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emma-nation · 3 years

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The Devil In I - Bela x OC (Resident Evil Village AU) - Chapter 5

“Step inside, see the Devil in I”

Summary: Aleena Novak is a 19 years old orphan who desired more than living in a village in the middle of nowhere. A talented artist with a big future ahead, she gets the scholarship of her dreams in United States. But everything changes when her twin brother, Auryk, steals an important artifact from Castle Dimitrescu.

In this adventure, Aleena will find way more than she expected.

“You’ll realize I’m not your Devil anymore”

Pairing: Bela Dimitrescu x f!OC

Genre: Between T and M (Trigger warning for violence, blood, abuse and eventual smut)

Tag List: @nydeiri

Notes: I hadn't seen the video with all the sisters' lines, even those cut from the game. From the Maid's Diary we found, I assumed they could never leave the castle, even in Summer, as it was set in July like this fanfiction. I'll fix the mistake in this chapter. My apologies!

Thank you for all the reviews, follows and likes! It means a lot to me.

Trigger Warning: Language, abuse, blood and violence.

Castle Dimitrescu, Lady Dimitrescu's Bedroom - 3 Days Earlier

When Bela woke up in the morning after the attack, she had been taken to her mother's bed. After her transformation, she felt fragile like a child again. Not knowing who or what she was anymore, she was scared and lost. Her mother's bed felt like the safest place in the entire world. And it was. She loved being there. Alcina would never let anything or anybody hurt her. Nobody knew this side of her, when she acted like a loving and protective mother.

"Mother," she muttered, noticing Lady Dimitrescu was watching her and stroking her hair. "I'm sorry. I failed."

"Shhhh," Alcina kissed her daughter's forehead, "you need to rest now, daughter."

She started singing a jazz song Bela liked. Singing was one of her hidden talents. Her mother's voice was like a lullaby to her ears. She was almost falling asleep again, when flashbacks from the night before returned to her mind. She remembered being in Aleena's bed before falling asleep. She was holding Bela's hand, assuring her she'd be alright.

"Aleena," she sat down in an impulse. Bela feared what her mother and sisters could have done to the girl while she was sleeping. She started feeling agitated. "Where is she? I failed to protect her."

"She's fine. There's no need to protect her anymore, I asked Cassandra to keep an eye on her while I'm here with you."

Cassandra? But her mother knew Cassandra's intentions. She'd use Aleena to satiate each one of her desires and then, she'd kill her. If only she hadn't failed. If only she hadn't been so weak.

"But, mother... she's going to kill her. Please, she saved my life! She doesn't deserve to..."

"Nobody is going kill her, Bela. Once I have my goblet back, I'll let her go." Lady Dimitrescu pushed her back to the bed, tucking her under the blankets again. Then, she grabbed a book from the bedside table. "Why don't I read something for you? One of the stories you like?"

Bela forced a smile, listening as her mother began to read. She loved being there. It felt like the safest place in the world... in the past. Not anymore. Now she just felt betrayed.

When she noticed she was still wearing Aleena's jacket and inhaled her perfume, she thought there was somewhere else she'd rather be at the moment. Somewhere where she was truly feeling safe and happy. She wished to be in Aleena's bed again.

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Castle Dimitrescu, Lady Dimitrescu's Bedroom - Present Days

Three days passed and Lady Dimitrescu still wouldn't let Bela leave her room, even if she already felt completely recovered. She wouldn't leave her side for more than a few minutes and not even her sisters were allowed to see her.

She had everything she always wanted. Her mother's exclusive attention, to be sure she cared about her as much as she cared about her sisters. Yet, it wasn't enough. Not anymore. There was something new inside her. A part of her that wasn't connected to the life she had lived so far, a life that only included Alcina, Cassandra and Daniela.

"Good morning, sunshine," Bela covered her eyes as the sunlight invaded the room, immediately pulling her out of her sleep.

She was having those dreams again. Dreams she assumed to be memories from her past life. The one before the transformation. She decided to record them all in a diary. She hadn't much to do while she was stuck in that bedroom, it felt like a good manner to spend her time.

"Oh my god, now besides spending the day in bed reading Lord Byron, you're also writing a diary?"

"Cassandra," she angered, immediately getting up and grabbing the diary from her sister's hand before she could read anything she wrote. She also kicked the small pile of books on the floor to under the bed. "What are you doing here?"

"Quick and sharp. It's about time you leave the nest, don't you think?"

"This is what I want the most, but mom isn't convinced I'm recovered yet."

"Liar," Cassandra shook her head and smiled sarcastically. "You're loving it and I know."

"Are you jealous she remembered she has another daughter?" Her eyes and ears analyzed the space around her. Alcina was nowhere to be seen or heard. If their mother wasn't around, it could be a good opportunity to sneak out of the bedroom. "Where's mom, by the way?"

"Doing some boring shit in her office. She asked me to keep an eye on you."

"Okay, I'm doing great. Now leave, I'm gonna take a bath."

"Oh, no," her younger sister sat down at the bed with a book. "It's my turn to read something to read for you."

Cassandra began to read some words Bela recognized very well. She added a dramatic tone to her voice.

"When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end. The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me."

That was an excerpt from the book Daniela once found among a servant's belongings. The one about a vampire who fell in love with a human.

"Why are you reading this to me?" Bela rolled her eyes. That story was beyond absurd, suggesting vampires glowed in the sunlight. Yet, she wished she had the opportunity of attending school like those vampires were able to. Being weak to the cold was definitely worse than glowing in the sunlight.

"You know why," Cassandra did that judgmental look again. "It didn't work well for mom, it won't work well for you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," enough was enough. Bela went to the bathroom to prepare her bath. She would leave that room and no one would stop her. "And we don't talk about it, remember? You know how upset mom gets everytime she's reminded of her."

"We're not talking about her, we're talking about Aleena."

She froze at the mention of that name. It was surprising how in only a few days, a simple name acquired so much meaning.

"What Aleena has to do with this?"

"She saved your life," her sister followed her into the bathroom. "She could've ran away, saved her own ass, but instead, she came back to rescue you. She fed you her own blood, even knowing you could lose control and kill her. There is something going on and you can't deny it."

"So what?" Bela closed her eyes inside the bathtub, attempting to relax. All those things were true, but in the end, she had failed to protect Aleena. So much the task had been given to her sister. "It wouldn't be the first time a woman becomes infatuated by me. Which is not her case anyways. She's only trying to show how brave and efficient she is."

"You can fool mom and even Daniela, but not me. I know you, sister. Something about you has changed from the moment Aleena entered this castle."

Cassandra was definitely doing that to annoy her. That was one of her favorite hobbies. Bela decided to ignore all that provocation.

"You're wrong. And besides, she'll be gone soon. It doesn't matter."

But it did matter. And that was exactly why Bela was so desperate to leave that bedroom. What if Aleena was already gone when she left the room? What if she couldn't see her at least one last time? What if she ended up being another one of Cassandra's maidens?

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Castle Dimitrescu, Office - Present Days

A few days had passed since the Lycans' attack to the castle. The heating system had been restored, as well as the windows. The members of the staff proved to be innocent, they were so scared and ambushed as any of us.

Cassandra and Daniela were finally warming up to me. But I hadn't seen Bela yet. Alcina was keeping her locked at her own chambers, not allowing me anywhere near it. Even her own sisters were only allowed to see her that morning.

I was caught by surprise when, after breakfast, Mrs. Volkov came to my room bringing the information Lady Dimitrescu wanted to see me. I hadn't seen her since her return. Her entire time and attention were dedicated to Bela and god-knows-what she did inside that office. Maybe that was the day she decided to end my life. Even if I knew she was immortal, I decided to go prepared. If she couldn't die, maybe my daggers could at least give me some time to run. I was glad to have my amulet with me.

"Sit," she ordered as soon as I entered her office. "We must have a talk."

I obeyed. She closed the door and served us both a cup of tea. I decided to accept it, even if I just had breakfast.

"How's Bela?" I asked.

"Oh Bela... my sweet daughter..." the woman sighed and shook her head as she took a sip of her tea. "She's the most tempestuous of my three daughters, even a small thing can affect her mood."

I had a feeling she was talking more to herself, than to me.

"She's recovering. Her wounds have healed but I still think she looks a bit weak. As you could see, the cold can cause a severe impact on their bodies. Had it been in Winter and my daughter could have..."

She interrupted her sentence. She couldn't pronounce that last word and neither could I. Even if I only knew Bela for a few days, I couldn't stand the idea of losing her. Seeing her looking so sick in my bed still haunted my memories.

"Anyways, this isn't why I called you here," Lady Dimitrescu changed the subject.

"Yes, m'am?" I asked, drinking my own tea. "Have I done anything that goes against our deal?"

She raised her eyebrows at my unexpected question. I could imagine she was used to people being less confident in her presence.

"You did everything against our deal. You've been bumbling around this castle like if you were at some kind of fairytale, you've been messing around with my daughters and you... you saved them."

"I did."

"You could've ran away or even killed them. That was your perfect chance but you chose to save them," I had never seen such a look in the eyes of Lady Dimitrescu before. Only in that moment she seemed like a loving mother, grateful that I made the stupid decision of giving up my freedom for her daughters' lives. "Why?"

"I don't know," I sighed. I really didn't have an answer for that. "Maybe I was just following what my mother taught me, to help anyone in need despite of who they are or what they did. Bela saved me in my first night here, I felt I owed her that."

"She saved you because I ordered her to protect you. I know how Cassandra and Daniela can be. You owed her nothing."

"I also owed you," I added. I had to work on earning her trust, if I wanted my freedom and my life back. "You could have killed me and my brother, but instead you're giving us a chance."

Alcina did everything to hide it, but I could tell my words had caused impact. She appreciated honor and loyalty, and that's what I was showing her.

"What do you want?" She finally asked. "I must give you something in trade for your courage."

I thought for a while. I could ask for my freedom. I could ask for money. I could ask for her to forgive Auryk. But instead, I asked something simple.

"I want to call my brother. I want to know he's well and inform him I'm doing fine. I also want to know about his search of your goblet."

"Okay," she indicated me the phone on her desk. "I'll give you some privacy."

I couldn't believe what just happened, but I dialed Auryk's number as fast as I could. Nothing brought me more relief than hearing his voice on the other side of the line.

"Auryk! That's me," I spoke.

"Leena? Oh my god, I was starting to think you were dead."

"No, actually I've been doing pretty well here. You wouldn't believe it."

"What? How is that even possible?"

"Nevermind," I smiled. "I'll tell you later, in person. So, how's the search for the goblet, speaking of which?"

"I've been following some leads but it seems impossible to trace the buyer. I've also received some information that seems confusing and misleading."

"Why?"

"Aleena, do you believe Miranda would be able to betray her own cult?"

We didn't spoke much after that, but the question remained inside my head. The leads Auryk obtained all lead him to people related to Miranda, her most loyal followers from the village. I also thought about the Super Lycans and how somebody planned to kill the Dimitrescu girls. Only someone with so much power would be able to plan such a thing.

"I need your help," Alcina spoke once she returned to her office. I lied to her, saying my brother was close to find her goblet. "Somebody has betrayed me and I need to know who."

"Okay..." I don't know how I could even help her with that.

"I bet that was him!" She smashed the teacup in her hand furiously, before starting to walk around the office like a maniac. "The pig, the bastard, the motherfucker..."

"Heisenberg?"

"Yes!" She looked at me proudly. As if it was any secret those two hated each other. "But I need proof to show Mother Miranda the rat he is. Otherwise, she would never believe me."

"You need to approach him cautiously," I suggested, "so he won't have any suspicions. Bring him into your territory, where you are in charge and not Miranda. It'll be enough to intimidate him a little. Enough for you to catch any hints of a strange behavior."

Lady Dimitrescu didn't say anything for almost a minute. At first, I thought she had found me extremely stupid for suggesting she should invite her nemesis to the castle, but then, she opened a sly grin.

"Smart girl! You just gave me an amazing idea... I'm throwing a dinner tonight, for Mother Miranda and the other Lords."

"Yes, give him some alcohol too. You know, men and alcohol... it's not a good match."

She laughed. Not sarcastically this time, but sincerely. Then she got up and caressed my chin. Her cold hands made me shiver from head to toes.

"If I knew you were such a good girl, I'd have kidnapped you earlier. Now go, I want you to be there too. I'll ask someone to get you an appropriate dress."

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Castle Dimitrescu, Ballroom - Present Days

After lunch, Cassandra asked me to show her some of my knife moves. She had been strangely glued to me in the last few days, like a dog guarding its bone. I knew I had promised her we could do a training session any day, but I never imagined she'd take it seriously. I started to wonder if that was a good idea at all.

She picked the ballroom for our training session. Where we'd have plenty of space to move and chase each other. Scary.

"I'm giving you an advantage," she said. "I lowered the room's temperature a bit. I can't transform into flies."

"Good," I grabbed my twin daggers, "not all of us can buzz around."

She rolled her eyes at the pun.

"Oh and I also fed before coming. So in case you get hurt, I won't have problems with my instincts."

"I'm glad to know."

I started by teaching her some basic moves, which bored her a little. Then, we proceeded to a close body combat. I had to admit she was good, even if she didn't have a specific style or technique. But when she fought purely by instinct and impulse, that was a disadvantage. I was able to deflect some of her moves easily.

"Damn," Cassandra panted, a little tired. "You're not so bad. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"By myself, mostly," I swallowed an entire bottle of water. Training with a vampire had consumed all of my energies. "My father didn't believe women should hold weapons."

"Moron."

"And a bastard. That's what he was."

"How did he die?"

"I never found out for real. He was out for one of his travels and apparently he got in a bar fight or something. I can't say he didn't get what he deserved."

I sat down on the floor to get some rest before taking a shower, Cassandra joined me.

"Your mother is throwing a dinner tonight," I spoke. "She wants me to be there. I have to admit I'm kinda nervous."

"Don't worry, it's only an excuse so she and Heisenberg can yell insults at each other. It'll be like any other meeting."

We were in silence for a moment. Cassandra fell pensive but I noticed a smirk on the corner of her mouth.

"I saw her this morning," she commented. "Bela."

"And how is she doing?"

"Quiet, broody, boring... same as usual. I'd say she's completely recovered. Mother is exaggerating, being so overprotective. But it isn't like Bela doesn't like receiving attention and being spoiled."

"She seemed very weak that day."

"Not anymore," she was about to leave the ballroom when she remembered something else. "She asked about you, in case you wanna know."

"Oh," I tried to pretend I wasn't so worried and interested. But I could feel my cheeks burning. "She did?!"

"You're blushing, sweetheart," Cassandra was too smart to leave this unnoticed. "You like her, don't you?"

"It's not like that! I... I care about her, we... have this thing... we kinda saved each other, you know?"

"No, I'd call that 'having a crush'. And I must give one advice, it won't end well for you. You and Bela belong to two different worlds."

"I know that," I assured her. "Trust me, I don't have a crush on your sister. And I won't have. I have another priorities at the moment."

"Good for you."

She laughed sarcastically and leaving me alone in the ballroom with my own thoughts. I didn't have a crush on Bela. I couldn't. She was right, we belonged to different worlds. I was only fascinated by the sensation of danger, the adrenaline she brought to my life. A sensation I never felt before. She was a predator and I was her prey. A real feeling would never exist between us.

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Castle Dimitrescu, Dining Room - Present Days

Right after I took a bath, Mrs. Volkov knocked on my door bringing a stunning red dress, jewelry and shoes. That was what I was supposed to wear for the night. Never in my entire life, I could be able to afford something so fancy. If it wasn't for the fact Lady Dimitrescu was pondering if I should live or not, I could easily enjoy that life.

