#okay those are very hot take level considering what I just saw on their blogs

[buthappysoverrated]

Okay I’m not vagueing anyone I’m just glad I never say any of my hot takes online and just don’t interact with people

But also I thought when people say they’re not here for fandom drama then they’re not? And people can just have different opinions and not, idk, declare war? Anyways I’m going back to my revising fandom discourse is much less interesting than my major

[padawanlost]

I have a couple of questions about Karen Miller/Traviss (are they the same person?) who wrote the Clone Wars novels. Are they still considered canon? Also, I heard that Karen Traviss was abused online or something, was that over her Star Wars novels? Really, I mean that just takes toxicity to a new level.

This is a hot topic but one that desperately needs to be explored because to this day people are still spreading misinformation about that happen as a way to ‘defend’ their points. So, here we go:

Karen Miller and Karen Traviss are not the same person.

Karen miller wrote novels like  The Clone Wars: Wild Space and the Clone Wars Gambit series.

Karen Travis wrote novels like The Clone Wars movie novelization and the Republic Command Series.

Both, in my opinion, are very talented writers but both also suffered thanks to sexiest and overzealous fans. There are many reason why they became ‘infamous’ but the main reason is their political stance. They both had a lot of sympathy for the clones and the enslaves citizens of the GFFA, and both were not shy about calling out the Jedi Order and the Senate for their inaction. Of course, jedi stans hated them. To add insult to injury, Karen Traviss was the writer who ‘killed’ Mara Jade (btw, this wasn’t her idea but she’s still hated for it).

Karen Miller ‘crimes’:

Her biggest ‘offense’ was being mistaken by Karen Traviss (more on that later). Beyond that all she did was write Anidala and portraying Anakin and Obi-wan as good but flawed people. This is the kind of stuff she wrote:

“Coruscant was out there. Padmé was out there. There was a heart in his chest, beating, but it was only an echo. She was his true heart. She was his home.”  - Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Siege

“He saw himself a candle. He saw himself behind a wall. Brick by brick he tried to raise it. Brick by brick, it was destroyed. Every death was a hammer blow. Every loss a chisel. The Sith were a wily foe, they knew where and when to strike. They were drawn to weak places, to old griefs and unhealed wounds.” - Karen Miller. The Clone Wars: Wild Space

To weep for a fallen comrade was to display unseemly attachment. A Jedi did not become attached to people, to things, to places, to any world or its inhabitants. A Jedi’s strength was fed by serenity. By distance. By loving impersonally. Karen Miller. The Clone Wars: Wild Space

Nothing particularly edgy or offensive. Imo, she’s one the best prequel writes in the game.

Karen Traviss ‘crimes’:

Beyond killing Mara Jade, she’s known for being critical of the Jedi and Republic and advocating for clone wars. She supported the highly offensive and controversial idea that clones were human being who deserved the freedom. She also believed that love (romantic or platonic), family and friends were not inherently evil and that Order made mistake by banning them.

Karen Trraviss is also know for writing so much of what we know of Mandalorian culture and she struck a nerve that too.

She wrote things like:

“The only thing [the clones] all had in common was their appearance—although they were starting to age differently, she could see that now—and what the Republic had done to them. Apart from that, they were individuals with the full range of virtues and habits of random humankind, and she now felt completely at home with them. If she had a side in this war, this was the one she chose: the disenfranchised, unreasonably loyal, heartbreakingly stoic ranks of manufactured men who deserved better.”  Star Wars - Republic Commando: True Colors by Karen Traviss

Serenity, my backside. Passion. Passion and anger and love. That’s what this galaxy needs, not serenity. Passion for change. Anger at this brutality. Love-buckets of it, for everyone, love between child and parent, between spouses, between brothers and sisters, between friends. We need more attachment, not less. Attachment can stop us from tearing ourselves apart. The Clone Wars: No Prisoners by Karen Traviss

He wanted to ask her why only a handful of Jedi objected to a slave army, and why they could claim to believe in the sanctity of all life and yet treat some life as being exempt from that respect. [REPUBLIC COMMANDO: TRUE COLORS BY KAREN TRAVISS[

Fandom (over)reaction:

Because of her ‘polemic’ takes, she started getting a lot of hate from the fandom. She used to interact with the fandom and her reward was to get constant death and rape threats. Some fans threatened her with ‘corrective rape’ to change her mind about the Jedi Order and other topics. Apparently, she responded by calling these fans ‘talifans’.

And the fans used that reaction to further vilify her. she was accused of hating the Jedi Order, of favoring Mandalore over them, getting the size of the clone army wrong, of ruining the OT by killing Mara Jade and now, of attacking fans. She was basically bullied out of the franchise.

However, her depictions of Clones and Mandalorians as heroes, while portraying the Jedi as petty or villainous, frustrated some fans, who felt that her stories and characters were counter to Star Wars. These fans wrote negative reviews of her books, and created a petition to George Lucas to stop Traviss from writing further Star Wars books. Traviss also received rape and death threats. Traviss wrote about these experiences on her blog, attacking the fans who created the petition, and likening them to Muslim extremists by calling them "Talifans." Traviss ultimately retired from Star Wars writing due to the threats she received.  [x]

It got to point where she had to write an open letter to the fandom explaining she DIDN’T hate the Jedi Order, she just didn’t believe things like war crimes and slavery should be so easily overlooked.

“No sane human can hate someone who doesn’t actually exist. From a writer’s perspective, the more super-powers characters acquire, the harder it is to develop logical story arcs and true human drama…but I don’t have any real feelings about fictional characters that stay with me once I step out of character-point-of-view-writing mode and get on with my life […] My real problem, then, is not with fictional Jedi, but with the people who refuse to believe they can do wrong. – Karen traviss [x]

If you want to know more about this, check this out :)

Now, back to Karen Miller

A few years ago, a popular sw tumblr tried to discredit Traviss writing by spreading the info that  she was a sexualizing Ahsoka with Bail so people started hating her for that too. Thing is, Karen Miller was the one accused of doing that but here is the deal:

Neither Karens ever wrote Ahsoka interacting with Bail Orgarna. What actually happened was that someone wrote a fic about Bail sexualizing Ahsoka on fanfiction.net, someone read it and decided the writing style was similar to Karen Miller’s so OF COURSE it must be Karen Miller who wrote the fanfic. Thanks to that genius level of deductive work, over the time people started saying that Karen Traviss wrote about Bail wanting to fuck Ahsoka as extra proof that SHE IS EVIL and should not be taken seriously.

Conclusion

Regardless of what you feel about someone writing, it’s NEVER okay to send them rape or death threats. Never! unfortunately, some hardcore jedi stans still spread the ‘karen traviss was attacking us’ without explaining exactly transpired between her and the fandom. According to their narrative, she was the *only* one in the wrong. That’s why there’s so much misinformation about her and what truly happened online.

My take on this ‘controversy’ is very simple: stop sending rape and death threats to women. I don’t care if you agree with her or not. The moment you believe a women *deserve* to be rape or killed, or support those who do, you lose any more ground you might think have. The situation becomes even more dire if it’s done to protect FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. 🤦‍♀️ I swear...this fandom....

[lgbtqlegends]

If you had to pick a woman to make a trio with Avalance who would you pick?

ooo that's a good one. a tough one, but a good one. thanks for the ask!

okay so. my very first instinct was to say felicity, bc i think it'd be very cute and also bc i've actually written an ava/sara/felicity fic before.

however. the more thought i put into it (which at the time of writing this is not necessarily a whole lot bc i just saw this ask like 2 seconds ago lmao), the more i think i'm not gonna be able to pick just One, bc each one i think about would be very cool or cute or w/e in it's own way. so i guess,instead of answering this with just One solid/definite answer, i'll give you a list of arrowverse woman (and for the record i have presently only watched arrow, supergirl, batwoman and legends (obviously, considering this is a legends blog lmao) so, probably won't be anyone from any of the other shows lmao) and a little thing of like, why i think it would be cool or w/e

felicity smoak - okay like i said, i just think it'd be really cute and also i have already written fic for it so, also i love smoakingcanary and i love avalance so why not combine them. also ava and felicity are both Nerds and i think their relationship would be great

nyssa al ghul - okay this is an obvious answer bc the 3 of them are top tier in terms of badassery and the 3 of them would be Very awesome and also v hot together

alex danvers - i mean c'mon, 2 directors and a captain of a timeship?? what more could i possibly want. it would be, Very cool

kara danvers - 1. it would be very cute, there would be So Much Cuddling and 2. uhh, kryptonian, hello, how cool would that be

nia nal - i just think it'd be super cute, and also i just Really love nia nal so

kate kane - again, very much badasses, it would be, very fun and very cool to see, i think the 3 of them would have a lot of fun

ryan wilder - at this point i started to be like "yknow what. why not." (i'm joking, mostly, I'm just tired lol it's like 1AM here). in all seriousness, i think ryan and sara would very much match each other's energies of like. "there's so many things that are fucked up in the world, we've very much seen and lived through them, and we are going to do everything possible in our power to make the world a little less fucked up and to fight for what's right." and they won't take crap from anyone but also know there are times when they need to be held accountable. and obviously ava is also like that too, but i think her being a clone and having most of her memories programmed she doesn't have Quite as many of those experiences of like. yes the world is really fucked up. like sara and ryan would, but she 100% has the idea of like. but it doesnt have to be that way, there are things they can do to make it better. i think it'd be a really cool dynamic to see.

sophie moore - pretty much the same reason for most of these lmao, they're all very badass and i just think it would be neat

zari tomaz - bc halfway through me making a list i realized that i'd failed to mention any of the women from legends, despite being perfectly free to do so. again, mostly, i just think it'd be neatand i think that the 3 of them would be able to help each other a lot.

charlie - just, it would be so good. so good. also imagine charlie and sara annoying the shit out of ava bc they got high together and accidentally woke ava up in the middle of the night

amaya jiwe - again just, it would be very cool, and i think ava and amaya's personalities would greatly help to ground sara, and ava and amaya would appreciate the extra level-headedness and calm and planning and stuff no matter how much they fondly but exasperatedly adore sara's recklessness

[natsukitakama]

Hi ! I just found your blog, and I love your domestic headcanons for manbun!Eren it's so soft aaah I'm dying ;; Also ! If you're okay with some reincarnation AU, could you write some headcanons of manbun!Eren reuniting with his significant other in this lifetime ?( Like, for example, considering what happened in the last manga chapters, would he feel too self-conscious and/or guilty to even approach them now, even if it was in a different lifetime? etc etc.) Thanks a lot

Author note : aaaannw thank you so much I’m so happy you enjoy it as much as I enjoy write it ♡ Your request sound so sweet to me I hope you’ll like it. I’m sorry for taking so long ! 

Warning : Some angst nothing to nasty / Reincarnation AU / Some spoilers if you haven’t read chapters be careful (just mention though). Also you could find a prequel to this here

i do not own the gif credit(s) to the owner(s) 

Masterlist 

Normally when someone is reincarnated, they’re not supposed to remember their past life : it’s like the whole point. But it wasn’t Eren’s case. 

At first he thought those were just bad dreams, something all made up because of anxiety which were due to his future exam. Deep thought he knows they weren’t dream : they felt too real and the more he thought about it the more he could remember. 

Since he couldn’t forget about it, Eren decided to face the problem so he could fixe it even annihilate it. He didn’t take long before he remember everything. 

His past life, his mum’s death, his father turning him into Titan, Him eating his own father, The way he promised himself and to everyone he will kill every titan, the choice he made in order to be free, you and especially the last time he saw you. 

His mouth went dry at the mention of you, he could feel his stomach twisted as if he would throw up. But nothing will happen, because he lose you, because he didn’t trust you enough or maybe because he was too selfish to even ask your opinion. He could picture your last meeting easily. He was still bitter about it, he shouldn’t talk to you the way he did

After the Marh’s incident Eren was detained, on the jail he used to live couple years agp. The moment he was in jail, Eren knows he’ll leave to execute his plan, this was too important for him to waste time in some talking. Everyone around you wanted an explanation about Eren’s behavior while all you wanted was to see your boyfriend and to check him be sure he was okay and healthy. However it took a lot of arguments for Hanji to let you go to see your boyfriend, they weren’t sure if it was a good idea they still has doubt. 

As soon as you have Haji’s approval, you run as fast as you can to meet Eren, you couldn’t wait to see him, talk to him. It’s been a whole year since the last you two were together, you couldn’t describe how much you miss him and frankly you would easily into Hell just to hold him close to you. 

During this year you overworked yourself, knowing Eren would need everyone’s help when he will be back : the last thing you wanted was to be a burden for him. He was your beloved there nothing you won’t do for him. So you trained again and again, always working harder to become stronger, so you could be strong like Mikasa (or at least get closed to her level). Everyone was impressed by your motivation, some even jealous about your passion. You and Eren have both your goal and nothing won’t stop you from achieving them. 

However nothing could prepare you to this, no one could train you enough to that moment : When you were finally face to his jail, you met nothing but a cold-glare not a smile or sign of happiness to see you. As if you were the last person he wanted to see. 

« What are you doing here Y/N ? » 

« What are you talking about ? I wanted to see you silly » 

« Again what are you doing here ? » 

« I don’t understand Eren, I mean it’s been a year … Don’t you think I’ve the right to want to see my boyfriend ? To talk to him after everything happen ? » 

« What do you expect me to say ? » 

« I don’t know why do you leave without telling me something ? What happen in Mahr ? What was your plan Eren ? Innocent people died  » 

« Armin used to say that sometimes you need to do « bad thing » in order to achieve your goal that’s exactly what I’m doing now. » 

« So is that the reason why you don’t say anything to me ? Because you were afraid I might tell you to not do it ? » 

« No I didn’t talk to you because I knew you couldn’t understand you never did » 

« That’s unfair Eren I was always on your back, I always support you no matter what » 

« Exactly you never question my opinion » 

« Because I was agree with you otherwise I will tell you » 

«  I don’t think so, I think you follow me like a lost puppy because you were eager of my love you would everything so I will love you » 

« That’s not true Eren and you know that » 

« Oh yeah ? Then tell me why did you come ? » 

That question froze you, of course the main reason was you missing him but you wanted an explanation, his truth about what happen so you could defend him properly. But was it true ? Did you always support him because you were afraid he might stop loving you ? Were you so desperate ? 

« See you couldn’t even answer a simple question and you dare asking me to explain my plan ? Why will I do that ? You would be a burden anyway » 

You swore you could hear your heart break at this instant, you being a burden ? No it couldn’t be, you work so hard to help him so you could be useful to him. Then you felt it, something hot was rolling on your cheeks you were crying in front of the man you try to convince you weren’t useless. What a shame, you should be mortified crying in front of Eren no wonder why he thought  like this about you. Fortunately you manage to say something 

« That’s not true, I work harder I wanted to help you because I believe in your goal because we make a promise we will achieve our goal together. Did you forget this ? » 

Looking at him right into his eyes, all you could see was disappointment and probably some frustration as if you bother him. Why was he acting like this ? It was so out of character at least that’s what you thought. 

With a sigh he gave you his last word to you, Eren still feel bitter about it 

« I have to be honest with you I don’t know if I ever love you back in days I was probably too young to understand what I felt about you. But now I am sure about something I don’t want to be with you anymore I don’t want a burden when I’m fighting for freedom. You should be thankful cause I’ll let you take benefit of my fight but you don’t deserve it. Weak deserves nothing but slavery ». 

That’s what the last time he was until he somehow manage to achieve his goal and then waking up in some alternative present. This time weren’t full peace but nothing to compare at what he lived. He has a pretty good life, friends, a complete family, even good grades but since the beginning of his new life he know something was missing. Now that he remember about his past life, he knows he was missing you. He needs you. He couldn’t lose you again. 

He knows at this very moment he has to meet you again, he has to apologize for his behavior, he has to tell you everything : he never wanted that, he thought you couldn’t manage his plan, the last thing he wanted was you being hurt because of him. All he wanted to do was to fight so you could be finally free. In titan’s universe he knew he didn’t have much time left, everything had to be done quickly before his own end. It was his goal since he knew about his life expectancy : To give freedom for his people. 

So yeah some things has to be done, but he promised himself to never ever have regrets. But still, he shouldn’t talk to you like this. All he wanted to do now was to make things up. 

