#it really do be having moments. most of the rest of it is dogshit from here but like at least we had fun you know.

[daincrediblegg]

you know for as narratively bad as the last 2 (maybe 3) seasons of GOT were I got to hand it to em they did sprinkle some damned entertaining moments in there

[raindrop-on-a-spiderweb]

Sending love to one of the best writers on ao3 😘💕 I check your page frequently and wanted to ask about the things that you enjoy doing or aspire to do

Hi Anon, it's so sweet of you to send this ask to ask after me. Rest assured your words are appreciated on this end; thank you from the bottom of my heart and top of my soul 🫂 I'm very glad you think highly of my work even after so long, and I'm so so sorry I haven't had any new content in such a long time. But I am hard at work on a oneshot that will definitely be published before the next chapter of Samarra, so the well won't stay dry for long! The summary is “A jaded prison nurse must come to rely on a man she hates and fears in the midst of a deadly prison riot.” I started writing it in the ward; it's based off of the Moundsville Penitentiary which is an especially spooky place I've been to–an old 19th century prison made of towering stone turrets, eerie high ceilings, and rusted iron cells packed together like pigsties. I'm hoping to get that atmosphere across; it's about ⅔ of the way finished so good progress is being made!

Well I enjoy writing, most of all, but I've already talked about that in detail a thousand times so I'll spare you. I love reading, of course (I just finished “The Five”, about the victims of Jack the Ripper, and it's a fascinating bit of history and an incredible and horrifying look at Victorian-era industrial Britain). I love exploring the mountains with my cats trotting along beside me and photographing what I find. In all honesty I'm a bit of a trappist–I rarely see people except hunters and cashiers, and most of my time is spent alone with myself or my dad. But each day is an adventure when you're in nature and each season brings primordial and beautiful changes– I collected watercress the other day and found the downy remains of a fawn. 

I love watching old movies. My dad and I were watching Laurel and Hardy last night and I swear it holds up a century later. Before that we watched King Rat, which is one of his–and my–favorite movie; about two men stuck in a Japanese prison camp and the Machiavellian and underhanded ways they survive there. The book is particularly good too, and the epilogue about rats devouring each other has haunted my dreams for a long time. 

On the same subject, a series that I highly recommend is called Tenko, which is very similar to King Rat, except the prisoners are women. It's so grueling, realistic and enrapturing; I've never seen anything that so squarely focuses on women's experiences, relationships with each other, the hardships they face, and how they struggle to survive together in a thankless, deprived environment. The backstabbing and despair that comes in their darkest moments, the love and support in which they uplift each other with, their mistrustful and uneven relationships with their captors that occasionally erupt in friendships and affairs–and all the episodes are on dailymotion, too!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x74u4fi

I like dreaming most of all. So many of my story ideas come from my dreams. The worst thing in the world is waking up and trying to catch the stray strands of the dream slipping through your fingers. It's amazing to live so many lives–good or bad–inside your head. Sometimes when I wake up, I feel a sweeping, palpable sense of relief that I don't live in the world I conjured last night, and sometimes I wish I could just claw myself back into my brain and live in that little pocket world for the rest of my life.

I do not aspire to much. I don't really have any base wishes but to keep writing and live til 70. We all have our hopeful fantasies, of course, and when I finally do get Ragnatela on Amazon Kindle (Microsoft Word is trying to swindle me out of one hundred and fifty American dollars to use their dogshit platform, and since the manuscript is half-edited, I'm afraid to lose my formatting if I switched to a free program like Libreoffice) maybe it will get some attention. 

I still intend on writing on Ao3 until the day I die, though. Even with its unsavory content I have such a soft spot for its unrestricted freedom of speech and prose. Plus I don't want to give up talking to you guys and goofing off in the comments ☹️ I also aspire to stop drinking. I'm sure I've already shaved a few years off my lifespan with my tippling habit. But when one day is much like the other, is there much point in extending it?

I aspire to travel around the United States more. I took a trip through the Deep South to visit Savannah and it was enrapturing; something I will remember for the rest of my life. Rusted-out cars felted in green moss, skinny, grazing horses in windswept fields, peeling roadside signs advertising tent revivals, clownish golliwogs behind still windows of cafes, forgotten tugboats half-sunken into lagoons, highway strip hotels where craggy hookers peered at you suspiciously from their fold-up chairs, and derelict cemeteries separated between Union and Confederate. It was just post-Irma and we were often the only tourists at any of these places. The effects of the hurricane were stark and obvious, with the land in a state of shock before any official agencies came to clean them up. I remember boats crashed into the harbor and grandfather trees felled in front of opulent antebellum homes, and the sea churned brown and murky when we trekked to the beach. The sense of desolation, and not only from the hurricane, was chilling–but I loved being there and loved being swathed by the kudzu and history. My mother is very ill and before she dies we might make up briefly and take a trip to New Orleans together and explore rural Louisiana; I'd always wanted to write a story set in New Orleans. Louisiana is a fascinating state with its mixture of Napoleonic and Creole influences; and I've always been drawn to the grand, decaying tombs of New Orleans as much as I have been to the odd Francophone swamps and their hidden dialects and traditions. And one day I would like to go way, way out west and explore the Gold Rush ghost towns. All the mines where I am are filled-in, so I would like to venture underneath the earth just once. 

Most of all, I aspire to be alone, and live by myself for the rest of my life, far away from town, somewhere in the mountains like where I am now. I wish I didn't have to see another person for the rest of my life. Being alone with myself is bad enough, being with others is intolerable.

Anyways, I apologize for my undue pleonasm, you caught me in a chatty mood 😀 Here's an excerpt from the newest prison one-shot:

Rhoda had met Jesse Fitzner her first day on the job. It was midway through her shift, and she was taking a lunch break and grading her sister Sherise's homework in her office. The day had started with a white-knuckle ride in early morning mist so thick she couldn't see the taillights of the car in front of her. Midway through her preliminary tour of the prison, an inmate had stuffed his toilet full of socks, which promptly overflowed and leaked sewage out of the cell onto her high heels. The hoots and jeers had made her speed up, trying to avoid the leering eyes of her future patients. And her introduction to the mental ward, by a younger but just as pessimistic Fawna, had not lifted her mood any either.

So there she sat in her office, snatching a moment of calmness and frantically scribbling corrections over Sherise's homework before her sister turned it in tomorrow. And then the door swung open.

A blond man poked his head in and briefly raised his eyebrows. He was wearing the omnipresent, drab gray prison uniform, pants and a sweatshirt rolled up to his elbows. "What are you up to?"

She flipped the cover of the notebook over.

"Going over my sister's homework. Is there something you need?"

"Passing on a message to Nurse Judson. One of the inmates wants to switch his blood pressure medication."

"Oh, she'll be back soon. I think she's–doing something with the prisoners. Just give her a few minutes."

"No hurry." He pulled the chair opposite her and sat down in it. "So you're grading your kid sister's homework? Shouldn't she be doing that herself?"

The man had thick blond hair that stuck up in back like a duck's tail, and very rosy cheeks. He looked like he had just shaven, by the nicks on his neck. 

"It's a long story. I should be–"

"I've got time. If this is your first day, you need to take some time to yourself to relax--else you'll end up in the infirmary."

Rhoda laughed. He had a nice smile and a nice manner about him–very jovial and friendly. It was refreshing to see a man who didn't stare at her like she was a piece of meat. "Well, my parents died when my brother and I were still young. Seth was seventeen, I was fifteen. He went to work so we didn't have to break up the family, and I stayed home to care for my little siblings, all three of them. It wasn't fun. I always wanted to do more for them than what I was stuck with, so I'm making sure they get good grades and go to good colleges. That's why I got this job in the first place, to put some back for their college funds."

"That's real decent of you. I don't know a single woman who would go so far for their family. You'd best be proud of yourself. Where's your brother now?"

"He's working out of state in Pennsylvania. He found a good woman and has a concrete contracting business now."

"You got yourself a man?"

"Never saw the need. Someday, maybe, when I'm lonelier."

"Working here for a few years will train that loneliness for a man right outta of you." 

They both laughed at that, and Rhoda felt her tensed muscles begin to relax. "I didn't catch your name."

"Jesse Lee Fitzner." He reached across the desk to grip her hand. For being such a small-built man, he had a crushing handshake.

"Rhoda Ames. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I knew a few Ameses when I was on the outside. Where your folks from?"

"Beckworth, west of here."

"Oh, you're bullshitting me. I have folks from there too. You don't know a Harry Fitzner, do you?"

"Harry who used to run the car repair shop?"

"That's him! My uncle. He retired a few years ago. His lungs got to him. Too much time in the mines."

The door slammed open again. An elderly prison guard, who had greeted her rather abruptly upon her hiring and who had a hard and wrinkled face, was standing in the doorway. When he saw Jesse, his face grew harder. "What are you doing here, inmate?"

Jesse raised his hands, still not moving from where he was leaning back on the chair. "Just dropping off a message for Nurse Judson."

"Next time, leave the message with Nurse Ames and promptly return to your cell. There's no reason for you to be here actin' so friendly."

To Rhoda's mild disappointment, the guard grabbed Jesse by his arm and yanked him out, harder than he needed to. Before he was escorted out, Jesse tossed a glance over her shoulder and winked at her. "Rhoda, you're a young lady, and I'm a bit of a spring chicken myself. I think we would get along real well outside these walls."

Rhoda couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up from her throat. She felt lightheaded. She was a rangy and abrupt woman with a working tan, and hadn't much experience with men flirting with her.

When Jesse was marched out, Rhoda stood up and grabbed her peaked nurse's cap, girding her loins for the next shift on the ward. While she was counting medications, the elderly guard–Miles–came in again and shut the door behind him. She flinched, expecting a dressing-down on her first day of work. I wasn't fraternizing with the prisoner, was I? Am I… am I gonna lose my job?

He sat down opposite her. "You ever hear that tale 'bout the lady and the snake?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to–"

"Old story; old, old story. One of them Aesop stories they wrote when people was still in togas and carved words in stone. A woman was walking home one day when she saw a frozen snake lying on the side of the road. It begged her to save its poor little self, this little creature of God. So taking pity on it, the woman brought it home and warmed it by the fire between her breasts. And as it thawed, it bit her breast. 'Oh, why would you do such a thing? Your poison will kill me,’ she wailed. And the snake smiled and said, 'You knew I was a snake before you brought me into your house.'"

Rhoda stared at him, puzzled. "I don't understand."

"You know what that fellow did to get in here? Fitzner was top dog in a motorcycle gang outside of prison. A real nasty one. He ordered a contract killing on a rival gang member. They snatched the poor fellow when he was leaving a bar. Hung him from a tree, broke his legs with doublejack hammers, used him as target practice with their sawed-offs, cut his dick off and shoved it in his mouth, then left and let him choke on it and bleed to death for the rest of the night. He was out, too, far out in the mountains, and they only found him weeks later when a hunter stumbled on him. One of the killers snitched on Fitzner in exchange for dropping a drug felony sentence he was staring at. That snitch went into hiding and changed his name. Two days after Fitzner was taken to this good penitentiary, he was found with his head beaten in, in a dry creek bed."

Rhoda's head began to spin in slow whirls. Her hand where Jesse had shaken it grew very clammy. She remembered his bright smile across the desk, his dark eyes, and felt bile and vomit churn in her throat.

"You both were talking for a while, I noticed. He's good at prising information out of people, Fitzner is. A boyish smile and a few good words and he can make both men and women melt like butter on yer tongue. See? Now he knows who you are, and where your folks live. Now he can get to you."

Rhoda tried to talk, but her tongue was paralyzed. She looked down and wiped her sweaty hands on her knees.

Miles got up and went over to the door. He looked out of the window set on top, and his hard face relaxed. He seemed much older in that moment, more wrinkled and exhausted.

"You'd best be careful of him, Nurse Ames. He's a bad 'un. I'll be glad to see the back of him."

As it turned out, Miles retired later that year and it was Jesse who saw the back of him. 

And Rhoda became very wary of him from then on. Whenever he saw her in the hall, in the chow line, in the infirmary, he smiled at her and tried to make small talk. She ignored him, or was curt with him.

Unfortunately, he seemed to take that as an invitation.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

KATHERINA MINOLA (THE TAMING OF THE SHREW) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) We had to read this for English my senior year. I got so mad at the way she’s treated. She’s the titular “shrew” of the play. She has to be married off before her younger sister can get married, because that makes sense.

Then the most dogshit man imaginable comes along, and everybody thinks they’re perfect. He literally gaslights her and denies her food and water.

Fuck Petruchio and Katherine Minola deserved better!

2.) Literally the whole play is about how she is so awful that the main guy needs to change her entire personality, which he does as a challenge not because he likes her, and then proceeds to her abuse her for the rest of the play. Yet, he is portrayed as the hero, not a villain and she is shown to have “improved” at the end. People will say, oh it’s open to interpretation, it can be played different ways, it’s satire, but i don’t find abuse funny and there is a distinct lack of commentary in the play to count as satire imo. Taming of the Shrew is a tragedy not a comedy, I will die on this hill. Kate deserves better!

3.) The title isn’t joking, ya’ll. She literally gets broken like a rebellious feral animal and it’s treated as a happy ending.

CORDELIA CHASE (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER/ANGEL THE SERIES) (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) (downs an entire bottle of vodka and slams it back on the table) SO. CORDY. Cordy started off as a supporting character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the start she was your typical high school mean girl character, but as the show went on we got to see more depth to her character: her insecurities, her courage, her capacity for incredible acts of kindness. Then after the third season she moved into the show’s spin off, Angel, where from the beginning she was basically the show’s secondary protagonist. Her and Angel were the two mainstays of the show’s main cast, she gets the most episodes centered on her out of all the characters aside from Angel (and yes, I’ve checked), and we really got to see her grow from a very shallow and self-centered and kind of mean person to a true hero who was prepared to give up any chance at a normal life to fight the good fight while still never losing the basic core of her character. There were some… questionable moments like the episode where she gets mystically pregnant with demon babies and things got a bit iffy like halfway through season 3 where the writers seemed to run out of ideas for what to do with her outside of sticking her in this romance drama/love triangle situation with the main character but overall, pretty good stuff right? THEN SEASON 4 HAPPENED. In season 4 she gets stripped of literally all agency and spends pretty much the entire season possessed by an evil higher power, and while possessed she sleeps with Angel’s teenage son (who BY THE WAY she had helped raise as a baby before he got speed-grown-up into a teenager it was a whole thing don’t worry about it) and gets pregnant with like. the physical manifestation of the higher power that’s possessing her. it’s about as bad and stupid as it sounds and also is like the third time cordy’s got mystically pregnant in this show and like the fourth mystical pregnancy storyline overall (you will be hearing more on that note in other submissions I’m so sorry). after giving birth she goes into a coma, in which she remains for the rest of season 4 and the first half of season 5. SPEAKING OF WHICH DON’T THINK SEASON 5 IS GETTING OFF SCOT FREE HERE. yeah so in season 5 the show just FULLY starts trying to erase cordy’s existence. she gets mentioned ONCE in the first episode and then never again until halfway through the season where she wakes up, helps out Angel for a bit and encourages him in his fight against evil, and then goes quietly into that good night and dies so it can be all sad and tragic. I’d call it the worst fridging of all time but even THAT feels generous because the whole point of fridging is killing off a female character so a man can be sad, and after Cordy dies basically no one’s even sad about it because the show immediately goes back to pretending she never existed. she is not mentioned ONCE in the two episodes after she dies. in the whole stretch of time between her death and the end of the season she gets mentioned exactly four times. again, I counted. anyway the fun twist to all of this is that all of this happened because the actress who played cordy got pregnant before season 4 and joss whedon was so pissed off about this affecting his plans for the show that he decided to completely fuck over her character and then fire her and write her out of the show. so cordy’s a victim of both writing AND real life misogyny!! good times!!

2.) OH SO MANY THINGS they menaced by giving her terrible hair cuts, making her seem like she’d get together with the guy she loves (and who loves her back) but instead she was killed and when she was brought back, she got possessed by an evil entity who used her body to give birth to itself. afterwards she was in a long coma and died. her character was so throughoutly assassinated

3.) She got demonically pregnant TWICE - there was this real sense of a womb/ability to get pregnant as like, a place for evil to get in. She got positioned as femme fatale and evil mother. The actress basically got fired for being pregnant, and when she agreed to come back for a single final episode she specifically said they could do anything but kill off the character. Guess what happened

[weirdgenetic-fuckup]

You need to do more Castor your one shot about him was so good!!!

A/n: I've been meaning to do more of Castor! He's literally the reason I started writing these because there's nothing of him and it's honestly criminal, I love him so much. I wrote most of this while feeling like absolute dogshit and did not proofread it so it might suck but smut is smut so enjoy :3

Warnings: Smut, oral sex (reader receiving), fingering (reader receiving), I think that's if you think I missed something please let me know otherwise enjoy :3

Castor was home from a tour. Bastardane was supposed to start work on their next album the day after they got back but everyone quickly realised that was a terrible idea as they were all exhausted and their bodies hurt.

Which led to a very peaceful morning for you and your boyfriend. He was tired but he wanted to spend as much time with you as he could. He didn’t want to just lay in bed so he came out into the living room to be with you, making himself a bed on the couch.

You two had moved into an apartment together not long ago. You never wanted a really big house, you knew Castor would do anything to make you happy so if you did want one he’d find you one, instead he settled on getting you some nice, new, slightly expensive furniture. Everything looked a little off in the small space but you filled it with enough homey things that everything just tied together so nicely.

You got two bowls of cereal for the both of you, something easy and quick because Castor was whining the whole time you were away from him but you still wanted him to eat. Coming back to the couch you saw that the blonde didn’t have a pillow. You reached for one from a nearby chair but he stopped you.

“Don’t need a pillow, just gimme your lap.” He mumbled as he reached out for you, his long limb prodding your thigh. Your ass, really. It was the closest thing he could reach.

You chewed your cheek, thinking it over for a moment but when you saw the innocent, tired pout on his face you just couldn’t say no. You sat on the couch and Castor got his head all nice and comfortable on your lap, nuzzling into you.

You turned the TV on so you’d have something to watch while you ate. Castor ate sideways and was very careful to not drip any milk on you, though a few drops escaped him. He spilled a spoonful and nearly spilled the whole bowl as well, making half of your pant leg wet.

Castor apologised, you told him you weren’t mad and got up to change your pants. “Where are you going?” He asked, leaning on his elbow.

“To change?” You replied. He shook his head.

“Just take your pants off, you don’t need to leave.” He tugged on your pant leg. Again you thought about it, and again you were deterred by his sweet pout. You slipped off your pants and sat right back down.

Castor finished the rest of his cereal sitting up, though he refused to not lean against you. His chewing was right in your ear. Frankly you didn’t care, you missed him just as much as he missed you.

You both set your empty bowls down on the coffee table, saying you’d clean them up later. They will be forgotten for at least a week. The TV was still on and you let your focus drift back and forth between it and your own wandering thoughts.

Castor rolled over. You thought it was just to get comfortable but then you felt him pushing his nose against you, into your panties.

He kissed around the thin fabric, poking his tongue out to lick your inner thigh or trace the waistband of your underwear. He loved watching you twitch, hearing those deep breaths you took to calm yourself when he just knew he was driving you crazy.

“Please, Cassey,” you said, “just do it.” There was already a whine in your tone. You were needy and desperate for his tongue to just be inside you already after all this time apart.

Of course, Castor didn’t wait a minute longer. He loved teasing you but at this point he was just teasing himself. He got on his knees in front of you and took your panties off, tossing them to a far side of the room. He planted his hands on your thighs and spread your legs, staring at your glistening folds.

“You’re so pretty.” He mused as he hooked your knees over his shoulders. He kisses you soft, sensitive skin, his hot breath fanning over your heat. “All needy for me.” He licked a strip up you, dipping his tongue in your hole. You moaned softly, your hand reaching for his head and tangling in his long blonde hair.

