#last time we fought he said he was lonely when we met and hes not lonely now and thats why hes not as affectionate as before

[trashpawz]

Tumblr is basically my vent now

[cruelfeline]

So, for all of y'all who aren't familiar with Dwarf Fortress, I'm going to explain why it's such a phenomenal game.

Dwarf Fortress is a colony simulator that's been developed by two brothers since 2003. A few weeks ago, it finally released on Steam with a UI that even i can understand. It is the grandfather of things like Rimworld and Minecraft.

So what makes it different from all of the other games in the genre? What makes it different is that it simulates a world beyond your colony. A world with gods, monsters, civilizations... a whole history outside of your colony. A real, living world for you to play in.

I can better explain this by showing y'all what happened to my latest fortress. The one that experienced Wereanteater Armageddon.

My dwarves were having a nice time. I'd just figured out how to build instruments and was outfitting the new tavern properly when-

Surprise! Wereanteater.

Said wereanteater eventually turned back into a goblin and ran off-map, but not before infecting some of my dwarves. Which led to... well...

Absolute massacres every month. With more wereanteaters each time. Which eventually led to...

One lone dwarf, haunted by the ghost of one of the many slain, sitting next to the werecorpse of his last companion. They'd fought to the death the moment they'd last transformed, and he was the survivor. But, of course, he couldn't move.

So! That was that. Fortress destroyed, time to move on. I abandoned the fortress and decided to start anew.

But! Where did our wereanteater come from? What was his story?

In Dwarf Fortress, everything has a story.

So before starting a new fortress, I went ahead and checked the Legends mode: the mode that has the whole history of everyone and everything written out for the player to read.

First, I found my fortress' record, and I scanned down to where the deaths began.

There we go... the attack started with a goblin named Azstrog Terrorhymed. Who is that? Why does he turn into a monstrous anteater?

Here he is, in his entry, biting my dwarf. And... actually beating her to death with Sensedterror Explained, which another entry says is a book he wrote. About some sort of horror-pit he had a nightmare about. Huh.

And looking further back, we can see that, about twenty five years before he came to my fortress, he profaned the Abbey of Shafts in a settlement called Gearedopened. Possibly due to having some bad experiences with gambling and false friendships. This resulted in someone called Ngalak cursing him to become a wereanteater every full moon. And who is Ngalak?

Ngalak is apparently a dwarven god associated with caverns and mountains. And also:

Azstrog wasn't the only creature he's cursed with wereform for profanity! There are at least two others potentially running around. So that's... comforting.

And as for Azstrog? His entry says that he settled in the Fair Mines after dooming my fortress. Checking that entry, we find it to be a lair. A lair that now contains a wereanteater. A wereanteater who was once a goblin who seemed down on his luck and, in a moment of forgetting himself, ended up the object of divine wrath. Which in turn led to the violent deaths of about fifty dwarves in the fortress of Knowring twenty five years later!

This is why Dwarf Fortress is so amazing! There are plenty of games that will introduce an obstacle for your characters to face, but how many will ensure that that obstacle had a whole life of his own prior to ever meeting you?

On second thought, I think I'll reclaim Knowring, rather than starting a new fortress. And I'll bury its many dead, take over its workshops, and see if I can find the Fair Mines.

See if I can find Azstrog Terrorhymed again. See if he's still alive, or if he's met his end one way or another.

But first: time to build dozens of tombs!

[plushieclan]

Prologue part three

TW: Injury, Implied death

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The snow was melting, and the grass was starting to come back. It was Newleaf, finally. Nightpaw had spent the last moon of leafbare with her new friends and old family as an apprentice, something she had once thought impossible.

Shimmerpaw, Sandpaw, and Gingerpaw were close good friends by this point. Leopardcloud had just had her kits, so Nightpaw had mostly been training with Firestorm and Shimmerpaw.

Currently, the four apprentices were having a little spar. Well, it was more like Sandpaw and Gingerpaw pummeling Shimmerpaw while Nightpaw sat off to the side. She was a bit distracted at the moment.

“Do you think Sunspot will let Nightpaw come with up to the Gathering this moon?” a muffled question came from Shimmerpaw.

Sandpaw shrugged. “Who knows what my mother will do.”

“I hope so.” Gingerpaw mused, “I think you deserve to come with us this time. You need to meet the other clans.”

“Yeah… I hardly remember them. I know Grangeclan used to be a big ally of ours, but I can’t remember much about Marshclan and Treeclan.”

“Well, for starters… there isn’t a Marshclan anymore.” Shimmerpaw started, “They took Bayclan’s old territory and reformed into something called Swampclan.”

“Swampclan…” Nightpaw looked away, her thoughts stuck on the past.

“Something on your mind?” Sandpaw asked.

“It’s just… I’ve played it over in my head tons and tons of times, but I don’t get it. Why did Marshclan attack?”

Gingerpaw, Shimmerpaw, and Sandpaw all looked uncomfortable.

“I heard they wanted the Great Lake.” Shimmerpaw mentioned. “Rainfeather and Starleaf were talking about it.”

Gingerpaw interjected, “We shouldn’t speculate about this—”

“At the Gathering, I heard a few of the apprentices talking about some prophecy. Maybe that’s it?” Sandpaw said.

“A prophecy…” Nightpaw thought for a moment, “that might be it. My mother participated in a prophecy when she was younger. They tend to make cats… do things they wouldn’t normally.”

“Well, we can’t really know,” Gingerpaw said nervously, “and I’d really not like to speak it into existence.”

The four heard a noise behind them.

Nightpaw could see Lionmane, one of the warriors, running towards them.

“Apprentices! We need you back at camp, quickly!”

“What’s going on?!” Shimmerpaw asked.

“Swampclan’s been spotted at the border with what looks like an invasion force! The nursery needs protection— now!”

Nightpaw met her friends’ eyes. This was serious.

—

When they made it back to camp, all Nightpaw could think of was that fateful day as a kit. Blazestar’s horrified face as she fought off her attacker was burned into her mind.

Things would be different now, she thought. She wouldn’t let her new clan suffer the same fate as her old one.

She and Gingerpaw stood in front of the nursery, flanking the entrance. Shimmerpaw and Sandpaw were in the cleric den, protecting the herbs with Rainfeather. Starleaf was inside the nursery, calming the kits. Blossomtail sat in front of Leopardcloud. Lionmane had not rejoined the rest of the clan, instead pacing in front of the two apprentices.

“Shouldn’t he be with the others?” Nightpaw whispered to Gingerpaw.

“I think he’s too worried about Leopardcloud and the kits.” he whispered back.

“Firestorm has kits too, but he went to the fight.” Nightpaw retorted.

“They’ve got different ways of showing their protection, I think. I definitely prefer Lionmane being here though— I’d be too worried without him!”

Gingerpaw had a lot of respect for Lionmane, Nightpaw had noticed. She wondered if Lionmane was his father— after all, Gingerpaw used to be a kittypet, and so were Lionmane and Leopardcloud. They could have easily been his parents. But now wasn’t the time for speculation.

A lone cat walked through the entrance, bleeding heavily.

Nightpaw tensed up. Could it be a Swampclan cat?

As the figure stepped into the light, his familiar dark pelt came into view. It was Darkstar. She immediately relaxed.

But where was everyone else?

“Dad? Where is everyone else?”

He huffed, collapsing, “Gone. We chased them all off but… they got every single one of our patrol. Redstar… he attended personally.”

Rainfeather rushed to Darkstar’s side, instructing Sandpaw and Shimmerpaw on what to fetch from his den.

Nightpaw approached Darkstar. “I don’t understand… why?”

“He heard the rumors.” he panted. “Somehow he knew… you were back.”

Nightpaw paused, her mind racing. She needed to know more.

He stopped, going limp.

Rainfeather yelled. “Give him some space!”

Nightpaw was horrified, “No…”

“It’s alright. He’ll be fine. He’s just losing a life.” Sandpaw said. He seemed to have noticed her distress.

“H-How many does he have?”

“A lot still. No need to worry.” Sandpaw smiled, “He’ll be fine.”

As if on queue, Darkstar began to stir. She released a sigh of relief.

“Stay down. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Rainfeather placed cobwebs on his long gashes. “What are our casualties?”

“I managed to recover Firestorm and Riverdrop’s bodies. I think Grassfoot managed to escape… but I haven’t seen her since. Sunspot… fell into the stream, so it isn’t likely they’ll go looking for hers to throw into the Great Lake. I wasn’t able to take anyone else with me.” he coughed weakly.

“What did you mean by earlier… by him hearing the rumors about me?” Nightpaw asked.

“They were looking for you.”

“But… why?”

“I don’t know why. They’ve never mentioned. But that night, they killed Ravenkit, and one of Swanjaw’s kits. They deliberately went after all black kits in Bayclan. But they spared every other kit in the nursery… and even some warriors,” he sighed, “For your safety, i want you to masquerade as Shimmerpaw’s littermate. We cannot risk another attack of this nature.”

She nodded. “If… if that’s what I need to do to keep the clan safe.”

Darkstar let out a large huff of relief. “Good. I think I need to sleep… for a while… Rainfeather, I need to you promote a new deputy. The apprentices can wait for another mentor… but we need a deputy now.”

He closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Rainfeather scowled. “Oh… damn it all to the lake… who am I even supposed to promote?”

“I’ll take deputy for now.” Starleaf stated. She must have left the nursery when Nightpaw wasn’t paying attention.

“Are you sure?” Rainfeather asked.

She nodded. “Yes. Darkstar still has a lot of lives left. I’m certain he’ll be able to appoint a new deputy in the future that will be able to take over. But for now, I’m the only able warrior who’s had an apprentice before.”

Rainfeather sighed. “Alright. Apprentices, help me take Darkstar to my den.”

Nightpaw looked around at her clan. With a clan made up of mostly kits and apprentices, the future seemed rocky.

But she knew they could not give up. They’d rebuild, just as they did before. And she’d do everything in her power to help.

After all, this was her clan, wasn’t it?

Nightstar’s Clan

Moon 0

[beefromanoff]

Going Under Ch. 24

summary: Bucky goes on his first mission since being back at the compound. Wanda helps Gianna keep her mind off of things.

characters: Bucky Barnes x OC

soundtrack: lifestyles of the rich and famous - good charlotte

warnings: fluff, pop star fantasy x love story, set in an AU where the Avengers reunite after Civil War, pre-infinity war, slight angst, hurt/comfort, lonely reader/OC.

author’s note: SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THIS CHAPTER UP, I wanted to make sure it was fun and lengthy enough to warrant the long gap between chapters but that ended up just making it longer. let me know what you think, your reviews mean everything! xoxo!

chapter list

_________________________________________

“Are you sure you have to go?” Gianna whined, tugging on Bucky’s sleeve from her horizontal position in bed. He chuckled as he sat on the edge to lace his shoes. The sun hadn’t even crossed the horizon yet. 

“Believe me, I wouldn’t choose four days with Steve and Sam over this.” He shot her a sidelong look. “There’s not much I would choose over this, honestly.” 

She groaned, letting her head hit the pillow. “Are you sure I shouldn’t worry?” 

“It’s just a basic intelligence mission. The base we’re investigating hasn’t been active in over a year. This is as easy as it gets.” 

“So why do they need three Avengers?” She tangled her hand in his as he finished knotting his shoes. 

“Because,” He stroked her hair away from her face with his free hand. “Steve goes in and does the recon, Sam clears the path from the sky and makes sure we have a clear perimeter, and I’m set up on the outskirts ready to strike if something goes sideways.” 

“You don’t go in with Steve?” 

“Believe it or not, I didn’t always specialize in hand to hand. I used to be a sniper.” He grinned. 

“Mmm, there’s nothing you can’t do.” Gianna turned and kissed his palm, still resting on her cheek. A soft glow illuminated the room as Bucky’s phone lit up with a text from Steve urging him to get to the hangar. 

“I gotta go doll, I’ll be back before you know it.” He stood to his feet without dropping her hand. Sighing, Gianna tossed the comforter aside and climbed out of bed to hug him. Her head rested against his chest as he enveloped her in his arms. She breathed him in, trying to soak in his presence and somehow make it last for the next few days without seeing him. The longest it had been since they met. 

She looked up at him. “Be safe.”

“I promise.” 

As he strode towards her bedroom door, Gianna trailed behind, still holding his hand. Her bare feet padded across the carpet, the only sound on the otherwise silent floor. When they reached the elevators, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. The kiss was soft and sweet, not breaking as Bucky reached out to hit the call button on the wall. Their lips remained pressed together with a series of sweet kisses as he stepped backwards into the elevator car. A soft clink reverberated through the dark common room as Bucky’s metal hand caught the door, buying him enough time to give Gianna one last kiss. 

