#that's honestly why i put in the effort to get this edited and posted today

[thetomorrowshow]

what to throw away

Masterlist - Previous

yes that's correct!! two trust au updates in one month! we love to see it <3

cw: choking, light violence

~

This is almost a dream come true.

Jimmy is engaged to the love of his life. They share everything—quarters, meals, a bed. He lives with his fiance in a beautiful palace in the snowy mountains of Rivendell, overlooking a picturesque elven town. He spends every day with his fiance, working together and trading smiles that are literally only for each other.

Yet as sweet and wonderful and purely happy as that all sounds, Jimmy’s every moment is devastating.

His fiance will never love him the way he loves Scott. And none of this is real.

When Scott had suggested it, desperation lacing his voice, Jimmy had barely even had to think about it before accepting. Even if it wasn’t the only option to keep him safe, it was the only one that Jimmy wanted to consider. A chance to be engaged to Scott Smajor, despite the way he messed up their friendship by kissing him that one time? Please.

What he didn’t consider was the fact that even letting Scott sleep in his bed at night was already something that left him feeling empty inside—watching him sleep and knowing that they would never have anything that he truly wants. Surely he ought to have thought about how much worse being betrothed to him would be.

And now here they are, playing a game of catch with Jimmy’s heart, the odds of it hitting the ground and shattering becoming more and more likely with every passing moment.

It’s a terrible way to live, as thrilling as it is. But it’s keeping him safe.

Sausage and fWhip have been entirely silent on the issue of the Codfather head, not even mentioning that they might have it. With the diplomatic immunity that Jimmy currently possesses, he would be surprised if they even tried to interact with him at any point in the near future. Luckily, no such thing had happened so far. Scott’s plan was working.

Scott’s plan, however, includes some very . . . interesting stipulations, including some of the most interesting clothing Jimmy’s ever had to wear.

Every day, Jimmy dresses in a long elven robe, falling to his ankles despite that skin already being covered by his hose underneath. It’s similar to Scott’s everyday clothes, but with a longer hem and sleeves and higher neckline. Atop that is a veil that covers his head and face (this comes in several varieties, some veils trailing down to the ground and others cutting off neatly at his collarbone, and he thinks they have different purposes but Scott hasn’t explained that yet). The veil is fastened in place with a couple of pins and clasps and the robe with various ties, none of which Jimmy can successfully put together without making a mess of his clothes, then finished off with a pair of gloves pulled over the gold ring on his left hand and soft boots.

The only time he can skip out on the veil—and only the veil, unfortunately—is when he’s in their quarters, which is where he spends most of his time outside of tutoring. He’s not exactly allowed to roam around any farther than the palace gardens, and without permission to even dip his fins in the pool of freezing water, the gardens quickly lose their charm. No part of his skin can show outside of their quarters, and shown to no one but Scott. He’s actually not supposed to even see anyone but Scott.

Exceptions have been made, thankfully. Not only is he from a different culture, but he’s also royalty (as far as anyone knows), both of which have been taken into consideration by Scott’s various councils (he has an advisory council, then a historian council, then a culture council, all for the ordeal of just getting engaged). He’s allowed to video chat on his communicator with his advisors as necessary, and he’s managed to stretch that a little bit to include the Cod Alliance. At least he can see Lizzie and Joel on occasion, even if they can’t exactly see him.

The clothes aren’t all bad, of course. For the first time in as long as he can remember, Jimmy feels as if he has full autonomy over his body, even as he expects the clothing to cause the opposite feeling. Sure, the gloves and long skirts and veil cover any scars he has, but it’s not really that. He mentions it to Scott one night, and he’s surprised when Scott agrees.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? All this time as the king of Rivendell, it’s like my body has been constantly on display.”

“Constantly judged,” Jimmy adds. “Every time I passed by, people would just be gossiping about how I looked.”

Scott nods. “Exactly. And now nobody knows how I look, and there’ll be no tabloids about how it looks as though I’ve not brushed my hair in three weeks. I can just . . . do whatever. They aren’t even allowed to perceive me. This is excellent.”

While it isn’t exactly excellent, Jimmy completely understands. He’s never felt more like his body belonged to himself.

That night occurs maybe a week into their sham betrothal, and it’s a night when they stay up late talking, the lamps low and both of them in bed. Despite his positive feelings about the betrothal get-up, Jimmy’s relieved to be able to wear just shorts and a loose top to bed, even as Scott wears embroidered nightclothes.

(Jimmy had been measured for some when he first arrived, but they’re too slidey and silky on his scales and too fancy for his tastes. Scott looks impressively rich and handsome, but Jimmy just doesn’t think it’s right for him.)

“It’s an awful lot of fabric, though, isn’t it?” Jimmy continues, waving his arms for emphasis. “I feel as if I have a million different pins and clasps to do before I’m anywhere near right, and I always seem to get tied up in it wrong.”

Scott giggles. “There’s two clasps and two pins, Jimmy, it’s not that difficult. And the ties are a bit tricky at first, but you’ll figure it out soon. And then I’ll teach you how to style it!”

It’s strange that Scott knows all this stuff already. According to the councils, this is Scott’s first time being engaged, which makes it some sort of big deal. Maybe it’s just something that they teach in Rivendell schools? Maybe the ties on Scott’s usual robes are similar enough that there’s no real difference, even if Scott’s usual is a decent bit more form-fitting and skin-showing?

“How long have the robes and veil been a thing?” he asks thoughtfully, thinking over the past week’s worth of mind-numbing lessons with his tutor on Rivendell history. He doesn’t really remember anything from them.

“A while,” Scott shrugs. The moon has properly risen, now, and Scott wiggles until he’s under the covers, rather than sitting up to talk. “Many thousands of years, probably. They started out as just whatever household clothes you could throw together to cover your whole self in order to go to the market, if I’m recalling correctly. It was only within the last . . . five thousand years, maybe, that they became something that was marketable. I could be entirely wrong on that.”

“I’ll make sure to ask the tutor instead of you, yeah?” Jimmy suggests, to which Scott laughs.

Jimmy also readjusts, scooting under the covers to press as near to Scott as he dares. The conversation dwindles away and Scott blows out the lamp. They fall asleep like that, almost touching, and when Scott wakes in a panic in the middle of the night, he buries his face in Jimmy’s chest and clutches his arms around him.

Jimmy wakes the next morning in the warm embrace of a very clingy, sleeping Scott, the smell of their now-shared gingerbread shampoo strong in his nose, and he cries (just a little bit).

-

Lizzie had boasted that she knew the whole time. Joel had laughed and congratulated Jimmy. Jimmy had smiled through the anxiety that at any moment they could be found out to be lying, and surely what would happen then would be worse than if the Wither Rose Alliance went public with their possession of the Codfather head.

It’s been nearly a month, though, and nobody seems to suspect that he and Scott are anything but deeply in love with each other.

Maybe it’s the level of commitment that they’ve taken this to—neither of them have left Rivendell’s palace, neither have shown any skin since the engagement was announced. They’d had to do a press conference of sorts on the first official day of the first step of their commitment (‘first official day’ because Scott’s councils had known for several days already and had been getting them both fitted for the proper attire), where reporters from all of the empires were given the opportunity to ask a couple of questions before the total isolation began. They had an agreed-upon story (with as many embellishments as Scott could throw in on the spot)—in which they’d been courting since the beginning of their alliance, and had decided to bite the bullet and commit to strengthen their empires when the rumors of war began. Somehow (despite certain members of the Cod Alliance knowing otherwise), every one of the other rulers bought it, as well as the citizens of both their empires. Katherine in particular became much warmer to the both of them, extending her congratulations and arranging a personal meeting in order to work out a neutrality statement in the coming conflicts that wouldn’t harm their trades.

The first week had been a flurry of activity, but now things have settled down and Jimmy mostly finds himself bored.

His lessons are mindnumbing and confusing, but despite them feeling as if they drag on forever, they only last three hours and leave Jimmy with a pile of homework he can’t wrap his head around without Scott and nothing to do for the rest of the day.

There’s the gardens, of course, and he can visit the courtyard, as long as he puts in a request with the staff (by way of a note slipped through a slot in the door) to ensure it stays empty an hour before his arrival. He can only stay for two hours at a time, though, and is otherwise confined to within the palace walls, moving as a wraith through the halls.

It’s frustrating that the only place he can remove his veil is in their quarters, particularly because there’s not a lot of opportunities for exercise in their rooms. Two bedrooms, a sitting room, a washroom, two walk-in closets, and a half-kitchen. Not much room to run laps, do heavy lifting, and certainly not a place for swimming. He brings it up to Scott one morning, who frowns.

“Maybe we can get you a few hours per day at the public pool?”

“You have a public pool?”

Scott shrugs. “Of course. It used to be a bathhouse, I believe, but it was too cold. Nobody wanted to bathe in it. Instead of tearing it down, we remodeled.”

Jimmy’s never been so excited at the idea of going to a public pool, but there’s not much to get excited about in this incredibly dangerous false arrangement. It would set his heart racing with excitement just to see a tree that isn’t one of the two in the gardens.

They bring it up to all three councils the very next day. At first, none of the elves seem to approve of the idea, but Scott (rather forcefully, Jimmy thinks, blushing under his veil) reminds them that Jimmy’s a cod hybrid and has a biological need to swim. A begrudging amendment is made, and Jimmy is allotted three hours every morning to travel in a covered carriage to the pool (new hours of service established so that the general public are not swimming with him), swim, and travel back, all in solitude.

It’s better than nothing, he supposes. The pool is deep enough on one end for him to dive into, and large enough that he can swim laps at a moderate speed without crashing into the wall. There’s also a slide on one side, reminiscent of the children’s mudslides into ponds back home, and after one ride Jimmy decides that he’s going to be installing slides at every dock he can.

Scott smiles every time Jimmy mentions the slide (because there’s not much to tell of Jimmy’s every day, the slide is a recurring character), and one night he mutters, “If we were getting real-married, I’d make you all the slides you want.”

And that one hits like a punch to the gut.

Every day is more of the same. They wake up and get ready for the day together, then Scott leaves for his private library and Jimmy leaves for the pool. Jimmy gets back and eats a midday meal alone, attends his lessons, then has a conference call with his advisors (it usually only lasts a couple of minutes, the empire is fine and all is quiet). Scott’s often in meetings and war preparations until supper, which they eat together—and which Jimmy has recently taken upon himself to cook, as bored out of his mind as he tends to be, and as safe as he knows it makes Scott feel.

Over supper they chat, then they throw themselves in random places around the sitting room or Scott’s bedroom, and study and read and have generally heartbreaking conversations.

Jimmy’s never borne a heavier secret, and yet it’s still the most prized secret he’s ever been privileged enough to keep.

The only people in on the secret are Lizzie and Joel—well, they think that the love is real, and that the betrothal will remain beyond the threat, but they are aware of the disappearance of the Codfather head. They’ve been sending recon groups into Mythland and the Grimlands, searching for anything suspicious, spying on the emperors. They haven’t found anything yet.

Jimmy both hopes they do soon and hopes they won’t.

The worst thing, he thinks, is that Scott is incredibly sweet about all this. Not only does he keep up pretenses in front of the councils to a fault (holding Jimmy’s hand, keeping his arms protectively around Jimmy’s shoulders, using pet names and rubbing his back and so on in such painful ways), but when alone, he’s apologetic, closer than ever, lightheartedly joking and doing his best to make the situation bearable for Jimmy. He never blames him for their predicament, never asks him to take any of the blame for losing his own claim to the throne. Scott shows Jimmy nothing less than utter compassion and care, and Jimmy falls in love with him a bit more every day.

Tonight, he lays on his stomach on their—on Scott’s bed, trying to unobtrusively watch Scott flip through his notes and compare to whatever he’s reading.

He knows he must look embarrassingly cliche—his feet in the air behind him, chin propped up on his hands—but he can’t help it. Scott’s quite absorbed in his work and won’t notice, and if he does, he can write it off as practice for being in love. Cod knows he needs it—every time Scott so much as mentions his name, he gets all tongue-tied and can barely look at him.

He’s got it bad, hasn’t he?

“Lizzie said she caught some salmon sneaking around the east border, right?” Scott says absently, and Jimmy jolts, quickly turning his eyes down to the history book he’s meant to be studying.

“Uh,” he says after a moment, faking concentration. “Maybe? I think so, yeah.”

Scott sighs, bonks his head against his desk. “That just doesn’t make sense. If they’re looking for the End portal, they’re nowhere near it. It’s been nearly two months—how have they not gotten close yet?”

“Maybe Lizzie’s misdirecting is working,” Jimmy suggests.

“If it wasn’t fWhip, I would believe it,” groans Scott, lifting his head and stretching. “Were it just Sausage? I’d hardly worry about it. But fWhip. . . .”

He trails off, and Jimmy doesn’t offer any other solution. He’s willing to believe that Lizzie’s plan is just working, but if Scott’s right, then why on earth would they be at the east border? Is there something else there that fWhip wants?

“I’ll call Lizzie about it tomorrow,” Scott waves off. He pushes back his chair, stands. “You’d think that requiring total isolation would mean I would deal with less people, but I seem to have a new meeting every day. What about a one-year betrothal period do these elves not understand?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer that either, just shoots him a sympathetic smile. He checks the incense clock—the stick’s burned halfway down. He hadn’t realized just how late it was.

Scott seems to notice, too, ducking into his walk-in closet to change. Jimmy checks under the bed, finds his shirt and shorts. He pulls the robes off over his head and changes quickly, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor.

Scott barely even pauses his stride to scoop them up and throw them in the hamper on his way to the bed, blowing out his desk lamp before climbing in under the blankets. Jimmy scoots under them as well, pulls them up to his chest. He settles in, swiveling his ear fins a few times contentedly. There are ups and downs to this, sure. But at least tonight, he can pretend that all the pain doesn’t exist and just sleep next to Scott.

That’s just going to make it worse in the morning, he knows. It always does.

Scott quickly looks away when Jimmy glances at him, any color draining from his cheeks. “Um. Bed?” Scott says weakly, despite them both already being in bed.

Jimmy nods, so Scott reaches over to his bedside table and lowers the lamp shade, allowing just the tiniest bit of light to peek through, offering some definition to the shadowy shapes around the room. He fluffs his pillow, then lays back beside Jimmy.

It always takes Scott a little while to fall asleep, and Jimmy always makes an effort to not fall asleep before him, so he rolls onto his side to face away from Scott, staring instead at the curtains through the crack of which he can see the tiniest sliver of the night sky.

It’s beautiful, moreso here in Rivendell (at Scott’s side) than anywhere else Jimmy’s ever been. Maybe it’s the height of the mountains, reaching closer to the heavens than any other empire. Maybe it’s the clarity of the crisp air. Something about Rivendell makes the sky mesmerizing in a way he’s never found it.

“Scott?” he finds himself whispering.

“Hm?”

“What’s your favorite constellation?”

A moment. “Probably the Clash of the Stags. Basic, I know.”

Jimmy shrugs. “I don’t know it. Has it got a good story?”

“You don’t know it?”

“I’m sort of new here, remember?” Jimmy’s not sure if he means new to Rivendell, or new to the empires as a whole. Scott hums thoughtfully.

“Well, I can’t do it justice right now. We can go out tomorrow night to stargaze, and I’ll point it out. Sound good?”

That sounds terribly romantic, actually, and Jimmy already is both excitedly anticipating the event and entirely dreading it. “Yeah,” he says eventually, ignoring the roiling emotions in his stomach, then adds, “I’ll bring something to eat, how about.” Scott yawns. “Perfect. Tomorrow night, okay?”

“Tomorrow night,” Jimmy agrees, and with that, they fall silent. Jimmy listens as Scott’s breathing slowly evens out, his body losing all of the tension that it’s been holding.

It’s nice, lying next to Scott as he falls asleep.

Jimmy just wishes there was more to it than that.

He’s about to fall asleep himself when his communicator beeps. He fumbles to grab it off the bedside table, meaning to see who’s messaging him at this time of night and mute it, like he usually does before bed. He can’t have it waking up Scott, and he’s holding down the volume button to mute it when it buzzes again, messages coming into focus as he blinks the bleariness away from his eyes.

Had he muted it earlier, had it not disturbed him just as he was about to fall asleep, perhaps all that transpired next could have been avoided. Perhaps the message sent wouldn’t have been seen until morning, when Scott was awake, when they were both levelheaded enough to handle the situation as a team.

But that isn’t what happens.

fWhip: If you want the cod head back, meet us at the end portal in one hour

fWhip: Come alone. Tell no one. Or else

Jimmy’s blood freezes in his veins.

They have the Codfather head. They’ve found the portal. And while he doesn’t know what would happen were he to ignore the requests given, he knows fWhip’s style. It would involve a lot of pain.

He can’t wake Scott. He can’t tell him about any of this.

It’s terrifying to know that he’s about to go face his tormentors without even the option for backup, so terrifying that he can’t even think straight. He just knows he has to obey fWhip’s demands.

And maybe—just maybe—he can hold them off from going into the End long enough that someone finds them.

It’s not much of a plan, but Jimmy can’t take the time to think any longer. He has to go.

He slides out of bed, careful not to disturb the covers. Tiny things can wake Scott up, and he’s actually spent hours teaching himself which floorboards are safe to step on so that if he needs to get up in the middle of the night, Scott will still be able to rest (the first week here, Jimmy had gotten up for some water and woken Scott, fuelling a panic attack and setting them both up for several more hours of wakefulness).

Those practiced skills have never come more in handy than now. He sneaks across the chilly floor, into the sitting room, then through there into his own (almost unused) bedroom. He shuts the door near silently, then rushes to get ready.

One of the Rivendellian robes won’t do, not with his elytra. The only other clothes he has are his travel clothes that he’d worn here weeks ago, so those will have to do. Brown leggings, green-and-grey mottled tunic, a brown leather jacket. He laces up his boots over it, then adds a pair of his day gloves, the warm ones—though they’re long enough to go up to his elbows, a bit excessive. The veil’s tricky, but if someone catches him sneaking out without the veil on, he’ll be accused of infidelity and the whole betrothal will be off. He pins it around his head, tucking the longer ends into his tunic.

It takes about ten minutes to get dressed, which leaves him only fifty to get to the End Portal. It’s not a terribly far flight—it can’t be more than half an hour, twenty minutes with good winds—but he’s anxious to get going anyway. fWhip gave him a one hour time slot. He can’t mess this up.

He doesn’t think to grab anything else—he barely remembers to slip his communicator into the inside pocket of his jacket. He just has to leave, has to take care of this and get back before Scott wakes up.

Maybe soon, he’ll have the head back. Then they can cancel this silly betrothal once and for all.

He’s not sure if he wants it back quite yet.

Still, though, Jimmy straps on his elytra, and with a final glance at his closed door, pries open his window and leaps out.

-

He arrives at the portal alone, swooping down through the tunnel into the dimly-lit portal room.

Jimmy’s been here once before, but the portal is still the novelty it had been the first time, drawing his eye as soon as he enters.

It doesn’t fit in with the rest of the room, rough stone bricks and crumbling patches of clay. The portal must be the feat of some great craftsman, carved out of some material he doesn’t recognize, shimmering words in a language he can’t read pulsing and melding together. The Eyes set into the holes in every finely-carved brick glow softly, glassy green and shiny.

The most foreign aspect of the portal is, however, the void.

As opposed to the swirling purples of a Nether portal, the End portal lacks . . . anything at its center. To look into it is to see nothing forever, an enveloping blankness that makes Jimmy dizzy to take in. Perhaps there are flecks of color if he looks closer, but he’s too afraid of losing his balance and falling inside.

It thrums softly, filling the room with an ominous presence. Jimmy tears his eyes away.

It’s only two minutes later that the fluttering of elytra alert him to the presence of others. He spins around to face the entrance; Sausage flies in first, stumbling on the floor, followed by fWhip, landing gracefully.

These are the men who hurt him for so long. These are the men who tortured Scott for a week straight.

Somehow, Jimmy can’t find a single spark of anger. He only feels cold fear.

Jimmy does his best to seem imposing, standing straighter and holding his head high, but fWhip only laughs.

“Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Are you ever going to learn?”

Jimmy glances between him and Sausage. What’s that supposed to mean?

Even with the veil hiding his face, fWhip seems to pick up on his confusion. “I mean, I do have to thank you. Best ally I’ve had in a while—after all, you led us straight to the portal!”

Oh no. Oh no.

Oh no.

Jimmy’s heart sinks.

How could he have been such an idiot? Of course they didn’t know where the portal was, of course he shouldn’t have come, of course he should’ve woken Scott and discussed with him. The panic had seized him and all thoughts had left his brain.

“I’ve held up my end of the bargain,” Jimmy blusters, pure will keeping his suddenly-dry throat from cracking. Maybe he hasn’t ruined everything. Maybe he can salvage something from this. “Give me the Codfather head.”

