#tell me why i saw this w/ no context and my brain said | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer · 1 year

Text

Good Omens: Lockdown and Crowley not mentioning his living situation in S2*

*till S2E6 when he asks if he can have his apartment back bc he's bored of living in his car but Aziraphale doesn’t hear bc mentally he’s in Alpha Centauri.

Having read the 'Crowley doesn't tell him' Neil Gaiman ask close to when I first listened to Lockdown (I lived under a rock until recently), my initial thought was HAS HE BEEN LIVING IN HIS CAR FOR YEARS?! but I think he was still in his apartment in 2020:

as far as Hell knows, Crowley just had a pool party in holy water (the holiest) so the higher-ups are probably willing to give him some space (plus Beelzebub is busy going on pub dates w Gabriel)

while there should be ~8 months between the end of Season 1 events (The Very First Day of the Rest of Their Lives on Sunday, Aug 25, 2019) and the Lockdown phonecall (on or near the 30 year anniversary on May 1, 2020), I can't imagine that's a very long time for Hell, especially if you're understaffed and busy dealing with fallout from Almostgeddon / going on pub dates

Shax dropping off mail and asking about the boiler seems like something one does in the first few months of living somewhere, not ~3 years in (if S2 is in 2023)

That said, I think the phone call underlines why Crowley never directly tells Aziraphale that he is living in the Bentley in S2, and it's just a great conversation (all hail Gaiman) sooo I wrote about it:

***Note: This post analyzes the Lockdown phonecall from Crowley's perspective only. Our heroine is feeling quite emotionally vulnerable at this point in time so things are going to hit him harder than they normally would.

I do not think Aziraphale meant to cause him pain (!!) but Crowley can't see that yet and I've written this post in a way that reflects that missing insight. (I explain in more detail in this reblog if you are interested) I am working on a companion post for Aziraphale's side of this conversation and how I think it affects his behavior in S2 because if we know anything about these two, it's that their exactlys are different exactlys.***

Crowley’s habit of sleeping to skip time like an RPG character by a campfire amuses me to no end, but in this context it feels heavy. Crowley already worries about losing time with what he loves and he probably hoped things would be different between him and Aziraphale after the events of S1. But things don’t change much. Then lockdowns start, and Crowley is trapped in his apartment alone, transcendentally bored, and unable to make his brain shut up. Sleeping a month away starts to sound less awful.

But Crowley hasn’t given up yet; he’s still awake when Aziraphale calls, and he’s even giving it two more days. Was he waiting for Aziraphale to call? Is it even possible not to at least kind of wait for someone’s call when you are cut off from everything and the caller has been your only friend and crush for millennia?

Aziraphale asks why Crowley isn't "out and about" tempting people or setting a bad example and he responds:

C: Everyone's so miserable and cooped up right now anyway, and I just… well… don't have the heart for it. A: *glowing audibly* I'm not miserable~ C: Really?

Crowley sounds genuinely surprised at Aziraphale's happiness and quickly assumes it's because the angel has been around people. He's so lonely/depressed/in his own head that he hadn't even considered someone enjoying being 'cooped up'. *sob*

Aziraphale goes No actually I put the closed sign up in the window and I'm having the Time of My Life, never had so few customers, not in 200 years!, etc. Although, he says:

A: …There were a few young lads a couple of nights ago who broke in through the back and tried to steal the cashbox! But they soon saw the error of their ways~ C: *clearly amused* Did you smite them with your wroth? A: Well I certainly gave them a good talking to, and I sent each of them home with cake~ C: *annoyed, swooning* Cake? A: Quite a lot of cake, actually. C: *physically ill from having such a giant crush on this dumbass baker/security guard* eeeekkkgghhh I'm gonna regret asking but.. ...rrgh.. *30 seconds of Aziraphale joyfully describing his baking while Crowley probably tries very hard not to imagine the angel eating each item in sensual slow motion* I stg you can hear him struggling in the background once or twice

A: …And once I've baked them, I have to eat them all myself, which was why I was so delighted— C: To send your burglars home laden with baked goods, yes, nnyeaayeah I follow…

Crowley interrupts, finishing Aziraphale's sentence in his nervous hurry to say the next bit:

C: *loud inhale* You know, I could.. hunker down at your place. … Slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle--a case of… something… drinkable…?

He's trying to sound so casual about it but this is someone who was rejected/abandoned by actual literal God after asking what he thought were welcome, uncontroversial questions. Asking makes him vulnerable. He's supposed to be the rescuer, not a demon in distress. He does not feel casual about asking.

Crowley knows it's unlikely but he's so miserable and desperate for company that he can't help but ask, just in case. Even the smallest chance of spending time trapped indoors with Aziraphale—with nothing to do but drink, watch him eat, and talk about things they'd normally avoid—is too tempting.

A: *panicking* Oh I— I— I— I— I'm afraid that would be Breaking All The Rules! *nervous breathing* Out of the question! I'll see you… when this is over. C: Right. gnnehh. I'm setting the alarm clock for July. Good night, angel. *dial tone*

And just like that, Crowley doesn't need two days to decide. The depression nap doubles in length. He doesn't hear how badly Aziraphale wants to say yes behind the fear, or maybe he does and it hurts worse because why isn't Crowley enough for him? You can almost hear the spiralling:

SHOCKING, asking made it worse. It always does doesn’t it? Why even bother? you just embarrass yourself.. SLITHER over? why did I say that *grumble grumble* of COURSE His Holy Holiness, your only friend in the universe, would rather eat cake by himself while everything goes to shit than ~deign~ to have you in his presence. "AsK aND yE sHaLl ReCeIvE" bugger this for a lark im going to bed

(a bit dramatic but we've all been there)

I imagine sleep doesn't come right away. Maybe his thoughts drift to when he sat beside the angel at a dark Tadfield bus stop after a rather eventful Saturday. Crowley must've felt a tiny bit hopeful when he invited Aziraphale to stay with him: Heaven had withdrawn its favor and the bookshop was gone; Aziraphale was like him now. Didn't that mean things would change?

"I don't think my side would like that." Apparently not.

In the end, Aziraphale did ride the bus back to Crowley's apartment and stayed till the next morning when he caught a cab, but only to sell the illusion. Crowley understood that as far as sides went, the angel was still on Heaven's, even if Heaven wasn't on his.

And now this: the entire world is shut down; there is nothing for Aziraphale to do but stay in and read and bake in his magically reconstituted bookshop and he still won't invite Crowley in. Burglars and un-fallen angels only—nobody who asks questions.

So... of course Crowley doesn't tell Aziraphale when he loses his apartment. He already knows what answer he would get; the angel has told him so many times. Aziraphale is a company man first, a companion to one very sad owl when convenient.

If Crowley works up the courage to say 'please take me in, I have nowhere else to go' and Aziraphale goes 'sorry, no, far too political, but I WILL risk being erased from the Book of Life to protect this nude amnesiac former coworker who always hated me,' it's going to be too much. You can't sleep long enough for that type of hurt to go away. Better not to say anything.

"Then nothing has to change, does it?"

#edited to add the note about crowley's perspective right after the cut! apologies if it seemed anti-aziraphale before!#good omens meta #good omens lockdown #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorcees #i can't even imagine navigating the pandemic brain scramblies while pining THAT HARD #Aziraphale is a company man (gn) but i think S3 will cure him of that #long but if i can't write essays about this on tumblr then where #good omens spoilers

756 notes · View notes

storyunrelated · 6 months

Text

Bad Dreams - Part Three

I saw a man. A man perhaps a little older than Rose and myself, and clearly not in a good way.

A man who had, at some point, decided to have only a loose relationship with eating and with hygiene and who, as a result, had got both angular and pungent. Greasy in places, dark under the eyes and pale just about everywhere. He did not inspire confidence.

Sorry to judge by appearances, but you can tell quite a bit about someone from these things sometimes and context is important - the scrawny, pale man in the dark house with newspaper on the windows makes the mind go certain places.

All of the above was also elevated to new heights by the final detail of the man being shirtless, but being shirtless in such a fashion that suggested it was more because he’d entirely forgotten about putting shirts on, rather than by having made an active choice to be shirtless.

Top to bottom the immediate, overwhelming impression was of someone who’d become so focused on something other than themselves they’d rather let it slip from their minds that they were there in the first place.

Not a great start. Oh well.

“Evening,” I said, giving a wave with one hand and putting the other hand behind my back. The other hand was the one holding the crowbar. Best to try and make as good a first impression as possible, being an intruder in the man’s house notwithstanding.

The man did not move a muscle. He then blinked, which counted as moving a muscle in my book.

“Who are you?” He asked. Surprisingly restrained given the circumstances.

I could have answered this, but instead I chose not to.

“Terribly sorry, we were expecting to find a witch,” I said instead.

“I am a witch,” the man said, maybe a touch testily, as though this was something that he ran up against a lot. Though maybe it was also because we were in his house. Maybe a bit of both.

I looked him over, tip to toe.

“...where’s your hat?” I asked.

“We don’t have to wear a hat,” he said and this time he was definitely testy and it was definitely about the witch thing.

I looked Rose over, tip to toe. Particularly the tip, where the hat was. Where the hat almost always was. In fact, no ‘almost’ about it - where the hat always was. Not a day had passed since she’d got the thing when she’d been without it. I thought those had been the rules.

“I like my hat…” she mumbled.

The man cleared his throat to get attention back on him.

“My next question - before I call the police - is going to be why are you in my house?” He asked.

You’d think he’d sound less calm, being confronted by two housebreakers. I certainly wouldn’t be so cool and I was one of the housebreakers. Right then I was mostly running on nerves and gut impulse, my brain clinging on for dear life and only able to react after I’d said anything.

Maybe he got a lot of this sort of thing?

“We’re here about the dream skimmer you got sticking out the chimney,” I said, pointing upward, in case there was any confusion about where the chimney was.

He went very quiet for a moment. I think I heard him swallow.

“Ah,” he said, at length.

He looked like a man who knew he’d been caught out. Because he was a man who had been caught out.

“Still feel like calling the police?” I asked.

“No, ideally.”

“Would that be an admission of guilt?” I asked. He looked at me like I was an idiot.

“That would suggest I have anything to be guilty of in the first place, which I reject. I’d just rather not get any more people involved and stomping about the place,” he said.

“Naturally. But since we’re already here and stomping about the place you’ll humour us?” I asked.

“If that is what it takes for you to go away,” he said through gritted teeth.

“How very obliging of you. How is the dream skimming going, just to ask? Well? Skimmer doing what it’s meant to be doing? Skimming?”

I could tell my breezy attitude towards what he plainly considered his hard work had got under his skin almost immediately, as much as he might have tried to hide it. Him and Rose too - witches were a touchy lot when it came to their witchy-business, weren’t they? Presumably it’s important to them.

Fair play, I guess. Must be galling to pour work into something and then have someone like me come in and be a smartarse about it. Would I like it if someone broke into my house and started undermining my confidence? Probably not.

“It is performing a little over what I expected,” he said, coolly.

“Delightful. Show me.”

His mouth worked a little. Whatever he’d expected it hadn’t been that.

Why else would I be here?

“I don’t think you’ll be able to appreciate the mechanism, especially given that you are not a witch and wouldn’t even be able to perceive half of the work that’s gone into it. You wouldn’t understand it. You can’t,” he said.

I didn’t think I was missing much, honestly.

“Humour me,” I said, pulling my crowbar hand from behind me and proceeding to stare him down.

Normally I’m not very good at staring anyone down and it’s not something I have a lot of call to do, but this was a special occasion and so I really poured myself into it, really meant it. I imagine that I was holding a crowbar helped a bit as he folded pretty quickly, all things considered, breaking eye contact and seeming to collapse in on himself a little bit, crossing his arms and looking away.

“Fine, fine…” He said turning around and gesturing for us to follow.

The very picture of sullen, he was.

“Come on,” I said to Rose, who squeaked.

“Really?!” She hissed.

“If all else fails I’ll crowbar our way out,” I said.

“That is not reassuring!”

She still followed, however unreassured she was, and we went up the stairs after the man. Cautiously, admittedly. I’m relaxed but I’m not an idiot. Hence the crowbar.

Downstairs had been house-like. In need of a clean, but house-like. Upstairs had been mauled. Doors were removed, plaster was exposed, holes had been knocked through walls, tubes and cables and wires ran everywhere and while I was getting nothing the wince on Rose’s face suggested a lot of magical jiggery-pokery going on.

The man, still sullen and now also mixed with open annoyance at us lollygagging, was stood waiting for us by an open doorframe.

“In here,” he said.

“After you,” I said again, giving him the nod. He glared but went in, and we followed again.

Was this going how I expected it would go? Not really. But it seems to be going well enough.

I think. I have no precedent for this sort of thing. Feels like an adventure though. I think.

We entered into what was one room that had plainly been two rooms before he’d had his way with them. He’d apparently knocked through a wall to link the two together. Not properly, I should point out. Bits of the wall remained here and there and the whole affair was held up by bits of wood the structural capacity of which I did have much confidence in. Professional it was not.

But that wasn’t the main thing, nor was that really the thing that I was paying attention to. The reason why he’d mangled the rooms together was on account of the great, sprawling, tinkling, hissing, gurgling thing that had been built and which took up most of the available space.

The dream sifter, presumably. Really didn’t look like much this close. Look like a still had had a run in with a milk churn and then left in the rain for a day or two. It was leaking in more than one place. Leaking what though was harder to say. Something.

“Very nice. Should it be leaking?” I asked, pointing to the more prominent leak. He looked, hissed, and swept up a roll of gaffer tape and quickly and liberally applied it. From the looks of the thing this was his standard response. There was a lot of tape, not to mention discarded rolls piled up in the corners.

Probably should have just made it less leaky, really. He’d save money on tape.

“Right. You’ve seen it now. Go,” he said, tossing the tape aside and glaring some more. He wasn’t getting out of this that easy.

“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “Explain this thing to me. What does it actually do?”

“You really wouldn’t understand,” the man said.

“Well, you can try. And if nothing else I’m sure Rose would appreciate hearing it. Right?” I asked, looking over to her. She was really coasting on this whole thing so far and leaving most of it to me but, in fairness, this whole thing had been my idea so I could hardly blame her.

“Um. Sure,” Rose said. She was squinting. The man was too, I noticed. Presumably the room was swimming in witchy nonsense that I was entirely unaware of, being so mundane and inert and all.

I looked back to the man and he stared at me in open, exasperated disbelief for a moment before his shoulders slumped.

“Fine. But will you then please leave me alone?”

This was another question I chose not to answer. Just gave him a winning smile instead.

He tried to explain it and I tried to follow his explanation, I really did, but I am as has been said magically inert and on top of that I’m also not that bright, so he got about three words in before I lost the thread completely.

Broadly speaking, I understood what he said something like this:

The bulk of the sifter sat in the room where we were, looking at it. It was the big ugly thing which was leaking. The delicate, sifty bits went up the chimney. Those were the bits we saw wafting about over the house, doing the sifting.

Alright, that made sense, I could follow that.

The sifty bits sifted. Shocking, I know. They sifted dreams out of the air and snatched them before they reached their proper destination and then drew them down into the main part. He did not explain how or why or where or when or anything about why dreams were just floating about loose instead of being entirely inside people’s heads but that was fine, I was beyond that, I was comfortable knowing I’d never know.

Magic. Whatever.

And then once in the main part of the sifter the dreams were condensed and distilled and filtered and whatever whatever. Basically the thing took dreams and through a series of arcane and fiddly processes turned them into some kind of liquid. Dream liquid, liquid dreams.

And this stuff was good stuff, he said. You could use it to do a variety of dream-related activities, apparently. Dream whatever you wanted. Live whole imaginary lives doing the impossible. Marry a cloud and have a whole family of raindrops, whatever tickled your fancy.

I thought you could just learn how to lucid dream. Couldn’t people do that already? Maybe that wasn’t good enough?

The man did mention, offhand, that a side effect of people having their dreams sifted or intercepted or whatever was that the ensuing void tended to invite bad dreams to come in and fill the space. Again, how that worked was something that was glossed over completely but here at least we finally had our explanation as to why any of this bad dream business was happening in the first place.

It was happening as a side-effect. This wasn’t the intention at all. The intention was this dream liquid the man wanted. The bad dreams were a consequence of the process. Somehow that’s even more galling than if it had been on purpose. Poor Nisien’s screaming and exhaustion and my bad nights were an afterthought.

In fact, no, not even an afterthought, not even a thought at all. Just background noise.

Grr.

I felt I’d heard enough.

“Why?” I asked, cutting in as the man warbled on about some point to do with the bottling process. He blinked at me.

“Why what?” He asked.

“Why did you decide to do this?”

“...I don’t understand. I did explain how it worked, didn’t I?”

“Well enough, sure. I mean why did you think this was something you had to do? Dream liquid? Why did you build this instead of just not building this? Why aren’t you playing pinball right now or literally anything else?”

Not a complicated question, I thought. He blinked at me again as he was having some difficulty working out where I was coming from. I could see him working through a slow formulation of an answer in his head, trying to hack his reasons down into something someone else might understand.

What works in our head is often difficult to put into the heads of others. Often it doesn’t survive the journey. I’m aware of this. I gave him time.

“With access to the raw, distilled essence of dreams I’m able to fully control the dreamscape. Lucid dreaming is a crock and a waste of time and beneath me, anyway. Total control is the real deal, I can do whatever I want, anything at all,” he said, eventually, slowly.

This was not a compelling answer to my not-very-complicated question. It was barely an answer at all. I pointed to the sifter again, just for emphasis.

“So this machine is sucking in the dreams of just about everyone within a however-many square mile radius, leaving a void that bad dreams rush into, and you’re basically melting all those dreams you’ve effectively stolen down into something that you fiddle about with and inject into yourself so that you can have whatever dream you want?” I asked.

“That is a ridiculously oversimplified and crude way of-” he started, but I did not let him finish.

“It’s a yes or no question and I’m holding a crowbar.”

His eyes flicked to the crowbar.

“...yes.”

The crowbar gets results. Humanity really did peak with that one.

Certainly a crowbar was infinitely superior to this dream-snaffling whatever. All these dreams all sucked in so one person can benefit? Those numbers are shocking.

“That’s spectacularly inefficient,” I said.

“Yes, but-”

I wasn’t finished though:

“Not to mention overwhelmingly selfish.”

But that should have gone without saying.

I mean honestly, I’m not even sure how anyone could get anywhere with a plan like this. How could you even start? How could you not run through it in your head, see how horrendously selfish it was and realise that, as an exercise in theory it’s diverting but in practise it would just be disgustingly self-indulgent and therefore something you shouldn’t do?

Was I missing something? Was this just me?

“Selfish?” He asked, as though the word had been a slap in the face.

“Well, yeah. If you can’t figure that out on your own I’m not sure where to start. If you eat someone else’s lunch that’s also selfish, did you know that?”

“It’s not selfish,” he said, pouting. Actually pouting.

“Feels pretty selfish from where I’m standing,” I said and he bristled a moment before replying.