"You look amazing," was what Daniela spoke when I met her in the hall. "Come here, let's take a picture."

Taking advantage of the fact her mother had been busy with Bela, she was enjoying her free time to discover the joys of the modern world with me. She revealed me she also had a cell phone. One she stole from one of the maids and assumed to be broken. I explained there was no phone signal where she lived but that she could explore other functions of the device. Since then, she has been recording multiple videos of her daily life and taking pictures with me, Cassandra and even the staff.

Lady Dimitrescu was going to kill me. I raised a monster.

I also found out we shared the same passion for art. She was a very good artist.

"Red is Bela's favorite color, by the way," she told as she tapped her phone screen. Good thing the camera wasn't able to capture me blushing.

I finally saw Bela for the first time in days. She was coming down the stairs just as we took the picture. Dressed in white, she seemed like an angel.

"Aleena," she greeted me with a simple nod.

"Hey," I couldn't help opening a huge smile, "I was starting to get really worried about you."

"I'm fine."

She followed her way to the dining room. I could tell something had changed. I didn't know what though. Was she mad at me or at herself because of the Lycan incident? Was it something her mother said again? The thoughts were consuming me as we placed ourselves around the table.

It was a foolish idea to assume a civilized meeting could happen in that dinner. Lady Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg had already started to exchange insults. Daniela said inappropriate things about five times. Cassandra had just threatened a servant with her knife. In my turn, I observed Donna Beneviento and I could quite imagine why she wouldn't speak to those people.

"Mother Miranda," Alcina had finally reached the point where she revealed the true objective of that meeting. "About four days ago, I was called to an emergency at Donna's house. A prized possession of hers has also been stolen. When I returned home, my castle had been vandalized. Someone attempted to murder my daughters by exposing them to the cold air, besides sending Lycans to kill them. And they weren't normal Lycans, they..."

"Were Super Lycans," Daniela interrupted. "Their claws were exactly like my mother's."

There was an awkward silence before Lady Dimitrescu proceeded.

"As I was saying. The Lycans were modified to be stronger."

"Oh please," Heisenberg argued. "Who would bother wasting so much time with you?"

"Those Lycans could only have been created in that gruesome factory of yours."

"Gruesome? Let's talk about gruesome. How many virgins did you sacrifice for this bottle of wine?!"

Oh god. I suddenly didn't feel like drinking anything else for the night. But then, the conversation shifted to another point.

"You're inventing this attack to cover up the fact you let that little thief go and he has stolen from another Lord," Heisenberg accused. "It was more important to you to bring his sister to serve as entertainment for your daughters. Which she must be doing very well, considering she's still alive and sitting among us tonight."

"Hey," I opened my mouth for the first time that night. Suddenly everyone was looking at me. "My brother didn't do it. I called him this morning, he's not even around. He has been searching for Lady Dimitrescu's goblet. And dare you to disrespect me again and I will..."

Nevermind. What could I even do against him? He was immune to my bullets and my daggers.

Cassandra started laughing, while her mother looked at me in a mix of shock and disappointment. Heisenberg continued with his accusations.

"Prove it then. Prove your brother has no involvement in this whole situation. He could have planned the attack as well, to rescue you."

"My brother is human, he has no power to create modified Lycans!"

Mother Miranda cleared her throat, indicating all of us should shut the fuck up. I stared at her figure, remembering my brother's words. She could be the one behind all of that and everyone was blinded by her power.

"I've come to a decision," she spoke. "Heisenberg is right. So far, the only person who could be declared guilty is the Novak boy. Alcina, if I remember correctly, you made the decision of letting him go."

"What about the attack, Mother Miranda?" Lady Dimitrescu was furious, but not surprised at her decision. Miranda seemed to always favor the other Lords over her. "The girl has a point. Such a stupid manthing couldn't have created Lycans and given them more power."

"Do you have proof the attack even happened? I'm sorry, Alcina, but the castle is intact."

"I repaired the damage! It was a risk to my daughters! I have their word as proof, as well as the word of my servants."

Heisenberg started to laugh non-stop, before insulting her again:

"So now you remember you have servants? You always kill each one of them to satiate your thirst for blood."

Lady Dimitrescu couldn't find words to refute that argument. Whether because it was true or because she was being smashed by Miranda and Heisenberg.

"Your son of a bitch!" She punched the table, making everything shake.

"We're all doomed!" Beneviento's creepy doll, started to run across the room, repeating those same words. "Each one of us!"

In that moment, I could finally hear Bela's voice in all of the mess.

"At least one reasonable person in this room," she stood up and started to leave. "Angie is right. We're all doomed."

"Bela," Alcina called, "come back here. We're not finished yet."

But she had enough. And so did I. I didn't think before following her to the main hall.

"Bela," I called her. "Where are you going?"

She stopped, taking a deep breath.

"Somewhere," she said. "Are you coming?"

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Castle Dimitrescu, Bela's room - Present Days

I swallowed hard when I noticed we were standing in front of Bela's room. She opened the door and invited me inside. I felt my heart thundering inside my chest. It was the first time a woman invited me to her bedroom.

Bela's bedroom was a reflection of herself. Completely organized, perfectly decorated. Daniela was right about her favorite color, some things had shades of red. Such as the curtains and the sheets covering her bed. The walls were decorated with some paintings and a portrait of herself. She also had a small collection of vinyl discs and a telescope near the window.

It had a small study attached, where I could see she had her personal collection of books. That was where she entered and came back seconds later, bringing a bottle of wine and two glasses. Then, she sat down on a sofa, inviting me to join her.

"There's no blood in this one," she spoke. I stared at her, wondering how she even knew. "I can't hear you thoughts. I saw how you put your glass aside when Heisenberg made that comment."

Good. That was probably something good to know. Bela couldn't see the mess inside my head. She was merely an observant woman who could read people very easily. I smiled in response. I was too nervous to show any other reaction.

"I just can't stand all that arguing, all that yelling," Bela drank her entire glass in one sip. Then, she stood up and went to the window. I followed her.

"It's a beautiful night," I commented, pointing to her telescope. "Do you like to watch the stars?"

"Yes and it's the only way I can do it."

"So you can never leave the castle, at all?"

"Sometimes, during Spring and Summer," she sighed melancholic. "Days when the temperature is higher than usual. This year hasn't been kind to us so far. Or the last one."

Never being able to go outside should be a torture. Now I could understand why sometimes she seemed so moody and upset.

"Summer has just begun," I told. "Maybe you can get some luck in the next few weeks."

"I hope so."

She went back to the other side of the room, serving herself another glass of wine. I hadn't finished mine yet.

"What do you think?" She returned to my side and asked. "About the attack. Do you think your brother is fooling you?"

"No, no way. Auryk never lied to me before, I know he's telling the truth."

I knew Heisenberg accusations would cause me trouble. Especially with Miranda siding with him.

"Lying is different from having secrets," Bela said. "Don't you have anything you hide, even from your brother? Something no one knows, but yourself?"

I did. I never told Auryk about the night I spent with Gustav, where I wasn't able to lose my virginity to him. I also didn't feel like telling him about my days in the castle this morning. I knew he'd judge me, in both cases.

"I do, but..."

She let out a small laugh.

"Oh Aleena," she traced the border of her glass with her perfectly manicured finger, "you act so strong and tough but deep down you're so naive."

"What do you mean?" I wanted to know.

"You should've ran away during the attack."

"I wouldn't let you die."

"Why?" Bela was staring deeply inside my eyes. In a manner I was feeling completely exposed, uncomfortable. "Do you know how many people I've killed? Or how many women I seduced only to drink their blood? It's not like I deserved to be saved."

"It doesn't matter," I didn't have a right answer for her question. "It felt right. You saved me in my first night here."

"Only because my mother ordered me and I try so hard to be a good daughter for her. But I failed, right? Now Cassandra has been taking care of you."

"Is she? I mean, I noticed she has been kinda glued to me lately but... sorry, I don't believe she'd save me if she had to."

"No, she wouldn't. She'd take advantage of the opportunity to get you killed and feed from your blood. My sister is more reckless than I am."

"You're different."

"I'm not. I'm just more careful with my actions," she placed a hand on my chest, feeling my heart beating fast. She shook her head in denial. "How do you know I'm not playing with you? How do you know you won't have the same fate as those five teenagers from your village, three years ago?"

"I... I..." deep down, I always knew Bela had an involvement in that situation. But now hearing a confession was totally different. Yet, I didn't feel afraid.

"How can you trust me? We've only met for a few days and here you are, standing in my bedroom where I could kill you and no one would even hear you scream."

"You wouldn't do that," it was my turn to face her, to look deeply into her eyes. I placed my hand over hers. "I know."

"I'm a monster, Aleena. All the stories you've ever heard about me? They're all true."

I don't care. I don't care. I'd still save you if I had to. I wanted to scream those words, but they wouldn't come out.

"You need to stay away from me," she removed her hand from my touch.

"Why?" I asked. "Tell me. Be honest. Who are you trying to convince with all of this? Me or yourself?"

"Just go, Aleena," she turned her back on me. "Just go."

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Castle Dimitrescu, Library - Present Days

I couldn't get any sleep. I'd just keep rolling in bed, without being able to find a position. What did Bela mean with that conversation? Was she assuming I was in love with her or something? I wasn't stupid like the other women she was used to seduce. I knew better than that. She had absolutely no right to throw all her frustration and anger at me. I wasn't her mother. I wasn't Heisenberg or Miranda.

I grabbed my sketch book and walked to the library. That castle was even creepier when it was dark and silent. It was almost like you could hear the laments of the people who had been tortured and killed within those walls. I remembered the five teenagers from the village. My mind tried to picture how they were lured into the castle and who killed each one of them. I could see myself in the place of one of those girls and the only thing I could imagine was if they were in Bela's bed when they were killed. I imagined the things she did to them. I tried to feel scared but instead my heart would start racing all over again. I tried to ignore those thoughts, but I locked the door anyways.

I had to relax somehow. I sat down at the desk and attempted to find any inspiration. I started working on a piece that represented Mother Miranda, the Four Lords and all the mystery surrounding those people.

I heard the door opening, I quickly pulled a dagger from my ankle. I could sense a presence approaching me. I was ready to attack, when the low light of the lamp revealed who it was.

"Oh, I didn't know you were here," Bela spoke.

"I was about to leave," I grabbed my sketch book from the desk. When I turned around, she was standing very close to me. We were face to face now, even closer than we were earlier in her bedroom. Her eyes were different though. Before, she looked angry and upset. Now she just seemed sad. "Good night."

"You can stay, if you want. I shouldn't be here anyways."

"No, it's your castle and your library. I'm leaving. Also, I'm retuning your key."

I extended her my palm, handing her the key I was holding.

"Don't be ridiculous," she closed my hand again. "You're my mother's guest."

"Prisoner," I cleared my throat and corrected. Bela let out a small, ironic laugh in response.

"Well, you had the chance of running away. You wasted it, darling."

And we were back to 'darling'. The same 'darling' from the beginning, when she was still deciding if I should be her prey or not. From when she didn't even know my name.

"It wasn't a waste. Not when I was saving your life."

"You shouldn't have saved! I made a mistake, I should be the one to fix it or face the consequences."

"Oh my god, is it all because you were in danger? Because you lost control of the situation? You don't need to be perfect all the time, Bela. It's okay to fail."

"Not everyone is like you, Aleena. For you, it's just natural. You are perfect at everything you do. You can always fix everything that is wrong. You can always use the situation in your favor. You're always pleasing everyone, even my mom!"

My hands started to shake in anger. She knew nothing. I was far from perfect and my abusive father knew very well how to expose my flaws, my failure. For Adrian, being perfect was the only acceptable option. Otherwise, he'd beat us. He'd punish us. Yet, I didn't torture myself for that. Especially after his death. I was about to shout it at her face, when I dropped my sketch book.

I kneeled down, collecting all the spread papers on the floor and shoving them back into my sketch book. When I stood up, Bela was holding one of them.

"Why were you drawing me?" She asked, analyzing my work carefully. I froze.

"I... I..." I had no excuses this time, except for the truth. "I wanted something to remember when I'm gone."

"You shouldn't, Aleena. You should forget it as soon as you leave through the front door. Nothing in this place is worth being remembered."

"You are!" I finally said it. "What if I don't want it, huh?! What if I don't want to forget you?!"

She was in silence for a moment. Then, she closed her eyes as if she was trying to process what she heard and what she would do next.

"Then, I better give you something better than a portrait."

She grabbed my face, pulling me closer to her. There wasn't any more distance between us, I was pressed between her body and the desk. I couldn't move, not even if I wanted to.

Bela's kiss was like every other of her actions. Calculated, planned. She wanted to make sure she'd be in control of it. She wanted nothing but perfection.

She started it very slowly and shy, as if she was trying to figure out the territory first. Her lips softly brushed mine at first, like if she was asking for my permission to go forward. I retributed, pressing my lips harder against hers. I wrapped my arm around her neck, bringing her even closer. I wanted to show how much I desired her, I desired that kiss.

She gently parted my lips with her tongue, finding her way into my mouth. Her tongue gently stroke mine, raising shivers all over my body. I stroked hers back and I could feel her pulse accelerating too.

I don't know for how long we kissed. Minutes, probably. I didn't want to stop. Never.

"Now," I smiled against her mouth when we parted, "that was perfect."

"Shhhh," she whispered, opening a huge grin, "shut up, love. We're only getting started."

Our second kiss was different from the first. It was more desperate. More intense. More passionate. We were both confessing how much we had been longing for that. Then we kissed for a third time. And a fourth. Then I lost count.

All I know is that I spent the night in the library, making out with Bela Dimitrescu.

#resident evil village #residesnt evil 8 #bela dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #alcina dimitrescu #bela x f!oc #bela x oc #resident evil fanfiction #the devil in i

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absynthe--minded · 4 years

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wattpad vs. ao3

so this is an examination of Wattpad as an alternative to Archive of our Own, largely in response to the ongoing criticisms of AO3 when it comes to their content policy and what’s permitted onsite in terms of tropes and ratings. I’m not going to be talking about anything in the context of the completely separate and justified debate about how Archive staff handles racism and racist harassment. First off, I agree that AO3 needs to take more action against racist commenters and stories intended to harass fans of color (I’ve received a few comments like that myself) and second off, I don’t know how Wattpad handles racism.

I’m pro-AO3, but I do believe that if people have problems with AO3, they should be free to leave the platform and find something that suits their needs and wants better, and no one has brought up Wattpad in these conversations, which I think is a shame.

Wattpad:

commercial site with ads and a premium membership option

general fiction focus with fanfiction section (not a dedicated fic archive)

mobile-friendly with a dedicated app on App Store and Play Store

basic user tagging (think Tumblr, Instagram) with some native filtering

allows for user blocking

community forums on-site with direct messaging feature

RTF-only text input (no HTML editing)

native image support, including gifs and video files

ability to upload custom art in-story and as a cover for your fic

no native self-archiving/story download feature unless you’re the author

extremely large userbase, with popular fics getting hundreds of thousands of hits regularly

primarily M/F, including large amounts of selfshipping, reader insert, and canon/OC romance

site demographic skews young, with many adolescents “aging out” and moving to FFN or AO3

comprehensive, well-enforced content policy restricting and banning many story concepts and thematic elements, including erotica, all underage stories where participants are younger than sixteen, and glorification of suffering such as self-harm or sexual violence. encourages users to report stories that violate TOS.

basic content rating system, with the requirement to tag stories as mature to warn of adult content that is permitted in the TOS, including sex scenes that are part of the plot, sexual violence or dark themes that aren’t written about from a perspective of horror or condemnation, etc. no option to opt out of ratings.

can and will delete stories that are found to be in violation of the TOS, or will render them private and viewable only to the author.

