#this was all unsurprising in hindsight

[pa-pa-plasma]

i hate it when some guy is outed as the worst person alive & everyone is like "ohh no who could've predicted this" except you predicted it years ago. the man is a billionaire who makes homeless people dance for money. this is a completely unsurprising outcome.

[jambos6]

TGI motha fuckin F y’all, cause it has been a week.

My last two days at work have been an object lesson in why it is important not to just take new tickets if the customers on your existing tickets haven’t been responding, because there’s always a chance that they all respond at once. Or when they do respond, their seemingly-simple issues may turn out to be horrendously complex.

[vamptastic]

leonard hall of fame fucked up ya novel moments:

-the book bunker in which a kid living in a doomsday bunker realizes at the end of the novel that the entire disaster was fabricated by his abusive father. also the father was making his wife have children with the intent of eating them in the future

-that series that starts out as a survivalist novel and then halfway through you realize theres Fucking Aliens and also the hunk who rescued the main character is an alien

-that one book where a girl survives a plane crash and towards the end of the novel realizes the fellow survivor shed been with was a hallucination brought on by her infected septum piercing and hed died shortly after the initial plane crash

-book about a weight loss drug being demo'd on a cruise ship for advertising that quickly turns the entire ship insane and makes them start killing each other to drink each others blood

-zombie series me and all my friends read in middle school where the main character and his brother are people who hunt down people's zombified family members to let them die in peace

-this one novel where a schoolbus crashes into a superstore right as a massive disaster wave hits and the kids are all locked inside of the barricade and decide to just stay and shelter there. think this was also the one where the disaster was an extremely infectious airborne virus that caused people to do one of three things, one of which was go crazy murder mode which created some very scary moments

-entirety of the unwind and uglies series

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Cozened Indigo - Part One

Pairing: Modern!Aemond Targaryen x f!reader Warnings: Mentions of murder, dark themes. Word count: ~4k

Summary: Unhappy with the assignment she has been given to work on for the Duskendale Gazette, she opts to pursue her own story, not quite realising what she's getting herself into. Series masterlist.

Author's note: For @humanpurposes. I have put my journalism degree to use here, to ensure as much accuracy as possible. However, as Westeros is a fictional place, I have warped certain laws and regulations regarding court reporting for the purpose of the story. Please suspend your disbelief for the sake of a fictional tale. No tag list. Follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

Chewing the end of her pen, she leans closer to the computer monitor as her eyes scan the Reuters website almost frantically.

Aemond Targaryen, son of late billionaire, Viserys Targaryen, charged for the murder of his nephew, Lucerys Velaryon. Case pending trial.

Nervous excitement swirls in her gut, as she leans back in her uncomfortable, creaky office chair. This is the first mention she has seen of such a scandal, unsurprising considering how high profile the Targaryen family are in Westeros. They’ll have worked hard to cover this up, however, with a court case imminent, the news is now public knowledge.

She knows that every media outlet from Dorne to Eastwatch will be all over this, but it will be nothing beyond surface level detail, the most basic of coverage. None of them will be able to get the family to talk, but she can, that is her specialty – was her specialty.

Essos Fraudster Glorified by White Cloak Magazine.

The headline passes through her mind like a stormcloud, a dirty mark upon her career that she can never scrub out. She had been duped, it was an honest mistake, but it had cost her dearly.

When whisperings began regarding an oligarch from Essos having shady business dealings in King’s Landing, she had set out to investigate, feeling it was a story worth telling. To her surprise, he had agreed to an interview, and she had been spun a tale of a man born into tremendous wealth, who was now looking to give back by setting up charitable foundations across Westeros.

She had done her due diligence, followed up on all of the sources at her disposal. Every phone call she made checked out, verifying his claims, and so the glossy double page spread had run in White Cloak Magazine, painting a picture of a misunderstood, altruistic individual who just wanted to share his wealth.

It had been the crowning achievement of her journalistic career, until two days later when the Blackwater Post had run their own story, utterly destroying hers. The oligarch was in fact guilty of tax evasion and money laundering, the charities he had founded mere fronts, empty shell corporations and hedge funds used to hide large sums of money that were never intended to be donated. The sources he had provided to back his claims had all been disreputable business associates of his, posing as bankers, accountants and employees.

He was jailed for his crimes and White Cloak was made a laughing stock for the piece they had run. As the person who had written it, it was her head that was placed upon the chopping block, a blunder of such enormity could not be overlooked.

Her humiliation had felt as though it would swallow her whole. She ought to have been more thorough in her research, but hindsight always possesses more clarity than what is right in front of you. She had considered just giving up and pursuing a different career path entirely, yet despite the shame that shrouded her, she had known that the urge to write would never leave her, an insatiable itch that must be scratched.

For a year she had looked for another job, had applied to just about every magazine and newspaper that existed in Westeros. If she had to relocate to Dorne, The Reach, or even The North then she’d do it for the sake of her career. Unfortunately, the blemish on her record was well known, and nowhere reputable would touch her.

That was until the Duskendale Gazette had taken a chance on her. The pet project of Royce Baratheon, it is a small, localised publication, a far cry from the nationwide reach of the high end White Cloak, but they were willing to hire her, the salary covers her rent, and it means not having to move away from King’s Landing.

For the last eighteen months she has occupied a desk in a darkened corner of the Duskendale Gazette’s offices, lovingly nicknamed “The Wall” by those that sit there - a place where writers at the end of their careers or close to retirement are sent to die.

It has been a slow, painful death, covering everything from disputes over fishing permits in Blackwater Bay to the implementation of a one way traffic system in Rosby. Discovering the news regarding Aemond Targaryen feels like the shot of adrenaline that her career needs to bring it back to life, provided he’s willing to speak to her – provided she can get sign off to write the story in the first place.

She sets down the biro she has been gnawing on and looks at the time on her computer. 9.02am. Glancing over her shoulder towards the big, glass walled meeting room that sits at the centre of the newsroom, she can see that Royce, along with the other editors and department heads are settling around the table, preparing to plan the next round of commissions.

Anxiously biting her lip, she considers her options. It would look bad to just walk in uninvited, however, if she doesn’t ask now then she’ll never get to do it. This is a story worth writing, surely they’d see that? Abruptly, she stands up, drawing in a steadying breath.

Fuck it, I’m going in.

She knocks at the door, not awaiting an answer before pushing it open. The men around the table furrow their brows, falling silent as they turn to look at her.

Royce shuffles the papers in front of him, sighing in irritation. “We’re in the middle of a meeting.”

Undeterred, in spite of the way her heart thunders in her chest, she steps further into the room towards the head of the table where he sits. “I know and that’s why I’m here. I saw on Reuters this morning that Aemond Targaryen has been charged with the murder of his nephew. I–”

“You won’t be covering that,” Royce interrupts, standing from his seat and lifting a sheet of paper from the pile. “I’m putting you on the upcoming curfew that’s to be implemented in Flea Bottom.”

“Royce, please, there’s something here, I know there is,” she presses, attempting to push down the anger that simmers hotly under her skin at his dismissal. “This could be huge for us.”

“You’ll write the story you’re assigned,” he insists, thrusting the paper towards her, “the last thing we need is a profile of some spoiled aristocrat, especially from someone with your track record.”

There it is. Someone with your track record.

“Just give me a chance–”

“You will write what I’ve commissioned, and be grateful you’re getting anything at all.”

“So you’re just going to ignore this?”

“We’ll place a court reporter on it once it goes to trial, but that is not your concern. Focus on your own assignment.”

She turns on her heel, storming back to her desk. Her skin burns with humiliation, tears blurring her vision as she sits down, slapping the commission sheet down next to her keyboard. Drawing in a steadying breath, she scrubs her hands over her face in an attempt to calm herself.

Scanning the assignment she’s been given, she scoffs. A curfew enforced by King’s Landing Constabulary as a means to curb the violent and drunken behaviour that’s rife in Flea Bottom. It's a soulless story, she knows she’ll be expected to simply present the facts, alongside a media ready quote from the police force, instead of addressing the rampant poverty in the area that is the catalyst for such problems. The final product will be better used as ad space.

It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and wanting to prove Royce wrong, she decides to press ahead with the story that she wants to write anyway. Opening her internet browser, she searches the Targaryen name, presented with hundreds of links and articles regarding the family.

There is nothing she doesn’t already know; they’re from old money, own most of the banking and legal services from here to Oldtown and there is a rift that divides Viserys’ second wife, Alicent, and her children from his first daughter, Rhaenyra, and her family.

The remaining patriarch of the family, Otto Hightower, owns a law firm called Red Keep Solicitors which is based in the centre of King’s Landing. A good enough place to start for her background research. Scanning the office to ensure no one’s looking, she stuffs her assignment sheet into her bag and slips out unnoticed.

As she steps out of the taxi that has pulled up outside of the high rise office block, she is surprised by the lack of media presence. She had assumed that with the information that leaked this morning, there would be a line of news station vans parked along the pavement, with journalists all clamouring to get a vox pop from someone from either the Hightower or Targaryen family. Besides a steady flow of traffic down the street, it’s dead. Whoever is working to keep the media away is doing an exceptional job. For once, she is thankful she works for a small, local newspaper; no notoriety means being able to fly under the radar.

The polished black marble of the foyer floor causes each of her footsteps to echo around the lofty reception. The space is modern and minimalist; the reception desk placed at the far wall, the motif of a castle with the company name emblazoned across the wall behind it. A forest green, crushed velvet sofa sits off to the side, serving as the waiting area.

“Good morning,” the young woman seated behind the desk greets her. “How may I help you?”

“I’m here to see Otto Hightower,” she says, smiling politely. The less she gives away, the less likely she is to be turned away.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid not. I was hoping he might be able to squeeze me in for a quick consultation?” She asks hopefully.

“Hmm,” the receptionist’s eyes narrow, regarding her with suspicion, before she taps delicately at the keyboard of her computer. “I’m afraid Mr. Hightower is fully booked for today. Can I take a message?”

“No, it’s fine, I’ll wait,” she replies, keeping her tone light, attempting to appear casual. She moves to the sofa, taking a seat and crossing one leg over the other. She ignores the receptionist, who is now eyeing her intently.

Plucking her mobile out of her bag, she pretends to look busy as the woman behind the desk picks up the phone and speaks in a hushed tone into the receiver, clearly alerting whoever is on the other end to her presence.

Thirty minutes tick by in uncomfortable silence, during which she has checked just about every app on her smartphone and read through most of her emails. Her head snaps up upon hearing the elevator ding. As the doors slide open she sees a tall, much older, bearded man step out. There is no mistaking that this is Otto Hightower.

Jumping to her feet, she follows him as he walks quickly past her, out of the building.

“Mr. Hightower, might I have a moment of your time?”

He doesn’t slow down, doesn’t even turn to look back at her, his tone clipped as he tells her “I have no interest in speaking to the press.”

Undeterred, she lengthens her strides to keep up with him. “I understand your concern, but I’m not here to drag anyone’s name through the mud. I’d just like to understand more about what happened with your grandson.”

“No comment,” he says flatly, pulling open the rear door of a sleek, black Mercedes that pulls up to the curb and climbing in.

Before she has the opportunity to say anything else, he’s slamming the door closed and the car is pulling away.

She groans in frustration, walking back towards the entrance of Red Keep solicitors and leaning against the wall. She isn’t ready to give up, not when she’s had a small taste of what it’s like to work on something she actually cares about again. This is just a minor setback, she’ll find someone willing to speak to her. For now, she just needs to get back to the office and plan what the next step of her strategy will be. Pulling out her phone, she opens the taxi app, preparing to head back.

“You’re as subtle as a sledgehammer.”

The quiet voice pulls her attention away from her screen and she glances over her shoulder to be met by a dark, curly haired man, leaning heavily on a cane, an orthopedic shoe on his left foot.

“Excuse me?”

“You couldn’t really have believed that showing up here unannounced would get you an interview, surely?”

She scowls. “And who might you be?”

“Larys Strong,” he replies, eyes never leaving hers.

She turns fully to face him. “And how do you know what will or won’t get me an interview?”

His lips quirk into the faintest of smiles, eyes moving slowly from her head to her feet and back up again. It unnerves her and she can feel herself involuntarily shrinking away from him. 

“It’s my job to know. The Hightowers are keen to prevent any unwanted…whispers from occurring, as I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“So, no one from the family would be willing to speak with me?”

“Absolutely not. But I might be.”

“You? How would you be able to help me?”

His eyes seem to glitter, almost malevolently, as he stares at her. It sends a shiver up her spine.

“Oh, I provide all kinds of help to all kinds of people.”

He produces a business card from his inside pocket, handing it to her.

Larys Strong, Harrenhal Associates.

She gives a quiet thanks, fishing around in her bag and handing him one of her own. He glances at it quickly, before slipping it into the pocket from which he’d taken his own.

“Come by my office around seven this evening,” he tells her. “I’m sure we have much to talk about.”

