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anangelwhodidntfall · 1 year

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Okay- I'm sorry if I'm being annoying by sending another one of these (if I am being annoying you can just ignore this lmao) but I've had this idea in the back of my head ever since I started reading Jake x daughter!reader fics. It's basically a fic where y/n comes out to Jake as a lesbian (because I would literally die for supportive dad!jake) and here's my idea

So what if Y/n is a teenager and she's never been really one to have crushes and when she did they were short lived so when Y/n befriends a Na'vi boy her age her siblings tease her about having a 'crush' on him and as Y/n is still navigating her own feelings and what kind of reactions she could get if she told anyone so she pretends to like the boy until Jake finds about it and is a stereotypical overprotective dad. And when he goes to talk to Y/n about it he notices she's directly avoiding his gaze but won't tell him what's wrong and it just wrecks Jake with worry until eventually she spits it out

A/N: In this story let's pretend that Z-dog isn't a recom or a bad guy but instead the really cool bi aunt that y/n could go to about this stuff.

A/N: Also you aren't annoying, I love writing Dad!Jake

Girls: Dad!Jake Sully

You made your way to the lab to find your aunt Z-dog in hopes that she could answer some of the questions that you had. See lately well more so since you started developing crushes you noticed that boys never seemed to do it for you, only girls seemed to spark your interest and that confused you a bit.

"Hey, kiddo! What brings you by?" Your aunt asked as you stepped inside her room.

"I have some questions that I was hoping you could answer for me if you don't mind." You said nervously.

"I'm sure your parents could answer them but what kind of questions?" She asked you as you regathered your thoughts.

"Romantic ones....like how you knew you were bi-sexual?" You asked her as realization hit her as to why you were coming to her.

"Okay, I know for me, that I felt an attraction to both males and females....but I also know that some people can just be lesbian as well where they are only attracted to females and feel nothing towards a man which is okay too, it's all about personal preference really." She said as you nodded taking in her words.

"Is there a reason you are asking me this?" She asked concerned.

"I think I may be lesbian. I'm not sure because I can develop a crush on a guy but it never lasts..." You said to her.

"Sounds like you are confused....don't tell your dad this but you honestly need to kiss a girl to find out that's what did it for me. Have you ever kissed anyone before?" She asked you.

"I have...it was a boy but I didn't like it too much." You said as she laughed.

"Yeah kiss a girl and see how much that changes." She said as you looked at her.

"What about my parents?" You asked her nervous about how they would react to you potentially being lesbian.

"Let's figure out your feelings first and then we will deal with your parents...but I can already tell you that they are gonna love just the same if not more." She said squeezing your hand.

"Thank you Aunt Z-dog." You said hugging her.

"No problem kiddo, figure out your feelings first and then worry about everything else...and just know I'm here for you." She said as you thanked her.

A few days later you and your friend Peì'll were out relaxing in ya'lls pasture, you sat by a tree listening as she talked but all you could focus on was how pretty she was especially when the sun hit her skin.

"What's on your mind y/n?" She asked taking a seat in front of you snapping you out of your thoughts.

"Nothing." You said giving her a small smile.

"Well, there's something I've been wanting to try if you're okay with it." She said as you looked at her confused but still nodded her head.

She slowly leaned her head towards you as her eyes flicked from your eyes to your lips as you did the same really hoping this wasn't some fever dream. You slowly felt her lips press against yours as you reminded yourself to kiss her back.

"That was better than I imagined." You both said making each laugh.

"Y/n I'm lesbian...and I've always found you attractive..." She said lacing her hands with yours.

"Thank you for telling me that....but I need to be honest with you...I must tell you that I'm confused about what I am." You said looking down.

"That's okay...we can take this slowly until you figure out your feelings." She said squeezing your hands.

A few weeks later you two had fully moved into a semi-relationship that was pretty private while you figure out how you would tell your parents more specifically your dad who you worried you would let down by turning out this way. Peì'll was sick today so you were spending the day hanging with her cousin Nau, which was nice and he told you that he wouldn't tell anyone about you and her as he walked you home.

"Oooohhhh looks like sis has a new crush!" Lo'ak said as he watched you and Nau laugh about something.

"Wonder how long this one will last this time." Neteyam said joining Lo'ak at the entrance of the hut so he could also spy on your Nau.

"Boys leave your sister alone." Your mom said making them groan as they left the entrance of the hut just as you walked in.

"Evening everyone." You said setting your stuff down and join your family at the dinner table.

"So sis, whose the boy you were talking to?" Lo'ak asked you as Jake whipped his head towards you upon hearing those words.

"Who Nau? That's Peì'll cousin, we just hung out today since she was sick." You said shrugging your shoulders.

"Is he a new crush?" Lo'ak said as Jake angrily ate his food watching you for an answer.

You panicked as your brother asked that question...you were in love with Peì'll but you weren't ready to tell your dad quiet yet so you did the one thing you could do and say you had a crush on Nau which was far from the truth.

"Yes, I do." You said as you felt the daggers your dad was shooting you.

The next few days Jake noticed that whenever Nau was brought up, you would sigh and seem irritated that they were talking about it and even he felt like you didn't actually have a crush on this boy if you did you had a weird way of showing it.

"Hey baby girl, let's go for a walk." Your dad said that night after dinner.

"Okay." You said following him out of yall's hut and you guys just talked about your days for a bit until he brought it up.

"Does this Nau kid treat you well? Because you can tell me if he isn't." He said watching you.

"Yeah, he does." You said.

"Do you see a future with him? Because if you do, you need to have a very serious talk." He said watching as you looked at the ground.

"No." You said quietly.

"No? Then why did you say you have a crush on him, angel?" Your dad asked kneeling so that he was at eye level with you.

"Because I like girls and I was afraid of your reaction by telling you how I really felt." You said quietly as awaited your dad's reaction.

Jake was shocked but not really because now everything made sense... he felt dumb for not noticing sooner...you always had a distaste for boys growing up.

"Oh, angel. Something like that couldn't stop me from loving you but thank you for telling me." He said wrapping his arms around you.

"So you not mad at me or disappointed in me?" You asked quietly.

"No, I'm not..never could be for something like this...I love you no matter who you love as long as they treat you right." He said looking at you.

"I love you to Dad, thank you." You said hugging him again as he smiled.

"So is there a special girl you have your eye on?" He asked making you groan.

"Well me and Peì'll are kinda seeing each other..." You said nervously as you two walked home.

"Peì'll? Wait you two got her cousin to cover for you two?!" He said making you laugh.

"Yeah, we did." You said laughing as he shook his head at you in disbelief.

A few days later after coming out to your dad and finally telling Peì'll the good news, you decided to bring her over for dinner and properly introduce her to everyone.

"Dad, Mom and annoying siblings this is my best friend and girlfriend Peì'll. You said re-introducing her to everyone watching with a laugh as your siblings looked shocked.

"But I thought her and Nau?" Lo'ak said making you guys laugh.

"No sorry Peì'll is the one for me." You said as she wrapped her arms around your shoulders pressing a kiss to your cheek.

"Ha! Looks like you are doing my chores for a month! I knew she didn't like Nau." Neteyam said as he walked over to where you two were.

"Peì'll you hurt my sister and we have problems." Neteyam said not sure how he would get her back if she did end up hurting you since she was a girl.

"Peì'll my child, welcome. And you my beautiful daughter thank you for finally introducing us to the real source of your happiness." Your mom said hugging you both.

"You should be thanking dad, he was the one who gave me the courage to do it." you said as your dad squeezed your hand in reassurance.

#dad!jakesully #dad!jake #dad!jake sully x reader #dad!jake x daughter!reader #mom!neytiri x reader #sully family x reader #sully!reader

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griefabyss69 · 6 months

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05 scarification reclaimation for wip weekend?? (title alone has me like, hello? 👀)

Thank you for asking!!! So this one is like, an idea I've had for about a year, but didn't start writing until a few months ago (and didn't get much written on it). It's one of those things I wanted to just let rest for ages before attempting and then even now it's like, it needs time! And care! The gist of this fic is that Eddie needs to do something to take his body back for himself and is struggling with the aftermath of the UD This snippet is earlier than the stuff I just wrote (like twenty lines lmao) but I think it's a better introduction: ---

It's not until he's taking a weekend trip into the city that would make both his doctor and Steve go all tight in the mouth that he learns about what would really help.

The path to the answer is like a thread. It starts with a billboard advertisement about plastic surgery, moves onto a well timed news segment about scar reduction technology as he passes by a TV display, and almost it ends there, two simple steps to figuring out how to get himself back.

But he's dropping in to say hi to his tattoo artist even though he's not getting anything done, zoning out while he waits for their appointment to be done, a list of piercing prices going all blurry in front of him as someone drops into a seat near him in the waiting area.

"Hey, that looks pretty gnarly," greets a voice that sounds too much like Jonathan's neon friend Argyle to be coming out of a guy with a bull ring in his nose.

He just smiles, his confusion coloring it as he tries to think of what he's referring to, clearly something about Eddie with how it's just the two of them there.

"The scar," the guy clarifies, tapping at his own cheek, reflecting where Eddie's got the aftermath of a demobat's whip-like tail curled up around his jaw. "You get that done here?"

The confusion gets worse, and he squints at him, trying to puzzle it out, knowing he gets a slow brain sometimes but he's been feeling good today.

"Maybe not," the guy mumbles, before saving face with the barreling grace someone who doesn't let putting his foot in his mouth get in his way. "Just looked intentional, sorry man."

"People do that on purpose?" He asks, and he must sound interested enough because the guy lights up.

"Yeah dude," Heavy Metal Argyle says. "You ever hear about scarification?"

Eddie's mouth twists as his brain works over his memories, finding them all pretty inaccessible at the moment. He just shrugs, shakes his head, and indicates for him to go on.

He ends up digging through the stack of magazines on the waiting room table, an alternate dimension mirror to a hospital lounge, except all of the mags are of body modifications and alternative lifestyles, instead of recipes from ten years ago that will let housewives all across America throw the best Sunday Dinner or whatever.

Eddie watches him work, his one-track focus leaving Eddie sitting in an ignored silence, but he doesn't care, this guy is working hard just to find an example of something he wants Eddie to know about. It's kind of touching, makes him really miss just meeting strangers and caring way too much about them for like five hours before they part ways and never see each other again.

"Here we go! I knew it was in here," the guy eventually says, holding out a magazine he's folded open. "Read over that shit, and tell me yours doesn't look as cool as the photos there."

Eddie's flattered before he's even got his eyes on the page, used to any compliments about his body these days coming from praise for like, doing two pushups without giving up, or relief about how well the scar cream worked on his face - though given how obvious the injury is, it could be working a lot better.

It feels good, and so he gives the guy a smile, and yeah, maybe it's flirtatious, fucking sue him. It'll just look friendly anyway.

"Thanks man, I really appreciate that," he says, and starts to skim the page, looking for the gist of what he's been talking about.

He's still re-reading over every word when the guy's appointment comes up, and he nudges his foot against Eddie's, shooting him a grin.

"That's me, gonna punch another hole in my face," he says, winking as he stands. "Good luck."

"Thanks," he says, giving him a casual wave as he watches him walk away.

He realizes when it's too late that he never got the guy's name.

Maybe he knows he's just changed Eddie's fucking life.

#griefabyss69 writing #chats from the abyss #scarification reclamation

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evecolourshock · 3 months

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For the Impression ask game (your choice, any/all of):

Flynn

Eos and/or Clarke (If you'll do OCs)

Mercury

Sark

Character of your choice from any media that is not Tron (not sure what other media you're into)

Oooo, many choices!!!

Hmm

I'll do Ed (both canon and your version), Flynn (Canon only), Sark... and Jake Kesey (from The Wraith - bonus non-Tron character). I haven't interacted with Mercury, your version of Flynn, or Eos and Clarke, enough to form opinions of them.

Now, I saw Legacy first, and then the original film, so my initial thoughts on the Tron characters are biased that way.

First impressions:

Ed (canon) : Sassy smug kid. Why's he there.

Ed (yours) : All The Therapy for this one. Someone hug him.

Flynn : Old man with good intentions in his past that have come back to bite him. Interesting but where's the substance?

Sark : I don't know if you're an actual threat, or comedic relief.

Jake : Huh. (Literally just huh. Was more focused on the cool car and ignored the people).

Impression now:

Ed (canon) : so many missed opportunities. Also wouldn't it be neat if there was a symmetry in him helping Sam, with his father not defining him, to save the Grid and Encom instead of... we had less than a minute of a throwaway Dillinger, and two hours of Sam making himself a damsel in distress by trying to be the hero and failing.

Ed (yours) : ...I will fistfight the universe if that's what it takes for him to experience happiness without a spectre hanging over him.

Flynn : WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU going from the wildcard in the original film to... that. In Legacy. There's age and stupid decisions, and then there's somehow becoming the most oblivious bastard known to man and Program. I hate the Legacy version SO MUCH.

Sark : oh buddy you're in far too much over your head here. Still not an actual threat.

Jake : ....yesss gettem you funky undead gremlin.

Favourite moment:

Ed (canon) : the miniscule bit of screentime we're given, because that's all we have.

Ed (yours) : him and Sam doodling flowers on Eve and each other. So cute.

Flynn : "that's a really big door" (goofy dork). Also the part where he philosophises at Tron when Tron's figured out he's a User.

Sark : his "oh shit" face during one of the chats he has with the MCP. Blink and you'll miss it, but so funny.

Jake : blowing holes in cars with a supernaturally-powered shotgun while in a really cool full-body-leather suit and blank helmet (hey that's familiar...). I could not make this up if I tried.

Idea for a story:

Ed (canon) : what does he get up to outside of work. Literally anything.

Ed (yours) : Ed Finds Happiness And Nothing Goes Wrong. I don't care how this happens.

Flynn : exploration of why he ends up Like That in Legacy - as far as I know and remember, Uprising didn't give us any of this and neither did Betrayal, as they both focus more on the Program characters than the human ones.

