#so in that way getting something good that will (hopefully) last is justifiable

[yousaytomato]

Current phone: £200, has lasted 4 years

Phone I'm considering: £800, so logically will last 16 years

[drchucktingle]

my masks

hey there buckaroos. due to all of the attention the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION situation has gotten i am going to take a minute to talk about my personal way as an autistic buckaroo. im going to tell you about my masks.

im doing this for a few reasons, some are good FUN reasons full of love and some are not so great. 

lets start with the GOOD STUFF. first of all, i am talking about this because speaking on my way can help other buckaroo feel more comfortable speaking on there own way, ESPECIALLY if they are good at ‘passing’ for neurotypical like chuck is. 

unfortunately the NOT SO GREAT reasons im talking about all this dang stuff are two fold. reason one: i have been put into a position of having to explain and justify my needs and boundaries by the TXLA. this is not something that i WANT to be taking up all of my time, but when large organizations do not make space for those who they have pledged to support, it puts us smaller buckaroos into position where were have to defend our existence. it is not plesent but it is necessary.

the second NOT SO GREAT reason is that ‘passing’ bisexual and autistic people like myself are ALWAYS just seconds from being gatekept from folks both outside and inside these communities. there will probably be a day on chucks deathbed where i take off my mask and say hello to this timeline (mostly so you can all see how handsome i am under here but I DIGRESS). i KNOW with absolute certainty (the same way other bi and autistic buckaroos are probably nodding along right now) that when that day comes i will STILL be accused of ‘not being real’ and ‘faking’ because i ‘dont look autistic’ and i have a beautiful ladybuck partner in sweet barbara.

ALL THAT IS TO SAY, i am taking a moment today to talk FOR THE RECORD about my neurodigence and my particular needs. hopefully i will not have to keep diving this deep every time an organization takes a discrimantory action against me, but i will also say this: at least it is a good fight on an important battlefield

anyway buds, here is the story of my way on the spectrum

when i was a young buckaroo i knew that my thought process was different. i could socialize easily, which is unique in contrast to many autistic buds (it is a spectrum after all), but my social ease was for an interesting reason. I ALWAYS KNEW WHAT OTHERS WERE ABOUT TO SAY. it was like a strange ‘human game’ where someone would say one thing and i would think ‘well you actually mean something else’ in a sort of logical way (this is why i later related to DATA from star trek so dang much). at first i remember thinking ‘well i am just NOT going to play along with this human game’. i quickly learned neurotypical buckaroos do not like this, that there is a BOB AND WEAVE to social interactions that must be learned. 

later i realized ‘actually if i WANT to make friends and prove love is real then i can do this like an expert because i can SEE the game where most cant’. this got chuck many buds and took me on many adventures. please understand, i am not saying these connections are not important to me, they are just different. they are full of love, but i express this in my own unique way.

HOWEVER, while growing up i felt disconnected from this timeline in other ways, like an alien or a reverse twin trotting along in a world that is not quite my own. i did not feel emotions the same way my buds did. they would get upset over the ‘human game’ interactions and i would not be moved at all, HOWEVER i could see the way sunlight hit a window and start crying my dang eyes out over the beauty. so my emotion was still there and VERY STRONG, i just felt it in more existential ways (like hearing the call of the lonesome train). these days that feeling has progressed to where i am pretty much in a constant blissed out state of cosmic emotional connection (make of that last sentence what you will, but it is the truth). when i make existential posts online i am not just FIRING OFF SOME CONTENT, i really mean every word. this is really my trot.

anyway as a young buckaroo these feelings made me worry sometimes. i thought about various mental health dianosises and marked the parts and pieces that matched with myself. am i this? am i that? sometimes, instead of just being’ different’ i worried i might actually be ‘wrong’. 

when i saw david byrne on letterman in my younger days i immediately recognized something connected to myself. i thought ‘wow this is the mystery being solved before my very eyes.’ i could hear it in the music of talking heads too. i started doing research and realized that i might be on autism spectrum, something that was later confirmed by a therapist (back then the diagnosis was called asperger's). it was a glorious and fulfilling moment. i was SO EXCITED TO BE AUTISTIC LIKE MY HERO. i felt very cool because of it, and i still feel very cool because of it.

one of the big reasons i talk so much about being autistic these days is because i want to make sure OTHER buckaroos can have that same moment that i did. they can see chuck and think ‘wow i really like this autistic artist, maybe being autistic is cool’

so what does an average day WITHOUT wearing the pink bag look like for me?

my thought process is exactly like ROSE from CAMP DAMASCUS, which is part of why i wrote the book. we have the same stim (complex order of finger taps), we prepare for social interactions the same way, we analyze things in the same logical trot that neurotypical people might think feels ‘detached’ but for me feels natural (certain reviews of camp damascus are very funny to me in this way. you can tell when a reader is just very confused by existing in an autistic brain for 250 pages.)

from the outside you would not be able to tell that i am on the spectrum. in fact you would probably find me very socially adept. 

the problem is, all of that masking can take its toll. i spent years trotting in and out the emergency room, talking to confused doctors who could not figure out the chronic phantom tension and pain that radiated through my body. i eventually accepted the fact that i would either live a life constantly on heavy painkillers or just stop living altogether.

eventually, however, i started noticing a correlation between the way that i felt, and the space that i allowed for chuck and the pink mask. i was exercising that tension, allowing my mental mask of neurotypical existence to take a rest. i started practicing physical therapy and this time THE RESULTS STUCK because i was approaching from two sides, MIND AND BODY. after a while, i got my pain down to about 5 percent of what it once was. i still have flare ups in times of stress, but the healing has been very real and life changing.

lets get VERY specific now. if i attended the TXLA confrence without a mask and gave my talk i can tell you this: i would do a dang good job. i can work the heck out of a crowd and (not to reveal too much about my secret way) I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THIS ON OCCASION VERY WELL. however, going home from this event i would very likely be in pain. i would likely need to do physical therapy. i would likely need to stim for a while. i would NOT be emotionally fullfilled in the same way. in other words, without my pink mask i can charm the heck out of buckaroos, but THE SPACE OF CHUCK TINGLE IS NOT THE SPACE FOR THAT. the pink bag is a place for me to not have to put up with that tension. it is a place for me to unmask mentally by masking physically.

this pink bag space SAVED MY LIFE and i am not going to risk blurring these lines. if and when that ever happens it will be MY decision, not someone elses. that is my boundary. the part of me that neurotypically masks could handle a library conference in a purely technical sense, but the part of me that chuck represents absolutely cannot and should not be asked to do that without the pink bag. unfortunately, the complexity of this point makes it even MORE difficult for me to think about and takes up even more of my time, because it forces me to START QUESTIONING MYSELF and my own needs. to be honest, that is the most insidious part of other people questioning your identify and refusing to accept your accommodation needs without ‘proof’.

the thing is, while all of this discussion of disability and accessibility is important, i have a much larger point to make by writing these words.

a conference should not uninvite someone with an unusual physical presentation or a strange way of speaking REGARDLESS of it being classified as a disability. it does not matter WHY i look the way that i look and wear what i wear. i should not have to spend all day writing this post instead of writing my next book, just because my sensibilities are unique and my presentation is unusual. 

fortunately the solution is very simple: let other people be themselves. its not hurting you to simply accept and nod at the buckaroos you think look strange. let us exist

[charliemwrites]

Part 2!

Finally finished moving house so hopefully I’ll be updating semi-regularly again.

Content: brief and non-descriptive explanation of Rasputin’s backstory (injury and illness)

Agatha is over again.

You don’t know why. She doesn’t like you, your cats, or anything as far as you can tell. It seems her primary motivation for talking to you at all is to exercise her role as neighborhood matriarch. She “keeps tabs” on everyone, but especially you - the unmarried woman living alone that keeps odd hours.

A rebellious part of you wants to roll your eyes and make snarky comments whenever she sniffs at your life choices. The same part of you that would make scenes at holiday dinners or slam doors when you were a teenager. That girl has long been smoothed and polished - or maybe just worn down. It’s so much effort to make rude, nosy, traditionalists clutch their pearls. Much easier to smile in their face and do what you want anyway.

Still, that part of you itches at the surface sometimes. Makes your eye twitch.

“I know your generation is different but that’s just not the type of neighborhood we live in,” she’s saying.

You’re a bit foggy from a late night patching plotholes and haven’t registered much of anything she’s said. You really just want to go inside and stare at the TV until words make sense again.

“What do you mean?” you ask, for once not feigning your confusion. But of course this is the one time she doesn’t buy it.

She looks down her frail little nose at you, cornflower blue eyes baleful. You don’t feel scolded, but you sense that you’re supposed to.

“Now you know just what I mean. People will talk.”

People always talk, it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the human condition. Like a deaf bird, you’ve never understood all the chatter.

“Talk about… the buttercups?” you wonder, pointing at the blossoms. You’re quite proud of them actually.

Agatha puffs up and hisses out a breath. “You ought to keep to this side of the street. Away from those men.”

You blink. Men…?

A bang comes from across the street, followed by rough German cursing. (At least you think it’s cursing.)

Ah. Those men.

“I was just welcoming them to the neighborhood.”

It comes out of your mouth automatically, innocent excuses for something you remind yourself you don’t need to justify.

“I’d rather they didn’t feel welcome,” she snips. “Better they sell that awful house and go somewhere else.”

You flick your eyes over her bony shoulder. Konig passes by a window, massive biceps on display as he lifts something outside of view.

“They’re nice,” you say. Nice to look at. Krueger’s face alone quite makes up for his conversational shortcomings.

“The only reason men like that act nice is because they want something,” Agatha snaps. “This is a respectable neighborhood.”

Yeah, soooo respectable when Bertram rifles through your mail or Lisa looks into your backyard.

“Well,” you muse, “better to be on good terms with them, I think. They're not the type you want to piss off.”

That defiant streak lights up at the way her face sours. If only she knew what sort of words you use when it’s just you and the cats.

“You’ve just proven my point. Those are not the type of men young ladies should associating themselves with.”

You have to try very hard not to scrunch up your face. One blessed day, people will stop referring to you as “young lady” in that insufferably condescending tone. You can’t wait for that day.

Some of your mounting irritation must show on your face because she takes on a sickly sweet “teaching” tone.

“Neighborhoods are like gardens. Everything grows best when the rows are kept separate. That’s why the farmers plant them that way.”

You glance pointedly at your own yard, where the flowers are blooming in haphazard sprigs wherever you tossed the seeds. Agatha’s lips get thin.

“Best that you stay on this side of the street, missy. That’s the last I’ll hear of it.”

She spins on her heel and stalks off like a particularly drab bird. You stand on your porch for a second longer, face contorted in annoyed confusion. You don’t even have strong feelings about the three men; the simple act of someone - Agatha of all people - labeling them as “Off Limits” makes them instantly more appealing.

Maybe you should see someone about that or something. Then the pathetic cries of Guy through the window lure you back inside.

It’s nearly sundown when there’s a knock at your door. Still agitated from your talk with Agatha, you puff up like Shithead when Rasputin sits on her favorite toy. March up to the door, fling it open - and come up short when you see the three men looming on your doorstep.

Before you can recover, a little gray blob scrambles past your ankles, crying like the sky is falling.

“Oh!” Konig gasps in pleasant surprise. “Hallo, Bubchen!”

And all 6-foot-plus of Austrian instantly folds to scoop Guy up. You’ve barely managed a now-useless shout of alarm when Shithead wedges her fat head between your calves. Behind you, Rasputin politely screeches his little chainsmoker call.

And somehow, in the chaos of fumbling for furballs, you end up with all three men in your foyer.

Guy is purring away in Konig’s thick arms. Shithead is attempting to scale Krueger’s tight cargo pants. And Rasputin is pawing the air at Nikto, visibly calculating the jump to his wide shoulders.

Which leaves you with the clean serving platter you dropped off just yesterday. You blink at it for a moment, then glance at them.

“So… the cookies were good then?”

“Very good!” Konig rushes to say. Krueger and Nikto each nod, almost comically solemn.

“We have no baking or cooking skills,” Krueger continues, “so tell us what needs fixing.”

It takes you a moment to understand what he means. The house. He wants to fix your house. It’s surprisingly sweet, and you laugh a bit, shaking your head. “You don’t need to do that, I was just-“

“Is custom,” Nikto interrupts.

Konig nods with all the enthusiasm of a bobblehead as Krueger crosses his arms. (Whatever effect he’s going for is ruined by Shithead clinging to his pocket and screaming.)

“In our country, we bring gifts as guests. Our gift is repairs,” he explains.

You arch your brows playfully. “I don’t remember inviting you to be guests.”

He arches his brows right back. “We did not invite you either.”

Well shit.

“Okay, okay. I guess there’s a couple things…”

Konig perks up. “We would be happy to help, Biene!”

It’s strange having men in the house. You think you should be more nervous about it, can’t remember the last non-family man allowed into your space. Especially alone.

There’s a sharp awareness, of course. Hard not to be aware of them. It’s not just that they’re big, dwarfing all of your you-sized furniture. There’s a presence to them, something felt but not seen by your untrained eye. Maybe it’s in the set of their shoulders, the way they stand with both boots firmly planted. Maybe it’s the precise way they speak and move, not just separately but as a unit. Acting more like a collective consciousness than as individuals.

Whatever it is, you couldn’t ignore them if you tried. And you’re definitely not trying.

You set Krueger to work on the kitchen cabinet you’ve been meaning to replace. He clicks his tongue at the tape-and-lean method you’ve been using to keep the old one in place. Shithead immediately sets to work helping by gnawing at his shoelaces.

Konig is stationed in the guest bathroom, where the sink doesn’t run right. Guy comes mewing into your arms when he’s set down, effectively tattling that his new friend is mean and awful for withholding affection for even a moment.

You try not to visibly hesitate when you corner yourself in your own laundry room. Nikto has followed you right in, seemingly unaware that he’s invading your personal space. He’s not even looking at you though, eyes zeroed in on the dryer you point to.

“It’s not heating up, so the clothes stay wet or take forever to dry,” you explain.

He grunts in acknowledgement, then nods to Rasputin, who has taken up residence on the washer. His one golden eye blinks slow and serene at the two of you.

“What happened?” he asks.

You hum, softening in pleasant surprise at the question.

“I’m not sure how he lost his eye. It was infected when I found him. But I know for sure the tail and leg are from getting hit by a car.”

You sigh, scratching at Rasputin’s chin. A rusty purr starts up as he tilts his head, revealing some nasty scars around his throat.

“The vet said that that’s probably from a fight with another cat,” you add.

Guy steps from your arms to cuddle up to Rasputin, shoving his face into his ragged ear. Grooming time, then. That’s as good an indication as any that Nikto’s probably safe enough.

“I ran down from an office building to save him.” You blink hard, eyes stinging just from the memory. “But anyway, he gets to rest and be pampered now.”

When you glance up from Rasputin’s happy little face, you almost startle at the sharp blue eyes pinning you in place. Your face feels warm, even though you’re not embarrassed.

“I’ll, um, get out of the way,” you say, clearing your throat. “Keep an eye on things, Ras.”

With the men occupied, you find yourself once again at loose ends. You drift towards the den, but it feels awkward to sit on your ass watching TV while your neighbors fix your house.

You check the time on your phone - ignoring the text from your mother - and figure it’s not too early to start dinner.

“Will I be in the way if I start cooking?” you ask Krueger.

He flicks you a dimissive glance. “A little thing like you?”

You scoff and cross to the fridge. “You could have just said no.”

“Nein,” he snorts.

Rude bastard, you think - though not without fondness, unfortunately. The surly attitude is already growing on you.

There’s meat and spare boxes of pasta and veggies - that’ll work. You start tugging out ingredients, mentally doubling portions for your guests. They look like they work out even beyond the construction labor, hopefully you’ll have enough to satisfy their appetites.

“So what’s the plan with the house?” you ask as you get to work. “Just fixing it up to sell or…?”

“We will live there, the three of us,” Krueger answers. He swipes a screwdriver from Shithead’s batting paws. “Somewhere to stay when we are not working.”

You hum, biting back the next obvious question, loathe to become as nosy as the rest of your neighbors. Still… getting to know people, right?

It sounds like they expect to travel a lot. You can’t imagine them as business types - not in the traditional sense anyway. Though the image of Konig sitting in a tiny cubicle does make you smile a bit. Between their statures, their clothes, their shoes, and the occasional nasty scar, you take a guess.

“Are you guys military?”

“Contractor,” Krueger corrects.

You perk up. “Wait, really?”

He scowls. “Does it sound like a joke?”

You huff and turn back to the veggies you’re cutting. “No, no. I just - you know about guns and knives and things, then?”

He pauses. You shoot him a curious glance, only to quickly look away at the intense scrutiny directed your way.

“Yes,” he answers slowly.

“Then… could you maybe answer some questions…?”

His eyes narrow. “Questions?”

You keep your gaze on the cutting board. “Okay, wait, it's not suspicious. I’m a writer and it’s hard to google very specific questions sometimes. It’s just easier to ask an expert in person.”

Never mind that majority of your readers would never know the difference. It bothers you when things aren’t accurate.

He makes a considering noise. “A writer?”

You flush. “That’s what I do. Why I’m always home? I publish fiction.”

He stands, brushing his hands off on his pants. You peek his way, shocked to see a task you’ve been putting off for weeks already done. Hell, it looks sturdier than the rest of the cabinet doors, too.

“And your fiction requires knowledge of guns and knives and ‘things’?” he asks.

Your face feels like it’s on fire. “Sometimes…”

“Fine. I will answer your questions,” he allows.

You beam. “Thank you!”

He grunts, snatches a slice of pepper and pops it into his mouth.

“What else needs doing?”

Dinner ends up much more pleasant than expected. Nikto abstains from eating, you assume because he doesn’t feel comfortable removing his ever-present mask, but he sits at the table with Rasputin in his lap. He speaks little, and has that intense gaze that prickles at your freeze instinct, but you grow used to it as the meal progresses.

Konig, however, becomes chattier with food in his belly. He’s much more forthcoming when he answers your polite and totally casual questions - though you notice Krueger kick him under the table once or twice.

You suppose he gets you back by effectively announcing to the others what your career is. Which just kicks off the usual line of questioning about how and why you got into writing. Still, there’s no judgment from these men that make their living in labors of blood and sacrifice, where you expected censure. You only find genuine curiosity and intrigue, good-natured questions. Not even Krueger makes backhanded comments about it not being a “real” job.