“It’s only four days.” He said, reassuring himself just as much as her. 

She blew him a kiss, hugging herself as the old t-shirt of his she’d been wearing as pajamas was no match for the cool air. “Don’t miss me too much.��� 

“Impossible.” 

Staring at the sleek metal of the closed doors, Gianna fought the small lump that formed in her throat. Don’t cry. Do NOT cry. This is not something to cry over. This is his job and he’s good at it and he’ll be back in a few days. 

She made her way back to her room, shaking her head to clear the wave of emotion that was hitting her in Bucky’s absence. Of course she worried about him, but this was different. The feeling of longing in her chest, the little knots of anxiety beginning to twist in her gut. After months of being nearly inseparable on tour, then the past several weeks living at the compound and spending all her newfound free time with him, and now that they’d been spending the night together every night for almost two weeks…she didn’t want to be without him. 

Not now, not ever. 

His side of the bed was still warm when she crawled back into it. Grabbing her phone, she snapped a quick photo of her eyes peering out over the top of the comforter and pressed send before falling back asleep. 

Gianna: missing you already

____________________________

Bucky’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he climbed the ramp onto the Quinjet, trailing behind Steve. He tugged it out and let the screen light up his face in the dark, morning light. A photo from Gianna, her green eyes visible over the overstuffed comforter in her room. Missing you already. His heart clenched, trying not to think about her feeling lonely in his absence. He’d already spoken to a few of the team members staying back about keeping an eye out for her. On the one hand, he was well aware of the fact that she’d been on her own and self-sufficient for years before he ever even knew who she was. On the other hand, he now not only knew her but was utterly infatuated with her. That meant being a little overprotective at times. 

He’d even slipped Wanda a few hundred dollars, suggesting they go shopping while he was away. She’d raised her eyebrow and smirked. 

“You know you don’t have to pay me to hang out with her. I like her. We all do.” 

“I know. But this job doesn’t pay all that well and Gianna said you’ve been talking about a shopping spree since she got here.”

“I accept your mission.” Wanda mock saluted, pocketing the money. 

“Thanks. But Wanda,” Bucky had paused, eyes pleading. “Please be careful.”

The look on his face, utterly concerned, stopped her from making any of the sarcastic comments that crossed her mind. 

“I will.” 

Sam clapped a hand on his back, snapping Bucky back to the present. “Going full loverboy already, Sarge? Damn. You know what the kids these days call that? Simping. Pete told me.” 

Rolling his eyes, Bucky shoved his phone back in his pocket. He assumed Gianna was already asleep by now, her habit of waking up early finally broken after a few weeks of not touring. “It’s too early for this, Sam.” 

“Too early for what?” He swore that Sam had the ability to speak at a volume no other human could. Especially before sunrise. 

“For you.”

“Alright, alright,” Steve waved his hand as he sat down at the helm of the ship. “Who wants to copilot?”

“I’ll do it.” Bucky took the seat beside him, putting the headset on. 

When they’d reached cruising altitude, somewhere high above the clouds, Steve flipped on autopilot. He leaned back in his seat, linking his fingers behind his head. “Just like old times.” 

“Let’s hope it’s a little better than old times.” Bucky grinned. 

“New, old times.”

“Before you went off and became a groupie!” Sam called from the back of the jet, feet propped up on another chair. 

“Shut up, Sam.” He rolled his eyes. 

“I take it things are going well?” Steve’s eyes were genuine, a welcome contrast to Sam’s constant teasing. 

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. “Things are…great. Better than I deserve.” 

“Don’t,” Steve pointed a warning finger at Sam, who’d opened his mouth to make an undoubtedly snarky comment. “You deserve this, Buck. Seriously. It’s good to see you this happy.” 

“I agree, hey!” Sam dodged a miscellaneous part that Bucky tossed at him. “I was being serious! Yeah, I give you a hard time, but that’s just how I am. You know I want you to be happy, man. You’ve been through a lot. If anyone deserves to fall in love with a smokin’ hot celebrity sugar momma, it’s you. Well…it’s probably Steve. Then it’s me. But I’m holding out for a Kardashian and Steve’s got the hots for Romanoff, so I guess that leaves you.”

Bucky cracked a smile. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Don’t go getting all warm and fuzzy on me. I just think it’s nice you’re gettin’ some action, keep you from being so damn grumpy all the time.” 

Almost imperceptibly, Bucky’s face froze before returning back to his near constant scowl. Steve raised an eyebrow. “Buck, have you two…?”

“Not yet.” He was tight lipped. 

Even Sam was stunned into silence. 

“But,” Steve chose his words carefully, ever the gentleman. “You’ve been sleeping in her room, I thought maybe-”

“It’s not like that. I mean, it will be. I hope it will be. She tries, I know she wants to.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.” 

“So…why?” 

“I don’t want to hurt her.” 

After a moment, Sam spoke softly. “I don’t think you’re the type to just hit it and quit it, man.”

“That’s not what I mean, of course I wouldn’t do that. I have…reasons. I don’t want to rush it, yeah, but I mean physically. I don’t want to hurt her.” He winced. “It’s been…awhile. I don’t know how the serum changes…things.”

“Ah.” Steve nodded. 

“Wait, wait,” Sam stood up. “You’re telling me you haven’t gotten freaky since, what, the forties?”

“Okay, it’s not like I’ve been dating for the past century, jackass. It’s kind of hard to meet people when you’re in cryofreeze.” 

“Alright, chill - no pun intended. I just mean, damn. That’s a long time.” 

Bucky grunted. “I know.” 

“I haven’t either.” Steve smiled sheepishly. 

“Damn…y’all are the only two people who can save the world and still not get any ass.” Sam shook his head. 

“I guess I’ve just been waiting for the right person, and then waiting for the right time. Don’t want to make it awkward at work, you know.” He chuckled. 

“I wouldn’t call you and Romanoff ‘coworkers’ after everything you’ve been through.” Bucky raised an eyebrow. 

“I know. I’m just saying…I get it. I’ve thought the same thing.” 

“Alright, here’s the deal.” Sam crouched between their seats. “We’re gonna land this jet, execute this mission to perfection, get our asses back to the compound so you two can lose your virginities. Again.” 

____________________________

The foam on her latte was just as beautiful as every morning. A small silver lining to the first of four mornings without Bucky. She was snapping a lid on the to-go cup when a familiar voice rang out in the bustling compound cafe. 

“Good morning, sunshine.” Wanda chimed, bumping Gianna’s hip with her own.

“Well, aren’t you cheery this morning!” 

“I have good reason to be.” She grinned, linking their arms as they walked through the doors into crisp, fall air. 

“Oooh, do tell.” Gianna sipped her coffee as they walked down the path to the dock, leaves crunching below their feet. 

“We’re taking a girls’ trip. Back to the city.” Wanda’s eyes gleamed with excitement, her accent peaking through as it only did when she was either very excited or very angry. “Don’t worry, Bucky knows. It was his idea, actually.” 

“You’re kidding me…Bucky Barnes suggested that? My Bucky?” She feigned shock. 

“Yes, your Bucky. I should have checked him for a fever, but who am I to turn down a girls’ trip.” Wanda winked. “We leave this afternoon. Don’t bother packing heavy, we’ll be shopping.”

With that, the redhead turned on her heel and headed back to their building, a significant bounce in her step. 

____________________________

A few hours later, the Quinjet was softly touching down on the sky-high landing pad of Avengers’ Tower. 

This was a welcome change to the last time Gianna had arrived here. This time, she was here for fun. Here for a girls’ trip, possibly the first one she’d ever taken. She’d slowly begun to recover from the trauma of the attack, largely due to being surrounded by friends who could protect her from any and every threat imaginable. The other part due to her shoving the fear and flashbacks deep, deep down inside herself. If she couldn’t erase, she could definitely avoid. 

The jet was full, Natasha seated in her preferred spot at the front of the jet, flipping a switch to lower the ramp. She and Tony had come back for a brief meeting with the Secretary of Defense. After the Accords had been absolved, they’d agreed to a monthly meeting just to keep things civil and open. Peter had flown back with them, partly to visit his aunt and partly because he didn’t want to be left at the empty compound. Vision, however, had been more than happy to have the place to himself. 

“Be a doll, would you Pete?” Wanda crooned, handing her duffel back to a wide-eyed Peter. 

“You’re the best.” Natasha followed suit, winking as she walked by. 

As Gianna went to pick up her bag, Tony beat her to it. “Who said chivalry is dead?” He winked, gesturing for her to head down the ramp. 

“Why, thank you.” She grinned. As soon as she’d turned, Tony tossed the bag behind him into Peter’s general direction. A strand of webbing shot out, snagging it before it could hit the ground. 

“Oh, come on!” He called, stumbling as the third bag plopped into his arms. 

Wanda led them down a familiar path, bringing them back to the same floor they’d held game night. It felt like years ago. She gestured to her right. “All of those rooms are empty, the ones on the left are occupied. You can pick any of the guest rooms, or,” She pointed to a door on her left. “That one is Bucky’s. Up to you. Meet me in my room, we can get ready. I’ll get wine.” 

“Better not be any of my expensive bottles, bottom shelf only!” Tony warned. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Wanda waved her hand as she disappeared into her room. 

Gianna opened the door to Bucky’s room, not surprised to find it decorated just as minimally as his room at the compound. Interior design didn’t seem to be much of a concern for him. He had a few photos framed, which she assumed had been gifted to him. The closet held a few of his sweatshirts, which she already planned to reclaim as her own. She pulled out her phone to send another photo, this time of her in front of his bed. Her nails clicked on the screen as she walked across the living room to meet Wanda.

Gianna: only missing one thing! 

The soft glow of the setting sun filtered through the panoramic windows of Wanda's room in the Avengers' Tower, casting a warm, golden hue across the walls. The room was buzzing with wine-induced giggles as both girls sat before a well-lit vanity, surrounded by an array of makeup palettes and hair styling tools.

Wanda, with her signature scarlet hair coiled around the curling iron, grinned mischievously at Gianna. "So, spill. How's it going with Bucky?"

Gianna chuckled, glancing at her reflection in the mirror. "Oh, you know…"

Wanda raised an eyebrow, letting the curl fall before wrapping up another strand. "You’ve gotta give me more than that. Don’t forget who helped him pull off the first date of the century."

Gianna giggled, a teasing smile playing on her lips. "You’re right, you’re right. Everything is great. Perfect, honestly. He’s sweet, he’s handsome, he’s so funny-"

Wanda laughed, cutting her off. "You’ve got it bad, G. This isn’t new information. I mean the spicy stuff, you know…" She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Gianna blushed, her expression growing serious for a moment. "I…don’t have much to report. He said he wanted to take things slow, do it right, but…I didn’t know he meant this slow. I mean, we’ve slept in the same bed for almost two weeks now and he hasn’t so much as stuck a hand up my shirt."

“Have you tried anything?"

“Oh, believe me.” She sipped her wine. “I’ve tried. We’ve, you know, made out. It’s gotten pretty hot and heavy, or so I thought. But he always diffuses it, turns it sweet. If I bring it up, he just says he wants to do things right.”

Wanda examined her eye makeup, going in to blend the colors together on her lid. “Well, he is from a different time. He’s probably just trying to be respectful. I think it’s sweet.” She grinned. “I also think you can make him crack.” 

Blushing, Gianna dug through the pile of lip products in front of her. “There’s nothing I can do about it right now anyways. I’m just excited for girl time. You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve done anything like this.”

“Ugh, me too. I love Natasha, but her idea of ‘girl time’ is sometimes a little more violent than mine. I’d rather go shopping than sparring.”

Gianna settled on a peachy gloss for her lips. "Speaking of, any plans for our shopping extravaganza this weekend? I heard there's a vintage store nearby that's supposed to be amazing."

Wanda's eyes lit up. "Oh, we must! And I need to find a dress for Tony's gala next month. Something that says 'I can manipulate reality, but make it fashion.'"

Gianna grinned, carefully applying mascara to her lashes. "I have no doubt you'll find the perfect thing. If not, I’ll call my stylist and see if she can’t help us out. And, uh, just a heads up, we might run into some paparazzi tonight. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in public, so once word gets out…it could get chaotic."

Wanda waved her hand dismissively. "Let them come. It’s about time I get photographed doing something other than destroying buildings."