It’s Sausage’s turn to laugh. “Not so fast, little fishie! We never offered it!”

And they hadn’t, had they? They’d just told him to be here if he wanted it back.

They tricked him, and he was stupid enough to fall for it, and now his stupidity has likely brought about the invasion of a demon.

“Aw, maybe we’ll give it to you anyways, right?” fWhip sticks out his bottom lip, mocking a pout. “That way, you won’t have to wear this old thing.” He bats at the veil; Jimmy pulls away, hands shooting up protectively.

It’s clear they know his betrothal is a sham, and Jimmy isn’t sure if that makes it better or worse. For an instant, fWhip’s mask of joviality slips to show irritation, then is back up as he clucks his tongue.

“C’mon, what Scott doesn’t know won’t hurt him! After all, his feelings for you aren’t your responsibility. You can take that off, it’s just us!”

Jimmy would’ve worded it the other way around, but he stands firm. He promised Scott. He’s already ended any shot at friendship he could ever have with him, let alone a relationship (Scott will never forgive him for this, he’s freed the demon and Scott’s going to hate him as will everyone else), but he can at least keep this last promise. He can at least follow the rules laid out for their short-lived betrothal until its termination.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the chance, as someone swoops in behind and knocks him to his knees, tearing off the veil. Jimmy winces as it rips along the pins, coming entirely off his face. He ducks his head, hit with the stale, cool air of the portal room, the musty smell suddenly that much stronger. He feels uncomfortably naked without it, because for almost two months no one’s seen his face but Scott and they aren’t supposed to see him—

Joey Graceffa appears before him and stomps on the veil—unnecessarily brutal, and now the shame is melting into anger, it may have been fake but that veil had come to represent an important part of his life—but before he can do more than turn toward Joey with his fists up, Sausage is shoving him to the ground.

His elbow knocks against a wall, hitting his funny bone, but he ignores the tingling up and down his arm and rolls up—

He’s hit again in the stomach, hard enough that his vision instantly blurs with tears and he can’t see who did it as he doubles over, and he doesn’t get any time to recover as he’s kicked onto his back.

“Stop,” Jimmy gasps out. “I need—give me—”

“Look, Codboy,” fWhip sneers, shoving his boot under Jimmy’s chin to tilt his head up (and it’s just like old days, isn’t it, it’s just like it always was, how could he ever believe he’d escaped), “you’ve always been the funniest guy to mess with. But you just had to go get Scott involved—which I’m not mad about, by the way!”

fWhip’s boot presses into his throat and Jimmy chokes, his gills flap open for a split second but he’s not in water, his fins flare in defense—

“Because as it turns out, Scott’s very fun to play with as well,” fWhip continues, as if Jimmy’s windpipe isn’t being crushed under him. “And you, Jimmy. Well . . . you’ve become quite the issue.”

The pressure releases and Jimmy gulps in the air, rolling to his side. This is the worst—he hasn’t been so humiliated in ages, and here fWhip is, in control like he always was, Sausage and Joey laughing and jeering in the background.

Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s really changed, and he’s once again on his own because of his own stupid decisions.

fWhip claps his hands together, startling Jimmy so badly he almost loses his tenuous hold on his gag reflex, bile leaping up his throat. “Well, Jimmy,” he says, voice dripping with grandiose. “How would you like to go to the End?”

[ladymirdan]

I honestly just unpinned my “I block people who bash Ward” post yesterday. Can I go one single day without a person coming in my comments and talking shit about Ward?

I love my hobby. I love the lore, I love the creators. Sure, sometimes things get retconned that makes me sad, but I get over it in a day or two.

Ward has leadwriter credit on a dozen or so codexes(and is uncredited on about just as many). But he was far from alone in creating them. Just check the credits page. The infamous 5th edition Grey Knights codex has 9?ish something writers credited. Who really knows who wrote what exactly. That is how a collaborative effort is made. A melting pot of ideas.

But after 16 years, some people still come to my page for some reason. Still mad. Trying to tell me to hate someone I dont know outside of their workand it is weird. (To be fair, he was pretty much instrumental in creating the 40k we know today so I love him for that),

Just trying to put it in perspective. I know I have a ton of fanfic writers as my mutuals.

Imagine someone finding one of your drabbles you wrote 16 years ago, and then whenever you or any other work you have made got mentioned someone popped up ad just said “XXX sucks”. And nothing you post after that will make it right. How would you feel? Its fucked up.

And that isn’t even a fair considering he wasnt a lone writer. Imagine your personal character is judged by the content of an assay you cowrote with 9 people, years and years ago that you had a limited budget and timescale on?

People complain that the codexes has gotten slimmer, that a lot of the fluff and lore is gone. But that isn’t strange when you know that the guy who was responsible to get the most out of his team has moved on to other project. Listen to literally any creator who has left workshop (or ADB for some reason who just speaks anyway 😅), talk about Ward. It is all positive things. Or watch the interview I reblogged a while ago and make your own opinion about him.

(And before people say I’m overreacting, I was overly generous today and tried to talk to commenter and this was the response. And this is why I just block without interacting. It is always the same.

[butch-reidentified]

if you think agp is a thing(and presumably exclusive to trans women) what do you think of cis women claiming to masturbate in front of mirrors and CIA women who report being aroused by breastfeeding?

literally every single answer to these questions is available on my blog. I'm tired of writing the same posts over and over and over. if you can't find sufficient answers scrolling my blog, searching key words on my blog (or on google citing my blog, which yields better results oftentimes), going through the links in my pinned, or checking the tags referenced in my pinned, then I'd say if it's reeeeally important to you to get answers, your best bet will be to sit tight and occasionally check for updates to my Pinned as I am gradually adding more and more links detailing my views, and/or skim my blog from time to time - it's pretty much guaranteed to cycle through again within a month at most 🤷

I was actually gonna put a partial (that is to say, just not my usual thorough, detailed, and nuanced) answer at the beginning, but honestly I'm getting VERY tired of anonymous strangers who most likely just stumbled across my blog for the first time today thinking they're entitled to a personalized thinkpiece from me when almost every time I get an ask like this (which are distinctly different from good faith curiosities, which I'm more than happy to answer), I've already posted my answer, I've already written about the subject in depth on my blog. so I'll put my answer below instead so you have to read all of the above first, so you at least sort of vaguely kinda earn some response by putting in a miniscule fraction of the work/time I've put into both reading/informing myself about all sorts of different opinions, ideologies, experiences, perspectives, and views (rather than just demanding opinions from strangers on anon, lmao) and writing countless posts (& that's just on here, ignoring the offline side which is where I'm wayyy more active), which are almost always VERY long and detailed and proofread and edited and polished several times over.

btw, kind of a side note -- I have NEVER sent a single anon in my life, and I have NEVER, anonymously or not, demanded someone give me a personalized just-for-me explanation of their opinions (or any at all). the reason I call this entitlement is because you (most likely) aren't asking out of genuine curiosity or good faith. you (most likely) are asking because you dislike what you think my views are (you are most likely misinformed and think I believe things I do not) and you (most likely) think this is some kind of gotcha rather than the same ignorant, unoriginal, boring ass points that I've read countless times as far back as when I was a transactivist and trans-identifying myself. they've been debunked/responded to by a LOT of other women, too, and I'm very confident you could easily find at least one such response. I'm not holding you to a standard I don't also hold myself to; in fact, that I'm going to give you any degree of actual answer at all is demonstrative of my holding myself to a HIGHER standard. because again, nothing I'm about to say on this topic is just now in this post being born into the universe as a novel thought. or even a novel tumblr post; like I said, you could find the radfem answers to this ask yourself with just a tiny bit of effort - and while radfems are far from a monolith, and I am a frequent vocal dissenter on a variety of radblr hot topics, this isn't even really a matter of opinion. read on to find out why.

Part A - Not answering the questions here per se, but a clarification of terminology that may help you (any reader, not necessarily anon) see my perspective:

The word "cis" has different definitions. It used to mean someone who is not trans, whereas trans referred to sex-dysphoric transitioners, a demographic who now often prefer terms like transsexual or transsex or simply "sex-dysphoric" BECAUSE they don't agree with gender identity ideology (GII) and object to the way GII has been actively hostile to them and erased transsexuality (and thus their identities, needs, beliefs, and experiences as well), similarly to the ways in which GII engages with pretty much everything that isn't complete and total blind allegiance. These include but are far from limited to:

1. Obfuscating people's (especially children's/young adults' - as they are the primary consumers of most GII content by far) understanding of biology, particularly as it pertains to the sexes of human beings and sexual dimorphism, and inserting "gender identity" as a direct (but importantly not synonymous or remotely parallel) replacement for the material and biological reality of sex. Sex, absent patriarchy and the gender construct, is simply a neutral and factual categorization of human beings: sex categorizes human body types according to the two developmental pathways that evolved solely for the purpose of producing one gamete type or the other to enable perpetuation of the species via sexual reproduction. What this statement does NOT imply to anyone reading it with even an ounce of integrity/intellectual honesty: "women are defined by having babies," "infertile/childfree adult female humans are not women," "humans with anomalous sexual development of any variety are not male or female, but rather a 3rd sex or even proof sex is a spectrum," or anything along these lines; I refer to these arguments as intellectually dishonest because they are originally intentional (disinformation -> misinformation) misinterpretations & serve to moralize, dogmatize, and essentially theologize facts of nature.

This obfuscation of biology is committed via a variety of tactics that frequently include outright gaslighting; "gender and sex are different" turned into "sex is actually a spectrum" (it's not - read on to learn why not!) and then outright science denial while gaslighting others as being the unscientific, uneducated, "3rd grade understanding of biology" ones (again, this is simply factually not true*).

*Feel free to request to see a peer-reviewed neuroscience journal publication bearing my name and/or my thesis (original research regarding the overlapping genetics + epigenetics of norepinephrine dysregulation in both dysautonomia and attention deficit disorders) if you are skeptical of my credentials regarding biology. alternatively, feel free to cite your sources and I will provide a free-of-charge peer review service :)

2. Building from #1, the erasure of patriarchal sex-based oppression of women & girls (by definition: human beings of the female sex, adults & children respectively) via aforementioned tactics obfuscating sex biology & human biology in favor of an innate, internal "gender identity" which is extremely poorly defined with the individual "gender identities" themselves left utterly non-delineated. Gender identity ideology is to be taken entirely on pure faith, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support gender identity as a universal component of human beings/universal human experience. In fact, the existence of absolutely any nonzero quantity of human beings who do not experience gender identity firmly disproves it as universal human experience - and we know not all humans have a gender identity. However, every human being experiences sexual development, be it typical, disordered (DSDs, congenital infertility, etc), or otherwise anomalous; the vast majority experience typical sexual development, and one's sex is entirely clear in the vast majority of atypical cases as well. Female humans are oppressed on the basis of our biological reproductive capabilities; patriarchy desires control over the female sex as a direct product of its desire to control reproduction. Patriarchy created the gender construct to instill and enforce a caste system between the sexes upholding the patriarchal dogma of male supremacy and female inferiority. Similarly, patriarchy created father-gods in order to make the creation of life a male act. Erasure of sex in favor of the gender construct serves male supremacy and cannot ever be anti-patriarchal or feminist. Evidence of sex based oppression abounds offline (frankly, you need look no further than menstruation stigma in all its forms up to and including menstrual huts, but there is infinitely more evidence) and right here on my blog as well; I even have some posts tagged to serve as proof of sex based oppression.

3. Erasing homosexuality via working toward erasure of exclusive same-sex attraction (this is particularly targeted at lesbians, and this is VERY well documented. I have many examples of this in my TRA Receipts tag, including a particularly excellent masterpost containing, in total iirc THOUSANDS of screenshots), once again replacing sex with "gender identity" as if one's orientation being defined as attraction to another human's invisible, internal, and highly individual "gender identity," which not all humans even purport to have in the first place, could possibly make any sense. This is uniquely absurd.

As stated in the 2nd link in #1 on my Pinned, I object to the usage of "cis" for non-trans-identifying people. Why? At the core of it, because the most commonplace definition of "cis"/'cisgender" that I see at this point in time is "having a gender identity that aligns with what was assigned at birth." As stated above, gender identity is not universal, rendering "cisgender" equally as personal and internal of an identity label as "transgender" - and these are not a pure dichotomy by any means. Radical feminism does not grant any degree of objective factual legitimacy to the gender construct; thus, no radical feminist is or can be, by definition, transgender or cisgender (this does not carry over to whether or not radfems can have dysphoria or even be medically transitioned). Radfems are not the only humans without "gender identities," and it is dishonest and disrespectful to force the term/label onto everyone else according to an ideology we/they may not share.

Part B - The Long-Awaited Answer! [I changed my mind since this ended up significantly longer than initially planned so here ya go]

Autogynephilia was coined as a term with a specific definition. That definition is still the same one in use today. That definition explicitly states that only males can qualify. That definition is: "a paraphilia that describes when a man experiences sexual arousal from the thought of himself as a woman" per Google, and "a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female" per Blanchard's original stated intention for the term he created. Wikipedia goes on to add "intending for the term to refer to 'the full gamut of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies.'"

I have many criticisms of Blanchard himself and of the quality of his research methodologies. However, the evidence for the existence of the paraphilia itself is abundant and undeniable given that many males outright refer to themselves as autogynephiles and many have openly discussed their experiences as someone with this paraphilia. What I do not believe is that all trans-identifying males are AGPs, that there is proven legitimacy to the HSTS/AGP dichotomy (even Blanchard himself said not all OSA trans-identifying males are AGPs - just a whole lot of them), or that non-trans-identifying males can't be AGPs - actually I think it's likely that most AGPs don't identify as transgender.

The core of the paraphilia, the source of the arousal, is a product of the patriarchal sex caste system; autogynephiles are aroused by the idea of themselves as women - as they themselves have stated - because of the sexual objectification of femaleness and/or because they're aroused by degradation and humiliation (as is blatantly obviously on brilliant display in the existence of and obsession with "forced feminization" and similar female-degrading sexual concepts), and the AGP male views femaleness and the gender that patriarchy has forcibly ascribed to femaleness ("femininity") as inferior and thus sees his engagement in performing femininity as degrading - which in turn sexually excites him.

One reason some women find themselves arousing in their own bodies and natural non-performative states is the same as when men find themselves arousing in their own bodies and natural non-performative states: self-confidence increases libido and associations can be made between A and B. Where women and men inevitably differ, however, is about the arousal surrounding performing femininity and/or sexual self-objectification. It is not at all unreasonable to speculate that some women can be turned on when they "feel hot" for a reason other than just self-confidence; for one speculative example, it's possible that some women may see herself in the mirror all dressed up in hypersexualized clothing and feel that they've succeeded in mirroring the pornified images and sexually-appealing-to-males beauty expectations. Ultimately, this is self-objectification. It's patriarchy and the male gaze that have forced these associations onto all of society, and hypersexual associations have a tendency of causing sexual arousal in people (duh).

Oh and I've never heard of women being aroused by breastfeeding, only complaining about it being painful asf, but like. Nipples are among the most common and well-documented non-genital erogenous areas so? This seems terribly unlikely to be a common phenomenon, but utterly irrelevant to the existence of autogynephilia regardless lol. If this is a thing, like I said I doubt it's commonplace at all, but even just hypothetically, I'd say it would distinctly fall in line with everything else I say in this answer. Patriarchy and its pornographers have indeed sexualized breastfeeding - there are a concerning number of men who ask their partners NOT TO BREASTFEED their babies - his own children! - because it makes him JEALOUS and even resent the baby. I'm dead serious you can look this up, it happens. So... read on for elaboration.

I neither know nor care precisely what you're referencing in this ask, because the answer remains the same: autogynephilia by definition can only affect males, and males who have a fetish for the idea of themselves as female, be that through imagining themselves Fucked (anatomically female, specifically in a sexually objectified - aka Fucked - manner; the anatomical/biological form of autogynephilia fetishizes the male subject imagining himself as the female Fucked object of pornography) or Feminine (as discussed above) fundamentally are not and cannot be the same as women who are turned on by feeling like they look sexually appealing or by their own natural anatomy or biological functions (which have been violently hypersexualized by patriarchy). This is a form of internalized misogyny; when men do it, it's just misogyny. These are not the same.

[stars-and-darkness]

20 questions for fic writers!

many many thanks to @garglyswoof for tagging m

How many works do you have on ao3? 63. i need to calm down.

What's your total ao3 word count? 747 502. i need to calm down.

What fandoms do you write for? the vampire diaries, shadow & bone, avatar: the last airbender, star wars, marvel. also, that one suez canal x ever given fic, and that one goncharov fic.

Top five fics by kudos: A Queen's Gamble (you know it's an old one if the title is capitalised lmao), make them bow., the fate makes for a lousy poet., where the heart moves the stones, nyctophilia.

Do you respond to comments? i try. i am not very good at it, but every now and then i sit down, crack my knuckles, and go about emptying my poor inbox.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the end. is like ... the only fic i ever wrote that ended unhappily.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? see above, lol, literally everything else. i'm a wuss.

Do you get hate on fics? i mean ... not really? i would mostly classify the rude things i got as entitlement rather than hate. the impression i usually got was that those people liked my writing style, or the plot, or characterisation, or whatever--there was just one thing or several that they wanted to happen differently, and they felt the need to tell me that.

Do you write smut? looooooo, no, my ace ass would probably spontaneously combust.

Craziest crossover: i don't suppose i've ever written an actual crossover, but today i put dracula-the-historical-figure into the vampire diaries universe, so ....

Have you ever had a fic stolen? ... maybe? okay, strap yourselves: a few years ago someone asked if they could translate a fic of mine into spanish and post it on wattpad, and i said yes. (THIS is one of the reasons why i don't allow translations anywhere but ao3 anymore). they did, and they sent me the link. i linked the translation to my fic, the usual. then, a lot later, i actually went to check their post, and i realised that i wasn't credited though the person said they would. yaaaaay.

Have you ever had a fic translated? well, other than the fiasco up there, the incredible @winterandmistletoe, who made the edit that graces the beginning of make them bow., has two chapters of the russian translation of that fic up on ao3. there's also been an offer to translate The Manifesto of a Last Love into russian, but that one hasn't been posted yet.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? i have not! and honestly, i don't think i'd be very good at it. i'm a bit of a tyrant, so in an effort NOT to be perceived as such i'd probably be super lenient of whatever the other people came up with even if i didn't necessarily like it. i'm pretty particular in my tastes, and one of the things i love about writing fic is that i have nobody but myself to answer to.

All time favorite ship? ehhhhh, nooo, i can't choose between my children!

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? considering that tvd has had me in its claws for two years now, it feels unlikely i'll ever go back to my wips in other fandoms. you never know of course, but it feels that way. i mean. those unfinished wips don't exactly haunt me, but sometimes i remember them and feel awful about it, lmao.

What are your writing strengths? i'm told i do dialogue and humour well!

What are your writing weaknesses? ughhhhh probably action? it's so hard. oh! and my tendency to describe how a character's eyes look in every other sentence.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? SO fun fact that dracula fic that i posted today? the one where half the dialogue is in french? i had originally written it all IN FRENCH, and then decided to take mercy on my readers and just put the english translation into italics. yeah. anyway, rule of thumb, ig: if the pov character understands what's being said, then english in italics (or if it's just a sentence or two the spoken language with a footnote). if they can hear individual words, then the language that's being spoken, without translation. if they hear only gibberish--maybe they're super unfamiliar with the language, maybe it's being spoken very fast or with an accent--then just 'character x says something in z'.

First fandom you wrote in? marvel, for my own peace of mind. star wars is the first one i actually posted for.

