#though the complex position gave me a hard time

[pencilofawesomeness]

They kept Leona’s hands mostly free so that they could throw Riddle at him. Still, he had to jerk on the manacle connecting him to a stake in the corner of that miserable tent just so that he could catch the kid and not let him hit the dirt first.

“Riddle? Riddle, do you hear me?”

He knew it was going to be bad. He didn’t trust them enough for it not to be. That didn’t mean he was prepared to see him with those half-lidded blank eyes, nearly dead to the world, blood coating his skin like the phlegm of a newborn, large red welts arced all across his back. Leona held him there, almost forgetting to breathe himself, his blood quickly covering his hands, but there was nothing he could do that would help in a way that mattered. He just…used a little healing magic. There was only so much he could do, without a stone and with too much blot accumulation already, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the eyes of the guard staring at him, either.

From Chapter 6 of And You Think, “No Escape” by @therosefrontier

----

Rosebud’s fic has given me extreme brainrot so I turned around and drew this after the scene made permanent residence in my brain. It’s so good guys. I’m not okay /pos

Bad times for the boys in the Kidnapped Corner, for sure. Riddle’s scene broke my heart, and Leona trying his best to care for him swept all the pieces into a little pile. These two. These two. ;-;

[star-girl69]

American Teenager

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!Demigod!Reader

—-

synopsis: you get caught in the crossfire of clarisse’s anger, and have to convince clarisse you love every part of her.

a/n: i took over a year off, cut you bitches some slack…… TELL A FRIEND TO TELL A FRIEND… SHE’S BAAAAAACKKKK!!!!!!!!!

for those who do not know, i changed my theme. yes it is me. do you like it 😀

American Teenager - Ethel Cain

warnings: NOT BETA READ!!!, ending sucks yet again but i cant be bothered, y/n gets PUNCHED!!!!!!, creepy men, violence, very sad clarisse, IT IS VERY HARD FOR HER TO TALK ABOUT HER FEELINGS BUT SHE TRIES, swearing, usual demigod stuff, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

Clarisse is angry.

She has been angry all of her life, you know that. She was born with a fire in her veins that came straight from her godly father, potent and rolling around inside of her like a storm, a rabid dog biting at a cage, and nurtured over the years by a stern mother.

Clarisse was a recipe for destruction, for pain, for suffering. That’s what most people thought she was. They all thought she was her father’s daughter- full of fire, and she would never be anything else except the mean bully all the campers had grown to somewhat resent.

But she was more than that. She was your girl, she was everything you wanted and had prayed for years for. You knew she was angry, you knew she carried regret in her heart, you knew she ate up anything nice inside of her long ago.

But you didn’t care.

You gave her some of your own softness, your own nicety, drew it out of her with soft touches and sweet words, until she learned to love you and believed that she was the girl you always saw hidden inside.

Clarisse is angry.

You know that, you know the harsh girl you fell in love with, and you know the sweet girl she really is.

So, it’s no surprise to you that Clarisse has spent the entire afternoon glued to your side, glaring at anyone who walks by- but particularly her brother, Caden.

Caden has some sort of inferiority complex coupled with extreme sexism. He couldn’t stand the fact Clarisse was better than him, that she was the camp counselor instead of him. She had received her beloved spear from their father, he had no gifts to show.

Somewhere in his fucked up head he realized he couldn’t force his father to notice him, couldn’t uproot Clarisse from her counselor position, and though the next best thing was to go after you.

It started with glances that lasted too long, then subtle touches during camp activities, then actively flirting with you when Clarisse wasn’t around.

The only reason Caden had been allowed to this for this long was because you didn’t want to tell Clarisse and be responsible for what could very possibly be Caden’s death. You felt dirty, having his hands on you, barely-hidden sexual remarks whispered in your ear, his eyes on you- practically undressing you.

Clarisse would kill him if she knows what he’s done, how it makes you feel. And you really don’t want blood on your hands, so you avoid him as much as possible and attach yourself to Clarisse.

It’s a rare afternoon that you both have free, and it’s snatched with greedy hands and stretched out long like molasses, the two of you move slow and leisurely, try to sink into this time together.

You promised your sister you would help with the arts and crafts class she runs, spewing something about how you’re the best at making friendships bracelets- but really, her usual partner is on a quest and taking care of the rowdy 12 year olds is not an individual task.

So, here you are, sitting at a picnic table and making sample bracelets, feeling the sun on your face and Clarisse’s arms around you. She sits sideways, her front pressed against your side, straddling the bench. She watches the way the sun hits your face, the way your fingers move swiftly as you continue to bead and tie together.

There’s been this pit in your stomach since Caden started his advances- like a new organ had formed inside of you, pure black instead of a usual pink flesh. A physical form of all your guilt and disgust, filled with the dirt like you felt like.

It’s still there, even through the gaps of hot sunlight, the cooling shade of the tree above, but it’s easier to ignore when Clarisse is there. It’s easier to ignore, but it’s still there.

“I don’t understand how you’re so good at those,” Clarisse mumbles. She kisses your shoulder and you dig your feet into the dirt, smiling to yourself.

“I don’t either,” you smile. “What can I say? I’m the queen of friendship bracelets.”

“Ha,” she says, somewhat sarcastically, but you can hear the fond, loving smile in her voice. “How much longer?” she asks.

“Two more. Maybe 10 more minutes?”

“Okay,” she hums, drawing out the word. “Wanna get somethin’ to eat after this?”

“Yeah,” you say, looking away from the bracelets for just a second- to admire her like she gets to admire you.

“Nah, nah, you better finish those bracelets so I can have all your attention on me again.” She presses her face against yours, pushing you to face forward again and focus.

She departs with a kiss to corner of your lips, and you wonder if you really need all six example bracelets, but you know your sister would kill you if you didn’t show up tomorrow with six. You sigh and turn back to your bracelets, listening to the sweet sound of Clarisse laughing.

“Okay,” she says, leaning closer to you after a minute. “I’ll be back in a few, okay? I’m just gonna go change into shorts.”

“Okay,” you smile, and she squeezes your waist as she stands up. The feeling inside of you sinks in even more, the blackness in your stomach, but you focus on the feeling of the sun and her promise that she’ll come back soon.

“First time I’ve seen you alone in weeks.”

Your stomach sinks.

You’re a demigod and you deal with monsters and the whims of gods daily- but there’s something about humans, about demigods that makes you especially scared.

A step below a God, filled with resentment and blessed with superhuman abilities.

You’re not sure you’ve ever felt fear like this.

You glance up at him, quickly gathering all your bracelet supplies, shoving it into the pockets of your jeans without much care.

You force a smile, pretend like nothing’s wrong.

“Sorry,” you say. “I’m just leaving. Nice seeing you, Caden!”

“Why you leavin’ so quick, baby?”

“Meeting Clarisse,” you smile through gritted teeth.

“Well, I just saw my sister walk away so… are you lying to me, Y/N?” he laughs slightly, almost as if the idea of you not being completely observing of his will is unheard of, laughable.

“Yeah, I was just finishing up.” You shove a pile of beads into your pocket, moving for the next one-

His hand covers yours.

“You don’t look done. Sit down, huh?”

You glance around the courtyard, not even bothering to hide your fear like you were taught- at the sight of him, his tall stature, the fact he could easily overpower you- you forget everything you ever learned and turn into a puddle of fear. You’re fucking terrified, and it would be humiliating if it wasn’t just the most basic human tendencies preserving in you.

You can’t be embarrassed about biology, about what your human body was designed to do. At the end of the day, your blood is red- not gold.

“No, no, I really gotta go.” You rip your hand away, mourning the loss of a few beads that didn’t quite escape with you. Instead of dwelling on that, you quickly turn around and head towards the main pavilion, where there are more campers- maybe you can find Matty or Carrie, another one of Clarisse’s siblings who would just get him off your back.

But, he follows. Of course he follows. He’s a man who’s never been told no, and he won’t be refused by you.

“Y/N,” he drawls, voice still teasing.

You clench your fists and walk faster, finally risking a glance over your shoulder- you slam into a familiar warm body you have spent countless nights with, now wearing a pair of jean shorts.

One hand swings around your waist, the other sits over her hip- where her favorite dagger is hidden.

“Y/N?” she asks, not taking her eyes off of Caden, but her voice is soft and full of concern.

“Nothing, Clar. It’s fine, let’s just go, yeah?”

She looks at you for just a second, and you haven’t had time to school your features back into a flat facade, so there’s still fear all over your face.

“What the fuck did you do, Caden?”

“Just tryin’ to spend time with Y/N. That a crime?”

He avoids calling you her girlfriend, even though that’s how most of the Ares cabin has come to know you.

“Yeah,” she says, slightly incredulously. “You hit your head too hard? She’s my fuckin’ girlfriend. I don’t know what you did, but don’t do it again.”

It’s like a sixth sense, the way you feel his eyes rake down your body, lingering on your ass. The blackness inside of you squeezes, and you feel the sudden urge to throw up, squeezing your eyes shut-

Clarisse tugs you behind her.

“Don’t fucking look at her, Caden.”

Her voice is level in barely-masked rage, and it honestly would scare you a little bit- if it wasn’t for the way her hand caressed your hip so softly.

“I’m not hurtin’ anyone. She probably likes it, huh?”

You wonder if he genuinely thinks he’s flirting with you, or just trying to piss Clarisse off.

Her jaw clenches.

“Four weeks laundry duty.”

His smile drops.

“Don’t fucking test me, Caden.”

You’re silently surprised at her strength, so you quickly grab her hand and squeeze, trying to urge her forward. Your stomach feels lighter, hoping that maybe- finally, finally he’ll leave you alone-

“Really, Clarisse?” The edge of desperation in his tone is pathetic. “You’re gonna choose her over your own half-brother. We both know who’d she choose between the two of us though, huh? The stronger one. The better one. She’d choose the son.”

She drops your hand and spins around.

“Clarisse,” you warn. “Clarisse.”

But she seems to be lost in her own world, where everything narrows down to him and the cocky look on his face, memory of his words, and you know any trace of your sweet girl is gone and it’s just the anger.

You quickly push yourself in between them, putting your hands out to Clarisse- you feel sort of stupid, but you’re desperate for her to just turn around, to take you with her, for the two of you to do like she said and get something to eat. You want to eat by the beach with her, you want to feel her in the sun, you wanna let yourself believe that four weeks of laundry duty will deter him.

“Y/N,” she says, warning you, and you know she won’t stop.

“Clarisse, I’m telling you, turn around. He’s not worth it.”

You can hear his smile.

“You won’t be saying that when I finally get my hands on you, baby.”

Fuck.

“Clarisse!” you shout, knowing its coming- she aims around you, pushing you out of the way as she sets a deadly punch on path with his face.

But it doesn’t hit him. It doesn’t hit him, and he gasps in shock before quickly running away, not wanting to deal with the consequences of his actions.

And you can’t blame him, because with your knees on the ground and the sting of Clarisse’s fist on your cheek- you should have just let her fucking kill him.

—-

Clarisse hasn’t looked at you in two weeks.

After you fell to the ground, completely disoriented by her punch, you remember the sound of her screaming and Caden laughing as he ran away. You remember her hands shaking as she helped you up, touching you as little as possible, staring at her now red knuckles.

Although you really didn’t have to, she led you to the healers, and one of the Apollo kids looked at your swelling eye, gave you something for the pain, and said you could leave.

And then, she made sure you got home safe to your cabin and hasn’t looked at you again.

In hindsight, knowing that that was the end of the relationship you used to have, it feels like a bad goodbye for something so good. You can’t even call it a goodbye, because it wasn’t good at all. There should have been something. Something more.

You remember the way Clarisse couldn’t stop staring at her bruised knuckles, you remember the way she couldn’t look you in your eyes, couldn’t touch you- wouldn’t allow herself to touch you.

That night, the relationship you had with Clarisse ended. But, you were still as in love with her as ever, you didn’t blame her for simply trying to protect you- you were the person who stepped in front of her. One second you weren’t there, the next you were. She didn’t have time to pull her punch, she didn’t have time to aim somewhere else- you don’t blame her.

You remember her saying she was sorry as she helped you to the healers. Sorry, over and over again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baby, Y/N, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. You almost asked her to stop saying it, because the word was starting to sound weird. You almost told her it was unnecessary-because it was- but you didn’t get the chance. She made sure you got home safe to your cabin. She said she was sorry again, and then two weeks of torture commenced.

And you’re fucking sick of it. Sick of her acting like a coward, running away instead of owning up to the consequences of her actions- you aren’t mad at her for punching you. You never were.

You’re mad at her for leaving you in the days after, the nights where you couldn’t sleep on your favorite side because of the bruise. The nights where you would yawn and tears would well in your eyes, and it burned as it rolled down the sensitive skin. The nights where you would forget, and you would expect her to crawl into your bed like usual- but you would fall asleep alone and wake up alone.

You’re mad at her for abandoning you, for refusing to talk to you, to figure it out. Because while what you had before is gone, you can still have something new.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” your friend Tyla asks.

“Yeah,” Jackie, your other friend, continues. “Like, she did literally punch you in the fucking face- are we sure that’s not some sort of subconscious thing?”

She shrinks at the harsh glares you and Tyla give her.

“Okay. That was mean,” she says, softly. “Sorry.”

You roll your eyes and continue walking towards the training fields, where you know the entire Ares cabin is practicing hand-to-hand skills.

“I told you,” you huff. “She was trying to protect me from Caden. She loves me, she’s just angry. Angry at herself, but she shouldn’t be.”

“What even happened to Caden?” Tyla asks, noses scrunching at the fact she has to even say his name. “I mean, I saw him walking around with that broken face but-”

“Clarisse!”

You look up to the top of the small hill, the plateau where the sparring rings are marked into the grass by eco-friendly spray paint.

She’s holding one of her siblings down, her knee on his back, her hands holding his arms behind his back.

“Stop! I tap out, I tap out, Clarisse!” The boy screams. She smiles softly before letting him go and standing up.

He lays face down on the ground for a minute, breathing heavily before he finally picks himself up- staring at Clarisse’s offered hand. After a moment, he takes it and lets her tug him up. He nods at her and walks away to his friends, moaning about his arms and his back.

Clarisse shakes out her hands and looks around, but she knows no one wants to spar with her after that, even thought even from here you can see the fire in her veins. The need for a fight, for something to distract her. The need for movement, hard and fast. The need for anger to be the only thing she can feel.

“Me next?”

“Y/N,” Tyla hisses, and Jackie reaches out to grab you but you merely shake her off.

Clarisse’s eyes lock with yours.

It takes you a second to recognize the emotion in her eyes. Her body tenses up, she seems frozen in place like a deer in headlights. She’s scared.

“Clar,” you smile, meeting her in the circle.

She tears her eyes away from you, choosing instead to stare at the grass.

“I’m not fighting you. Go.”

“I’m not asking you to fight me,” you smile. “I’m asking you to spar with me.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I’m not sparring with you.”

It’s so tense, no matter how much you try to make it like before, no matter how much you smile and try to look in her eyes.

“Can I talk with you, then?”

You shuffle closer, and she doesn’t move.

“Y/N,” she sighs. She looks up at you, but you can tell she’s staring right past you, towards the tree line. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“Do what?” you snort. “Face your feelings? Let me help you?”

Her face is level, almost bored. She turns her face into a facade, a mask of nothingness. She won’t let you in, not now, and it makes you angry.

You would take anything from her right now.

You want her to hate you. You want her to love you. You want everything and anything.

You would take another punch, as long as you got to feel her skin on yours for a split second.

You dig your foot into the ground and glare at her.

“Clarisse. I’m serious, I want to talk to you.”

Her eyes meet yours for a split second, before she’s moving.

“Too bad. Forget me,” she says over her shoulder.

She fucks up and she runs away.

“Clarisse!” you shout, following her out of the training field, out of view from the eyes that were trying and failing not to look at the two of you. “You can’t leave me here. You can’t just pretend like the last year we’ve been together didn’t happen.”

“It’s better that way,” she sighs, like she’s doing you some big favor by staying away from you, when all she’s doing is hurting you.

“It’s not!” you shout, finally surging forward and grabbing her wrist-

She whips around and tugs her wrist out of your grip.

You don’t think she’s ever once refused your touch.

It burns. It burns in your heart so badly, burns worse than any regret you could ever feel.

“Don’t,” she says, like she’s warning you. “I’m- I’m trying to protect you, okay? Just- stop bein’ fuckin’ stubborn.”

You take a dejected step back, even though all you want to do is run into her arms.

“I don’t get it,” she continues, folding her hands behind her back. Her eyes finally land on the faded bruise. “Why don’t you hate me?”

The heartbreak in her voice hurts more than the punch, than the nights without her.

“Because I love you, Clar. I don’t care about what happened, it was an accident- you’re the only one who can’t see that.”

“I hurt you.”

“The only thing that hurts is you being away from me.”

“Nah,” she says, taking a step back. She shakes her head, staring at your eye before finally turning away. “I’m only anger, Y/N. I’ll only hurt you. And I can’t take hurting you again.”

The feeling of staring at her back, the sound of her footsteps crunching in the leaves, hurts so bad it creates another new organ in your body.

This time, it’s like a tumor growing from your heart, encasing it so every beat is a struggle, every breath is ragged. This new organ carries your heartbreak, and it grows bigger by the second.

—-

It’s starting to feel like Clarisse is never going to even look at you again.

Even when you look straight at her from across the pavilion, she doesn’t look back. You stare at her back all day. The memory of her walking away from you replays in your mind every time you close your eyes.

You wonder, when it’s just you in your lonely bed, if Clarisse isn’t angry but rather scared. She’s angry at herself for hurting you, yes, but she’s terrified she’ll do it again. And you know Clarisse rarely feels fear, and you want nothing more but to help her navigate these unknown feelings- but she won’t let you in.

You don’t know how to let her help you, but you give her time. You stare at her when you hope she isn’t looking, you wrap your arms around yourself and pretend it’s her, you dream of her lips and the way she holds you, the way she loves you.

Clarisse took you to the docks for one of your dates. The fourth? The fifth? Somewhere around there, but it was the first time you kissed. Both of you had realized that you liked each other but agreed to take it slow, but you’d never forget the way she looked at you after you put the flower she brought you into your hair. The way she looked at you when you let your feet hang over the edge, kicking the water. The way your thigh pressed against hers, ankles hooked together.

You’ll never forget the way you looked up at her after dipping your fingers into the cool water, the control and self restraint finally leaving her eyes, her body, as her face sunk into a wide smile and she slammed her lips into yours.

The dock is sacred to the two of you, so when you’re missing her, especially during this sunset, this is where you go.