Sark : what was he like when he was new? What would he be like without the MCP commanding him? (Wanting to explore both of these in Serendipity, but haven't got there yet.)

Jake : no story ideas as such, just wanting him to go to other places in the States and... dealing with... their gang problems because he died because of one psychopath ringleader and he's not about to let others suffer the same fate.

Unpopular Opinions:

Ed (canon) : none, mostly because we don't see enough of him to form an opinion.

Ed (yours) : I don't... know if I can have an unpopular opinion about him? I love him too much. Maybe... idk, he needs a "guard dog friend" who's stuck by him for incomprehensible reasons to all (including him). I know he has everyone in our RPs (and others in other RPs!) but... yeah. That's the only thing I can think of.

Flynn : I've seen it around a lot, so it's probably not an unpopular opinion, but his character in Legacy is a disservice to the one he played in the original. I have no idea how he got from point A to point B, and it annoys me.

Sark : probably the whole comedic relief thing. He's just... kind of a non-issue, typical evil-character's mostly incompetent SIC character.

Jake : Why, of all people, did Charlie Sheen have to be the actor for this guy. Also the whole romance subplot was very 80's, and unnecessary.

Favourite relationship:

Ed (canon) : we never see one. However, I like imagining he's head over heels for a tiny barista who looked a would-be mugger dead in the eye when he threatened her with a switchblade and pulled out a Bowie knife in retaliation.

Ed (yours) : all the sibling relationships he's accumulated. Buddy you have a family now.

Flynn : whatever he has with Alan. Also the bit we see of him and Ram.

Sark : he has none we can see aside from the whatever with the MCP. I like imagining he has an "admire from afar" kind of relationship with Yori, because she scares him.

Jake : he has a brother, and goes out of his way even as a vengeful undead to spend time with said brother. Very cute sibling bond.

Favourite headcanon:

Ed (canon) : see the relationships point above.

Ed (yours) : ooh, so many... probably the crochet. I like thinking of him making things.

Flynn : can't keep a shirt for 5 minutes without damaging it or spilling something on it. Ranges from "spilled my water" to "how the fuck is this thing rags now, I bought it yesterday and have worn it for ten minutes". Only affects shirts he's bought himself.

Sark : those horn-things double as handles, and it's possible to pick him up by them and carry him around like a disgruntled kitten.

Jake : can't sing. Loves to sing. The spooky car he was gifted when he came back for revenge has thrown him out more than once because it can't take any more of his yowling.

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lonelier-version-of-you · 9 months

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Although it was so busy that I struggled to keep up with everything that was going on at times, I thought tonight's Casualty episode was generally very good! And the busy-ness was sort of the point, so I can get past that.

First and foremost: I LOVE Ngozi! So much so I felt the need to type "love" in all uppercase. I could see her very, very quickly becoming one of my favourite characters. She's brilliant. I adore her. I was already liking her in her first few scenes, and then there was that beautiful scene with her comforting the husband, and that almost made me cry. I hope the show does well by her for however long she's around - and I hope that's a long while - because her introduction has been so promising.

While I'm at it: can Faith leave and Ngozi gets her job? That would be great.

Jacob having so much to do at the start of the episode was nice, but it disappointed me that he seemed to be ignored after that. I think he gets a proper storyline next week, doesn't he? I hope it will be about him for once instead of immediately turning to be Iain-focused.

Goodbye, Ryan Firth, we hardly knew ye. I don't - didn't, I suppose - like Ryan. He was never as interesting as the rest of that friendship quartet: Rida and Jodie are fantastic, and I quite like Cam because he reminds me strongly of Arthur Digby.

Ryan was just a jerk most of the time, and felt like a very stereotypical portrayal of bi men - there's more variety to us than just "guy who wants to date everyone", Casualty! I'm not saying it's inherently wrong to have bi characters like that, I even like several bi characters that are like that; I'm just tired of them being written like "this is how bi men are, why would we write them any other way" and that's how I felt Ryan was written. Maybe at some point we can get another bi male character who's handled better. Or just let Dylan be bi. I'd say "or Max", but Max is presumably leaving very soon now so I don't have much hope for that.

I didn't like that Faith was in the episode at all, but at least she only appeared for a handful of scenes. Still, I'm just waiting on her to leave. Ryan's gone, and I shan't miss him. Charlie's going, and I shan't miss him either. It's just Faith that needs to leave now. I used her and Iain's scene as an excuse to do other stuff while I didn't need to focus any of my attention on the episode.

Jodie looked great tonight. I just wanted to acknowledge that - I loved the way her hair was styled, it looked so cool.

I'm glad Paige spoke up about the engagement. It was never a good idea, all things considered. I'm not sure how to feel about Teddy and Jodie kissing though. Mostly I'm just sadly longing for the days when I thought Teddy/Paige/Sah polyamory was going to happen. The love triangle - or love square now, I suppose - that's happened instead bores me.

I hate that Max's storyline has been so swept to the wayside. Any of the screentime that's been going to Faith could have gone to him. At this point I've just accepted that he will probably become another John Gaskell: no explanation of his backstory until a few lines at the last second before his storyline is over. At least with Max, his mum can come back again to explain his backstory properly someday, because I don't expect Max himself to do so at this point.

Next week: Jacob is in an episode again! Casualty is remembering he exists! The minimum is being achieved! I don't remember anything else I've read about next week, I just know Jacob's there.

#BBC Casualty #Casualty spoilers

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xdarkhowlx · 3 months

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Raiju, where the hell you been, loca?

TIMING: Shortly after the cemetery incident with Van and Nora. LOCATION: Midnight Drive-In PARTIES: @xdarkhowlx and @bountyhaunter SUMMARY: Kyle and Daiyu try to enjoy their movie. They're interrupted by a real-life Pokémon. CONTENT WARNING: gun use

The mere idea of a Twilight marathon was enough to gain Kyle’s attention. The viewing being at Midnight Drive-in only piqued his interest further. An emo cinema icon, in an iconic format. What more could he ask for? Of course, he had to be parked behind the one truck to block his view. The owner of the truck sat atop the vehicle instead of inside, which put her at just the right height to obscure his view. At first, he decided not to say anything. He figured out quickly that if he leaned out his window a little, and craned his neck, he could see much better. This was fine for a while, but his favorite scene was approaching and he was beginning to get a crick in his neck. He debated just moving his car, but that seemed inconvenient at best, not to mention inconsiderate. He weighed his options briefly, before deciding he had no choice but to ask the truck owner to move.

With a drawn out sigh, Kyle stepped out of his Jeep and approached the truck parked in front of him. “Hey,” he called, trying not to interrupt the movie for anyone. “Could you maybe actually get off of your truck? I can’t really see past you, and the baseball scene is coming up.” A stranger on their truck would not ruin the scene for him.

—

Maybe it was sad, how big an accomplishment this was to Daiyu. But she’d never done something like this — a neighborhood initiative. Most of the time her ‘initiatives’ involved causing a ruckus and accidentally lighting a trash can. Besides, she never tended to tie herself to places and so to organize something like this rather than just watch the bad movies at home was something. But it had been a funny idea that had snowballed into something real and now here she was, sitting on top of her truck cross-legged. She wasn’t doing it to be rude — she just wasn’t thinking.

So when someone approached her about it and she was pulled out of her focus on the movie, she felt the urge to apologize and then, immediately after it, the inner demand that she shouldn’t. “Can’t see it well through my window, though,” she said simply, giving him a glance before looking up again. In the distance the sky rumbled. Whether it was another quake, the movie’s audio being very good or a storm coming, she didn’t know, but it barely mattered. Something tugged in her stomach and she wondered what it was – this guy, or one of the other people surrounding them. She couldn’t go a day without having something in her body go off, though, so she tried to ignore it. She was here for the movie, not for her hunting instincts. Daiyu sighed, straightening her legs and sliding down her window onto the hood of her car. The window held, much to her relief. (She had wanted to look cool and totally had.) “There. Better? Don’t wanna ruin your Supermassive Black Hole needledrop.”

—

Can’t see it well through my window, was a flimsy excuse in Kyle’s eyes. He frowned. “Better clean your windows, bestie,” he said. His ears pricked at the sound of thunder. He hoped it wouldn’t be a storm. His dad complained when he came home smelling like wet dog. On the other hand, that would make for a wicked cool backdrop for the rest of the flick.

Kyle’s smile returned at the Supermassive Black Hole comment. “Hey,” he said, raising his hands in mock defense. “You can’t tell me it’s not the most iconic scene in the first movie.” He shrugged, looking from the stranger to the screen. “Alice and Jasper in the baseball scene were a crucial part of my bisexual awakening.” Looking back to the stranger, something clicked for Kyle. “Hey, aren’t you the one who, like, organized all this?” In the distance, thunder rumbled again. Maybe that background storm would pop off after all.

—

She glared at the other and his unwarranted advice. “Clean your own windows,” she retorted, which made no sense but was still a very good comeback. Better than pointing out that she was in the forest a lot and that keeping her windows clean was a sisyphean task. She didn’t know what the word sisyphean meant, anyway.

Daiyu let out a chuckle. Even if this person had come to complain, he made a good point. “It absolutely is. Banger soundtrack, Alice being an icon, et cetera. I’m not going to lie, I know Vic is a villain and all but she was a crucial part in my gay awakening.” She shot a look at the screen, where Esme was talking to Bella. It wasn’t very important. “Hell yeah I am. I also organized the thunder, actually. Talked to the weather gods and everything to make it fit the mood.” She hadn’t, but she liked having bragging rights. As if on cue, there was a flash of lightning. Two seconds, and then a roar of thunder. “You’re welcome.”

—

Oh, so it was like that. “My windows are clean,” Kyle contested with a grand gesture at his clean, albeit cracked, windshield. “I just can’t see through people on top of trucks.” He wasn’t actually upset, mostly inconvenienced. His car didn’t have the height benefit of a truck. If he sat on top of his car, he figured he probably still wouldn’t be tall enough to see.

“You’re into gingers?” he said, sounding critical. After a moment’s pause, he nodded in approval. “Good taste.” The well timed thunder sent a shiver down Kyle’s spine. “Wow, impressive.” He gazed up at the sky, half expecting the rain to start, too. “You’ll have to show me your raindance, eh? Teach me what the weather taught you.” Glancing back at his car, Kyle started to excuse himself back to the movie, but he was drowned out by another rip of thunder. He could almost feel it in his chest. Another flash of lightning arched across the sky and connected with the ground somewhere in the distance. He could almost see where it flickered just beyond the farthest cars from where they stood. It was too close for comfort. Kyle let out a whoop. “Your storm is shaping up to be something.”

—

“Mine are clean too,” she retorted easily. She was very good at these kinds of endless exchanges, the back and forth, the yes-no, did not-did too’s of the world. Spending a youth with two older siblings did do that to a person. “Well, you should get x-ray vision, then. Next time, that is. I’m down now.”

Daiyu wondered if he’d slam her for liking the villain as he critiqued her. Logically, she should despise Victoria the most — she was the kind of vampire that required putting down by slayer or even a skilled ranger. But she’d liked her, because it was all nonsense. “Yeah,” she said, nodding fervently. “I’m known for my amazing taste, you should follow me o—” Her self promotion was cut in half as the lightning crashed through the sky again. She looked up, impressed at what the sky was capable of. “Damn.” She was a little impressed with herself before remembering she hadn’t actually caused the storm.

As her eyes traveled from the sky to the screen something caught her eye. It was lightning, but not quite in the way lightning tended to travel. It was like a ball passing past the treeline behind the screen. Another roar of thunder crashed through the sky and this time there were no flashes of light in the sky — just the creature. “Shit.” Daiyu glared at the creature, then rolled off her truck and rushed to her passenger seat door and swung it over. She eyed the other person from the other side. “Hey, yo — you should get the fuck out of here.” She pointed up. “Weather. Bad.”

___

“Then why— y’know what? Forget it. Thanks for moving.” Kyle wanted to argue back, but there was no real point to it. He could already tell he was being wound up just to end up chasing his tail. Metaphorically, of course. “I’ll work on being a little more Clark Kent and a little less Lois.”

Kyle followed the stranger’s gaze up toward the sky as the first couple notes of Supermassive Black Hole began. Shit, he was gonna miss it anyway. “Woo, good job on that timing,” he said, cracking a smile and taking a few steps back. But the mood had changed suddenly. The stranger was distracted. Her focus was elsewhere. Again, Kyle tried to figure out where she was looking. He could see that flickering lightning low at the ground again, but this time it was closer. As he was urged to leave, he didn’t look away from it. The lightning seemed to bend around something; it was vaguely animal shaped, and coming closer.

“What the hell?” he thought aloud. He looked between the electrified animal and his new acquaintance. She looked tense, maybe even a little worried. “What is that? Is that like—like a generator? A power box? Should I call the fire department? I mean, I can—“ He was cut off by another rip of thunder, with no accompanying lightning. The beast seemed to light up brighter at that and Kyle stepped around the truck to stand beside the other movie goer. “This might be outside of the fire department’s jurisdiction,” he posited.

—

Once, a long time ago, Daiyu had asked her father if she’d been named after raiju. He’d not liked the question, as it was his late wife who’d chosen their youngest name. Besides, the idea that a ranger’s name could be inspired by a beast was absolutely unacceptable, and he’d made that very clear. That hadn’t stopped her brother from calling her one, especially when she was throwing a tantrum. Storm’s coming!, he’d yell, mimicking the sound of thunder.

But whatever kinship she felt with the beasts was ignored in the face of the situation at hand. There was a storm. There were multiple people sitting in metal cars that would become death traps if touched by the raiju. There was the baseball scene still playing, too — and she couldn’t even give it her full attention. She pulled a crossbow from under the passenger seat, grabbing a set of bolts with her other hand. The human – was he human? – was talking and Daiyu popped her head up, staring at him.

