#why experience the horrors of time loops when you can just dick around

[aceofspadegrass]

You know those Time Loop AUs? Yeah, so. Same premise, random thought occurred to me.

Imagine a fanfic series that effectively runs like a game. Like Undertale or really any RPG where you can choose your path every run through. So the fic runs through one version.

Then the next part in its series is, effectively, the same events, but ever so slightly different. You, as the reader, know what happens at the baseline level. You know the story. Hell, you know the protagonist. But this round the protagonist does something different.

Maybe it ends earlier, because the protagonist is a wet sack of bagels soaking in the bottom of a dumpster and fucks up earlier. Just fucking bungles it, dropped the buttered toast face side down.

Doesn't matter, the protagonist returns to the 'start' of the timeline, and they run through it again. Nothing at its story base line changes, other than a butterfly effect. If a monster is in an area, it'll be in that area unless forced otherwise. If there's an important item laying somehow, good chance it hasn't moved.

The protagonist knows this. They are aware that they're reliving everything, and either they go a little mad trying to break the loop, or they just have a nice time seeing what exactly else they could do. They know what happens, they may even already know the good ending.

Why not see if they can fuck shit up. You know, as a treat. It's not like they're going anywhere.

Yeah, it'll suck that any friendships they make will reset, but if you don't care enough you can just see what other kind of relationships you can make, can't you? Why not see if you can speed run an enemies to lovers trope? Why not see if you can stop your once best friend from seeing the Horrors?

A Fuck Around and Find Out Time Loop.

Hell, maybe the protagonist breaks the fourth wall one run-through. Just has a little 'Mind letting me NOT get eaten by rabid squirrels?' moment with the author.

So much can happen in one event timeline. A wibbly-wobbly 'Imagine if we just spent the entire time side questing while the main plot is right there' kind of series.

[polyghostfacehours]

If requests aren't open, feel free to ignore but like:

Poly!Ghostface with an soon-to-be SO that has selective mutism. They physically can speak but its painful and can take a lot out of them mentally. Now, that SO ends up spending a lot of time with Billy and Stu - by their design - and they learn their cues and nonverbal communication baselines. SO feels like they finally have friends (its more cuz friends don't smooch eachother's faces Stu! but whatever, nothing is official) - ppl don't like hanging with the boring kid who can't talk after all.

Eventually though, S/O gestures that they want to say something and the boys are looking all wide-eyed and the SO manages to get out a small, whispered 'thank you. Love lots.'

Sure! Sorry this took awhile, I don't have nor have much experience with selective mutism, so I was at a bit of a roadblock on how to write it. I hope this ends up being good for you babe!

Poly!Ghostface x SelectivelyMute!Reader:

So, honestly, Billy and Stu dont take notice of you at first.

Stu especially is so high energy, he doesn't notice the quiet kid.

Eventually though, they do take notice. But it's not in the best way.

Stu kinda joins in on the bullying. I mentioned before his form of bullying is bandwagoning, and that's exactly what he does when someone else makes fun of you.

Billy notices this. And color him intrigued by the fact you won't say a word to your bullies. It's almost admirable, he thinks.

He mentions this to Stu. And Stu kinda takes a minute to evaluate. It's true: you are unique. And with how Billy and Stu generally view themselves as above and more unique than others, that catches their eye.

So Stu stops his bullying, and tries to talk to you more.

But of course, you never reply. He asks for a pencil? You silently hand it to him. He asks what movies you like? You shrug and point to your (insert fav. horror movie here) T-shirt.

To Stu, that's the perfect in. He lets Billy know, and the next time you meet them, it's at the video store. They pick out some horror movies, including your favorite, before asking you if you wanted to join them for a movie marathon?

But you aren't stupid. You know a prank when you see one. The years and years of dealing with dumbasses trying to bully the "mute" kid has hardened you. You give a simple shake of your head 'no', before leaving them to their devices.

They're shocked. They're two of the most popular guys at school, for different reasons and in different ways. But they put two and two together and figure you think it's just another cruel prank.

That gets them fired up. How dare you assume they're like the rest of the sheeple of Woodsboro. Oh no. Now they wanna get to know you and what makes you tick.

And they do. They put in the work, showing you that yeah they want to genuinely be your friend.

They don't have a long term goal, they don't even have any intentions of being really close to you or anything. You were more just entertainment: a way to pass the time as they get ready to rock Woodsboro.

Stu easily fills the silence. And Billy, while annoyed at first for doing what he deems 'all the heavy lifting' in the friendship, comes around to your nonverbal cues. He's observant and perceptive, so it doesn't take too long before you two are having full conversations with just him talking and you gesturing, writing, or giving him cues.

They're thrown for a loop. They weren't expecting to actually enjoy being your friend. They were just curious.

But they end up enjoying you, and eventually you become a trio of friends.

But uh oh! Why are they noticing how cute it is when you scrunch up your face or pump you fist in victory when watching a tense scene in a movie.

Why are they laughing so hard whenever Stu teases you and in response you call him a dick via asking for his arm and drawing it on him. Why is that kinda precious???

Eventually when they're alone, they both end up talking about their feelings for you. They had already been in a secret relationship with each other for awhile, and didn't want to ruin what they have. But upon realization they they both liked you, the thought bounces around in their head : would the possibility of the three of you being together be feasible?

They decide that yes, it is. And that's the turning point.

They become a lot more affectionate, especially physically. Not just around you but each other, clueing you in on the nature of their relationship. In ways that you know, friend aren't with each other.

You realized your feelings long ago, but of course, never vernalized them. Their affection with each other and you continues.

Stu smooching your face, Billy's hands on your hips when he pulls you over to show you something.

Eventually, once they're confident that you're into them, they pop the question to you. Your response? Boldly pulling them into you one at a time for sloppy make-outs.

You feel loved in ways you never have before. The bullying ceases, of course, everyone at school far too scared of thinking about messing with Billy and Stu's best friend (and secret S/O)

Once they trust you enough, they slowly hint at their plans. When they notice you responding positively to the idea of fucking over everyone who's ever hurt and messed with you, they drop their plan.

How you react is up to you, but it can be assumed you do come around to it eventually. Or you secretly hatch a plan to stop it somehow. The choice is yours.

Either way, they find themselves even more in love once you accept them and their ideals. You'd be hard-pressed to find a moment when the three of you aren't with one another, or at the very least hanging in pairs separately.

It's a stormy, movie night. A perfect evening, framed with an even more perfect ambiance. You feel the time is right, and as your viewing of Hellraiser III ended, you gesture to them that you have something important to say.

You have their attention now. You grab both of their hands, before you speak to them for the first time. A small whisper of "Thank you. Love you lots."

They're shocked. Ecstatic. It was so out of left field and quietly spoken that for a second, they thought they'd maybe imagined it. It isn't until they make wide-eyed eye contact with the other that they realize you both had heard it.

Stu immediately pulls you in for a kiss, hands roaming all over you on an attempt to feel closer. Billy's reaction is much more subdued, but the fact he's smiling instead of smirking for once tells you all you need to know.

Once settling down, Billy throws his arm over your shoulder and Stu moves to lay his head in your lap, holding your hand as another movie starts.

[cyhyr]

Summer of Whump Day 26: Drugging

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: E

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, established relationship

WC: ~1360

Warnings: Rape/Non-con

Notes: Dubious consent. Aphrodisiac. Collars. Chained to a wall. Voyeurism. Non-Con Exhibitionism. Anal sex, no lube. Iruka fights off dissociation.

A/N: This one hurt ME to write.

A/N 2: Combo with my Bad Things Happen Bingo Board square: Collared and Chained

~

Iruka stumbles, hands on his back and shoulders pushing him into the cell. Thankfully, he doesn’t fall, but he also doesn’t turn around fast enough to glare properly at his captors before they slam the cell door behind him. The cell is dim, enough light streaming in through the bars in the door to illuminate a section of the room.

Barrier seals activate on the other side of the door. If Iruka didn’t have chakra-suppressing cuffs around his wrists, he would be able to undo them easily; in any case, he can sense how weak the seals are. These cuffs can suppress his use of chakra all they’d like, but Iruka is here for a reason and that reason is his fūinjutsu. He’ll find a way to work around them.

A groan from deeper in the cell distracts him from the door. He turns around and instinctively pings out with his chakra to try and get a picture of the darkened corners of the cell, but the cuffs prevent that ability. Instead, Iruka steps away from the door and calls out, “Hello?”

The groan comes again, longer and with more of a growl underneath. “Fuck.”

Iruka smiles, and steps confidently into the dark of the cell. “Kakashi—!”

“You shouldn’t be here, Iruka.”

“Neither should you. Are you sealed, too? Come closer, so I can check in on it. I’ll see what I can do.”

“No, Iruka, please,” and finally Iruka recognizes the timbre of Kakashi’s voice and stops. His eyes have adjusted enough to the lack of light that he’s able to see the faint outline of the other man, knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. There’s a thick steel collar on his neck, and a short chain that leads from it to a loop on the wall. Both have seal scripts around them, tiny characters which Iruka can barely make out. The collar is fraught with more and more seals, like their captors kept adding to it as Kakashi found new ways to break through.

Kakashi trembles. Iruka falls to his knees and crawls closer. “Kakashi—”

“Don’t come any closer.”

Oh, Iruka knows that voice. That wrecked voice, the one that’s promised him such wonderful times in the past, as long as he wanted to play along. Iruka stops and sits back on his heels.

“They drugged me before they brought you in here,” Kakashi says. “I can’t be the one to hurt you, Iruka. You understand that, right?”

Iruka shakes his head. “You could never hurt me, love,” he whispers.

Kakashi groans again. “Why did you come?”

“To bring you home. There are others, I have a team waiting—a medic, a tracker, Gai. Please, I—”

“Gai let you get yourself captured?” Kakashi snarled, “If I make it out of here I’m gonna—”

“I had to convince him,” Iruka cuts him off, as he had just been cut off. “Please, love, just come closer and let me look at the seal on your collar. If I can get you out, then—”

“The chains and seals on this collar are the only things keeping me from attacking you right now. Don’t you dare get rid of them.”

Iruka is interrupted from responding by a viewing window to his left opening. There are still bars across it, and seals to keep the bars sturdy and intact. Three sets of eyes peer in through the window; one of their captors seems to grin.

“One more minute, I believe. Then, turn him loose.”

Another says, “Yes, let us all see what’s become of Konohagakure’s great Copy Nin.”

The last, the third, just giggles.

Iruka can do nothing but look on in horror as Kakashi continues to groan, begins to writhe and heave deep breaths. He finally looks up at Iruka; his mask is down, his face flushed and his eye is blown wide and black.

“I’m not—I can’t—Iruka, you smell divine.”

It’s Iruka’s turn to tremble.

He closes his eyes and takes deep, calming breaths. “I love you, Kakashi,” he murmurs.

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re not yourself. Please, please, fight this,” he sniffs, trying not to cry. Gods, he can’t cry right now; Kakashi is in just as much, if not worse pain than he will be.

“I can’t. I’ve tried. It’s. It’s. Ah, Fuck, Iruka you have to fight back—”

“It’ll only hurt more,” Iruka admits. “Been there, done that. Just… um.”

“Ask. Quickly. Before I lose myself.”

“Let me blow you first,” Iruka’s eyes are traitors, letting tears slip. “I won’t take it dry.”

The chain is loosened; both he and Kakashi can hear the slack as it’s given. Kakashi nods, once, and then Iruka untucks his legs, opens his hips, and smiles sadly at Kakashi. He tips his head to one side and closes his eyes.

Kakashi is suddenly there, hands everywhere and hips between his legs and mouthing at his neck. Iruka can picture the two of them at home, Kakashi laving attention on his body with kisses and touch, a soft mattress at his back instead of a stone floor. In his mind, they could just be making love in this cell instead of at home.

If only Kakashi would stop talking.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, gods you smell perfect, fuck this drug, I just. I want. I want you so much and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Iruka murmurs. And it’s not, it’s nowhere near okay, but Kakashi’s been drugged and he needs this. And this? This is something Iruka can provide; just as proficiently as he provides his fūinjutsu.

Through the haze of the drug, Kakashi does remember to let Iruka get his dick wet before he tries fucking him. It’s hard on Iruka, to lay on his back and let Kakashi fuck his throat because Kakashi never does this. He always lets Iruka set the pace when he’s sucking Kakashi’s cock. Iruka holds the back of Kakashi’s thighs and focuses on staying present. They can’t both be fucked up during this.

And when Kakashi pulls back and kisses down his body, Iruka hides his tears behind his arms because it feels good but it shouldn’t because Kakashi doesn’t want this and if Kakashi doesn’t want it then Iruka shouldn’t want it but the drug is making Kakashi so… so…

“Oh, fuck.”

Kakashi’s never done this to him before, and it’s wet and dirty and feels amazing and he wants to enjoy it but not while they’re being watched. He wants this without drugs to spur these kinds of feelings, and so he throws a hand down to Kakashi’s hair and pulls his mouth away from his ass and says, “Fuck me, Kakashi.”

He’s still careful. The drug can’t take that away and it’s terrible and wonderful—Kakashi pushes in with tiny, aborted thrusts like he’s fighting against himself and it’s not enough, Iruka’s not wet enough for this, but he kicks out and wraps his leg around Kakashi’s ass and pulls him in anyway.

Stay present, stay present, stay present

It hurts, gods it hurts, Kakashi’s cock splitting him open. But he’s slow, he’s gentle, and he keeps fucking him through the pain. Kakashi doesn’t sob, but Iruka’s neck is wet enough that he knows he’s crying at least a little. He tries to find this even the slightest bit arousing, to maybe pass the time, to try and forget about their captors, but he can’t forget that they’re both being forced here.

Kakashi comes, and it’s a relief; he stills and empties into Iruka, and then collapses onto his chest and hides his face in his neck. He can hear the three voices on the other side of the window discussing the results of their “experiment” and adjustments needed to the drug. Iruka takes the chance to check out the seal on Kakashi’s collar while making it look like he’s just soothing Kakashi by petting his hair.

The seal is disgustingly simple. Even with his chakra suppressed he can undo this one in under a minute. He groans softly and tells Kakashi, and then asks if he’s ready to leave. Kakashi taps out five beats on his leg, and Iruka readies for a prison break in five minutes.

[builder051]

Whumptober 2021 day 5: Misunderstanding

Nat on fire

Small mentions of drug use, sickness, emeto

___________________________

Nat gets the call to action a few minutes past five on Wednesday morning. Her phone, stashed in the bed and still on its charger , begins to blare loudly, as does the pager she’s long since thrown into the depths of the closet. Once she answers one, they’ll both stop. It’s usually convenient, except that today she’s nowhere near either of them.

On a normal morning, Nat would still be in bed. Probably still in the dregs of REM, but lately, she’s just been drifting off at this hour, the drink and drugs in her system wearing down and leaving her to catch a short rest.

That’s not today, though. It’s the middle of the week, and Nat’s not stupid. She hasn’t shot up in two days. She hates to think that small of a break would put her in withdrawal, for she can’t be that addicted, can she? But that’s about the only logical cause Nat can think of for her sudden and desperate urge to leap out of bed and spill her guts into the toilet.

She’s been at it since…midnight? Maybe two. There was definitely a two showing on her glowing digital alarm clock when she dashed past it and skidded on her knees into the tiny bathroom. Hours have passed; Nat can tell without turning around to look at the clock. Her abdominal muscles have begin to hurt from heaving. She’s distinctly lightheaded, even perched up with the support of the toilet seat. Everything tastes like sour tropical fruit and salt and sweat. And Fury has a general rule about not calling before don’t-be-a-dick o’clock.

There’s a pause in the loud ringing from the bedroom behind her, then it all starts up again. Someone’s hit redial. Nat sighs and leans away from the toilet bowl, testing herself before leaving it completely. She’s fine, though shaky, and her throat seems both abraded and extra wet. “Ok,” she says, trying to push out speech without having to cough first.

Nat reaches around in the now-cold bedclothes and finds her phone, lit up and flashing Fury’s name.

“What?” Nat groans, almost before she has the speaker to her ear.

“Well, good morning to you,” Fury says in a clipped, annoyed tone. “What took you so long?”

“I was asleep…”

“Yeah, well, speedy reaction times are still a thing.”

Nat rolls her eyes, but but the movement brings back full-on nausea, so she stops, presses her shaky, slightly damp hand to her forehead, and takes two steps back until she finds the closet door against which to ground herself.

“Romanov?” Fury seems mildly concerned about her. Or maybe the connection of the call.

“Yeah,” Nat answers. “Here.”

“Briefing at 6:30. Trouble’s come up,” Fury explains shortly. “In country, so at least the flight’ll be short.”

“Urgent, uh, stuff…?” Nat hazards, her head more than her stomach telling her she’d be more comfortable back in the bathroom. She’s sure she’s emptied out, but that doesn’t mean the urge to retch is gone.

“Do I call you in for anything else?” Fury asks, as if she’s stupid.

“Well, um—“

“Briefing. 6:30,”. Fury shores up. “We still have a coffee machine.”

“Oh—“. Nat has to move her hand down over her mouth. “I’m really not feeling—“

“You’re up to it,” Fury says. “I promise. You’ll be finished by lunch, and you can all go and have your little celebratory hamburgers and what all.”

Nat’s going to explode. She presses what she hopes is the red button to end the call and throws her phone back on the bed. Then she turns on the spot and runs the three or four paces it takes to re-enter the bathroom. She bends at the waist and violently heaves, bringing up absolutely nothing except a dribble of foamy spit.

“Fabulous…”. Nat wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, then tries to force her fuzzy brain into motion. She needs to go into the office, there’s really no choice there. Then things are largely up to fate; she can sit seasick through a PowerPoint and bum along on a mission where she may or my not throw up on a jet, or she can get to the office and experience things going downhill from there. Nat can’t visualize an outcome where everything goes well.