Archive of our Own:

nonprofit organization with no ads or premium options for site members

dedicated fanfiction archive, though original works and nonfiction about fannish things are permitted

mobile friendly to an extent, no apps of any kind

comprehensive, thorough tagging system custom-built for maximum user customization and labeling. enables native filtering for all tags, always present and usable regardless of searches or preferences

no current options for user blocking, though change may come

no forums, direct messages, or social element except comments on fics, which can be moderated and deleted or turned off by the author

supports RTF and HTML text input for stories

limited image embedding, requiring offsite hosting and HTML editing for mobile viewers

no native image upload feature or ability to create “covers” for stories

allows the option to download all fics in multiple formats

large userbase but fics with hundreds of thousands of hits are relatively rare, and subcommunities/fandoms have different standards for a “popular” fic

primarily M/M on a sitewide basis but most popular ships and story styles vary based on fandom.

site demographic skews older than Wattpad, with many users considering themselves “fandom olds” or being present since the site’s launch

allows anything to be written and published in their stories, with content policies banning user harassment and photographs of illegal pornography. users are expected to accept that they might see fics in the listings that upset or disgust or squick them on some level, and tag filtering/external browser extensions are expected to be implemented by the user to block out upsetting content

comprehensive rating system, with fics expected to be tagged and rated and warned for accordingly. option given to opt out of warnings and ratings entirely with “Unrated” and “Choose Not To Warn” categories

will rarely delete stories, and will never do so without warning and emailing the author a copy of their fic along with an explanation for why it was deleted

Wattpad’s Content Policy:

The full policy is linked above, but Wattpad explicitly bans underage sex, purely pornographic content, graphic self-harm, suicide, hate speech, underage sex where one party is younger than sixteen (the age of consent in Canada), sex with animals, revenge porn, sexual solicitation/roleplaying, and harassment of other site users, among other things. Stories cannot focus on sexual violence in a positive way, and sex scenes must meet content standards even in mature-rated stories. This is in contrast to AO3, which (as stated above) doesn’t have bans against any of this. Their TOS FAQ is linked here, and contains extensive discussion of their content policy, while affirming that they believe in the user opting out of content they dislike rather than banning that content on principle. I can confirm anecdotally that they do take action against embedded photographic images of illegal pornography, but that’s the only ban they seem to have.

My final conclusion is that abandoning AO3 for Wattpad sacrifices user friendliness and an extremely comprehensive tagging system that will get you exactly the results you want for a heavily moderated, much less risky experience that has sitewide standards designed to protect users from graphic or controversial content. Both have fun interfaces, and both are easy to use, but I personally would recommend the latter site to anyone who felt AO3 was too free and open with the kind of stories it permits on its site.

#fanfiction #wattpad #anti ao3 #ao3 critical

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repmet · 4 years

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Fic: Iris

For FowlFest2020: Obscure Character Appreciation Day. Iris is actually an OC, but her family is mentioned so... that counts right? Shoutout to @ms-nothingspecial for betaing and listening to me stress about word choice for far too long.

The fairy shuttle port at Tara was an impressive operation. Ten thousand cubic metres of terminal concealed beneath an overgrown hillock in the middle of the McGraney farm. For centuries, the McGraneys had respected the fairy fort's boundaries and, for centuries, they had enjoyed exceptional good luck.

- Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident

Iris McGraney is born at midnight on a full moon, which for a McGraney is the very best of luck.

The birth goes smoothly and without complications, and Iris is born quietly, wailing briefly to let the world know she’s arrived, before settling on her mother’s chest, quietly basking in the comfort of her family around her.

Iris McGraney is born lucky. Then again, her family always has been.

When Iris is 7 she gets sick, as children do.

Plans are made to see the doctor in the morning, but McGraneys have a certain way of treating illnesses first that most others don’t.

Iris is well enough to listen to her Dad tell her to keep the bedroom window open all night, even as he bundles her up in blankets and turns the heater on.

He puts a note on the sill along with a single gold nugget, just in case.

“We’ve invited them in before, but it’s better safe than sorry, isn’t it? And you should never ask without offering something in return. It’s rare they take it but it’s only polite.”

The McGraney’s were always digging up gold, especially near the fairy fort. Iris knew it was a secret though, or else everyone would want to come dig on their farm which would make the cows sad.

“Now, go to sleep,” her Dad tells her, tucking her in tight. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Iris doesn’t wake all night, and in the morning, the note is gone, the small piece of gold now sitting on her night stand.

Iris picks it up and runs to the kitchen.

“It moved, Daddy!” she announces proudly, the picture of a healthy child. “They didn’t take it but it moved.”

Her father laughs and hugs her.

“That’s how they let us know they were here.”

When Iris is 14 a severe looking boy in a suit sits down across from her at a cafe she’s in, and puts a phone on the table.

Iris recognises the model, it’s seven months away from being released and the hype is already intense.

“For a moment of your time.”

Iris stares at him.

“My parents are gonna think I fucking stole this.”

The boy sets a letter down on the table as well. Iris has a brother so she ignores the letter at first and continues staring at the boy, hoping to unnerve him. He seems unbothered, maybe he has siblings too. She picks up the paper and reads a very official looking letter from the phone manufacturer congratulating her on being selected to test an early release prototype.

It’s fake of course. Iris isn’t an idiot, she is however a teenager in a tiny village with not much going for it. In short, she’s bored and whatever the hell this is, it’s interesting. Also her parents don’t know shit about technology or how major releases work.

She shoves the phone in her backpack.

“What do you want?”

“The fairy fort on your property, I want to know about it.”

Iris raises her eyebrows, that’s hardly top-secret information.

“I don’t know, man, it’s been there for ages. We take care of it, respect the boundaries, and we get lucky.”

“In just the past fifty years your family has uncovered a lost work of Holbein the Younger, a sword owned by Íriel Fáid and seven seperate stores of gold. You’ve also never lost an animal to bovine spongiform encephalopathy in all the history I could find of your farm.”

Well it was more gold than that at last count but they’d stopped being so vocal about it and also-

“Yeah... what’s that last one?”

The kid gives her a disdainful and patronising look. “Mad cow disease.”

“Right.” This dude is a dick. “Like I said. Lucky.”

“It seems a bit more than lucky.”

Iris shrugs. “Look man, you don’t need to believe in the People if you don’t want but you’re in the wrong town. We eat that shit up here, the Hill of Tara borders our farm, there’s three fairy-dedicated gift shops in this village alone.”

He looks interested now though, leaning forward in his seat.

“The People?”

His eyes are weirdly intense, Iris can’t wait to tell her friends about this. Orla is super into vampires right now, she’s going to love it.

“Fairies, the fae, the fair folk, aos sí, whatever you want to call them. Maybe it is just luck, I’ve never seen one-” She frowns, a memory bubbling up then she shakes her head, brushing off a dream of a small winged figure on her windowsill one night. “The People is what my grandparents called them though. Capital P.”

“What else did your grandparents tell you about them? Did they have any superstitions specific to your family?”

Iris doesn't even need to think on that one.

“Grandpa Rob had this thing where he would make everyone wash their hands after we came back from church. Said it was not to harm the People with the holy water, but no one else I know does that, even the Creideamh Sí families.That means -”

“The Fairy Faith,” he interrupts. “Yes, I’m aware. I’ll need to know anything else your family knows about them.”

He pulls a laptop out of his bag which looks like nothing Iris has ever seen and her family is pretty well-off (selling lost works or art tends to help).

“This is getting to be more than a moment, dude.”

“I can take the phone back.”

Iris laughs, he’s not wrong that the phone is worth more than a short conversation, but the threat is just plain funny coming from a pre-teen who looks like he’d never seen the sun in his life and a stiff breeze would knock him over.

The man standing behind him, who Iris initially assumed was his dad but now isn’t so sure, clears his throat and there’s something in the way he does it, or maybe the way he glances down at her, that makes it very clear this tiny undertaker looking child would be leaving with either his answers, or the phone.

If Iris were older or wiser, she would be suitably unsettled but today she just waves a hand at the mountain of a man.

“Chill, I don’t mind, just weird to be honest.”

“You’re welcome to whatever opinion you please so long as you answer all of my questions with as much detail as possible. Now, tell me more about the holy water.”

This phone better be worth it. (It is.)

When Iris is 19 the world ends.

Kinda.

Her PlayStation is ruined at least which is annoying as shit.

More importantly, the fairy fort is gone and there’s an actual fucking fort there.

“I always thought it would be a bit less… concrete.”

She’s not sure who she’s talking to, her brother’s moved to London and her parents are out at lunch with friends. But it’s rather the sort of day where Iris thinks she might not believe anything at all if she keeps it just in her head.

The door gives a loud bang and Iris yells and leaps backwards. The banging continues and she realises there’s someone on the other side.

“Are you okay?’ she calls, trying to keep the sudden nervousness in her chest from coming through the words.

“There’s a fire in here, and the suppression systems aren’t working.”

Iris takes several long breaths, processing several things. One, her family is not mad, fairies do exist. Two, they do in fact have a fort on their farm. Three, she might be about to meet them for real. Four, it’s kinda ugly and dull, she expected a bit more… magical?

She looks up to try and centre herself and catches sight of a plane, trailing smoke and flying disturbingly low before it disappears over a hill. In the distance there’s the sound of thunder.

Right, the world is possibly ending, perhaps that should be higher on the list. That part is plain not registering in her head.

She tells herself she imagined the plane, there’s no room in her head to process the alternative right now.

“Who are you anyway?”

Iris’ head snaps back up at the question. Right, fairies trapped in a burning building. Focus.

“Iris McGraney! Stand back, I’ll kick the door in.”

“This door is built to withstand more than you, human.”

Iris frowns, annoyed. “You prefer to suffocate?”

There’s a long pause then, from what sounds like a distance, the voice calls back, “Alright, give it a go.”

Iris is a farmgirl through and through. She’s been stacking hay and climbing fences and eating well her entire life, she wouldn’t be carrying the Dinnie Stones any time soon but she could best all the local boys in an arm wrestle and carry a small calf several fields if she had too.

Her first kick connects with a satisfying crack. The second gives more of a crunch and on the third the door snaps and slams inwards. It’s a pretty cool moment, Iris wishes the day wasn’t so surreal so she could bask in it more.

Smoke starts to billow out as soon as it meets the outside air and there’s a lot of yelling and organised panic as thirty-odd fairies of differing colours and various sizes of small come pouring out, most coughing.

One, in an official looking uniform, makes a line for Iris.

“You’re a fairy,” she tells him.

“Yes, a gnome if we’re getting technical.” He pulls out a handkerchief and starts dabbing at his forehead. “Thanks for that, by the way, Frond only knows what’s going on. One moment we’re getting the call that Haven’s locking down the next the electronics start sparking and melting off the walls.”

“The same thing happened in the house.” Iris tells him, rapidly compartmentalising, there was far too much to take in today. Fairies sure, but gnomes? She pushes it in a box for later. “My phone melted, and the TV almost started a fire.”

The gnome shakes his head worriedly. “This is not good, not good. No contact with Haven and all our tech going bust. I bet it’s that Koboi pixie somehow, right crazy one she is.”

Iris nods for a moment, then shakes her head. “No, I don’t know what that means.”

“Not good, is what it means.”

Iris looks across the fields to several columns of smoke rising in the distance, the further she looks in every direction the more there are.

Not good at all.

When Iris is 32 her parents die.

It’s sudden and so plain, after a life of quiet magic and unrelenting luck. Her mother took a turn too fast and hit a patch of ice.

They didn’t suffer at least.

She blames the People at first, but even as the anger bubbles inside her she knows it’s only grief behind it. She’s learnt over the years they’re just people themselves, no capital letter. They can do extraordinary things but miracles are miracles for a reason.

After the wake is passed and the friends gone home, her brother reluctantly back across the channel, promising to call that same night, Iris is at a loss.

She had expected to be but still.

The knocks at the door are so frequent she doesn’t even startle when another comes. She’s not sure she’s in a mood for more well-wishers but she’s not doing well alone either so- she sighs and goes to open the door.

On the other side is a black-haired man in a three-piece suit, still pale but Iris felt less concern now that he might combust if the sun ever does manage to find him.

“Artemis Fowl, I didn’t expect us to meet again.”

“You remember me.” He doesn’t seem surprised.

“Being interrogated by a ten year old tends to stick in a girl’s mind.”

He smiles. “I was 12.”

Iris invites him in and makes tea.

It’s a welcome distraction right now because you have to be living under rock in Ireland not to know how just very extraordinary Artemis Fowl the Second is. Three doctorates, Time Man of the Year at 22, already one Nobel Prize and smart money’s on a second soon.

If anyone could have done it at 12… well.

For a moment she almost hesitates, but Artemis gives her a real smile, as if he already knows what’s on her mind.

(In the years ahead she will come to know him well enough to realise that’s exactly the case.)

She hands him a cup and sits down.

“Tell me, Dr. Fowl, did you ever find the People?”

#artemis fowl #fowlfest2020 #artemis fowl fanfic #prompt: suggests named characters #me: but what if that one family briefly mentioned just that one time and never referred to again #fanfic #fanfiction #do you know how long it's been since i posted a fic #like damn

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writtenbyhappynerds · 4 years

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Fanfic 102: Unit 3, Diversity

Hello! Welcome back. This week we’re going to talk about Diversity. Beyond how to insert diversity into your writing, the nuances, and the ways you can create a believable character. The Editor and I understand how sensitive of a subject this is, and wanted to take the time to make sure the information we are doling out is inclusive and well-written and quality. There is often a lack of diversity in media and books, and often when it is included it’s shoe-horned in for brownie points. We understand that, and we want the up-and-coming writers to be better than those before them. The two most important things to remember are the following: no diversity beats terribly-done diversity, and, the way that the character is diverse is not and should never be their whole personality. We will be discussing LGBT, ableism, and race.

The LGBT community is a vibrant community with members of all shapes and sizes. The most important part when writing a character who is gay or trans is that this aspect is part of their identity but it is not their whole identity. When we discussed characterization in Fanfiction 101, we talked about not reducing side characters or members of the cast to one-note aspects of their personality. The same applies here, and a character’s sexuality or gender expression should not be at the forefront of every conversation. You shouldn’t create these characters with their sexual or gender identity being at the forefront of your mind, because you wouldn’t do that for a straight or cis character. You wouldn’t sit down to make a character with your first thought being ‘ok but they have to be cis,’ so it’s silly to do the same to a gay or trans or nonbinary character. Make them like you would any other character. What changes would be aspects of their identity, or values they hold near and dear to their heart or motivations. Those may be different than a straight character or a cis-gender character.

If you’re straight or cis and writing a gay or trans character, you need to do your research to accurately portray the character in a realistic and believable way. An example we love is Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, who portrayed an asexual character, and Todd’s journey as he came into his own. Bojack Horseman also portrayed polyamory with Hollyhock, who was the adopted daughter of 8 dads. What we enjoyed was that Todd’s sexuality added dimension to his character. It didn’t reduce him to being the token LGBT representative, and it didn’t force him into a box where he could only focus on LGBT issues. Todd was and is so much more than that, and his sexuality is a part of his story, but it’s not the sole story.