Favorite fic you've written? again, you can't ask me to pick between my children.

tagging: @morningstargirl666 @kirythestitchwitch @helpless-in-sleep @marxandangels @purplesigebert @darkestgrays @averseunhinged

[literalite]

asks

these r all the asks i got last night about the whole aesthetic discussion i'll answer in order of when i got them :p

truth b told if i started simblr like. today and knew nothing about photoshop then i'd probably be pretty demoralised too but also thats exactly how it was starting simblr anyway i just worked on it until i was happy w my skills... no one gave me a cheat code i just put time and effort into it

i agree with u im ngl like i do sincerely wish everyone had the opportunity to put hours and hours of their lives into learning how everything about this works if thats what they truly wanted. also if anything doing it solely by urself will make the process all the more time consuming but if u ask around for help people (including me! im down to help fr) will usually give it to u and that'll speed up the process more. being mad at me for having that is pointless what am i gna do go back in time and unlearn it all and for what? dsfghjk

okay i did see this being said a lot and uhhhh i was trying to understand it but like. i also don't. like ok with cluttered aesthetic build shots or yknow the odd landscape with heavy bloom shader on it i guess if ur looking at it completely from that pov yeah i guess it looks like some posts that "blow up" r just sort of the same shit. but the fact remains that its also it's good shit like anyone can clutter a room and take a photo of it what really counts here in my opinion anyhow is shot composition. and there's literally preestablished rules for this sort of thing u can google cinematography basics and get it for free... there's a whole field of study looking into what draws the human eye. like maybe the core concepts behind what makes a popular post popular is the same but thats because it just works. if u wanna shy away from that entirely but then complain about ur posts not being as popular then that's very much a u problem it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of us

amen these are my ocs wdym these are "sims" LOLLL these are the real people living in my head if i bust my ass making them look good then thats a choice i made

u can call this an empathy problem and try explain it to me more but i dont see how other people feeling insecure about what their current ability scales up to is any fault of mine or my problem to bend backwards to try fix... or even how i could. like is the standard high now yeah honestly it is. the learning curve was steep as hell when i first started as well. no disagreements here. but what am i supposed to do about it LMAO like i didn't create the human proclivity to be drawn to beauty i just ride off of it.

idk why i'm the bad guy for being honest for my reasoning behind what i do and don't reblog? lots of other people have been saying they dont really care about aesthetics which is great but if i said that i'd literally just be lying to you. i'm not gonna apologise for not lying... i like being able to see the passion and energy poured into the same video game we're all playing it's only natural to appreciate that- if that reads as passive aggression and u don't understand my stance that's fine by me

i would say for me personally try watch visual media that u can recognise as "beautiful" and not to shit on like. cw shows but i mean stuff that is marked by its cinematography being truly excellent. and just really examine how those set and lighting designers use angles and lighting and how the people filming and editing choose to frame their shots to achieve what works. hell looking at art helps with this too. look at other people's stuff on simblr analytically try to seriously work out why it appeals to people the way it does. ik u asked for editing tips but i think it really starts ingame you can have the most incredible editing style but it doesn't work if ur shot comp doesn't work then it'll won't hit as hard

take time to learn what most of the adjustment layers do on photoshop, and what all the blending layers look like, download other people's psds and play with them on top of ur shots to see what works! what u personally think looks good will be different from what i personally think looks good, i like dramatic lighting and muted colours and mid level contrast so not too strong but i can't speak for whether you will too. ALSO im a religious user of @/simmerstesia's psd set here i think a well chosen shot can be really elevated by using something like this to really give it that final polish

additionally if u have any like really specific questions or need some advice u can ask me on discord my dms are open like i can talk u thru it. promise it's not as daunting as it can look

[summerwritesfics]

🕸️Hold Me Like You Held Onto Life, Chapter 2 - Wandering Through Broken Shadows

Pairing: Hanzo Hasashi/Kuai Liang Length: 9403 Words Rating: Explicit 🔞 Warnings: Vampire/Werewolf AU, Gang AU, Vampire!Kuai Liang, Werewolf!Hanzo Hasashi, Vampire!Quan Chi, Mention of Murder, Mention of Corpses, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of a corpse being kept in a freezer, Quan Chi is a creepy bastard

Hold Me Like You Held Onto Life Masterlist

Notes: Last thing I’m posting this weekend and then hopefully next weekend I’ll get out some more of my backlog. Honestly I’ve actually had this half edited for like a month or two, so all I needed to do was to do the final read through and post. I’m still having some problems from yesterday so I do apologise if there are some errors again. (if you read the authors notes yesterday on Nightingale; the swelling on my face went down, only for the other side of my face to swell up today. So… That’s fuckin’ fantastic innit? Good news is my toothache is gone so I have that at least I guess lol.) In this chapters, Hanzo’s trying to make an alliance with Kano & Kuai Liang’s out and about visiting old friends :) Chapter title is from “Blood On My Hands” by Xandria

The month had gone by so quickly that Hanzo had barely a moment to compute it.

The full moon came in a matter of weeks, he needed to get his plans in order by then. The worrying thing was that The Lin Kuei had been eerily quiet. It had been easy to expand their territory, and for some reason, The Lin Kuei had barely reacted. It was alarming to say the least. Like they were planning something, willingly sacrificing turf for some reason.

Hanzo needed to figure out what the fuck was going on.

“Katashi?” He questioned, looking over to the man who straightened upon being addressed. “What activity have you noticed so far?”

“Not a lot,” Katashi shrugged, glancing across the map on Hanzo’s table. “There have been Lin Kuei patrols but they’ve been few and far between.” He pointed towards the building they knew The Lin Kuei used as a headquarters. “From what we can tell, they’ve put most of their efforts into protecting their base.”

“But why?” Hanzo pondered aloud, leaning over the table and staring at the representation of the building in question. “What are they doing?”

“I assume this is not normal for a leadership switch?” Katashi questioned. This was his first time experiencing a change like this, so Hanzo supposed it was natural he wouldn’t know the details.

“No. Definitely not.” Usually a switch in leadership came with a push for new territory, as a warning to other gangs that the new boss was serious. But Bi-Han hadn’t done that. The one person Hanzo would have definitely thought would be eager to show off his superiority. “Has there been no whispers? No rumours of what is going on?”

“A couple of men relayed overhearing some patrol claiming Bi-Han was too distracted lately, but they apparently did not elaborate on just what was distracting him.” Katashi rubbed the back of his head. “They seemed pretty annoyed by it, so I don’t think the clan are that impressed by him right now.”

Hanzo huffed, eyes still sweeping the map. What on earth could be so important to him that he’s willing to forfeit some of his turf for it? It just did not make sense. Especially on something that could risk the loyalty of his men. Maybe he was trying to make a deal with someone? But who? And how could he have kept it so quiet?

Then… If it wasn’t someone from the outside, maybe it was an internal issue instead?

There was no way in hell Sektor would be happy that his place as Grandmaster, once a sure bet, was ripped from him upon his father’s death. Maybe Bi-Han was facing a mutiny and infighting. If he was, that would actually work out well for Hanzo. The Lin Kuei destroying itself from the inside? He couldn’t ask for anything better.

He still suspected it was not that easy, however.

“Gather our spies, have them keep a close eye on the Lin Kuei’s headquarters,” he ordered, pointing at the map to emphasise the point. “I want them to watch out for anything that could potentially explain the strange happenings right now. No matter how small, if something seems unusual, I want to know about it.”

“Right.” Katashi placed his fist on his heart before bowing. “I will instruct them to report everything they see.”

Hanzo watched Katashi turn and leave the room. Now alone, Hanzo could sit and consider this more. It was driving him up the wall. Bi-Han’s actions didn’t make sense unless he was planning something big. At times like this, Hanzo wished to the God’s that Harumi was still with him. She would no doubt take one look at the situation and get the answer straight away.

She always was able to read people and situations with ease.

A knock on the door disrupted his longing, and he looked up in time for Junpei to walk into the room.

“Please tell me you have good news.” Hanzo pushed himself away from the table, feeling a little more relaxed when he saw Junpei smile. So, it likely was good news then.

“Kano has agreed to a meeting,” Junpei announced, handing Hanzo an envelope. Hanzo eagerly took it to read. “He actually seems most interested in it, despite how long it’s taken for him to reply.”

Hanzo glanced over the letter. It wasn’t too detailed, just a simple request for Hanzo to stop by the club at his earliest convenience. Hanzo couldn’t help but smile though. This was good news. Regardless of whatever was going on with The Lin Kuei, whatever Bi-Han was currently busy doing, Hanzo had the chance to create an alliance in the fight to come.

“This is excellent news, Junpei.” He folded up the letter, placing it in his pocket. He figured he may as well head over there right away. After all, the letter asked him to come as soon as possible, and Hanzo didn’t really see what more he could accomplish sitting obsessing over the map in his office. “I might head over there now. The sooner we can get things in place, the better.”

“Indeed.” Junpei bowed to him, watching as Hanzo walked over to grab his jacket. “Do you require an escort?”

“No, I think I’ll be fine,” he assured, slipping his jacket on. He reached into his pocket, making sure his phone and his bike keys were in there. “I will send you a text message once I’m there, and another once I’m done.” He approached Junpei and put a hand on his shoulder. “If I do not report back to you in… Hm. Let’s say 5 hours, assume control of the Shirai Ryu and seek me out.”

“Will do, boss.”

Hanzo nodded, patting Junpei’s shoulder a couple of times, before he turned away to head towards the door. Maybe he was being a bit optimistic going in without protection, but there was method in his madness. He’d found in the past that going alone added a strange air of trust into the situation. Hanzo showing he trusted the other group to make the right choice, that he did not see them as a threat. Strangely, it tended to work. It only failed once, with the Red Dragon, but he’d been a little too optimistic on that one given the group's history.

But that shared tension with the Red Dragon could be what Hanzo would need to bridge the gap with Kano.

He had a feeling things were going to finally go his way.

He supposed the good thing about being constantly cold was that being out in bad weather didn’t really affect him anymore.

Kuai sighed, noting that the action no longer came with a misty cloud. His breath was as cold as the rest of him. Vampirism was a lot to get used to. There were so many rules he had to be mindful of now, things his body used to be able to do but now couldn’t. And then the reverse, strange new powers he would have never had when he was still human.

He had slowly come to terms with his new condition over the month. He’d been through just about every emotion he could. Sadness, anger, gratefulness, resentful, scared, happy. It had been an endless cycle for a while. Some days he’d be so happy, he got a second chance of life and he was going to make the most of it. Other days he just felt so angry, unable to comprehend why his brother would curse him to such a miserable existence.

Time healed all wounds he supposed, and while he definitely still needed time to really settle, he had at least gotten over most of the bitterness and grief.

The fear still lingered however.

Granted, most of that looming feeling was squarely the result of Quan Chi. Kuai’s sire had not backed down from trying to get him alone. So far, he’d managed to avoid it, but he was running out of excuses, and it was only a matter of time until Quan Chi got what he wanted.

He needed to get some insight on the man and what his plans could be, and he could only hope some old friends he knew would be able to help him with that.

He reached the old apartment building, hand going to ring that familiar number before he paused. It had been 5 years since he was last here, it hadn’t even occurred to him that the people who lived here might have moved on. He swallowed, before hitting the button. Even if it was someone else, it wouldn’t hurt to check.

Seconds later, a very familiar voice came through the speaker and stated “look if this is a sales pitch, I ain’t interested.”

“Johnny, it’s me.” The statement was met with silence, and then a rustling and what sounded like a door opening. “Hello?” Kuai asked, receiving no reply.

He was about to ring again when the apartment’s door forcefully swung open. Johnny appeared from behind it, staring at Kuai with wide eyes and mouth agape. Kuai let out a short relieved breath.

“Hi,” Kuai softly greeted, trying to resist the urge to laugh too much at Johnny’s expression. After all, it must have been a shock to have a deceased friend show up on your doorstep after 5 years.

“Holy shit. It really is you,” Johnny whispered in disbelief. He blinked and looked Kuai up and down. “Jesus, you look like complete shit.”

“Really? I’ve been dead for 5 years and that’s the first thing you want to say to me?” The absolute gall of this man. 

The pair stared at each other for a very long moment, before both dissolving into a fit of giggles. Johnny practically pounced at him, dragging Kuai Liang into the strongest hug he’d ever experienced in his life. Not even Bi-Han or Tomas hugged him this tightly after he’d been brought back.

“Fuck man, this is…” Johnny finally pulled back, but his hands remained on Kuai’s shoulders. “How the hell is this possible?”

“It’s… a very long story, my friend.” Well, sort of he supposed. From his point of view it was actually a short one, he died and was brought back to life. It was what everyone else was doing that took up the time.

“Well, good job I just got extra coffee then isn’t it?” Johnny pat Kuai on the back, before standing aside to let him in.

Kuai followed him up the stairs and then into Johnny’s apartment. It looked almost exactly how he remembered it, although there seemed to be some things missing from last time. Specifically, all of Johnny’s partner’s things seemed to be gone. That didn’t exactly give him confidence they were still together.

“So, uh, what exactly are you now?” Johnny asked as he went over to his kitchen area. He pulled his coffee machine out, and went to open a cupboard. “I mean, if that isn’t a rude question?”

“I’m a vampire,” Kuai admitted, walking forward and watching Johnny grunt in frustration when he couldn’t find his coffee.

“That explains why you’re here so late,” Johnny joked, before he made a triumphant sound and pulled the coffee from his cupboard. Now he could begin making the coffee, he did turn his attention more to Kuai Liang. “So. I assume your big brother has something to do with this?”

“He made a deal with a vampire, uh, my sire I guess.” God calling Quan Chi that felt so wrong. Like poison in his mouth. “It was about a month ago. Sorry it’s taken so long for me to come see you.”

“Damn, no don’t be sorry. I’m glad you’re here now, we never really got to say a proper goodbye to you ‘cause of what happened.” Johnny didn’t elaborate initially, concentrating on getting the coffee started. Once the machine was on, he fully turned to Kuai Liang and leant against the counter, in that moment realising that Kuai didn’t know what he was referring to. “Not long after you died, your body was stolen from the morgue. It was everywhere on the news man. Police couldn’t figure out what happened to you. It was bad. We decided to have a wake rather than a funeral until your body was recovered.”

“Well…” Kuai bit his lip, recalling what he’d been told of the last 5 years from Cyrax. “That at least explains how I ended up in Bi-Han’s freezer.”

Johnny looked at him, mouth once more agape. “Wait… Are you seriously telling me your bodies been in your brother’s freezer for 5 fuckin’ years?”

“Fucked up, isn’t it?” He said with a small smile, and Johnny laughed in response.

“That is an understatement.” The coffee machine finished and Johnny scrambled for a couple of cups. He poured the coffee before passing one to Kuai. “But, for as much as I question why the fuck your brother would do that, I am happy to see you again man.”

“Thank you. I’m glad to see you too.” Kuai took a sip of his drink. The drink took him back to long nights of the duo playing video games, deciding responsibility was for losers and fuck their respective jobs, staying up all night to try and complete the game. Memories of him stumbling back to Bi-Han’s apartment and passing out on the couch, waking up hours later to find a very disappointed big brother staring over him. Although the disappointment stemmed more from the fact he was out late doing something relatively lame and uncool, rather than being a normal young adult, going out and getting drunk off his ass.

Good times. 

“How have you been, anyway?” Kuai finally decided to ask. “I feel bad this conversation has mostly been about me.”

“Well, I mean I ain’t the one who’s been resurrected from the dead.” Johnny gave him the look. It was a look he used to give Kuai whenever he started to put someone else above him when he was the one who needed support. Sweet as it was, Kuai still felt that in this situation, it should be a two way street.

“Maybe, but I mean, it’s been 5 years, and it’d be nice to know how you’re doing.”

Johnny gave a heavy sigh, “well, y’know how it is. Stuff’s been up and down. I’ve been focusing on my work a lot.” He glanced around the apartment. “You… Might have noticed Sonya’s stuff is gone.”

“I did.” Kuai shifted uncomfortably, and looked around the place as well. It was also a little more messy than it would have been normally. Not awful, by any means, but there was no way in hell she’d have let him leave his coat on the floor or keep the collection of beer cans on the coffee table.

“We split up about 3 years ago.” When Kuai turned back to Johnny he was rubbing the back of his head. “It just wasn’t working I suppose. I was too immature, and she was more concerned for her career. We were arguing a lot. I guess things ended as amicably as they could given those circumstances.”

“I’m sorry Johnny.” He’d been there when the pair got together, and had managed to watch them fall in love. It sucked that things had to end that way.

“Nah, like I said. I guess we were both at fault. All I can do is do better for the next woman.”

“That’s… a very mature way of looking at it.” Kuai couldn’t help the cheeky smirk on his face as he said “are you sure you’re the real Johnny?”

Johnny scoffed loudly, “no, I’ve just done a lot of growing up in the last 5 years, thank you very much.”

It seemed Kuai Liang had missed a lot. He really wanted to sit and learn every little detail of the last 5 years, but he also remembered he had come here for a reason. One that unfortunately had involved Sonya.

“I’ll be honest. I was hoping Sonya might be here too.” He swallowed, hoping what he was about to say wouldn’t make it seem like he’d come just to use his friends. “I had a favour to ask of her.”

“What kinda favour?” Johnny raised an eyebrow.

“She worked with the supernatural division of special forces, right?”

“As far as I know, she still does. Why?”

“I might be being paranoid but…” Kuai brushed his hair back, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I have this bad feeling about my so-called sire, and I was hoping maybe she might be able to dig for information about him.”

“You said this guy made some sorta deal with Bi-Han?” Johnny asked, his face screwing up in contemplation. Like he wanted to understand.

“Yes. In exchange for bringing me to life, he basically has The Lin Kuei at his beck and call.”

Johnny grimaced, “yikes. That sounds like a fucking disaster waiting to happen.”

“Exactly.” Kuai reached up to rub his bicep. “And I don’t know, he seems to be desperate to get me alone with him.”

“Creepy,” Johnny muttered and Kuai chuckled under his breath.

“You have no idea.” And Johnny really didn’t. Kuai really didn’t know how to explain the way Quan Chi looked at him and the dread whenever he was in the room. “I don’t suppose you still have Sonya’s contact details.”

“No, sorry man.” Johnny tilted his head back and forth a little like he was thinking of something. “I do have a friend who might know where she is, he works with her.” Kuai straightened up in hope, but Johnny looked a little unsure about something. “Only problem is I think he’s currently undercover.”

Kuai hissed. That greatly complicated things, but he really needed to find Sonya.

“If he’s my best chance at tracking Sonya down, I am willing to see if I can find him.”

“Well his name’s Kenshi Takahashi,” Johnny informed him, fingers tapping his mug. “As far as I know, he’s currently infiltrating the Black Dragon.”

Kuai frowned. The Black Dragon were a neutral party in the city's gang wars. Or at least, they used to be. Bi-Han hadn’t mentioned any new alliances since his death. It wasn’t ideal for him to trespass on their turf, but it also wouldn’t be seen as some declaration of war. Out of anywhere this Kenshi guy could be undercover in, Black Dragon territory was probably the best for him.

“Thanks Johnny,” Kuai softly replied with a smile.

“No worries man, you should know by now I’ve always got your back.” Johnny reached forward to pat Kuai’s shoulder. He was thankful that after all this time, Johnny was still the same guy he had always been.

“So,” Kuai said in a long, drawn out way. Now that was out of the way, he could completely focus on reconnecting with his friend. “What films have you worked on lately?”

“Jeeze, you sure you wanna start me going on that?” Johnny chuckled. “I figured you’d want to get going to find Kenshi.”

“Ah, it’s only 9, the night’s still young.” He sighed. “Not like I have to worry about staying up all night anymore.”

“Suppose that’s true.” Johnny wrapped his arm around Kuai’s shoulders. “Alright then, let me tell you all about the mess that was the production of Ninja Mime 3.”

“Gonna be honest, when I said get here ASAP, I didn’t expect you to be here quite this quickly,” Kano greeted as he let Hanzo through into his office. “Not that it’s a bad thing, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Hanzo returned with a nod. He could still hear the thumping music from the club, even up here in Kano’s office. It was a little distracting, Hanzo had no idea how Kano put up with it.

“Care for a drink?” Kano asked, walking over to a small station with various bottles of spirits. Hanzo could see one with a familiar golden coloured liquid and he could think of nothing else he wanted.

“Whiskey, please.” He watched as Kano grabbed the bottle and began to pour it into a glass. “I am pleased that you are open to an alliance.”

“To be honest with you, mate, the fuckin’ Red Dragon have been givin’ me way too many problems lately.” He finished pouring the drink, pouring a second glass, presumably for himself. “If gettin’ a hand dealin’ with them means I give you a hand with The Lin Kuei, then so be it.” He walked over with both drinks in hand, passing the whiskey to Hanzo. “The Lin Kuei have never really been a bother before, but new leadership is always a rough time.”

“Indeed,” Hanzo agreed, taking a sip of his drink. It was smooth stuff, strong too, surprisingly high quality. He’d probably have to see where Kano got it from later. “And with who took over, it’s wise to be extra cautious.”

Kano scoffed, “yeah, Sektor’s kind of a moron, so he’s bound to do something that’ll fuck both himself and the rest of us over.”

Hanzo paused for a moment, staring at Kano for a long hard minute. Kano seemed to be under the impression that Sektor was in control. That wouldn’t normally be too strange, it had been assumed by everyone that Sektor would take over from his father. But it had been a month since Bi-Han had claimed the roll instead.

A month of such secrecy and silence, one of the city's biggest crime bosses didn’t know what was going on.

Hanzo wondered how many other people knew what was actually happening.

“I take it you haven’t heard then?” Hanzo questioned, wondering if Kano maybe just misspoke. Kano responded by narrowing his eyes and tilting his head.

“Heard what?” Well, that answered that. He definitely didn’t seem to know.

