going after them?

By the time his album dropped, I was gone.

It is after this final, unpleasant walk down memory lane that I am able to pull myself back to reality. It is now that I grab a coffee from a nearby café and drown myself in whatever song will make me forget for those three minutes. It gives me enough time to regain my façade of “I’m fine” and prep myself to walk into the shop that has been so empty since I kicked him out. But that was okay, because if I saw him it would break my routine.

The bell above the door rings gently alerting Harvey that I am, in fact, on time. The newspaper that usually hides his face is gone as he stares at me with a grin. I’m sure whatever news he has can wait, as it’s most likely an add-on to our argument about the Eagles from yesterday.

It isn’t until I’m looking at soft eyes and soft curls that I realize Bob Meowly isn’t purring at my feet, but his. For the first time in six months, the cat has picked this boy over me yet again.

“Is this one any good?” His voice rings out, calling my attention to the AQUA: Greatest Hits album in his hand. I stand glued to the spot, so he continues with the other hand moving through his hair. “Listen, I know you told me to forget you, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.”

With a shaky breath I respond.

“Took you long enough, Mendes.”

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fic #fanfic #writing #shawn mendes blurb

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accio-transcript · 7 years

Text

Mod R: Hello, welcome to the oneshot accio-shitpost podcast. I’m Mod R, otherwise known as Roxie, and my pronouns are she/her, thank you very much. And you are?

Mod H: And I’m Mod H, otherwise known as LH, and my pronouns are they/them.

Mod R: Um, so, we’re going to be asking some of your questions!

Mod H: We’re going to be answering some of their questions. We’ll also ask them!

Mod R: They’re fresh off the…question mill, being made by our lovely question workers, in the question mill.

Mod H: In the question mines.

Mod R: theshieldswordandcrown.tumblr.com says ‘If y’all’ – nice Texan shit there – [in bad American accent] ‘If y’all could go to any magical school, which one would it be? Doesn't have to be in the HP universe, either.’ So I don’t know about any other universes apart from the Harry Potter universe that has magical schools, apart from the Worst Witch, which I doubt you know about!

Mod H: Yeah, I’ve got an even more obscure one, but I’m not even gonna mention-

Mod R: Tell me, tell me.

Mod H: Okay, so, do you know Anthony Horowitz? The horror writer?

Mod R: Yes.

Mod H: Well he wrote a horror, erm, couple of horror books for kids about a magic school called Groosham Grange, where basically all of the kids were fucked up. But to actually answer the question, I guess it’d have to be Hogwarts.

Mod R: Hogwarts. Like, I wanna be, like, special, and think of another magical school-

Mod H: But honestly…

Mod R: Are there any other magical schools?

Mod H: No…

Mod R: Um…the Bureau of Balance.

Mod H: Good one.

Mod R: Um, do they teach? I guess they do, don’t they.

Mod H: I mean, Angus learned magic there.

Mod R: From Taako.

Mod H: So it’s like a magic school because of that.

Mod R: Yeah…the Bureau of Balance is from the McElroy brother and father’s The Adventure Zone.

Mod H: Which, check it out if you haven’t.

Mod R: Check it out. It’s good. You’ll like it.

Mod H: Check it out if you like magical fantasy stuff that starts out totally silly and ends up giving you emotions.

Mod H: Anonymous said, ‘Five questions for your 100k thingy. 1) how do you come up with your clever post ideas like how its not fair 2) um... 3) lemme think 4) I... 5) yeah, I’ve only got one question.. never mind.’

Mod R: Yeah, so this is, it reads as bad as it sounds.

Mod H: Yeah. Sorry, anon.

Mod R: No offense anon, I’m sure you’re lovely.

Mod H: But to actually answer your question…

Mod R: Um…

Mod H: Straight off the dome.

Mod R: Straight off the dome-piece. One hundred percent.

Mod H: There are two methods – one of them is ‘oh no I haven’t filled up the queue, um, um, let’s make a post about…lamp’.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah. Like sometimes if you look through the posts, um-

Mod H: You can totally see a thought process.

Mod R: Yeah yeah, so like there was one about a unicycle and a Segway straight after each other in the batch that just came out.

Mod H: Two about Godzilla, recently, as well. I had Godzilla on the brain.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah, sometimes we reorder them so it doesn’t look like…but it’s totally obvious. If it’s from within twenty four hours it’s probably from the same.

Mod H: The other method is that…when we phone call each other, we just brainstorm.

Mod R: Yeah yeah yeah, and here’s one, I’m not sure if you do this anymore, um, but, I certainly used to do this and whenever I make posts now it’s um, I go to the Harry Potter wiki.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And like, I haven’t done this for a while.

Mod H: I used to do that too, yeah.

Mod R: Because Cursed Child and we didn’t want any spoilers.

Mod H: Heh. I knew the spoilers. I’m trash.

Mod R: You knew the spoilers.

Mod H: You didn’t.

Mod R: And we just used to click ‘random page’, and whatever – okay, here’s the bad bit about this. There’s a page for every day of the year.

Mod H: Everything.

Mod R: Every day of the year in – like, you say ‘did anything happen on January 21st in the Harry Potter universe?’ You can look it up!

Mod H: I don’t know but we can check!

Mod R: We can check!

Mod H: The third method we use to make shitposts, of course, is asking someone else. Shoutout to Mod K, who gives me-

Mod R: Yeah, that’s fucking true.

Mod R: Okay. Next question is from anythingcanonwillbeshipped.tumblr.com, who appropriately asks, ‘Drarry, Scorbus, both, or neither??’ And-

Mod H: Well, there’s an obvious answer to this.

Mod R: There’s an obvious answer to this. Scorbus. One hundred percent Scorbus.

Mod H: Scorbus.

Mod R: Like, no offense to all you Drarry shippers, it’s – okay right, I’ve never been a Drarry shipper.

Mod H: Me neither.

Mod R: Despite – despite some of our posts.

Mod H: We have made jokes about it.

Mod R: I do think that Draco Malfoy might have had a crush on Harry for a while.

Mod H: It’s totally a viable thing, like it would be interesting to see a well-developed dynamic between them.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah. There’s some good fics out there about that, but I’m just not about them being in a relationship.

Mod H: Yeah, personally.

Mod R: Until at least they’re adults.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And by then, they’re both married. Which is fine, you can still ship them, but like –

Mod H: The Cursed Child versions of them, it’d be particularly interesting to see them together.

Mod R: Yeah. I was about to say, the closest I’ve ever come to shipping Drarry – and I did ship it a lil bit.

Mod H: A lil bit.

Mod R: Is when I watched the Cursed Child. And you, most people listening to it probably haven’t watched it.

Mod H: Yeah, uh, we’ve been quite lucky to have the privilege of seeing Cursed Child-

Mod R: Yeah, because we’re both local to London. Not, we’re not really, I mean you’re – you live very far away-

Mod H: You’re more local.

Mod R: I live kinda far away. daq – as in d-a-q – litterqueen.tumblr.com, no dashes, says ‘#accio100k firstly, congrats!!!’ Thank you!’ :D secondly, combine the color of the t-shirt you are wearing and the name of the last food you ate and WALLA, reveal your unique spell!’ Okay so…mine’s…blue and I last ate – I had pizza, so I’ve got blue pizza, blueizza.

Mod H: Bleetza.

Mod R: I’m gonna say blueizza, because I’m not a fucking scrub.

Mod H: My shirt’s dark blue, like I guess navy, yeah, so navy chips.

Mod R: Nips.

Mod H: Oh God. Nips!

Mod R: It’s nips.

Mod H: Okay. Anonymous asked ‘time is an illusion that man made up to understand the fourth dimension’.

