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poorly-written-fiction · 3 months ago

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replay (logan howlett x oc)

prologue - she wolf

A/N: it’s finally here! my logan x oc fic! for more information on the oc in question, check here for a run-down on her character. this first chapter is mostly her backstory, which is why it’s the prologue. feedback is always appreciated!

Summary: Inez Brando's life has been a whirlwind, both good and bad. Growing up feeling different is hard.

15k words (i'm so sorry gang)

tags: canon x oc, logan howlett x oc, mutant! oc, slow burn, enemies/rivals to lovers, brief mention of some guy being creepy, growing pains + general growing up struggles, mention of mental health issues, probably grammatical and other writing errors, i was just too excited to post this, okay bye i hope you enjoy

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On one frosty night in January, a baby girl was born in a small town. Lola and Cylas Brando were over the moon to be holding their own child, having dreamt of having their own little family ever since they started going steady. They got married less than a year after they started dating and had conceived during their honeymoon. Now the little bundle of joy slept peacefully, snuggled close to Lola’s heart. There was much debate over the baby girl’s name, but eventually, the name Inez was decided for her.

“She’s named after my Nonna Agnes on my father’s side,” Cylas would say proudly. He had dreamed of holding his own baby since he was young. He thought very highly of his own father and the woman that made his father the man he was. “My nonna was one of the strongest women I knew, she raised my father to be a good man.”

The family of three rested peacefully in their hospital room. The full moon flooded the room with a soft white light, and all was right with the world.

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Inez grew up loved and well-taken care of. She had her mother’s chocolate brown hair and her father’s amber eyes, framed by thick, dark eyebrows. She had freckles dusted across her nose and shoulders from running outside and playing with the kids in her neighborhood. She would come home with scrapes on her knees, but a smile spread across her face. She didn’t have a care in the world, she had nothing to fear.

Calling her parents supportive was an understatement, they were her cheerleaders. Through her early childhood development Lola and Cylas celebrated their daughter in everything she did. When she started school, every report and milestone was praised. When she was 10, she decided she wanted to get into sports, which her father was more than happy to assist with.

“What sports sound good to you, my little lamb?” Cylas asked her one day at breakfast.

“I wanna run a lot,” Inez thought aloud, pushing her cereal around with her spoon, “what can I do with a lot of running?”

Her father thought for a moment, “You could do soccer, or run track, I think both of those would be wonderful for you.”

“Can I do both?” Inez asked excitedly, taking a bite of her breakfast.

Cylas smiled, “I don’t see why not, but you’d be really busy. Are you going to be okay with that?” Inez smiled back, nodding excitedly.

By the end of the month, Inez was signed up to do sports and started training.

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When she was 14, she had decided she felt her happiest running track, deciding that soccer wasn’t quite the right fit for her. Track meet nights were her favorites. The sounds of the stadium were deafening, but she had tuned every sound out. She was focusing on listening for the signal that meant “go!” Her heart drummed in her chest, her vision tunneled, and when she heard the whistle, she took off. She couldn’t hear anything, except for her family’s voices repeating encouragements in her head. She rounded the first turn in the track, slowing down slightly to reserve her stamina, and shooting off again when the track straightened out. One more curve in the path ahead of her, and she had made it fully around. The stadium suddenly erupted in applause and cheers, and Inez was fully tuned back into where she was. She breathed hard, her chest rising and falling slowly. When she turned around, her opponents were just starting to cross the finish line. She smiled at each of them, giving them a high-five and congratulating them. “Well done, you did so good,” she would compliment her competitors, shaking their hands if they let her.

After her track meets, Cylas and Lola would walk down to meet their daughter, congratulating her with hugs and kisses, before letting her gather her things from the locker room. “We’ll wait for you in the car! We’re parked across the street, okay?” Her father would yell to her. She’d flash them a smile and a thumbs-up, before taking off. Once inside the locker room, she went to a sink, rinsing off her face and her chest. Then she’d go to her locker and pull out her things - some baby wipes, deodorant, clean clothes, and her sports bag. Once she felt as fresh as she could feel without taking a proper shower, she’d pack everything up in her bag, shut her locker, and walk out to go find her parents’ car. They were parked exactly where they told her they’d be, the headlights on the red vehicle shining brightly in the darkness of the evening.

Once they were all on their way, Cylas smiled at his daughter through the rear-view mirror. “We’re going to Nonna and Nonno’s for a celebratory dinner! Nonna made pasta alla Montecarlo.” Cylas would chuckle as he saw his daughter’s face light up. Inez, for as long as the family could remember, was always a little carnivore. Now that she was a growing girl - and an athletic one at that - they knew they’d have to sustain her with enough protein and carbohydrates to keep her energy up and her muscles strong. Inez could barely contain her excitement all the way to her grandparents’ house.