Eren Jaeger was a lucky man, he always was and this time made no difference. He used to meet you time to time in college for some school you two shared. Before he was fully aware of his past, he already felt attracted to you : you were kind, always known what to say and when to say it, you were smart funny and never afraid to show your opinion. And dear lord, you were so attractive, the way your eyes was full of passion and your lips Eren loved the way they shake slightly when you cracked a smile at him when you made fun of him. 

Yet, something has changed, your behavior has changed you weren’t like you were used to be : Could you remember your past life just as Eren did ? Were you connected so when one of you were aware of his past life the other one too ? 

If this was true, would you ever want to talk to him again ? Was it right for him to desire you ? Should he work to own you back ? Did you ever love me ? 

Eren Jaeger is a brave man, but in rare occasion he could feel fear not about the situation but he could be afraid about himself. To be clear, even after the time skip he still felt self-conscious about him : like he wasn’t strong enough, he could be a burden and now he was afraid you might don’t want to ever speak at him again. He was afraid he might lose you back there : the worst was he couldn’t even be mad at you for hating me, he was such a bastard to you. He talked to you like shit, he broke you and for what ? Be sure you won’t mourn him when his time would come ? 

It’s been a month since your behavior changed and Eren never talked to you, he couldn’t barely sleep : each times he was falling asleep all he could see was your broken face when he called you slave, he swore he could hear your heart broke at his harsh words. And each times he falls asleep because of exhaustion from crying over and over at you. It felt like he was that young boy he used to be who joined the army. 

One day his mum decided enough was enough, she was aware about his son’s pain and was more than ready to confront him about it. She decided to wait until he’ll be back from school and will ask him for a talk. 

The two were sit face to face while Carla Jaeger took a deep breath and then look at his son : he seemed so sad and yet so angry. 

« Did you have a fight with Armin and Mikasa again ? »

« W-what ? No ! Why would you think that ? » 

« Because it’s been a month since you couldn’t fall asleep without crying first and I want to know why » 

Of course his mums knows, she always knows everything when it came to him or his father 

« Well there that student I used to study with I really love them like a lot but … I did something wrong no I said something awful to them I literally broke them but now I have this chance to make things up to clear my own mess » 

« Then why don’t you do it ? » 

« Because everytime I tried to talk to them I have the feeling I shouldn’t do that cause I don’t deserve a second chance you know ? » 

His mum sighed of course, Eren being the man he is, would think too much about it. Being self-conscious give him the feeling he deserved nothing and should be ashamed. 

« Look I couldn’t say I know what you’re feeling cause I’m not. But I know you Eren I know you could be stubborn when it came to something you loved ou believed and I know sometimes you made mistakes. So I’m going to tell you this : if you felt guilty for what you did to them then apologize don’t try to explain your behavior just apologize tell them your sincerely sorry and please for the sake of your mum tell them you love them and there nothing you won’t do to fix your mistake » 

What Carla said was true, it might no make things like they used to be but at least Eren won’t feel that guilt everytime he puts his eyes on them. They won’t probably ever want to talk to him, he didn’t deserve that, yet he has to do this. 

One day after their sharing lesson was over, Eren went directly to them asking for a « talk » which surprised it’s been a couple of weeks since you two ever share a glare at each other. But you followed him not knowing why you shouldn’t 

« So ? What did you want to tell me »

« I wanted to apologize »

« For what you did nothing wrong ? » 

« Yes I did ! You can’t remember but I did something terrible I even hate myself for daring to say something like this to you. I don’t even know what I did this in the first place but I did because it felt right to me. But now I realized I shouldn’t talk to you like this, especially because you mean everything to me you were my world - you still is- you need to know that everything I said or did was for you I wanted you -and the others- to be free because I couldn’t be here with you. The last thing I wanted was to you fighting to chose someone to take my burden after my end. I was supposed to end this. Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about but- »

« I do » 

Freezing, Eren looked at your eyes only to meet your tearing one. The smile you were wearing reminds him his dream and his past life when you two used to date, imagine your future together. But that couldn’t be that right ? 

« Y/N What does that mean ? » 

« It means I’ve waited so long I hope you would remember me. I always hope there were something behinds your words, i would do anything just to meet you again just to talk you one last time and asked you. »

« Wait does that mean… » 

« Yeah Eren I remember everything, one day I just woke up in my bed and I just known who I used to be who I love »

« Y/N I’m so sorry I wish I could do better » 

« You can do you know why ? »

«  I don’t » 

« Because we have a second chance now » 

A second they had, after reuniting with you Eren never missed a time to cherish you like he was supposed to. It was as if he tried to counterbalance everything he did wrong this terrible day. 

During your whole life together he did everything to make you happy, couple of months after his apologize he asked you to be his partner for the rest of his life. You practically jumped into his arm, tears all along your face while saying again and again « of course I want to of course I will marry you » 

You two get engaged and get married after graduating from your college, all of your friends were here as if nothing has changed since your past life. 

3 years later you and Eren have finally become parents 

2 years after you two became parents for the second time 

Coupe years later like 60 years later, Eren died peacefully in your bed he was looking at the window thinking about his whole life : his past life and now, he felt lucky very lucky he got everything he ever wanted, his family back, his friends were saved and finally free, he got you by side (you never left him and he couldn’t be more thankful for that), he has two amazing children who now were adults and started to built their own life, he got the chance to cherish you like he was supposed to. Eren felt like it was his time, in fact there nothing he would ask except some extra-times with you but he knew after all he’ve been through he would be selfish for him to try to live longer. With a last look on the window, looking at the landscape he then took a last look at your family picture on the wall besides him and then closed his eyes for the very last time with a smile. 

Couple months later it was your turn, like your husband you felt like you have the life you deserve and know it was time to let your children and the next generation live their own life. Imitating your husband you took a look at your family picture and with a smile you closed your eyes too knowing your husband was sitting somewhere waiting for you to come by his side. 

You two were soulmate it took you a long to realize what linked you, but if Fate got you together one time you know you would reunite to your Eren again. 

You couldn’t wait to see in which life you would be reincarnated  

[haljathefangirlcat]

MOR mozalieri angst and galadred jb 👀

OH MY GOD ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU’RE INTO MOR TOO SDFGHJKLSDFGHJKLK

... ahem. These are both really short because I jotted them down as a spur of the moment thing  and I have absolutely no idea when or if I’ll actually make something out of them. So I’m just gonna post everything I wrote for them since it counts as “a little snippet” anyway, lol.

The first one is angsty af and entirely the fault of that part of L'Assasymphonie where Salieri is playing with the knife while ranting about his impostor syndrome and his inferiority complex. Uh, and Le Bien Qui Fait Mal, too, but that goes without saying. If it ever went anywhere, it would probably include very pained love/professional admiration confessions, a idiots in love/mutual pining “wait, no, I’m pining for you but you wouldn’t even look at me!” “are you kidding me, I’m the one pining but I thought you hated me!” moment, and PLENTY of hurt/comfort. I have absolutely no idea about anything else, though, because I don’t even know where or when even the scene I came up with is set... which would be a pretty important thing to know, from a practical standpoint, tbh.

TW FOR SELF-HARM AND VIOLENT IMAGERY

He’d only ever thought of what it was like to love like that. To feel the bright-bladed knife plunge and twist and dig inside his chest, tenderly cut through quivering flesh and sinew, saw his ribcage open to open up his heart to the burning beauty and white-hot light streaming in from above. To seek that pain and hide away from that pleasure, and curse the man who was the cause of both while cursing himself for letting him hold such power over him, for loving him and for hating him, for always failing to live up to him, to be like him.

He’d never spared one thought to consider what it might be like to be loved like that. To be made aware that your very existence was a spring of endless suffering for one who claimed to feel an ever-growing affection for you, to be made into an obsession in the black of night and an ivory idol bathed in golden sunrises, to become an inescapable curse. To have that much power, and not rejoice in it or even want it. To not be cruel enough to stomach it.

Mozart didn’t need to mock him with his brash laugh or hurl cold words at him. It was the softness in his voice that made guilt well up in his gut like pouring venom into a bowl until it overflowed; it was the sadness in his gaze that cooled his heart until he shivered. It was his own shame at himself, washing over him once again in new, sudden, crashing waves for new, sudden, piercing reasons, that brought him down on his knees, brought his head in his hands.

And Mozart, he came down to him. He lowered himself and crouched on the floor to reach him. Put his arms around his shoulders for a moment, then drew back and took Salieri’s wrists in his hands, holding them gently, gingerly. Scared, or disgusted, or perhaps just careful not to stain himself with his blood. It was starting to cool. It felt sticky, dirty.

«Come with me,» Mozart said, and drew Salieri’s hands away from his face. Some distant part of Salieri’s mind felt he should not allow that so easily, but the rest of him just felt tired, so he did. How strange that even though he was the one shaking, his breath ragged and hitching, it should be Mozart to cry. He wanted to laugh at the sight, but found he couldn’t. He could only let himself be dragged up to his feet, and then into a chair when he started feeling lightheaded.

He even obediently raised his hand and stayed put as Mozart ran to fetch warm water, soap, and clean cloth.

The second one is, once again, inspired by one of your fics. ;) Remember when you wrote that artist!Jaime/tattoo artist!Brienne fic where they bonded over Arthurian characters and I was like, “someone should introduce both of them to the concept of Galahad/Mordred because they’d love it so much for their own different reasons?” Ideally, this should be the fic where they actually get introduced to it... if it ever went somewhere.

The basic plot would be: “Jaime was overjoyed when he found out he could pour his old love for all things Arthurian AND his passion for drawing into fandom. His first fanart were all very dramatic, very romantic Mists of Avalon -inspired Arthur/Morgana pieces because he identified with that due to his ‘fated’ relationship with C., but as that started to go sour, he branched out into edgy, purposefully badwrong Arthur/Morgause stuff. Eventually, he found out about Galahad/Mordred and got really into the whole ‘doomed man on the path to making all the wrong choices finds redemption through connecting with another misfit with a high moral drive and noble nature who may have his own issues but believes there’s something good in him for some reason’ aspect of it. That’s when Brienne, budding fanwriter mostly into gen stuff due to romance bringing back bad memories, found his art and unexpectedly got hooked to the whole ‘noble-hearted and justice-loving misfit can’t really connect with anyone on a deeper level until he meets snarky, sad not-so-doomed man who actually sees HIM beyond both the brave knight thing and the ‘will never fit in anyway’ thing’ aspect. Now, they regularly chat through comments and tags and the occasional message. But things get more complicated when Jaime, who actually lost a hand in an incident years ago and had to relearn to draw after that while suffering the ableism of the usual suspects, finds the courage to post selfies on his blog both with and without his prosthetic hand to show the world and himself that the hardships he had to overcome don’t mean he’s less of a person or less of an artist or less in any way. That’s when Brienne goes from finding him interesting and funny and actually pretty charming to finding him HOT. Which scares her a whole lot due to her past experiences. But that’s okay because they’ll never see each other irl anyway, right? Unless they find out they actually live in the same city and Jaime asks her to meet to work on a collaboration they’ve been thinking of for a while but never really got to work on until now...”

And here’s what I currently have:

But then Mordred is staring at him again with those too-green eyes of his, except that this time there’s no mockery or coldness in them, and Galahad’s been warned again and again not to get too close to him and he’s been told over and over that he can’t trust him, but now he thinks that maybe, maybe he really does understand –

 Brienne stares at her screen. She actually described Mordred’s eyes as gray. Didn’t she? Usually, she picks dark gray, or dark brown, or dark. And yet, in this one story, they’re suddenly green.

Okay, time to take a break from revising. She gets up from her chair, rolls back her shoulders, and goes to grab a snack and a glass of water. She tries not to wonder what’s gotten into her – but she doesn’t really need to anyway, because she has a feeling she already knows.

Not that there’s anything bad about it. In a way, it only makes sense. He’s the artist who got her into the ship in the first place, and they’ve had a few pleasant conversations in the notes to his posts and, eventually, in the comments to her fics. So, it’s not that big of a deal if she associates him with these characters. And… well, recently he’s started posting selfies on his tumblr. And fine, she might have some sort of pathetic little celebrity crush – is that even the right term? Is he a Tumblr celebrity? – on him. Truth to be told, it’s not even as pathetic as the crushes she’s had when she was still in school, because at least he’s never insulted her or made fun of her looks, and she’s reasonably sure he wouldn’t even if he ever had the chance to. Which he won’t get, but anyway…

Anyway.

Apparently, the lines might blur when she’s distracted. Big deal.

[beneaththetangles]

The Samurai Steps Out on Faith…

“Would you consider joining our team?”

I have to admit, when I saw those words appear on my screen a few months ago, I was beyond stunned. Me? You want ME to join up with Beneath the Tangles?!

Me? A guy who updates his own blog once a year AT BEST?!

Me? A guy who wrote a scathing series of articles about a VERY controversial subject resulting in some PRODIGIOUSLY cutting reviews and commentary leaving me mentally MIA for a whole month?!

ME? A guy who has been known to turn into an Angry Black Man on a wide variety of subjects including politics?!

You seriously want me, a mid-thirty’s black man from Louisiana who just so happens to have spent the last 25 years of his life consuming and loving anime to come write for Beneath the Tangles?

Knowing all this, you want me?

“Well…alright then. You got me. I probably can’t give you much, but you’ll get the best of what I got.”

And with that…here I am.

Hi. I’m Joshua. You can call me Josh. Or Cajun Samurai. Whichever you prefer. Heck, I’m not picky. I’ve been called so many things in the course of my life. Heck, the last few MONTHS I’ve been called some REAL colorful things. Heck, once when I was engaged in a heated political debate (as I tend to do), I was once called a lizard. I wore that name with pride for a while. Lizards are cool. Steve Irwin, God rest his soul, taught me that. In any case, for simplicity sake, I’m Josh. I’m sure most of you got to know me really well in my introduction on Twitter when I spammed your timelines with anime likes and dislikes. If you think THAT was a lot of info, you should see what I post on my own Twitter account. I’m the self-crowned prince of reaction pictures and live-tweeting.

As I mentioned above, I’m a Louisiana native. And before you ask, no, I don’t live in New Orleans. Honestly, I don’t really go to New Orleans that often unless it’s for my yearly trek to MechaCon…and even then, after next year, MechaCon will be going bye-bye, so my trips to NOLA will probably be even more infrequent. Unless I can score some Saints tickets. Cam Jordan, if you’re reading this, I know you’re an anime fan. Hook a brother up.

Once upon a time, I once had a pretty okay blog called The Cajun Samurai. It was just a place where I could get some reviews done and write up some small articles. At the time I started it, I was working a desk job that allowed me plenty of free time to write until my heart was content. But then, things happened, and I got laid off from my cushy job of seven years, and I had to go back out into the real world and do some real work. From a major airline to a major shipping company, to a local automotive parts company to a major lab testing company, I’ve been blessed to see so many different things and have so many different experiences, but sadly, my time to work on my blog was truncated severely and my poor blog was dang near neglected.

I did, however, find time in late January to write up a series of posts about a…particular hot topic that shook the anime community in 2019. I won’t get into it here, but suffice it to say, it was a MAJOR project for me, and a couple of my more…heated posts…caught some REAL undesired attention…which put me in a mental place that I did NOT want to be in. I found myself second guessing a lot of what I did, and I spent the entirety of February wondering if I was actually right in what I wrote. Did I go too far? Did I take it to a level that it didn’t need to go to? Did I compromise my own spiritual beliefs? All this went through my head and it was just so overwhelming. Suffice it to say, when I look back at February 2020, it won’t be the best of times. However, here we are in August, and, in the words of Elton John, “I’m still standing.” However, I can honestly say I didn’t get through it alone, not by a long shot.

Faith was something that I leaned on every step of the way. If it wasn’t but for the love and sweet mercy of the Lord, I would’ve driven myself completely insane. There was SO MUCH prayer going on during that time, and sometimes it was a struggle to get by on an hourly basis, to say nothing of a daily basis. In fact, I fully believe it was God working through TWWK that provided so much support to me both spiritually and emotionally; I can’t even put it into words how much I relied on his support and strength and just knowing that someone else out there was pulling for me, praying for me…it’s a beautiful feeling. I know I’ve probably driven him crazy with my many messages during that time, especially since he has his own family and life, but honestly, I doubt I would’ve been able to get through this without him and some of my other friends online. Also, knowing that the Beneath the Tangles crew were praying for me touched my heart so much. I owe them so much.