Mod R: More of a statement than a – but this is something I like to talk about. I know a little bit about physics, I dropped physics in GCSE but I’ve still remained very interested in it, and I still read up on it, I’ve read a lot of books about physics…er, I know this sounds like I’m bigging myself up but I’m really not, I’m kinda trash.

Mod H: But you know a bit-

Mod R: People say a lot, time isn’t real, humans made up time. That’s strictly not true. Time is a measurable thing, and we made up the measurements for it, and we’re like ‘oh half past four’ – half past four is made up, that’s not real.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: Time itself is a real dimension that plays into the universe. If time didn’t exist, nothing would happen. That’s how-that’s how it works. Time is just the way we describe things happening in an order.

Mod H: It’s sort of like time is a thing, but our measurements of time is an illusion.

Mod R: Yeah yeah, like people could say space is fake. That’s not true. One metre is fake, we made that up, but like space is definitely real and the distance between me and, like, the bed in front of me might be a metre, and that’s fake, but it’s still in front of me, like it still exists.

Mod H: Yeah. It’s still that distance away, no matter how much-

Mod R: Same for time. So thank you for giving me this. Time is an illusion that man made up, to understand the fourth dimension, is closer to the truth but not quite. Anonymous asks ‘How old are y’all’ [in fake American accent] ‘How old are y’all and what do you do. Are yoi students?’ There’s an upside down question mark there-

Mod H: We are Yuri on Ice students.

Mod R: We’re not.

Mod H: We’re not students or Yuri on Ice.

Mod R: It’s spelled y-o-i, it’s a typo apparently. Are you students? I’m…technically on a gap year I might go to uni in a year or so. You’re not a student anymore.

Mod H: I’m not a student anymore.

Mod R: You’re in the in-between place between getting a job and going to uni.

Mod H: Yeah. I am unemployed!

Mod R: I’m between coming out from education to either going to further education or a job, or both. So we’re both sorta floating right now.

Mod H: Yeah, we’re sort of in a transitional phase.

Mod R: Ha ha ha. donutmesswithme.tumblr.com-

Mod H: Good name.

Mod R: Good name. Says ‘How was your day?’ Eh, it was okay.

Mod H: You had a hot dog. It was a good day.

Mod R: Okay, yeah, I had a hot dog, that was good. Good day-a good day.

Mod H: Gourmet hot dog, good day.

Mod R: pantless-wonder.tumblr.com, shout out to you, says ‘Thoughts on My Immortal (the original fanfic, people behind it, web series, and unrelated YouTube videos claiming to be the authors)?’ So, first of all, the original fanfiction, I have not read the entire way though.

Mod H: I have read the entirety of it, ‘cos I went through a very bad Harry Potter fanfiction phase when I was younger.

Mod R: Do you believe-are you one who believes that it’s fake, that it’s a troll fic, or do you think it’s real?

Mod H: I believe it’s a particularly well-crafted troll fic.

Mod R: Really. I’m not sure? Okay, I think the biggest-okay, right, I was so sure that it was real because fanfiction used to definitely be like that, back when they used the word ‘lemon’, you know.

Mod H: Back in those days. I remember those days.

Mod R: It used to be like that! And I know kids who could’ve written that.

Mod H: I could’ve written that.

Mod R: Strange kids, yeah. What ticks off for me, and makes me think-and I’ve talked about this a lot of time, that it’s a troll fic-

Mod H: Yeah I think we’ve had this discussion.

Mod R: We’ve had this conversation a lot. Yeah. At one point, she accidentally calls Tom Riddle Tom Bombadil?

Mod H: Yeah, there’s no way-

Mod R: And here’s the thing, here’s the thing. Right. That’s not a typo, and autocorrect didn’t exist back then, okay. Tom Bombadil was a very minor character in the book The Lord of the Rings, not the movie, the books. Like, the fact that she would know such a character, like, implies-cos she said she didn’t even read the Harry Potter books and just watched the movies, she would not have read Lord of the Rings if she had not read Harry Potter.

Mod H: She would not know who Tom Bombadil-I mean, I think for me, like a lot of the language is ridiculous and over the top, and a lot of the supposed spelling errors are so-

Mod R: Like, okay, there’s a couple of thing that are like, could definitely be real but probably aren’t with the context of Tom Bombadil, like, such as, ‘I ate my Count Chocula with blood’.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And that’s the thing that like, some emo scene kid in 200-whatever would have said, but like I think that she was just very ahead of her time in terms of like staging a fic.

Mod H: Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways My Immortal was very much the prototype on which all previous-all later trollfics even were based.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: Like, it became…

Mod R: It’s like the proto-trollfic.

Mod H: Basically. And one thing that I really like in myself is how well they really characterised that behind-the-scenes narrative going on, with like the friend and writing the character based on their friend out and then back in.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: And then when the fic got ‘hacked’, and suddenly everything was all preppy because some troll had hacked them on the internet. And the way the grammar broke down as well after the supposed proofreader stopped doing it.

Mod R: But of course you’d just like delete the prep fics, wouldn’t you, if you hacked it back.

Mod H: Yeah, you wouldn’t like keep it. I mean, the whole thing’s gone now. But there’s archives. You can find it.

Mod R: Yeah, you’ll find it. Webseries. Have you seen the webseries?

Mod H: I haven’t seen it. I know it exists, but-

Mod R: Being someone involved in webseries, hint hint nudge nudge, check out the Uncanny Upshurs on youtube.com, but erm I’ve watched that with the creator of the Uncanny Upshurs, well, the co-creator, with Ingrid Nixie Greep herself, and I very much enjoyed it.

Mod H: The legend.

Mod R: I haven’t seen season two, so don’t spoil that for me. But I really liked it! It was very bare bones special effects. What they did was, when they had a wand fight near the end of it, um, when they like cast a spell, they would do like star effects, like the shape of like a star, and it’d make like a crack noise, and it was really nice because it was like stylised. The, er, unrelated YouTube videos claiming to be authors…you’ve sent me one I haven’t watched.

Mod H: I, yeah, I found one.

Mod R: That claims to be.

Mod H: It wasn’t that, it was that…the girls behind it were supposedly called Willow and Tara, and there was something with two girls saying they, like, ‘New Years 2007, but I don’t know why you celebrate New Years cos we’re all gonna die anyway’. And the fact that they had the same names as the supposed authors of My Immortal was like…people were wondering whether those were the same people.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mod H: As for people coming out later saying that they authored My Immortal-

Mod R: Unless JK Rowling comes out and says it, I’m not-

Mod H: Same.

Mod R: Until Jo says it.

Mod H: But like all of them are probably riding on the popularity of the fic.

Mod R: shitlordanakin.tumblr.com says ‘How did you feel the first time you saw a post of yours screenshotted on HP instagram accounts?’ We didn’t. We don’t use Instagram.

Mod H: No, neither of us actually do.

Mod R: And I’ve never seen any of our posts on Facebook. We’ve seen them on Buzzfeed?

Mod H: I’ve seen…I’ve seen a few of them on Facebook.

Mod R: I might have seen a couple now…

Mod H: Some of my friends linked me to them.

Mod R: But like, what happened usually is our friends that know about us send us screenshots before we see them. We’re fine with it, because, as long as they source us – usually, if we find someone who isn’t sourcing us we talk to them, and we’re like ‘hey, can you do that’, but like if they’re not sourcing us, we’ve made so many posts that we forget which ones are ours.

Mod H: And a couple of people have even come to us like ‘I want to set up an Instagram with and use your stuff, is that okay’ and like, it’s fine!

Mod R: And we talk to them, and we’re like, yeah, it’s cool. They had more followers than us then.

Mod H: That was good.

