#still cannot get over how death game adjacent it is

[uniformbravo]

blue lock is so funny. what if soccer was fucked up and Mean

[ghost-proofbaby]

Aruna hadn’t been described as dangerous before, but Nettie was right to use the word. 

summary: aruna's foolishness leads to her finally getting a glimpse into the chasm that resides inside her chest. what she discovers should change something, if not everything.

wc: 4.2k+

warnings: further descriptions of being poisoned, game-adjacent violence (rip nettie), recovery of some memories, mentions of vampiric behavior (careful, he bites), vague mentions/allusions of a parental death, physical description of aruna (her eyes, ears, and hair specifically)

a/n: how much lore can i fit into one chapter? yes.

ao3 | masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

Aruna is a godsdamned idiot. A fool, just as Astarion had called her. She had been too trusting, and finally, it had gotten her into trouble.

Real trouble. Life-or-death trouble. 

She should react, should move, should follow Astarion’s lead of the defense. She’s clearly been poisoned, for gods’ sakes. But her feet stay planted and her hand stays clutched as her eyes only stare at the scene before her, not even daring to blink for so long that she can feel the burn of reactive tears beginning to gather. She knows she looks pathetic, can feel the shame creeping up right along with the panic, a contract of chills and heat that trace right up her spine. That’s the only explanation for the way Astarion looks at her.

The furrow of his brows is out of disgust. There’s not a single chance that it’s because he’s sharing her fear, that he’s shouldering any of the terrified waves crashing down over her. Even the tadpole connection has finally retreated from her brain. 

“You poisoned me,” she breathes out, voice trembling. She finally blinks – once, twice for good measure – as her eyes divert to the healer caught in Astarion’s hold, “You poisoned me.” 

“I’m sorry, but-” Nettie’s voice is lost as Astarion digs his blade in deeper. Not yet breaking skin, but an unspoken threat. 

He was right. She’s a fucking fool. 

It’s the only possible explanation as she snaps her gaze to him, and with all the breath she can manage to gather, she sternly says, “Let her go.”

“I- What?” he hisses, face twisting, “Why in the sweet Hells would I let her go? She poisoned you-”

“I’m well aware, now let her go.” 

There’s an internal battle that rages like no other in Astarion as he contemplates her demand. She can see his initial reaction clear as day; he wants to defy her, to deliver a killing blow instead of releasing Nettie. Aruna doesn’t need a tadpole connection to know that’s what his hands twitch to do. 

But, then, the look of defiance does the unthinkable – it passes. 

With the same speed in which he’d locked his arms around Nettie, Astarion lets them fall away, staying poised with his weapons as he takes a few steps back. Aruna’s hope is for Nettie to come to her senses, for her to have a reasonable conversation and for there to somehow be a cure to whatever she’s just stabbed the confused girl with. Her heart is still racing, pushing that poison through her system, and her palm feels as though she’s holding it right above an open flame. Searing, blistering, shooting pains. It’s getting harder for Aruna to keep an impassive expression, to hide away all that pain in hopes of maintaining some sort of respectable front. 

Aruna realizes that maybe, just maybe, she needs to come to her senses regarding all her hopes and dreams of kindness. 

“I am truly sorry,” the woman says slowly, one hand still holding the branch as her other begins a slow crawl to her hip, “But you must understand, you are dangerous. I don’t have a cure. All I can do is stop you, before you hurt anyone.” 

Dangerous. It’s the first time Aruna has ever been described as such, as of recently of course. She’s been described as a fool, as clumsy, as heroic – but never dangerous.

The girl who cannot even properly wield her blades certainly cannot be dangerous, can she? 

Nettie’s words betray her as she doesn’t focus on Aruna, though. She’s quick to spin around as she unsheathes the blade that neither Aruna nor Astarion had noticed, lunging straight for the only dangerous one in the room. Astarion. 

He can handle his own. He’s proven that he can; he’s capable of defending himself by easily outmaneuvering Nettie. But there are words seared into Aruna’s every waking breath, and they are all she can hear as the healer attempts to catch Aruna’s companion off guard. 

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, ABOVE ALL ELSE, SAVE ASTARION. 

Aruna hadn’t been described as dangerous before, but Nettie was right to use the word. 

Nettie’s blade never makes it near Astarion. Not because of his own quick blades or steady footing, but because of Aruna. The air of the room crackles immediately, a thunder rumbling somewhere deep inside of Aruna’s chest as she lifts a hand and simply channels all the rage she feels sparking awake at the prospect of Astarion’s life being in danger. 

A chain of lighting. Beginning at Aruna’s palms, and ending at Nettie’s back. 

No matter what I do. 

Save Astarion. 

Something frenzied within Aruna, the animal that recognizes the elf that has been more of a nuisance towards her than something of importance, fuels the magic. Her magic. 

The magic of a sorcerer with one singular goal in mind. To save a life – a life that is certainly not Nettie’s anymore. 

The blast sends Nettie flying into her stone desk of equipment, a painful snap sounding as she attempts to break the crash with her arm. And the resulting waves of magic show no mercy as their pulsating send Astarion stumbling on his feet, pushing him back and farther out of reach of Nettie.

The only thing left behind in the room is the smell of burning flesh, the ragged and pained breaths of a miraculously still-alive Nettie, and Aruna’s voice. 

No longer trembling, she speaks words that feel as though they don’t even belong to her. At least, not this version of her. They come from deep within, echoing out of that lonely chasm within her that she can’t uncloak from the darkness, “You will know just see how dangerous I truly am if you so much as look at him once more.” 

Astarion, tadpole connection and all, stays silent. 

Aruna doesn’t know how she conjured the strength for the spell she’s used. She doesn’t even know which spell she’s just used. She hadn’t uttered a single cantation as the lighting had escaped her uninjured palm, hadn’t even thought of one. It had come to her as naturally as breathing; even more naturally than breathing, really, given her current state. 

And all that strength is quickly draining from her. Her legs are growing weaker, just as Nettie had predicted, and there’s a twist in her gut that nearly forces her to keel over. But she can’t. Nettie is still alive, and very much a threat. If not to Aruna, then to Astarion. 

Even with a back burnt to a crisp, charred skin peeking through her ravaged clothing, Nettie finds a way to stand up once again. Aruna’s hands fly to her daggers, not even bothering to glance and see if Astarion is in any shape to provide backup. The spell shouldn’t have hit nor affected him. And somewhere in that chasm in Aruna’s chest, she simply knows that he’s unharmed.

If he were, she would feel it in an instant. She has no doubt about it. And that has nothing to do with their current tadpole affliction. 

Move, don’t think. 

It’s Astarion’s voice, but not through the tadpole connection. It’s too muted, too faraway. Like a distant memory that Aruna can’t grasp her fist around. 

She listens to it. Whether she’s only imagining it to be his command out of need for comfort as the poison spreads or not, it’s good advice. 

Her daggers let out a ring from how ferociously she releases them from her scabbards at her hips, a heavy hilt marked with a moon in her left hand, and one marked with a star in her right hand. 

Steady your feet. Keep one arm close to you at all times to protect your torso. Use gravity to your advantage. 

Each set of instructions rings out as if traveling through water, back to back, as Aruna’s feet follow. Her stature is similar to that of Astarion’s, barely bent at the waist as she prowls up to Nettie, a look of determination set on her face. 

One arm poised to strike, one arm defensively staying close to her waist. She swears she can feel the ghost of palms steadying her along the way, correcting her form, as she goes in for a brutal swinging of her left arm.  

Her palm screams out against the leather of the dagger as her blade hits its mark. No hesitation, the metal has dug into Nettie’s chest just as the woman had been prepared for a second attack. Not a mere surface scratch – a proper slashing, one that begins to bleed profusely immediately. 

Do not let your guard down after your first attack. Remember self-preservation; if you’ve managed to weaken them, go in for the kill, Aruna. 

Go in for the kill, she does. 

What’s left of her strength, of her self-preservation, is exhausted entirely on the killing strike. Astarion hasn’t had to move a muscle as Nettie’s body drops to the ground with a thud, Aruna being the one holding a bloodied blade with further evidence splattered across her cheeks. 

Her stomach churns. Her knees finally give out, screaming out in pain as they connect with the rough ground. She swears it’s the weight of her actions and not the poison that has forced her down, but her rattling chest says otherwise. 

She’s just killed someone. 

It’s no longer just her palm that burns ferociously. Her entire body is alight, agonizingly blazing as she curls into herself. Her vision blackens at the edges, her hearing completely fades from her. 

Nettie’s blood is on her hands, and if she were in better shape, she’d have more devastation to spare. 

She doesn’t hear her own scream of agony, nor Astarion’s yell of her name. The last thing she can see, can remember, is the lifeless eyes of Nettie as she succumbs to darkness. 

—

Flashes of memories.

A shadow creeping his way along the edge of the camp, retreating into the forest, unaware of a restless Aruna still awake in the dead of night. 

A drained boar along a dirt path, left carelessly in the center. An irritated pale elf, insisting that investigating the carrion is a waste of time. 

A whisper of fangs against Aruna’s neck in the dead of a night in which sleep would not come easily to her. Wide, red eyes and a mouth slack to fully expose dangerous fangs. 

“Shit.”

A groveling of ‘just a taste’, a promise of strength, a gesture of trust. The piercing, numbing, cold stab of fangs piercing skin. The slow drain, the weightlessness, the gentle coax of ‘that’s enough’. 

His mania. His saunter. His revitalization. 

Her gift he won’t forget. 

As the flashes slow, Aruna makes out a clear image of the night sky that she’s gazing up at. Dazzling freckles of starlight across a stark onyx sheet, a full moon glowing as if brushed with specks of sterling silver. 

It’s captivating, comforting, homely. 

For a moment, she doesn’t understand the familiarity. The sheer importance of the moon hangs on her consciousness, regarding it as a guiding light as she relaxes, but she doesn’t understand. Not until she turns her head ever so slightly, and she catches sight of the familiar tufts of white hair at her side. 

It all clicks into place. 

All the dark holes in her psyche that haunt her during her waking hours have been filled in for just a moment within this dream – within this memory. She isn’t recalling them in vivid flashes as she was before, but there is a simple knowing, a simple fullness where vacancy once resided. She knows exactly where she is, exactly who she is, and she knows the man who rests at her side. She hadn’t even noticed the cold body at first, his thigh perfectly flushed with hers without an ounce of uncertainty in sight; it was natural for them. Here, in this memory, this was the normal. 

She’s sitting on the boulder with a clear outlook of camp, with Astarion at her side, whispering into the late night just as they always do. 

“You know,” he starts, as if she’s entered this consciousness in the middle of a simple conversation between friends, “I swear I’ve heard more horror stories about drow than I have vampires.” 

There are no choices for Aruna to make here. This script has already been written, already played out. She can only experience it. 

“Really?” she snorts, shaking her head. Her dark hair is pushed into the edges of her vision by the breeze, underhues of ashen purple visible in the moonlight, “Pulling that card, are we?” 

He’s wearing a sly yet easy smile. None of the tension Aruna had witnessed from him in her own journey so far is visible. This is the Astarion that that animal knows. That piece of her that resides so restlessly – it’s in control now, because it is the one that has lived this moment before. Soft, trusting eyes. Somehow, she’s aware that his guard has been let down since the night she allowed him to feed on her.

Somehow, she knows that there was a night in which she allowed him to feed on her. 

He’s a vampire. New information, but for some reason, it doesn’t startle her in the slightest. She simply knows. 

“Are you denying that drows aren’t a part of the shadows that go bump in the night?” he teases. He’s close enough that with every one of Aruna’s breaths, their shoulders are brushing. She doesn’t recoil from it; it’s something to lean into. 

She knows him, she trusts him. 

She shrugs and leans forward, and he follows. The camp is a bit different from that of Aruna’s waking hours. There’s a tent at the edge of her small cliff she’s come to love, the top clearly in sight. Deep, deep burgundy. It’s Astarion’s tent. He’d set it up there, acting almost as a guard for her small sanctuary she’s acquired in their homey camp. There’s another tent, too, that Aruna shouldn’t recognize. One off to the left, close to the campfire that’s been doused for the night. The occupant is just out of sight, but whoever resides inside, she knows she cares for. 

A friend. One she hasn’t met yet. Only in this dream, in this memory, does she know whatever force of nature that claims both that physical space and one within her heart. 

“Oh, no, they certainly are,” her voice is so sure, Aruna almost mourns that this version of her is not the one always in control, “You know me. Quarter drow, far more ferocious than you and those toothpicks you call fangs.” 

“Darling, I’m hurt. Must we pit ourselves against each other? Would our enemies not cower more if we joined our horrific forces?” 

Quarter drow. 

Aruna hasn’t even seen her reflection. Not the version of her riddled with holes and lacking in memories. She had no idea – she really shouldn’t even know what a drow is, but the knowledge comes easily to her. 

A dark elf. Images of red eyes far more vicious than Astarion’s glare at her judgmentally, cut through by a different pair. Vivid purple. Caring, loving, motherly. And oh so familiar, because she’s aware that when she does finally glance into a reflective surface, she is going to see a carbon copy of those eyes staring right back at her. Generational jewels, a ghost of a reminder of the woman who has long since taken her last breath. 

Aruna mourns her. But the memory she’s experiencing now has its restrictions, and as much as she chases after those motherly eyes, she’s not quite able to place them. Only know that she shares them. She knows that she will never see them again before her, only in mirrors and rivers. 

“I think my mother would have quite liked you, you know?” she breathes out carelessly, looking at Astarion with impossible warmth. She knows him – she trusts him, “She may have had quite a bit to say about me befriending a vampire, but you’d still grow on her.” 

He throws his head back in a bark of laughter that has Aruna shushing him instinctively, “Would she? I never have been the type that most would introduce to their mothers.” 

“Well, most are fools. I’ll have to introduce you to mine once we’ve returned to the city.” 

Astarion is completely unaware that the only thing that waits in the city is a crumbling stone, grown over with vines, nearly forgotten in the corner of a small graveyard. He will only be meeting the carvings of a mournful child left behind, determined to keep the memory of her mother alive. He has no idea – they aren’t quite there yet. 

“It would be an honor,” he nods surely, looking at her with unwavering eyes. They are alight with the same joy that consumes him every time Aruna indulges his antics. It’s beautiful – he’s beautiful. 

Something hauntingly, devastatingly gorgeous. Something broken, but Aruna has never shied away from a kindred soul. 

After all, how could one broken soul not call to another in the dead of night? 

His hand reaches up, and something inside of Aruna prepares to flinch, but she resists. It’s with a gentle touch that he’s tucking her wild hair behind her ear, fingers lingering as they coyly trace the shape of her ears. She swears, they outline a point. Not as obvious as his own, still a bit rounded and subtle, but it’s there. 

They’re quiet for a few seconds. Snores from across the camp can be heard, albeit a bit muted, and there’s a distant buzz of insects from the forest at their backs. This moment is only theirs. Come morning, their time belongs to others. There are people to help (even begrudgingly), there are other companions to entertain, there are adventures to be had. But for now, it doesn’t really matter. A bubble of safety, an escape of friendship. 

It’s more than Aruna knowing and trusting Astarion. He knows her, too. He’s beginning to trust her. 

He has to, because he lets her relax into him, her head falling slowly so that her temple rests against his shoulder. He tenses still, but he doesn’t push her away. If anything, he only leans into her. 

“Speaking of Baldur’s Gate,” Aruna murmurs, eyes still looking up at the moon as she speaks, “What awaits you back in the city, Astarion?” 

His voice is cool, even more so than his skin against hers, as he replies, “Nothing good.”

For a second, Aruna accepts the answer. She knows better than to push him, and she knows now that he means it when he says as much. But then– the memory taints.

It’s painful.

It’s not a part of the original script. This is not how the moment is meant to go. Something stains it, something makes that animalistic piece of her howl. 

Aruna sees it clearly, now, that her soul has been cleaved in half. It’s not an animal clawing at her insides; it is the half of her soul that knows him and knows their story. And it had gotten lost in the memory, recalling simple and sweet times before devastation had struck. Because the taint spreads, the poison consumes, and his words are nothing more than a bitter reminder. This Aruna, this Astarion – they do not know. But the half of Aruna’s soul that held this memory near and dear does, and the words ‘nothing good’ seems to function as knives that drive into it. It knows, it knows, it knows. 

Nothing good is an understatement as pain sears through Aruna. Wholly, fully. 

Not just an ache. Not just a chasm. Something inside of her has been torn apart and bloodied by the reminder of what’s to come. Aruna can’t remember. The split inside of her is not even, not a 50/50 division. It’s why she can’t remember, and all she can hear is the sobs from the part of her that is forever cursed to. 

Save Astarion, save Astarion, save Astarion. 

The memory is gone. All that remains is the dark, and the sobs. The dreadful, defeated sobs. 

—

When Aruna wakes back up, she’s covered in a cold sweat. With a gasp, she starts to sit up. Those sobs still echo, threatening to spill out of her throat now as a hand is suddenly on her shoulder, urging her to lay back down on an unfamiliar bed roll. 

“No!” a frenzied voice scolds, “No, do not get up. If you undo all my healing, I swear-”

“She has been poisoned. Show her some grace.” 

Astarion. She should be more focused on Shadowheart’s voice and instruction, but she can only cling to his voice defending her. 

Why is he defending her? Why isn’t she dead? 

“She doesn’t need grace,” Shadowheart spits back as Aruna’s eyes flutter about her surroundings, refusing to lay back down as she ignores Shadowheart’s hand, “She needs rest.” 