She wasn’t very good at this. “Do not call them,” she said. A firetruck was an even bigger death trap. Water would make everything worse. She’d gotten electrocuted by a raiju before – years and years ago – and she didn't recommend it. “You need to – fuck!” She cursed, realizing the impossible way the cars were parked as she glanced around. Daiyu felt frustration rise, the white hot anger that so often cradled her but also sometimes rendered her useless. She could not give into it now, with all these people. (Maybe the person in the woods was right, maybe she was a protector – or wanted to be, anyway.)

She glanced at the screen, where Edward was running through the forest. The raiju seemed bothered by the noises. Dread rose. She threw a look at the other person. “We need to take it out. I need to – you should —” She was no good with words and just started to make a run for the creature, synchronizing with the Cullen’s as she left her car door open, leaving her arsenal open for the picking.

—-

Watching from across the truck, Kyle tossed his hands up defensively as the crossbow was withdrawn. “Easy, cvpon,” he said. “Maybe we should just chill out with the weapons. What are you gonna do? Shoot the electricity? Fuck’s sake.” If he wasn’t supposed to call the fire department, what was there for him to do? He glanced around at the cars surrounding them. Maybe someone had a fire extinguisher in the boot of their car. His new acquaintance cursed and he snapped his attention back to her. All he’d wanted to do was watch a classic film from the comfort of his car. Now, he was caught up in something he didn’t quite understand.

Coming to this town had been one strange experience after another. Goo, and crystals, and werewolves—now a trigger happy Twilight enthusiast going after a moving ball of electricity. Kyle opened his mouth to protest further, but before he could get much out, she was running off. “I just don’t think— wait! Wait, where are you going?” He cursed under his breath and ran around the truck to at least close the door. What he found inside wasn’t exactly expected. There were knives and ammunition of a few different calibers, as well as a hunting rifle sitting ripe for the taking. Kyle looked over his shoulder at the stranger running headlong into battle, then to the screen where Jasper and Alice whisked Bella to safety. Wouldn’t that be too easy. He glanced back at the stranger, then the rifle. “Fuck.” He grabbed the rifle, fumbled with ammunition, and took off towards the electrified mass.

“Hold up!” Kyle called. He was immediately shushed by fellow movie goers as he dashed between cars and called out again. “I’m coming with you!” He flipped the bird at a particularly upset man in a Kia. “Don’t yell at me, I’m trying to save the day, bruh!”

—-

It was good that humans didn’t know about all the shit that lurked in the shadows. Real good, as it meant they got to live life in ignorance without worrying about being eaten by werewolves or vampires or being trapped by weird grass or sand. Daiyu envied them sometimes. But right now, she thought regular humans were very annoying. None of them were seeing the ball of lightning as a threat and worse, the guy who did see her shooting into action telling her to chill.

She didn’t have the time or tact to explain the situation, which was why she just ran. She tended to hunt alone, anyway — and maybe this time it would be with an unwanted and annoyed audience, but hey. She wasn’t going to see all these cars go bzzzt with electricity and the people’s skeletons light up when they did. If that was even real. The guy was following her and at least it confirmed something: he was the cause for the tug in her stomach.

Fucking awesome. A shifter was helping her kill some beast.

“Alright, okay, cool, that’s awesome and also great!” Maybe the shifter knew something about raijus. Or maybe he was just … stupidly brave. Which Daiyu didn’t want, because those were qualities she liked in people. She ignored all the protests from viewers (even if it was very nice that people were this passionate about Twilight in 2024!) and jumped on the hood of one of the cars in front to get a good look. She whipped her head around, her ponytail smacking her in the face. “Do not get too close.” She noted the rifle – her rifle – in his hands. Well, good. As long as she got it back. “It’s gonna shock you if you do. Yeah? How’s your aim?” She whipped her head back, the cacophony of sound – movie, yelling moviegoers, storm, someone eating popcorn with their mouth open – made her dizzy but she tugged at the sound and made it one large hum of noise as she attempted to take her aim.

—

The closer they got, the more the creature took shape. Kyle figured it mostly resembled a dog, you know, if dogs went Super Saiyan. That would be a show he’d watch. Dragon Ball Z, but they’re all dogs? Focus, Kyle. He could daydream about anime when he wasn’t in imminent danger of being barbecued. He came up next to Daiyu, mouth agape as he looked at the dog. “I’m gonna have so many questions after this,” he whispered, glancing at Daiyu. He didn’t know if the dog could hear them, but if its hearing was anything like his, it definitely would.

“Don’t get too close, don’t get shocked, don’t die. Got it,” Kyle replied. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the ball of lightning, but it was getting hard to look at, like looking into the sun. He blinked hard and steadied himself. He drew the rifle and scoffed at the question. “How’s my aim? You think I would pick up a gun if I wasn't pretty confident I could use it? I’ll follow your lead.” He had hunted back in Canada with his cousins. He knew how to take down a deer, or any manner of wild fowl, and even coyotes if the situation called for it. This was probably like coyotes, if the coyotes could decimate the power grid. Simple.

After a moment, he looked at his new partner in crime—or maybe partner in justice was a better title. “I’m Kyle, by the way. I just figure we should know each other’s names in case we, y’know…” He made a cut throat gesture paired with sound effects.

——

At least the shifter was down to clown — or, like, kill a raiju. Even if he didn’t know what it was. Daiyu tried to shrug off the comment about having to explain what was going on, as that was the part of hunterisms she was worst at, but she offered a quick look and a random thumbs up. “Gotcha!” Which was not a promise or an agreement, but just something to say so she could go on with her purpose.

Which was … what, exactly? Hadn’t she decided to make her code be as simple as the local bounty board? To be moved by money, not by considerations of morality or heroism. Still — even if she wasn’t going to catch any coin for this, could she just let the people die? It wasn’t something worth pondering about. It was simple. Almost as simple as picking a random bounty from the board and going for it so she could pay her rent. These people were in death traps without knowing it. Daiyu wanted to watch her movie without people dying.

“I don’t know, people are pretty stupid when it comes to guns,” she responded, before offering her name as well: “Daiyu! You’re a —” She changed her mind halfway, deciding it better to not ask what kind of shifter the other is. “Not going to die.” She swished her head towards the raiju, squinting one eye close and taking aim. Soon enough her finger pushed the trigger and her bolt shot towards the lightning creature, piercing its hind thigh.

—

Kyle was satisfied with the thumbs up as a clear promise to fill him in if neither of them died. He was pretty sure that the stranger–Daiyu, as she identified herself–knew what she was doing. Otherwise she was doing a damn fine job pretending. The thought gave him a moment’s pause. Was she pretending? Was Kyle about to be on the bad side of killing a creature like him? The thing didn’t seem to have any sense of rationality, as it was actively walking into a minefield of sitting duck humans. But then, Kyle couldn’t call himself rational when he shifted. He had never taken issue with hunting before. Each animal gave its life for the greater picture. That was simple. It was nature. But where did he, a werewolf, fit into the greater picture? It was never something he’d considered.

As the creature’s leg was struck, a shower of sparks burst around it. He flinched, abandoning the existential crisis for later. It would keep him up every night this week, but it wasn’t important now. The sparks and crackles from the beast reminded Kyle of a transformer exploding. Like live wires, the beast writhed in pain for a moment. In that same moment, the storm above them roared some of the loudest thunder he had ever heard. It left his ears ringing. Werewolf hearing be damned. The creature recovered itself, and charged in their direction. Beginning to back up, the rifle snapped up as Kyle reflexively took aim. “Aim where they’re going, not where they’ve been,” he murmured to himself, and lined up his shot. A crack rang out, and another shower of sparks rained down around the animal, halting its approach. He breathed a steadying sigh, and smirked at his new accomplice. “Nice to meet you, Daiyu.”

—

Frustration rippled through her, a familiar yet always unpleasant sensation, as her bolt did not pierce the creature through the heart or head but rather its legs. It was fine, she could have just used the immobility to fire another shot. But there was an audience, kind of. There was a hunting partner, which was really not her speed. And the hunting partner – Kyle, the shapeshifter – had a gun and that guy managed to get the killing shot in. The sparks were a welcome distraction, though, a large rain of them sprinkling around the screen. And then, it was done. No more sparks, no more rumbling thunder that came from the creature — just a still corpse.

Daiyu was still for a moment, disregarding Kyle the shifter and staring at the dead body before sliding down the hood of the strangers’ car. She patted it awkwardly before approaching the beast. If she was a hunter with a code to protect humans and keep them ignorant – which she wasn’t – she should get rid of the body. She gave a something to Kyle, though she wasn’t entirely sure what it was. A scowl, a grin, a smirk. “Yeah, man, that was a great shot. Nice to meet you.” He got the killing shot. He had her gun. And she’d … really made a mess of whatever it was she’d tried to do here. She extended a grabby hand. “Can I get that back?” The rifle, she meant. “So you … whatever. I’m gonna clean up.”

—-

He followed Daiyu to the dead beast, approaching it cautiously. It was certainly dead, but Kyle wasn’t sure if it still held a charge. “Sorry to steal your shine,” he said, passing the rifle back as asked. He couldn’t tell exactly what emotion she was feeling, but he got the impression that it was directly linked to the final blow. “My family is big on hunting. I’ve been going on hunting trips practically since before I could walk. I know my way around a rifle.” Maybe his experience would assuage whatever emotions were going through her head. He wasn’t some inexperienced punk rolling in off the street. He was a well-versed punk.

Looking over the body, Kyle grimaced. Up close it looked even more like just some unfortunate dog. Again, that guilt he’d never felt before tugged at his stomach. Was he so much different than this dog? “Okay,” he said, turning his attention on Daiyu. “Now is the part where you answer my questions. Like what the fuck just happened? Do you do this often?” Having just handed the rifle over into her hands, he shook his head. “Scratch that last one, I don’t need to know. How did you know what that was?”

—-

She wanted to burst out laughing at the notion. Not that Kyle the shifter was apologizing for stealing her shine, as that was very bothersome because she felt very seen, but that he said that his family was big on hunting. Daiyu wondered what that meant, but didn’t want to pry. She didn’t recognize the other and that meant she hadn’t seen him on the board, which meant there was no good reason to pry. “Oh, awesome. Yeah, my family’s like that I guess too, you know? Hunting elk and pheasants and stuff.”

She took the gun back from him. It was getting harder and harder to ignore all the sounds around them so she trudged forward towards the dead creature. It looked almost like something normal, but she knew better than to just leave it there. “Well,” she said, “We just killed a lightning creature. That could have made all these cars go –” She made a crackling sound with her mouth, followed by a booom. “Oh, I just know. You know? Some people know how to do math. I know how about weird shit.” Like how the other person was a shifter. “Like you and anyone else in this town doesn’t.” She slung the rifle over her shoulder after flicking the safety on and then crouched down at the raiju. “We should get it away from here.”

—-

“Yeah, elk, deer–hell, squirrels if you can get ‘em.” Kyle nodded in agreement, bonding over their shared hunting skill. He wanted to tell her to not let her nerves get to her next time, genuinely wanting to be of assistance. But something told him that would not be received as intended, and he was okay letting it drop. “I used to go out with the uncles, and then my cousins when we were old enough. Family traditions and whatever.” He waved his train of thought away with his hand. This was a stranger, and she didn’t need the specifics of his upbringing. Especially when he had more questions.

He looked from the carcass to the cars, nodding slowly. As he’d pictured in his head, it would be absolute chaos, carnage, and bloodshed. “Good thing you were here, then,” Kyle affirmed. “I might know how to use a gun, but you provided it for me. Which brings me to another question; why are you driving around strapped like that? You get in trouble a lot?” It was another question he didn’t really want the answer to. He was connecting some dots, and the image he was piecing together unsettled him. What if she killed all sorts of creatures? What if she found out he was a werewolf? Would she kill him, too? Or did he need to present himself as a threat first? Those questions he left unsaid.

Kyle wanted to protest to her that he knew more than he let on. But to do so was a tricky needle to thread, so he simply nodded. “I’m learning.” It was the truth. He’d learned about werebears, and maybe cemetery spirits. He’d heard talk of vampires and zombies, though he hadn’t ascertained if those were real or not. Now, he was learning about real life Pokémon. Kyle crouched beside her, looking down at the sad little coyote. It was much less threatening when it wasn’t actively sparking. “You need help carrying Jolteon here?”

—

Hunters were traditionally meant to keep humans safe and separate from the supernatural world, but the Volkovs had lost that traditional and honorable cause a long time ago. A higher purpose was so easily translated into something uglier — like the divine right of kings, for example. So Daiyu didn’t do this often and Daiyu didn’t fucking know what to do. Especially because this guy wasn’t human, or at least not fully, or not all the time. So what did it mean when he said he hunted with his family? Were they a bunch of sirens, chasing prey, or bugbears? Or did they hold up human traditions despite being something else? Or was he unfortunately cursed with a werewolf’s bite?

The thoughts were dizzying. “Yeah, same here. Hunting trips with the fam, what a time,” she said off-handedly. Daiyu glanced at Kyle, then back at the raiju. It would be little issue to carry it, with her hunter strength. Should she still be trying not to come off as a ranger, though? Or was that too little too late? She chewed on her cheek as his question bounced around her head. “Nah, I usually am the trouble.” Cheekiness seemed like a safe bet. “But yeah, whatever, I’m just someone who’s prepared for these kinds of things. I try to be more subtle about it usually, though.��

She took the hind legs of the creature, gesturing that he could take the other. A laugh left her lips at the mention of Jolteon. “Fuck.” She huffed. “That’s good. That’s — yeah, Jolteon, that’s right on the god damn nose. Let’s just take –” Her eyes scanned their surroundings, the angry people in their cars. It’d be best to store the creature in her car until she could find a proper way to dispose of it, but to walk it past all those moviegoers was asking for trouble. “Into the woods. Hide it for now.”

—

The mention of her own hunting trips brought forth yet another question that Kyle couldn’t keep from tumbling out of his mouth. “When you say hunting, you mean the elk and not these—,” he looked down at the corpse, but without a real word for it, continued unsure. “These…monsters, right? That’s what this is, a monster?” Yet another question he didn’t want the answer to, but this time the need for it pressed him on. “You know, since you’re so prepared for anything.” He gestured with his chin to the rifle she now held.