Before you know it, the moon is high and you’re sending the three of them off, bellies full and a little friendlier than before. Nikto nods to you (and Rasputin) as he leaves, a big Tupperware of his dinner portion in hand.

You tell yourself it’s not anticipation that goes through you, knowing they’ll be back with it soon.

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Masterlist

[ramblingthoughtsofayoungadult]

Unpredictable, Part 6-Limoreau x black!fem!reader fic

A/N: Sorry it's a little late but it took me forever to get the pace right and I didn't re-watch the episode so it's all from memory. Thanks for all the love!

Warnings: Hints to sensuality, swearing, body image issues, self-esteem issues, allusions to homophobia.

Words: 7.8k

Taglist: @badbishsblog , @kasslucilfer, @gardenof-venus, @morelovemorepeacemoretattoo-blog

Series Masterlist

The only sounds that filled the room were the rustling of clothes as we all got dressed in our respective areas. While I was slipping on my gold hoops, I could not shake the feeling that something was off, kind of like in a horror movie where the main family is weird, but they haven’t done anything to justify suspicion. Every time I tried to remember something, it made my temples throb.

My stomach churned at the fact that I couldn’t remember anything, and my thoughts were all jumbled up. Did Marie or Jordan remember anything? The thought of asking them made me gulp and I fingered the dark-wash jeans in my lap.

They’ll think I can’t handle my liquor or that I always black out, I mused bitterly.

“I think this is yours.” Jordan’s voice nearly made me jump but I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized she was talking to Marie.

Marie glanced over at her and muttered her thanks once Jordan tossed her a bra. I faced the front again, unfolded my jeans, and gasped.

“What is it?” Marie asked.

I gulped. “Um, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” Jordan commented.

How did she sound so casual?

No, I couldn’t say it, it was way too embarrassing. These jeans were no ordinary dark wash mid-rise pair; they fit my hips like a glove, made my legs ten percent longer, and my butt twenty percent perkier. When I found them on a shopping trip with Coco, we dubbed them the Look At Me jeans and they never failed to garner attention. So, I could only wear them when I really wanted to feel good about myself and I wondered what possessed me to wear them last night.  

“Seriously, it’s fine,” I tried to assure them as I started pulling the fitted denim over my legs.

The process was going well until I reached my upper thighs and they refused to go higher. I huffed, flopping back onto the bed, sucking my stomach as far as possible, and tugging on the belt loops.

After some strategic shimmying, they finally slid up just below my belly button and I zipped them up triumphantly. Every time I wore them, I forgot how hard it was to get in and out of them.

How had I gotten out of them last night?

The thought made my face burn, and I snatched my royal purple halter top from the floor. As I slipped it over my head, I could not stop my thoughts from wandering as to how we even ended up here. For one thing, Marie and Jordan couldn’t stand each other and I was always trying to play the mediator between them. Again, how did that turn into…this? When did they stop hating each other?

This whole situation felt the same as when I was trying to think of a word, and it was on the tip of my tongue. But no matter how much I thought, the word never came to me. I had a feeling they somehow made up and the thought of them making up made me hopeful and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Even if they did makeup, why was I involved?

I tugged the top down and the buttery soft material stopped at the middle of my ribs. Then, I swept my braids to one shoulder and grabbed the thick straps to tie it. Despite the numerous times I wore this top, my fingers kept fumbling with the material. I huffed as I willed my fingers to cooperate and hoped that no one noticed my struggling.

After a few seconds of trying, a soft, warm pair of fingers brushed up against mine.

“Here, let me help you,” Marie offered.

All I could do was nod and my hands fell into my lap. Every time Marie’s hands grazed the back of my neck, tingles ran up and down my spine.

Stop it, Y/N, my mind hissed at me.

Hopefully, she thought I was shivering.

“Done,” she softly announced.

“Thanks,” I replied, fastening my strappy black Gianvito Rossi pumps.

Once she got back to her side of the bed, she commented, “I didn’t know you had a tattoo there.”

I slapped one of my hands on the back of my neck and stood. “Huh?”

Jordan whistled. “Freshie has ink? Let me see.”

She crossed over to the front of the bed and started pulling at my hand as I tried to back away.

“Jordan, stop, it’s not even that impressive,” I whined.

“Just one little peek, I won’t untie it,” they promised. “Besides, it’s unfair if only Marie got to see.”

Jordan made a good point and I reluctantly turned around and twisted my braids up on top of my head. I shivered when Jordan gently lifted the straps and almost collapsed when their warm breath brushed my skin.

“It looks…nice,” Jordan admitted. “When did you get it?”

“Over the summer, when my dad went to Thailand for a business trip, I went with him and found this cool tattoo parlor near where he was shooting. One night, I stopped by and told the artist I wanted something pretty but hard to find,” I explained.

When Jordan let go of the top, I faced her for the first time. She kind of looked like a puppy, very innocent and hopeful. I never saw that expression on their face before and wondered what it meant.

“Um, this might sound kind of bad but, I don’t remember anything from last night,” Marie admitted.

I whirled around to her. “Me either!” “I didn’t want to say anything but, yeah,” Jordan agreed.

“So, we all blacked out?” Marie asked.

“Maybe; I wonder if anyone else remembers anything,” I mentioned. “By the way, where’s my phone?”

“Oh.” Marie grabbed something from the floor and handed it to me. “Here.”

I tried to turn it on, but the screen was black. “It’s dead, my phone’s never dead.”

“Really?” Marie asked.

I nodded and shoved my phone into my back pocket. “I like to be able to leave when I want or reach anyone I lose while I’m out.”

“Or post about it anywhere,” Jordan added.

“Hey, you’re the one who’s always saying how important it is to maintain a following,” I defended, but my tone was not as light as I meant.

“I’m just saying that this whole thing is weird. I never blackout no matter what,” Jordan insisted.

“Did we all get drugged or something?” Marie pondered.

“Why would someone drug all three of us just for us to…” I glanced at the bed.

“So, we did…” Marie trailed off and I glanced up at her, noting her soft smile at Jordan.

I didn’t need to look at Jordan to know she had a similar expression on her face, but it didn’t help the sinking feeling in my stomach. No, I needed that feeling because whatever happened last night was a mistake. They obviously had something going on and I didn’t need to be in the middle. But why did the way they looked at each other make me feel light and miserable?

 The tension in the air was thick and I needed to breathe.

Then, a dull ache panged behind my eyes, and I winced as I cupped my forehead with my hand. “I need coffee, water, a shower, and eggs; not necessarily in that order.”

A few moments later, I was sandwiched between Marie and Jordan, in their masculine form, on a couch in Dusty’s backyard. The Vought Water that ran down my throat was so refreshing that I almost cried. It was cool outside even though the sun was high in the sky. I should have felt cold, but Jordan and Marie were both radiators.

Cate and Andre sat on a couch across from us, both looking a mix of concerned and awkward.

“So, do you guys remember anything from last night?” Jordan asked.

Andre shook his head. “I don’t even know how we got to Dusty’s.”

“It looked like a great party, though,” Cate commented, glancing around at all the discarded beer and liquor bottles scattered through the yard and all the vandalism around Dusty’s house.

“Has anyone checked socials?” I asked.

“You haven’t?” Andre asked, eyebrows raised.

I shook my head. “My phone’s dead.”

Cate handed me hers and I immediately went onto TikTok. Her For You page was flooded with videos from last night. Apparently, Emma had been in her giant form, chugging beers at the pool for a while. Then, there was one of Coco and me doing our “Sweetest Pie” dance in the middle of a dance circle. The next one was Cate cheering Andre on as he did a keg stand.

Then, there was one of Cate, Andre, Jordan, Marie, Coco, and me playing an intense game of flip cup, featuring Coco roasting Andre. Finally, there was one of me and Jordan making out in the middle of the dancefloor. My face burned as I watched myself grab at them desperately and their hands roamed all over me. My finger slipped to the next video where I was now between Jordan and Marie, grinding on the former while the latter stuck her tongue down my throat. Towards the end of the video, Jordan pushed some of my braids to the side and started nibbling on my neck.

My hand subconsciously wandered to the bite marks on my neck.  

“Whoa,” Marie whispered.

Jordan drank some more water, and I returned the phone to Cate.

“You three make a great throuple,” Andre encouraged.

“Shut up,” Jordan admonished.

I flinched at his tone and turned away.

“Okay, so, a lot happened last night and none of us remember,” Marie began, “what’s the last thing anyone remembers?”

Everyone paused for a moment.

“I remember walking out on the Tek Knight interview because I was upset with my dad but…I don’t know why,” Andre said.

“I remember the Tek Knight interview too and…it feels like something else happened but, I can’t remember,” Jordan agreed.

Cate nodded and I admitted that I could hardly think and couldn’t remember anything.

“It’s like someone put us through a time loop or something,” Marie commented.

Jordan perked up at that. “Do any of you know what day it is?”

“Friday,” Cate said with a shrug.

“Thursday?” Andre guessed.

“It’s Saturday; we’ve lost two days!” Jordan exclaimed.

I sipped some more water and nodded. “It’s like the Lotus Casino from Percy Jackson.”

At that, all their eyes were on me, and I shrank back a little.

“What? They’re good books.”

“It’s a little random, Y/N,” Andre pointed out.

“Well, it’s an accurate observation. In the book, people are trapped in the casino because it’s so great, but they don’t realize how much time has passed. Some people were there for years.”

“Anyway, do you think you can see what might have happened?” Marie asked.

I shook my head. “No matter how I think about it, I can’t look into the past.”

Cate suddenly looked somber as she glanced at her phone. “Well, I think I might have an idea who might’ve done this. Look who was at the party last night.”

She held her phone out for all of us to see. On it was a video of some Phi Epsilon guys playing beer pong. One of those Phi Epsilon brothers was Rufus. My stomach sunk at his smug image.

“Shit,” Andre muttered.

“But why would he do anything to us after Marie---” Jordan cut himself off and glanced at her.

“After Marie what?” Cate asked.

Once Marie explained what happened, Cate and Andre seemed stunned, but Andre immediately smiled.

“Now, that’s badass,” he complimented.

Marie smiled. “Thanks.”

“And it could be a reason for him to get revenge,” Cate observed.

“But why would he go after all of us if that’s the case?” I wondered.

Cate pursed her lips. “Well, drugging someone wouldn’t be something out of character for him.”

That’s when Cate shared everything that happened between her and Rufus last year. By the end, Andre and Jordan looked prepared to beat Rufus’ face in while Marie and I comforted Cate.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” I expressed.

“Did you ever report it?” Marie asked.

Cate shook her head. “Like anyone would’ve believed me. Besides, I felt so ashamed that I wanted to pretend it never happened.”

“We can’t let him get away with this,” Jordan argued.

“And what should we do besides beat what’s left of his ass?” Andre questioned.

“We can get him to admit what he did to Cate and us,” Marie offered.

“How?” I asked.

Jordan smirked. “I can come up with a few ways.”

Despite the new resolve in the group, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Besides all the warring feelings inside and the swarm of thoughts in my head, I had this gnawing feeling that we were missing something.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” Marie asked, slowly setting a hand on my knee.

Immediately, I jumped. “Um, nothing, it’s just…I feel like we were doing something important.”

“We’re about to nail a psycho, that’s pretty important,” Andre said.

I shook my head. “No, something else…something before all this.”

Jordan nodded. “Yeah, I get what you mean.”

Something was off in their tone that time but I couldn’t take too long to think about it. Seconds later, Coco marched up to us in a pair of white pumps. Her curls were piled on top of her head and her silver House of CB corset top and jeans highlighted her deep skin.

“There you are! I’ve been texting you for the last five minutes!” she huffed.

“Sorry, Coco, my phone’s dead,” I apologized.

Her eyes widened and then she blinked. “What? Never mind, we have to go, the initiate brunch is today.”

“Oh, right, I totally forgot.”

I slipped from under Marie’s hand and sauntered over to Coco. Even though she looked a little panicked and prepared to chew my ear off, she couldn’t have come at a better time.

Jordan stood. “Y/N, what about Rufus?”

He frowned at me, and I had to force myself not to react to his use of my real name.

“I’m sorry, I have to go to the initiate brunch but text me if you need anything,” I rushed.

“And shouldn’t we talk?” Marie added.

Coco’s slim but firm hand wrapped around my wrist, and she started tugging me away.

“We’ll talk later!” I called over my shoulder.

After a few minutes of walking, Coco turned to me and let go of my wrist.

“So, the Look At Me jeans worked,” she commented.

My eyes widened and I faced her. “You talked me into them?”

She frowned. “I don’t know if I would say that but, I helped you make the decision. Did you do too much last night?”

“No…maybe, I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, from what I remember, you did let loose, which you deserved, but I wasn’t with you the whole time…obviously.” Coco smiled as we continued walking. “Like I said, based on all those bite marks, they worked like a charm.”

I covered my neck and huffed. “Yeah, they did.”

“Okay, what’s up? You should be annoyingly happy but you look just like you did right before you gave a thirty-minute presentation in Brink’s class.”

The words were right on my tongue, but I couldn’t let them roll off. Coco and I were friends but, we weren’t as close as I was with Emma or Cate. I couldn’t tell her why I reacted every time Jordan or Marie grazed me or why I could barely look at either of them. No, it was way too much for our friendship.

“I just…I feel weird not remembering anything,” I explained. “Why were we at Dusty’s anyway?”

Coco raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t remember? We were all out celebrating our new initiates. We went to Alpha Tau first, then Whiskey Around because Lydia wanted their paloma, and then we ended up at Dusty’s.”

“Did the initiates come with us?” I asked.

“A few did but most of them were done by the time we went to Whiskey Around and Lydia got them rides back to their dorms.” Coco linked our arms together. “Come on, maybe some coffee and food will kickstart your brain.”

Neither ended up helping and for the first time, I wasn’t interested in what anyone was saying in the well-lit dining room table. As was customary, everyone wore breezy pastel or white dresses as servers occasionally refilled glassware and replaced empty dishes on the table. All I could think of was that video and how I was positive everyone at the table had seen it. That video had thousands of views and it was impossible that none of them had seen it.

Behind all their wide smiles and compliments on my blush pink knit Prada skirt set were fangs and vile words ready to be spewed. Sure, they were gushing with some initiates and sharing fun stories from years past, but it was only time before anyone confronted me on it.

“Y/N?”

I blinked and turned to see a pretty girl with chestnut skin and auburn Marley twists tied into a bun looking at me expectantly. “Oh, sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that your dancing is amazing. I mean, I knew it was when you and Coco taught Tiana, Erica, and me the ‘Fly Girl’ dance but you were something else at that party.” Her voice had a hint of a southern twang and her eyes seemed to sparkle.

“Thanks,” I said, sipping some more coffee.

She was one of the three black girls who was accepted into Si Chi. Once my phone charged, I immediately went on #RushTok and saw that the girls Coco and I pushed for were accepted. The one sitting next to me was Naomi Banks, a crim major from New Orleans.  Erica Tyler and Tiana Wilkes, a Hero Management and Counting major respectively, were seated across from us near Coco. Out of all our pledges, they had some of the most impressive applications and I had a feeling that I had to stop Coco from skewering Sasha with her arguments.

Plus, I found a video one of Justine’s friends made that featured her gobsmacked expression at her rejection letter on Bid Day. The face nearly made me tremble with glee.

At least a couple of good things happened during the haze.

Naomi tapped my shoulder. “It’s no wonder those two were all over you.”

I almost coughed on the coffee and covered my mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized.

I shook my head and set the porcelain cup down. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. In the future, be careful about mentioning anything from a night out with any of your new sisters.”

Naomi nodded and took a bite out of a piece of bacon. “Thanks, Y/N.”

“No problem. Did you enjoy last night?”

“Yes! I got to get to know so many of the girls here and everyone seems really nice.” Naomi leaned closer to me. “Liliana over there said that Vince from Sigma Kappa asked her for my Snap. He’s pretty cute for a white boy.”

“Sigma Kappa is a top house and Vince is one of the more eligible ones.”

“That’s good. Obviously, I won’t go after him if you or anyone else is interested.”

I smiled at her. “I appreciate it, Naomi, but I think you’re good.”

“Oh, and were you serious when you said you’d help me with my Intro to Forensics class?”

“Of course, a Si Chi girl always helps a sister in need.”

Naomi sighed. “That’s great; the TA’s a real dick, no offense.”

“None taken.”

I covered my laugh by shoving another forkful of French toast in my mouth. The sugary morsel was almost enough to lift my spirits. In Naomi’s defense, Jordan was the toughest out of all the crim TAs to the point they were borderline sadistic.

“Jordan’s tough but, they’re insanely passionate and dedicated to their work. So, they expect everyone to be at their standard,” I explained.

“So, they were like that even when you had them?” Naomi asked.

I nodded. “They terrified me in both forms but, they were okay once I got to know them.”

“I don’t know if I want to get to know them; I just want to pass.”

“It’s okay, I’ll help you.”

Then, I started wondering how the Rufus investigation was going. Since I left Dusty’s, Cate was the only one to reach out, asking to check in. It was a little weird how I got antsy that it wasn’t Jordan or Marie especially when I had no idea what to say to them.

Sydney tapped a fork against a champagne flute, jerking me from my thoughts. She stood at the head of the table, wearing a lavender mini Chanel tweed set. Her hair was in a half updo and she stood with perfect posture.

“First, I would like to welcome all of our new initiates to Si Chi,” she chimed.

She allowed for about ten seconds of applause.

“It is an honor to have found such great women to continue the legacy of this house. When I first came here, I was petrified of not being able to meet any of the house standards. Then, I met my mentor, Isabel Perkins, and she helped me see that we don’t meet these standards on our own----we meet them with our sisters.”

That time, she allowed for fifteen seconds of applause.

“That’s why I hope that you will connect with all of your big sisters since all of them are still here because they continue to maintain the good name of our house, which brings me to the second thing I wanted to discuss.” Sydney paused. “Obviously, we are all glad that we found a match in our new sisters but know that your place here is not permanent. We Si Chi girls hold ourselves to high standards academically and socially and if there is a concern that one of our sisters, new or returning, does not meet those standards, we cannot guarantee her place in our house.”

I swallowed thickly at her words and wondered if she was piercing me with her gaze.

