#like. okay i vague this fic a lot in the post itself but (last i checked) the most popular POKEMON fic on ao3 is literally a reguri fic

[bacon-sandwich-of-dionysus]

Bloodhound. (A Ghost x AFAB!reader fic)

Act One, Chapter Three: Encapture

Literally had to re-upload this because I made such a dumb grammar mistake! Ugh! Anyways, if there are any more, I am so sorry... with the poll added, I can't edit posts and there is so much text to wade through :(.

Also, what the actual heck am I doing with Ghost?! Like, this poor, poor man. This is just turning into 'how far can we push Ghost before he breaks'? This is supposed to be an 'x reader' lmaoo. I mean, 'x reader'?! More like, 'x life-ruiner'.

As for Graves' side... well, uh... Graves has um... a mishap. I really hope these Arcadian Sons come across as scary to you- I'm trying to go for that!

Word count: 11, 570 (the length of this chapter should be a warning)

Warnings: Strong language, violence, gore, mentions of trauma, the sheer length of this chapter and uh... kicks to the groin. (I hate myself.)

You were frozen on the spot, looking at him, one foot ready to take a step forward into the barracks and the other fervent in remaining on the other side of the threshold. Your blood had turned to ice, heat concentrating in your cheeks as you desperately tried to wrack your brain for ideas on how to proceed. However, you had turned to stone under his gaze, thoughts coming to a standstill, unable to form sentences you could understand. This was mortifying, no… this was beyond mortifying. It had been five minutes since your last encounter with Ghost and the image was still fairly fresh in your brain. Your nose wrinkled a little as you cringed slightly, the mere allusion to what you had seen making your stomach twist itself into knots. 

Ghost was paralysed too, staring at you. Oh, how you wanted him to pretend you weren’t even there! Although, you could have sworn you saw a bit of yourself in him, that same frazzled expression in his eyes. You were both locked in a stalemate, only electing to act once the other had moved. The two of you could be here for a while… or you couldn’t- provided that one of you would decide to bite the bullet and do something. 

As Ghost opened his mouth to speak, he watched you let out a noise which sounded vaguely like distress. Then, like you were never here, you spun on your heel and left, quick footsteps sounding your frantic dash away from the barracks and away from him. 

SIghing, the man brought a hand to his masked face. 

Yeah, he was positively kicking himself, I should have locked the door. 

Once you had gained enough distance, you turned and leaned against the brick wall, digging your hands into your face as you let out an exasperated groan. You should have knocked on the door. Whilst this base wasn’t brimming with personnel, it was still fairly busy. People could be found everywhere, taking advantage of every facility they could get their hands on. Moreover, judging by what Laswell had told you about 141’s ‘great big misadventure’, these guys would most likely pounce on any opportunity to have a hot shower. 

Picking your heavy, reluctant feet off the floor, you turn to continue your trek down the corridor, only to be suddenly confronted with Gaz. 

You almost jumped out of your skin. 

“AHHHH!” 

That scream was borderline bloodcurdling.

 “Gaaaz…?” 

A weak smile crept onto your face as you tried to appear as casual as humanly possible, resting some of your weight on the wall by leaning against it on your side as you stuck up a pair of finger guns.

Smooth. Very smooth. 

His brows furrowed together. 

“Are you okay, Y/N?” He asked, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Pffft!” You brushed the question aside with the wave of your hands, “I’m fine, I just got a bit spooked. “

“I can tell. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He remarked, chuckling.

You laughed… a little too hard.

Gaz was a little taken aback by your slightly unnerved skittishness but knew at the same time that, if Laswell was to be believed, you had gone through a lot. He didn’t know the details but then again, he didn’t need to know. He got the idea: Y/N was a typical runaway. Almost cartoonishly typical. He had noticed that you had been constantly looking over your shoulder last night, hurrying to places within the base like you were being chased by someone watching you from the shadows and dark crevices. If he was honest, he felt a little sorry for you. It was clear you had been shaken by something. Something that had dealt a heavy blow, and if the gnarly scar running straight down your lip didn’t indicate that, your behaviour did.  

“Anyways,” Gaz cleared his throat, “I was wondering if you wanted to join Rudy and me for some yoga? I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but… I think you could do with a bit of, you know, mindful meditation?”

His brows gave way to slight worry as awaited your decision, subtly chewing on his lip.

You took a moment to reflect on the offer. You hadn’t really done much yoga before, but it wasn’t like you didn’t know anything about it. Besides, it might help with clearing your head of all the shit that was swirling around inside it: the teeth, the claws, the words they hurled at you along with their bullets… and also this morning. 

Yeah. You exhaled softly, It would be stupid to pass this opportunity up. 

He couldn’t help but feel a little warm, fuzzy feeling build in his chest as he watched a genuine smile spread across your face. 

“Yeah.” You nodded, “I think I could do with a bit of mindful meditation too.”

He gestured for you to follow him and you gladly did so, making an effort to not lag too far behind. The sergeant led you down the corridor, one which headed southwards, opposite to the path which had led you to the bathroom of doom. Soon, he stopped, pushing open a set of fire doors and opening the way to the courtyard, where another man turned to wave at him. Presumably, this was Rudy. 

“I see Y/N has decided to join us!” He smiled, “Didn’t you manage to persuade the others?”

Gaz sighed, “Price said he’d rather sit this one out and have a smoke and Laswell is busy with… Laswell stuff.”

“What about Soap and Alejandro?”

“Alejandro’s still finishing up breakfast and Soap said he was good.”

Rudy seemed a bit deflated.

“What did Ghost say?”

“He answered with ‘shower’, pointed in the vague direction of the bathroom and uh… didn’t really say anything after that.”

Rudy wasn’t sure of what to make of that reply but supposed he’d just have to accept it.

“At least we have someone who was happy to give this a shot.” The sergeant major gestured to you, “Let’s hope this CD player works.”

Rudy busied himself with flicking through the various CDs he could find in the cardboard box next to the player, which was precariously placed on a creaky stool, while Gaz began to roll out the mats. As the two got on with setting up, you decided to have a little look around. 

This courtyard was a mess of concrete and struggling plant-life, various weeds trying to break through the cracks in the cement, competing with each other for a spot of sunlight. Despite the lack of floral displays or perfect green lawn, the asphalt garden was still somewhat a garden and with that came this atmosphere of tranquillity. 

“So,” you shyly began, still eyeing your surroundings, “how come you guys decided to do some yoga?”

“Felt like we needed it, I guess.” Gaz shrugged, setting a mat on the floor.

He dusted off his hands, looking up at you.

“And it also makes me feel a little at home. I used to do this regularly, believe it or not.” He smiled, “But then we had… well, Shepherd and… the stolen missiles… But, you know, we have a moment to breathe now so I’m taking it.”

“As am I!” Rudy added, placing a CD into the player, setting the lid down with a click.

“I see.” 

Good on them, you thought to yourself, Good on them!

Perhaps you should make a hobby out of this once you’ve found somewhere to properly settle, eh? You couldn’t help but smile at the thought. 

It seemed you were enjoying it so far, relishing in the ‘downward dog’ stretch, feeling your body sing with gratitude as your muscles made a start in releasing some of the tension. 

Ghost recognised your voice as he walked down the corridor, catching a glimpse of you in the sunlight, laughing as Gaz tried to keep you steady in a paired ‘tree pose’. He had to admit, it was a strange scene before him, the contentment of Gaz, Rudy, you and the instructional tape’s soundtrack of Tibetan bowls contrasting with the backdrop of armoured vehicles and heavy cargo. Ghost couldn’t help but pause and watch you, no real reason forming behind the action, other than it being most likely boredom. 

“Steady, Y/N! You’re going to-”

You and Gaz fell like dominoes, with you landing right on top of him, howling with laughter. Rudy was the only one who remained standing, perfectly balanced, not quivering one bit. A small grin made itself known on his face; even with his eyes closed, he could tell what was going on. Despite you being clearly no good at this, paired poses were most certainly not your thing with how many times you had fallen and taken poor Gaz with you, you couldn’t help but have fun. There was no real weight here to your actions, no real consequence for mishaps, no one scolding you or threatening to cleave your head from your shoulders… errors were allowed to just be. You were allowed to just be. 

Ghost was still watching, hooded eyes narrowing in curiosity. He was still trying to see what you were all about. Yesterday didn’t really give much about you apart from politeness and an eager aim to make a good first impression. Last night and this morning had presented a much more skittish side to yourself. And here? Well, here he was seeing certainly a more relaxed Y/N. You were a cackler, he’d give you that, unafraid to conceal your true laugh. Hearty chortles and snickers left your mouth as Gaz made a comment which sent you and Rudy over the edge, your laughs only intensifying as you watched Rudy lose balance and fall down. This yoga session definitely wasn’t about peace and tranquillity, but it didn’t matter, you guys were having a good time. Ghost chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he moved on to go grab something from the mess hall.

He guessed he just liked the way you smiled. 

As you were settling down, still wiping tears from your eyes, you spotted a figure in the doorway.  Your senses told you this was ‘Ghost’. You felt your heartbeat begin to quicken a little, only to then die down again once you saw him turn and walk away. Like a deer watching a wolf turn back to the forest after a long chase, you completely slackened with relief. He walked on, not even paying you much attention. You followed him with your eyes until he was out of view. 

Did he not care?

Should you not care?

Did you overthink that whole exchange? Did you need to run?

Maybe you’d go apologise. It would be a selfish apology, coming from a need to wrap this whole thing up on your end, mark this situation as officially over, but… maybe he wouldn’t care for any reasoning behind your confession and just take it. Not necessarily accept your ‘sorry’, but you didn’t need that from him. 

The way he nonchalantly moved on, like you weren’t even there, though most likely recognising you along with Gaz and Rudy, was comforting. 

“Okay!” Rudy’s voice broke through your thoughts, “I’ve fast-forwarded it to the… I think it’s called the ‘Shavasana’ part?” 

“Yeah, that’s ‘corpse pose’.” Gaz explained, getting up from his cross-legged position to go listen and assess the instructions.

He turned his head, so his ear was facing the speaker, paying close attention to the CD’s soothing voice. 

“Yeah,” he nodded to himself, “That’s the ‘cool down’ part.”

Then, the sergeant turned to you. 

“I know we’ve been giggly, but I think this part’s going to be better for us if we’re real calm.”

You nodded, trying to get the last of your chuckles out through taking steady breaths as guided by Gaz. You smiled a little, doing your best to focus as Gaz talked you through the breaths.

“In for four.”

You breathed in, counting away in your head. 

“Out for six.”

You exhaled, counting again. 

“Try to breathe from the bottom of your belly,” Gaz placed a hand on his tummy to show you where he meant, “and then fill your chest with air.”

You did as he said, needing a few goes before you mastered it. 

And when you exhaled, breathing out from your chest first, then your belly, it was like a part of you had left with it, dissipating into the air around you. 

“How’s that? Feel relaxed?”

You nodded. 

All three of you lay side by side, getting comfortable on your backs, ready to enter ‘corpse pose’. 

“Now, close your eyes.” The CD instructed, “Place your hands either with your palms facing up to receive or facing downwards on the ground to release.”

Hmm, you pondered to yourself, closing your eyes, Do I want to give or receive?

To let go or accept? 

It was a tough call. 

There was a lot, particularly a lot of pain, you wanted to give up but at the same time, you wanted to receive the privileges of freedom, or at least have the hope to receive them. 

However, if you wanted to receive the boons of your new life, you would first have to properly let go of the restraints of your old one. 

Release.

You placed your hands beside you, facing downwards. 

Soon, you were back with your old friend, your haunted mind. 

In the dark, you could see the formings of your pursuers. Teeth, eyes, claws. Guns, bullets, knives. Body armour tearing, nails rendering your skin. 

You had survived them all. 

In for four. 

They were trying to put you back in the chase, when you were afraid and running from the Red Room. 

Out for six. 

However, you weren’t afraid enough to picture the setting. The pale moonlight, the forest floor, the echoes of howls and the gnashing of jaws… they were all merely descriptions. Just words. No images, no scenes. You refused to make the sights and smells tangible. Words they were and words they shall remain. You couldn’t be scared forever. 

As you lay in your mind, another memory came forth. 

An older lamia, the one you had escaped with… who unfortunately didn’t make it. She… you were both held down by those dogs. Unsupervised, they had decided to take punishment into their own hands. 

You had seen horrible things. People beaten and bloodied beyond repair. And yet, that lamia… she had said something to you that night.

“You will learn to love men again.”

It was strange, but it stuck with you for some reason. 

“You will learn to love men again.”

You had denied it for quite some time, but in this moment of solitude, with it being just you and your thoughts, you decided it was time to acknowledge the apprehension that had been plaguing you the most. You were afraid Laswell’s lot could do what those Arcadian Sons had done. You were afraid they would try something, that they were the same. 

You had denied it. However, the only other company you had ever had before were either Arcadian Sons, the whitecoats which studied them and your comrades from the Red Room. And, as for Arcadian Sons, a lot weren’t kind. Not all. But a lot. 

As shown by that night. 

Unit 4, the ones which had hunted you and your band of escapees, they were monsters. Regardless of what shape they took.

Men like them deserved to be tortured for eternity, put in pits of fire and burned for centuries. Have unspeakable things done to them. You wanted each and every one of those sick fucks to feel your pain, feel the fear you felt. 

Fear often wore the dress of anger. 

You wouldn’t let anyone hurt you like that ever again. You were in control now. 

***

“Oh shit!” 23 smiled, “I got the camcorder working again!”

She held it up, zooming in on the conversing soldiers near the rooftop’s edge. 

“Okay,” she was still grinning, eager to present to her imaginary audience, “so here we have 7418 who you guys know already. Then, there’s 7629, 72’s worked with him, and she says he’s alright. Going ‘round the circle, there’s 7152, he trained some of my roommates. And there, the one closest to the edge, that’s our new packmaster! 7223!”

She panned over to get a good view of him between the gesturing hands and shrugging shoulders of his workmates, only to quickly conceal the camera as she watched his masked head turn to face her. 23 muttered an obscenity as she watched him approach. 

“Have you been recording this whole time?!” He held his hand out for the device, “Gimme the camera.”

23 looked up at him with big brown eyes, her prized possession remaining close to her chest. 

7418 chuckled, placing a hand on Graves’ shoulder. 

“Relax, brother. She likes filming things. Besides, it’s not like she gets to keep what she records.”

Phillip slowly turned to look at him, cocking his head to one side. 

“The Red Room wipes these things. This is a harmless toy for her, let her play whilst we continue planning.”

Graves looked between 23 and 7418. Underneath the mask was a face of confusion. This was most unorthodox, especially for a guy with his experience of covert ops. Nevertheless, he conceded, letting her continue to film, hoping that 7418 was right and that he wouldn’t get any shit if it turned out that 23 shouldn’t even be in possession of that camcorder and its shell of ‘Hello Kitty’ stickers. 

The men stood like gargoyles in front of their twilight backdrop, perched on the rooftop, their faceless heads surveying the streets below, slowly rising to behold the target location: a mansion just beyond the trees, sticking out like a sore thumb. This was tantalising, the target within view. Graves felt his jaw tense, the anticipation for action gripping his body with talons that further and further tightened their hold on him. Out of his periphery, he could see his fellow Arcadian Son, 7152, quiver a little. 

Graves felt his heart skip a beat or two, it felt like only yesterday he was here… with 141 and the Vaqueros. Now, however, he was in a completely different position, with a tighter leash around his neck.

One thing that did unnerve him about this mission was… well, their numbers. Back when he was part of the PMC, he had the security and the subsequent confidence that came with knowing there were people to watch your back and also to be made distractions out of. Right now, on the other hand, there were only six of them, counting the lamias.

“We haven’t got much in terms of numbers,” he sighed, turning around to address his men, “So we’re going to have to make a lot of noise to get people to scram and clear the path for Sin Nombre’s extraction.”

“The girls have got some burning canisters on them, haven’t they?” 7629 suggested.

“That’s a whole villa of people though, of obstacles…” 7418 sighed, “I don’t think the canisters will be enough.”

“Well, 72 and 23 can also make ‘em see things as well. That’s what we did on one of my last missions… just made the poor guys think there were fifty of us when there were only twelve.”

“What do you mean 72 and 23 can make people see things?” Graves asked. 

“Lamias can put people to sleep, make people hallucinate… they mess with people’s minds.” 7629 explained matter-of-factly, “They’re good for small packs like ours, even if it can be a pain takin’ care of them. Never been one for kids, myself.”

7629 gestured to the two girls doing stupid poses, each vying for their spotlight in front of the camcorder and its grainy footage.

7152 rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Takin’ care of them isn’t even the hardest part though. I always find it’s keeping them out of trouble. I’ve seen way too many instances of friendly fire.”

That’s when Graves had a lightbulb moment.

Sift through the herd. 

Like a spider pulling together the threads of its web, Graves gathered the information around him and formulated a plan. This was going to be a fairly easy job… provided people stuck to their stations.

“We need ‘em to think we’ve brought a whole army to one villa, then.” He remarked, before getting their attention, “Look, I’ll have the girls have cut the power off and started fucking with people. Then, I need two guys to help keep folks running around like headless chickens. Whilst they’re doing that, I need one of y’all to lead Sin Nombre to me.”

“Take all the glory for yourself?” 7629 scoffed, “Doesn’t seem fair.”

Graves let out a puff of air through his nose.

“For talking back to me, you’re not going to pick your role. You’ll be on crowd dispersal.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” 7629 turned away, groaning.

“Who wants to be on crowd control too?”

7152 raised his arm.

“Great. That leaves you, 7418, to be the heel-snapper.”

“Heel-snapper?”

“I just made that up. You get the idea.”

They all let out small laughs, shaking their heads. However, soon, their laughter faded into silence, and they returned to staring at the villa once more, ready to spring this plan into action.

Though they did possess the appearance and mannerisms of regular covert ops soldiers, it was evident that all were a hair trigger away from rabid chaos. 

7418 scratched at his neck, hoping to be able to relieve the itch nibbling away at him under the fabric of his baselayer. 

“I haven’t seen Valeria in ages.” He commented as he scratched away, “I used to work for her, you know.”

Graves turned around. 

“You worked for Sin Nombre? How’d you end up here?” He asked, curious.

“She sold me.” Was the reply. 

“What?!”

“Well, she sold my body. I received a fatal wound from a Vaquero. Where one typically sees loss,” he chuckled wryly, “Valeria saw opportunity.”

Graves sensed there was more coming. 

“And?”

“And now she’s stuck with having the Foundation coming back for her services. They let her hide away from the authorities and she has to do us favours. Such is the price of being an ex-employee.”

“Valeria worked at the Foundation?”

“Was a lamia… so I’m told.”

“I see.”

7629 chuckled, taking a deep breath. 

“Can’t wait to get on with this, ‘Commander’,” he exhaled contentedly as he turned to Graves, “I haven’t had a good meal in ages.”

“What’s that got to do with the mission, soldier?”

“You’ll see, friend.” Was the mysterious reply.

A few minutes later, a familiar voice crackled a little, the static trying to break it up the words emerging from the radio on Phillip’s chest.

“7223, this is 23. Do you read me?”

He pressed down on his radio. 

“Loud and clear, 23. What have you got?”

“We’ve made it to the backdoor, sir.”

“Undetected?” 

“Undetected.”

They all breathed sighs of relief, some patting their mates on the back.

“Good job. Pick the lock and get inside. Once you’ve sounded the alarm, we’ll take care of the rest.”

Ssssounded. He cringed at the sound of his own voice. The mouthpiece sitting under his mask, though uncomfortable, did allow him to speak… at the cost of giving him a slight lisp. 

“Roger that, sir.”

23 let go of her radio and squatted down beside her teammate. She could hear the quiet clicks and muffled metal groans as 72 tinkered with the lock on the door. Though the mansion had many, much sturdier reinforcements to keep unwanted guests outside… someone had forgotten to brace the entrance to the kitchen. Not that the Las Almas cartel thought that'd be an issue, they were planning a get-together tonight and easy movement to the bins outside was something they were willing to allow now that they had upped the number of guards on patrol.

Getting one of the guys down here would’ve definitely cocked this whole operation up. Graves had suspected that after her previous capture, Valeria had taken further precaution for her next soiree, seeing as she had this place locked up tighter than a miser’s purse. Her confidence oozed from every manned balcony and every dark corner where she had posted a lurking sicario. Self-assured and as cocky as ever, there was no doubt Valeria would be lounging in her seat at the head of some banquet table, feasting while her organisation continued to infect the streets of Las Almas. 

“Hurry up!” 23 whispered, spotting an armed sicario passing through the gate, looking to be heading to the side entrance- a.k.a. their hiding spot. 

The pick snapped as the words left her mouth and 72 sighed. 

“Don’t rush me. I’m trying to get this open without making it look like an intrusion.” 

“You’re taking too long…” 23 growled, bringing the scope to her eyes once more, “I got eyes on a guard coming this way.” 

“Well, send him the other way.”

23 shook her head. 

“Can’t. Don’t want to risk Sin Nombre detecting us.”

72’s shoulders slumped. 

“Quicken it up, mate. He’s not slowing down.” 

“Shush. I’m trying to focus.”

23 leaned back a little.

“Shush? Don’t you ‘shush’ me. I’m the one watching your back.”

“Well, shut up and keep doing that.”

“You fucking-”

23’s radio crackled. 

“Girls, what’s taking so long?” Graves asked. 

23 rolled her eyes. 

“72’s going at a snail’s pace, sir.”

“And 23 keeps distracting me!”

The younger one turned back to the lock-picker with a face of absolute indignation. 

“Am not!”

“Yes, you are!”

“No! You’re-”

Graves stood on the rooftop, staring blankly into the distance as he listened to the girls’ staticy argument continue in hushed voices laced with petty venom. 7629 couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle, shaking his head.

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!” 

“You bitch!”

At the sound of that word, something snapped in Graves. Immediately, he pressed down on the radio. 

“HEY!” An angry, authoritarian voice burst forth from the small communication devices on 23 and 72’s chests, “Don’t make me come down there. 23, stop harassing your teammate and keep your eyes peeled for anyone who approaches. 72, work faster and don’t talk back to 23, she’s the one keeping both of you alive.”

They both sighed, rolling their eyes, and resumed working in civil silence.

CLICK!

72 did a little fist-pump.

“I’m in!” 

Gently, she pushed the door open, and they both headed inside, closing the door behind them. Once the pair were firmly in the building and still out of sight, 72 pressed down on her radio. 

“7223, we’re inside. Getting our shrouds on now.”

Graves smiled under his mask. 

“Good work. Let me know once you’ve located the fuse box.”

“Copy.” 

Graves nodded to 7152 and 7629. Both men left his side, ready to emerge from the shadows of the streets below and terrorise whatever poor cartel member stumbled onto their path.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the intrusion made by two lamias, Valeria and her men sat around an ornate dining table which almost stretched the length of the room. El Sin Nombre currently had a map in front of her showing all the details of the new Vaquero base. Decisive eyes narrowed as she clicked her pen, digesting what her lieutenants had just informed her of. 

Those British boys were back and had taken to squatting in the new Vaquero base. 

With those wanted men on her doorstep, Valeria knew that someone was going to be crawling to her for her services. Though El Sin Nombre was her official title, the woman wouldn’t have been surprised if someone out there had taken to calling her the ‘Middleman’. It was who she was half the time, the guy who meets you halfway down the line, the steppingstone between Point A and Point B. She was the one who set things in motion. Without Valeria, missiles don’t get moved and people don’t get paid. She was a lifeline to all: for criminals and governments. 

Valeria leaned back in her throne, exhaling. 

“I want to know if they’re planning on moving any time soon. Once they move, we no longer can do business with anyone who wants them, understood?”

“I’ll let the informant know to keep us posted, boss.”

“Good.” She nodded, “I also want to know if Shepherd has-”

Valeria paused and looked up to the ceiling, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was going to happen. Something wrong was going to happen.

A split second later and she was buried in shadow. 

“What the-”

“Is it the Special Forces?”

“Boss, what do we do?”

She swallowed hard. 

Shit. 

The druglord ran a hand through her hair, looking about for any signs of movement amidst the murk. Nothing. 

As for the sounds? Very little which stood out to her, everything layering into one, aggravating cacophony of confusion.  

“Get someone to check the power!” She demanded, slapping the shoulder of one of the lieutenants.  

He nodded and yelled for a sicario to do their job. 

Quiet footsteps walked along the hallway, his path lit by torch light as he peered down the length of his gun, pointing it squarely ahead of him. The sicario kept his breaths steady, knowing he had enough ammo to put down whoever the offenders were. 

Cowards. 

They wouldn’t even show their faces. 

 He got to the staircase and turned back, staring at its side. 

The door to the cupboard under the stairs had… vanished. Under the black balaclava, brows furrowed. The sicario could have sworn the door to the fuse box was right here. He squinted a little, hoping that perhaps he’d be able to spot the outline marking its presence once his eyes adjusted to the darkness.  

However, it was gone!

Valeria gritted her teeth. 

“This isn’t Special Forces…” She muttered under her breath. 

Then, turning to her closest and most useful underlings, she yelled in Spanish, “Alvaro! Lucas! Elian! Stay close to me!”

They bunched up together, guns loaded and ready. All she needed now was the first sign of action, then she’d know which direction to run in. 

 “Boys, whatever you do… don’t shoot them unless absolutely necessary.”

 “What?”

 “Just do as I say!”

The men nodded. She sounded like she knew what she was doing, like she had been in this situation before. Experience bore knowledge, and they weren’t looking to question her any time soon. Especially after Diego. After he decided to take matters into his own hands and expose Sin Nombre to the Vaqueros and their gringo friends… Well, the Las Almas Cartel finally got its first taste of near-death. Valeria never wanted that to happen ever again. 

Through the dark, they saw the shape of the sicario return. 

“Ma’am! I can’t find the fuse box!”

“What?” She scoffed, “What do you mean?”

“I could’ve sworn it was the door under the stairs but when I looked…”

“When you looked?”

“Nothing.”

I knew my senses wouldn’t fail me.

She smiled resignedly as she turned back to her lieutenants. It was them, wasn’t it? And they had brought their kid-soldiers with them.

“We do not separate. Understood? We need to be touching at all times.”

Once more, they nodded. 

The last thing Valeria wanted was someone sneaking up on her, let alone a little girl wielding a knife that was clearly made for an adult soldier. Weirdly enough, a mild wave of nostalgia overtook Valeria for a second. She remembered being that little girl, holding the knife of her overseer, wielding it like she knew how to use it. Whoever tripped the power, they should run whilst they still had time. 

A creak sounded overhead. Valeria kept deathly quiet, bringing a hand to her face to dampen her breaths. She advised her men to do the same. Thump. Thump. Thump. Footsteps echoed above. 

Any minute now. Any minute now. 

BANG!

“AHHHHHH!”

Gunshots and screams ensued and the signature drumbeat of someone tumbling down the stairs told Valeria that now it was time to run. 

“7223, this is 72. Sin Nombre is currently holed up in the main dining room on the ground floor. I got three guys here that 23 and I are trying to… ‘convince’ that the whole Mexican army have broken down the door.”

Graves grinned under his mask; the sounds of men howling numbers, which were constantly increasing in order of magnitude, signified that those girls were doing their job and doing it well.

“Roger that. 7629 and 7152 are makin’ some noise to try and disperse the rest of the crowd. Do your best to send her up to me.”

“Where are you?”

“Second floor. Entered via an open window in the study. 7418’s coming to you.”

“Copy.”

“Remember, this goes for you and 23, we want to make as much noise as possible, so don’t try and start any fights. Just clear the way for Sin Nombre. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The two girls kept posted by the cupboard under the stairs, making sure that every single person who walked past it saw nothing but plain wood and saw that the halls were teeming with soldiers. 23 felt the sound in her chest as someone behind them was thrown down, slamming into the bottom step before landing onto the floor, too broken to even think about getting up. Jogging down the stairs, gun in hand was 7418 as expected. He casually flicked a loc over his shoulder as he hunted around for the girls. 

Sniffing the air, he managed to catch a whiff of something familiar. He turned to face their direction.

Just to make sure, he pressed down on his radio. 

“7418, here. Am I looking at 72 and 23 right now? Are you two standing by the cupboard under the stairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, great. Get out of your shrouds and follow me.”

“Roger.”

He watched the two girls fade back into existence a few feet across from him, the dark hiding their shapes from everyone but him. If 7418 didn’t have his mask on, his eyeshine would be breaking through the dark like two ghostly peepers. 

They made their way to the dining room, hoping Valeria would be there, just as how they had left her. Except, she wasn’t. It wasn’t much of an issue, however, seeing as a door had been left to swing wide open, leading to a study connecting the dining room to yet another hallway. They could hear her distant calls for order as she watched the entire house unravel all around her. 

7418 grinned under his mask. This was going to be fun. 

As ‘heel-snapper’, it was his job to get the prey into 7223’s clutches and that was what he was going to do. He ran into the dining room, girls following closely behind, watching his six. A low growl rumbled from deep within his chest as he pointed his gun around, jumping to aim at any slight sign of movement. 

He caught sight of a man sat in the corner, cowering. 

7418 lowered his weapon, squatting down before the hunched figure.