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At 15 years old, Inez had started to become incredibly uncomfortable in her own body. The doctors had deduced that her late start to puberty was in some part a result of her being an athlete. While the rest of her female classmates had started developing, Inez hadn’t quite caught up with them. The new adjustment wasn’t fun. Inez was incredibly hairy, bordering on almost furry, and found herself shaving - and later on waxing - everything below her eyes. Yet no matter how much she did it, the hair would keep growing back. Her mother would reassure her as best as she could, telling her it was probably a result of genetics. “Your body will sort itself out as you get older, just be patient with yourself, okay?” Lola would wrap her arms around Inez, squeezing every ounce of love she could into her daughter.

It was also at this age that she began to notice that streaks of grey were growing into her hair, which she hated with every bone in her body. She began box-dying her hair to cover up the greys, thinking it made her look old. Even worse, it just highlighted - in her mind - how different she was. She was trying so hard to seem normal, she just wanted to feel like other girls her age. She wanted her biggest worry to be about the boys she liked, not about her hair changing color, and growing so fast that she felt like an animal. She felt like a freak.

Inez also experienced a new first in her life - anxiety. Inez had a solid support group in her family, so when she suddenly began to feel like the walls were caving in on her, they were the first people to come to her rescue. The only thing that brought her peace was when she was training and competing in her sports. When she had a goal in mind, she could focus all of her energy - good and bad - into it, and give everything her all. She would focus on the memories of her family’s encouragement, knowing they’d always be proud of her as long as she was putting her best effort forward.

Inez had gotten to a point where she would go for a run first thing in the morning, then train in her sports at school, and go for another run when she got home before the sun went down. Her mother wouldn’t let her go out past dark, worrying for her only baby’s safety. Some nights, Inez would sneak out under the cover of darkness and run around the neighborhood. Then she’d sneak back into her house, as quietly as she could, and get back into her bed. Some nights were easier than others, and it was on the really difficult nights that she’d run laps around her block from midnight to 2 or 3 in the morning, only allowing herself a short bit of sleep before she’d get ready and go to school. Nonetheless, she’d wake up feeling somewhat refreshed, and ready to take on the day.

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Inez hit a breaking point in her early adult years. When she was 21, she was enjoying some time with a few of her co-workers, when a man approached her with ill intentions. After repeatedly telling him to fuck off, this man still reached his grubby hand out and grabbed her. A thread inside of Inez snapped, and before even she could comprehend what was going on, the man was on the floor, screaming and cursing in pain. He held his face, while blood poured from his nose, which now appeared to be nearly inverted. Inez’s coworkers, rushed her outside, calling 911 and explaining the situation. Police and an ambulance arrived shortly thereafter. The police dismissed Inez, acknowledging that she had acted in self-defense, and in the event that the man attempted to press assault charges, that he would be shit out of luck. The man, who now looked like a close relative to Voldemort, was taken away in the ambulance to receive some help. The officers wrapped up getting the statements from Inez and her colleagues, before explaining that they’d need to go question the guy, “just protocol,” they said. Nothing came of the situation afterward, but Inez now felt something stronger than she ever had before - anger. In one night, Inez had gone from being angry when it was necessary, to now letting her rage consume her when she got lost in her thoughts.

Her father - who was furious when he had heard what happened - suggested Inez take up boxing. It definitely helped, with each blow to the punching bags, Inez felt the fire that once roared inside of her slowly begin to dim, until it was a comfortable warmth. The anger never burnt out completely, but it was now the size of a campfire, rather than a forest fire. But over time, the feeling wouldn’t die down as quickly. The perfect storm was just forming.

Inez took off on a run one night, every emotion ready to burst out of her chest if she didn’t control herself quickly. She had run from her home to a nature reserve park, 8 and a half miles away from her home. When she got there, she had a run-in with the groundskeeper, who had approached her with a gun. This time, rather than tearing the man’s face off, she raised her hands in surrender, while her heart hammered in her chest. After apologizing profusely and begging the man not to call authorities, Inez was left alone to take herself home. So off she ran, 8 and a half miles going back home. She slipped back into her house without anyone noticing, crawling into bed and trying to come to terms with the near-death experience she had.

Unbeknownst to her, the groundskeeper had reported the run-in, raising alarms to the owner of an institution in Salem Center, New York. The owner gathered his staff together, and a plan was made. Inez did need help. She needed their help. After a week, more reports had been made. Inez was quickly putting herself in danger every time she’d show up at a nature preserve or in a park where she wasn’t supposed to be. She never went to the same spots twice, out of fear that someone would eventually catch her, or worse. Unfortunately for the people from New York, there was no clear way to tell where she’d be going. They would have to meet her at her house.

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On a bright Sunday morning, the Brando family was eating breakfast, when there was a knock at the front door. Cylas stood up, walking over to answer it. When he opened the door, two well-dressed men greeted Cylas with a smile. The older of the two sat in a wheelchair, while the younger one stood beside him.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Cylas greeted with a nod, “how can I help you?”

“Good morning, sir. Is this the Brando residence?” The man in the wheelchair inquired.

“That’s correct,” Cylas answered.

“You must be Mister Cylas Brando then,” the man in the wheelchair held his hand out to shake Cylas’s, “my name is Charles Xavier, this is my associate, Henry McCoy. Is your daughter home?”