He sucked on your clit, lapping at it as well while his fingers prodded deep inside you, pumping in and out at a wild pace. You bucked your hips to meet him, mind fogging at the sensation. “Fuck, you’re so perfect.” He purred against you.

“Hah~ Fuck, Cassey-Cassey, ‘m close.” You moaned, head falling back onto the couch. You ground your hips against his face, cherishing the feeling of his nose hitting your clit, his tongue and fingers taking turns fucking you.

Castor was looking up at you, waiting to see that look of ecstasy fill your face. And soon it did. Your eyes rolled back and your mouth dropped open in moans. Castor didn’t stop, continuing to deliciously eat you out. Your thighs closed around his head, holding him in place as you rode out your high on his face and fingers, juices spilling down his chin, onto the couch.

When you finally let go of him and pulled back and got up, moving to sit back down on the couch with you. He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you close to his side. “I love you so much.” He whispered in your ear.

You leaned up against him, nuzzling into his warm embrace. “I love you too.” You purred.

[strvwdere]

He's been on my mind and my dash today. Uploaded from the dox archive, briefly edited, and still doesn't have a title! Taking suggestions in the tags <3

Edit: title added!

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"Unannounced"

Aki Hayakawa x gnc!Reader drabble (~1k words)

CW!s: Fluff, brief mention of blood, suggestions of violence and hookup culture, one (1) use of profanity, no pronouns or anatomy descriptions for reader, JP urban life context, Aki is a sweetie pie, **note at the end if u care to read!

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Thinking about the first time you ever put your lips on Aki Hayakawa.

It was far more innocent than others might suspect. With your jobs and daily lives entrenched in spectacular horrors, it was practically expected for those in your position to blow off steam with one another. You'll admit you'd had a brief tryst or two, but now you had a new partner. And Aki didn’t seem like the type.

It's 02:37am and the train car is blissfully empty, not a sloshed up salaryman in sight. Aki had offered you a seat but chose to stand himself, claiming that he'd likely fall asleep if he took a moment to rest his long legs. You could see the truth of it on his face, but also knew he looked most comfortable staying on guard. Frankly, you wouldn't be surprised if the man slept with one eye open, literally.

He's got one hand on the baggage rail above you, the other fiddling with his lighter in the pocket of his suit pants. He catches you staring down at his sneakers, scanning them with casual curiosity, when he prompts,

"What?"

You blink, "They're clean."

“Huh?”

Aki thinks you must be blind, but he’s not rude enough to call you on it. Today’s shift had been your first time patrolling Shibuya together, so it was brutal, naturally. There’s not one article of clothing between the two of you without blood smeared on it somewhere. Standard rite of passage.

“The department chair said you like to stay busy. You a sneakerhead? There’s not a single scuff on those.”

“Not sure what the state of my footwear has to do with anything.”

“Sorry.”

You glance off to the side, not wanting him to presume scrutiny any further.

One thing about Aki- 90% of the time he’s vaguely dismissive and the other 10% he’s shy. 100% of the time you’re dogshit at reading him in the moment.

The ambiance of the train rattling down its track settles over you both. Stops coming and going, announcements crackling through the speakers and flashing on the overhead digital monitors as you pass through. Your lids are about to slip shut when he speaks, almost mumbling to himself.

“I like to take care of things.”

You roll your head along the back of the seat to look placidly in his direction again.

“Come again?”

He clears his throat. 

“I like to take care of my stuff. Is that a bad thing?”

“Not really, just surprising to me.”

“What’s so different about it?”

Your eyes follow the long column of his tie from the barely loosened knot at his throat, down his slim torso, to the pointed end that meets perfectly at the top of his belt buckle. Meticulous, you think. Meeting his eyes again as a wry smile tugs faintly at your lips, you state, 

“You’re a serious guy, Aki Hayakawa.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

He turns away, shielding his face with his arm still resting on the baggage rail, and casting his gaze over his toned shoulder. You’d assume he was dismissing you again, were it not for the visible tip of his ear tinted the lightest shade of pink. Look at that, you muse internally. The other 10%.

-The next stop is Ueno, G16. Please change here for the Hibiya line, the JR lines, and the Keisei line. This train is bound for Asakusa.-

You uncross your legs preparing to stand, semi-accidentally brushing your boot across the width of his shin as you do. He doesn’t flinch, but continues to avoid eye contact.

“Your stop, right?”

“Yep,” you quip, pulling the strings in your limbs against their will. Exhaustion is hitting you more fully now as you gather yourself. You’ll test Aki’s buttons another time, you decide. A time when a hot shower and your mattress aren’t demanding your presence so immediately.

-Arriving at Ueno, G16. The doors will open on the left side.-

“Don’t forget we’re touching base at HQ first tomorrow, and bring your report. They’ll want one from both of us since you’re an internal transfer.”

“Sir, yes sir.” 

You rise carefully to your feet, slinging your bag over your shoulder and steeling yourself for the next leg of your commute.

You’re mid-reach for the strap above when the train activates its breaks, rocking you forward and directly into Aki’s firm chest. An arm comes up to steady you against him while your outstretched hand aims for the baggage rail, landing on top of his own instead.

His voice is as rigid as the rest of him when he asks,

“You good?”

You tilt your head up sheepishly to reply and are struck by the fine architecture of his flexing jawline. Here you are hip to hip, eye to eye, and he’s still avoiding your gaze, burning holes into the wall of the train car behind you.

Whether it’s impetuousness or sleeplessness, something overcomes you. Rising onto the balls of your feet, arm pulling yourself up and in, you plant a soft, fleeting kiss to the underside of Aki’s chin.

-Ueno. This is Ueno station. Please watch your step.-

“Take good care of me, partner.”

-The next stop is Ueno-hirokoji, G15. Please transfer here for the Toei Oedo line.-

His arm leaves your waist and your hand uncovers his as you step away, dashing onto the platform just before the doors begin to close.

As the train pulls away, you’re left with a lingering sense of frustration and the impression of his body heat still ghosting your skin.

What you didn’t catch behind those doors was Aki, collapsed on the seat with his head in his hands, blushing bright red all the way down to his collar. 

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©strvwdere.tumblr.com; est. 02/2023; no quotes, reposts, or translations 🍓

**Note: I really wanted to make a cute reference to the way the phrase “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” is used in Japanese. One of its many meanings is “please treat me favorably” or “please take good care of me” and is often used in introductions and establishing coworker connections. That said, there is no direct translation to English so I’m afraid it came out a little clunky here (in my head, the reader essentially says “Please take care of me, Hayakawa Senpai). Lmk if you guys have any ideas! This was a quick bit I thought up while in the middle of my JP studies in preparation for going abroad. Had a lot of fun toying with our favorite Devil Hunter and looking through Tokyo-metro's website- that level of organization is A1!

[alexilulu]

GAMES I PLAYED OF THE YEAR 2023, #1

(Next: #2)

OR: How I Was Let Down By AAA Dogshit

Razzies Award for Most Baffling Game of 2023 Winner: Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix, Creative Business Unit III)

Or: The Aristocrats, by Way of D & D (the Game of Thrones TV writers, not the tabletop roleplaying game)

Playing Final Fantasy 16 was an exercise that began as farce, then kind of morphed into tragedy, for me. This might be because of how I played it (my girlfriend played until the first Kupka fight, stopped playing when she saw the volume of sidequests that spawned after that, and I played the rest), or how thoroughly I felt that the game was doing something that was making me thoroughly depressed to see go where it did.

I think mostly I was hoping that the AAA, ultimate budget and engine that they gave CBU3 to run and play with, the indulgence from corporate masters to let them experiment and make something new that still rings with the Final Fantasy name, gave me Final Fantasy 14 with better skin shaders and shit.

I didn’t go into it expecting much on the politics; the magical underclass is ruinously powerful (they literally control the means of production with their bodies, villages are reliant on them for water because they don’t dig wells anymore) and simultaneously reviled, beaten and ultimately killed by their own power via crystallization. The world is divided by kingdoms…that all have agreed to a central banking standard that a merchant’s guild set and not a single one of them is doing wild debasement to? The planet’s dying, Cloud, but everyone’s way more focused on watching gay Bahamut cross cocks with Odin twice and then leave in the skies over another pointless battle? 

All of which is out the window by the time Titan’s dead in the ground, btw. The plight of the Branded is wholly forgotten the moment the plot really wants to be about the world-ending god who wants Clive’s body, and doing things about free will and predestination without even a look back at how those themes play into the abject chattel slavery that a significant portion of the world lives under. 

But somehow, it’s bizarre, disappointing and ultimately confused middle to final third aren’t really my biggest problem with the game, even if the finale was quarter-baked and vaguely infuriating. I can accept a fully vibes-based plot, even when it has pretensions towards a grand scale of movement and war (they really brought in a historian into the plot after the timeskip so they can pretend they have any cohesive idea of geopolitics going on outside of when you show up and the world starts ending somewhere immediately). I can even except the ‘fuck yeah humanity’ ass boring ending that’s supposed to make you feel like you read a fairy tale about the hero who saved everyone.

The combat brutally, terminally killed any semblance of care I could ever show for this game by the time I had all the eikons unlocked.

See, this is a thing that’s been a long time coming for final fantasy, ever since the first 13 game, when they introduced the idea of stagger and magic/physical damage, the idea of a high-damage state you put the enemy in and extend the duration of by applying elemental weaknesses that allows you to hammer them with physical damage. This was how FF13 worked and was designed around the 13-style turn-based ATB system, stacking up multiple moves on a bar, and it’s a little bit of how FF15 worked by way of Kingdom Hearts with a teleport button, but by FF16 the plot is lost completely.

You put enemies into stagger…by hitting them with anything. You get elemental-themed bursts you can intersperse between your sword strikes by learning a very basic one-two rhythm that speeds it up (because magic abilities do more stagger than physical damage, natch), and you have big flashy super abilities that are on a cooldown and are based on your eikons equipped. So you’ve got a pretty easy one-two of hitting them with basic combos and using your specials to tip them over the edge…

But wait. Your specials are also your biggest routes to high damage in the game. That’s where the big bad Phoenix wing swing is, one of the most simply effective damage moves in the game that isn’t Literally Gigaflare Beaming Their Ass. Do you want to use that for stagger…Or do you want to clear the fight in less than 20 minutes?

The stagger mechanic in 16 perfectly recreates the feeling of being in a DPS window in Final Fantasy 14 (for the luckily uninitiated, this is when you would all pop your party buffs at the same time, so that you all benefit maximally from damage amps and do your highest potency skills during to maximize your damage for the 20 or so seconds it happens during), to the point where it feels like they did it on purpose. 

So, you get them in stagger, and the dance of holding R2 and cycling through your special abilities begins. You can have 6 of them at a time, so there’s a real flair to chaining them together, and it can feel great to just go through your rotation perfectly and end the stagger window with some light chain comboing for good measure. It even pops your damage up at the end so you can be like yeah! I did that much damage! I’ll only need to do that 3 more times to finish fighting this interminably slow dragon!

It’s fucking boring. It has the feeling of feeling good. It’s a little dopamine hit for you to just optimally nail things down, but there’s literally nothing to it. It doesn’t feel like anything. The rhythm to hit so that you get a full 8 hit combo of sword and burst attacks numbs the senses. The extraordinarily forgiving dodge that rewards precision with bonus stagger damage on your next hit feels like a single Skittle thrown into my mouth for doing a trick right. 

I think that might be where I’ve landed on the game. Final Fantasy 16 doesn’t feel like anything. A moodboard of a video game, designed to death by a team that didn’t know any other way to make a game than to make more of what they made before (CBU3 are the primary minds behind Final Fantasy 14 before they split to work on 16 around 2020, with various parts of the team cycling in and out of Final Fantasy 14 in the ensuing years). Final Fantasy 16 is Final Fantasy 14 wearing Game of Thrones’ skin. 

I do mean that somewhat literally; Non-primary cutscenes are shot and directed in the precise manner that Final Fantasy 14 non-voiced cutscenes are produced, down to the angle of the camera above the player model and the semi-canned animations that you will see a hundred times throughout the story. It feels uncanny, especially after they stated directly that during development that they specifically abandoned plans for a PS4 version that would ‘not limit the team’s ambitions’. It feels like the scope was crushed down to something they could complete in the 3-4 years they had afforded themselves for development. 

Ultimately, it feels like a game that was built inside a box. I keep seeing all the ways they wanted to produce something grand, but I can feel how shoddy the set the actors are standing on really is. Final Fantasy 16: the off-Broadway production, coming soon to your Playstation Five Home Entertainment Console.

[acircusfullofdemons]

ask game by @/maddgical-boy [link]. didn't answer some bc I either didn't feel like it or didn't have an answer.

how long have you been daydreaming for? (bonus if you can remember: what was your first daydream scenario/paracosm?)

Ever since I was a little kid. My teachers would always make a note along the lines of “good student, but daydreams way too much”. My memory is dogshit so I can only fathom what 6yo Luka was daydreaming about.

if your paracosm had a popular fandom, what do you think it'd be like?

Well. 2/3 of my main paracosms are technically fictparacosms, so I don’t have to imagine. But overall, a nightmare. I would probably get canceled for cursing out a fan lbr 💀

do you have any paracosms that aren't huge, but that you fall back on when The Time Is Right™️?

Yes! Crystalized Dragons & Life After Death are both paracosms that don’t have much, but I get fixated on them every so often and it’s a fun time. 

WOULD YOU RATHER: have your daydreams projected onto a screen attached to your head at all times OR be entirely unable to daydream ever again for the rest of your life?

😳 how big is this screen ... cuz unless it’s phone size/easily coverable, yeah no just erase the daydreams from my brain.

how did you come up with your paras' names? did they come to you randomly or did you spend hours researching name websites?

Some are random/based on vibes, but I like to give their names meaning depending on what happens to them. And there are others whose name is a pun, because they aren’t tormented enough 😂

do you do extensive worldbuilding for your paracosms? if you do, what are some of your favorite elements?

yes … that is. nearly all i do, like 90% of my daydreaming is just lore shit ngl. there’s a lot of things I like about worldbuilding, but I guess the magic systems are my favorite since I think about them the most. 

if your paras found out you were their creator, how would they react?

Not well, I’d imagine! I’ve put them through … a lot of shit. So. I think they’d take turns cursing me out and trying to kill me.

if you have a self insert/paraself, how similar are they to you?

Technically Calypso is a self insert, he was originally supposed to be one but then I thought he was better as an OC. I kind of still consider him one though, ngl. Anyway, he’s nothing like me at all! 

Vincent, on the other hand, is much more similar to me. I’m not gonna state how, because yknow. Personal shit. But they’re more in line with being a self insert/paraself. 

is there any time of the day where you can't/don't daydream?

… not really?? I guess during work, but unless it’s really busy (which it rarely is unless it’s the holidays) then yeah, I basically daydream all the time. Well, not like 24/7, I take breaks and get daydream blocks. And it’s not like I’m doing full daydreams either, most of it is just running on in the background, like a tv show. 

are your daydreams linear and structured, or do you jump all over the place?

A mix of both! There’s a set story, but I jump around in said story. 

what's a song you've been daydreaming to lately, and what's your favorite moment in said daydream?

My Alcoholic Friends by The Dresden Dolls. My favorite moment is during the lyrics “Should I choose a noble occupation? / If I did I'd only show up late and sick / And they would stare at me with hatred / Plus my only natural talent's wasted on my alcoholic friends” because the whole song reminds me of Salem but especially that part and by god are they a mess. That part in particular is them once again comparing themselves to Norman, wondering if she’d be better off getting a “normal job” like he has, but knowing that ultimately she’s not built for that life like Norman is. 

do your paras age with you, or are their ages static? does it feel weird to be older than a para you were previously the same age as?

I used to have them age with me, but it fucked with the paracosm timeline a little bit so now I think they’re more “static”, though they still age in-paracosm. bc of timeline shit.

if you had the opportunity to leave this world and live in your paracosm forever, would you? why or why not?

Yes. I mean, ideally I’d be one of my paras, but sure I guess if I’m just me that works too. Why? Have you seen the fucking world lately. Anyway like always I’d choose to live in Phantasmagoria, even though I’d get killed within the hour.

(if you have multiple) which paracosm of yours is most grounded in reality? which is most fantastical?

Most fantastical is probably just Eternal Labyrinth as a whole. I don’t really focus a whole lot on realism in my daydreams — fantasy bitch through & through — but I guess my current MaaC AU “This Life is Mine” can be considered the most “grounded”, even though it’s a superhero thing.

do you move a lot when daydreaming, and if so, in what ways?

I pace, run around a little bit. Go crazy go stupid etc. But I try to mostly stay still by sitting or laying down so I don’t seem Weird. 

have you ever wanted to make a piece of media of your paracosm (comic, animation, visual novel, novel, tv show, etc.)? what are elements that would be apart of it?

Oh absolutely! I truly believe a lot of my ‘cosms would work well as VNs, but I’ve also imagined some as animated shows. 

when you actively want to start daydreaming, what is your mind's process? do you tune back in like it's a tv show? flip through imaginary files? let it come naturally?

I kinda tune back in with a mini “previously on”, otherwise it just comes naturally since they’re usually in the background of my mind.

do you ever daydream about yourself (not a self insert, just you)?

No. I used to, but it just felt weird. 

what para would you absolutely hate in real life?

Oh…a LOT of them, probably. They are dumbasses, serial killers, and just terrible people after all.

when you experience a daydream block or crash, what are things you do to try and fix it? (or ways you cope. lmao i get it)

I try to consume new media to try and get some inspo or whatever. Most of the time I end up rewatching the same shit over and over again bc I got that flavor of brain that makes getting into new media hard for some reason. 

for fictparacosms, do your daydreams affect how you perceive the media and/or the fandom?

Kind of. I don’t really engage with fandoms that much anymore, and yeah my fictparacosms tend to be why. They’re usually AUs so I already feel…insecure, I guess, sharing them. And I haven’t had good experiences with fandom in the past, either.

With the media it’s based off of, it’s typically something I got hyperfixated on, which means my daydreams are an outlet for that lol. Once the hyperxitation is over the paracosm tends to fade a little bit or disappear entirely (which is why I don’t typically talk about my fictparacosms — they’re so short lived). Still, when it’s active, there comes a point where I stop engaging with the media altogether in favor of the fictparacom. I might watch some clips here and there, but that’s about it I think.

if you ever write down things about your daydreams (truly anything at all — notes, dialogues, descriptions, etc), share a random snippet with no context.

I try to. I was a lot…better(?) at writing down my daydreams — and just writing in general, I guess — when I was younger. idk. I know I should document my daydreams more often, it’s just…hard.

if your paras had madd/daydreamed immersively, what would they daydream about?

Reverie does have MaDD! She daydreamed about having a daughter, though thinking of her daydreams is weird to me. I will say, Rev is the goddess of daydreams & imagination, and made her para daughter, Lucid/Lucinda real, making her the goddess of lucid dreams. idk thats kinda all I know.

I’m sure some of my paras would have MaDD, especially those in AM or have interacted with Arcaynis in some way. Oh, Jervis has MaDD! He has two paracosms: an aiw one, and one about magicians. I don’t really like putting my paras on the daydream spectrum, it feels weird to me lol like breaking the fourth wall in a way. Even if, realistically, a few would indeed be MaDDers/IDDers. 

if you have tried to make your paras in character makers (picrew, meiker, etc), what is an aspect of your para that these makers never/rarely have?

An option for both horns and wings! Usually it’s either or (if an option at all). And the option to make the eyes different colors, or change the whites of the eyes. 

are your daydreams clear in your mind's eye?

Depends on my energy level, but generally speaking, yes. 

if you have multiple paracosms, what would it be like if they had a crossover?

Chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos. My most fleshed out crossover AU is actually an apocalypse au, if that tells you anything. Granted, none of my paras caused the apocalypse, but still. Why can y'all only interact in an apocalypse goddamn.

[sucuretcannelle]

A little bit of dialogue practice, getting to know their new personalities more 😐

"You're tense...You really shouldn't worry. Honestly I'm surprised no one's gotten drunk yet. I think that's what Kuji would really want."