Watching in stunned silence as he turns and shuffles back inside the entrance of Red Keep Solicitors, she knows she should feel excited – she finally has her in, dubious as it may be – however, she cannot shake the feeling that she has just unwittingly stepped into the midst of something sinister.

She whiles away the remainder of the day back at the Duskendale Gazette, ensuring she knows everything there is to know about the Targaryen and Hightower families – at least everything that’s publicly available anyway. She also looks into Larys Strong; there’s little to be found about him, but what she is able to dig up is impressive. He’s a solicitor, and has seemingly never lost a case for any of the clients he’s defended. She has an eerie feeling that the means through which he achieves this are far from ethical.

By the time seven o’ clock rolls around, she’s stood outside of a dingy brick building, located off of the Street of Silk. It does not even come close to the grandiosity of Red Keep Solicitors, without even so much as a sign to indicate it’s a place of business.

Ignoring the voice at the back of her mind that screams at her to turn and run, she presses the buzzer, pulling the door open as it’s released and making her way up the rickety wooden staircase to the top floor.

The room is dimly lit, small and stuffy, worn out carpet lines the floor, complete with furnishings that are likely older than she is. What strikes her as most odd is the abundance of flowers, there’s a vase on every flat surface and they look strangely out of place, a lurid splash of brightness against their darkened surroundings. She wrinkles her nose, the cloying scent of patchouli is overpowering. It’s either being used to cover up the odour of something else or is a misguided attempt to suggest opulence, but instead comes across as tacky.

Larys hovers in the doorway to his own personal office, watching her as she takes in her surroundings.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” he eventually says. “I appreciate that an out of hours visit is less than ideal, but I’m sure you understand the need for discretion.”

She nods, nerves swirling in her gut at the sudden realisation that no one knows that she’s here.

“My secretary has left for the day, so please leave your phone and any recording devices on her desk. I trust you realise that anything discussed this evening is strictly off of the record?”

“Understood,” she replies, deciding to just leave her entire bag on the desk as she follows Larys into his office.

It’s even smaller and more cramped than the tiny space that serves as the reception area. Overstuffed shelves of books line the walls, and the room’s only illumination is a lamp which sits upon the desk.

Larys settles into a leather armchair behind it, gesturing for her to take the seat on the other side.

“Can I ask what your involvement with the Targaryen family is?” She finally asks, once settled across from him.

He sits back, fingers moving absentmindedly over the grip of his cane. “I provide counsel to them. I will be acting as Aemond’s legal defense in the upcoming trial.”

She raises her eyebrows in shock. It’s surprising to know a family as wealthy as the Targaryens would be willing to trust such a delicate matter with someone who operates their business out of a seedy back alley. “You? Why?”

He huffs a humourless laugh, upturning the palm of his free hand. “Who else would? No one from Red Keep Solicitors could represent him, it would be a conflict of interest. And besides, I get results, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes, I do, as I’m sure you know all about me. Which leads me to my next question, if the Targaryens don’t want the media involved in this then why have you agreed to speak with me?”

Larys is silent for a moment, fingers stroking delicately over the petals of a red flower that sits within a vase upon his desk. “My reasons are twofold,” he says, finally looking up at her. “First, both sides of the family have come to a mutual agreement that neither one will talk to the press. I feel that is a mistake. Aemond needs all the help he can get. I don’t necessarily mean starting a media circus to report upon his every move and dig into his past, just one reputable source to give him a leg up while he’s at a disadvantage. Second, I have chosen you because I’m aware of your past…indiscretions. The future of your career rests upon this, so I know you will treat it with the due diligence it deserves.”

She scoffs in disbelief, running a hand through her hair. “The guy’s been charged with murder, how much care could he possibly need?”

“The prosecution will be pushing for a sentence for murder, yes. I’ll be arguing for a lesser sentence of manslaughter.”

“So, he didn’t mean to do it?”

“I think it’s better said in his own words.”

“You can arrange an interview with him?”

“I can arrange a visit for you to speak with him where he’s currently being remanded in custody, at Dragonstone Prison, yes.”

She attempts to remain neutral as her excitement bubbles unrestrained internally. “When is the trial?”

“In three weeks, so we have to act swiftly. I believe this concludes our discussion. I shall be in touch regarding your visitation.”

She is taken aback by the abrupt ending to their conversation, rising slowly from her seat as she leaves his office and collects her bag. It’s unnerving that even as she descends the staircase she can still feel his presence, the sweet, heady aroma clinging to her clothes like an invisible fog.

True to his word, Larys gets her her visit, and two days later she sits in the ferry terminal for Dragonstone Prison. Having had her identification checked, and her details input onto the system, she is issued a number and has to wait for it to be called before she can board.

The wait is agonising, and a full hour passes before she is called forward, scrambling to her feet towards the boarding area. The grey waters are choppy, causing the ferry to rock slightly on its short journey across the Gullet, until the craggy isle that houses the criminals of Westeros comes into view. The high, cement walls of Dragonston Prison are imposing and bleak against the skyline.

Disembarking the ferry, she is guided through the visitors’ entrance and searched, her personal effects rifled through as she walks through a metal detector, and her electronic devices taken away, to be returned to her upon her departure. Her identification is checked once more, and her details input onto the system again. She is told to take a seat, her name will be called when it’s time for her visitation to begin.

The hard seat is uncomfortable, and without the distraction of her phone she is left to stare at the clock on the wall. Its relentless ticking is maddening, the minutes feeling as though they crawl past. So absorbed in watching it, she jumps when her name is finally called, struggling to compose herself as she’s ushered through into the visitation area.

A series of tables and plastic chairs make up the startling white windowless room, and she is led to one in the far corner. Unsure of what to do, she simply stands beside her seat, awaiting the man she is to meet.

From the photos she has seen, Aemond cuts an imposing figure, dressed all in black. She hopes that the softness of the grey prison uniform will render him less intimidating. However, those thoughts are dashed the moment she sees him walk slowly through the door on the opposite side of the room.

He is in no rush, his steps are methodical, unhurried, a predator stalking its prey as he moves towards her. The photographs do not do justice to his height, long and lithe, he towers over her, and she feels herself holding her breath as she takes in the sharpness of his features. His long, platinum hair is pulled back into an immaculately styled ponytail, giving her an unhindered view of his chiseled jaw, aquiline nose and prominent cheekbones, though spoiled slightly by the ragged, angry looking scar that runs the length of the left side of his face. The eye within the socket sits milky and lifeless, but it does little to lessen the intensity of the brilliant blue of his right.

She notices the slightest dilation of his pupil as he stares unblinkingly at her, making her heart race as the cold sweat of fear prickles the back of her neck. So preoccupied with simply getting her story, it has not occurred to her until now that she would be face to face with a killer.

Certain he senses her fright, she sees his lips twitch with the faintest of smirks. The fact that it does not reach his eye makes her blood run cold.

[midnightsnyx]

girl at home | mat barzal | part 1

pairing: mat barzal x fem!reader summary: you're eighteen when you find yourself pregnant after Mat leaves for hockey. nearly eight years later, Mat finds out about your daughter and you have to deal with the consequences of not telling him about her.

warnings: mentions of pregnancy & not really edited word count: 1.3k authors note p1: don't mind me starting a new series when i have four other wips on the go :):) i love kid fics and this idea was stuck in my head so i wrote & decided to give it a go and post it. if this does well and you guys are interested, i'll do more. authors note p2: so notes about the series: i gave the readers daughter a name because i hate writing y/d/n lol of course you can change it in your head to something else if you want :) also the last name johnson is just there so i could have a full name but we all know she'll be a barzal also thank u @multifandombabes for giving me the push to post this!! happy reading & let me know what you guys think!

masterpost

In hindsight, you should have realized that it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. You did your best to avoid places you knew he would be when he was home, going to visit your grandparents or other family. Anywhere that would give you the opportunity to not be seen by him, because then you’d have to explain your brown haired, green eyed, seven year old. 

You weren’t proud of your choice to keep Nora a secret from Mat but you did what you thought was right when you were eighteen, sitting on the floor of your best friend’s bathroom four weeks after you had said goodbye to Mat and staring at three positive pregnancy tests. He had just left for hockey and you didn’t want to be what held him back and as time went on, it got harder to pick up the phone so a few months after Nora was born, you erased Mathew Barzal from your life. You deleted the photos, phone numbers, social media, with the only reminder being the little girl.

And it worked fine. Until now.

Nora usually didn’t come grocery shopping with you because you always ended up taking three times as long as you normally would. Except, your sitter fell through and your mom couldn’t watch her so you had to bring her along. Which is totally fine until you run into Mat. Who has a girl with him. 

So yeah, everything was fine until now.

It’s kind of comical the way his panicked eyes dart between the three of the girls standing around him. A quick glance at Nora confirms that she’s two seconds away from saying something to Mat which will not go well since the kid has zero filter.

“Hey, you’re that hockey player mama and grandma watch on TV!” she exclaims and you want to melt straight through the floor when Mat looks at you with one eyebrow raised. 

“Yeah?” he asks, kneeling down so he’s at her level.

“Yeah,” she confirms, and then loudly whispers: “I’m not supposed to watch ‘cause some games are past my bedtime but sometimes I’ll sneak out.” 

He offers his hand and smiles. “Well, it’s nice to meet you…” he trails off, clearly hoping she’ll offer her name. You hope she just says her first name instead of announcing her full name which she tends to do lately.

“Nora,” she tells him, shaking his hand and then to your unsurprised horror, she proudly tells him her full name. “Nora Nadia Johnson.” 

He keeps the smile on his face but stiffens and gently drops her hand. 

“Cool name,” he says, still smiling but you can see the tension in his shoulders. 

“Thanks! My first name means light and my middle name-”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because you grab her hand, abandon your shopping cart and high tail it out of the store. She grumbles while trying to keep up with your pace and eventually you just pick her up and carry her to the car.

“What did we say about talking to strangers?” you ask while buckling her seatbelt, ignoring her annoyed sighs. 

“He wasn’t a stranger, you watch him on the TV all the time.”

“Have you ever met him?” you ask, raising an eyebrow and she mumbles something under her breath.

“What was that?”

“No,” she mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest and giving you a look that is so Mathew that you could laugh.

“Well then, he’s a stranger.” 

You leave it at that because she starts talking about the summer camp she’s starting next week. You’re only half listening, trying to get over the shock of seeing Mat and knowing he realizes that he probably has a kid you never told him about. If you were in his shoes, you would be angry so you are expecting him to show up on your doorstep later that evening but he doesn’t. Part of you wonders if the reason he doesn’t come is because of that girl he had with him but you figure if he really wanted answers, he would come regardless. 

What you’re not expecting, is a text from his sister Liana. You still see his family from time to time out in public but after you essentially ghosted Mat, they didn’t really want anything to do with you. When everybody found out you were pregnant, you lied and said it wasn’t Mat’s which nobody really believed but they couldn’t prove it and you’d used your mothers maiden name as Nora’s last name so there were no ties. You were surprised that his family didn’t tell him anyways, but you thought that perhaps they didn’t for the same reason you didn’t.

To give Mat no reason to stay here and instead, pursue his dreams and go play in the NHL. 

So a text from his sister is unexpected. 

Liana: hey, are you free for lunch tmw?

You almost delete it at first and pretend she never messaged you, but you know that there’s no going back now that Mat saw Nora. He’s not stupid. He probably went home and asked his parents about her. So you text her back a reluctant yes and agree on a spot to meet up the next day.

Nora goes to your moms house because you’re unsure if it will just be Liana who shows up, or if anyone else does. You meet up at a Starbucks and aside from the initial tension, it melts almost immediately and the two of you go back to the big sister/little sister relationship you had when you and Mat were dating. Except now, she’s all grown up.

After some catching up, the conversation turns to the reason she asked to see you. She hesitates, picking at her nails - a nervous tick you know she does - before sighing. 

“Look, everybody kind of turned their head with ‘The Nora Situation’ because it was clearly what you wanted, and it was probably what was best for Mat,” she says. “But he knows now, and he’s got questions that we can’t and won’t answer. Dad had to talk him down last night and his girlfriend went back to New York this morning.”

You wince at that, not liking that the reason his girlfriend left is because of Nora but Liana must notice because she shrugs, taking a sip of her drink.

“Honestly, she wasn’t very nice. I’m not broken up over it and Mat didn’t seem to be either.” 

Okay, that is interesting. 

“Anyway,” she continues, “this is Mat’s new number.” She slides a small piece of paper across the table and you gingerly take it. “I know you didn’t want to tell him, and I understand but he knows. So give him a chance, okay?”

You manage a nod and let her leave with the final word. All you want to do is take Nora and leave, to get as far away as you can but something inside you stops you from doing it because maybe Liana is right, and you should give Mat a choice. After all, you were the one who decided to take it away from him in the beginning. 