Kyle shouldn’t be prying, not here in the middle of a movie, not with Kristen Stewart monologuing in the background. But hunters were a fairly novel idea. He hadn’t thought they were real, just more fairytale fodder. Like werewolves. It felt stupid to admit to himself that he hadn’t once worried about being hunted down for the crime of being bitten. The very idea made the hairs on the back of his neck raise. It wasn’t something he’d had to consider. The apartment he lived in was above a cryptid-themed souvenir shop, which, conveniently, had a basement for mostly storage of old junk, tools, and broken mannequins. The basement did a pretty good job of holding a bloodthirsty werewolf, and his dad being the building’s super was just the cherry on top of his cover story.

Kyle tried to keep his tone and his expression neutral. He didn’t want the skepticism of being predator and prey to cross his face and give him away as he danced carefully around the topic. “Sorry, Jolteon,” he said, trying to break some of the tension as he took the front legs of the animal and hoisted it with Daiyu. “Can’t catch ‘em all.”

——

She stared at him, at his clumsy way of speaking, at the way he hesitated to name the raiju anything. Beast, monster, creature, pest, prey. So what was she supposed to say? That she hunted elk? She didn’t, she hated hunting regular animals. She found it — well, she didn’t try to pass judgment, as that started a whole moral debate in her head, but she found it something. “I mean, this is just a coyote with sparks,” she quipped. Daiyu lifted the creature up, wanting to tell the other to fuck off, but here she was. Doing teamwork again. With a shifter, again.

She could feel it rise within her, the clumsiness. Her father hated this about her, the way she had no control over the things that came from her mouth. Not just because she was vulgar, but because she was too forward. Daiyu tried to press her lips together, to keep her from blurting something out, “But yes, a monster. I hunt monsters. What are you?” Her eyes slanted upwards and she cursed herself inside her head – something she did very commonly – before starting to move. She didn’t owe the other secrecy, because he wasn’t human, but she did owe herself secrecy, didn’t she? But it had to be clear by now what she was.

The pokémon references didn’t help. It made the other too damn likable. Daiyu kept trudging into the woods, the raiju swinging between them. (If pokémon were real, would she be hunting them? That would be really fucked up.) She grit her teeth and managed to not reply this time, for which she still cursed herself.

—

More questions pressed to the front of Kyle’s mind. Why was she so hesitant to confirm his suspicions that this Pokémon-from-Hell was a part of the weird shit? He knew it was supposed to be left unsaid, (he had heard enough from his grandmother,) but they had clearly passed that point when they took it down. A coyote with sparks didn’t satiate the need to understand what he’d just witnessed. His thoughts were beginning to race as his mouth tried to form multiple questions at a time. How much of the oddities of Wicked’s Rest had she known? Would she have answers about werebears, too? Shit, did she know more about werewolves than Kyle? He thought of those questions as off of the table. Surely he couldn’t just ask–

What are you? The question hit him like a crossbow bolt of lightning between the eyes. Every hair on his body stood at attention. “Um.” He floundered for a moment, grasping for any words to respond. He almost tripped over his own feet and dropped the stupid–monster. If this dog was a monster, was that what Daiyu was looking for? For Kyle to admit to being a monster? Was that what he was to her? His stomach felt like a stone falling through him. “Could you be more specific with that, uh, question? Please?”

—

Her hunting training hadn’t covered this. Truth be told, her training hadn’t covered a lot of communication techniques, unless you considered the best ways to trick shifters or interrogation tactics as such. Daiyu felt frustration fly through her system, heard Vissa yell something about a storm coming as her face turned a little stormy. There was at least the creature between them, a good distraction from how the other fumbled with his reply to her forward question.

“Whatever,” she said, “I’m not gonna hunt you.” He wasn’t on the board. Besides, he’d helped. Her sister would talk this guy into the woods and prod and poke until he’d reveal his true nature and then slit his throat, to trick the shifter the way she’d been taught. But Daiyu didn’t want to hunt this guy, and it was only because he wasn’t on the board. No ulterior motive. It wasn’t because of the weeping heart in her chest that her sister Inna had chastised all her life. Just because there was no point in it. (The Raiju hadn’t been on the board, either, but somehow that distinction wasn’t made.) “But like … snake? Wolf? Bird? What are you?”

—

I’m not gonna hunt you, was all the confirmation Kyle needed. He was on the menu, so to speak. Maybe not to Daiyu, maybe not now, but to someone out there. It took him a beat to grapple with his new place on the proverbial food chain before he could get anything out. “Wait,” he said, immediately derailing once more. “There’s weresnakes and werebirds? I mean, fuck, it makes sense, you know, I’ve heard about the little people all my life, but I oonly knew about the bears and the wolves.” There were dozens of questions he had about the other shifters. Like, did the birds follow the same rules? Were they bound to the sun rather than the moon? Could you get bit by a snake and get turned into a snake? Even if the snake was venomous? Was it like Spider-Man, and the venom is what turned you into the snake? He set aside the questions for later (and maybe for Google).

Licking his lips and shrugging, Kyle replied, “I guess I’m the wolf variety.” He clicked his teeth and continued, “Shtah, I feel stupid being at a fuckin’ Twilight viewing and admitting this, man.”

—

Oh, shit. This was not the first time her big mouth had talked too fast and too much. Daiyu assumed that shifters all knew about each other, that they had some kind of big shifter text chain where they talked about eating humans and shedding issues, but maybe werewolves were excluded from that. “Yeah! Those totally exist too,” she said, nodding. It would be strange if lamia and sirens only transformed during the full moon, but probably better for society and humanity as a whole.

She let out a huff of amusement, looking over her shoulder at the drive in behind them as she kept walking further into the woods. “Nah, it’s cool. It’s fun. I like these movies ‘cus of it.” There was something about watching bad movies about the supernatural that made Daiyu feel comforted. It was why she’d watched all of the Vampire Diaries multiple times — but mostly just the first three seasons. “Little bit stupid for telling me though.” She dropped the raiju to the ground. “Kidding.”

—-

Fueled with knowledge, Kyle couldn’t keep his mouth from running. “You probably have so much knowledge on all this stuff, right? I mean, probably more than me. Definitely more than me.” That felt like a mistake to admit as soon as he’d said it. He didn’t want to come off as inexperienced or ignorant. Worse yet, he didn’t want to come off as a problem. “There’s no real guidebook for all of this. Lot of trial and error and error and error,” he amended with a toothy grin. “It’s,” he gestured vaguely to the space around them, “all about learning and shit, though, right?” Maybe that didn’t help his case, but he’d rather be somewhat honest with the hunter. She had given him her word. She wouldn’t hunt him.

“As far as werewolves go, it’s bad,” Kyle mused. He had a lot to say on the topic, but kept it succinct for now. His head snapped up at the joke threat, but he relaxed when he realized she wasn’t serious. Cracking a grin, he huffed a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t have much experience with, uh, hunters. That’s what you’d call yourself, right?” He looked down at the animal at their feet. He almost wanted to ask what Daiyu planned to do with the pelt, but it didn’t seem particularly germane, given the circumstances.

—-

If there was any way to appeal to Daiyu, it was by saying that she was better at something than someone else. And though this wasn’t something she was particularly proud of, it was still true. She was more knowledgeable than this stranger, “Yup! I know a lot. I’m pretty much a genius when it comes to this.” Compared to him, she certainly was. Compared to other hunters, especially her siblings … well, it wasn’t knowledge she’d ever excelled in. Reciting species’ weaknesses had always been something that tired her — she’d rather find out through just hitting them. “Guess you’re gonna have to find shit out, huh?”

It had to be hard to be a werewolf. At least most other shifters were raised amongst one another, were taught what they were and how they could use that against others. But bitten werewolves, they were just left to their own shitty devices. “Twilight’s a shit resource for sure. And um, yeah, yeah, hunters — maybe that’s coolest for you, right? Just stay outta trouble. Don’t eat people or whatever.” She considered their surroundings, the dead animal at their feet, and started to gather some twigs, sticks and leaves to cover up its white fur. “This one’s called a Raiju, FYI.”

—-

The urge to ask for more and more information wouldn’t die down inside Kyle. He didn’t want to come off as entirely ignorant, but the hunter said she was a genius when it came to this particular subject. “Alright, Encyclopedia Daiyu, I’ll have to have you teach me more about all this sometime,” he said, hoping she’d agree so he could flood her inbox later. “I think I have a lot to learn.” The admission felt like one of weakness rather than simple ignorance. The feeling didn’t sit well inside his chest. Exposing your belly to the enemy couldn’t be a smart move. He had to remind himself that she had said she wouldn’t hunt him.

The comment about eating people had Kyle grimacing. He had shifted a handful of times outside the safety of his building’s basement walls, but he hadn’t eaten anyone. Had he? The thought made his stomach do a somersault. “I’m good on the not eating people.” He followed the hunter’s lead, covering the animal’s corpse with forest detritus. “Raiju. Ha, kinda rhymes with your name.” He didn’t want to make another Pokémon reference, lest she think of him as a nerd. But there was a Pokémon based on the creature before them. “Real life Pokémon,” he quipped, unable to keep his mouth shut.

—

The concept of her – a ranger – helping a werewolf was absolutely beyond her comprehension. The whole situation was hard to grasp in general, what with her hunting this creature out of some kind of feeling of duty, enlisting a shifter for help and standing here, still and without action. Daiyu swallowed, shrugged, “Whatever, man,” she said, which was non-committal and not an answer at all to his non-question. She didn’t deal with unshifted werewolves a lot — the most she saw of them was when they were feral and wild in the woods.

She felt something press in her skull. A headache. A moral quandary that she didn’t have the tools to solve. These days those were the same. “Neat. I mean, that’s kinda … not cool, you know. Guess that’s gonna get you … targeted. Anyway.” She frowned at the twigs and leaves. “Maybe. I’m not a good — I don’t help people.” She poured some sand over the dead creature, let out a huff of air. “Yeah, it does. And yeah, it is. I used to wonder if the creator of Pokémon like, knew of these kinda creatures.” She started wiping her hands on her trousers, looking up. “Good enough, I guess. There’s still … movie left.” She’d get the creature a proper hiding place later. She held out her hand, though didn’t specify if it was to get her weapons back or to have it shaken.

—

Kyle got the feeling that maybe he’d overstepped some invisible line he hadn’t known was there. Maybe befriending a hunter was reckless, even when she didn’t feel like a threat. At least, she hadn’t felt like a threat. Her deflection read as dismissive to Kyle. Perhaps he didn’t view her as a threat because she didn’t view him as a threat. Something unfamiliar tugged inside his gut. He wanted to be respected by her, not brushed aside. Part of him wanted the hunter to fear him. The thought felt almost out of place as soon as he’d thought it, but wasn’t it sort of true? Wasn’t he a beast to be feared? He huffed a chuckle to himself. That didn’t feel like it fit right, either. Better, but not exactly. “Yeah,” he said, after considering Daiyu’s words for a moment. “I’ll do my, uh, best, I guess.” He met her extended hand with his own, both passing her back the ammunition she’d lent, and shaking her hand at the same time. “For the record, I don’t help people either. One time Pokémon battle.” He turned back towards the screen, frowning at the movie. It didn’t feel worth it to stay. It didn’t feel worth it to leave either. He looked back to his new not-enemy. “Walk you back to your truck?”

—

There should be another bolt in her crossbow, aimed at the heart of the untransformed werewolf. This could be her easiest hunt of the year. But that wasn’t her hunter’s code — if she even had one. Hunting the raiju also wasn’t part of her code, but maybe saving a bunch of people who are watching Twilight could be something she added. As for Kyle the Werewolf, there was nothing that demanded she hunt him besides the nagging lessons taught in youth. There was no immediate threat, nor was there a bounty on his head as far as she knew. So Daiyu simply shook his hand and took her weapon back and tried not to think about it all too much.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said, starting the walk back to her truck with one weapon in each hand, wondering if someone had called the authorities. Hopefully the sounds of thunder and Supermassive Black Hole had covered the sounds of the gunshot, though. “Was a good one, though. Good Pokémon battle. No fried people and shit.” She gave Kyle a look, a semi-grin. It wasn’t so bad, what they’d done. “Edward would be proud.”

—

There was still some kind of unease that sat alert at the back of Kyle’s mind. On one hand, Daiyu had promised not to hunt him. On the other, she was a total stranger who had just played a hand in taking out a creature. Was he feeling conflicted about hunting the creature? He hadn’t long considered his new role in nature. Were he and the raiju equals? Had he too implicitly trusted this gun wielding Twilight-goer? He would have to sit with the topic later. He thought the hunter might combust if he started grilling her about her moral compass, and he didn’t want to put out any fires tonight either.

Kyle scoffed. “You think I care about Edward’s opinion? He would be a normal type trainer in the most boring way. He would have a team of fuckin’ pidgey and–y’know, never mind.” His face wrinkled in disgust. “Point being, I’m not ‘Team Edward,’” he concluded, with air quotes accenting his words. He crossed his arms across his chest as they reached the truck. Goodbyes felt awkward, especially given the circumstance of their meeting. “Hey, thanks for being cool,” he said flatly, with an air of hesitation. “I mean, letting me make you look like a chump with a bow.” He cracked a teasing grin and gave her finger guns. “You’ll get ‘em next time, bro.”

—

Once arrived at the truck, Daiyu worked on returning her weapons to it, making sure they wouldn’t go off if she went too hard over a speed bump (a common occurrence). A small laugh left her lips at the other’s response to her throwaway comment and she looked up with a quirked eyebrow. “Team Jacob, then? I think you’re biased.” She shrugged, straightened up and closed the door. “I mean, I’m totally team Alice, for what it’s worth. And she’d be totally proud too.” She would probably hate Daiyu for what she was, but luckily she wasn’t real.