“Where is Sin Nombre?” He asked in his native Spanish.

The quivering mess shakily pointed to the door leading out of the dining area into yet another hallway, which, no doubt, led back to the main staircase. 

“Thank you.”

With that, he got up and let the guy be.

It was chaos in this mansion: people were screaming, throwing things at walls, hoping to hit non-existent soldiers, while others lay curled up on the floor, muttering nonsense, brains reduced to a frothing, frantic mess under the influence of those two potent lamias.

Valeria pushed sicarios out the way, chucking them down the stairs as she clambered haphazardly up to the first floor. She didn’t dare look back, knowing already that someone was hot on her tail. It was an Arcadian Son, she could sense it, an aura of something drawing nearer and nearer, the stench of iron filling her nose. As the woman made it to the top of the staircase, she readied herself to take a right and dash into the nearest room she could find, hoping to perhaps use an open window or balcony exit to escape. However, that plan was thwarted as a sicario burst from her target room, tripping and landing on the floor with a thud. As he tried to scramble back onto his feet, a Son appeared from the dark depths of that boudoir, the lower front of his mask lifted to reveal a mouth coated in saliva.

They were such beasts.

Valeria shuddered, encouraging her remaining lieutenants to keep close to her and not to look at what would become of that poor sicario.

Not that they needed to look, the sounds of bones crunching and gurgling screams said it all.

The next floor would have to do, she couldn’t afford to waste time looking for another room on this floor.

Her pursuer was still after her and she caught a glimpse of him as she rounded the corner to grab hold of the next set of bannisters. As she saw him, her heart picked up the pace, recognising those reddish brown locs.

Jaime.

He watched her eyes soften.

Why bother? 7418 found this laughable, you are the reason I’m here.

His clawed gloves dug into the railing’s wooden surface as he drew himself up the staircase.

Valeria’s heart was in her mouth, watching the faceless demon draw nearer and nearer, throwing formidable cartel members out of the way like they were nothing but inconvenient obstacles. She was now down to two lieutenants, with Lucas meeting his premature end via a bullet through the eye socket, going straight through his brain. 

“7418 here. Target is heading up to the second floor via the main staircase.”

“Copy. Herd her up to the second floor. I’m moving into the master bedroom now. Found a few guys here that aren’t backing down.”

“Roger. I’m gonna have the girls throw a canister down to clear more of the way, make sure your mask’s filter is on.”

“Copy that.”

7418 gestured for 72 to throw another burning canister onto the ground and smoke out the rest of the floor as they reached the top of the staircase. She did so, chucking yet another metal container into the air, watching it slam to the ground and begin hissing. Another blanket of white smoke had been left in their wake, causing those who hadn’t leapt out of windows to start choking, gasping for air as their eyes teared up. 

23 made sure to keep any rasping victims of the crowd control continuously subdued, gesturing to 72 to continue to be backup for 7418 as she split from the trio. 23 had made the staircase her domain now, creeping over to each and every convulsing body, quickly putting them into a deep slumber with the cold kiss of her mind.

Only the lights from the city outside and the swarming flashlights of bewildered patrons guided her way, pupils constantly switching from being blown out to constricting. Her eyes ached, but not as much as her legs. Her thighs burned, adrenaline fuelling her to keep going as she clawed her way up the stairs to the second floor, hoping to find a quick exit onto the rooftop and maybe then she could disappear into the city. Remnants of the gas from below scratched at the back of her throat, ragged breaths rasping a little. 

“7418, I’m back in the study.”

“Understood. Making my way there now.”

Valeria stopped at the crossroads at the top of the staircase, she could see that the study had an open window, which swung back and forth in the breeze. 

However, there was also the master bedroom and its balcony. 

Decisions. Decisions. 

She looked behind and saw 7418 was still there. 

In the heat of the moment, she did something which she would soon realise was a grave mistake. Valeria grabbed one of her lieutenants and pushed him towards the door to the master bedroom, hoping the sudden movement would distract the Foundation dog long enough for her and whoever was left behind to make an escape.

As expected, though he was playing along, she watched 7418 dive after him, grabbing the lieutenant before he could scramble away. 

She didn’t care to look at what would become of him, dashing into the study and slamming the door behind her, locking it. 

Panting, she took a moment to collect herself and her breaths. 

“Boss! What the fuck?!”

“It was the only way, Alvaro! Now, stay close. Please.”

Shakily, he nodded as Valeria ran to the other side of the room to close the other door, locking it.

She could see the gas starting to seep through from underneath and promptly pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth, gesturing for Alvaro to do the same. Both of them, with their faces covered, rummaged round the study for weapons. With an adrenaline-filled, giddy giggle, Alvaro located a handgun. 

“Great! Okay, let’s-”

Valeria was interrupted as the door to the study, the one she had just locked, was ripped cleanly off its hinges. 

“Hey.”

She drew in a breath, edging towards the window, only for the masked soldier to fire at it, causing her to reel back with a yelp. 

“Don’t.” He spoke with a southern accent, though it was slightly distorted, presumably by the mask’s modulator, “No one needs to get hurt here.”

She scoffed. 

“Sin Nombre, you’re coming with us.”

“Whatever it is the Foundation wants this time… Tell them I refuse.” Valeria did her best to keep her head high.

“You and I both know they won’t be taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

She watched him take a step closer… and she took a step back. Valeria knew she recognised that voice, or at least this one sounded familiar to someone she had met fairly recently. Who was it? Her panicked mind couldn’t quite place him…

“Stand down and come with us.”

Valeria couldn’t. She couldn’t this time. She was sick and tired of these fuckers and their featureless, ghoulish faces.

“I’m giving you a chance here, girl.” Graves’ patronising call for civility made her blood boil.

Whilst Valeria still had some patience left to actually decide if it would be foolish to see if she had enough adrenaline and fear left in her to make a run for it, her remaining lieutenant’s patience had long since run dry. He looked between the two of them, before raising his gun and…

“ALVARO! DON’T-”

BANG!

Graves recoiled, the sound of something shattering like glass filling the room as he clutched his mask. 

“Canister broken. Alert. Canister broken.” An automated voice called out from within his helmet.

He looked down to see, along with the shards of broken canister, red liquid coating his gloved palm, dripping from it. 

“Alert. Canister broken. Alert-”

Valeria looked to her lieutenant, fuming. 

“Idiot! What have you done?!”

“What are you talking about? He was going to-”

Their voices faded into white noise as Graves’ head began to pound. A pain pulsed, seemingly from the back of his skull, moving across to fester behind his eyes. He groaned, holding his head in his hands as the pain only increased in intensity. 

Valeria watched with wide eyes as he staggered forward, red fumes spewing from the broken canister. 

This was her opportunity, she made her way to climb out the window, only for those very fumes to suddenly lunge at her, her throat seizing up. Valeria clawed at her neck, coughing, lowering herself from her perch on the windowsill. 

He could hear his heartbeat drum away in his ears. Something inside him burned.

“Alert. Alert. Alert.” The automated voice drawled on, “Please, remove your canisters.”

With the coordination of a drunk, Graves’ arm sloppily moved to his lower half of his face and twisted. The shattered canister was removed, along with the intact one, both slipping out of his grip and landing on the mahogany floor.

Despite this sudden setback, the mission was still on for Phillip, and he staggered forward, reaching out for Valeria.

Wheezing with the noxious gases of both the crowd control seeping in from outside and whatever was leaking from the soldier’s canisters, Valeria tottered back, trying to make out some clarity through her blurred vision.

Graves’ legs suddenly gave way for a brief second and he found himself slipping, grabbing hold of the writing desk which stood between him and his quarry, using it for support.

 “Removing muzzle.” The helmet announced.

The mechanism hissed and Valeria and her lieutenant watched the lower half of his mask segment. Two triangular pieces pushed forward before moving up, revealing a mouth hung slightly open. Strings of saliva dripped from his lips as he took in deep breaths, sounding like he was struggling to breathe himself. She knew what was happening, she knew, and she needed to act before he did.

Throw and run. Throw and run.

Valeria pushed Alvaro towards the Arcadian Son, watching him catch the man, holding him tightly by the shoulders. Alvaro whimpered, looking at him with a face of confusion and dread. The man squirmed a little, fighting against Phillip’s grip, only for it to tighten.

Graves needed those canisters back… or at least a suitable replacement. The smell. The smell! 

Blood… he needed blood.

His fingers dug into the lieutenant’s upper arms. A certain uneasiness had made itself known. It was like Phillip was falling asleep, and yet, his body was very much awake and working. Conscious thought was beginning to fade. The room was spinning around him. There was nausea mixed with this insatiable need. 

The muscles in his jaw tensed, teeth grinding against each other. 

Hungry… the sensation articulated, Hungry…

Time had come to a standstill. It was just Phillip and the man caught in his claw-like grasp. 

Those canisters… what they had… he needed that. He needed that now!

Hungry… Hungry… Hungry… HU-

CRACK! SNAP! SQUELCH!

Alvaro let out an unholy cry as the monster unhinged its jaw and sunk its teeth into his neck. Valeria’s eyes widened in horror, the bile rising in her throat as she beheld the thing reel its head back, a chunk of Alvaro in its mouth, before spitting out the piece of flesh and diving in for seconds. Alvaro tried to lean back, to avoid the jaws, but its teeth had a sure grip on him, and he was swiftly pulled back to Phillip’s armoured chest.

Again, another screech.

Wet red coated the soldier’s lips as its tongue ran over its teeth, licking up the fruits of its hunt. 

The lieutenant was dead now, hanging limp in the animal’s jaw as it shoved him onto the floor, continuing its feast. 

She was paralysed, the gases slowly clouding her thoughts as she watched it shake its head side to side, grabbing hold on some of the more… resistive tissue. Arteries, tendons, muscles, all were either chewed on or cast aside. 

What was before her was an animal, wearing the skin of a man, and wearing it poorly. She felt her legs give way and Valeria fell to the ground. 

The noise of her fall made the creature stop. It looked up at her. Even though she couldn’t see its eyes thanks to the mask still covering most of the soldier’s face, she knew it was staring at her. It snarled, baring its fanged teeth. She was paralysed, fixed in place, her vision blurring as she watched it rise from the ground and approach her frozen body. She wanted to run, wanted to scream but she was too weak now.

Valeria didn’t know what stung more: her helplessness or her still-burning, fervent desire to just run.

The last thing she saw was the shape of the Arcadian Son squatting down before her, hand reaching out to her face. 

She had succumbed to the fumes of the open blood canister. 

***

You were positively famished. Gaz watched you pile your tray with as much food as you could before you came to your senses and realised any more would be deemed as… excessive. Food was one of the finest pleasures in life and you were not passing up on this opportunity for a hot meal- that was for sure!

Coming back from the kitchens and into the mess hall was a feast for the senses. The sounds of chatter and clinking cutlery, the visuals of many crowded around long tables, hunched over stools, the smells of warm meals and the odd beverage. You couldn’t help but feel a little overwhelmed, taking it all in as Gaz led you to the table 141 were sat at.

Gaz placed himself next to Price, nudging him as the man turned from looking at Laswell’s laptop to greet the sergeant.

Your heart fluttered a little as you searched for somewhere to sit.

Laswell was sandwiched between Price and Soap.

Rudy’s empty space had just been snagged by his friend, who you heard Rudy address as ‘Alejandro’.

That only left the empty stool next to Ghost.

Ah.

This was fine! No biggie! You’d just set your tray down and begin…

As you made to sit, you saw the man look over to you from the corners of his eyes.

You swallowed hard, sheepishly sitting next to him, trying not to combust under that powerful gaze. It was like his eyes were irradiated; there was just something about them, the way he appeared both uncaring and almost drowsy and yet still very much aware of his surroundings. He was like a sleeping lion.

“Mind if I sit here?” You did your best to be as friendly as possible, hoping to thaw out his slightly… frosty demeanour.

“Well, you’re already sat.” He gestured to you with his cup.

Right, yeah… stupid question.

You chuckled, putting your tray down.

That was when Laswell looked up from her screen.

“Oh?” She remarked, “Hungry, aren’t we?”

You rolled your eyes.

“No! No!” Laswell raised her hands, “It’s good! You should eat up. I’m sure you haven’t had a good meal in a while.”

She smiled encouragingly and you exhaled through your nose… and then began to eat. Although you were incredibly hungry, you still wanted to show you had good table manners and so elected to not inhale everything on your tray. As you ate, you could feel Ghost’s eyes were still on you.

Just get it over with, you supposed.

“Look,” your stool creaked a little as you turned to face him, “I’m… sorry about this morning. I should have knocked, honestly, it was a stupid-”

“No.” He shook his head, “I’m sorry. I should have locked the door.”

Huh? You thought you were the one saying sorry here… Great, now you felt obliged to really say sorry.

You had expected him to just go ‘okay’ or huff or whatever… you thought it would end there.

However, his apology had thrown a spanner in the works.

“No…” You sighed, “I’m sorry. I came in. I saw your arse. My fault.”

Ghost’s eyes narrowed a little. That didn’t sound as apologetic as the previous one. Now, it just sounded like you were trying to assert something here.

“Y/N. It’s fine. I should have locked the door and-”

“And I should have not been so absent-minded. I’m sorry.”

Okay, what is going on here?

He leaned back a little, peering at you quizzically.

“Are you really apologising or are you just trying to prolong this for some reason?”

“No! I’m saying I’m sorry.” You pointed to yourself, looking perplexed by his response.

“Yeah and?”

“And what?”

“Well,” Ghost scratched the back of his neck, “It feels like you’re not saying sorry.”

“But I am. I feel bad about what happened.”

“Yeah, I do too.” He chuckled, “You’re already probably traumatised enough and then you had to see that in the early hours of the morning.”

“Your tan line was pretty stark.” You mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Ghost looked like he was about to say something probably a bit too harsh. Hence, he stopped and re-evaluated.

“Y/N.” He began, “What… Okay, what do you expect to get out of this conversation?”

You were very straightforward with your answer.

“I say sorry and I, uh, expected that you would kinda accept it.”

“Yeah.”

“Except that didn’t happen.” You thought out loud, “You ended up saying sorry.”

He nodded.

“And now I’m thinking that I need to emphasise that I’m sorry, so you get the message that I’m sorry because I am sorry, and I didn’t mean to see you naked and-”

“WHAT?” Soap blurted out from across you two.

Now, the entire table was looking at you and Ghost.

Gaz’s jaw was on the floor. Price had paused mid-bite, his spoonful of porridge slopping back into his bowl. Both of Rudy’s eyebrows were raised, whilst Alejandro looked over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off of the two of you as he brought a cereal bar to his mouth. Laswell had a face of both horror and confusion.

“There’s context here, I promise.” You tried to explain, looking back at Ghost to help you out.

“Shower.” He replied.

“I think we need some elaborating there, bud.”

Soap nodded, looking at the two of you with wide eyes and a grimace… which was slowly evolving into a mischievous grin.

“I was in the shower.” The lieutenant explained.

“And were you also in the shower, Y/N?” Someone asked, albeit dreading the possible answer.

“No. I came in and accidentally stumbled upon him.”

Then, you shuddered.

“There was not much left to the imagination.” You said aloud, not realising it was to the whole group.

“Y/N!” Ghost growled.

Only for Soap to burst out laughing, slapping his knee as Price did his best to contain himself. Gaz doubled over, cackling as Rudy just shook his head, sighing. Alejandro covered his mouth with his free hand. Meanwhile, Laswell was doing her best not to join in with the raucous laughter, twisting her face into all kinds of expressions.

Ghost tried to hide, placing his hand on his forehead. Under that mask, undoubtedly, he was bright red.

You were astounded, coming to the revelation that you had just blurted that out.

Oh gosh!

Biting down on your lip, you turned to Ghost.

“I am so-”

“Sorry?” He finished your sentence for you, “You better be, Y/N.”

You had such a large grimace on your face, your insides collapsing in on themselves as your brain wracked itself for a possible solution to this mess.

“They’ve only been here, what, two days? And they managed to see Ghost… Ghost! Of all people! Ghost naked?!” Alejandro shook his head, “Amazing! I have to commend you, friend!”

Oh, how you wanted to just keel over and die, once more!

“Well, I… uh…” You scratched your cheek, “I… didn’t mean to-”

“Honestly, Y/N,” Soap managed to get out between fits of laughter, “You’ve done us all proud. I know you’re not officially part of the team, but you have made 141 history!”

He held his hand out.

You looked to Ghost, who looked to be shrinking further and further away from everyone.

“Soap, they are not going to shake your hand over seeing my bare arse.” The lieutenant sighed.

The sergeant blew a raspberry at him and twitched his fingers, beckoning for you.

“Come on!”

You smiled, politely declining… for Ghost’s sake.

“I swear,” Price couldn’t help but let out a snicker, “Laswell brings in the most bizarrely impactful people I ever meet.”

Kate looked over to him, rolling her eyes.

“I often find highly skilled people are often some of the most… eccentric.”

“Y/N’s skilled?” Soap studied you, curiosity alight in his eyes.

“Oh please!” Laswell returned her gaze to her laptop, dragging something with her mouse, “Don’t even bother sparring with them.”

Soap had other plans, however. He took Kate’s words as a challenge and a hunger to test your mettle was set aflame in him.

“Alejandro and I were sparring before lunch. Maybe after we finish up, you and I could hit the mat?”

“Uh…” Your eyes fell to Laswell, who looked over the edge of her laptop screen, shaking her head.

Bad idea, Y/N. Don’t do it!

“As much as I’d love to, Soap… I think I’ll have to-”

“I got a better idea.” Gaz interrupted, “Y/N and Ghost.”

‘Ooohs’ and ‘aaaahs’ circulated round the table, people nodding their heads in agreement.

Laswell was now boring holes into your skull, shaking her head so vigorously that you thought it might come clean off.

Soap looked to the masked lieutenant.

“What do you say, sir?”

Ghost leaned back in his seat, pausing to think.

Please say ‘no’. Please say ‘no’. Say ‘no’ so then I don’t have to say ‘no’.

“Fuck it.” He sighed, resting his forearms on the table as he brought himself forward, “You placing a bet?”

“Two-hundred-and-twenty-five pesos.” Soap slammed his fist down on the table.

“What is that?” Price stroked his moustache, “Ten quid?”

“Yep.”

“You could buy a lot of bars from the vending machine with that.” Gaz muttered under his breath.

“What say you, Y/N?” Price retrieved his hat from under the table, placing it one his head, “Do you think you could take on the Ghost?”

You looked to Ghost, examining him.

He was a big fella, and you were pretty sure he could snap you in half like a pencil if he wanted to. Yeah, if you were just your average joe, you’d be fucked. However, lucky for you, you weren’t your run-of-the-mill soldier. Maybe you could stand a chance? Or at least, hold your own just a bit longer than the average person?

As you were about to open your mouth, Laswell suddenly spoke up.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea having Y/N fight. I mean,” she seemed to have an unusually nervous tone, “they’ve probably been through a lot already. It wouldn’t be fair.”

The soldiers all turned to face you.

Sure, you were scarred for life but at the same time, you had this really crippling disease called ‘a sense of pride’. As the men had been discussing who would win and once that wager was announced… you sort of… you were getting the feeling… Look, you wanted to win.

Maybe a bit of sparring could help too. The yoga had been could for some much-needed contemplation, but you were undeniably buzzing with energy that needed an appropriate outlet. All that anxiety, all that fear, it needed somewhere to go other than fester inside you.

After all, you were in control now. You could do as you pleased.

In spite of Laswell’s clear discouragement, you decided to take matters into your own hands.

“You’re on.” You said to Ghost.

He let out a ‘hmph’ and picked up his empty tray.

“Meet me in the garage when you’re ready.”

You nodded.

“I look forward to it.”

As you followed Soap to the garage, Laswell grabbed your arm.

“Y/N!” She sounded a little breathless, like she had ran after you, “This is a bad idea. You can’t do this.”

“Why not? I… I want to, Kate.”

“You could seriously hurt him, kid.”

You scoffed.

“Please! Hurt him? The man is built like a goddamn fridge. I think I should be more worried about me.”

Laswell shook her head.

“They’re not Sons. They aren’t gonna hit you as hard you think they will, you can’t counter like you usually would.”

“I’ll be careful, Kate. I promise.”

“You have to be, Y/N. Please.”

You nodded; your face sincere.

Laswell let out a shaky sigh and continued down the corridor to the garage with the rest of the group.

Alejandro pushed the door open to the garage, the sound of the radio filling your ears as you entered.

He whistled to catch his Vaqueros’ attention.

“¡Despeja el área para el combate!”

They nodded and moved their boxes and makeshift workbenches away from the far end of the room. Then, those same men gathered around, forming a small horseshoe which 141 gladly made themselves additions to, sitting on rucksacks or simply on the floor.

Alejandro turned to the group.

“We are staking two-hundred-and-twenty-five on this! Place your bets on either Y/N… or Ghost.”

People took out their money, putting it either Price’s hat to wager on Ghost, or Gaz’s cap to bet on you.

As the hats were brought to Alejandro to put in his wager, he noticed Gaz’s cap was significantly lighter than Price’s hat, which drooped a little under the heavier weight.

Poor kid… he thought to himself.

He did feel bad not a lot of people had faith in you, but with that he had seen and heard about Ghost, regrettably, Alejandro had to put down his money on the lieutenant.

The overhanging lights flickered a little as Laswell watched with bated breath, chewing on the skin of her index finger as she watched you limber up.

“Come on, Lt!” Soap yelled.

You watched Ghost shed the last of his overlayers, so now he was in merely the standard olive-green shirt and his camo trousers.

Yep, you could feel your nerves getting to you a little.

He was built to kill with strong arms, strong legs and well, a strong torso. That man could probably stay in a plank for a century.

You swallowed hard, letting out a sharp exhale, and raised your arms into a guard.

Alejandro stood between you two, his arm dividing your sides of the imaginary ring.

“Ready…”

Come on.

“Three…”

I can do this!

“Two…”

If I can fight off Arcadian Sons, I can fight off this guy.

“One…”

Oh, he looks really scary though!

“Go!”

To Ghost’s surprise, you charged first, striking upwards, hoping to punch straight through his skull. He dodged with minimal effort, hoping to make for a quick jab to your stomach only to then be met with a swift uppercut.

“Ouch!” Soap winched, watching his lieutenant stagger back in surprise, clutching the lower half of his face.

The room had fallen into silence, and you looked around, wondering why.

That’s when you heard laughter.

You turned to face Ghost.

“Nice one.” He said before he swung at you.

You yelped, blocking it, before coming in with a counterstrike.

He blocked with his forearms, easily, and you punched, hitting him hard. He staggered back a little but didn’t drop his guard. Hoping to catch him where he wasn’t protecting himself, you aimed and swung at Ghost once more. However, he was as quick as you, despite what you had initially thought, and swiftly brought one of his arms around both of yours, trapping you in the crook of his elbow.

You squirmed, trying to fight his grip but he was stronger than you.

He spun you around, looking down at you with those piercing brown eyes. You snarled in reply, continuing to wriggle about.

Soap couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched the two of you.

“They look absolutely tiny compared to him.” He commented to Gaz.

“Size isn’t everything.” Was Gaz’s reply.

Ghost could feel himself starting to get a little cocky as you desperately tried to writhe out of his grip. He was just too strong, fixing you in place. He could see there was fire in your eyes, but it was pretty much useless, you were stuck to him like glue.

Again, he spun you around, almost making a display of this.

You groaned, pushing against him with all you could, leaning back as far as your body let you.

“Alejandro,” Ghost hollered, “Come on!”

He gestured to you struggling.

“This is hardly a fair fight!”

Alejandro looked to the crowd, wondering if he should call it quits.

You gritted your teeth and suddenly, like it was nothing, you broke free from him. Then, it was a flurry of fury. You punched him in the face, kneed him in the gut, grabbed him and-

The whole room gasped as you picked up a man, clearly much heavier than you, and threw him to the floor, over your shoulder.

Ghost rolled out the way as your boot landed on the ground, a small quake shaking in his chest from the impact. Being extra careful now, he tried to get behind you.

Now, it was his turn to let the bodies hit the floor.

As you were about to turn and strike upwards, he struck below, grabbing your legs. He lifted you up and dropped you. You fell face-first onto the ground, the wind getting knocked out of you.

Just about recovering, you made to get up. That was when Ghost hit your back. Hard.

“I call that move ‘the bellyflop’.” Soap remarked, eliciting a small chuckle from Price.

Gaz winced, feeling the pain in your voice as you let out a loud groan.

Laswell felt as though something was caught in her chest. This was going too far for her; she was afraid something was going to happen. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

“Okay, I think we’re good.” Kate made to get up, “Alejandro, can we call this off?”

“Come on, Laswell! Give Y/N a chance. We’ve not even been here five minutes.”

She shook her head.

You crawled on your belly, desperately trying to get away from him. You could see Ghost’s shadow approaching.

Panic. Panic. Panic. PANIC!

He was after you. After your blood.

Your breaths grew shallow, and you could feel the adrenaline course through you.

Got. To. Get. Up. Got. To Get. Away.

The shadow of a hand was raised, coming for you.

Your eyes widened.

Laswell, chuckled, though there was no humour behind it.

“No. I think we’ve seen-”

Ghost let out a bloodcurdling scream as you raised yourself and donkey-kicked him… Right in the crotch.

Everyone gasped.

Soap couldn’t even look.

Price felt his soul leave his body.

You turned around and got up onto your feet, keeping your guard up.

Ghost had bent over, hissing in pain.

You were back in the room.

Like you had woken up from a dream, clarity dawned on you, and you realised who you were fleeing from.

What had just happened?

You were… Oh…

You were back in the room.

“Sorry,” you peered at him through your raised arms, “that was a strong kick to your gut.”

“You didn’t… kick… my…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence, a wave of nausea getting to him.

“Medic!” Gaz yelled, running out of the room, “I’m getting a medic!”

His footsteps echoed down the corridor.

You put a hand over your mouth, connecting the dots, and ran to Ghost’s side.

“Holy shit! Holy shit!” Your heartrate had skyrocketed, hands clammy as you hover them over him.

Soap got up and immediately coming to Ghost as soon as he saw the guy was in pain for real.

“What have I done?!” You whimpered, “Shit!”

“You didn’t use all your strength, did you?” Laswell asked.

You shook your head.

“No! No! I’m not stupid. Why would I-”

“I feel like I’m gonna vomit.” Ghost rasped.

“Fucking hell!” Price got up from his seat, “I’m gonna go see if Gaz has got a hold of someone. Keep by his side and don’t make this worse.”

“Let’s lie him on his back.” Laswell instructed.

You all did so, easing Ghost onto the ground. You were properly freaking out, praying you hadn’t damaged anything permanently.

Kate looked so disappointed, which felt worse to you for some reason. You’d rather she’d just jumped down your throat instead of this. This felt heavy. This felt constricting. The very air you were breathing was weighted with what you had just done.

“Hold my hand, sir.” Soap pleaded.

“No… Johnny, I… I don’t need to hold your hand.” Ghost slapped his hand away with a grumble.

“I am so sorry!” You squeaked out.

“You… You… Oh God… Fuck me, Y/N.”

Ghost lay his head on the floor, trying to breathe out the waves of sharp agony and nausea. The room was beginning to spin, and it was so painful down there that Ghost couldn’t even tell what kind of pain he was in. From hot to cold, to burning, to feeling like someone had stabbed him right up there… Oh God… he was seeing stars!

A poor medic came rushing through the crowd, looking beyond fed up.

“You stupid, stupid men!” She scolded you all, “What happened to him?”

“Y/N kicked him in the balls.”

“Oh sweet Jesus.”  She pinched the bridge of her nose.

Then, the medic sighed, “Ghost, can you stand?”

“No…”

“Okay,” she turned to face all of you, “could you give this man some privacy, please?”

They all immediately got up and left.

“I can’t believe this.” She muttered under her breath as she got out her first aid kit.

As you were about to go and contemplate how to avoid Ghost and his inevitable wrath, Soap tapped your shoulder.

“Hey, Y/N. We can wait in the corridor if you like. I’m sure he’ll be fine but, you know, I want to make sure and uh… I don’t exactly want to be waiting on my own.”

[miraculousstories]

List of my fav mlb fanfics no one asked for:

(this is a very long list btw, and all links are to ao3. I try to include as many warnings as possible, but I may forget some so please read the tags before reading the fic.)

Baby Boom by ShawnaCanon

It’s about an akuma that causes everyone in Paris to… do the deed… (not graphic) and every woman to get pregnant. It somehow evolves into a timetravel fic-

400,000 words- def recommend for readers who are okay with vague references to sex.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034028/chapters/55083382

Dearly Despised (I Love You) by snacc-noir

Lovely fic. A nice take on the adrienette enemies to lovers trope, and it adds in some fake dating. Cn and Lb start out as (more or less) lovers in the beginning, and it evolves from there. It’s not a finished fic, but still, if you’re willing to wait then read.

73,000 words so far (I’ll update as time goes on) and 33 chapters- totally clean fic, I recommend if you love enemies to lovers trope.