Mod R: But they weren’t just posting our stuff, so, it was original content as well. And Instagram, I think, is a whole different ballgame to tumblr.

Mod H: Yeah. I don’t understand it.

Mod R: Neither do I.

Mod H: lunaloveboook says-

Mod R: Aw, that’s a good-three ‘o’s, by the way.

Mod H: lunaloveboook. ‘For the podcast: 1)How did it started? 2) And I really loved when Something Big And Bad happened and you put all your efforts in reassuring people’

Mod R: So that’s one question and a statement, and-I’m gonna answer the question first, and then talk about the statement.

Mod H: Ok. Do you wanna tell this story, cos? You kinda instigated it.

Mod R: Yeah, so, I was just sending like bad Harry Potter jokes to LH.

Mod H: This happens sometimes.

Mod R: I remember walking from my school to Subway and back, to get a Subway-

Mod H: She was just sending me all these jokes, and I was replying with some.

Mod R: Yeah yeah, and we were like ‘we can make this into a blog’, and then we decided to post ten a day, we posted a few off the bat, made a tag – back then we tagged everything with ‘dank memes’ and stuff as well, so, to get to the target-

Mod H: We really didn’t know what we were doing.

Mod R: We didn’t know what we were talking-to try and get to the biggest audience.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: Nowadays, since we don’t need any help with that, we just tag with the characters involved and hope there’s some fans looking through the tags maybe.

Mod H: Yeah. Cos I mean we tag the most obscure-and we tag like full names as well, that’s obviously not, like nobody’s gonna be-

Mod R: Like, if we make a post about Draco Malfoy, then somebody might-

Mod H: But like nobody’s going to be tracking Xenophilius Lovegood – or like not a lot of people. But like ones who aren’t usually referred to by their full name, like Pomona Sprout, we tag her as that.

Mod R: Oh fuck, I didn’t even know that was her name.

Mod H: There you go.

Mod R: ‘And I really loved when Something Big And Bad happened and you put all your efforts in reassuring people’

Mod H: Thank you!

Mod R: For those of you who don’t know, this is referring to the [cough]election last year.

Mod H: [cough]America.

Mod R: Yeah, um, of a country that we’re not – that I’ve been to, a bunch of times.

Mod H: I haven’t.

Mod R: You want to go there, because you want – I’ve actually been to the theme park.

Mod H: I wanna go to Disneyland.

Mod R: Which I am incredibly privileged to have been to. Thank you? I mean like, we felt like it just wasn’t the time for jokes, you know, instead we…what happened was, Donald Trump got elected, and we were like, this is a bit crass to post jokes today, because people are going-and people sent us messages like ‘you’re overreacting’ and maybe we were a bit, but, there are a lot of people who are genuinely afraid.

Mod H: And we basically had a conversation about it that morning and we said, we’re gonna keep posting regular content but we’re also just gonna say, you know, our askbox is open. And a few asks started trickling in so we started answering, and a whole lot of asks started trickling in.

Mod R: Because we answered hundreds that day.

Mod H: Yeah, I mean, I remember having to give up at one point because my hands were cramping because I’d been typing that hard?

Mod R: Yeah, and-like, I don’t wanna big myself up. We feel like what we did anybody in our shoes would have done. Like, this isn’t something that I feel proud of – I mean, I’m proud that I’m a good enough person to have done it-

Mod H: It’s not like a huge-

Mod R: I don’t wanna be, like, praised for it, you know, like anyone in our shoes would have done this. But thank you for the question.

Mod H: And thank you for the compliment.

Mod R: wizardingviolet asks-

Mod H: It’s a good question.

Mod R: ‘Do you ship any LGBT pairing or headcanon that isn't one of the "classics" ? (like Wolfstar, Drarry and’…how do you say ‘Deamus’? Day-mus?

Mod H: Dee-mus, I go for.

Mod R: Like, Dean and Seamus, Day-mus, Dee-mus…um-

Mod H: Well, there’s an obvious answer to this one, that we both have immediately.

Mod R: Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley.

Mod H: Luna and Ginny.

Mod R: Luna and Ginny!

Mod H: Luna and Ginny.

Mod R: Ginny and Luna!

Mod H: Linny-Linny.

Mod R: Guna?

Mod H: I just made that up by accident but that’s the ship name now! Other than that, probably-

Mod R: Headcanons though. I have a bunch of trans headcanons.

Mod H: Oh yeah, yeah.

Mod R: Like, I like to see Luna as a trans girl but that’s only because I relate to her a lot – I don’t like necessarily think there’s any evidence for that. Not that you need evidence to believe, but like there’s no other reason for me to believe that other than I really identify with her.

Mod H: That makes sense, though.

Mod R: But like we all do that. Neville’s bi, as far as I’m concerned.

Mod H: Oh my gosh, that’s really cute.

Mod R: Neville’s bi, and like he had a crush on Harry for the first three years.

Mod H: I’ve now decided that Neville’s in like a weird polyamorous relationship with Dean and Seamus.

Mod R: Someone said, ‘RONALD WEASLEY. HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR! YOUR FATHER IS NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, AND IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU DO SO MUCH AS PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, YOU WILL BE SENT STRAIGHT. HOME Oh, and accio-shitpost, dear, congratulations on reaching 100k followers. Your father and I are so proud!’

Mod H: Thank you, Molly Weasley.

Mod R: Thank you, mam! Mam!

Mod H: We didn’t know that any-

Mod R: Does this mean that we’re in a relationship with Luna Lovegood, because I’m okay with that.

Mod H: We didn’t know that any fictional characters from the Harry Potter universe were following our blog, but like-

Mod R: Nice. It’s good to hear that my mother, Molly Weasley, is a real person.

Mod H: It’s good to hear from you guys!

Mod H: Okay. briarrosebydayaurorabynight asks 'What inspired you to start the shitposting? Besides Harry Potter obviously.'

Mod R: Um.

Mod H: Honestly?

Mod R: Memes.

Mod H: Yeah, we just sort of started.

Mod R: We’ve sort of answered when we started and what caused us to start, but like what inspires us? Like, just honestly those big other shitpost accounts. Like, I’m not sure if we knew about others at the time but um, like just-shower-thoughts is a famous one that everybody sees. Um. Anonymous says ‘Have any of you ever been in love?’

Mod H: NO.

Mod R: ‘Also one of you must be gay, so who is it?’ Ok so, why must one of us be gay, and also how did you know that?

Mod H: I mean, like every other post we make is about how Ginny and Luna should be together.

Mod R: That’s true. But like, you believe that and you’re not even gay.

Mod H: I mean. Full disclosure.

Mod R: You’re also not straight.

Mod H: I am super aromantic, so like…I think that lets them know which one of us is gay here.

Mod R: I’m…a lesbian.

Mod H: But erm. Speaking for me, I’ve never had the romos.

Mod R: No. Um, I’ve been in love multiple times.

Mod H: You’re a big old softie.

Mod R: Yeah. Uh, I have a-well, I’m polyamorous and I have just like a bunch of girlfriends. Just a bunch. I’ve been in love multiple times and it sure is a trip!

Mod H: Anonymous asked, ‘How do you keep your shit posts fresh and steaming and avoid posting stale ones?’

Mod R: We don’t.

Mod H: We really don’t.

Mod R: Is the answer, we just don’t.

Mod H: We’ve definitely, by this point, repeated ourselves a couple of times.

Mod R: Right ok, there’s definitely a post we’ve done at least three times, and that is ‘I can’t believe that the reward for beating the dragon in Goblet of Fire is a screaming egg’. We’ve done that one like three times!

Mod H: But erm, to actually answer the question, there are a few times that we like, go back and-because we think we’ve made this post before, and we find that we have made this exact same post before. Word-for-word.