Cylas shook Charles’s hand, then Henry’s. “She is, give me a moment and I’ll get her for you.” Cylas took a step towards the kitchen, “Inez, there’s some gentlemen here who would like to speak with you.”

Inez got up from the table, her thick eyebrows furrowed together. She saw the two men, and smiled politely. “Hello.”

Charles held his hand out to Inez, “Good morning, Inez. My name is Charles Xavier. I’m the headmaster of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, I’ve come to ask you about an opportunity we have for you.”

Inez shook the man’s hand, smiling. “Nice to meet you, what is the opportunity?”

Charles looked to his colleague, and then back to Inez, “Have you ever felt that you are… different from those around you? Have you been experiencing strange occurrences?”

Inez looked at them with a puzzled look on her face, “I… yes, I have. How do you know?”

Henry now spoke up, pushing his glasses up on his nose, “We’d like to ask you to join us at our school.”

“We help people who are… different. We don’t mean to alarm you, but we think we may be able to help you.” Charles gave Inez a knowing look. Before she could respond, his voice was in her head, “I know you are different, you are special. We can help you.”

Inez’s eyes widened, shifting her glance between the two men. “What… what are you?”

“We are mutants, Inez, and we believe that you are one as well. If you do not wish to come with us, we understand, but we’ve created a safe and supportive environment for others like us. You have unique abilities, and we want to help you learn to live with them, perhaps even use them to help others. If you choose to accept, we will sort out and problems you may have with your family. The choice is yours.” Charles smiled gently. Inez looked at her front door, and thought of her parents. If going to this place made her happy, they would be happy.

After a moment of thought, Inez turned back to the two men, “Would you like to come inside, and talk with my parents?”

“It would be our pleasure.”

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“This is amazing, our baby’s gonna get to work at a prestigious academy!” Cylas beamed, hugging Inez tightly.

“How excited are you, little lamb?” Lola folded one of her daughter’s shirts, placing it neatly in the suitcase they had bought for her.

Inez smiled, resting her head on her father’s shoulder, “I’m very excited. I’ll miss you while I’m away, but I’ll come and visit when the school year is off.”

“Of course, we’re gonna miss you too, kid. But, this is an exciting and big step for you, and we’ve always wanted what’s best for you.” Her mother continued to fold clothes, “I can’t believe you get to go all the way to New York. Will you promise to call us when you have free time? Let us know how you’re doing?”

“Of course, Mama.” Inez zipped up the suitcase once it was full. “Charles and Henry will be here to pick me up soon, are you both gonna be okay?” Cylas nodded, even though it hurt to see his daughter grow up so quickly before his very eyes, he was proud - as always - that she was spreading her wings and leaving the nest for the first time. He picked up her suitcase and wheeled it near the front door. Inez hugged her mother and father both tightly, and for the first time, she was also seeing how much they had changed since she was little. Both of them were beginning to get grey around the roots of their hair - Cylas having lots of grey in his beard. For the first time in her life, she found the grey to be really beautiful. Maybe it wouldn’t look so bad on her, after all.

The time finally came for her to leave. A black van had come, with Charles and Henry both sitting inside waiting for her. She pulled the handle up on the suitcase, and dragged it over the threshold of the front door. She gave her parents one more hug, and each of them a kiss on the cheek. Cylas placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing her lovingly, “You can always come home if you need us. There will always be room here for our little lamb.” Inez nodded, giving her parents one last smile, before she got into the vehicle and waved goodbye.

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trinkerichi · 2 years ago

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TEKVENTURES! I wanna ramble about Tekventures.

if you remember them you qualify for a veterans discount

So they were Sgt.Frog ocs that my best friend SARAZA and I made on flipnote for edgy amvs and comics. I wanna say I wassss 13? give or take. But these little guys were my EVERYTHING. We thought of a billion stories about them. Then I got sick of drawing frogs eventually and wanted to make them more of an original thing. Our first sketches were of anthro goats, but over time with my style changes, an the fact that I hate spending more than 2 seconds drawing anything, they no longer resemble any specific animal and turned into fuzzy nondescript species of alien thing. ANYWAY I wanted to make them into a "real comic series" when i was 17. That's when I started the chapters that are still up on tumblr n webtoons! and a few other sites probably that I forgot about.

I've been harsh on it in the past but honestly I still love it to bits. What's there is a solid little comic and i still think it's adorable!

The only thing is, that's judging it based on what's there. It's a basis for a cute episodic thing with low stakes! Like the early mlp fim episodes or the new care bears cartoon. But that's NOT what it was planned for in the long term. Oh no, I was so ambitious. I had at LEAST 50 episodes planned which would weave together into this massive arc that would introduce other space teams, wayward space travelers with secret pasts connecting to the main cast, sad backstories for everyone, ALL of the family members of the main cast, a villian team with like... 'anti-versions' of the main cast, and a dramatically foreshadowed final confrontation with robot clones that want to destroy their planet. OH AND ROBIN too! Besides all that, they ALSO have multiple side story episodes about crashing to earth and befriending a human girl named Robin who has to keep them secret.