____________________________

The rooftop restaurant, nestled amidst the glittering skyscrapers of New York City, exuded an air of sophistication that Gianna had always loved. Ambient light illuminated the tables adorned with crisp white linens, casting a warm glow over the lavishly dressed patrons. With the price point, most of those who came here were celebrities, politicians, or athletes. Gianna, Wanda, and Peter were seated at a secluded corner table, surrounded by lush potted plants and the soft murmur of the city far below.

They indulged in an array of gourmet dishes, ranging from artfully crafted sushi to decadent desserts. Gianna had told the server to bring them one of everything. Wanda’s eyes glittered, loving a taste of the luxurious lifestyle, while Peter had paled even seeing the cost of the wine she’d ordered for the table.

Eyes twinkling with amusement, Gianna playfully teased Peter between bites. "So, Peter, how's college life treating you?"

Peter, attempting to juggle the conversation and his sushi chopsticks with varying degrees of success, grinned back. "Oh, you know, standard college experience. Saving the world by day, acing my exams by night. The whole shebang."

“I wouldn’t know, actually. I never even finished high school.” She laughed.

Wanda chimed in, her scarlet nails twirling the stem of her wine glass. "Peter, I hate to say it, but you’re the most educated person at this table. By far." She shrugged and took a sip. “I never even started high school.” 

Gianna nudged Wanda as they both giggled, appreciating the way humor effortlessly wove into their conversation. The cool breeze of the city combined with the warmth of a wine buzz had everyone’s mood as sky-high as the rooftop they dined on.

Peter's eyes widened as he pulled out his phone, glancing at the screen. His expression shifted from surprise to concern as he showed the message to the girls. It was a screenshot of a social media post, a blurry photo capturing the moment they left the Tower and climbed into the black SUV.

"How did they even get this, we were outside for like…fifteen seconds?!" Peter huffed, clearly frustrated.

Gianna rolled her eyes, not even a hint of annoyance in her voice. "The paparazzi have a sixth sense for these things. Could be from security footage from a building nearby, someone could have looked up at just the right time. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone saw the Quinjet land earlier and just camped out, waiting for someone to leave."

“Does it bother you? This seems like…a massive invasion of privacy.” He examined the photo again before nervously looking around the rooftop. 

“It used to, but you get numb to it. You guys understand, it’s not like you’re the average person either.” She nonchalantly popped a california roll into her mouth. 

“True, but we don’t get this level of attention. I mean, maybe after something big happens, but that comes and goes. I don’t think I would like this.” Peter slid his phone back in his pocket. 

“Hate to break it to you, but you probably picked the wrong company for dinner then.” Gianna winked. 

“Come on, Peter.” Wanda elbowed him. “You’re going to look so cool in front of your classmates. Who cares about Spider-Man,” She stuck her tongue out. “You’re Gianna Cruz’ friend. That’s a way bigger deal.” 

Gianna laughed. “Oh hush.” 

They finished their dinner, taking their sweet time working through the thousands of dollars of food that just kept coming. Thanks to the high-profile nature of the other customers, no one seemed to care that a celebrity and two Avengers dined amongst them. When they’d finished and Gianna paid the tab that rivaled a month of Peter’s college tuition (if he hadn’t been on a full scholarship, thanks to Tony’s September Foundation), they decided to throw caution to the wind and leave through the front door. 

When the doors slid open and a gust of wind tousled their hair, Gianna led the trio to the black SUV where the driver was waiting to open the door. As expected, a dozen photographers had gathered, bombarding them with flash photography and shouted questions. 

“Gianna, where have you been? Are you back in New York for good?” 

“What do you have to say to rumors that you’re done touring altogether?”

“When can we expect new music? Do you plan to perform at the VMA’s next month?” 

She tuned most of them out, giving polite smiles and waves before keeping her head down as she walked to the car. One question, however, piqued her attention right before she climbed into the car after Wanda. 

“Ms. Cruz, how’s Bucky Barnes?” 

Grinning, Gianna looked over her shoulder in the direction of the video camera held by the man asking. “He’s perfect.”

[littlecactiguy]

@yellowmagicalgirl

Rather than add onto our post again, I decided to write out what's been simmering in my thoughts in a Harrow the Ninth-inspired study, with Penny in Gideon's position in Ruby's head.

Ruby, like Harrow, locked her Cavalier away in her head with help (I sort of imply the brain surgery, but don't actually describe it here).

ngl I'm not entirely sure how the end of HtN would go in this au. I do like Penny ending up in a position similar to Kiriona at some point, though that's also largely due to me really liking the idea of inserting Copper in as a Nona (which I can concede is partial bias toward my own oc for Reasons) and them perhaps interacting.

Except that begs the question of, if Ruby's not in her body, then where'd she go? (talk to Maria in the Tomb maybe...)

(I also really like your idea about Ruby being speedy, especially bc it also kind of reflects her semblance. Though I'm not as well-versed in tlt theories - I have never been more frustrated that I left my copies of the books back with my family some states away.)

Anyways, here's a short(ish) study in the 2nd Person from Penny's POV (also the first time I think I've tried 2nd person pov, so that was fun)

Ruby.

I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.

I will do anything for you. I did everything for you.

I would do it all again.

So, why did you lock me away?

I know I’m not…I was never as good as you, as good as the others. I tried my best, but I…

I thought…

Do you not love me back?

I don’t understand. It was enough. My soul. We did it. You became a Lyctor, and it was enough. You lived.

Cinder didn’t.

It was worth it.

Then you sought her out. The one who helped Cinder, who lied to our faces, pretended to be our friend, and—

I don’t understand, Ruby. I’ve been trying to. It’s all I can do, inside this tomb you’ve made for me. Emerald tried to—

She and Cinder almost succeeded in—

And yet you—

She could have killed you. I watched. I fought her. I fought you.

You looked in the mirror when it was done. After they found you where you lay unconscious in that cold, dark prison. After they interrogated Emerald on what she had done and she replied, only what she asked me to do. After they healed you. After they tried, and failed, to free me.

You looked in the mirror. My eyes looked back at you.

You didn’t remember me. You still don’t.

We were together almost our whole lives and you threw it all away.

I loved you.

I still do.

But I…

Everyday since they brought you here, you struggle. You may have been faster, but you never had my strength, and now you’ve rejected it. You lift the blade they gave you, but it’s not enough. Not to deflect the General’s attacks. Not to parry his sword away. Your speed has kept his blade from your heart so far, but it can’t forever.

I know you fear he will kill you. I can feel it. I could have protected you. I swore I’d always protect you. Even before the vow left my lips.

You were the first thing I ever saw on the Ninth. I was alone. My father put in me in that pod and sent it away. He didn’t even put in coordinates. He didn’t know of anywhere I’d be safe. He hoped.

And I arrived on the Ninth. Months and months later. I mapped the stars that passed outside the only window I had on the journey. I wondered if they’d be the last thing I ever saw before my body finally deteriorated enough that I would be lost.

Except I arrived on the Ninth. I remember seeing its form grow bigger and bigger in that little window. I remember being relieved I would crash, because the journey would finally be over then, and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

And I wasn’t, just not how I thought.

It was terrifying, seeing the entry panel of the pod be jostled, my father’s last work, his sealing of it, being broken. Then, you got it open, and our eyes met.

You commented on mine being so bright so quickly I didn’t have the chance to say the same about yours.

No one had ever said anything like that to me before then. No one besides my father had ever talked to me before then either. No one on the Ninth would talk to me, not like you did. Not even your Uncle Qrow, though he was a little better than most.

You meant the world to me, Ruby. You still do. You always will.

I was meant to protect you.

Why won’t you let me?

My strength could be yours. My resilience. Every sword I wielded, I did for you.

Your arms tremble as you try to hold one now. You look at the General across the training arena. We both see the cold calculation in his eyes. They’re green, like mine. They aren’t his. We’ve both wondered who they once belonged to.

I wonder if that soul is like me. I hope they aren’t.

You told me, once, my world would never be a the littlest of windows ever again.

You lied.

[edge-oftheworld]

one thing that really got me about last night was luke made this offhand comment about how the last time he was at the venue he was 17 and not allowed onto the floor. which sure is weird and restrictive when you’re performing but also rules are rules (and I know what our regulations on underage drinking are and the consequences for venues) so idk that’s a conversation for youth liberation and the existence of child stars in general

but that got me thinking, annie came down to the merch table after her set and we all met her and I freaked her out with my retro cd burning habits and we bonded over the suburbs we grew up in even though I’m pretty sure we both forgot each other’s. and yeah she’s the opener when we’re all here for luke and she’s trying to build a fan base. but would luke have wanted to come down and meet the crowd like a local artist after playing a gig often does if he could?

I know fans go a bit crazy over luke especially and he doesn’t seem to have figured out how to interact in ways that dissipate the collective mania. and I can’t be the one to judge either of those things but it got me thinking about how it’s a whole decade later and he’s well past the age of anyone telling him what to do; but in some ways he does seem just as restricted in the venue as when he was 17. and I don’t know if he’d actually like to meet fans (ashton I’m pretty sure would, calum and michael have their moments, I think he’d just be scared tbh) but like. if your opener is able to have that option, wouldn’t it be nice if you did too?

and yeah he’s a bigger artist and whatever he’s made a living out of this for years years and has hits with the band and he’s a heartthrob or whatever. but I do wonder if the beauty of being actually a smaller artist is that you’re able to genuinely connect over your songs a lot more and not have to deal with the fan mania and love confessions and people who don’t understand consent? I just wish sometimes that the thank-you’s we had to cram into a few words on a sign could be genuine natural conversations (especially after he’s written a whole album about feeling lonely while on tour after an album he had no idea would be relatable because its content is the kind of thing you feel like no one else gets in the moment). and idk but maybe if you’re not much freer at 28 than 17 that might not help?

I’ve got my criticisms of celebrity as a concept and I loved meeting other fans even if I can’t relate one bit to how horny some of them were. but it seems to me we had this great opportunity to take some hard experiences, with a person who’s incredibly talented in that they’re able to turn them into such beautiful art, and just all kinda convince each other it might not be the exact same for all of us but when we feel like we’re alone that’s absolutely not true. share stories and catharsis. but instead the one person in that building who was possibly the least free to do that was luke himself.

there’s only so much validation you can get from songs being sung back to you surely especially with their personal vulnerable nature. like yeah he’s said it’s great and unexpected but I also don’t think he’s expected a single good thing in his life so it’s possible that’s not hard to achieve? it’s just a weird juxtaposition between the beautiful heartbreaking songs (and it’d be worse if he didn’t cut bloodline and cetfy) and then it’s like. he’s doing a shoey. he’s nervously rambling on about state of origin going for a lighthearted insult and accidentally revealing an insecurity about something women in sport like myself have long fought to be a false binary. just someone give that man a hug and one that’s not gonna freak him out how did we ever create a social environment where that’s impossible?