Once she’s feeling steady enough, Nat gets back to her feet and turns on the bathroom light. She ignores the pale yellowish ring she’s made in the toilet and grabs a brush to see to her hair. Under the sink there’s a dusty gallon jug of distilled water, probably meant for the steam iron left untouched on the top shelf of the pantry. Fluids are fluids, though, and Nat has no Gatorade at the moment, so she unseals the lid and lifts the heavy bottle with both hands in order to take a drink. The water tastes like plastic, but anything’s better than the horror currently festering behind her molars.

Nat wore clothes to bed, a pair of faded black sweats and a SHIELD academy t-shirt, so she doesn’t bother getting dressed. She shoves her feet into tennis shoes without socks. Then she nabs a plastic grocery sack that’s listlessly floating across the kitchen tile opposite the window unit AC and stashes inside a pair of rolled up jeans and her phone. Nat takes her keys from the hook beside the front door, then takes a last deep breath and steps out into the hazy dawn.

It’s humid, and Nat’s car is covered in soft condensation. The moisture in the air settles on her upper lip, making her feel artificially hot and sick all over again. It’s only for a second, though, for once Nat’s in her vehicle, she blasts the cold air until she’s thoroughly chilled. Her hand shakes as she adjusts the temperature again to something more moderate, and it takes nearly the entire ride up the highway for her body to settle.

Nat’s fine, apart from a few hard swallows and intent breaths, until she gets to the side streets leading up to the SHIELD building. Half of them are one-way, and with cars illegally parked at intervals where she’d like to be driving, rather more attention is required than she’s prepared to give at the moment.

Nat’s stomach groans as she manages to squeeze past a crooked PT Cruiser with one tire attached to the curb. She swallows quickly a few times, but her mouth waters, and she isn’t sure anything is actually going down.

The next turn puts her at the entrance to the parking garage. Nat’s grateful that her full-time status lets her whiz past the barrier without having to stop and take a ticket. She loops around the first level, then the second. She’s about to go up the third and park on four, which puts her closest to the correct set of offices and locker rooms, but she’s beginning to taste bile again, and she knows she won’t last.

There’s a cluster of parking spaces in front of Nat, the weird angled ones that are most likely to get backed into by other cars as they escape at the end of the day, but, hey. She needs a spot and she needs one now. Nat means to let the car coast forward into the space, but it stagnates, and she hits the accelerator lightly. She has to slam on the break to keep from plowing into the blockade, and the jolt sends pure agony through her head, which then feeds down her spine, and into her abdomen.

“Fuck,” Nat mutters, trying to open the door and escape without first taking off her seatbelt. She hangs out of the car door, gagging for a moment, then her nausea dispels long enough for her come to her senses, disengage the seatbelt, and completely exit the car.

Unsteady on her feet, Nat clings to the door and hangs her head. Her breaths come fast and light perspiration forms on her forehead. Her throat feels gunky and sore, and she’s unaware of what or how much she’s expelling until she hears the splatter agains the garage floor.

A car horn honks suddenly behind Nat, and she starts, whipping her head around. Headlights nearly blind her, but Nat can make out the silhouette of an open door and someone moving toward her.

“Nat?” A familiar voice calls, and she can see him pick up his pace, running now to close the gap between his car and hers.

Nat curses under her breath, then spits and shakes her head. There’s no real hiding the evidence, not at this point. Best she can do is come up with a convincing lie and hope her body can roll with it.

“Are you ok?” Steve asks, approaching her with arm outstretched. He goes to touch her shoulder, but changes his mind at the last moment and places his palm atop the roof of the sedan.

“Um. Yeah.” Nat clears her throat a little, which burns and brings on a secondary desire to turn her insides out, but she clenches every muscle esophagus to colon and manages to keep it down.

“Are you—?”

“Coffee.” Nat tries to find her voice. “Didn’t quite agree with me.”

“Uh…”. Steve shakes his head. “That’s not coffee.”

Nat turns her head a micrometer and sees him looking at the hideously yellow bile running downhill toward her tires.

“Why are you so interested in looking at my…” Nat accuses. “You know. And why’d you honk at me?”

“That was a mistake.” Steve looks mildly ashamed. “I just traded in for a newer model…” He trails off.

“No matter what year it is, you shouldn’t leave it idling like that,” Nat snaps. She gets a swipe in at her face while Steve’s looking backward at his inappropriate high beams.

“You seem like you’re in trouble,” Steve says abruptly, still turned away. “You’re really sick.”

The flickering fluorescents overhead can’t be doing anything good for her complexion. “Eh. Everybody gets hit sometimes.”

“You shouldn’t have had to come in.”

Nat’s laugh comes out more like a weak, hitching sigh. “Try telling that to Fury.”

“You downplay things. Hard. You know?” Steve’s free hand comes out of nowhere and the backs of his fingers rest lightly below Nat’s cheekbone.

“Get off, you creep—“

“Relax. I’m just checking your temperature.” Steve’s smile looks placating, but his eyes are wide and honest.

“Hm.” Nat sniffs and waits for him to be done.

Steve drops his hand back to his side and nods conclusively.

“What?”

“Just what I thought. You’re warm.” Steve doesn’t waste time. “C’mon, I’ll quit idling my engine and take you home.”

“Nah, I’ll probably ruin your new upholstery.” Nat gulps, disgusted by the possibility of new car smell filling her lungs and sinus cavities. “I don’t know. I’ll just…”. Nat looks into her vehicle, dreading the journey back to her apartment. She shifts her eyes back to Steve. “And I’ll have to beg out to Fury first, anyway.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Steve says. “On my word.”

“You’re not going to take pictures on your phone, are you?” Nat asks weakly. “You’re going to need proof to get past that guy…”

“If you can’t ride in a car, you need to be in medical.” Steve seems to realize he hasn’t broken it to her gently, so he backtracks and says, “With beds, you know?”

Nat wants to disagree. Even if she’s not fit for a mission, she can at least be independent. Take care of herself. But what’s she even thinking? She’s barfing in a damn parking garage, getting rescued by a coworker because she can’t even get up to the right floor.

“Fine,” Nat practically growls. “But no needles.” The nurse babysitting her doesn’t need to see the baby track marks dotting her inner elbow. She’ll keep those to herself, thank you very much. “No IVs. Bed. Bin. That’s all.”

“I’ll make sure that’s clearly communicated.” Steve nods , then jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Let me go park that thing, and I’ll walk you in.”

“Sure…”

Steve vanishes, and a moment later, the offensive headlights dim to something more manageable. His car moves forward and comes to a stop a few places down from hers.

Nat could vanish, too. Run into the building. Jump into her driver’s seat and speed off.

She doesn’t need the help. Or the charity. Or the friendship, really. She isn’t quite sure why, but she stays.

[absolutepx]

So I've been playing Death Stranding lately. Wait, that's not what this post is about. Well, it kind of is. Hang on. What is Death Stranding about?

A: Norman Reedus getting bare ass naked B. Sneaking around ghosts with the help of your sidekick, an actual baby C: Carrying 50 Amazon packages up a hill while trying to not topple over D: Waking up in the morning and drinking 5 Monster Energy™ for breakfast

For those following along at home, the answer is actually none of the above. Despite the set dressing being bizarre to the point of near absurdity, what the game is actually about, like thematically, is actually really simple.

See, the development of Death Stranding was actually quite a trip. Hideo Kojima is the video game world's equivalent of an auteur director. He has a very recognizable personal style. It's thoroughly horny – he caught a bunch of shit for the design of Quiet in MGSV, but like, a lot of Kojima characters are just -like that-, including the dudes. Also, this is going to possibly be important later.

Anyway, so Kojima was going to do a rebootmakequel of Silent Hill, and the demo actually made it to the PS store and I could actually write a whole side essay about why P.T. (it was called P.T. for some reason btw) was brilliant game design for how it used the same hallway over and over and it was somehow beneficial to the overall feeling of horror. So Konami it turns out kinda sucks nowadays and they like, fired Kojima (they were huge dicks about it behind closed doors, too) and scrapped the project and kicked him out on the street and kept the Metal Gear series which was his baby (literally the baby in the sink in P.T., he snuck a bunch of messaging about the Konami situation into the demo like a breakup album) and Kojima would go on to form his own studio and poach some of the people who worked with him to boot. So the thing about Kojima is this: he's got a reputation for already putting some wild shit in his games, like a ladder that takes like 10 real time minutes to climb in MGS3 for dramatic effect, and a boss in MGS3 that summons the ghosts of all the people you were too lazy to stealth past and killed, or a sniper battle with a really old guy that he wanted to have last two weeks or some shit until he died of old age but he was "told that "this was impossible and not recommended." That is a real quote I just looked up. So he's coming off the heels of making this hugely successful game with MGSV and the hype of the P.T. Demo and he fucking, he like took all the people that were going to be working on P.T. Along like Guillermo Del Toro was going to co-write it and Norman Reedus was going to star in it, and he's like, I'm going to make this game called Death Stranding. And the first trailer comes out for it and it's completely nuts. Norman Reedus wakes up naked on a beach crying with a baby and there are floating people in the sky? So we're all like hooooooly shit, there's no one to tell him "this is impossible and not recommended" anymore. What's he going to make now!?

So the whole time the game is in development I keep seeing these tweets where it'll be like, Kojima and one of his homies smiling with some saccharine message about being spiritual warriors and changing the world. And not just Del Toro and Reedus, there was Mads Mikkelsen (another guy Kojima puts in the game just because he apparently loves him), and the band Chvches, and also like, Keanu Reeves at one point? You know how everyone has just kind of accepted that Keanu is a being of light? Here he was endorsing Kojima. The hype was pretty confused and frantic.

The game eventually comes out. A lot of game journos hate it because I think there was this expectation it was going to be, you know, less weird and have more of the conventional structure of a video game. That's not to say the average gamer wasn't also dismissive of it, but I think on the ground level there was more of an understanding that like, yeah, Kojima just be like that sometimes.

Because the game was a timed console exclusive and your homie don't play like that, I spent the first year or so cautiously viewing Death Stranding from a distance. I wasn't sure I was going to like it – except for being really impressed with P.T., I wasn't actually a big fan of Kojima's games as games – but I -was- sure that I was going to buy it, because of the way Konami fucked him over, just out of support. And the shit I was hearing was really out there. The primary mode of gameplay is just delivery packages. You collect Norman Reedus' bathwater and pee and use it as grenades. You get a motorcycle that looks like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus, and when you sit on it, his character in the game says "Wow, this thing is like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus!"

But I didn't really want to know that much about it. Something has that much fucking crazy person energy, you want to go in mostly blind, right? So maybe people just weren't talking about this, or maybe I wasn't seeing it, but then I watched Girlfriend Reviews' video about it and they came right out and said it (link provided if you want to hear Shelby say it more articulately than me):

Death Stranding is basically about the exact opposite of Twitter. It's about remembering how to be kind to each other, how to reconnect in a world where people are so often hostile to each other by default. Prophetically, it's about a world where people are afraid to go outside or touch other people and how damaging that is. It's not a game about carrying packages, it's a game about helping people by being brave enough to walk through a wasteland carrying their burdens because they can't. It's about rebuilding the lost connections between people, about restoring roads and giving people hope. I bet, for Kojima and the people close to him, it's about how to answer hostility with compassion. You can't kill people in Death Stranding. You can and are absolutely encouraged to fucking throw hands with people sometimes, but all the tools and weapons are nonlethal. So I think Kojima took all the Twitter heat he got over the Quiet nontroversy, and all the feelings of isolation he had from Konami separating him from his team during the end of the development of MGSV, and all the support and encouragement he got from his bros Del Toro and Mads and the rest, and decided to channel that into making a game that was a statement about all of it. And sure, it's a little heavy handed, and sure, it's a little saccharine, and sure, the gameplay sometimes borders on miserable in service of creating emotional payoffs. For me, especially in 2020, this message is a huge success. Social media should be an opportunity for all of us to feel more connected to each other, yet primarily it feels like one of the main forces driving people apart. Why is that? Why is the internet of today such a hostile place? I'm old enough to remember web 1.0: I can haz cheezburger memes; YTMND; the early wild west days of Youtube... What happened to us? I've thrown the blame at Twitter in the past, and I think the architecture of the user experience on Twitter is absolutely a big piece of the puzzle, because it fosters negative interactions. But in terms of the behavior, people have observed that 2018 Twitter was actually almost exactly like 2014 Tumblr. (For the record, Tumblr is now one of the chillest places left on the internet, because so few fucks are left to give.)

I think part of it is the anonymity. The dehumanizing disconnection of the separation of screens and miles. Louis CK, before he was cancelled, had a great point about cyberbullying, and why it's so much more savage than kids are IRL. When you pick on someone in person and you are confronted with seeing the pain you caused them, for most sane people it causes negative feedback and you become disgusted with your actions and eventually learn to stop being a shithead. Online, at best you can "break the wrist, walk away".

At worst, you can become addicted to "clout chasing" and the psychological thrill of being cheered on by your social ingroup. It's even worse if you feel like it's not bullying and your actions are justified because whoever you've targeted is a bad person so you don't have to feel bad about what you do to them. This is where reductive, unhelpful catchphrases like "punch a nazi" come in. For every argument, one or both sides have convinced themselves that the other side is subhuman because their beliefs are so disgusting. And sometimes it's even true! A lot of times, especially these days, people really are acting like animals or worse online. Entire disinformation engines are roaring day and night, churning out garbage and cluttering the social consciousness. (Kojima talked about this bit, too, way back in MGS2. As if I wasn't already in danger of losing my thread through this.)

The human brain was not built to live like this. You can't wake up every morning, roll over and open your phone, and be immediately faced with a tidal wave of anger and indignity. It wasn't built to be aware of fully how horrible the world is at any moment ALL AT ONCE, ALL THE TIME. And you will be. Because of another way that our brain works – the way we are more likely to share negative opinions. And because of the cottage industry built on farming outrage clicks, and because of constant performative activism.

It's not that I don't agree that being informed is important.

It's not that I don't agree that the causes people get riled up about are important.

They are. They absolutely are.

But we can't keep living like this. The constant, unending flood of tragedy, arguments, and hot takes. How much of the negativity we associate with online culture is the product of this feedback loop? What if the rise of doomer culture has been, if not entirely created by, has been nourished and exacerbated by our hostile attitudes toward each other?  Incels and TERFs, white supremacists, radfems, tankies and Trumpers – it seems like on every side of every issue, there are people simultaneously getting it wrong in multiple directions at once and there are more being radicalized every day. They are the toxic waste left behind by the state of discourse. And any hill is a hill worth dying on.

So what am I actually advocating? I don't know. There are a lot of fights going on right now that are important and we can't just climb into bunkers and ignore our problems hoping that Norman Reedus and his fine ass are going to leave the shit we need on our doorsteps. We need to find the strength to carry those hypothetical packages for ourselves sometimes - and hopefully, for others as well. Humans are social creatures. We need interaction and enrichment.

We need love.

So just try to remember the connections between humanity. Try to put more good stuff into the world when you can. Share more shitposts and memes. Tell your friends and family that you love them. Share good news when you hear it. Go on a weird fucking tangent about Death Stranding. Find a way to "be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes."

[popculturebuffet]

Donald Duck Birthday Special!: 12 Donald Shorts!

Happy Birthday to my faviorite duck! As you can probably guess from my previous Ducktales reviews Donald Duck is my faviorite of the classic disney gang. As an angry but well meaning, sometimes lazy sometimes hardoworing and always out of his depth guy really spoke to me for obvious reasons and my love of him made me check out life and times and well you know the rest.  But weirdly, until last month i’d hardly seen any of his theatrical shorts. I grew up as a “Tom and Jerry” and “Looney Tunes” kid, and with Disney never playing them on disney channel for whatever reason (even with the ones they really CAN’T play there’s dozens they sure as hell can), I just never had any real intrest. But then Louie’s Eleven happened , I was starved for Donsy content and thus rewatched Mr.Duck Steps out, and most of her filmography, skipping the ones where she’s the miserable wife from every sitcom... more on that later, and with one exception. So I wanted to review them.. but quickly reailzed that with 6 minutes for most shorts there’s not a ton to dig into, so I decided after finding out his birthday was next month to take a handful and pile them in here, review them and see what makes my boy so great, what dosen’t, and look at the good the bad and the holy shit did he just point a shot gun at that poor defensless animal of Donald Fauntleroy Duck. We get this party started under the cut. 

For funsies since, unlike most things I cover, every episode has a gif on here i’m going to use the gif keyboard to look up an image for the cartoon.. and if not well.. whatever’s there will have to do. 

1. The Wise Little Hen (1934) A charming little short that I rewatched today to get on the docket, and i’m glad I did. The plot is very simple: A Hen and her 8 chicks are planting, then harvesting corn. For each task they ask Peter Pig, Local dick and the Rusty Spokes of 1934, and Donald Duck, our boy looking very diffrent, for help. Peter just says who me then runs off while Donald fakes a bellyache. Both get their compuance when the Hen and her 8 chicks make a ton of goodies from the corn and decide to eat it all themselves, while donald and peter give themselves an ass kicking. 

I genuinely wish this is how life worked: Your bad, take advantage of people and your reward is not taking their beinfits and snickering but having to kick each other in the tuckuss on loop.. you know instead of the Peter Pigs of the world blaming people for getting maced in the face by stormtroopers. Sigh.  That aside it’s just a fun, charming short with great animation, and a great look for Donald. I do genuinely love his first look, even if it’d later be eased down to perfection. And there’s plenty of fun gags and great music. Overal a solid A short.  