She nodded at his comment, head bopping at his thanks. There were no guides for situations like these and Daiyu wished there were, and that they were shared at hunter camps. Guidelines for social interactions where you accidentally roped in a shifter into a hunt and didn’t kill them, or whatever. “Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. Totally let you win, for the record.” She hadn’t, and it was annoying — because even though she was certain she would have been able to kill the raiju if it had been just her, she hadn’t killed it this time. “I sure will. Er – enjoy the rest of the movie. Won’t get in your way again or whatever.” She raised her hand in goodbye, ready to continue to watch the rest of the movie in escapist solitude.

#ch: raiju where the hell you been loca #ch: daiyu #chatzy

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thestobingirlie · 1 year

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do you think jonathan and nancy were equal trainwrecks in st3? you've spoken really well about how nancy bulldozed over him a lot, ignoring the dark room rules and continuing with the investigation even when he said it was a bad idea, and of course after they're fired she shows 0 sympathy for what it means for him financially, but i've always thought if nancy was bulldozer then jonathan was just a doormat, and kind of a two-faced one at that

before they fell into the investigation, he did ignore the sexism nancy faced. the support he offered was passive "they're assholes, but you'll win them over some day", when later during their argument he said she was naive for caring what they thought and thinking she could be a star reporter. when nancy says the whole summer had been humiliating, he likens it all to them being interns, when he was actually treated really well at the job. he's obviously faced shitty treatment in the past from his father, and probably at school and around town, but at the paper he was left alone to do the work he was hired (and interested) in doing, and then didn't have any focus on him when they were being yelled at, even though from the newspaper's perspective he did the exact same amount of bad as nancy (or more, considering nancy was laughed off of any other responsibilities than fetching food; jonathan was treated as an actual employee with a work station he abandoned)

it sucks that only jonathan apologized (though only for not believing in nancy, instead of also entirely blaming her for choices he also made), not just because nancy also fucked up but because it's just more of the same of jonathan not actually being honest with nancy and shows how their characters just don't help each other grow or develop

oh 100%. neither jonathan or nancy are good in their relationship in s3, which i think is what really turned me off to them together.

jonathan is absolutely a doormat. i think it comes from his years of parentification. he doesn’t stand up for himself until he’s finally pushed to the edge. which in s3 happens when they get fired, and he unleashes what he’s likely been feeling and thinking this entire time.

he whines about nancy coming in the dark room, but doesn’t actually try to stop her. he tries to cheer nancy up about how she’s treated, but doesn’t actually do anything to stop it, or make her situation better because he’s too scared to rock the boat. he didn’t want to go along with her rat plan, but did anyway!

he’s just really terrible at standing up for himself, which is a major issue when in a relationship with someone like nancy, who does what she’s set her sights on and doesn’t really listen to other people.

and when it comes to the sexism, i think, like nancy when it comes to the byers poverty, he has a hard time recognising what he’s never experienced.

i think it also might come from this aspect of jonathan’s character that’s been present since s1, which is that he doesn’t really recognise ‘normal’ issues. this is hard to put on paper, but basically we see that he doesn’t take nancy seriously, he thinks she’s just like everyone else, who has the same issues with her parents that everyone else does and she’ll eventually fall into the same miserable dynamics.

i think this comes from the way jonathan retreats from society and casts himself as a loner. he can’t fit in, so he has to dismiss everyone else, and he can’t take them or their trauma seriously. because that kind of means acknowledging them as people in a way he doesn’t want to do.

think back to s2, the way he comforts will is that nobody likes boring people, and that sticking out and being different is the only way to be cool and loved.

i think jonathan just can’t really comprehend nancy struggling because in his eyes, she has it all. she’s got the house, she’s got the dad making six figures, her parents are together. when she complains, i think he sometimes gets stuck thinking about how much she has, instead of what she’s still missing.

i hope i worded that right? it’s kinda jumbled in my head. i don’t think jonathan necessarily thinks his trauma makes him special, but i think he struggles to look past his trauma when considering how other people struggle.

my biggest issue with how rushed their apologies were, isn’t just that nancy doesn’t take back the oliver twist comment, but because we don’t actually get that chance for jonathan and nancy to truly talk about what happened, and their issues, and how their relationship falls apart the second they experience conflict. obviously people say, “oh they’re about to be attacked, of course it was quick”. but, the duffers could’ve had them had a conversation whenever. they go back to hopper’s cabin and spend all night here! they couldn’t have had a talk when everything calmed down?

in my opinion, jonathan and nancy are just two people that, because of their trauma and the way they approach relationships, shouldn’t be together. until they truly work through all their issues and develop as characters, they won’t have a healthy relationship. and that’s because of both of them, not just nancy, and not just jonathan.

#jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #anti jancy #stranger things #asks #anon

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fairandfatalasfair · 3 months

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Finally got around to watching some of the new Doctor Who with a friend and so far I'm finding it... not great. Which is super frustrating because Ncuti Gatwa was amazing in sex education and obviously could play this part well and I was really excited to see him do it! But besides being light on actual content of him, the writing has just been really clumsy and disjointed and hard to engage with. It just feels like somewhere along the way RTD misplaced the ability to pick an idea and stick with it long enough to pull together a satisfying narrative.

The baby one and the war one were...fine, I guess? The twist in the war one was a little predictable and the resolution was sort of narratively scrambled, but they had political commentary and didn't intentionally shoot themselves in the foot to avoid handling their themes, so fine. I'd rate them as like... middle of the road episodes, nothing I'd be excited to share with anyone but not ones I'd actively skip.

The music episode felt exceptionally flat. The mechanics of how exactly the world lost music didn't seem to have been given much thought. The exploration of the human cost of losing music felt shallow and one-dimensional. ("So no love songs! No dancing! No dance TV shows!" and...that's it. Forget lullabies and nursery songs and camp songs and work songs and protest music and folk music and cultural connection and lifting the human spirit. What matters is love songs and the TV landscape being different.) The music-notation-as-magic-ropes thing felt like the least interesting expression of that concept.

And the resolution was all over the place - it would take a genius to figure out the counter-chord! Like the beatles? No like the doctor! Who isn't really a musical genius but it's fine because he's loved and lost, he's got heart! except oops nope heart actually isn't good enough, maybe it needed a genius after all. Okay, so is he going to escape and ask the beatles for help? or remember the conversation earlier in the episode where he was given a sequence of notes? maybe we get an impassioned Doctor speech about the importance of music that helps them reconnect with their musical talent and passion despite the vague-undefined-whatever that's suppressing it and that lets them identify the counterchord?

Nope! They just wander past by accident and conveniently the notes have manifested in the air above the piano so they play the last note and it's fixed. No intention or understanding of the stakes, no passion or meaning, just "huh, hovering musical notes, I guess I'll finish that." Problem solved I guess.

And then instead of like...a moving sequence about all of the ways that music gives meaning to life, or a speech about the importance of music to the human heart, or a montage of all these older people who have been yearning for music finally being able to pick up their instruments again, we get a cheap joke and a dance number. Don't get me wrong, I like dance numbers. But this episode already wasted every opportunity for a moment of sincerity, and ending it on a wink and a pun felt like a shoot-the-shaggy-dog moment.

IDK. The bubble of silence was clever and the thing about the doctor being able to hear the theme music was cute, but they don't save the episode for me.

73 yards felt a lot like the music episode - it had next to nothing to say, and it didn't say it. The bit in the pub where they call Ruby out on mythologising Welsh people was cool. RTD doesn't know what a fairy ring is. The rest of the plot mostly served to show that Ruby kind of sucks as both a person and a companion.

Dot and bubble was real bad. Is it an extremely poorly-considered critique of social media that ignores the issue of algorithms and advertisers to focus on painting young women as stupid twits and young blond male influencers as the saviours we need? Is it a serious AI-gone-rogue plot that really really buried the lead? Is it an alien invasion story about a horrific genocide that just forgot that genocides should have emotional weight? is it a class commentary that forgot to include any identifiable markers of wealth inequality? is it an extremely shallow aesop that amounts to "racism exists but watch out because being racist might make it harder to save you in an apocalypse."?

Who knows! certainly not the show! It doesn't do a good job at being any of them, and none of them are really good or worthwhile things to be, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Idk I get that they were maybe hamstrung a bit by the need to do some doctor-light episodes, but giving us the world's most unlikeable unsympathetic protagonist and then having us just... follow her while she stumbles around not knowing how to walk (y'know, because she's always on that damn phone) and being mostly indifferent to the mass murder of everyone around her... sure was a waste of my time! and dropping in a ''look also they've been racist all along'' at the end doesn't salvage that.

#DoctorWho #DW critical #fatal rambles

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rainbowchewynuggets · 1 year

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Update - re: Focus and Rags

So remember how I said I’d be working on my first original comic next, Rags, now that I’m done with TMA: Encore?

I haven’t actually worked on it in months. I’ve instead been hopping between other writing projects and working on a much less conceptually complicated video project.

And that makes me feel terrible. But the thing is, I’m not sure I should feel that way.

On this edition of I’m Having to Rethink the Way I Learned to Make Art and Am Posting About It to Organize My Thoughts and Maybe Help Someone Else, I’m gonna be considering the entire purpose of why I make art. Wheeee here we go.

POINT ONE: The Thing vs. the Making of the Thing

So I was raised to make art as an object, not an action. Any project needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, or else it’s a failure. I accepted that because people encouraged it. Having a finished piece that people would appreciate made me feel good. And I liked having a finished piece of art. The drive to see something sparkling and complete in my hands has pulled me through many a difficult spot in a project.

However, it was always framed to me as a business thing, extended as a self-worth thing. If you want to be an Artist, you have to produce art. You have to sell it effectively. It’s about proving that you deserve the role of making art in the first place. The second I started being “good” at art, people were telling me to cut out the “bad” pieces for my portfolio. And that’s awful. I can’t stand the fact that that’s something someone taught me before I turned ten.

And that’s what Rags is. Was. Is. I had a really low point a couple months ago where I never felt like I’d measure up in life if I didn’t start selling my art. Rags is a fully original idea with a finite scope that could be made into a book and sold, which might bring me closer to the role of Artist. The story and design of it are all tributes to things that I love emotionally and writing it brought me joy, but it was being made out of a fear of failure and inadequacy. That’s... also awful. Honestly. I don’t want to make art for that reason. I may never get to make art full-time or even part-time, but nobody can take away my role as Artist. That’s just not how it works.

Furthermore, I don’t think finishing things even why I make art. I make art because the act of making it does something for me. It’s interesting. It’s educational and a little bit spiritual. It’s a physical stim and meditation activity. Writing feels like a simultaneous act of building and solving a puzzle. Drawing, painting, and sculpting feels like a wild experiment with turning feelings into lines and shapes. Making art about bigger art may be a never-ending copyright firefight, but it helps me process why I like that art.

And therapy. Art’s a great opportunity for therapy. It is the only form of therapy that has ever helped me. Pouring my woes and flaws into the shoes of my characters and then having to research and conceptualize solutions for them to build their arcs is a kind of self-loving praxis that is slowly peeling back layers and layers of trauma and ignorance in me. I want to do it and share it with people forever.

In embracing this, I remembered that my childhood wasn’t all business anxiety. There was also this really cool person making the coolest videos I’d ever seen and giving it out for free on purpose. Her name’s Nina Paley. Go watch Sita Sings the Blues.

POINT TWO: Going in Circles

So having the object of art hasn’t turned out to be as valuable to me as doing the process of art. Which is why I can’t seem to finish anything. Which is because I rapidly switch between projects. “Rapidly” sometimes means spending months on something or an afternoon, it always depends.

This never happened to me as a kid, but it’s been a nonstop occurrence in my adult life. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have eight classes worth of homework to keep my ambitions down anymore, I don’t know. But I always felt bad about it. It’s the kind of thing the kids with ADHD in the seats next to me got yelled at for. And I should get yelled at, because it means I’m never going to get anything done.

Well, no. Because that’s not the point. And fuck them for yelling at people.

Also, I do get a lot done. I looked back at my personal website a few weeks ago and felt floored looking at all the little things I’ve made over the years. No big impressive monetizable comics, but a lot of cool ink drawings, some weird paintings, a big group project, and one music video that I literally still can’t believe I made. (Here’s a link to all that, if you wanna look at it, too.)

I through my docs and found so much fun writing that I’d given up on because I “failed” to finish it. So I went back to them, and now they’re a little bigger and even more beautiful than before.

I did all that amidst the circle-going. Because I’m not broken. That’s just how my brain works. Leaning into it works so, so, so much better than fighting it. I realized this while watching an anituber I like, Hazel, talking to her illustrator wife on a Q-n-A about how they get projects done (genuinely can’t remember which one, but here’s her channel). It turns out that they both cycle through projects like I do and have both made enormous and wonderful bodies of work (and careers) that way. I can’t tell you how good it felt to find that out.

POINT THREE: What now? / TL;DR

I’m gonna not latch onto big projects... declaratively anymore. I’m just gonna post updates to things I’m working on currently. If the thing I’m fixated on is a thing that’s already on the index, I might put a little flag to it so that people popping by can see what I’ve added to most recently.

But in short, I’m treating the blog as more of a living archive. I might even put up stuff from my website, too. If I make a poster, it’s a poster and not an announcement. I've always wanted to make trailers for big projects, but it would be better off interpreted as a stand-alone thing made for the sole joy of the art of a trailer. Dev art is dev art. Etcetera.

If I get something big all the way done someday, that’ll be icing, not the cake.

Right now, I’m working on an animatic entitled Chuncho, about Yma Sumac and birds and Peruvian festivals. Here’s some stuff from it:

I’m trying to get it done by mid-September (Yma’s birthday). But if I don’t, that’s okay.

As always thanks for reading,

Rainbow / Carlie

#update #focus and rags #rapid switching #lack of focus #chuncho #rags #rainbowchewynuggets

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bitegore · 10 months

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new game + 33 and 100 pls?