[raayllum]

RAYLLUM AS TAYLOR SWIFT SONGS → in somewhat chronological relationship order

i. And all I've seen since eighteen hours ago / is green eyes and freckles and your smile in the back of my mind making me feel like I just wanna know you better ii. Said, "I'm fine, " but it wasn't true, I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you iii. Twenty questions, we tell the truth, you've been stressed out lately? Yeah, me too iv. You two are dancing in a snow globe, 'round and 'round, and he keeps the picture of you in his office downtown, and you understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars vi. You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess, it’s a love story, baby just say yes vii. Like I want you, bless my soul, and I ain’t gotta tell him, I think he knows viii. But this love is brave and wild, and I never saw you coming, and I’ll be the same ix. Long live all the mountains we moved, I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you x. All those times that you didn't leave, it's been occurring to me, I'd like to hang out with you for my whole life xi. I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost, the room is on fire, invisible smoke, and all of my heroes die all alone, help me hold on to you xii. Family that I chose, now that I see your brother as my brother, is it enough? But there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west, I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best, but the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me xiii. I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending xiv. Should’ve known I’d be the first to leave, think about the place where you first saw me xv. Your heart was glass, I dropped it xvi. And they're all standing around me singing, "Happy birthday to you,” but there was one thing missing, and that was the moment I knew xvii. And it would've been sweet, if it could've been me, in my defense, I have none for digging up the grave another time, but it would've been fun if you would've been the one xviii. But if you ever think you got it wrong, I’m right there where you left me xix. And I wish I could run to you, and I hope you know that every time I don't, I almost do xx. You think I'm gonna hate you now 'cause you still don't know what I never said I wish you would come back, wish I'd never hung up the phone like I did, I wish you knew that I'd never forget you as long as I'd live xxi. You and I walk a fragile line, I have known it all this time but I never thought I'd live to see it break, it's getting dark and it's all too quiet and I can't trust anything now xxii. In dreams I meet you in warm conversation, we both wake in lonely beds in different cities xxiii. I'm not much for dancing but for you I did, because I love your handshake, meeting my father, I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets, how you'd kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something there's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions xxiv. Say you’ll see me again, even if it’s just pretend, in your wildest dreams xxv. Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand, paper cut stings from our paper thin plans xxvi. You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand and I can't breathe without you, but I have to xxvii. Losing him was blue like I'd never known, missing him was dark gray all alone, forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met xxviii. There I was again tonight, forcing laughter, faking smiles, same old tired, lonely place xxix. And maybe I don't quite know what to say, but I'm here in your doorway; I just wanted you to know that this is me trying xxx. Right now is the last time I can dream about what happens when you see my face again xxxi. Your guard is up and I know why because the last time you saw me is still burned in the back of your mind, you gave me roses and I left them there to die xxxii. The more I think about it now, the less I know, all I know is that you drove us off the road, stay, hey, all you had to do was stay xxxiii. I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how, I've never heard silence quite this loud, now I'm standing alone in a crowded room and we're not speaking, and I'm dying to know is it killing you like it's killing me? xxxiv. And if this is the long haul how'd we get here so soon? Did I close my fist around something delicate? Did I shatter you? xxxv. And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends, I'd never walk Cornelia Street again xxxvi. And you know damn well for you, I would ruin myself a million little times xxxvii. And when we go crashing down, we come back every time ‘cause we never go out of style xxxviii. There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me but if it's all the same to you, it's the same to me xxxix. I wish I could fly, I'd pick you up and we'd go back in time xl. I knew you, tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy, I-I knew you leaving like a father, running like water xli. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind xlii. Hey, it's all me, in my head, I'm the one who burned us down xliii. Missing me at the golden gates they once held the keys to, when I dropped my sword I threw it in the bushes and knocked on your door xliv. And then you say I want you for worse or for better, I would wait for ever and ever, broke your heart, I'll put it back together xlv. Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons, one single thread of gold tied me to you xlvi. These hands had to let it go free, and this love came back to me xlvii. My baby's fly like a jet stream, high above the whole scene, loves me like I'm brand new xlviii. I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this, uh huh, that's right, darling, you're the one I want xlvix. I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you, I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you l. I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn't be for evermore li. Darling, you're my, my, my, my lover

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Fed - a Magnus Archives fanfic

So. This was just what it was, now. Hardly the first time in my life I’d faced challenges, gray morality, and a strange situation in which I wasn’t precisely trapped, but all my other options were worse than the one I was considering.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon.

Spoilers for the whole show. This is post-MAG 200.

Part four of the Magnus Monsterverse AU.

AO3

--------

The fog took me, and as if I’d spent a thousand years there instead of my own metamorphosis, I immediately succumbed.

It wasn’t even conscious: just a completion, a sense of self and no other, an aching, longing magnificence that hurt like pure joy, flooding through me. I think I cried out. I might have come. I definitely wept.

This place… oh. Oh. I ate it up. It ate it up. We ate it up, together. There was such strange joy in me. It was such a wondrously terrible new thing. It drank it in, and I drank it in, and I may have cried out again, because this time, he answered.

“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here.” And Martin pulled me in, shocking in his there-ness, his solidity, his presence, the very miracle of his existence.

He was the only thing that was real, and We loved it that way.

I clung to him and cried. I could not get close enough. I never could, not ever; it would never be enough, and I embraced that, painted my body, rolled my eyes back in my head to bask in its glorious void.

He breathed deeply, slowly, and his heart beat strong. “It was you,” he said. “While I was in the waves, it was you, missing you, thinking of you, grieving you… that’s what did it. That’s what powered everything.”

And suddenly, I saw.

Saw him in strange, wild waves, surfacing to stare at a gray sky that matched his eyes.

Saw that he rarely surfaced. He spent most of his time under, in the broad, booming silence, the current pulling him along, far from everyone and everything. The isolation under pressure; the magnificence of loneliness in a world with other living things—

He rejoiced in his pain, felt he deserved it—but it didn’t last.

“They died,” he whispered, and tears kissed his cheeks, so I kissed them off.

He felt them dying; felt the people—so far away their absence made him ache—winking out like lights.

Martin breathed in the water (and I did with him) and mourned and lost.

And when it happened, and all were gone, his god fed on him.

Because of me.

“It was you,” he whispered. “Missing you was… it became everything. I missed you so much that I…”

He lost himself.

I could look up at him, now, and saw him like burning mist, saw his perfect eyes with limbal rings I could tumble into and drown.

“When they found me…” He swallowed. “When Tim leaned through the door of fire that Maneula somehow got him to make and found me, I didn’t know his name. I knew his face, but it just made me cry.”

I understood that. I knew I’d cry when I met him, too. I was sure he still hadn’t forgiven me.

“When they came, I fought them. I thought that if they took me away from here, I’d lose missing you. That’s bonkers, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said.

He touched my lips. His eyes were wide. “What?”

“No,” I repeated.

He looked stunned. “You’re in my silence. You can’t speak.”

Oh. I felt what he meant; he had this weird, Lonely power, this silence he could enforce, but, I—ah. “Yes, I can.” I knew how to talk.

Martin still stared. He looked spooked. “We… we should go back.”

I’d scared him. That would not do, so I kissed him instead.

He made a sound and responded, clutching me, his blazing eyes sliding shut. Color washed his cheeks, and as it did, we became real.

The fog vanished as if eaten by summer sun. We stood together in our apartment block, in the central courtyard, under blue spring sky, in sight of all the windows.

We both breathed hard, shudders trembling through us like aftershocks.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

“I kissed you,” I said, still dazed. “Was I not supposed to?”

“You… you became the Lonely,” said Martin. “You were the Lonely. You… I don’t understand.”

Eh?

What?

Eh?

“I what?”

“Hey, kiddos,” said Mike, coming out from the same building I lived in. “We’re heading out to get a bite. Want to come?”

We had no time for this. We had to deal with what just happened. We—

Oh. Behind him came a rogue’s gallery.

That was Michael Shelley. Right behind him came Helen Richardson, scowling.

There was Arthur Nolan—an angry, angry man, made worse because there were two of him in a row. They had not bothered to be anything but identical.

Sarah Baldwin came out beside Jane Prentiss, both of them chattering away about something called Brother Love I’d never heard of.

(The Eye dropped three seasons’ worth of this bizarre forbidden-love-among-the-cloisters “reality” show into my head. Thanks. You shouldn’t have.)

(Drama! It happily tremored at me.)

I stared at the lot of them, frozen. So many of them had tried to kill me, or been part of my torment. My actions had led to their deaths, as well—and some of them, I’d never even seen in the light of day.

I made a small noise. I don’t know what it was. Some panicked thing.

“I've got you,” said Martin. “It's okay. They’re not going to hurt you.”

I couldn’t believe that.

They greeted Martin with smiles, though no touches, no personal space invasions (and I could appreciate that). Me, however… no one seemed to know what to do with. They eyed me. Jane stared. Michael tilted his head. Helen rolled her eyes.

“We going, or what?” snapped Nolan One with all the grace of a bulldozer. “I’m fuckin’ hungry,” said Nolan Two.

“I think we should initiate our new friend and make him join,” said Mike Crew.

Sarah Baldwin laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “He looks like a scared rabbit.”

“He’s fine,” said Martin.

Was this happening? This was happening. “You’re going?” I said to Martin.

He looked grim. “We should.”

He was trying not to be lonely. Trying so hard.

I would never get in the way of that. “I’ll go, sure,” I said, staring at Jane (whose skin boasted numerous scars, even more than my own, but no sign of worms just yet). “I, uh. I’m Jon. Hi.” So graceful. My face burned.

Jane grinned, stretching her scars. "Hi."

Helen laughed. As she did, her face shifted; she was still Helen, still herself, but she’d changed, like distortion through glass. “Hi, Jon. I’m Helen.”

Michael tilted his head further. Too far. Smiling in an utterly banal manner. "Archivist."

“I… yes. It’s weird to see you both at the same time.”

They just looked at me.

(It was thrilled. If I could have shrunk small enough to hide in Martin’s pocket, I would have, and It loved my misery.)

“Oh, I like this one,” said Michael. “You’re much less human than before.”

“Ah. Well,” I said. “That’s true, I suppose.”

“Still a prick,” said Helen.

“Hey,” I protested.

“From what I recall,” said Martin, “you were the one so obsessed with him that you wanted to keep him in your corridors until everybody else he ever knew died so you could have him all to yourself.”

And everyone turned to stare at her.

Helen’s dark cheeks blushed darker. “Well. Desperate times, and all that.”

Michael cracked up.

Crew followed, and Sarah, and soon everyone was laughing, even the Nolans—and it wasn’t a bad laugh, it really was not, but I felt no better.

“We’ve all come a long way,” said Jane.

“Archivist,” said Michael. “Come to us. Join us. Let us see your skill.”

“My what?”

“We’re, uh. We… can you guys go ahead? We’ll meet you at the curb.”

“Ooh,” said Nolan One, low. “Somebody hasn’t been told about the birds and the bees yet.”

“Be nice,” said Sarah, and swatted his arm.

Nolan Two bared his teeth at her.

“Sure,” said Crew, and gestured to them all. They all walked on, continuing their conversations or lack thereof.

Michael winked at me over his shoulder, then loudly said to Helen, “So what did that feel like, all trapped inside you?”

“Kill me now,” I muttered, covering my face.

Martin kissed my forehead. He’d lost just a shade of the color he’d had, but seemed to be holding steady. “So. Here’s how this works. We go and meet at a pre-set point in the city. Then we, uh. He gives us a list of people.”

I looked up slowly. “To what end?”

He just looked back.

“To what? To… to feed on?”

“It’s that, or we feed the Fears through ourselves—and something about us, about what we were at the ends of our worlds means that if we let them feed on us, we supercharge them. We could end it here all over again. So we don’t do that. Instead, we… Annabelle calls it ‘hummingbirds.’”

Flitting from person to person, sipping the nectar of fear. “So it’s all even less stable than Leitner said. This is horrible.”

“It’s not that bad. The people we see don’t even realize it’s happening, usually—we keep it light. Besides, we don’t do it to nice people.”

My look was dry.

“I mean it, Jon. People who hurt animals. That sort of thing.”

“A lot of those in London, are there?”

“You’d be surprised. There’s less fear in this world in general; it’s less spread out, so it’s potent. We only need a little.”

“This is insane. You know that, right? You must see it. This is lunacy.”

“It’s surviving. Which is a choice.”

Oh, how I hated that, but I understood. I knew. I got it. We could all do the world a favor and die, but none of us truly wanted to. Or at least… knew we should not want that. How did one judge the worth of a life? The risk of that life doing wrong? At what point could I or anyone say, you’re too dangerous to live because of what you might do?

“You’re right,” I whispered.

“It's going to be okay. I promise. Come on and join us today.” His smile was small, but real. “Keeps you from going crazy.”

And I knew that was true for him.

And I knew it was true for them.

And I knew it was not true for me.

Something weird was happening here. Or I was delusional.

Or maybe It was lying to me, wanting me so hungry I would make a mistake.

(I knew, though: It could not lie.)

“I’ll join you,” I said, softly. “But I swear, if I see actual innocent people being… being…”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I trust the people we’re working with.”

“Web.” I clenched my jaw. (Were my teeth made of eyes, too? Calcified, maybe?)

“I don’t expect you to be there right away,” he said, and kissed my forehead again. “I don’t expect you to adjust to all this quickly. But I hope you can at least trust me.”

I stared. “That is a hell of a thing to leverage, Martin.”

“It’s that important. I wouldn’t just say that, you know.”

I did know. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I need you so much.” It was a whisper. “I’ll do anything I have to do in order to keep you from… burning out, or getting devoured by your stupid Eye, or falling afoul of the hunters.”

“Hunters?” I said.

“Later.”

We were growing quite a pile of things to talk about later. “All right. All right. I’ll come with you. Show me, Martin. I trust you.”

So help me, he regained some of his color as we walked out of the courtyard to join the others, who’d waited by the curb.

#

I had never been good with groups of people.

The theater group in which I met Georgie (and through her, gained at least some social skills) had helped a little.

The Magnus Institute Library employees, of whom I was merely one of many, also helped—I could tag along without pressure, camouflaged by their gregariousness.

The Archives… that group was considerably less comfortable because I felt like it was all on me.

