#i can beat dyslexia . i can win

[obsob]

to be loved is to be held!!! print

[nyaagolor]

SV Rivals Headcanons

I did it for team star so this feels only fair. Under the cut bc it's long

Arven:

He baby-talks to his pokemon but especially Mabosstiff. If anyone sees him doing it he will probably melt from embarrassment but it's Fine. He loves cooing at Mabosstiff and squishing its face and kissing its nose while making silly faces. "Who's a good boy" energy

He has dyslexia and is just so so so bad at traditional schoolwork. With all the work he missed he's failing all his classes, but is not really willing to ask for help because everyone knows how smart his parents are. That makes it hard for him because he thinks asking for help means disappointing them. This is especially bad with Clavell, since he's the one who talks about Sada and Turo the most (if Clavell realized this he would freak out tho, he cares about Arven a lot)

(points) inferiority complex. He's so used to being around overachievers that he's overly aware of his "shortcomings" and sees anything less than exceptional as a failure. Being compared to his parents all the time certainly doesn't help. He never gives himself credit for the things he's good at, and beats himself up too much over his mistakes. Boys who have low self-esteem to me

Related to the above points but oh man he NEVER admits when he's struggling. The cocktail of abandonment issues and low self-esteem means he feels the need to "prove himself" by never having visible issues and always working through things alone. He would rather die than cry in front of his friends. Luckily for him, everyone in Team Star is an expert at seeing through emotional facades and catches onto that pretty early so he has a support system that teases out all that buried nonsense and helps him work through it

You know those people who make food and share it with their dog? That's Arven. Mabosstiff is allowed to eat off Arven's plate whenever it wants, Arven spoils that dog rotten. They're rolling out of the Starbucks with a caramel frappe and a pup cup living their best life. Arven also bakes Mabosstiff a birthday cake every year, which is ironic because he doesn't make himself a birthday cake. Anything for Mabosstiff

I know canonically the 'raidon attacked wild pokemon but in my heart it attacked Arven, giving him a scar on his eye that he covers with his bangs. The reason the professor booked it to Area Zero without Arven is less because of the "oh they saw the 'raidon" part and more because 1. It hurt their son and they want to protect him and 2. If the League found out the professor was illegally keeping a mysterious pokemon who permanently scarred a child, they would definitely try and take it away which the professor is terrified of. They didn't explain this to Arven, however, who simply thought the professor abandoned him because they cared about the 'raidon more

Arven is very bulky and very strong. He can bench press more than anyone thinks, and is usually the guy to call if you need help lifting / carrying something. Despite his ability to snap your spine like a toothpick, however, she would much rather use his hands to help and not hurt. Boy who is so so sensitive and sweet

He loves to make cute little shapes with his food and has become absolutely enamored with the idea of bento boxes. Bunny shaped apple slices? Heart sandwiches? Sign him UP. His friends are more than happy to eat all the leftovers and scraps from his culinary experiments, so it's a win win for everyone

None of his pokemon are actually in pokeballs except for Mabosstiff, they're just free roaming. He'll call them when he needs them and they might stay in their balls for a short time, but overall they're more like work partners than pets like Penny's veevees. He managed to win all of them over with food, they just showed up at his picnics and followed him around. It's a good partnership, since Arven doesn't consider himself a traditional pokemon trainer anyway

He doesn't own any social media and is convinced all of Penny's terminally online speak is her trying to hex him. He's very content with this lifestyle and has no desire to learn anything about the web anytime soon. The benefit of this is that he hasn't seen most memes and subsequently finds them to be absolute goddamn riots. The "quieres" meme with a Maschiff was all he would talk about for days because he found it that funny

Nemona:

She is on the edge of her seat waiting for someone to send the "would you still love me if I were an Orthworm" meme to her. She figured out what her friends' natures would be based on their personalities and has a dozen page document detailing their new wormy battle strategy that she cannot wait to share

According to her, the reason she can't hit anything she's aiming for with a pokeball is because her family is descended from the King of Paldea. Because of that, they're subject to a multi-generational wizard curse where their arrows (and subsequently pokeballs) are destined to never hit their targets. No one can figure out if she's joking or not

I'm far from the first person to think this but this girl is autistic. Battling special interest, can't read the room, no volume control, relates everything to her special interest to understand it better, extremely bad at interpreting body language, fixates on tasks really easily, very often goes past her and others' limits without realizing, trouble relating to others, etc etc. Because of her obliviousness in social situations she often ends up being over-friendly to strangers and coming off far too strong, which scares people off

Genuinely, unironically does not realize her parents dropping her off with house staff and never seeing her is supposed to be a bad thing. Her friends are mortified to find out that her parents didn't show up to the League Ceremony when she became the youngest ever champion ranked trainer, but she's unbothered by it. Overall she's less sensitive to being ignored or forgotten or left by herself than any of her friends; she can vibe with solitude

She has a chronic illness. I have not thought too hard about which one but one of them, prolly related to nerve damage of some kind hence the arm brace. It leads to easy fatigue and some dull pain in her arm and shoulder, but the school doesn't know about it because she keeps conveniently forgetting to bring in the paperwork to Miriam. Dendra has her suspicions though

Ngl she gives school mascot energy. She's super energetic, genuinely loves the academy, and is hella tall which is basically a requirement for being the mascot. If she doesn't have the stamina for competitive sports she sure as hell is gonna cheer them on. Cue her rolling up to the bleachers in the most terrifying Pawmi fursuit you've ever seen in your life

Nemona is very very bad at having frank and straightforward emotional conversations but is absolutely SUPREME at cheering people up. Distraction queen. She isn't going to be able to address and solve your problems, but she can turn any bad day into a good one with some ice cream, a smile, and a positive attitude

Nemona doesn't know this but Arven doesn't like her (dw they get better). They used to be neighbors and would hang out as kids. At the time, Nemona wanted to be a pokemon professor-- she was chronically ill / fatigued so her parents encouraged her to talk to the Professor who lived in the lighthouse and maybe become a professor herself. Loving pokemon and being naturally curious, Nemona would talk their ear off for hours, but Arven just saw that as encroaching on the professor's super limited off-work time. He was pretty bitter that this other girl was getting more attention from his own parent than he was, not that Nemona ever realized that. But when the professor got the 'raidon, they became more reclusive, and Arven simply starting ignoring Nemona when she would knock on the door. It took a while, but she eventually got the hint, assuming they had moved or something and simply forgot to say goodbye. Arven is still mad about it all and finds Nemona obnoxious and overbearing, but she still thinks of him as a fond childhood friend, being none the wiser to his distaste for her. Eventually they get better

Her Pawmi / Pawmot was originally a therapy pokemon, intended to loosen any muscle spasms and help with the nerve-related pain in her arm. He's the pokemon she had the longest, but she didn't bother to train him for battle until recently

She's really bad at remembering people's faces, so she acts really friendly to everyone she sees to save herself the awkwardness of treating an acquaintance like a stranger. She also genuinely loves meeting new people and pokemon, so it's not really an act

Penny:

Penny doesn't really have a strong Galarian accent until she's yelling. She sounds like a native Paldean and then gets pissed and hits you with an "OI MATE" with enough psychic damage to kill a man

Her favorite ice cream flavor is "eeveelution sorbet" which is this giant rainbow mashup of flavor. It's lemon for jolteon, lime for leafeon, peach for sylveon, blue raspberry for vaporeon, orange for flareon, vanilla for glaceon, blackberry for umbreon and grape for espeon. Arven feels personally offended by its existence because "it's an insult to good cooking" and tastes like preservatives

In Paldea, "jelly" refers to the fruit spead, but in Galar, "jam" is the fruit spread and "jelly" is gelatin. Penny has been hearing Arven talk about "peanut butter and jelly" for ages now and is dead convinced that Paldeans just have shit taste. No one is aware of this miscommunication and just thinks that Penny hates fruit

Penny hacked the future paradox pokemon. She jailbroke Miraidon and can play compressed midi files on it and change the color of its lights. Future pokemon use super compressed files because things are better in the future and they don't need as much space, so Penny is currently working on getting past that limitation so she can play Doom on the thing

Good luck getting her to show up for class. She'll come and take tests, but god forbid it's a class that cold calls? She will literally never show up. Girl whose participation grades are Zero. Clavell does talk to her and authorize her to have Sylveon out of its ball in class because it's certified as a therapy pokemon, so its usually napping under her desk to help her cope with the anxiety of Being In A Classroom

Penny managed to convince Arven that blue raspberry is a real, albeit rare, Galarian fruit. He actually fell for it before Saguaro explained that she was lying to him. He still hasn't forgiven her for this

This woman vapes u cannot convince me otherwise. She has an eevee-shaped pen and always smells like watermelon. Luckily for her, miss student council president actually paid attention to those D.A.R.E lectures and read her the riot act when she realized what was going on, so she's being forced to quit and is a little bit grumpy about it. Giacomo is likewise disappointed in Penny's choices and has suggested she just switch to weed instead. Penny thinks this is a much more suitable compromise

Her eevee backpack is endless. Penny has pulled out snacks, flashdrives, a first-aid kit, a CD player, a toothbrush, Veevee treats, a cat-ear headband, and a taser from that thing within an hour. Anything you might need is probably inside whether or not it should reasonably fit. Hammerspace type beat

Geeta somewhat regrets hiring her. She does good work and the rest of the staff loves her, but she's also far less willing to put up with office bureaucracy things than any of the other staff and it's gonna give Geeta a migraine. One time Geeta asked Penny to work on a Saturday and she threatened to unionize. Larry thought it was so funny he bought Penny dinner. They're homies now

She can pick locks. Clavell is genuinely and rightfully terrified of her because they both know she can pick the lock to his office and completely wreck the school's security and financial system if you gave her a motive and a half hour

[residentraccoon]

Esc 2023 Top 37

1. Moldova - Might be biased, might not, this is staying as my first, I love everything about this

2. Portugal - Man these upbeat, slightly retro songs with a touch of ethnic flavor are like a magnet to me, I'm absolutely loving this as well lmao

3. Latvia - How can such a soft and sweet song like this be so powerful at the same time. This is the Með hækkandi sól of this year for me, and I hope they'll surprise Q just like Systur did

4. Estonia - It gives me so much hope and confidence in myself, like it's empowering but not in a cheesy way. The instrumental is pure art as well

5. Czechia - Yes girls bring the harmonies. It's been playing in my head a lot lately

6. Norway - *sigh* okay I fell into liking this one, I admit. I overlooked the earworm-ness of this song and she carries the whole performance so well.

7. Australia - Had to put it in my top 10, dated dad rock never fails to dissapoint me (unless said dad rock is called Intention)

8. Iceland - Sounds a bit 80s which I love, she has so much energy on stage

9. Slovenia - Such a charming britpop, I love these guys

10. Finland - The power of cha cha cha has gotten to me, send help 🫣

11. France - What a neat bop, also love her style a lot

12. Spain - Sounds pretty bizarre and hypnotic, I actually like how hauting it sounds lol

13. Serbia - Same as Spain, his presence is also really cool ngl

14. Sweden - Grew off me a bit, I must say that the staging is really good, but in studio it really doesn't elevate to the same way it does live. As much as I like Loreen, her staging, and her song, which is good indeed, I don't really want her to win? It's weird I know lmao

15. Austria - I've seen this being very popular in the fandom but honestly beside the message and the vocals it just doesn't really do that much for me. It's catchy yes, but not something I'd go out of my way to listen tbh

16. Armenia - Didn't quite impress me but gotta appreciate that clumsy but sweet english used in her lyrics. They feel so real

17. Malta - Kinda grower?? The sax is too catchy

18. Italy - It's a very sweet, calming song. I noticed Italy is pretty underrated this year, which is a bit weird because they're always talked about

19. Germany - Wish I liked this one more but I feel it lacks more enthusiasm or power? Still I kinda like this glam rock style

20. Georgia - Oh my god girl what are those lyrics? Tag yourself I'm "love is a wordless". Other than that, I like the beat but man, those lyrics are giving me last stage dyslexia and totally ruin the song for me :(

21. Romania - It's not the worst song of this year 😤 I know most are put off because of that staging but listen the studio or his other live versions and I assure you it's more bearable this way. Even so, I agree that one might find the vocals grating or the pacing weird, but honestly I don't have a problem with that. It's a pretty competent song.

22. Denmark - Get rid of that awful vocoder and we'll talk later. I really like how colorful the music video is, and it's another one that I started liking a bit more, but still doesn't do that much for me

23. Netherlands - Yawned like 3 times listening to this, it's pleasant but that's it

24. Azerbaijan - Ahh finally they're sending something self-written and not produced by swedes. Even if it sounds like a camp rock-esque ballad that's a bit filler, I find it more heartfelt and authentic than literally everything else Azerbaijan wanted to bless us with in recent years, and hell, do I like this more than those ones

25. United Kingdom - A pretty nice pop song, but that's all I have to say. I think it will come alive more on stage

26. Ukraine - It's decent and catchy, nothing groundbreaking

27. Cyprus - Other than the chorus, it's extremely bland and way too polished imho

28. Switzerland - I quite liked the pacing of it, but those lyrics get a bit too much on the "war bad, give us points" side which rubs me the wrong way. That or I might be overanalyzing it

29. Lithuania - Too whiny for my ears, but the final part is pretty cute

30. Albania - What turkish soap opera is this, I need to know. Speaking of the song, I feel like it wants to be this grand, empowering ballad but falls flat and fails to be so

31. Belgium - Well, it's catchy and groovy and that's about it

32. Greece - Why does this remind me of Snap a bit? Maybe it's the rhythm or his pronunciation. I love how his voice sounds, but I feel like this song really doesn't do him justice. It kind of builds up to something but in the end nothing happens

33. Ireland - If the word "bland" would be a song. Just a typical, most Irish in Eurovision entry there is. No offense, their vocals are good at least

34. Israel - Sounds like 2012, not in a good way. Repeats the same thing in the chorus, tries to be a bOPppPp yassss grl powahhhh, we're bein phenomen femininallll today yassss dance break cuz we are quwueennzzz- okay sorry, this one has everything I dislike in a song ever. Halfway listening I wanted to close it, but I had to finish it to have a proper opinion and rank it

35. Poland - Same as Israel but somehow even less tolerable and more painfully generic, walmart Inna vacation at the beach kind of song I'd hear while taking a walk outside. Also the nf shitstorm helps me dislike the song even more, and I didn't even listen to Jann Gladiator

36. San Marino - Please this sounds like something I'd hear in Selectia Nationala in like 2017 that places last 😭

37. Croatia - This doesn't even remotely sound like a song, I'm sorry but could never listen to this more than the first minute

[gloria5413]

MY Least Favorite stereotypes of the Ilvermorny Houses

Pukwudgie:

I don’t like the idea that they carry around med-kits. That just stereotypes them way too much. It feels like it’s the older Pukwudgies giving tips to younger students on what herbs, teas, healing spells. Older students would also help with mental health exercises and how to deal with different triggers. Not all healers have to be in the medical field, maybe they are good at emotional healing, helping other students with their mental health because they understand their own mental struggles. It could be small things like reminding their friends to eat, take a break, drink some water. They are probably better emotionally healing because their house represents the heart. But just because they represent the heart doesn’t mean they won’t beat down anyone who threatens their loved ones. Ruled by the heart they follow emotion/feelings more than logic. They are protective, might have anger issues, and might even have a self-defensive or fight club. They probably know the signs of someone who is suicidal or on the verge of having a mental breakdown.