33: Every Lie by My Darkest Days

This is a really generic breakup song but I like to sort of deliberately side-interpret things that aren't explicitly ruled against, and I was forced to read a biography that was 80% cheesy spy novel bullshit instead of factual yesterday so it's on the mind and I just watched an interesting g1 episode with Mirage, so all of that comes together to mean that I'd like to interpret shit like

Surrounded by every lie that won't come true Now you wanna take the time, now why would you? Think you're gonna make it right, but how could you? So I can't stay, surrounded by (surrounded by) every lie

through the (to-me) more interesting lens of spy shit.

Jazz is kind of the archetypal Bondian spy, and if you tie yourself into knots (read the lyrics closely while ignoring the tone for point and idea, then flip the pronouns from "I" to "you" and use that for tone) a little bit, you can make the case for this being a Bondian "cool epic gigachad coolguy dude gets the secrets and also finds the hottest girl in the building and has sex with her and she turns out to be an enemy spy who falls in love with him and can't do her job right" type story, and just focus in on that last bit.

Making Soundwave the Bond girl is immediately appealing but also really low-hanging and not that interesting. So I'm leaning toward either Rumble and/or Frenzy or Ravage, suddenly discovering their loyalties are under much more strain than they thought they were. And of course Megatron is Mr Evil Genius or whatever and shit.

From there it's all about writing Jazz and Jazz and not Jazz as Mr James Bond In Metal Now, and playing up the contrast between the actual plot (tv drama goofy shit) and his brain ("am i supposed to be believing this? did you get this idea from a tv drama?") for humor

100: A Little Faster by There For Tomorrow

There is literally nowhere I can go with this that doesn't end at Starscream -> Megatron in some way. I think what I'm thinking is. like. Early IDW, so a break from the new normal from me, I suppose, lol - in the very brief era where Starscream was an apparent fanboy of Megatron's work in the gladiatorial ring.

Starscream and Megatron are distant friends and close coworkers. Megatron is a figurehead already, and Starscream is efficient and effective and they work less as Megatron over Starscream so much as Megatron+Starscream - one team, planning things out. In these days Starscream and Megatron are equals.

There's a sequence of this - five or six scenes, maybe, at most a thousand words - detailing Megatron asking Starscream's advice, them slowly getting to know each other, Starscream being turned to before Megatron as the military voice in the room alongside Soundwave. Power clustering where Starscream believes he deserves it, around his fingers.

Then we skip ahead - to the early-mid war period, before Cybertron is uninhabitable but reaching a point for certain. This one is short - Starscream looking out across Cybertron's melting skyline, over the heads of a bunch of other commanders in a meeting, as everyone clamors for Megatron's opinion on some tactic and no one asks him. He's not the only mission commander any more, and he's not the only military mind. He's not irreplaceable, and he's finding that out as he's being replaced.

Then toward later, near the beginning of what happens on Earth with the whole serious-assassination-attempt deal.

Only now do we come to the part that makes this song relevant:

I'm sure it tasted oh so sweet But it was never good enough for me I bit the tongue behind my teeth ... You said you'd always keep your word Show me what you're after I thought you promised me the world Tell me what you're after Go on and take it way too far Cause here we are, waiting once again Show me what you're after Just a little faster, now

See what I mean?

Starscream takes a step to go get what he's been waiting for. Faster didn't come fast enough. Basically an Infiltration retelling from Starscream's point of view, and he is PISSED.

#red replies #korblez #spotify wrapped outline game

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polyamorouspunk · 2 years

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I really try and focus on my followers for my sleepover fridays because I like talking to you but I kind of just need to get my thoughts out rn so please excuse me and feel free to ignore.

The idea of maybe going to med school is kind of a trip. I mean the other day when I got a 98 on my test I started to realize maybe I could and like should I go into nursing because on places like tumblr you hear all these horror stories of being treated like shit by cishet nurses and how people want doctors and nurses who “look like them” (aka POC, queer people, fat people, etc. people they can relate to besides the image of an upper class white girl) and I’m like maybe I should do that and later that day I ended up talking about what I did want to go into and I realized this is my passion and I really want to persue this.

But my OTHER passion really is infectious diseases and I always said to myself “well I’m going into psychology because I can’t go into med school” and I always had an excuse, you know as a kid it was “well I want to be a vet but I have a fear of needles so I can’t do that” and then it was “well I’m bad at math so I can’t go into med school” and now it’s like “well I’m going into psychology so I don’t need to go into med school” but like. I’m interested in the medicalized side of psychology. I don’t really care to sit in a room and have people tell me their problems, though I’m totally fine with that, and I’m thinking maybe when I’m older like 50s that might be good to like “retire” into, what I want to do is find out WHAT causes pedophilia and HOW we can try and stop CSA from that angle. Like I want to go into prisons and be the Mindhunter but with pedophiles instead of serial killers. I want to look at scans of their brain and find out what’s different from you or me- if there even is anything. And honestly we may already know all this (last time I did a paper on pedophilia was like 2018 so that was 5 years ago and of course in medical terms 5 years ago is already outdated for some things) but more research isn’t going to hurt. Like you can’t have too much research. And I wouldn’t even mind being some sort of therapist for child victims of CSA to hear their side of things too.

But I love, love, love infectious diseases. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I should go into English and be an author or a teacher because I’m “good at it” and I’m like yeah but I have no interest in making a career out of it, and I’ve had people tell me I should go into epidemiology and I go yeah but I’m not smart enough to or I would. But like. Maybe I am. Like honestly maybe I could. And there’s totally ways out there to combine my love of psychology and epidemiology. Like I just answered in @/safety-pin-punk’s ask (go follow) I just saw an interview with a neuro-something psychologist talking about the effects of true crime and why people love it (very complicated reasoning but I’m one of those people [who RESPECTFULLY consumes true crime]) and it’s like if you’re a neuro-something you need to have some medical training. Not really sure pedophilia and infectious diseases really fit together besides like I know you can literally “become a pedophile” after a head injury so it’s not that far of a reach to say you can “become a pedophile” if some sort of infectious disease messes with your brain but like. I mean honestly for years the dream has been to like be a forensic anthropologist (I LOVE Bones, that show influenced me a LOT) and then kind of switched towards like loving epidemiology and like honestly yeah sometimes I day-dream about being able to work in Hot Zones and be on the ground in Africa combating Ebola outbreaks I mean MAN what a dream but like… it was always a dream, you know? Not a reality. Like I read The Hot Zone and I was like oh my god this is SO COOL and like I watch WAY too many Outbreak-type movies because they are my favorite genera of movie besides war movies (Contagion? 28 Days Later? Literally any zombie out break movie ever? LOVE LOVE LOVE). And like *flaps hands* AH I just love that shit but like fuck man. Idk. Idk. Like obviously I’m going to start looking into what it takes to actually really do that which is just… something I never did because I never seriously entertained the idea beyond a dream. I just don’t know. I love both ideas. I had picked psychology because it was easier and I didn’t think I could do epidemiology. But maybe I can.

Edit: yeah like you need like a fucking doctorate and I’m like do I really want to go and get a doctorate or should I just settle for psychology-

Edit 2: I might need a doctorate for psychology research anyway so like fuck man idk maybe I should just work in retail until I’m 65-

(Also my mom keeps telling me this is why I need an advisor, I do not have a good college advisor, she didn’t even register me for my classes, some random guy did 😑)

So I guess I really need to talk to an advisor yeah 😑

Edit 3: like if I already need a doctorate for psychology should I just say fuck it and switch idk yk? I would have to redo a lot of schooling though because I’ve tailored my classes as best I could to psychology but like at the end of the day I’m only getting a BA in Arts. Man I need an advisor skhdkdhsjs.

#don’t you love questioning your major #ugh #anyway sorry long post #personal #if you have input it’s welcome

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rathologic · 2 years

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Can you please explain what was going on between Oyun and Isidor? I know Oyun murdered him but that's it. I don't know why or why Isidor was looking for him. And what was with that side quest where Sticky saw everything? I feel like I missed something and I'm very confused

SO there are several different layers of conflict between them, but bottom line, isidor's murder was a political move suggested by big vlad to tighten his and oyun's control over the Kin. it's a little unclear which of them suggested it! BV denies having him killed, but lara-in-the-pit on haruspex day 11 (who cannot lie) says it was done on big vlad's orders, but oyun says it was his idea...

anyway, that was all done because Isidor as the head of the Burakh family rightfully held the title of Warden, but he'd stepped away from the position and let Oyun carry out the rites so that he could focus on medicine. before the start of the game, Isidor discovered someone had been infected with the sand plague and began to take measures to prevent it; he knew that to make a cure, he would need the sacred blood from the abattoir, but also that oyun/BV wouldn't allow him access to it -- so, after doing some other errands, he went to big vlad to try to convince him to let isidor take the blood / get oyun to stand down! unfortunately it was like 2am at the time and big vlad got annoyed at being woken up under threat of doom, ignored him and sent him away, and was like "ok oyun let's just kill him now".

so isidor had been preparing himself to challenge oyun formally, but oyun came in and murdered him first :-)

the actual timeline goes like this:

isidor informs oyun that he intends to reclaim the position of Warden before leaving for the steppe; he expects oyun to vacate the sacred stones by the time he gets back

isidor buries the blood of an infected person in the steppe, hoping to prevent an outbreak, and returns to his house. while he's in the steppe, he encounters a woman who says she's going "to the warm people"; at some point, he tells rubin about this encounter, but nothing else (it's unclear at what time)

murky sees him "sit down for a long time and not move"

grace sees him burn all of his clothes, wipe down his body and then burn the rag (to be clear. he did get dressed again before continuing to do things)

isidor writes diary entry p.133, which is the List of children

this is probably also where he writes his letter to artemy

past midnight, isidor leaves his house and visits Simon; they converse in simon's Focus for some time

after simon, isidor goes to the Lump and knocks on BV's door to try to convince him of the danger. BV rejects this out of hand, so isidor tells capella about it instead

somewhere along the way isidor tells young vlad that "some kind of outbreak started in the steppe camps"

isidor also visits governor saburov to warn him of "an upcoming storm", which saburov assumes is riots in the Termitary (it's unclear where this falls in the timeline; possibly before simon?)

at this point, sticky broke into isidor's house to see whether he'd brought anything cool back from the Steppe (seriously it was just b/c he was a kid trying to see interesting things); he hides inside a wardrobe upon hearing him return

notkin tries to see what's happening at isidor's house as he's returning, but isidor chases him off and won't let him get close

sticky (scared, hiding) hears isidor "pour some water or something", then oyun comes in; they converse for some time, then all goes quiet

eventually sticky notices a silhouette in the room, one with "the head of a woman but a lump of a body" that he thinks is a spirit; it's said to glide around the room rather than walking

about two hours later sticky notices isidor is dead

plague devours the town -_-

#p1 spoilers #THAT'S LEAVING OUT A LOT it's my favorite plot thread in the game and one of the most convoluted :-) and so deeply unfortunate #asks #anonymous

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ezdotjpg · 3 years

Note

I hope someone hasnt asked you this already, but how do you decide what types of scars to put on characters/where to put them? I have a hard time deciding on where to put scars and it seems like i keep recycling the same ones, mostly on the face, and could use some tips honestly. I know it helps to think about how the character got those scars in the first place but its still hard to place them in unique and interesting ways like you do

(Also if you want to talk about some of your choices for placement/shapes/types of scars on your link designs, that would be cool to read about, im especially curious about your reasoning behind the scar on mirror's cheek)

this is not at all a helpful answer, but it's honestly just.....vibes. I've actually been terribly inconsistent w the placement of their scars, at least the ones not on the face, which is something im trying to get better about with these updates lol. I just sort of put them wherever i feel like they should go.....

for a more helpful answer, yeah a lot of it is informed by some vague sense of what made the scar. Beyond that the focus is on making interesting shapes. letting go of the constraints of what an actual scar would realistically look like helps, though I do still look up real scars from time to time if I'm trying to go for something specific (which, yeah, can come up with some gruesome images, so be careful). I think of it as sort of a graphic design and layout problem instead? balancing clear skin with scarred skin. it's helpful to zoom out and look at the whole figure to see what kind of color blocking you're creating. Is any of that helpful lol?

for some rambling abt bonus links scars (and big general TW for discussions of injury):

Mirror's scar is half of a glasgow smile, which is typically a cut from the corner of the mouth to the ear on both sides, causing a permanent "smile" (full disclosure, first place I saw this idea was in Circuit Breaker by liketolaugh, though theirs is both sides.) My vague backstory is that Yuga gave it to him in the Eastern Palace, though Mirror fought him off before he could do the other half.

the scar on Loft's arm is a Lichtenberg figure, from Demise's lightning. It's also sort of the mark of getting that power from Demise. It is such a pain to draw KSHKF. Looking at some of my other refs, he's got a stab wound scar on his stomach that I'm deciding now is from the first battle with Ghirahim

the scar on Wolf's neck is from the final battle with Ganon, where he very narrowly avoiding getting his head hacked off. The scar on his arm is from his arm being severed and then reattached when Ilia gets captured at the ordon spring (a la the manga). He has some general claw mark scars on his other arm, chest and left shoulder.

slate has a lot of scars, a lot more than I've shown in any of his refs so far, but not all of them are actually from Before. For example, the scar on his chin and under his right eye are new. The one on his chin is from eating shit shield surfing, same reason his front tooth is slightly chipped (tho I don't think I've drawn that, whoops.) The one under his eye is probably a lucky swipe from the first Yiga traveler he encountered, would've lost his eye if his reflexes weren't so good. I know generally old scars are white and new scars are more reddish but I just sort of......ignore that for aesthetic purposes. Also top surgery scars!

besides the scar on his eye, I like to give wake this little scar on his lip. He's probably had it since he was a kid. I Am So Fond Of It. Generally his hands are pretty scarred up from a lot of pulling on ropes and idk. general pirate shenanigans. also has top surgery scars.

mini's hands are also scarred up from a) smithing and b) climbing things with the grip ring and no gloves. The idea for the scar on his shoulder is that it's a bite mark he got from something while he was minish sized, tho I should probably make it a bit bigger knowing that.

