#i love my fellow authors and creators. I really do. but OH MY GOD.

[lilybug-02]

This has happened to me way too many times for it be normal.

[smoochkooks]

—the (un)holy cock-up (m.)

⟶ pairing: park jimin/reader

⟶ genre: smut, angst 

⟶ word count: 14.5k

⟶ warnings: explicit sexual content, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, profanity, unnecessary amount of biblical puns, some critic on catholic church, this is a heavy read be aware

⟶ summary: there is a quite long list of circumstances, with student loan and rent on the very top of it, that led you to work in the sunday’s spirit editorial department, a newspaper overally known among fellow catholic community of busan, with park jimin as your boss.

when your small cock-up goes unnoticeably out of your hand, you find yourself in a situation painted in all shades of wrong.

or, alternatively: when it’s forbidden, it tastes bittersweet.

a/n: please, before you read this: take the warnings seriously. this is not a light read, it touches some heavy and quite controversial topics. tit also involves a scene where a person in charge exhibits inappropriate behavior towards their subordinate which I do not condone, however it’s all done with consent.

ps. im really proud of this work so give me some love please:(

Fingertips typing furiously on the keyboards, sights focused on the computers’ screens, brows furrowed, minds utterly concentrated and all of this accompanied by angelic voices of various religious songs playing in the background.

This is how a typical day at Sunday’s Spirit editorial department goes by.

The newspaper is a local source of information for the catholic community not only in the city of Busan, but in the whole country. Its history starts in 70s, when Park Min-Sung with his wife started publishing the very first version of the Sunday’s Spirit, selling copies in front of churches. Young activists definitely hadn’t anticipated such a big success, especially due to hard times of the military dictatorship in Korea, but two decades later they have become one of the most affluent families in Busan. The newspaper remains the Park’s legacy till these days, being owned by Min-Sung’s son, with the original founder’s grandson Jimin as an editor-in-chief.

Sometimes you ponder how did you end up in this kind of situation. Sitting at your desk with eyes glued to the screen, working for the catholic newspaper with Mary did you know and other holy songs playing from the Spotify’s Blessed Hits playlist.

First of all, you aren’t quite a Jesus stan yourself. Not a regular churchgoer, Bible reader or a person who lives according to God’s will with Ten Commandments written on your heart and soul.

Someone may wonder, what a young, aspiring journalist like you is doing here? Yes, that’s right.

Money is the reason.

The perspectives of wealthy life as a presenter in the national television or a host in the radio were just a mirage, because after receiving your master degree in journalism you realised that, unfortunately, a bright future was bright only in your unreal dreams.

The case was simple. You needed money. Your bank account was literally screaming at you to get your shit together and figure something out before you end up under the bridge. So you started searching for a job, looking over various offers on the Internet for two weeks straight. A waitress? Nah, too clumsy for that. Jewelry seller? Definitely not, since you are a happy owner of a few pairs of earrings from etsy-like online shop that certainly have nothing to do with real gold. You were almost convinced you’re destined to be a sexworker but then you stumbled upon an offer from the Sunday’s Spirit.

It was your chance. A God himself decided to take pity on you.

In that exact moment the genre of the newspaper wasn’t important. The vision of bankruptcy was enough for you to wear knee-length black skirt, white button-up shirt and a pair of high heels you’ve never worn before and go on a job interview with plastered smile on your face, looking delightful like you have just given birth to Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

All the Hollywood actresses could be put into shame after your Oscar-winning performance you acted out on the interview in front of middle-aged woman in checked jacket that no one wears since 90s. Your enthusiasm and assurance you live good, catholic woman’s life, along with your master degree and motivational letter (you added a quote from The Letter to Philipians at the end of it to spice it up) was enough to be accepted for the position of Ask and you shall find column creator.

The job itself wasn’t complex or tough. The newspaper on its online site has a page where people can create an account and send asks to the author of the column who responds to them. You did something wrong and you aren’t sure it should be considered a sin? Having problems with regular praying on mornings and evenings? Write to us and we will solemnly help you with the God’s blessing, it says.

This is basically how it works. Each week, the said journalist chooses the most interesting questions and answers to make an article to the Sunday’s Spirit’s next publication. Of course, you can’t answer those questions the way you would like. You must do it according to the catholic laws and God’s plan (the True God’s plan, not Drake’s). A woman who interviewed you even gave you a notebook full of already made-up responses and a list of things you definetely mustn’t write if you still want to be employed.

To be completely frank, you don’t hate your job that much. You actually feel kind of nice, helping other people with their problems. You’ve been doing this for six months now and during this period of time you got used to some things.

A ‘Jesus, I trust you’ framed picture you swore your mother gave you on your 16th birthday standing on your desk. Holy beats blasting through the speakers until you leave the office at 5pm. A big-ass cross hanging right in front of the entrance to the editorial. Lee Chin-sun, the Weekly News column author, rushing to Park Jimin’s bureau every day at different hours in her pencil skirts and high heels knocking on the floor.

There’s only the Pentecost in the middle of the office that could actually surprise you.

“Looks like our Mary Magdalene is going to Jesus cave again,” mutters Kim Taehyung, the newspaper’s main photographer, friend from your desk and, actually, the only friend you have here. Very much gay and just like you, in desperate need for money. “It’s her third visit today. I wonder what it is this time. New prayer to Pope Francis she found?” he whispers and you chuckle at that quietly, looking around if anyone pays attention to your conversation, but everyone seems busy doing their own stuff. “Maybe she’s sucking his dick right now and we all think they are playing Who said it? Bible edition,” he adds in a hushed tone.

You start thinking about it for a while. Is that really possible for someone like Park Jimin, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday’s Spirit to have a sexual relationship with his coworker? The man who has a smaller version of Pietà in his office?

“I mean look at him. I would smash that ass too.”

You roll your eyes at Taehyung words, going back to your previous task but every time you try to concentrate, the face of your boss appears in front of your eyes uncontrollably.

Truth to be told, Park Jimin was a sight.

Blond hair, always perfectly styled and simply parted in the middle, revealing his forehead. Dark, sharp eyes that seem to pierce right through your soul and full, plump lips which could only be described as kissable.

He wears only high fashion brands, wandering through the office in Prada and Tom Ford suits that hugs his sculpted body just right. You think that as for a person who never misses Sunday’s mass, Park Jimin has also nice thighs. And a fine piece of ass, as Taehyung would describe it.

Newest Rolex that costs probably more than you will ever earn in your entire life on his wrist, Mercedes who just got brought out to the international market standing on his parking spot in front of the building, an apartment in the most luxurious area in Busan.

Park Jimin inhales God’s mercy and exhales money.

You spoke to him more explicitly only once, on your first day at work. He greeted you and wished good luck, saying that everything will be fine because you know, God’s good. Since that day, Park Jimin seems out of your reach. You contact him only through email, sending articles for him to check and approve, occasionally receiving some short message from him to improve this and that. He rarely leaves his office during working hours but when he does, it’s either for business meetings outside the editorial or for a lunch at nearby restaurant.

There’s also one, special occasion, every Friday, that’s a sacred time for all the employees. The clock hits 12am and so it begins. The angelic voices stop singing and everybody shifts on their sits.

“Oh, Holy Judas. I almost forgot about my favourite part of the week,” Taehyung sighs, standing up from his desk. And by that, he means-

“Friday’s Bible contemplation lunch break, everyone please gather up at the cafeteria.” Park Jimin’s sweet as honey voice says through the speakers.

You stand up from your chair with reluctance. Taking food with you, you go to the cafeteria, following Taehyung.

That’s actually the next thing you got used to while working at Sunday’s Spirit. Bible contemplation meetings are, as you found out from Taehyung, Jimin’s idea after he became an editor-in-chief almost one year ago. Every Friday all the workers sit together, eat their lunches and listen to Jimin as he reads a certain chapter from the book with true admiration written on their faces. After that, he usually asks some questions holding a discussion among the participants who, unlike you, happily takes part in.

The cafeteria looks rather normal, like any other lunchrooms you see in offices. Painted in bright yellow colors, with a few tables and a typical kitchen set in the back. Except for one thing.

A replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper hanging on the wall.

You decided a long time ago that you don’t want to know how much money it cost Jimin to have something like that here.

The newspaper’s workers, almost like the twelve Apostles, sit together by the tables. Lee Chin-sun at the very front, looking completely mesmerized by today’s Park Jimin’s appearance. He’s wearing navy blue suit that Taehyung swears it’s from Hugo Boss. The place next to Chin-sun is always occupied by tall, black-haired guy named Choi Eunwoo, main graphic designer, hopelessly in love with her since his first days at work. Behind them there’s a group from emendation department, with their leader Min Yoongi and other journalists. You always sit with Taehyung at the back, near the kitchen, not necessarily paying attention to what’s happening in the front.

Jimin, as on every Friday, walks to the small podium, designed to look like a pulpit in the church and opens the Bible. But one thing is odd: Jimin ain’t no priest or altar boy himself and he certainly dosen’t look like one, flipping through the pages of what you think it’s New Testament this time.

From your point of view, you could practically see how Chin-sun sighs with content expression on her face, lacing her fingers together on the lap and straightening her back. Eunwoo, on the other hand, shifts uncomfortably on his seat, sending Chin-sun quick glances full of unspoken longing she never acknowledges, to his dismay.

Then, Park Jimin clears his throat and the whole cafeteria goes quiet.

Truth to be told, you never really listen to what he’s reading. This time is no different. You just chew on your avocado sandwich, occasionally taking a sip of coffee. Your boss’ smooth voice reaches your ears faintly but you don’t pay attention to it, focusing on eating and Taehyung’s hushed rumbling instead.

“Look at our Mary Magdalene, she looks like she might burst a nut just by listening to CEO Jesus,” he says, making you peek at the girl.

Mary Magdalene is a nickname that Taehyung made up for Chin-sun when he started working at Sunday’s Spirit, mainly because of her attitude and relationship with Jimin. It’s rather platonic, at least for now. She looks at him with pure admiration on her face and she literally melts everytime he smiles at her. But Chin-sun’s ‘stalking’ isn’t unreasonable. Her father is a well-known philanthropist in Busan. He donates catholic charities, churches and, what’s the most interesting – he has some connections with Jimin’s father, the owner of Sunday’s Spirit.

And here’s the thing: Chin-sun’s hare and hounds definitely have some hidden reason. Maybe the whole marriage thing that has become a gossip in the office is true. Which makes poor Eunwoo’s situation even worse.

“Sometimes I wonder why has he fallen in love with her in first place,” you whisper, pointing at the graphic designer. “He knows he stands no chance against Jimin.”

“What can I say, you can’t help who you fall in love with.” Taehyung muses almost poetically, shrugging his shoulders.

You hum at that, placing your coffee cup on the table and looking around the cafeteria. It seems like Jimin has ended his reading session for today and now he invites everyone to join the discussion about the topic. He flashes Chin-sun a gentle smile and you could swear the girl is biting her lip.

On the corner of your eye you see Taehyung smirking.

“What?” you ask.

Taehyung takes a sip of his coffee lazily (it’s always caramel macchiato), peering at Jimin. “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if our boss really wants to settle not only with Chin-sun, but anyone in general,” he says languidly.

You furrow your brows. “What makes you think that? I mean, look at him. He probably waits with sex till marriage.” you snort.

Taehyung chuckles at your words. “Ah, sweetheart, you really know nothing about Park Jimin.”

“What do you mean?”

He moves closer to you, leaning towards your ear. “What I mean,” he whispers, “is that Park Jimin isn’t such a prude everyone thinks he is. At least he didn’t use to be.”

You raise your eyebrows at him with disbelief. “What? He’s secretly gay?” you mock.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I wish, but no, he isn’t,” he answers with a sigh. “Do you know Min Yoongi from emendation team?” he then asks, pointing at grey-haired man with feline eyes sitting behind Chin-sun.

You nodd your head. Min Yoongi is a hard to read guy. Always suspiciously silent, practically never leaves his office. Something makes you wonder how did Taehyung end up befriending him enough to casually gossip about the boss. You will ask him about this on another occasion.

“So here’s the thing,” Taehyung begins, lowering the volume of his voice. “He used to study at the same university in Seoul with Jimin. They even had been together in the fraternity. Yoongi-hyung told me some juicy details about our boss’ life back then.”

You frown at his words. “And you are telling me this now?!” you hiss.

“I found out literally two days ago!” Taehyung exclaims, maybe a little too loud, so you quickly place your index finger on your lips, shushing him.

“Fine. Continue.” you whisper, looking around to see if anyone pays attention to you.

“Well, Park Jimin used to be a trouble back then. A golden boy of his family in Busan, but a campus fuckboy and obnoxious heartbreaker in Seoul. He smoked cigarettes, drank enormous amounts of alcohol, got wasted on every weekend, missed classes and changed hair colors as often as his girlfriends. By the way, don’t you think he would slay pink hair?”

“Taehyung can you please–”

“Okay, okay. Enough thirsting over Jimesus. So, as you can see, there was no place for Sunday’s mass and Bible contemplation meetings in his life. And here’s the awaited plotwist. His parents somehow found out his son wasn’t living good catholic life on his studies and got extremely pissed off. They simply gave him an ultimatum: if he doesn’t stop his shenanigans, they will cut him off their money and they won’t make him Sunday’s Spirit heir.” Taehyung stops his rumbling for a while, letting you proceed all the bewildering informations about your dear boss he has just revealed.

Your eyes simply widen at the revelations.

Park Jimin, the man who organises Bible contemplation lunch breaks, a regular churchgoer, someone who you always thought has a cross tattooed on his back, was a playboy who slept with a half of the female community in the university?

Interesting.

“Rest of the story is simple. He changed his behavior, got a master degree in journalism and came back to Busan to work here. What is funny, his first position was the same as yours now,” Taehyung ends his story with a light chuckle. “Now you understand why it’s hard for me to believe he really thinks about getting married and having at least three kids.”

You look up at Park Jimin, who’s standing now in the centre of the cafeteria, with his arms crossed over his chest, nodding at one of the journalists words. His gaze is so intense and filled with such an authority that makes you understand why Chin-sun literally squirms when he looks at her that way.

It’s not hard for you to imagine him in much different surroundings.

Him, standing with a cup of beer in his hand in the middle of the crowd of drunken people at some frat party. There’s a leather jacket on his shoulders and he’s wearing tight-fitting pants that hugs his gorgeous thighs much better than his usual slacks he puts on every day before he sets off to work. He scans the room with a mishevious smirk dancing on his features, biting and licking his lips as he looks for his prey for tonight.

He then spots her, his pick for the night. He runs his fingers through his silky locks and approaches the girl, whispering dirty promises to her ear as he sways their bodies to the rhythm of loud music blasting through the speakers. Later that night he has her underneath him, begging him to touch her. He fucks her hard, leaving bruises all over her limp, exhausted body. There will be soreness between her thighs in the morning and a few violet love bites on her neck, a gentle reminder that all of this wasn’t just a dream.

But there’s no warm body next to her she could wake up to, no ‘good morning, baby’ or a second round of love making between the sheets. Because Park Jimin isn’t like that. He waited until her breath slowed down and eyelids fluttered shut, drifting her off to sleep. He left in the middle of the night, a cigarette caught between his swollen from kisses lips. He fumed the poison and smiled to himself, wondering what his parents would think when they found out. A golden boy of his family, future heir of the Park’s legacy, coming back from one of his sexcapeds with girl which name he didn’t even remember.

The Lord himself must have already cursed him and he’s currently planning the punishments for him in depths of Hell. But does Park Jimin look like he really care?

You stare blankly ahead, imagining those scenes in your head. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs because God, yes, Park Jimin is hot, even if he reads Breviary before he goes to sleep. What a shame he has changed. 

A smooth like honey voice pulls you out from your airy-fairy slumber.

“Miss Y/N?”

You jolt in panic after hearing your name, glancing around and praying that wasn’t the person you think it was. But this silky, melodious voice you would recognize everywhere.

God hates you though, he knows what kind of scandalous things you were daydreaming about and now it’s his time to punish you.

Looking up, your gaze settles on no one other than Park Jimin, who stares at you with his left eyebrow raised, pursing his lips. He extinguishes the aura of pure dominance around him and you involuntarily blush, squirming under his intense glare. You’re royally screwed.

You clear your throat, trying to calm down rapidly beating heart. Without success.

“Yes, sir?” you manage to answer innocently. Certainly not like you weren’t thinking about being fucked by him minutes ago. You don’t even have time to be surprised he remembers your name.

Park Jimin looks unamazed by your sweet tone; he almost seems bored, but definitely irritated. “I asked you a question and I’m waiting for your response.” he says lowly.

Fuckfuckfuck. God have mercy on you. What was the question? Shit, you don’t even know what fragment he had read before.

In act of complete desperation you elbow Taehyung for help but this little shit pretends he has no idea what’s going on, looking at The Last Supper with sudden interest.

You are purely, loyally, utterly fucked.

You adopt the most charming smile you could muster, knowing that it will have zero affect on Park Jimin and ask, “Could you repeat the question one more time, sir? I’m afraid I didn’t hear you correctly.” Jesus, when has your voice become so high-pitched?

A cruel smirks forms on Park Jimin’s lips. He shakes his head, tsking. Taehyung mutters something under his breath that sounds dangerously close to “It was nice meeting you, sweetheart.” You gulp, waiting for your sentence and hoping Pontius Pilate will be gracious to you.

“My, my,” Jimin muses. It makes you feel like a little girl being scolded by the teacher due to her outrageous behavior. You bite your lip so hard you might draw blood, waiting for your boss’ next words. “Of course you didn’t hear my question, because you weren’t paying attention to our discussion.”

In the corner of your eye you see Chin-sun shaking her head with detestation. What a bitch, you think to yourself.

You take a deep breath then, nails digging crescent moons on the skin of your palms. You don’t like being in the spotlight, you never did, but now you have no choice but face the consequences. “My deepest apologies, sir. The behavior I exhibited was highly inappropriate,” you say, bowing your head. Jimin eyes your figure from head to toe and you might actually feel his burning gaze on your skin. Your cheeks flush in crimson even more.

The editor-in-chief seems to deliberate with himself for a while, turning his head slightly to the side, not breaking the eye contact with you. Finally, after a moment that seems to last an hour, he speaks.

“I think you need a lesson that will teach you to pay attention to our weekly discussions, miss Y/N. That’s why I want you to write a 4000 words long paper about the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ’s life which we had discussed today but you, unfortunately, didn’t acknowledge it.”

You freeze. Like a scene in the movie, everything stops. The embarassement you felt earlier is quickly replaced by pure anger and irritation. He wants you to write a fucking paper? What is this? University lectures?

Never before in your entire life have you felt so humiliated. All eyes are on you; you could practically sense how they are trying not to laugh out loud. Eunwoo and Taehyung look at you with apologetic faces while Chin-sun smirks, whispering something to Jimin’s ear.

“I apologize once again, sir,” you grit through your teeth with a forced smile. Jimin nods then, not even bothering to look at you again. You’re dismissed, that’s what his behavior is saying.

“Our meeting is over, you can go back to your work.” Jimin announces and walks away from the cafeteria with Chin-sun by his side.

You wait for everyone to leave and the you let out a groan of annoyance, burring your head in your hands.

“Hey, it could have been worse. He didn’t fire you after all.” Taehyung laughs but he quickly shuts up as soon as he sees your glare. You stand up from your chair with a scowl written all over your face, and storm out of the lunchroom.

And may the God help you.

Later that unfortunate day, you sit by your desk again, scrolling through the Ask and you shall find page absentmindedly and waiting for the new asks to come. Everyone has returned to their work like nothing has happened but it doesn’t stop you from feeling all those eyes constantly on your back. Maybe you weren’t fired but the humiliation and embarrassment of being told off by your boss publicly makes you want to disappear and never show up at the editorial again.

“Y/N,” Taehyung’s deep voice pulls you out of your thoughts. You look up at him and find the man smiling at you lightly. He’s wearing a long, camel coat and a big scarf around his neck with ridiculous patterns that reminds you of Persian diwans. He places his black camera bag on the desk, which means he’s leaving the office. “I’m free of office work for today so I just wanted to say goodbye.” he explains and you just nod.

“Bye, Taehyung. See you on Monday.” you say maybe a little bit to wryly and he feels that, letting out a long sigh.

Taehyung seems to deliberate with himself for a moment before he decides to speak again. He clears his throat audibly. “And I, uhm, I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you are in this situation. I started this conversation and I should be the one writing this stupid paper for Mister Prude.”

You can’t help but chuckle at the new nickname Taehyung gave Jimin. The anger you felt before drifts away from you slowly, and you smile at your friend apologetically. “Oh, God, Tae. I’m such a bitch sometimes, sorry,” you blurt out.”I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at him. Besides, maybe that’s good I’ve got homework. I don’t remember when was the last time I wrote some-”

Your words are interrupted by a loud laugh that resonates through the office. You look in the direction of the voice just to see Chin-sun with her manicured hand on Jimin’s chest, throwing her head back from the laughter, too dramatically for your taste. She seems to have changed her clothes, a black pencil skirt long forgotten and replaced by a red, bodycon dress. Her dark hair is also styled differently, curled and loose. She looks beautiful, matching Jimin’s appearance perfectly.

“Where are they going?” Taehyung whispers to you, furrowing his brows. You shrug your shoulders, tearing your eyes of Chin-sun and Jimin. “Maybe our Mary Magdalene’s plan to win Jesus’ heart is working. Poor Eunwoo,” he sighs, looking at his watch to check the time. “Anyway, I gotta go. I have to drive all the way to some shithole near the city to take photos of an old lady who swears she saw saint Francis or other dude with halo speaking to her,” he grumbles and you giggle at his words. “Good luck with your paper, sweetheart.” he leans and places a small peck on your cheek.

“Bye, Tae.” you say, watching him leave the office right after Jimin and Chin-sun.

You let out a long, tired sigh, counting the time to leave the office and finally be back home, with a bottle of red wine and new season of Game of Thrones that are waiting for you to watch the whole week. Then, when you’re about to stand up and make yourself another coffee, a new ask pops up in your inbox with the title ‘Sex S.O.S’.

You raise your eyebrows because honestly, what kind of title is this? Curiosity wins the battle with a hot cup of an americano and you click the show more button. You put on your prescription glasses and start reading.

Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,

My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyfriend. And here’s where the actual problem begins. I’m from the catholic family with long traditions, and as you can guess, he isn’t.

We’ve been together for almost 2 years now and since my parents don’t want me to live with him before the marriage, there’s also no sexual life between us. I was actually surprised they agreed I can date a non-religious person in first place, so the rules weren’t that horrible at the beginning.

My boyfriend always seemed to be understanding about the fact that I’m catholic and he has never had issues against it because I stated this on the start of our relationship, but lately… he’s been distant. We meet up less often and I feel like simple kissing after 2 years isn’t enough for him. I even thought about initiating something that wouldn’t necessarily involve the real intercourse but I’m too inexperienced and shy for that. We are slowly drifting apart.

I don’t know what to do. I love him so much and I don’t want to lose him just because of some stupid rules I need to follow. I’m scared he will leave me for some other beautiful girl who wouldn’t have anything against sleeping with him, especially after considering the fact that he isn’t virgin unlike me and he experienced this kind of pleasure before.

I hope you will help me.

Yours faithfully,

Kang Seoyeon.

You blink once, twice. Read the message again and then, something snaps in you.

To Hell with these stupid, old-fashioned rules straight from the Middle Ages. To Hell with celibacy till marriage, masturbation prohibition and living according to God’s will. To Hell with Park Jimin and his ridiculous moral code (and his Bible contemplation lunchbreaks).

Unofficial eleventh commandment: If a girl wants a dick, she deserves to have it.

And that’s exactly what your response to the girl is in a nutshell.

Your blood boils in your veins with anger as you’re typing furiously on the keyboard, not even bothering to check if your sudden outburst makes any sense.

Dear Seoyeon,

It’s Y/N here, the journalist who you wrote this message to.

I don’t know what kind of response are you expecting from me but honestly? If you think I’m going to recommend you some praying to Saint Rita then you’re wrong. I’m done with this shit.

Let me make this straight: if you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy.

They are plenty of worse things in this world than having sex with the person you love. Look at me. I’m literally writing to catholic newspaper while using words like ‘God’ and ‘Fuck’ in the same sentence. And that’s not even a small piece of what I’ve done in my life.

So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this. You have my blessings and Jesus is giving you metaphysical thumbs up from above. Sex is amazing thing and you don’t have to wait for it until you say ‘yes’ in front of some guy in black cassock. Just go with the flow.

 May the God help you!

Love, Y/N.

P.S. Watch out that guy. He seems suspicious. If he’s been really sex deprived for two years he will die after you give him a head.

Sent.

You exhale loudly, staring at the screen. You did that. Six months into working in Sunday’s Spirit and the time when you lost your temper has finally come. You should probably feel ashamed or have some type of conscience pangs but actually you aren’t even near this state.

Grinning to yourself, you delete the message you had sent to the girl from your inbox and check the time. It’s almost 5pm and it looks like you haven’t even realised you’re the only person at the office right now. Since it’s Friday and Jimin has already left, seems like everyone has decided to set off earlier too.

You turn off your computer, packing your things to the bag. Wrapping a scarf around your neck tightly, you leave the building, welcoming the coolness of the early Spring evening in Busan.

When you’re about to cross the street, your phone buzzes in the pocket of your coat. You stop for a moment, smiling to yourself when you read the message.

[04:23pm] from Tae: hey

[04:23pm] from Tae: i know you are probably planning an evening with mary magdalene n jesus but

[04:23pm] from Tae: wouldnt u want to go for drinks with me tonight?

[04:23pm] from Tae: same place as usual

[04:24pm] from Tae: as a wise man once said: nothing helps better for the writer’s block than vodka

[04:24pm] from Tae: so what do u say?

You don’t need to think twice when you quickly type a response. Game of Thrones and wine can wait till another time.

[04:26pm] from me: how could i say no to kim taehyung and vodka?

[04:26pm] from me: see u there

Kim’s is a place like no one other in Busan.

You wouldn’t even know about its existence if it wasn’t Taehyung who took you there first when you started working at Sunday’s Spirit, solemnly promising free drinks. Who would you be if you didn’t agree to that?

When you arrived at the bar, it eventually turned out the alcohol was costless hence it’s his family business since over thirty years and his brother Namjoon is a bartender, not because Taehyung willingly decided to pay for you.

Kim’s is located in rather industrial part of the city, sandwiched between factories and huge housing estates, not looking really inviting at first glance, but the place has its own, unique charm. There are some stories, shrouding the building’s history in mystery. Some people say it used to be headquarters of the most dangerous mafia in Busan, some even believe it served as the secret arsenal during the Korean War.

But what’s definitely true, it’s the fact that Taehyung’s parents bought this place in swinging times of 80s for a small amount of money and turned the place into disco bar which had become a must-go spot for young people in Busan.

Kim’s on the outside, with its large red neon sign hanging above the entrance, looks more like a night club than a bar, but on the inside the magic of kitschy 80s still remains the same (Taehyung swears retro is in fashion these days and that’s why he didn’t let his parents redecorate when they wanted to).

You always feel like you’re traveling back in time when you visist Kim’s.

The place is quite big, with a large dancefloor in the middle and red leather sofas strewn around the place along with the tables. Walls are made of brick and colorful, vibrant neon lights are shimmering on them. Oh, not to mention the huge disco ball on the ceiling. Everything accompanied with the quality music provided by Namjoon.

There are few billiard and foosball tables in the corner of the bar, always occupied by the same group of middle-aged men on weekdays and university students on weekends. But the thing that attract attention of the customers the most, is the bar with Namjoon behind it.

When you enter the place, you spot Taehyung and his blond mop of hair immediately. He sits on one of the bar stools, talking to his older brother. He’s wearing beige pants and floral button-up shirt that seems to match colors with his pinkish-looking drink he holds. You notice a new pair of sapphire earrings and a huge ring from the same collection on his forefinger. Classy, as always.

Taehyung grins broadly when he sees you. He puts his drink on the counter and stands up to greet you. His breath smells like strawberries and vodka when he leans to place his usual, small peck on your cheek. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says with his signature smirk plastered on his face, scanning your figure. “You look gorgeous. Last time you did this kind of make-up you wanted to get laid.”

You rolls your eyes at his words, sitting on a stool next to him. “Hi, Taehyung. Thank you for appreciating my efforts to look like a decent human being but no, I’m not planning on getting laid tonight.” you answer, waving to Namjoon who makes drinks for a group of girls a few meters from you. He smiles bashfully at you, showing his dimples.

“I’m not saying you want a fuck, calm down. I just assumed since it’s not everyday that you put eyeliner on,” Taehyung explains himself. “So let me do that again,” He takes a deep breath, placing a hand on his chest in a dramatic manner. “Y/N, you look absolutely breathtaking. I could stare at you for hours and I wouldn’t mind that even a bit. My homosexuality is at risk right now.”

You ignore his exeggarated outburst, rolling your eyes. “I’m not using eyeliner everyday because there’s something called dresscode in our work, you know?” you say. “Besides, my mum says you should look good on every occasion because you don’t know when you will meet the love of your life.”

Taehyung puts a hand on his heart and sighs with relief. “Thank God I always look good.”

You chuckle and then your eyes wander for a moment to Namjoon, who seems busy listening to whatever the pink-haired girl is telling him with polite smile on his face.

“Here,” Taehyung nudges your side, bringing your attention back to him. He hands you the same pinkish drink as he was drinking when you arrived. “Hyung told me it’s their new specialty or something. It’s called Flamingo’s Beach,” he says and you take the glass in your hand. “I have no idea what Namjoonie-hyung put here but as long as it looks good, it’s good. Cheers!” Taehyung sips his one and watches you with raised eyebrows as you’re taking a generous gulp of the drink. “And…?” he asks.

You lick your lips, humming to yourself. “Not bad. Tastes like strawberries.”

Taehyung opens his mouth to say something but he gets interrupted by his brother. “Y/N, hi. How are you?” Namjoon approaches you with two beer mugs in his hands.

His hair is back to his natural brown color now, purple strands long forgotten since the last time you saw him. It looks like he’s been working out lately, his posture more bulky and it makes his black shirt stick to his body tightly. Namjoon’s good-looking, you always knew that, but he seems to be even more handsome now.

“Hey, I’ve been good, thank you,” you greet him with maybe too much enthusiasm for your liking. You always had a weak spot for him. “How’s the bar going?” you ask.

“Busy, as you can see,” he replies, chuckling to himself. “I would love to talk to you more but I have some work to do in back room, so…” Namjoon trails off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

“Oh, it’s okay. We can catch up another time.” You smile at him and you could swear his cheeks flushed.

“I’ll be going. See you.” Namjoon stammers out, not even waiting for your response before he disappears from your sight.

The pregnant silence sets in between you and Taehyung, something heavy hangs in the air and you feel it, tapping your fingers on the counter to the rhythm of one of the ABBA songs, waiting impatiently.

Taehyung looks like he’s debating with himself in his head. You narrow your eyes. He’s adopted a face you know pretty well, too well even. He looks everywhere but keep avoiding your gaze. He wants to ask you something, you’re sure of it, but he doesn’t know how.

Finally, after a moment of awkward quietness, Taehyung finally opens his mouth. “So, here’s the thing,” he starts and you wait for the bomb to drop.

Last time when he approached you like that, he asked you if you would be down for a threesome with him and some guy he met on Tinder. Your eyes almost popped out of your head when you heard his blunt proposition. You were eating lunch at cafeteria and the words casually slipped from between his lips as he chewed on his egg sandwich, like he didn’t just propose you having sex with him and instead asked for a lift to home after work.

Taehyung begged you for a whole week, pleading and convincing it’ll be fun. When you eventually agreed (sex draught make people do stupid things), the other guy didn’t show up. You ended up drinking tequila shots with Taehyung that night in his apartment, and you can’t quite recall how it happened, but somehow you found yourself unzipping your friend’s pants and the rest is history. He passed out right after he came. Now when you think about it, you feel a sudden urge to ask him if he remembers that.

You will do it next time, you promise yourself.

Taehyung though doesn’t ask you about having a threesome or robbing Park Jimin’s house this time. His intentions are pretty much different.

“See, Namjoon split up with his girlfriend few weeks ago,” he says and you prick your ears. “He’s not in good condition right now, as you can see. It was a nasty break up, he found out she’s been cheating on him,” He lets out a long sigh. You bite your lip, imagining Namjoon’s disappointed face when he discovered the truth. What a bitch cheats on someone like him? “So, I thought maybe you could… cheer him up a little bit?” Taehyung ends hesitantly, with a glint of hope in his eyes.

You frown. Cheer him up? Did he just imply what you think about?

“Look, I get it, he’s sad and angry, but what the fuck, Taehyung? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to be his rebound? Make him forget?” you exclaim. Taehyung quickly shakes his head but you don’t let him say anything. “I feel sorry for Namjoon but I’m not going to take advantage of him when he’s literally still hurt.”

“No, it’s not like that!” Taehyung rushes to explain. “Well, maybe it sounded like that but I swear, I didn’t mean that!”

“Then what should I do? Wipe his tears? Tell him a joke? Or maybe-”

“Of course he wants you to suck his brother’s heartbroken dick, doll.”

A sudden, low voice interrupts your conversation. Your eyes follow the direction when it comes from, looking to Taehyung’s left where not even a meter away a very familiar grey-haired man with feline eyes sits.

“Min Yoongi,” you say matter-of-factly.

The leader of emendation team from Sunday’s Spirit editorial raises his hand in which he holds whiskey, greeting you and Taehyung. “Hello, doll. Hello, Taehyung,” he says, not even bothering to look at you.

You elbow Taehyung searching for explanation but he shrugs his shoulders, turning to face the man as well.

“First of all, since when do you call me ‘doll’? We have never spoken a word to each other. Secondly, how long have you been sitting here and listening?” you ask Yoongi.

He snorts, smirking. “Long enough to know how Taehyung comforts his brother after break up.” he simply answers and Taehyung’s cheeks blush in crimson at his words.

“You come here often? I’ve never seen you here before,” you continue, crossing your arms over chest.

Next to you Taehyung lets out a sigh. “Yes, he does. Albeit I haven’t seen him for a while here,” You look at him in confusion. “Yoongi-hyung is Namjoonie-hyung close friend from university days.” he clarifies.

You raise your eyebrows at that. “So Namjoon went to the same school as Park Jimin?”

“Not the same. We met under different circumstances.” Yoongi cuts in.

“They’ve been together in underground rap group, or some shit. Didn’t like each other at first but eventually stuck together till the end of studies.” Taehyung ends and grey-haired man nods.

You can’t help but chuckle at that.

“What’s funny in that?” Yoongi scowls.

“Nothing. I just imagined you and Namjoon in snapbacks, rapping about the unfairness of social hierarchy,” you say, grinning at him.

“Well, you may believe me or not, but we even made a mixtape.” Yoongi reveals proudly, taking a sip of his whiskey.

Your eyes widen in curiosity. “Then what happened? Why aren’t you in Seoul now, still producing music? Why do you work in this stupid newspaper and Namjoon’s a bartender?” you ask interrogatively.

“Life happened, doll. We didn’t have enough money to publish our works so we decided to quit it.”

“Oh,” you breathe out.

You could see the nostalgia written across Yoongi’s face. You feel sorry for him, for Namjoon. Everything is always about the money. That’s why you’re working in Sunday’s Spirit even though it was never your dream in first place. Even though you have much higher ambitions than being Ask and you shall find column author.

Ever since you were little, you loved writing. You never complained, not even once, when your teachers in school assigned you to write something. They kept saying you have an extraordinary talent and it would be a shame if you didn’t do anything with that.

During your high school years, you were the leader of school newspaper’s team, still writing your own works every time you didn’t have something different to do. After that, you got to the university in Seoul, your another dream came true. You got a master degree, an apprenticeship in the Korean version of highly popular, world-widely known magazine. And then, nothing. No job applications available. No newspapers or publishing companies wanting you, dismissing you right away because they didn’t have any vacant places.

This is how Sunday’s Spirit, even if that’s not your dream job, happened. And quite literally saved your ass.

“I’m sorry.” you say after a while.

Yoongi smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t be. What’s in past, stays in past.” he ends the conversation, drinking the rest of his whiskey.

You find this as a perfect possibility to do what you’ve come here for: get wasted, forget about this prick Park Jimin and his stupid assignment. You turn around on your stool to face the bar again, calling for the red-haired bartender named Hoseok who’s substituting Namjoon right now. You order a round of tequilla shots and quickly pours two of them in one go.

“Easy, tiger,” Taehyung teases, still sipping his pink drink as you wipe your chin with the back of your hand. Taehyung has stated a long time ago that he enjoys only casual drinking, which makes you and you lightweightness snort at him.

“Loser,” you mumble under your breath, deep down knowing you’re oh so much going to regret this after.

You focus your attention on the dancefloor now; technicolor lights glittering as the crowd of sweaty people bounce to old Madonna hits. You feel like your spirit might actually experience new kind of awakening during the chorus in Like a Virgin. You mouth the lyrics, the vodka already half-way to your bopping head. Your drunken self almost asks Taehyung and Yoongi if they would agree to be your backup dancers.

You eyes scan the room carefully and then, you spot him. He’s sitting in the corner, his arms splayed over the backrest of the red couch. A devil himself. A black horseman of the Apocalypse. A man who looks like every girl’s next mistake. Taylor Swift’s ‘we are never ever getting back together’.

A true sin.

Jet-black hair parted in the middle, onyx eyes and lucious smirk written across his lips as he bites them purposefully. He’s wearing a leather jacket and you wonder for a while if you would find inked tattoos on his body. He cocks his head to the side, his eyes glued to the same spot as he waits for something, or rather someone.

“Who’s that?” you ask, not even hiding your curiosity at this point.

Taehyung turns around as well, his eyes glancing to the dark-haired man briefly. “Ah, this, sweetheart, is Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin’s best friend.” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

You raise your eyebrows, watching as Jungkook’s face expression immediately changes when waitress approaches him. He says something to her that makes her roll her eyes. She tightens her grip around the tray she’s holding, asking him for his order.

“Don’t worry. You are not the only one thirsting over him. I would let him top me too,” Taehyung whispers to your ear and you flinch.

“I’m not thirsting over him! I came her for drinks, not to get laid, I told you.”

“Okay, okay, loosen up a little. Tequilla makes you aggressive. Besides, it looks like he’s got his pick for tonight.”

Jungkook stretches out his hand and fixes the waitress’ glasses that seem to rode down her nose a little. The girl frozes in place because of his action and he grins, calling her cute.

“He’s trying to ask her out for two months,” Yoongi interrupts suddenly, again. It looks like he has nothing better to do tonight. “I’m serious. He’s here every Friday. Normally, he would have given up after the second time she had rejected him but there’s might be something in this girl that makes his dick hard and his heart soft.”

Jungkook’s eyes girl’s body as she bends to pick up the glasses from other tables and maybe that’s the alcohol swimming in your veins but you could swear his face lights up when she sends him another irritated glare when he calls her name.

“Does Park Jimin comes here often as well?” you ask before you could stop yourself.

Both Taehyung and Yoongi shake their heads.

“I don’t think so. Jeon comes here because he lives nearby in this huge ass apartment complex. His father runs a chemical factory and he works there.” Taehyung explains.

Jeon? Chemical factory? Something clicks in your brain. Right, you know who his father is. The King of Washing Powder. Another rich as fuck Busan’s snob.

“God, I hate him. I fucking hate him. What a prick. Douchebag. Asshole of the century,” The string of profanities leaves poor waitress’ mouth as she walks to the counter with tray in her hands. “How’s your day, love? You look beautiful today, love. Fucking leave me alone, love!” she mutters to herself, taking the beer mugs from Hoseok abruptly which makes the bartender raise his eyebrows in confusion.

“How’s your assignment about Mary Magdalene going on, doll?” Yoongi asks then, startling you.

You roll your eyes at him. “I literally got it today, Yoongi. I haven’t started yet.” you answer, gulping another shot.

On the corner of your eye you see Yoongi’s smirking. “I’m surprised, to be honest. You aren’t the only one who doesn’t pay attention to shit Jimin’s says,” he trails off. “I work for him from the moment he started this ridiculous Bible lunch breaks and I swear, he’s never called out someone like that before.”

“What do you mean he’s never called out someone before?” Taehyung joins in curiously.

“Look, I slept through the majority of these sessions and Jimin knows it, but he has never lecture me about it,” Yoongi remarks. “Maybe you’re an exception. Or he’s become more strict because of this bitch Chin-sun.”

You furrow your eyebrows, confused. You know Chin-sun has been making heart eyes for Jimin for a long time but what why it might have an influence on his behavior?

“Lee Chin-sun? What the office’s Mary Magdalene has to do with that? Besides the fact that she’s drooling for his dick every time she sees him,” Taehyung snorts.

Yoongi chuckles lowly. “Oh, so you two really know nothing about what’s going on between them right now,”

“What’s going on right now? Spill.” Taehyung says abruptly. You sigh when you see the way his eyes flicker with mischeviousness. One thing Taehyung loves more than photography and fashion is gossiping (and dicks).

“First of all, Chin-sun is a fucking bigot. And well… she might be closer to being miss Park than we thought.” Yoongi muses.

Taehyung eyebrows practically disappear in his hairline. You’re sure you mirror his expression right now.

Yoongi asks Hoseok for another glass of whiskey and continues. “My friend Seokjin’s wife is Jimin’s personal assistant and secretary. She heard this and that, quite juicy things I must say,” he says in a lower tone, like he’s revealing government secrets to them. You lean closer into his direction along with Taehyung. “Chin-sun’s father recently bought the claims to the most popular, conservative TV station in whole South Korea. But, what is more interesting, it looks like Park senior has some shares in it as well.”

You’re astonished. You knew there’s something looming in the air but you didn’t expect this. A TV station? Even your slightly drunken brain can calculate it’s very interesting.

“So the marriage between Chin-sun and Jimin would be pretty convenient for their families, especially after considering the fact that Jimin is the heir.” Yoongi adds, gulping the first sip of his new whiskey.

“Poor Eunwoo,” you whisper to yourself.

“But why so soon? Why do they want to legalize their relationship so suddenly?” Taehyung asks.

Yoongi lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s a rumour going around that Jimin’s father isn’t in good condition right now. Seokjin-hyung mentioned something about the heart disease. So, if that’s really true, you have the answer why he wants his eldest son to settle down already. Everything’s about the money, I told you.”

Taehyung whistles. “Woah, so Mary Magdalene is really about to be CEO Jesus’ wife soon!” he exclaims, clapping his hands. “Brilliant. Finally something spicy is happening in this boring editorial.”

“I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if I were you, Taehyung. This kind of business never ends well,” Yoongi says coldly, placing his glass on the counter and standing up from the stool. He glances at his watch and throws a few bills next to his empty glass. “I’ll get going. It was nice talking to you, doll.”

“What about me?”

“Shut up, Taehyung, you’re not pretty lady.”

“I feel offended.”

“And I don’t care,” Yoongi mutters. Maybe that was alcohol swimming in her veins but you saw Taehyung lifting the corners of his lips in amusement. Weird. “Good luck on your assignment, doll. See you all on Monday.” Yoongi glances to your way one last time, adjusting his jacket.

“Bye, Yoongi.” you wave to him and a small, even sincere smile appears on his face when he as well raises his hand lazily and leaves. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s actually nice, Tae? I was always too scared to start a conversation with him because I felt intimidated.” you say after a while.

“I’m sorry, should have I set you up for a date with him?” Taehyung mocks.

A groan escapes your lips. “Could you please stop insinuating things?”

“You need to get laid, seriously. Like soon-soon. You get easily irritated recently. You need a d i c k,”

“I don’t need a dick!”

“A cock, Y/N,” Taehyung emphasizes. “A penis in your precious vagina.”

“Shut up!”

Several shots and a few drunken dances to Cindi Lauper and Bon Jovi, you’re pretty much wasted. And maybe, just maybe, you need a dick. And Taehyung, like a dipshit he always is, thinks that’s actually funny.

“Don’t wanna homff,” you slur, supporting your weight on Taehyung’s arm that shakes with laughter at your drunken antics, as well as his whole body. “I wanna danfce witfh somebodyyy,”

“Holy Mother of Jesus, you must be really drunk if you started referring to Whitney Houston’s songs. And you smell like booze,” Taehyung mutters under his breath and you whine, tugging on his arm.

“TaeTae, Taehyungie, pffleasee, can we go back?”

Taehyung ignores your grumbling completely. He exists the bar, walking (or rather dragging) you to the cab. As he tries to push your body to the car, he sees in the corner of his eye Jeon Jungkook, standing in front of his black SUV. The waitress from earlier accompanies him as well. It looks like he’s trying to convince her to let him give her a lift to home. The girl shakes her head at first but eventually gives up, stepping into the car. Jungkook grins to himself then, clenching his fists in gesture of pure triumph.

“I fuckin’ hate Park Jimin and his stfupid newspaper,” you mutter incoherently as you bury your head in the crook of Taehyung’s neck in the back of the cab. Old, korean songs are playing in the radio when you’re driving back home. Taehyung smiles to himself, hearing your light snores. But then, he falters.

Ah, yes, he almost forgot. It is going to be a long way to the third floor of your apartment building.

Next day, you wake up in the middle of noon with raging headache and an abrupt need to throw everything up. Frankly speaking, you had worse hangovers during you university days but it doesn’t change the fact that the state you’re currently in still sucks.

“Oh, good God, what have I thought?” you mutter to yourself while standing in the shower, letting the water cool you down.

Truth to be told, a drinking escapade when you have a whole ass paper to write in two days wasn’t the smartest idea you could come up with. You know that for sure, when you’re sitting down in front of your laptop with prescription glasses on your face and a cup of tea in your hand.

There’s a blank document opened on the screen, with only your name written in the corner and the title in the middle. You feel pathetic and useless, staring at it for 30 minutes straight. If you keep sitting like this, you might actually call Park Jimin right now and beg him not to fire you due to your incompetence.

“Get your shit together, Y/N.” you say to yourself, clenching your fists.

At first you fought about making some mind-map, outlining the most important parts of your essay, as you always used to do when you were studying. But there’s a huge difference between what you’re working on right now and what you usually did during academic days. Above all, at that time you were writing about things you had more knowledge about, not about Mary Magdalene and her role in Jesus Christ’s life.

“Ah, fuck it.”

You open an online Bible page and quickly type ‘Mary Magdalene’ in browser. All fragments when she’s mentioned shows up in front of your eyes. You fix your glasses and before you could stop yourself, you whisper, “Let’s get it.”

You don’t know how much time has passed since you started reading, but when you glance a the clock it’s nearly 7pm.

You went through every single page in the Bible when Mary Magdalene appears or when for some reason her name comes up in conversations. You read two thesis in which you found quite interesting facts about the heroine of your work. Also, you watched some conspiracy theories on YouTube about her, in which people claim that she was actually Jesus’ wife. You were bewildered, even in your post-hangover state.