Wampus:

Most people think of them as the big dumb jocks who hit first and ask questions later, but this is not the case. The stereotype is that you might envision them with huge muscle and amazing at athletics. As J.K Rowling stated Jacob would be in the wampus house. Even though he is chubby, pudgy, not the fastest or the strongest. To be a warrior you need to be brave, but being brave doesn’t mean having no fears. They get knocked down all the time, and even though they are tired they keep trying. Because sometimes you fight not because you think you can win, but because you need to be able to look back later and say that you fought, and that you tried. There are different ways you can be a warrior; it doesn’t always mean you’re in combat. Sometimes being a warrior means to fight against your own doubts, insecurities, and demons that plague your soul.  

Thunderbird:

Their whole stereotype is that they are restless wanderers, always looking for the next adventure to fulfill their high. But having the soul of an adventure can be interpreted in many ways. For most thunderbirds it can be trying out a new coffee shop down the street, doing to a local food festival within their own town. It doesn’t always have to mean you’re traveling across the world, spending money to do extravagant things. It could just be taking baby steps to expand their introverted lifestyle. It means having the simple courage to try new things and be open to new experiences. They are more like daydreamers who encourage each other to try different things without breaking boundaries. Thunderbirds are very Intune with their emotions are likely to trust their gut/intuition which leads to them exploring a different way of doing things. Many have the mindset to take what resonates and to leave the rest.  

Horned Serpent:

Since their house favors scholars many think they are just stuck-up book worms which further from the case. They may not necessarily be studious, but they love to learn. Some of them might have some learning difficulties such (ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, math dyslexia). Others gifted burnout kids that still get great grades because they can hack the tests and guess well. Some of them might love learning but hate school because it adds unnecessary stress to their mental health. But they are eager to learn about different places, ideas, aspects and concepts. They want to learn by real world applications more than books, they want the freedom to make mistakes and instead of getting penalized they are able to learn and grow as a person, that way they can pass on their knowledge to others. Being a horned serpent, they are most likely to also be street smart as well as book smart and by Combining the two it helps them and those around them succeed.

Written by Gloria.T.P

[katielovably]

My type is:

-cosplayer: they're cool and amazing mainly but also they're shape-shifts they can be whoever they want (so cool) also just to learn to join them because I seen other couples do it and it seems cute

-goblin/crowcore : again they're cool and we can collect rocks and other knick-knacks because that's cool also walking threw the woods are amazing but having someone who also would like walking threw woods or just hiking would be cool

- cat / animals lover :I have a cat and she is my Bean and my world. nothing will make me get rid of her)

-artist :I like doing art it's doesn't matter what is. It's interesting. To have someone with similar interests

- i am neptunic meaning  I only like nonbinary and female genders : I grew up in a rural community and men are... redneck and it's to much also I just don't talk to guys likeI do women (my experience is only threw work... I haven't dated yet but talked to people) also I'm the only "girl" (I'm non-binary) in my family so just some difference.

-easy to talk to : I'm shy. Like I have people I just conversation vomit too where others I'm quite until I get they start the conversation... I would like to trust my partner and have them trust in me

-any body type :thin or curvy. I don't mind. Trust me I have curves and chub. I.... I mean I don't like myself in the mirror but that's woman's marketing baby. But I don't mind it on others

-Gamer/ board gamer?: I like playing games (mostly minecraft but I played Mario cart and smash bros... I'm not good at smash but I still enjoy playing) and I enjoy playing board games but we don't do it enough also I have no one to play with (ok that sound like a whiny child) except for brothers ( and you can only play against someone so many times) but I play other games too just need to know how to play. Also I'm used to losing or not knowing what I'm doing but I do get full of myself when I win because it's rare and i come from a competitive family who allows winning to get to their heads. But mostly, it's just fun. Also I never played DND but it would be interesting to play.

- I take pictures: I take pictures of Bean, scenery and my co-workers at my summer job a few years back (but they don't like it) but I see a picture opportunity and try to take it (mostly when the thing I'm talking a picture of moves it does ruining it) so I'll probably try to take pictures of my partner.... if they allow

I tend to say sorry about everything: I will say sorry more than anyone. Even over things I don't have control over. I cower when yelled at... or argue back but that's rare because I don't like conflict and my go to is apologizing.

I have a lot of things wrong with me: I studded (I hate it), I have things mentally wrong (I don't know what because even though I say I will like to figure out what's wrong... I don't and life goes on 👍), I have trauma may it be from my home life or my school life I been scared. I might have dyslexia, I swear words gets me all the time. I get spooked easily but I tend to jump, get away from what scared me then laugh at myself or just freeze, and try to get out of the situation. I have socal anxiety (I think) my brain spirals and I'm stressed and panic in different social situations or if something goes wrong (I also beat myself over it) or just talk it out if something traumatic happens (usally sounding mad whenI do. So a partner who can calms me and supports me is a must

I don't know what this is. maybe I'm just shooting my shot and get a Tumblr partner. Why not. That would interesting, right.

Thank you for reading this train wreck of a post and having a great day

[married-to-google-translater]

Congratulations for all the followers🎊👏🥳🎉🍾🥂!! You deserve it💞💕. Don’t know if you did them already or not. If you didn’t, do you think you could do some Hc’s for Charles Grey from Black Butler?

Thank you <3 I don't even know who this guy is. I have read a couple of yandere texts you made for him so I have to turn to my husband for google help.

Writing this text is tricky because my brain is taking the letter r away from his last name so I always read it wrong and start laughing.

I know I'm childish but so because of my dyslexia, I sometimes thought that his last name is really Gay and I spent several hours thinking what his life is like.

" Does everyone call him Mr.Gay at parties and meetings?"

"If he ever gets married will his wife be called Mrs. Gay?"

"What if they ever have children? Is this name a reference to the character’s sexual orientation? Who thought this name was a good idea?"

But even though I know the character’s real last name today, my brain doesn’t want to accept it XD

YANDERE CHARLES GREY HEADCANON

Charles is obsessive, sadistic and clingy yandere.

He would fall in love with you if you were smarter or more adept at something than he is.

His obsession begins with a desire to figure out why you are better than him and how he can beat you.

But eventually Charles’s obsession develops into a very vicious and possessive love.

After watching you for a long time, Charles finds himself very attached to you.

and he enjoys very much this new feeling.

You will soon find that Charles spends a lot of time with you and comes by chance into the same compulsions as you.

He talks a lot to you and tries to make friends with you.

You may also notice how everyone is slowly starting to awoid you

( The best way to avoid him is to buy a pet snake and carry it with you when you go to public places because Charles is afraid of snakes )

Chrales has started to see your relationship as a long game and you as the prize he gets after winning.

But he can't wait so he'll kidnap you.

He wants a lot of love and affection from you and gets angry when you don’t give it to him.

He often punishes you severely when he is angry.

And Charles is angry often. He’s angry when you oppose his rules when he hasn’t given you permission, when you try to run away, or when you start imitating a snake.

Charles would give you several opportunities to escape and oppose him as he wants to know how to act in different situations.

He wants to know everything about his loved one.

[thewidowsghost]

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 7

(Y/n)'s  POV

The next few days I settle into a routine that feels almost normal if you don't count the fact that I am getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

Each morning I take Ancient Greek with Annabeth, and we talk about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which is kind of weird. I discover that Annabeth is right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek isn't hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a few mornings, I can read a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something Percy and I are good at. Chiron tries to teach Percy archery, but the three of us find out pretty quickly that he isn't any good with a bow and arrow, but I find that I was pretty okay at it.

The only thing Percy and I excelled at is canoeing, and that isn't the kind of heroic skill people expect to see from the kids who had beaten the Minotaur.

I know the senior counselors are watching the two of us, trying to decide who our dad is, but they aren't having an easy time of it. Percy and I aren't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I don't have Hepheastus's skill with metalwork or - gods forbid - Dionysus's with vine plants. Luke tells me and Percy one night that we might be children of Hermes, a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But I get the feeling that he is just trying to make us feel better. He didn't know what to make of us either.

One day, I am out by the canoe lake, just sitting on the dock, when I look over my shoulder to see Annabeth walking down the dock. She silently sits down beside me.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Annabeth wonders and I gather my thoughts before speaking.

"What if I'm not good at anything? What happens if I never get claimed?" I look over, my sea-green eyes meeting Annabeth's stormy-gray eyes.

Annabeth's gaze is slightly sympathetic and when she answers, her response doesn't really make me feel better. "You'd stay in the Hermes cabin."

I nod before gazing down the calm water of the lake again.

. . .

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I have my first sword-fighting lesson. Everyone from Cabin Eleven gathers in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We start with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor.

I can't feel a blade that feels right in my hands. Either they are too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tries his best to fix me up, but he agrees that none of the practice blades seem to work for me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Annabeth and Chiron standing at the entrance of the arena.

We move to duel in pairs and Luke announces that he would be my partner, and Percy would have an older camper since it's our first time.

"Good luck," one of the campers tells me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

I face Luke, an uneasy expression on my face and he shoots me a reassuring smile.

3rd Person POV

Annabeth and Chiron watch (Y/n) and Luke's demonstration, and even Chiron is slightly interested as he watches (Y/n).

Luke thrusts his sword forward and (Y/n) instinctively sidesteps, and Luke, expecting to hit (Y/n)'s shield, stumbles forward.

Luke's eyes narrow and he presses her with more force.

(Y/n) steps forward and tries a thrust of her own and Luke deflects it easily.

The two's blades clash over and over again for a minute or so when the sword in (Y/n)'s hand grows heavy; the balance not quite right.

She tries the disarming maneuver that Luke had been talking about earlier.

(Y/n)'s blade hits the base of Luke's and she twists, putting her whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang!

Luke's sword rattles against the stone; (Y/n)'s blade is an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers are silent.

(Y/n) lowers her sword. "Sorry," she says sheepishly.

For a moment, Luke is too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" his scarred face breaks into a grin. "By the gods, (Y/n), why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

This time, there is only a little bit of sparring before Luke hits the hilt of (Y/n)'s sword and sends it skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, someone in the audience says, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wipes the sweat off his brow, appraising (Y/n) with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he says. "But I wonder what (Y/n) could do with a balanced sword. . ."

. . .

Friday night, after dinner, there is a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it's time for capture the flag.

When the plates are cleared away, the conch horn sounds, and all the campers stand at their tables.

Campers yell and cheer as Annabeth and two of her siblings run into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It is about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies run in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a blood spear and a boar's head.

Percy turns to Luke and yells over the noise, "Those are the flags?"

"Yeah."

"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?" (Y/n) asks curiously.

"Not always," he answers. "But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do - repaint the flag?" Percy asks.

He grins. "You'll see. First, we have to get one."

Luke fives Percy a sly look, as if he knows something the other two don't. The scar on his face makes Luke look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."

The teams are announced. Athena had allied with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Privileges had been traded —shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what Percy'd seen, Dionysus's kids were good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff, but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters he wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammers his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announces. "You all know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spreads his hand and the tables are suddenly coated in metal equipment: helmets, bronze swords, speaks, oxhide shields covered in metal.

"Whoa!" Percy says. "We're supposed to use these?"

Luke looks at him as if he's crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here — Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol, (Y/n), you're with me, I want to see what you can do with that sword."

Luke hands (Y/n) a circular shield and she straps it onto her arm. She tests the weight of the shield and is satisfied with the fact that it's not too light or too heavy.

Annabeth yells, "Blue Team, forward!"

The Blue Team cheers and shakes their swords and follows her down the path to the south side of the woods. The Red Team yells taunts at them as they head off to the north.

Percy manages to catch up to Annabeth, (Y/n) at his heels, without Percy tripping over his heavy equipment.

"Hey," Percy says; Annabeth keeps marching. "So what's the plan?" he asks. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Annabeth's hand drifts towards her pocket, as if afraid he'd taken something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she tells Percy. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. (Y/n), come with me."

With a blink, the two girls had ran forward, leaving Percy in the dust. . . .

Once they're in positions, a conch horn blows, and (Y/n), who Annabeth had left with Luke, sneaks forward.

She moves forward a few yards and instinctively raises her shield against an Ares camper. (Y/n) thrusts her sword and the Ares camper sidesteps. Changing her momentum, (Y/n) does a spin, hitting the Ares camper in the stomach with her shield; the camper falls to the ground.

Feeling more confident in herself, (Y/n) slinks into the shadows, her shield and sword low as not to glow from any lights nearby.

(Y/n) makes it across the boundary into enemy territory and sneaks forward a few more yards until she hears Clarisse's voice, "Give him a haircut. Grab his hair."

(Y/n) changes direction, breaking into a run and then bursting from the line of trees.

The five Ares campers turn on her and three advance, Clarisse and another continuing to beat on Percy.

(Y/n) swings the flat of her sword and hits the first guy's head and he crumples to the ground.

Two other guys come at her and she slams her shield into one's face and uses her sword to shave off the horsehair plume on his helmet.

(Y/n) steps into the water and pulls her twin to his feet, feeling as though she'd eaten some of her mother's double espresso beans.

Clarisse and the fourth guy advance and the guy swing his sword, catching (Y/n)'s shield arm and leaving a huge cut, from her wrist to elbow.

Percy catches Clarisse's electric spear with the edge of his shield and sword and snaps it like a twig.

"Ah!" she yells. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but Percy smacks her between the eyes with his sword-but and sends her stumbling backward out of the creek.

Then the twins hear yelling, elated screams, and see Luke raising towards the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He is flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks get up and Clarisse mutters a dazed curse.

"A trick!" Clarisse screams. "It was a trick."

The Ares kids stagger after Luke, but it's too late. Everyone converges on the creek as Luke runs across into friendly territory. The Blue team explodes into cheers and the red banner shimmers and turns to silver. The boar and spear are replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of Cabin Eleven. Everyone on the Blue Team picks up Luke and starts carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron canters out from the woods and blows the conch horn.

(Y/n)'s POV

The game was over. We'd won.

Percy and I are about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, says, "Not bad, hero."

I look, an eyebrow quirked, but Annabeth isn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" Annabeth asks. The air shimmers, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

"You set me up," Percy says, looking slightly angry. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Annabeth shrugs, "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."

"A plan to get my pulverized," Percy retorts.

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to step in . . ." she shrugs. "You didn't need help."

Then she notices my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"It's a sword cut," I respond. "Where do you think it came from?"

"No. It was a sword cut," Annabeth says. "Look at it."

I look down. The blood is gone; where the huge cut had been, there is a long white scratch, and even that is fading. As I watch, it turns into a small scar and disappears.

"I - I don't get it," I stutter.

Annabeth is thinking hard. I can almost see the gears turning. She looks down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and says, "Step out of the water, (Y/n)."

"What -" I question.