“I’ll admit it’s unfortunate that some people are having bad dreams but there’s really only so much I can do about that.”

Big of him to admit that it was unfortunate.

“You could always not do it. You could do that,” I said.

He ignored this.

“It’s only in it’s prototype stage. I’ll admit it’s far from perfect now, but it’s getting better every day. Soon, pretty soon, I’ll have the ratio all the way down to one-to-one. That’ll just be one person maybe running the risk of having a bad dream - which they might not even remember anyway! - so I can dream whatever I want. Do you have any idea what I can do in those dreams?” He asked instead.

“I shudder to think.”

That took him a second.

“Not like that!”

“Hmm.”

I was thinking. I was always thinking, obviously, as are we all, but right then I was thinking about this whole thing, this whole business. Thinking about it and what I should do about it. Clearly I should do something, shouldn’t I? But what, and why?

Questions, questions.

This was a bad thing he was doing, yes? Yes, I think I can comfortably say that. Deciding that your personal enjoyment ranks above the discomfort or outright suffering of however many other people. Especially since this particular type of enjoyment is the explicit cause of that discomfort. That’s a bad thing.

I think I can follow this so far.

With that being the case what was I meant to do? Was I meant to do anything? Were any of us meant to do anything?

Maybe I’ve got a bit beyond the scope of the issue, there. Let’s pull back in a bit.

Let us say that he is right when he says the thing can be improved. Let’s assume that for a moment. Even if he got that machine down to one-to-one efficiency that’s still ensuring someone else has bad dreams so he can have good dreams.

What if he rotated who the machine picked? Isn’t it likely someone is going to have a bad dream anyway? Where’s the harm, really? Would they even notice? In the grand scheme of things, does it even matter?

Yada yada. Questions like these serve to pluck away at your energy, slow you down and divert your attentions, make you doubt yourself. Sure, if you ignore them you might make a mistake, but if you listen to them all you might end up doing nothing, and doing nothing is usually what someone doing something they shouldn’t wants you to do.

Sometimes a Gordian knot just needs cutting. Sometimes you just have to say bollocks to compromise and go full-on hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle.

So no dice. Decision made. No dream stealing. Not on my watch.

You want to have good dreams you wait for them like anyone else. Or do it in a way that doesn’t attract my attention, and the attention of my crowbar.

“Rose, you might want to step outside,” I said, which seemed to snap Rose out of whatever quiet funk she’d slipped into. Seriously, she’d really clammed up ever since we broke into a guy’s house and been confronted by the guy whose house we’d broken into.

“Huh?” She asked.

“I’m going to draw a line under this,” I said.

“Oh, right. Okay. I’ll just - I’ll go. Meet you outside,” she said, shuffling out of the room with only one or two backwards glances. The man was suddenly just a touch nervous. I could see this.

“Where’s she going? What are you talking about? What do you mean draw a line?” He asked.

“You’re a clever fellow, I’m sure you can figure it out,” I said.

Though of course I actually started smashing his sifter before he figured it out. Ain’t I a stinker.

I’m not an expert at smashing but I like to think I did an alright job. I aimed for one of the leaking spots with the pointed end of the crowbar, wedged it in, heaved, and managed to lever off a good half of the thing away from the other half. Made an awful noise and sloshed clear liquid all over. Seemed a good start.

“What are you doing?!” The man squealed, lunging but clearly unsure what to lunge at. Did he lunge at me to stop me or lunge at his machine to try and save it? He hesitated, and while he hesitated I kept going. I pried more bits loose, I whacked the crowbar into the bits that looked like they’d crumple best, I hooked the curved part over dangling bits and yanked.

I made a frightful mess. And in a very short time, too. Maybe I have hidden talents.

In a few seconds what had been a ticking, whirring, leaking device was now several bits of wheezing, leaking, non-ticking, non-whirring junk strewn across the floor and sat in puddles of clear whatever. Presumably that stuff was dreams? Condensed, liquified dreams? Didn’t look like much.

“How selfish of me,” I said. Zing.

The man was on his knees, scrabbling. Again, he obviously didn’t know what to scrabble for first and was just halfway scrabbling at everything in his hysteria.

Sort of ineffectual for a witch, you’d have thought. Maybe if he’d had his magic rod to hand he might have had better luck in beating me off. Aha. I imagine he just found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. Everything’s easier after the fact, isn’t it?

“Do you know how much that cost?!” He wailed at me, eyes glistening. I think he was about to cry.

And I wasn’t sure what this was meant to make me feel, this line about cost. Was I meant to feel worse because he’d spent more money on the thing than I might have suspected? If he’d been frugal, should I have felt less bad? Is a questionable decision that costs more easier to defend? Hmm.

If people wanted to spend money doing something they probably shouldn’t that’s perfectly allowable. Just not clear why it has any bearing on what I do or think. Value is, after all, largely subjective, is it not?

I don’t really know.

“Lots?” I asked.

“Yes! Lots! Fucking lots! Oh God, most of those components were bespoke, too!” He shouted, holding up a handful of bits that had fallen out of loosened casing. The bits glistened. They certainly looked fragile and fiddly.

“What a shame,” I said.

The man deflated, a sob wracking him. He looked down at the puddle he was kneeling in.

“And you wasted all these dreams! Wasted! You wasted them!” He said, angry now, pointing at me.

“Yeah, sure. This was all my fault.”

Mean, this exact thing was my fault, I’ll admit. The smashing bit and the making a mess was my fault. But the greater blame really can’t be ignored or moved here, come on. This is like when the bad guy says it’s not their fault they murdered people, but the fault of the good guys for trying to stop them.

Not quite like that, but similar. Right? I know what I mean.

“Strictly speaking you wasted them. I just made your dream-wasting machine fall over. But that’s splitting hairs. In future if you’re going to make my housemate’s life miserable so you can enjoy yourself, don’t. Pleasant dreams, now.”

If I’d had sunglasses I’d have put them on then. I don’t care if it’s nighttime, that’s a great sunglasses line. Kind of felt bad to waste it, but chances to drop lines like that don’t come around often and the real waste would have been saying nothing.

My hands were tied.

He didn’t say anything after that, which was good because if he had it would have ruined the moment. So I left him sniffling in his puddle of dreams and went back outside to try and find Rose.

I couldn’t find her out back because she’d gone out the front and was there standing under a streetlight looking like she’d prefer to be anywhere else other than on a street waiting under a lamppost.

“Well that’s sorted,” I said, cheerfully, giving her a wave as I wandered over.

“What did you do?” Rose asked.

I considered saying something else pithy and cool but I was far too tired to come up with anything else off the cuff so just stood there gormless and silent for a second before just coming out with it.

“Smashed his thingy with a crowbar,” I said, waggling said crowbar just so Rose knew which crowbar the thingy had been smashed with. Rose did not look impressed.

“How very direct,” she said.

“It did work pretty well. Last I saw he was crying on the floor so I think we can write this one up as a roaring success.”

“Your definition of success…” Rose tailed off and sucked her lip a moment. “I don’t know how to finish that sentence.”

“That’s fair. You were very quiet in there,” I said.

“You seemed to be on a roll. And I couldn’t really think of anything to say. Felt weird being inside someone’s house when we weren’t meant to be, even if he was, you know, doing something like that. It was kind of nerve-wracking.”

Now that it was done I could feel the tension that I’d been ignoring starting to get the better of me. The trembling had nothing to do with the encroaching chill of night, let me tell you.

“You’re not wrong,” I said, looking at my hand.

Oh God, what had I done? What had any of that been? What had I been thinking? Had I done the right thing? Had I done the right thing the wrong way? Had I done the wrong thing? Was I going to get into trouble? Was he going to tell anyone? Had it even worked? Had I just wasted an evening? Why did I feel so sick all of a sudden?

Eurgh. Worries. I hate those. I stuck my hand in my pocket and bit my tongue.

Ow.

“Can we go?” Rose asked.

“Probably wise.”

So off we went. We didn’t talk as we went. There wasn’t much to say that we hadn’t said before we set off home and besides it was late. Wouldn’t do to be talking in the street and waking people up. Proper sleep hygiene had been the motivating force behind this whole endeavour, after all.

Hadn’t it?

I bid Rose a good and restful night once we got to hers and then carried on back to mine on my own, thinking about the evening, about what had happened. Was that what an adventure felt like? Was this what you were supposed to do after one had concluded? Just go home? Was there something else I should have been doing? Was I going about this all wrong?

Was there a book I could read?

By the time I’d got back home and got in and put the chain on the door I’d stopped worrying about it. Or, rather, I was still worrying about it but was confident that a proper night’s sleep without any nightmares would make me feel a lot better about it. That is to say, everything would make sense in the morning and there wasn’t anything to be gained fretting about it in the dark.

Everything is always the worst it can be in the dark. This is pretty widely-known.

Nisien was still on the sofa, but had clearly rolled around enough to dislodge the blanket I’d laid over him, because that was on the floor. Despite this, he actually looked quite peaceful. Certainly looked more peaceful than he had any night that I’d seen him recently. Sleeping happily, comfortably.

That made me feel much better about the evening. That was an accomplishment. I might have done adventure wrong, sure, and maybe I’d made lots of mistakes, but I’d still fixed what I’d set out to fix. If nothing else, Nisien was going to get a proper night’s sleep. And this was good.

Objectively good. In my book.

I put the blanket over him again, obviously, because that was the nice thing to do. He stirred as I did so.

“Nngh? Wassis? Sorry, sorry...” he mumbled blearily, blinking, squinting. I patted him on the head.

“Shh, go back to sleep,” I said.

“N’okay…” and he did.

Yes, definitely an objectively good thing. Solved a problem for a friend. People might question my methods but my results are impeccable.

And so to bed. Knackered me out that adventure. Popped the crowbar back under the bed, stripped off most of my clothes at least until I ran out of energy, crawled under the covers and did my best to quiet the churning, raging thoughts rattling around inside my head. All the loose ends could be sorted out tomorrow. Didn’t have anything else that needed doing, and it was unlikely there’d be another adventure so soon.

Well that was exciting.

END

#amwriting #writblr #writing #writeblr #Writer #writers on twitter #What #Bad dreams

2 notes · View notes

troglobite · 2 years

Text

shitty prof i had in grad school who clearly hated me for being queer and disabled like from the jump (she hated me before i even met her--i spoke w the guy who ended up being my adviser on the phone, and he said he enthusiastically showed my application to her, so i think she hated me from that moment)

anyway

she told me abt the production y'all are gushing abt on here

the one of midsummer night's dream where titania and oberon switch narrative places. makes it queer and fun and interesting.

she told me abt that

and then said

"but what does that matter if the ppl watching it haven't read the original and don't know that it's been switched"

and at the time i'm sitting there like oh an interesting question

now i'm here on the other side like

oh it matters bc either ppl walk away thinking that the queerness was explicit in the original and then have an interesting journey ahead of them finding out that it wasn't in that way, but might've been in another way--

or they just see a play they really like and get to see some fun queerness, and understand the words in the play differently, through the lens and themes that the director and dramaturg wanted them to see it through.

like there is no way in which someone who hasn't read the original is at a loss for having only seen a swapped or queered production of shakespeare without context.

like just say you're a bigot and go, you fucking shithead.

god i fucking hate her.

i don't spend energy on it but i just saw another gif set from this thing and i got thinking abt it again.

also she said that she saw a bunch of teenage girls who went to see the taming of the shrew, she assumed bc of 10 things i hate about you, and she was like, yikes i wonder what they thought after seeing how violent and awful it was

and i'm like

okay again why do you hate teenage girls

why do you think they were stupid and clueless, that they hadn't read ANYTHING abt the production (often there are WARNINGS for violence and effects included in the production--god knows there was when i saw julius caesar)

why do you pity them

and like are you implicitly saying we shouldn't fucking adapt from older works to make fun new things that strip away the parts that aren't helpful to the story, or that don't fit in our modern context??? like what are you saying?

the taming of the shrew is one of shakespeare's early plays and yeah it feels kind of irredeemable. it's not v good. the language isn't as advanced, the plot and characters are like genuinely fucked up. and i read it w my adviser, but we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time on it--and i'd actually really relish the opportunity to do so.

i'd like to more fully explore the misogyny within it. given the v much not misogynistic takes and themes in shakespeare's later plays, i'd like to explore that more. why/how does he change? is there something still subversive in this deeply fucked up, not v masterful, work? (like the way that i think 'as you like it' is a satire of the comedic form at the time, &it was one of the last comedies he ever wrote) or is it an example of him finding his voice and establishing his career by writing what was popular and expected at the time? OR did he genuinely think this shit was funny and cool? can we ever know? does it matter as much as what we do w it now and what it can teach us abt this time and place in history?

and like you can't tell me that a modern production of it doesn't do the same thing, and that those "poor stupid teenage girls" didn't also walk away with a different understanding.

and also, why does it matter if ppl come away from a shakespeare play w the "wrong" impression of it or him?

my autism brain is barking like a dog on a chain at ppl having Incorrect Information and Impressions, but that's me. i can also just let it lie, let it be, and it's fine.

bc genuinely, what is the harm???

idfk man

i really hate her.

i had a woman in my cohort who was selected as her TA (even though i asked for the position 🙃 it was all remote at that time so i could've 🙃) who came to me and was like

okay i'm not a shakespeare person (THIS WAS FOR A SHAKESPEARE CLASS--I ASKED TO BE THE TA FOR THIS--SHE DID NOT CHOOSE ME okay i'm done) can you help me argue against some shit that she's saying in class bc it seems super shitty?

and i was like yep don't mind me

so i gave her tons of resources and info and interpretations of the texts.

for some reason, in ALLLLLLLL of the text of hamlet, his LONGEST play, this woman (the prof) was focused on ONE LINE. in which hamlet, in a fit of angst and depression and grief, says that he would rather be the mutines in the bilboes, or makes a reference or slavery or some such shit.

and she was OBSESSED with it, and somehow came out the other side saying that the instance referenced here "wasn't that bad" or something.

and it's like. no. bro. he is literally saying, emotionally, that he feels as bad as mutines in the bilboes or enslaved ppl on a ship and like--THAT is what you need to unpack. not that he says "oh they're better off than me" bc they had like tiny lil freedoms given to them. but that they were treated reprehensibly, and in a fit of emotional torment this literal prince compares himself to him. in a theatrical and poetic sense, yeah, you're trying to drive a point home--but why not unpack THAT CHOICE??? i mean. whatever.

anyway so this poor woman in my cohort--a woman of color whose focus in her phd was examining, iirc, immigrant narratives & orientalism in like 19th c. lit? or something? something like that--had to cope w this fucking horrid woman for the whole semester, using what i had given her to help educate students BETTER.

it's just a genuine mess and i am still upset abt it. not as viscerally as i was two years ago when it happened. i'm not shaking w fury rn. which i was at the time.

i'm just still thinking abt it bc something reminded me, and it's one of those things that you just feel the need to Talk About sometimes. and no one really likes me talking abt shakespeare [stares at unmasking autism and shifts in discomfort] so i'm just doing it here. bc i'm thinking abt it and i'm tired and recovering from a REALLY bad flareup of whatever autoimmune thing i have. it's still kind of lingering, but it is getting better, i think.

1 note · View note

lochnessies · 3 years

Note

so when I frist played fire emblem and saw rhea I was like “wow!! A great morally gray character this is literally what everyone say they want out of a narrative I love her” and I was fully shocked to see how many people hated her and hated her on (low key) because of things that weren’t real in cannon why do you think that is?

well there’s a lot of reasons and it’s hard to pin down since it’s not a one size fits all option but here’s some i can think of at the top of my head

lack of supports obscures character

lore being hidden in the game with the unreliable narrators being in main cutscenes

general distrust of religion

church = catholic apparently since no other religions exist especially in japan 😒

dragon = bad guy (despite that not being a fe staple there plenty of good ones)

headcanon being treated as canon to the point people forget it’s fandom origins (rhea is homophobic)

self insertion. well rhea yelled at me and that makes me mad so therefor she’s in the wrong and my actions have nothing to do w it

complicated relationship with the player who forgets that byleth is not sothis

bad eng voice directing in important scenes

well she’s cRaZY and everything CraZY people do is crAzY and bad

forgets all context of actions so it’s easy to spin her as the bad guy

people just making shit up (literally got into an argument the other day where i had to tell someone that no rhea didn’t make an army of dead bodies and stuff all the crests into them to revive her family she only did that with sothis. and even then she made the body and didn’t desecrate a corpse)

well edelgard said she was bad and edelgard would never lie to me and is 100% right about everything

if rhea is good then that means edelgard isn’t and that’s impossible

downplaying the objectively positive influence she has over other characters and spins it to a negative (rhea and cyril aren’t loyal to her bc she saved them it’s bc they’re brainwashed and rhea doesn’t actually care about them she just wants pawns)

straight up taken from half the game and when she’s finally allowed a break from npc jail she has like two lines then dies

is this everything? no but it’s 3am and my brain is broken and my app glitched and turned off and made me lose my original answer.

it’s a damn shame though since rhea’s story is so interesting. seeing how she did her best to navigate a world that was out for her race all while keeping her family and humans safe with what she was given is really neat. is she perfect? nah. she was dealt a really shitty hand in life but she made it work for the most part even if there was some fuck ups along the way (byleth situation which she thankfully acknowledges and apologizes for). girl straight up owes humanity nothing but goes out of her way to help guide and protect them

#asks

69 notes · View notes

teddy06writes · 4 years

Note

PLEEAASE 😭😭 I'm begging you for some hurt/comfort resolution for the last karlnapity x reader and sleepy bois brothers!! I just want them all to be happyyy. If the 3 lives was implemented, or if reader came back like ghostbur and the hurt is raw for the loved ones, the fallout and fixing, the love and regret i- (I loved the fic, your karlnapity are my favorite!! keep up the awesome work!! <3)

sapnap x karl x quackity x reader + sleepy boys x silbing!reader

trigger warnings: mention character death (it’s you, your the dead one) yelling, swearing,

requested by the anon above, another anon: “ngl after reading that angst fic I can picture y/n ( even tho I know y/n came back with knowing who the boys were ) coming back kinda like ghostbur knowing the boys voices but can't exactly place their names and who they are to them or something like that ?? idk my brain went think of more angst after that fic - also sorry this is just me rambling. love your work btw !!”

as well as @tobiostfu @theprocrastinatingshipper @pastelvixenbeauty and probably some more folks I might have missed

premise: this is a part two to the other angst thing from the other day, so I recommend you read that for context, this is a resolve (ish) to that

(y/n/n)- your nickname

“blep”- talking

‘blep’ thinking

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You had drifted the lands of the SMP, and L’Manburg for sometime trying to remember what had happened, and why everyone was always yelling.

You’d try to talk to Karl, after Alex and Nick had left, but he just ignored you.

Now you were perched on the top of the stage, looking out ‘why are the walls gone?’, and then looking down, confused, at the strange, cage like structure built at the center.

You heard a sigh, and turned to see Eret looking up at the cage as well, you hopped down off the stage and concentrated, “Eret?”