That might have been um. a lot.

But when you start writing a story with your best friend when you're 13 you most likely have NO CONCEPT of "too much". Who am I kidding I STILL have trouble pacing myself. But when you come up with a story it's hard not to think it's just GOLD! And that you've gotta keep it no matter what! Because that stuff is fun!

I went full force into the comic in my senior year of highschool and eventually I finished the first chapter! It took me a year. And then I looked at my plans for the other 49 episodes and thought "maybe I need to rework some things.."

I rebooted the comic once, tried making smaller stories, all that, but I wasn't quite feeling the same drive anymore. I realized I was comparing my work to high budget tv shows with like. a full team of writers and artists. and studio funding. and greenlit seasons and all that. And it was making me feel TERRIBLE about my art!

So I quit comics! I started hating comics! I hated how long they took and how restricted I felt (with my own expectations) and I lost my confidence in finishing projects because I was so sad about giving up on my big magnum opus. and I just kinda gave up and started only doing fandom art for a couple years. I did a jyushimatsu ask blog and kept it up for ages! And then a new season of Osomatsu came out and I realized when comparing it that I was basically writing an oc at this point. And that I CAN commit to long term projects if i dont get self conscious about it!

I still didnt wanna jump into comics again. But I thought of some new characters that I was becoming attached to. the very very beginnings of what could turn into a new idea.

I thought "well i still love cartoons about space! even if im not making tekventures anymore maybe i could do another space story. a really tiny one."

so i started making an rpgmaker game! and it started taking forever. so in the meantime i made a really rough doodle comic about how the characters first met. as a little side story thing.

and THAT was the key. I had to stop thinking about it like i was making a big cool tv show and starting my career and all that. its just a fun thing, off the cuff, not overthinking it, just for fun and personal expression.

so im still going with it! and its GREAT! Rocket chip has 12 planned chapters, and I'll be halfway done by the end of the year.

But BOY did it take me forever to learn that.

#trinket rambles

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spaghettidrawing · 4 years ago

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Alright, I finally took the time to introduce you to my MC named Ania. I would like to tell you few things about her since I am still going to work on her full design and even more on her backstory. Also, this is my first time writing something like this so there is big possibility there are some mistakes and there might be some changes in the future but who knows. Please don’t hate me.

Ania (before and during the Red plague) Before the story took turns in Vesuvia, Ania in her early years spend her life in the hometown with her mother Jane Reityr. Already as a kid she was showing a lot of interest in magic books, wizard stories and cats.

While growing up she would visit her aunt in Vesuvia very often who owned a magic shop. Learning different kind of spells and how to make potions, never learnt how to fly the broom though. After few years she became the owner of the shop instead and moved to Vesuvia, where she met Asra and became friends and roommates with him.

Unluckily when the Red plague started to be a big threat, they ended up in an argument about leaving the Vesuvia. Ania tried to explain they should not leave, because they are magicians, and they could help or at least try to help the people who were suffering. While Asra being determined that it is too dangerous and practically a suicide. This argument ended up with Asra leaving Vesuvia and Ania trying to find a way to deal with the plague.

In this part of timeline Ania was cheery and confident girl. At the same time she was a bit shy and not sure how to talk to people but after spending some time with them she would try to make everyone laugh with silly jokes or random stories which happened in her hometown.

She would still prefer just to stay friends with everyone. She didn’t want to let anyone closer because she was afraid of the pain her mother had to go through when she lost her husband. But well, that changed when she met someone special during the plague.

Ania (Amnesiac) When Ania was resurrected all she was, all she knew was gone. Everything was unknown for her, making her scared literally of everything. She would always just hide herself in the blankets or different kind of clothes all the time. Most of her first days or maybe weeks, were just her hiding behind or under the bed. Not wanting to eat or drink. It was like she felt not welcomed? Asra would try to bring her anything to make her feel more comfortable. One time he also brought some papers and pencils. To find out few hours later that Ania draw few scribbles of creepy pictures which looked like suffering souls or ghosts, while whispering weakly: „Home“.

After few months Asra was able to get Ania to move around the town, which never ended up well. Ania would constantly hear people whispering about her. „Wait, I thought she ****?” „Me as well, how is she *****? Didn’t she **** of the plague?” Sometimes while listening to whispers some unknown voice inside her would just scream in unknown language. „* ** *** ****!” Ania would just ran off to some empty streets or just anywhere to escape everything.

One day she ran to a cloth market by mistake, or maybe to hide herself under sheets again. But in the shop, she started to admire one piece of cloth, the cloaks. The perfect piece of cloth to be able to make her hide from everything all the time. When Asra caught up to her and noticed her admiring he would offer her to buy some for her. But instead Ania would point at the textiles trying to say she would prefer to make her own. After that Asra would try to teach Ania how to sew. First of the cloaks looked terrible of course, but after some tries and practicing, she eventually made her own cloak.

Ania (the main story) When Ania was able to speak properly and take care of herself, Asra would often leave her alone in the shop on her own for his reasons. This would make her character just more closed and not wanting to know anyone much. Still, she had to be somehow friendly for the shop and for the customers so they would be happy to come back. She learned the fake smile technique.