Rick Riordan is a master of writing experiences that are not his own, and he cheated the system by basing his characters off of people he knew. This is a method that you can use. You can base your characters off of friends, public figures, etc. If you decide to not do that, googling what transgender men and women have to experience or what top surgery is isn’t enough. I would suggest looking to Youtube, where many transgender and LGBT influencers have talked about their experiences. I would suggest looking to forums, Reddit being one of them. Yahoo Answers is also a really good source. What you want is as many experiences as you can get: ones that are similar, and ones that contrast. The goal is to combine them and make your own character in a melting pot of other experiences. You owe it to not only those who read your story but yourself to do the research. You want your characters to represent the communities you do, and the ones you don’t as best you can.

Let’s move on to people of color (POC). The same rules we’ve discussed prior apply: A poorly written POC is worse than no POC (Looking at you Baljeet). In addition, that POC’s ethnicity should not be their entire personality, and if you are creating a character just to say that you have made a POC, then you have already failed. There are many issues we see when we find people of color in fanfiction. Among them are language barriers, naming, and a misinterpretation of cultural values and experiences.

Putting words in a foreign language in the middle of fanfic is very, very common. You see it everywhere. In Avengers fanfic it’s Russian or Norse. In Batman fanfic, it’s any of the languages that the Batkids speak. The writers put in these conversations that sometimes go on for pages in another language, and then add an author’s note at the bottom with the translation. This is awkward, and when you read books, this is something you never see. If you want your character to speak another language, you don’t need to actually write the other language. Putting a few sentences through Google translate doesn’t make you a better or more dedicated writer than someone who adds the tag: “she was screaming now, all her words coming out in rapid French.” Tags can be used to dictate a change in language, and I encourage you to use them. Now, there are of course exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions usually lie in food, names, and things. Calling someone a name that is in another language is fine. Describing food in another language is fine, and things are generally ok. But that’s just for you. Your characters also have to speak the language.

No one worth their salt or heritage is going to go through a moment where they start out speaking in their fluent tongue and then “forget” to switch back and forth between English and their native language. It is so incredibly unrealistic and awful and it lets the reader know someone who is not actually bilingual wrote this piece of work. When you learn two languages, here’s what really happens: you forget words. You have to stumble through words in your own language before you get to the one you need. You call things, “that thing.” You point. You sometimes say “what’s that called?” you find aspects of the second language, or even your own language stupid and you don’t want to do it. You get words mixed up and you make mistakes. That’s all okay, and that all happens, and should be written as such. One of my teachers never forgot the French word for spider because she got the shit scared out of her by one and didn’t know what to call it when she needed someone to kill it. My aunt took 3 years to learn Turkish by immersion and now can speak it fluently. You don’t even need to be fluent in every language, and many people only know a handful of words in one or a few sentences in another. That’s totally okay! If anything that’s more realistic because it’s super hard to learn a new language and speak it fluently. Don’t force your characters into a box like that. Let them make mistakes.

Culture is a huge thing when writing POC. You have to keep in mind that culture shifts, and what may have been culturally huge for one set of characters won’t be as significant for others. You want your characters to interact with their culture in a way that is realistic, and not reductive. Kelly from the Office is a great example, as she invites the office to celebrate Diwali with her. Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another example. We see her eat Korean food at home, and in the books, she still celebrates Korean holidays. Where the shift comes into play can be seen in Never Have I Ever where Devi is not as Indian as her parents, and we see her struggle with the culture. She still goes to Hindu association things, Ganesh puja, and she wears Indian clothes. However, she’s still a normal teenager out chasing boys and worrying about colleges. In Superstore the Muslim character prays 5 times a day, and still works at the grocery giant. The big takeaway is that these people have lives that include, but aren’t limited to their cultures. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes.

Naming characters is already rough. However, naming characters from a different background than you are even tougher. The Editor has a lot of anger towards Panju Weasley, from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Her exact words, as they were texted to me:

>Like Cursed Child where Ron and Padma has a kid named Panju.

>What the fuck is a Panju?

>That’s literally the dumbest name in the world

>All she had to google was Indian names.

>There are so many fucking lists.

>I dont even think it’s an actual name. Like it might be a nickname for some people but I dont think people have actually named their child panju.

As usual, the Editor is very correct. There is a simple solution to getting around what we’ll call the Panju Dilemma- a phrase which we’ll use to describe terrible naming choices of POC. In Fanfiction 101 we had an entire unit centered around naming. Nameberry.com exists, and if they don’t have it all you need to do is Google the country of origin and the sex of the OC. Sometimes you can add in the year the OC was born, to really get a feel for the time period, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in one of our stories we have a cluster of kids from Syria. When it came time to name said kids, we Googled: popular Syrian names 2003. That’s how we got our OCs: Reem, Nour, Nizar, Jano, and Stella. Naming is very important, and you owe it to your readers and your characters to do them justice, and not saddle them with a terrible name.

The final note of diversity we want to talk about is actual ability. Ableism is often overlooked in movies, shows, or books. It is something that is shoehorned in as an extra adversary for the OC or the cast, only *gasp* This time the biggest adversary is themselves. I hate that. I want to eliminate that because as someone with a disability and someone who has worked with kids with disabilities, you can absolutely write and code characters like that in so long as, and say it with me now, it is not their entire personality.

You can totes write a character with anxiety and/or depression, so long as you don’t snub these very real mental disorders that millions face on a daily basis. You also have a duty, especially with anxiety and depression, to not glorify, glamorize, or romanticize either. Do not romanticize self-harm. Do not romanticize anxiety. Do not romanticize depression. They are not cruel tricks of life that befall beautiful intelligent women. It is not “tragically beautiful.” Depression and anxiety and self-harm are not a paragraph for you to lament on while the OC gazes longingly out the window at her lover. Anxiety keeps some people from talking on the phone they’re so nervous. It gives girls panic attacks in mall food courts because they don’t know what’s going on anymore. Depression isn’t your OC watching the rain in a hoodie and sweats, it’s not showering for days on end because you can’t find the motivation to. It’s having insomnia because you can’t sleep. Self-harm is not an OC’s love interest holding their wrists and telling them to stop. It is deep pain and numbness and hurting yourself to try and feel something. It is rubbing Neosporin on your cuts and hoping they go away. It is forcing your friends to keep it a secret because you don’t want anyone to know because what if they take it away from you. These mental disorders are not yours to romanticize. They are yours to show the growth and power and strength of your characters. They are yours to use to show how trauma has affected your character and can represent normality behind mental health and emotion and talking about things like this. Even more so than girls, writing a male OC with anxiety or depression is more empowering because you are allowing a character to talk about their feelings when that isn’t seen as acceptable by their sex. If you feel you are able to take that plunge, and you can do the adequate research to represent the disorder well, go for it.

In addition to mental health, physical disabilities are often overlooked. I have a chronic illness. I have never seen in a book, movie, TV show, or fanfiction anyone with a chronic illness, let alone my chronic illness. That in of itself is a broad term, and I’ll let chronic illness mean anything from lupus and POTS to asthma and anemia. These disabilities make a character have to work harder, but hey, look at Captain America. The boy had every disability under the sun and he got out alright. No one is going to make changes for you. You have to be the change you want to see. If I want OCs with chronic illnesses, I have to write them and do them justice by not only my community but the communities that I don’t represent. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of writing disability and using it as part of, but not a character’s entire identity. The main characters all have superpowers but are put in a class that doesn’t allow them to use said powers. This is because they are all disabled. The main character is blind and telekinetic, another can read minds but is in a wheelchair, another is a genius but has cerebral palsy. Their disabilities are a minor obstacle, but not the big bad, and that is a great way to write disability. People who live with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses have to deal with said limitations every day. To us, as time goes on it becomes less of the monster at the end of the story and more of an everyday beast. It becomes normal, and there are bigger things for us to worry about than just our disease. This speaks for every aspect of diversity we have covered in this chapter: The people with said note have to live with it every day. It is a common enemy, not the final boss. To treat it as such is to say that it is our biggest concern in life. I wish my chronic illness was my biggest concern, but I have other fish to fry.

What we have done here is not an all-inclusive list of diversity. This chapter took 2 weeks to write because the Editor and I wanted to do right by our community. Not just the communities we proudly represent but the communities we don’t. There are many more nuances and aspects to diversity that are out there, and what we have presented is our best. Yet it is still incomplete. If there is something important that you feel we have left out, we sincerely apologize. We acknowledge that what we have written here is not all-encompassing for diversity. We wanted to talk about issues that are common occurrences. However, what we have covered is not the end-all of what’s out there. We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it, our next unit Writing Children will be published at the same time as this one. We sincerely apologize for the delay.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

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kuriquinn · 4 years

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just because it ain’t broke, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be improved

I feel like a few things need to be qualified about the feedback culture discourse if it’s going to stay civil.

Feedback advocates ARE NOT demanding every single consumer leave feedback on every single piece of art or story every time they log on to the internet.

Consumer advocates ARE NOT suggesting that fanartists and fanwriters are not entitled to feedback ever.

Let’s not go putting words in each other’s mouths, that way inevitably leads to lurking trolls deciding to become keyboard warrior anons.

Feedback discourse is not meant to shame anyone, consumer or writer, it’s to open a discussion about how the general culture could be changed for the better.

That said, fandom in general is in need of a change in how consumers and creators interact with one another.

One of the main arguments I have seen in the past few days is that passively consuming fandom works (with the occasional outlying consumer occasionally or always leaving feedback) has always been the norm, is currently the norm and will always be the norm.***

Which to me boils down to, “we’ve always done it this way, why change it?”

(I doubt I need to give all the historical examples of where that kind of thinking has gotten us, or how it’s been challenged.)

Just because it’s normal practice now and everyone does it this way and supposedly always has done it this way, doesn’t mean we can’t strive for something better. Fandom creators and consumers are in a symbiotic relationship—without the consumer, we have no one to share our work with but ourselves and maybe a few close friends; without the creator, consumers don’t get access to new content related to their interests (or at least have diminished access).

We need each other.

If tomorrow some law is passed that basically bans all fan created content from the web and some major purge happens just deleting everything that doesn’t belong or isn’t endorsed by the actual creator, what happens to the fandom? I can tell you right now, creators will keep creating—we just won’t be able to share it with anyone but our closest, real-life friends. And consumers might keep consuming fan-created content, but it will be in a much smaller capacity.

Neither side wants this.

So why not discuss ways to make the fandom experience better for both sides here? Including listening to the parties in the relationship who are basically explaining something that is discouraging/damaging to them?

It’s a pretty simple equation:

creators produce/share free content --> consumers enjoy free content--> consumers provide feedback--> encouraged creators produce/share more free content, continually improving over time-->consumers continue to enjoy free content

creators produce/share free content -->consumers enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content-->creators still produce free content but at lower frequency/quality over time (months, years, etc.)-->consumers continue to enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content -->creators still produce content but not longer share their work or start putting their work behind a paywall--> consumers complain that so many favorite creators now want money for their creations

Obviously, this is a generalization and doesn’t speak to every single creator and consumer’s behavior, but as both a creator and a consumer, this has been my experience more often than not.

Now, I know not every single person is going to provide feedback on every single piece of art or writing they encounter. But right now, the average fandom consumer defaults to the following behavior:

Consume fanfic/fanart + [leave likes/kudos] + move on to next

(At the moment, even the kudos is entirely optional, since a majority of consumers don’t even bother with that. )

We need to change this default behavior to:

Consume fanfic/fanart + did I like it? = No? + move on to the next

Consume fanfic/fanart + Did I like it? =Yes? + reblog/share [and/or leave a comment]

(I’d make a flowchart, but I’m doing this on my phone, so...kinda hard.)

It takes the same amount of energy to reblog/share a fanwork as it does to leave kudos/likes. So if you like something but don’t have the energy/confidence/interest to comment, the least that can be done is boost the signal and pay it forward.

We need to normalize this behavior instead of passive, entitled consumption.

Again, this is NOT a call to FORCE people to leave feedback.

It’s more like when you’re a kid and your parents teach your to say “please” and “thank you”. Obviously, their goal is that as you get older, you will automatically say those things in the appropriate contexts, such as when you would like something or are expressing gratitude.

Does that mean everyone in the world uses “please” and “thank you” when interacting with others? Not at all. We’ve all run into some real dickheads that are downright rude for the sake of being rude, as well as people who are unintentionally rude because they don’t think it’s worth their time to be polite. Would the world be a better place if everyone did use “please” and “thank you”? I like to think so.

The reason we’re talking about feedback culture now is because we want a better future in the fandom. We want a better situation than what we have right now.

And honestly, if we can have people start treating fan writers and artists better here at the unofficial level that is fandom, think of how that kind of change and discourse could change the way art and literature is viewed in the world at large? Because right now, we live in a society where funding for the arts is more often passed over for funding sports, business, military, etc. The only sectors of society that are treated worse than artists and writers are the teachers, nurses and retail workers (and don’t even get me started on the trend of female-dominated sectors of the economy rating lower than predominantly male-dominated ones!)

Personally, I think a lot of these disagreements could be mitigated by an update to Ao3’s feedback system.

Kudos is like a checkmark on a list. “Yep, read that...Yep, read that.”

The only time I don’t leave kudos on something is if I didn’t finish reading it. And yes, that is my personal experience, but we’re human beings and we tend to frame the actions of others based on our own practices.

The kudos feature should be replaced with a new system either emojis (think Facebook) or canned comments (pre-written responses generated by a simple keystroke). For the simple fact that these can better convey the emotions of the consumer than a faceless kudo.

Having started using an emoji based system last year, I can tell you from experience that every week or two, I have someone comment to me how much they like being able to use an emoji to get their words across because they’re not good with words / their first language isn’t the same as mine / they’re still processing what they’ve read and can’t formulate a response yet/ etc.

TL;DR: The purpose of discourse related to feedback culture is to try to normalize leaving feedback on fanworks, instead of passively consuming—not forcing people to leave feedback.

_______________________________________________________________

***It has NOT always been this way. I have been part of several fandoms in my time— Lord of the Rings, Gundam Wing, Beyblade, Harry Potter, Inuyasha, Supernatural, Rurouni Kenshin, Doctor Who, Naruto, Batman/DCU, to name a few. And twenty years ago, people left way more feedback than they do today. Even on the really terrible stuff (and I say this as someone whose first fanfics were exclusively dedicated to horrible Mary Sue OC self-inserts), if you posted a chapter of something, within the next day you had a half dozen comments—more if you were writing a one-shot/completed fic. Ten years later, I noticed feedback started to be almost half of that; now it’s even less. The content hasn’t changed; the quality of writers hasn’t changed. However, the mindset of the consumer has definitely changed.

#feedback culture #great comment debate #fandom culture #respectful discourse #support content creators

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darthsuki · 5 years

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Fic Rec Tag Game

Post your fics you are most proud of! No limit on how many, just the ones you look at and just feel so pleased that you wrote something so great! Tag as many people as you like to get them to share their own fics! 2k19 is the year we love our own fics babes!

Though I have been a writer in some form or another for as long as I can remember, I didn’t have any sort of online presence until around roughly 2010; in fact, my first ever online account was on deviantArt!

I’ve made a lot of strides in the last decade with my writing, both in the craft itself and my perspective on how it can impact people in all sorts of wonderful ways--so below is a list of the works that have been important, beloved, or otherwise influenced my experience as a writer.

If anyone has ever been curious about my older works or the things that have been imperative to making me the writer I am today, I’d say it’s worth taking a peek--you might find something new of mine to like! ;3c

Truth Within (Star Wars, OC/General Grievous, chaptered fic)

Truth Within was (and still is) one of my most beloved writing projects--somewhat because, fun fact, it’s the first fanfiction I’ve ever written!

Truth Within is a Star Wars fanfiction based in the prequel trilogy, specifically in the Clone Wars era. It features the adventures and coming-of-age of Sakajin Takio, a young woman with a calling to right the wrongs of her mother and become her own person in the process. Along the way she’s challenged to learn the ugly consequences of war, the pain of loss, and the worth of protecting those she cares for--all while trying to handle being the apprentice of General Grievous as a member of the Separatist forces.