The princess shook her head and smiled weakly. The dark circles and creases under her eyes were rather prominent today, despite not a hair of hers being out of place.

"I'm not worried."

"I can see right through you. Worst comes to worst, he smites you like Zeus, you stay dead for a bit, and then you can go back to your fiancé and your boyfriend."

She laughed dryly, "You know, you'd make a great jester. You're funny, but I don't think you're joking."

The air between the two Sins rapidly turned sour after that interaction. Aibreanne turned her back to her and walked away. She sighed a breath that she didn't know she was holding in and rolled her shoulders back before approaching Nash. She tapped him on his shoulder, and he turned around. The bounty hunter was near the buffett, holding a barbeque rib in one and a chicken wing in the other.

"You scared the dogshit outta me."

Her tail flicks behind her, "I've been working on my stealth."

She glanced at his mouth and snickered. She even went to turn her head away from him before he could ask her what she noticed.

"I thought you came here to be respectful and mourn Mr.Acheron's death. Sounds like the food caught your eye. And your mouth."

She pulled a handkerchief out of the top of her dress and wiped his mouth right before he could question her.

"Do what you want, but when the gates open, you better be on your best behavior, understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, heard you."

She threw the handkerchief at his face, "And leave the gluttony to Lacuna, it's not a good look on you."

When he caught the falling handkerchief, he had a certain shimmer in his eye. He picks his head up to look back at her, "Damn, just come for my whole lineage why don't you?"

"I'll think about it."

The two looked as if they were about to say something, but Aibreanne turned to leave once again.

Am I being too snarky? Is snarky the right word? Sarcastic? Gods, I feel like Lexi.

She placed her hand across her mouth.

I think he'd say fiery. Not on purpose, but he'd notice it after I'd point it out.

"Head's cloudy?"

"Did you even need to ask?"

"It's polite to, Mrs.Saorise—"

Desire immediately felt a sharp pain when her tail whipped him. His arm went to rub his waist, which would soon become bruised by the attack.

"Oh, was I wrong? Are you keeping your last name?"

He was hushed as soon as he finished his sentence, "Would you quiet down already? You'll cause a stir like you always do, and everyone will shift their attention to me instead of the person who's clearly the most important here."

"I'm sure you like the attention. Plus, I think Akuji would've liked the drama."

She shook her head and closed her eyes, "And here I thought he lived up to his fables. 'Reticent and humble' they said."

"He was, just not when it came to some of us."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

"Do you miss him?"

The smile that caught his lips was somber at best, "Of course I do. I wish these funeral traditions would end so we could put his name to rest, it's been so long. Nash was still aging by the time he died."

The goddess hummed in understanding.

"Do you miss Alexi?"

"Don't make me answer that."

"I wonder how your vows will go if you're that stubborn about affection."

I'm not stubborn. Wait, when did he change the topic?

He laughed to himself, "I'll be taking my leave. Try not to take this too seriously, alright?"

Sly fox.

"He can be a lot. I'd kill myself if I had to see him as often as you do."

"Velleitie, that is extremely unprofessional."

"But you fantasizing about your house himbo isn't? Okay."

He got me there.

"Have you seen Phthonus?"

"Nope. Haven't seen her."

"Tell Duke and Joule to open the gates, we can start without her."

As Wrath moved to the front of Akuji's statue, the large gates near the front swung open. The eerie silence that drowned all of the visitors turned into loud chattering from the public and camera clicks from their cameras. The noise was loud enough that it signaled all of the other Sins to come to the front as well.

Do I really have to do this? I never even knew him.

Nash and Aibreanne locked eyes for a second, so he mouthed to her, "It's good for your reputation, just do it."

I'll be really surprised if the cameras didn't catch that.

If asked by anyone there, they would've said the speech was formal and well prepared. At worst, it lacked passion and inspiration.

How many times will interviewers bring that up?

Much to her dismay, they would have a field day with that one. It's unfortunate that from the front gates, people could get a clear shot of the grave.

Perhaps that's what he wanted. He was the first Pride to die from an outside force, having the spotlight on him makes sense.

She waved to her colleagues as they teleported out. Facing away from the gate, she carefully seated herself on the base of the statue.

When one of us dies, where would they put us? Probably nowhere near him. Unless one of us suddenly chooses to become as heroic as him. His reputation rivals Archangel Michael's, and anyone would say that his achievements are impossible to surpass.

...That's what I would say if I had no plot significance.

"Why are you sitting here as if you have nothing to do?"

She looked up at Anasuya, or Phthonus who was crossing her arms. It seemed like the little time she had after her mission was spent looking for a dress that was far more creative and alluring than Aibreanne's.

"You look beautiful, as always."

Like many girls do after getting a compliment, she does a small half-turn on each side, slightly lifting her heels off the ground as she shifted.

"I know, you didn't have to tell me. Oh, and there's pockets, I'm tired of you just shoving everything in your bra."

"That's for me?"

"Isn't that obvious? Hadn't it been, I wouldn't even be here. Initially, that is. The Morningstars asked me to check on you."

Both of them?

"And my suggestion is that you get moving. You might turn into stone too if you just sit there overthinking. 'Hang out' with Charlotte or that judge you like to hang out with," she sighs, "He's rather attractive, don't you think? I'm sure he'd make you feel better."

"No comment."

"Understandable, I don't see how you can just stay so loyal to one man," She turned her back to her, beginning to pace in the other direction, "With how you look, it'd be considered a waste of beauty to—"

By the time she looked back, the princess was gone.

"...I may have worsened the situation."

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | In the Line of Duty 5: Middle Man (Cha, 1990)

One of my copes early in the pandemic was watching a bunch of Hong Kong girls with guns movies on YouTube, usually dubbed, usually in crappy low-res transfers. So I have a certain fondness for this genre for bringing me comfort during a difficult time, and this one is extra cozy for being Christmas-adjacent and having actual snow when the action moves to Korea. I watched this one in what looked like a restored transfer, similar to the other movies in this makeshift series (none of the entries have anything to do with each other, and the series title was applied to the first two retroactively from my understanding) and certainly better than the sometimes 360p transfers I settled for when watching these things on YouTube a few years ago. But I also watched it with a crappy dub, which added to the charm.

“Why should I trust the police?” “Because our pay is really lousy.”

Uh, maybe it played better in Cantonese.

The story involves the CIA in some capacity, but these movies offer no rewards for paying attention to any plot points, so don’t ask me to spell out the details. If I did, I’d have to kill you. What I will say is that at one point, characters mix tobacco with dogshit and sell it as marijuana, that there’s some serious floppy disk tech in one scene, that an escape transpires through a clumsily faked seizure and a smoke grenade, and that the emotional stakes rest entirely on the shoulders of Alvina Kong Yan-Yin, who does some amazing acting here during the few moments that approach the spirit of the season. Other than her, we get David Wu, who looks like someone you’d hire if Michael Wong was busy and at one point wears a t-shirt that appears to have its care instructions printed on the front.

Lead duties go to Cynthia Khan, whose name is a combination of Michelle Khan (AKA Yeoh) and Cynthia Rothrock. Imagine if Hollywood pushed someone on us named Sylvester Schwarzenegger? Harrison Cruise? Jean-Claude Seagal? Anyway, as far as girls with guns stars go, I like that the genre offers up a range of archetypes and screen presences. My favourite stars, Yeoh and Rothrock aside, would likely be Yukari Oshima, with her off-kilter, androgynous presence, and the girlish in contrast Moon Lee. Cynthia Khan lacks the secret sauce to really stand out, but she’s pretty sturdy. Here she wears really wide legged pants that almost look like culottes, albeit of a less flamboyant variety than the ones preferred by David Sedaris. They come in pretty handy given all the kicking Khan does, and does well. She’s also good at punching people and exchanging gunfire, which her wide-legged pants appear to have no impact on.

This one also casts a lot of Caucasian actors, likely to pass itself off as a more international production. White guys in Hong Kong movies, with the exception of Richard Norton and Richard Harrison, are usually bozos who can’t act and mostly serve as cannon fodder, while white girls are usually badass martial artists, and we get a pretty good one with Kim Penn.

Anyway, most people watch these things for the action scenes, and this has a bunch of pretty good ones, which like many Hong Kong action scenes offer dangerous-looking stunts and great use of locations. There’s a pretty neat one in the cramped apartment building, a bunch of neat ones at a construction site, and a surprisingly bloody final confrontation. So if you’re watching this for the right reasons, you should have a good time.

[goodtoseeyouhen]

Tommy has been hearing about Eddie all night. It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last time - he knew exactly what he was signing up for when he kissed Evan - but it’s not usually this stressful.

“I don’t know what to say, Evan. I can’t help you strategize if I don’t know the full story.”

“It’s not mine to tell,” Evan says, again. “And I - I don’t think even I know the whole story.”

Tommy sighs, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “And I respect that, I do. I just - I don’t know how to help.” Tommy’s like most firefighters he knows - give him something actionable, like say flying into a hurricane, and he’s on it. Something more abstract, like Chris is gone and Eddie is sad please help, and he has no idea what to do. There is nothing to do, not when Eddie all but kicked Evan out of his house because he apparently needed space (bullshit) and Evan insists Chris needs time to settle before anyone tries to get in touch.

“I know,” Evan says. “It’s killing me that I can’t just fix it. I don’t like Chris being out in Texas with his grandparents. They tried to make Eddie give him up after Shannon died and now they’re just gonna be right in his ear twenty-four seven.”

“That might solve itself. Sounds to me like a great way to annoy a teenager into wanting to cut his visit short.”

“Maybe,” Evan says, visibly unconvinced. Which probably has something to do with the reason why Christopher is in Texas, which is the key piece of information Evan won’t share, and Tommy really does respect his protecting the kid’s privacy like that, but Evan got here an hour ago and they’re still standing in the kitchen with the beers Tommy got for them just going in circles. Tommy is exhausted.

“Okay,” he says briskly, because he needs to be done circling, “we can’t fix anything right now, but we can order dinner and watch a movie.” He takes out his phone, opens up DoorDash, and tosses it to Evan. “You order us something. I personally could use some fucking whimsy and I’ve got Mary Poppins somewhere around here, so I’m gonna go dig that up.”

‘Someday,” Evan says, already flipping through the app, “you’re going to join the rest of us in 2024 and subscribe to a few streaming services.” He still looks unhappy, but he’s relaxing a little around the edges. Accepting the blatant attempt at distraction. Tommy’ll take it.

“And someday you’ll realize you only have to pay for a physical copy once, Evan.” They do this routine every now and then, a little different every time.

“You’re just mad about your old man collection going obsolete.”

“Mm, I seem to remember somebody being pretty happy I had that Dogma DVD.”

“What was that? Extra pineapple on your pizza?”

“For that, we’re watching it on VHS.”

*

Evan doesn’t order extra pineapple, or even order pizza at all, and they do not watch the movie on tape, because it would look like dogshit on Tommy’s TV. They settle in with something from a little Brit-Indi place that’s pretty good, and Tommy cues up the Blu-Ray.

He had hoped that a Disney film, especially one with literal decades of lore, would serve as further distraction by unlocking the extensive store of Disney trivia he knows for a fact Evan carries around in that bewildering brain of his, but that plan is DOA. Evan’s watching the movie, but his mind is clearly somewhere in Texas. When Mary Poppins describes herself as “practically perfect in every way,” Evan points his fork at the screen and says, “She’d have fixed it by now,” and that’s about all Tommy gets.

Honestly, he’s relieved when his phone starts buzzing frantically in his pocket.

are you working tomorrow

this is an important question

no one else can do this for me

HELP ME TOMMY-WAN KINARDI YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE

“What - ? Oh, absolutely not.”

“What’s up, is everything okay?” Evan, who slid in closer the moment they were done eating, leans further into his space to look at the screen. Tommy turns it away, because if Evan gets hold of Tommy-Wan Kinardi it will spread like wildfire and his life as he knows it will be over. Chimney, at the very least, will never call him anything else ever again.

“Marisol,” he explains. Evan freezes.

“Marisol,” he repeats. “I forgot about Marisol!” His stricken tone makes Tommy himself forget what he’s typing, looking up to see Evan’s equally distraught expression.

“What - ?” he starts, but Evan just shakes his head.

“Why is she - ? What does she want?”

Tommy reads through the next rapid succession of texts. “Someone to vent to, about something only I seem to qualify for.” He lets Evan watch him reply, pausing only to drop a kiss near the corner of his eye when he grumbles I haven’t said it that many times.

Marisol asserts that yes, it is hers to tell, and Tommy lowers his phone and turns to look at Evan directly.

“Is it?”

“I - oh, man.” Evan frowns, taking a moment to think. “I don’t know if that’s my call to make? But,” he adds quickly, perhaps because Tommy’s exasperation with that is visible from fucking space, “I do know that - she deserves to have someone to talk to about it. And if you’re the one she’s comfortable talking to, then, uh. Yeah, I don’t really get a say in that.”

“So I’m good to go?” Tommy confirms.

“If you want to.”

“I wanna help her out.” He checks the screen again. “At brunch tomorrow.” A brunch date is an easy ask, it’s something he can do, and he does actually like Marisol. It’s too damn bad she got the short end of whatever the hell stick this is. “And then of course, conveniently, I’ll know what’s going on without you having to tell me.”

Evan flushes guiltily, which is adorable enough to wipe out the last of that burst of exasperation. “I meant all of that! It’s like the least we can do. But, okay. Yeah. Maybe a little that too.”

Tommy kisses him for that, and as he finishes making plans with Marisol, Evan is smiling his first real smile of the night.

*

After brunch, Tommy just sits in his car for a while, resisting the urge to beat the shit out of his steering wheel or whatever other stupid macho bullshit might occur to him. Say what you like about the kinds of person he’s been in the past - letting his anger get the best of him has never really been his thing.

Though it was probably just as well that he put his knife down long before Marisol said he thought she was Shannon.

Jesus.

Yeah, he gets exactly why Evan was so fucking neurotic last night, even if ninety percent of what came out of his mouth was about Eddie. Tommy’s gonna go ahead and let him do that heavy lifting. He’s not feeling very charitable toward Eddie fucking Diaz right now.

Christopher, though . . .

Well, he and Marisol are in similar boats, aren’t they? Obviously Chris knows plenty of people who know Eddie, but, judging by how he’d reacted to Marisol, he probably doesn’t want to talk to most of them right now. The association with Eddie will be too tight and run too deep.

But Tommy hasn’t been around all that long, and his visits to the Diaz household - first solo, then mostly with Evan - have revolved just as much around Chris as Eddie, if not sometimes more.

(He remembers that first visit with Chris home, the look in Eddie’s eyes as he’d introduced them promising that if Tommy failed this test, their burgeoning friendship would be over. He’d actually been a little nervous.

But it turned out that he and Chris have the same sense of humor, and that thirteen is still young enough to be a little overawed by the whole firefighter pilot thing, so it had gone just fine.)

Yeah. He pulls his phone out to send a text. There are a few messages in their text chain, mostly Chris asking him to pick up something Eddie had told him not to ask Tommy to pick up or just outright said no to, and Tommy (after surreptitiously checking in with either Eddie or Evan, he’s not an idiot) nonchalantly agreeing.

. . . there are more of those than he’d realized, actually. It became kind of a running joke at some point, at around the time Tommy had stopped bothering to check with any relevant parental figures. Stopped bothering, because it had become clear that Chris knew exactly how far he could push.

There are also exchanges resuming movie discussions they’d had with Eddie fondly looking on, several of which, Tommy remembers now, had resulted in a spontaneous FaceTime when Chris was feeling too passionate about a topic for his hands to keep up with his thoughts.

And memes, memes too, examples of Gen Z/Gen Alpha humor Tommy had found borderline incomprehensible more often than not and had retaliated against with classics like all your base and dragostea din tei.

Christopher Diaz has taken up space in his life, and he’d hardly noticed.

“I’m friends with a thirteen-year-old,” he says to his phone, baffled. “What the hell?”

Okay, then. He probably is the adult in Christopher’s life that he’s most likely to talk to.

Heard what happened. If you need someone back home who’s not your dad or Buck to talk to, I’m around.

That will at least get Chris’s attention - it’s the first time Tommy has ever used that stupid nickname without Chris scolding him into it. He’d call it another running joke, but it’s also about twenty percent stubbornness on both their parts. Tommy gives in long before anyone can get genuinely frustrated, of course, but.

If Evan had a problem with Tommy not using that nickname, he’d have said something by now. He’s a big boy. Tommy thinks he can be trusted to use his words.

He figures it’ll be a while before he hears back. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, so Chris is probably busy settling in and resting after the flight. But even as he’s moving to start the car so he can quit wasting battery on A/C and get on the road, his phone plays the little video game fanfare he let Chris program into it for his contact notifications.

who told u

He’s tempted for a second to claim it was Evan, but the many ways that could backfire come to him before the thought has finished forming. For this? He’s going to have to be completely, scrupulously honest with Chris for this.

Marisol. She needed someone to talk to.

The screen lights up to inform him that Chris is FaceTiming him. I accept the charges, he thinks.

“Hey, kid.”

Christopher looks exhausted and miserable in a way that makes Tommy’s stomach twist.

“Why her? I would have thought it would be Buck.”

“Well, Buck was trying to respect yours and your dad’s privacy, and Marisol doesn’t have anyone else to talk to about it.” Tommy briefly imagines trying to explain the situation to someone well outside the 118 sphere of chaos. Yeah, not a chance. He wouldn’t even try it with Lucy and he knows she knows how they are.

Chris sighs. “I knew you two would make good friends,” he says, then, “How pissed at me is she?”

Any other time, Tommy would feel a bit of fond amusement at that - experimenting with off-color language outside of Eddie’s hearing - but as it is, he’s taken aback.

“How p - Chris, nobody’s mad at you.”

He can feel the flatly unimpressed look Chris gives him right through the screen.

“I mean it. She understands that you were upset. We all do.” He winces at the alarm that immediately threads through Chris’s expression. “By which I mean, Marisol, me, Ev - Buck, and your dad.” He knows Evan’s not telling, and he’d bet twenty bucks that Eddie isn’t exactly screaming his idiocy from the rooftops either. “It’s nobody else’s business.”

Smooth, Kinard. Great work there. The alarm has passed in favor of a more general no shit, Sherlock kind of look, though, so. It’s probably fine.

“None of us is angry with you,” he reiterates, because it can’t possibly hurt to say it again, and because it happens to be true. Okay, he hasn’t talked to Eddie yet, but the guy’s an idiot, not a monster; Tommy can’t imagine him being angry with anyone but himself.

And hopefully not-Shannon, because what the fuck even was that.

“Not even -“ Chris cuts himself off as Tommy hears a door open. He doesn’t think he heard a knock.

“Christopher, I thought we agreed you were resting,” says a voice that must belong to Grandma Diaz.

“I am resting.” There’s a defiant edge to Chris’s tone. “But Tommy texted and I wanted to talk to him.”

“I told you you could keep your phone as long as it wasn’t a distraction. Clearly, it is.”

“Abuela,” Chris protests, “he’s still -“

“I’m sure your friend will understand. Phone.”

Chris lowered the phone when he started talking to his grandmother, which gives Tommy a clear look at the way his jaw tightens for a long moment before the blurred rush of handing the phone over.

Then he hears, in sugary tones, “Sweetheart, could y - oh,” and he finds himself looking at the confounded face of a woman who did not expect “Tommy” to be a grown man.

Well, it’s not the first time. It’s just usually funnier. Lower stakes.

“I could go get my mom,” he says, “but that would involve a little light graverobbing.”

She doesn’t smile, or really even acknowledge him except in the way she keeps her eyes on him as she says,

“Christopher, who is this?”

“Tommy,” is the unhelpful, sulky reply. She does look at Chris then, with an expression that makes Tommy’s spine straighten and results in, “Buck’s boyfriend.”

Right, great, there’s gonna need to be a conversation about when and how to deploy strategic information and when you maybe don’t out someone to someone else, even if they’re not in the closet, especially when you’re in fucking Texas, because Mrs Diaz looks back at him and he knows exactly what math she’s doing in her head.

