#i make this post every couple months its like yelling into the void but i still have hope

[adoretaekook]

Together| myg (m)

pairing: husband!yoongi x wife!reade word count: 2149 words genre/rating: Married AU- angst, smut and a tiny bit of fluff- Rated M theme: Muture warnings: angst (reader can’t have children), crying, mentions of being unhappy, lots of kissing, very intimate, oral sex with fingering (f recieving), slight dirty talk?, unprotected sex, creampie. (I think that’s all?)

This is a work of fiction! Please do not copy and repost this story without permission. All Rights Reserved.

this is the first fic that I’ve ever written and/or posted so please go easy on me. I hope you enjoy it.

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The night sky is dark, the moonlight shining trough the window, dawn quickly approaching. I sigh, realizing that it’s going to be yet another sleepless night, turning around to find Yoongi sleeping peacefully. Quietly I get out of bed and go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Sitting down a the kitchen table I look out at the rest of our apartment and feel a emptiness take over my body. This place had once been so full of love and hope. Happiness. And now its just a empty space.

A year after Yoongi and I got married we decided to start trying for a baby. We both always wanted a big family and we were excited to take the first step in doing that. It hadn’t been as easy as we thought it would be and after 6 months of trying and not getting pregnant be went to go see a doctor. It turns out that I can’t have children. We were absolutely shattered knowing that we we never going to have a child of our own. 

Yoongi was very understanding and he promised that we would get trough this, together. But after a couple of weeks I could feel him pulling away, could see the longing look in his eyes when he saw a couple with children. He started staying out later and going to the studio more, and I understood that he need time and space to process everything, so I gave him the space I knew he needed. I though that after a couple of months things would get back to normal but it just started getting worse.

An angry- almost annoyed- aura started forming around Yoongi whenever he was with me, it was subtle at first and I barely noticed it a times, but then the accusatory looks started; that look that just yells out that this is all my fault. He pulled away more and stopped touching me in any way, only come to bed when he thought I was already asleep. He isn’t the same sweet, loving man I married. And I know that I  can’t carry on like this, having this numb feeling and I can’t keep living in this apartment void of any love, it’s getting unbearable.

I hadn’t felt the tears running down my cheek in-till the first sob escaped my lips. I tried composing myself so I wouldn’t wake Yoongi but it was to late, he was already rushing down the stairs, a confused look on his face. “What’s going on? What happened?” He asks when he’s a few feet away from me.

Wiping my face I try to cover up my tear stained cheeks. “Nothing, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to wake you, you can go back to bed, I’ll be there in a minute” I sniffle and wipe my face again.

“You’re clearly not fine. Tell me what’s wrong.” He demands, voice firm. I start sobbing again and the frown on his face deepens even more and he takes a cautious step closer to me.

“ I can’t keep doing this.” Somehow I start sobbing harder after finally admitting what I had been feeling for weeks. His expression immediately changes to one of shock and he move toward me and sinks to his knees in-front of me.

“What do you mean?” He carefully asks, looking up at me. I turn my head, not being able to look him in the eye when saying this.

“I can’t keep pretending I don’t see the way you look at me now and pretending not to notice that you come home late and you don’t come to bed with me and that you don’t touch me anymore. I can’t keep feeling like this is my fault. This isn’t what I wanted. I can’t be around you without feeling like you blame me for everything that’s happened.” I rant, my body practically shaking with every sob.

“I don’t mean to make you feel that way.” He whispers, a lone tear escapes his eye and he looks down. “It’s just hard. I know it’s not your fault but sometimes I just get so angry that this had to happen to us and I misdirect that anger, I know I do. But I do still love you.” He reaches up and wipes the tears from his cheek.

“It doesn’t feel like you do though. We haven’t been the same- you haven’t been the same. And I can’t keep living like this. All I want is for you to look at me like I’m the love of your life again- not like you do now. At this point we’re strangers sleeping next to each other, not a married couple.” My lip trembles and my hands are shaking.

He reaches out and gently takes hold of my hands, moving them to his lips and leaves a soft kiss on my knuckles, and presses my palm against his wet cheeks. “Please don’t leave. I need you. I’ll try harder, I’ll do anything you want, but please don’t give up on us- on me. I meant what I said on our wedding day- for better or worse.” His tears start running over my hard and I bring my other hand to his face too.  I pull him closer and move my head down at the same time and after a few seconds our lips connect in a soft kiss.

When we pull away from the kiss, our face still just a few inches apart, I look up and our eyes connect. “Okay.”, I whisper softly, nodding my head gently. The corners of his mouth turn up into a happy smile, the edge of his eyes crinkling slightly. “I love you so much”, is all he says before our lips connect yet again.

We pour all our emotion into the kiss, feeling everything together. He slowly starts standing up, moving his body closer to mine, and gently pulls me off the chair. The kiss starts getting more heated, my hand moving to run through he moves his hand to the back of my thighs and lifts me, my legs instinctively wrap around his waist. It doesn’t take long before Yoongi is moving towards the bedroom, carefully ascending the stairs in slow steps, never breaking our kiss.

Yoongi disconnects our lips to put me down so that I’m standing in our bedroom, he moves his hands to rest on my hips, looking down at me. “Is this alright?” he asks gently. I blush, looking down at the floor and the back up at him, the of irony of my husband asking if it’s alright to touch me is not lost on me, but Yoongi had always been like that and given the fact that we haven’t been intimate in months I could see his reasoning for asking. I smile up at him and nod my head, smiling back at me he leans down to plant a quick kiss to my lips before reaching for the hem of the t-shirt I was wearing, gently pulling it of of my body.

Before long we’re both completely undressed, hands roaming each others bodies while heatedly making out. Yoongi started gently pushing me backwards, moving slowly in till the back of my knees hit the edge of our bed, I fell onto the bed with a soft thud. I broke our kiss to move up the bed, Yoongi following after me. He plants himself between my spread legs, pressing himself against my sensitive core, wrapping his arms around my back, mine going around his neck, our lips connecting once again.

We sloppily make out for a few more minutes before him lips start moving down my neck, leaving a hickey here and there. After his sweet assult on my neck he moves down leaving wet kisses between the valley of my breasts. Moving to the side his lips wrap around my left nipple, suck it while gently grazing the bud with his teeth. My back arches of the bed, head thrown back while softly moaning out, my hand moving to tug at his hair. After giving the bud one last suck he pops off and moves to right breast, giving it the same attention. He moves further down the expanse of my body reaching my navel before moving down to my wanting core. 

His lips connect with my clit before his tongue licks a strip up from my slit up to the sensitive bud again. I moan out, my hands grabbing the sheets, my legs tightening around his head. He secures his hand around my legs keeping them open and continuing the delicious assault on my core. While keeping on arm secured around your left leg and moved his right hand down to press the tip of a finger against your slit, but not quite pressing it in yet, making your core clench around nothing. Rubbing his finger in circles, he then gently eases it. 

The foreign feeling of being filled with something again has you moaning loudly, thrashing around in Yoongi’s hold. With a groan he disconnects his mouth from you core, looking up at you with eyes full of lust.

“Shit baby, you’re so tight.”, he says with bewilderment, attaching his lips to your clit again, flicking his tongue in quick short strokes, determined to get you to your orgasm so he can make love to you. And his determination was paying off, you were right on the verge of cumming; hard. When he thrusts a second finger into your core, quickening the pace, while still flicking his tongue on your clit, you’re done for. Legs shaking, loud moans leaving your lips and your core clenching tightly around his fingers, your cumming.

For a few second your vision goes white and when you start coming down from your amazing orgasm your eyes connect with Yoongi, who has now moved to rest himself between your hips. He leaned down to kiss you again, the taste of you still lingering on his lips. He started grinding himself against your already sensitive core, groaning at the friction. Gasping, you disconnect from the kiss, looking up at Yoongi.

“Please, Yoongi.”, you beg. Not needing anymore convincing, Yoongi nods and kisses you. Reaching down he lines his throbbing cock up with your dripping core, gently easing himself into you. The two of you moan together at the euphoric feeling of him inside of you. He moves your hands to yours, lacing your fingers and moving your intertwined hands above your head, pressing them into the bed. Given the fact that you haven’t had sex for months, you weren’t used to Yoongi’s big size anymore, so he gives you time to adjust to the stretch.

When you press yourself closer to him, causing him to sink deeper into you, moaning you wiggle your hips. Yoongi takes this as his que yo start moving. He pull out in till only his tip is left and thrust forward forcefully, hips connecting with yours and brushing against your sensitive clit. You’re a moaning mess, second orgasm approaching rapidly. You can tell by the twitching of Yoongi’s cock, that he’s no far behind you. He starts thrusting deeper and harder, chasing the orgasm both of you so desperately crave.

Yoongi is kissing you again, swallowing all your moans, squeezing you hands tighter. After a three more deep thrusts you’re cumming around Yoongi’s cock with a scream, clenching him tightly. That’s all it takes, thrusting once more and pressing himself as deep as he can into you, he’s releasing into you. His warm release coating you walls, filling you, triggers another small orgasm to take over your body. Thrashing once again, with a vice grip around Yoongi’s cock, milking him dry. He moans at this, pressing his face into the crook of your neck.

After taking a minute to catch your breath, Yoongi lifts his head from your, connecting his eyes with yours for what feels like the thousandth time tonight, and gives you a soft, lingering kiss before whispering a soft, “I love you.”, against your lips.

Smiling, you give him a quick kiss and whisper back, just as softly, “I love you so much.”, resting your forehead against his. After another beat he pull out of you, both of you moaning at the feeling, and you suddenly feel empty, your walls clenching around nothing. Yoongi shifts to lay down next to you, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you closer. You sigh contently, breathing in the smell of your husband and closing your eyes. Exhausted from the nights activities, you planned on sleeping for hours in Yoongi’s arms.

“Together. Always.”, is the last thing you hear before drifting off n to a peaceful sleep. And for the first time in months, you felt well rested when you woke up, cuddled in with the love of your life.

[dragonseattofu]

Spaces Between My Fingers (NEO TWEWY fanfiction)

Summary: Neshiki NEO reunion. NEO TWEWY spoilers. Everyday for two years after Neku’s disappearance, Shiki sits behind Hachiko talking to what looks like herself, her hand securely in another that she can feel but can’t see. Warnings for depression and panic attacks. Check source content for Ao3 link.

Preview:

“Great work on the presentation Misaki-san!”

“Excellent job as always Misaki-san! Have a wonderful evening!”

“See you tomorrow!”

Shiki smiled and nodded at the outpouring of compliments from her staff as they filed out of the conference room. It was her last meeting of the day, and she was exhausted. Never in a million years could she have imagined being the youngest CEO of any clothing company, much less her own brand at the age of eighteen. But, being young didn’t make the responsibilities of a trending brand owner any less tiring. On the bright side, the remainder of the evening was all hers to spend at her own pace.

With that in mind, Shiki gathered her laptop and papers under her arm, turned off the lights and closed the door behind her. She retrieved her messenger bag from the coat rack in her office, pulled the keys from the front pocket, and said a habitual goodnight into the empty space before locking the office for the night.

The soft tapping of rubber on carpet filled the empty hallway on her way to the elevator, the sounds of mindess instrumental music soothed her tired nerves on her voyage down from the eight floor. Slow clicking of gears moving, and the opening the heavy metal doors woke her from her stupor, gesturing light apologies on her way out as more bodies piled into the elevator.

Fresh air filled her lungs as she finally reached the ground level, going westward toward the neighborhood coffee shop where she’s a regular, and the barista started mixing her drink before she could even fish out her wallet. Condensation on the side of the plastic cup collected at her fingertips, leaving a wet smudge on the door as she exited, her sneakered shoes guiding her in the direction of a statue, faithfully waiting for his master that will never come.

Shiki takes a seat behind Hachiko, and looks down at her watch. 19:01. She chuckles, she’s a minute late. She pops an earbud in her ear, and rests her right hand, palm up, on the side of the seat next to her, and waits. She takes another sip of her drink, licking her lips, savoring the overly sweet beverage on the verge of crystallization.

A couple walks by talking about dinner plans, and a group of female students discussing Prince’s recent social media posts pass by as well. A shiba stops in front of her, tilting its head to the side for a brief moment, almost as if he sees something that others can’t, before his owner tugs him along.

Her breath catches and she waits for a split second before she feels a slight shift in the wind around her, an even lighter pressure on her palm. She exhaled, relishing the feel of the spaces between her fingers filling, and she smiled.

“So, I had another productive meeting today....”

She speaks for about an hour into the wind about how her day went, what her last conversation with Eri was like, even about her new not inanimate pet, Mrs. Mew. From afar, most people think she’s talking to herself, those closer assume she’s on the phone. Little do they know that they are both wrong, but that hasn’t stopped her from coming to Hachiko everyday, and speaking into the void as if she’s carrying on a conversation with a long lost friend.

She’s not exactly sure when she started doing this, but it became her way of, well, grieving. After a couple months of blissful dating, getting to know one another outside the confines of a death game, she had sort of … fallen in love.

Only for that love to be suddenly ripped from her with nothing left but a note, from a not so helpful composer. The first couple of days were devastating, she didn’t leave her bed, she wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. The weeks thereafter weren’t much better. Eri, and Rhyme were constantly by her side, making sure she didn’t end up in the hospital for malnuritionment. Beat showed up soon after to smack some sense into her, mostly figuratively.

Beat slammed open her bedroom door, Eri and Rhyme trailing behind yelling at him to calm down. His usual sympathetic expression was replaced with one of impatience and frustration.

“Shiki, enough of this. Get up and go eat somethin’!”

An empty gaze was his only response. He growled, stomping into her room and ripped open the curtains, beams of sunlight showering her floor, her bed, her listless face. In the light he could see that she lost a significant amount of weight in such a short period of time. She was already lean before, now her face began to look sunken in from the starvation and constant darkness. Beat suddenly felt another overwhelming wave of emotion sweep over him.

“This is ridiculous, girl, ya can’t keep goin’ like this or you’ll…” He choked up; he didn’t complete his thought; he just couldn’t. Rhyme and Eri lunged forward to try and hold back the blonde as he grabbed Shiki by the front of her shirt, pulling their faces closer, glaring at her with an intensity he didn’t think he would ever use on her.

Her world shook as droplets fell onto Shiki’s glasses. She could feel Beat shaking from his grasp, his usually clear cerulean eyes were stormy, almost like the sky had broken. A lump formed in her throat. She forgot through her heartbreak that other people might also feel the same pain she was feeling. Sure, she was his first partner, but Beat was also his partner too.

For a tense moment nobody moved, Beat stared into Shiki’s eyes hoping to get his message across wordlessly, Eri and Rhyme holding onto Beat on both sides to restrain him. She had every right to grieve and her pain was more than he could ever imagine, but Beat needed her to know that she wasn’t alone, and that he was there for her, if she would let him. He couldn’t afford to lose her before he got the chance to save him.

Ever so slowly, Shiki moved her one hand over Beat’s. She grabbed a fistful of his jersey in her other hand. For that excruciating week, she went from feeling anxious and depressed to just numb. Now she felt relieved that there was someone else who understood this persistent gnawing ache in her chest. Brotherly simpleton Beat wasn’t being sympathetic to her heartache, but rather empathetic in her mourning.

Her face started to prickle, as the wells that had dried up started to free fall again. She moved to grab Beat, nestling her head into his chest and just … cried. He rested his large hand on her head and hugged her tightly, supporting each other in this moment of catharsis. They stayed like that until Shiki passed out again.

When she came too, Beat, Eri and Rhyme stayed with her that day to make sure she consumed something.

Sometime in the afternoon, Eri decided to attack Beat to get some measurements for a pants design. Big muscular Beat hiding behind tiny Rhyme who was doing little to nothing to protect her older brother from the teen designer wielding a measuring tape going too close for comfort to his ... particular body parts. Shiki graced them all with a smile none of them saw in days.

Big brother Beat decided to have all his meals with her that day forward. Eri said that she could handle this, and found him to be a nuisance, but he didn’t care. Slowly Shiki’s appetite and strength returned, more places ventured outward, even the whirling of her bobbins clicking could be heard throughout the house.

Everytime she had a relapse, a brief moment of chest-tightening, her breath catching, she’d reach out and Beat would be there, embracing her until the panic attack subsided.

With her good days and her bad days, Shiki decided to go back to school after taking a month of absence. Eri got her back into the sewing club, pelting her with designs to keep her busy. The distraction was helpful, almost becoming necessary.

Sometimes she’d go to the skate park, sitting on the bench watching Beat and Rhyme do ollies in front of a setting sun. She would sketch out pieces inspired by the skaters, a little black cat signature adorning each one. Rhyme uploaded some of her designs and completed outfits on a popular social media platform, and named it Gatto Nero with her permission. Sooner than later, Shiki had a following of over one thousand, then five, then over ten approaching twenty. It also helped that her best friend was an influencer and modeled everything Shiki made.

Before anyone knew it, Shiki was approached by the founder of Jupiter of the Monkey, who was impressed by her work, and offered her an intern position while she was still in school. With more tasks to keep her busy, everyday slipped by faster and faster, and the relapses became more infrequent.

A year had passed since his disappearance, and Shiki never really forgot, more so distracted herself with other things to keep her busy on a day like today. After classes, Shiki would go to her internship to work on a couple of assignments and with her last meeting with her supervisor over, she headed out to catch the train home.

She slowed her pace down when she passed the 104 building, mindlessly loitering near the window displays to check out the trends. The Scramble Crossing was busy as usual, and she found herself wandering closer and closer to the statue of Hachiko.

Shiki stared at the bronze canine, her mind drifting to the promise she made quite a long time ago. Realizing she wasn’t in a rush to go home anyway, she took a seat behind the statue.

“Well Neku,” she hesitated, having not uttered his name in almost a year, “it looks like I didn’t keep my promise to be here everyday waiting for you to come back.”

“I-I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner.” She could feel her anxiety bubble in her throat, like digging at a wound that had scabbed over and was threatening to bleed out again. Thinking of him was painful, but she realized then that they did have a lot of memories, wonderful, happy memories that she had forgotten in her grief. Memories that were hers to hold onto for as long as she wanted them. Shiki could feel her heartbeat slowing down, the tension in her body subsiding ever so slightly.

“I hope that you’re alright somewhere out there,” she said into the open space in front of her, “I-I miss you.”

Just then a slight touch graced her hands on her lap, but when she looked up, no one was there. The ticking of the crosswalk signs, the pattering of shoes on asphalt, and the shouts of last minute sales continued on as if time and sound hadn’t stopped for a moment. Not exactly sure what she was doing, Shiki raised her hand out in front of her, and a second later, she felt a resistance, an air of familiarity filling the spaces between her fingers effortlessly.

Shiki jumped up in surprise, her bag holding Mr. Mew clattering to the floor before whispering, “...Neku?”

An invisible thumb tapped the back of her hand lightly. She couldn’t hear him, she couldn’t see him, but she could feel him. He was probably in the UG, but for some reason, she could tell he was standing right in front of her.

She sobbed, “Is that really you ---?”

“Shiki! Why ya cryin’? What happened, yo?”

The connection was lost as Beat skated up to her, visibly concerned, looking for some clue as to why his best friend was crying in public. He pulled out a crumpled cloth handkerchief from his back pocket, a gift from Rhyme that came in handy more times than he thought it would.

Shiki continued to stare at the open space, trying to make sense of what had just happened, grasping for what she thought was remnants of a lost love, but the sensation was gone. Whatever was there, it wasn’t there anymore. Even if he was in the game, she shouldn’t have been able to touch anything in the UG. Her mind raced with different jumbled thoughts. What was that? How did that happen? Why now?

“Earth to Shiki!” Beat waved his hand in front of her, successfully snapping her out of her trance.

She looked at him, accepted the handkerchief and dried her tears. Whatever that was, talking about it would only land her another session at the doctor's office. She knew Beat would believe her, but after her long painful year of recovery that he had witnessed, she doubted he would be open to the thought of dredging that wound up again.

Shiki didn’t trust her words, so instead she reached over and hugged him. Without hesitation, Beat returned the gesture. When her sobs had subsided, he gently asked, “let’s bounce?”

In an overprotective brotherly way, he kept his arm around her shoulders after retrieving her bag from the floor.

“Yeah.”

The next morning, Shiki found the day dragging on. She was on autopilot at school, and her assignments at her internship were more clerical in nature, requiring very little brain power. Anything not immediately due would be tomorrow’s problem.

She rushed out of the office building, crossed the scramble and stopped in front of the metal statue. Shiki held her breath as she sat down exactly where she was yesterday. Her muscles tensed as she inhaled deeply.

“So I might be losing my mind, and everyone will think I’m crazy but if you are here, if-if you’re really still here, I’d want you to know that … I miss you Neku.”

For an agonising moment, nothing happened. She wasn’t really sure what she was hoping for. Was everything yesterday just her imagination? Was she just feeling sentimental and willed the tactile sensation into reality?

After a couple more minutes of fruitless imagination, Shiki was about to give up and leave when she felt something, no, someone, grab her hand. Frightened at the sudden contact, Shiki looked down to see that nothing was there, just the fortune lines on her open palm and her silver pinky ring. Yet someone was there, holding her hand in a way she hadn’t felt in so long. She smiled as her eyes began to water.

“It’s you isn’t it.” She said more confidently, though she felt nothing of the sort. A light tap on the back of her hand was her only affirmation.

“I have so many questions for you, but I’ll save them for when you get back. The only one I need to ask is w-will you be back?” She tentatively prodded the air metaphorically, hoping she hadn’t pressed her luck. Another light tap had her smiling once more.

“Beat’s going to kill you if you ever make it out of the UG. Rhyme’s not going to stop him. Eri hates your guts for leaving me.” She chuckled at that. She felt her hand move slightly, almost as if he sat down next to her. He brushed his unseen thumb over her knuckles.

A couple of people passing by looked at Shiki as if she wasn’t having a completely one sided conversation with herself in broad daylight. She honestly couldn’t care less. She rambled on about random things, hoping to catch him up on the entire year he had missed, only the good things because she wasn’t quite ready to talk about the bad ones. She would have continued well into the night if her phone hadn’t rang.

“Girl, why you don pick up ya phone? I’ve been tryin’ to reach ya for hours!” Beat shouted so loudly into her phone she had to remove it from her ear.

“Shiki, where are you?” the smaller girl gently inquired, seemingly having pulled her brother’s phone away from him before he crushed it, “he was about to call the police if you didn’t pick up.”

She could still feel their hands interlocked, but reluctantly replied, “I’m at Hachiko, Rhyme. Tell Beat I’ll text when I leave and get home.”

“Beat wait -- , nevermind he just left. We’ll come pick you up. Just stay there. See you soon!” The phone line clicked.

Shiki sighed, “Beat and Rhyme are coming to get me. It won’t be long before they show up.” She paused, wondering if she could ask what has been on her mind, if the fates were on her side today.

“I’ll promise to be here, everyday, waiting for you to get back to the RG. Until then, can you promise to meet me here, everyday, until I can see you again?” She knew this went against the rules of the game, but the game had dictated her happiness for long enough. If there was any chance of being with him, invisible or otherwise, she would take it.

Her hand moved again, this time their fingers separated, but not completely. His pinky finger wrapped around her silver ring, the same one she wore during the first game, and a new promise was made as they gently shook on it.

And then he was gone. Her hand tingled from the absence of his light touch. She thought she could see faint sparkles from where she presumed he had been sitting. When the Bito siblings found her shortly after, her dazed expression had them both worried, but then a genuine smile broke out on her face as she proposed they go have a light dinner before heading home. Rhyme and Beat looked at each other, communicating through their eyes that they had no idea what had happened, but were glad Shiki’s original spark had finally showed up all the same.

That had been two years ago, and everyday of those two years Shiki spent pretending to talk to someone on the phone instead of an apparition. Everyday for two years of updating his shadow on her daily life routine and not being able to ask him how his day went. This arrangement wasn’t perfect, but just knowing that he was alive, even if they were on separate planes, meant that there was hope she would see him again. Even as the weeks went to months, and months went to years, everyday, he would faithfully show up, and they would hold hands just to exist together behind the symbol of loyalty and patience.

“Tomorrow’s my big collaboration presentation to the executives of Jupiter. Eri and Rhyme are going to be there. We could honestly all use the distraction after what happened with Beat. Please look out for him in the UG? Times like this I really wonder what’s going on with the game now and how many people I have to lose to it before it’s satisfied…”

About two weeks ago, Beat magically disappeared. Shiki was going to his classroom to invite him to lunch with her and Eri when she saw a student in his class hand Beat a pin of some sort. They were trending for a while now, but they reminded Shiki too much of the game to want one for herself. Trauma, bad luck, she wasn’t really sure, but she wanted no part in it.

When the student handed it to Beat though, he vanished into thin air. She dropped her bento and unceremoniously ran into the classroom. Shiki demanded what just happened, when Beat’s classmate just looked at her, his eyes dilated for a second, returned back to normal, and looked surprised. She again pressed on for an answer, to which the student had no idea who or what she was talking about.

It was almost as if Beat’s entire existence was … erased. When she realized that she wasn’t getting anywhere, she ran to the first year classrooms and shouted for Rhyme. Shiki couldn’t imagine why this was happening again. She finally was able to talk to Neku again and now her pseudo brother, Beat, was missing.

Despite the inner turmoil she was feeling, Shiki had enough sense that day to ask Neku if he’d seen or heard from Beat. It was difficult to communicate when the only responses she got were taps on her hand but she managed to find out that Beat was indeed in the UG, even if Neku hadn’t seen him personally yet. Rhyme had a look in her eyes, almost as if she was looking beyond the plane of the RG and was preparing her next move. Rhyme said not to worry, she was going to track down her brother down one way or another.

For the past two weeks, Shiki had a few depressive relapses. Even though she had her coping mechanisms, her rock was gone. Rhyme was working on her military grade computer system to find Beat in the UG, and Eri helped keep her distracted with work. But it wasn’t the same. It helped that Neku was there for her everyday though, like today.

“Well that's all I have for now. Please keep on eye out for the skaterbrain, and wish me luck on my presentation,” she felt a tap on the back of her hand, “till tomorrow.”