Mod R: Also, um, usually.

Mod H: So that’s embarrassing.

Mod R: I’m not afraid to admit that it’s you usually making shitposts these days.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And I usually deal with like asks and stuff instead.

Mod H: I mean, we both do make shitposts, and we both do answer asks.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: But like, primarily those are-

Mod R: Um, yeah, and what we often do it, I’ll look through the shitposts you make, and I’ll like edit them. You can-there was this one a long time ago that-

Mod H: Oh, that one’s a classic example of that happening.

Mod R: There was one that was like ‘Ron: You’re a girl right Hermione’ and Hermione was like ‘No, I’m a lizard Ronald’ and then LH had put like ‘she turned into a lizard and scuttled away’

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And I was like, that’s like, there’s a funny gag in there but the way you put it-

Mod H: Yeah, and I posted that thinking ‘there’s something funnier in here but I just can’t unlock it’?

Mod R: Yeah, so before it posted, when it was in the queue, I edited it to say like ‘No Ronald I’m a Weasley [she meant lizard]’ and then ‘blinks sideways’. Like, because like that’s what lizards do, and that’s way funnier!

Mod H: Some of the posts come out of conversations we’ve had and I’ve worded them, that’s-

Mod R: Pretty much.

Mod H: There’s my counter-example. Like, you’ve come up with an idea when we’ve been talking-

Mod R: Like I often, we’re often just talking about Harry Potter, and then you’ll be like ‘oh shit that’s good’ and then type that down.

Mod H: Yeah, and I put it into words, and actually make it into a post, so-

Mod R: Yeah, it really is a teamwork thing.

Mod H: Yeah, it’s a team effort! Moreso than we think it is, sometimes, I think.

Mod R: whimsicalfangirlthings said, ‘How do you like your macaroni and cheese?’ Like, together.

Mod H: Cooked.

Mod R: Like, cooked.

Mod H: In a microwave, usually.

Mod R: Like, no offense whimsicalfangirlthings.tumblr.com, are there many ways to have macaroni and cheese?

Mod H: If there are, I don’t know them.

Mod R: Like, in my mouth, that’s where I like to have…I really like-Mac and cheese is maybe one of my favourite pastas. Anonymous asks, ‘How many apples does Draco eat a day?’ I don’t fucking know!

Mod H: What-what kind of?

Mod R: I know that’s a reference to like, the gif where he’s eating the apple.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: I don’t know! What does that mean, like-ok, I. Here’s, you want a funny answer? Sixty nine. There you go. Jesus Christ.

Mod H: Is that a funny answer?

Mod R: ig-ign…

Mod H: ignativs-weasley, that’s Ignatius spelled with a v instead of a u, dash Weasley-

Mod R: .tumblr.com

Mod H: Says ‘Hey! Ignativs here. I was wondering, why 1965? Your bio, I mean? Thanks. #accio100k’

Mod R: Um.

Mod H: This is-this is a long-held secret. It’s not really a secret!

Mod R: Nah, people have worked it out before.

Mod H: Many people have worked it out.

Mod R: People have asked us this, people have sent in ‘oh, I get it’, um, it’s when JK Rowling was born. Which is a bit-a bit of a nod, just to like say actually, actually we’re JK Rowling. Which is not true, we’re not actually.

Mod H: We’re-we’re not.

Mod R: ‘Which Harry Potter character(s) would you most like to have a slumber party with?’

Mod H: I mean, I think it’d be really fun to have a slumber party with Dumbledore?

Mod R: Yes, my man!

Mod H: But that would go places.

Mod R: That’d go places.

Mod H: That’d go weird places, and probably end up in death.

Mod R: The places it’d go would be like, like Voldemort Cave.

Mod H: But uh, I wouldn’t like to have a slumber party with but I’d like to have a drink with Aberforth. That’d be quite fun.

Mod R: Well no ‘cos-he’d end up fucking a goat at the slumber party. I always said Ah-ber-forth, by the way.

Mod H: Ah-ber-forth, Ay-ber-forth, I go back and forth. Eyyyyyyy.

Mod R: Eyyyyyyyy. Um, Slughorn, by the way.

Mod H: Slughorn! Slughorn-

Mod R: Because like, he does such good midnight parties!

Mod H: Let’s just have a professor party! Snape leaves, get McGonagall in here-

Mod R: Snape’s dead.

Mod H: Yeah, Snape’s dead, get McGonagall in here-

Mod R: No, I’m too scared of McGonagall.

Mod H: Ah, I think-

Mod R: I’m too scared and sexually intimidated by Minerva McGonagall.

Mod H: Ok, fair, fair. Flitwick! Flitwick would be a riot.

Mod R: Luna, by the way.

Mod H: Luna, yeah.

Mod R: And the Weasley twins.

Mod H: The Weasleys. Just all of them.

Mod R: All of them…apart from Percy, that wanker.

Mod H: I didn’t-what’s a Percy?

Mod R: Yeah, who’s Percy?

Mod H: Apologies to all Per-

Mod R: [gasp] Arthur Weasley! Because we’re Muggles, he’d love-

Mod H: That’d be really cute!

Mod R: [high voice] ‘What the fuck’s a lightbulb?’

Mod H: Let’s have a slumber party with Dobby.

Mod R: No, that’d be shit. Have you seen the one time Harry’s been asleep, and Dobby’s been there? It was Chamber of Secrets, and it was awful.

Mod H. nuevojesus-blog said, ‘What is your favourite HP book and film?’

Mod R: You go yours, I’m not sure about mine.

Mod H: Mine would be Order of the Phoenix for book, and Prisoner of Azkaban for film.

Mod R: Prisoner of Azkaban definitely for film, um, despite the fact that it misses out some of the important details, it’s definitely one of the better directed in my opinion.

Mod H: Well, I think it was definitely the last one before the books were getting far too long to adapt.

Mod R: Yeah. No offense, but the first three movies are the best.

Mod H: Yeah, the first-well, I mean, it’s-they’re different types of movies.

Mod R: And the last two are both far too long and too short, simultaneously.

Mod H: Yeah, I get what you mean by that.

Mod R: Like they put in too much stuff that they don’t need in, and they keep out too much stuff that they do need in, like a proper goodbye to the Dursleys wasn’t in. But Harry and Hermione dancing while Ron fucked off was in there.

Mod H: Yeah, like, they really left out some things that they should have had in and put in a lot of things that weren’t necessary?

Mod R: Which might be to do with the way that-I feel like the directors changed over?

Mod H: The directors did change from the first three to-

Mod R: Really. ordinarylittleme.tumblr.com asked ‘Who are you guys, also what made you decide to make this blog?’ So we’ve also sort of answered one of these, so, ‘who are you guys’, we’ve also again sort of answered. ‘What made you decide to make this blog?’ Um, for once, I had one of my wild ideas. The relationship that we have is very much-you’ll be asleep at like, to be fair at like eleven pm, okay? I used to phone LH up in the middle of the night saying ‘I’ve got this brilliant idea!’ And then every time, of course, they’d be like ‘no, that’s an awful idea.’

Mod H: To be fair, you haven’t heard some of the ideas!

Mod R: Yeah, they’re pretty bad. But this time, I was like ‘you know those jokes that we’ve been sending each other today, the Harry Potter jokes, why don’t we do a blog? Like, we could get popular!’

Mod H: And I, of course, being the practical one, I was like ‘no, that’s a terrible idea, we should never do that’

Mod R: I don’t think you were like that though, I feel like for most of the things you were like ‘uuuuh maybe’. But I think for this one you were like ‘actually, that sounds like a cool idea!’

Mod H: Well, I’m always more reluctant about a lot of these things.

Mod R: Yeah, that’s true.