(Last update on the fic was 10/20/2023)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28711611/chapters/70393941

Turn Loose the Mermaids by bookskitten

WONDERFUL. That is all I have to say about this. One of my personal favorites for sure- it’s a mermaid au where Marinette is a siren hellbent on dragging the captain of a ship (who just so happens to be Adrien- aka Captain Noir)down to the depths of the ocean… but you know it won’t end that simply.

64,000 words- WARNING- GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF SEX. I do not recommend for anyone not comfortable with that sort of thing. But if you are, go read! I promise it’ll be worth your time.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8238214/chapters/18879793

Cut My Life into Pieces, This is My Last Resort by Silver_fox_fyre

This was… an interesting one to say the least. In this, Marinette is at the end of the rope- struggling with being both Marinette and Ladybug. So, of course the logical decision would be to fake her own death. Well, Marinette’s death, that is. Be warned, some of the excuses are kind of a long shot (for instance, she fakes her own death by using the mouse miraculous- only she doesn’t actually have the costume, she just looks normal.)

114,000 words- completely clean- characters do fall asleep on each other like…once, but nothing happens. Some passionate kisses, but that’s all. Lots of violence though, and blood and gore are a given. Character death is included as well. I recommend for braver readers.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44353420/chapters/111546223

In Case You Don’t Know Me Tomorrow by thelibraryloser

This one is… an interesting one at best, a strange one at worst. The idea itself is that this is a universe where you can pay to have your memories erased. (No plot spoilers there) everyone is aged up in this, maybe around 20, 25. Non-magical universe as well.

56,000 words- a good fic, I’ll say, but it is a bit weird and I got bored of it at times. But stick around to the end and you’ll be rewarded, I promise. Clean as well, don’t worry.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41522079/chapters/104136594

Miraculous Magic: First Year by spetember

*gasp* Is this- it is! The mlb/Harry Potter crossover you’ve all been waiting for!! Marinette and Adrien are 11 year olds who have just received their Hogwarts acceptance letters. They receive magical artifacts- and are told by Headmaster Fu that they must strive to defeat the Dark Lord Hawkmoth. They are 11, so while Mari does develop a crush for Adrien near the end of the fic, there isn’t much love. But honestly? I didn’t miss it. There’s so much action- I loved it. I’m thinking of writing spin-off fics about the other years, so if I do I’ll post the link in the reblogs.

58,000 words- wonderful. Simply wonderful. Mild violence, but no worse than the actual Harry Potter. Nothing related to love, as I mentioned. They are 11 after all. If you are in both the hp and mlb fandoms, I def recommend.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11558436/chapters/25960689

Longest Night by P_Artsypants

Whump fic. Must I go on? Jokes aside, this fic is amazing. Marinette and Adrien are captured by some psychopath, and are tortured. I mean really tortured. Like I had to walk away at times it was so much- and this is coming from the person who regularly reads violence and smut. But if you can make it through, it’s a wonderful story. I don’t wanna spoil anything… but they do make it out alive. Well… kinda. I’ll let you read to find out.

210,000 words- Okay, I know I like to joke around a lot, but this time I’m serious. This is a very graphic fic which includes torture, and I mean real torture- not just the stuff you see on TV, but the stuff you see in R- rated horror movies. The fic actually references that the plot is similar to a horror film that actually got banned from almost every country in the world because it was so horrible. (The fic isn’t as bad as the film, but it is kinda horrifying.) Just for reference, here’s some torture tactics they use: Forced piercings, locked in a closet for a month, food loafs (a bunch of leftover food that’s baked with poison that makes you hallucinate) and.. well, there’s blood. I’ll just say that much. PLEASE use caution when reading, I will not say that again. For extremely brave readers only. Oh, and a side not- not completely clean. There is a sex scene at the end, which is skippable but if you are comfortable I would read it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19855210/chapters/47019550

The Strings of Fate by sailortwilightt

OKAY BACK TO THE NICE FICS. This is actually a two-parter, and it’s nail-biting good. It’s a soulmate AU, naturally, where an invisible red string takes you to your soulmate. Please note that this is an older fic written before the more recent seasons, so Emilie, for example, is not dead. This also evolves into an alternate dimension AU, and it has a great plot.

120,000 words- counting both fics. As warnings go, there isn’t much to warn. It’s clean as far as smut goes, and, while there is definitely some graphic violence scenes, nothing too bad. I recommend for the reader who isn’t too bothered by the canon-fanon differences.

https://archiveofourown.org/series/919836

Miraculous Moves Underground by LadyDi1980

Okay, so I’m sure you’ve seen the post about this fic floating around. It’s a dancing au, which features the clashing worlds of ballet and hip-hop. Non-magical, but I didn’t miss it. Wonderful au, really, and I def recommend.

104,000 words- clean fic. No violence (except for a few slaps initiated and recieved by none other than Gabriel Agreste) and no smut. There are some songs and images that don’t work attached to the fox. So be prepared for some disappointment in that department. Also, the music is mostly BTS.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7203476/chapters/16346582

Blanks by DipStick45

For those of you who stayed around until the end, you’re amazing. This is my favorite fox by far, and it’s absolutely incredible. It’s a zombie apocalypse au, but it’s much more sophisticated than the usual zombies one. The actual word zombie isn’t used once in the fic. Oh and by the way, this fic made me cry. I have never cried from any book, tv show, or other fic in my life, but I cried in this one. Why? You’ll just have to find out!! Oh and also, this is only 2 chapters. Apparently they were doing a one-chapter challenge, but ao3 has a word limit for chapters. READ. I WILL PERSONALLY FORCE YOU.

103,000 words- okay so despite what I said- here are the warnings: major character death. I won’t say more for now. Violence. As expected, only times 10. Someone gets beheaded, another gets themselves split in half. The actual zombie bite’s effects are also quite graphic. There IS one smut scene, but it’s not detailed. And Adrien was high anyways. Oh yeah, alcohol use, and… I mean… they do describe the human body in some detail, but it’s not that bad. Chloe is insane, by the way, so there’s that. I think that’s it. If you’re okay with that, then read. I beg of you.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43755576/chapters/110030079

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this very long list of fics! Lemme know what you think of them!

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

20 Author Questions

thanks to @statelysapphicfor the tag!!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

28!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

162,944

3. What fandoms do you write for?

it's that sweet gwendoline chistie brain rot for me :))

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

push me gently (into love) -> (nsfw) -> two chapter Larissa x reader story in which reader is an art teacher at Nevermore. fluffy, cozy, and sweet, featuring easily skippable smut. rom-com vibes.

when the last restraint is gone -> (ongoing) (nsfw) -> an intense victorian romance between Jane Murdstone and her lady's maid, Laura. sort of in the style of Sarah Waters's historical romance novels. heavily influenced by Vita and Virginia's love letters. featuring a lot of sensually read victorian poetry and dirty, delicious smut.

danger level - one (nsfw) -> filthy smut featuring the good ol' sex pollen trope. Phasma x fem!stormtrooper!reader. hot and a bit silly. straightforward and simple porn lol.

particular (nsfw) -> Larissa Weems x (adult) Wednesday Addams, aka the fic that got me cancelled. ongoing, but written. still in the process of posting it. rom-com with dark humour and some more mature themes, but still relatively light. sort of a coming-of-age story.

so very chivalrous (and so completely oblivious) -> Brienne x princess!reader. very fluffy. Brienne is very good with a sword, but a bit oblivious in the matters of love. featuring good ol' lesbian yearning.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try my best to! i feel like i either wanna rant abt my blorbos and my thought process or i want to be polite. someone took the time to write a comment, and i feel like that warrants a thank you!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hmmmmm. perhaps the sad ending option for my ruin tastes so sweet (almost as sweet as your lips) -- it's a choose your own adventure story!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

it would have to be either so very chivalrous (and so completely oblivious) or push me gently (into love) which now that i think about have a lot of kudos and comments and hits, so i guess ppl love happy endings hahah

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i'm the queen of controversy apparently, and i was cancelled! but the fic itself didn't get as much hate as ppl didn't even wanna read it lol, i personally got hate mail. so fics? i suppose not. but there is still time, who knows what else i'll post (i know, and ppl will likely have opinions about it)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i very much do lol. the real hot kind :)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i've written exactly one! larissa x phasma bc. reasons. it's smut. chrome and lipstick

11. Have you ever had a fiction stolen?

not to my knowledge! but ppl have heavily copied my work :)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

not to my knowledge!

13. Have you ever co-writtten a fic before?

tried to, but the person in question sorta ghosted me lol

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

ughhhhh idk man. i guess the one i spent the longest being obsessed with is malora. i have a dark past lol.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i hope to finish them all Eventually lol but idk, we shall see!

16. What are your writing strengths?

characterisation, point blank haha. i have a sense of rhythm that i sometimes put to good use.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

uhhh i tend to be vague abt things i am bored with while i write, and plot driven things aren't my forte. i can get very dash and comma happy lol. sometimes i tend to Fixate on a word or a phrase and i'm like okay gurl let it go lol, you've used this too many times. i am not very meticulous and i hate doing outlines and i feel like Sometimes it Shows. i feel like sometimes you can tell english is not my native language no matter how hard i try.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

speak the language at least somewhat, please. otherwise it's really hard for it to land well. personally, i feel very lukewarm about it

19. First fandom you wrote for?

uhhhhh. i honestly don't remember. supergirl perhaps?? or ouat.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

our little dance and particular :)

tagging: @the-frankenman-writes @dianneking @zephyr-is-tired @alder-saan @notinmyvocab @theflashesoflove

[cateringisalie]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @subdee - thank you!

How many works do you have on ao3? 453

2. What’s your total ao3 word count? 1,617,537

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Final Fantasy VII (and some of its associated spin-offs. Okay, I think I have ultimately written for: Advent Children, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. No Before Crisis, Ever Crisis or any of the books), Bravely Default (and Second), Final Fantasy VIII, Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

After the Wedding (341) – (rated T) – Kya/Lin

This remains somewhat bewildering. Coming as it does as a Tumblr askbox fic and not one I felt I did exceptionally well. I can only attribute this to catching the wave of sapphic output after Legend of Korra’s finale (not that the fandom weren’t already doing that beforehand, but looking at ao3, the demarcation between pre and post finale is startling in what it does to the character and content of the fics (book 4 did admittedly cause an increasing drift, but the change after the finale is dramatic)). I suppose it is a little risqué too…

Healing (320) – (rated T) – Genfic

The culmination of a frenzied writing process and a lot of misgivings of how Legend of Korra tied itself up. In all honesty, a lot of this fic’s popularity is probably slight misdirects of where it (and the two follow-ups) are going - with my own preferences conflicting with @danseru-kun’s in terms of subtext and implication. I am always a fan of alternate universe takes, so this was fun to re-work the series and try and give it more of a sense of an overall plot in a way other than the very make it up as we go feel the series had. As noted a lot, while this was a collaboration, I felt more like the director of photography since the major plotting was all Danseru’s. I had to render it into fic form and added my own flourishes here and there. There are probably a lot of mistakes in this as early on we sped up the chapter releases and it was extremely tough to revise completely in a week’s time-frame.

Return to the Scene of the Crime (226) – (rated G) - Genfic

This is just one of many fics that exist to deal with Zuko going back to Song (the herbalist in book 2) and dealing with his theft of her ostrich-horse. At one stage (not sure if still true) I was told it was the sole instance of Zuko going back as he originally met her and not in his capacity as the Fire Lord. Which just seemed righter to me. Also Iroh is here because Iroh has to be here. I do feel this is weak on re-reads; it feels a lot like I keep checking elements of canon to anchor it more firmly after the series and they feel a little redundant.

Sharing a Bed (211) – (rated M) – Aerti

Borderline smut! Which is not the entire mark of appeal (clearly given the other three fics up there), but the first bit of Aerti smut I wrote. Very much inspired by another fic (diane_b_taylor’s Breath of Firsts (Rated E) – and possibly took far too much from that fic) and also written for a prompt from the fan_flashworks community over on Dreamwidth. Which was ‘trapped’ incidentally (I vaguely remember the other inspiration that kept cropping up for the prompt was The Tunnel by Askerian (Rated E) which…).

Modern Love (200) – (rated E) – Clerith

Just smut. Okay, maybe not purely – there is more here (and a inelegantly edited version lives on fanfiction.net for as long as that site persists). This resulted as part of a conversation relating to dissatisfaction with a whole other fic (the name of which I do not remotely remember). And eventually it lead to a kind of out there question that nonetheless resulted in this: can Cloud and Aeris sleep together during the events of the first disc of the game without derailing canon? The debate turned to yes, but with specific caveats on just how their relationship would work – there are later events to uphold; how Aeris thinks of Cloud has to gel with what happens; how Cloud feels about her has to factor in things like the Highwind scene and all the implications there. The eventual solution was they could be basically sex-friends and take opportunities as they arose. I think this took me like a year to write in the end.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always. Eventually. I like comments and want to encourage more – and it feels like responding (and reasonably fast) should facilitate this. It does not seem to.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

(All fics mentioned T or lower rated – all genfic)

Ahead on Our Way has Sephiroth succeeding in the destruction of the Planet which might count. Metal has a deliberately second-act style conclusion as a setup for Lightning. Wait, its probably Soporific where the Bravely Default cast get addicted to painkillers (this makes… slightly more sense in context)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

On the Way to a Birthday (rated G) – Cloti

Pretty happy I think and one of the only Dirge fics, mostly because somehow Shelke worked for the attempted humour. Another for the pile of Cloti baby fics, though little Charis’s birth is somewhere past the end of the fic. Features cake and Turks and a trip to see an old friend.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

The closest was a comment in Spanish; I think it was a complaint that I had made Tifa have multiple previous partners in Words are Important Too (rated E - see below).

9. Do you write smut?

(all fic rated M or higher)

Modern Love and Sharing a Bed are described above.

Words Are Important Too (Cloti)

My read on Tifa’s mindset in the implied aftermath of the infamous Highwind scene (with desperate justification for why they are back outside as the sun rises and also dealing with the perceived idea of cabins in the Highwind that aren’t depicted literally anywhere in game. It makes sense to have them, just… where would they go?). Its smut but part of why I wrote it was thinking that Cloud and Tifa are at the end of the world and consequences are something to worry about if they live through tomorrow.

Maia Kendall (Aerti)

Owes a lot to a reasonably famous account of a blind-date in the Guardian newspaper, but also took big inspiration from Surprise by Asynca (rated E) (and fusing the two of them together resulted in Aeris and Tifa reviewing sex toys). Coming as part of a sporadically written AU where Aeris and Tifa meet years earlier (and well before the game start) this does veer into not FFVII fanfic territory anymore. Yes, its still Tifa and Aeris, but the setting could be (say) London in the mid-2010s for all the relevance FFVII’s setting has on the fic. The previous parts are more tied to the original setting and the environment and how that affects living in Midgar. But, that fell away in service of the smut.

First Time (Clerith)

Definitely a response to something, but is pretty much pure smut – with the same caveats as Maia Kendall – characters yes, and allegedly mid-canon, but otherwise completely divorced from the setting.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have!

(all fics rated T or lower)

Ignoring Kingdom Hearts (which is a complication all its own, though I will still slightly bemoan the lack of Emperor’s New Groove in the games):

The Second Amnesiac (Genfic)

The somewhat odd idea of Bravely Default only switching Tiz with Cloud Strife – and right after Cloud gets blown up at the climax of Advent Children. Its not exactly doing anything – Cloud wanders a similar path to Tiz, meets Agnes and Airy and then starts slicing cannonballs in half. Honestly this was not going to get any further than this, but it was again written for the fan-flashworks whose whole ethos was getting something written and that was what I came up with for that prompt.

Final Fantasy VII vs Bravely Second: Yuffie Kisaragi vs the World (genfic)

Deliberately silly fic after a Skype conversation way ahead of Bravely Second’s release. Back before names had been localized and the plot was way up in the air. Nevertheless; this was at least fun to do the crack thing and smash the two universes together. And then throw in a whole bunch of others. The point of connection was the Cat Master asterisk in Bravely Second and the cat house in Wutai. From there, if Yuffie gets a little power, the world will tremble! Not even Corvo Attano from Dishonored can stand against her.

Deliveries Take so Long These Days (Cloti)

Somehow came out of the prompt ‘red’. This was majorly inspired by a friend’s insistence so many years ago that Cloud was a consistent character across FFVII, FFT and Kingdom Hearts – that rather than being the same character used three times, he had a larger meta-narrative stringing the games together. This friend would slowly reveal themselves to have lied near constantly since I met them and the flimsy shallowness of said lies were bewildering in retrospect. But, the notion is not without its merits, though I avoided KH again. The major objective was to do the Tactics link which is largely overlooked these days, but it was fun to find people Cloud could deliver to across the FF series (especially Ultros).

Two Independent Contractors (genfic)

The teleporting/time displaced merchants of Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Bravely Default/Second meetup and talk. I think the theory for the Adventurer didn’t pan out at all, and in retrospect the way both try to keep the timeline consistent is probably pulled from one of the River Song episodes of Doctor Who.

Betrayal at the Shinra Mansion (Genfic)

Sort of FFVII meets Undertale by way of Betrayal at House on the Hill. The Undertale cast play a version of the board game which is distinctly FFVII themed. Not much more to the idea than trying to interpret a prompt in as unusual a way as possible.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I had some reposted to another site off Ao3 years ago though still under my name. I would be honestly surprised if anyone bothered

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not language-wise, but The Sex Education of Edea Lee (rated G) was read on a Skype group-chat which was fun to listen to. Did underscore how poorly parts of it worked for spoken-word, but I’m glad they enjoyed it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

(all fics rated T)

Say hi @danseru-kun and @materiodic!

With the former I wrote: Healing (as above), Metal (part 2), Lightning (part 3) & Iroh’s Favourite Aunt (prequel)! With the latter I wrote Beneath a Steel Sky – in which Aeris makes an effort to see the sky in Sector Five.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Aerti

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Inspired by the The Illuminatus! Trilogy, I have a fragment of what Elmyra was doing while FFVII was happening – up to getting Marlene back from Shinra. The intention was to wrap other side-characters through these events (The Illuminatus! Trilogy is convoluted structure-wise and I wanted to do something like it for FFVII). While I got Elmyra pretty far, I’m not sure I can remember who else was supposed to be involved/tying the narratives around each other might be very off-putting if you’re not into trying this weirdo structure.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hopefully unusual ideas and alternate universe setups.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action I struggle with. Endings are a thing I don’t do often (lot of starts in amongst the fics). Punctuation is very much I get the basic stuff but anything past commas, full-stops and speech marks, I am not sure I am using them right.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I would probably cheat it somehow – either make it indecipherable from the POV character or make it clear enough to third person but have the communication fail. Not something that comes up hugely in the relevant fandoms, but absolutely could.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Mysterious Cities of Gold/Esteban, Child of the Sun. On a typewriter. Said small page(s) has been long since lost to time, but it was an immediate sequel to the series’ ending.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Symbiosis (rated G)

Let’s come up with a weird but somehow plausible reason of why Elmyra lives in a really nice house in the slums of Sector Five (outside of the aesthetics of arriving there being a break from what you have gone through en route and it not meant to be entirely literal. I am not taking any comments on anything that Squeenix has released post-1997 as relevant. You know what I mean), tie in some of the game’s infamous monsters and dabble in some Terry Pratchett-esque humour.

If the idea interests there are two alternates – Symbiosis represents the peaceful way to deal with a Hell House, but Aeris has to learn how to fight with a staff from someone, so maybe the house wasn’t in quite the best of states when Elmyra came to live there. Or an alternate universe post-game idea which could be a sequel to Symbiosis but is part of a vague setup where a key moment in game didn’t happen in quite the way anyone remembers.

Tag 20 people?! Of the ones who haven't been tagged then: @danseru-kun, @auncyen, @komatsujo, @lostchasingsilver and anyone else who would like to answer!

[zackcollins]

oughta settle down || zack collins

Author’s Note: Yes, it’s been two months since I’ve posted a fic. I am sorry for that. I’ve just been busy having a mental breakdown about the way Zack is being jerked around this season worse than Reese McGuire was in that parking lot. Don’t get attached to the back up of the back up guys. It doesn’t go well. Anyways. GIF credit to me, myself, and I.

Warnings: In m opinion, nothing. But it’s about a pregnancy reveal and I know some people don’t vibe with that so I’ll warn about it just to be safe. Feel free to tell me if I missed anything!

Word Count: 1.5k+

Title: Broadway Girls by Lil Durk & Morgan Wallen (his walk-up song LOL)

Additional: I know the premise is a pregnancy reveal but the reader can be read as gender-neutral! I made the language vague because I know that not everyone that can and wants to be pregnant is feminine. This blog is trans inclusive because this blogger is non-binary. Hope that’s okay with everyone! most of all, enjoy this! and feedback is welcomed and appreciated!

You were laid out on your bed feeling rather unpleasant. Your stomach was twisting violently and making you feel bloated. The nerves and muscles of your lower back were alight with pain that you didn’t even think possible before today. The muscles in your chest felt tender, almost as if someone had grabbed them and started squeezing as hard as they could. You knew exactly what the issue was and had for the last week. The only problem was that your boyfriend, Zack, didn’t know. You hadn’t managed to garner the courage to tell him as of yet. There wasn’t any particular reason for that; you weren’t necessarily scared of how he’d react or anything. You just hadn’t found the right moment to tell him. And, because of that, you had been stressed to the nines. That stress was making the nausea, the back pain, and the tender chest ten times worse. It was so bad it was making you feel like you had been run over with a fucking Zamboni like that one goalie from your boyfriend’s favourite hockey team had been by his tandem partner a bunch of years ago.

“Are you okay, babe?” You uncurled yourself and looked in the direction the voice had come from. Like you had expected, your aforementioned boyfriend, Zack, was standing in the doorway of the en suite. He had a towel around his waist, though he didn’t appear to be wet. “You look a little uncomfortable.”

Sighing, you gingerly sat up on the bed so that you could get a better angle to look at Zack. “Not… not really. I think I have the flu.” You didn’t feel that great lying to him but you didn’t want to break the news to him this way either.

To try to sell your point, you broke out in a fake coughing fit and did your best to make it convincing. When you were done, you looked at Zack. He seemed to look genuinely concerned; that made you let out a discreet sigh of relief.

After you wiped away the tears that had accumulated in your eyes from the forced coughing, you looked at Zack again. You saw that your boyfriend was leaned against the en suite door frame and had his arms crossed over his chest. You saw the towel around Zack’s waist slide down a little; Zack quickly reached down and tugged it back into position, tucking it in on itself a little more tightly when he was done.

You scoffed, which you turned into a couple more fake coughs to further sell your flu agenda. When you regained your composure, you rolled your eyes at Zack. “I literally saw you naked last night, Zachary.”

“I know but being horny when you’re sick will make you feel worse,” Zack deadpanned as he gave you a pointed look. “And how many damn times do I have to tell you not to call me that, jackass?”

You went to raise your hands in surrender but you quickly dropped them to your abdomen when you felt something lurch against it. You inhaled and exhaled a couple of times to try and counteract the sudden uneasy feeling that had caused you. All that succeeded in doing was causing another lurch, this time accompanied by a burst of nausea.

You looked at Zack with a pained expression as you laid back on the bed and curled in on yourself. You wanted the pain to stop because it was driving you bananas. Then, on the other hand, you didn’t want the pain to stop because you knew if you toughed it out, the end result would be worth it. The end result was something you and Zack had been wanting for the better part of the last two years. The fact that it was finally happening made you break down at the doctor’s office when your doctor told you. You were excited for this; beyond excited, actually because you were so ready for this. You were also scared. Scared because was anyone truly ready for something like this? What if you were terrible at the job? What if Zack was terrible? What if something went wrong and your dream was crushed before it even started? There were a lot of negative thoughts running through your mind about this and they were all causing you unneeded stress. So much unneeded stress that you were afraid that it wasn’t healthy.

You had been so lost in your thoughts that you barely felt it when the bed dipped next to you under the weight of something heavy. Turning your head, you saw that Zack was sitting behind your back on his knees. He looked down at you and motioned his finger along your side. Knowing what your boyfriend meant, you nodded. Zack smiled as he laid himself on the bed and slotted himself against your back. You hummed when you felt the warmth of Zack’s body against your frigid skin.

“Holy shit,” Zack said into the base of your skull. “You feel like a fucking freezer, babe.”

You chuckled, though you turned it into another coughing fit to keep up with the rouse. Zack soothingly ran his hand along the side of your chest; you used that soft, gentle sensation as an excuse to end the fake coughing fit sooner that you had intended to. You were beyond grateful for that because your lungs were actually starting to hurt from all the forced coughing you had been doing.

Once you had regained your composure, you snuggled back against Zack’s body. “And you feel like a fucking furnace. It’s helping with my back aches. Here.” You took Zack’s hands and placed them over your abdomen. Much like he had expected, his boyfriend’s hands felt tepid against your frigid skin. The tightness of your abdomen muscles started to subside as Zack carefully ran his hands along the skin. You grunted at the feeling, dropping your head back against Zack’s chest. “That… holy fuck. Your hands feel amazing. My stomach doesn’t feel as tight or nauseous anymore.”

Zack pressed a kiss to your temple as he moved his hands up to your chest. He cupped one side of your chest in each hand, gently massaging each side as he did. You let out a soft moan because Zack had released some of the tension in your chest muscles by doing that. Zack pressed another kiss to your temple as he continued to massage your chest. And, the longer he went about massaging it, the more relaxed you were starting to feel.

Your eyes were starting to feel heavy and you even yawned once. Zack pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck as he shifted his hands away from your chest and brought one back down to your abdomen. He took the other hand and gently began stroking your hip. You hummed softly at the dual sensations as your eyes suddenly felt heavier than they had been a moment ago.

“That feels amazing, babe,” you said, voice thick with tiredness. “I feel a lot less sore now. Keep going.”

You yawned again as you wiggled against Zack to get more comfortable. Zack hummed as he started massaging your scalp. He also started drumming his fingers against your abdomen. You felt your eyes inching closer and closer to sleep the longer your boyfriend went about what he was doing. You also felt completely relaxed and free from all the pain you had been experiencing all day. Of course, that’s when you had you feel something lurch against your abdomen. You felt Zack freeze his movements and intake a shaky breath.

“Am I crazy?” Zack asked, audibly swallowing. “Or did I just feel something kick my hand?”

“I don’t actually have the flu,” you replied hoping Zack understood what you were getting at.

“There’s a mini Collins in there?” Zack sniffled a couple times as he poked his finger just under your belly button.

You chuckled as you reached your hand back and patted your boyfriend’s hip.

“What’s your defensive position on the diamond?”

“Catcher...?” Zack sounded more like he was asking than telling you that.

“Don’t sound so sure of yourself next time. Someone might think you have a god complex, damn.” You sighed and pinched the bridge of you noise. “The number, you airhead.”

“Oh. Two,” Zack said, embarrassment evident in his voice. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“You said there was a mini Collins inside me...”

“Then you as—”

Zack jolted backwards as if you had burned him. It was not two seconds later that he turned you around so that the two of you were face to face. You smirked when you noticed that he was smiling like an idiot and looked about three seconds from a nervous breakdown.

“Two mini Collinses in there?” Zack looked down at your abdomen and poked his finger just under your belly button again. When he looked back up at you, you saw that he had a couple stray tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Oh my god. Leave it to us to get twins after being unsuccessful for almost two years.”

You chuckled before you moved closer on the bed and wrapped Zack in a hug. You dropped your head against his shoulder and smiled.

“I love you, Zachary. And you’ll be the best father ever to our twins.”

“Stop calling me that! But I love you too, jackass. More than I can ever put into words.”

[oh-katsuki]

some of y’all gravely misunderstood what i said last night about fanfiction and the way people tend to be incredibly critical of it in a way that feels almost disrespectful. 

i was not saying in any way, shape, or form that fanfiction cannot be criticized / should not be criticized. it’s an art form worthy of being acknowledged the way any other art form is. it’s a learned skill, as with any creative craft, and criticism of it is absolutely valid. 

that being said, i was referring very specifically to a certain genre of criticism on here that is not constructive nor proper criticism, but rather an expression of opinion that cannot be properly articulated into actual criticism. i was referring specifically to a certain ideology prevalent on here that feels almost pretentious and often conflates personal opinion with objective good and bad. 

fanfiction, like any other creative pursuit, is an art form, which means that good and bad is relatively subjective if grammar, sentence structure, and writing prose are used properly. it also means that there is a correct way to critique and an incorrect way to critique that is directly correlated to being able to improve upon hearing it. if someone comes and says “this writing style is bad” and offers no other commentary, it’s not proper criticism, it’s a personal opinion and a disrespectful way to critique someone’s work. 

i work a lot with art, so critique and criticism is something that i’ve had a lot of experience with since it’s something that the art community does a lot in order to improve. i enjoy getting better at writing and improving upon what i wrote the day before. i regularly ask people to beta-read fics for me because i can learn from that experience and from their comments.

that being said, not everyone is like me. not everyone wants to get better even if it means hearing unsavory things about their work and that is completely fine and valid even if i don’t understand it. what is not fine is shouting an opinion that is often rude or vague from the rooftops about someone else’s work, disguising it as a critique, and disregarding the effort they already put in. 

part of criticism, at least from a creative improvement perspective, is acknowledging the process and work put in and saying something that will allow someone to improve off of it. the internet is a public place. if you are posting your work, it comes hand in hand with the idea that you will receive criticism. my argument is not that you should not think critically about fanfiction (partially because i think that doing that does a disservice to the author, but also because fanfic is still a valid form of writing in every sense). my argument is simply that critique in a fanfiction sphere should be offered respectfully and with the acknowledgement that most people do this for fun. 

this is obviously different within a professional sphere, but most of us are not professionals (yet at least) and that’s okay. some people do this for fun and that’s totally cool. making comments that make an entire community feel shitty is just not a cool thing to do and im not sure why that’s a topic of debate. 

i guess all im saying is that critique of fanfiction and fanficition trends are valid, but it’s important to remain respectful and still respect the craft itself and the time/effort someone put into it. 