As predicted, Shiki was a ball of nerves during her presentation, but she warmed up at least a quarter way through. It helped that she knew most of the execs from her internship days at Jupiter, and were impressed with her work. The collaboration looked promising for the coming days. Eri and Rhyme, both of her founding Gatto Nero board members, ushered her to leave for her date while they settled some details, promising to meet up with her afterward. She felt like she was on top of the world after that meeting, and was bouncing happily to the coffee shop to grab her customary celebratory drink before heading to Hachiko.

What she saw standing behind the statue made her drop her drink and had her flying across the scramble. She barreled into the boy, causing his headphones to fall into his hood. He took a step back to steady them both before bringing his arms around her.

“Hey Shik’s, did ya miss me tha much?” the blond boy flashed a mischievous grin.

“You idiot! I’m so mad at you! I’m going to sew your feet to the ground if you ever do that again!” Shiki screamed at him, throwing fists into his lean chest to demonstrate how mad she really wasn’t.

“Gah girl, when did ya get so strong?” Beat shrieked, trying to hug her again to stop her from hitting him.

“I missed ya too, now stop hittin’ me yo!” She pouted as she squeezed him tight. She had gotten so used to his hugs, she really missed them.

“I got a surprise fo ya.” He pulled away from her so she could see who was behind him.

She stopped breathing. It was like her lungs and heart decided to shut down at the same time, leaving her body to scramble on how to save the rest of her. Her hands tingled from the lack of oxygen as she stared at his face, the one that had matured, but never really changed after three years. He sported his boyish smile, not hidden behind a collar, the ones she admittedly had forgotten about but made her stomach flutter all the same.

“Hey Stalker.”

She could tell that he was nervous, the same nervous energy he had when they started dating years ago. Shiki had dreamed about what their reunion would be like, what she would do when it happened, what she imagined he would say. It wasn’t that, and she wanted to punch him for it if she could just MOVE.

But she felt paralyzed, and he was getting even more nervous from the silent treatment. There were a couple of people she didn’t recognize around them, but all she saw was Neku.

Growing impatient, Beat slapped Neku on the back so hard he fell forward, catching his balance before he could fall into Shiki. When he was close enough she reached out and grabbed his hand, with all the familiarity she had gotten used to for two years. Then he tenderly touched her face, wiping away her tears.

“I’m home.” He said gently.

She managed to mutter, “welcome home,” before he sealed his promise with a kiss she had been waiting too long to return.

OMAKE

“Phones get a room bro! We got kids ‘ere!”

“Yeah Neku-san get some!”

“We aren’t that much younger than you”

“I believe that I am older than all of you. And with that I bid you all farewell as I am in jeopardy of major spoilers. I must get the new EleStra DLC immediately!”

“Boss, wait, we got to celebrate our victory, come back!”

Notes: Full disclaimer, I haven’t finished TWEWY NEO yet, I’m starting the third week now. I’ve spoiled myself, so I sort of know what happens, but a lot of what I do know is out of context. So take this story as you will, it might not make a whole lot of sense, and might be completely off, but I’m excited that when I do finish the game, how my headcannons will have matched up! Or don’t!

That also being said, I starved myself from reading other fanfics on the Neshiki reunion because I didn’t want it to unintentionally change my headcannon and I also wanted to write without feeling like I was copying someone else’s ideas. If my story is similar to someone else’s, it’s purely because great minds think alike. An example of convergent evolution if you will. (I will be devouring those fics very soon though).

Notes regarding the story-wise: I like found family tropes, and I wanted to make it clear that Beat and Shiki’s relationship are purely brother/sister related if I haven’t already. If you have other shipping goggles on, have at it in this judgement free zone. This story was inspired by this idea I had of Shiki sitting behind Hachiko holding hands (I love hand holding. I wrote two other fanfics about that) with Neku, who is transparent being in the UG, just smiling at her while she talks about her day even though she can’t see him. The miracles of love and friendship traverse all planes right?

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk and I hope you enjoyed this Neshiki food I’ve haphazardly prepared in like 7 hours.

[contraststudies]

Thank you for tagging me, @tawnyontumblr​! I’m very bad at doing these writer meme things, so here goes nothing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

45 and counting!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

376,429. Holy moly that is a fuck ton of words (I only properly started posting on AO3 last May iirc).

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four: Critical Role, Good Omens, Hades, and Kill La Kill.

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

This list is bookended by two PWPs, which I find hilarious given that I seem to have misplaced my smut brain cell sometime in the last couple of months.

On The Matter of Traffic Violations (Good Omens, E)

“Officer Fell,” Crowley says, and leans forward, enough to give Fell a good view of his décolletage. He tilts his head in the way he knows people find deliciously coquettish, glad that he’d had the foresight to apply some mascara before heading out. “I’m so very sorry about this,” he says, looking up at the officer through his lashes. “It’s late, you know, no cars around… Didn’t notice how fast I was going, that’s all.”

[Or: Crowley flirts his way out of a traffic violation.]

Unbinding (Critical Role, T)

This is a great honor, Essek reminds himself, trying not to recoil as fingers run through his hair, working through the tangles. A braid is made of three strands, symbolizing the inextricable bond between the soul, the den, and the Luxon. A recognition of an achievement by the drow who bears it. With each braid, the soul is bound ever closer to its den and to the Luxon.

It is a lesson Essek learned long ago, but one he is never permitted to forget.

[Or: the story of why the Shadowhand wears his hair cropped short.]

No Church In The Wild (Good Omens, E)

The stem of the wineglass in Aziraphale’s hand snaps cleanly in two, but no one seems to hear it—every eye in the room is trained on the redheaded dancer sashaying to the gleaming silver pole, centre stage for all to see.

Oh, Aziraphale thinks faintly. Good lord.

[Or: the one where Aziraphale gets assigned to the red light district.]

abide gold with me (Critical Role, T)

“Okay, Cay-leb,” Jester says, stretching out the syllables affectionately. “You sit right here so we can watch you and Essek try an orange for the first time.”

The Primal Scene (Good Omens, E - a collab with @lookitsstevie​!)

Harriet notices that there’s a crack of light at the end of the hallway coming from the door to the library, and her mood brightens considerably. Perhaps the tutors are still here, putting together their lessons for the next day before they leave for the night. She leans down to pick up a piece of cloth that’s fallen on the rug. Her breath catches in her throat when she realizes what it is – a necktie with a familiar tartan pattern.

She nearly drops the tie in shock at the unmistakable sound coming from the closed door of the library. A sharp, quickly stifled moan.

[Or: Harriet Dowling accidentally bears witness to divine ecstasy.]

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try. I really do. My friends (and maybe some of my readers) know that this is difficult for me, mainly because any sort of recognition reduces me to a gibbering pile of tears. I’m working on it though, even if it does take me a million years to respond to anything on AO3. 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

God, which one do I choose. I have been referred to as an angst gremlin for a very good reason. I’m gonna go with The Remains of the Day, a Good Omens fairy tale AU I wrote loosely based on Bluebeard.  

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I HAVE. I wrote philtatos, a crossover of Good Omens and The Iliad/The Song of Achilles. It’s the only crossover I’ve ever written, unless we’re counting Variations of an Arrangement, which could loosely count as a crossover of the book/radio/TV versions of Good Omens.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I have not. And hopefully never will.

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do, and it’s usually of the angst with a happy ending variety.

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Hm. How do we define stealing? Just kidding. The short answer is no.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Got one in the works for Critical Role!

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes was actually the first ship I ever really got into, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart even if I never wrote anything for that fandom. Crowley/Aziraphale from Good Omens of course, and more recently Caleb Widogast/Essek Thelyss from Critical Role.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Variations of an Arrangement. I loved writing it, and I still want to finish it one day, but it took a lot of brainpower to write and keep track of the plot and I feel like it’s beyond me, at least right now.

15) What are your writing strengths?

I… hmm. Judging by the way people are always yelling at me in their comments, I guess it’s that I can write stories that make people feel things very deeply.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

I repeat words so often, it’s embarrassing. I use too many ���-ly” adverbs. Also, I find myself using the same turns of phrase across several fics lmao.

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Language is a tricky thing. I don’t want to bore you with discourse. I try not to write dialogue in a different language (especially if it’s not one I speak myself) unless it’s absolutely called for, or if they’re just basic phrases and I’m 100% certain I won’t be getting it wrong. I have read fics where this was done very well though, and I’ve found that it really adds to the atmosphere in those cases.

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

It was for this old anime called Princess Tutu. I danced ballet when I was younger and loved it so much – I believe I was only twelve at the time?? But I think the fic may still be floating around on FF.net somewhere.

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I wrote philtatos in a four-day fever dream. It’s not the most technically perfect fic I’ve ever written or anything like that, but I think it’s the one that reveals the most about who I am as a person. That is an incredibly cheesy thing to say, I know. I always joke that posting that fic felt like offering my still-beating heart on a silver platter to the void, but there you are.

For Critical Role, surprisingly enough it’s this ficlet I wrote called sinners, a small bite of Shadowdrei where I was parsing my ideas on Astrid and Eadwulf’s dynamic and where they stood when it came to Bren/Caleb and Essek. I didn’t realize how fully formed my thoughts were until I wrote that. Fascinating what your own writing will show you about the things that are in your mind.

Tagging with no pressure whatsoever: @naromoreau @jenanigans1207 @saretton @theseedsofdoom @musegnome!

[btssavedmylifeblr]

I forgot to send on my voting story. Ok so my brother and I both got mail in ballots, and let me tell you how we both forgot to mail it in so we just thought to bring them to our voting location. The lady there kinda yelled at us? She was confused and didn't know how to go about it. And honestly I just took it because we were the idiots who didn't mail in our ballots. We had to rip them up and they just us new ones to fill out in person and submit. Not exciting, but a story for void snippet. 👀

Anonymous said: Hi!! I'm so excited for void! I voted today around 30 minutes before the polls closed in my neighborhood because I had to wait for my dad and brother to get home from work since they wanted to go all together hehe. It was a pretty fast process! We just pressed buttons on screens (compared to last election where we had to bubble in everything by hand) plus, I got to keep the stylus that they gave us and it works on phones too! 🥰🥰 Thank you! I love your writing so much 💜💜💜

Anonymous said: I did mine through mail me and my husband did and we went to the post office a little while back and then he took us on a nice little date afterward and we got ice cream! Also I love void💖 keep up the good work

Anonymous said: VOTES FOR VOID??? I love democracy and I love VOID! So since May I've (temporarily) moved back home from New York to Indiana RE: covid; I've voted absentee for the both the primaries and presidential election (I'm still in IN rn...blah). I voted early and mailed in my ballot for the presidential election (about 3 weeks ago). Made sure my family was voting (brother mailed it in, mom dropped off a ballot, and dad did early voting) and encourage them to put up a Biden sign in our yard <3

Anonymous said: HI BEE! I ALSO VOTED TODAY! IM 21 SO THIS IS MY FIRST TIME VOTING FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (my 18th bday didnt make the cutoff since im a december bday) im so happy to have done my part! I made sure to study up on the judges and policies and everything! Luckily the polling place didn't have a line so i was able to get in, get my ballot, and fill it in right away! I even dragged my mom and cousin to come with me. I made a joke on snapchat to encourage my friends to vote too. It was a pic of my "i voted" sticker with a caption saying "omg youre so sexy when you vote aHaha" -🦙

Anonymous said: this is my first time doing this so, so i hope i’m sending this correctly! i voted early in late september by mail! i live in a swing state, so it’s really important for me to vote and not waste time!! bc of my age, this is my first time voting so i’m really nervous 😅

Anonymous said: I voted by email! I'm overseas so I wasn't sure if my ballot would actually make it through in time, so I decided to go electronically. Had to sign a waiver saying I understand that my vote won't be anonymous but I haven't been given a reason to suspect voter suppression/fraud in my state, so I'm happy I think...!

Anonymous said: hi, i voted early on oct 24th. my absentee ballot didn't come in, so i had to travel back home to vote (~3 hour drive). when we got there, there was a ton of people outside the polling place, but no lines, so i was in and out pretty quick. it was my first time voting, so i had all the candidates i was voting for written down on a tiny receipt so i wouldn't forget 😅. my mom was with me, so she voted too. took a pic with my sticker (mask on for extra covid-ness) and went home. drove back the next afternoon!

whippedforkook said: Hi Bee. 💕 I voted in early October - nearly a month ago! 😱 It’s been really weird with all the lead up to the election because it felt like it should have been done once I cast my ballot! A lot of my friends have volunteered to get out the vote: writing postcards to voters, texting, phone banking, working the polls, curing ballots. I didn’t volunteer at all this year, but I hope that all of my friends’ hard work and everyone else’s is enough. I’m also hoping and praying that I will be in a better place mentally for 2022 so that I too can volunteer. Our work starts with 2020 not ends. 💕 Wishing you well. 💕

begineuphoria said: I went and voted last Friday as it was our last early voting day. No way was I going to wait until today with the crowds of people in my area that still act as if masks are somehow infringing on their rights. 🙄 It was a rather normal experience for the most part. Other than having to use a coffee stir stick to press the buttons on the machine to vote. In and out within five minutes.

Anonymous said: I voted down the street at this pretty park this morning. I got up at 5:30 and it was freezing. Luckily I wore like 30 layers and stood outside for 2 hours. Some nasty orange man supporters were rude but everyone else was pretty nice. A really cute older couple was playing soccer with pine cones and kicked it towards me to play too. Not the worst time tbh.

Anonymous said: Did mail-in voting in California! Extremely exhausting and took forever to research all the propositions - they are notoriously tricky in hiding their flaws and one side tends to outrageously outspend the other. But in the end I felt really good about my research and decisions! No need for you to post a snippet for this story - would like to save that to read sometime in the future ;) Thank you so much for doing this!

joonsgotthejuice said: Votes for void??? I am here! I went last Thursday and it was chaotic bc I kept going past the poll place but the line was soooo long so my mom called me and woke me up like "its pouring rain and the line is super short get up I'm gonna pick you up" so thats the story of how I got dressed in 5 minutes and dragged my ass to vote in the rain <3

Anonymous said: i voted early on thursday it was cold and rainy but i went in the late afternoon and thankfully the only waiting i did was a few minutes for an elevator i got very lucky and while waiting for the results is awful the relief that came from voting in general was just great

Anonymous said: Wheeew the polls just closed and I finally got to cast my ballot yayyy ( I was the one working the polls from earlier) it’s been a really really long day and we actually had surprisingly good turnout. I saw a woman try to vote for someone else who claimed to be “helping” and I saw a woman who I’m pretty sure was on some typa something 👀 Overall though I really I’m really thankful for people like you who encouraged people to get out and vote. I hope the odds are in our favor❤️🤞🏼

chelsea-chee said: Hello Bee! Today surprisingly my elderly father wanted to vote so I brought him out with me. He only cared about voting for Biden, which meant I got to help decide who he should vote for with the rest of the candidates and amendments! Say hello to baby bee for me as well! 💖

Anonymous said: Okay I gonna got a chance to vote today and the process wasn’t that bad actually. I went in just now and it wasn’t that busy( thankfully) so no lines. I’m from Texas and it’s gonna be almost impossible to turn this state blue, but every vote counts! I love that you are getting people to vote and also sharing your experiences as well!

owl-orgy said: Dropped off my mail in ballot at a polling location! I originally wanted to vote early in person because I was worried my signature wouldn’t match closely enough but ended up just turning it in and double checked today to make it said “ballot accepted and counted”!

Anonymous said: I voted in person this afternoon, better late than never I guess. I was gonna go last week but then I got cramps from hell. There was no one in line in front of me, I think my county early voted because it was packed everyday the last few weeks

Anonymous said: I voted early a couple weeks ago. Exciting thing though that did happen was I got both my parents to vote for their first time ever.

Anonymous said: I had a mail in vote. So, I filled it out and dropped it in at the ballot box at my library. (I also checked out books for the first time in years, so I had fun!)

bubblyjiminnie said: I literally just finished voting. Lucky for me, the line and wait wasn’t very long, and it was a nice enough day that the short amount of time I had to spend in line outside of the building wasn’t too bad. My social anxiety when it comes to stuff like this tends to be high but that’s what I get for waiting until Election Day instead of going the mail in route. This was only my second time voting, but I’m glad that I did 😊

Anonymous said: I turned my ballot in last week :) I’m not a big fan of crowds and I hate make spur of the moment choices but despite that the first time I was able to vote back in 08 my Mom pressured me into voting in person because “you’d have to experience it at least once in our life”. And ever since then I comfortably vote by mail. I take my time, do all of my research, listen to music, and best of all don’t have to deal with people.

Anonymous said: here in Washington state it’s super easy to vote. I dropped my ballot off in mid-October and it’s already been accounted for! Mail in voting and drop box voting is fantastic and provides equal opportunity and access. Sad to see some people in red states misinforming Americans about it! We also have a referendum for implementing mandatory sex ed, including teaching respect, empathy and consent as part of the curriculum so I was happy to vote yes on that too!

unionrox006 said: I voted about 2 weeks ago by doing a mail in ballot. The other eligible to vote members of my household did the same. We chose to vote by absentee ballot because both my mom and I have an autoimmune disorder, so we have to be careful going out in the pandemic. Tbh, the ballot layout was a bit confusing at first as was all the paperwork and required IDs and documents. But my dad explained it to me and we got them filled out and mailed off. Kinda mad I didn't get a sticker for it though

bluetostone said: Love this and so excited for the next chp of void! I early voted a few weeks ago and because I live in a pretty rural county I was in and out of my polling place in a few minutes. No sticker though 😢. I live in a swing state so it could go either way in terms of delegates. Just praying everyone is safe tonight as the results roll in...though, won't we not know for sure for a couple of days or weeks?

Anonymous said: My mom, sister, and I received our early voting ballots a while ago and I took the longest to fill mine out because it was making me anxious :,( but I did return it before it was due. I checked our ballot statuses and mine and my moms were accepted but my sister’s said they hadn’t received hers back. Then she got another ballot so she filled that one out too and I took it yesterday 👍👍 I think she got two because she changed her address late so they sent two?

vixsynsblog said: Non-interesting voter story: I'm paranoid and live in a highly divided area, so I filed mail-in ASAP, mailed it a few days after cause neighbors are nosy and don't understand boundaries. Was able to track my ballot through my credit company, which was nice. Only thing I was missing was my sticker. Never got one✊😔. So I had to improvise and write it in pen on my disposable mask. I'm working all this week so if riots break out from either side, I'll be at work. Prayers for the safety of others🙏

______

Waaah!!! Thank you all for voting!! You are all my heroes. I am so grateful and proud of you. I’m sorry I ran out of time to respond to you individually. I’m going to drop two big scenes from Chapter 7 in gratitude (one of which will be familiar to my patrons and one won’t). I’m hopeful I will have the whole next chapter out very soon. Love you all!

Void spoilers below the cut.

When you wake up in the morning, there are still no signed HR forms in your messages. Had you been a fool to think they were interested? How much time does it take to decide such a thing? Perhaps just by putting the idea out there explicitly, it had lost all of its taboo appeal. 

There is a calendar reminder waiting for you: Today is chili pepper pollinating day. At least this gives you an excuse to talk to Hoseok. 

You find the science officer in the lab as always, sitting with his knee up against his chest. Hoseok doesn’t look well. He’s got dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey, um…” You shuffle your feet. Want to fuck me? No wait…“You don’t look good. Were you here all night?” you ask.

He blinks at you, bleary-eyed. “Um, was I? Yeah.. I suppose. Lost track of time.” He rubs his eyes, before looking you up and down, then casting his gaze back to the floor. 

All you want to do is ask about the forms. Or the meeting. Or what he thinks of you now. But you don’t. “I need to pollinate the chili peppers today.” Usually Hoseok is the person who assists with that. “But I can get one of the other guys to do it if you need the sleep.”

“No!” Hoseok lurches forward, standing up a bit to rapidly and needing to put his hand back on the bench to steady himself. “I mean, I’m fine.” 

You should disgaree with him. He is exhausted. But you’d like more time to talk to him. 

Pollinating the chili peppers is both time-sensitive and time-consuming, hence why it took two of you to get the job done. There were no insects on your ship to do the job for you and if they didn’t get pollinated, they wouldn’t bear any fruit. Your chili peppers were your favorite crop. Not only a vital source of Vitamin C, but all your food benefitted from having a bit of spice added to it. 

You and Hoseok head for the greenhouse together. The intital set-up gives you something to talk about in the beginning. Hoseok gathers the pollen from one flower onto a paintbrush, then hands it over to you to paint onto the stigmas of each little flower on the next plant in the line.

Slowly the conversation dries up as you fall into a silent rhythm. Other than just enjoying the chili peppers, you must admit that this was one of your favorite tasks on the ship because of the high likelihood that the two of you would brush hands peridically. Always gave you butterflies. But today he seems extra intent on keeping his distance from you. Was he disgusted by you now? His hands are trembling.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

His hand twitches so hard that a little rain of yellow pollen cascades onto the floor. He curses in frustration before turning to face you. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Um, yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“This, um, plan of yours…” he gestures to the vague tension in the air. “It doesn’t feel like you.”

“I’m trying to save the mission. That has always been my top priority.”

“Yeah, I’m still not clear on how this benefits the mission.”

“Yoongi said…” you start to say, but are cut off my Hoseok’s derisive snort. 

“Look, if you’re in love with Yoongi, just go date him, okay? Don’t feel obligated to include the rest of us out of pity.” 

You frown. “I’m not… I’m not in love with him. It’s just sex. Just biology.” 

“This isn’t you!” Hoseok argues back. “You hated the idea of anyone of us ever treating you that way. And now you just want all of us to… to… use you like that?”  He splutters out the end of the sentence.

“No one is using me! This is my plan! I’m in charge!”

He sighs. “Well, I can’t be a part of it. Excuse me.”

______

Taehyung finds you in the gym. It’s good to see him up and about, even if his arm is still in a sling. 

“Hey, so I need to talk to you about this, um, ape sex thing.” He fishes awkwardly into his pockets and pulls out his tablet.  Maybe Jimin was right. Is Taehyung going to be the first to take you up on your offer?

You pause your jog on the elliptical machine. You wish you weren’t so sweaty and gross for this conversation. Taehyung is such an intimidatingly attractive man with those strong eyebrows and that perfect skin. 

Taehyung opens up the tablet and flips to the form. It’s happening. He’s going to sign the form. Shit. Then what will you do? It’s one thing to say you want to have sex with your whole crew, but what if he’s hoping to go right now? You need a shower. 

Taehyung has really nice hands. Long strong fingers delicately navigating the touch screen. It seems totally improbable that a man this attractive would be into you, even if you were the only woman in the universe. It just adds to your suspicions that hormones are driving everyone crazy. Perhaps if you slept with him once, he’d lose all interest. 

He finds the form and then turns his gaze up to you, staring you down with those eyes. It’s a good thing that Taehyung rarely turns his full gaze on you, because it is almost too much to bear. Shit, is he just going to sign it? Is he waiting for you to give him some sort of signal?

“You can’t do this to Jimin,” he says.

“What?” Not what you were expecting. “Do what to Jimin?”

“This.” He gestures over the HR form. “Signing these forms with everyone. Having sex with everyone. You’re going to destroy Jimin.”

“Jimin’s the one who suggested this whole thing in the first place.” It’s a lie. You know its a lie. Or at least a gross exaggeration. But Jimin was the one who first brought up the idea of sharing. All for the benefit of the man in front of you now. 

“No way.” Taehyung scoffs, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. “No way was it Jimin’s idea that you sleep with the whole crew.” 

“Well…” You can’t bear his gaze anymore and look down at the floor. “He wanted me to sleep with you.”

That surprises Taehyung. He puts down the tablet. “What? Why would he want that?”

This is awkward. “He, um, thinks you’re in love with me.”

“What?” There is only surprise on Taehyung’s face. It’s actually a relief to see that Taehyung is just as shocked by that idea as you were. “Why does he think that?”

“I don’t know…” You feel kind of dumb now. Of course, Taehyung doesn’t feel that way about you. Look at him. “Cause you told him you were jealous. Cause you can’t stand to be in the same room as us…”

Taehyung bites his lip. “Oh, um, shit, sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

If Taehyung isn’t jealous of Jimin... 

“Taehyung…” He looks up, biting his lip. “What did you mean? Who are you jealous of?” 

Taehyung’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he reaches for his microphone and mutes it. Out of respect, you mute yours as well. He glances toward the camera in the corner of the room, then stands up and begins unzipping his jumpsuit. 

“Um…” You are distracted by the golden arms that peak from either side of the tank top as the zipper reaches his groin. “What are you doing?”

“Need something to block the camera.”

“We have towels,” you mutter.  But he’s already stripping out of his shirt. The musculature of his back ripples. He hangs the shirt off of the camera to block the rest of the room from view. 

“Yeah, but this way anyone watching will think we’re having sex.” His chest is just as attractive as his back and you flush at the sight of it. Mercifully, he zips back into his jumpsuit as he returns to his position in front of the exercise machine. 

“You want them to think we’re having sex?”

“Don’t you? It plays right into your whole save the mission with bonobo sex plan.”

“I suppose.” Though the plan was also supposed to be that there would be no more secrets between the crew. “What plan of yours does it play into?”

“The one where Jimin doesn’t realize I’m in love with him.”

“You’ve never tried to tell him?”

Taehyung laughs wryly and shakes his head. “How would that conversation go? Hey man, I know we’ve known each other for years and I’ve already seen you naked and that you just think of me as a friend, but I’m in love with you. I know that’s awkward but now you have to spend the next twelve years with me, knowing that I’m attracted to you when you don’t feel the same way.” Taehyung sighs. “Doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. If he doesn’t feel the same way, I’ve just ruined the friendship for nothing and then I don’t even have that.”

“Yeah… I get that.”  There’s something touching about realizing that Taehyung has been fighting the same battle as you for the last two years. 

“I couldn’t tell anyone before launch because what if they wouldn’t let me go then? You know?”

“Yeah, the director wasn’t big on sending anyone who might ‘complicate’ the mission.” The two of you share a sad knowing smile. 

“Yeah… And I thought it would be fine, you know? I like women too. I’d just date women until launch and no one would know. I wasn’t planning on falling in love with my roommate.”

“I don’t think any of us really knew what this would be like.”

“I knew it was going to be a problem. I should have pulled out…” 

Your mind flashes back to that moment of doubt when Hoseok talked you into still coming on the mission.