Mod H: Like, I’ll admit that. Then, we just sort of did it. Like, we saved the url, after a little bit of haggling over what exactly that would be – I think whatever is our blog description, I think ‘Mischief managed’, mischief something, I can’t remember what it is, like that was gonna be the url for a bit, but then we decided on accio-shitpost, which was a good move.

Mod R: Right.

Mod H: Shitpost managed, that was what-that was what we were gonna-

Mod R: It was gonna be that for a while.

Mod H: I think that was my suggestion, and yours was accio-shitpost, and we went with accio-shitpost. So we compromised on that, and I think that was the better idea. Then, you know, we spent about a day setting up the theme.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: And then we made it live! We just went for it! And the rest, as they say, is history.

Mod R: drearncatcher37.tumblr.com, that’s ‘dreamcatcher’ with an rn as people often do-

Mod H: So it’s like drearncatcher, technically.

Mod R: Yeah, says, ‘I have a question for the podcast. Why.’

Mod H: Good question.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question.

Mod H: Good question.

Mod R: Because we’ve got nothing better to do, and we-okay, that’s a lie, we have so many things better to do, we honestly do. Anonymous said, ‘(You're my favorite blog)’ in brackets, thank-

Mod H: Thank you.

Mod R: sciencekilledmypurrmaids.tumblr.com said-

Mod H: ‘CHEESE?’

Mod R: Cheese. Um, I wanna interpret this as ‘What’s your favourite cheese?’, so – what’s your favourite cheese?

Mod H: I don’t-I don’t have a favourite cheese, I’m not a cheese connoisseur-

Mod R: I like all cheeses.

Mod H: I mostly just have cheddar cheese.

Mod R: Yeah, I mostly just have cheddar cheese.

Mod H: Or like Lancashire cheeses.

Mod R: Oh, yeah, ‘cos you’re from Lanc!

Mod H: I’m from Lancs.

Mod R: You’re a Lancer.

Mod H: That’s not-that’s not what we call it. Also fun fact! Lancashire/Yorkshire is where Neville Longbottom is supposed to be from.

Mod R: Really?

Mod H: Yeah, cos-

Mod R: He’s got-he’s got a northern accent in the movie, doesn’t he?

Mod H: In his hilariously abusive childhood, as well, he mentions getting dropped off Blackpool Pier, so-

Mod R: And of course…Harry mentions…train stations that I’ve been to.

Mod H: I still think that’s so ridiculously redundant, having to go all the way down to King’s Cross and then all the way back up to Scotland.

Mod R: Yeah, like-why don’t you just fucking Floo Powder it, you know?

Mod H: What if you already live in Scotland?

Mod R: Yeah, what does Minerva do?

Mod H: I mean, I assume Minerva just kind of stays there.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: Although I think that is at least partially based on the childhood assumptions that teachers live at school. But in Hogwarts’ case it might actually be true! Anonymous asks, ‘'Tbh I legit expected you guys to be a shitpost account where literally nothing makes sense and it's the most ridiculous thing ever but half the things you post make Sense and ????'

Mod R: Yeah, um-the reason behind this is that anybody – and people have literally made robots to do this – can be like ‘the Marauders Map but it has a big dick’, and like-

Mod H: And we do make posts sometimes like that, that’re just like words and nonsense, but-

Mod R: But like, it loses its charm pretty quickly.

Mod H: Yeah, I-I think part of the reason we’ve had as much staying power as we’ve had is because we don’t actually make-

Mod R: We’re not actually shitposts.

Mod H: We make jokes, we make observations, like some of our posts…

Mod R: It’s observational humour.

Mod H: But some of our posts are just like, things we wanna talk about.

Mod R: What if Dobby had a big dick, you know.

Mod H: And sadposts. I-I do get a lot of joy out of making sadposts, I think most if not all of them have been mine.

Mod R: Yeah, we drain the happiness out of people.

Mod H: I-I enjoy this. I enjoy your suffering. I’m sorry.

Mod R: fangirlsneedmorebooks.tumblr.com says, 'What would you do if you were confronted by a hippogriff/dragon combo?' Poo myself.

Mod H: Probably die.

Mod R: Yeah, like, die. I’m not a wizard, I’m a muggle.

Mod H: Probably get killed by it.

Mod R: Yeah, I would die. fictionale934.tumblr.com said, 'When did you start this blog?'

Mod H: July the 6th.

Mod R: We started with my first post, ‘I name you after the two bravest men who tried to eat me, Aragog Student Loans’

Mod H: That’s still-I’m so glad we picked that one for the first one.

Mod R: And then your first one, which is my favourite one of yours ever.

Mod H: ‘Ah yes. Werewolf Werewolf and his boyfriend, Dog.’

Mod R: 'Other than this blog, what's the biggest way HP has impacted you all?', asks ronweasleywrites.tumblr.com.

Mod H: That’s an interesting question, actually.

Mod R: And also I’m gonna-I’m gonna have a bit of a segue here, people seem to think a lot of people run this blog?

Mod H: Yeah! They seem to think either there’s a lot of people-

Mod R: There’s two and a half.

Mod H: Or like one person. There’s two of us, who are the main-Mod K, who is a friend of mine, who I know in real life, and Roxie only knows from the internet-you’ve met, you’ve met once.

Mod R: The moniker ‘Mod K’ has always pissed me off, because we chose Mod R and Mod H because H and R-so like my first name begins with R, Roxie, and your last name which we’re not gonna say begins with H.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: And also I’m in Ravenclaw, you’re in Hufflepuff. There isn’t a house that begins with a K!

Mod H: I think-that’s, that’s part of the rationale, though, because she’s not a main mod, she doesn’t get a main mod name.

Mod R: That’s true.

Mod H: She’s also a Slytherin, fyi.

Mod R: Is she?

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: Well, that makes sense.

Mod H: But um, what’s the biggest way HP has impacted us?

Mod R: Um.

Mod H: You have a good one for this, so I’ll let you go first.

Mod R: So, um, I’m autistic, a lot of you know this. I’m very very involved with autism advocacy and autism rights. I never really found many characters to relate to as a child? And, upon rereading Order of the Phoenix for the first time as an adult-because usually I just read my favourite ones, and Order of the Phoenix isn’t really my favourite book, and it’s quite long, and I’ve got a really bad attention span, so I never get through it. But this one time, I was reading it, and I got to the bit where Luna was first introduced, and just the way she was described was very similar to my experiences as an autistic teenage girl, and I just started crying and crying because for the first time I’ve seen a character who was like me. And I’ve met other people who’ve said the exact same thing about when they saw Luna in Harry Potter. And I think that’s the way it’s impacted me the most apart from, like, my wallet.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: Like, I’ve bought a lot of Harry Potter merch.

Mod H: For me, I think, one of the biggest ways Harry Potter impacted me was-when I first came to secondary school…because I am a very nerdy, introverted person, I don’t really-I’m not good at like talking to people and making friends and stuff, and…I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but it definitely helped me bond with Megan. I’ve been friends with her for like ten years plus, now, and that was one of the things that we definitely built our friendship on, being a couple of dorks who really liked Harry Potter a lot, so like that’s a nice thing it’s done for me. sadie-bug82, that’s sadie dash bug 82, asks ‘What’s your favourite book and how many times have you read it?’

Mod R: Fuck if I know.

Mod H: I mean, is this like Harry Potter book?

Mod R: I don’t think it’s Harry Potter book.

Mod H: Or book forever?

Mod R: I’ve definitely listened to – because again, I’ve got a bad attention span – I’ve definitely listened to the audiobook of Philosopher’s Stone, which isn’t my favourite book, like a dozen times maybe. And my favourite book would probably be Prisoner of Azkaban, which I’ve listened to maybe five or six separate times.