"Just do it."

I step out of the creek and immediately feel bone tired. I almost fall over but Annabeth steadies me.

"Oh, Styx," she curses. "This is not god. I didn't want . . . I assumed it would be Zeus . . ."

Before I can ask what she means, I hear a canine grows.

A howl rips through the forest.

The campers' cheering dies instantly. Chiron shots something in Ancient Greek, "Stand ready! My bow!"

Annabeth draws her sword.

There on the rocks, just above us is a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

And it's looking right at me.

Nobody moves except Annabeth, who yells, "(Y/n), run!"

She tries to step in front of me, but the hound is too fast. It leaps over her - an enormous shadow with teeth - and just as it hits me, as I stumble backward and feel its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor.

There is a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after another; from the hound's sprouts a cluster of arrows.

The monster falls dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I am alive. I don't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor and sway a little. My chest feels warm and wet, and I know I am badly cut. Another second and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of deli meat.

Chiron trots up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

"Di immortales!" Annabeth says softly. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't...they're not supposed to..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron murmurs. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke comes over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yells, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summons it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron tells her.

We watch the body of the hellhound melts into the shadow, soaking into the ground as it disappears.

"You're wounded," Annabeth tells me. "Quick, (Y/n), get in the water."

I'm too tired to argue and I step back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.

Instantly, I fell better; I fell the cuts on my chest closing up.

Some of the campers gasp.

"Look, I - I don't know why," I say, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry . . ."

But they aren't watching my wounds heal, they're staring up at something above mine and Percy's heads.

"(Y/n), Percy," Annabeth says, pointing. "Um . . ."

By the time I look up, the sign is already fading, but I can still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming.

A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"Your father," Annabeth murmurs. "This is really not good."

All around me, campers start kneeling, even Ares cabin, though they don't look happy about it.

"Our father?" Percy asks, looking completely bewildered.

"Poseidon," says Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus and (Y/n) Jackson, Son, and Daughter of the Sea God."

Word Count: 2641 words

[dreaminpeaches]

“Ladies, Gentlemen, Enbies...HER--I mean Him? Or them?-- whatever, anyways here's the first part of my daydream paracosm, Humble Pie. I was really happy I was able to come up with the first part in a somewhat cohort manner. Part 2 is also going to follow this sometime soon, but after that its probably just gonna be short shorts, text exchanges, and or drabbles, but that first part’s finally a thing! And that’s cool”

“Also just reminder that this paracosm is set in a mix timeline, like people have flip phones, cassette tapes, but still also have stuff like gamer chairs, and slang like sus/lit exist, so I hope that doesn’t bother you..oof”

“Also I wrote this from my Remarkable, then convert it to text, and did some proof reading, but my handwriting is still can only be read by chickens and my dyslexia ninja has sneak 100 accuracy so..yeah

Word count: 6,115

TW: mention of Bullying, DeadBeat dad, Smoking, Drinking, Swearing (only for comedy’s sake tho’), Dissociation, Guilt (but don’t worry there’s still A LOT of fluff in this piece, tho)

Link to Alternate version on my off-site daydream blog: Humble pie part 1

=================================================================

"Okay, here we go" Beau said, taking one last drag of his cigarette, and taking in one last look at the panoramic view of the town below, Newbury, his hometown, he was away for a year because of college which he dropped out of. Well, "dropout" made it seemed like he had a choice, more like he flunked out, there were' 'reasons that 'made college impossible for Beau, reasons that he couldn't get into or more like reasons he didn't want to get into, these were the some reasons that turned what was suppose to be a 5 hour drive into an 8 hour one, making him stop ever so often to the nearest park, overlook, or clearing to get out, smoke and or take a short walk. These stops were so frequent by the time he reached his hometown’s overlook he was on his last stick, hard to believe he started the trip w/ a full box.

He dropped the last of the remains of the cig on the ground and stomped out the glow ember with his dark brown rounded toed boot, watching the embers glow go out made him feel similar in a way.

Beau took one more last look at the small town below blanketed by the dark, light sky. He looked around. the overlook, bring back memories of. late night make outs, sneak outs and general teenaged shenanigans.

Beau remembers once on a night he was really buzzed, a rare event for him, drinking with his buddies, rather it was the buzz from the beer, or he was just 'riding the 'high off scoring the winning goal for the team, or general teen hormones. He felt invincible, so invincible he stood up on the ledge and proclaimed himself as king of the world

A moment Beau looks back at and shakes his head as if to try to erase the memory from his mind like an etch n’ sketch, suddenly he got a bad taste in his mouth or maybe that's just the cigarettes "King of world….yeah, right" Beau said pulling up the collar of his jacket and shrugging his hands into his pockets, and headed back into the car.

It was getting late and there was no use in stalling any longer, might as well continue to the inevitable. Stalling may be that’s the feeling that's been following him the whole time, stalling the fact that he would have to return to his hometown a failure after being touted and praised for being a star athlete , and getting into a ivy league school, a feat his mom was really proud since she herself couldn't go to college because of having Beau at such a young age, and having to deal with a bunch of other “BS” as Beau would put it.

Beau really wanted to make her proud by becoming a famous football player and make tons of money so she wouldn't ever have to worry about bills n 'stuff and live in the malibu dream house she dreamed of living in since she was a kid, a dream she would talk about to her children like it was fairytale during when time got real tough.Even though she sounded upbeat over the phone about the news, Beau knew his mom was an expert when it came to masking her disappointment and skill that was pretty integral with dealing Beau's birth father. He just hopes she's not too disappointed

As the twilight sky grew more dark the street lights flickered on. Familiar and nostalgic landmarks and structures rolled by as Beau drove by with one hand gripping the wheel while the other hand hung casually out of the rolled down window. the nighttime breeze gentle, tossing his cart dirty blond hair mullet. The 'murmur of punk music lighty playing from the car's speaker, that was playing louder earlier but the volume's quickly depleted because blasting punk 'music at night in a small town is pretty serious offensive a risk, a younger Beau would play around with, but now being older he knows better.

Driving into his old neighborhood, seemingly not much has changed, but what do you expect from a small town? The old neighborhood consisted of typical signatures of most middle upper class .. neighborhoods, Christmas ' decorations long over due to be taken down, manicured lawns, next to slightly less manicured lawns. Some lawns adored w/ gnomes and flamingos, a step up from the lawns of homes in his childhood neighborhood whose homes had what one could consider a lawn but just barely, Beau and his brother were lucky enough to have a sizable back yard and a tree house.

His family's lawn had a bunch of outdoor toys laid about on their lawn: a nerf gun, a pink tricycle, a tiled dyed color bouncy ball and an empty container of mega bubble wand. Beau drove up in the driveway being careful to not accidentally run over any of the toys in the yard.

He eject the mixtape from the player and put it into his jacket chest pocket. Beau leaned over and rummaged through the glove compartment fishing out a small travel can of axe's body spray and another small spray can of mouthwash, he used both to cover the scent of cigarette smoke, a smell his mother was highly sensitive to. He popped in a stick of spearmint for extra measure before getting out of the car and going to the trunk to retrieve his suitcase. Beau only had one suitcase since all the stuff really needed and cared about conveniently fitted in one suitcase.

Beau propped up his suitcase as he closed the trunk, the car beeped and blinked as he pressed the lock button. He headed up the pathway to the front door, his heart beating louder and louder with each step leading up to the front door.

Beau took a deep breath, Pulling himself together. "Okay" He said under his breath as his hand slowly reach for the knob but before he could even get a good grip, the door swung open, Beau's eyes raced up to see the thinning hair of a middle aged man, Beau eyes lowered a bit more to see the mustached clad face of the man the hair belonged to. "Hey, Big Boss! '' the mustache man said with a grin. The man was Beau's stepfather, David.

"Hello, David, I-I mean Dad." Beau awkwardly greeted his stepdad, trying his best not to show discomfort at his step dad's “nickname" for him.

"Ha, ha that's okay, son!”David laughed, giving Beau a hefty pat on the back.

"Here, let me get your bags." David said, reaching for Beau's suitcase, looking behind Beau expecting more bags

“You only brought one bag?" he questioned, looking curiously.

'--I like to be efficient" Beau muttered with a shrug and a side glance. "HAHA you and me both, Big B" David chuckled playful elbowing Beau, who gave a half-smile and a small chuckle--well, more like a slight nose huff

"Hey, honey Big B is home!" David shouted as Beau closed the front door.

His mother came rushing from the bedroom in her rose pink robe w/a barbie in insignia on the front with matching fuzzy slippers, her sandy blond hair still damp from the shower.

"My little boy, oh!" she said, warping Beau in a tight motherly embrace. "Welcome home!" Beau's mother pulled back for a second, cupping her son's face in her hands “you’re still so handsome"

"Wait..." Beau gently removed his mom's hands from his face "Are you okay, mom?" He asked his considerate brown eyes searching his mother's teal eyes for any sign of distress.

"Of course, sweetie," his mom beamed. "I have all of my loved ones under one roof. What's more to ask?"

it's just that I didn't- Y-you know." Beau said with downcast eyes

"Oh, that" his mom said wide eyes and then shaking her head in dismissed

"Don't worry about not finishing college, I mean just look at me"

“But You just seemed so proud that I got in, I just didn't want to let you down"

“Sweetie, it's fine," his mom said, gently guiding his head up with her hand to look at him "I was not proud that-You were becoming the smart, sweet kind young man, I always knew you were, but now. I'm just happy that you’re here and I get to see you go. on the journey myself!" Beau chuckled tightly and blushed at his mom's admiration.

"Plus, Your mom's not the only one who is happy to have You home!” David said, gesturing towards the hallway. Beau looked to see a small figure peeking from the corner, the figure quickly disappeared followed by an overflow of giggles.

A smile slowly creeped across Beau's face, he slowly kneeled down. " "Gasp * Is that my little care bear?"

From the shadows totted out, a little girl dressed in a blue care bear patterned nightgown, her blonde hair tied up in pigtails, she grasped a love-a-lot bear in one arm while her other arm was open as she raced towards Beau, also with arms wide open for a hug "Bo-Bo"

"Hey, care bear!" Beau cooed as he picked up his little sister "Wow, You've gotten so big since the last time I saw you!

"Carrie's been asking when you were coming since you told us you were coming home "David stated

"Really?"

"Yep!'' Carrie nodded proudly "You still have the love-a lot bear I won at grad night". Beau vividly remembers winning Love A Lot and his friends making fun of him, but Carrie really appreciated it more than he thought.

"Yeah, she takes it with her everywhere!" mom emphasized “Thank god, the kindergarten has a security blanket policy!

"Aww..." Beau said fondly looking at Carrie, who had her head resting on his shoulder, still grasping love a lot.

Beau thought for a moment and looked around "wait, where Dev?"

"Oh" mom said putting her hand on her head with a semi sigh "He's been going through... things"

"Teenager things: David specified "He's the big one three now.. "

“Don't worry, I can talk to him!”Beau said, confidently, slowly nodding his head

. Carrie lets out a small yawn "Aw, you sleepy, care bear?" Beau asked as Carrie rubbed her eyes

"It's past her bedtime, but she really wanted to see you," Mom said, stroking Carrie's hair. "Is someone ready for the sleep shuttle'?" Beau asked Carrie, looking at her in her sleepy hazel eyes, she nodded in response

"Alright, Here we go!" Beau held Carrie in both hands placing his arms out in front of him, he kneeled down and started counting down. "3…..2...1. Blast off!"

Beau shot Carrie in the as he stood back up. As he moved towards Carrie's bedroom, he moved all around side to side, up and down while making spaceship sounds, Carrie was giggling all the way through.

"Incoming! "Beau shouted as he swooshed Carrie round a few more times before landing her swiftly on the bed.

"Huston, the eagle. has landed!." Beau said, holding his ear as if he had an earpiece "Not eagle! Bear!" Carrie stated holding up her care bear "correction, the "BEAR" has landed!" Beau correcting himself, bringing a huge smile to her face as she nuzzled her care bear

"Okay, night, right, care bear" Beau said patting carries head

"Wait!" Carrie said holding on to her brother's arm "Is Bo-Bo still gonna be here in the Morning?""Of course, I'm not going anywhere at least for a while.." "Beau said, kneeling down to Carrie's eye level.

"Okay, I like having Bo-Bo around:'' Carrie said "and I like being around" Beau said, "see you in the morning, care bear" Beau gives Carrie a good night kiss on the forehead.

She settles into bed as Beau closes the door. Beau grinned to himself, feeling lucky to have such a cute sister. He remembers when Devin was that little, speaking of Dev. Beau apphoraced Dev's bedroom door. The door was caution tape, Don't enter signs, with a please knock before entering sign.

At first Beau did think about knocking but then thought "I could be a respectful older brother respect the sign or I could have fun and be a little shit. He pondered about it for a minute then-"yeah, I'm gonna be a little shit.”

Beau took a card out his wallet and wedged it in between the door to jimmied the lock. He peeked through the door to see Dev playing a video game on the tv. "you little..." Beau said under his breath, before bombastically opening the door "Hey there, squirt!" Beau said, shoving the door open

"Didn't you read the sign?!" Dev said as he turned around in his gamer chair in both shock-and annoyance

"Wow, that's a pretty warm welcome to give your older brother you haven't seen in a year!" Beau snarked, pretending to look hurt'' "Nice to see you too!"

"Oh my god!" Dev said, rolling his eyes and turning his chair back to tv, bringing his attention back to the game.

"and here I thought you were working on a project or homework or some school shit!" Beau continued "but no, you're just sitting here playing one of your little nerd games"

"Oh my god, can't you just leave!" Dev groaned as he hunching closer to the tv.

"You couldn't at least say "Hi" " Beau said now standing right behind Dev gamer chair

Dev raised and waved his hand half-heartedly and flatly said "hi"

"Well, damn I feel loved," Beau said sarcastically. "aren't you at least gonna look at me?" shaking the gaming chair a bit to gain an ounce of his little brother’s attention.

“ I saw you "Kool aid man" into my room. Is that enough?" Dev said still focusing on the game Beau sighed, then got an idea "Dev! Dev! I think there's something wrong with my heart I think I gonna-ugh!" He said staggering forward a bit before falling in Dev's lap, knocking out the game controller out of Dev's hands.

"Come on! I was in the middle of battle!" Dev whined looking at his brother playing dead

"Get off of me!" Dev go armed as he tried to push beau off with no luck

"Come on, Beau!" He gored in frustration “I know you're not dead! I can still feel your heartbeat..."

Get up!" Beau remained still, Dev rolled his eyes; he knew the exact words to get his brother off his back or in this case lap.

"Big brother, can you please get off of me n Dev utter begrudgingly "Aw, you haven't call me ‘Big brother’ in years" Beau chimed with a smile, finally getting up "I'm still kind of hurt, that you cared about your gaming progress than the well being for your one and only big brother"

"You were still breathing, I could literally see you inhaling and exhaling." Dev clarified rubbing his forehead

"Touche, I guess" Beau said he then directed Dev's chair in front his bed," now that I have your attention"

"Okay, I guess I should say sorry since you couldn't and say "hi" to me because you were too busy saving some elf princess, or some anime chick with huge melons"

"I-H-Hey I don't even play those types of games!" Dev argued blushing

" .-sure you "don't'." Beau taunted with a wink, Dev goanned "Anyways, Anyways you don't have to say "hi",; but you could at least not talk to me"

Beau suggested, shrugging. "I guess" Dev mumbled kind of sinking into his chair "cool, so how's life?" Beau started, trying to start a diagoul "okay"

"How's school?"