[romanapologist]

montreal - roman hurt/comfort

pairing: this was written to all be platonic prinxiety, but can definitely be interpreted romantically !

warnings: unconventional self harm, non-graphic descriptions of wounds/injury

summary: a post-POF roman hurt/comfort fic in january 2021? yes <3

word count: 3.2k

notes: large portions of this were salvaged from one (1) night last summer at 4am when i was having a . time. the rest has been mainly recently written before i go to bed, with some extra bits added during my history classes B)) also shout out to [REDACTED]. u may not read this but if u do, i hope u know who u are & ilu

Virgil had been trying to calm himself down for the better part of an hour, as soon as they got back from the wedding fiasco; and he was doing a relatively okay job. Considering the circumstances, at least. Or so he thought, when he registered a spike in Thomas’s anxiety. This only served to make Virgil more anxious, because he had thought he had been doing well—until, he realized it wasn’t anxiety, not exactly, not fully—and it wasn’t coming from him.

Once he'd figured that out, it wasn't hard to trace the feeling to the imagination. He paused at the door. If this was where the strongest negative emotions were coming from, he already knew which side this was about. And could he really be surprised? Roman had wanted that callback for so long. Even at the court case, even when Roman gave Thomas his sentence, Virgil knew it killed him. And Virgil didn't do anything. Because he was so fucking scared of Thomas being bad, or of Janus winning, or something, and now whatever was going on was his fault, and--

And now was not the time for these thoughts. He breathed in. He opened the door.

Immediately, he was coughing out soot, heat burned his cheeks, his eyes blurred with protective tears forming against the smoke. It was hard to see, let alone process, what was happening. Then, he caught sight of the Dragon Witch. And he caught sight of—

“Roman!” Virgil choked on the yell, coughing again.

Obviously Roman couldn’t hear him from the distance, especially considering the brutal roar of the creature. Adrenaline kicked in, and as Virgil began to sprint towards the prince, he took in the entirety of the scene with alarm. Roman was...fighting, sure, except that Virgil had seen him fight before, and this... wasn’t right. Roman bested manticore-chimeras like it was a breeze, he HAD bested the Dragon Witch herself in every form she took, “just for training.” He always moved like he was in a ballet, not a battle, like it was more for show than challenge, and now...

Virgil watched Roman fall to a hard swish of the creature’s tail, and stay there. He almost expected the Dragon Witch to take mercy, or at least, to accept an early victory. But he watched her rear back, raise a taloned hand, the magma-red in her throat glowing brighter and brighter—just as Virgil got close enough to let fight win over flight.

Virgil crashed into Roman; they rolled just far enough that the swipe of claws only ripped the edge of Virgil’s jacket.

Immediate danger out of the way, Virgil clenched his eyes tight, trying to do it how Logan taught him. He found something that didn’t make sense--the grass. The grass was dry, therefore it should have been burning, but it wasn’t. He took that foothold to dispel all the fantastical elements of the scene, Dragon Witch and all her carnage blinking from existence. The new calm of the scene was jarring.

That just left a great big field, Virgil, and one absolute dumbass.

"What the fuck, Princey?!"

Virgil’s voice was distorted with stress, and Roman stared up at him wide-eyed, unsure—even terrified in a way that hurt. Virgil quickly pushed himself up so he wasn't pinning the other. Roman tried to copy this movement, only to groan, start coughing, and fall back again.

“Shit, I—“ Virgil looked at his hands and found red on them, looked at Roman and saw the color painting his chest. “I thought I dispelled all the imaginary stuff, why—?“

“Left brain sides can only dispel so much of what right brain sides feel,” Roman said, voice rough and thin and upsettingly casual, “Since they feel so real to me, you can’t get rid of them.”

“They feel…? Christ, ok, you need a medical kit, uhm—“ Virgil closed his eyes again; he was notoriously shitty at summoning things, and he had to concentrate for this—

“That’s ok; I’ve got it,” Roman said, letting out a quiet hiss as he propped himself up on one arm, and summoned the medical kit with the other, “You can go now.”

Virgil gaped at him in disbelief. When Roman attempted to stand up, and Virgil could no longer deny he wasn’t joking, he exclaimed, “Like Hell am I going, idiot!”

Roman just stared at him, and Virgil cursed under his breath. “Ok ok, let’s just... we should do this in the bathroom, uhm—“

Virgil awkwardly clambered over to Roman again, taking his hand, so he could blink them over together. He knew it would probably be more comfortable for Roman to sink in and out, but considering Virgil wasn’t practiced at that, he wasn’t going to risk screwing it up.

They apparated into the bathtub, and Virgil scrambled up, taking the med kit from Roman's hands.

Ok, ok, now Virgil just had to remember that one time Logan lectured them all on “Side Safety.” He took a shaky breath and washed his hands quickly, before turning back to Roman. He allowed himself to fully assess the prince this time and… Jesus. He was slumped against the back of the tub, having given up his attempts at composure while he thought Virgil wasn’t looking. His litany of scrapes, cuts, bruising, his shallow breathing, and--most of all--the wet, red patch slowly growing on his shirt, sparked renewed panic in Virgil.

“Ok, fuck, ok--let’s do this,” Virgil said, mostly to himself, as he knelt down by Roman to undo his already tattered shirt and take a wet towel to his chest. He had to suck in a breath at the sight of the jagged wound, a nauseous feeling catching up to him.

“You’ve already done a lot, you know,” Roman insisted. “You can--”

“If you tell me to go, Princey, I swear I’ll make these wounds worse myself,” he said, not meaning it in the slightest, which he would assume Roman knew--but the way Roman flinched and shut his mouth told a different story. “Shit, I didn’t mean that. Of course I didn’t mean that!”

Roman glanced away, and Virgil reached to cup his cheek, an instinct he didn’t know he had. Luckily, he caught himself in time to retract his hand. They both avoided eye contact for a second; Virgil cleared his throat; and he reached for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide before pausing. He vaguely recalled Logan mentioning how strong alcohols would only cause more harm, and they should just stick to mild soap instead. He gave the cut a longer look-over—it was certainly not a pretty sight, but probably not as bad as it looked. It was large, but not too deep. Plus, as sides, it would heal itself without needing anything like stitches or professional medical work. The past scars littering Roman’s body were proof of that. Actually--had he always had this many scars? Virgil squinted. How often did he do this?

Virgil finished cleansing and bandaging the wound to the best of his ability, with little talk beyond the occasional, soft “sorry” at Roman’s winces. When he had finished, he gave Roman his hoodie (an action the Prince was too tired to take much notice of), since summoning a new shirt seemed like a waste of whatever energy he had left.

“Ok, Princey, all done. Uhm, are you—how, how are you?” Virgil mentally kicked himself.

A small, bitter smile tugged at Roman’s lips for just a moment. He opened his mouth and then closed it, and finally shrugged. “Thank you for your help.”

It hurt, Virgil realized. Roman’s quiet voice, where near-shouting was his usual speech. His unkempt hair sticking to his forehead, where it was usually styled to be very lightly and intentionally ruffled. The bags beneath his eyes where there was usually concealer. All of it hurt.

Virgil sucked in a breath. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m being annoying, but I hope you know there’s absolutely no way I’m leaving yet.”

“Virgil,” Roman almost said it as a whine, which was closer to his usual style, so Virgil considered it progress.

“Roman,” Virgil deadpanned back.

Roman huffed. “Maybe I need space to really explore my feelings, and you’re actually being a terrible friend right now,” he argued.

“Uh-huh, well being a terrible friend is always my favorite, so,” Virgil leaned down, fumbling slightly as he picked Roman up bridal style, “We’re gonna get you to bed, and you can explore your feelings by sleeping.”

“Great, now you’re damsel-in-distressing me,” Roman said sarcastically, but he leaned his head into Virgil’s chest as he did so, which kind of ruined his point.

“Yeah, yeah. Act more like Megara next time, and maybe it’ll be different.”

•••

Roman groaned upon waking up. His whole body ached, but mainly it was focused around a sharper pain in his chest. He let his eyes flutter open, only to find Virgil staring at him from his desk.

“Ah,” Roman uttered, a jumble of memories from the past few hours returning. They felt foggy and mildly icky, but mainly the pain in them was the numb kind of pain, the tired kind. Really, it was indistinguishable from the dull ache of his bruises and cuts.

“Yeah,” Virgil said, as though he understood, even though he couldn’t possibly. “Uh, wanna talk about it?”

It was clear Virgil felt awkward asking the question. It was unclear whether that was due to his tendency to be embarrassed by everything he said, or—far more likely—that he wanted to stop babying a stupid prince, and just go about his business.

Roman sat up, suppressing a wince as best he could. “Do you want to hear about it?”

“Of course I do.” Virgil said it without an ounce of hesitation. Roman’s breath caught.

“Oh.” Roman shifted slightly over, and Virgil took a seat by him on the bed. “Okay. Uhm. I don’t know, I just—I messed up.” What else was new?

“...What did you mess up?” Virgil asked, with an inkling of suspicion, like he knew what this was about. But it wasn’t that; it wasn’t the callback—that was over and done and dead. Roman had created so many fantasies, so many crazy scenarios where they could somehow still make it in that stupid movie, and it had always filled him with hope or crushing pain or something, but as of this afternoon? He didn’t even care. It didn’t matter.

So, Roman ignored the question, and instead commented, “Janus got accepted.”

“What the fuck.”

Roman observed Virgil’s stricken expression like an unsettling kind of mirror of himself when—

My name is Janus.

“Yeah,” Roman sighed, “I didn’t take it so well either.”

Virgil looked at him for a long moment, seeming to go through several series of emotions, before he was able to ask, “...What happened?”

Roman inhaled sharply. “I was wrong about being wrong about the wedding. Patton was also wrong; Janus was right, and then Patton was right because he wasn’t a total asshole to Janus, and I’m evil; Thomas hates me; whatever, you get it.”

He thought he would break down, saying it, but he felt oddly… fine. He sat, staring at the same spot as he was before, absentmindedly annoyed at the way his bandages itched. The normalcy of the situation almost made it worse. This sucked. This wasn’t even bad.This was the worst he had ever felt.

“Oook,” Virgil said, clearly not knowing where to start, “I—you—what do you mean: Thomas hates you?”

“Thought that one was self-explanatory.”

“He can’t hate you,” Virgil said with a laughable amount of conviction. “You’re still his… y’know.. goals. Desires. Hopes. Whatever. Just because this one didn’t go… perfectly, doesn’t mean you won’t keep—“ he struggled to find the phrasing for a moment— “...fighting, uh, valiantly for Thomas’s dreams!” he attempted at the encouragement with a weak smile.

Roman just shook his head. “No. I don’t know what he wants.”

Virgil’s smile dropped into confusion. “But… you are his wants.”

“That’s kind of the problem.”

Virgil seemed at a loss, and Roman felt like an asshole. Here he was trying to help him, and Roman couldn’t even be bothered to put on a smile to dismiss him from the duty.

“Please go,” Roman attempted weakly when he couldn’t find a more convincing argument in himself. He was meant to be an actor, but he knew he couldn’t hide the fact that he wanted him to stay, of course he did, so badly. He hoped Virgil would just quit with the chivalry and go despite that.

Virgil sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit, I'm going about this all wrong.”

Roman knew it probably wasn’t really him Virgil was mad at, but it was hard not to shrink away anyway.

“Look, Roman—“ Virgil turned to him, looked at him seriously, took his hands in his— “To be honest? I don’t care what happened. I don’t care who was right or wrong—I mean, we all know I’ve been in the wrong more than my fair share. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Roman didn’t miss the ambiguity of the end statement. “But… look, you don’t get it. When you mess up, you’re still you. You’re still...,” Roman gestured vaguely, which upset his bandages, and when he looked down at himself, he took note of the black/purple hoodie he was wearing. He melted slightly. This was exactly the point he was trying to make, “You’re still... y’know. Important.”

“Wh—? Of course you’re important, Ro. You’re creativity—“

“Thomas has two of those.”

Virgil looked at him like he was stupid. “Right, as if you’re anything like Remus.”

Roman’s lip quivered at that, and he had to look away, which was so stupid. And suddenly he felt all of the embarrassment at once—of this situation, of everything that had happened before, of the way he was about to cry, in front of Virgil, after he said that, which must look so—

“Roman?”

A hand was on his cheek, softly turning his face towards Virgil’s, though Roman still refused to meet his eyes.

Virgil cursed to himself under his breath. “Shit, this is exactly what I was trying not to say.” He sighed, and Roman hesitantly looked up at him. “Look. Even if you weren’t creativity, if you weren’t hopes or dreams or any of it—if you were a completely pointless side, which you aren’t, but if you were—I wouldn’t care. What I care about is that you’re... Roman. That you bother me until I sing Disney with you, that when you put your heart into something, you do it to a stupid amount, that you make Thomas take trashy buzzfeed soulmate quizzes when he’s stressed, and that you fucking try so hard for everything, even when I’m being a little bitch about it,” he paused. With the hand on Roman’s cheek, he traced the line of a scar down his jaw. It was one of the ones Roman usually made sure to put an illusion over, he noted offhandedly. “I care, because you’re my best friend.”

“Don’t say that,” Roman choked out. He couldn’t handle it if it was a lie, and part of him couldn’t manage hearing it as anything but exactly that. “Just—just—“

“Oh, Princey..”

Virgil held him as he broke. Roman didn’t know how long they sat like that as he let everything wash over him for a final time, let it all truly sink in at long last. He took heaving, messy sobs, no doubt ruining Virgil’s shirt in the process—he was quiet, though. He shook silently, save a couple choked breaths, in the other’s arms--that was a habit he had taught himself long ago.

When Roman had tired himself out, when all that was left was the pain in chest, (which was also suddenly duller—he was healing fast, even for a side—) he pulled back from the embrace. Virgil didn’t move by much, kept them so their fingers were laced together, as they sat staring at each other.

“Uhm. Thanks,” Roman gave a shaky smile, “You really—uh... I... I said some stupid stuff, huh?”

Virgil hesitated before he spoke, as if he knew he shouldn’t ask this right now, but needed to anyway. “...Roman, why’d you go to the Imagination?”

Roman felt ice stab at his chest upon the question. He didn’t want to do this. They had already talked about so much that he shouldn’t have gotten into; this was meant to be the part where they either parted or watched a stupid movie. And this, out of everything, was the conversation he most needed to avoid.

“Uh—I mean, to let off steam?” Roman gave a laugh as best he could. “Obviously, it didn’t go to plan—“

“Didn’t it?”

Roman’s face fell immediately. He struggled to come up with an answer, and even if he had had one, he didn’t think the sound would come out. This was enough of an answer in itself

“Shit,” Virgil breathed. Roman couldn’t help but be mildly annoyed by his surprise—clearly he had already known, he didn’t have to make it a big deal now.

“I… Princey—Roman…” Virgil looked him up and down, and Roman wanted to curl up and hide. “...how many times?”

“Not many,” Roman mumbled. Virgil must have known he was pushing the subject too far, because he just frowned and said,

“OK. I mean...it’s not OK, obviously, but you already know that, I just—“ he sighed. “Just… can you talk to me? Instead? Please? When you feel like… that.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Roman responded hastily, wanting an out from this topic.

Virgil gave him a look. “I’m serious. I mean—look, you don’t even have to talk about it if you don’t want. Just, come to me first, yeah?”

Roman’s face burned; he was embarrassed; he wanted to shrug this whole thing off, or roll his eyes, or maybe scream in annoyance. But the rational part of him knew Virgil was right. “OK,” he agreed softly, “...Thanks. For everything.”

Virgil looked surprised, and then flustered, and then waved off the earnest reply. “I mean, it wasn’t--I didn’t--it’s not like I did anything really--”

“You did.”

Virgil’s face softened. “Yeah, well... you’d’ve done the same for me. You... have done the same for me.”

Roman smiled gently at him. “By the way, Virge--” He hesitated. He was about to sound like a real dumbass if Virgil had only been saying this stuff for comfort’s sake. But making a fool of himself was becoming a theme for him anyway, so he continued, “You’re my best friend too.”

I love you.

In the same beats Roman thought it, Virgil squeezed his hand lightly 3 times. A breath passed between them. An understanding. That Roman couldn’t say it out loud, and Virgil wouldn’t.

Instead, Virgil fell back across the bed, bringing Roman with him in the motion. Roman let out a startled gasp and elbowed him lightly. “Hey! I’m injured, that could have been a fatal impact for me!” he whined.

Virgil snorted. “Yeah, yeah, OK. So, do you wanna watch a stupid movie, or what?”

[karanoid]

about top joe discord

LET ME ADDRESS A FEW POINTS:

There has been many fear and anxiety regardless the top!joe discord I made. I understand how it gives my discord a bad reputation. Somebody has kindly reached out to me to ask me addressing several points, which I’m now gonna clarify:

1. I am racist, I asked why, and they said mostly because of my dismissive behavior to people who called me out for drawing yusuf adorned in gold jewelry which made their friends feel unsafe. So, I am a muslim and was raised in a muslim household and community. I am fucking brown.

I didn’t say it because you don’t need to know that about me. What bothers me is how some people feel the need to come to my inbox informing me “maam yusuf is a religious muslim who prays 5 times a day and do all the supplementary prayers all while he drinks alcohol and fuck nicky in the dailies, he wouldnt be wearing gold maam no maam.” as if I didn’t know any better. so please, now don’t do that. If you care so much about the littlest details like wearing gold then you’ll also call out yusuf because he draws living beings and drinks champagne. yes it’s true muslim men are forbidden from wearing gold AND silk but let’s not forget, nothing in the comic and movies imply yusuf has ever been religious. It’s easier to see nicolo as religious because he was a fucking priest. Yusuf was a fucking merchant, it’s easy to see that he’d be less faithful because he would have been travelling and seen many kind of people to broaden his horizons and not contained to a little bubble of hyper religious community. However, let me remind you: whether yusuf AND nicolo are religious or not is entirely UP TO THE AUTHOR/ARTIST. It’s totally fine to make him religious and if you can respect it THATS GREAT, I ALSO LIKE HIM THAT WAY, but please remember it’s not even canon and hey sometimes I just draw things because I like the aesthetics. Also please, do not harass writers for getting a thing or two incorrect, even white people cannot get christianity correct, even between two muslims could be a disagreement whether this fic’s yusuf is problematic or not. I wouldn’t even expect anything more and THAT’S OKAY. Just don’t be an ass to muslims of color in real life and don’t fall into the believe that it’s a religion of violence. you can say that greg made him that way bc he knew nothing better but hey, I have no problem with that. again, it’s fine to make him religious, I’d be delighted but it’s ALSO fine to make him not religious.

2. I think that people only write Top!Nicky out of political correctness. OKAY. I apologize for this. I thought like this because I have accounts telling me that they were pressured into writing top!nicky or they wanted more readerships so I make a BIG assumption. I realized this is only a small part of switch and top!nicky fics and the big bulk of this must be out of genuine care. So yeah, I apologize for thinking that people only write top!nicky out of political correctness. I think writers should be allowed to write whatever they want. Yes this includes top!Nicky. And in whatever kinks they want it. However, this still doesn’t change that the discourses do scare people away from writing top!joe. Write top!nicky however you want, but stop vague-blogging about top!joe. racism isn’t inherent to top!joe and you can always remind people to be mindful with their writings but discouraging people from writing top!joe is not the solution. 

3. Top!joe is racist and people in the discord are racist. Okay, I am gonna touch several aspects why top!joe discord is considered racist: (1) because I don’t like to switch them, therefore I am racist. Sorry that’s not how it works. I have a clear preference and that’s just how I roll. Besides, a lot of people in the discord (including me) think either they switch (because they are 900 yo) or joe just doesn’t like bottoming. I’m not the kind of people who refers to reality for fiction I consume but people who prefer to top or to bottom exist (2) i want to be away from accountability and responsibility. Nope. The reason I made it is because I wanted to gather people with same interest as mine. 

4. I paint Yusuf as aggressive and the whole discord like him being an aggressive top. I think this is the only reason why the discord is seen in a negative light. Because wow what a coincidence that someone vagueblogged my discord at the day I celebrated about Nicky suggesting 20 years and wrote a post about how Joe is allowed to be angry. And beside someone made the WRONG assumption that we are focusing on Joe’s anger and violence (what). Okay, I don’t know how to break this down. But I will try. First, yes I was overjoyed at the news. Because I’m one of the people that do not like feral!nicky headcanon. I liked it at first bc it was funny but then it was twisted into Nicky being cold. So I don’t like it (lol), I still like it though but like I don’t seriously think that way. However, I never liked the idea that Nicky suggested higher than Joe. Because then his character just doesn’t click with me, there was a cognitive dissonance for me because joe clearly says nicky’s heart overflows kindness, you can see nicky as a medic in the credit montage. Also, from their body language and from the way the movie set em up, I think Joe is the one who suggested higher and I am glad to be proven right. Second, I did write a post about how Joe is allowed to be angry at Booker. People agreed with me, so I was not alone. But the reason I wrote that post is not because I wanted to paint yusuf as aggressive, but because I’m tired at people who think Joe shouldn’t display any negative emotions. I think it’s out of character. I do NOT think Joe is aggressive. That is NOT his wholeass personality. If you looked at my tog art tag, never once I portrayed Joe as anything aggressive. If I do, please show me. Third, people are conflating this with my post where I reblogged with a comment that implies aggressive Joe isn’t racism. Okay in this, the context is IN BED. It’s Joe being aggressive in BED. It’s literally BED ROLES AND FANTASY. I don’t even have a particular scenario in my head when I reblogged that, the original post clearly refers to bed roles with manhandling and kinks etc. like, why would you spank someone in public? Lastly, about the discord, NOPE, most people in the discord agree that Joe is either a GENTLE DOM or SERVICE TOP. But in my opinion, if someone likes Joe as an aggressive top (again, bed roles baby) I really don’t think it’s racism. It’s just... projection? 

anyway, back to joe’s emotions, these are posts from a moroccan man (paragraph #7) and a brown woman whose posts I agree with. Let’s be real, people of color are expected to shut up in favor of white people’s fragile feelings.

Now, about racism in fandom. I understand the concern because muslim men are painted as violent and aggressive. You know what I will never forgive those radicals for taking away innocents lives and to leave a lasting damage in how muslims are perceived in the west. However, you have to keep in mind, Joe in the movie is far from being stereotyped. I mean, Gina and Marwan practically greenlit him? Now, you might have concerns that writers are gonna turn him into a walking stereotype which is... okay, I understand that concern. But the solution is to communicate this ‘hey I think you make him too stereotypical in this etc etc’ not “write more top!nicky AND shame top!joe” because again, top!joe is not inherently racist.

also some people mentioned that they hope I recognize racial bias in the ship. dude, that goes without saying, all aspects of your life will be influenced by racial biases. however, this kind of thing is not specific to fandom/shipping. Like I said I’m fucking brown, friends and families with facial features that cater to white expectation are treated better. I did say at the bottom of this post, yeah I did notice why it’s always a brown character who’s always openly mad. And that’s in itself a form of racial bias. Racial biases affect everyone, white or POC, it doesn’t matter. But I got an issue with how people think this is racism. like how convenient, if by falling to racial biases mean you are a racist then what about those white people who created this racial biases in the first place? and I noticed the persons who got the audacity to cry about everything in this fandom is white?? I mean okay, they don’t know what I am, but not everyone is comfortable with sharing their private information like ethnic group, faith, etc. what if they really don’t want to share it? Because like you said, racial bias, whether good or bad will affect me. Now, I don’t know what white people are feeling, I’m not white. However, based on my interactions with them. We’re all just people sharing same interest, it could be they fall into racial biases, but all we shared about are just regular HCs. Even people making a conscious effort to combat racial bias still in essence fall for racial bias. You just cannot escape it.

According to this post, fandom assumes that the bottom is the proxy of writers, I don’t think this is applicable to everyone but let’s just say it’s true and people tend to write about their projection better so I’m gonna assume the racism part comes from the fact that..yeah I do think the bottom usually gets more fleshed out as a result of them being the writers proxy, so somebody posted this in the discord which I agree because yes I do think there’s a lack about yusuf’s background especially when it comes to crusade era:

but since I know most writers aren’t muslims, to me it’s not so much about racism but they simply know nothing about it, and not always out of ignorance either but in this climate, if you get a thing or two wrong you’d get harassed. so *shrugs* I understand the reluctancy. But here’s the thing, this is not about top/bottom issue but because most of the fandom are white so they have more freedom in writing the white character. Anyway, plenty of people have projected themselves into yusuf already, the whole “top/bottom” thing in this fandom is not even a thing. Yes, some writers project on the bottom so if you prefer bottom!joe that’s fine, somebody in the discord is doing a research and it turned out top!joe wasn’t even a CLEAR majority in JULY. So clearly they got their share already?

so please, let’s stop with the vitriol. if people are preferring top!joe it’s clearly because of different preferences. it’s not that deep. it’s the same way with how some people are preferring top!nicky. But we’re being driven out based on a hypothetical scenarios? like what do you want? for us to cease existing??? don’t be ridiculous.

I know people won’t listen to me. So this is my suggestion: LETS JUST IGNORE THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE. LET’S ALL JUST AGREE TO DISAGREE. 

[actual-fucking-clown]

Take your time then.

Aizawa x gender neutral reader

Story under the cut :)

Unedited but like edited but still not properly edited :)

Hope you enjoy!!!

a/n: it’s been a hot min since I’ve written a fic. I think the last time i was 14 and it was shit and on wattpad. Ha. I hate myself. N e way, I was recently writing some shit for an au me and my friend thought up and in the back of my mind I was like, “you should start writing fics again bc this is kinda fun”, soo lo and behold I made a post asking if anyone would be interested, shared a little too much personal shit in it but whatever, and have now decided to write this mother fucker. (3/25/21)

a/n: not sure if anyone will care about this series of a/n’s but I’m just chronicling thoughts ig. rewriting rn bc my first draft was short and ass. Also I’m thinking about opening requests after this is posted, will go into detail in a diff post maybe. (3/28/21)

a/n: deleted everything, rewriting. I just want to make something that might be decent and if I can give that feeling, y’know those chills you get when you read something utterly gorgeous, but I’m bad at writing. sadge (3/28/21, like several hours later)

a/n: ugh (4/1/21)

a/n: ugh pt 2 electric boogaloo. I can’t seem to move forward with the writing. I realized something like this might happen bc to solve a problem feelings need to be discussed and I fucking hate doing that so you can see where I’m fucking up lmaooooo (4/2/21)

a/n: I read angst to fuel my writing brain. So, read some angst, finally writing agian. This first section is probs as long as the story itself LMFAO(4/5/21)

Started: (3/25/21) Finished: (4/5/21)

Warnings: uh angst, curse words, like a lot, (i saw someone else put this as a warning, do I actually need it?), avoiding problems instead of actually facing them, mentions of shit so-so parenting, mentions of not being able to live up to high expectations, y’know, the works

Synopsis: Aizawa takes in Eri without running it by you first and expects you to be okay with it. That’s funny. He was wrong.

Can I preface this with a thought? I’m going to anyway,

all the fics I read paint him as the sweetest partner and I’m sure he is but I think they miss out on how blunt he is and his whole “Mr. Rationality” thing. So as much as I adore him I think there are situations that he’d be a bit more colder towards, a bit more straightforward about. Maybe even like a bit insensitive about but maybe bc he doesn’t have the full picture or something. so I guess this is another warning but aizawa is a little insensitive in the beginning (but like not really but kinda. it’s complicated)

~

Rain pattered softly against the window. The smell of some old random Bath and Bodyworks candle you’d dug out from a box you’d never bothered to unpack smothered the room. Some Netflix show idly played on a low volume on your computer, you’d lost interest in watching tv awhile ago. You needed a break. After the eventful month you’d been having you really needed this. 

Now of course your whole year so far had been eventful. What with all the villain attacks on you and Shouta’s class and the kidnapping of one of your students, to just dealing with the more mundane problems with your students. No. You had no problem with that. The villains, although not easy, were something you were trained to handle. The smaller problems with your students weren’t arduous either, after all you weren’t too much older than them. 

When reflecting on your situation, from and outside perspective it could be seen as the straw the broke the camels back, which sure, makes sense. After all, you’re bound to be stressed out by everything else, so why would this seemingly insignificant thing weigh heavier than a villain attack? Well if that is the situation why does this single straw feel like it weighs a ton? This is not that. This is not culmination of the events of this year draining the life from you. This is something entirely different. A panic inducing life change that completely took you by surprise mixed with your inability to actually face your problems. 