That just complicated everything even more. Why were they keeping the real change secret? Why wouldn’t Bi-Han want everyone to know he was in control? What the fuck was he doing?

“Sektor hasn’t succeeded his father, after all.” Hanzo watched as Kano’s eyes widened in shock.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me?” Kano stared at him as if he was waiting for a punchline to a particularly terrible joke. “Who the fuck has then?”

“Song Bi-Han.” Hanzo watched as Kano’s face completely dropped at that news.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered in a horrified tone.

“Oh fuck indeed,” Hanzo agreed, taking another sip of his drink. Clearly he was not the only one who realised that this posed a serious threat.

“They’ve fuckin’ kept that quiet,” Kano exclaimed, walking over to his desk and letting himself fall into his seat. Hanzo decided to take his lead, taking the seat on the opposite side. Kano placed a hand on his chin. “I mean I thought they’d been fuckin’ quiet since Oniro’s death came out.”

“The silence is beginning to worry me,” Hanzo admitted, tapping his fingers in a rhythm on Kano’s desk. “The fact that it is apparently not common knowledge that Bi-Han is now in charge is doubly so.”

“Something’s goin’ on, you’re right there,” Kano agreed, reaching over for his computer and beginning to type something. “I ain’t had much interaction with Bi-Han, but I know enough about him to say silent and waitin’ ain’t his style.”

Kano huffed as he focused on his computer. Hanzo assumed this was relevant and he was looking for something. While he waited, Hanzo took the chance to finish off his drink and contemplate his situation. The alliance was looking likely, which was good, not to mention someone else could see how glaringly obvious it was that there was more going on with the Lin Kuei.

“Aha!” Kano suddenly exclaimed, grabbing his computer’s monitor and twisting it for Hanzo to see.

It was a photograph, seemingly taken from a distance and at night. Even so, he could tell one figure in the photo was Bi-Han. He wore that signature blue suit he always seemed to wear, not to mention the small silver emblem on his collar. More interestingly, there were two other figures with him. One was smaller and sitting next to Bi-Han, face obscured by a hoodie with Bi-Han’s arm around his shoulder, and the second stood behind them both.

Hanzo recognised that second figure.

“Is that Quan Chi?” Hanzo questioned, staring at the pale man in question.

“Looks like it,” Kano clicked his tongue as he talked. “Some of my boys took this a couple of nights ago. I didn’t think too much of it initially, but…”

“But if Bi-Han is in control of The Lin Kuei and hanging around Quan Chi…” Hanzo stared at the photo. Bi-Han and the hooded figure were acting like the vampire wasn’t even there. Quan Chi was almost ominously looming over them.

“Yeah. Kinda puts the photo in a different context, don’t it?” Kano huffed, leaning to one side and propping himself up with his fist. “Him takin’ over the Lin Kuei, him being quiet, him hangin’ out with Quan Chi. Makes you think those things might be connected, yeah?”

“There is no way they aren’t.” Hanzo had a personal history with Quan Chi. Back when Harumi died, he had offered to revive her as a vampire. The deal he had offered was vague, and it had set off Hanzo’s bullshit detectors. He’d turned it down, and ever since, Hanzo couldn’t escape the feeling that Harumi’s death and Quan Chi were linked somehow.

If Quan Chi offered a similar deal to Bi-Han, then Bi-Han was a bigger fool than Hanzo had taken him for.

“Any idea who the person in the hoodie is?” Hanzo questioned, he’d mostly entirely glossed over them. The fact Bi-Han had an arm around them indicated whoever it was, they were close. At least close enough for Bi-Han to be comfortable with physical contact.

“My boys didn’t really get a good shot of them.” Damn. The identity of the other person would have to remain a mystery for now then. “But, I do recall hearin’ rumours that Bi-Han had a family member die at some point.”

“Die?” Hanzo thought back to the supposed grudge Bi-Han held against the Shirai Ryu. A family member got hurt. If this was the same family member, then that was a vastly different story to what he had been told. If that was the case, and some of his men had killed someone close to Bi-Han, then it made his anger and hatred a lot more understandable.

But, more relevant to the conversation at present, a dead family member could be exactly why Quan Chi was in the picture.

“After my wife’s death, Quan Chi approached me with a deal to bring her back to life,” Hanzo informed aloud, looking at the photo, desperate for some more clues. The only thing he could find was that Quan Chi did appear to be mostly looking towards the hooded figure. “It is entirely possible that he extended a similar deal to Bi-Han.”

“If that’s the case, we might have a big problem on our hands.” And that was the understatement of the century.

“Our alliance may be far more necessary than initially thought,” Hanzo summarised, hoping maybe all these revelations would completely secure it. Given the look Kano shot him, it seemed to be a done deal at this point.

“Consider us allies then, Mr. Hasashi.” Kano stuck his hand out to shake on it, and Hanzo accepted easily. “Course, we’ll have to work on the details.”

“As a start, I can share with you all the intel I have on both the Lin Kuei and Red Dragon,” Hanzo offered, taking his hand back and reaching into his phone to text Junpei to prepare so he could email the documents. “I have some recent activities, especially from the Red Dragon that you might be interested in.”

“Brilliant.” Kano slammed back the last of his drink with a jovial cheer. “I can send you over this photo, and some of the others we’ve caught from Lin Kuei territory. I dunno, maybe you and your guys can find something we missed.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Even with so much uncertainty ahead, Hanzo already felt things were looking up for him.

All they needed to do was figure out what Bi-Han was up to before it was too late.

Even before his death, Kuai Liang had never really enjoyed clubbing. Too loud. Too many flashing lights. Drinks too pricey. If it was possible, he hated it even more now.

He glanced across the dance floor, watching the sea of bodies jump up and down, grinding against each other in their intoxicated states. The bass was vibrating in his chest, alcohol burning his nostrils and throat despite not having drank anything himself. The fact The Black Dragon managed to operate out of this place rather astonished Kuai. How they hell they could so much as think with the constant thumping of the music, he would never know.

Still, he was here for a reason, although as he pondered it, he didn’t have a clue where to start. How the hell am I supposed to find Kenshi? 

“That would depend on who is asking for him,” a voice that wasn’t his rang through his head. He flinched and turned in a complete circle, thinking someone had just come up behind him. There was no one there, and a chuckle echoed. “Sorry. But if you can tell me why you are seeking him, I may be able to help you.” 

“A friend of mine told me he could help me find someone I’m looking for.” Kuai wasn’t unfamiliar with telepathy, but he’d never experienced it first hand before. It was stranger than he would have anticipated.

“And who exactly would you be looking for?” The voice sounded suspicious, and Kuai couldn’t blame them. Still if Kenshi was undercover, it wouldn’t be wise to just outright say who. But what could he say?

“Could you just tell him Cage sent me?” Kuai questioned, vague enough that hopefully Kenshi would know who sent him, but this person wouldn’t.

“I see.” The voice sounded annoyed, but Kuai wasn’t sure if it was because of how evasive Kuai was or something else. “Do you see the door to the back of the dancefloor?” Kuai looked in that direction, and could just about see a man leaning against the frame. “Come over.” 

“Okay.”  Kuai felt a little hesitant, but decided he really had no other choice. He tried to stay to the edges of the floor to make it easier to get through the crowd. He managed to just about avoid a man elbowing him in the face. It thankfully didn’t take too much to get towards the back. The man was standing with his arms crossed, wearing sunglasses and a sharp black and red suit.

“Okamoto Seiichi,” the man greeted while holding his hand out. In Kuai’s head, instead spoke “Takahashi Kenshi.” 

So, the telepath actually was Kenshi all along. He supposed at least that made talking about something so secretive a little easier.

“Bai Xue,” Kuai returned, deciding there was enough reason for him to use a fake name too. The Black Dragon may not recognise him, but they could potentially put together his and Bi-Han’s joint surname. “Song Kuai Liang.” 

“It is nice to meet you. Please, walk with me.” Kenshi turned to enter the door, and Kuai followed suit. “I hope you will understand why whatever Johnny sent you here for will have to be talked about internally.” 

“I understand.” He glanced around the corridor they were in. It looked like some sort of warehouse rather than anything else. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him, the club was only a part of The Black Dragon’s operations. Everyone knew they specialised in the sale and distribution of black market magical items.

“So what brings you here?” Kenshi questioned aloud, and Kuai knew at that moment he had to come up with a cover and explain what he really needed at the same time.

“Um. I heard there was an auction coming up soon, and I was hoping to sell a few items.” Kuai hoped to fucking god the Black Dragon still did underground auctions, otherwise he’d just given the worst excuse he could. “I am trying to locate Sonya Blade.” 

“I see, well our next auction is for items with magical properties, so what did you have in mind?” It was kind of chilling how his external voice sounded so calm and collected, while internally he practically growled at Kuai, saying “and why exactly should I give that information to a stranger?” 

“I have a range of artefacts, things like pendants and even some bones belonging to mythical animals.” Actually those were both true. He didn’t really use the pendants, even before his death, but he was very fond of his skeleton collection, especially his various breeds of dragons. “I was friends with her and Johnny before I… Before I died. I was hoping she could help me find information on my sire.” 

Kenshi stopped in his tracks, his mouth opening slightly. His head was turned slightly, like he was both looking at and away from Kuai at the same time.

“It’s you. The one who died? The one whose body was stolen?” Kenshi asked, and Kuai felt a lump forming in his throat.

“Yes. I guess they’ve talked about me?” He wasn’t sure why the idea that people talked about him after his death felt so uncomfortable. Of course they did, that should have been obvious. However the actual confirmation that it definitely happened still filled him with a cold sense of dread.

Something about knowing people grieved for him just broke his heart.

“I’m sorry, they never told me your name.” Kenshi straightened himself out, brushing down his suit like he was uncomfortable and looking for something to do with his hands. “They were heartbroken by what happened to you, and then for someone to steal all anyone had left of you…” 

Kuai cleared his throat. He didn’t really want to go into the whole being kept in a freezer situation with a stranger.

“Is there a problem with the items I mentioned?” Them just standing in complete silence would look extremely suspicious if anyone happened to walk by, so he had to get the cover going again. “I was turned about a month ago. I don’t trust my new sire, however. I was hoping Sonya might be able to look into him and see what she can find.” 

“Oh. No. Sorry, I was just thinking if we had any items like that yet. What kind of bones?” Kenshi reached a hand to the back of his head. “I see. What is this sire’s name? I might know something that can help you.” 

“Different dragon breeds. Well, at least smaller breeds, mostly ones commonly found in China, but I have one or two western.” He had to hold himself back, this was just a cover story after all. Even if whenever the subject of dragons came up he wanted to just spill all his knowledge onto anyone who would listen. “His name’s Quan Chi.” 

Kenshi’s mouth briefly curled into a grimace, before he took a deep breath to regain his composure.

“Hm, we haven’t got many dragon bones, especially not Chinese breeds. You might have a small fortune on your hands if you find the right buyer.” He nodded his head slightly. “I have heard of him, you are right to be wary. Nothing I have been told makes it sound like he has nothing but the worst of intentions.” 

“What sort of money are we talking about?” Hearing someone else say they believed Quan Chi was malicious was a relief if Kuai was honest. His brother had remained oddly clinical and detached about the entire thing, so it was difficult to tell how he really felt. The fact he didn’t seem to trust Quan Chi alone with Kuai was somewhat telling however. “Which is exactly why I need Sonya to do some digging. Quan Chi made some deal with my brother regarding bringing me back to life, and I’m concerned about it.” 

“It depends how complete the skeletons are, you can always bring them and I’ll have our expert Tremor appraise them for you, but off hand you’re probably looking at a couple hundred thousand each for loose bones, and a million for a full skeleton.” That news was surprising to Kuai, even if this wasn’t the reason he was actually here. Who knew that those bones he used to collect as a child could be worth that much. “Right. She has access to the computer systems right now, so she’ll be able to look for more info. She’s living on the south side of the city now, the big apartment building on 9th street in apartment 15.” 

Before Kuai could reply, either out loud or in his mind, the sound of a door interrupted him. Kuai glanced over to where it had come from, seeing two men leaving a room and walking towards them. Kuai swallowed when he realised that the man in front was Kano, leader of the Black Dragon. They’d never met, so Kano wouldn’t know who he was, but Kuai had seen photos of him in Bi-Han’s files.

As the two men approached, Kano raised an eyebrow and questioned “Oi Seiichi, who the hell is this?”

“Ah, this is Bai Xue,” Kenshi replied, gesturing vaguely towards Kuai. Man, Kuai was glad he’d given that fake name now. “He was inquiring about selling some artefacts at our next auction.”

“Right,” Kano muttered, but he seemed completely unimpressed by that. “That’s nice and all, ‘sept he ain’t meant to be back here.”

“I’m sorry Sir, I was not aware of that,” Kuai tried to defuse. He didn’t like eyes being on him, and if Kano realised he looked a little too much like Bi-Han it might cause problems. “I can leave.”

“I’ll take him out,” Kenshi offered, taking hold of Kuai’s arm to try and drag him away.

Until the second man stepped forward and stopped them by loudly saying “hold on.”

Kenshi and Kuai paused, and now that Kuai could see this other man more clearly, he looked familiar. Given the way he was staring at Kuai, it seemed he was having a similar reaction. Which in this situation, was definitely not a good thing.

“Have we met before?” He questioned, baring his teeth slightly. “I swear I recognise you from somewhere.”

Kuai and the man stared at each other long and hard, both desperately trying to wrack their brains. Kuai’s eyes flicked over him, hoping to find some sort of clue. There wasn’t much to him, just long hair tied into a bun, a beard and a very neat and expensive looking suit. Except… There was something embroidered onto a chest pocket on his jacket. A small yellow Scorpion.

A symbol of the Shirai Ryu.

Kuai’s eyes flicked back up to the man's face, and suddenly he remembered exactly why he knew who this man was.

Hanzo Hasashi. Leader of the Shirai Ryu.

The man who ordered Kuai Liang’s death.

The fact Kuai realised who Hanzo was must have shown on his face, as it caused Hanzo to take a step forward in interest. Kuai, on the other hand, had no desire for the man who orchestrated his demise to realise who he was. He yanked his arm away from Kenshi, who let go in shock, before turning to sprint. He’d gotten what he needed, he’d have liked to have been able to thank Kenshi for that, but right now he had to go before Hanzo remembered him.

“Hey, wait,” he heard Hanzo call out behind him.

“Oi, don’t let him escape,” Kano shouted out, and Kuai hadn’t even noticed the Black Dragon just milling around doing work.

A few leapt at him, trying to grab him, but he was thankfully fast enough to avoid them. One however, took a chance to fully tackle him, wrapping his arms around Kuai’s chest and attempting to haul him off the floor. Kuai struggled, kicking his legs at the man's shins, causing him to grunt but seemed to do nothing else. He was going to have to play dirty. He swung his leg back as hard as he could, right between the other man's legs.

He knew he hit the mark from the loud scream, and the feeling of finally being released.

He turned to keep running, finding another grunt in front of him. Fed up with their continuous attempts to stop him, he flailed his fist forward, narrowly missing the grunt. The grunt lent forward to try and take hold of Kuai, but this time Kuai launched his other fist forward, hitting the man square in the face.

And in turn, sending him flying off into the wall with a sickening crack.

Kuai stared dumbfounded. The wall around where the man had hit had broken, parts of it falling to the floor in pieces. He vaguely remembered Quan Chi saying there would be changes to his body, but he never mentioned anything like this. His eyes flicked over to where Kano, Hanzo, Kenshi, and the remaining grunts were. Everyone was staring at the man against the wall, who thankfully was groaning and attempting to stand so hopefully Kuai hadn’t hurt him too badly.

He blinked and shook his head. The discovery of his new unexplainable strength would have to wait. He began running off where he could see an emergency exit. To his surprise, he couldn’t hear anyone following him.

As he slammed into the emergency door to open it, he heard Kenshi’s voice ring out in his mind saying “good luck.” 

“Thank you, Kenshi.” Hopefully, when this was all over, and Kenshi was done with whatever his undercover mission was, Kuai could thank him properly.

For now however, he concentrated on running as fast as he could, trying to figure out the quickest way back to Lin Kuei territory so he could map out his next moves in relative safety.

Bi-Han glared at the map in front of him, the yellow patch far too large for his liking. The Shirai Ryu had gained far too much ground during the last month. They’d taken advantage of Bi-Han trying to fit into his new role as Grandmaster, as well as his attention being partly on Kuai Liang’s revival.

But, Kuai was starting to recover from his ordeal, to the point he seemed ready to be wandering the streets at night again. Bi-Han would have felt safer with him going out alone in daylight, but given his affliction that wasn’t really a choice anymore. He just had to trust his brother’s word when he said he would just be going to Cage’s apartment for the night.

Bi-Han had never really liked Cage, but he supposed he had at least been a good friend to Kuai, and he probably deserved to know that Kuai Liang was alive again.

All that was neither here nor there however.

He needed to get back on track in terms of leading the Lin Kuei, and part of that was showing the Shirai Ryu where they truly belonged.

“There were rumours that the Shirai Ryu may be trying to form an alliance with the Black Dragon,” Cyrax informed him, glancing over the map towards where the Black Dragon’s territory was marked in a dark grey. “The Black Dragon aren’t exactly a threat on their own but…”

“Combined with the Shirai Ryu they could be a problem,” Bi-Han summarised and hissed. Kano was a fucking moron, but he was nothing if not persistent. He also had plenty of enemies that Bi-Han could potentially exploit. “What about the Red Dragon? How likely do you think they would be to align themselves with us?”

“The Lin Kuei do not need allies,” Sektor snapped, slamming his hand down against the map. “My father-“

“Left the Lin Kuei to me,” Bi-Han growled lowly, narrowing his eyes at Sektor and just daring him to do something about it. “Are you questioning my authority, Sektor?” Bi-Han took a threatening step forward, and Sektor’s face dropped in regret. “Well, are you?”

“N-No Grandmaster,” Sektor stuttered, stumbling over his own words. He was so pathetically predictable. He liked running his mouth, but the truth was he was just a coward hiding behind his words. “If you believe an alliance would benefit, then we shall do that.”

Fucking snake. Bi-Han was absolutely going to have to watch out for Sektor. He was already going to start making plans for his successor so this bastard could never have a claim to the leadership of The Lin Kuei.

“Um, Bi-Han?” Cyrax cleared his throat, gaining Bi-Han’s attention. When he turned to look at him, Cyrax was looking at his phone with a frown on his face. “I’ve just had word from some of our men that they saw Kuai Liang entering Black Dragon territory.”

Bi-Han tried so hard to not react to that. He failed when he took a deep breath, and clenched his fist. Dammit I knew it was too early to let him go alone. He should have at least insisted on Tomas going with him.

“Both of you, go to the Red Dragon, see what you can do to set up an alliance,” he ordered. Just because he was worried about Kuai Liang and needed to make sure he was safe, it didn’t mean he could just dismiss his responsibility.

“On it,” Cyrax agreed, gesturing with his head to the door, likely for Sektor’s sake. A silent “let’s get out of here before Bi-Han loses it”. Cyrax always was the smarter of the two.

Both men made quick work of leaving the room, as Bi-Han reached into his pocket for his own phone. He wasn’t going to yell at Kuai Liang, that wouldn’t help at all, but he was going to make sure he was safe and had left Black Dragon territory. Usually it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, given the group in question tended to be neutral, but with the looming threat of an alliance with the Shirai Ryu, Bi-Han couldn’t risk it.

The phone rang out a couple of times, until to his relief it was answered and Kuai’s voice came through to say “Hello Bi-Han.”

“Where are you right now?” He flinched and cursed at the harshness of his own voice. What happened to not getting angry at him? All he’d done was say hello.

“I’m guessing someone saw me cross territory lines?” Kuai questioned, and Bi-Han gave a somewhat disappointed sigh. It was disappointing that Kuai had crossed those lines, but Bi-Han supposed he should see victory in Kuai actually admitting to it. “I’m sorry Gēgē, it’s just changed so much since I was last out, I’m having trouble remembering where the lines are now.”

“That may be, but that doesn’t answer my question.” He could understand Kuai’s confusion, things had changed since he was last alive, but it still shouldn’t have been that difficult. Sure, they’d lost some territory over the last month, but that was more bordering the Shirai Ryu, not the Black Dragon. That boundary had mostly stayed in place.

“I’m by Madame Bo’s…” There was a slight pause before Kuai asked, “that is still in Lin Kuei territory right?”

Bi-Han sighed in relief, sitting down and relaxing in his seat. “Yes, that is in our territory.” Bi-Han ran his hand over his face a few times. Thankfully his brother was back on safe turf. It didn’t explain why he was still wandering around when he was supposed to be with Cage. It wasn’t even like he’d need to be heading in that direction to get there. “Are you coming back now?”