"Okay"

"How’re your friends?"

"Okay"

"Got a girlfriend?"'

"NO”

"Got a boyfriend?"

N-NO"

"Got any crushes"

“….NO…..."

"joined any clubs or any other after school junk?"

" ..... NO..."

"Are you just gonna answer all my questions in one word?"

Dev fell quiet, and shifted his gaze from his brother

“Okay, that's it!" Beau huffed, he picked up Dev and hoasted him over his shoulder "Hey! put me down!" Dev-shouted , beating his fists on Beau's back "Not until you talk to me like an actual person, and one worded answers aren't gonna cut it, squirt!"

"MOM! Dad!"

"Mom and Dav-Dad are fast asleep, and you know they both sleep like rocks!" Beau stated'' the only person you'll wake up is Carrie, and You don't want to wake little care bear, now do YOU?"

Dev fell Quiet again, "You know I can hold you like this for hours, you aren't really that heavy, or you can just end this and talk to me" Beau suggested ending the suggestion with a sigh and started to stomp his foot impatiently..

Dev continued the silent treatment for a bit until letting out a meek "Okay...I'll try" .

Hey, three words, that's a start!" Beau cheekly commented,He sat Dev back down in his green gamer chair.

"Okay, do over!" Beau said casually sitting across from Dev and his bed. "so, how's school going?" "F-fine” Beau gave Dev a intense look, reminding Dev of his word count “N-no, I mean it's just weird" Dev stuttered choosing his words carefully, Dev fiddled with his hoodie sleeves.

"and it's weird because..." Beau initiated, gesturing his hand toward encouraging Dev to continue "It's weird because.... I don't know, Middle school is way different than 'elementary school, I mean I knew that from tv, but middle school isn't like tv."

"It's okay, nothing like tv, that thing lies” Beau softly chuckled to himself and continued “I remember thinking Pogo sticks were the SHIT-cuz 'of people and cartoons on tv made it look so easy"

"I finally got enough money for one-- you were like little you probably don’t remember this-- but I was SO HYPED, I wanted mom to watch me. I took one hop, fell on my ass, and never hopped on that bitch again. I was pissed, I think mom was trying to her best not to laugh but I was so pissed I think I didn’t notice until now. I chucked the pogo stick in the garage, and I never looked at that bitch again”

Dev let out a stiff laugh, the defensive wall Dev put was slowly breaking

"Oh WAIT WAIT!” Beau said taking a moment to correct himself “ That WASN’T the last time the last time I looked that bitch, I fished it out of garage years later, only cuz’ I need some money for Madden. So, I did look at that bitch one more time, but only to sell that bitch.”

Dev let out a more audible laugh, but quickly caught himself and recollected, returned to his disillusioned teenage state.

"Anyway, The teacher's are kind of weird, like a lot of them hate my guts already, except for the coaches who are super nice to me." Dev explained, kind of looking away from his brother

"Weird, why do you think that is?" Beau asked whole hearty

"Because I'm related to you, Numb skull!" Dev blunted , groaning putting his hand on his forehead

"Oh damn, I guess that's my fault." Beau realized, rubbing the back of his neck "My bad. that my awesomeness is just lengardy"

Dev shook his head and rolled his eyes "It's not awesome to live in YOUR shadow!" Dev sulked, sinking back into his chair, his hands covering his face.

"You don't have to follow in my awesomeness, I know I'm a hard act to follow." Beau boasted teastingly so"You just gotta make your own awesomeness."

"What does that even mean?" Dev questioned, moving his hands down, allowing his eyes to peek through his fingers, trying not to given the urge to roll his eyes

"It's like my awesomeness comes from my boyish charm and good looks..." Beau claimed, striking an award winning smile, The urge not to roll his eyes was becoming even hard for Dev, but he still had to try and respect Beau "But your awesomeness could come from being good at games, or computers shit or math or robots or something--I don't know something real nerdy"

"I guess, you're right" Dev mumbled and shrugged,lifting himself up back into a sitting position rather than almost spilling out of his chair.

"Its not a guess, its science!" Beau declared proudly, tapping his temple with his index finger

"No,that's not science!" Dev arguing his brother's stupidity, flatly shaking his head in disagreement

"See, there you go using your nerd awesomeness" Beau pointed out with a wink "Keep that up and you'll go from Beau's lil bro, to just ‘Dev’ in no time." Beau playful tousled Devs mop dirty blonde hair

"I mean.." Dev continued batting his brother's hand away, "I was also thinking of joining the video game club or the robotics club at school."

"There you go another nerdy thing that to add to your own awesomeness" Beau said

"Yeah...." Dev continued ignoring his brother's comment' “Some of my friends are thinking about joining, and it would be a nice place to go away from mom and dad."

"I had sick memories of hanging out with the team, we got into some wild shit." Beau said laughing to himself, fondly reminiscing "But I'm sure you and you geek squad could have "wild" times too, like making an anime robot 'weify." or whatever those called or finding a new math formula or something"

Dev fell quiet for another moment, Beau always seems like he’s in between being supportive and subtly roasting him, Dev then uttered "um... I think I kind of have a crush... on a girl..."

"AYE, let's go! "Beau exclaimed, clapping and shaking Dev's chair for a bit before bouncing back on the bed'' Come on, don't leave me hanging, what's her name? "Have you talked to her vet? Have you asked her out? Have-"

"Calm down!" Dev demanded "I said I had a crush, I didn't say we’re going out.'"

"Oh, so you haven’t talked to her, huh?”

"No, I-I don't even know her name" Dev huffed, he let his arms slip into his oversize sleeves and covered his sleeves with his face in frustration.

"You know you could just ask, not the chick, like just ask around"

"I can't do that because if I do, people will find out I like her and if she finds out, I would just have to stop going to school!”

"Okay, let’s just pretend you DO have the balls to talk to this girl, what's the worst that could happen?" Beau suggested

"She finds out that I like her, thinks I'm weird and never wants to talk to me again or even look at me!” Dev muffled through his sleeved covered face

"You really think she can sus that out all in one go!" Beau said "I mean she is a middle Schooler unless she's like a young nancy drew, she is not going to chew you up and spit out like that." Beau explained "speaking of which''

Beau paused for a moment to spit out his gum into the trash can "Score!"

"Anyways, have you done anything weird to her or around her?"

"No, I mean I look at her in the hallways before and in between class, but I don't like-- stalk her or anything too weird." Dev mumbled, moving his sleeves from his face, but his head was still targeted down at his fingers fiddling with a tag on his black shorts

"So, then what's the fear?" Beau inquired, resting his chin on the heel of his palm

Dev thought for a moment, his eyes shifting looking for an answer." I-I guess I just don't know how to talk to her."

"Well, fuck, that's easy" Beau chuckled “Just talk about school shit, or just say "hi"

"Is it really that easy?"

"Yeah, if you have the balls for it" Beau reiterated "Think about it like this, the dudes you play in your little nerd games have to fight a dragon, a demon or some anime witch with huge melons to talk to the girl they like and they er brave enough to do all of that wacky shit. But you’re lucky, you don't have a dragon for real in your way to keep you talking from your crush. The dragon's just in your head! If those hero dudes can fight dragons they actually can see, doesn't that mean you can fight a dragon you don't even see."

"That was a really lame and kind of confusing metaphor" Dev sassed " But I guess understand what your trying to say"

"Exactly" Beau said nodding confidentiality

"Can we talk about mom and dad?" Dev asked sheepishly, looking up at his brother, (well as much as he could with his shaggy bangs in the way), his fingers now toying with his hoodie strings

"Did something happen?"

"No, I mean yeah, I mean it's just weird" Dev said "Mom and dad are starting to get more annoying but I don't know if they were always like that or they like charged"

"No, parents don't really change-usually” Beau explained “It's just that being a teenager makes you hypersensitive to a bunch of shit and makes you wanna be alone more. Parents, the good ones like spending time with their kids and they actually want quality time n' shit and that's where they start to get annoying".

“"Oh okay,” Dev nodded.'' It's just weird because sometimes I feel like I hate them, but I don't want to. I think I just really want to be alone more like you said but I don't want to shut them out, I just want them to get that." Dev-fiddles with the strings of his green hoodie

"Yeah, I think they do in a weird old people kind of way. Believe it or not they were teenagers to even if that was back in the stone age n' shit" Beau joke"

Dev let out an actual laugh, a sign to Beau that he's little bro was being less of a moody teenager

"Anyway, even with that said mom and david-I mean dad aren't mind readers, it would be cool if you give them a heads up, you don't have to tell them all about what's going on in your little teen nerd brain but at least something simple like something weird or funny that happened at school, or asking for help on homework or a project for class or some shit like that, I'm pretty sure Dav-dad would love that.."

"I guess I could try". Dev said slightly nodding his head "But Carrie is kind of weird too!

"How can Carrie be weird, she's 5.” Beau scoffed "she doesn't do anything weird really"

Dev added" it's just sometimes she's regular cute and other times she's annoyingly cute if that makes sense"

"I mean like kind of get what you're saying but "Beau shrugged gesturing his hand toward prompting Dev to continue

"Like I still look out for her because she little, but because she's little that means I have to do dumb stuff like look for monsters under her bed or do that sleep shuttle thing you do, but I can't really do it because my arms give out halfway through and she's heavier than she looks."

"Well, little brothers and sisters are annoying, it's kind of their job, trust me I know from experience" Beau: put his hand on Dev's knee, Dev tried to Swat at it but Beau quickly put his hand back with a smirk.

"But like with mom and da-David just cuz she's annoying doesn't mean You can’t look out for her n stuff"

"I guess, its because lately, it seems like'' Dev paused 'for a beat, his hands hard gripping the strings of his hoodie, before continuing" I don't know mom and dad have been paying more attention to her than me"

A mischievous smile creeps across his face. "AW does someone miss being the baby?"'

"Oh, fuck! I knew you 'er gonna say that!" Dev blurted out, feeling really exposed, he pulled his hoodie strings allowing his head to be consumed by his hoodie, all but his nose.

"Hey! language,” Beau said, surprised at his little brother's reaction those harsh words coming out of the mouth of small boy sporting a Yoshi hoodie

"You cuss' all the time!" Dev huffed pulling his hoodie back down, then crossing his arm definitely

"Yeah, but I'm older than you, and if mom and David--DAD hear you curse they’er gonna know you got it from me and won't get off my ass about it!"

Dev stared at his brother, simmering in frustration in failing to coming up w/a good come back or a flaw in his brother's logic, He let out a heavy sigh and resumed "Anyways, it's NOT like I miss being the baby, I just miss being able to hold their attention without Carrie coming in and stealing them anyway, I don't know its weird"

"Wait, did you just say that you wanted to be alone and away from mom and David-fuck. I'm not even gonna try more-he's asleep anyways." giving up any attempt to make the word "Dad" same with the name "David"

"Yeah, I know that's what makes it weird!" Dev admitted, he sulked back deeper into his chair and let out a groan.

"You know Carrie's not awake all the time, maybe you can talk to mom and David, when she goes down for her nap, hell, I could just take her to the park for a day." Beau offered

"You'd really do that for me?" Dev peeped, quickly lifting himself up in a sitting position, surprised at his brother kind offer

"Yeah, anything to make you less of a weird angsty shut in, with a bunch of cringy keep out signs and keep out tape!" Beau gestured towards the door

"Actually, I got that caution tape from a real crime scene" Dev clarified, with a smug smile

"Really?" Beau taking a longer closer look at the door

"No, thick head, I found it in a dumpster next to party city!"

"You go dumpster diving?" Beau said, raising an eyebrow

"I have a life outside of YOU!" Dev stated proudly

"Okay, and on that... Weird garbage goblin flex, sibling bonding time is over." Beau said getting up from the bed and heading for the door

"Actually, one more thing..." Beau said quickly, turning around, rushing towards Dev, putting him into a headlock.

"Did ya miss me? Come on, tell me that you missed me!" Beau taunted as he gave his brother a long and through noogie "Ouch, Ow, Ow, Okay, okay, I missed You. Geez:" Dev pleaded trying to struggle out of his brother's grip

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Beau said with a smirk, letting 'Dev go.

"Ugh! my hair" Dev fumed , gawking at his even more messy mop of hair.

"Like you care about appearances" Beau chuckled" mop top nerd!"

"Mullet-hair metal meathead!"

"Ouch, that was pretty good" Beau teased pretending to look hurt "Garbage Goblin"

"You already-"Dev started but was cut off by Beau closing the door

"Too late, the door is closed, I can't hear you, which means I win!" Beau said through the door, laughing at his brother's muffled fury of frustration.

Beau grinned relishing in the absolute confusion of his younger brother, but that good vibe quickly faded once he arrived at the door to his old bedroom. He just stood there and stared at the door for a bit, he could feel the icky stew of the emotions from bubbling back up again.

He flexed his hand a few times as if this was the first time he's ever pored a door, Beau's hand reached for the door handle before retracted as if the knob was red hot.

Beau sheepishly looked around as if somebody was watching him, no one was but it sure did feel like it. He considered sleeping on the couch, but that would be weird, since it seemed like his step dad put his luggage in his room. so, eventually he would have to go into his room anyway.

Beau took a deep breath. "Come on, it's just a door, dude!" He told himself Beau's hand rested on the door knob, he took another deep, his hand gained a stronger grip, and he slowly pushed the door open, Beau carefully entered the room as he closed the door behind him. Looking around the room was plaster with posters of football players and a few pinups of doe-eye, sensual women in swimsuits and other scantily clad outfits.

Athletic medals, trophies and awards displayed proudly on his bookshelf that lacked any actual books, those trophies stood next to pictures of Beau with his teammates, all illuminated by the moon's dull pale blue light. These relics of what felt like a bygone era used to fill Beau with so much pride and joy but looking at them now just leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

He could barely even recognize himself in those photos. This whole room felt like a shrine or more like a tomb to someone who no longer exists.

Looking at all this stuff just made the icky feelings from before rise up to the back of his throat making the bad taste linger even longer.

Beau couldn't really pin what-these feelings were, so he shifted his focus on just getting some sleep

As he thought, Beau's step dad put his luggage on his bed. He opened his bag and quickly changed into a white tank top and some grey sweatpants. He fished out the mix tape from his jean jacket and put into the gray clucky music player on his nightstand. Beau turns the music up loud enough for him to hear but not loud enough for disturb anyone else. Heavy metal music (ironally) helped him sleep on hard nights.

Beau laid in bed focusing on the one spot in his room that wasn't decorated with high school memorabilia. Focusing on that spot was way better than focusing on the icky feelings from earlier. All he needed to was focus on sleep just sleep, Beau closed his eyes and tried to focus on just sleep.