It wasn’t. I know that now, but my promotion went straight to my head, and not in a confident way. I’d felt immediately underqualified and out of place, and wondered daily why the hell I’d accepted the position.

I knew now. I could not have refused. I didn’t know that, then. I’m not sure that understanding would have helped, either.

Still, the social aspect of things had only meant stress. To this day, I did not recall going to Martin’s birthday party and rambling about emulsions while eating rum and raisin ice cream. The Eye did not give me that memory back. I knew it happened only because Tim and Martin and Sasha had never stopped teasing me over it. Very funny, really.

(Tim. Sasha. Oh, gods…)

(Right, Archive, focus, you’re all right, they’re here now—)

(Jon. Dear lord. Focus, Jon.)

So I was obviously in a good head space for something like this.

“So you’re really Jon,” said Jane Prentiss, and something that wasn’t a tongue moved in her mouth as she spoke.

I choked a little. “Y… yeah. Hi.”

“Huh. I killed you in my world,” she said.

“I’m hearing that a lot today,” I muttered.

She smiled, and dear gods, her teeth were squirming. “I’m glad they found you. I wanted to apologize.”

“To… wh… why?”

“Well, it wasn’t really you I was mad at. It was your Eye.”

“Oh.”

Her grin made it more awkward, not less; she stepped closer. “You smell delicious, by the way.”

“Martin,” I said in a tiny, pitiful voice.

“Jane, come on, be nice,” said Martin, pulling me closer.

She laughed and backed away.

“Did everybody here kill me?” I whispered.

“Not all of them, but, uh. Possibly most?”

Fuck.

We walked past the park and into the city. It was clean; the vehicles genuinely were all electric. I saw no one who seemed down on their luck, either, which was bizarre.

What kind of idealized place was this? And what, exactly, was the hidden underside?

They were all talking, and because I have terrible timing, I decided this was the moment to whisper to Martin, “What did you mean by, ‘don’t you try to take my choices and blame yourself for them?’”

He stiffened. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“All right. I can wait.”

“Liar.”

I laughed. “I am not lying.”

“You can’t wait to find out,” he teased.

Gods, I wanted to kiss him. “I may have learned a little patience in a thousand years.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he challenged.

I grinned, but before I could respond, he spoke.

No. Another him spoke.

“Right,” said his voice, but it wasn’t him, and I turned slowly to find the other Martin waiting for us all on the corner.

The moment I saw him in the light of day, I knew: this Martin was Web.

Completely Web, all the way through; his smile was perfect, and his stance, and the way he shifted his weight and barely met other people’s eyes and laughed easily.

It was completely fake, and I could see it, and I felt like my skin was going to crawl right off my bones. Or whatever I had under there. Eye-bones.

He seemed to know, and he stopped to stare at me. For one moment, when I met his eyes, they were dead. Flat. Dull. There in place to hide the spiders behind them, utterly without anything resembling emotion or true life.

Then he was just Martin (so similar to my Martin, or… no. What Martin had been before everything), and smiling at everybody. “I’ve got all kinds of assignments for you today,” he said, handing out Post-It notes.

“Sure, but did you account for our latest acquisition?” said Nolan One.

Sarah Baldwin barked a laugh, and Jane elbowed her.

“I did!” said Spider Martin happily. “Jon? It’s okay if I call you Jon, right? You’re starting out with me today.” He approached me.

Don’t reach for the Eye, I told myself. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

On my bright green Post-It was Martin’s flowing script with two addresses and the instructions, 1:30pm Martin B.; 3:00pm Mike C. “What?” I said.

“Why?” said my Martin.

“Because we’ve all got split shifts, and it seems like a good idea to help Jon get along with everybody?” said Spider Martin. “His second will be with Mike.”

“Not fair,” said my Martin, but without anguish.

Spider Martin shrugged. “It’s the best one for this afternoon. Trust me on this.”

Everyone seemed to accept this with ease. Great. They were all drinking the arachnidian Kool-Aid.

“Can I get him next time?” said Michael.

Spider Martin beamed. “Yes! Jane after that.”

“Yipee!” said Michael.

“What is happening right now?” I said.

“I think you’re popular?” said my Martin.

I did not feel popular.

“Shall we?” said Spider Martin.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing. I don’t understand. I don’t—”

My Martin cupped my cheek, turned me to him, and kissed me. Lingering. Slow. A delicate tasting of lips and tongue, a gentle whisper of love and attention, a promise. “You’ll be fine,” he murmured.

“I don’t have a box for any of this,” I murmured back. “And I think my label maker is broken.”

Martin laughed. “Your label maker of doom?”

“Something like that.”

He nuzzled me. “See you in a little bit.”

And he pulled away, paired up with Sarah Baldwin. (Stranger—and if she did anything to him, I would…)

(Would what? Would what? I didn’t know. Something terrible. Something…)

“I don’t bite,” said Spider Martin.

I looked at him.

Martin’s smile. Martin’s face. Martin’s body. No—Martin’s skin. I could feel he was crawling on the inside.

I turned away. Whatever happened to him was done. He wasn’t mine, never had been. I still wanted to react. Violently. As if to his murder.

“I’m not dead, you know,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” I whispered.

“No more than Annabelle. I know—or I’m pretty sure, anyway—that you’ll struggle with this, but I chose this path. I did. I’m happy with it, too.”

“You ended your world.”

“Pot, kettle?”

I swallowed. “Knowing I did wrong hardly exonerates you.”

“We didn’t really get to know you in my world,” said Spider Martin. “You caught up with Darren and took the book back right at Mister Spider’s front door.”

Darren. That’s what the bully’s name was. “Did I?”

“Yeah. You died pretty quickly. Your mind snapped before they could get much fear out of you, so there wasn’t a point to dragging it out.”

I turned to stare at him.

“There you are!” he said cheerily. “Your eyes were brown originally, weren’t they?”

“They were. And yours should be green.”

He beamed. “Naw.”

“Naw?”

“Blue tends to be trusted more easily. It’s racially offensive, and largely due to media influence, but there you go.”

I stared harder.

“Would you rather me pretend to be something I’m not?” he asked, putting genuine curiosity into it.

“No,” I said quietly. “I… it’s a nightmare. This. Is all.”

“Because you think it’s losing someone.”

“It is.”

“No. The Stranger—that’s losing someone. A weird ingestion and rebirth like the Distortion—that’s losing someone. This?” He gestures at himself. “This isn’t losing someone any more than you were lost.”

I wasn’t sure I hadn't been lost.

He smiled so easily. “Come on. Let me show you how this works. You’ll think better when fed,” he said, as harmless and bright as a children’s mascot.

I was already fed. Somehow. But I didn’t want to try to get into it. “Lead the way, I suppose.” Everyone else had already paired off and left. “Do you always assign partners?”

“And areas, yes. We wouldn’t want to cause harm, and the buddy system helps prevent that.”

I snorted.

“It’s true! Your Beholding might lack the ability to consider consequences, but surely you don’t think we do.”

“What, the Web has a stance against overfishing?”

“Yes! Exactly so. We didn’t even mean to end the world when we did. We’re significantly more careful now to avoid it ever happening again.”

“How did it happen, then?”

(The Eye offered to show me. I refused.)

“Get to know me a little bit better, and I’ll tell you.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know him better, but I also didn’t feel like I had a choice.

In silence, he led me north, past old buildings I sort of knew, past silent cars I’d never imagined, past lovely boutiques and pubs with a distinct lack of loud music or voices coming from them.

I’d never seen a London like this. I had no idea how to feel about it.

Neither did It, and the drive to know why this was so grew in me with anticipatory joy like a child looking forward to their birthday.

I couldn’t blame It. This was absolutely unexpected. The differences in history must have been significant.

“How did your world end, anyway?” said Spider Martin. “You hardly have to tell me, of course, but I rather thought you’d prefer we hear your understanding over Manuela’s.”

I really needed to meet this woman. “And how the hell would she even know anything?”

“Same way she found you.” We turned a corner, and finally there was sound—a busker, just beginning to tune his violin. “She calculates things. Honestly, if she weren’t so firmly entrenched in the Eye, she'd have made a lovely sister.”

I stopped walking. “She’s Eye?”

“That she is. It was her desire to see more and know every world that had her prepared and able to escape when the time came.”

I couldn’t imagine Manuela Dominguez as Eye. “Then she didn’t build a Dark Sun. She didn’t hole up at Ny-Ålesund. She didn’t try to summon Mister Pitch.”

“Not her. Some of her alternates, yes, but they’re secondaries. She’s Prime.”

“Prime?”

“The first one of her kind rescued. In her case, the actual rescuer, too.” Martin produced paper money from his pocket.

It wasn’t a design I’d ever seen. “May I?”

“Of course.” He handed it over.

It was a ten-pound banknote. Julius Caesar glowered on the front of it, stern and uncompromising. The bill itself was cornflower blue; intricate guilloche in a gradient from orange to purple subtly deepened the design, and it bore such phrases as The Bank of Holy England and Toward the Greatest Empire.

Damn. I really needed to get hold of some history books.

(The Eye offered to show me how this banknote existed. How it had been designed. What the phrases meant. Why a long-dead Roman emperor decorated the front. No, I told It, firm and tamping down my need. Let me find out on my own.)

This delighted It. The joy of discovery through me was apparently worth the wait.

“What did money look like where you came from?” said Spider Martin.

“Do you actually care?” I drawled.

“Inasmuch as I’m trying to establish a decent working relationship with you, yes, I absolutely do.”

“Then surely you know telling me things is more valuable than asking.”

“What do you think I've been doing?” said Spider Martin. “We are here to pay that man over there to play ‘The Outlandish Knight,’ which he associates with a past girlfriend, with whom he associates the feeling of being trapped and controlled, and playing it makes him afraid he’ll never get free. Thus, shall I be fed. And you, my dear Archivist, merely need to watch him—because he’ll feel very, very watched, and thus shall you be fed.”

I frowned. “And he deserves this, does he?”

“In revenge against that girlfriend, he poisoned her cat.”

“He what?” Well, now I was furious.

Which (calm down, Jon) was probably on purpose. It was calculated.

“He did,” said Spider Martin. “What happened to him wasn’t nice, but he isn’t very nice, either.”

“Did the cat… die?”

“No, fortunately, though it did go blind.”

I clenched my jaw. Anger against this random man tempted. (Easy, Jon. Easy.) “If you’re lying to me, we’re going to have a problem.”

Spider Martin looked at me. “Jon, I’m not stupid enough to lie to you. You could just see it. If I lie, it’ll undo any attempts to build trust between us. All right?”

That… made sense. “All right. Why do you want to work with me, then?”

“Because we all need to work together. All of us. We’re unique in all the world, and we have a challenging existence. We need each other to keep each other balanced and prevent the world from ending again.”

Damn, but it was all logical. “Why did you call me Archivist a moment ago?”

“Because that’s what you are—and I suspected it would be easier to think of eating a bit of this man’s fear with that reminder.”

This honesty was refreshing. Maybe a little too refreshing. It was all calculated, every bit of it.

But then, it was calculated because it would be effective, and I couldn’t fault him for trying to be effective. Web was just… so disturbing about it, which was the entire point. “Will this mark him?”

“No. We’re getting a taste, caring for ourselves, but not doing enough harm to mark anyone. Most of them don’t even remember it happened after; they just shrug it off.”

I exhaled shakily.

So. This was just what it was, now. Hardly the first time in my life I’d faced challenges, gray morality, and a strange situation in which I wasn’t precisely trapped, but all my other options were worse than the one I was considering.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon. No.

Maybe not ever.

“If you’re really not ready, it’s okay,” said Spider Martin. “Last thing I want to do is upset you.”

“Sure. Because I’m so dangerous compared to the lot of you.”

“You are, actually.” Spider Martin shrugged.

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m really not. I can hardly damage anyone the way I could at the end of my world, and I was nothing but a punching bag before that.”

He tilted his head. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s not what we—oh, pardon.” He took out his phone.

“Not what you what?”

Spider Martin’s eyes went wide. “Shit,” he said. “Keep up!” And he turned and ran.

Spider Martin could move. That was not at all how my Martin ran, not at all his body language or motion or mobility, and the smooth, loping speed of it was freakishly comforting compared to the mask of the one I loved.

I ran after him.

#

Fun fact: being made of eyes and/or light beams made me better at running than I would have guessed.

I mean. I wasn’t good at it. But I also didn’t run out of breath, or stumble, both of which would have been the case before.

I kept up with Spider Martin, who I swear was running with the use of six extra invisible legs, and that was no small thing.