“That being said, this is a place of sisterhood and a safe place for all women and myself and the rest of leadership work diligently to keep it that way,” She continued. “Will the leadership team stand?”

With that, Lydia, Sasha, Alina, and I stood from our seats. For the first time, I felt like I was under a microscope in the Si Chi house and wished everyone stopped looking at me.

“These girls, no, these women are the ones I have entrusted to help continue this house and select our new sisters. Please feel free to say hi to them whenever you see them or let them know if you have any concerns,” she announced.

During that round of applause, my phone started buzzing on my chair. I tried to discreetly grab it but hesitated when I saw Jordan’s name on the caller ID. I quickly silenced it and smiled at the crowd of girls looking at me.

Then, the phone started buzzing again and I rejected it again.

“Looks important, Y/N,” Sasha mouthed.

I hoped I hid my glare with my grin well enough and when I sat down, the phone went off again. I huffed, snatched it, and hurried into the nearest hallway, muttering my apologies as I went. Of course, it was a video call and when I answered, Jordan’s face filled the screen.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jordan demanded.

I glanced around for onlookers and continued further away from the dining room. “Could you keep it down? I’m still at brunch.”

“Still?” Marie asked in the background.

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t answer my texts?” Jordan griped.

“I didn’t get anything,” I insisted.

Based on how hard their jaw clenched, I decided not to mention that my phone was on Do Not Disturb. I tried not to think too hard about how they got past it.

“Did you find anything on Rufus?” I asked.

“No, Rufus may have gotten us all to Dusty’s, but he didn’t do anything to our heads,” Jordan admitted.

“And, they’re going to stay away from everyone since Cate still doesn’t want to make the report,” Marie added.

I nodded and started pacing in the hall. Something was off about all this and I still couldn’t tell what it was.

“I know that face, you’re not saying something, freshie,” Jordan called.

Sometimes, I hated how observant they were.

“It’s just…something has felt off about this whole thing. I mean, yes, Rufus is the creep of all creeps but he’s also a moron. He wants things that are quick and easy and getting into all our heads without being noticed takes a lot of planning,” I reasoned.

“You’re right. So, whoever messed with us is smart and didn’t have to make contact with any of us to make us lose our memories,” Marie continued.

“Or if they did have to make contact, it’s someone we’re comfortable with,” Jordan remarked.

At his words, the greatest epiphany hit me. There was only one person in this entire school with that kind of capability and the thought that they did this made the French toast start to rise in my throat. I hoped that I was wrong, and I knew I couldn’t tell my theory to Jordan or Marie; not yet.

“Okay, did you find out anything else?” I asked.

Then, Marie explained the trackers that were implanted in all of us and I frowned.

“Don’t our phones already do that?” I argued.

“You can leave your phone anywhere,” Marie countered.

“Touché. So, how do I get it out of me without causing further damage?”

“Um, you can come by my dorm, or I can come by the house and get rid of it for you.”

“I can stop by yours. I want to catch up with Emma anyway, give me, like, an hour or two.”

“Sure.”

I was about to hang up when Jordan stopped me and seemed to step away from Marie for a second.

“Look, I know this morning was weird and you probably still feel really uncomfortable but, I just wanted to tell you that we’re okay,” he said.

I hesitated. “‘Okay’?”

“Yeah, like, last night doesn’t have to mean anything so, don’t worry about it.”

“Uh huh.”

“Y/N, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, you’re fine, it’s all fine. I have to go.”

When I hung up, everything was blurry, and I leaned against the wall behind me. The tears were warm against my cheeks, and I did nothing to stop them. Last night meant nothing to Jordan and why would it? They’d had plenty of one-night stands and hookups, why would last night be any different? Why would I be any different? Marie probably felt the same and it was stupid to even think that there was some small glimmer of something.

Nothing was better, nothing would help me get back on track.

“Y/N?”

I straightened up at the sound of Sasha’s voice and swiped at my face. “Oh, hi.”

“That didn’t sound too good,” she expressed as she strutted closer to me.

With each step she took, her faux pitiful expression got more and more gleeful. I forced myself to stand as erect as I could.

“I appreciate the concern, Sasha, but it’s none of your business,” I defended.

My voice did not have nearly the bite it needed at the moment but all I wanted to do was get away from her. Even though she was shorter than me, it was like her presence took up the entirety of the hallway.

“Oh, but it is, you actually made it everyone’s business with those videos.”

The last word rolled off her tongue like dice and I thought her tongue poked out a little.

“I didn’t take or post them,” I hissed.

“But you know in this day and age you have to always be on the lookout; every Si Chi girl knows that, Y/N.”

I tried to push past her but she blocked me. “We should be getting back.”

“Oh, but we’re just getting started,” Sasha insisted. “You know, Sydney’s speech about sisters helping each other meet house standards really stuck with me. I’ve always seen you as a little sister, Y/N, one who thinks she knows everything and can’t stop messing up.”

“That’s funny, Sasha, because I thought you were my big sister who always needed my notes to pass any of her classes,” I rushed.

Sasha narrowed her eyes at me. “I think you need help meeting our social standards and I’m more than happy to assist. I know you thought that you were hot shit once you got in with the Top Five but, it sounds like you’re on your way out. Last night, Jordan and that new girl used you and spat you out.”

“Stop it, Sasha,” I whispered.

“I’m telling you the truth. If you’re not careful, there may not be a place for you in Si Chi anymore. I mean, everyone’s seen the videos and I would hate for anyone to feel uncomfortable here.”

She grinned wider than the Cheshire cat and I didn’t know whether I wanted to wipe the grin off her or disappear into a puddle of my tears. I didn’t get to decide as Sydney appeared from the other end of the hallway and made her way over to us.

“What’s going on here?” Sydney asked.

Sasha beamed at Sydney. “I was just telling Y/N how inspired I was about your speech and how I want to continue helping her meet our house standards.”

Sydney glanced at me. “Well, I appreciate your dedication to mentoring a younger sister, but Y/N is one of the brightest women to enter this house. I wish I could stick around and see what she’ll do next year.”

I tried not to gape at her. “Thanks, Sydney.”

“Of course.” Sydney turned to Sasha. “And I know that you understood that I meant what I said about this being a safe space for all women. While we do hold ourselves to a high caliber, we do not shove a sister who struggles. If we did, I can’t imagine what Amber or Hailey would have done if they knew half the things we did freshman year.”

“Y-yes, right,” Sasha sputtered.

“Anyway, we should get back and review the events for next week with the girls,” Sydney instructed.

Sasha nearly sped down the hallway while Sydney and I strolled after her. We didn’t say anything, but I could have burst from the gratitude I had for her.

A couple of hours later, Marie let me into her dorm, and I sulked at the fact that Emma wasn’t there.

“Where’d she go?” I asked.

“She found some clue about some weird dude we ran into after you left with Coco,” Marie commented. “I guess she decided to go after him.”

I nodded, partly infuriated since that sounded like something Emma would do. She could have at least texted me. I was hoping for some sort of buffer between Marie and me.

So, I sat down on Emma’s bed and played with a fluffy yellow pillow. Marie sat down across from me and looked down at her hands.

“Will it hurt?” I asked.

Marie looked up at me. “A little but I’ll try to make it stop as soon as I can.”

I nodded and dryly laughed. “Last night was really wild, huh?”

“Yeah…should we…talk about it?” she asked.

I shrugged and kept picking at the material on the pillow. “Only if you want to.”

“I know this is so weird but, you and Jordan have also been acting weird. They told me that last night was ‘okay’ and that we didn’t have to make it weird but it’s already weird!” she exclaimed.

“They told me the same thing,” I admitted.

“Do you agree with them?”

“Do you?”

“I asked you first.” She barely made eye contact with me and I started playing with the pillow.

“I don’t know…I don’t know how I feel about any of this,” I confessed.

“Do you regret it?” Marie asked.

“I can’t regret something I don’t remember.”

The words landed like a bomb and I wanted to take it all back. Marie flinched at my words and I wanted to make it better.

“I mean I…I think I’d have a better idea if I remembered. But I also think that you and Jordan should talk again,” I tried slowly.

She frowned. “Why?”

“I mean you two are close now and I know something happened earlier but I don’t know what but I feel as though I’m the biggest third wheel in the history of third wheels around you two.”

It was quiet for a few seconds, and I wanted to use my ability to figure out what would be the quickest way out of there.

“You’re not a third wheel,” Marie maintained. “I like it when you’re around and I like it when you’re with me and Jordan.”

“I like being around you too, but we’re friends and it’s only natural.”

Marie paused. “Oh. I mean, I like being friends but, yeah, never mind.”

“What is it?”

Marie shook her head. “Nothing. Let me get that tracker out of you.”

I nodded but I was dying to know what she was going to say. Did I totally mess up? Did I misstep again?

She knelt in front of me and touched my left shoulder. Marie’s brown eyes met mine in a silent question and I nodded. As soon as I did, she slipped my cardigan to the side and brushed her hand up and down my neck and shoulder until she sensed something.

“Found it,” she breathed.

I nodded.

“Just stay still, okay?”

“Okay.”

My knee started bouncing and before I could stop it, Marie placed her free hand on it but stayed focused on my shoulder. She traced her hand across my shoulder, dragging something in her path. Eventually, when she got a few inches away from my neck, something slipped out and I yelped at the sting.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” she questioned.

“No, it just stung,” I insisted as I covered the wound.

Marie held her palm towards me, and I narrowed my eyes at the tiny, bloodied tracker in her grasp. “Now you’re safer.”

“Thanks.”

She slipped a band-aid onto the wound and pulled my cardigan back in place. “How was brunch?”

“Good. We have three new black girls.” “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah. They all better survive Hell Week.”

Marie groaned. “Does that mean you’ll have more to do?”

“Kind of but it’s way easier than Rush Week.”

“Does that mean we’ll be able to hang out more? Class doesn’t count.”

“I hope so, I mean, if you want to.”

“I just told you I like being around you, of course I want to.”

Her smile somehow made me feel better, actually, her smile always did that. When I thought about it, I rarely saw Marie upset or frowning. She was always so bright and shiny, almost like Luke. All I knew was that I didn’t want to take her shine away.

“Yeah, sure,” I replied.

Then, I saw a brief premonition of my prime suspect. They smiled so sadly at me.

“I wish you hadn’t seen that,” they whispered.

When I blinked, Marie’s smile wavered a little.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, I just have to check on something,” I insisted.

“Oh, do you need any help?”

“No, I’ll text you if something comes up. Thanks for getting rid of the tracker!”

Cate’s dorm had the calmest energy out of all my friends. It might have had something to do with all the green accents, from the wallpaper to the various green pillows on her bed. Last year, she got really into color psychology, and I hoped that it worked as I sat across from her on her comfy rug.

“I saw that you got three new black sisters. Congratulations!” she cheered.

“Thanks. They’re all really cool, and I need them to make it through Hell Week,” I joked as well as I could.

She nodded and grabbed her bong from her coffee table. “With you as their big sister, they have hope.” She took a hit and extended it to me.

“No, thanks.”

She frowned. “You’re always open to smoking.”

“I had a couple of Bloody Marys at brunch, and I don’t want to risk crossfading.”

It wasn’t a total lie, but I needed to be as clear-headed as possible for this conversation. Cate’s big blue eyes eyed me for what felt like an eternity, but she shrugged and set the bong in front of her.

“Fair enough,” she conceded. “So, you, Marie, and Jordan, huh?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know…”

Cate’s eyes widened. “What do you mean you don’t know? I saw the three of you together. Even though you were acting awkward as hell around them.”

“Well, I’m still processing everything that happened and the fact that I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s pretty obvious what happened, Y/N.”

Even though her voice had a teasing lilt, it felt like she was spitting in my face.

“I mean, I know what happened, but I hate how I don’t remember any of it. It’s been driving me nuts all day and I could barely focus on the Si Chi brunch.”

Cate straightened up. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to invalidate your experience.”

“And it sucks that this is my experience, you know. I mean, I don’t know how I feel about either of them and then I go and have sex with both of them? What kind of freak am I?”

“You’re not a freak, Y/N, and, you’re going to hate this, but it’s pretty obvious how you feel about both of them.”

 I cut my eyes to Cate. “It doesn’t feel obvious. I’m so confused, and I don’t know how to act around either of them anymore. It used to be easy to mess with Jordan but now I freeze up whenever their name pops up on my phone. And Marie is so nice an-and pretty and funny. Her powers are insane, and it makes sense that Vought scooped her up now.”

“You don’t sound confused to me, Y/N.”

“Really, because I feel confused all over!”

Cate held her hands up and pushed her bong aside. “Okay, that’s fair. You know, we’re doing a project in my advanced psych class about denial, and I’ve found that a lot of people in denial just go around in circles, driving themselves nuts because they won’t admit something.”

But there was nothing for me to admit. I was clear that Jordan and Marie had something going on and I didn’t want to be an interloper. Even though Marie said she liked having me around, I was positive it was just as a friend and to quell any fights between her and Jordan. But, their fighting wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

When I told Cate as much, she huffed. “How are you this smart but this dense?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been flirting with both for the past few weeks. All of you can’t seem to stop talking about the others and they’re both willing to kill for you. You obviously can’t stop thinking about them and I’m sure they’re the same.”

She looked at me as though I should know what she was saying but I felt lost. Then, I started thinking about how Marie’s smile made me feel like melting inside and how I instantly wanted to help her when her schedule got messed up or how I felt warm and fuzzy when Jordan got between me and Chad, and Thad.

“It’s impossible,” I whispered.

“What’s impossible?” Cate asked.

“I…I can’t like two people at the same time. I’m not in middle school anymore!”

“What’s so bad about liking multiple people?”

“Because you’re just supposed to pick one, Cate, everyone else has managed to do that. There’s something wrong with me.” “Hey,” Cate softly grabbed my hands, “there’s nothing wrong with you. If anything, it shows how much love you have to give.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

“But it’s true.” She smiled. “Why are you so afraid to say it?”

I hesitated. “Because then it would be real and if it’s real, that means that I could get hurt, twice.”

Then, Cate pulled me into her arms and slowly rocked. “Everyone’s afraid of being hurt but, it’s a part of life. It may not feel like it but if it does happen, you’ll get over it.”

“I know but, at the same time, I’m so scared. I mean, I didn’t see any of this coming and I see most things coming.”

Cate hummed in reply. The mix of vanilla and weed wafting off of her was enough to make me sleepy.

“Plus, I imagined my first time to be a little more romantic than a drunken night at Dusty’s.”

Cate paused and pushed me so that we were eye to eye. “What?”

I shrunk a little and looked down at my hands. “Please don’t give me that look.”

“I’m not giving you any look.”

“Yes, you are, all pitiful and shocked. Excuse me for having a Cher Horowitz approach to sex.”

Cate relaxed. “I’m sorry, I’m not judging, and I shouldn’t be surprised since you have all those standards.”

“Cate, have you seen how picky I am about shoes?”

“Yes but, I’m shocked it hasn’t come up before.”

I shrugged and picked at my deep purple lounge pants. Cate was not the first person to express that before, but it wasn’t my fault that I was raised to have standards and all the guys I’d been around were uninteresting at best and disgusting at worst.

“I didn’t always look like this,” I muttered. “Emma would probably lie and say that I was always a bombshell or something but it’s not true. I was fine in elementary but middle school was hell; I struggled with my weight, and I was taller than everyone else, and don’t get me started on being the only black girl in class.”

Cate didn’t say anything, and I continued.

“There was this one black boy, Matthew, who made making me miserable his mission. When I would run on the playground, he screamed ‘Earthquake, everyone run!’. Every day, he made sure I knew how ugly and fat I was, and I didn’t need it because my parents, mainly my mom, told me it too. The summer before high school, I was sick of it and started learning all the tricks on how to glow up; skin, hair, makeup, everything.” I sighed. “I did a little better in high school, but no one asked me out and I ended up going to prom with a group of friends, which was fun but I wished that I was one of the girls who received one of those grand promposals. When I got a vision of how great my future was going to be, it gave me hope that Matthew and everyone else was wrong.”

“They are wrong, and Matthew can go suck a dick,” Cate affirmed.

I chuckled. “Anyway, I still get nervous around guys, and the whole being attractive thing is new to me.”

“But you’re comfortable around Jordan and Marie.”

I nodded. “I am but I don’t understand it. I’ve never liked anyone who wasn’t a straight guy before, and I don’t know what any of it means.”

“It means that sexuality is a spectrum, and you lean towards the not straight side. You don’t have to know everything right now, Y/N, and I know it’s easier said than done with you but, life has surprises, and it wouldn’t be fun without them,” Cate encouraged.

“I hate surprises.”

“Well, get used to them.” I smiled but paused. “What if they don’t like me back?”

“I highly doubt that since I’ve seen how they both look at you. Honestly, being around you three can get a little uncomfortable,” she teased. “But, in a world where they reject you, you will always have me, and I will make their lives worse in ways that Matthew wouldn’t even dream of.”

Cate’s tone and smile were earnest, and it made me feel better about ranting. I was stunned that I told her my secret, but I guess she had one of those high trust faces that made anyone want to spill everything. For the first time in a long time, I felt relaxed, like I’d just finished the most intense shiatsu session ever. It was crazy but I felt like I was breathing better than before.

It was crazy what secrets could do to a person.

The thought made me gulp but I grinned at Cate and hugged her again.

“Thanks for listening,” I muttered.

“Of course. Thanks for finally being honest,” she returned.

I tried not to bristle in her grip as I pulled away. We both stood and slowly made our way towards the door.

“So, are you going to go with a grand gesture to tell Jordan and Marie how you feel or are you going to play it cool?” Cate teased.

“I’m not sure,” I started. “I still can’t get over what you said about how they’d kill for me. How could you tell?”

Cate paused. “I mean, they glare at anyone who looks your way in a flirty sense.”

“But that doesn’t mean they’d kill for me.”

“I think you’re overthinking things, Y/N.”

“Maybe.” I stopped in front of her door and faced her. “You know, it’s funny how you said that life’s full of surprises and that I should get used to them. Remember how you thought Rufus messed with our heads?”

“Yeah, because he did,” Cate said slowly.

“Actually, Jordan and Marie already interrogated him, and he probably got us all to Dusty’s but there’s no way he could have wiped all our memories without touching us,” I informed.

“Wow, that’s crazy.”

“Yeah, and Jordan brought up a good point. They said if someone had to touch us to wipe our memories, it would have to be someone we knew and were comfortable with. They’re right but I also know someone who could do it without touching anyone if her gloves are off.”