So later that night, after Nora is asleep, you curl up on your couch with the piece of paper and stare at it for a good fifteen minutes. Regardless of whether or not you text him, you will have to deal with this and you’d rather it be on your terms. You reluctantly type his new number in your phone and hesitate, trying to think of what to even say. This isn’t a conversation you were expecting to have with him. You type and delete a dozen messages before deciding on something simple.

To Mathew: Hey, I guess we should talk.

You take a deep breath, and hit send.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I rewatched s1e4 recently, and I've been thinking about what it can tell us about the way Izzy and Ed have operated for years.

The very first thing we see Ed do in this episode, literally his first significant scene in the entire show, is try to bring Izzy in on the plan he's working on. He starts talking about the clouds (famously an important thing when you live on a boat), tries to draw Izzy into the conversation, an obvious lead in hindsight into "the shape of the clouds confirmed the fog I'm counting on for this plan to work." If Izzy had engaged with Ed at all, he would've been able to start talking about his plan, which he obviously already has nailed down at this point, but he's asking "do they look like frankfurters to you?" because he's wanting to get Izzy's opinion. If Izzy had responded in a way consistent with someone who understands that a genuis sailor and tactician like Ed will be looking at clouds because they're important for gauging weather patterns at sea, then the hassle later in the episode could've been avoided, because Izzy would've been able to point out the date.

But not only does Izzy not respond that way, he responds like he's taking it as a given that Ed not only does not have a plan, but needs to be reminded of the urgency for one. He completely misses what Ed's trying to do. We can understand why Ed thinks that working with Izzy is "like pulling teeth sometimes."

And this continues throughout the episode. Every time Ed finds something interesting and tries to include Izzy in his excitement, Izzy treats him like a child who needs to be managed, incapable of understanding the gravity of the situation unless Izzy reminds him.

And what really sticks out to me as especially interesting is the way Izzy responds when Ed stops trying to play with him. When Ed finally gives up on trying to include Izzy, Izzy screams in Ed's face, insults him, and tries to come up with a ""plan"" of his own over Ed' s head, and Ed is completely and entirely unsurprised by any of this. He acts like he's not just accustomed to Izzy insulting and berating him when he's not performing the way Izzy would like, but he's also accustomed to Izzy trying to go over his head to make decisions that are honestly very, very dumb.

All of this paints a picture of two people who just fundamentally cannot communicate well with each other at all. Izzy is entirely uninterested in the ways Ed attempts to communicate his ideas and excitement, Izzy's nagging shuts Ed down, and there are fundamental breakdowns in communication. Ed doesn't feel like he can let Izzy in on the plan until the "big reveal" when he gets to prove that Izzy's been wrong about Ed this whole time, and I'm honestly surprised Izzy doesn't straight-up have an aneurysm because he's getting himself so worked up.

It's so easy to see this cycle repeat over the years. Ed has such a jaded feel to him during the scenes where he talks with Izzy, like he's given up on getting anything but condescension and nagging from Izzy until the moment of the big reveal of his plan. Izzy is so absolutely convinced that Ed needs to be "managed" that he can't see past it, even though he's worked with Ed for long enough that he should presumably be able to get these very obvious cues by now. And the way Izzy immediately turns to berating Ed and trying to take over himself when he gets fed up isn't just further proof of Izzy's elevated sense of self-importance, it's like he's convinced himself that he really is the "brains" behind Blackbeard when he's really just grabbing at Ed's feet and hindering him.

[lilacgaby]

operation: start!

~1k

chapter select

"hey? flower freak. you okay?"

"no." damn this stupid quirk. [name] thought.

she was currently sprawled out on the floor, laid right in front of the dorms. in hindsight, yes it was stupid to lay right there. she should've just walked in, but she wasn't thinking straight.

"oh. sucks to be you."

"yes it does." she was currently face to face with one of her closest friends, and crush, katsuki. for some reason she was adopted by mina at the start of the year, who for some other odd reason, loved to hang with katsuki and his friends.

this led to katsuki and her hanging out one on one occasionally because of their shared affection for romance manga. and because quote on quote, "she's cool for an extra." whatever that meant. it still, embarrassingly, made her heart flutter though.

"are you gonna get up or sit outside like a dumbass?" katsuki quipped, eyeing her off attitude.

"i'm gonna get up, uh-- just don't wait on me!"

"...okay."

with that, bakugo turned and walked back inside. he noted her odd behavior, but shrugged it off. he knew she had just finished a mission.

"oh by the way, i took another volume of maid-sama from your room."

"don't break it!"

he closed the door behind him, leaving her there on the floor.

after an awkward encounter with aizawa, who looked at her as if she grew another head for breaking curfew just to lay on the floor, she got up and walked inside.

mina immediately ran over to her.

"hey girl! how was your patrol?"

"bad." [name] was becoming unsurprised at the way her mouth answered for her.

"what? really what happened?"

don't say it. "i got hit by a truth quirk, i told mirko about my crush on bakugo, and im scared im going to accidentally confess." damn it.

mina's eyes widened at her sudden confession.

"i knew it! sero and denki owe me a thousand yen!"

"wait, you knew?" [name] asked, shocked at the revelation.

"yes girl, duh! your eyes literally sparkle when you see him! and don't think that i missed that flowers start blooming whenever you and him are together! i thought you were dating for a while." mina confessed.

[name] felt her face get hot.

"it's really that obvious?"

"yes."

"aw man. well.. then you have to help me!"

mina tilted her head in confusion. "with what?"

"i-- okay just... let me go shower and meet me in my room."

"ooh! is this gonna be a mission? should i call the girls or the squad?" mina looked a little too enthusiastic for [name]'s taste.

but she trusted mina. she was basically her best friend. so, she relented.

"whoever you think'd be better for this."

mina looked thoughtful. "okay, got it! i'll be in your room in an hour!"

[name] sighed and walked up to the showers.

please mina.. pull through for me.

ʚ ✩ ɞ.

[name] hoped the shower would wash away her anxiety, and it did for a short time. but she was reminded of her impending doom when she saw her entire friend group on her bed.

denki, kirishima, sero, and mina all eyed her as she entered her room. odd how she felt like she wasn't supposed to be in her own room.

"uh.. hey guys."

"hey, heard about the quirk you got hit with." denki commented.

"and about your crush. thanks [name] i won three-thousand yen!" kirishima remarked.

[name] deadpanned.

"anyways, we're all here for operation: save [name] from being embarrassed by her feelings of true love!" mina exclaimed, pulling a chalkboard out of no where.

"we couldn't have come up with a shorter name? how about.. operation: save [name]." sero added.

"yeah but that's too.. ambiguous. we need to know what we're saving her from." kirishima said.

"huh.. how about.. save [name] from bakugo. o:s_fb for short." sero said.

"ooh cool name! makes it feel all professional and stuff!" mina said excitedly as she added it to the board.

meanwhile, [name] just stood there, wishing to be anywhere else. she had so many questions in her mind, but she was broken out of her thoughts as mina wrote:

'keep [name] away from katsuki alone: aka third wheel strategy.'

"huh?" [name] muttered.

"okay guys, we have to third wheel them!

in order to keep our darling [n/name] safe,

we have to make sure he never makes a joke that could make her accidentally confess." mina proposed.

"we will come back here everyday after bakugo goes to sleep at 8, and talk about any changes we have to make to our strategy. got it?"

"got it!" they, minus [name], said in unison.

"oh by the way [name], for how long does the quirk last?"

"a week." she sighed.

the group seemed to fall apart at that.

"third wheeling for an entire week?! that's insane!" denki exclaimed.

"yeah, i don't know about this [name], maybe you should give it up and confess willingly."

"yeah let's start a new operation! operation: perfect confes--"

"no way." [name]'s voice cut through. "i-i can't guys. and i really need your help so.. please? it's just til next sunday. i'll take you guys out to eat as soon as the quirk goes off."

the group all collectively looked over eachother, while mina stood strong. "i was always going to help you with your plan, dumb or not."

"yeah, it wouldn't be manly to force a confession."

they all agreed, and set off to their rooms for the night. they would've broke curfew again, but denki and sero were one strike away from house arrest.

"operation starts tomorrow [name]! don't forget it!" mina said, before leaving with the big ass chalkboard left behind in her room.

[name] sighed and huffed into her pillow.

seven days to go.

i got this.

o:s_fb start!

prev | next!

[wizardlyghost]

thing about deltora quest that only occurred to me in hindsight is not only just how much jasmine carries the entire party on this quest but also how genre-defyingly brutal she is lol. like, this is a kid's series that hinges on riddles and puzzles far more heavily than combat - even when deaths occur, they're often the result of cleverness in some way rather than straight up combat ability. that said, let's look at the villain kill count at the end of book five of eight of the first series:

- lief: 1 - even there it's with a well-thrown bottle of cursed water rather than his sword.

- barda: 0 - i'm not counting that one unnamed sand beast, that's an animal not a villain.

- filli: 0 - he is a squirrel, this is unsurprising.

- kree: 1 - killed an invincible sorceress all by himself, good bird best friend.

- jasmine: 5 - dropped a tree branch on a mf, drowned two cannibals in quicksand, cut a giant snake's throat, shoved a dude down a pipe full of toxic mold (after having to be told not to cut his throat while he slept jfc).

idk it just suddenly struck me as really funny how this one character who isn't the protagonist is almost from a different, far more brutal story, and uses that fact to consistently be the mvp and save everyone else's asses. i need to read this series again it's been too long.

[beiibeiii]

Kafka Angst, delicious, thankyou for the food. Okay this was from 11:49-12:21 jeez im tired.

Anyways, here’s thing for you!

“…I remember one morning it was just like any other, you brought coffee and I brought sweets. I remember, you spilled a little of my coffee on the table and made a surprised sound, but despite that, you looked up at me and you laughed. Your eyes were shining in the morning light— In hindsight really.. They’d always done that. A little bit brighter, with the golden sun. That’s the moment I realized I was really truly hopelessly in love with you. I told myself it was a longer mission than usual. That’s all, and yet I couldn’t stop liking you past our little meetings in the morning. I couldn’t help but want to ask more and more about yourself, the silly, little details unrelated to Elio’s script.”

At least, that’s what Kafka would like to say to you. Instead she watched through your window as you cried. Illuminated only by moonlight. It looked as though a meteor shower might be streaking across your face— quick and bright slashes. A sky full of grief, guilt, longing. Kafka couldn’t help but vaguely wondering if you must mirror her own feelings so well. Kafka was a formidable woman, that wasn’t a secret to anyone. What she wanted, she would eventually obtain. However everything else she had taken now seemed so.. Little in comparison to you. So worthless. The one thing Kafka wanted, craved— No. The one thing she needed, she couldn’t have. You. A little bit of water splashes her face. Unsurprising, there’s thunderclouds rolling overhead. Rain was bound to come sooner or later. The water rolls down her cheek, to the corner of her mouth. It takes a moment to register in her brain it’s salty, and the rain has not yet begun to fall.

She looks down at her hands, those hands that have felled many. Her tongue, which has been used to manipulate peoples minds into showing them horrors to last a lifetime, that tongue that has spit thousands of lies. Her eyes, which have watched on as an opponent met a slow, agonizing end. The eyes that showed a frenzied glee at the suffering. How could she ever be worthy of you? The shining bright light in the universe who could never be dimmed. One so pure and precious. She felt her chest tighten in shame. She could never wash the blood from her hands, it stained her entire being. Deep in her mind, a maze to all (even herself) she knew that if given the chance to cleanse her sins, she probably would not take it.

So the Stellaron Hunter turns, quickly scaling her way down to the bustling streets before you might see that familiar shape crouching across the way. Your eyes make their way to the window as you see quick movement, but as fast as it appeared it disappears just as well. And a drop of water hits the glass. And another. Until your window is pelted with the sky’s tears, and the sidewalks are a black mass of umbrellas.

I hope this was this much 🤏 entertaining to you

WHAJHSGD ANONIE?? THIS IS SO AMAZING WAAA IDEK IF I CAN ADD TO IT BC ITS ALREADY PERFECTT!! IM GETTING FED SO WELLL SHJSSJ SOBBING KAFKA ANGST HITTING TOO HARD RN AJSJSJS SHES SO BABYYY I WANNA HUG HERR 😕💗

kafka wears gloves to try to hide the blood that has stained her hands to try to make herself feel better :(

kafka probably has you as a live wallpaper on her phone. she would press down on her phone and the short video of you on that flower field would play. your smiling brightly as the rays of the sunset glowed so beautifully on you. lighting up your smile even more. she looks at it with a bittersweet memories as she reminds herself as to why she joined the stellaron hunters - to understand herself to be a better person and see that beautiful smile on your face everyday. :(

she listens to voice messages or watches videos she has saved of you whenever shes stressed. hearing your voice and the way you smile at her clears her head. calming her down. she can't help but grow a little tired of hearing the same videos and voice recordings. shes determined to get some new ones soon. <3

whenever you post on your snapchat stories, instagram, tiktok, any social media platform, kafka is always on an anonymous account. she constantly comments sweet things under your posts.