You don’t blame them. You can’t. They’ve done nothing wrong. A child. A small, probably mentally scarred child is your problem. Well not her personally but the fear taking care of her instills in you. Despite working in the field that you do, you cannot for the life of you handle actual children. Sure you’re a little awkward with your class but at least they’re young adults and (vaguely) mature and independent to a certain extent. The fact that your long term boyfriend just came back one day, small child in tow and said “Hey I’ve gotta look after this one now” not verbatim obviously, for a lack of better words, fucked you up. He basically solo adopted a kid and, let’s be honest, he probably expected you to help out. But how could you? How could this man look at you and think “I want this person to help me raise an already fucked up child?” Ok sure, he doesn’t at first give off the “I’m totally father figure material” vibe but in the end he is extremely competent. You on the other hand, not so much.

You’d never been good with children. Tried your best to steer clear of them. Didn’t matter the place, didn’t matter who’s kid, you couldn’t handle them. You would just stand there, awkwardly, not entirely sure of what to do and petrified that there was the possibility of making some mistake which would upset the child and then oh wow look, your head got chopped right of your shoulders. That’s hyperbole of course but it does sum up the insurmountable fear that overcomes you whenever you have to deal with a child. So considering the fact that your long term boyfriend had suddenly decided to adopt and not at least warn you, didn’t sit right with you.

So, the best and most obvious choice, was to avoid your problem. Avoid Shouta, avoid Eri. Avoid the mention of them and you, avoid it all. And honestly you’d done pretty well so far. You were able to have as little contact with them as possible considering the close proximity of your living quarters in the teacher’s dorms. After all they were legally supposed to give you two separate rooms but you never actually used yours, well until now. You were living it up honestly. Did you feel awful? Of course. He is your boyfriend after all and you were sure Eri doesn’t deserve your cold shoulder but this is probably for the best. What could you offer her? You weren’t sure that you were a good role model for her or anyone for that matter. What did you know about raising kids? it’s not like you had parents to set a proper example for you. Of course they might have shown you what not to do but where do you go from there? Is shit like that really avoidable? You don’t want to be like them. You strive to be better but what if you can’t be. There’s also the added bonus of the fact that raising a kid seems taxing on a relationship. Now matter how strong you were sure that the stress of a kid could break a relationship down that then festers into something toxic and unrecognizable. You didn’t want that. God you couldn’t let that happen. No. This was definitely for the better.

Of course Aizawa didn’t feel the same. He was confused on why his partner had been so blatantly avoiding him. Did he do something wrong? He doesn’t remember doing anything that might’ve upset you. So why now? Why pull away now? He had to get down to the bottom of this but catching you was the hard part. You had been taking on more work, offering more assistance to the other teachers, picking up extra patrols, doing everything and anything to stay away from Shouta. It took him a month but he finally caught up to you. You were tired, worn out he knew that. Instead of loading yourself with work you’d decided to hole yourself up in your room. It was now or never.

You were pulled out of your peace at the sound of a few gentle knocks to your door. You really didn’t want to get it. You honestly couldn’t be bothered. 

“(N/n)? Are you in there?” He hadn’t gotten it wrong right? He hadn’t been too distracted earlier and missed you leaving right?

“What’s up?” You hummed from your place by the window, not bothering to actually open the door.

“Can I come in?” Shouta asked, voice soft. You could barely hear him above the patter of the rain and the low humming of your laptop.

“Uh, no, kinda busy. Got loads of work to do. Need to focus, sorry. Maybe later?” You hesitantly spoke. Not sure if you were convincing enough. 

Apparently you weren’t.

He sighed. “It’s been “later” for an entire month. Please (Y/n) just let me in. Whatever this is we can talk it out.” You had predicted that eventually Shouta would start to try to crack down on whatever the issue was but you didn’t expect it so soon. 

“Uh...no?” You tried, hoping that maybe he’d just give up but that wasn’t Shouta.

“No, you don’t get that option, now please, open the door.” Although it was still soft his voice had taken a more stern tone.

“Oh no I’m dead. I guess I can’t open the door. What a shame. I guess the only way to talk with me now is in the pits of hell.” You quipped, trying to lessen the tension that already ran thick.

“(Y/n).” Aizawa sighed.

“Jeez fine. Talk about pushy.” You quipped once more to no avail.

Opening the door you were met with, well exactly what you expected. He stood there, arms crossed, a stern yet gentle look in his eyes, his lips pulled into a slight frown. 

“Come in.” You mumbled as you stepped further into your room.

“So tell me. What’s wrong?” The sentence stirred so much. Of course you wanted to tell him. You wanted to spill your guts to the man you loved in hopes of comfort but you just can’t. You know you’ll just scare him off. You know you’ll make things worse.

So you stay silent.

He says nothing as he grabs your hands gently and leads you over to your bed. He sits the two of you down on the edge, muting the movie on the laptop sitting behind him.

“You know you can tell me if something’s bothering you right?” Shouta sent you a warm smile. 

You weren’t very comfortable with discussing your feelings sometimes, it mostly stemmed from the fact that you never really could discuss them with anyone growing up which made it harder to confide in anyone now, as at this point bottling things up was a habit. But this was also just something that you were sure that you couldn’t talk about.

Silence answered him once again.

Now he took sometime to think about his approach, think about what could’ve happened that made you pull away. What did he do that was different from his norm? He was genuinely stumped and the fact that you weren’t helping him confused him even more.

You decided to take this time to lament the situation too. What was he going to do? Should you actually tell him or play it off? If you play it off will he still insist that something is wrong? If you tell him will he leave you? If you don’t tell him will he leave you? You risked a glance at him, he was still deep in thought.

Why did you have to adopt this fucking kid without at least warning me?

“What?” Your head shot up at the sound of his shocked voice.

“What?” You asked, genuinely confused.

“Eri’s the problem...?” He spoke slowly, not entirely sure if he’d heard you right.

“Did I say that out loud?” You squeaked.

“I’m pretty sure you mumbled something along the lines of “why’d you have to adopt that fucking kid”.” Shouta said, unsure if he’d heard wrong. Wanting to have heard wrong.

“No no no no no no! It’s not like that! I mean it is like that but not like that!” You frantically waved your hands in hopes of defusing the situation.

The way he looked at you made you want to cry. You felt horrible. You felt like the biggest asshole in the world and, at this point you probably were. He looked at you with such a look of heartbreak and disappointment and confusion it made you sick to your stomach. You felt light-headed and started shaking. You were right. You were right. You were always right. God why did you have to be right! Why did you have to be like this? Scared of raising a fucking child! It was asinine and irrational and you could probably move past it  but thanks to your stupid fucking brain you just sealed your fate.

You scooted away from him still waving your hands frantically as no’s tumbled endlessly from your lips. You tried sputtering an apology, anything so that he wouldn’t look at you like that but nothing stuck. Nothing was comprehensible. Nothing worked. Nothing would work. Nothing will work. You were hopeless. It was hopeless. 

“If it isn’t like how it seems then tell it to me straight.” Shouta finally spoke up.

You took a second to come down from your panic. You steeled your nerves as much as possible before you spoke. 

“Um well, I have nothing against her it’s just that a little heads up would’ve been nice? I’m not all that great with kids so this is just kind of weird is all.” You were purposefully being vague in hopes that he’d understand what you meant and also maybe drop it.

“Not great with kids? You’re literally a teacher.” He pointed out.

“Yeah you know but she’s like a kid kid and let’s be honest I’m not too great with the students either.” You awkward laughed. So he wasn’t getting it.

“Wha-you’re fine with the students and I’m sure you’ll be fine with Eri, there was no reason to avoid me over this.” Shouta sighed. As good as he was with dealing with people, he was equally as shit. Or maybe it was just the fact that you gave him very little to work with. It was probably a bit of both. Still his dismissiveness was not helping you right now.

“No, no, no, no. I think I’ll stay here. Uh, good luck with your parenthood escapades and sorry to leave you high and dry like this but that’s going to have to be a no from me.” You rambled. He seemed to be getting a little tired of this.

“(Y/n) stop being irrational. She’s not even our kid I’m just looking after her for now. Why are you being difficult? I told you you were fine with the students and you’ll be fine with Eri, what else do you want to hear?” Shouta grumbled.

“Well uh I don’t know, uh...” You trailed off, this seemed to be going in a direction you really didn’t want it to go. A slight hostility settling in the air.

At your lack of a proper answer he clicked his tongue. He took a moment to reassess the situation. There had to be something he was missing. After all you were getting really worked up but if you weren’t going to talk to him there was nothing he could do. He shook his head before running a frustrated hand through his hair.

“(Y/n), please, please, just be honest with me. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, you can tell me. But I won’t be able to understand if you don’t.” Aizawa sighed, deciding that getting worked up about this was not the way to go, especially when you seemed to be especially distraught.

“Uh, god the thing is I don’t know entirely what to say to put the shitshow in my head into perspective.” You mumbled, trying desperately to figure out what to say that could clear the air but nothing seemed to be coherent enough.

“Take your time.” He decided that this was the best approach to things, making sure neither party got too worked up lest this turn into a fight.

The rain continued to patter softly against the window and your candle continued to burn an slightly off floral-ish scent.  A deafening silence hung in the air because even though he was being as patient as possible some of his frustration leaked through, it was bound to though so you couldn’t exactly blame him. After all, you were probably equally as frustrated with yourself too. 

“I’m just not good in a position like this. I’m not good with kids, especially someone like Eri who’s already so broken. You have that nurturing nature, it comes natural to you but I’m not on that level. I  don’t know the first thing about caring for a child let alone one as already traumatized as her. I’d fuck it up and only make things worse. I don’t want you to reassure me that I’ll be okay with her, I want you to understand that I’m not comfortable with this and that it might take me awhile to come around. I’m sure I sound like the biggest asshole ever but please understand that this just isn’t something I’m ready for.” You had rambled a bit, you were aware of that, but it was the only way that you could properly express your feelings without making things too complicated.

Aizawa said nothing. Trying to figure out how to go about things.

Was he upset? Yeah, you two, even after several long years of being together, hadn’t discussed moving forward in your relationship in depth. And if he’d tried you seemed content with the point you two were at so he left it be, no reason to try and move forward when what you had was already fine the way it was. But recently he’d been craving more. Some mornings, when he’d be the first to wake, he’d study your features in the soft light of the sunrise and wonder what it’d be like to properly settle down with you. Get married, start a family, all that jazz. He’d taken in Eri only because it was the most rational decision. His quirk would be good for quelling hers had it ever gotten out of hand. But it also seemed to quell his musings of something more with you. He had imagined you being a good parental figure for the little girl and it made his heart flutter and his stomach explode with butterflies. But now seeing that that wasn’t what you wanted and how you weren’t ready for it, it stung. But in the end, he loved you. He’d easily give his life for you. So, if that meant waiting he’d wait. He’d wait a million years if he had to. He could do it.

Once again he spoke,

“Take your time then. I can wait.”

Tagslist?: @captainchrisstan (I think you said you wanted to be tagged but I’m also just small brained lol If u didn’t want to and I misinterpreted things just let me know :) )

[iatethepomegranate]

Just a post-Aeor fic where Caleb buys a house with Beau and Yasha in Rexxentrum, becomes a professor, and learns how to be a person and protect people from what he has endured.

Content warnings: Caleb's backstory (a lot of it)

Chapter summary: Caleb's mind was in overdrive. There were so many calls to make, so many spells to prepare, so many things that could go wrong at every stage of this delicate operation, so many plans and backup plans and backup plans for backup plans. He could not let the past repeat itself.

Chapter notes: Say hello to a major plot arc. Also, I did my best to figure out a vague layout of the relevant parts of Rexxentrum but I am bad with directions, so *finger guns*

Chapter title from Eight by Sleeping At Last.

****

Chapter 6: I’m just a kid who grew up scared enough to hold the door shut and bury my innocence

Caleb’s scars itched as he headed home from the Academy, mind buzzing uncomfortably. His hands were somehow steady as he messaged Beauregard.

“Beauregard. I had an unsettling conversation with Astrid and Wulf. Two Volstrucker students are missing. Felix and Nicolaus. Evocation wizards. May have self-orphan orders.” He realised belatedly that he had forgotten to ask Astrid for a description. Also, he hoped Beauregard never told anyone he had used the term self-orphan. He’d made himself a little queasy in his haste to keep to the word limit.

“I’ll make sure the Soul keeps an eye out. And I’ll get a description from Astrid in the morning. Get over here. Dinner’s ready.”

Beau and Yasha kept the conversation flowing over dinner, absolving Caleb of that social responsibility. He felt useless, sitting here while there were two boys out there somewhere, who were possibly in the process of deciding whether or not to kill their parents based on an implanted memory of treason. If they weren’t found in time, Caleb wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself.

The two women hugged him goodnight after dinner, and he shook so hard he feared he would collapse. Yasha held onto him a little longer than she had probably planned, while Beauregard stepped back to take a look at him.

“Caleb.” She had that tone, the one what told him he looked like shit but she was trying not to freak him out. “Maybe you should take a spare room on this side tonight.”

“I’m all right, Beauregard.” He knew he sounded ridiculous. “Hear me out. Please.” Beauregard tilted her head in a silent challenge. “I need to think. I need to process this. I need to come up with plans for every possible outcome. And I may need to make some calls.”

“Do you want to talk it out?”

“I would like to be alone. Just for tonight. We will talk tomorrow.”

Beauregard looked for a moment like she was going to argue, and then she quite intentionally relaxed her shoulders. “Okay. You’ll tell us if you need anything, right?”

“Ja, of course.”

Yasha gave him one last squeeze. “We mean it. Anything.”

“I know. Danke.”

Caleb escaped to his bedroom. He forced himself to slow down a bit, take deep breaths, and get dressed for bed. He settled under the covers, slowly circling his palm over the quilt and feeling the different animal patterns. He’d already committed them to memory. But, on a night like this, it helped to know that what he thought was reality before was still reality now.

What a fucking mess. Before he could get too deep into his head, he messaged Caduceus.

“Hallo, Caduceus. Two of Trent’s students are missing. We suspect memories may have been modified. If we locate them, are you available to help us?”

There was a short pause; Caduceus was probably weighing his response, aware that he would not be able to track the wordcount once he began to speak. “Of course. Let me know when I’m needed. If you could spare a teleport, that would be great.”

Caleb cast the spell again. “I will give you a head’s up when I need you and then grab you from the Grove. Danke. Today has been… a lot.”

“Get some rest, Caleb. I left some sleepy tea in your kitchen if you need it. I’ll be here when you need me.”

That was one problem handled. Caleb burned through another Sending.

“Astrid, Caduceus is on call to correct any memory modification. Beauregard will be in touch with you tomorrow to get their descriptions.”

“Danke. I will ensure the Cobalt Soul is adequately informed. Now go to bed.”

Caleb let him feel her unspoken concern for him, just for a moment. Maybe one day they could be friends again. He curled up beneath the covers and closed his eyes. He would have to ensure he packed Counterspell and Sending every day. Perhaps Hold Person would also be useful. Control Flames would also not go amiss, just in case. And Expeditious Retreat or Fly would be useful in case time was of the essence at any point. Suggestion could be useful if they had the chance to talk. Running through spells he should prepare made him feel a bit better about how little control he had over this.

He was still losing his mind a little bit.

“Caleb,” came Essek’s voice, pumping air into Caleb's lungs. “Apologies. I meant to message earlier. I’m safe. Saved a child’s pet cat from a tree. He hugged me. Strange. How was your day?”

“Intense.” Caleb wasn’t sure how much to say, and he would definitely have to burn more spells to go into any detail. “Astrid promised to find a venue for the ex-Volstrucker support group. Two boys are unaccounted for. We are concerned. They are… almost graduates.”

Before Caleb could decide whether to say more, Essek Sent again. “Are you all right? Can I help with anything?”

“Not right now. We will… see how this pans out. They’re from Blumenthal, and I didn’t hear anything when I was there. May have time.” Caleb burnt another of his own spells before Essek did. “I have Caduceus on standby and Beauregard will talk to the Soul tomorrow. We may have a chance. I hope.”

“I will come in a heartbeat if you need me. Keep me updated. Get some rest if you can. Goodnight. You are in my thoughts.”

It helped, just a bit. Caleb still tossed and turned for a while, unable to turn his brain off. But things were… maybe they were manageable. He had half a mind to take himself to Blumenthal tomorrow, find out where the boys’ parents lived and get them somewhere safe. Or maybe he could… no, they would not handle a stranger showing up at their door in the dead of the night very well.

****

Astrid came to the house the following morning, with sketches for Beauregard to distribute to the Cobalt Soul. It was odd to sit on the couch with her. Like friends would.

“Eadwulf is in the city with the Volstrucker we could mobilise,” she said. “If either of them come to Rexxentrum, between us and the monks, we will find them. I spoke to my guard contact; the families are okay.”

“Have we considered evacuating them?” asked Caleb. The thought had kept him up for a long time last night. Maybe it was the best option.

There was a flicker of discomfort across Astrid’s face for the barest of seconds. “I don’t trust the Crownsguard to handle a delicate mission like that. It would be up to us. Or perhaps the Soul, but I’m already stretching our relationship with them.”

“Yudala Fon knows the stakes,” said Caleb. “If you are not comfortable visiting Blumenthal yourself…”

“Are you?”

“I have been once. I can bear it again to save half a dozen lives.”

They both knew it wasn’t just the parents whose lives were in danger. If Felix and Nicolaus followed through on this and were not stopped…

Well, Caleb had lost eleven years, and then another six running and running and running. Astrid and Wulf had lost their freedom as well. And Caleb could not even begin to comprehend the special kind of pain it would bring these boys if they murdered their parents only to discover Trent had been in prison for weeks, his crimes exposed, his orders no longer in effect. Caleb wasn’t sure he could have survived that.

Astrid must have understood what Caleb was feeling, because she spoke gently. “It is an option. We could also leave them in place under guard to draw the boys out.”

“I would rather not.” Caleb could already conjure a dozen scenarios in which that could go horribly wrong. “Astrid, we cannot fuck this up. You and I both know these boys could overpower a Crownsguard, or sneak past a security detail. No risks. We have to move the families.”

Astrid opened her mouth to respond, and then paused, eyes drifting upwards in concentration. “Thanks, Wulf. Do not engage. Herd him towards us if you can. We will be there shortly.” She focused back on Caleb. “Felix is in the city. Eadwulf is trailing him. They are approaching from the south.” She hopped to her feet, and helped Caleb up. “Shall we?”

As they raced out the door, Caleb messaged Beauregard. “Felix has been spotted. Approaching The Tangles from the south. Wulf is trailing. We are headed to intercept. Could use a hand.”

“I’m in the Court of Colours, southwest of your position. I’ll link up with Eadwulf. Will get the monks to surround. We got this.”

“Beauregard is southwest of us,” Caleb told Astrid. “She’ll try to find Wulf and have the monks form a perimeter.”

“We only have one shot with Felix,” Astrid muttered. “This could make or break everything. No fuckups?”

“No fuckups.”

They ran.

As they drew closer to the suspected middle point, Caleb shot a quick message to Wulf. “We are close to the midpoint. Turning invisible now.” He grabbed Astrid’s hand, hiding them both from view.

Wulf’s response was a whisper. “Slowing down. I think he knows I’m here, but hasn’t done anything yet.”

Caleb was grateful most seventeen-year-old wizards had not yet figured out teleportation. He and Astrid also slowed, still hand-in-hand.

“We try to talk to him before we do anything aggressive,” Astrid whispered. “Get us close.”

“Worst case scenario, Beauregard stuns him and Wulf carries him somewhere we can have a secure conversation. I can try casting Suggestion if necessary, before we do anything to freak him out.”

They turned a corner and Caleb spotted the boy in a crowd of people carrying baskets and cloths and the like, probably headed to market. Felix was slim and blonde, and looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. His shoulders were tight. The pair stayed ahead of him. Caleb spotted the instant Felix started getting a little too nervous, his eyes darting backwards for the barest of moments, towards Eadwulf, buried even as he was in the crowd.

Caleb tugged Astrid’s hand towards an alley before letting go and stepping into it, hoping he had read this right. Felix also turned into the alley, putting his back to the wall of a nearby inn, raising a hand to prepare a spell. Caleb recognised the somatic components of Scorching Ray. He prepared to counter it.

As soon as Wulf emerged, Felix tried to release the spell, and Caleb counterspelled, losing his invisibility.

Felix shook out his hands, still focused on Wulf. “Why are you following me, Eadwulf?”

Wulf raised an eyebrow. “Did you consider asking that before trying to set me on fire?”

Felix’s eyes narrowed, and Caleb wondered if Trent had tried to drive a wedge between the Volstruck, and Astrid and Wulf.

Astrid dropped her invisibility, appearing next to Wulf. “Felix, what’s the matter? Are you well?”

Her emergence did not calm Felix in the slightest. “Am I--” He scoffed. “Are you kidding?”

“We have been looking for you for weeks,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I have a mission to complete.”

Caleb considered recasting his invisibility, but the spell required verbal and somatic components. He just had to hold still and hope Astrid and Wulf commanded Felix’s attention until Caleb figured out what to do.

“Felix, you have been gone from the city for a long time,” said Astrid, and Caleb slowly reached for his component pouch. “Things have changed. Your mission, whatever it is, may no longer be viable.”

“We need to take you back to the Candles,” said Wulf.

Caleb felt his snake’s tongue and a piece of honeycomb, and began to slowly extract them from his pouch.

Felix didn’t move. “Why?”

Astrid glanced at Wulf, before evidently deciding on a course of action. “Trent has been arrested. We are trying to gather the Volstrucker so we can explain the charges against him.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Felix, what did he ask you to do?”

“It’s confidential.”

Caleb had the materials in his hand, so he rubbed the honeycomb against his lip, and spoke. “Felix, we are here to help you, but we need you to help us. Could we please have an honest conversation with each other?”

There was a moment where Caleb feared Felix would resist the Suggestion spell, and that Beauregard would have to swoop in and stun him. Felix turned to him, head cocked.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “You are Bren, right? Trent talks about you a lot.” He glanced at Astrid and Wulf. “He seemed worried the three of you were scheming behind his back.”

“Let’s head to his old office, ja? We have a lot to talk about. We will answer your questions, if you answer ours.”

“All right. Lead on.”

Caleb could not fucking believe that had worked. Judging from Astrid and Eadwulf’s brief but clearly shocked glances in his direction, they couldn’t believe it either.

****

Caleb couldn’t risk sending a message to Beauregard explaining what had happened, but she seemed to get the sense she shouldn’t reveal herself. Caleb led Felix through the city to the Academy, and up to Astrid’s office. They sat him in front of the fireplace.

Caleb crouched in front of him while Astrid stood by the fire, and Wulf leaned by the door. “Thank you for cooperating, Felix. Give me one moment. I need to message a friend who is going to help us.” He cast Sending. “Caduceus. We will need you in a moment.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

“I’ll go,” said Eadwulf. “Be right back.” With a muttered incantation, he had vanished.

“Where is he going?” asked Felix.

“To fetch a cleric friend of mine,” Caleb replied. “You look tired. Are you well?”

“Had a lot on my mind, I guess. Sleeping has been difficult.”

“I know the feeling.” Caleb looked to Astrid. “We should explain the situation, ja?”

“Why was Trent arrested?” asked Felix.

“A number of Volstrucker spoke with the Cobalt Soul about his training methods,” Astrid replied. “They documented it and took him to court. He’s in prison for life.”

Felix frowned. “I’m confused.”

Caleb should have expected Felix probably wouldn’t understand Trent’s behaviour as abuse; Caleb hadn’t either. “Felix, I would like you to listen to me.” He rolled up his sleeves so Felix could see the scars, which he was certain Felix shared. “A good teacher does not force his students to endure what we have.”

“We will face worse every day in our work,” Felix replied. “The pain… it makes us stronger.”

“And the residuum experiments? With no pain mitigation? I know people who have passed out in the process. Has that happened to you?”

“Once or twice,” Felix muttered, evidently still under the effects of the spell. “Puked more often.”

“Me too,” said Caleb, resisting the urge to scratch his itching scars. “It made me very ill most of the time. Astrid and Eadwulf had to force me to eat.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you asking me these questions?”

Astrid was gazing into the flames. “Felix, how old were you when Trent first hurt you?”

“Sixteen.”

Astrid managed to look at Caleb, just for a moment. “The same for him.” Astrid was a year older so it made sense to invoke Caleb instead, and maybe it was easier for her to project these things onto him.

Wulf popped back into the office, with the very welcome form of Caduceus beside him. Felix jumped, but Caleb had told him what was happening, and that seemed to be enough to stop him from bolting.

“Hallo, Caduceus,” said Caleb. “Can you give us just one more moment?” He turned back to Felix. “I’m going to have my friend Caduceus take a look at you and make sure you are well, but I would like to ask you a question first.”

“Fine.”

“What has Trent ordered you to do?”

Felix dropped his gaze to his lap. “My mother and father are plotting to betray the Empire. I have been asked to stop them.”

“That must have been weeks ago,” said Caleb. “What’s the matter?”

Felix scowled, and tried several times to supply an answer, as he was required to be honest while under the effects of Caleb’s specifically-worded spell. “I don’t know. They are not the people I thought they were. They are traitors. But. It’s not… I don’t know what to do. I’ve been waiting for Trent to give me more information, but I haven’t heard anything. I guess I was trying to figure out if there was a way I could convince them to…” He shook his head. “No. There is no mercy for traitors to the Empire.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Caleb. “It must be very difficult. May Caduceus take a look at you? You have clearly been under a great deal of stress.”

Felix had probably never seen a firbolg before, and he eyed Caduceus with trepidation. “What is he going to do?”

“It’s all right,” said Astrid. “He is a healer. The three of us have spent time in his family’s garden.”

“I… suppose…”

Caduceus approached slowly. “This will be quick, I promise. Just a healing spell to make you feel a bit better.” He already had the diamond dust for Greater Restoration in his palm. He touched Felix’s shoulder. It took a second for the spell to sink in, during which Caleb couldn’t breathe.

Then Felix slid to the floor, head in his hands. Astrid knelt beside him, whispering too quietly for Caleb to hear.

“One down,” Caduceus said softly, smiling at Caleb. “One to go.”

Caleb couldn’t speak. He watched Felix curl up on the floor, muttering to Astrid. She looked up at him, beckoned him over. Caleb knelt by her side.

“I don’t understand,” Felix said. “Why? Why? I don’t…” He shoved his fist against his mouth and screamed into it, eyes squeezed shut. “Why would he do this?”

There were a lot of things Caleb could say; he was not convinced any of them were right. But he had to say something. “He’s done this to all of us. Every Volstrucker went through this to graduate.”

“He does it for a few reasons,” Astrid said, quiet but somewhat detached. “It eliminates any family connections, leaving us reliant on Trent. And then, we’ve done the worst thing we thought we could do. Anything Trent has us do after that means very little. And those who break…” She looked at Caleb. “They are held up as an example of failure that we are measured against. We all know Bren’s name for a reason. First, as an example of failure, of weakness. Later, an example of endurance, of admirable but problematic stubbornness. A cautionary tale nonetheless.”

Felix looked to Caleb as well. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?”

Caleb wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know what Felix would tolerate, and there was a pressing matter. “First things first, we need to find Nicolaus.”

Felix drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face against them. “I don’t know where he is. We argued and then we went our separate ways.”

“What did you argue about?”

“I wanted to come here and find Trent. Ask about the order. See if there was anything we could… I don’t know.”

“And what did he want?”

“Nico doesn’t know what he wants. He was always more scared of Trent than I am.”

“Okay, we have ways to track him down. Caduceus, can you scry today?”

“I can,” Caduceus said slowly. “Might I also recommend, if Mr Felix knows the spell, that he should try Sending to him.”

“I don’t know that spell,” Felix said thickly. Caleb would just make out the side of his face, to see it was screwed up as if in pain.

“I can teach you,” said Caleb, “but I suspect it will take more time than we have right now.” Sending was an Evocation spell, so it would probably only take Felix three hours instead of six to copy it into his spellbook and practice it until he could do it, but that was still too long.

Caduceus sat cross-legged on the floor. “Do you have anything of his? Or a likeness?”

Wulf handed him a sketch. “Does this help?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Caduceus closed his eyes and began the ritual.

“I can try messaging Nico,” Astrid said, gripping her copper wire. “Nicolaus. It’s Astrid. I must meet with you in Trent’s office. It’s an urgent matter.” She waited, scowled. “Nothing.”

Caleb refused to panic, no matter how bad that sounded. “Okay. Good to know.”

Felix lifted his head. “What if we’re too late?”

“We don’t know that yet,” said Caleb. “Whatever happens, we will deal with it.”

Felix frowned at the floor. “What happens to me now?”

“We can take you home to your parents once we’ve got an idea of Nico’s situation,” said Caleb. “Unless you need more time.”

“Just a bit. I think. But I’d like to see them. Not today.”

“There is plenty of dormitory space for however long you need,” said Astrid. “Bren will visit you regularly once you are with your parents, to check in.” Felix nodded. That had not been discussed, but it was something that Caleb would want to do, so he let it slide.