And it’s perfect. It’s so perfect you can almost convince yourself she’s here with you.

Except, if she was here with you, there wouldn’t be this tumor on your heart.

At the sound of his voice, the other organ your emotions have formed twists.

“This wasn’t my plan, y’know.”

“Go away, Caden,” you moan. Is it a crime to want to wallow in your own self pity? It is a crime to want the black organs inside of you to swallow you whole?

“I just wanted to knock Clarisse down a few pegs, and I certainly did that. Paid the price, too, you seen my fuckin’ face?”

It looks as horrible as it always does, you think, but you bite your tongue.

“I wanna be alone, Caden. Please.” You bite the word out like you’re a hyena choking on a laugh.

“But, c’mon.”

He steps closer to you, until you can feel him looming over you, tips of his sneakers pressing into your ass, he’s so close to you. You kick the water, annoyed, but he either doesn’t get the hint or ignores it.

“I’m not that bad, am I? Do me a favor, baby, let me cart you around for a few days and make her miserable.”

You’re about to just get up and leave all together when the sound of someone stepping onto the dock surprises you.

“Get away from her.”

But there’s something unspoken in the air. You’re just “her” now- not “my girlfriend” not “her’s.”

“Why are you always fuckin’ bothering me, Clarisse?”

You turn around. She smiles sarcastically.

“Why are you always fuckin’ bothering Y/N?”

“I’m not botherin’ her though, huh?”

He reaches down to grab at a piece of your hair, running it in between his fingers.

You flinch, but you’re more focused on the way Clarisse’s fists clench, her jaw ticks.

“Caden,” you sigh, batting his hand away.

“Seems like a pretty clear no to me, huh?”

Caden sighs and straightens, letting your hair fall from his fingers.

“What are you going to do about it, Clarisse? You gonna try and punch me- again? Try to hit the right person this time, huh?”

“Go fuck yourself, Caden.” She finally, finally, looks at you. You feel blessed and divine, like she’s a goddess who’s taken the time to merely look at you. “C’mon, Y/N.”

You scramble up to follow her beckoning hand at the same time Caden shifts on his feet.

He knocks into you, and you’re on the edge of the dock, and you scream as you fall in.

The water wasn’t that deep, but it was cold and embarrassing, and you fell at an awkward angle.

You surface, paddling to keep yourself afloat, coughing water out of your mouth and glaring up at him.

“Shit,” he swears, quickly running down the dock before you can shout some curse on his entire bloodline.

“Y/N?!” Clarisse shouts, panic on her face falling immediately at the sight of you afloat. She breathes out, fixing her hair that got all moved around in her frantic sprint down the dock. “You good?”

“Does it look like I’m good?” you deadpan.

She smiles.

“C’mon, come around to the ladder.”

She smiles as she helps you up, wrapping an arm around you even though you’re soaking wet, and you’re so mesmerized at the sight of her smiling, the feeling of her smiling at you that you can’t even comprehend it.

She has her arm wrapped around you.

She’s touching you.

Gods, did you miss this.

“Cold?” she asks, your hips pressed together as you walk down the dock.

“Yeah,” you whisper, feeling how warm she is against you. “I’ll be okay, though.”

“How long has he been… doing that?”

Your eyes meet hers.

“Jackie and Tyla told me- yelled at me, really- after they cornered me the other day. They said you were really fucked up about everything, and I should talk to you and I- I don’t know. I thought staying away was for the best.”

You cringe at the memory from a few nights ago, when you finally broke down and cried like a baby in front of your friends because of how much you missed her.

“And I saw you at the dock, and then fuckin’ Caden got over here before I could,” she laughs, dryly. “Whatever. I’ll walk you back-”

“Will you talk to me, Clar?”

You both stop, beachy sand sticks to your wet shoes, and Clarisse nervously looks away before you prod.

“I’m not mad at you. And I know you’re mad at yourself, and scared-”

She scoffs, but it’s halfhearted.

“But I love you, Clarisse. I love you, and I don’t blame you. Don’t blame yourself, and love me.”

In the sunlight, you can still see the remnants of the bruise. Softly, she reaches out and traces her pointer finger around your eye.

Her touch is so soft, the pad of her finger so rough- that sweet juxtaposition with her has always made your mind fuzzy. She makes all the tension in your body melt away. She makes everything better.

She swallows hard.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, tears welling in her eyes. “I know I’ve said it so much, but I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to hit you, I swear on my father-”

Her voice chokes up, and you can tell she hates the fact she’s crying, so you draw her into your neck and let her hide away there. Running your hands through her hair, telling her it’s okay each time she apologizes.

“I know who you are,” you say when the tears have stopped, and you’re just relishing being in each other’s arms again. “I know who I fell in love with, and I know who you are. You’re angry and you’re sweet, you’re mean and you’re kind, and I love all of it. Don’t doubt that, please.”

She breathes out before leaving the comfort of your neck, putting her shaky hands on your face.

“I love all of you,” you repeat.

She smiles softly.

“I love all of you.”

She kisses your eye softly, literally almost like a butterfly landing on your eyelid, unable to not whisper one more apology against your skin.

You roll your eyes, smiling to match her.

“And don’t think I’d leave you over one mistake, seriously, La Rue. You insult me.”

She rolls her eyes too, thumb stroking your cheek.

“Oh, forgive me,” she teases.

“You’re already forgiven,” you smile, eyes traveling down to the lips you’ve been dreaming about. “But kiss me to make sure.”

—-

“-and he would just look at me all the time. That was the creepiest part, I think. Like, okay, he would feel up on me sometimes, but whatever. I could avoid him. At meals I would just be minding my business and he would be staring at me. More just annoying, you know? And, yeah. That made me feel horrible, like literally sick. I just felt so dirty, so fucked up- Clar?”

You watch as she stares up at the ceiling, cracking her knuckles.

“Clarisse,” you scold.

You shift from your stomach to your side, head propped up so you can properly look at her. Your bed is full and warm now that she’s here.

“Oh, no, keep goin’, baby.”

“Do not kill him. Do not hurt him. I told you, I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Nah, I know, sweetheart. I’m just thinking about it, don’t take that away from me, huh?”

You roll your eyes, but a smile crosses its way onto your face. She smiles back, and it just feels so surreal, so different- but exactly like it’s supposed to be. You know Clarisse is angry, but you know she’s sweet too. Clarisse knows you love all of her.

She draws you to lay on her chest, hand in your hair, the other slipping under your shirt to scratch your back.

“I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me,” she whispers. “That’s the worst thing. You were dealing with all this alone- and I had no fucking idea.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause being with you made it better, of course you didn’t notice.”

She kisses your forehead. “You’re too sweet, baby.”

You smile and kiss her chest.

“I’m only not killing him ‘cause you asked, I hope you know that. If it was up to me, he’d be dead.”

“Oh, baby, I know lots of other ways we can channel that emotion.”

You glance up at her and she searches your eyes before promptly throwing you to the side and climbing on top of you.

Yeah, Clarisse is angry. But you love her angry.

—-

clarisse staring at her hands like they’re covered in blood: oh gods… oh gods what have i done. what have i done (again that picture of ivan the terrible holding his d3ad son)

y/n: ouch! ok anyways- girl you did not kill me calm down.

—-

caden trying not to die after clarisse inconveniences him for the sixth time today… hides his favorite sword, permanently sticks him on laundry duty, puts literal “kick me” signs on his back, puts holes in his favorite clothes…

—-

y/n is that one song that goes “FUCK ME LIKE YOU MAD AT ME BABY I NEED A FREAK TO DRIVE ME CRAZZYYYYY”

…and she’s so real for that.

—-

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme @mar2ss @restellsss @ravisinghs-wife @marsconer @evangelinexo @randomhoex @luvrrish @rebecca37 @saltair-and-palemoonlight @ace-spades-1 @maxlynn17

@thewritingbarbie

—-

from this ask

[stxrvel]

hate is a strong word pt. 3

summary: after a few bumps, you and Bucky finally have that long-awaited conversation.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: +5k

warnings: bad words, mentions of kidnapping and trauma surrounding it, reader is still stubborn when it comes to ther safety, mention of thoughts regarding death or possible death, reader tries to play it cool in front of everyone but she has a big trauma inside, reader is finally taking her time to understand things, bucky barnes?

note: this took me a while but still i hope you guys like this! this is the final part for this mini series and it didn't end up being as long as i thought but im still really satisfied. just know that feedback is always appreciated and i love reading your comments! see you next time <3

previous

Things had become tense at the Complex. Not because of you, or Bucky. Black Lightning was attacking all of the Avengers' blind spots and was leaving them defenseless on the battlefield. It might seem like a joke that a single person with the power of lightning could defeat the planet's greatest defenders, but they couldn't underestimate a person with pain, a purpose and nothing to lose.

You had not been cleared to return to the field, yet Fury entrusted you with a special mission.

Find the infiltrator.

It was no surprise to anyone that lately it seemed Black Lightning was always three steps ahead of all your plans, any ambush or surprise takeover would be reversed and they would end up back at the starting point. Fury, very thoroughly, gave you a list of possible suspects that you were to intercept any communications from. Even though you couldn't go out in the field, you had a job that was almost as important, so you did it with great zeal.

But it was already ten days away. And, although the director didn't ask you to, you also kept an eye on the activity of the team members against Black Lightning, trying to spot any suspicious behavior through the cameras.

That's how you came to be in front of his desk, asking him to let you chase a man who went out every day at the same time and always came back two hours later, without fail. It would be too complicated for him to accept, for the same reason you weren't going on field missions yet, but you had to try. Besides, who else would he send if no one else on the team knew about it? He had to trust you.

He had to, and yet…

“No fucking way,” the director shook his head, taking with the air your precious opportunity to provide the team with a way out.

“This might be the only chance we have to get the upper hand on her,” you scowled at him, indignation bubbling in your chest.

“I'm not going to send you into the lion's den one more time,” his determined look left you speechless for a few seconds. It seemed you weren't the only one who kept thinking back to that ambush a few weeks ago.

Maybe the fear of being close to Black Lightning once again should be stronger than the desire to defeat her, but knowing the stakes gave you a little more courage to confront her. Still, you had to tense your jaw discreetly to keep Fury from noticing the fear that wanted to creep into your eyes. The very thought sent shivers down your spine, but… if not you, then who? If not now, when?

“In the position we're in, do you think that's what we should be focusing on now?”

The words burned in your throat, but you fought hard to keep your expression composed and furious. The fear in your chest was clashing with the discomfort of your rationality and you felt dizzy.

Fury shook his head once more.

“It's too risky a possibility, what are you supposed to do if she finds you?”

“I'm going to stay away from them. I don't need to hear what they talk about, just watch them together.”

The man wasn't going to budge, you knew that. Maybe, after all, you were just there to follow the regular conduit. So that, afterwards, you wouldn't have anyone wondering why you did it. You gave him the chance to go along with you on this, to be with you, because he had to know that a simple "no" couldn't stop you, and he wouldn't take it.

“There's no way she doesn't realize you're around her.”

“She doesn't carry a thermos sensor on her, Fury. And now we know she knows all our plans in advance because someone tells her, not because she has super mental powers or telekinesis.”

“I can't let you do that, Y/N.”

“And what were you planning to do with this information? If you're not going to send me and no one else on the team knows.”

Fury didn't respond.

There was nothing more you could say to him. If he didn't want to take that chance, then you would. It was a stupid, crazy, risky plan, probably the most dangerous you'd ever come up with, but it was also a great chance to get something when you'd only spent days losing.

You met Natasha when you arrived at the Complex common room. Bucky was there. You hadn't seen him since that last conversation you had in the intelligence room.

“How did it go?”

“Horrible.”

Natasha was the only one who half knew what you were planning, only because you couldn't contain the full truth to yourself without believing you were going to explode. A couple of days ago you had told her that you were going to ask Fury to let you go back to field missions, because it had been over a month. You left out some details, important and unnecessary details, but that was essentially what it was all about.

“Maybe it's for the best,” Natasha commented after pouting her lips. “It's still very fresh.”

“You guys are more traumatized by that incident than I am.”

“You could have died,” Natasha frowned at your words, looking at you as if she couldn't believe you would take so much credit for what happened. It looked like you had committed a crime.

“But I didn't die. And everyone treats me like I did,” you returned the gesture, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Don't blame us for worrying about you,” Natasha tried to move closer, raising her hand to put it on your shoulder, but you pulled away sharply with an annoyed expression. You didn't miss the flash of confusion that passed over her face.

“I've always done these missions, Natasha, what's different now?”

“That she almost killed you and you haven't given yourself time to process that like you should,” Natasha had always cared about your well being and having conversations like this from time to time wasn't that strange to you, but on this occasion it really had been too long and you hated that they think you were incapable of moving on with your life because of something that happened over a month ago that was no different than something that might have happened to you before.

“I risk my life on every mission, just like everyone else.”

“Don't downplay the importance of that. Worry more about your life.”

“Are you pulling a Bucky Barnes on me right now?”

Natasha let out an exasperated sigh. You watched as she run one of her hands through her reddish hair. You sure looked like you were going to explode, you felt your skin boiling.

Maybe you were having an overreaction, but who was determining that limit? There was no one in that Complex who knew you better than yourself. You hated to think that Fury had more reasons for not letting you back into the field, like you weren't as strong as the others with incredible powers and abilities. It was ridiculous.

And Natasha was saying ridiculous things too… but she cared anyway. You couldn't condemn her for that.

The big sigh you let out caught her attention.

“I'm sorry,” you told her, your voice a little more muffled and lower than before.

“I'm sorry too,” Natasha shook her head when she saw you were about to protest and took the floor again, “Sometimes I forget that you're one of the strongest and bravest members on the team. No one goes through everything you went through and still lives with strength like that.”

Did she just read your mind?

“Keep trying,” Natasha patted your arm. “With Fury, I mean. Maybe tomorrow you'll have better luck.”

You couldn't wait for tomorrow. He'd refuse again, that was for sure.

Natasha gave you a tight-lipped smile and you could barely return the gesture. You wanted to drag her back to your side to tell her what you really wanted to do, but you couldn't, nothing assured you that she would react differently to Fury, or worse, try to join you. Natasha was someone who would give her life to protect the team, but you were no slouch.

Besides, this was your kind of mission. Fury gave it to you because he knew you were the only one who would know how to handle it, even if he didn't want to accept it or want to let you execute it. Maybe only one person could come, but… No. You didn't have time to think about that.

You had to do it. And it had to be that night. You couldn't stand one more meeting with the team with no new news, having to endure their thinly disguised looks of disappointment. That was it, it was disappointing to not be able to get breakthroughs and keep losing at every attempt. Here was the opportunity and it could go very well or very badly. There was only one way to find out.

-

You had already learned the path by heart. It was the tenth day since you all had gone into crisis so you had time to draw lines on your mental map. Natasha, Sam and Tony had left the Complex and the rest of the remaining team were probably asleep or something. The point was that the coast was clear.

The person you were to follow would be leaving in fifteen minutes and that was your time to get ahead of them. You took one of the motorcycles from the parking lot and started your way to where the meeting point would be. You would leave the motorcycle at a great distance and walk the rest of the way in silence.

You were sure it was a good plan.

It had to be.

Several minutes passed when, in that building in front of the abandoned chapel, you saw the man with the glasses enter after looking both sides of the street. You were thankful that the shadows and darkness played in your favor that time. You tiptoed up to the chapel door after a few seconds. It was made of very old wood, old enough that the cracks inside it were large enough to get a good view of the inside of the building.

There, in the middle of the night and the shadows, you saw her. Once again you were close to her. And in front of her was that mysterious man who seemed to be the infiltrator in the team. You felt sorry for that poor devil.

That is until you felt movements around you and, just when it seemed that Black Lightning's head was turning in your direction, a pair of arms wrapped around you and pulled you away at incredible speed from the wooden door.

It had all happened so fast that you didn't even react until that person pulled you both into the building next to the chapel. There, hidden, it didn't even occur to you to raise your voice. You could see out of the corner of your eye through the window on your left side that Black Lightning came out of the chapel roughly, her head moving in every possible direction, surely looking for the source of the sense of surveillance she must have had.

You watched her until the person behind you gave you a tug in the opposite direction and you could do nothing but frown at him.

It was amazing how you could recognize him even without hearing or seeing him. It was as if your unconscious knew Bucky Barnes in essence.

Neither of you moved until you stopped hearing the voices a short distance away and until Black Lightning's distinctive whirring sound echoed as she flew off.

Your chest rose in sync with your accelerated breathing, increasing as the seconds passed in silence.

You had an internal dilemma thinking that night could have possibly ended very badly.

“You know what, I know how you get away with those crazy plans you always have,” you heard his voice low against your ear, his breath moving the unbound strands of your hair and sending electric currents throughout your body. “You've got all the fucking luck in the world on your side.”

His arms finally pulled away from your body. The hand covering your mouth left a cold trace on its path away from you. Everything seemed to move a little slower.

“Are you okay?”

Bucky grabbed your shoulders to turn you around. His chest was the first thing you saw, your head tilted slightly to the ground in a kind of shock. It was the adrenaline of the moment clearly, the possibility that she had found you and you hadn't returned that night to the Complex, the endless situations of suffering you could have gone through far away, no one knowing where you were or how to find you, all falling at once on top of your head.

You had been so close to death before on several occasions, but the feeling never became less tolerable. Sometimes it was easier to process it, with too much outside stimuli allowing you to escape the density of the situation. But at that moment, as at some others, the feeling of fear was overwhelming. Maybe you could walk over it, as you planned to do, but it would be whispering behind your ear at every turn, furrowing through your nerves and your bones as if it was born for that sole purpose.

Bucky moved you at some point, as you kept thinking about how you should process that not-so-close-to-death experience. Fury was quite right not to have allowed you to do this in the first place and you hated to think that maybe you should have listened to him. But you really hadn't counted on seeing her again to paralyze you so much. The idea hadn't scared you as much as it did at that moment.

Suddenly you were in a car that was parked in front of the Complex and it made you wonder how the hell Bucky had gotten to that place that no one knew about, when you had never told anyone where you were going.

You had probably fallen asleep because the next thing you knew you were in your room in complete silence with Bucky sitting on the edge of your bed. You barely looked at him not knowing what to say. How had you moved so fast? Did you really get so deep in your thoughts?

Well, enough was enough. Nothing had happened. You were fine. Just your luck. You didn't have to face Black Lightning again with the lowest chance of winning. Bucky had gotten you out of there. You were fine.

“How did you know where I was?”

“You took my bike,” Bucky shook his shoulders slightly, his serious face scanning yours for some kind of clue. “I got an alarm on my cell phone and when I saw that it had been you... I don't know, something told me you were going to do something stupid.”