"hope you had fun <3"

"so beautiful, like always dear 💗"

"such a pretty smile you have :)"

kafka doesnt even try to change the way she writes to make you not catch on. she likes your posts and is usually the first one to see them too. You can't help but sense the familiarity of the way the commenter writes their comments. its ever so awfully familiar as to how kafka types. you want to believe it but you know its not her :(

kafka secretly hopes you recognise that its her. she knows it won't happen, but she will still keep believing that you will <3

[darkkitty1208]

on fic writing and fandom: where am i going forward?

So. It's a bloody dull Friday and I'm writing this post--have been meaning to, for a while--because I can't stop thinking about it. It's just a few (a lot, actually) thoughts I've had in my mind the past few days that I've decided to spill into a single post, which turned out far longer than it needed to be, but nothing too important. Under the cut.

I've been a fanfic writer for a while now. Not a long time by any means, but a while nonetheless. My first fic--which is now orphaned like a few of its brothers for undisclosed reasons, though if you're an og you might be able to guess why--was dated back to the 18th of November 2021. 3 years later and I've got a humble 89 works and counting (the orphaned works and unposted wips unincluded). I can safely say I've improved quite a lot since then.

Where are you going with this, then, Kitty? Surely you aren't here just to brag about your writing progress?

Well. Not exactly. But I'll start with this: I guess what I'm trying to say is I've lost the spark.

You know. The old feeling. That boost of serotonin you get after you finish a piece you're proud of, or when you get lovely reviews on ao3, or when you get a kudos email, or a new mutual, or some wild tags under your silly post. The spark. I haven't felt it in a long time, now. The last time it's been so palpable was... I'm not sure. Probably last year's October. That was a lot of fun. I was most prolific in fic writing, that year. It shouldn't feel like a long time ago. Because it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong. I love all this. All that's going on right now. The comments I'm getting--even if fewer than I had before--and all the other interactions, I appreciate and enjoy and love them so, so much. And writing my newer fic projects are well exciting. But it just isn't the same anymore. I'm afraid it never will be.

(Maybe it has something to do with the lack of interactions lately. Maybe? I don't really know, either. I'm sure we're all well aware the fandom is past its peak, and with the current developments in the MCU I am frankly unsurprised, but I dunno.)

I guess that's part of the reason I've been less active lately. I've been inactive as a whole this year, admittedly, and disappearing far too often for far too long (and I notice some of my friends are, too). I just didn't get the same joy from being in a fandom like I had when I first started this blog, or my ao3 account.

In hindsight, I've probably been a little too dependent on fandom to provide me serotonin. The past few years have been hard, the years before that, too. Life just keeps kicking me in the arse time and time again. I guess I've been using fandom and fic writing as a coping mechanism, and once I've had my fill, the joy dies off to something a little more dull. Like a gum I've been chewing for too long that the sweetness has since worn off.

Honestly? I don't want it to be this way. I want to live without being so dependent on my presence online. I want to live without only knowing joy through internet interactions. I've got to learn to. It sounds silly, but it's true. (I think I may be slightly chronically online, oh no. x'D)

So naturally my first instinct is to distance myself a little. I contemplated quitting, but I can't do that. I don't see myself ever doing that, no matter how many times my brain convinces me that I might.

When this year started, I had set some goals for writing. One of them was to write for more whumptober prompts than I did last year or complete them all. I did like 21 prompts or something last year. Of 31. Within a little more than a month. While still balancing all the life stuff I had going on. This is, if not obvious, an extremely ambitious goal. I am not insane. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't possibly do that now, can I? Not with all the stuff that's been happening.

...

Can I?

...

Yeah, no. Definitely not.

See, that's another thing: writing. Probably the thing I'm trying to get at in this post but otherwise derailed completely from. Fuck my brain.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that I've been writing significantly less. I still post, obviously, but not as much as like, last year when the number of works I had went from a few to far too much. That had helped me improve quite a lot, actually, but those days I barely slept because I just insisted to replace my sleep time with Writing Shit For The Gays. It was pretty unhealthy now that I look back at it. My sleep schedule is still shit now but, yk. Some things just never change.

I was really, really caught up on wanting to be good at writing. Like, really good. I wanted to make awesome things. I wanted to write like a real fucking pro. Like all the more popular fandom authors I look up to. I want to be like the big dogs in fandom. It sounds so silly. I did everything; sprinting daily, setting a minimum of 500 words writing sessions every day, trying new writing styles, churning out works after works, writing for prompts and events and gifts and the like. I was enjoying it, yes, but was it really something I did for myself? Or was it because I wanted to please other people or impress other people for their validation, which is something I'm entirely too dependent of? Was it for the numbers?

Well. It was more for that than for me, I realised a little too late.

So yeah. Fuck wanting to be good. I want to write for the hell of it. I want to write something that's for me. Not what the majority of the fandom or other people want to read, but for me. Which is why I absolutely loved writing works like just a matter of time, how to kill a god, or how to become a god, because they're not meant for other people but myself. (Ironically that last work is a gift but, yk. I still liked it.) I know I joke about self-projecting a lot, but it's been seriously helping me rediscover the joy of writing that doesn't come from the incessant need to be good or perfect or focus on producing more and more and more. It makes me feel like a kid again. Also, I'm only realising this now but I'd rather get like 5 people who enjoy reading my works so much and express them to me rather than 100 people who silently thumbs up at me and then go away to consume another fic or demand more. (All this to say I still love interactions, it just shouldn't be my no. 1 priority to get them when writing fanfics.)

But yeah. None of those works are perfect. They're not meant to be. But they're mine. They're me. They represent me. And it's so, so great to feel that in writing. I've been so stuck up on being some sort of content machine. I'm doing this for myself, how could I forget? I've been saying this since the beginning, I don't know why I'm still struggling to do it. God. It's ridiculous.

Anyway. That's that. This has become a very long ramble. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. And for letting me waste your time, if you make it to the end of this post.

[iknowitsariot]

tiny victories

My Lady Jane | Jane Grey x Guildford Dudley | Rated E | 5,264 words

Jane finds that a certain phrase she's always hated isn't so bad in certain contexts. Like from Guildford Dudley. More specifically from Guildford Dudley in bed.

~

When Lady Jane Grey was a young girl, there was nothing she found quite so abhorrent as obeying her mother’s many edicts.

(Which you probably find rather unsurprising.)

Everyday it was an endless stream of “Jane, you mustn’t get your skirts so muddy” and “Jane, get your nose out of that book” and “Jane, for heaven’s sake, learn to hold your tongue!”.

All various attempts to groom her into becoming a proper, noble, acquiescent lady, which even in childhood sounded wholly unappealing to Jane. Ladies, it seemed, did not engage in combat training with their cousin the king. Ladies did not know how to read, let alone enjoy doing so. Ladies did not frighten off potential suitors before they had a chance to finish their first course. 

Jane would know she was really in for it when her mother preceded her commands with the phrase “be a good girl”. Becoming a lady, so it appeared, first required being a good girl, or at least, what her mother considered a good girl. Clean, punctual, silent; strict posture, dainty smile, impeccable manners; in other words, brainless, spineless, faultless. Jane rejected the concept outright. Lady Frances Grey’s version of “good” was one Jane simply could not agree with. And so whenever she heard that cursed phrase ahead of any instruction, she'd turn on her most innocent smile, float away with a straight back and a proud chest, and promptly do the exact opposite of what she'd been told. 

(Which, in hindsight, makes what comes later rather…vexing.)

read more on ao3

[five-and-dimes]

Endless. Not Everything

(AO3)

(This is an AU in the sense that I know, I know, that fem Dream is canon in the comics. We're ignoring that for this one. )

Dream is horny, but Hob seems reluctant to take the next step. So Dream jumps to conclusions and tries to be something he's not.

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

It’s unsurprising in hindsight that the first to make the decision is Delight.

The Endless are still fairly young in the grand scheme of things, but they have watched humanity grow in leaps and bounds. And as they do, it is nigh impossible not to be shaped by them in some ways. The Endless exist because of humanity. They are a part of each other. Delight drifts among humans more than the others, watching and laughing and bringing delight and being delighted in turn.

“Oh, my siblings,” Delight announces one day when they are all gathered together, “call me sister.”

The most surprising part of the interaction is Destiny’s response.

The eldest Endless gives a rare small smile, “Dear sister. You may call me brother.”

Perhaps it had been written from the beginning, the way the Endless would come to take this part of humanity upon themselves. They are all still so young, have not yet learned the things that would separate them, and so they watch with warmth as Delight bursts into peals of laughter and throws her arms around her brother’s neck, embracing him the way she embraced everything.

Slowly, the rest follow suit. Desire curls their lips in disdain and firmly declares that they are a sibling, thank you very much, regardless of shape or form. (It is fitting, they all think, that Desire would be the most comfortable in their given, genderless state.)

Despair takes time, mulling over every option before sighing and announcing who she is as their sister. (None of them are quite sure if she chose the option because it caused her the least amount of despair or the most.)

Destruction wavers. There is violence and destruction in both genders among humans, though in very different ways, and it makes them both uniquely unappealing at times. (In the end, it is a brother that they lose.)

Ultimately, it is not until Death spends that first day as a human that a decision is made. Death had always been flexible, but during that day it just feels right to return as a sister. (It takes a long time for humans to catch up with this decision, but luckily Death is able to find humor in the misgendering.)

Dream takes the longest. Dream is a thing of fantasy and imagination, constantly shifting and fluid, and the forms taken often do not fully fit with humanity’s limited views on either gender. For a long time Dream is just… Dream. It is not until one of the times that Death has dragged Dream down to mingle with mortals that Dream recognizes a distinct discomfort when they walk together and are called ‘sisters’ by various travelers. Dream is called ‘lady’ and ‘lass’ and ‘she’ and wants to scream. (In the end, Dream doesn’t even need to say anything. Death smiles, and rests her hand on Dream’s shoulder soothingly and says “Ready to go home, little brother?” and Dream feels something uncurl in his chest.)

And so they carry on, the Endless family. Brothers and sisters and siblings, more than human but with humanity woven through them like tapestries. Their identities become something innate to them, until it is hard to tell whether it was something they chose or something they discovered. But it doesn’t matter. It just is.

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

Then Dream is captured.

He spends more than a century trapped in the Waking.

And it starts to matter.

Burgess and his followers, with their narrow minds and greedy souls. Dream is dragged to their feet, bound by ancient magic and cruel hands. They strip him, expose his form to the cold and the pain, cage him in glass and shine a light on him to display all the parts of him that do not belong to them.

They call him ‘it’.

And oh, Dream burns, and burns, and burns. His fury is a fire with nowhere to go and it hurts. Dream is not human, he knows that, obviously, but that does not mean he is…

He is not…

He is not a thing, a tool, a toy-

…Is he?

He hates Roderick Burgess for putting that question in his mind.

He hates himself more for asking.

He wants to die when he realizes he’s not confident in the answer.

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

The discomfort, the shame, follows him even when he escapes, even when he recovers his tools and repairs his realm and regains his power. And he… he is trying to get it right this time, after so long getting it wrong (and isn’t that a tragedy, he thinks. Isn’t it a travesty, that for as long as Dream has been he has tried so very, very hard, and still managed to get it so very, very wrong).

Death says “Don’t be a stranger,” and Dream hears “Don’t go back. Don’t go back to before the pain. Don’t go back.”

Something about that hurts.

Then he goes to visit Hob.

And seeing the immortal, seeing the familiar face look up and smile at him, soothes something in him like a balm. Even without knowing all of Dream’s cosmic failures, Hob knows enough of the failures between just the two of them that Dream expects to be met with anger, or bitterness, or, he fears the most, perhaps not met at all. But instead he smiles, and lets Dream sit with him, lets him apologize and forgives him and chats about the time past as though nothing had changed.

Except, that’s not completely true, Dream realizes. Because things had changed. Dream changed. He had thought for the better, but Hob frowns softly across from him. Hob changed. His edges softened, his patience stronger, asking gently if Dream would like to talk about whatever happened. They have both changed. For the first time, Dream is the one who tells a story and Hob is the one who listens.

Many things have changed. Hob’s eyes water, and he reaches out and covers Dream’s hand with his own. Dream does not pull away. It is different, but it is still them, and Dream sighs at the warmth against his perpetually cold skin, turning his hand to curl his fingers around Hob’s and tucking away the image of Hob’s caring smile like a flower in the pocket of his mind.

When he leaves, Hob says “Don’t be a stranger,” and Dream hears “Come back. Please, please come back.”

It hurts a little less.

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

In the grand scheme of things, it escalates rather quickly.

Dream and Hob meet more frequently, soon falling into a rhythm of seeing each other once a week, sometimes in the Waking (where Dream still felt an itch of discomfort, despite not being trapped or bound, not that he let Hob know) and sometimes in the Dreaming (where Dream felt like he could breathe).