Mod H: What about your favourite non-HP book?

Mod R: Fuck if I know, though. I really like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I haven’t read that in years.

Mod H: I mean, for me, as I’ve already said, Order of the Phoenix is my favourite Harry Potter book. My favourite non-Harry Potter book?

Mod R: The Book Thief.

Mod H: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

Mod R: I knew that one!

Mod H: We talked about it the other day. If you have the time, and access to a copy-

Mod R: Don’t watch the movie.

Mod H: Don’t watch the movie. The movie’s not a good adaptation. Go read the book, because it’s amazing and it changed my life, I swear to God.

Mod R: ‘I have so many questions’ says – what, what?

Mod H: takes-one-to-no-one-cares, with dashes between each word.

Mod R: Ah, right. I get it, I get it. Takes one to no one cares, that’s clever. 'I have so many questions! I'd love to know how y'all’ [in American accent] ‘I’d love to know how y’all met! J’

Mod H: How-how did we meet?

Mod R: Um…

Mod H: Let’s…

Mod R: We’re actually at the place we met.

Mod H: Yeah, this is…

Mod R: Four year anniversary.

Mod H: Four year anniversary, high five.

[High five noise.]

Mod H: We met…in this place, and for those of you who are-

Mod R: I don’t really wanna say what it is, because it’s like a bit personal.

Mod H: Yeah, but for those of you who are not listening in at the window right now, it’s like an event that we went to a couple of times.

Mod R: Yeah, it’s like-it’s not like a convention or anything, it’s nothing embarrassing, it’s just a bit personal.

Mod H: Yeah, we’d just rather not go into it.

Mod R: We met, because, um, a girl who I’d met the year before, who I was in a relationship with for a year, she’d just broken up with me, because she didn’t feel it was right, and I was like ‘yeah that’s fair’, but I was still very sad about it, you know, and I saw somebody with a Homestuck t-shirt across the room.

Mod H: And that person…was Albert Einstein. Funnily enough that was actually the second time that had happened within like ten minutes, cos – this is the way I tell the story – I was just kinda hanging round waiting for the thing we were at to start and two girls came over to me like ‘hey, I like your t-shirt’, you know, ‘is that a Homestuck thing?’ and we got chatting, and that wasn’t Roxie, and then another couple came along and that was Roxie, and we have been talking ever since, basically.

Mod R: We had a pun-off.

Mod H: We had a pun-off, that cemented our relationship. I have a vivid memory of sitting in a restaurant with my family, texting you bad puns under the table.

Mod R: 'Hope I'm not being annoying & clogging up your asks' You're not, anonymous. 'But what are your opinions on the drama of OoTP with Molly and Sirius duking it out on 'Who is the Less Problematic Replacement Parent for Harry?' Got those receipts. ‘I'm personally on Team Molly Needs To Chill, but my friends are on Team Sirius Is Literally A Criminal Who Thinks Harry Is James.' Okay so, the criminal bit isn’t so bad because, by definition, Molly is also a criminal.

Mod H: Also like Sirius was imprisoned for a crime he literally did not commit, like we know this as a fact.

Mod R: Molly is married to somebody who was infiltrating the government. That’s a fact. And she has children who are infiltrating the government-

Mod H: She was also, herself, involved in a resistance movement against the government, like, they’re criminals the same.

Mod R: And like even before Deathly Hallows this is the case.

Mod H: Yeah, yeah.

Mod R: But the issue is Sirius does think Harry is James. The problem with their relationship is both Harry and Sirius are using each other as a replacement for James.

Mod H: Yeah, absolutely. And like in that situation, Sirius cannot encourage Harry to be like James. Sirius shouldn’t encourage Harry to be reckless, because he in some-because he is in some genuinely dangerous situations.

Mod R: And don’t get me wrong-not only, when we’re saying James we don’t just mean Dad James, as a replacement for Dad James, we mean as a replacement of the cool lad James that Harry would have wanted to be friends with.

Mod H: Because like-

Mod R: However, right, Harry is using Molly as a replacement for Lily, or James, like gender doesn’t matter I guess-

Mod H: Generally parents.

Mod R: Here’s the thing – Molly isn’t using Harry as a replacement for a dead child or Percy or anything, even though Percy does leave, she’s just a mum, and she feels-she has a profound motherhood for Harry.

Mod H: I mean, I think my personal opinion lies somewhere between the two because like-

Mod R: Oh sure.

Mod H: All of the things we’ve said, but in the context of that specific scene, Molly was withholding information from Harry that was relevant to him, and it’s not like that’s ever been a problem in Harry’s past before, am I right?

Mod R: And Molly’s done some shitty things before to Hermione, in er Goblet of Fire-

Mod H: Personally I really like that scene, just for showing like the depth of Molly.

Mod R: Everyone sins, yeah, she’s a very deeply written character.

Mod H: None of these people are perfect, like her heart’s in the right place, she’s just sometimes overprotective.

Mod R: And same for Sirius! But-

Mod H: The other way.

Mod R: Even that, but-he’s missing out on this context of Harry’s life, and Molly said this, like this obviously isn’t Sirius’ fault but, and the ways she said it kind of implied that it was, but Molly saw the later years of Harry’s life. Sirius was introduced very late into Harry’s life.

Mod H: Sirius has known Harry for two years at this point, Molly’s known him since basically the start of when we first see him, at age 11.

Mod R: Like, as far as the wizarding world is concerned, yeah.

Mod H: And that does make a difference, and that’s not Sirius’ fault obviously.

Mod R: And of course Sirius has technically known Harry longer, but it’s not the same.

Mod H: I also think the problem, as well, is that Sirius is still in that mindset he was in when he was like twenty one. Because he’s lost all of these years to Azkaban and he basically comes out and there’s James 2.0. So naturally he goes back to the way he was acting.

Mod R: Like he comes out and there’s this kid who looks exactly like the boy who died, his best friend who died, and probably the man he loved who died. Give me that story instead of Snape loving Lily, by the way, give me that!

Mod H: JK Rowling! But yeah.

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: But thanks for that question, anon, because that was really interesting to talk about.

Mod R: Now, here’s a question responding to one of our posts, anonymous asked, ‘But was there anything specifically saying Voldemort /wasn't/ wearing a party hat?’ Uh…

Mod H: Technically no.

Mod R: There probably is actually.

Mod H: Yeah. ‘The light glimmered off his shiny bald head’.

Mod R: Yeah, exactly, lines like that, and also he can’t wear it under Quirrell’s turban.

Mod H: Oh. What if Quirrell was wearing a party hat, like at Christmas?

Mod R: Well it wouldn’t be a party hat, it’d be a Christmas hat.

Mod H: Okay. Like, Dumbledore’s birthday party-

Mod R: Also, bringing in some very very-

Mod H: Oh, here we go.

Mod R: Minute lore of Harry Potter – they don’t have Christmas cracker crowns in the wizarding world-

Mod H: That’s true, that’s true.

Mod R: They have regular hats that come out of crackers. And actual mice and stuff, and explosions.

Mod H: But they could’ve-I really wish they’d brought that in the movies, to be honest.

Mod R: Oh, fuuuuuuuck.

Mod H: That scene would’ve been so good.

Mod R: So goooood! antifacistmutsuki says, 'what are yall hogwarts and ilvermorny houses and wands' Hogwarts are Ravenclaw.

Mod H: And Hufflepuff.

Mod R: And Ilvermorny, fuck off I don’t care.

Mod H: I remember I got the Hufflepuff of Ilvermorny.

Mod R: I was like-I was really interested and then I saw the name and was like, I don’t care anymore. Thunderbird, that’s what I remember.