2. Moving Day (1936) As you can see from the GIF this one isn’t strictly donald, we’re still one away from a starring role. After annoying the shit out of Mickey in the classic’s “The Orphans Benefit” and “The Band Concert” , Donald soon became his regular sidekick alongside Goofy. Both would quickly breakout and this short is apparent why as Mickey is a side character in his own labeled short.  The setup is somehow, after 84 years, STILL relevant to modern day. Basically Mickey and Donald are tennants who haven’t for whatever reason, paid their rent and are 6 months behind. And sure they could just be obnoxious squatters doing it onlyf or their art who shriek like banshees the moment their asked to actually pay rent, but thankfully this isn’t RENT, or else I would’ve jumped out of a window by now. No given this is the depression, their likely trying to hold onto their house and meager posessions for as long as they can while work is incredibly scarce... not like.. now.. ha .. ha. ha.... I may take the window up on it’s offer after all.  Anyways, our valiant heroes decide to try and cram everything they can into their friend Goofy’s milk truck while Pete’s busy putting up signs to advertise him trying to sell their shit to make up his back rent. WHich translates to a bit of mickey doing that and most of the short being spent with donald fighting a rug and Goofy being outsmarted by a piano. Both are utterly hilarious and prove why these two became far more popular, and overall the short’s a damn good timea nd our heroes win by still getting a pile of possesions out while their antics destroy the rest so pete gets nothing! Horay! They can sleep at goofy’s place! Now moving on from crushing reality, it’s animal cruelty! 

3. Don Donald (1937) I wasn’t kidding. Yeahhh this was donald’s first full, not attached to Pluto for some reason or an adorable chicken family or his mousy overlord short. Don Donald. Donald’s in mexico, for some reason and wooing a lady, in this case Daisy prototype, Donna Duck as seen in the header image. I like her, they have a diffrent dynamic, both being kind of tempramental and flirty instead of that being just ONE of donald and daisy’s dynamics. Others being muttually supportive and adorable (Ducktales and Quack Pack) or daisy being the wife from according to jim, or last man standing, or my wife and kids, or king of queens, or the george lopez show, or everybody loves raymond, or ... you know what i’m depressed enough from the last two shorts you get it. But you know without Donald being an obnoxious asshole who views every guy his daughter dates like a horny degernate who just wants to get in there and overreacts to everything involving them and makes me pray for death but death wont come.... I may not like classic daisy very much. Moving on.  That being said as you can tell from the donkey abuse donald.. ihs a fucking asshole in this one.. and not the loveable asshole he is in the band concert mind you I mean he’s less brent sienna and more tucker carleson. He laughs at his girlfriends misforutunes and hit shis burro and then tries to trade it in for a car.. which he does. He gets his commupance and all but yeah.. it’s deeply uncomfortable to watch him abuse this animal for half the runtime. Trading it in is one thing, but he’s still an utter dick to it.A short that COULD’VE been fun that instead is just uncomfortable, even given the time it takes place in. 

4. Donald’s Ostrich (1937) Donald works at a distant train station taking care of various cargo that comes in and ends up having to care for an adorable ostrich named hortense. Hyjinks, especially once she swallows Donald’s Radio, insue. This short.. is a MASSIVE step up from don donald. INstead of uncomfortable animal abuse donald just gets frustrated with an ostrich and battered round a bit, and tries to cure her hiccups. My faviorite bit is when hortense arrive, and stands up with a box on her,a nd donald goes under her gives a greatly delivered by Clarence Nash “what’s going on around here” before hortense sits on him. Really funny. And yes Hortsense is a regular ostrich. And yes that paradox has been around this long. But this one’s way funnier, way more charming and really damn adorable and dosen’t remind me of the crushing horrors of real life so yeah. A+. There’s only one short I like as much and it’s coming up. 

5. Modern Inventions (1937) Another one from his first year and another classic. Basically donald deals with various inventions in a “house of the future” type attractions, gets ruffled by them and the robot butler seen above steals his hat with a dry brtiish “your hat sir” while donald adorably pulls one out of thin air in increasingly creative ways. Again plotwise these shorts are simple but by now they figured out what made donald work: getting frustrated sure but with him being a relatable every man and sometimes trickster as seen here with the hats and him pulling that old coin on a string trick. 

He also dresses up like a baby at one point and i’ts weird but oddly funny... but yeah donald is in peak form here and this one is another clear A+, if for the running robot gag alone as donald keeps puttingon new hats and the robot has a truly spectacular design.

 6. Donald’s Better Self (1938)

Now for a weird one.. not the most surreal thing on our list, despite you know a devil version of donald popping out of his mailbox, but it’s damn close because you know, Donald as Satan popping out of his mailbox.  In short Donald is cast as a school aged child.... you know what’s coming. 

And you may say “Well jake they were just experimenting and his age was vauge at first” and to that I say, with no joke Huey Dewey and Louie debuted THIS SAME YEAR. Even given how adaptable older cartoon characters are, and they are it’s part of the charm, and tha’ts fine.. this is a bit over the line. Oh and it gets weirder as donald has the standard cartoon angel and devil arguging over his actions things.. only here the Angel and Devil are donald sized, and again fighting over the soul of a chid in the body of a 30 year old man, literally in some cases, ending with said devil encouraging donald to smoke before he and the angel get into a fistfight. While not an especially GOOD short, you have to admit.. it’s unique.. batshit but unique and worth at least one watch. 

7. Donald’s Penguin (1938)

The second in our trilogy within a series of “Donald gets a pet” shorts, this one start’s out fine, Donald gets an adorable penguin named Tootsie from “Colonel bird” and does cute things like immitate it’s walk or what not while Tootsie is a grumpus. Fun stuff. Then tootsie apparenlty eats Donald’s fish, and donald spanks the poor bird. Now this pissed off some people on Letterboxd but me, while it’s slightly distressing, it was 1938: while spanking was NEVER a great thing, it was acceptable back then and as far as Donald knew Toottsie knew not to eat the fish, Donald had told him no adorably, and did it anyway. So donald goes to get an apology trout, which he just.. has for some reason out of the ice box and uh.. things take a turn from “it was accpetable at the time” to “HOLY SHIT”...  Tootsie decides fuck it and eats the fish and uh... Donald.. how do I put this calmly.. ahemahem okay... DONALD GRABS A FUCKING SHOT GUN AND CHASES HIM AROUND, THEN ONLY BACKS OUT AT THE LAST SECOND, A SHORT FIRES, AND HE MOURNS WHAT HE THINKS IS HIS DEAD PENGUIN. We then get a cute shot at the end but holy shit.While Elmer fudd is one thing since he’s A) the bad guy and B) is indeed trying to kill a wild animal he has a lisence for instead of his fucking pet whose a protected species if those existed back then, this is just... like the donkey abuse, deeply uncomfortable. It’s one thing to spank a pet, even up to the 90′s that was acceptale and still is in some circles, but it’s another to try and murder it over a slight infraction. Just.. jesus christ. I want Tootsie back too, this was objectivley terrifying. Let’s move on. 

8. Mr Duck Steps Out (1940)

Ahhhh yes the short about dancing that brought me to the dance. This one is, without a shred of second guessing, which for my anxious self is a miracle, my faviorite both of this batch and in general.  The short is about Donald trying to go on a date with Daisy at her house, and his nephews inviting themselves along and trying to ruin there uncle’s every attempt at getting romantic with wacky hyjinks. That’s.. basically the plot.. as you can tell these things are very light on plot but here that’s all you need.  A few things to note. 1) The boys are VERY much in their early characterization, i.e., their all assholes instead of “All huey 2k17 but dialed down a notch” or “karmic tricksters working against their uncle’s ego”, though they’d ocassionally dip into this in the 80′s ducktales depending on the episode, especially if webby was around, and shove their face into it and inhale deeply like me with the hidden mountain of cocaine hidden under my basement.   The second is that Daisy has a duck voice, much like Donna did for this short and only this one. It’s not too distracting given she barely speaks, though she has more than enough body language to make up for it, it’s just.. odd.. especailly since it means Clarence Nash, donald’s voice actor, is voicing EVERYONE in the short and doing a terrific job of it.  Even weirder is Disney would later redub a shortned version for Disney Channel in the 2010′s that had their modern voice actors (Donald Aselmo, Tress Macneil and Russi Taylor, god rest her soul) re-dub it and it just feels all kinds of wrong despite the three being excellent va’s. I dunno the cleaner modern audio just feels wonky coming out of the old 40′s short.  But despite it’s oddities the short really has fun, from the iconic little dance donald does at the start...

Serioulsy I freaking love that dance and his outfit. To the little laughs donald gives when telling daisy “HA, I brought my nephews ha” like a 40′s tommy wiseau, to him roaring in a lion skin to the ending which is just pure adorable and nice because Donald actually GETS to win, especially because half of all donald shorts or comics where he’s sympathetic end up with Donald miserable and beaten up and me like this. 

Instead Daisy kisses him all over and over again, until the night goes dancing. 

Overal a fun, fast paced short about Donald trying to get laid and the gold standard of Donald Duck shorts. Two more things before I move on. This was co-written by disney comics legend Carl Barks, and it shows, and i’d be remiss if Id idn’t mention this bit of Daisy, after playfully shoving donald away when he coyly asks for a kiss, giving him a come hither signal with her butt.. which is somehow hot. Don’t ask me how.

And with that mental image we move on. What do we got next?

9. The Spirit of 43 (1943)

Ah yes propaganda! and the first one I couldn’t find a gif for. I watched this one because it’s another Barks one, he worked on several of these and was also the one who suggested not having HDL be assholes all the time as he felt, rightly, it’d get old after a while, and because it has protypes for scrooge and gladstone, and is thus one of the only shorts Scrooge is in and the only classic one... And like Donald’s Better Self it’s fucking weird. It’s all propganda no joke as ONCE AGAIN, yes AGAIN, two figures battle for Donald’s soul, this time a scottish man encouraging him to save and donate and a sleezy huckster encouraging him to spend for himself.. even though spending in bars and what not helps the economy and gives the bartender money to stay open during such trying times, but whatever. Also the huckster aka proto gladstone turns into hitler.. yes really.. and Donald then punches him through a swastika captain america style because donald duck is hardcore. Trust me this is somehow NOT a cocaine induced fever dream I had. Not a great one but like Donald’s Better Self worth at least one watch, in this case in additiont o the insantiy for the historical value of seeing two prototypes for Carl Barks most iconic characters. 

10. Sleepy Time Donald (1947)

As you can tell this one’s way more wholesome and way less of a drug trip. Donald goes sleepwalking and Daisy, realizing it, plays along so he dosen’t wake up and goes thorugh the motions of one of their dates. Very simple, ending with Donald thinking he’s the sleepwalker before she conks him out, and very adorable as while Donald isn’t concious, and has a boot on his head, we see what a standard date for them is like when Daisy is being written well as they strut around the park, he proposes, it’s all really damn cute and if you like these two together, you’ll really enjoy this one. Not much else to say other than it’s really precious and really funny and creative. Kinda hard to follow up Donald duck punching out hitler. 

11. Daddy Donald (1948)

Another quick one and the end of the “donald gets an animal” trilogy. First off, while I only got one gif from this short, I DID get this lovely image under “Daddy Donald” in Tumblr’s gif search thing

Awwwww. Anyways, Donald adopts a kangaroo like it was a baby, it’s kind of weird, not as weird as the above. He and Joey slowly bond, while he gets directions on what to do from the lady at the adoption place over the phone and hyjinks insue. Kind of cute but not quite reaching the heights of “Donald’s ostrich or the first hal fof “Donald’s Penguin” and not being quite as surreal as Double LIfe or Donald Punches Hitler.. which is what Spirit of 43 should’ve been named. I mean at least “De Fuherer’s Face” had a memorable name. But yeah not one of hte more notable ones and I mostly included it to round out the trilogy. Speaking of trilogy’s to close out this celebration of Donald, one of the last shorts and the last one featuring Daisy, and the inspriation fo rher Ducktales outfit. Donald’s Diary. 

12. Donald’s Diary (1954) Well.. this is basically one half of a good short ending in a lot of misogny. I could end it there but there is a lot to this short. It basically has donald, weridly in a clearly voiced narration talking about his courtship with Daisy as she first tries to get his attention and he’s oblivious.

Then she uses a rope trap and we get this iconic image which is concentrated awwwww. 

Then they date, Daisy’s implied to have dated a bunch of guys which was a bad thing in the 50′s but is perfectly resonable in 2020, and he meets her brothers, basically huey dewey and louie standins and her.. parents. Yes apparnetly donald’s parents have to be implicitly dead by present day, but Daisy’s can be alive. Weird ain’t it? It’s pretty adorable, has some great gags and we even get him proposing and them marrying!  And then the shoe drops.. yeah the rest of the short is how she expects him to GASP work all day , fair enough but then GASP do all the chores.. which is bad but the short implies it’s because he’s the man and she’s the woman and she should do housework. It’s actually bad because marriage is an equal partnership and while asking him to do a chore or too after working all day is fine just fine, asking him to do EVERYTHING while you do nothing is abusive and terrible and i’ve seen it actually happen in my friend’s previous marriage. So yeah this message can fuck off. And I knokw standards of the time, penguins having shotguns pointed at them etc but there’s not having aged well but being able to ignore it and there’s this.  And then she procedes to spousally abuse him and work him to the bone, and then he wakes up, and assuming ALL marraige sare like this dosen’t end up proposing leaving the poor girl wondering what the fuck she did to upset him. Real fucking cute guys. Seriously just.. part of the reason this part bothers me so much is MANY people think this is what marriage is like, like a fucking terrible sitcom. Life isn ot like home improvment or according to jim, or my wife and kids or king of queens or family guy, or you get my point again and yes I reused some their that bad.. even now we get stuff like man with a plan. It annoys me because 70+ years later and while it’s getting better this same lazy comedy still happens! and much like king of queens wasted the late great jerry stiller, this short wastes great animation and a great first half to tell a terrible story. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and is a bleh note to end on. Watch the first half because it’s adorable, end it at the wedding.  IN conclusion Donald’s shorts are a mixed bag but as you could tell some are truly spectacular and some are worth the spectacle and all have terrific animation and effort put in, evne when they didn’t deserve it and as such I couldn’t think of a better way to honor donald’s birthday than with these animators hard, well worth it efforts. Even when it wasn’t great, it was still somewhat fun. So happy birthday old friend and here’s to many more. Later Days.

[qionow]

A Brief Introduction As To Why Tinder Sucks: As Told By Russia

i’m not even gonna try to defend myself with this one. you wanna see fem!america making fem!russia’s first tinder account??? you want 3k words about this shit??? let’s go y’all, enjoy some shenanigans 

“I do not understand the purpose of this.” 

“It’s in the name dude!” America barely glanced up from Russia’s phone, tapping away at the screen with a dexterity that made Russia’s head spin just to watch. “You need me to spell out what a dating app does?” 

Russia peered over America’s shoulder as she worked, leaning over from her seat at the desk chair in their hotel room in order to reach the bed. “I thought we were already dating.” 

“Yeah, but you’ve never used one of these before, and that’s like a 21st-century sin!” America huffed out. “Seriously, how the hell did you hook up with people?” 

“By talking to them.” 

America waved her off with a flick of her wrist.

“Whatever. You just gotta catch up with the times!” 

She squinted down at the screen for a moment, swiping through what seemed to be a few photos before she nodded to herself and held the phone up. “You like these?” 

Russia plucked the phone out of her hands, although she had to admit that she was surprised when she saw her own face looking back at her. “Where did you get these pictures?” 

“Saved them from your texts!” America reported cheerfully. “You got some real cute ones there!” 

Russia only hummed in acknowledgement, looking over the photos America had selected. They were nothing new, simply a few shots she had taken herself (upon America’s insistence) and a few that America had taken of her on their various outings. 

She was sure that there was some kind of determining factor behind them, whether it be the lighting or framing, but Russia chose to avoid going down that rabbit hole for the time being. 

“They will do.” 

“Sweet!” 

America snatched the phone back out of Russia’s hands before she could even get another word out, already back to typing furiously. 

“Alright, I’m gonna set you up so you get guys and girls,” she called out. 

Russia blinked. 

“Huh?” 

America glanced up in order to wave the phone around, as if that was an adequate explanation in and of itself. “For when you start weeding people out! You gotta get the full experience if you’re doing this!” 

Russia barely understood half of the words coming out of America’s mouth at this point, but she merely chose to smile and nod. That certainly seemed to be the right answer when America beamed at her before she busied herself with the rest of Russia’s profile. 

It didn’t take long before Russia’s phone was being handed back to her for her approval of the final product, which admittedly, wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The photos were decent enough, and America at least had the self-restraint to avoid putting any mocking jokes in. 

Russia briefly looked over it once before she nodded. “I forgot that you would need my human name for this,” she commented.

America only let out a boisterous laugh at that though, tossing her head back and sending her messy blonde hair flying across her face before she leaned back forward. “Well yeah dude! It’s kinda weird if you’re trying to hit on the whole country of Russia, y’know?” 

“You certainly did not have a problem with that.” 

“Not about me, shut up!” 

Russia giggled when America’s face quickly turned bright red, cheeks flushed before she could manage to wave her off. “I am sure it is not.” 

“Whatever!” America reached over to grab the armrest of Russia’s desk chair, yanking her in as she leaned over to see the screen. “Hurry up and start swiping!” 

Russia shook her head with a bemused smile, although she did follow America’s instructions and look down in order to judge the profile in front of her. 

She had to admit, with the competition sitting next to her, she doubted that any of these candidates would stand a chance. 

~~

“America?” 

Russia heard the sheets rustling behind her before a familiar weight draped itself over her back, arms looping around her neck as America peeked out from behind her. 

“What’s up dude?” 

Russia only stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard without ever typing anything out. “You said you chose both men and women, right?” 

America nodded her head, resting her chin on Russia’s shoulder. “Yeah, why?” 

Russia didn’t even know how to begin to explain that one. She didn’t even dare to say it out loud, opting instead to hold her phone up so America could see what she was currently dealing with. 

“Huh?” 

America squinted at the screen, blue eyes narrowing for a brief moment before they blew wide again. 

“Oh that’s a dick.” She let out a low whistle. “That’s just a full-on dick.” 