Originally posted to fanfiction.net in the late 2000′s and having been overhauled at least twice since, this piece represents how I’ve matured and improved as a writer. Sakajin has grown as a character in much the same way I like to think I’ve grown as a person, so much that she remains my proudest creation to this day.

I love this fic with all of my heart and have a universe worth of things plotted, planned, outline and half-written for it, though hilariously due to the fandom and the very specific ship it contains (Sakajin and Grievous) it doesn’t attract a lot of readers--still, it remains one of the biggest and most influential projects that I hold dear, and I really hope that one day I can make it into something it deserves to be.

Memories of You (Star Wars, General Grievous, chaptered fic)

Another passion project, but much (much) more recent than Truth Within. The story follows the reader as once a lover of General Grievous when they had been left for dead as a servant. After the general dies and they are left alone, the reader is shocked to realize many months later that he’s actually alive--and is in fact the acting general for the Separatist armies. Drama and tension unfold as the two of them try to figure out how to move forward, having to balance the joy of reuniting with a lover and the reality of war and the danger it presents.

Drabblewatch (Overwatch, fic/drabble collection) [NSFW]

What started as a reblogged prompt list spiralled into something absolutely amazing; after writing so many fills, I decided that it would be smart to make a blog to host the specific content and, one thing led to another, and Drabblewatch was born as the very first of many other writing blogs that I would make for reader-insert content.

Started in 2016, Drabblewatch remains one of my most popular writing blogs and series, pushing me almost entirely into the reader-insert community where I have found no shortage of excitement, fun, satisfaction and encouragement. Though I haven’t touched this blog or fandom in quite a while, there’s still a lot of content for it.

...and, fun fact, I actually met my eventual fiance @blood--hunter because of my Drabblewatch writing ;3c

Just Off the Highway / Just Past the Mountains (WTNV, Cecil & Kevin, chaptered fics)

My entrance into the WTNV fandom is, compared to the rest of the fics on this list, a rather recent event. With the nature of the series and the encouragement of the fans of my writing, I have been able to create a lot of absolutely fantastic things--these two fics are perhaps the best examples of what I’ve been able to create thus far. JotH is a introduction fic putting the reader and Cecil together, while JPtM is similar in intent but pairing the reader and Kevin instead.

As the Sun Sets (Critical Role S2, Mollymauk, oneshot)

The reader is a member of the Fletchling and Moondrop Carnival, taken in when they decide that they may earn more coin for their musical skills on the road than at the mercy of those in their home city. They have grown close to many of the members of the carnival, Molly especially, and the reader learns that they may have more talents in magic than in music.

It’s a simple fic, but one that I absolutely adore--namely because I want to create far more content in the future for the Critical Role fandom. I’ve debated making this a multi-chapter fic, but I suppose only time will tell.

And perhaps, maybe one day soon, I’ll even have a Critical Role writing blog... ;3c

Reader-Inserts: A Guide & Background

Omegaverse: Everything You Need to Know

These two entries are interesting, largely because they’re not actually fanfiction or such at all--they’re guides, and ones I’m rather proud of at that.

The first one is a guide for reader-inserts, detailing as much information about what they are, ways to write them and other bits of information from my years of experience in writing for the community. Though it’s by no means the only way to write such a lovely form of fiction, it’s a means for me to try and pass on as much of my own knowledge and experience as possible to normalize reader and self-insert fiction in this internet community of ours!

The second one is more of an informational perspective for a specific AU or trope, commonly revered to as omegaverse or A/B/O. It’s half-headcanon, half-background info, and from what I’ve heard has helped a lot of people understand this one interesting AU or universe setting in the fiction around them.

A Day on The Throne (MCU, Loki, oneshot) [NSFW]

If anyone wanted to know what my very first reader-insert work was, then the mystery has finally been revealed: it was with Loki! My first year of writing reader-inserts were a little clunky and utilized the ‘y/n’ system, but it’s interesting to compare this first work with what I write now, especially in making sure that my works are more accessible to people regardless of gender, sex, background or ethnicity.

I’m certainly not perfect, but it’s nice to see that I’m always getting a little better than before!

Being a Human (Lover) (Daft Punk) [NSFW]

Being apart of the EDM (Daft Punk) fandom I think is actually where the last nail was put into the coffin for me, at least in terms of dedicating a lot of my time to reader-inserts as a speciality.

The community was small and inviting, and a lot of people really encouraged my work and my potential as a writer to do bigger, better things. I actually met a lot of awesome people through the fandom, and to this day I consider @slowpokemegan one of my greatest friends and I am quite blessed to have met her because of this very fanfiction.

Collection of Suki’s Best Smut(tm)

Below is a list of what I consider some of my best smutty writing, though it’s absolutely not exhaustive since apparently out of the 150 fics I’ve posted to AO3, almost 80 of them are explicit and smutty in some form or another--consider these but a taste of what my writing career has created thus far :3c

Touch Me (RWBY, Ozpin)

It’s Best to Keep Me Pleased (RWBY, Torchwick)

Phone Call (FnaF, Phone Guy)

Silvairre’s Little Secret (FFXIV, Silvairre)

Lay Me Down to Sleep (Fallout 4, Maxson)

Heart-On (Undertale, Sans)

Audio Transmission (Lifeline, Taylor)

Touch Me, Have Me, Make Me Yours (The Dragon Prince, Aaravos)

Just Off the Highway (WTNV, Cecil)

Mine, Mine, Mine (WTNV, Kevin)

Have Me (Voltron, Lotor)

We’re Goin’ Down (LoZ: BoTW, Sidon)

Intimacy (Daft Punk)

#fic rec #self rec #fic rec tag #sukiswriting #a compilation of my best or most influential shit #i spent like well over an hour on this #so if you take the time to glance over this interesting self assessment of my past decade of writing i will love you forever #like i've been writing since 2010 #online at least #i was writing in notebooks long before that #overwatch #star wars #critical role #wtnv

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pearlescent-words · 5 years

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Greater Good

“I’m just on my way back to medical; there’s a new patient come in and they need my help, can this wait?” If Derix’s self-satisfied smirk and Kamern’s exasperated sigh were anything to go by I’d say they don’t quite believe me, “I’m afraid not.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This will eventually be a Bellamy x OC story though I do intend it to be quick a slow burn, with a loooot of ups and downs so it’ll be a real ride if that’s what you’re after… :) There’s three chapters that I’ve written so far and I can’t say how many more there will be but, with how many chapters it’s looking to take to get through the first episode it’s set to be an awful lot - hopefully that’s more appealing than offputting.

Anyway, please read, enjoy and let me know what you think!!

Chapter One - Prologue

On the Ark everything is limited; food rations, medical supplies, free time and even oxygen. Nothing can be spared and everything is shared based on need. A nice idea in theory, terrible in action. Being from Alpha Station I can consider myself one of the privileged, only elevated by my status as Medic in Ark Station Medical and then reinforced by being Council Member Dr. Griffin’s personal apprentice. She took me on just after my fourteenth birthday and she’s dedicated every moment since then to teaching me everything she knows, and largely because of her dedication, within a few months, or less with some luck, I’ll also be granted the title of Dr. (Given that I pass the exam’s of course.) And having that higher title will only make my job easier, both medically and in my out of work activities.

Being part of the privileged sector makes it virtually impossible to ignore the Ark’s massive social hierarchy divide. Those working on Stations such as Mecha, Agro or Factory seemed to struggle with the less than satisfactory food rations given and limited quota for medical treatment, especially when factoring in that many of those workers face a much more dangerous job than, say, anyone from my station. But given my position on Go-Sci Station I think I’m more than able to help, and honestly, the guilt of knowing and doing nothing would be crippling.

You’d be shocked the amount of people who are in desperate need for help and under the age of 12, usually they’re attempting to help out struggling parents rather than themselves, but something about that just makes the situation more heartbreaking. The innocence of their childhood sacrificed in place of empty tummies, desperately sick parents and a crushing responsibility unwittingly shoved onto them so soon into their, what is guaranteed to be difficult, lives. I’ve been smuggling extra food rations and medicine to desperate families since I was around 16, at this point I have a list of regulars that sadly just keeps on growing, and then, of course, the popup patients in need of medicine that they’ve already gone over their quota for. Naturally covering this entire operation up is a bit tricky, not at all helped by the fact I’m doing this completely alone and the threat of being floated is looming over my head at every turn.

There are those who say my motivation for doing all of this is less than selfless, those who hate me because of my position on the Ark and take my attempt at assistance as charity or pity –that I’m seeking to make myself feel better rather than a genuine desire to help. Perhaps they’re right; perhaps it’s some deep-rooted sense of superiority that makes me help them despite the danger, a sense of safety from my valued position. Maybe I view myself as some modern-day Robin Hood; a messiah of the people. A twisted mentality of ‘Everything I do is to help the needy & desperate and you should thank me for it’; a side effect of growing up on Alpha station I’m sure. Irregardless of my moral reasoning, standing by and doing nothing just doesn’t sit well with me.

Occasionally, in the particularly difficult weeks, I’ll get the bright idea that it’d be easier to include more people in this little operation; perhaps then with a larger group we could expand and help more people on the Ark. Presently the only ones who know of what I do, are the ones I help. But then you’re given the issue of who to trust, how many to include?, would the risk of everything only go up?, would the risk for my patients go up?. Ultimately I’d elected to keep all of this too myself.

But that still wasn’t enough

Making my way back from food storage, with around 16 stolen rations stashed away on my person is risky enough as it is; having three guards waiting around the corner for you is practically a death sentence. And their slow approach wasn’t reassuring in the slightness.

I know two of them by name, the third appeared to be a guard in training and I absentmindedly note that I should cosy up to him as soon as possible – keep your enemies close and all that. I’d never consider myself friends with the other two, Derix & Kamern, but I’d made it a point to know as many guards as I could, from their names to general shift rotation. Partially to make smuggling easier and well, you never know who you might need a favour off. Nonetheless, we’re acquaintances at the very least, though that really didn’t help with why they were making their way towards me.

Kamern appeared to be leading the group, ironic really considering his small stature and quiet personality; Derix and the new kid towered over him in the back. His blonde hair was parted to the side and combed down as usual, and he was clearly attempting to look stern and give off an intimidating presence – not that that particularly worked with his baby face and light freckled skin, though I suppose he is practically a kid, only recently turned 18. Well he’s younger than me at least.

Derix towering behind him was clearly in his element here. Slowly approaching someone bound to be in trouble, uniform crisp, brown eyes conveying a bored indifference to all like everyone was the dirt beneath his shoe. We never got along particularly well, he’s difficult to talk too and takes everything much too seriously, but we were at least civil.

The new kid looked nervous, though a quite determination marred his brow as he approached with the others. He’d clearly only just started - perhaps I’m even his first bust. That ought to be a treat, the first person your set to float and its Dr. Griffins prodigy caught smuggling rations.

I briefly entertain the idea of running but the notion is dismissed as quickly as it came, there is after all absolutely nowhere I could attempt to hide in the long term. We’re on a ship in space there are only so many places, besides if they’re after me now running isn’t going to stop them coming after me later.

“Miss. Johnson, if you’d like to come with us please.”

Kamern, despite his less than guard-like physique, possessed an inherently authoritative voice that made you want to do anything he said. But this time I really couldn’t, I know I don’t actually have a choice right now, but I also know if I go with them I’m guaranteed to be floated within the week,

“I’m just on my way back to medical; there’s a new patient come in and they need my help, can this wait?”

If Derix’s self-satisfied smirk and Kamern’s exasperated sigh were anything to go by I’d say they don’t quite believe me,

“I’m afraid not.”

Once again Kamern’s authoritative tone left little room for argument, though that didn’t stop the notion of running coming back to mind. I’d have nothing to lose now anyway, if I go with them I’ll undoubtedly be searched, figured out and floated regardless of my position of the ark. But if I run maybe I ’ll stand some kind of chance, maybe the people I’ve been helping all these years can help me out; hide me perhaps.

But I can’t spend forever like that; flitting from room to room, and there’s nowhere else I could possibly go, no one I’d want to put at such great a risk. Perhaps it’d be better to be floated for my crimes, certainly quicker in the least.

Irregardless I seem to have run out of time to make my decision, though I never really had on one in the first place. The small nod Kamern sent to Derix and the new boy had them advancing on me in seconds, giving me no time at all to turn and run and instead be forced into their hands and marched forcefully down the hallway - Kamern leading all the way.

It wasn’t until we reached the Ark’s Go-Sci main hallway that I began to question how they found out about my operation. Being marched through the hallways I was met with concerned looks and quiet whispers, a majority of those I passed aren’t people I help out but the odd one here and there, the ones looking the most distressed at my situation or perhaps at the prospect of their own, I recognised. And considering the only ones to know about my smuggling are those I’ve been helping, only one of them could have turned me in, which quite frankly made little sense. But I’ve always been meticulous with my plans, always checking guard systems for any changes, forging the medical forms to the letter as well as the food ration forms and after spending the last seven years doing this I’d gotten pretty good at it.

They didn’t bother to search me until after we’d reached the skybox, apparently, they were confident enough in the information they were given, only reaffirming my suspicion that who every ratted me out is presumably someone I’ve been helping for a while now. They did eventually search me however and found exactly what they were looking for (much to Derix’s delight). I was briskly read off my reasons for being put into the skybox and told that the council would review my case shortly, which was completely unnecessary; I was over the age of 18 and therefore guaranteed to be floated for my crimes. All three guards left the room following this and I moved to perch on the edge of the bed as the grating, mechanical locks fell into place.

Life on the Ark; a paradise in space.

Sure.

#The 100 #bellamy blake #the 100 bellamy #bellamy x oc #bellamy/reader #fanfic #bellamy fanfiction #the 100 fanfiction

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creideamhgradochas · 6 years

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Thanks to the lovely @sgtjbuccky for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about Salina, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1. How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

I honestly can’t remember! I began writing very early, so around the age of 11! But I gotta admit, I had no idea what fan fiction even was back then!

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I want to say both, actually. I believe that even if they’re reader inserts, they’re still kind of an OC. Yes we refrain from describing the physical traits, but the personality, and backstories of the reader insert are created by us writers, so in a sense reader inserts can also be OCs!

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

I have several favorite genres actually! Romance, drama, action, and comedy.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

I actually already have deleted one of my fics and never spoken of it again! It was back when I first began posting. About reader being the Avengers’ getaway driver and it was fun/fluffy/flirty, but I kinda panicked and deleted the entire thing. I don’t even know if any of the OG’s remember it! It was up for barely two days!

5) When is your preferred time to write?

Definitely at night, after midnight!. It’s like my brain is a poetic basket of gold at that time!

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

All sorts of things, from stories I read, to music I hear, to dreams I have. Daydreaming about scenarios is always a good source of inspiration as well!

7) In your Peach Scone fic, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

Oh there were so many golden moments in that fic! But I’ll have to say my favorite scenes to write was Bucky fainting, nearly choking on his tie, and the confession scene!

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

I have been very fortunate not to receive any direct criticism to the stories I write. I did, however, once have a reader that criticized my way of portraying a certain character in a fic even though the request required it - but I did not change it.

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

As I mostly write for Bucky, it’s safe to say he is my favorite. It has a lot to do with the lengths you can take his character, from cocky to sweet to the biggest cheeseball in history. That’s mainly what I love about fanfiction, we can portray our favorite characters the way we want! I have a special love for Steve as well, and I will be dedicating some love for him soon as well!!