They jumped, looking around, “What the hell?”

You screwed your eyes shut ‘please see me please see me please-’

“(y/n)?”

You opened your eyes to see Eret looking at you in shock, “Eret! I’m so glad to see you! Everyone’s been ignoring me lately, and acting like I’m not here, and I don’t get it.”

“(y/n)?” His voice was shaking.

“Yeah, Eret. It’s me!” You giggled, “What’s going on here? Did I miss the festival?”

“(Y/n).”

You looked at her confused, “Yeah. W- whats-”

“(y/n/n)?” A teary voice behind you called.

You grinned turning around, running to hug him, “Karl! I missed you! Why did you keep ignoring me?”

He began to cry as you sailed through him, “(y/n/n).”

“Karl? Karl love why are you crying? Eret what’s going on?”

Karl all but fell to his knee’s burring his head in his hands, muffling his sobs, “(y/n/n)!”

You sat beside him, continually trying to wrap your arms around him, but instead they just past through, over, and over, and over and over again, “Wh- why can’t I- what’s- what- Eret whats?”

Tears similar to Karl’s began to roll down your cheeks, as you looked down at your hands, only now noticing how gray your skin looked, “What’s going on?”

“(y/n),” You could tell Eret was fighting to keep their voice from shaking, “Do you not remember?”

“Remember what? What’s going on?”

Karl sobbed louder, and Eret shook her head, “(y/n), I- theres a path, through the woods, behind- up behind the hill. I- I need you to go up there, as far as it goes, alright?”

You nodded, “Why?”

“Just go. I’m going to take Karl back home. Maybe- maybe don’t come back to his house for a while.”

Eret gently helped Karl up, and led him away, his sobs still echoing in your head.

‘what the hell is going on here?’

Slowly you drifted up towards the hill Eret had spoken of, ‘hey, pogtopia is this way! maybe I’ll go see Wil an’ Tommy an’ Techno! They’ll know what’s going on.’

You continued to drift up the path, humming quietly and wondering what Eret had sent you to look at, and why Karl had been crying.

You looked up and around at all the trees, trying to remember them. It was in bits and pieces, Tommy yelling about about freedom, Wilbur saying how proud Phil would be.

You remembered the forests burning, ‘who had done that?’, hiding in the woods after- after something- tnt, blow- after L’manburg had been blown up.

You stopped moving, looking down confused at the stone you had come across, it as large, flat and upright, and you looked at the words confused.

‘(Y/n) brave beyond words, hero of L’manburg’ there were various flowers scattered around, a sword stuck out of the ground, a flower chain wrapped around it’s hilt, there was a uniform jacket, one you vaguely recognized as your own and a bandana, also tied to the hilt of the sword.

Someone dropped something, a sword, “(y/n)?”

“Techno! I missed you! Everyone down in L’manburg is being wierd and when I finally got Karl to stop ignoring me he just started crying, and there’s this weird thing up on the stage and the walls are gone, and Eret told me to come up here, and why is my name on this headstone?”

“(y/n/n) I’m sorry,” Your brother fell to his knees, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean too! They made me!”

“What are you talkin about Tech?”

“How are you back here? I’m sorry! This is my fault I did this to you!”

You were surprised to see your brother crying, “What’s wrong Techno?”

“You don’t remember?”

“(Y/n)?” Another voice asked.

You turned, looking at Wilbur, “Wilbur what’s going on? No one’s answering me again, and I’m scared that they can’t see me again! And I’m really confused and I made Karl cry and I don’t get it!”

“(y/n) your dead, you died, you- how are you?” Wilbur stuttered.

“Wha- wh- d- dead? What do you mean?” You watched as Wilbur carefully placed himself between you and a still crying Techno.

“You died, a few days ago. (y/n/n).”

You sank to the ground, fading away so that your brothers wouldn’t see.

~~ “So you don’t remember anything?” The man with the rams horns asked.

You shook your head, “Not everything. Just a lot of things. Wilby says I’m dead, which I guess makes sense now.”

You’d continue drifting around L’manburg, for a while, trying to figure out what had happened on your own, and ended up sitting dejectedly outside the white house, you could remember making it with Tubbo.

“Well I’m Shlatt.” He shuffled around in his desk, looking for something.

“Shlatt?” You paused, trying to remember him, pretending not to notice to see the fear that flashed in his eyes, “Your.. you were here before L’manburg right?”

“Yeah, uh, here.” He pulled out a book and quill, “Uh, write down what you remember, that might help.”

You looked at him quizzically, “I can’t touch things, uh- or manipulate objects in the normal world with out using huge amounts of energy.”

He frowned and quickly picked up the pen, “You dictate then.”

You hummed, “Well, things I remember....”

Alex woke with a start, sitting up from where he was hunched over his desk, blinking at the harsh afternoon light that was drifting through his office window.

He still hadn’t been back to the house since the fight after the execution, and had been forcing himself into work to mask the grief.

“So is there anything else? It doesn’t seem like you remember much.” Shlatt’s voice was muffled by the wall.

“Well it’s a bit foggy towards the end, and the beginning Ooo! I remember Alex and Nicky and Karl too! I could never forget them!”

Alex froze at the familiar giggle.

“Yeah, you never used to shut up about your boyfriends.” Shlatt chuckled.

Alex was running down the hall and slamming the door to the presidents office open before he could register he was moving, “Shlatt am I going insane or...”

He trailed off as your floating grayish form turned to him, “Alex! I couldn’t find you! And I didn’t know what was going on and everyone was ignoring me then I saw Wil and Techno and they told me I was dead. and then I found Shlatt! And he’s helping me write down what I remember! Have you met Shlatt? He’s nice!”

“Shlatt what the fuck is this?” He spoke through you as if you weren’t even there.

“Your partner. Apparently no one around has been helping them sort things out,” The president stood up and moved around his desk, “Ghosts tend to forget things of there past lives, and no one was helping them, so I am.”

“Did you tell them what happened? Why there fuckin- floating around instead of being here with us?” Alex spat.

Shlatt sighed, “Quackity listen this is a delicate thing. Right now it’s be better to help them remember than just tell them. So go find your stupid boyfriends and tell them the situation!”

“I cant Shlatt, we broke up. They don’t want to see me.”

“Is that what you were yelling about?” You asked quietly.

Alex looked at you, shocked, “You heard that?”

“Yeah. You and Nick made Karl cry. And then I couldn’t do anything about it,” you looked down at the floor, “w- is it my fault y- we’re broken up now?”

Alex remained silent so you continued, “I’m trying to remember what I did. And how I died. But if I did something stupid, or something to hurt you, I’m sorry.”

You were crying again, and Shlatt glared at Alex, which somehow surprised you, “This is why is trying to fucking handle this. Leave. Tell the others or not I don’t care, they’ll find out eventually.”

“Wh- Shlatt they- How-”

“I said get out,” Shlatt said firmly, “At least let me try to fix things I’ve fucked up.”

Alex shook his head before turning and heading out of the office, only ducking into his own long enough to grab something before stalking out of the building.

Shlatt turned back to you, already starting to pick the pen back up, “So what else do you remember about.. uh, your last few days. What do you remember right before the end?”

“Did they really break up because of me? If I did something I should go apologized.”

“Hey, hey, no, it ain’t your fault. I’ll go yell at them later. Tell me more about what you remember about the festival.”

~~ “Why the fuck are we here Shlatt?” Tommy half yelled.

Tommy, Technoblade, Wilbur, Alex, Nick and Karl were all gathered in front of Shlatt in the holy land.

“So, some of you may know, some of you may not, (Y/n) is back,” He looked over all the faces, Karl already looking like he was about to cry, and Nick frozen in shock, “For the past week or so they’ve been wandering and apparently none of you have been doing anything to help them.”

“Ghosts don’t remember much from there past lives, so good job on all of you that knew, you left your partner or sibling lost and confused,” He dropped the book you’d written together on the table, “I did my best, they remember everything that's written down here. I couldn’t tell them much about what they forgot, because it’s not my place.

“If you guys want, I can keep talking to them, and doing my best, but incase you haven’t noticed I’m also the fucking president. I can’t spend all my time helping educate a ghost. They disappeared yesterday, after saying something about Karl and how they saw you fools yelling, so, this is in your court now.”

Shlatt turned a walked away, heading back towards Manburg.

With shaking hands Tommy took the book, reading aloud,

“Things I remember: Home, fire, Phil finding me, Wilbur never having seen a child before, Techno swearing he’d protect me, fire, Tommy trying to spar with me before he could walk right, Techno teaching me to fight, finding the SMP lands, L’manburg, fighting for independence, fire,

“the forests burning, seeing Nick for the first time, Babysitting Fundy, winning independence, Eret leaving, fire, destruction, L’manburg thriving, the sun, Tubbo and his bees, more people coming to the country, meeting Karl, finding Alex, when we got our act together and finally all started dating.

“Wil threatening Nick and nick not being scared, Techno threatening all of them and making them terrified. Pogtopia, the cavern The festival, the dunk tank, Techno almost crying, my boys, fire.”

He looked up at his brothers, “You knew they were back?”

“I was in shock,” Techno was staring at his boots, clearing his throat uncomfortably, “Y’know I swore I’d protect ‘em, but- I- I killed ‘em.”

Nick grabbed the book from Tommy, “We have to find them.”

“Fundy can you turn the page for me please?”

The fox nodded, “Course (y/n).”

Most of the shock had worn off, and now he was mostly just happy to see you again, even going and finding an old photobook Wilbur had given him a while ago.

“Oh I remember this!” You pointed to a photo, it was taken a year after Phil had found you, “There was a big fire across the field, and while they were taking care of it I got scared and ran away, Techno found me in a tree.”

Fundy laughed, “3 year old you got in a tree by yourself?”

“Yeah, furball, I was in a tree when Philza found me too.” You chuckled.

“Hey Fundy, have you...” Niki burst in the door, tailing off as she saw you.

You waved “Hey Niki.”

“Uhh, Your brothers, and your partners are looking for you.”

You frowned, “Are they still my partners if I’m dead?”

Niki gave you a sad look, “Come on. Sapnap hasn’t seen you and he’s worried.”

“They all fought because of me, I’d rather stay here,” You looked out the door warily, “I don’t want to make things worse than they already are.”

“They need you (y/n), you brought them together.”

You drifted around Fundy and towards the door, “Making things worse isn’t something I want to do.”

You went through the door, past the group of people, making your form fade as much as possible so as not to be noticed, from there you wandered down to the docks, sitting on the edge to look over the channel.

“Phil sent a letter, said he’s devastated your gone, but overjoyed your still here.”

You looked up at Techno, “How’d you know I’d be down here?”

“You always liked the water,” He chuckled, “Specially if there was a fire goin on somewhere else.”

“I don’t want to make things worse, if your here to take me back there.”

“I’m here to apologize. I know you don’t remember, but in case you do, I’m sorry, I had to do it.”

You laughed, “Your my big brother Tech, I doubt I’d be mad at you if I remembered.”

He smiled sadly, sitting down next to you, “Why do you think you’ll make things worse?”

You sighed, “Well when I first came back, I thought everyone was ignoring me. And when I found L’manburg again Karl and Nick and Alex were fighting about something I did, and then when Eret finally saw me Karl started crying, and then when I found you and Wilby you started crying and I just- I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Techno looked at you, “If anything it’s our fault. All of this.”

“Techno, can we talk to (y/n)?”

You froze at Nick’s voice, but your brother was already moving, and Your partners were taking his place.

“(y/n/n), we’re sorry-”

“Stop,” You cut Alex off, “Whatever’s happening stop. You can’t apologize to me for shit I did that I can’t remember.”

“(y/n/n), we aren’t apologizing for that, that's not even your fault. We’re apologizing for fighting as soon as you were gone.” Nick said.

“Please come back with us. Don’t disappear,” Karl’s voice was barley a whisper, “We can help you remember.”

You bit your lip, sobbing, “I don’t want to make things hard on you guys. I didn’t even want to come back like this! Before I woke up again, it was just darkness, and it was horrible. but somehow staying there for eternity seems better than this.”

All three sets of arms passed through you, all of your boyfriends forgetting they couldn’t hold you, only making you cry harder.

“I want to be resurrected.”

It had been a week and a half since the day at the docks. You hadn’t gone back with them, though you had continued hanging around Manburg, talking mainly to Shlatt, and by now you just wanted to go back to the normal you remembered.

“Resurrected?” Dream looked at you curiously.

“Yeah. I want to go back. If I can’t stay dead the normal way and I’m stuck here then I want it to be normal. I want to hug my boyfriends, and ruffle my little brothers hair!”

The man behind the mask merely cocked his head, “So why did you come to me?”

“You’re essentially a god in these lands. I figured you might know someone or someway for me to be resurrected,” The mask shifted and you could almost here the plan formulating in his mind, “And if it ends up failing I don’t want it to hurt anyone else.”

The man sighed, “It would be a very complicated process. It’s been what, three weeks since you died, what ever was left of your body is going to be- less than in good condition.”

“What was left?” You questioned.

“Oh, (y/n), didn’t they tell you?” Had the mask been gone you would have seen the gleam of wickedness in his eyes, “You went off with a bang.”

“You’re planning what?” Shlatt yelled, incredulous.

You’d told Shlatt about the plan for resurrections, seeing as he was one of the only one who really still talked to you, “I have to do it Shlatt! I can’t stay like this! I want things to be normal! I want-” Your voice grew small, “I want to take back what you took from me.”

Fear flashed in the horned mans eyes, “He told you.”

“Even you wouldn’t,” You said dejectedly, “I thought you were my friend.”

“I- I was your friend, At some points at least.”

He watched as you floated away, “I suppose we’ll see once I’m back.”

As soon as you were gone Shlatt was hurrying out of his office, “Quackity! Quackity, some shit is about to hit the fan! You better call the idiots in Pogtopia!”

It didn’t take long for him to assemble your brothers and partners, frantically telling them the situation, “Dream is up to something with this people! He obviously is doing some manipulation shit!”

“Why do you even care Shlatt?” Tommy asked, “Your the bitch who killed them, so why should you care if they come back?”

“Sorry that the one time I’m willing to look past shit you don’t trust me?” He groaned, pulling a bottle from his coat and taking a swig, “Sorry that I’m trying to help.”

“How would he even turn this against us?” Nick asked, “Resurrections isn’t something he can do, he’d put Bad in charge of that, and we all know that Bad wouldn’t corrupt someone.”

“It’s possible that they won’t remember anything, at all, and people who’ve forgotten are the easiest to manipulate.” Shlatt sighed.

“We have to help them.” Karl decided.

Darkness, darkness, darkness.

You had finally found your way back to that dark abyss, though now it was filled with strange chanting.

It felt like you were bein dragged across the length of the universe, losing everything of your being along the way.

‘stop! stop stop stop! I want- I want to remember’ you begged the darkness.

The hell you found yourself in seemed to stretch, continuing for infinity, the darkness, called you, begging you to stay, to give up the last of your essence to it.

The chanting grew louder as you tried to scream, the sound lodged in a throat that no longer existed.

All at once you became nothing, and then you felt the weight of a thousand suns crushing you back down into a body.

~~ Your eyes flicked open, to a blinding white world.

“It worked! There awake!” You heard Bad yell.

You started to smile as you heard Alex yell, “Get the fuck away from them Dream, you can’t manipulate anyone else!”

You sat up, starting to look around, but still, you saw nothing but light, “Alex? Wh- It- why can’t I see?”

“They remember!” you heard Karl rejoice.

“Why can’t I see?” You asked again, raising your hands to your eyes.

“(y/n) what do you mean?” Nick asked.

“I can’t see.” You said desperately, reaching out you felt your boyfriends wrapping there arms around you.

“I think I know how to fix it!” Bad yelled triumphantly.

Everything went black again.

This time, your trip through hell was not as bad, though you seemed not to notice as your existence and identify was striped away again.

~~ Your eyes flicked open, the feeling returned to your body, and slowly you sat up, looking around at the odd group of people gathered around you, “Who are you?”

As soon as the world came out of your mouth a mousy haired man in a colorful sweater burst into tears, the man with the beanie next to him quickly pulling him into a hug.

“I- Who are you?”

“Do you not remember?”

You shook your head, “Remember what?”

you turned to the pink haired man, “I know you don’t I? I swear- I- I know I know you. Why don’t I remember you?”

A demonic looking man quickly closed a book, “You guys should clear out. a third party might be better for this.”

~~ The man- Bad, had explained basics of things to you, who everyone who’d been in the room before, and the said that you would have to stay at his house in the Badlands for a few days.

The next day was better.

‘holy shit it worked!’ you thought, looking down at your arms, ‘I’m back’

Quietly you got out of the bed, rushing through the room and towards the stairs of Bad and Skeppy’s house, “Guys! Guys it worked! I’m alive again!”

You turned another corner to see you brothers, looking at you shocked, “(y/n)? You remember?”

You grinned, quickly pulling your brother into a hug, “It wasn’t your fault Techno! You didn’t mean to it’s okay!”

“(y/n/n)?”

You turned again, “Karl! Nicky! Alex!”

The next thing you knew you were in a pile on the ground, your boyfriends all hugging you tightly.

They brought you home soon after, and from there you had good days and bad days.

There were days where you remembered it all, days where you found yourself lost and confused in an unknown house, and days where you could on recognize certain things around you.

Still, you were back with Nick and Karl and Alex, and you would make it through, together.

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagines #sapnap x reader #karl jacobs x reader #quackity x reader #sapnap x karl x quackity x reader #angst #sleepy boys x reader

664 notes · View notes

nicodemuslily · 2 years

Text

Identity

Disclaimer: the following texts are a little bit special as you’ll see pretty quickly, because it’s just dialogues. When I imagine a story, it all starts with dialogues most of the time, then I write the text in-between (because dialogues are really important to help readers to dive in a story, I put them on paper as fast as possible after I thought about them, even if I write the story months or even years after). But, sometimes, I imagine dialogues with no connexion with any stories I’ve got in my mind. They help me actually to determine the temper of a character or to settle a crucial situation in the backstory of one or more characters. So I wrote them also, with a few lines to add some details that could be important to get the scene properly. But I’m pretty sure I won’t write the full story around (because that’s the way my brain is working: many ideas, few finished projects). I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway.

PS: the « Wolffe/Irdiz » note indicates that Wolffe is the first one to speak. I add this note when the first speaker is not obvious.

___

Context: Quinn and Harmah live officially together. She has met Lyle and Iko and their families. The couple is in bed between two missions of Quinn.