She’s inside a tent. The afternoon sunlight casted upon it from above turns the ceiling nearly transparent, the shades of purple and delicate lacing visible. 

Shadowheart’s tent. 

“Since when are those two things exclusive?” Astarion stands in the doorway of the tent, taking no steps towards the two women, eyes trained on Aruna. 

She flinches when the pressure of his tadpole caresses her, and he’s in her mind, breaking through far too easily. 

I would lay back down if I were you, his voice begins to coo within her head. The cleric has been feeling rather feisty-

His words cut off as all of Aruna’s racing thoughts pour down the connection. She has no control of it, still reeling from her dream, still remembering the Astarion from her slumber rather than the one in front of her. Still remembering those wretched damn sobs. They aren’t new ones from the part of her that remembers. They’re a memory in themselves. Ones that had poured out of Aruna at some point, ones that were born of pure heartbreak. She can’t place why, she can’t place when – she only knows the broken tone of her own misery. 

For a fleeting second, they flash to him before the connection slam shuts. Neither of them had even been aware that it was possible, but it clearly is, even if Aruna has no idea how she’s done it. It feels as though that cleaved half of her soul has taken full control. Instinctually taking the reins and effectively shoving Astarion back to an arm’s length away as she remembers. 

He mustn't know. 

She almost tries to pry the connection back open in order to spare an apology his way, but Aruna has no choice but to trust herself. If it says that Astarion can’t know, then he can’t. Simple as that.

It still aches when he staggers from the force of the connection being cut, finding his footing farther from her than he originally was. The distance is torture. But it is necessary. 

“A mirror,” she croaks out, softer than she’d tried to force the request. Her chest is rising and falling at an unmanageable rate, hysteria threatening to take over, “I need a mirror.” 

It was just a dream. It had to be.

But something about the urgency in Aruna’s tone has Shadowheart scrambling to obey her command, reaching about her belongings until she produces a small mirror. It’s passed into Aruna’s quivering palms with care before her knuckles turn white from how harshly she grabs onto the reflective surface, not yet bringing it up to eye level. 

She can still see it, clear as day. Her mind feels as though it’s being ripped apart by the images. They feel real. Astarion at her side, her head on his shoulder, the moon smiling down on them. The quiet exchange of histories, that flame of kinship she had felt from the moment she’d even entered his vicinity. The sense of deja vu that had ignited before she’d ever even started to exchange proper words with him. 

“I really do need you to lay back down. You still need rest yet, and-”

Shadowheart’s fussing is cut off as Aruna whispers, “It wasn’t a dream.” 

For the first time since this all began at the Nautiloid crash, Aruna sees her own reflection. She looks worse for wear, lips cracking pitifully and heavy bags beneath her eyes, but those are the least of her problems. 

Vivid violet stares back at her. 

When her shaking hand lifts to brush her unruly hair back, she finds the not-quite-pointed ears hidden beneath. 

Part drow. 

It wasn’t a dream. 

The only issue, of course, is that when Aruna looks up to Astarion, she is faced with a terrible truth. If the dream had truly been a memory, if it had been true that drow blood runs through her veins, then it means that someone else’s true identity was also true. 

His mouth is agape still, the stun of her pushing him out of her mind lingering, and she can see the shine of his canines from behind his lips. 

Not canines. Fangs. 

Astarion is a vampire. 

“Aruna, please-” Shadowheart tries to say.

Astarion is a vampire. 

“I need to speak to Astarion,” her eyes lock on his. Amethysts meet rubies. Precious gems belonging to the night. “Alone.” 

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[hankwritten]

Death Shall Brag You Who Wander’st In Her Shade

Day 7: DAMNED (Pens & Pencils)

Pauling wakes, coughing up sand.

The desert feels different than before, the dirt under her knees grittier, the wind more malicious. The sky above her is a noxious green—she feels, acutely, she is not wanted here.

“Well too bad,” she tells the place.

The chinook whips harder against her bare arms. She shivers involuntarily, but fuck if she’s going to let some shitty hell-dimension tell her where she can and cannot stick her big, stupid, just-can’t-let-it-go nose. This is her hill to die on, she’s going to fucking die on it.

She walks.

The hissing, malevolent landscape may not be able to stop her, but can sure as hell hide the door. Pauling walks for hours, though the red sun doesn’t move against its neon backdrop. She doesn’t have any incentive to give up though. What’s the worst that can happen to her? Dying?

Still, the endless expanse of Distortion!New Mexico isn’t doing her quest any favors. She grits her teeth. How typical that the Administrator puts her in this position, even unintentionally. Impossible expectations. Blood (her own, a lot of it on the floor of Engie’s workshop) and sweat (her body is real enough that discomfort arises in every way you’d expect it to) and tears-

(so, so many tears on this transcendent, selfish woman.)

-the feeling that there’s something just out of her grasp, even as she keeps clawing tirelessly toward it, watching it slip through her fingers like smoke from a lit cigarette. A hand over the flame. Almost wishing it was strong enough to burn her.

There’s burning at the corner of Pauling’s eye, and she shuts them against it. It’s hot embarrassment that flares the back of her neck when she thinks of her last conversation with the Administrator. Those will not be the last words between them, not if Pauling has anything to say about it.

There is no door still, but the sand under her shoes has grown grainier, and gray, and the world of reality-adjacent desert turns into illogical gravel pits. As she pushes further into the realm, the deep trenches of shale fold in on themselves, though never quite curling overhead, twising into bizarre and nonsensical shapes. She finds Blutarch in the halls of silt and unusable engine fuel.

“You!” he points an accusing finger at her.

He’s not entwined with his machine anymore, though that hardly makes him look better. His chest is heaving, apparently having run from who knows where to who even cares where.

“You,” he repeats. “Tell Helen that her new mercenaries are worthless. Worthless! I want replacements immediately.”

“New mercenaries? What. Who? And more importantly why?”

“To fight my brother!” Blutarch screeches. “He pushed me down here and I am not moving on until I take him with me! But the only thing those new mercenaries care about is squawking and pecking at my liver. Feh.”

“…You mean the vultures out near the entrance?”

He folds his arms. “They were the only ones around to hire.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Mann, but the Administrator will have to get back to you later as she’s in the middle of something very important right now. Namely being dead.”

“That’s never stopped her before.”

Pauling doesn’t like it when Blutarch says something sensible. It puts a bad taste in her gut, like she just drank motor fluid.

“I think you two are up to something,” Blutarch goes on. “Been working this game for too long, I think. That you’re going behind me back and-”

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Mann.”

Pauling doesn’t have time for his ramblings, not when she’s just noticed a door behind him that hadn’t been there before in the shifting architecture. It’s not Her door. But it’s close. Closer.

Blutarch gives her another feh as she passes. Fingers trace against the rivets in the ancient industrial slab, but only for a moment, and she pushes inward on its aching hinges so compassionlessly that they scream.

Compared to the wind outside, this personal hell is almost cozy.

“Oh please, do come in,” someone says sarcastically.

A man sits at a large desk, a gibus hat looming over his brow, eyes glittering dark beneath it. Piled to the sides of the desk are coins: gold, huge, and ancient. No doubt poetically heavy. Not just on the desks, the two columns of gold are stacked behind the man, and they stretch back into the abyss of the endless room. For miles.

“Zepheniah Mann, I presume?” she asks.

“And you must be one of Her creatures.”

Zepheniah takes a handful of coins from one pile. He places it on a scale that dominates the majority of the desk, weighing it against a large bronze key. When they’re equal, he transfers it to the pile on the other side.

The first pile does not seem to have gotten any smaller.

“I work for Helen, yes,” Pauling says.

“Is that what She’s calling Herself these days?” Zepheniah transfers another handful. “Do yourself a favor, girl. Whatever you think you can get out of Her, She’ll play you like every instrument in the band and take you for ten times your worth. There is no winning. There is no getting what you want and nothing more. It’s Her game to play.”

“It’s not like that,” Pauling says.

“What is it you want girl? Money? Praise? Satisfaction?”

She says nothing. There was a time where she wouldn’t have been able to answer that question, the solidity of truth her smoke-in-fingers. But she knows now.

“Fine,” Zepheniah says when he grows bored. “Your choice. The door is that way.”

He points over his shoulder.

She doesn’t thank him as she walks into the black.

Pauling finds Her door. The familiar code in the keypad knows her fingers like a pen knows an inkwell. The door hisses for her again, taking her to the Administrator’s domain with hungry welcome.

This time, the screens surrounding the chair show only the Administrator’s eye: massive, green, and unblinking.

“So soon?” Helen asks.

She appears to have run out of smokes. She’s burning a rolled up magazine page at the end of her cigarette holder, just for something to do.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Not dead? Surprising.”

“Well yes I am dead, technically. But Engie found this other way to use the teleporter- Look. It’s a long story. But I’m here for you, Helen.”

The chair swivels.

She looks unchanged. Not the beautiful young heiress who’d saved them from the island, nor the thing she’d shriveled into when the australium ran out, but as Pauling had last seen her here. As Pauling had known her.

“I came to get you out of here,” Pauling explains. “To go back. We know how to do it without the machine now, to have a real life. But resurrecting your body hasn’t worked, not as long as your soul is here.”

The Administrator waves her faux-cigarette. “To go live a mortal life? Why? So I can pass another twenty years and wind up in this exact same spot?”

“You don’t have to,” Pauling says, exasperated. “You can, I don’t know. Do some good, make up for all the things that landed you here in the first place.”

“Miss Pauling if I were the sort of woman to laugh, I would say ha very dryly and tell you to leave me. As it is, I’ll only do the second half.”

“I’m serious Helen.”

And Pauling is. Dead serious. If she knows one thing, came to one realization at having Helen ripped from her life, it wasn’t her approval she missed. It wasn’t just one singular attribute that she could seek elsewhere. It was the whole of her.

“You did it,” Pauling says, “You got your revenge. But now you can do whatever, years where you get to live after that.”

“I don’t need to live after revenge.”

“But I need you to.”

Fractionally, Helen’s face loses control of its frown. Softening her voice, she says, “Florance. I’m gone. It’s finished. There is nothing I can do out there that would change what’s waiting for me here. Past a certain point, it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. People change.”

Helen glances down. “Not I.”

Pauling steps forward. She does something she never did in life, never would have dared, but now she reaches out and takes Helen’s hand. She places it over her heart, her own hands folded over it, and bows her head until her mouth presses against skin.

“Please Helen. For me.”

The eyes, numerous and unlinking, close. The screens go dark.

Helen opens her eyes. “Very well. I suppose it can’t be any worse than this.” She gestures.

“I promise, there’ll be real cigarettes back on Earth,” Pauling half-smiles.

“Miss Pauling,” Helen says, “you should have led with that.”

The smile wins its battle entirely, and Pauling signals Engie to pull them both out.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Crimson Ties (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 3

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language Warnings: Typical Vampire shenanigans + mentions of animal death Genre: Hurt + comfort Summary: Time to meet the family! What exactly has Cassandra told her mother? Can Bela convince her family to calm the hell down? We'll find out! Spoiler: there's the start of a cute date afterwards Notes: Once more we visit Bela's private study, which I first described in a chapter of Serenade. Added a few more details this time. PS reader is probably low-key a theater nerd with a hint of a goth phase, just saying. Also this chap is a little short, sorry. Previous Chapters: 1: Stem the Flow, 2: Tangled Strands

3: Rumbling Thunder

Heart racing, you step into the dining room, just behind Bela. Both of you are nervous, but find comfort in each other. Still, what you see upon entering only makes you feel worse. At the head of a large table stands none other than Lady Alcina Dimitrescu. Besides her is her middle daughter, the one who confronted you earlier, who sends you a knowing smirk as you walk in. Lady Dimitrescu, on the other hand, is scowling. Her eyes are squinted in a clear display of disapproval. If not for Bela’s hand squeezing your own, it was likely that you would have fainted from fear.

“I see Cassandra has wasted no time in spreading rumors,” Bela said bitterly. You’re amazed by her ability to stand tall in the face of her family’s tension. Yet there was a part of you that wondered if you were worth the struggle, at least for your soulmate. Thankfully, you are not given much time to ponder the thought. No, you’re being pulled towards the closest side of the tabe, guided next to an ornate seat. Neither Bela nor yourself sit yet, however. “Please, mother, do not be hasty to make your judgement. I promise that-”

“Do not presume to tell me of my own business, daughter. The timing of my judgement is my prerogative, not yours,” Lady Dimitrescu interrupted, staring right at you. A shiver runs down your spine at the eye contact. What did Cassandra say to her? You wonder, struggling to breathe past the lump in your throat. Even Bela becomes visibly nervous at the interaction. “Now… are you certain, without a doubt, that this is your soulmate?” Did she really even have to ask? What were the chances that Bela would save you, one person out of at least a dozen in the cellar, for any other reason? Still, your soulmate straightens up at the attention, and replies as confidently as possible.

“Yes, of course, mother. I would not dare risk your anger for any lesser reason,” Bela assured. Then she gives your hand another soft squeeze, before pulling hers back a little, catching the thread that bound you together with her fingers. Lifting it, she tugs it somewhat absentmindedly. Out of habit you immediately return the action. Unfortunately, those around you would be unable to see the display. For all they knew, the two of you could be faking it, simply attempting to get out of the situation unscathed. Surprisingly though, you see Alcina hesitate. Her left hand twitches as if she was thinking of her own red string. Has she ever met her partner? Did she know the pure joy that her daughter had so recently felt?... Maybe she’d be more sympathetic to your situation if she had.

“We will see if your defiance pans out in time, Bela. For now… Why don’t we hear what your pet has to say about themselves, hmm?” Lady Dimitrescu suggested, giving a somewhat devious smile. Next to you, Bela grimaces, then sends you a pleading look. Alas, you cannot read her mind, and can only guess as to how you’re supposed to respond. Bowing is a sign of respect in virtually all cultures, you think, probably a good place to start.

“It is an immeasurable pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, Lady Dimitrescu,” you said, before giving your full name. Then you rise from your bow, once more making eye contact. Out of the corner of your vision you see Cassandra rolling her eyes. “I know that I am a mere human, and hardly the epitome of a prime specimen. But I am determined to prove my worth, for there is no prize on this earth more grand than being allowed to love Lady Bela. Every ounce of my willpower is prepared to devote myself to this task, entirely, so that I may give Lady Bela the courtship and happiness that she is deserving. It is both an obligation and an honor.” Hopefully your soulmate wouldn’t mind you using the same line twice, at least under these circumstances.

In the seconds that follow, several things happen: One, you see Cassandra frown a little, and refuse to look in your direction. Two, Lady Dimitrescu makes a surprised face, but quickly shifts into an expression of satisfaction. Thirdly, Bela’s hand finds your own again, giving it an incredibly soft squeeze. Last but not least… someone you haven’t seen before enters the room. She has red hair, a green pendant around her neck, and eyes that light up with curiosity when she sees you. If you had to guess, you’d assume that she was another one of Bela’s sisters. Here’s hoping she’s a tad bit friendlier, you think.

“Did I miss anything? Ooh, please tell me we’re having this lovely stranger for breakfast?” She asked, grinning maniacally. So much for being friendlier, you think, figuring that she was being literal. Based on the way Bela tenses up in response, you’re probably right. Before she can protest, however, Lady Dimitrescu clears her throat and speaks.

“Ah, Daniela… This stranger-” she says the word with far less venom than you anticipated, but it is venom nonetheless- “is your dear sister’s soulmate. We will not be draining them of blood. Again. Assuming that they behave themselves. Is that clear?” She asked, staring down at the newcomer. There’s a slight pause, tension still lingering in the air, followed by a sigh of relief from Bela. Much to your surprise, neither Cassandra nor Daniela seem particularly upset by this announcement. In fact, the latter simply shrugs and takes her seat at the table. Next thing you know everyone else is sitting as well, including Bela, who gestures for you to follow suit. “I’ll have one of the servants fetch you some more… appropriate food. Cynthia, my dear?” Soon enough a maiden, perhaps a decade or two older than yourself, hurriedly enters the room. With a bow, she addresses Alcina.

“Yes, Lady Dimitrescu?”

“Have Miss Bouregard make an extra plate of whatever it is you sort eat, and bring it here. We have an… unexpected guest,” Alcina explained. At that, Cynthia glances at you, her eyes briefly widening in surprise. Without another word she turns away, giving another bow before heading away to fulfill her task. Once more you’re the only human in the room. Oddly enough, you manage to feel quite at ease, as if surviving one round was enough to guarantee you’d win the overall game. Well, at the very least you now had a chance. Regardless of what was to come, you were glad for that, for this opportunity to be with your soulmate. At the end of the day… little else mattered to you.

———————————

Much to your relief, the rest of breakfast proceeded smoothly. Conversation was sparse, with most of it being hushed whispers from the other side of the table, but you hardly minded. Normally you would find it rude. Now, you were simply pleased that they weren’t being up front with their hostility. More so, it allowed you and Bela to have your own conversation, which mainly pertained to your plans for the day. Several times during your discussion, a glance elsewhere would show you that Alcina was paying attention. Exactly once you even saw her attempting to hide a smile. A sense of pride had swelled in your chest at the sight.