10) Who is your least favorite character to write for? Why?

I wouldn’t say I have a least favorite character to write for!

11) How did you come up with the title for the Peach Scone?

I merely based it on the song the fic was originally very loosely based on!

12) How did you come up with the idea for Peach Scone?

It came to life from a request, and people wanted Bucky to confess his love so I just came up with a few attempts he’d have to go through before being able to say the magic words!

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

I have at least 10 abandoned WIPs! When inspiration lacks and I can’t move forward with the fic I usually leave it be, and at times I go back to it and other times I don’t!

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

Yes!! I’d firstly love to do a sequel to Always Be You because I believe they deserved a happy ending, yet I didn’t give it to them (cause it’s good to be mean at times). And for Run to Me - I love my mobster! Boss Bucky, but I’m also a bit conflicted with wanting to continue it, I’d never forgive myself if I managed to ruin the characters somehow!

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

Yes, as mentioned above Always Be You deserved a happy ending!!

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

I have tons of writers I admire, and they all know who they are! Especially here on tumblr, my mutuals are my babes and I admire them all in one way or another! They make me want to continue writing and together it’s amazing to create a support system!

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Not plot wise, but the writing can make me cringe when I read some of my older works - which is why I want to go back and edit them one day!

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Music for sure, makes the creativity flow!

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Oh hell yes. I am very expressive when I write, and crying while writing is almost a must!

20) Which part of your Peach Scone fic was the hardest to write?

Probably part 5 where Bucky is high. I had to remember not to make him too cocky or self confident so I wouldn’t lose his dorky portrayal completely! It was a bit harder than the rest of it!

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I always make an outline - it helps me keep track of what I want in reach paragraph/chapter - that way I know what to include and when to include it.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?

The fact that if a fic doesn't do “good”, the disappointment hits way harder than one should realize. I’m trying and also always preaching to focus on writing for oneself to keep this feeling at bay, but we’re all humans and I think many people feel this way!

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

I really liked my fic “Always Be You” but it wasn’t really to many people’s liking, why, I don’t know, but hey I will never try to force my stories down people’s throats! I do know those who read it loved it and that’s enough for my heart!

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

It’s not that I don’t like the fic, I do, I just never thought I managed to write it any good, but “Bootycall” got tons of love and it left me so stunned!!!

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Yes! I often take inspiration from my friends when looking for certain characters traits, and as writing reader insert I believe a piece of the writer itself is always there.

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Oh I’ve been so blessed with all the love I’ve gotten, I still have difficulty fathoming it at times! But I was once called a “Literary deity” and I don’t as a writer it can get any better than that. I still cry thinking about it.

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

Someone once told me the journey of my characters was wrong, when it is my story. Kinda harsh!

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

I often keep them to myself, and sometimes share if I want an opinion on if it would be any good!

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?

They don’t! Or my brother knows, but that’s about it, no one else I know irl know!

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

I haven’t actually written the character just yet - but it’s hopefully in an upcoming Steve x Reader fic. The reader’s twin is gonna be fun to write, and then I really like Mia from Run to Me because she was a sweetheart and I would’ve loved to write her way more than the two single scenes she was in.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

Music, and when the ideas just flow!!

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

I’m a sucker for allI the classic tropes - friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, every single AU I can get my hands on. Basically it all! Fake- dating trope, I mean it’s all gold. I haven’t written enough of all these glorious tropes!

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

I do! It was a Harry Potter fanfic, more specifically Dramione, the classic “secretly dating”and honestly it was so good, I’m kinda bummed I can’t remember the title of it! It could be fun to go back and reread it!

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Fluff for sure. Even if I do like a good round of angst as well, fluff is my go to. Life is so hard and full of problems all the time, with a goof fluffy piece all of that can be ignored!

#milestone celebration #ask the author #sgtjbuccky

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rpbetter · 3 years

Note

I think a master list for long term roleplayers is such a good idea! I think if it delineates the reasons someone would do long term over short term, and makes sure to not prop up one style over another, it could go over well. I just wonder what a roleplayer would have to do to be listed. Rp a muse for over two years? Have a declaration they don't easily lose muse and keep muses for a long time by default? I think that's the hard part, because it would be easy to exclude people if done wrong.

Hey, Anon!

Well, I'll let you in a secret...I might have begun that project this weekend. So, it might (absolutely will be) be happening, and this message certainly made me feel good about it!

It also brings up some incredibly valid points I hadn't thought about, like how one would go about specifically designating RPers as long-term. As you said, it's got a potential problems for exclusion, and the only exclusion intended is simply not being a dedicated, long-term RPer.

I think the only fair way of doing it is to let the muns themselves decide. As it presently stands, the idea is to submit the answers to a form that does ask "RP experience (years and places)." I thought that might help muns field each other better, and now, I think it might be the fairest way of determining what "long-term" means to everyone.

If you feel like someone who has been RPing for two years with the same muse(s) is long-term enough, then it is! If that's not enough to hit your mark of long-term, no hard feelings even happen because you just keep scrolling the list to someone who has been RPing for ten.

I'll be rewording the question to have two parts, thanks to this ask! It'll now read something like, "How long have you been RPing (includes tumblr and other RPCs)? Has this been the same muse/handful of muses (what's your longest time RPing a muse)?"

That way, you're also not running into issues like...well, let's use me as an example. I've been RPing online for over twenty years, but have only been RPing on tumblr for seven. I've had one muse for almost seventeen years, but another one only for that seven years. If I was to answer just with my presence here on tumblr with that muse, that's far shorter than my total time RPing and doesn't include that I'm long-term enough to have had a muse for seventeen years. This way, I could customize my answer and give a fuller one.

I know we all tend to think of tumblr's RPC as rarely taking on new muns these days, but I meet them fairly often. None are new to written, online RP, but they've only just joined this RPC. I certainly don't want anyone to feel like they have to answer "six months" when that isn't entirely an accurate representation of their experience and interest.

The questions are also not overly skewed toward any single type of RP outside of the umbrella of "Dedicated." Meaning long-term, primary hobby/dedicated interest RPers who stick with threads and muses. So, while, yes, a lot of us are also into long replies, it's not excluding those who write less either. It asks your style(s) and gives the options of "sentence, para, multi-para, novella, lengthy novella." You can, obviously, put multiple answers in as to what you prefer to write!

Some additional things it asks for:

links you'd like to include (rules, promo, carrd, docs, bio, other)

types of RP concentrated on (angst, slice-of-life, canon-involved, AUs, romance and shipping, friendships, horror, etc.)

your URL(s), obviously!

blog type (single-muse, multi-muse)

muse/primary muses' names (if this is a multimuse blog with all muses in one place, if not, please designate which goes with which URL)

mun age/age range and age requirements

other things about your blog/RPing/muse(s) (hard limits, crossover friendly, OC friendly, plot-driven, selectivity, etc.)

I really want to give the widest variety possible of dedicated RPers the opportunity to put themselves out there if they desire, since it truly is incredibly hard to find each other anymore. And I believe that since such phrasing tends to be a turn off for those who are more casual RPers, that alone cuts down on the likelihood of me having to message someone and tell them that they might not qualify.

I do plan to actually look at the blogs, though that is definitely going to annoy some and take more time to get people's submissions posted. It isn't because I am remotely interested in being judgmental of anyone's blog, writing, muses, or whatever! It's...tumblr. In 2021. Leaving anything up to an honor system is asking for trouble, and as we've seen in the not too distant past, very unfortunately, no matter what one says, the effort they go to in order to not rub people the wrong way, if someone wants to misread negativity into something, they will. Any time you have the topic of types of RP or broach it being at all acceptable to have preferences, requirements, expectations, and so on, it can turn quite ugly quite quickly.

It is a serious concern that those determinedly offended parties will misuse the listing. While seeing too many red flags of harassment on a blog doesn't retroactively stop them from seeing the list of RPers, it does at least prevent them being on it. That is absolutely within the rules, too, that this is not a place that is friendly/tolerant of any manner of policing and resultant harassment.*

*There will be a harassment policy. I realize that any listing can be used inappropriately, and I realize, too, that there is a limit to what I can do to cultivate and maintain a safe place...but that needs to be done in so far as possible and taken seriously. Callout culture is absolutely not allowed, period. That won't be added to the list, if it's engaged in and I'm aware of it, it'll be a removal from the list. Inappropriate use of the list as a callout resource will result in blocking, harassing others to RP with you when you've been politely declined will result in blocking. Yes, that can be subverted, but the stance matters.

And, obviously, I'd also be looking for anything really glaring like the basic (and it's my intention to make it as clear as possible that these are variable things, we're all real people here, that it's repeat and extreme behavior only) parameters state. Things like incessant, flippant muse creation and collection when there is, right there stated repeatedly, not the time or creative energy to keep up with those already present. Or just as obvious blog/muse/fandom hopping. Again, a thousand times, if that's how you enjoy RP and engage with it as your hobby, that's perfectly fine. It's also perfectly fine that other people don't enjoy that and would like a space to find the comparatively tiny number of muns who want to engage with the hobby in the way they do. That's what I'm trying to do!

I don't have an estimate on when this might go live, as has been clear with my horrifyingly delayed responses, I'm very busy right now. Just know that it will be happening! I believe things will be slowing down, allowing me more time to do more than a couple of responses a week, roughly toward the end of October/beginning of November. So, I'm thinking it might be the first week of November.

That's a little bit off, but it does give everyone time to send in asks about it! If there's something you can think of that would be helpful (questions for the submission, the way it's set up, rules, whatever you can think of), please, do send it in. I want to know! I'm just one very busy, very tired mun trying to still be a dedicated RPer myself elsewhere lol I appreciate that sort of feedback! And the list is for y'all, you really should get to opine and suggest things!

Also, I did just think of something, opinions, anyone? Since it is a list that is open to everyone who fits the description, there will be blogs containing "dark content." While tags would catch the major, basic things muns might wish to filter, that can't possibly be expected for unique squicks and triggers. I don't want anyone getting specific on the listing, I think that could incite problems, but how about warning that the blog does contain such content, with the notation right there in the rules, use info, and posted listings themselves that it's advised to visit rules links first for details. I'd like to avoid anyone getting exuberant, clicking a blog URL, and seeing some graphic imagery they need to avoid. This way, if you do that, you have been warned...repeatedly and responsibly, and made your choices.

Obviously, that is dependent upon muns actually detailing what upsetting content might be present on the blog in their rules and not simply making a blanket statement that it exists. I haven't seen many RPers of this type doing that in recent years, but I'm sure that the increasing threat of harassment has negatively impacted this honesty and warning system. Still, at least this way, you'd be warned and could exercise your own judgment messaging the mun of the blog to ask for content specifics before you proceeded beyond rules.

Those are my thoughts, anyway!

#answered #anonymous #dedicated rper listing

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morfinwen · 6 years

Note

For the headcanon ask: Sarah (Chuck), Steris, Anakin, and then any OC you would like to answer for, please. :)

So i’ve been sitting on this for i don’t know how long, chipping away at the answers, and this is what i got. It doesn’t cover everything for every one you asked, but it covers a fair amount. At any rate, it’s enough that i’m putting it under a read-more.

Sarah Walker

Headcanon B: [hilarious]

Despite being the daughter of a con man and a trained CIA spy for her entire adult life, post-series Sarah gets a deer-in-the-headlights look whenever some chatty new acquaintance asks how she and her husband met. Unless Chuck is there to rescue her, or her panicking mind manages to remember that a simple relating of “he fixed my phone and I gave him my number” without any of the classified details would work just fine, she winds up inventing some story on the spur of the moment. She’s not that good with inventing things spur of the moment.

Eventually she memorizes a safe, straightforward version of events to tell people who ask, but that isn’t until after she tells their neighbors across the street a complicated story involving ninja muggers and a computer virus that turned out to be a bomb.

Steris

Headcanon A: [realistic]

Steris has learned, to some extent, to express her emotions in a way that other people understand. It’s still acting, though. She may be pleased, but she does not feel like smiling. She may wish to get to know someone better, but she does not have any actual interest in who tailored their clothing.

Wax and Marasi are learning to understand how she expresses things. Wax, particularly, tries to learn how to communicate the same way. It will probably always be as much acting for him as ordinary social conventions are for her, but she appreciates it more than can be expressed, in either way.

Headcanon B: [hilarious]

She has a notebook dedicated to plans for the Scadriel equivalent of the zombie apocalypse. It started years ago, after an especially stressful society event, and her mind picked that particular topic to obsess on. After that, whenever she had difficult emotions that could not be soothed any other way, she would work them out by refining the plans or expanding them further.

Marasi came across the notebook once. She had read about half a page before realizing it belonged to Steris. She put it back quickly and has never brought it up, but sometimes she passes by an abandoned building and ponders its defensive capabilities, or eats some fresh fruit and wonders how difficult the plants would be to cultivate in desperate circumstances.

Steris’ theoretical colony is doing much better now that she’s married to Wax.

Headcanon C: [heart-crushing]

For a long time, Steris wished she had a sister. She tried to connect with other girls her own age, but it never seemed to work out. Some, particularly the daughters of older families, wouldn’t have anything to do with her at all, and those that did would suddenly stop, and Steris was never sure why.

When she first learned she had a baby half-sister, she started making a list: things to teach her, things they could do together, what personal things she could share (and what ones she would never, ever be allowed to touch). She was still working on it when her mother, still very upset, explained to her that none of those things were ever going to happen. Steris still didn’t understand why, but she tore up the list and threw it out.

Anakin

Headcanon A: [realistic]

A lot of things would have gone very differently if the Council had thought a bit more about the fact that Anakin had an incredibly different outlook than the kids brought up in the Temple.

Headcanon B: [hilarious]

Due to their radically different upbringings, experiences, and temperaments, Obi-Wan and Anakin miscommunicate regularly. Sometimes, far too often, it leads to frustration and disappointment. Other times, however, it leads to ridiculousness that leaves them scratching their heads, wondering where it all went wrong …

Obi-Wan tells Anakin to “meet him by the ship”. He then spends two hours waiting by the crashed ship in the forest, nibbling on preserved food packets, and very deliberately not worrying about what might have befallen his Padawan to delay him so long. Meanwhile, Anakin is hanging out on the ship they arrived in, tinkering with something he’s been secretly working on all week while he waits for his master to show up already.

Headcanon C: [heart-crushing]

Everything about Anakin’s life is heart-crushing, if you ask me.

Any OC

I picked Leah Tolkien, my character from Fallout 4.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Fallout games at all, so here are a few things you need to know about Fallout 4 for the following headcanons to make sense. I’ll try and keep them brief …

- The Fallout games take place in a post-apocalypse America, about 200 years after nuclear war. It also takes place in an alternate universe, as its pre-War America looks a lot more like 1950s America than modern-day, despite the War taking place in 2077. There were more advancements than in 1950, but mostly based on what people of the 1950s might have thought advanced science would look like.

- Fallout 4 starts with the main character, his or her spouse, and their infant son entering a vault to escape the nuclear war that’s just started (in 2077). They are, unwittingly, frozen cryogenically. Some time later, they wake up briefly to witness strangers kill their spouse and kidnap their son. The MC is frozen again, wakes up after an unknown amount of time, and escapes the Vault, vowing to find their son and avenge their spouse.

- Everyone else in the Vault is dead. The life support systems were discontinued for every pod except the MC’s.

Headcanon A: [realistic]

I have issues with how the concept of artificial life is handled in Fallout 4, both from scientific and philosophical standpoints, so there’s a lot of official information about synths that i ignore. Most notably -- this is a spoiler for the game, in case that matters -- i ignore the in-game fact that the synth child Shaun Leah ends up having custody of (eventually … i haven’t gotten that far) will never grow up or age.