“But I couldn’t just let him go off into space without me. Even if he’d never feel the same way, at least he’d still be in my life.”

The emotion in Taehyung’s words makes your eyes begin to mist. “You really do love him.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung sighs again. “But he’s in love with you.”

“Well, he thinks he is.”

“What does that mean?”

“He only feels like that about me cause he thinks I’m the only option.”  You wonder if maybe he would feel differently if he knew about Taehyung’s feelings. 

Taehyung frowns and shakes his head. “You don’t give him enough credit.”

“Oh come on, you know him. How many women did he date while we were in training?”

“A few…” 

“And how many of them was he in love with before he found the next one?”  

Taehyung bites his lip. He can’t really argue with that. “So why are you with him then, if you don’t think it’s real?”

You shrug, rubbing your arm. “He wants me. It’s nice to feel wanted, I guess.”

“You know you could have that with any man on this ship right?”

You scoff. “They’re all suffering the same delusion. It’s only-available-vagina syndrome. I just want us all to fuck and get it out in the open. Maybe if we could get it out of our system, they would see I’m nothing special. And then we can get back to the mission.”

Taehyung eyes you up and down. “You don’t give yourself enough credit either.”

You shrug. “You wait and see. Jimin will get bored of me. They all will.”

The two of you both slump backwards in your seats, mulling over your shared woes.  Taehyung bends down and picks up the tablet again. “So what should I do with this?”

“Obivously, you don’t have to sign it. I should have realized that not everyone would be interested.”

“Jimin thinks I’m in love with you?”

“Yeah…”

“Is it okay if we let him think that for now? At least until I figure out how to tell him the truth?”

“Okay.”

Taehyung smiles and signs the bottom of the form, then sends it to you. Your phone lights up with a message. “Thank you,” he murmurs before he leaves. 

[captainmazzic]

Happy Halloween.

So it’s about time I gave a real fucking update instead of just dicking around being cagey about shit. I’ve mentioned a new project repeatedly. So let’s sit down and actually talk about it, friends. Pull up a chair, grab yourself some hot cocoa and strap in. Welcome to Sarc’s emotional roller coaster.

Bear with me. This is hard to talk about for so many reasons, but mostly because I’ve been belittled and ridiculed so many times in my life for liking “cringy” things or wanting to do things that other people think are stupid or childish. I hear the voice of my father telling me to “make something of my life” and “don’t squander your talents”, I hear the voice of my mother telling me I have “so much potential” and “one day I hope you get some ambition”, I hear the voice of my ex telling me to “stop wasting time with stupid shit” and “nobody is interested in failures”. I hear old teachers telling me honor roll students should go to college and study high-demand majors and anything else would be lazy and detrimental and won’t contribute anything worthwhile to society.

It’s the same shit that prevented me for a long time from posting art online. From posting writing online. From making ocs and showing them to other people. And now it’s preventing me from starting this project, and I’m so, so tired of it.

My biggest fear right now is that once I start talking about this project I’ll lose this tiny little community of people vaguely interested in my stuff that have somehow stuck around. External validation and sharing the things I love are my primary motivations with everything I do online, and while screaming into the void is all well and good, I need feedback and interaction and community. I need it so, so badly. I wouldn’t post jack shit – ever – if I didn’t need that, to be honest.

So anyway.

When the pandemic kicked into high gear earlier this year I got laid off for a few months. It gave me a lot of time to think about who I am and where I wanted to be in life, what mattered to me, what dreams I still had and which ones had fallen by the wayside.

Some of them are huge – once upon a time I was very religious. I went through seminary, got my minister’s certification, and was slated to be an associate pastor in a mega-church and rake in a six-figure income within 3 years. But I lost my faith and couldn’t stand the idea of being disingenuous.

And there was also a time when I received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university that would have spanned a 12-year program and resulted in me having several doctorates and masters degrees by the end of it, in the fields of geology, palaeontology, and cladistics. But the scholarship program that was supposed to sponsor me went bankrupt the very semester I was supposed to capitalize on it. I was still accepted into the school, but the $1.2 million price tag would have all been out of my own pocket. So obviously that didn’t happen.

Those were the “acceptable” dreams. Those were the ones that parents and teachers and the general outside world approved of and thought were worthy goals. But neither of them panned out, and all I have left are the cringy ones. Like homesteading and sustainable living (can’t start without land, can’t have land without money). Like making comic books and doing art commissions for a living (it has to be steady to support myself, and I’m far too slow an artist for things to be steady). And like… playing video games.

Ha.

What’s funny is I can already envision the eyerolls and hear the snorts of laughter. What kind of dream is that? Only a handful of famous youtubers and twitch celebrities play video games for a living, and breaking into a field like that is pretty much impossible unless you already have friends in famous places.

Yeah, but… it would be so much fun. Right?

It WOULD be fun. I don’t have to become a super popular celebrity for it to be fun, right?

I don’t have to make it my day job and rake in piles of cash for it to be fun, right?

… I don’t have to actually be successful for it to be fun… right?

… Right?

:/

… I love video games.

I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed so many times to win The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600. I’ve loved them ever since I played Mortal Kombat with my cousin in his basement with the sound down super low because it was ultra-violent and I would have been in so much trouble if mom caught me playing it. I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed to finish Strife and Hexen and Heretic without the computer crashing and rebooting to DOS. I’ve loved them ever since I had to cheat-code my way through Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II just to get past the first boss fight but then no-clipped through the wall and died anyway. I still love that game.

But I stopped playing video games for a very long time. I was intimidated out of them by an ex and a somewhat toxic friend group who were Real Gamers™. I was brought to LAN parties but not allowed to play, because I slowed down the team and didn’t know the controls. I was banned from commenting on other people’s moves or cheering people on because it was distracting and I could cost them a win. I was even kicked out of their online D&D campaigns because I couldn’t be serious enough or roleplay well enough for their standards. Even if I was playing a game on my own, I couldn’t play with anyone else in the house because I’d be ridiculed for dying a lot, or for going the wrong way, or for picking the wrong game because only certain games are “good” and most of the ones I wanted to play were “stupid” or “trash” or a “waste of time”.

That kind of thing sits with me for a very, very long time. I didn’t really play games at all for over a decade. Even after I ended up on the opposite side of the country, with a new circle of friends, I couldn’t bring myself to play much of anything.

And then I had an extended visit with a friend of mine, and he introduced me to an early version of a ridiculous little game called Minecraft. My friend was an avid gamer but also a very kind one. In the ten years before this, I had told myself that I just preferred to watch other people play games instead of playing them myself (a lie. I mean, I absolutely adore watching other people play, but I also want to play too lol), my friend saw through that and very gently encouraged me to take a stab at playing Minecraft myself. He moved his laptop over to me, and I played a whole ten minutes with him watching before my nerves failed me and I promptly died. But miraculously it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just a game. I might have cried in relief, I don’t remember.

After my visit I shelved playing video games for like another year, despite buying a whole mess of them because other friends online loved certain titles and wanted to talk about them with me. (I never played them, just bought them. I couldn’t even handle the thought of playing by myself in my own house). But for some reason I mentioned to my brother-in-law my old visit to my Minecraft-loving friend, and he just… up and bought the game for me. My brother-in-law is also an avid gamer with a lovely and patient disposition, and he suggested I just play in creative mode and build things to start. So I did that (behind a locked door in the RV that I lived in by myself, with the lights off and the sound down low) and Minecraft was my sole video game for another several years.

Then a couple years ago another friend of mine (hi Char) introduced me to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I fell in love. It sparked a renewed interest in video games that I thought I would never really have the opportunity to satisfy, because games were still intimidating.

Let me clarify: I… SUCK. At video games. I’m terrible at them. Learning controls is a nightmare and a tunicate evolving its own brain would learn faster than me. If I’m aiming, I can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I have the direction sense of a whirligig beetle on the back of a drunk pigeon. I die fast and I die often. I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Even less if we don’t count the ones I had to use cheat codes to get through. But none of that diminishes my love of experiencing them, and over this whole pandemic and quarantine thing I’ve had a lot of time to unpack and mull over my thoughts and feelings and passions about them.

… I moved my RV to a new spot literally the day before the lockdown in my state first initiated. Before this I was in a spot that had no internet other than what reception I could get on my phone, with severely limited bandwidth and patchy, unreliable service. The new spot has a steady wi-fi connection, and while upload speed is utter shit, downloading and streaming video are just this side of manageable. So I spent the first three months of the quarantine lockdown doing pretty much nothing other than watching Jacksepticeye, CrankGameplays, and Markiplier play video games on YouTube. (I honestly had no idea before this that people even did let’s plays. My internet access/speed has been shit for so long I’m totally out of the loop).

It… for fear of sounding utterly stupid yet again, it inspired me.

Like. These people really love what they’re doing. They just. Play video games and have fun with it, and I mean yeah they make money hand-over-fist doing it but the main thing is they HAVE FUN doing it. They have fun! Playing video games! In front of people! It’s wild. And the thing that REALLY got me was… they have feedback on it too. They have a COMMUNITY. They have people they can talk to about it. They have people that they can play games WITH, even, who don’t yell at them or tell them they suck every five minutes or tell them they can’t play with them because they’re worthless as teammates. They can fuck up in a game and their friends are laughing along with them on Discord instead of screaming at them to get it right or get out. They can play games by themselves in their house and then upload videos on the internet and then they can talk to other people about it! They have fun! It’s awesome! They have fun!!

I just. It meant so much to me. It meant so much to me to see these videos of these three, and then another dozen or so that I’ve followed since, play all these games and have such a good time and also be such a positive and kind and encouraging source of energy.

I know all of this is not exactly about video games specifically. It’s about coming to terms with how I’ve been treated as a person and as a friend, about how other people respect someone’s interests and passions, about how it’s okay to share your interests with other people and it’s okay to like things that other people might not care about or think are important.

And I’m so, so tired of not doing the things I love because I’m afraid of what other people will think.

So I, uh. I invested all of the stimulus money I had into a new rig and equipment like a camera, lighting, acoustic panels, all that shit. I dug out all the games I bought but never played, I made accounts on all the big gaming services like Steam and Itch.io and GoG, and I made a YouTube channel. And I’m going to be making my own let’s plays. And it will suck, and it will be cringy and awkward and badly done, and it won’t make me money or be a valid career option or be anything but another very expensive hobby, but it will be mine, and it will be something I can share with people and (hopefully) have fun with, and it will (hopefully) be an avenue for some of this positive social interaction I’m craving.

I know YouTube can be toxic and super negative and full of trolls and cancel culture fanatics and people just waiting to find something to tear you down for, but like. Come on, y’all. I’m posting this on tumblr dot com. Toxic is everywhere anyway. I just want to try, you know?

I just want to love video games again.

Someone famous that I look up to so, so much told me – without knowing that I was even listening, without even knowing that I even exist – that if I enjoy doing something, to just go for it. To just jump in and do it, and if it works then it works, and if it doesn’t, what have I actually lost?

And I’m lucky enough to have four whole offline friends that I’ve mentioned this idea to, and each of them has said encouraging things like I’d have a good voice and face and style for making let’s plays. I honestly don’t know how true that part is, but on my good days I believe them. And they also said that I should go for it, to just try.

So that’s… that’s what I’m doing, I guess. I just want to try.

I know it’s not Star Wars fanart. I know it’s not Star Wars fanfiction. I know it’s not Star Wars meta or essays or ranting about the Sith and the Jedi and the Force. I know it’s not what y’all want from me. And that’s utterly terrifying. I’m bracing myself to be alone on the internet again, because I know that when I dive headfirst into this thing, it’ll eat away into the time that I normally might be spending doing writing or art, and it’s going to be something no one else wants to see and no one signed up for. And that’s partly why it’s taken me so very, very long to get started.

The other part is more physical. Of course as soon as I decide that I’m going to put my face on a camera is when my entire face goes to shit. I’m currently waiting on a potential diagnosis for mouth cancer, while already dealing with a severe jaw infection that’s causing my teeth and gums to rot inside my mouth. They already took part of my jaw, I’m missing teeth, others are turning black, if I open my mouth even just a little it is so obvious and I look like a very, very literal zombie. I have never been more grateful that masks are socially acceptable. I have a series of twelve appointments scheduled to treat this shit now that I have dental and health insurance (goodbye paycheque), and I might qualify for reconstruction surgery too. But that doesn’t really help how I look right now.

So I just can’t bring myself to start this project just yet. I’ve been sitting on it for months now with all the other pieces in place, but I just. Can’t. Start. It’s driving me crazy, because I want to start so badly. I feel like I’m wasting time. I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time, because I haven’t even done anything else in the meantime. I haven’t done hardly any art or fanfic, nothing. My anxiety is spiking so high right now because I have all these expectations of myself, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been told that I could just start without a camera or wear a mask on screen, and I’ve actually done some recording doing exactly that, but I just… can’t seem to make anything I want to finalize.

It’s also frustrating because I have no way of uploading anything at home. I’ll have to go over to my partner’s house which is nearly an hour’s drive away in order to get internet good enough to upload videos, which means that upload schedules are going to be shiiiiiit and that’s also frustrating.

But. But. BUT. I want to do this.

I want to do this so badly. I want to share let’s plays and experience a love of video games with other people. I want to actually play games with other people too. I also just acquired a piano keyboard, and I want to play again on the regular because I miss it so much. I used to play piano for hours every single day, it’s so relaxing and fun, maybe I can post that too. Maybe I can post let’s draws or something, where I ask y’all what to draw and then make a video of me drawing it while bullshitting to the camera I don’t know it sounds like fun. Maybe I can post videos of my cooking because the shit I make seems to be everyone’s favourite thing on instagram, and maybe I can take my camera with me when I go to the ocean or hike up into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and film how beautiful everything is up there. Or maybe I can do none of that and just focus on one thing, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I just… I want to try. I just want to try.

I don’t know where any of this is going anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to messages, or opened up commissions. I’m sorry that this isn’t what y’all wanted. I’m still going to continue drawing and writing, I’m still going to be around, I’m not going anywhere, but I have no idea how prolific I’m going to be and I have no idea even when I’ll start uploading videos, to be honest. But I just. I’m just gonna try. It might still take me a while but I’m gonna try. Wish me luck. I love y’all.

[gffa]

Anyway, so I’m going to try to answer some asks and get back into a positive fandom space again by a) giving myself some breathing room and b) yelling about things I love again.

I wanted to answer these separately because each one of them is precious and wonderful, that you took the time to reach out and share parts of yourself and to be kind to another human, “thank you” seems like too little in response for such sweetness, but it’s meant with my entire heart--but I worried that it would be spending a little too much time navel-gazing.  I’ve done a lot of that over the past few days and it was necessary at the time and I feel better for it, but also it’s time to shake the cobwebs off, too. I’m sorry to anyone who’s had to go through something like this (whether depression or other mental health issues) or even has had to watch someone they wish they could help more, because that feeling of helplessness sucks a lot, too.  I always wish I had better words for times like this, having been on both sides of it. Talking helps.  We can’t solve each others’ problems, nor are we each others’ therapists, but knowing that there are others out there who have gone through similar things or who just feel for you when you do, that you’re connected to other people through kind messages on the internet, it’s been helping me a lot. The kind messages about the fic recs/meta are deeply flattering and honoring, I appreciate them more than you guys know.  But even more than that, I appreciate the kindness in reaching out to say something nice when you saw someone was upset and could use a reminder of that connection. I’ve been kind of here/kind of not here the last couple of days, I scroll through my dash, I’ve scheduled posts in the queue, I managed one or two original text posts, but I think I’m feeling on an upswing again.  Sometimes having things come to a head helps a lot to get moving along again, even if I feel like, “You made a whole series of posts about it, how dare you not take months and months to get better!  Obviously, you were never really depressed if you’re feeling better!” I say after months and months (ha ha, more like years and years) of trying to deal with these feelings.  (Bad brain chemistry sucks.) I wish I had more energy for you guys lately, I feel like there was this stretch of like six months to a year where I was totally in the zone and doing great and then fandom was shitty and I let it get to me and now I don’t know how to get it back out of my system, how to get back to a place of something good again. I think a lot comes back to how mad I am at fandom, that it feels like it’s ramped up in shittiness again lately, and so everything I can think to talk about comes out feeling salty and it’s fun to be salty in the moment, but when I write an entire series of salty posts, I actually start to feel kind of depressed, like this is all SW fandom is for me anymore?  Being mad all the time?  And that furthered my depression spiral, because it was one of the things I used to perk myself up with when IRL was being shitty. Then to have fic recs sort of sweep in and feel like they weren’t being useful in the way I’d tailored myself to (and, for the most part, really like my mindset towards them), it just sort of felt like the whole thing was rotten from top to bottom and I didn’t know how to go about making it better again. I don’t know if I have any more answers than I did a few days ago, but I do at least feel more on an even keel emotionally, I’m not holding myself back from screaming into the void or deleting all my toys and going home, and a lot of that is thanks to everyone who reached out and reminded me that there are so many good people in this fandom that I genuinely treasure. That positivity does have its place in fandom, even when it felt like negativity was constantly being rewarded/that I was contributing to that as well.  (As always, this isn’t about how anyone else chooses to do fandom, there are plenty of things to be angry about even in fandom spaces, I’m speaking on a personal experience level of how anger has truly poisoned me in the past and I don’t want that to ever happen again, I don’t want to lose years of my life or entire relationships to that anger again.) So, I’m going to try to get back to a positive mindset, not because negativity doesn’t have its place, but because it actually genuinely does feel a hell of a lot better and makes me feel less burnt out on everything and reminds me to get back up and keep going again, that this whole difficult journey in life is worth it, even if I’m just talking about Star Wars fandom right now. And, again, thank you to everyone who has sent a positive message, I’m trying to respond to all of them, but just know that even if I collapse before I get to them all, I read them and literally every single one of them was treasured.  Not a single one of them didn’t touch my heart.

[artificialqueens]

Tree House Kisses, Chapter 34 (Adorney) - Scorpio and Veronica

A/N: Click here for previous chapters. xoxo!

Chapter Summary: Adore turns 16. Courtney keeps reaching out.

Chapter 34: I Don’t Wanna Wait

Pearl tossed her bag across the basement floor, letting it fall as it may, momentarily pulling Willam’s attention away from his phone.

“Someone’s birthday is coming up,” Pearl sang, grinning at Adore as she quickly snatched the box of Cheez-Its from Trinity.

“Hey!”

Pearl flashed her a smile before shoving a handful of crackers into her mouth and then returning the box. She flopped onto the couch beside Adore and poked her in the side.

“So…birthday…ehhh?” she teased gently.

Adore gave her a small smile and nod; it felt like the millionth time she heard that line in the past couple days, and she was just about annoyed with it.

“Yeah! Are you excited? Bonnie make any plans?” Fame snapped her mirror closed, eyes lighting up in curiosity.

“Yeah, nothing too big. Angelica’s coming over and we’re gonna go out to eat. It’ll be nice.” Adore shrugged, playing with the loose thread on her jeans.

“Are we allowed to come or is it family only?” Trinity inquired, barely glancing up from her homework.

“If not, we’re gonna do something for her birthday anyway.” Violet shrugged, plopping down beside Trinity.

“Will it involve drugs and sex?” asked Willam.

“Do you know how to have fun any other kind of way?” Trinity rolled her eyes at Willam.

“I’m plenty fun!” Willam yelled, throwing an eraser at Trinity’s back.

“Ow, that hurt. You ass!” Trinity quickly scrambled to find the eraser to throw it back.

“Of course you guys are invited. Wouldn’t want to spend my birthday any other way,” Adore announced.

“So, we need to go shopping for a birthday outfit. I don’t have anything to wear,” Violet grabbed Trinity’s homework, copying the answers onto her own.

“Yeah, because it’ll be a shame if you didn’t look your best on Adore’s birthday,” Pearl joked.

“Exactly,” Violet replied with a smirk and a hair toss.

-

Courtney finished slicing tomatoes for the salad just as her mother strolled into the room. Thankfully, dinner tonight was just going to be the two of them, as Grandma Muriel was in San Diego visiting her cousins.

“Looks great, love!” Karen said, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

“Thanks. Do you want avocado?”

“Why not? I’ve been good today.”

Courtney chuckled. Only her mother would see something that grew on a tree in their backyard as an indulgence.

“So, how was school this week?” Karen asked, pulling their vegan enchiladas out of the oven.

“Alright.”

“Just alright?”

Courtney shrugged.

“Hey, isn’t it Dory’s birthday this weekend?”

“Uh...yeah.” Courtney set the salad bowls on the table and dropped into her seat, avoiding her mother’s curious gaze.

“Does she have anything exciting planned?”

“Um...I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure? So she’s not having a party?”

“I don’t-I don’t think so.” Courtney stuffed a forkful of salad into her mouth. She knew that she should have told her mom what was happening, but every part of her thought that it would’ve blown over by now.

“Well, maybe you want to plan something for her here? It’s been warm, so you can use the backyard-”

“She’s not talking to me, okay?!” Courtney finally met her mother’s eyes, and the concerned surprise made her feel even sicker than she already was. “She hasn’t talked to me since before school started. So...I don’t know if she’s having a party, and if she is, I wouldn’t be invited anyway, so…”

Karen paused, placing her fork down. She could see the misery on her daughter’s face and for a split second, guilt rose in her chest. How could Courtney be in a fight with her best friend of almost 10 years without her mother knowing?

“Are you okay, love? Do you want to talk about it?”

Courtney shook her head, tears collecting in her eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together as her vision blurred. She’d cried so much in the last month that she was shocked she had anything left. Arms suddenly wrapped around her shoulders, as her mom hugged her tightly.

-

Adore and the rest of the girls wandered through the mall, floating from store to store, trying to find the perfect outfit for her dinner.

Little miss fashionista, Violet, pulled Adore away from every store she’d normally find herself going into. No ripped jeans, frayed skirts or 80s band shirts. Violet had a vision; elegant grunge, elevated chola. At least Violet knew her style, unlike Fame, who pulled her into every store she’d normally only enter if a certain green-eyed blonde pouted and tugged her in.

Adore tried not to think about her too much. Actually, she’d done a pretty good job not thinking too much at all.

The hardest part was just trying to fill that void that she left in Adore’s-

“Ooo, look, look, look at this! So cute!” Fame’s squealing jolted Adore out of her thoughts, as she grabbed a bright pink, thinned strapped, shimmery crop top off the racks, putting it to her chest for the girls to look.

“Uh, I think it’s cute for you,” Adore tried to keep her dislike for the brightly colored top off her face.

“You don’t like it?” Fame pouted slightly, looking in a mirror.

“Come on, Fame. You know that the only time you’ll find something like that in Adore’s closet is if Courtney-“ Trinity stopped short, quickly realizing her slip up.

She could feel Adore’s big hazel eyes staring at her and Trinity gulped, avoiding her gaze. In a haste to change the subject she quickly grabbed a dark green top off a rack.

“I think this is more Adore’s style.” Trinity finally looked over at her blue-haired friend, “Don’t you think, Adore?”

-

Bonnie started to climb into her car when a petite figure came darting around the corner, hissing, “Wait!”

She looked up and saw Courtney, eyes fearful, hurrying over to her with a small, wrapped box.

“Hey sweetie, how are y-”

“I’m sure you know that she’s mad at me,” Courtney said flatly. “I don't want you to take away from her day, so, don't give it to her tonight. But...maybe tomorrow? I don't want her to think I forgot.” She handed over the package, chewing nervously on her bottom lip.

Bonnie raised an eyebrow, putting a hand on Courtney's shoulder.

“You sure, babe? You know she can’t stay mad at you. Why not give it to her tomorrow yourself?”

Courtney's eyes filled with tears. She didn’t have the heart to tell Bonnie how long it had already been. Or how wrong she was, about everything. She just nodded, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

“I’m sorry to put you in the middle, Bonnie.”

Bonnie tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear and smoothed it down, saying, “It’s okay, honey. And don't worry, alright? I'll give her the present first thing tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Bonnie leaned in and planted a kiss on Courtney’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon, hmm?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Courtney pulled away, turning and running back towards her house so that Bonnie didn’t see the tears spilling down her cheeks.

-

With dazed eyes, Adore watched herself in the reflection of Violet’s vanity. Everything was coming together nicely and her birthday had been going well so far.

She felt good about her birthday outfit considering the time and bickering it took for everyone to come to an agreement.

She liked the way the red tube top looked against her skin. Violet picked out the perfect faux leather pants that Adore thought flattered her shape nicely and she could wear with her favorite black laced ankle boots. Trinity had found the cutest oversized heart-shaped hoops and some black and red rhinestone bracelets in Claire’s to complete her outfit.

Adore had decided to get ready at Violet’s with the rest of the gang, with plans to meet her family at the restaurant.

Lately, she’d found herself becoming more dependent on the distraction of her friends to keep her mind off of Courtney. And today she needed that distraction more than ever.

Everything just seemed so off.

Her thoughts constantly wandered off, thinking about her bright green eyes and infectious laugh.

Courtney always made sure to be the first to tell Adore happy birthday; she’d stay over the night before so that when the clock struck 12, Courtney was always the first to do the honors.

The last three birthdays, Courtney had made a tradition of slinging Adore’s curtains open the minute the sun rose before climbing onto Adore’s bed, jumping around, sounding off with noisemakers and popping confetti all over her.

But this morning, Adore had slept in, not dragging herself out of bed until 12. As she scrolled through text messages, MySpace posts, and emails from family and friends wishing her a sweet sixteen she found herself bracing for Courtney’s usual grand entrance or call or text message or even some sappy post.

But it never happened.

And that was Courtney’s fault.

This all was, Adore had to remind herself, as she still craved for Courtney to call her, to sing her happy birthday or text her some sappy paragraph about growing old.

“I think it’ll be cute,” Pearl defended. She wanted to put a few braids in Adore’s hair and tease it, but Violet thought otherwise, wanting an updo and maybe giving Adore some bangs.

The two girls quarreled over Adore’s hairstyle as Fame took charge of her makeup.

“More glitter!” Willam ordered Fame.

“Willam! I know what I’m doing, give me some space.” Fame huffed, annoyed with Willam’s hovering.

Adore had hoped that the chaos of getting ready with them would keep her mind off Courtney, but she was wrong. Her eyes constantly found their way to her phone, waiting for the ring. Waiting for her phone to light up with Courtney’s number.