The next time Beau opened his eyes, he was back in the hallway of his highschool. Beau looked around confused why he was back here but before he could really sus out the situation, his thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud. He followed the sound of the thud that led to a scene of a bespectacled student being shoved up against the lockers. The student's face contorted by fear.

"P-please, d-don't hurt me. "the student uttered, the words quivering as it left his lips.

"Aww, look at him, guys." a familiar voice said, Beau couldn't see whom the voice belonged to. There was a strange mist in the hallway that obscured the person's face.-

"He's scared." the voice said mockly, the person nodded towards a group of people whose faces were also obscured by the mist, they laughed in response

“Don't worry, little buddy, I'm not gonna hurt ya:" the person taunted as he tightened his grip on the student and shoved his body up against the failing student. "As long as you don't squeal" .

"You squeal, and I'll fry you like the pig you are, got it. Swine?"

"I-I p-promise I W-won't. J-just please let me go!" the student begged

Beau was disturbed by scene happening before him, but along with the feel of disgust came a feeling of familiarity, like he's been there before

Just then the fog lift to reveal the face of a younger version of Beau dawned in his red “New Burny High school” letterman jacket. He was smirking relish in the fear he was inflicting on the poor student.

Older Beau slowly back up, almost stumbling as he was coming to the realization of the origin of all those icky feelings from before

"I don't know, do we trust him, guys?" Younger beau asked cocking his head back to his teammates, who shook their head in disagreement "The Boys and I don't seem very sure of that, I think I'm gonna have to test your loyalty !" Younger Beau winded up his arm for a punch, But before his fist could make an impact.

Beau found himself back in his room in a cold sweat, hyperventilating as quickly rose from his bed. His room, still illuminated by the moonlight, with the metal mix tape softly playing in the background. He looked at his hand as if they were lethal weapons. How could I do such a thing?

[whumpiary]

Can we hear about the first time Christopher kissed Cassius? Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄 ❤!!!

A little late for Christmas, Anon, but here’s a Happy New Year present! I’ve been vibing on some early Cass and Christopher so thank you for such a wonderful request.

content warnings: dubcon kiss, grooming, predatory thinking, supremely fucky power dynamics, abuse of power, emotional manipulation, referenced beating/whipping.

Cassius has been doing well since he’s been here. Very well. He’s opened up so much since his arrival ten-odd months ago. The moody, sullen, watchful boy that had arrived is being replaced day by day by the wide-eyed, curious, observant one.

Some boys were like that. Used to a world unpredictable, unrelenting, unforgiving. It was peaceful to them to be in a place that was relatively calm by comparison. Where the rules were plain and simple. The discipline severe and the rewards plentiful and easy to win. They just needed the right kind of guidance.

Cassius had arrived guarded and cynical, and then piece by piece, the shell had started to crack away. Revealing a soft middle. A trusting, confident middle. A sweet and hopeful middle. It was a thing to behold.

The past couple of months he’d taken to hovering in the doorway to Christopher’s office after curfew, asking some sort of question that might stir a conversation or a debate. Sometimes the questions were soft and gently probing. Other times they were outright rude and accusatory.

Boundary testing, Christopher had recognised early on. Seeing if he’d get in trouble for asking questions, for staying up after curfews, for sitting down. He didn’t mind a little of that. Especially when it was so clearly, underneath it all, a bargaining for attention, for affection, for care. Cassius wasn’t the only one of his boys starved for it, but the only one the right mix of bold and hungry to go searching.

Tonight they’re reading. Well, Cassius is reading. He’s doing well tonight too. The dyslexia now just a hurdle instead of the mountain he used to see it as. And Christopher listens. He always listens. Guides. Helps take the words from the page and shape them when the letters stick and shift too much.

Cassius’ eyes run across the pages of Gone With the Wind. Christopher’s run across the curve of Cassius’ cheek.

“He was shaking, as in- as though he stood in a strong wind, and his lips, trawl-, trailing-”

“Travelling.”

“-Travelling from her mouth down where to where… Wait,” he falls quiet for a moment, lips moving around the words as he shapes them out, stills them, unwinds them. “Downw- Down where. No, downward.”

“Very good.”

Christopher shifts his arm along the couch, stretching it out along the back, hand laying loose along the leather back. He flexes his hand, thumb trailing just barely along the seam of the boy’s shirt, imagining the pretty bruises that sit just below it.

“Downward to where the wrapper had fallen from her body, fell on her soft flesh.”

Cassius shifts in where he sits, perhaps the stiffness in his back bothering him. He’d taken a lashing a few days for speaking out of turn. Well, speaking out of turn and starting a fight with one of the other boys after breakfast.

Cassius seems to crave it if left for too long. Go searching for it. The punishments seemed to soothe him, calm and collar the restless thing inside of him. Like a balm. Like a back-burning.

He’d stayed silent and good for the first dozen or so. And then pretty cries of pain. Pretty arch of the spine. A gently whispered please when Christopher had asked if he’d learned his lesson somewhere along the thirty fifth.

Cassius keeps reading, “He was muttering things she did not hear, his lips were ev-oh-king feelings never felt before.”

Christopher doesn’t mind a few mistakes here and there. He’s still learning after all. And it’s sweet, really. The little frown that creases his brow. The pink tongue flicking out to wet his lips as he speaks. The set rhythm of his breathing that shows his focus.

“She was darkness and he was darkness- wait,” and that little pause again as he mouths the words, voice whispering out just barely. Christopher’s eyes drop to the boy’s mouth. He really does have gorgeous lips. Full and pink.

The shirt Cassius wearing is cut a little lower, shows the curve of his   collarbone, the flutter of his heart beat against it. The perfect place to run a tongue...

“She was darkness and he was darkness… I’m skipping again.”

Christopher blinks and brings his attention back to the book.

“Hm? No, that’s right,” he says softly. He leans across to trail his finger underneath the words. He can feel the heat from the boy’s body against his arm. “She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her. My favourite line”

“What’s it meant to mean?”

Christopher looks up from the book and smiles warmly, eyes tracing over the boy’s face. He tilts his head, holding the boy’s gaze, “What do you think it means?”

A single lifted shoulder in shrug, eyes back on the page. “I don’t know.”

Christopher breathes a laugh, “Well, I don’t believe that.”

Cassius glances at him side-long and gives a little smile, coloured with the tension of boyish embarrassment. Another shrug.

“Never had a stolen moment in a dark corner somewhere with a pretty girl?”

Cassius raises an eyebrow. Christopher raises his own.

“A pretty boy?”

Cassius snorts a laugh and looks away again, and Christopher watches him go. He’d bet his hat that this boy has had both. Would have both. He’s sure he’ll have snuck away in a hall somewhere in East Wing with one of the other charges. Pressed them against the wall or vice versa.

“No I get that. I get the...” he shrugs again instead of specifying. Sweet. “I just don’t get the like… darkness, darkness thing.”

Christopher tilts his head, hums in thought. How to describe. Explain. Guide. Shape. “Well... it’s about intimacy, isn’t it? And passion.”

Cassius gives him a wry smile, “So Rhett Butler’s just a really good fuck?””

Christopher laughs and rolls his eyes with a sigh like the suggestion is childish. He runs his thumb along that seam again.

“It’s about more than sex,” he says, smiling fondly. “It’s about... Feeling so close to someone that you can’t quite tell where you end and they begin.  Like it’s always been this way and always will and this moment between you will last forever.”

Cassius is looking at him like he’s just hand-painted stars into the sky. Like he’s hung the moon. It’s such a gorgeous look. Makes a man feel special.

But he doesn’t speak to that, of course. Instead what comes out of the boys mouth is,

“Think I’d rather stick a needle in my eye.”

“Mm? Why’s that?”

“Sounds gross as shit. Just… losing yourself to someone like that.”

“Oh, you don’t lose yourself,” Christopher assures, smiling warmly as he turns his body. Cassius shifts, too opens himself up without seeming to think about it. Christopher rests his head on his hand, elbow on the back of the chair. “It’s lovely. You feel like you’ve finally found the way it’s meant to be.”

His boy’s breath seems to catch. “And you’ve had that? Known people like that?”

Christopher smiles, murmurs conspiratorially, “I’m old. I’ve known all sorts of people.”

Cassius breathes a laugh but his eyes stay fixed. Like he’s locked in. Trapped. Lured. “And which one were you? Rhett Butler or Scarlett O’Hara?”

Christopher laughs lightly, tracing his eyes over Cassius’ face. He resists the urge, just barely, to tuck a curl behind his ear. “I’d say I’ve played both in my time.”

Cassius is watching him. Assessing. He does that from time to time. Like he’s weighing his options, figuring out what the next best move is. What’s expected. What’s wanted. What’s owed. Christopher just smiles and points back at Gone With the Wind.

“Listen to this next part, maybe it’ll make more sense to you” he says, he reaches across to the open page, finger trailing the words again, arm brushing against Cassius’ hand where he holds the book. “Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too-”

Cassius launches forward.

Fast.

Christopher’s not expecting the kiss. But it isn’t surprising.

It’s boyish. Enthusiastic. Searching, questioning, sweet. Very sweet. Christopher nearly laughs into it, delighted and intrigued. The joy and the fear and the madness. The surrender. It’s lovely.

He wonders, briefly, if Cassius can feel the darkness between them. Or if he’s chasing the light.

Cassius pulls back just as fast as he’d fallen in. His hand flies up to cover those lovely lips, eyes that were sparkling a second before now filled with dread and shame. Something like fear.

It’s very, very sweet.

“Oh my god,” he says, barely a whisper against a palm. His cheeks are flushed. Eyes wide. “Oh my… oh fuck, I just-”

Christopher ducks his head a little, raises a reassuring hand, “It’s alright.”

Cassius is shooting to his feet, he’s standing up, he’s pacing the rug, he’s borderline panicking, “Oh my god, I’m- I don’t know why I did that. I don’t know why I-... I’m so sorry.”

“It’s nothing to apologise for.”

“No but I- I, I, I was reading the book- you were reading the book and I thought, I, I, I felt-”

“Cassius…”

“I didn’t mean, Oh my god I’m so, so sorry, I-”

Chrsitopher sighs and drops his voice, sets his gaze, “Cassius.”

His boy looks over to him finally, looking stricken and frightened. Like he’s about to be sick. Like he’s about to be punished. Like he’s ready to fall to his knees and ask for absolution. Christopher’s eyes drop to those lips again.

“Come sit.”

He does. Of course he does. Like a puppet on strings.

“I don’t know why I-”

“Shh,” he says, taking a fidgeting hand

“I’m so sorry-”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Cassius. Darling boy,” he brings his hand up to cup his boy’s cheek and every cell in Cassius’ body seems to freeze in stasis. Cassius’ eyes flick between each of his own, searching for direction. For guidance.

Christopher runs his thumb along the pretty cheek just to feel the shudder of the exhale. His boy isn’t sure if he should be expecting punishment or forgiveness.

Christopher leans in, hand shifting to tilt his boy’s chin up. He kisses him softly. Tenderly. And then he pulls back, admires the stars in those dark eyes; the sweetness, the confusion, the hope.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Christopher repeats, voice dancing between them, words catching on Cassius’ breath, running a visible shiver down his spine.

He melts against Christopher’s hand, eyes closing tight in desperate relief, pressing into his palm like a lost puppy. Christopher gives him a quiet moment, moves his thumb in a soothing stroke over his cheek. He looks beautiful like this. So uncharacteristically and honestly soft.

It’s only when Cassius opens eyes that Christopher smiles and speaks again, keeping his voice low, “Shall we keep reading?”

Cassius nods against his palm, lifts his head up, looks away. Wiping an escaped tear from his cheek with a rough fist. Christopher gives him the decency of looking away.

He shifts again so his arm is along the back of the couch once more. He makes no comment at the way Cassius has inched his body closer, all but cuddled against his side.

He’s really come so far since he’s been here. He’d go further too. With the right kind of guidance.

[floof-ghostie]

My general class 1-A hcs before I forget to write them all down

Todoroki starts to grow his hair out in his third year, as it reminds him of his mother and sister.

Uraraka gets cold really easily, which is why she always wears stockings with her uniform all the time

Aoyama does needlepoint, and is really good at it

He is Japanese-white (Mom is from Toulouse, France, Father is Japanese)

Jirou really loves Joan Jett, as well as The Runaways. 

Ashido is a Hot girl, and a Barb I will take no criticism on this matter.

Sero (contrary to popular belief) does not smoke weed (or in general)

He is also Latino (Puerto Rican on his dad’s side, Japanese on his mom’s)

On a completely unrelated note, he was raised on Notorious B.I.G, and Tupac.

Kaminari loves Star Wars, and Avatar the last Airbender 

He has reffered to Todoroki as “Peppermint Zuko”

This led to an impromptu Avatar viewing in the dorms because “what do you mean you’ve never watched Avatar, Todoroki-kun?!”

Midoriya is Afro-Asian (father is 75% Jamaican/ 25% Japanese)

So is Ashido (her mother is from Zimbabwe, dad is Japanese)

Satou is also blasian (on his mother’s side, she’s from America)

Yaoyorozu listens to SZA, and relates to her songs about self worth and body image issues.

I will pepper in the fact that Yaoyorozu is plus-sized

Hagakure has a really cute Lolita aesthetic, and likes Komori’s sense of style. 

She also knits, and likes to join Aoyama when he does needlepoint, they like to catch up on gossip.

Ojiro could beat Bakugo in quirkless combat in less than five minutes.

It’s for this reason that he really admires Miruko! It gives him hope that even though he has a “boring” mutation quirk, perhaps he can be a hero one day…

Shouji is the strongest in class 1-A, period

He also likes to cuddle, and is touch starved from childhood

He’s pretty good friends with Kouda, Ojiro, Hagakure, Tokoyami, and Satou

Kouda is self conscious about his voice, so he doesn’t talk a lot. 

But he feels a lot safer with his classmates and mother! They’re picking up sign language to help him feel more comfortable talking without speaking.

He was raised by a single mother by the way

Satou learned to bake and cook from his mother and her family.

He’s especially close with his grandmother, her peach cobbler is his favourite dish of hers!

Asui was teased in school due to her froglike features, and nobody truly believed that she could be a hero

Joke’s on them, look at her now

Ashido loves roller skating, and does a lot of Jam skating. This really impressed class 1-A when they found out.

Kaminari really had the nerve to say “yo Ashido, I don’t skate, but I’m wearing heelies and that’s basically the same thing” 

He’s confused but he’s got the spirit.

Iida is Autistic

So is Midoriya, Asui, Kirishima, Uraraka, Aoyama, Kouda, and Todoroki.

As expected, End*vore was (and still kind of is) absolutely horrible about it.

But it’s ok now, because Shouto is now in an environment where they understand and support him better. 

Kaminari and Ashido both have Dyslexia

Kaminari has ADD, while Ashido has ADHD (no they are not the same things)

Ojiro meditates after classes are over. Helps him clear his head after everything his class has to go through on a daily basis if he has to go through Bakugo screaming in his ear one more time

Tokoyami can play the organ. Dark Shadow sings along. Don’t question it.