Bucky rested his hands on the mattress and your eyes followed the movement as if it was the only thing you could see, the only thing you could focus on. Maybe you did, you didn't want to see him. Besides the fact that you felt ashamed because you really had been reckless, you still didn't want to be that close to him after what had happened.

But that wasn't the time to think about that. You had found the insider. You were right. Now, how were you going to tell Fury without him freaking out? He'd probably take away your license and ban you from the Complex.

“I got some great information thanks to that stupid plan,” you tried to lash out in a more cheerful tone, but it felt bittersweet between your lips. If Bucky felt it false, he didn't comment on it.

“What were you were doing anyway?”

“Fury had a suspicion that there was an infiltrator on the team. He asked me to trace calls, but… that wasn't getting me anywhere. I had been following one particular person who I noticed was always going out and coming back at the same time by watching the security cameras…”

When you ventured to raise your head, Bucky had a raised eyebrow.

“Sometimes I got bored of being there all day and checked the cameras, it's not a crime.”

“I didn't say it was.”

“You're judging me with that look.”

Bucky smiled, a short laugh flooding in.

“So you saw that person and decided they were the insider.”

“They had to be. I had to check it out.”

“And Fury wouldn't let you so you stole my bike and went to find out on your own in one of the worst ideas you've ever had.”

You twisted your lips. “Yeah, basically.”

“At least you're not contradicting me that it was a terrible plan.”

“No, I knew it was a horrible plan, but what else could I do? I was tired of not being able to get anything out of the reports and I had a great chance in the palm of my hand. Tell me if you wouldn't have done it.”

Bucky pursed his lips, but didn't deny your words. And that's because yes, it would have been even more stupid of you to listen to Fury and ignore everything after he had denied you a clearance.

Now you had a big advantage over Black Lightning. You had to tell Fury.

“You could have told me,” Bucky suddenly commented, his gaze wandering along the wall to the side of the bed.

You arched an eyebrow at him, even though he wasn't looking at you and snorted in disbelief.

“And for what, so you could charge me with Fury?”

“Ouch,” the man in front of you pretended his chest hurt and his right hand went to hover over his heart. “I would've gone along with you, of course.”

“Are you kidding me?” you let out a laugh.

“Of course I'm not. You're right about one thing and that's that it's a big advantage, but yes I would've preferred it if you hadn't gone alone. What would have happened if it hadn't been my bike you took? I don't even want to…”

A dense silence followed Bucky's words. That had been a possibility you had considered indirectly, in the back of your head, where reason didn't enter. It followed you like a blur, something you didn't know exactly what it was, but it made your hair stand on end to remember it was there.

And you had thought about telling him, you almost succumbed to the idea, but you were afraid it would go badly for both of you. For him.

“Very convenient, but thank you for following me.”

Bucky shrugged.

“We were right to follow our instinct.”

-

Things with Fury had become tense and you hadn't come out of one punishment and into another. Still, the information you provided was just what the team needed to get back three steps ahead of Black Lightning. She was a powerful woman, yes, but they could prepare much better.

The team was busy for days, almost weeks. You had too much time for yourself and office work, so much so that you already knew that by the time you could get back to field missions, nothing would get you out of there.

You would run into some of the team members from time to time and chat about anything. Sometimes you could almost say you missed the company of some of them. Even Bucky, at times, made himself missed.

Everything returned to a bit more of a normal rhythm when Black Lightning was defeated and locked. That day the team had a huge dinner. You spent almost the entire night with Natasha and Clint; Steve showed up from time to time and Tony moved from table to table. It was a very peaceful evening with nothing new to interrupt it. The next day you would return to the ordinary trot, but that night you all enjoyed it quite a bit.

You'd like to say you'd talked to Bucky, but…

You went several weeks without seeing him, as the team struggled to stop Black Lightning, and just as you continued with your office work and no longer had as much pressure on your shoulders having ripped that woman's Achilles heel, you used a lot of that time to do a lot of self-reflection. Weeks went by, so you had plenty of time. Also with some advice from Natasha, of course.

It had been so long since you'd last seen him that meeting him in the hallway of the rooms felt strange.

“Hello,” he was the first to speak, as you held tightly the container with the coffee you had half-drunk that morning.

It was barely dawn. You had gone to the kitchen to make your morning coffee and were on your way back to your room when you found him coming out of his. There was no way you could run away, he was literally right in front of you. But you weren't sure that was what you wanted to do, you were just too nervous. You had thought about a lot of things during all that time without seeing him, but not what to say to him when you saw him again.

“Hi,” you replied almost in a whisper, and you wanted to slap yourself at how embarrassed you sounded. You felt your face heat up.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine. All good,” you pursed your lips, swaying on your feet. You felt like you were on unfamiliar ground. “What about you?”

“Same, all good,” Bucky shook his head in assent, mimicking your gesture. He still had his white pajamas on and his right hand on the doorknob.

“I'm glad,” you tore the words from your throat, wanting to fill the silence that wanted to envelop you tightly.

Bucky continued to shake his head in slight movements, as he averted his gaze to the hallway. You had no idea what to do now, you never thought seeing him again would be so awkward.

“This is… weird,” Bucky spoke again after a few seconds, looking unsure and confused.

“Yeah, too much.”

“Sorry.”

“No,” you shook your head quickly and moved closer unconsciously. “It's not your fault. It's nothing. We must have become unaccustomed to each other's presence.”

You saw him tilt his head.

“It's just that it's been too long,” with his comment he agreed with you, suddenly looking a little less uncomfortable. “Speaking of which, how did it go? Because of what happened with Black Lightning, I mean.”

“Oh,” you took the container with your coffee in your hands, lowering your gaze. “I've been fine. It was a rough few days after that, but I'm better now. I'm not sure why that happened.”

“Really? I'd be stranger if it hadn't happened,” Bucky admitted, and at your frown, he elaborated, “She had kidnapped you a month before, we had no idea where you were. Even if it had been a short time, you must have felt desperate. She out-powered you.”

“But I've had near-death experiences before,” you shook your head. You'd had that debate in your head several times before, and it seemed Bucky had come to the same conclusion you had.

“When you've dealt with that kind of situation, it's been very easy for you to get through it because you were in control. Chance was up to you. But not that time, you were at the mercy of someone else, their power or their pity. There was nothing you could do.”

His eyes sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the window and you realized that you had missed his sympathetic, condescending gaze from time to time. You hadn't seen him many times before, especially not before that talk you'd had a couple of months ago that changed everything.

One such day, in the rain and thunder, you thought that a lot of what Bucky had to offer scared you. Maybe you hated him because imagining wanting him was so much harder when that decision was up to him and not you. Hate could be controlled unilaterally, love could not.

In conclusion, you were a very controlling person.

“You are very wise,” you smiled through your reply.

Bucky smiled too, a small gesture that triggered something in your chest, in your heart or to the side. You weren't sure where it was.

“I hope this time has served you well in many ways,” he commented as he stepped fully out of his darkened room and closed the door. “I'm going to the kitchen,” he gave a glance at your container, “I guess I'll see you later.”

You nodded absently. “Yeah, see you later.”

Bucky gave you a tight-lipped smile before he started walking back the way you had come. Watching him walk away left you with a sense of anticipation, because there was still so much you wanted to tell him but had no idea how to go about it. You still struggled a bit with the words, but you were already sure of what you wanted. And one of those things was for him to know as soon as possible.

You also struggled with the possible outcomes. There weren't many, but you didn't like one of them and you thought it might make you sad. You were trying to make peace with not controlling others and stop being a lone wolf about it, but it was still a little difficult.

You didn't see Bucky until a couple of days later.

It was Steve's birthday and Tony of course threw an amazing party as a celebration. The whole team was there and many other people close to them. You all had become a bit secretive since the issue with the insider, especially Tony with how he handled meetings and in this case, reunions. So it was crowded, but not overly so as it used to be.

You had had a good time, you chatted with everyone and drank what you wanted. You spent time sitting, on the dance floor and near the games. You enjoyed everything until finally your legs gave out. It was past midnight when you stepped out onto the balcony to finally get some air. The drink made you somewhat cheerful and social, but you continued to keep your sanity and reason. Enough so that seeing Bucky Barnes in a suit leaning against the railing caused a twist in your heart and an emptiness in the pit of your stomach.

“Did you come for air too?”

You didn't know if it was his super-soldier serum or something similar to yours, but it always amazed you that he knew when you were around. It also made your nerves calm a bit as you approached the railing.

“Yeah, they had me without a break today.”

Bucky let out a laugh, openly, and amidst your glassy-eyed stare from drinking, you couldn't take your eyes off him. You couldn't when he was regaling you with such an exquisite sight and such a harmonious sound. You didn't know how you had been able to spend so much time hating him. Or pretending you did. Hate is such a strong word, it shouldn't be used so casually.

“I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, really. You look more radiant,” he kept his gaze on yours, not wiping the smile from his face.

“How long have you been here?”

“I was just about to leave. I guess I was lucky I decided to stay a little longer.”

You arched an eyebrow at him with a half smile, which was answered with one of his own.

“I couldn't blame you,” you commented, averting your gaze to take in the incredible panoramic view you had of much of the city from where you stood. You had both worlds, the vast wilderness and the concrete jungle, “It's a beautiful view.”

“Indeed,” you heard him so close you didn't have to move much to know he was still looking at you.

With a hot face, you shook your head.

“You're very flirtatious, Barnes, I don't think I would've guessed.”

“You have no idea what I'm like, doll, you've got a long way to go,” his voice sounded a little deeper than usual and you blamed the cold for the shiver that ran through your body.

“Are you assuming I want to walk it?” you turned to see him with a falsely confused, playful look.

“I'll take my chances,” he gave you a beautiful cocked smile without taking his light eyes away from yours.

“Careful with that. You could end up walking alone,” you looked back out over the city, being all too aware of his gaze roaming the silhouette of your face.

“I have a good feeling. The wind is on my side.”

You let out a laugh inevitably, it was probably because of nerves or because he was building something around both of you that you couldn't control. And maybe that didn't bother you too much. It would be nice to let someone else carry the rope once in a while… wouldn't it?

“Are you implying something?”

You heard him sigh before taking the same position you had, facing the city.

“I guess I can't hide my curiosity,” he took a moment before speaking again. “You know we have a pending conversation.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, feeling the thrill of anticipation course through your body from head to toe. It seemed you weren't the only one who had waited too long for that.

“Do you have something to tell me?”

You turned your head, meeting his profile. The way the city shone in his eyes was magical and you didn't want to focus on anything else but that. Or on the way his eyebrows moved almost imperceptibly under your watchful gaze. Or the relief of his red lips that were almost…

“I think we should start slow.”

Liar.

Bucky turned his head, taking you almost by surprise. His blue eyes looked amused.

“So you agree that we should start?”

“Yes,” you shook your head in sync, his gaze causing you to be as unsettled as possible. “But we'll have to start from scratch.”

“I don't think I can control myself for that long,” Bucky almost whispered, his voice as low as you'd ever heard it before. He wasn't going to let you have it any easier.

“You'll have to learn to do it.”

But you wouldn't give up your arm so easily either. He could continue to provoke you all he wanted, but you'd take things at your own pace.

“You can bet on it,” his face was closer than before, you could almost touch his nose if you moved a little, “but I don't think it would be that easy for you.”

“Do you think I have no self-control? Me?” you frowned at him, but kept your expression warm. The man in front of you only laughed, creating distance between the two of you. A cold air swept over you from where he had been.

“I guess time will tell who will give up first.”

“And it won't be me.”

“Mmm,” Bucky hummed in reproach, shaking his head. “You're very stubborn.”

“There's still a lot you have to learn from me, darling.”

The nickname left your lips unconsciously, but that only made the corners of his lips lift even more. His face looked brighter than before if that was possible. You wanted to take it back, but you'd better think twice. A different, more pleasant and comfortable feeling settled in your chest and your heart seemed to beat to a different rhythm.

“Well, now that we've finally come to an agreement…”

“Halfway,” you interrupted him, rolling your eyes.

“We can start now.”

His eyes on yours felt too meticulous at that moment.

“Now?”

“Yes,” Bucky shrugged. “I can take you dancing right now, shouldn't I take the opportunity?”

You almost choked on your own words. You wanted to deny yourself for a moment, maybe it wasn't true that you were ready and able to safely embrace these new feelings he was generating in you. Maybe you really didn't feel as safe as you thought you did…

But when Bucky extended his hand towards you, with that lopsided smile and sparkling eyes, any negative thoughts disappeared from your head in the blink of an eye. You were afraid of what you two might turn out to be, yes, it was true, but you couldn't spend the rest of your life living like this. Not when already, without even having started, you knew that there would be no other place in the world you wanted to be, nor where you felt as safe as that moment.

When you took his hand securely, you never wanted to let go again, much less if you could continue to see that expression of happiness on Bucky's face. You moved beside him as if you had done it all your life before that moment, and in the life before that.

His fingers intertwined with yours and you felt like you closed a promise in that moment.

“You know, I'm not much of a dancer,” you commented to him as you approached the stairs.

“Don't worry. We have plenty of time for you to learn,” Bucky gave you a reassuring squeeze to accompany his words. “We're just getting started.”

You hoped to enjoy that night as much as you hoped to enjoy all the time you had with him, whatever it was. Despite the fear, you would take him with open arms. It was better that than nothing at all.

Anyway, you were already realizing that that wasn't something you were going to think about very often. Bucky said it himself, you were just getting started.

-

Taglist: @rabbitrabbit12321 @funkybarnes @pono-pura-vida @unaxv @buckybarnessimpp @madi-is-kinda-lame @saint-marvel @trixiekaulitz @ziawbarnes @immortalfangirl @dnovastark

[terrythemerry]

Alma notes/logs + some of my thoughts on them.

Warning these notes are very spoiler heavy and talks about a lot of late game content.

@elffees

These are some of Alma’s easiest to find notes and on the surface they paint a picture of a kind, maternal woman worried about the kids she was forced to leave behind. Two words jump out at me in the last two notes though “sacrifice” and “choice. I’ll talk about that at the end though. The next part is where things get messy.

These are all her notes, the rest of this is going to be a bit of a rant because these last few notes are the ones that make my blood boil.

Alma never planned on rescuing them. While putting on a motherly facade she planned on leaving all of the Sarentu survivors to rot until their life support gave out. The only thing that made her act was the fact that wonderful Priya found out we were there, otherwise no one was coming for us.

Then there is how she refers to the children in “The Final Option”. She talks about all the potential glory and accolades she’ll get once she “has” them. Not when they come to her, when she possesses them. She acts like she doesn’t know in the notes, but she admits in game that deep down she knew they were going to steal the kids and killed Na’vi and let it happen anyway so she could have her little project. This is the “sacrifice” she’s trying to frame in the note “Back to Tap”. Personally I don’t see how a genocide and kidnapping is in anyway a “sacrifice”, sounds more like a war crime to me.

Last is the School Records and two things important to note are the initials in the document and the of “additional note” versus “note”. The initials show that only two people wrote in this document AC (Alma Cortez) and JM (John Mercer). Every single section degrades the children and talks about the “best” ways to manipulate them to TAP’s goals before being followed up with an “additional note” by Alma saying the opposite. The thing is I fully believe that Alma wrote the original sections and that the “additional notes” have been edited in later to try and cover her involvement in TAP.

The thing that makes me think this is Alma’s position as teacher and Mercer’s note. Alma was the one who spent the most time with the students, she’s the one who observed every aspect of their day to day, so she is the only person it would logically make sense to write about their temperaments and interests. Mercer had other things to do besides sitting around a classroom all day watching these kids, same for Harding. They’d be able to step in as discipline and for surprise inspections, but Alma was clearly the main observer. That means all the coded talk about discipline(abuse) and skills(usefulness to the RDA) is all her.

Mercer’s note was the big tip off to me that she retroactively edited the document. Mercer’s only note is that Aha’ri was killed. It was probably entered immediately after her death, because Mercer doesn’t care. He’s meticulous, organized, compulsive, etc. He doesn’t see the children as anything more than a tool so he has no shame in updating the document like it was a regular note about a generator going out. Because he entered it immediately the entry was logged as “note”.

A lot of websites will mark a comment as edited after a certain amount of time has passed. I feel like this is the case with the “note” vs “additional note”. The second giveaway is that Alma’s final note calling Mercer’s murderer is also logged as an “additional note” when there is no reason for Alma to manually input it herself. By that logic all of the additional notes were logged long after the original document was made and it’s just Alma’s way of trying to minimize her role in the abuse at TAP. This means that all of the suggested “discipline” aka brutal bone breaking and beatings was recommended by her in certain cases.

Alma isn’t a good person, she has a toxic savior complex and will go to any means to see that vision met. She might be on the right side, she might be doing good things now, but she is not a good person. Maybe she can be forgiven one day, but she’s still in toomuch denial about her own involvement to be forgiven this day.

[nytb]

Savior Complex

Y/N was Barcelona's big hope after Martens left. Having come from Chelsea, she already had the experience needed to compete in the big leagues, add that to her young age, the kid had no ceiling, although the party animal lifestyle she led didn't help with team cohesion.

"You do realize that you need more than talent to make it here right?" Alexia questioned, it being more of a rhetorical question, before she walked away and continued their training drills. "Cut the kid some slack" you heard Mapi defend you "We all did stupid shit when we were young" she pleaded your case. The Barcelona captain was having none of it "I don't recall you going to parties before game-day during your time at Atletico" a dig aimed at you.

Ignoring the periodic jabs from your captain, you trained to the best of your abilities. "Y/N I want to try something new" Jona signalled to you "You're going to attack the space" he added.

Running behind the Barcelona backline was hard enough, add the drinks you had the previous night, and it sure made it a whole lot harder.

"Yup gotcha" you replied confidently, trying to hide how you actually felt.

"Sorry kid, I'm not going to make it easy on you" Rolfo declared "Captain's orders" she added looking at the midfielder who gave the Swede an approving look.

Each time you got a ball in behind the defence, the Swedish international stuck on you like glue, and when you did manage to get past her, you were met with an unforgiving Mapi.

"You good?" the defender lent you a hand, helping you up after her challenge that left you on the floor "Yup, yup" you replied cleaning yourself off "You girls are playing like it's the champions league final ya know" you added in an attempt to beg for mercy.

Alexia, who was keeping tabs on you during training approached "If only you did too" the midfielder said as she grabbed Mapi away, talking tactics on how to defend better against you.

This time, Alexia was on your team, well at least she was supposed to be. Giving you passes that made you run faster, that put you in challenging positions. Still, you ran, even when your legs couldn't keep up, until they couldn't anymore.