Russia quickly lowered the phone as soon as America started to speak, keeping it face down on her lap as she glanced back up at her. “Is this normal?” 

“I mean, pretty much,” she answered, returning her cautious stare with a nonchalant shrug. “Why, you just wanna see girls now?” 

“Yes please.” 

~~

Thankfully, that little incident had yet to repeat itself after America had changed the settings again, leaving Russia to look through the various profiles of other women in the area. 

There were some fairly attractive people around, but Russia still found it a little more difficult to choose between pictures presented to her. 

“Oh, she’s cute,” America murmured, voice muffled from her insistent use of Russia’s thigh as a pillow. 

Russia paused, tilting the screen down so America could get a clear view of the woman in front of her. “Her?” 

America nodded, squirming around in order to lay down on her back instead of her stomach. “Yup!” 

Russia hummed thoughtfully, studying the image again. The smiling face of Elizabeth Warren looked back at her, offering long brunette hair and pale skin covered up with a warm flannel. She certainly was pretty, but she wasn’t quite Russia’s type. 

“Maybe you should do this instead then,” she said, eventually settling on swiping right just for America’s input. 

America only snorted, bringing one hand up to wave it lazily in the air. 

“Not the point dude!” Her hand quickly dropped to land back on her stomach. “This is a learning experience or whatever!” 

“I didn’t know your vocabulary was that big.” 

Russia let out a quiet grunt when America smacked her arm, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the grin from spreading across her face. 

“Rude.” 

Russia shook her head, swatting away the last of America’s hits as she settled back down to focus on the screen. Each woman was attractive in her own way, but Russia just couldn’t really find the appeal in them when she already had America draped across her lap. 

Still, she did her best to sort through them, idly swiping away at the numerous profiles without much attention to detail. 

At least, until a certain profile forced her attention right back onto it. 

“America,” she started, eyes locked on her screen, “you said anyone can use this, right?” 

“Yup!” America glanced up at her, tilting her head with curiosity written all over her face. 

“You are certain about that?” 

“Of course I am!” America shot back. “Why would I be wrong?” 

This was something yet again that Russia couldn’t even hope to explain and once more, she relegated herself to showing America her phone so she could see the profile for herself. 

At first though, America only stared back at the picture without a single connection being made. 

“What’s wrong with her? She’s just-” 

Russia could have sworn she saw the moment the gears in America’s head started to turn, face going blank for a moment before her jaw dropped. 

“Is that Germany?” 

Russia was relieved that America came to the same conclusion she had, although there were relatively few conclusions to be made when faced with a muscular blonde named Monika Beilschmidt on Tinder. 

“I think so,” she finally answered with some hesitation. “I do not know who else it could be.” 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait.” America quickly reached up to snatch the phone out of her hands, pushing herself up as her eyes darted across the screen. “That can’t be her.” 

“It certainly looks like her,” Russia pointed out. 

America only waved her off though, focus narrowed solely onto the picture in front of her. “It’s probably a catfish or something.” 

“Germany does not hand her name out lightly.” Russia leaned back over in order to get a better look at the profile again. “It is very unlikely that someone would have both her picture and her true name.” 

“I mean, yeah, but-” America cut herself off to throw a hand out towards the screen. “That’s Germany! She only uses her phone to like, call her boss!” 

Russia merely shrugged. “Perhaps she is changing as well.” 

America opened her mouth and Russia could already see her argument forming before she snapped it back shut, turning instead to the phone with a new determination. “Oh just you fucking wait.” 

Russia furrowed her brow, but that quickly changed into a wide-eyed shock when America swiped right. 

“What are you doing?” she hissed, reaching over to snatch her phone back. 

America firmly kept herself out of reach though, twisting around to avoid Russia’s hands as she started to type. “I’m gonna prove that this isn’t Germany!” 

“America, no!” 

Russia’s protests went unheeded though and eventually, there was nothing she could do but watch as America sent the first text. 

do you know when the meeting starts tomorrow?

She managed to get her phone back too late, staring at the screen with horror before she glared at America. “Amelia, I am going to-” 

“It’s not even her! Chill, dude!” America motioned back towards the screen. “Whoever it is won’t even know how to answer that! Just wait!” 

Russia certainly had some thoughts on that little piece of advice, but those quickly went out the window when her phone buzzed in her hand. 

9 in the morning, although I expect people to start arriving around 8:45. 

Also, I must emphasize that there are other ways to contact me if you have any questions.

“Oh no.” 

“What? Ready to accept defeat an-”

America’s words died in her mouth as soon as she caught sight of the screen. 

“No way.” 

Russia nodded, vaguely wondering if she had entered the first stages of shock as she looked over the message again. “I thought she was with Italy.” 

“Maybe they’re not exclusive or something,” America offered, although her voice was still colored with disbelief. 

She snapped her head up to look at Russia fast enough that Russia thought she would break her own neck for a minute. 

“We gotta figure out what’s going on.” 

Russia hesitated. “I do not think that is a good idea. It is none of our business.” 

“Yeah, but look at this!” America motioned wildly towards the texts, nearly smacking the phone out of Russia’s hand in the process. “This is like a whole mystery movie waiting to happen!” 

“That does not change the fact that this is not a good idea.” 

“We’re not gonna follow her around or anything!” America protested. “We’ll just text her and see what’s up! 

Now, the very smart and rational part of Russia was telling her to drop the app completely and hope that what little of the professional relationship she had with Germany could be salvaged before she would have to meet her in the morning. Unfortunately, that part was quickly being drowned out by the much more America-influenced portion of her that was rather curious to see how this turned out. 

“Do not embarrass me.” 

America quickly snatched the phone out of her hands with a broad grin. “You got it dude!” 

Russia leaned over to watch as she typed out a response, deleting and retyping phrases in the blink of an eye before she hit send. 

i didn’t take you to be the kind of person to use these apps

especially with italy around

“That sounds like you, right?” 

“Don’t you think you should have asked before you sent that?” 

Any response America could have given was quickly interpreted by the vibration of the phone in her hand, forcing both of their heads down in order to take in the new message. 

This is not something that Italy needs to know about.

“Dude.” America looked back up with Russia with a slack-jawed shock that she knew she was mirroring. “Dude.” 

Russia couldn’t even come up with any words to say, only able to stare between the phone and America with a hand coming up to uselessly try to explain herself. With America around though, she really didn’t need to. 

“Dude!” 

America leaped up from the bed in order to pace around the room, staring at the phone in disbelief. “What the fuck is going on?” 

“I have no idea,” Russia admitted, leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees. She only watched as America tore around the limited space she had for a few moments before she flopped back onto the bed. 

“Ok, ok, hold on.” America quickly typed out another response, eyes fixed on the screen as Russia scooted back onto the bed to join her. “Hold on.” 

i thought you and italy were together

is that no longer the case?

As soon as the message was sent, America turned her head to stare back at Russia. “Holy shit.” 

Russia didn’t even get the time to nod in agreement before the phone was buzzing away in America’s hands again. She was quick to lean over America’s shoulder to peer at the response though, already eager to see the new development. 

Is that an invitation?

The glass window came dangerously close to shattering with the two high-pitched screams that tore through the hotel room. 

~~

“Give me my phone back!” 

“Wait, I gotta see what she says!” 

Prussia ducked as soon as Germany reached for her arm, her eyes never leaving the screen for a second. 

“Do it yourself then!” Germany snapped, wrestling Prussia’s hand away in order to make another grab for her phone. “Why did you even use m-” 

She was quickly cut off by the sound of her phone going off, Prussia’s hand coming up to shove her away as soon as it did. 

“Shut up for a minute!” 

Prussia glanced at the screen once, narrowing her eyes to read the message before she burst out into a fit of cackling laughter, tossing her head back with a wide grin cutting at her cheeks. 

“What did you do?” 

Germany didn’t even want to know the answer to that question, but she still did her best to catch a glimpse of the screen before Julchen pulled her hand away, just barely managing to see Russia’s answer. 

what kind of invitation are you looking for?

“We’re in!” Prussia crowed, eyes alight with unhidden joy as she held Germany’s phone up. She quickly started typing up another text, maneuvering around Germany’s attempts to reclaim her phone with a new determination to her steps. 

“I’m gonna tell her to come over!” 

“No!” 

“Germany?” 

Both Germany and Prussia stopped at the new addition, looking up to see Italy standing in the doorway, keycard in her hand and looking thoroughly confused. 

“Did something happen?” 

Before Germany could even think to answer her, Prussia shoved her away again in order to speed right for her, although she managed to tackle her down before she made much progress. 

“Italy!” Prussia called out, waving the phone in her hand desperately. “You gotta help me out!” 

“No you are not!” Germany snapped her glare up to target Italy instead of her sister. “Get out of here!” 

Italy didn’t move though, only tilting her head as she tucked the keycard back into her pocket. “What do you need help with?” 

“Nothing-” 

“I made Germany a Tinder account just to mess with her and I found Russia!” 

Prussia quickly tossed the phone to Italy, who managed to fumble a catch before it hit the ground. 

“You gotta keep up my work!” she called out. “Tell her to come over!” 

“Italy,” Germany practically snarled, “you better think very carefully about what you’re going to do.”

Italy looked between the two, eyes wide before she looked down at the phone in her hands. She stepped forward and Germany finally let the tension seep from her shoulders as she held an expectant hand out. 

However, Italy paused before she fully entered the hotel room, hesitation evident all over her face as she eyed Prussia. 

“You put Germany on a dating app?” she asked slowly. 

Prussia eagerly nodded from where she was currently being pinned to the ground. “Yeah!” 

Germany’s eyes narrowed when Italy shot her an apologetic smile, fingers curling around the phone. 

“Italy, I swear-” 

“Sorry Germany!” 

Just like that, Italy was gone, darting out of the hotel room in a flash with Germany’s phone in tow. 

Prussia cackled from her spot on the ground when Germany let out a series of swears fit for a sailor as she scrambled up, tearing after Italy and slamming the door shut behind her as soon as she left.

“Marzia!” 

“I just wanted to see what people think about you!” 

“You better pray I don’t catch you!” 

[androgynousblackbox]

I saw The haunting of Bly manor and here are thoughts (spoilers)

-All throught out I couldn’t help to shake out the feeling “I could be seeing the first haunting instead” and that alone should tell you so much about what was my experience with this show. Maybe it has to do more with my own expectation that any fault of the show itself, but I was kinda bored as the show was still taking it’s sweet time to do something interesting and instead we had moments of domestic bliss and a bunch of flashback of more domestic bliss with the unimpressive ocassional presence of some ghost. -Like I get it. If you want a mostly romance gothic story that has lesbians and also... some good characters, then absolutely, you would enjoy the crap out of this and good on your for doing so. But if you were wanting and hoping for a mostly horror story with some good emotional bits like the first haunting show, then fuck, I don’t know what to tell you, this isn’t for us. So when talking about my own experience with the show, that is already strike one. -The Bly Manor in general seemed to have less personality that the manor in the first show. The only interesting thing they ever do with the scenography is one time that they changed the face on a portrait for one second and that was it. They could have used any other location, any other manor, it wouldn’t have made any difference at all. The ghost there don’t even do anything. And yeah, sure, the point is that they have forgotten who they are and don’t have anything to do, but besides being a little creepy easter egg for youtubers to find... they are purely decorative. Everytime they do appear they are just there, standing. I don’t know if they thought that would be creepier than having some misterious repair man eternally repairing a grandfather clock that only one person can see, but I felt it so gimmicky and uninteresting. They could have had them being scared of the lady on the lake and making some noise as they tried to run from her way, or the priest could have been constantly making the motion of blessing, stuck forever on that loop like the lady on the lake, doing something he doesn’t remember why he does it but feels important somehow. The plague doctor could have been hovering over people and checking if they were breathing while they were sleeping, just movement without any real conscience of why he does it. But nah. Just stand there in whichever place and wait to creep out some watcher that could notice you by chance. As I said, unimpressive. I could be watching the repair clock guy instead. -One of the few exceptions to this was Doll Face and I don’t know if that is meant to imply that the spirit of children are more “lively” or something like that compared to the adults, but he was a fun, kinda cute and creepy adition that I did really enjoyed. He played with Flora’s dolls whenever he could and he always seemd to intentionally be hiding as if he was afraid of being reprimended for staying up too late, trying not be found out as he was hearing on the adult’s conversation, the little bugger. He even had his favourite hiding place on the kitchen. That gives him so much more personality and character that anything else on the entire place. -Another adittion that I did liked was the “I gave the ghost a story and they seemed to like it”, because it makes perfect sense. All those ghosts have lost their sense of self so someone giving one to them makes them feel better. That could also explain why Doll Face is so active and seems to have more reason to this actions than the soldier that was friends with Henry. Doll Face has his friend in the form of Flora nearby and thus he is able to remember the story she gave to him, where as the soldier lost sight of Henry since he grown up and so must have forgotten again. That was a neat little touch. -The other exception is Perdita and, holy shit, I felt so fucking bad for her. She seemed to be in constant pain all the fucking time, confused and afraid of anything. And before that, besides killing her sister that, by the way, abused her physically, humilliate her and treated her like shit for no good reason at all, not that it makes it okay, but I get it at least, still bad, she didn’t really deserved to be like that. The thought that if it wasn’t because of Dani she would have stayed just like that for all eternity is genuelly horrifying. -”But she broke the promise that her husband made to his sister”, yeah, to try to save them from bankrupcy. Very useful were going to be all those dresses and jewelry when her daughter ends up on the street because they lost the manor and neither of her guardians has a single profitable skill because they always lived in manors, which happened anyway so, good on you, Lake Lady, that was some real forward thinking you did there. The fact that they were so financially fucked over because of those dresses and jewelry in the first place makes me dislike Perdita’s fate even more so. The fact her name means “the lost one”, holy shit, how doomed can you get. -Lake Lady does have a tragic story and there are moments where I do feel for her. But she was also sick with a contagious deadly disease she wanted to infect her daughter with so, you know, dick move and dick character. That little detail is all the more horrifying in our current situation, like... oh, so you want your daughter to go the same you go through just so you can hug her? You want to put her into risk just because you want to? Fuck off. What a horrible fucking mother does that. Besides all the slapping her sister as if she had any fault. Like, yeah, Perdita killed her in the end, she was still a dick. I didn’t liked her in general and I didn’t like either how the show was trying so hard to make me feel sad for her. -Speaking of characters they try to make me feel for and it’s not fucking working, Miles/Peter is a fucking mess and it gets worse when you know the whole story. Like, okay, first, Miles is a non entity. They could have done the show without him and there wouldn’t have been that big of a difference. He has less character than Doll Face and that ghost never even makes a sound, so that is saying something. Literally the only two things that we know about him sans Peter is that he thought Peter was kinda cool and he loved his sister enough to kill a dove so he could be send back home. That is it. Then most of the time he is on screen, he is being an active dick that is borderline sexually harassing all the women around him, when not killing or at least trying so, and I know that is because of Peter, but that is my point. We barely got to know shit about Miles alone. Everyone is always talking about what a good kid he is, what a sweetie, and we just don’t see that. -I know it was probably to be suspenful like “why people keep saying he is good if we see him be bad”, so when we find out is because of Peter or because Flora send a letter is meant to be like this big impactful twist, like fine, I get it makes narrative sense. But they never do shit to make us endear to him the same way they go out of their way to do the same for Flora. We never know what kind of memories are the ones he lost himself into when Peter is controlling his body. We never had any scene at all between him and his parents, which makes him look all the more irrelevant when he just goes along with the plan of Peter without arguing. The only reason Miles exist is so Peter has a way to manifest the multiple ways in which he is an ass, nobody can tell me otherwise.  -Compare that with the first show in which every single kid has a distinctive personality, their own memories of what happened and their own lived experiences that align with how they are going to grow up to be. We never even see Miles all grown up as a well adjusted adult except on some passing scene in the end and that is it. A non entity until the very end. -Having said that, the actor who played Miles is amazing. He made one convincing creepy little shit that I wanted to keep far, far away from me, so props for that and I hope he gets more jobs in the future. He did good. -You know who didn’t do good, though? Not even by accident, not even by chance and I didn’t enjoyed not one single bit? Peter. Peter can fuck himself. What an absolute fucking asshole. The “love story” between him and Rebecca felt so contrived and I do not fucking understand why she kept accepting him back, even after he literally murdered her and didn’t even had the balls to spare her the trauma of feeling herself dying. Like, he didn’t made sense on his assholery, like when he completely flipped after Rebecca tasted the spoon full of batter of Owen, something that he did too after Owen offered, something that kids did too, as it was a escene full of innuendo like... dude, the kids did it too. You saw that as sexual? Or was only sexual when Rebecca did it? Like, okay, jelousy doesn’t always makes sense, they were probably going for that, and Rebecca does tell him to never treat her like that again, which I don’t get but fine, better than saying nothing, I guess. -But he was such an ass for no fucking reason even to other people that did shit to him. Like why the fuck had Miles sexually harassing the women around him? Like, is that a thing he always wanted to do? Is that it? He just really wanted to be a creep, was always a secret creep, but the fear of consequences was the only thing stopping him? So now that he is not the one getting into trouble, Miles is, finally he is free to be the disgusting pig he dreamed of? Your girlfriend is still there, for fuck’s sake.