“Actually I’m going to visit another friend,” Kuai told him, and all of the relaxation left Bi-Han as he huffed loudly at the news. “Sorry, it’s just… Johnny broke up with his girlfriend, Sonya, a while ago and I want to go see how she is as well. That’s why I got lost in territory lines, but I think I know a safe way to go now.”

What could Bi-Han do? He could demand Kuai Liang return home right now, and then make sure he never leaves again. Or he could let his brother actually have his freedom.

“Okay, fine, just be careful.” He couldn’t believe he was agreeing to let Kuai stay out later. “Just remember you need to be back before daybreak.”

“I know, I know. I will be,” Kuai sighed, sounding exactly like he used to when he was a teenager. “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home, okay?”

“Thank you,” Bi-Han sighed, he was absolutely going to hold Kuai to that. “See you soon.”

“Bye Bi-Han.”

The phone line went dead, and Bi-Han placed his phone on the desk in front of him. Maybe he should give out an order for his men to keep an eye out. Was that too much though? He didn’t want to have to literally stalk his brother for the rest of his life.

A knock on his door gained his attention, and before he could even tell whoever it was to come in, the door was opening. Before even seeing anyone enter, Bi-Han knew it was Quan Chi. He was the only person stupid enough to not await Bi-Han’s permission to enter the room.

Indeed, seconds later, Quan Chi was stepping inside, completely oblivious to Bi-Han’s displeasure. Although, it wouldn’t be surprising if Quan Chi did know and was just doing to piss Bi-Han off.

“Good evening Bi-Han,” Quan Chi greeted, annoyingly smoothly and like Bi-Han wasn’t glaring daggers at him. Quan Chi’s eyes swept the room, his brows drawing together slightly when he noticed Bi-Han was alone. “No little brother today?”

“No. He’s gone out to see some friends.” Really Quan Chi’s obsession with Kuai Liang was becoming concerning. Granted, the whole sire thing meant there was definitely a connection that probably needed maintaining, but it was still strange. He could read his little brother like an open book, and it was so clear he was nervous of his sire. Kuai was one of those annoying people who loved and trusted everyone he met, so for him to immediately take a dislike to Quan Chi?

It spelt trouble, no matter what way Bi-Han looked at it.

“I assume his little feeder has gone with him,” Quan Chi spoke with a bitter edge to his voice. Bi-Han was sure it was because Tomas' existence meant he couldn’t go hunting with Kuai Liang.

“No, Tomas is busy tonight.” The creepy feeling only got stronger with Quan Chi’s reaction to that. His head snapped over to Bi-Han a little too eagerly.

“Then, who is with him?” Quan Chi tilted his head, and Bi-Han knew what he was waiting to hear.

“No one. He’s alone.” And indeed, that was exactly what he wanted the answer to be. His eyes widened and a dark smirk came across his face.

“Alone? Really?” Quan Chi wandered up to the desk, leaning across it. He was looking at Bi-Han like he was trying to figure out if he was bluffing. “Are you certain that is wise?”

“He’ll be fine. He wandered into the Black Dragon’s territory, but got out of there pretty fast.” Bi-Han studied Quan Chi’s reaction, the vampire's eyes narrowing at the news.

“I would have thought you’d be a little more concerned about that,” Quan Chi replied matter of factly.

“I’ve got to let him live his own life.” It was hard. Whenever he looked at Kuai Liang he either saw the small child Bi-Han basically helped raise or the corpse resting in his freezer. Both of those reminders of why Bi-Han had to protect him. But Kuai would never be happy being coddled, Bi-Han had to learn to let go. “Kuai Liang is an adult, he can make his own decisions.”

“Well, forgive me if I’m wrong,” Quan Chi started, leaning further against the desk and lifting one hand to pick at his nails, “But wasn’t making his own decisions what got him killed in the first place.”

Bi-Han almost hit his phone as he slammed his fist down on the desk. The loud bang did nothing to move or intimidate Quan Chi. In fact, as he smiled down at Bi-Han he looked far too proud of what he’d just said. He knew it was a knife still buried deep in Bi-Han’s chest, and he definitely knew that what he just said was twisting that knife deeper. Bi-Han had just given him the exact reaction he’d wanted too. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .

If he’d realised that the deal he made would subject him to this smug prick trying to wind him up at every opportunity, he’d have found another way to revive Kuai Liang.

But then… How long might that have taken?

“Well, he’s a vampire now isn’t he?” Bi-Han chose to reply, trying so hard to keep the anger and bitterness out of his tone. Quan Chi’s leering and never ending grin indicated he was likely failing. “You promised me the only things he’d have to worry about were feeding and sunlight. No one can really kill him again.”

“Well, yes.” Quan Chi pushed himself away from the desk. “But there are fates worse than death, you know.”

“Did you actually need something?” Bi-Han snapped, trying not to think too hard on what fate could be worse than death. All he could see was poor Kuai’s face twisted in pain as some monster hurt him.

“No, I was hoping to speak with Kuai Liang actually.” Of course. “I’ll leave you be then.”

“Fine. Go.” Bi-Han had to resist the urge to flip Quan Chi the bird as he left the room.

As soon as he was alone, he threw his head into his hands and let out a loud groan. His fingers twisted in his hair and he tried to resist the urge to pull too hard on it. He had a feeling Quan Chi was going to be stalking the streets searching for Kuai Liang now, and Bi-Han did not want him to succeed in that task. The least he could do to try and avoid it, was to warn him. He grabbed his phone, and pulled up his and Kuai Liang’s text conversation.

[Bi-Han said: Just to warn you; Quan Chi knows you’re out alone. I suspect he's going to look for you.] [Kuai Liang said: Damn. Thanks for the warning, I’ll keep an eye out. Love you xx]

Bi-Han snorted at the last bit. Kuai always ended his texts to Bi-Han with that. He couldn’t help but scroll up and read their previous conversations. Most of the recent ones had been when Bi-Han was out on business and Kuai was wondering when he’d be back because he was bored. Every time, it ended with that love you and a couple of kisses. He couldn’t help but smile fondly at the messages. His little brother really was just so sweet, wasn’t he?

Then, he paused at a message. One without the little ritual.

[Kuai Liang said: help]

Bi-Han’s eyes flicked to the date it had been sent. It was dated to 5 years ago. The night Kuai Liang died.

He’d almost forgotten about that message, and all he could do was stare at it as his mouth went dry. He had made sure to save and preserve all of Kuai’s texts to him before his death, even this one. His heart raced, just as it had the day he received it. Even now, it made him want to abandon everything and find Kuai Liang. It made him want to try to save him, even if it had been futile back then.

Kuai had too many injuries, too severe for Bi-Han to have been able to help him.

You didn’t try hard enough. 

He turned his phone’s screen off, placing the phone face down on his desk. He stared at the map in front of him, desperate to distract himself from the sinking feeling in his stomach. As he began to make plans, internally he battled the voice telling him he was failing his brother all over again.

[unlimitedtrees]

u ever heard of Pepsi in Sonic 1

(alternative title for this post: the weird rom hack i made 6 years ago)

hello. at the time of me writing this opening paragraph, it is november 7th, and my old rom hack 'Pepsi in Sonic 1' turns six years old today.

you probably have not have heard of it. if you have, you probably either watched somecallmejohnny play it once, or you ran into it while looking up sonic rom hacks on youtube, or you got a random DM from me asking "u ever heard of pepsi in sonic 1" for no reason other than because its funny.

if you already know me, you know i am bad with words and conversation and stuff. but if you dont, i hope that helps a bit of understanding in why i might randomly ask u if u heard of this weird little rom hack. i am bad with starting a conversation ! and my dumb little sense of humor thinks it's funny to bring up a rom hack that doesnt even represent any of the things i currently do !

anyways, even though i joke a lot about this rom hack now and for a few years even Hated its very existence... i also have a deep love for it, as it was one of the few fangames ive made that i feel were made of pure, unrestrained passion. and i dont think i would be the same person i am now if not for this dumb little hack existing.

so, if u wish.. you can click the little 'read more' thingy to learn a bit about this crazy sonic hack i made when i was like, 13.

Alright, so Pepsi in Sonic 1 is a rom hack of (you guessed it) Sonic 1 that i made in 2016 for the sonic hacking contest. at that point, i had only been making games for 2 years and this was one of my first rom hacks ive ever made...

On the Surface, it looks like just a simple joke hack that replaces Sonic with a can of Pepsi. there's also a ton of other sprites that get changed into random little jokes, with some of the more notable changes being Big the Cat replacing Eggman, Jimmy Neutron replacing the Newtron badniks, and the wrecking ball sprite being replaced by a sprite based off Somecallmejohnny's "amiibo face". The game also has a ton of other silly little jokes, such as changing every level's names to something dumb or changing the level art slightly. And the people who played it pretty much wrote it off as just that... just a weird little joke hack that you may or may not have found funny.

but let me tell u.. there is more to this dumb little rom hack than u think ! one of the most major changes to the original game is that every level has been edited to have almost completely new level design.. and honestly a lot of the levels hold up pretty well. the Are some problems which come from the way they were designed.. for u see, i still didnt know a whole lot so a lot of the levels are built on top of the original Sonic 1 layouts, with some sections in some levels being kept the same, as well as all of the levels being forced within the original size limits of the levels (on Top of me having to deal with all the hardcoded bullshit from certain levels like Labyrinth and Scrap Brain).

So, some levels like 'Not Green Hill Zone', 'Dimps Place Zone', and 'Pepsi City Zone' have some really huge changes to the level layouts, while the rest of the game is still a little recognizable from the original Sonic 1 levels.. but i managed to make enough changes to where the whole game feels wildly different from vanilla Sonic 1. Not Only are all the levels different.. but all of them have a hidden "emerald monitor" which u can find to unlock one of the emeralds. they're in pretty difficult to find places, and when u collect all 6 emeralds they give you extra lives when destroyed. The only problem with them is that you can keep collecting the same emerald monitor in a level by dying... so you could cheat and get all 6 emeralds in one level. Still, it's a nice little thing that i put a lot of effort into making.

another one of the main big things in the hack is the Playable Characters. the main character is just a Pepsi Can who is basically just a sprite replacement of Sonic, However there are three other characters in the game that you can play. there is Pepsiman, who's main gimmick is that he can't actually do Damage while spinning. he's basically the game's hard mode, and you actually have to explore the third act of each level to find an invincibility monitor, as he also can't do damage to the bosses. he is the Running Hero, after all ! his only desire is to quench your thirst.. oh and also he can destroy eggman monitors without taking damage from them so. Yea.

You can also play as Classic Sonic, who is his own separate character and uses sprites from the 8-bit games. unlike the other characters, he actually has his own special move: The Drop Dash. You See, in the middle of the hack's development, Sonic Mania was revealed. So, as soon as i saw the drop dash in that game i just Had to implement it in this game. And Well, with it being one of the first instances of the drop dash in a fangame, it is implemented Very Poorly. But It Exists ! and there's actually secret paths you can take using it in the levels (something i wish Sonic Mania did but oh well..). Something that Classic Sonic doesnt have that the Pepsi Can and Pepsiman have is that they can perform the 'Shield Double Jump', in which you are given the ability to double jump while having a Shield. the double jump is pretty powerful, but it stops your speed. i didnt give it to Classic Sonic for Balancing reasons (AKA: i wanted there to be a reason to actually play as the other characters)

the only other character is actually a very hidden secret character: a Very Broken version of Knuckles. all of his sprites are broken and also i think it plays loud music while u play as him. thats all there is to him LOL!

Anyways. Um Yea. i put a lot of work into this rom hack back then. i was still pretty new to ROM hacking, with this being my first time using a disassembly. so i had to both learn basic ASM aswell as figure out how a ton of tools worked just for this game.. and i didn't even understand how most of the stuff worked by the end of it ! and i spent pretty much every weekend Exclusively on working on the hack. also, i had pretty much No Help with this game, with me having to rely on the Very Old and Outdated sonic retro wiki aswell as old forum posts just to implement the things i wanted (and there's still a ton of ideas i didnt get to implement)

when the game finally released at the hacking contest, i was very proud of it but also very Burnt Out. there was still a Ton of issues with this game... for One, all of the pixel art was pretty Bad. not only that, but my method for implementing artwork was very Confusing and Time consuming, with the different playable characters being a huge hassel as i did not know how to make them have different "mappings", which made making the different characters very restricting. there's also little problems with the level design, such as certain "chunks" being misused at some points and also Labyrinth Zone being not as edited as the other zones

i think one of the biggest mistakes i made with this game is with the jimmy neutron sprite... You See, in the original Sonic 1, the Newton badnik has two variants with different behaviors. one uses the first palette line, which contains the colors used for Sonic and most of the objects in the game. the Other varient uses a separate palette line specific to Green Hill Zone, which gives it a more green color scheme. You See.. the jimmy neutron sprite wasnt implemented until the Very End of the game's development... and i never bothered to check the other variant of the jimmy neutron sprite to see if it worked with the new palette and Um..

Yeah . it is not supposed to look like that. this is something that i didnt realize until awhile ago when i replayed the hack for this post. i feel pretty stupid for not noticing it sooner.

anyways. part of what made me hate this game for awhile is The Humor. you see, when it came out, a lot of the people in the hacking community thought it was Unfunny and Dumb. So, by extension, i also started Hating it for being a Dumb and Unfunny rom hack. And well... i made this hack when i was 13, so there Are a lot of dumb unfunny stuff in this hack, like replacing the Points sprite with 'GAY', or having one of the sprites be of ken penders' face.

a lot of things in this hack havent aged well, but i think ive grown to accept this hack's existence. its one of the first things ive made that got Some sort of public knowledge, even if still very few people have played it. And i think, if it werent for me making this hack and joining the hacking community, i wouldnt have ended up in the crazy situation i am in today..

i may joke about askin people if theyve heard of pepsi in sonic 1, and although i would prefer if people checked out my newer stuff, i also hope at least Some One, Some Where, can appreciate the dumb little hack i made. this hack was very important to me when i made it, it was made before i even fully interacted with the hacking community. it has all sorts of dumb little ideas that i tried to do despite all the restrictions i had.. and it was a little soul crushing back then when no one payed much attention to the game i spent Months working on. nowadays, i think ive come to accept being a niche little game dev.. but also i cant help but wonder if there are people out there who like my strange little creations as much as i do...

anyways. Idont know. i probably am missing out a lot of things that i wanted to say. this whole thing is probably incomprehensible (i am currently writing this paragraph at 1 am on November 13). it has been Very Hard for me to Do Things or to even Write Down my thoughts on things. but i hope you appreciate this little thing i wrote about the thing i made.

Oh, And By the Way, pepsi in sonic 1 is open source on github. mostly for archival reasons but if for some reason you wish to mess around with it... it is there for u to do whatever u want with it. Lol.

that is all. goopbye

[magicalink]

Will Assebled love ever get a final chapter??

I hope so, anon, I hope so.

To be completely honest, even if I still haven't decided how the story is gonna end, I have lots of ideas for the middle of the story. Lots of school drama tbh. The problem lies in the early chapters I'm struggling to finish. I'm working on the next chapter but it's still just halfway through. I have some ideas but I'm facing a lot of indecision about which scenes to keep and which to discard. And ocd. Ocd is driving me crazy when it comes to writing, it's my grestest obstacle and the one I'm trying to fight this year.

Can't promise next Assembled Love chapter will he ready next month but I'm ACTUALLY working on a request that is a 'what if' from that AU. Smut ofc. Like, I actually WROTE today. Crazy ik. So expect next post to be either that or another one of the ones I've been promising to post, like 'Gynecologist Albedo' (joke title), Butler Scara or Xiao wanting to have a child with reader, for example. The long fic that has the most possibilites of being updated soon is Catboys in the house. The next long chapter that follows the chronologic story with Xiao finally joining the household is just started, but I have lots of episodic content like usual. Headcanons, smut, smutty headcanons, yk, the usual.

Anyway, as I said my main problem with these early chapters of Assembled Love are indecision and it has to do with this problem: Ik in the chapter list I listed the next chapter as 'Perfect first time' implying that thr seggs is gonna happen next chap. But honestly I think this needs a bit more slowburn. Not so slow, just a bit more of interaction and situations to make the relationship between Scara and Y/N make more sense and be more enjoyable. So, what do you as readers think about this?

The second reason I don't update is toxic perfectionism. It kicks in when I care a lot about a story. At first Assembled Love was a funny side project I wrote randomly without stressing or putting much effort into it while I waited for inspo for Better Find Husbandos, the fic that was most important to me back then. So the words flowed easily and I posted a lot of chapters in a row. When I became invested in the story and really wanted to convey my exact views of the stories through the writing thr block and the toxic perfectionism came in. That's why I'm more prone to posting standalone oneshots instead of adding chapters to the AUs I care so much about, because I don't pressure myself that it has to perfectly convey my ideas about the story.

This toxic perfectionism is something I wanna tackle aggressively this year because honestly:

The not pefect fic you actually wrote will always be better than the perfect fic you never dared to try write.

Gotta ingrain that phrase in my brain permanently. Cuz I started writing to reread and enjoy my own fics but if I don't dare write I won't have anything to read. And that I read can always be edited and rewritten. Seeing authors rewrite their older fics just to make them waaay better years after encourages me to just write and have fun knowing that I can always try again and do it better next time. So that helps.

Let's not think about Assembled Love's final chapter when it's sitting just at chapter 4 and focus on the spin off that is on the making and idk, the next 3 chapters: I'm planning to add more characters with their dramas, Childe, Mona and Venti being the main ones. I want Assembled Love to be a dramatic romantic comedy in a last year of highschool setting, with teenagers struggling to become adults and debating between following what family and society expects from them and finding out what they really want to do with their lives. I want to add tropes of those movies from the United States I grew up watching and give them a twist of the dramatic telenovelas from Latin America, where I live. Will I be able to deliver? We'll see. If I don't I can always rewrite it.

That long chunk of text being said, thanks for sending me asks that make me reflect on my writing and my struggle to write cuz it helps me come up with ways of tackling it and refinding my passion about writing. I answered this one first cuz it's the latest I got but I have lots more I'm gonna answer cuz thst's one of my 2024 new year resolutions that are on my blog. So feel free to send more mail with any doubts you have or even with imagines or things you'd like to see on my stories cuz it never fails to give me inspo!

[teamnovanti]

Why Novanti is So Inactive, and Other News

Hey everyone! I’m not sure if you even remember this channel at this point, but Novanti is still around. In fact, I’m planning on releasing our first big video of 2023 in just one or two weeks from now! But, where were we?

Simply put, all of us have been quite busy with… quite a few things, school being one of them. And it gets tiring, too. I know you’ve heard this many times, so to cut to the chase, none of us in Team Novanti have had time to do stuff on the channel, as much as we’d like to. Nor is Novanti anywhere near the top of any of our priorities.

Watch the video below, or keep reading:

In the past, I tried to hold myself to a weekly upload schedule on Novanti. That was easier when my videos were mostly gameplay with not much scripted commentary, and whatever videos were scripted were much simpler than the average Novanti video nowadays. Unfortunately, due to the amount of research, planning, and editing that goes into today’s Novanti videos, I’m going to completely ditch the idea of an upload schedule for Novanti. Novanti is not the only channel I run anymore; in fact, I run two others, but I put much less effort into those than I do into Novanti, and honestly, I have a lot more fun just screwing around with my videos and sharing things I think are funny or that I just want to share. I try to run Novanti by the same ethos, but I think I’m just… artificially holding my standards too high for Novanti.

My last video made in Premiere Pro, which was my 1,000 subscriber special, was probably my best work of video editing I’ve done. But not only do I not even use Premiere Pro anymore, I don’t think doing this same style is… productive. Videos on serious and important topics don’t mesh well with the style I’ve built up doing videos on Geometry Dash. So, I’m going to start anew with how I edit Novanti videos, with a style that fits my new content better.

To be honest, recording my voice is the hardest part. For those of you who’ve seen my long-unlisted cancel culture video, my voiceover was… utterly terrible. Way too fast for many people to understand, not to mention me getting caught on a few words. Fun fact, that’s actually how I normally talk. In all honesty, it takes me quite some effort to talk slowly enough for everyone to understand me. It’s even harder when reading scripts. This is the biggest factor in why I rarely ever upload. Not because of how I edit, not because of creating the scripts, but creating a voice over of them. Mostly because of problems with how I speak that are almost entirely out of my control, and I’m not even beginning to talk about voice dysphoria, nor will I. That’ll be for a future video. All I’m going to say is, if I start to sound different in the future, know that it’s for the better, but don’t expect any changes to my voice for at least a few months.

Now, for some other updates. If you haven’t heard yet, we have a Tumblr now! teamnovanti.tumblr.com, it’s in the description. We’ll be posting channel updates to Tumblr, just as we will resume doing on Twitter, but Tumblr’s lack of a word count gives us another opportunity. We will be posting full video transcripts to Tumblr, so that our content can become more accessible to those who may have a hard time hearing us. Full captions will also be on our videos, as always. If you have any better suggestions as to where we should put our video transcripts, let us know.