He’s also friends with Kuoiro, Reiko, and Komori from class 1-B

Because cryptids gotta stick together amirite?

Iida and Kirishima get into monthly arguments over which drink is superior: Orange Juice, or Lemonade

Everyone in class 1-A (with the exception of Bakugo because he’s stubborn) has learned their lesson against betting against Midoriya over who would win in quirk battles.

Basically, These kids are wholesome together, and shouldn’t have had to go through half of what they just went through.

[friendoftheelves]

I love how different both me and my brother express our disabilities

Cause both of us our severely dyslexic but in very different ways

For example, his dyslexia appears to be mostly in how he reads, I can't explain the experience but it is specific to his reading ability and has lead to bad handwriting. But he excels at maths and will beat you easily at chess

In contrast, mine is specific to how I process information. I struggle with reading because somewhere in between the page and my consciousness it gets muddled up. Which means that my reading comprehension isn't great and it takes a lot of work for me to read something, a workload I don't notice until asked to read academic writing and wanting to give up an hour in. It also means that I struggle to convey what I mean, because it works in reverse, the words can get jumbled and meaning confused in between my thought and consciousness. Because of how process things I also suck at maths, to the point that I actually got told I had a high possibility of having dyscalculia which nobody every bothered to follow up on and I am bad at chess. Just straight up suck. My brother is there planning his movements in advance, looks at the board and knows how to win. I am there planning each move individually, having no clue how to win. But I am good at small scale puzzles. I can solve simple puzzles faster than most people but difficult puzzles take me so much longer. I go from something taking me three seconds flat to spending a minute on it and still getting it wrong

Both of us also have issues with our motor skills. Mine is bad enough to be classed as dyspraxia because I have very little spatial awareness and my limbs don't always move how I want them to, they are off by a few centimetres are by just a little too much force, which is why I can accidentally break a draw and walk into walls without fully comprehending how I have done so. Admittedly the breaking stuff tends to be when I am emotional because I am just paying less attention and suddenly something got broke. I am always confused and willing to fix it but it's still a pain. Once though I was just happy and I opened a door onto my noise so hard it started to bleed everywhere. But I am good at the smaller tasks, don't get me wrong I struggle to thread a needle but I am great at sewing, crotchet and knitting. All of these actually come easier to me than to others. But I can't catch a ball to save my life and I injured my hand yesterday by whacking it into my own chair so you know motor skills. Also hand eye coordination doesn't exist.

My brother also sucks at motor skills, it's why his handwriting is illegible. But only his smaller skills are affected so he is fine walking around but it took a lot of hardwork to be able to accurately play badminton and now he has the best hand eye coordination in the family, simply because he tries. He does however suck at things like sewing, knitting and crotchet because of his motor skills.

And all of my family have symptoms of ADHD/ADD hell none of our conversation topics have any connection and my dad's favourite question is "where have I put my...", if you are using the microwave prepare to find a coffee cup there, just saying and I was always "away with the fairies" as a kid. But none of us have been tested for it because we didn't realise it was a possibility and I personally have issues with doctor's not taking me seriously, even though the symptoms massively impact me.

We have a lot of overlapping disabilities but they present very differently which I just find fascinating

[oceanera12]

“Are you sure you’re in the right Cabin?”

Chatting with my sister (again) and we were talking about Nico going from this sweet innocent child who was obsessed with fun card games to the literal son of Hades rocking the black t-shirt and skull ring look. Like, wow. Way to step into that role with little to no pressure (not necessarily bad, just interesting).

And that got us thinking more than it should have about the Olympians and the attributes their kids get from them. And also the attributes they DON’T get from them.

What if Child of “________”, but everyone thinks they’ve been claimed by the wrong parent because there is no way in Tartarus this kid is related to that Olympian.

[And we did the big three in Greek form just to keep it simple (and Percy needs a half-blood sibling, everyone else already has one, fight me on this) Also feel free to replace the names, we just used these as fillers because just saying “Adjective” child was getting confusing.]

First up: “Brandon” the son of Zeus. (Aka. Anxiety child)

First off: I’m thinking the kid is no more than ten years old (more like nine, in all honesty)

This kid is afraid of heights. No joke. He refuses to even climb a step stool because the idea of being off the ground terrifies him to no end.

He’s shy as heck and talks very softly. When he first shows up to camp everyone is convinced he’s the son of some minor god (maybe the god of sleep) because “What son? We can’t hear you. Speak up!” *mumbles under his breath a little louder*

Hates being the center of attention (the exact opposite of his Dad) and just wants to make it through the day without having an anxiety attack.

Fights with a knife (and when we say fight, we mean “hold the thing up, look for openings, take them, but otherwise hide in the background and let Angry child and Sunshine child take care of it”)

He’s just scared of a lot of things, okay? (I’m thinking Neville from Harry Potter) He tries to fight and do what he’s supposed to in training and just falls flat on his face.

But when it comes to battle tactics? Oh, this boy has got some ideas. It doesn’t come as naturally as it would to Ares and Athena kids, but he’s great to have in war councils around the ping-pong table (yes, the nine year old is good at chess, so sue me)

Also, since he’s always so quiet, when he actually does speak up EVERYONE pays attention.

When he panics/freaks out/has an anxiety attack he just sits down on the ground and rests his head in between his knees and tries to breathe. Most of the time that helps but sometimes it just gets worse and worse and that was how he figured out he could summon lightning bolts from the sky (no one was injured but now he’s terrified of accidently hitting someone so he’ll run off somewhere quiet when he needs to breathe)

The one time camp has seen him angry was when Pearl was hunted by some bullies and came back bruised and bloody. Everyone agrees they never speak of that time and to never have a repeat of that time.

Doesn’t really have an opinion on his half-siblings (both Jason and Thalia scared the heck out of him the first time they meet and the two take that as a sign to give the kid space). He doesn’t mind spending time around them, but he’d rather be with the “Big Three Mess-Ups”

Next: “Pearl” the daughter of Poseidon (Aka. Angry child)

This girl has zero chill, even for a thirteen year old who is going through that angry teenager phase. 

And I mean ZERO. Ten minutes in camp and she’s already challenged three people to a duel and been in two fist fights (which she won one and lost the other)

The Ares cabin was already making room for her (because who else could it be?) and suddenly there’s a blue trident hanging over her head at meal time and Percy ends up choking on his blue food

She doesn’t like the ocean. Or water. Or sand. Or outdoors. She can swim and climb and all that stuff, she’d just rather stay inside. All the time. It’s a problem.

And when she is outside she likes to climb a tree (because it’s away from people). When the nymphs start complaining she storms off (quite literally) and hides at the bottom of the lake for a week. That becomes her solitude spot, much to Brandon’s and Violet’s annoyance.

Will carry a book everywhere. And it’s not because she loves to read (she hates reading because of her dyslexia). She just uses the book to ignore everyone around her and get people to not talk to her. Sometimes the book is upside down and she doesn’t notice (and will get mad when people point it out)

The one thing she definitely got from her Dad is just pure strength. This gal can deck most everyone in camp even if she stands at a mesley five feet. Also, she’s got pretty good control on the whole “water controlling thing” which is nice (especially when it comes to slapping some manners into a bunch of bratty Hermes kids who thought it was a good idea to plant dead flowers outside of Violet’s cabin and blame her for spreading death around)

She hates horses and this includes pegusi (mainly because they talk too much) 

The one thing she claims to not “hate” is her fellow “Big Three Mess-Ups” (although secretly she really loves sappy soap operas, a secret that is never shared with anyone)

Fights with a spear, weirdly enough and isn’t bad at archery. Prefers fighting with weapons then with “water abilities”

She doesn’t like Percy for no particular reason. She just avoids him most of the time and when they do talk it’s mostly short awkward conversations. (“Sooo... How’s camp?” “Fine.” “Good.” “Great.” “Good.”) It’s hard to hate Tyson so she just avoids him as much as possible.

And last: “Violet” the daughter of Hades (Aka. Sunshine child)

She wears bright sunny colors, loves sunshine and rainbows and is basically the happiest fifteen year old you will ever meet.

And it’s not that forced happiness that’s creepy and everyone is like “Uh, this kid needs therapy” she is actually happy with her life and loves camp.

Also wears flowers in her hair. They start out the day cheerful and bright but by the end of the day, they are wilted and dead as can be. Everyone has learned not to bring up the dead flowers (she gets angry because DANG IT, SHE DOESN’T MEAN TO KILL THEM SO QUICKLY)

When everyone met her, they thought she was Demeter’s kid. 

When Hades’s claimed her, everyone thought she was Persephone’s and Hades was just covering his wife’s butt or something.

And then someone thought it was a good idea to pick on Brandon and the everyone remembers the screams from the Ares cabin as an army of skeleton soldiers chased them across camp because “You don’t tick off the Mom friend” (Chiron had to get her to call them off because “It’s been two hours, they are going to drop from exhaustion”)

The Ares cabin nicknamed her “Violent” after that and all are convinced she is haunting their cabin at night by having skeletons outside their window and stare in at them (which she is, but no one can prove it sooo...)

Also she’s claustrophobic so don’t stick her in a small space unless you want skeletons to start popping out of the ground.

She is very friendly and outgoing and gets along with pretty much everyone (As long as you’re not a bully). She’s basically the ultimate Mom Friend.

Doesn’t really fight with weapons and most would think she’s a pacifist. But in reality she just summons the army of skeletons to do the fighting for her. When she does actually have to fight it’s just her swinging around some kind of staff (maybe made of bone?).

Violet LOVES her half-siblings and wants to be friends with them very very badly. Nico gets a little freaked out by her and tries to run in the other direction but Hazel thinks she’s pretty chill. The two of them get along fine enough.

Random things the three do together:

These three are best friends/the new trio/“The Big Three Mess-Ups”/whatever you want to call them and will fight anyone for any of them.

“Anyone want to trade parents?” *All three raise their hands without looking at one another*

Sleep over’s in one another’s cabins because let’s be honest: their siblings are never around (if ever) and it’s lonely. They switch cabins every week to change the scenery. Violet loves it (”Sleepover with friends!”), Brandon is very appreciative of it (”I don’t like being alone.”) and Pearl pretends she hates it and puts up with it, but is secretly very grateful for it.

They also eat with one another at meal times and will do group projects together because everyone is a little terrified to try.

Once, for capture the flag, it was the three of them vs the whole camp (Pearl made a bet with the Hermes cabin that the three of them could beat all of them. The Hermes cabin just took it to a completely different level). Violet guarded the flag with her army of skeletons while Pearl and Brandon sneaked around. They ended up winning, but barely (it was the entire camp, seriously)

That’s all I really got at the moment but I’ve fallen in love with these three and want to see them get into some trouble.

[shy-marker-pliers]

High school AU thingamabob

Dark

17 year old senior

class president and is kinda high and mighty about it tbh

“yes i know student council can’t really make any changes without the input of the superintendent but IM THE PRESIDENT AND YOU’RE NOT SO SUCK MY DI-“

does sound/lights for all the shows the school puts on

dating wilford and no one knows how or why they’re together

had a deep as hell voice and a beard the second he hit puberty

takes every ethics/psychology class he can

wants to be a lawyer

that one kid that everyone fears but is actually kinda chill if not a little surly

wears a collared shirt and tie to school every day and would totally get made fun of for it if he wasn’t terrifying

listens to classical music unironically

“oh my god i’m so going to fail this test” *proceeds to get the highest grade in the class*

protector of the gays™️

person: *says something mean to a student because they’re lgbtq+*

Dark: *teleports in front of said student* omae wa mou shindeiru

Wilford

19 year old senior

Yes he still has the mustache

doesn’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks of him

deadass wore a dress to school after one of his friends got made fun of because she wore a suit to a school dance

b u f f a s h e l l

could bench press a teacher if he really tried

on the cheer team

“no i’m not wearing pants, this miniskirt makes my ass look great!”

everyone’s bodyguard

usually attracts a crowd of nervous underclassmen

has mild dyslexia

tol

gives his friends piggyback rides

president of the drama club

works hard enough in school to pass his classes but that’s pretty much it

sleeps in class

Bim

15 year old freshman

vice president of the drama club

wilfords shadow

first freshman to help run the drama club and shoves it in everyone’s face

shouts his gayness from the rooftops

secretly super insecure

loves plants and helps out in the schools greenhouse

named all of the plants but if you tell anyone he’ll stab you

gets mostly B’s and C’s

has mild ocd but not enough to affect him severely

talks like a game show host cause he thinks it makes him sound attractive

it doesn’t

Google(s)

16 year old juniors

identical quadruplets

they have to wear different colors every day or else no one knows which one is which

they’re called the googles because their backpacks match the colors of the chrome logo and they’re super smart

straight A 4.0 GPA students but Oliver has to try a little harder than his brothers

all of them are in the robotics team except for ollie

Blue works on programming and red and green are on the build team

Ollie is the sweetest day of sunshine to ever exist and everyone loves him

he’s basically adopted Eric as his lil bro

tutors people in the library every tuesday and thursday

the other googles disapprove of his relationship with bing but he makes ollie happy so they don’t do anything about it

they all work in a supermarket and they’re saving up for college

ollie wants to be a vet, red and green want to be engineers, and blue wants to be a web developer

Bing

17 year old junior

mostly A’s, a few B’s.

his full name is zachary bing but people call him bing because he’s always trying to one up the googles

dudebro

was pining after ollie for months before chase finally felt sorry for him and told ollie how he felt

they’re dating now and it’s adorable

so soft for his boyf

a really good skater and wins a lot of local competitions

doesn’t study but still gets p good grades

wears sunglasses all the time because he has light sensitivity

Has ADHD

s t r o n k

always challenges people to arm wrestle him

can sing really well and plays gitaur

shares a youtube channel with chase where they skate and to challenges and stuff

Dr. ipiler

18 year old senior

Everyone calls him doc because he helps the school nurse and takes every single biology and health class there is

all A’s

really wants to be a surgeon

best friends with Schneep

huge star trek/harry potter nerd (ravenclaw if you’re wondering)

almost always at schneep’s house studying or just chillin’

kind of a control freak

thinks he’s charismatic but he’s actually kinda annoying

but annoying in a funny way

has a pet ferret that he sneaks into school

feral

espresso and sugar flows through his veins

“i actually got a good sleep last night.” “oh really?” “yeah bro i got a whole half hour!”

super dark bags under his eyes

Host

17 year old junior

all A’s except for in gym class

he has eyes in this

his real name is Simon Charles Teller (there are specific meanings to those names btw look them up) but he’s called The Host because he does morning announcements every day.

has gold eyes and a lot of people find it unnerving

“hey i have a podcast you should totally listen to it”

nocturnal

spends all of his free time in the library

always reading in class but the teachers don’t really care bc his grades are good and he does his homework

wants to be an english/poetry teacher

crushing on the cute shy kid from his english class

doesn’t talk much but he’ll still be nice to you

that one kid who’s always correcting the teachers

Runs the D&D club (he’s the dungeon master)

Eric Derekson

16 year old junior

Mostly high B’s, a couple of A’s.