Then one day she met someone who would change everything for her, even though it was in inappropriate way. The time when the fugitive doctor, also known as Julian Devorak broke into her shop, was an important moment. Not just shocking and confusing but also kind of… irritating, and for some reason irritation seemed familiar. This dramatic man who jumps to conclusions and doesn’t even let her finish talking.

This was the first time something felt familiar to her. Something familiar in a person, something that she might know or understand on her own. True, she was able to understand her magic, but there was still something unknown about it, and this person…

That was one of the reasons why she wanted to know more about Dr. Devorak. During Julian story Ania would slowly find pieces of her old self and build up her encouragement. Since the care for Julian was more important to her then her insecurity. Plus, that man would constantly get himself in trouble (what a silly).

Alright, I wanna leave it at this. At least for now. How I said I want to work on this more. Plus I wanna put the story into comics sooo… Truth is comics are complicated and takes time so who knows how long that is gonna take… BUT I WONT GIVE UP! Anyway I hope you guys enjoy this, I know its not the best written thing you read. I am sorry for my English and… yeeea. If you have some tips please let me know. Thanks!

#the arcana #the arcana game #fan apprentice #the arcana fan apprentice #the arcana mc #character design #backstory #the arcana fanart #ania the apprentice #the arcana ania

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cryptidcutiesstuff · 4 years ago

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I’m Stronger than you think!

this is a Bucky x reader thing i decided to write. the story is actually my own OC’s backstory so i would appreciate if you didn’t take any “inspiration” for your own characters :) i just thought people would like to read it through their own eyes :D

in this chapter there isn’t any Bucky unfortunately, its just an introduction to Y/N, but Bucky should appear in upcoming chapters :D

pairing: Bucky x Reader :)

chapter 1

warnings: mentioned infertility and adultery

I met him in Highschool, a nice sweet boy who helped me pick up my books that had been so carelessly pushed to the floor by a blonde haired wannabe. I was always bullied, sometimes for my appearance but mainly for my personality. Now you see being a strong independent woman was not very appealing in the 1930s, but for some reason he didn’t care about that. We went on dates, and eventually fell in love and were a couple for more than 4 years until he popped the big question. I thought everything was fine, I was happy, but apparently he wasn't. And it was because I was infertile, unable to have kids.

That lying son of a bitch! I stomped through the crowded office building in my black heels, angrily walking up to my car ready to drive away from him, how could he do this to me after everything. “Y/N, Please!” I turned around and tore off the chain of metal that was hanging round my neck, throwing it carelessly at the man who I once loved. He bought me that necklace on our first date. I always kept it on me “here! Keep it, or better yet give it to the nice secretary in the office!” I said as tears rolled down my flushed cheeks. 2 years we had been married, I cared for him, stayed at home for him, cooked, cleaned. I was even willing to bear his children if I was able but instead he betrayed me and my trusting nature.

“Y/N, I'm sorry, please forgive me!” he pleaded, grabbing my hand. I pulled it away from his grip, “how long?” “what?” “how long have you been sleeping with her?” I looked into his eyes, my eyes being full of pain and sorrow. “A year and a half” he weakly stated, breaking eye contact with me. My eyes widened in disbelief, I had been ignorant for nearly the entirety of our marriage. “Why then?” he began to get irritated, curling his hands into a fist, “Joshua! Why?” I repeated. “Because you can't have children!” he shouted at me. I just stood there stunned, that simple sentence stabbed me straight through the heart. I quickly recomposed myself and then spoke up furious and yelled “yeah. Believe me I know that! It's the one thing I am meant to do as a woman, and I can't do it! And I'm sorry that I can't!” My outburst seemed to shut the both of us up. “Josh, obviously this isn't working any more, we don't work, so maybe…..maybe it's better that we go our separate ways, I'll stay with a friend temporarily, I'll go get my belongings now.” I said as I turned around, Joshua didn't say anything but watched me get into my car and drive away.

For the duration of the drive I was trying to contain the rest of the bottled emotion that was threatening to spill, I just needed to get to my friends current apartment, Peggy Carter, she was leaving in a few days for the war. When she told me her brother helped her get a place in the war as field agent I couldn't help but have my worries. Women weren't exactly treated well by men, and unfortunately she was going to be surrounded by them. How different things would be if women were respected and treated as a males equal, instead of being sexualised and thought as the “weaker sex”. Pulling my car up on the pavement, I momentarily sat there until I let my head drop onto the steering wheel, unbeknownst to me I slammed my forehead right into the car horn, causing a loud beep to rupture from the vehicle startling me. Clutching my heart I stepped out trying my best to ignore all the staring faces of the civilians around the area while walking over to Peggy’s apartment complex. I ran up to her door knocking on it frantically, she opened it wide not expecting me to be there. She looked at me, eyes softening when she saw my broken expression. “Oh Y/N darling.” her British accent rang through my ears as she invited me in for a hug. The exact moment she placed her head on top of mine was when I broke, I sobbed while she held me tightly, “what's the matter? What happened?” “ Its Josh, he's been cheating on me for most of our marriage.” I said but I came out as a muffled sob from her shoulder. She pulled away, brushing hair behind my ear. “Oh Y/N, I'm so sorry. Tea and talk?” I sniffled and nodded in agreement as she shut the front door, walked over to the kitchen and placed the kettle over the stove.