Harmah/Quinn

___

_ So, you will never tell them your real name? _ No. _ Not even that you do remember where do you come from? _ No. _ Why? _ Because. _ What an argument. _ Why do you bother me with that? _ Because I don’t get it. You told me, even if we know each other for a couple of months; but not to them while you have worked together for years. Why? _ Because I don’t want to explain them why. _ You’re afraid they won’t understand. _ Most of all I don’t want at all to hear them trying to convince me to rebuild a connection with my family. I know that they’re craving to find the memories the Empire took them off. To find their parents, their relatives, people who watched them growing up, etc. So, for sure, they won’t understand that I won’t. _ Except if you explain them everything. _ What? That my family wasn’t for the Empire to the bones even if they were living in an imperial colony. That they never got that if I wanted to join the rank of the Empire, it was just to discover the world. That I didn’t care at all about everything else. What do you want me to tell them: that I left my home during the night, convinced to do the right choice and determined to never see them again? _ That’s why you don’t want to tell them the truth. Because, somewhere, your parents were right and you don’t want to admit it, even now. _ Be nice, stop this stupid psychological trick! I owe nothing to no one, and absolutely not to a bunch of peasants who never saw farer than their feet. _ But the Empire wasn’t that good. _ I never said the contrary. And I knew it when I signed. It’s just that, breaking my back all day long to return dungs, it wasn’t what I had in mind for my future. So it was that or join the bounty hunters guild. _ But with the Empire, you were sure to have a roof and food every day. _ See, you get it too. _ Let’s say that I know some things about bad choices. _ My real family, it’s them. _ A disfigured one-eyed guy a bit stupid who marry a TIE pilot exiled from the high society of Coruscant and a huge half-burnt dude as deaf as a jar, husband of a nymphomaniac who loves to dismantle droids? _ Exactly. _ Cool!

She smiles and kisses him. Quinn answers by taking her into his arms.

___

Okay, it seems that the new posting system doesn't know what a dialogue is (so, sorry for the weird appearance of this text). ^^;

IMO, most of the stormtroopers are so brainwashed that they lost a part of their memories, they forget their real identities, where did they come from, who their relatives are, etc. It was made on purpose so they won't try to quit the army. But, some of them, like Quinn (TK-666) does remember. He just finds his name ridiculous and appreciates more the name his friends gave to him at the end of the war.

So, Quinn will help them to find their lost memories and their real family, but he won't make the effort for himself. His found family is the one he cares about now. :) And Harmah, the former prostitute, is part of it of course.

#star wars #star wars fanfic #wednesday thoughts #stormtroopers

2 notes · View notes

ndoandou · 4 years

Note

Hi!! I saw your requests were open, so uh could I request an Ikevamp headcanon for Arthur, Theo, Vincent and Isaac reacting an MC who is super energetic. Like, as in she could literally dance around the mansion without having a care in the world? ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Yeah lol pls feel free to take your time with this request and have a nice day!! ༼ つ ◕◡◕ ༽つ

This is cute 😳😳

This ended up being wayyy longer than i thought it would be. Arthur's part went deeper than i thought it would be-

This is probably one of my longest headcanon/scenario, i hope you enjoy 😌

Lets say for context, MC is sweeping through the hall while humming, and as time went by her humming becomes louder. Eventually she straights up start singing while twirling and dancing around

Arthur

The first encounter with this trait of MC kind of surprised him. He wasn't expecting young lady to be this active and bright

Gets along very well with her actually

He doesn't mind her energetic personality, but sometimes in gets in the way when he is working on his stories.

He doesn't see her as "annoying" like what most people woukd describe her

He just thinks that she has so many things in her mind (in a good way) that she expresses them all at once //my mans pulling off a doctor doyle 😳

Arthur was in his room, trying to concentrate on his writing when he heard MC singing loudly outside

"I dare say, she is one active lady." Arthur said to himself as he exhaled.

Arthur got up and openned his bedroom door, revealing MC who was singing and dancing around with the broom

MC noticed arthur who was leaning on the door frame with a defeated expression

"Good afternoon to you arthur!" MC greeted him cheerfully, which then she went back to singing and dancing around

"Good afternoon to you too, dear" arthur said which MC probably didn't hear

Once he tried flirting with her but it all flew over her head

This one time MC and arthur was left alone and he tried to make a move on her

Arthur leaned over to MC's ear and whispered

MC seemed unbothered and let him lean over to her

"Seems like we're left alone, love.. would you like to have some fun?" Arthur whispered suggestively

MC was an innocent and very bright girl but she wasn't stupid

"Hm? No. Oh! Arthur can i ask you something?" MC asked unbothered by arthurs invitation

This took him by surprise

"Oh..ehm, go ahead poppet."

"Am i annoying?"

Arthur was blown away by her question.

"Annoying? No, no. That's not it, love. Why do you ask?" Arthur asked her curiously. He wasn't expecting this question from her.

"Ahahaha..! It's nothing important, its just when i lay down at night, i start realizing the unpleasant looks i get from some people whenever im doing something or saying something. I tell myself not to be annoying but i lose control of myself the next day." MC said cheerfully as if what she felt wasn't anything serious at all

Arthur felt really bad after hearing that. He realized that she was being misundertood badly.

He realized that behind that cheerfull personality, she had such deep thoughts

He wasn't expecting her to reveal her most vulnerable side to him out of everyone

He realized that the time he looked defeated arounded MC must have been in her memories

"Oh..oh dear me. I didn't know you felt that way, and im sorry if im one of those people who made you feel that way." Arthur said, with a sympathetic look on his face.

Arthur realized that MC never wanted to cause discomfort to anyone with how she is.

"Hmm i probably sounded REAL silly with what im saying, you can pretend that i never said anything, honestly!" MC said casually as she got up from her chair

"Wait! Hang on a second, poppet. Sit back down" arthur said as he gestured her to sit down, which she did

"I dont think you are annoying. You are just misunderstood, love. It seems to me that you have many going on in your mind that you express them all at once, like a big ball of energy." Arthur explained to her

MC's eyes widen

She found his explanation rather accurate

"Oh..you..you think so?" MC said taken back by the way arthur described her

"Yes, yes. I have an idea for you, poppet. If you want to learn how to express yourself better, how about you try writing all the things in your mind- in any form you want." Arthur suggested

MC's face lit up

"That sounds very fun!" MC exclaimed

"In fact, i want to do it now!" MC said as she jolted off her seat hurrying over to the door

"Oh, and thankyou very much arthur. You are the first person to understand how i feel" MC said smiling genuinely as she headed out

Arthur felt his heart skip a beat.

Without realizing, his cheeks were tinted pink

"By jove! What is this feeling?" Arthur said to himself

Surprisingly, MC was seen in the library writing away in peace most of the time, when she isn't doing her chores

If arthur was working on his own work, MC would sit next to him and start writing aswell

She would write poems

Everyone was worried if MC had fell sick because it was very unusual for her to be this quiet, but arthur just explained that she found herself a new hobby.

Mc would show arthur what she had written, and arthur woukd be blown away everytime.

Everyone got curious with what MC was writing, and when they read her poems, their brains just melted away

Even when vincent brought one of her poems to shakespeare, he became shookspeare

Everyone actually encouraged her to publish her works to the public

MC was excited with that idea, but she said she would give it a thought

Occasionally MC would be the ball of energy she was, but she settled down more

Vincent

He would find it extremely adorable!

Just combine MC and Vincent together would make them the angels of all angels

For context, vincent would be entering the mansions gate after visiting shakespeare

He noticed a dancing figure in the hallway through the window

As he entered the mansion, he could already hear MC's singing voice from the second floor

He goes upstairs and there was MC singing and dancing around with the broom

"Hello MC! You seem very energetic as always" vincent greeted with a smile

He would ask MC if she was singing a song from her time period

He would even ask her to teach him how to sing the song

Vincent isn't an energetic person, but MC's personality rubbed onto him

He would only be energetic around her as she is basically the catalyst xD

Vincent would end up dancing around with her, spinning around through the hallway, laughing and singing

The night after goofing around with MC, she was stuck in his head

He got up from his bed and went over to his art supplies.

He had the strong urge to paint her

The way she danced, sung, and laughed created a crystal clear image in his head

After spending the whole night painting, he was knocked out asleep from morning to afternoon

MC was sent by sebastian to wake him up

She recieved no answer when she knocked, which then she invited herself in

When she came in she saw a beautifully done painting of her

Feeling her heart skip a beat

For once she felt really shy instead of her energetic self

"V-vincent, its afternoon" MC shook his shoulder gently

Stirring up, vincent woke up

"Oh..good afternoon MC. Thats strange, usually you would yell at everyone to wake them up."

Being fully awake, he noticed that her cheeks were tinted red

"Whats wrong MC? You seem rather flushed" vincent asked softly

"The painting.. it's beautiful." MC said, smiling shyly

Realizing his painting was exposed in his room, he blushed into a deep shade of red.

He wasn't mentally ready for anyone ESPECIALLY her to see it

It went silent for a moment and they both avoided eye contact

Not being able to take any more of the awkward air, MC went back into character

She started giggling

"W-what are you embarrased for vincent?" MC said surpressing a laugh

"You tell me MC." Vincent said with a chuckle finally melting away from the awkward situation

Eventually they were both laughing full of joy, even everyone was wondering what was going on in vincent's room

Long story short, they are the inseperable ball of joy 😌

Theodorus

He finds it SO iritating but he can't bring himself to hate her

Despite being so annoying she still had that angelic aura that reminded him of vincent

He already finds the mansion's residents irritating (except vincent ofc) and they arent even as energetic as MC

Wont admit that he adores her at the same time

"HONDJE! For the last time, shut up!" Theodorus shouted, his head poking out of his bedroom door

He was trying to have his afternoon nap after a long day of wheeling and dealing some art.

"Dancing and singing is good for the mind and body! Would you like to join theo?" MC said ignoring his harsh tone

Looking at her with annoyance painted on his face, he glared at her then slammed his bedroom door shut

"Guess he doesn't.." MC said to herself, continuing to sing and dance around

A few hours after that theo payed vincent a visit in his room

He wanted to ask him for advice on how to deal with how loud and energetic MC is

He would have asked arthur but he would most likely give him advice on how to get into her pants

"Come in, what's bothering you?" Vincent invited him, noticing the conflicted look his brother had

Theo sighed folding his arms

"Broer, how do i get hondje to shut up? I keep yelling at her but she never stops" Theo asked, irritation clear in his voice

"Don't call her that! She's a very sweet person" Vincent scolded

"S-sorry broer.." theo appologized looking like a sad puppy

Vincent gestured theo to take a seat next to him

"Well, i understand where you are coming from. She is very energetic indeed." Vincent said

"So..how do i stop her from driving me crazy?" Theo asked

"You say you would yell at her to be quiet right? How about.. you try talking to her VERY nicely" vincent said, emphasizing the word "very"

Theo looked at his brother, confused

"Broer.. are you sure?" Theo asked

"Yes! She is someone you have to speak kindly to for her to listen. Trust your big brother!" Vincent said cheerfully

Vincent ended up teaching theo how to speak to MC the rest of the night

As expected, the next day MC was singing loudly once again

Theo was going to go shout at her but he remembered what his brother said

He gulped and exited his bedroom approaching her

MC who was singing and dancing stopped in her tracks when she noticed a figure standing behind her

She turned around greeted with theo who had a stiff expression

"Good day to you theo! How can i help you?" MC asked cheerfully

"I.. uh hond- i mean MC. C-could you please lower your voice p..please? I am- i'm trying to rest. I would v-very much appreciate y-your coopera..tion." Theo said stuttering allover the place while fidgetting

He wasn't used to being nice to people

It went silent for a bit

"Oh my! How strange, you aren't yelling at me! My appology theo, i didn't know i put you in such distress!" MC said with a guilty expression

Theo was blown away by her response as it just sounded way out of character, making him feel guilty

"O-oh! Don't worry, i appologize for always yelling at you." Theo said flailling his hands all over the place.

MC looked at him and started laughing softly

"O-oi! What are you laughing at hondje!" Theo exclaimed, his face red with embbarasment

Secretly, he felt refreshed after hearing MC laugh again

"Ahaha! My appologies, you just looked and sounded very adorable! It's..ahaha.. very unlike you theo!" MC said, laughing

Theo's brain stopped working, i mean did MC rly just call him adorable

"Whatever! Im going back to my room!" theo stomped away, face still red

"Alright, alright! Have a nice rest! MC said still giggling

Theo slammed his door shut and slumped down against the door

"Maybe.. hondje isn't that bad at all..." theo said to himself

ISAAC

Poor boy will have a mental breakdance

ESPECIALLY when hes reading or doing some cool kid stuff //p h y s i c s

Atleast she doesn't tag along with arthur and dazai...

He knows that she is a kind soul, just has too much energy >:(

He doesnt hate her of course! He just wish she would tone it down :(

Isaac was in the library reading a book when MC started humming while she sweeped the floor

The humming slowly became a string of "lalala" and soon enough she was singing

"Goodness me, MC! This isn't the first time you have distracted my concentration.." isaac said as he burried his face into the book he was reading

Considering how soft isaac's voice was generally, MC did not hear him.

Having enough of it, He shut his book close aggresively and proceeded to walk out the door, slamming the door

The sound of the door slamming alerted MC causing her to jump slightly

"That was really loud..where did isaac go?" MC asked to herself

That was when she heard the door open, revealing leonardo

"Hello leonardo! By any chance, did you come across isaac? He suddenly left and i dont know why..." MC said

Leonardo lit up a cigarrilo and spoke

"Ah yeah, by the looks of it.. you might have upsetted him by accident, cara mia. I saw him stomping through the hallway with a sour look on his face" leonardo said calmly, inhaling his cigarrilo

"W-wait what? I..upsetted him?" MC asked in disbelieve

Leonardo noticed the unsettled look on her face

"Calm down cara mia, here take a seat" leonardo said as he gestured her to take a seat in front of him

MC sat down with a conflicted look on her face

"Heres the thing cara mia- you are a very bright soul and isaac..he is a quiet kid. He finds loud noises distressing especially when he is focussing on something. In this case.. i assume you were singing loudly around him?"

This realization hit MC like a truck

"Oh no! I never meant to make him feel uncomfortable.." MC said sadly

"I need to make it up to him...but how?" Mc continued

Leonardo leaned back to his chair

"Well, as you know, isaac has a monstrous appetite. It will be his meal time in a bit. Maybe you could bring his meal to him and talk things out with him

MC's once gloomy face lit back up

"Thats a great idea! Thankyou very much leonardo!" MC said as she stood up, hurrying out of the library

When MC arrived in the kitchen, he was greeted by sebastian who was plating up some food and rouge.

"Good afternoon sebastian! Is that for isaac?" MC asked

"Indeed, why?" Sebastian asked curiously

"I will take it up to him, since i also have something to discuss with him" MC reasoned

Sebastian stared at her for a bit

"Very well." He said

As soon as sebastian finished plating things up, MC took the tray and headed to isaac's room

She took a deep breath and knocked his door

"Come in." He said calmly

MC went in and placed the tray next to him

Isaac looked up which then his face twisted into discomfort

"Oh..thankyou" he said simply

"Im sorry.." MC said sadly

Isaac's expression showed confussion

"Huh? Why are you apologizing?" He questioned

"You left earlier, because i was bothering you right?" MC questioned back

Isaacs heart melted a bit. He felt like he did something mean considering how he saddened someone who he thought would be the last person in the world to be sad

"Oh! Oh..that.." isaac exclaimed not knowing how to respond to her question

"I really am sorry. I have always been a loud and active person that sometimes i forget about the people around me. I just fall deep into my own world once i do something..." MC explained

Somehow isaac could relate to her words. He knows how it feels to be so engulfed in what you are doing that you just forget about everything else

Maybe her peronality is like his deep interest with physics..

"Dont worry about it... i kind of understand what you mean..im sorry for storming out like that" isaac said, guilt in his voice

It went awkwardly silent for a bit

"Oh! I have an idea! What if... you shout out "gravity" whenever im being too loud around you? Im 100% sure that will alert me!" MC suggested cheerfully

"P-pardon?" Isaac asked unsure if he heard her right

"I guess that was an awfull idea..." MC said as her expression dropped once again

Isaac felt really bad when he saw her sad expression

"N-no! I.. i will think about it.." isaac mumbled, which MC heard

"Really?! Thats great!" MC exclaimed

"So...are we on good terms now?" MC continued

"I suppose you could say so.." isaac said shyly

"Good, good! I will head out now, give me a shout if you need anything" MC said as she left the room

Since then MC and isaac had formed some sort of frienship. Leonardo was glad to see that isaac was finally speaking up, guess its thanks to MC that a tiny portion of her personality slightly rubbed onto him

The day came when MC was being too loud

This time, isaac was playing chess with arthur as dazai watched them

Just like always MC started singing loudly

Isaac took a sharp inhale

"GRAVITYYY" isaac shouted on top of his lung scaring arthur and dazai at the point they probably ascended to a different dimension

"Oh! Sorry isaac!" MC said

"Bloody hell, isaac! I know you came up with the concept of gravity, but what the on earth was that for?!" Arthur said with a hand on his chest that was beating fast

" i think i pooped myself" dazai said as he hurried out of the room holding his butt with his hands.

Isaac stayed quiet, not answering his question

"Back to the game please" isaac said calmly

Arthur just sighed still wondering what all of that was

#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp arthur #ikevamp vincent #ikevamp theo #ikevamp isaac #ikevamp headcanon #ikevamp headcanons

135 notes · View notes

diavolosthots · 4 years

Text

DARK DECEPTION CHAPTER 10

READ CHAPTER 9 HERE

Author's note: This is kind of where the energy shifts and there will be a lot of back and forth between the characters involved. Just a heads up.

Warnings: none

Pairing(s): none, Lucifer, Leviathan

Levi felt so distressed after his encounter with you. On one hand he was super relieved and excited that he got to see you, but he also felt so intimidated by the King and his servant. Diavolo was never someone to mess with; that’s something he learned very early on, but he felt even more… powerful now. Like something that had been brewing in the background but didn’t spill over until just recently. Barbatos, too, knew more than he led on and he felt almost too watched in that gaming room. He’s certain there were hidden cameras and if not those, then Barbatos was hiding behind a wall watching the two of you; he didn’t know which one scared him more. Of course, then there was also that weird… kind of scary message you gave him. “Help.” Help could mean so many things, but with the vibe alone he got the minute he arrived at the castle, he knew better than to ignore it. You are his friend, and he was going to get you help if you need it; he just didn’t know how yet. Should he tell Lucifer? No… the guy doesn’t want to hear about you. Not after what happened and how down he has been. One word that even barely resembles you and Lucifer is in a bad mood, not because if hatred but because he's hurting…. But if not Lucifer, then who? Who else would there be to help him out? All the other brothers are too irrational or too scared to do anything…

Before he could contemplate any further, he actually found himself in front of Lucifer; what are the odds. Somewhere in his thinking process, he had made his way to Lucifer’s bedroom and apparently the door was open, or Lucifer at least attempted to leave the room and found Levi standing right there. Whatever it was, he was now face to face with the eldest and he never felt more unsure in his life, “Lucifer…” The eldest raised an eyebrow looking at the third-born. Levi never looked really… presentable, at least not in the business sense that he himself carried, but he looked even more distressed now, “What is it, Leviathan?” The demon still contemplated on saying anything, but he knew he should. He knew that if he didn’t, you would be in more danger and after all, you entrusted him to get help. “It’s…” He looks around quickly, making sure none of the other brothers were around before shoving Lucifer back in his room and closing the door, locking it. Lucifer glared at the younger, about to demand an explanation, but before he could, Levi was looking stern as can be and turning his attention back to him. “It’s (Y/N).”