He tries a friendly smile.

“Tommy Kinard, ma’am. It’s nice to more or less meet you. I’m glad Chris had somewhere he could go to get some breathing room.”

She considers this, then nods once, decisive. “Helena Diaz. You and I should talk.”

*

“I expected someone who wasn’t Eddie to reach out to Christopher sooner rather than later,” Helena says once she’s settled into what appears to be a tidy living room, “but I thought it would be Buck, not his - ?“

“Partner,” Tommy supplies, because he is fucking forty-five years old and the window on going around saying he had a boyfriend closed twenty years ago. “I was friends with Eddie first, actually.”

She doesn’t need to know it was only by two weeks.

“And I assume you’re aware of the” - she pauses delicately - “situation?”

“With the doppelganger? Yeah. Just found out, wanted to let Chris know I was around if he wanted to talk.”

She also does not need to know that he found out from Eddie’s ex.

“We were hoping to minimize Christopher’s contact with anyone in LA until we feel he’s ready.”

Until they feel. Okay. Tommy can work with this. He keeps his expression relaxed and sincere.

“He is thirteen. Seems old enough for him to have a say.” Being as how he had clearly, in fact, wanted to talk.

“Oh, of course. But there is a reason thirteen-year-olds aren’t left to raise themselves, even the ones without his particular limitations.”

Tommy knows he himself isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of progression when it comes to disability, even if he is miles better than he used to be. But it’s been so easy to fall in line with Eddie’s approach to Christopher’s condition - treating it as an incidental fact of life in the Diaz household, as just one part of who Christopher is and far from the most important part at that. It’s easy to forget in that house that many, if not most, people will look at Chris and see his CP first.

It’s a shock to hear Chris’s own fucking grandmother do it.

He wants to say as much, so badly, but he cannot start an argument with this woman if he wants any kind of contact with Chris while he’s out there.

Later, he tells himself. Once Chris is home. Then he’ll give Helena Diaz a call and tell her exactly what he thinks of her shit.

Instead, for now, he says,

“I understand your concerns. Protecting him from anything to do with Eddie right now - I’m not exactly thrilled with your son myself.”

He’s going to owe Eddie an apology by the end of this conversation, he just knows it.

“Then you realize that, as much as it breaks my heart to consider Christopher’s own father someone he needs protecting from, it’s still necessary. He is in no fit state to act as a parent and I won’t have any attempts at contact facilitated behind my back.”

“I have no intention of trying that. Like I said, Chris needs the space you’re giving him, and he’s the only one who can really know how much for how long. I just want to - to be someone he can talk to, about whatever he wants, who doesn’t have anything to do with this whole mess.”

“And what, Mr Kinard, do you even talk about with a thirteen-year-old boy?”

There it is. For all he knew it was coming, for all he knows that it is in fact her responsibility to make sure he isn’t some random guy preying on Chris’s vulnerability, it still stings like hell, because that’s not the only reason she’s asking.

Fine. He still remembers how to eat shit with a smile.

“Anything. Star Wars. Girls he likes, because he says I’m the only adult he knows who doesn’t get all mushy about how fast he’s growing up. 9/11, once, from our respective generational standpoints. That was an interesting one.”

“. . . I see,” Helena says, clearly not having expected any kind of comprehensive response. Tommy smirks inwardly.

“Treat kids like people you like being around and they can be pretty cool,” he says, and nevermind that he learned that himself with Chris. “I like Chris, Mrs Diaz. Not just as my friend’s son, but as a person. Look, when it comes down to it, you and I both just want what’s best for him. And right now, what’s best for him is having support while he deals with this” - storm of bullshit probably won’t go down well - “. . . Hitchcockian nonsense.”

Well, that’s not better.

Helena blinks, then, to Tommy’s considerable surprise, a flicker of humor crosses her face. “This is all giving you vertigo too, hm?”

Tommy laughs, as much from relief as anything else, and wonders exactly when he passed her test. “It was not how I was expecting my morning to start.”

She’s looking at him more thoughtfully now, more like he’s a person and not just a potential threat. “All right,” she says. “You can keep in touch with Christopher. But if I get even the slightest hint that it’s affecting him negatively . . .”

“Understood,” Tommy says quickly. “Thank you, Mrs Diaz.”

“Helena is fine. Christopher won’t be needing his phone today, but he’ll have it back tomorrow, along with an understanding that it’s a privilege in this home, not a right.”

*

Tommy had intended to at least text Evan right after brunch, but after those conversations - he needs a minute.

He gets almost a whole hour before Evan takes matters into his own hands.

u will not fucking believe what’s happening here

i don’t wanna text about this

ur probably still driving anyway

call me when u can

please

Tommy glances briefly at the screen with each message. He’s seen the aftermath of texting and driving too many times to do it himself, but with Evan’s tendency to send half a dozen short texts at a time in a sort of stream of consciousness style of communication, he’d compromised by purchasing a bracket to post his phone on his dashboard so he can keep up without being distracted by text notifications every three to five seconds. This particular stream is capped off by a string of emojis that he doesn’t even try to parse individually, but which give off a general sense of fury.

Oh, good.

Tommy doesn’t talk and drive either, when he can avoid it, but if he remembers correctly, that new little wine shop he’s been wanting to check out is more or less in the area, and this feels like a conversation he’d rather have sooner than later. Maybe he’ll find a good pairing for whatever new bullshit Evan is about to drop on him.

He calls about half an hour later, half-heartedly perusing the Malbecs, and is greeted with,

“Bobby retired, except he says he never filed the paperwork and it was really just something he talked about with Chief Simpson. At the ceremony.” Contrary to the emoji storm, there’s more hurt in those last few words than anything else.

“Retired?” Tommy repeats, giving himself a second to catch up. “No warning?”

As if he would have been hearing about anything else, even Eddie, if there had been.

“No.” Definitely hurt. Tommy eyes an especially cheap-looking bottle, wondering if dumping it over Bobby’s head would count as breaking the man’s sobriety. “He said he’d get it taken care of but it might take some time, and . . . Tommy, guess who the new captain is?”

In retrospect, Tommy will realize that he should have paid more attention to the mix of anxiety and indignation creeping into Evan’s tone.

“They got the new guy in already? We used to have to wait weeks between captains sometimes.”

“They - yeah, they . . . it’s Gerrard.”

If Tommy had been holding the bottle he was glaring at, he’d have dropped it. He almost feels a phantom bottle slip through his fingers.

“. . . Tommy?”

“Does he know?”

“Know what?”

“About you, Evan, does he know that you’re not straight?” Maybe -

“He does now,” Evan says scornfully. “I told him.”

Told him. Of course he did.

Because Evan isn’t a coward.

“He called me into his office,” Evan is saying, “and tried to . . .” he trails off, audibly searching for words, because yeah, when Gerrard isn’t being blatantly racist he can be surprisingly subtle.

“To draw you into a white boys’ alliance against the big scary minorities without actually using any of those words?”

“Yeah. That. I didn’t even know what he was doing at first, just that he was being friendly and it was kind of giving me the creeps.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t tell him to go fuck himself -“

“- not that I wasn’t tempted -“

“- so what did you do?”

“Uh. I asked him who his favorite Mary Poppins character is.”

The laughter this surprises out of Tommy is loud, loud enough to turn the heads of the few other browsers and the annoyed-looking woman at the counter. Okay, now he has to buy something. Worth it. “You what? No, wait, of course you did, god, Evan.”

“It was the first thing I thought of!” Evan protests, also laughing. “He stared at me like I’d lost my mind, so I told him my boyfriend and I watched it last night for date night.” The cheer fades out of his voice as he continues, “He, uh. Suddenly didn’t want much to do with me after that.”

Tommy sighs, the warmth that had been spreading in his chest vanishing.

“What did he say.” It isn’t a question, not really.

Evan hesitates, clearing his throat awkwardly. “He, um. Uh, something, something about you getting to me. How you can’t trust anyone’s influence these days.”

Tommy wonders if Evan, too young to remember the AIDS crisis, hears the hidden word there.

Got to Evan. Infected him.

It doesn’t seen to have tripped anything for Evan, or if it did then he is, like Tommy, choosing not to say it, because he keeps going. “Yeah, the Mary Poppins thing was kind of the highlight. It’s been - kind of awful. No one’s really talking, I can’t tell if Hen and Chim are in shock or just still taking it in, and he’s making them do a bunch of cleaning anyway. Like the stuff we save for the new probies kind of cleaning. I wasn’t allowed to help earlier but I don’t think he’d care now.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Tommy advises, hating how easy it is to slip into Gerrard’s mindset. “They’re being punished. You’d just make it worse. Trust me, you and Eddie and Ravi will all get your turns.”

“Eddie,” Evan repeats, voice distant like he doesn’t realize he’s saying anything, then, “Brunch! How did - I, I mean I really shouldn’t be talking about it here, but how did - ?”

“Marisol filled me in. You’re just doing a twelve today, right? Come over after you’re done, we can talk then.”

*

Evan’s twelve turns into more of a fourteen with a last-minute building fire call, so when he arrives, exhausted, Tommy just kisses him and points him to the shower.

“I ordered pizza already, and we’ve each got a bottle of rosé with our name on it.”

Evan brightens a bit. “When you say you ordered pizza . . .”

“Yes, I got you your warm tropical fruit.”

Evan grins and gives him a quick kiss before heading for the bathroom, calling back over his shoulder,

“I keep telling you, the acidity cuts the fat and carbs!”

“And I keep telling you, that’s what the tomato in the sauce is for!” Tommy calls back, grinning. Evan closes the bathroom door on a laugh.

The pizza arrives while he’s in there, and by the time he’s out, Tommy has everything set up. Two pizza boxes, which he opens when he hears the door, with accompanying plates even though Evan won’t use his, and two open bottles of wine with glasses that they will both be using because they are not animals.

Evan, of course, shoots him a wicked look as he immediately grabs his bottle and swigs directly from it.

“What?” he asks off the look Tommy gives him, which he suspects is not nearly as annoyed as it should be. “Why dirty a glass if I don’t have to?” He taps his temple. “One less dish to wash.”

“Is that why you never use your plate with pizza?”

“I use my plate with pizza,” Evan lies, in that way he does when he is convinced he is telling the truth despite the evidence of reality. It shouldn’t charm Tommy, but it does a little. Maybe because Tommy’s pretty sure that’s what was happening when Evan said so abruptly that he’d been trying to get Tommy’s attention.

“Okay,” he says, because file that under arguments not worth having, and picks up his own wine bottle.

He slides a glance at Evan, then takes a long swallow. He feels a bit ridiculous doing it, but Evan’s triumphant laughter erases that almost instantly.

“See?” he says. “No one even died.”

“You” - Tommy tilts the neck of the bottle at him, carefully - “are very lucky I like you.”

Evan’s smile softens. “Yeah, I am.” He sweeps an arm toward the set-up on Tommy’s living room table. “I come home - well, here - after a really bad day and I don’t have to do anything because you’ve got it all taken care of.” He looks at Tommy, blue eyes dangerously earnest. “You’ve got me taken care of. You even ordered me pineapple.”

“And I might not even make you brush your teeth before you kiss me after,” Tommy says lightly, leaning forward to set down his wine and grab a slice of his normal human pepperoni pizza. There’s a brief beat of silence, then Evan snorts.

“Thinks he can say that and still get kissed.”

“Yeah.” Tommy smirks at him. “I do.”

The movie he picked for the evening is some inconsequential nothing, a supernatural cop drama made for about five bucks that they can talk over as necessary without missing much, and, aside from a brief interlude with Evan protesting that polygraph tests don’t work like that Tommy what are they even doing, it serves its purpose.

Not that they need the full runtime for that - the conversation about Chris and Eddie, now that they can finally have it, is simple, brief, and brings Evan’s mood down considerably.

“At least you got to talk to Chris a little,” he says. He’s put aside his half-full wine bottle for his phone and is somehow managing to compose a text to Chris as he talks. “And you’ll get to talk to him again. I don’t know if he’ll be ready to talk to me right away, so at least with you he’s got some kind of lifeline.”

“Hey.” Tommy shifts a little on the couch, wraps his arm tight around Evan’s shoulders. “That kid loves you, plus you’re not the one who brought not-his-mom home. I’m gonna be old news in no time.”

“I dunno, I think I’m on the shit list. I did try to talk to him for Eddie, and, okay, yeah, he is starting to do that teenager thing where he’s too old and too cool to hug us, but.” Evan shrugs the shoulder Tommy’s hand is wrapped around. “He just walked right past me when he left. A-a-and look, I’m not trying to make it about me, I know he didn’t mean anything by it and it wasn’t personal -“

“Like you said, teenager,” Tommy says. “He might have meant something by it.” Something about his conversation with Chris drops into place even as he winces a little at the half-hurt, half-indignant look he’s put on Evan’s face. “You know, before Helena cut him off, I think he was trying to ask if you were mad at him.”

It makes the most sense. He’d already asked about Marisol, Tommy himself has no reason to be angry, and Tommy doubts very much that Chris would be asking anything about Eddie so soon.

“Mad at him? Why would I - ? Oh.”

“Yeah. So if he did mean it, I don’t think he does anymore.”

Evan chews this over for all of a second before he picks up his phone, types i am NOT mad at you and decisively hits send.

“It’s weird,” he says, “this is usually the kind of thing I would talk about with Eddie. A-and listen, I know you said you were pissed at Eddie yourself and I get it, but maybe you could, you know, be cool about that?” Evan sits up straighter and turns to face Tommy, eyes serious this time. “I know what it looks like when he’s beating himself up. There’s nothing you can say to him that he’s not already telling himself. He just kept his head down all day today, didn’t say a word that wasn’t about work. He isolates himself when things are bad and this is the worst it’s been since Shannon. And that - really got out of hand. I can’t try to pull him back from the edge if you . . .” Evan trails off, uncomfortable.

“I can be civil.” He can, too, with his initial fury having settled into a manageable level of steady anger over the course of the day. “Not exactly going to be going out of my way to talk to him anyway.”

“Oh,” Evan says, air of melancholy fading in favor of realization, “I haven’t asked you yet. Ravi’s got us all coming in an hour before shift tomorrow for a Taylor Swift dance party.”

Tommy - pauses, for a moment, to absorb the conversational whiplash. “What.”

“Yeah, they’re really popular right now? And he says it would be good for morale to do something fun together before work, and serve as a clear message to a guy like Gerrard that we’re not gonna just lie down and take it. He said you should come. Hen’s gonna bring Karen, Maddie said she wouldn’t miss it, and he invited Bobby and Athena too. Uh, and Chim said to tell you he’s gonna give you exactly as much shit as you think he is, whatever that means.”

Probably shouldn’t have included that in your sales pitch, Tommy almost says. Almost, but doesn’t, because Evan looks so hopeful and there’s only one real answer to the implied question anyway.

“Yeah. Of course I’ll come. Wouldn’t miss the look on that asshole’s face for the world.”

Or the one on Evan’s face right now, almost as happy as he’d been about the damn pizza. Totally worth an hour of Taylor Swift and Howie rubbing it in Tommy’s face about how he’d been right about her unparalleled genius all along.

“Great! And, y’know, we’re using the employee parking lot and we’ll need all the space we can get, so if you could drive and we could pick up Eddie on the way, that’d be one less car to worry about. Your shift’s at noon, right, you’ll have plenty of time to get there after.” He pauses. “And, maybe you could take a minute to talk to Eddie, if you wanted.”

Tommy sighs. “I should, shouldn’t I.” Another question with only one answer.

Evan is nodding a little as he says, “Yeah. You should. Chris needs us, but Eddie does too, even if he thinks he doesn’t deserve to.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll talk to him. I’ll be nice. Hell, maybe I’ll even dance with him.”

“Oh, like I’m gonna let you go anywhere.” Evan kneels up on the couch, bracing himself on the back of it, and leans down for a kiss.

The movie finishes playing on its own.

*

Even with the detour to pick up Eddie, they’re a little early. Evan, who has been sharing Taylor Swift facts from Wikipedia for much of the drive, puts his phone away and catches Tommy’s eye to glance pointedly at Eddie and back to him, saying,

“I’m gonna go help Ravi finish setting up.”

Tommy gives him a slight nod. He smiles and all but bounces out of the car.

Other than a thanks for the ride, Eddie has been quiet in the back, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The only sign that he didn’t just fall asleep is the way his head has been tilted toward Evan through his monologue, faint smile playing around his mouth.

Jesus.

Eddie takes his sunglasses off, meeting Tommy’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Thank you for reaching out to Chris.”

With the sunglasses on, he’d looked tired, a little pale. Without them, he looks exhausted. Breakable.

A substantial portion of Tommy’s anger just kind of - dissolves.

“Not exactly a hardship. Though I did have to talk a little shit about you to your mother to maintain access.”

“Hey, if it helps Chris, throw me under the bus as many times as you need to.” His tone isn’t quite as light as his words, but, well. Those words themselves aren’t very light in this context, are they?

‘Will do.” Tommy turns in his seat to face Eddie head-on. “So, how this is gonna go is, if Chris tells me anything that you should know about as his parent, I will tell you. But that’s it. You don’t get anything else unless he says it’s okay, and I’m gonna tell him the same.” He’d been thinking about it last night, awake long after Evan, and it’s the best thing he’s come up with to have Chris both feeling safe and actually safe.

Eddie is nodding. “I, yeah, that’s along the lines of what I was thinking. It might kill me a little, but he needs to know he can trust you. Thank you, Tommy.”

“I was fucking furious when Marisol told me what happened,” Tommy says abruptly. “I’ve had time to calm down and I’m still not happy with you, but.” He blows out a breath. “We’re all on the same side here and I’m not gonna lose sight of that - no, Diaz, thank me again and I’m gonna find a bridge to throw you off.”

Eddie shrugs, unapologetic. “I’m just grateful he has so many people who care about him.” He slides his sunglasses back on and pops the car door open, leaving Tommy feeling vaguely like an asshole.

*

Ravi’s put together a nice little set-up, with a pretty generous amount of dance space and even a table with pastries and some to-go boxes of coffee. Tommy has just enough time to make a mental note about finding out what he should chip in for expenses before:

“Tommy,” Chimney calls, gleeful. “Just in time for your favorite.”

Tommy knows what he’s going to hear before the first note even plays.

You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset

The new vocals are an improvement, at least.

Obediently, he groans on cue. Evan looks up from where he’s fussing over Jee - for all that they were early, they seem to have been the last to arrive - and asks,

“Okay, what’s the deal, because if you’re one of those guys who hates Taylor Swift just for being Taylor Swift, then I’m gonna have to reevaluate some things. Right, Jee?”

“Right,” she agrees, nodding in that firm way that only little kids can really pull off.

“Oh, I come by it legitimately,” Tommy says.

“Eh,” Howie chimes in, having stationed himself right next to Tommy, rocking his hand in a so-so gesture.

“In 2008, 2009, I spent a year in this shi - this lousy cheap apartment so I could put a little extra away while I was house hunting. It was pretty close to Howie, so we started carpooling. Guess who he was obsessed with?”

“A shining new talent who, even as we were listening, was already singlehandedly rescuing the country music genre from the likes of Toby Keith and would go on to revolutionize the music industry as we know it.”

Hen clears her throat.

“Right alongside Beyoncé,” Howie concludes without missing a beat.

“Or, in other words,” Tommy says, just barely keeping his poker face, “a teenage girl who was sad her BFF didn’t love her back. Not once on his weeks to drive did he ever play anything else, Evan. Not once. I don’t hate Taylor Swift. I have a Howard Han-induced allergy to Taylor Swift!”

“That’s a real tragedy, Tommy,” Evan says, laughter in his voice and all over his face. “I’m gonna dance with my niece about it and then you’re next.” He’s been bouncing to the music with Jee in his arms this whole time; now he takes her out onto the dance floor, such as it is, sets her down, and they start dancing in earnest.

“Tommy.”

“Chimney.”