"Ouch" you mumbled on the floor "Not so easy huh" the captain approached you extending her hand to help you up with a mocking smile on her face. Standing back up on your own you replied "Don't pretend you’re not thrilled to see me like this" you cleaned yourself off again "Oh I'm not" the midfielder replied "I'm absolutely loving it" she added taking her position back on the field.

The rest of the training session was more of the same, brutal drills with Alexia, who pushed you more than normal, or defenders tackling you like their lives depended on it. To say that you were relieved when training ended would be an understatement.

While most of the players had already made their way to the dressing room, you stayed out on the field.

Laying on the floor, an apologetic Aitana approached "Sorry we were so tough on you today" she said as she sat down next to you "I get it" you replied "Your loyalties lie with the captain" you excused your teammates actions. The both of you stayed out making small talk until you caught your breath.

As you entered the dressing room, you caught the end of a conversation between Alexia and Mapi. "I don't get why you're so hard on Y/N" the defender stated, getting a cut throat answer from your captain "She's here to learn right?" she said, softening up on her follow up "I wish I didn't have to be so hard on her though".

Your presence was known as you responded to the captain's statement "Well luckily for you, I'm not here to be part of your little saviour complex" you said in a rather cut throat tone catching everyone off guard "If you stopped being a prick, I wouldn't have to save your ass" Alexia answered, clearly not backing down from your challenge.

Mapi picked up on the tension that built up and decided to jump in to stop it before it blew up "Ok ok- enough you two" she tried to calm the situation down "How bout we go out as a group" the defender suggested. "Pass" you replied "I have a party to go to" you added as you picked your stuff up and made your way out of the dressing room "See ya in 2 days" you peace'd out.

"It's weird that we have never partied with the party animal, no?" Patri asked, receiving a dirty looks from Engen who answered "Maybe you haven't".

Aitana, got the sudden interest to get to know Y/N's partying side "Maybe we should join her" she suggested, Engen replied "Actually, she invited me to the party"

Alexia was definitely not happy where the conversation was leading "Yeah- No, that would be weird" she answered an unasked question from her best friend that was begging with her puppy eyes.

"But, but.." the defender pleaded "Fine" Alexia finally gave in "But I won't stay for long".

Ana-Maria, who had partied with Y/N before, jumped in "So that's why she never invited you to join" she blurted out not thinking about the consequences of her statement.

"Wha-" the locker room was shocked "You went out with her before?" Patri asked. "I did too" Lucy joined, "I was curious why she didn't invite you out" she pointed at her captain.

"Yeah- I was shocked too" Ingrid added as they both laughed.

Nuria, who was Y/N's flatmate filled the gaps for everyone "Yup, definitely weird" she said "Especially when you look like that" she added.

Alexia, had no clue what her teammate was talking about so she asked "What do you mean what I look like?"

"Ale, you are Y/N's type" the fullback replied "Like, you couldn't be more her type if you tried"

"I'm pretty sure Y/N hates me" Alexia confessed. Ingrid tried to bring her captain's spirits up "Yup, because you are always so stuck up" the Norwegian stated "What if you show her your fun side" she added inviting the rest of her teammates to the party.

Multiple cocktails down, a couple of dances with random girls and two hours later, the group arrived at the disco.

Engen spotted you immediately "There she is" she stated grabbing Mapi as she made her way to you "Engeeen" you said hugging your favourite Norwegian "You made it" you looked behind her spotting some of your teammates "And you brought company" you added smiling.

Alexia had initially stayed away from your group, processing the information Nuria had thrown at her in the locker-room.

"You're overthinking it" the fullback spoke to her captain "Just go get a drink and loosen up", the midfielder initially refused her teammates suggestion until she glanced over at you dancing with some random brunette.

Nuria insisted again, pointing to the bar "Fine fine" Alexia replied before she made her way to the bar leaving the group behind.

Your drink looked pretty empty, that just meant one thing; "Time for a refill" you declared to the woman you were dancing with leaving her alone.

As you made your way to the bar, you saw a beautiful brunette, with an even better silhouette in a tight black dress "You're beautiful" you flirted with the woman placing your empty glass on the counter.

The woman turned around, shocked at the sight of your face- it was Alexia.

"You're drunk" she replied "I'm taking you home" she grabbed you by the wrist ending your night short.

"Noooo, let's dance" you stated, not realising you were talking to your captain. Alexia picked up on this minor detail, and seeing how you insisted on partying, she resorted to flirting

"I can give you a private dance" she whispered in your ear "If you come with me". The midfielder grabbed you by the hem of your shirt, leading you out of the disco discreetly.

The rest of the night became a blur. You woke up in an unknown apartment, in a bed, alone, fully clothed. "Well this is new" you stated to yourself.

Night-outs usually lead to hook ups with strangers, a different way to explore the city.

You got out of bed, appreciating the view "Where the fuck am I".

You heard sounds coming from outside of the bedroom, so you naturally followed them, having clearly learnt nothing from horror movies.

"Morning" a brunette turned around "A- Alexia?" you mumbled "Did... did we" before you finished your question your captain replied "God no" she handed you a cup of coffee "Here, drink up".

You sat on the bar stool, shocked at how your day off was starting. The Catalonian tried to make small talk.

In the middle of some weird question you interrupted her "Pardon my french, but what the fuck am I doing here?".

Getting the run down on the previous night, you blushed as you pieced the information being blurted at you with the the moments you remembered. "Wha- wait... we kissed".

Alexia laughed "Nope, that wasn't me" making you turn bright red out of embarrassment "But you wish it were" she mocked you further.

"You didn't answer my question" you attempted to change topic "So you're not as smooth sober" the midfielder teased.

"Aren't you supposed to be nagging me?" you asked confused. "Well, after seeing you having all that fun, I realised that I never showed you how to have fun with me" she attempted to speak in English as you weren't fluent in Spanish just yet.

Your bright red face signalled to a possible bad translation. "With THE TEAM" she corrected herself making you burst out laughing.

"Yeah yeah, now who's flustered" you laughed mischievously.

[beesmygod]

What's your take, if you have one, on the cut moon presence boss on the lake of mud?

as always, i dont know. i thought i didn't really have much to say but the more i typed the more i Realized. but i still don't really know lol. this is really image heavy, which made it long, so most of it is under a readmore.

e: hello bea from the future here. hey. this gave me so much to chew on for the next section in a shockingly positive direction. thank you so much for getting this ball rolling

it half-relevant but there's also some kind of. intermediary thing. i think it's the same shape as the used moon presence but its blue. for some reason.

no animations on this one, so it was cut early. different "faces" as well. or the low quality of the cut one doesn't maintain the "features" as accurately.

oh what the fuck. hold on. look at the head of the "lake of mud" (LOM from now on) moon presence compared to the others

ive made posts in the past about anti-clockwise and clockwise metamorphosis runes possibly referencing the in-game phenomenon of creature's heads being turned in odd directions. loran silverbeasts and the crawler enemies (ostensibly both loran/nightmare frontier residents) have their "heads" turned clockwise, like above. slime scholar and probably other things i cant remember turn anti-clockwise.

the crawlers are....i mean they're gross. but also uncanny. there's SOMETHING going on here, right? god only know what though. they are also known for the grim sight you can take in when they rear up to Get You: their...stomach?? is rife with messengers. being consumed? maybe? it evokes the image of the artbook moon presence, who is swarming with messengers in the same area of its body.

anyway back to the little creep.

in the center of its chest there's this bizarre unknown thing. if you peel away the majority of its body it looks like this. a grey blob with tentacles. as far as i can tell it doesn't have bones to animate, unlike the rest of the model. the entire model has unfinished textures so its hard to tell what it's supposed to be.

judging from the blisters on the creature, it is CURSED. the orphan of kos' placenta weapon (which is, i think, just a huge cursed blood gem?) has these same blisters, marking it as a fellow "cursed" great one infant (? probably? look at what a runt it is).

curses are a complex aspect of the bloodborne universe. sometimes they can be identified by the appearance of "sickly spots", but other times, curses are color-coded with purple (or red, but that seems strictly related to cainhurst nope i forgot foetid offering can give enemies red rally auras and change their drop tables to include cursed blood gems. much to think about) auras and magic.

a curse is exactly what you expect it to be: great power at a high price (like a huge weapon bonus but your health depletes per second), but the source is arcane. the cursed and defiled pthumerian chalice states, "curses are caused by inciting the anger of the Great Ones, and used to hex others." winter lanterns, the enemies with the heads made out of messengers fused into a brain shape, are the only enemy that consistently only drops cursed blood gems (and, evidently, blood gems only form in the dungeon or nears its entrances). given the pattern of these spots appearing on bosses, it can be reasonably assumed that winter lanterns are the result of a great one's wrath. what the fuck! i dont know what that means!

we're not going to bother going into the nuances of rites and data-mining because holy shit. this garbage is needlessly complex for how half-baked its implementation is. but cursed offerings create cursed dungeons to explore with cursed blood gems to collect. cursed and defiled pthumeru is differentiated by the purple (!) skull vapor overflowing from the chalice. cursed rites required cursed materials: bastards of loran are the mummified bodies of infants who died midway through their transformation into a silverbeast. with the clockwise heads.

okay. that wrapped us up back around to the beginning. i think the lake of mud arena was intended to be in loran, canonically. it has a bunch of different variations that probably would have been used for root dungeon generation rather than canon usage. a lake of dried up water fits perfectly with the terrifyingly arid climate of loran (which generates the blue bolts in the atmosphere). at one point, it seems that several chalice dungeons would have had secret 4th layers (they're still in the game and can be accessed with some light hex editing); i propose that this is where that fight would have taken place. the previous layer would have been the cut great one beast. and layer 2 would have been the loran darkbeast. layer 1 would have been the abhorrent beast instead of the baffling loran silverbeast boss fight that's completely inexplicable otherwise. isz has similar pacing issues. oh shit, i wonder if that's what that blue one is supposed to be. fuuuuccckkk.

the ailing loran chalice tells the player that "some have made the dreaded extrapolation that Yharnam may be next" but the game is telling YOU the player that YOU are supposed to look at loran and extrapolate the fate of yharnam from it. loran was also using old blood as medicine and became a place overrun with beasts and abandoned by god. the loran moon presence is bloated with curses and lives in a place devoid of water, a horrible thing for a great one given how much they love to yammer about lakes and the sea. the area outside of the LOM arena is, amazingly, the exact same facade as the entrance to mergo's loft. there's a stained glass window above the door that's shared between locations, yet again linking loran, the nightmare frontier, and the nightmare of mensis together. and, really, the hunter's nightmare, since the LOM arena was very, VERY similar to the orphan's ocean with identical architecture.

holy shit i guess this is what im working on tonight. and now i see how micolash fits into the entire timeline. neat

[humpandpump]

Emily's attack

My first attempt at a story!!! Explicit, proceed with caution!!!

***

I had barely gotten inside after a long day at work, still in my paramedic uniform for the day, when she knocked on my door. I checked my watch before I turned around - it was exactly 9pm, the time we had arranged. I was exhausted, not really in the mood for the lesson, but I had told her I would help, and I needed the extra money.

I opened the door and found myself looking... down. She was smaller than I had pictured, and although I didn't have any required criteria for who I could help, I found myself attracting quite a specific clientele: usually women, often young, who found themselves struggling to breathe during their intensive fitness regimen, which left them with excellent figures that made this job, well, easier.

Emily was no exception.

'Hi,' she said quietly when I struggled to form the words. She really was that beautiful, with perfect, plump lips, round breasts and a tight hourglass figure. She wore a tight tank top (no bra - she had read the guidelines for her first appointment) and loose linen shorts. Sometimes, I really loved this business. 'Is this the...'

She let it trail off when I nodded. 'Uh, yeah! Come in. Emily, right?'

I stepped back to let her into my apartment, mentally scolding myself for not tidying up beforehand. As quickly as I could, I led her to the spare room, where I had everything set up. When I was just starting out, before I knew how in demand this business would be, I ran it out of my bedroom, but that made things... complicated.

She looked around shyly, noticing the relativity empty room, with nothing but two chairs and a kitchen caddy under the window, though the blind was down - I didn't need nosey neighbours getting the wrong idea about this.

I guided her to the chair and sat across from her, resting my elbows on my thighs as I leaned forward. 'So, what's been going on?'

'I...' God, she was shy. This was going to be hard. 'I saw your services online and I thought... well, you helped some other people who are in my predicament, so I thought maybe you could help me. I've had this trouble breathing... kind of like asthma, but it doesn't come up when I'm doing usual exercise. It only happens when I'm, well, you know.' She blushed, rubbing her hands between her thighs and letting her blonde hair fall over her face. 'I don't have a boyfriend or anything, but I find it hard to have casual sex. Because I'm worried I won't be able to breathe, or I'll collapse. My throat closes up and my heart starts racing and I feel like I might be dying, and I don't know what to do. It happens when I start to get close and then, well, then I can't get there, because I'm scared of what will happen when I get over the edge, if I might die.'

I nodded solemnly. 'What you're experiencing is a very common occurrence. Trust me, I see a lot of women in this position.' At this, I gave a soft chuckle. 'What's happening is that your body is reacting to the sexual stimulation as a threat to your survival. It's a mis-wiring of the system.'

'What do we do to fix it?'

'Well, it's complex, and if you're here it means you know my methods are unorthodox. But the most success we've seen is controlled stimulation, sometimes paired with CPR, to take you to climax without killing you. It teaches your body how to react to the climax by giving it a bit of a helping hand. We do this a few times, regular sessions, until your body starts to learn on its own.'

She looked uncomfortably around the room. 'Here?' she asked.

I chuckled. 'Well, I can't exactly get a hospital bed in here. And a real bed would be too soft for CPR, it would have a detrimental effect on its effectiveness. Don't worry - I have pillows for under your hips, which keeps the blood flowing to your heart. I can go get those when you're ready.'

She looked shocked. 'What, now? Are we doing this today?'

'We don't have to,' I said, putting my hands up in defence. 'It's completely up to you. We can call this a complimentary information session.'

She looked around the room again, and then her eyes slowly passed over me. I felt exposed in my uniform - it had been getting tighter since I'd started going back to the gym more regularly, and I could feel the fabric press against the skin of my arms. Slowly, she nodded. 'No, now is as good a time as any. What do you want me to do?'

I cleared my throat. 'Well, step one is to simulate the conditions of the attack. You say it happens when you start to climax? We'll have to get you there, and then we'll start doing whatever methods necessary. First, let's get you hooked up. Could you take off your clothes?'

She lifted her tank top over her head, and I tried not to watch as her breasts bounced back into place as she lowered her arms.

'Pants too, please,' I said quietly. She slipped out of her pants, revealing a lacy pair of underwear that disappeared into a firm ass. Like I said, sometimes I really loved this job.

'Lie down, please,' I instructed, motioning to the ground. Tentatively, I pulled out the EKG machine and started to press the electrodes onto her breasts and abdomen. I could feel the heat of her skin and the lines of her abs beneath my hands. One hand could span nearly the entire length of her torso. I tried not to let my imagination get carried away with that, though I felt myself twitch beneath my pants. I then grabbed the pillow, sliding it beneath her hips.

'This will monitor your heart,' I said. She moaned slightly, and then pressed her lips together, as though it were an accident. She pulled her legs up as if trying to keep them together. I tried to suppress my smile, to keep it professional. 'Is there anything that turns you on, that might help you get to climax?'

Wordlessly, with my hands still on her abdomen from where I had pressed the last wire onto her skin, she lifted herself up onto her elbows, so that our faces were close. I could smell the mint of her breath.

'Is this allowed?' Oh, boy, yes it is allowed. This line of work wouldn't work if this was not allowed. To communicate this point, I pressed my lips to hers, feeling the hot air of her mouth and warmth of her tongue against mine. As soon as they met, the machine started to beep, slowly getting faster. Every time we pulled away, I checked the numbers, just to make sure.

Her hands roamed my body, reaching for the buttons of my uniform, but I grabbed her fingers with one hand, forcing them above her head, watching her body stretch to accommodate the motion. Her breast heaved with desire.

'The uniform is to remember who's the teacher and who's the student,' I whispered into her ear, before moving my lips to her neck. The monitor beeped faster as I sucked on the soft skin of her collarbone, letting my other hand roam of her breast and gently flick her nipples back and forth. I could feel them getting hard under my hands. Her heartbeat was climbing, climbing - I rested my hand on her ribs in an attempt to bring it down just slightly, in case I mistimed the whole thing and killed her. I could still feel her heart beneath the slight pressure of my hand on her upper abdomen.

But she was doing okay, which I occasionally paused to check, searching her eyes for signs of fear. There was nothing but desire, which made me incredibly horny, though that was probably a test of the rules. Oh well, I thought. I'm my own boss.

I moved my lips to her breast, releasing her hand to guide her nipple into my mouth as my other hand continued down to rest on the curve of her pelvis, lightly caressing her centre. God, she was so wet already. Not that the machine wasn't giving away everything, her heartbeat incredibly receptive to my every touch. I was hard as a rock, hoping she couldn't see the tent that strained my pants. Her hands pulled at my hair, at the collar of my uniform, at everything she could get her hands on.

I flicked at her nipple and let my fingers stroke the outside of her underwear in gentle motions. She liked it - the beeps gave her away.

'More,' she whispered, nearly missed in the chaos of the EKG machine and her panting breaths. I moved away from her side to between her legs, guiding her underwear over her thighs and discarding them. I could see her centre, dripping and ready, and even without me touching her, she was grinding her hips against the pillow. Without my hands, her own started to move down to her centre, though she eyed me curiously.

I moved her hand and pinned it up near her head, leaning over her as my own hand took its place, slipping a finger into her warm centre. With one finger inside her, I pressed the heel of my hand to her swollen clit as I fingered her, all while watching her breathe, just to be sure that she still was.

'You're doing so good,' I found myself moaning as I rocked my hand into her. I slipped in a second finger, feeling the push of her pelvis against my hand. She started to moan. We had lift off. I let go of her hand and settled myself with her legs over my shoulder, moving my palm to replace it with my mouth. With soft, gentle kisses at first, and then powerful, stroking licks of her clit. The moaning intensified, and her hips bucked wildly. I pressed my hand into her lower abdomen to keep her still as I licked her clit and curled my fingers in her cunt. She tasted incredible. I could hear her breathing, labouring against her lungs, as they struggled to inhale. She was getting there. Just a bit more...

And then, suddenly, I heard the sound I had been listening out for - the sound of a heart in distress. I pulled away quickly, lifting myself out from between her to first check the machine, and then her. Her heart was beating, but much too fast, and she looked at me with panicked, swirling eyes. Her hands reached for her neck, desperate.