Then, one day, TWWK asked me that infamous question about coming over to write and do some Twitter posts. At first, I admit I was hesitant; I was almost ready to turn him down because of all the issues that I went through over my blog posts. I would never…EVER want to expose anyone to drama that involves myself and another person or group of people, and I felt that the target on my back, however faded and off center, would be a target on anyone I was affiliated with. But then I remembered a bit of scripture that pretty much smacked me across the face like Mrs. Kamiya slapped Tai across the face in that one episode of Digimon:

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. – Joshua 1:9

“Be not afraid”. “Be NOT afraid”.

Those words rung in my head loud as a bell. And it was for ME specifically. For this particular bit of scripture to be found in the book of JOSHUA…the book I am named after that tells the story of a man who had nothing but his faith to step out on…it was like a spiritual “Hey, Listen!” Sometimes, you have to step out on the strength of your faith and see where it leads you. It’s one thing to say that you believe in God and you trust in God, but at some point in your lives, be it making a small decision like joining a Christian anime blog, or a large decision like getting married or starting that new business, you have to take that leap OF faith ON your faith.

Many times I’ve found myself on that cliff about to take that leap of faith and many times I thought “Dang it, is this the right thing to do? Did I do everything right? Maybe I should rethink this…” but then I say “You know what, God? You brought me to this point. You said You would not put more on me than I can bear.  You picked me up each time I fell. You know the outcome of this. What do I have to be afraid of? I trust YOU. Lets do this.”

And so…here I am. For as long as you’ll have me, I humbly offer my services to you, dear reader. It is my hope and prayer that God blesses me with the writing acumen that will entertain you, challenge your thinking, and maybe make your day just a little bit better.

With that out the way, borrowing an idea from TWWK, I offer up my (CURRENT) top 30 anime of all time as a way to introduce myself anime-wise. Keep in mind, this list is always changing. In fact, up to the time of posting, this list has probably gone through about 20 changes. Why? Because just like the autumnal wind, my tastes and interests in anime ebb and flow. Today’s hotness will probably be tomorrow’s “meh”-ness. But as it stands right now, this is it. Yes, there’s some old stuff, yes there’s some new stuff…there may even be a few titles that will surprise you. Hopefully this list, and any subsequent posts, will give you some kind of idea of what kind of anime I like, and by extension, maybe what kind of person I am.

30. Yamada-Kun and the Seven Witches 29. Hitorijime My Hero 28. Silver Spoon 27. Bunny Drop (Usagi Drop) – PLEASE DON’T READ THE MANGA. PLEASE… 26. Lucky Star 25. Daily Lives of High School Boys 24. Hunter X Hunter 23. Sarazanmai 22. Nichijou 21. My Love Story 20. Azumanga Daioh 19. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit 18. Persona 4: The Animation 17. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad 16. Kodocha 15. Nerima Daikon Brothers 14. Digimon Tamers 13. FLCL (Original) 12. Neon Genesis Evangelion 11. Ghost Stories (English Dub) 10. Aria: The Animation 9. Nagi no Asukara 8. Assassination Classroom 7. Toradora! 6. Mysterious Girlfriend X 5. Planetes 4. Aria: The Origination 3. Aria: The Natural 2. Cowboy Bebop 1. Digimon Adventure (1999)

Admittedly, I’m not a HUGE fan of countdown lists because I always feel I’m forgetting something and I’m never FULLY satisfied with my choices, but I think this is a pretty comprehensive list! Of course, I’ll probably lay awake in bed tonight scrolling through Crunchyroll and think “OH CRAP! I FORGOT XYZ SHOW!!” and then kick myself for not including it, but hey, for the time being, this list is pretty much THE list. Just know that, quite literally, this list was updated and picked over all the way up to the day it was published!

And I think I’ve taken enough of your time! Funny how this post went from just being an introduction to a testimony to an anime countdown, huh? As a southerner, we tend to digress quite often. I ask that you please put up with my many digressions as I start this new God-given path I set out on with my new friends. Ya’ll have a good one and, as we say down here in Louisiana: Laissez le bon temps rouler! (let the good times roll!)

[kireon]

Store Bought Hero

x-posted from my writing account as well as my author blog.

If natural heroes didn't work, store bought was fine too.

At least, that's what you keep telling yourself. It becomes a mantra as you peruse the discount racks at your favorite clothing store that definitely does not start with 'K'. Setting aside the whole ‘escaped from the lab you were created in’ thing, you haven’t noticed any serious differences between natural heroes and the lab created ones ('store bought', as they say) except for the whole income disparity thing.

Oh, and the sponsors.

Everyone knows natural heroes shopped at Gucci and their sidekicks at Macy's, bare minimum, they simply must be outfitted with the best at all times if they are to be known in the world. You can hear the professor from the labs’ rant clear as day even fifteen years later. While you definitely like a select group of brand name items? You have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and a gigantic fucking load of student loans on your back.

No rich parents, tragic enough backstory, or sponsors for you: a 'store bought'.

With a sigh, you eye a sequined leotard and run your hand up and down the rough fabric. There is something satisfying about the way the colors shift from a too shiny silver to a lurid cherry red. You like shiny. You like shiny an awful lot, as a matter of fact, and that's how you got yourself into this entire mess in the first place.

"How was I supposed to know the stupid anklet was his downfall?" You grumble as you tear yourself away from the sequined nightmare. Restraint isn’t something that comes easily but you’ve had years to practice. A half-hearted paw through the racks of clothing marked at sixty-percent off or more reveals a pair of dark red pleather pants that might just make a good costume base.

"It's not like I walk around with my weakness in plain sight."

It wasn't even a decent anklet either; not even sterling silver or real diamonds or brand name. It was a cheap nickel plated piece of flash and the rash it gave you still itched even a week later. Some sort of curse for the unwary, or so the hero had claimed when you'd given it back to him a day later.

You neglected to inform him of your nickel allergy during the confrontation.

Well, maybe not wisely. You might have been able to get some sort of financial compensation outta him for the damage done to your skin. The rash and blisters did look really awful when he’d caught up with you and he looked horrified when he saw the results.

Heroes had that whole ‘do innocents no harm’ thing, after all.

You'd rather die than admit to anything so common as a nickel allergy, so you accused him of having a curse put on it. He ate up the accusation and used it to his advantage, as they all do. In exchange for falling for the good old fashioned sob story that was your life-- lightly embellished, of course--you had to become his sidekick as penance for your (petty) crimes. Also to completely remove the effects of this nonexistent curse.

After all, you were in ‘dire need’ of a good role model, yadda yadda yadda. You’d stopped listening to his moral prattling about the same time he tried to invoke the ‘daddy issues’ card. The last time someone had pulled that shit on you, they woke up woozy, confused, and completely unaware of the clown makeup as they walked out (pantsless) into the busiest part of the city. Waterproof makeup at that.

Just as a little extra “fuck you” to prove a point; you don’t like doing more than petty retaliation if you can help it.

You can be quite nasty, after all.

In the end, Hero McDadguy puffed up in his usual self-importance and gave you an entire fifty bucks towards a ‘basic’ costume and sent you on your way with a time limit. He was currently busy getting some frothy concoction at that one coffee shop just around the block. Far enough away that it’s a test of trust and boundaries but close enough he can close the gap and probably haul your ass in if he needs to.

The added caveat that you weren’t to embarrass him with your costume choice makes you want to do it even more. The only thing holding you back is the fact that you do have to wear the costume. In public.

Petty and spite take a backseat to pride and self-preservation.

Not like he was one to talk. He had that whole ‘90s cyberpunk meets Dad-on-Tropical-Vacation’ theme going on. Fanny pack, socks with sandals... the works.  You’d rather go to jail than try to figure out how to replicate, keep in theme with, or otherwise find something to compliment that mess.

You mutter that very thing under your breath while you snag a few promising pieces-- and the leotard because fuck self-control you deserve something nice-- off the rack and head for the dressing room to start trying things on. Twenty minutes of posing in the mirror in varying outfit combinations later and you ignore the request for 'photo evidence' of you behaving and call your oldest child instead.  

“Hey, what’s the name of that one bird that steals shit?” You ask as you shimmy into a pair of leather shorts with sequins on the ass. You’re definitely about ten pounds shy of ‘Juicy’, as the flashy hot pink word on your butt says, but this could very well be the start of something amazing.

“Maybe you wanna be more specific unless you want me to read descriptions for the next ten years?”  

Nat is much like you; level-headed, brilliant in school but woefully under challenged, and has the same smart-mouth that had gotten you slapped through a wall once or fifteen times in your early life. You would never lay a hand on your kids regardless of how mouthy they get with you and so have to find other methods of curbing their attitudes when they get too out of line.

There’s a lot of yelling and someone sounds like they’re on the verge of tears in the background. A muffled Nat’s voice tells them to ‘calm the hell down, it’s fine’ before they come back on the line.

“What’s all that about?” You ask as you sift through the tops for something that would go with it. This opportunity might be a wash with how little luck you’re having. Might be time for Plan B- especially if there’s a problem with the kids. Your hand lands on a peacock blue-and-green number that doesn’t look bad but isn’t quite what you’re looking for. Ugh.

It’d clash with that highlighter orange from Mr. I Sweat Burberry Cologne.

Your middle child’s voice is loud and clear on the line now. “If you buy those shorts I am putting myself into the Child Relocation Program and you’ll never see me again.”

You consider it for a moment. Mortal embarrassment of your thirteen year old or being a slightly less fashion disaster than you feel. Tough decision, really. You feel yourself smile after letting Morgan sweat it out just long enough.

“Clean the kitchen and I’ll consider it.”

The quintessential teenage shriek of fury and angst comes loud and clear through the phone. “I knew you were going to say that! You’re the worst!”

Some parents prayed against having a child born with precognitive powers. While annoying to deal with, it’s also a lot of fun to use against them. It makes parenting interesting and more of a game to see just which future the kiddo wants to avoid- or get away with. “

You feel your smile widen at the range of futures said kiddo has likely foreseen. You’ll have so much fun with this particular set of visions and using it like baby photos against them. “So did you clean the kitchen?”

“Duh!” A most indignant tone.

You laugh. You can’t help it. “Put Nat back on the phone.”

“Promise me you’re not buying those first.” Stubborn and firm. A bit of desperation there too. Not quite ready to beg but not all that far off either.

The way they say ‘those’ makes you laugh all over again. “I’m not buyin’ ‘em, don’t worry.”

“And that weird guy isn’t buying them either?”

Damn it. “Nope. He won’t buy them either.” So much for that idea. Maybe you could-

“No stealing them either!”

Double damn it. “Fine, fine; the shorts stay in the store.”

“Thank you.”

The phone goes back to your oldest. “So, about that bird?”

“Jackdaw, Magpie, Corvids.” You hear scratching of pencil on paper. Homework? At, you check your phone, two-seventeen in the afternoon on a Saturday? Your eyes narrow suspiciously.

Who is it you’re talking to and what have they done with your child?

“Corvids? Like crows and shit?”

“Yup. And no, I’m not a body snatcher.”

A grin. “Sounds like something a body snatcher would say.”  

Jackdaw didn’t have that something you were looking for. Didn’t roll off the tongue the way it needed to in your head when you imagined some Big Bad Villain spotting you mid-villainous speech. Corvid didn’t either. Crow wasn’t hitting any notes either.

Raven was absolutely taken by no less than eighty-three variations in your city alone.

Rook had some fun possibilities if you had actually bothered playing and learning chess. (You can’t; you can’t sit still or pay enough attention for that shit and you own that.)

Your eyes fall on the silver-and-red sequined leotard again.

You hear your prophecy cursed child screech in despair in the background and the younger two who have gathered to watch the show tell them to shut up.

Nat, ever patient and ever your child, smiles on the other end of the phone. “I think that’s the one, Magpie.”

Magpie... yeah, you like the sound of that one. Magpie it is. “It’ll make a good base; is Morgan--”

“McFreakin’ Losing It? Yep.” You can hear the sounds of pencil scratching against paper again. Curiosity overrules any possible ‘do not need to know’ that you and Nat sometimes stumble into.

“Okay, I’ll bite; what are you doing?”

“Fulfilling the prophecy as foretold by the ancients long ago.” if Nat’s voice were any drier, they’d be dust in a forgotten tomb. “I’m designing the rest of your costume so you’re not a total train wreck and Morgan can die quietly.”

“You’re my favorite.” You say as you gleefully stuff the leotard-- you’ve tried it on twice and know it fits like a dream-- back on its hanger and wiggle out of the shorts. A wiggle that almost ends badly for you, at that, and you can hear the brats laughing at you in the background as Morgan probably mimics how you just about bit it in the dressing room.

“Remember that when I inevitably try your patience in all of forty-five seconds.” Nat hangs up on you and you feel nothing but pride in the way these sassy children have grown up under your less than skilled thumb. You’ve not been the best parent or even the best role model. It’s funny what unresolved childhood issues and bad habits will do, but damn it you have given it everything you have up to and including your favorite line of ‘do as I say not as I do’.

That is your right as a parent, goddamn it, to use that line and they can pry that right from your cold dead fingers.

They’re all good kids. They’re going to end up heroes in their own right with or without superpowers. That, above all else, is all you want for them so that they’re twice as capable as you’ve ever been in your life. Lab created and thus ‘store bought’ or natural born; it doesn’t matter and it never mattered to begin with.

Heroes are heroes in the end and the world could always use another helping hand as it spins through another chaotic cycle.

Your phone beeps and you glance at the text message.

Black thigh high socks. Get two pair. Amazon sucks for deals rn.\

U r not my fave >:(

You scowl and wish the walls would burn as you unfold the crumpled bills at the register. You don’t need Morgan’s gift of prophecy to know what that text message says and yet, like a fool, you look down at it anyway.

There’s a photo of all five of your grinning children holding up score cards. All of them holding 10s.

All of them dressed in Hawaiian shirts.

You have never felt so betrayed in your whole life.

[macgyvermedical]

Improvised or self-surgery for Danny and Steve (no real preference as to who's the patient) from Hawaii 5-0 please! (I love and appreciate your blog and all the effort you put into it!)

***Not affiliated with the official “Bad Things Happen Bingo” writing challenge***

“H-help me out here Steve, I think I’m hearing things- did someone on your end say I had to pull this thing out myself?” Danny asked. He waited for an answer, extremely disconcerted by the several seconds of inaudible conversation on the other end of the phone line. “Yo, still here, can definitely hear you, what’s-”

“That’s right, Danny.” Steve’s voice confirmed. It was not the answer Danny was hoping for.

“Thought that was something we didn’t do. In fact, I clearly remember ‘pull the impaled thing out’ was on the don’t do list.” Danny let his voice get a little exasperated for emphasis and hoped the sentiment got through.

“Detective Williams,” Dr. Silvia Reyes interrupted. Danny wished she could see his face right now because a phone connection was not nearly the right medium to display his level of incredulity. “Almost any other circumstances yes, you’re right- the risk of severe bleeding, additional tissue damage, it wouldn’t be worth it.” She paused. “But in this case we have to consider the bigger threat.”

“Walk me through that- what’s the bigger threat than the explosion I was just in and the metal sticking out of my leg?” He’d been investigating a remote lab with an enforcement ranger when the man had tripped some kind of self destruct, triggering an explosion. Danny had been far enough away to only get thrown backwards, several pieces of metal debris embedding themselves in his upper right thigh in the process. Even he had to admit it was a lucky break, but it didn’t change the fact that the conversation he was now having was one of his least favorite kinds of conversations.

“Danny, after you left this morning, we looked over the pics the Park Service sent over.” Steve explained. “The FBI field office confirmed the lab may have been equipped with nuclear materials.”

Danny’s heart sank. “So the self-destruct was a dirty bomb, right?”

“We believe so, unfortunately. The concern now is that the whole area is contaminated.” Dr. Reyes continued. “There is no way to know how badly until we can pull together a trained team, but until we know more I would recommend spending no more than an hour where you are.”

“Is the shrapnel in my leg contaminated?” Danny asked, suddenly very much wanting it out of his body.

“Most likely.” Reyes replied.

“You’re gonna have to walk out of there Danny- we’ve already thought it over. The terrain’s too rough to send a vehicle, and we can’t risk sending a rescue team on foot until we know how bad the radiation is.”

“What about a chopper?” Danny asked. Under another circumstance he might have felt embarrassed asking for a helicopter, but at the moment he felt entirely justified in the request.