-He was such an unrependent piece of shit and I do not understand why the fuck was any of that necesary. I don’t get it. Was because they NEEDED a piece of shit who would suggest that shitty plan of taking the body of the children in the first place? Because you wanted to have this “ooh different types of loves and this is the bad one” so badly? That I could get behind, but then why add the “oh, he was abused as a kid by his parents”? Why? What was the fucking point of THAT? You want an asshole, have a fucking asshole, a straight up fucking asshole. The show doesn’t go out of it’s why to justify why Henry was fucking his sister-in-law. We know he did it and that was not cool and that is enough. We could have had ANY scene with Miles to get to know him as a character, we could have more scene with Jessica before she came to the mansion, but instead we had that bullshit of how bad he had it as a kid. I guess because they realized he was too one dimensional otherwise and adding that in just to try to give more deep to his character? Because if so, I am sorry, that is kinda yikesy. The only way you could think of to give ANY deep to a character was adding abuse? Really?  -There is a lot of cheating on this show and I saw the Flora’s father twist coming a mile away, mostly because at least Flora had scenes of Henry being nice to her and literally none with the other dude that she thought was her fahter. -In general I feel like they either didn’t had enough time or wasted it on things that could have been left a mistery, like the Peter things. It would have been far more interesting have him just talk about his abuse rather than relieving the moment he remembered it all back when he recieves his mother, like Jamie, keeping it vague and leave us wondering what could have scarred him so much to leave him so broken. When you just spell it out like that I just rolled my eyes because a little too late. It could have made an emotional impact and just fell flat on it’s face. -Hannah was done so fucking dirty. She died on such an anticlamatic way and had the cutest fucking relationship with Owen, so I refuse to accept that ending and, if anyone ask, she is a writer or famous painter in Paris while her husband is runnin a succesful restaurant. I did liked that Owen was devoted to her even after everything. That was cute. But she still deserved better, jesus Christ. Owen too. He would have been one wonderful father if he had the chance to be one. He already had the dad jokes perfected. -Jamie is wonderful and she can do no fucking wrong. When she rightfully told Miles to fuck off, I was so fucking happy she wasn’t demonized for responding to a little shit when she had every right to be upset.  I did liked her dry sarcastic humour. -Also, I really, really, really do like that all the conflict on her relationship with Dani comes from the fact that there is spooky ghosts being dicks around them, but it’s NEVER about homophobia. It does exist, this isn’t a magical reimagining of the 80s where that was never a thing, that is why Dani was closeted for so long and why they couldn’t marry, but it’s never a “let’s see the queer getting bashed for existing” segment because it didn’t fucking need to. Everyone that mattered knew and they didn’t cared. Owen and Hannah smile when Dani goes after Jamie and can see they are happy together. Not even one single disgusting comment from Peter. It might seems like I have a lot of negative things to say about the show, and I do, but that is something I truly loved and I would love to have more stories like that. There are so many things that can fucked up a person’s life, it doesn’t have to be queerphobia all the time. -Dani is so fucking pretty and I loved every single hair style she had.

[redrobinfection]

(15) Horror Movies

SociallyAwkwardFox’s Spooktober - Day 15 “Horror Movies”

JayDickTim | Established Relationship | Horror Movies | They’re not always scary but they can still put you in weird headspace | Sleep Deprivation | (brief) graphic descriptions of horror scenes | Panic Attack | Want to write with me? Find the prompt list here!

~*~

Tim loves his boyfriends. So, so much. But one thing that Jason and Dick both love that Tim just can’t wrap his head around: horror movies.

They’re watching one right now, the third of a trilogy Jay and Dick love, and Tim is sandwiched between them on the couch, feeling faintly ill.

Jay and Dick are the kind of people that get that something from a horror movie, the adrenaline or the enjoyment of their terror or whatever it is that hooks people. Tim isn’t and he gets nothing but is a sick feeling in his stomach and the impression that all the color has been sucked out of the world.

It isn’t the scenes themselves that get to him, because as terrible as it is to admit, he’s seen and experienced thing just as terrible, maybe worse, in his time as Robin. All of them have. Brutal serial killings, human trafficking tragedies, figurative and literal monsters left and right, not to mention the rogues. A run-in with Scarecrow’s fear toxin? That would make most horror movies seem like a pleasant summer picnic. Chasing and being chased by Killer Croc in the sewers in the dead of night? Monster B-flick gold. And the Joker? ‘Nough said.

No, for Tim it’s more about the way the scenes are presented - the cold, dark filters; the unnatural lighting; the haunting music and grisly sound effects. It turns a factually horrifying scene into an garish exaggeration, like a scene from one of his nightmares - you don’t fully believe its real, but it still strikes a chord deep in your psyche.

He can handle one movie. Easy to shake off. Maybe two, in the daytime. But tonight they watched three, using their one night off from patrol to stay up into the wee hours of the morning–as if they would ever think use that time to catch up on sleep or something.

Three-quarters of the way through the third movie, Jason notices Tim getting twitchy and asks if he’s okay.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just getting late. I keep nodding off and then every time someone screams, I jump awake again,” Tim tells them, playing it off with a laugh. Dick and Jason laugh with him.

“No problem, Babybird, we’re almost done. We’ll let you sleep in peace soon enough.”

“Did you mean 'rest in peace’, Jaybird?”

“Ugh, Dick, staaaahp.”

They laugh and kiss over Tim’s head, then come at him from both sides when he makes a disgruntled noise for being squished between them, showering him in kisses and noogies and awkward side hugs. The warm moment of affection between the three of them almost distracts Tim away from the grim mood affected by the movies. Almost.

When they settle down into bed an hour later, Tim snuggled between the two of them–all of Dick’s limbs wrapped around him and Jason drooling onto his shoulder–the sick feeling, mental and physical, doesn’t budge. Tim spends the rest of the night staring up at the dark ceiling, mind circling the imagery of the movie in endless spirals. He closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep when Dick gets up at 4:30 to pee, and again at 5:15 when Jay startles awake for a few seconds at the sound of a car alarm blaring down on the street. When they all get up at nine the next morning, neither Dick nor Jason seems to be the wiser to his deception.

Tim spends the next day exhausted, but makes up for it with a jam packed schedule–keeping busy always helps–and copious amounts of caffeine. That night he goes out for a quick patrol, then turns in early, hoping to make up for lost sleep.

He can’t. He’s still awake, his mind bombarding him with the images of a decapitated zombie child crawling toward a screaming young woman in the grey rain as “mama, mama” whistles in the wind; the sounds of a man sobbing as he clutches his dead partner in the snow–her womb torn out messily–and the smells he imagines a child clinging to their mother’s green, long-dismembered corpse would experience when Dick comes in at three AM. He’s still awake–and pretending he’s not with every Bat-trained skill he has–when Jay comes in a half hour later.

He’s seen just as bad in real life–and how messed up is it to say that?–but here the imagery is also accompanied by such a deep sense of sorrow, lasting pain and depression. Lives, minds, souls ruined. He’s still wide awake as dawn begins to light the sky. He extricates himself from their sleepy dogpile while Jason and Dick are still in the deepest stages of sleep and heads down to the gym to get a few hours of training in to pump him up for another exhausting day.

He struggles through day two, barely functioning as he makes his way into night three. He volunteers to stay on comms for the night, citing some bullshit excuse about a sore ankle he wants to rest to keep Dick from worrying and Jason from asking too many questions. He stays up late, working on case docs, hoping that if works himself to utter exhaustion that he can just pass out at dawn. He tells Dick and Jay he’s doing it to make up for not going out, and they seem worried, but he promises he’ll rest in the morning.

He doesn’t. Daylight doesn’t bring any relief from the wild thoughts and images that pop into his head any time he tries to quiet his mind. He pretends to nap on the couch until Jay and Dick leave, then goes into Wayne Enterprises and works late.

He goes out as Red Robin that night–night four–but turns in early after he gets a call from Alfred asking about unexpected telemetry from the vitals sensors in his suit–racing pulse, high rate of respiration. He excuses himself with claims that he’s in a bit of pain from his “sore” ankle. It’s a lie. His body and his mind are hitting their natural limits, his anxiety levels increasing and his organs screaming for rest. He meditates for the rest of the night, feeling somewhat refreshed the next morning.

Day four is like a bizarre dream, time zooming past or crawling by in fits and starts. He loses his appetite and even coffee starts to lose its appeal, the smell of it making his stomach twist. By five PM swears the shadows at the corner of his office have started to ooze toward him and he jumps at every little sound.

That night he skips dinner, disables all telemetry in his suit, and goes out for solo patrol. Just a loop around his territory. Then he’ll stop, take a sedative, and pass out for twelve to fifteen hours. Sweat it out as the drugs force him to stay under no matter what nightmares may come.

His patrol is patchy, if that makes any sense. Some moments he is clearly aware of where he is and what he’s doing, and then there are whole stretches of time that are total blanks. Halfway through his loop he gets sidetracked to a neighborhood outside his scope after he hears about of a drug deal going down outside a middle school.

He handles the would-be dealers–high schoolers dealing to middle schoolers who were lucky Red Robin caught wind of the deal before Red Hood did–then retires to the roof of the school for a breather. He sits down between two AC units and lets his head fall back against one for a few moments…

—

Tim slowly comes awake to the sounds of quiet conversation around him, gentle fingers combing through his hair, and a soft bed under him. He blinks his eyes open, squinting in confusion at the overhead light of the room he shares with Jay and Dick. Who left the lights on? Wait, why is he in his uniform? Did he forget to take it off before he dropped into bed?

“Dick. Dick, shut up a second, I think he’s coming around. Tim? Timmy? You with us?”

Tim turns his head to the side with a grimace. His neck is sore like he slept hanging off the side of the bed half the night.

“J-Jay?”

The hand leaves his hair and Tim turns his head minutely to see Dick sitting beside him on the bed, running both hands through his own hair, expression a blend of relief and worry.

“Holy cow, Tim, you scared the crap out of us. What were you thinking?” Dick demands of him. Tim blinks, confused.

“Whoa, whoa, ease up, Dickie, give 'im a sec to reboot, 'kay?” Jason chides, settling down near Tim’s bare feet–-oh, someone removed his boots, gauntlets, belts and cape and unzipped the collar of his suit. He rubs a soothing circles into the arch of one foot. “Hey, Timbo, you know where you are?”

“The 'partment,” Tim answers slowly. Did he hit his head on patrol?

“Yeah. You know what time it is?”

Tim blinks. It’s dark outside, so he knows it’s nighttime, but when he tries to think back to the last time he remembers he can’t get it straight. He was on patrol? Which patrol? He can’t remember. Did he get drugged? Shot?

“No? You know what day it is?”

He doesn’t. He starts to panic. What happened to him? He tries to sit up.

“Easy, Tim. Just rest for a minute,” Dick soothes, easing him back down with a hand on one shoulder. Tim flops back, heart racing. He’s missing something, something important, something awful he should remember.

“Breathe, Tim, don’t force yourself,” Jason chides. Dick’s hand returns to his hair and Jason lies down beside him, now rubbing circles into his exposed hand.

Dark spots cloud his vision and he starts to shake. Why can’t he remember? Now that he’s more aware, why do his joints ache and his limbs feel like they’ve been filled with cement? Why does he feel so cold? Is he dying? Is he dead?

“Jay, he’s hyperventilating.”

“No shit. Timmy? Tim? Breathe with me okay?”

“Breathe with Jason, Tim. Nice and slow.”

“Hey, fo– on m–”

“Ti–”

Their voices fade out along with the sensation of fingers feeling for a pulse and hands pulling off his suit. Darkness fills his vision until there is nothing left but the darkness.

—

When Tim comes around again it’s with a hiss for the bright overhead lighting of the Batcave’s med bay. You’d think with all their resources they’d invest in a light dimmer at some point.

“There he is. Rise and shine, Timbo,” Jason’s voice calls from his left. He groans and tries to squeeze his eyes closed.

“Ah, ah, ah, no falling asleep again until you endure the wrath of Big Bird and Alfie. They’ve got a lot of choice words for you, Babybird,” Jason chides, squeezing his hand. Tim tries to curl onto his opposite side but freezes with a gasp when a sharp twinge in his right arm informs him of the IV inserted there. The numb, slightly clammy feeling on his right index finger speaks to the presence of a pulse oximeter clip. Did he get injured, he wonders?

No. Bit by bit, Tim’s head clears and snatches of memory come back to him. He’d been on patrol. He stopped to rest. No dinner. No sleep. Wayne Enterprises. Disabled telemetry. Solo patrol. The teenaged dealers. A middle school.

Disabled telemetry. Shit.

“H-how long was I out?” Tim asks, croaking around the dryness of his throat. He turns back to Jay in time to see Alfred and Dick walk into med bay, expressions stern and relieved in equal measure. Jason snorts at whatever expression Tim makes in response to theirs.

“About a day, in and out of it,” Alfred replies smoothly, voice cool and unamused as he raises the back of the bed to help Tim sit up. “You gave Masters Dick and Jason quite the fright, not to mention myself, going out alone and under the radar the way you did. I thought we had taught you better than that, Master Timothy.”

Tim shrinks in on himself. You know you’re in trouble with Alfred when he calls you by your full first name. “Sorry, Alfred. Dick. Jason. I haven’t really been myself the past couple of days,” he admits, thinking back on the past week. He cringes internally as he thinks about their last free day and all the stupid things he did in the resulting funk.

“I imagine you wouldn’t be, skipping meals until you passed out from exhaustion,” Alfred lectures sternly as he deftly removes the IV and pulse oximeter. Dick looks sad and disappointed. Jason looks unconvinced.

Tim shakes his head. “I wasn’t skipping meals - mostly - I just wasn’t sleeping very much.”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “Define 'very much’? Why weren’t you sleeping?”

“Uhhhh, well… not at all?” Tim replies shrugging with an apologetic grimace. Alfred shakes his head as he leaves med bay and Jason’s eyes blow wide. Dick makes a sound of indignation.

“Not at all?!” Jason echoes. “What the hell, Babybird? What were you thinking!”

Tim scrubs his hands over his face and deliberately ignores the question in favor of asking one of his own. “What happened? I remember stopping to rest on the roof of Parkview Middle and then briefly waking up back at the apartment.” He looks around the med bay then takes stock of himself. He feels fine now, but he vaguely remember feeling like he was dying the last time he was fully conscious. “Did I get hurt?”

Dick doesn’t look happy about the redirect, but shakes his head and takes a seat on the edge of the gurney. “Well, after me and Jay got home at four AM, realized you weren’t there, and found your suit was missing, we called Alfred and Babs to see if you’d been out that night.

"Alfred said he hadn’t heard from you, and neither had Babs, but she eventually tagged you in a couple of surveillance feeds along your route. We tried to call you on comms: nothing. Then Babs tried to find you on live surveillance: still nothing.” Dick’s expression is dark and his eyes drill holes into Tim.

“We were freakin’ out, Timmers,” Jason continues. “Like, did you get hurt? Did you get kidnapped? We tried to check your telemetry and got fuck all. No vitals, no location. Dickie here was nearly shittin’ himself thinking you’d gone and gotten yourself killed or somethin’”

Tim’s face heats up in shame.

“In the end we pulled out the nuclear option and activated your subdermal GPS beacon,” he explains, gesturing to the stretch of skin on Tim’s arm under which the small capsule resided, a measure they all–Bruce included–agreed to take in order to avoid situations just like this one.

“We found you on some random-ass roof four blocks off your route, passed the fuck out. When we tried to check on you, you nearly cleaned Dickie’s clock, kicked me in the cup–it still hurt, even with the cup, so thanks for that–then tried to throw yourself off the roof. After we got you to calm down and wake up a bit, you seemed to recognize us, understand where you were, and we escorted you home.

"Everything was fine until we got into the apartment, at which point you threw yourself across our bed, cowl up and belts on, and passed out again,” Jason explained, rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it. “You weren’t outwardly bleeding and your pupils reacted appropriately to light, so we thought you were just a little tired or whatever. When you woke up again, you were disoriented as fuck and freaking out. Then you went completely non-responsive and we freaked out. We brought you down here just to make sure you didn’t have a brain bleed or a punctured lung or something.

"A million scans and some bloodwork later and Alfie concluded you that probably hadn’t been taking care of yourself,” Jason concludes, pinning Tim with a severe look of his own. “And now we’re hearing from you that you haven’t been sleeping?  Cough it up, Timbo. How long?”

Tim clears his throat and shifts his legs restlessly.  “About five days.”

“Five days!” Dick exclaims, jumping up from the end of the gurney. He rounds to the other side, across from Jason. “Why?”

Tim shrugs and looks away. “I dunno, I just haven’t been able to fall asleep. I couldn’t shut my brain off.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you had insomnia?” Dick asks.

Tim shrugs again. “What would you be able to do about it?”

“Make sure you didn’t do something stupid like stay up all night filing reports or go on patrol with all your tracers turned off, probably,” Jason replies wryly. He stands up, bracketing Tim between himself and Dick. He narrows his eyes.

“You know, I can tell when you’re keeping something from us, Timbo. Spit it out. What’s been so heavy on your mind that it hasn’t let you get a wink of sleep for nearly a week?”

Tim tenses and curls in on himself subconsciously. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

Jason laughs mirthlessly and Dick frowns. “If it’s important enough for you to lose sleep over it, then it’s important to us,” Jason insists.

Tim mumbles under his breath, avoiding eye contact.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles a little louder.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you, Timbelina,” Jason belts loudly into his ear.

“It’s your damn horror, movies okay!? I couldn’t sleep after we marathoned that trilogy on our night off,” Tim shouts back, scooting down the bed and throwing off the sheet. He swings his legs over the side, stands up, and only sways a little as the room swims around him for a second.

“The movies? They scared you?” Dick asks uncertainly as he steadies Tim with hand around his upper arm.

Tim shakes him off. “No, they’re just depressing as fuck. We see enough horrible stuff in our line of work, so sue me if watching it presented in a way intended to be emotionally gripping as possible puts me in a bit of a funk.”

He moves for the doorway, pretending not to be embarrassed that his ass is hanging out of the back of his hospital gown, only to be stopped by Dick darting in front of him, closely followed by Jason. They’re both watching him with concern, worry, and a tinge of guilt. Tim deflates. This was exactly what he hoped to avoid.

“Babe. You never told us they bothered you,” Dick starts while Jason says, “A bit of a funk? It must really bother you if it’s keeping you up for days.” They look at each other, then Dick nods to Jason. Tim sighs.

“What’s really going on, Tim,” Jason asks.