'It's okay,' I said, immediately switching to work mode, the safe version of me. I reached for a stethoscope from the caddy and rested it over her breasts, confirming the EKG machine's diagnosis. This was the attack she feared. 'We're going to get this heartbeat down, okay?'

She shook her head, as if to tell me she didn't believe me.

'Look at me,' I said, reaching for her face. I wrapped my arm around her torso and pulled her up so I could readjust the pillow to underneath her breasts, keeping her airway open. She was light and limp as a doll. 'I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?' She stared into my eyes frantically. I couldn't be sure she heard what I said. Instantly, I pinched her nose and pulled down her lower lip, closing our mouths together to blow hot air into her lungs. I could see her chest rising the slightest amount. When I pulled back, she was still staring at me, her eyes still moving in panic, not taking breaths on her own.

I did it again, sealing my lips over hers and blowing air into her, this time letting my other hand rest on her stomach to feel the rise. I couldn't tell where the air was going - stomach or lungs? I gave her more breaths, aware that the machine was still indicating her heartbeat was insanely irregular, as I applied more pressure to her body with my hand. One breath with a hand pressed to her sternum, and another with a hand pressed into her stomach. As I pressed to her chest, her heart beat wildly against my hand. It was slowing down, ever so slightly. As I gave her one more breath, I felt the rattle of her lungs as she took in my air on her own, and expelled it. Progress.

'Okay, Emily, you're okay. I got you. You're going to be okay. I'm not going to let you die on me.' Thankfully, she was still conscious, but immobile, and fear kept her paralysed. I sat up, surveying the situation and the machine. We weren't ready for defibs - this was a manual task.

'This is the part I said before - we need to give slow chest compressions while we stimulate, to teach the heart the proper way to beat.' I placed one hand on her sternum, though my hand was big enough to nearly cover her entire breast. I then pressed my other hand over her vagina, fingers resting on the opening, palm pressed and applying pressure to the clit. She was still wet and warm, so I slipped two fingers into her vagina - in and out, in and out, as I pressed down on her chest, all while watching her face for signs. At first, I kept my compressions and fingering slow, gentle movements that kept her calm, as her heart reacted on the monitor. I could feel it against my hand, as her nipple stiffened, almost against her will - she was so panicked, and so aroused at the same time. But I was completely in control of whether she made it through this, completely in control of her heart and her body right now, and I had to make sure I kept her safe.

She was still warm and wet for me, though she had stopped grinding her hips against my hand. I counted out 30 compressions and 30 'come hither' motions in her vagina before carefully removing my hand to rest on her stomach. With the other, I pinched her nose, and she opened her mouth, ready for my air. She closed her eyes as I breathed into her lungs, feeling the gentle rise of her stomach under my hand. The EKG machine was quieter now, slightly slower.

After a few more breaths, I looked into her eyes, smoothing back her hair to check that she was okay. Her chest was still heaving desperately, but she looked less panicked, and I knew I had earned her trust. My palm found her chest again, and this time, I straddled her, letting my stiff cock press against her clit as I secured her thighs between mine. Slowly, I pressed against her sternum, one palm over the other, as I calmed her heart to beat against the rhythm I set. She looked up at me, watching me press into her, calming her breathing. I nodded at her.

'You're doing so good,' I said. 'Just keep breathing.'

She breathed between my compressions, her stomach rising against me as she inhaled. I watched the EKG machine as it steadied the rhythm, steading slowly until we came to a pace. With every drop of the machine, I lightened the pressure of my compressions, until I was barely pushing at all, holding my hands pressed to her ribs. Her own hands raised up to meet mine, as if to thank me.

She coughed, and pulled herself up on her elbows. 'That was scary,' she said, in a small voice. Immediately I pulled myself off her, grabbing my steth and coming by her side. I put the ear pieces on and pressed the bell onto her breast, listening to her steady rhythms.

'It was scary for me too,' I admitted. 'I didn't want to lose you.'

She laughed, and coughed as she did. 'Bad for business?'

I couldn't bring myself to laugh along, I was still caught up in the thought of losing this magic that I had only just found.

'Well, I think it was working,' she said. 'I think I probably need more practice, though. Should we say same time next week?'

[a-witch-in-endor]

i binged mo in like 2 days omg... i feel like a walking zombie rn how am I supposed to go on AAAAAA my heart is pounding LIKE??? it gave me SOO MANY EMOTIONS CRYINGGGGG this is The Atla Fic Ever

but more importantly, I just want to say that this fic is changing my perspective on religion. im athiest, and quite honestly I've never been able to truly understand religion. I'm a strong believer in science, so religion just has never made sense to me. reading mo though, and connecting with a character who believes so deeply in his religion, and seeing how overall, religion is meant to provide guidance to understanding the world and forming morals, I feel like I've grown a lot of respect for religion in general

it's still hard for me, because a lot of my experiences with religion (or I should say, christianity/catholicism specifically- I feel like I should make it clear that I don't judge people for following religion, I just have never seen/understood the appeal) have been with people around me who are religious and therefore very homophobic or anti-abortion etc. I'm not trying to start political discourse ofc, but experiencing that consistently has not really put religion in a positive perspective for me

but reading mo and taking lots of time to think about religion in general, and how I do have friends who are religious and still supportive of lgbtq+ ppl, or who are even queer themselves, I feel like maybe I've grown as a person to become more open minded towards religion. when someone tells me they're christian, honestly I find myself closing up around them. I don't want to make it obvious I'm queer because I feel like they'll judge or disapprove. but I think that's an unfair assumption to make

I think religion, and how it ties into a people's culture and history, is beautiful. I worry that I'll always be wary around christianity, but I'll continue trying to keep an open mind. I understand now that the original beliefs of a religion and the actions of some of its followers are not one in the same, and that the teachings of a religion can call for peace while some followers ignore this. I realize that I should not judge an entire religion simply because there are some practicers who deliberately misinterpret the original teachings

I know the religions in mo are not quite the same as the ones that I am uneasy around. but nonetheless you've helped me see religion and its followers in a new light. and for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so excited to see how the story continues, thank you for taking the time to write and continue this story for as long as you have, and for helping people like me expand our worldview and become more enriched

Ah, OP, I'm really pleased to hear that it's been a meaningful experience for you. I know a lot of people have complex relationships with religion. In fact, I think anyone who doesn't have some complexity in their relationship with religion is probably a rare specimen.

Powerhouses like Christianity are hugely affected by the amount of institutional power they've enjoyed, and you know what they say about the impact of power. But there are a lot of beautiful ideas there, too. If you're ever looking for a way to encounter more than the political powerhouse of the church, I recommend reading about liberation theology - and specifically (Catholic Priest) Gustavo Gutiérrez's A Theology of Liberation.

That all being said, I don't want to undermine the fact that there's a lot to be wary of in religious tradition, especially around perspectives on gender, sexuality, and such. It is not my perspective that these things are baked into religion specifically. It's that anything that links us to the what-came-before is going to include the problems of what came before, and religion has a lot to do with tradition, so it often falls into that trap.

I just happen to also rate the part of religion which is also about being in relationship with past and future, about continuous revelation, about liberation and obligation, about living life with consciousness and constantly asking what it means to be human and what we owe ourselves, one another, and God.

Anyway, this was barely coherent, but it comes down to: thank you for sharing. :-)

[my-own-walker]

Someone You've Never Seen Before

A Kyle Spencer Fan Fiction

frat!kyle AU, fem!main character, sexual themes, mature language, use of drugs and alcohol, frat boy antics

1.

There's a beautiful simplicity in the way college students choose their seating arrangement in large lecture halls. No assigned seats. Just vibes. On the first day of class, everyone shuffles in, bleary-eyed and foreboding. The semester is fresh. There's potential. There's dread. There's an uncertainty. How will this class be? Will I find it easy? How's the professor? Is there anyone I know here?

They find a seat in an empty hall that looks appealing to them. A seat they will sit in for the rest of the semester. They go from the freedom of winter or summer break back to the confines of grades and assignments.

Some prefer the back row, some prefer the seat closest to the exit, and others prefer to stay hidden, being just another head among the sea of students. I, personally, always found myself in the middle somewhere. I could hide easier. Never the back row, though. My eyesight was too poor for that.

Calculus is easy for some. For me, an English major, not so much. I knew I would struggle horrendously in class when I sat down in the fifth row on the first day. My mind was not oriented in the realm of math. I knew dozens of papers and other writing assignments would be due in my other classes. Looking over the syllabus, it was clear that I wouldn't be able to wrap my head around derivatives and complex analysis. 

I sighed internally and opened my notebook, preparing for the worst. It was the fall semester of my third year at Tulane, and it snuck up on me, truly. 

The school wasn't large. Class sizes weren't huge, so it was hard to hide, but I sure as hell tried. I thought I did a pretty good job of being unknown. I was born and raised in a small town near Salem, Massachusetts. I grew up in the kind of neighborhood you'd see in movies. Victorian-style houses painted with bright colors, trees lining the streets that would turn shades of orange in the fall. We'd get some pretty cold weather and tons of snow in the winter. I basically existed in only Doc Martens, oversized corduroy jackets, sweaters, and baggy jeans.

That upbringing put me in a weird position in New Orleans. I liked to think of my town and Nola as sister cities. They had the old-world charm of small main streets lined with shops and the kind of architecture that made you think you'd stepped back in time. I was a pretty smart kid, so Tulane was enticing due to its low acceptance rate and similarity to my hometown. I got in with my high SAT scores and GPA. My scholarship essentially gave me a full ride. It seemed like the perfect place for me. I didn't anticipate just how out of place I'd feel.

For one, the weather never dipped below 50 degrees, even in the winter. It was more humid there, as well. I suffered a fashion crisis, knowing I couldn't rely on large jackets for comfort. I moved as far away as I did to get out of the small-town rut. Everyone I knew went to UMass or Boston. Tulane was a new start. As time passed, though, Tulane became just another small town to me.

Everyone knew everyone. No one was above petty drama, not even me. News about social matters got around quickly. There was no class I joined that I didn't know a single person in. As much as I wanted to disappear, I easily got swept up into things. For example, I wasn't one to engage in the school's Greek activities. But even then I still went to their parties to get drunk, which meant I rubbed shoulders with almost every frat bro and sorority girl on campus. I would always be home by midnight, though.

Greek life was the lifeblood of Tulane; the thing that kept the social scene going. Everyone was involved. Everyone. I refused out of defiance, but even my closest friend and roommate, Lily, was in a sorority. I wasn't particularly interested in paying to have friends, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Lily and I met freshman year. I put in an application for a random roommate pairing; an unintended consequence of me knowing no one at Tulane. I got extremely lucky, though. The housing department paired me with Lily Davies, an education major with dreams of one day teaching kindergarteners. She had pin straight blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and a bright smile. Despite how innocent she sounded, Lily was the sickest son of a bitch I'd ever met, and I loved it.

She was a crop-top-and-leggings-wearing-bastard with the sickest sense of humor. She was wild and witty with a sunny disposition. She blurred the lines of the dichotomy between popular and weird. Lily was a Louisiana-native, born and raised in Lafayette. Tulane was also her way of getting away from people from her high school (who had mostly gone to U of Louisiana Lafayette). 

Our friendship was the only reason I survived at school. Lily would force me to leave the dorm and socialize. There was a standing, open-invite to any of her sorority events for me. I rarely ever went, but it was nice to not be alone all the time. 

After freshman year, Lily and I moved into an off-campus, two-bedroom apartment. Both of us had no problem footing the bill, as my scholarship and her in-state status made school itself cheap for us. She had the opportunity to move into the Pi Phi house, but she declined out of respect for me, knowing I'd have to find another random roommate again. There was a small chance that it would work out as well as it did the first time. I felt bad being the thing stopping Lily from branching out, but she swore she didn't mind, and that she'd "rather live with The One And Only Hannah Martin."

She balanced me. She was the pop-music to my indie-records. The Nike to my Converse. The silver to my gold. You get it. 

Two years of school went by in a flash. By sticking my head in the books, only emerging for occasional social time, I managed to forget to "cherish my youth," as old people would say. Another thing that snuck up on me was my math requirement. I needed one math class to graduate. Most English majors try to get it done in their freshman year to get it out of the way. I, instead, prolonged my dread until I couldn't any longer. 

As I surfaced out of my sea of thoughts, I noticed the lecture hall had filled up quite decently. I took stock of who was in the class, rolling my eyes inwardly at some. Archie Brener. What a loser. The professor stood at the front of the room, shuffling through his papers, just two minutes until he was due to start the lecture.

The number of people filing in had dwindled significantly, and the seat next to me was still not occupied. I celebrated internally, happy that I would get more legroom and a chair to throw my bag onto. My elation was short-lived, though, as the hall's door swung open with a crash, and a blonde-haired boy rushed in to grab the first open seat he could see. I whipped my head around to see what the noise was about as Kyle Spencer rounded the chairs and rushed down the stairs, eyes scanning the crowd. Despite his rush, he made a point to fist-bump Archie as he passed him. Of course, he chose to sit in the seat next to mine. 

He sat with a huff and hurriedly unzipped his backpack, pulling out an already-crumpled notebook. I tried not to stare, but the last time I had seen him, he was streaking through the Kappa Lambda Gamma house. I averted my gaze when his naked form ran past me, but I had already seen too much of him and his "brothers."

"I nearly didn't make it," Kyle panted next to me, clearly catching his breath from running here. "I read it wrong. Thought this class was in another building." I looked over to see who he was talking to. It quickly dawned on me that he was talking to me. 

"Oh, uh, haha," I replied awkwardly. He leaned forward in his seat again, returning to fumbling through his bag. I returned my gaze to my notebook and began to idly draw some flowers in the corner of the blank page before me. I felt someone tap my shoulder, though.

"Sorry," Kyle whispered, "but do you have a pencil? I can't believe I forgot mine." He laughed shyly to punctuate the end of his question. I nodded and reached into my own bag, producing a brand new no. 2 pencil for him to use and abuse. 

"You can keep it," I murmured. It was about to be a long semester.

Next Part

[outofangband]

Some thoughts of mine I expand upon from previous notes, about Niënor and Morwen and food post Nírnaeth

Note: This is not meant to be a world building post about what food could potentially be available based on the environment and the skills of the house however, I do have one that I’m working on and as always please feel free to ask more

Second note: Anyways just something always on my mind. My upcoming revision of my post on trauma and hunger will go more into Aerin and the other captive Hadorians! Please feel free to ask more, it’s something I’ve done a lot of research on and think about a lot

I think a lot about the physical and psychological effects of hunger on the Hadorians during the occupation including Morwen and Niënor ! I had some thoughts scribbled on a recent post but I wanted to expand. The the physiological consequences alone! Long-term hunger and starvation or food insecurity has physical, physiological and psychological consequences, especially for children. Each deprivation of an essential area of food leads to different symptoms from headaches and chronic pain to neurological symptoms and severe fatigue. And as Morwen is persecuted as a witch she isn’t really able to seek easy medical treatment (not that she would want to anyways). This makes her worry for Niënor even more acute. If her daughter falls ill, as I’ve talked about, Morwen’s options are very limited

I think about how hard Morwen must have worked to get the food she did with help from Aerin of course (Sador says she helped often though it’s difficult to know exactly how often) because Niënor grew tall!! Kids who grow up with severe hunger often don’t grow properly! Which makes me think that like literally the moment that Niënor wasn’t breastfeeding anymore and therefore wasn’t reliant on Morwen’s physical condition quite as much, Morwen was sacrificing a lot!

(Random thoughts about this at the end with regards to Aerin by the way)

I had wondered if Tolkien might just have overlooked that but he actually describes the physical consequences of prolonged starvation in the Wanderings really really well! And yeah I think Morwen was giving up a lot and it probably had lasting physical consequences for her. But even then Niënor grew up hungry a lot, definitely to the point where she stopped registering hunger and had a lot of difficulty regulating at first when she first got to Doriath

There’s also like the fact that Niënor likely grew up without being able to take joy and food very often, which Is very under looked at, but an extremely important part of food insecurity. The joy the people taken food is one of the most important aspect of it, as well as such an important part of so many cultures. Culture suffers under occupation, both the native culture of the Hadorians and immigrant cultures like Morwen’s. Even when it’s not intentionally being suppressed, simple lack of resources prevents people from being able to observe customs of dress, food and others. I think a lot about how the significant differences in environments between Hithlum and Dorthonion meant that Morwen was unable to recreate certain meals and that in itself is a source of loss*. But post Nírnaeth there are even less resources and Niënor had even less knowledge of Bëorian food than Túrin did

I don’t imagine Niënor’s childhood as completely devoid of anything remotely positive (though a lot of positive things for her were I think atypical and things she looked back on with more complex feelings in Doriath) and there were times when they had the right ingredients to make things she enjoyed (though whenever this came from Aerin, as soon as Niënor was old enough to understand, there was that element of bitterness to it, it’s hard to enjoy food when you know that the person who gave it to you will be beaten for it and of course Morwen always understood this)

Also I know I keep referencing this but I must once again talk about how Glaurung’s theft of Niënor’s memories involved such devastating cultural loss!

Because no one specific is denying Niënor food the psychological consequences won’t all be the same but there’s still a lot of overlap with my posts about food in Angband!

(Those will obviously be even more severe for the Hadorians who were kept as thralls, as I go into on my general post about food and complex trauma; we know from the fact that Aerin was secretly feeding and sheltering Sador and others that food was dependent on how useful one was to their captors and that people who were disabled or elderly were denied food. Chapter three of the Narn too says they were left to starve. Among the thralls, similar attitudes and culture appear to Angband; food is scarce and controlled that it acts as a divide, a source of rivalries and even betrayal. On the other hand people risk punishment to share food with others as we know from canon. People steal food for the ill or for children, plant things in secret, and hide the wares they labor for but are not allowed to own.)

Again I have a whole post about that kind of thing so I won’t go into it more here but yeah

That mindset of never knowing if you’ll have enough to eat the next day stays with you as do the habits formed from it.

And Aerin finds herself at the center of a lot of these things

Niënor is probably hyper aware of the food she has and doesn’t have for the rest of her life. She might even hoard food in Doriath, keeping it in her pockets, just for assurance. Perhaps the memory of hunger survives the removal of her memories. She was alone and starving in the wild for some time and the feelings of hunger do not register because her body is still used to them or alternatively, the pain is unbearable because the memory of hunger as something ever present and often pushed down has alyso been taken from her

In Doriath Morwen counsels her not to accept more than they need and in this Niënor obeys her in all except with food.