As stated in the beginning, I’m hoping to upload my first big video of 2023 in just a week or two, that video being the Inclusive Language introduction video. I’m going to talk about gender-neutral language, pronouns, and more in it, and I plan on adding more videos to a potential series about inclusive language, though my actual plans may vary.

That’s all for now. See you soon, hopefully, and happy new year!

[kpophubb]

Hiii baby💓 I hope you slept good☺️ ⛄️ 4pm

I think I'm still receiving it honestly I'm like still under the impression (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ ♥

Also all the posts like the design; like the way you put everything together it's just so pretty like it's aesthetically so pleasing 🌟

You attached so many pictures of hyunnie 🥹 I just can't take my eyes of those things

I just want to put them somewhere just to save all of this all of these memories, I want to collect everything put it in the 📦 lock 🔒 put the 🔑 on my neck to always have it with me🥺💞🙈

I was thinking yesterday that like what did I do to deserve all of these from you🥹🥺 I also want to be the person that you could lean on, the person that would make you happy🥺

I'm so happy 🥺thank you💞

As for the ✉️ #1😞 I'm so sorry I cannot send it again it was like available one week and after one week it was automatically deleted from the system when I uploaded it there😟 I checked today but I don't have it anywhere.., but it's OK I will write more💗🫶🏻 so please just don't be sad about it OK,? I don't remember what I was talking about,but it was probably something that I have already said through the asks that I send you this week🙈☺️🥰

You're so sweet and adorable🌟🌸💓 maybe one day I will send you the physical letter why not?😃 of course if you want

I was worried that other things that I attach some like cute memes and stuff you could’ve also not seen, but I checked on it and you mentioned that you so other attachments and I'm just so happy💞

Thank you so much for worrying about me🥺 you're like my sweet angel you know🥺💞 I think I even added first song to our playlist angel baby by troye sivan 🎶

“I'll tell you how I almost died

While you're bringing me back to life

I just wanna live in this moment forever”

I'm also listening now to your recommendation with darling of 17 and it's just so cute 🥺🥺

Oh my gosh I'm getting emotional and I have to go now:( but happy tears 🥲💋💖❣️ oh my God you're so kind to me I just want to do a lot of things for you to repay you🥺

I didn't finish reading your last reply it's so weird but I want to save it for the evening when I'm back from things that I have to finish today👉🏻👈🏻

I'm so happy you had to peaceful celebration nothing crazy I know a lot of people don't like holidays they complain that they have to be with their families but I guess yours was good right?😃 I want to hear more about you🥲💞

I wish you could read my mind 🙈😄there's so many things that I want to tell you , ask you , talk about ..that I feel like my brain is 💥

~ your happy 🐁

Hi my 🐁 anonie!! ❣️ yes ofc I’ve been sleeping 11-12 hours everyday, ofc I’m brimming with energy lol😤 how about you?

I ofc attached a lot of pics of hyunnie bc I know you LOVE HIM SO MUCH! I also know you love soobinie and sunoo? 💞 I want you to smile everytime you read my asks just the way I do when I get yours that’s why I write long answers and put a lot of emojis and paragraphs <3 🌟 aww pls that’s so sweet🥹 I always do this, I take photos of precious things and always save them in a specific folder on my gallery and sometimes even edit them w music and make them special!! 🫶🏻

you don’t have to feel lucky, I’m only doing what I feel like you deserve and what I love doing! 🤍 for me kindness and helping people are the most important things and I receive validation from making others feel comforted and good. I believe love is the most magical & healing feeling in the world so i always try to preach it and make others feel loved and appreciated! ❣️ you have no idea how happy I’m to read that you’re feeling happy rn. 🥺

ayee no, it’s sad that the letter expired :(( but if you say it’s okay, it’s okay then! </3 I just felt sad that you poured sm efforts into writing sth for me and I couldn’t even read it, let alone reply. But I promise I’ll look forward to and reply to ALL YOUR FURTHER sweetly written letters anonie! 💗 pls I’d love the physical copy, AAH I hope one day we meet magically😭 and I can give u lots of hugs and head pats and be there with you 🫂 + don’t worry I always see all the pics you attach, the skz hug pictures and the Pinterest love memes. So cute. Just like you are! 🫶🏻

PLEASE I was so obsessed with the song “angel baby” after you recommended it to me and told me first how you dedicated it to me. I felt so special. T-T and I also made video edits of heeseung with that song and posted for his bday here with the lyrics. The song is so catchy and comforting!😍 and don’t feel obligated to repay me baby love,, if you didn’t know I already feel an incredible amount of joy just being here, being me, writing my mind and talking to you people!! And you obviously, cause you’ve been so interactive since day 1, it just melts my heart🥺💖

Yes my trip was really healing tbh. I clicked a lot of pictures of the views (not me I don’t really click my own pictures lol😭) and I went w my mom and older brother so we had fun!! I don’t like big family gatherings as well..it makes me feel uncomfortable and anxious I just enjoy being w my parents grandma siblings and one aunt :p

hmph about me? I don’t really have a lot to say about me bc idk what to say I get so awkward and I don’t talk a lot about my personal life but currently I’m doing skincare^ like hyunnie? (Even our mask colours are the same lmao) I’ve not gotten any self care during my trip so now I’m doing a bit of care to restore my conditions haha. I also wrote in my scrapbook a while ago and listened to some songs. This year has been really good for me- I accomplished all my goals and grew a lot as a person and made many dreams come true. I’m so thankful. ❤️ atm I just feel really lonely..bc I’ll have to leave behind everything and my best friend behind and I’m so attached to them all, it breaks my heart </3

Feel free to talk your mind anonie! Anything you’d like to say I like listening to people talk cause it fascinates me how different people think and have unique perspectives and experience various emotions. I can’t wait to receive more asks from you and hear you talk to me! 💋

[merrrrrrrrry]

hiiii 🫶🏻

that sounds like so much fun!! it’s so cool that you get to do that for your internship and that you enjoy it so much!!

so i was studying accounting but to start i was doing like a bunch of business classes and the law class i took was super introductory and focused primarily on contract law (i think) and so that’s how i was able to take it even though i wasn’t studying law!! i still don’t understand why my professor wanted us to go to a hearing as part of our final but it was interesting regardless 🤷🏼‍♀️

as for the tumblr edits i looked through your tag and i think they’re really nice!!! that sounds super frustrating honestly. it’s horrible to be so enthusiastic about something and have the people essentially running it not put in the effort to keep it enjoyable for everyone 😔

oooh i’ve never heard of that before, what is tiffin? it’s nice that you got to enjoy lunch with a group of good people!! and i love that for you!!! a good sandwich is always a bright spot in any day 🥹

it sucks you’re having trouble with the book and completing the review, but i’m sure you’re doing a good job regardless!!! hopefully it’ll all get easier along the way as you become more familiar with your area of study 🫶🏻 you were able to get into your program without any preparation so you must be considerably more prepared and capable than you feel right now 💗

okay some things about me..genuinely would spend every waking minute doing crafts if i could. like i don’t even care what i’m doing i just like creating things 🥺 my favorite drink is genuinely so boring i just really like water dhshshs like 9 times out of 10 if given the choice of drinks im gonna pick water! as for music i try to listen to a lot of different genres but i generally stick to pop (mostly bc 1d and the boys are pop-y) and then whatever like 4/5 songs im obsessed with!

good luck on your assignment, im sending you all the spare energy i have 💗💗

-✨holiday pal✨

(i hope this sends okay because i wrote it out in my notes app and copy pasted it bc it was getting incredibly long djshshs)

Hellloooo 💕💕

I'm so so so so so so sorry for the late reply

I do the same thing of writing in notes and copying here sometimes 🤣🙈

That's really cool. Contract law will be introduced as a subject to us this coming semester. I could talk to you about it!

Yeah, just today the posts I made which they approved was supposed to be posted and a few hours before posting time, one of the seniors suddenly had a problem with it and I had to do one of the things all over

Tiffin! Omg I keep forgetting it's such an Indian thing. So this is the Wikipedia definition - Tiffin is an Indian English word for a type of meal. It refers to a light breakfast or a light tea-time meal at about 3 p.m., consisting of typical tea-time foods. In certain parts of India, it can also refer to the midday luncheon or, in some regions of the Indian subcontinent, a between-meal snack.

For me midday luncheon is the best word for it. You'd eat breakfast at home, then have tiffin during break time at school and come back home and have lunch. But right now I'm working the whole day, so i take my lunch with me to court in a tiffin box(mine is just like an off-brand Tupperware kinda thing) and that's my tiffin.

I had Poha today in the morning and chicken curry and pulao for lunch. Sunday special!! What about you?

Thank you so much for that. I pray you're right and i finish my work on time. "Tumhare mooh mein ghee shakkar". It literally means may your mouth be full of ghee and sugar but actually it means what you said was very sweet and may what you said come true.

Water is my favourite drink!!! Oh god, I love water. And I love analysing how different the tastes of water in different places are, not out loud, just to myself.

I admire people who do arts and crafts soo so much. What kind of crafts do you do? The max that I can do is cross stitching.

Have a beautiful day 💕💕💕

[chimchiri]

Art Improvement

I've wanted to post some improvement for a while and with the recent art asks I think it's a good timing. Unfortunately I couldn't easily find art before 2007 so it's 2007 - 2022 now.

Detailed/Yearly examples below (long post, contains partial non-explicit nudity):

2007 - Started with ultra anime style. I always liked coloring and put lots of time into that. All art was still on paper, usually with pencils and copics.

2008 - Got into digital art, including drawing websites (I forgot the name of the one I mean - will update if I remember. kinda miss those) because my brother gifted me his old Wacom tablet. Still very anime but quickly getting somewhat away from it. Mostly because my fave artists weren't anime.

2009 - More digital art. Nothing special to say. Still mainly drawing headshots and 3/4 portraits. Honestly just drawing for fun and because I enjoy the media. Bully/Canis Canem Edit and South Park were the first fandoms I stayed long time and drew lots for.

2010 - More tries and focus on painting and rendering. Style is slowly gearing towards my current style I think.

2011 - ??? I dunno why but I couldn't find any art dated from this year lol. Maybe just not organized well enough?

2012 - Trying to get some anatomy practice done. Slowly starting to focus on actually improving because I couldn't get what I head in my head on paper.

2013 - 2014 - Still lots focus on painting. Also getting a liiiittle out of my comfort zone with poses - not a lot though. For some pieces I put in a lot of effort which definitely shows (I still like them to this day). I think this is where my improvement actually started.

2015 - 2016 - I think this is where my current style really begins showing through. I'm getting more comfortable with anatomy, clothing and painting.

2016 - 2017 - Start of active improvement and looking things up. I'm big time in the DC fandom (especially Halbarry) and draw tons for it. Starting to draw people interacting instead of just headshots. Starting here is my biggest improvement I think. Body language and emotions are becoming a key focus since I value this the most.

2017 - 2018 - More focus on bodies interacting. Anatomy definitely improved here. I'm starting to get away from painting lots and draw more simple colorations or just lineart. Definitely helped getting better at anatomy more quickly.

2019 - 2020 - didn't draw much. Mostly easy lineart stuff. South Park is still showing through ahaha. Didn't improve that much during this time.

2021 - not much to say. Also didn't draw much. 2022/today - drawing a lot again thanks to Sally Face. Currently focusing on special posing, angles and just people interacting.

Aaaand that's it! :)

[maxwell-grant]

i have been watching old (and sometimes new) gmod animations and i grew up watching enough ytps to know the general idea behind them, and i recently gained a sort of fascination for them. there's something special about them that i couldn't quite put into words, but i think you got it down perfectly in your post about grand guignol. basically, thanks a bunch for that.

Well thank you! And, yeah, I pretty much grew up watching GMOD and YTP constantly and even today I still come back to those a lot when I'm restless and taking a break from work, and I think there's genuinely a lot that can be learned or discussed from them as uniquely 21st Century art forms.

I've been rewatching a lot of Raxxo's content lately and I think it was his content in particular that kind of convinced me that the "GMOD/SFM - Grand Guignol" analogy wasn't nearly as much of deranged word salad as I assumed it was, because in all honestly, if you had to try and condense his videos into a genre or definition or something of the sort, what the hell else can you possibly call this that in any way comes close to describing what you experience?

Like, all of his videos are described as "GMOD animated in SFM", because SFM is usually associated with more straightforward dramatic content while GMOD has been cartoon madness from the start (and it's fascinating to watch just how tame even the early Rubberfruit videos are compared to the kind of stuff Eltorro64 or Dr Lalve are putting out), and Raxxo is the latter in the style of the former.

And his videos are not just a non-stop barrage of brain-breaking, because they have weirdly dramatic pauses, and moments of straightforward action, or simple sentence mixing, and there's continuity between his videos, and incredibly smooth and natural gestures following by the characters stretching and deforming like jello monsters on the next second as their screams warble to drown the soundtrack and then everything's back to normal, and then they start doing things that kinda even make some sense as a narrative, but you cannot even begin explaining properly why, and I've watched these so many times that I even kinda start to see what makes sense and what doesn't, even though literally no one other than Raxxo is ever going to guess why he made the choices he did, and god these jokes must have taken hours if not days to render, why does the scretching Soldier head saying "Sputnik!" shows up in everything he does, and oh did I mention he also makes up the soundtracks he uses himself and they don't match in the slightest most people's perception of his content?

And for the finale of the Soldier Dispenser saga he created maybe the most batshit collaborative animation effort on Youtube, which is about an hour's worth of 200 animators all creating their own little batshit mini-stories in reference to his own and, seriously, who the hell could have possibly predicted something like this existing back when computer game Team Fortress 2 was announced in 2007? Or when Youtube was created?

Who could have possibly predicted something like this existing at any point in human history? Where else could anyone possibly experience this much audiovisual chaos anywhere? I can't even bring myself to watch the video in full again, but that this exists at all, and that it's far from the only one of it's kind, and that Team Fortress 2 fan content has spiraled so hard past anything the creators could have possibly predicted that it has self-sustaining meme ecosystems (Remember when smexuals were a thing? Or the Freaks?), that it's still fucking going 15 years past the game's debut, is, it's kind of a lot, is what I'm saying.

Like, I'm speaking as someone who studies a lot of pop culture and combs through it's most obscure and weirdest recesses to find stuff to write about, I'm still just as baffled by how far these things have gotten as I was when experiencing it for the first time. And you can find a lot of stories like these digging through Youtube Poop and the specific styles of certain creators or certain developing memes for franchises that grow and grow and permutate.

Think about what has to have happened to make a video like iteachvader's What'll It Be? happen.

Long John Baldry, blues musician extraordinaire, voiced cartoon villain Dr Robotnik in a Sonic cartoon. Said Sonic cartoon and performance was lucky enough to survive through Youtube clips. People noticed one of said clips of his performance has him saying a word that sounds like penis in a funny way, so they start making jokes about it, and parodies, and then literally hundreds of parodies popularizing the concept as a source of comedy, some of which take the form of music. Said music is done by cutting, remixing and splicing audio from said performance over music beats, which can be a PAINSTAKINGLY LONG PROCESS as someone who's tried doing that several times now, all this to make something with "Poop" in it's name (which I guess isn't that different from pulp writers spending weeks and months breaking their fingers to put out a novel's worth of content every month, for newspapers and magazines that were literally going to be used as toilet paper later)

These parodies catch on a bit and die out for a bit, until iteachvader comes along, and he proceeds to build a career not just by making funny parodies of said cartoon, but also knocking out genuinely really, really good musical parodies, editing voice clips of said performance to make it sound like the villain's singing (and additionally, he also creates his own tunes, and he's shown that literally every sound he uses is taken from the show, which is just, absolutely mind-boggling effort). He's also created over the years a running joke of Tails being Dr Robotnik's son that people liked enough to ask for more, and then we come to the video above, which is a song about Dr Robotnik spoiling his son Tails asking him what he'll want, which is not at all in line with how the two characters are canonically. And said remixes would eventually get remixed even further, even with crossovers with other characters or musicians, and so forth.

And that is the story of how dozens of creators working separately, and with little intent other than goofing around, single-handedly revived a dead man's music career, as the voice of the fan reinterpretation of a animated adaptation of a videogame villain, popular to the billions if not dozens of billions of views over a decade in the making, on a broadcasting platform said man didn't even live to see being created.

I think sometimes we like to think of ourselves as advanced and jaded enough that nothing surprises us anymore, and if we went back in time and showed an iphone to our great-grandparents they'd start screaming in sheer confusion. And, maybe they would, yeah, but imagine if you were Long John Baldry at any point in his life, even after he finished recording his lines as Robotnik, and someone showed up to you and explained that all of this was going to happen to you, to your voice, to your performance. Imagine if you were one of Valve's lead developers working on Team Fortress 2 during the nine years it spent in development, and someone showed you Raxxo's work and Soldier's Dispenser Quest and just, everything that had happened to characters you hadn't even fully created yet.

I imagine Long John Baldry would have taken it well enough eventually, by all accounts he was a fun person who loved to try new things, and he was an openly gay British vocalist in the 1960s when it was literally illegal to be gay in Britain, so I imagine nothing could possibly rattle his cage that deep in the long run.

But can you honestly tell me you wouldn't freak out at least a little trying to understand just what exactly the future was showing you? Can you honestly tell me your cynicism and world-weariness would be worth anything in the face of all this knowledge about what the world was going to do with your creations and work?

Can you honestly tell me, just now, that you have any idea what the hell is your legacy or reputation as an artist, or even what your art is known for, going to look like in a decade or two from now? And that things aren't going to get weirder than they are now?

I find that fact both frightening and strangely assuring at points, and exciting above all.

[myenterpriseisparked]

The Voyager Bunch

Or, Rascals: Voyager Edition

-----

Based on this post

This is dedicated to @jellybeansarecool @bizships @emilie786 @joyful-voyager and @subtle-spock for providing ideas, encouragement, and for generally being really awesome people. Also they are the nicest folks ever. Go follow them.

This ain’t my first fanfiction rodeo, but it is my first Star Trek fanfiction rodeo so I beg for your patience. Also, I am perfectly aware that there are some plot holes in here. This is because I am an animal scientist, not a Starfleet physicist/biologist/whateverist. Swiss cheese also has holes and swiss cheese is good so please consider that.

Click here to read on AO3, if you prefer. Thanks for reading!

-----

Despite having only been a captain for a few years, Kathryn Janeway had seen more unusual occurrences, courtesy of the Delta Quadrant, than most Starfleet captains combined. Some days, she felt a little overwhelmed by the summary of the last three years of experiences. Other days, she was grateful for the callouses such challenges had built over her nerves, preparing her to face even the strangest incidents without panicking.

Today was a day to be grateful, because without having seen everything she had seen, the prospect of her Chief Engineer, Chief of Security, Head Helmsman, and most brilliant Ensign being reverted into child-like versions of themselves would have launched her straight into a spiral of panic.

“How-” Janeway paused for a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, “how exactly did this happen?”

“Well, ya see, ‘Lanna and Harry and I were in that shuttle and then this big black thing showed up and we flew into it and there was a big flash and-”

Janeway held a hand up, cutting off the shockingly fast string of prattle. “I think I understand that part, Tom, thank you.” She spoke as gently and patiently as possible. “What I don’t understand is how Tuvok got into this.... predicament.”

She turned toward the tallest of the four children, who stood with his hands behind his back in a way that would have been exactly like Tuvok, if the pre-teen boy weren’t fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and looking around the bridge, open mouthed and starry-eyed. “Tuvok?”

The Vulcan turned toward her. “The shuttle was stuck in the anomaly and the tractor beam wasn’t working, so I rammed my ship into theirs to dislodge it.” Tuvok nearly smiled, which was jarring to see on his features, no matter how much younger he looked. “It worked, but I got sucked into the anomaly too. When we came out the other side, we looked like this.”

He motioned to Tom and B’Elanna, who were standing next to him, both of which appeared to be around the age of 5 or 6. Harry, who looked to be about a year old, was currently tucked into Chakotay’s arms, playing contentedly with the rank bar at the large man’s throat.

Janeway looked the group over, ignoring the humored smiled playing at her first officer’s lips. With a sigh, she turned to the members of her senior officer team that were not currently under the age of 13. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“I would like to run some experiments first, but I am wondering if I can age their DNA back to the correct age in a process similar to the one I used to turn you and Mr. Paris back into humans after the, ah, Warp 10 incident,” The Doctor said.

“That might put their bodies back at the right age,” Kes said, brow furrowing, “but their minds appear to have reverted to their new biological age as well. Will the DNA reversal process fix that?”

The Doctor tilted his head. “I’m unsure. I need more time to research and run simulations.”