lives with his uncle mark after he ran away from his abusive dad and is living a happy life

the guy that always volunteers to take care of the class pets over the weekend

animals love him

has anxiety, mild paranoia and autism.

animals, harry potter, and pokémon are his hyperfixations.

he also really likes gardening

crushing big time on hostioli

spends his entire english class staring at him and blushing

is seriously considering joining D&D club just to be able to talk to him

he’s in the art club

wants to be a vet and maybe do some freelance art stuff on the side

Ollie keeps yelling at him to just ask host out already but he’s too nervous

my poor bb boi

Wears sweaters all the time

wears headphones to block out noise if it ever gets too loud at he goes into sensory overload

disaster bi

Yan

18 year old senior

gets C’s

non-binary

has a makeup tutorial channel on youtube and has a pretty decent following

That one weeb

dyes their hair a new color every week

also has a new crush every week

everyone knows who their newest victim is because they never stop watching them

draws anime or cute animals for every art class

wants to be a a fashion designer

does MMA

everyone kinda stears clear of them

writes their first initial along with their crush’s on every notebook they own

has gotten suspended for beating kids up on multiple occasions

doesn’t really have that many friends but they don’t mind

spends their lunches watching their crush

in the drama club and the art club

Randall Voorhees

18 year old senior

C’s and D’s

Eric’s cousin/bodyguard

they have a lot of the same classes and walk everywhere together

loves animals and has like 10 pet rats

he doesn’t really care about his grades because he knows that he wants to be a woodworker/construction guy

makes little houses out of scrap wood for his rats and Eric thinks it’s adorable

always sneaks his rats to school and lets them have play dates with dr. iplier’s ferret

“nO IM NOT RELATED TO JASON VOORHEES HES NOT EVEN REAL SO SHUT THE HELL UP-“

used to live in nyc in queens and still has a pretty strong accent

completely incomprehensible when he’s excited or angry bc of the accent

everyone is jealous of his hair

spends like 100 dollars on shampoo and conditioner and stuff but it’s worth it

acts like the straightest guy in existence but could not be more gay

his boots are always muddy

Yancy

16 year old sophomore

his name is Yancy Bird

g...get it? like jailbird? ahaha...ok i’ll stop

permanent resident of the detention room

but he gets to just chill out and read for an hour so he doesn’t really mind

mostly gets detention for beating up kids that bully others

fuck the system

always wears a leather jacket and blue jeans

“hey, the 50’s called and they want their-“ SMACK. “shut up.”

takes a lot of criminal justice and psychology classes ironically

in the botany club but if you tell anyone they’ll never find your body

everyone is surprised when they find out he’s friends with Eric and ollie

pan but in denial

“i’m not gay guys, that ain’t me, i’m just comfortable with my sexuality. so i can admit when i see a guy with a handsome face and pretty eyes-“

that song is great btw you should listen to it

anyway

always makes really dark jokes and everyone is like “are you ok?”

except for his friends they just laugh

“lmao wouldn’t it be funny if everyone like...died”

[wildladies]

“I don't kill... but I don't lose, either.”

— Cassandra Cain (by Kelley Puckett, in Batgirl Volume 1 #8)

Basic Information: Age: 23 years old Gender: Cisfemale Sexuality: Not heterosexual/straight Aliases: Batgirl, Black Bat Items: Black Bat suit (Birth) Parents: David Cain, Sandra Wu-San (Lady Shiva) Canon: New Earth

In New Earth:

”I Wanted to read. I Wanted to talk. I Wanted a Father. I Wanted a Family. I Wanted to belong somewhere!”

David Cain was dead set on the idea of creating the perfect warrior. He wanted to make the perfect bodyguard for Ra’s Al Ghul. He tried training children, but that did not work out as well as he had hoped... and so his hunt began for a suitable mother, someone with the perfect genetics to make this perfect child. He finally came across Sandra Wu-San, and together they conceived Cassandra. And once Cassandra was born, her training began.

David Cain implemented many tactics to ensure that Cassandra would be perfect. He ensured that she was cut off from the rest of the world, deprived her of language in the conventional sense, forcing her brain to train in reacting to the body. It’s often referred to as a form of dyslexia, in which Cassandra has trouble reading and writing and speaking, but can predict people’s moves and read their emotions through their body with an uncanny accuracy. He made sure that she barely reacted to pain with games, like shooting her with bullets to get her used to the pain.

When she was eight years old, she was brought out to do her first mission: she was to kill Faizul. And she did. She did everything perfectly— but Cassandra could read bodies, and what she read and understood as Faizul died scarred her. She understood death as he experienced it, and she violently rejected the path her father was leading her on.

”If you came looking for a monster, you're on the wrong trail. Go away.”

Cassandra lived on her own for about nine years (according to the DC canon). She made her way to Gotham at around age 17 (once again, according to DC, but like, ages are never really consistent.) She became one of Oracle’s (Barbara Gordon’s) agents, and when she saved Commissioner Gordon’s life, she was given the Batgirl costume. She was introduced to the rest of the Bat-Family, and bonds were forged between her and Barbara and her and Bruce. Cassandra came to view both of them as mentors, and this evolved into parental figures. Her career as a vigilante thrived.

”I can be... mediocre. For a lifetime. Or perfect. For a year. ”

A psychic encounters Cassandra and rewires her brain, making it so that she can use English perfectly. In doing so, Cass loses her ability to read bodies, and thus her ability to fight effectively. She’s told to give up her suit, and Bruce tries to teach her his method from the beginning— and there isn’t much progress, as she is too preoccupied but what she has lost. Eventually, she encounters Lady Shiva, who she realizes is her mother— and Lady Shiva offers to re-teach her, in exchange for a duel to the death in one year. Cassandra accepts, despite believing that she will not win. 

Cassandra continued to train, at one point even releasing the Joker simply to try to apprehend him again. Her pool of felled adversaries continues to grow, and Bruce and Barbara are amazed but disagree about the situation. They both know about the match, but Bruce decides to let her continue, whereas Barbara tries to stop her when the time comes. And finally– she is killed by Lady Shiva, only to be brought back to life for a rematch, a proper fight. This time, Cassandra does beat Lady Shiva, being the first to do so— but instead of killing her, she lets her live.

(okay this is going to be updated with the things that happens next, but like... I need for this to not be in my drafts anymore and shit after this gets messy, especially War Games)

Skills:

Dancing

ASL

Body Reading Ability (doesn’t really have a name)

Martial Arts

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Stealth

Cassandra Cain is in peak human condition— to the point where in one comic book run she was considered by a government agency as someone who has the aggregate power of a metahuman, even if her individual attributes are within human level. She was taught ASL, and she can read, speak and write. She can dance too, and in fact she loves dancing. Her body-reading ability is fairly self-explanatory, and she’s been trained in quite a few different martial arts disciplines. She’s also a master at hand-to-hand combat and stealth, and she has some skills with investigation 

Connections:

Canon:

Tim Drake: One of her closest friends

Stephanie Brown: Another of her closest friends

Dick Grayson: They’ve worked together before, and they’ve had their ups and downs,

Bruce Wayne: Her father figure and the man who adopted her and her mentor

Barbara Gordon: Her older sister/mother figure who Cassandra loves

The rest of the Batfamily. Cass loves her family very much

David Cain

Lady Shiva

[peckhampeculiar]

All hands on decks

TENDAI CHAGWEDA ACHIEVED HER DREAM OF BECOMING A DJ – AND NOW SHE’S ALL ABOUT HELPING OTHERS DO THE SAME. 

The inspiring Peckham resident explains why she’s passionate about working with those who might struggle to access the DJ world otherwise

WORDS: EMMA FINAMORE PHOTO: LIMA CHARLIE

Many people consider their career mission over once they reach their dream job. But Tendai Chagweda isn’t like most people. The Peckham-born and raised DJ achieved her goal – being able to play music to other people for a living – and has now turned her hand to helping others achieve their own DJ dreams too.

Her Inspiring DJs school offers a wide range of workshops and classes, to help teach an even wider range of people all sorts of skills related to DJing. Through sessions at Mountview theatre academy and Peckham Levels, as well as classes in and around south London and up in Dalston, Tendai teaches everything from the basics on the decks, to how to operate as a professional DJ. Her students range from six to 50 years old.

It seems apt that Tendai is helping people achieve their musical ambitions in Peckham, having lived here her whole life – on Sumner Road – and beginning her DJ career in south London in 2007, playing sets at places like The Cube in Camberwell, and clubs in Streatham and London Bridge, spinning her beloved South African house music under her moniker, Petite DJ.

Now she’s DJed at places like the Shard, but it was here in Peckham that her love for music began.

“I was always raving; Lazerdrome in Peckham was my first experience of that,” she recalls, of the now-closed nightclub at the top of Rye Lane. Lazerdrome was open from 1988 to 2005, playing host to drum ’n’ bass, house, garage and jungle parties, as well as regular club night Innersense and DJ sets from the likes of Kemistry & Storm – who were huge in the ’90s UK drum ’n’ bass scene.

“I used to grab the mic, basically. Me and my girls who all grew up in Peckham were the ‘Dancehall Massive’,” Tendai laughs, remembering a chant she and her friends would shout. “We’d get the mic from the famous DJs.”

When a good friend who was also from Peckham offered to teach her to man the decks herself – rather than wait for someone to do it for her – Tendai was unsure at first.

“I wanted to be front of stage. Back then it was all about the person on the mic,” she says. “I wanted to be out there.”

She eventually changed her mind though and took some DJ courses, and although she gained the technical abilities required, she says she felt completely on her own as soon as the classes were over, with no guidance on how to use her new skills: “They took my money and then said, ‘Bye’. There was no aftercare whatsoever.”

Even though Tendai went on to establish herself as a DJ for clubs and events, specialising in South African house and even being interviewed on BBC World News about the rise of African house music in London, she never forgot that feeling of being left to fend for herself.

That’s what drove her to establish Inspiring DJs in 2016, bringing on board another impressive teacher – the award-winning DJ Smasherelly, who specialises in scratch and drop classes and is the tour DJ for big names like Stefflon Don and Estelle.

The school held its first classes at the PemPeople shop on Peckham High Street in November 2017 – “Nicholas [Okwulu] was the first person to believe in me,” Tendai smiles – and one of the first enquiries that came through was from the mother of an autistic child.

“He was an absolute pleasure,” says Tendai. “These people are excluded from society, but they have super powers! I refuse to call them ‘disabilities’. I’ve been attracting loads of people with super powers ever since.”

As well as a range of ages, Inspiring DJs is opening up the DJ world to those who might struggle to access it otherwise: people with ADHD, autism and dyslexia, as well as those from pupil referral units and foster care. What many teachers might see as hurdles in their pupils, Tendai embraces as strengths.

“For them, they love the encouragement and they love the autonomy,” she says of students with autism or ADHD. “Once I’ve taught them the basics, I just let them get creative without direction, but with lots of encouragement and motivation. It’s not difficult though because they genuinely have a super power, they get it [DJing] in a completely different way and style to other people. When I try to explain things to people without those super powers, they often overthink it, bring in too much logic.

“For some of the mums it’s a breath of fresh air seeing their children use their creativity in a way that is encouraged. It’s beautiful when you gain the trust of the mums. If they leave to go do their own thing, I record classes so they can see what we’ve done – it’s great when you see the parent looking back on what their child has achieved, and they’re like, ‘That’s my child!’

“I remember one mum [during a class delivered to foster care providers] just came up and hugged me – I guess she’d never seen her child in that capacity, being so enthusiastic.”

Working with young people from pupil referral units has been equally as revelatory. “They said they’ve never seen the kids so engaged ever,” says Tendai. “One of the kids kept on stopping us to ask when we were going to be doing it in schools. To hear they’d never been that engaged before, that touched my soul.”

Tendai describes how quickly pupils can pick up DJ skills. “One of the children, I call him my little David Rodigan [a reference to the iconic reggae and dancehall DJ] – within half an hour he was mixing, he’d never touched decks before,” she says. She also talks about how DJing is becoming more popular within schools: it’s starting to be taken seriously as a career choice.

This is where the other side of Inspiring DJs comes in: offering the “soft skills” required to build a business as a working DJ. Tendai offers coaching sessions for over-16s at offices she has in Vauxhall’s impressive Tintagel House, helping them plan for the future. “I find out what their dreams are, and teach them to dream big,” she says. “I basically do life-coaching with them, asking them, ‘Who are your dream promoters?’ and ‘What’s your idea of a dream salary?’”

Tendai tells how one of her students has gone on to work with some of his dream people in different capacities – proof that her holistic approach to DJ training really works.

Arguably, her success as a teacher is also down to the fact that she loves music. When talking about South African house, that passion really shines through: “A dream set for me would be sort of ancestral house – a lot of drums and chanting. A lot of the time the music we’re listening to, we don’t have a clue what they’re saying, but the beat and the rhythm is so entrancing. It’s hard to explain, but it’s when people just become one. No one knows what they’re saying but everyone feels it.”

This passion and emotion comes through in her selections and mixes: a fan got in touch with Tendai just a few days before we meet, enthusing about a mix CD she’d given them years earlier.

It’s an enthusiasm Tendai wants to pass on to everyone: as well as one-to-one classes, Inspiring DJs offers group sessions (for example parent and child, groups of friends) as well as fun sessions for birthdays and team away-days for local businesses.

Brimming with ideas, she talks about recent Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, and how she’s creating a DJ version of this in south London, acting as a platform to help her students get bookings. Southwark Council has already booked Inspiring DJs to play at an event, and instead of Petite DJ, it’ll be her young protégés taking to the decks.

She says real-life jobs like this will help them become better DJs, completing their training in the real world: “They’ll become more engaged, knowing what to play and how to keep their audience engaged.”

All this activity hasn’t gone unnoticed. Last year Tendai was nominated for Female Personality of the Year at the Zimbabwe Achievers Awards, a celebration of talent, art, business, expression and achievement in the Zimbabwean community (Tendai’s roots are in Zimbabwe), and she was even invited to Downing Street to talk to the prime minister’s business adviser about her work in local communities.

“The bread of that conversation was all about university,” she remembers of the Downing Street meeting. “But I said, ‘Sorry I’ve just got to interject here, I’m from the inner city, I personally haven’t gone to uni.’

“It’s about getting them to understand that not everyone wants to go to uni and not everyone can afford to go to uni, but they’ve still got the ability to do whatever they want.”

Tendai is living proof of this. She has achieved her DJ dream without a degree, and also teaches social media at London South Bank University.

“I don’t have a degree or any experience in universities, but I can still do it,” she says, reflecting the can-do, sky’s-the-limit ethos of Inspiring DJs. To all aspiring DJs out there, she says: “Come on down, we’ll show you the way.”

[im-the-female-version-of-beebo]

Ninjago headcanons

So i decided to make some ninjago headcanons just because.