With each meeting, Hob grows more bold. Twining their fingers together as they strolled through a dreamscape or pulling Dream in for a hug before they part outside the New Inn. Dream’s pulse beats needlessly, a little excited and a lot terrified at the way this human has wormed his way into Dream’s heart so effortlessly. Dream falls hard and fast, the only way he knows how, but he thinks Hob’s eyes reflect the same growing flame of fondness so maybe… maybe it’s not just him.

And so it happens fast, in a way. A mere few months after reuniting, Dream curls shaking hands into Hob’s jacket and pulls him into a kiss and Hob, like a miracle, kisses him back. They stand pressed together, smiling against each others’ mouths, arms wrapped in an embrace and it feels like the beginning of something.

It begins. But, Dream thinks, it never starts.

Time passes. They hold hands when they walk through the city streets. Hob pulls him down to rest his head on his shoulder, runs his fingers through Dream’s hair, wraps his arms around him and smiles the way he had before, when they were still calling each other friends. The only difference between then and now is that sometimes Hob kisses Dream on the forehead, and his cheeks, and his knuckles, and sometimes at the end of the night, if Dream leans in far enough, he will plant a chaste kiss against his lips, though never as deep or firm as the first one they shared.

Dream tries, occasionally. Holds an unneeded breath and reaches out to run a hand down Hob’s arm, presses forward to deepen a kiss, tries to be obvious in the way his gaze roams hungrily over the other man’s body. All he ever accomplishes is Hob looking away uncomfortably and finding an excuse to cut their time together short.

Hob has said that he loves him. And Dream… Dream believes him, he does, and Dream loves him back but…

But Dream also wants Hob. And evidence is pointing to Hob not wanting him.

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

Dream twists their interactions in his head like a puzzle. Plucks and pulls at them like a tangle of human Christmas lights.

Sifts through them like a landfill.

He has never ventured into Hob’s dreams, and he will not start now, but he recalls every story the man has ever told him, and it is not difficult to draw conclusions from those. He had already assumed the problem lay with himself, that much seemed obvious if only given his history, but turning over Hob’s words in his mind, he thinks he may find an answer. In his (relative) youth, Hob had not shied from telling his mysterious stranger of his various conquests, the young women in steadily rising social class that he managed to coax into bed with him. And there is, of course, his marriage in the 1500s. As time passed, Hob began to keep his exploits more private, something Dream was secretly grateful for, but even reflecting on the history he knew of, it seems obvious where Hob’s sexual preference lay.

So it was that Dream found himself in his chambers, standing in front of a full-length mirror, naked and uncomfortable, contemplating how to fix the problem.

While Dream’s given form is not quite the human-stereotype of masculinity, he is still undeniably masculine. And if that is what is keeping him from being closer to Hob, if that is why he is not allowed to pour his passion across Hob’s skin with his lips and fingertips, if his preferred physical form is the only thing keeping them from growing their intimacy…

Well. He is the Shaper of Forms.

It’s an easy fix.

Or, it should be, at least. Dream is aware of the modern human standard of beauty for women, not that he understands it. He also remembers the general shape of Eleanor, one of the most prominent lovers in Hob’s life. And yet, when Dream begins the arduous process of changing his shape into something more suited to Hob’s tastes, he finds that he simply… cannot bring himself to mold certain features.

He considers heaping flesh on certain areas of his bony figure, debates wide hips and heavy breasts, thinks about shrinking himself down until he would have to stand on his toes to reach Hob’s lips. He turns each option over in his mind, like rummaging through an unfamiliar closet, and finds that he just… can’t. In some ways.

It is childish, he knows it, but even if a woman’s form is what it takes for Hob to want him back, for Hob to be pleased by him, Dream finds he still wants to… look like himself. Wants to still be recognizable, with the sharp angles of his bones pressing under paper-white skin, the deep timber of his voice, the long length of his body. He wants, so badly, for Hob to take pleasure in at least some of the features that Dream has come to think of as his.

Dream hates himself for it.

Still, when he molds his form, he does so as minimally as possible. There is the obvious anatomical change, and his chest rounds with modest breasts. His hips do widen, but are no softer for it. He keeps his face angular, but less square, his chin more tapered and his jaw sloping towards his ears. After a moment of consideration, he allows a soft flush to color his cheeks, lets his lips become a deeper shade of red, and closes his eyes as his eyelashes lengthen. Dream is unbothered by extending his hair to fall by his collar bones- he has worn his hair longer throughout his life, as has Hob- but he does purse his lips in discomfort before deciding to add soft curls to the dark locks.

The end result is… obvious. There is no mistaking exactly what Dream has done. But there is still a familiarity that brings Dream a small comfort. He looks like, perhaps, the fraternal twin of his preferred shape.

Shaking his head, Dream internally chastises himself once more. Endless are genderless, beings and concepts that defy humanity’s boxes and labels. Dream is a multitude, in constant flux of shifting shapes. He is the King of Cats, has appeared before as fire and bone and light, has taken shapes far away from any human gender, and it is surely a failing of Dream that those forms should fit more comfortably than the one he wears now. It should not matter whether some mortals on the street might see Dream in this shape and use the word “she”.

It should not matter. If the choice is between his own comfort or Hob’s pleasure…

For Hob, Dream would become anything.

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

When Dream walks into the New Inn, Hob’s mouth goes so dry he is convinced the moisture in the air around him must have evaporated. If Dream’s ruby-red smirk is anything to go by, Hob is anything but subtle.

“Hello, Hob.”

Sliding into the seat across from Hob, Dream shakes off the last tendrils of doubt, because there is no misinterpreting the look on the immortal’s face, which means that Dream was right.

(It’s not as satisfying as he thought it would be. He shakes that off too.)

Hob clears his throat, “Dream, good to see you,” he smiles, aiming for casual and missing by a mile, “Trying, ah… trying something different today?”

Dream leans forward, resting his head against a hand. In a similar way to wanting his form to be recognizable, his outfit is not overly changed either. In fact, he had merely copied Death’s outfit from their last meeting, though he added a fitted coat to the ensemble, keeping the skin of his arms covered while still emphasizing his new shape.

“I thought perhaps a change would be welcome,” Dream raised an eyebrow, “Is it not?”

“Well, I mean, everything’s welcome with you,” Hob stammers, still clearly floundering, “Always gorgeous, you know that.”

Dream did not, in fact, know that.

“Is that so?” He tilts his head, watching as Hob nods numbly and takes a long sip of his beer. “You seem distracted,” Dream taps a long, black fingernail against the table, focusing on keeping his voice steady, “Would you prefer to go someplace. Quieter?”

This is usually the point where Hob finds a reason to leave.

Hob swallows thickly. “Um. Sure.” He grins, a hint of excitement in his eyes, “I’ve got a new scotch upstairs. If you care for some.”

Dream grinned back, “I could be persuaded.”

When Hob takes Dream’s hand, eager and wanting, it only hurts a little.

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

They never make it to the scotch.

Once inside the apartment, Dream leans forward, pushes into Hob’s space, lets his eyes linger on his lips. Only this time, Hob doesn’t kiss him chastely and change the subject. This time, he pushes right back, their lips crashing together, and when Dream sighs at the feeling of calloused fingers twisting in the hair at his nape Hob groans, their tongues tangling together.

It’s perfect. It’s everything Dream wanted.

(Or. Maybe not everything.)

(But he ignores that.)

Neither notice when they move. Dream is focusing on sliding his hand beneath Hob’s shirt, scratching his fingers through the hair he feels across the broad chest, and Hob is focusing on sliding Dream’s coat off, letting it fall to the floor as he runs his hands over smooth, white skin. So neither of them are focused on when exactly their legs started moving them towards Hob’s bedroom, barely paying attention when they fumble through the door frame. It’s not until they are tumbling onto the bed, limbs twining together as they fall onto the mattress, that they pause.

Hob lands on top of Dream, his cheeks flushed as he pushes himself onto his elbows, putting just enough space between them to look down at Dream’s flushed face. “Is…” he swallows, his voice wrecked, despite barely doing anything, and Dream feels a surge of pride, “Is this alright?”

Dream answers by gripping the back of Hob’s neck, gentle but firm, and pulling him down until their bodies are pressed together again, kissing along his lips and jaw. Hob let out a huff of laughter that turned into a gasp as Dream dragged his teeth down the skin of his neck.

None of Dream’s fantasies compare to the reality of Hob’s rapid heartbeat under his mouth, the feeling of coarse hair and flexing muscles under his fingers. It’s almost enough to distract from the way Hob’s hands slip under his shirt, touching curves that didn’t exist in Dream’s fantasies.

Almost.

Hob asks again, “Is this alright?” before slipping Dream’s shirt over his head, his own following quickly, and Dream only has a moment to appreciate the vision that Hob makes above him before Hob is kissing down Dream’s chest. It feels… good. The scratch of Hob’s scruff against his skin, the weight of his body pressing down on him as he settles between his legs, the dedicated way he licks and bites at Dream’s nipples.

It feels good. But it also feels… wrong. In a way that is getting harder and harder to ignore, even as the last of their clothes are discarded and he is gifted the vision of Hob, naked and gorgeous and clearly wanting. It doesn’t distract from the fact that Dream is naked now too, that Hob is moaning and wanting for a body that isn’t truly Dream. Slowly, it begins to feel like he is drifting farther and farther from Hob’s bed, like he is watching his lover put his hands on a stranger. Like a stranger is putting their hands on him.

Somewhere along the way, Dream is realizing, his motivations have gotten twisted. It occurs to him that he should not have to remind himself that he wants Hob, should not have to repeat a mantra of I want this, I want this, I want this, when Hob runs his hands over Dream’s skin.

Because before, he had wanted this, wanted Hob to touch him and kiss him and bury himself in Dream’s body, had fantasized about it and craved it deeply. But now, it is the wrong skin. The wrong body. He thinks that maybe it stopped being about what he wanted the second he stood in front of that mirror to change himself. Hob is kissing along a slender neck and caressing a breast with one hand and dipping between legs with the other and Dream shudders and adjusts the mantra in his head.

Hob wants this. Hob wants this. Hob wants this.

All Dream can want now is just to make Hob happy.

It does not prevent what happens next.

Hob is murmuring sweet praises against the skin behind Dream’s ear, and then his fingers are pressing between Dream’s legs, stroking, pushing, entering, and Dream gasps, body tensing, and then there is a soft tearing sound between their bodies.

They both jerk in surprise, Hob pulling his fingers away immediately, eyes wide with concern, barely managing to blurt out, “Shit, did I hurt you?” before they are both looking down and freezing.

The skin of Dream’s chest is splitting slowly, like a torn seam, stretching and tearing down his center from the hollow of his throat, between his breasts, and down to the base of his belly. Thin, gossamer strands of skin criss-cross like threads, pulling taut, and beneath is an empty blackness. No blood or flesh, just a void, an absence which grows and presses against the shell of him until he is bursting at the seams with nothingness.

“Oh my god, Dream-”

Dream snaps to sit up, pushing Hob back and crossing his arms across his chest, trying to pull his skin back together like a robe that’s slipped open. But the seam only splits farther, threads snapping as the gaping maw of his body widens. He curls in on himself, trying to force the edges back together, and he feels the skin of his shoulders split, feels a tearing down his spine like a broken zipper, his entire body an ill-fitting dress that he is spilling out of.

Hob is wide-eyed and horrified, “Dream,” his voice cracks with panic, his hands held out, desperate to do something but afraid to touch, “Dream, tell me what to do, tell me how to help-”

But Dream can only shake his head, “I’m sorry,” he rasps, “I can’t.”