Emotions ran through Lucifer at speeds he couldn’t even imagine. Hurt, love, heartache, pain, hope, betrayal, but mostly… fear. The name hadn’t been spoken ever since the wedding and everyone knew not to speak to him about it, specifically. For Leviathan to bring it up.. It must be something serious. “I… I think she needs help.” Lucifer’s eyes went wide for a moment before returning to normal; thoughts raced through his head of what you could possibly need help with; of what Diavolo could have possibly done. Had you denied yourself to him? Fought too hard? Been too snarky? Tried anything reckless? “You think? Leviathan I need you to be sure.” He tried to sound stern, to believe that Levi just saw something but took it completely out of context. “No… I know she does. I was invited to go over there. Lord Diavolo set up a whole gaming room! He had all the consoles, and even the new Brain-Wrecker3002!! An---!” Lucifer growled, glaring at the younger one in annoyance, “Levi! I don’t care about your useless gaming habits; what’s wrong with (Y/N)?”

Leviathan looked at his brother, taking a deep breath, “when we were playing… she kept repeating this pattern… on the screen. I didn’t get it at first. I thought she just didn’t know how to use the controller, but then it happened a second time and… Lucifer, she spelled out ‘help’.” A shiver ran down Lucifer’s back although he would never admit it, “that’s why you believe she needs help?” Levi nods, shifting uncomfortably, “the energy… it seemed off. Lord Diavolo seemed off… like he knew something, you know? And of course he knows things but this.. It’s almost like when you’re playing a game and you think you’re on the winning track but then your opponent pulls a trick card out of their sleeve and makes you lose. That’s what that felt like… Barbatos too seemed a little too… watchful? If he wasn’t watching us the whole time, then I’m sure he set up cameras to record and watch us later. Lucifer… it just seemed so off. And then… right at the end… Lord Diavolo came in and.. It looked normal but the hug, the hand squeeze, her obvious nervousness… I don’t think he’s been treating her well.”

Normally, Lucifer would take offense. He would call Leviathan ridiculous and pull out some kind of punishment to get back at him for ever assuming such things about their now King, but somewhere he knew Leviathan was right and it hurt him. He blamed himself. He let you go that day; he let you turn your back on him and make that awful decision, which, he still doesn’t understand why you made that decision. At the very least… he should try to figure out if there’s some truth behind it; he should try even if it’s just to ease his own mind about the trouble you could possibly be in. “You said there were cameras?” Levi lifted his head up, finding red eyes that held some kind of hope in them, “... well, not exactly. I said I assume there would be cameras if Barbatos wasn’t watching us through a wall or something.” “I need you to do something for me, but first… “ A gloved hand came down to rest on Leviathan’s head as he felt a rush of something powerful course through him.

“W-what was that?!” Lucifer chuckled, doing the same to himself, “Barbatos isn’t stupid, Levi. I’m protecting us. Everything we speak of will be… blurred, in a sense. I can’t have him, or Lord Diavolo, figure out what we’re discussing. This spell will prevent that from happening, at least for a while, until Barbatos catches on that he can’t see certain parts of the future… which is why we need to hurry. If there are cameras involved, is there any way you could hack into those?” Levi almost choked on his own spit, “You… you want me to hack into Lord Diavolo’s cameras?!” “If there are any, yes.” The demon’s eyes grew wide in excitement as a grin spread across his face, “yes! My time to shine! My excessive gaming and technological research has finally paid off!! Of course I can hack in! It might take me a bit but I will not disappoint you, Lucifer! We can do this! Oh… we should have a really cool team name! Oh and we need a name for the mission! Oh and definitely some weapons if you want to storm the headquarters and----!”

Lucifer groaned, almost immediately regretting his decision, “Levi… just… do as I ask.” Happiness was still surging through him as he continued, “What about operation damsel?! Get it? Because damsel in distress? Oh! Your spy name would totally be Lord RedBlood! And…” Lucifer took the liberty of slowly pushing Leviathan back out of his room, closing the door before he could talk his ear off anymore but also reminding him of the task at hand. Now alone again, he sighed, allowing himself to rest against the closed door. He knew there was something wrong ever since the day you told him that you saw no future with him… those weren’t your words; he never once believed those were your words, but this changes things. You need help. You’re probably stuck in something and… he didn’t dare think about all the things that could have happened already, nor does he want to think of the things that could still come. His top priority is you now, no matter how helpless he himself feels.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me lucifer #lucifer x mc #lucifer obey me #shall we date lucifer #lucifer avatar of pride #obey me leviathan #leviathan obey me #shall we date leviathan #leviathan avatar of envy #dark deception

170 notes · View notes

tartagliaxx · 3 years

Text

hi. i only got to play in inazuma today so here's me live reacting to the archon quest. it's a lil out of context tho so have fun trying to figure out which parts im talking abt. also, this is the only time i'm going to be talking abt spoilers for at least one week so... 🤷‍♀️

swordfish ii? cute.

Jesus Christ. and here i thought it was my lowest settings that made his hair grey… this poor kid. teppei i admire your determination but no… just no...

SCARAMOUCHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

IF EVIL WHY SO HOT

you know.... scaramouche could stand still and the air would get electrified. and yknow,,, that's p... that's p attractive

ugh im disgusting myself. and here i thought i still had an inch of sanity left in me.

of all people it had to be this little jerk

scaramouche is so fucking evil. i’d like ten of him, please.

man,, they expect me to dodge this shit? that’s the biggest l i’ve heard today. none of that shit. i’m bringing out my zhong and my sweet madames skrrt

sayu is adorable… i remember when i had hopes of growing up too… alas, it has come to this.

OH MY GOD AYATO CRUMBS. I AM LICKING THAT SHIT UP. PLEASE— HE HAS A SECRET UNIT. THATS SO HOT WTF. AYATO MY DEAR, PLEASE DONT BE A REGULAR ICKY NPC BUT WHITE HAIRED…

SNEAKY SNEAK. SNEAKY SNEAK.

THOMA OH MY GOD MY MALEWIFE. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? also, sayu’s sleeping again. this girl’s got talent. is her circadian rhythm okay?

pains me to be the bearer of all bad news and no good news…

WAIT THOMA IS LEAVING NO DONT LEAVE YET I WANT TO LOOK AT YOU MORE

oh nvm he’s still in the background.

EYY WHATS UP AYAKA. YOU’RE AS FINE AS EVER.

i… i don’t like where this is going… i refuse to be the bait. i’m too hot for that. so spicy they’ll spit me right out

DONT VOLUNTEER YOURSELF LUMINE— GIVE ME AN OPTION OR AT LEAST AN ‘OH SHIT HERE WE GO AGAIN’ LINE

YES FIREWORKS THAT WOULD WORK RIGHT? PLEASE TELL ME THAT WOULD WORK-

oh thank god… wait... they… they wouldn’t ask me to be the one to set off the fireworks right?

UNFORTUNATELY NO. AFTER YOU BECOME A FREE MAN, YOU’RE IMMEDIATELY MARRYING ME THOMA ANJKFHAIGHLANGKLAHOFJLKAB

oh crap… i’m… i’m in deep.

HE’S BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING US AGAIN EVERY DAY SINCE HE GOT THERE ANFLaglvbajlfblabvljabefva;bfalLJBLJDABVBAALSNADL tumblr user @tartagliaxx is broken. she is now irreparable. she has no regrets. goodbye.

ehem… what if… you and i… and hotsprings… together?? JUST KIDDING. PG-13 OVER HERE. NOTHING INDECENT WHATSOEVER MOVE ALONG NOW

poor thoma,,,

oh come on ayaka… cut us some slack… i just watched lumine wheeze bc of evil purple mist only to be dragged into 2 timeskips and an entire training arc. dont let her be yet another traumatized shounen manga protagonist… altho, it might be uh… too late for that…

oh dear�� is thoma going to get another round of diarrhea?

OF COURSE. OF COURSE IT’S ME DOING ALL THE WORK. OF COURSE IT’S ME WHO’S RISKING MY LIFE ALL OVER AGAIN. GOD! GIVE LUMINE A BREAK. BEING A TRAVELER DOES NOT MEAN IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE.

hello yoimiya… still looking as bomb as ever i see……… mhm… gonna see myself out rn…

HELP MY SHITTY GRAPHICS COMPLETELY ERADICATED HER BROWS

oh god… are we dying because of fireworks? forget getting caught by the patrol… we’re about to light up an untested firework that was made to be a billion times more explosive….

NO. SHE SAID IT. SHE SAID THE CURSED SENTENCE. WHATS THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? IDK YOU TELL ME. YOU JUST SENTENCED US TO DEATH YOIMIYA GREAT GOING still love you tho.

man… these patrol guards aint shit… i literally walked an inch behind their backs and they did nothing… its a surprise the rebellion still hasn’t won when they place guards like this in their ranks………. ok that was kinda mean i’ll apologize in a bit.

SAYU OMG… DONT WORRY I’LL SNEAK YOU OUT AND RISK MY LIFE willingly JUST TO RESCUE YOU. ILYSM HONEY YOU’RE DOING SO WELL

no, paimon. it’s not but we’re doing it anyway 🤡

NO ONE TOLD ME WE’RE GOING TO RUN. I WENT COMPLETELY OFF COURSE. first try tho 😏

HELLO THOMA. HELLO AYAKA.

HELLO SAYU. HOW DID IT GO? IM GUESSING IT WENT WELL BC YOU’RE STILL ALIVE?

oh no….. she’s worn herself out…. man,,, this is why you dont make convicts out of kids….

WE ASKED SAYU FOR AN INCH AND SHE GAVE AS TEN THOUSAND MILES. SAYU MY CHILD YOU EXCEED EXPECTATIONS

god, don’t remind me. as hot as the shogun trying to kill us w her blade was, i don’t appreciate almost getting murdered on screen (even if we most certainly have plot armor)

awwww is thoma worried about me uwu owo? dw i have like… a lumine w 6% crit rate by my side

sigh… i dont want to leave yet… cant i just stay by thoma’s side and not go to war for a change?

it was at this moment that tumblr user lei saw the wonders of being a housewife.

oh sara… my stars… i’m so sorry. i feel so bad for you but at the same time… this oddly makes me want to write a song for you ABJFJKABJABCABVABVKA I KNOW JACK SHIT ABT SONGWRITING WHY AM I THINKING LIKE THIS

well… there she goes…

oh…. oh….. yae is stealing my heart. WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO (i have an alt for a reason heehee)

DEAR LORD. PLEASE STEP ON MY NECK SARA.

these guys got guts to say ‘i’m sorry ma’am’ to THE kujou sara.

oh old man… you’re dead. you’re so dead.

man… this old man is a simp? sheesh.

YES. GO TELL EM PAIMON. PREACH THAT SHIT LOUD AND CLEAR.

oh my god… is that dude dead? i probably should’ve uh apologized b4 he flopped down to the ground ig…

MAN,, SARA’S DOWN FOR THE COUNT?? tbf i didnt expect much but…. also, AYE SIGNORA’S SO ICY.

she’s calling me out for being a simp ;-; heart been broke so many times or smth

OH SHIT LUMINE SPOKE. MAN,, WHY IS SHE SO COOL.

oh… i love this part of the vow… im suddenly inspired to write… how about a wedding au? an angsty wedding au?

goddamn… it’s been nice knowing you all…. i dont think i’ll come out of this alive if signora went out like that…

WHATS HAPPENING? ARE YOU SAYING KAZUHA WENT THROUGH THIS BS? IS LUMINE OKAY-

DID THEY REALLY JUST STORM THE ENTIRE FUCKING CAPITAL?? THEY HAVE SOME NERVE.

FUCK OMG KAZUHA AHHAHFHAFHAHGKJABKASBGA IM TEARING UP WTF WHY AM I GETTING EMOTIONAL- HONEY BUN THATS SO HOT OF YOU TO DO

oh… oh it’s time for round two? haha… time to… say my goodbyes….

yo… there are actual tears in my eyes… like… idk why… but that cutscene? shit man… that hit me…

hm… i feel bad for the shogun… ultimately, there is reason behind every act no matter how horrid. no matter how unreasonable, the reason one thinks of is always justified on their end. whatever everyone else thinks pay little effect on whether the act is fulfilled or not. also, her little laugh? i’m extra deceased.

the animation's fire as always wtf

oh but my kokoro... oof... my kokoro... ugh...

I’M SO FUCKING DONE AJKFHAKJBVAK- WE BEAT A HARBINGER AND FOR WHAT? she should’ve just tossed that gnosis into the ocean or smth...

HAH OMG SCARAMOUCHE. WHAT A MAN. I’M- I WAS RIGHT OMG. I HAD A LIL THEORY AND ITS JUST SMTH I HAD IN THE BACK OF MY MIND. I NEVER THOUGHT IT’LL ACTUALLY COME TRUE DEAR LORD. so now ig i have to admit i think abt him a lot and he has a soft spot in my heart 🥺 he’s evil you see and you know what my type is? evil men or at the very least, men with the potential to be evil. ugh so annoying.

scaramouche banner when

bc i sold everything worthy of money in me (read as my organs) for albedo, i'll sell my soul for him how about that?

EYE- makoto huh… well… fuck…

it’s day 400 of being ayato less even if he’s like… teased a million of times (jk it’s like… a grand total of seven but thats still p high)

im so… sigh…

i wonder if i’m still alive by the time sumeru releases… at the very least, i know my brain wouldn’t be.

....we were literally a captain for like... one second. that is so sad.

#˗ˋˏ°• afternoon tea rambles •°ˎˊ˗#inazuma spoilers

14 notes · View notes

juniorfics · 3 years

Text

Favorite color

mina x GN!reader

written by: R

word count: 1.8k

Warning!: one-sided pining, the word dude used as slang, slight angst, and just a wee bit of internalized homophobia (but only for like, a paragraph) ((also, mina might be slightly out of character, so..sorry about that :p))

y/n was distraught.

No, distraught wasn't the right word...conflicted maybe? Well, whatever the correct word is, they were feeling it.

Allow me to give a bit of context; you see, y/n was crushing on someone. Quite aggressively, actually. they couldn't stop thinking about them. the way they smiled, the way their hair bounced slightly when they walked, the way they could brighten a room so easily with only their presence. Yes, y/n was crushing, but that wasn't the issue. they've had many crushes before. So many, some would see it as a bit of a problem. No, the crushing itself wasn't a huge deal, rather, it was who the crush was on. The gender of the person, to be more specific.

y/n was always more attracted to guys, never finding herself attracted to females in any sort of romantic way. But ever since their first year of high school had begun, it seemed to them that that might not be the case anymore. All because of a certain pink-haired individual. Well, pink hair is a bit of an understatement. Everything about her is pink! Her hair, her skin, her personality, everything! And it suited her too, the color pink. She was a very bright and optimistic person, looking to the bright side of things as often as she could, making others happy by just simply being herself. Not to mention she was very pretty to look at, but that’s more of an opinion that can vary from person to person.

It's pretty safe to say that y/n was more than a bit confused when these feelings first emerged. they can practically pinpoint the moment it happened- when all this crushing began. It was during the school festival, back when they were all still first years. To be more precise, it was when 1-A was performing their concert. The two of them hadn't been in the same class at the time, in fact, y/n wasn't even planning on going to the concert at all, but their friend had convinced them that it would be fun, and they eventually caved, agreeing to go only if he would buy them a strawberry-banana crepe afterward. They had managed to get good seats near the front and patiently waited for the show to start. Then, the lights went out, the curtains opened, and a bunch of people, including their friend, began shouting out the name of one of the girls on stage. ‘Fanboys..’ they thought, waiting for the show to start. Then, before they knew it, the music started, and a bunch of dancers came out. That's when they saw her- Ashido. they had remembered her from the sports festival, as well as seeing her in the hallway a few times. they thought nothing of it and continued enjoying the show. But then, something happened that would change y/n’s perception of the world forever- Ashido had winked.

Granted, Ashido hadn't winked directly at her, rather to that general area of the audience, but y/n saw it nonetheless, and suddenly, their heart had started beating faster, their face steadily increasing in temperature, their hands went clammy and their mouth went dry. Why were they feeling like this? they had never reacted to anything as subtle as a wink this aggressively before. Plus, they had never developed a crush for someone this quickly before, ever! Even their fastest crush had taken a day to develop. ‘Wait, crush? No, I can't have a crush on her! That-that's impossible!’ they thought, shaking their head. they had tuned out the rest of the concert at this point. ‘I don’t like her! No, I can't like her! I like guys! Dudes! Men! people who portray as masculine! I don't like girls! Never have, never will!’ they thought, the words sounding like screams to them. 'And besides! The wink probably wasn't even for me. There's no way she could even see me among all these other people! Yeah, it was probably just to the crowd.’ that's what they told themself, but there was a small voice in the back of their mind that stayed with them for the rest of the day, once the concert was over, while they were eating the crepe they were promised, while they were lying in their bed in the middle of the night; “what if it was for me? What if she did see me? What if she winked at me?’

Over the next few months, they had come to terms with their emotions, accepting the fact that they did, indeed, have a crush on Ashido. Well, less of a crush, more of an obsession. But hey, this was how they always handled these things. their feelings were still a bit confusing, but they couldn't just ignore them. they promised themselves a long time ago that they would always acknowledge their feelings, no matter who they were for. So this has become y/n’s current dilemma. They were already halfway through their second year and they hadn't even made an attempt at confessing. However, a few weeks ago, they decided that they would confess on the last day of April.

Which just so happened to be today.

y/n was extremely nervous. they were gonna confess her feelings, of course they were nervous! But they told themself they would, and that's what they were gonna do.

The final bell rang, and school was officially over. y/n practically jumped out of their seat, speed walking out of the classroom, and into the hallway. This was it! they were gonna confess her feelings! they had to find Ashido first, though. Luckily, they had memorized Ashido’s schedule, and what hallways she normally took, so this wouldn't really be a problem. Yes, a bit stalkerish, but it came in handy for moments like this. Finally, they got to the hallway they needed to be at and waited for a moment. Soon enough, a bunch of footsteps, along with idle chatter, got closer and closer, and closer, until-

“Aghhh, today’s training was super tough today! I'm so soreee…”

“Right? I can barely feel my legs, it's like I'm walking on jello,”

“It doesn't help that midterms are coming up as well, my brain is just as sore,”

y/n watched as the friend group passed by, not even noticing them. Just when they were far enough so it didn't seem creepy, they walked out, clearing their throat.

“U-um...Ashido?”

The group turned around, signs of confusion on their faces. The girl in question stepped towards them slightly, a small bounce in her step.

“Hmm?”

y/n’s face tinted pink. they hoped it wasn't too noticeable. “U-uh, hi. I-i know you don't know me, b-but do you think I could talk to you for a sec? I-it won't take long, promise!” they blurted out, hands behind their back.