Kai

Burned the floor once when he was mad

Listens to rock

Bragging about everything he does untill someone does it and does it better than him (also upsets him so the ninja usually dont attemt to beat him (except Nya))

Total flirt

Hates sleeping with socks

"KAI I SWEAR TO THE FIRST SPINJUTSU MASTER IF YOU DONT PICK UP YOUR SOCKS... "

Extravert

Can't speak other languages than english (he really tried to learn spanish and french but he's just really bad at it)

"uhh Je suis kai and je ne parle francais"

Drinks beer (sometimes a little too much) and watches football/soccer

Skylor wasn't his first kiss (already kissed a girl he met on the streets when he was hanging with his friends. After a few times of hanging together they became closer and she kissed him. He really liked her but she had to move to another part of ninjago)

Hetero

Hates reading (he has dyslexia)

"you still haven't finished that book huh?" "yea im not planning to do so"

Sensei never asks him to read out loud either because he knows kai hates it and it takes a while and he says 'uhh' a lot

Super protective over everyone (even Cole and sensei

Makes jokes like "go make me a sandwich" not because he actually means it wrong but because he knows it annoys the hell out of Nya

Bites his nails

"Kai your hands are discusting"-Nya

Would probably get slapped a lot if he would say what he thinks

Is afraid of spiders

Dorito adiction (not only the hot ones)

Has 0 patience

Once slapped jay because he asked for the salt after being incredibly anoying to him (not a really hard slap just enough to scare him)

More hot than handsome (he kind of has the atitude that matches his face)

Cole

Big buff n cake luff

Tallest out of the ninja

Also has the biggest hands

Can't propperly hold knife and fork when at a restaurant because of this

Loves going outside and just laying there (preferably on grass or dirt but because they're on the bounty a lot he lies on wood planks a lot)

Gets sea sick

Isn't afraid to try new food

Hates breaking things (most of the time including rules)

Once he jumped belly down on his bed and broke it (he was devistated)

Speaks english and a little spanish

Looks like he could kill you but is actually a sinamon roll

Loves drawing (mostly with pencil)

He kind of has a hate-love relationship with rain (he loves watching it and going outside and just the feeling of it and the smell, but it turns the eath into mud and it gets a mess when he uses his elimental power)

Never kissed before

Bi

Can play the piano

Can sing a little (not amazing but hey its something)

Loves reading mistery books

Has trouble starting a new book (usually isn't over the old one yet)

Can't put a book down when he finally starts in one and takes it with him EVERYWHERE (a lot of times sensei has to take it from his hands so he can focus on training or actually eating breakfast)

Loves animals but is hella scared of them at first

"Cole come pet/hold this (animal)!" nahh im good i'll just watch from over here"

Is good with kid's but doesn't especially like them (i mean like they are okay but sometimes he finds them anoying and just needs some quiet)

Does groceries (with nya)

Likes to watch while Jay is playing video games (he's not really good at them but he does like them so win-win)

Jay is his best friend evenrhough they fight all the time

"Cole your cooking is shitty" "not as shitty as YOUR FACE"

Does his own laundry (well, half of it. The ninja have a rule that they can only have one laundry basket full and since cole is a lot bigger then most of them his clothes take more space)

Has a crush on Nya but won't make any moves because he knows how Jay feelf about her and Jay would never forgive him if he would

Looks hella good in a suit but hates wearing one because it's always to tight around his arms (and pretty much everywhere else)

Not really a softy but really cares about the emotions of other people and can't stand it when they're feeling bad

Is very proud of himself because together with zane he is the only one that doesn't cry when Mufasa dies in The Lion King

Really likes thay/chinese food

Never gets angry because he feels like he is really intimidating (what is true)

Doesn't really talks about his feelings until someone else shares theirs first

Keeps a cookiejar on top of the kitchen cabinets where no one can reach it (except Zane but he wouldn't do that)

Pretty patient and will warn you if he gets angry

"Jay stop i can't do this right now" "but-" "Jay no stop you are really annoying me right now"

Can whistle pretty good

Acts like he doesnt care but cares

Gets really upset when someone eats his chocolate (he still doesn't know who eats it but he's determent to find out)

Jay

Watches to much youtube

And vines

He's the one true meme lord (he held a meme competition with Lloyd but Lloyd lost so he is the meme prince)

Not a picky eater but just has a love for certain meals so he prefers to eat that over everything else (like way worse than normal people)

When he's nervous he can't stop talking

Always finishes last with diner because he spend most of the time talking to the others

Can't whistle

Has a huge ass crush on Nya

Really dislikes spiders (he's not really afraid but he still can't sleep if there is one making a web above his bed)

Cries the most in public out of all ninja (mostly fake because of a prank or to make a lie seem more real)

Finds everything funny

"Jay wth why are you laughing?" *jay points at scandal on the ground while laughing*

Shortest male ninja out of the group

Hates cole that cole hang the mirror in the bedroom because it hangs just a little too high for him (like he can see himself, but just his face when he stands up straight

Probably hetero

Nya was his first kiss

Kai still doesn't know because they think he'll flip

Had a little gay crush on Cole but like a really small one (probably more because he's really close to Cole and Cole always listens to him when he needs to rant about something and because Cole's pretty hot)

Doesn't drink at all (mostly because he knows Nya hates it when he or her brother drink, but he also thinks beer a little too bitter for his taste. he does still drinks 0.0% sometimes, but only when he ate a lot of sweets for a long time and he craves something else)

Actually hates rain but pretends to like it because he knows Nya loves it

Has a lot of inside jokes with different people

Couch hogger

His fav fruit is banana (is more of an veggie person tho)

Really loves spinach

When he was little and didn't want to eat his food his parents told him it was spinach)

He always eats to much snacks before diner so he eats a small portion

Everyone thinks he has ADHD but he hasn't

He does have light insomnia and it takes him atleast an hour and a half to fall asleep if not more

Knows a lot

Likes reading (reads more comics that actual books but also likes reading normal books)

His favorite genre is sci-fi

Loves fixing Zane together with Nya

Zane

Sometimes tends to react on non-serious things serious

Loves it when Jay and Nya are repairing him because there is a lot he doesn't know about his robo-body

Sometimes wonders if his emotions are real or that the computer part of him is just telling him this is how he should be feeling

Really quick reflexes

2nd tallest out of the ninja

Enjoys meditating with sensei sometimes

Feels misunderstood and sometimes left out because there are somethings that the other ninja do that he just doesn't understand

He can push away his emotions easy tho because he mostly relies on his head instead of his heart

The only time they saw him cry was when jay called him cold-hearted once (no pun intended). Jay really regrets it and later went to Zane's room to apologize and cried a little too

Doesn't really know what his sexual preference is. He kind of likes girls like the others, but he doesn't make a big deal of it.

Does not like being in the rain (spoiler season 5 i think) before he became the titanium ninja because he was afraid he would rust. After that he loved it and goes oustide a lot when it rains because he doesn't have to be afraid of that anymore

Drank beer before but he doesnt like the idea of being drunk so he doesn't drink. It's fun too without alcohol

Doesn't talk much during diner but really enjoys listening to everyone else talking and laughing

Usually does the laundry if sensei is sick (then he also washes Cole's clothes)

Let's Nya paint his nails because ot makes her really happy. He doesn't really understand why people care so much about 'what is for boys' and 'what is for girls' and he actually kind of likes it afterwards too and he thinks its a shame it already starts crumbling after a day. His favorite nail polish is the one with silver glitters.

Was the first one who knew Cole was bi

Was really cool about it ofcourse (pun intended hehe)

Has a small bed for his falcon

Also goes to talk to the falcon when he is upset

"whatever i'll go to talk to my falcon or something"

Has a lot of patience like A LOT

Doesn't talk much but says the best things and really says the things you need to hear at the moment

Likes Kai the least out of the ninja because he thinks Kai can be mean without a reason

Together with kai he is the only one who enjoys spicy food out of the ninja because it is a really extreme taste and as a nindroid he can have it

His face is perfectly symmetrical so you could say he is handsome

Body temperature depends on the weather

Nya once burned her hand on him when it was really hot outside (Zane felt really bad about it even if he didn't do something wrong)

Oldest but they don't excactly know how old (but somewhere between 25 and 50 years)

Lloyd

Talks to himself a lot

Loves plants (but only has cacti because he always forgets to water them and cacti dont die easy)

Loves drawing (he mostly makes pen drawing because he always looses his pencils and usually draws when he is bored

He is pretty good actually

He LOVES disney and they sometimes watch disney movies together

He has a disney playlist and he always sings disney songs

"i can show you tha world" "Lloyd stop no"

"Iiiiiiitts supercalifragilisticexpialidiocous" "supercali-what?" "omg Kai how do you not know that even Jay knows that"

Cries the most out of the ninja

Doesnt like being seen crying but if you ask him a second time if he is okay just to be sure he'll snap

Really insecure

Has no idea if he is handsome or not (he kind of thinks he is but then he looks in the mirror for a while and he is like 'nevermind im ugly lmao' but he is actually pretty darn handsome, but has like an unique face. He askes the others what they think about him when he gets in a 'brave' mood and they think he looks handsome (except for kai who actually has no idea) but he kind of thinks they are saying it because they know thats what he wants to hear and because they don't know his face as well as he does)

"kai do you think i'm handsome?" "sure dude" "but like average handsome or handsome handsome?" "wtf i don't know"

Doesn't like being put in a box (like clothing style or sexual preference or highschool stereotypes)

If you say something mean to him he will think about if for atleast a month

He hates giving presentations even tho he doesn't mind standing in front of a group of people when he is fooling around

Loves rain and snow

"OMG OMG OMG JAY IT'S SNOWING"

Really mature or really childish. There is no inbetween

Can whistle but really bad

Has never kissed and is convinced that girls don't like him (they do they REALLY do)

Meme prince

Out of the ninja the most shy about his body (what is a shame because he loves swimming. He still does go swimming with them and soon reallises that no one cares. Everytime this repeats itself)

Is really good with people but prefers to be alone or with a small group of friends (he kind of likes meeting new people but he is afraid he'll say something wrong or that they don't really like him but just don't say that to his face because 'that's rude')

Loves wool for some reason

Is a morning person. He doesn't need a lot of sleep (unless he's not feeling well mentally/physically) so he can scroll through instagram at 12:30 and be up at 6 without any problems

When he isn't feeling well he can actually sleep for like 12 hours a day

First one up on christmass day

Always hot or cold

Has like 6 blankets (one is fuzzy, one is really big, one is thin, one for when he's in the livingroom watching tv and it gets cold, one for on the floor next to his bed so his feet won't touch the cold floor in the morning and one that he takes with him to the diningtable for breakfast

When he's hot he gets cute little pink cheeks and tries to cool his face down (he sometimes asks zane to put his hands on his cheeks to cool them)

Can cook but not as good as Zane. He can make simple meals but sometimes does burn the hamburgers or adds to much salt

Mostly because he eats a lot of salt himself. The others hate it because they cant eat his food because of this

Really is a hugger but only with certain people. He won't admit it tho because he thinks everyone will find it weird but he really craves physical afection. (Also because his mom and dad weren't there when he was a kid and he didn't have a lot of friends or a girlfriend and he is to shy to ask for a hug)

Shuts everyone out when he is stressed (not before a battle tho, then he tries to be with everyone as much as possible)

He kind of understands why is mom left him and is kind of glad she is there for him now, but still doesn't understand some things... (Like why couldn't she come back earlier. He was already capable of taking care of himself so that couldn't have been the problem)

He doesn't really like it that his mother was together with Wu before his father became good (even tho he was happy for her and he did understand her choice) but he feels like it's none of his buisiness

Tearable at math (unless you make a story of it with things that interest him like 'if fritz donnigan would jump off a building that is 20 meters high with a rope atached to the pole that is...' Etc.)

3rd tallest out of the ninja

The youngest but the oldest (if you don't count Zane)

Really loves bordgames

Has ADD (ADHD without hyperactivity for those who don't know)

Loves animals a lot

"look a dog" "look horses!" "OMG is that an alpaca!?"

Loves strawberries the most. Also really loves pineapple but doesn't eat it too much because it hurts his mouth (does anyone else have that too?)

A fruit eater (he would love to eat like 4 pieces a day but because fruit still contains a lot of sugar he can't (sensei says so))

He is a very picky eater, so the ninja usually eat the same seven meals every week.

He hates vegetables (except green ones, he still kind of likes the green ones like spinach, broccoli, lettuce, endive and peas)

If someone cooks something he doesn't like he won't eat it.

He usually doesn't eat a dessert (sensei hates this because he can't say 'if you don' t eat your food you won't get a dessert' because Lloyd literally doesn't care and replies with 'pfft okay')

Listens to all kinds of music (can go from 3 days of grace to ariana grande)

Lets Nya paint his nails green sometimes but not on weekdays. He is afraid that other people will think its weird.

Sweet tooth (he once ate so much candy that he was really darn sick for a good three days)

Nya

Badass like really badass

"what do i get if i win? "

Still likes girly stuff tho

Loves painting her nails (and Zanes and sometimes Lloyds)

Actually doesn't like rain (pretents to love it because 'jay loves it'). When they found out they both don't like it they die with laughter and everytime it rains they joke about it

Loves repairing Zane with Jay

Does groceries (with Cole) and really enjoys that, because she feels like she and Cole hang out way too little

Has light dyslexia but its not really noticeable for others

Has a secret little sweet tooth and is the one eating Cole's chocolate

Not really competitive, but when Kai is bragging she has to beat him

Loves tropical islands (she has imaginairy planned a lot of trips for her and the ninja but she knows that they'll never happen)

Loves kai so much that she would die for him but he'd better not touch her charger or he's the one dying

Kind of clumsy (she breaks at least one thing a week and always ends up with a lot of bruises from walking into things)

Hates when kai makes sexist jokes

Definetly gets angry a lot (and looks really cute when she is)

Loves the sea (when they land the bounty in the sea she'll always sit on the edge with her feet in the water)

Wants to dress up as a mermaid with one of those tails

Has atleast broken 3 noses (one guy was trying out the wrong girl, one time when they were younger Kai was bullied by older kids and one time she accidentally broke jay's nose. He was sneeking up on her, trying to be funny and her instincts took over. She felt really bad and apoligized non stop for two weeks)

Jay and her also had their first kiss somewhere in those two weeks (it was really awkward tho because Jay had this thing on his broken nose)

Would definetly dress sexier if her brother wasn't around

"what the hell are you thinking you are not going out like that"-Kai

Will take every chance she has to wear a gala/cocktail dress

Loves men in suit

Had a crush on cole before and in the beginning of joining the team and had a hard time figuring out if she was over Cole and really liked Jay now, but she is over him

Really likes Jay but is annoyed by him. He also really needs a lot of attention and can sometimes make jokes on the wrong moments. But no one is perfect and she knows that and accepts him for who he is

Really likes popsicles

Eats a lot but doesn't get fat (even if she doesn't train)

Loves eyes (she is obsessed with Lloyd's eyes because "mostly they have like this REALLY green color but when he gets angry they are red and when he got his holden powers there was like this golden line in them and urg they're so pretty")

Loves horror games

She really enjoys playing it with Jay around because he DEFINETLY DOESN'T like horror and she finds it hilarious when he actually jumps at jumpscares

Could be a morning person but stays up too late so she is always tired and getting up is the hardest thing ever for her

Loves fashion and makeup (but her skin sometimes reacts really bad on some makeup so she doesn't wear it very often)