Headcanon B: [hilarious]

The Silver Shroud was a popular radio/TV series before the War, with all the ham and cheese you would expect of a 50s-style serial about a masked vigilante going by a name like The Silver Shroud. Leah and her family loved it.

One of the (many) side quests Leah took up while searching for her son involved finding the original Silver Shroud costume, then using it and a weapon based off the one used by The Silver Shroud to fight crime. Leah did the entire thing as in-character as it was possible for her to be.

While that side quest eventually ended, Leah still indulges in acting like The Silver Shroud from time to time. Some of her companions are as enthusiastic as she is about it. Others, well, they have to brace themselves every time she has the chance to talk to the bad guys she’s fighting.

Headcanon C: [heart-crushing]

As i’ve noted previously, Leah considers herself as two different people -- pre-War Leah and post-War Leah. In many ways, post-War Leah is a much stronger person. She can carry more, walk farther and faster, and is probably healthier than she’s ever been. Morally, her beliefs and principles have been challenged, both more often and much more dangerously than in the past. She’s learned to do things that her younger self would not have believed possible. But at the same time, she is far more fragile.

Sometimes, she’ll find a broken-down crib or a baby’s rattle, and mentally … go somewhere else for a half hour. Someone will walk by in a scavenged military uniform, and she’ll spend the rest of the day on the verge of tears (her husband was in the military). A song will play on the radio that reminds her of her wedding, and she’ll turn it off so fast the knob just about breaks. The thing that sets her off today might have caused no reaction yesterday. She might not even understand what about this thing reminds her of the past. Sometimes she can push it to the side or ignore it, but other times there’s nothing to be done but wait for it to pass.

Her companions eventually learn how to help, in their own ways, even if it’s just making sure nothing sneaks up on them while Leah’s out of commission. But it never fully heals or goes away. What happened to her was a drastic, awful thing, like getting a limb cut off. She’s learned to move forward, but something has been lost that can’t be replaced.

Headcanon D: [unrealistic]

Not sure if this counts as “unrealistic”, but it’s all i got.

After the end of the game, once all the dangling threads have been resolved and the dust is settling, Leah has a funeral for all the people who died in Vault 111. It’s a very personal affair, so she only asks her closest friends to come.

There’s not much more to it than digging graves outside the vault and laying the bodies to rest. For some people, she didn’t know them well enough to say much more than their names and professions, and even for the ones she did know she doesn’t say many words. It’s easier to cover the graves with stones to protect them from animals rather than put up markers, and honestly Leah prefers it that way. In a better world, they would have headstones up for their families to visit and mourn at, but that isn’t the world they live in. Most likely anyone coming to Vault 111 is coming to raid it or to gawk at it, so this way they won’t be raiding or gawking at the graves.

She visits once every year, on the anniversary of the day she left the vault, and leaves flowers, one for every person.

Thanks for asking!

#ask #answer #headcanon #sarah walker #steris harms #mistborn #wax & wayne #cosmere #anakin skywalker #star wars #fallout #fallout 4 #video games are awesome #leah tolkien (fallout 4)#OCs #i think that's all the tags ...#valiantarcher

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writesandramblings · 6 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.67

“Einstein on the Beach”

A/N: This takes place after episode 7, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad," and is a little heavy on the OCs, sorry if that's not your preference. There's a bit of fluff (and a joke I've been waiting 240,000 words to make which is so delightfully awful), but also some final set up for the end that's coming. There is one person out there who likes Groves best out of everyone, so I dedicate the Groves content to that person (you know who you are).

Also, did anyone catch the big clue in time loop? Can you see someone's secret yet? There was one line in there that revealed something big, but then it was undone by the temporal reset... I spend a lot of time wondering if anyone sees where this is going. There are so many dominoes lined up, I'm really looking forward to tipping them over.

Lastly, sorry for the delay in posting, internet connection issues!

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 66 - Past and Present Tense Part 68 - To Fill Up My Hand >>

"Actually, you were the one most likely to believe me. That was the weird thing."

"Oh?"

Lorca and Stamets were in the ready room going over the events of Mudd's time loop. Of all the crew, only Stamets had any understanding of the full breadth of the encounter because only he was aware of all the loops in the way Mudd was.

"Hugh thought I was having some sort of break from reality, Burnham needed so much convincing, Tyler never believed me unless I had Burnham tell him... But with you, I repeated your words once, just the once, and you were on board with it."

"That surprises you?" Lorca took a fortune cookie and pushed the bowl towards Stamets. The fortune read, Good news will come to you from far away.

"Well, yes," said Stamets, taking a cookie as well. "It's no secret you hate me." His fortune was, Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals.

Lorca's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I don't hate you."

Stamets squinted at the captain. "You don't?"

Lorca shrugged lightly. "Sometimes you need a little extra push to get us where we're going."

"A push," echoed Stamets, squinting all the more. "More like a push down the stairs."

Lorca snorted with amusement. "Sometimes that's the fastest way to get down them."

Stamets mouth fell open and he stared in silent amazement. Delight spread across his face. "My god, you don't hate me, do you? You like me."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"I mean, a few times Mudd tried to get you off the bridge by pretending there was a medical emergency. You didn't go when he said it was Mischkelovitz, or Egarova, but when he said it was me, you went immediately. I thought it was just because you were worried about the drive, but there's more to it, isn't there? You actually like me!"

Stamets had learned a lot in his many loops through time. Maybe too much. Lorca did his best to remain impassive. "I don't hate you, which is a far cry from liking you, lieutenant."

"But that's just it. I can see everything so clearly now! You really enjoy pushing my buttons, don't you?" Lorca glowered. Stamets grinned. "Captain, that's as sweet as it is disturbing!"

"Mr. Stamets," Lorca growled.

"Okay, captain, I hear you," said Stamets, holding his hands up in surrender and grinning. "You can push me around all you like, I won't push back."

Lorca tried not to smile and failed miserably, ending up with an awkward and entirely unconvincing almost-frown, because frankly, that was the best invitation he'd gotten all week. He managed to turn his expression into a sneer as he said with all the acid he could muster, "If we can stay on task, lieutenant."

Stamets was not fooled in the slightest because he really did see everything now. Ever since his integration with the mycelial network, it felt like all of spacetime was laid out before him and he could access any and all of it. The network went everywhere, and he was part the network. "You want to hear a few of Mudd's one-liners?" he offered. "I mean, they were all at your expense, but they're pretty funny!"

"Fine," said Lorca, certain he was going to hate this.

"So, this one time, you asked him what the hell he was doing on the ship, and he said, 'Whatever I want!' and then he shot you."

Stamets had never heard Lorca genuinely laugh before. It was, Stamets concluded, pretty awesome.

When he was done with Stamets, Lorca received a holocomm request from Lalana. He locked the ready room door. "Good morning, Gabriel," she said. "I need to stop by Memory Alpha. Can we do that?"

"I'm going to lean on the side of no," said Lorca.

"I do not think you understand. Either Discovery is taking me to Memory Alpha, or I am leaving Discovery, because I require something which is on Memory Alpha."

"Lalana, that's—"

"If it helps, I can ask Starfleet to order us there to download Discovery's data archives to preserve a record of everything relating to our spore drive research, but it would be quicker if we simply went and Starfleet was not aware of it. Of course, if it is your preference, I will leave for the Gabriella immediately and make my own way."

Lorca took a deep breath. "Lalana. This is my ship. You do not tell Starfleet what to do with my ship." The last thing he wanted was Mischkelovitz's map downloaded into the central library archives.

Her head turned almost completely sideways. "Then will you take me or am I leaving?"

Lorca shook his head as he sighed. "What exactly do you need on Memory Alpha?"

"The lului box."

The silver brick, gifted by Umale, of unknown purpose and operation, which some part of Lorca genuinely suspected to be a paperweight. "Why now?"

"Emellia and I have a theory as to its use. We believe it may be a self-powered computer capable of performing the calculations needed to use the spore drive without Stamets, and that the reason the Federation has not been able to fully ascertain this yet is that it requires a lului to operate. Since I am the only lului available, it stands to reason we should bring it aboard."

"That is a whopping big if," said Lorca.

"Emellia has studied the data readouts and she feels they support this conclusion. Emellia is very smart, so I trust her assessment, and if she is right, then having the box here on board where it can be readily used for this purpose seems wise. Do you not think?"

Lorca did trust Mischkelovitz's assessments. They tended to be correct in his experience, even if a few of her assertions like the existence of chronitons in the null time bubble remained unproven. If she was right about this, it might give them a viable backup to Stamets in the event of his incapacitation, and if she was wrong, well, maybe they could find some other use for that mystery box.

Lalana hopped forward. "We can go together, you and I. It will be the sort of mission you can do while everyone else waits on the ship for a change. Aren't you tired of waiting on the ship, playing captain? Would you not like to get out there and do something? It will be as much fun as Tederek. Remember Tederek?" She hopped forward again. "Sneaking around right under everyone's noses and they will never know how foolish they truly are."

There was another thing to consider, too. The lului box wasn't the only thing he might retrieve from Memory Alpha. There were also potentially full, unredacted copies of records which had been legally sealed. The lului box might serve as a good excuse to see what Groves was hiding behind those court orders.

Still, it was risky, it would mean stepping off of Discovery (which he was loathe to do), and objections had to be raised. Lorca leaned one hand against his desk and put the other on his hip. "You're talking about jumping us past Earth. We've never gone that far."

She used her tail as support to stretch up slightly. "Then would not it be impressive to do? And just think, nobody but us will know we did it. And if there is an emergency, we will simply jump back here. Though, you may have to leave me behind since I cannot beam back aboard on short notice."

If there was an emergency, Starfleet wasn't going to be able to reach them, because they would be several sectors away from where they were supposed to be. Unless they left a communications relay, carefully disguised and coded to forward any transmissions to them. There was an asteroid belt in a nearby system that could serve as cover for such a relay. Alternately, they might leave behind an entire shuttle, since a shuttle could move around and make it look like Discovery was still in the area, but if Lalana was going, they would need a shuttle to move from the ship to the planet, and that might be too many shuttles out at once...

Lalana watched Lorca as the wheels turned in his head and was entirely pleased with herself. She could clearly see on his face that he had already decided they were going to do it. She knew full well how much Lorca loved proving his own superiority over the rest of the hoodwinked masses.

In this regard, Lorca was not alone, but for John Groves, life was not a grand adventure so much as a series of unfolding disappointments.

This was not a new conclusion on Groves' part. He had realized life was not all it was cracked up to be a long time ago, earlier than most, and had been languishing under the enduring futility of it all ever since. It was all random, for starters. Evolution, existence, love, death, pain. That a single sperm hit an egg and gave rise to a person was as random and pointless as anything could be. Even when the combination was entirely directed and controlled for the purposes of bringing about that specific person, as had been the case for most of Groves' relations. It was still an unfortunate bit of senseless chaos.

His own life in particular was a pointless routine. Wake up in the morning, make some tea, drink it with Lalana, wait for Mischkelovitz to stumble out of her wall dwelling, make sure she was brushed and washed and all those stupid little things she always forgot about unless prompted. He envied her those wall compartments. He had outgrown the ability to squeeze into them twenty years ago and lost some part of his connection to her and Milosz in the process. He had become an outsider in a very literal sense. Now that they were adults and could control the size of the compartments, the designs still precluded him from entering. Instead, O'Malley had taken his place.

This morning, two unusual things happened. First, during morning tea, Lalana asked him to tell Mischkelovitz their conversation from last night had been "fully realized." The word choice, like most things about Lalana, struck Groves as patently odd.

The second oddity was that, after the regular morning tasks and receiving this missive, Mischkelovitz announced she was leaving the lab to attend to something.

"Whatever, cool," said Groves. He went and sat in his corner with his padd and opened Brig Chess.

It was called Brig Chess because he had programmed it while sitting in the brig and used it to pass the time there. It had caught on among various members of the crew who liked chess. The styling of the program was delightfully no-frills and retro. All player names were four characters long, an homage to the invention of arcade games, and the green-on-black coloration was a direct reference to early computing systems.

Groves had five games going at the moment, two of them blind on his end, and quickly sent out a new round of moves to his opponents. He had the highest score in the game largely because, unlike everyone else on the ship, he could afford to take on as many opponents as he wanted. He had no other official duties to attend to.

Which was not to say he had nothing to do. There were also two dozen legal briefs sent from various offices across the quadrant requesting his attention. The war did not negate the slow process of justice in the Federation. A few of the briefs he could not help with from Discovery and he denied their requests. The others, he drafted arguments for and filed them into the queue for transmission at Discovery's next unrestricted communications relay.

A new brig chess game request pinged. Groves checked it. It was from "M.B." I wish to play Vulcan chess, the message read.

Sure, he wrote back. Vulcan chess was a bit of a misnomer; it was a game that had arisen on Vulcan which bore some similarities to Earth chess in that there was a board and various specialized pieces, but the gameplay was a bit different and the pieces and strategy markedly so. Groves and M.B. were the only people on the ship who played it. It had not even been a component in the original brig chess program; Groves added it after M.B. inquired about the possibility.

It was interesting that, while M.B. knew the "Rove" she was playing with was the designer of the brig chess program, she probably had no idea who he actually was. His chosen nickname, Rove, was only an oblique reference to his own identity and was a word in its own right. Devoid of any context, it was hard to draw the connection.

In contrast, Groves knew full well he was playing against Michael Burnham. If the initials weren't clue enough, there was also the fact M.B. appeared shortly after Burnham's arrival on Discovery and the fact M.B.'s first few games had been against SILY: Burnham's roommate, Cadet Sylvia Tilly. (Also Groves' favorite player nickname, after his own.)

Really, the only players who knew Rove was Groves were NATE, MISH, LLNA, and probably SARU. NATE had been the reason he programmed brig chess in the first place. Sex and chess were the two things he and Egarova had bonded over in null time. At least he had been able to keep the chess component of the relationship going.

As far as M.B. went, Burnham was an excellent opponent, but Groves had learned early on that she had a serious problem with losing, so sometimes he had to let her win. The really hilarious thing was when he did, she would typically feel obliged to point out whatever "mistake" he had made, as if he needed her help to improve his intentionally torpedoed game. He could see why Saru had found her such a frustrating crewmate on the Shenzhou.

He wondered if he should let Burnham have this game or not. She was capable of beating him honestly, just not as frequently as she thought she did. He decided to give her a run for her money today.

The Mudd incident was shaping up to be a very interesting report for Starfleet. Lorca sipped his coffee as he reviewed it one more time, making sure the contents were unassailable while revealing only those details he thought Starfleet ought to know. There was no need to contradict the report on his time in Klingon prison by revealing Mudd's vengeance was borne of being deserted in that godforsaken place.

The door chimed. "Enter," said Lorca, looking away from the lights of the bridge for the brief moment the doors were open. When he looked back, he saw Mischkelovitz standing in the ready room, her hands pressed together in front of her in a way that resembled Lalana's expression of distress, minus the knocking motion. Her gaze was fixed firmly on the floor.

"Mischka," he greeted, wondering what she was doing up here. "Something wrong?" His first thought was that she had come to fret about the lului box.

She did not answer immediately. Her head twisted as she swallowed nervously. Her eyes scrunched shut. "Captain, I..." She swallowed again, her mouth dry. "I'm—I wanted to ask you something." Her hands twisted, the right one curling into a fist and then the left covering it, nails digging into her skin.

A question, not a guilty conscience. Not that it couldn't be both. "And you couldn't ask using the comm?"

"No!" There was real, palpable fear in her voice at that prospect.