The ten minutes it took for Caduceus to complete the spell were some of the longest of Caleb’s life. But then Caduceus’s eyes went white, and it seemed to be working.

Caduceus began to narrate what I saw. “I see your boy. He’s in a field. The clouds are pretty dark. It’s hard to see much. I think I see some buildings ahead of him. I’ll follow him for a bit.”

There was a sick feeling in the pit of Caleb’s stomach. “We should be ready, just in case.”

Astrid’s fingers weaved around the wire. “Expositor, are you close by? We may need your assistance. Come to my office on the--ugh, just ask for directions.” She listened. “Expositor Lionett is outside the Academy. She will be here soon.”

Caduceus spoke again. “He is approaching the village. Not many people in the streets. Probably the incoming storm. He looks like he has a goal.”

“What can you see of the buildings?” asked Caleb. “Any signs?”

“The signs are Zemnian,” said Caduceus. “The buildings look like farmhouses, mostly. I think I saw an orchard.”

“Blumenthal is a farming town,” Caleb muttered. “Fuck.”

Beauregard burst through the door, gasping for breath. “I’m here!” She doubled over, hands on her knees, as she sucked in air.

“Get ready to move,” said Wulf, stony-faced. “It looks bad.”

“Shit.” She gulped in another breath. “Okay.”

Caleb felt a little better now that she was here, but he was wound too tight to process it. “Caduceus. Is there anything else?”

“He’s picking up speed. Turned a corner. Looking at a house in the distance, I think.”

Caleb did not let himself feel anything. He turned to Felix. “Felix, do you know where Nico’s parents live?”

“On the northeastern edge of town.” Felix’s voice was as tense as Caleb. “Look for the cabbages.”

“Danke.” He squeezed Felix’s shoulder and pushed himself to his feet. “We need to go.”

Caduceus was still in the vision. “Go on ahead. I’ll stay here with Felix. If I see anything I think is useful, I will Send. But it will break the scry.”

Caleb gathered Astrid, Wulf and Beauregard around him and cast teleport, aiming for the northeastern end of Blumenthal. He knew it well, once.

Caleb’s scars itched as he headed home from the Academy, mind buzzing uncomfortably. His hands were somehow steady as he messaged Beauregard.

“Beauregard. I had an unsettling conversation with Astrid and Wulf. Two Volstrucker students are missing. Felix and Nicolaus. Evocation wizards. May have self-orphan orders.” He realised belatedly that he had forgotten to ask Astrid for a description. Also, he hoped Beauregard never told anyone he had used the term self-orphan. He’d made himself a little queasy in his haste to keep to the word limit.

“I’ll make sure the Soul keeps an eye out. And I’ll get a description from Astrid in the morning. Get over here. Dinner’s ready.”

Beau and Yasha kept the conversation flowing over dinner, absolving Caleb of that social responsibility. He felt useless, sitting here while there were two boys out there somewhere, who were possibly in the process of deciding whether or not to kill their parents based on an implanted memory of treason. If they weren’t found in time, Caleb wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself.

The two women hugged him goodnight after dinner, and he shook so hard he feared he would collapse. Yasha held onto him a little longer than she had probably planned, while Beauregard stepped back to take a look at him.

“Caleb.” She had that tone, the one what told him he looked like shit but she was trying not to freak him out. “Maybe you should take a spare room on this side tonight.”

“I’m all right, Beauregard.” He knew he sounded ridiculous. “Hear me out. Please.” Beauregard tilted her head in a silent challenge. “I need to think. I need to process this. I need to come up with plans for every possible outcome. And I may need to make some calls.”

“Do you want to talk it out?”

“I would like to be alone. Just for tonight. We will talk tomorrow.”

Beauregard looked for a moment like she was going to argue, and then she quite intentionally relaxed her shoulders. “Okay. You’ll tell us if you need anything, right?”

“Ja, of course.”

Yasha gave him one last squeeze. “We mean it. Anything.”

“I know. Danke.”

Caleb escaped to his bedroom. He forced himself to slow down a bit, take deep breaths, and get dressed for bed. He settled under the covers, slowly circling his palm over the quilt and feeling the different animal patterns. He’d already committed them to memory. But, on a night like this, it helped to know that what he thought was reality before was still reality now.

What a fucking mess. Before he could get too deep into his head, he messaged Caduceus.

“Hallo, Caduceus. Two of Trent’s students are missing. We suspect memories may have been modified. If we locate them, are you available to help us?”

There was a short pause; Caduceus was probably weighing his response, aware that he would not be able to track the wordcount once he began to speak. “Of course. Let me know when I’m needed. If you could spare a teleport, that would be great.”

Caleb cast the spell again. “I will give you a head’s up when I need you and then grab you from the Grove. Danke. Today has been… a lot.”

“Get some rest, Caleb. I left some sleepy tea in your kitchen if you need it. I’ll be here when you need me.”

That was one problem handled. Caleb burned through another Sending.

“Astrid, Caduceus is on call to correct any memory modification. Beauregard will be in touch with you tomorrow to get their descriptions.”

“Danke. I will ensure the Cobalt Soul is adequately informed. Now go to bed.”

Caleb let him feel her unspoken concern for him, just for a moment. Maybe one day they could be friends again. He curled up beneath the covers and closed his eyes. He would have to ensure he packed Counterspell and Sending every day. Perhaps Hold Person would also be useful. Control Flames would also not go amiss, just in case. And Expeditious Retreat or Fly would be useful in case time was of the essence at any point. Suggestion could be useful if they had the chance to talk. Running through spells he should prepare made him feel a bit better about how little control he had over this.

He was still losing his mind a little bit.

“Caleb,” came Essek’s voice, pumping air into Caleb's lungs. “Apologies. I meant to message earlier. I’m safe. Saved a child’s pet cat from a tree. He hugged me. Strange. How was your day?”

“Intense.” Caleb wasn’t sure how much to say, and he would definitely have to burn more spells to go into any detail. “Astrid promised to find a venue for the ex-Volstrucker support group. Two boys are unaccounted for. We are concerned. They are… almost graduates.”

Before Caleb could decide whether to say more, Essek Sent again. “Are you all right? Can I help with anything?”

“Not right now. We will… see how this pans out. They’re from Blumenthal, and I didn’t hear anything when I was there. May have time.” Caleb burnt another of his own spells before Essek did. “I have Caduceus on standby and Beauregard will talk to the Soul tomorrow. We may have a chance. I hope.”

“I will come in a heartbeat if you need me. Keep me updated. Get some rest if you can. Goodnight. You are in my thoughts.”

It helped, just a bit. Caleb still tossed and turned for a while, unable to turn his brain off. But things were… maybe they were manageable. He had half a mind to take himself to Blumenthal tomorrow, find out where the boys’ parents lived and get them somewhere safe. Or maybe he could… no, they would not handle a stranger showing up at their door in the dead of the night very well.

****

Astrid came to the house the following morning, with sketches for Beauregard to distribute to the Cobalt Soul. It was odd to sit on the couch with her. Like friends would.

“Eadwulf is in the city with the Volstrucker we could mobilise,” she said. “If either of them come to Rexxentrum, between us and the monks, we will find them. I spoke to my guard contact; the families are okay.”

“Have we considered evacuating them?” asked Caleb. The thought had kept him up for a long time last night. Maybe it was the best option.

There was a flicker of discomfort across Astrid’s face for the barest of seconds. “I don’t trust the Crownsguard to handle a delicate mission like that. It would be up to us. Or perhaps the Soul, but I’m already stretching our relationship with them.”

“Yudala Fon knows the stakes,” said Caleb. “If you are not comfortable visiting Blumenthal yourself…”

“Are you?”

“I have been once. I can bear it again to save half a dozen lives.”

They both knew it wasn’t just the parents whose lives were in danger. If Felix and Nicolaus followed through on this and were not stopped…

Well, Caleb had lost eleven years, and then another six running and running and running. Astrid and Wulf had lost their freedom as well. And Caleb could not even begin to comprehend the special kind of pain it would bring these boys if they murdered their parents only to discover Trent had been in prison for weeks, his crimes exposed, his orders no longer in effect. Caleb wasn’t sure he could have survived that.

Astrid must have understood what Caleb was feeling, because she spoke gently. “It is an option. We could also leave them in place under guard to draw the boys out.”

“I would rather not.” Caleb could already conjure a dozen scenarios in which that could go horribly wrong. “Astrid, we cannot fuck this up. You and I both know these boys could overpower a Crownsguard, or sneak past a security detail. No risks. We have to move the families.”

Astrid opened her mouth to respond, and then paused, eyes drifting upwards in concentration. “Thanks, Wulf. Do not engage. Herd him towards us if you can. We will be there shortly.” She focused back on Caleb. “Felix is in the city. Eadwulf is trailing him. They are approaching from the south.” She hopped to her feet, and helped Caleb up. “Shall we?”

As they raced out the door, Caleb messaged Beauregard. “Felix has been spotted. Approaching The Tangles from the south. Wulf is trailing. We are headed to intercept. Could use a hand.”

“I’m in the Court of Colours, southwest of your position. I’ll link up with Eadwulf. Will get the monks to surround. We got this.”

“Beauregard is southwest of us,” Caleb told Astrid. “She’ll try to find Wulf and have the monks form a perimeter.”

“We only have one shot with Felix,” Astrid muttered. “This could make or break everything. No fuckups?”

“No fuckups.”

They ran.

As they drew closer to the suspected middle point, Caleb shot a quick message to Wulf. “We are close to the midpoint. Turning invisible now.” He grabbed Astrid’s hand, hiding them both from view.

Wulf’s response was a whisper. “Slowing down. I think he knows I’m here, but hasn’t done anything yet.”

Caleb was grateful most seventeen-year-old wizards had not yet figured out teleportation. He and Astrid also slowed, still hand-in-hand.

“We try to talk to him before we do anything aggressive,” Astrid whispered. “Get us close.”

“Worst case scenario, Beauregard stuns him and Wulf carries him somewhere we can have a secure conversation. I can try casting Suggestion if necessary, before we do anything to freak him out.”

They turned a corner and Caleb spotted the boy in a crowd of people carrying baskets and cloths and the like, probably headed to market. Felix was slim and blonde, and looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. His shoulders were tight. The pair stayed ahead of him. Caleb spotted the instant Felix started getting a little too nervous, his eyes darting backwards for the barest of moments, towards Eadwulf, buried even as he was in the crowd.

Caleb tugged Astrid’s hand towards an alley before letting go and stepping into it, hoping he had read this right. Felix also turned into the alley, putting his back to the wall of a nearby inn, raising a hand to prepare a spell. Caleb recognised the somatic components of Scorching Ray. He prepared to counter it.

As soon as Wulf emerged, Felix tried to release the spell, and Caleb counterspelled, losing his invisibility.

Felix shook out his hands, still focused on Wulf. “Why are you following me, Eadwulf?”

Wulf raised an eyebrow. “Did you consider asking that before trying to set me on fire?”

Felix’s eyes narrowed, and Caleb wondered if Trent had tried to drive a wedge between the Volstruck, and Astrid and Wulf.

Astrid dropped her invisibility, appearing next to Wulf. “Felix, what’s the matter? Are you well?”

Her emergence did not calm Felix in the slightest. “Am I--” He scoffed. “Are you kidding?”

“We have been looking for you for weeks,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I have a mission to complete.”

Caleb considered recasting his invisibility, but the spell required verbal and somatic components. He just had to hold still and hope Astrid and Wulf commanded Felix’s attention until Caleb figured out what to do.

“Felix, you have been gone from the city for a long time,” said Astrid, and Caleb slowly reached for his component pouch. “Things have changed. Your mission, whatever it is, may no longer be viable.”

“We need to take you back to the Candles,” said Wulf.

Caleb felt his snake’s tongue and a piece of honeycomb, and began to slowly extract them from his pouch.

Felix didn’t move. “Why?”

Astrid glanced at Wulf, before evidently deciding on a course of action. “Trent has been arrested. We are trying to gather the Volstrucker so we can explain the charges against him.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Felix, what did he ask you to do?”

“It’s confidential.”

Caleb had the materials in his hand, so he rubbed the honeycomb against his lip, and spoke. “Felix, we are here to help you, but we need you to help us. Could we please have an honest conversation with each other?”

There was a moment where Caleb feared Felix would resist the Suggestion spell, and that Beauregard would have to swoop in and stun him. Felix turned to him, head cocked.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “You are Bren, right? Trent talks about you a lot.” He glanced at Astrid and Wulf. “He seemed worried the three of you were scheming behind his back.”

“Let’s head to his old office, ja? We have a lot to talk about. We will answer your questions, if you answer ours.”

“All right. Lead on.”

Caleb could not fucking believe that had worked. Judging from Astrid and Eadwulf’s brief but clearly shocked glances in his direction, they couldn’t believe it either.

****

Caleb couldn’t risk sending a message to Beauregard explaining what had happened, but she seemed to get the sense she shouldn’t reveal herself. Caleb led Felix through the city to the Academy, and up to Astrid’s office. They sat him in front of the fireplace.

Caleb crouched in front of him while Astrid stood by the fire, and Wulf leaned by the door. “Thank you for cooperating, Felix. Give me one moment. I need to message a friend who is going to help us.” He cast Sending. “Caduceus. We will need you in a moment.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

“I’ll go,” said Eadwulf. “Be right back.” With a muttered incantation, he had vanished.

“Where is he going?” asked Felix.

“To fetch a cleric friend of mine,” Caleb replied. “You look tired. Are you well?”

“Had a lot on my mind, I guess. Sleeping has been difficult.”

“I know the feeling.” Caleb looked to Astrid. “We should explain the situation, ja?”

“Why was Trent arrested?” asked Felix.

“A number of Volstrucker spoke with the Cobalt Soul about his training methods,” Astrid replied. “They documented it and took him to court. He’s in prison for life.”

Felix frowned. “I’m confused.”

Caleb should have expected Felix probably wouldn’t understand Trent’s behaviour as abuse; Caleb hadn’t either. “Felix, I would like you to listen to me.” He rolled up his sleeves so Felix could see the scars, which he was certain Felix shared. “A good teacher does not force his students to endure what we have.”

“We will face worse every day in our work,” Felix replied. “The pain… it makes us stronger.”

“And the residuum experiments? With no pain mitigation? I know people who have passed out in the process. Has that happened to you?”

“Once or twice,” Felix muttered, evidently still under the effects of the spell. “Puked more often.”

“Me too,” said Caleb, resisting the urge to scratch his itching scars. “It made me very ill most of the time. Astrid and Eadwulf had to force me to eat.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you asking me these questions?”

Astrid was gazing into the flames. “Felix, how old were you when Trent first hurt you?”

“Sixteen.”

Astrid managed to look at Caleb, just for a moment. “The same for him.” Astrid was a year older so it made sense to invoke Caleb instead, and maybe it was easier for her to project these things onto him.

Wulf popped back into the office, with the very welcome form of Caduceus beside him. Felix jumped, but Caleb had told him what was happening, and that seemed to be enough to stop him from bolting.

“Hallo, Caduceus,” said Caleb. “Can you give us just one more moment?” He turned back to Felix. “I’m going to have my friend Caduceus take a look at you and make sure you are well, but I would like to ask you a question first.”

“Fine.”

“What has Trent ordered you to do?”

Felix dropped his gaze to his lap. “My mother and father are plotting to betray the Empire. I have been asked to stop them.”

“That must have been weeks ago,” said Caleb. “What’s the matter?”

Felix scowled, and tried several times to supply an answer, as he was required to be honest while under the effects of Caleb’s specifically-worded spell. “I don’t know. They are not the people I thought they were. They are traitors. But. It’s not… I don’t know what to do. I’ve been waiting for Trent to give me more information, but I haven’t heard anything. I guess I was trying to figure out if there was a way I could convince them to…” He shook his head. “No. There is no mercy for traitors to the Empire.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Caleb. “It must be very difficult. May Caduceus take a look at you? You have clearly been under a great deal of stress.”

Felix had probably never seen a firbolg before, and he eyed Caduceus with trepidation. “What is he going to do?”

“It’s all right,” said Astrid. “He is a healer. The three of us have spent time in his family’s garden.”

“I… suppose…”

Caduceus approached slowly. “This will be quick, I promise. Just a healing spell to make you feel a bit better.” He already had the diamond dust for Greater Restoration in his palm. He touched Felix’s shoulder. It took a second for the spell to sink in, during which Caleb couldn’t breathe.

Then Felix slid to the floor, head in his hands. Astrid knelt beside him, whispering too quietly for Caleb to hear.

“One down,” Caduceus said softly, smiling at Caleb. “One to go.”

Caleb couldn’t speak. He watched Felix curl up on the floor, muttering to Astrid. She looked up at him, beckoned him over. Caleb knelt by her side.

“I don’t understand,” Felix said. “Why? Why? I don’t…” He shoved his fist against his mouth and screamed into it, eyes squeezed shut. “Why would he do this?”

There were a lot of things Caleb could say; he was not convinced any of them were right. But he had to say something. “He’s done this to all of us. Every Volstrucker went through this to graduate.”

“He does it for a few reasons,” Astrid said, quiet but somewhat detached. “It eliminates any family connections, leaving us reliant on Trent. And then, we’ve done the worst thing we thought we could do. Anything Trent has us do after that means very little. And those who break…” She looked at Caleb. “They are held up as an example of failure that we are measured against. We all know Bren’s name for a reason. First, as an example of failure, of weakness. Later, an example of endurance, of admirable but problematic stubbornness. A cautionary tale nonetheless.”

Felix looked to Caleb as well. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?”

Caleb wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know what Felix would tolerate, and there was a pressing matter. “First things first, we need to find Nicolaus.”

Felix drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face against them. “I don’t know where he is. We argued and then we went our separate ways.”

“What did you argue about?”

“I wanted to come here and find Trent. Ask about the order. See if there was anything we could… I don’t know.”

“And what did he want?”

“Nico doesn’t know what he wants. He was always more scared of Trent than I am.”

“Okay, we have ways to track him down. Caduceus, can you scry today?”

“I can,” Caduceus said slowly. “Might I also recommend, if Mr Felix knows the spell, that he should try Sending to him.”

“I don’t know that spell,” Felix said thickly. Caleb would just make out the side of his face, to see it was screwed up as if in pain.

“I can teach you,” said Caleb, “but I suspect it will take more time than we have right now.” Sending was an Evocation spell, so it would probably only take Felix three hours instead of six to copy it into his spellbook and practice it until he could do it, but that was still too long.

Caduceus sat cross-legged on the floor. “Do you have anything of his? Or a likeness?”

Wulf handed him a sketch. “Does this help?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Caduceus closed his eyes and began the ritual.

“I can try messaging Nico,” Astrid said, gripping her copper wire. “Nicolaus. It’s Astrid. I must meet with you in Trent’s office. It’s an urgent matter.” She waited, scowled. “Nothing.”

Caleb refused to panic, no matter how bad that sounded. “Okay. Good to know.”

Felix lifted his head. “What if we’re too late?”

“We don’t know that yet,” said Caleb. “Whatever happens, we will deal with it.”

Felix frowned at the floor. “What happens to me now?”

“We can take you home to your parents once we’ve got an idea of Nico’s situation,” said Caleb. “Unless you need more time.”

“Just a bit. I think. But I’d like to see them. Not today.”

“There is plenty of dormitory space for however long you need,” said Astrid. “Bren will visit you regularly once you are with your parents, to check in.” Felix nodded. That had not been discussed, but it was something that Caleb would want to do, so he let it slide.

The ten minutes it took for Caduceus to complete the spell were some of the longest of Caleb’s life. But then Caduceus’s eyes went white, and it seemed to be working.

Caduceus began to narrate what I saw. “I see your boy. He’s in a field. The clouds are pretty dark. It’s hard to see much. I think I see some buildings ahead of him. I’ll follow him for a bit.”

There was a sick feeling in the pit of Caleb’s stomach. “We should be ready, just in case.”

Astrid’s fingers weaved around the wire. “Expositor, are you close by? We may need your assistance. Come to my office on the--ugh, just ask for directions.” She listened. “Expositor Lionett is outside the Academy. She will be here soon.”

Caduceus spoke again. “He is approaching the village. Not many people in the streets. Probably the incoming storm. He looks like he has a goal.”

“What can you see of the buildings?” asked Caleb. “Any signs?”

“The signs are Zemnian,” said Caduceus. “The buildings look like farmhouses, mostly. I think I saw an orchard.”

“Blumenthal is a farming town,” Caleb muttered. “Fuck.”

Beauregard burst through the door, gasping for breath. “I’m here!” She doubled over, hands on her knees, as she sucked in air.

“Get ready to move,” said Wulf, stony-faced. “It looks bad.”

“Shit.” She gulped in another breath. “Okay.”

Caleb felt a little better now that she was here, but he was wound too tight to process it. “Caduceus. Is there anything else?”

“He’s picking up speed. Turned a corner. Looking at a house in the distance, I think.”

Caleb did not let himself feel anything. He turned to Felix. “Felix, do you know where Nico’s parents live?”

“On the northeastern edge of town.” Felix’s voice was as tense as Caleb. “Look for the cabbages.”

“Danke.” He squeezed Felix’s shoulder and pushed himself to his feet. “We need to go.”

Caduceus was still in the vision. “Go on ahead. I’ll stay here with Felix. If I see anything I think is useful, I will Send. But it will break the scry.”

Caleb gathered Astrid, Wulf and Beauregard around him and cast teleport, aiming for the northeastern end of Blumenthal. He knew it well, once.

[gullethead]

what is your opinion on tamsyn muir discourse (and also what is the discourse)

THANK you. okay warning for discussion of fictional sexual assault, real life CSA (not something she did), plus 2012-era homestuck fandom typical stuff

please rb this btw, unless you dont want to, in which case dont. also if you have any corrections or additional information to consider please add by all means

disclaimer: im not in the habit of writing essays defending whichever internet personalities i like. ill admit theres potential bias, given that i read the books before i learned about this, but im really being as objective as possible and i just think people are taking a misguided or half-formed stance on this. if you still dislike her or w/e after this thats, like, perfectly in your rights. im not defending an adult woman on the internet, im explaining the facts as ive seen them and understand them. additional disclaimer that i havent experienced sexual assault at all myself

okay so tamsyn muir is currently well-known as the author of the locked tomb trilogy (aka gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth), but for a certain section of tumblr shes also well known as urbanAnchorite, and used to be a big name fan on here up until around 2014 - pretty close to everything here is going to be from roughly 2011 through 2014, except for an interview im gonna get into, so 7-10 years ago. i was only vaguely aware of her until after i got into the locked tomb and saw people talking about this. with that in mind:

so the MAJORITY of the discourse revolves around a single fic she wrote on AO3. her account has 19 works in homestuck, and some of them are Kinda Weird to Pretty Bad in retrospect, but being completely honest this is the only one that isnt completely stock standard for homestuck fandom in that time period. like if we started casting stones about ten year old fandom stuff we'd be here all day

here is the fic (warning for CSA)

in most of the posts about it ive seen, theyve described it as a "rapefic," but actually reading it, it's a lot more nuanced than that description implies. its a dark story where a grown man abuses a girl, from the man's perspective, and the story ends with him being killed by her friend. the description of the assault is treated very seriously by the story and barely even touches on any actual sex, before immediately cutting to him being killed. its lolita if humbert got shot to death; the title itself comes FROM lolita

(sidenote - it was inspired by a prompt on kinkmeme, but that doesn't really mean anything vis a vis being intended for sexual enjoyment, and according to the note actually went against the spirit of the request)

ive seen fics, lots and lots of fics, that would qualify as the term "rapefic." it tends to be pretty fucking obvious when someone is using sexual assault as a fetish, and this is Not That

tamsyn herself actually responded to this in an excellent interview early last year. she gets into some Fandom Mom type language, but essentially says what i said above. in it, she also says this:

It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of being a paedophile. I grew up gay in the nineties. Homosexuality and paedophilia were enmeshed in society’s minds. When I came out, I got told that I shouldn’t be around children. I was used to that because it was common discourse, and it hurt like all hell, but it didn’t shock me. When I got called a paedophile by Twitter I got clotheslined. My support network had to get in pronto. I was very ready to have a hot date with a length of rope, a date I have arranged and cancelled multiple times over my life. I have had lots and lots of therapy over the years for various conditions, some of them lifelong and some not, but when that Twitter call-out happened it was hard to want to live. I thought I knew so intimately what I was doing with my fiction; my therapist was always so supportive of me writing about it. I have not been open about being a CSA survivor because, again, I grew up in the ‘90s. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘CSA survivor’ is just carte blanche so a whole queue of people can tell you, I HOPE ONE DAY, WITH LOVE AND SUPPORT, YOU CAN BE STRAIGHT. It was like, right this way to the invalidation booth. I didn’t even tell most of my girlfriends! I told one! It’s not a topic of discussion between me and my family; I am relying on them not reading my interviews so it can remain where it belongs: thoroughly undiscussed!

with this context it becomes... a lot more nuanced of a topic. an author who experienced CSA in addition to growing up in a cultural climate where gay people were pedophiles by default, especially growing up catholic in a rural community, wrote a work about childhood sexual assault (which also happened to be fanfiction) as a way of working through it for herself, which is... something a lot of artists do with their art? and in return she got a massive blowback on twitter accusing her of pedophilia and demanding she talk about a massively traumatic moment in her life

this is the major sticking point of the discourse, im not gonna get into anything else on this post, but this is my view of it. if you disagree or have anything to add then feel free to add on. again, i know what it looks like, but im not trying to uncritically defend a stranger just cause i like her book. this is the conclusion i came to after doing a lot of digging for myself

[bigskydreaming]

Fandom Stuff To-Do List (basically just stuff I want to get to this week in any order, now that I have Completion Capabilities. Not meant to be a promise of any specific things on this for sure getting done, just these are stuff on my mind to get around to when I have the chance)

- Finish meta post about the wings fic AU and how peoples’ wings are affected by massive physical or emotional trauma that changes them as a person (aka do Babs’ wings change when she becomes Oracle). Which will of course segue into a mini-rant about how our culture tends to view trauma and the acquisition of physical disabilities as something there’s no coming back from, like there’s a ceiling on how good a person’s life can ever be after certain things happen to them. 

And that’s why so much of our media content is geared towards treating disabled people and survivors almost more as resources to ensure ‘the same kind of thing’ doesn’t happen to people it hasn’t happened to yet and thus ‘can still be saved/protected.’ Rather than people just fucking acknowledging that trauma is just destructive change that’s impact is relative to how many resources a person has to cope or deal with that change and incorporate it into their life. And that people don’t need to be protected from trauma or accidents as much as is hyped because its literally impossible to ever prevent anything bad from happening ever, so rather than hyping the illusion that ‘this sort of thing could never happen to you as long as you do xyz and don’t do abc’ more attention and focus should be shifted to acknowledging that its still gonna happen sometimes no matter what people do to prevent it or keep safe from it. Because these sorts of trauma ARE EXTERNALLY ORIGINATING and thus there’s literally only ever so much people can do that’s originating within the self to control/protect from being affected in certain ways by stuff originating from outside the self, aka inherently OUT of our control. 

And thus IMO we’d all be better served as a society by paying less lip service to the idea that people can be guaranteed safety or protection from various things and instead have more of that focus and attention shifted over towards the acquisition and building and distributing of more resources to help people in the EVENT of certain things happening to them anyway. Which in turn helps spread the narrative that you know what, even if these things happen, even if you are disabled, even if you are traumatized, that’s not the end of the road, that’s not a dealbreaker, that’s just a CHANGE that we as a society are here to help you through. It just means that your life is different now, that you may be different now, but different doesn’t have to be bad, it doesn’t have to come with a ceiling or limitations, it just means a change in perspective. 

Bad things will still happen, just like bad things still happened before your Big Change, and its important to remember not to glamorize or romanticize the Before time because that tends to gloss over the fact that nobody’s life was ever perfect before big change or trauma hit anyway. So why on earth should it be a surprise (or any different from anyone else’s life) that life isn’t perfect after big change or trauma? That doesn’t mean it can’t still be GOOD. That you won’t still have good days, good surprises, happiness, friends, joy, laughter, that maybe it takes more resources or just DIFFERENT resources to get there than it did before.....but everyone’s life is different and everyone requires different resources to achieve various desired results or experiences in the first place, so its not the end of the world to have to switch your focus and look in different places for different resources now. 

There needs to be less focus on what HAPPENED to people and more focus on what EFFECT it had on them, specifically. On how it changed them and what those changes mean they require now in order to live their life fully and happily,  that just might be different from what they needed before. There needs to be a shift in focus from just the trauma or accident or THING that happened that changed the course or direction of a person’s life as like....the definitive point their life changed, because that THING that happened was still just a THING. It came from the outside. It was external. It literally WASN’T ABOUT THEM, and thus focusing on IT can only ever reveal so much about the PERSON it happened to. 