Cate paled as she listened, and I felt my anger rising from deep within my stomach. “Y/N, I can explain.”

“You can explain how you violated all of us?” I hissed.

“It wasn’t like that, please!”

She reached out to grab my arm and as she grasped it, I realized that she wasn’t wearing her leather gloves. My mouth opened but everything faded to black.

[lycastatic]

love your jinx story on ao3, you really get her character <3 would you consider writing something with the one bed trope? (i hope this is enough to count as a request) hope you’re well and best wishes^^

hi!!! thank u so much <333 apologies for this late upload TT college is taking up my time a lot ! note: this is a modern au ueueueue enjoy <333

˚˖𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚.🎀⋆ — lycastatic

you call the shots, babe—i just wanna be yours - jinx x fem!reader

was it really hatred that kept the two of you away? or was it something else?

Jinx is…evidently annoyed.

It could be because she can’t find her house keys or maybe because of the fact you just blew up your paired project.

You stood beside her, drenched from the pouring rain after the two of you ran away from the explosion, not wanting to get detention this late in the school year. For a while, the only thing accompanying your occasional sighs is the jingle of her keys and the downpour against the roof. It wasn’t until the click of a door opening graced your senses.

“Oh, thank God.” You didn’t mean for it to escape your thoughts but the wind is getting unbearably cold and the last thing you want is to die from hypothermia. Your companion scoffed, “Yeah, whatever praise me later.” She remarked, pushing the door forcefully, her annoyance evident. She clicked on the lights, illuminating the unusually cozy apartment of hers. It’s uncharacteristically clean and cozy and so unlike Jinx.

The sound of her keys hitting a nearby table halted your sightseeing moment. You faked a cough, running a hand through your dampened hair, “Look, Jinx…I really am sorry—” Your words were cut off when a clean towel hit your face from none other than the blue-haired girl who only smirked at your face, “Save it for later, toots. Dry off.” She darted a glance at the door behind you, presumably the bathroom.

You nodded, awkwardly retreating to the bathroom, heaving a sigh of relief after closing it.

‘Oh my god…this is so awkward.’

Everything has been awkward since the beginning, anyway. You get paired up with somebody you dislike, you blow up your project, and now you embarrassingly follow her to her house. It couldn't get any more awkward than that, hopefully.

Despite the sound of the shower drowning everything out, you can hear some clatter outside. It could be anything. Or it could also be Jinx plotting to kill you or whatever. You did, in fact, ruin your two’s project. It seems justified.

If only your car’s tires weren’t punctured, you wouldn't stay the night here. But this is way better than walking in the rain and potentially missing a week of coursework.

Leaving the shower and being greeted by the harsh air-conditioned living room felt like a nightmare. Wearing nothing but a bathrobe during a thunderstorm doesn't sound like a good idea but what choice do you have anyway?

You walked your way to where the TV noises were coming from and saw Jinx sitting on the couch, unfazed by your presence. Or rather, not noticing your presence with how fixated she is on the cartoons playing on the screen.

You let out a cough, causing her to dart her eyes toward you. Her face is still a scowl and all you can do is smile awkwardly, “You know…this is usually the part where you ask me if I want to eat.” Jinx let out a scoff, “Oh, sure, princess. How about I do your laundry for you too? Dream on, doll. Kitchen's that way, help yourself.” She replied before once again returning her sight to the screen in front of her, deeming it more significant than your presence.

You walked in front of her, blocking her view of the show, “Hey! Move it, blockhead! It’s the best part now!” Your crossed your arms as she let out a huff and plopped on her couch, “What the hell do you want this time? I already told ya, I am not cooking.”

You rolled your eyes, “I am trying to apologize. And for the record, I was making a joke earlier.” You replied which she only snickered on, “You’re bad at jokes, almost as bad as our grades the moment this semester ends!”

You groaned, “That’s exactly why I’m apologizing! Maybe if you didn’t put a feature for the bot to blow up, everything would be fine now!” You countered, the image of the robot the two of you built exploding still vivid in your mind. In your defense, you thought the button would only cause the robot to do basic functions, not blow up and completely damage a wall.

She rolled her eyes before pulling you down to her level, “Listen up, doll. Maybe if you stopped pressing all the wrong buttons, you wouldn’t be in this mess right now.” She smirked, observing the way you stammered with whatever you’re gonna say with how close she was.

‘She’s so close…’

You removed your wrist from her grip, “I fucking hate you.”

Jinx only snickered, “Likewise.”

-

The night went on with silence other than the occasional crunch of the chips that Jinx had been eating and the noises from the glowing screen in front of the two of you.

Frankly, you want to sleep and you could only hope for Jinx to feel an ounce of drowsiness, too, not wanting to be presumptuous and open whatever door there is expecting a guest room on the other side of it. Otherwise, you’re gonna be sleeping uncomfortably the whole night on her couch.

You could ask her where the guest room is, sure. But after that banter? You’d rather not speak. After all, this is only a night of being this near her.

3 minutes...

5 minutes…

‘Oh my gods…I wanna sleep so bad…’

10 minutes have passed and between your occasional passing out, you heard Jinx stand up and turn off whatever she was watching. Still, drowsy, you scrambled to get up, silently following her to wherever she was going.

She abruptly stopped in front of an open bedroom, making you bump against her. You mumbled an ‘ow’ before looking at the girl who seemed to be confused as to why you were following her.

“What?” You asked, still rubbing your forehead from the impact. She tilted her head, “Why are you tailing me to my room, huh?” She asked. You laughed, “Good joke, Jinx. I know a guestroom when I see one.” You walked inside the bedroom, a hint of surprise at how messy it looked, “You surely don’t clean your guest bedroom, huh.”

Jinx scoffed, “That’s because this is my room, genius. So why don’t you get out and go back to that little couch of yours, hm?” She gave you a sickeningly sweet smile, annoyed at the sight of you in between the clutter of her room.

You gasped, almost too dramatically, “You want me to spend the rest of the night sleeping on the couch? Hell no!” You crossed your arms, persistent in standing your ground, “You can’t even offer your guest a bed? And here I thought you could get any worse!”

Jinx chuckled before walking towards you, “Well, I give my guests a bed sometimes, too…y’know. I’m not that cruel.” She replied, reveling in the way your brows furrowed, “Then give me a bed. I need a rest you psycho.”

“I only give them a bed if I spend a little alcohol with them and we end up on my bed, genius. And…” She eyed you, a smirk on her face, “You’re not my type.”

‘Oh.’

You immediately turned your back to her, retreating to wherever you dozed off earlier, “I’ll sleep on the couch. Enjoy your…uhm…bed or whatever.”

You can hear her laugh at the way you got flustered. You even heard her say a mocking ‘goodnight’ before her door closed. Good, now this is the part where you suffer.

You sighed, sitting on the couch. You had better sleep in campings than this. Not to mention how cold it is. Yep, this is it. This is where you probably die from hypothermia.

-

You don’t remember how long you’ve been asleep but you were awoken by somebody shaking you awake, “Hey, doll. Get up. Why do you sleep like a fucking cat?” You groaned, stretching as you sat up.

You saw Jinx standing in front of you, her hair unbraided. You almost didn’t even recognize her, “Get up. You’re getting the bed.” You chuckled, the drowsiness not leaving you, “I am not sleeping with you, idiot.”

The blue-haired girl groaned before pulling you up and pulling you to her room, “Well, neither do I, genius. I’m sleeping on the floor.”

You sat on her bed, staring at her as she prepared her pillows and blankets. In a way, you felt bad. You’re not entirely heartless either. You sighed, “Jinx, I get it. I was a bitch. You don’t need to do all that to make me feel guilty.”

Jinx rolled her eyes, “Wow, toots. Am I really that bad? Maybe I just want to help out your sorry ass. I’m not really in the mood for seeing someone freeze to death in my living room.”

“Thanks.” You replied, still feeling a tinge of guilt.

“Yeah, you better be.”

You fell silent for a while. The only sound was the rain and the occasional thunder that still surprised you. You can hear Jinx chuckle every time she notices you flinch. The latter was silent the whole time except for the occasional remarks of how you’re such a scaredy cat. She seemed to be focusing on brushing out the tangles that her braids left behind on her hair. When you actually see her like this, not when fighting someone, or causing some trouble…you can say she’s pretty.

“Like what you’re seeing?”

You averted her gaze, focusing on something else but her. You cleared your throat, “What? No.” You replied. It was a lie. And you’ve always been terrible at it.

She giggled, “Awh…come on, doll. It wouldn't hurt to admit.” You heard her move and in a second, she made you look at her. Instead of her usual harsh grips, this one’s gentler in comparison, “You are terrible at lying, you know that, right?”

She’s right. You can’t really deny it at this point. With Jinx in close proximity like this, you can smell that minty perfume she’s wearing. Her pink eyes seemed to taunt you every second. And those lips of hers that formed her signature smirk. You hate to admit it but yeah, she is pretty.

“Do you get a little kick when I admit you’re pretty?” You replied, taking her hand that continued to rest on your chin. She hummed, leaning closer, “You are insufferable, y’know that?”

‘Why is she so close…’

You fear that she could hear your heart beating with how loud it’s been booming in your ears, “You’ve called me that many times now, Jinx. Pick a better insult.” She only laughed, maintaining that short and absolutely tempting distance between the two of you, “Well, have I called you pretty before, genius?”

You scoffed, masking down the way she made you flustered with just that, “Taking a liking on me now?” She hummed, brushing the piece of your hair that fell, “And what if I do? You gonna do anything about that, doll?”

Wait…what?

You let out a nervous chuckle, confusion was evident in your eyes which she seemed to notice, “You’re pretty and snarky, and a bitch. It’s honestly not hard to notice you.” Oh god…this is definitely a dream, isn’t it?

But no. No matter how many times you inwardly screamed at yourself to wake up, you’re still here. Inches away from Jinx, her eyes burning holes through you. You wanted to say something, anything at all, “I…I think you’re pretty, too.”

‘What the actual fuck was that?’ You thought, mentally facepalming at how much of an embarrassment you are. Jinx giggled, “Oh really?”

You sighed. There’s really no going back to this, huh?

“Well…yeah. I only really ever hated you because of how much you piss me off when you steal my chance to answer in recitations.” It was an embarrassing reason to hate someone, you admit that. But it really did piss you off for quite a long time, “And bout the bitchy part I’m sorry…I really didn’t mean to come off like that.”

Jinx laughed, sitting beside you, “Okay, okay! Calm down genius.”

You sighed, “And also about the project, oh my god, I really am sorry I shouldn't have pressed any random buttons knowing you’re so much better than me at those things. Really, if I had a car I wouldn't burden you by staying in your house but I have no choice, and I—”

Her kiss was enough to shut you up.

You were surprised, of course you are. It’s not every day that you get kissed by Jinx, the person you absolutely used to hate, on her bed, on a rainy night.

It’s shocking but it’s not reason for you to return the kiss, too. Maybe, in a way, you’ve been vying to know what her lips felt like against yours.

It wasn’t long until your blue-haired companion broke the kiss, “Would you still kiss me if I told you I’m the one that slashed your tires?”

Her laughter is contrasted by your shock. But in a while, you just sighed. Yeah, it did make sense that she’s the one who did it. You just laughed before pulling her close, “Fuck yeah I would.”

-

The next morning, Jinx woke up alone. Typically, she’d immediately think that whoever was in her bed last night was rude enough to not even say goodbye. However, the smell of freshly cooked bacon reaching her room debunked that thought of hers.

She groaned, stretching out the remaining tiredness and drowsiness, “Fuck…what time is it.” Her hands reached out to the bedside table, expecting her phone but her hands caught on a paper instead.

‘Hey, idiot! I left early for class, and I made sure to make you breakfast. See ya later <3’

again, so sorry for uploading this so late!!! pre-college responsibilities are piling up <//3 rest assured, I'll still upload whenever i can! just drop me some requests <3

this fic is also posted in my ao3 account !

song: i wanna be yours by arctic monkeys

🎀🍓⋆⭒˚｡⋆

more about me -> here

me core | masterlist | i have a liking toward cupcakes <3

🎀🍓⋆⭒˚｡⋆

[yandere-sins]

Okay but royal yandere with a thief darling. Just a master thief on a mission to steal the crown jewels but you quickly realise it’s not the guards and knights that are threats

It’s the lovesick ruler

Mmmmhm, yessssssss, let’s do it! Thanks for requesting :D

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

Finally.

Letting out a deep breath, you felt the weight of the long-gone queen settle in your palms. Amazing how one small item like this crown could hold so much joy and pain in it. Even you, a lowly peasant from the slums, could feel the responsibility it held in every jewel, every gram of gold.

Yet, you had no qualms about taking it from the previous socket it was erected on, waiting for the next worthy ruler to rule alongside her son. Hopefully, that would be someone better than he was so that this country had any chance of survival.

If not for his overspending, warmongering, and raising taxes, people like you wouldn’t need to suffer. With that, you justified your actions, breaking into the heavily guarded treasury of the castle containing the last precious items this kingdom owned. It was only fair that you took something worth enough money, once dissembled and sold, to feed everyone in your district and beyond.

While he lived in the lap of luxury, you couldn’t even remember the last time you could afford a glass of milk.

It already took way too long for you to learn all the guards’ schedules, find a way in, and prepare an escape for yourself in the worst case. Things like this needed preparation, but there was no time when people were starving every day. You knew you had to act soon, even though you did your best not to make a rash decision.

But who were you kidding? If you had a chance at any other life, you’d probably not have changed much.

Thieving and scamming had been the only thing you ever found yourself good at. No surprise with the lack of education and prospects you received from early childhood, resorting to stealing bread, cookies, and eggs. And later jewels, watches, fabrics, perfumes—anything worth enough money to get through the week. Someone like you could never be anything better than what you already were. And you were at your best when you weren’t caught and no noose tied around your neck.

Someone like you could never be like the fancy servants of the king or the honored soldiers of his battlefield. You’d never be invited to dance at a ball or feast at a victory ceremony. You could be happy if there’d ever come a time when you’d be able to retire and live frugally but comfortably.

Glancing at your reflection in a shield of decorative silver hanging on the wall next to you, you looked yourself up and down. Pitiful, dirty, scum.

You’d never be royal.

Turning your body towards the mirroring metal, you slowly lifted the crown over your head.

Even the grease and dirt in your hair would not be able to sully the beautiful, ornamental, moonlight shining down on it and making it sparkle crown. And just for a moment, just for the second of it touching down on top of your head, you were, in fact, royal.

It felt different. Though the heaviness remained, your body adjusted to it, fixing your posture, bringing your shoulders down and chin up. You had these few seconds to waste before you had to sneak out, but this crown had only time until you reached your handyman, who’d take it apart instantly to get rid of the evidence. And so you enjoyed it for the time it lasted.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Feeling the weight on top of your head, your neck.

Your shoulder.

Unbeknownst, you had closed your eyes. Let too many seconds pass. And the weight you felt was not the heaviness of metal and jewels pressing down. It was fingers gripping your shoulder, thumb digging into the blade at the back while the others dug into your muscles on the fronts. The reflection in the mirror was a mere shadow, but the grin it gave you was uncanny.

“Mousey, mousey, mousey. Look what a crumb of cheese brought into my treasury.”

Whirling around, you threw your arms in the air, though the hands caught them, gripping your wrists tightly. You struggled, slipping on a stray coin on the ground, forcing you to lose your body, your body collapsing miserably. The clanking of the priceless crown falling to the ground tore you out of the strange illusion that you had been convinced was happening. A face so unfamiliar yet well-known appearing hovered over you.

Guards, soldiers, servants—you learned about them all.

But the king.

That ruthless, unpredictable bastard! Someone you never thought you’d meet and never wanted to meet. You couldn’t have learned about him as he was as private as he was lavish, two things that hardly fit each other, but he forced them. And yet, who’d thought to find him in his treasure way past two in the morning?!

“Urgh!” Groaning powerlessly against his iron grip, his hands began to wander, yours shooting up to push him away while his wrapped around your throat. Feeling them tighten around your neck, you choked on air, smacking the bottom of your palm into his jaw.

Briefly, his grip loosened, but before you could wiggle yourself out of reach, the king pressed down twice as hard, war not having done him well if he could strangle a person to death with his bare hands, much unlike the aristocrats who were too classy for such a brute act.

“That’s good, little mouse,” he praised you, voice gruff as he applied more and more strength. Your lungs were missing air, your brain short-circuiting as you blinked rapidly, trying to focus your attack somewhere. “Keep fighting me, and I might end up liking you. It’s been so long since someone challenged me for their life, so make it interesting, will you?”

In a ditch effort, you kicked your leg up as far as it would go, hoping to find his crown jewels down there. And as luck would have it, your shin collided with him, making him wobble in pain, and you pushed him off, running on pure adrenaline.

Coughing and gripping your throat, you crawled away, wanting to get the crown and leave immediately. You’d hide somewhere and wait for another lucky opening in the guards’ schedule. But looking around, you couldn’t find the item, even when your eyes got their focus back.

Letting out an unholy moan, the king turned over, sitting on his royal buttocks as he let out a loud laugh. “Searching for this?” he asked, holding up the crown, and your blood froze. You had to go, but you were so fucking angry he destroyed your plans, you could have cried and screamed in frustration.

He was getting up, and you weren’t thinking any longer, bolting to the door, smacking into the finely decorated wood, and rattling the door handle. It didn’t budge. Since this was the treasury, there were no other exits, the only window being a ceiling one.

“Now, now, come on,” he chuckled behind you, his footsteps heavy, the war had given him a slight drag. “Here.”

Slamming his hand with the crown into the door, he caged you in from behind, pressing you forward. “You can have it. My mom—may that skunk rest in peace—won’t wear it after all. You want it, right? It’s the most delicious cheese for a mouse like you.”

You didn’t trust him one bit.

Glancing at him over his shoulder, you could see that big, fat grin on his face, eyes sparkling with either drunkenness or excitement, neither a good look for you. Gulping, you slowly reached out to the crown with shivering hands, but before you could grip it, he pulled it away, proving he was up to no good.

“Ah! My bad,” he announced. Before you knew what he was doing, he whirled you around again, though this time, he kept a bit of distance and looked over your head. Your eyes were sliding side to side, trying to find an opening, when you felt something heavy settle down on your head.