Ashido smiled, thinking it was probably a shy fan or something. “Yea, of course! What's up?”

There was a small silence.

“...a-alone?” y/n muttered, their face getting slightly redder.

Ashido blinked. “Oh, alright!-” she turned to her friends, making a small shooing motion with her hand.- “you guys go on ahead! I'll catch up later,”

“Well, okay. Just don't take too long, or we're gonna get boba tea without you!” the blonde one joked, waving behind him as the other two followed after him. Ashido stuck her tongue out at them, before chuckling and turning back to face y/n.

“So, what were you saying?” she said, smiling at them.

y/n almost had a heart attack. ‘So cute..’ they thought, fidgeting with the hem of their shirt. “W-well, I just wanted to-”

“Wait...you’re the crush dude, right?” Ashido questioned, snapping her fingers as if she had an ‘aha!’ moment.

y/n blinked. “...c-crush dude?”

“Yea! I've heard about you from some of the general student kids!”

“O-oh...well I just wanted to tell you that-”

“Wait, WAIT! Don't tell me...you like one of my friends, right?”

“H-huh? No, that's not-”

“Lemme guess, it's Denki, isn't it? Wait, no, you don't really seem like you’d be into him...what about Hanta? He's pretty cool, and you guys would look good together! Ooh, did you want me to tell him to you? Cause I can do that if you want-”

“ASHIDO!” y/n yelled, getting frustrated. Ashido froze, looking at y/n. She admits that she does have a tendency to talk over people, but she definitely didn't expect someone like y/n to flat out yell at her. y/n took a deep breath, looking back at Ashido.

“Look, i-I'm sorry I yelled, it's just- I have something really important I wanna tell you.” they looked at the ground, their blush getting darker. Ashido wasn't saying anything, so they began speaking again.

“I-i don't like any of your friends...I like you, Ashido. A-and I'm not entirely sure if you swing that way or anything, to be honest, I didn't think I did either, but here I am!” they chuckled nervously, staring at their shoes. “A-anyway, what I'm trying to say is, y-you don't have to reciprocate, I-i just thought you should know.”

they looked up, finally ready to see Ashido's reaction, and- blank. Her face was completely blank. y/n could feel tears welling up in their eyes. Had they said something wrong? Who were they kidding, of course they had. they had confessed to a girl. Ashido probably thought they were super weird. To make matters worse, they’ve never even spoken to each other before this! y/n had completely screwed up. If there was any sort of chance that they could've been friends, let alone romantic partners, it was all gone now. they sniffed, wiping their eyes. they turned around, not wanting to hear any of the comments they expected.

“Hey, wait!”

they froze, turning back around. Ashido was a few steps closer now, a look of concern on her face. She looked like she had to say something, but couldn't find the words to do so. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke, clearly nervous.

“Well, first of all, thank you for telling me. I appreciate it. And, um…” her face began getting pinker. “I...I wouldn't mind going on a date. A-as long as you’re comfortable with it, of course.” she smiled, rubbing the back of her neck.

A date? y/n couldn't believe it. they were speechless. they didn't think they were weird, or a freak, or anything? “You...you don't think I'm weird? We’ve never even talked..”

“Well, that may be true, but that's what dates are for, right? To get to know someone better! Plus, it would be nice being seen in public with someone as cute as you!” she winked, a huge grin on her face.

‘C-cute?!?!? She thinks I'm cute!! Omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg-’ y/n’s face was practically as red as an apple, but so was Ashido's, so they felt a little bit better about it.

“Y-yeah, a date sounds wonderful,” they said, fidgeting with the hem of their shirt again. “I-i’m free on the 4th!”

“Alrighty then! Here, gimme your phone.”

They then traded numbers, and Ashido ran off to meet up with her friends again, promising to work out the details later. y/n smiled.

Yep, there was no denying it- pink was definitely their favorite color.

#Mina #Ashido #Mina Ashido #mina x reader #mina x y/n #y/n #favorite color #bnha #my hero academia #my hero x reader #mha #slight angst #just a tad bit of homophobia #please dont cancel me for this-#yuri #fanfiction #fanfic

13 notes · View notes

toysoldiers-rwby · 3 years

Text

[CS] 11. Error. Permission Denied

Cutting Strings

Characters: Penny Polendina, May Marigold, Winter Schnee Word Count: 6.5k

Healing isn’t always a painless experience.

Read on Ao3

PREV - NEXT

Archive Encrypted.

Ciel and Xanthic were already at the Polendina Facility when Winter’s summon landed. Aro was still sleeping, and without any knees she was a little difficult to carry but May figured out a way to gently cradle Aro against her.

Xanthic scowled and jogged up to them, “Dr. Polendina and my bots just finished a room for her,” May nodded and quietly left. Xanthic then glared at Winter who was already a little exhausted, “And you! Just because she’s not in critical condition doesn’t mean you can just run off with her!” She nearly yelled. Her voice then dipped into a whisper, “Second, tell me before you bust her out! There was a lot of witnesses but I erased the footage anyway.”

“You know Aro doesn’t do well in confined spaces,” Winter argued. Knowing she gets rather stubborn and impulsive behavior is less controlled when she’s angry, Penny concluded she snuck Aro out without thinking, “Staying there would have caused unnecessary stress and panic.”

Xanthic frowned. She calmed a little and crossed her arms, “You don’t want to take that fall, Schnee.” She said carefully. Penny stepped next to Winter and was a little surprised to see a subdued expression. Ciel and Penny exchanged confused and lightly concerned glances. Xanthic didn’t sneer but instead walked inside the facility with her partner.

“That seemed like it was more than it appeared…” Penny noted.

“Xanthic censors a lot of the rumors that circulate around our little social circle,” Winter explained. Her voice had a weary edge to it and her expression was a little sad, “She was just reminding me to be careful.”

For now her processors where trying to find a solution to a problem other people were more than capable of handling. She knew Aurora was okay whenever her partner was in her immediate vicinity but once May took her inside, Penny started to worry. Winter took her hand again and held it tight for a moment.

“I want you to hear this from me,” Winter started it. For some reason it activated Penny’s fight protocols. She may have squeezed her hand harder than necessary but the soldier pushed on. “Aro nearly ended up in a coma.”

Penny’s felt like she was in zero gravity again. Her gyroscope spinning wildly as she fumbled for the ground she firmly stood on. She watched Winter’s calm face slowly slip into worry.

Then Penny felt too many things at once.

She squeezed Winter’s hand, consciously harder than she should, “You shouldn’t have snuck her out.” Winter flinched a little, she did nod in agreement. Then an immense fear and worry. Aurora told them she was okay but what if that changes. “What if she gets worse!”

Winter gave her a small smile. It was completely unguarded and even her strong shoulders relaxed. “I’ve known Aurora for years now. She survived worse.”

“Her brain nearly melted!” Penny’s Aura built up in her eyes. It was pressure that couldn’t escape and glitched out her ability to focus. Her eyes kept wandering until Winter gently cupped her cheek.

Her pale face was the only thing her frying processors could focus on. She looked confused, thumb brushing near the corner of her water-less eyes. Penny threw herself into Winter’s arms. She was hugged tightly but her Aura still felt like it was pushing at all of her seams.

“She survived the reason she has those cybernetics didn’t she?” Winter murmured.

“I… I don’t want to hear it.” Penny choked. Every system and protocol was conflicting with each other and her synthetic voice came out uneven. “Reason and rational isn’t working right now. I know Aurora is going to be okay but- but it doesn’t feel like it!”

“Sometimes you need to ride through it,” Winter whispered. Penny found her eyes closed, face pressed to her chest. “What can I do to help you?”

“I don’t know!”

“… And that’s okay. We’ll figure it out, Penn.”

For a moment Penny thought everything went offline. She heard a soft and steady beeping along with the sound of breathily purrs and a light snoring. When she finally opened her eyes she slowly focused on Winter. She was tired, worry pinching her brows and corner of her lips. She still stood strong yet the ungloved hand that cupped Aurora’s sleeping face was gentle.

So light Penny felt like if she looked away it would float away from memory. Instead another one drifted in, You should kiss her, her simulators and memory must have malfunctioned at the same time because in her head she heard May’s voice instead of Winters and Penny knew something about that sentence was altered.

Then she noticed the room and the machines. An IV of cool saline running through Aro’s system to keep her temperature down. All the monitors showed signs of health like she wasn’t in danger of her own systems. Then she noticed a warm hug and arms around her. She turned enough to get a good look at May.

At first Aro’s nickname for her made Penny… uncomfortable but for May, it was accurate. Her face was a little rounder than Winter, skin a few shades tanner and… Penny gently cradled May’s face, detecting the temperature difference between her jaw and the blush that always dusted across her cheeks.

Winter, Aurora, and a few other Huntresses traded the arbitrary title of Most Attractive Women of Atlas, but Penny was starting to think May might be the most beautiful. She brushed the loose strands of hair behind her ear and found herself coming through nearly and arm length. She looked nearly unrecognizable without the lion tail wrap controlling it.

During one of her passes Penny much have pressed a little too hard because May stirred. She tried to pull Penny close but with her weight, Penny had to cuddle closer least she wakes up. Her other hand started to pat blindly at the space behind Penny. The more she grabbed at empty air the more displeased she was in her sleep. Winter came up behind them, hand sliding into May’s just as she woke.

“Good morning,” Winter said. She smiled at the pair and brought a kiss to May’s wrist. May mumbled indistinguishable words in an affectionate tone. Content May let go and Winter’s hand gently cupped Penny’s cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Immediately upon awakening? Dazed and lethargic. Presently?” Penny thought about it. She saw Aro on the bed, unconscious but stable. She was surrounded by two elite Huntresses with enough stimuli from the skin contact to keep her Aura active through her system. There was something she couldn’t quiet grasp, an emotion her processors struggled to identify because of so many variables and history and behaviors of the three ladies. “Safe and comfortable. I should be content but… I’m not.” Penny frowned. Her body had no needs so why didn’t she feel fulfilled.

Winter and May locked up for a second and stiffly glanced at each other. Winter licked her lips, her cheeks pinking ever so slightly. “… Really?”

"Good morning, Platinum!" Xanthic’s voice sang loudly into the room.

“Gah!” May practically screamed. She half jumped, half thrashed her way onto her feet. At the door was both the hacker and Dr. Pietro. Penny smiled getting to her feet and pushing past two very nervous looking Huntresses. “Good morning… sir…” May mumbled, “Xanthic.” For one she didn’t address the hacker with guarded anger.

“Good morning father!” Penny said, adding a hug to the greeting.

“Good morning, darling,” Dr. Pietro smiled at her. His grin grew a little when he looked at May and Winter. Penny tilted her head. She could tell Winter was struggling with her composure. Her movements were a little too stiff. May always worn her heart on her sleeve and she looked extremely guilty with blood crawling up her neck and cheeks. Perhaps she could go and comfort the women? Though the way she hunch in on herself seemed withdrawn, so Penny decided against it. “Good morning, Ms. Schnee, Ms. Marigold.”

“… Sir,” Winter’s voice was clipped and she barely nodded her head. It was more of a small bow and a reason to glance away for a moment. She regained herself and looked at Xanthic. “Platinum? Is that a… team name?”

“Me and Robyn’s other two misfits were talking about it,” Xanthic said with a grin. Her eye cybernetic eyes constantly glowed but this time it looked far to amused. “P-A-W-M. All of you are rich, two is heavily cybernetic, Winter usually has a heart as cold as steel and May is… dense.” In an oddly passive behavior, May lightly glared at Xanthic.

“It is a rather appropriate team name,” Dr. Pietro mused, “And you four tend to gravitate to each other.” This time her father’s eyes were twinkling in amusement while May looked ready to feint. Winter endured it, posture like a soldier but she was blushing rather hard now.

Penny frowned up at the pair, “Are you two okay?”

“F-Fine!” May barked out, voice squeaking a little. She cleared her throat but didn’t relax.

“Relax! I’m just teasing,” Dr. Pietro laughed. “Penny, Ms. Soleil is in the kitchen making breakfast, would you kindly help her?”

“Of course!” Penny smiled. She hugged her father once more before leaving. Oddly Xanthic was the only one following. She glanced back to see her father nonverbally gesturing for the Huntresses to stay. Xanthic laughed and pushed Penny forward. “Xan… why does it feel like I’m not quite understanding the full context here?”

“Because I’m pretty sure you and Aro are not neural typical,” Xanthic’s hand heavily clasp her shoulder. But it wasn’t a menacing gesture, the grin on the hacker’s face was too happy for that.

“Good morning,” Ciel greeted as the pair entered the kitchen. Xanthic took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of fried bacon and rice. Penny’s systems didn’t have any olfaction or gustatory simulating hardware but she hummed in appreciation for Ciel’s work. It was usually Xanthic that helped in the kitchen, or cooked outright but Penny took over the cutting station, slicing some meats and greens with mathematical accuracy and factory precision.

“Think you two can multitask?” Xanthic asked, “There’s somethings me and Glade should have told you two.”

“I think there’s a lot of things you need to confess,” Ciel said. She took the diced foods and sprinkled them over a cooking omelet. When she didn’t get the usual bite back the officer paused and raised a brow at her partner. “Alright. You’re being boring so this is actually serious… Oh.”

On the table was a hovering projection of Aro and Xanthic’s body. Their organic parts were in a muted gray. The cybernetic additions that was readily visible was in a vibrant blue, that included the cybernetics that raised out of the back of their heads. The color muted as it entered the body. Blue lines crawled deep into their brains, branching off into many directions. Another bulk of it traveled down Xanthic’s spine a little.

For Aro it traveled all the way down to her legs.

A coma was just one of the things that could have gone wrong. Penny quickly set the knife down and took a deep, even breath. She cleaned her hands with a rag, everything working without though as her processors tried to shut down her overactive simulators. Aro was covering, in a room with her father and Winter and May.

Instead she distracted herself by remembering Aro’s file. As Dr. Peitro’s assistant, Aurora Glade was one of the few civilian personal files Penny was installed with. She was from Menagerie, moved to Atlas five years ago.

Two years ago some SDC executives from the Watts family went to Vacuo for a business trip. Aro accompanied them. Despite Aro’s survival my military personal considered the rescue mission a failure.

“Official records state that there were a handful of survivors*,”* Xanthic told Ciel. “Only the family attendants and Glade survived.”

“Didn’t peg you for a servant,” Ciel said, crossing her arms.

Again Xanthic smirked, “Bitch, I live as many different lives I’d want. Anyway,” Xanthic tapped at the Scroll again. Slowly some parts of Aro’s cybernetics turned red many of the components in her legs turned a deep red. It faded along her spine but there was another intense patch of red in Aro’s skull.

Very close to her brain.

“People with intense augmentation such as me, Glade, Penny and Ironwood need Dust to run our cybernetics.” Xanthic started. Penny felt her Aura panic wildly in her chest. The statement was true. But for Penny and Ironwood the power was housed in her chest and had several fail safe to prevent it from overheating non-replaceable equipment, such as her memory core. None of Ironwood’s cybernetics was directly integrated with his organic neural network, instead input was transferred via the bluetooth transmitter on his forehead.

“Aro has three power units, one for each leg and the base of her skull for her aids.” Xanthic explained, drawing out the shape of Aro’s horns with her hands. “We’re getting rid of the dust core with these upgrades but if the back of our heads gets too damaged or overloaded with power, lightning Dust, whatever we’re done…” She made the motion of slicing off her own head with a clean flick of her wrist.

“You two are a video game boss, got it,” Ciel said turning around and resuming cooking. The bored drawl took both Penny and Xanthic by surprised. It stopped the panic from spreading and she looked at Xanthic, curious about her reaction. Interestingly the hacker had a slight flush and a surprised anger on her face.

“… Bitch. See if I open up again,” Xanthic grumbled quietly to herself.

“What was that?” Ciel asked. She kept her voice flat and disinterested but from her angle, Penny could see both their expressions. Ciel glanced at Penny and gave her a small smile and a wink.

“The operation will be around 6pm.” Xanthic lied with some bite. She surrendered the white Scroll Dr. Pietro lent her, “Here are the schematics so far. Since you are her partner we’ll like your input but Glade will have the last word.”

“That’d be a first.”

“Aurora!” Penny gasped and turned around. She saw green hair and horns, all the little detail turned into a blur as Penny launched herself at Aro.

For once Penny slipped past the Glyph but May quickly intercepted. She grunted hard, taking the full on tackle of a metal women plus the additional force of pushing into it. Penny was a little surprised at her strength but happy enough to wrap her arms around anything she touched. So May was good practice.

“Ow, loosen up Penn,” May said with a small laugh. Still she affectionately ran a hand through her hair- or was about too. She suddenly stiffen and it changed to awkwardly patting her head. Penny frowned in disappointment. May and Winter tried to hid their smiles at the pout. Behind them Aro and Dr. Peitro laughed. She managed to walk over on unsteady legs to play with Penny’s puffed out cheeks.

“Ms. Glade is still injured,” Dr. Pietro said and signed. Penny was a little surprised at how fluidly his hands moved. His sign language wasn’t as good as May’s but he was Aro’s mentor years before.

“Technically, I suppose,” Aro sighed with a slightly amused smile. Penny promised to be gentle. She let go of May and gently hugged her partner. Penny noted that Aro squeezed back with only a fraction of her strength at maximum effort. But she was alive and not in a coma. So Penny squeezed just a little harder and buried her face in the warmth of her shoulder and neck.

For once breakfast was almost peaceful. Possibly because Xanthic was half busy talking about the possible upgrades with the Polendinas and occasionally Aro. The mechanic was a little slow and lethargic from the anesthesia. Her sea green eyes would sometimes glaze over from behind her glasses and it looked like she fell asleep for a few seconds. It happened less as the morning passed. One startling adjustment was Aro’s deafness, it was much more pronounced with her older aids. She preferred sign language over verbal communication, happy to converse with May or to teach them new signs.

Occasionally Winter and May would give the hacker an odd glance or they seem to stay a little too long at Penny. Whenever Penny gave them a confused look they both blushed and turned away.

“If the brat is working here, I’ll like to request time to visit my family.” Ciel said glancing at Aro and Winter for permission. Aro blinked and raised a brow.

“If the bat… Oh! Brat,” Aro glanced at Xanthic with a sneer. “I’m not worried about falling behind in lectures. Robyn can drop us off. I have…” She looked at Winter and May, “Plans…”

Under the table there was a hard sound and Xanthic visibly wincing. Everyone paused to stare at the hacker. She tried very hard to keep her composure but ended up crumbling a little from pain. Ciel’s snort and hard laugh broke the stunned silence, “Did you really try to kick her metal legs? Bare foot?”

“Shut it,” Xanthic hissed, “One. No eating or drinking five hours before the operation. Two. Be more descriptive, you idiot! It sounds like your ditching them.” May and Winter frowned. If Penny had to guess why, it was that Xanthic knew Aro’s secret while the pair was kept in the dark. Penny laughed at the soft envious look on their face.

Aro rolled her sea-green eyes. With a little more confidence she gave May and Winter a small smile, “I have a surprise for you two, and no… it’s not me disappearing.” She looked at May and sign, “I promise.”