No, the point of focus for a person’s life changing in the wake of massive trauma or an accident isn’t WHEN that happened, its when in the aftermath of that, however long it took, when that person, that survivor, finally got up one morning and realized they had a new normal. That they weren’t the person they were before, but they aren’t aimlessly lost in a single long-lasting trauma response searching fruitlessly for personal landmarks to reorient themselves when those landmarks simply don’t exist anymore, because they don’t HAVE to find or lean on those old familiar landmarks anymore. Because they’ve found new ones, found their footing in a new landscape, a new approach to living and perceiving the world around them and how it impacts and intersects with them. 

Gimme a change in focus to how recovery isn’t a thing you can ever FIND, that you can ever ACQUIRE by searching for it...and so its less vital that we hold up the idea of it as some kind of semi-mythical Holy Grail its okay to send knights eternally questing for on just the possibility of its existence because hey at least its something to shoot for, when not so deep down a lot of people shelling out advice for recovery that isn’t rooted in their own experiences or utilization of the same advice they’re selling but rather is born of ‘eh, you want something I can’t give or help with and that’s making me uncomfortable so lemme point you in a direction just vague or far away enough that I don’t have to worry about seeing you and your aura of Making Me Uncomfortable around for awhile’....

.....nah, instead how about looking to how resources might be better utilized just....supporting people until they can reach that point of recovery in their own time and their own ways. Because by its very nature, you can spend years working on recovering, on finding a new normal, a new sense of stability in your life, but you’re only ever going to ‘find it’ the day you realize that you’ve ALREADY found it. That you don’t have to go searching for it anymore because its already there, you settled and replanted yourself without even realizing it. Recovery in the wake of trauma is about searching for a way to feel better, to heal, to move past something, and the answer to that need is a feeling of no longer needing to search or find that ephemeral something, because you’re content, you’re okay with who and what you are now. And you don’t need to look anymore for something you wake up and realize you’ve already found somewhere along the way. 

Being disabled, being traumatized, being hurt, being CHANGED by some kind of big ass fucking Meteor Of Suck smacking into the planet that is your life and wiping out the fucking dinosaurs of this weirdo metaphor, like....yes, it leaves a mark, makes an impact, oftentimes a BIG one. But like, without the meteor that ended the dinosaur age or whatever, none of us would even be here because the point is just life goes on, and there’s no predicting what it will look like tomorrow, so yeah it could be worse and maybe it’ll never be like it was before, but there’s absolutely zero proof it couldn’t maybe be BETTER, even if it doesn’t ever look the way it was before. 

Change is just change. Its not the enemy, its just the point of life. Like we’re born and then things change every single day of our life however long it is and then we die. Birth and death are the bookends, and constant change is every single page of the book in between that. Change isn’t the villain of our story, change IS our story. 

And its OUR story, so it never gets to be defined by what someone else does to us in the story, because the hero’s journey isn’t about what MADE the hero set out on their quest, its about their QUEST itself, its about their TRIUMPH, its not about what happened its about what THEY decided to do NEXT because of it. Its not about the catalysts for our changes, its about what we decided to DO, who we decided to BECOME, once those catalysts hit the page and necessitated further change. 

Your trauma, your change, none of those are YOU, because YOU are the person you see when you look in the mirror and take all of that in, view it as part of you, your story, something that left a mark just like every single experience of your life has left SOME kind of impact no matter how small, and who you changed into, decided to become, how you incorporated all those marks and changes and experiences....THAT is you. The ENTIRETY of that map, not the single markers along the way, no matter how loud or dramatic or attention-grabbing they try to be. 

You are the map of your experiences and you only look to a map, a map only matters to you when its about leading or finding the way to where YOU want to go, with intent. No road map gets to take the wheel of the car just because you aren’t going in the direction it said you were supposed to go originally. If you get lost, you get lost. If you end up somewhere you didn’t expect, you end up somewhere you didn’t expect. If you realize you no longer want or need to go where you were setting out to originally, if you change your mind or decide another destination is better suited to you, you get to look to your map and draw a new route accordingly, because its YOURS, it only exists because of you, not you because of it. 

Your trauma or whatever else is fucking up your life may be big fucking pieces of the mosaic you are when you see yourself in the mirror metaphorically speaking cuz I want this analogy to be inclusive for blind people too and I just realized I need to spend more time thinking up alternative ways to express that sentiment that don’t rely on a singular axis of experience to convey it, because that’s kinda the point in and of itself: 

We’re all born with toolboxes that give us a variety of tools to approach life with, to build things out of, to build OUR life out of. The aim of civilization, of society, of being a species that only made it this far by being communal and building things together, pooling our tools to build things none of us were equipped to build with just what we already had...is that ideally, the toolbox we’re born with gets added to by others around us. Our parents or guardians or teachers, our friends and loved ones, the random person at the store who saw someone was a dollar short at the grocery store register and offered one of their own or the way we can add to someone else’s toolbox by simply asking if they’re alright when we can see they’re not and then just like that they have the added resource of the knowledge that someone cares enough about them to want to know what’s wrong. 

And none of our toolboxes are identical. None make it all the way to our deathbed with us while containing the exact same tools we started with, some are missing, some are added. Some we didn’t even realize we had. Some we never even used. Some we used the hell out of and are worn to pieces and some are shiny and new because we wore out the older version of them and needed a replacement. And sometimes big fucking meteors of suck smack into our lives right when we’re just minding our own business and enjoying our own jurassic age and everything changes forever, but millions of years later we might still be around and now we just look like chickens and alligators and sharks and all the other creatures that are basically just dinosaur descendants in a different form because we’re hardy as fuck and damn I really need to get over this metaphor it is not the analogy I’m looking for but oh well. 

Point is, sometimes Change happens and the tools we’re used to leaning on when building our better, ideal lives and optimal experiences, like....maybe they just don’t work for us anymore. Maybe we can’t grip the old familiar ones the way we used to, maybe our eyes have gone to shit and we can’t wield the more precise instruments with the precision we’re used to, maybe the nails we were using to build stairs in our dream house are fucking useless cuz they’re not the right size when building the wheelchair ramp our new dream house needs instead.......and so fucking what? What does any of that actually say about US, about who we ARE, about what our life could be or how good it could get? 

Absolutely nothing. Because the toolboxes we were born with were still only ever just tools. What we ARE is what we make with them, what we build out of ourselves, what we choose with intent to become. So what if our old tools aren’t up to the task of actualizing our new dreams? That’s what we need other people for. That’s what society SHOULD be for. That’s when what we need is not to be FIXED, not to be restocked with what we had originally but is now no longer of use to us or what we need or maybe even not what we want.....no, all we need is....new tools. New resources. New kinds of help. 

And again, that’s what society is SUPPOSED to be for. To help us define ourselves not by the problems we face but our solutions to overcoming them. To help give each other new tools and teach each other how to use them when change necessitates hunting around for something that’s easier to grip now. And if we all come into the world starting out with different tools than everyone else anyway.....what does it MATTER if somewhere along the way we have to swap out the old familiar ones we started with and look for new ones we didn’t need originally? 

A cane is just a cane to help someone walk because for whatever reasons, their legs or spine need that tool to help get them where they want to go. A cane is not proof that it will never take them to a destination where they’re every fucking bit as happy as people who made it to the same place without the use of one. A cane is not THEM. Its just a fucking cane. Same thing with glasses, with wheelchairs, with prosthetic limbs, with hearing aids. Same thing with support groups, with therapists, with trauma centers. 

Like do people ever think about how fucking AMAZING it is that we have prosthetics at all? That somewhere along the line, people saw a problem, saw a need, that was not ‘oh this person (or maybe even ‘they themselves’ because let’s not go the saviorism route and forget that disabled people have had plenty the fuck to do with designing or dreaming up or building the tools disabled people use to navigate life while working with a different set of physiological tools than most people are equipped with. Like this isn’t a ‘oh look how good other people are to people in need’ point but more just a ‘people-as-in-society-overall-which-includes-both-able-bodied-and-disabled’ point). 

Like the point is the response to seeing that was not just ‘oh so and so or maybe even me is damaged beyond repair,’  no instead it was just ‘this person’s legs aren’t currently equpped to do what this person needs or wants them to do.’ And people said okay the solution, the answer, the RESPONSE to seeing that problem or need was not to sit back and think about how much it sucks that this person can’t walk on their own and how limited or ‘lesser’ their life will be than other peoples’ because of that, no they said instead, hey, what if we just BUILT THEM DIFFERENT LEGS. Like, just THINK about that. We, as a people, communally, as in more than one, pooled resources to BUILD PEOPLE NEW FUCKING LEGS. 

And all it ultimately took, the catalyst for THAT, for changing the lives of people who use prosthetics as tools in their day to day lives....the catalyst for that CHANGE was NOT in fact....whatever happened to make various people need prosthetics in the first place. No, the catalyst, the change that got us to the point of people having the OPTION of prosthetics at all, was the point in time where people saw a need, and came up with the solution of prosthetics to address that need. When they said not oh that’s a problem or oh sorry you have that need, but oh I have an idea, or oh here’s what we can do about that. The defining element wasn’t that something needed building. The defining element was WHAT PEOPLE CHOSE TO BUILD BECAUSE OF THAT. 

Just like severe trauma is a catalyst for change in a person’s life, a meteor that no one saw coming and can dramatically reshape the landscape of their life, wipe out familiar comforts and landmarks they use to orient themselves.....but at the end of the day, that person is not the meteor itself. We don’t call them whatever we call that meteor, we call them by their fucking name because they’re still the same fucking person, just in a different place now, with different needs, with different dreams or wants or goals. Who they are isn’t how rough they have it while they’re going through the most....because how much a trauma shakes up a person’s life is directly relative to how equipped they are already to deal with that particular trauma or change. 

So by its very nature the ‘worst’ or most changing traumas are the ones that we’re personally LEAST equipped to deal with at that particular time on our own, and how fucking stupid is it to try and draw conclusions about a person based just on how they react in the immediate aftermath of an event whose defining element is that it was a destructive change that was uniquely impactful because it hit them where they were least equipped to deal with it? 

Like, NOBODY is equipped to handle well, like, an event that relative to THEM SPECIFICALLY, like....is something they’re not equipped to handle. LOL. Like, that’s so fucking dumb, but that’s who we ALL are when in the midst of massive trauma responses - just people hunting desperately for new normals, new landmarks, new awareness with which to recenter ourselves, reorient ourselves, redefine who and what we are in relation to our lives and society and our loved ones in the wake of a massive change that shook things up and required repositioning ourselves because the spot we used to be positioned on no longer exists.

And what the fuck can you learn, can you actually KNOW about a person based solely on the fact that ‘oh this person is having a hard time dealing with something that there’s literally NO good way to deal with?’ 

People talk a lot about how revealing trauma or tragedy is, that you can learn a lot by seeing how someone handles a huge trauma or tragedy being thrown at them, even in fiction. But y’know what? There’s a ceiling on how much that alone can ever reveal, especially if the lens of time through which you examine that person or character is limited just to the aftermath of the trauma, the thing that HAPPENED to them. Rather than focused on the beginning of their new journeys, once they’ve reoriented themselves, acquired new tools, picked new destinations or goals for their lives and set out to now make THOSE a reality....just like people before or without massive trauma or tragedy are similarly not defined by the LACK of what didn’t happen to them, but simply by......what destinations or goals they pick for their lives and their journeys to get there and what they do and what choices they make along the way. 

Nah, if you ask me, a person’s truest essence isn’t revealed by what they do with whatever limited tools or resources they have when struggling with a massive trauma or tragedy that’s only massive specifically BECAUSE it hit them in a way or place they were ill-equipped or unprepared to deal with. Because the essence of that person, the truth revealed by examining that struggle, the answer in focus when looking through just that finite lens....can be boiled down to the exact same thing, no matter WHO you put in that place. 

What they do in the wake of a massive trauma is simply ‘as much as they’re capable of given their limited resources or capabilities at THAT SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME.’ Which is inherently....not a lot. Completely subjective and relative to every individual, given the different traumas, resources and needs or injuries relative to every individual while they’re going through their fucking worst....but that’s still the point. 

A person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources.....is ultimately never going to appear as anything other than.....a person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources. Wow. Really pegged that person huh. Got them all summed up, totally differentiated from every other person to ever go through shit, just by seeing them.....not handle it great when by its very nature of fucking course they’re not going to handle a trauma they’re not prepared for with any degree of ‘great.’

Like, is it any wonder our society has this built in presumption that experiencing certain traumas or tragedies just fucking CONDEMNS that person to from then on live a life that will never actually measure up to being as optimal as it maybe could have been if that hadn’t happened? What other conclusion are you gonna draw, about how good or not a person’s life is in the wake of massive destructive change....if you’re only ever focusing on or looking at how they react at the specific point where they’re LEAST equipped to deal with that trauma or tragedy well?

Because thing is....that’s not a person. That’s a snapshot of a person. Try and define me or sum me up by looking at a fucking Polaroid of me when I was ten or whatever. Go on. See how revealing that is. Tell me what that says about me.

People can’t be defined by negative space. By what they’re NOT. By all the ways in which they can’t be what they MIGHT have been had something happened different, or all the things they COULD be if they were born into different circumstances. You do that, you’re not describing a person, you’re describing hypotheticals that you can apply as desired to ANY person, with just a few tweaks here and there, and thus always find a way to picture them as you want to for your own personal purposes, agenda or comfort, rather than gaining any insight whatsoever about who they are as defined by the space that they DO fill up, with intent, by their choices.

We don’t look to the early history of our species and talk about all the people who DIDN’T discover fire, maybe even just because they were born in a fucking wet climate or whatever where it was inherently more difficult to happen across the realization that striking sticks or stones in certain ways can make a very useful and helpful flame. With the point being that even if we DID talk about those early humans as much as we did the ones who got actual bonfires going, the fact that they simply ‘weren’t the ones to discover fire’ actually would reveal shit about them in and of itself, because who’s to say that the reason, the ‘culprit’ for that was that they were simply too dumb or whatever to figure that out instead of just being they lived in a climate that made that discovery particularly difficult or less likely to happen by chance? Y’know? 

But no, anyway, we talk about the ones who DID discover fire, because the turning point for our species which that was, like, we don’t look at it and define it by the lack of it happening sooner, at the problem that not having fire was for the people who came before that discovery. It was the triumph that mattered, it was the choices made in the wake of that discovery, it was how people put that new tool to work and not oh how revealing it is about the rest of early humanity that they didn’t put that tool to work in similar ways because it simply wasn’t even a possibility for them when it was simply a resource they didn’t have.

Nah, IMO a person’s truest essence is revealed not by their problems or their lacks, not by the hypothetical maybe me they could have been if they went through life without anything bad ever happening to them and thus who they’ll never actually be now. Its not revealed by taking a snapshot of them in the moments or days or even weeks following a trauma or tragedy that struck with an accompanying seismic shake-up of all their existing stability and support systems that ultimately limited how much or many of the resources they’d previously acquired or built could even be of use to them in dealing with things now. You don’t learn anything substantial by putting people in a room with only two exits and one of them locked and then act like its an insightful revelation that they ultimately make their way out by means of the finite options available to them when their options have been actively limited by forces outside them and their control, even if that wasn’t the ‘optimal’ answer to that predicament and you wanted them to make other more ideal choices without acknowledging they literally were limited to the most basic of fucking choices available. No, IMO the actual revelations about people come in their declaration of a new want or wish or ask or goal AFTER they’ve found their footing and are ready to live again rather than just cope. 

Why define ourselves by our needs when we’re most ourselves when dreaming of our wants?

You don’t gain the most insight by watching someone flail about when they’re at their lowest and just floundering. You want insight, you look to see what tools they use to pull themselves upright, what resources they ask for or seek out in order to build something new that they can place upon their new shaken-up-and-reformed foundations and from there find some stability with which to pull themselves FORWARD. Instead of just clinging to the shattered remnants of whatever their source of stability was previously but is no longer useful for that purpose, maybe not even because they WANT to cling to just that or are afraid or unwilling to move forward, but because they simply can’t reach any fucking resources with which to do anything BUT just cling to what little they could grab, and what they actually need is just someone to offer them said resources instead of just acting like they really did something by looking at a person lacking in resources and then judging or defining them simply by all the things they AREN’T doing to better themselves or their lives, WHEN THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY’RE LACKING THE FUCKING RESOURCES TO DO ANY OF THAT.

You see who a person is not by comparing them to who they MIGHT have been before, because who can say with any certainty what person they might have been the day after that massive trauma or tragedy, had said trauma or tragedy never actually occurred? Who can guarantee that person, that hypothetical maybe-me is ACTUALLY better than who they are or can become now?

Nope. You wanna know who that person is? That’s who they declare themselves to be the second they stop trying to define themselves by who they WERE and thus who they’re not anymore....but rather by who they are NOW, and who they want to be from here on out. You don’t look at the person who’s been pushed to the ground and say oh that’s that person, that’s who that person is. No, all that tells you is that person was pushed to the ground by an asshole, and surprise surprise, they fell because that’s what fucking happens when someone pushes you to the ground, lolol. That’s not the nature of a person, that’s the nature of physics. Wow. Person A is affected by gravity and the forceful aggression of assholes in their vicinity. The uncanny insight of it all.

You wanna see that person, you look at who they are AFTER they’ve pulled themselves back up. You see what they do THEN. Once they’re back in control of themselves, their life, in the driver’s seat.

You can’t define people by the lack of something. A lack of control, a lack of choice, a lack of resources. Because we are our choices, we are the journeys we take, we are what happens on the next page of our story because the next page of our story only EVER happens because each and every page we decided to MAKE something happen next. 

And we can only MAKE those choices, versus have them made for us and which thus says more about the person who forced those choices on us than it does us for simply being unable to stop that, we can only TAKE those journeys, versus being forced into certain directions and paths and down certain roads by limited options that say more about how little a person can do with only finite options available to them rather than say anything substantial about what directions a person might go in if they had actual options and choices available to them beyond just being presented with two routes that both equally suck, we can only do anything substantial with any of that, anything that says anything about US rather than just descriptive of our circumstances....

We can only do anything with all of that AFTER we’ve gained or taken back or regained control over our lives. AFTER we’ve found our footing. AFTER we’ve said well guess what, this happened then, but guess what else happened today? I got out of bed and said okay so we’re just not gonna worry about that because its over and done and it doesn’t get to be the only thing that matters about us. So instead, how about what matters right now is whatever the fuck I choose to do today, because THAT is up to me, THAT says something about me, THAT is not just some random rock crashing into me from outer fucking space and saying knock knock, fuck you. THAT is ME, saying with intent, THIS is who I am now and THIS is what I’m going to do today, and THAT’S an actual story about me and my choices and my PERSONHOOD. Versus just a summation of how shitty I looked while being smacked in the face by a mountain of bullshit and me without so much as an umbrella.

THAT’S a story about a person. That other thing, that fixation on the rock that crashed into them without warning? Its ultimately never going to be anything other than the story of how a person got hit by a fucking rock.

All of which is to say, so yeah, in that wing fic AU, Babs’ wings do change after what happens with the Joker, even though her wings had already settled.

BUT, the key thing about that is....the point of CHANGE for her wings was NOT when the Joker shot her. Its not when her life, when SHE changed, ‘because of that.’ Because maybe her wings didn’t work the same way anymore after that happened, because they represented who she was before that. And before that she was and thought of herself as someone who could grapple between buildings, flip kick into bad guys, do cartwheels across rooftops, and she can’t do those things anymore so maybe her wings don’t work for her in the way they used to because they were ‘designed’ for someone who lived life in a way she was no longer capable of. 

But her wings didn’t just change then and there, they still remained the same as always even if they weren’t as useful because maybe she could still fly perhaps, but not land in the ways her wings were designed to do that, due to the changed capabilities of her legs and spine which were meant to work in concert with her wings. 

See, because the point is.....if the wings are the ultimate expression of the self, even acknowledging that she was in fundamental ways CHANGED at that point (not lessened, but changed, made different, needing different things and having different wants).....the point is, at just that specific time, in the immediate aftermath of that trauma, what would her wings have changed into? What would they LOOK like, simply because say, two days ago, the Joker shot her and now she’s paralyzed? If she’s no longer the old her, how could the new her POSSIBLY be defined by that little data, that little definition, that small an image or encapsulation of everything she still MIGHT yet be or become once she’s out of bed, out of tears, out of grief for the goals that are no longer viable and now ready to say okay, now let me decide what DOES come next for me now.

So yes, Babs’ wings do change after the Joker shoots her, but they remain as they were for awhile. Just not as useful to her now that her toolbox of physical capabilities was less equipped to accommodate her newly changed needs and approaches to life.

When they change, its because she’s already become Oracle. That’s who she is now, Batgirl is a part of that but more about who she was. It’s part of the foundation she built her new self atop, its never going to not be a part of her, never going to leave, it still matters....but it is not the building itself anymore, it is the bedrock that made it through the seismic upheaval of her life and thus was sturdy enough she felt safe building something new on it, something that could ride out further earthquakes thanks to having it to ground her. But as integral as it is to what she built in the wake of her big quake....it is not the house she houses her self-image in. That’s Oracle’s domain now.

And so when her wings do change, it happens overnight, while she’s asleep. Dreaming of everything she wants now, everything she wants to become. They change not in a ‘this is happening’ sense, much like we’re never fully aware of how far into our recovery process we are.....instead, they change in a ‘huh, so this happened’ sense. Just like we only realize how much we’ve recovered, how much we no longer need to define ourselves by a quest to be better, happier, more alright...once we’ve already found that happiness or contentment and realized the reason there’s no longer the same drive to pursue some abstract image of recovery is simply because we no longer need to go anywhere to get that, we’re already there and this is what that looks like.

And so when one day Babs wakes up feeling different and looks in the mirror to see her wings no longer look like they used to but rather seem much more suited to the woman she is now, the woman she envisioned in her mind as a new goal or destination of self-determination, that she chose to become with intent, that she worked to become so she could be defined by something other than what some asshole did to her, so that she could be the sum of her deeds rather than the snapshot of her tragedy.....its a sign of change. Of her change, and proof that her life is not now what it once was, and never will be again.....but its not some big momentous reveal, more just an exhale of affirmation for something she’s already known for awhile and just now has the distance and perspective to see actual proof of. 

Its the marker of the fact that actually she’s okay with it, she’s okay with herself, her new self, because she doesn’t need to be who she might have been without that trauma, she doesn’t need to be a maybe when who she is? Has no more of a built in limit or ceiling or cap on happiness and success than the woman she was before her trauma had. She doesn’t love what happened to her, but its just something that happened to her. Its not who she is, THIS is who she is, this is THAT, and this she’s more than okay with, she’s proud of, she’s like damn I look good. Life threw a punch at her and she got into a wheelchair and rolled with it, and if you’re busy looking at the bruise from that punch because you’re so focused on the fact that it happened, you’re missing the real story. 

And that’s the way she pulled herself out of bed every morning for a year and into her wheelchair to train with escrima sticks in whole new ways of fighting so the next time the Joker tried knocking on her door, he wouldn’t get to pull the same shit twice. Because she’s not the same woman she was then and anyone focusing on THAT instead of watching out for all the ways she can still kick ass, some old, some new, some that she invented herself because necessity is the mother of invention and Babs has always been driven to be the top of her class for reasons that have everything to do with just HER and absolutely nothing at all with what happened to put her in a class where fighting from a wheelchair was a tool she felt she needed -

Well maybe they need to get clocked across the head with a stick to drive home that they’ve missed the entire point, that if you’re there looking to see a tragedy you’ve got the wrong fucking address cuz she’s doing just fine.

And so she wakes up one day and looks in her mirror and sees her wings have changed overnight and they look nothing like she remembers but tbh, she likes these a lot better, likes the way they feel, the shape of them, they just FIT....and then she just nods her head decisively, quietly pleased but in no rush to make any big announcement, because for her, this changes nothing. Its just a sign that change has already happened.

And its like....duh, she already knew that, and she’s more than okay with it, so semantics can wait for another time. She’s Barbara Gordon, the Oracle of Gotham, and she’s got shit to do.

And okay, so clearly, I ended up just writing that post instead of writing the rest of that to-do list, so I’m gonna now go make another post with the ACTUAL to-do list, and like, yay, I can cross this off I guess? My process is so mysterious, oh unknowable ways.

[retrievablememories]

a day with you | taeyong (m)

title: a day with you pairing: taeyong x reader genre: fluff, smut, friends to lovers summary: you spend your birthday with one of your closest friends—lee taeyong. word count: 4.7k warnings: fingering, oral sex (female receiving), PIV sex, a lil dirty talk a/n: i know he can’t drive(?) but let’s pretend lol. some parts of this fic are little vague and you’ll see what i mean but that’s so you can imagine your own preferences

Taeyong wakes up first thing in the morning with you already on his mind. 

He can’t help but smile to himself as he thinks about spending time with you on a day as special as this—your birthday. He doesn’t always get to spend as much time with you as he’d like because of his neverendingly busy schedule, but this is one day he wouldn’t miss.

Wiping his blurry eyes, he reaches for his phone and opens the text message box with your name on it.

To: Y/N Hi sleepyhead~ are you awake yet? Probably not. But i’m coming to get you soon ^^

Taeyong takes a shower and dresses himself, all while still thinking of you. Once he’s ready to his liking, he leaves the dorm to drive to your favorite breakfast place nearby. The sun is just making its appearance over the horizon, warming the land and making everything seem brand new again.

When Taeyong arrives at your place with food in hand, it’s still fairly early in the morning. As he predicted, you aren’t awake yet—at least not fully. It takes you a minute to answer the door, and only after he knocks incessantly. When you do, you’re still in your pajamas from last night.

“I’m guessing you didn’t see my message?” He laughs and pats your head.

“Honestly, I was knocked out…sorry, Yongie,” you say, stifling a yawn. You move aside so he can come in and close the door after him. Suddenly awakened by the smell of food wafting past your nose, you follow Taeyong into the kitchen. “But I see you have food...what’d you bring me?”

“Only your favorite, of course. What else would I get the birthday girl on her special day?”

“You know me so well,” you say, giving Taeyong a side hug before diving into the bag to get your meal. You and Taeyong eat together at the table, enjoying each other’s company. You’re still a bit sleepy so you don’t say much, but Taeyong doesn’t mind. He likes seeing you enjoying your food, and it makes him happy to treat you to gestures like this.

Once you finish eating, you slide out of your seat and stretch. “Wow, that was great. Thank you Yongie,” you giggle, pinching his cheek. He blushes at your attention and shrugs bashfully.

“I’m gonna go take a shower and get dressed now. Can you tell me where we’re going so I know how to dress at least? A hint? Pleaseee?”

“Not yet! You’ll see when we get there,” Taeyong says smugly, putting his arms behind his head. “It’s not just one place anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what you wear.”

“Oh, fine. You won’t be too bored without me, right?” you ask, turning to look at him from the bedroom doorway. 

“I’m fine Y/N, I can handle myself for an hour while you get ready.” He chuckles.

“If you insist!”

Once you’re ready, you and Taeyong go out to his car and take off to wherever the first destination is, which you’re excited to find out. You watch the scenery go by as you travel there.

“I hope work’s been treating you well,” you say, turning back to look at Taeyong.

“You don’t have to worry about me today,” he insists.

“I’m always gonna worry about you!” You put your hand on his leg, and his eyes widen a tad at that. “I know it’s hard sometimes. You said you wanted to make me happy—knowing you’re doing okay is what makes me happy.”

A grin spreads across his face. Taeyong glances at you and places his hand on yours. “I’m doing fine. Promise.” He nudges his pinky finger under yours, linking them together. “I wouldn’t lie to you!”

You squeeze his pinky finger back. “I’m trusting you. If I hear you’re overworking yourself again, I’m gonna force you to take a vacation. Just watch!”

You start to realize where you’re headed pretty soon when the city’s scenery gives way to more greenery. This lake, and the park it’s located in, is one of your favorite places to hang out with Taeyong, although you haven’t been there lately because he’s been so busy with work.

“Remember the first time we came here?” you ask, gazing at the lake’s surface glittering from between the trees.

“That was such a fun day. I didn’t even know this place existed back then...it feels like a hundred years ago now, though.”

Once the car is in the parking lot, you two head to the boardwalk. A good portion of it extends out into the lake itself before meeting the shore again and trailing off onto a nature trail among the trees. You walk along the portion that sits over the lake, stopping every so often to watch the water lap at the wooden posts. There are only a few other people out here besides you two; it’s still too early for the afternoon crowds.

Taeyong stands beside you as you peer into the waters, his hair blowing across his face from the cool breeze.

“You should drop in a coin. Make a wish or something.”

“I thought that was only for fountains?”

“Maybe it’ll work here, too.” He leans forward to see both of your reflections staring back at him.

You giggle. “The fish will get mad at me. I think I’ll pass on that one. We should go see the trail though, there’s a flower bush there...I know you remember it.”

“The one that has those flowers with the funny-looking petals?”

“Yes! I wanna take a picture of it,” you say, already feet ahead of Taeyong. “Come on, or you’re getting left behind!”

You and Taeyong end up walking through the park for a couple of hours; it offers enough land to trek through for days and still be able to find something new every hour. With the sun rising higher in the sky, the temperature quickly starts shooting up. You wipe the sweat away from your forehead, stopping underneath a tree near the side of the park that faces the main road.

You’ve stayed in the park long enough for other people and food trucks to start appearing, and there’s already a line of different vendors camping along the sidewalk.