“Sorry Danny, we talked about that too- there’s a risk it could stir up the contaminated particles and the wind could spread them to a populated area.” Steve said it in such a way that Danny knew he’d agonized over it beforehand.

“Listen, I think you’re all forgetting I can’t walk. I almost passed out just getting my leg underneath me to stand a few minutes ago. I tried. The terrain walking in was rough enough when I could move my leg.”

“Based on the the pictures you sent, once it’s removed it will still by painful, but you’ll be able to bend it and bear some weight- you should be able to make it to the nearest road, where we can meet you with an ambulance.”

“I’m really not getting out of this, am I?” Danny asked.

“No, and the sooner we can start, the lower your total exposure will be.”

“Great.”

“Okay, is where you are still safe for you?” Danny looked around. There was a tinge of smoke in the air, but he was far enough away from the wreckage of the building that the still-smoldering pieces didn’t pose a threat to him. There was also no sign that the lab’s owners had sent anyone to assess the damage yet. He figured pointing out the looming threat of agonizing death by radiation wouldn’t help much.

“Yes.” He answered grudgingly.

“And you can still feel and move your foot and toes?” Dr. Reyes asked. “No numbness or tingling?”

“Yeah, still good there.”

“And no pain anywhere else, difficulty breathing, headache, vision changes, anything you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

“What supplies do you have with you?” Miraculously, his backpack had stayed on his back through the explosion. He was leaning against it, but forced himself to sit up painfully and pull it off his back.

“Uuuh, I got half a water bottle and a protein bar, some of the testing strips for the lab, a couple of pens, a pad of paper, a backpack, baseball cap, most of my clothes are intact, and a first aid kit.”

“What’s in the first aid kit?”

Danny opened the kit and dumped the contents onto the back of the backpack. “First aid kit’s got some, uh, band-aids, antiseptic, gloves, tweezers, ABD pads, some of those forehead fever things, tape, a tourniquet, trauma shears, some butterflies, tylenol, benadryl, one of those eye wash squeeze things, an ace wrap, and a little pocket guide.”

“Okay, I’m going to have you cut your pant leg away from the injury as much as possible. If some of the fabric got pulled in with the shrapnel that’s okay, you don’t have to take it out yet. You’re just trying to get the best view of the wound you can.” Reyes said.

“Yet she says. Sure.” Danny gritted his teeth. His hands shook as he hooked the shears into the pocket of his khakis. They cut easily through the bloodstained fabric, but each shaky cut pulled painfully at the piece of metal in his leg. He stopped more than once to catch his breath, trying not to let on that even this simple act had been difficult. He couldn’t imagine what he was about to do with actually removing the pieces.

“I don’t think there’s going to be much of a problem with severe bleeding, but I don’t know how deep the piece goes and it’s better safe than sorry. I’m going to have you put the tourniquet on about two inches above the shrapnel, but don’t tighten it down. Can you do that?” Reyes asked. As a police officer he’d gone through the obligatory first responder course, and once during an active shooter situation he’d put a tourniquet on someone else, but the idea of putting on no his own leg felt foreign and ominous.

“Yeah.” There was no way he’d be able to slip the tourniquet over his leg without tightening the muscles around the wound, so he pulled one side of the fabric completely out of it’s slot, slid it under his leg above the wound, and put it back together, tightening it just far enough that it wouldn’t come off. “Done.” He said.

“Good, still doing okay?”

“Let’s get this over with.” He ground out. Everything felt hot, he was covered in sweat, the

“Okay, I’m going to go over this first, don’t do anything until I tell you.” Reyes started. “You’re going to want to relax your leg as much as possible. Then get the best grip you can on the part of it that’s outside you. You’re going to pull it straight out at a 90 degree angle. It’s going to tug more than you think it will, but try to do it in one fluid mot-”

Danny nodded and waited several seconds for more instructions. “Dr. Reyes?” No response. “Steve?” Danny scrabbled on the ground for his phone. Please. It could have been a call drop. It could have been a volume thing.

It wasn’t. The low battery icon flashed briefly on the screen. C’mon, please. Danny wanted to scream. An explosion. Shrapnel in his leg. Radiation. The fact that he would have to pull this damn piece of metal out of his own leg because there was no one alive to help him. And now his phone was dead at the worst possible moment. Get a grip Danny.

He took a few steadying breaths. If nothing else, it sounded like he’d gotten the important parts from Reyes before the line had gone dead. A rendez-vous point with the ambulance was also no problem- if he could make it back to the ranger’s van, that would presumably be where Steve would send it.

There was just one thing standing in the way of safety now.

Relaxing his leg was harder than he wanted it to be. Everything felt tight just from the pain, but the muscles in his leg seemed to have protectively clenched around the offending metal. He took a steadying breath, gripping the protruding part of the shrapnel the best he could. Even the shaking in his hand sent pain into his leg.

F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck

He could scream. He could scream as loud as he wanted and no one would hear him. Okay. He could do this.

1….

2….

“AHHHHHHHHAHAHHAHHHGHGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

He screamed as loudly as he could, all thought, and all effort went into the scream. It didn’t drown out the pain, but he wasn’t expecting it to. It distracted him just enough that when he closed his mouth, tears streaming down his face, and opened his eyes, he saw a bloody piece of metal in his hand.

He couldn’t even describe how proud he was of it.

Panting, lightheaded, and feeling like he might puke, he stared down at the wound the metal had left. Satisfied the seeping blood wouldn’t kill him, he let himself lay back.

“Done.” He sighed.

He lay on the grass for several long seconds, waiting for the curls to fade from his vision and the pain to ebb away. Then he sat slowly. He took one of the ABD pads from the pile and pressed it lightly against the wound and wrapped the ace wrap around in. It wasn’t a perfect dressing, but it just had to hold up until he got to the ambulance. Gingerly, he tested if he could bend his leg.

To his great excitement, it was just as Reyes had predicted- it was painful, but possible now to bend his leg. He stood carefully, testing the weight he could bear in spite of the wound. It wasn’t much, but he was mobile. He picked up the water bottle, took one quick look at the pile of supplies, decided it wasn’t worth it, and began limping painfully towards the vehicle.

[hollandroos]

Run To Me | Sequel to Blow A Kiss, Fire A Gun | Prologue!

PART ONE IS OUT AND HERE!

{Y/N} - I apologise if the read more doesn’t work on the origional post!

The therapist stared the small girl down. Little brown curls littered her forehead like springs as she fiddled with the teddy bear in her hands. It was a little bit tattered at the edges, a certain spot of fur matted together but it was the little blue bear that she’d had since birth, the one that hid at the bottom of her junior school bag because she refused to go to school without it… some days. Some days she preferred the small, white and slightly creepy looking cat that she’d carry around by the tale.

Her hands. Red, raw, bloody. Your own daughter, falling apart right before your very eyes.

“Rosie?” The therapist asks, trying to come to eye level with your daughter but it was difficult. Despite her blabbering on about how independent (without actually using that word) and brave she is, she struggled to even look into the eyes of a stranger.

“Rose?” You whisper, bobbing your knee up and down to get the small girls attention. “Can you talk to the lady please?”

“I don’t want to be here.” She mumbles, bottom lip falling into a pout. “I wanna go home.”

You take one of her hands in your own, thumb gently running over the little pink and white hello kitty band-aids. She doesn’t seem to notice, looking at the pile of kids toys that sat in the corner of the room.

“Harper just wants to help you like she helps me.” You try to prevent your voice from shaking and almost fail too if it weren’t for a quick side eye from the therapist. “She’s nice, sweetheart.”

Your daughter was never difficult, on edge definitely and you partially blamed yourself. She’d been bought up seeing you hide in a shell both of your old self and one of pure fear and terror, merely smiling and sometimes not even leaving the bed. On those days your daughter would lay next to you, a rerun of teen titans or how to train your dragon on Netflix. She surely heard your screams in the very middle of the night and saw you freak out whenever she was too loud.

“No, mum.” Your daughter looks up, her glassy eyes finally off of the teddy bear. She begins wriggling around in your arms, the small girl grunting as she fails down your lap. “I wanna play with the toys.”

You were unsure but eventually sigh, letting her go. The near-five-year-old jumps down, little legs making their way towards what children would call ‘Heaven’. There were lego pieces and board games and the odd Rubix cube but your attention was directed towards her little hands, the size of a large tomato but that didn’t worry you, what did was the fact that her hands were the color of one.

The therapist coughs gently, leaning forward in her seat. “So from what you’ve shown me I definitely see signs.”

You weren’t surprised, not even batting an eyelash. “What can we do from here?” You ask, foot tapping gently against the carpeted floor, a nervous habit.

“There’s nothing you really can do, neither can I considering her age. Rosie is young, this could easily just be a phase.” She almost shrugs it off casually, black glasses slipping down her nose and she was quick to shove them up again, eyelashes hitting the frames.

“So you just want me to-” You begin, with no success.

“You can bandage them, give her toys to play with and keep her nails short but that’s about it for now-”

“You want me to let my daughter keep doing this to herself? To sit back and watch?” You feel your eyes prickle and Rosie seems to ignore your sudden outburst. Either she was listening carefully as she often did, focusing despite your knowledge or she was completely oblivious, focusing purely on the game pieces.

A wave of anger washes over you, as well as fear and guilt. The system was screwed up, sure, but you didn’t know how bad until then and there. Your hands trembled, afraid that you couldn’t stop this, you couldn’t be the mother Rosie needed.

“There is nothing I can do. I’m sorry, I know it must be hard but you can help, even just by talking to her about what she’s doing.”

You grit your teeth, hands clenching around the arms of the chairs. If you gripped them any harder you fear the wood breaking off, snapping beneath your fingertips and causing a magnitude of splinters.

Rosie listens, wondering why the two adults were talking about her while she was in the room. The little girl was notorious for picking up things she shouldn’t and at that moment she was trying to decipher what they were saying and why her mum looked like she was about to cry.

Her chubby fingers toy with a Rubix cube and while she had no idea what she was doing, she adored the bright colors. However, they clashed with the pink and white that decorated her hands. The hello kitty ones were her favorite, definitely better than the wiggles band-aids that’d been forced on her last week by the teachers at school.

What was wrong with her?

{ Tom }

“I don’t care what you have tomorrow, We need to have a fucking meeting.” Tom spat into the phone, face red hot with anger. “Your girlfriend can fucking wait. This is important.”

His hands gripped the very roots of his hair, anger racing through every phone as the man on the other end tried to get out of it. Tom couldn’t completely blame him, he’d do the same if he was about to lose his head.

The silence was all that could be heard through the other end of the phone between heavy, nervous breaths and the mobster already knew that he had this one in the bag.

“I can try-”

‘Try’ wasn’t good enough, nowhere near it for the mob boss who had already been pushed past his breaking point by the same client multiple times. He was ready to get his hands dirty again, paint the town red and grey and make those that deserved it fall to their knees.

Tom turned towards his desk, fingers clenching around the cool gun, the metal making goosebumps arise. “You will be there or I swear to god-”

“Okay! Okay, I’ll be there.” Wilson muttered, pursing his lips together in defeat.

Tom almost laughed at the nerves that were visible through even the phone. The guy's voice shook with fear. 

Tom hung up the phone, slamming it down on the desk in pure anger. People that messed with him and his business didn't get off the hook easily and this guy was no different- the fact that he thought he was made Tom’s blood boil. It made the wheels in his brain spin with different possibilities and ways he could show the client who the boss was in this situation.

“He’s coming?”

“He’ll be there.”

-

Words: 1524

Warnings: There will be violence, sexual references, and possible smut. (no guarantees) This story will also focus around both Y/N and her daughters struggle with mental illnesses so if you’re not okay with talks/symptoms of PTSD and OCD disorders the this won’t be for you.

Notes: Angels, I think you all deserve this fic after waiting so long. As someone with an OCD disorder (not the one that’ll be portrayed in this series), I’m so excited to delve into mental illness in fiction and do my best to portray it properly and just expand my horizons.

- There are a lot of dad/mafia series, so if this seems similar to yours then message me for credit.

Posting day: Tuesdays. 

PLEASE LEAVE FEEBACK!

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[maisietheyellowlab]

My Dog Breed Selection Process

Yesterday I got this message from an anon:

“I saw your getting a Koolie!! Nice!! They're such pretty dogs. And actually if you don't mind I have a question for you? Feel free to not answer. But you have a lab and are getting a koolie, two different breeds obviously, so do you have any tips for someone trying to find a breed? It'll be my first purebred dog and going to the shelter is hard enough because all the dogs are so cute so how do you narrow down the list for the perfect dog? Idk if you had a list - but how'd you decide on a koolie?”

and I quickly realized this was gonna be a long post, so here it is. This whole thing:

This is the general procedure that brought me to my breed choices:

First come up with a list of “must haves” “nice to haves” and “must not haves” for the type of dog you want (size, coat type, shedding, energy level, trainability,..) (as @katieisstilltumbling / @winedogs already pointed out in the original ask).

Be very honest with yourself and consider that while the dog has to be a good fit for you, you have to be a good fit for the dog as well!

Then go through a list of dog breeds and/or take a few “what’s the right breed for you” type quizzes OR if you really like a dog sport check out the breeds that usually do well in that sport (e.g. mushing: Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes,..)

→ see which of those you like and check their breed descriptions

→ check blogs, forums, videos, fb groups of owners and breeders of that breed, see if you still like what you see

→ if there are any events where you might be able to meet the breed irl (dog shows, trials, breed meet ups…) go there and talk to owners! (this step is not always possible but it’s very helpful if you can do it!)

→ check if the dogs of that breed fit your “must haves” and “must not haves”

→ look up breeders

→ contact a breeder, ask about the breed, their dogs, what kind of owner they like for their dogs, ask if you can meet them and their dogs

→ when you meet irl, see if you like the breeder and their dogs

→ if you’re now sure you want a dog of that breed, tell the breeder you’re interested in getting a puppy from their upcoming litter

→ be patient and respectful

→ get puppy

→ done!

So, here’s an example of my personal breed-selection journey:

Dog breed selection process 1 - Labrador Retriever:

The first step at all was trying to think of the dog breeds I'm generally drawn to/think they're cute and looking them up, checking out youtube videos where owners talk in depth about the breed and being real honest with myself if the breed would fit into my lifestyle. For example, I always liked Cocker Spaniels, Golden Retrievers, Border Collies, Labs and Dalmatians.

Second step was going thru breed lists online and checking them out, trying to see if there's more breeds I like, but maybe haven't seen or heard of before.

Third thing I did, was take some Dog Breed Selector quizzes online, to see if I'd like any of the dogs that would come up as recommended to me. Ofc this is not to be take too seriously, bc you can be a perfect home for a border collie, but the quiz results won't match you to Border Collies, just because you didn't tick the box that said »I have an enormous yard.«

So at that point I had somewhat of an idea what I would want in a dog, and I had a list of traits in my mind that I applied to my top ~10 breeds.

It was something like this:

Must haves:

Medium size

Tolerates cold&hot weather

Easy coat maintenance

Easy to train --> biddable or will to please

Medium/high energy

Suitable for hikes&canine sports

Playful

Good around older children

Good for first time owners

Not very sensitive

Okay with being left alone for a few hours regularly/not prone to separation anxiety

Good with people and dogs

Average lifespan longer than 10 years/as long as possible

Breeder in my country

Cute!

Nice to haves:

Doesn’t shed a lot

More of a quiet type of dog

Litter in the next 6 months

Likes water

Longer than average lifespan

Must not haves:

Guards people/property

Very large or very small

Prone to health issues

Very independent

Very sensitive

High maintenance coat

Prone to DA or HA

Pure working line

Ideas: Australian Shepherd, Toller, Border Collie, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, Brittany

I started looking for breeders of those breeds in my area and looked through all the websites I could find. I looked at their dogs, their breeding practices, the offspring and of course, litter plans.

At that point I felt like a balanced Aussie might be the way to go, so I contacted and met up with a breeder. Turns out we didn't really click and the way that she described the breed and her personal requirements for her puppies' owners left me feeling very overwhelmed, so I decided agains getting a dog of hers. I looked at some other breeders websites, but the more I researched the more I also started realizing that an Aussie might not the the best choice for me any the household I was living in at that time.

So here I learned a very important lesson. Not only do you have to find a suitable dog, you also have to find a suitable breeder. A responsible breeder will stay in contact with you for the res tof the dog's life, try to point you in the right direction, will be a source of help regarding the dog's development, health and training, so you need like them and they need to like you back. So I added another bullet point to my puppy search list:

a breeder that is helpful, friendly, nice to be around

Dog breed 1, try 1: Aussie →  not a good fit.