“I may have been tormenting you on purpose. Just a little bit.”

“I may have noticed,” Tommy says, and looks over at Chim to see his own repressed humor mirrored in Chimney’s eyes. They both break and start laughing, and Tommy feels the tension of the last couple of days ease off his shoulders.

Fuck it, he decides. “Hey Maddie, mind if I borrow your husband?”

“I told you,” Maddie says immediately, pointing at said husband. “That’s dishes for a week.”

“Why do you know this guy better than me,” Chimney complains half-heartedly, accepting the hand Tommy extends.

“Because I listen to my brother when he talks about his boyfriend. Now get out there while there’s still some song left.”

Their joining Evan and Jee on the dance floor seems to be an unspoken signal. Bobby and Athena follow close behind, striking up some kind of ballroom-style dance that has nothing to do with the tone of the song but works perfectly for them; Karen throws back the last of her coffee before she and Hen descend. Maddie and Eddie stay on the sidelines, gravitating toward the refreshments, and Ravi alternates between monitoring his phone and watching them all, looking quietly satisfied.

“I’m letting him handle the timing on the playlist,” Chim says. “He knows his cues.”

“Generous of you.”

(— driving to my house in the middle of the night)

Howie rests his free hand unself-consciously on Tommy’s shoulder, so Tommy places his lightly above Howie’s hip

(know your favorite songs and you tell me bout your dreams)

and imagines, fleetingly, going back in time, maybe in some other universe where he sacked up and got his shit together sooner -

“Red. The rerecording, not the original,” Chimney says, yanking Tommy back to the present, to this universe where everything played out better in the long run anyway.

“What?” he asks, blank.

“For when you decide you owe Taylor a second chance.”

He could point out that Taylor has half the planet under her thrall and will survive without his joining their numbers, but.

“Thanks,” he says instead. Chimney gives him a curious look.

“Any time.”

“Chimney?”

“Tommy?”

“It’s great to see you so happy, man. You deserve it.”

“. . . thanks.” Chim looks over to Jee, his entire face going soft with wonder. “I got really lucky.”

Tommy follows his gaze to watch Evan carefully “twirl” Jee, who’s giggling almost too hard to manage much more than a sort of stomping turn.

“Good job!” Evan exclaims, scooping her back up as the song winds to an end.

“Not doing too bad myself, I guess,” Tommy says, knowing that, if he cared to turn around, he’d see Eddie watching them too.

Chimney snorts and claps his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, then goes to claim his daughter as the next song starts.

“Papa song!” Jee shouts. Chimney laughs and says,

“That’s right, Papa song!”

Evan lingers for a moment to watch them before he turns toward Tommy. Before he can do much more than that, though, there is the distinct sound of a throat clearing behind Tommy. He himself turns to find Athena there, looking at him with an air of arch expectation.

Sorry, Evan. Tommy does not hesitate, holding out his hand in what he hopes is a debonair contrast to can’t stop won’t stop cruisin.

“May I have this dance?”

“Oh, since you asked.”

He hasn’t seen much of Athena since the cruise ship, where his one attempt at a Sergeant Grant had been met with people who help save my husband’s life call me Athena. So they’re on good terms in general, he knows, and Evan told him all about Bobby giving their relationship his blessing, so it’s not unreasonable to assume he’s in good with Athena there, too.

Still, somehow, he’s suddenly got the feeling he’s - if not on trial per se, then at least under investigation.

“I’m afraid my dancing isn’t quite on your level,” he confesses.

“I’ll take care of that,” Athena tells him. “You just keep up.”

She goes easy enough on him that he picks up her rhythm quickly. He may not be a dedicated dancer, but he is well in tune with his body and knows how to make it do what he wants. He has to, to do half the things he does.

“My first time meeting Bobby isn’t the only first meeting of mine you’ve been there for,” she says. “I met Hen the night of that mudslide.”

Getting right to the point, then. He maintains easy eye contact with her, much as part of him doesn’t want to. Sure, that was the call that got the ball rolling, that had Sal dragging him and O’Connell and a couple others out after shift to talk about how to deal with Gerrard for real, but. It shouldn’t have been. That should have happened sooner. Tommy should have - “I’m afraid I didn’t quite witness that historical moment.”

She studies him for a long moment, then:

“I don’t bring it up to have anything out with you. That’s Hen’s business, if she even decides there’s anything left to bring up.”

“You just wanted to see how I’d react,” Tommy says, because it’s obvious enough.

“Bobby trusts you, and I trust his judgment,” Athena answers. “But now it’s looking like you might be around awhile, I needed to see a little something for myself.”

Helena is fine flashes across his mind and he asks,

“Do I pass?”

“It’s not about passing. It’s about never stopping. And you don’t intend to. It’ll do for now.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” he admits.

“You’ll get there.”

She smiles, and that sense of being investigated evaporates. He realizes a new song has started just seconds before Evan is at their side. Athena steps away from Tommy and turns toward Evan immediately with that same expectation, though tempered now with amusement.

“Athena,” Evan complains, even as he also wastes no time accepting the unspoken request.

“You dragged your man out here, the least you can do is let him get a coffee,” she says.

“Next one,” Tommy tells him, then takes his cue and retreats to the refreshments.

Maddie and Eddie have gone off to dance, but Ravi is still there, now with a coffee cup in one hand and his phone in the other. Tommy sets about pouring and doctoring his own coffee, saying,

“I can probably handle that if you want to get out there for a minute.”

“Chimney specifically said not to let you anywhere near the playlist. I’m fine here, anyway. It’s not really about the dancing.”

“No,” Tommy says, “I suppose not. Evan said something about sending a message to Gerrard?”

“To Gerrard, but to them too.” Ravi nods toward his teammates. “Especially Hen and Chimney. It’s not the early 2000s, or even the ‘10s. It’s 2024. Even with someone backing him up, he can only get away with his crap for so long. He’s not gonna win.”

Tommy takes a swig of his coffee. It tastes like it’s pretty good when it’s fresh. “I’m not sure winning is the point for him.”

Ravi shrugs. “It’s not about him. He doesn’t matter. It’s about us. And we’re gonna leave him in the dust.”

Tommy smiles a little against the rim of his coffee cup. He’d already known, just from listening to Evan, that he’d like Ravi. He had failed to guess how much.

It occurs to him, for the first time since Evan dropped this little bomb, that Gerrard has no idea what he’s up against.

“Damn right,” he says.

They have a moment or two of companionable silence to what sounds to Tommy a lot like a more somber take on “Goodbye, Earl” and which he is absolutely fine with having left for Evan to dance with Athena to. For all his protests, Evan is smiling as he and Athena talk, looking happy and relaxed.

He also lets go of her the millisecond the song fades out, with an unapologetic grin that makes her laugh and swat him on the shoulder, saying, “Go on.”

Tommy sets his half-empty coffee on the table as Evan all but stalks toward him. He’s slightly flushed, eyes on Tommy like he’s the only thing Evan can see, and Tommy is all too glad to be dragged out onto the dance floor.

I never trust a narcissist but they love me So I play ‘em like a violin -

“Wait, this is Taylor Swift?” Tommy asks. “I haven’t heard this in years.”Evan blinks at him, thrown; Tommy smirks, drapes his arms over Evan’s shoulders. “It was playing in every club I went to for a while after I came out,” he says, and drops his voice just for Evan to hear. “I did a lot of grinding to this song.”

Evan, to his delight, smirks right back. “We should probably keep it PG,” he says lowly, “but.” He grabs Tommy’s hips, yanking him closer. “That doesn’t mean we have to leave room for Jesus.”

Fuck. Tommy doesn’t kiss him, because if he did then he might not stop, but he does let his gaze drop to Evan’s mouth, makes sure he knows exactly what Tommy’s thinking.

They say I did something bad Then why’s it feel so good?

It’s a long, breathless, suspended moment, heat rising in the little bit of space between them -

A wadded-up napkin bounces off the side of Evan’s head and Maddie shouts,

“Hey, you two! Nothing you wouldn’t do in front of Jee, because you are actually doing it in front of Jee!”

Evan tries to look huffily annoyed, but he can’t hold it, falling into giggles instead. He leans his forehead against Tommy’s, shifting his hold up and around to Tommy’s back, almost respectable. “Sorry, Maddie!”

“Sorry!” Tommy echoes, not in any way giggling a little himself. “Raincheck?” he asks Evan.

“Holding you to it. Also I’m keeping you to myself now.”

“Not going anywhere,” Tommy promises. He came to support Evan, to have that talk with Eddie, and with both of those taken care of, and his fair share of socializing done (complete with shit to unpack later, or maybe not), he just wants to stay with Evan, keep his mood up for the rest of the allotted hour, help him start his shift in a good mood.

The next few songs wash over them; they don’t bother keeping up with changes in tempo, instead swaying together, breathing each other in. He’s going to take Evan dancing, he thinks distantly. To a club at least once, for some of that grinding, but he’s also gonna ask Bobby and Athena where they go. They’ll know some nice places he won’t have heard of.

He and Evan get about three and a half songs together before another one abruptly cuts in. This is one Tommy knows from his clubbing days, too. He realizes belatedly that he heard a car pull up a few seconds ago.

I don’t like your twisted games Don’t like your tilted stage The role you made me play, of the fool No I don’t like you

Evan snorts, looking over Tommy’s shoulder. “Subtle.”

Tommy reluctantly lets go of him (Evan’s hand slides immediately into his), saying, “A little on the nose,” as he turns, knowing exactly who he’s going to see.

It helps, being braced for it this time instead of blindsided.

Gerrard is staring at their little group with distinct displeasure.

“What,” he says, “is this.”

The questions that aren’t questions and never have a right answer. God, Tommy hated those.

Eddie takes off his sunglasses and hooks them into the front of his shirt, looking at Gerrard like he’s the least interesting thing in the world. It is, somehow, mildly terrifying.

Under better circumstances, it would also be kind of hot, which is not a thought Tommy appreciates having right now.

“Taylor Swift dance party, sir,” Eddie says, with no inflection.

- look what you made me do Look what you made me do

Gerrard stares at him just long enough to make it clear that he will not be dignifying that, or Eddie, with a response.

“Anyone who is not with the 118,” he raises his voice to say, “is free to leave.”

“C’mon, Captain,” Evan says suddenly. Tommy grips his hand a little harder as Gerrard’s attention snaps right to them. “Bobby and Athena brought coffee and pastries. There’s still time if you want to grab yourself something, maybe join us?”

It sounds like he’s sucking up; the sarcastic way Gerrard’s mouth tilts says that’s what he’s hearing. But he doesn’t know Evan. He doesn’t know that what it really is is an olive branch, because of course it is, of course Evan is offering him a chance to change his mind even as he knows it’s just going to get smacked away, because who would Evan be if he didn’t try?

Tommy -

Tommy looks at him, his profile and his birthmark and his sincerity, and loves him.

Loves him, loves Evan, and what a moment to realize that.

He doesn’t hear whatever Gerrard has to say in response, just sees Evan’s expression fall, and eases his hold on Evan’s hand so he can give it a gentle squeeze.

Evan squeezes back, and Tommy can’t look away from him.

“- nard. Kinard.”

“Tommy!” Bobby’s voice from across the lot cuts through the pink static, allowing Tommy to wrench his gaze from Evan. He blinks. He’d forgotten, just for a second or two, that Gerrard was here.

Gerrard does not look pleased to have been forgotten.

“Besides,” he says, glancing briefly at their joined hands, “Pawed-over leftovers, when I have a pretty good idea of where some of your hands have been?”

I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now Why? Oh - ‘cause she’s dead

“Think about that much?” Tommy didn’t mean to say that, didn’t even know he was going to speak. He shouldn’t have, not when he’s not the one who’s going to pay for it.

He’s having a hard time caring right now (look what you made me do).

Gerrard’s glare narrows in on him.

“Unless you’re here to ask me to talk to your captain about a transfer, Kinard, you don’t belong here anymore.”

“Tommy.” Bobby again, behind him this time, hand delivering a warning squeeze to his shoulder. “Got time for breakfast before your shift? ‘Thena and I would love you to join us.”

Tommy gives himself a mental shake.

“Yeah. Thanks, Cap, that sounds great.” He turns to Evan. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says, sounding mostly normal. Probably. “I had a great time.”

Evan smiles. Tommy doesn’t want to go to breakfast or to Harbor. Tommy wants to bundle Evan back into his car and take him home.

“Me too.” Evan leans in and kisses his temple. It’s not enough, but fine; they don’t really need Gerrard expiring of a heart attack on the spot. “I’ll text you after my shift.”

“Okay,” Tommy says. Even closer to normal this time. Reluctantly letting go of Evan’s hand. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Evan looks a little like he did after Tommy kissed him that first time. Less poleaxed, but shining with -

God, Tommy’s screwed.

[2dkapsddr]

August 30th, 2024 - Arcaea, IIDX 31, DDR World, PIU Phoenix

WAHOOOOOO!!!! MASSIVE DAY TODAY!!!!! I was gonna get my new Nike Frees today finally, I was gonna go test them out at Round 1 Bowling & Amusement, and most sudden yet amazing of all... A BOBA SHOP NEAR ME WAS HAVING A P3R COLLAB!!!! ASSFDSJFJSDKLFJSDJFLSKDJLKF I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO HAPPEN NEAR ME SINCE FOREVER!!! AND IT ACTUALLY JUST HAPPENED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

so of course, i went there and posted a few pics :] but while i was there and drinking a collab drink, i got a few plays in of the new Rotaeno DLC -- featuring hit new awesome scores including Dual Doom Deathmatch (FTR-8+, MAX-20) and Waltz for Lorelei (FTR-8+, MAX-15) as FTR PMs #169 and #170 respectively!!! ohyeah, and also some really good attempts on Inverted World (FTR-9, so close to a sightread PM...) and Dual Doom Deathmatch (ETR-10, could maybe be a PM soon enough?)

like i said, however!!! i was gonna go to Round 1 to test out my new Nike Frees as soon as they arrived, and arrive they did!!! they felt like MONSTERS oh my god i have no idea how they got them to be so lightweight... but it's beautiful and i wasn't gonna let a Day 1 opportunity like this go to waste!!! so, full of Nastea and a dream, i carried my way over to the Round 1 to get some games in... but first!! a word from our warmup sponsor, IIDX!!! where i recently decreased my green number from 325 to 300 to 305 to potentially acc better...

and by god, would you look at that upscore on Show [SPA-9] despite being on random!!! i got that original AA with nonran!!! and now i can surpass it just because of a simple speed change!!! oh right, and a few other score shoutouts: Be OK and EURO-ROMANCE (both SPA-10) E-Clears, Cinderella [SPA-10] so close to hard clearing... maybe next time... but in the meantime, AO-1 [SPH-10] AS 10 HC #2 OF MINE!!!! BEAUTIFUL SONG BEAUTIFUL CHART BEAUTIFUL SCORE!!! also a long-awaited E-Clear on Megalara Garuda [SPH-10] as formerly attempted by little ol' me!!! (nadeshiko SPA-10 still a dogshit chart)

...and now, for the moment you've all been waiting for!!! after all the hand games and warmers i had before even thinking about coming here, you've got some real nerve... but it's okay beca- wait wait wait no way . nooo way . what in the god damn... on my first score pic of the day and essentially second set, first try of the song... i got FIRESTORM [ESP-16, 42p] AS 16 PFC #2!!!! JOINING FORCES WITH OUT OF FOCUS CSP-16!!!! WOOHOOOOO WE'RE LEGIT GAMING HERE!!!!!

additionally including some of my other scores, of course (sorry i just had to boost myself on my own post), i also got some banger new Flare EX scores, including but not limited to...

Golden Arrow [ESP-16] 995k, 46-4-0-1!!!

C-C-C-N-N-N [CSP-17] 988k Sightread!!!! Area record baybee!!!! (for like only an hour lol)

Ishtar [CSP-16] Flare EX baybee :] 995k again wahoo

Double Tornard [EDP-15]... it's actually not that bad!! rly fun chart even if i can't really keep up with it speed-wise :[

...then, for just a little bit, i switched over to pump to complete some challenge song recommendations from people on twitter dot com and potentially get some other songs in. but honestly? i don't know if it was the bright ass lights from the smx cab, the normal mode failing you out on 2nd and 3rd stage, or just my general exhaustion, but i was Pissed at the game and kinda sick of it, wanting to give up despite not having played any of the challenge songs yet...

it was seemingly no more than a passing thought, however, as i ended up getting a sick new AAA clear on DO or DIE S20 right after ranting!!! and then i got to play the rest of the recommendations in the same set!!!!

switching back over to DDR, i heard about this tournament that was closing its submissions that weekend...! with no other real goals in mind (besides potentially some more Flare Skill from 16s and whatnot), i agreed to give it a go and grind out the qualifier charts for the challenge: those being Tribe, Hyper Bomb, and Elemental Creation!

Tribe was a bit tricky yet doable, seeing as I got a 56p PFC in three attempts, and then Hyper Bomb was a bit of its own struggle MA wise (though i got a 2g FC anyways!)... but perhaps the most surprising result for me was my Elemental Creation!! Nearly an AAA on the ESP-17 at first since i was too scared to try the Challenge, but then a sightread 980k when i DID try the challenge chart...! Incredible!!! What's more, I gave Tribe a few more tries on this other slightly more consistent cab given I wasn't really satisfied with the perfects on my PFC... and after a few attempts on That, I managed to sneak away and end off the session/qualifiers with a 35P PFC BAYBEE!!!!!! YOOOOOOOOOOO

[finnylifedumppage]

Rant:

Today was good I guess, don’t get me wrong I guess I enjoyed most of it. I woke up at 7 am,went back to sleep… Woke up again at 8am repeat until 9:45 where I give up trying to get back asleep again. I force myself to wake up and I just bedrot whilst scrolling endlessly on TikTok and watching bakudeku gatcha YouTube reaction videos until 12:30 pm when I get a message from my dad telling me the time and to get out of my pit .I went out to a shopping centre to buy stuff with my mum for my dad’s surprise birthday party in a rented out building I don’t know the name of. At first it was fun, looking round shops for birthday supplies. Then it all suddenly turned into dogshit without any pyre warning. Like my mum just started having a right big old go at me for being “rude” and “horrible” and all that bull shit I’m used to at this point. Then whenever I try and help her look for the stuff she wanted to buy for the birthday party thing she just started to continuously complain about the price of everything. To be frank it was an outrageously high price for simple items like balloons and a birthday banner. But it was the way she continually went on and on about the price that seemed to infinitely piss me off. So yeah I’m guessing I’m the bad daughter now.

And what hurts even more about that is the fact I’m trans I’m ftm and my parents refuse to call me by my chosen name and pronouns. Saying I’m allowed to go by those things and be those things with my friends but not around them. I really don’t get what the fuck they’re going on about. But back on topic.. my mum is also notoriously embarrassingly bad at technology I’m not joking or exaggerating at this point she doesn’t know how to log off and out of a computer or clear her google tabs. She wanted to stick nice and funky and funny pictures of my dad,me,herself and my two brothers on the walls in the rented out building and of course she didn’t know how to search for those pictures on her own phone. I don’t even know how she functions online at this point. The point is she clearly doesn’t. So I attempt to do that for a bit. With a shouting and pissed off mother shouting for me to give her phone back in the middle of the shopping centre acting hysterical. I tried to explain what I was doing but parents never listen to their kids so I just gave up extremely pissed off at her and the situation she put the both of us in. I somehow found found myself falling into the blame trap of my mother so all of a sudden everything that has happened to mother since the very moment she opened her eyes this morning became my fault. I have honestly no idea or clue how I impressively found myself in this hellish situation of mine. It’s low key kind of funny at this point to be fair and honest.