And after all of this researching, you have settled a plan. You’re a journalist for God’s sake, you’ve been writing your entire life and none assignment will break you. So you start typing on the keyboard, filling the blank document pages with words, hoping that Park Jimin will approve your efforts.

On Sunday, you look like a ghost.

You’re a mess, cured from hangover but still in bad shape, especially after spending the whole night writing in front of your laptop. There are bangs under your eyes and you hair looks like you could cosplay a scarecrow. Your eyes are sore from staring to the screen for so long and you feel like you might collapse anytime if you won’t drink coffee in five minutes.

In between writing next paragraphs, you answer a call from Taehyung.

“How’s your assignment going, sweetheart?”

You let out a long, exhausted sigh. “It’s fine, I guess.” you respond to him.

“That’s lovely! I knew you would slay this, babe,” you hear him saying.

“I’m not done yet, Tae. I still have like a half to write,” you mumble and then let out a yawn, closing your eyes for a brief second before you speak again. “I would love to talk to you more but I really need to get this shit done as soon as I can, so I could have some decent sleep before Monday. I don’t want to look like an old witch when I hand in the paper to Park Jimin.”

“I know, I know. You got this, sweetheart. I’m sure you will make Mister Prude’s dick hard because of this.” Taehyung assures you.

You crack a tired smile even though you know he doesn’t see you. “Thank you, Tae.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart.” he says and hangs up.

You take another gulp of your coffee and start writing again.

It’s a little past midnight when you’re, with your last amounts of force you posses, typing the last words of the paper. As you look at your laptop screen, eyelids half-closed, you dream about nothing but going to sleep.

You did that. You really did. You wrote this stupid paper for Park Jimin and you’re actually proud of it. You carefully save the document three times (to be hundred percent sure) and as soon as you close your laptop, you pass out.

Little did you know what is waiting for you in editorial in a few hours.

You stare at your reflection in small mirror you hold, thanking God that he has enlightened the person who discovered make-up. You won’t say you look stunning but, after five hours of sleep you had in last two days, you would risk it all and say you appear much more than decent looking. You’re wearing your new black jumpsuit that makes your legs look longer and you even used a different shade of lipstick, painting your lips in crimson red.

And all of this for nothing, because when you stormed into the Sunday’s Spirit editorial to give the paper straight to Park Jimin’s hands, his secretary with polite smile said he’s coming to work later today.

You pursued your lips and handed the woman your blood, sweat and tears (you’re actually sure a few tears rolled down from your face on the keyboard while you were writing it), wishing you saw your boss’ face when you place the printed pages on his expensive desk.

“I changed a little bit the topic of my work while I was outlining it,” you tell Taehyung as you both sit together by your desks later that day. “I focused more on a role of Mary Magdalene character in world ruled only by men. I showed how a powerful woman she was, standing at Jesus’s side even though the church for the centuries referred her to whore,” you explain.

“Wow,” Taehyung muses. “You turned Mary Magdalene into feminism icon fighting against patriarchy.”

“It’s not like that!” You hit him in the arm. “You may laugh as much as you want but I actually got into her story.”

Taehyung smirks. “Looks like being scolded by Park Jimin wasn’t that bad.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up. I got humiliated in the middle of fucking cafeteria. I still hate him. And also, I don’t know what he thinks about my essay.” you say with a sigh.

“Don’t worry. He’s probably having an epiphany right now while-”

A voice from the speakers that certainly doesn’t sound like gospel choir interrupts him.

“Miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.”

“-or he isn’t.” Taehyung ends.

Once again, you’re frozen in place. It’s okay, you tell yourself, maybe he just wants to talk about my essay. But what if he didn’t like it? What if your sudden feminism outburst about Mary Magdalene was too much?

“Holy fuck.” you blurt out quietly.

Taehyung gives you an encouraging smile but he doesn’t look much convinced in positive intentions of summoning you to their boss’ office, he just doesn’t say it aloud. “Well, maybe it won’t be that bad! Maybe he wants to congratulate you,” he tries to comfort you, without success. You look horribly pale and scared to death.

“I repeat: miss Y/N, please report to the Park Jimin’s office immadietly.” Jimin’s stone cold voice pierce through the silence again. You shiver. The journalists in the editorial send you impatient glares.

“Whatever happens, remember that I love you.” Taehyung whispers, squizzing your hand, which makes you even more nervous. He gives you thumbs-up and you take a deep breath, trying to calm your trembling body. A whole Sunday’s Spirit team follow your movements with their eyes.

You stands from your desk on wobbly legs and walk to the door with golden sign hanging on its surface.

 Park Jimin

 Editor-in-chief

You take the knob in your shaking palm and twist, stepping into the lion’s den.

The atmosphere seems to shift when you walk into the room. You could hear your heart rapidly beating through the dead silence that lingers in Park Jimin’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?” you ask after closing the door, subconsciously cursing yourself for sounding so weak already.

“Yes, have a seat,” Jimin says. “Give me a second. I need to finish something.” he adds when you sit down, not even bothering to spare you a look.

Jimin sits behind his desk, eyes glued to the computer screen. His hair is pushed back from his forehead, his jaw clenched. Oh, great, he looks pissed, you think to yourself.

He isn’t wearing his suit jacket like usually, which surprises you. His white shirt’s sleeves are rolled up, revealing a glimpse of veiny hands and his Rolex. This is the first time you see him like this. He looks so… unlike him.

Strange.

You use the time you have to take in your surroundings. Jimin’s office is painted in fair tone of grey. The rumors were actually right, there’s a smaller version of Michelangelo’s Pietà standing proudly on of the drawers. Behind the desk, on the wall, hangs a wooden cross with gold-plated figurine of Jesus Christ, and just underneath it there’s a framed picture of Lady of Fatima, which he once proudly showed to the whole editorial team on one of the lunchbreaks, saying his grandmother brought him this from her pilgrimage.

You focus your attention now on the wall filled with numerous diplomas and certificates, all of them signed with Park Jimin’s name.

You had read some of his works before you started your job in Sunday’s Spirit and you must admit: Park Jimin is a talented, smart journalist you aspire to be one day. It’s actually sad, you think, that he can’t pursue his career, wasting his abilities by working in catholic newspaper owned by his father. And as you know from Yoongi, his situation isn’t going to change soon. Maybe he was right after all. Money really does rule this world.

After a few minutes that seems to last forever, Jimin breaks the silence. “Do you know why are you here?” he asks, finally averting his attention to you. He stares so deeply into your eyes that you feel you might faint from the intensity of his aura.

You clear your throat, and then respond. “I do believe it’s about my paper I handed in to you this morning.”

Jimin raises his eyebrow at that. “Your paper? No, everything’s fine about it. I read it and I must say, you did a great job,” he says and you furrow your eyebrows. So if nothing’s is wrong with your essay then what does he want?

“Then… why did you call me in, sir?” you hesitantly ponder.

Jimin laces his fingers together and leans closer over the desk. “Well,” he begins, “Maybe you forgot or you really didn’t know about it, but I used to run the same column as you do now,” You nod your head, recalling what Taehyung told you recently. Jimin continues, “I was actually the one who created it. That means I am still, for this day, its administrator. Which leads to another conclusion: every single ask that is send to our editorial and your responses to them can be monitored by me.” he explains, gauging your reaction. You still don’t have an idea why is he telling you that, so you just sit still and wait.

Then, Jimin reaches for the paper that lays on the left side of his desk and hands it to you. “Could you please tell me what is this?” he asks, pointing at the paper.

You glance at it briefly. “These are the questions I got last week and my responses to them.” you reply straightaway.

Park Jimin doesn’t seem much satisfied after hearing your words. He then takes another paper and gives it to you as well. “And this particular one, Y/N? Could you please read it and tell me what is this?”

Ignoring his forego of ‘miss’, you take it to your hands and start reading.

Dear Sunday’s Spirit editorial,

My name is Kang Seoyeon. I study medicine at the University of Seoul, I’ve got an amazing group of friends and a loving boyf-

You gasp and immadietly put a palm over your mouth. Under Seoyeon’s ask there’s also, clear as day, your much inappropriate response to her. In which you persuade the girl to suck her boyfriend off.

Holy fuck. Jesus Christ. Shitshitshit!

Jimin said he monitors everything that people send to the editorial along with the responds. Of course he had to read it. Why have you been so dumb? How could you believe that simple deleting from your inbox would be enough? Why can’t you do something properly for once?

You gulp, trying not to cry because good God, he’s going to fire you. He will kick you out and write a bunch of negative letters to your future employees, in which he will explain in details how disobiedent, reckless of a worker you are.

“Did you also forget how to speak?” Jimin asks. You almost cry out right away from the coldness of his voice.

You muster up a courage and look at him, and that’s a huge mistake because as soon as your eyes meet his, you’re lost for words.”I-I don’t know what to say, sir,” you stammer out. “I have nothing for my defence. I can only apologize for my irresponsible and inappropriate behavior I exhibited.” you say, bowing your head down.

Jimin pursues his lips. He stands from his chair and walks to you, leaning his body on the desk. He takes the paper from you to his hands and starts reading. “If you want to fuck your boyfriend, do it. Maybe God wouldn’t approve that but don’t worry, he won’t send you to hell because of some dick in your pussy,“ he quotes your response to the girl and your cheeks flush in red; you wish nothing more than to disappear and never see your boss again. But he’s relentless and continues reading, spilling the crude words, humiliating you even more. “So you go girl, suck your boyfriend off. Make him beg. He will never leave you after this.“ Jimin chuckles to himself darkly and you shut your eyes. “Look at me when you are spoken to,” he demands. You quickly oblige, lifting your chin a little to meet his intense gaze. “Is that really how a good, catholic girl should act?” he asks in a mocking tone.

You shake your head. “No, it isn’t.”

Jimin clicks his tongue. “Do you think he really won’t leave her after this?” he asks out of the blue.

You furrow your eyebrows. What kind of twisted game is he playing now? “I don’t know, sir.” you answer honestly.

Jimin smirks. Devilishly, sultry and completely illegal. He then licks his lips and leans closer to you. You could swear his eyes are darken than before. Something has shifted in his demeanor; he looks daring. “Why don’t you show me then, how this poor girl should suck her boyfriend off, Y/N?” he whispers lowly.

Your eyes widen. Did he just-?

He didn’t. He can’t. Maybe you misheard him, maybe you started imagining things that aren’t real. Oh, sweet Lord, the look of absolute seriousness written on his face tells you very much different.

Park Jimin, your boss, the man who goes regularly on masses and reads Bible, wants you to give him a head. In his office.

May the God help you.

You should probably slap him in the face for his immoral proposition. You should save your dignity, leave and never come back again. But then, you clear your mind from all those twisted thoughts running through it and you realise that you’re walking on a very thin line. Line which is called unemployment and bankruptcy.

You think about your landlord who praised you recently for keeping up with rent every month regularly. You think about your student loans that you still need to pay.

And fuck, you hate Yoongi because he was damn right. Money wouldn’t buy you happiness, but it can provide you that.

That’s why you put away the humiliation, the what ifs. You shut your mind screaming at you and listing the future consequences. Maybe Jimin just tests you, but the way he looks at you denies it. He wants to see you on your knees in front of him. Perhaps he only wants to play before he fires you but you put that thought aside.

You at least need to try.

Jimin searches for any kind of protest in your eyes and when he doesn’t find it, he’s back to his domineering self. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, his voice an octave lower. “Get on your knees.”

He has a calm expression on his face and you wonder for a moment how many times has he been in similar situation before. Having a woman on his mercy and using her the way he likes. And now you know. All those stories you heard about, are actually true. Park Jimin isn’t a prude. He’s dirty.

You fall to the floor with a light whimper. Maybe it’s the last chance for you to leave, but the confidence that emanates from Jimin doesn’t falter your movements. You hate yourself for that but God, you want to see this man being a mess for your touch. Even if that’s fucked up.

And it’s wrong, so, so wrong, when there’s a cross hanging behind you, when he’s your boss who claims to be a good catholic, when you do that because you’re too afraid to lose your job. But in that moment, the morality doesn’t exist.

Jimin stands up to take his belt off, looking at you from the above as he slowly, purposefully pulls it from the belt loops. He doesn’t encourage you or say anything, he just waits. You gulp when he yanks his black slacks down, along with his underwear.

For a few, solid seconds, you just stare.

You aren’t a connoisseur of dicks. Dick is a dick, but Park Jimin’s length is just as perfect as the rest of him, semi-hard against his lower stomach. Your hands move to his sculpted thighs, running up and down, tracing the prominent lines of his toned abdomen. The muscles tense underneath your touch.

You don’t remember when was the last time you’ve gone down on someone. Maybe it was Taehyung few months ago when you were both too drunk to care? You can’t quite recall. Every move of yours is uncertain, but Jimin doesn’t mind. Maybe your uncertainty turns him on even more.

He watches as you take him in your palm hesitantly, hot and already stiff, stroking him several times until he hardens in your hand. The sight is purely erotic, filthy, and you lick your lips before placing a light kiss on his tip. Jimin hisses. That’s a warning. No teasing.

You pump him, trailing a thumb over his slit, spreading precum all over his cock. Jimin doesn’t say anything but from the shuddering breath he lets out you assume he likes it. You take a deep breath, wrapping your lips around his dick and swirling your tongue around the head.

Jimin groans, a guttural sound resonating through his whole body and you take it as a sign to continue. You ease more of him into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks and bobbing your head up and down around his length obediently. Some twisted and fucked-up part of you wants him to praise you, call you good girl with your lips around his dick and throbbing core. He does none of that. His hands tangle in your hair as he withdraws, and you know exactly what’s coming next.

It’s an unspoken question on his lips and your jaw falls slacks on command.

A forceful push of his hips and he’s burried deep inside your mouth till he hits the back of your throat. Tears brim in your eyes and you gag, breathing heavily through your nose. It hurts a little, a dull ache but the content sigh and fucked-out expression on Jimin’s face is worth it. So you let him fuck your mouth the way he wants, let him pull your hair harder, wreck you a little more. It’s so easy to submit to him, to let him overwhelm you in every sense possible.

Your eyes fall shut and Jimin stops his movements, pulling from your mouth. Drool dribbles down your chin and you wipe it with the back of your hand. Jimin lets out a shaky breath, staring down at you so intensely it makes your insides tighten, even if you don’t see him yet.

“Look at me,” he rasps and you do, how could you not. The sight of your boss’ flushed cheeks and sweat forming on his forehead will be imprinted in your mind forever.

You curse yourself for wanting him to fuck you senseless right against his deck, with a hand around your throat muffling your screams, fuck you so hard you won’t remember your name anymore, no matter how wrong it is.

“Good girl. You’re so pretty like this, letting me fuck your mouth,” Jimin nothing but purrs, filling you to the brim again, until there are tears forming in your eyes and running down your cheeks, until he hits the base of your throat again and again and you fight back choked gags every time. “Just like that, fuck-” he moans, lowly and beautifully, head thrown back and mouth parted.

He’s close, you could feel that, so you take him deep once again and when your throat tightens around him one last time, he lets out a gutural groan and comes. You swallow every drop of his bitter release and when he pulls out from your mouth, you nearly fall forward.

Jimin catches you, placing his hands on your shoulders, balancing your exhausted body. You look at him through your half-lidded eyes. He looks so young now, so innocent, his cold demeanor’s gone and replaced by pure bliss written on his face. For Park Jimin, cheeks rosy, disheveled hair and loosen tie, you would do it all over again.

He then does something unexpected. He reaches for your face, brushing your tangled hair away and placing the strands behind your ears. This is a loving gesture, something exclusive he definitely shouldn’t be doing. You’re frozen, you can’t move a muscle while he wipes your cheeks from the reminiscences of your tears. He trails his thumb over your swollen lips absentmindedly, faltering there. For a moment he looks like he might say something, but he quickly shuts his mouth, regaining his previous posture.

You take this as a sign to leave. You get up from the floor, your knees sore from the uncomfortable position you’ve been in. You walk to the mirror that hangs on the wall of Jimin’s office. You sigh, seeing your current state. There’s no way someone would believe you that you haven’t just sucked a dick.

Your cheeks are flushed in pink, there are smudges of mascara under your eyes and your lipstick is smeared in the corners of your mouth. Not to mention your hair is still a mess.

You are painted in all shades of wrong.

In the reflection of the mirror you see Jimin buckling up his belt and straightening his tie. He runs a hand through his blond locks and looks up, catching you staring at him. You quickly look away.

“Don’t worry. No one will notice anything. Everyone should be off for their lunchbreaks by now.” he says. He sounds so pathetically normal, yet there’s still a slight rasp in his voice.

You glance at the watch on your hand and check the time. It’s a little past 12. You brush your hair with your fingers quickly and proceed to leave, but you stop, remembering you have to ask about one last thing. You turn around to face him.

“Are you going to write a bad opinion about me to my future employees?” you ask, flinching at the hoarseness of your voice.

Jimin raises his eyebrows. “Bad opinion? No, absolutely not,” he answers, shaking his head. “I was never going to fire you in first place.”

You fight back the shocked expression that threatens to appear on your face. You quickly rush to leave this damn office and never look in his eyes ever again. What were you even thinking?

“And Y/N,” Jimin’s voice makes you stop with your hand hovering over the door knob. Single tear rolls down your cheek and you gulp. “I’m sorry.” it’s all he says.

You don’t ask him what he meant by that. You don’t deliberate if he was sincere or not. You leave the office as soon as you can, running to the nearest bathroom, closing the door behind you and leaning on it.

He wasn’t going to fire you. He just wanted to use you, demand to get down on your knees and please him the way he wants. It was all a game for him, and you became his plaything.

“I’m so stupid,” you mutter to yourself, burying your head in your hands. “God, I’m so stupid.”

You feel sick, used, but at the same time you can’t get away with creeping feeling that you enjoyed it, wishing he wanted you just as much as you wanted him in that moment.

You sigh, closing your eyes. You’re probably foolish for thinking it won’t have any consequences. You’re just about to face them.

The coldness of early Spring hits you when you exit Sunday’s Spirit editorial. You hug your body tighter with your coat, standing in front of the building awkwardly. You take a few deep breaths, trying to clear your mind, but nothing really works. There’s a vacant space inside your body, like your soul has drifted away and left nothing but emptiness.

You feel hollow.

You don’t know how long have you been standing there, inhaling fresh air and waiting for your blood to start circulating properly in your veins again. When you’re about to head to the underground station, on the corner of your eye you see Jimin’s black Mercedes. You probably shouldn’t stare but you helplessly do.

Probably if you didn’t, it would hurt less.

He approaches the car, looking perfectly fine as always, which you couldn’t say about yourself. And he isn’t alone.

You recognize dark curls of Chins-sun’s hair, contrasting her beige coat beautifully. The corners of Jimin’s lips lift when he sees her. You don’t know if it’s a honest smile or a forced one. You wonder for a while how does he look like when he’s truly happy. Maybe he’s happy now, when Chin-sun is by his side.

What you are really sure about Park Jimin, is that he’s a man of many maybes.

Something which definitely doesn’t look forced are his palms, cupping the cheeks of Chin-sun’s flushed face. He starts tracing circles on her skin in intimate gesture and murmurs something. Maybe he asks her how was her day. Your lips still tingle where he trailed his thumb over it bitten, swollen surface. Maybe he still remembers how they felt around his cock when he was relentlessly bringing tears to your eyes and stabs to your heart.

The way he leans and kisses Chin-sun’s cherry colored lips is purposeful, perfectly measured. Maybe he sighs into her mouth with content, a beautiful sound you have witnessed with your own ears, as you were working him to his climax. Jimin’s hands grip Chin-sun’s dark locks but it isn’t the similar manner he did to you earlier, as he laced his fingers through the strands, when you wished him to do nothing more than pull harder and harder, until the pain in you scalp was replaced by dull ache, until a whimper fell from your lips and eyes squeezed shut. He kisses Chin-sun lovingly and there’s no roughness in that. It’s gentle caresses and soft murmurs.

After a moment he breaks off, soothing his palms over Chin-sun’s shoulders. She sends him a smile and opens the passenger’s door, getting into the car. And then, when you swallow a lump in your throat, when you decide to turn around and go, run as fast as you possibly can, when you dream about nothing more but never seeing him again, you catch eyes with him.

Jimin looks pathetically apologetic. There’s something in his dark brown orbs you can’t read. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe regret. Park Jimin is a man of many maybes, yet he stares at you with expression you could only mistaken for sadness.

You wonder if he sees the way your eyes stare at him blankly. You wonder if he knows how he nearly wrecked your body and made you feel things you shouldn’t. If he hurts the same way as you do now. However, Jimin quickly diverts his head away from you, closing the door to his car behind him as well. You laugh quietly at the ridiculousness of this situation. A bitter laugh that escapes your mouth and deepen the hollowness inside you.

A hand touches your arm and you don’t even flinch, knowing already who it is.

“So you know the news,” Taehyung says, looking at Jimin’s car leaving the parking lot. How long has he been standing behind you?

“What news?” you ask, turning your head to look at him.

“Chin-sun is really going to be miss Park officially,” he replies. “Jimin proposed to her this weekend. The wedding is in may. But that’s not important right now. How’s your conversation with him, sweetheart?”

You feel sick. You excuse yourself, mentioning something about needing to catch earlier train and texting him later. Taehyung calls after you but you don’t listen. You start running.

You run until you couldn’t breathe, until there’s a soreness in your throat from the coldness of air. You run until you reach your apartment, stumbling into it on wobbly legs. Your back touches the wall and you slide off, sitting on the floor.

You don’t cry. The tears don’t strain your eyes. It’s only this damned, dull hollowness.

There’s written in the Bible that a guilty person is the one who broke God’s law, who committed a sin. The said person will be judged by their actions after their death. Because every human being has a conscience, the thing that sets the line between good and bad, so when we did something wrong, we should feel remorse.

When you sit on the floor and stare blankly in front of yourself, you know you have sinned.You both did. You wonder if he, trailing patterns of tender touches on his fiancee’s skin, feels the same as you. You wonder if guilt eats him up as much as devours you. Maybe there’s hollow ache in his chest, just like in yours. Maybe he doesn’t feel anything.

And may the God help you both find your redemption.

[solarsleepless]

Np homie, mama bird phil. Also, I have all day, Australias in another lockdown, so I will give you the love you deserve

First of all, your Niki and Puffy stim headcannons are brilliant, phenomenal, and show stopping. I will 100% be using them.

Second, your fics? Some of the best I've ever read. Flock season? Magnificent. Dadza, Technodad, and daughterchu? The best dynamic I have ever seen. Forever on the run? Read all of it multiple times (mostly at 3am when I am writing)

You, my fellow writer, inspired me to write my own fic, which I can only hope are as good as yours. Seriously, how are you not huge??? Like the way you write is so good? Also, as a Niki angst lover, you feed my hunger. I've read all of your fics multiple times, please take all my love, I am now a stan account /j

Good night/morning/evening, creator of my favourite fics, i hope your socks are never wet, your pillow is always cold, and people respect tou everywhere you go ♡♡♡♡♡

WOW HOLY FUCK how do i respond to this /hj

HOLY fuck. so let me take this piece by piece.

oh rip australia hope you guys are doing okay. i think you have a much different timezone than here because it is half past seven in the morning and i only slept six hours. unhealthy sleep routines my abhorred.

HAUFIHFAUI they're,,, they're just headcanons. mind just goes brrr and comes up with new ideas.

wow really?? holy shit... you sure you aint got the wrong author?? i just write lol

:O REALLY?? LINK IT NEXT TIME YOU SEND AN ASK!! also thank you for the kind words abt me being good dhasiuhfasiu forever on the run my beloved /j

i am the creator of niki angst, behold me and my power

i hope you're having a wonderful day too, reader anon!! :DDDD god this made me so happy i stimmed sO HARD

[inlovewithdisaster]

JUDGE PROFILE: TOBIAS MENDELSSOHN

tobias’ formal contest experience has been……spotty, to say the least. he loved the performing arts as a kid and coordinated/composed frequently outside of his classes, and with his record of misbehavior as a small child, this was one of the few things he would miraculously sit still and focus on. but in the past few years, joining a 200-or-so-year-long fight for justice in a foreign country has really put a pause on his passion, to say the least; when he stands on stage today, he’s dusting off some serious childhood cobwebs that have collected on his art. 

that’s not to say he’s completely rusty, however. in the year that he’s led preuzien, he’s had some contest appearances here and there, and he’s done a great number of street performances of traditional draconid dragon-riding--his brand while he was working with the prussian rebels. what’s more, he’s learned from the best: the inimitable wallace kassai, @hisvanity​, the greatest coordinator who has ever lived, was a childhood family friend and mentor to him, and his grandfather, ezra mendelssohn, earned a great claim to fame in the 20th century as the pretty boy who dominated cool and tough contests with his quickdraw. as a result, he’s got quite a few educated opinions on what coordinating should be……and oh my god, he will die for all of them.

as a judge, he’s intelligent and insightful, but brutally honest to the point of being rude. while most of his observations are artistically sound and logically correct, he tends to say it in a manner not unlike simon cowell. having been raised with such high standards when it comes to coordinating, he also tends to dock more than he should for any particular offense. he’s as sharp as wallace with his observations, and more than twice as bitchy. be warned.

LIKES.

tobias is an educated man of many different tastes, who can appreciate the beauty of art in all its forms. he’s not near as picky as ursula when it comes to what he finds “beautiful” or “appealing”; all he wants is that whatever you do, you commit your heart and soul to it 110% and you do it well. a dainty ballet routine can earn the same score from him as a motorcycle stunt performance set to death metal. he’s looking for aesthetically appealing performances that involve nuanced details and complex technique; how you achieve this is no concern to him as long as you achieve it.

i should note that for him, “aesthetically appealing” has a broader range than it does for ursula. he is able to appreciate the strange, the avant-garde, even the grotesque, in a way that the head judge can’t. whereas she’ll balk at a dada-inspired routine, he’ll probably be all over it!

unlike ursula, who hates being preached at, he also prefers appeals that have a broader message or statement. whereas ursula with her little brainpower loathes appeals whose stories and messages are too hard to understand, tobias can fully appreciate and give points for such feats. he also has a major soft spot for satire, especially satire directed at unjust authority figures--or at his fellow judges!

like his mother, he also likes out-of-the-box, creative performances that break conventional stereotypes and roles. after all, his grandfather ezra was told that he was too “pretty” to ever make it big in the cool and tough categories, but that ended the moment people realized he was a wwii vet who brought his gun-shooting talents onstage! wallace’s influence certainly helped in this department--he’s had an aversion of coordinating and showcasing clichés hammered into him since childhood. some of the things that count as unconventional for him include but are not limited to:

gender noncomformity.

ugly or undesirable-looking pokémon such as garbodor, mr. rime or skuntank.

tough-looking pokémon showing a more elegant, graceful and tender side, or vice versa.

showing a side of a pokémon’s species that is not otherwise explored (e.g. milotic may be very beautiful and graceful but it is also a dragon, and wallace is one of the few people who portray it as such).

pokémon and people expressing contradicting qualities at once (fierce yet soft, cute yet dangerous) gives performances a unique flavor and complexity.

portraying contrasting themes within your appeal. 

did we mention he’s educated? he loves references to nerd shit. like poetry, or history, or mythology……he’ll understand every single nerdy little reference that a cerebral appeal has to offer, and it’s guaranteed to make his intellectual heart light up with delight.

as a brown indigenous jew, he also loves appeals that show peoples’ culture! the type of routines he’s best at are steeped in draconid cultural tradition, so he’ll always have a soft spot for those who share their heritage with pride.

lastly, given that he’s a red-blooded risk-taker, he loves daring stunts. after all, dragon-riding shows are built on them!

DISLIKES.

from the above, it’s clear that he likes appeals that put a lot of thought into them. as such, he hates appeals that he feels are low-effort, whether physically or intellectually. if your technique or your visuals or the way you convey your message are too simplistic, you’re not getting a good score, no matter how dazzling you pretend to be. he is sharply critical in this regard, and will incisively see through layers of shine to any inadequacy underneath. his standard for sophistication is so high that you’ll have to jump higher than you ever have to reach it.

he also hates inauthentic and soulless appeals. he’s very good at seeing when someone actually means the stuff they put in their performances, as opposed to whether they’re just pandering to his tastes. he would actually prefer a cliché appeal that the creator is genuinely invested in to an unorthodox appeal where the performer is just trying to check boxes of unconventionality to impress him. (you’d probably never be able to guess it though, with how harshly he can rain down criticism on the cliché!)

he also has a certain distaste for appeals that use only the most standard contest/showcase pokémon. whereas ursula can quickly lose interest in an appeal that doesn’t have the standard milotics and gardevoirs plastered all over it, he regards people who rely too heavily on the conventionally pretty and popular with severe distaste. given that his mentor is wallace, he has a special aversion toward milotic, who wallace himself is SICK and TIRED of seeing in contests. it’s not that he’ll automatically hate performances with these pokémon. it’s more that if you do use these pokémon, you’ll have to work extra hard to seem unique.

as a draconid, he’s also incredibly picky with how people use dragon pokémon in appeals. if you thought he hated established tropes and conventions already, he has an anti-special place in his heart for those who default to common themes with their dragon pokémon. he has buckets and buckets of salt to pour about how dragons are overused, how their trainers lazily use them for instant intimidation, how trainers collect dragons not out of appreciation but to take advantage of the legendary power that accompanies them……and if you don’t present your dragons well, he won’t hesitate to accuse you of any number of these things. particularly, he loathes seeing dragons depicted as the villains in a story performance, unless there’s a dragon hero character to cancel it out. given the fact that “dragons = villains” has been used to demonize his european draconid ancestors for so long, if you invoke this trope in any way, he’ll borderline call you a racist.

[call-me-jerusalem]

why would you ever want to stop imagining palsinki though, those two are the cutest ♥

I WOULD NEVER, I LOVE THEM TOO MUCH.

Seriously, they literally pulled me out of one the longest writer’s blocks I had in my life and I will be forever grateful for those two sad gays. Their relationship is such a precious thing and they make me S O F T E R every time I think about them.

@dondeestaeldeseo​ is talking about my tags on this post just so we are all on the same page here.

But.

(and here’s a big but)

I don’t like doing things by halves. When I am deeply involved in a fandom like I am with LCDP, I want to do it all and I try my best to do it (and as I know many of you guys do) in my second language, which can make things a little more difficult.

I read all Helsinki/Palermo fics on AO3 and I take the time to comment on every single one of them. I am currently working on a lenghty WIP (17k words so far and counting) as I plan new stories for my Monastery Series and I still have sixteen ficlets left to write for the Shipping Headcanons thing (and I am sorry for everyone who requested an hc, I promise I am working on them). I also have to do research for all the fics and for all the meta I write. And I update this blog and I am on Twitter dealing with fandom drama and/or having meltdowns with my fellow shippers via PM... and I really love doing it all. It makes me so, so happy and it helps to make real life a little more bearable. But all of that takes a lot of time. Time that most days, I honestly don’t have. Not with a full-time job, personal projects, and well, all the RL shenanigans.

So, I guess the bottom line is: I love Helsinki/Palermo with all my heart, but my life would probably be a lot easier if I didn’t. It also would be duller as hell. Because there is no better feeling in the world than working my ass off on a fic (even if I have to forsake, idk, sleep) and then waking up the next day with a beautiful comment on my inbox or seeing people going feral on their tags as they reblog my writing (please, people, always reblog your content creator’s content, help us to spread the word around) and nothing makes me more proud than reading a new fic an author decided to write because they got inspired by a comment I left them on a previous work (please, people, always comment on the fics you read, any fic, if you liked it, please, take ten seconds of your time to tell the author your thoughts).

Oh my god, this got too long. Thank you so much, Lorean, for this question. I know it probably wasn’t what you had in mind when you asked it, but it honestly made me think about a lot of things and it was a bit cathartic to get to write them down.

Anyway, always stan Helsinki/Palermo. <3 <3 <3

[love-in-the-time]

The Destiny of Stars, 10th Doctor/Donna, 12th Doctor, Donna, Clara, Fix-It, Rated M for language, sex, and violence.

Title: The Destiny of Stars Author: love-in-the-time Rating: M for language, sex, violence. Summary: “It is the destiny of stars to collapse.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson. A cry for help echoes across the universe into the mind of Donna Noble. A fix-it fic wrapped in a battle for the survival of a planet thousands of light-years away, turning around the central point of the Doctor and Donna.

A note: This took me two years to write. Quarantine time is the perfect time to finish fics. I wish all my fellow creators the peace and ability to make their art. Creativity is needed in these times, and you have my gratitude. This fic includes mention of a quarantine, but that idea came to me a very long time ago. Please enjoy, and i hope it offers you a moment of distraction.

She is standing on line for coffee, scrolling through her emails, when someone yanks on her arm and falls in front of her. Startled, Donna Noble jumps back, gasping.

On the floor in front of her is a kneeling woman, with dark hair tied up at the nape of her neck. She is bowing her head and clasping her hands. “Lady,” the woman is saying. “Noble lady, will you help me?”

Donna is astonished, and stands speechless for a moment. “I,” she begins. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The woman lifts her face and there are tears running down her cheeks. “Please help us,” the woman begs. “My people are dying.”

Donna feels a lurch in her chest. “What?” she asks. Her immediate conclusion is that the woman is crazy. “I don’t understand what you mean.” People are staring. She looks around her. “Are you all right?”

The woman stands up straight, wiping at her cheeks and composing herself. “Are you Donna Noble?” she asks, much more calmly.

“Yes,” Donna says. “Why?”

The woman clears her throat and inhales deeply. “I have come to beg your help on behalf of my people, the Mori. Our planet is dying.” She reaches out to touch Donna’s hand. “Please, if you and the Doctor—“

Donna blinks. “Who?” she asks. “Miss, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She backs off. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” She heads for the door, leaving the woman stunned behind her. She stands blankly for a moment and then seems to make a decision. She follows after Donna, her stride purposeful but her hands shaking. She catches Donna in the street.

“Please, I’ve come so far,” the woman says, and something in her tone makes Donna stop and listen. “Please, hear me. My people sent me to find you, and the Doctor, and bring you to help us.”

Again, Donna blinks. “I don’t know who that is,” she says. “I really can’t help you.” She reaches into her purse. “Can I get you somewhere? Do you need money?”

“No, no!” The woman is distraught. “We need you, and the Doctor, to come and save us.” She is clutching at Donna’s sleeve. “I will not fail them!”

Donna presses the unlock button on her car key fob and opens her car door behind her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I really don’t know what you mean. I can’t help you.” She climbs in and drives away, looking in her rearview mirror to see the woman cover her face with both hands. She shakes her head, disturbed by the encounter and unsure why she feels so unsettled.

By the time she pulls into her driveway, the beginnings of a wicked headache are starting behind her eyes. Donna squeezes her eyes shut and pushes her fingers into her lids for a moment, breathing through the pain. She’d never had migraines before about two years past, when she’d had some kind of accident. No one had really been very clear with her about what exactly had happened, but soon after she and Shawn had gotten married and Donna began to focus on other things.

But sitting still does nothing for the blossoming pain in her head and she makes her way up the stairs to the bedroom, crawling under the covers with her shoes still on. It had been some time since the headaches had been this bad, and Donna is miserable, recalling the first few months after her accident, when the pain had kept her curled on her bathroom floor, a seemingly endless flow of tears rolling down her face. Ever since then it was as if her mind refused to retain the information about what happened to her, so Donna mostly remembers fear and pain and an overwhelming heartbreak, as if she’d lost something or someone she loved. She wasn’t quite sure why being alone affected her so deeply after the accident, but Shawn had gentled her back to life when the pain subsided. Donna feels dragged back to those times.

She rolls over and kicks off her shoes, reaching over to her beside table and getting the paracetamol tablets out. She swallows three of them with no water, winces, and rests her head on the pillow. The room is dark and cool. She remembered it usually took a good nap to get rid of the headache and the echoes of it left bright spots in her vision for a few hours after. This would be one of those.

An hour later Shawn arrives home and finds his wife in bed, eyes closed but not asleep. He comes gently into the room. “Hello,” he whispers.

Donna rolls over. “Hello,” she answers.

“Head hurts?” Shawn comes to sit beside her on the bed.

Donna nods against her pillow and her eyes fill up. “It’s still terrible. It hasn’t been this bad in a long time.”

The migraine is a sign the fail-safe is working, Shawn remembers. Wilf told him everything. She’ll have an awful headache, and she’ll sleep. It’s only if she doesn’t wake up that we have to worry.

The idea of Donna not waking up scares Shawn deeply, that his generous, beautiful, determined Donna could be taken away from him by her past. So he retreats from the room to let his wife sleep.

Mostly Donna is able to fall asleep with minimal fuss but this time the pain only seems to get worse behind her eyes, until Donna is gasping, her eyes squeezed shut.

* * * *

Out of relative silence, the TARDIS’s main computer suddenly sounds an alarm that startles the Doctor and he jumps, banging his elbow against the console. The screen displays a flash of coordinates and the ship yanks itself out of the Vortex with a nauseating lurch. Clara gets thrown against the railing and steadies herself against a kind of flight she hasn’t experienced before. There is no thumping landing this time, only a quick, hard thud. The Doctor is looking at the screen. “London,” he says. “We’re in London. In Kensington.” He turns the view screen to face him and his eyes go wide. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“What?” Clara asks, coming round the console. “What’s happened?”

But the Doctor is already away from the console and flying down the ramp to the door. “It’s Donna,” he says, and Clara follows uncomprehendingly. The Doctor is clearly panicked.

They are in a bedroom, a large and spacious room painted in green, and in the room's corner there is a woman lying on a bed, her head thrown back. “Oh, my god,” Clara says.

Donna is lying unmoving on her bed, with a trickle of dark blood from her nose. Clara rushes to the bedside and looks back to the Doctor. He’s standing back, his hands at his sides, very still.

“I can’t be here,” he says. “She can’t see me. Or the TARDIS.”

Clara looks dismayed. “Who is this woman? How can we help her then?”

The Doctor looks around himself and then back at Donna. He comes to stand over the bed, rigid with fear, to see if she’s conscious, then seems to remember himself and points the sonic at her. It makes the slightest noise, on a low setting. “No,” he says. “She’s out cold.”

He turns back to Clara. “Help me,” he says. “Help me get her on the ship.”

The door to the bedroom bursts open and Shawn runs in, looking bewildered and afraid. “Who are you?” he demands of the Doctor and Clara, who freeze over Donna’s bed.

“I’m going to help her,” the Doctor says, and he recognizes the young man from the wedding. “Step back.”

Shawn rushes to the bed. “What are you doing?” He tries to stop the Doctor as he gathers Donna in his arms.

“Helping her!” The Doctor repeats. “Get out of my way!” And before Shawn can do anything further the Doctor and Clara slam the doors of the TARDIS in his face, with Donna aboard, her head lolled back in the Doctor’s arms.

* * * *

The first thing that Donna feels as she regains consciousness is the feeling of slogging out of deep, thick water that is trying to suffocate her. She feels a piercing pang in her head as she gasps for air and discovers the water isn’t choking her after all. She opens her eyes.

She’s in a room that looks like a hospital. Again. Donna feels a wave of dismay and sadness in her chest. She’d seen the inside of too many doctor’s offices and hospitals trying to discover the cause of her sudden, chronic migraines. It seems she’s landed in A&E again. Her eyes fill with tears. “Not again,” she says aloud.

But the person who comes to her bedside isn’t dressed as a nurse or a doctor. Donna looks up into a face she doesn’t know, a young woman with a fringe of dark hair over her open, gentle face. “Donna?” she asks tentatively.

“Yes,” Donna says. She inhales and exhales deeply.

“Are you all right?” the girl asks.

“I don’t know,” Donna says. She pushes herself into a seated position against what she realizes are large, soft pillows. Not like hospital pillows. She feels as if her sinuses are pulsing with dull pain. “Where am I? Is this a hospital?”

“Not quite. I’m Clara,” the girl says. “This is a… er, medical treatment center. We found you passed out in your bed with a nosebleed and brought you here.”

The Doctor is standing at the console watching the med bay on a screen, his face miserable. Donna looks pale and disoriented as Clara tells her mostly credible lies about tests and needing to rest. Donna asks for paracetamol tablets, which Clara promises to bring her. After a few more minutes Clara leaves, but the Doctor keeps watching. He sees Donna look around the room and then lower her face into her hands. He thinks about when Donna cried after Lee, and when she let him sleep wrapped around her on the rare occasions he slept.

Clara comes back to the console, looking worried. “What do I give her?” she asks. “Do we even have paracetamol?”

In response, the Doctor goes to the computer and punches at the keyboard. The synthesizer produces two tablets that look like paracetamol. “One is a painkiller, the other one will make her sleep,” he explains. “I have to figure out how to help her.”

He watches Clara give Donna the tablets and a glass of water and lower the lights in the med bay so she can sleep. He worries that she hasn’t kept asking where she is; she must feel really poorly.

“What’s wrong with her?” Clara asks when she comes back again.

“I need to stabilize her,” the Doctor says, ignoring the question. He circles around his console methodically pushing buttons, his deliberation masking the frantic worry he feels. “Every second she’s here she’s dying.”

“On the TARDIS? It’s the safest place in the universe,” Clara says. “What’s wrong with her?”

The Doctor slumps onto the jump seat.

“You better tell me about her,” Clara says, sitting down beside him.

The Doctor folds his hands together. “Donna showed up twice in my life and the second time she got the hint,” he begins, after a short, contemplative silence.

Clara settles in to listen.

“She’d been set up to be killed by her fiancé, and he was dosing her with particles that are contained in the TARDIS core. So we killed a giant spider queen intent on using Earth as a breeding ground, and I asked her to come with me. And she said no.”

“Did she?” Clara says, laughing.

“But then she came looking for me,” the Doctor says. “Imagine the odds. She found me. I haven’t ever stopped being grateful for that.”

“So why would she die?”

“I… she… some things happened, and she got caught up in a metacrisis, it’s a fusion of DNA kind of thing, it mixes biological materials and it’s very dangerous, and she… her DNA got mixed with mine and made a clone and—“

Clara has long since stopped being surprised at weird alien things. “So that made her sick?”

“It left her with a core of Time Lord energy in her brain,” the Doctor explains. “That kind of activity isn’t normal for a human brain; it sends it into overdrive. It doesn’t have enough synapses to handle it. I had to wipe her memory of me and try and contain the rogue energy. If the containment fails, her brain will explode inside her skull. And I’m afraid it’s failing.”

There is a crystal, horrified silence as Clara takes this explanation in.

“So she can’t see me, or know that she’s on the TARDIS until I figure out how to prevent that,” the Doctor concludes.

“But you don’t look the same,” Clara says. “How will she recognize you?”

Another pang in his chest makes the Doctor sigh. “She knows this face too.”

“How?”

“I… you know that I regenerate?” the Doctor asks. “This face is one that’s familiar to her. I think I must have chosen it, subconsciously. It reminds me I have a duty of care.”

The words are familiar; he’s said them to her before, And they still matter; they matter even more now. He tries not to let Clara see the fear and pain in him as he goes back to work on his computer console. He can’t think how he might be able to control it.

On the screen, Donna sleeps. Even asleep, she looks tired and pale. The Doctor types faster. The pill would ensure she’d be out for a few hours, but he knew she wouldn’t accept being lied to. Donna Noble couldn’t be fooled for long, if at all. The thought of that brings a painful smile to his lips. Donna, always on the front foot, ready to remind him that he wasn’t alone and he had others to consider.

The main concern for him was the containment around the Time Lord energy. If he had a way to extract… if he had a way to make her remember without hurting her…

Ultimately, he knows only one way, the risky way; the TARDIS core. He could connect her to the TARDIS core. The TARDIS loved Donna as much as he did, she would make sure Donna was safe. He could connect her to the core of the TARDIS and extract the energy trapped in her brain, and… and then what? What would happen to the energy? He looks up from the console at Clara, who is sitting quietly on the jump seat.

“I figured it out,” he says, and his voice is flat. Clara sees the unhappiness in his face.

“Tell me,” she says.

“I have to hook her up to the TARDIS core,” the Doctor says. “Before she wakes up. See if I can extract the energy from her brain without tripping the failsafe.”

“That sounds like a huge risk.”

“It is a huge risk.” The Doctor has to fight a rising tide of frustration and anger and keep his voice steady. “It’s an enormous risk I wasn’t willing to take the first time.”

So he and Clara carefully roll the bed Donna is in into the main console room. Donna sleeps on, breathing steadily. Her face is relaxed now. The Doctor gestures for Clara to sit down again and takes a moment to stand over Donna’s bed. His back is turned to Clara so she can’t see his face, but he feels the same helpless love he always felt for her, multiplied now a hundredfold because he knows she’s suffering and she’s been gone so long from him, and she’s back.

“All right,” he says to her gently. “I’m going to connect you to the TARDIS. You remember her, right?” He reaches out to place a small metal disc on her wrist, to measure her pulse and her blood pressure. “She remembers you.” And the TARDIS core glows brightly bluish white in response. The Doctor pulls a long set of cords from the console, attached to two more metal discs. These he attaches to her temples. Donna stirs and frowns in her sleep, too deep under the drug to wake up but still conscious of something happening. “Nothing bad will happen,” he tells her, hoping with all his might that he’s telling the truth. “I promise.”

As he circles around Clara sees the look on his face. She feels terrible for him; he looks absolutely destroyed, and truly afraid. “Nothing bad will happen,” he repeats, and looks up at Clara with his heart in his eyes. He pushes a few buttons and stands back from the bed.

For long moments nothing does happen. Long enough for Clara to look to the Doctor with curiosity, and then suddenly there is a crescendoing hum that rises and rises. Donna stiffens in her bed, as if having a seizure, the readings of her blood pressure and pulse spiking. The Doctor’s eyes fly from the console to her face. Donna isn’t waking, but she gives a final great shudder and lies very, very still.

On the floor of the console room there is a man lying, dressed in a long brown trench coat over a pinstriped brown suit. His hair is messy and spiky, and his face is young. He sits up, dazed, and the Doctor, despite his surprise, leaps in between him and Donna. The Time Lord energy in Donna’s brain has manifested in a copy of himself from long ago, an echo of her mind and heart.

He helps the younger Doctor to his feet and says impassively, “Welcome.” He can feel his pulses going wild in his neck, though he grits his teeth to show nothing. Of course it would be this. How else? He remembered the sheer relief of how they used to understand each other, the open wound of their subconscious emotional bond that pulsed with their shared pain and desire and joy and anger. That had long since closed over in his current form but this man--

The younger Doctor looks around warily. “Where am I?”

“Onboard my… er, your — my ship,” the Doctor says. “The TARDIS.”

“This is not my ship.”

The Doctor shakes his head. “Never mind, I need your help. Someone here needs you to help keep them alive.”

He hustles the younger Doctor down the nearest hallway into a spare room. He swipes the wall to activate the synthesizer computer and makes a large window through into the console room. He stands in the younger Doctor’s line of sight. “There someone here who needs you,” he says. “Needs you, specifically. I need you to be gentle with her.”