It has remained there, even until now, as you move into Bela’s private study. One quick survey of the room tells you a thousand things about your soulmate. For starters, it’s clear that she’s musically inclined. There’s a harp in one corner, adjacent to a folded music stand, as well as a small bookshelf dedicated entirely to sheet music. A couple medium sized instrument cases are nearby, but you don’t immediately recognize their shape. Further into the room is a rather old looking desk, slightly worn, yet clearly cared for. Possibly passed down the generations? Next to the desk is a massive window with a couple spare chairs. All across the walls were bookshelves and mementos, including several skulls (at least one of them human). Every book you looked over appeared to be well read, with many bookmarks inside, some held together by tape and prayers.

“This… this is sublime, my darling. I could rest here for a month and hardly finish cherishing half the space!” You said, grinning at your soulmate. She’s equally pleased, seeming a tad relieved as well. Perhaps she had worried you’d be thrown off by the skulls? Wanting to reassure her, you approach that particular shelf, examining them closely. However, you do not touch them, not wanting to risk damaging her collection. “Truly marvellous. Dare I ask where you got these specimens?” It’s a joke, but Bela stiffens nonetheless, making you quickly redact your statement. “My apologies, I meant it as a jest. Though you are welcome to tell me more about them if you so desire! I will listen with rapt attention, I promise.”

“Most of them are gifts from Cassandra. During the summers we hunt, her more so than Daniela or myself. I… dislike wasting anything, and there’s only so much to be done with most bones. They have quite a few ornamental uses, however. Useful for study, as well,” Bela mentioned, smiling softly. Then she moves to stand next to you, carefully reaching to grab one of the skulls. “This was from one of our hounds, actually. I raised her from puppy to adult, took her on every hunt, even let her sleep in my quarters on colder nights. When she got sick I…” A pause, mouth open but unmoving, eyes slipping shut. “I couldn’t bring myself to put her down. Even argued with my mother, night after night, begging for another choice. None came, of course, and in the end even I could not deny her the softest embrace of death… Still, you must think me strange, to keep such a thing as a reminder of her.”

“Not at all, my dear. We all remember, and grieve, in our own ways. I’ve often found myself intrigued by skulls, of all sorts,” you admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck with your hand. “All we are, our minds or mayhap our souls, contained in one hard shell. It’s incredible, and terrifying, all at the same time, to hold one in my hands, or even merely examine one. Oh, what stories these bones could tell, if only they could talk… Though I suppose there are entire fields of science devoted to such a thought…” With that said, you look back at Bela just in time to see her staring fondly at the canine skull. Then she places it back on its perch, dusting her hands off afterwards, taking one last moment to appreciate her collection.

“I’m glad you and I agree on this,” she said softly. Once more she’s looking at you, smiling wide. “Now let’s make memories of our own, to hold in our bones forevermore, yes?”

[smallblip]

A quick prompt @luanabonn and I came up with seeing this TOTALLY CANON scene of Levi bathing Hange in this hilarious animatic video (the best part is obviously from 0:17-0:25)

Imagine the first time the vets walked in on Levi bathing Hange and Erwin would probably just facepalm or start rubbing his temples like "Geeez guys, really?". Mike would be like "Called it!" and high five Nana. Poor Moblit would probably just freez cause he's traumatized for life 😂

Years later when the 104th kids walk into the same scenario, Levihan would legit try to normalize it 😂 I see Levi saying something like "What are you looking at, brats? This is perfectly normal. I've been doing this for years now, okay?" and Hange would say "yeah... It's surely not like we're dating or something like that...ha ha ha... not at all"

And the kids be like "Yeah we know you're not dating... Because you're already married... Mom & Dad" ❤️

Yasssss my bbs💖 @hanjo-love @luanabonn thank you both💖 I love this!

Also thank you for the video it was GREAT.

Two sides, same goddamn coin

“Erwin... Why are you standing out on the corridor?” Mike asks on the way back to his room. It’s late. There’s no reason for Erwin to be standing back against his door, looking absolutely resigned.

Nanaba peeks from behind Mike, “hey boys, what’s the commotion about?”

Moblit is with Nanaba, both deciding to search the male dorms for Hanji who has seemingly disappeared into thin air.

“Hanji and Levi are in my bath...” Erwin exhales a sigh, eyes shut, fingers rubbing his temples.

“What do you mean?” Mike says carefully. At this point, Moblit just looks like he’s seen a ghost. Abort abort! It’s okay Nanaba I’ll look for Hanji buntaicho another time! It’s not that urgent! Nothing is that urgent! But Moblit knows it’s too late. He knows where this is all going. He’s part of their little game now.

“I mean...” Erwin gives them ‘that look’, the one they always give one another when Levi and Hanji are being insufferable, “they are in my bath... Bathing... Together...”

Mike and Nanaba freeze for a second.

It’s only a split second and soon they’re pushing past Erwin and dashing in his room.

“Wait-“ Erwin and Moblit in a hushed whisper. But soon the three of them are standing outside his bathroom door.

Laughter streams through from the other side of the door.

“Oh my god...” Nanaba gasps, “what’s going on?”

“Let’s weigh our options,” Mike suggests.

“On one hand, we get to see for ourselves, get to the bottom of this matter... You know... Investigate...” Erwin has his thinking face on.

“Investigate huh... That’s exactly what the tax payers pay us to do in the Survey Corps...” Mike says. Immediately it’s clear what his preference is.

“On the other hand...” Erwin continues, “Levi might murder us all...”

“A worthy death for a soldier...” Mike shrugs.

“Oh no... I really don’t think we should...” Moblit stutters. Nanaba notes that he is very sweaty.

Looks are exchanged and it has been decided. With a heavy hand, Erwin slams open the bathroom door.

There’s a scream that’s only stopped when Levi slaps his hand over Hanji’s mouth.

“What?” Levi snaps, as if they had been trespassing.

“You’re in my bath...” Erwin says, equally matter of fact.

“Your bath is the nicest...” Hanji offers.

“You’re in my bath... Together...” Erwin raises a brow.

“As Captain of the Survey Corps, you said it was my duty to supervise the cleanliness and hygiene of the soldiers,” Levi murmurs, sinking lower into the bubbles, hands coming to cover Hanji up. Absolute gentleman.

“This is a very unique means of supervision, Captain...” Erwin smirks.

“Whatever gets the job done, Commander...” Levi spits the last word.

Behind him, Mike and Nanaba high five. Finally. Some catharsis. They called it. They all called it. Levi and Hanji were a thing. This is absolute proof. No one can tell them otherwise now. Ha! Take that! Moblit has averted his eyes. Nothing in this world can compel him to look.

“Excuse me ladies...” Hanji clears her throat, shifting uncomfortably against Levi, “I am very naked, and to be honest with you, the water is starting to get cold... Soon I will be freezing my tits off... So could we please continue this at a more convenient time?”

“Whatever you say m’lady...” Erwin tips his imaginary hat.

“Fuck you...” Hanji narrows her eyes at him and mutters under her breath. Great. They can never use Erwin’s bath again. What alternatives are there? The cadet showers maybe? The piping is really new there, that means there’s a whole lot of hot water. Probably not. They don’t need a part two of this happening.

-

“Hanji san! We need to seek approval for-“

Everyone’s jaw is agape. Armin’s hands have flown to cover his face, “my virgin eyes...” he’s murmuring repeatedly.

“Why wouldn’t you close the bathroom door!” Sasha shouts accusatorily. Now the bunch of them are standing awkwardly in Hanji’s room, averting their gaze from the adjacent bath. Should they leave now? They really should. But there are forms that need filling.

“Why wouldn’t you guys knock!” Hanji retaliates.

“You always ask us not to!” Connie shoots back.

Oh, Hanji winces, she did in fact tell them to just enter because half the time she’s too engrossed in whatever it is she’s doing to hear.

“What the fuck do you want brats?” Levi has sunk all the way down the bath, the water now grazing his chin.

“We would like to seek permission from Hanji san to go to the town on Monday for supplies...” Armin pipes up, eyes still squeezed shut.

“Permission granted! Now go!” Levi shouts.

Sasha sees the opportunity and ceases it, “we would also like to request for the weekend off for recreational purposes! Sir!”

“Don’t push it Braus!” Levi snaps.

Darn it.

“Anything else? Or would you guys like to run through your entire schedules for the next two months with me while you’re at it? It’s not like I’m in the bath naked or anything ha-ha!” Hanji guffaws. It’s so painfully awkward her body literally cannot conjur anything rational to do. They have both slid so far down the tub that she’s practically lying atop Levi, his crotch against her butt making her blush up a storm.

“Why are you in the bath with Captain Levi?” Mikasa asks. Everyone stares at her.

“Mikasa!” Armin exclaims. They absolutely do not need more time in this tiny room with their two naked superiors.

“Hanji is filthy. I’m cleaning her. What’s abnormal about this situation?” Levi deadpans.

“I can’t reach my back! It’s a practical arrangement!” Hanji chuckles, “it’s not like we’re dating or anything!”

“My parents are married and they don’t even do this...” Sasha murmurs.

Jean has had enough. His face is so red he feels like he’ll die if he doesn’t stop this nonsense. This is a conversation that never needed to happen. “Permission to be dismissed from this conversation!”

“Fuck! Finally! Permission granted Jean!” Hanji says, throwing her hands up in despair.

Everyone shuffles out the door, and Armin bumps against the frame multiple times because his eyes are still shut. Levi and Hanji let out a collective sigh. Good lord Armin!

“Uh... Okay... Bye mom and dad...” Eren stutters, how does one leave this situation on a good note because this isn’t it, “I mean... Captain... Squad leader...” he gathers his jaw from where it has hit the ground and leaves with the others.

Hanji laughs awkwardly and turns to Levi, “remember when Erwin and the others saw-“

Levi’s face is red, and the blush has now spread to his neck. Thankfully the kids are gone. Another moment longer and most of the bubbles would have popped. He tsks and cuts Hanji off, “I would very much not like to remember that... Or this...”

[roguish-gallery]

Reader has just been captured by Arkham Riddler's goons! They're gonna be used in Nygma's next plan to beat the Bat! They must've been captured after failing one of his traps. Except they didn't. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Actually reader LIKES riddles and puzzles. They test out and play Nygma's traps for fun and survive. Looks like Eddie's new victim is smarter than they look. And it looks like they may actually have a fondness for him. After all, they DO admit to admiring him.

Arkham!Edward + Reader That Refuses to Die

Oughhhh anon,,, I had so much fun writing this and it kinda sorta turned into a giant experimental shitpost I’m so sorry,,, I hope u enjoy it in spite of this. Everything is under the readmore because this thing is massive. Slight warning for light ns/fw mentions

He’ll entertain your survival for maybe an hour, maybe two, before he realizes that he probably won’t be able to kill them through his puzzles. His mild bemusement is turning into annoyance. God damn it, these traps are supposed to fucking kill Batman, and some rando he picked off the street is solving them with ease? Is he off his game? Are his games not as clever as they’re supposed to be? Jesus Fucking Christ, now he’s got a migraine on top of everything else.

“Okay, that’s it!” Deathtrap turns off. Lights turn on, and a goon shuffles into the hallway to escort you out of the building. Edward’s voice crackles over the intercom- he’s not even going to give you the decency of showing his face over the video monitors. “Game’s over. Get out.”

“This is about stroking my ego," He says. "not about you having fun. You’re probably cheating anyway.”

You try and reason with him, mentioning that you've admired his past works.

“Okay??? I like me too. So does everyone else. What does that have to do with anything???”

This bickering goes on for a surprisingly long time. You obviously cannot see it from where you are, but Edward is like this *this* close to having a tantrum and needing to furiously jack off to get rid of this pent-up energy.

“Here’s a riddle for you, jackass- what refuses to die, unchubs my dick, and is a pain in my ass?”

“An STD?”

“Wha-?! N-no!! Shut up!!! Shut up shut up shut up!! I was talking about YOU, you- you troglodyte! Get off of my property.”

You hear the victim in the adjacent room ask if they can leave too.

“No, I need you to get your dick chewed off by those feral eels to make me feel better. If anything, the fact that I’m giving you an extension to solve that 17X17 Rubik’s cube is more than generous. If you somehow still fail to solve it and fall into my pit filled with dick-eating feral eels, well, that’s on you.”

You wake up on the floor of a Waffle House with a splitting headache. The goons must have given you chloroform so you wouldn’t be able to find the hideout. The employees and the other patrons take no notice of you because they are too preoccupied with their own headaches. Checking your pockets, you realize that Edward had given you some change to order some hashbrowns- that’s the closest you’ll get to him begrudgingly recognizing your ability to solve his puzzles.

Meanwhile, Ed is beside himself in anguish. How could he ever hope to outwit Batman now? He needs to lick his wounds and take time off to bounce back to his usual self.

_____________________

Okay! It’s a new day, and Edward has refitted his hideout with a ton of new, zesty deathtraps! These will surely kill Batman!!!

….. Right?

Well…

Hmm… there’s only one true way to know if these will work or not.

You wake up on a platform suspended above a pit filled with twice the amount of dick-eating feral eels. There is an 18X18 Rubik’s cube at your feet. Edward is polite enough to turn his video monitor on when he’s addressing you this time.

“Okay! I have kidnapped you to run through my gauntlet of genius to see if my traps are of any actual value. Your compensation will come in the form of your survival, this bottle of half-used ringworm mediation that I don’t need anymore, and a pack of peanut M&Ms.”

When you beat them again, Edward doesn’t throw a tantrum, he just slouches in his chair. He’s not mad, just disappointed in himself.

Should you say something? You apologize, just to be safe.

“No, no. You didn’t do anything wrong, it was foolish of me to assume that these traps were actually worthwhile.” He sighs, and rubs his temples in frustration. “You can go home. I’ll find you when I’ve made more traps, okay?”

You suggest going out to get something to eat and to blow off some steam- a Waffle House, perhaps.

He lifts his head from his hands, and slowly nods his head. “... Yeah. I guess I could go for some hashbrowns. Okay, I’ll get my wallet.”

Eventually, this turns into a regular thing- Edward kidnaps you, you solve his puzzles, and you go out for hashbrowns after. Kidnapping is kind of a loose term at this point, too- Edward eventually gives you his address (in riddles, obviously) because it saves him money on chloroform, and he didn't want anything in your system that could potentially hinder your performance in his death maze.

After a while... the death traps just kinda stop altogether, and he just invites you over to play touhou or to vape- Edward even apologizes for calling you a troglodyte the first time he met you, and admits that of all the people he's ever met, you come pretty close to his own intelligence. You're also... kind of his type. He's uhhhh... free for dinner next Saturday if you wanna talk about setting up traps for Batman or if you just wanna talk about your interests btw...

[thesummerfox]

writing tag game

@bottled-bliss and @devilbunnyking both tagged me in this goodness, thank you so much! 💕 I’m tagging @pomprincesse, @mercurygray, @how-are-those-nuts-sarge, @a-beautiful-struggle-of-life, and @serasvictoria on this one in turn.

how many works do you have on AO3?

47! (I’m nearing 50 and it’s spooking me.)

what’s your total ao3 word count?

421172 and counting

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all this life hallowed be (Grindeldore one-shot, no idea why this one is so elevated but I’ll take it)

She Who Believeth In Me (Kastle duology part, was supposed to be a series that never happened)

Though Death Be More Kind (Kastle fluff? Kastle fluff)

The Winter King (Kastle, written for a Secret Santa gift exchange, one of the fics I still love dearly)

Paint Your Demons Red (Kastle, fragile people plus Micro make for excellence)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, absolutely!! I love commenting back to people and saying “thank you” for their kindness or vibing with whatever feelings they bring to my comment section. I think it’s a great way to engage with people and acknowledge the time and energy they gave to letting me know they enjoyed the story.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I actually think this dream of you might fit the bill? While the fic has a really rough middle section, the end is a happy reunion that really spoke to me. Lovers reunited at war’s end is a vibe that never gets old.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

to speak in tongues of glory (disarm, disarm) is the one fic that could never have a happy ending, as it follows canon and canon does not end well, and my opinion of it being the angstiest is reinforced by the reactions it gets. “Now that I’ve finished it, I will never read it again because I know it’ll cause me endless grief” is one of the standout commentaries on it, lol.

do you write crossovers?

Technically the Marvel Netflix shows do crossovers so I write crossovers for that, haha. But it’s been a day and an age since I last properly mixed two vastly different fandoms!

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I never used to, but oh boy do I need to come back from my “do not write smut ever”-spiel because I have written several smutty scenes now and even have a fic or two that’s.. nothing but smutty stuff, really. What kind? The hot kind. 🤣

have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, thankfully not!

have you ever had a fic translated?

I believe I was once asked permission to have one of mine translated, but I am unaware of what came of it. I don’t envy them the task: translations are tricky!!

have you ever co-written a fic before?

I used to do role-playing stories on message boards, so that was a co-write. Other than that, I write too non-linearly to be much use as a co-author.

what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Kastle, hands down and no contest. I haven’t written for them in a while, but I would in a heartbeat if inspiration struck again.

what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The Kastle duology I mentioned upthread was supposed to have a third part that’s really in the land of never-being-written, while the Micro fic I plotted out resides somewhere in the adjacent land of my-brain-believes-I-already-wrote-this-and-I-cannot-convince-it-otherwise. Other than that, my WIPs are behaving themselves!

what are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, characterization, character dynamics.

what are your writing weaknesses?