The second half of the day at 5 pm I found myself in a doctors office for an appointment that my mother has booked for me for my irregular flow of bleeding for my period. To talk about going on the pill. After I got my blood drawn the previous week (I almost passed out whilst having my blood taken). Nothing abnormal just regular questions the doctor has to ask you so you don’t develop breast cancer from the pill or get pregnant or die from the medication. I found out from what the doctors got back from my blood that I have less red blood cells that is considered normal for my age and low iron for my age as well. So I’ll have to take iron pills at the same time every day with orange juice for probably the rest of my sad meaningless life of mine. And if I don’t get my lack of red blood cells and lack of iron “sorted” out soon enough and quick enough I can very well be hospitalised. And die. Not the best thing to say to a traumatised,mentally unstable,partly suicidal teenager in my opinion. But what do I know I’m just a random teenager on the internet who isn’t a doctor or someone with any prior medical experience or knowledge. I only barely know to do the hymlic remover and chest compressions. All that information I was told triggered me.. of course it did I’m so pathetic and stupid. My mum obviously complained at me for not interacting with the doctor much… Even though I gave the doctor enough information…

Lastly in the evening I continued to wellow in my own sorrows like a lame little pathetic teen. Ate dinner. Continued to bed rot. Make a collage for tumbler. Made a tumbler account. Made a blog. Made the fyp to suit my needs and wants by searching up things to dictate my feed and recommend posts. Tried this exact same thing for Pinterest to get posts other than mha related ones. Don’t get me wrong I adore mha I’m obsessed with it tbh I spend a lot of money on merch that I can’t really afford to keep up with. It’s just that I want a change in what I see on Pinterest that’s not just strictly related to mha. Ate a chip butty. Wrote this blog. Listened to music. Did some Overthinking. Felt sorry for myself. Felt like I was wasting my youth and life away. Argued with my ex on a gc with all my friends on it. Regretted all my life choices I’ve ever made in the history of ever. Finished this blog. ETC ETC.

My kindest tired regards Finny⚡️🌩️⛈️🎧🎵🎶🎧🎬📱📸❤️📝💝

[temperedgods]

Part 1 Chapter 4

Alright well there are some parts of this one where I kinda say "chapters are just a vibe" and wrote like 50 pages for one chapter. So if you notice it abruptly ends, that's why. I put the kibosh on this part because it was already as long if not longer than the previous part. Side note: I wrote all of this in 12 pt Georgia Font because I think it looks nice. This isn't really my preferred viewing experience so if you really want that experience throw the text into word of sheets and change it from dogshit arial to Georgia. Or Garamond, hell turn it into wingdings if you really want to challenge your reading skills.

The train platform in Kentshire was busy as usual as passengers took the train outside of city limits back to their homes. Everyone stood by waiting since Lawrence said he would be able to take care of transportation.

“How does he have enough money to buy all this stuff?” Lucan asked. “Train tickets aren’t that cheap.” “He is a Mikael so I imagine some sort of funding from the crown.” Morgan grunted out a reply.

“Shit really? I thought he was just a vampire.” “He’s not a vampire or else he wouldn’t be outside all the time.”

“That’s a misconception.” Will commented. “Vampires can go outside during the day; they're just weakened slightly.”

An awkward silence filled the group as the murmur of train goers enveloped them. Most of the train goers kept a wide berth between themselves and the group of adventurers who carried weapons and magical staves.

Lawrence finally came back over with a stack of papers.

“I pulled some strings with Northwin. They’ll give a train car just for us. Keep it locked too so we don’t have any unwanted visitors.”

“Lawrence,” Lucan asked and stepped forward. “How do you pay for all this shit?” “The Mikaels get a lot of money for killing demons. Plus Charlie here,” Lawrence slapped a hand on the star’s shoulder.  “netted us some adventure money since one of the Northwin higher ups placed a lost & found out for his safe return. Apparently Sir Simon in accounts payable is a big fan.”

“Shocker.” Charlie muttered.

One of the trains whistled and Lawrence beckoned everyone to the caboose. 

The caboose was modestly furnished. It had enough beds for everyone and a few seats for the journey. Also had a cooler filled with various food and drinks and a private bathroom. 

It had only been a few hours since they encountered The Dismayed and Morgan looked ready for bed. He’d been cleared of any problematic injuries, by Lucan, and the bruises would be inconvenient but would slowly go away. 

Lucan had already profusely apologized but Morgan totally understood. He mentioned something about mind control and felt no ill will to the necromancer. Regardless, Lucan slipped him a few pain meds plus a couple more for later and as Morgan was about to slip into one of the beds Lucan stopped him for a sec.

“Can I uh, pet Riley?”

Morgan eyed him weirdly, then chuckled.

“Dude you can pet him whenever. I’m pretty sure since the moment he met you he wanted a pet from you.”

Lucan turned his eyes towards the left and saw Riley patiently waiting beside him. Lucan got spooked and caught himself falling. He quickly gathered himself and petted Riley under the chin. Riley closed his eyes and smiled before following Morgan into their room.

Jordan quickly followed and gave a side smile while passing Lucan. He turned around and joined the rest of the group.

They had all seated themselves and talked a bit of shop while also trying to get to know each other a bit more since they had only just met today.

Lucan still didn’t know the name of the new cleric but it seems Charlie knew it well enough to say it in passing.

“So Malan you still haven’t told us why you were up in that tree?”

“It was a nice tree so I stayed up there.” Malan responded.

“The Dismayed didn’t notice you were up there the entire time?” “I’m very good at hiding.”

“Why did you shoot at them and not at one of us?” Kracak interjected.

“You had a cleric with you. A very lovely one at that. I knew a group with a cleric would be the one with better intentions.” Charlie wasn’t going to disagree on either part.

“So why are you two still here?” Charlie asked as he pointed to Kracak and Lucan.

“Well, that guy did try to get me to kill an adorable dog and instead had me shoot a paladin. That’s grounds for me to kick their ass.” Lucan remarked

“And I go where he goes.” Kracak added. “Something interesting happens when he’s around. And he’s a doctor and I’m not.”

“She is right, I do have a magnetism of weird shit happening to me.”

“Glad to know this adventure will only keep getting weirder.” Charlie commented

“Why are you here Charlie?” Lucan asked back. “Don’t you have a tour soon?”

“No, that probably got canceled soon after I was taken to the High Wolf out by the Druid Coast. No, I'm still here because even though you bailed me out of that thing with the Duke and then helped out when those dicks showed up, I still owe one to Lawrence from a few years back. Also, going the same way I wanna go since Alberts is close to the border.” Charlie turned to Lawrence, who was the only one still standing and enjoying a drink.

“How much longer before I don’t owe you one big guy?” He asked Lawrence.

“Until you think your debt is repaid.” Lawrence answered.

Charlie rolled his eyes and turned back in his seat.

“I have another question, who’s the other double bunk for?” Lucan asked.

“It’s obvious it’s for those two.” Malan bluntly answered pointing to Lawrence and Will.

“Wait really?” Lucan snorted. “I thought you and Charlie hit it off quick.”

Charlie laughed.

“No no if anyone it would be her and Jordan with how they’ve been talking since meeting.”

Malan looked down and blushed.

“No no I already have someone that’s back with High Wolf.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Lawrence added.

“It’s true! Her name is Shelly and she’s a druid too, she carries a giant battle ax and it can cut a demon in half no problem and that’s pretty hot.”

“That’s a very specific example.” Kracak commented.

“Well it’s how we met ok? I was running through the woods and a huge scary demon ran after me and she hurled her giant ax at it and killed the demon no problem. Super cool and we were best friends. Well until we were a bit more.”

William wasn’t listening to the entire conversation, he instead listened in on the one Morgan and Jordan were having while laying in bed. Riley was trying to wriggle his way onto the cramped bunk without much luck.

“How does your chest feel?” Jordan asked “Does it hurt when I put my arm across you?”

“Nope! Not at all.” Morgan responded with a forced grin.

Jordan raised an eyebrow and looked at the liar.

“Okay maybe it does hurt a little bit but I’m fine with you right here.”

Jordan moved their arm back despite Morgan’s protest.

“I’ve been meaning to ask” Jordan continued “When Charlie asked if you two met, were you lying about that?”

“Well,” Morgan paused. “About a year before we met I may have followed him when he went on tour once and he may have taken me back to his hotel one night.” Jordan stared in disbelief.

“I’m serious! He might not remember it but I vividly being on my back and-” “No no I believe you.” Jordan interrupted. “I’m just shocked you were a groupie.”

“Well,” Morgan stammered, “How is it with you and Malan? You two seem to hit it off when you two first met.”

“It’s just the first day so hard to tell. She liked that I asked her a lot of questions so it went well with that.”

Lawrence flicked Will’s ear.

“Stop listening to their conversations. I’m going to bed so you should too.”

Will sighed and got up to follow Lawrence.

“I’ll make sure to not have any secret conversation around him.” Charlie said to the others. He also got up to get to his bunk.

Everyone but Lucan got up to do the same.

“I’ll stay up for another hour. Not really an early to bed guy.” Lucan lied.

He had been mind controlled earlier today, almost killing not only an adorable creature but almost slaying a paladin. 

He needed some time to think. 

Dawn arose about an hour before the train would arrive in Alberts. The group had enough time to get their things together and off the train but everyone was starving, but before Lawrence or Charlie could recommend a place Morgan piped up with a recommended breakfast spot.

“Visited a friend here quite often and this was a place we regulated.”

With some enthusiasm and a bruised chest he showed the way to a cozy restaurant near the Alberts River.

The Alberts River split the city into two parts: the North Shore which had the college of magic and many artisanal shops and the south end where many steel factories pumped out the alloy. Many artisans fancied the steel produced here and many art installations featured pieces made from Alberts’s finest metals.

Getting a table outside for the group was quick so Lawrence pressed for important information.

“Who’s your friend here in Alberts?”

“Her name is Marla and she runs the fighting dojo in town. Teaches all those monks how to direct mana through their fists. Cool stuff.” “I’m aware of the dojo. You think she would help us?”

“Possibly, if not then we might be able to recruit one of her graduates that helps run the dojo.”

Lawrence looked at Morgan, unconvinced.

“What? Do you have a better idea?”

Lawrence pointed towards the Glenberry Mountains that overlooked the western side of the city and providence.

“The mountains are gonna help us?”

Kracak answered the question.

“He’s talking about Castle Ata no doubt. That’s where the vampire Cyrillus lives.”

Jordan and Lucan looked horrified at this idea.

“We’re not looking to have a vampire help us?”  Jordan asked.

“I think Cyrillus would see all of us as meals and not allies.” Lucan added.

“Of course not, he can’t leave his castle.” Lawrence answered. “If anyone goes inside the wizard Joseph is notified, which we’ll use to get his attention.”

Lucan turned behind his bench seat and began to rustle through his belongings.

“Wouldn’t the vampire try to hunt us immediately?” Morgan asked. “I know Joseph would get there quick but he might not be quick enough.”

“Lawrence, what’s Joseph’s phone number?” Lucan asked while holding out a phone. It was a bulky item, made from gray plastic with one of the edges slightly chipped.

“You have a phone?” Jordan replied.

“Of course I have a phone, scrying and plane messaging take like 20 minutes to do and that’s for like 5 words. Meanwhile this is just 50 gold marks a month to use.”

“I like the idea Lucan, but I am pretty sure Joseph doesn’t have a phone. I’m not even sure if he has a home.” Lawrence countered.

Lucan sighed and dropped the phone back on the top of the pile in his bag and made an audible clunk.

“He responds to high grade threats, or things he thinks are threats. The Dismayed is not one of those threats but the vampire is so we’ll have to go say hello to the guy.”

The group quickly ate their meal and got up to pay at the bar inside. Lawrence paid the tab and didn’t seem all too interested in getting exact change, only caring about the group of men getting up to confront them all.

Lawrence looking down at the bill, not the men, and asked 

“Can I help you?”

The rest of the group stepped backwards towards him, all positioned to strike.

One of the larger men in the group stepped forward and announced.

“Overheard you and your little group talking about seeing the vampire.”

“Yep, sure did.” Lawrence said, still looking at the bill.

“Last time someone went up there things got bad quick. So there's no way you’re going up there to see him.”

“I think you’ll find us well equipped to slay the vampire.” Lawrence pushed the bill away.

The mob laughed at Lawrence. Another man spoke up while sliding on a set of brass knuckles

“Oh yeah what do you think you are?”

“A nightmare.”

Lawrence gracefully slugged the man with brass knuckles right in the chest. He stumbled back and crashed onto a table.

Pure pandemonium inside of the restaurant. Riley sweeped two men off of their feet right onto the disgusting carpet. Jordan dodged a full tackle and countered with a deep elbow on his back. Morgan threw the big guy over his shoulder and straight onto the bar counter.

Malan had slipped off from the fight and thought she could finish this quickly. She drew a pistol and aimed for one of the men. The cold touch of a gun barrel stung her back and she heard the pump of a shotgun. Everyone stopped fighting once they heard that.

The man running the bar, holding the shotgun, announced to everyone.

“No guns in the bar. No fighting here either.”

Malan breathed relief and withdrew her gun.

“All of you out, now!” The owner announced.

Lawrence slapped a couple bills of $100 gold marks and the group quickly went outside. Once Lucan, the first one in line, hit the outside he booked it as did the rest when they saw him run.

The rest of the posse ran right after them as they tried to lose them through alleyways. Morgan tried to stop them by knocking over various trash cans and refuse, but only to minor effect. Only when the alleyway opened back up did the men finally get stopped by a few monks, waiting at the opening to strike.

With lightning fast punches the remaining posse was quickly knocked down for the fight. One of the fighters raised her head quickly and announced.

“Hello Morgan and friends of Morgan.”

“Oh shit!” Morgan yelped “I called Marla when we got off the train, I didn’t know you would come and see us!”

“Not really.” Marla replied. “We had our morning run and heard the commotion and your voice so we came in to help.”

She beckoned the group to follow her and the 3 monks with her.

Marla was a spitting image of the warrior monk. A white ghi and the seal of a monk on her left hand depicting a lightning wrapped fist about to strike and the other hand parsing through a scroll with a blue fire as a backdrop. She had light red hair a shade or two lighter than Malan’s hair and soft facial features that clashed with her warrior’s demeanor.

She took them to the monastery that sat beside a park that the monks were the groundskeepers of. The stone walls outside had sharp wrought iron spikes sticking out of the top. It would be hard to pass those defenses, if the monks didn’t have an open door policy.

The group walked through the gates and saw a few more monks practicing some wall climbing skills before coming back to the ground to greet the visitors.

Marla turned around to the group

“Students these are old friends of mine. Not only that but I believe we have some popular faces as well. One of the hunters Mikael and Charlie Sigil.”

The monks crowded around a few asking Charlie some questions about where he’s been all this time. He quickly answered.

“Thank you but I’ve been learning to be a druid. If you want autographs I can sign some stuff too.”

A few others asked Lawrence questions, mostly about how to be a demon hunter like her. Marla quickly brought them to attention.

“Please let our guests enjoy their stay. I believe Morgan has something to discuss with me. The rest of you are free to explore the grounds.”

The group looked at each other, confused as to why it would be just Morgan. Not thinking much about it he followed Marla to a small table outside, with a monk pouring tea for the both of them.

The two sat down and Morgan explained what they had been going through for the past week.

“Well that is quite the problem.” Marla quipped after a sip of her tea. “If the Dismayed are fine with working back out in the open they must be preparing something for the worst of all of us.” 

“Could you or any of your monks help us with this?”

Marla sighed.

“Unfortunately no. I have to watch over them since my 2nd in command took a position at the monastery at Phoenix’s Peak. And none of my students are ready yet to go on a quest like this. I’m sorry Morgan.”

“I understand.” Morgan said glumly.

“There is one thing that may help.” Marla added “A couple of days ago one of our monks saw someone trying to dig something out of the park here. He pursued the robber and after taking him down, and some interrogation, we learned very little other than some of the chants The Dismayed like to use. But the robber also had a map. It leads from an obscure and unused path so it might be some hideout for the Dismayed.”

Morgan got up.

“We’ll take a look when we can. Thank you Marla.”

“Of course! It’s always great to see you Morgan!”

She got up and the two went to the front courtyard where they saw Riley and another Anthu playing.

“Oh I almost forgot!” Marla exclaimed “Last year I was able to best Cherry here in combat and now she lives here with us.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m glad you could finally bring her here.”

The others had been talking to the students of the monastery. Charlie was consulting them on if thrown items were considered a non-fist weapon while signing autographs, Lawrence was talking about some of the basics of demon combat, Lucan, Jordan, and Kracak were asking about cleansing spells and Will was enjoying the nature of the park.

They saw Morgan come back from the meeting and quickly formed back together. Morgan and Marla embraced each other for a moment and the group set off.

They’d had left the monastery for about a minute when one of the monks came running behind them. He was a Platyr, a monkey race that hailed from Atrocostas, the same lands Kracak was from, and had been trying to stop the group so he could say

“I want to join you on your quest.”

Morgan looked to Jordan and then quickly to Lawrence. Morgan volunteered himself to let the guy down slowly.

“Listen uh, what’s your name?” Morgan asked

“Tenzin.” He said in between catching his breath

“Tenzin look I spoke with your master about getting some help and I know that no one there is ready for this type of journey. What year are you on for training?”

Still catching a breath, Tenzin held up two fingers.

“Two? Well you have about a year left. And when you do, you come find one of us and we’ll gladly let you join us.” “Really?”

“Of course! We always can use new people because someone will always be out there trying to end the world. But this time, it isn’t for you. But when you’re done, you can beat the shit out of someone and save the world.”

A sparkle flickered behind Tenzin’s eyes. He gave Morgan a quick hug, slightly hurting his still aching chest, and ran back to the monastery.

He turned back to the group, with a pained smile on his face. Charlie giggled and said something about the ‘hug master’ under his breath.

Riley was excited that they could finally get to walk to their destination rather than take the weird boxes to get there. The birds of Alberts hadn’t seen him before so they had no clue about his strategies to catch them. Those strategies would only work if Morgan wouldn’t call him away from the birds anytime he would almost catch one.

There was a slim alley that had a bunch of pigeons at the entrance, eating something off the ground, meaning Riley had the chance of a lifetime to get one of the pigeons. Riley had no idea what to do with the pigeon after he caught it, maybe eat it or perhaps keep it as a friend, all that mattered to him was catching one.

Riley crouched, gauged the distance between him and the pigeons.

“Riley, come back here!” Morgan ordered. Riley wasn’t hearing anything but the cooing of the eating pigeons.

He pounced right over them and fell flat on the ground right all the pigeons flew away. He could feel all the various seeds embed in his fur and before rolling over, two pairs of arms grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into the alleyway.

“Riley!” Morgan yelled, followed by a stampede.

Riley wasn’t sure exactly what was going on but he knew these two weren’t going to hurt him, he’d tried to be better about people since those guys back home tried to get him. The arms carrying him were too fluffy to be dangerous. They felt like the arms of the cute Anthu he played with earlier today.

Riley looked up and saw the face of a Vul, another race of fox like beings. They stood much taller than Riley, about the same height as the strange bird lady. This one was more reddish brown rather than the cream and black of Riley’s fur.

The Vul also had a friend, who was a Lepo, a people who were rabbits with big ears and a short stubby tail the opposite of Riley. 

The two took him to this odd circular park hidden inside the jungle of buildings. Maybe 5 meters in diameter it had a patch of grass and a fountain that pumped in water from the river nearby. There was also a bench where they sat him down on the bench and waited patiently.

Morgan emerged from the alleyway holding a heavy crossbow. He raised an eyebrow at the 3 and lowered his weapon. 

“I found Riley!” Morgan yelled to the rest of the group. Jordan quickly emerged holding the sub machine gun given to her by Lawrence. Morgan put a hand out and also put their weapon down. Everyone else quickly filed in to see the situation.

“Well it’s obvious now, you weren’t going to hurt Riley. So what do you want?” Morgan yelled to them.

The Vul got up and pleaded “Please help us! We heard you were in town and needed someone to help us from our families!”

“Wow word spreads fast about us huh.” Charlie quipped. Morgan shushed him. Morgan stepped forward and let them continue.

“Our groups, our families live here in Alberts right beside each other.” The Lepo cried. “They hate each other but we found love despite that.” He grabbed the paw of the Vul.