“Now it’s back where it belongs,” he laughed joyfully and stepped a few steps back, looking you up and down appreciatingly before clapping his hands. This was madness, the insanity dripping off him. Making an elated bow to you, he called you, “Your Highness,” and you cringed while also wondering what kind of drugs he must be on.

But just as you blinked once, his hands slammed into the wall behind you again, and his face leaned in close, sniffing.

“You smell like shit, little mouse.”

“You don’t say,” you blurted out without thinking, immediately regretting your sharp tongue. However, the king laughed out loudly, roaring with laughter even.

“Quick and feisty, that’s how I like my challenges! Say, wouldn’t you like to go to war with me? We could defeat our enemies with your feistiness.”

Or his madness.

“I’d rather not,” you gritted out through your teeth, hand finding the handle of the door again, frantically rattling on it.

“Well, that’s too bad, Mousey.”

Gripping you by the throat again, the king easily lifted you up into the air. Even though you cut into his clothes with your nails, he threw you around like a puppet. Leaving you gasping and sputtering, you tried to recover from the blow at your back, grinding your teeth as your head hit some treasure chest across the room, your ears ringing.

“You are coming, I decided. It’s either my tent on the battlefield or the gallows, Mousey. I think a collar looks better than a rope, personally.”

Still groaning, you were grabbed by your hair, wincing and struggling as the king pulled you after him, banging on the door until it was finally unlocked. Shamefully, you were dragged through the lavish corridors under the eyes of the guards you deceived; guards you weren’t sure would survive this night either.

“I always wanted a pet,” the king revealed, unbothered by your pain and struggles. Your fear and panic. “But my mom hated mice with a passion. Good thing that hag is gone, don’t you agree, Mousey?”

You had been so careful! Only tried to do something for everyone, not thinking you would doom yourself even if the danger had always been there!

You’d never be royalty, you thought. But it would have been okay if you managed to feed the people you loved and disappeared with them far, far away from the mad king that ruled these lands.

But maybe there was a worse fate than you could have ever imagined in your most brutal nightmares. Because a royal pet was just below even the scum like you in the social standing.

And his grip on you was firm enough to never let go.

[jellieland]

The land around spawn is destroyed. Torn to shreds, full of holes. It's like a warzone.

Martyn leans up against the rocks by the side of the Secret Keeper. It, of course, is pristine. Completely untouched. Unharmed.

Something about that makes him really angry.

He glares up at the massive pillar Joel had jumped off a few weeks ago. Behind it, the sky is bright and clear.

Last week, as Jimmy climbed up it, Martyn had shouted after him. Fly, canary, fly.

Usually he might repeat that to himself, at this point. Laugh wryly, gaze off into the distance dramatically. Maybe make some comment about how letting the canary go free didn't actually keep it safe.

Not this time, though.

He won't laugh about it this time, because everyone else already did.

If he thinks about that, it feels like something is burning in his chest, so he keeps thinking about it.

He's the only red left, after all. He has to really give it everything he's got.

He'll tear them to shreds.

There isn't the same red bloodlust, this time, but he can make his own.

They all banded together. Roped in Jimmy, roped in Mumbo. Slayed the monsters, and congratulated themselves on a job well done, and left Martyn completely alone.

Jimmy had already betrayed him. Tried to punch him into lava. They hadn't really had the chance to resolve that, before he was gone.

It had honestly really stung, which was ridiculous and hypocritical given what he did to Scott last time, but he can't help it, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how much he tells himself that he, of all people, really had no right to feel betrayed.

It's so frustrating when he gets attached. It just makes things so much harder.

"You'd think I would've learned by now," he says, bitter. He looks away from the Secret Keeper, across the torn up ground. "You really would."

Maybe he had just been feeling sentimental, today, for some stupid reason. He'd even thought Tango sounded like—well, it's embarrassing to admit this even to himself, so he won't. Tango, of all people! The guy hates him!

But he'll show them.

He's not sure what, exactly, he'll show them, but he will. He'll make them hurt. He'll make them bleed. No honeyed words, this time.

He'd looted Lizzie's house, earlier, before he'd known quite how this was all going to end up.

He still would have if he'd known, of course—it's not like she was using it. Maybe he would have taken more, actually.

It's better not to think about how she died falling through the void, because when he does he starts to remember what that felt like, and he starts to feel cold, and that's the opposite of what he needs, now.

Mumbo had gone off the rails a bit. He does always seem to do that, when he hits red.

Martyn had still given him the TNT he needed, though, of course.

Mumbo had barely got to do anything. He'd had so little time.

It makes him so, so angry.

"I'm going to kill them," he growls, still staring out and away from the Secret Keeper. "I'm going to kill them. They were so proud of themselves."

He clenches his hands into fists.

He should, probably, be marching back home, planning and gather resources and seething in the shadows.

Looking out over this battlefield is good, though.

It's making him feel how he wants to be feeling.

It would be just wonderful if he could find a way to justify saying here forever, but unfortunately that's beyond even his skill at bending the truth into knots.

He is, unfortunately, going to have to go back to the house, eventually.

The house that Jimmy built, with Jimmy's stuff all along one wall, and the chests they'd been using to measure how many tasks they'd each completed.

He glares straight ahead as the thought crosses his mind.

It's always easier being angry. It's always so, so much easier, being angry.

So he'll keep being angry until he is dead. He'll do what he always does, and scream in the face of sorrow.

Hopefully he'll take a few people down with him.

[justagalwhowrites]

Lavender - Ch. 8

On the run from infected at the dawn of the end of the world, you fight to keep those you hold dear safe. A continuation of Lavender Ch. 1-7 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller X Female Reader

Length: 5.3K

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, character death (not reader), miscarriage, Sexual Assault/SA (coercion or blackmail). No use of Y/N. 18+ Minors DNI

A/N: See note at the end of the chapter please. Trying to avoid spoilers (beyond what's in the warnings) and want to contextualize the story choices. Feel free to read first before reading the chapter if you want as long as you don't mind some spoilers!

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

“The Princess Pat” 

“The Princess Pat” 

“Lived in a tree” 

“Lived in a tree” 

“She sailed across”

“She sailed across”

“The seven seas”

“The seven seas” 

“She sailed across”

“She sailed across”

“The channel too”

“The channel too”

“And she took with her!” 

“And she took….” 

“Hello!” 

You threw your arm out, forcing Jessica behind you, and raised the shotgun. Your heart was pounding. 

It had been 2 days since you’d last seen another person, possessed or otherwise. You’d stuck to the woods alongside the main road, hopefully far enough away to not be easily seen while staying close enough to follow the route. You were heading steadily east. You figured eventually, you’d reach the Atlantic, orient yourself and go from there. 

On Saturday, you’d shot six people. Almost people. Former people? You weren’t sure how to count it, but you’d killed six people who were trying to rip you and Jessica apart. It made you sick. “Don’t let anyone take you from me.” 

You tried to justify it. Jessica and the baby made it easier but it was hard. Could you possibly be worth that many lives? What if whatever was wrong with them was temporary and you’d murdered them? The only way you could live with it was by thinking of Jessica and the baby. You could kill for your child and the girl you’d come to think of as your niece. You could live with that. Or you thought you could, at least. 

Saturday, you’d come across a sporting goods store. There was one possessed person inside, someone had locked them in a storage room and you’d been stupid enough to open the damn door looking for more ammunition. You’d been so surprised it took you a moment to get a shot off and the first one missed. You kept shoving Jessica back, the thing lunging for you and snarling until you hit it with the butt of your gun, forcing it far enough away that you could shoot it. You stood guard while Jessica found some clothes and you were able to take your sweatshirt back. It probably would have been smart to change the shirt, when you thought about it, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. It was one of your UT sweatshirts, one that said “alumni” on it. Joel had gotten it for you as a graduation gift. It didn’t matter that it was bloodstained now. You needed something from then. You packed a bag for her, too. The store had been pretty well looted but the possessed person in the storage room had left the stock in there intact and you were able to find some useful stuff. 

You ran into three more possessed people on your way back out of town. You were pretty certain you were traveling about a day behind the military - or some military like force, anyway. Did the military actually exist anymore? Did America? But you kept coming across near mountains of bodies. You weren’t sure if they were people who had been possessed or if whoever was in charge now was just wiping out anyone they deemed as a potential risk. There were two more possessed as you made your way into the woods again. 

On Sunday, Jessica woke up crying. It took some time to calm her down. She didn’t want to tell you what she’d dreamed about that made her so upset but you could guess. When the day started quiet enough, you started trying to get her to engage a bit. Pointing out different trees as you walked, signs of different animals when you saw them. You tried to think of something else to talk about with her - something that would take her mind off of the fact that you were pretty sure the world was ending without reminding her of what you thought was entirely lost. You resorted to singing NSYNC. 

“That’s not how it goes,” she muttered at one point. 

“What isn’t?” You asked, knowing perfectly well what you’d gotten wrong. 

“It’s ‘I wanna see you out that door’ not ‘Go walk on out that door,’” she said. 

“Well, I’ve never been a good singer,” you shrugged, still keeping an eye out for possessed people. 

“Yeah, you’re really not,” she snorted. “Heard you and my mom singing in the kitchen once. I think you were drunk. It was real bad.” 

“We thought you were asleep!” You looked over your shoulder to her. She smiled a little. 

“Yeah, I had my GameBoy,” she said. 

“You little shit,” you smiled. “We were that bad, huh?” 

“You are always bad,” she said. “It was way worse then. I was embarrassed and there wasn’t even anyone else to hear you it was that bad.” 

“Well then you demonstrate, rock star,” you said. “Seem to recall you doing pretty good hairbrush karaoke.” 

She was quiet for a minute. You were trying to think of something else to get her mind off things when she started signing a Spice Girls song. You smiled. She was quiet at first, almost under her breath. You didn’t press her. She got louder as the day went on. 

Monday you hummed the Beetles to see if she’d sing along. She did. 

Tuesday, you suggested some of the songs she’d brought home from Girl Scout camp over the summer. She’d sung them for three weeks after spending two weeks a few hours away, horseback riding and swimming and boating. You were half sure she was singing because she knew it was annoying the shit out of her mother. The other half of her just really loved summer camp. She sang the songs so much, you’d learned them, too. You could even lead them. 

Which is how you ended up singing Princess Pat somewhere in the woods along the highway in New York State. 

“Who’s there?” You yelled, gun up. 

“I’ll come to you!” It was a man’s voice. You tightened your grip on the weapon. 

“How many of you are there?” You called, looking around for some sign of whoever was talking but you couldn’t see them. 

“Just me!” He said. “Please… please don’t shoot me?” 

“I won’t if you don’t give me a reason,” you called back. “But I’m keeping the gun up.” 

He came from further into the woods and you moved in front of Jessica, gun up. When he got about 20 feet away, you stopped him. 

“That’s close enough.” 

You looked him over. He was young, probably not even 20, tall and gangly. All limbs. He hadn’t grown into his body yet. His hands were up and his eyes were wide. One of his arms didn’t look right.

“Lift your shirt,” you said, gun still up. 

“What?” He frowned.” 

“I need to see your waistband,” you said. “Make sure you don’t have a weapon. Lift up your shirt and turn around in a circle, slowly.” 

He did as he was told. No gun or knife that you could see. You lowered the gun. He lowered his hands.

“Hi,” he smiled, looking like he was about to cry. 

“Hi,” you smiled a little back. You nodded to the misshapen arm. “What happened there?” 

“I fell,” he said, cautiously stepping closer to you. “I was running, my parents…” 

“How’d you escape?” Jessica peered out from behind you. 

“By falling,” he said. “Down a cliff. It was short but they stayed up top. What the hell is going on?” 

“I don’t know,” you took your pack off and started rifling around for the first aid kit. “But I can set your arm for you.”

His name, you learned while aligning his bones in the way you’d read about in medical texts, was Andrew. You were right on his age, he was 18 and from a small town not far from there. He’d been wandering alone since Sunday. 

“I haven’t seen any people,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been hiding but I thought I’d see someone. Anyone. I was hiding from… I wasn’t trying to hide from people. Where is everyone?”

You weren’t sure what to say. You knew what little you’d seen but you weren’t sure if that was true anywhere else but where you’d been. And you weren’t sure if telling that to a teenager would make it any better. 

“We haven’t run into anyone in a few days either,” you said, tying off the makeshift cast you’d put on his arm. “Feel better?” 

“Yeah,” he said, bending his elbow a bit. “Thank you.” 

“You can travel with us,” you said, repacking your bag. “But you have to do what I say when I say it. I can try to keep you safe but I can’t do that if you’re a wildcard.” 

“I can listen,” he said quickly. “I won’t be any trouble, I promise.” 

You got moving again. 

You made it to another small town that night, the bodies all piled in the center of the little downtown area, a heap of flesh in front of a pizza parlor. You tried to protect Andrew and Jessica from seeing it. You weren’t sure it worked. You set up for the night in a pharmacy, tucking yourselves away behind the counter and pulling down the gates. You stocked up on water, pain killers, bandages and broad spectrum antibiotics before you left. 

You were walking until Wednesday afternoon when you saw the first sign of people. 

There was a man in a military uniform dead on the ground. So it was military. 

“Stay back, guys,” you said, waving Jessica and Andrew off. You looked around for a moment. “Andrew, have you ever used a gun? Hunting with your dad or anything?” 

“Yeah,” he said, voice shaky. “But I’ve never shot a person…” 

“Well I hope you don’t need to today,” you said, handing him the gun. “But keep an eye out for me? If you see someone coming, I’ll take it back, OK?” 

He nodded once, taking a deep breath. You went to the body. 

Someone had shot him in the head, blood splattered over his camo. His body was still warmer than the air around you, but not by much. Whoever had gunned him down was in a hurry, his weapons were still on him. You took his guns - a sidearm and a rifle, both with some extra ammunition - and his knife. You looked over the rest of him. There was a vicious looking bite at his wrist. You were busy looking at that when something moved out of the corner of your eye. 

It was like the tentacle that had reached out of your grandmother’s mouth coming out from between the man’s lips. 

“Holy shit,” you leapt back as the fibrous thing stretched for you. Eventually, it stopped, just sitting there. You looked at it, frowning. 

“What is it?” Andrew yelled at you. 

“I think…” You leaned in a little closer. “It’s a fungus.” 

The thing reached for you. You backed up again before getting up and getting away from the body entirely. 

“A fungus?” Andrew asked. 

“Yeah,” you frowned, standing beside him again. “Which both makes a lot of sense and none at all.” You held the guns out that you’d just picked up. “Pick your poison.” 

He chose the rifle. You took back the shotgun and tucked the sidearm in your waistband. 

“What do you mean about the fungus?” Jessica frowned. “Also, I don’t have a gun.” 

“Yeah, you don’t need a gun,” you said. “You don’t need to be shooting at anyone, you’re 13.” 

“It’s the end of the world,” she said flatly. 

“Not yet it’s not,” you said. “No gun. Let’s keep moving.” 

“Fine,” Jessica said. “But you need to explain the fungus thing because I don’t think mushrooms are doing this.” 

“There are lots of different kinds of fungus,” you said, starting down the road. “There are some we eat, some that does stuff like make your toenails yellow… And there are some that take over host bodies and control them in hopes of spreading.” 

“What the fuck,” Andrew said, taking up the rear. “Like people?” 

“Well, no, that’s the weird thing,” you said. “We’re too warm for those fungi. They live in insects, take over the bodies of ants or wasps, not mammals. But that’s what that looked like. It doesn’t make any sense…” 

“None of this makes any sense,” Jessica said. 

You kept walking. 

That afternoon, you found people. Two of them, in uniform guarding the road, a military truck parked broadside over the lanes so no one could just drive through. 

You were back in the tree line and you signaled for Jessica and Andrew to be quiet, but you stepped on a stick, snapping it. The men spun, training their guns on the trees. 

“Who’s out there!” The one closer to the tree line yelled. “Respond or I start shooting!” 

“We’re not possessed!” You yelled, signaling for Jessica and Andrew to get behind you. 

“Come out here!” He yelled. “Now!” 

“There are three of us,” you called back. “We’re armed but we will lower our weapons if you lower yours.” 

He hesitated. “I’ve got two kids with me,” you said after a moment. “Teenagers. We’re healthy.” 

“I’m keeping my gun out,” he called. “But I’ll point it down.” 

You aimed your gun toward the ground and cautiously walked toward the road. 

“What are you doing here?” The man demanded. 

“Trying to find somewhere safe,” you replied. “What’s going on? How widespread is this?” 

“It’s the whole world,” he said, looking you up and down. “It’s everywhere.” 

“What do you mean it’s everywhere,” you frowned. “How can it be everywhere?” 

“You’re trying to get somewhere safe?” The second man came and stood beside the first, looking you up and down, too. You nodded. You could sense Jessica and Andrew behind you. You wanted to tell them to run. Something about these men didn’t feel right. 

“There’s a base of operations in Boston,” the first man said. “We’ve been told to send survivors there, people who aren’t at risk of infection.” 

“We’re not infected,” you said. “We haven’t had any contact with any infected person in days, we’re not a risk.” 

“We can help you get to Boston,” the second man stepped closer to you. “But I’d want something in return.” 

“She’s a doctor,” Jessica said quickly. You shot a glare over your shoulder. 

“No, I’m a science teacher who’s been training to become a doctor,” you said quickly. “But if you’re injured, I might be able to help. We also have some food and water, pain killers…” 

“Not what I’m interested in.” 

It took you a second to realize what he meant. His eyes were on you, ranging hungrily over your body. 

“Not sure the next time I’ll see a woman who isn’t infected,” he said. “Want to make sure I enjoy it.” 

He adjusted the grip on his gun. 

You considered your options for a split second. There was no way you’d be able to kill both of them before they killed one of you. And even then, could you live with killing two people - two people who weren’t infected or possessed or whatever it was - if it was anything but a last resort? 

“You can get us to Boston?” You said. 

“There’s a code,” the man said. “I’ll give it to you. If you give me something.” 

You glanced behind you. Jessica just looked confused. Andrew seemed to get it. Your stomach turned. 

“Fine,” you said, taking off your pack and passing it back to Andrew. “Give me a minute.” 

You handed him the gun, too. 

“If he goes for either of you,” you said quietly. “Kill him.” 

He gave you a nod. You turned back to the man. 

“Let’s go.” 

You followed him into the woods. He was still armed. 

“What do you want?” You asked, standing there, trying to not think about what you were about to do. 