-

Walking into the restaurant, the gang followed the hostess towards the back where her mom and sister had already settled in. Adore’s face lit up when she saw that Adrian, who she was told wasn’t gonna be able to make it, stood from his seat. He rushed to her, wrapping her in a hug.

Adore laughed and squealed as she tried to squirm away from him. Mostly out of embarrassment, but with claims she didn’t wanna ruin her makeup.

“You’re just getting so big,” Adrian teased, “it’s right what they say ‘they grow up so fast.”

“Adore, you look so pretty,” Angelica complimented pulling her from Adrian into a tight hug. “I love these,” she commented on the earrings, “and your makeup looks incredible.”

“Thanks—“

“I picked out the earrings!” Trinity butted in.

“Yeah?” Angelica glanced at the girl.

“Yeah, they were on sale for five dollars.”

“I did her makeup,” Fame cut in, proud of her work.

“And I helped!” Willam reminded.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I said more glitter! Without me, the look would be trash.”

The clicking and flashing of the camera quickly stopped the bickering between the two as they posed for Bonnie.

“This is my good side.” Willam smiled as he shoved Pearl out the way, squeezing next to Violet.

“Hey!” Pearl shoved Willam back.

“The pretty ones need to be next to each other,” he gestured to himself, Violet and Fame. “Stand next to Trin.”

“How do you deal with them?” Angelica joked.

Adore shrugged “They’re fucking cool. Plus they always have my back.”

After a few more poses, Bonnie sat the camera down pulling Adore into an embrace.

“Oh, look at you, my little baby,” Bonnie cooed, leaving kisses on either side of Adore’s face. “Sixteen, sixteen years I’ve been blessed.”

Adore’s face was red with embarrassment but, her smile was bright, thinking about how lucky she was to be so very loved by her mother.

All month, Bonnie had been in a slight state of disbelief that her baby girl was nearly an adult. She was two years away from an empty nest, and was apparently facing her own mortality. Even though Adore’s height had surpassed her mother’s by the time she was fourteen, it hadn’t stopped Bonnie from treating her like anything other than her baby.

The days leading to Adore’s birthday, Bonnie had rambled on about all the missed days that she spent working and how she was should take a couple of days off to spend with Adore while she still could.

Just yesterday, her mother had climbed into her bed early in the morning, before she left for her shift. The two reminisced on the past and how fast time had flown. They talked about things like, was her favorite color still blue, favorite food still tacos. The type of music she was into now, celebrity crushes. She asked how the new school year has been going so far, and if Adore had any plans to keep the vibrant blue in her hair or change it. She even asked about Courtney, how she had been, where she’s been. Adore bristled and quickly dismissed the question. When Bonnie didn’t push, she was thankful.  

Adore was led to her seat, golden balloons in shapes of the number one and six tied to either side of her chair. There was a glittery gold ‘Happy Birthday’ sash on the back of the chair, which Violet helped her into, not wanting Adore to ruin her hair.

The waiter came to get everyone’s drink orders, and soon the table was engaged in a lively conversation.

Until.

“So, where’s Courtney?” Angelica asked, head cocked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Uh...”

The table suddenly came to an incredibly loud hush.

Adore’s stomach churned, her mouth suddenly dry. What the fuck were the only words going through her mind.

She had been doing so good. She’d nearly forgotten the lack of Courtney’s presence.; she was actually having fun and for once not thinking about her estranged best friend.

Or thinking about how much she couldn’t stand her. And how much Courtney had hurt her. How much she missed her.

“I’m not sure,” Adore shrugged.

Angelica’s brows furrowed deeper, ignoring the stop signal from her younger brother and the stricken faces from the others.

“What do ya mean? Courtney’s never missed a birthday. And I think your sweet sixteen is a pretty big one. What’s going on?” Angelica pushed.

As long as Angelica could remember, the two were inseparable. Never went longer than a day without talking. Courtney even came along on a couple of family trips, because the girls couldn’t stand to be apart. So, the idea that Courtney Jenek was not here on a big day like this was mind-blowing.

An assortment of reactions went around the table. Adrian buried his face in his hands, second-hand embarrassment too much for him to handle.

Fame nervously gulped down half a glass of water while Willam crunched loudly on ice cubes.

“Uh, does everyone know what they’re getting?” Bonnie spoke up.

“The Cajun chicken pasta looks good,” Violet commented quickly.

“Yeah, I’m probably just gonna get the tenders and fries,” Trinity added, trying to help ease the tension.

Adore stared down at her menu. Blinking to keep the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She jumped as she felt Pearl’s hand rest on top of hers under the table.

“Wait, is she planning to pop out in a cake or something? Because I’d like to see that!” Angelica chuckled.

“I don’t know, don’t really care,” Adore finally spoke up. She didn’t mean for the words to come out as harsh as they did. But fuck it, she thought as she reached for her pink lemonade.

She didn’t want to think about what Courtney could be doing on her birthday. She deserved one day that didn’t revolve around thoughts of Courtney.

“Are you guys ready to order?” The waiter appeared pad in hand.

“Saved by the otter,” Willam mumbled loud enough for the table to hear, enticing awkward chuckles from the group as the waiter smiled in confusion.

-

Adore’s hands covered her face as the restaurant employees made their way out of the kitchen, cake in hand, drawing attention with their loud rendition of Happy Birthday, her friends and family singing along poorly making it so much worse. Even some of the other restaurant-goers decided to join in song, everyone turning to see.

Violet and Pearl sat on either side of her, trying to pry her hands away from her face.

“Adore, come on, let me get a photo!” Bonnie reached over, swatting Adore’s hands away to get a good picture of her daughter.  

Face red and buried in her hands, she had no plans to look up until all of this was over. But even with the embarrassment, she was experiencing at the moment, her heart was filled with delight at the show her friends and family were making over her.

Adore could feel the warmth of the candles as the song came to an end.

“Come on, Adore. Blow out the candles and make a wish!” Bonnie encouraged.

Adore removed her hands, taking in the smiling faces of everyone around the table.

“Make a wish! We wanna eat cake, not wax,” Willam teased.

Adore closed her eyes and wished the only thing she could think of.

To go back in time, so that things could be different and that Courtney would be here with her. As the table erupted into cheers, she opened her eyes and smiled, doing her best not to look as devastated as she felt inside.

-

Adore entered the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

“I really hope you’re not planning to judge me, because I’m having cake for breakfast whether you like it or not,” she announced.

Bonnie laughed and pulled a Tupperware with the leftover cake from the fridge.

“Anything you want, monkey. Still your birthday week!”

“Awesome,” Adore said, grabbing a fork and sitting down at the table.

“Oh, and, um...here, there's a present I forgot about yesterday.”

Adore’s eyes lit up as she snatched the gift from her mom's hands and unwrapped it greedily.

“Thanks, ma! Who wrapped it though? This is way nicer than how you normally-” she stopped short when she opened the box and glanced at the handwriting on the card.

As much as she’d been hoping to hear from her, desperately wishing things were different, seeing it was overwhelming. And of course, the card was inside the box. If the card was on the outside, Adore wasn’t sure she’d have opened it. But now it was too late, and she had a card in her hand, and sitting atop a cushion of velvet, a choker—the band was black leather, decorated with little cut-outs to make it look like lace, and dangling from the center was a beautiful, shiny Onyx star.

Hey Dory, It’s so crazy to be anywhere except with you today. But I know you’re still mad, and it’s your birthday, after all, so I guess I can give you a small break from relentlessly hounding you. But I ordered this 3 months ago and it seemed stupid not to give it to you. It's still your birthday, right? And even though I’m not your favorite person right now...well, you’re still mine. So Happy Birthday. I hope it was great. I love you. Always, C

Adore stuffed the note and the choker back into the box, furious with both Courtney and herself. It was, of course, fucking perfect. Something that, had she seen it in the store, she would have coveted immediately. Which made it even worse. And that note? Ugh.

-

Courtney couldn’t say that she was surprised, when she didn’t hear from Adore after her birthday. She was disappointed, though. A week later, she looked up from her history book to peer out the window. She’d been antsy all evening, waiting for Adore’s bedroom light to go on, and now, seeing it, she marched out her back door and through their backyards, tears stinging her eyes. This had gone on long enough. She was not about to let another week go by without her best friend. Adore could be mad, didn’t have to want her romantically, fine, but she was not allowed to cast her aside like she didn’t matter.

She rang the doorbell at the Delano’s back steps, hugging herself. Of course she’d gone stumbling blindly into the Autumn night without a sweatshirt.

“Adore! I see your light, open up!”

She waited and waited. Rang the doorbell again.

“Dory, please, come on!”

She waited some more. No answer. This again.

She began to pound on the door, trying not to cry, calling out, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

Silence.

Tears began to leak from her eyes. She banged harder, so hard her fist hurt.

“YOU’RE BEING RIDICULOUS! ADOOOOORE!!! FUCK!!”

Still nothing.

Throat now raw from screaming, she continued, “IT’S FREEZING OUT HERE! ADORE!! OPEN UP!!”

-

Bonnie sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes, irritated. What the fuck was going on outside her home? She’d gotten off a 24-hour shift at the hospital mere hours earlier, and she was simply trying to get some much-deserved rest. She let out an aggravated sigh and rose from the bed, tying a bathrobe around herself and padding across the hall to her daughter’s room, where she knocked on the door.

“Uh, hello?”

“Yeees?” came the sugary sweet voice from the other side of the door.

“Adore, why the hell is Courtney Jenek throwing a temper tantrum outside our back door?”

“No idea, why don’t you ask her?”

“Adore...you’re really grinding on my last nerve here…I had a long day and I’m trying to fucking sleep.”

“I have. No. Idea. And I have no desire to find out. So you’re welcome to tell her to fuck off.”

Bonnie sighed and padded down the stairs, shaking her head. She opened the door, saying, “Alright, kiddo, you know I love you, but it’s time to go home…Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Courtney stopped, lowering her hand, eyes red and puffy, tears streaming down her face.

“I’m...I’m sorry, Bonnie. I was just...I’m so sorry.” Her face crumbled and she let out a wrenching sob.

Bonnie looked at her, a picture of abject despair. What the fuck was going on? She sighed, pulling her in for a hug.

“Oh, honey, come here…” She smoothed her hair down, rocking her.

“Why does she h-hate me?” Courtney wept against her chest.

“She doesn’t hate you. Is this the same fight? I’m sure she’ll get over it soon. You know she loves you.”

Courtney nodded, sniffling, wishing with all of her heart that Bonnie was right.

“Okay. Thanks. I’m really sorry.” She pulled away, taking a shaky breath, and then pausing and saying, “Bonnie?”

“Yes?” Bonnie opened the door back up a little.

Courtney looked up at her, shivering, green eyes full of anguish. “Please tell her I miss her.”

“Sure, baby. Goodnight.” Bonnie smiled, touching her cheek gently before closing the door. Jesus Christ. She climbed the stairs and stopped at Adore’s room again, hesitating before knocking.

“What?” came the sharp voice from inside.

Bonnie sighed. “She seems pretty miserable, Adore. I don’t know what she did to piss you off, but maybe you could cut her some slack.”

Adore wrenched open the door, saying, “That’s right, you don’t know. I thought you said you needed to sleep.”

“Honey, I-”

“So why don’t you go to sleep and stay out of my fucking business?” She slammed the door in Bonnie’s face.

Bonnie stood there for a moment before shaking her head and walking back across the hall to her own bedroom, shaking her head, muttering, “Hormonal little cunt.”

[rubbrfrk9]

HYPNAGOGIA: A Rubberborn story

Shiny black rubber face.

Shiny black rubber hands.  

In the dream: they grow from the shadows.  They clump against the walls and seethe in the corners.  I know in my rational brain that these are simply the places the light can’t go through, the trunks and limbs and branches of the trees outside my windows, whipping frenziedly back & forth in the wind of a nor’easter.  I know that the long black void cast by the slightly-ajar bedroom door is a natural phenomenon, and that the reason it moves slightly back & forth is the intense wind, sneaking through every minute crack of the house that it can find.  

The only light in the room is from the streetlights, outside.  I need a little bit of light to sleep - the absolute dark, well, that’s obvious, isn’t it, what it does to me - 

And I see it, sometimes, even if it isn’t happening, and it fills my head with such a buzzing, squirrelly fear that I can’t focus on anything else - the horrible, evil lift of the black-faced figures from the pooling shadows, their slow, inexorable creep towards my beside - 

Feel their creeping invasion, their glossy, shiny hands on my shoulder - 

I scream, and my partner screams, and we both jump back to our own sides of the bed.  His face is crawling with the crossing, un-crossing shadows of the trees - but also alarm, concern.  “Honey,” he draggles out of his sleep-churned mouth - “Are you okay?  What’s the matter?”

“Dreams,” I say, and pull the sheets up to my chin.  “Just dreams.”

“Just dreams,” mutters my partner, already having loosed himself down the slide of unconsciousness.  

“Yeah,” I repeat, eyes as flung-open as shutters in a hurricane.

Outside, the nor’easter competes for attention with the frantic skirl of an ambulance, or a fire truck, or a police car - I can’t tell which.  It rises and falls, like a giant with breathing difficulties, lowering itself at our windows.  The glass rattles in the frames.  

It’s an old house.

Sometimes I feel like it’s probably haunted.  I mean, you can’t have a house that’s this old and not have at least one ghost.  Too many past inhabitants not to have at least one snarl of psychic energy, somewhere - probably the basement, or the attic - in any case, neither place me or my partner have ever had to enter in our two years of living here.

Come to think of it, the trouble with my dreams - with the shadows - only started about a month ago, right around the time I came on the rubbrfrk9 tumblr for the first time.

I guess it makes sense that encountering a new fetish would spike some kind of interruption in the normal dreaming habits of a person.  I’d never really given it much of a thought, rubber - but something about these pictures, man, they grabbed me, they arrested me, they grabbed me by the chin and made me stare into their endlessness.

It was a dude - single from what I could tell - who lived somewhere in the city.  In the background of his pictures, I could see familiar skylines - skyscrapers, even - so I knew that he was local.  But in a city of this magnitude, that’s still a near unspannable distance.  So I followed the tumblr, I lurked, I scrolled every picture he’d ever posted.

In every single one, he was wearing a full, head to toe, shiny black rubber suit.  In some pictures, he had on other clothing to accent it - but in every shot, the rubber was what stood out.  And it wasn’t just shots in his apartment, in his bedroom, in the bathroom, in the shower even - it was out and about, on the streets, in broad daylight, or in parks at night time.  The night shots, I’ll admit, were my favorite - his shiny, depthless black superimposed on the night’s sallow dark - he was more night than the sky was, at least in the city.  

There was, however, a problem, in that my partner was incredibly vanilla.  He allowed for my endless fetish-related scrolling on tumblr, even had tried to get enthusiastic about my various paraphilia, but to no avail.  We had sex, and we had great sex, but something about “just sex” never got me to the edge where I could truly feel liberation from my libido’s constant demand.  I didn’t know how to explain to him my new-found obsession, and thus, found myself keeping it secret from him, like a Catholic with a sin - and just as suffused with guilt.

But still, rubbrfrk9 had awakened something inside of me.  Something dark, something shiny, and something mute.  It gave me a boner like nothing ever had before, and I yearned to be encased, too, like he was in every one of his pictures.  I yearned to be side-by-side with him, maybe even be rubbrfrk10, if that’s how it all was to go down - 

But no!  I had to restrain myself from these kinds of fantasies.  I had a stable, loving life with my partner, and we both had dayjobs, and our parents even knew each other now - 

It was just one of those things that would have to be relegated to roleplay.

I did take one step - I went on eBay, and I got one of those old-school gas masks.  The ones you see in the films about World War II, with the long rubber trunk and canister.  I paid for it, and eagerly watched, day by day, as it inched closer to me.

The day it arrived, I put it on immediately, as my partner was still at work and wouldn’t be home for hours.  I stared into the mirror at my blank face, my eyes obscured by the filmy glass of the eyepieces.  I could tell from the quality that it was a replica - no one in their right mind would actually use it to filter gas out of the air - but still, somehow, the rubber of the mask felt so good, fitting so closely against the skin of my scalp and my cheeks, under my chin and tight against my forehead.  

I don’t know how long I stared at myself in the mirror, standing there with my mouth hanging open inside the mask, breathing in and breathing out, hearing it hollowly, distantly, in my ears.

Shame was what woke me out of it.  Shame and fear and regret.  I stripped it off of my face (not without some longing, some lingering, foreign despair) and bundled it into a place under the bed, to hopefully be forgotten about.  I’d gotten it out of my system now, right?  

Wrong.

This is when the dreams started.  The goopy, inky shadows, stretching out their hands for me.  Whispering, even though stoically mute in their fluid motions towards the bed - these were not zombies, these were not monsters … if anything, they were alien creatures, glistening in the streetlights beneath my windowsill, inching towards the bed - 

I yell, and it wakes up my partner again, who is this time less supportive, and more irritated.  “Honey, take a pill, wouldja?  Or drink some water milk … I dunno, just … sleeping good…”  He trailed off, and pulled the sheets up around his chin, turned off, and snorted his way back into comfortable sleep.

I’ve drifted off again into the dream.  It seems like, every time I dream lately, it picks up where it left off - the alien faces, the shiny rubber hands, they are even closer to being able to reach me.  I can see the reflection of the light on my pale, white skin, in such contrast to theirs - oh god, oh god - am I reaching out to them?  To them, as they get ever closer?  Am I helping them narrow the gap?

This time, I don’t yell, but I jerk awake in the darkness, teeth chattering even though the heat is thick and filling the room.

A trailing waft of rubber-smell tickles my nostrils, and I sneeze, violently.

Part of me is afraid to turn on the light.  

The other knows I must.  

When my trembling hand reaches over to the switch, it flicks it fast and withdraws back to my body as quickly as a mouse to its wall-hole.  I almost want to comfort it with murmurs and words of solace, but I too am suddenly brought to a shudder when I realize that the ill-purchased gas mask is sitting on the bedspread, between my knees, staring at me with its blank, glassine eyes, almost accusing.  

Of course it isn’t there.  It’s still beneath the bed.  

I quietly roll out of bed and crouch by the side, jamming my hand into the jumble of clothes, boxes, and other things beneath - yes, I can confirm that it is in fact still where I wedged it.  Not on top of the bed, staring at me.

I’m hard as a rock in my basketball shorts.  The skin of my face is prickling, almost like I’m having an allergic reaction to something - little, millimeters-big needles sinking into my flesh.  It’s pre-occupying, but not intensely irritating.  Just feels kind of peculiar, a little rippling wave of heat.  I should go to the bathroom and splash some water on my face.  I am probably just overheated from the dream.

The dream!  Can it be, in fact, that I’m still dreaming?  Will I walk down the hallway to the bathroom only to find that shadows bubble out of the faucet, like in every horror movie ever?  I’m feeling oblique, fuzzy waves of doubt and vertigo - in the thick of the night, like this, with the wind howling its head off down the street, it’s easy to become slightly unhinged.  The rain taps and staccatoes its way along the windowpane - one salvo followed by another, like empty bullet shells from an automatic weapon hitting the asphalt.  

In the bathroom, it’s a little quieter.  The light is harsh, anodyne - I keep meaning to get a softer bulb.  It makes my face look even more pale than it is - a ghast stands before me, one eye half-lidded, the other wide open - I look like I’ve gone a couple of rounds in a boxing ring.  My hair sticks up on one side of my head, where it’s mashed flat on the other.  

I bend over to splash some cooling water on my face, and it leaves me feeling strangely aroused.  My belly sort of drops as I feel the cooling patter of the drops hitting my face - much like, I imagine - the windows of the building outside.  

I feel that intense vertigo again, my eyes closed, leaning over the sink, wobbly a bit more than I’d like, when I feel the rumble in my gut tell me it’s time to take a seat on the toilet for a minute or two.

Somehow, I have my phone in my hand, and before I know it, I’m straddling the toilet and scrolling my tumblr feed, instantly navigating to the magnifying glass, searching: 

rubbrfrk9, I type in, and feel a long line of drool suddenly separate itself from the corner of my mouth and splat on the tiles below.  My screen is instantly filled with the calming influence of rubber - black on black on black, shiny rubber hands and shiny rubber faces.  

The sink, the pipes, make a bad metallic gurgle, as though clearing their throat, and in that sound I can hear voices - distorted, but voices, and they are saying

All hail the Rubbered One

And I’m up in a frenzy, pulling my shorts up around my waist, panic striking at my spinal cord.  “Who said that?”  I say out loud.  I grab a fingerful of skin in between two fingers and pinch, HARD, to make sure I’m not still dreaming.

Pain riots through me, blood surges up to fill the injured area, turns my skin blotchy and red.  Nope, not dreaming.

And then my eyes wander back down to the phone in my hand.  It’s still bright and alert, still filled with images from the tumblr.  

Has it moved?

No, that’s impossible.  

Perhaps it’s a .gif, or one of those Boomerang photos.

But no, nothing to mark it as such.

This is the one of rubbrfrk9 outside, in some kind of wooded area.  Maybe even in the park near to my house.  It could be.   He is head-to-toe in his blanked-out black rubber suit, even wearing black, 14-eye Dr Marten boots.  Every last bit of him is obscured.  He could be someone’s silhouette, rather than an actual person himself.

I can feel my cock start to leak precum at the thought.  I feel it dribble down my thigh and join my drool on the tiles.  

All hail the Rubbered One, I hear again, but this time, I hear it in my own head.

The drone - for that’s what it is, a rubber drone, rubbrfrk9, according to the watermark on the picture - is slowly, ever so slowly, turning his rubbered head towards me on the small surface of my phone.

I should scream again, but my mouth is clamped shut.  It’s just a dream, I tell myself, feverishly.  Any second now, I’ll wake up and my partner will be scolding me, the wind will be banging against the walls - 

But no such thing happens.  The rubbered man is moving, so slowly that it could be all of this is just a hallucination - he is turning his head, staring blankly at me, he is lifting his arm, his shiny rubber hand - he is gesturing to me, he is crooking a finger - he is turning his hand, raising his arm - 

The wind in the trees is rustling the bushes behind him.  

This is no longer a picture on my phone, this is a portal.  There is no screen.

The small bathroom fills with the intense, the overwhelming, plastic smell of rubber.  

A moan escapes me.

I see, out of the corner of my eye, the shadows in the kitchen merging, coalescing, black drop by black drop, hearing the whispers in the wind as it surges against the side of the house - 

I see that the corners of my phone are being taken over too, by the shadows - small tentacles, writhing, lashing, as the Rubbered One stretches languourously towards me, his arm skewing the screen’s perspective in a tilt-shift manner that makes me dizzy - 

All hail the Rubbered One!

“All hail the Rubbered One!”  I say, helplessly - 

And I’m awake in my bed.  

I’m staring thoughtlessly at the wall ahead of me.

The wind is calm, and the storm has passed.

Next to me, my partner is slumbering, tossing and muttering to himself.

My hand reaches out towards his naked shoulder.

His poor, naked shoulder, about to meet the touch of my

Shiny, black hand - 

In the corners of the room, in the deep of the hallway, the silence rustles.  On my bedside table, the image of a wooded area - some bushes to the left, a pine tree to the right, is oddly empty.  One might think, looking at it, that it’s a strange thing to take a picture of - a foreground, with no subject.

A smile curves my lips, but you’d never see it.

Not underneath the rubber of my new face.

[shulto-masusdesus]

The Cryptid Machine [BNHA AU: Chapter 1]

Time for the cryptid machine to go wild

(this is my writing sideblog btw)

i havent written anything else in days. i pushed for it so hard. 7k in three days and its just one chapter lol, fuck (i mean i wasnt writing anything else anyway so im glad i was productive at least thanks for giving me something to do lol)

But it was also fun

I accidentally really made them into the scooby-doo gang and honestly its the best thing ive ever done unintentionally. They just fit so well

@kawaiipotatuh @vango-bango and @sooske yo hi yall said you wanted to read it so i wrote it

sorry sooske i didnt get to shiga in this chapter but hes comin,,,,this is gonna be chaptered so he’ll definitely be in this soon. definitely plot relevant because i love shiggy. 

anyway A/N over time for the story

Rating: T for language and fantasy violence (no nsfw this time this is group friend story)

tags in the tags. some body horror because cryptid-related creepiness yknow. and major character death later on so yknow

if i missed anything tell me, okay now time for the story <3

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Izuku, frankly, was stunned.

“I thought it was just a hobby!”

“A hobby?” Shouto threw back what looked to be his thirtieth Five-Hour Energy, pouring syrup on the pancakes Izuku brought without paying much attention. They were more syrup than pancake at this point, but that was hardly priority at the moment. “A hobby?”

The giant frog sitting on the table between them blinked its left eye, and then the right, after a little delay. Izuku shuddered. Too much frog, too close, too much detail. Very scaly and slimy and bumpy. Frogs were not supposed to be big. But it was easily bigger than his head, almost the size of his torso.

“How did you get it in here?”

“Thawed crickets.” Shouto raised an eyebrow, as if having frozen crickets stored for a time such as this was normal and expected. Like a madman consumed by his own craft, he picked up a syrup-coated pancake with his own two hands, and bit into it. Then he looked at the mess with mild surprise, a gaze that read “What the fuck is this? Where did all this syrup come from?” Izuku didn’t have the heart to answer him. “…You’re underestimating me.”

Izuku shut his eyes, sucked in a breath, rubbing his temples. “So. You found this frog in the woods behind your house. You just so happened to have a pack of frozen crickets-”

“No, that’s not what happened,” Shouto leaned forward, elbows on the table, the plate of pancakes Izuku brought ruined and pushed to the side, with that damned cursed light in his eyes he got when he was about to tell a story, dive head-first into a theory, or conjure up a new way to ditch work. “I’ve been hunting this frog for months. I learn about many creatures when researching,”

Scrolling r/cryptids, Izuku thought. And various other unspeakable 2chan threads and dark web sites. He sighed. Those pancakes were better than usual, too...he managed to remember to use less butter…he forgot that all the time…if he was going to make pancakes in the middle of the night, they may as well be good...what was Shouto talking about? Oh yeah, the frog.