When it was done, we began talking about Joshua and how I should have known he was cheating from the strange behaviour, he stayed out late often, didn't kiss me as much and never really wanted to get intimate with me. As the pieces added up I became more frustrated at myself for not noticing it earlier, I could have saved myself the heartbreak of finding him making out with his secretary in his office. I decided to flip through a few newspaper clippings Peggy kept on her kitchen island in an attempt to take my mind off Joshua. ”you could have punched him in the face you know.” Peggy piped up. “I know you're pretty good at a few hand to hand combat techniques courtesy of your father!” I looked up from the small newspaper clipping. “yeah, I know but I didn’t wanna waste my famous right hook on ‘im you know” We burst out into a fit of giggles at the thought of Joshua on the ground. “You would probably be good at fighting in the war, Y/N.” I gave her the ‘yeah right’ face.

The conversation died down and a peaceful silence covered the room, the smell of the tea helped put my mind at ease a little. “So you’re going to war soon?” I broke the pause. “Yes I am, I'm quite excited actually, I'll be doing field work mostly but I hope I'll be of some help at least.” I smiled “I’m sure that you’ll be great! it must be fun, I would give anything to go there myself. Maybe beat some sense into those brainless misogynistic pigs.” my smile turned into a smirk as Peggy laughed at my statement. “Well I could always recommend you to the colonel, he's the one that kind of runs the place.” I placed my china teacup down carefully onto its matching coaster. “Thanks for the offer peg, but I doubt they would even let me, a woman, near any tactical equipment.” there was a long pause once again until I made a quick snappy joke “unless I somehow dressed as a guy and infiltrated their army base.” I giggled at the silly thought, however Peggy didn't, I looked over cautiously not knowing if I had pushed any the wrong buttons. That was until I saw the look of determination in her eyes. “Peggy NO!”, “Peggy YES!”.

“That’s a terrible idea! And what happens if they find out huh? What then?” I crossed my arms looking at her from across the kitchen island. “By the time they find out it would be too late!”. “No Peggy it ain't happening, they wouldn't let me!” she stood there for a while “fine!” she sat down with a huff and we left it at that. We finished our tea and as the day began to end she walked me to my car, talking about when the war would be over, not knowing what the future would hold. Once I reached my car I threw my coat into the passenger's seat and closed the door for a moment while I gave Peggy a goodbye hug. “Thanks peg I needed that, I'll be on my way to Jacqueline's place, I'm staying there until I can get away from Joshua.” we parted and she gave me a gentle, reassuring smile. “You know that offer is still there.” “what offer?” there was a pause as I tried to remember what we spoke about, a light bulb went off in my head as it clicked. “PEGGY NO!” I stared at her in disbelief. “Y/N, come on, you know you really want to join. I could find someone willing to help you!” I knew she wasn't going to give up on asking me, so I reluctantly agreed. “Fine, you can try.'' I loved Peggy truly. but I unfortunately didn't have much faith that she would help me join the war. “Great! Well I hope you sort everything out with bloody Joshua.” I nodded in agreement and got into my car. I waved Peggy goodbye as I drove to Jacqueline’s ready to announce that I would be having a sleepover for a long while. Little did I know that I wouldn't be staying there for very long.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barns fanfiction #bucky barnes #x reader #marvel #captain america #captain america the first avenger #peggy carter #reader gets cheated on

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plounce · 4 years ago

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do u have any reccomendations for how to read only comics involving rictor and shatterstar?? i used to be into marvel comics so i am immune to the usual comic shenanigans but i would like to learn more about these boys

here is a guide to reading xmen comics for rictor and shatterstar, my favorite canon comics couple! they were the first on-panel gay kiss in a marvel comic! they’re very special to me!

OKAY SO... ok. for anyone else using this, here’s a standard disclaimer that obviously there’s gonna be a lot in these that just absolutely sucks because 1. the 90s, 2. comics are an extremely cishet white male dominated industry. i do not vouch for everything written in these comics, but i think the gaycoding that eventually gets canonized is worth wading through a lot of stupid bullshit and very ugly art.

quick backstory on these two: rictor is a mexican teenager who was kidnapped by an anti-mutant terrorist group and was rescued by x-factor (the original 5). he hung around their auxiliary teen group the x-terminators for most of x-factor, being a delightful little punk (wearing a sleeveless leather vest a lot of the time!) and hanging out with boom-boom (who i love) and then got put into the new mutants for a very short time (where he had a thing with rahne/wolfsbane), before it was dissolved and transformed into x-force when rob liefeld took over the title. rictor hates team leader 90sdude cable because he thinks cable killed his dad in front of him. he tends to be the snarky asshole on the team.