“What is it?” I called at his back.

“Get ready for a fight!” he said.

“A fight? A fight with wh-”

I saw.

Hunters, Martin had said.

Nolan Two on the ground with smoke pouring out of his chest instead of blood.

Nolan One behind a car flipped onto its side, unable to stick his head around it at all because of—

What was—

What WAS that, that was—

I couldn’t understand what I saw. Purple, green, wisps of things like tentacles, not solid, and yet they were, punching holes into that car, not just reaching around it but building Nolan’s fear, and—

We turned the corner at the same time as Mike Crew and Helen Richardson, and everyone acted at once.

Coordinated? No. They’d just done this before.

Helen distorted into a tall and mutated and terrible thing and dropped straight into the sidewalk—and at the same time, a yellow door opened beneath Nolan Two, and he fell out of sight.

(I couldn’t see the attacker. I needed to see it.)

Mike bared his teeth—a horrifying look, actual anger, which he had not shown with me the day he threw me into the sky—and gestured.

Lightning struck.

Struck… what?

(I couldn’t see it! I needed to see it!)

Mike couldn’t see it, either; he struck where those tendrils were coming from, the central invisible knot of them, but evidently did not hit it, because now, it threw tendril-attacks at him. He moved, guessing as much (he could not see them, I knew he could not), staying out of the way of whatever it was punching holes where he’d been.

Spider Martin picked up another car and threw it.

That one connected; the car hit something, but was not enough to stop it, and more tendrils shot out toward Mike and Spider Martin.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My eyes burned, my head throbbed—I couldn’t see it, I had to see it, I needed to see—

Michael grabbed me and pulled me into a yellow door in a wall just as one of those purple-green tendrils slammed into the sidewalk where I’d been, cracking it, penetrating below the concrete.

The Corridors. So familiar. I knew this well.

“No!” I cried, throwing myself at the door.

“Easy, Archivist,” said Michael, right up behind me, long hands draping over my shoulders to pull me back. “You aren’t ready to deal with them.”

“No! I need to see it! I need to see it!”

“Archivist,” Michael thrummed at me. “You’ll make your Martin cry.”

Martin?

Martin.

I stopped, gripping the door handle. “I… I need to… see it?”

“You will be hurt. Maybe killed. That would be terrible.”

He did not sound like it would be terrible.

I shook. “I couldn’t see it. Michael. Please. I have to see it. I have to try.”

He sighed. “Silly Archivist. As you wish.” He reached past me, all around me, and opened the door.

We were on a nearby roof, and I could look down and see.

I looked.

Looked.

(Use me, It beckoned.)

And I did.

My vision opened as it had not since I arrived here, and I saw.

Connected it was all connected

Powers like the Fears but different

All through this world every living thing everyone was marked or

Not marked something like marked already connected

Connected it was all

The thing

There

A person but not

It was three persons in one

Three of them together standing there strange dark bodysuit a gas mask

No hands

No hands only those tendrils sprouting from their arms, tendrils which now seemed so solid

Each of them moving independently (three person in there, three minds to work them) trying actively to kill us all

To kill the Nolans the Mike the Helen the

I saw, and as I did, I broke the attacker apart.

I didn't even mean to. I just saw it for what it truly was, and made reality real.

One second, it was invisible, impossible to harm, its tendrils unseen by the others. The next it stood there, a person in a weird suit—and it shuddered, and then it was three. They exploded apart, splitting the uniform and popping the gas mask like a hatched egg in rapid-time.

And now, the others could see them. Could see three naked people on the sidewalk, gasping, shuddering, heads down, vomiting.

Nolan, Mike, and Helen surged in without hesitation, all at once.

I looked away, swaying, gasping.

Michael kept me from falling off the roof. He looked amazed. “What did you do?”

Fed.

I was so fed.

I felt rich with it, blissful, drugged. Absolutely relaxed and warm and tingling to the edges of every inch of my form.

Sirens. Coming.

“Time to go!” said Michael, pulling me back through his yellow door.

The Corridors did their thing, and I felt it, and floated in it, and spun and flew and was.

Michael cried out.

So did I. We became colors and swirling paint, flowing out of the drain against gravity in beauty and madness and bliss. And then—

#

I woke up.

I was back in my little bed in my gray apartment. My hair was wet; I smelled of soap. My heart pounded. (Benign essential blepharospasm, perhaps?)

Martin was next to me, asleep. I stared at my boring popcorn ceiling.

Had that… happened?

Next to me, on the nightstand, was a bright green Post-It note with handwriting I didn’t know. It said, Jon. We need to talk.—JL

Leitner.

Sure. Sure, we could talk. Fuck if I knew about what, though because I had no idea what had occurred.

It was four twenty-two in the morning. Martin slept. Leitner could wait.

I watched Martin, trying to understand (had I slept? If so, it was the first time in a thousand years), trying to parse what I’d seen and what I’d done.

The Eye did not help me because It could not. It didn’t know, either, and that frightened me more than anything else I’d seen.

------

NOTES

He's like a shammy; he's like a towel; he's like a sponge! A regular towel doesn't work wet, but Jon works wet or dry. Holds 12 times his weight in trauma!

[hyylia]

A longshot for @zelinkweekofficial ! This will be posted in multiple parts as the corresponding prompts arise. As always, comments, kudos, reblogs, and likes are appreciated! Also, thank you @zelzenik​ for betaing!

IN LIFE

"After that, Link had understood a few things. First, at nineteen years old, Princess Zelda was to be courted and soon thereafter wed. And… secondly, he was undeniably in love with her. That realization had come to him after weeks of seeing her arm on another man’s, after hearing her laughter and seeing her sunlit smile warm the skin of someone else."

Tags: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Romance, Misunderstandings, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Courting, Slow Burn (As slow as I can go)

i. coming of age / a misunderstanding ii. ??? iii. ???

i. coming of age / a misunderstanding

When he was younger, days spent at the castle were some of his favorites. At first he had hated them, forced to follow his father around the confusing corridors and winding staircases without a single word. He’d quietly hid from the view of the other soldiers and castle staff, who’d looked at him with tired eyes and grim smiles, his hands fisted in the back of his father’s tunic. The castle had been intimidating then–and awfully lonely. Tall stone walls, dimly-lit corners, scary adults… What was a kid like him supposed to do, anyway?

But, then he had met her . One year his senior, yet a whopping three inches taller, Zelda had the brightest smile he’d ever seen. She’d approached him with a bounce in her step, her face lit up like a thousand suns, honey-golden hair braided around her head like a wreath of beautiful flowers. She was lovely to look at, kind on the eyes, and glowing ... His first look at her was forever seared into his memory.

“Link?” she’d asked back then, peering behind his father to take one long look at him. “That’s your name, right?”

He’d dared to look at her from beyond his father’s hip, silent as ever. His father had nodded with an encouraging smile, and that had been enough to have her hands suddenly locking around his forearms, dragging him away from his safety. He’d protested, kicking and pulling away from her grasp on him, but she’d only held stronger and kept moving.

“Listen, Link,” she’d said sternly, “you’re not allowed to hurt me, so you better stop right now. I’m a princess , and my dad said we have to play together or else. ”

He’d stopped fighting immediately, not daring to continue his battle after that. The soldiers and maids were scary enough–the last thing he wanted was to be yelled at by the king .

“See? Is that so bad ?”

It wasn’t, he’d found. They’d spent the rest of the day playing pretend in between the hedges of the castle garden. She, a fearsome pirate of the Great Seas, fought him, a normal boy from Faron (his imagination was lacking, she’d learned rather quickly), with imaginary swords and daggers and matchlock pistols. By the end of the day, when his father had come to retrieve him with a curious smile on his face, he hadn’t wanted to leave. The princess was fun, even if she’d made him her prisoner at one point… and forced him to eat a worm or two… and held a stick to his throat. He would have played with her all night if he’d been able to.

So, the next time he’d come to Hyrule Castle–and each time after that–he had been excited to see her. They quickly became friends: chasing each other up and down the hallways, play-fighting with wooden swords, collectively deciding when to bother their fathers. On occasion, they’d have tea and snacks with her mother, when they’d take turns sneaking bites from the other’s cake. When Zelda had to retreat for her lessons, he’d follow and watch her quietly from the corner of the room. When he had to train with his father, she’d cheered him on from the sidelines. They were inseparable; they did everything together.

Until she had come of age, and the courting began.

READ THE REST ON AO3 HERE.

[squadron-goals]

Richthofen (by Erich von Salzmann) Part 2

He was like that. That's how he stayed during his brilliant ascent. This is how he went to his death. We need people like that. They are the best type of the Prussian officer. They are the role models for future officers. They are the bearers of old, beautiful lore - lore of which we must be proud, and of which our children and grandchildren will be much prouder than we and our fathers, who fought the great war against France, ever were. Richthofen embodied all that. He was a typical descendant of East Elbian nobility with all its good qualities. In his stocky, hard-trained body lived the same hard, almost cold sense of duty that led the tens of thousands of descendants of our Prussian nobility to all the battlefields of Europe in the service of the Lord and made them bleed there. Richthofen was inwardly and outwardly a simple man; a straight, distinguished nature. Every ostentatious appearance, every pretence, was completely alien to him. He could never have told an untruth. What he did, what he spoke, bore the stamp of naturalness. And yet it was not only the conventional tradition of the circles from which he came that he embodied through his manner. It was more. Every time I saw him again, I had to admit: only Richthofen could be like that, a lone man.

From his ancestors on his father's and mother's side, men who sat on their own estates in the beautiful Silesian lands, he had inherited the taste for hunting. It was not that irrepressible passion to kill animals that drove him. I have often met representatives of this kind of man in foreign countries, especially in the tropics; men who only knew their hunting book and the record they wanted to beat some other famous hunter with. Richthofen was not like that. This feeling, the feeling of the record, was quite alien to him, although there was certainly an ardent sense of ambition in him, but not the ambition driven by envy. The fear that someone else could have done it better than he was completely foreign to him. From a young age he had held the rifle in his hand. He had become a marksman who never missed. About a year ago, when I asked where he saw his superiority over his enemies, he said that it consisted mainly in cold-blooded shooting. I remember very well that he once told me in May 1917: "When I face the enemy I approach ruthlessly close and when I see the whites of his eyes I shoot. Then he must fall, I'm sure of this." Later, with the improvement of the aircrafts, he changed his tactics and mainly tried to catch the enemy from behind by skilful maneuvering and then shoot him down. He knew no hatred for his enemy. He did not see red, as some may in the excitement of battle. He would have never let himself be carried away into committing an imprudence; his temper was too cool for that. He thought carefully about everything he did. And yet, his decisions must have been har das steel in the split seconds he had to make them. There was no hesitation for him. He had the firm will the opponet must fall, and the stronger will made it possible. He once told me about his younger brother, who was learning from him: "Now he's quite good. I'll let him off the chain soon. But I'm worried he´s being too agressive; if he has the enemy in front of him, then he almost sees red. He mustn´t do that." Richthofen was very cautious about maintaining his machine. He checked it meticulously before he started. He was well aware that you have to master the tools of your trade if you want to achieve something. He would not have ascended until everything was in the most impeccable order. He didn't know the recklessness that drove many a young pilot to an untimely death. It certainly wasn't a fault in his machine that caused him to hit the ground as he did on his last flight. Richthofen was extremely lucky. He seemed almost immune. I saw Richthofen come back twice from Arras with probably more than a dozen hits in his machine. If another pilot gets shot through the engine, then he should send his last prayer to heaven, then only God can have mercy on him, because the hour of death by flames has come. Richthofen got an infantry bullet through the engine more than once. In a flash, Richthofen recognized the damage and switched off the engine. For someone else, the plane would certainly have caught fire. So he really seemed invincible.