This is going to sound ridiculous coming from someone who’s got over 40 finished stories on ao3, but.. uh.. ending a multichapter is like one big questionmark in my head. I’ve done it, I know the mechanics, but I keep making the stories longer and they sprawl out beyond control more often than not. Also, my characters run this gig.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve had to play with it for a current WIP and my current stance is that it needs to make sense to a reader (aka they won’t need to wheel out a translator because context will clarify the meaning), it can highlight differences between characters and challenge communication between them, and it can serve as an additional aid in scene-setting. I’m all for it when done well.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter! (Like so many, I got my fic-flight wings with that one.)

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

This is like picking my favorite child, are you kidding?

In terms of audience response and everything it sprouted, the long bright dark is without compare. Initially intended to be a one-shot, it’s the fic that gave birth to a whole AU that is embraced fandom-wide and inspired other fics.

In terms of my own favorite, Gather Ye Children Of Men is one of those that just feels right to me. I love the version of Frank I wrote into this one and the pace of it is exactly what it needs to be.

[fishmongeringstudies]

nine: the tender machine kindness of daily routines and actions whose net worth comes not from their immediately visible impacts but the way your hands learn to steady themselves in the warm flickering light of morning, years after the candles and the ouija board have been put away

being a college student means having to face up to big, harrowing decisions every day such as should i drop this shirt on the floor after i take it off or walk the extra two and a half meters to my laundry hamper? most of the time i opt for the former, although the peculiar thing about leaving stuff on the floor is that the ratio of stuff to floor gradually inverts itself like a body turned inside-out to reveal the soft, fleshy inside until there is no more floor and altogether too much stuff. at that point, there are no more decisions to make. either you pick up all those shirts or make the walk to breakfast in the nude. given that the dining hall is known to be unenthusiastic about the smallest of transgressions like bare feet and people without skin, i doubt they would let me in. unless i seduced them. but it is hard to seduce a building.

the dining hall in this college is named after yet another rich alumnus who, fearing that they would be forgotten when they died and fade away into obscurity, therefore experiencing a second, more significant death, decided to assert dominance over one of the key facilities for survival at their alma mater. the building is short, squat, and emits a faint glow like a convenience store glimpsed from afar at four o'clock in the morning. upon entering the first set of swinging doors, one finds oneself greeted with two more sets of doors and a choice of one or the other. the left door will take you past an office. the right will take you past two more doors. one of them leads to the bathroom. the other leads to hell.

the dining hall appears to have been built on some kind of slope, because once you get past the first door and the second and pass through the gates of reckoning, the path splits again into two rather grand staircases of significant width and height, which lead you some two storeys down to a square-shaped room with a big fireplace perched at one end. it dawns on you then that this, this place hidden under the great yawning jaw of heaven, is the real dining hall. you squint at your surroundings in mild disbelief while awkwardly fingering your phone in your pocket so that the other person waiting in line doesn't strike up a conversation. the path outside looks flat as fuck and yet the stairs seemed to go on forever. the only conclusion: this building is cursed.

other things that are cursed: unripe bananas, misplaced sympathies, birds with teeth. liberal arts colleges. sad novels. people who end all their text messages with a full stop. the last one is a lie.

wow liberal arts colleges are really cursed though. i know what you're thinking. not this again, you moan in an extremely non-sexual way, dragging the heel of your palm down your face. not him again. i am tired of him, you complain. excellent. this makes two of us. but one cannot put something away until you are sure of all its contents. and even now, days and weeks and months later, i'll be brushing my teeth and admiring my reflection in the mirror when i'll find myself abruptly subjected to the blunt force trauma that is delayed realization. memories are like mille feuilles. a lot of effort to make and a lot of effort to get rid of. and if you take the lazy way out, slicing your knife perpendicular to this delicate, thousand-layered monstrosity, you are bound to miss something crucial.

question: have you missed anything this semester? what have you overlooked; what have you let slip you by? look over your shoulder. do it right now. perhaps you will discover the ghost of your deceased great-grandmother, trying to whisper to you her beloved recipe for tang yuan. take everything she says down. you will need it one day. i promise.

these days i'm not scared of anything in my head anymore. that's the nice thing about having fear manifest itself as a thing with skin and some internal organs (at least i assume he has them. to be honest you could tell me he has half a kidney in there and nothing else and i'd be like yes that makes sense, of course you're right) that moves and walks and talks like a person but otherwise has the cognitive capabilities of a chair. it's like playing an rpg horror survival game. only the antagonist isn't hot.

i am though. and so is summer, sweet sticky-skin summer, though i woke up today and it felt like february all over again. it was eight degrees celcius in the morning; eleven in the afternoon. now it is nine. so this is how it is when one is thousands of miles from the equator. one step forward, two steps back. take ten steps in a rough circle and then four steps to the left. tango with me. chase cars with me. we can chase cars all day. i'll wear your shirt and you'll eat mine.

this semester the salsa club held its weekly meetings on friday at 8:45 in the lounge attached to the dorm i lived in. on one such friday i was playing pool in the adjacent room with someone i don't talk to anymore and another i wish i still did but never seemed to find in the same room as myself. it was my first time playing pool. the stick reminded me of sun wu kong, the monkey king and his magical monkey king staff. or was it a stick? the details escape me. the evening escapes me, too. i know at one point one of them left to join the salsa club. i know at some point i cleared the table.

it must have been the third or fourth week of the semester when they convinced me to play pool, because i said yes without thinking the way i never had before that and never will again. back then i was still scared and lonely and to be fair, i was scared and lonely for half of april and most of may, but these are fundamentally different sentiments. back then i was scared of everything. these days i am acquainted with a more academic, nuanced fear; persistent laughter, 500-word moodle short responses sent over text, fists.

the first time i did laundry in the spring i googled "[my college name] laundry machines" because i had to be sure that the laundry machines in this specific basement in this specific college weren't super fucked-up for some reason and i was terrified that they would be and that i'd fuck up even the laundry, dear god, if i couldn't do the laundry then what was the point of trying to do friendship? i threw everything in the washing machine at five o'clock in the morning and dragged it across the white-tiled floor to the dryer at five-thirty. at five-fifty i texted good evening to a friend. at six-twenty-seven i washed my chopsticks.

at six thirty-five i stood in front of my dresser in my room with a freshly-laundered shirt pressed against my face and a spill of sunlight sliding down the left side of my body. i breathed in. the fabric smelled like flowers. like it'd emerged from the cycle of reincarnation, pure and dumb as a baby. i breathed in again. my hands and cheeks were warm. the birds outside my window were screaming in french. in that moment i found that i believed, for the first time since i'd gotten here, in the transient nature of all things. even sadness. even the sneaking feeling that i would never settle into this room with its shitty ceiling light, which turned out to be true, which was paranoia later justified by truth. even you.

then i folded it up carefully, and put it away.

05.29.21

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Alliance

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Leicester Alliance I therefore have below the male Deer, Almyran and former Goneril indentured servant Cyril, runaway Alliance noble Balthus, and Alois because his biography states that he’s the son of a merchant family. The Alliance is the nation most associated with successful mercantilism, so there.

The Empire

The Kingdom

Claude

Indecipherable from the start. The alluring shirtless selfie and goofy profile read like a fun and easy lay, but rather than sending nudes he engages in long meandering conversations that last for days or weeks before the first meeting. An expert at drawing people out while revealing almost nothing of himself in return, this takes on more literal dimensions when talk and pictures get more explicit; he’ll respond to dick and ass pics with vaguely positive emojis but deflect repeated requests to send some of his own, but he’s so disarmingly chatty that few guys get angry about this. In-person encounters are similarly frustrating in a way that’s hard to convey, as he’s eager to get his hookups naked and cumming via whatever method expedites the process with as little effort on his part. He’s left more than one satisfied but confused partner wondering some time after their meeting if he’s even really into guys at all, or if he’s playing out some weird service kink or vicarious voyeurism. Whatever the case he’s not much the dating type, not because he’s closeted or non-monogamous but because he has other priorities that don’t mesh well with long-term companionship. A shame too, when he’s become a permanent part of the masturbatory fantasies of many a man with whom he’s had even the briefest of encounters (particularly tops, who see in him a cocky bottom who desperately needs to get wrecked). That’s mostly all it is with him though: just fantasies, quick and dirty and unfulfilling because sex is apparently little more than a means for him to connect with people who may help him reach something bigger. Open-minded about his partners’ kinks, but is extremely touchy about race play; he’s aware that he has an ambiguous look about him, and does not appreciate anyone bringing that up even if the intention is completely innocent.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: your erogenous zones, your fetishes, your guilty pleasures

Favored gift: a lavish dinner, not for the expense but for the pleasure of sharing it

Lorenz

You may not like the hair, or the overwrought floral motif, or the polite but pointed way he pursues dates with the men he’s scoping out, but it’s undeniable that his reputation precedes him as someone who is known and who is worth knowing in the community. He’s not as slutty as that suggests, far from it, but he does enjoy his lunch dates and his inordinately expensive shopping dates and generally being as publicly social as it is humanly possible to be. Has an assortment of fem bottom BFFs on speed dial who are always up to the minute with him on social media, but it turns out he’s more versatile than his age and his...expressive fashion sense might imply. Would absolutely love a boyfriend, but judges all his dates in every aspect and considers least of all the size of their dick or what they know to do with it. It’s unusual for him to run across a guy who’s as well-educated and career-oriented as himself who also meets his admittedly snobbish criteria regarding class, and most of the time when he does they make better friends than marriage candidates. Cannot abide poor manners in or out of bed, and has corresponding expectations about proper condom use and prep (also PreP) and won’t hesitate to interrupt a makeout session with a lecture on not fingering him when he just ate an hour ago and he hasn’t had the chance to use an enema yet. Jock types do little for him, although he does have this one celebrity crush of that sort that he holds dear to his heart precisely because it will never, ever happen (although, he does happen to move in adjacent circles....). 

Favored erotic tea time subjects: office sex, hustlers, the tea itself...not like that

Favored gift: his crush’s contact info, also measurements if he can get them

Raphael

His selfies come in two varieties, gym and food, and this perfectly sums him up as a person and a friend and sexual partner. Sociable but not particularly quick-witted, his conversations are filled with emojis and exclamation points and it’s not very long before he’s making invitations to hang out at either his favorite fitness center or one of his many favorite restaurants. Don’t expect much from the latter however, as he favors quantity over quality. Is more or less the perfect boyfriend if you like them big and dumb, and on some level he knows this because he’s clearly comfortable with who he is and the goals he’s set for himself, both in body weight and in life in general. Even nicer, he likes skinny nerds just as much as he likes guys who can hold their own (or even surpass him) during workouts, and he’ll try just about anything once. Not the most skilled at topping or giving head or anything else that demands precision in action, but he’ll always give his best effort anyway. Besides, he makes a great bottom, with enough cushion and stamina to take a really hard pounding and jerk himself to completion in just about the time it takes for him to coax his partner to orgasm. A simple man with simple tastes and an insatiable appetite for food and pleasure and good company, and if it comes to it a sweet and devoted familial sort as well. Doesn’t have much of an imagination for kinks, but the person who shows him how to combine food with sex might be on the receiving end of a marriage proposal right then and there.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: sexy workouts, feeders, power bottoms

Favored gift: food, especially if you get into watching him eat it

Ignatz

Fucking an art student is always a unique experience, and he’s determined not to disappoint. More likely to share pictures of his latest projects than nudes up front, although he welcomes receiving them himself as he’s quick to explain that he draws his influence from all areas of his life. Has a particular fascination with the kind of unintentional eroticism found in certain religious art, which is more likely to be found quietly perplexing than offensive in hookup spaces. Is shy and relatively untested when it comes to sex, and as such he’s a natural fit for tops who love to break in new twinks. Said tops may have to put up with his request to sketch them in the bed or on his sofa afterwards though, because apparently the nude models in his classes just can’t compare to the men who ten minutes prior had their dicks in him. As he gets older and acquires more familiarity with the medium he’ll start to gravitate more toward guys of a similar age and disposition as himself, who can be subjects for his art without the constant demanding to get off. (They still get off with him of course, but he has trouble convincing the less understanding that that’s not his first priority.) Sometimes too he’ll just want someone to cuddle with and tell him that he’s good at what he does and isn’t making any questionable life choices. However, with art being the uncertain career that it is he may find himself one day having to reconcile himself to a sugar daddy to spare him from a mind-numbing day job - or worse, admitting to whatever disapproving relation(s) he’s got that he screwed up his professional prospects and isn’t doing so hot in the dating scene either. Never quite loses his mawkishness in bed, but hopefully he’ll get past his public anxieties with a bit more success. Is not really into the gym bunny types, although they love him to death and he has to admit that all that toned musculature is easy to work with. Keeps the glasses on during sex, or at least until he has an accident with them.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: artistic nudes, sexy statuary, missionary (he likes to watch the top)

Favored gift: a set of professionally done nude selfies, for modeling

Alois

A loving and devoted husband and father, he’s only in the app space because a friend made a joke about them and he just had to check it out. Utterly clueless on the terminology and the rules of etiquette, such as they are, for a place where it’s considered perfectly acceptable to begin conversation with a picture of your erect cock. Needless to say he completely misunderstands the term “daddy” in this context, thinking it naturally applied to him without being aware of all the horny twinks that would be hitting him up as a result. Will eventually be prodded, laughing and blushing the whole time, into taking and sharing some mildly saucy selfies, and the boys go wild for his literal dad bod and hair in just the right places (including on his face; the handlebar variation is a few decades out of date, but that just makes him more endearing in a dorky retro way). It’s not clear initially whether he’s even attracted to men, but after a few months of chatting and swapping pics and perhaps furtively jerking off to the ones he gets he might agree to a discreet encounter or two. Well, they would be discreet if he weren’t always so loud, and if he didn’t always resist everyone’s immediate impulse to shove a dick in his mouth just to get him to shut up by coming up with yet another dumb joke. Doesn’t get much further than the idea of oral anyway, as he’s not the most sexual guy to start with and he can’t quite get past the immature giggling over ass play. Not a bad jerkoff buddy when it’s all said and done provided you can stand all the puns, nor is he all that bad to look at or cuddle with afterwards once he figures out that guys like his hugs too. One can only wonder what his wife thinks of all this.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: (bad) sex jokes, porn, glory holes

Favored gift: links to daddy porn, so he’ll finally figure it out

Cyril

Born into a rough background and forced to get by in some difficult circumstances has left him hardworking to a fault - emphasis on “fault.” His greatest act of teenage rebellion was to be aggressively not rebellious, and he still hasn’t grown out of that mentality as he’s quick to scorn his more carefree and hedonistic peers and wouldn’t even be on the apps at all were he not so privately, guiltily horny all the time. As may be expected this mentality wins him few admirers and even fewer friends, of any age, the more so because he’s inexperienced and still figuring out exactly what he wants from a sexual encounter. Will bottom but has a complex about the implications, but unfortunately most of the guys willing to hook up with him are tops and expect to get it in at least for a little while. Manages better when it comes to swapping head, having experimented with his more adventurous friends in school. His fastidiousness and unusually good eyesight lead him to subconsciously fixate on his partners’ minor bodily blemishes, and since pointing those out never goes over well he’s taking to prefer sex in the dark. He’s absolutely not looking for a daddy and is annoyed at the suggestion, just as much as he’s annoyed by guys who try to turn pillow talk into impromptu therapy sessions regarding his past. Will take a few more years and probably some time away at school to properly find his footing; there’s a no-nonsense if slightly insecure top buried under the fading twinkish exterior, and provided he learns out to mellow out a bit he could be quite popular one day.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: circle jerks, docking, race play (which he feels guilty about)

Favored gift: a cock ring, for those size woes 

Balthus

He was on the wrestling team in school and acquired a notable reputation for his strength and skill in a brawl, although it was also at this time that he realized he was getting hard every time he would throw down with another guy. Deflects this with an exaggerated womanizing demeanor and a blank profile announcing only that he’s looking and saving even the headless torso shot - impressive though that shot is - for messaging. Gets handjobs and blowjobs and occasionally tops, all NSA and very discreet, but his internalized insecurities fortunately do not extend to his partners. This is probably because his preferred types are either closeted muscle bros like himself or self-confident young bottoms with no patience to take anything from him except a hard fuck and a thick load. His awkward younger days will be long past him before he learns to open up to anything more than that, and even then it’s unlikely that he’ll be very relationship-minded. Has to be educated by more experienced partners on lube and prepping a bottom, and it’ll take a lot of drinks and a lot of convincing to get him to try eating ass (he will though, eventually). Bottoming himself is out of the question except perhaps with the most dedicated of vers guys, but put him on the mat with another total top and there are good odds that someone’s going to end up penetrated before it’s over. Speaking of odds, is terrible with money and not domestic in the slightest, but he’s got a rich family that he can theoretically fall back on in a pinch. Not really boyfriend material, more like the ideal perpetually naked roommate with wandering eyes and a boundless libido.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: erotic wrestling, dirty talk, praise kink

Favored gift: a harness and matching jockstrap, he’s got a thing for gear

[deathliken]

𝚜𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚝𝚊 𝚜𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚞𝚖: 𝚎𝚡𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎

THE THEMES: corrupted holier than thou guilds / world orders that are way too sketchy and crave eternal war / vampire secret societies and adjacent politics / ouroboros of greed and pride / who’s the real monster ? / the power of blood.