The younger Doctor suddenly lights up with the most wrenching expression of fear and anticipation he’s ever seen. “You haven’t,” he says.

The Doctor points out the window. Donna is sitting up on the bed, holding one of Clara’s hands and trying to stand up.

“That’s Donna,“ the younger Doctor says, his eyes fixed on her through the glass. “That’s Donna—” he repeats, and tears out of the room, coattails flying. The Doctor follows him out.

He watches his younger self go to Donna, his face wide with astonishment and joy, and stand in front of her as if to make sure she is really there. “Hello,” he says to her.

Donna breathes a great sigh and her eyes fill up. “Hello,” she says. “I know you.”

“Yeah, you do,” the younger Doctor says, and he catches her up in a great embrace, as warm and solid as he ever had been in life.

There is a piercing pang in her chest, and Donna finally, finally sobs, muffled into his embrace. It’s a sound of simultaneous relief and pain. The Doctor and Clara look at each other and retreat immediately, the Doctor’s face long with unhappiness.

For a long time they stand wrapped around each other, the younger Doctor shedding silent tears against her shoulder. “How are you here?” Donna asks, pulling away from him to look at his face, his dear, beloved, tear-stained face.

“TARDIS made me,” he says, sniffling and smiling at her through his tears.

“Are you real?”

“Yes.” He steps back from her. “Are you?”

“Don’t be daft,” Donna says, wiping her eyes. “Only one of me.”

“I know,” the younger Doctor says. He’s smiling so widely, so guilelessly full of genuine joy, that Donna can’t help herself and she hugs him again, pressing her lips to his cheek. Then she lets go of him and looks around her.

“That means I’m on the TARDIS,” she says, and fresh tears roll down her face. “I’m on the TARDIS.” She puts her hands to the console, finding it changed, and looks to the younger Doctor. “Why did you change it?”

The Doctor emerges into the room. “He didn’t,” he says, and Donna freezes. She looks at him in complete surprise.

“Caecilius,” Donna says, astonished. “You’re that man. From Pompeii.”

“No, no,” the Doctor says, smiling through the tears in his eyes. He comes to stand in front of her. “I’m the Doctor, I’m him.” He takes Donna’s hands in his. “I regenerated. I picked this face. I chose this face because of you.”

Donna is speechless, bewildered.

“I look in the mirror and I see the best of me,” the Doctor says. “You reminded me, you held me to the mark. Whenever I see this face I remember you.”

“But I couldn’t remember you,” Donna says.

“I know,” the Doctor says.

Donna looks over to the younger Doctor. “Isn’t he the Doctor?”

“As you knew him, yes,” the Doctor says. “That was me when you knew me.”

“But then... You are you when I knew you, too,” Donna says, and she frowns momentarily at the strangeness of the statement.

The Doctor winces and the younger Doctor smiles a little bit, so proud of her, like he always was. Donna looks to Clara. “And you said your name is Clara. You traveling with him?”

Clara nods. She doesn’t quite know what to say, for there are so many gaps in her knowledge of this subject that she is on the outside of it. Donna looks from the Doctor to the younger Doctor.

“How?” she asks, and she looks so torn between joy and grief that the younger Doctor puts an arm around her. She looks up at him. “How are you here, the same time as him, and how am I here?” She shakes her head to clear it. “I’m so tired.”

Immediately the younger Doctor starts to help her back onto the bed in the console room but she stops him. “No,” she says, and looks to the Doctor. “My room, is my room still...?”

The Doctor swallows hard. “TARDIS saved it in the memory banks. Every detail.”

Donna turns her back on all of them and walks down the hallway. First door on the right, she says in her mind, as she always had, and opens the door.

The same purple walls, the same ceiling set to display the shifting cycles of Earth day and night, the same impossibly enormous bed, the same everything. Donna inhales and then exhales deeply, and turns to find the younger Doctor standing a little behind her. “It’s the same,” she says, and walks into her memories.

The walls respond to her touch, and Donna, because she remembers how, sets the ceiling to an immense blue expanse, arching clouds above them. She looks so overwhelmed the younger Doctor goes to her and wraps her up, resting his chin against the top of her head.

Donna cries against his shoulder for a moment and then pulls away and slams both fists into his chest. “How could you take this away from me?” she demands, tears rolling. “How could you just do that to me, like I was nothing?”

“It wasn’t nothing,” the younger Doctor says. “Donna, it wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t. You would have died.”

“But I didn’t die!” Donna says. “I didn’t! I lived! And I had to live without you! And I had to live with holes in my head and my heart and my… mind! And you did it!” She thumps her fists against his chest and the Doctor takes hold of her wrists.

“Listen to me,” he says, and Donna regards him with wide, teary eyes. “If I had my choice you know I never would have done it. You know what I wanted.” He lets her wrists go.

“What about what I wanted?” Donna asks. “I said no.”

“Because you had no idea what the consequences would be!” the younger Doctor exclaims. “And I would not let you die. Not that way. Not any way.” His hands close tightly on her upper arms. “You would have had a massive stroke, at minimum. More likely your brain would have literally exploded inside your skull. You would have died screaming, with blood coming out of every hole in your head, and I would never let that happen. Did you want me to let that happen?”

Donna shudders, but she squares her shoulders. “What if that was how it was meant to go?” she asks him resolutely.

“Bollocks,” the younger Doctor says.

“What if it was?”

“It was never going to happen in the first place, so why ask?” he demands of her. “You already know I would save you over everyone, so why would you think I’d ever change my mind about that? Whatever face I have?”

“Because you killed me,” she says, her throat closing up over the urge to cry.

“I saved you.”

“You took away the only good and true thing I had ever had!” Donna shouts, and then bursts into tears again. “I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I had lost a reason to live and I didn’t know why!”

“Better you should have a few headaches and feel sad for a while than be dead forever,” the younger Doctor snaps back, fast as a whip.

“A few headaches? Sad for a while?” An enormous rage and despair bubbles up inside her. “Sad for a while? Do you know how many times I thought about swallowing all my pills? Or just walking out in front of a lorry?” She sobs a few times, a twisted smile pulling her lips back from her teeth. “I’ve already done that once, right? Why not just do it again?”

“What do you mean, you walked in front of a lorry?” the younger Doctor asks.

Donna shrugs. “I walked out into the street to stop a paradox. On Shan Shen.”

“You never told me that.”

She doesn’t answer him. She only crosses her arms tightly around herself. Her face is so sad, and the younger Doctor is devastated.

“You never said that happened.” His eyes are full of pain. “You never told me you died.”

Still, Donna says nothing, because there isn’t anything to say. Silently, the younger Doctor reaches out to grasp her arms, but Donna blocks him and pushes him again. “You put me back in a world I hated, back in a world where I didn’t matter. Again. I thought I had left all that behind with you. You told me I could leave all that behind with you!”

“And I meant that! How could I know what was going to happen?”

“You said you could see everything,” Donna says, stabbing a finger at him. “What was fixed, what was in flux. The past, the present, and the future. The burden of the Time Lord. Isn’t that what you said?”

Again he reaches for her, undeterred, and this time she leans on him. “I didn’t know,” he murmurs to her, his voice broken along the edges. “You know, you know I never wanted you to be hurt.”

“But I was,” Donna says miserably into his chest. “I was, and I didn’t know what to do.”

He wraps his arms around her, one hand cradling her head, and Donna cries, the same silent sobs he remembers from so long ago and from no time ago at all. Finally her arms go around him too, and they both cling on.

“Can you forgive me?” he asks after a long, silent moment.

Donna wraps her arms tighter around him but she says nothing.

“Donna,” he says it pleadingly, softly.

Donna shakes her head into chest and doesn’t move any further except to bury her face in his shoulder and hold on. “You have to give me time,” she says. “I don’t know if I have a lot or a little of it, or how it moves, or what’s going to happen to me, not anymore.”

The younger Doctor moves to help her sit on the bed. She wipes her eyes. They look at each other, filling their eyes and hearts again with the inexpressible comfort of each other’s presence. There is a silence full of unsaid words, because Donna is unsure she could get the words out around the emotions in her throat anyway.

“What do you remember?” the younger Doctor asks, clasping her hands in his.

“Everything. All of it.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Yes. But not so badly anymore.” Donna looks around herself. “I need water.” She gets up and goes to the synthesizer computer, and because she remembers how to use it, she produces a bottle of fresh, cold water. “Do you want any?” she asks.

“No,” the younger Doctor says, watching her standing in the glow of the computer. She is as beautiful as he remembers, and more, and scarred with pain and wisdom and fear and love. He watches her drink thirstily, and catch her breath after. She puts the bottle down and goes to the big doors on the far wall.

“This is my closet,” she says. “Are you telling me all my clothes are still in here?” She opens the door to see for herself, and the enormous, dimension-crossing room expands before her. She glances back at the younger Doctor, and disappears inside.

All of her dresses, her gowns, her jeans and trousers, her tops, her strange alien clothing from distant planets, her hats and jewelry and shoes and bags are all there. More even than she has at home with her unlimited budget. More than she will ever have on Earth, true in so many ways of this ship. “I will be me again,” she says to herself, and shucks her clothes entirely. She puts on everything she loved, the soft bras and knickers she’d created for herself out of fabric not found on Earth, a deep blue top covered in embroidered flowers, a pair of light blue jeans she’d always liked, and her favorite broken-in flat boots; now that she has them back she feels she can run for miles. She emerges from her closet and the younger Doctor’s face lights up.

“That’s my Donna,” he says, and Donna feels herself smiling.

“That’s me,” she says, and sighs a great sigh of relief. “Is this the strangest thing that has ever happened to me?”

The Doctor smiles too. “I don’t know,” he says. “But how? How did this happen? Can you remember?”

Donna shrugs. “I was in line for a coffee and this woman fell at my feet begging for me and the Doctor. She said she came from another planet.”

“That’s a given,” the Doctor quips, and they both smile again at each other. Something long-crushed in Donna starts to unfold in her chest, and she looks down at her feet before the younger Doctor can see her tears.

“Did she say where?”

Donna nods, and tries to wipe her eyes as surreptitiously as she can. But as always, as always, he knows. He knew the first time she cried after Lance, held her for so many times after that. “Don’t cry,” he says. “Come.” He holds out a hand to her and pulls her back onto her bed.

“She said Mori. The planet Mori. Something about how she couldn’t let her people down.” Donna’s tears dry at the sight of the younger Doctor’s face. He probably doesn’t even realize how he’s looking at her but she knows that goofy smile in her bones. There is the familiar surge of love and joy, threaded through with fear and anticipation, that has always existed in her for him.

“Mori. That’s quite far away, must have taken a huge amount of power to get her to Earth.” The younger Doctor frowns.

“She said the planet is dying,” Donna says. “She was so afraid. And I got scared and I ran. And then I had the headache and I woke up on board.” She shrugs. “What d’you know about Mori?”

“We might be better off sharing this information,” the younger Doctor says thoughtfully. “Maybe he should know? The other Doctor? And that girl?”

“All right,” Donna says. “But, Spaceman--” She reaches out to hold his arm. “Tell me first.”

He smiles at her. “Yeah. They can wait.” He has a feeling she’s thinking the same as him, that they’d spent a lot of time in this bed with conversation and other things. This is where they are comfortable. “Mori is a very large planet in a solar system located a bit closer to the center of the Milky Way than Earth. Say about six hundred million light years? They’re traditionally a technological society, they’ve achieved level ten spaceflight, so they’ve been traveling the universe for a while. Did that woman look like she was starving or injured?”

“No,” Donna says. “Only desperate. She was wearing black, if that’s relevant. She wasn’t young but not old either. And she was looking for us. You and me. Not... that Doctor out there.”

“Well,” the younger Doctor says, grinning at her. “No use breaking up a winning team, eh?”

Donna’s expression is shot through with joy and pain. “Right,” she says, and reaches for his hand. “We’d better tell them.”

They emerge back out hand-in-hand. The Doctor starts up off the jumpseat as they come back into the console room, looking from Donna to the way her hands are clasped with the younger Doctor’s. “I can remember what brought me here,” Donna says. “There was a woman asking for help. She said she was from another planet.”

“Where?” the Doctor asks. He gestures for Donna to sit on the jump seat.

“Mori, she said,” Donna says. “She said the planet was dying and she was looking for us, er... for you and me. Or him and me.” She frowns. “Er. Us.”

“Did she say how?” the Doctor asks. He looks at his younger self. “The Mori are advanced, surely there’s less war these days.” He goes to the console and pulls up the view screen. The younger Doctor, fascinated, comes to look at the new console system. The Doctor pulls up the current Shadow Proclamation reports on the galaxy neighborhood in which Mori is located.

“Nothing is written in the reports,” the Doctor says.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” the younger Doctor interjects. “You never know what’s being covered up, or missed.”

The Doctor inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“I suppose we’d better take a look ourselves,” the younger Doctor says. “It can’t hurt for us to see firsthand what’s going on.” He looks to Donna. “Do you feel well?”

Donna shrugs. “I feel fine. Physically.”

The younger Doctor comes to stand next to her, and both of them feel a distinct sense of calm in their close proximity. The Doctor watches it happen, attempting not to notice the way Donna’s body is turned to the younger Doctor’s, the way they graze hands.

Clara looks between them and sees the way the Doctor swallows hard. She steps up beside him and starts to assist in flight. “Are you all right?” she asks quietly as she moves around the console.

The Doctor shakes his head. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

“I did know how to fly this thing,” Donna says. “Once.” She is observing the way the Doctor and Clara pilot the ship, and the younger Doctor nods.

“The best first mate this ship could ask for,” he confirms. They lean against the railings of the stairs for stability as the TARDIS lurches its way into spaceflight. Donna feels her heart start to race, and her hands start to shake in a mixture of absolute terror and anticipation and joy and excitement, and has to catch her breath. The younger Doctor keeps a close eye on her.

“Oh.”

The Doctor scrambles for the controls abruptly, looking in horror at the viewscreen. “Oh, no,” he says.

Everyone comes to stand beside him to see the screen. There is a planet in its center, blue and brown and green, like Earth, but with huge landmasses scattered across it. There are clouds, but Donna notices immediately the trailing gray and black lines rising from the surface. “That’s smoke,” she says. “It has to be. Like bombs fell.”

The Doctor looks over at her. “You might be right,” he says. She was often right when they were together. He zooms in on a particularly large plume of smoke and inhales. “It’s a crater,” he says. “Absolute destruction. There are hundreds of them.”

The younger Doctor nudges his way forward, a hand resting briefly on the small of Donna’s back. “Is it from explosives or extraterrestrial impact?” He looks closely at it. “It seems like bombs.”

Clara and Donna look at each other. “There’s a war?” Clara asks.

“Or an invasion,” Donna says, and the Doctor and the younger Doctor look back at her.

“What makes you say that?” the Doctor asks. He trusts Donna with the same quiet implicitness he always did.

“It looks like a pattern, like strategy,” Donna says. “Can you zoom back out?” She looks intent. “Look,” she says, pointing. “There’s a ring of holes around that water so no one can get to it.” She scans the screen. “Then there’s that huge one there, might have been a town or a building complex. And here. And here.” She points from crater to crater. “I don’t see anything that looks like an administrative or a hospital building, or any real infrastructure left.”

“That’s brilliant,” the younger Doctor says, and the Doctor nods.

“Let’s find out what this is,” he says. A few moments later they land with a tremendous thud. The Doctor and the younger Doctor start forward at the same time, and give each other a somewhat surprised look. The younger Doctor steps back and the Doctor opens the door. Clara and Donna follow them out into what turns out to be a tunnel, wide, made of metal, and lit with huge roundels. The Doctor looks round, pulls out his sonic, and the younger Doctor follows suit. Donna looks back and forth between them and shakes her head to herself. Between the two of them they scan their surroundings. “There’s life,” the Doctor says slowly. “Humanoid.”

Donna moves closer to the younger Doctor. “The Hath,” she says to him quietly. “Not the same place this time, though.”

“No,” he says.

There is silence in the tunnel. No one seems forthcoming to welcome them. Donna reaches instinctively for the younger Doctor’s hand and feels it close around hers with the same familiar relief.

The Doctor affects not to notice. He takes a deep inhale. “I smell explosives,” he says. “Carbon, magnesium, and sulfur. Wonder why she didn’t land us on the surface.”

“Damage,” Clara says. “There’s probably too much destruction.” She looks up to the ceiling of the tunnel. “Is the atmosphere breathable here?”

“It must be,” Donna says. “The woman I saw was built like a human.” She looks up too. “Maybe we can find a hatch or an access point.”

She and Clara begin to walk down the tunnel a little and both Doctors start to object. “Not without us, eh?” the younger Doctor says, catching up to them. Donna gives him a look of mingled affection and defiance.

“All right, I s’pose we can use you,” she quips. “What with the sonic and all. You can find the door.” She starts forward again, with Clara, and the four of them squint up at the ceiling.

“Here,” the younger Doctor says suddenly. Above them in the dimness of the ceiling is a very large hatch. It has a large metal wheel to turn, and there is a set of very poorly maintained beams screwed into the wall leading up to it. At least fifteen feet, Donna judges, and glances at Clara. “I’ll go up first,” the younger Doctor volunteers. “See if the wheel needs any encouragement.” And he scrambles up the ladder before anyone can protest, sonic in hand.

Donna looks anxiously up from the floor, and then at the Doctor, who has headed a few more feet down the tunnel. He has his sonic out too, looking for hidden doorways or passages. Then she looks back to the younger Doctor who has made his way up to the door. She breathes deeply, and follows him up the ladder.

Alerted by the shifting of the ladder, the younger Doctor looks down. Donna’s upturned face is dimly lit in the tunnel. “Donna,” he says. “What are you doing?”

Donna ascends closer to him. “Don’t want you to go alone,” she says. “If that woman was able to breathe Earth air the air here has to be similar enough.”

The younger Doctor gives her a gentle smile. Still the same Donna, he thinks. “All right,” he says. “Let’s go together.” He looks back up to the hatch, and reaches up to turn the wheel. It makes a tremendous groan and squeal, and Donna winces. But it moves with not much resistance after the first turn. The younger Doctor pushes it up and a circle of blue-and-white sky appears above them. He looks down at her. “Ready?”

She nods, her face illuminated now by the sunlight from above. They climb out and he helps her to her feet.

“Oh, no,” Donna says.

Around them stretches the remains of a city. There is stone and dust scattered everywhere. They have emerged from a manhole in the middle of what was once a wide boulevard. Some of the buildings are still tall, others are collapsed or demolished, and all of them are empty. It is so clearly uninhabited that Donna shudders. There is a smell in the air, like metal and rot.

“Horrible,” the younger Doctor says, squinting around them. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Donna says, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Is anyone alive here?”

“Doubt it,” the younger Doctor says. He pulls his sonic out again and scans around them. He grimaces. “Bodies. Not live ones. Trapped in the rubble. For miles.”

With a shudder, Donna looks back at the hatch. “You said there was life underground. Maybe they ran. Like in the Blitz when they hid in the tunnels.”

“Yeah,” the younger Doctor says. “Listen,” he adds, turning to her. “I’ll keep you safe, whatever’s happening here.”

Donna nods. “I know,” she says. “You always have.” She looks around them again. “If there’s no life here we might be noticed.”

“You’re right.” He turns back to the hatch. “Let’s go back.” They climb down one after the other and descend into the tunnel where Clara and the Doctor are standing looking up.

“What possessed you to go up there?” the Doctor asks immediately, both relieved and indignant at once. “You have no idea what’s going on!”

“Now we do,” Donna says, readjusting her clothing. “No one alive on the surface.” She faces the Doctor the same resolute way she always did. “Someone razed this place to the ground and sent everyone living into these tunnels.”

“We found a stockpile of weapons,” Clara says. “Guns, swords, all kinds of things I’ve never seen before.”

“It’s guerilla warfare,” the Doctor says. He looks to the younger Doctor. “Does your sonic work?” Separating himself from himself is an effort.

The younger Doctor pulls his sonic out from his inner pocket. “At the ready.”

“Now we just have to figure out whether the life down here are victims or perpetrators,” the Doctor says. “It’s not like the Hath versus the humans this time.”

Donna flinches for the barest moment. They start down the tunnel, trepidatiously listening for noise or some indication of life. Then suddenly there is the squeal of metal on metal, hinges of a door somewhere.

“Who’s there?”

It’s a woman’s voice. Knowing this is no indication of safety, the four of them move forward into the light of one of the roundels, hands up. The woman steps out of the shadows. She is holding an enormous gun of some kind, her hair wild around her face. She is heavily pregnant and looks terrified.

“Oh.” It’s out of Donna’s mouth before she can stop herself. “We mean no harm. Not to you or your baby.”

The woman looks from face to face and blanches. She seems to recognize Donna. “Oh,” she repeats back. “Donna Noble. You’re Donna Noble.”

Donna nods.

“You. And the Doctor,” the woman says. Her eyes fill with tears. “We used our last bit of natural fuels to send Agent Karrish to earth and she found you.” She lowers the gun and weeps, and Donna rushes forward to embrace her without hesitation. She takes the gun out of the woman’s hands and puts it on the floor.

“My baby will live!” The woman grabs Donna’s hands. “We had no hope of this actually working.” She puts her hands over her eyes. “I was starting to wish he’d die inside me, I was prepared to give birth to this baby and watch him be murdered or stolen and I--” The rest of her words are lost to tears, and Donna looks from the woman’s ravaged face to the three humans standing solemnly behind her.

“What’s your name?” she asks gently.

“Beni,” the woman says, managing to steady her voice. “My name is Beni. I’ve been living down here for ages.” Her tears are mixed with awe. She moves forward towards the younger Doctor. “You’re the Doctor.”

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor says, and Beni looks at him confusedly.

“We were told he was a young man,” she says.

“Outwardly young,” the younger Doctor says wryly. “I’m technically the Doctor also.”

Beni smiles through her tears. “You brought me two Doctors, you clever girl,” she says to Donna, who can only shrug helplessly.

“Your agent found me,” she says. “She begged me for help, she said she’d come a long way.”

Beni turns back to the dimness behind her. “The rest of them will want to see you,” she says. “They won’t believe you’re really real.” She starts to lead Donna in through a large round door carved into the side of the tunnel. The rest of them follow her, and Donna looks anxiously back at the younger Doctor.

There is the smell of waste, which fades as they walk further into the room, and then a sharp smell of what must be disinfectant, and then a whisper of cooking food on the air. There are blankets and sheets scattered everywhere on the floor, large containers near them, filled with water. And there are people, people sitting in the midst of this apocalyptic scene, some of whom do not look up when they walk by.

“Look!” Beni shouts suddenly, in the middle of the gloomy silence. “Donna Noble found us. And two Doctors! The war is over!”

For a moment there is silence, and then people begin to emerge from corners and shadows, disentangling themselves from their hiding places. They are all women, from teenaged to elderly, all of them hungry and wide-eyed and afraid.

“Is that really her?” someone asks.

“It’s her, it’s her,” someone else says. An old woman steps forward with a piece of card in her hand. “Look, she’s like her shrine.”

Donna looks wide-eyed at a painted rendering of herself on the woman’s card. Under it is written “OUR LADY OF THE LIBERATION” and a date. “I visited the Ood shrines to Donna a long time ago,” the lady says. “When I was much younger. The statue there is magnificent.”

“A statue?” Donna is bewildered. “Of what?”

“Of you!” Beni says. “Didn’t you know?”

“No,” Donna says. “Why me? I’m no one.”

“You’re not,” Beni says. “You’re the Lady of the Liberation, you’re the protective goddess of the whole Mridulan galaxy, we’ve known stories of you all our lives.” She shakes her head in awe. “I can hardly believe you’re a real person.”

Donna looks to the younger Doctor. “Did you know this?”

The younger Doctor shrugs. “I had an idea,” he says.

The Doctor, who of course had known, who had visited these shrines many, many times, who had shed tears in front of the various depictions of Donna on many planets, who had thrown flowers at the very statue on the Oodsphere the old woman had referenced alongside all the celebrants of the Liberation Festival, now wonders how much this carbon copy of his old self knows. It must be up until he wiped her memory. At least he wouldn’t remember regenerating.

“Usually they draw you blindfolded,” the old woman says. “But you have eyes.”

Donna is frankly nonplussed. After a few moments she exhales. “All right,” she says. “I suppose it’s my job today to learn information I had no idea about that is disquieting to say the least.” There are so many faces gathered around them, and Donna is starting to feel crowded. “Er,” she says, at their expectant faces, “these are... the Doctors, and this... this is Clara, she’s my friend--” Donna’s gestures are hesitant. “We’ve come to find out what’s going on and help you.” It’s almost a question.

There is a wave of silence over the crowd and someone starts to cry. There are tears streaming down faces here or there. “I wish my husband was here to know this,” a woman says, and a few agree with her. “We haven’t seen our men in a long time.”

“I wish my son was here,” comes another voice.

“Do you know where our families are?” someones asks Donna from the crowd.

“No,” she says.

“Why did they separate you?” Clara speaks up, looking to save Donna from her confusion and unease.

“To make us weak.” A young woman says. She makes a path through the assembled crowd and holds out a hand to shake Donna’s.  “I’m Nina. My husband was a peace officer before the invasion.”

“Who invaded you?” the younger Doctor asks. “I’ve never heard of any surface wars on your planet after the Shadow Proclamation put up the Truce.”

“The Shadow Proclamation are the ones who invaded us,” Nina says.

The Doctor is alarmed. “The universal police invaded you? They’re occupying?”

“They blew our capital to bits.” Beni makes circles on her belly with her hands. “I was in the hospital for an appointment when they hit. Found out I was pregnant twenty minutes before the lights went out. They declared a suspension of our constitution on the basis of emergent need in the light of intergalactic conflict. They told us our planet is a strategic location and they would rearrange our infrastructure to accommodate their needs. They razed us and drove us underground. They took our men and our boys. They shut our banks down and took our farms.”

“But that’s government forces,” the Doctor says. “You’re being occupied by an intergalactic treaty of officials. That makes no sense. They said intergalactic conflict? How is that possible when the Shadow Proclamation is made up of all universal nations?”

“We don’t know,” a woman says. “But our children are hungry and the surface is off-limits to us.”

“But now you’re here,” Beni says. “So maybe it will be over soon.”

They all look so hopeful and relieved.

The younger Doctor has been keeping a close eye on Donna this entire time, to be sure she is safe. “I’m not a miracle worker,” Donna says.

“That’s not what we hear,” Nina says.

The women and children make them welcome among them, bringing them food and water, gathering to watch Donna like an audience. She is distinctly unnerved by it. At first she declines their food on the basis of limited supply but then she realizes it’s almost like offerings. That makes it worse.

“Please,” she says after the fourth person has brought her food, “save your food for yourselves. And your children.”

“How else will we sustain you?” The old woman smiles and pats Donna’s hand. “If you are to sustain us, first we must feed you.” She sits near to Donna, smiling to herself. “My name is Persha,” she continues. “I’ve waited a long time to know if the stories were true.”

“What stories?” Donna asks.

“The liberation of the Ood, for a start.” Persha counts off on her fingers. “The Hath and Human War of Generations, the monster of Midnight, the Adipose, all of them.”

Donna is speechless. All of those are true indeed.

“Are they all true?”

“I... yes,” Donna says, unable at last to lie. And why would she? All of them are gloriously, painfully true, all of them had been taken away from her and now come rushing back with unexpected clarity. “Yeah,” she repeats, and her eyes fill up and spill over. “Yes, they’re all true.”

Persha looks dismayed. “Oh,” she exclaims. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

The younger Doctor moves before the Doctor can. “Donna,” he says to her, in a way that makes the Doctor clench his teeth, and wraps her up in his embrace. “Don’t cry.”

He feels Donna’s muscles tense and relax, and she steels herself. “I’m sorry,” she says, pulling away and wiping her eyes. “It’s all so overwhelming. I wasn’t expecting you all to know the details.”

“But they’re extraordinary!” Persha says, leaning forward to offer Donna a handkerchief made of various pieces of fabric sewn together. “All the things you did, the lives you saved! The two of you!”

The younger Doctor smiles at Donna too. “It’s true,” he says. “You did all of it.”

The Doctor clears his throat. “I wonder if we might ask you all a few more questions?” He wants to sit next to Donna, wrap an arm around her the way the younger Doctor is doing so easily now, comfort her, but he knows she will not regard him the same way she does the younger Doctor. Instead, he turns to Clara. “Will you sit with Donna? If someone is willing to guide us, we,” he indicates the younger Doctor and himself, “can do some recon and get the lay of the land here, so to speak.”

“Of course.” Clara comes to settle herself beside Donna among the blankets and people. Donna looks absolutely bereft when the younger Doctor stands up. He gives her a meaningful look and turns to his current self.

“Let’s solve this problem,” the younger Doctor says. “Two brains are better than one.”

Donna watches both of them walk out of the room, back into the tunnel, and away from her. She exhales shakily. “Please, will you let me talk to her alone for a while?” Clara asks the people who are still watching Donna hungrily, expectantly. They drift away slowly, one by one, some children being ushered by their mothers, others looking back over their shoulders.

“Thank you,” Donna says gratefully to Clara. She exhales and wraps her arms around herself. She looks around. “These people think I can save them,” she says after a long moment of silence.

Clara reaches out and puts a hand on Donna’s shoulder. “They’re glad to see you,” she says, and knows it sounds useless.

“They think I can do something that I can’t,” Donna says, her voice low but urgent. “These people think I can do magic. I don’t even know what’s happening on the surface, I hardly know anything about the Shadow Proclamation. And it’s worse that all the stories are actually true.”

Her hands are moving agitatedly, and Clara covers them with her own. “Don’t forget to breathe,” she says, and Donna slows her movements. “There is no way the Doctor will let you come to harm,” she says, and Donna’s eyes flicker to her face at the certainty in Clara’s tone. “And there is something going on here that you must be meant to be part of. I’ve been with the Doctor long enough to know that.”

Donna breathes steadily, slowly. She also knows this.

“He says you came looking for him,” Clara says. “That you turned him down and then you came and found him.”

“I did,” Donna says. “That’s true.”

“Why? How did you find him? How long did it take you?”

Donna shakes her head. “Took me about a year? Maybe a bit less? I was just... throwing myself into every strange thing that happened, spending my time and money on investigating weird happenings, I just knew he’d be around them.” She smiles a bit ruefully. “My mum was absolutely losing her mind. To her I was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Useless. But I knew. I just knew.”

“And where did you find him?”

“London. Of course,” Donna says. “That was the Adipose.”

“I don’t know what those are, but these people do,” Clara says, grinning too. “Maybe you can tell me the story.”

“They were aliens,” Donna says, “naturally. And they infiltrated a pharmaceutical company and started selling pills that caused people’s bodies to fragment, a kilo at a time.”

Clara grimaces in disgust.

“I mean, literally a kilo of living flesh,” Donna says. “It would detach itself and... walk away. I saw a woman dissolve completely into ten or eleven of the little buggers. Right in front of me on her bathroom floor. People thought it was a weight-loss pill.”

“That’s fucked,” Clara says, and her honesty startles Donna into a little laugh, the first since she’s arrived.

“It was fucked,” Donna says. “And I’m sure you’ve seen plenty just as bad. Almost inevitable with him, isn’t it?”

Clara nods in agreement. “The most exciting, excruciating, terrifying, euphoric things.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” Donna continues with her memories. “We discovered they wanted to use Earth as a nursery, and they’d recruited this... woman, this Miss Foster, to be the nurse, and she must have gotten them this office building they were in. She called herself a nanny. The Adipose dropped her on her head from the roof of the building when they realized they’d been found out.”

Donna remembers how, instinctually, she’d buried her face in the Doctor’s chest as gravity reasserted itself over Miss Foster’s body, how he’d pulled her in as soon as it happened, how she’d clung to him in a way she had wanted to do before, and how it was as natural as breathing to turn to him and feel him hold her close.

“They came in their ships and collected the babies,” Donna says. “We got them off the surface of the planet and out of the galactic neighborhood. No sign of them since, at least not locally. Not that I would know, even if it had happened again, since I was mindwiped.”

There is a little silence. Clara looks around them. “They say they’re being occupied by government forces,” she says. “Universal government forces. But why? For strategic purposes? Who is the enemy of the universal police? They’re meant to be the law that applies no matter the planet.”

“Then something is going on that shouldn’t be,” Donna says. “On one side or the other. You saw the visuals. They’ve cut off resources, made the city impassable. Is this the capital?” She looks around them. “Is this the capital? Or an important location?” she asks, raising her voice so she can be heard.

“This is the capital,” Beni says from her seat on a folding chair. “Bahara Ko Kel. It means ‘city on the blue water.’ There was a lake here a long time ago.”

“Where did it go?” Clara asks.

“It was drained,” Beni says. She drags her chair over to where Donna and Clara are sitting. “There was a... poisoning. It leached into the soil and we had limited natural aquifer capability to filter it out. So the government drained it.”

“What was it in the water?” Donna asks. “How do you know so much about it?”

“I was a city planner,” Beni says. “I was part of the team that designed the containment process and the drainage. As for what was in the water, we don’t know. We weren’t allowed to do tests.”

“How long ago was this?” Donna asks.

“Nine months now,” Beni says. “We’ve been down here almost eight months.”

“How do you get your water here?” Clara asks.

“We tap into the city’s underground pipe system,” a woman says. “We have filtration devices we smuggled down here. We can show them to you.”

Donna declines for both of them. “I won’t put your organizing in danger like that,” she says. “And food?”

“We steal.”

The answer is simple. Donna feels like she should have known. She doesn’t ask where from. She and Clara only look at each other solemnly. “How long exactly have you been down here?” Clara asks.

“We’ve measured by the one natural calendar we have,” Nina says, pointing to Beni. “Eight months.”

“I was four weeks along when I found out,” Beni says. “Now by my count I’m a week from my due date.”

“And... pregnancy is forty weeks among you?” Donna asks. “Are you humans?”

“Close enough,” Beni says. “Excellent question. And yes, gestation is forty weeks on Mori. Some of our relative species go a little longer, but we’re close to human physiology.”

“So they poisoned the major body of water in your city,” Clara says, “then they invaded?”

“About two weeks later,” another woman says. “They shut down the schools and the banks, that was our first indication. We all had to go and get our children from their schools, even those of us who sent our children off-world for their education. They claimed they wanted to do a census of Mori.”

Clara frowns. “Did they count you? Did they put marks on you? Take your names and addresses and details?”

“They just... processed us,” Nina says. “I lost my job. We all did. The men and boys over 12 were told to go one way, and the women and children under 12 the other. Took about eighteen hours to process the entire capital.”

“How awful,” Donna says. She thinks for a moment. “This was such a thorough and complete shutdown of your country,” she says. “They were so efficient, and so quick about getting you all out of the way. Did they do this anywhere else?”

“We aren’t sure,” says a woman. “But we managed to take a cell network for ourselves for two days before they figured us out, and we got nothing. No responses, no pings, no results on a scan. So they must have gotten everyone.”

“You have no communications above ground anymore?” Clara asks.

“We are cut off,” says Nina, and there is a finality about her words that makes Donna shiver.

“How do you know about the baby?” she asks Beni, who shrugs.

“I don’t,” she says. “We’ll see when it comes out.”

A look of dismay passes over the faces of all the women who hear that statement, and Nina says, “We’ll all be here to help when that happens.”

“What about you, Donna?” Beni asks. “Have you got a husband? A child?”

Donna looks down at the wedding band on her left hand. “I do have a husband,” she says slowly, thinking of her life on Earth for the first time in a while. “I... his name is Shawn.”

“What does he do?”

“He, er... he helps me run my foundation,” Donna says. “We... we have a foundation dedicated to science education in London.” She thinks of the building going up, layer by layer, in central London, the observatory she is funding, the giant telescope in the Wilfred Mott Planetarium and Library. The library dedicated to her grandfather, who’d capered through it like a boy when he saw all the stacks of books, the rows of computers, the enormous skylight.

“How long have you been married?”

“Just about three years,” Donna says. “No babies yet, we’ve been busy.” And that is most of the truth, though she leaves out that the migraines had made her fearful of pregnancy, not to mention she’d suspected she couldn’t get pregnant for a while, and now she remembers why; the Metacrisis. She has no idea if it has had a lasting effect on her cells or her DNA, if her time with the Doctor changed her body beyond her former functions. But there have been no pregnancies on earth, though her period has come with healthy regularity. She can be sure of nothing.

“Maybe we’ll see our husbands again soon.”

The statement is met with a general sense of forlorn agreement, the sentiment worn threadbare by hopeful overuse in these dark tunnels. Donna doesn’t even know who said it, just that it hangs in the air like a hungry ghost. She knows it’s renewed by her presence. She feels Clara squeeze her hand and suddenly she is tired. Overwhelmingly tired, as everything seems to catch up with her on a wave of anxious awareness.

“I need to sleep,” she says to Clara, and Persha leaps into action, quickly for all her age.

“Get blankets,” she commands. “Donna needs to rest.”

Donna is practically asleep upright, her eyes too heavy to keep open, as soon as the words have left her mouth. It is a tiredness she hasn’t felt in a long, long time. She rouses herself to lay down on the pile of blankets provided for her, and doesn’t stir when Persha drapes her with a coverlet. Her sleep is so deep and exhausted that Clara is worried. She keeps watch, whispering with the other women, gathering more information while she glances over periodically to check that Donna is breathing.

A long while later the two Doctors return. Donna is still asleep, and the younger Doctor moves towards her instinctively, immediately, and takes over watching for Clara. She goes to sit with the Doctor, who is mulling over a stack of drawings.

“These are layouts of the tunnels,” the Doctor says, glancing up at Clara as she sits down next to him. “They made me a few copies. We saw the water filtration system.”

“What are they doing underground?” Clara asks.

“What are they doing on the surface,” the Doctor says. “That’s the question. They drained that lake on the surface. They said it was poisoned.”

“They said the government didn’t let them test it.”

“I bet they didn’t,” the Doctor muses. “Who’s leading the Shadow Proclamation now?” he asks himself. “We should get back on the ship and do some research.”

“Why don’t we do that now,” Clara suggests. “I wonder if we have limited time before the Shadow Proclamation notice we’re here.”

“Right.”

The younger Doctor seems to take it as a given he will stay with Donna while she sleeps, and he nods at the Doctor when he hears where they’re going. He turns back to Donna’s sleeping face before the Doctor and Clara are even fully turned away.

Her breathing is steady; he can hear it. Her cheeks are flushed and her skin is pink. She seems healthy. He puts two fingers softly on her temple to check her pulse and blood pressure. Both are normal.

Donna stirs at the feeling of his fingers on her skin. She opens her eyes, blinks a few times, and then inhales and exhales deeply. She sits up and pushes her hair out of her face. “You’re back,” she says.

“I’m back,” he says softly. “Did you sleep all right? Are you all right?” He’s seen her in this state so many times, her blue eyes coming to life as she wakes up, her red hair in disarray.

“Yes,” she says. “Did I sleep long?”

“Yes,” the younger Doctor nods. “Clara said you suddenly started to fall asleep, and they laid you down. Does your head hurt?”

“No,” Donna says. “No, I feel rested. I’m hungry.” She looks around her for the parcel of food she’d been handed. They’d all made her a meal of their stash despite her protests. “Eat with me,” she says. “I know you walked a long way. You can tell me what you found.”

“We found more tunnels,” the Doctor says. “They showed me the food and water, the disposal, the weapons.”

“What do they have?” Donna asks. She tears open a package of crackers and hands the Doctor half in the wrapper. They break apart a block of cheese between them, and share the container of water. There are also small grapes.

“Guns. A lot of them. Traditional explosive and laser. Infrared, photon bullets, all that kind of thing. They have scramblers, trackers, small nuclear arms.”

Donna shudders. “Nuclear?”

“Well, that’s common technology for them, it’s not atom bombs,” the younger Doctor clarifies. “But yes, nuclear.”

“Will we be fighting, d’you think?” Donna asks.

“I don’t know,” the younger Doctor shrugs. “We’ll do everything we can to avoid it, of course. As usual.” But there is always the unspoken for him, the resolve that if anyone harmed Donna there would be a painful and certain death for them. “If they’re being occupied by government forces, then something very big is going on.”

Donna eats silently for a moment. “I’m scared,” she says eventually. “I’m afraid these people think I can do magic.”

“Magic?” The younger Doctor looks puzzled.

“That I can save them,” Donna says. “That I can do something that I maybe can’t do.”

“We can only do what we can do,” the younger Doctor says, counting grapes to divide them evenly between them. “Fortunately, I happen to know that you are capable of extraordinary things.”

Donna sighs. “Not you too, Spaceman.”

They both pause. The affectionate name slipped from her as easily as memory does.

“Don’t put pressure on me,” Donna says urgently. “This is life or death, there’s a pregnant woman here.”

“You’re not alone,” the younger Doctor reminds her, reaching across to take her hand. “Don’t forget that.”

“Do they think I’m a goddess?” Donna asks.

“No, I don’t think so,” the younger Doctor says thoughtfully. “I think they think you’re the deus ex machina, though.”

“I’m not,” Donna repeats.

“I know.” He pushes a stray bit of hair out of her face. “Remember what I said to you about coincidence? All that time ago? There’s too much of it around you. Something must be happening again.”

He watches the emotions warring on her face, her beautiful face that he has loved to look at for as long as he has known her. She is full of expression, and her eyes can speak volumes. With the slightest quirk of her lip he knows when she’s joking and when she’s serious. There is fear, excitement, and anticipation. That’s my Donna, he thinks.

“Is it beyond my control?” Donna asks.

“Like many things in this universe,” the younger Doctor shrugs. “And, like every other time, I will be here for every minute of it. And I will protect you and save you and make sure you get out of it alive.”

Donna looks down at her hands. “I trust you,” she says.

He pulls her hand to his lips and kisses it, a gesture out of the past that makes her gasp with the force of memory. Then he looks at her hand again and says, “That’s a wedding band, Donna Noble.”

“Er, yes, I... I got married.” Neither of them would have the knowledge the Doctor has, of her wedding when he’d stood in the graveyard and watched her laugh and smile and love another man.

“Who is he?”

Donna takes a long time to answer. Then she looks at the younger Doctor, the resurrection of all of her hopes and dreams, even removed from him as she had been, and she knows. “No one,” she says. “I’ll tell you about him another time.”

The younger Doctor doesn’t get a chance to pursue the subject. Suddenly there is a group of women gathered around them again. “Are you quite finished?” one asks, and Donna feels her heart sink.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because two of your friends have disappeared into your ship, and we are unable to understand why we have been shut out from it,” the same woman says. “They have not allowed us to know what information they are seeking and we demand to be told.”

“They want to know who’s in charge of the Shadow Proclamation,” the younger Doctor says. “What we can do to help. That’s all.”

“We’ve shown you our water, our food, our hiding places,” the woman says. She is starting to twitch slightly. “We are being suppressed by hostile intergalactic government forces, from achieving our destiny--”

“Hold on,” the younger Doctor says, holding up a hand. “Your destiny?”

“To dominate,” the woman says, and then Nina steps forward.

“To rule,” she says. “We have the superior minds, with our power nestled inside, alive, hungry.”

“Inside?” The younger Doctor’s wariness unfolds into guarded grimness. “Inside where?”

“Inside,” Nina repeats. “In our minds. Our brains. The power lies in them, waiting, ready to consume. We will not let anyone stand in the way.”

“In your brain?” The younger Doctor gets to his feet and puts his hand inside his coat to retrieve his sonic. Nina steps forward and knocks his hand out of the way.

“If you have a weapon you’d best let that notion go,” she says, and Donna notices her pupils are blown wide, a little bit of saliva oozing out of the corner of her mouth. “We will kill you.”

“But we came here to help you!” Donna exclaims, leaping to her feet as well. She comes to stand close to the younger Doctor.

“Don’t try and protect your husband,” Nina sneers, and Donna rolls her eyes instinctively.

“He’s not my husband,” she says, and the younger Doctor, despite his trepidation, feels one corner of his mouth quirk up. The eternal chestnut with them had always been that somehow, surely, they were married. “For fuck’s sake, they’re still doing that?” she asks the younger Doctor, and he shrugs.

“I don’t have any marriage certificate,” he says. “She’s not my wife.”

“Irrelevant,” Nina says.

“Let me help you, Nina,” the younger Doctor says urgently. “If you have something living in your brain you have the right to be free of it. The Mori have no symbiotic relationships with the flora or fauna of this planet. It shouldn’t be there.”

“Oh, no, no,” Nina says, smiling. “It belongs there.”

“What is ‘it’?” Donna demands. She can feel the dread starting to creep up and spread outwards from her chest like a many-armed thing.

“Kalazar,” says Nina, and she pauses a moment to twitch. “He is Kalazar. He is many. They are many. They are us.” She turns to Donna, which gives the younger Doctor the chance to reach for his sonic.

“He’s got something!” one of the women shrieks from the crowd. “He’s got something!”

There is a sound like metal and equipment and the women in the front step aside to reveal a group of armed children. They are holding guns of all variations, some that Donna can recognize, and others not. Donna chokes and grabs the younger Doctor’s arm.

“What have you done with the Doctor?” he demands. “And Clara?”

“We have contained them.”

“What does that mean?” The younger Doctor looks between the children with the weapons and the gathered adults.

“We pulled them out of that box.” Nina rolls her shoulders and shakes her head. She looks as if she’s had a terrible fright, her eyes wide. “We’re holding them. And now you too.”

“Have you all got this... thing in your head? This Kalazar?” the younger Doctor asks. “Is it a single entity? Is it made of parts? Is it a species?”

“Would you like to see? It’s your destiny too, after all,” Nina says. She turns to the surrounding women. “Shall we show the invincible Donna Noble how mortal she is after all? How she is destined to be part of us? And bonus,” here she turns to the younger Doctor, “she’s brought us two Time Lords, clever girl.”

“But what is it?” The younger Doctor is relentless, an old tactic, to keep people talking.

“Kalazar is greater than the sum of its parts,” Nina quotes. She is reciting from memory, as if programmed. “Kalazar feeds on the minds and brains of the untrained, and teaches them the true order. Kalazar is the Way of Thought. The unifier.” She starts to wince, and grimace, and then tips her head to the side.

A viscous, sluglike creature oozes out of her ear and slops onto her shoulder, like a puddle of mucus. It has few discernible features; none, really. Donna gags before she can stop herself. The younger Doctor draws back in distaste.

The blob is the color of dead flesh, mottled livid purple and red. It sits for a moment and then extends an appendage, blindly, until it reaches Nina’s earlobe. At which point it seems to launch its body up into the ear and Nina makes a strangled noise of terrible pain as it slops and forces its way back into her head.

“That is Kalazar, one of many, one of what will be millions,” Nina says as she straightens her head up again. There is a small trickle of blood from her nose. “And I have a goddess, and two fat-brained Time Lords, and a spare human. Basic model, a bit small to be useful for anything but scavenging, but she’ll do.”

“Oh, I think the men will like her.” Persha steps forward, and Donna gives her a horrified look. “Up to you, of course, but if we do come across them they’ll be ravenous.”