“That’s really all it is,” Tim replies, crossing his arms. “We watched the movies, I didn’t sleep that night and then it kind of snowballed from there, the sleep dep feeding the funk.” Looking at it objectively, after a good night’s rest, he can admit that the situation never should have escalated past that first morning; he should have taken a sedative and a day off right then and there to avoid falling deep into the funk.

“Is it really that bad? Why didn’t you tell us you don’t like scary movies?” Dick asked, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. Tim groaned.

“It’s really not a big deal. Not usually. They don’t scare me, they just kind of… I dunno, haunt my thoughts for a while afterwards. You know how it goes; I overthink everything,” Tim admits, waving a hand dismissively. “And I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t feel like being made fun of for being 'too scared to watch a scary movie’. Who would have believed me if I said they’re not scary, just emotionally disturbing?”

Dick opens his mouth like he’s going to object but Tim cuts him off. “No, don’t even try to tell me that you would. Look at Jay, at least he’s honest with himself.”

They both look at Jason, who is nodding along, looking chagrined. “Yeah, I’ll admit, if you’d said something, I probably would have teased you about it.” He gives Tim a look Tim can’t decipher. “You’re an odd one, Timbo, but there’s no arguing with the results. If it bothers you, it bothers you, whether it’s frightening or not. But if it bothers you so much, then why watch with us? You could have just told us you don’t like horror and gone to bed.”

“And not spend time with you guys?” Tim asks incredulously. “We get one night off together every two weeks, and you think I would just give that up and go to bed alone?” He shakes his head at them. “I put up with it because I wanted to spend time with you guys and I wanted you guys to do something you both enjoy. I didn’t want to be the wet blanket in the room that put a stop to that.”

Both Jason and Dick’s faces fall on hearing this, and in that moment Tim is done with this conversation. He tries to skirt around them, but Jason blocks his path.

“Move, Jason, I need to pee.” He does. IVs are great and all, but sleeping for twenty four hours through one, maybe two liters of fluids equals one very full bladder. He’s grateful Alfred didn’t stoop to inserting a urinary catheter just to punish him, even if it would have done him a favor in this one thing.

Jason crosses his arms obstinately.

“I will pee on you,” Tim warns.

Dick steps between them and places his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “Tim, it means a lot to us that you would put our enjoyment above your own, but it hurts a little to think you don’t trust us enough to let us know when something’s bothering you.”

“What Dick said,” Jason seconds. “Yeah, we’d probably tease you at first, but eventually we’d get that horror makes you uncomfortable and picked something else to do. We care about you just as much you care about us, ya know?”

Tim looks away, uncomfortable.

“Look, we’re not trying to blame the victim here, we’re just saying give us a chance next time, okay?” Jason clarifies, tone softening. “We deserve the opportunity to prove ourselves assholes or saints for ourselves, yeah?”

Tim snorts softly. “Yeah.”

They smile and Dick draws them both into a hug, sandwiching Tim between them. “Good. And we’re sorry, Tim. We should have noticed you weren’t having a good time and asked.”

“You did,” Tim admits, “But I told you I was 'just tired’ and you guys bought it. That’s on me.”

“Yeah, well, dealing with you–the guy who lies to Batman–we should have pressed the issue no matter how convincing you were,” Jason replies, pressing his face into Tim’s hair. “And you shouldn’t feel like we won’t take you seriously. That’s mostly my bad for teasing you so much.”

Tim presses his face into Jason’s chest and shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Dick says softly at his back. “But it will be.” Tim feels Jason smile into his hair and nod. He lets them hold him tight and close for a long minute.

“And no more horror movies around Timmy!” Dick exclaims belatedly, making Tim and Jason laugh.

“Definitely. We’ll save it for our solo dates, right Dickie?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay, this was nice and all,” Tim begins, squirming a little, “but I wasn’t kidding earlier; someone needs to let go now or I’m going to pee on Jason.”

“Eh, I’m fine with that,” Dick replies lightly.

“Dick, you dick!” Jason shoots back, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Stop making me laugh! I’m really going to pee on him!”

[skygirl5]

Launch Party Interlude

This story is part of the #CastlePornado - as such is “M” rated!

Thanks to @inkstainedcoffeecup for the prompt that she probably does not remember :)

This takes place during When The Bough Breaks

Strolling through the crowded floor of the unfamiliar book store Kate Beckett felt uncomfortable—very uncomfortable. She had chosen to wear the sexy dress (okay, the extra sexy dress) to make an impression and she didn’t regret it, but it certainly did not add any level of relaxation to her mood that evening. She was used to dealing with the public and in general she didn’t mind that part of her job at all, but there was something about that night that made her feel so…exposed.

The release of Heat Wave certainly did not make Kate feel relaxed in any way. Though the writer insisted the title character was only “inspired” by her, she had read the book draft and saw just how much of herself was on print. True, someone who did not know her intimately (and, to be honest, there weren’t many people like that in the world) would never pick up on as many comparisons as she had but…still, knowing millions of people would read the book… The notion was, at best, slightly unsettling.

Kate had arrived at the launch party that evening with the intent to stroll around in her dress, make the writer’s eyes bulge out a little bit (because that was always fun), and then make an early exit. She still had intentions to make her exit as soon as was appropriate, but she knew she could not leave without speaking to the man of the hour. To that point they had only smiled at each other from across the room and of course she understood how busy he was that evening, but he was proving surprisingly hard to track down.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Kate gazed down at the novel clutched in her hand. A sufficient amount of time had passed to the point where she was almost over the nude silhouette on the cover (almost because she would never be fully over it), but now it was the dedication throwing her for a loop. Dedicating the book to the Twelfth Precinct certainly made sense and, okay, if she really thought about it she would not have been totally shocked by her name appearing—especially if he had listed Ryan and Esposito’s names as well. Maybe even along with Captain Montgomery, but listing her as the main dedicatee? That was…well, she imagined it would take her several days to process fully what that meant. She knew, though, that the kind—and yes, she would admit it, sweet—gesture needed to be met with a thank you before anything else was said between them that evening.

A few minutes later Kate felt as though she had circled the entire party and had yet to see the writer. Thankfully, she spotted Paula not too far away and figured she might be a good source for the writer’s whereabouts. Considering the dark-haired woman already wore quite a scowl, Kate plastered on her sweetest smile as she approached and said, “Excuse me, have you seen Ca—Rick?”

Paula threw up her hands, clearly irritated. “No I have not—and I’ve been searching for ten minutes. This is unbelievable. He said he only needed a few minutes and that was half an hour ago! This is his party.”

Despite the fact that it seemed as though Paula was yelling at her, Kate’s feathers did not ruffle, for she was used to such treatment from victims. Instead, she kept her tone even as she asked, “What did he say he needed a few minutes for? The restroom?”

Paula waved her hand flippantly. “No, no—something about a headache. He said he just needed a few minutes of quiet and went into the greenroom. If he slipped out the back I swear to god I’ll-”

“I’ll just go check on him, okay?” Kate interjected before any threats could be issued. She placed the book she held down on the nearest table and then walked back towards the direction Paula gestured. If the writer said he needed a few minutes of quiet, his headache must have been quite uncomfortable. She sympathized with that and wondered if the reason he had not yet reappeared was because he developed some sort of migraine.

After ducking through an open doorway labeled, “Employees Only”, Kate traversed a narrow back hall until she stopped in front of a door marked with a small black and white plaque displaying the word “Office.” As the door was shut, she rapped her knuckles against it twice in quick succession then called out, “Castle?” as her hand hovered just above the doorknob.

“Beckett? Don’t—Don’t come…in…”

She heard his moan, but as she had already begun to twist the handle when she heard her name, she had too much momentum to halt her progress. With the door now open, she craned her neck around the other side to see the author curled up in a near fetal position on a futon on one side of the office. As he looked as pale and sickly as she’d ever seen him, she gasped with concern. “Oh—oh my gosh, are you okay? What happened to you?”

In response he merely groaned and shook his head while tucking his arms tighter around his torso.

As she had never seen him in such a state, Kate wasn’t sure what to think. Given how miserable he seemed, her guess that he might have acquired a migraine could have been accurate, but the lights in the room were on. She did not have many experiences with migraines thankfully, but she knew sensitivity to light was one of the main symptoms, which led her to think the writer did not have a migraine. If he didn’t, the list of potential ailments was endless, but given how clammy he looked she felt quite concerned for his condition.

Rushing forward, she crouched down beside the futon. “Oh Castle.” She lay a delicate hand on his forehead and found it to be quite sweaty, though not immediately indicative of a fever. “What’s going on? Do you think you have food poisoning?” she guessed as an alternative to the migraine.

“No, no; not that.” He managed, though he still clearly seemed in agony.

Feeling the need to check for herself, Kate began to peel one of his arms away from his body. “Where does it hurt? You might actually—Oh! Jesus!” Kate cursed, dropped his arm, and looked away immediately when she caught sight of the front of his trousers. The contrast of the black fabric of his pants against the denim-like fabric of the futon did not make it difficult at all to see how aggressively tented the pants were. Though there was only one explanation for that image, Kate remained baffled as the level of illness to which he appeared to be suffering seemed genuine.

“No, no,” he moaned and shook his head when she took a half step away from him, sure revulsion was written all over her face. “’s not…it’s…Mother…”

Her eyes widened as a fresh onslaught of horror washed over her. “Your mother did this!?”

“No! Fuck!” He cursed when he twisted his body quickly upright. Taking in a few calming deep breaths, he leaned back against the futon and rushed out, “Mother…gave…Viagra…”

“What?” she retorted dumbly. Why in the hell would Castle’s mother have given him Viagra during his book release party? Of all the things he’d ever told her, that probably made the least sense—and that truly was saying something!

When his next words were, “Pill…but Viagra…” Kate was finally able to connect the dots.

“Shit!” she cursed. “Your mother gave you Viagra thinking it was an aspirin?” When he nodded his head vigorously, she tried to make a sympathetic noise, but it came out as a bit of a laugh. “Oh…Castle.”

“Not funny!” he growled at her.

Fighting to straighten her lips and failing miserably, Kate said, “No, no of course it’s not funny, but… Why does she have aspirin and Viagra together in her purse? Why does she have Viagra in her purse at all?”

He let out a noise somewhere between a moan and a wail. Again, she could not help but crack a smile at how pitiful he sounded—particularly now that she knew he wasn’t actually sick or in danger. “And here I thought you might have had a migraine.”

“I’d rather…have that…” He grunted. Then moaned again. “God…this is awful.”

Taking in a deep breath and keeping her eyes trained on his crumpled expression, Kate said, “Okay, just to be sure—you took a small blue pill?”

“Didn’t look at it; just swallowed. God…I don’t know what hurts worse—my dick or my head.”

That time, Kate did let out an audible chuckle, which earned her a glare from Castle. “Not funny,” he snipped. “It made my headache worse!”

“Okay, um…Well, I guess I’d better go get Paula so-”

“No!” He cried out. “God, no; she’ll never, ever let me hear the end of this.”

Kate quirked an eyebrow at him. “And you think I will?” She responded, as she had absolutely no intentions of doing so. In fact, she intended to bring it up at every possible opportunity.

“I can’t stop you from knowing about this, but we don’t have to tell—ugh!—others.” Clearly still suffering, he slid back down onto the base of the futon so he was laying flat, his pants now tented directly upwards.

“But Castle, that’s why I’m here. She’s looking for you, so you can give a speech about your book.”

“Jesus Christ! I can’t go out like this!”

“Well, obviously. About how long has it been since you took the pill?”

“Uh…” He lifted his head enough to look at his watch and then said. “’bout forty-five—ah shit! I…I have to take my pants off.”

“What?!” Kate squeaked in response, though Castle clearly had absolutely no cares about her comfort level with the situation, because he immediately began unbuckling his belt.

Spinning around so she wouldn’t see him naked, Kate shook her head and cursed herself for even getting involved with trying to find the writer. She should have just texted him a thank you and walked out of the party. Now she was involved in this nonsense—which, really, was probably more trouble than it was worth if she was only gaining the ability to tease him about an accidental erection.

Thinking back to the situation he faced, she voiced he thoughts aloud. “Okay, forty-five minutes. I guess that means you have a few hours until it wears off, right? Have you ever taken Viagra before?”

“No. Why would I have?”

“I dunno…I heard some guys take them recreationally to-to…you know, increase their stamina.”

“I assure you that—ah!” he whimpered so pathetically that Kate actually winced. “I will never, ever take one of these again. Ah, shit—you have no idea how uncomfortable this is. God, Beckett…what if it doesn’t go down in four hours? That’s what those commercials say, right? Four hours?”

“Yeah you’re supposed to call your doctor. Or, I suppose, in your case—go to the ER.”

He moaned again. “God, then I’ll be in Page Six for having a hard-on at my release party.”

“Think of the bright side—it might boost sales,” she added as an attempt a humor, though, clearly, he would not be laughing any time soon.

“Boost sales—right. That’ll make up for total humiliation. Do you even know what’ll happen to me at writer’s poker? I’ll never be able to show my face again. My mystery writer cred will be done—kaput!—all because of my mother. I knew she’d be the end of me one of these days.”

Rolling her eyes, Kate said, “Oh, don’t be so—Oh! Shit!” Without thinking, she’d turned her head to look at him, and instead got a full-frontal view of his erect penis. She’d tried to cover her eyes and turn back around, but from just her quick glance she immediately realized the women who joked about him being the “white whale” weren’t joking one bit.

“Beckett!”

“Sorry! Sorry! It was a reflex to look at you.”

“’s okay… why don’t you just, um, just tell Paula you couldn’t find me and that you think I left with someone. That’ll be the answer that’ll make her the least mad…probably.”

Kate took two steps towards the door and then stopped, considering. She felt bad about lying and making him look bad, particularly when his situation was (mostly) not his fault. What they needed was a quick way to get him looking back to normal. In her mind, the only way to do that was to use the pill for it’s intended purpose. Turning her body slightly but listing her chin so she looked at the landscape painting on the wall hang above the futon, she suggested, “Maybe, um, maybe if you took care of that you’d be able to come out and do your speech.”

“Took care of what?”

“Your penis.”

“What?”

Huffing out a breath, she said, “Masturbate, Castle; have an orgasm. That should get rid of your erection, right?”

“Wha…um…you want me to do that…in here?”

Forgetting to keep looking at the ceiling when she had to have a typical Castle conversation—as in one that raised her blood pressure—she moved her gaze to his face and snipped, “Well we can’t take you out there—we established that!”

“Don’t yell at me, Beckett! I realize I cannot go out there like this, but I…” He hesitated and looked around the office. “This is someone’s place of work…”

“And your naked ass is already on their couch!”

He gazed down at his lap as though he’d just connected those dots in his mind. “Oh. Right.”

“Just…use your mind—I’m sure you can…you know.” She gestured with her hand towards his crotch where his penis could be seen beneath the tails of his shirt and, Jesus!, it looked even bigger from that side-on angle. Clearing her throat, she turned to go again. “I’ll do my best to stall Paula.”

“Okay—ah! God!”

“What?” she asked, a little wary, but unable to stop herself since he sounded rather tragic.

“It…shit! It doesn’t even feel like my dick. What the hell is in those pills?!”

“I…don’t know,” she said a bit dumbly, not sure how else to respond. She took two steps forward and reached out for the door handle, but then stopped, frozen. Her brain told her to go back, find Paula, and then get the hell out of that party before anything else insane happened, but her heart reminded her that this was her partner and her friend, and despite the rough patches they’d had, he had been kind, helpful, fun, and a piece of her life she never expected to want, but now—god help her—she didn’t want him to go.

“This is a terrible idea,” she muttered beneath her breath, but then she flipped the lock on the office door so no one could burst in on them, and spun around to see Castle with his right hand wrapped around his penis with such delicacy, she would have thought it was recently burned.

Without saying a word, she knelt down on the floor and flipped up the tails of his shirt to get them out of the way. With the cloth gone, she discovered a trimmed patch of hair (not at all surprising that he manscaped) and a dick impressive in both length and girth. “This,” she began, reaching out to slowly peel his hand away from himself, “is a professional courtesy.”

“Profes…” His voice drifted off as he gazed at her with the most wide-eyed expression she’d ever seen.

“Yes. Everyone thinks we’re partners, and if Page Six calls you a perv, I’m going to look bad, too. Besides; this isn’t your fault.”

“But Beck—ohh,” he breathed in sharply when her right hand closed around his shaft. Kate, too, let out a small gasp for he was rock hard and practically throbbing beneath her fingers. She began to stroke very delicately until he called out her first name, clearly hesitant.

She pulled her hand away and looked at him. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No, but, um…be careful. Please.” He practically begged.

She merely nodded and encouraged, “Close your eyes; relax.” Clearly, he was already in an agitated state, which, honestly, was probably making his situation worse. His discomfort was obvious and thus she had no intention of aggressively jerking him off, but she was going for efficiency more than prolonged pleasure.

Returning her right hand to his shaft, she gave it a few more gentle strokes before moving her left between his legs to cradle his balls. He moaned almost pleasurably for a moment, but then suddenly opened his eyes and gasped, as though she’d clawed him with her fingernails, though she hadn’t, so she asked, “What? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, ‘s just…lot of friction. Maybe, um—does that desk have lotion on it?”

Kate got up and looked over the top of the desk, seeing only a bottle of hand sanitizer in addition to the regular pens, paperclips, and file folders. She tried to pull open the one drawer, but it was locked, and the second drawer only had a bunch of papers, plus a bag of trail mix. “No, sorry; I don’t see anything.”

“Okay, well, um—sorry would you mind just spitting on your hand a bit? Works for me sometimes in a pinch,” he added, quirking his lips to the side.

Kate walked back to the futon slowly, considering. There was one obvious solution to the friction problem, and it would certainly rocket-launch their partnership to a new level. Then again, she was already giving him a hand job—what was one more fractional step forward? Well, okay, it was probably more of a leap, but if it would help end this insanity, it seemed a justifiable tradeoff.