CONTENT WARNINGS: mentions of child grooming / mental & emotional abuse and indoctrination, wars and politics ( it’s vampire politics, but you never know ), discrimination of both supernatural creatures by humans / humans by supernatural creatures, demonization and dehumanization, death and mercy kills, manipulation and mind games.

as always please do not steal anything / take inspiration from here, any mention of other IDV characters is just purely casual and there’s no obligation to abide to every word i say, i’m just a writer who rambles a lot ;;

𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚙: a forsaken youth whose blood traces ancient priests and aristocrats just like his whole being is painted in grays and whites and reds, whose honorable father disappeared under mysterious circumstances when he was too young to remember and whose lovely mother’s health was so quickly deteriorating because of a mysterious abyssal disease ━he ended up leaving his home in order to live with the old family friend and trusted figure of jerry carl, as lastly wished by aesop’s mother herself before passing away. the known veteran, member of the most influential guild of supernatural hunters of the Allegiance of Countries known as The Order, raised the child himself by imbuing the guild’s creed and his own hatred towards supernatural creatures, for he had seen the great potential that laid within the pale child ━especially when it came to both his rare blood and his affinity with the supernatural as aesop has always shown as a child the ability to see spirits and perceive the presence of supernatural creatures as clearly as he could so easily admire the traces of stars on a night sky, things most hunters and humans can't do and that of course try to compensate for with their techniques. memories of his past prior leaving with jerry are hazy at best, but all that remained as vivid as ever was his mother’s tired smile ━and the harp demanded to come with him in the new place he was supposed to call home. as he bloomed into adulthood, he became a model of what a diligent exorcist had always been supposed to be: a living weapon for The Order to take pride of and use, a terror for creatures haunting and decimating humanity to fear, developing his blood bait at a spectacularly young age and successfully adapt it to his own natural gifts ━and when jerry died ( by aesop’s hands himself who so heartlessly shot the agonizing mentor who nighly was turning into a rabid ghoul ), aesop simply took over the mentor's duties and position as The Order’s mortician much to the higher planes’ glee. but perhaps it was indeed because of jerry not being around anymore to manipulate his deadly creation and the curiosity he harbored deep within the indoctrinated diligence ━or perhaps it was because of said deadly creation showing signs of hesitation and true mercy when sparing a rogue vampire he was supposed to eradicate from its hideout not that far from one of the province’s towns━ the pale exorcist had started  to realize that some things didn’t add up, that some things he’s never questioned just because he grew up in it and knew nothing more about than an eerie sensation hitting him down his spine every now and then had actually some gruesome, macabre obscenities in its womb.

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚋𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚜:   not much is really known about its birth, a history as clouded by fog as the birth of the world and the first great wars in the eternal darkness ━considered the greatest armed force within the Allegiance of Countries, The Order is involved deeply in the politics and matters of those states requiring their presence, judgement and interventions. its structure as well is a mystery, with orders impossible to defy coming from the high council manifesting only in so - called times of need, and the serious to everyday matters under the strict control of the high summoners and the very running strength of The Order: the exorcists ━often presenting themselves solo or in groups of two / three members, with each one specializing in several arts from contact to more intellect - focused studies and often ending up with one becoming their main field alongside their signature blood baits. blood baits are the most known technique every adept of The Order needs to learn to access to if they want to be able to be considered full part of The Order, created by the blood of the exorcist imbued in special items which then create a symbiotic bond with the exorcist meant to last until the exorcist passes away ━or at least as long as every month exorcists will respect the requirement of participating to blood donations which is said to be the only way to renew the bond with the blood bait and to create to create supplementary hunger baits for creatures like vampires, ghouls,  wendigos / skinwalkers, werewolves, demons of various kinds ( any creature that feeds on blood or flesh, pretty much ) ; it takes several years for a blood bait to start to develop and a great number of standard exorcists never truly manage to reach its fullest potential, and each blood bait is different from one another and cannot be passed on from exorcist to another. aesop’s blood bait, ‘ embalm ’, is contained in the mortician cosmetic box the exorcist is seen always carrying along, and when opened it takes the shape of an elaborate coffin. the casket itself is able to summon a lifelike replica of himself or someone else he’s able to replicate, powered by his own blood and consequently maneuverable by him like a life sized puppet.

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚞𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛: no self righteous claim is ever backed by equally pure true intentions, and The Order is no exception ━as their extremism has been known to know no ends just like their pride and greed, their desire to acquire more power and more riches causing them to indeed thread with the very creatures they claim of despising and creating the most complex and extensive blood trafficking ring that still to this day has never been truly caught or dismantled. they claim it’s in order to infiltrate and create ways to mine the greatest menace from the inside, but greed and hunger for more and more just roars louder within the darkest abysses. truth be told, so much of the ancient beliefs of The Order has been tressed in lies at some point in the darkest centuries and only those at the very top are well aware of it ━of how the blood baits do not need to be ‘ renewed ’ every month, of how blood in the supplementary hunger baits either comes from some unfortunate corpse or animals and all that blood taken away from the loyal and blinded exorcists gets actually sold to the great holders of the status quo known as the vampire aristocracy who so much want to hold their eons - old power just as much as their enemy and ‘ partners ’ want to steal it all from them ; they’re blueblood, old money after all ( the Bloodline above them all ), indifferent if not unbothered by the lower folk and creatures whose diatribes and feral rages act as more of a nuisance they’d like to get rid of before anything too out of hand can ever hope to happen. and in that, The Order’s strict beliefs just come quite handy ━especially considering the infighting between factions within the great clans of blood and how each clan dares using The Order to ' take care ' of dissidents that might menace the thin ice between two great forces, creating and manipulating several situations in order to trigger their intervention. and some members of the order itself ━or rather, those who are well suspicious but aren't aware of how things run deep in the highest spheres nor speak━ do not really hold any sympathy nor desire to be seen as the vampires' attack dog , for them it's just a temporary alliance given by the blood trafficking ring bc this way they get information about the enemy and ways to fully plot a mass extermination, usually dissidents in the order just ' disappear mysteriously '. it kinda works like a cold war born from an even ancient war leaving no trust between one another and ruination at each step in an equilibrium that truly doesn’t exist and is as much of a lie as everything else, with these subtle jabs at one another in higher spheres being covered by the loudness of both the hungerous creatures inhabiting the land and the facade of fanaticism of The Order ; both sides are driven by their own most selfish and most obscure desire and cravings that only seem to be amplified dangerously the more time passes, both sides want nothing but their status quo to reign and be maintained for their own interests to keep being fulfilled forevermore: The Order wanting for the extermination of all supernatural ‘ for the sake of humanity’s safety ’, the power and the riches ━and the Bloodline ( among other so - called allies ) to stay ontop of the social and power ladder and have endless pools of blood for them to feast on while all of the world would crash and burn in a new apocalypse allowing them to rewrite everything as their image and ideal. ( but maybe there’s more, creatures of lingering abyss playing chess with the living in their most maddening boredom, hiding underneath dormant churches ━who knew. )

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 11

The plot splits three-ways but only one way is really an option, to my bafflement.

I have to do a training montage because I’m somehow badly underleveled for this part of the game.

I just really want to beat up a Skeksis, anyone will do.

And Gurjin is the MVP but we all already knew that.

Based on nothing except wanting to see what best boy Kylan is up to, I'm going to tackle the Spriton branch of this branching narrative first.

So I go to the little glowy dot on the map over Sami Thicket annnnd Kylan tells me no, don't go there.

Kylan: "It will be difficult to convince the Spriton to join our cause. They have always been the clan most loyal to the Skeksis."

He tells me to avoid the main village and check villages on the outskirts. Why did you put a shiny dot on the main village at all then!

But what can you do.

Mission: Podling Rush - Spriton Village

"A Spriton village is in trouble. Something has driven the neighboring Podlings mad! Help hold off their attacks."

This better have some fantasy explanation because I'm going to get real pissed if I'm being tricked into breaking a strike or if these are just more Podlings that don't want to be bathed against their will.

Just real pissed.

LEVEL 33???! I don't even have anyone in the 20s yet! Whats the point of branching the plots if I'm going to be level-gated into a specified branch anyway?

Lets see the other Spriton mission...

Mission: Cause of Death - Suns-kissed Plains

"The heroes cross paths with a group of Spriton Gelfling who don't seem too friendly."

LVL 30!? These beefy gelfling better show up and join the resistance! They're way stronger than my guys and I've been actively trying to do a resistance this whole time!

Lets try this logic instead. Alyadon piped up first, about the Sifan. So the Sifan quest chains are probably more level appropriate for me.

So selecting The Sifan Coast and Alyadon exposits that the Sifan have been hard hit by the Darkening and the Skeksis tithes. The elders are loyal to the Skeksis but the rest of the Sifan are prime targets for recruitment. Heck yeah.

Alyadon has a lead on a missing scholar. If we find him, he could prove useful. And Kylan, having marched back from the Spriton realizing I'm not going to be there for a while, has a lead on a missing fishing vessel.

Okay, the two available Sifan missions are level 25. That's more around my level. But I'm going to check the Vapran missions really fast.

... The Vapran mission is level 20.

The game just really wants me to go here first. In fairness, its the only one of the three plot threads that's prominent in the show.

Sigh.

Okay.

Mission: The New All-Maudra - Road to Ha'rar

"The heroes return to Ha'rar and learn of a troublesome shift in power."

Lets go see what Seladon is up to.

I cannot imagine that this easily leads to uniting the Vapran clan with the age of resistance but lets see.

Party: Brea and Breg because they're Vapran so they have stake in whatever is about to happen. Hup because he wanted to be a Paladin before I forced him down a different career path. Annnnnnd Naia. Because I'm reading Shadows of the Dark Crystal and she's on her way to Ha'rar in the part I'm up to.

Oof, the level starts with my party surrounded by a lot of enemy units who all have the high ground. Not great.

Aw dangit, Seladon has issued an order for my arrest. Rude.

Annnnnd I died.

It just went super poorly. They start with seven guys to my four.

Hup died almost instantly.

Guess I'm going to try again. With Rian, Naia, Gurjin, and Kylan. Three beefy fighters and a Kylan.

Nope, still lost. Wound up with three of their guys left BECAUSE THEY START WITH THREE MORE GUYS THAN I HAVE

I REALLY don't want to have to grind at bar fights.

Trying again again with Naia, Rian, Kylan, and Deet. Two beefs, two heals.

And that time I died when they had four guys left =|

Lets try Hup, Naia, Rian, and Deet.

And four left again >=|

So I guess grinding for levels is what its going to have to be then.

Great. Fantastic.

Guess I'll go prove my mettle over and over and over and over and over and over.

---

Did one of the desert encounter proves my mettle. Levels up, woo.

Gurjin learned Pursue (take next turn faster when dealt attack damage), Kylan learned Healing Touch (presumably a stronger heal but you need to be adjacent), Naia learned Heroic Leap (jump to an area and deal AOE damage), and Rian learned Tempered Stone (attack up if hit by critical). I also got a Stone Slicer.

Did an encounter in the swamp. Levelled up Naia and Gurjin with no new moves. Leveled up Rian and learned Hold Position. Got a Javelin and a Soup Spoon. Bought Rian a new, cooler sword to make him feel better about the Dual Glaive being stuck behind all these quests that are too high level for me.

Back to the Podling Tavern.

Wukki leveled up. Woo. Also earned a Shimmering Scale. Giving it to Rian because he's the hero guy. Which means I'm putting the Hunter's Cloak on Naia which means she's rocking two bits of Skeksis garb.

Chamberlain's abandoned speedster encounter grinding mission.

Level ups all around! Naia, Gurjin, and Kylan level up and earn nothing. Rian levels up and learns Tangle Up.

Oops, leveled Rian two more levels in Stone Warden than I needed to. Time to switch him to Mender so he can get Bramble Sage so he can get Strategist. So all that cool gear I just gave him is going to Gurjin. Congrats Gurjin!

So I bought Rian the coolest Mender stuff I could afford. Back to the grind. Gotta get everyone AT LEAST 20.

Back to the desert. Levels up!

Rek'yr learned Aimed Shot, Boggi learned Express Aid (heal an ally after moving four tiles, cool), Hup learned Command (friendly beat takes it next turn immediately), and Breg learned Steal MP.

Back to the swamp. Gosh, I sure love this gameplay rut.

Levels up. Deet learned Guardian's Blessing (can put a rez status on someone), Brea learned Firemoss Bundle (AOE fireball), Hup unlocked Potion Master! But I think I'll try Cook instead. And I found a Sturdy Halberd. I'd put that on Naia but the Cooking Spit gives her some additional HP.

More swamp leveling. Woo, Kylan learned Convalesce. Rek'yr and Deet leveled without learning anything. I found a Potion Stirrer. That's going right on Hup.

Back to the desert. Leveled up Hup, Boggi, and Brea but no new abilities.

Back to the gobbles. Back to leveling up. Boggi learned Get 'Em!, Deet learned Aughra's Ire, Rek'yr learned Thra's Light, Alyadon leveled and learned nothing from it.

Thats been a lot of leveling so might as well see how the Road to Ha'rar will go. And then I'm going to bed because eesh.

---

Mission: The New All-Maudra - Road to Ha'rar

"The heroes return to Ha'rar and learn of a troublesome shift in power."

Deet, Gurjin, Naia, and Hup.

And this works out well. Switching Hup to Cook during my leveling frenzy gave him the ability to sling a mean spoon. A couple levels had Naia and Gurin dealing more damage. Deet died though. But she poisoned everyone before she did.

Hopefully I won't have to go on another leveling journey because it really feels like it slows things down.

Speaking of leveling. Naia learned Double Strike 2, Gurjin learned Taunt 2, Hup learned Tenderize (triple strike a Spiced enemy, yes Cooks spice enemies) and Bitter Recipe (attack a Spiced enemy to inflict Blind and Silence).

So the Vapra quest chain splits here. One to go and beat up the General. One to go free some political prisoners that Seladon imprisoned. But I'm sleep now.

---

I'm wake now.

Me complaining about grinding and the game poorly signposting what to do next doesn't make a good post. I'm still going to try to do all the Vapran missions.

And yet, I'm still going to do some grinding before that because Boggi, Brea, Rek'yr, Alyadon and especially Breg still need to hit 20.

You know, for all he's my lowest level guy, he was MVP in the cave encounter. Moving so much, stabbing so much.

Anyway, Brea leveled and learned nothing as did Breg. Alyadon learned Awaken (basically the raise spell).

Theres another swamp encounter that I'm actually really enjoying. Its against four Arathim devourers but you start on the hill and can kind of snipe at them as they move across the map from you. Breg and Rek'yr are getting good use out of Daring Strike and Aimed Strike because I had time to mark them. But I have to say that Daring Strike just is way too much setup. They have to be poisoned AND marked. It does decent damage but you need to devote three moves to it.

Rek'yr learns Form Up, Breg learns Steal Life (steals life, 35% of the damage done by the attack, this is going right on Breg).

Did the road to Ha'rar but as an encounter mission. Boggi leveled and didn't learn anything. Alyadon leveled and unlocked Adept and Bramble Sage. Also I picked up a Tuned Guitar! Hopefully Song-Tellers use instruments so I can give this to Kylan later.

Cave encounter. Breg leveled up, nothing learned. But I found a Sharpened Dirk! Thats going right on Breg.

Also, the encounter grinding actually net me some pearls so I splurged and got teeth or fur for everyone who didn't already have a trinket and got some better armor for Breg and Rek'yr.

Back to the swamp. Alyadon leveled and learned Aughra's Ire. Oh, right. I turned her into a Bramble Sage so I could get some Firemoss on her to replace the rock throw. But I'm switching her back to mender so I can work on getting the SUPER healing moves.

Now just Breg is still lvl 19. But I'll get him up. Back to the road. Woo. Levels ups. Rian leveled and learned nothing as did Rek'yr. Brea learned Firemoss 2 (firemoss' cooler older brother) and Breg learned Adrenaline.

And I can get back to the plot.

---

Mission: Citadel Sneak -- Citadel Tunnels

"The cruel Skeksis General is in Ha'rar, conscripting Vapran Gelfling. The hereos must sneak into the Citadel to stop him."

This sounds like its going to have a wacky success condition.

Bringing Rian (because I really want to get him through these Mender levels so I can get him to Strategist), Deet (because she's not gotten to do anything recently) and Boggi and Wukki because shouty dogs is definitely who you want to bring on a stealth mission.

Hm, potion bottles on the map that grant you haste if attacked. Neat.

Ok so win condition is to get all four heroes to the exit, nobody can die. I only see two venom spitter arathim on the map. There's probably going to be more jumping in to mess with me. The jerks.

Ok wow thats a lot of spawn-ins.

More and more arathim and even some nurlocs. Thankfully, you can hit a boulder to roll and block the nurlocs way. And even though I was hilariously unprepared, I got through first try. Thanks to the good ol' doggos.

Everyone leveled! Deet and Boggi learned nothing! Rian learned Convalesce and Wukki learned to Munch (attack a marked target 5 times with reduced accuracy)! He also knows Fuzzy Meteor, which is a delightful move name.

---

Mission: General Upheaval -- Citadel Barracks

“The heroes confront the General. They must drive him out of Ha’rar to free the Vapran Clan.”

That’s a great mission name. 10/10, TDC: AOR: T. Top-notch.

Just going to make a guess here, based on nothing. The General mission will get the Vapran to join the resistance. The Seladon mission chain will get her to join the party. Either way, I really want to kick the General's butt.

I see two Paladins, an Adept, and the General. There's some open doors so I just bet that more units will spawn in.

The General has 2000 HP. Has Crushing Blow (probably massive damage to Stunned enemy), Intimidate (inflicts Attack DOwn, Defense Down, and Silence to enemies adjacent to SkekVar when he, I dunno, flexes or something), and Prod (shove and stun). Hopefully he's less annoying than the Chamberlain but thats a low bar. Zing.