“You have one in your head too?” Donna asks, and then feels stupid.

“Of course,” Persha says. “We all do.” She looks Donna over critically. “I’d offer you to them too but something tells me this young man would go berserk.” She points at the younger Doctor. “You don’t have to have a marriage to be a wife, little human, Time Lord or no. You can’t lie to Kalazar.”

“Where are they?” Donna demands.

“You’ll be joining them,” Persha says. “The women will escort you to the room where we will process you and you will become part of us.”

“You said you needed help!” Donna exclaims. “You sent that woman, that agent to find me!”

Nina laughs, nudging Persha with her elbow. “Told you it would work,” she says. “She believed Agent Karrish.”

“She said your planet is dying!”

“So it is,” Nina says. “But we will resuscitate it, through Kalazar. All will be one.”

“Oh,” the younger Doctor says. “I see.” He looks grim. “This isn’t an invasion. This is a quarantine.”

Donna makes as if to grab his arm, but the armed group of children all retrain their weapons on her.  “They razed your city because you were all infected,” the younger Doctor continues. “The Shadow Proclamation is doing damage control.”

“And we escaped them!” Nina declares. “We fled, and we are here to continue the glorious work.”

“Even the children?” Donna asks. She looks to the group of small hands clutching guns, the big eyes trained on them, the serious faces.

“Our most precious resource,” Beni says, and Donna is rendered speechless at the cruelty of it. “And now you.” She comes forward and yanks Donna’s hands behind her back. Donna feels rope wind tightly around her wrists. She sees the younger Doctor is being similarly restrained, but is less perturbed about it than she is. They are frog-marched down several long hallways, followed by two armed children, a boy and a girl, and shoved unceremoniously into a room behind a round door. The Doctor and Clara are sitting against the far wall, also bound, and Donna and the younger Doctor are deposited beside them.

“Don’t be afraid,” Beni says, and the rest of the women dissipate, leaving her and Persha and Nina. “It hurts, but not forever.” She looks back at Persha and Nina. “Shall I begin the teaching? Shall we initiate them?”

Persha nods. “Let them learn. They have arrived at their salvation.” She and Nina join hands with Beni and they begin to chant. “Teach the unbelieving masses, O Great Master Kalazar. Teach the unbelieving masses, O Great Master Kalazar.”

Both Persha and Nina tilt their heads in that unnatural, otherworldly way, and Clara chokes on her breath when the Kalazar oozes its way onto their shoulders, waving blind appendages to the air around them, before forcing their way back into both women’s ears, causing blood to leak from their noses. Nina has tears of blood tracing down her cheeks for a few moments, both of them groaning the chant until their voices normalize.

After a long while of this, Persha and Nina retreat behind Beni. “Let her teach you,” Persha says. She and Nina back out of the room, and pull the heavy door shut with a resounding clang.

“You evil bitch,” Donna says immediately, as soon as the door is shut. “You’re pregnant, you have a baby in you.”

Beni drops her ceremonial pose and leans against the wall. She looks exhausted. “Leave me alone,” she sighs. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Is that even a baby in there?” Donna demands, and the Doctor, the younger Doctor, and Clara all look at her in horror, and then at Beni, realizing that Donna could be absolutely right.

“Maybe you’re the queen bee, maybe it’s you giving birth to those lumps of dead flesh--”

“Shut up!” Beni explodes, turning on Donna. “Shut up, you foolish cunt! Don’t talk about my baby like that!” She is furious. “I’ve been trapped here waiting for one or both of us to die in this hole, don’t you dare accuse me of putting my baby in danger!” She yanks Donna’s hair hard, to press Donna’s head against her belly. “Listen,” she hisses. “You can hear the heartbeat.”

And faintly, so faintly, Donna hears a steady thumping, a tiny drum of life. Beni pushes her head away roughly. Donna winces but her hands are bound and she can’t defend herself. “Fucking humans,” Beni mutters.

“Then why did you let them put that... thing in your head?” the Doctor asks, his tone more measured, non-accusatory.

“I didn’t,” Beni says, her voice tightly controlled. “I begged them not to. They don’t know what it might do to the baby. I agreed to cooperate. For my baby. Come what may.” She is shaking now. “I think they’re going to take my baby and process me once it’s born.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I may never get another chance to have a child, and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me that I may never get to hold this one.” Beni starts to weep. “I’m trapped. My poor innocent baby is trapped too.”

“And how long did you say before you give birth?” the Doctor continues, softly, relentlessly.

“A week. Ten days, maybe,” Beni says. She wipes her eyes roughly. “I don’t exactly know. They’ll probably lock me up when I go into labor.”

“You think this is going to go on for ten more days?” the Doctor asks. He scoffs. “Not if I have anything to say about it, I’ve got appointments.”

“You propose to resist?” Beni asks. Her smile is mirthless. “How? They’re possessed. Those blobs control them. They sink into every crevice of the brain, and they live there and grow there. That’s why it hurts when they come and go. It’s attached to the living tissue of the brain. If they... If I... I’m afraid it would make me kill my baby. If I had one. Accomplish the pain all at once, you know? Let me give birth, let the thing crawl into my brain, and dispose of my baby all in one shot.” She starts to cry again. “Fucking fuck!” she says, and it’s a sound of frustration and pain that Donna knows so well. Despair and frustration and loneliness and fear.

“Beni,” she says gently. “We understand your fear. We see you. We will help you when that baby is born and we won’t let them take it, or you. We came here to end this problem.”

“But don’t you see?” Beni asks. “They know you’re not a goddess, Donna.”

“I’m not,” Donna says. “I never said I was. I can’t do magic. I can’t save you.” She also starts to tear up. “I know even less than you do. I was just brought here.”

The younger Doctor moves closer to her. Clara does the same.

“That means they can infect you too,” Beni says. “All of you. They’re planning to. And that means any resistance you try won’t work. You’ll be possessed.”

“We won’t let it get that far,” Clara says. “Circumstances have converged on this situation in a way that is bigger than you can understand. Donna being here is a sign.” Donna starts to object, but Clara stops her. “No, Donna, it’s true,” she says. “It’s time for you to stop pretending you don’t know these are extenuating circumstances. The burden is not all on you, but your presence is significant. You can’t hide that anymore.”

“It’s not,” Donna insists, and the younger Doctor shakes his head.

“No use,” he says. “She was the same with me.”

The Doctor grits his teeth. She was the same with me, he thinks. He adjusts his position, attempting to find a more comfortable way to sit with his hands so restrained.

“Oh, give it a rest, Spaceman,” Donna says. “We’re tied up in this room because I’m so fucking extraordinary.”

There is a little silence. Beni clears her throat. “I don’t think I can get you out of here,” she says. “I’m pregnant and I’m outnumbered. If you’re supposed to be here,” and she pauses. “All of you, not just Donna, then you’re the ones who’ll have to figure it out.” She shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Obviously you can’t make any waves,” Donna says. “They mean what they say.” She shifts against the wall. “But we are going to put a stop to this one way or another.”

There is a bang at the door, and it swings open. All four captives immediately assume positions of submission and a girl, not more than ten or eleven, pokes her head into the room. “Leave them,” the girl says. “Everyone wants to eat.”

Beni retreats towards the door with a wide-eyed stare at the Doctor, who is glaring at her resentfully. She turns back to the door, her face composed, and the girl pulls the door shut with a final look at all of them.

“Fuck’s sake,” Clara says into the silence, a sentiment echoed by all of them. “Now what?”

“We wait,” the Doctor says grimly. “What else can we do? They took my sonic.”

“I have mine,” the younger Doctor says. “Might be hard to get to it, but we’ll work on it.”

“Wait,” Donna says. “The Doctor is right. They’re going to come back for us. And they’re probably going to come for me first.”

There is a small silence because she is most likely correct. “We won’t let them take you,” Clara says.

“What can you do?” Donna asks. “We’re all tied up.” She looks at the younger Doctor and then to the Doctor. “We’ll have to wait. Let them think they’ve won for a while.”

And so they wait. Donna moves closer to the younger Doctor, trying to seek comfort from his presence. He shifts so they’re shoulder to shoulder. He can feel that she’s shaking a little, terrified that her prediction might be true. “We won’t let them hurt you,” he says to her. Donna is only quiet in response. She huddles closer to him.

None of them are sure how much time has passed by the time the door opens again. Nina enters, alone. “Get up,” she says to Donna.

“Fuck off,” Donna says, and spits at her feet. This earns her a casual, vicious slap across the face, and the Doctors and Clara all object at once. Nina hauls Donna to her feet.

“Shut up,” Nina says, to the room at large, and pulls Donna out the door with her.

Donna’s face is tight with hatred and rage as Nina pulls her along the corridors, first one way and then the other. She stumbles and drags her feet deliberately, making Nina slow and stop. It only makes Nina angry, though, so eventually Donna stops, fearing her for own safety. Nina brings her into another room, lit more brightly than the first. There’s a hole in the floor, from which a terrible smell emanates.

“Sit down,” Nina says.

Donna laughs.

“Sit down,” Nina repeats, and kicks her in the back of the knee, forcing her legs to bend. Donna lands on her knees and Nina pushes her shoulder until she sits. “Sit down,” she says again.

Donna looks towards the stinking hole in the floor and feels herself start to shake. Now her heart is racing. Nina kneels down and reaches into the hole, and in her hand is a quivering slop of life, a new Kalazar. “Are you afraid, Donna?” Nina asks. “Goddess of the Ood? The Beloved Companion? Defender of Galaxies?” She steps closer to Donna and Donna can smell the awful, rotting scent of the Kalazar, see the grotesque, pulsing life with the total lack of features. She feels herself start to panic as Nina gathers all her hair in one hand and wraps it securely around her fingers to hold it fast.

“No,” Donna says, puling away. “No, no, no.” Tears well in her eyes.

“Stop moving, you silly bitch.” Nina shakes her head. “This is inevitable.” She puts the slimy blob on Donna’s shoulder. Donna shudders; the cold, wet, stinking weight of it makes her want to scream forever. She feels the blind rooting of the creature, and immediately a stupendous pain flares in her ear and down her neck. It spreads into a vise around her forehead, burning and squeezing until Donna is blind with the agony of it. She can feel the screaming wrenching her throat. It’s worse than any migraine she had ever suffered, worse than the Metacrisis when she had felt her whole body torn apart.

There is a sudden sharp whine and a horrible, nauseating pang, and Donna keels over, eyes rolling.

The Kalazar spills out of her ear, twitching horribly. Then it bursts like a cyst, spilling red and purple and yellow liquid. It is clearly dead, as if it has been torn open by a knife.

Donna lies very still. Nina looks from the ravaged Kalazar to the prone figure of Donna on the floor. For all she knows they are both dead. The Kalazar, certainly, cannot be alive. Nina approaches Donna trepidatiously, finally terrified of the Beloved Companion. She reaches out to touch Donna’s shoulder and Donna stiffens in response. Nina doesn’t know whether to be relieved that she hasn’t killed Donna, but Donna has killed the Kalazar, and that she fears.

A moment later Donna sits up, her nose bleeding. She is dazed and defenseless, but now Nina is afraid.

“How did you kill it?” Nina breathes shakily. She backs away. Donna gags on a sudden influx of saliva in her mouth, and spits. She wipes at her nose and her fingers come away bloody. She looks to the ruined sack of the Kalazar’s body on the floor and her mind starts to work.

“How did I kill it?” Donna asks. “Fear me, Nina.” She gets to her feet, willing away the nausea, the vertigo, the pain. “You got too cocky with me.” She swallows the bile at her throat. “You thought you would try me. Do you think they worship me on a thousand, thousand planets because I’m mortal?” It goes against every fiber of her belief in herself, but she sees she is scaring Nina. “Do you think the Ood carved me into their mountainsides because I can die?”

Nina gropes for the door behind her, but Donna, enraged and exhausted, is quicker. “You thought you would bring some prizes to your masters, eh?” she asks. “Two Time Lords, two humans, well--” She stops herself, sounding like the younger Doctor, “I s’pose I’m not quite human after all.” The idea makes her feel lonelier than she has ever felt before, and reckless. She reaches up and closes a hand around Nina’s neck. “Sides deprive you of oxygen, front I crush your windpipe.” She looks Nina’s face over. “Look at the Kalazar. See his death. Do you think I’ll let you outlive it much longer?”

“You won’t kill me,” NIna says. “I’m a person.”

“Shut up,” Donna snaps. “I’m talking to the glob of snot in your brain.” She shakes Nina a bit. “Fear me,” she repeats, loudly and furiously. “Fear me!” She squeezes the sides of Nina’s neck, and the color flushes Nina’s face. Her eyes go wide and then roll, and the Kalazar slips from her ear to her shoulder to the floor, where it oozes towards the dead spill of its fellow creature. Donna wants to stomp on it, wishes for one of the guns the others had before. She releases Nina’s body and lets her fall to the floor. The living Kalazar lies quivering on the floor next to the putrid puddle of remains. Donna’s face twists in disgust. “I don’t know how to kill you,” she tells it. “But you won’t kill me.”

The door bangs open behind her and she whirls, expecting guns pointed at her. Instead, Beni stumbles in through the door, both Doctors and Clara behind her. Donna makes a sigh of relief and feels her knees give way. The younger Doctor beats the Doctor by an inch and catches her before she goes to ground. She is conscious, just weak and dizzy. “What happened?” she asks.

“Beni came,” Clara says, and she helps the younger Doctor move Donna over to the wall. The Doctor moves towards the putrid hole in the ground where, inside, there are masses of the gelatinous Kalazar, writhing and slopping in steam and stench. He holds his breath, engaging respiratory bypass, and regards the dead Kalazar with the living one sitting beside it. He looks back towards Donna, who is wiping the blood from her nose using a handkerchief produced from the younger Doctor’s coat. He wonders if his extra self has the same hyperdimensional pockets he installs in all his clothing.

“What are you?” he asks.

There is a groan and Nina sits up. She looks from person to person and her face registers dazed fear. “She killed the Kalazar,” Nina says, pointing at Donna. “She killed it, it fell out of her head dead.”

The Doctor feels his throat close with emotion; the safeguard is still working. He advances on Nina. “And this one is from your head,” he guesses, indicating the live Kalazar. “And this hole. This is where you keep them? Or is this where they come from?”

Nina doesn’t say a word. The younger Doctor pulls his sonic out of his coat and moves the Doctor aside. He pulls Nina to her feet and points the sonic at her. “I want you to understand,” he says, in an almost conversational tone, “that it’s in your best interest to cooperate with us, Nina, or I think you’ll find that it will cost you.”

The Doctor looks to his younger self. Death threats were rare from him at any point in history. “This machine I have, kind of like the one you took from my friend here, it does many things,” the younger Doctor continues. “So if you don’t want to find out what those things are, you’ll return the Doctor’s sonic, and you’ll help us. Because I have no problem pushing you into that stinking hole. Let them do what they will with you.”

Nina swallows. “They live in that hole. They were the poisoning of the lake in the capital.” She is shaking. The younger Doctor backs off, holding his sonic still pointed. “We had no choice--”

“You tried to put one of those in Donna’s head,” the younger Doctor grinds out. “That is unforgivable. You did this to children.”

“Ah, but you care more that I tried to do it to Donna,” Nina says shrewdly.

“I care that you did it to anyone,” the younger Doctor says. “You have too much to say for someone who has been actively infesting innocent people with parasites.” He steps back into her personal space. “And you’ll note you did not succeed with Donna, nor will you ever get the chance to try again.”

Nina smiles reflexively, convulsively. “You’re wrong,” she says. “That simple creature, he has the knowledge we need. Our world has been exploited, over-civilized. We’ve become our own worst enemy and Kalazar has come to remedy it all. He came to live in our waters, our good blue waters, and make all of us Mori whole again, and united. There is peace in Kalazar.”

“You lie,” Beni says from where she is standing with the Doctor and Clara. “You lied to me, and you lied to everyone else. You let this happen, you made this happen.”

“Did you?” Donna asks.

“I wanted to help!” Nina says. “We were going to lose everything! I wanted to preserve us, one way or another!”

“You’re the one who sent Narissa,” Beni says, pointing a finger at Nina. “You’re the one who told us we had no choice left. You’re the one who made us stay here.”

“We had no choice!” Nina’s voice is getting louder. “She took too long to come back! We had to do something! Kalazar promised! They promised us!”

“They promised you!” Beni exclaims. “You took it on yourself to speak for us and you ruined our lives! We were trying to resist them!” She puts two hands on her belly, rubbing circles to comfort her baby, whom she feels starting to move restlessly. “You said, if Narissa Karrish didn’t come back, then we’d have no choice. And you didn’t wait. You went to them. You brought them to us. You made us do this.” Her lip is trembling, but she holds herself together as best she can. “And nothing has changed. We aren’t above ground, still. Nothing has been solved. We’re slaves. And it’s your fault.”

Nina shakes her head. “No. No. I did what I did for everyone here. If we had let the planet keep dying, if they hadn’t come here--”

“No,” Beni says. “No more. No more. We made a mistake. We used our planet’s resources. There is nothing left. But you let a parasite into our midst. How could you have ever thought that they would help us?”

There is a silence. “Nina, who are you?” Clara asks. “What was your job before this? You said your husband was a peace officer but you never said what you did.”

Nina’s jaw is tight with fear. “I was the leader of this sector.”

“What does that mean?” Clara asks.

“It means I was charged with the protection of this city and its surrounding areas and I did what was necessary to keep as many as possible alive in the face of a world-wide crisis that resulted from our own negligence!” Nina swallows. “I did what was necessary when all other measures had been exhausted.”

Beni laughs, a sharp, mirthless sound, and the Doctor makes a noise of disgust. “What could have been happening that would make you do this?” he demands.

��Our crops stopped growing,” Nina says. “Our money was worthless, the weather was disastrous, our infrastructure was being destroyed, we had no electricity for weeks--”

“Enough,” the Doctor says. “I’m sick of listening to you. How do we kill them?”

Nina looks at Donna. “She knows, she killed one.”

They look at the blob on the floor, still quivering next to the dead Kalazar. It doesn’t seem to be responding to anything going on around it. “I didn’t kill it,” Donna says. “It fell out of my head. It hurt, and then it fell out of my head and it was dead. I don’t know.”

“Enough,” Clara says. “I seem to recall you’re going to give the Doctor back his sonic.” She shifts away from the Kalazar pool. The smell is nauseating, and Nina edges away from the group. Donna goes for the door and pushes Nina out of the way.

“You’re done trying to fix the problems here,” Clara says, joining Donna at the door, blocking the way out. “Now you’re going to use your leadership for something else.” She straightens her shoulders. “I’m the little one, the one you want to hand over to the men, or make me forage, or something? You’re going to bring those people here and you’re going to see them remove every single one of these slugs from their heads. If they won’t do it you’re the one who’s going to convince them, or remove it yourself.”

Nina looks terrified. “They’ll turn on me,” she says. “I promised them--”

“That’s not our problem,” Clara says. “Is it?”

Nina bares her teeth. “I was trying to help,” she says. “None of you care about that! You just want to blame me for doing my best.”

“This could never be your best,” the Doctor says. “You have my sonic on you. I want it back.”

“I’ll push you in,” Donna says. “Don’t think I won’t do it. I don’t know what they eat but if it’s flesh I feel sorry for you.”

Nina reaches into her sweater and retrieves the sonic. She hands it to Donna, who veers into her face on purpose, using her anger to fuel her recklessness. Donna hands the sonic back to the Doctor and goes back to stand in front of the door. “You tell them you lied to them,” she says. “You tell them what you did. You tell them what they have to do now. And then you take whatever punishment they give you.”

“And then what? Will that rebuild our houses? Will that bring our soil back to life?” Nina demands. “We’ll be back where we started!”

“No.” The Doctor shakes his head. “Because we will help you start again. Even if in small measures. But you have to fix this.”

“Or what?” Nina asks.

“Or what?” Donna repeats. “Or what, Nina?” She points to the dead Kalazar and its motionless live mate. “Or what?” Then she takes Nina’s arm. “On second thought, come here.” She pulls Nina over to the Kalazar quivering on the ground. “You know more than anyone else about these things, you’re the one who let them in here. How do you kill it?”

“I told you I don’t know,” Nina says. “You’re the one who killed that one.”

“How do you kill them, Nina?” Donna asks again. “If you don’t tell me, we’re going to start trying things.”

“People are going to start looking for me,” Nina says. Her voice is unsteady with fear. “They’re not gonna let you hurt me.”

Donna shrugs. “We’ll see if either of those things are true.” She smiles benignly. “How do you kill them, Nina?”

“I don’t know,” Nina says loudly into Donna’s face, who rolls her eyes.

“I guess it’s time to try things,” she says. She looks back at the Doctors and Clara, who shrug and nod in agreement. “Will you all help me keep Nina on task?” Donna asks. “We’ll have a higher chance of success that way. Many hands make light work.”

The Doctors and Clara surround Nina and Donna drops her arm. The younger Doctor is looking carefully at Donna, watching her for signs of stress or changes in her vitals. At one time he’d had glasses that allowed him to see those kinds of things but at this moment he only wants to make sure she’s safe.

“Step on one,” Clara says. “That one right there.” She points to the floor where the Kalazar is sitting. The dead one is starting to congeal and dry out beside it, and Nina swallows.

“Go on,” Donna says, and Nina shakes her head. “Go on,” Donna repeats, and prods Nina forward. Nina starts to shake, and lifts her foot. “Do it,” Donna says. Nina stomps her foot down and there is a simultaneous howl of pain and a scream that could never be human. Nina snatches her foot back, and there is a sickly, bloody liquid spread onto her foot and leg, which smells unimaginably foul. The Kalazar has an enormous dent in it.

Nina cries out again and they can see the liquid has seeped through her clothes and onto her leg where the skin is blistering. “All right, don’t torture her--” the Doctor says, and Donna turns her head to look at him, so unnerving to see the Roman in modern clothes, looking at her like the Doctor used to look at her, as if he were begging her not to leave. She inclines her head in acknowledgment, and pulls Nina back.

The Kalazar lies still for a moment and then, with a slurp, seems to inflate back to its original shape. It starts to slop towards them and everyone jumps back. Instinctively the Doctor draws his sonic and presses the button hard. A blast of square waves splats the Kazalar against the wall. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Donna says, and Beni retches next to her.

Nina takes advantage of the moment and wrenches free of Donna’s grasp. She goes for the door and starts to pound on it. “Help!” she screams! “Help me! They’re killing me! Help!”

The younger Doctor looks to the Doctor. “She’s not going to help us,” he says. “You know she won’t. She’s going to make this worse.”

Clara, Beni, and Donna pull Nina back and pin her against the wall. “I’m sick of talking to you!” Beni screams in her face. “I’m sick of this! My baby doesn’t deserve this! This ends now!” And before Clara or Donna can stop her, she slams Nina’s head into the wall and Nina collapses.

“Oh, shite,” Clara says. “Did you kill her?”

“I don’t care,” Beni says. She steps back. “We need her out of the way. We need that device he has.” She points to the Doctor. “We need him to kill these.” She moves her finger to the pit full of the slopping creatures. “We need this to be over. My baby needs to this to be over.” She winces and puts her hands at her back. “I need this to be over.” She looks to the younger Doctor. “Do you have one of those too? All of you?”

The younger Doctor grimly removes his sonic from his inner pocket. “I have one.” He points to the pit full of Kalazar. “They can go first, but you have to bring us everyone else.” He looks to Donna. “Maybe you can help them. They trust you.” He pauses. “I trust you.”

There is a little silence, and Donna steps back from Nina’s prostrate form. She looks to Beni. “Can we convince them? Without Nina?”

“They think you’re a goddess,” Clara says, and Donna shakes her head. “They do, Donna. They’re victims. There are children. Let’s help them.”

“They’ll listen to you,” Beni says. She grimaces again but shakes it off. “The sooner we do this the better.”

“We’ll take care of the Kalazar,” the Doctor says, and he’s aware of the way he’s looking at Donna, who looks so afraid and tired. And Clara beside her, his lifesaver in so many of the same ways as Donna, determined and compassionate and ready.

Beni opens the door and Clara and Donna follow her out into the tunnel. They walk together through hallways until Donna isn’t sure which way they’re going anymore.

They emerge into the big common space where everyone is gathered, and everyone turns almost as one to look at them. Beni puts her hands at the small of her back. “Listen!” she says loudly. “You need to listen to me.”

“Where’s Nina?” someone asks.

“She’s assisting the Doctors,” Beni says. “I need you all to listen to me. Something’s gone wrong.”

Everyone comes to attention. “What do you mean?” Persha asks, coming to the front of the group. Beni looks her in the eye.

“We have to get them out.”

There is a silence. Beni breathes deeply, feeling a small pain blooming low in her belly. “We have to get them out,” she repeats, willing herself to be calm.

“We can’t,” Persha says. “How will we get back above ground?”

“We don’t need them,” Beni says. “We don’t need them, and they are enslaving us.”

A murmur goes through the crowd at that. A child says, “I don’t want to be a slave!” and that sentence echoes through Donna’s mind.

“Then please, listen,” she says, and raises her voice. “Please listen. I don’t know why but you think I’m someone special, and for the sake of that, take me at my word. Get the Kalazar out. Save yourselves. There are other solutions to this problem and you don’t deserve to suffer.”

“But what about the men?” another woman asks. “What about our sons and brothers and fathers and husbands? How will they know?”

“We’ll have to help them too,” Donna says.

“But we don’t know where they are anymore!” The same woman’s voice breaks along the seams. “I don’t know where my husband is anymore.”

“Then let’s fix this so we can find out,” Donna says. “Please, if you care for yourselves and your children, and your men! The Doctors can help you.” The sentence is strange in her mouth. “Let us help you.”

A prolonged silence ensues, in which Donna can hear children starting to cry. Then some women shed tears too. “How can we?” Persha asks. “They own us.” She winces. “They are our masters. Oh, my head!” And she pitches forward, her eyes rolling back. She starts to shake like she’s having a seizure.

“Help her!” Beni shouts, moving as quickly as her ungainly belly will allow. Persha goes very still as people begin to approach her. Clara gets to her first and kneels down.

“Persha?” she says quietly, and then screams and falls back as the old lady gives a huge cough that sends a gout of blood over her chin and down her neck. Her nose begins to bleed, and then her eyes, and then her left ear. “She’s dying,” Clara says with certainty. She helps hold Persha down as she keeps seizing, a strangled sound coming from her throat.

“It’s self-destructing,” Donna says, feeling her mind start to move, like a fast-catching fire. “It’s going to kill her. Turn her on her side.” She helps them move Persha into rescue position (for a moment she wonders when she’d learned that and feels a familiar sensation stirring in her consciousness) and keep her from biting through her tongue. “If it doesn’t come out it’s going to kill her,” Donna repeats.

“What do we do to make it come out?” Clara asks.

“I don’t know,” Donna says. “It gets into every part of your brain. I didn’t do anything to make the one they put in me fall out.”

Persha makes a shuddering sigh and they watch the life go out of her in what seems like only a second. Clara taps her face and shakes her shoulder. “Persha!” she repeats. “Persha, wake up.”

“Fuck,” Donna mutters to herself, feeling her throat close up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She says it quietly to herself, and waits for what she knows is inevitable: the Kalazar to seep out, dead and burst and stinking.

Beni grits her teeth and Clara helps her back to her feet. “She’s dead,” Donna says grimly. “And they’re going to self-destruct on all of you. They won’t let you go unless we go quickly.”

There is a momentary silence. “Where’s Nina?” a child asks.

“She’s waiting for us,” Donna says, getting to her feet. “So come with me so we can get to her and fix this problem. Bring your children. Leave your weapons.” She starts to help people line up. They are all looking fearfully at Persha’s body as they go.

“If she freed the Ood, and led them to quarantine the Monster of Midnight, she’ll help us too,” Beni says to the children as they line up. “Everything will be all right.” She walks alongside the forming line and leads them down the labyrinthine hallways again. “We’ll all be all right,” she keeps saying. “This will be over soon.” She ignores the crampy spasm in her back as she helps Clara open the door and Donna leads the first few people inside the big room with the Kalazar pool.

“We’re here,” she says to the Doctors, who have seated Nina on the floor against the wall, their sonics pointed down into the hole. They turn to see her surrounded by people.

“She’s done it,” the Doctor says to the younger Doctor.

“And quite right,” the younger Doctor says, and they both smile at Donna. “Well done, Donna.” Donna smiles back uncertainly, and separates herself from the group to join the Doctors.

“Persha’s dead,” Donna says quietly.

“What?” the Doctor asks. “What happened?”

“It self-destructed in her head,” Donna says. “We have to prevent that from happening again. These bloody slugs are going to kill everyone unless we figure it out. They’re slimy little time bombs.”

The Doctors look over at the assembled women and children. “Self-destruct,” the Doctor says.

“Can you kill them with the sonic?” Donna asks.

“Yes, it seems they’re organic,” the younger Doctor says. “But who’s to say that won’t make them self-destruct also?”

“We do know one surefire way,” Nina speaks up from the wall. “Put them in Donna’s head. She’s the goddess, right? She killed one herself.”

The Doctor moves quicker than either Donna or the younger Doctor, and goes to stand over Nina. “You have no advice left to give us,” he says to her, his voice low and serious. “And to you, Donna is untouchable. You’ve had your turn to solve this problem and you failed. Leave her be.”

“Oh, the both of you?” Nina sneers, and her face is full of revulsion. “What kind of a disgusting whore is Donna Noble, the goddess, the Breaker of Chains, the common human fucking two Time Lords?”

A silence descends. The younger Doctor and the Doctor look at Donna and then away, unable to look at each other. Donna’s face is red. “I think I’ve taken quite enough from you,” Donna says. “I think I’m tired of listening to people tell me who and what I am, and I’m sick to death of being relied upon to fix a mess you made.” She pulls Nina to her feet. “We’re not going to use me, Nina. We’re going to use you. You’re the one who brought them here. If they need a place to reside, if they need to be coaxed out, that’s now your job. And you’ll do it, or you’ll be responsible for the death of every person here.”

Nina starts to pull away but Clara and Beni put restraining hands on her. “It’s over, Nina,” Beni says. “Your life for theirs. Surely you knew this was coming.”

“No,” Nina says. “No!” She appeals to the gathered women and children. “I promised you, I promised you this would work, they’re trying to stop it, please--”

“Persha’s dead,” a woman says. “She died, and the thing in her head killed her. It was like it committed suicide, and took her with it. We need to stop this.”

There is a general clamor. at this “We don’t want it to happen to us! Our children!”

“Spare us!”

“You brought them here, you make them leave!”

“They’ve turned on you,” Clara observes. “You miscalculated.”

“Do I have to die for it?” Nina asks, and then begs. “Please don’t let them kill me, I swear I was trying to help.”

“But you didn’t!” The same woman steps forward. “Now fix your mistake!” She starts to dig at her ear. “Make them get out of us.” Then she grimaces terribly. “Make them get out. Make them get out,” she repeats, and it turns into a wail of pain. A moment later a Kalazar slips out of her ear and oozes to the floor, and the Doctor points his sonic at it. The woman slumps beside it on the floor, insensible.

The Doctor winces and pushes the button on the sonic, sending percussive waves in rapid succession, like invisible bullets. The Kalazar bursts like a sack, spraying the comatose woman and those nearby with stinking liquid. There are shrieks of fear and disgust all around.

Beni grits her teeth against a sharper pain. Please hurry, she thinks. Please, please hurry. She breathes deeply, sighing a bit on the exhale, and Donna looks up sharply. She abandons Nina and comes to Beni.

“Are you all right?” Donna asks her, very quietly.

Beni nods reluctantly, her face twisting with pain. “It’s fine,” she whispers back. “I’m fine. Don’t stop anything. I’m fine.”

“You’re in labor,” Donna says.

Beni’s eyes fill up. “Don’t stop anything,” she begs softly. “First babies always take a long time, right? Help them.”

“You tell me the minute you can’t bear it anymore,” Donna says. “We’ll help you.”

Beni nods but turns away, ushering people into an orderly line while the Doctors and Nina move the unconscious woman out of the way. Donna looks worriedly after her and turns back to the Kalazar pit. “If you kill the ones in the pit will the others self-destruct?” she asks the younger Doctor. He shrugs.

“Don’t know. Is it a chance we’re willing to take?” he asks. “Maybe we should try and get them out first. Knock them out safely and get these bloody things out.”

“Can we do that to the children?” Donna murmurs. “Will they be safe?”

“This is a no-win situation, Donna,” the younger Doctor says. “There are no good options here. You know what that’s like.”

Donna leans her forehead on his shoulder momentarily. “I know. I remember.” She sighs. “We can only try. Whatever is least invasive.”

The Doctor, standing in front of the anxious people looking for a solution, turns to the younger Doctor and Donna. “What do you say?” he asks.

“I’d usually ask you that question,” Donna says, and the Doctor feels his lips quirk into a smile. That’s my girl, he thinks.

“We say knock them out one by one, force the slugs out, and kill them. Hope the people live.” Donna shrugs. “It’s our best guess.” She turns to the younger Doctor. “No promises, right?”

“None,” he reassures her.

“Well, at least we’re working without a safety net, as usual,” Donna says wryly. She tangles her fingers momentarily with the younger Doctor’s, just briefly, and whispers. “Beni’s in labor. It’s early yet but it’s happening.”

The younger Doctor looks immediately over to Beni, who is doing her best to reassure her fellow women with her hands at the small of her back. He can see the pain on her face, the way her skin is pale and the way she is starting to sweat. “Get her out of here if you need to,” he says. “I trust you.” Donna gives him a little smile. “I always trust you,” he adds.

“Same here,” Donna says, and turns to go to Beni.

“Children first,” Beni says, and both Clara and Donna hesitate at the same time.

“Are you sure?” Clara asks her, and turns to Donna. “If a child dies at the very beginning of this process then they might not let us continue,” she points out quietly. “They’re going to blame us.”

“Blame Nina,” Donna says, with a sneer over her shoulder. “She’s the one who brought them to this point.” She clasps Clara’s hand. “You know as well as I do that at some point there are no more good choices. We have to try.”

Beni makes a sharp noise, and clamps her lips shut against it, but Donna is adamant. “You have to go,” she says to Beni. “No more of this for you. Trust the Doctors. They know what they’re doing.”

Beni’s eyes widen and fill with tears. “Who will help me?” she asks.

“We will,” Donna says. “Trust the Doctors. Trust me.” She starts to lead Beni towards the door. “We don’t get to choose when babies come.” She gestures to Clara to take Beni’s hand. “Give me a second,” she says, and walks over to Nina.

“I want you to listen to me,” Donna says, and Nina rolls her eyes.

“What do you want, don’t you ever shut up?” Nina demands. “All I hear is you talking, all the time! Just shut up! I’m sick of listening to you threaten me!”

That makes Donna laugh. “Oh, my god,” she says, and she feels a wave of warm ache wash over down her face and her scalp, making her shiver. “It isn’t me who’s going to shut up forever, you silly little cunt, it’s you.” Bright spots appear in front of her eyes and then disappear, leaving Nina’s contemptuous face. “I don’t care that you were stupid enough to believe psychic slugs. I don’t care that you’re enough of a silly bitch to have victimized your own people. I don’t even care that your planet is dying. You can fuck off and die as far as I’m concerned. Alone and in pain? Better.” Another shivering wash of pain down her neck, as if someone were pouring bath water down her back. She imagines thunder. She remembers the words Oncoming Storm from somewhere in her consciousness. “I want you know to know that when this is over, when you’ve done your job and helped the Doctors clean up this mess, we are going to let your people do whatever they want with you. Whether they turn on you, or forgive you, and I think that’s unlikely, we won’t be stopping them. But if you put a foot out of line anymore, any more mistakes, I promise you I’ll take the decision out of their hands.”

“Fuck you.”

“Shut up,” Donna says, and it’s quiet but final. “Shut up now, Nina. You don’t understand what’s happening.” She shoves Nina back and goes back to Beni and Clara. “Let’s go,” she says. “I don’t want to look at her anymore.”

Beni has to stop a few feet down the hallway to double over in pain. “Do you know how to deliver a baby?” Clara asks Donna, who nods.

“Yes,” she says somberly, because Donna Noble did not know how to deliver a baby in such detail and with such precision, but the Doctor does. She breathes deeply against the headache. It seems to subside, and Donna relaxes. “Let’s get her somewhere warm,” Donna says. “And safe. We need blankets and water. Hot water. And scissors. Or a knife. Where’s the water pump?”

“I’ll take you to it,” Beni says. She straightens herself out and starts to walk again, resolutely, down the long, dim corridors. A few minutes later they have to stop again for Beni to groan against a wall. Donna and Clara count her through it, holding her up and massaging her back.

The room with the water pump is large and damp, and Donna and Clara scramble to find buckets. Beni works the pump for them so that the water gushes out, and Donna and Clara fill two big plastic containers full. Beni pauses to breathe deeply. “I’m so afraid,” she says, watching Donna and Clara drag the containers towards the door.

“Where are all the blankets?” Donna asks. “Where’s the place you all were sleeping?” She leaves her container to come and hold Beni’s hand. “We’re going to get you there and settled and we’ll make sure everything is all right.” She sounds more confident than she feels, something she knows in her bones the Doctor does all the time. It reassures her at the same time it makes her afraid.

“It’s the next room,” Beni says. She grits her teeth and opens the door to the room full of sleeping areas. Clara and Donna drag the water containers into the room and Beni leans against the wall.

Clara lays out blankets on top of another and Donna helps Beni onto her knees. “It’s gonna be all right,” she says to Beni. “Don’t forget you’re not alone.” She looks around herself. “I wish we had soap,” she says to Clara, and Beni groans again, this time from lower in her core.

“Me too,” Clara says. She reaches out to clasp Donna’s hand. “We’re going to do this and it’s gonna work and she’s going to be fine.” She starts to rummage through the gathered items in the room, not caring who they belong to, and emerges with a small penknife, which Donna eyes dubiously, and which Clara immediately sets to scrubbing with some of the water and a towel.

Over the course of the next few hours Clara and Donna help Beni walk until she can’t anymore. They give her water to drink and tell her stories; she is particularly enthralled with Donna’s account of Shan Shen and the Time Beetle. They stop to help her through contractions, and finally, when Beni can no longer listen to them or respond, she surrenders and lies down on a pile of blankets, sweating and straining with the urge to push.

“Oh, oh, help me,” Beni moans. “I feel something, I feel it--” The words trail off into a wail of pain, and Donna looks down between Beni’s thighs.

“Here it comes,” she says, feeling her throat closing with anticipation and emotion.

Beni is screaming, her chin pressed to her chest as she pushes. Donna is kneeling between her thighs, ready to catch the baby, and Clara is holding Beni’s hand, helping her count the length of the pushes and letting Beni crush her hand. “Just hang on,” Donna says to Beni, “you’re doing so well, Beni, just stay with it.”

Beni screams again and delivers her baby, into Donna’s hands. Donna sees that baby emerge more clearly than she has ever seen anything in her life, the new little life come gasping into outraged cries, and spontaneous tears roll down her face. “Well done,” she says. “Oh, well done, Beni!” All three women are crying with relief and joy, and the baby is flailing in the cool air of the tunnel. He’s so decidedly alive in the midst of all the death and destruction, that Donna is reminded why she does everything she does, and suddenly, deeply and forcefully, she wants to find the younger Doctor and tell him.

They wrap the baby in a blanket. Donna cuts the cord with the penknife and hands him to his mother. “What will you call him?” Donna asks.

“I hardly know,” Beni says, her eyes alight with exhilaration and love. “I hardly could allow myself to hope that he’d still come in the middle of all this—“ She looks up at Donna. “Isn’t he lovely?”

“He’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,” Donna says, and she means it.

“I’ll call him Toivo,” Beni decides. “It means hope. He makes me have hope.”

Donna sits back on her heels and breathes deeply, to calm herself. Toivo has stopped screaming his objections to the sudden cold world he’s entered and is looking at his mother, squinting and blinking slowly in that curious way of newborns. “I’m going to wash up,” Donna says, and walks away from Clara and Beni without another word.

She goes for the water pump, working the handle in a kind of daze. The water surges out and Donna scrubs herself in the torrent. She is bloody to the elbows and her clothes are ruined. Donna feels as though she could sob and laugh and dance and sleep all at once, and a pain flares briefly behind her left eye. She puts her wet hands to her face and wipes away the tears she’s been shedding since she turned away from Beni. These are not for joy or for the beautiful son Beni had delivered, they are for herself and the things she wants and doesn’t have. They are for her fear and her loneliness, the great relief of seeing her Doctor’s face again, the dearest face to her. They are for her guilt at loving him as much as she did before she got married. They are for all the things she had tried to build and that had been put on hold, for the loss inside her that only has one remedy.

Donna breathes in and out deeply and splashes her face again, rubbing her hands and arms to make sure she’s completely clean. “Come on, Donna,” she says to herself. “Come on, girl. Get up.” And she walks back into the room with the blankets.

“All right?” Clara asks, looking penetratingly at Donna, who smiles tiredly at her and nods. “Shall I go have a wash? Beni’s been cleaned up.”

“Please,” Donna says, and Clara goes into the next room.

“Oh, Donna,” Beni says. “Thank you.”

“Oh,” Donna echoes. “Please. We’re all in this together.” She smiles at Beni.

“You must be exhausted,” Beni says.

“Me?” Donna laughs. “Not as much as you.”

“No,” Beni says. “I feel the most alive I’ve ever felt.” She looks down at her baby, whose little face is tranquil in sleep. “You have to hold him. He’s practically yours.”

Donna receives the little boy with a natural embrace, tucking him the crook of her elbow. “Hello, sweet boy,” she says to him softly. “I’ve just seen you come into the world, d’you know that? You’re beautiful, yes you are. Thank you for coming.” The baby opens his eyes for a brief moment, all the way awake, and looks up into Donna’s face. He smiles, a shining, toothless smile, and drifts back to sleep in her arms.

“Ah, see, he loves you,” Beni says. “Children know.”

Donna hands the baby back to Beni. Clara comes back into the room and Donna gets to her feet. “Let me find the Doctors,” she says. “Maybe they’ve managed as well as we have.”

She makes her way down the hallways. Behind the big doors she can hear a noise, like low rumbling, and she approaches trepidatiously. She pushes the heavy door open and the smell of the Kalazar assaults her nose. “Disgusting,” she says, stepping into the room. The Doctors look up from the boiling pit of the alien slugs. There are people lying on the floor, leaning against the walls, some unconscious, but all alive.

“You did it,” Donna says.

“We did it,” the Doctor says, and both he and the younger Doctor look her over to make sure she’s all right.

“Everyone all right?” Donna asks.

“Mostly,” the Doctor says. “Everyone is alive.”

“Right,” Donna says. “And the slugs?”

“Dead, or dying,” the younger Doctor says. He steps back from the pit. “All right?” He would love for it to sound offhand, but that’s impossible. He sees Donna’s face change briefly, the way she has to master her self control for the moment.

“Baby’s born,” Donna says. “It’s a boy.”

“Ah,” the Doctor says. “First piece of good news in too long, I think.” He steps back from the Kalazar pit. “I think this is done,” he says.

“And we really didn’t lose anyone?” Donna asks.

“No one yet,” the Doctor says.

“Well done,” Donna says, and actually smiles at him.

The Doctor wants to reach out and push her hair out of her face, or embrace her, or any number of things, but he doesn’t have the right so he asks instead, “Where’s Clara?”

“She’s with Beni,” Donna says. “Anyone hurt?”

“No,” the younger Doctor says. “We’ll have to keep an eye on them for a while yet.”

“Where’s Nina?” Donna asks. She looks around the room, and finds Nina sitting against the wall.

“Oh, go away,” Nina groans. “I did what you wanted, go away!”

“I want this to be the last time I speak to you,” Donna says. “I don’t want to look at you anymore, or think about you anymore. I just wanted to make sure you were still here.” She looks Nina over one last time, contemptuously, and says, “Sick of you.”

“Now what?” the Doctor asks the younger Doctor. “Get them back to the sleeping room?”

“Those who can walk,” the younger Doctor says. “The children, definitely. They’ll need to eat. Everyone will eventually.” He looks around. “Donna, will you help us get these folks organized?”

People are coming to, sitting up, looking around. Mothers are embracing their children. Some are crying, others are too dazed to say or do much. Donna helps the Doctors form everyone into a straggling queue. She leads them back towards the sleeping room, where Clara and Beni are waiting. They lock Nina in the room with the Kalazar pit, Donna giving her a shove back away from the group leaving the room. “You’ve lost your rights here,” she says to Nina, who screams once, piercingly, from behind the door as they walk away.

Once everyone has managed to settle themselves among the blankets and sheets and pillows again, Donna helps organize a few of them to retrieve food. She goes to sit with Beni and Clara again, who have moved to a spot against the wall. “How’s your little chap?” Donna asks, feeling her chest loosen a little bit at the sight of Toivo’s tiny face.

“Hungry,” Beni says, smiing.

“All right?” Clara asks. “Everyone’s back. They must have done it.”

“They succeeded,” Donna says. “Everyone seems to be alive. Nina’s in the room still. Alone.”

Clara’s face blanches. “They let you leave her in there?”

Donna shrugs. “They didn’t ask.” She shifts uncomfortably. “We’re going to let everyone decide what to do with her anyway. She’s earned that much.”

Beni tightens her arms around her small son. “I don’t want to be part of that,” she says. Donna gives her a sympathetic squeeze.

“I’m sure they can work it out,” she says. “You focus on this baby. He’s all that matters.” She lets her breath out and says, “I wish I could go home.”

“Me too,” Beni says. She reaches out to hold Donna’s hand. “You know you saved us,” she adds. “You keep telling us you’re no one but you’re someone, Donna. You’re someone who does extraordinary things.”

Donna shrugs. She has nothing to say any longer, so she leans against the wall and watches the Doctors move around the room. They are assessing vital signs, asking cognitive questions, and checking the children closely. “Where’s the TARDIS?” she asks Clara eventually. “Would be great to see my own bed.”

Clara lowers her voice. “She’s cloaked. She panicked when they captured us before. I’m sure we can find her, though.”

Rather than letting the potential disappearance of the ship overwhelm her, Donna just nods, winds her arms around herself, and sits quietly. A faint echo of headache tumbles across her sinuses. No use panicking. No use feeling much of anything at the moment, honestly, since she has no idea what to do next.

“What will they do with Persha’s body?” Clara asks, and points to the blanket draped over the old woman’s form. It’s been moved into a corner at the Doctors’ direction, but a dead body is a dead body. Beni holds her son closer. Donna shrugs.

“Right.”

The Doctor comes to stand in front of them, and exhales sharply. “We’ve gotten in touch with the Shadow Proclamation from my universal mobile. Bit of work given that their cell towers are down. Had to ping it off a satellite from a neighboring planet.”

“I used to have one of those universal phones,” Donna says.

“Yep,” the Doctor says. “You did. Useful, right? They’ll be here in a few hours. They had no indication of the Kalazar deaths.”

“So we can leave?” Donna asks, feeling hopeful for the first time in ages.