I eventually narrowed my selection down to Goldens and Labs, because they were generally easier for first time owners than the rest of the breeds, less prone to sensitivity and there were announced litters in the next few months.

In the end I went for a Lab, because they seemed a little more sturdy and had slightly less health issues, as far as my research showed. Then I contacted two breeders, I think, and I went with the one that felt more right. Oh and also, I thought the parents of the litter looked better, bc that's honestly a big factor too. You're gonna live with this dog for 10+ years, why not choose the one that fits your criteria as much as possible.

So that was it, this is how I chose Maisie's breeder. She's great, helped me a LOT during the first few months when I needed it most, and we're still in touch, I visit her every year. It feels like she's my aunt or smth, she's really nice.

Dog breed 1, try 2: Lab → WIN :D

Dog breed selection process 2 - Australian Koolie:

The second time around I approached the breed selection a little differently, since I had already met more breeds of dogs irl by then and also had an idea of what I’d like in a second dog from experience with Maisie. A part of my decision to go for a herding dog came from what I want to do with them - I want to try more canine sports that include jumping, so a dog with a lighter build and more will to please. That kind of dog will enjoy those activities more and be able to do them more safely than Maisie.

Must haves:

Medium size, lighter build

Tolerates cold&hot weather

Easy coat maintenance

Will to please

Medium/high energy

Suitable for hikes&canine sports

Suitable for jumpy sports

Playful

Okay if sensitive, would prefer less sensitive tho

Okay with being alone for a few hours if needed

Good with people and dogs

Isn’t bothered by obnoxious Lab behavior very much

Average lifespan longer than 10 years/as long as possible

Working/ working x mixed line

Cute

Breeder in Europe

A helpful, friendly breeder

Nice to haves:

Doesn’t shed a lot

Not noise sensitive

Not very sensitive in general

More of a quiet type of dog

Litter in the next 6 months (hahahahhaha I’ve been waiting for a little over 2 years at this point)

Likes water

Likes snow

Likes toys and food as rewards

Longer than average lifespan

Must not haves:

Guards people/property

Very large or very small

Prone to health issues

Very independent

High maintenance coat

Prone to DA or HA

Pure show line

Ideas: Aussie, Border Collie, Rough Collie, English Springer Spaniel, Welsh Springer Spaniel, Toller, Koolie

I’d met enough Aussies by that point to realize they weren’t exactly what I wanted in a dog, but I still really liked Border Collies. This time around I wasn’t intimidated by higher energy level anymore, but I was still a bit worried about sensitivity and the fact that most BCs I’ve met low key hated Maisie. There were a few who liked her, but many didn’t so I kept looking for a better fit (I thought it wouldn’t be fair for the new dog to be stressed by Maisie just existing and being herself..it wouldn’t be fair to either). I was considering Tollers too, but there weren’t any litters announced at all, and I knew of literally one breeders, so I kept on looking. I had a hard time with finding Rough Collies without extreme show coat and had trouble finding non extremely showy Springers around here as well.

I think I found out about Koolies when I was going through herding dogs, and it was a new breed I’ve never heard of or seen before. They were rarely included bc I was mostly looking at very generic lists I think. I read the description, watched a few videos and really really liked them. They had all the traits of aussies and BCs I liked, but weren’t as sensitive as BCs generally are or as prone to guarding as Aussies tend to be. I found two breeders in driving distance, contacted both, one was kinda weird with replies and said she doesn’t want to sell pups outside her country, but the other breeder was very nice and helpful in her replies and that’s how I started talking to the breeder of my future puppy! I met her and two of her dogs about two years ago and loooved them. They also aced the “can tolerate a playful (obnoxious) Maisie” test, the main thing BCs struggled with.

So unfortunately I couldn’t get a puppy from the two litters that were born in 2017 and 2018 bc my life circumstances weren’t suitable for a puppy at the time, but now I am READY and basically just waiting for the puppy to be born sometime this year.

Dog breed 2, try 1: Koolie → win!

[dragonfairy1231]

Reversed Quartet

This was partially made for and very much so inspired by queenofhearts7378. Please check them out, they and thier Secret Quartet side blog are amazing!

Chapter 1. Heroines in New York?

“Ugh!” A teenage girl with bright violet eyes, pitch black hair and a fair complexion groaned into her phone, on which was a three way call to her best friends.

“It-It’s not that bad Sam.” Danny Fenton, son of local town (formerly thought to be mad) scientists and known as the boy with his head in the stars around the small town, tried to placate his irate friend.

“Not that bad?!” The girl shot back, springing back up from the bed she’d just laid down on.

“Danny, I’ll be going to New-freaking-York. Just so that my mother can go see the newest fashions revealed. And I’ll be gone for a week! What if something major happens?” She frantically questioned him. Should someone have been listening in, they may have thought she was referring to the Ghost Attacks the small town of Amity Park suffered from nigh daily. However, you would have then been very confused, considering any ordinarily rational person would want to be as far away from those attacks as possible. Yet, Samantha Manson, who’d tell you yes, is usually quite rational, wasn’t a particularly ordinary person. This is thanks to an accident involving the Fenton’s portal into the Ghost Realm a little less than a year ago; the purple eyed girl was, quite literally, only half alive.

Or, more accurately, a Halfa. Half ghost, half human. Her ghostly self was known as Sam Wraith*, Amity’s own superheroine against the other ghosts that came through the Fenton’s portal in order to start and stir up trouble. Sam has made it her job to make sure Amity Park was safe from the more ill-intended ghosts, while calming and even befriending those who were merely sprites born of being wronged in their own life or afterlife.

Thanks to her mother’s plans of going to New York, and dragging her husband and daughter with her though, Sam would not be able to do her job for an entire week, more than long enough for the town to be destroyed. The other voice on the phone call snapped Sam from her thoughts with a scoff.

“Well geez, thanks for the faith, Sam.” Tucker Foley shot back, the Techno Goth of the Trio, who knew how to solve most of the team’s problems either by technology or the dark mythology he so enjoyed. Sam rolled her eyes as she let out a puff of exasperation.

“It’s not like I don’t trust you guys, I just don’t trust karma, fate, chance and all those other universal forces to not send the biggest baddie here the minute after I’m out of state.” She refuted. She heard Danny giggle softly over the phone and resisted the urge to clutch at her heart at the sound, despite neither boy nor anyone else being able to see her. ‘Stupid crush!’ She cursed as Danny began to speak up again.

“Sam, we can deal with a little bit of trouble. If it gets that bad than we have Jazz, Marth*, my parents and even Valerie helping out. The town will survive, promise. Besides, even superheroines deserve a week off every once in a while. And yeah, I know that a fashion week isn’t really your scene, but it’s New York. There has to be plenty of things to do. Not to mention all the different cultures.” Sam bit back a groan and gritted her teeth. He was tempting and daring her now.    

Yet, Danny has always been able to do that, he knew just what to say, always. Whether her and Tucker were fighting about Veggies VS Meat, or she was riled up because of Skulker’s bragging of his ‘accomplishments’ in hunting down others. It was probably bad he had so much power with just a few words, but he never abused it against anyone. That was just part of who he was. As always, Sam let out a sigh.

“Yeah… okay…” Sam relented, “but only because Marth is around.” Danny and Tucker laughed.

“Of course.” She could hear Tucker’s smirk over the phone and solidly decided she’d pinch his ear next time she saw her goth friend.

“Well, I’ve got the last bit of Lancer’s essay to power through, so I need to let you lovebirds go.” Tucker told them.

“WE’RE NOT LOVEBIRDS!” Came the automatic angry yell from Sam and the embarrassed one from Danny. Tucker just laughed as he hung up as he said goodnight, leaving his two friends alone on the line.

“I have to go too,  Jazz and I need to make sure all the ghost gear is turned off so none of it finds Marth in the night or morning.” Danny told her, the shyness he never quite could be rid of evident in his voice, and Sam smiled.

“Okay, night Danny. And, thanks again.” She told him.

“You all are always welcome here Sam, goodnight.” Danny responded as he hung up. Sam sighed again as she stared at her ceiling. She shook her head as she got changed into her PJs and headed off to sleep.

‘Who knows. Maybe a week off could do me some good.’ Sam thought before the halfa drifted off to sleep.

*I choose Wraith to be Sam’s transformed last name because of the switched from M to W is easier to correlate and similar to the F to P of Fenton to Phantom.

*Marth is this AU’s version of Danielle (Trust me, I’m sobbing that’s she’s gone too). His full name is Samarth Manson/Wraith, but he prefers going by Marth to make himself feel more different from his ‘original.’ And, unlike Danielle who could definitely be just Danny’s clone and a girl because of XY genes for male and XX genes for female, Marth got his Y gene from Danny, which is why he stays at Danny’s house instead of with Sam when visiting Amity. That and the fact that he’d have two people looking out for him and if he is sighted or his signature found it can be more easily played off by being in a ghost hot spot. And, yes, Vlad is around in this AU, and his goals still include the death of Jack and Maddie for his wife, as well as Danny as his son because of the boy’s intelligence and skills with ghost weapons. He wants Sam as his protege, the one to which he will teach all of his skills to. However, Danny and Sam both vehemently refused. So it’s actually a bit ambiguous if Marth got Danny’s DNA in him on purpose or accident.

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“Marinette! Are you ready?” Sabine Cheng called out to her daughter, her and her husband’s suitcases besides her.

“Almost, Maman!” Her daughter called back. Said girl already had her suitcase packed, and was now looking for her portable charger that she knew was somewhere for the plane ride.

“Ugh! Plagg, could you please help me?” The blue eyed girl begged the small black kwami that floated above her desk, currently eating his apple and camembert cake.

“I could, but… I could also keep eating this.” The black cat countered,cackling as he took another bite of his cheesy cake. Marinette sighed and shook her head, but couldn’t keep the smile off her face. As troublesome as her kwami could be, she couldn’t help but love the mischievous cat-like being.

You see, most people would peg Marinette as a normal girl, with a normal life. Marinette herself would be the first to say as much. But, she had a secret. She was one of Paris’ two main heroes, Chat Noir! With her Kwami Plagg’s help, she was able to transform into the superheroine with the power of destruction at her fingertips with only a word needed to give the command. Her partner, the ever handsome Ladybug, and her had saved the city more times than one could count on both hands from Hawkmoth and his Akumatized victims.

Right now, however, Marinette was going to visit her mother’s cousins along with her parents, the Longs. The Longs lived all the way in New York City, New York, America. Which brought Marinette to her current problem. The aspiring fashion designer could’ve sworn she placed her portable charger on her desk just last night, but it was now misplaced. Which seemed just her luck.

Speaking of… her phone began to ring, and a quick check revealed it to be one of her best friends, Adrien Agreste. Adrien was usually extraordinarily busy, being a model for his father’s fashion line, taking fencing, piano and Chinese lessons, on top of school and basketball. However, all of this had not stopped the green eyed blonde and the clumsy dark haired girl from becoming equally extraordinarily fast friends, almost to the same level as her and her nearly life long friend Alya Césaire. Marinette put the phone to her ear and smiled as she continued to search for her charger.

“Hey Adrien!” She answered happily.

“Morning, Bluebell!” He responded, calling her the same nickname he’d had for her since the sweet valentine he’d shyly given her. “How’re you doing today?” The blonde asked her. Marinette gave a half-hearted groan as she began to check the floor by her closest.

“Well, we need to leave in half an hour, I still haven’t eaten breakfast and the infamous Marinette luck has struck again, this time against my charger.” She jokingly complained. Adrien laughed and Mari had to smile at the noise, he didn’t laugh enough. And honestly, no one could deny the sound was practically sunshine. ‘Just like a certain spot of pure sunshine.’ She thought dreamily before shaking out of her fantasies and back into the present.

“Where have you checked so far?” Adrien asked her. Marinette hummed as she thought.

“Computer desk, where I thought I left it, floor around said desk, corners, fashion desk and floor around there, and now closet.” She listed.

“How about under your bed?” He suggested. Marinette blinked and shrugged.

“Okay, but I don’t see how it’d end u-what the heck?!” She exclaimed as she put her hand under her bed and almost immediately found her charger. Adrien laughed again and Marinette shook her head.

“Adrien Agreste, the everworking lucky charm.” She giggled.

“Aww, you flatter me Bluebell.” Adrien flirted back jokingly.

“So, what were you up to beforehand?” Marinette wondered as she placed the charger (after checking to make sure it was charged) into her travel bag, along with her drawing pad.

“Three guesses.” He responded dryly.

“Model shoot?”

“And she gets it in one!” Marinette laughed at her friend’s dramatic announcer voice.

“Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the shoots, but sometimes I wish I could just sleep in for a little bit. Once I’m up, I’m up until night.” He told her.

“Yeah, I’ve seen and marveled at that.” Marinette replied.

“Marinette? You ready to go?” Sabine’s voice called again.

“Oui maman!” Marinette called down as she grabbed her suitcase and bag.

“You’re going to visit your cousins, right?” Adrien questioned.

“Yep. Oh, hold on a second, Alya is calling. I’ll just make a four way call between us and our favorite couple.” She giggled as Adrien chuckled. Marinette saw it was now time for her family to leave, lest they be late to the airport. As the phone was still ringing Marinette spoke to her Kwami.

“Come on Plagg! We’re going to be late!” The black cat sighed before zipping to Marinette’s inner jacket pocket that she made for him, making a pleasantly surprised purr at finding it newly lined, and with some of the decorative yarn hanging from the edges. Marinette giggled at the vibrations against her heart, and began to make her way down the stairs as Adrien and Alya answered again, Nino joining the call a few seconds later.

“Hey girl! Hey Nino, Adrien!” Alya’s voice called out.

“Sup Alya, dude and dudette!” Nino greeted.

“Hi you guys.” Adrien responded.

“Morning Alya, Nino. And I was already talking to you, Agreste.” The four laughed, calling each other by last names had long since been a running joke. “My parents and I are  about to be heading out to catch our flight.” Marinette told them.

“Well, you seem to be going to New York at a wonderful time for you, Mari.” Marinette could practically hear her friend’s smirk over the phone.

“And why is that?” She questioned her friend suspiciously.

“Yeah, I’m confused too.” Nino told his girlfriend.

“Oh! I remember now. My dad had gotten an invite but he turned it down in order to prepare for Paris’ next month.” Adrien added. Marinette raised an eyebrow and waved at her parents, accepting a cream cheese and berry danish from her father with a smile and mouthed “thank you.”

“Well don’t keep us in the dark, dude! Spill!” Nino implored. Marinette hummed her agreement with her friend through her mouthful of danish. Adrien and Alya laughed and Adrien said Alya could tell.

“You’ll be arriving at the same time New York’s fashion week starts girl!” Alya told her. Marinette was very glad she had just finished swallowing because her mouth had flew open and, if not for her willpower to avoid awakening her napping Kwami, she would’ve bounced in place.

“You’re kidding?!” Marinette nearly squealed, using her napkin to set her danish down. Her parents gave her questioning looks and she mouthed “NY Fashion Week!” with a large grin. Sabine gave a start and a giggle as she checked her phone, seeing that her cousin Susan had just texted a certain question. Tom gave his own deep laugh as he rubbed his enthusiastic daughter’s head.

“I can’t believe I’m actually going to be in New York during it’s fashion week! Maman, Papa, I know we’re going to see family but can we please, please pretty please just take a little peak?” Marinette begged her parents. Sabine giggled as she showed her daughter her phone, which showed her Aunt Susan asking

Susan: Hey Sabine, your daughter wants to be a fashion designer, right? Would she be interested in helping me out with some catering things for NY’s fashion week? It comes with free tickets.

Marinette couldn’t control it now, and did bounce in place, rushing to give her mother a hug and rambling to explain to her friends. It seemed as though her trip to America wouldn’t be able to get any better!