Janeway nodded. “Get started on that right away. In the meantime,” she turned back to the children and her commander, “let’s get you four something to eat.” 

Neelix jumped to his feet, practically lighting up the room with his enthusiasm. “I’ll fix you kiddos up something real nice!” He dashed over to the door with a wild grin. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll have the best grilled cheese sandwich you’ve ever smelt!” He saluted the whole room and practically bounced out the door.

Janeway glanced over at Chakotay who, for the first time since he had picked up baby Harry, looked nervous. His worried glance met her own and he tilted his head.

“Well,” Chakotay sighed, “hopefully these guys aren’t as picky of eaters as I was.”

-----

As unappealing as Janeway found Neelix’s cooking to be, it was, apparently, perfect for kids, as evidenced by the unrestrained glee with which Tom, B’Elanna, and Tuvok devoured their sandwiches.

The captain couldn’t help but smile as Tom downed the second half of his sandwich in a few bites and think how the older version of Tom would have been appalled to see himself eating Neelix’s cooking with such enjoyment.

As the older children ate, Janeway found herself spooning some kind of mashed vegetable mix into Harry’s waiting mouth. At first, she was a little uncomfortable with the idea of feeding one of her best officers, but, once she was able to get past the strangeness of the entire situation, she found herself enjoying the funny expressions and eager attitude of the baby in front of her.

“Gosh, he’s such a cute baby.” She said with a grin for the fourth time.

Chakotay leaned over, his shoulder brushing hers as he smiled at Harry. “I’d like to agree with you, Captain, but you keep hogging him so I can’t get a good look.” He turned to look her in the eye, raising his eyebrow teasingly.

She shoved him playfully with her elbow. “You got to hold him earlier in the conference room. It’s my turn.”

“I think your turn ended about ten minutes ago,” he grinned.

“I think I can find something else for you to do if you’re going to take Harry away from me, Commander.” She returned his grin.

“Fine,” Chakotay shook his head with a chuckle, “but I get him later.”

-----

Several hours had passed since lunch and, much to Chakotay’s disappointment, baby Harry was still firmly in Janeway’s possession, perched on her hip and looking for all the world like he belonged there.

Chakotay tried not to think too much about how naturally Kathryn had taken to caring for Harry as he watched her pace the bridge, checking on various scanner readings and flight paths, from his position on the floor by their command chairs. Beside him, Tom and B’Elanna rolled a ball back and forth between them, excitedly chattering about... well... everything.

“Do you think the whales were really THAT big?” Tom spread his arms out to the side.

“Yeah they were!” B’Elanna exclaimed loudly enough that the entire ship could probably hear it. Despite Chakotay’s best efforts to get her to lower her voice, the young girl seemed to only have one volume. “I saw a big fake one in a museum once and it was HUGE!”

“Whoa!” Tom’s eyes widened. “Bigger than this ship?”

B’Elanna tilted her head. “I don’t know, but it was definitely bigger than me!”

The two kids laughed, rolling the ball back and forth faster.

“Hey Tom?”

“What?”

“You’re my best friend!” B’Elanna suddenly reached forward and gave Tom a hug.

Chakotay glanced up at Kathryn to exchange a look of awe before he turned back to the kids on the floor. “But B’E, I thought you just said a few minutes ago that I’m your best friend.” He raised an eyebrow, hiding his smile.

The young girl gave him a look that he had seen far too many times on her older counterpart’s face whenever he said something particularly dumb. “I can have two best friends, duh.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.”

Suddenly, he saw Kathryn’s purposeful walk stop out of the corner of his eye. 

“Chakotay,” her voice was even and tense, “where’s Tuvok?”

Eyes widening, Chakotay glanced around the bridge. Tuvok was no where to be seen.

“Chakotay to Tuvok.” He stood as he tapped his commbadge. “Tuvok, please acknowledge.” They waited a moment and, upon receiving no response, moved simultaneously toward the turbolift. 

“It’s possible he hasn’t figured out how to use his comm.” Janeway tucked Harry closer to her side as they stepped into the lift. “Computer: locate Tuvok.”

“Unable to comply.”

Janeway gave the ceiling a glare. “Why?”

The computer did not respond.

“Maybe the de-aging effect has made it difficult for the computer to locate him.” Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s alright; he’s probably just exploring the ship; you saw how amazed he was by everything in the conference room earlier.”

She nodded tightly. “Let’s hope so. Where do you think he’s gone?”

“Maybe to the holodeck?”

“Or his quarters.”

“What about the mess hall?”

“He just ate.”

They both paused, mulling it over.

“Alright.” Kathryn straightened. “I’ll check holodeck one and his quarters, you check holodeck two and the mess hall.” She turned back to the lift door. “Holodeck one.”

Chakotay swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying not to think of all the ways a small child could get hurt on a spaceship like Voyager. As the turbolift began to move, Janeway’s badge chirped.

“Kes to the captain.”

Her brow raised as she tapped the emblem. “Go ahead.”

“I think I’ve found something you’re missing.” Kes’s usually lighthearted tone was even lighter, clear amusement seeping through.

Kathryn turned to look Chakotay in the eye, a hopeful smile brightening her face. “I’m on my way.”

-----

Honestly, Janeway was a little ashamed of the fact that she didn’t think to go looking for her best friend among the orchids and other plants in the aeroponics bay, considering his horticulturally-related hobbies. As she and Chakotay stepped into the room, smiles crept onto both of their faces as they watched Tuvok carefully transfer one of Kes’s sprouts to a bigger pot. After patting the soil around the plant firmly, he wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing dirt on his face to match the dirt on his uniform.

Kes smiled up at the command team. “He came down and asked about a hundred questions about our system and then offered to help me with my work while we talked because its ‘more efficient to talk and work than simply talk.’” 

Janeway chuckled at Kes’s approximation of Tuvok’s speech pattern. “Thanks for letting us know, Kes.” She reluctantly handed Harry to Chakotay, who flashed his dimples, and crouched next to Tuvok. “Hello there.”

Tuvok glanced up quickly before resuming his work. “Hello, Captain. Did you know that these Talaxian green beans take only a week and a half to reach maturity?”

“I did not.” Janeway raised a brow and tilted her head. “That’s very impressive.”

“I thought so too when Kes told me.” He patted the soil around another plant and set it aside, retrieving another sprout.

“Tuvok,” the captain reached forward and rested a hand on his shoulder, “I’m glad you’ve found something to do, but you have to tell someone where you’re going before you wander off. We didn’t know what happened to you and Chakotay and I were really worried.”

Behind her, Chakotay’s heart flipped. There was something rather... intimate about the way she had referred to both of them being worried about a child.

“I’m sorry, Captain.” Tuvok nodded his head. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good.” Janeway smiled and stood. “Why don’t you help Kes down here for a while and then come back up to the bridge when you are ready?” She looked at Kes. “That is, if Kes is alright with that.”

The young woman smiled. “Of course, I’d love some help.”

Janeway nodded and turned back to Tuvok. “Be sure to let us know when you’re on your way back up.”

“Of course, Captain.”

She patted him one last time on the shoulder and turned back to Chakotay. They fell into step beside one another and entered the elevator.

As the doors whooshed closed, Janeway turned to Chakotay with the intention of reclaiming Harry, but stopped. A smile grew across her lips as she watched Chakotay bounce Harry gently, allowing the little boy to palm his tattoo in curiosity. Even as one of Harry’s chubby fingers poked him in the eye, Chakotay simply chuckled and took the tiny hand in his own.

He finally turned to look at her. “What?”

Kathryn just shook her head, grinning wider. “I was going to take Harry from you, but I can’t bear to break up this cute little arrangement.” She motioned to the two of them with a long finger.

The corner of Chakotay’s mouth kicked up a little higher. “Captain, did you just imply that I’m cute?”

Her brow arched, but her smile didn’t diminish. “It would be hard for anyone to look unappealing with a cute baby in their arms.”

Her heart stopped suddenly as she realized what she had just said. From the look of Chakotay’s face, he had caught it too. Implying that he and the baby were cute was one thing; calling him “appealing” was another. Before she could say anything else she might regret, Kathryn turned back to the lift door, schooling her features back into the face of the Captain.

If she had turned but a half-second later, she would have seen a wide smile break across Chakotay’s face.

-----

“I’m sorry, Captain, but I need more time. I won’t deactivate myself until I have a solution, but this situation is very delicate and I can’t risk rushing my tests. You’ll need to find somewhere for the children to sleep. Hopefully I’ll have a solution tomorrow.”

Kathryn nodded. “Of course. Thank you, Doctor.”

With a grim smile, the feed from sickbay switched off, leaving her to look at her dark reflection in the black screen. Something like relief swept over help alongside a touch of regret. On one hand, she could really use her senior officers back in functioning shape. On the other hand....

Her eyes drifted back down to Harry, who had pulled a bit of her hair out of it’s ponytail and was curling it around his tiny fist in unbreakable fascination. A smile tugged at her lips as she cuddled him a bit closer. 

She could get used to this.

The thought struck her before she even knew what she was feeling and, as soon as she admitted it to herself, she took that feeling and shoved it as deep into the recesses of her mind as she could. She was the captain of a ship that was constantly in danger and she shouldn’t dwell on things she couldn’t have.

Kathryn sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well, Harry, looks like we need to find you a place to sleep.”

Turning back to the computer, she moved to set him down so she could use both hands to search the crew quarters layouts for a suitable place to keep the children overnight. As soon as Harry’s feet touched the ground, a wail rose from the back of his throat and his face scrunched.

Kathryn quickly scooped him back up. “Harry? What’s wrong?”

The boy’s cry of protest faded into whimpers and he buried his head in her shoulder, clinging to her tightly.

A warm feeling washed over her. “Ah,” she smiled, “I see.”

She pulled him closer and turned back to the computer, tapping buttons with one hand. “You can stay up here with me, then.”

The door to her quarters chimed.

“Come in.” 

Before she could turn to greet her guest, mischievous giggles rose from the door. Eyebrow raised, she whirled around to find Chakotay standing in the doorway, a stack of PADDs in his hand, a tiny engineer on his left leg, and a tiny helmsman on his right.

He stepped forward with far less difficultly than she would have expected, given the extra weight on his legs. He crossed the room quickly and passed the PADDs to her. “The crew reports you requested.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, glancing down at the still giggling forms. “Not to alarm you, Commander, but it would seem that you have a couple of lifeforms attached to you.”

Chakotay’s eyes grew wide in mock surprise. “Really?” He turned his head and shuffled around, as if to look at his back. “Where?”

Tom and B’Elanna’s laughter grew. Suddenly, Chakotay leaned over and scooped the two of them off his legs, lifting them both up over his shoulders as their shrieked in delight.

He turned back to Kathryn with a wide smile. “Not to worry, Captain, I’ve apprehended the life forms.” 

She smiled back with a soft chuckle. “We need to find a place for the life forms to stay tonight.”

Chakotay’s smile faded into a more serious, but not displeased look. “The Doctor doesn’t have a solution yet, then?” He lowered Tom and B’Elanna to the ground. They scampered off to the viewport, excitedly chattering about the stars.

“No, he needs a bit more time.”

Chakotay nodded. “Maybe I could take them for the night, that way someone is there to keep an eye on them.”

Kathryn shook her head. “I have no doubt in your babysitting abilities, Commander, but four children is a lot for one person to watch alone and your quarters are not big enough for Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 to run around in.” She gestured to the kids at the window. 

“Fair point. Maybe I should take Harry and Tuvok then, and you could take Tom and B’Elanna?”

She turned Harry away from Chakotay. “Trying to take my boy again, are you Chakotay?” 

He chuckled and shook his head. “Do you have another idea, then, Mom?”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to smirk at him and continue speaking without any indication that his previous sentence had impacted her. “My quarters are the largest on the ship. If we set up cots here in my living room we could easily both keep an eye on the children overnight.”

“Sounds good to me.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “How about I go collect Tuvok from aeroponics and some food from the mess hall while you get the cots set up?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He gave her one last lingering smile, which she returned, before heading out the door and down the hall.

-----

Apparently the lunch they had shared earlier that day had been misleadingly easy. Supper was, to put it lightly, a challenge.

“B’Elanna, eat your own food and stop taking from Tom’s plate,” Kathryn said firmly.

“But Tom isn’t eating it!”

“I was going to eat it! I’m just a slower eater than you are!”

“Well eat faster then!”

“B’Elanna!” Chakotay set down the spoon he had been using to feed Harry and fixed her with a stern look. “That food isn’t yours, and Kathryn already asked you to stop taking Tom’s food. You won’t be asked again.”

B’Elanna mumbled out an apology and stuffed another bite of her own meal into her mouth.

Kathryn shot Chakotay a grateful smile and turned to Tuvok, who was holding up one of his vegetables to the light. “Tuvok? What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at the xylem and phloem of this plant.”

She bit back a smile. “I appreciate your curiosity, Tuvok, but I need you to stop studying your food and start eating it.”

The young Vulcan turned to her and nodded. “Of course.” He politely chewed and swallowed his food and turned back to the captain. “Did you know that this particular plant is a distant cousin of Terran broccoli? You can tell by the-”

Chakotay smiled as he watched Kathryn listen to Tuvok’s fourth lecture of the evening on plant biology. Neither of them were certain of what he was talking about most of the time, but his enthusiasm for the subject was nearly infectious and neither of them minded listening.

“Chakotay?”

He turned away from the scene across the table and looked at Tom next to him. “Yes?”

“After dinner, will you read to us?”

“Of course.” Chakotay smiled and ruffled Tom’s hair. “Anything particular you want to hear?”

“I want to hear about your missions with the Maquis!” B’Elanna bounced in her seat, all of that barely-contained Klingon energy starting to spill over. 

“Or perhaps you could read to us from a classic story,” Tuvok raised a brow. “I’m fond of the works of Tolkien, maybe Tom and B’Elanna would like ‘The Hobbit’ too?”

“What’s a hobbit?” Tom’s face scrunched in confusion.

“Maybe,” Kathryn interjected before Tuvok could give a detailed recounting of the beloved childhood book, “Chakotay could tell us a story from his tribe.” Her eyes met his across the table. “He is pretty good at recounting ancient legends.”

Heat crept up the sides of Chakotay’s face as he held her stare. “Maybe.”

“Nah,” Tom’s voice broke through the pleasant tension between them. “I wanna know what a hobbit is!”

Chakotay chuckled. “Alright, ‘The Hobbit’ it is.”

-----

It took some time to get the older three to settle into bed, but finally, they began to yawn and snuggle deeper under their blankets. As their heads grew heavier, Chakotay wrapped up his story telling and the command team began to tuck their young companions in for the night.

As Chakotay wished Tom and Tuvok a good night’s rest, Kathryn carefully extracted B’Elanna from where she was snuggled into her side and took her over to her cot. As she got the small girl settled, she suddenly reached up and captured Kathryn in a tight hug. Surprised, Kathryn’s eyes widened, but she returned the gesture in earnest.

“Kathryn?”

“Yes, B’Elanna?”

“You’re my best friend.”

Kathryn blinked and pulled back to look B’Elanna in the eyes with a small smile. “I thought Chakotay and Tom were your best friends.”

“I can have more than one best friend.” B’Elanna’s voice was filled with deep confidence, despite how sleep-laced it was.

“Fair enough,” Kathryn chuckled, pulling the blankets tightly around the girl. “Goodnight.”

She met Chakotay in her bedroom, Harry still in his arms.

“Any time I try to set him down he starts crying.” Chakotay grinned sheepishly. 

She grinned back. “I had a similar experience earlier today.” She reached up and brushed hand over the boy’s soft, black hair. “Its a good thing he weighs next to nothing.”

At Kathryn’s gentle touch, Harry stirred. His dark eyes found Kathryn’s and he reached out for her. With a look of mock hurt, Chakotay transferred the boy to his desired location.

“I’m trying not to be offended right now, Harry.”

Kathryn simply grinned and bounced the baby in her arms gently. “It’s alright, Chakotay. He has excellent taste.”

Chakotay shook his head, dimples flashing. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

She turned toward the bed and settled herself on one side, her back resting against the pillows and Harry resting against her chest. “Let’s see if we can get this one sleepy enough to not notice if we set him down.” She looked back at Chakotay, who was still standing, rather awkwardly. She patted the bed next to her with a smirk. “Come on, Commander. Get some rest. We’ve has a big day, wrangling the kiddos.”

He smiled and crossed the room to the other side of the bed, gently sitting next to her, his legs stretched out. “It has been a long day,” he said with a sigh. “But, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it.” He tilted his head to look at Kathryn, who was already looking up at him.

“Nor I.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Suddenly, Chakotay was very aware of how close their faces were. He watched as Kathryn’s eyes slid down to his lips. Before he could do something he couldn’t take back, he took a deep breath and turned away.

“Well,” Kathryn cleared her throat, sounding more like the Captain now, “it’s been fun but we should get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on Harry here and take him to his cot in a few minutes. You should go ahead and rest, Commander.”

“Of course.” He tilted his head and gave her a small smile. “Goodnight, Kathryn.”

She grinned back. “Goodnight, Chakotay.”

-----

Apparently, Kathryn didn’t stay awake long enough to take Harry back to his cot, as evidenced by the weight on her chest as she stirred awake the next morning. She slowly became aware of her surroundings and the previous day’s events came flooding back to her.

She also became distinctly aware of the warm, comfortable presence beside her. As she opened her eyes, she realized that her first officer’s arm was settled around her shoulders and that his shoulder was currently her pillow. His head rested atop hers and the hand that was not draped around her shoulders was resting on top of Harry’s back next to her own.

The situation was all rather snuggly and, were it not a violation of every professional barrier Kathryn had erected between her and the commander, she would have had no issue in savoring the moment.

Then again.... maybe she could allow herself just a few moments to pretend that the baby in her arms wasn’t her star technical officer and that the man holding her close wasn’t her XO and that this was a perfectly normal situation.

Before she could get too far into her fantasy, however, Chakotay stirred next to her, his dark eyes fluttering open to find her own.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice huskier than her own as sleep clung to it.

“Good morning.” 

They looked at each other for a moment before Chakotay carefully extracted himself from her side, helping her up so she could carefully place Harry in his cot in the living room without waking the boy or the other children who were still sleeping. Without a word, they quietly prepared breakfast and coffee, steeling themselves for another day of handling the kids.

-----

“I’m afraid I’m a bit.... stuck,” The Doctor ground out with obvious difficulty.

The captain raised an eyebrow. The EMH admitting that he was struggling to solve a problem was a rare instance indeed. “How so?”

With a huff, The Doctor turned back to his desk, flipping through experimental results from a stack of PADDs. “Kes was right; the DNA reversal process I initially thought might work will not account for the de-aging of the officers’ brains, so I decided to look at the type of radiation that might have caused this and, to be completely honest, Captain,” he turned back to look her in the eye, “I have absolutely no idea how this even happened. There’s no evidence of radiation, the temporal energy around them is unidentifiable, and I can’t figure out how their cells and their minds were reversed.” He lowered his head. “I’m unsure of how to even proceed from here.”

Kathryn nodded, taking the emotions that were beginning to tumble in her chest and stuffing them as far down as she could. “Very well, Doctor. Take a rest and we can all come back to the issue later once we’ve had time to think.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. “Don’t despair yet; there’s a lot of other brilliant minds on this ship besides your own. We’ll figure it out together.” She smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading into the turbolift.

As the doors slid open, she found Tuvok waiting in the lift for her. She smiled down at him and stepped inside, calling for the bridge.

“Chakotay to the captain.”

She tapped her badge. “Go ahead.”

“We need you on the bridge, there’s a bit of a situation.”

She raised a brow, glancing down at Tuvok, who was gazing at her intently. “On my way.”

-----

“So they want to.... interview us?”

“They want to interview you specifically.”

“To see if we are worthy of going through their space.”

“Something like that.”

“And going around their space isn’t an option?”

“It would add another 7 months to our journey, so this interview is our ideal option.”

“No pressure, eh, Commander?” Janeway shifted Harry from one hip to the other with a long sigh. “Alright. Hail them.”

After a moment, a blue and red humanoid alien appeared on the screen.

“Greetings, Ambassador.” The Captain flashed a polite smile. “I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager.”

The alien woman inclined her head. “Hello, Captain Janeway, I’m Ambassador Tel Parah of the Doonian Delegation.” Her eyes swept the bridge. “You’re ship is heavily armed, which, according to the laws of our people, requires that we do a personal interview of the commanding officer to ensure that violence or other manners of chaos will not be instigated as you pass through our space.”

“Of course, I understand.” Janeway smiled again. “What questions may I answer for you?”

Over the course of the next 30 minutes, Janeway was grilled on their purpose in passing through Doonian space, the types and numbers of weapons they carried, and the journey they had made so far. Just as Janeway thought there wasn’t possibly anything more she could tell them, Ambassador Parah paused and looked up from the computer device in her hand to study Janeway. After a moment, she spoke again.