“As soon as they get here,” the Doctor says. He looks over his shoulder at the younger Doctor. “We ought to get a move on looking for the TARDIS, I’m sure she’s in some corner somewhere.” He sees the tiredness on both Clara and Donna’s faces and adds, “D’you want to wait here while we look?”

“Absolutely not,” Donna says, getting to her feet. She looks down at herself. “I’ve got blood and ooze on me. I want this to be done.” She looks down at Beni and says, “We’ll be back when we’ve located the ship. Stay where you are. Keep that baby safe. The Shadow Proclamation is coming.”

Beni nods and Donna and Clara join the Doctors. “Let’s go, let’s go,” Clara says quietly. “I want to be sure no one messed around with the ship. I can’t wait to stop smelling this place.”

It takes a while, and a good bit of sonicking, but eventually the TARDIS blinks into view in the corner of the same room they’d landed in. She is a bit wobbly from dematerializing so quickly, but Donna breathes an enormous sigh of relief to see her. The Doctor makes sure she’s stable, stethoscope to the door, and nods. “Right,” he says. “We’ll hide her again until the Shadow Proclamation arrives, and then we’ll go.”

Donna is ready to protest, but the younger Doctor reaches out to touch her shoulder. “We have to see it through,” he says. “Remember? Even if we can’t save everyone, we see it through.”

“I remember,” Donna says softly. She leans on the younger Doctor. “I’m just tired.”

“Almost over,” he says, and reaches for her hand.

In the end it takes four hours for the Shadow Proclamation to arrive, along with a detachment from UNIT and three agents from Torchwood. They are from all over the universe, of all ethnicities and species, dressed in hazmat suits and busy. Donna, Clara and the Doctors are relegated to the side as the agents all move around, removing Persha’s body and going for the room full of Kalazar. Uniformed officers take statements from the four of them, and address the problem of Nina by placing her under arrest.

“It’s almost anti-climactic,” Clara says as they turn to make their way back to the TARDIS.

Donna huffs a laugh out her nose. “I don’t mind.” She is impatient to get back aboard the ship, ready to shed her ruined clothes and wash every trace of this from herself.

“Wait!”

Someone shouts from the crowd. “Wait! Are you leaving?”

They stop, turn, and people step forward. “Yes,” the Doctor says. “Time for us to go, don’t you think? Let you get on with it?”

“I quite fancy a shower, actually,” Donna says. “So if it’s all right--”

“We’ve been visited by Donna Noble,” a woman says, turning to face her fellow people. “Most of us couldn’t even be sure the stories were true, but they are. They are, and we got to learn that for ourselves.” She looks over at Donna. “Thank you. All of you.”

And then what else is there to do but go back to the ship, find the blue box waiting for her like a promise kept. Donna lags behind the Doctor and Clara, and murmurs, “Spaceman,” clasping the younger Doctor’s hand in hers as they walk. He’s beside her immediately.

“Let’s go home,” he says. “Eh? Have a kip? A drink?”

“All of those,” Donna says with certainty. “A bath, for sure.” She doesn’t drop his hand when the Doctor unlocks the TARDIS to let them inside. She stands in the console room still holding on to the younger Doctor. She watches Clara and the Doctor circle the console and put the ship into flight. She stands off to the side while the ship comes to life around her, and her fingers twitch in the younger Doctor’s grasp. She feels the semi-electric sensation of the subconscious bond she shared with the TARDIS stir in her senses, magnified by the Time Lord energy in her and next to her in the form of the younger Doctor. Even the presence of the Doctor himself awakens a part of her that has been blindfolded and suppressed.

“I need to go,” Donna says after a few minutes. She turns to leave and touches the younger Doctor’s sleeve so he’ll follow. Inside her room she shuts the door and leans on it. She looks around the room and says, “Fuck,” on an exhale. “All right.” She seems to pull herself together. “Shower,” she says. “Bath. Get out of these clothes. Fucking filthy.”

The younger Doctor watches her shed her clothes and find a towel. “Are you coming?” she asks him from the doorway of her bathroom.

“Er, yes, of course,” he says.

Inside the huge bathroom she’d had built for herself back when she first arrived, Donna swipes the wall and activates the computer. She sets a hot temperature for her shower and steps in. The Doctor takes up a position on the big countertop he’d sat on many, many times in the past, when he and Donna used to laugh uproariously, not caring to end their conversation just for her to wash her hair.

“All right?” Donna asks, letting the water run over her. She taps the side of her shower twice to make the wall transparent so she can see him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Remember this?”

“Yeah,” Donna echoes. She can’t help but smile at the shelf of products she’d amassed so long ago, all exactly as they’d been, preserved by the save function of the TARDIS mainframe. She scrubs herself, lathering her hair and drenching it in the conditioner she’d bought on the planet Jocunda. The younger Doctor sits and watches, hungry for the sight of her, for her laughter, for her dear face. Even having sprung fully-formed from the TARDIS, a new metacrisis of memory and Time Lord energy and Donna’s indomitable life force, he is the same as he was. Nothing about him is half-formed, nor can it be since the first metacrisis. They are made of the same thing now more than ever.

“You’ll have to tell me what you’ve been up to,” the younger Doctor says, and Donna taps the wall to turn off the water. She emerges from the shower and takes her towel from him, wrapping herself up securely.

“Oh, you mean when not killing slugs or reintegrating into your freaky time traveling world with two of you calling yourselves the Doctor and one of them being that guy from Rome?” Donna asks, and the younger Doctor laughs, a sight that makes Donna’s heart jump.

She feels herself relax. "I’ve done a lot, Spaceman,” she says. “I won the lottery, but I bet you knew that.”

“I didn’t,” he says. “But that’s no more than you deserve.”

“Triple rollover,” Donna says. “We got six hundred million pounds.”

“Whoa!” The younger Doctor laughs again. “Oh, Donna,” he says. “You gave everything, it’s only right that you should have everything in return. What’ve you done with it, eh? Fancy cars? Holidays?”

Donna shakes her head. “I’m building an observatory and a library in London.”

“‘Course you are,” the younger Doctor says.

“Named it after my grandfather, he’s absolutely over the moon,” Donna says, and then grins. “Sorry. Bad pun.”

“Good old Wilf,” the younger Doctor says. Donna recognizes the look on his face; something that was just for her, something he didn’t share with other people. “You have done a lot.”

“Bought a house,” Donna says. “Got a better car. You know. Saving for the future.” She shrugs. “What a stroke of impossibly good luck.”

“You earned it,” he says. “Things come around.” 

“I hope it’s all worth it,” Donna says. “I just couldn’t see wasting it on nothing.”

“You could never be nothing.” The younger Doctor slides back onto his feet and comes to stand close to her. “Don’t forget that.”

Donna leans on him, hungry for comfort and contact. He puts his arms around her and Donna gives in and embraces him too. The feeling is so familiar, so beloved, and her body and mind have lacked him for so long that she wraps him up in her arms. He pushes his face into the curve of her neck the way he used to, and they stand that way for a long time. “I missed you so much,” Donna says quietly. “I had no reason to live for a long time.”

The younger Doctor cradles her face in his hands. “You are the most important woman in the universe. You saved us all. There will be never be a time when you are without a reason to live.” He kisses her, the same way he used to do, and Donna doesn’t hesitate for an instant. “I wish I had had a chance to tell you this,” he says against her lips.

“I wouldn’t have believed you anyway,” Donna says, and that makes them both laugh.

“I know,” he answers her, wrapping her up around the waist.

“Come,” Donna says, and leads him back into her room. She drops her towel and pulls him onto the bed with her. Both of them are alight with the memory of shared desire and pleasure, fueled by relief and the old familiar subconscious connection built between them. Donna helps him off with his suit and embraces him with all four limbs, her hands clutching his back and then his behind to get him as close as she can.

The rush of memory and pleasure is so incredibly comforting, Donna wishes she never had to give it up. Beside him afterward, both of them not ready to let go, she thinks about her life on Earth. She thinks about her house, her marriage, her library and observatory, how she could leave it all behind for this man beside her. How she had once left a life not worth living for him. How much more she has to live for now, even without the Doctor, younger or older. How hard she’d worked to build something worth living for, the the face of the nameless wound in her since she lost her memory.

She knows she forgives him. This man, who has validated her when nothing and no one else would, is forgiven. You already know I would save you over everyone. Those words will stay with her forever.

“Spaceman?”

“Yeah,” he answers, and he sounds contented and comfortable.

“D’you... are you permanent now?”

“What d’you mean?”

Donna pillows her chin on her hand, leaning on his chest to look into his face. “I mean... are you a human? Are you like the other one? Do you stay?”

The younger Doctor pushes the stray hair out of her face. “Don’t know,” he says. “I was made from the stored Time Lord energy in your brain. I... I think my existence might be dependent on yours. It’s the energy that keeps me sustained.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Donna says. “I plan to keep living, so you’re stuck now.” They both laugh quietly.

“That’s all right,” he says. “As long as you’re here, I’m here. When you go, I go.”

Donna’s eyes well up for a moment, and then she masters herself, the way she’d always done. The younger Doctor thumbs away the one tear that escapes and says, “You’re alive, Donna.You’ve been alive this whole time.”

“I used to feel it wasn’t worth it,” Donna murmurs. “I guess it is now.” She sits up, wrapping herself in the sheets. “I’ve done so much. I’ve got so much now, in London. The library, the foundation, it’s all there. I would love for you to see it.”

“I would love to see it. Have you got kids?” the younger Doctor asks. He reaches out to take her hand. “And your husband?”

Donna smiles, and there is no trace of guilt or shame in her face. “No kids,” she says. “Maybe it’s the metacrisis. And as for my husband. His name is Shawn.” She looks down at the little diamond on her finger, the one Shawn had offered to replace for a much larger one when they’d won the lottery, and that Donna had refused to change. “He’s lovely. He’s wonderful. We’re a team.” She shrugs. “He knows that something happened to me, and he knows about you... before. The traveling bit. But there’s nothing else for him to know.”

The younger Doctor sits up too, and grins. “You’ve always been a good secret-keeper.”

Donna reaches out to tap his cheek gently. “This belongs to me. To us. To no one else.” She tilts her head to regard him affectionately. “Are you hungry?”

“Nah,” he says. “But we might be being a bit discourteous here, hiding away.” He stretches a bit. “Maybe we ought to go back out there.”

Donna inhales deeply through her nose. “Right,” she says. “Apparently that’s the real Doctor there,” she says.

The younger Doctor smiles. “He is, you know.”

“I know,” Donna says, and her face gets serious. “I know. i can feel it. But he’s not you. I don’t know how to talk to him.”

“Yes, you do,” the younger Doctor says. “The way you talk to me.”

“He’s the guy from Pompeii,” Donna says, and both of them laugh. “He said he picked that face because of me. I didn’t know you had any control over your new face.”

The younger Doctor shrugs. “Gallifreyan regeneration is usually random. Had to have been a particularly powerful impulse in him to carry through the clean slate process.” He lets that statement be for a moment, and then adds, “Can’t say as I blame him. He’s got to be dying to talk to you.”

“Maybe,” Donna says. “Don’t know how I feel about that.” She gets off the bed and onto her feet, and stretches, a sight the younger Doctor takes in greedily, the way he used to before. There were very few things he’d allowed himself to be greedy about, but Donna is one of them. Was one of them. Would be one of them?

“What is it?” Donna asks, seeing his frown.

“Nothing,” the younger Doctor says. “I’m sorry, I had a thought.” He gets up too, and reaches for his clothes. “You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Donna says. “I do know that.” She reaches for him and embraces him close. “Thank you.”

He clasps her back. “Always,” he says.

They get dressed again, Donna disappearing into her closet and emerging in a long blue-green dress and sandals. She has beautiful gold earrings in her ears and bracelets on her wrists, and makeup. She’s done her hair half up and half down in that familiar way he loved before. “Much better,” she says. She readies herself and takes his hand.

In the console room the Doctor and Clara are talking softly between themselves. When the younger Doctor and Donna emerge back out, the Doctor clears his throat. “Do either of you need medical attention?” he asks. It’s all he can think to ask, and he tries not to ask Donna specifically.

“No,” the younger Doctor says. “Just a chance to unwind.” He looks around. “Why don’t we have a good meal? Some drinks? Park us in the Vortex and just relax for a little while.”

“I like that idea,” Clara says. “Come on, Donna, let’s go find some wine.” She threads her arm through Donna’s and they go down the hall, leaving the Doctors alone.

“She all right?” the Doctor asks.

“Yeah,” the younger Doctor says. “She’s all right. She’s... so much has happened to her.” He examines the new console in front of him.

“No one knows that better than me,” the Doctor says. “I’m trying to protect her.” He pushes buttons and flips levers, and they brace themselves for the lurch into the Vortex.

“So am I,” says the younger Doctor.

“But not from me,” the Doctor says, and both of them grow serious.

“There’s no need for me to protect her from you, is there?” the younger Doctor asks. “You’re me. Aren’t you?”

The Doctor relaxes. “Technically. You know I mean her no harm.”

“Yes,” the younger Doctor says. “I do know that.” He looks up from the console. “I don’t know if she’ll talk to you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor shrugs. “She can do whatever she wants.” He leans on the railing around the console. “You all right?”

The younger Doctor nods. “I think so.” He looks towards the hallway both the women had walked down. “You better tell me about that Clara girl.”

The Doctor nods in reply. “Something about her. She’s rescued me. She’s supposed to be around.” The younger Doctor smiles a little at the softening look on the older man’s face. “She’s good.”

“Yeah.” Both of them are quiet. “Well, let’s go eat,” the younger Doctor says. “We lucked out.”

“I’ll follow you,” the Doctor says. “Want to put on the parking brake.”

The younger Doctor departs and there is silence for a minute.

“Doctor?”

The Doctor looks up from the console, and smiles. Donna is standing there, looking like herself, her beautiful self. She looks cautious but not afraid. “Doctor?”

“Yes,” he says, and he steps back from the computer. “All right?”

Donna nods, coming into the room further. “Came to talk to you. Couldn’t deal with the silence anymore. My fault.”

“Not your fault,” the Doctor says. He is ready for anything she might say.

Donna comes to stand in front of him. She regards him frankly, as she always had, but gently, openly. “I need you to listen to me for a little bit,” she says. “Will you?”

“You don’t even need to ask.” He feels such relief looking at her that he will grant her anything.

Donna takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for being afraid of you.” She holds up a hand to stop him from replying. “You have to understand that you’re a stranger to me--”

“I’m not a stranger,” the Doctor says, and Donna gives him a wide-eyed look.

“Yes, you are,” she says.

“I’m not, he’s only the projection of your memories of me!” the Doctor says. “Donna, I’m—“ He takes a breath, embarrassed that he’s lost control over his feelings so quickly. “Something in me must have known this was coming because this face has everything to do with you.”

Donna is quiet. She looks down at her feet. “I know,” she says quietly. “I’ve been trying to stay alive for a long time without him-- you, I mean. And I’ve been pushed back into it without any warning, which I suppose I should be used to, but--”

“Donna,” the Doctor says, stopping the flow of her words. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Donna’s eyes fill up and she steps forward to embrace him. “Me too,” she says. And actually, it’s a relief, as much as it was to embrace the younger Doctor.

“You saved them, you know,” the Doctor says, wrapping her up tight. “Don’t cry, Donna.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” she says, pulling back and wiping her eyes. “I just wanted you to know. I’m just trying to adjust.”

“What do you want?” the Doctor asks gently. “Anything.”

“Honestly?” Donna asks. She sighs. “I want to go home.”

In the little silence that follows, the Doctor understands something. Her head must hurt. Her mind must be exhausted, working overtime with the Time Lord energy, diluted as it might have been in synthesizing the younger Doctor. She is still human, beautifully, painfully human.

“I can do that,” he says. “Now? Or will you eat with us first?”

Donna smiles. “Let’s eat.”

And the four of them end up laughing over big plates of delicious food conjured out of the TARDIS kitchen computer, and bottles of wine, until Donna puts her fork down and says, “Right. I’m tired.” A wave of pain rolls through her head, down her face, and she tries to hide her grimace. It’s been at the edges of her consciousness the entire time they’ve been back in the TARDIS. She gets up to move from the table and promptly collapses, and the younger Doctor leaps forward to catch her before she hits the floor.

“Not again,” he says. 

“Get her into the medbay,” the Doctor says, and helps Clara to her feet and over Donna’s prone figure. “Can you get the door open? Go.”

Clara moves quickly and the younger Doctor gathers her up. “This is only going to keep happening,” he says to the Doctor. “She can’t keep doing this.”

“I know,” the Doctor says.

“I mean it, she’s got limited chances.” The younger Doctor sounds tired himself.

“I know,” the Doctor snaps. He takes a second look at the younger Doctor as they go. He looks pale suddenly, as if he’s losing stamina. 

As they arrive in the console room Donna suddenly starts to shudder, her eyes opening. “No, no,” she says vaguely, struggling against the younger Doctor. “No more.” Her movements force him to stop, and lower her to the floor “Stop. Stop.” She curls her fingers into the younger Doctor’s jacket and shirt. “My head hurts. Again,” she tells him. “It’s hurting again.” Her eyes are overlfowing with tears. “When does it stop?”

“I know,” the younger Doctor says. HIs face is anguished and he looks up at the Doctor and Clara. “What else can we do?” he asks them.

The Doctor goes for the console, and Clara for water and a blanket, feeling the strain of fear for Donna, whom she has known for so little time but who has clearly made such a permanent impression on her Doctor. She can see the helpless love on the younger Doctor’s face, and the traces of it on the Doctor’s face. She has respect for that; she knows what it is love to someone on the other side of a wall.

Donna cringes at the pressure, the way she can feel her pulse pounding in rhythm with the pain. “Listen,” she says to the younger Doctor. “I don’t want anyone else to hear. I’m scared I’m gonna die.” She sounds urgent and terrified.

“You’re not gonna die,” the younger Doctor says, as the Doctor punches the console in search of a solution.

“We can be with each other forever now,” Donna says, feeling the terrible spreading pain her head. It feels so final, all of it. “I never wanted to leave you.”

“I didn’t want you to go.” The younger Doctor’s face is soaked with tears. “I’m here because of you. Again.” He clings to her, his cheek pressed to her hair.

“No,” Donna says. “I’m here because of you.” She reaches up to him and kisses him, not caring who sees. She knows somewhere in her mind that it’s the last time, so she holds onto him. The pain squeezes and squeezes around her head and neck in a thick band of agony. “It hurts so much,” she whimpers to him. “I wish it would go away.”

“I wish I could make it go away.” The younger Doctor feels the sensation in his hands lessen just a bit, just enough so he knows this can’t go on much longer. Neither of them can go on much longer like this. He wraps her up tighter because he still has his strength. Donna turns her face into his chest. “But you’re not alone,” he tells her. “I’m here, I’ve always been here. I go when you go.” Donna clings on to him with what strength she can muster in her hands. Both of them are sobbing now, Donna with less and less force as breathing becomes slower. It’s so easy to slip into sleep, she thinks. So easy to let go, because he’s holding her and she won’t fall. So easy…

She doesn’t know that the younger Doctor has gone, dissolved into nothing around her, and the Doctor has wrapped her in his arms instead. She doesn’t know anything until she takes a great gasping breath under a cacophony of doctors and bright lights, and the headache is gone.

* * * *

They subject her to a battery of tests, scans, bloodwork, and questions. But everything is fine. Donna knows this with a certainty in her bones, a kind of organic knowledge. Everything is going to be all right, she assures them, with a kind of secret smile that no one can decipher. Her MRIs come up clear, her bloodwork is pristine, and her body feels better than she has in years.

But the biggest part, the best part, is that she has her memories. Everything, from her ruined wedding and Lance’s death to the moment she woke up in the hospital this time. Everything is there. It is a bittersweet feeling, painful and joyful all at once, a longing for the stars mixed with the desire to be home, around people she knows and loves. She wants to see her library, half-built as it is. She wants to be in her house, dancing around her kitchen. She wants to stare through her grandfather’s telescope like she always had, looking for something in the sky.

After a week the doctors let her come home, pronouncing themselves mystified. Donna drives herself, despite protests, and Shawn sits in the passenger seat looking worried. But Donna is smiling, and she reaches over to hold her husband’s hand. “Everything is going to be fine,” she tells him. “Everything is okay. The Doctor saved my life. Again.”

And she’s right; the Wilfred Mott Planetarium and Library is finished within the year. The Noble Foundation holds its opening gala just before Christmas, and Donna, dressed in a wine-red ball gown with long lacy sleeves, helps her grandfather hold the giant scissors to cut the golden ribbon across the entrance to the building. There is cheering, everyone toasting to each other. The press is there to take photos and interview Donna and her family. Shawn beams beside her, handsome in a dark velvet jacket and trousers, and speaks to the reporters with pride in his wife and all the good work they’ve done together.

Donna mingles with her guests, eating hors d’ouevres and drinking champagne. She looks beautiful, she feels healthy, and she imagines the blue box in the sky watching their little party in London. At that thought there is a tug in her subconscious, something that pulls her away. She excuses herself and follows her instinct into the telescope room. Alone in the half-light, she puts down her champagne flute and goes for the small telescope, her grandfather’s, set up next to the large one. She aims it for the sky and looks into the lens. The sky is clear and she can see the expanse of spangled blackness above her. What a joy that the sky is no longer a stranger to her.

She stays there for a few moments longer, dwelling in her memories, and then steps back reluctantly. She doesn’t want to be missed. She closes the doors behind her, painted a certain dark blue. The people who love her are waiting.

[comicteaparty]

June 20th-June 26th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from June 20th, 2020 to June 26th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

What is something you’re just not very good at right now writing and/or drawing in general?

Deo101 [Millennium]

mysteries. 100% I can not write mysteries!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ears

Deo101 [Millennium]

the connection between legs and torso. No not hips, I can draw hips fine, but like the movement aspect of it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Action scenes. Orchestrating fights or big motions on the page... it doesn’t come naturally to me! I have to look at a lot of reference to see how other artists do it. Impact shapes, speed lines, anything to convey movement...

But I am slowly building a vocabulary of... fight shapes? I’m calling them fight shapes, haha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I feel that

Your feeling I feel deeply

"visual library" is a term that comes to mind

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Composition. I just talked about this earlier today, but.... yup. Composition is my bane.

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

I'd like to get better at writing in general. I have a lot of trouble verbalizing things I see in my head, and so I gotta rely on images and thumbnails to get any idea across, sometimes. otherwise im a windbag and use 5000 words to say 0-1 things, lmao

carcarchu

I have trouble writing simply. I always want to embellish, add extra details, more characters and make everything more complicated and i worry it ends up making things unnecessarily convoluted

Drawing-wise i hate drawing hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The legit thing I am worse at writing is fucking

Deo101 [Millennium]

omg

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

essays to convince people to hire me

Deo101 [Millennium]

OH OKAY

WAY TO CUT IT OFF

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

YEAH

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

OH

carcarchu

let her finish deo

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

comedic timing at its finest

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

omg

I was very confused for a sec(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but seriously like speaking of filling gaps this is what I'm legit struggling most with right now so any help much appreciated

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

raises hand

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I need to write a personal statement and every time I sit down to edit I want to die

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I volunteer as tribute

writing is basically the only thing I'm really good at

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It's not the writing I hate

It's the writing about me

carcarchu

is that the thing where you have to write in 3rd person? like those blurb things on people's websites?(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It just feel so gross whoring out my deeply held passions and struggles for a spot in med school

No I'm talking about college essays lmao sorry for derailing

The blurb things are an interesting topic though!

Have you guys writtent those before and does anyone actually like writing them?

carcarchu

i had to write a blurb about myself for my university's website and yeah it was uncomfy

lemme see if i can find it

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I HATE writing those

because I just start like, "Crona J. is an artist and writer from Chicago......." And I have no idea how to continue

Deo101 [Millennium]

god yeah even just writing a profile or about me is hard enough!!!

I'm always like "deo - 22 - she/her - illustrator - webcomic author - student" and then i leave it

thats it thats all you get

depending on the platform i MIGHT put bi - disabled and thats it!!!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah

half of the stuff I write doesn't even feel relevant to the audience either

who cares that I have been drawing since I was 12 lol?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Mate I don't even write those. My bio is like "UCSD" "Read my comic"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also always feel like when I see "ive been drawing since I was 5!" I kinda think like... well everyone has been -_- like this doesnt tell me anything, how long have you been an aspiring pro, how long have you been studying art...? that tells me more

so I never put that kind of stuff in my biod either

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah, and also, I didn't go to prestigious school, so I don't even include my college

and I only have one comic project so far, just under a chapter

so what do I write?

Not that important an issue, but irksome nonetheless

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I don't include my school because it's prestigious, I include it because it's not an art college

Deo101 [Millennium]

owch

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I want fellow stem-y yet artsy people from my school to recognize me as one of them(edited)

DEO stop interupptung me at the worst points!!

Deo101 [Millennium]

i love jumping to conclusions. so no.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

If it's a bio where I can talk about the comics, I try to spotlight a few tropes/genres that'll catch the eye of potential readers. Not a full-fledged summary, just a quick hit of If You Like These Words, You'll Probably Like Reading It. ("Fantasy, comedy, shapeshifters, PTSD, time travel, cats")

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

And if it's gonna be personal, same deal with bits of personal info -- not trying to be a Comprehensive Biography, just pulling a few details that are relatable connection points

The problem with "I've always wanted to be a writer/artist/cartoonist" isn't just how generic it is, the problem is also the vibe of "here's my thing, your role in this is to support me"

Whereas if you say something like "I like drawing cute girls and writing fantasy," the response can be "oh hey, I like seeing cute girls and reading fantasy, tell me more!"

Or if you go with "Sailor Moon fan, will put extra cheese on everything," people can go "cool, that's relatable, we can like Sailor Moon and cheese together." It gets at your shared investment in a fun thing, it's not about expecting them to be personally invested in you

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think perhaps the most fundamental thing is "you can't please everyone." I've never liked the 'random food related weird tidbit tacked on' thing because it feels too try-hardish to me, but I understand for other people, it's not a matter of trying too hard and is genuinely how they just talk.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Oh definitely, you hold out for a bio that connects with everyone and you'll never get it done

AntiBunny

Personally I'm not great at drawing cars. It's why all my cars early on in the comic were side view only, and old blocky looking things. It was all I could do. I've been getting better by using references.

Every so often I buy a little hotweels or matchbox car when I'm buying groceries. I aim for realistic ones based on real vehicles, especially utility vehicles like ice cream trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, and whatnot you'd see every day in a city. I keep a little box of them on my desk, so if the scene calls for a car to be visible, I have a reference that can help me get all the curves and angles right.

Sure beats drawing from memory, but also practice time in the sketchbook with them is a necessity.

Now crowd scenes are beginning to be my bane. Not because they're hard to draw, just because they're time consuming.

Suddenly I realize why old episodes of Sailor Moon has cities with people free sidewalks and empty streets.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's a great idea, gathering the model cars! I should do that for a future comic.

kayotics

I also struggle with cars so, uh, my comic takes place in fantasy 1700-1800s

But also horses are bad too

Cars and horses! They suck

Deo101 [Millennium]

do what I did and make up an easier animal to draw than a horse ;)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Vehicles in general. Should just put everyone on roller blades and be done with it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'd lov that tbh

kayotics

I’ve considered making something other than horses......

Deo101 [Millennium]

I highly encourage it, the people love it and also so does my brain

kayotics

Or else lean into them being ugly

Deo101 [Millennium]

heres the trick about horses though they look really weird and as small as you make their legs, when you think "this is way too thin..." youre wrong and their ankles are probably smaller than that

kayotics

The thing that gets me is their faces

Deo101 [Millennium]

... mask

kayotics

Hahaha

I should just make deer the normal mode of transport

Deo101 [Millennium]

that would be really cute tbh

kayotics

I love deer and they’re cute

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just exaggerate them to the point where it looks like a style choice

Your people already have unrealistic proportions

Why not the horses too

kayotics

That’s how I draw buildings tbh because I hate buildings

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also gave horses dog mouths, maybe do something like that? someone can be like "horses dont look like that?" and as long as youre consistent you can say "they do in this world!!!"

kayotics

Oh god no that’s like a devil creature

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah they look horrible but its fun

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I legit remember saying that to you deo lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

ive had dog horse for years you didnt give me this

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Not the they look horrible part

kayotics

I’ve already got beasts, I don’t need horses to look WORSE than they did

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Bwah I remember

Time to archive dig(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I love dog horse

kayotics

Honestly it’s good but they scare me

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah... maybe instead give them cat mouths

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

https://discordapp.com/channels/472908933045026827/634081658018070549/688589449562423422

wait omg this is the message that led to your first dm to me lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

is it??? omg i think it is... historical moment

dog horse brings us together

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Another point to convince kay to draw uncanny animals!

Deo101 [Millennium]

what I do to make birds fun to draw is making them sparkly

maybe try that

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

god you're gonna ruin kay's carefully crafted aesthetic

is this your competitiveness showing its face again(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

they can make it work! why do you doubt their abilities

make this the main mode of transport

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ah is that how it works in that case i have 10 shitty indie game ideas

make them pls

Deo101 [Millennium]

implying my ideas are shitty??? rude!

kayotics

I have an aesthetic?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Or if you want to be very efficient, everyone in universe can teleport

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lmao you have an excellent aesthetic

crona

i do that already

kayotics

Crona.... that’s my comic already!! Haha

Deo101 [Millennium]

kay does also have teleporting to be clear

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

don't underestimate my laziness!

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

See

It must be great advice

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh crap you're right kay also does have teleporting

and unrealistic beasts, to be fair

kayotics

Sometimes on the same page

That’s the eyes I draw on the beasts

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Or be even lazier, and make it so that horses and beasts either don't exist or haven't been domesticated in that region. Everyone walks. Their feet hurt, but their calves are glorious.

Deo101 [Millennium]

you get it

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

wait crona and deo also have comics where teleportation could exist

will you join us?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol, yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

nope

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

(nah, I've already drawn horses. They're not so bad if you stare at photos)

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

drawing horses is fun!!

[multiple people are typing]

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

And there will also be hella walking, because the leg game must be strong, otherwise I'm not doing my job

Deo101 [Millennium]

ive decided that millennium is like really in the future but things like time travel, teleportation, warp speed... nope! You can go really fast in a spaceship but like nothin crazy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

man these planets real close together then

or maybe people just live a really long time ...?

Deo101 [Millennium]

I just do my version of teleporting which is "wow it'll take a week to get there" and then its a week later

dont worry about it

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

nice

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not realistic, but its consistent

🌈ERROR404 🌈

ahhhh horses are really nice to draw imo, if i can get it right lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

I like drawing horses a lot I just never do it tbh

🌈ERROR404 🌈

something needs to fuel my addiction to cowboy culture

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Consistency is key tbh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I just do my version of teleporting which is "wow it'll take a week to get there" and then its a week later

when my whole comic takes place in like a week lmao

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

if you decide that gravity doesn't exist in your world, as log as you're consistent with it, you're golden

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

in the unlikely event i get tired of drawing my comic i can adopt deo's strat "wow it'll take a week to get to the ending"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

My comic takes place in about a year (not counting flashbacks which span... uh... a very long time)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

"man sure seems like this conflict will take approximately a week to be resolved" "one week later"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

"sure did get resolved"

the end

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

convenient

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i wonder if anyone's done that

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One Korean series I followed for years did it

and everyone was pissed, as you can imagine

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

better than cancellation?

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

what a way to go

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'd honestly have preferred cancellation/ abandonment

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just have a fan finish it for you at that rate lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

OH that's a good discussion topic. If you got tired of your comic, or life got in the the way of you working on it anymore, how would you end it as quickly as possible?

Deo101 [Millennium]

maybe rephrase that a little

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I would toss it at my little sis, and she would do it for me, no joke

Deo101 [Millennium]

My little sister also would probably take over it for me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

let's move to general?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

eyyy!

Deo101 [Millennium]

but also I could just be like "They got an email that john died of old age its over now"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

MVP sisters!

lol

an email

what a way to end it

eliushi [Keyspace]

For me it’s panels. Past me thought that the four panel structure would make things easy. Nope. It’s limiting how I want to tell the story so... I’m trying to branch out now and looking for other inspirations for panel and layout

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just change the shape of your panels. It forces you to be creative.

eliushi [Keyspace]

True true! I have those in upcoming updates

But my heart swoons for the page spreads

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

oh yes

They are so gorgeous, but difficult to plan

eliushi [Keyspace]

Initially I was planning on storyboards but now I’m more comfortable with comics I think I’ll be aiming for traditional layouts

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, storyboards are an entirely different beast

Desnik

I'm currently working on clearly portraying character motivation

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I think for me I don't draw animals often and rip have to draw a few for the upcoming pages so I'm just doing my best at this point lol

AntiBunny

Panel arrangement is the heart of comics as an art form. It takes practice, and study to learn how the eye flows from one thing to the next.

And once you have a thorough understanding of the rules you can learn how to carefully break them to produce something truly eye catching.

If I had to say the simplest rule to understanding flow is, if you need arrows to tell you which direction to read, then you're doing something wrong.

DanitheCarutor

This is candy for my self-deprecating mentality. Lol Honestly though. I'm not the best at writing in general, I don't like doing it physically, avoiding it at all cost (outside of dialogue and poorly done bullet points on scrap paper.) so I don't really know if/think I'm particularly good at it. I remember the last time I tried to physically write something was back in high school, I still have it saved on my computer, but it was something else. Too many dialogue scenes and overly detailed descriptions of things and characters. I only made it a little ways before giving up with "You know, this will be easier to just show than describe.". Story and character wise for my current comic, I'm not sure how well it's turning out or how good it will be in the end, my brain defaults my work to mediocre so I tend to be totally blind to what I'm doing right. I know my characters aren't the best for sure since they're all fleshy flaw bags with too many flaws, and I know I could have presented certain scene changes and such better, but that's all I can think of objectively. The art portion is something I at least know I can execute decently, but my color composition is the worst. I'm aware that I need to improve it, and I know what needs to be done, but it's something I can't really accomplish with my comic since I just want to focus on finishing pages. I'll have to make time to draw up some throw-away illustrations to experiment with, which I hope to have a little bit of now that I'm not on a regular update schedule. Also I can't draw vehicles and architecture for the life of me, I've referenced and studied but I still can't wrap my head around it. ALSO extreme angles and perspectives are still things I need work on, like 4-point circular perspective, ground level shots and over the head shots.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's a lot of things I want to improve, but something I haven't seen mentioned yet: I would like to get better at deciphering feedback, how to glean useful things from multiple conflicting feedback.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Ooh that's a good one keii

I haven't really had to deal with that before though because all the negative feedback I've gotten is pretty consistent

Can I ask what the conflicting feedback you got is?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Oh gosh, I legit spent a long, long moment trying to figure out where to even start

eliushi [Keyspace]

I really like this approach to feedback

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yo Eli this is so good

eliushi [Keyspace]

Mary robinette is goals

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

this is spectacular already

wow

eliushi [Keyspace]

Pretty sure a wiser writer passed this onto me I have since used it a lot and it works for me

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

This is so so good Perfectly said about crits in creative fields

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One example I can think of isn't actually something that was criticized, but showed up a lot in various ways: "this is (supposed to be) an exciting adventure romp centering Danbi" vs "this is an emotional journey story centering Ethan" ... Not a criticism, but two very conflicting interpretations. People who have one interpretation are shocked and confused when I tell them about the other one.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Holy crap, Eli... This is one for the folder of absolute knowledge

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

woah, excellent advice

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

And yeah, that is a really good one. Symptoms are extremely useful, and diagnoses tend to be more useful in a conversation rather than a one-way "here is my diagnosis" thing

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I haven't heard it said before but the explaining eliminating a clean reaction rings so true to me

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Ahhh, this is literally the one document I have needed my entire life

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

also the helping someone tell the story they want

also the stream of consiousness, MAn

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I think I'll save that for my future high schoolers lol

some of the stuff said there is what I've noticed in the last few years critquing in academic settings but its nice to kno!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

People have given me stream of consciousness reactions before and they were the most helpful. Almost all the changes in the story from others' reactions were from stream of consciousness reactions, not intentional critiques

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, one of the most helpful "critique" I ever got was also completely unintentional

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

One of the most useful tips in this guide for me in particular is the "As a writer don't:" section. I struggle with it a lot.

On the note of things we are bad at in the comic-making process, I am very bad at taking critiques!(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

tbh for a long time, my biggest struggling point that's not in the "as a writer don't:" is "don't throw yourself into the void of self-hate." I'm better now, but boy, when it was bad, it was bad.

But perhaps that kinda thing better fits into "as a person don't:"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I am pretty good at taking critiques, but pretty bad at giving critiques! Right now the point I'm at is I'm just gonna not give critiques until I'm more mature

But then after I decided that an amateur writer friend told me his story idea that I not only disliked but was sort of offended by

and I really wanted to tell him but I didn't know how to do it nicely...

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

ooof

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

oh no

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah, that's really tough

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I tend to do kinda a sandwich method. I had to say some rough things few days ago on a practice pitch run and I pretty much said

Deo101 [Millennium]

Uh oh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"Your idea is developing for sure, but I think you need to reconsider some of the world building choices you done. Have you thought of researching such and such."

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

That's basically what I said

But I think I had to say "research ffs" in increasing intensity like 3 times lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh, nice, the "let's give them compliments too so that they know I'm not just being mean" method

It's a good method tbh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Rip it's not that like

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo might have something to say about this but it was about schizophrenics in a mental institution being portrayed in a real weird way by someone who didn't know anything about it(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Ooof

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ah man

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

ewww

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'll always stand by "asking people who've lived what you're writing about is the best form of research and can't be replaced"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Yeah I would said the to the person consider researching more on the topic and interview folks who have schizophrenia

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Dude I brought you up lmao

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and also like "is there a reason you want to depict it this way?"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

oooh

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I know I'm agreeing idk... Idk what else I'd have to say on the topic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's a very good question to ask someone

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and depending on their responses, I would just put my two scents in there that rip

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I always ask "what are your goals?" Before I ask anything else

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

critiques are kinda my strong point sinc eLMAO I do em all the time in my class

and teaching so yeah LOL

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo I mean I brought you up to this guy like saying "my friend messaged people online and they were super willing to talk to her you could do that"

Deo101 [Millennium]

OHHHHH gotcha

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I try my best to figure out what they want out of it and just deliever with some handful of suggestions

but I won't sugarcoat it unless you're a high school student or younger lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I'm often told I'm a lil too harsh but like idk

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I wouldn't say sugar coating it per say... More just telling them what their strengths are too, so that they have an idea of where they're at

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

telling someone their strengths is just as useful as telling them their flaws

that way they can highlight them

like just because you story has no flaws doesn't mean it's good right?

gotta have stuff that stands out in a good way as well

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Someone once phrased it as "Let's list everything that's wrong here, and find out how we can fix them" vs "How do we take this to the next level?" and that really resonated with me. It's not about sugarcoating; it's more about helping them get to the next level in the direction they wanna go.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

THIS

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I try to point out things that are going well, and I usually try to only point at things that ppl can work on immediately

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I should phrase my statement more clearly. But yeah Kei that's what I usually look for when critiquing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's often no need to tell them "your writing is only at level 3, and that's bad because the max level is 99." Just tell them how to get to level 4.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I dont' see it like its something bad but something that is challenging to them at the time

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Unless they have extremely unrealistic expectations or whatever that are standing in their own way

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

just have to figure out how to get out of the hump

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yep. I see this phenomenon in animation a lot. A good animation director will help you boost your existing work to something stronger, but still yours. A bad one will tell you to do it their way, and chide you for doing it ‘wrong.’

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I know a person like that and lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yessssss

That's why I always ask "what are your goals" to start

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yup

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I totally agree!!!! A LOT of the most important bits of great criticism is understanding exactly where the original creator was intending to go, and formatting your statements around helping them achieve that!!!!!!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Critiques are impossible if you don't know what the person is trying to achieve

🌈ERROR404 🌈

Just stating things that you would change if you were making it may seem useful and relevant to you the critic, but unless the creator is headed the exact same direction as you, they have just as much reason to invalidate the entire statement as they do to nit pick out the things they care to agree with

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Sometimes a prospective critic is simply too far removed from the target audience of the work, like on a fundamental level, and it makes it impossible to give them useful feedback. I think it's important to acknowledge that this can happen. It happens to me a lot and I just decline to give crits when it does.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, like don't ask me to critique a comic about sports lmao

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that notion, esepcially when seeing professional aritsts giving crits to folks starting out but it doesn't go as er ideal as they thought it would be

Deo101 [Millennium]

That's why I usually only seek out criticsm (for more than just general direction/advice) from people who's work I like

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I remember reading advice on getting beta readers, and it’s really REALLY important that they’re excited for your stuff. They want to make it better. They care. They can give critique, but they absolutely must be jazzed about your subject matter in some way, or else it’ll be a slog for everyone.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for me, I have my peers who I contact daily and we give each other advice, tips

despite having er difference interests in fields, but we experienced a lot in our program lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes... (Speaking of if anyone wanted to beta read my next comic uhhhh let me know id love to have u)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

very good point claire

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

100 percent agree Get people who are excited and know your vision

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I have a small group of writer friends who know all my goals and a lot of my stuff? So they make a very good little critique circle, and we all help eachother

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm always ready to beta read if it's a concept I enjoy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like people who critique comics they hate. I'm like, damn, tough work but also ?? why

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(Be careful about people who are excited about what they think is your vision.............)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Fish is this a callout for me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

slightly?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahsjfkdjdkskdjdjdj

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Keii I experienced the oppisisite like rip

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it's just mystifying to me, I don't think it's wrong or anything

Deo101 [Millennium]

Also crona I'll send u when I'm at my comp

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

sure

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What do you mean Tuyetnhi?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Ohh that would be oof to deal with Kei

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I had to let a person down to reality bc I know they're excited about their idea but uhhhh

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

(Is it the fish romance?)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it wasn't engaging to me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes that one qjdjfkskdkk

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

nor my illustration friends

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I don’t have beta readers but I think that’s how it all goes lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and we were like

"AAAAAAA"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Oh that's awkward

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Ooooooohhhhhhh... oof

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have a couple friends I send pages to sometimes but they're always really positive about it

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

It was a rough critique

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Having creative friend circles is so essential for growth and screaming at eachothers works for motivation too

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yessss

Also just the ability to talk about your process without having to explain yourself

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

agreed lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I occasionally tap my fiance's shoulder and shove my sketches in his face with zero context, just to make sure he can figure out what's going on without me explaining. Super helpful

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I feel like I have a couple friends where, when I read their stuff, I know things that would amp their work up tenfold. But until they ask me... I’m screaming inside lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

my friend always makes me feel like i'm a better writer than i am because she thinks so much like me she gets everything i write perfectly lol. But then I post and the comments are like "wtf i'm confused"(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah feedback is most effective when both sides are open and invested

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Claire Senpai Wants To Help

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

also same crona(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It’s not bad, I just go I THINK I CAN HELP YOU MAKE IT AWESOMER AHHHHHH

eliushi [Keyspace]

Claire senpaiiii

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

But until then I remain still and supportive

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

why don't you ask them "can i suggest things?"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I try and keep my mouth shut

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

or "do you want suggestions?"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

eliushi [Keyspace]

I usually say what I like about it first and then. Are you looking for feedback?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Tbh hearing "can I suggest things?" Usually comes off kinda like "I see stuff wrong with this :)" which can hurt a little even then

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

YEeeeah

🌈ERROR404 🌈

At least for my comic, i have sent bits and pieces for critique from creators i am friends with , but i'm really hesitant promoting myself because I don't feel like I'm not at a place to even get a critique i'll be able to make anything of. O(--( i really don't know what I'd do if someone tried to seriously analyze my plot and break down the story right now

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's really hard, because a lot of people (myself included) get scared when someone else asks, "Do you need help?"

Deo101 [Millennium]

I usually trust ppl to say whether they're looking for feedback

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Its always so tricky to gague the reactions of that. Some people handle that better than others So i only offer when they open up

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Based on how people can get about even the offer of critique, yeah, I tend not to say anything. That’s their baby. If they want to open that door, then I’ll poke my head in

eliushi [Keyspace]

True too. I’m already in forums where feedback is wanted so I’m already in selection bias

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, I like to only offer crits if someone is asking for it for that reason

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

for the record i'm always open to critiques

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

kinda mutal agreement on don't chime in unless asked lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, at least in my groups we send things like "hey this and this are bothering me? Can you help?" And other than that it's just support

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, that's a good idea

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for both parties. For me, If it's something that I need thoughts I ask but otherwise, lmao my social circles ask me for help for their art stuff

Deo101 [Millennium]

We never agreed on that btw it's just kinda how it goes

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

That's a nice group way to handle that AND make the space more breathable for others who are more nervous about crit work

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

exactly

eliushi [Keyspace]

There’s a time and place for everything and feedback is no different

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah! Like here we have seperate chats for help and sharing

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yuss

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

When someone asks me if I'm open to suggestions, my reaction is usually "nOOoooOo..." but not always. I think it helps a ton if there's an existing rapport, like if I already know this person gets, REALLY gets, my work.

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

And that's okay Keii!

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah I’m super thankful for my betas for that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yee same

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s very rewarding when people are also invested in your work to make it better within your means and style

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Honestly u gotta do whats best for u and ur mindset in the end.