the first part of this article has a lot of little rictor moments i’m not covering here. if you want the full rictor experience, check out x-factor (1986) and !x-terminators! x-factor starts very slowly but it picks up and improves when the simonsons take the helm.

rictor left the team. shatterstar was introduced by liefeld - he’s an Emotionless Warrior Guy Who Loves To Fight from mojoworld (a planet run by a despot who produces tv. it’s Commentary), where he was forced to be a gladiator from birth and doesn’t know a lot of earth customs and doesn’t have emotions (or rather, he represses them).

x-force (1991) feel free to read through all of it, but in case you just want to skip to these two, all of these issues have one or two good little Moments - just do some skimming. i tend to focus more on rictor than star in this era because star is made more interesting than Emotionless Warrior Guy by butting up against rictor:

13-16 (rictor rejoins his old new mutants friends)

19, 21-26 (the first phase of their relationship where they don’t really get along. in one of these issues rictor stares at star’s ass. big moment of star being autism-coded in here too)

29-30 (rictor drives shatterstar around and they seem to get along better, you get to learn a bit about star’s past, adam-x the x-treme is there)

32-33 (just some little moments of them hanging out, a couple good rictor lines)

34 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor backstory issue! AND this has the first big Subtext moment: shatterstar reveals he learned spanish from tv so he and rictor can have “conversations of a highly -- personal nature” HELLO?)

35 (some little moments where you can see star and rictor are now Friends and star is affected by that friendship)

39-40 (more good friendship - rictor asks if star has been watching dating shows and they just seem close. rictor also has gotten a haircut! we learn shatterstar’s mojoworld designation! they ride some motorcycles!)

43 (VERY IMPORTANT - the two go to a club. rictor tells star he’s a virgin then asks him if he has a dick. i am not kidding this literally happens. star learns what sexual attraction feels like and says ‘i don’t know what emotions im supposed to attach to that’, and rictor tells him he’ll help him learn.)

44 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor leaves the team because he doesn’t want to have the team communicate telepathically (VERY interesting for a character who is eventually revealed to have been a closeted gay man). shatterstar begs him not to leave - “you’re my best and only friend.” rictor tells him that if he ever needs him, he’ll come back.)

cable (1993) #22 (follows up directly on rictor leaving the team - star accompanies rictor to the airport and has a lot of Feelings and has great hair. “julio. one last time. please, change your mind. what am i going to do without you?” oh so you’re dependent on your best friend who you’re in love with? oh?)

45, 47-48 (star’s weird biology, star brings up rictor as his emotional touchstone in a situation where he isn’t relevant at all. also, a plotline where tabby gets treated terribly by her friends and the narrative!)

49 (VERY IMPORTANT - star wanders around at night wondering why rictor hasn’t contacted him yet. he goes to the club he and rictor went to in #43 and turns down a girl who hits on him. he thinks “i miss julio...” (in an earlier issue, rictor tells cable not to call him by his first name - “only my mom calls me that”), then beats up some homophobes in an alley. I AM NOT KIDDING.)

51-52 (51 has more weird star biology. 52 has two pages of star and james talking that is a nice look at star’s developing emotional state - the rest of 52 is a fight with one of marvel’s extremely fatphobic villains, just a warning to skip the rest of it. although the letter page of 52 has someone go HEY ARE RICTOR AND SHATTERSTAR IN LOVE? thank you roeland looman from the netherlands)

54-56 (the start of shatterstar’s weird bad benjamin russell backstory that is quickly forgotten, disregarded, and uncared about by everybody. BUT in 54, there is some extremely loud subtext where star’s feelings for rictor are explicitly compared to a het romance subplot!)

58 (star is very chill and flamboyant for like two pages, it’s great)

59-61 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor returns because star Needs him in the midst of his identity crisis!! it’s so joyful and sweet for them both, and the subtext is so LOUD here - there’s just. so much going on, i won’t describe it all, but it’s very good content and their emotionally intimate relationship is very apparent - really excellent gaycoding. the weird shatterstar backstory wraps up circuitously and to no great effect, but the art in the last issue is very nice, and rictor’s plain and uncomplicated concern for star is great.)

63-65 (some little moments - shatterstar and rictor time travel and beat up some nazis, star has a lovely conversation with siryn,)

x-force/cable ‘97 (the team goes to asgard! the important thing is that star says some goofy “ah... warriors...” things, and then rictor teases star for liking delivery pizza. it’s very charming)

67 (they hang out with tabby in a van. shatterstar has pigtails!)