And then he is gone.

~~~

When he lands in the Dreaming, Dream is in his own body.

Or rather, he is in the familiar shape that he has come to think of as his. There is still a residual ache, though not wholly unpleasant, radiating through his bones.

He thinks, absently, that it is not dissimilar to the first time he stood up straight when escaping Fawney Rig. Like stretching his spine after a century curled too tight.

A painful relief.

“Woah, you alright Boss?”

Matthew’s voice startles him into awareness of his surroundings. His raven lands in front of where Dream is crumpled at the base of the throne room stairs. Pushing himself up on shaking arms, he finds himself wrapped in his longest cloak, buttoned up to his chin. Despite knowing intrinsically what form he is in, he finds himself running his hands over his face, neck, and chest, as if needing to feel for certain that everything is in its proper place, that nothing is swelling or splitting apart or breaking breaking breaking.

“Boss?”

Matthew hopped forward, concerned, and Dream let out a shaky sigh. “Yes, Matthew, I am alright.”

“Uh-huh…” Matthew tilted his head skeptically, “No offense boss, but I’ve seen you more ‘alright’ than this.” He paused, “At least I think I have.”

“I am fine, Matthew,” A hint of frustration seeps into Dream’s tone as he straightens himself, standing and pulling himself to his full height as if that could erase the shame clinging to his skin. How pathetic, how disgraceful. It was bad enough to lose control, to be held at the mercy of his own body, but to once more flee and leave Hob alone in the shadow of Dream’s weakness was nigh unforgivable. How many times would he crumple and run away from Hob before the immortal decided he wasn’t worth it? Dream could hardly believe he had stuck around this long.

As he glanced around the throne room, Dream thought he could see the echoes of broken glass.

Sighing, Dream turned tired eyes back to his raven, “I am fine,” he repeated, “but I would appreciate some privacy this evening. Please let Lucienne know that I am not to be disturbed except for emergencies.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Matthew still looked worried when he flew off, but Dream didn’t have the energy to be annoyed by it. As soon as he was alone again, he let himself sag onto the bottom step of the staircase, drawing his knees up and resting his forearms across them.

He wishes he could be surprised at his ability to ruin his relationship with Hob so swiftly and thoroughly, but all he feels is resignation. He had hoped he could bask in the joy of this relationship a little longer, but there was nothing to be done now, not after such a blatant failure. The least he could do was not hide. He owed Hob that much.

It didn’t take long, but then, Dream didn’t expect it to. Barely an hour had passed before he could feel the familiar warmth of Hob entering the Dreaming. He couldn’t help the small, fond smile at Hob’s ability to force himself to sleep when he wanted to.

A part of him still wanted to hide, wanted to dissolve into sand and cower in the cracks and crevices of the palace until Hob was forced to wake. But Hob deserved better than that. And a small, traitorous shred of optimism wondered if he might be forgiven.

So, with a soft breath of willpower, he opened the throne room to Hob’s searching subconscious. He practically fell through the palace doors, as though he had been sprinting before being brought here. Dream stood, stiff and waiting for chastisement, and for a moment they simply stared at each other, Hob still reeling slightly from the change in location.

“Dream,” Hob’s voice is not angry. In fact, it is heavy with relief, and Dream feels his breath catch in his throat as Hob rushes forward and rambles, “Thank God, I was so worried. I’m so, so sorry, are you alright? Are you hurt? Can I hug you?”

Dream blinks as Hob comes to stand before him, hands held out but waiting for permission. Hob’s eyes are searching Dream’s body, looking for any wounds or signs of distress. He does not mention Dream’s changed form.

He’s not angry.

Everything is not ruined, and Dream feels like crying with relief, and without thinking he throws his arms around Hob’s chest, curling his fingers in the back of his shirt and burying his face in Hob’s neck. A huff of breath is knocked from Hob’s lungs as they collide together, but he doesn’t hesitate to return the hold, one hand carding through Dream’s hair as the other strokes his back.

“I’m sorry,” Dream whispers into his skin.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Hob responds immediately.

But Dream shakes his head, pulling away reluctantly, “I should not have…”

Should not have what? Gotten Hob’s hopes up? Promised something only to fail to deliver? Wanted more than he deserved?

Hob frowned, cupping Dream’s cheek in one hand to try to meet his eyes, “Dove… what happened? I… I was afraid that I hurt you-”

“No,” Dream reassured him immediately, “you did nothing wrong, I just…”

Stepping away from Hob’s hands, he slumped back to sit on the bottom step. Hob quickly joined him, sitting beside him and waiting patiently for Dream to find some way to explain himself.

“I am. Endless. But… there are still. Things that I am Not.”

‘Lovable’ is at the top of the list, he thinks, though ‘wanted’ isn’t far behind.

‘Woman’ is on there somewhere, too, apparently.

When he looks, Hob’s brow is furrowed in confusion, so he continues, “I have many forms that come easily to me. That feel… natural. But. The one I wore for you is not one of them.” Hob’s eyes widen, but Dream doesn’t give him a chance to interrupt, needing to get everything out before he loses his fragile courage, “I do not know why. Endless are… we were made genderless. It is a human thing. It should not feel so. So wrong to shape myself in a way that pleases you. And yet you saw what happened when I tried. I could not…” Dream’s voice cracks, and he has to clench his eyes shut and swallow thickly.

“Dream…” Hob sounds heartbroken, and Dream hates himself for always getting it wrong wrong wrong.

“I know that you love me, as I love you,” Dream pulls the words out through gritted teeth, “But I… I am greedy, and selfish, and I want you. And I. Wanted you to want me as well.”

“But I do want you.” Hob blurts the words out, loud and desperate, unable to bite them back any longer.

Dream glances up, blinking slowly, uncomprehending, “…What?”

Hob’s eyes are wide, his hands coming up to grip his own hair as his voice takes on a note of something like hysteria, “I do want you. Fuck, Dream, I want you so fucking much I thought it was a problem!”

“What?”

His hands flail as the words spill out, tripping over himself to get out months worth of feelings, “Dream, Dove, I’ve been taking two cold showers a day. Sometimes I have to sit on my hands to keep from pawing at you when you’re in arms reach. Fuck, I’ve bitten through the inside of my cheek more times than I can count just trying not to jump you!”

There is a long moment where they simply stare at each other, Hob with wide eyes and his hands in the air, Dream with his mouth slightly agape and eyes glistening with disbelief.

“Then why didn’t you?” Dream’s voice is soft, skeptical, insecure.

A pain lances through Hob’s chest, and a watery laugh escapes him, “I’m such an idiot,” he whispers, mostly to himself, before looking up at Dream with sad, guilt-ridden eyes, “I didn’t want to push you. You’ve had… a bit of a rough century. I didn’t want you to feel pressured into anything too fast. And then you showed up like…” he waved a hand ambiguously, “like that, and I thought you were, y’know, trying to hint at something.”

Burying his face in his hands, his voice raises with self-deprecation, “And I guess you were, I just didn’t think… fuck. I just didn’t think,” he finishes softly. When he lifts his head he looks so very sad, but he doesn’t hesitate to reach out and take Dream’s hand, “I’m so sorry, Love. For all I nag you to communicate more, I didn’t tell you what was going through my head either. I should have just asked from the beginning instead of assuming. Fuck, I should have asked as soon as you showed up so different. I should have realized something was wrong. I’m sorry.”

For a long moment, Dream’s eyes drift between the earnestness on Hob’s face and the soft grip of their clasped hands. He doesn’t not meet Hob’s eyes when he confesses, “Is it wrong of me to take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in my misstep?”

This time when Hob laughs, it is a bark of surprised delight, and his free hand ruffles Dream’s hair, drawing an annoyed huff from the Endless, “No, no dear, I understand.”

Dream isn’t sure that’s true. Isn’t sure Hob fully understands that in the scant handful of relationships Dream has had he has always been the only one fumbling, the only one struggling and struggling to catch up with his partner, to understand the things they seemed to know intrinsically, to find the balance between too much and not enough that everyone else seems to find with ease. He doesn’t think Hob truly understands, the way Dream does now if not before, that in his past relationships every fault had been his and his alone, and so the very idea that perhaps the weight of this one does not need to rest solely on his own shoulders, that for the first time they are, perhaps, equals in their fumbling, is such a heavy, heady relief that he feels faint with it.

He opens his mouth to explain all of this, but before he can speak Hob is pulling him in for a soft, gentle kiss. “We’re in this together, yeah?” He rests their foreheads together, smiling, “So we’ll figure it out together, too.”

That is all Dream has wanted, for a very long time.

He smiles against Hob’s lips, bringing a hand up to play with the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. “Well. You need not sit on your hands anymore.”

Hob laughs, “And you need not be anything other than yourself.”

It is still hard to believe that anyone might be happy with Dream being himself.

But.

Hob can be very convincing when he wants to be.

[justratqueenthings]

I was going to write up a big list of JackieNat fic recs but AO3 went down so I'm gushing embarrassingly about my favourite JackieNat authors instead (my AO3 mutuals)

inthequietlight (I don't think they're on Tumblr):

Wonderful AUs. Like, super well thought out and full of life (even the zombie one lol) Their attention to detail is actually amazing. It frequently shocks me, seriously

Such sweet and complicated relationships between Jackie and Nat in all of them, and even Jackie's parents in a few. Strengths and weaknesses slot together so perfectly without dipping into codependency.

They've managed to write multiple OCs that I really care about too which is honestly wild

Warm and caring and slow building solid love, both platonic and romantic

@annoyedb101 tempi69 (such an amazing username):

They are so cruel, always hooking me into a fic and then doing it again and again. Demon Jackie, masc Jackie, situationship Jackie, ex wife Jackie. Seriously desperately need more

I don't know what it is about the way they write but it draws me in so hard. I'm barely stopping myself from begging for new chapters (I would never)

I even watched HotD so I could read one of their fics

Can't pin down a mood across all their fics, every one is so different!

@passionpita-taylorsversion passionpita (only put last because everyone should already know them):

All of their fics are like puzzles to me, pieces from the past constantly being slotted in to give context for the present, and clues for the future that are almost obvious in hindsight (I still miss most of them). "Drive it like you stole it babe" is seriously underappreciated and it's full of those

A thousand hints and callbacks and lore and references to tiny things that make paying full attention so rewarding.

Also it's completely unsurprising they're a published poet. I'm in love with the prose of their fics.

Melancholy, anxiety, dread, and brief windows of happiness that are all the more worth it

Hope this wasn't too weird? kinda hypomanic atm

[batrachised]

So many of LMM's books take place before WWI that hindsight on the war rarely appears. Excluding TBAQ, I think Andrew might be the only character LMM writes who demonstrates the long term effect of the war. This is a short chapter, but it's heavy--here we once again encounter the deeper issues peeping through the child's perspective.

It's clear, and unsurprising, that Andrew still carries the weight of the war with him. He can't talk about without snapping. I think it's a credit to how safe he makes Jane feel that his savageness doesn't bother her at all, but this response, for all its brevity, is deep. He doesn't want to see any reminder of the war; he views the medal as a hollow token; what's more, his perspective on the war has changed. He implies that young Andrew in the wake of WWI's victory had a very different, much less cynical perspective than the Andrew of a decade or so later. ("Once I was proud of it. It seemed to mean something...")

On a broader level, in my opinion, this reflects LMM's views on the war as a whole. People have discussed how Rilla is a steady beat of the necessity of fighting; meanwhile, TBAQ demonstrably condemns war. WWII rendered the sacrifices of WWI futile, according to TBAQ; everyone is still grappling with its effects years later. As LMM herself would say, the first day of WWI was the death of the old world.

[batsplat]

On the one hand I definitely agree that Marc’s absence doesn’t take anything away from titles won but on the other I would absolutely understand if Joan and Fabio especially (Pecco less, I think… the bike… they all know about Honda beginning to fail, right? At some point ig you could say even a pre-Jerez Marc Marquez wouldn’t have ridden that to a championship and it is in Pecco’s best interest to put that point into 2022) would forever consider their titles borrowed off “luck” because I also think everyone ASSUMING if Jerez didn’t happen, Marc would have won 2020 and likely also 2021 isn’t exactly wrong. He won 3 whole races in 2021 (however he did that), that’s more than anyone else but Pecco and Fabio who finished second and first… as Max said, if is a stupid concept in sport, but the if in question is not a regular “if”, and the whole grid knows it. Hell, we are all aware that had Jerez been simply milder instead of the horror it became, Marc’s achievements would look different at this time… So that’s definitely very interesting to me, that any winning done in Marc’s continued absence from the top seems asterisked by the riders’ own attitudes. That him being on that Ducati this year helps, even a little, to alleviate a bitterness that seemed settled whenever he missed a race. It’s a true win only if you beat Marquez, because Marquez is the one to beat. I wonder if that’s what 2010 felt like to the then-grid, when Vale broke his leg… that winning didn’t even count properly, bc Valentino was not there to make it real.

yeah, listen, if marc had been uninjured in 2020, he would have won the title. I'm not arguing that bit, I'm saying it doesn't matter. marc's injury wasn't some kind of freak accident... it was unfortunate, but it was also unsurprising, and his comeback going wrong even more so. this is what you have to remember about sports but especially motorcycle racing: you are placing heavy demands on your body, and sometimes the excess demands are directly correlated to your success. in this post, there's some quotes from 2019 about how 'lucky' marc is... because he was crashing so so much outside of races to find the limit of the bike - and yet it didn't hurt his results (obviously he was still injured a lot, yearly off-season surgeries and all that). this was part of his approach and it was obviously a very successful one. and in some ways it is also one that was necessitated by the characteristics of that honda, which at this stage only he could tame... but it is true that if a lot of other riders crashed at that rate, they would've been considerably worse off, and it was a part of the process that allowed him to be so successful. and it did already make a lot of people very uneasy at the time, because it felt like eventually it just... had to go wrong. it's also worth noting that... yes, marc's achievements would look different if the injury hadn't been that bad. but the initial injury wasn't 'that bad' relatively speaking - it was his decision to come back that really fucked him over. I strongly believe he shouldn't have been allowed to race, but it was still his decision, and it was part of a tradition of ridiculously fast injury comebacks that had also helped make him so successful in past years (though fwiw this one immediately felt like a bad idea, zero hindsight needed I promise you). so let's put it like this: if you keep putting your body under incredible strain even by motogp standards to reach the level of success you do, and eventually your luck runs out, eventually you land badly on the wrong side of the risk/reward calculation... then how is it fair to say your competitors should be handed asterisks in your absence?