"Is this about the lului device?" he asked. She shook her head softly. He held out a fortune cookie to lure her in. It worked, of course. She never declined them.

In this case, perhaps she should have. Her mouth was so dry she had trouble chewing and she asked with a trembling voice, "Water?"

He brought her half a glass of water and she downed it quickly and in one go, hands so tight around the glass it shook. Lorca leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms, looking down at her with a vaguely amused frown. The last time she had gotten like this, it was because she had misspoken his name. He really hoped this was some sort of greater problem than that, because otherwise this was getting a little ridiculous, mycelial map and mystery box be damned. "Do I need to call Mally or Groves up here?"

Again, her reply was instantaneous, but this time more horrified than afraid: "No!" Her hair bobbed as she shook her head again, more forcefully this time. "I just, I wanted to ask you something... something personal."

It was clear she was having a tremendous amount of difficulty. He reached out and took the glass from her, their fingers touching as he did. He could feel the tremble even from that brief contact. He put the glass safely on the table. "Go ahead."

Absent the glass, she clasped her hands in front of her, left over right again. "I didn't... with my husband... and so... I was wondering..."

His eyebrows shot up. Surely she didn't mean what that sounded like. Surely that wasn't the question she was asking.

"In the time loop, we all died, over and over again, and I don't want to, to die without ever actually... With another person..." She trembled almost from head to toe.

It definitely, definitely was. "Never?" he asked. She shook her head. How in the hell can that be the case. This can't really be happening. "Doctor. Are you asking me to have sex with you?"

"Yes, please." She lifted her eyes for the first time, looking up towards him with more hope than fear, but her hands were still shaking. "Please?"

It had not been easy for her to ask, and if he were a better man, he would probably have refused. But he wasn't. He smirked. "Okay."

All shivering ceased. She gasped and looked up, bright-eyed. "Really?"

He crossed his arms and smiled faintly. "My quarters, 2030." The smile on her face was irrepressible, even if there were still tears glinting in her eyes from anticipated rejection. "Now wipe your eyes and get back to work."

She did so, wiping her sleeve across her face as she bowed in appreciation. She actually bowed. "Thank you, captain!" She turned on her heel and fled as commanded.

Again, Lorca averted his eyes when the doors opened and closed. He returned to his usual place behind the desk and picked up with the report, but with only half a mind on the actual work at hand. A virgin. You didn't see those every day, especially on a starship. What in the hell had been wrong with Milosz.

O'Malley was probably going to kill him for this. Just another thing to add to his list of reasons to hate Lorca.

When Mischkelovitz returned, she was giddy and kept periodically bursting out into giggles but would not say why. Groves stared at her and asked her in qoryan what the big deal was.

She refused to answer.

Groves scratched at his wrists. There were no scars there—medical technology had taken care of that—but sometimes the skin still itched when he was frustrated, and this was very frustrating. The rules of qoryan stated that you were always supposed to speak the truth with it and to keep no secrets, because secrets were for outsiders, not for them.

Groves decided to speak some truth to her right now. "Li kat ma'soproht ze pakri makiin? Je ma ha't'rohti." You think you can count me as an outsider? I'm us-but-older.

Mischkelovitz's eyes widened. "E'hhro ma'tiinen? Je ba kroht se bakiin!" Aren't you cheating? You sound as if you didn't leave us!

Groves scowled at that, because nothing served to guilt him so thoroughly as the fact he had left and none of them would ever let him forget it. "Esseren ma'so'prohti, xi'sohn." I expect this cruelty from outsiders, monster.

"E prei'baroh. Se malotoh." I'm sorry. You're right. "Kii'reh pa'prossi je patrafah patrossen." If I told you our plan it might change it.

Groves hummed thoughtfully. "Fair enough," he said. "Don't blame me when it blows up in your face because you didn't tell me."

Mischkelovitz stuck her tongue out at him. He stuck his out right back. As mature as ever, the pair of them.

They stayed in their respective corners for the rest of the day until O'Malley came to fetch them for dinner, or, as O'Malley described it while he and Groves fetched the trays and Mischkelovitz secured the table like a small and vicious guard dog, "Dinner as breakfast. It never gets old." O'Malley sighed.

Groves groaned. This was not the first time O'Malley had cracked that particular line. "You can ask the dispenser to make breakfast, you know. Or maybe you don't. I'm never quite sure exactly how dumb you are."

"Down, John," warned O'Malley as they headed for the table where Mischkelovitz was waiting. "You know Melly hates breakfast food. I'm not very well going to eat it in front of her."

Groves rolled his eyes. God forbid O'Malley do a single thing Mischkelovitz disagreed with. It was ridiculous, really, the lengths O'Malley would go to please certain people in the hopes of receiving their table scraps.

"We waiting for Saru?" asked Groves as they sat down.

"No, I asked him not to come today," said O'Malley.

"I thought he was your friend," said Groves.

Almost at the same time, Mischkelovitz went, "Why would you do that?"

O'Malley sat, fork in hand, feeling besieged on two sides, and said, "Has it ever occurred to you two there are things going on in my life that don't involve either of you?"

"Not really," said Groves.

"What does that mean?" asked Mischkelovitz, seeming genuinely confused.

O'Malley put his fork down, covered his face, and groaned. "You're children, both of you. I hate everyone today."

"Mally?" said Mischkelovitz. O'Malley's hands slid down and he peered out from between his fingers at her. "I love you."

O'Malley dropped his hands and smiled at her. She always knew the right thing to say to cheer him up, even if that was largely because it was always the same thing. "Just as much," he answered. "Now can we please eat quietly, peacefully for once? And maybe not judge me for twenty minutes?"

Mischkelovitz started tittering at that for reasons that made sense only to her. Groves knocked his knee against hers to get her to stop. The last thing any of them needed was a public bout of hysterics to draw attention to themselves. Also, laughter was dangerously contagious, and if Mischkelovitz went off, he might end up doing the same.

After dinner, Groves was officially released from his duties watching Mischkelovitz. He wandered over to the cargo bay to shoot some hoops. It was a bittersweet hobby. Absent anyone to play with growing up, he had no skill in the teamwork aspects of the game; all he really knew how to do was make shots of impressive technical precision. If only his childhood had provided the opportunity to pursue the sport. By the time they had all escaped, it was too late.

It was, he thought to himself as he flicked the ball towards the hoop and watched it soar in perfectly, always too late to change anything.

When Mischkelovitz left the lab again, O'Malley and Larsson were on the door.

"Where are you going?" asked O'Malley.

"Secret project update," she said.

He knew there was some secret project Lorca had her working on, but whatever it was, it was above his security clearance, so he left it and let Larsson go on break and stood there by himself trying to empty his mind of all thoughts. This worked only a little bit, so he switched mental tactics and pictured Aeree in the morning sunlight, beckoning him towards the bath. She was as beautiful as she was opaque, a mystery he had yet to solve. Maybe someday. He had no intention of giving up.

The proximity alert beeped in his left ear. Incoming. He turned his head and heard a familiar set of footsteps. Only one person on the ship had that stride. Saru.

Some part of O'Malley's heart sank.

"Colonel O'Malley," said Saru, inclining his head in greeting.

"Commander Saru," he replied, curtly. "Can I help you with something?"

"May we speak inside a moment?" asked Saru.

Some part of O'Malley really did not want to, but he owed Saru an explanation. He opened the outer doors and informed Larsson of his position.

"I apologize for disturbing you while you are on duty," said Saru as soon as the doors slid shut, "but I find myself concerned. I have very much valued our discussions and if I have done something to cause you offense..."

That was the worst conclusion Saru could have drawn. O'Malley felt genuinely bad for giving that impression. "No, you haven't."

"Why are you avoiding me, colonel?" Saru could be delightfully direct when he wanted.

O'Malley scrunched his nose. "It's not you I'm trying to avoid. It's me." He swallowed. "I'm not the man you think I am, Saru. I wish I were. I've done things. And I think... I've done something I can't come back from." His gaze fell towards the floor.

Saru considered that. "We have all made mistakes, colonel. Whatever you have done..." A shift came over Saru. He straightened. "You referred to me once as a 'unicorn.' This is a creature from Earth's mythology which is seen as being innocent and pure. I am neither innocent nor pure, colonel. In my brief time in command of Discovery, I knowingly inflicted suffering upon a sentient living being under the misguided belief that the ends would somehow justify those means. In doing so, I betrayed those ideals which I hold most dear. Furthermore, I did this to an alien who was gravely misunderstood by many, which is something I myself know all too well. I think, if I were to be in your interrogation room, you would not judge me an acceptable captain."

O'Malley took this in with an expression of spreading shock. "That's... The mere fact you'd think that says you'd never end up in the room with me. Ever. And I don't judge captains. That's not my job. Even if it were..." O'Malley's brow furrowed. "That's part of why people talk to me. Because I don't judge them. I give them exactly what they want. Understanding, forgiveness, and justification. And they impale themselves on it. Because I do everything I can to make sure the blow doesn't strike them in the heart."

There was something unclear in O'Malley's words, some combination of his analogy and his stated methodology. It did not sound like he was wholly engaged in the pursuit of justice. "I do not understand what you mean exactly."

"I mean I wish I were a callous bastard like some of the people who sit down across from me. I envy them their cruelty. It seems preferable."

Saru's head shifted right, then left. "Surely you do not mean that."

"Oh, no, I do. The problem with being a bleeding heart is that your heart constantly bleeds. Literally, in my case. I wish I could turn it off." O'Malley crossed his arms with his hands tucked under his arms defensively.

Saru stood quietly a moment. "I understand. Sometimes... I have sometimes wished I were a predator instead of being prey. The traits which predators have, their fearlessness and strength, these are qualities I lack, and which seem to make navigating the universe so much easier. And yet, if I were a predator, I would be both capable and culpable of causing pain and suffering in others. I do not wish that, having experienced it myself."

There was a twist of sympathy on O'Malley's face. "Do you know, the other meaning of unicorn was the one I meant. I know you're not innocent or pure or perfect, but you are something rare, Saru. You're incredibly brave. Bravest person on this ship, I should think."

Saru's head shook. "I am not brave."

"You are in the one way that really counts. You're honest. It takes a lot of bravery to admit your shortcomings, your weaknesses, and not just to others, but to yourself."

That did ring true. It also seemed applicable. Saru pressed his fingers together. "Perhaps it would be of benefit to you if you were to admit what it is has cast a cloud over you, colonel."

"I wish it were that easy."

"Perhaps it is."

"Tell me something. If you could do things over again with Ripper, knowing what you know now, would you still have used him the way you did?"

"I would not," said Saru with total certainty.

"See, that's the difference. I know what I did was wrong, and I'd still do it. I'd even do it a third time if it came down to it."

Saru was taken slightly aback. "Why, if you know it is wrong?"

"For the same reason anyone does anything crazy." O'Malley smiled in a way that suggested it was borne from a private thought. "Anyway. What's done is done and we can't change it. Probably better that way. We'd go mad if we could."

"Yes. We can only move forward and attempt to do better next time," said Saru.

"And that's why you'll never end up in my interrogation room. You don't need an interrogator. You own up to your mistakes and admit the things that weigh on you. Admitting things is the first step towards overcoming them. I wish I were as brave as you. And I really wish the captain were, too."

"Captain Lorca is one of the bravest captains I have ever met."

In many regards, this was true. Lorca had no fear of battle or death. He commanded with certainty and purpose. Yet it was also completely false. "But you see it, too, right? It's like there's a burden on his shoulders."

"There is no secret there," said Saru. "The destruction of the Buran weighs heavily on the captain."

O'Malley hummed faintly. "Mm, no, it's something else, something people don't know about. John's the same way. Whatever it was, it was so terrible he'll do anything to avoid talking about it for fear it'll be used against him. It's interesting. I've gotten some of the worst people ever to serve in Starfleet to open up to me even when it meant condemning themselves, and for the first time, I don't have to condemn anyone in any way, and he still won't open up."

Saru tilted his head again, stared at O'Malley with unblinking eyes. There was a clear difference between Lorca and captains being interrogated after the commission of crimes. Internal Security did not tend to arrest officers unless they were certain of their guilt. "That is because Captain Lorca still has something left to lose. If I may, colonel, as a species, my people have lost more than most. That is why it does not trouble me to be honest. I do not fear losing."

O'Malley blinked, gazing up at Saru with a sort of reverence. "You don't, do you?" This time, O'Malley's smile was genuinely pleased. "You know, you can call me Mac."

Informality did not come easily to Saru. "Very well, Mac."

"Someday I'll tell you what happened. I just hope you won't hate me for it when I do."

Saru was gratified by the words. "As someone who has also made mistakes, I do not think I could."

Lorca used everything he learned watching Mischkelovitz on the security feeds and then some. In human psychology, as with many other species, the first experience you had of something tended to be what defined it for you and Lorca was hell-bent on making this particular definition the best one possible. Mischkelovitz, for her part, brought a lot of medical and biological knowledge to the table. She was just missing the practical elements.

Which was why, at the end of it all, when Mischkelovitz rolled away and covered her face and started crying, he was genuinely disturbed by the reaction. He sat up. "Mischka." He touched her on the shoulder.

She recoiled and curled into a ball, shaking.

"What's wrong?" No answer. Her position and state seemed to indicate a deep shame. "Is it Milosz?"

"No!" she blurted through the tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to cry. You don't deserve this. You've been so kind."

Lorca raised an eyebrow. "I didn't do this to be kind. I was being selfish. I wanted to go where no man had gone before." It was, after all, the guiding mandate of Starfleet.

There was a momentary pause. Mischkelovitz inhaled sharply and a laugh choked out. Then another. She began to laugh hysterically in that way only she could. Her hands fell away from her eyes and her shoulders shook with genuine mirth.

He chuckled, too, and smiled. "And I'm your first. That means a part of you will always belong to me."

She wiped her eyes, still convulsing with paroxysms of laughter. "Thank you, Gabe. Sorry for crying." The laughter subsided and the tears were gone with it.

"Come here." He put his hand on her bare back and this time she did not recoil. She rolled back towards him and nestled against his shoulder. "I like that you can cry. At least one of us can." If he had been able to muster up the tears again, would Cornwell have forgiven him the phaser? Probably not, but maybe it would have helped. It certainly had back in San Francisco.

He felt a small vibration against his shoulder. Not movement, but sound. "What is that? Is that music?"

"Yes," she said. "If you lean in close, you can hear it." She shifted position upward, so her head was next to his, and Lorca pressed his ear against hers. There were small patterns of harplike sounds emerging from her implant.

"What is it?"

"Mishima."

The patterns repeated over and over, changing slightly as they did. "It's a little repetitive," admitted Lorca.

"I like repetition. Patterns are math. Math is everything."

There was something a little familiar in the phrasing. "Ask Stamets, and he'll tell you it's all mushrooms."

"Stamets can't see what I see."

Lorca smiled at that. It was a good thing Stamets' focus was so narrow. He was literally missing the bigger picture. "No, he cannot. How about you walk me through the latest revision of your map?"

It was a perfect way to end the evening. Lorca and Mischkelovitz both loved that map and when he asked her how many jumps she thought were needed to complete it, he found the answer high but completely within the realms of possibility.

One hundred and fifty jumps. That was what she estimated. The number echoed in Lorca's mind after Mischkelovitz departed his quarters. She insisted it was only an estimate, but she was good at estimates. If she thought that's what it would take, he had no doubt it would be the case.

One-hundred and fifty jumps was going to equal a lot of dead Klingons if Gabriel Lorca had anything to say about it.

Part 68

#Star Trek Discovery #Star Trek fanfiction #USS Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Gabriel Lorca #Captain Lorca #Commander Saru #Saru #Paul Stamets

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