Spirit most definitely has a wolfos bite scar somewhere on his person, though I haven't drawn it

War has a burn scar from Volga that I currently have placed on his side, though I might actually put it somewhere else. idk yet. And also generally a lot more scars.

ok i have rambled enough

wait also a note on potions and why links still have scars: i like to kind of nerf the effectiveness of potions, because it's no fun otherwise. Potions don't necessarily "magically" heal outright, they just speed up the body's natural healing by a LOT. So, there's still scars, and the potential for ur average red potion to not be much help to a patient in dire condition.

#askdotjpg #bonuslinksdotjpg #bonus mirror #bonus wolf #bonus loft #bonus mini #bonus war #bonus spirit #bonus slate #bonus lore #tw: injury #bonus links #bonuslinks

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aminiatureworld · 3 years

Text

Interest II

Characters: Kaeya, Xiao, gn!reader

Word Count: 3,020

Warnings: Swearing

Premise: Sometimes emotions can be confusing. In those times it can be easier to shut down. After all, wouldn’t finding the truth out be scarier?

In which the reader assumes their character is disinterested, and pulls away.

Author’s Note: I wrote a lot tonight! It was nice to write for multiple characters again, made me feel like the good old days, or something.

Hope I’m finally getting back on schedule and hope you enjoy!

Kaeya

If Kaeya flirted with you, he also flirted with all of Mondstadt; or so you kept telling yourself.

You liked the cavalry captain, you liked him a lot. It was easy to like him, as easy as breathing air. The thickets of romance, the awkward looks, the stilted conversations, the dying words. None of those things existed in Kaeya.

If there were roses there were thorns too, and though you tried to convince yourself that this emotion, this easiness was something good, there was a part of you that fought back at the idea. The reason things were so easy with Kaeya was because of one simple reason. He didn’t like you. Or not the way you liked him. Kaeya flirted with all of Mondstadt after all, and you were merely one library assistant in the middle of an entire country. Your existence wasn’t one for the history books. Not compared to the man that you’d managed to fall hopelessly in love with anyways.

At first you tried to ignore those voices, that cynical side of yourself that existed only, it seemed, to make you unhappy. You weren’t necessarily an optimist by nature, but you were a bit of a hopeless romantic, and flirting or not you at least hoped to get your point across. Delivering Kaeya’s library requests first, always going up to him at lunchtime to talk, even giving him a special gift for the Windbloom festival. You really did try, you didn’t think that the opposite could be argued. Still things continued on as relatively normal however, Kaeya’s flirting never seeming to grow particularly towards you. Eventually it became harder and harder to avoid the voice in your head sneering you were wasting your time. Or maybe you were just tired.

Either way the answer seemed to be obvious. You knew when the answer was to count your losses and move on, and surely this was one of those times. Kaeya wasn’t going to see you as a partner, he just wasn’t. That didn’t mean he wasn’t kind, or that your conversations with him weren’t lovely, or even that you weren’t still in love with him. Still, wasn’t it time to move on to kinder winds? You wanted a clean break, wanted an end to your painful waiting; didn’t want to experience that clench in your heart when you watched Kaeya flirting with someone else as the point just drove further and further home. You wanted reprieve, and the only way to do that was to admit the obvious. This wasn’t going to happen.

So you gave up, or did your best attempt at giving up. You still spoke to Kaeya, the gods knew you probably couldn’t stand not speaking to him. You still tried to keep as light as before, tried to retain the dynamic, for something was better than nothing. Yet your days of simply chasing after him were over, and as you settled into you schedule of new normalcy you found, though things weren’t necessarily easier, at least they seemed simpler. Besides, how much had really changed? Kaeya most likely didn’t notice.

“Kaeya, the manuscript you requested on Liyue trade history came in yesterday. There were also a few other things that came in, though Lisa told me they’re classified.”

“Oh Lisa, always a stickler for rules. Would you like to know what I requested?”

“Like you would actually tell me,” you snorted. “No, I’m fine. It’s none of my business.”

“Aw,” Kaeya pouted slightly, crossing his arms in front of him. He seemed to be doing that more often these days, though maybe you were simply imagining it. “Where’s your sense of adventure darling? You seemed to have lost it somewhere.”

“I’m just following rules,” you pointed out.

Something had shifted about the conversation at some point, and you were suddenly feeling an undercurrent that hadn’t been there before. Finding it uncomfortable you quickly removed the space between you and Kaeya, reaching out to place the brown paper wrapped books into his hands. Taking them Kaeya lifted an eyebrow. Turning around he went to put them on his desk.

The momentary reprieve in atmosphere you felt quickly died, as before you had time to turn around the cavalry captain was back, this time leaning closely towards you.

“What is it?” You asked. This was certainly Kaeya behavior, but it still startled you nonetheless.

“You’re acting funny.”

“What? I’m acting completely normal.”

“If you say so.”

But the tone conveyed that Kaeya didn’t agree one bit. A smirk painting his lips he turned around, though something bitter seemed to flash behind his eyes, and for a moment you wondered if he had somehow caught on to the secret you’d been hoping to keep to yourself.

After that things seemed to continue on as normal for a few weeks. If Kaeya’s books were secretly transgressive, they certainly weren’t doing anything actively, and life as an assistant librarian to the Knights of Favonius retained its languid, unhurried pace. Still a part of you had never forgotten about that weird snippet of conversation, one which was doing a surprisingly good job at eating away at you.

You were almost relieved when Kaeya brought the matter up again.

“Is something wrong darling?”

“You asked me that two weeks ago Kaeya.”

“Really? It’s been that long? I must be neglecting my duties,” he let out a careless sort of laugh, before his eyes steadied. “I was hoping that this time I might get a more honest answer.”

“So you think I’m lying to you when I’m saying nothing’s wrong?”

“Yes.”

“But I’m not! How could I be lying to both you and myself.”

“I find that doing such a thing is a surprisingly easy task. Nevertheless, even if you aren’t lying, there is something wrong.”

“And what would that thing be, Mr. Expert?” For some reason this conversation was aggravating you. Maybe because you couldn’t decide whether or not he was right.

“I don’t know, I was hoping you could tell me. I can’t say sorry for something I’m not aware of, I don’t know what I did. You do though. So the sooner you tell me what’s wrong the sooner things can go back to normal.”

“What do you mean by normal Kaeya? If anything this is more normal. Not that things have changed that much. I’m sorry I don’t deliver your books first, if that’s what you’re complaining about. But frankly, I don’t see what you’re so upset about? You’ve got plenty of other friends, so why are you complaining to me?”

Maybe it wasn’t your best use of logic, but your ability to circle around the focus of the conversation, the unspoken emotions that still burned through you, was somewhat lacking.

“This is not normal. I’m not talking about library books, I’m talking about friends. Or maybe avoidance. You’ve been avoiding me lately, even if you aren’t doing it completely. It wounds me, you know. My dearest companion, what did I do to earn their ire?”

“You did nothing.”

“That’s obviously a lie.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” Kaeya voice was clipped, matching your same tone. Even now he was shifting himself to better fit the atmosphere in the room, something you normally valued so deeply.

“It’s not. It’s really not! That’s the problem Kaeya, don’t you see?” Tears that had threated the corners of your eyes were now burning across your vision, as your emotions finally broke through the paltry excuse for a dam you’d been building. “You’ve done nothing, you’ve never done anything. You’re always nice, and flirty, and a bit shameless. And that’s fine! It’s not your fault that you don’t feel like I feel for you. I don’t want to make you feel guilty. You flirt with everyone, and that’s fine. I don’t care! I really don’t. I don’t want to burden you. Still, can’t you just let me feel upset by it? Can’t you just let me give up? Do you know how painful it is not to give up? Why won’t you let me at least do that, but no! Instead you come in here talking about how everything’s different, as if I’ve offended you, or as if you worry would change anything. Of course it won’t! And it shouldn’t! But damn it Kaeya, I just want to be upset!”

By this time Kaeya had closed the space between you two, wrapping his arms around you and running soft, slightly cool, fingers through your hair. You nestled into him, despite yourself. You were so tired and so angry, and right now it didn’t really seem to matter who you cried on as long as you were crying on someone. Letting yourself be carried away by your emotions you let your ragged breathing unleash itself inside the walls of Kaeya’s office.

Eventually you calmed down. Though you expected Kaeya to step away when your breathing evened out, instead he remained there, continuing to run comforting fingers though you hair, his other hand gently cradling your shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was the reason.” It was simple, direct. Undeniably Kaeya.

“What else would be the reason,” you grumbled.

“I don’t know. It’s why I asked. Thank you for answering me.”

“You forced me into it.” There was no true venom behind your words. You were sure Kaeya knew that.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Not yet?”

You shook your head. “Not yet.”

“That’s alright. Now’s not the best time anyways, since I ought to look my best. Not that I don’t look amazing already, but I should dress up for an occasion such as that. Still, I hope that eventually you’ll allow yourself to live in a way that doesn’t make you unhappy. Sometimes we can’t do that. This time you can.”

“Maybe.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting for you darling, and you know how impatient I am.”

“What if you have to wait for a long time?” You were feeling quite contrary.

“Then I’ll wait. After all, I’ll have quite the reward for my patience.”

You smiled into Kaeya. Despite yourself, you knew it wouldn’t be that long.

Xiao

With Xiao, the question was always boundaries. How far is too far? How far is not far enough? It was an endless maze, even if it was a maze you would gladly continue to explore, sure that the light at the end must lead to something truly beautiful. Still, you didn’t exactly need your emotions to come in and complicate something already so difficult to navigate.

At first you tired to ignore, to take a page from the book the yaksha you’d so hopelessly fallen for had written. Yet if was much harder than it ought to be, for loving Xiao seemed to come as naturally as breathing, and no amount of looking for faults seemed to be doing much to change that. After all, everyone has faults, and nothing could change the innate goodness you saw in Xiao, the wonder and light that he carried with him, despite his millennia of hardships.

At first you thought to tell him, to cross that border, find that boundary and test it with all the patience it had taken to test and cross those other boundaries.

“Xiao?”

“Mmm.”

“I, I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“I, I made you some Almond Tofu!”

Xiao let his eyes widen with characteristic surprise, before leaping down nimbly from his perch to take the dish you brought out from behind your back. You watched as he ate it happily, warmth running through your veins. Nevertheless a part of you cried in frustration, perhaps even pain, for you knew you had failed to do what you had set out to do.

It wasn’t simply that you feared losing Xiao’s friendship, feared losing his respect. It was the boundaries, those invisible lines you were so careful not to step over. Xiao needed those boundaries, you knew he did. Though he had told you very little about his past, what he had told was horrific, and you hardly doubted that Xiao’s survival, his failure to spin into madness, was because of those walls he’d carefully constructed around himself. You wanted him to shed those walls yes, to slowly emerge from the darkness which he held around himself. But you weren’t ready to push him to do so, or not very much at least. It wasn’t truly in your nature to do so anyways.

So you expressed your feelings as best you could, with tofu and flowers and all the kindness you had to offer. When you weren’t working, spending your time sewing for a high-end Liyue shop, you were with Xiao. A part of you assumed that it would be enough, that if you gave Xiao enough of your time and enough of your attention the barriers would magically break down. One day you’d wake up and they’d be gone and you’d be happy, having never pushed things too far.

As nothing truly seemed to change however you grew slowly discouraged. You weren’t really aware of your flagging hopes, not really. It was more that you were busy, you were so busy. Besides, Xiao hadn’t expressed much sadness over losing your company. Perhaps he was secretly relieved, perhaps you had pushed too far at some point and he hadn’t told you. Maybe it was best that you give his boundaries time, and not push it too far.

Even looking back it was hard not to call the logic sound, or at least sound to you. In some ways you and Xiao were cut of the same cloth, and though that brought with it an understanding, it also brought its own set of issues. Neither of you were willing to walk over the line that the other drew, even if you could not see where they had actually drawn it. Even if not doing so was painful, the fear of what pain might come if you did was too great a discouragement.

So you began to slowly fade away, without being entirely aware that you were indeed doing so. You were busy after all, and Xioa was most likely too. He was still a yaksha after all, a being whose life was almost completely disconnected from your own. Surely it wouldn’t be that surprising if his views were similar? Maybe you truly had crossed a line, and that was why he never seemed to enquire after you. Or maybe it was that you hadn’t mattered all that much in the first place.

It was a wet, cold autumn day. You sighed slightly as you unlocked your door, having gotten drenched by protecting a bold of fabric you were bringing home to cut and pin. Letting out a huff, you opened the door and went to take a nap. You must’ve been tired, for it took a few seconds for the screech of surprise to leave you mouth at the sight of the unexpected intruder waiting for you.

“Xiao! You scared me!”

You stared at the yaksha, very much surprised by the sight of him. Your surprise had very little time to register though, being quickly replaced by concern for the storm so clearly gathering in Xiao’s eyes.

“You were gone for so long.”

“I’m sorry Xiao. It’s just been so busy you know, everyone’s preparing for the change in season. Besides…”

“Besides?”

“I didn’t want to bother you. I mean, I know you also have a job, and though I want you to find happiness outside of it, I don’t want to pressure you.”

Xiao’s facial expressions evidently conveyed that he was not impressed. Searching for the right words you let your gaze drift towards the floor. You weren’t sure that you were ever going to be ready for a conversation like this, but certainly not in the state you were now. Still, you owed Xiao some sort of explanation. Of course you did.

“I’m really sorry Xiao. I should have found time for you. It’s completely my fault.”

“That’s not what I want.” Xiao’s tone was gruff, frustrated. You found the frustration mirrored within yourself.

“What do you want?”

“I,” Xiao flushed. “I don’t want you to apologize. I’m not blaming you for anything. You shouldn’t apologize for nothing.”

“Sorry,” you mumbled.

Xiao shook his head. For a moment he just stood there, eyes stormy. Slowly though he reached out to take your hand. You found the act surprisingly comforting. You had missed Xiao’s hands, delicately built, calloused beyond believe. They felt comforting and warm and safe, and you wished you could never let go of them. Drawing strength from that you slowly raised your gaze slightly.