Mod H: I can’t remember my wand. I think mine was laurel?

Mod R: kimpossibleandme said 'Can I become a mod on here?' No. Sorry. We don’t take admissions. We don’t take submissions-we don’t even take submissions, you can’t be a moderator.

Mod H: We’ve made it a policy from the start that we only post posts that we make ourselves, or sometimes that our close personal friends do. It’s not really-it’s not anything against you.

Mod R: And when we say close personal friends, we’re not even saying favouritism, it’s like someone’s come up to us and said ‘hey, here’s a thing’ and then we’re like ‘can I use that as a shitpost’.

Mod H: Yeah, often that is the case, or like we’re talking about it or something like that.

Mod R: So no, you can’t be a mod on here. Sorry. Uh. Anonymous said, ‘I like my gilrs’ not girls, gilrs ‘how I like my Dumbledore. Headmasters.' Okay! Let’s leave.

Mod H: Let’s leave.

Mod R: I didn’t need to know that. Um, ihazgiantcheezburga.tumblr.com, that’s haz with a z, cheez c-h-e-e-z, b-u-r-g-a, ‘Draco Malfoy was a Mary Sue.’ No he wasn’t.

Mod H: No, not really.

Mod R: That’s like, done.

Mod H: Not at all, actually.

Mod R: Here’s your Harry Potter advice segment! ‘Draco Malfoy was a Mary Sue’ No, he wasn’t.

Mod H: No.

Mod R: He had many character flaws. He was incredibly rich…Harry Potter was a Mary Sue, absolutely.

Mod H: I mean, the concept of a Mary Sue-

Mod R: Is bullshit, it was just misogyny, wasn’t it. It was just, here’s a female character that I don’t like because she’s got so many-

Mod H: Well, no.

Mod R: People say that about Rey from Star Wars, and what they mean is that she’s as good at the Force as Luke was.

Mod H: The-the original meaning of Mary Sue though was a fanfic character who was impossibly perfect and probably dating Captain Kirk, or whatever.

Mod R: Me too.

Mod H: And that slowly just sort of became a character who I think is too perfect regardless fo anything-

Mod R: Well, Harry is a bit too perfect, he’s got a lot of character-

Mod H: He’s got a lot of flaws, like-

Mod R: He’s got a lot of those things that people in fanfics give them, like you don’t even need to give Harry an immense fortune for your, like, Bastard King fic, because he’s already got that, you know, he’s already got-

Mod H: Where he’s a secret Pureblood king, well…

Mod R: pixycaterino says, ‘Have y’all’ [bad American accent] ‘Have yall ever cosplayed? oh anD WHAT ARE YOUR WANDS’ We can’t do the wands one. I don’t know!

Mod H: We…yeah.

Mod R: Like, everyone’s like ‘what are your wands’, it’s not a question like ‘what’s your MBTI type’ or ‘what house are you in’.

Mod H: ‘What sign are you.’

Mod R: Or like ‘What’s your God Tier’ in Homestuck, or like what Pokemon Go team you’re on. It’s not like that, it’s like what piece of fucking wood do you use to cast magic, oh wait you don’t because you’re not a fucking wizard and you don’t have one of those. Like, Houses are sorted into-like, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry to whoever asked this, I’m not angry at you, I promise. But like people ask this question, and I don’t get it because there isn’t any like basis – there might be, like, subtext but there is no basis like personality and intellectual traits on what kind of wand you get. There isn’t houses-so like, if you’re very loyal, chances are you’re a Hufflepuff, if you’re very friendly, you’re loyal, you stick true to your friends, you’re probably a Hufflepuff.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: If you’re very brave, you’re courageous, you like justice a lot then you’re probably a Gryffindor. If you think things through, and you might not be smart but you’re like, you spend a lot of time thinking about things-

Mod H: Not like intellectual but you’re like wise, logical.

Mod R: Yeah, like you think things through, or you place a lot of emphasis on waiting things out then you’re probably a Ravenclaw, and if you’re ambitious, and like maybe you put the team before the person, then maybe you’re a Slytherin, you know.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: But for wands it’s just like ‘oh like I’m good at Transfiguration’.

Mod H: Like me and my friend both did the wand test, and we got almost identical results because we’re about the same height, age…

Mod R: Yeah, exactly.

Mod H: Physical appearance…it is pretty much a randomly generated thing, it’s not like deeply based. Like you could argue that the Hogwarts house quiz is based on actual stuff, but-

Mod R: I’m sure there’s some subtext to what wands characters get, like red wood means something in-

Mod H: Well are in characters, but the thing is like if you use the Pottermore-

Mod R: In the movies, in the movies, Dumbledore-uh, Voldemort’s looks like its bone. And of course that’s because he’s a deadly character, he’s very spooky, but like I don’t have that, I’m not an important character in the Harry Potter universe.

Mod H: Yeah, that’s the movie characters.

Mod R: I don’t have an arc.

Mod H: Like, the Pottermore wand test is just-

Mod R: How tall are you, what hand do you use, how many fingers do you have on your right foot.

Mod H: What?

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: As to the other, ‘have y’all ever cosplayed’…

Mod R: Yeah.

Mod H: Yes. We have.

Mod R: I’ve cosplayed as…I mean, I wore Ravenclaw robes last time I went to a convention. Other than that, I’ve cosplayed Chell from Portal, Roxie Lalonde…who have you cosplayed?

Mod H: I’ve cosplayed Jane Crocker from Homestuck.

Mod R: That was by accident, wasn’t it?

Mod H: No, I did it deliberately once. Booker DeWitt from Bioshock-

Mod R: That was good.

Mod H: And Doctor Linksano from Atop the Fourth Wall, which-

Mod R: Yeah, well that’s awful, that’s awful.

Mod H: For anyone in our audience who knows what that is…

Mod R: Hit me up.

Mod H: Hit me up. Cos, guys. Guys.

Mod R: brighterthantherain said 'I'd love to see some the MBTI types as x posts' Well, here’s the thing. No?

Mod H: No.

Mod R: Like, I’m sorry, we don’t mean to be rude.

Mod H: That takes a lot of work, that’s the only thing as well.

Mod R: If we sound rude, we’re just trying to be funny, and honestly we’re sorry if we offend people. Um, but like, it takes a lot of work-I don’t really understand all of the MTBI types.

Mod H: No.

Mod R: And also people are more likely to call you out for that kind of thing?

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: People will be like ‘oh you don’t understand the MBTI things’ like no I don’t! I didn’t major in Psychology!

Mod H: Like, that would take a lot of time and effort and dedication just for one post, which we don’t currently have, or-and we definitely don’t have the motivation to do all that research.

Mod R: ‘Surprise beautiful person!’ says anonymous. ‘Once you get this, you must put it into at least 8 people’s asks (anonymously) who deserve it. If you break the chain, nothing bad will happen, but it’s nice to know that someone thinks you’re beautiful inside and out. Help spread anon love, not hate! Love you. <3’ Thank you! We appreciate these-we never pass them on.

Mod H: We don’t pass them on.

Mod R: I never pass on these.

Mod H: Yeah, my days of passing on stuff like this are long gone.

Mod R: I’ve never done them.

Mod H: I did a while back.

Mod R: Nuh uh. Um, this is an interesting question, anonymous said – and they’re asking this as if we’re some like, we’re the figurehead of Harry Potter, which is really nice.

Mod H: Like we have any say in it.

Mod R: We’re JK Rowling. Anonymous said, ‘Idk if you can answer this but, can exist a three headed dog's patronus?’ Yes, probably.

Mod H: Probably.

Mod R: Somebody-I read on the wiki somewhere that somebody I know historically had a giant as their patronus.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: So like, a three headed dog isn’t that unlikely. Like, wolves can be. A werewolf can be.