The huntresses seemed to relax but Penny frowned, “You’re in no condition to set up a party.”

“It’s not…” Aurora had to pause, a deep embarrassed flush blooming across her face and to her wiggling ears. “Joanna, Robyn and Fiona are helping me. I’m just… getting a haircut.”

“You are a shitty liar without Focus, Ms. Glade,” Winter said with a sigh. Aro made a complaining whine but didn’t argue. She didn’t look guilty but had trouble finding the words. It didn’t help that May looked rather skeptical. “How long?”

“Two hours tops!” Aurora said earnestly, fist clenched tight and wiggling before her. Penny was remind of a child at first. But then remembered Xanthic’s comment about needing a possible diagnosis from a psychotic. Perhaps it was more of a physical stimulation habit? No matter the reason, Penny smiled back. It was an adorable display of happiness from her partner that could have ended up in a coma or worse-

“I suppose that’d give us time to… discuss things with Penny.” Winter said. Penny took a small breath, trying to focus on the present. She focused on the slow blush that raised to Winter’s pale cheeks. She was trying to maintain her composure but slowly crumbled. Penny and Aro laughed softly at it.

The Mantle members of APCX headed back to Atlas with a curtsy ride from the rather happy group of huntresses, minus May. Fiona was practically bouncing in place while Joanna was grinning widely. Robyn was the only calm huntress of the group. May didn’t speak much. She signed gently with Aro, possibly trying to staying or to allow her to help. Fiona groaned and had to push May away.

"Take the hint, Marigold! It’s a surprise for PASM!"

“… You really did talk about it with Xan…” Winter murmured giving her former teammate a disbelieving look.

May just shook her head “Oh! Yeah but…” May still looked nervous. Penny wondered if that’s how she looked as soon as Aro left her sight yesterday. As a precautionary measure Penny took May’s hand and squeezed it, similar to Winter’s strategy of calming her down. May looked down at her and squeezed back but the worry never left her face. “Promise me you’ll be careful, alright? Dr. Pietro said to-”

“Avoid anything that’s heat up my neural augments, don’t manipulate Dust, let my Aura recharge,” Aurora said droned on in a playfully bored tone. She rolled her sea green eyes, “I have three people to makes sure I don’t do anything too stupid.” Fiona giggled hooking their arms together and tugging Aro to the airship.

“She’s been planning this thing for almost a year and I don’t have your patience!” Fiona said. She pulled a little hard, making Aro jerk and stumble a little. May let out a distressed noise and tried to surge forward but Penny linked their arms tightly. With her superior strength she kept May rooted to that spot while Fiona hurriedly dragged Aro onto the ship with a laugh. “You’ll thank us later.”

“See you soon!” Aro called out as the door closed. May grumbled staring as the airship left with a sad pout.

“What me and Penny aren’t good company?” Winter asked a little teasingly.

May pouted a little harder, arms crossed. “It’s not the same without Aro… and… and her semblance is off because of the drugs so I wanted to spent some time with her.” She said softly. An sympathetic silence fell over the three. She did manipulate the General of an entire Kingdom and misleading May seemed to be a common occurrence in the past.

Penny could not simulate the history the other two went through and she only knew Aurora for nearly two months now but there wasn’t a day they haven’t been at each other’s side. "Her company is always a pleasure, but even more so without Focus," Penny agreed squeezing her hand. “But… If you waited five years to be romantically involved-” At the word May grumbled and tried to run. Winter laughed gently and stepped in her way. Penny pouted, complete with a soft verbal que to get May’s attention. Penny grinned and giggled to see how flush her face was. It reminded her of the Welcoming Fair. “Your patients is astounding, Two hours should be easy for you.”

Winter stepped in close, standing shoulder to shoulder in leu of linking arms, and leading May away from the military facility.

“Speaking of romantic intentions…” Winter started. There was a light blush on her cheeks again but not as bad as May’s, who’s flush caused her steps to falter a little. Penny quickly slid her hand up, linked her arms with May and helping her catch her feet. “Penny… you mentioned earlier you wanted something more,” Penny nodded. It was a conversation still in her cache memory, “Were you talking romantically?”

Penny paused. She looked her hand joined with May’s. Her scheduled maintenance reminded her of all the reason they weren’t compatible. She needed to change knee and ankle joints due to the heavy impacts from her dive maneuvers with Floating Array, her gyroscope needed an upgrade to adjust to Aro’s artificial gravity that was in constant flux. Penny’s artificial nature…

“I… I don’t think I’m capable of romantic-” Penny’s explanation was cut short. May snorted back a laugh but it slipped out of her anyway. She pulled her arm until their hands were intertwined again and held them to Penny’s face. Her face was oddly smuggled for the blush on her cheeks. Beside her Winter raised a brow with a small grin as well. Penny huffed back at them, pouting a little as her Aura stirred up excess heat. “It’s a comforting gesture!”

“Y-yes…” May blushed and looked away. “But you do it when we’re not sad or stressed.”

“I like the physicality,” Penny admitted looking down at her feet for a moment. Touch was such an odd sensation. There was so many things behind it from texture to application, and in this case context. She was inexperienced many of its but not ignorant of them.

“I understand returning Aro’s physical gestures, but you’ve never cuddle Ciel or Xanthic.” Winter stated.

“Because they are different people.” Penny answered. With the current line of inquires Penny was able to spot the one information she was missing. “What’s the difference between romantic and platonic affection? Aro blows kisses and cuddles with Fiona.”

The two paused for a moment, stunned. Then May let out a soft human growl of frustration under her breath, “Aurora… Making shit hard even when you’re not here.”

“Platonic and romantic affection can be very similar…” Winter mumbled, “But with many people there is a distinct difference, they usually aren’t as physical as we are.” She glanced at their joined hands with a small smile.

Penny tilted her head. Her simulators tried to create a scenario of the four dating but she couldn’t imagine anything new, “What would be different?” She asked.

“I’d get to kiss you,” Winter said. The new tone and intensity surprised Penny. For a moment her shoulders squared and eyes darken in a way that sent her Aura spiking unevenly throughout her body in a shiver and pleasant hum. Several offensive protocols were triggered, but one protective code caused an odd malfunction. It was a challenge she wanted to win and lose, watch and participate. Penny refused to turn away from those blue eyes but she did tilt her head in confusion.

“By the Goddess and Brothers…” May muttered softly. She was a little short of breath and couldn’t meet either of their eyes. “She’s a top.”

“You didn’t pick that up during the Welcoming Fair?” Winter asked with a raised brow. May didn’t respond verbally, she was a little too embarrassed. She flashed several rude signs.

During their talk Winter had steered the group to the bubble tea place they had visited when Penny first met them. May quickly fled inside to order their drinks, leaving Penny giggling while Winter laughed softly. They took a seat at the same table Winter had sat her down after her first panic attack.

Penny took Winter’s hand and squeezed it gently. She recalled the memory for nearly two months ago. It was different with Aro, no excited buzz in the air or a lazy ocean calm. It was different with Winter now too. In the past and present Winter was happy and content, but there was subtle differences in behaviors… Now her touch lingered longer, she seemed content to be in Penny’s presence rather than completing an objective.

“I think I understand what you mean by platonic and romantic affection,” Penny said. The memory of the Welcoming Fair came to mind, the happiness she felt light in her chest as she watched Aurora and Winter hide in plain sight with affectionate touches. Ciel ended up winning back the money she lost during the first bet but Penny felt like she benefited the most from it. “Though I don’t know if I am capable of romantic relationships…”

“Your father mentioned something similar when he was talking with us,” Winter said. “Aurora… confessed that she only had one romantic partner.” For a moment Winter’s gentle expression soured and she glanced away at Penny, “which ended up with her unable to control her semblance.”

“Oh…” Penny felt… oddly relieved but a little furious. Relieved that she wasn’t the only inexperienced member, furious that someone hurt Aro so much her semblance couldn’t deactivate.

“Would you like to try it?” Winter whispered. The slight wavering and fear in her voice was an alarmingly new inflection. Penny didn’t like it and she tried to comfort Winter by rubbing her thumb over Winter’s and squeezing her hand. “Date all three of us?”

“Hm…” Penny ran a quick simulation but no matter what parameters she set she kept getting an error. “You three are only people I’m interested in trying with.”

Penny hadn’t realized how rigid the other women had become until all tension melted from Winter. Her spin relaxed and she looked almost smaller somehow- Penny tried to hold in a gasp, her sensors flaring wildly as her analytic systems tried to interpret a new sensation. A simple and gentle kiss to her fingers.

“Your father also explicitly asked us to take it slow,” Winter added, “He was rather confident we’d be able to restrain ourselves to your pace, since we waited for Aurora.”

“It was really embarrassing,” May said. The two jerked apart, head looking wildly for their third partner. Penny’s systems kept directing her forward but her visual analysis confirmed… May dropped her invisibility field, a tray of four drinks in one hand and a Scroll with a blinking recording light in the other. Her face was almost as red as Winter’s and a bright grin on her face. “You were always such a white knight, Winn.”

“I can’t believe- You recorded it?!”

“Aro would want to see it!” May protested. “Would you rather have Xan show her a recording?”

“Ugh, please don’t mention her,” Winter groaned relaxing back to the table, shoulder pressed comforting against Penny. May only pocked her Scroll and quickly pulled the pair up by their joined hands with a laugh.

“Aurora’s done! We’re meeting her in Mantle.”

“That was not two hours. Not even an hour,” Winter frowned.

"She did say two hours maximum," Penny clarified. She linked her arms with Winter. At first she tensed then relaxed and leaned into her, she glanced down at Penny with a warm smile it nearly overheated Penny’s power unit. Winter leaned back into her.

Winter may have misused her rank to get the fastest transport as soon as possible and May might have pushed her semblance a little far so Penny could pilot the airship beyond safe city limitations. They didn’t end up at Aro’s home or a salon, instead it was a body modification shop with experimental dust procedures called Turk’s Bodily Transformations.

Penny and May gave Winter a worried glance. Amongst the three she was the most experience Dust user, so she would understand the full consequences of direct applications of Dust on an organic body.

“Joanna Greenleaf…” Winter muttered between gritting teeth.

Through the window they could see Joanna and Robyn calmly chatted on the couch till they both saw them through the window. Robyn waved them in. It was a small race between May and Penny, both women quickly walking to the door. May’s longer legs entered the body modification shop first, the door hitting a soft wind chime. Penny paused a little. It was rare to see hinged doors instead of hydraulic ones.

“You three got here fast,” Joanna said with a light sneer. “Has that patience finally worn out, May?”

“Shut up,” May mumbled, “We’re just worried.”

“You can worry for a few more minutes… or an hour,” A voice behind the sectioned room and curtain said. The sound of a tattoo gun paused and a head marked with ink and some metal poked through the curtain for a second. Penny caught the wicked grin and altered fangs as she disappeared again. “Oh wow! They are pretty. Azure and Arctic would be jealous.”

May frowned glancing at Robyn and Joanna, “Who…” They both signed they didn’t know. But judging from the décor and atmosphere of the body shop, they were people from Menagerie. The style was almost Minstral but the Faunus had a distinctively functional design to them. Surviving outside the Kingdoms was difficult, so they adopted any advantage they could find while keeping their Faunus pride. This included Atlesian fashion and technology. Much like Aro it was a mix of two cultures.

“Can you not!” Aro said complained softly. She got scolded for squirming and it took a few seconds for the tattoo gun to hum again. “And I’m not getting the full piece… I don’t even feel right getting this one.”

“Brothers above and below know you deserve it,” they heard an unfamiliar voice say. “Can you activate your Aura for a second again? Thank you. Rumor has it Sienna regrets not intervening. If you were there Menagerie would probably have a CCTV tower by now.”

“Hopefully with the transfer my… the Glaives can get one up soon.”

“If the Glaives don’t out right leave Menagerie,” Turk snorted. “Alright! I think…” They’re voice paused. The tattoo gun took frequent pauses as the last marks and touch ups were made.

“Oh my, it looks great Aro! Don’t look, there’s still a little blood.” Fiona suddenly said from behind the curtain.

“Aura please. Thank you.” There was a short quite pause. Penny finally heard the sound of water, a little miniature stream and pond on the desk. Next to it was a portfolio laid open. Penny flipped through it. Surprisingly it was all Faunus with various of modifications. Unsurprisingly some of them were a cybernetic. Penny was particularly interested in the Faunus women with gills on her neck, a thick metal plat protruding from her spine and a hard-light tail extending from it, like a sting-ray.

“And done!”

“May! Get out the surprise isn’t finished yet!” Fiona yelled. Penny turned to see the curtains fluttering. Fiona shoving May away and seating her by Winter. “You waited five years! Just a few more seconds so she could get dressed.”

“Yeah you perv,” Robyn taunted with a laugh.

The shop owner left the private room first. They smiled eyes a lit with a kind of predatory amusement. She walked straight to May and offered her hand. “I’m Turk! Pleasure to finally meet Aurora’s mate.”

May choked and faulted hand wavering in the air. They threw their head back, rumbling laughter coming from deep in their Faunus gut. Turk’s hand clasp around May’s wrist in a forearm shake.

“Turk, please don’t harass her.” Aro pleased.

“Very well Ms… Glade,” Turk said walking behind their counter. They stripped the gloves off their hands and went about cleaning various of shelves and drawers.

“I-I’m not- Fiona!?” The curtain fluttered again. Fiona emerged first, forcefully pulling a half dressed Aurora… Glade. Penny’s processors slowly hyper focused on the new in slipping between nearly exposed breast. Then up to her collarbone where it flared out a little, and deliciously higher to her neck. It was a mix of circuit board wiring and tribal Menagerie designs.

“You… you weren’t lying about the haircut,” May noted. Penny saw the Huntress awestruck at Aro’s face. Penny gasped and quickly walked over. She made sure not to collide into her like how she wanted too and made sure to keep her hands off Aro’s chest, least May scolds her again. Instead she ran her hands over the buzzed sides of Aro’s head.

“It feels so soft!” Penny gasped. Aro giggled as her fingers passed over her scared Faunus ears. They flicked free when Penny played with the new piercings in them. Then her hands traced the cybernetics going deep into her skull.

“But… you’re image?” Winter mumbled. “You’re business-”

“Aro gave up the ADC!” Fiona blurted, nearly jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

Penny quickly pulled her hands back and held Aro’s arm, steading her as she whipped around to make a grab at Fiona. When the sheep Faunus escaped, Aro made an odd complaining growl. “You promised me that I’d get to tell her!”

"I made that promise two months ago!" Fiona yelled back.

Nervously she looked back at May and Winter. The elite graduates was rendered speechless, eyes wide and for May, mouth a little open. Aro whined again under their gaze. She shuffled, trying to step behind Penny but the metal women easily held her partner to her side. Joanna and Robyn signed encouraging comments.

“There’s no official statement yet, I’m letting the public figure it out for once. There’s still paper work but everything was finalized during my trip to Vale-”

“Ugh, and I was so mad too,” May mumbled.

“You have every right to be… I blackmailed the General, for starters, I wouldn’t trust me either-” May swept in pulling the two trainees into a hug. The fear that was creeping into Aro’s voice softly faded, leaving only an uncertain nervousness. “So… You- you guys like the make over?”

May stepped back, standing next to Winter. The Specialist had that devouring look in her eyes again, hands flexing at her sides before clasping behind her back. Her eyes were intensely focused on the new ink, particularly to where it disappeared under her half buttoned shirt.

“I can show you my appreciation later,” Winter said. The even control and calmness of her voice sent a shiver down Aro spine and blush racing across May’s face.

“It’s,” May cleared her throat to get of the low heated tone. She swallowed a few times before calming down enough to touch Aro’s neck, just shy of the ink but slowly getting closer. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Turk chirped. The four jumped a little and the other three happy Huntresses giggled or sneered.

“Now kiss!” Fiona yelled. May laughed and rolled her eyes. She did pull Aro into a kiss on her temple. "Ugh! Come on we’ve been cheering you two on for years!"

“We’re not one of your dumb romantic comedies and dramas!” May frowned at her. Winter chuckled lightly, her voice still a bit too husky. She opened the door, nonverbally convincing the her partners to walk out. The rest of the Happy Huntresses stayed in the shop, trying to wring more personal information about Aro from Turk.

Penny found her hand tightly intertwine with Winter’s, her eyes occasionally glancing at Aro and May, their arms happily linked together broken only when they needed two hands to sign. Her processors were slowly cooling off in Mantle’s cold air. Penny quickly archived and favorited the past hour so she could review them. Despite how advance her memory and simulations are, it wasn’t even close to reality. The feeling Winter’s cool presence at her side or hearing May and Aro’s laughter. Simulations couldn’t mimic the lips that gently brushed against Penny’s knuckles again or the way Winter’s eyes soften when they were a few inches apart.

Decoding skipped.

#Penny Polendina #fic #cutting strings #pre-fall of beacon #may marigold #winter schnee #pfenning #qued

12 notes · View notes

menalez · 3 years

Note

Back when you would’ve been using that old blog I remember DDLG was incredibly common and popular on Tumblr and the internet space around that time. I was also 14 and indoctrinated into DDLG because honestly it felt like the trend at that time. As someone who actually was actively into DDLG back then are you honestly have to laugh at the accusation that you were actively participating in it. I definitely had A LOT worse on my porn blog that I was running as a minor.

I don’t even get the point that AOS or Cosmic Cat are trying to make; would it be okay to distribute child pornography if you didn’t come at them? If you didn’t criticize their in take of drawings of children being raped they would of saw what they believed to be CP and just walked away.

Also Cosmic Cat’s confusion over why people can forgive and forget someone AS A MINOR participating in kink because they’ve been groomed into it years ago vs an ADULT who STILL is engaging in child rape fantasies (not gonna say ‘kink’ because wanting to Watch a child be raped by their trans mother is not a kink imo it’s more of a paraphilia), will forever amuse me. The situations are completely different down to the ages of the individuals, the context, the photos even, etc. This isn’t about people being loyal to you, as I can promise you that if you we’re outside for sharing any pictures even similar to that sick shit AOS was defending I would 110% be on that cancelled party bandwagon, but literally anyone with half a brain can see the situations are barely comparable.