Morwen alternatively experienced hunger as a child after the Bragollach. She became used to it for awhile and I want to make a separate post about the physical aspects of her coming to Hithlum

Post Nírnaeth, hunger, like exhaustion becomes so ever present that she does not pay it any mind. And like exhaustion it takes a toll on her even when she feels used to it. Morwen knows this of course. She has seen people starve to death or collapse from exertion, unable to stand again. But there is no remedy for it and so she will choose the dangerous and false comfort of becoming used to it over the ever present distress of noticing.

Her health suffers. She has more headaches, is more prone to distraction. She still pushes herself too hard. She builds traps with Sador. Most hunting of rabbits and birds is easier farther from the house but this is often too dangerous. Even in the Narn we know that they must not travel too far from the house (I actually have a fic where Morwen and Sador are,..confronted, shall we say, while setting traps for rabbits)

She saves whatever seeds she can, stores broth from bones and roots. Eggs and flour are a luxury. It’s difficult to swallow the food she knows Aerin suffers for and that she was loath to accept in the first place.

(I think that regardless of/in addition to Morwen’s pride, the idea that helping you not starve is a crime with the punishment of violent abuse has got to get to you on so many levels)

Morwen doesn’t hoard food in Doriath but she’s absolutely keeping track of it, both for similar reasons to Niënor and because of her discomfort with accepting the hospitality of Melian and Thingol. She’s hyper aware of everything she (is forced to, in her mind, at least in part) accept. These traumas are intertwined just as her pride and grief are.

*I also have a post about this!

End of post rambling notes:

Random thought, warning for mentions of abuse and misogyny:it’s so pathetic that Brodda builds his new house by Húrin and Morwen’s old one but only after Morwen has left. I mean obviously it’s probably good it was only after that but it’s still pathetic. I do imagine he settles somewhat close, not enough to see the house but close enough to ride to based on information in chapter four of Morwen being brought information by his prisoners. Also I imagine a lot of their animals weren’t kept on the actual property given that he stole them but we know he wouldn’t go near the house. Semi related post about Aerin I’ll link for my own organization but yeah Aerin specifically being punished for helping Morwen is such a disturbing detail to me and I think/write a lot about it. It’s that Morwen is hated and feared and Brodda’s enemy (despite not having like, done anything to him outside his imagination) and he considers Aerin his possession, it’s two violent forms of misogyny entwined. Aerin helping Morwen is treason, it undermines Brodda’s ownership of the objects and livestock and it undermines his ownership of her*. I was wondering if he might enjoy the narrative of Morwen having power so he could enjoy taking it but given how he treats other women and how he never harms Morwen personally, I think he actually is scared of her at least also. But it’s such a dangerous fear (why I have so many fics and aus exploring it including with slander for a blade which actually has dialogue for him…though I guess the end of this piece too does, and a lot of privately posted ones do too…

*In HIS mind obviously

End of post notes: hey look I almost made an entire post about post Nírnaeth Morwen without rambling about her being called a witch so I just have to say: I cannot stress enough that Morwen Eledhwen, wife of Húrin, survivor of the Dagor Bragollach, is canonically accused of witchcraft because of her severity and beauty. She scares away the very servants of Morgoth by looking at them. “Witchwife they called her and shunned her”, etc !! They shunned her which means she was largely left alone (“after the first inroads, Morwen was let be” but she still lived in fear of violence for two decades and lived knowing that others were hurt for not abandoning her:(

Anyways :) feel free to ask more

[rriavian]

May Inrequest 2 and 20 from the "Love your Fandom" post? (:

Thank you for your questions! <3

2 a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like! 

Really had to think about this one! Usually my head canons stick pretty close to the source material, even when they diverge, or fill in extra bits, I always see them as extrapolations. Like flowers sprouting from the same tree.

I think this fits with something @aisalynn and I spoke about the other night though. So I used to have a lot of trouble seeing the Corinthian as in any way submissive, even pre rebellion/dreamer killing (though I have to admit rewatching episode 1 and seeing him instantly dropping to his knees when Dream found him gave me Thoughts). The Corinthian’s motivations in canon seem too bound up in striving for agency, and proving that he has it, doing everything he can to keep it, so I really struggled to see him letting that go in a sexual context. Especially with the one being the Corinthian has tried so hard to gain independence from.

Which I think is clear in Baiting the Trap (though even there it’s still quite complex) because I have a very specific preference for balancing dynamics when I write them.

I'm very much a never say never kind of writer though, and I'm not really a fan of strict binary's in sex/power play anyway. And I did have a lot of fun testing a switch of positions in Sweetening the Deal! That fic came about from me being like ‘ok, if the Corinthian would allow it then how?’ and extrapolating out from there. I really enjoyed what I could explore with the change in angle. Over time I’ve softened towards it a lot more, willing to swing further in that direction, but really it’s all about character voice for me. As I said to aisalynn, I like to see the Corinthian keep his bite ;)

20 your very first fandom!

I think Sandman is the first one that I’d count as a fandom I’ve actively been a part of. Though I’ve been reading fic (and sometimes writing it) for a long time for a lot of different fandoms it’s more been me lurking haha. 

To name a few of them though—over the years I’ve dipped into Merlin, Once Upon a Time, Star Wars, The Legend of Vox Machina, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Stargate (SG1 and Atlantis). As well as Supernatural, but though I read quite a bit of fic in the beginning I have to admit most of my recent interaction with it has been entirely against my will :)

[mdhwrites]

Honestly I’m also Kinda Sasha Waybright fan and personally She’s mostly one of the main reasons I wanted to finish Amphibia to it’s end.

To me she and Grime were kinda an inverse to Zuko and Iroh and sorta became one of my favorite Animated Duos. I enjoyed Anne but Sasha’s character arc and growth was SO INTERESTING TO ME!!

I also always saw Boscha as wasted potential really but I usually blame the Owl House’s cancellation most of the time. Honestly I kinda wanted Amity, Luz and Boscha to have been the show’s Girl Trio in my head. Mostly cause I was inspired by fanfiction.

*vibrates intensely* I... I kind of wonder if you actually know me and don't realize because as far as I understand, I'm the only Lumischa writer out there and one of the rare writers who tries to really do a lot with Boscha in a positive way. Regardless, as always, I did a stupidly long story called The Power of Love that focused on Amity, Luz and Boscha.

ANYWAYS, to the main thrust: Sasha and Anne are honestly the two who compete for the best character in Amphibia for me. Anne for just being so likable and having such a slow, complex but understated arc while Sasha has ALL THE CHARISMA and an extremely compelling arc in her own right. I do love you mentioning Grime and Sasha being a reverse Zuko/Iroh because there's a lot of truth to that.

In Avatar, Iroh was always the peace in Zuko's mind. The one pulling him away from war and more destructive methods. Ozai acted as a counter. Distant but so vividly powerful in Zuko's mind that it took literally an entire season for him to start breaking away from him, even longer to break entirely.

Grime on the other hand is the one whispering ambitions into Sasha's ear... But also only once Sasha has reignited the flames within Grime by showing that he's not at his pinnacle yet. So with their dynamic, you have the old dog learning new tricks to use and hurt people while Sasha is actually the constant who is goading Grime into doing worse and worse. Her own ambitions make the analogy not entirely work but the two are genuinely good for each other to push them to be better... But terrible for each other's morality. One adds the power of a manipulator, the other adds the calculus of war and cold, hard strategy. These aren't bad things to know of but dangerous for one another when taken too far.

Much like a balance wasn't struck immediately for Zuko though, Sasha's moral balance didn't start pressing on her right until S3. Anne was always her positive example after all but she never had the power or place within Sasha to change her. Not until Sasha gave her a reason to listen. As Grime's ambitions are tied to Sasha for having inspired him multiple times, when she changes, so does he. It's really interesting and genuinely complex and SO TASTY! AH!

Amphibia good and I really wish more people talked about just how good its arcs are instead of only ever giving that to TOH because *takes a sharp breath in* I have talked many a time before how the cracks in TOH's structure and writing go as far back as S1 and that the cancellation should not be blamed for its shortcomings for little is excused by it.

But that is a blog for another time. Or you can go back and try to find those old blogs about it (I have one literally titled why S3 could never have been great) and originally I wished luck on finding that but someone liked it so I could get a link easily. XD

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[rikilouvre]

runway

genre : angst/romance, rollercoaster, fluff in some parts

word count : 3.8k

notes : non-idol/luxury life au, rich ceo ! enhypen jay, rich girl / model ! reader, featuring lee heeseung ! jay's bestfriend, bestfriend was once referred to as the "sidekick" heeseung stans calm down this is just fiction, swearing, very very heavy tension about battle of dominance, drinking mentioned (drink responsibly), just an experimental flow for a story, romantic bickering <3

summary : in a big runway show, you caught a handsome young ceo's attention and he seems to be wanting to do anything to make you lend your attention to him.

a/n : the other one i posted was just a trope ahajahsha this is the real story, enjoy! 🌼

+ alternate endings will be up soon, stay tuned!

++ just analyzed the story again, you could see the fake iMessages i'm gonna cry 😭💀 yeah i only used an app i have an Android but i'll do better next fic!

playlist : park jongseong ft. lee heeseung – runway

[ 6:55PM ] – you lit your phone to check the time while heading to the runway studio inside the huge luxurious fashion complex you're in. you look around and everything is, gold, though you weren't surprised at all since this is all you've been seeing even before you became a model yourself.

fame and wealth go way back when your mom earned a position as a fashion director in a prestigious clothing line. now you're on your own – attending photoshoots and getting promotions and offers as an ambassadress of a specific clothing item from every clothing line you could think of. rich AND pretty, wow. you own it all. and you know it damn well. though it's not all champagnes and limousines – you have also been set ridiculously unrealistic standards to be able to keep up with what you've set foot on. these thoughts go around your head everyday and everytime they can, and unfortunately these thoughts made you bump in to a young well-dressed man on the large hallway out of absentmindedness.

"shit- i'm so sorry miss, are you okay?" he hurriedly grabbed the purse that fell onto the ground, but with your paranoid mindset, you snatched it from him as a defense mechanism. you breathe and compose yourself better before speaking. "my apologies...? you are?" "oh, park jongseong. call me jay." he extended his hand as a sign for you to shake it. you hesitated and gave him a look and his friend beside him before finally holding his hand. "your friend?" you gestured at the tall boy who dresses neatly the same as jay. "oh, this is my friend. heeseung." you just bowed to him 'cause, well, you just did. he was also extending his hand when you ignored it and bowed down to him, making him fluster and pull his hand back. heeseung let out an awkward chuckle when jay finally spoke : "well, we must be meeting someone at the entrance before the runway show starts right about now. see you there, miss...?" "_____." "yes, miss _____." jay excused himself and nodded before heeseung abruptly imitates him and walked towards the entrance. "hmm." you muttered to yourself.

[ 7:00PM ] – "the show will start in 15 minutes." the speaker announced. you find your reserved seat, but the chair beside you piqued your interest instead. reserved for park jongseong. while the seat beside his had a reserved for lee heeseung place card with gold trim on it. it's a small world, after all.

a few minutes have passed, you saw the two walk towards their reserved seats beside you with your peripheral vision but they stopped mid-track when jay saw you. "miss _____? so glad to meet you again." he bowed down to you like you're a rich ajumma while you just flashed them a smile. he hovered big steps for him and heeseung to be able to sit shortly since they were supposed to sit on the opposite side of where they entered.

at this point, you were starting to try so hard to not have an interest in him but just his scent alone that whiffed on you when he passed by is trying to prove you otherwise. his hair done with a wet-look was enough for you to have the courage and ask for his number. and, you were thanking heavens because : "miss _____, i've been meaning to give you this since the moment we bumped into each other 5 minutes ago." he hands you a business card : 'euphorica'. park jongseong, CEO. for business inquiries, contact this number.

your eyes widen to his actions because you swore to yourself you were mentally asking for his number a second ago. "i want you in my company for an ambassadress tryout. you fit the standard – in fact – you are the standard. you can call the number stated there if you're interested." he continued.

"thanks for the recommendation, jay." you analyzed the place card once more before continuing, "i wasn't aware i was talking to a top-notch ceo." surprised, you raised your brows with an impressed smile. you didn't even know where you're pulling all this charisma from. you're just a model, he's a full-on ceo. if there was something you think you needed to do, it was to polish his already-polished $5k shoes and serve him. but no, you're a composed woman for the night. no flirting, no acts, just you and the love of your life – modelling.

even with the background music playing, you could hear heeseung's loud whispers at jay, "dude, that girl is the deal. you should pull another stunt like getting her a drink at the bartender section later if you really want her to call you." you weren't sure of who they were talking about 'til the last bit. or are you? how could you possibly know if he didn't just give around his business card to random hot girls roaming around the complex? he looked like a playboy, that's for sure. along with his sidekick, bestfriend, or whatever. who knows? he might even be a scam or a fraud! honestly, you thought to yourself that you sometimes need to give everyone a break. you won't be able to communicate with ANYONE if you always think they're all a threat. you let your guards down just this once and let the man entertain you, that is IF heeseung and jay really were talking about you. you distracted yourself with your phone for a bit by scrolling on instagram and not long the show is already starting.

[ 7:15PM ] – "please give a huge round of applause for : euphorica." everybody clapped their hands – including mr. park jongseong beside you who only appeared 10x more charming than before. jay slowly leaned to you, "watch closely, okay? then tell me which outfits you would like to wear during photoshoot so i can choose them for you if you're interested." "surely." you nodded, giving him an assuring smile. "after, we could have a drink at the bar, up there, the rooftop." he gave you that expression with an eyebrow raised and a knowingly smirk, leaving you visibly flustered. he snickered at your expression in return, then leaned back to his seat to whisper something at heeseung. "is this guy seriously flirting with me? if so, he clearly knows his way around girls. hmm, let's see who's better at it." you thought to yourself. you crossed your arms and legs as you watched the show.

every few outfits, he asks you if you fancy them ��� sometimes yes, sometimes no – but it's the nature of fashion; some will fail miserably and some will pass everybody's standards. he wraps his arm around heeseung's chair while heeseung is leaning forward – his elbows resting on his knees – siren eyes intensely staring at whatever his eyes dart on, face down eyes up.

[ 8:45PM ] – the runway show ended with a few different brands showing off their newbie collection. turns out euphorica is just some kind of an opening remark and that everyone else is starting off fresh in the fashion industry.

jay stood up, heeseung stretched after sitting for a full hour, you checked your things inside your purse idly. jay offers his hand to you, "have you made up your mind, miss _____? rooftop drink." you pause for a second to think of the possible aftermath – broken heart? empty bank vault? ruined reputation? or a really good night after this? you finally made up your mind, "if the drinks are on you, then let's go." you placed your hand on top of his and now he clasped on it. "never thought i'd still be thirdwheeling with all the money and power that i have." heeseung yawned, earning a laugh from jay and a mischievous chuckle from you. you three stepped inside the elevator with platinum buttons and a huge interior with elevator mirrors all around.

"it's not even been a full day and you're already taking the lady to the vip bar." heeseung intentionally stated in a subtle way as he whistles and looks around the elegant elevator like he hasn't stepped inside it before. jay, for the first time that you've seen tonight, was confused at first, but then got embarrassed by heeseung's words later on. he lets out a nervous slash awkward chuckle as he prompts his stance properly – no slouching and bad posture. "no worries, i know my way around boys. i'm sure i can handle whatever stunt mr. jongseong here would throw at me." heeseung gave jay a side-eye – indicating that both have already realized that you've heard what they were talking about before the runway show started. "honestly not expecting for you to be as good as you are in this game, jay. bumping into a girl in a 20ft wide half-empty hallway. how ridiculous." you taunted him to see if he would budge.

from being a mannered gentleman, he started to act like an immature playboy – except his statements made sense. he scoffed, "...you really think i did that on purpose? maybe you're just too assuming for someone who bumped into us." he looked directly at you. "why the sudden change of demeanor, mr. handsome ceo?" you leaned a little closer to him, the tension rising rapidly as heeseung just watches you both interestedly on the corner left side of the elevator near the door. "so you admit i'm handsome?" he, once again, raises his brow at you along with his infamous smirk. "i only tell people what they want to hear." you clapped back.

"wHOOOO! GO RANT THE SHIT OUT OF JAY OVER HERE!" heeseung cheers you out of nowhere, waving his fist up in the air while screaming and clapping inside the enclosed space. you broke into laughter, "oh my god, you're SO funnier than jay over here-" you abruptly chuckled when you saw jay's face – scrunched up nose, squinted eyes, smiling lips – does he like being made fun of? oh what the hell. all that matters is that heeseung was there to cut the tension off of everyone inside the elevator. speaking of elevator, the conversation made it feel like you've been inside for a really long time when it's just been less than a minute.

the door opens, once again, jay extends his elbow for you to hold on to. would you look at that – a guy who can both be ass AND be respectful towards ladies – there's something about him that's making you think about your decision regarding his tryout offer. and he was the one to personally reach out to you. he made you feel important and lucky just by being an accommodating ceo from who-knows-where. so then, what if he was to be your suitor? wait. everything seems too fast, let the man get you a drink first and see how he acts towards you outside of the fashion field before making your decision, as a person who's interested in someone.

the rooftop welcomed you with a cool breeze and rainbow lights everywhere. the night skies building the atmosphere of a chill night and the cityview which you won't ever forget when you leaned on the glass pane fence of the edges of the rooftop. the tiny lights in buildings and the way they all looked so tiny, the heavy traffic with blurbs of red, orange, and yellow, the booming bass of the dj's songs making the atmosphere very much like a club's, and how this random ceo brought you here for a drink just because you caught his eye. all this feeling and mesmerizing happiness inside you just makes everything so memorable and gets you in the feels so much.