Deo101 [Millennium]

It also is a little but awkward to say "no I'm not open to suggestions' cause it feels like you're saying "I don't care to improve" when in reality it's more like "no... I'm happy with this and I don't want it to be soured"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I love the fact that if I post in #creator_art_share, nobody will critique me unless I ask. And if I post in #art_help, I can get that help. So incredibly nice

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yes! Thats very respectful

eliushi [Keyspace]

So key

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Omg Deo.....such a mood LOL

Deo101 [Millennium]

I always feel so bad saying no thanks but it's like it looked good I thought

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

omg, I felt that in my soul

We beat ourselves up enough as it is

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Sometimes i know my work can be farty but... I dont also want perfection in every facet of my pieces too and thats okay! Some are learning pieces, others more indulgent

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I think I'd be very hesitant to accept ideas that will utterly break my core plot... unless someone comes out and outright tells me something about it is offensive or wrong or otherwise bad. But critique on the connective tissue between the bones, so to speak, heck yes. I've gotten some much better ideas from that.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

e.e even if i post in art share i would be honored to receive a critique from any of you

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Oh, if someone comes to me with suggestions that are that incompatible with my vision, I'm getting outta there.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but i don't wanna post every single thing i do in art help hm

but maybe i should

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am SO getting outta there.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I did had some suggestions that didn't... really help with my comic most of it are just comments and not pure criticism

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just post it lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah it's probably best to leave crit in the crit section so as not to break that unspoken rule.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

To signal to the rest of us

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea your vision is key, and i find that people who crit the work need a basic understanding of it for it to be a True Crit

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah it's probably best to leave crit in the crit section so as not to break that unspoken rule.

good point

i wouldn't want people critiquing me to make others feel like it's okay to do that to everyone

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

A good attitude!!! Y'all are very respectable this is a wonderful topic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeee

eliushi [Keyspace]

I think the best feedback is one where it makes your work become more effective within your vision. Sometimes it’s finding the betas who are invested but I also find betas who focus on different crafts also can offer a lot of wisdom. I find it comes down to being open and it’s never a bad thing to ask for clarification

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

[also writes this down for a potential lesson actvity for high schoolers] (edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, a critique is supposed to help the work become a better version of itself, not a better [something else]

Deo101 [Millennium]

Mostly with true beta reading I am looking for "how clear is my work coming off to someone who knows nothing of my lore and backstory etc?"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I like the idea of having at least one beta reader who's a writer, and at least one who's not. The writer can dissect things a bit more than a 'civilian' could while the civilian can look at surface-level things and react as the audience majority might.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

multiple beta readers are a blessing lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Cause with my friends, they already know everything I'm planning, so i worry a lot that they are putting together things that a regular reader wouldn't

So yeah same thing as a "civilian" reader, sort of!

eliushi [Keyspace]

For sure. Within my critique group I have novelists, webcomic creators and artists. Those who read the complete script and those who haven’t. It’s important to have all sides I find

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Dang you people with your luxury of multiple beta readers... I don't even have one (but it's mostly my fault; my scripts are unreadable)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

omg lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i'm sure you could use many of us as beta readers if you wanted to!

varethane

that surface-level 'first gut reaction' crit can be SO useful

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I change dialogue too frequently for a beta reader to have a fair chance, lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I started early with one years ago, but now I have like 5-10ish but they can't help me at the same time lmao

varethane

I agree upthread with when it was said that some of the most helpful crit was given unintentionally lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

same. i asked some people, including deo and crona, for a beta read of a script a while back but then ended up changing most of it lol(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

Most of my betas I found in forums like these! I’m sure a lot of us want to help each other out!

Deo101 [Millennium]

I usually only share stuff once I have at least a solid sketch and dialogue is in

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

so much changes in the thumbnail/layout stage for me. SO MUCH. whole scenes get swapped/cut/extended

I never keep it the same way

Deo101 [Millennium]

I don't like to share scripts cause also I don't usually script much anyways lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) As a long-time reader of HoK, I would be more than happy to beta read if you ever wanted it. Just throwing that out there!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same Lazuli like

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I'd love to beta read for anyone too

varethane

I prefer sharing sketched pages because my scripts usually change SO much in between being written and going onto the page

like, sometimes they're outright unrecognizable

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Deo101 [Millennium] Same. The couple times I really wasn't unsure about a scene, I had to find someone and give them cleaned up thumbnails

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I don't share more than sketched pages with dialogue

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

SUPER cleaned up thumbnails

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

from thumbnail to final, like they aren't the same from before lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Most helpful critique for me was just someone engaging with the story. "Man I love - and -, they're such good friends, but - pisses me the fuck off" and that was my intention, but i realized it was coming on a bit stronger than i liked and changed the next scene dramatically to make a future plot point where the last character needs to be trusted feel more earned(edited)

varethane

(anyone who seriously is down for beta reading, I have 3 finished chapters burning a hole in my buffer hhnnnnggggg)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah cause also like, 80% of the crit is usually "well this paneling is unclear" kind of stuff too

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

also i don't mind if anyone is asking me to beta read

Deo101 [Millennium]

Which you can't do from a script anyways

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

or (I don't usually do this often but)

I'm also a sensitivity beta reader too

so if you have questions about POC stuff, asian-american, er mixed-asian or mixed-black experiences

I'm willing to help lmao

but i'm just one perspective to the table

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A lot of comments, not critiques, have influenced scenes I put later too. Things to clarify, expand, emphasize. I take every comment like that as an idea. I love knowing what the readers hope to learn.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I’m in the midst of a 180k plus word count novel beta and alphaing a couple works but once that’s all done, happy to take a look too

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

holy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Wowie

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Getting trustful beta readers i gotta say again is so important bc sometimes when asking for some, u run into betas that are there to just exploit that privilege too (tho rare) And!!!! Be respectful of ur betas on the other side of the spectrum

Deo101 [Millennium]

Exploit how?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like to read your work early?

eliushi [Keyspace]

Definitely pick your betas wisely

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Usually just the free ride of Knowing the Story or the opportunity to just Constantly Crit (non helpful) bc of personal reasons

Deo101 [Millennium]

Damn

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I'm imagining having someone sneak in as a beta and reveal they're a rabid toxic fan trying to influence the plot to their liking. As an absolute worst scenario

Deo101 [Millennium]

Spooky

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea.... There's def ppl out there that would do that THOUGH RARE again. I think that's more of like Competition in the field or spite? But ive heard it happening and its not cool

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like people just looking for a free ticket to complain about your work?

i can see that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Oh yeah, I had folks like that before

after that I'm just like "thank you for your time" and block them after LMAO

Deo101 [Millennium]

That sucks :(

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

hhhhhhh

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea And u can always tell a sincere crit from a one that comes from a place of malice and ill intent pretty easy.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Exactly

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

oof

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Still!!! A horrible experience

Deo101 [Millennium]

:< yeah

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah.. I've never had anything like that happen, but wow... that's a terrifying notion

eliushi [Keyspace]

You tend to want to know your betas more than just them being a reader too. I like to think my betas are my friends and it’s a two way street where I help them too

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Some betas sign papers of confidentiality to avoid these instances of people running off with ur work too

eliushi [Keyspace]

There are paid betas but that’s business side and yeah Krispy

Deo101 [Millennium]

/stress

eliushi [Keyspace]

I don’t have them for mine

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Its scary bc we're all so small and our work is mainly for free U have to be wary of this

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I could easily see myself getting sucked into a bad situation like that I trust people too easily sometimes

but ugh... ya gotta learn

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s good to know the risks. That being said, I think the rewards of having a good beta far exceed the bad apples. You have to set good boundaries

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Not that any of yall would do this omgjghg

Deo101 [Millennium]

Same Claire ajdjdnsdjjjdjdjdjddj

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

gonna steal all y'alls IDEAS

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s also totally valid to say, hey something came up and I can’t beta anymore

Key is communication

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lmao ya gotta kill me for my ideas

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Isossn Watch out for that Claire lady

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

https://tenor.com/view/laugh-giggle-mutley-dick-dastardly-snicker-gif-5552702

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Omg Eli yesssSSSSS that!!! Is important for both creator and beta to have that communication

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh no, my precious ideas!!!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Eh even if u steal my ideas you can never steal my characterizations!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

just steal everything and make a horrible hodgepodge of all of our webcomics, like some sick frankenstein's monster

Deo101 [Millennium]

I don't think my ideas are the best part of my stories anyways :P

Ahsjdjfjdjfjdjfjdififiididkfkdje Frankensteins webcomic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

my ideas are relevant to my cultural background so I'm like lmao

eliushi [Keyspace]

I learned from my novel days that ideas are dime and dozen and it’s the execution that counts(edited)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I would actually love that tbh

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Oh no id read it tho XD

Deo101 [Millennium]

Massive crossover event

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

YES

PLEASE

eliushi [Keyspace]

Super smash bros when

varethane

lmao

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I really want people going into healthcare to critique my personal statement, but I won't send it to anyone because I've legitimately heard of people stealing others' personal statements and getting both people rejected

Deo101 [Millennium]

Wow

eliushi [Keyspace]

That’s scary and unfortunate

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooof

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it's almost worse than stealing a story idea because you're stealing like

someone's life story??

or their personality??

it's extremely strange to me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah that's ??????

eliushi [Keyspace]

I would consider having a mentor look over your statement but that’s veering off creator babble territory

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh i am doing that and very very thankful to them

Deo101 [Millennium]

Good suggestion and good point

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

After recently seeing a whole comic style/theme completely and obviously lifted from another one... yeah, the things that make your comic yours? They can absolutely be stolen whole-cloth

It's scary

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh no

god what even is the fun in that??

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I don't know. I really don't.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

you know what i want to spend years doing? telling a story that's already been told, except worse!

varethane

D:

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had someone steal designs before

varethane

dpsofasdj I am so curious about these cases now aaahhh

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ppl do steal stuff. But what sucks for them is I'm the one with a brain and I can make new things

eliushi [Keyspace]

I’ve seen similar styles but have not seen a purposeful recreation of another’s style whether as impersonation or plagiarism

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

i just read a webtoon that was "inspired" by an anime with many ideas from anime too

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It was a case where I always thought the two looked surprisingly similar, but then... yeah, you learn more things and you go AW GOD OKAY

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

this, and offensive stuff, is a case where i think unsolicited critique is 100% okay

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, though then it's the line of "is it offensive just to me? Or overall?"

Though I guess saying "this offended me" isn't horrible or whatever

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think of the trend of lgbt youtubers making videos making fun of anti-lgbt crap and that's a case where i'm like yeah! pile on!

You have a good point and there are cases where something is almost objectively offensive

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, and then there are other cases where ppl are offended by how I've decided to have no homophobia where it's like "okay sure but I'm not doing anything wrong"

But yeah there are definitely times where it's like "no that's bad for sure and I'm allowed to be critical of and mad about it"

I also think there's a difference between criticizing mass media and criticizing independent media

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Wait What what omg???? Thats???? So backwards

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

well, here's an anti-critique. it offends me when someone says that being lgbt must be hard and sad all the time!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah! I'd agree with that LOL

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

can I just be happy

as a bi woman

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

"IT'S NOT LIKE MY LIFE THEREFORE IT'S INACCURATE"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahdjfjskfkdkckskfksdksk yeah

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

So true tho!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

God, I hate that argument

Deo101 [Millennium]

Though I do think that its worth it to open yourself up to that kind of critique to potentially reach the people who do need your story

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yes def agree

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

True true

If there's a blind spot you're missing, then for sure

Deo101 [Millennium]

Well, I was meaning more like "you can't please everyone, but that shouldn't stop you from trying your best anyways!"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Ah! also true

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like not necessarily blind spots, but more like. Some people will be mad no matter what sorta thing

Yee

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

so tru

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yeah for sure. I've tried to cover my bases on certain things in my own work, but I'm sure if it ever gets bigger, someone will be unhappy about something.

I'm not ready for that day, but... maybe it'll come

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah. Like I said I had someone get mad at me for not having homophobia

Where it's like... Okay stop reading then cause this isn't the story for you

Actually my friends replied to then and they did kinda turn around on their thinking, I think, so that was nice!

There's something I'm bad at for the question, is replying to my comments

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh? :0

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

okay sometimes i've said to my friends "yo weird ass comment, right?" and they've gone and defended me like way extra hard

i'm always grateful but also a little (edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same. .

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

too mch man

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah it's like Thank you but

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I do have some weird comments but the ones that I just kinda trying to offend me

I don't look at it till after a few months and respond to them calmly lmao

no point for me to just get rilied up for someone trying to get on my nerves but rip that's probably just me and how I deal with that stuff in irl too

I don't let my friends go after bozos lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah for me I just like. Try really hard to be diplomatic, I guess? But it takes a lot of energy

When what I WANT to say is "lol read another comic then" or something but I try to think of a way to be nice

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yee I understand on that. for me I'm just say it as it is if at's the moment but for more heated comments I address them after a few months lol

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I haven't gotten any weird randos yet apart from... one legendary one But things are always calmer on your own site far away from Tapas/Webtoons

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that but lmao

I did had one angry commenter going agro for few of my pages

and I looked at it and I was like "Oh worm man"

they were just reacting to my characters being shit LMAO

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

OH WORM MAN

very good

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I ignore it tbh. I recently had someone comment "All lives matter" at the end of my comic because I included "Black lives matter" at the end. And I honestly knew i didn't have the mental fortitude to explain to them why that was so rude and missing the point.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lol my mom is saying that stuff and i'm just like :|

okay mother

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I guess for writing for me, now thinking about it is that

on the prompt: I don't respond quick and I'm not really active much on interaction but I want to try more

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I haven't gotten any weird randos yet apart from... one legendary one But things are always calmer on your own site far away from Tapas/Webtoons

I really haven't either though! Just a few people saying mildly :| things, no hate or anything. Wt is not always as scary as its reputation

or maybe i'm in the eye of the hurricane idk

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

I have had mostly good experiences too

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had mostly good too!

I know I complain a lot but really I'm just salty and that's just a few bad things here and there

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The comment I was thinking about earlier was just an innaccurate interpretation of characters' feelings. They thought some people had a romantic history. I wasn't going to respond but my friend went all "if you actually read the comic you would see th- " and I was thinking omg tone it down a bit

Deo101 [Millennium]

Bajsjdjekdjdkdjd

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

never underestimate the Friend Army

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I had a reader I didn't know defend me in the comments once. The original commenter was complaining about the length of my updates, and the other reader started railing on them. It was powerful lmao. I didn't even need to say anything

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh! same

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had some ppl defend me or explain for me and it's like. Idk a special kind of magic ahahahah

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh for sure! It feels magical to know that some of your readers passionately love your work

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Update-length complainers are so cathartic to smack down. Not that I've done it, I just... like seeing it

You're getting a free comic. Made by a human with a life. Chill

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

All my comments are normal where are my weirdos

boogeymadam

someone take some of my weirdos, my comic attracts them

but not really because i accidentally gave claire one of my weirdos and i feel Sooooo bad

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

i feel im still a long way off from getting anyone with my comic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

weirdos are contagious apparently

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You don't have to be popular to get a weirdo

Sometimes like... you could have 1 regular commenter and that person is a weirdo

or not even a commenter, you show your work to a RL friend before posting it online, and the friend takes off their mask dramatically, and reveals their True Identity as a professional weirdo

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

for real, i was posting on SJ and had all of like a dozen followers and one guy went through and heavily critiqued a ton of my pages

Like technical stuff like paneling and flow of action?

Also said my female lead looks like a man and my animation was nauseating lol

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

heh well after i do this current update im working on, i'll be scraping how ive been doing updates and following some tutorials i finally found

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I like critique but even so that guy was :|

boogeymadam

omg noooo sorry that happened fish! D: unsolicited critics are some of the worst

DanitheCarutor

I guess that is the one thing I've been lucky with. I actually don't mind unsolicited critique, but I've never gotten any outside of one time someone corrected my character's grammar in the comments. Commentary like that is way more welcome than the occasional anonymous hate comment, and malicious article calling me a fetishist, which is all entertaining in its own way but not as easy to deal with. Now that critique is brought up I'm reminded that I need to work on how I respond to it. Like, I actually get kind of excited when someone takes the time to break down my stuff (even if it totally misses the mark with what I'm trying to accomplish), but I end up responding with a novel and sometimes it's worded in a way that sounds like I'm upset. I need to get better at keeping it short and sweet.

Feather J. Fern

I raise my hand to say I can't draw hands for the life of me still after praticing for a long time. I used all the techiques, tricks, and still my hands are just butts.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

make a universe where people have butts for hands

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is a really minor one and thankfully easy to correct after publishing, but: my ESL-ness shows sometimes, especially with prepositions and articles. My English isn't terrible; there's just some occasional "wait did they mean 'on' where they put 'in'..." That's on the surface level. I also can't do that 'just write the dialog and see how the characters bounce off each other' thing in English. I hadn't thought much about that until I started writing a story in Korean, and I was surprised how much easier it was to get flowin' with the dialog. I'm not toooo concerned about this one, as Get Flowin' is just one way of writing a scene. But it is a thing.

Feather J. Fern

Eightfish stop calling me out that I can draw butts better than hands okay(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

feather have fun drawing the gluteus maximus

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I see nothing wrong here

Moral_Gutpunch

I'm bettign most people here can draw hands better than me.(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

S’okay, my hand drawing is pretty bad

Feet is...also an issue

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

The best reference is the one attached to you, I always say

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

or make your so pose for you

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yes

That

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

looks back at comic and sees lots of guy characters with slender palms MHMMMM

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha

Lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ahahha i have the same problem

some guys have thick ass fingers when i look at them closely omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, everyone has pretty thin fingers in mine, because I have thin fingers(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Okay yeah not gonna lie I HAVE made my SO pose for me. Several times.

Oh yeah don’t forget

Guys can have hairy knuckles too

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I have had my SO pose his hands retroactively for me, imitating a panel I did And I was screaming inside LOL

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

this stuff makes me :00

Deo101 [Millennium]

I have hairy knucles and my hands are bigger than my dads

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Ughhhh, that's too much detail for me, Shadow

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Yoslslzlzrhlzxzzkhzhlztututs funnily enough my SO’s hands and mine are of similar length

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For such a small person, I have really long fingers

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

reminded me of a convo i had with some friends

they sent a reference and said they thought it was unrealistic because of how much the tendons stick out

and i said, no, that's how mine look

and it was interesting seeing the differences

Deo101 [Millennium]

everyone share hands

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, especially since your fingers are stretched, the tendons stick out lol(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Someone told me I have piano fingers

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like i always think of my hands as the 'default,' because I see them the most but really there is much variation

deo has nice hands

look elegant

shadows hands look a lot like the rest of her :0

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Whhhhhhhhh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

tall librarian

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

GJOXJPSLZLJZDXKXYOF

Yeah true XD

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

My nails are super long rn

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Holy shit the manicures

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I did it myself

Deo101 [Millennium]

thank U i have lovely hands that are big as fuck, and I can use as a ruler

because my pinky and thumb can stretch out exactly 10 inches

this cup is 10 inches tall

youre welcome

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I have stubby baby hands as well as double jointed fingers, so I'm very aware my hands aren't "average" looking. Yet if I don't pay attention, I tend to draw hands kind of like mine

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahahaha, Deo!!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

wow so useful i should measure my hands

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Me too tbh

Deo101 [Millennium]

I atually suggest it it comes in handy (ha) more than youd think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i found a joint that measures exactly 1 inch and i use it so much

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah!!!

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Whoooooa

Mine goes 8 inches

Deo101 [Millennium]

my hands are fookin hyuge bro

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Wait

8.5

YEAH YOURS ARE GIANT

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

exactly 8 inches

omg your hands are huge

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Mine stretch out to just under 7.5 inches

Deo101 [Millennium]

in yalls defense I also have ehlers danlos so theyre probably stretching more than yours too

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I have smol hands because I am smol

Deo101 [Millennium]

tiney

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yus

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

surprised shadow managed to find a way to measure in inches haha

Deo101 [Millennium]

she said it wrong its actually 8.5 cm

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

8.5 inches

I used a ruler

In cm it’s 21

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

she said it wrong its actually 8.5 cm

hm maybe that's why she thinks hands are hard to draw

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

LMHfhgzmzjKfhl

Deo101 [Millennium]

because she has tiny baby hands and can barely hold the pencil... yes

its all coming together

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

I will slap y’all with my tiny baby doll hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i'm learning so much about you all today

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Now you see my pain

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

o h wait do you play music crona?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Uh... Not really. I've messed around on the piano, and failed at playing the French horn

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Playing instruments is hard for smol hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

rip

Feather J. Fern

My tiny hands compared to my pen XD

Also I took the picture close up and at an angle so not cone cna make fun of my writsts which are narrower than my computer mouse

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

my wrists are also narrower than my mouse, and my mouse is pretty small

Deo101 [Millennium]

mine's about the same as my mouse

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I got a pretty small mouse too, I been told by people to eat more becuase of my wrists (It's an Asian thing apparently) and I'm like "First of all rude, second of all my health is not any of your concern random lady on the street"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Tiny wrist solidarity!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Solidarity!

varethane

I don't have especially thin wrists but my hands are lowkey shaped pretty oddly. I only posted a photo of my hand petting a cat to FB and got a lot of comments like 'cute cat but what's with that hand????'

(it did look pretty weird from that angle. Like a noodle with a couple of noodlefingers at the end)

spacerocketbunny

Oh no Vare ;;;;;3;;;;;;;;;

[igottoomuchwriting]

To Have it All and Give it All Away

“How is it fair that God has all the power, and we just get to do things like create stupid stars?” The angel snapped. Raphael looked at him with a confused look.

“We didn’t just create the stars. We have helped create animals, plants, everything in the universe.”

“But we never get the final say!” A second angel yelled. Raphael let out a deep sigh. He has had this conversation with his friends multiple times before and he gets where they are coming from. God has given them all choices in creations that he puts on Earth, the planet he has deemed the most habitable, but there have been many times that She has shot ideas down. Especially from his group of friends.

“We could take over,” the first angel said.

Raphael let out a scoff. “How would you even get away with doing that?”

“We are not the only ones who want to see change here,” Angel Two spoke. “Many of us want to see God show us some respect.”

“And how do you think we could get away with that?”

“Easy.” Angel One smirked. Raphael and Angel Two stared at him waiting for an answer. He looked between the confused faces on his friends before snapping. “What?”

“If it’s easy,” Raphael drawled, “then what’s the plan?”

“Well,—” he stopped, glaring at Raphael. “Well, does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. What, you think overthrowing our creator would work if you did it on impulse?”

“Of course it wouldn’t work on impulse, you dumb fucks,” they heard a fourth voice say. They all turned to see Lucifer, archangel and God’s second-in-command. The three angels froze in fear. Would he tell God what they were talking about?

“Lucifer,” they all spoke at once, bowing their heads. Lucifer let out a scoff.

“Lift up your heads, I don’t need your obedience.” The trio looked back up at him, all varying looks of worry and shock.

“Are you going to tell God what we were talking about?” Angel One asked. 

“Are you kidding?” Lucifer laughed. “You all have the same ideas I have. Why would I get rid of my followers?”

“Followers?” Raphael snapped. “What—”

“Raphael!” Raphael snapped his head behind him to see—

“Why is your lover here?” Angel Two snapped. Raphael shot a glare at the angel. 

“Because unlike you, people like to hang out with me.” The angel was about to snap back at Raphael when the fifth member joined.

“Oh, hello everyone!” he cheered. “What seems to be going on here?”

“Just talking about God’s plan,” Lucifer smiled. There was something about that smile that sent a shiver down Raphael’s spine. He looked between all the angels to see if he should be going along with it, but there was no use.

“Nothing important, love,” Raphael hummed. “Come on, we can go somewhere else.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to take you from your friends,” he tried denying, but Raphael was already walking away. He knows he doesn’t like his friends, and he loves God more than anything. If he knew what the four of them were talking about, he would freak out.

“I will see you guys later!” Raphael called back as the couple walked away. He didn’t bother to wait for their responses as he shot up into the air away from the conversation.

It wasn’t long before the couple got to their favorite place in Heaven. You could see the stars and constellations that they have both created, and the one star that they had created and named together. Being surrounded by things that showed their love and the strength in their friendship brought so much love into the air.

“What were you talking about with the archangel Lucifer?” His angel asked once they had settled down.

“Nothing important, love,” Raphael purred. “He was just asking about our thoughts.”

There was a gap filled with silence. This was never a good thing, but there was nothing Raphael could do about it. There was obviously a lot going on in his lover’s head and he wasn’t going to force him to talk about it if he wasn’t done processing it.

He took a deep breath. “Those two… don’t believe in God’s plan, do they?”

The question didn’t shock Raphael. It was common that his friend’s were open about their doubt in God, but Raphael had faith. There was no harm in what they were doing.

“They are just… angry,” was the best he could explain it. “We all have questions and wonders of why anything is happening.”

“Do they question God’s authority?” Raphael stared at the star that they both shared, thinking hard.

“...I don’t think so.” The answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was enough. The couple fell back into silence, with Raphael’s love leaning on his shoulder and wrapping his wings around him. This was a very common scene between the two when they needed to calm down. To always be surrounded by creation and plans for the soon-to-be planets was a lot of stress on the two, especially when the archangels would never give answers.

“I don’t think you should hang around them anymore.” Raphael snapped his attention to the angel leaning on his shoulder in shock.

“What?”

“I just—” he let out a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “They seem like they are going down the wrong path, and I don’t want you falling down that path as well.”

“I won’t,” he assured. “They are just questions. There is no harm in what they are doing.”

“Do you promise?” he asked, looking Raphael in the eyes with so much hope, so much fear. There was no way that he could ever see that look in his eyes again.

“I promise,” he mumbled before he leaned in for a kiss.

That promise was all he could think about when he saw the fire burning around him. 

That promise is what brought tears to his eyes as he faced the angels and God while standing by his friends sides, who were all chanting Lucifer's name.

That promise was all he could think of when he was shoved from Heaven and started falling.

And falling.

And falling.

His wings burned, charing black like the abyss that he found himself stuck in and surrounded by.

He couldn’t remember the angel, couldn’t remember the love of his life. He couldn’t even remember his own name, only that he has been renamed Crawly, his friends Hastur and Ligur cheering past the pain of falling. 

He couldn’t remember the star that he created with his love, or the stars that his love created himself.

He lost his memories of Heaven, destroying his link to what his life once was.

He forgot everything.

Almost.

He could never forget the promise he broke. 

---

The loud voice booming through the sky startled all the angels guarding the garden. She was angry, angry at the best humans that God had believed were perfect for the garden.

They all nervously looked over the wall to see Adam and Eve cowering behind bushes, staring at the sky in fear. The angel’s watching nervously as lightning struck the ground outside the garden.

The angel who was guarding the East wall was especially upset over this. He had bonded with the humans, had grown close to them, and they had made one mistake. Of course the one mistake they made was the only one that God demanded that they don’t make.

Adam and Eve dawned some clothes to cover their parts, getting ready to make their way into the unknown. Eve was expecting the first human child that will be born without God’s direct help and she was in pain, emotions all over the place, and Adam wouldn’t let her out of his sight.

The angel watched with deep sadness. He looked around the wall nervously, checking to see if any of his fellow angels were nearby. Satisfied that no one could see him, he dropped down into the garden, right in front of the entrance. Adam and Eve looked at him in shock.

“Aziraphale?” Adam asked. “What do you want?”

“Do you know what is out there?” he asked, anxious. Adam and Eve shook their heads.

“God didn’t tell us,” Eve choked out. She was the one that the snake tempted, she must feel the most guilt.  

Aziraphale studied the humans in deep thought. They were really going out into the wilderness with nothing on them. Not even the knowledge from the tree could help them in this situation.

“Here.” He reached down and pulled out his flaming sword from its sheath, holding it up to the couple. They both took a step back in fear before Aziraphale continued. “Take this! It should help you stay safe.”

They hesitated. Aziraphale understood why, as Heaven should be mad at them right now. It was one mistake though, and to leave them unguarded would be too unkind. 

Adam reached out slowly and grabbed the sword from Aziraphale. He willingly let go of the sword, smiling as Adam studied with interest. Eve looked at him smiling, hand on her stomach and arm around Adam’s waist.

“Thank you,” she spoke.

Aziraphale let them leave and now he stood at the top of the East wall, watching the couple make their way through the desert. They were scared, worried, unknown to what could happen, but at least they had some protection.

Another presence joined him on the wall, but he didn’t look. He could tell by the energy that it was a demon. Demon shouldn’t be anywhere near the wall.

“Well look at them go,” he purred. “Really, kicking them out of the garden for eating fruit? Seems kind of harsh.” 

The demon turned his head to the angel who was still avoiding eye contact. The angel was rocking back and forth on his feet, hands crossed in front of him in that posture that all sophisticated angel’s held.

“God had one rule,” he spoke. “It was to not eat the fruit from the tree. They broke the rule, so they must suffer the consequences.”

“God’s rules have always been too strict,” the demon scoffed. “What was the worst that they do with the information? Ask questions?” He quietly mumbled under his breath, “like that is such that bad of a fucking crime.”

Aziraphale glanced at the demon with a sad look, though the demon did not look at him. He kept his glowing eyes forward on the humans, watching as they fought a lion off. His red hair blew in the wind gently, wings spread out wide to show them off. He has obviously worked hard to keep them groomed and it would be a shame if he hid them away. Aziraphale couldn’t believe that this man had fallen, let everything go.

He wanted to tell the demon that asking questions can bring everything to an end. Asking questions can shatter relationships, asking questions could bring the ash to your lungs. If you ask the wrong questions, you would be questioning God. God isn’t someone to be questioned. Indeed, She knows all. She knows what She wants.

Instead of that, he asked, “What is your name?”

“Crawly,” he answered, finally looking at Aziraphale. “And you?”

“Aziraphale.” Crawly nodded his head politely—a weird motion for a demon, a motion that shot pain through Aziraphale’s heart—before turning back to the humans.

Crawly couldn’t understand why, but this angel felt familiar. He feels like he has known him forever, years and years, as if they were friends. He feels as if there is something about him that Crawly is forgetting, as if there is something that he should remember about him.

He brushes this all away. He asks about the angel’s flaming sword that he has given away, thinking that he would never associate with an angel that was this irresponsible, even when he was in Heaven. He has also probably met a lot of angels when he was in Heaven, even if he can’t remember them. God has let him remember some things from before he fell, as if She is tempting him with knowledge, trying to get him to repent his sins.

But he won’t. He has no interest in going back.

Once it started raining, Aziraphale raised his wings out of impulse. Crawly moved closer and stood under the protection, pulling his wings in so that they don’t get messed up.

There was something familiar about the motion, they both thought.

One knew why, one didn’t.

One was surprised, happy that this situation was happening. Happy that there was some protection in his life, something that he could hide under, even if it was from the rain. The other—

Well.

The other held the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had secrets that he could not speak, secrets that will remain hidden. He was deeply saddened, wishing to only revel in this slight moment. Hoping that maybe in the future, it will all change and the secrets will be released.

And neither of them had a clue.

---

They had successfully avoided Armageddon. 

Crowley never thought they’d be able to do it, once Adam had named the HellHound and was coming into his powers. Turns out the power of ‘friendship’ and your dog being scared of you was stronger than any force of good or evil that you could ever face in your life.

Now Crowley and Aziraphale had much free time on their hands. They could basically do what they want, now that Heaven and Hell thought that they were just their own beings that couldn’t be destroyed normal ways. With all of this time, what could they do? They could work on their relationship, cause chaos, explore the world—

Or, Aziraphale could disappear to Satan-knows-where and leave Crowley all alone in his bookshop with nothing to do.

Crowley groaned and threw his head over the armrest, glaring up at the ceiling above him. Aziraphale had said he would be back from the store ten minutes ago and yet the angel still hadn’t returned.

Crowley was getting bored. He never actually liked reading, but instead watching TV or listening to music. The problem was that Aziraphale didn’t have a TV in his book shop and he didn’t have any music that Crowley would willingly listen to. So here he was stuck in the bookshop with nothing to do.

Annoyed as all hell, Crowley sat up on the couch and looked around. He has been in this bookshop thousands of times, studying every nook-and-cranny and committing it to memory. With Aziraphale gone, he had nothing better to do than go over everything that he has already seen before.  

Crowley walked around the books, scanning every name and every cover with a new interest. There are books from the 1600s, and some that Crowley was sure that were released last month. Books that were paperback and some that were hardcover. There were a lot that looked like Aziraphale read it everyday for hundreds of years and some that have never seen the light of day.

One book caught his eye.

Right in the middle of a bookshelf shoved in the way, way back was the Bible. Not the regular Bible that Crowley sees in hotels or on shows, or even in some restaurants that he goes to. No, Aziraphale has the original Bible that is written in Hebrew, one that humans printed by hand to distribute only a few at a time. You had to share the Bible through villages and homes, everyone listening to one man read the Bible in church.

Crowley sees Bibles all the time. It’s something that humans these days are obsessed with, that they would rather die than not see the Bible every few seconds. Frankly, Crowley didn’t know how it became so woven in their cultures but he didn’t like it. He was biased though.

There was something different about this one. Maybe it was the fact that it was the original Hebrew print, or that it was giving off an aura that Crowley just couldn’t help but focus on. Whatever it was, it threw Crowley back to when he was an angel. To the few memories that he has from before he fell.

Sometimes I feel like Adam, cause I have more than I need

He never wanted to fall, this much was true. Crowley truly had questions for God, questions for how everything was being run up in Heaven. He wasn’t angry about it all, he was just curious.

Why were archangels a thing? Why couldn’t they all be at an equal level so that there is no tension between angels, no hatred within groups and ranks?

Why couldn’t they help with more than the stars and the planets? God has always had the last say, and frankly, Crowley thought he had plenty of great ideas.

Why did they all have to go by he or him? Some angels had female presenting bodies, but were forced to use male pronouns because God used she or her, and no one can be on the same level as God. Crowley didn’t want to be the same level as God, no. He just wanted to be seen as a girl sometimes. Humans were the only ones who would use the female pronouns. 

These questions, and doing nothing but hanging out with the wrong group caused Crowley to fall. He listened to Satan when he said that ‘God won’t let you do what you want. I will give you more freedom’ like an idiot. Satan gave him the same amount of freedom that God did, not giving him free choice. The only difference is now it is a more hostile environment. If you can’t fend for yourself than you might as well die.

For a few moments, Crowley was thrown back to the war. The fight between Satan and God, angels and the fallen. He could remember the fire and the smoke. He could remember the edge cracking with all of the angry standing on the edge. He can remember feeling the heartbreak and anger from everyone around him. 

He can remember seeing Michael grabbing Lucifer by his wings and shoving him off of Heaven first, taking bits of his wings in his palms, never to be grown back on Satan’s body. 

He can remember looking back at an angel as Gabriel shoved him off the edge, keeping eye contact with his lover. 

He remembers letting a tear down fall down his face as his lover turned away, choosing to stay in Heaven than fall with his lover.

I want what’s out of reach

His lover. He can’t remember who his lover is. He can’t remember their face, their body shape, their name. He can’t remember his favorite place to be, how his wings felt in his hands or what his lips felt like against his.

He can remember being with him all the time, holding his hand and brushing his wings. He can remember keeping him away from his friends because they made him uncomfortable.

It was like God was tempting him, tempting him to repent his sins so that he can just learn who it was that he loved. Who it was that cared enough to warn him of the evils going on in Heaven.

Sometimes, Crowley thought he should.

Maybe I should learn my lesson

His lover was the only question he had. He never cared about what animals he named, what plants he created, what wars he fought or what angels were his friends. He could give less of a shit for that stuff.

No, the only thing he wanted to know was his lover’s face. That alone was enough to have Crowley question being a demon. He would always question giving it away, turning it all around, just to see that angel one last time.

If he could have a name and then be thrown back to Hell, that would be fine by him. 

If he got one last kiss and was disintegrated with holy water, that would crush every feeling of guilt he has.

If he could just have one clue as to who the fucking angel was.

“Darling?”

Crowley snapped his head up to see Aziraphale standing in the doorway to the hidden room. He was holding a paper back that most likely had new books in it and he was giving Crowley a concerned look. “Are you alright?”

“Of course!” he replied. “Just bored out of my damn mind, angel. Where have you been?”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry!” Aziraphale set down his bag and walked over to Crowley. Crowley reached out and grabbed his hand, keeping him at a comfortable length. “I got caught up in the store. I also saw a new coffee shop has opened up down the road and I was thinking that we must go! It looks very cute and the smell of their food is divine!”

Oh, what a waste

Crowley watched as Aziraphale’s face lit up at the mention of the coffee shop. His smile alone was lightening up the room, and not just because he has Heaven’s light embedded in his smile, but because he was just so happy. He always loved supporting up-and-coming humans and their dreams.

Crowley loves seeing that look on Aziraphale. He has the same look when new books are released, or when a customer has an interest in an old book. Aziraphale will talk with someone for hours over philosophy and is left glowing for hours after. He beams like that when Crowley brings him a gift, or when Crowley decides to try and bake something for him when every shop around them is closed because it is two in the morning. Aziraphale is so different from all the angels Crowley has ever met, and that alone cements the decision to not go back to Heaven.

Yes, he could go back to Heaven, find the one who he loved and who loved him. He could make up for the promise he broke, could try and fix everything that he destroyed by falling. He could live a happy life in Heaven and not have to worry about watching over Earth anymore. He could do all of this if Heaven was perfect.

Crowley knows that if he went back to Heaven, no one up there would trust him. If he went back up there, they would treat him differently, and who is to say that he wouldn’t stop being ‘evil’? Why should he risk giving up everything, upsetting himself and having to go through the pain of falling again just for one angel that is either dead or doesn’t care about him anymore. Why should he risk what he has with Aziraphale just to answer the one question he could never answer?

Aziraphale is all he needs. Aziraphale is the light in his dull life, the one who has given him a chance and understands that he didn’t want to fall. He understands that he only fell because he hung out with the wrong group and asked the wrong questions. He is the one who loves Crowley for who he is, not for who he used to be. Aziraphale has clicked with him, as taken time to get along and learn. Sometimes it truly feels like they have known each other for more than six thousand years.

Yes, he regrets falling and regrets asking questions when he shouldn’t have, but when he’s with Aziraphale, that all goes away. 

Crowley pulls Aziraphale close against his body and places a firm kiss on the angel’s lips. Aziraphale let out shocked sound, but quickly leaned into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s shoulders.

“Sure, angel,” Crowley mumbled once he pulled back from the kiss. “We can check it out. I need to cause some chaos, anyway.”

Aziraphale gave him a disappointed look and—dare he say—a pout. “Do not cause any chaos, darling. It’s such a nice day.”

“Perfect time to ruin it!” Crowley cheered, walking out the door. Aziraphale doesn’t know that Crowley won’t do much, only make someone trip into a mud puddle, but he has to keep the illusion.

“Crowley, dear!” Aziraphale huffed, following the demon out. “Do not, please—”

To have everything and give it all away

[officialthiamlibrary]

Welcome to another profile on Behind the Screens, giving you personal insight on who your favorite creators are and what they do when they aren’t wowing you with their creative ability.

Happy Tuesday friends! Today, we have the delightful pleasure in getting to know one of your most requested authors, @formerprincess. Rena, our aforementioned guest, is the writer of numerous works, most notably A Tale of Claws and Fangs, Overslept, and Finding My Way To You. As you’ll come to find out, she’s also so much more, so let’s not wait a second more to dive in.

Rena! To get us started, share something about yourself! And for the twist: the word could should be around the number of letters of the characters in you’re favorite TW rarepair ship.

Erica Reyes + Stiles Stilinski = 25

Shy but it you know me I can be pretty weird. Huge book lover. Disney Fangirl. Big heart. Need writing like air. Wrestling fan.

Woah, really?! A wrestling fan? What got you into it?

I get this question so often haha. Because I appear so shy and innocent, people are always like: What? Wrestling? You? It’s fun.

My dad watched it for a while and sometimes I watched it with him, nothing too invested. But then I learned about Nikki and Brie Bella over tumblr rp and I got really curious about them so I researched online. I love them both, especially Brie, love that they stand for strong women and through them I started to actively watch Wrestling and over time gathered some other wrestlers, male and female, I love to see in the ring. It’s fun to watch them and what they do in the ring is impressive.

From wrestling to Teen Wolf, I dig it! And, how you find your way to the Thiam fandom? What about the two grabbed a hold on you?

That’s kind of a long story. I started watching Teen Wolf because I saw gifs and pictures of it on tumblr. I got curious and wanted to see this show but it wasn’t broadcasted on TV in my country, so I kind of searched online for a way and I watched until the point where Liam was introduced in the series  but then stopped because I lost interest and with work I was too busy to even think of Teen Wolf. And then I was on tumblr and I saw a gifset of the scene where Liam and Theo almost fistbumped and I was like ‘Oh hey, these two are cute together.’ I don’t even know why, I just liked the chemistry they had in the scene, Theo’s soft smile, and all. I grew curious who they were because I recognized Liam but I had no idea who Theo was. Quick online search. Aha, those two are Theo and Liam, Thiam for short. Interesting. The Thiam fandom was so very small at this point, there like five fanfics or whatever, so I didn’t really get much from my little expedition into the Thiam fandom.

I kind of forgot about them again because life and other stuff and all and then I saw something about Theo being evil months after my little encounter with the Thiam fandom and I was all ‘Wait a minute! What? But he and Liam…What the hell is going on?’. I was totally confused and stayed confused until was finally able to watch Teen Wolf again (I watched because I heard about the series ending and felt nostalgic so I gave it another shot). I watched season 4, 5, and season 6A and I was hooked!! And so ready for more screen time of Theo and Liam together, so ready to see what would happen to my boys.Tumblr came in handy again and damn had the fandom grown. I saw what everybody had to offer and the ship itself gave me so much inspiration that I wanted to contribute and put in my own two cents on them. The fandom was so welcoming and friendly, it felt like a family from the start and thus I decided to stay. I met many great people because of Thiam already, it’s really awesome.

What drew me in about them? The unspoken chemistry between them, not only romantically but also platonically. Even when I saw gifsets from them without any context, the looks they shared showed such a connection for me, I was astonished and delighted. And when I saw the whole scenes with them, every episode, I liked how different they acted around each other. I always felt like they got each other to a point no other was possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the relationship they have with other characters but I always felt they had this special level of a connection. As if they found their ideal counterpart with each other because they both have this fire inside them and don’t shy away from unleashing it.

Oooh, that last bit is so poetic!

Thank you. It came to my mind while I laid in bed and couldn’t fall asleep. When I thought of this, I sat up and almost yelled “That it! That’s Thiam!” Thank god I didn’t or I would have scared the neighbours probably haha.

Haha, most definitely. What’s another thing you’re passionate about beside Thiam and wrestling?

Being creative in general, not only writing.  I mean, yes, writing is the biggest thing I am passionate about. I view writing as a way to deal with the stress of daily life and I would go crazy if I couldn’t write. I also write poetry sometimes.

But not only writing, sometimes I like to create some picture collage or maybe an outfit on Polyvore. Or I simply create things in my head, characters, storylines, worlds, whatever I can think of at those moments. Sometimes I take my thoughts and try to realize them in my Sims game, it’s fun.

LOL, fellow Sims lover! This is one of my fav things to do! What’s been your favorite characters/scenario to conceptualize in the game? How did the game turn out? Any entertaining stories?

Hey, that’s great haha! I love to do this and I’m currently building some houses I could use as inspiration for my stories. I usually play with original Sims, see them starting a family and see how many generations I can have until it starts to get old or until I’m running out of ideas but I once created Stiles, Lydia, Erica and Derek in the game and the Stiles Sims immediately took a shining to the Derek Sims. It was hilarious to watch because even when I was not telling him to, he was interacting with Derek, followed him around. It was adorable. He tried to make Derek laugh^^. It ended with them falling in love and Lydia and Erica being the bridesmaids.

Aww, natural shipping, sigh. That’s the best. Let’s say you could put Thiam in a similar situation, but with characters of another show. Which would you choose? How’d you think the interaction would go?

I’d chose Shadowhunters tv series and to me, this would be hilarious and awesome at the same time. Theo and Jace would so have this little competition who’s better at basically everything; Izzy would be like an older sister to Liam but without actually treating him like a baby. She would admire his determination and will to protect those he loves, they have this in common. I imagine Liam and Jace siding when it comes to fighting because they are all like: Act first and think later but really just want to protect their family and friends. Alec would roll his eyes and ask himself what he has done to deserve this but come around in the end because is actually someone able to not like Theo and Liam? 

Magnus would be totally amused by the whole thing, especially if Liam and Theo are not a thing yet but he has eyes and he can basically taste the sexual tension okay? And Luke, Liam would not stop asking Luke questions about how he leads his pack and everything because another Alpha, how cool is that??? Also Maia and Liam? Dreamteam! Both struggle with control sometimes and they so would get each other. Imagine Luke and Scott running after their Betas to save them from trouble XD. Theo and Clary, because I love the headcanon about Theo being an artist, would bond over that and probably have a tentative friendship going on.

Before we chat about your works, one more silly question. If you could build the ultimate paintball/laser tag team from any five characters AND one villain on Teen Wolf, who would they be and why?

Liam, Kira, Allison, Theo, Erica, and Kate Argent

Liam because he is very athletic and competitive.

Kira because it surely would fun to have her around and she is just an awesome badass cutie. Also, she has fast reflexes.

Allison because she has an amazing aim and also girl power!

Theo because he is like a mastermind and can come up with the best strategy.

Erica because she is my queen and she would lure the other team out so we can shoot them. She and Theo would be great at making a cunning plan.

And Kate because she is ruthless and would destroy the other team.

Perfect. I still say Theo and Allison would’ve been a sight to behold together–for better or worse. Alright, so we have wrestling, sims, shadowhunters, outfit planning. And on top of all those, writing! If your creative process was a person, what type would they be? What would they do? Wear? Listen to? How do they handle conflict?  

They would be a very chaotic type, all over the place. Somebody you see and wonder how they get any work done because they seem to not be organized at all. They would be that type of person that oversleeps and then bolds into work with their bag hanging off one shoulder, their jacket almost slipping down the other shoulder, travel mug filled with coffee clutched in their grip, and clutching a notepad with lots of notes hanging out from it to their chest. They would not be the one that steps into the spotlight at all but rather satisfies with the result of their work.

Their clothing would be a mix from different styles, Boho but also athletic, sometimes chic. Everything they want to wear, they wear it.

Their taste in music is mixed. They mostly listen to Pop but they also have some rocks songs they are addicted to, some Hip Hop. Whenever they hear something with a good beat, good lyrics, that’s what they like and listen to. Their favorite band would probably be Little Mix.

Handle conflict? That’s a tough one. Hm. They would try to see it from the other’s perspective while at the same time telling themselves they should not explode and yell. They are mostly quiet but if they are peeved, they can lash out. If somebody yells at them they would shy away and close themselves off.

Does your creative process also extend to other fandoms? Pairings? Novels or stories with original characters?

I started to lay down the basics for my own original novel and I can’t wait to start. I wanted to write it for years and now I finally got the right motivation and the right mindset.

Aside from Thiam, I have written some fanfictions for Charmed since that’s one of my favorite tv shows. And I have some Stucky fanfictions started as well as the base for a Malec fanfiction that lingers in the back of my mind.  But Thiam is definitively the ship that inspires me the most and I wrote the most about.

An original novel, that’s awesome! What genre are you setting it in? Also supernatural?

It is a novel playing in this day and age but it’s all about the supernatural world mixed with the normal world of the humans. Think Charmed or Shadowhunters. You have the innocent humans living without actually knowing that demon witches, vampires and such live among them. The supernatural society is still in the focus of the novel.

That sounds awesome. Would you say there’s one trope or situation that somehow always wrangles itself in your stories?

I try my best to use different tropes and situations to challenge myself as a writer but one thing that happens for sure is character A watching character B and marveling around how gorgeous they look and how stunning they are. Just some good old-fashioned swooning. I just like to imagine one person being so completely enamored by another person that they have to stop and stare for a while because they sight is breathtaking. And the other person is either completely oblivious and continues with what they do, or knows exactly what they are doing, smirk at person A and preen at the attention.

And yes, friends to lovers, I’m a sucker for this.

Who isn’t really?! What’s the best friends to lovers story you’ve ever read, either fanfiction or novel? (Or one of the best, since they’re probably so many to choose from)

I guess it’s one of the greatest tropes out there haha. Puh, I read so many great stories and novels about that trope, it’s hard to tell. I remember a novel I once read (I can’t remember the title  or the character names though) where this was one of the main story lines but it really took the whole novel for them to finally become a couple and yet while reading you saw their relationship growing and evolving. That’s what I always try to achieve with my stories. 