Party: Rian (hero), Naia and Gurjin (my good fighters), Brea (this is her home darnit), and Breg (oh right, he's a Vapra too? Huh)

General: "So the heretics have returned!"

Rian: "You aren't taking these Paladins anywhere, drainer!"

General: "Take? The Paladins come freely. They are loyal. Not like that mother of yours."

Geez, General. Low blow.

Brea: "Murderer! You'll pay for killing her!"

So things are going ok. Making some missteps. But when I kill one of the Paladins, another one appears. So, yes. This is another level with new spawns.

Hah, but you can use levers to close the doors so no new spawns can spawn and if you do, SkekVar complains, asking where his minions went.

Well, as usual with fighting Skeksis, it was a bloodbath. He killed all my dudes but Gurjin. He shouldn't have overlooked Gurjin.

Since everyone died nobody leveled but Gurjin and he didn't learn anything new. BUUUUT I did get the Royal Scepter and the General's Hand Axe. And Brea just unilaterally declared the Vapran were joining the Resistance. Seladon is All-Maudra of nothing, I suppose.

In fairness, in this game, there was already a Vapran resistance that Seladon had arrested. So she had already lost the unity of her people by the time I showed up.

The General's Hand Axe is a big boost over the Dredged Axe I had already equipped to Rek'yr. Comes with a lot more stats and a little more slowness. I wish axes didn't slow down turns so much. In any case, this is going right on Rek'yr.

Comes with a quote too, as special weapons sometimes do. "No such thing as an honest skeksis. SkekVar gets the closest, but that's no compliment" - Maudra Fara.

Nice dunk, Fara.

Royal Scepter is the Vapra Clan Staff. Did... did we steal this from Seladon? 30% chance to Wound, 20% MP gain on hit. Feels appropriate to give this to Brea. Or Seladon if I unlock her.

OH, its the iconic crescent moon with crystal shaped staff. Nice.

And since Deet is still using a simple club, I'll give her the Drenchen Legends.

So a frustrating pair of play sessions but I got some good loots in the end.

[uozlulu]

Black Clover 238 reaction and spoilers

I saw some preview images a few days ago and so let’s all hop aboard the pain train together.

Current threat level: Slyph isn’t flirting, she’s giving tactical orders while taking a protective position in front of Yuno

It’s hard to discern if Vangeance is dead from being strung up or just incapacitated. However, I’m pretty sure Klaus and Letoile are going to die. The magic bones have pierced probably Letoile’s lungs and Klaus’ stomach and intestines while their squad’s healers are either absent or too injured/dying/dead to help. If reinforcements arrive and they don’t die, they’re likely to end up like All Might and have greatly reduced organ function, which I’m not sure this medieval themed world can handle well enough to give them full lives.

Zenon has what looks like horns from two different devils and one wing, which suggests that he’s possibly borrowed multiple devils’ powers, which makes me curious how the Spade mages obtained such power. Did they eat it? Was portions of a devil’s carcass placed into their bodies? It seems like a different kind of possession from Asta’s symbiotic relationship with his devil.

I’m really looking forward to listening to how Shimazaki acts this out in the anime while also not sure I’m looking forward to watching some of these plot points in motion when we get there.

I think it’s a bit weird that the person who comes to the Golden Dawn’s headquarters first is Ralph, but his reaction to the whole thing answers a few of the questions I have rolling around in my head here.

Some post- 238 thoughts:

The flow of events of the last few chapters raise a lot of suspicion, and it makes me curious how much the Dark Triad knows. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dante is Yuno’s uncle given that historically those creating these types of successful coups are adjacent to the throne. If this is true, it might also explain why Ralph has survived successfully for the last almost seventeen years since Ralph can lead the Dark Triad to the heir (Yuno) that could possibly undo all the power they’ve gained. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ralph was able to get to Clover Kingdom the same day the Spade mages attack the Golden Dawn so the Spade mages could either ferret out the prince indirectly. It seems like Zenon was unaware someone on Yuno’s level would be with the Golden Dawn as well, which makes me think while the Dark Triad might be aware that the prince was taken to Clover Kingdom, they don’t know he’s Yuno. I was also suspicious of Ralph’s intent given the timing of all of this, but I think Ralph is genuine given his reaction to arriving at the destroyed base. I just am having trouble believing that Ralph finally able to get to Yuno just before the raid is coincidental.

Another thing I’m curious about is how did the Spade mages get to the Golden Dawn base? Yuno seemed to instinctively sense something was off when he left Hage, so why haven’t other Magic Knights also sensed a problem? Although maybe being a four leaf allows Yuno heightened mana awareness or perhaps it was just logic driving him more than the ability to sense demonic mana. It’s also possible considering almost all of the Golden Dawn became possessed by elves and played key direct roles during the possession that the Clover Kingdom let this happen. Damnatio was willing to kill Asta as a gesture but was unable to do so, which to some might have made it look as though the devils’ influence was never properly dealt with. However, it does seem a bit extreme to allow an entire Magic Knight squad to be nearly wiped out, although it does ensure that something like the elf possession cannot happen again, which might be the real goal since Damnatio does have the kingdom’s best interests in mind. That said, if someone or more than one someone did kind of allow Spade to do this, did they know what Spade was after? Or do they not care and wanted to be able to have a more direct war with Spade rather than do what the Clover and Heart joint mission group is doing? I mean on one hand it seems stupid because they would need the Golden Dawn caliber of mages to go after Spade, but on the other hand I think we can’t really rule out that maybe this was allowed to happen.

Now, for the potential deaths. I feel dueling extremes over them. Like on one hand, no not my babies. I mean I love these characters. I have strong affinity towards them. Vangeance is relatable with his back story and poor choices, Yuno reminds me of my brother, Klaus is a gift, etc…etc…Also what about Langris? Where is he in all this? What if he wasn’t at the base and he’s going to get blamed for this? It’s a lot to take in. On another hand, if Vangeance, Kalus, Letoile, etc…etc.. die, then that’s something we don’t seem to see in shounen that often, and if Yuno dies, then that’s just a straight up game changer for Jump. We’ve not really seen a Jump series do that, just kill off the main rival/brother/etc…figure and then not bring them back from the dead. I know some people have been arguing that because it comes immediately with the prince reveal that to kill Yuno would be bad writing, but I’m not sure it technically would be. The prince reveal gets Yuno out of the headquarters as the raid begins, it shows that Spade has a hope but they don’t have a face for that hope, it also might hint at there being bigger problems in Clover Kingdom than just Spade invading one of their squad’s bases. It’d all come down to how Yuno’s death could serve the narrative and also serve Asta’s character journey. I know I’ve been wondering since part two started if part of where the story is heading is not necessarily giving up but learning to adjust and keep going. I mean Asta’s never give up crush is on a nun so we know logically he’s going to have to give up on that and change focus but still likely achieve a romance with another character. Maybe Yuno dying is going to cause Asta to readjust and refocus his goals. We know Asta is politically minded and is definitely focused on becoming Wizard King, but I think a lot of that goal was wrapped up in Yuno still being there, still experiencing it, and with Yuno gone, some of that dream will have to change. I think also an indication of this was when Asta said point blank that he rejected the judicial system during his trial. Maybe to gain power like a Wizard King, Asta will have to reject a lot of that dream and mold it into something new but similar.

Another factor here is that Black Clover has a tendency to set us up for tropes and then bend them. For example, Julius and Orsi both almost died but managed not to, though typically in these types of stories the mentor and the father die. We’ve also got Noelle the princess whose power is directly linked to her desire to protect rather than be protected. We’ve got Charmy the wolf in sheep’s clothing who just wants to eat, eat, eat rather than be some nefarious mustache twirling bad guy. So I definitely wouldn’t put it past Tabata to kill Yuno since it’s expected that Yuno would live because the rival almost always lives or comes back from the dead. Yet, we also can’t rule out that there’s also a tendency for a character to be completely physically defeated. Fuegoleón lost his arm and went into a coma, Finral was near death and went into a coma but came back, Julius died and came back, so we can’t rule out that Yuno might survive and grow from this experience. That said, I think if Yuno does survive then it’s unlikely that Vangeance, Klaus, and Letoile will. We’re going to lose some faves most likely and it’s going to hurt.

Another thing that I keep coming back to is Asta. Like whether Yuno dies or not, Asta and everyone working on the joint task force will likely have to stay put especially now that Spade attacked Clover directly. I want to see Asta have to deal with this in that way, all these people died and he’s got to stay put. He’s got to process it away from the funerals and so forth. He’s got to find a way to deal with it and move forward. Again, it’s a bit of a dual feeling because I love Asta so much so it’s the writer in me going “Yeah, give me the angst,” and the fan in me going “;o; poor Astaaaa and everybody.”

Also I’m curious what will happen with Mimosa? Her squad is decimated and their captain possible dead. Does she join an existing squad? Are there enough people left in the Golden Dawn that someone would just get appointed captain of it and change the name as per typical succession like how the Gray Deer became the Azure Deer? I also want to see how she’s going to process this too, because that’s a lot of loss especially if she was close to a lot of her squad and thought of them as a kind of family potentially.

And finally, the anthropologist side of me is really curious about Clover Kingdom funerals and I’m going to be a bit bummed if we don’t get to find out what those are like considering at least unnamed characters are indeed dead.

All that said, I’m not sure if I’d say I’m rooting for any one theory (or any of them for that matter) to be true or not, and whether we get into the heavy and horrible or not, I’ll keep reading because either way it’ll be interesting. Do I want these characters to die? No, but I’m not going to sneeze at the potential character development and plot points that could come from such things.

[gottagobuycheese]

Tag Thingy

Thanks @silent--sonata for indulging my terrible sleeping habits XD

(fyi this will probably be unnecessarily long and rambly, so it’s going under a cut (EDIT: whelp the song list got a little out of hand, I’d apologize if I were even remotely sorry)) 

Rules: Answer 17 questions & tag 17 people you want to get to know better  

Nickname: Cheese (or Lactose Wedge, or Dairy Product of Unspecified Origin and Purpose)

Zodiac Sign: Gemini! 

Height: 160.5 cm/5′3″ (Bubbles I refuse to believe you’re actually that much taller than me) 

Hogwarts house: Somewhere between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff allegedly, both of which I’d be honored to get sorted into, but honestly I’d just be stoked to get sorted at all 

Last thing I googled: I think it was something along the lines of “how to speed up audio playback in GarageBand,” but but my train of thought was derailed before I actually looked at any of the results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and on a related note, thanks again for the magical audio editing @imperiousheiress!)

Song stuck in my head: The end credits to Legacy of the Wizard (which is SUCH a jam, thank you for enlightening me @jessicafish) Following and followers: 227 (goodness just looking at that number is stress-inducing) and...104?! When the HECK did you all get here??? I think just last summer I was happily floating about in the 50′s. Anyways, to anyone I have not said hello, hello! Hope you enjoy your stay, and I am sincerely sorry if you expected Quality Original Content, or even just regularly scheduled other people’s content. Sadly, neither of these things tend to happen here. 

Amount I sleep: During the school year it’s usually anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours (DON’T EVEN START BUBBLES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT), usually landing in the 3/4 hour ranges if I’m smart about it, but now that I am on Unofficial Break, it’s usually at least around 6 hours (except today was 3 because Avatar is an excellent show and the weirdos in this house have regularly scheduled breakfast at 9-something every morning). Sadly my sleep schedule can only be forced to tolerate normalcy for so long before careening back in the other direction, so we’ll see if this is just a blip or if we’re back to normal mid-Atlantic Ocean hours!

Lucky number(s): I wouldn’t say these are necessarily favorite numbers, but I do like 2 and 9. But come to think of it, second attempts at Official Things do tend to go better for me than first attempts, so maybe there’s some merit there after all! Dream Job: Don’t think I’m really cut out for dreaming anymore, haha (unless you are a theoretical future employer in which case I am Extremely Full of Ambition and Passion). The bed-adjacent metaphor has been made, and not to brag, but I can sleep on pretty much any surface. Currently studying my Not Favorite aspect of STEM (was there ever a favorite or did I just like being good at things sometimes) and learning how to People™ properly (and also learning a gazillion convoluted drug names like what the heck dude, did you just fall asleep on your typewriter coming up with these), so I’ll take whatever place hires me and pays me enough not to depend on my parents for everything, I suppose. In an ideal world, that would entail a job where I could make friends, and even more importantly, a job where my shortcomings would not cause Massive and Irreparable Harm, but I don’t think this line of work really meshes with that last one, so I guess I’ll either have to get my shit together™ extremely soon or fake my death, adopt an alias, and flee to a completely new place with no ties whatsoever before trying to get another, less high stakes job. 

(Though I guess, less cynically, I like helping people well enough? And stories are fun! Maybe there could’ve been something with that. Not that there still can’t be, mind, but there’s still a long way to go between Here and There)

Wearing: Black shorts. Navy t-shirt. Brown some-specific-kind-of-jacket-I-forgot-the-name-of jacket. Is it summer? Is it fall? Am I in middle school? Who can say, but they are COMFY so sadly I have no cares to give

Favourite song(s): way way WAY too many to list here, and I do not have them all organized in a handy playlist separately, but to name a few (and these are not necessarily the MOST favorite okay, it doesn’t mean I don’t love stuff not on this list, it means you can’t force me to pick between my children and I am going to find at least one quick thing from a few things I like before I need to hit post and go back to looking like I’m being studious, and also things I think you should listen to right now, but for everything I’ve linked assuming I mean the whole OST), here’s a spam of links in no particular order: 

LoZ Wind Waker - The Great Sea (aka the epitome of optimism) 

Undertale - NGAHHH!! (I was about to link more but then I realized it’d be the whole soundtrack lol) 

LoZ Breath of the Wild - Hateno Village (Night) 

A:tLA - Peace (bad call BAD CALL NOW I HAVE EMOTIONS) 

Legend of Korra - Final Scene/Ending Theme (MISTAKES WERE MADE MISTAKES WERE MADE) 

Kung Fu Panda - Oogway Ascends (I feel like I’m taking you on a whole little album journey now XD) 

PMD: Explorers of Sky - Dialga’s Fight to the Finish (aka the Gotta Shower Fast song) 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Pursuit ~ Cornered (aka the HURRY UP AND PACK UR SHIT YOUR FLIGHT LEAVES IN THREE HOURS song) 

Apollo Justice: A New Trial Is In Session (very underrated soundtrack imo) and also Apollo Justice: Telling the Truth (because these two are very closely associated in my head and it’s getting harder and harder to narrow things down so maybe I should stop lol) 

Your Name: Katawaredoki (in which I am forcibly thrown heart first into the bedroom of my second apartment at approximately 12-something A.M.) 

Digimon Adventure 01: Butterfly (MASSIVE 90′s childhood anime feels, and also Last Summer Before Everything Went to Shit feels (on a general scale I mean, not personal)) 

Pokémon: Lugia’s Song multitrack cover by Jordan Moore (would that I could have a talent of that musical talent) 

Pokémon the First Movie: Tears of Life (great now I’m on a Pokémon music spiral GUESS IT’S CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA HOURS NOW) 

PMD: Blue Rescue Team - Farewell and Run Away/Fugitives (you CANNOT make me choose between these guys okay, my brain WILL explode, and whoops now I want to link the whole ost) 

Palette by A Dear Friend (wink wonk) 

Pokémon: Alpha Sapphire - Fortree City (wow talk about mood whiplash)

Detective Conan: Main Theme (I can’t find the specific version since there are so many, but it’s a Good Theme) 

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl - Opening Theme 

Pokémon Colosseum - Relic Forest 

Song for Lindsay by Andrew Boysen Jr. (oh great now it’s time for marching band feelings I guess)

Mt. Everest by Rossano Galante 

Deltarune - Field of Hopes and Dreams and A Town Called Hometown (orchestrated) (aka the Lots of Work To Do song) and You Can Always Come Home and Don’t Forget (hey guess what I wrote a bunch of fake extra verses for) (also it looks my pathetic attempts at narrowing things down are getting even more pathetic so I’ll wrap up soon XD) 

 Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (never actually played this myself but my friend got me addicted to the music) 

Lord of the Rings - May It Be (Enya) (aaaand now I miss choir, THANKS BUBBLES) 

Lion King - Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Multilingual) by Travys Kim (aka how I remembered how fun these things are) 

Original Song by Anonymous  

(The urge to add all the other songs I’m not adding is so strong but I’ve got so much work to do so just assume I mean all Nintendo music from any game I’ve played, all Ghibli movie music, every musical I’ve ever heard, and even more) 

Random fact:

Apparently as early as the 17th century, you could guess that a child would have a shortened life span if their foreheads tasted salty. Yes, there is a specific reason, and yes, you may already know what it is, and thankfully no, that life span projection no longer holds true, assuming access to Modern Medicine! 

Favourite Authors: Okay I have not read enough various books of enough various authors to be able to answer this, so I’m just gonna go with a few books instead. They are not necessarily all-time favorites, but I enjoyed reading them very much at the time and more often than not go back to them for comfort reads: The Martian, any of first three Harry Potter books, and The Rise of Kiyoshi. (That last one’s not really a comfort read but I am drowning in Loving Kiyoshi juice so here we are)

Favourite Animal Noises: Certain kinds of birds (UNLESS it’s some ungodly hour of the morning and you’re trying to sleep)? Ooh, and crickets! 