“Just relax, Castle,” she told him as she knelt beside the futon once more. Then, after she watched him shut his eyes, she grasped the base of him with her right hand again, only that time she hovered her face over him and used her hand as leverage to guide the tip of him into her mouth. He reacted the moment her tongue grazed his tip.

“Fuck! Beckett!”

Ignoring his curse, Kate swirled her tongue across his tip again before rounding her lips and taking the entire head of his cock into her mouth. He cursed again and she felt his hips thrust off the futon. She pressed her forearm gently down across his hips so she could maintain control as she bobbed her mouth over the first two inches of him several times before she relaxed her mouth and throat and slowly, centimeter by centimeter, took as much of him into her mouth as she could. Castle’s response was unintelligible noises, which made her smile; it was about time she was the one leaving him speechless.

From almost the very start Kate would have been lying if she said she never thought about having sex with her shadow-turned-partner. Mostly, her musings involved him going down on her and using his troublesome mouth for a better purpose. She’d also thought on more than one occasion about how wild and aggressive their inaugural coupling might be—particularly if it was after one of their many disagreements. She imagined him picking her up, pinning her against a wall, and fucking her until they were both senseless.

Kate was not shy to admit she liked to take control in relationships and in bed and considered herself highly skilled in reducing a man into a simpering puddle just by using her mouth on his cock. She had done it before, and doing it to Castle seemed almost too enjoyable—particularly considering the circumstance they found themselves in.

Alternating bobbing her head up and down and using her tongue to swirl against his tip, it didn’t take Castle long to reach his peak. To his credit, he panted out, “Shit! I’m gonna—I’m—god,” giving her a few seconds of warning to pull her mouth away and finish him off with her hand.

As he lay on the futon looking positively spent, Kate grabbed two tissues from the box on the desk and then dropped them onto his chest so he could clean himself up. “Better?”

He blinked up at her, still appearing rather stunned. “Jesus…that was amazing.”

She smirked down at him. “Just consider it a thank you for the dedication.”

“Well you are definitely extraordinary.”

She gave a soft smile and then turned her body back towards the door, feeling it was prudent now that she had, ah, completed her professional courtesy. “I, um, I guess I’m going to get back out there. I’ll ward Paula off for a few minutes so that you can, um, collect yourself.”

“Y-yeah. I really apre…oh…oh no, no, no…”

At how pitiful he sounded, Kate could not help but turn around as she asked, “What’s wro…” though her voice drifted off the moment her eyes fell on his lap. She stared for several moments longer than she should have, but she was simply too shocked to avert her eyes. His dick was still completely perpendicular to his body; it was like he never came at all! Shaking her head with slight amazement she concluded, “Wow, you are really susceptible to those drugs.”

“That’s not helpful!” He groaned, then stared down at himself with almost disgust. “Oh my god, I’m going to be stuck like this forever!”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“If you were me right now, you’d be dramatic!”

Kate said nothing as she supposed she would be, particularly since he, in all likelihood, could not even sneak out of the event without being seen in such a state. “Do you think it would go down if you came again?”

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not like there are instructions for—wait! What!?”

She stepped forward and gave a little shrug. She could already feel the wetness seeping out of her panties—a situation she had intended to take care of once she was home—but as long as Castle was there and—quite literally—up for the challenge, she figured she might as well through all caution to the wind.

“I was just thinking…maybe it could be my turn now…”

“Jesus.” He breathed out, gazing at her as if she truly was an angel that had descend from heaven.

Never breaking eye contact, Beckett reached her hand up under her already skin-tight skirt, hooked the edge of her thong with her index finger, and then shimmied her hips while pulling the item down her thighs. Once the item reached her knees, it dropped to the floor and she stepped out of it before quirking her eyebrow in his direction.

“Fuck,” he breathed, reaching his hand out for her. He grabbed her hip, bumped their noses together and said, “Extraordinary doesn’t even do you justice,” before crushing his mouth against hers.

Without even realizing it, Kate found herself kissing him back—really kissing him back—and…Shit. She liked kissing him. She liked the feel of his hands splayed across her hips and backside. She liked the smell of his aftershave or cologne when she stood that close to him. And she really liked the delightful way in which his mouth was just as talented as she hoped it would be.

“Mmm Kate.” He groaned against her and she felt heat pulse between her legs. Fuck, she wanted him.

With her hands flat against his chest, Kate gave Castle a little shove to push him back down against the futon. She moved her right leg to climb into his lap but found her skirt far too tight to let her complete the move. “Ah—hold on,” she grumbled, reaching down for the hem of the item, but his hands soon joined hers.

“Let me help.” He said as he helped her scoot the skirt upwards. As he pulled his right hand away, he let it drift between her legs and groaned. “God, you’re wet.”

She hummed and climbed on the futon, putting a knee on either side of his thighs. Using her left hand on his shoulder to steady herself, she reached down with her right to guide him into her channel.

“Fuck, Beckett,” he groaned out as she sunk down on his length.

She smirked at him. “That’s the general idea.”

He looked scandalized for a moment, then delighted before kissing her again. She began to grind her hips against his, feeling his amazing length as it slid in and out of her. God, this was not at all what she had in mind when she had fantasized about them being together, but it certainly didn’t disappoint!

She closed her eyes and carded her hands through the hair at his name as she rolled her hips again and again until his rock hard tip hit at just the right spot that she groaned out, “Ah…yes…right there.”

“Don’t stop Beckett…”

“I’m not, I’m not, I….God!” She yelped out when her body tumbled over the edge and her walls began contracting around him. A moment later he let out a curse and buried his face in her cleavage, their hips continuing to rock together as they both came down from their high.

She sat there for another thirty seconds before climbing off him and waddling back to the desk to grab the tissue box that rested there. She kept two for herself and then handed the box to him. Knowing they had both been gone from the party for far too long she kept her clean up routine efficient and didn’t look at him again until she was trying to pull the skirt of her dress back down. Only then did she see that he sat in mostly the same position, his eyes quite wide, but thankfully his penis seemed to be returning to a more flaccid state.

“You okay there, Castle?”

He blinked at her as though she was an angel descended from heaven. “That was….it was really…”

She quirked her lips. “I know.” Given the underlying sexual tension they had in their relationship, it was not at all shocking that their first coupling had been quite intense—not hat she had any complaints about it. Turning back towards the door, she raked her fingers through her hair and said, “I guess I’ll-”

“Wait.”

She turned back to face him, curious.

Castle stood from the couch and his shirt tails fell down enough to cover his manhood, though his legs were still fully exposed, which was an amusing sight. Despite this, his tone sounded rather serious. “What, um, what if we did this again sometime—without the Viagra, obviously.”

Feeling the irresistible urge to continue teasing him, she folded her arms over her chest and gazed at him pensively. “Well. That depends: how’s your stamina without it?”

He smirked. “Would you like to find out?”

She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip and casually shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe I would.” Then, before the smile that was about to explode on her face could betray her, she turned towards the door to leave. Though she had no idea how any sort of relationship with Castle would go, another hot, sweaty, and naked round with him was certainly an intriguing concept—especially if it wasn’t in the tiny office of some poor bookstore manager who would have no idea how his or her couch had been defiled.

“Kate.”

She ignored the whine in his tone and simply threw a casual, “Goodnight Castle,” over her shoulder as she left.

Thanks for the prompt Lou 

Hope everyone enjoyed! 

[taz-writes]

Introduction to Nymia/Colorverse

I mentioned making a post about that other secondary storyverse the other day, right? Well, here it is! (Fair warning, this is less of an active WIP than a concept I like to play with—I probably won’t create any finished product for this world for a WHILE. It’s more of a creative sandbox than a proper novel-in-the-making.)

TLDR; magical girls/boys in a fantastical 1800s steampunk-adjacent setting work together (with varying levels of success) to right the wrongs of the world they live in. Although they were all trained together for a few years in their early teens, it’s been a while since they’ve reunited, and they’ll have to contend with challenging geography, a generations-long war, and their own clashing ideologies before they’ll be able to start figuring out what the problem is. The whole thing’s 90% driven by my love of dramatic irony and secret identities.

Genre-wise, this is another fantasy, but it has a very different flavor from Feilan. It’s also a bit more mature in general, straddling the YA/NA line because of the ages of the protagonists. The timeline flipflops and some scenes are set during the squad’s Academy days as young teenagers, but the real plot happens when they’re in their early 20s. I wouldn’t say this is darker--Feilan gets super fucked up in places--but it’s probably going to feel a little less optimistic, and there are more shades of grey. 

The Colors

Regardless of where in Nymia one hails from, everyone knows of the colors. You may know them as gods, or archetypes, or spirits, or ancestors, but their influence is ever-present and ever-powerful regardless.

The colors are manifestations of human symbolism and belief. They began as formless congregations of a natural energy that flows throughout the planet, and as early humans developed civilization and encountered them, they began to take on the traits of certain colors in the spectrum of light. They are influenced by humanity, and influence humanity in turn—more like primal forces of nature than thinking, feeling beings. Despite this, though, they have clear wills of their own and personalities. They’re sort of... human-adjacent, but ultimately something greater. Human mages are able to draw on the powers of the colors and cast magic based on their color of choice!

The precise meanings and powers of the colors vary by the culture and social class of the believer, but they are worshipped across Nymia, and plenty of patterns pop up. Unfortunately, most of Nymia doesn’t get along—of the four realms consisting the continent, two have been at war for generations, and the remaining two are somewhat isolated from both the warring countries and each other.

Each generation, the colors choose humans to wield their powers and enact their will to encourage peace and balance throughout the realms. These humans are called the Paladins. They’re not very well-known, though, because the last few generations of paladins were not strong enough to make a significant difference or achieve much of anything. This generation, those paladins are our protagonists! Which brings me to...

The Characters

This storyverse is WAY more character-driven than my other WIP, which is why I keep dodging around it and hiding from a plot, but the characters are the best thing I’ve got going here. I won’t beat around the bush, just introduce them.

Talxin Zatruc is the Paladin of Red! He’s really short, he barely hits 5’3”, but there’s a lot of intensity packed into that petite form. Red is the color of plague, poison, decay, and death. As such, they tend to be vilified in most places, and redmages aren’t winning any popularity contests. To Talxin, though, red means something else. He was raised dirt-poor in the country by parents trapped in Elcrin’s broken legal system, and to them, red is the color of justice. All things are equal in death, after all. His red magic isn’t limited to just killing people. He’s not a very trusting person, and he tends to stammer a lot and bow out of conflict, but there’s a core of steel under his surface. He’ll cross any line if it means achieving a better world. He’s like, my way of protesting about how badass Anakin Skywalker could’ve been if the Star Wars writers gave a shit.

Syzyga Lazuli is not in fact associated with the color blue! She’s the Paladin of Orange, who represents exploration, navigation, innovation, and human ingenuity. In her native country of Kelrie, she’s in constant demand fixing trade ships and assisting mapmakers, but her true passion lies elsewhere. Syz is an avid inventor, constantly creating new ways to make the world a better and more exciting place. Remember Master Builders from the LEGO movie? That’s basically what Syz’s orange magic does, it’s pretty cool. One of her trickiest creations is the wired mechanical “exoskeleton” she wears on her arms (cooler name pending), which compensates for an extreme hypermobility disorder she’s dealt with since childhood. Her ultimate dream is to create a functional flying machine—something that many orangemages have attempted, but none have succeeded in so far. She likes pointy things, stargazing, and using said hypermobile hands to occasionally one-up Nyrene’s attempts to freak people out.

Soenya Arrenya is the Paladin of Yellow. The emoticon :} is an accurate summary of her personality. Yellow is associated with weather and natural disasters as a trickster archetype, but they are also a patron of underdogs and comedians. They’re one of those archetypes whose interpretations vary wildly by location. Soenya hails from a remote town in the northern Sapiran tundra, the kind of place where ice tornadoes are things that exist, and her notion of practicality is... we’ll just say, it’s a bit different from the city-dwellers’. She doesn’t have much concept of property damage (or property). She’s really flirtatious and will hit on just about anyone, which embarrasses her colleagues sometimes, to the point where most of the other paladins figure she’s just doing it to mess with them. She and Nyrene do NOT get along.

Darrus Colere is the Paladin of DICK MAGIC Green, and I did NOT draw him buff enough in this picture. He needs to be like twice as buff and twice as Big. He’s almost 6’4” and deserves to be built like an Olympic deadlifter. Green is associated with healing, plant life, fertility, and sexuality. They’re one of the only two colors ever given a gender, as in Sapir Green also represents masculinity. Darrus is valid to fuck. Unfortunately he’s also easily flustered and a little bit dense, he tends to get strange ideas in his head and it takes a LOT of pushing to redirect him. He’s got inertia. Darrus cares more about plants than most people, he will run after you crying if you step on “his” grass. He and Talxin shared a room at the Academy as baby 13-year-olds and they’d fight constantly because Talxin kept accidentally killing Darrus’s houseplants with poorly-controlled red magic. Also, he’s genuinely terrified of Talxin, which in terms of sheer physicality is hilarious. At his core, he’s a very caring person! He expresses affection by lecturing people on your behalf. It’s kind of sweet. He’s from Kelrie like Syz, but the other side of the country.

Anlied Atidae is the elusive Paladin of Blue. Raised in the upper echelons of Sapiran society, she’s still grappling with the extremely repressed behavior she was raised to exhibit, but even behind her veil of mystery she’s a strange and deeply thoughtful individual. Blue is the archetype of thought, philosophy, emotion, and the human mind. In Sapir, Blue represents femininity. Although private, Anlied is very sincere in her desire to help others. Her life of privilege and nobility tends to blind her to the reality she lives in, though, and even as an adult she is very naive. She’s all about the conceptual thought exercise of fixing the world but stalls short in horror when presented with an actual problem. Despite using magic that specializes in emotion and the mind, she has very little awareness and understanding of her own emotional experience. Rationality is prized above all else in Sapiran society, particularly in the noble circles Anlied grew up in, and it is considered taboo to express any kind of emotion outside of a Blue temple. As emotions are sacred to Blue, they should be shown to Blue alone. Some Sapiran royals will even veil their faces in blue fabric as the ultimate expression of non-expression. This culture.... this culture seriously messed with Anlied’s head.

Nyrene Enkeli is the Paladin of Purple and the team’s most infamous wildcard. She’s tall, skinny, pointy, and an avatar of mayhem—literally. Purple is, among other things, the archetype of chaos. They also represent cycles, wisdom, and the passage of time. Nyrene really likes knocking people off-guard, and can produce an impressive variety of disturbing noises. She also swallows swords, spits fire, and juggles like a fiend. She’s the sole representative among the paladins of Nemmonay—an elusive free state off the coast of Kelrie that shelters pirates, outlaws, and a dozen other criminal elements holding each other together in a perilous state of organized anarchy. Nyrene is the embodiment of that trope where a character has to remove all their weapons, and holds up the line for 20 minutes picking tiny knives out of their hair and bootsoles. Upon first glance, she seems like she’s totally off her rocker. She says weird stuff that doesn’t make sense, and does weird stuff for shock value alone, and generally moves like a cat that’s seen a ghost in the corner. What she really is, though, is a bona fide genius. Nyrene’s purple magic allows her to travel through time to a certain extent, and she’s often balancing two or more perfect loops at once, with some really bizarre caveats added to make sure the streams don’t cross. She has a lot of ulterior motives. She considers Syzyga her best friend, because Syzyga is the only person who hasn’t panicked at the sight of spontaneous sword-swallowing. She really doesn’t get along well with Soenya.

Pariya Spinel is the current Paladin of Pink, though she wasn’t the first in this generation. The OG pink paladin turned out to be such an unspeakably awful person that Pink themself appeared to strip her of her status. Pariya joined the group late and didn’t have much time to get to know the others, which she’s rather self-conscious about, but pretty much everyone likes her. She doesn’t have too much to worry about. Pink is a tricky archetype to pin down. They’re associated with creation, they’re the pantheon leader, and they have symbolic ties to space and the heavens. In practice, this means Pariya has the power to create things like energy constructs or even just simple objects. It’s a difficult and tiring power to use but has the potential to be super broken. Pariya isn’t very good with her magic, and she’s extremely anxious and self-conscious about it, to the point where her nerves may be preventing her from doing much of anything at all. She’ll get there, one day...

So, yeah! That’s the squad! Not pictured is Rovato, whom I’ve mentioned briefly on this blog before—he’s the main antagonist in this universe. He’s a paladin of Silver. Silver used to be part of the pantheon, once upon a time, but they’ve been forgotten over the last few generations for an assortment of reasons. Most of those reasons have to do with Rovato. As purple represents chaos, silver represents order, and the exertion of will upon the whims of the natural world. Silver once had different aspects in the same way the other colors do, and in Sapir they actually represented change and manipulation—this is the aspect Rovato exploits. He’s used some loopholes in the magic system to make himself into a near-immortal shapeshifter and he wants power and stuff. I’m still working out the plot, so this could change, but that’s what I have right now. 

The general backstory is that the Paladins were gathered together by the elusive headmaster of the Academy, a school on an unclaimed island meant specifically to train each generation’s set of paladins and prepare them to bring peace to the world. While at the Academy, they were not allowed to share their real names or anything about their origins, so that they couldn’t judge each other for their differences and stuff. The paladins are spread across the continent to represent all four realms and every end of the class spectrum and the whole point of the team is to encourage unity. Can’t have them being racist at each other! Unfortunately, the status quo of the war between Sapir and Elcrin shifted dramatically during their third year at school, and they were sent back home before being allowed to learn each other’s names and origins and all that stuff. Now, approximately five or six years after the Academy disbanded, something is happening that can only be resolved by the paladins themselves. So now they have to get the team back together, and seek each other out across national borders and geographic obstacles and LOTS of weird culture clash. I’m still working on figuring out what’s happening. Like I said, the plot’s a work in progress.