[kierancampire]

I dunno if it's cause I'm not in the best mood, but i was just thinking over one of my most frustrating friendships, and it was definitely Blake, i don't care about giving his name as he isn't online, and if i gave you his full name all you'd find is a gay porn star anyway

But it was just that final argument that still sticks with me then what followed. Literally tried to gaslight me into thinking i started the fight, when it began by me saying "Lets agree to disagree as i don't want to argue". The nasty things he said about my mum and therapist, completely invalidated my struggles, experience, and knowledge on mental health with what was literally the Mormon "Anything that says opposite to us is the devil trying to convert you" thing but just with a different coat of paint, and that "We all know what you're like when you're tired" comment

But then how when he saw me after in person, when he spoke like he was apologising, yet his "apology" was just saying he isn't mad about what i said, he won't hold anything against me that i said, that he forgives me for what i said, and that he wants to be friends but if we don't become friends it's because i chose not to so it's my fault. Aka, didn't admit to or apologise to what he said or that he created the argument, and still continued to place it on me

Honestly, i think it's only because i have been stuck in abusive relationships for so long that i saw the gaslighting, manipulation, and that severely, incredibly fucking toxic mindset and way he trued to be over me. And looking back in hindsight, besides the fact he was a major conspiracy theorist, there were so many red flags and dodgy things. Yet i stuck around as he could be nice, we had a lot of mutual interests, i was alone, plus he was attractive and spoke about his dick a lot solike, ya girl was pulled

But thinking on it, he was the last "real life" friend i made, i haven't made any since, and there sorta is no one. I have one friend who i met once last year, who has asked to see me a few times, but not only is it a bit of a journey on public transport, my hell, and sorta expensive, but he only ever hangs out in groups/pubs and i just really don't enjoy it. If it weren't for the girls, i would be alone, i don't even see Jayne any more, i just see my mum and younger brother, that's it, literally, the only company i have is my cats

I think that's why it's so frustrating that he was my last friend, real shitty note to end off on, cause i dunno when I'll ever find friends again, i do nothing in life to make friends, don't get out, don't know how to meet people. One thing that scares me, through my mum i know what it's like to be old abd alone, the care you get is shit when family aren't there for you, you get so neglected and mistreated. Then when you die, that's it, no one to go to a funeral, no one to remember you, no one to care, no one to handle what you left in life or take care of the things that meant something to you, your life just sorta instantly becomes meaningless and instantly forgotten. And that's the route I'm currently headed towards, a miserable, painful, neglected, poor, struggling, lonely old life. Then nothing, just gone and moved on from, with no one living having any idea who i was or that i even existed. Everything i have gone through, everything i have fought to come out of, every trauma endured, every scar, especially these past 6 years, all just kinda ultimately meaningless in the end

[unbecomingmrsbell]

because I’m the mom…

I remember my mom falling back on the phrase: “…because I’m the mom and I said so.” It was an instant phrase that would punch back at any of our questions like “why can’t I sleepover at Andrea’s house?!”

“…because I’m the mom and I said so!”

So naturally, I have found a way to end that phrase because it really irked me back in the day. Here I am decades older and wiser and I have 3 beautiful children of my own. I have done what I could to teach my kids to stay curious and ask when they have questions.

But I recently had someone that meant everything to me describe his view of who I had become. His description had boiled me down to a description that instantly took me back to years of my own childhood. He described my own mom.

While I would disagree that the perspective he gave had the intentions I felt he was placing on me — I could also not deny the description.

I had largely become a disengaged bed-ridden lump of potatoes on weekends. I sometimes wanted so badly to have the energy to get out of bed, but simply could not muster the strength. Some days, I felt like my strength was found in the mere act of staying in bed. Bed was what I wanted. I have lived a life largely responding to the needs of others and placing their desires ahead of my own.

But part of my advancement toward filing for divorce was because I knew that the relationship of silence, of one-sided accountability, of invisibility wasn’t ever going to get me to want to get out of bed.

I cannot begin to explain how weird it was to sit and hear the accusations about me laying in bed hit my ears and yet not feel the need to defend myself. But, that is exactly what happened. I can no longer explain how depressed, and lonely, and full of sadness at living in a marriage that was full of unrequited love. For someone who had no issues listened to his wife cry herself to sleep at night… his description of me was probably perfect. But the experiences, and the journey that led to those months of exhaustion, and deep depression was wrought with neglect, lack of care and concern, and a need for control that for the most part in my life has been unparalleled.

My mom made different choices. Her choice was to stay. She did what she knew to do. And while I would love to know the ins and outs and understand what motivated her to stay, it doesn’t really matter. It is her life to live, and face-to-face with the same situation, I don’t really know what I would do. I just know that while face-to-face with my situation, I had to lobby for change.

We tried marriage counseling. We lasted 4 sessions before the pressure became too much for him. It was heartbreaking to watch. I was so grieved during that time. But I stayed. I fought hard. I decided to keep working on myself and went to individual therapy until Covid hit and the visits stopped. This fall I entered back into the regular weekly-ish care of a therapist. I confronted the behaviors (really the lack of…) via email to try to not trigger the negative reaction to corrections. I was met with silence. No response whatsoever.

The tension just grew and grew. No contact. No change. All alone living my married life but under the jurisdiction of an awkward co-parenting relationship because that is all I was — the woman who bore his children. I was not his friend, nor lover. At times it felt like I existed to simply keep the pretenses up.

It didn’t matter what volume I expressed my needs — they would not be met by him. It was almost as if it I could just not say them, the odds of him possibly meeting my needs were actually higher. But speak them out into existence and I had really done it. My son asked me why I was moving out. My heart shattered into a million pieces.

“…because I’m the mom, and I’m doing the best I can to raise you to know how much you are loved. This decision won’t make sense, and honestly, it might never make sense to you — but I love you so much and I am also choosing to love me.”

[infoshakil260]

Takeoff Kong Yiji's gown, and I'm going to set off with my broken oar

The world map is so big, I don’t want to have fun too early, I want to make a scene in my own way.

As I write this article, I am preparing to start a gap year. This is a completely new experience for me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it.

I first joined the company 7 years ago and my memory is still fresh.

Identity: A product primary school student who has just graduated half a year ago;

Time: March 28, 2016, Monday at around 1:00 noon;

Location: 9th floor, Fiyta Building;

First impression of the Goose Factory: dark and old.

There were no lights on in the whole HE Tuber building, so I followed the instructor with small steps in confusion. After arriving at the work station, I took apart the new computer and touched it. It felt really good. I went up to it and smelled it, but the smell was just average. The instructor laughed: The lights will be turned off during lunch break, and the computer will be yours in three years. I almost jumped up when I heard this and immediately bought a camp bed online.

That day I secretly decided that I would work hard for this laptop for three years.

1. I was impulsive because of an old lady

The novelty at the beginning was not enough to make me dizzy. After working for two and a half years, the team was suddenly assigned to Guangzhou to take charge of the Guangdong Provincial Affairs Project. Obviously the team is getting bigger and bigger, but I feel lonely. I forget about the laptop that is not yet my own, and ask myself for the first time: Should I leave?

This thought flashed across my mind, and I talked to the director at the time. He said: Sister, at your age, you are the most powerful. They are all young people, you are a child, and children have infinite vitality. Years later, I would still be filled with power because of this sentence, so I killed the idea before it could take shape.

Later, when the epidemic started, I was transferred to other departments to support micro-emergency projects, and then began to support government-enterprise office collaboration platforms. Later, I was stationed in Yunnan to be responsible for the planning of more than a dozen products in digital government projects. I was shaken again. If I were to leave, what could I take with me and what could I leave behind?

You may be wondering: What's going on? You can't calm down and want to move from time to time? Are you unhappy?

On the contrary, I am very happy after joining Tencent. Almost all my friends in Shenzhen were met in Goose Factory and I like them so much. They gave me the confidence to move forward. They knew the emptiness I felt when I swelled, knew the cowardice I tried my best to hide, knew I was ugly and knew I was evil, and they knew I had a sincere soul and proud talent (this last sentence is nonsense) of).

But I must be honest and say that I had selfish motives when I first joined Tencent. At that time, I set myself to work here for three years, drain all the resources in the company, learn everything that the Goose Factory can learn, and then plot to go out and do something big. I want to devote myself fully from the circle of concern to the circle of influence, but after three years, I am confused. I can't help but follow the company's rules: I want to upgrade to level 9, I want to change the bg, and I want to learn more knowledge. So I transferred my job and had more opportunities to learn from the project. I met many capable people and gained my own life mentor.

It has been like this for five years. One day, when my colleagues and I were squatting in a temporarily rented office in Yunnan to review the latest version of product problems, the floor-to-ceiling windows were facing me. The midsummer sky in Kunming was clean and bright, and a white light flashed in my mind. Oh my God. , I actually worked in a company for five years.

A group of apprentices and I fought hard in Yunnan. When we walked back to the hotel in the middle of the night, the evening breeze was a bit chilly. I secretly made up my mind: I will leave after reaching level 11 in another six months. Yes, I laugh at the rules of big companies and surrender to the pleasure that the process of challenging them brings me. In this way, I thought and learned until I transferred to WeChat Pay and started a completely different industry track. During this period, I was busy adapting to the new environment, learning new knowledge, and meeting new friends. I gradually forgot the unthinking rants I made back then. The aura of WeChat, salary, equity, year-end, partners... Please, do you still want to leave? Nothing will be left after you leave.

Don’t think about it anymore, don’t think about it anymore.

Up to now, I have been at Tencent for 2682 days, so many friends heard that I was at Tencent. At first they would say: wow, you are at Tencent; and later: hey, you are still at Tencent.

From the age of 22 to 29, I will be turning 30 in a few days.

Until a few months ago, during the Monday morning rush hour, I was waiting at a traffic light next to an old woman. I can't remember her face clearly. Old people all over the world seem to have the same look. I only remember that she was carrying a vegetable basket on her skinny wrist. I glanced at her, and she glanced over, unable to tell what her expression was. The light turned green and I passed by on a shared bicycle. This picture has always been fixed in my mind. I was thinking, if I have silver hair and age spots on my face, one day when I see a young girl at an ordinary intersection in this city, what will I think? Any regrets?

Street vendors were shouting and selling fresh food in the morning. The smell of fish and the fragrance of fresh vegetables lingered in the air, which was strange to me.

I passed by it, but I never stopped.

At this moment, I seemed to go back to many years ago, when my family had just finished my father’s funeral. I was still a little baby at that time, and the summer night was filled with the sound of frogs and insects. After dinner, my mother and I were enjoying the shade in the yard. I lay on her lap and wanted to cry sadly: Are all humans mortal? What will happen if I die? At that time, my mother took a cattail leaf fan and slapped me on the back, "Bah, bah, bah, why are children so concerned about this?"

So I resigned.

The old lady on the roadside probably never thought about this.

At twenty or thirty, what is my life lesson?

When I started to announce my resignation to my colleagues and friends, almost everyone's first reaction was surprise. In the current employment situation, are you leaving your job? Still a gap? A good hand of cards has been ruined by you...

They expressed concern about my voluntary departure, and I was terrified many times late at night. When I think about it carefully, this feeling is not unfamiliar, it is the same as I have thought of birth, old age, illness and death countless times. It is no exaggeration to say that I have a little palpitations and chest tightness, as if I have been in an ice cellar.

I came to Shenzhen from Beijing because I couldn't forget Goose Factory. If I left here, would I still need to stay in Shenzhen?

I ask myself: What is your life lesson?

I have thought about the dreams of getting married, having children, accumulating wealth, and becoming famous all over the world, but I want to see the bigger world.

I never want to passively give up my driving force for change to "self-escape from not knowing where to go"; my active choice and giving up will only come from "the love and freedom I yearn for ahead."

After understanding this, the answer becomes clear:

The world map is so big, I don’t want to enjoy it too early.

I would like to thank the boss of my current team for giving me relatively ample time to think about it. During this period, I have been asking myself: What can I do if I leave Tencent one day?

Frankly speaking, you cannot think about this issue in detail. Once you think about it, you will find that the skills you acquire after tightening screws for a long time are not enough for you to survive independently in society. What you know is good enough for others. What skills do you have that others don’t have? You want to be a trendsetter, stay ahead of the trend of the times, and don't want to miss every wave. But in the end, you end up being trapped in the current of the times.

I always hear an old saying, in terms of personal career planning, you must learn to master the power of crossing cycles, and you must build your own core competitiveness. But if from the beginning to the end, your so-called competitiveness is just to have some differentiated advantages compared with other workers in the workplace, can this support your long-term personal development?

He Fan said in "Variables": In a market with homogeneous competition, it is impossible to find excess profits.

A while ago, I found an MP3 in a drawer, which was my first electronic product in junior high school. Thanks to my hobby of collecting, I can still play the recordings inside. I was amused by the immature voice of the 15-year-old with a strong local accent, and I was deeply moved by the childish and great dream of the super optimist.

She said: "I am a young man, not a freak or a fool. I want to fight for my own happiness. I want to do something smart and interesting, and I want to contribute more to society."

Living conditions are obviously getting better and better, but why are there fewer and fewer people chasing their dreams? Everyone is thinking about how to make money and survive. People who have the same sense of social responsibility and historical mission as before seem to have become a rare species.