in 2018-19 everybody (including valentino) expected that marc would surpass valentino's titles. few expected him to last at the top of the sport for as long as valentino did. valentino during his prime crashed far far more rarely than marc did and was battering his body considerably less... for marc, there was always the question of how long this could last. he was punishing his body for his particular brand of brilliance, but this always had to be a trade-off. it wouldn't have been surprising if his career had ended through injury, though of course how 2020 played out still ended up being a shock. but!! at the end of the day, even without marc's particularly risky style of racing, you wouldn't need an asterisk. the comparison to 2010 is an interesting one, because you can tell that jorge was at times extremely eager and determined to stress that he wasn't just benefiting from valentino's absence. in the dorna-produced docu for his title, he emphasises that he was already leading the points when valentino broke his leg at the fourth race of the season... which is true, but a) valentino also wasn't leading the championship in the early stages of the two previous years either, and b) valentino was already managing injury. the eruption of that icelandic volcano meant motegi had to be rescheduled, which gave valentino the opportunity to go and get his shoulder injured in a motocross accident (again, for the question of training risk/reward see the post I linked to above). it was this injury that quite probably caused the next one... and troubled him more in late 2010 and early 2011 than the leg did. it also set off the chain of events that allowed jorge to gain ascendancy internally in yamaha, which is part of the reason why valentino decided to go to ducati and essentially took himself out of title contention for... well, two ducati years, and another year where he still wasn't quite up to speed on the yamaha. stop the volcano from erupting and motogp quite plausibly looks very different for the next few years

the question of whether valentino wins the 2010 title without injury is far more open than whether marc would've won 2020, but at worst you have to call it about 50/50 - and even with the troublesome shoulder valentino was getting the better of their actual wheel-to-wheel fights in late 2010. so that title fight too was severely influenced by one rider's bad luck, one that you can't even trace back to a particularly risky riding style... but on the other hand, eventually everyone's luck runs out, and valentino had been relatively lucky for a long time. he was also getting older, which in itself will affect recovery time. this is how athletes' competitive life cycles go, right - yes, you might lose your physical edge, yes, you might struggle to find the same fire, but you have also demanded a lot from your body for a very long time and eventually you pay the price. eventually, every athlete's era has to end... and unfortunately in grand prix motorcycle racing, a lot of the time that era ends with injury. schwantz and rainey were long-time rivals, with rainey winning three consecutive titles at the start of the nineties. in 1993, they were again locked in a title fight - until rainey crashed and was left in a wheelchair, his career ended and the title handed to schwantz. that was schwantz's only title, but he's still considered one of the greats of the sport. doohan and criville were teammates when doohan was dominant, and it took doohan's career-ending injury during the third race of the 1999 season for crivi to finally win the title. kenny roberts jr won the title in the following season in what was a chaotic year not dissimilar to 2020... from the young star who wasn't quite ready to put together a title charge to the underdogs at suzuki eventually claiming the big prize. this is how it goes... what a champion needs on their side as much as anything else is luck. jorge wasn't crashing as much as marc was in 2013, and yet somehow he ended up with the broken collarbone at assen that severely damaged his title chances - because sometimes, it only takes one crash for it all to go wrong. does that mean marc is an undeserving title winner in 2013? of course it doesn't!

in the case of 2020, when it became increasingly clear marc would not be winning this title, it's not like everyone's minds immediately went to mir. the favourites were dovi, fabio, vinales... the thing is, right, it was an absolute mess of a season (that was also of course seriously impacted by the pandemic), but someone had to be the one to take advantage. the suzuki was a well-settled package and mir after a strong rookie season was the one to put in the consistent results to claim the title. he was already highly rated going into motogp, and he was absolutely seen as a potential star of the future. for his sake and his reputation within the sport, of course it would've been preferable to win a more emphatic title... and in some ways, his 2021 on a lagging suzuki is more impressive than the 2020 title. it's an incredible shame how his career has gone since then, mostly not through his own fault, and you still want to hope he'll have the opportunity to dispel a few more doubts - both from the fans and quite possibly himself. then again, hayden won two races in 2006, kenny roberts jr three in 2000... at the end of the day, the main thing new fans know now is that they were champions, and so it will one day be for mir too. moving on to 2021, it's worth remembering that by then the honda was already a bad bike. yes, marc would undoubtedly have been the title favourite - but two of his three wins that year were at his specialist circuits that also still suited the honda, basically the places where he could win with his eyes closed. at the very least, you have to believe 2021 would have had a proper title fight and wouldn't just have been a stroll in the park for marc - yes, quite probably he would have prevailed anyway, but it's really not so cut and dry

THAT BEING SAID. I do agree with much of this ask! it is interesting that it's asterisked in the riders' minds! but it shouldn't be - that's the devil talking, you need to stand up for yourself and ignore all the doubters and get on with it. jorge had enough self confidence and stubborn belief in his own ability that this discourse in 2010 did nothing but piss him off. in 2007, casey was incredibly sick of people talking down his title because of how good the ducati was that year and the tyre difference between him and valentino. yes, casey was on the better package that year, and valentino did clearly benefit from switching tyres in 2008. does that in any way detract from casey's title? no! it doesn't!! he was right to be annoyed - imbalances are part of the game, and casey was very good that year. he deserved that title! valentino also faced the bike merchant allegations in spades of course, but young champions are particularly vulnerable to this kind of discourse. they're less established in the sport, more likely to attract detractors who are determined to prove they can't live up to the legends of the past... after 2006, everybody more or less agreed that it was a bit of a lucky title, but hayden was so popular and people were so pleased for him that it was just treated as a feel-good story - which it wasn't in the same way with surly young casey. no matter! who cares what people think! if your opponent has a bad day, you need to take the opportunity presented to you and press home the advantage. if your opponent has a bad year, even better. no sitting around worrying whether history is going to take your accomplishments seriously... it's like hayden said at assen 2006 when valentino broke his right hand and left ankle. from the oxley reference book: '[valentino] finished the race in eighth, which put him 46 points behind hayden. "when that rossi guy is down, you gotta jump on him!" he grinned'. brutal, but that's the game

also, I'll say it: I reckon both joan and fabio have probably had their fair share of bad luck to compensate by now. enough

[kelpan]

Hello again!

It's been busy past couple of weeks! But thankfully, mostly for positive reasons. Worked a big 'ol theater summer camp all of July, made some good progress in figuring out what's going on with my body, and signed up to go back to school! Gonna try my hand at Medical Coding.

May have taken me two months to get this chapter out, but I feel pretty good about how it turned out! Hopefully you'll feel the same 🙂

Slight trigger warning for a bit of verbal abuse towards the end. I'm a big believer in respecting trigger warnings, so should you wish to skip but still want to know what happened, feel free to message me and I'll give you a generalized, abridged version.

Credit for the Chrysanthemum OC headshot goes to wwispie on Etsy/Instagram!

Ao3: Petals on a Stream of Stars

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Act 1, Chapter 14: Careful What You Wish For

Wednesday

9:00 pm

Chrysanthemum

“Goodness, that’s quite the uh… escapade. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Chrys waved off her concern, her arm covered in an assortment of colorful bandages, an apologetic smile across her face. 

“Oh no, this is nothing, really. I’m more concerned for her. Are you sure you don’t want to take her to a doctor?”

Marigold’s mother smiled back, tired, but accepting, with an assuring nod.  

“Yes, at least for tonight. Our family doctor has likely already retired for the evening, old man that he is, and she’s been through enough for one evening, I think. We’ll check in with him first thing in the morning.” She glanced away before meeting Chrys’s eyes once more, a cautious vulnerability seen within. “You know… I knew that she hadn’t been herself lately, quieter, prone to getting lost in her own little world, but I… I just thought it was her way of mourning, of dealing with her grandfather passing. Kids are always so difficult to judge with this kind of stuff, especially at her age. I guess with all the chaos going on, I missed just how badly she was truly hurting… ” She sighed, defeated. “Maybe I’m both a bad wife and a bad mom.”

Chrys’s initial instinct was to assure, to dismiss the statement, but something in her held back. Her gaze instead pivoted to Marigold, the frail and pale thing clutched once more to her mother’s side, with one hand latched firm to her own lips, her regressive thumb sucking the only sign of any thought behind her glazed, heavy-lidded eyes. Her entire body exuded pure exhaustion. 

Unsurprising, given the circumstances. Fainting would be draining to even the hardiest of adults, let alone a young child.

 She could still see the moment clear in her mind; How heavy the child’s tiny body felt as she fell limp in Chrys’s arms, her ear-splitting scream taking up the last of what strength the poor thing had left. In hindsight, Chrys recognized she’d been wholly unprepared to handle this sort of emergency. Without a bit of outside help, she was loathe to think of how much worse everything could have progressed from there. 

Marigold’s mother continued. “Oh, but listen to me, postulating like some college intern. Pay me no mind, I should have known better. Daring to hope she might still have a normal birthday party despite everything going on right now was just wishful thinking on my part.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t exactly say that.” Chrys said, finding a touch of strength in her voice. “Yeah, it ended badly, but there were some good moments. Though, maybe in the future a small family gathering might be better, rather than some grandiose party. All these kids to play with, and all she really wanted was her brother, you know?” 

Marigold’s mother grew quiet and pensive, listening intently. “You… may have a point there.”

Chrys’s attention shifted to the rest of the quickly dwindling crowd of kids, each still smiling as their guardians came and picked them up one by one, blissfully unbothered by everything that had transpired once they’d returned from dinner. Nothing but joy and laughter on their minds, with new crafted masterpieces to show off at home. 

Shame washed over her, knowing that Marigold wasn’t one of those smiling faces. This was her day, her chance to be pampered and celebrated. And she was leaving worse off than when she arrived. 

So much for wanting to give her the best birthday party ever.

“Well, thank you again, for everything. I’m going to get us home now, get her in bed. You have a good rest of your evening, dear.”

Marigold’s mother afforded her one last, polite smile, before turning and walking away, guiding along the ghost of a daughter who trailed behind her. 

 Chrys managed a weak smile as they left, for their sake, but couldn’t maintain it long. As soon as the two disappeared from sight, her facade crumbled, revealing the miserable expression waiting underneath. 

What a week. And it’s only Wednesday…

An out-of-place giggle pulled her from her thoughts, coming from the other side of the entrance, where the last child waited to be dismissed. He sat on the floor, legs outstretched while Moon, back towards her, helped him to tie his shoes.

“Oh my, you have snakes on your sneakers. Whatever shall we do? Here, let's tie them together in one big bow so that they can’t slither off on your way home.” 

He spoke with a softer inflection compared to Sun, far more gravely and nearly an octave lower. The boy cackled louder this time, amused as Moon added little “hissing” sounds as he looped each shoelace. The scene brought a soft smile to her face. 

“Hunter!” A voice shouted from out in the hall, manifesting in what must have been the boy’s mother storming through the gate, her distress evident. “Hunter Daniels, stop messing around this instant! It’s time to go!”

Heels slamming the ground with each step, she grasped the boy beneath his arms and hoisted him to his feet, with enough force to cause him to stumble before finding his footing, a single shoe still left untied. 

“Mom, stop! I’m not ready!”

“You’re ready enough! If I’d known this birthday party would take place in here I never would have let you come, even if the Chanceller’s are footing the bill. Now let’s go!”

“Okay, okay!”

His meek protests faded as they rushed from the daycare, a chaotic blur as the boy struggled to keep up with his mother’s furious pace. The gate doors closed behind them with an out-of-place and heavy “thud”.

“Yikes,” Chrys said, hesitant to make a sound in the wake of their departure. “What’s got her in such a tizzy?” 

Moon remained still, crouched in the same position on the floor, as if he’d been frozen from the very same moment the woman arrived.

“Moon?” Chrys asked, hesitant. “You alright?” She inched a step closer, enough so as to nearly place a hand on his shoulder. Just before she could, he snapped back to life and rose to his feet, shoulders tense, hands balled, and addressed her without so much as a tilt of his head in her direction. 

“I’m fine. The party is over now. You can go home.”