And that’s that! I don’t know how much I’ll talk about these guys here, since the colorverse story has been on my back burner for a LOOOOONG time, and I still want to get through Feilan in the next century. But I wanted to introduce them, so I could talk about them without confusing literally everyone. They’re my second-oldest set of OCs after the fairies and I care about them quite a lot. 

[creepycreepyspacewizard]

“The day would be a lot less boring if you learned how to sit still.”

Rainy Day Starters 

“The day would be a lot less boring if you learned how to sit still.” Kylo muttered as bare feet padded across the floor in front of his mat for the twelfth time in the last five minutes. 

Kylo kept his eyes shut but he could tell by the change to Hux’ gait that he was carrying something heavy this time. 

“I’m not bored,” Hux replied lightly, his voice fading as he moved further into the apartment. “Besides, that makes no sense.”

A tap began to run in the bathroom. It sounded loud enough to be the tub filling up. Good, maybe Hux would take a bath and leave him in peace. 

Kylo took a deep breath, centred himself, and tried to sink back into his meditation. Instead of inner calm his treacherous brain presented an image of Hux lounging soapy and naked in the tub.

“For fucks sake.”

“What?” Hux was back, walking between him and the window again. The light outside was already pretty dim due to the persistent drizzle, but the constant flicker as Hux passed by was maddening. 

“I’m trying to meditate.”

“So? I’m not stopping you.”

“You really are.” Kylo gave in and opened his eyes to find Hux standing over him with an amused look and his hands full of potted plants. “What are you doing?”

“They need watering,” Hux said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m putting them in the bath to soak.”

Kylo leaned pointedly to his left to look out of the balcony window toward the rain currently lashing the building. 

Hux sniffed. “Well if you want all your plants burned by chemicals from the smog that’s your business, but since I’m the one doing it I’m going to look after them properly.” 

He stormed off in the direction of the bathroom again. The haughty effect would have worked better if his tight orange boxers weren’t peeking out from under Kylo’s oversized shirt. As it was the wiggling his butt was the only thing Kylo really took in.

A few seconds later Hux returned- huffing and stomping like a martyr- to collect more plants. Clearly he was a man on a mission. 

There were only twenty odd pots left so Kylo closed his eyes and resigned himself to a few more angry passes before the job would be done. Then he could meditate in peace. 

“Where’s your vacuum cleaner?” Hux asked.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. No. Sit still.”

There was a silence that almost convinced Kylo that Hux was finally going to stop, but the shadow he was casting over him suggested he hadn’t sat down yet. Fine, if he wanted to stand there then that was no skin off Kylo’s nose. 

Kylo took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders...

“I don’t want to,” Hux said quietly. “There’s nothing to do here. You only own cook books, the laptop charger is broken, the phone signal is too shitty to watch Netflix...”

“Then come sit here with me and meditate.”

“Do you really think I want to spend any more time in my head then I already do?” The question was asked with an odd mix of horror and frustration. He sighed and continued in a bad approximation of Kylo’s American accent. “Hey, yeah, here’s a great idea Armitage, lets just sit on the floor in silence thinking about everything thats gone wrong in your life, and all the stuff that will go wrong, and all the work that’s piling up on your desk because you’re terrible at your job, and while we’re at it why not focus on your body too! Really sense all the aches and pains you still have from the times your father beat you senseless for shitty exam results, and how you’ll never be good enough at anything...”

Kylo was on his feet and pulling Hux against his chest before he even realised he was doing it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he murmured as Hux slumped forwards. Warm tears began to soak into the shoulder of Kylo’s shirt. “You know none of that is true.”

Hux shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know how you can stand it- being in your own head for hours like that. It sounds like hell.”

“You’re not supposed to be thinking when you meditate. That’s the whole point.”

“Well, we both know that ‘not thinking’ comes naturally to you,” Hux muttered in a failed attempt at sounding vicious, “but I can’t say I’ve much experience with that.”

“Harsh.” Kylo said flatly. He knew Hux didn’t really mean it, so he just kept on rubbing his back and watching the rain run down the windows while Hux pulled himself together. 

Slowly Hux shifted from resting limply against Kylo’s chest to actively hugging him back. Apparently moving on autopilot one of his hands started to mimic the rhythm of Kylo’s own, though Kylo had kept his hand respectfully above the waist. 

“This is nice,” Hux said at last. There was a devious kind of smile in his voice. 

Kylo quirked an eyebrow even though Hux couldn’t see it. “Yeah?”

“Mmm... you know, focusing on someone else’s body is kinda soothing, especially when they’re breathing so evenly.” Hux said, running his hand down to Kylo’s thigh and ruining the evenness he’d just been praising. “Sit down.”

“Hux...” 

This really wasn’t how meditation was supposed to work, but Hux leaned up to kiss him with tear damp lips and Kylo knew he wouldn’t deny him anything. 

He returned to the mat, sitting cross legged and hoping his body’s reaction wasn’t too obvious through his sweatpants. 

Hux glanced at the tented fabric but he said nothing as he kneeled down and awkwardly climbed into Kylo’s lap, not even when Kylo squirmed at the pressure on his dick. Instead he looped his arms loosely around Kylo’s shoulders and relaxed.

“Okay, now you can meditate,” Hux said with his face resting against the curve of Kylo’s neck. His breathe was wonderfully warm against Kylo’s skin.

With an effort not to shiver Kylo asked, “Oh, I can, can I?”

“Consider it a challenge- meditating on hard mode.”

Hux snorted when Kylo grabbed his ass and repositioned him just enough to free his erection. 

“Well, its certainly that.” Kylo muttered. “Hard, I mean...”

“Shhhh, we’re supposed to be sitting still. Remember?”

[audreycritter]

Sleepwalker

Chapter 2 on AO3

--

The kitchen is quiet while Alfred Pennyworth sits at the table, thin fingers curled around a cup of steaming tea. He is waiting with an old and practiced patience, a crafted and unhurried ambush. There are no distractions, no lists to write or chores to busy himself with because he is focused.

He set his trap twenty minutes previous, announcing loudly to Bruce that he would walk out with him to the garage because he had errands to run in the city. He walked as far as the door, quietly claimed he had changed his mind, and retreated silently to the kitchen to wait.

There is coffee in the kitchen that, even if he is avoiding food, Tim will come searching for if he thinks Alfred is gone. And he needs to think Alfred is gone because he has been avoiding everyone in the four days since the fear toxin and his subsequent breakdown in the cave, but he has especially been avoiding Bruce and Alfred.

Alfred knows, because it is the sort of thing he feels he ought to know whenever possible, that Tim has also been avoiding sleep and is likely exhausted enough that he will fail to notice such a simple ruse.

When Tim staggers into the kitchen several minutes later, Alfred is justified in his assumptions.

“Master Timothy,” Alfred says clearly while Tim is reaching for the bag of coffee beans in the cabinet with the French press.

The boy’s whole body jerks once in surprise.

“Augh!” Tim shouts, spinning and smacking his face against the open cupboard door.

“Goodness gracious,” Alfred says mildly, standing as Tim rubs his brow with a scowl. “Come sit. I’ll make the coffee.”

Tim opens his mouth to protest but his shoulders spasm and his lips press tightly together. He hunches forward a little and then nods and takes a seat at the table.

Without discussing the decision, Alfred measures decaf grounds into the glass carafe. He does not frown in Tim’s direction because he knows, because it is a nuance he knows from experience, that where Bruce would ignore or deflect a frown from him, Tim would take it as a deeply personal criticism. But he frowns at the kettle as it warms water for the French press.

He is not a stranger to the signs of physical exhaustion, and involuntary muscle tremors along with confusion and lowered reflexes are both serious signs indeed.

When he carries a mug of coffee over to the table, Tim is sitting in a chair with his head lying on his crossed arms on the tabletop, but his eyes are open and staring off aimlessly into the middle distance. Tim flinches when Alfred sets the coffee down.

“Now, Master Timothy,” Alfred says, sitting across from him. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

“Nothing,” Tim says, swallowing hard. He hasn’t lifted his head. “I just haven’t been sleeping. That’s all.”

“Master Timothy,” Alfred says again, a bit sternly. “This is more than ordinary insomnia.”

“Fear toxin,” Tim mutters after a long, long silence. “I’m…it’s just taking me longer…don’t tell Bruce.”

“Do you believe yourself to require another dose of the antidote?” Alfred asks, mentally reviewing how much they’d given the boy. It should have been more than enough. “You ought to have mentioned it sooner if–”

“No,” Tim says, waving a limp hand. “It’s out of my system.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Alfred sits quietly while Tim props himself up enough to drink the coffee.

Alfred knows, because it is a thing that is his burden to know, that the effects of fear toxin linger for long after the chemical component has been neutralized. He knows from personal experience and from walking the halls in the darkness before dawn, listening to Bruce and then Dick, and then Jason, and then Tim, and then Cass, and then Damian, as each in their turn shattered the silence with groans or screams or sleepless pacing in the aftermath of encounters with the vile stuff. But they are all experts now at coping with nightmares, they each have the routines they use to clear their minds or escape the flickers of haunting memory.

Except this time, with Tim.

As far as Alfred has been able to gather, Tim has not resorted to any of his usual methods. This is concerning because Tim is not a boy easily rattled-- whatever fear it is that has gripped his heart or mind must run deep and convincing, is almost certainly more than the representation of a phobia.

“You ought to sleep,” Alfred chides gently when the coffee is nearly gone. Even if he doubts Tim will take the advice without argument or resistance, it is the sort of thing he should say to prod Tim along in discussion.

Tim tips the remnants of the coffee, swirling the last mouthful in the mug while he watches it as if mesmerized. He does not appear to have heard Alfred but Alfred also knows that, out of all of the children he has cared for under the manor roof, it is Tim who best mimics Bruce’s ability to ignore or fake inattention.

Alfred waits.

“Do you think Bruce would have been okay without me? Like, eventually?” Tim asks, pushing the unfinished coffee away.

Alfred sighs and crosses his legs, leans back in the kitchen chair. Tim is not the easiest boy to reason with or convince once a seed has been planted in his mind and taken root. If he is not careful, if he does not move and speak with great intention and consideration, his words will be dismissed and he will be cut off from further usefulness. Alfred knows this, because this is not the first such conversation he has had with Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. The topics vary, but when Tim is in a state like the one he is in now-- physically and mentally and emotionally exhausted, trembling from muscle stress and severing himself from his usual contacts-- he requires both caution and honesty from Alfred.

It is, without elaboration, a difficult balance.

“I think, in time, he would have come to terms with his grief without you, yes,” Alfred acknowledges. “But I do not know that he would have done so without someone else. It is impossible now to say who else could have filled that role, and if they would have come in time to prevent premature death or the crossing of an irreversible transition.”

“So, I saved him?” Tim asks, and rather than a note of hope in his voice there is a dread in the sudden hunch of his thin frame. His words are flat and Alfred’s brow creases in minor, but brief, confusion before he grasps an inkling of what might be haunting Tim.

“No,” Alfred says and the boy slumps forward, just slightly, in evident relief. “You saved him in a way, and have saved him many times since. He is the man he is today partly because you noticed and sought him out. But you perhaps shaped him more than saved him. He was growing violent and I certainly had my concerns, but he was not self-destructive to the point of actual danger. No, Master Timothy, I am afraid that if I am being truthful, I must tell you that you were a stepping stone to his healing and not a savior.”

“Okay,” Tim says, exhaling slowly. “Okay.”

There is little to no point in Alfred asking Tim precisely what he saw or what it is he is recalling at his most haunted moments. Even if the boy would attempt to tell him, the nature of toxin fears was such that they often seemed ridiculous when recounted aloud-- rather than this being reassuring, it had the perverse effect of deepening a sense of isolation.

Tim is fiddling now with the coffee mug, twisting it on the table so the handle makes the loop away from one hand and back to the other.

For a brief second, his eyes flick up to meet Alfred’s own, and the older man’s heart hurts at the desperation and weariness there-- it is too great, too aged, for such a boy to bear. It makes him think of men he knew in the military, men who were men because of their combat and not because of their years.

Eighteen and a veteran.

Nineteen and stooped with the world’s darkest horrors.

Twenty and never with the hope of being young again.

And Tim is only seventeen.

“If,” Tim says, dropping his gaze back to the table. There is a quiet hollowness in the manor, giving it a dreamlike quality of perceived stasis while seconds and then minutes tick by. Tim clears his throat and rather than his voice increasing in volume, it lowers when he continues. Alfred thinks of fairy tales where the furniture or the walls of a powerful house overhear, spy on the inhabitants, tattle about their fears and conspiracies and plans.

“If,” Tim says again in a whisper, “If Bruce had been a danger to himself, to others more than you could accept, would you have admitted him against his wishes to psychiatric care?”

For a moment, the only response Alfred can manage is to blink. He is genuinely shaken by the question, not because he doesn’t know his answer but because he is not certain that they are still actually talking about Bruce.

“Do you believe yourself to be a danger?” Alfred asks directly, unwilling to let this particular point sit in ambiguity.

Tim shakes his head as if bothered by an insect, quick and irritated.

“No. I’m asking about Bruce,” he says. There’s a note of warning in his tone, a sign that the conversation will only continue as long as they stay on topic. That is enough for Alfred to be convinced that he means what he says.

“Yes,” Alfred says without bothering to whisper to match Tim’s low tone. “I would have admitted him and I would yet, if the situation grew dire enough. I do not think I need to remind you that I have served him for years of costumed vigilantism,” Alfred remarks, raising an eyebrow.

Tim nods.

“Nonetheless,” Alfred continues, “if the circumstances were severe enough that I felt him to be beyond his own mental capacity for rational, of a sort, decisions-- if I believed that he was putting himself in needless rather than sacrificial danger, or risked great harm to others for the same reason, I would do everything in my power to stop it. You know I have left before over disagreements, but I am speaking of things more deeply troubling than those. I have a place and the name of a doctor who would aid me.”

In the murky suspension of the manor’s atmosphere, there is a brief moment where it appears as if this news had no effect whatsoever on Tim, but then he does react and Alfred realizes it was fatigue or processing that delayed the response.

Tim puts his head in his hands and exhales, a long and shuddering breath to match the tremor of his back.

“I thought…I was afraid I was a dream,” Tim says into the silence of the kitchen and the patience of Alfred’s company. “I had a dream, or vision, or…you know, I don’t even know what to call it. But Bruce was in Arkham, after Jason. And everything after had been his coping mechanism. Starting with me.”

Alfred knows, because shock is not something that often catches him these days, that perhaps even a small gasp is not the best response to Tim when he is opening up. But it is hard to catch it, to stop himself, when he knows Tim so well.

“But I don’t think he’d let you say that,” Tim rubs at his eyes and yawns, then looks at Alfred. It is the steadiest and most confident he has looked since appearing in the kitchen and as usual, it means that Tim has resolved things inside for himself-- or he wouldn’t be talking about it. It is not that the boy never needs help, it is that he is vague about the ways in which he needs it. Explanations come after, when he is certain of what he says.

“Let me say I’d admit him, against his will?” Alfred asks, to clarify.

“Yeah,” Tim says. “Why would he? If you were made up, why not have you swear to never do it? He didn’t seem very happy. I don’t think he would have. Maybe it’s not that concrete, really, but it’s something, right?”

Alfred knows, because once he was young and stood on the shore of a rocky and frigid ocean, what it is like to have a wave crash over one unexpectedly. And this is that it feels like, to be blown over by Tim’s fear in the same minute that it is already receding-- he barely has time to suck in air against the cold terror of the shock before it is already sucking against the sand and falling back to the choppy sea.

“It is something,” Alfred says.

Tim stands up and stretches; Alfred also rises to his feet. At the head of the kitchen table, he opens his arms, and the weary boy sags against him into a hug so tight Alfred can feel the thudding of his heart, the tension of his tired limbs.

“Thanks, Alfred,” Tim says. “For talking.”

“My dear boy,” Alfred says, his cheek against dark hair, “any time at all. Now go sleep before I have to resort to medicating you.”

“Didn’t you already?” Tim asks, looking suspiciously at the coffee mug as he steps back. “It tasted off.”

“It was decaf,” Alfred says with a slight smile.

“I would have preferred to be drugged, I think,” Tim says scornfully of the mug, with a wry and tired lift of one side of his mouth.

“I thought it was close enough, given the circumstances,” Alfred says, taking the mug up from the table to wash it.

Tim laughs and Alfred thinks again of fairy tales, so clearly does the stress and burden fall away from Tim’s shoulders and frame as he stands and sighs in a relieved, grateful manner.

“Alfred?” he says as Alfred stands at the sink.

“Master Timothy?”

“I’m…is it bad to be a little disappointed, that I’m not a dream?” Tim says and Alfred can hear the frown in his voice. So, not all the burden is gone, apparently.

Alfred knows, because he knows this family and himself, that they are not a family that walks without their burdens in one way or another.

“I mean, if I was a dream, there are a lot of people who didn’t really die.”

“There are a lot of people who didn’t really live, then,” Alfred says, and he gets the distinct impression that Tim has moved beyond actual fear and is purely toying with the theoretical now. He will indulge him if it means the boy will go sleep soon. “I think their lives are worth it, even with loss, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tim says quietly. “I think it’s all worth it. I don’t know why, but I do.”

“Because it is,” Alfred says with conviction, turning from the running water to look the boy in the face. Tim’s eyes are searching, curious. “It was worth it to know you, Master Timothy. And the others. I would not be here if it were not worth it.”

“I know,” Tim nods, yawning once more. Tim pushes his hair back from his forehead and stops on the threshold between kitchen and hallway. The smile he gives Alfred after is full of confidence and spirit, the same qualities that drove him to the batcave all those years ago. Alfred does not see it often anymore but it is still there, deep inside Tim, always-- Alfred knows this, because he knows Tim.

Tim speaks one more time before going upstairs. The words linger in Alfred’s mind for long after the boy has gone to sleep:

“That’s why I’m here, too.”