*  Okay so… Adrien likes Marinette as way more than “just a friend” (I’m calling you out Agreste!!!), and I put this in through the nickname of Bluebell, the same way canon Chat calls canon Ladybug My Lady. AU Ladybug (Since male Ladybugs are still called Ladybugs, and with his general reaction to the stereotypically feminine things, I feel like Adrien wouldn’t really mind being called Ladybug. Plus it still allows for a lot of puns.) will playfully call AU Chat Purrincess (because this is still Adrien being a superhero. Just because he’s not Chat Noir doesn’t mean he won’t crack puns every five seconds.) and Chaton, but he likes his partner in a one hundred percent ‘platonic’ way. Or, at least as platonically as Canon!Mari likes Canon!Chat. This Marinette, on the other hand, likes her hero partner a lot, even if he does crack silly puns all the time at her expense as well as his own. And she’s completely oblivious to Adrien’s feelings for her, and will always deny Alya’s claims that the blonde does like her romantically despite his flirting that she always takes as joking. So… the Love Square. It’s still here. Yay! And! Mari likes to pamper her Kwami when he behaves himself. Plagg is anything but complaining when he finds all the little surprises Mari will leave for him, such as small balls of yarn, small knitted blanket piles, camembert treats and cubes, and little softly lined pocket in her purse and jacket so that he can be close by but take all the catnaps he wants.

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Theresa Fowler groaned as she popped her back. The flight from her hometown of Norrisville, Oklahoma to New York City, New York, was a tiring one.

“You alright, kiddo?” Her dad questioned her. Theresa smiled back.

“I’m okay dad. My back just hurts from those chairs. They were totally wonk.” She told him. He chuckled and shook his head.

“I will never get your generation’s slang, ‘resa.” He told her. Theresa just grinned back as she blew violet and indigo strands out of her eyes.

“Alright, your mom should be picking us up soon. Why don’t you use the ladies’ room while I call her and get us some food to go. I’ll send you a picture of the menu. After that, we can go to baggage.” He told her.

“Alright, thanks daddy. See you in a bit.” Theresa then jogged off to find the bathroom, the red glow coming from her bag brightening, causing Theresa to almost curse. Grabbing her cell, she put it up to her ear as she talked to the centuries old book.

“Okay, yes I know, just another minute. I’m trying to find the bathroom Nomi, would you calm down?” She told it. The glow died down and she rolled her eyes.

‘So dramatic!’ She thought. Finally, she found the bathroom. And by some miracle, a stall was empty.  After putting a paper down so she could sit (do you know how dirty airport bathrooms are???)

“Okay, what’ve you got for me Nomicon?” She questioned as she shloomped into Nomicom’s lesson world.

Shadowy figures filled her view. One was very familiar, being herself. Well, herself in costume, at least. The Norrisville Ninja’s figure was with two other feminine ones, and one that was a frickin DRAGON, so that was cool. One of the female figures didn't have legs, rather a wispy sort of tail. The other was just a cat girl as far as Theresa could tell. A catgirl with a staff, but still, catgirl. The neon words then filled her view, as the four figure faced off against another figure, this one with a much meaner aura.

“Four heroes, with Power from times ancient, shall face a darkness reawakened. A bond between the Shadow Walker, Fire Breather, Nature Specter, and Sable Destroyer alone can withstand the restless Myth.” Theresa read. She blinked furiously as she looked at the five figures, trying to make out the Nomicon’s strange prophecy.

“Nomi, wha-” She felt herself starting to be tossed out and bit back a curse.

“Oh come on! At least explain it better than that! Nomi!” She yelled before being thrown back into the real world.

Theresa sighed, disgruntled. Sure, she loved being a heroine and all, but why did prophecies have to be so convoluted?

*Yep. Rather than Randy, the Messenger choose Theresa in this AU. I’m not actually sure if the Ninja has ever been female, as the only past ones we see were male, but it has now happened.

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Rose sighed as she stared at her ceiling. This Saturday was so far kind of boring. Sun said that there didn’t seem to be any trouble so far, and that Rose should take today to catch up on her homework. Her sister had even agreed, saying she could take care of any problem that came up in the community. Rose was grateful for that, but it was seven o’clock when that happened (curse her internal alarm!), and it was now two p.m.. Safe to say, Rose Penson was very bored. Trixie was visiting a hospital that was allowing high schoolers a chance to see how some surgical procedures were done, and Spud was… well he hadn’t picked up his phone so she assumed he was busy. Which only left…

“Hey Rose.” A very familiar voice greeted softly from her window. Rose’s face lit up as she saw her boyfriend sitting on her open window sill.

“Jake!” She grinned, bouncing off her bed to hug the green haired boy. Jake chuckled as Rose pulled him into her room, as Jake would often come in this way. After all, if anyone from the Huntsclan saw him just walk through the door, Rose and Raquel’s  parents and identities would be in quite a bit of danger.

“Sorry I haven’t been able to come in a while.” Jake grinned sheepishly. Rose shook her head as she pecked him on the cheek.

“It’s fine, I understand. I’m just glad you were able to come over. I was kinda bored.” The blonde giggled.

“Aww, my dragoness was left all by herself? How cruel.” Jake teased. Rose laughed again.

“Dork.” She told him. Jake dramatically put a hand over his heart.

“Oh! How the lady wounds me!” He whisper-exclaimed as he fell onto his girlfriend’s bed. Rose couldn’t help laughing again, and Jake mentally clapped himself on the back. He knew it was cheesy, but man, did he love that sound. Rose sat down next to him, and ran her hands through his surprising soft hair.

“No gel? I thought your hair looked a bit deflated.” She whispered. Jake took her other hand and kissed the back of it.

“Just finished attempting to train 88 and 89 again. It was either hair gel, or you. I think I made the right choice.” Rose hummed, unable to keep her own smile off her face.

“I think so too…” she kissed the top of Jake’s forehead, and the couple just smiled at each other. Both inwardly sighed, content to just relax with the other close by. Jake and Rose may have had more rough patches than most couples, because of what they were. The fire that rested in Rose’s lungs, and the magic in her veins, being the first of her kind to be born with such in America, her role was clear. Being the American Dragon was her fate.

The mark that the swirled around Jake’s hand, visible only when he didn’t gloves or hide it with powder, pronounced that he was to be a slayer of dragons. To kill even the one he knew he loved. Even though Jake had refused, sometimes, he wondered just what Fate and Destiny had in store for them. He just hoped they would be on their side.

It was moments like this, that he remembered why he wanted that so badly. To go against everything he was taught and raised to believe. When he could see the flaxen haired, blue eyed beauty above him. Even when she had turned into a dragon, with sky colored eyes and slit pupils, with glinting scales and hair spun of gold, he couldn’t help but to be awed by her. Likewise, Rose adored him, this was her hunter. With hair dyed green by gel, and eyes so dark a brown they looked like two black holes that would just suck her in. She didn’t care that she was taller than him, it just made it easier to tease him and kiss his forehead and cheeks.  They were each other’s first love, after all. And with how much they had been through, they believed that, just maybe, they were in love.

The sound of a phone ringing cut off their moment, and Jake groaned when he saw the number.

“Hello?” He questioned as he picked it up, gesturing for Rose to keep quiet.

“Yes. … No. … Yes sir. … I’ll be there shortly.” He said emotionlessly, hanging up his cell. Rose looked at her boyfriend, who had assumed a rigid upright position since he answered the phone. She watched him deflate and she put her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Do you have to go?” She asked him. He gave a half smile half frown.

“Sorry lovely, but we can’t have them getting suspicious. I much prefer your head where it is to be frank.” He stroked her cheek and kissed her forehead. She walked him to the still open window, and as he climbed out, she grabbed the front of his shirt, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips.

“Come back soon, Hunter Boy.” He grinned.

“As you wish, Dragon Girl.” And he was off. Rose sighed before shaking her head. Geez, sometimes she really did feel like a silly, love struck teenager. Of course, at least her boyfriend was no better. She walked over to her laptop and pulled up a site of what was going on this week.

“Huh. There’s a fair in downtown Manhattan? Sounds interesting enough.” The blonde shrugged. A knock on her door, which Rose answered with a “come in!”

“Hey Rosie, do you have any plans for today?” Her mother poked her head into her elder daughter’s room. Rose has just closed her laptop and was heading to her closet to pick out a hoodie to ward off the spring chill, even if her inner fire usually worked plenty enough to provide her with enough heat.

“There’s a fair going on in Downtown Manhattan. Figured I’d let ‘quel, Trix and Spud know than start heading down there myself.” Rose told her. Amaryllis Penson hummed.

“Well, tomorrow is the beginning of New York’s fashion week. I know you’re not super into the latest fashions, but I figured some mother-daughter bonding wouldn’t hurt.” The elder blonde offered. Rose narrowed her eyes, a small smile playing on her face.

“Raquel said no already, didn’t she?” She folded her arms as her mother groaned.

“Really sweetie? Just have to call me out like that?” Rose laughed as she nodded.

“Yeah mom, I don’t have any plans for tomorrow anyway. It sounds fun.” Rose told her. Amaryllis grinned as she hugged her elder daughter.

“Oh, here. For the fair. You know they’re really expensive, and working at Mr.Long’s* shop only gets you so much.” Amaryllis said as she pressed five twenties in her daughter’s hand.

“That’s for your sister too by the way.” She told Rose. After putting the money in her wallet, and her wallet in her handbag, she gave her mother a quick “thanks” and a hug before rushing down the stairs with her helmet and grabbing her skateboard.

“Later mom!” She called.

So far, today seemed like it’d be a pretty good day.

*so the Longs (and by extension, the Changs) still have Dragon Blood, but they haven’t had the actual transformation in many generations. Lao Shi decided that unless his grandchildren were dragons, the secret wouldn’t be passed on, hence why he still knows of the magical world and has Fu Dog, but isn’t the Chinese Dragon. He just accidentally found out Rose is the American Dragon, and offered her a cover job. She does help out in the store and work there, and Jake has been over a few times and met the man. Lao Shi thinks that his employee’s boyfriend looks an awful lot like what his grandson could’ve, but doesn’t act on any suspicions incase they’re wrong, and he would only cause more harm to his daughter.

[sundaynightnovels]

21 Questions Tag Game

I was tagged by @inexorableblob & @kidsarentallwrite ! I don’t think I’m a particularly interesting individual, but here it goes! The order of the questions is a little different between both tags, so I took @kidsarentallwrite‘s format instead (just because I saw it first)! Rules: Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people. nickname: are you talking about what i’d like to be called here or in real life? well there are quite a few... but most of them involve my actual name, so i’m not going to say it here! the only one that i can reveal is zhu (猪) or pig. HAHA. It’s not about gluttony. Really!

zodiac sign: rat. oh, do you mean in terms of western zodiac? yeah, i’m an emotional cancerian. height: 167cm. sighs, i always wanted to reach 170.  last movie i watched: into the spider-verse, which was amaaaaaaazing!!!! sometimes you see animated films which have really good visuals and you’re like, oh yeah cool, but for this film they really CAPITALISED on the fact that they are an animated film and they have no goddamn boundaries and they really went wild on the animation and it was so good!! the music was great too of course, & the story was great as well. i mean, it’s just completely deserving of its win for best animated feature.  last thing i googled: lemme check... the temperature. HAHA. yes. it’s really hot over here, i need to know beforehand if i’m going to melt upon stepping out of the house. quite pointless though. i’ll always melt. favourite musicians: alright so anytime any tag / question asks me about music, you can almost guarantee that my answer will be some chinese pop song or musician. at least right in this moment. it’s a little difficult because this question specifies musicians instead of simply singers. okay so of course there’s my beloved jay chou (his older songs are so good), jj lin (he’s really rocking it on the new music programme over these few years, his popularity is honestly at its peak right now), eason chan (there’s just this particular way that he sings that makes it so poignant). and the only non-Chinese, non-male musician in this list -- IU! (i’ve been listening to a lot of her songs these days) song stuck in my head: hebe tian’s cover of 演员 do i get asks: sometimes, and i’m always happy when i see them! other blogs: I have my main blog, which is basically trash HAHA so you can just stick to following this one blogs following: 166 blogs -- all writeblrs! this is quite a big community, huh! what i am wearing: an old school shirt that i always wear when i’m at home lucky number: don’t think i have one, but my favourite number is 17. amount of sleep: all or nothing. dream job: screenwriter. i think, i don’t know. this isn’t a good question to ask when i’m right on the verge of graduating because i. don’t. KNOW!  dream trip: well i have a few grad trip plans, do they count?? okay okay for real though, i really want to visit africa / south america.  favourite food: SO MANY. potatoes (all except baked, those are abominations), chicken, curry -- and speaking of which, there’s a dish that combines them all that i actually am having for lunch right now. chicken curry! <3  play any instruments: used to play the cello in school (was pretty good, not gonna lie, but i don’t have the instrument at home so i haven’t touched the cello in years). i also play the piano, but very very occasionally.  favourite songs: there are so many!!!! && they change with my mood. okay. let me try to pick only a few eason chan - us (god, this song is so sad, especially if you’ve watched the movie) jay chou - a dandelion’s promise (this song was my childhood, and was the first pop song i ever played on the piano) fob - what a catch donnie (this song just gets to me all the damn time) kodaline - high hopes (it’s just been stuck in my head for a long time, and also it’s one of the songs in one of my character’s playlist) 

languages: English & Mandarin Chinese. i’m probably at level A2 - B1 of spanish right now (but i suck, i can’t understand spoken spanish very well because it’s so fast!). i want to learn a whole bunch of languages though. i’m going to be taking japanese this semester, and i know a little little bit of korean, and i want to learn cantonese & hainanese as well.

random fact: i’m seriously considering getting myself a drawing tablet! any cheap & good recommendations for an amateur artist? describe yourself as aesthetic things: blob on a bed. is that not aesthetic? it is to me.  i’m going to tag @elaynab-writing @bookwyvrn @cookiecuttercritter @dionian-gayce @elusiveink @floortile-flowers @gettingitwrite ​ @inked-waves @jess---writes @kit-tells-a-story @leave-her-a-tome @ohthatsworm @poldarkwrites @rhiannon-writes @she-writes-love @toboldlywrite @undinisms @storyteller-kaelo @writingonjupiter @xiuguri  @zagreus-eats-your-bread

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia: Chapter 13

Raw and unedited (especially until I get Chapters 14-16 written to upload along with it), but I finished the 1st draft tonight and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Especially with switching to some new protagonists. Chapters 0-12 can be found here:

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 13: Takuma Sero Makes a Show of It

If there was one thing Takuma Sero liked about living in the dorms, it was the sense of privacy. Sure, there were fifteen other people living in the dorms, three others on his floor, but compared to his home, that was nothing.  Between his parents, his three younger brothers, and baby sister, there was always somebody trying to butt into whatever he was doing.  At least on his floor, all he had was his best bro Kenta Sato. Daisuke Shoji simply kept his head down and Takiyo Aoyama had made it clear early on he had no interest in “whatever nonsense you two are getting up to.”

As if trying to become the next internet sensations was nonsense.

Which reminded him… he really ought to check their hit counter.  With Kirishima-Bakugo out of the cafeteria yesterday, he’d actually been free to host a new round of “Will Sato Eat It?” without fear of being exploded or having her tear his arms off.  He was actually pretty certain she wouldn’t do the last part.  Their parents had been friends for decades and he was on reasonably good terms with her most of the time.  But yesterday had been pretty impressive as far as the game went. Kenta had eaten a soup bowl, a baseball, a rock, and a tire that someone had somehow managed to get into the cafeteria.

Kenta’s dad had broken it up after that, with a threat to report their antics to Aizawa if they kept doing it.  And Kenta had gotten a talking to from his dad later on about irresponsible Quirk use and making a spectacle of himself.   At least the elder Sato had learned the futility of trying to rat them out to Takuma’s parents.  His mom was one of the most Instagram-famous Pro-Heroes in the business.  She actively encouraged his aspirations.  His dad was just vaguely puzzled by the whole thing and just let his mom take the lead.

Checking the video upload, he found that the hit counter was already in the thousands.  Wisely, he opted not to look at the comments.   It was like his mom always said, “Never read the comments.”   Sure, you got a validation high from some of it, but there were way too many trolls and mudslingers to make it worth it.

Takuma broke into a grin. “Yeah, we’re gonna be famous. Just you see.  Heroes and entertainment sensations.”

He checked the time and found he still had nearly an hour before class.  Plenty of time to finish getting ready.  There was also the matter of homework he hadn’t quite completed, but he could probably copy the answers from somebody, at least enough to squeak by. Math was going to be the death of him. He understood numbers well enough, but once you started getting letters involved with numbers, his brain just refused to track any of it.  It had nearly sunk his entrance exam score, but he’d managed to just barely pass that. A good practical exam score had done wonders for making up the difference.