"what would you like to drink, _____?" jongseong walked up behind your back and gently pat you on the shoulder, his other hand inside his pocket. you squint your eyes as a sign of distaste coming out of nowhere, "where's heeseung?" he scoffed without any humour and lifted his hand away from your shoulder. "why?" he responded while you answered with a "nothing, do simple questions like that hurt your ego?" he then gave you a shady response, "you want me to give him a call so i can tell him to pick you up and act like his puppy?" you completely turned to him, crossing your arms as you glare at him – even though you were feeling every inch of your body be filled with anger 'cause of jay who referred to you as someone's puppy, you still found a tiny opportunity of pissing him off even more "why are you mad, then? you mad i'm gonna like heeseung more than you and your whole night of trying to pull something from me AND me will go to waste?" you gave jay a smirk to top it all off.

jay was waiting for you to say something else, hands in his pockets and tapping his foot, his eyebrow raised. now you really can't see anything in him, you can't read him if he's being serious or he's thinking of a comeback like the ass that he is, 'cause his serious face is on for a tough second now. you broke the silence into a gentle laughter as you placed your hands on his chest, you had to slightly tilt your head and neck up so you can look at him face-to-face, "i'm kidding, jay. ofcourse i'm having fun with this.. game or bachelorette shit suitor whatever you want to call it." you gave him an assuring smile then he gave back that assuring smile you just gave him. he placed his hands on your shoulders, "i'm glad to know that, i wouldn't want to waste my money on drinks for someone with no taste." jay gave you a silly expression, raising his brows up and down with his eyes squinted and his mouth forming a grin. you laughed at the sight and gave him playful slaps. "what are you doing?" you asked him in the middle of your laughing fits with him.

you both sat on an empty table. "no but i'm serious though, where's heeseung?" you attempted to ask again before hearing : "no but i was also serious earlier, what would you like to drink?" now that you finally put your mind to it, you're lost in what to drink. it's been such a long time since you drank and the last time someone asked you what you wanted to drink. "hmm i'm thinking, soju? grapefruit flavor... i want to keep things plain tonight." he paused before finally answering your question : "heeseung's there." he pointed from afar, near the bartender where heeseung was animatedly talking to a fashionable lady and a man who were seemingly of high ranks as well.

"i see," you subconsciously spoke, "if you don't mind me asking, i mean, you probably won't since we're getting to know each other; how did you become a CEO? what's heeseung's rank status and how did you two become friends?" jay inhaled then sighed heavily, "i'll tell once i take our drinks." he clicked his tongue and walked towards the bartender. but, he came back to you midway and placed his hands on the table, leaning towards you,

"are you gonna be okay here? alone?" this question made your heart race. never have your boyfriends you've dated in the past gave you this kind of persona where they subtly care, let alone just act like it. then, you burst out a chuckle, "uh, ofcourse i am? you and heeseung could literally see if i'm not. but thank you for asking, jay." you placed your hand on his as he lifted his other hand and placed it on top of yours. he gave you a very simple but heartmelting smile you'll ever remember. he walked away again, then turned back to you again.

"so sorry to ruin the mood for the both of us – me walking away while you sit here being in your feels 'cause of earlier, but i forgot your drink." you both shared a good minute of laughing and bickering, "jay, soju. grapefruit flavor." jay walked away once again, laughing to himself while you adoringly watched him. "that guy." you happily muttered under your breath, shaking your head.

[ 9:00PM ] – you checked the time right before you saw jay approach your table. a few seconds after he sat on his chair, a waiter approaches you both with the drinks on the tray. "one soju grapefruit and one brandy on the rocks." the waiter gently places the drinks one by one onto the table, next the napkins, then excused himself. "so, tell me everything." you took a sip and let out a sigh. "well, this is how everything started. seung and i, we go way back. cliche to say, i know, but back to the topic.

back then he's already a son of a remarkable man – a ceo, the owner of this complex. so he had an insight on how industry works." his statement earned a silent 'wow' from you. "we attended the same classes, being in the same circle of friends 'til it's just the two of us, we did everything together, even convincing my dad to let me stay up all night. pft, elementary days. anyway, we eventually graduated both. he was already an owner of a small business back in highschool 'til it grew into the famous brand we all know – chanel." wow. freaking chanel. at first, you weren't even believing his words 'cause of how ridiculously expensive everything sounds. "you gotta be kidding- chanel? the dress i'm wearing right now?" jay quietly nodded. you leaned back on your seat, keeping an anguished face. man, you're on the high leagues now.

"that was highschool, i only earned the title of being a ceo the day i graduated college – you know, dynasty. ofcourse i was experienced in dealing with everything a ceo does since my dad was one, and he's the one to teach me marketing strategies and such. but not as much as seung. he was literally the one to run everything, with his own hands, power, and ideas." jay holds his glass by the rim and starts to circle it around, mixing the melted ice with the brandy. "so, i really don't know how to react when people think i'm the superior one between us. maybe it's because he just looks goofy and acts so humble all the time. but if i'm being honest, i look up to heeseung a lot." a hint of admiration appears on your face. "wow, they must be really inseparable" you thought to yourself. "don't let him know that, though. that might egg him and mess with me about it for a few weeks. so, in short – heeseung is a sidekick-in-disguise. we become each other's wingman at times. just don't like it sometimes when he calls me out infront someone. so spiritually degrading."

you almost choked on your drink when he said the last bit in the middle of you sipping. "you two really act like brothers, that's for sure." he lets out a mischievous laughter, "yeah, right." the night was greatly spent with the both of you getting to know each other, with a few drinks being consumed due to elongated conversations. heeseung eventually joined the table and had a fun chat with you and jongseong. ahh, a thirdwheeler indeed.

come to think of it, everything is actually happening very fast – you just met this guy, now you're both sharing precious moments in a rooftop bar. it's like everything clicked just perfectly and now you're rolling with it 'cause it feels right. jay's kind too, you know. he really seemed much of a sarcastic jerk at times but, it just comes with his personality which is pretty unique and humorous. he knows when to joke and when to stop. and that's when you realized, you have interest in him.

the night ended with heeseung saying his goodbyes to you and jay before taking off in his limo and jay booking you an uber to your house. if you were honest, you wanted him to take you to your home personally since you have drank. though, he had too. it wouldn't be the best for him to drive since you could already see his tipsiness with the way he walks swaying his body to an unknown rhythm.

"thank you for tonight, jay. this is really memorable. and, i might take you up on your offer regarding the photoshoot tryout." you held up his business card he gave you to his face. "i had a good talk with you too, ms. _____. i have hopes in us meeting again, about business or not." he winked at you. you snickered at him 'cause he probably did that 'cause he was drunk... right? anyway, you gracefully sat inside the uber and said your goodbye to jongseong.

euphorica. where fashion has no limits. you scanned the business card he gave you and typed the digits in your phone. then the moment of silence with your driver went on 'til you came home. every lights you see on the streets looked brighter and happier, everything was colorful and your heart was jumping – looking back to everything that happened tonight. guess letting your guards down for tonight was a really great idea than you expected.

[ 2:00AM ] you're in your pajamas laying in your bed, staring at the ceiling of your high-end condominium. you couldn't sleep despite all the bottles of soju you consumed. all this insomnia made you finally decide about jay's offer. you tapped the saved number 'euphorica' on your phone. there, you started a chat.

"did this dude really just confess to me in his business number? wow. this man," you muttered to yourself. "i might change my mind just 'cause of his unprofessionalism..." you pause to yourself, "but... he really isn't the type to rush things. i mean... if he wanted to rush then he would've told me the story, right? right?" you catch yourself lacking. you were talking to yourself. *crying emoji* but in reality, you were right. who knew? maybe he just found you really pretty FOR his fashion collection. not as a potential girlfriend. but what's important for you at this moment is that, your career is now ongoing under fashionable mr. jongseong's hold. you finally drifted to sleep after closure.

킅.

[cutegirlmayra]

Kingdom Hearts Story - Larxene/Elrena

For some reason, after learning about this character, my creative juices just starting thinking of what it must have been like in her shoes... In a weird sense, this is probably my typical ‘I want the girl to be with the guy she likes’ bleeding heart like with Amy Rose, and seeing potential in characters like that. Namine is also a character that interests me, but I’ve written a little about her before. She probably will pop up in this write up, but this is mostly to go through Larxene’s storyline, I’m thinking... wasn’t she sort of... keeping an eye on Lauriam as a memory-lost Marluxia? Yes, she has a crush, but also--She doesn’t seem to have lost her memory when talking to Sora about being ‘Along for the ride’, maybe her loyalty to her ‘union leader’ was that strong?

Anyway, I found it oddly romantic of her, even though she teased Sora about being a ‘Hero complex’ about saving Namine, I think somewhere deep down inside... she was trying to save Marluxia too, and just getting frustrated with it.

Prompt:

“I... I really shouldn’t be going.” She tried to resist, she really did. These dumb-brained, righteous union leaders were spouting out nonsense she didn’t understand, but it sounded like end-of-the-world stuff...

She was so scared... but when his eyes looked so sweetly to hers, and bade her to go and take the lifeboat... She found it hard to resist her heart.

Being laid in that thing was stuffy and intolerable. She squirmed but tried to lay her head back and close her eyes...

‘What in the world am I doing?’ she wondered to herself, ‘I should be dead along with all the other Data ghosts in there... I’m just some girl, some keyblade weider with no real significance... Why are they all determined to save me?’ she felt a sense of imposter syndrome creeping into her heart.

She put a hand to it, rubbing it lightly and wishing she could hold her Chirithy one last time... she didn’t mean to yell at it, it was only trying to expose how she really felt. Goodness knows she couldn’t do that on her own.

She really had wanted to help him... he looked... so distraught and unrelenting in his stress... to see how much he loved his sister... she only wanted to be useful to him.

To soften time’s ticking clock... she would have loved to sit there on those steps a second longer... where the artificial world’s sunlight on his fluffy, pink hair still gave her real enough feelings to strive after finding clues for his sister...

“I’m a hopeless romantic now?” She whined out, annoyed with herself as she tried to lift her knees and then place them down more properly... still fidgeting.

When the machine began to whirl, a sharp breath stifled all other thoughts, and she looked around the windshield-looking capsule for any clue as to what was happening.

She closed her eyes and forced her head back into position against the steely container... ‘Please, Light.’ she thought to herself, ‘Don’t let something bad happen to him... to them... to us...’ She hadn’t really felt like an ‘us’, she was so far separated from the others...

Just some dumb girl following after her heart...

What a loser...

There was a flash of brilliant light then, she felt herself get rushed through it like pixels through streams of rays.

When she awoke, she felt weak, laying on the rocks of a cliff with rain pouring over her. His last words hung on her mind... but other than that... she could only recall the faint traces of memory... And the beating of her heart? Where had that gone?

She groaned, picking herself up and touching her head, “Augh... Oh!” she raised a hand to the rain. At first, she had honestly thought she woke in a cold sweat, but this was clearly another world.

“Ah! Ohh!” she saw some vultures swirling around her and batted them away as they tried to make a dive for her, flapping away at her swinging arms before some pebbles underneath her crumbled and she was forced backwards.

Sliding down the opposite way from the cliff, she heard the thunder quake a mighty guitar’s string, her hands flung up to grip anything around her, as the vultures perched and smirked in hopes of their new, lastest meal after the evil queen...

Her eyes squinted through the rain and pain,... “Laur-...” flying a moment back before lighting struck the ground and she hit her head... blanking out.

No one to save her... no one should even care.

She was a nobody...

That’s all she’d ever be...

She blinked her eyes open to a mysterious figure in a hooded cloak above her, black as the night. The sleek of his fabric shined with the flash of thunderous lightning…

‘... How did he find me..?’ she wondered, ‘Is this... where I die..?’ he stood with his hands behind his back while she tried to straighten out her blurry vision.

Then she lowered her head and everything faded to black... except for one symbol... an ‘X’, forever written into her mind...

Larxene woke up in her room and groaned, rubbing her eyes, “That stupid dream again...” she got up and immediately thought of Marluxia asking that odd question yesterday to her... to join him in something... a revolt of some kind. “Totally not my thing.” she flopped back down on the bed, letting it jolt her a bit as her electricity sparked up to her hair, and she smiled at its touch.

“Heh... After all this time... I haven’t gotten him to remember a thing.” She had been so shocked to see him, rushing right up to him when he was first announced to join the Organization too... but he didn’t recognize her.

It broke her non-existent heart to hear it... but she was insignificant then, why should he remember her now? Might as well keep an eye on him... What? Was he her responsibility now?

Well... he did kinda save her... at least, that one time.

She grew bitter after that. Her self-loathing came off and deflected onto others, and she became known as a prickly sort in the Organization... somewhat opposite and yet similar to her previous life.

‘If he’s gonna get himself in trouble with the big bad, I guess I have no choice.’ she sighed and got up, shaking her head as her mind kept flopping her back to the rain, the cliffside, the vultures, and...

“Larxene...” A voice shook her worse than the raging storms of the Dwarf Woodlands, and was as deep as the abyss his heart resided in.

She momentarily feigned being cool about it, but her eyes had shaken at her nobody name being called by his dark presence...

She got up immediately, “Haven’t you heard of knocking?” She waved a nonchalant hand out, “What do you want... Oh, gracious leader?” She tried to give a powerful glare to him... but her fear seemed to reflect outwardly by the smile on his face.

Xemnas gestured a hand across from himself, “My apologies for disturbing... you seemed to be just lying in rest... thinking too much these days?” His dark chuckle as he turned made her hold in a squirm... did he have to be so creepy?

“Something I should know? I’m usually not due a ‘personal’ visit like this. Isn’t our great and powerful leader usually too busy to mess with little pawns like us?” She put a finger to her cheek, faking a cuteness to be sarcastic. “Isn’t Saïx usually your delivery boy?” She then put her finger to her mouth, as though visually showing she was being too cheeky for her own good, “Opp! Too much?” she leaned forward, trying to be confident before he turned around and she dropped the act, getting jittery at his intimidating stance... after all, he was unphased by her persona...

“I have assigned him to other matters.” His eyes pierced straight into the husk of her form. If she had a soul, it’d be shaking right about now...

“And..?” She raised an eyebrow, leaning back as she was getting disturbed by this conversation… which came about all too suddenly.

“I’ve heard rumors of a wonderful Castle... Castle... Oblivion.” he stretched out a hand, then placed it to his chest, “I want someone to investigate it... I am looking for something... hidden deep within its walls...” He smirked then, “Perhaps... by journeying through it... you may be rid of your... uncomfortable... memories...” He began to make his way out, “The place, you see, takes away that which was found, to find what was taken away.”

“Taken... away?” She thought about what Marluxia had lost... his previous memories... his sister...

Strelitzia?

She didn’t care what she lost if she could get Laruiam’s sister back...

She looked down, thinking about it...

“I already sent a party ahead of you... But I intend to have you research the power of Memories... and how they can help us in achieving our ultimate goal.” he looked only with his eyes back at her, keeping his body forward... “I expect you may be interested... in what was lost...” he then walked forward, “To be found...”

She turned after him but he had already vanished... “He acts like he knows everything!” she gritted her teeth, glaring off at him. “But... this could be kinda interesting...” she grinned in mischievous delight... Deciding to tell Marluxia right away about what she had learned, maybe a good place to stake a rebellion, but she was assigned to the twerp to collect hearts today.

‘UGGGHHHH, how annoying!’ she tried to help him slash through some grubby heartless, hearing him go off randomly about stupid stuff she didn’t care about.

Seeing Roxas and Xion disgusted her. Axel being included didn’t help. It reminded her of when she had a heart, and the feeling of being with someone, a team...

Resentment built in her heart, seeing how ‘cutely lovely dovey’ the trio were acting. As though... a real unity was forged there.

She folded her arms, staring off at them having a little ‘lover’s spat’ between each other when Laur-... Marluxia approached her.

“Have you given it some thought?” He discreetly stated, his beauty still catching her off guard.

If she allowed herself to blush, she would have jabbed her weapons, individually, into her chest till she disappeared.

“Yeah, and I got some good intel, too.” She beamed, giving him her best devilish smirk. She held out a finger up to him, winking slightly, “However... it’s all hush-hush. We have to plan this out carefully...”

Could he regain that which was lost? His memories? His sister..?

“What do you mean? Ah...” He raised an elegant eyebrow before turning to see Zexion walking over to them.

“Do you have a moment?” He seemed to be suspicious of their little ‘war council’ so Larxene stepped forward and poked his shoulder away from them.

“Always the loner~ What? Growing desperate to be a part of a ‘circle’, Zexion?” She laughed wildly loud, making sure the others in the room heard her, to dispel any idea of ‘secret conversations’ that may have been thought by observers like Zexion.

She walked by him but he turned around and his words halted her right away, making her upset at his comeback, “I wouldn’t exactly be this forward about joining any ‘circle’ of yours, Larxene, I’m simply relaying orders. Our research has discovered a young girl with the abilities to manipulate Sora’s memories, as well as those involved with him.”

She stopped a moment, listening intently, “Go on?” She inquired, “Not that it matters to me in the slightest.” She blew him off with a flick of her hand but Marluxia stepped in and she remained silent, watching him.

“Larxene... let’s let the man speak.” he seemed very interested, “Go on, Zexion... I’m listening...” He stared wonderfully intensely at Zexion...

Later on... She was watching Namine draw, seeing the meteor shower that would soon replace that precious ‘Kairi’ girl in his heart, allowing Marluxia’s plan to puppeteer Sora to be in place.

“... Just a star show?” Larxene was growing impatient, what a slow burn! “Boorrrinnngg~” She put a finger to her forehead, spreading out the rest of her fingers to be dramatic.

Namine curled up slightly from her hunched posture, as though to hide her little self-insert desire.

Larxene knew all too well what that felt like... but her pain, as usual, leaked out onto others and she began to feel in a ‘bullying’ mood...

“You want to romance them both, don’t you?” She got up, uncrossing her legs and walking over behind Namine’s chair, but as she placed a hand on the side of it, Namine pulled up her knees and pressed the sketchbook against her chest... blocking Larxene from seeing it more fully.

“Hmph, kinda rude.” she tsked out, “What? Can’t take some constructive criticism?” She shrugged an arm up in the air and walked in front of her, “Hellloo??? I’m talking to you!” she put her hands to her hips and bent down, over and across to try and see Namine’s face, but she was hiding herself so well...

“Heh! Let me give you some advice, even if you don’t like it.” She flicked Namine’s forehead, then moved towards the white window, with the gentle swaying curtains. “You gotta get a boy to feel like he’s your hero if you want him to really save you from this place.” She kept her expression a simple smile of deception... but her hollow hide was softly yearning... “There’s not a dame on this planet or any other who wouldn’t want that...” Only her eyes showed the pain of her previous life... “When a... man makes a promise to you... that you’ll be safe.”

Namine’s head slowly came up, gently from her drawing, to look over shyly to whatever emotion was beginning to stir in Larxene.

Her black cloak swayed with the curtains... protecting her from darkness... or was it... from the light of her previous crush?

‘Shouldn’t I just give it up, already?’ she was remembering... how she was told she was worth something... and that’s why they wanted to rescue her.

“That’s how Sora, even Riku, should feel about you.” she turned around, darkening her expression and stoning her face into a painful reminder of her ‘lack of a heart’.

She marched over to Namine, slamming a hand to her drawing, and pressing her face close up to her own, making her gasp lightly like a mouse in shock and surprise at her abrupt switch in actions and tone. “Make your own hero, Namine. Make them value you so terribly much, that it breaks their heart to disappoint you.” She grinned, “Then, you’ll finally have your freedom. Within their hearts, you’ll feel truly special and wanted. Isn’t that what you want? Someone, anyone, to hold memories of who you truly are?”