“Take off your shirt,” he said, still holding the gun. You obeyed, pulling off your sweatshirt and t-shirt at the same time, hands shaking. 

“Good,” he smiled. “Bra, too.” 

You took that off, too. 

“Fuck you’ve got nice tits,” his hand went to his crotch, feeling himself through his pants. “Waist down now. All off.” 

You shakily stepped out of your boots and peeled off your pants and underwear, glancing back toward the road, thankful you couldn’t see Jessica and Andrew. 

“Lie down.” 

You got down on your back. The leaves and pinecones scratched your bare skin. Your stomach turned. Until now, Joel had been the only man to have seen you naked. He’d been the only man you ever wanted to see you naked. 

The man stepped forward, his penis in his hand, still fully clothed, working himself. You looked at it for a second before staring up at the tree canopy. He was smaller than Joel. You were thankful for that much, at least. 

He got on top of you without preamble and you tried to push your mind elsewhere, anywhere but here. He started trying to work his way into you, forcing his way inside. 

“Jesus, you’re tight,” he grunted. You stared past him. 

You thought about Joel. Not about sex with Joel - you didn’t want to connect any part of that with this - but just being around him. How he made you feel safe. His smile. The way he tried to pretend he didn’t like the movies you picked but you caught him sitting forward a bit more in his seat when the story reached its climax. The man over you was making your back drag along the ground and your vagina hurt. You tried to ignore it. Joel playing guitar in the backyard. Sarah making fun of him for his choice of song. There was a cluster of three pinecones over your head. The man’s pace increased. Joel making burgers in the summer. He was so picky about the meat, looking over every package at the store until he found just the right one. 

“Fuck,” the man grunted and stilled before going limp on top of you. He breathed heavy for a second before rolling off you. 

“Done?” Your voice sounded strange. Weirdly flat. He reached over and patted your stomach. You tensed. You took it as a yes, getting up off the ground. You brushed yourself off quickly and got dressed as fast as you could, the man watching you as he panted for breath. He put his penis away and got up. You looked up at him. “You said there was a code.” 

“C’mon,” he jerked his head back toward the road. You followed. He went to the back of the truck and ripped off a scrap of paper. He wrote down a name and a number and handed it to you. “Give that information at the checkpoints between here and Boston. They’ll let you through.” 

You nodded once, reading the paper and trying to memorize it. McCarthy. You looked at the name on the uniform. It matched. You pocketed the paper. 

“Stick to the road,” he said, looking you over again, almost affectionately. Almost like he thought what had just happened meant something. Like he was invested in you now. “Now that you have that, it’s safer that way. Lots of crazies and infected in the woods between here and there, road is better. It’ll take about a week to walk to Boston from here.” 

You nodded once and went and got your bag from Andrew. He was staring at you. You put the pack on and took your gun. 

“Let’s go.” 

You led the way again. No one talked. No one sang. You stared straight ahead. Your hand went to your lower stomach. You tried to focus on what was important. You threw up a mile later.

Sunday, October 5, 2003

“It’s my birthday, you know,” you whispered to your stomach. It was late, about three in the morning. You were on watch, Andrew and Jessica were asleep. You ran your thumb over yourself. There was a bump there now. It was small, if you didn’t know to look for it you wouldn’t notice it was there, but you could feel it. “Last one before you’re born, little one. Sorry to be bringing you into such a shit show.” 

You leaned your head back against a tree, cradling the little bump, and sighed. 

“Maybe it will be better by April,” you said. “Maybe this is just a crazy blip. I can tell you the insane story one day. About everything your mom did to get to your dad.” 

The amount of infected had grown as you’d gone down the road, getting closer to Boston and more civilization. You’d killed a dozen more people. Andrew had killed three others. You’d tried to make it so he wouldn’t have to shoot anyone but you’d been nearly overrun at one point and he’d been forced to. He was sobbing after, his whole body shaking. You tried to hold it together enough to comfort him. 

It was hard to believe that it had been just over a week since this started. It felt like an eternity. Two weeks ago at this time, you’d been asleep in your bed at home. You’d gone to bed that night after giving up on finalizing your lesson plans for the week, leaving Thursday and Friday to deal with during your planning period on Monday and mad at yourself for procrastinating. You were still debating about whether or not you wanted to tell Joel about his child. It all seemed so silly now. You’d die to go back to those kinds of problems. 

At four, you roused Andrew. He groggily got up and took over the watch, you laying down beside Jessica. She sighed and pressed herself back against you. You put an arm around her, tugging her close to you. It was easier to sleep, having someone close. 

You got up and got moving right away in the morning. You were expecting to hit another checkpoint that afternoon or evening, you wanted to put some miles between it and you before stopping for the night. The code from McCarthy had done what he’d promised so far. They took your word that you weren’t infected after a quick once over and didn’t demand any more ‘payment’ for passage, instead just sending you down the road. You were thankful for that much. But you didn’t trust the men at the checkpoints. You wouldn’t be able to relax, knowing they were close by. 

You’d been walking six hours when it happened. 

Your gun was out but held low. You heard the odd, guttural sound only a split second before they came from the tree line. 

There were more than a dozen of them, all of them running for you, strange husks of human beings now driven by one thing. 

“Run!” You screamed, raising your shotgun and firing, catching one in the chest and sending it flying back. You’d gotten better with the gun since the world collapsed, knowing that you had to plant your feet to keep from falling, knowing how to stand to aim and not stumble back. You stood in one spot, firing off the four rounds in the shotgun and taking down three infected before you ran, too, Jessica frantically looking back over her shoulder at you. “Go!” 

You did your best to lodge the depleted shotgun between your pack and your back while pulling the sidearm from your waistband, turning and firing almost blindly behind you. Three shots, another infected fell. You looked forward and saw it before Jessica or Andrew did. 

“Jessica!” You shrieked, an infected launching at her from the other side of the road and tackling her to the ground. It pinned her for a moment and Andrew ran up on it, slamming the butt of his rifle into it, sending it sprawling before shooting it. He gave Jessica his hand and yanked her to her feet. She clutched her hand to her upper arm and ran with him. 

You weren’t sure how the hell you were going to get out of this, firing behind you, barely outpacing the infected as it was, your lungs starting to ache, when you saw the checkpoint up ahead. 

“Help!” You yelled. “McCarthy sent us on! There are infected!” 

The two men at the checkpoint ran forward, rifles drawn. It only took a moment for them to start firing. You instinctively ducked your head but kept moving, hoping it would keep you from getting shot. 

The men and their rifles made pretty quick work of the hoard of infected, the bodies littering the road. You panted for breath, stopping at the truck that blocked the lanes. 

“McCarthy sent you through?” One of the men asked. You just nodded and pulled the code from your pocket. The man took it and nodded, handing it back to you. “Those the first infected you’ve seen lately?” 

“No,” you shook your head. “But first since the last checkpoint.” 

He nodded once and started looking you over. 

“Clear,” he said, nodding Andrew forward. He did the same with him before calling Jessica up. He sighed, stopping at her arm. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded sad. Genuinely sad. Jessica frowned. “You’ve been bitten.” 

You all but jumped up from where you’d been leaning against the truck, going to Jessica’s arm. He was right, there were distinctly human teethmarks on her arm. 

“Shit,” you muttered, sliding your pack off to get out the first aid kit. Jessica’s eyes were wide. “We’ve got the stuff for this but you’re probably going to get a pretty cool scar…” 

“What the fuck!” Andrew yelled. You looked up. The man was aiming a gun at Jessica. You stepped in front of her, your arms spread wide. 

“Woah!” You said. “Gun down, we’re not a threat!” 

“She’s been bitten,” he said. “Stand aside.” 

“No!” 

“I don’t want to die,” Jessica was sobbing. “Please…” 

“I will kill you too,” the man aimed the gun at you. “Don’t make me.” You made the decision before really thinking, lunging for the man. He fired the gun, the bullet glancing off your shoulder, and turned the weapon so he could slam the butt of it into your stomach. He put all his weight behind it, sending you sprawling to the ground before he starting aiming again. You scrambled to your feet and tried to grab the gun as he tried to throw you off. The other soldier grabbed you by the collar from behind and threw you against the gate of the truck, the metal slamming into your stomach. You felt a sickening jolt just as the gun fired. 

“NO!” You shrieked, the man holding you down, your face against the metal. You fought to look to Jessica, to get to Jessica. “Let me go!” 

The man listened, letting you up and you ran for her. Andrew was over her already and you shoved him back. There was a gaping wound on her stomach. 

“It hurts,” she whimpered. She was crying. You tried to stem the bleeding but there was so much blood. 

“Andrew,” you were panting, gasping for breath. “The first aid kit, in the pack…” 

Jessica sobbed. Andrew was frozen. 

“Andrew!” 

“I’m sorry,” he was crying. “I’m sorry…” 

You looked down at her. Her eyes were wide. 

“I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t…” 

“It’s OK,” your face was wet. You delicately, gently, pulled her onto her lap. “You’re going to be OK sweetie. It’ll be OK, you’ll be OK, it’s OK…” 

You brushed her hair back. She grabbed your arm. 

“My mom,” her eyes searched yours. “My mom…” 

“You’ll get to see her again,” you tried to smile. “I’m sure she’s missed you, probably thinks I’ve been corrupting you all this time. It’s OK. It’ll be OK.” 

You felt her die, a strangled cry ripping through you as you collapsed against Andrew. He cautiously put his arms around you, Jessica’s body still between you. 

“Why!” You turned to the man who killed her. The gun was still in his hands. He didn’t say anything. You set her body down, gently, like you would a toddler who had fallen asleep against you, and got to your feet. Your head spun. You stalked toward him. “Why would you kill her? She was a child!” You shoved him. You didn’t care that he had a gun. He stumbled back. The other man raised his weapon for you. You didn’t care about him, either. “A CHILD!” 

You threw your whole body at him and he fell down. 

“She was infected!” He yelled at you, breathless. You fell to your knees. “She was infected. That’s how it spreads, through bites. Once someone’s bitten, it’s just a matter of time - sometimes just an hour or two - and they’re like them. There’s nothing anyone can do. It was better this way. I’m so sorry.” 

You sobbed. You felt Andrew’s hands on you, pulling you to your feet. He started moving you down the road. 

“Her body,” you turned, reaching for her. 

“That other guy wants to fucking shoot you,” he said quickly. “We have to keep moving, she’s gone, it doesn’t matter now, we have to go.” 

You weren’t sure how long you walked before he took his hands off you. It could have been five minutes or five hours. He’d grabbed the backpack, your shotgun. You stared straight ahead. You’d promised to keep her safe. You’d told her you were going to get her through this. And now she was dead. 

You kept running the attack over in your head again and again. What could you have done differently? What would have saved her? You catalogued every way you failed her, every way you let her die. 

Andrew said your name. You barely registered it. He said it again. 

“What?” You asked, looking back at him. 

“You’re bleeding.” 

You looked at your arms, your torso, but didn’t see anything. 

“No, like…” he paused. “I think you started your period but… it looks like a lot of blood for that. I have…had sisters, it looks like a lot of blood….” 

Your hand went to your lower stomach and you stopped in the street, right in the middle, a yellow dashed line in front of you, one behind. 

“It’s not a period,” you said, putting a hand between your legs for a moment and examining it. It was slick with blood. You wondered how you hadn’t felt it. You registered the cramping then, the sharp, stabbing pain of it breaking through the numbness. “I’m having a miscarriage.” 

You kept walking, the blood running down your legs. You put both hands over the small bump. You wanted to feel it as long as you could. Your child. The piece of Joel you carried with you. You’d failed your child, too. 

Andrew pulled you off the road as it got dark. You were in a daze. You couldn’t bring yourself to get cleaned up or pull a sleeping bag out of your pack. You lay down in the dirt and stared into nothing. 

“I’ll keep watch,” he said. “I can pull an all nighter. You sleep.” 

“It’s my birthday today,” you said softly. You cradled the bump. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

You considered the gun tucked in the waistband of your bloody pants. You knew that, if you tried that way, you’d succeed. It would be easy. Just one twitch of a finger and you could be done here. 

“Don’t do it alone.” That’s what Joel had said, when you’d told him about the way you felt sometimes. About the time you’d tried to die before. “Tell me. Always tell me.” 

“Don’t let anyone take you from me.” 

You took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, too.” 

You cried, closing your eyes, letting the numbness swallow you. 

A/N: Hi y'all. I'm so sorry for this. I know there's a ton of misery in this chapter, but here's why. I'm not just brutalizing my characters for no reason. Kid is meant to be Joel's mirror. She carries much the same trauma as him. She loses someone in her care and she loses her child. She was willing to do anything for Jessica and her baby and she still lost. What she does with that grief and pain and what Joel does with his are very different. They are two sides of the same coin, bound by trauma and love and loss. I hope you stick with their story in spite of the sad stuff and thank you for reading <3

[logically-asexual]

i do believe that thomas is enthusiastically working on sanders sides and i think that the long time it has taken for the video to be made is due to other problems, and i get why people who don’t agree with criticisms of thomas think it’s weird to assume that thomas has given up on sanders sides, since even though his updates are vague as hell and come like thrice a year, they’re still updates.

however. i do think the other side is also understandable. mostly considering what the past couple years have been like.

so if you’re someone who thinks it’s crazy that people think thomas has given up on sanders sides here’s a hopefully helpful explanation. i’m not looking for an argument, i just want to explain this in good faith because i’ve seen people confused.

so in the past couple years the discourse has been a lot of -> people being upset that there’s no videos -> people arguing in defense of the waits with different arguments -> the first group not accepting these arguments and still being upset -> and so on.

first the argument was like “he has a small budget and small team, so it makes sense to take a while to make a good quality video!” and like… fine.. he did put out working through intrusive thoughts which had a bunch of cool effects and props and equipment etc and showed that there was a lot of work going into the video that justified a few months of wait. (it was still annoying because it was supposedly “just an Asides” and it clearly did take time away from working on the next actual episode.)

but then he had the patreon and by this point the budget couldn’t really be an excuse? the idea was that with patreon not only videos like WTIT would exist, but that every video could be like that and they could come out just as often as before, because such a big production shouldn’t get in the way now that they had the money and the people to get it done efficiently. that is, unless thomas has a terrible business model where he still spends more than he earns despite probably earning enough to pay a good enough team if the money was well managed? i don’t know how much he earns but he was able to make putting others first and working through intrusive thoughts with no problem and the patron amount has only increased since then right? so that excuse didn’t really last.

then the main episode still didn’t come so the defense was “the pandemic obviously makes it harder to film.” which. of course it did. but then there were vaccines, restrictions were mostly over and thomas started putting out content where he did film with others, just not the main episode. okay. this excuse is now cancelled and then it must be something else.

then we have “thomas has health or personal issues that make him feel uncomfortable in front of the camera.” very reasonable. if he was in the filming stage and so the production of an already-written video had to be paused while he recovers. however. we later found out he is still in the writing stage, after three years.

and writing doesn’t need in-person meetings, it doesn’t need a huge budget further than what they pay for rent at their office and paying the writing team., it doesn’t need thomas to attend scheduled meetings and show a fake-happy face to thousands of viewers. personal issues could get in the way of thomas feeling motivated to write but he still has an entire team of writers and also it’s been three years… and he did make other scripted content in between and didn’t seem to have a problem with that. if it was an issue that made him sad enough to not want to write then after stretching the writing stage a few months then ,, by that point it would probably have been more productive for him to take a full break (letting the audience know) before coming back ready to work.

so. these excuses, mostly thought by the fans trying to justify the lack of videos, are actually very reasonable on their own. but when compared with the reality that time has shown us they seem to be just. excuses. and not actual reasons for the main episodes to come out. so two different conclusions can be taken from this:

1. there’s another problem* that we haven’t figured out yet (and in this sense it would be nice if thomas told us a bit more so we could at least have an idea of what this mysterious problem is. a lot of people in the ts criticism tag only wish thomas was more honest about whatever is going on).

*i personally believe this and i think the problem is simply that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, which is something that thomas and joan do have a record with. like with the puppets episode. but they always have solved those problems that come with having ambitions bigger than their abilities and the result is always great so thomas’s team keeps doing it. but without thoughtful planning it might reach a point where this style is no longer sustainable and i think that’s what has happened with the finale. also made worse now by the lack of joan to improve the writing of the show. but that’s my own guess.

or 2. thomas is straight up lying with his updates. and he’s just. not working on the finale or working very slowly because he barely pays any attention to it. this is the conclusion (from what i see in the ts criticism tag) that a lot of people have come to. because they feel like every other reasonable explanation has been proved wrong and thomas’s lack of more explanations and defensiveness when anybody asks about sanders sides makes them think that he’s not willing to admit something, and that that something is that he doesn’t want to do the show anymore, despite still wanting to earn money and sell merch and leave the possibility open in case he does feel like doing the episode later.

again. i personally don’t believe this. but i understand where the idea comes from. i think thomas isn’t responsible for everything fanders assume about him but there is some blame to be placed on him for the distrust these fans now have on him. because he’s let actual years go by without a word about why writing the finale has taken so long, and because he’s so defensive when people ask about it. he can’t control everything fans think but he could have handled it better. he still could. but i don’t think he’s going to change anything and he’s just hoping to put out the video as soon as possible and let it speak for itself, and he’s hoping that with that people will just naturally come back and let the past go once it’s done. not a good idea imo. but that’s how it seems to be.

anyway. again i’m not looking for an argument. but you can comment your opinion if you like.