His words were curt, devoid of any of the warmth or affection he’d just shown the boy in helping him get ready. The sudden and unexpected shift in his attitude caught her off-guard. He’d hardly spoken since he’d found her and Marigold in Kids Cove, but that could be easily justified given the situation at the time. Now, his introversion felt cold, prickly almost, as if a web of thorns had woven throughout his personal space, threatening injury to any who dared to get too close. 

Had she said something wrong?

Capitalizing on her momentary hesitation, he strode into the heart of the room without another word, and began the hefty task of taking down all the various pieces of decoration still attached to the playplaces, leaving her to stand alone.

It was then she realized, while watching him from afar, that this was the first time she’d had the chance to see him out in the open, uninhibited. No impenetrable darkness, no near death experiences, no frightened child in need, nothing. Though she knew she was staring, she couldn’t seem to look away. 

 All the bits and pieces of him she’d seen so far still rang true. His base was a carbon copy of Sun’s, but with a different overall theme, obvious in the details. 

Even his clothes are black-light reactive, just like the stars on the ceiling. How clever.

Remaining quiet, she made her way to where he was, keeping just enough distance to not infringe on his personal space, yet close enough to still make her presence known. His body language communicated that he wished to be left alone, but she chose not to comply. 

It was about time they had a chance to chat one-on-one.

“So… is now a good time to thank you?”

He paused, a confused expression emerging, hands lost in a mess of different strings and streamers. 

“What?” He said. “You don’t need to thank me. Recovering a missing child is literally my job.”

Irritation colored his voice, his words landing with a bite before he scowled and returned to his work. He did everything in his power to avoid participating in the conversation. 

“I mean, that’s not true.” She replied. “I don’t know what I would have done with Marigold if you hadn’t shown up when you did. But, even so, that’s not really what I was talking about.” She tested the waters, stepping closer. “I meant the storeroom, and the paint shelf. Remember? I never really got to thank you for coming to my rescue.” She leaned on the playplace within his line of sight, making herself unavoidable. “That… was you, wasn’t it?”

With how reluctant he was to speak, she knew she walked a fine line, attempting to get him to confess his participation without pushing too far. She’d already gotten all the confirmation she needed; There was no mistaking his voice, not now that she was so close. The only question that remained was whether or not he would deny it. 

His eyes drifted to the floor, and he sighed, finally abandoning the knot he’d been attempting to untangle. He whispered, just soft enough that she was unsure if he meant for her to hear it or not. 

“And if it was? Would you still want to thank me then?”

His statement carried with it the weight of sorrow, dissonant to the standoffish demeanor he wore now. Nothing she had thought to say felt appropriate given this unexpected vulnerability, leaving her at a loss for words.

As if taking her silence for judgment, he grumbled, and turned back to his previous task, brusquely brushing her off. 

“Nevermind. Like I said, you should go home. Forget about all this. I’ll get it cleaned up.”

Mentally, she berated herself. She’d overstepped, and now the wall was back up. His body language, his voice, all worked to push her away, reject her attempts at outreach. But why? To what end? Nothing about his behavior made sense to her. What did he gain by forcing distance between them? Without a clear goal in mind, the wisest thing to do now would be to leave, follow his advice and go home. Respect his unspoken wish to be left alone, and wait until next time to try and make friends again.

Only who knows how long that would be.

With a slight pout of her lips, she stepped back, and moved to the opposing playplace, setting to work on untangling another mess of strings which held a large banner in place. 

“What are you doing?” He stopped, following her every move with an incredulous look. “I just said I’d take care of it.”

“I know.” She stated, looking anywhere but at him. “And I opted to disregard it.”

She heard him make a throaty click, and had to stop the smirk that threatened to break through. 

“I had no intention of letting Sun clean up all of this by himself. I’m not sure what makes you think you are any different.”

Maintaining a veneer of disinterest, Chrys continued to work, doing her best to ignore the prickle that rose to the back of her neck as she sensed rather than saw Moon approach her from behind. Only once his shadow blocked the light from reaching her did she deign to turn around. 

“Yes? Can I help you?” She quipped. 

The permanent smile on his face quivered, the corners tightening with annoyance. He leaned over, closing the gap, with his arms crossed in what she thought was a half-hearted attempt at being intimidating. 

“Go. Home.”

“No.”

His eye joined the rest of his face in twitching, and he closed them for a moment as he let out an exasperated sigh.

“Maybe I should have let you go rushing to your own death. Would have been fitting, seeing as how stubborn you are.”

“Yeah, you could have.” Chrys said, refusing to look away from his strained smile and tired eyes. “But you didn’t. So whether you like it or not, it’s my turn to return the favor. I owe you. Now, mind telling me where this goes?”

She held up the banner she’d been working on, now free from its constraints. His eyes widened, bouncing between her and the impossible knot he’d yet to figure out himself. Throwing his hands up, he rolled his eyes. 

“Fine! You win. Just, I don’t know, be careful? And don’t get in my way.” He pinched the center curve of his crescent nose as she grinned, pleased. “You can put all the decorations in the tubs behind the security desk.”

For the next half hour, the two kept to their own, working separate yet cooperatively from the other to remove all the birthday decor from the Daycare. Trip after trip was made, until the last spool of streamers was placed in their proper place.  

“There!” Chrys said, placing the lid on the final tub. “Finished.” She mimed clapping the dust from her hands. “Aren’t you glad I stuck around?”

Moon came up beside her, picking up the tub and hauled it over to the entrance, placing it among the rest of the packed up decorations.

“You were not… not helpful, I suppose.”

Chrys chuckled. As they had worked, the wall he’d erected to keep her at bay had been chipped away at, their interactions growing more relaxed and less curt. Speaking occurred without as much difficulty, though he still remained a man of few words. Another interesting contrast between the two brother’s, she presumed. 

Following behind, Chrys waited until he was finished before approaching, having learned in their brief time together that he seemed to dislike someone coming up to him from behind when he wasn’t looking. Having already grabbed her bag from her locker, the clock chimed the time, signaling that even if she wished to stay, her shift was nearing its end. All that was left to do was to check-in and say goodbye. 

“Well, I guess that’s everything. Anything else you need me to do before I go?”

He crossed his arms and cocked a hip, cracking a raised eyebrow to her. “Don’t tell me you’re actually going to listen to me now? And here I thought you were trying to avoid leaving at all.”

She laughed. “Oh, I’ll be right back here bright and early tomorrow, trust me. I don’t want to hear Vanessa berate me for being late again.”

For the first time, she heard him laugh. Lightly, softly, but there. The sound made her smile. 

“No, I can't imagine you do. She has a rather impressive way of making you feel like utter garbage the moment she says your name.”

“Hey,” Chrys said. “Least she doesn’t butcher it. You wouldn’t believe the ways people have managed to mess up “Chrysanthemum” before. Someone even once called me “Chlorophyll”. Chlorophyll! Like, how did they possibly come to that conclusion? It’s not even spelled remotely the same!” She held out her hand, her expression and tone both mockingly cheerful. “Hello! Pleasure to meet you, my name’s Chlorophyll! Don’t mind me, I’m just a plant!”

Moon chuckled, amused, surprising her by taking her outstretched hand and giving it a firm shake. “Pleased to meet you, little Ms. Walking Houseplant. Let’s hope you’re not poisonous, shall we?”

The two shared another chuckle, lightening the air around them further.  Though the camaraderie was still new and unfamiliar, it came with a natural, inviting flow Chrys found refreshing…until a tiny, clacking sound caught her attention.

Following the sound, it wasn’t hard to determine what had caused it. There, dangling from his wrist, a yellow and gold gemstone bead bracelet rattled against itself, the colors contrary to the cool blue of his arm. Her mirth faded as she recognized what she was looking at. 

“Uh, Moon…why are you wearing Sun’s bracelet?”

A knot caught in her throat, her “gift” staring at her in the face. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but her mind raced with the implications of what she saw, of what it meant. To have transferred to his wrist in the short time between when she last saw Sun, given all the chaos that occurred…it wasn’t realistic to think it had gotten there by any mundane means. Now that she thought about it, Sun still hadn’t returned since rushing off after Marigold’s disappearance…were her earlier suspicions actually right? 

“Actually,” She spoke with as steady a voice as she could manage. “Where is Sun right now? I-Is he coming back soon? I want to say goodbye to him before I head h-home—”

“Don’t play dumb.”

His hand tightened around hers with a crushing force, and his cold glare made her stomach drop. For the first time, the sheer magnitude of his unnaturally tall stature left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. Reflexively, she buckled towards him, clutching at their hands.

“Moon, s-stop, you’re hurting me!”

“Why?” He spat, his expression steeled. “You late on sending in your report? Let me guess, it’s all about how you’ve been keeping tabs on us, trying to see if we mess up? The “poor, damaged robots” not keeping up appearances well enough for management’s liking? Oh no no no, can’t have that now, can we?” He made a clicking, “tsk” sound before yanking, hard, on her arm, drawing her in dangerously close. “Is Vanessa getting worried we’ll cause another controversy? Is that really why she hired you?” 

She tried to pull away, to put the safety of distance back between them, but his hold was unyielding. He waited, eyes demanding an answer, yet she could think of nothing. None of the accusations he slung at her made any sense, and as the fire in her hand grew, she couldn’t even find the strength to speak up in her own defense. Bitter, confused tears burned hot trails down her cheeks, and she dug at Moon’s hand on hers with an ever-increasing panic.

With a growl of frustration, he threw her away, sending her sprawling backwards, her back falling into the wall with a heavy, solid “thud”. Her legs barely found the strength to keep her standing in time, having to prop up the majority of her weight on one hand as she found her footing.

“I bet you thought you were so clever, didn’t you?” He stalked towards her, eyes sharp and fierce, a cruel smile in place. “I’ll admit, you had me going there for a while. What a talented, pretty little actress you are, giving such a stellar performance.” He slammed his hands to the wall on either side of her head, causing her to cry out. “You may have Sunny fooled, but not me. Your little “nice girl” act has failed. But I can promise you something, starlight,” He spat the last word. “I won’t let anyone hurt my brother again. Not you, not Vanessa, not even the owner of Fazbear Entertainment himself. If you want us scrapped that badly, well…I guess you’ll just have to try a little bit harder.”

Rage rolled off him in waves, assaulting her senses. She wilted under his biting words, each as confusing and damaging as the last. Her breath hitched as he drew close, hovering his face just a few inches from her ear.

 “…still grateful I saved you?” 

His voice dripped with venomous sarcasm, and she trembled against her will. She could hardly breathe, hardly think, her overly-stressed mind an incoherent mess. This wasn’t what she’d expected, wasn’t what she’d thought might come about from making those damn bracelets, but she regretted it all the same. 

He pulled back with a snarl, his sharp teeth bared.

“’Cause it won’t happen again.”

Despite how her gut screamed at her not to, she dared to meet his gaze head-on, silently asking for mercy, respite, anything to make this stop. His red eyes, once a sight that brought her relief, now gleamed a hellish ruby, not an ounce of compassion to be found within.

She swallowed, her mouth dry. “…P-Please…Sun will—”

“Sun’s not here.”

His curt response left no room for retort, and she pressed herself as far as she could into the wall, the desire to be as small as possible almost unignorable.  

“Though…you bring up an excellent point” he said, tilting his head. “It would do him some good, I think, to see you without his usual “sunny-colored lenses”. Let’s fetch him, shall we?” 

With a gravelly roar, he pulled back his arm, and slammed it down again with enough force to shake the wall. Chrys cried out, flinching away from the sound, her hands flying to protect her face. She shuddered, waiting for the pain to arrive, but it never did. Cracking her eyes open, the brightness that greeted her left her momentarily blind until her eyes adjusted. Glancing beside her, she gasped to see the light-switch smashed, cracks breaking through. Turning to Moon, she was surprised to find him watching her, as if he’d been waiting for her to. Using the same hand he smashed the light-switch with, he reached down and took her chin in his fingers, forcing her to face him completely.

“Don’t look away.” 

Without the softness of shadows to cloak his features in an air of fantasy, his countenance appeared duller, weathered, the colors washed out by the intense lighting, leaving him with an almost exposed, unnatural appearance, like a nocturnal animal caught out in daylight. Time stilled around them, each second strained and drawn out. She trembled under his gaze, unsure of what to do and too terrified to find out. 

Though she wouldn't have long to wait. 

In a snap, everything changed. Moon, clutching at his chest, let out a deep, guttural wail, as if his very heart had stopped. He dug and clawed at the edges of his faceplate, stumbling backwards with a lurch. With each second that passed his cries grew more and more anguished, and with horror settling in her gut, Chrys realized she’d heard these tortured sounds once before, in the sudden darkness of the storeroom. 

From his outermost extremities in, his body metamorphosed. As his limbs shook and jerked at odd angles, the colors of his pants changed, leeching up his body like a poison in stripes of red and gold. Not limited to just his clothing, the color infected his arms, his chest, rising up his body until finally, his head. 

Moon’s screams warped, the sound shifting to reflect more of another’s voice than his own, tears flowing uninhibited down her face as she recognized whose. The tension in the air grew and grew until all at once he went limp, his arms falling from his face to dangle lifelessly at his sides. His head spun on its axis, with his hat sliding in-between the separating plates, revealing a tangled mess of bare wiring and circuitry before being replaced by golden pointed rays and a soft, yellow complexion.

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Btw, for anyone interested, if you haven't yet checked out the FNAF Fangame "After Hours" by snowyrey, I highly recommend you do! The new voice acting added for Sun and Moon is phenomenal!