“-and I encountered this post about a kappa sighting. It was confusing, and I almost wrote it off as another incident of someone just seeing something very mundane in the wrong light - until I recognized the location of the sighting.” There it was, Shouto’s rare grin, a look very reminiscent of the cat that finally caught the mouse. “…Heartstone Lake, on the park side of the woods.”

The giant frog grumbled. Loudly. Its chest puffed a little and Izuku felt a wild fear for what a real croak would sound like. This thing was huge. “Uhm, yeah? And?”

“So I went and checked it out.” He went over to his Wall, pointing to photo after photo, and Izuku hummed along, suddenly very, very worried about this frog in the Todoroki’s basement. This could end in many ways, and a very loud croak waking up his dad would be one of the worse ones. “Found tracks. Tracks, Izuku. You have to understand - nobody ever finds tracks.”

Izuku nodded. “Crazy.” He said, noticing how the frog’s eye was starting to slowly roll around, as if looking, scanning its surroundings. He was a little bit more than freaked out. He really had thought that this was just an interest of Shouto’s. Not something he was actually going to pursue, and that it produced a very crypid-like thing, a real result? A part of him wanted to go home and go back to bed, before Shouto decided to find a demon from hell or something. Or before the frog turned out to be a demon from hell. “…Did you do a steak-out?”

“Yes. Many steak-outs.” Shouto sighed, rubbing his face. “For…six weeks. Every night and every spare minute I could get. Along with a camera live feed setup. Only today did I actually see something, and once I did, I didn’t let it get away.” His smile was so wholesome, but the fruit of his labor was probably a harbinger of the void. Izuku was torn between supporting his friend and self-preservation.

Izuku decided to call the two people who would help back him up in whatever answer was the right one. The guardian angels, Tenya and Ochako. Because he needed help.

“I’m gonna call Tenya and Ochako.”

To Izuku’s bewilderment, Shouto deflated, smile dying, abruptly concerned. Izuku sputtered, pausing in pulling his phone out of his pocket. “What?! Do you not want them to know, or-?!”

With a sigh, Shouto grumbled, “Tenya…You know what he’d say.”

Izuku rolled his eyes. “It’s probably what you need to hear, really. Monster or not, this frog doesn’t belong indoors. We could get money for it, and what if it’s a new species or something-”

The other boy sighed. “Fine, whatever-”

The underside of the frog’s throat started expanding. Izuku watched in mute horror as it opened its mouth, and released a croak.

It was louder than Izuku expected. Very much so. His ears were left ringing from the rumbling warble, but that was hardly the biggest problem. There was a lot of thudding and yelling going on upstairs, in the upper levels of the Todoroki household; the family converging in on Shouto’s basement for whatever that definitely inhumane noise was.

Shouto’s dad was the strictest father around, and didn’t allow Shouto to have friends over on weeknights, nevermind late at night; since Izuku, an unapproved friend, basically snuck into the house on a weeknight at the unholy hour of three in the morning, he was breaking many, many rules.

And a giant fucking frog on the table in the middle of the room also would do more than raise a few eyebrows.

Shouto, however, was prepared. He pushed a mysterious white jar across the table to him, and pointed to the basement awning window. “I’ll help,” He said. “It’s actually not all that heavy.”

“Shouto! What was that?! What are you doing in there, it’s three in the morning on a school night-!”

There was his father. However, aside from the actual basement door lock, Shouto secretly installed about six extra locks, so he wasn’t getting in any time soon. “Studying, Dad,” Shouto said, heaving the massive, slimy frog off the table. He nailed he tired, annoyed, exasperated tone perfectly. Izuku opened the jar, and forced down a squeak - mushy, wet, dead crickets. “There’s a science tomorrow, I want to make sure I’m ready.”

His dad went quiet, which was his “you’re probably lying, but finding out the truth is more effort than I’m willing to put in at the moment” response. Izuku’s been witness to it a lot, as this is far from the first time he’s been a Master Lock away from getting caught. Shouto gave Izuku a look, frog in hand, as he opened the small window.

“Studying at such an…early hour is counter-productive. Get to bed, Shouto.”

“Alright.” Izuku shimmied out the window, onto the grass outside, and cringed as he opened the jar and gently picked up a soggy cricket corpse. With some difficulty, Shouto shoved the fat mass of jiggling skin through the awning, and Izuku pulled it the rest of the way out.

“Don’t let it out of your sight,” Shouto mouthed, scowling a little. Most likely because he was forced to get rid of his first find. Weird giant frog or not, it was really important to Shouto, so he couldn’t lose track of it-

The frog grumbled, and started hopping off.

“Get it!” Shouto hissed, and Izuku ran after it.

It wasn’t as fast as he thought. He caught up to it easily, and offered it a few crickets to bribe it into sitting still for a moment. Shouto’s window shut, and tense yelling ensued; Shouto buying time so he could hide incriminating evidence. His dad probably heard them.

An awkward ten minutes passed. Routinely, Izuku dropped a cricket or two, and the frog stayed put. Eventually, Shouto opened the window again, glaring.

“Take it to your house,” He said. “God knows I’m not gonna get away with hiding it here.” And he shut the window.

“So,” Izuku said, to the monster frog, dropping a couple more crickets. Its tongue flicked out to grab them, and honestly, Izuku feared for his safety. “I guess you’re coming to my place?”

 _______________________________________________________________

 Step one; get it onto his bike.

His basket was definitely big enough for the frog. He could probably stop every couple minutes to feed it a cricket so it wouldn’t struggle too much while he was on the road. It wouldn’t end well for either of them if it decided to upset the balance of the bike on the road.

He lugged the frog into the basket - it really wasn’t as heavy as it looked - and gave it a few crickets before locking the lid. Step two; get it home. That was the easy part.

The ride was mostly uneventful. The route was mostly muscle memory, so it wasn’t hard to hyperfocus on every odd rustle and bump on the back of his bike. He stopped to feed it about five times, and each time its tongue lashed out harder and faster. His fight-or-flight instinct begged him to run away from the very real monster frog on the back of his bike. He channeled the energy into maintaining cadence. If Shouto wasn’t his best friend, and wouldn’t probably murder him if he lost it, he would’ve let the frog hop into the woods when it tried to.

Finally, he reached his plain suburban neighborhood. He considered stopping at Kacchan’s house, but he’d probably kill the frog on sight, so he couldn’t rely on him for moral support. Time to call Ochako up for an early-morning napover. She said “anytime”, right?

Step three; get it to his room. His backyard didn’t have a fence, and he didn’t have a basement, and even if his mom didn’t have a panic attack when she saw the frog, she would definitely tell him to get it out of the house. Any rational person would, really. So. Hiding it in his bedroom was the only choice.

Mom never got out of bed past midnight, so it was easy to trudge inside, to his room, and to lock the door behind him. Then the frog leapt from his arms, and hopped its slimy body onto his bed. Ew. Time to call Ochako.

As promised, she answered by the fourth ring. “…Yaeah…Deku…?”

“Uhm, come to my house?” Izuku chuckled nervously. “Shouto found…uh, a giant frog, but he couldn’t keep it at his house, so I’m keeping it at mine. I need a little moral support?”

“...” Ochako sighed, a very, very long sigh. “...”

“Ochako?”

“What?”

“Shouto found a giant frog-”

“A WHAT?!”

It took Ochako all of fifteen minutes to get to his place, on foot. She took the short route to his room - through his window - and gawked at the frog for another five minutes, school backpack and sleeping bag falling from her hands.

“He - really?!”

“Yeah…”

She stared at it for a long, long time. It grumbled again. Izuku felt a sinking feeling.

“It’s - a giant frog.”

“...Yeah.”

“And…he just…?”

“No, he said he’d been looking for it for the past six weeks.”

“So that’s why he’s been passing out in class?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Ochako stared at the frog. “I thought it was all…”

“He flipped out a little when I said I thought it was just a hobby.” He ran his fingers through his hair with a huff. “This is really important to him.”

“Well…” She mumbled, eyes wide. “We may as well…take good care of it. H…how do you get a frog to go to sleep? Don’t frogs need heat lamps? How do we take care of a frog - a giant frog-” She stomped her foot. “Did Shouto think about this at all?”

She looked at Izuku. He raised an eyebrow in return. And she fell into giggles. “Yeah,” She said. “Let’s get it in front of a heater?”

Izuku left the room, running down to the hall closet to get a heater; on his way back, Ochako suddenly screamed.

He ran to his room, and to his horror, the frog was, for lack of a better term, erupting. Blowing up like a balloon. Ochako shoved him out of the doorway, into the hall, and slammed the door shut.

“What is going on here?” Oh, his mom was up now, rushing down the hall with concern. “What happened? Ochako, very…nice to see you, but at this hour? What’s happening?”

The two teens were speechless. They looked to each other for answers, but found nothing there but shock and general horror. Tentatively, Ochako cracked the door back open.

The frog was splayed about thinly like a shed bag. Sitting on Izuku’s bed now, instead, was a girl with long green hair. And also very naked, the frog broke open and was now a naked girl-

Confusion ensued. Mom screamed a little, shocked by the frog flash bag, and Ochako and Deku screamed because the frog was gone and Shouto was now on the list of people who wanted them dead; then his mom ran in, bringing the blanket up around the girl with shaking hands and firing off questions one after another, and Izuku screamed louder because he realized that somehow the frog became the girl - Ochako screamed louder, because she realized that with Shouto’s internet skill and wide range of information sources, there was no way to hide from him.

“Izuku, who is this?! Why is she naked?!” Mom turned to him with an unfamiliar demanding tone. “Explain! Now!”

“I don’t…!” Izuku was, completely, lost. “I don’t know…! I think - she was-!?”

Ochako stopped screaming, and said, “We don’t know! She - the frog - it exploded and - it was a frog before-!”

“A frog!?” Mom shouted - his mom never shouted. Izuku felt like reality was fraying at the seams. “What-”

“RIBBIT.”

Everything stopped. Ochako stopped. His mom stopped. Izuku felt like he suddenly lost the ability to breathe, like someone clicked ‘end task’ on his lungs and his panicking head.

The girl’s eyes were very, very big, an expression of pure confusion and shock on her face. “RIBBIT!” She screeched, again.

“R…’ribbit’…?” Mom said, weakly. “What do you mean…?”

“...” The girl stared at Mom with a wild lack of recognition. Not just that she didn’t know who Mom was; she had no idea what she was seeing at all and was completely lost. Izuku was almost as lost, really. “Ribbit…”

Ochako swayed lightly, gripping Izuku’s arm. “S-so - the frog was there before - did she come out of the frog…?!”

Izuku looked at the frog flesh and slime splayed on his bed. “…P…probably…”

His mom’s expression faded from extreme shock and confusion, to general surprise. “Izuku, Ochako, please explain - what is this mess - who is she-”

“I don’t know!” Izuku burst, shaking a little. “I don’t know! It was a frog before and now its a girl and Shouto didn’t tell me and I don’t know-”

“Izuku-”

“Izuku, baby, calm down,” Mom quickly crossed the room to him, softly taking his hands. “It’s okay, I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry. Let’s have some tea, and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

“...O…okay.”

 _______________________________________________________________

 Tea with a splash of honey was always good. It warmed him down to his core. The girl seemed to also be enjoying it, if her regular sips were any indicator. Even if she was a bit tentative, slow, testing about it, each time.

His mom sighed heavily. “So, according to your story, she’s…”

Ochako hummed. “Yeah. I don’t believe it either. We should call Shouto.”

“He’d love this,” Izuku mumbled, staring into his tea. “He probably knows what…she is. I certainly don’t.”

“...Well,” Mom glanced at the girl. She had a permanent frown on her face. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow. Today, we’ll…well, It’s already five, isn’t it?”

Izuku dropped his head onto the table. “One hour. Please. I want sleep. I didn’t sleep at all.”

“Ditto,” Ochako also dropped her head, with a heavy thud. “No sleep. At all. I almost was asleep, but then Deku called…”

“Sorry…”

“’S alright….I wouldn’t wanna miss this.” She huffed a laugh. “Somehow, I’m glad I saw it live.”

Mom sighed again, sounding old. “Okay,” She said. “You only have about two hours, though. Remember, you both promised you would ride to school this year.”

Izuku groaned, muffling himself on the wood table. Ochako also whined. The girl watched the both of them curiously.

His mom agreed to watch the girl while they napped; Izuku was so not sleeping in his bed, so he took Mom’s bed instead. Ochako splayed out over one half of the king-sized bed while Izuku took up one third, sharing it because his mom’s bed was wonderful.

It was, without a doubt, the worst nap of his life. Because just as he was getting settled in and kind of almost sleeping, the six o’clock alarm on Mom’s bedside table buzzed loudly. Along with the knee Ochako unconsciously jammed halfway up his ass and her loud drool-snore-choke-drowning, he kind of wanted to die, to get some real sleep. The reason why he stopped sleeping in the same bed as Uraraka Ochako came back to him. Violently, in the form of a foot mysteriously journeying its way up his pants. She was just the weirdest sleeper.

He untangled himself from the covers and Ochako and trudged down the hall. He went to his room, intent on grabbing a shower before school.

He grabbed his clothes from his closet and was on his way to the bathroom before he suddenly recalled what happened last night. Where the fuck was that girl-

He ran around the house, looking for her and Mom - the car was gone from the driveway. His mom had work early in the day, so that was normal, but the girl was still nowhere to be seen. Where was she?!

He texted his mom urgently, and she responded, I left her at home. She should be there with you. Have a good day at school <3

One, was he really going to just leave her at home all day? And two, she was absolutely nowhere to be seen. He checked the kitchen, the living room, all the closets, both bedrooms, and their house was one floor and small as fuck, so there wasn’t many places to hide. She was gone.

And then Ochako screamed. Izuku could probably guess where frog girl was.

He ran to Mom’s room, and there she was, Ochako standing on the bed in a martial arts defensive position with frog girl sitting on the floor, blinking cluelessly, now dressed in spare clothes Ochako left here. But she still had such an alien air around her that it felt like the clothes didn’t quite fit her. She confounded Izuku on every level.

Izuku was cobbling together some way to react to the situation when his phone started ringing. He answered.

“H-hello?!”

“Is the frog okay?”

Shouto. Izuku felt a range of emotions, from relief to joy to murderous intent to numbness. “…It turned into a person, Shouto. A girl. Did you know this would happen!?”

A silence passed.

“Shouto?”

“...S-sorry, I…”

“Shouto, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just…” He sniffed faintly. “I wanted to see it.”

“You knew it would happen?!”

“No, but I had a feeling. Part of the witness reports described a frog standing on two legs like a person, and even people with frog-like features, y’know, like a person, but a frog.” Shouto sighed. “So either it was just one creature that could shapeshift to varying levels of frog to humanoid, or it was many creatures that were all varying levels of frog to humanoid. Like kappas or something.” Something tapped rhythmically in the background. “I wished I could’ve seen the shift. Do you still have the shed skin?”

“For what, Shouto,” Izuku was, frankly, pretty fed up. The frog girl was now on top of Ochako and very closely watching her, scanning her features. “What are you going to do with a giant frog flesh bag, Shouto.”

“Research.”

“Shouto.”

“Testing.”

“Shouto! You’re missing the-”

“Fine!” The other boy huffed roughly. “I’m gonna call Mei and cash in a debt to use her research facilities.”

“Shouto, I love you, but you have a C in chemistry. But that’s beside the-”

“She’s going to examine the frog skin, okay?! That’s it! Sorry I don’t have a genetics lab in my fucking basement!”

Izuku tried to be exasperated, but he ended up fighting back a smile. “N-no, Shouto, that’s not - I - whatever Mei has to do with it, it’s a nasty sack of frog skin, Shouto. I was talking more as in, ‘it’s absurd that you would want it, so why’, not ‘you don’t have the means to do anything with it, so why’.”

Shouto went quiet. “…” It was a long, self-depreciating quiet.

“Look,” Izuku said, smile fading, because fuck, Shouto drove him crazy sometimes. “Get your ass over here and help me decide what we’re going to do about her. She can’t stay here while we’re at school all day, can she?”

“I don’t see why not,” Shouto mumbled. “Can’t take her to school. Can’t let her loose.”

“Shouto, you have the skin, basically, so you have a model of what the crypid frog looks like, right? And proof?”

“Yeah. That’s the best part.”

“So do we really need to keep her?” Izuku watched as the girl tried to lick Ochako with a freakishly long tongue. Being a reasonable human being, the brown-haired girl was scrambling away before she made contact. “She’s…well, I mean, endangered species preservation, right? And - I dunno, what’re we gonna keep her for? She looks like a person, kind of…it’d be weird. Morally.”

“...How human does she seem?”

“One hundred percent. She has big eyes, but that can be passed off as a feature, y’know?” Ochako ran to the doorway - the girl opened her mouth wide, tongue flicking out, and it reached all the way across the room, wrapping around Ochako’s waist and pulling her back in. Izuku flinched as his friend shrieked. “…But her tongue is super long and weird, like a frog’s, and she currently has captured Ochako with it.”

“...Well, human meat doesn’t sit well with frogs, so she isn’t going to try to eat her. Unless she’s an adventurous type or something. I mean, she is a monster, so she’s probably full of surprises. Don’t trust her.” Shouto laughed, like this was a joke. Izuku didn’t find it very funny...How did he know that human meat doesn’t sit well with frogs…?

Ochako was released once she was dragged close enough for the girl to grab her. “So we’re just gonna leave her in my house for the day.”

“Yeah.”

“There are hazards everywhere, Shouto.”

“She’ll probably be fine.”

“But what if my Xbox isn’t, Shouto? What if she burns my house down, Shouto? What if she breaks my Xbox Shouto-”

“Forget about your Xbox,” Shouto snapped. Izuku gasped loudly. “It’ll be fine. She won’t mess with anything. I think. And like you said, if she escapes, it isn’t that bad. As long as the skin is still there, she exists. That’s all I need. I have to take a shower before school, I smell like black coffee and steroids. Later.”

And there he went. Almost angrily, Izuku pocketed his phone and said, “H-hey!”

Frog girl looked at Izuku boredly. “Help me,” Ochako begged, held captive by the two arms around her waist. Izuku debated the pros and cons of tearing her away from the literally mutant creature. What was the likelihood of survival?

“We have an hour before we meet up with Shouto,” Izuku stated flatly. “I’m taking a shower first.”

“No!” In a flash, Ochako twisted free of her bindings and was out of the room, and zooming down the hall. “You take all the hot water!”

Izuku sighed. Frog girl, covered in her own hair like she was drowning in it, stared at him with wide green eyes. He averted his gaze, nervously.

“U-uh, hi,” He said. Wow, could he be any more awkward? Well, she wasn’t human, so it wasn’t like she’d pick up on any of human societal nuances-

“Hi.”

She said. She fucking said. She said?! She said. She talked. She said words. She said ‘hi’. Whoawhoawhoa - it had to be simple parroting, it had to be just-

“Where did she go.”

Izuku felt the inexplicable urge to cry. “Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-”

Frog girl stared at Izuku, eyes peeking between strands of hair with a strange light. “Where is she.”

“I-I-I-I-I-d-d-d-d-on’t-”

She stood up, and walked past him with halting, almost jerking steps. She left the room, and looked one way, then the other. “…”

“O-O-Ochako?!” Izuku felt like curling up in a corner and sobbing wildly. He felt like he just looked into the void and it talked back to him. He felt a number of things, and all of them involved some level of existential terror. “Sh-she’s i-in the sh-shower…D-don’t-”

She was already on her way down the hallway. Izuku didn’t really think upsetting this being of mysterious and potentially reality-breaking power was a good idea. Technically, she was another girl, so it wouldn’t be that weird for her to walk in on Ochako, right? Uh.

Right on cue, Ochako screamed. Izuku groaned. By finding this cursed being, Shouto effectively turned his life upside down. For better or worse was yet to be seen. But from how Ochako was currently fighting frog girl out of her shower, it was probably for worse. Would his life ever go back to normal?

 _______________________________________________________________

 By some miracle, they managed to get on the road on time, meeting up with Shouto on the way. While he and Ochako rode very practical bikes, he rode a skateboard. Why, he refused to really tell. If he wasn’t wearing his school uniform, he’d look like he was in the wrong decade. And somehow the uniform made it look even tackier. But it was alright. It wasn’t like he was bad at it; in fact, he pulled many moves that were reminiscent of a certain famous skateboarder, but he was also from the wrong decade. Somehow, it suited him. He, to a concerning level, didn’t care what other people thought of him, so it was okay. Just weird.

“So,” Shouto said, cruising along with Ochako, keeping up easily despite having much smaller wheels. Also weird. “Show me a pic of her.”

“A what?” Izuku blinked.

“A picture.” Shouto raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you didn’t take a picture.”

“...”

Ochako shrugged, rhythmically tapping her bell. “Didn’t think to.”

The boy huffed. “You guys are the worst,” He said. “How are we supposed to get proof that she shapeshifted if we didn’t get the after picture?”

“Shouto, I’m tired,” Izuku sighed. “I’m sorry. But this is way over my head. I’m not good at…this paranormal cryptid stuff. It’s fun when it’s just creepy stories, but - I dunno, this is too much.” He shuddered. “She talked. Just, started saying words. Like a normal person - super blunt and to the point, but it was like she said it like that on purpose. She knew. Just like that. And she was a frog before-”

“She talked?!” Shouto’s eyes lit up. “What did she say? What did her voice sound like? Ugh, I wish we got it on tape-”

“Shouto!” Izuku snapped. “Pay attention! Forget that stuff - I don’t want any part in it anymore! I’m scared! After school, we’re gonna let her go, and that’s gonna be the end of it! Okay!?” If there’s even a home to return to, Izuku thought bitterly.

Shouto stared at him, blankly. Then he looked away. “…Alright.”

Ochako whistled. “You guys fall out hard,” She said. “I give it…three days before one of you starts apologizing.”

Izuku’s face burned. He was the one apologizing, most of the time. But not this time, He thought resolutely. He wasn’t at fault here. Shouto was going to apologize to him, for dragging him into this mess in the first place.

 _______________________________________________________________

 [10:25 A.M.]

nessie: im dying. im actually dying

shouto: why

nessie: what the fuck is a lamange

nessie: mange is a disease

nessie: in french it means what??? food???? kill me

shouto: it means eat

shouto: pay attention in class and you might get it

nessie: fuck you

nessie: youre the last person i want to hear that from

shouto: ow

nessie: Rip Believe It Or Not

shouto: Ripley’s I Know This Stuff Is Real, But I Can’t Handle It, Dog

nessie: nibyguvtfcu

nessie: so you do get it

shouto: get what

shouto: what

nessie: oh my god

nessie: Oh My God

nessie: you are a national treasure

nessie: you know that

shouto: ??????

shouto: ?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!what am I missing now

nessie: shut up for a minute teach coming

shouto: well I hope not thats a little inappropriate

---

[10:30 A.M.]

nessie: shouto holy shit what the fuck oh my god what the fuck

nessie: dude

shouto: yeah I sent that without thinking

shouto: and then I couldnt send a correction because

shouto: and yeah

nessie: dude

pppppppppppink: whats happening

pppppppppppink: oh wow what was that shouto hahahahha

shouto: oh my god look it was an accident

tenya: ochako its hardly fair to make fun of him for that

tenya: it was an honest mistake

nessie: tenya coughs, “unfortunately”

shouto: say that shit to my face deku

shouto: whos on the football team huh

nessie: surprised you caught that

nessie: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

shouto: i am going to kill you,

pppppppppppink: hey no death threats on my friendly christian minecraft server

nessie: deadmeme

tenya: yes, death threats are not the way to handle strife between friends

tenya: but neither were those insults, izuku

tenya: you know shouto’s skill does not warrant comments such as those

nessie: hes gonna get a coma i know it

tenya: what does that have to do with anything

nessie: football

nessie: caveman sport

tenya: that is inappropriate

shouto: dudedudedude look man

shouto: im sorry okay

nessie: FOR WHAT SHOUTO

shouto: I DONT KNOW

pppppppppppink: wow that was fast

tenya: please quiet teacher

------

[10:35 A.M.]

shouto: look man I dont know what youre so angry about

nessie: im not angry

pppppppppppink: izuku coughs, “im furious”

nessie: im n o t

tenya: izuku i believe you are, in fact, angry

nessie: im not angry

shouto: youre angry

nessie: SHOUTO WHAT THE FUCK MAN

nessie: EXCUSE ME IF IM A LITTLE SHAKEN UP ABOUT YOU DROPPING A FUCKING FROG DEMON ONTO ME

shouto: i wouldve kept it if i could

shouto: but i forced it onto you without asking

shouto: sorry

nessie: “sorry if i valued a mythical creature above my friends feelings”

shouto: well fuck

shouto: i tried

shouto: yeah fuck you

shouto: i wouldve loved to have it

shouto: you love it when i talk to you about it so what the fuck is the difference

nessie: THEYRE JUST STORIES

nessie: S T O R I E S

nessie: I DONT WANT THEM TO BE REAL

nessie: ITS TOO MUCH

nessie: ITS SCARY

shouto: dude theres always a chance of the stories being real

shouto: you didnt know that

nessie: dontdothat

nessie: i dont want to think of them like that

nessie: no one wants them to be real

shouto: i do

nessie: yeah but ur a weirdo

tenya: foul

pppppppppppink: yeah try again

pppppppppppink: stay within bounds

nessie: are you reffing our fight

tenya: yes

tenya: go on

shouto: dude if you dont want any part of it then ill take her okay

shouto: okay?

nessie: that isnt it

nessie: because ur gonna be all weird about it and be all offended

nessie: bullshit

nessie: were gonna straighten this out here

nessie: rn

tenya: as a distraction in class.

nessie: sure

shouto: im not gonna be offended

pppppppppppink: hahahahhahahhha

shouto: im not

tenya: you will be offended

nessie: you will be offended

nessie: you dont think my fear is valid

shouto: being scared of it and pushing it away isnt going to make it disappear

shouto: theres a monster under your bed whether you want it to be there or not

nessie: oh my FUCKING GOD SHOUTO

nessie: THIS IS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT

nessie: YOU DONT LISTEN TO ME

shouto: i am

shouto: im doing nothing but listening to you

shouto: im getting on aizawas nerves

tenya: he means respect

tenya: you arent respecting him

tenya: as evidenced by you “twisting the knife”, for lack of a better term

tenya: you understand that stories of paranormal activities entertain him?

shouto: yes

tenya: the rift seems to lay in the fact that although he enjoys them as stories, he does not wish them to be real, intimate experiences

tenya: this is where you two seem to split

tenya: because you strive to live the stories

pppppppppppink: *is eating popcorn* marriage counseling :D

shouto: i mean who wouldnt

nessie: I DONT I DONT I DONT I DONT I DONT

nessie: NONONONONONONONO

nessie: UCK AMN DO YOU THIINK I WANNA FUCKING

nessie: THAT IS

nessie: NOOONONONONOONONO

shouto: shit man calm down

shouto: so it scares you

nessie: fuck yess??? you get it????finally????

shouto: why

[nessie has left the group chat.]

pppppppppppink: dude you messed up

shouto: .

tenya: i advise understanding

tenya: not everyone feels the same way you do

shouto: well duh

shouto: but it isnt scary

shouto: .

pppppppppppink: are you hearing yourself? finally?

pppppppppppink: not to be mean, ur just

pppppppppppink: really dense :D

tenya: to him, it is scary.

tenya: and thats just how he works

tenya: youll have to respect that

shouto: but its not scary

tenya: that is an opinion, shouto

tenya: not fact. it varies from person to person

tenya: you have to respect his opinion, shouto

shouto: .

shouto: god

shouto: fine

tenya: now what’s this about a “frog demon”?

pppppppppppink: ohohoohooho

shouto: first of all, it isnt a demon

pppppppppppink: do i have a story for you!