[bestworstcase]

hello ive been combing through some of your rwby meta and a thought struck me in regards to this line you wrote when talking about the Maidens:

"the last spring maiden died under circumstances that have left raven emotionally shattered more than a decade later"

ive been thinking a lot about your theory of summer defecting to salem's side, and assuming thats true my thought was: did summer defect during her secret mission with raven and kill the spring maiden, all in front of raven?

raven was presumably close to the maiden based off conversations in v4, and we know that she portaled to Someone in the flashback(?) ruby saw in v9. i thought maybe it could've been qrow but tbh knowing rwby thats seems too easy of an answer, and maybe it couldve been vernal but for some reason I had been thinking vernal came post spring maiden's death.

though if summer DID defect on her own terms, while we dont know the woman and v9's whole thing was that ruby (maybe by extension the audience) had her on this pedestal, outright murdering someone that she once considered "on her side" might seem quite coldhearted for what little we do know. but it may also explain raven's fear of salem and her desire to stay the fuck out of her way, beyond just summer defecting. because if raven was close with summer like it seems like she was in that flashback, either at that point or in past because i'd think the abandoning yang thing would put a damper on good vibes, seeing your friend and teammate turn tail against everything you know and murder a child (?) would be uh, bothersome.

im new to the spinning my own thoughts game but thought i'd take a stab at rambling. cheers!

mumbles in all things must die

yeah i’m as close to 100% certain as it’s possible to be that the person on the other end of that portal was gretchen rainart the last spring maiden; i think the possibility that it might have been qrow on the grounds that we know raven has a link to him is an intentional red herring. (and if it was qrow, it would have had to be a case of raven using him as a fast-travel point without his awareness, a la in V5, because otherwise that would imply he lied through his teeth to ruby when she asked him if he knew anything about summer’s last mission in V7.) (similarly, vernal seems to be around cinder’s age if not younger—she would have been like, ten or eleven at the time.)

based on what summer says in the glimpse (“if i get this right”) and what’s said of the last spring maiden (that she was young and scared), i think the plan was for summer to confront salem alone, with raven and spring at a safe distance on escape duty: kindred link gives raven some way of knowing when her bonds are in danger, so if summer gets into trouble or things go wrong, raven opens a portal with spring there to fireball salem in the face (as cinder did to ruby at haven), hopefully buying enough time for raven to jump through, grab summer, and immediately portal back to spring. neither of them would’ve wanted the spring maiden anywhere near salem, and sending summer in “solo” gives raven’s emergency save the advantage of surprise. yeah?

but what i think happened is summer found salem, and salem—who at the time was not participating in ozpin’s war—intuited that summer wasn’t here under ozpin’s auspices, ergo did not fully trust ozpin and might be open to hearing salem’s side of the story. so instead of fighting back, salem let summer see that she couldn’t be killed and then started talking. and whatever she told summer was convincing enough to make summer want… some sort of proof. something more than the he-said-she-said to tell her who she could trust.

like, oh, say… maybe the relic of knowledge.

conveniently, she’s got raven waiting for her with the spring maiden, who can open the vault to retrieve the lamp.

so she signals raven by whatever means for a portal out, and then either recounts what salem told her honestly or comes up with some lie justifying why they need to get the lamp. (“summer rose, telling lies!” <- hm.)

i don’t buy the common assumption that raven and/or summer used the first question, because a) ozpin never shared jinn’s name with anyone, and b) if summer had learned it somehow prior to joining salem, salem would have already known the “password.”

what seems the most likely to me is that the three of them did sneak into haven academy, opened the vault, and figured out that the lamp had some kind of passphrase. at this point, summer and raven split on what to do. if summer told the truth about what she wanted the lamp for, perhaps she wanted to bring it to salem in exchange for more information and raven thought that was too risky wanted to go confront ozpin instead. if summer lied, maybe implying she needed the lamp to find a counter to some defense salem had against silver eyes, this would have been the moment the truth came out and i’d imagine raven would react badly.

into the mix of this very high-stakes disagreement, add summer’s obvious resentment of raven for leaving and raven’s equally obvious inferiority complex toward summer, and you have the perfect recipe for an emotionally volatile argument to get out of control and come to blows.

and, points at the ozlem girls. points at vernal. i think the spring maiden got caught in the crossfire and was fatally wounded taking a hit meant for raven, and then summer fled and left raven holding the bag. raven either mercy-killed spring to spare her an inevitable but slow and agonizing death, or just couldn’t do anything to save her; the magic passed to her, she sealed the lamp back in the vault, and then ran. i think this was when raven returned to the tribe, because she’d already burned a lot of bridges by leaving her family whereas summer was the ideal, the paragon, the perfect huntress—the good mother—so who the fuck would believe raven if she told them that the spring maiden, her charge, was dead because summer rose betrayed them all for salem and murdered her?

they already blamed raven for tearing team strq apart. if she’d gone back to ozpin with the spring maiden’s blood on her hands, she would have taken the fall for spring’s death—and quite likely summer’s, too, because summer rose was the best of us, the silver-eyed warrior, and what’s easier to believe? that your paragon of virtue and hope joined the enemy, or that the prickly ex-bandit everyone is still mad at for blowing up her relationship with tai and abandoning her daughter is telling an obvious lie to save her own skin?

meanwhile summer also can’t go back home because she did kill the spring maiden and really, catastrophic failed detour to corroborate salem’s story or not, she was salem’s from the minute she chose to listen to what salem had to say.

[intersectionalpraxis]

from a feminist perspective, what do you think when isnotreal women post garbage like this? https://www.tumblr.com/anneemay/736470687414386688

and also about how taylor swift has been silent on everything but last night I saw a tweet that she was seen going to one of ramy youssef's shows and all proceeds would go to gaza humanitarian relief? a bunch of isnotreal girls were freaking out and saying things like 'I don't see it!' and 'she's hopefully just pro-peace and not against us!' and 'some people are pro-isnotreal but just feel bad for palestine'. I would think as the time person of the year (lol the gazan journalists and doctors deserve it) with a lot of influence, she should speak up? when she told everyone to vote, there was a huge surge in voter registration. not to give her more power than she has because she obviously can't influence policy but if she were to join the ceasefire demands, it would bring out even more support and put more pressure. idk! just wanted to hear your thoughts on these topics if you have the bandwidth to do so!

I really do not know how much more depraved settlers can get, and I'm continually reminded it get can get lower and lower each time I see something like this:

From slut shaming a Palestinian women when an IOF soldier found her lingerie in her OWN fucking room that they were raiding, to an IOF soldier happily destroying a small stationery shop, to another IOF scum stealing a Palestinian woman's silver necklace he looted (a necklace that was supposed to be worn on her wedding day, but she was killed in an attack) in order to give it to his own girlfriend...

I just... the layers of indoctrination here is incredibly evident (I actually intend to post something about this in the near future) as one element, because you cannot do something or say something like this without being void of humanity -and also, without being so deeply ingrained in this notion that Palestinian people are not human beings -and that by degrading, humiliating, and dehumanizing them in ways like this will somehow justify the violence, terror, and genocide the IOF is committing... it's just so wild to me.

Because the IOF is continuing to commit heinous war crimes, crimes against humanity, and has and will continue to disproportionately commit sexual violence against Palestinian women and young boys, and it is absolutely inhumane and despicable -and the fact that this person thinks the IOF has a 'good' reputation -is absolutely next level shamelessness. My stance has and always will be if you're a 'feminist' who supports the IOF, you're not a feminist -you're a genocidal apologist like the rest of those sympathetic to IOF crimes.

As for Taylor Swift, like her fellow celebrities -and every single one of them that signed that document in support of the IOF, including those who have been and remain silent -they are all complicit. A part from saying celebrity culture needs to be dismantled and diminished because why -like why are these people put on pedestals is one thing, but also -if you have to do go through mental gymnastics to defend that silence or complicity (like fans of Selena Gomez did), I need people to critically reflect A LOT more. And that if your fan base is more concerned about your 'side' rather than a ceasefire... then I think the people who need to be calling this out especially are Swifties themselves -and to acknowledge that this is an issue. Just like how Taylor Swift for YEARS made bank fully well knowing white supremacists LOVED her -and only being more 'socially aware' when she could monetize it has also never sat well with me.

There are SO many voices encouraging people to vote, to get involved in their communities and to raise awareness about social issues (a lot of whom are Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists and creators -so many of which get backlash a lot more than their white colleagues do), so even with her platform, I think she's always going to be motivated by what will make her money and will appease the people she works for (which, I want to assume as pro-IOF).

And even if she was supportive [like morally knows what the IOF is doing is criminal, violent, and unethical] but is not vocal about it, I think it's important we stop putting our energies into getting celebrities and influencers like her to talk about this (especially given her track record). Generally speaking, I would prefer to elevate Palestinian voices and activists like so many have already (like Hind, Motaz, Muhammad, Bisan, Plestia, and many more) than people like her. I do understand why people with millions of 'followers,' are powerful -they are (like Kehlani for instance -and I love this woman with my whole heart because she has been very open about supporting Palestine); but the one's who aren't transparent -they are also millionaires/billionaires who have social and financial capital in ways that are beyond excessive and I do not believe any one of them will speak on Historic Palestine if they haven't from the start or haven't already and addressed the reasons as to why, especially given the US's position -which is that the IOF has a right to 'defend itself.'

So I say support the artists and people who have been aligned with Palestine since the beginning, and to be wary of the people who have remained silent -and to boycott and call out the people who are complicit in this genocide. I know that this was an incredibly long response, but at the heart of it -I don't like or trust Taylor Swift. And I am amazed every single time I see her fans run to her defense (I know there are exceptions, which I respect), but at the end of the day she's a celebrity/an entertainer, and she will capitalize and monetize on 'feminist' or 'social justice' issues when it can be sanitized and watered down in a way that is not 'too political,' but makes a statement -so that it can still sell records and sell out stadiums.

I posted a video recently where a creator on tiktok called Taylor Swift out and The Times, if I can link it here I will as well.

Thank you so much for your questions, and if you have any remaining feedback or insights, please do not hesitate to send another message.

[inconspicouslurker]

Odalia isn't a 2 dimensional evil villain

Hot take: Odalia isn't as awful as the fandom makes her. Hopefully I won't get too much hate because I'm sensitive.

Don't get me wrong, she terrible but she she not heartless or evil for the sake of evil. She not two dimensional as the fanbase makes her. She not punting a puppy into the boiling sea and watching it suffer while cackling maniacally. She not out to torture her own family for funsies. She in fact, love her family...she was just terrible toxic and blinded by her need of control. She does make her family miserable but she does it so they can achieve a goal she had set thinking its whats is best.

Look as Odalia traits. In my last post, (cue a copy and paste) She very intuitive which is why she a great oracle. She acts like a know it all because of it, but within reason, she is usually right about things. Because of this, she thinks her opinion is the only right opinion and there's very little variety from that. If something goes wrong she thinks its because no one listened to her.

She also a very driven, goal oriented. Boy, does she have goals! She is very much a "ends justify the means"

Another trait, and her oracle skill encourages this, is she plans ahead. In fact, that's all she does. She is constantly looking ahead, to ensure her family and business is ahead of the game. She rarely in the now.

She shown to be very involve in her family. She notice Amity forgot her lunch and sent the twins to give it to her, she in the Parent Creature Association. The Blight children biggest grips is Odalia being too involved and being controlling because of it.

Let's get into her headspace. Odalia is use to being right about things so when she planned things for her children, it was for their best interest (she believes). Despite them protesting and not desiring whatever it is. She so busy looking to their future she not looking at their needs and desire now. They are kids, they don't know better...but Odaila does. She older, wiser, experienced and rarely wrong. They will thank her when they are older when they are successful adults. They may be miserable now, but who isn't happy once they become successful? Which they will be later, as long as they listen to her. The end justify the means.

She may even grew up in a very similar way. She turn out alright, even better! Look at her now! she living the life, successful, beautiful, she has it all. She can do the same for her own children but even better.

She still a terrible and toxic mother. Im sure she give many back hand handed compliments. for example: "Emira, you are so beautiful, its a shame your pimples distracts the eyes that they become the main focus." She also critique her children for a way for them to improve themselves but she is overly critical when she do so. Her 'helpful' advice just comes out as criticism. Which leads to her children identity issues and strive for perfection, even if it means hiding themselves in concealment stones. As Odaila places emphasis are making good appearances to make good impressions and keeping the Blights in a positive image of status. She did want what's she thought best for the family. Again, she rarely wrong. how can she possibly be wrong about this? Nearly everything she done it was for the family. Which in turn. she benefits greatly from as it also boost her image and status more. It's a win-win for her.

I'm not saying she did it for them as for an example, a parent painfully endured a children concert of whatever the child obsessed with at the current moment to make them happy. No. she the catalyst of having her children endure what she thinks is best for them. Like how a parent force their children to learn an instrument and practice, practice, practice! But its not an instrument she making them endure but things she believe would benefit them later. Amity will thank her later in life when she get to keep all schools of magic when she joins the emperor coven.

All this makes Odalia look good and furthering her family higher in status. Status is Odalia personal desire. She money hungry but I think that's because it easier to raise status when your filthy rich and its a way how inconveniences can be pay away.

Isn't it so wonderful Odalia can reach her dream while bettering her children's lives?

Then theres a Day of Unity. I have no reasonable explanation why Belos would include her. The only thing I can think up was, She very intuitive and with the large shipment she knew something was up. Somehow Belos knew and they had a meeting.

If anyone has headcanon on how or why Belos included Odalia, I would love to hear it.

I have to have another watch, but I found it odd that the whole Isle had to be at the head for the Day of Unity and not celebrating in the streets at their homes. I think the spell to work effectively, needed witches to close distance to the conduit. Which, Belos needed the abomtrons to entrap them.

So Belos manipulated Odalia. He good at telling people what they want to hear. I'm pretty sure he told Odalia point blank, a lot of witches will die during the Day of Unity but only the worthy and the faithful to the Titan will survive. It's the Titan will. You don't want to go against his will do you?" Essentially trapping her to keep the secret. It worked. She was terrified She has to stay silent, if she spoke of it, she unworth and unfaithful which would mark her for death. But Belos still can't chance her if she risk being brave by telling people that would start an uprising. So he promise her all something she always desired if she stay quiet. Higher status. What higher than being royalty of the new world of the faithful and worthy?

Belos also plan may extended that knows Luz affections for Amity. Luz being a weird wild card to that might ruin his plan, so he may implied to Odalia he wanted her to home imprisonment Amity so Luz would go to her and away from the skull. It's a bit of a stretch but it can sort of work. It explains the gaslight Odalia did in that episode. I'm sure she regularly gaslights but that seemed a bit excessive to me.

So Odalia kept silent, fulfilling the Titan will. She'll sacrifice the whole damn isle to ensure her family safety. The end justify the means. Plus she'll get a nice crown, what a nice bonus for keeping a secret.

It's ironic that Odalia the oracle could be so blinded to everything she held dear. Including her own actions and the immediate effects. But the end justify the means, the means of her perception on how things should be and the way to achieve them. She never once foreseen or thought the means would go against her and veer into a different end. Why would they? Her end is the correct one...it's what's best. She's always right? right?

She doesn't realize her opinion isn't always the right and/or only opinion. It cost her everything. She still doesn't believe she wrong and her family turning their backs on her, after EVERYTHING she done for them. It was a slap in the face. What a bunch of ingrates! They should apologize to her. In her mind, Alador betrayed her destroying their life work and leaving their partnership. The kids shunning her. Odalia believes she did nothing wrong, all the hardship she force them to endure would have payed off if they just waited a little longer! Then her family realize it was all worth it and thank her for her wise foresight.

After her separation of the family, she will judge her family from a distance. Scoff when they seem to struggle. They should have listen to her. But over the years, she see that they are happy...thriving. Maybe not thriving in fortune sense, but just in life. After some time...a lot longer than is should have, and replaying her memories as she reflects about her currently life, i'm sure are a lot of screaming, scoulding, yelling matches after the Day of Unity and they took separate ways, in retrospect can see some of family points about her and her...mistakes. She start to feel a pang of remorse. She won't apologise...not until years has passed. Not like 2-3 years, im talking...10-15 years she try to make contact and apologise.

I think, surprisingly she'll miss and feel bad about Alador the most. He pledge and gave his life and everything to her. He was so damn loyal to her to a fault that her misuse of her family made him snap that unwavering loyalty and that oh so important word of a Blight he gave her for 30 years. While everyone was hurt and sad and a slew of negative emotion about the situation, the children was fueled more by anger. Alador gave her his own choice angry and hurt words, but he just looked so heartbroken in the end.

I realize people may wonder at this point... after the Day of Unity...how can she think she not wrong? She was a victim of the spell too...surly she must know she was wrong! Remember earlier I mention "If something goes wrong she thinks its because no one listened to her." Guess what? Alador and Amity didn't listen to her and they ran off. It doomed her and partner. She also may consider she doomed herself by going against the Titan wishes by admitting what she knew to them before the family battle.

So that's my take on Odalia. I think she more dimensional then the fan makes her. I know its so easy for people to just make her a flat evil villain. She is a manipulative, terrible abuser. I don't think she realizing she abusing. She knows she being underhanded but I think she thinks the word "abuse" is too far and exaggerating. As I mention, she may grew up similar so this is just "normal parenting" from her own childhood observation.

I also have no doubt in my mind she intentionally cruel and cutthroat to people not her family or a threat to business as a prevention. She'll act in more subtle ways within the the law so there's no repercussion. But She has discreetly work outside of it and leaves no proof. It be poor form and bad image if she did.

But as for family, she doesn't have ill intentions. Just terribly and horribly misguided under her own accord. She not intending to make her family miserable, for the pleasure of it. She just ends up making them miserable by a means to achieve a goal she believe is best for the family. Not saying she gets a pass for her abuse. Just she has more depth then the fanbase paint her as evil incarnate.

If you use my headcanon for fic or art, I'll appreciate a shout out. I'm hoping to incorporate my headcanon into my own fic. Particularly the Belos bit, and Odalia feeling betrayed by her family while feeling she didn't do much wrong to warrant it.

[jessenitrogen]

for the good of all

self conscious of the title now but whatever I had this piece in mind for awhile and finally got around to drawing it .