Riley saw this turned awkward and quickly scampered back to Morgan.

Morgan was unsure how to solve this. He turned to Kracak and asked.

“You’re from the same place as these two, do you have any insight?”

“Unfortunately there is little we could do. They aren’t fans of most outsiders and while they may let myself and possibly Riley in I doubt we could do much to alleviate the situation. The rest of you would most likely be greeted with gun fire.”

“Can’t say I blame them.”

“You could just leave.” Charlie blurted out.

Everyone turned to him.

“Yeah I mean the Druid Coast is right over the mountain and High Wolf has a few passages for people to get through without alerting North Wind sentries.”

Lawrence stepped in.

“I don’t think abandoning their families is the best choice of action.” Charlie raised his voice a bit completely discounting Lawrence’s objection

“Hey, do you two like picking flowers?”

The Vul and Lepo both shook their heads to yes.

“The people of Druid Coast would accept them with open arms and they can make a new family there. Like Kracak said, only two of us could get in there and Riley isn’t that much of a negotiator.” Riley had no clue what a negotiator is but that meant he was definitely not one.

Charlie stepped forward and pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper that was a map. He scribbled out some directions on it and gave the two instructions on how to get to High Wolf.

“Talk to Shelly and say that I, Charlie Sigil, sent you so you could get to the Druid Coast. They might make you do some chores so you can stay the night but it won’t be anything grueling. Plus you two are an adorable couple so I doubt anyone would say no to you.”

Tears welled in the eyes of the Vul and the two hugged Charlie. The Lepo took the map and Charlie handed the Vul a note.

“Give this to Shelly as well when you see her. She’s almost worried sick that I’ve been gone for this long.”

The two lovers grabbed their belongings sitting on the far end of the park and bolted off through another alleyway.

“Wow Charlie that was uh, really nice of you to do that.” Lucan complimented.

“Thank you. Druid Coast is always looking for new people to join and they absolutely love people from Atrocostas there. Kracak if you ever wanna need a new place to live I imagine they could find a place for a warlock like yourself.”

“I’ll think about it but we should get a move on.”

The group set off after Morgan and Jordan gave Riley a nice big ‘welcome back we were so worried’ hug. 

The start of the trail to Castle Ata was at the village of Henry Mills, a place that grew and processed grain that was sold to bakers in Alberts. The mills still used the river to crush the grain into grain, so the town wasn’t heavily electrified but the local inn and tavern had some lights on for traveling customers. 

Riley went to the river to play in it for a minute and also get the remaining seeds out of his fur. Morgan kept an eye on him at the bank while Charlie communed with nature. Since this adventure started for him he’s had little time to do that and needed some time to catch up. The only thing he could get the attention of was a small crayfish near the edge of the water, and was more interested in eating snails than talking. He sighed, and just took in the sights of nature.

Riley turned to Charlie and cocked his head, then splashing a bit of water onto Charlie.

Morgan snickered.

“I think he likes you.” He quipped.

“Yeah well,” Charlie paused, looking at himself covered in water. He turned to Morgan “I swear I feel like I have met you before.”

Morgan quickly ran defense.

“I mean maybe? I’ve been in town when you had a concert. And you’re popular so maybe you just met someone who looks like me.”

“Pfft I doubt it my stuff isn’t that popular anymore especially since I got whisked away.”

“What? Come on, your stuff is still popular. Me and Jordan get your records when they come out on day one. Plus that one guy in the higher ups at Northwin put up lost and found money for you so you gotta still be popular.”

“I mean yeah that was nice especially since he’s bankrolling this whole operation but y’know the guys who run Northwin are all like dads and grandads. And well you, you’re kinda like a dad.”

Charlie quickly realized the double entendre of his statement.

Morgan quickly turned away, hiding that his face was red as the sun.

“Okay I’m gonna go find the group and see if everything is ready to go see you Charlie! Make sure Riley doesn’t run away okay bye!” Morgan yelled as he got up and ran away.

Confused, Charlie tried to whistle and see if Riley would come to him. Riley wasn’t enticed by the whistle but that Charlie was giving him attention so he ran to him anyways. Charlie gave him a scratch behind the ears. 

Riley got out of the water and began to dry himself off as the group converged on the two at the river.

“Ready to go?” Lawrence asked the two. 

Charlie quickly rolled himself to attention as Riley also got himself up and beside Morgan and Jordan.

The group followed the many trails for the Glenberry’s. Most of the trails were well worn in but the one to Castle Ata was barricaded. Will quickly ripped down the barricades and led the group up the mountain.

It really wasn’t a difficult hike, in fact it was quite beautiful to see the mountain that overlooked Alberts. The group had stopped for lunch and M0rgan and Jordan asked for a few more minutes to just see the sight together. Charlie, enthralled by the sight, advocated for a few more minutes to watch the sight.

The group saw the first sight of Castle Ata. Once they saw what security the castle had to offer. A set of steel armor with magical autonomy acted as a barrier between the castle and the rest of the world.

“Don’t worry I have a way to solve this!” Charlie exclaimed. Lawrence gestured for Charlie to take the stage. Charlie pointed his palm out and shouted

“Heat!”

The armor began to glow a dim red and then a bright orange as the armor sagged and crumbled to the ground. Charlie hurried everyone saying

“That won’t last forever, let's go!”

After the armor they found themselves at the walls of Castle Ata very quickly.

The large wooden doors held steadfast, with a bronze plaque to its left with indiscernible language.

Lucan volunteered himself.

“The words are in the ancient Dwarf scripts. With any luck it’s like that last sign and it’s also a puzzle.” The group stood steadfast for a moment and Jordan asked

“Lucan, why do you know so many languages?”

“I am a doctor my friend, the more languages I know the more people I can save!” He yelled, still studying the words. Lucan felt stumped and began thinking aloud

“This is in ancient Dwarven, and the castle of a vampire.” He paused for a long time and then felt a moment of realization. 

“The dwarven vampire Urokos!”

He turned back to see if anyone knew what he meant.

“He’s been dead for 3 thousand years.” Lawrence finally replied. 

“But he is the subject of a song! And that song has a melody that I could play out on the doors!”

Lucan slid to the large wooden double doors of the castle and gauged what notes played at each height of the door.

Everyone moved in slightly to hear him unlock the door and as he played the tune a latch unlocked.

“I got it!” He yelled, as the floor underneath all of them slid out revealing an incline sliding them all down to the basement of the castle. All of them shrieked as they slid down to what they thought was their untimely demise until they collided at the bottom.

They shared a collective pained groan. Untagling themselves from the multi person collision they just suffered. Jordan quickly slid themselves out of the pile and pulled Riley out as Lawrence wormed himself out without much resistance. 

Charlie made some joke about this being a saturday night as Lucan was able to remove himself and Morgan was able to follow his lead. Malan grabbed herself and Kracak as Charlie made another joke, only being tangled with himself. He quickly got up and they began a triage from the fall.

Kracak lost a few feathers and Riley was still dazed but everyone else was alright other than a few bruises, most of which Morgan already had.

Lucan quickly attended to Kracak’s lost feathers, casting a regeneration spell that saw small feathers sprout from the holes the previous had left. They certainly stung from the initially fast regrowth, but Kracak was fine with the pain as long as she could keep her composure.

It was very dark, while Lucan could work in the dark the rest couldn’t. Malan casted a spell of brass light and quickly revealed the rest of the group in a bright off yellow/orange light.

“We’re in the basement.” Lawrence announced. “Joseph has added some traps to keep people out, though they haven’t been good enough to keep us out.”

“You know a lot about this operation Lawrence.” Kracak commented “Care to share anything else?”

“Just only what Aunt Sherry told me.” Lawrence paused for a moment. “If we follow this corridor to the right it will take us upstairs where we can fine Cyrillus’s court.”

Morgan snorted.

“Cyrillus? That’s the vampire’s name? I thought it would be cooler like-” Morgan began.

Lawrence stared deep into Morgan’s eyes as he trailed off from his previous statement. Morgan stopped himself before giving an example.

They kept walking down getting closer to the intersection when Charlie got a burst of energy and felt a bit playful.

“Race ya!” He yelled as he bolted down the corridor. Riley, obviously, was ready to do that, but Morgan held him back with a quick nod to the negative.

Charlie ran around the bend and a few seconds later ran back around to the group, screaming.

An undead, covered in bandages, erupted around the same corner. Lawrence revealed a handgun and unloaded a full mag of bullets into the undead to no avail. The creature kept moving towards them, moaning something ghastly. Lawrence began a reload as William paused him and asked to take a try.

Will revealed a deathly right claw and struck the creature down from its horrible moan, all of its flesh and bandage removed from this plane and a jeweled dagger clanking onto the ground. 

Will took the dagger, despite Jordan and Lucan saying not to.

“I’m already cursed, it's not like a cursed dagger is going to curse me more.” 

Looking at the dagger, it tried to lay a curse upon him. He could feel a chill and small thunderclouds form over the weapon. Casually, he blew them away and stuck the blade into a pocket.

The group marched forward, finding the stairs up to the main level.

The atrium was sort of plain, as plain cobblestone could give. There was a large door that led to the court of Cyrillus, a stairwell that led upstairs unceremoniously,  and the doors that led outside, the ones that slid them down to the bowels of the castle. 

No one wanted to check those doors again and Lawrence prepared his many weapons to enter the doors to Cyrillus.

Will kicked the door in and Lawrence bared his two long handguns down the courtroom to Cyrilllus’s throne.

Cyrillus just sat at his throne, sort of bored of the whole charade. He had a long red coat on and just sighed at the intruder.

A heavy slam hit the main gate of the castle. Followed by the door shoving open revealing a wizard.

Joseph wasn’t his real name, he never revealed that to anyone. It didn’t matter as people only knew him as Joseph.

He was a draconic. Not born of a lizard but not born of a half dragon.

He smashed the doors of castle Ata open and yelled.

“What the fuck are you doing Larry?”

“Joseph! So glad to see you!” Lawrence announced looking at Joseph while still pointing a gun at Cyrillus.

“I was in the middle of solving this cube and you go here to shoot the one vampire I keep in stasis directly in the face? Now why the fuck would you think of doing such a-”

Joseph looked upon the gang Lawrence behind him. Genuinely shocked by this sight, he belted out

“Well fuck my mouth and call me the champion of Laurel. You have a posse! Now that is something I’d never see you do!”

Joseph steps out of the doorway and inside the castle, the door slamming right behind him.

“Y’know you could’ve called me before forming a posse to take care of whatever.” Joseph announced walking forward to the group.

Morgan started getting flashbacks to when the two had met during the Riverton crisis and he acted in a similar manner.

“You’ve never given me your phone number Joseph.” Lawrence shot back. “I’m not even sure you have a house where you’d pick up.”

“Mm fair point I don’t have a place. Anyways, why did you call me here?”

“We need your help. The Dismayed are back and are trying to pull some end of the world scheme.” “Well that certainly explains why their king Naturius found me a few weeks ago and tried intimidating me or something. I guess you could call him wildly firing a gun at my general area and then casting a fog spell to awkwardly escape an intimidation tactic.”

The group showed various levels of confusion and doubt.

Joseph sighed.

“First off Cyril go back to your little court and brood there, we don’t need an audience for this conversation.”

Everyone turned to look back at Cyrillus.

“I will kill you wizard.” He spoke, the words echoing off every cobblestone and everyone’s bones.

“Keep telling yourself that but one day I’ll decide this little conservation project is boring and I’ll kill you. Now scram.”

A force swept Cyrillus back into his court with the doors also slamming shut and a loud thud with the door locking behind him.

“Anyways The Dismayed are harmless. The last time they actually caused problems was millenia ago. Most likely they’re a bigger threat to themselves than any of us so you really don’t have to worry.”

Charlie stepped forward.

“Look Joseph I get you’re an expert or something but these guys aren’t a joke. They tried getting those 3 in a three pronged surprise attack and then almost got us again using a fear spell on Lucan.”

“Well it seems like they didn’t actually get you but I will take the opinion of the Champion of Janall into consideration.”

Charlie’s eyes widened.

“Wh-what?”

“Your necklace. That’s the token from Janal she gives to her champion. I’ve actually wondered about that for a while since, haven’t heard from the previous one. Forgot her name, it was like Angie or something.”

“Angela is my mother’s name. Sh-she gave this to me.” Charlie’s voice went flat from his more flamboyant tone.

“It was Angela! Oh well you lucked out for a mom she was really nice last time I talked to her.”

Charlie slowly sat down on the floor and contemplated things.

“I was told the elder was the champion of Janall.” He muttered.

“Well my friend it sounds like your elder is a usurper taking that role rightfully for you.”

“Look Joseph, I think we all can agree that these guys should be taken seriously.” Morgan announced to Joseph.

Joseph looked at him, head slightly cocked.

“Wow Lawrence you really got a posse here who really wants to be the heroes.”  Joseph pointed to Jordan Morgan and Riley “I mean those two I remember and the dog is adorable.” 

Riley barked.

He pointed to Charlie “You got a rockstar with an identity crisis.”

Then to Lucan and Kracak. “The warlock and necromancer who haven’t said a word but definitely agree with the paladin.” And then to Will.

“And your new-”

Lawrence stepped to Joseph, and looked deep into Joseph’s soul. An inferno lit behind the hunter’s eyes.

Joseph sighed again.

“Alright fine I’ll help you. Have any idea where they plan to strike next?”

“Our friends at the monastery in Alberts mentioned some activity at an abandoned dig site, east side of town.” Morgan replied.

“I-” Joseph paused. “Might actually know which one you’re talking about.”

Joseph opened the doors and the group exited Castle Ata. Charlie was still pondering while sitting on the floor and Riley grabbed him and slung him over a shoulder to bring him along.

“Well it’ll be dark before we get there on foot or with the trains in town so there’s a few options. Could do a flying spell which would take some time setting up or we do some planes walking.”

Morgan gritted his teeth, remembering the painful class on planes walking he suffered through last year.

“Just do the planes walking and we can get this over with.” Morgan answered for the group. No one argued, they wouldn’t be casting the spell.

Joseph shrugged and cast open a portal to another plane.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

KATHERINA MINOLA (THE TAMING OF THE SHREW) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) We had to read this for English my senior year. I got so mad at the way she’s treated. She’s the titular “shrew” of the play. She has to be married off before her younger sister can get married, because that makes sense.

Then the most dogshit man imaginable comes along, and everybody thinks they’re perfect. He literally gaslights her and denies her food and water.

Fuck Petruchio and Katherine Minola deserved better!

2.) Literally the whole play is about how she is so awful that the main guy needs to change her entire personality, which he does as a challenge not because he likes her, and then proceeds to her abuse her for the rest of the play. Yet, he is portrayed as the hero, not a villain and she is shown to have “improved” at the end. People will say, oh it’s open to interpretation, it can be played different ways, it’s satire, but i don’t find abuse funny and there is a distinct lack of commentary in the play to count as satire imo. Taming of the Shrew is a tragedy not a comedy, I will die on this hill. Kate deserves better!

3.) The title isn’t joking, ya’ll. She literally gets broken like a rebellious feral animal and it’s treated as a happy ending.

ORIHIME INOUE (BLEACH) (CW: Child Abuse, Ableism)

1.) Her powers were incredibly versatile but only ever used for healing or defense. She had offensive capabilities too, but as she isn’t an aggressive person, they were barely ever used. Her healing power isn’t so much healing as it is “rejecting” the existence of something. This power could have been so insanely strong, to the point that even one of the show’s major antagonists remarked on how frightening it was, but as I said, it was only ever used for healing, and her personality held her back from using it as an attack. She was kidnapped by said antagonist for an entire arc. I’m not even going to get into the amount of times she was used for fanservice. Fandom opinion on her varies WILDLY.

2.) I realized I hadn’t added enough the first time, but I also don’t know how much I added the first so:

She’s introduced as a character to be saved. Most are, though, even the boys and men in this arc It’s also mentioned in the manga that she had horribly abusive parents, to the point the second her brother turned 18 her grabbed her and ran. This fact is removed in the anime. The evil ghost attacking her turns out to be the degraded ghost of her brother.

She in general, in light hearted moments, spends a lot of time being sexualized. Of the minor characters (as in under 18), she is the one that is sexualized the most. Usually against her will, with people making creepy remarks (despite not wearing very revealing clothes… Which Is true to life. It’s because she has big breasts).

She then gets cool abilities, but she’s the only one of the group not to get a big fight in the Soul Society arc.

She is then the SECOND female character in need of a big rescue arc (while I agree with how it was written for both female characters, intertwined with the other ones’ ingrained following of a horrible system and neglect by her adopted family and for Orihime a desire to prevent any friends from dying, the fact is the third major arc like this has a male character “defect”. So rescued are only for the girlies). During that arc she goes through a lot of psychological horror and pain that I will defend her choices in to the end. She is built up, in that arc, however, as someone whose healing abilities aren’t really healing and instead rejection of reality/rewriting reality. She is also built up as the person who may be able to destroy the Nebulously Powerful artificat that was at the center of this arc and the twist motive of the antagonists in the previous arc. And… Nothing happens. She doesn’t get to do it.

She gets some cool things in the next smaller arc, but also gets psychically fucked with (while all of them do, she doesn’t get to have the power ups or later fights. And her previous arc was her just… Being psychologically tortured).

The end arc is complex because, yes, it was rushed because the creator was injured. But her “cool” moment -while a triumph and circling back to character development - is that she gets to be in a duo-fight briefly with the main character. Not the last fight against this boss. And she never gets to do anything cool with objects or breaking things, both which would fall under her being a pacifist still.

I disagree with a lot of discourse about her being infantalized, because she seems very ADHD-I coded, as someone who has that. That doesn’t mean the author meant her more than just a “weird” girl, especially with how the state of ADHD treatment is in Japan . So we can throw in some ableism. Which gets me to the anime adaptation.

The anime was made by Studio Pierrot, which has a reputation with adapting female characters from manga to anime. Esp cially in shonen anime.They DID infantalize her (ex, changing a daydream comment from about the main guy to pee and poop??), including removing many of her daydreams and context, changing her intro scene, removing more introspective moments (she is very emotionally intelligent in the manga), and removing moments with the main protagonist. The latter is an issue because they added moments with another female character, which implies their attachment to either is solely in favor of romantic scenes with the male lead

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Ichigo looking to the side. Someone off screen says "I… Ichigo!" Panel 2: Someone standing in front of Orihime between her and some shadows indicating people. There is a sound effect "SHOOM". Panel 3: Orihime smiles. There is a sound effect "SHOOM". Panel 4: A close up shot of Orihime's breasts. There is a sound effect "ZOOM". Panel 5: A character (Ichigo?) with stars for eyes blushes, clasps his hands, and shouts "Heaven!! I'm in heaven!!" followed by a heart. Panel 6: A distant shot of Orihime and the person standing in front of her. There's a mark of action off to their left and the sound effect "FWUP". Panel 7: Two other characters say "He… flew?!" Panel 8: A close up of a shoe as someone lands on something with the sound effect "TUMP"]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: A shot looking down at Orihime from an angle. She's dressed in a baseball uniform and shouts "Yeah! C'mon, Tatsuki, give it to me!" followed by a heart. Panel 2: A shot of stairs with an arrow pointing to someone labeled "Kon". Kon is Bleach's mascot character. Someone off screen says "Th… …That's!" and Orihime says "Hey!" Panel 3: On the left is a close up of Orihime's breasts with an arrow pointing to them. In the bottom center right is Kon with his paw over his mouth. He thinks "Orihime!!!" There is a sound effect "BOOM" behind Kon. Panel 4: White text on a black background. The text reads "target 1: Orihime Inoue". Panel 5: A distant shot of Kon going down the stairs. He thinks "Yes! I'll play the innocent stuffed animal that just happens to be lying on the ground in front of her. Panel 6: A close up of Kon with his paw in front of his mouth. He thinks "She's got the heart of the Virgin Mary, so… …She's bound to pick me up and hug me and nestle me in the valley of paradise!!"]