That last sentence broke something in Larxene... when she saw Sora again, to fight him, there was no mercy left standing in her way... It was as though she was becoming a Xehanort, a one-track mind and everything...

Was... Castle Oblivion... taking her true self away, too?

Was she just... leading herself further into the darkness in a hopeless chase of a heart she could barely remember and recall ever existed in the first place?

She had hoped this Castle would bring Lauriam, her Union leader, back to her... If he could just remember himself... his sister... maybe even...

Her?

When the final battle was to be set forth, Larxene returned from Arendelle, biting her nails and cursing Sora and his friends yet again... knowing she lied to just strike further fear in their hearts...

“Larxene,...”

“What do you want-!?” She was half-expecting the guitar-loser, but when she saw Marluxia she braced herself back, “Mar-... W-what do you want?” She had already steeled herself away, giving up on romance and protecting or whatever else she was trying to do before with him!

Elrena was dead. Simple as that. The past was in the-

                   “I’d like you to fight beside me... at the end of the world.”

Her mouth froze and hung open with her lower lip trembling before closing to swallow hard and try and replay what was just spoken.

“You don’t mean that.” she blurted out, her thoughts becoming unfiltered. “What’s gotten into you, huh!?” She turned around, trying to play it off, raising an eye to him and leaning forward.

“We once fought side by side... is it not obvious I’d want to be paired with you? Another end... but in another time.” His eyes were unwavering, looking down at her in what she felt was all sincerity.

‘Felt!? Give me a break!’ she turned away to avoid any sign of that ‘filthy love’ she once felt creep back into her nonexistent heart.

Sora and his precious Kairi... Roxas and Xion with Axel... Not to mention even Riku seemed to be fighting to rescue Namine...

‘Love like in the other worlds doesn’t exist for me!’ she folded her arms and turned away from him, “If you don’t remember, I wouldn’t blame you, but we kinda lost that round fighting together, if I’m not mistaken.” she puffed up a cheek, hoping that was enough to dissuade him... maybe... he was better off without her ‘meddling help’ as it were...

She didn’t mean anything to anyone, anyway... no one had memories of her to cling to... Not like how Sora chose Kairi over the implanted memories Namine gave him... a better love story didn’t exist in Elrena’s-

Ah.

Did she... just remember her own name?

She hadn’t really ever felt her old self creep back into her spirit... if she even had one remaining that wasn’t just Xehanort at this point.

She touched her chest, “You’re...” then let an arm dangle down before her. “Better off without me... no one needs me... I’m just a pawn, a fleshy vessel to a madman... Better than not fully being anything, to be honest... Which is all I am... all we are.” she closed her eyes before a hand touched her arm.

She had felt, before that moment, that she had nothing. Lost everything. This was the end and there was nothing left to fight or live for.

She just wanted everyone to be as miserable and forgotten as she was... insignificant… a loathsome mess.

No one need love her... for she wasn’t even worthy enough to exist.

With his touch, she turned around and felt almost life again... Elrena again... as his eyes looked the same way they had when they asked her to allow them to save her...

That memory... she thought she had killed and buried it... at that white castle... when her dreams flew out the soft, curtain window...

“I wasn’t asking for your opinion on your life’s purpose,” he bluntly stated, which took her off guard as he pulled her lightly after him, walking to their set destination to fight the dorky twerps and do their best to clash light with darkness... she guessed.

“Let... Let me go!” She wasn’t really resisting... her eyes twitched because they were filling with emotions she wanted to deny, wanted to leave in the past...

He wasn’t letting her forget... even though he had no memory of her... nothing to tie him to her...

Just like before, he barely knew her, neither of them did, and yet...

“I wasn’t aware our partnership ended at our destruction.”

She lost whatever breath still remained in her lungs.

“You and I... we share a special sort of... bond.” he was looking forward, all she could see was the bouncing and flying of his layered hair... “We may not have hearts, but you’ve proven yourself loyal, even to the end... you fought valiantly... why wouldn’t I respect that spirit of yours and ask for your assistance once more?” He turned around and even though the dirt below them was a barren wasteland... she only saw flowers and a beautiful scene before her...

She ripped her arm out of his and stumbled backwards, gritting her teeth as she looked him dead in the face, ‘How dare he...’ she told herself, ‘How dare he pull me back in when I was so desperate to be out of it!’ she just stared intensely into his eyes, ‘I won’t be hypnotized again!’ she marched more towards him, stopping inches from his face,... but he only looked to her with a muted, almost kind expression of indifference to her little tantrum display of resistance.

“Are you coming... or not?” He lifted a finger to her chin, “I won’t take my words back... I want you to fight beside me... None else will do. As you know, none of these ‘vessels’ are very trustworthy... at least with you... I know...

                                                                  I’m safe.”

She staggered back, her face breaking. “Ah...” she was his hero!? “Give me a break...” She dropped her shoulders down, surrendering to the beautiful words and man before her.

“Ughhh, guess you couldn’t go on without me, anyway, huh?” she put a finger up to her forehead again, shaking her head lightly before looking back to him with a smile. “Alright, Marluxia. But don’t think that pretty face will be any better recompleted.” She walked by him and skimmed a finger against his hair... he seemed to follow the touch and that made her nervous, moving quickly more away and into position to fight whoever would come through this part of the maze. “Honestly... we may not have hearts, but you definitely know how to play one.”

“So do you, Larxene.” She didn’t dare look back. Her back tensed and she just willed this day to be over with already...

So when Sora saw right through her, asking who she was taking the ride with... she looked back at him and realized he knew.

She sighed and dropped the act for just a moment, a small reward for Sora’s intuition and letting go of her resentment towards him, “My little secret~” she chimed, letting him in on her true self... just for that moment... that second... Sora and her had connected.

Though brief, Elrena awakened to the sound of lightning and thunder once more. Her eyes blinked with the raindrops rapidly beating themselves in a kamikaze attempt to keep her long eyelashes down, but failing.

She twitched her hand, rolling over on her back and looking up at the sky.

“... I’m...” She raised her weakened hand, shaking from being recompleted again, and held it with her other, squeezing it and feeling her breath, her heartbeat, and remembering everything so clearly... those dreams... were now colored, detailed memories that were precious to her.

She tried to get up but then panicked as she saw the vultures diving for her yet again.

“Ah! Not you-! Bird brains!” she waved her hands in the air to bat them away before gaining her footing, getting out her-

“Ah... the ...” Keyblade.

She looked at her keyblade in wonder... had she completely forgotten that feeling? Of... being accepted by the light again?

“Khaw! Khaw!” the birds swooped down, but this time, her eyes narrowed and her rage was full.

“Stupid-!” she swiped one down, “Stinkin’-!” she spun and struck the other to the wetted ground below. “BIRDS!” she used the magic she had just remembered from muscle memory to wipe them clean out as their hearts flew up to the sky... “Ah...” She lowered her fist... realizing...

She touched her chest, “... I’m... not just a husk anymore...” Watching their hearts fly away... disappearing, she dropped to her knees, her hot tears mixing with the cool of the rainstorm before her... she was at first still watching where the hearts had gone off to... before slamming her palms down to the rocky ground below her, screaming out her frustrations, her anger, her sadness, her longings... Her keyblade getting bashed against the cliff before some rocks began to shake... as though the ground was going to move from under her again.

“Ah..! Wait, no..!” she scrambled backwards, “Not again!” rushing up to her legs, she tried to outrun the falling stones. “Please-!”, ‘Not when I just got myself back..! Not when I’m human again!’ Her hand flexed out the Keyblade so she could grip any of the loosened rocks for stability, but it was no use...

She was falling... and this time... down the front of the mountain’s cliff... not rolling backwards but falling to a forever death... her life was pointless, meaningless still... wasn’t it?

“Lauriam...” Just as before, his name was the last thing she could think to say in a moment just before the end...

When a face lurched over the edge and a hand reached out and down over the cliff, “Elrenaaa!!” and grabbed her grasping hands to something solid and secure.

Having rushed up the mountain, and slipping to his stomach, a familiar face gripped her hand and began to pull her up from the collapsing cliffside.

“L.. Lauriam..?” Her eyes twinkled with the flashes of lightning, shimmering at a hopeful sight of fated rescue... “W-what..?” She was pulled up, her legs kicking frantically before finally getting a footing and flopping down beside him on solid ground once more.

They both breathed hard... and there was silence for a moment... just the thunder to accompany them.

“Why were you sent to this awful place?” He asked, “The scene is dreary... No wonder your mood was so bad before.” He lightly joked, but was this the time for that?

She couldn’t help a smile grace the side of her mouth, before shaking it off and glaring at him, blushing... the first time she allowed her heart to express such a feeling so...

“How did you get here? How’d you find me?” He had been recompleted along with her, that timeframe seemed too narrow to find her, right?

He gasped for air, having hurried to her side, he looked at her with all fondness, which stole her breath once more. “Elrena... I remember your name... I remember you, and how we all were, once before... Together.”

She remained frozen... blank eyes staring into his full of spring and renewed life... She had been killed, but he was just reborn from his recompletion...

She worried she was dead and gone when she first awoke... but hearing him call her name... was this... the meaning of life?

He began to pick her up, tucking an arm under her legs as she went somewhat limp to his hold, allowing him to carry her as he pleased. “I realized then... How in the organization... you were always beside me because you were protecting me... silently and stubbornly keeping an eye on me... I couldn’t describe the wonderful joy and also immense gratitude when I came to understand that... You were looking out for me the whole time, weren’t you?”

He held her bridal style, lowering his head to her forehead as her hands tightly gripped his shirt, completely overwhelmed as though he was reading her like a storybook... was this... her fairytale ending?

Could she really... have something like this? Was that alright? Did she even deserve it?

“You’ve been so brave for me, Elrena... for the others, I’m sure we can find a way to save them... Thank you, Elrena. Thank you.” He began to carry her off, as though a prince, and Elrena couldn’t deny her existence anymore.

He made her feel things in her newly recompleted heart that couldn’t be put into words or described any less than--Loved.

She moved her face into his shoulder, closing her eyes before a soft smile appeared... her bitter nature suddenly vanishing as quickly as it had grown as a Nobody...

“I’m just so glad...” she admitted, in a timid and shy voice she once knew, mimicking so closely to Namine’s lonely state. “That you’re alright.”

Fin.

[henriettalamb]

To Pause, and Breathe

Hello everyone, this is Wally, the author and artist of the comic- earlier I announced a hiatus for the Lamb comic series, and now I’m going deeper into why.

Lamb and Sweet and all the characters I made for the story, they were all made in a very precarious, precious, and specific part of my life when I was coming out and needed to find a source of happiness- and I could find that in them! Coming up with scenarios to draw them in was exciting- it was new uncharted territory for me and i was brimming with inspiration- and that led to the story of them that I’m telling now.

Unfortunately, I’ve been pushing myself so hard, keeping a schedule in unrealistic ways and it’s been negatively affecting my health, both physically and mentally. As soon as the art got more and *more* complex, with artwork taking longer and longer to complete each week, I eventually just hit a wall, and practically- it’s no way to release a comic, it’s unprofessional, and (to be brutally honest) it’s going to eventually kill me, I’ve never been so lethargic in my life. It will take way too long, and that’s not only a disservice to myself- it’s a disservice to all of you who wait patiently while i make a “weekly” update into a de facto bi-weekly one, it’s not fair to you all.

Changing the schedule to make it bi-weekly won’t fix the problem- it just delays it. But there is a more pressing, personal issue at hand- aside from the comic, it’s been leaving my accounts (on here and on Twitter) so stagnant and effectively dead- effectively meaning I no longer draw the characters for fun, or for boosting my mood, it’s become a job that frankly, I’m not even being paid for to begin with- I’m pressuring myself to unreasonable degrees

It’s spiritually draining, and as a result, I’ve become not only emotionally and spiritually detached from my characters i hold dear- I’ve become robotic with my comic, it feels soulless and that in itself is going to become a ticking time bomb in terms of narrative and output.

SO with that all in mind, what am I going to do? Where is the story going? And what’s going to become of the accounts?

I’m not going to stop updating the accounts at all, as a matter of fact, I’m going to do something that has been sorely lacking- while I’m on a comic hiatus, I will be making these....Lamb art accounts!

It helps me get used to them again, give some new ideas and life on these accounts and even may help me get new ideas in the process! Not only that, it may help me foster a more positive connection with followers or any that view it- I’ve unfortunately been dead doing comic only. So, I am excited for this, actually!

As for the comic: I DO want to finish the current issue I’m working on at some point- just to say that I gave it a full shot (plus you all deserve that).

After the comic issue ends though, I have to think it over on *how* to continue the story- whether it should still be told through comic....or something else, something possibly better even! (special illustrated novel perhaps?...)

Whatever it may be, this story is a burning passion from within me, i NEED to tell it- but I’m only human, a flawed being on a flawed world, and i can’t do it at the expense of you, my connections with others, and my own health. So, keeping that all in mind, I thank you for any patience I’ve received over the years, and instead of apologizing, I now need to move forward in a smarter, more emotionally, spiritually connected & healthier way, not just with my story, but for how I do art, and writing in general (as well as for my own personal life as well). And while I navigate through it all, I hope the stories of Lamb, Sweet, Coco and the others bring you as much joy as they did (and continue to do) for me.

With lots of love -Wally

[maehem-1]

Worldbuilding rule to live by: If you like something, put it into your world. I wanna ramble about how I've lived by that rule in the current world I use for my DND games. This is also the flagship post of my personal DND tag! It's a long one, enjoy my ramblings!

I've created many homebrew items based off of Guilty Gear. My favorite is my adaptation of Ky's Thunderseal. I also managed a decent adaptation of Sol Badguy as a PC (I think PSI Warrior is a good subclass for him… actually, that gives me an idea. What if Psionics isn't a natural thing, like becoming a gear? Like if you have psionics it counts as a different creature type. That'd be so much more dramatic/impactful than “magic but different”)

Speaking of Ky's Thunderseal, it was wielded by someone important in my world's history: my Jetstream Sam stand-in, because I love MGR:R. I also have his murasama, mechanical arm, and chin guard thing as items discoverable in his tomb. The arm? I was reading Beowulf at the time, so you can use it to rip someone's arm off. It's dope.

Dwarves. I love me a good Dwarven mountain home. Dwarves are a really well developed part of my world, though it's not very unique because I LOVE the classic dwarf archetype. Grudges, ale, and forging, baby!

On that note, Hobgoblins. I love a wandering hobgoblin legion, remnant of a Hobgoblin Empire. This stems from Jort of the Order Undivided by The Bard Ilthari. Unfortunately, for all my love of the bright nosed folk, in my current game I've devolved them to lowly slavers of Goblins, without much hope of increased complexity like Jort gave them, since, well, I feel like I leaned too hard into the cruel slavery thing too fast and it's hard to come back from that. If they lean into the

A lot of my favorite DND things stem from Order Undivided, I also have a Senket analogue npc, and my dwarves are mostly modeled after Kazador. I've been working on an arcane Oath for Julian. I also love Gnolls quite a bit, and learned up on Yeenoghu to possibly use as a villain. Hell, my love of tactical heroic play stems from the paladins being able to defeat much greater numbers by gathering allies and taking tactical positions. I long for the day I play a game where I command armies like the Warmaster himself.

I'm a big fan of Mathew Colville, and NOT a fan of dealing with worldbuilding other Planes, so I stole his concept of the cities of Hell and slapped it on my material plane! Also makes it easier to port the Illrigger class into my world's normal rotation. Ditto for my interest in the Underdark, though I think I'm closer to forgotten realms than he is. I also stole Count Nekodemus of Castle Rend, though only in name. Mine is Baron Orwell Nicodemus, and he's a Tortle (and a little bit of an asshole, in the bureaucratic sense). I think I just like the name :3

I've loved smash bros for a really long time, since I was twelve playing Smash 4. I recently got into it again, both through videos about the history of the competitive scene and by playing Ultimate again after so long. This, of course, led me to the Five Gods of Melee. Suddenly, I had an idea for the pantheon I've been putting off structuring. Five Gods, chosen by competition between all lesser deities called Representatives. (I thought it sounded cool). Each representative also gets two associated damage types, and I'm considering adding some bonus related to them (maybe the cleric can replace their spell's damage type with one of those types instead? Incompatible with channel divinity to avoid tempest cleric shenanigans?). If this turns into a slay the gods campaign, I'm definitely going to lose my mind because none of my players would understand Leffen jokes

One of the only Representatives I've come up with, an idea I've had since the beginning, is basically a god of bloodsport/gladiatorial competitions. I decided to model them off of Technoblade, as a memorial to the Blood God himself.

I love the old traditions of DND. All that dungeon crawly, noodly bullshit. Love it. I make sure to have a lot of dungeons in my world, and am always prepping more my players will probs never see. I've also way expanded my world so that it's much more of a points of light setting, though my players are in the most densely populated area (due to being the only place that existed before geographical expansion) I also need room to improvise new locations. I love my current “canon,” but that just hurts my ability to say “there's a mountain way over there that has a ___, ___ and ___, because… that mountain should've been on our map, no? When you map the whole world, it gets so very small, doesn't it?

Legend of Zelda. My old world had a bit more of it, but I try to incorporate Zelda dungeon design into my dungeons when I can.

When I develop my Underdark better, I want to include a lot of Hollow Knight inspo. The Drow wearing masks, stuff like that.

Really this has just become a ramble about my DND campaign world and I love it

I frequently give creatures multiple creature types. Oozes are also aberrations, many Gnolls are also Fiends, etc. As I just came up with a half hour ago, Psionics characters would get a second creature type, what to call it yet I don't know.

Elves. Hooo boy. I'm not a fan. They live so long, it's too hard to create ancient history with them around. Which is, honestly, the entire appeal of elves. The reincarnation/ embodiment of living history aspect is the only interesting angle I can find personally. Whenever someone wants to play an elf, they never want to lean into the Elrond of it all. They just want to play a taller human, usually with a bow and arrow. So I don't have Elves. Simple as. Of course, they do exist, they're just incredibly rare. They were driven off the mainland for ~reasons~ and hang out on this island made entirely out of trees. Mostly old ass elves and really young ones (born on the island) are still alive, with very few survivors of the between generations. Lead by a Baelnorn, ‘cause they're cool. Drow are the exception, because they're also cool, but they're rare on the surface for different, more obvious reasons. If someone ever tells me they want to play an elf, I'll publicly decline the offer, then catch them alone and give them the lowdown. Half Elves know nothing of their elven heritage, since it's been so watered down by now, though they still get mechanical benefits.