“Just one more thing, Captain Janeway,” a slow smile slipped onto her face, “What’s your son’s name? He’s absolutely precious.”

Janeway raised her eyebrows in surprise and glanced down at Harry, who she had nearly forgotten was still in her arms. At some point, he had removed her combadge and was currently turning it over and over again in his tiny hands, taking a moment here and there to bite parts of the object he must have found particularly interesting. Kathryn exchanged an amused glace with Chakotay, who shrugged off screen, before turning back to the ambassador. 

“This is Harry.” Janeway smiled, turning the boy so the ambassador could see him better.

The other woman smiled widely. “How adorable. He has the brightest eyes.”

“He does.” Kathryn smiled back down at him.

“You know,” Parah leaned back in her chair, “I usually don’t allow anyone through our space that isn’t from a system or planet we are already know and trust and so I wasn’t planning on letting Voyager pass. However, when I saw your baby and how well-cared for and happy he seems, I felt that I could trust you somehow.” She smiled again. “We value children highly in the Doonien Delegation. Children are often a reflection of a parent’s character. I can tell by Harry’s disposition and curiosity that you are of a fine character, Captain.”

Janeway cuddled Harry a little closer, heart warming. “Thank you, Ambassador, I take that as a high compliment.”

“As you should.” Parah leaned forward again. “You may pass through our space. We will have you stop at three checkpoints on your way though which I will send you the coordinated for in a moment. Have a safe journey.”

The screen went blank and Kathryn turned to Chakotay.

“Should I feel bad that I let her believe Harry is my son?”

Chakotay chuckled, stepping close enough and lowering his voice enough that the rest of the bridge could pretend not to hear him. “Are you saying he’s not?”

Her gaze grew softer. “I guess he’s sort of been like a son to me since we got on board.” She looked back down at him. “I feel very protective of him.”

Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”

They smiled at each other again. Chakotay opened his mouth to say something more but, suddenly, there was a tug at Kathryn’s elbow.

“Captain? Now that the negotiations are over, I think I have an idea about how to fix Tom, B’Elanna, Harry, and me.” Tuvok’s eyes were bright and eager.

“Alright,” Captain Janeway smiled down at him. “Let’s get The Doctor up here and we’ll hear your idea together.”

-----

Chakotay exchanged glances with The Doctor and the Captain over the table as he bounced both Tom and B’Elanna on his knees. “Could that really work? It seems almost too easy.”

“Well, if this is a phenomena that’s inexplicable and is tied only to the anomaly the shuttles passed through, I feel like sending the children back through isn’t our worst idea.” The captain rubbed the back of her neck. “Doctor?”

The holographic man continued typing into his PADD for a moment before stopping and reading. “I- I honestly think this could work.” He slid the PADD over to Janeway. “It’s hard to predict, since we have no idea what exactly caused this, but if we send the shuttles through the anomaly opposite of the way they first went through, I think it just might turn them back to their usual ages.”

“How do we know it won’t just make them even younger?” Chakotay watched as B’Elanna slipped off of his knee, pulling Tom along with her to go play in the corner.

“We’d have to run some tests to be sure that they don’t. Perhaps we could send a plant through first, or some other organic life form.” The Doctor took the PADD back and made a note.

“We would also have to make sure that, if the tests show some promise, Tuvok can take the shuttle back through the anomaly.” Janeway turned to the boy sitting at her right. “Well, Tuvok? Do you think you could pilot the shuttle?”

He shook his head. “Since I don’t have my older self’s memories I don’t think I could.”

“We could use the tractor beam to send the shuttle through,” Chakotay said. “If we give them enough of a push to go through the anomaly, they should be able to pilot themselves back to Voyager once they get out the other side and have returned to their normal ages.”

Janeway raised her eyebrows. “Well, it’s worth a shot and I don��t have any better ideas. Commander, set a course for the anomaly. Doctor, prepare the experiments.”

-----

Tom and B’Elanna seemed to sense that something was up as they suddenly became even more clingy. The whole trip back to the anomaly, B’Elanna shared the captain’s chair with Kathryn, insisting with all of her Klingon passion that the older woman tell her more stories from earlier in their journey through the Delta Quadrant. At the helm, Tom hung on to Chakotay’s arm, watching the stars go by and asking Chakotay a hundred questions about piloting starships. Tuvok sat in Chakotay’s usual seat, interjecting with questions of his own here and there, and Harry sat on Kathryn’s knee, chewing on her jacket sleeve, her combadge still clutched tightly in his left hand.

After they reached the anomaly, it took a couple of hours for The Doctor to complete his experiments and, once he had declared that plants that had gone through the anomaly twice were returned to the same age the started as, they began preparing the children to enter the anomaly themselves. 

“Will it hurt?” B’Elanna asked in the smallest voice she had ever used in her life as Kathryn tucked the small Starfleet uniform that she had come through the anomaly with around her shoulders.

“It won’t,” Tuvok said. “It didn’t hurt when we came through the first time, did it?”

She shook her head, but didn’t look very reassured.

“It’s okay, ‘Lanna!” Tom grabbed her hand. “I’ll be right beside you.”

Kathryn stood and took a step back, feeling almost as if someone had filled her chest with some of Neelix’s heavy stew. She had to let them go, of course, this wasn’t the way they were supposed to be, but she was certainly going to miss seeing the level of innocence her officers had now. B’Elanna was unburdened by trust issues, Tuvok was passionate and bright, and Tom - well, she supposed he hadn’t changed all that much, but at least he seemed to be genuinely happy, not just putting up a front of humor to protect himself.

It would be hard to see them go back, but maybe, now that she understood how the world and time had changed her friends, she could help them.

She was shaken from her thoughts by a tug at her collar. She looked down to see Harry pulling at her pips, completely enamored by the gold metal.

“Oh, Harry.” She nearly choked on his name. Since he was so young now, she didn’t have any insight into his personality after having seen him as a baby, but she was going to miss his innocent curiosity and familiar weight on her hip.

Before she could think too much about it, she handed Harry over to Tuvok. The younger boy scrunched his face up and whimpered at the change of hands, but Tuvok bounced him gently and he settled down, reaching for the pointed tip of Tuvok’s ear.

Kathryn took a step back, feeling Chakotay step up behind her so that they were nearly touching. “Best of luck, you four.” She gave them her most reassuring smile. “See you on the other side.”

She and Chakotay hurried up the bridge and gave the go ahead for the ensign who had taken over Harry’s post to begin using the tractor beam to move the shuttle out into the anomaly. They stood side-by-side on the bridge and watched the shuttle go through. At come point, they grabbed each other’s hands and squeezed each other tightly.

There was a flash as the shuttle passed through the anomaly. After a few terrifyingly quiet moments, the shuttle came bursting out of the other side and a voice crackled over the comm.

“Cochran to Voyager,” confusion leaked through Tom’s voice. “What the hell just happened?”

Kathryn and Chakotay smiled at each other in relief. “What’s the last thing you remember, Tom?” Chakotay asked.

“B’Elanna, Harry, and I were coming back to Voyager when we- wait a second, how did you get here, Tuvok?”

Janeway laughed. “Why don’t we get you four back on board and then we’ll explain everything.”

“Copy that. See you in a few.” Tom’s voice grew quieter, like he was leaning away from the comm. “I have a feeling this is going to be one heck of a story.”

-----

After everyone had been debriefed and left to process the last two days of strangeness, Chakotay found Kathryn in her favorite spot; on her couch and staring wistfully out at the stars as they drifted past. She had shucked her jacket and taken her hair out of it’s clip, leaving her in her grey turtleneck with her hair falling around her shoulders and face.

“Got a lot on your mind?”

She turned to smile at him, a note of sadness in her eyes. “It’s been an interesting couple of days.”

He settled on the couch a ways down, turning to face her. “It sure has.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m going to miss our kids.”

“Me too. It was fun having little ones around, playing at being a parent.” She fidgeted with the seam on the couch. “It was different and they sure did give us some challenges,” she chuckled, “but I loved it.” 

“Have you ever thought about having kids of ou-” he coughed, “your own?” 

Her crystal blue gaze caught his. “Yes.” She smiled and looked out the window again. “I always thought someday I would be a mother.” With a snort and a smirk, she continued; “Of course, I never thought I’d be mothering my helmsman, security officer, engineer, and technical officer.”

Chakotay laughed softly. “I think you were mothering them before they were turned into actual children.”

“Perhaps.” A pause. “What about you? Did you ever think about being a father? Outside of the whole instance with Seska, of course.”

He nodded. “When I was in the Maquis, no. My life was too fast-paced to be a proper father. If I was going to be a dad, I wanted to do it right and I couldn’t have done that from a Maquis ship.” He took a deep breath. “After joining this crew, though.... I’m in a better place now, and I think I’d be thrilled to be a father.” He looked over at Kathryn to find that she was already looking at him with something like wonder in her eyes. He held her gaze for a moment and, finally finding a bit of courage, he said: “I’m more at peace.”

A smiled played at the corners of her lips, and her eyes looked a little like they were silver-lined, though Chakotay couldn’t quite tell for sure in the low light of her quarters.

“You were really good with the kids. You would make an excellent father, I have no doubt.”

He smiled. “You would make an excellent mother. You’re a natural.”

“Thank you, but I barely felt like I knew what I was doing.” She chuckled.

“You could have fooled me.” He grinned for a moment, before his countenance grew more serious. “I hope you get your wish someday, Kathryn. I hope you get to be a mother.”

She was quiet for a moment, and Chakotay suddenly felt his chest tighten. Had he said too much.

Before he could fall too far into his panic, her hand slid over to his, giving it a squeeze. He looked up into her eyes, which definitely had tears in them now.

“I hope you get to be a father too Chakotay. Someday.”

He squeezed her hand back and they both fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the view of the stars outside Kathryn’s window.

[veliseraptor]

got tagged for two fic writer memes yesterday! the one from @ameliarating first:

How many works do you have on AO3?

509.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

3,432,24. dang! that’s a lot of words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I have written for...counting the MCU as one fandom, on AO3 I have written for 32 fandoms, including at least one work in:

MCU, The Sillmarillion, Caliban Leandros, both DC and Marvel Comics, the book Barebacked by Kit Whitfield, Doctrine of Labyrinths, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Black Jewels, Dragon Age, Lucifer, Dexter, Temeraire, Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Supernatural, A Song of Ice and Fire, Greek Mythology, Lymond Chronicles, Merlin BBC, Code Geass, Good Omens,  Death Note, and White Collar.

this is not a comprehensive list of every fandom I’ve ever written for, because it is not including ones that live only on FFN or Livejournal.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Life In Reverse tops the list (11066), aka my 200k Loki-centric post-Thor AU fic that I wrote between 2012 and 2018 and with which I have a decidedly complex relationship at this point. I love it but also I no longer think it’s my best work but also I credit it with teaching me a fuck of a lot about writing and writing longer projects in general.

With Absolute Splendor is rapidly catching up, to my astonishment (6559), despite having been posted for less than half as long. Aka the wedding planning fic that’s really just me mucking about in my Jiang Cheng and my Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian feelings, at length.

some good mistakes (4618) was my first foray into the Untamed version of “characters who hate each other going on resentful roadtrips together, feat. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng.” I have gone on to write others and will continue to write more.

Unraveling (3069) is a little bit of a surprise but also not - it was originally just sort of WWP stuff for my ‘what if people remembered that blunt force trauma is a really bad thing actually’ problem that pops up sometimes, re: Loki at the end of The Avengers, and then it kind of turned into a whole thing. I personally think it’s the weakest of the installments of the series it belongs to, but it is the first one and also the one that gets least into the broader family dysfunction and depression stuff that probably is less everyone’s thing (but is what came out this fic that mattered more to me, personally).

I am a little surprised to see Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains (3068) here too! I was expecting one of the more...idk, mainstream concepts from the MCU to win out? But I also wasn’t expecting two Untamed fics to make it here, either. But I am stupid proud of this fic even if it is very extraordinarily unfinished. This is one of those unfinished fics that will nag at me unless and until I finish it, at least a little, because the concept - if I do say so myself - is so goddamn good and I think I was executing it pretty well, too.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Pretty much never. I was never very good at it and now I’d feel like I had to go back and reply to all of them and I just. I can’t do that. and when I do try to just start at the beginning I get overwhelmed very fast and start avoiding it.

Basically I decided that if it’s a decision between wrestling with myself to reply to comments versus actually doing more writing I’m going to end up landing on the latter as feeling both more doable and more productive.

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

probably it’s The Worlds Forgotten, the Words Forbidden for sheer level of “so then what was the point” of it all. but like. I’ve definitely written a few extraordinarily miserable fics, and by “a few” I kind of mean “a lot.” Other nominees I’d put down might be nor autumn falter (for currently personally making me suffer most), once there was a way to get back home (for I think having the ouchiest summary), and Waiting for the Summer Rain (which remains one of my personal favorite Supernatural fics I wrote).

but like. there are 43 fics I have marked with Major Character Death warnings and every single one of those, pretty much, has a downer ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written several though not in a long time! My craziest probably remains the Morgoth/Cthulhu short I wrote that actually got sporked because someone took it seriously (???) enough to do that. But the craziest that actually has any merit, (I’d argue) is probably the Maeglin/Viserys one.

not linking to either, if you want to go find them I don’t think it’ll be that hard.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, a few times on a few different things. More if you count “people who seem to like the fic but love telling you how much they hate the female characters you’re writing about in it” as ‘hate’ which I would but isn’t, you know, quite as straightforward. If I had a nickel for every time someone bitched about Jane in Life in Reverse, though...lots of nickels.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sure do! But what does ‘what kind’ mean, I don’t know how to answer that question. I feel tempted to just put in my “Mike’s Hard Kinks” image edit in this space.

I guess usually I tend to write smut that at least involves a little bit of a kink? I don’t think I’d feel comfortable writing entirely kinkless smut. I think I’d feel weird about it, the same way I do when I write really nice fic, generally.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I did back when but I don’t remember anything about it. I feel like it was one of those mass data scraping things where my fic happened to be among those caught up in it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! several actually, mostly into Russian and Chinese. every time it happens I’m immensely flattered that someone wants to put in that kind of work on something I wrote.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I think I’d be very, very bad at it.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Depends on when you ask me! I could probably give you a top five but then I’d remember six that I forgot to mention five minutes later. I guess if I were to think about ships that feel like they hold very special particular places in my heart... Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Steve Rogers/Loki, and Min/Rand come to mind.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

oh god do you want the whole list cause honestly I could just like. screencap the entirety of my “in progress” folder with a crying emoji watermarked over it. and that’s not getting into the fics that are like...half formed babies in my consciousness but not anywhere on paper.

and also I just hate to admit that I might not finish something.

you know what? the Lucifer/Good Omens crossover I started would’ve been a lot of fun. I’m probably never going to finish it, but it would’ve been great if I had. I know other people did it too but my contribution could’ve been amazing.

I can say this very boldly with the near certainty that I’m not going to finish the fic so no one will be able to disagree.

(...also the Last Herald-Mage fix it. that was going to be a good fic too, and also will probably languish unfinished forever.)

What are your writing strengths?

I’m pretty sure dialogue is my strongest point. Dialogue and emotions, which is why I always end up just wanting to write about characters talking and having feelings at each other.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing action sequences throws me into conniptions every time I have to do it and I will take drastic actions sometimes to avoid doing it at all, which probably weakens the work as a whole.

Also, I don’t plan ahead and this means I write myself into corners kind of a lot. If I wasn’t writing long, dense fic it wouldn’t be a problem but here we are.

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

I tend to avoid it unless it’s in the context of, as in CQL/MDZS fic, leaving certain terminology untranslated. I’m pretty sure I almost never write full exchanges of dialogue in a different language than I’m using for the narration within a fic, and generally speaking my reaction to other people doing it is at least mildly negative.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter was technically the first fandom I wrote for, but it was a crack fic I wrote to make my friends laugh more than anything; I tend to count Wheel of Time as my first actual fandom for which I wrote my first actual fic.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

some days the answer is “all of them” and some day the answer is “I don’t like anything I’ve written in my entire life” and I never like giving this a definitive answer. yesterday I reread efforts in a common cause (the bound copy!! thanks @spockandawe) and you know what, that was a good fic and I’m proud of it, so I’m going with that one, for this meme, today.

tagging: @mostfacinorous, @jaggedcliffs, @silvysartfulness, @mikkeneko, @kasasagi-eye, @curiosity-killed, how many people am I supposed to tag for this one anyway

[denkineptune]

being luke’s parental figure- general hcs

♡ a/n i made this out of pure love for everyones’ collective child, luke. i feel like he doesn’t get love a lot, even in the celestial realm. with how strict he is about rules and morals and such, i feel like lots of other angels wouldn’t like to hang around him. also do not sexualize babey because he is just that- babey

♡ this was very self indulgent and nobody asked for it, so read if you wanna. i was very scared to post this since it’s me first actual post. feel free to give feedback!! 

♡ fic details: gender neutral reader, headcanons, sfw (don’t write luke as anything but), fluff, ~800 words, edited not well 

so you and luke started getting along after the lucifer/beel drama

baby was so grateful that you stepped in to protect him from lucifer

luke would never admit it, but even though he reported directly to archangel michael, he was fucking terrified of basically every demon

for a few days after the griot incident, luke stuck to you like glue

i mean like he literally clung to your RAD jacket and pretty much refused to let go

he’d always have at least one hand in a death grip on your shirt

he would go to all your classes and skip his own because babey was so scared he would be put in danger again

eventually, he loosened up and wouldn’t hold your jacket

he still wanted to be near you, though

he felt comforted around you but couldn’t really explain why?

you felt warm and welcoming in a way that the celestial realm and his fellow angels didn’t

it was something luke had never experienced but he’s beginning to think it’s like how humans have parents or siblings

he is still very confused about why he likes you so much but it makes him happy so he’s not really complaining

he likes to hold your hand a lot

his hand is s o f t 

he is prideful, very similar to lucifer

he is proud of being an angel because of how humans portray them

he’s not above embarrassment, though

he refuses to hold your hand around the brothers or diavolo and barbatos

luke will still lace his pinky with yours or pinch the bottom of your sleeve

this angel loves baking! he’ll want to involve you with baking in some way

whether it’s baking with you, having you taste test, decorating, or just being in the kitchen with you, he wants you there with him

he won’t call you any sort of special name, except maybe a nickname

this is because of, you guessed it, his pride

do not, for the love of god, tease him

he doesn’t take it well

luke does not like when he’s made fun of, so if you do he feels hurt and betrayed

he will still come back to you after a day or so 

please be careful around him

defend him!! don’t let the brothers push him around or mock him

also don’t call him “chihuahua” it makes him pouty :((

honestly sometimes it’s hard to be friends with him

he may be thousands of years old, physically

but his human age equivalent is 10

so please be patient with luke

he still doesn’t really know what he’s doing in the devildom

anyways, boyo is a cuddling legend

if you’re ever in purgatory hall please be prepared to stay for hours

when luke finds you sitting down on, say, a couch

he WILL come and sit next to you

it’ll start out with you two on opposite sides of the couch

then he’ll come closer, gradually

as if in some kind of gravitational pull

he’s comfy and will not move for hours

expect him to fall asleep within like 45 minutes

you may have to carry him to bed

he’s actually really light??? you don’t know if it’s because he’s an angel, or because he’s small, but he’s lighter than the average 10 year old human

luke is brutally honest

i mean he’s always kind of intense for, basically a kid, but if you tell him about your day (bc he’ll always ask)

luke will provide his thoughts whether you want him to or not

sometimes he gives really good advice

other times it’s just “you shouldn’t hang around demons in the first place”

you try to get him to open up to demons

starting with beel

luke already kinda trusts beel so it doesn’t take long for luke to warm up to him

he’s very prejudiced so it will take longer than your stay in the devildom, but he’s a bit less serious around demons thanks to you

he really likes you

considers you his best friend

he thinks you may be an angel in disguise??

like how can a human, of all people, be so kind?

luke is the n i c e s t  he’ll give you candid compliments in an effort to make you feel nice about yourself

completely out of the blue, the literal sweetest things

as in “y/n!! your hair is nice today!” or “you’re so nice to me” and “i like hanging out with you” 

honestly you may have a heart attack being around him he’s so nICE-

he enjoys going to restaurants with you 

you show him movies from the human realm like disney movies

he likes lilo and stitch and he cries every time

please make sure you reassure him because he is very easily anxious and worried about you

but that’s just cuz he loves u

all in all everyone is kinda jealous like who wouldn’t want a friendship like this?

and diavolo is HAPPY AS HELL that his exchange program is working so well

there is harmony between people from two different realms!!!

all in all, you and luke are adorable and everyone should envy your relationship sorry levi