Twenty minutes later, he was out of his room and ready to go.  He did not have the world’s most developed fashion sense (much to the regret of Kimiko Ojiro, his other best friend, who had declared him “the worst gay best friend ever”), but he had an entertainer’s sense for showmanship in his appearance.  He spotted Kenta coming out of his room and gave him a double finger guns.

“Sixty-five hundred hits in less than twenty-four hours, my man!”

“All right!” Kenta said, giving him a fist bump.  “That’s twice as many as the last video!”   He let out a burp and clutched his stomach.

“You okay, man?” Takuma asked.

Kenta shook his head and burped again.  “Heartburn and indigestion.  Dad says just because I can get anything doesn’t mean I should.”  He grinned, thick lips pulling back to reveal his perfectly white teeth.  “But I say it’s a small price to pay for being famous.”

“More famous in your case,” Takuma told him.  Kenta was already a good bit famous from all the times he appeared in pictures and his stories on his father’s “Food and Family” blog. According to his mom, it was crazy popular with single moms.

Kenta waved it off. “That’s really Dad’s thing.  This is ours!”

Takuma was about to begin discussions of the plans for their next video when he was distracted by the sight of Daisuke Shoji walking back to his rooms, clearly having come from the showers.  The six-armed boy was only wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, his silver hair still damp, and a small about of moisture still visible on the muscles of his arms and abs.  He nodded politely to Takuma and Kenta on his way back to his room.  Takuma kept watching until Shoji’s door closed.

His trace was broken by Kenta giving him a small shove.  “You okay there, bud?  Kind of went away for a little while?”

He sighed.  “Why are the hot ones always straight?”

Kenta gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.  “Hey, there’s lots of other guys at U.A.  You’ll find somebody.  Or you could always try online dating?”

Takuma made a face. “I’m not that desperate.”

Anything further was interrupted by his and Kenta’s phones buzzing.  Both checked and he saw they had identical texts from the school’s emergency alert system.

Homeroom has been cancelled.  All first-year students should report to the Gran Torino Memorial Auditorium at 0800.

Kenta gave him a curious look.

“Don’t look at me, man,” he said quickly.  “I haven’t broken any rules that would cause a grade level assembly.”

“This school year,” Kenta said.  “I still can’t believe the time you…”

“Don’t remind me.  I’m still barely out of being grounded for that.”

“I think that was the first time I ever actually saw your parents punish you.”

“Oh, would you look at the time, we should really be getting to the Auditorium!”

***

“Any idea what this is about, Takuma?” Kimiko asked. He assumed she was looking at him, but honestly, even after having known her all his life, it was hard to tell.

He shook his head. “Beats the heck out of me.”

All around, the other seats in the Auditorium were filling up with the first year students.  There were the three Heroics classes, three General Ed classes, three Support classes, and three Business and Management classes.   Sixteen students each in the Heroics, twenty in each of the others, for one hundred eight students total left the auditorium about half full.  

Down on the stage, he could see the majority of the teaching staff.  There were the three Heroics Homeroom teachers, Aizawa, Super Ball, and Battle Fist.  There was Power Loader, the aging director of the Support courses.  Word around campus was that he was considering retirement after experiencing the Iida Twins.  And there was FireFox, their math teacher; Hawkeye, their English teacher; Figure Sk8, the dark-haired daughter of the Twins and Izumi’s uncle and aunt, who taught their Science classes; Palette, the paint-themed Art History teacher; and Hopper, Tokoyami’s uncle and their Literature teacher.  There Hound Dog, the school counselor, Vice-Principal Midnight, and even Kenta’s dad.   He also spotted Doctor Izumi sitting with her husband, Kota, the Rescue Hero and Rescue Instructor called Water Spout (or, at his mom embarrassingly always referred to him, “the first man to see me naked”) There was also All Might, and several teachers he didn’t know, who he presumed taught some of the classes taken by the other courses.  Whatever this was about, they were taking it very seriously.

And slowly approaching the podium, leaning heavily on his cane, was Principal Nezu.  Takuma wasn’t sure if he was a rat or a bear or possibly some kind of creature from Australia (or was it Austria?  Whichever one had the kangaroos.  Those were real, right?), but he understood that the old animal was crazy smart.  He’d guided U.A. through some of its roughest years and managed to still come out on top.

“I am sorry to interrupt your usual class schedule,” Nezu began.  “I know your studies are of great importance to you all.  But after the events of the last few days, both here at our school and elsewhere, we have been made aware of events which you all deserve to know.  The Center for Quirk Research is expected to make a statement later this morning, but we thought it might be best if comes from us.”

He took in a breath and continued.  “The CQR has discovered, working in conjunction with several Pro-Heroes, the existence of a virus which causes the victim to lose control of their Quirk.  It appears the Quirk is… man made.”

Any side conversations that had been going on were immediately silenced.

Nezu went on.  “After an as yet unknown incubation period, it causes a power-flare up during which time the user’s Quirk will activate out of their control.  This lack of control appears to last an indefinite amount of time, but appears to be a onetime flare up.  Unfortunately, even as the number of cases are growing, information is scarce.  There appear to be no obvious early symptoms and we are unsure how the virus is being transmitted. At this time, it appears that only Emitter and Transformation type Quirks are effected.”

A ripple went through the crowd as the full impact of the Principal’s statement took effect. Anything that could do that is dangerous indeed.  From the time they were young, they’d always been taught about the importance of controlling their Quirks.  And now something could just take that away…

“That’s…   that’s not good,” Takuma said.  Absently, he rubbed the patches on his right hand where his Acid Tape came from.  His Quirk was technically a Mutation type, since he had slightly different physical structures to allow for it.  But his mom was an Emitter type, so were many of his friends.  So were a lot of people out there in the world.  And there were lots of people out there with really powerful Quirks.   What if somebody like Ground Zero or Deku caught this thing?

“We’re… we’re okay,” he heard Kimiko say.  “Not… not like I can get more invisible.”

“Hey,” Kenta said, “it’s gonna be okay.  People’re smart.  They’ll get this figured out.”  Kenta’s dad was an Emitter type too, he recalled, even if Kenta’s own Quirk was a very minor Mutant type.

Nezu continued, “We are able to run tests for the virus and will be doing screening following this assembly.  However, as there are no tell-tale symptoms prior to manifestation, we urge you to talk to your teachers or Doctor Izumi should you have any concerns.  We will be doing everything we can to protect you, which includes providing you as with much of your usual structure as possible. Classes, including Heroics courses, will continue as normal.  Rest assured, everyone is doing everything they can to get to the bottom of this. But at this point, cases are isolated and sporadic.  We advise caution, but there is no need to panic.”

Takuma made it a point to never take life seriously.  But for once, that didn’t seem like such a good idea.

***

“You heard what the Principal said,” Aizawa said, after they had returned to the classroom.  “The moment you feel anything out of the ordinary or even suspect that something might be wrong, I expect you to tell me or another teacher.  Is that understood?”

“Yes, Mister Aizawa,” the class said, nearly as one.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Now, we are going to proceed as normally as possible.  Which means we have a little bit of business to settle.  Choose a class representative.  I don’t care how.”   He zipped himself into his sleeping bag and disappeared behind his desk.

“Well,” Midoriya said, “I think we should probably vote on it?”

“I vote Toshi!” Shota Shinso cried out.

“Toshi,” Asuka Tokoyami agreed.

“I’ve got to go with Midoriya too,” Isamu Haimawari said.

“Toshi has my vote as well,” Izumi Todoroki added.

“Guys… Shouldn’t this be a secret ballot?” Midoriya asked quickly.

“Too late now,” Takuma said. “Besides, I think we all know you’re gonna win it.”

As much as he loved the spotlight, he loathed responsibility.  Better Midoriya than him any day.  Besides, it would take away from his own pursuits.  And Midoriya really was good at taking charge and helping people who needed it.  Guy wanted to help the whole world, even more than the average Hero-in-Training.

“Personally, I think moi would be best,” Takiyo Aoyama said.

“Oh, give it up, Frenchie,” Mika Mineta told him.  “Midoriya’s definitely the best shot at this.”

“I fear I must agree with the rest,” Akaya Koda told Aoyama.  She really seemed to be one of the few people who could stand the arrogant blond for more than a few minutes.  She must have had the patience of a saint.

“Going with Midoriya here too,” Kenta said.

“Yep, me too,” Chihiro Kaminari added.  “And Tokoyami for vice-rep while we’re at it.”

“I like those ideas!” Kimiko said.  “Both of them!”

“Makes sense to me,” Shoji said.

“This is highly against protocol,” Tensei Iida said.  “But I cannot argue with the consensus either.”

“My younger brother is correct,” Sora Iida said.  “I agree with the conclusions drawn.”

“You really must stop using that qualifier!  I am only younger by three minutes!”

“It is scientifically accurate!  Do you dispute this?”

“It is needlessly semantic, and yet I cannot argue with the precision!”

“If I agree, will it shut them up?” Katsumi Kirishima-Bakugo asked.

Motion was carried. Midoriya and Tokoyami were their class reps.

Takuma belatedly realized that probably gave them some kind of power of his and Kenta’s antics, but that was their problem, not his.  Besides, it was worth it to see Aoyama pout.

***

“Hua-whah!” Even though Takuma had practiced swinging from building to building by using his Acid Tape many times with his dad, doing it always made him feel like his stomach was going to flop out of his mouth.  It didn’t help that his Quirk was more complicated than his dad’s.   The elder Sero only had to think about shooting out his Tape until it hit something.  Takuma’s Acid Tape meant that he had to be continually concentrating both on dispensing more tape and on maintaining the properties.  Since he could make it anything from slick to sticky to acidic, that meant he had to do a lot more concentrating.  And doing that while ten stories up made it all the more problematic.

Even if it was supposed to be a simple Heroics exercise in cityscape navigation.  All they had to do was make it from one end of the faux-cityscape as quickly as they could.  For quite a few, like Kimiko, Kenta, or Koda, there wasn’t much more they could do than run as fast as they could.  Others were doing a much more impressive job.  Midoriya was bouncing with leaps that were easily carrying him, the Iida Twins were blasting through the air, and Haimawari was zipping through the streets. And somehow, Kirishima-Bakugo had gotten herself up on the rooftops and was parkouring herself through the course.

Takuma let himself go flying through the air for a moment, before shooting out another strand of Acid Tape.  It stuck to the fire escape and as he began to swing, he could feel something go wrong. With a sickening sound of tearing metal, the piece of the fire escape he had snagged with his tape snapped and broke, sending him falling!

He shot out another strand of Acid Tape, trying to save himself, but instead of snagging a lower portion of the fire escape, it melted right through it.  He’d made it too acidic!  He was gonna die!  He was never gonna reach a million followers!  Involuntarily, he felt his eyes close.

And just as suddenly, powerful arms caught him and he was rising.  So he was dead then, and the angels were carrying him away.  Good-bye world, he only regretted that he not let more of you gaze upon his awesomeness…

“Are you all right, Sero?” a voice asked.  “I was afraid I would not be able to match your falling speed without causing you injury, but I believe I was able to calculate something close enough…”

An angel who apparently sounded just like Tensei Iida.  He chanced opening his eyes and the first thing he saw was himself, reflected in the chest plate of Iida’s costume.  Looking up, he saw a silver helmet.  Definitely Iida.  Which meant he wasn’t dead?  He was alive! He could still get that million followers!

“Sero?” Iida repeated. “Are you all right?”  He slowly started reducing power in his jets, letting them drift downward.

Oh, right.  He needed to answer his rescuing angel’s questions. “Oh, ah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, finding himself stumbling over his words.  “You really saved my ass, there, Iida.  Thanks.”

“Of course,” Iida said. “As your friend and classmate, not to mention as an aspiring Hero, it is my duty.”

“Well, right now, you’re my hero, Iida.”

Inwardly, he groaned. Was he really saying something that stupid?   Apparently, he was.  At least Kimiko and Kenta weren’t there to hear it.  They’d never let him hear the end of it.

***

The Iida Twins could be found in the Common Room, pouring over blueprints.  Usually, the Twins spent whatever free time they had in the Support Workshop, but according to Sora, Power Loader had kicked them out under out under threat of unspecified punishment, all because they had “accidentally used too much power and caused a few small explosions and fires.”  So the two had returned to the dorms instead to work on what they could.

Takuma, Kenta, and Kimiko peered from around the corner at them.

“This is a really dumb idea,” Takuma said.  “And I know all about dumb ideas.”

“If you were doing this for me,” Kenta said, “you’d be making your “good idea” face.  The one that always means it’s something that’s going to get us in trouble.”

“Besides,” Kimiko said, “this is for romance!  We’ve got to! You’re cute, he’s hot, you’re pink, he’s got pink hair, I’m gonna call you Pinky-Squared!”

“We don’t even know if he likes guys!  He could be into girls!  Or machines! I’m gonna make a fool of myself!”

Kimiko slapped him upside the head.  “That’s loser talk!”

“You want us to film it?” Kenta asked.  “You’re good in front of a camera.”

Takuma went a paler shade of pink.  “…No. Definitely not.  I do not need this preserved for posterity if it all goes south.”

“Look, this is the most romantic thing to happen since school started,” Kimiko told him.  “So you are not chickening out now!  Kenta and I are going to get Sora out of the room and you are going to ask Tensei out! Do you understand!?”

How someone whose face he couldn’t see could have such an intense glare, he didn’t know, but her tone suggested that there was no arguing with her.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s do this!”

***

I can’t do this!

With Sora out of the room (he was so stressed he literally could not remember what excuse Kenta and Kimiko had used to get her out of there and he had seen it literally seconds ago), Takuma was free to make his move.  His smooth move.  His ever so smooth move.  He was the king of smooth.

He was not smooth.

As casually as he could, he approached the table where Tensei was still working.  “Oh, ah, hey, Iida,” he said.   “Ah, thanks again for saving me like that.  Pretty sure I was on my way to being a pile of pink goo.”

“The fall was not nearly enough to reduce you to goo,” Iida said, looking up from his blueprints.  “But it would have been very messy all the same. I am happy I was able to prevent that.”

He rubbed the back of his head.  “Yeah, well, either way, I appreciate it.”   He frowned, trying to think of how best to proceed.  “So, uh, what are you working on?”

A very crazed (and very attractive) grin spread its way across Tensei’s face.  “Modifications to Sora’s and my Hero costumes.  After training yesterday, we came up with several potential ideas to improve performance and work with our Quirks, such as a more adjustable wing system and potential storage for emergency supplies of apple and grape juice.”

“And that exploded?”

“Oh, no,” Iida said.  “That was the idea for a capture-weapon to add as an additional support item.  We may have made the propulsion element a little too strong.  Power Loader apparently believed that we would benefit from some time away.  But I do not see how we can improve our designs to their fullest without practical, hands on work.  And we cannot do that if we are banned from the workshop for a week.”

“That sucks, man,” Takuma agreed.  It’d be like someone telling him he couldn’t upload stuff to the ‘net.  A guy had to have a passion, after all.  “But, ah, I guess that means you’re gonna have some free time?”

Iida frowned.  “Unfortunately, yes.  There is only so much we can do without the space to put theory into practice.”

Okay, it was now or never.   He could be brave!  He had this!

…He didn’t have this!

He had this!

He didn’t have this!

He had this!

“So, um…,” he said, “if you’re gonna have the free time…  maybe you’dlikespendingsomeofitwithmesomewhere?”

Iida blinked.  “I… don’t think I caught that, Sero.”

He took a deep breath. “I was thinking, if you were gonna have free time anyway… maybe you’d want to spend some of it with me? Somewhere?  Like a date?”

Iida’s eyes widened in surprise and for once, it looked like he was at a loss for words.  “I… I would like that very much, Sero.”

He had this!

[braindamageforbeginners]

The Morning After/Diet

Cycle 9, Day 16

POST-FINAL INFUSION, CYCLE 9

Thankfully, a quasi-legal medical substance allows me to get through the night, and wake up feeling mostly-okay on post-infusion days. I’m still exhausted and fatigued, but caffeine does help with that, too. I guess the DARE program’s message should have been that recreational drug use was bad, but as an entire lifestyle, it might be neccessary (I say that knowing they’ll eventually have to stop chemo, because, again, these are dangerous, expensive drugs that will burn out one’s innards. Good news, the outtards are doing pretty well at the moment, which plays well to my plan to ask for more napalm doses until those wretched new cells on the block give up. There are a few people who know me personally who know there’s a non-minor chance I’m just too stubborn to die. Of course, it’s easy to say that now, after a clean scan (that occurred two weeks ago). And it feels good to say that,even for what’s usually the worst infusion in the series was easily treated by some aspirin, and my new bionic joints (although I still seem to get a nasty wonky leg after infusions). The bad news is that, even with my bionic joints, a simple high-speed walk around the neighborhood left me wobbly. So much for prosthetic devices (although it’s worth noting that gait issues are very common symptoms of  progressing brain cancer; which pretty much also means they’re a side-effect of chemo)..