“What do you want, Xiao?”

At first Xiao said nothing. Perhaps he was staring at a line, contemplating whether to cross it. You had half the mind to apologize again, but managed to stop the words from coming out. You knew that it was just a force of habit. Besides, Xiao hadn’t said anything yet. A small spark of hope burned inside you, the hope that something might go well.

There was a gentle tug on your wrist and suddenly you were in Xiao’s arms, his hair gently tickling your nose.

“This,” he mumbled. “I want this.”

For a moment you felt yourself freeze in shock, but soon enough you found yourself melting into his embrace, wrapping your own arms around him. Xiao was warm like a heater, warm beyond that too. It was as if there was something in his soul. Gentle, flickering, it brought you happiness that you never thought you could imagine. You wanted to bask in it forever, it was worth any twists and turns you might have to take to reach it.

“Don’t disappear again.”

“I won’t.”

“I should have come earlier.”

“It’s alright. Hey, Xiao?”

“What?” Xiao’s arms tightened around you slightly. You didn’t want to talk much more either.

“What do you think of me?”

Xiao let out a soft snort. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

It was more than you could have ever hoped for.

#genshin impact #kaeya x reader #kaeya alberich #xiao x reader #xiao #alatus #Genshin Impact fanfiction #scenarios #fanfiction #my writing #requested #gn reader

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luna-writes-stuff · 3 years

Text

Motion Sickness, Xu Shangqi

Yes, I wrote this out self projection. I myself have a very weak stomach and can therefor very easily and quickly catch motion sickness.

For those interested about what motion sickness is and what it means for me: Quick story of it, my stomach cannot stand a lot of motion, especially when my brain is unaware of the direction my body is moving in. I get nauseous and light headed and just feel the bile rising up in my throat. So when I go on long car rides for vacation and I cannot see the navigation, I could easily throw up in the car in a matter of seconds. When I sit on the wrong side of the car, I get sick. When I look anywhere else but outside in the car, I get sick. When the car is taking turns instead of driving straight ahead, I get sick. It’s really annoying and it’s still something I struggle with a lot. I get it on amusement rides, rollercoasters, boats; even when I just move around to quickly or too much. So when I was watching that scene in Shang-Chi where they drive to Ta Lo, all I could think about was how terrible I would’ve been in that situation. And it inspired me to write this (stupid as it may sound.) Yes, I am aware there is medication for this, but it happens a lot of the times and would I keep using and buying it, I would spend way more money than I actually need to. I only use it for long car rides and boat trips.

Fanfic, female! reader

Fluff, bit of angst

Tw: SPOILERS, motion sickness, description of nausea, lightheadedness, description of vomiting, rising temperature, half consciousness, self projected, description of losing consciousness (but not really), Shang-Chi being worried, established relationship, use of Y/N. Also, I could not find the script anywhere, so half of the dialogue is probably wrong.

Summary: When escaping Wenwu’s home, you join the ride to Ta Lo, even as you are aware that you get severe motion sickness in cars and most definitely will end up throwing up later. Shang-Chi knows this and tries to help, but you can’t talk nausea out of someone. Upon arriving in Ta Lo, you’re barely conscious and Shang-Chi gets concerned.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shang-Chi asked, as you sat outside the car you just escaped in.

The ride from Wenwu’s home had been difficult to say the least. You got very nauseous in car rides, and you knew that, yet you wanted to be there for Shang-Chi when he would travel to his mother’s village. It was already clear it was not going to be an easy journey, but you insisted on joining the ride.

At the moment, you were catching some fresh air after the eventful car ride earlier. You forced your nausea down, smiling up at Shang-Chi.

“Oh yeah. I’ll be fine.” You assured, standing up and taking a deep breath in.

“You know you don’t have to come along.” He tried again, but you ignored his offer.

“I said I’ll be fine.” You insisted, walking back towards the car. Shang-Chi let out a sigh of defeat before opening the door to the passenger seat.

“Actually, Trevor was going to sit there. Seeing as he kind of holds the information and stuff.” Katy said, gesturing towards the man behind you two.

“He can do that from the back.” Shang-Chi said, but you shoo’d him, opening the door behind the passenger seat.

“I can sit here too.” You announced, sitting down before your boyfriend could say anything about it.

“Y/N-“ “Don’t Y/N me.” You interrupted. “If I get sick, it’s my own damn fault.”

He groaned before stepping in on the other side, his sister seated between the two of you.

“Is something wrong?” She asked, looking towards you with a worried glance.

“She gets sick in car rides.” Shang-Chi announced, putting on his seatbelt.

“Don’t worry.” You reassured her, “If I’m going to throw up, I’m going to aim for Shang-Chi. You’ll be fine.”

“You’re going to throw up?” She questioned, frowning at the statement.

“I’ll try not to, if it’s any consolation to you.” You offered, throwing off your jacket before bundling it up and letting it rest on your lap, holding it against your stomach lightly.

“I hope you’re strapped in. Morris tells us we need to leave now.” Trevor announced, simultaneously making Katy push the gas.

As you’re driving, Katy keeps a steady pace, causing a feeling of relief to wash through you. If this was going to be the pace you’d keep during the ride, nothing could really go wrong.

In front of the car, the trees suddenly started to separate, creating a road for Katy to drive on. You gasped at the sight, having never seen anything like it before.

“This is so cool.” Katy quietly awed. You hummed in agreement, staring at the greens out of the window.

“Morris says you might want to speed up.” Trevor announced, looking at the rearview mirror. Katy followed his look, before letting a curse word slip and speeding up. All three of you in the back quickly looked behind, eyes widening at the sight of the trees closing back.

You turned around the second you saw what was happening, not ready to move forward while looking back.

“Take a left.” Trevor instructed.

“When?” Katy wondered, sparing the man a single glance.

“Now!” He ushered.

Katy took a sharp turn at his words, causing you to immediately grab hold of the handle on the door. Xialing and Shang-Chi both fell towards your side, not having prepared for the turn. You let out a little chuckle at the sight of them, but stopped as the familiar feeling of nausea hit you again.

“Right!” Trevor instructed. Yet again, Katy listened to him, taking a sharp right turn as the woods split into two again.

You had yet to let go of the handle, but you figured it might the closest thing you’d get to grounding at the moment. You felt Shang-Chi’s eyes drill holes into your head, but you refused to look at him. Instead, you kept you eyes on the window outside, knowing shooting your glance anywhere else might lead to some unfortunate consequences.

“Right again!” And at those words, the car stumbled around. Your stomach started feeling heavy as your head grew lighter, but you refused to acknowledge it, silently wishing for it to be over soon. You knew what would happen. You brought this upon yourself and you had no one to blame but yourself. You were in this now and you would not complain about it.

“Left!”

The next turn came completely unexpected to you, causing you to lose grip of the handle and the jacket on your lap, your hands trying to hold onto the seat in front of you.

As the car was on a straight line again, Shang-Chi quickly leaned over, grabbing your jacket and handing it to you, before opening your window slightly, allowing fresh air to fill the car. He shot you a silent look before returning to his seat.

“Drive faster!” Trevor urged, looking in the rearview mirror again. The forest seemed to close in behind you in an even faster rate now.

Katy just followed his lead, pushing the gas pedal down all the way. The car was hurled forward as your stomach began to flip. You leant your head against the window, your jacket pressed tightly against your stomach.

“Right!” Trevor yelled, the wind that blew into the car now becoming louder than his voice.

As Katy followed his directions, your clothes began to uncomfortably cling to your body, your hair slowly sticking to your forehead. You felt the bile rising up your throat, but you swallowed it back down, knowing there was no way of stopping now.

As Trevor kept shouting instructions, you began to wonder when this maze would end. It had been more terrible than you predicted. Perhaps the nausea of the earlier car-ride still lay heavy on your stomach, which only increased with the current journey. Or maybe the fact that there were no blinkers or navigation used, made your brain confused and uncomfortable, leaving you with a sickening feeling. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

Had this been a bad idea?

Definitely.

Would you ever confess it?

Never.

“Close the window!” Trevor yelled to Katy, holding his hands over his ears.

“Do not close the window!” Shang-Chi shot after him, holding his hand beside Katy’s seat, leaving her unable to access the window buttons.

Your head rested against the backside of the chair in front of you, trying to keep the dizziness at bay, but with every following turn, you felt that uncomfortable substance rising back up. Your head felt too light to lift it now, but your stomach forced you to keep it up before everything would come back out.

You let your head fall towards the window, keeping it up in order to swallow everything down again. The sour feeling stung your throat, nearly making you gasp in uneasiness, but you did your best not to show it. The open window that provided you with fresh air, had begun to lose its purpose, now only filling you with a loud pounding in the ears, every other word suddenly passing by unheard. It wasn’t until you felt a warm hand on the one that clung to your jacket, that you moved your head.

Before even looking, you knew it was Shang-Chi, but there was little he could do for you now. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he held out a bottle of cold water and a plastic bag. You gratefully took the offer, taking small sips from the bottle before placing the plastic bag on top of your jacket, just in case things would go sideways.

Your hands had grown all warm and soggy, nearly gliding off of the fabric. Your shirt was now nearly glued to your back. The hair you had refused to put up earlier was now suffocating your neck with a heat attack. You could feel the sweat of it fall down your body, making you move uncomfortably in your seat. A sharp ringing filled your ears, your vision showing black dots from time to time.

The car increased its speed suddenly. You had no idea what was happening, but you closed your eyes, not willing to look outside anymore. You needed your focus on your body, trying so desperately to maintain it.

Katy’s screaming disturbed the ringing in your ears as you felt an annoying banging against your brain.

And just like that, the car stopped moving. Heavy breathing was heard all around the car, but you had yet to open your eyes. The nauseating feeling was far from over. You figured it was best to continue driving before you would have to experience everything again.

“Everyone okay?” Katy asked, which went answered by multiple hums.

“Morris says to go right through there.” The man in front of you announced.

“Through the waterfall?” Katy asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Was the simple answer.

And then, the car was moving again. You heard the window beside you shut, but you made no intention to open your eyes yet.

“Y/N?” You heard Shang-Chi ask, but you ignored him, waving your hand towards him in a “let it go” manner.

How long the car had been driving afterwards, you did not know. You didn’t look outside, the earlier trip still heavy on your stomach. It wasn’t until the car suddenly stopped, that your stomach decided enough was enough, and resorted to throwing everything out.

You were hunched over the bag in your hands, the vomit slowly leaving your throat, much to your discomfort. You felt two gentle, yet unfamiliar hands wrap around your hair before tying it in a simple pony tail.

Your body felt as if it was on fire, your shirt definitely drenched by now. You tried to catch your breath, but you threw yourself back over the bag before you knew it. A second round falling out just as terrible as the first one.

You could hardly comprehend the door beside you opening, followed by a hand slowly, but steadily rubbing your back. You kept yourself above the bag, even though you were fairly sure you were done now. You began tying it, but it was taken from you before you could grab the ends.

As you unbuckled yourself and stood back up, black spots appeared in your vision again, making you stumble outside, before forcing you to sit down, your back against the car.

“Babe, can you hear me?” You faintly heard, making you hum silently, leaning your head against the car too, your eyes closing again.

“Are you okay?” He asked again, the voice now nearer.

“I just threw up twice. What do you think?” You mumbled.

Your statement went ignored, a soft hand being placed on top of your head instead.

“You’re burning up.” He remarked, untying your hair and wrapping it in a bun instead, making you sigh in relief.

“Give me a few minutes.” You stated quietly.

“Can you give me that bottle of water?” You followed up in a whisper. It was quiet for a moment before you felt the cold bottle back in your hands. You finished it quickly, handing it back when you were done.

“Do you need anything else?” He wondered again, his hand softly touching your cheek.

“A cold shower.” You mustered out, throwing your head forward, making it rest against Shang-Chi’s chest. “And a few painkillers.”

A low chuckle escaped his throat as his hand rested on your back, making you since slightly at the hot and sweaty shirt now being pushed against your body.

“Can you move yet?” He whispered patiently, letting you go, though he allowed your head to keep resting against him.

“Give me a moment.” You muttered, one of your hands falling to your stomach as if it would calm it down.

“That’s okay.” He answered, shifting a little bit before resting his head on top of yours, one of his his hands connecting with the one that was on your stomach.

“Xialing is doing the talking anyway.” He explained, his second hand falling to your neck and stroking it affectionately.

“Tell me when to get up.” He proposed, letting you pick your time and comfort.

You hummed in response, happy to be in his arms back on solid ground. You tried turning in your position, but your body quickly show down the idea, fresh nausea returning fast.

Shang-Chi understood what you were trying to do, luckily. He grabbed your waist, carefully turning you around, making your back rest against his chest.

“You’re drenched in sweat.” He noticed aloud, though that was the only thing he did about it.

Your head fell back in the crook of his neck, making Shang-Chi smile and rest his head against yours. Your hand tried reaching for his, even though you could not see anything right now.

“You want more water?” He misunderstood, his voice vibrating through his chest.

You just shook your head lightly, grabbing his arm and letting your hand slide down it until your hand connected with his. He squeezed it in comfort, before wrapping his arms around your body, holding you against him tightly, your hands toying with his fingers.

“I’m tired.” You whispered. “Do you mind if I fall asleep right here?”

Once more, Shang-Chi chuckled. “Of course not, babe.”

“Thank you.” You mumbled, sinking into his arms, nausea slowly subsiding as your mind finally drifted off.

You were glad he had been understanding, instead of cocky and full of himself at the moment. He did not mention your stubbornness earlier or your stupid comments. And you were thankful for that. You were far too tired or nauseous to deal with these comments now. They’d have to wait until tomorrow morning. Besides, a cold shower was next on the agenda, whether Ta Lo had that or not.

Taglist: @wlfstxr

#shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #shang chi #Xu shanqi #simu liu #marvel #MCU #Avengers #shangqi x reader #shang chi x reader #shang chi imagine

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