 _______________________________________________________________

 Izuku settled on giving Shouto the cold shoulder. It lasted out of school and on the way home, even as they pulled up to his house. Even as he kept pestering him with his constant, creepy, begging stare. Fuck him. Because if he talked first, he’d end up apologizing. And he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t the one at fault.

The frog girl was gone. They searched high and low, all over his house, but she was nowhere to be seen. Izuku found the frog skin wrapped up in the dumpster outside, and threw it at Shouto without a word. Shouto didn’t say anything, either.

“Hm,” Ochako popped a sucker into her mouth. “I changed my mind. Two days.”

Izuku grumbled, flushing bright red.

“I find this whole story a little hard to believe,” Tenya said, and Izuku felt a wild urge to punch him. “You mean to tell me that this so-called giant frog split open and turned out to be a young girl? Who is now missing?”

“Tenya, I wish it didn’t happen,” Izuku crossed the driveway, grabbing the taller boy by his quarterback shoulders. “I wish desperately that it didn’t happen. But it did.”

“Oh yeah,” Ochako said, nodding. “It was crazy. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there.” With a shrug, she added, “Still kinda in doubt. It was super late.”

“Maybe it was a dream?”

“No,” Shouto said, coming up to show Tenya something on his phone. “Pictures. Video. It’s real. The frog, at least. I also have samples at home. I did some research - actually, there are some frogs that can grow up to about the size of our frog, but they can only live in equatorial Guinea. Without the girl, the skin only proves that a new species of giant frog lives in the area unless they map its genome or something.” He shrugged. “Not the story I was looking for, but cool nonetheless.”

“’Story’?” Izuku bristled. “What are you even looking for, Shouto? Why are you doing this at all?” Whoops. But he couldn’t help it. He’d been wondering it for a while, but this was the breaking point. Would he just hand the girl over to scientists for testing if he did have her? Would they take advantage of the fact that she isn’t human to do whatever they wanted? What was Shouto getting from this? Money? Fame? He wasn’t the type who would search out stuff like that, so what-?!

“Huh?” Shouto tilted his head. “...Why not? It’s fun.”

He could scream. Angrily, he stomped back to the porch, yanking open his door and ready to lock it behind him-

-and the kitchen was a mess, like a tornado whizzed around in the few moments they went outside. The dining table was on its side, chairs thrown around, cabinets raided and foodstuffs everywhere. The fridge was open, and judging from the aggressive clinking going on, someone was there. Izuku could probably guess who it was. But why now? She barely touched anything, earlier.

And then she peeked above the fridge door. Izuku screamed.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

if anyone knows how to color text please tell me because i spent a lot of time coloring the chat messages in the original doc and im sad it didnt carry so please and thank you tell me,

[pumpkins-s]

Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker

Read On AO3 Here

When Pidge is offered the spot as communications officer for the Kerberos Mission, to accompany her father, and her friend and former classmate Shiro, she’s expecting eight months of quiet, beautiful cosmos, ice samples, and—if she’s lucky—some broadcast signals to support her alien life theories.

She is not expecting to end up the prisoner of a fascistic race of alien cat-lizards hellbent on apparently reenacting the ugliest parts of the Roman empire, down to the massive enslavement and expansion effort and the gladiators as entertainment shtick.

But, if she’s going down, she figures she might as well go down swinging.

(Or, in which Pidge is the third Kerberos member, is decidedly not a damsel in distress who needs protection—thank you very much Shiro—is very much done with this crap, and fully intends to make it home to her little brother, no matter what it takes.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: platonic Pidge & Shiro, Pidge & Matt, Pidge & Sam Holt

Characters: Pidge, Shiro, Sam Holt, Matt Holt, Thace, Ulaz

Rating + Warnings: Rated Teen; trigger warnings include graphic violence, blood, combat, murder, and systematic transphobia on the part of the Galra. I recommend checking AO3, or in my author’s notes under the cut, for a more extensive list.

Stormbreaker was written for the @pidgebigbang, and is accompanied by art from @anime7otaku7artist7. 

Chapter 1: Willow

((Author’s Note: 

Hello, hello! Welcome to Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker, my fic for the Pidge Big Bang. Developing the concept and storyline for this fic was the work of months (even if I wrote 90% of it in the last two weeks before it was due shhhh), and I'm so pleased to finally be able to share it. I love Pidge and the friendship she holds with Shiro, and I really wanted a chance to explore that in a setting where they were closer to being peers, as well as what her relationship to Matt would be like if she were the older sibling, and hence that (+ my desire to just see Pidge kicking ass as a gladiator) is how Stormbreaker was born.

As always, music played a big part in my writing, and I'd like to take a moment to credit that: I wrote and outlined this fic largely to the work of Barns Courtney and Florence + The Machine, particularly his  The Attractions of Youth album and her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, respectively, and the influence of both is definitely there in how the story turned out. The title of this fic was chosen as a nod to two songs that pushed the concept and development of Stormbreaker by leaps and bounds. Of Monster And Men's Winter Sound, and Florence + The Machine's My Boy Builds Coffins. And of course, I can't not mention the song that played the original inspiration for this fic: No Doubt's Just A Girl.

For your listening enjoyment while you read, there's also an actual playlist for this fic (with more than just those previously mentioned couple of artists in it, promise). You can find the tumblr post for it here, with art by the wonderful corpus--corvus, or jump straight to the Spotify or Youtube link.

Before you read, a final warning for the content -- this is a gladiator fic, boys & girls & nonbinary pals. That means violence, blood, injury (Shiro's probably an obvious indication but people do lose limbs), fight to the death scenarios, and murder. People die in this story, and not all of them necessarily deserve it, though rest assured Pidge and Shiro themselves stay (relatively) intact. There's also the presence of underage drinking in a flashback scene, some mentions of the sexual abuse and forced prostitution of slaves within the Empire, and swearing. So much fucking swearing. Additionally, while all relationships are written to be strictly platonic, Shiro and Pidge's longer friendship and view of each other as closer to peers does mean their friendship has an emotional intimacy that wouldn't necessarily be seen in their canon counterparts. They lean on each other for support, quite literally, so if any of that would be a personal squick to you for whatever reason, please look away now.

That's about it! Enormous thanks to the Pidge Big Bang mods for putting this all together, and to my artist, anime7otaku7artist7, for their phenomenal work. Their art is embedded in the story, and you can also find a link to it here.

Stormbreaker is split into eight sections, with the entirety already written out pre posting. Chapters range from about 4-10 thousand words, with the first one being the shortest. It will update every day until its completion (so long as everything with editing and posting goes smoothly on my end, at least. Here's hoping). Enjoy!))

(( Author’s Note [Cont.]:

Willow: Forsaken

The gorgeous title art opening this chapter, while not provided by my official artist for the Pidge Big Bang, is provided by the wonderful corpus--corvus, who put up with months of my ranting about Stormbreaker!Pidge, and generously provided me with both this title art, and coverart for this fic's playlist. Thank you Logan you're a peach.))

Oh I'm just a girl, living in captivity

Your rule of thumb

Make me worry some

Oh I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?

- "Just a Girl", No Doubt

“Careful,” is the first thing Pidge’s father says to her, and she sighs, blowing errant bangs out of her eyes—she knew she should have pinned them back when they were suiting up—as she steadies her arms and inches the ice sample out of the extraction drill.

“Yeah, Pidge, careful,” Shiro says with a grin she can only classify as shit-eating, leaning over the back of the drill with his forearms resting on top.

“I am careful,” she snaps, fully removing the sample and hefting it between her arms. The weight is less than that of Earthen ice of the same mass—which is expected, given the gravity on Kerberos is much lesser than that on Earth. It’s a lucky thing their suits are specially designed and weighted to model Earth’s gravity on their interior, Pidge wouldn’t want to be hopping and stumbling around like the astronauts of her grandparents’ generation.

She hands the sample over to her father carefully, his eyes bright as he studies it. “Extraordinary.”

Pidge glances over at Shiro, who is doing his best to look anything more than politely interested, and smirks. “What? Not impressed?”

Shiro looks down at her, and shrugs ungainly against the bulk of his suit. “You guys get…a little more excited about ice samples than I do. I understand their value, but it’s not exactly my area.”

“Yeah, yeah, motorboy.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I get it, you’re only interested in things with an engine and that go really fast.”

“That’s—“ Shiro makes a face. “Ok, that’s only partially true. I also like…uh…” He trails off, brows furrowed, and Pidge grins. “…What do I like?” he finally asks, looking to Pidge in askance.

“Uh. Reading? Fixing Keith’s bike?” Pidge counts off on her fingers, squinting down at them. “That’s…you’re really bad at having non-work-related hobbies, dude.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Oh! Me!” Pidge holds up a third finger triumphantly. “You like me!”

Shiro groans. “You’re my best friend, that’s a given—“

“You know what I like?” Pidge says, and then continues on before Shiro has the chance to respond. “I’ll tell you what I like. Motherfucking aliens, that’s what I like, Shiro.”

“And here we go again—“

“And that—“ Pidge points at the ice sample, “could be the key to finally proving their existence, right Dad?”

“Well,” her father says, looking quietly amused as he shifts the sample in his hands. “We certainly can’t rule anything out, all the way out here. And I’d hardly complain if one of these ice samples wanted to come along and solve my life’s—“ There’s a rumble all around them, rock vibrating slightly beneath their feet, and he pauses. “…What was that?”

“Earthquake?” Pidge asks as another rumble starts up, stronger than the last.

“Kerberos-quake?” Shiro mutters behind her, and she turns to tell him just how terrible that was, before the strongest shake yet occurs, throwing her off balance, and she yelps, falling forward.

“Pidge!” She catches herself on Shiro’s outstretched arm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, trying to dispel the hair blocking her vision and the vague sense of dizziness she feels. “We should get back to the—“ She stops, caught up in the feeling of something suddenly here, large and looming and right behind her, and slowly turns around as a ship comes into view.

For once, all her knowledge—all her calculations, her observations, her vast vocabulary, abandon her, and she is left with one thought, and one thought only.

That isn’t one of their ships.

“It can’t be…” She hears her father say, but it’s distant, muffled, as if he was underwater, and then all she can focus on is Shiro grabbing desperately at her arm, yanking her along.

“Run. Run!”

She runs.

It’s a rush of sudden sound, sudden movement that seems at odds with the serene stillness expected of space. All she can hear is the roaring noise of whatever is behind them, Shiro’s shouts, her own heavy breathing as she stumbles along in her suit, the previously steadying weight suddenly cumbersome.

There’s a sudden pull behind them, around them, everything lit up purple, and Pidge screams as her feet suddenly leave the ground, flying up into the void of black above them. She hears both of the others yell her name, and she reaches out blindly for something, anything—her father’s blurry form, the outstretched hand she knows is Shiro’s, only to find nothing.

Tractor beam, a detached, scientific part of her mind supplies for her. I’m the smallest, so it’s natural I’d be the first picked up.

Sure enough, one of them—she thinks her father—flies up a moment after, Shiro caught up off the ground last.

They’re both shouting in panic, and Pidge thinks she should be screaming, too. Might already be screaming, or perhaps she’s forgotten to altogether, it’s impossible to tell, right now. She is not in control of the motion of her own body, of her senses.

Debris off the ground, caught up in the beam with them, catches on the side of Shiro’s helmet, scraping along, and she can only pray it hasn’t knocked it loose, hasn’t stolen his oxygen, before another rock slams into her own head.

The last thing she hears as it all goes black is the sound of her own voice tapering off, dying in her throat like a person hanged, condemned and left to die.

…Oh, so she had been screaming.

The night Shiro gets offered the position of pilot for the Kerberos mission, Pidge drags him out drinking.

“Shots!” she announces loudly, placing them down on the bar, and Shiro winces. He’s the one person she knows who gets a headache just from being in a bar. Normally, Pidge would have sympathy, as prone to migraines brought on from stress and lack of sleep as she is, but over time she’s come to accept this is an inevitability of taking Shiro out anywhere fun that isn’t space or flight themed. Luckily, the more alcohol Shiro gets in him, the more he seems to forget about his headache, or his apathy towards bars in general—enough to be willing to repeat the same cycle of misery, ecstasy, and then mild hangovers, occasionally, every few weeks, at least.

“What are those?” He picks one up cautiously, sniffing at it. “Whiskey?”

“Mhmm,” Pidge hums happily, sliding into the stool next to his. “Good brand, too.”

“I think I’ll just order one of those fruity cocktails,” Shiro says with an air of quiet distaste, sliding the shot glass back across to Pidge.

“Weak.” She downs them both, hers first and then Shiro’s, slamming the second empty glass down to the background of his horrified face.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he says, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Drinking is just one of the many things they do together, but in very different ways. Shiro—perhaps still trying to live down the keg-stand days of his barely-twenties that Pidge remembers sneaking into at seventeen or so all too fondly—doesn’t like anything strong, anything that leaves too much of a burn behind. He finds his preferences in what is sweet, where the alcohol is masked by some more agreeable mix-in.

Pidge, meanwhile, relishes the burn. Chases the chemistry reacting in her own body, the poison her brain somehow just barely sustains, with fascination. Drinking is stupid, objectively. So naturally that only leads to the urge to categorize it, sample every flavor until she understands every urge and every predilection.

She watches Shiro order his cocktail in amusement, and waves her hand when the bartender looks to her. They both know how to take care of themselves—and each other, if they find it necessary. Shiro will sip his fruity drinks, and Pidge will knock back a couple shots before giving it a break and then nursing a beer or some watered down vodka-and-schnapps concoction for the rest of the night.

She’s an experimenter, not an idiot. If she takes it too far, makes herself too sick or poisons herself too permanently, she won’t be able to carry out the next test. She’s the extent of her own sample size, which means she has to make herself last.

“Remember when we were young,” she says languidly, swinging around on her stool and leaning on the bar, head tilting up to watch the ceiling, then Shiro. “And we’d party like the sun wouldn’t come up?”

“I remember going through a bottle of Advil every two months, yeah,” Shiro says dryly. “Besides you’re—I love the way you say that, when we were young. You’re not even legal to drink yet.”

“Shhh.” Pidge waves a hand. “Keep your voice down or you’ll get us kicked out. I worked hard on that I.D., Matt helped me pick the picture.”

“And what a great picture it is,” Shiro offers sarcastically, and Pidge levels a threatening eye at his drink. He pointedly moves it out of her reach, and after a moment, continues. “I still don’t get why you like bars so much. You’re you—I can barely get you out of your room to go to the dining hall.”

“Are you kidding me?” She waves a hand. “Bars are the one place where I can get social stimulus without having to actually talk to or acknowledge anyone beyond the wonderful person providing my drink. It’s an observational heaven. At the Garrison I actually have to make conversation.” She shudders, and Shiro snorts.

“…It still feels weird being out here, with your parents knowing where we go.”

“Joys of being second-gen American,” Pidge says proudly. “Just enough Italian left over where a twenty-one plus drinking age seems like the dumbest thing in the world.”

“I guess.” Shiro wrinkles his nose. “Still just feels weird when my commanding officer knows I go out drinking with his daughter.”

“Shiro, you practically live in our house. You’re in Matt’s elementary school graduation picture, for crying out loud. Bit late for worrying about that sort of thing.” Shiro winces, and Pidge laughs, patting him on the shoulder. “Man. Kerberos. I can’t believe you’ll be locked up with only my dad and some poor communications officer for eight months.” She pauses, and at Shiro’s faintly proud, but still somber look, she grins. “Maybe I should suggest to Dad he bring his zero-gravity specialized Scrabble board along.”

“Oh god,” Shiro groans, dropping his face into his elbow against the bar. “Please, don’t.”

“Doing it,” Pidge says happily. After a long moment, she looks over to Shiro, curling her arms into a pillow on the bar for her to drop her head onto, sighing. “…It’ll be weird, without you here. It was going to be strange enough not having Dad around that long, but at least I’m used to him disappearing off for missions.” Shiro grunts morosely, and she hums. “Always got Matt, I suppose. And Mom. I’ll just spend more time around the house or something. Lucky we live so close.”

Shiro says nothing, stealing the discarded beer bottle of some other long-departed patron, and peeling habitually at the label in one of his little-seen nervous gestures. “It will be weird.” There’s silence again, and Pidge is just starting to wonder if she’s expected to say something, before he continues, quiet and unsure. “You know they haven’t decided on a communications officer yet. You could always…throw your hat in the ring. They’re already worried about team compatibility—with a mission this long, and this important—and everyone knows we work well together.”

“Me?” Pidge snorts. “Please. Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—they’d never take me. I’m still a cadet.”

“Only while you finish up the last of your engineering credits.” Shiro points out sullenly, still not meeting her eyes. “You’ve been an officially marked communications officer for the better part of a year at this point. And there’s no one better at the job.”

Pidge blinks, surprised at the blunt honesty in his tone. “…You…really want me to apply, don’t you?”

Shiro shrugs, glaring down at the decimated bottle label. “It’d just be—it’d feel weird without you, alright? Like something was missing.”

Almost unconsciously, Pidge reaches across, snatching up the balled-up wrapper, freeing it from Shiro’s wrath and contemplating it, as if it might suddenly give her an answer to this new puzzle.

Of course, looking for solutions in beer bottle wrappers is neither scientific nor logical, so Pidge isn’t very surprised when it offers her none.

“…I guess we do do most everything together, don’t we?” she offers softly. Shiro just shrugs again, avoiding both the answer and her eyes as he sits up and sips awkwardly at his drink. He doesn’t want to pressure her, to suggest her into something she doesn’t want to do. He also doesn’t want to go without her.

He’s always been stupidly good at expressly not talking about his worries, especially when he thinks he’s burdening someone else with them. Luckily for him, while Pidge is no feelings expert, she is a Shiro expert at this point, and very good at determining the logical end point to a problem.

“Yeah, okay,” she says unthinkingly. “Why not?” Shiro turns to look at her, still all kinds of conflicted mixed in with his hope, and she steals his drink easily, downing back the last of it, and when she slams it onto the bar next to the empty shot glasses, it sounds like a promise.

Kerberos. What could go wrong?

It’ll give her an amusing story to tell Matt when she gets rejected, at least.

…We come from a peaceful planet…

Pidge comes to with a quiet gasp and a rush of aching pain along her left temple. She startles just ever so slightly—everything blurry and her suit feeling far, far too heavy for either Kerberos or the conditions of their ship—before the weight of strong hands holding her arms behind her back, and Shiro’s muffled voice pleading somewhere off to her left, come to her attention, and she tenses, stills.

It doesn’t all come back so much in a rush as in a trickle of images, feeding into her brain like a lagging video on a bad connection as her quick, panicked breaths fog up the inside of her visor. The ship, the tractor beam, being dragged up and up and away from Shiro and her father, the sudden crunch of the rock against her skull, all sliding through her mind and clicking into place.

For the first time in a long, long time, Pidge feels true panic grip her, staring down into the abyss of the unknown. She’d come close, in their attempt to flee the inevitable on Kerberos, but had been too caught up in the immediacy of the situation. That was instinctive panic, raw and something close to animal.

This is a panic of exercised consideration. Of weighing up her circumstances and what little information she has available to her and ultimately coming up short—short of a plan, short of an idea, short of even a clue. She has no idea where she is—beyond somewhere she never was supposed to be—who has her, or what is going to happen.

Based on her position and her mode of capture, Pidge can only assume herself and the others are being held captives by a hostile extraterrestrial power. Which is not, she thinks a little hysterically, even remotely fucking close to something the Garrison had prepared them for.

For Pidge, sorting all this out amongst the overwhelmed screeching in her head and the dull throb of pain above her eyes that signals either an impending migraine or a concussion feels like the work of hours. But it must only be moments, because one second Shiro is talking, stammering out a few desperate phrases on their behalf, before there’s a shuffle of movement, and Shiro’s cut-off yelp of pain as something strikes him.

At that she does stir, almost involuntarily jerking against the hold on her to turn and observe, check on Shiro’s condition—he was speaking, which means at least he hadn’t sustained any major head injuries, surely. In response there’s a tightening of the grip on her arms, an increase on the weight pressing down on her back, a boot maybe, and she buckles instinctively, head bowing to the ground and her whole body going taut but unmoving.

Eventually, after some further exchanges of words she can’t muddle out in the confused space of her brain beyond the disbelieving fact that it’s definitely English, the grip holding Pidge shifts, moving as something like handcuffs with a rigid bar between them is shackled onto her wrists. Something takes hold of the bar, and begins to drag her backwards, assumedly out of the room. Rough sliding noises on her left and right are the only indication she has that the same is being done to her father and Shiro, she doesn’t dare look to confirm.

It’s not until they’re moving along some hallway, and the other dragging noises move past and ahead of her, that Pidge dares to tilt her head just slightly up, trying to catch sight of something beyond her own feet scraping along a metal floor.

She can only get glimpses, between long stretches of endless chrome and the shine of purple lighting coming from some undeterminable source. Flashes in windows of huge containment systems, layers upon layers of prisoners crammed into cages and moved about as if building blocks directed by a child. She sees whispers of floors upon floors of moving figures, all discernable only in the same shades of grey and purple, with splashes of red, outsizing any operation she’s ever seen at the Garrison.

She sees torture. She sees order. She sees cruelty. She sees control.

There’s the bark of voices above her head, and she yelps as she is dragged around a corner roughly, the quick turn putting a strain on her arms. But she doesn’t dare fight back, not at the risk of suffering the same fate as Shiro.

Observation is her greatest—her only strength, right now. She must do what she does best, as she does at officer meetings, in Garrison dining halls and classrooms, even in shitty, dim-lit desert town bars.

Pidge watches. She grasps at every piece of data, commits to memory every variable she can spot, and above it all she is left with only one question, buzzing in the back of her dizzied, overwhelmed mind.

Where the hell are we?

[philcoulsonismyhero]

So here’s the thing. I graduated a couple of months ago. I now officially have a BSc in theoretical physics. But it’s an ordinary degree. It’s not an honours degree, and it’s definitely not the MPhys degree that I should have gotten. And that’s because I failed. I failed a lot of exams, and didn’t sit other ones because there was no point in putting myself through the stress when I knew for a fact that I was going to fail again. And that wasn’t being defeatist, that was being realistic. So after four years at university, I got an ordinary degree.

After four years of university, I had planned to have a masters degree.

But I failed. I fucked up. Because of a whole raft of circumstances relating to only getting my autism diagnosis after royally fucking up my second year of uni and then being fucked over by the uni’s disability service and just generally having no idea how to study because I never needed to before. I aced school. I did extra exams every year that they would let me, and I got straight As. And I barely had to study at all. Then uni comes along with its ‘self-guided learning’ and lack of the structure that had let me thrive at school, and I crashed and burned. I went straight into second year because of my straight As in my final year exams, fucked up third year, was thrown into fourth year anyway. A retroactive interruption of study after the first semester of fourth year went as terribly as you’d expect did no good, because then I had even less structure. Repeating fourth year (now actually in my fourth year at uni) was a non-starter. I ended up not doing half my exams because there was no point. I only got a degree out of the whole mess based on accumulated credits from 2nd and 3rd year.

I didn’t try my best, I didn’t work hard and fail anyway, I just failed. And I’m slowly trying to convince myself that that’s okay. It happens. Sometimes something you thought you’d be great at turns out to not be for you, and that’s okay. Sometimes the standard path through life isn’t for you because you have a disability and that means you’re not a standard person. A type of learning might not suit you, and that’s okay too.

And I’m getting there. I’ll eventually maybe be okay about the whole thing. It’ll help once I actually have an idea of where to go from here, because right now I’m directionless and it’s big and scary and difficult to process. And I’ve got people in my corner who’ll support me regardless of what comes next.

But then every time I’m starting to think that being okay is an achievable goal, I remember that my dad exists and he’s being utterly fucking useless and is in fact actively causing me more stress than any other thing in my life right now, and suddenly I’m Really Not Remotely Okay.

I’ve seen him four, maybe five times in the last year? The most recent time was a couple of months ago in May, around when I’d made the decision that I wasn’t sitting my last batch of exams because there was no point. But it was for only a few hours over lunch and his fucking girlfriend was there so the sum total of things I was able to say to him as my parent was two sentences about that decision before the subject was changed. Because he might as well be a stranger when Lynn is around. She’s definitely a bloody stranger, that’s for certain. I have tried to find something likeable about her, something we could talk about, anything to move her from the category of ‘adult stranger’ to ‘significant other of person I care about’, but nope. There’s nothing. And when she’s around, my dad isn’t my dad. He’s her boyfriend. It’s jarring and unpleasant and there is a reason that I’ve gotten so angry and uncomfortable that I’ve had to just straight up leave when I was supposed to be spending time with them.

And what has my dad done about the fact that I did something so enormously out of character not once, but twice? Absolutely fucking nothing. He’s not even mentioned it, not once.