ANYWAYS I absolutely love Earthspark, it's so pretty, fun, and the story so far is ENGAGING

(Earthspark spoilers ahead? I went on a tangent here if you read it all I love you no homo and thank you)

going absolutely ballistic over what I think is the the conflict in the show, almost everyone to some degree is trying to do what they think is best, for humanity, for cybertronians, and their factions

I believe Soundwave is trying to do things in the best interest for the Decepticons, I feel like he took the leadership role for them after Megatron turned autobot. Ofcourse, hes pissed, but maybe his fight with Megatron in episode Decoy both served as a way to get into G.H.O.S.T.'s facility, and send a message to Megatron. why Soundwave wants to be in the facility? to free the decepticons

Dr.Meridian, ever since he lost his arm due to a building collapse caused by autobot friendly fire, believes both decepticon and autobot are hazards to the human race. he almost died due the conflict between the two factions, theres a high chance people already have, and since this conflict is still going on now even when the war is over, probably feels more justified in attempting to eradicate them

Optimus, oh my poor boy I know he goes to sleep crying or with a bad helm ache or both. Personally, I think, this version of Optimus really gave in to appease to humanity, and lost a bit of himself. He isn't as stoic, I dont believe he delivered one of his moving speeches yet, he doesn't entirely feel like typical Optimus to me. This, I think, is the result of trying to appease to humanity. He knows he and the others must coexist with humans preferably peacefully ever since he destroyed the space bridge home, which he did in desperation to save the universe from the war he was fighting. To stop the still ongoing conflict with the decepticons now, he joined G.H.O.S.T out of desperation, a last resort, thinking it was the best course of action. Hes a leader, he must make the toughest decisions, but he didnt have anyone tell him in time or straight up that maybe, the course of action he takes isnt the best. I could go on about Optimus but some other time I'll continue but I really like this version of Optimus

MEGATRON TFE megatron is the only megatron I really like (tfp megatron got tainted for me because of a friends cursed character association, and I don't know other megatrons well) ANYWAYS, despite not exactly a leader, he still did what he thought was best, not only for the decepticons but maybe for the autobots and humanity: help end the war by joining the autobots. he sacrificed his image with the decepticons causing outrage in some (soundwave) but atleast it ended the war. But now, he helps clean up the mess that is still ongoing conflict. He sees as both sides, and disapproves of what is being done to decepticon prisoners, he knows something is wrong with G.H.O.S.T, and knows that, you cant please all of humanity. he hasn't brought up a different course of action, but he does bring up this: there's got to be a better way to go about this. he hasnt said it, but I believe that's what he thinks

END OF RANT AGAIN THANK YOU IF YOU READ IT ALL HOPEFULLY I MAKE SENSE

[helloitisiafellowgay]

another part of my Steve gets Vecna’d AU, where i provide very little context lmaoo sorry

i’ve been working on this for OVER A YEAR and still have a few scenes to finish 😭 my draft rn is almost 19k so I’ll hopefully get it out before like November at this rate :)

vague context: this is the night before The Big Fight TM and people like JUST found out that steves possessed and eddie is cleaning steve’s demobat wounds

other post

——————

“Do you—“ the drug dealer looks conflicted, debating whether to poke at a neglected bruise. “Why didn’t anyone notice?”

There’s a knot in his throat, a tightening of his larynx. “What do you mean?”

”That you were hallucinating? Having nightmares?” Before, Eddie wouldn’t meet his gaze. Now, he won’t let Steve look away, slowly regaining his certainty, his intensity. “Why was I the only one to even consider anything was wrong? You’re not that great of an actor— you aren’t, don’t look at me like that— and they’ve known you so much longer than I have.”

And isn’t that the question he’d been shoving out of his own mind since the beginning of this whole mess? That small seed of doubt, pushing forward and flourishing now that someone else had stopped to water it.

He knows, he knows— they don’t care about him as much as he cares about them. Sees it in the way the kids dismiss him as soon as they arrive at their destination, only call on him when they want something; the way he gives it every single time regardless.

Each girl in his bed, driving him like a crash-test car; the excuse to leave, the cold sheets in the morning. A freezing bathroom at a party, the echo of bullshit refracting off the cold tile.

The crack of ceramic against his skull, the fist in his sternum, the stifling ash in his lungs in a buried tunnel. Interrogation tactics, missing fingernails, drugged out of his mind; flesh monster, the loss of the one male adult he could actually depend on.

And before it all, the steel door, the silhouette, the—

No.

No, Steve knows that he is, at his core, what he has always been: unloveable.

After the reactivity, the intentional cruelty of his youth, he expects nothing other than a warning label.

Danger: do not interact. Prone to violence.

Steve is his father’s son, after all. They share the same ruthless ferocity, the same scarred knuckles.

He has spent so long convincing the world that anything can be turned into a weapon, and he started with his hands; if he squints long enough, blood pools itself into the crevices of his palms, fingernails curving into sharp edges and the remnants of whiskey bottles.

A product of his environment, no doubt; the weight of his family name, absent parents, superficial friends.

King Steve with a hollow crown, sat in his pristine castle with everything a teen could ask for except anyone to make him feel worth following. Like something other than a cheap toy, a pretty face, a chore to be put off until a more convenient time.

It’s fact of his life, something he felt no reason to doubt when people keep proving it to him, over and over and over.

He’s useful— for rides to the arcade, for a place to hangout when everywhere else has been vetoed, to wield a baseball bat studded with nails, the last line of defense, the one who can be counted on to take the hit— but not their friend. Not wanted, not valuable, and certainly not lovable.

So how can he possibly justify this unwavering loyalty, his propensity to follow them around like a stray dog waiting on table scraps? Why he keeps coming back, offering every part of himself when none of them would do the same for him?

Steve shrugs. “They all have their own shit going on, they can’t help it. I didn’t want to make things complicated.”

The drug dealer frowns, already shaking his head in disagreement. “That’s not— not good enough. They’re not too busy, they just don’t…”

Care.

They just don’t care.

Steve catches the moment that the other boy sees the bundle of scars peeking just over the hem of his boxers. Tears his own focus away from those small, circular burns; old enough to be suspicious, obvious enough that even a ten-year-old could come to the correct conclusion about their origin without much effort.

A kid with cigarette burns— not common, but definitely not rare.

A rich kid with cigarette burns? That just doesn’t happen.

“Doesn’t Vecna go after people with trauma? It’s not like Steve—”

His stomach roils, a distant nausea working its way up his esophagus. The younger teen holds his breath and waits, but Eddie doesn’t ask, just furrows his brow and grazes over the puckered skin with a single, calloused thumb.

Steve shivers, bites his lip, fights the urge to dislodge the soft touch and flee the room. He doesn’t.

Eddie goes back to taping the raw edges of his wounds closed.

A sick, twisted heat takes root in his stomach; invasive and insatiable, it chokes out his heart until it has nowhere left to go except up into his throat, and flourishes in the abandoned cavity left behind.

“Do you think when he chose me… do you think he knew?” Steve’s a conglomeration of dull apathy and the underlying static of panic; he feels like he’s back under the water, suspended in time and trying desperately not to drown. “That I wouldn’t say anything? Wouldn’t want to tell them, you, about… That… that they don’t…?”

The musician pulls out a roll of gauze, presses one end to his rib cage with more care than anyone has shown him in a long time.

“I think that you hide so much from everyone, more than anyone thinks that you do. And I think that, to someone like him, it’s easy to mistake that for shame.”

Oh.

“And what if I am?” Steve clenches his jaw, flattens his lips to disguise their infernal trembling. “Ashamed… of being known? Afraid that people will hate what they find, if I were to let people in— share those parts of myself?”

The last of the sunset dissipates from the sky, leaves the world outside of the window cast in a deep indigo.

A murmur, almost subconsciously, from his healer: “Isn’t everyone?”

He is some sort of wretched thing— must be, to warrant this raw, gnawing ache in his core. The withering, the erosion at the fringes of his being, exposing the live-wire at the heart of him.

Pressure, as the dressing is applied to his wounds. The light brush of skin against skin.

“You aren’t an inconvenience, you know.” Eddie wraps the last of the bandage around his abdomen, secures it in place. “You are allowed to ask for help. And other people want to help, if you let them.”

The babysitter hums, a non-answer, omitted confirmation. Can do little else, lest he wilt under the force of this personification of a star.

“I might not know why none of the kids said anything, but...“ Off to the side, the discarded towel is depositing water on the floor. When Eddie reaches for it, there’s a damp patch on his jeans that the babysitter stares at while his hands are taken, dabbed at with damp cotton. “Robin, Nancy, and I literally followed you into hell. You’re not taking anything from us that we wouldn’t freely give.”

The older boy’s gaze is wild, reverent. From where he is crouched in front of Steve, it must look like he’s kneeling before a monarch, a King.

What a resolute act of devotion: tending to the wounds of a martyr, washing the blood from each finger as if every millimeter of exposed skin is something worth defending.

Steve doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve such absolution; this exoneration from all of the sin coating his fingers and dripping from his teeth. He is nothing more than a child devouring overripe berries in another family’s garden, filling his vacant stomach with sweet crimson nectar that he will never be able to justify aching for.

He is no deity, no patron saint or messiah. He’s barely a king. ”I’m not worth—“

He has never been religious— or, at least definitely not after the monsters came into the picture. But he knew then, knows now— there is no heavenly father, no almighty God, that could give him back that purity, that holy golden ichor.

Whenever Steve had plead to this creator, prayed for help while pinned to the ground under the malicious intent of another— there was no response. Just the echo of his faith, his questions, being tossed back at him, neglected and unanswered.

”You’re worth everything, Steve Harrington.” Eddie’s intensity, his conviction, makes Steve’s heart lurch somewhere in his chest. “There is nothing you could ask from us that you haven’t deserved a hundred times over.”

The cloth, damp and abrasive against his palms, collects strawberry residue within its woven fibers.

His crown must be less hollow than he thought.

There is no god that can restore his virtue, slip the innocence back into his pockets, baptize him in the light of unconditional love— but Eddie… Eddie is just a man.

Just a man, who wiped each of his fingers clean; dressed his wounds with such gentle hands. Just a man, who kissed each bruise, each old scar, without the intent to hurt.

Just a man who held him, who pulled him back when his whole body was on the edge of a precipice.

Who answered his questions without judgement— without stripping him of his divinity, casting him down from the heavenly throne and into the sulphuric pits of eternal damnation.

Just this boy, who looks at him like he is worth more here, in this moment, than he ever would be nailed to a cross.

What god has ever done that for him?

[looniecartooni]

Okay... I might upset all parts of the IDW fandom when I repeat this but-

The way Lanolin is being written in this recent arc is good and bad at the same time. On paper- her actions make sense:

-She sees Tangle playing with a paddleball. It's making a lot of noise and it's distracting, she takes it away

-She sees Silver accuse a supposedly sad boy Duo who claims he was trying to get help, she defends him

-Silver and Whisper start accusing Duo of being Mimic with very little evidence and start behaving violently towards him- well, the events of IDW #64 happen

Buuuut just because her actions make sense, doesn't mean that they are just:

-Tangle has trouble sitting still. Lanolin didn't tell her that it was distracting, she whacked it out of her tail. Granted, Lanolin was tired and busy, but Tangle would have at least tried to be less loud if Lanolin told her

-Silver was freaked out by the incident with the fish and shocked Duo left him. Lanolin defends Duo without really talking to her team about the situation. We learn that Whisper saw Duo kick Silver and seemingly only talked to Silver about it

-She saw Whisper and Silver tailing Duo for the whole day and only when Whisper started to get violent suggested that they'd talk

What I think that means is, knowing Lanolin's character from the City Arc, she's trying to act like a good leader still, but she's not quite understanding her teammates as individuals fully. She has room for growth and she's only going to realize this mistake when she sees that Duo is Mimic. Right now, she's being way too lenient on him because he keeps playing the "I'm just a wittle guy twying my best" card, sad cat boy face and all.

Thus- she is blind to the situation at hand which is what we the reader know that we are mad she doesn't know- Mimic revealed himself to Silver and Whisper figured it was Mimic by the description of his eyes. Whisper's whole life has been messed up by this guy who got her last team killed. Silver is misunderstanding of situations and tends to take things too far with a guy he knows/thinks did something wrong. Minute he hears of who Mimic is, he wants to catch him. Mimic is clever and manipulative and knows how to take advantage of everyone's strengths and weaknesses.

Lanolin has no idea Mimic is Duo because she is not listening/talking with her other teammates, so she's seeing everyone's actions from an outside perspective. She seems to think Silver is rash, Whisper is rational (with maybe a tad bit understanding of her trauma), and Mimic's a scared little cat-boy. And we see this foreshadowed by how she treats Tangle. Perhaps that's even why we the reader are being shown right away that Mimic is Duo- we're supposed to be mad yet perhaps understanding of how Lanolin's behaving. We know these characters and Lanolin doesn't. But hopefully she will learn, even though it might be too late.

Her behavior is understandable, but not justified. I want to believe that the IDW writers are setting up a lot of character arcs in this arc (as well as others) and part of Lanolin's is that she's going to learn more about being a good leader aside from keeping everyone in line and combat training. I hope that makes sense.

[jo-harrington]

Jo, my love 🤍

For a little Heaven/AASB prompt: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Chelsea my love 💜 This has been sitting in my drafts for so long. (The last blurb game I played.) I love you and know you needed a little time to feel better, but hopefully this can make you smile a little. Sorry this is so late, I am TRASH.

Haven't ready Heaven yet? Find it here. And find the Master List for As Above, So Below here.

December 1984

It had been a month.

A month full of nightmares and worry and tentative touches.

Eddie walked on eggshells around you, making sure you knew how much he cared about you—how much he loved you—while he whispered sweet nothings in your ear, hoping to soothe whatever demons lurked just beyond your consciousness.

But he couldn’t deny it anymore.

You lied to him.

And he needed to confront you about it.

“You saw Nightmare on Elm Street without me,” he exclaimed as you opened the door to greet him, ready for a night in.

Your previously excited expression fell.

“Eddie, I—”

“Nope,” he interrupted and pushed past you into your apartment. “I don’t wanna hear it. You said you didn’t want to go with me and you went anyway.”

After the whole incident that night in November—the one that had you practically clawing at his door, covered in soot and muck and smelling like smoke—he had treaded carefully. You had put on a brave face but he knew that you weren’t ok.

You flinched when he touched you if you didn’t expect him to. If you spilled any gas when you went to fill up your car, you’d scrub and scrub your hands until the skin was raw and throbbing.

However, the nights where you stayed together—whether at your apartment or at the trailer—and you woke up panting and in a cold sweat were the worst.

Which was why he didn’t protest when you turned down seeing the movie with him, despite having been excited several weeks before when you’d seen the preview for it on tv.

“That looks absolutely amazing. I can’t believe they’re waiting for November. They should have released it for Halloween!” You gushed.

“Listen, that Terminator movie seems pretty cool too,” he justified. “We’ll just have to wait.”

So the two of you waited, and Eddie waited even longer, it seemed.

He didn't bring it up when the Hawk began advertising it on the marquee--he thought he was giving you time before springing a nightmare monster on you--but at Thanksgiving, Wayne had mentioned it after the commercial popped up during dinner and you immediately became flighty.

"That the movie you kids were thinking' of seeing?" he asked around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

"Yeah, we need to get tickets before the Hawk features another show." Eddie turned to you. "How 'bout it, angel? You're off tomorrow."

"Oh, umm," you pushed your fork through your macaroni and cheese and shrugged. "I'm kind of...tired. I was just gonna stay in, if you wanted to just come over and watch movies with me there."

Eddie agreed, of course. Not only was he eager for any amount of time he could spend with you, he just...didn't want to push you before you were ready. He also didn't want to be the kind of boyfriend who steamrolled you just because he wanted to do something.

He'd been around enough assholes like that and he knew, whether you explicitly said it or not, that you had been too.

Still...he really didn't want to wait until Family Video had the tape for rent.

So on the last day that it was at the Hawk, some dull little Wednesday at the beginning of December, he went. Brought Jeff, Gareth, and Dave under the guise of it being a treat for a great set the night before. (They really had done a good job.)

And on the way out, he noticed the poster still hanging outside of the box office. The creepy claws, Heather Langenkamp's petrified gaze. Maybe seeing the movie would be too much for you, but the poster would look really good on the otherwise-barren walls of your little apartment.

So told the boys to wait in the van so he could beg and plead and possibly bribe the theater manager--one of Rick's fishing buddies--to give the poster to him.

Imagine Eddie's surprise when the older man pulled a post it off the side of the cash register and said it was already spoken for. That surprise only increased tenfold when he recognized your name and phone number scrawled there.

Eddie asked when you'd claimed it.

"Yeah, a big group from Bradley's came by right before Thanksgiving" the manager shrugged. "You know old Tim likes to do...what do they call it? Team building? Whatever new fangled ways that you get out of paying out a holiday bonus."

Eddie didn't know how to feel...he knew you kept secrets...he did too. It wasn't that the two of you were lying to one another, per se...this certainly felt like a lie though.

Why wouldn't you just tell him you had seen the movie?

The two seconds it took for the theater manager to take a breath and get to his feet were an eternity for Eddie, and in that eternity, he spiraled in insecurity. His doubt in you, in your relationship, in himself.

He didn't want to do it. Didn't want to be this way. But what else should he think--could he think--but that it was his fault when everyone left?

The theater manager exited the box office and walked over to the poster display. He fished keys from his back pocket and unlocked the little window, then pulled the poster out and handed it to a numb Eddie, oblivious to his internal conflict.

"She said it was some kind of surprise for her boyfriend," the manager explained. "But...you're practically Rick's kid. I can't say no to you Ed. Just don't tell anyone where you got it. I don't want to get some kind of phone call saying I'm...out to destroy young love or something."

Just like that, all of the doubt exited his body.

Now here he was, standing before you as you stammered and tried to explain, as you tried to say that you had no choice. You paced and worried your fingers together and he knew he had to stop you before you got too caught up in your guilt.

He pulled the poster out from where it was tucked inside of his jacket and held the roll out to you.

"What's this?" you grabbed it from him with a frown.

"The scroll with the instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch," he grinned and urged you to look at it.

You unfurled the poster and the tension in your shoulders dissipated.

"You could have just gone with me again," Eddie offered. "I wouldn't have minded."

"I just...didn't want to be a disappointment to you," you sighed. "I know you were looking forward to it. You always cover my eyes during the jump scares. That's your favorite part."

"No," Eddie shrugged. "My favorite part is making out with you during the credits."

You rolled your eyes and rolled the poster back up to hit him with it.

"Hey now, don't damage the goods," Eddie laughed and grabbed you by the arms to stop your playful abuse. "It took a lot of work to woo old Bill into giving me that poster."

"I wanted to surprise you," you scoffed. "I was even gonna give him $20!"

"You seriously underestimate my ability to charm people, sweetheart," Eddie teased. "Hypnotize them, get them to fall for my devastating good looks."

"I guess I'm just immune to that charm," you snarked and he shifted his hands quickly to your waist tickle you. "Ah no Eddie!"

You shrieked and squirmed until you started to go limp in his arms, unable to withstand the assault any longer. His fingers slowed down and he took the opportunity to smack a kiss against your lips.

"Just you wait. One day I'll find the right words, the right enchantment," he vowed in a faux menacing voice. "And you'll never escape my spell, ever again."