Also, even though I’m still not looking at 401K options, I am getting a little better at reading between the lines about cancer statistics, and figuring that our society is completely riddled with bad health practices that will automatically make every health issue worse, including brain cancer (Dad recommended looking into going back to grad school for biomedical informatics, since that’s now one of my hobbies). Case in point, the average American turbo-loading on unhealthy diets. This wouldn’t normally be worth commentary, but when you spend most of your waking hours obsessing over your own health, you can get tunnel-vision and forget most of us aren’t leading terribly healthy lives, anyway; as I kind of realized yesterday taking my grandmother shopping. There’s endless fats, sugars, and all kinds of insanely unhealthy junk (so says the man on a potentially-fatal course of drugs). Before we continue, I’ve been asked if I’m on a ketogenic diet. No, I am not. I am on the Jack Lalanne diet (that was intended to be a joke, until I did a little research and found out that I am). I’d normally not go over that, except this is intended for the next set of folks in line, and ketogenic diet is en vogue with cancer patients. To dip into my biochem background, the ketogenic diet basically swaps sugars for fats, and it is a fad diet. Even though there’s more research being done on it as an interventional therapy (that’s “we’re doing something medically to treat an illness”), I only saw one study for GBM, and it only increased life expectancy two months, AND, to be effective, he patients had to be kept in a state of near-ketogenic shock and in the hospital constantly. We’ll call that “Plan B.”

In the meantime, because chemo and/or zofran tend to stop you up; I thought it’d be easier to just eat loads of fruits of and vegetables to keep everything sluicing through me (that’s not true, I’m just terrified of laxtives; you can peruse the archives for that particular incident). I think I’m up to seven or eight a day, because it’s easier to maintain healthy habits than start and stop them (Jack had at least 10 raw vegetable/fruit servings a day). People often talk/ask about changes in taste because of chemo. I usually shrug because my own tastes are largely unaltered; however, upon reflection, pineapples got amazing in the last year or so. Add onto that at least 15-20 grams of protein before starting dinner or snacking, and, my rule is, you can eat as much as you want of whatever you want. I don’t think you’ll want much, though. If you’ve never heard of Jack, it’s a shame, because he pretty much invented modern fitness.movement. He’s credited with starting the first public gyms in America that featured things like barbells (he’s not so much “Old School” as much the guy who pours the cement foundations). And he lived to be 96, so, clearly, the man was doing something right. His dietary rule was - and this is a direct quote - “If it tastes good, spit it out,” So far, it’s worked fantastically for me (and that’s a pretty easy diet rule to remember), in the sense that I’m still alive and mostly-intact, and haven’t lost much weight (but my belt size has dropped by two inches)(to be honest, I have cheat days, and I do have the odd beer or Manhattan). That sounds all pretty narcissistic, but here’s the pay-off if you’re ever in the hot seat. If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness (another thing that skews GBM stats; if I get side-swiped tomorrow and die in a freak accident; that’ll get calculated into life expectancy stats, even if the cause of death is clearly a drunk semi driver), get into a level crazy health and/or physical activity. Cancer survivors have a severely reduced life expectancy, because of  all the side-effects and long-term damage associated with treatment. That’s not just brain cancer, it’s all of them.

And there are many, many cancers that were previously considered “acute” and have been reclassified as “chronic.”  My plan here is stolen from Ben Williams - stay healthy and alive long enough and well enough that the Warlocks will keep hexing me until I die, or the cancer (which is me, remember) does. I realize that seems grim and unpleasant as a philosophy, but that is the definition of a terminal situation. Someone will die. I’m damned if that someone is going to be me.

Because that’s not exactly an upbeat way of ending this post, I will point out that there are all sorts of nutritionists at the cancer center, who all have the secret to staying healthy during and after treatment, and, even though it’s a little mean, I do remember one of them mentioning, in a support group, something like, “It pains me to hear people say they want to eat healthy, but don’t enjoy the things that are healthy for them.” Which is an interesting statement to make to a bunch of people in chemo, because it’s not like anyone enjoys or feels great on a non-stop diet of mustard gas. I am now so deep in the Abyss that “unenjoyable” is almost a vacation. Still, I’m ready to endure more punishment, because my sense of humor is still there, and able to appreciate the delicious irony of an authority figure talking about the concept of “fun meals” with people who are now far beyond conventional fun. That seems horrible unless you consider the possibilities of unconvenional fun. Or getting funny, which was my coping method.

Also, because I’m getting restless with just the basic stress of undergoing chemo, micro-managing my health and keeping current with all my drugs, writing the tale/blog, and/or my ongoing attempt at a novel, I figured I’d start The Terminal Artists list. This will be an ongoing project, both as a form of therapy for myself, and because everyone who suddenly comes face to face with a life-altering and/or limiting illness could use it, and because it was a theme at the cancer writing group on Monday. So, the rules: 1. This is a list of people whose greatest - or best-known works (in a few lonely cases, the only books or poems some ever wrote were started when they began dying) were done in the final year of their life. I realize that “best” is highly subjective, and the idiom “best-known” would require a poll to establish. 2. Even though I use the word “artist,” I’ll happily use that as a catch-all for scientists, engineers, playwrights, dancers, athletes - anyone who produces/designs/discovers/creates anything that would positively impact those left behind is a contender. I just don’t want some estate attorney who cleverly scams their clients using loopholes in probate law; or a smuggler who figures a new way to smuggle and sell arms to UN embargo countries. Use your judgment, folks. 3. Ideally, you’d pair a specific person with their song/album/film/discover etc., but if it’s an extremely well-known (or prolific) artist/whatsit, I’ll bend the rules and do some research 4. people who are so prolific that they have works published after they die will be on the list, because the only thing cooler than giving the Reaper the finger and leaping on the keyboard (or easel, or guitar, or wet bench) is leaving such a vast, consistent body of work, it’s still considered awesome when you aren’t around to advocate for it

THE LIST SO FAR.... -Vincent van Gogh - “Starry Night” -Jimi Hendrix - “Angel” -Howard Ashman (Playwright/lyricist/) - “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” - Paul Kalanithi (surgeon/writer) - “When Breath Becomes Air” -Nina Riggs (writer) - “The Bright Hour” -Warren Zevon - “The Wind” -Freddie Mercury - “The Show Must Go On” -Johnny Cash -Michael Crichton (writer, minor demi-god to all sci-fi fans) - Pirate Latitudes -Samuel Clemens (writer) - Autobiography -Roy Orbison (minor private music teacher - “You Got It”

[sylvermyth]

it should be no surprise

@caseyvalhalla CONGRATS ON DEFENDING YOUR THESIS, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!  You deserve a reward, so here is some Sheith hurt/comfort as you requested (and I needed an excuse to write, lmao).  Please enjoy my first foray into Voltron fic.  :D

As always, cross-posted to AO3 (link on sidebar of my blog).

it should be no surprise

It was quiet on the ride back to the castle, a stark contrast to when they’d left.

Shiro stood near the back of the cockpit, arms crossed, a careful distance between Keith and himself. He wanted to hover, to check Keith’s hurts, but Keith had shaken him off as soon as he’d slumped into Red’s seat. Shiro understood the need for space, probably more than anyone in their little family, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Didn’t make it feel any less fragile.

Shiro supposed, in truth, that he needed the space a little bit, as well. Perhaps he hadn’t had an earth-shattering realization about his heritage, or a “knowledge or death” trial to discover said heritage, but there was still plenty for him to process, what with watching Keith throw himself single-mindedly against a barrage of cryptic Galran resistance fighters, and then—.

It wasn’t exactly a revelation that Shiro was the person Keith most wanted to see, when Kolivan explained it. Keith was naturally introverted, Shiro knew, keeping mostly to himself when he could, and his tight-lipped silence whenever families were mentioned spoke volumes on its own. He and Shiro had been close even before the Kerberos mission, and everything that had happened since Shiro’s return had drawn them even closer.

So that wasn’t a surprise, really.

The surprise came when the projection of himself made to abandon Keith. Of course Shiro would never—maybe he didn’t agree with the reckless abandon with which Keith threw himself at the trial, but he would never abandon a teammate, least of all Keith, and it made something painful tear at his insides to see it. And then to see the way Keith’s resolve crumpled, in the face of that. That was another thing entirely. Shiro had been ready to abandon his mission of gaining the Blade’s alliance when it seemed Keith might truly die from their sordid trial. The revelation that Keith had Galra blood was nothing, in the face of almost losing him.

So perhaps Shiro needed a little distance, himself, to consider the whole ordeal, and what those feelings, those actions, meant.

The quiet tension between them persisted as Keith brought Red into its hangar, and Shiro could see the tremble in his limbs when they made their way to the bridge to report back, but he walked tall, and Shiro respected that—admired it, even—and as much as he wanted to reach out and take some of Keith’s weight, he didn’t offer. Still didn’t offer, when Allura’s gaze immediately hardened upon hearing Keith’s revelation, though Keith’s shoulders stiffened defensively, and Shiro couldn’t help his own frown at that, because it didn’t change who Keith was.

Shiro followed him into the corridor once they’d finished their report. There was still planning to be done, coordination with the Blade--but there was always more to done, and they had to take a break to rest. Keith, certainly, needed it.

“Nothing’s changed, you know.” Keith’s steps faltered, then stopped. There was a weariness in the set of his shoulders, in the way he didn’t turn to face Shiro. “She’ll realize it before too long. You’re the same person you’ve always been.” The air between them was thick, the distance tangible. It wasn’t entirely true, that nothing had changed. Something had shifted, between Shiro and Keith, something they would have to figure out. Preferably before Shiro’s heart tried to tear itself out of his chest.

Keith shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “It’s fine.” His tone said it wasn’t, but it also said leave me alone.

Shiro sighed; Keith still had his back to him. “You should go to the med bay, get yourself patched up.”

“I’m fine, Shiro. I just need some rest.”

Thoughts flickered through Shiro’s head, rapid-fire—You could’ve died, you’re not fine; That wasn’t me, you know that, right? Let me help you. I’m here now. Let me in. But Shiro’s throat stuck, his fists clenching with the need to offer comfort, and all he could say was, “Okay.” It took effort—it had never been so hard to say before—to add, “Let me know if there’s anything you want to talk about.”

Keith let out a hum of acknowledgment, and Shiro watched him walk away until a bend in the corridor took him out of sight.

Shiro slumped against the wall, cursing himself. It was true he was protective, fond, of everyone that called this place home, but this was more than that. At least, he thought it was. Maybe it just hurt, to be shut out by the person that he was closest to.  And he realized it was as true for him as it was for Keith—that Shiro was closer to him than anyone else

He had to fix this.

It wasn’t a surprise that Keith wasn’t in the med bay when Shiro got there. It was the same stubborn persistence that had carried Keith in everything else he did, and it was that that drove Shiro to piece together a first aid kit from the Altaen supplies.  (He never ceased to be amazed by how well they had kept, despite ten thousand years of disuse.)

It wasn’t a surprise, either, that Keith wasn’t in his room.  Shiro knew him better than that, but he checked there first, anyway, in a vain hope that he had decided to rest, to take care of himself.

It wasn’t a surprise, then, to find Keith in the hangar with his lion, sitting with his back against a metal leg, his eyes distant, contemplative.  Shiro approached cautiously, watching Keith’s attention shift to him, though he made no move to stop Shiro, or move, himself.

“I said I’m fine, Shiro.”  Despite the protest, Keith’s expression had opened a fraction since earlier, more out of exhaustion than anything, Shiro guessed, but he would take any opening right now.

“Yeah, I heard you.”  Shiro raised the kit up for Keith to see.  “You should still be patched up.”  Shiro resolved himself to argue this, if he had to, because this much, this much he needed to do, but Keith only looked up at him impassively.

“Whatever.”

It was as much of a concession as Shiro would get, and Keith didn’t move to get up, so Shiro dropped to his knees beside him, and tugged at the sleeve of his jacket.  “Come on, then.”

They’d done this for each other innumerable times.  It came with the territory, when they’d accepted their roles as paladins of Volton, so it was easy to drop into the routine of it, and something eased in Shiro, once he’d confirmed that there was no major damage.  A lot of bruising, yes, and a scattering of minor scrapes and cuts, but other than probably being sore for a while, Keith was, in fact, fine.

Still, the silence between them was stifling, rather than the usual companionable quiet they shared, and Shiro found it difficult to draw away when he was finished.

Shiro swallowed around the lump in his throat, his hand—the human one—lingering on Keith’s shoulder.  “Keith…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  Keith shrugged him off, and pulled his shirt back on, not looking at him.

Shiro felt his mouth thinning at that, red hot emotion boiling up, and his voice came out sharper than he intended when he snapped, “Well maybe I do!”

Keith was looking at him, now, eyes a little wide from Shiro’s uncharacteristic outburst.

Shiro took a breath and sat back against Red, taking his turn to avoid Keith’s gaze, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft.  “I saw it all, you know.  The trial.”

“No shit, Shiro.”

He rolled his head until he could see Keith from the corner of his eye, smiling a little at his fierce determination.  “Not just the combat.  I saw what happened on the lower level—that wasn’t me, Keith.  You have to know that, I would never—”  Shiro’s voice broke a little over the word, and he had to suck in another breath.  “I would never abandon you like that.  I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t leave you there.”  The thought of it still made Shiro’s stomach twist, and he turned his head a little more, to reassure himself that Keith was still there, started to reach out to him, but dropped his hand in the space between them, because Keith had brushed him off.

Keith wasn’t looking at him again, his face turned up towards the ceiling, hands clenched in fists and knees drawn up defensively, and the silence was deafening.

Just when Shiro was about to give it up as a lost cause, Keith spoke, barely a whisper, so that he had to strain to hear it.

“But you did.”

He sounded so small and so lost with those three words, and Shiro wanted to tell him that, no, he didn’t, he was right here.  But he had.  He had, once, and the thought of it, however unintentional it had been when he’d been captured by the Galra, that their work as paladins could very well take him away from Keith again, made pain lance through his chest.

Before he even realized he was moving, Shiro was pulling Keith into his arms, and while Keith didn’t fight, he didn’t relax, either, but Shiro was murmuring his name, over and over, “Keith, Keith, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” voice rough with emotion, and Keith’s hands clutching his jacket made Shiro draw him in closer, rubbing circles in his back, pressed a kiss into his hair because it felt right, and Shiro could feel it, all at once, when the dam broke.

“I couldn’t—Shiro, I can’t!  I can’t lose you again!”  Keith’s voice was thick with tears and Shiro tightened his arms around him, breaking with each of Keith’s shuddering breaths.

How had he missed this?

“Keith, shhh, Keith,” and that wasn’t enough, stroking his hair wasn’t enough, so Shiro drew his hand forward to cup Keith’s warm cheek—the human one, as always, because he wanted to feel what he was doing—and guided him to meet his eyes, thumb gently brushing at the wetness on his face.  He’d never seen Keith so vulnerable, his eyes red and glassy, and it ached.  “I’m here now.”  He pressed a reverent kiss to Keith’s forehead, and then his cheeks, tasting salt, and Shiro felt vulnerable, too, shaken apart by this tangible thing between them.

It was Keith who closed the distance and brought their lips together tentatively, his tears subsiding under Shiro’s steady gaze, the hand on his cheek, and it felt like gravity, natural and inevitable, Keith’s arms winding behind Shiro’s neck like they were meant to be there.  A balm he’d never known he’d needed, and Shiro sighed into it, relief making his shoulders sag.

“I thought I was going to lose you, too,” Shiro murmured against Keith’s hair, some time later, still wrapped around each other

Shiro could hear the smirk in Keith’s voice as he retorted, “Yeah, but then who would be around to save you?”

“Yeah, good point.”  Shiro buried his face in the crook of Keith’s neck, hugging him close.  They would be okay.  Maybe not always, because theirs was a dangerous path, but in this, they would be fine.