And do you know what else he hasn’t bothered to do? Ask anything at all about what my uni situation is. All he knows is that I didn’t sit that last set of exams. Did he bother to ask about what that meant for my degree, or whether I’d be graduating at all, or even think that maybe I might be graduating and there would be a possibility I’d want him to be there? No. No, he didn’t. For the record, I got my degree in the post. There was no way I was celebrating something that as far as I’m concerned is a failure, not an achievement. But does dad know that? No. He didn’t even bother to find out. No thought whatsoever for the slim possibility that I might want one of my parents at my graduation, no thought that I might feel bad about not achieving what I set out to and it might be nice to have some parental reassurance.

I have gotten absolutely no communication from him since that one day in May when he and Lynn had lunch with me and my sisters. A lunch I very nearly didn’t go to because there was a very distinct possibility that I’d end up storming off for a third time.

And then yesterday morning I got a text. A text that was quite clearly sent to all three of us (my sisters and I), asking when we were going to be free over the August bank holiday weekend, and that was it.

I don’t think I want to see him? I don’t think I can deal with hanging out for a few hours and letting him pretend he’s being a parent, all the while completely avoiding any topic that might require him to have a conversation that’s even slightly emotionally engaged. I’d like to have a proper conversation with my father, maybe even yell at him a bit because he quite frankly deserves it, and if that’s not going to happen then I don’t want to see him. 

I want my dad back. I want to go back to the couple of years where I genuinely would have found it hard to choose between my parents if it had come to that. Because the man that shows up once every few months to play act being a parent quite frankly isn’t worth my time.

But I don’t know what to do about it? And that’s the worst thing. I have no idea how to confront him, no idea how to communicate any of this, no idea if I’m even capable of yelling at him because I spent so long playing mediator and being the quiet and reasonable one that I’m straight up physically incapable of raising my voice. I was Mum’s shoulder to cry on, the person Dad could complain about Mum to, the eldest sibling who acted as a buffer and reassurance to my sisters, and somewhere along the way I either lost or just never developed the ability to shout at people. Along with ‘learning’ that shouting never solves anything, that getting angry is counter-productive, that dumping your emotions on someone else is selfish and might hurt them more than it helps you...

I was fifteen when my parents actually divorced. Meaning that the years and years of build-up to that, the years and years when I was the mediator stuck in the middle? I was even younger. I was a child. There’s nothing fair about that. And it’s almost definitely why I didn’t even realise I had problems of my own until I was at university, because before then I’d been to busy dealing with everyone else’s shit to pay attention to myself.

And another consequence of that is that dad has never actually lived with me while I’ve been having problems. He’s just showed up every few weeks (later months) and spent a few hours with me, during which time I was more concerned with spending time with the parent that I missed horribly than talking about any issues I was having. So he’s just. Oblivious. He hasn’t bothered to try and understand the true nature of my circumstances, the actual consequences of my having a disability, the fact that I genuinely have trouble with things that he’s just been assuming I’ll be capable of doing. It’s not nearly as simple as ‘you’ve finished uni, now go get a job’. But he hasn’t bothered to understand and I don’t know how to make him understand and it’s all just building up and stressing me out and it’s Not Fair. It’s not fair and I deserve better from him and it makes me want to fucking throw things because I can’t even scream about it because I Can’t Be Loud and my throat will physically close up on me if I try.

And I hadn’t realised how fucked up that was until I saw a post about that being something that’s a thing for abuse victims. In my case it’s from years and years of being the Sensible And Level-Headed Mediator but I just. It brought me up short, that post.

I don’t process negative emotions very well. Oftentimes I can’t tell what they are other than ‘not good’. But right now I’m tired and I’m sad and I’m angry and they’re all feeding into each other and it’s got to the point where I have to work really hard to not start crying whenever dad comes up in conversation or something reminds me of him.

And I just. Needed to try and get all of this down and release it into the void because never talking about things that upset me is one of my worst bad habits, and it’s going to take a lot of chipping away and working at it to break it. And I need to break it, because it’s not doing me any good at all.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

I'm dying to know about the interactions between Claudine and Phoebus. Knowing them, I feel that it would be a mixture of hilarious hashing about life and routine vs. a hit-and-miss about the best courses of action regarding the VKs. After what Claudine's gone through, how would Phoebus' humor be effective? Especially with Claudine. Btw, you're awesome, keep on turning out the headcanons. You're doing better than the actual canon material.

God Help The Outcasts (Part 3): The Traitor

Warning: Referencesto Past Sexual Abuse.

Claudine’s bigpublic outburst obviously had massive consequences, reaching far pasther getting dragged off-stage, the sanctions on her permanent recordand her probation in Auradon, and extra Remedial Goodness classeswith Quasimodo.

On a larger scale,it opens up a massive rift in the public, split between those thatsay she was completely out of line for exploding like that and usingso much profanity and rudeness (in front of children, no less), andthose that believe she was completely justified, as they had beenusing the “proper channels” to communicate with the governmentand had either gotten apologies before being ignored, or wereoutright oppressed as with the case of the Magic Ban.

In the words of oneof Claudine’s sympathizers, “She was just making sure youcould hear her now!”

Either way, she’scharged with disruption of the peace, obscenity, and corruption ofminors.

Because of thespecial and highly politically charged nature of a VK being taken infor a crime/s,* she gets sent to a very high ranking member of theRoyal Guard who has experience handling “crossing a minefield,whilst blindfolded, dizzy, and drunk” cases:

Captain Phoebus ofFrance.

For logistical andconvenience reasons, he flies in all the way to Auradon Prep, wherethey meet at the interrogation room of a local garrison. The air ismusty, the furniture old and long unused, and the whole place wasobviously just cleaned since its last use a couple of months to ayear back.

Claudine is escortedin without handcuffs, and at Phoebus request, her guards aredismissed, leaving the two of them alone but for the camera, and thestenographer and emergency guards watching behind a one-way glass.

“Do you know whyyou’re here?” Phoebus asks, his expression and tone completelyserious.

“Because I calledout your whole society on their bullshit?” Claudine replies.

“No, you’re herebecause of your fashion choices: it’s illegal to show thatmuch skin. Do you realize how many pedestrian and vehicularaccidents you could have caused just by walking by?”

Claudine blinks.“What.”

Phoebus smiles.“That was a joke. In all seriousness, though, you are in bigtrouble for that tirade you had yesterday—excellent choice ofwords, by the way, never heard those specific combinations of cursesand insults before, they made quite the impact.”

“You learn a loton the Isle,” Claudine replies flatly. “And I’m not apologizingfor it, if that’s what you’re getting at! Throw me back on theIsle for all I care, I’d rather be back there eating garbage, thanbe a bunch of fucking Pharisees like majority of the ‘Good’people running around here!”

“I expected asmuch, which is why I’m here to offer you a deal.”

Claudine sighs, andstarts unbuttoning her shirt even more than it already is. “So longas I don’t have to swallow, pretend you’re amazing, or fake anorgasm…”

Phoebus looks awayand shields his eyes. “Not that kind of deal! Please, buttonyour shirt back up.”

Claudine laughs.“Why? Afraid your wife will find out her tits have gotten too oldfor you?”

“No, because one,I respect you too much to let you degrade yourself like this, two, Ilike being the guy that puts people into jail, not being the guybehind bars, and three, my wife’s breasts are perfect, andI’ll never want for anything more than what she has, thank you verymuch!

“Now would youplease make yourself decent again…?”

Claudine sighsheavily. “Alright…”

A few moments ofsilence and shuffling.

“You’re stilltopless, aren’t you?”

Claudine smirks.“How’d you know?”

“I’ve got asixth sense for whether or not a woman is in a state of undress;blame a wife who likes to lounge around the house completely naked.”

“You luckybastard, you,” Claudine says flatly.

Phoebus smiles. “Iknow, I still can’t believe it myself! Anyway, about that deal Imentioned, one that does not in fact involve you getting naked nor usdoing the do-diddly-dangeroo…”

Claudine sniggered.“That is the dumbest fucking innuendo for ‘fucking’ I have everheard.”

“Ah, but it madeyou laugh, didn’t it?” Phoebus says, pointing a finger at her.

“Only because itwas so offensive I have to laugh to keep myself from dyinginside.”

“Touché, but Istill count that as a win. Now, do I throw out some more jokes andtry to make you laugh, or do you want to get serious and hear out myoffer?”

“I can’t takeyou seriously if you can’t even look me in the eyes, ‘Captain,’”Claudine says playfully.

“I will onceyou’ve put your clothes back on.”

Claudine sighs.“Fine.” A brief moment of silence and more shuffling. “I’mcovered up now! Seriously this time.”

Phoebus carefullyopens his eyes, and is pleased to find she’s about as decent as shecan get with her get up. “Happy to see you didn’t pull a ‘madeyou look!’ on me.”

“Trust me, it’sonly because I want to know what it is you actually want fromme…”

The plan is rathersimple: an hour’s detention after-school Monday-Friday, wherePhoebus is supposed to teach her how to interact with people in apolite way, keep her cool, and not have another outburst or rant likethat, either in social media, in public, and especially anothertelevised event.

“I understandwhere you’re coming from,” Phoebus says on their first meeting.“Everyone talks to everyone, and the internet makes that easierthan ever. But that doesn’t mean you should just say whatever is onyour mind, and more importantly, that you don’t reply to everyonethat talks to you, those who insult you especially.

“And moreimportantly, you have a secret weapon on your side: Part One of ourBig Master Plan.”

Claudine raises hereyebrows. Images of IP traces, royal guards bursting down doors, andinternet trolls pissing their underwear come to her mind. “I’mlistening…”

“This secretweapon, the most powerful move you have against your Pharisees, oneyou can rely on to be 100% effective when used properly, is this:

“Ignore them.”

Claudine stares athim. Then, she scowls. “Are you shitting me right now? Sowhat, I just let their shit-talking stink up my air, never give themcrap back for their bull?”

“No, and beforeyou continue, let me explain: a lot of people don’t realize this,but insults only have the power to hurt you if you let them. YourPharisees are like vampires, sucking out your self-worth, confidence,and good feelings, but also like vampires, they can only hurt you ifyou invite them into your house.

“Your reaction iswhat the Pharisees want—they want to know that they hurt you, thatthey riled you up so bad you find you have no choice but to payattention to them.

“If you deny thempermission to ever enter your front door, they’ll just glare at youthrough the windows, yell at you to let them in, before they leaveand find someone else to feed on. In my experience, they’re reallynot that picky.”

“But even if Idon’t let them in through the door to bite my neck, I can stillhear them through the walls; it may all be bullshit, but it stillfucking hurts, you know…?” Claudine says with much lessbite.

Phoebus eyes soften.“I know. Trust me, I’ve been where you are. But that’s a storyfor another time, as we’re going to move to step two of our BigMaster Plan:

“Be a betterperson, with better problems.

“Find people whoseopinion you should listen to, who you need to listen to, and willwant to listen to. Think of reading troll comments on YouTube, vsreading a really good, well-reasoned blog-post as the differencebetween gorging on potato chips, vs a nice, baked potato with chivesand gravy.

“One, you canreally savour and enjoy, the other, you just shove into your mouthwithout a second thought—baked potato’s healthier for you, too.”

The two take a quicktrip to a vending machine, before resuming.

“So what’s step3 of the Big Master Plan?” Claudine asks as she settles in with apack of Oreos.

“You removeyourself from your Pharisees,” Phoebus replies as he opens up a bagof nuts. “Get out of their circles and comment threads. Keep yourdistance, and just observe. Watch how they talk, act, and/or screaminsults into the void, hoping someone will take offense and engagethem.

“Then, askyourself: ‘Why?’

“Why do they dothis? Why you specifically? Why do they spend so much of theirprecious time and limited days on this world to bother you?”

Claudine nods. “Andis step four confronting them, now that I know my enemy?”

Phoebus shakes hishead. After swallowing his mouthful of nuts, he says, “No, that’sstep five; four is to go out and compliment people, engage in realconversation, and civil, reasonable, fruitful debate. Acquaintyourself with how people really talk when they want to make aconnection with someone and exchange ideas. See what it’s like whenyou don’t reduce yourself to sound-bites, mean flits, and memes.

“Maybe even havethem face-to-face.

“And this is wherewe get to step five: return to your Pharisees. Ask them, why do theydo what they do? Why the hate? Don’t they have anything betterto do with their lives?

“This iscompletely optional, by the way, but whether or not you do it, everytime you find yourself tempted to reply to a stupid insult onStorybook, just repeat step one.”

To help with this,he teacher her all about humour, “the art of making something funout of terrible, awful things.”

He relates to herhow incredibly tense things were immediately after the Great Uniting.Before, when it was just communications through rifts in reality andthe occasional ambassador, it was all good will, excitement, andbeing on their best behaviours, “like all the different realms weredating each other.”

“The Great Unitingwas all of them getting married and moving in together, and formajority of the people, this is when the reality finally hit themthat they’d have to live with each other, every single day ofthe year, for the rest of our lives.

“Metaphoricallyspeaking, we had to share our bathrooms, see each other when we wokeup in the morning before a shower, pants, and a nice strong pot ofcoffee, and be keenly aware of all our bad habits, our flaws,and whenever we indulged in our, ahem, baser pleasures.

“It was a roughtime, even with the translators to help smooth the transition intoEnglish.

“Sometimes, it’d actually make things worse when atranslator decided to soften, change, or completely cut out the badparts of whatever a Grecian said to the woman from Corona, and theyhappen to have a bilingual friend who could tell them what theyreally meant.

“The honeymoon wasover, and lots of people were having regrets. They were feelinghomesick, and even if they had literally brought home with them,Auradon definitely wasn’t the Kansas. Things were lookinglike we were headed to a divorce, and an ugly one at that.”

“Did things everget to the shouting and breaking dishes level?”

“For some, yes.But that was inevitable and expected when you pulled off something asbig, complicated, and messy as this. The rest, however, we had todefuse before things really got ugly, with the one universallanguage all of us could understand:

“Humour.

“I’ve yet tomeet a culture that doesn’t like to laugh—and if they don’t,Beast and the others passed them over for the final list.

“Using comedy wasthe perfect tool. It defused tensions, it broke the ice, it letpeople find something they had in common so we could start buildingbridges there. And as a wise man once said, ‘If your enemy isdoubled over in laughter, he can’t club you to death.’”

Claudine smirks. “Ibeg to differ, but I get the point…”

Phoebus becomes aguide, a protector (for both external aggressors and Claudine’sworse impulses), and a third regulating force in her life, a properfather figure for her whom she frequently hangs out with every otherSunday to go out and bond, be her chaperon for when she starts datingagain (and seriously, this time), and being one of the people she canalways call when things go wrong.

She also calls him for advice, and often times, when he catches wind of her getting into trouble, offers helpful advice, like this one tacked onto the end of many lengthier pieces: “… But most importantly: don’t punch anyone in the dick, or where they would have one if they’re female.”

The humour helps her get over her natural distrust of authority, seeing as that’s what caused and enforced the Isle, and Maleficent’s guards aren’t saints themselves, or follow much of a “code of honour.” Claudine often timescalls him when she can to ask him to tell a joke. One of them isthis:

“One day, a nunliving in a convent in a forest comes across a hunter trying to bagsome deer. As she gathers herbs and berries, she watches as thehunter nocks his bow, takes aim, and misses.

“’Goddammit, Imissed!’ the hunter cries as his prey gets away.

“’Oh mygoodness, what foul language!’ the nun says to herself. ‘God,please give this man the strength, so he may never take Your name invain ever again.’

“Later, the nun isgetting some water from the river, and she sees the hunter trying tobag some deer again. Again, he nocks his bow, takes aim, and misses.

“’Goddammit, Imissed!’ he cries as his prey gets away yet again.

“’Oh mygoodness, what a horrible man!’ the nun says to herself. ‘God,please show this man why you do not take Your name in vain!’

Suddenly, the skydarkens, clouds roll in, and a bolt of lightning comes shooting downfrom above, striking the ground just beside the hunter!

Then, they hear adeep, rumbling voice echoing all throughout the forest:

“Me-dammit, Imissed!’”

* The Rotten Four’s“forgiveness” at the end of the first movie was not nearly asclean and quick as was portrayed in canon.

[ladala99]

Pokemon Sword/Shield Review - From a Dexit Critic

And no, I’m not here to trash the game.

So yeah, I noticed Sword and Shield went down in price a bit, considered how much that would make the Game+DLC, and decided it was worth a try. I was always intending on eventually getting the game for the purpose of having a primary source for Galar Pokemon for my collection, and the price drop was enough of an incentive to make it be now. Or, actually more like a month ago. I’ve let this sit before reviewing it.

Spoilers ahead!

What I Had Heard Before Going In

I had a very negative perception of the games due to pre-release info and the fanbase’s hate dump. These are the things I knew:

- Dexit - N64 Tree - Pokemon models and animations are the same as previous games, despite GameFreak saying they needed to be redone from scratch - Wild Area empty and uninteresting - No plot - Somehow there’s handholding despite the lack of plot - Game is too easy - Except Leon, maybe - Exp Share cannot be turned off - No one in the region will shut up about Leon - Hop will not shut up about type advantages - No exploration - There are two battle backgrounds - one for overworld that’s grassy and decent, and one for indoors that’s a white void.

The last one turned out to be objectively false - while certain indoor areas that have very few battles (like, 1 or 2 story ones) have the white void background, every route and major battling location has its own background, much like in Let’s Go, Pikachu and Eevee. And they look really good.

How I Decided to Play

Since I had heard that the Exp Share was stuck on and I had had really bad experience with that previously, I decided on a special ruleset. I would still use only 6 Pokemon on my team, but I would only ever have 3 Pokemon in my party at a time so they would level more individually.

I found that this ended up being just about the right difficulty. Lots of strategy, especially with the gimped team, lots of item usage, and lots of Pokemon Center visits. I did, however, end up having all 6 on me during Gym and Rival fights and the Champion Cup later in the game, though, as I noticed the difficulty ramping up.

I also decided not to get the DLC for my first playthrough. Part of what made me feel that the Game+DLC price was acceptable was the idea that I’d play the game once with just the base game, and then download the DLC and play it again as if it were a third version (on a second profile). And I decided that, after I finished the game the first time, I would set my calendar for three months afterwards to play again with the DLC. That time hasn’t come yet, so I still have only played the base game.

The Story

Now onto the actual review!

I seem to be in a minority, but I adore the plot of every Pokemon game Ohmori has directed, and Sword and Shield is no exception.

The story here revolves around the Champion Cup, which is pretty refreshing - the last game I’d say had the League as its primary plot (barring remakes) is Generation II.

And the story isn’t just about you - it’s about your rivals Hop, Bede, and Marnie. Each of the characters has a different reason to be pursuing the Champion Cup: Hop because he wants to be just like his big brother Leon, who is Champion; Bede because he’s an orphan adopted by President Rose, and he wants to live up to Rose’s expectations of him; Marnie because she comes from a small town barely holding onto Gym Town status since it doesn’t have a Power Spot, and she wants to make her town proud. As always, though, you don’t really have a story. You’re more of a force of nature that ruins everyone’s dreams.

Each of these characters has their own arc as well:

Hop goes from enthusiastic to realizing that he isn’t as strong as he wants to be when Bede (and you) beat him in battle. Bede, channeling Silver, taunts him for being weak and he takes it to heart, changing up his team completely for a while. Eventually, he realizes that using Pokemon he’s not close to isn’t working, and he returns to his original team. He gets really far in the Champion Cup, all the way until the challenger finals, but ultimately loses to you.

Bede desperately wants to be strong and make Rose proud. He collects Wishing Stones for Rose’s purposes while also crushing (most) battles in the Champion Cup. He has a drive to be the best, whatever it takes, and ends up destroying a mural for Wishing Stones. Rose finds out about the vandalism and disqualifies him from the Champion Cup, crushing his dreams. Opal, the Fairy-type Gym Leader, ends up deciding that he would be her successor, even though he didn’t want that role. Even though he couldn’t compete in the Champion Cup, he still challenges you to a rematch, disrupting the competition. Leon doesn’t mind and allows it.

Marnie doesn’t appear in your path too often, and her presence is mostly felt by the presence of Team Yell. Marnie just wants to compete fair and square, but Team Yell disrupt all of the other challengers for Marnie’s benefit, preventing them from moving on before Marnie finishes each Gym, and ultimately blocking the route to Spikemuth completely so no one else can compete. She tolerates her hometown fans up until they block everyone else, at which point she helps you out and scolds them. You face her first in the Champion Cup and I never felt more sorry for crushing her dreams because I felt for her trying to advance her town’s reputation.

The Legendary plot and the Villain plot do exist as well, and they feel pretty separate this time.

The Legendary plot primarily involves Sonia as she travels around the region learning about the Legendary Hero who turns out to be two heroes and two Pokemon. You accompany her to various statues, murals, and tapestries as she tries to piece the Legend together. Eventually, you realize the Pokemon depicted is the same one you and Hop saw at the very beginning of the game, traveling too far into the Slumbering Weald. You go back, find the Rusty Sword and Rusty Shield that the heroes wielded, and summon the Legendaries in the villain plot. In the post-game, as you and Hop return the relics, a couple of guys who claim to be royals and celebrities steal Hop’s relic and try to make that Legendary go wild. When they succeed, you battle that Legendary to calm it down, and your Legendary will appear to challenge you, at which point you can catch it. Hop then goes after his Legendary and befriends it offscreen.

The Villain plot is hinted at through Bede’s collection of the Wishing Stones, and there is a point where Dynamax Energy spikes where it shouldn’t be, but what’s going on isn’t apparent until the very end of the Champion Cup. Chairman Rose interrupts you right before the Champion match to awaken Eternatus in some vague hope to solve an energy crisis that wouldn’t happen for 1000 years.

How appropriate that this happens in a game where some Pokemon aren’t programmed in because “eventually there will be too many to fit" so they decided to stop well before there were too many to fit in the game. Because honestly: there’s room.

Eternatus goes crazy and causes “the Darkest Day” which happened in the past and was what caused the Legendary Heroes to be heroes when they stopped it. You and Hop awaken the Legendaries and do a Raid Battle against Eternatus, ending with you capturing it. Also there are some shenanigans with evil League Staff known as Macro Cosmos and a long elevator ride on the way.

A lot of the Villain plot Leon handles, much like Sonia handles the Legendary plot, both up until you and Hop need to awaken the Legendaries. So most of it feels out-of-nowhere even if some of it was foreshadowed.

The energy crisis, though. There’s no indication of that at all in the game. No one ever says anything like “the rate we’re using energy, we’ll eventually run out. But it’ll be long after we’re dead so whatever.” If enough people had that attitude, I could see where Rose is coming from!

But instead Rose just brings it up at the very climax, and he doesn’t have a good reason why he couldn’t wait even one more day for the Championship Cup to finish. It’s 1000 years in the future - you have time! To find a less-destructive method, even! Like, I don’t think the problem was solved in the end because you captured Eternatus so it couldn’t provide energy.

And no one afterward mentioned the distant energy crisis. No “we’ll need to think of ways to conserve energy so no maniac tries something like that again,” nothing.

In conclusion: Villain plot sucked, Legendary plot was okay, and Championship Cup plot was really good.

Gyms, Battles and Difficulty

Due to how I played, I can’t fairly score this versus other games in the series. I will say that if you’re underleveled, the game is really fun. Every battle on every route is a challenge, and the Gym Battles test your strategies and resources. Especially Raihan.

The fact that the Exp. Share is always on is annoying and caused me to play oddly. I think next time I’ll do a team of 12 instead of a split team of 6, though. Not having the right type matchups ended up making me reset a couple of times as the battle was unwinnable at my level with what I had in the party. I just worry that I won’t feel as attached to the team if I have 12 of them.

Especially since there really aren’t that many overworld battles. It’s especially apparent since the previous games were Kanto remakes, which meant games that had those maze-like routes with a gauntlet of trainers. Now there’s about  3-5 trainers per route, and there aren’t that many routes in the game. At the end of each route you will find one of your rivals that sort-of acts as a boss, but even then that’s still a very low number of battles.

All Gyms have 3 Gym Trainers and the Gym Leader, but what’s interesting in the puzzles. Especially since they’re the only puzzles in the game. Each one is different, and they’re all pretty neat. Also interesting is that Gyms don’t let you leave and heal after every fight. At least, I don’t think they do. I never needed to.

Overworld Exploration

I mentioned it in the previous section, but it really lacks. Routes are mostly-straight lines with some side paths for items, usually really short ones. Even Gym puzzles are really linear.

I’d say there’s two places you can get lost at all - Glimwood Tangle and the water route between Circhester and Spikemuth.

Overworld puzzles are limited to “go on this optional path” and “realize you can go between these bushes/behind this building for an item.” You can feel the lack of field moves.

The Wild Area

Okay, the exception to the linear routes is the Wild Area. The base game essentially has two, but they’re connected and you can access both parts right away.

It’s big, things respawn, the weather and thus spawns change every day, and the Raid Battles scale to your level. It’s really fun, but it feels like a side mode. It feels like something you would access by going to a different option on the main menu rather than something that’s a part of the rest of the game world, especially since it has its own currency.

It reminds me of the Sinnoh Underground except without the Secret Base option. As in, it’s something fun to come back to often, but, again, it’s not really part of the main game.

Yes, it has N64 trees, yes the pop-in is noticeable, and yes the terrain feels unfinished. It has problems, but I find it pretty fun.

My only real issue with it is that you have to beat all of the existing Raid Battles before more will appear, and they stay the same rarity when the date changes. I’m in the postgame, and I’m having trouble soloing 5-star Raids and I’m also having a hard time finding people interested in my base-game 5-star Raids. So I’m basically throwing myself against the same raid over and over again because I have no other options (I’m saving my Wishing Pieces for when I need a specific Pokemon).

Dexit?

Still a thing, and still an issue. I am attempting to obtain every ribbon my Shiny Minun can get on, and Galar still won’t let her in. It also means that if I use RNG on the full Pokedex to choose a team, I’ll have to double-check that that Pokemon can actually be used in Galar. It sucks.

The game tries to make up for it with a huge Pokedex, but that just makes finishing the Regional Dex harder. I used to feel that catching 386 Pokemon to complete the Gen III National Dex was impossible, and Galar has a Regional Dex of 400 species! (As did Alola in the Ultra titles, but it was split into three sub-dexes)

I’ve been tackling the Pokedex using the suggested catches, and I’m about halfway through and bored. I’m determined to keep going until it stops suggesting things, but it feels like an endless climb at this point, since every time I finish collecting a group, another group shows up, and since I’m not going in order, I can’t look at the scroll bar and see “wow, look at how much I’ve done!” I started with this method, though, and I’m going to finish with it.