Sometimes I think that it is precisely because we are all ordinary people. All ordinary people see is money, while detached people know how to think about value. When everyone is running in one direction, occasionally you can stop and look in the opposite direction. Are those things that are overly popular worth investing in and worth following?

If we understand the value behind everything, money will not be far away from us. But if you always stare at the cash in front of you, you will always be able to hide and seek with potential crises within the rules set by others.

So I set a goal for myself. I want to press the pause button and start the gap year.

Why is it serious this time? If I have to put the final word in one sentence: If I don’t leave, I may never be able to take this step.

This is the best time, I am still young, I am very free, I have too many things I want to do, too many paths I want to take, too many feelings I want to express, and too many skills I want to learn.

In the coming year, I will cherish:

August is my "birthday month". I want to take a long-awaited summer vacation for myself, return to my family and become the little rice bug who can't take care of himself for three meals a day, and then continue to brush up on language scores, get paperwork, and prepare for my 24-fall study abroad application;

In September, I will follow my previous agreements with several universities, start work shop cooperation, and devote myself fully to research;

In October, I will spend some time on several international charity projects. I have always wanted to practice the concept of "technology for good";

In November and December, I will continue to write my first book according to the manuscript contract with the publishing house and submit it by the end of the year. I thought about a proposition a long time ago. There are too many successful learnings in the market, and there are not a few big names who rely on their personal influence to respond to everyone. Why do people always tend to avoid talking about or downplay the experience of failure? Just as the growth curve of any company leads you to success, it will also lead you to failure. Failure is the background. So I want to share a lot of failures based on a product perspective, as well as the energy and dry knowledge drawn from these failed businesses. It is a bit sad but very real, but more importantly, I require myself to be hard-core. Figure out the boundaries between emotion and rationality, and give yourself a staged explanation.

In January and February next year, I want to continue learning programming, and there are several projects that are still in the incubation stage. As for the more detailed follow-up plans, we will talk about it at that time. In July 2023, I can only predict that I will be very busy, but I am no longer obsessed with a clear and definite plan.

I always believe that when you are willing to devote yourself to the unknown of life, many surprises will happen. I have tried my best to pave the way in advance, trying hard to do things that I wanted to do before but didn’t have the time or energy to do. Later, I just let the bullets fly for a while.

I hope that one year from now, I can happily share my gap year gains and experiences with you!

3. I believe more in statistics than in success studies.

In fact, I have never liked to read the experiences shared by successful people. It is as unreliable as if you deduced the problem-solving ideas from the answers. Every successful person’s experience is marked by huge personal cognitive biases, self-righteousness, and luck. What's more, "success" itself has its own criteria for judging.

A few months ago I went back to my alma mater, and the college teacher asked me to cheer up my juniors. Although I compiled a decent ppt with a serious name: "The Crazy Road of Internet Workers", when I stood on the stage, I couldn't help it: they were all majoring in mathematics and statistics, and compared with When it comes to learning about success, I would rather talk about statistics to deduce what our chances of winning are during the period when things change from warm to cold.

Later, I shared this speech on Knowledge Planet, and several other classmates from big factories expressed their opinions: In recent years, many people have stayed away from people who come from big factories. For example, the salaries of big factories cannot be paid. The people in captivity are too comfortable, their abilities are too weak and weak... There are different opinions on this.

You name it, patents, papers, books, etc., have results, all have the name of the author on them, and they are recognized by society. What did you get after graduating from a major factory? What can "graduated" employees take with them?

When I was a student, I imagined myself sitting in an office, well-dressed, and talking elegantly. All I could imagine were frivolous things: title, five-star performance, salary increase, year-end, leading a team, etc. These things may seem like accumulation, but if you leave the company one day, they will be cleared in an instant.

I saw Dragon Slayer Rouge Well put forward a proposition before:

After realizing this, and because I was preparing to leave recently, I always kept myself in a "leave at any time" mentality to look at everything.

I repeatedly reflected on myself: If I were to leave the company next month, what would I take with me and what would I want most? I will crazily study all the courses and articles I am interested in in the company, consult all the experts I admire, and muster up the courage to take the initiative to meet the people I want to get to know... I hope that I will master more things that will still belong to me after death.

The priority of what I pursue in the company is: things that will not be cleared after death > things that will be cleared after death > things that will be cleared after leaving a company. It's quite interesting to work with this kind of mentality. If you are still working, you might as well do an experiment for yourself. You will find that you will feel hungry every day and gain something new every day. When you get off work every day, you will involuntarily sigh: Today I have lived for myself for another day. Today I am different from yesterday.

[superbdragoncollection-stuff]

Christmas in the Trenches

"every time I played there was this little bevy of very old, and we're talking old, German men, who'd come across the border and showed up at my shows and they usually came in late, came trottin' up the aisle and there usually wasn't a seat left, so they just stood there at the edge of the stage and watched me, without expression, turned around and left when I was done. The last set and I'm watching these guys turn around to leave as I finish my last song and I'm thinkin', who are these guys?

So I set down my autoharp or whatever I was playing, jumped off the edge of the stage and ran up the aisle and caught the last guy. I said you guys have been really sweet showing up all these places but... what's the deal?

And the guy says, we're here because of that song. I said what song? You know, that song, the one that's on the radio. That's how we heard about you and about this festival. Because all our lives our family, our friends have told us we were crazy, couldn't possibly have happened to us. But then we heard your song on the radio and we said, see, see, 'cause we were there."

My name is Francis Tolliver. I come from Liverpool Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here I fought for King and country I love dear It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung The frozen field of France were still, no Christmas song was sung Our families back in England were toasting us that day Their brave and glorious lads so far away I was lyin' with my mess-mates on the cold and rocky ground When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound Says I "Now listen up me boys", each soldier strained to hear As one young German voice sang out so clear "He's singin' bloddy well you know", my partner says to me Soon one by one each German voice joined in in harmony The cannons rested silent. The gas cloud rolled no more As Christmas brought us respite from the war As soon as they were finished a reverent pause was spent 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen' struck up some lads from Kent The next they sang was 'Stille Nacht". "Tis 'Silent Night'" says I And in two toungues one song filled up that sky "There's someone commin' towards us" the front-line sentry cried All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright As he bravely strode, unarmed, into the night Then one by one on either side walked into no-mans-land With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand We shared some secret brandy and wished each other well And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photgraphs from home These sons and fathers far away from families of their own Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin This curious and unlikely band of men Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night "whose family have I fixed within my sights?" It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war Had been crumbled and were gone for ever more My name is Francis Tolliver. In Liverpool I dwell Each Christmas come since World War One I've learned it's lessons well That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame And on each end of the rifle we're the same

[mskc1707]

September 30th 2022

Here we are again….. its been awhile since having a chat with my unspoken feelings. The one voice that never answers back to my unimportant feelings, emotions, or true feelings about people. Somethings have changed and other things have gotten progressively worse and fucked up, the only way i can deal with this is writing on an account that no one ever reads or even cares about, but here i am writing my truths still with zero outcome. The world always amazes me, so populated but full of little lonely humans like myself, unnoticed and insignificant. Im always waffling, back to the update… I don’t hear from the ex husband anymore, he hasn’t seem my mini humans in such a long time, I’m not even sure they exist to him anymore and for the first time in nearly 5 years i feel free, i feel free from him.. zero emotions, zero hatred and zero feelings. I dont even hate him for being a shitty father. ONE DAY he will have to face up and take responsibility for the issues he has caused, but for me, I’m trying to be the best possible mother to my mini’s. I know what your thinking, your thinking ‘ my girls grown, shes healing’ … wrong lol.

That lovely, sweet guy i was talking about those few years ago, the one who swept me off my feet.. had me thinking that I was going to be one of ‘those happily ever after girlies’… well.. not so much. We ended up moving in together this year, i was so elated… like this was huge for me. I literally felt like i had it all. But it crumbled as fast as it started. He changed, he became controlling and manipulative. He would rage at me for expressing my feelings towards anything he said that i did not agree with. He would shout at me, watch me cry and tell me that I deserved it. He would use the trauma that my ex caused me, against me. He said that i deserved it all. Tearing me apart with his words. How did i manage to get myself in to a worse situation than the last one? This guy has broken my heart even harder than the last love of mine, because i wanted everything with him…i wanted him to be the one who was by my side when i took my last breath in this life. The one who would hold my hand when life was getting hard and closing fast in on me. Instead he used my deepest and darkest insecurities against me, he used them to cause pain and now he’s broken the remaining pieces of my heart. I feel numb inside, i cant even cry…i cant feel anything. I have no one to talk too, no one that really cares about me. Even people on the internet don’t care about my problems.

I’ve forgotten what happiness is… Many years ago, i met the one. The one who loved me for me, that fought so hard for my love. To this day, I’m paying my karma back for letting that one guy go….

[keiratheraven]

The Redemption of Raina

Previously, Raina broke up with both her boyfriend (Bryan) and her girlfriend (Mary).

https://at.tumblr.com/keiratheraven/semi-autobiography-bisexual-love-triangle/xvoixm8zugal

Then she moved from Bridgeport to a small town, Twinbrook, and found her new love, David.

https://at.tumblr.com/keiratheraven/semi-autobiography-sims-story-unbroken-raina/nefzzz5c2i7m

But one day, David died in his sleep due to a terminal illness. Raina was heartbroken, and she left her career as a journalist and moved again to San Myshuno City and working as a ghostwriter.

It took a long time for Raina to heal from David’s death. She was alone, and always isolated herself in her apartment for nearly a year.

But one night, she decided to attend her friend’s birthday party at the lounge.

Unexpectedly, she met her two exes at the party. And she was wondering why Bryan and Mary were standing beside each other while watching the band.

“Excuse me? Why you guys are here together? Are you supposed to be like, enemies two years ago when you both fought over me?”

Bryan and Mary were awkwardly speechless for one second.

“Umm, well... We’re friends now. But nothing romantic.”

“Seriously?” Raina raised her eyebrows to them.

“Relax, Rainy. I’m still a lesbian.” Said Mary.

“Yeah. When we left your apartment in Bridgeport after you kicked both of us out two years ago, I and Mary were arguing a lot. But then we decided to end it maturely and be friends without any romantic feelings.”

“That’s... unbelievable. But I guess I could trust you. To be honest, I miss you guys. My new boyfriend passed away last year. I was heartbroken and lonely for a whole year in this city, especially in my apartment. I want you guys to come back to my life, and this time... no more love triangle.

“So... do you mean you want a polygamous relationship, Rainy?”

“I... I don’t know. But if you guys don’t mind............”

Suddenly, Mary and Bryan hugged Raina at the same time.

Raina was surprised.

“We missed you too, Raina.” Said Bryan and Mary at once.

“And this time, I agree to have a polyamorous relationship.”

“Yes. We should respect your sexuality, and never force you to obey what we believe in. We’re all together now.”

“Thanks, guys. I’m glad to have you both again.”

And finally all of them did it together.

“Wow. It was an amazing experience as my first time with a man.” Said Mary.

“I’m not bad, am I?” Said Bryan.

“You’re great.”

“And I’ve been waiting for something like this since I turned 16. It’s a dream come true.” Said Raina.

Finally, Raina isn’t lonely anymore. Bryan and Mary are back to become her lovers again. They enjoy their life in San Myshuno city.

One morning after they woke up, Raina talked with Bryan and Mary again.

“I’ve got an idea. What about a master’s degree in university for the three of us?”

“Well, it’s exciting! I’ve been wanting a pursue master’s degree in culinary arts, although my undergraduate degree is in psychology.” Said Mary. “But don’t be impulsive, Raina. Is this because of your manic phase relapses?”

“No, no. This is my ambition since I earned a bachelor's degree several years ago.”

“What about you, Bryan?” Mary asked him.

“I want a master’s degree in physics. Actually, in my younger days, my father forced me to go to a business school because he wanted me to follow in his footsteps as a CEO. But actually, I wanted to be a scientist.”

“That’s wonderful, Bryan! You’re so smart and diligent.”

“You guys are fantastic. I’m gonna go for a master’s degree in communications. Because I have trouble finding a job with a literature degree. And besides, I was a journalist before. And I have more passion for writing news instead of novels.” Said Raina.

One week later, all of them got acceptance letters in their targeted majors from the University of Britechester and Foxbury Institute. 

All of them are excited. They still live in San Myshuno apartment instead of moving to Britechester Dorms and taking online classes.

But Raina started to question herself again: Am I doing this right? Am I deserving their love... when I can’t commit to one relationship especially settle down or get married? To add insult to injury, I'm dating two people at once.

To be continued