Lastly I just want to say that I do you think it’s shitty how people bring this blog that you ran when you were under age, up every couple years. There are so many things I did when I was 14 that I regret and am traumatized by. I couldn’t imagine someone pulling up stuff I said or did while I was actively being groomed to use against me. I’m so sorry you have to keep going through this.

i must say i did engage in it in private, altho.. it was moreso that i was age regressing & the guy was sexualising it + he was controlling and wanted me to call him gross shit like daddy. and there was definitely terrible stuff i reblogged, not gonna deny that either, but it was when i was 15-16, stuff i rbed when older is pretty tame.

but completely agree w u on the rest!!! its telling too that theysaid theyd be cool with it if i didnt call them out, its basically them saying they dont have any actual issue w anything and are just looking for issues to have bc theyre bitter i called them out & they cant actually justify what ive called out, so they decided to deflect. also if im out here defending that shit... yeah ppl do have every right to call me out, i try to hold myself to the same standards i hold other ppl to at the end of the day. if i oppose something im not gonna go n consume & defend it myself! so if it came out i was, 100% i dont see why anyone would defend me at allll

#stoopid drama #Anonymous

9 notes · View notes

afni-fics · 3 years

Text

In Hindsight: Chapter 5: In the Present... At Face Value

In Hindsight: Chapter 5: In the Present... At Face Value by C_R_Scott

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Tim Drake/Tam Fox, Jack Drake/Janet Drake, Janet Drake & Tim Drake, Jack Drake & Tim Drake, Lucius Fox/Tanya Fox, Tim Drake & Tam Fox

Characters: Tim Drake, Tam Fox, Janet Drake, Jack Drake, Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne

Additional Tags: Tim Drake-centric, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Family Feels, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Good Parent Janet Drake, Bad Parent Jack Drake, no beta we die like robins, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Story Summary: What if Tim Drake was originally raised by his maternal grandmother for the first eight years of his life due to "circumstances" involving his biological parents? What if Tim's grandmother was also the next door neighbor and occasional sitter for Lucius Fox's family?

Chapter Summary: When Tim was a child, his father Jack had told him and his mother that his beloved grandmother had passed away while she was in the hospital due to pneumonia. But eight years later, a trusted family friend is telling him something very different.

"Is that what Jack told you and your mother? He told you both your Nana was dead?"

Out of all of Bruce's Robins, past and present, Tim was proud of having the distinction of being known as the best detective out of all of them. His mind was as nimble as Nightwing was agile. He had figured out Batman's true identity at age nine. He discovered his father was lost in time when everyone else thought he was dead. He successfully routed Ra's al Ghul and prevented him from stealing Wayne Enterprises out from under the family.

Unfortunately, having such a nimble mind meant that the moment Lucius Fox's words left his mouth, Tim was already more than halfway to formulating a theory based on the statement he heard and the context of the conversation that immediately preceded it. However, it was the horrified tone of Lucius's voice, the appalled expression he saw on the elder man's face, and something deeper in his subconscious that slammed the brakes on his thought processes and caused his brain to short circuit before it could reach the conclusion they had been barreling towards.

Tim froze. He felt his heart stutter in his chest. Outwardly, he clamped down on his composure before daring to add his voice to the air. He took a deep breath and released it slowly.

"I'm fine," he thought to himself. "This is all just a misunderstanding."

Everything Jack told him that awful day was burned into his memory. It was the very first death of a loved one in his life and his first experience with grief. However, it endured it. He accepted it. He moved on.

"Everything is fine."

"Of course he did," Tim said matter-of-factly with a slight tilt of his head. "Nana was sick. She passed away in the hospital. Dad told us the day he got the call."

However, Tim felt a churning start low in his stomach as he observed Lucius's reaction to his words. The sensation was faint at first, but grew slowly in intensity as he watched the man on the other side of the desk. Lucius's expression was stricken as he shook his head. "No. Timber..." he started tentatively, as if trying to speak to a spooked animal. "That's not... Your grandmother isn't--"

"She had pneumonia," Tim interrupted with a shake of his head as he turned away from his old family friend, from the man who had been like an uncle to him once upon a time. "And she never got better." He closed his eyes as he clung to his faded memories from that horrible time so many years ago. "Mom was so depressed because we couldn't go to the funeral. She and Dad had a job in Cairo the same--"

"Timothy--"

He felt Lucius's hand settle on his shoulder. It should have been a comforting gesture, along with the elder man's gentle but firm expression of his full name. Instead, it caused of army of goosebumps to race across his skin and seemed to disconnect his brain from his voice box. Lucius waited until Tim hesitantly turned to meet and hold his gaze before continuing.

"--There was no funeral."

The muscles beneath Lucius's hand tensed immediately.

"It took a few months, but she recovered. She went home. She's alive."

Tim shook his head again before finally finding his voice. When he spoke, his tone was strained and brittle.

"No. That can't be right," he said. "Dad said... He told us she died. Why would he tell us that if it wasn't true?"

"I'm sorry Tim, but Jack lied to you and your mother."

The faded memories in Tim's mind began to crack. The aborted theory his brain had been processing earlier suddenly re-asserted itself and reached its logical conclusion. However, it was not a conclusion that Tim was in any frame of mind to accept.

Not in that moment.

"I'm sorry Lucius. I... I need to go."

Before Lucius could say anything more, Tim shrugged himself out from under the older man's hand and slipped out of the office, shutting the door quickly behind him.

As soon as he was in the relative privacy and safety of the elevator, he used his security clearance to make sure it would go straight to the garage where his car was parked without stopping on any other floor. As the elevator descended, Tim backed himself into the corner and buried his face in his hand while his mind ran a mile a minute.

"Nana can't be alive. Dad said she died...

"But Lucius would never say something like this if it wasn't true...

"But it can't be true...

"If Nana's alive, then that mean...

"No! That makes no sense...

"Dad wouldn't have lied to me about Nana...

"He wouldn't have lied to Mom...

"He couldn't have...

"He didn't...

Tim lifted his head from his hand and stared at hand, which was trembling slightly.

"Did he?"

It was a little nearly ten in the morning when Bruce's cell phone started ringing, the light from the screen illuminating the nightstand that rested next to his bed in the otherwise pitch black room. A weary arm snaked its way out from beneath the thick comforter on the bed. It took several tries, but finally the hand landed on the phone and pulled it toward the head still lying on the pillow.

Bleary eyes squinted as they peered at name on the too-bright screen before reluctantly pressing the "Accept" button.

"Yes Lucius?" Bruce mumbled, his deep voice weighed down by the bone-deep fatigue trying to drag him back into slumber.

"Is Tim at the manor?"

Bruce's brow furrowed. There was an edge of distress in his old friend's voice that managed to shove some of the lethargy out of his mind with a small spike of adrenaline. He pushed himself up into a seated position. "He shouldn't be? Last I saw him was around five am in the Cave before I went to bed. Did he not make it to the office?"

"He did," Lucius confirmed as Bruce put on his bluetooth headset so he could pull on his housecoat. "But something happened in the office that upset him, and now he won't answer my calls and the tracker in his work cell has been shut off."

It didn't take long for Bruce to leave his bedroom and go a few doors down the hall to Tim's bedroom. As he expected, the room was empty. The bed itself was still perfectly made with Alfred's usual attention to detail, but his closet door was open and there was a notable gap where one of his spare business suits was missing. His bathroom door was also ajar. Tim may not have slept at the manor, but he did shower and change there before heading to work.

"What happened at the office?" Bruce asked as he left Tim's room and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

It took longer than it should have for Lucius to answer. "It's complicated."

Bruce frowned. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. "One moment Lucius." He'd just entered the kitchen and zeroed in on Alfred, who was sitting at the breakfast nook sipping a cup of tea.

The old butler was startled at the sight of the Wayne patriarch awake and out of bed before noon. "Master Bruce? What on earth--"

"Has Tim come back from the office this morning?"

Alfred shook his head. "No. I haven't seen him since he left the manor around eight am." He set down his teacup and immediately got to his feet.

"Can you check the Cave and make sure he didn't return when no one was looking? Also, if he's not there, can you activate the tracker in his personal cell and find out where he is right now?"

"Of course sir." With a crisp nod, Alfred went to the library where the entrance to the Cave was hidden.

Finally, Bruce turned his attention back to Lucius. "I'm back, so explain. What happened at the office?"

"It actually started last night when Tim got hit with Crane's new fear toxin..." Lucius told Bruce about the encounter Tim had with Tam after crashing into her apartment, and quickly explained how Bruce's adopted son was actually the same boy who used to live next door to him for several years as he was raised by his grandmother.

Bruce absorbed the new information with confusion. "Ok... That's definitely surprising, but doesn't sound bad at all. Why would that upset Tim?"

On the other end of the phone, Bruce could hear Lucius groan in frustration. "When Tim was eight, his grandmother got sick and ended up hospitalized so he had to go back to living with his parents. Then Jack told him and his mom that his Nana had died."

"I remember. Before I adopted Tim, he told me all his grandparents had passed away, and he had no other living relatives."

"Jack lied."

Bruce's blood ran ice cold in his veins. "What?"

"Tim's grandmother never died. Her name is Susan Klein and she still lives next door to my family. I tried to tell Tim his Nana was alive, and that's when he ran off. I think he's in denial."

Bruce had to sit down as he processed this information. For years, he'd cared for Tim while his parents were out of the country, and then after his mother died and his father was in a coma. And then when Jack died, he adopted the boy he'd grown to love as his own son... But it was all under the assumption that Tim had no one else in his life. Tim had believed he had no one else.

And it was all a lie?

"Why?" Bruce asked, confused. "Why would Jack lie about that?"

Before Lucius could offer any explanation, Bruce saw Alfred emerge from the library. "Timothy is not in the Cave, but I did track his phone. Right now he's stationary in his new house in Gotham. He's logged into his workstation in the Nest." The old man's brow furrowed. "I've tried reaching out to him both by phone and computer, but he's not responding to anything."

Bruce got to his feet. "We can talk more about this later, Lucius. Tim's at his new place in the city, so I'm going to check on him now."

"I'll have Tam meet you there."

"That's not necess--"

"Do either you or Alfred have a key to the front door, and have your biometrics been programed into the house security system yet?"

Bruce and Alfred shared a glance, but said nothing, much to both of their mutual surprises.

Lucius apparently took their joint silence as a negative. "Tam was present while the theater renovations were in their early planning stages, and her biometrics were preinstalled into the security matrix while Tim was programming it. She can get you in without the Nest locking itself down." Bruce could hear the sound of Lucius's computer shutting down as well as the rustling of an overcoat being pulled on. "I'll call Tam on my way home."

"You're leaving the office?" Bruce asked as he went to his bedroom so he could change out of his nightclothes.

"This is a family emergency, and Susan has been like a grandmother to my own kids for nearly twenty-five years now. She needs to know her grandson is alive and well."

Bruce had just gotten back to his room, though he paused at the door. That feeling of ice in his veins had reasserted itself. "Did she think Tim was dead?"

In the background, Bruce could hear the sound of Lucius taking the elevator. "Honestly... we didn't know what had happened to him," Lucius admitted in a low tone. "We weren't sure exactly what Jack was capable of back then."

Once inside his bedroom, Bruce immediately began to quickly gather his clothes to change. "Please Lucius. I want to help my son, but I need more information. Tell me what you know about Tim's parents and grandmother."

Author's Notes:

At first, I was going to make this a much longer chapter. However, midway through writing it, I decided to split this chapter into two parts, with another chapter taking place in the past splitting the differences. I really hope everyone is enjoying this tale so far. If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to post them. I'll do my best to answer them.

#tim drake#tam fox#tim/tam#red robin#fanfiction#wip#rr: in hindsight#batfam#batfamily#lucius fox#bruce wayne

#tim drake #tam fox #tim/tam #red robin #fanfiction #wip #rr: in hindsight #batfam #batfamily #lucius fox #bruce wayne

8 notes · View notes

godsporncollection · 3 years

Text

Saturday Morning Session

(personal commentary in italics) (sorry for how inconsistent i am at this, i’m trying new medication, so my focus comes and goes unpredictably, but i didn’t want this to take weeks)

Russel M Nelson - strengthen your testimony (?)

"I understand better what he meant when he said 'behold, i will hasten my work in this time.'"

Y'all have been strengthening your testimonies and i, and your children, thank you. did that inclusion of "your children" feel off to anyone else?

I can see the work on the temple outside my window and that makes me think about how we need to remove the old debris from our lives. I too think of the temple as 'old debris' that should be removed from my life.

"the gospel is a message of joy" I cannot roll my eyes hard enough

that was short. what was the topic? blab for a five minutes?

Dieter F. Uchdorf - god is Among Us

I had to move lots when I was a kid because there was a war on. i thought about the missionaries who came to the country of their enemies to bring us the gospel.

i was a kid in a war-torn country > missionaries > god has not forgotten us > we will be heirs of god > how could we complain when we have that? > the atonement > mistakes are okay, just gotta keep repenting.

what would jesus teach if he was among us today? the same thing he's always taught. "the savior always teaches timeless truths, to everyone, a message of hope and belonging, a testament that god has not abandoned his children that god is Among Us."

jesus says to love one another and to be full of charity towards all men. i would like to see it.

anyone else feel like these talks are just. empty? like, they're not feeling it either?

if jesus came into your home today, he would see into your heart and i'm gonna waste a couple more minutes by expanding on that. one look into his eyes and we would be forever changed by the realization that god is Among Us.

back to me, i wish i could go back and tell myself to stay on the right track because god is Among Us, so i'm gonna tell you instead. god is Among Us.

"line upon line" *gag*

god is Among Us

Joy D Jones - abuse is wrong unless you use it to teach kids about the gospel

"have you ever wondered why we call 'primary' 'primary'?" as someone who understands how language works, no.

because kids are importanter than everything else

god trusts us to be nice to our kids; that means no abuse, even if we're angry. whoever needed this reminder should be shot.

hey, maybe you can "combat the evils of abuse" by not fucking raising your kids in an abusive cult!

analogy of a kid who fell out of bed because he "didn't get far enough in" = he wasn't indoctrinated enough, with awkward collage of pics of kids for a minute.

eyring said to get 'em while they're young

love all the pics of black people that try to say "see? we don't think black people are inherently evil (anymore)!"

analogy of a soldier in boot camp. drill seargants are mean, but that was necessary because apparantly it's the only way this guy can learn how to hide. also, apparently this guy is "our friend". not my friend, thanks.

"how can we do the same for our children?" don't fucking act like a drill seargent to your kids! ffs

"wouldn't we rather have them sweat in the safe learning environment of the home than bleed on the battlefields of life?" first of all, fuck you. second, dramatic much? third, fuck you, kids shouldn't have to learn about life in a hostile environment. does this woman have kids? are they okay? fucking hell, five kids were raised by a woman with this mentality. what a bitch.

"eternity is the wrong thing to be wrong about." i got news for you. of course, if i ever spoke to this machine, that topic wouldn't be my top priority.

I need a fucking drink.

Jan Eric Newman - teaching the gospel is good, but you can't force a testimony on others

anecdote about a local old woman getting birthday gifts. she taught us some good things when we were growing up, so thanks, sister davis.

another teacher, at college, was a "master teacher." he loved me and the lord. he taught me to learn doctrine on my own and that "changed me forever."

just sayin', if you're taught how to learn on your own, but didn't exercise enough critical thought to gtfo of this cult, maybe the teacher wasn't the best.

it's good to have good teachers.

the ancient nephites and lamanites had good teachers, and "there was no contention among them!"

"how can we teach more like the savior and help others become more deeply converted?" nope, nope. nope.

1st, "learn all you can about the master teacher hismelf." so, we're sticking with the term "master teacher." cool. doesn't sound weird at all.

ask yourself questions about how he taught, then do that.

read "teaching in the savoir's way."

2nd, use bullshit stories. oh, no, it's a story about how somebody is grateful for the pandemic because her adult child read the BoM for the first time during it. she said it had made "literal miracles."

3rd, "remember that conversion must come from within." guess jan and "joy" should have compared notes before speaking.

"children inheret many things, but a testimony is not one of them. we can't give our children a testimony any more than we can make a seed grow; but we can provide a nourishing environment, with good soil, free of thorns that would choke the word."

Gary E. Stevenson - kindness

story about a study where rabbits were fed a high-fat diet, but those under the care of a loving researcher didn't gain as much weight.

only christians can intuitively understand that this means there's a reason to be kind to others.

jesus said love one another.

addressing primary kids - be kind. here's a story about a kid who stopped being a bully because the bullied kid said it hurt.

to the teens - social media makes bullying worse, clearly satan is using social media against your generation. do what you can t make these spaces safer. if you're a bully, "stop it."

to the adults- "we have a primary responsibility to set a tone and be role models of kindness (get wrecked "joy"), inclusion and civility."

from ballard- "i have never heard members of this church to be anything but loving, kind, tolerant and benevolent to our friends and neighbors of other faiths." k, but, like, you know it's not just a difference of religious belief that’s the problem, right?

i'm heartbroken to hear about prejudice against blackasianlatino people or of any other group. i love how that section was really only about race, with a blanket "any other group" thrown in as an afterthought so they can't be accused of being homophobic.

in the winter of 1838, jo smith was in prison and why do you think that happened, gary?

church members were driven from their homes and the residents of a town across the river gave them food and shelter. that generosity saved the lives of many of them.

god is a compassionate care-giver.

Gerrit W. Gong - disjointed anecdotes of human experiences, idk

i miss my dad. he was adventurous, except regarding food.

i saw a guy be mean to a lady selling ice cream. he smashed all of her cones. the image of her trying to salvage the cones haunts me to this day.

story of the good samaritan.

be like christ this easter.

"we recieve inspiration as we counsel together, listening to each person, including each sister and the spirit."

does this guy have a topic?

he’s is just giving a list of random human experiences and parables.

*displays a lack of understanding of instagram.*

he's listing something throughout this, like, he keeps counting, but i have no idea what and his voice is making my adhd medication run away, so i'm not listening to this again.

Henry B. Eyring - temple worthiness

today i'm feeling light and hope, like the first day i went to the salt lake temple

i'm an oblivious fucker who didn't notice my name being pinned on me, so i thought the woman who greeted me was an angel because she knew my name.

thought he could remember being in the temple before, but a voice that was not his own (that's how you know it's true and not something he just told himself) told him he was remembering heaven.

confused "holiness to the lord" with "this is a holy place." i know both phrases use the word 'holy', but like, those contexts mean separate things.

i also had this feeling during my wedding in the logan temple.

i think henry should get checked out, he suffers from frequent hallucinations and it's good to know how your brain works differently from others when in a leadership position.

during my wedding, i had a vision of a house and the officiant said to live in a way that you can walk away easily. a year later, my father in law bought the exact house and my wife and i lived in the guest house for ten years. then i got the call to move somewhere else on assignment from the church and we walked away easily.

scripture from jesus about temples.

if you're unworthy in the temple, you won't be "able to see, by the power of the holy ghost, the spiritual teaching of the savior that we can recieve in the temple."

"when we are worthy to recieve such teaching, there can grow, through our temple experience, hope, joy, and optimism throughout our lives. that hope, joy, and optimism are available only through accepting the ordinances performed in holy temples."

i forgot how simple a baptism is, so i'm gonna tell you how amazed (and a little concerned) i was when my youngest daughter stayed to do baptism for the dead for all of the names on the list that day. maybe i'm just super comfortable in the water, but that doesn't sound hard, actually. i used to almost enjoy doing those.

quotes the primary song 'i love to see the temple.'

remember to be worthy so you can live with your family forever.

#exmo #ex mormon #exchristian #ex christian #excult #cult stuff #exlds #ex lds #former mormon #apostake #ex religious #agnostic #mine #gc april 2021 #gc summary

8 notes · View notes