Aesthetic: A slob, but like...a comfy slob. An incredibly disorganized hermit who is happy to mill about in the uncontrolled entropy. (Are we talking about what aesthetic I give off, or what I like to look at, visually? Because I like space, and water, and mountains, and forests, and forests ON mountains, OOH and forests on mountains at night where you can see space, perhaps reflected in a body of water. Or just water, idk. Different things are pretty to look at at different times)

WELL THAT ONLY TOOK FOREVER SORRY FOR THE OBSCENE LENGTH 

@pachelbelsheadcanon @averybritishbumblebee @shingeki-no-korra @sailorlock @yeswevegotavideo @soultheta @queenerdloser @ifeelbetterer @rogueofdragons @peppervl @amadness2method @mutalune and anybody else who wants to do this! This isn’t seventeen, and I don’t know if any of you have already done it/been tagged, but I hear people moving around upstairs so that means this break is over XD. And ABSOLUTELY no pressure to actually do this, this is pretty much just me wishing you well! (and YOU of course, my dear reader! I hope everything’s going all right, or if it’s not, that it does soon)

[listenerseries]

Living Ghosts 6

Content warning: blood, violence, and death.

Uakea and Taizen nod to Daesun as they bank in opposite directions, darting away to other parts of the compound.  Daesun takes a breath and draws on his speed.

It smells of medicine and metal tools––of leftover blood from operations and births that came the previous day.  The medical bay of the breeding compound always smelled like this, he figures, but he wonders if he can only smell it now because he draws on his sense of smell as he moves through the halls.

His steps are silent as he collects the sound his breathing and feet make.  He passes by a pattern of doors and curtained windows, each door labelled by doctor and by purpose, as he searches through the compound for any signs of life.  He passes by Wyn’s old office––her name scratched off from the card on the front––and pauses.  He reaches out with a gloved hand and presses his fingers to the hard wood, then sighs.

The soft murmur of coming guards jolts him out of his thoughts.  He ducks into the shadows cast by the walls around them and waits for a moment to strike.  The guards approach his place paired, turn opposite of each other, and continue down separate paths.  Hardly breathing, Daesun follows one.

He stalks the man, keeping step just behind him and lifting his hands up in preparation.  Daesun draws on his reserves of strength and grabs him, wrestling the man to the ground in a tangle of limbs.  His arm goes over the man’s mouth, his other choking him out, cutting the circulation to his brain.  He goes down easier than most, and it sends a small shock of adrenaline through Daesun’s system as he sighs and lets the man drop to the ground.

He strains his ears to hear anything familiar––Sori’s voice, his mother’s, his brothers’, but finds nothing.  He darts back into the shadows and tails the next guard the same way, his sandstone eyes flashing before he pounces again.

It is his mission to keep Sori safe, to take down as many of the guards as he can before she surfaces out of the breeding rooms to retrieve Bii.  She is to hold nothing back from these people that keep her locked in rooms and beaten down.

But he finds himself hiding just adjacent of the compound’s dark corners, almost baiting the remaining guards’ gazes.  

Look over here, he thinks, knowing they will not.  His presence is nothing, his feet make no sound, and he himself is registered dead.

But this is a game of cat and mouse.  His eyes glint in the firelight as a man turns almost to him.  Daesun lashes out and grabs him, a blur of gray and silence, and lays the man’s unconscious body gently on the ground.  He keeps his head in his hands for a second, and balances its weight between his palms, considering.  These men, with their spears and armor.

How easily their necks might snap.

He drops the man’s head and darts back into the compound’s darkness, seconds before another guard rounds the corner and rushes to his fallen companion.

And Daesun takes down this new prey as well, easily.  It gets easier every time.  As he draws upon his reserves of hearing, he can sense it––the satisfying sound of quiet breathing on this floor of the compound, and nothing more.

Revenge belongs to living ghosts.

If his sister is moving, he cannot hear her, and his reserves are running low.  He stops drawing and sighs.  He stands and takes a brief look around, then sits down, completely still.  He collects his body’s speed, slowing all possible movement, then draws on all his reserves of presence and sound.

Nothing stirs.  This floor of the compound is empty.  He opens his eyes and sighs, then begins collecting again.  He switches from drawing on his hearing to drawing on his sense of smell, then turns down a corner.  A staircase leads down into the next floor––the only part of the compound kept beneath the ground.  He casts a glance back into the hall behind him, then takes the first step down into stairway.

He shifts down the stairs one at a time, slow like the bleed of ink on paper.  The corridor beneath remains lit by torchlight––left behind by the administrators still dealing with Sori, he guesses.  He scents the air and almost winces.  It smells of administrators and Kohumae, and the unique tragedy that stains the walls and tables the combination creates.  A heavy musk mixed with the scent of old wood and rusting iron––the scent of bodies, and blood, and the pounding heat of muted terror.    

The breeding rooms, like the rooms of the medical bay above, are ordered by number, though unlike the rooms above, there are no windows, nor curtains to be drawn to close them.  These rooms are marked only by their doors, all closed except one.  He slows to a stop beside this room, and curiosity tugs him towards it, first in the way his eyes slide to peer, second in the way his foot pivots to face.

The breeding room beyond is dark and empty, the candle light long since put out for the night.  But in the dim light of the torch behind him, he can see a low, metal table sitting at the center of the room, surrounded on one side by empty chairs made of dark wood. 

He brushes a hand over one of their backs and wonders, briefly, what the people here do, what they think.  He cannot bring himself to observe the table he knows is there, because its presence alone pushes his gaze away from it.

Daesun scents the air for anything new and finds nothing.  After a beat, he passes out of the door and continues on down the hall.  Slowly, his hearing fades back in as he stops collecting, and he listens carefully for signs of anything.

Air moves through the space around him, raising bumps on his skin and forcing him to shiver.  Footsteps and the sounds of muffled voices drift from the rooms at the end of the hall.  Shadows flicker against the stone walls around him as the torchlight dances, dim in the dark of the corridor and the night.  He catches the smell of fresh smoke in the air, wafting in from the stairway behind him, and his eyes shift as his body does back towards the way he came.

A piercing howl rips through the air.  

He jumps, flinching and whirling back towards the room at the end of the hall.  His ears ring with his sister’s voice, low and furious and thunderous.  It tears through him with a wild venom he’s never felt or imagined but knows to fear for the way it raises the hair on his arms and sends ice singing through his veins.

A thud.  Men snarling, then crying out, then the sick sound of thick bone snapping echoes through the corridor from beyond the thick closed door in front of him.

Daesun swallows.

The door flies off its hinges as a man, head twisted nearly completely around, flies through the heavy oaken door and tumbles across the floor.  Daesun presses himself against the wall, his breath catching in his throat.  He hears the splatter of something heavy and warm and bleeding on the floor and he closes his eyes before turning his head towards the sound.

“Please, I’m sorry!”

Sori’s small hand, red to her wrist, grips the administrator’s neck in a hand that pinches the skin like thin cloth.  She stands clothed in nothing more than the rags of a robe above him, black tattoos lining her shoulders, arms, and neck, and squeezes.  Her eyes never leave his.  He claws at her unbreaking skin and she flashes her crimson-stained teeth at him.

“I’ll do whatever you want! Give you anything––freedom! I’ll free you, just let me--”

His voice cuts off the way his throat is––ripped from his neck on one quick movement.  Sori’s breath seethes in the cold, condensing in short puffs in front of her face, buried in the man’s neck.  She lets him drop with a dull thud, the palms of her hands glowing a faint, pale blue beneath the bright sheen of red.

Daesun takes a step back.

Sori’s head snaps to him.  Her eyes catch Daesun’s briefly, and her face contorts.  Her brows knit together as her mouth presses into a thin line, empty hands opening and closing, holding tight to nothing.  He watches her hand shake as it drops to her side.   She leans forward and opens her mouth again to breathe.  A dribble of blood spills from her panting mouth, and the blue light in her hands fades.  She looks away from him and crouches beside the man, drawing his sword from its scabbard slowly.  Her eyes dart to Daesun, and her face falls again into that primal mask.

As she stands, she speaks quiet words pressed to the back of her palette.  Mist lifts from the flat of the blade as runes etch themselves into the steel.  She takes a step towards him and he takes another step back.  The sound of her blade against the cobblestone floor echoes in time with his heartbeat in his ears.

Her hands flicker in front of her as she uses her free hand to sign to him without looking at him.  Her grip on the sword tightens, but her wide eyes and half-open mouth hardly move, save for a half-twitch that barely exists in the dark.

“Behind you.”

[PREVIOUS]

[NEXT]

[catradora-stan]

i kinda wrote some widowtracer fanfic for the first time so im gonna post it here. give me some feedback if you want. 

She was about two seconds away from murdering her. But then again, she always was. Lena’s incessant bantering had plagued her for far too long. On many occasions it almost drove her to a premature completion her task. The day would come when her orders were given but for now she was required to deal with the annoying, British imbecile.

“Hey now, look. I’m not saying that you can’t do what you love as a profession, but trying to make money from playing video games is pretty dumb.” The girl gave Amelie a cocky look that dared her to challenge.

She glanced over where Lena was sitting, and gave her most evil glare. “I make money by being here. Therefore I am making money playing video games. Now do shut up.” She had to focus on the enemy in front of her. She couldn’t risk losing the match. This was her first tournament where victory meant she could win real compensation. She flicked her arm and clicked on the mouse while mashing buttons on the keyboard. Another clean headshot.

Lena let out a groan and started rapping her fingers against the wall. Over the course of a week Amelie learned how hard it was for her to sit still and be quiet. The annoyance was like a high maintenance puppy; she requires constant attention if you don’t want to deal with her getting into trouble. Amelie had never owned a dog. She wasn’t for the idea of having something that cannot help itself.

Yet here she was, a trained assassin, forced into this highly undesirable mission because she was still a newcomer in her field. One day she would work her way up the ranks until she was the one giving orders. The schmuck that continued to underestimate her and give her these horrid assignments would find himself employed at K-Mart. Or dead. One of the two. Retail jobs and death are about equivalent. The notion made her grin as she picked off another enemy in her game.

For now she had to deal. She had originally been stationed as Lena’s bodyguard while her father was away doing business. He had been in close company with her organization for years doing whatever it was he did. Something with weapons. She didn't know the specifics, and why would they tell a grunt like her? All she knew was that while he was away plans had changed. He apparently failed to deliver what he promised, and if the deadline were to expire then her orders were to take out the girl. He had only a couple of weeks. Good enough incentive to get him going. He seemed like a nice guy who cared about the girl; enough to get in trouble with one of the most dangerous group of criminals.

Of course Lena was unaware of the truth. Incidents like these had been a constant occurrence in her life. Her father had fed her lies about what he did so he would still look noble to his precious daughter. On the day he left he told her: “I have a very important job therefore I make lots of enemies. But don’t worry about me I have good people keeping me safe. The same people who will be keeping you safe while I’m away.” His words were a complete fabrication. And due to the abnormality of her father’s work life the girl never had a typical childhood. She was raised more so by nannies and bodyguards than by her father. He had been absent approximately eighty percent of her life. And her mother had been gone the whole eighteen years. Of course the only reason Amelie knew all of this was because the little parasite could never suppress her constant need to jabber.

So it was no surprise when Lena started singing. It was from some awful, dramatic musical she had been watching the other day.

  Mon Dieu. Does she ever shut up?“Silence you leech!” Amelie was trying hard to focus on her game. It was a tie at the moment and she was desperately trying to fix that.

Lena paying no mind started to increase in volume. “DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING? SINGING THE SONGS OF ANGRY MEN!” She let out a chuckle in the middle of the song, knowing the frustration she was causing, before she started up again. “IT IS THE VOICES OF A PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIN.”

Lena observed from her position as Amelie tried her hardest to concentrate. Her callous look intensified as Lena grinned. Then suddenly she saw the character on the screen die, which led Amelie to cry out in fury. She told her teammates through the headset to cover for her but it was too late. Everyone was dead. The enemy quickly captured the objective and in big bright letters the word Defeat spread across the screen.

That was when Amelie snapped. She rotated her chair away from the screen and towards Lena. A malicious grin splayed across her face as her hands hardened into fists. In a calm tone that did not match her demeanor she breathed, “I am going to kill you.”

That was all it took for Lena to sprint out of the office. Amelie pushed herself up out of her chair and quickly followed in pursuit. The girl had almost made it down the hallway when she slipped on the hardwood floor. Fuzzy socks were not good running shoes. The assassin was right there on her. Lena tried to scramble back onto her feet but it was too late. Amelie had pulled her up by the back of her shirt and slammed her against the wall.

The girl yelped in pain and looked up, terrified into Amelie’s murderous gaze. “You can’t kill me cause that’s like the opposite of your job.” She stammered. She tried to move but the assassin tightened her grip.

“Oh really? The opposite of my job? My job does not consist of dealing with your constant BS. I am not required to be your dumb little therapists and listen to your incessant, childish squealing.” She knew that her words were cutting into the girl like knives. With added venom she spat, “I am not your friend. I am only here to make sure that no one kills you.”

“No one is going to kill me! No one is ever gonna kill me!” Lena pushed her tormentor off of her and continued. “My father doesn’t even care about me and all he does is stick me with you people all the time. If he actually knew what I needed he would know that I don’t need to be babysat-”

“What do you not understand when I said that I don't care? Go plague someone else.” She turned and began walking back down the hallway towards her quarters.

“I don’t have anyone else to plague because no one lets me go anywhere or make any friends!”

“I DON’T CARE!” She slammed the door behind her making the valuables on the shelfs tremble. She threw herself onto the bed that did not belong to her. Being an assassin should not involve being a babysitter. The girl was a legal adult anyways. Amelie wanted to break something, someone, shatter a collarbone. The vase on the wall would have to do. She grabbed it from its home on the shelf. It was ornate, covered in the symbols of some ancient civilization and encrusted with gold. But it wasn’t in her hand for very long. She launched it as hard as she could at the adjacent wall, causing it to shatter, bringing great satisfaction to Amelie in her aggravated state. She had doubted that anyone would care about its absence, but sound of hurried footsteps indicated otherwise.

“What the hell was that?” Lena inquired through the door.

Amelie responded, “A metaphor.”

“What?”

“A Metaphor for what I will do to you if you keep messing with me, imbécile.”

“Hmm. I see. Your French voice is pretty.” Lena shuffled outside the door then leaned her back against it.

Are you joking? This job was an actual nightmare. Amelie tried to dwell on the hopes of promotion but that was difficult with Lena making noises outside her door. After about a minute had passed she asked, “Why are you still there?”

“Cause we’re friends.” Lena giggled, “You're just mad cause you’re bad.”

“First of all, no. Second of all, no. I lost because you are the world’s biggest annoyance. I would like nothing more than to end you.”

“It’s just a game bro.”

Amelie groaned into the expensive bed spread. This was going to be a long three weeks. She stealthily stood up and walked towards the door, careful to make sure that Lena wouldn’t notice. Then she reached out towards the handle and yanked the door open as quickly as she could. On queue Lena fell backwards, landing on her butt. She swore loudly then glared up at Amelie.

She looked down at the little disaster. “You’re just mad cause you’re bad.” She mocked.

It seemed as though the bothersome brit didn’t know how to respond to what had just happened. Lena just sat there quietly, with a contemplative look on her face.

Amelie went back to the bed and began looking at her phone, thinking that perhaps the matter had been settled. As long as Lena wasn’t making noise or bothering her she didn’t care what she did.

Eventually the girl on the floor spoke up. “You know, I have never had a bodyguard like you. You pretend to be impassive yet you are so easily moved to emotion. I guess that’s why it’s so fun to piss you off.”

The assassin acknowledged her with a grunt and pretended to be more interested in her phone.She knew that Lena would be the most interesting, yet deserving person she would kill, if it came to that. She might even regret murdering her. Might.

“The best part about it though is that now matter what, you don’t actually get to kill me.” Lena joked as she layed on the floor.

That’s what you think Chérie.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

A Guardiancorp Pregnancy, Continued

Lena’s news hits like a sack of bricks, but James cannot stop grinning. In less than a week he’s knee deep in maternity books and researching classes for expecting parents. He’s not even a little bit ashamed to have Winn teasing him day in and day out because he can’t stop talking about it.

“Dude,” Winn says one night as they patrol quiet streets as Guardian. “What did your mom say?”

James stops dead in his tracks, stomach dropping to the bottom of his shoes.

Oh.

His mom knows he’s dating. She doesn’t know he’s dating Lena Luthor. Lena hasn’t even met his family.

“Dude? Still there?”

Oh shit.

Oh shit is the expression that freezes on Lena’s face when James proposes a visit to Metropolis. He should have suggested it after she was done chewing, because her mouthful catches in her throat, making her cough hard enough to make her eyes water.

“Oh,” is all she croaks when the obstruction clears. She takes another long swallow of her wine. Her eyes look anywhere but at him.

“We seem to be in the habit of doing things out of order,” James observes, as though it will ease the abruptness of it all. When no response comes, apprehension claws up his throat. “Lena?”

Across the table, Lena’s gaze has fallen to her lap, where he can see her arm fidgeting as her fingers work the edges of her napkin.

Desperate to put her at ease, James fills the silence. “Sorry to spring it on you--”

“No, it’s not that.” Lena’s voice still sounds hoarse, but this time not from near-choking.

“What’s wrong?”

Lena swallows, eyes lifting briefly to his before falling away. Guilt floods to her cheeks in a ruddy flush, staining her skin even as she lifts her shoulders in dismissal.