Mod H: Like, a three headed dog is a creature in the Harry Potter universe.

Mod R: Anonymous said, ‘are you a feminist?’ Actually, I hate women. I fucking hate them. No, we’re feminists, yeah.

Mod H: Yeah, I-I think we’d identify that way.

Mod R: Pretty much. If anything I wouldn’t want-the only reason I wouldn’t want to identify as the label ‘feminist’ is because we have some views so far left wing that even feminists often disagree with them. And that’s a particular thing, like because I’m a trans woman, there’s a whole huge sect of feminists – and I’m not generalising – there is a huge group of feminists who exclude trans women called trans exclusionary feminists, there’s a bunch of transmisogynistic feminists who think trans women don’t deserve a place in feminism or anywhere belonging to women. Which is one of the only reasons we wouldn’t want to label ourselves feminists. But if someone was like ‘oh feminism’s about this, like, only these kind of people can be feminists’, I’d be like, ‘I’m a feminist and that’s wrong.’ Like I use that label sparingly, but when I need it. And I don’t not use it because I’m embarrassed, because I tote my beliefs strongly.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: freaki, with an I as in f-r-e-a-k-i, freakithechaos said ‘uh.. hello! *waves awkwardly*’ That’s cute. ‘uhm.. I'm not sure if this was discussed already but, why doesn't Umbridge love McGonagall? I mean, Umbridge LOVES cats and McGonagall's animagus is a cat ... so she basically IS a cat, isn't she? o.o’

Mod H: I mean, that’s not quite how that works.

Mod R: That’s not really how that works.

Mod H: I mean, cos Umbridge represents all McGonagall hates-

Mod R: Because Umbridge isn’t just a furry!

Mod H: And vice versa.

Mod R: McGonagall’s meant to be Umbridge’s foil, she was portrayed as that.

Mod H: Or, well, the other way round, because Umbridge was introduced later, but you know.

Mod R: Well, like, I mean, as the villain.

Mod H: Yeah, I know what you mean.

Mod R: Like, Dumbledore is not Umbridge’s foil – I think narratively, that’s one of the reasons they get Dumbledore out of the picture?

Mod H: Umbridge is basically evil mirrorverse McGonagall, like-

Mod R: Yeah, yeah.

Mod H: McGonagall gone completely wrong.

Mod R: And this is literally true in the Cursed Child, like, Cursed Child spoilers coming up here.

Mod H: That is quite interesting.

Mod R: In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Minerva McGonagall is the headmistress of Hogwarts, but in – again, spoilers coming up so like skip forward – but in the alternate universe, Umbridge is the headmistress, and she is, like, she has very little regard for but great interest in Scorpius, whilst the opposite is true for McGonagall, where she actually goes out of her way to not be interested in order to maintain Albus and Scorpius’ relationship, mainly because she’s seen generations of Potters falling in love and not getting their way. Um, anonymous said, ‘I always see yall’ [American accent] ‘using ur powers of being a popular blog with lots of followers’ I always do that with y’all, by the way, I’m not just doing that for a random reason, ‘and high visibility for good. thanks A+ keep up the good work’

Mod H: Thank you!

Mod R: Thank you, we really appreciate it.

Mod H: We were a bit iffy at first, about like starting to post more politics and signal boosts and donations and stuff, initially at least, but we basically decided that we’ve got a lot of followers, we can’t really not. We’ve got an obligation to, in this political climate.

Mod R: Another thing is – we get a lot of questions like this a lot, and we don’t answer them, and it’s not because we don’t like them. We love them.

Mod H: Yeah. They fuel us!

Mod R: Yeah. One, we don’t want to tote how great people we are. It’s quite narcissistic to be like-cos we get plenty of people who are like ‘fuck you’ as well.

Mod H: Yeah.

Mod R: Like, it’s not often, but there are people, but like whatever, you’re you, I don’t care. But like one, we don’t want to clog it up with that. Two, we want to keep relatively interesting asks being put out, compared to like ‘ah you’re great!’ ‘ah you’re great!’, again which is a bit narcissistic.

Mod H: Usually, the asks we answer are like admin-related, like we’re introducing a new tag or whatever, or interesting questions, or occasionally like funny things that pique our interest.

Mod R: Yeah, and um the third reason is, um, we like looking at them!

Mod H: Yeah!

Mod R: Like, our inbox doesn’t fill that fast, we don’t get dozens of asks a day, we get a couple-

Mod H: We get a fair amount a week, I’d say.

Mod R: We get five a week at least.

Mod H: Yeah, about that, on average.

Mod R: But-but when stuff happens, we get dozens.

Mod H: Yeah, when we ask for asks or when it’s obvious that we’re answering them we get quite a few.

Mod R: Yeah, yeah, so like we like seeing them! So when we refresh our inbox, if there’s nothing new in there, we get to see that one again and that’s nice. 'Someday,' says anonymous, 'I would like to know who's ran this blog and their personal tumblrs.' Too bad.

Mod H: We’re telling you nothing about us!

Mod R: I might eventually reveal mine, Mod H is not so keen.

Mod H: I don’t really wanna reveal my personal tumblr just cos, like-some people who follow me can probably guess because I make it quite obvious on my personal. But there’s about like five people I actually know on there.

Mod R: Mine’s pretty easy to work out, if you’ve got all the clues, which-all the clues are on the blog, if you go back far enough and look through all the tags…

Mod H: I think if you specifically went sleuthing through the blog to find out who we were, you probably could find that, with a bit of-

Mod R: And probably like, our close friends as well, from the beginning.

Mod H: Yeah, like our close friends and people we know.

Mod R: Luckily, a lot of the first posts – this wasn’t an intentional effort, but we’ve reblogged them in events and stuff, ‘hey look here’s our first post’ and we’ve washed out all the original reblogs which would have been to ours and our friend’s blogs, to promote the blog. Anonymous said ‘ALEXANDER HAMILTON!’ I don’t understand that.

Mod H: I probably made-I’m the one who’s seen Hamilton – well not seen it, I’ve listened to it.

Mod R: You’re going to see it.

Mod H: I’m going to see it!

Mod R: Lucky shit.

Mod H: I’m quite excited about that! I got really lucky with that.

Mod R: Okay, so, anonymous said ‘They do. It’s called Hogsmeade.’ So, like, I’m sure this was a response to a post, but here’s the thing – we don’t know what post this was a response to because we make ten a day.

Mod H: And by the time your ask has come in, it’s like a day later at least.

Mod R: From context of another ask, I think it’s–did we have a Starbucks, that Starbucks hasn’t opened a-

Mod H: Possibly. It might have been something along those lines, I can’t remember. I know that is a specific one, but I can’t remember what it was.

Mod R: Because someone asked us another one about magical instant coffee. Shout out to you, authoraiya. 'Which ships do u ship? like either canon or noncanon xx' Uh, all of them.

Mod H: Well, not all of them.

Mod R: Scorbus, sort of, but like also I don’t like shipping kids. Like I wish that they would-

Mod H: In a very-

Mod R: Have gotten together. I wish that Credence would have gotten a boyfriend. Because I think he was coded gay in Fantastic Beasts.

Mod H: I mean for me, erm, I don’t really ship generally. I ship Wolfstar kind of, Scorbus kind of-

Mod R: Wolfstar-well, I think I ship Wolfstar, a lot.

Mod H: Ginny and Luna.

Mod R: So that’s all the asks that we got, and a couple more.

Mod H: And a few more that we found from the archive.

Mod R: I’m gonna, just like the McElroys, I’m gonna leave you with another ask. Anonymous says, ‘What’s with y’all and micropigs though?’

Mod H: And with that, we’re out.

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