The National Dex was never my issue, and making the Regional Dex humongous doesn’t help its absence. Because I don’t miss the checklist - I miss being able to use any Pokemon of my choosing without double-checking that I actually can. I’m actually glad the National Dex is gone since it means getting the Shiny Charm is easier. But with the Regional Dexes bloating in size, it’s not helping.

Pokemon Camp

Just going to mention that it’s really cute, but really shallow. And there’s not a reliable enough way to get berries for me to feel comfortable using the rarer berries in making better Curry.

It also gives Exp just from interacting with your Pokemon, so I avoided using it when I played so I didn’t have a chance of getting overleveled. Which sucks because I tend to really like features like this.

I don’t know if I’m going to try to complete my Curry Dex. With version exclusive ingredients that can’t be traded over HOME’s GTS, and the fact that I’m pretty shy about asking the community for things, I don’t know if it’s possible for me. It’s a cute feature, though. I just wish it didn’t require trading.

So Those Flaws?

Let’s look at them again, shall we?

- Dexit Still an issue - N64 Tree Yep. Wild Area is unpolished. - Pokemon models and animations are the same as previous games, despite GameFreak saying they needed to be redone from scratch Yep. - Wild Area empty and uninteresting It’s unpolished, but not empty nor uninteresting imo. - No plot Yeah there is, it’s just focused on the Champion Cup - Somehow there’s handholding despite the lack of plot You know, I never saw Sun and Moon as handholdy. This game is even less-so. - Game is too easy If you use a 6-Pokemon team that you keep in your Party, it probably is. - Except Leon, maybe I did not find Leon any harder than other fights. He is higher level, though. - Exp Share cannot be turned off Indeed. You really need to work around this to have fun. At least, I assume. - No one in the region will shut up about Leon It happened a bit at the beginning, but it didn’t seem gratuitous. - Hop will not shut up about type advantages He mentions it once a battle. Or twice if he hits you with one. I missed mid-fight dialogue, so I didn’t mind. - No exploration Very little exploration, yes.

So many are valid, but some of them aren’t as bad as people made them out to be.

Conclusion

Sword and Shield are very flawed Pokemon games, but they’re still Pokemon games and still fun.

They certainly aren’t all bad, and even do a few things right, like how well-characterized the rivals are and the Wild Area concept in general. This isn’t even going into Competitive since I haven’t dipped my toes in there yet.

I had a good time with the base game, better than I thought I would. But I can safely say Diamond and Pearl are no longer my least-favorite Pokemon games. That title now belongs to Sword and Shield.

[calvincelebuski]

Best Chef USA (reupload)

I deleted this so I could submit it to a magazine then realized it was too long for said magazine.

Recently, CNN introduced a new network, CNN Lifestyle. On this less-news-focused channel, reality shows such as “Lasting Love,” in which a newlywed couple is locked in a dimly lit, windowless room for six months and they are not allowed contact with anyone except each other, “Doing Time,” in which college students are separated into two groups, prisoners and prison guards and hilarious antics ensue, and “Where There be Dragons?” in which participants are blinded and thrown from a moving vehicle in the middle of a nature reserve on the island of Komodo are aired. The undisputed breakout hit on the network is “Best Chef USA,” a cooking competition show filmed on a cruise ship in international waters. Some critics argue that the success of this otherwise formulaic show is due almost entirely to an episode that aired last month. Nearly every major news program covered the episode, especially the programs aired on CNN, many of which devoted five straight months of programming to talking about it exclusively. It has been called one of the most controversial, disgusting, horrifying, culturally insensitive, and inhumane events in the history of television and many analysts and fans speculate that it will be a turning point in the history of reality TV.

The episode began, as most do, with the announcer saying, “Previously on Best Chef USA,” followed by a disorienting, fast-paced series of statements and reaction shots from the previous episode.

“He did what?”

“Todays featured ingredient is the humble banana.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“This is a disaster.”

“I can’t find my eggs.”

“Alright, I’m putting a pizza in the oven.”

“If you go home, I’ll eat my toes.”

“This is a disaster.”

Then a much longer clip was shown. There was something that had happened last week that the producers had told the editor to emphasize.

In the Best Chef Kitchen, Kevin and Mary stood before the judges’ table. Their dishes had been deemed the two worst of that episode. The five other contestants stood behind them. Behind the other contestants were the ten cooking stations that they used to prepare their dishes. The stations were set up in five rows of two, all facing towards the front of the room at the judges’ table. Everyone in the room who didn’t already know which of the two would be eliminated waited anxiously to find out. The three judges, Dan Stevenson, Less Famous Chef #1, and Less Famous Chef #2, looked at each other and then Dan looked at Kevin. “Kevin,” Dan said, “You’ve been eliminated. Please lay down your Kitchenaid Classic Nylon Slotted Turner.”

“I understand. I would have made the same choice,” said Mary, “for my parents, to make them proud.” She knew that the more she brought up her recently deceased parents, the more sympathy she would get from the audience, which would translate into support from the producers.

Kevin walked to the judges’ table and placed his spatula in the center. Then he turned around to exit the room, but on his way out he slipped on a banana peel, causing him to yell out “whoa,” throw his arms up into the air, and fall over. In post-production, the sound of a slide whistle was added. On his way down, he hit his head on the corner of a cooking station. His skull split open and the corner of the cooking station found its way inside. Blood came gushing out and a small amount of his brain came out as well. He was dead before he hit the ground.

One of the contestants, Jenny, said “This is a disaster.” The theme music began to play and the introduction was shown.

“Six chefs remain, all competing for some money, a handshake, and the title of Best Chef USA.”

The contestants were all shown one by one. They smiled and folded their arms. Each was accompanied by The Best Chef USA logo, fire against a black background, and his or her name and a brief description read by the announcer.

“Mary, a slightly overweight fifty-five-year-old with dead parents that she will stop at nothing to impress.”

“Victor, an intimidatingly handsome thirty-five-year old who you should hate with all of your being.”

“Kelsey, an attractive but non-threatening eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old with blonde-dyed-hair.”

“Hank, a thirty-six-year-old man’s man who never goes anywhere without his trusty cowboy hat and sunglasses.”

“Louise, a forty-two-year-old Danish immigrant to the United States with dreams of opening her own restaurant.”

“Jenny.”

The intro ended and all of the competing chefs were shown sitting in a circle on the deck of the ship and looking at the ground. “This is a disaster,” Jenny said. The other chefs looked at her, slightly annoyed and also surprised. They had forgotten that she was still there.

“I ain’t never want to see someone’s body open up like that again,” Hank said, then he smiled and added, “unless it’s Kelsey’s sweet little p***y.”

Everyone looked at him. They were all completely disgusted and profoundly uncomfortable, none more so than Kelsey, who had never felt more unsafe in her life. Before the episode aired, however, the clip was edited together with another clip of everyone laughing. The producers had decided early on in the season that they couldn’t afford to make Hank the villain. He appealed to an important demographic: boyfriends and husbands of people who watch the show.

The screen cut to a confessional with Louise. “I can’t believe what happened to Kevin. He was just such a nice guy. That was such a terrible thing. I just-” Her eyes were welling up. She began to cry.

Although she didn’t hear it over her own sobbing, the producers were whispering to her from behind the camera, “Say it again but more Danish. Again, but more Danish. Say it like you just left Daneland.”

Then she looked into the camera and said, “and what the f**k is wrong with Ha-”

The screen cut to another confessional, this time with the producer-and-editor-designated villain, Victor. “What the f**k is wrong with Hank? Seriously. I really hope that *sshole gets what’s coming to him. I can’t stand that guy.” After this, he added, “No one here can,” but that was edited out in favor of a clip of him saying “And what’s up with Jenny? I don’t think I’ve heard her say anything other than ‘this is a disaster’ for the last few weeks.” The confessional was cut before he said, “I really hope she’s okay.”

The next confessional was with Jenny. “This is a disaster.”

After that was Hank. “I ain’t gonna apologize just for bein’ me. Yall should know I came here to win.” Instead of somehow connecting the two thoughts or saying something else or providing context, he tipped his cowboy hat, pulled his sunglasses down, smiled, and winked repeatedly until a producer told him to leave. Hank was from suburban Connecticut.

Mary went next. “Kevin is dead now, just like my parents. They died shortly before I came on this show, as I’ve said.” She had said it before in nearly every confessional. “Now I’m not only going to win this for them, I’m gonna win this for Kevin, who was like another parent to me even though he was thirty-three years younger than me. He had an old soul, that kid, and I can only hope he’s up there with Jesus and my parents in heaven.” She dabbed her eyes with a napkin, but there were no tears. “I just can’t deal with three people who were so important to me dying from such horrible, banana-peel-related deaths… Well four if you count cousin Louie, but that wasn’t my ba- never mind.”

Finally, Kelsey’s confessional was shown. What she actually said was “Hank is, like, such a creep. I really don’t feel safe around him. Does he think he’s funny or something? Why does he get away with all this stuff? Everyone here knows he’s a creep. Why hasn’t he been kicked off the ship?” but the confessional was edited to make her say, “Hank is, like, – funny or something?”

The confessionals were over and the contestants were all shown entering the Best Chef USA Kitchen. They all took their places standing in front of the cooking stations. Each had a small table to his or her right with knife on it. At the front of the room was a red curtain concealing that week’s featured ingredient. The host, Isabella Schell stepped out from behind the curtain. She was a slender brunette woman in a black dress who always seemed to have her right hand on her hip. Her mouth seemed to be stuck in a smile that always seemed pleasant at first, but, if anyone looked at it for too long, he or she became increasingly uncomfortable and almost got the feeling of staring into a void and that everything had suddenly, quietly become nothing. For this reason, long shots of her were rarely used. Whenever she spoke, she made broad gestures with her left hand and sometimes shifted her weight from one leg to the other.

“Hello, chefs.” They all tried to avoid looking directly at her mouth. “Today we have a very special surprise. We will be cooking something that has never been cooked before on Best Chef USA.” Because this was the first season, this statement itself did not do anything for the chefs. “But before I introduce that, we have a very special guest judge for today’s proceedings.” She walked behind the curtain. After a few seconds she jumped out and shouted “Me.” The chefs were surprised, mainly because they had never seen her shout or jump before. She didn’t really care what their reactions were; she was getting paid extra for this either way and any anticlimax would be overshadowed by what was about to happen. “Now, then,” she said, “your ingredient for this week is…” the curtain behind her fell, revealing Kevin’s naked, lifeless, cured body hanging upside-down from meat hooks “… Kevin.”

The contestants stared at the corpse. The throat had been cut and the blood drained. The body had mostly been skinned, but the producers had chosen to leave the skin of the head and neck there to make it clear to any viewers who missed last week’s episode and tuned in late that he was no longer a part of the competition. At the request of standards and practices, his genitalia had been cut off.

Louise gasped and went pale. The other contestants suppressed their reactions. Each one of them thought to his or herself some variation of “I’m going to win this, no matter what.”

“In parts of Polynesia, human flesh prepared for consumption is referred to as ‘long pig’ because of its similarity to pork,” Isabella said. She didn’t actually know if this was true or what “Polynesia” was, but the producers told her to say it, so she did.

The screen cut to a confessional with Kelsey. “When I saw that we had to cook long pig, I was like ‘ew,’ but then I was like, ‘not ew’ ‘cause it’s just meat, you know?”

The screen cut back to the kitchen and the three usual judges, Dan Stevenson, Less Famous Chef #1, and Less Famous Chef #2, walked out and stood next to the body. Dan was a celebrity chef and owner of the renowned restaurant, Food for your Fat Fucking Face. He was beloved the world over and considered one of the top authorities on food and undeniably more famous than the other two judges. His face was a constant grimace and his forehead had more wrinkles in it than anyone else he had ever met. When he wasn’t talking, his teeth were almost always clenched, even when he was at his most relaxed.

Less Famous Chef #1, also called LFC#1 had an emaciated figure, a dirty beard, and a constant odor that never seemed to get any better, but he wasn’t always like that. He used to be a beloved celebrity chef as well and owned the restaurant Good Ingredients, Great Eats, but he lost everything when Dan chose to open a second Food for your Fat Fucking Face with dramatically reduced prices right next to Good Ingredients, Great Eats and do regular meet and greets and autograph signings at the new location. After Good Ingredients, Great Eats went out of business and LFC#1 went bankrupt he began living on the streets and eating scraps, pigeons, rats, stray cats and dogs, and whatever he found in trash cans and dumpsters, which, where he lived, was usually scraps, pigeons, rats, and stray cats and dogs. He lived in Connecticut. Gradually, the general public forgot that he had ever existed. When this happened, Dan changed his prices back to the way they were in the original location and stopped showing up at the second location.

Less Famous Chef #2 or LFC#2, unlike the other two, had never been famous or even particularly successful in any regard before the show started. He was added as the third judge because the producers couldn’t find any other famous or once-famous chefs who would work for as little money as LFC#1 and under the same conditions.

Dan opened his mouth to speak, but LFC#2 spoke first. “As a person of Polynesian descent, I just want to say that this is a very poor representation of my people’s culture. I’m here for this episode because I’m contractually obligated to be and I need the money, not because I’m okay with what’s happening.” This statement would be edited out before air. One of the sources of controversy for the episode would come from people of Polynesian descent saying that the episode was disrespectful, with LFC#2 in particular taking a lot of heat from his own people for seeming to be complicit in it. This controversy would briefly make Less Famous Chef #2 the most famous chef on the show.

Dan shot LFC#2 a dirty look, but LFC#2 couldn’t tell the difference between that and a normal look from Dan. Then Dan said, “As was said before, you will be cooking with the Polynesian ingredient, long pig. Just do whatever it is you normally do with pork.”

Isabella looked at the contestants and said, “Alright chefs, are you ready? Everyone grab your Victorinox 47508 3-¼-Inch Paring Knife.” She paused and then said, “Go.”

The contestants all grabbed the knives in front of them and, with the exception of Louise, ran over to Kevin’s body. Louise walked slowly, not sure if what she was seeing was really happening and desperately hoping that she was about to wake up. At the body, the contestants were all frantically trying to get the best cuts of meat. The cameraman struggled to get a good angle.

In the chaos, while Hank tried to avoid looking at or getting any cuts from the buttocks, taint, or general crotch area, someone bumped into him and his knife was pushed into his side. “Aw, s**t.”

“This is a disaster,” Jenny said when she saw the wound.

The cameraman made sure to get a good shot of it. Hank pulled it out and, blood flowing from the wound, continued cutting meat off of Kevin’s body, swearing the whole time.

When Louise got to the corpse, most of the other contestants were already gone. She wasn’t looking in that direction, but she saw them run by, could hear each individual footstep as they scurried back to their stations, and saw the trail of blood left by Hank. Almost all of the good cuts were gone. Even, the face skin, the eyes, the intestines, and some of the bones were missing. The ribs in particular looked like they had been violently ripped out. Pieces of flesh were hanging off of various places. She thought that maybe if she made a dish she had fond memories of it would take her mind off of what she was actually doing. She decided to make something from her youth, Flæskesteg. The producers were always telling her to make something Danish anyway. She started hyperventilating when she cut into the back of the neck.

Back at the stations, Mary was chopping the ribs into smaller segments when a cameraman approached her. “I’m making deconstructed ribs,” she said “It was one of my dead parents’ favorite dishes and I’m doing it to honor them.” Her parents never had deconstructed ribs.

“I’m making deconstructed pork chops,” Kelsey said. “It’s like, I don’t know, you know? NBD. JK I’m actually super stressed. I’ve never worked with pork or long pig before.” She forced herself to laugh a little. “How have I never worked with pork before? Pork chops are supposed to have eyes, right?” Kelsey was thirty-four.

“I may be bleeding a lot, but I ain’t out yet,” said Hank, struggling to speak. “I’m making deconstructed bacon.” He coughed. “That’s man food for all you at home.”

“I’m making deconstructed sausage.” Victor said. “I accidentally cut myself with the knife and some of my blood got in there, but it doesn’t seem like a big deal, you know, considering-”

A producer ran up to him and whispered in his ear, “Hey, I know this is short notice, but we’re sponsored by Crest. We’re gonna need you to integrate this into the dish.” He handed him a tube of toothpaste and left as quickly as he came.

“Uh,” said Victor

“This is a disaster,” said Jenny.

Kelsey banged her hand on the station and loudly said “Is it, Jenny? Is it a disaster? Is it a disaster like, like, everything else that you always say is a disaster?”

“Yes. I forgot to bring my cuts of meat back with me,” Jenny said.

“Oh, okay.” said Kelsey. She went back to cooking.

Louise had just finished rubbing salt onto her cuts of meat when she began to feel more and more nauseous. “I can’t do this,” she said and she threw up all over her station and her meat.

Then Dan started walking around and looking at everybody’s progress. He walked up to Victor and asked him, “What’s this and what are you using to make it?”

“I’m making deconstructed sausage and I’m using Kevin’s intestines and-”

“I’m sorry. You’re using what intestines?”

“Kevin’s, the featured-”

“Kevin the human being?”

“Uh. Well, yes.” Victor was confused.

Dan’s voice began to rise. “You’re cooking a human being? That is f**king disgusting.”

“But you knew about it. You were just over there talking about-”

Dan started to yell. “No wonder you’re the f**king villain this season. You’re cooking a human being and you’re disrespecting me, Dan f**king Stevenson.” He pointed to his own forehead. “Have you ever seen this many f**king forehead wrinkles? You’re disrespecting a man with more forehead wrinkles than you can even f**king count.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Victor said “Wait. I’m the villain?”

A producer came over and whispered in his ear. “So far, each of the other contestants has said something in confessionals that, in the right context, could be construed as negative about you and you’ve said things in confessionals that, in the right context, could be construed as negative about each of them.”

The other contestants looked at each other. They all had assumed that, if anyone was the villain, it was Hank.

Meanwhile, Hank, having lost a lot of blood, was struggling to finish his deconstructed bacon without falling over. “Just need to…” He dumped the separated fat and rind from the pan onto a plate. “There.” He passed out.

Mary was the only one besides the cameraman who saw this happen. Having determined that the ribs did not have enough meat on them, she had been trying to think of something else to add to the dish. When she was sure no one was looking, she approached Hank with a chef’s knife. After stomping on his head and kicking him a few times to make sure that he wouldn’t wake up, she pulled up his left pant leg and started cutting off his calf. A cameraman turned towards her just in time to capture all of this, but the clip didn’t make it to air. The producers wanted her to remain a likable character.

Louise had been curled up in the fetal position on the floor since she threw up. Finally, she got up and said, “I have to go. I have to leave,” and started to walk away. She heard someone walking towards her. A producer grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, “You signed a contract.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Where do you think you’re going to go?”

She curled up in the fetal position on the floor again.

A few minutes later, the time was up. “All right, chefs, let’s see what you’ve got,” said Dan.

The judges all sat down at the table. From left to right, the order was Dan Stevenson, Less Famous Chef #1, Less Famous Chef #2, and Isabella Schell. The first person to submit his dish was Victor. “I made deconstructed sausa-”

“Made from Kevin, you sick f**k,” said Dan.

“Well everybody made stuff from-” Victor began.

“Shut up.” Dan grabbed the dish out of his hands.

Victor, hoping to stop being presented as the villain, decided not to say anything back to him.

After sampling the dish, Dan said, “Is this toothpaste?” A producer whispered something in his ear. “Because it’s delicious,” Dan continued. “I love Crest Complete Whitening Plus Scope. That being said, the rest of the dish is terrible.”

He passed the dish on to LFC#1, who ate everything on the plate and yelled “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

“Wait, but we-” LFC#2 started.

“It’s fine,” Isabella said. “I just ate and I don’t actually know anything about food. I just know how to host.”

Next, Kelsey was called up to submit her dish. “I made deconstructed pork chops.”

Dan sampled the dish. “It’s very nice,” he said. “The eyes add an interesting taste and texture that I don’t think I’ve ever had in a pork chop, before. But I’m a little disappointed at the lack of hashtags and emojis. That’s what you kids like, right?”

“Yes,” Kelsey replied.

He passed the plate along to LFC#1, who ate the whole thing and yelled, “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

After that, Jenny was called up. “I forgot to make something,” she said.

“That’s fine, we just won’t consider eliminating you,” said Dan.

“This isn’t a disaster.”

LFC#2 and LFC#1 looked at each other. LFC#2 was confused and frustrated by Dan’s decision and LFC#1 was sad that there would be one less dish to eat.

Mary was called up next. “I made deconstructed ribs,” she said, “just like my parents used to love.”

“What’s this extra meat?” Dan asked, pointing to Hank’s calf-meat.

“Just a little something special my parents used to make for me,” she said. Her parents never made her human calf-meat.

Dan sampled the dish and said, “This may be the best dish you’ve made so far. You’ve really come back strong after last week’s disappointment.”

LFC#1 grabbed the dish, ate everything on it and yelled, “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

Next, it was Hank’s turn, but he was dead, so an intern dragged his body up to the judges’ table, presented his dish and said, “It looks like deconstructed bacon.”

Dan sampled it and, addressing Hank’s corpse, said, “It’s very simple, basic, even, but there is something to it that can’t be denied.”

LFC#1 grabbed everything off the plate, shoved it into his mouth and, with his mouth full, said, “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

The intern dragged Hank’s body back to the cooking station

Finally, it was time for Louise to present her dish. She was no longer in the fetal position, crying. Now, she was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling. She didn’t care that Kevin was dead anymore. She didn’t care that they were assigned to cook him. She didn’t care that she had sliced into his neck and ruined one of her favorite childhood dishes for herself. She had lost all feeling and all desire for anything. The fifth time her name was called, she stood up and, with an expressionless face, scraped the raw meat and vomit onto a plate. She walked up to the judges and dropped the dish onto the table in front of Dan, causing some of the vomit to splash onto both of them.

“What is this?” Dan asked.

“Neck-meat and throw up,” Louise said.

Dan looked at her for a bit and said, “Tell me, if most of the food on my plate is already digested, why should I put in the effort to digest it myself?”

Louise shrugged.

LFC#1 grabbed the plate, ate the meat, licked the vomit off, and yelled, “This is the best food I’ve ever had.”

After Louise walked back to her station, the next segment began. It was the part where the judges talked about which two contestants should be considered for elimination and the contestants pretended not to hear them. Although the other judges were allowed to name candidates, it was Dan and the producers that ultimately decided who wouldn’t make it to next week.

“Louise and Victor, definitely,” Dan said. “One of them threw up and one of them cooked a human being.”

“Well, every contestant cooked a human being,” LFC#2 said. Dan looked at him and bared his teeth, but he continued anyway. “And I think Jenny should be considered too.”

“Why’s that?” asked Dan in a more aggressive tone than usual.

“She didn’t even hand in a dish,” said LFC#2, slightly surprised at Dan’s response.

LFC#1 nodded in agreement, but Dan didn’t see it.

Dan looked at the table took a deep breath and then looked at the two other judges. “Tell me, excluding the numbers, what’s the name you both share?”

LFC#1 was silent. LFC#2 hesitated, and then said “Less Famous Chef?”

“That’s right,” Dan said, “and who was the one who made both of you change your names in exchange for the privilege of being a judge on this show with me?”

“You did.” LFC#2 said.

“And out of all of us at this table, who gets the biggest paycheck? Not only the one with the highest number on it, but physically the largest?”

“You do.” LFC#2 said.

“Why is it that I was allowed to demand that both of you have your names legally changed? Why was I allowed to demand the largest amount of money? Why was I allowed to demand that the means by which I get that money be so big that it takes both of you and eight interns to carry it into the bank for me?” His voice was growing louder. “Why was I allowed to demand that you not use vehicles or animals when delivering the check, but have to walk all the way from the dock to the bank on foot?” He was practically screaming now. “Why on God’s green s**tstained c*mbucket called Earth was I allowed to demand that ten additional interns pull me in a chariot alongside the check to make sure that nothing goes wrong and that if something does go wrong, that whichever of you f**kers is at fault be stoned half to death and have your pay reduced by a third and have that amount be added to my next paycheck? Why was I allowed to demand so many f**king interns? Why do I have more wrinkles on my forehead than you? Why am I so much more important than you?” After a brief silence, he screamed, “They’re not f**king trick questions. All of them have the same simple f**king answer.”

“Because you’re the most famous,” LFC#2 half-whispered, avoiding eye contact.

“And so who should get to choose who gets eliminated and who stays?”

LFC#2 looked at the ground. He knew the producers had final say, but wishing to avoid further conflict and name-changes, said “You…”

Dan yelled as loud as he ever had before, “You’re G*ddamn, motherf**king, weasel-c*cksucking, Tyrannosaurus-s**t-eating right. We can’t negatively judge a dish we haven’t even f**king eaten can we? What the f**k kind of judging is that?” His voice returned to normal volume and he looked at LFC#1, who was cowering under the table, and he patted him on the back. “Sorry if I scared you, Less Famous Chef #1. That was directed at Less Famous Chef #2. You’ve been a good boy. You can come out.”

LFC#2 chose not to bring up the fact that Dan had negatively judged Louise’s dish without eating it.

The surviving contestants, excluding Louise, shuffled uncomfortably.

All of that made it to air.

Dan said, “Louise, Victor, get over here.”

They did as they were told

The four judges looked at each other, then Dan looked at Victor. “Victor,” he said, “you’re-”

He stopped when a producer ran up and whispered in his ear, “Wait until the last few episodes, we need a villain.”

“-not eliminated. Louise is. Please lay down your Kitchenaid Classic Nylon Slotted Turner, Louise.”

Louise walked up to the table and dropped the spatula on it, then turned and walked out of the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the banana peel left by Mary. At this point in the broadcast, the credits rolled.

“Next Week on Best Chef USA”

“This is the second week in a row that someone has not handed in a dish,” Dan said.

The camera panned to Hank’s decaying corpse.

The screen then cut to Jenny and Mary standing in front of the judges’ table.

“Jenny,” Dan said, “You’ve been eliminated. Please lay down your Kitchenaid Classic Nylon Slotted Turner.”

“This is a disaster.”