I also read a Malec fanfic once where both were human but Magnus was a tattoo artist and Alec a florist. They got to know each other and it was simply perfect, Magnus helped Alec with some things and it was just adorable and awesome and amazing. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of this one either. I will search for it and maybe give it a shout out later when I found it again because it was really good

Oh, I’ve read that Malec fic, so good! There’s a fantastic MM novel called Switched—I think—by N.R. Walker that’s friends to lovers and I read it in one night. It’s just something about two people, who know one another in and out, coming together, more sighs.

I’d love to jump into your Thiam works. First, the Raeken Twins and your story, Finding My Way To You. Do you have any twins headcanons/imagines which helped you bring Mike Raeken to life?

I got this awesome ask one day about Theo and Mike from PPL being twins and my mind began to rattle. I thought about Theo, his personality, and began to develop someone who would be Theo’s complete opposite. Pretty Little Liars helped a lot because Mike was a sweetheart there, at least until the point where I stopped watching the show. I absolutely loved the idea of Theo having someone to take care of and protect, being a big brother.

I had a vague scene in my mind where Theo berates Mike for being too trusting and Mike just rolls his eyes and tells his big brother to relax. That was the base on where I developed the Raeken Twins. I wanted somebody who was the opposite of Theo but I didn’t want to go completely black and white and so I carved out Mike’s character more, gave him some rough edges as well.

It is fun to play around with the aspect of Theo having his counterpart who at the same time gets him to a T and has someone he always aimed to protect. He may act like he doesn’t care but it had always been my headcanon that he would do anything for Mike and Mike is that one person who knows everything about Theo and who also knows Theo does in fact care

So, if Mike Raeken was part of the Pack and the TW universe, how would he handle these few scenarios:

a: Who would be his pack allies, the pack members he’d bond with? Who would be his pack friend-enemies?

Mike, just like his brother, would become a member of the puppy pack because Mike’s a puppy too. He’d probably bond the most with Nolan and Corey because they share the most character traits with them being kind of cute and sometimes awkward. Brett would be his crush for sure. But he would also be good friends with Liam and totally root for Thiam.

Friendenemies? Good question.  He’s not as harsh as Theo so he probably would not really have problems with the people around. Unless you come for his brother, then he will end you.

b: In a Supernatural crisis, how would he respond?

That clearly depends on the situation. When it comes to facing an enemy and taking them down, Mike’s a fighter and goes into the full experience. He is fast, he is agile, he is ruthless. But if it comes to protecting the people he cares about, he gets very defensive and worries more about them and bringing them to safety than taking part in the fight itself. He’s not even afraid to charge in and drag the person out of the fight (especially his brother). Mike is pretty level-headed and can stay calm even if times get rough. He checks a situation, makes his own theories about it, but he mostly stays in the background, lets the others talk and discuss, and only interferes when he feels like it’s not going anywhere. But most of the times he is fine with just watching and striking when it’s the right time.

c: One hilarious scenario you think would occur between him, Theo, and other member of the pack?

They would pull a Switch-A-Raeken so often to confuse the pack and get their laughs out of this. Liam is probably the only one who can tell them apart because he pays so close attention to them (mostly Theo though) but the others always get totally confused and the twins love to switch even during a conversation to completely confuse everyone.

One situation I find absolutely hilarious and I will write one day would involve the Sheriff, probably to introduce them as twins. One twin gets arrested, the other shows up to bail him out. Stilinski is in his office when suddenly one of the deputies knocks at the door. He calls them in and they open the door, slightly nervous. “We…uhm…have a situation here with the boy we arrested. You might want to check? He said you surely would love that.” The sheriff narrows his eyes and gets up from his chair. He walks out of his office and there they are. Two identical smirks on their faces and casually leaned against the backrest of the bench in front of his office. “Hey, Sheriff!” One of them says. Stilinski is baffled, moments pass by. He finally finds his voice again. “There are two of them? Because one Raeken wasn’t enough???” He yells, voice cracking at the end. He scratches his neck and grimaces. The twins’ smirks intensify. The deputy ducks away and hides behind the computer screen.

Rofl, I hope you do write it! Are you planning to continue Finding My Way To You too? Any spoilers you can slip us?

I am definitely planning to but I have more prominent ideas for A tale written with fangs and claws and other stories at the moment. I do have written some part of the next chapter still. I love this story and the feedback I received was wonderful. Raeken Twins are a fun thing to write about, so expect more to come.

For a spoiler, I will tell you we will have some drama, much love and yes also smut. There will be a slightly different take on the Dread Doctors spin because I am dissecting the storyline a bit to make it more fitting for Finding My Way To You. There will be a shift in the relationship between the twins as well. For everything else, you need to stay tuned ;D

Well, I suppose we must now haha. Until then, we have all of a Tale of Fangs and Claws to keep ourselves busy. Speaking of….a Tale of Fangs and Claws Time!! (I held out for this long; I’m proud of myself.) For anyone unfamiliar, could you give us a quick synopsis? What inspired the idea? 

Whooo!!  The story is about Liam becoming an Alpha when he least expects it. He and Theo are living in Seattle, are roommates in college, and totally in love with each other but they both feel the other might not return their feelings in the beginning. Theo still joins Liam’s pack and together they return to Seattle. The story follows Liam’s journey in his new role, especially when other werewolves appear and Liam and Theo soon have a pack of their own to take care of. They become a family, face many battles and they all learn more about each other and their strengths and weaknesses, help to find their place in the world.

My inspiration for this came from the sole wish to see Liam as Alpha. I think he would be a great Alpha and would have loved to see it happen at the end of the show as some kind of next-generation thing with the older pack members leaving Beacon Hills and him taking over from Scott. The more I thought about this, the bigger the need for Alpha!Liam became and I started to imagine his pack, created their characters a little bit and searched for faceclaims. It took me a while until I finally started to write the story; until I had a decent enough base to actually imagine turning this into a multi-chapter fic and upload it.  Add me playing around with my basic photoshop program and create some Liam as Alpha manips and the inspiration was there. It came to the point where I could no longer hold back and thus I uploaded the prologue. I never imagined the success it would have and I am still amazed by this.

Wow, and it’s almost 300,000 words long! First, huge congrats on being the longest Thiam fic thus far! Is this the longest story you’ve ever written? Did you originally plan all the chapters or has it reshaped itself? Would you say you have a secret to writing longer fics while also keeping your personal interest high?

It’s crazy! Thank you so much!! I have to say I never expected this to turn out so huge, I still can’t believe it. Every time I check the chapter numbers, it still feels so unreal. When I started, I had no idea how long this would be. I had basic elements and certain points I wanted to have happen but everything else was non-existent in the beginning. It still is nowadays because that’s how I write. I don’t have everything planned out and so my own story keeps surprising me but I love this.  I’m writing a chapter and some things are coming to my mind while I’m writing and I take a break to consider, bring this in a vague timeline, and then continue writing.

 I admire people whohave every little detail plannedout but I’m so not like this and I had it happen to me that I wrote a chapter completely different than I intended to. Because my thoughts didn’t work as good as the thing I had been actually writing, if that makes sense. Sure, I have some scenes I have in mind for a long time and while I have not every word planned out, I have a pretty solid image of the scenes. Theo’s development for example. I knew how I want to have the big moments to happen and I am even more excited than usual when it is time to write it.

The story is indeed the longest I have ever written until now.  Who knows what the future has in store? :D

I wouldn’t exactly call it a secret. Thiam itself inspires me so much and receiving so much feedback from so many people is also a very good source of motivation, not gonna lie. This story, the reactions I got from people, has made me feel better about my talent as a writer and that fueled my passion. I associate so many great things with this story and I got attached to every single character that writing a new chapter feels like coming home. I see them as part of my family, my babies if you want, and I am curious to see how they develop further. That’s what keeps me inspired to make this story longer and longer. I’d say the secret, in general, is creating something you truly love, no matter how cliche this sounds. Create this word that is truly you that brings yourself joy and I’m sure you won’t lose interest.

Yes, I so agree! When I was writing my main Stacksonstory, I fell so in love with the characters and the progress of the story! And then to be able to talk about them with so many people, it definitely kept the thoughts coming, even long after I finished it!

Exactly what happened to me with A tale written with fangs and claws! It is wonderful to have such great response and it’s a great source of motivation. I get so many ideas for this story just by reading comments or talking with people. That’s the beauty of fanfiction I think.

Most definitely! Would you then say any of your original characters are based on people you know personally?

Actually no.  I was more inspired by fictional characters, took some things from them, and created my own individual character. If there are any resemblances I haven’t noticed them yet but hey, maybe I will someday^^

Maybe, who knows what might happen. Not us, certainly. Thinking forward, is there one thing you’re dying to add in the story but you have to write a few more chapter before it comes up?

Liam’s and Theo’s wedding! I am dying to write this since a few chapters and everyone who read the last chapter knows I’m toying around with this thing a bit but I really, really can’t wait to write their wedding. It will happen one day and I am excited about it but it will take some more (a lot more) chapters until we can get there.

Yessssss, we’ll be patiently waiting until then! Before we wind down, I’d love to give you a time to impart some wisdom onto us. Any life hacks or creative wisdom on your mind lately?

It is important to figure out what works best for you and never let anybody butt in, writing-wise and in life too. I had to learn this myself but there will be people telling you how you should do a certain thing and then you need to figure out if this is really the best for you. I’m not saying you should not take advice, you definitely should, but it is okay to change this advice, maybe combine it with the advice you got from someone else and create your own special way to get things done. There might be people who are very critical of how you work, how you handle things, and sometimes it can really get to you and be a bummer but it is important to remember that as long as it good for you, as long as it helps you get something done the way you want it to, it’s the right way for you. Your own opinion and your own wellbeing are more important than what some might think are the right thing for you. Your way is the right thing and great things will come from this, just stay true to yourself even when it’s hard sometimes

Also: Allow yourself to change. What was on your mind a year ago, what you wrote a year ago, doesn’t become less valid just because you changed your perspective. You are ever-changing and there will be moments where you realize that your old mindset doesn’t apply to the situation anymore, not to the person you became anymore. That’s okay. It doesn’t take anything away from the progress you made before, doesn’t take anything away from what you created back then. It simply shows your development as a writer, as a person, and that’s a fascinating progress.

Thank you so much for your honesty and depth. Aww, well, we reached the end of our time, Rena! Luckily, we’ve learned so much about you in our short time together. To end us out, what’s next for you? Any big plans?

I have several projects planned. In terms of fanfiction, I’m planning a sequel to A tale written with fangs and claws if I finish the story, I’m planning on continuing my Mated series, Finding My Way To You will be continued as well, and there are several other fanfictions on the line. I’m also planning on finally writing my first original novel, something I’m very excited about.  Those are the things I have planned, who knows what else is gonna happen? Life is full of surprises.

Good luck with your novel! And all the other bundles of surprises and happiness that are whirling your way. Is there anything else you’d like to share? The mic’s in your hands.

It’s okay to struggle. I sometimes feel like the standards expect everyone to be perfect at anything they do and it can be really frustrating when you feel like you’re not reaching these standards. You feel like a failure and it’s a horrible thing to feel. I had so many moments where I felt like I would never reach the standard for that thing to be considered good or even great and it took me a long time to learn not to always compare myself to others and be proud of who I am, my talents, what I create. I still feel like I’m not good enough sometimes but every time I struggle, I learn new things about myself and that’s what made me realize it is okay to struggle. You learn next to nothing when you don’t struggle and ease everything perfectly on the first try.

Sure, it’s great to have a lift first time you do something, it’s even important to be a natural in some things, but I also know that struggling causes doubts and insecurities because you feel like anybody else doesn’t seem to struggle at all. What I’m trying to say is embrace your struggles as part of your development process on becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. And remember: Nobody has the same story to tell as you. The world needs to hear yours, don’t let the doubts take this away from you. It’s a long and difficult way to go but it’s worth it in the end.

Thanks so much Rena! It was a freaking blast getting to know you and your life, inspirations, and quirky interests haha! 

Thankfully, the conversation doesn’t have to end here. To chat with her about her works, Thiam, Teen Wolf, even Wrestling, you can find Rena at these three places:  

AO3: Former_Princess

Tumblr: formerprincess

Ask Box: formerprincessask

In her words, “It’s more than okay! I love getting asks, messages. I’d even love to get a carrier pigeon. I am a shy noodle myself but I absolutely love to interact with people and have them interact with me. Ask as many questions as you want, send in as many things as you want, you will never bother me and in fact make me very happy. Also - on a non fandom related note - myaskbox is always open for anybody who needs somebody to listen to them.”

She’s also currently accepting prompts, though it might take her a while to get to them–you know busy lives and what not. So, feel free to “send in things, share your thoughts, headcanons, and everything else,” with her. (Also, her words!)

Thanks so much for reading. We will see you next week as we get to know about fandomtrashwhore, aka Marie, our resident Thiam Social Media expert. Until then!

Have a Thiam Creator you fan over? Send us their names. Likewise, if you as the creator, would like to be a part of the Behind the Screens series, give us a shout too! We’d love to get to know you, as well.

[takaraphoenix]

I mean no offence, but you ship a 17 year old with 1000-something year old gods, but you find it wired to ship an 18 year old with a 400 year old warlock? That sounds a little hypocritical don't you think? I love all your works, just saying.

Oh, absolutely no offense taken, no worries!

Okay, so, there’s this thing that I call the 50 Shades of Grey Principle, because that series is the perfect way to explain it.

The main principle is that fanfiction has zero moral obligation, while published canon has very much a moral obligation to the public.

You can write as many shitty, unrealistic, BDSM-disrespecting, abusive, stalkerish, weird fanfictions as you like.

This book-series was a fanfiction too before and me and many others were unaware of its existence. Because we simply didn’t venture into the straight BDSM part of the Twilight fandom. Nowadays you’d just block certain creepy tags, you’d just filter out the ships you really do not want to see, if you by accident click onto such a bad-fic you could just filter out that author and never have to even see a glimpse of that creepy shit.

I don’t care. You do you. If you want to romantize abuse, stalking and unhealthy BDSM, that’s fine. There are a shit-ton of fanfiction in the non-con and dub-con tags that I’d simply never click on because no, thanks. They exist, they don’t bother me or others like me who don’t like them because we can avoid them.

Once it becomes a published property, you can no longer avoid it.

I walk past the movie posters, am forced to sit through the trailer, have to walk past the books in book-stores, see articles discussing it everywhere.

Now it’s no longer just a nieche fanfiction that people looking for BDSM Edward/Bella fics and who specifically want this type of story can find.

Now it’s “Mmmh, I, a normal middle aged mother, would like to see a romance film with some… spice in it. Oh, this looks interesting, let’s go see it” - and thus the moral obligations set in.

Because those middle aged mothers, those young, naive teenagers who normally do not venture into fanfiction-territory, those people are unaware of what BDSM ACTUALLY is. It’s hard to fault them for falling for this romantized abuse if they are not being made aware of the fact that it is abuse, that this is not what BDSM looks like.

We, who we read fanfiction and who we seek out BDSM fanfiction, know at least roughly what BDSM is and thus can identify unhealthy tropes. We can either decide to then avoid them, or to shrug it off and say “It’s my porn I’m reading, what do I care if it’s healthy porn?”, which is completely legit.

But as soon as it reaches farther than the borders of fanfiction, the borders of people specifically looking for This Thing, it has a moral obligation and, at the very least for me, it can be judged and should be judged for the things where I say “ship and let ship!”.

Let’s take a different example. Say there is a pairing you really hate in the fandom. You just… don’t get it. That’s fine, unless you’re a dumbass anti, you can just blacklist the tag, filter it out, not actively seek it out. You have no right to bitch and moan about this ship because you can avoid it. If now the show decides to make this very ship canon, then - you can no longer avoid it, there is no way to filter out those scenes from the show. Congratulations, you now have earned the right to bitch and moan about it.

Fandom and what is in your head are a vastly different thing from what is actually canon. Very, very often, when something is canon, it becomes unnecessarily glorified.

Take the Joker and Harley Quinn, for example. They’re canon. They’re unhealthy as can get. They were never meant to be romantized. Their creators and even actors and writers keep saying so. But since they’re canon, there’s a chunk of fandom that does romantize them and are now “looking for the Joker to my Harley”, which is just a mortifying thing to want because he literally breaks her body and mind.

And now, to get to the actual example that you sent in your ask.

For one, book!Alec is literally 17 when Magnus hits on him and it is gross, gross, gross. I’m studying to become a teacher. I spent last semester at a school to sit through classes as an assistant and actually teaching a couple classes myself. The students were 17. I’m not 400, I was 26 at the time. Just nine years their senior, but all I could see were children.

17 year olds are children. Their behavior is endearing and childish. The way they prip and preen and act like they’re super strong by talking back to the teacher just to earn the respect of their fellow students. How the boys had constant dick-meassuring contests. How the girls kept giggling in flocks.

I know every single 17 year old - or younger - reading this is currently fuming because you perceive yourself as very grown up. To which you have the right.

But if you’re actually older, if you literally go from attending college classes to sitting through high school classes as a teacher, you can see it.

The thought that any adult ever could see a 17 year old as anything but a child is gross and disgusting and just so very, very wrong.

So the thought that a 400 year old immortal looks at a 17 year old and thinks “Mmm, yummy” is just really twisted. Because we’re not talking about 40. We’re talking about four hundred. It’s just insane that such a matured and sophisticated being would look at a half-child and think “I should totally hit on that”.

In a published medium. Because for many it feels like a justification. It is now morally okay. It is being romantized in this published medium and it then gives people the false sense of this being morally right. Makes 17 year olds and younger feel like that’s an appropriate age to be persuit by adults, because oh, it’s in this book/movie/show and they make it look romantic, so if it’s majorly published and wildly accepted, then it has to okay.

I ship Percy with all the gods. I take disgusted offense in Leo and Calypso being canon, because he’s a child and she’s a millennia old immortal.

I write teacher/student fics. I literally nearly puked during Riverdale when Archie’s teacher seduces and thus rapes him.

I wrote a shit-ton of purposefully unhealthy BDSM fics because those were literally just meant to be porn. I spent hours that sum up to days by now ranting and raging against 50 Shades of Abuse.

There is a fundamental difference if something is done on the internet, on a platform where it will be found only by like-minded people, people who are more likely to actually grasp and fully understand the medium, or if it is a canon thing that will be shoved down the throats of unwilling participants.

In fanfiction, people who already think that those two characters who might have a very questionable age difference would be a cute couple, will be able to find content to exactly those, while the people who do not agree can (in theory, though antis seem fascinatingly immune to the concept) just blacklist tags and not venture into those corners of the fandom.

I don’t like Loki and Thor as a ship, it’s a hard no ship for me. I have the tags blacklisted and literally have to never-ever read anything about them or look at them. I don’t judge people who do ship them, I’m just… blissfully unaware of them because I literally am not confronted with any kind of content about them. That would change drastically if Marvel suddenly decided to make them canon.

I have blacklisted and filtered out the Magnus and Alec relationship tag, the Leo and Calypso relationship tag, for examples. I do not ever have to look at any GIFs, fanarts, fanfiction or general posts about them. When I read Heroes of Olympus because I liked the characters and wanted to know how it ends, I had no option of just filtering out the Leo and Calypso story. Now that I’m reading The Mortal Instruments, I can not just filter out the scenes where the centuries old warlock is hitting on the 17 year old Shadowhunter.

Because that’s not how books, TV shows or movies work.

That’s how the internet and fandom life work.

And that is what makes the difference.

Now, I really do hope I brought my point across and you might understand why I hold canon shipping and fanon shipping to two vastly different standards?

[lapsa-lapsa]

Rob James-Collier: Oh, You Handsome Devil!

As Downton Abbey's hot gay villain, Rob James-Collier finds love -- and redemption.

BY

AARON HICKLIN

THU, 2013-01-03 09:04

Photography by David Bailey

Styling by Julian Ganio

Last March, when The New Yorker’s Ian Crouch declared an “epidemic of Downton Abbey fever,” he wasn’t wrong. The show has been nothing short of a phenomenon, a runaway success for dowdy old PBS, far outpacing in ratings that other popular period drama, Mad Men. It’s a classic tale of love and fortune with a fundamental mystery at its core, namely: How can something this schlocky be this good? Maybe it has something to do with its formula, equal parts high class to high camp (yes, Dame Maggie Smith, we’re looking at you); or its bucolic English setting; or, more likely, its blatant appeal to our closeted hankering for a butler fully versed in the art of decanting vintage port. After all is said and done, who has not wished that they, too, could be in the position to declare, like the Dowager Countess with her imperious mix of disdain and perplexity, “What is a week-end?”

Indeed, what is a weekend without Downton Abbey to cozy up with on Sunday nights? And here it is, back again to keep winter from the door—season 3, and with it the Roaring Twenties to blow away the agony of war and the insult of rationing. Expect flappers and the Charleston, and a Marcel wave or two.

Let me come clean: I haven’t seen a preview of season 3 -- in my home that would be cheating; it’s what we still call appointment TV -- but I have it on great authority that this is the season in which that villainous gay footman-turned-valet, Thomas Barrow, experiences the tender love that his poor, neglected heart so craves and needs. It’s about time. His dalliance with the Duke of Crowborough in the opening episode of season 1 turned out to be a tease. He ended season 2 in the arms of the Dowager Countess, twirling around the dance floor at the Christmas party like a neuter content to spend his prime escorting ladies of a certain age to the ball.

We should have known that creator and writer Julian Fellowes would not disappoint. Season 3 is where it all changes for young Thomas. And for us, too. Although there clearly were gay men in Edwardian England, they’ve been in scant supply on television. There was, of course, Sebastian and Charles in Brideshead Revisited, whose “naughtiness [was] high on the catalogue of grave sins,” as Evelyn Waugh wrote, but they merely hinted at what happened when the lights were off. Thomas promises to go somewhat further. It’s what makes Downton Abbey feel, well, modern.

No one, of course, is more excited by this turn of events than Rob James-Collier, the actor who secured the role of Thomas with the understanding that it was a one-season deal. “My agent said, ‘Listen, you’ve got the part that everyone in town wants—he’s a villain, he’s a great role, the only bad thing is that he dies at the end of the first series,’ ” recalls James-Collier. But Thomas clicked with the audience, and his on-screen chemistry with his maid counterpart, O’Brien (a wonderfully surly Siobhan Finneran), was irresistible. “I gave it 110 percent, and after the first couple of episodes, Liz, the producer, came to me and said, ‘We want you to stay on. Will you?’ And I was, like, ‘Fuck, yeah.’ ”

We are in Bloomsbury, London, sitting in a tiny French patisserie hardly big enough to contain James-Collier’s boundless energy. When he walks in, he immediately begins by quoting lines from articles of mine that he’s found online. It’s discombobulating. Research is my job. At another point, he puts me on the phone with a friend summoned to serve as a character reference. I feel like a luckless audience member at a comedy show, plucked from the front row as a volunteer for a gag. When I accidentally insert a “Smith” into his surname (it’s that damn hyphenate), he is gleeful as hell. “Aaron has got my name wrong, and he’s now floundering, trying to think of it,” he dictates into my recorder.

That double-barreled name, incidentally, was not his choice. He grew up in Salford, near Manchester, as plain Rob Collier, and might have stayed that way had actors union Equity not intervened to avoid confusion with another Rob Collier. “I said, ‘Can I have Rob James Collier, and they said, ‘Yeah, if you hyphenate it,’ and I said, ‘Well, can I have Rob-James Collier?’ and they said -- and this is true -- ‘No, you have to hyphenate the James and the Collier.’ ” He wasn’t happy. In England, hyphenated surnames are for posh people. “I was, like, ‘That sounds like someone from the aristocracy, as if I’m being somebody I’m not.’ But they insisted,” he recalls ruefully. In Britain, still today, there’s little more disreputable than the man or woman who puts on the airs and graces of the upper class.

I went to school with boys like James-Collier. You probably did, too. They are the entertainers and comedians, who laugh at their own pratfalls. What they lack in confidence they make up for in banter. It’s no surprise to hear that James-Collier is the joker on set, and the one with the loudest mouth. “Most actors are really shy and insular creatures,” he explains. “I’ve just always been a dick.” He remembers his first day at acting class (he found it by consulting the Yellow Pages), and realizing that he’d liberated himself. “We were doing these warm-up exercises, running around doing crazy things with our voices, and, rather than feeling stupid, I just felt that I’d come home,” he says. He was working as a marketing assistant at the time, “listening to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon -- great album, bad album to listen to if you’re in a rut, ticking away the hours that make up a dull day.” Watching Ricky Gervais’s masterwork, The Office, compounded his sense of futility. “It was my office,” he says. “I thought, I can’t do this for the rest of my life, surely?”

Oddly, that is the same dilemma facing Thomas Barrow, shackled to servitude as a footman at Downton Abbey, always looking for an opportunity to elevate his station in life -- and failing. His pitiful efforts to establish a black market in rationed goods during season 2 spoke volumes about the limitations confronting Britain’s working class in the Edwardian era. It’s moments like those that save Downton Abbey from being merely an exercise in sumptuous costume porn.

If you grew up in Britain, as I did, the world of Downton Abbey is a familiar one, conjured in an endless parade of finely wrought television shows, which we send across the oceans like telegraphs from our gilded past. Some of them, like 1981’s 11-hour miniseries, Brideshead Revisited, which introduced Jeremy Irons to the world, or 1995’s six-episode serialization of Pride and Prejudice, which did the same for Colin Firth, strike gold. Few, however, receive quite the rapturous reception of Downton Abbey. The reason, perhaps, is fairly simple: Although Downton wears the clothes (and production values) of quality drama, it has the soul of a soap opera. As my boyfriend likes to say, it’s very efficient, meaning that things happen at lightning speed. Resolutions come thick and swift, which is all part of the pleasure.

Fellowes himself takes credit for modernizing the format by borrowing his style from U.S. shows like The West Wing, but it’s also that the concerns of the show are discernibly our concerns, albeit in Edwardian costume. For James-Collier, “Downton Abbey is a workplace like any other. You’re going to get cliques of people who don’t like each other -- Thomas and O’Brien versus Bates and Anna -- and you’re going to get people who really love doing their jobs and people who are bitter and feel they’re just a number. It’s about relationships in the workplace environment, and people can identify with that because the same problems and political conflicts you have in work today were relevant back then.”

Coincidentally or otherwise, almost all the actors who play servants in Downton Abbey got their start in English soap operas -- gritty exercises in social realism, fully rooted in working-class culture. The oldest of those shows, Coronation Street -- set in Manchester -- has run continuously for 52 years, and nurtured generations of acting talent. James-Collier arrived on the series in 2006, as  “loveable rogue” Liam Connor, and stayed for two years before deciding he wanted to take on a different kind of challenge.

“It’s a great, brilliant show, but you have to make a decision,” he says. “I’m not knocking anyone for going that way [of soap operas] -- you can get security, and God knows we need that, but I think you’re limited then in terms of your options as an actor.” After Coronation Street, he was out of work for 15 months, waiting for the right thing to come along. “I watched people who had left these kinds of shows and had seen what happened,” he says. “So I knew you had to literally put the shutters down and just pray and hope that something would come along, and when the wolves were near the door, Downton Abbey came.”

James-Collier has joked that his character’s sexuality became so muted in season 2 that he called up Fellowes and asked, “Am I still gay?” Yes, it turns out. In season 3, we get to see Thomas outed in a powerful sequence of episodes that James-Collier considers the best acting of his career. “It’s the series where we really comes to grips with Thomas’s sexuality and the impact being gay must have had on him, in Edwardian times,” he says. “If you’re including a gay character, there’s an onus and responsibility to at least show what the impact of the time will be on him, and of him on that time. Thankfully we’ve done that, and I’m so proud that I’ve been used to tell that tale.”

A confrontation between Thomas and the butler, Mr. Carson, proves to be a high point, and one that confers uncommon dignity on the footman. “It’s a lovely, beautiful moment,” says James-Collier, clearly delighted by the opportunity to redeem his character. “If you were gay in those times, the fact that you’re even functioning, how you’re not completely fucked up by that, is beyond me.”

Although not gay in real life, he says he has empathy for misfits and outsiders, perhaps because of his own atypical route to acting. Even now it’s clear that he can’t quite believe that he’s earned his place as an actor. He recalls sitting opposite Maggie Smith during the first read-through (“a proper pinch-yourself moment”) and feeling that everything out of his mouth sounded like wooden splinters. It can’t be easy playing the least lovable character on the show. When she arrived on set, guest star Shirley MacLaine greeted him with the words, “It’s you -- the evil one! Why are you so evil?” The answers, apparently, are all in season 3. “With O’Brien and Thomas, you’ve got these two forces, and it’s a kind of paradox -- they work for this great house that keeps them off the streets and from starving, and yet they absolutely despise the system they’re in, because there’s no other option,” he says. “In a weird way Thomas wants to bring down the system, but if he did he’d be putting himself out of a job and a home.”

As he was talking, I remembered something: My own grandmother, now 92, had started her working life “in service” as they say, at the age of 14, still a child herself. That would have been in the 1930s -- the same era as Julian Fellowes other big country–house hit, Gosford Park, for which he won a best original screenplay Oscar in 2002. At the time my grandmother went into service, her father was ill and her mother was struggling to hold things together. “It was an awful wrench to leave my sisters and brothers at home, but it was one less pair of shoes under the table,” she explains when I ask about her experiences. My grandmother, a country girl, didn’t work in the big house (as one of her sisters did), but for a doctor’s family, where she was excruciatingly lonely.

“I think that’s the reason I got married so young -- to get out of it,” she says. “I did all the cooking and all the cleaning, and had one half day off a week, and a whole day off once a month.”

“No weekends, then?” I ask.

“Oh, there were no weekends,” she says, conjuring Maggie Smith’s glorious bafflement in season 1. It is to Downton Abbey’s credit that this stark double meaning isn’t entirely lost on the audience, or that the disparity between those upstairs and those downstairs isn’t varnished into oblivion. It’s left to us to imagine how people of O’Brien’s resourcefulness or Thomas’s ambition would fare in our own age, but one thing’s certain—they wouldn’t be spending their weekends polishing the silver.

https://www.out.com/entertainment/television/2013/01/03/rob-james-collier-downton-abbey

[im-abanana]

-The Demon and The Angel- ch.3

I was inspired, I dunno, don’t even mind me and my author block. Here’s another Fluff/Domestic Bendy x Alice One-Shot.

Summary: If you’re a dancer, pulling a muscle can be the worst thing ever.

AO3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12736851/chapters/29507064

-Muscle-

“What? Com’on! It was just an innocent accident Joey, for God’s sake!” Charley kept saying for an entire hour in front of his angry boss, the cartoon’s deep and irritated voice echoing in the empty corridors as his old fellows Barley and Edgar nodded silently without saying a word, to prove their leader’s point. “We didn’t mean to push Bendy against the corner of that chair, but he started the fight! It happens, the fault isn’t ours this time.”. “It’s not true, you did that on purpose! Liars! Mobsters!” Bendy yelled back with a cracked and pissed voice, holding his aching spine with both hands and dropping heavily on his sofa, a sad and desperate pout painted on his round face. “My poor back… assholes.” he concluded, groaning. “Wanker.” the three antagonists replied spitefully, frowning deeply and cracking their knuckles, aggressive. “You want some more, sissy?”. “Stop it, I’ve had enough!” Joey snapped all of the sudden and punched the study table to shut them up, evidently tired of all that screaming and bickering between those four, taking his final decision and huffing. His creations jumped in fear and closed their mouths as they heard the unexpected thud, sitting down and listening to their dad’s scold closely. “Alright guys, first of all I don't care who started the fight, or why it happened in the first place. You all are guilty, and this means that you all are grounded for two weeks.”. At that exact moment, hearing the previous noise and the complaints that followed Joey’s last phrase, the wooden door behind the group’s shoulders swung open and a very confused Alice peeked through it. “What’s happening here? Henry just told me that- oh.” she mumbled and then smirked, spotting The Butcher Gang standing next to Bendy, the little demon pathetically laid on the reddish couch with a contorted expression. “Henry wasn’t lying then, it’s true. You idiots seriously injured each other before an important performance that, I’d like to point that out, takes place in three days. My sincerest compliments, boys.”. “Great, gang: first the demon bitch, now the wingless cunt. Where’s the pussy wolf, uh?” Barley rolled his pitch black orbs and crossed his muscular arms to his hairy chest, clearly not happy to see the fallen angel or pay attention to her sarcastic comments. “Don’t you have anything else to do, Angel? Like, I dunno, go fuck yourself for example?”. “Says the one who’s in trouble. And not really, I’d rather stay here and quietly enjoy the little show you put up for me, especially the part when Joey shames you all.” the beautiful singer of the band lifted an eyebrow with a satisfied motion, calmly sitting down next to her dancing partner and making herself comfortable. “Oh, please Joey, don’t stop reminding them how stupid and irresponsible they are just because I’m here. Don’t mind me, I beg you.”.

“Alice, not you too, please. This is not a joke, and I need your help.” their annoyed creator sank his head between his fingers, groaning out his frustration and explaining his worst worries to the tall girl, to his only beloved daughter, who was definitely the most mature of the toons: “Bendy probably twisted a muscle in his back, and if he can’t dance or even stand in three days max, we’ll be ruined. We should give the money for the tickets back and apologize to the parents, and I don’t want to do that; I know it’s late and you’re tired, I know that you two don’t get along so well, but I’m kindly asking you to prepare him some herb tea and send him to bed. I’ll deal with those three in the meantime.” the man angrily declared, shooting an icy glare to The Butcher Gang. “I hope you understand.”. “I do understand, don’t worry. I can’t say I’m happy about this job, but I’ll do it anyway.” Alice immediately obeyed to her boss’ orders, sighed out and took Bendy in her thin but strong arms, ignoring his enraged protests and trying not to drop him as the demon squirmed wildly. Oh, she wished she could indeed drop and trample over him… “Goodnight, Joey. Fuck you, Charley, Barley and Edgar. See you all tomorrow morning at dawn.” she said before walking outside the busy room and closing the door behind her, heading for Bendy’s private room. “Ehy, hands off, Angel Cake! Let me go! I’m not a kid anymore, and I can walk by myself.” the short devil screamed and kicked the air like a mad horse, offended and in a bad mood because of the stinging pain. “I don’t want some stupid tea, and I won’t go to bed just because you’re ordering me to do so.”. “Honestly Bendy, I couldn’t care less about what you want or not. You don’t want my herb tea? I’ll simply shove it down your fucking throat when it’s still boiling, at least you’ll shut up and won't wake the others that way.” the fallen angel shrugged it off and placed the dancer on his own bed, making sure not to hurt him more despite the intimidating threats. “And if you don’t want to sleep, I’ll just hit your skull with my horns and knock you out for the next… let’s say twenty-four/forty-eight hours. How does it sound, my dear?”. “… on second thought babe, tea and nap sound nice. But I prefer lemon tea.”. “That can be arranged.” Alice happily agreed to those terms with a sly grin, satisfied and proud of herself, as she opened the thick door before her.

“Ehy toots, back off this second!” Bendy cried out in pure terror as his elegant jacket was quickly removed and tossed away by force, detail that made him feel terribly exposed as his naked chest brushed against the greenish blankets that covered the comfortable mattress. He tried to jump off the bed and run away despite the ache, but found that option unattainable when Alice gently sat down on his spine, her greater weight blocking the thin cartoon. “No! Don’t touch my back, you’re gonna make it worse!”. “Trust me Bendy, I know what I’m doing. I might not be a dancer like you or a doctor, but I sprained a lot of back muscles as we moved into the new studio.” Alice patiently explained and pinned the boy down without any effort, her smaller thumbs energetically pressing against his dark skin and working around and on the knot, trying to loose it and ease the pain at the same time. She also kept a close eye on the water on the stove as she eased his pain: the most incredible thing about their rooms was that they looked like small houses, provided with a bathroom, a small kitchen and even a sort of living room. Being a star surely had its advantages. “And I never complained about it, not even once. I guess I’m stronger.”. Feeling the young woman’s fingertips massaging the sore spot with such care and self-assurance forced the small demon to let out a quiet and relaxed moan, and his blurred mind barely registered what the black haired girl just said. The tension and irritation disappeared all of the sudden, and every single fiber of his previously tense body fell limp under her lovely touch. The boy asked in hilarious submission: “W-what do you mean with that, toots? Joey and Henry did all the work when we moved here… right?”. “Wrong. Do you really think they could transport and place all the boxes, stuff and furniture around all by themselves? No, not at all. Without me and Boris the process would have been much more complicated and long. We worked as a team, as the family that we are.” the horned angel explained in composed silence, putting more strength in her precise and careful movements and pressing deeper, earning another content yelp from her calm partner. That sound made her smile a little, but the slight frown carved on her slim visage showed how concentrated she internally was: Alice knew that a single imprecise touch could damage the musculature even more, so attention and composure were the key words. “You and The Butcher Gang are the lazy ones here, that’s for sure. You don’t like working or helping the creators and the crew, I get that, but at least try not to cause any trouble or get into those violent fights ever again. Now you have a sprained muscle, and that’s bad enough for a dancer, but next time you could find yourself with a broken bone or worse, a concussion.” the stunning cartoon sadly sighed out and deeply stared into his guilty eyes, severe, sweet but assertive, almost like a maternal figure. “Don’t make things more difficult for Joey and me. It’s tough enough as it is, we don’t need other problems because of your egoism.”. The last and cold sentence hit and slaughtered Bendy’s soul to its very core, forcing the demon to look away and rest his face against the soft pillows, in pure defeat and inner humiliation. “Who am I kidding? It’s true, everything she said is true.”, deep inside the star of the show knew there was a ring of truth in those words, and that hurt. It hurt like Hell. “Alice is right. We always say that we’re independent adults, but at the end we behave like brats.”.

A respectful silence filled the room as a thousand thoughts and faults invaded the devil’s mind, the only sound the fallen angel could clearly hear was the wall clock ticking, gradual and inexorable. “Are you ok, Bendy?” Alice questioned when she counted at least five hundred ticks, tilting her neck and watching her co-worker with puzzled eyes; that kind of behavior wasn’t like him, she knew that cartoon too well to fall for it. “You’re oddly silent tonight.”. The black demon snapped out of that state of trance and shook his big head with vigor, struggling to hide his worries and speak up: “I’m just… thinking.”. “About what?”. “About stuff.”. “Could you be a little more specific, pray tell?” the raven-haired girl groaned a bit and crossed her arms, interrupting the relaxing massage and waiting for him to open up and confess what was evidently torturing his conscience. “There’s something wrong with you, you wouldn’t just shut up for entire minutes. Not that I’m complaining, but you know… I’m here to listen.”. “Oh, for Satan’s sake Alice, stop it! Leave me alone!” Bendy literally boomed at that point, feeling enraged and defensive, a visible grey blush covering his cheeks as the inky blood pumped in his veins. “Why do you care so much?”. Blinking a couple of times in confusion and disorientation, Alice replied to that nasty question with spontaneity and slight rage, standing up and yelling her answer right in his face: “Because I care about you!”. Boom, crash and burn. “Well, I do not… I…” the little demon opened his mouth and pointed an accusing finger at Alice, ready to shout back without even thinking, to insult the singer or at least preserve his dignity, but he immediately perceived his own artificial heart sink deeply in the middle of his chest and his throat dry up, like a river during a hot summer day. But worst, he felt shit about himself; everytime something went horribly wrong, someone scolded him for something he did, or even when he fucked things up, Bendy always found a way to blame someone else for his mistakes. The Butcher Gang? No, the pride was probably his worst enemy. “I’m sorry, Alice. I was unfair to you while you only wanted to help me.” Bendy whispered sadly as he realized how much of a dick he had been, staring at his knees and nervously playing with his moving and pointy tail, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll try to do better.”. “No, don’t try to do better.” the fallen angel wisely declared and forcefully grabbed both sides of his round head, turning it and literally forcing her amazed co-worker to stare into her serious pitch black irises. “You have to do better. You can do better than this, than fighting all day and cause trouble. You’re the protagonist, our leader, and we all look up to you.” she forced a tiny smile and gently caressed his left cheek as her delicate traits appeared sweeter, more sympathetic. “We all count on you, Bendy. Don’t let us down, please. I believe in you.”. We count on you, Bendy. Don’t let us down, please. I believe in you.

“Well… it’s pretty late, here’s the lemon tea you requested, big baby. Drink it before it gets too cold.” Alice smirked smugly and offered a white, piping cup to the demon, helping him up and covering his tired form with scented sheets and thick blankets, making sure he was warm and comfortable enough for the entire night. “Try to get some rest and don’t move around too much, your muscles need a break. A long break.” the fallen angel laughed mercilessly and ignored his still reflecting expression, scratching her nape and stirring as she was done preparing her injured partner’s refined bed. “If you need something or if you’re simply bored, just punch the wall beside you or talk to yourself for a while. Your voice is so damn annoying that I will surely hear it from my room.”. Despite her sincere words were still echoing in the short demon’s mind, and they’d probably keep doing it during the whole night, he managed to take the joke and grin. “Very funny, toots! You know, you surprise me, teasing your own boss, who’s even suffering, is a risky move indeed.” Bendy snickered back in front of the young woman’s audacity, admiring the brazen singer as he was admiring the most beautiful and breathtaking masterpiece inside an art museum. “Sometimes I forget who’s the devil and who’s the angel, here.”. “Look again, Bendy. Maybe I’m both, and maybe I’m not as generous or kind as I look.” Alice promptly stood up and winked endearingly, pointing at her curved horns and shiny halo with a tapered finger. “Don’t ever forget it.”. “Oh, I wouldn’t, toots.” Bendy shrugged it off, playful and grateful. “I wouldn’t.”.

[greehnery]

Law in a World of Lawless Sinners

“When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the inexorable law of diminishing returns. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better.”

—Alan Jacobs, “Snakes and Ladders”

This is so good, y’all. And incidentally, so is the law...when used lawfully (1 Timothy 1:3-11).

The great irony, however, is that we all, as lawless sinners, actually love the law with all our being. I mean, if the first and foremost commandment says anything of us, that’s it right there. What else do we know apart from God but the law? If we don’t love Him with all we are, we certainly don’t truly love anyone else as much as we think. Everything is rooted in self. And the law written on our hearts, being the cruel taskmaster that it is, happens to be the only “friend” we’ve got.

When asked, “what if Satan took over a city?" this is what Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse had to say...

"All of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached."

Striking how loathe we are to believe Satan’s willingness to masquerade as an angel of light. We immediately gravitate toward the more obvious and convenient appearance of evil against the law, rather than against the gospel. Evil then becomes whatever is contrary to speculation...which happens to be the very promise in Christ, the forgiveness of sin, which actually gives and sustains life.

The shocking reality is that the Old Adam, our sinful flesh, desperately wants to be justified in any way possible before God and others apart from Christ. This is why we need the Gospel front and center in churches, rightly divided from the law. We need Christ for us proclaimed loud and clear. The promise of forgiveness in His name, not further speculation of how to maybe fix ourselves by showing enough contrition over sin first, then spending a lifetime climbing a self-righteous ladder to get to where we think He is, or to be who we think He wants us to be...which is the best the law can ever offer us.

No, in light of the law’s scathing, true, and relentless voice of condemnation, we need to hear the truer absolution proclaimed boldly and freely (Isaiah 43:25).

‘Your sin is forgiven on account of Christ.’

Every day. Every week. Always. And especially in our pulpits, which all too often are completely oblivious to what pure promise sounds like apart from the law, and rife with monotonous, one-note legal preaching. No, rather, it’s the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, the very end of the law, for all who believe (Romans 1:16-17, 10:4). The One and only Word which makes all things new, over and over and over! And will do so finally and absolutely when Christ returns to rule and reign forevermore. Anytime we are not fed with the Bread of Life, and given freely to drink from the Fountain of Living Water that is Christ alone, we will slide into merciless moralism. “Take; eat; this is my body which is given for you,” Jesus said as He instituted the Lord’s Supper before His death on the cross. Oh, that we actually trusted the Word of God to do what He has sent it to do, that it will not return to Him void, that in Christ, our Creator, the Author and Finisher of our faith--we have nothing to prove to the Father nor anyone else, and that He really doesn’t need our help. Our neighbor does!

The Law cannot save. It accuses. Kills. Divides. Produces wrath. Destroys us in our self-righteous pretension and ambition. And when we by the Spirit are brought to terms with the death we must die (Romans 6:23a), there stands the crucified and risen Christ, who was there all along, taking our sin as His own, and in no uncertain terms becoming sin for us, that His righteousness may be ours, freely, before we ever ask. The one thing we desperately wicked sinners don’t want to hear finally becomes our living hope: it is finished (2 Cor. 5:21, John 19:30, Rom. 6:23b).

Repent, and believe the good news!

[rockleefangirl987]

All This...and Heaven Too: Chapter Three - The Welcome Party (part 2)

To @asplendidninja (who introduced me fully to the glories of Team Guy) and to @ten-all-over @sausage-fist@nejicanspin @fruitysmellz  @morganknightos@samlovesmaitogai @teacher-monica @shock777

Because - as time goes on - this story is going to become massive, I promise to post the Permalinks to each chapter. I know how it feels when you find a chapter to a story you’re enjoying, but you can never locate the rest of it. I hope this makes it easier for any of you that come into this after the prologue.

Introduction and Brief History - https://rockleefangirl987.tumblr.com/post/159618388822/all-thisand-heaven-too-introduction-and-a

Prologue - The Answer

https://rockleefangirl987.tumblr.com/post/159619445665/all-thisand-heaven-too-prologue-the-answer

Chapter One - Training Day - Arrivals

https://rockleefangirl987.tumblr.com/post/159843490557/all-thisand-heaven-too-chapter-one-training

Chapter Two - Renewed Alliances

https://rockleefangirl987.tumblr.com/post/160078980106/all-thisand-heaven-too-chapter-two-renewed

Chapter Three - The Welcome Party (Part One)

https://rockleefangirl987.tumblr.com/post/160861155718/all-thisand-heaven-too-chapter-three-the

From the Introduction:

There are many ways to tell a story.

This is one.

While some of the most common things become accepted canon, we don’t always agree, oftentimes forcing even The Creator of the signature work to admit ‘I was wrong,’ frustrating us to no end because now it is ‘set in stone’. Which is why we create alternate universes, to satisfy our hunger for...well, whatever the case, be it to right some wrong, give our hero or heroine satisfaction, or to complete a journey we felt was never satisfactorily finished.

This is another version...a tweaking...a difference here and there, some so minor, they may not be immediately noticeable.

Consider this a level of the multiverse, finite and infinite, each universe part of a vast assemblage and existing simultaneously, the numerous realities unaware of the other. Therefore at first glance, should you, in the reading of this account, discover something you believe a contradiction, recall this introduction and remember - this is only one version of the story and the lives entwined with it.