“I forgot you have family.”

Oh.

Shit.

James stares at the front door of his childhood home with Lena’s hand tight in his. He needs to be the one who believes this will go well-- Lena’s armor only goes as deep as the carefully crafted casual outfit she put on that morning. Her sundress is nice but far below her means, softening the imposing figure she usually cuts. From the way her hand smoothes the front of the dress, James knows Lena doesn’t feel comfortable in it. He wants to assure her that his mother and sister will love her, but…

He can’t.

The sound of silence rings in his ears, still echoing over the telephone line after he told his mother that the woman he’s bringing home for her to meet is Lena Luthor.

His own prejudice feels far away after knowing Lena so well, but it’s come roaring back to meet him in the days leading up to this visit. He remembers the days and nights spent in front of the television, watching Lex’s trial like a football game, rooting for his conviction, scoffing at his family’s heartache after the verdict was read.

Finally, they’d crowed, lifting their drinks in congratulatory toasts. Finally, they got their just desserts.

James doesn’t know if his mother will be able to see beyond that. Not for sure.

Lena’s hand squeezes even tighter, pulling James back to the first obstacle in his path: the door.

“Ready?”

The slightest hesitation is proof that she’s not.

“Absolutely,” she lies. He can hear the pleasant smile curling her lips, plastered on like she does for unpleasant meet and greets. Beneath it, he hears the truth that tickles in the back of his own mind as well.

Might as well get it over with.

James reaches out to knock. Before his knuckles can make contact, the door swings open.

Heart slithering up his throat, James plasters his grin in place at the sight of his sister.

“Hey, Tiff…”

“Jimmy.”

“Didn’t know you were going to be here this weekend,” he says, attempting to deflect from the fact he’d been banking on the fact she wouldn’t be.

“I bet,” comes the flat response.

Tiffany’s eyes glint like knives as she scrapes her gaze across the both of them. Her eyes narrow as Lena shifts forward, extending one hand with a smile. “Hi, I’m--”

“I know who you are.”

Tiffany gives Lena’s offered hand a dismissive glance before disappearing into the house, leaving the door gaping wide behind her. Lena’s hand closes, floating awkwardly in the air before coming down to clasp cover James’ hand. The comforting rub she gives is for him, driving the hurt deeper.

Don’t worry, the touch says. I didn’t expect anything less.

Together, they step over the threshold and onto the small landing inside. From there, they have the option of going up or going down via a pair of scissoring stairs. He’d never given them a second thought as a kid, but now he curses the narrow climb that forces Lena to trail just a few steps below as they head up to the sitting room.

There, Vivian Olsen comes bustling out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her flowered and floured apron. “About damn time! My baby boy finally come home to visit-- let me get a look at you!”

James grins, and Lena lets go of his hand so he can return the hug. “Hey, momma.”

His mom squeezes him briefly, and as she pulls away her hands squeeze his shoulders and arms in surprise. “You been working out?”

“Some,” he deflects, reaching behind him for Lena. Her hand returns to his, and she steps up with a dazzling smile. “Mom, this is Lena.”

“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Olsen,” Lena enthuses, extending her hand once more. “You have a lovely home.”

“Oh, why thank you,” Vivian returns with a carefully distracted smile. A timer in the kitchen beeps, and James watches his mother lift her hands. “My hands are filthy, I’d hate to get flour all over you.”

Lena retracts her hand yet again. The only sign of her hurt is the deep breath that inflates and collapses silently in her chest. James sidles closer, as if bodily contact will somehow ease the insult of his own family.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Vivian urges. “Can I get you something to drink? Tiffany, get your brother something to drink while I check on dinner!”

“He can get his own damn drink,” Tiffany mutters from the couch, where she sits scrolling through her phone.

James’ glare is rivalled only by his mother’s. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

Even Tiffany doesn’t dare argue with that voice. She rises, and only then does Vivian hurry back to the kitchen. Tiffany barely spares Lena a glance on her way towards the kitchen. “What can I get you?”

“Oh, I’m fine thanks,” Lena says quickly. Her smile is still in place, as though she hasn’t just heard the irritated exchange. “Really.”

“I’ll take a beer,” James declares with more force than necessary. “Chilled glass, if you got it.”

“We don’t.”

As soon as they’re alone, James turns to Lena. “Lena, I am so sorr--”

“No, don’t apologize.” Lena runs a hand up his side, nails scritching in reassurance. “I’m fine.”

“You shouldn’t have to be fine--”

“But I am. I’ve faced down entire boardrooms before-- this is nothing.”

But the shadow in her eyes is proof that it’s not nothing. This means more to her than any business transaction. This is family. His family. Soon to be the family their child will share.

“Don’t worry about me,” Lena murmurs, rocking onto her toes to press a kiss to his lips.

James chases her lips, returning her kiss with another. “I always worry about you.”

A grin against his lips answers him, and Lena melts just a little bit.

“Cute.”

Tiffany’s return snaps the rigidity back into Lena’s spine. She pulls away sharply, tucking her hair behind her ear like she’s been caught red-handed. Tiffany shoves a Coors into James’ hand, then stalks back to the couch. As she reclines, her legs strech diagonally across two cushions, relegating James to the two adjacent arm chairs. After draping his coat across the back of Lena’s seat, he perches on the arm of it, determined to remain at her side.

“Tiffany works for the State Department,” James offers, earning a death glare from his sister. “As a foreign liaison officer.”

Lena lights up at the information. “Oh, wow. That can certainly be a thankless job, but some of the embassies are so beautiful. Have you been assigned overseas?”

“Kind of in the job description.”

Lena refuses to be daunted. “Have you enjoyed your postings so far?”

Tiffany doesn’t respond.

When Vivian reemerges from the kitchen sometime later, she cuts a very different picture. Gone is the apron and bright enthusiasm for her son’s return. Armed with nothing but a wine glass and a sharp jawline, she is every inch the composed authority figure of James’ childhood. When she reclines into the spare arm chair, she does so as though it were her throne, crossing her long legs at the knee.

Lena’s smile doesn’t falter, but James can sense her gaze laser focused on Vivian. Recalling what he knows of Lillian Luthor, James can only wonder what similarities Lena is currently finding in the way his mom gestures between the two of them.

“So how does this work, exactly?” she asks. “She’s your boss, did I read that correctly?”

James leans forward. “Yes, she is. It’s a little unconventional, but at the executive level disclosure is enough to satisfy EEOC.”

“Not to mention any decision that would affect James personally would require approval from the board of investors,” Lena jumps in. “There’s adequate buffer to separate work and pleasure.”

“Oh good, so you can rape and pillage the working class hand-in-hand,” Tiffany mutters into her own wine glass. “Good to know.”

“Excuse me?” James fires back, even as his mother offers a gentle warning.

“Tiffany…”

“What? It’s true. And we all know that Daddy’d be rolling in his grave if he knew Jimmy sold his soul for a window office.”

The air in the room turns to ice. James can barely breathe, and suddenly Lena is squeezing his hand in reassurance.

“She doesn’t mean that,” Vivian says softly, her gaze warming slightly as she focuses on James and only James.

James grits his teeth. “Sure sounds like she does.”

“I think the only thing your father would be disappointed about is you giving up your passion, baby. You put such beauty in the world with your pictures, and you loved it. Why give that up?”

“Because there was nowhere else to grow, doing what I was doing. I was ready for something new, and the opportunity presented itself. And it’s good work! I like the challenge, I like the job.” Vivian tch’s, and resentment bubbles up at the sound. “What’s so hard to accept about that?”

Lena shifts forward in her seat, covering his knee with one palm. James feels the argument bubbling inside of her, but as soon as she takes a breath to speak, Vivian cuts her off smoothly.

“I think this is a conversation for family, dear.”

This time, there’s no flinch, no flash of hurt. Just that same breath, released in a soft sigh. “You’re right.”

Lena rises to her feet, smoothing her uncharacteristic dress and gathering her small purse in one hand, its long chain looped lazily around her wrist.

“But you should know, Mrs. Olsen, that CatCo has generated more than 3,000 jobs across the country, and is now the leading competitor in compensation and benefits packages in the industry. Since James took over, CatCo’s charitable dontations have more than doubled.

“James isn’t just good at his job-- he does good.”

James meets her gaze with a smile of his own, warming under the gentle adoration looking back at him. Neither Vivian nor Tiffany say a word. After a moment, Lena turns back to Vivian.

“Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

He straightens to receive the kiss Lena presses to the corner of his mouth. James wants to wrap his arms around her and beg her to stay, or else take her hand and sprint out the door with her. But when she whispers take as long as need against his cheek, he knows he owes it to her, to himself and their unborn child, to stay and see this through.

She departs, and the door closes behind her with a hollow sense of finality.

“Are you out of your mind?” Tiffany all but explodes, rounding on him as soon as the door clicks shut. “A fucking Luthor?”

“How about you watch your damn mouth,” James snaps back. “She hasn’t done a thing to you but be civil--”

“And she’ll be civil with you right up until she puts a knife ‘tween your ribs! She’ll be civil all the way to the courthouse and all while she calmly explains how she had to do it for the betterment of humanity.”

James shakes his head. “Lena’s not like that. She is not her brother.”

“It’s not just her brother, Jimmy! Her whole damn family are murderers and thieves but you mean to sit there and tell me that she’s the miracle child who somehow ended up with the one soul among them? Fucking spare me. Like father, like mother, brother, and sister.”

“Naw,” James drawls, slumping back in his seat. “Not like sister. Just look at us-- I’m not as mean and hating as you.”

“But you was!”

James almost flinches at the accusation, unable to deflect the truth of it. Once upon a time he had been just as cruel, just as blind to the truth of who Lena was. He’d nearly driven Kara and Lena apart when Lillian escaped prison, and thank god he had failed.

“Tiff…”

“Save it,” his sister cuts him off with a slice of her hand. She shakes her head, climbing to her feet. “I can’t even with you right now.”

She disappears down the stairs, leaving James alone with his mother as the basement door slams shut behind her. James reluctantly meets his mother’s discerning gaze, chagrined for the antagonism, but not the fight. He waits for Vivian to speak, as he always does, knowing she already has plenty to say.

“What did you expect would happen, Jimmy?”

James shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I hoped Lena might be welcomed by my family, if they knew she was someone I cared about.”

“But a Luthor…!”

“Momma, she’s not like them. You know I wouldn’t bring someone like that into this house.”

“Leaving Metropolis changed you, Jimmy. I don’t know what you’d do anymore.”

Vivian lacks Tiffany’s temper, but her disapproval is guts James deeper than anything Tiff could ever say. Tears burn at the back of James eyes as he nods.

“Okay,” he accepts, climbing to his feet. “All right.”

He plucks his coat from the back of the chair, and slings it over his shoulder by two fingers. As he fishes his keys out of his pocket, Vivian speaks up.

“Why would you even bring her here, Jimmy? Why now?”

James pauses. He and Lena had agreed that sharing the news would happen after dinner, once they were certain whether Lena would be tolerated. Lena likely had meant for the news to remain private if not, but James couldn’t leave with telling his mother the truth.

“So we could know whether the baby would have a grandmother.” 

Vivian is the only contender, really, with Lillian in prison. His mother’s eyes grow wide, stunned silence marking the heartbeats that pass. 

He tucks his hand into one pocket to hide the clench of his fingers. “But I won’t have my kid spend time with people who couldn’t find it in their hearts to make its mother feel welcome.”

James presses his lips together, holding his mother’s gaze for another beat. “It was good seeing you.”

He leaves without a hug or a kiss, without leftovers or the warmth of an evening well spent. Lena’s waiting in the car, with a tablet open in her lap. As soon as the door closes behind him James leans over and kisses her deeply.

He savors the tenderness of her lips, the way her fingertips press softly against his cheek.

When they part, they rest their foreheads together in quiet solitude. “I’m sorry that didn’t go the way you wanted,” Lena says softly.

James sighs. He’d been expecting resistance to Lena, but the attack on his profession had surprised him. Tiff’s words repeated in his brain on a loop. Daddy’d be rolling in his grave.

“She’s wrong, you know,” Lena murmurs, as though reading his mind. “Your dad would be so proud of what you do. As Guardian, and as James Olsen.”

He offers a tired smile. “Thanks for sticking up for me in there.”

“Always.”

They stay in Metropolis for a week. Lena uses the visit to tackle some face to face appointments in the Metropolis L-Corp branch, and James uses the time to get back to his roots. He takes his camera to the streets, and snaps the images that speak to him. Most of it is garbage, as it usually is, but the few he likes take his breath away. Nights are spent together in Lena’s loft, the one she never gave up when she moved to National City.

The space doesn’t feel any more like Lena than her room at the Baldwin once did, but it does feel more lived in than the hotel. By the end of the week, it feels almost like a home. Two days before they leave to go home, Lena takes one whiff of the best curry in the city and bolts for the bathroom, retching and heaving her guts into the bathroom toilet.

His attempts to hold her hair back are met with a groan and “just get it out of here!”

Lena’s building isn’t the kind where residents take out their own trash. They had people for that-- entire crews to come through and clean the place top to bottom and then disappear before the tenants even knew they were there. Tonight, James is that person.

He picks up the entire bag and hoofs it outside. The dark figure crossing the street towards the building catches his eye-- the scan he gives them is an old habit from even before he first left this city. The accompanying rush of fight or flight is not. His thoughts race to the woman heaving her guts out upstairs, and squares up.

“James.”

“Mom?” Vivian steps into the light, features solemn. “What are you doing here? How-- how did you even know where we were staying?”

His mother lifts an arch brow. “Whatever you’re paying your receptionist, it’s not enough.”

“My assistant is paid well above industry standard, thanks.” James moves towards the alley, but gives no protest when she follows him. “If you’re here to kiss and make up just so you can play gramma, we’re not interested.”

“I figured you had the kissing covered.”

James pegs her with a glare as he swings the take out into the dumpster. He hears his mother shift uncomfortably behind him.

“I was wrong,” she says.

That gives James pause. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that.”

Vivian offers a wry smile. “And you won’t again,” she volleys back. “But this once, I am. When you told me who you were bringing home, I figured I knew everything about her that I needed to. But after you left, I did some research.”

A smug grin nudges James’ lips. Being head of CatCo means he knows exactly what kind of information he found-- headlines lauding Lena’s philanthropy, three TEDTalks in the past eight months, L-Corp’s newest medical tech breakthrough. Not a single black mark to be seen.

He’s not quick to forgive. “So, tonight has nothing to do with the fact a baby is on the way and you want in?”

“That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is the way you treated Lena. And me.” James shrugs, and starts heading back towards the lobby. “We both know that dad would be proud of me no matter what I do, so long as I was happy. And I am. So you can take your--”

“Jimmy...”

“It’s James. Has been for a while now.” He shifts his weight, hesitant. “You’re here. Where’s Tiffany?”

“I can’t speak for your sister. But are you honestly surprised she reacted the way she did? It wasn’t so long ago that you were right there with her.”

James almost flinches at the reminder. He’s not proud of it, and wishes he’d never assumed those things about Lena. Every time he remembers, he wonders if Lena thinks about it just as much.

“Yeah, I was,” James admits, unable to deny it. “But I was wrong. And I guess part of me hoped my family wouldn’t make the same mistake I did.”

A car drives past, and the world around them floods breifly with light before a red haze surrounds them. Vivian doesn’t take her eyes off him for a second.

“Would Lena really deny me the chance to be a grandmother?” she asks.

James freezes. Then he scoffs in disbelief. “Lena was ready to stay home alone and let you have alternating holidays, just so our kid could have a grandparent! I’m the one who’s insisting on it being a package deal. It’s all or nothing, because my kid won’t have anyone in his family who can’t make room for his mom. That’s my choice.”

For the first time his life, James sees guilt in his mother’s eyes. This is the moment they talk about, he realizes-- the moment when a parent becomes human in their child’s eyes. Fallible. One day it’ll be him and his kid, but right now, all he feels is disappointment that this what pulled the veil from his eyes. That in gaining Lena, he loses a piece of his mother.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. Again, James is floored by the admission. “Truly, James. I am.”

No words come to Jame’s lips, censored by the sudden lump in his throat.

“There’s a lot I don’t understand about where your life has taken you, and I know that’s my fault. I should have been more supportive of your move to National City, and the opportunities you’ve made for yourself. And I should have known you wouldn’t bring home anyone short of an amazing woman. I look forward to knowing Lena better… if you’ll let me.”

James wants to believe her. His instinct is not to. His instinct is to protect, both Lena and the baby. But it’s the thought of Lena in the penthouse above that smoothes his hackles, and allows the first hints of forgiveness creep to the surface.

“If you really mean that…”

“I do.”

He releases the breath that’s been trapped in his chest for the past week. “Then I’m not the only one you need to apologize to.”

When he opens the door to the penthouse, the retching has thankfully stopped. They step into the living just as Lena re-emerges from the bedroom, one hand quivering around her throat.

“I hope that’s not a permanent developm-- oh.” Her cheeks flush at the sight of Vivian. She straightens imperceptibly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Mrs. Olsen. We… welcome.”

James smiles softly. This is the real Lena. Her hair is long and loose around her face, and her loose top may complement simple leggings, but still hints at the money behind it. Maybe a little darker, maybe a little sharper, but honest.

He watches the breath that lifts Lena’s shoulders, and the smile that creases her features.

“We were just going to try finding something else for dinner,” she offers hesitantly. “Join us?”

The tension bleeds from Vivian in a single exhale.

“I would love to.”