(Cleanser that isn't relevant to propaganda that follows up on the previous:

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: The mascot character Kon is blushing and is in front of a large soccer ball. He thinks "And then I'll be umm-ummm-umm…" Panel 2: Kon gets hit by the soccer ball with the sound effect "WAP" Panel 3: On the right is a character after they kicked the ball. They're shouting "Dragon Bazooka!!!" There's a note by the speech bubble that that's the name of the shot. On the left is Kon getting hit by the soccer ball with an arrow pointing to him. There's a sound effect "THWAK". Panel 4: In the foreground is the soccer ball driving Kon forward. In the background is Orihime standing at home base of a baseball field; she's standing with a baseball bat ready to swing. Action lines indicate that Kon and the ball are moving toward her. Panel 5: A close up of a distressed Kon. Panel 6: A close up of a smiling Orihime. Across panels 4 to 6 is a speech bubble of Kon's saying "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"]

yes she hits him with the bat in the following page)

[Description ID: A character hugs Orihime from behind and grabs breasts while shouting "Morning, Orihime!!!" and while Orihime gasps. Orihime kicks said character in the face.]

[Description ID: A panel of Orihime; someone off-screen says "Her powers violate divine law."]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Orihime stands in front of a dark doorway with hands reaching out of them. Panel 2: Close up of an eye. Panel 3: A woman with black pigtails grabs Orihime from behind and covers Orihime's mouth with her hand. There is a sound effect "WHAP".]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Woman with black pigtails tells Orihime "You're finished."" Panel 2: Close up of woman's face. She says "I'm going to take back everything you took from me!!" Panel 3: The woman tears off Orihime's sleeve with the sound effect "SRIP".]

(Had some supposed Orihime fans - saying that as a huge Orihime fan myself - claim this wasn't misogynistic as hell because "girls do that in real life")

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: A man with a bucket tells a distressed and blushing Orihime "Oh. Be careful with that dress. It's designed so that when you close the middle, they pop out from either side." Orihime shouts "WAAAAAA!!!" Panel 2: A character shoves their hand upwards through Orihime's cleavage so that it's sticking out from between them. The character says "Okay, it's okay. Don't cry, don't cry." There is a sound effect "SHPA." Orihime has tears in her eyes and is blushing in a distressed way. Panel 3: Orihime shouts "WAAA!!!" off screen. Ichigo has a distressed or shocked face with a blush and says "Y…".]

(How an antagonist in the Hueco Mundo arc restrains her)

And one of those scenes weirdly changed and infantilized from manga to anime (these are both the official releases, not fan translations). They're not the only one but they're the easiest to show:

Manga:

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: POV shot of Ichigo looking down at presumably Orihime. Panel 2: Orihime blushes with closed eyes and says "Oh no, Ichigo!! Close-quarters combat!!" There are two sound effects: "WHOMP" and "ZING" Panel 3: A shot of from behind Orihime stands on her knees and shouting "Ow!!" A man in the foreground asks her "Orihime! Are you all right, Orihime?!!"]

Anime:

[Description ID: Anime screenshot. Orihime is lying on the ground asleep while a man looks down on her. She says "No… Not Poo-san, it's Pee-tan…!"]

3.) In the arc that literally centers around her, she is described as having a power that infringes on the territory of God because she can Reject events from happening (this usually manifests in her "rejecting" people's wounds giving her pretty much The Perfect healing ability). There is a lot of emphasis placed on this and on her personal arc about how she feels pretty weak and useless compared to her friends, so she figures out that there is something that Only She Can Do! Which is, Reject the Macguffin from ever existing. And guess what she never gets the opportunity to do? And instead watches her LI (the main character) fight multiple people on her behalf and literally die in front of her and resurrect himself through sheer force of HIS will, not hers? (Like, OK, granted that sheer force of will was born out of his strong desire to save her, but it still isn't anything SHE did.)

In later arcs, she does get more of an upgrade power-wise but it's nowhere near the scale that was implied earlier on. (this might be more because it's a difficult thing to write around if it's really that OP, but I still side-eye it a bit) And in the final arc, she's given a pretty sexualized outfit that's both given explicit attention and also played for laughs, but in a way that feels very much at HER expense.

[riflebrass]

Well last night was an adventure and it kinda sucked.

I view myself as a little bit of an idiot. Most of my bad ideas are for funzies though and in serious situations I look for a way to do stuff safely.

My sister on the other hand views herself as an intellectual and a strong independent woman. She has a big heart and wants to save everyone. Unfortunately she lacks common sense figuring she can MacGyver her way through any situation and save the day through sheer willpower alone. She HATES the damsel in distress cliche but through a series of dumb choices that's exactly what she ended up being.

We got a good amount of snow here and her friend's car went off the road. She wanted me to pull him out with my truck. I have no idea what conditions would be like so I refused to volunteer my truck. My tires are dogshit and I don't want to risk getting stuck myself.

Since I wouldn't volunteer my car she said she would pull him out with her car. It's a tiny lightweight car so it loses the game of gross tonnage. Also her tires aren't any better than mine. She asked me for tow chains so I said I didn't have any hoping that would dissuade her. It didn't. She said she was going out anyway to push the car back on the road. I got a bad feeling that more bad decisions were on the way so I tagged along.

Right off the bat she refused to bring a coat. I insisted that she bring one in case something goes wrong. She was certain there was no way this rescue mission could go wrong. So I put on a sweater and a coat to give her just in case.

We got to the chain up area and tried to get the chains on with no luck. No matter how many times I watch her put on chains I just can't figure it out so I'll own being a dumbass here. Anyway roads were looking good and nobody else was putting them on so she decided to continue without chains.

When we got to her friend we discovered just how fucked the situation was. The good news was that he was off in a ditch. There's no way to get him out without a heavy duty truck and a winch. All tow trucks and roadside service aren't sending anyone out because conditions are too dangerous. His car is stuck and we can't do a damn thing about it. I call this the "good" news because it only gets worse from here.

His car was in the middle of a very steep hill that was well shaded so it was extra cold. Earlier in the day the snow had melted but now it had refrozen into one big sheet of ice. We can't turn around and go back up and going down is looking really bad. Now is the moment she decides we should jack up the car and put the chains on. As expected while I jacked the car up the car started to slide.

About a hundred yards down the hill it leveled off for an intersection so we agreed to creep down there to try the chains again. Once we got to the flat area we came to the realization that her chains were too small and we were fucked. I suggested we start calling around to see if we can get a ride home and just leave the car. She didn't want to do this.

She decided she had to risk going the rest of the way down the hill because she couldn't spend the night out there. The locals told her it was impossible to safely go down the hill without chains. She immediately disregarded them saying she didn't have a choice. Finally I had to get more assertive. What happens if you crash? The car is stuck out here anyway. Is it really worth risking totaling your car? Is it worth serious injury? Is it worth dying? Let's call around and see if we can get some help.

Fortunately the friend she set out to rescue had another friend in the area. Originally he was just going to bring us chains but by the time he got to us he couldn't climb the hill. We would have to walk about another 400 yards down the hill, get the chains, trudge back up the hill, and dig out her tires before putting them on.

It was dark, it was 20 degrees, and she FINALLY admitted she should have brought a coat. So I convinced her to leave the car and ask for a ride home.

Shoutout to that guy for buying chains we didn't even use then spent a couple hours driving us home.

[theotheroccassionalfanficwriter]

gonna be a weird request but--octopus boi childe fucking the reader with his tentacles and making them suck from another tentacle please

Anon there is no such thing as a weird request, just one no one has ever thought of yet. Anyways! just like the previous request, please apply the adage "If there's a hole, there's a way!" three tentacles in one hole might be too much but with the power of love and lust nothing is impossible!

Wrapped in Love

Summary: In the aftermath of Liyue, in the cold and merciless everwinter of the Tsaritsa, Tartaglia learns how to fuck you with his new appendages.

--

There were few things in life that you regretted, most of it involving Tartaglia in one way or another, your infatuation of him was an open secret among the Fatui. Not even the Tsaritsa was above using it to tease you on occasions where a meeting just ran far too long for her liking. Right now on top of your list of regrets, directly above the time you had loudly mentioned that Tartaglia was the most desired bachelor within the social circle of Snezhnaya’s noble ladies due to his family man side, was the consequence of you showing your tentacle kink to Tartaglia that one time he had specifically requested your skills to unseal Osial.

The consequence being subjected to help him test out Dottore's insane projects. A rare moment of cooperation between the two considering the immense dislike that was present among the rest of the Harbingers and Tartaglia, with the exception of you. It had taken you less than a month to accept the fact that compared to the other Harbingers, your talents didn’t include scheming or fighting.

If anything your talent was your dogshit luck at getting along well with the other harbingers, a glorified messenger that knew how to fight well enough when necessary but had no innate skill for it in the same way as Tartaglia. You were better off giving them ideas, a human rubber duck to bounce off thoughts for the Tsaritsa.

Which led to your current situation, in Tartaglia’s bathtub, massaging his new appendages. Of all the situations you dreamt of why you’d end up sharing a bath with him, this wasn’t one of them. Sure his thick tentacles were soft and squishy but when he curled them up, you could feel the core muscles, his new appendages were strong and you had no doubt Tartaglia would have no problem strangling 8 people at the same time.

Which then led to your current horny thoughts praying to your Archon to have mercy and not let Tartaglia comment on your thoughts that was entertaining the idea of tentacle sex.

‘I bet this would feel good inside me’ You thought as you gently observed the suckers on Tartaglia’s tentacle, the one you knew was his detachable dick.

Tartaglia’s tentacle wriggled gently on your hand, alternating between feeling out the gaps of your fingers with its thick tip that barely fitted through, and leaving marks on your hand with its suckers. The tentacle was darkish blue in hue, turning violet when the light hits it at a certain angle, if asked you would not be able to identify what sort of octopus he was beyond a specie that was most likely a bottom dweller.

While you were busy sitting on the rest of Tartaglia’s wriggling tentacles in your swimsuit, Tartaglia lounged about on the other end of the tub, facing your back with a displeased look on his face. His face rested on the knuckle of his hand, turbulent thoughts apparent on his face.

Tartaglia worried about your obliviousness once you became absorbed in your task. He wondered how you could still observe his tentacle when another one was wriggling directly below your crotch. He was quite aware that if it went on for another minute, he could definitely slip it in. His stare on your ass, whose crack was slightly visible from the way you crouched, burned through you but you ignored it. Countless missions spent with Tartaglia had made you immune, slowly but surely, to his bouts of displeasure on some of your work ethic.

Being younger than him had the equally fortunate and unfortunate effect of him being almost caring towards you. You bore with it because 1. You liked him, and 2. Letting him do as he pleased was more energy efficient. Such actions of course led to him liking you a whole lot more compared to the other harbingers, which meant that more often than not you were sent along with him to distant lands, which meant you dealt with whatever fall out occurred from his penchant of following trouble.

Not that you mind, sure you weren’t the best fighter among your colleagues, nor were you the best schemer among them but you were certainly the best negotiator they had when it came to compensation. So it stood to reason that it was best that you were paired with Tartaglia most of the time, which was fortunate considering the events in Liyue. Economic relations had only taken a slight dive after the whole Osial fiasco, with Tartaglia almost duking it out with Signora once they were away from prying eyes.

Your assurance that you had evacuated the entirety of Liyue Harbor with the spare Fatui soldiers you had and the rest of the Millelith, was the only reason Tartaglia easily backed down.

The result was that Tartaglia had warmed up to you considerably, and was without a doubt considered you as his “friend” if it meant sparring sessions every day that went from fighting each other all out to him teaching you how to use every weapon he knew. And Tartaglia as a catalyst user was just a sight to behold as much as he was a dual blade wielder.

“How long are you planning to ignore me?” He asked as he pulled you close to his chest, tentacles wrapping around your waist and legs, slyly splitting your legs wide apart.

“I’m not?” You answered, confusion lacing your tone.

You reached for the tentacle that you were studying, “Can you pass the recorder to me? Dottore was demanding an oral report.”

“Didn’t he hate those?”

“Yes. But for some reason he wanted one...ugh I’m getting back at him for this” You complained as you made yourself comfortable on his chest, slouching slightly as Tartaglia cuddled you in the tub.

He hummed at the sight of you being completely relaxed around him despite his temporary state as a weird octopus thing. His tentacles were exploring your skin, the small scars that you got from moments of carelessness in exploration made some parts of your skin different. His arms played with your hair, absentmindedly kissing you every now and then on the back of your head as two of his tentacles stealthily slithered up your chest resting below the area of your chest.

He watched you for a moment as you fiddled with the recorder, figuring out how to use it.

“There we go~!” You muttered, pleased at your actions that you remained unaware of imminent realization of your lewd thoughts.

Tartaglia smiled fondly before it turned into a lascivious smirk as he simultaneously gripped your waist as his tentacles slipped into your hole and sucked.

“Hnn~!” You moaned in surprise, back-arching at the intrusion only to end up pushing it further inside, the tentacles near your chest immediately latched on your nipples, sucking it until you let out another moan, “Ah~!”

“Wha-” The thick tentacle inside your hole sucked on your wall, gelatinous hydro coating its thick tip until it felt like your hole was filled to the brim, “No! Ahn! Don’t twist inside-”

Your words were interrupted by the intrusion of a particularly thick tentacle in your mouth. “Mmmpff!!!”

Drool dripped down on the sides of your mouth as you felt the appendage roaming inside, thick and slick as it fucked your mouth. You wriggled your body, doing your best to break free from the tight hold of Tartaglia’s tentacles but only made it tighten its hold on your limbs and drove it deeper inside you.

“You feel really good,” Tartaglia praised, making you pleased for a moment which was enough for his appendage that was stimulating your insides to go further, “How many of my tentacles do you think you can take?”

His words sent you to a bout of panic, the lone appendage that was sucking on the walls of your hole, wriggling about and hitting your spot was already too much for you. You signaled to him that any more would break you but all it did was make his grin wider just as you felt the two tentacles on your nipples grope your chest and then twist your over-stimulated nipples.

You cummed just as you felt the hard thrust inside your wall, sending you to another orgasm that had your body bending from the pleasure only to turn limp once the high was done. Even as you laid on his chest with your tired body and hazy mind, Tartaglia’s tentacles didn’t stop moving, you felt and saw your legs spread wide, two tentacles holding you up until your ass was lifted. The soft prod of another tentacle on your asshole made you sit up in alarm but it was useless as you felt your asscheek being spread and then the cold intrusion of the tip.

“Mpff!” Your alarm turned into a moan, mouth opening wide for one of his slightly thinner tentacles to slip in.

“Look at you, wriggling in pleasure” Tartaglia said as he licked your neck, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice how you would rub your slutty crotch on my tentacle? Did you like the feeling of my suckers rubbing your slutty hole?”

You were helpless as his tentacles lifted your legs up, the soft prod to your hole was all the warning you got before another tentacle roughly pushed its way in. You cried out in pleasure, hole clamping down in reflex but it was all for naught as you saw your legs being spread wide in the air and then felt your hole being fucked again and again until you came once more.

“Nnn!” You moaned as you laid on Tartaglia’s chest, your hands reached the nearest tentacle and began sucking it with your mouth.

Tartaglia laughed in delight, “What a cute slut you are!”

His laughter rang in your ears as you felt your mouth being forced open, his tentacle slipped out, your saliva coating it and stretching until a thin strand was left connecting the tip of his tentacle to your tongue. And then he kissed you, passionately as he twisted your body to sit facing towards him.

His tentacles harshly slipped out of your abused hole, making you moan and cum once more. The water on the tub sloshed and spilled from the harsh and vigorous movements of Tartaglia. His hands held you by the waist, treating your hole like a fleshlight as he repeatedly slammed you to his tentacles, occasionally rubbing your crotch against his suckers until you found yourself doing it personally.

You held onto his shoulders as you repeatedly used his tentacles to seek out your own orgasm. Dottore’s recorder was already long forgotten as it continued recording on the wet tiles of the bathroom floor.

“Tartaglia!” You cried out his name, when you felt another tentacle thrust inside you as his teeth clamped on your nipples. You came loudly, your hole twitching as it clamped on the tentacles.

“Fuck!” He cursed before pushing you down the tub, the waters drastically reduced, and moved to cover your entire lower half. You felt his beak and then the familiar push of the head of his cock on your entrance.

His hands played with your chest as he easily plunged his cock inside you. Your moans was silenced with his kiss, and then he began moving. He fucked you ardently, like a starved man, it was an odd sensation for your lower half, his suckers leaving bruises while his cock repeatedly and easily fucked your hole.

The water turned murky with each orgasm the two of you had, Tartaglia’s back was filled with your scratches and the crescent marks of your nails from digging deep in his skin. Your neck was littered with bruises and bite marks from his mouth. The two of you fucked as if both of you had been doused with aphrodisiac, as if neither of you had sex in a long while.

And though it was farthest from the truth, Tartaglia wouldn’t deny that he had missed you terribly. The entire time on Liyue had been spent either preparing for taking the gnosis or fixing up trade relations, there wasn’t a single time he was able to spend a day with you without it being work related.

Not even his weekly challenges with the traveler were able to stave off his longing for you. So for him, this was the closest he had been to you for a long time. When both of your lust had been satiated, you laid on the now almost empty tub, simply basking in the afterglow as you gave him absentminded kisses on his chest.

“Oh shit!” You cursed as you frantically left his loving embrace and searched for the lost recorder.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, tentacles pulling you back to his side.

“Dottore’s fucking recorder! I’d like it if our sex life wouldn’t be part of the official record of Dottore’s whatever!” You answered, as you swatted a particularly lecherous tentacle that was rubbing your still sensitive hole.

Tartaglia helped you look for it, arms hugging you as his eyes searched about before he spotted it near the claw foot of the tub. His tentacle reached for it, bringing it to you like a prize, ignoring the blinking red light that was still recording.

“What prize do I get?” He asked as he kissed your cheek, squeezing you tighter in his arms.

You hummed as you fiddled with the recorder, stopping it and hoping in vain as you replayed it’s contents.

“AHN~! NO!--IT WON’T FIT AT ALL!”

As soon as you heard your dirty talk, you immediately stopped the playback. Imaginary tears falling down your eyes as you cursed your past self for always being swept up on Tartaglia’s charm and antics.

“Ah~ as expected of my beloved comrade~ even though you said it wouldn’t fit, in the end you had three tentacles inside you in one hole right?”

You blushed at his teasing, “With how big your cock is, it would be a wonder if three didn’t fit.”

“Ahahaha!” He laughed, pure and genuine, “Comrade! That isn’t a winning argument for you at all~”

“Who cares! Anyways, what kind of pet name is comrade!?!” You tried to steer the conversation away from your loss, “Change it! Or are you dating the Traveler on top of me?!”

Tartaglia’s eyes softened at your kitten-like jealousy. He smiled at you, soft and loving that had you melting from the inside. It was in moments like this that made you wonder what life would be like for the two of you outside the Fatui, a normal life free from politik and schemes and the ever-looming threat of Celestia’s wrath.

“Then what about супруг(spouse)?”

An unsaid question, for a future that may never come. You paused, heart beating fast as you thought hard and deeply, not weighing the pros and cons but thinking of the possibility that this might not end in happiness. That this promise might end up the first one he’d break.

“Are you sure?” You asked him, meeting his eyes head on, willing him to understand what he was asking.

Out of all the Harbingers he was the closest to death. The one most likely to die first. He was their Vanguard, a sacrifice, when push comes to shove he would have to lay down his life for the rest of you. It was a thought both of you knew, a reason why he wanted to become stronger and stronger because no matter how many times he claims that world domination was his goal, you knew that protecting the ones he held dear was also the reason why.

Tartaglia may long for a glorious death from a battle, but you knew that he also longed for a life outside the Fatui.

“Yes” He answered as he drew close to you, forehead touching with yours.

You kissed him, gently and lovingly, and for the first time filled with hope instead of resignation at the harsh future that would come. An unsaid answer for a future that both of you would fight for.

‘I will be with you always, from this day until not even death may part us.’