“I’m hot. We need some ice cream,” you sigh dramatically, leaning against the tree for strength.

“Come on, there’s an ice cream truck down the road.”

Taeyong pays for both your ice creams and you walk along the edge of the park after getting them, eating happily and pointing out birds and flowers to each other every few minutes.

The heat does a number on your ice cream, making it melt onto your hand before you’re even halfway through with the cone. “Damn.” You look at the sticky mess covering your hand. “I should’ve gotten a napkin! Hold on, I’ll just go—”

“Wait.” Taeyong grabs your arm. Before you can ask what he’s doing, he bends his head to lick the ice cream dripping across your fingers. Your eyes grow big, and you stutter trying to think of how to respond, but you end up merely watching him.

He soon pulls back after he finishes his job on your hand. “See? All gone now,” he grins, but his smile comes out more nervous than he intended. The atmosphere isn’t awkward, per se, but it’s definitely more tense than it was a few minutes ago.

“You’re ridiculous,” you say weakly, trying to ignore the heat flooding through your body at his actions. “Don’t get us kicked out of here for public indecency!”

After you finish your ice cream, you and Taeyong decide to leave the park before you melt into the pavement. You stretch your hands in front of the air vents when you get back into his car, letting the pleasant chill run up your arms as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“Where are we going now?” you ask, pressing your hand to the window. The park’s green scenery grows sparse and gives way to roads and familiar hardscapes, which means you’re probably heading to the busiest part of the city.

“Will you ever let me give you a surprise?” Taeyong whines, laughing. “I’ll give you one hint: you’ll need my credit card for it.”

“You mean mine?”

“No way, mine. You can buy whatever you want today, all on me. I already know what you’re thinking, but seriously, it’s fine; charge however much you want.”

“You’re too good to me, seriously. How did I find someone like you?”

“Luck, maybe.”

As you suspected, Taeyong takes you to the busier—and also more expensive—part of the city, packed with shops and boutiques on every corner and filled with people walking to and fro.

When you get out, you and Taeyong stand on the sidewalk gazing at the different stores. “I don’t know where to start,” you admit, gazing at the numerous options laid out in front of you. “You’re all into this luxury stuff, give me a recommendation for something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please?”

“Okay, here.” Taeyong pulls you to the first clothing store he sees, which happens to be Chanel. You haven’t been in here before, so you’re a bit taken aback at how spacious it is...and how just many clothes there are.

“Wow. I could probably shop forever and still not buy everything,” you say jokingly, drifting away from Taeyong to go over to a jacket that catches your eye.

You spend a lot of time going through the store—and the ones after that—trying to decide what you like. Taeyong buys you a few things from each one. He gives you suggestions at every place you stop in, but at the last store, he becomes drawn to a particular dress hanging on the rack. It’s black with big daisy patterns all over it, and the skirt is made of a flowing, silky material.

“Do you see something you like?” You peek over his shoulder at the dress.

“Yes, for you.” He takes it off the rack and holds it up to your body. “I think it’d look cute on you. Will you try it on?”

You give him a look before taking the dress from his hand. “Okay, let’s see how it looks.” You take it to the dressing room and undress so you can pull it on. The daisy patterns seemed a little overdone at first, but it looks better than you expected. After examining yourself in the mirror, you step outside the dressing room so Taeyong can see it.

“Well, what do you think of it?” you ask, spinning around so Taeyong can see it full-view. He taps his finger against his chin and nods, his eyes lingering on your form. 

“You should wear it. Like, for the rest of the day.”

You turn to a nearby mirror and examine the dress again. “Hmm, you really think so?”

“It’s your birthday. You deserve to look good, don’t you?”

“Geez, are you saying my previous outfit was bad?” You snort, throwing Taeyong a skeptical look over your shoulder.

“No, I’m saying...this one is even better.” He’s practically eating you up with his eyes now, and there’s no room for doubt that he means what he says. You’re a bit flustered by the way he’s looking at you, so you turn back the mirror, staring at your reflection.

“Okay, I trust your taste,” you say, willing your heart rate to calm down a little. Taeyong smirks at you in the mirror’s reflection.

You try on a couple more things before leaving the last store—or more like, Taeyong convinces you that every item would look good on you and you decide to get it because you can’t resist his puppy dog eyes.

You drop your shopping bags off at your place before heading back out again. The next stop: the movie theater. Taeyong tells you to pick a movie and promises to stay awake through the whole thing even if he dislikes it, which you roll your eyes at.

“When have you ever known me to pick a bad movie?”

“Well…”

“On second thought, don’t answer that question.”

“Are you hungry?” Taeyong asks a couple hours after you leave the theater. It’s early evening now, but there’s still daylight from the long hours of summer. You had some popcorn in the theater, but you’re ready for the main course now.

“Yes, do you have something special planned for that too?” you ask, poking him in the side. 

“Sure, but let’s go back to your place first, I think I left something there,” Taeyong says casually. You don’t suspect anything, so you happily agree, wondering where he’s gonna take you for dinner.

You get back to the building not too long after and head up the stairs to your floor with Taeyong trailing behind you. “This isn’t an excuse to look up my dress, is it?” you say jokingly, glancing back at him. Taeyong blushes at that and laughs nervously, scratching the back of his head.

“It’s not like that!”

You think Taeyong’s going to stop at your apartment once you get to it, but he keeps walking past it and towards the set of stairs that lead to the apartment’s rooftop.

“I’m hungry, Taeyong, why are we going to the roof? There isn’t any food up there,” you laugh, though you follow him as he tugs on your hand and guides you up the steps.

“You’ll see!”

When you get to the top of the stairs, Taeyong swings open the door. On the other side is your apartment’s rooftop, but it looks much different from the last time you saw it. On normal days, there’s a little hangout spot up there with tables and chairs, a fire pit, and an array of potted plants dotting each of the rooftop’s corners.

Now, there are little glowing fairy lights strung up everywhere, decorating the assortment of potted plants native to the rooftop’s decor. The chairs have been pushed to the sides of the roof to make room for a huge blanket in the middle, a quaint little picnic basket on top of it.

“Whoa,” you say, your eyes widening at the setup. “I’ve actually only been up here a few times...I guess I’ve been so busy I haven’t had proper time to appreciate it. It looks really different now...” You gaze at the city’s skyline in awe. The sun is still shining brightly, though darker oranges are already bleeding into the sky’s lighter hue in preparation for sunset. It won’t be long before the city is draped in darkness.

“Well, now you get to enjoy it with me!” Taeyong pulls you over to the blanket. The fire pit isn’t lit yet, but maybe you can do that later tonight.

“When did you even have time to set all this up, anyway? Seriously!” you ask as you and Taeyong sit down.

“I know people,” is his only explanation. “And it’s easy to pull strings when you’re cute.” He does an aegyo move and you shove him, laughing.

You and Taeyong dig into the picnic basket. “I made it myself too, ‘cause I know how much you like whatever you make.” He says this with a gentle smile.

“Ever the humble chef,” you laugh, taking the rest of the food out. There’s an array of fruits and other snacks in addition to the main meal. “Your cooking is always so good. How do you do it?” Taeyong shrugs.

“Sheer talent. Or magic. You should let me teach you one day,” Taeyong says with his mouth full.

“I should,” you say absentmindedly, looking across the skyline as you eat. “We should come up here more, too.”

After you finish the main meal, you and Taeyong feed each other pieces of fruit as he lies his head in your lap, his soft hair fanning across your bare legs. His eyes are soft as he looks up at you, and it makes your mind go warm and fuzzy with all the things you want to say to him.

Eventually, you lie back too, reclining on the soft blanket and gazing at the endless sheet of stars above you, glittering from light years away. Taeyong pulls away from you momentarily to light the fire pit, and the flames lick at the edges of your vision as you watch the starry sky.

“Do you ever think about how some of the stars have already long burned out? And their light is only just now reaching us?”

Taeyong makes a face as he settles beside you. “That’s a bit scary.”

“What if they were all gone? And there were actually no more stars left in our galaxy?” You turn your head to look at Taeyong. “What we would look at at night, then?”

Taeyong pauses for a moment before choosing his answer. “There would still be stars to look at. Like the ones here on Earth.” You smile at that.

The night gets darker as time wears on, and the temperature outside drops. Despite the warmth of the fire pit, Taeyong notices you shiver at the sudden breeze and pulls you closer to him, rubbing his hands on your arms. “Maybe we should go inside?”

“Sounds good to me, I’m starting to get a little sleepy anyway…we’ve been out all day,” you say, stretching your arms and legs. Taeyong cleans up all the food and empty containers spread around, refusing to let you lift a finger to help. Once the picnic basket is packed, you both roll off the blanket so he can fold it up and sling it over his arm. He puts the fire out and gets ready to leave with you, taking your hand. 

“What about the lights and stuff?” you ask, glancing back at the fairy lighting still dangling off the potted plants.

“Later,” Taeyong says, waving it away. “Somebody will get to enjoy it tomorrow, maybe.”

You both head back down the stairs and to your apartment. Taeyong sets the stuff down and pulls you into a hug once you both enter your place.

“Today was so fun,” you say, hugging Taeyong back and relishing the feel of his arms around you. “It was the best birthday ever. You’re the best friend anyone could have, you know?”

“I could say the same.” Taeyong murmurs. You pull away from each other, but Taeyong’s fingertips linger at the hemline of your dress; he rubs the fabric between his fingers, a thoughtful look on his face. “You look so cute in this dress...really pretty.” His hand drifts higher and his fingers skirt across your waistline, to your arm, and up your shoulder until he’s hovering at your face.

Taeyong touches the side of your face, a gentle smile on his lips. Your eyes linger on each other’s for a tense moment, and then, Taeyong steps closer and closes the gap between you, pressing his lips to yours. Maybe you should be surprised, but you’re not. Taeyong pulls your body closer, his hand sliding to the nape of your neck and into your hair, cradling the back of your head.

His lips are soft and his tongue is warm against yours. His other hand finds its way back to your skirt and drifts higher, higher, and higher underneath, dangerously close to the hemline of your underwear. He pulls away, panting against your lips, and you chase him for more. He acquiesces and gives you another hot kiss, but then breaks it to speak against your lips,

“I’ve been wanting to slip underneath this dress all day.” His fingers come around to your front, pressing into your sex. “Why do you think I picked it? In the shop...wouldn’t it have been nice if we fucked there?”

You moan at that as Taeyong’s lips drift to your jaw, then the side of your neck. You grip Taeyong’s wrist, bringing his hand closer, pressing his knuckles to your clit. You shudder, and Taeyong responds by dragging his fingers over that spot more firmly, feeling you grow wetter and warmer against him.

“Sit on the couch for me, baby.” Taeyong guides you backwards until your knees hit the back of the couch. Your dress spreads out around you as you sit, and Taeyong kneels in front of you, dragging the fabric higher to rest above your thighs. He leans closer to lay soft kisses over your inner thighs, his fingers pressing into the skin as he pulls your body closer to his mouth. You tremble and press your back against the couch when he mouths at your clit through your underwear.

“Taeyong…” He licks you slowly through your underwear and you have to resist the urge to close your legs around his head as his tongue dances over your clit. He pulls back, looking up at you deviously, only to hook his fingers into your underwear and pull them down. You lift your hips to help him, and he holds you firmly in his grip, bringing your pussy closer to meet his warm and wanting mouth. You gasp at the feeling of his lips on your bare skin, pushing your hand through his hair, wanting him to bury himself inside you.

He slips a finger into you as he licks you and makes you pliable, and then he adds another as he presses them upwards to find the spot that will have you shaking for him. Taeyong finds it soon after and keeps thrusting into it as he lets his tongue trace circles over and over your clit, drawing out more moans and whines from you.

You’re wet and sticky with pleasure at this point, moving your hips along with Taeyong’s movements to draw out as much ecstasy as you can. You feel the orgasm building in your lower body as you grind yourself onto Taeyong’s fingers, and he brings you nearer to it until you’re teetering on the edge.

You tip over the precipice when Taeyong moans into you like you’re the best thing he’s ever tasted and wiggles his fingers against your spot a little harder. You come hard on his fingers and face, and all you can do is grab onto his free hand for support as your legs shake and your stomach tenses from the waves of bliss flowing through you. When Taeyong thinks you’ve had enough, he pulls away from you with his face glistening. He licks his lips clean and lets go of your thighs, letting your relaxed form rest against the couch.

“Let’s go to your room,” he says, and gathers you up in his arms, taking you down the hall to where your bedroom is. He lays you gently on the bed and you watch with anticipation thrumming through your body as he sheds his clothing in front of you until he’s down to his underwear. Though you’ve just come, you’re already leaking and ready for him to pleasure you again.

His hands come up to your body to peel away your dress, and he guides you to lie back on the middle of the bed as his lips cover each new section of exposed skin. He kneads your breasts once they’re revealed to him, pinching your nipples and sucking them between his soft lips, teasing them into hard peaks. His mouth is indescribably warm and wet against your body, his hands equally as soft and gentle as they roam over your waist, down to your hips and legs and back again.

You take Taeyong’s chin between your fingers and bring his face back up to yours so you can kiss his lips and whisper in his ear, “Taeyong, please. I want you.”

Taeyong parts from you for a moment to grab a condom from his jeans, and once he rolls it on he settles between your legs with his cock nudging against your lower lips. He thrusts his hips against you, his tip catching on your entrance, and he keeps rocking himself until he’s fully seated inside of you, both of you moaning from the sensation of filling and being filled.

“You feel so good,” Taeyong murmurs into the side of your neck. He pushes into you slowly, wanting to feel every inch of you around him. With so many sensations flowing through you at once, you’re unsure where to put your hands, and they drift across Taeyong’s back aimlessly. The muscles there clench under your palms as he thrusts into you.

He is tender as he holds you close, kissing you wherever he can and moaning softly in your ear. This is not how you thought your night would end, but you have no complaints as Taeyong fills you over and over again, his hand sliding down your body to rub against your clit. You squeeze his shoulders, your nails pricking his skin slightly as the pleasure doubles inside you.

Droplets of sweat gather at his hairline and at the sides of his face, making the strands stick to his skin. You wipe these away as he looks into your eyes and strokes into you, his hips moving with more vigor as he gets more intense and feels the beginnings of his orgasm creeping up on him.

“I’m close,” Taeyong groans.

“Taeyong…” you sigh and arch against him as your climax overtakes you first, flooding through your body like liquid gold and making you tense and shiver around him.

Taeyong shudders against you when he comes, pulling your body closer to his and lowering his head onto your shoulder as he rides out the throes of pleasure. You both hold onto each other as if you’ll drift away otherwise, your arms tight around him as you listen to his heavy breaths.

He eventually rolls away from you to dispose of the condom. When he comes back, he pulls the bed covers back and draws you into his arms. You cuddle close together, and you can hear his heartbeat steadily next to your ear.

“You know I love you, right?” Taeyong asks quietly, drawing his index finger along your side. It tickles, but you don’t mind much as long as he’s touching you.

“Do you know I love you?” you say back, your lips moving against his collarbone as you speak. He brings his hand up to your hair, breathing in your scent.

“Mmm...maybe.” His body shakes with laughter. “I think maybe I knew it all along.”

“Me too,” you say, closing your eyes. Tiredness sweeps over you, and you know you’ll have to talk more in the morning, but right now you are more than content to leave things as they are. “Maybe we were made for each other.”

[c-is-for-circinate]

Y’all this episode had everything I could possibly have wanted and things I never even knew to wish for.

How did one episode start with Henry Crabgrass, the most glorious and beloved NPC of my heart, and end with mother fucking Avantika, with so much awesome shit in between!!!  How!!!

Okay I am making a list of shit I absolutely loved tonight, in approximate chronological order:

Y’all I just love Henry Crabgrass so much.  I don’t even have smart things to say about that fact, just a warm glow in my heart.  May all the light of Melora’s grace smile down upon them and leave Henry as the toughest, most unkillable patch of crabgrass in all Exandria.

Vess and the Tombtakers, so many questions and so few certain answers, so many things to wonder, so many dots to connect!  I really do feel like the crew are connecting them at this point, and while I’m sure in some places they’re far from the map, the general outline really is starting to emerge.  What, exactly, was in the book the Tombtakers tried to claim without showing it to Vess deRogna first?  What did it do to Lucien?  And, if Vess has the book--what are they trying to find now?

So okay, let’s talk about Yasha and Beau. As someone who has had a lot of feelings about the intense relatability of Beau’s crush on Jester, I have now fully committed to also having a whole lot of mostly new feelings about these terrible awkward disaster lesbians with no fucking idea what they’re doing.  I saw a post the other day mention how this whole relationship is about the feeling of discovering you can have this, that you can actually be happy, that you get to have this kind of relationship with someone.  I’ve written about that.  And I feel it so, so hard, every time I see them interact, when every bit of bravado leaves both of them. It’s so easy to be off-putting!  It’s so easy to have crushes on wonderful people you kind of wish would look at you but you’re absolutely sure never will.  It’s so hard to actually know what the fuck to do in the face of wait shit this might actually be a thing I could get for real? how? wait, how???

Also let’s talk about Jester in that scene, who ships Beauyasha harder than anything in the world???   Because yes, right, some of it is just that Jester loves romance, and some of it’s that Jester gets very invested in the happiness of her friends, but that is a lot of investment there.  And I can’t help wondering if there’s a little dimension of...she wants to see True Love and Happily-Ever-After work.  And she’s delighted to see it work for her friends who she loves, and when it comes true they’ll be happy and she loves that, but also I don’t know that Jester’s ever actually seen two people fall in love with each other and enter into a healthy, happy relationship before.  But hey, all of her books say this wonderful magical thing exists, and now it seems to actually be showing up for her friends?  Of course she wants to see it.  Of course she wants it to be just as magical and wonderful as in all her stories, even if it’s not for her. (And maybe especially if it’s not for her, but I think that’s a whole separate post about Jester and her very high passive insight and all the people who are in love with her and the very specific ways she treats each of them.)

I love Yeza.  Don’t we all love Yeza?  He’s trying so hard.  It’s always great to see Yeza for that kind of wide-eyed outsider POV on the M9 shenanigans, and I love it.  He made a comment this episode about meeting goblins while living in Rosohna, and everything that’s happened to him really hit me in a while new way.  Usually I think about how he’s had his life turned upside down by all of this, but man, just think how much he’s seen that he never in a million years would have begun to expect to experience!  This smalltown alchemist from a pastoral little farming city in the middle of the Dwendalian midwest has lived for a significant amount of time as a housekeeper in the capitol city of the Krynn Dynasty.  He must have gone to the markets and met the neighbors and learned the streets and the food, and who had he ever known in his whole life who could say such a thing?  He lived with the Ruby of the Sea in Nicodranas by the ocean.  He’s been to Zadash, now, and it’s only a matter of time before he sees Rexxentrum.  How much farther will he go?  (Man, I would love some good Yeza fic once this campaign is over.  I think it’s going to take that long for me to really know how his story arc ends.)

Someone was posting earlier this episode about witnessing Vess scare Yeza so badly, and insight into how the Nein are starting to run in circles that really outstrip the people they used to know.  Watching Pumat in the wake of being Informed By Lady de Rogna That He Would Put A Rush On That has really hammered it home.  They remarked, in their very M9 somewhat idle vaguely ridiculous way that they wanted the icebreaker, and one tiny snowman later Vess had pulled rank and money and rerouted the ship’s entire passage for them.  She’s scary--and with her, the M9 have the kind of power that’s scary, too. And that’s always such an interesting moment.  The M9 are used to thinking of themselves as people with very little, who have to fight and scrap and get lucky for their own survival all the time.  And yes, they’re utterly careless with money--why not be, when it comes and goes and almost none of them have ever really seen it help or last?  And yes, they’re prone to violence and sometimes pretty rude.  But before now, it’s always been a situation where the M9 acting loud, rude, and demanding could be chaotic underdogs scrapping to get what they needed or wanted from people who had the option of saying no.  Suddenly they’re in a position where the balance of social situations is biased in their favor instead of against them. There’s such a difference between ‘please accede to my unreasonable request because I have a high charisma and will pay you lots of gold’, and, ‘you’re going to accede to my unreasonable request because otherwise my Cerberus Assembly boss may or may not have you assassinated’.  The M9 have never been on this side of that before.  I’m very curious to see how much they notice that they are now.

PALADIN OATH PALADIN OATH PALADIN OATH!  I was not paying nearly enough attention when that scene started, so I am going to need to watch it again and also make extra sure to read any available source material on this specific homebrew oath, because it’s probably not exactly the same as the Oath of the Sea homebrew you can find on google.  There’s some overlap between the abilities there and the ones Fjord already have, and the vows don’t quite match up, though some of them are close.  Ugh, mostly I’m just so glad it has happened and Fjord has promised and he means it, he means it so much.  He rest-of-his-life means it, and my heart belongs to Fjord who couldn’t even imagine the rest of his life as a thing separate from the monotony of his first thirty years, so very recently.

I actually always really love when CR has episodes at sea?  Obviously the M9 have done it the most, but Vox Machina went sailing a time or two as well, and it’s just always so great.  It’s often days of down time in a way that overland travel isn’t, and the party fills it with so many good little moments.  Matt always gives them such cool encounters.  On boats, spending a week at a time getting from one place to another, so much of the chaos of rewriting a plan seventeen times in an hour gets stripped away: they’re headed towards a destination, sometimes something comes up to deter them, and they have to find a way to deal with it.  There are always crew members and the structure of a boat itself to take into consideration in any combat that pops up.  It’s just such a nice tone, and I also love that the ocean itself kind of hates them now because it adds really delightful additional risks, and anyway heck yeah ocean voyage.

WHICH ENDS IN UNDEAD AVANTIKA ATTACKING THE SHIP WITH A TRIO OF CRAB-MEN AND WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE HOLY FUCK.  Look, I think M9 becoming pirates by accident and then trying to figure out wtf might actually be my favorite arc of this campaign so far, and every time it comes back I get so so happy.  I’ve got some feelings about this showing up in the same episode as Fjord finally taking his full oath to the Wildmother. They are going to have to kill U’kotoa before this campaign is through.  They are going to have to, because Fjord will never be safe on the ocean again if they don’t, and Fjord has bound himself by vow and will in service as the Wildmother’s paladin of the open sea.  She hasn’t asked it of him, not specifically, but it’s his job.  It’s going to be his job.  In part it’ll be because it’s poetic justice, Fjord taking down the cruel demigod who (in some ways) made him.  Mostly it’s just that killing U’kotoa is a job that needs to be done.  To protect the oceans, the life they hold, the people who sail upon them, it’s going to need to be done.  It’s Melora’s domain to do this, which means it’s her paladin’s job, and Fjord is her paladin of the sea.  It’ll be him sooner or later.

I am so fucking delighted at the massive pile of fireworks on the deck of this ship, and I hope to god these Chekhovian bottle rockets go off before the end of this combat encounter, because this is, in fact, all I ever wanted the minute Beau put them in there.

[inkykeiji]

What is your writing process like?

absolute chaos.

lmao i’m kind of kidding. it’s organized chaos!! eeeee okay prepare yourself for a massive post below the cut anon bb!! <33

i start by making notes. i have several notebooks dedicated to fics (i use two the most; one is dedicated to everything in general and the second is my ‘character journal’). these notes contain story/plot elements i know i want to include in absolutely no order whatsoever. sometimes, certain sentences of prose or dialogue that i KNOW i want to include will come out of this, sometimes it won’t. these notes also include information about the characters and their relationship dynamics, and the mood and tone im going for.

this is essentially a brainstorming session. how long this lasts varies; sometimes i only do it once and feel like i have a good grasp on a story, and sometimes this takes several weeks and pages and pages of my notebooks. there’s no formula to it, and not every point is used in the final draft.

usually (but not always!!) after i’ve made my notes and i feel like i understand the story well, i make a super barebones outline (sometimes this is made in conjunction with the notes, sometimes this is made BEFORE the notes, if i already have most or all of my plot points in my mind—these steps are essentially interchangeable for me!). this outline just consists of my main plot points and often throughout the writing process i will go back to it and make notes or changes with a different coloured pen!!!

i have this beside me the entire time i’m writing, so i can refer back to it etc. sometime throughout these first few steps i’ll create a playlist for the story or for certain characters within the story, that i usually end up adding to throughout the process. i can, and do, write without music (usually when something really isn’t working, i’ll wait for total silence—which is usually like 2-3 am hehehe—and then really force myself to hash out whatever bit isn’t working) but for the most part i enjoy having songs that encompass the mood of the story itself playing on loop as i write!!

then i get to writing!!!! this is probably the most chaotic part of the entire process, as i do not ever write in chronological order, and i am constantly revising as i write, but i like to keep EVERY draft of my work, which means by the end i have 7-8 documents on average named vaguely (like: bmb rough, bmb good, bmb GOOD good, bmb final, bmb editing, etc) lmao. anyway i usually write certain plot points or story events separately in one document (totally out of order) and then piece or bridge them together and rearrange them during my final revision and editing. if the piece is really big (like bmb part three, for example) i’ll split it across multiple documents because for some reason that makes it more manageable and organized for me??? so for bmb part three, for example, i had a document for week one, a document for week two, and a document for that final breakdown all the way to the end.

and that’s it in v general terms, really!!! if i get REALLY stuck while writing, i’ll usually go back to my playlist and add to/revise it, or make lil mood boards, or watch a film with the same mood/tone i’m going for!! i also work out kinks a LOT while i’m running (i run every day!)

i call my process organized chaos because i normally end up with several slightly different copies of the same story by the end, and then i have to figure out which one i want to use, or fuse bits and pieces of each together, etc etc. but it’s how i write and it’s how i have always written, so!!! hehehe thank you so much for this question anon i love answering stuff like this, and i love hearing about other people’s processes as well!!! i just find it so interesting; writing + creative processes are so cool, because they’re each so unique to the creator!!!

[randomingoftherandomness]

✨ Personal ramble time, please feel free to ignore this lol... Please don’t reblog. This is just me getting this off my chest.

I have spoken a little about it but I think I got so unhappy writing for The Old Guard fandom that I stuck with it because I couldn’t believe that something that brought me so much joy could make me feel so miserable. Like, how could this happen? I love this thing so. Much. And how could I not feel happy writing for it? But it started to feel performative. It felt like I was putting out content just for the sake of content. It drained me. It felt like I was no longer in love but I couldn’t leave, that I had to stay for some reason.

Friends urged me to go. Real life and online both. I kept making up excuses, kept putting it off, kept saying I still had things to do, I still had fics to write, prompts to fill.

I’m not gonna say I lost inspiration for it. Looking at my work count for The Old Guard on AO3 would quickly dispel that. But I wasn’t happy anymore. And many who were reading my works then could definitely tell. And it wasn’t just the inspiration part, but also the drama as well? I don’t think I have ever been in a fandom so divided amongst itself. Every time I got a comment, I had to wonder if this was a comment given in good faith or is this someone who has some bad intentions. I had to second guess every single anon, I second guessed every reblog, like, comment from accounts that I wasn’t familiar with.

I know people won’t remember it, but those who do will know of the “catfish anon” incident. It took me months to process the shit that was done to me. The level of gaslighting and borderline stalker behaviour done on me were stuff I had to untangle. And just when I thought it was something I could put behind me, they come back like a persistent pest. I’m truly blessed to have people around me that genuinely support and care to sit with me as I did it. In this period of time, I definitely grew a little more and learnt a lot more about boundaries and how I need to reinforce them especially with people who clearly aren’t going to respect them even if they pay lip service to doing so.

There are people in this fandom who really need help and I hope they get it. Straight up, the itch to name names is strong in me but I won’t. Not because I respect the person, but because what good would that do? I am not aiming to be the better person here because Lord knows this person and their cronies have been running their mouths vague shading me on Discord thinking it won’t come back to me, going up on people’s DMs spreading lies about me. If I name them and share my screenshots of their lies, coupled with what people have already learnt about their bad behaviour, it would come as no surprise that this person’s name will be the one I bring up. Even now, the mild paranoia that this person and their cronies could still be somehow reading this is a presence in my head. But I am honestly done being mad. I am done being scared of these people with nothing but hate and pain in their hearts. It’s so exhausting.

This is hopefully the first and last time I have to talk about this. I don’t want to address this anymore, I want to slough it off like dead skin because scum like these don’t have any place in my life. I had thought of making a whole post and shit but like I said, what good would that do? Wouldn’t it only affect the happiness I have already achieved? I built the Booker x Joe x Nicky tag and I have been and am so happy to see others come in and write for the tag. That is one sliver of joy that has not faded for me. Even if I never write for this ship again, the time I spent there was never wasted.

I have decided that I won’t delete my Booker x Joe x Nicky fics off AO3 or Tumblr. I do take and will take immense pride in the journey I’ve gone through with my writing. Since many of my fics are pretty short, I may collate them into a multi-chaptered fic or something. We shall see. This may be something that I undertake in the future, maybe I get too lazy and I abandon the thought lol

But yes. I am doing better than I ever was. I am happier than I have been in a very long time and it feels lovely to feel this way 😊 Please do stay tuned for all the WenZhou fics I have ready for you and I thank you all for your support in every and all fandoms we may or may not share 😂🌸

/okay ramble over hehe