Disclaimer: The following story has been written with no intention of claiming ownership or solicitation, nor does the author claim the movie character(s) as his/her own. The character(s) have been borrowed solely out of a love of the particular series and movies and is not intended for any other purpose but amusement and entertainment.

‘...In everything that’s light and gay,

I’ll always think of you that way.

I’ll find you in the morning sun,

And when the night is new.

I’ll be looking at the moon -

But I’ll be seeing you.’

The onlookers swayed in time, danced, sang along, even shed tears to the slow piece, and when the ebony-complexioned soprano crooned the final line, the song ended to rousing applause. It served as a welcome change from the fast rhythms of the last several selections, in addition to evoking memories of the last major Briton war, but it was time to switch the pace again. After sipping some water, the singer told them, “Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen, thank you. You’ve been awfully kind this evening.

“I realize it’s still early, but as we have so many wonderful guests from the Leaf Village among us, we thought this would be an excellent time to announce one of our Briton traditions, one many of you may recall from twenty or more years ago.” Some cheered, already prepared for what she would say. “Now that was well before my time, but it’s always a treat to announce our classic...Lady's Choice!”

The sound of adrenalized female chatter grew louder, but Sakura, Tenten, Ino, and Hinata looked around, hoping for some clarification as the announcer continued.

“Lady's Choice everyone. We’ll begin the dance in a little so you'll have time to...prepare.” She winked as she came down off the stage, her eyes scanning the room for her own ‘choice’.

“Okay, nobody told us about this,” Sakura complained, watching as several female officers hurried pass, their footfall light, each with determined expressions as they pointed towards a few of the Village males. “What’s this Lady’s Choice?”

Ino already looked angry. “Yeah, if I get left out, I’m not going to be happy. I know I don’t know what it is, but I still won’t be happy.”

“Excuse me. You're wondering about the Lady’s Choice?”

The four found Tessa Marshall in front of them, her porcelain features glowing with anticipation as she sought out her intended target.

Sakura nodded. “Lady Tessa, well, yes, thank you, but no, we don’t know what it is. No one explained it to us.”

“Oh, it’s wonderful! You’ll love it, trust me. You get to choose your dance partner from among any of the available males, and I do mean any of the males and they cannot deny you. You walk up to them and say something like ‘I want to dance with you - Lady's Choice’ and there you go. It’s sort of silly in an old-fashioned way, but we’ve been doing it forever and a...” The sentence trailed off.

Choji and Shikamaru walked close-by, the pair moving as if they had a mission to accomplish. She and Choji became separated after a short time together due to Tessa having to fulfill her duties as a hostess, so she was thrilled to see him again. They did promise to meet up later, therefore the opportunity could not have timed out better.

“...forever and a...I’m sorry. Will you excuse me please?” She hurried off behind the two friends, attempting to maintain her composure.

Ino grinned. “She has a thing for Choji.”

Sakura shook her head. “Don't you mean she has a thing for...”

“I mean she has a thing for Choji. She rode past him during the parade and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Both Shikamaru and I noticed. Must like big guys I guess. Who would have thought that, huh? He’s flabbergasted. Frankly, I’m flabbergasted.” So much for her well-intended advice about him losing weight to get a girlfriend. If Lady Tessa was interested in him, no amount of harassment on Ino’s part would help.

“Tenten?”

Hinata’s voice was so tiny, Tenten barely heard her over the din. “What is it Hinata?”

“She said...Lady Tessa said I can choose...anyone?”

Tenten smiled, knowing where this conversation was leading. “Yep...anyone,” and she winked while backing up. She did not wish to be rude, but she knew this game could get dangerously competitive should she not get a head start on Ino and Sakura and anyone else insane enough to get in her way. “Good luck, Hinata,” and she rushed away.

“Oh,” came a shy whimper, and Hinata stood tiptoe and saw him. It’s now or never, Hinata. He won’t be able to say no and she sprinted towards him.

As word spread among the Village and Briton females, the excitement increased. Matters were not hysterical, but some accepted the challenge with the type of intense passion Might Guy could appreciate. Before long, the males of almost every age understood the predicament of a deer or duck during the hunting season. They were under the scope, the aim had been made, and the best thing to do was to either accept their fate - or find a place to hide. Most, however, were delighted to find themselves getting so much attention.

Tessa was already teaching Choji a few steps as she knew what the traditional dance would be. Sakura threw away all caution, and snagged Michael Marshall just as Ino was making her move.

Undaunted, Ino was about to ask Harry Marshall...but it appeared Tenten already had the upper hand. Ino growled. Wasn’t it enough that Tenten had ‘stolen’ that outfit from her? Was it not enough that Tenten had danced several dances with Lord Michael, and now she was ‘stealing’ the brother as well? Then Ino caught sight of a tall, dashing, brown-skinned brunette wearing one of those odd hats with gears and a near floor-length brown uniform coat which fit his body like a second skin. The brass on his waistcoat and belt sparkled like stars, and she realized as third choices went, he would not be all bad.

Not for the first time did she wonder what they put in the Briton waters to create such men!

Off in one area, Kakashi was surrounded on all sides, and desperately seeking an escape route. One voluptuous Ensign declared she and her fellow noncommissioned officers would play rock-paper-scissors for the opportunity to dance with him as they heard “it’s your all-time favorite game.”

Rock-paper...Come on...really? REALLY?! Who the hell would come up with something like...Wait...where's Guy?  

And off in another area, his back against a vertical support of the tent frame, Rock Lee watched, realistic as to his prospects.

Several lovely Britons smiled and nodded at him in acknowledgment, but none stopped. Had he still held those deeper feelings and fantasies from years ago, he would have imagined Sakura rushing his way to make an offer. Were she not having such a splendid time with the Marshall men, Tenten might have come over, scolded him for being ‘silly’ and then asked. Were these not favorable circumstances and the chance to corner the yellow-haired genin of her dreams, sweet Hinata might have asked. She had always been very kind to Lee, as he always had been to her.

Before the ‘Lady’s Choice’ was announced, he gathered enough courage to ask a couple of the ladies to dance, his motto being “nothing ventured, nothing gained”. Each one found a polite excuse as to why they could not, then he watched them stroll off with some male most considered ‘more attractive’. On his final attempt, as he walked away following the rejection, he heard the corporal laugh and say to her friends, “Was he kidding? Oh my God, those eyebrows! Do you think they’re real?!” Lee took it all in stride, as he had most of his life. Later, he decided it was best to observe rather than participate.

The excruciating minutes gave him time to face facts. When the likes of Kakashi Hatake, or Neji Hyuga, or Shikamaru Nara were in a room with you, the ladies tended to select masked and mysterious; aloof and suave with mysterious eyes, or ‘I’m bored out of my mind and you find that attractive - what a drag.’ Because that was how things tended to work out, no matter how much one believed in themselves.

It is not that I have not had a nice time tonight. It has been quite an experience seeing how the Britons behave, and Guy-Sensei was correct. They are great lovers of life. It is just...I may be somewhat out of my element here, and at this moment even more so. It has been well over an hour, and there may be dozens of Briton ladies here and I know I have not met them all, but...I think my best course of action is to walk outside, regroup and wait until this Lady’s Choice dance has ended. I will not be missed at any rate, although Guy-Sensei will be disappointed in...

“Excuse me.”

Lee turned at the sound of the clear, soft voice, blinking as he faced the smiling figure before him. “Lady Kathryn,” he gulped. “Good evening. Good evening again.” He wondered why she looked different from earlier, then saw that her coat had been removed, better revealing the attractive ensemble underneath.

“Good evening again, Master Lee.” She took several more steps, and due to the heels of her boots, she was eye-to-eye with his five-foot-six height. “I’m sorry. Are you already leaving us?” Her eyes shifted to where a portion of the tent flap was in his hands.

“Leaving?” The canvas was dropped. “No, I...I was thinking about stepping outside for some air, but I...” He paused before he said something which made him appear awkward and decided to repeat more firmly, “I was thinking about stepping outside for some air, My Lady.”

Kathryn looked disappointed. “Oh. Sorry. It was only that I wanted to ask you to join me in the next dance.”

“I...I beg your pardon?”

He prayed he was not gaping, but he must have misunderstood. This was a joke. It had to be. There was no other explanation. For a second, a short list of candidates who put her up to this farce went through his thoughts, from the impolite corporal to some former Academy classmate, concealed and waiting until Lee fell for it and became the brunt of the joke. That idea faded on seeing the Captain’s expression. He detected a natural warm-heartedness overcoming whatever dismay she displayed at his initial answer. Besides, she did not seem the type to go along with such a poor practical joke.

“The next dance?” she stressed, indicating those milling around. “I want you to join me. It is Lady’s  Choice if you did not hear the announcement. I don’t believe I’ve seen you on the dance floor yet this evening, which is such a shame as you're missing half the fun of being here.”

After all the failed attempts at getting a young woman to share a dance, here was an offer the majority of males at the Party would sacrifice the proverbial arm and leg to experience. Lee, however, felt overwhelmed. He accepted the reality of it, but the idea that this gentlewoman with a list of titles longer than his arm was asking him...While it felt out of character, his confidence, his courage, and his nerves were failing under the pressure of such attention. This time his mind went through a host of excuses as he contemplated how observant she was to know what he had and had not been doing.

“I am sorry, My Lady,” he replied following a brief silence.

“Is something wrong, Master Lee? Are you unwell? I can fetch one of our medics if...” Despite the calm of her questions, the Captain appeared anxious.

“No, I...I am not...Yes, yes, I...I am sorry. You see...I do not dance, Your Ladyship.” At least that sounded plausible, although on seeing her half-smile, he wondered if he convinced her.

“Ah, well.” She glanced aside, then looked at him once more, shaking her head. “No. I shall not take ‘I do not dance’ as a justification. This is a party! I’ll lead. You shall follow my steps. It’s as simple as that. And since this is our traditional dance, and the lady chooses her partner and there can be no refusal, well, you do not have a choice!” She boldly thrust out a hand for him to accept. Although she exhibited a serious countenance, there was an unmistakable gleam in her eyes. “Lady's Choice, Master Lee!”

She spoke with such authority Lee found it impossible to find another excuse or lie - he had never been a good liar at any rate. Besides, he did not want to be the source of some ‘international incident’ should he continue to refuse. He placed one hand on hers, then saw her smile widen as a tug forced him from the spot which had served as his temporary safe place. He realized he was smiling, too, at the way she handled the situation: ladylike but with a touch of no-nonsense as well. He respected that.

But one thing he did not like were the many eyes concentrating on the Queen’s ‘beloved kinswoman’...and him! To be center stage as a participant in exams and exhibitions was one thing. To be the center of attention at an event with the majority of the Leaf Village in attendance was another.

He tried to ignore the whispers from the more judgmental Villagers - few in number, but vocal nonetheless. (‘Isn't that Dork Lee?’ ‘Of course, it’s him. Who did you think it was?’ ‘He hasn't improved one bit, has he?’ ‘The older he gets the uglier.’ ‘Why is she dancing with him?’ ‘I thought she and Neji Hyuga looked beautiful together.’ ‘Still as stupid looking as ever, isn't he?’ ‘Doesn't she know those eyebrows are lethal weapons?’).

He ignored the faces of his fellow genin and chunin. Although some looked surprised on seeing the pairing, others had no feelings one way or the other as they found themselves escorted or figuratively dragged onto the oak parquet floor.  

Naruto grinned as he walked by, Hinata Hyuga at his side. “Hey Bushy Brow, so you got grabbed up too, huh? They’re not taking ‘no’ for an answer this time, are they?”

Lee smiled, but the action was not on Naruto’s behalf. Good for you, Hinata. Good for you. I am happy to see you accepted this challenge. Perhaps this was the opening you required to show Naruto how you feel if he would stop being so stupid.

All around him, male chunin, male Jonin, male genin, male Britons and just regular males were snatched up, making Lee feel less self-conscious about being on display. Several groups formed on the floor in order to keep the lines of dancers from becoming unmaneuverable. By the time this dance began, he hoped to blend into the crowd and become one out of dozens.

“I know you don’t normally dance like this in the Leaf Village, but my parents said this became quite popular with everyone when they visited.”

Although speaking to him, Kathryn had stopped, forcing an embarrassed Lee to backtrack several steps since he continued moving before realizing his error. “Did it, My Lady?” That was all that came to mind while he searched the Briton’s face for indications of regret at selecting him. He saw none.

“I am thinking you have never danced a reel before, but oh that is right. You do not dance. That is what you told me.”

Lee recognized Kathryn’s near perfect imitation of his voice, including his inflections and how he never used contractions. Had it been anyone else, he would have thought they were mocking him, but she continued to smile in the hopes of putting him at ease. It succeeded in making him more bashful than usual. “No, My Lady,” he stammered. “I mean I can, but I do not...what I meant is yes, that is what I told you, and no, I...I cannot dance.” Her eyes are violet and gray. I noticed them when we were introduced. I do not think I have ever seen eyes that color before...and why am I thinking of that now?

“I thought as a Ninja,” her voice returning to normal, “you would learn to be light on your feet. Excuse me...one...moment.” Kathryn placed her hands on his arms. “If you don't mind, can you...stand right...there. Perfect. Thank you.” She positioned herself a few feet in front of him.

His eyes shifted to his toes. And she has you there. What has Guy-Sensei told you about always thinking hundreds of moves ahead of your opponent in order to set things to your advantage. Not that she is an opponent, but I should have better prepared my answers. I had no idea she would find similarities between dancing and learning the moves of a Ninja. “I might dance...a little, My Lady.”

Ah! Well, that will make it easier then, won’t it?” She took both of his hands. “Just relax, Master Lee. We’re dancing. It’s supposed to be fun, and I promise, I’ll lead. You just keep up with me until you get the hang of it, okay?”

‘Supposed to be’ is the operative term, he thought, glancing around to see who was in their grouping. The males had been lined up on one side, the females on the other, and as he scanned the floor, he almost laughed at how eclectic all the groups were. But once more, every sound was drowned out as he heard the voices yet again. Mocking, hurtful, the ones who dragged down what little confidence he had, and it was all coming from the edges of the dance floor. He wondered if he alone heard them, or would everyone in the tent soon join the discussion.

“And then you’ll...Master Lee?”

He snapped out of it. Kathryn was giving instructions and he recalled but a little. “My Lady?”

“Are you alright?” Once more concern tugged at her features. “You’re sure you feel okay?”

“I am...I am sorry, My Lady. Begging your pardon, but I do not think you have chosen a worthy partner for this dance of yours.” But he noticed her eyes reflected not pity, but a kindness and an understanding. In that moment he knew she heard what those Villagers said.

Kathryn motioned with a finger indicating he should lean towards her. “An ancestress of mine had a saying which you should take to heart, Master Lee,” she whispered. “It was this: ‘Let them grumble. This is how it’s going to be.’” She grinned. “Ignore them. They can either enjoy watching us have a good time or they can go to Perdition. Pardon my language, but I can’t abide fools.” She nodded at the stage. “I think we’re about to begin so it’s too late for you to back out. Besides, you’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.

“Just remember,” she hurriedly added, “you’ll take four steps towards me and bow, and I will take four steps towards you and curtsey. We do that simultaneously. Don’t forget. Then you take four paces back to where you started, just as I will, and I’ll take your hands and the real fun begins.”

Famous last words - again.

An announcer said something about the Teyshas reel, which was greeted with loud, vocal anticipation.

Lee noticed the Captain was already tapping a foot as the musicians played the opening. He heard a few Britons emit a reverberating yell resembling a battlefield cry. Kathryn curtseyed all the way to the floor, wiggling her eyebrows to remind him he had an action to perform as well. He bowed, just as he did upon their first introduction; stepped back, then felt her small hands clutch his larger ones, the little links of chains, rings, and bracelets that were part of her odd gloves and cuffs pressing into his tape.

The rest was a momentary blur as it all came together. He heard Kathryn giving directions, her strong voice standing out among all the others. They danced sideways down a column of people in their group. They switched partners and Tenten clasped his hands, vanished, and Kathryn returned, tugging a bit to indicate the couples were to twirl in a circle. Afterward, they moved sideways again, first one direction and then another, and he felt her move his right hand upwards as she linked hers about it.

“Spin!” she called out, and Lee followed her guidance as they spun around each other, then reversed hands to spin the opposite way, before returning to their original positions to begin the entire sequence from the start. But this time, he took the initiative, and his usual optimism kicked in so Kathryn knew from his action that he felt comfortable enough to lead her.

He lost track of time. All he knew after those first moves was that this reel was one of the easiest things he had ever accomplished, and he laughed to himself on thinking how difficult he tried to make it in the beginning. He did not step on Kathryn’s feet or trip over his own despite the change in tempo and the addition of new steps. He smiled when she let loose with one of those Briton battle cries; laughed as she apologized for getting ‘carried away,’ and next apologized for making the initial apology. Most important, from her actions, there was no remorse over partnering with him.

They were in perfect synchronization, the moves intensifying and becoming faster. He watched her swirl around him as they danced among the numerous other couples. Strands of red-gold hair loosened from her elaborate chignon and fell past her shoulders. Each time she pressed against him, no matter how brief, he smelled her perfume, the chemistry of her body warming and strengthening the notes of roses and citrus and other scents unfamiliar to him. He did not understand how she mastered any dance in those tall, narrow heels. He promised not to stare when he got the occasional glimpse of her slender legs, revealed when the skirt to her knee-length dress rose just a little. And he ignored the subtle tingling through his body whenever their eyes connected, and he smiled in response to her smiles and her laughter.

Lee had never danced like this in his life and was so involved, he did not know the reel was drawing to an end until the Captain pulled away and took four paces back. His sandaled feet almost skidded as he prepared to go another round, but he stopped himself and was once more bowing to her while she curtseyed before him. His fast reflexes saved the day! When the music concluded, the applause and cheers were more intense, while more than a few, Kathryn included, let go with another battlefield cry.

His next action came without a second thought. Kathryn was still in the deep curtsey, but as she prepared to stand to her full height, he extended his right hand and said: “Allow me, My Lady.” She paused in her action, surprised at first, then delighted. Both knew her capable of standing up without assistance, however, this unexpected little act of gallantry felt perfect in the place and at the time!

Lee watched her smile, heard a courteous “Thank you, Master Lee,” and several slender fingers lay against his taped wrist. He took her hand with a gentle grasp to give her leverage, and in an instant, Kathryn was at her full height again.

“Master Lee...answer me this.” Still catching her breath, she pulled a lacy white handkerchief from a dress pocket and began to fan herself.

“Yes, Your Ladyship?”

“I thought you said you couldn’t dance!” she teased.

He chuckled, revealing his perfect white teeth. “I suppose I was incorrect in that.”

“You...suppose?”

“No, no, I was mistaken. It is obvious. I can dance.” The divulgence caused his companion to slap her hands together in celebration.  

“Oh, there's no denying you can, Master Lee!”

“Well,” and he offered a small bow, “thank you very much, My Lady.”

She seemed puzzled. “For?”

“The Lady’s Choice. Thank you for asking me.” And I was ready to wander outside...

The corners of Kathryn's smile appeared to touch the edges of her flashing eyes. “Oh, you are most welcome. I appreciate you dancing with me. I know I made you feel you had no choice in...”

“Yes, but it worked out, did it not?”

She became pensive. “You had fun then?”

Fun. Fun was the satisfaction of a well-done job; of all his accomplishments to that point and pushing to achieve more. But earlier in the day, when he wondered about these Britons and what their Party might entail, whenever the word ‘fun’ came to mind or was mentioned by Guy-Sensei or Tenten, to Lee it meant new experiences. Swirling around a dance floor with a woman like Kathryn Marshall never entered the equation.

“I had fun, Your Ladyship, I really did,” Lee told her, tickled to see that his answer elated her.

“And so did I! The Teyshas Reel is one of my favorite dances.”

He began to think it could become one of his as well.

Kathryn cleared her throat. “Master Lee?” she continued, her voice gentler than Lee could recall having heard it.

“My Lady?”

“I wonder, that is, if you have nothing planned at this second, would you like...”

But her face transformed. Her warm smile, the twinkling eyes, her informal nature - it vanished the second they heard one of the nobles call out “Lady Kathryn!” Her demeanor growing rigid, she focused on a small group of Briton officials - and Neji for some reason was among them. She looked back at Lee, gave a partial curtsey and said, “Thank you again for the dance, Master Lee. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Before he could say anything, she hurried away, each step graceful and formal, her attention focused on Neji as he nodded his head in greeting. Lee could not hear the conversation, but after a few moments, there was laughter, Kathryn bending her head so as to listen to whatever it was Neji said. Both smiled and strolled away from the group.

“Lee!”

“Hello, Tenten.” He smiled as she ran up and patted him on the back.

She was flushed, still breathing hard, and fanning a hand in front of her face. “I saw you out there with Lady Kathryn. You were...Don’t deny it. You were having a great time!”

“I was thinking the same of you,” he replied.

“Oh, you mean me dancing with Lord Harry?”

“And Lord Michael too.”

“Well, they’re, you know they’re...”

“Gorgeous?” He winked, smiling more as she blushed. “You are fortunate it was Guy-Sensei and I reading your lips.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure where that came from. I mean, you know me. How often do I go around spouting off crap like that about...Well, I...It’s just…”

“Tenten, it is I. You do not need to apologize for what you are feeling. You are having a wonderful time. The two of them have shown very good taste in spending time with you. They are the ones who should consider themselves fortunate.”

“Oh, Lee.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, giggling and wetting her thumb to clean the tiny spot of lipstick she had left. “Anyway, how are you doing? Are you having a good time?”

“It has been...nice.”

“Well, I’m glad Lady Kathryn called you out. I had these pictures in my brain of you standing in a corner watching everybody instead of getting out there on the floor. You weren’t doing that, were you? Standing in a corner?”

He shook his head, wondering if Tenten believed his answer.

“She seems nice, doesn’t she?” Tenten asked.

“Her Ladyship? She is, yes,” Lee agreed, glancing at his hands. He noticed a tiny sterling silver loop from one of Kathryn’s jeweled gloves or filigreed cuffs caught on the tape on his right hand. They switched hands so often during the reel, it might have happened at any time, however, he regretted not seeing it before they parted. He could have retrieved it for her so it might be repaired. “She is funny too.” He tucked the portion out of the way. “Did you know she does imitations?”

“No! She does...Who did she imitate? Wait! Did she do you?”

“If you had been here and closed your eyes...”

“Oh, I’m so sorry I missed that! Too bad Guy-Sensei wasn’t around, oh, or Neji! I’d love to hear her do Neji. Or Sensei! If she could peg Sensei I don’t know what I’d think! Hey, are you hungry? I am. I guess all that dancing makes you hungry. I can scout everything out for you.”

“I would appreciate that. Thank you, Tenten. So have you finished dancing with the Marshall brothers?” he asked as they moved towards the dining area. People were again dancing, but others were finding seats, heading outdoors, relaxing or examining the rows of buffet tables.

“Oh...I don’t know. It's early. Can you believe how early it is?” Tenten did not realize every move she took was as though she was still dancing. “Oh, Guy-Sensei said he was proud of both of us grabbing hold of the springtime of our youth.” She nudged him. “He saw you dancing with Lady Kathryn. He told me to tell you,” and she flashed all of her teeth and gave a hearty thumbs up, “and something about ‘See - what did I tell you?’ I guess you know what that means, huh?”

Lee smiled. “I do, yes...I have not seen Sensei in a while. I was wondering where he had disappeared to.”

“I think he’s been up to no good, so he’s hiding out. He kind came out of nowhere to talk to me, then he up and vanished again. Sakura said Kakashi-Sensei was looking for him too. Something about rock-paper-scissors and some female officers before the Lady's Choice. I’m not sure what happened, but knowing Guy-Sensei...” She giggled, then paused. “Oh, there’s Neji and Lady Kathryn. I wonder where they’re going?” she pondered, she and Lee watching the couple head outside. “I’ve been hearing...things.”

One of Lee’s eyebrows rose as he scowled. “What kind of things?”  

“Oh, you know. Things.”

Lee shook his head. “Tenten, what do you mean by ‘things’?”

Tenten often had a tendency to make matters sound worse than they were. No one forgot the time she told Naruto Lee’s condition was ‘grim - very grim’ when her teammate had been temporarily removed from active duty so his chakra network could better heal. By the time she finished her prognostications, Naruto thought Bushy Brow was dying! Therefore over time, Lee learned to prod Tenten for additional details before he reached any final conclusions.

Her response was a groan, irritated that Lee required more specifics. “Oh Lee, you know. Somebody said this, somebody said that, then someone told someone else, and you figure you’re getting the tiniest bit of the actual story by the time it reaches you. But I heard this from Sakura, who got it from Shino, who got it from Shikamaru, who heard it from Choji, who’s been arm-in-arm with Lady Tessa most of the night, and she ought to know something being Lady Kathryn’s sister. And then Kiba said Hinata told him that with Hanabi being the Hyuga heiress, she heard some rumors too.”

His head was spinning. “So what is being said?”

“That the Briton Queen asked Lady Kathryn to meet Neji. That’s why you’ve seen all the Briton higher-ups mingling with the Hyugas. I think Lord Harry might have been asked to do the same with Hinata, so that’s why he’s been chatting her up, but, well, you know where her heart lies.”

Lee nodded. “Yes.” He paused, considering the information. “So this Queen wants Lady Kathryn to...” and his voice dropped “I am sorry. She wants Lady Kathryn to marry Neji?” What else was he to gather from a Queen asking her subject (albeit a relation) to ‘meet someone’?

“That’s what the rumor mill’s saying, but don’t you dare quote me on that. I don’t even think Neji’s aware of what’s going on, not yet anyway, or maybe he’s beginning to put it together, but they’ve been pushing the two of them at each other all night. That’s a gimme.”

Lee was beginning to dislike these ‘they’ people. “Lady Kathryn does not seem the type to let anyone force her to do things against her will.”

“I agree. Neji might not be thrilled either. He’s very much his own man, even if he has a loyalty to his clan, but it’s like they’re plotting behind his back and Lady Kathryn’s back and the two of them don’t have a lot of say in the matter. But anyway, like I said, it’s all conjecture and speculation and it makes for good gossip. If there’s such a thing as good gossip. But I don’t think we should mention it to Neji unless he brings it up first.”

“Agreed.”

Tenten examined the elaborate layout of food, asking discrete questions of the servers in order to determine what contained even the smallest amount of alcohol (“Oh - that’s so pretty! Is that prepared in some type of...Oh! Red wine?”), and discovered a number of items safe for Lee to eat. She suggested they try a tempting, foamy white punch being ladled from a large silver bowl, but had the presence of mind to ask what the ingredients were before the waiter gave them a taste - and she cringed upon hearing what accompanied the fresh orange juice. There was sparkling wine from a region in Gaul; white rum from one of the Empire’s islands, and a few other alcohols Tenten lost track of as she thanked the waiter and pulled Lee aside. Eventually, the two settled on water infused with fresh lemons and mint, but only after she double-checked there was nothing more than that!

They found a table in a quiet area of the facility, an ideal spot to observe all the goings-on without appearing to be doing so.

“I guess,” Tenten contemplated out loud as she took a bite of poultry called a Cornish Hen, “it could do a lot as far as alliances and all between Briton and us.”

“What do you...Oh, you mean a marriage. I suppose. I do not know a great deal about marriage playing into diplomacy and politics. Guy-Sensei keeps telling us how crucial it is for us to have a better understanding of foreign affairs, but I do not have a complete grasp of it yet.”

“Same here. We’re fighters, right?” She pointed at her plate. “You have to try this chicken, Lee. It's great. But you know, I guess on some level, we’re ambassadors and diplomats whenever we take a mission. Lady Kathryn is military; so are her brothers and sister, but look at her. She negotiates and the gods know what else every time she opens her mouth. She’s even supposed to work with our people to iron out the final rules and regulations for the Games.”

Lee nodded. Might Guy had already informed the chunin that one of his upcoming duties would be for him and Neji to stand by and witness those deliberations with their Sensei. It might be tedious, but it was an important part of his training. Being a ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village was not all on the battlefield. There were times when you sat at a table, peered across it at your opponent and played ‘nice’.

Tenten rolled her eyes. “I don’t get it.”

“What do you not get?”

“The last time I looked, we were in the twenty-first century, right? I don’t think she or Neji should have to feel like they’re being auctioned off. I don’t care if royalty or important families have done this arranged stuff forever or not. It just seems kind of old-fashioned in the extreme.”

Lee did not immediately respond but instead used a fork to pick at the thin slices of roasted suckling pig on his plate. It had been ages since he had used that utensil, so it should have been the renewal of a cultural experience to enjoy as Guy-Sensei would have told him. Instead, a somber air embodied him. He wondered what Kathryn and Neji might be doing. “I agree. It is primitive for this day and age,” and he inhaled, “but of course if they enjoy one another's company...”

“Well, that would make a huge difference. But enjoying someone’s company, that’s one thing. Feeling love, hey, that’s something else. They haven’t known each other long enough to be in love, but what do I know, huh?” Her laughter sounded ineffective to Lee’s hearing. “Maybe it is. You know...love at first sight, blah-blah-blah.”

“Right.” The thought of his one and only ‘love at first sight’ came to mind. A difficult lesson learned. It was never like the storybooks.

“I know one thing.”

“What is that, Tenten?” The pit of his stomach tightened.

“The two of them make a great looking couple. Everybody’s saying that.”

Why wouldn’t people say it when the physical evidence was obvious. Kathryn Marshall would make a lovely addition to the Hyuga dynasty, permeating a bloodline in which cousins married cousins. Since one day, Neji might become a candidate for Hokage, having a consort with her pedigree and influence could be crucial to the Village remaining a strong force, offering benefits perhaps he and Tenten were not recognizing.

“Aren’t you hungry anymore?” Tenten noticed her teammate had stopped eating. “The hot food’s going to get cold and your cold food’s getting warm.”

He was ‘starving,’ but could not erase the memory of Kathryn’s kindness, along with that startling transformation from an ebullient young woman into someone regal and reserved, all within seconds. “I suppose it is all of these...rumors. I do not like gossiping about Neji, and although we do not know Lady Kathryn that well, I do not like gossiping about her either. Perhaps...we should put it aside until we know more?”

“Sure Lee. You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” She turned aside, faking a cough as a transition. “Here...try this. It’s good” She cut the drumstick from the half piece of hen she was enjoying. Once he had eaten some she said, “See? What did I tell you, huh? And promise you’ll go back with me to the tent with the desserts when we’re done. Not right this minute. There’s still a load of stuff in here I want to check-out.”

“It did look good. All the chocolate.”

“Good? Good?! It looked amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. But if I don’t watch it I’ll gorge myself and won’t be able to move when we’re training tomorrow.”

“Well, whatever you decide on I will split them with you, do not worry. I enjoy chocolate, but you know it is not one of my weaknesses.”

“I know, I know. Unless...” Mischief brewed in her eyes.

“Unless...what?”

“I heard somebody say they have chocolates in there with spices and chilis and peppers.”

Lee’s face glowed. “Spices and chilis?”

“And peppers. Can you imagine that?”

“No, no, I cannot.” Was that even a possibility: one of those little chocolate creations infused or stuffed with perhaps the hottest peppers imaginable? “Alright, Tenten. If I can help you in your enjoyment of the Briton chocolates, it will not be a problem.”

“And that is why you’re my very best friend.” Tenten’s grin was so exaggerated, Lee couldn’t help but laugh, for without her realizing it, she improved his mood.

He took another bite of the food she shared with him. “You were right. This is very good. I might have to try more of this when I go back.”

“I told you, didn’t I? And you mean go back for seconds?” When he nodded, Tenten looked relieved. “Thank the gods. I thought I was the only one who was going to get greedy. Their food is - wow! Oh and thanks. About the desserts I mean. I was hoping you’d...” She paused, her attention diverted.

“What is wrong?”   

“It’s Neji.”

Lee turned, a tiny part of his mind hoping Neji and Kathryn reached an amicable and mutual parting of the ways while talking alone, but no, Neji was holding aside the tent flap as she entered. It was often difficult to tell how his teammate felt when one looked at his face, but the Briton captain was smiling and appeared comfortable in his company as they strolled off in the opposite direction.

Scolding himself for the negativity, Rock Lee almost heaved a frustrated sigh, but stopped, wondering why he would even react in such a manner. One thing, however, was clear. It appeared the rumors might not be rumors after all.

The song I’ll Be Seeing You was published in 1938 - music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Irving Kahal.

[navigame-media]

Ahoy there, mateys! Have you seen our shiny new voice cast announcement video for the Pirate Mermaid yet? Jack is very grateful to these talented VAs for bringing me and my fellow characters to life! Which character has your favorite voice and why is it me, awk awk awk? 

But enough of me asking questions. Let’s see what questions there are for me to answer, awk!

tokh-hinchin said: Hello there! Oh god, this game is gorgeous, I already played the available demo and fell in love with everyone, including you authors <3 Apparently, I've just downloaded Ren'py and searched projects that would make a good example how to use that kind of maker. What can I say... I found a real treasure! (mermaids' treasure?) You have +1 loyal fan and a great encourager c: Also I'd like to know, what is the song playing when a fight starts or someone's making a fuss.

Bless you for your kind words! Encouragers like you are a big boost for me and my creators. Thank you kindly for playing our first demo, even though it’s grown old and dusty. Please try the new demo once it’s out to see how much we’ve grown, awk!

As for the song, do you mean the one that plays when Captain is beating up that bilge-drinking, hornswagglin', scurvy no-good son of a biscuit eater First Mate Hoge? If so, it’s called Shouryu. The new demo actually has a music player where you can listen to any song in the game. Here’s a preview just for you, awk!

Anonymous said: Hello and thank you for all your hard work! This looks like a really good game and I'm so excited for it to be released! I had two questions--will this game be free when it is released? And the other one is do you know approximately when it will be released? No rush, just wondering! Keep up the good work :)

Happy to hear you’re looking forward to it, awk! My creators haven’t decided when the full game will come out, but they will release a shiny new demo when all the voice acting is done. I’ll make sure they post an update once they have a date for you, awk! 

About whether the game will be free, my creators are thinking about offering both a free and paid version. The free version would be simpler and shorter (for example, no voice acting, fewer endings, etc.), whereas the paid version would have more features and content. 

Does that sound like a good plan, awk? My creators would make everything free if they could, so that everybody could have the full experience. But then they might go broke and be unable to make any more games, awk!! 

Anonymous said: you may wanna consider spanish speaking VA's/people to translate the game script as well, if time/budget allows for it.

Jack agrees 100%! I must be given an amazingly adorable voice in as many languages as possible, awk awk awk! Too bad my creators don’t have funds to add more translations or VAs right now. But if they can raise money through crowdfunding or other means, I think they’d surely consider it. 

And if they can’t raise more funds, we could always make certain...cutbacks. Those other characters don’t really need voices, right? I should just take all their voice acting funds for myself! Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. They’ve got their looks...their pretty faces...and don’t underestimate the importance of body language, awk! 

Awk, what’s that? My creators are telling me to shut up or we’ll get sued. Well, it was worth a shot.

That’s all for today, awk! If you have any more questions, like who doesn’t think Jack’s voice is the best and how to shun those infidels for all eternity, just ask Jack!

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it here.

[sophygurl]

When Fandom Ain’t Fun: A Frank Talk by QPOC - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These get long so click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

When Fandom Ain’t Fun: A Frank Talk by QPOC

Moderator: Mark Oshiro. Panelists: ANerdCalledRage, Tanya D. (Katherine Cross listed, but unable to attend)

#WhenFandomAintFun - for the livetweets

Mark introduced himself by saying he was glad to be getting to do this with his friends who also yell about stuff on the internet (he’s Mark of Mark Reads, Mark Watches, etc.)

ANerdCalledRage asked to be identified by her twitter handle and not her real identity due to some issues that happened during livetweeting of a previous panel. I’m not entirely sure this meant for post-panel write-ups, but we’ll go with that to be on the safe side until/unless I hear otherwise. 

Tanya introduced herself as someone who is active in talking about diversity in games (#INeedDiverseGames), and said that for some reason she’s still in the BioWare fandom online. 

Mark holds up Tanya’s mug that read White Tears and said “it’s already full!” Tanya replied - “I’ve already been on a panel today.”

Tanya discussed how trying to talk about her own intersections as a black queer woman gets complaints about “harshing our glee” and “but why can’t I just...” 

They all joke about being old, brown, tired and queer. (This is a theme repeated often throughout the panel)

Mark asked the panelists to talk about a time when fandom stopped being fun for them.

ANerdCalledRage replied with a time she and Mark were at a con and on a Firefly panel together - she’s a huge huge fan of Firefly while acknowledging it has issues. They were the only two poc on the panel. The moderator, a white man, made a lynching joke and a white woman on the panel continued on and made a second one. ANerdCalledRage was like “what are you doing - do you not see me right here?” She got a blank look in return - no one knew they’d done anything wrong.

While explaining why she’s not on tumblr, ANerdCalledRage remarked “oh I know - all the discourse - fuck your discourse!” 

She talked some more about the Firefly panel above and said that at one point she made the remark that it’s dangerous to deify creators because they’re human and can make mistakes and people freaked out defending Joss Whedon.

Mark added that they’d even softballed any criticisms they had and still got such bad reactions in return. There’s this idea that cons are this happy fun space - but sometimes that happens at the expense of other people. Mark will rat people and cons out online for treating him badly, and has gained the reputation of “Mark the Con Killer”.

He talked about a time that a stranger on a panel called him a “fruitcake” (which he says he is fine with his friends saying to him btw), but it was so upsetting to him that he just shut down and stopped talking for the rest of the panel. 

Mark brought this issue up to the con organizers and was told “well that’s just his sense of humor...” Mark was like “obviously - I do understand how jokes work, but still - “.

Tanya said that she gets this whenever she writes opinion pieces. One time she was discussing the racefail in Dragon Age and people responded telling her that she hates DA. Actually - she really loves the game series. She also gets told “you’re just making this about race.” She responded with “well yes, I’m brown. Every day. It affects me. Every day.”

Tanya was approached to write about a Switch game in which black women’s hair was used as a weapon. She had issues with this. Someone tracked down her personal account and told her she’s a horrendous person in reply. Then they said “have a nice day.”

She said she has stopped interacting with the Overwatch fandom due to pushback on intersectional issues. She talked about how she can’t just separate out her identities. 

ANerdCalledRage added that no one can do that. We can’t just turn parts of ourselves off to create things or enjoy things - especially parts of ourselves that are forced upon us by our oppressors. 

Mark brought up that qpoc are often pushed ashed even when they’re not talking about intersectionality.

Tanya replied with a story about some fanart that was created shortly after the release of images of a new character in a BioWare game. She was a dark woman, but the fan said they “improved” the image by giving her different lips, nose, hair, etc. Tanya said it was like being erased before she could even interact with this game. We can’t even exist in digital worlds! “You already have everything - can’t I just have this one character?”

ANerdCalledRage said she has mixed feeling about the character Bilquis on American Gods. She loved watching her swallowing a cishetwhiteman with her vagina, but she knows how the character ends up in the book.

She also talked about Thandie Newton’s character in The Chronicles of Riddick - a kind of Lady Macbeth character who has too much ambition, is too aggressive. She finally got to see herself in a role like that - but it was still very pigeonholed and the character is demonized. 

ANerdCalledRage discussed the difficulty in watching a piece of herself being degraded just for being herself and fighting for what she believes in. Yet she was told by the fandom to just be Grateful for getting this representation. Saying things like that makes fandom less fun, and less inviting - isn’t that what fandom is supposed to be - sharing the things you love with others - don’t you want to share it??

Mark brought up the check boxes issue. As an example he brought up Supernatural (”I can’t believe I’m going to say something positive about this show...”) season 11 where there were queer hunters and one of the them was Latino - AND they got to live at the end. But people in the fandom were saying it was not believable to have someone who was both queer and Latino - it must be the writers just checking boxes.

Mark added that yes, sometimes white creators do this annoying thing of just checking boxes, but that’s not what he saw in this example. This idea that someone can’t be more than one thing is frustrating. 

“I guess I don’t exist then - I’m just an astral projection of a bunch of social justice warriors online!” (big laughs)

Tanya’s response to people who don’t believe in diversity is - do you not go outside or read books or turn on the news that’s not FOX? 

She gave an example from Watch Dogs 2 (btw, she very publicly hated the first one and told the game creators this on their own stage). But in the second one, there was a black nerdy guy and some people were saying it was not believable. This was set in San Francisco!  It’s like people can’t imagine anything outside of their own tiny bubble.

ANerdCalledRage talked about how she and Tanya are both light skinned queer black women from Chicago, so at cons people often think they’re the same person. Tanya asked - have you been called Tanya yet this weekend? ANerdCalledRage replied - not to my face...

ANerdCalledRage said she had to leave the anime fandom - she was really into Dragon Ball Z. She also doesn’t go to Wizard World anymore. One time she saw a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt and squeed about it. The white dude vendor asked “oh you get that reference?” At first she was going to excitedly explain that she did, but then she realized he was asking in a patronizing way - not like a fellow fan would. Then he asked her how she would pay for it, in an even more condescending tone.

She also relayed a story from when she went to the anime club in college - everyone kind of stopped talking and looked at her when she entered the room and a white dude even asked her if she was lost. And when she is out with her friend who is Southeast Asian who is not into anime but ANerdCalledRage herself is wearing an anime T-shirt - people will stop to talk to them but direct the questions and convo to her friend. 

ANerdCalledRage asked - how do I reconcile loving something that doesn’t love me?

Mark talked about the issue of people being mistaken for other people based on race. He often gets mistaken for Daniel Jose Older, for example. And, even though Mark is Latinx, he is often read as Middle Eastern and has been mistaken for Saladin Ahmed. 

Mark added that these are often very well-meaning people with a good intent to compliment these authors, but it feels like a fuck you to him. These people aren’t bothering to notice their differences and who they really are.

Tanya replied that N. K. Jemisin has been mistaken for Octavia Butler - even after Butler died. She then talked about a panel last year where a bunch of black women switched their name tents around to have some fun with the problem.

Tanya talked about how in fiction, there’s often only one brown and/or queer character and then that character has to be model minority. Queer and poc characters are ignored, infantilized, erased, etc. One example of this is Kylo/Hux being shipped much more than Finn/Poe.

ANerdCalledRage brought up the new Ghostbusters movie (Tanya jokingly gets up to leave - this is apparently a conversation they’ve had many times before lol). ANerdCalledRage talked about Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon’s treatments by the fans. She said she is not a fan of Jones’ character in the movie - she relies too much on negative tropes for black women. But she does respect Jones’ hustle. 

ANerdCalledRage made the mistake of going online when Jones was being harassed - fans of the movie were not defending her but were giving McKinnon’s character so much support and praise just for being coded queer. 

Leslie Jones got to play the first black woman Ghostbuster and no one was talking about that. So while ANerdCalledRage was excited to see girls watching this movie with femme action heroes, there were upsetting things going on too. 

ANerdCalledRage was invited to be on a podcast talking about the movie - she was the only black person on the podcast. She felt like she couldn’t talk specifically about the issues affecting “me and mine.”

Tanya added that she was paid to write about the new Ghostbusters. She did not like the movie. The trailer only showed Jones’ character as having these negative stereotypes. She wrote her opinion piece about how they could have easily fixed this trope, and how it was the same stuff that Ernie Hudson’s character had in the original movies. She got so much flack for that piece.

Tanya also said she got really sick of all of the Holtzman praise and especially got mad at all the straight women saying things like “I’d go gay for Holtzman!”

Mark said he got a twitter question for the panelists about how they handle people wanting solidarity on one issue while ignoring the others - examples are Agent Carter and Supergirl. 

ANerdCalledRage said she’s going to make enemies but “I hate Supergirl.” (Someone in the back cheered - much laughter) She said that the show was the blandest form of second wave feminism. She tried but couldn’t get through the pilot - even with multiple attempts. The J'onn J'onzz character was unapologetically showing a large black man scaring the shit out of a tiny blonde woman and she was wondering - do they even know what they’re doing with this trope? Fuck this show! 

ANerdCalledRage added - to each their own - you can like the show. But don’t push me to watch it. I won’t ask you to stop watching it or liking it, but please consider my views and feelings. 

Another example is Into the Badlands - there is an Asian American assassin character and a black woman doctor love interest. There was a great trope subversion there but ... they killed her off. It’s frustrating to have to justify opinions and feelings about this stuff.

Mark talked about the whole “just give it another try” thing that fandom does. His example is The 100. Wells Jaha was such a well developed black character - but just four episodes in they kill him to give a white girl feels for one episode. 

People were recommending the show for the queer characters, but having that queer representation doesn’t justify the racist stuff. Wells’ own father stops talking about him for two whole seasons. Mark sees this as just bad writing. If they’re going to pull that kind of thing in episode four - they lose his trust. 

Tanya said that the single issue thing was in effect for Agent Carter too. If your show failed because they forgot that brown people have money then...

(I have in my notes that some funny conversation ensued but wow I was getting tired at this point and cannot read my own handwriting. wooops.)

An audience member asked about the Black Panther movie and not representing the lesbian characters from the comics. ANerdCalledRage talked about being excited as hell for the movie, but also really scared. Marvel’s history with erasing black creators and lack of complex black characters, especially if they have more than one marginalization. 

Another audience member asked the panelists if they had any examples of calling someone in fandom out and that person actually changing. Mostly blank looks at first as they try to recall something.

Tanya mentioned one time someone on tumblr told her not use the term poc - she engaged with them and gave them resources. A week later they came back and apologized. She figures they “fell into a discourse pool and drowned.”

She said she often gets comments on twitter from people saying “I never thought about that before...” and she replies with “because you never had to.” She said she’s not online to educate her white followers. If that happens, good, but sometimes when people thank her for doing that she wants to give them her paypal link.

Mark talked about how sometimes people will tweet creators his reviews. (He said don’t do that, btw, it’s creepy and weird) But one time this happened when he was talking about some transphobic stuff in Leverage and John Rogers (I think - notes unclear but I think that’s who he was talking about) got sent the review and actually thanked Mark for bringing it up. John Green has also thanked him for bringing up issues in his work.

And audience member asked - so there’s hope? Mark replied - don’t quote me on that! But ANerdCalledRage added - we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t have hope.

One audience member (who I believe was a white male) admitted they were going to tell a story - Mark said no we only have 2 minutes left but the audience member continued and said - okay I’ll be brief... Tanya stepped in and said - I’m not hearing a question, so the audience member finally realized what they were doing and stopped. 

(I include this to kind of illustrate a point, I guess. Someone with privilege with good intent was over-stepping and it took them a bit to figure it out, but they did eventually realize and stop. Another example of people eventually getting it??)

ANerdCalledRage talked about her concerns with the CW picking up Black Lightning. This comic story is about an older black male superhero who chooses to stop and make his family a priority. He also has two daughters who begin to have powers. So there are Two Black Female characters who are coming into their power! Now, in the comics, one of them is a lesbian - will that happen on the show?

Mark brought up a fanfic where Cap punches Nick Spencer in the face - everyone cheered loudly, and that wrapped up the panel perfectly.