70 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor and shatterstar exit the team together to go take down rictor’s crime family in mexico! they seem very devoted to each other. shatterstar’s hair is all the way down!)

post leaving x-force:

76 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar return for one issue - rictor gets held captive to force shatterstar to fight domino!)

x-force annual 1999 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar get their own story about what they’re doing in mexico! shatterstar has an ugly little goatee, but rictor looks great! they choose to share a room rather than sleep separately and then it kind of feels like they shared a bed! rictor has learned star’s alien language! they genuinely just seem so close and comfortable with each other, it’s incredible.) (if you’re using RTO, it’s within the rest of xforce’s issues)

they’re both in comics limbo for the first half of the 00s besides a couple random flavorless appearances. shatterstar at some point goes back to mojoworld to help with the war against mojo. then we hit peter david’s x-factor run in 2006, known as x-factor investigations (xfi). this directly follows the “house of m” event - what matters is that the vast majority of mutants have been depowered by the scarlet witch. rictor is one of them.

rictor is a main character of the team from the first issue (the series opens with him about to attempt suicide), so if you wanna read the run you can start from the beginning. x-factor is... well, there are worse-written comics. it’s an okay read, but i find PAD’s writing insufferable a lot of the time (he writes multiple man as a pretty blatant self insert, and literally every girl on the team wants to fuck him at some point or another). i read the whole thing and it’s decent comics, but you might want to skip to the ricstar.

PAD canonizes ricstar, which is great! but unfortunately: 1. he writes star as “slutty bisexual just can’t stop wanting to fuck people besides his partner who is uncomfortable with that!”, which is biphobic and sucks hugely, especially since it feels so different from xforce original shatterstar (see this post). rictor also just seems so annoyed with him all the time, which also sucks - they’re best friends!! let rictor like his boyfriend!!

anyway. if you choose not to read all of xfi, here are the ricstar highlights:

first issue of xfi for rictor's horrible mental state after m-day

14 (jamie implies that star would be jealous of rictor hanging out with quicksilver)

43, 45, 49 (star reappears!! he’s mindcontrolled, but it gets fixed, and he and rictor have the first ever on panel gay kiss at marvel!! yaaaay!! then they talk about their relationship a little)

after issue #50 it changes the numbering, so if you’re using RCO youll have to go to xfactor (1986) #200 to continue

200 (SHATTERSTAR FIGHTS THE THING!)

continue to read between here for star apparently being unable to stop kissing people. sigh. star sleeps with adult layla, which... sigh. whatever

207-208 (rictor and shatterstar semi-resolve the stupid biphobic plotline, resolve to work on their relationship, rahne discovers them (she and rictor had been sleeping together earlier in xfi), rahne is pregnant and homophobic, rahne and star fight, star is a delightful bitch)

209 (shatterstar on a pirate ship. that's it)

210 (rictor confirms that he is gay and it wasn’t legit when he’s been with women. there’s a moment where it's like "oh star makes rictor laugh" which is epic)

211-212 (star is said to be frustrated about rictor and rahne, rahne’s baby’s actual dad is revealed)

213 (rictor and rahne mostly resolve their shit)

216 (star and monet hang out, star thinks monet tells him to pee on rictor, spiderman is there)

217 (there’s a joke about the longstanding theory that longshot and star are related, monet is revealed as muslim in a very dumb way)

220 (star and rahne have a pretty nice conversation about their relationships to rictor and rahne’s faith. rictor does an offscreen internalized homophobia)

221 (star and rahne continue to hang out but it’s not as good as the previous issue.)

222 (oh my god, rictor cares about shatterstar being hurt! rahne owns up to how she kind of treated rictor like shit!)

pop over to avengers: the children’s crusade (a young avengers miniseries with good ol’ billy/teddy and i like it! but if you don’t want to read the whole thing - rictor and shatterstar appear in #6, and rictor is the first mutant to be repowered! they’re more tender with each other over their five page appearance than they are in xfi, so it’s a balm)

225-226 (PAD decides the first thing rictor does with his powers is be a scab [DEEP SIGH], rictor and shatterstar discuss rictor getting his powers back, the biphobic plotline is resolved again kind of in a very PAD-y way)

235-236 (shatterstar gets to be the main character of a mini arc. fights a mojo guy)

238 (ricstar go with rahne to help her find her son)

242 (they find her son. not as important imo)

248 (oh my god... they joke together :) they like being around each other :) also shatterstar goodboy moment. then in 249 rictor’s life is spared bc of shatterstar’s goodboy moment)

259 (SHATTERSTAR’S CRAZY CONVOLUTED BACKSTORY THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS TO HIS CHARACTER! YAHOO! and star has a cute little bob)

after xfi wraps up, there’s a couple years of limbo before they appear in secret warriors (2017) #2-3 (end of #2 and most of #3), which is a big crossover event or something. i don’t know, it’s an inhumans comic, and as an xmen person i am contractually obligated to roll my eyes at the inhumans. ricstar both have mustaches, star doesn’t speak, and rictor has the ugliest costume ever (green tracksuit with no socks??) (tabby also has a terrible costume). it’s just more inhumans trying to be a match to the xmen and utterly failing to not look & act like total jackasses (except, of course, for kamala and moon girl). rictor’s jokes that daisy johnson should get more original powers (she also has seismic powers - rictor predates her!), and then daisy blows up the xmen’s jet. while it’s in the air. this is a very neat summary of most mutant-inhuman relations.

now we enter the current era of “on again off again” relationship limbo.

rictor appears next in iceman (2017). in #9 he states that he and star have apparently broken up offscreen! and then he hits on bobby! sina grace is a cool person but this writing decision is so... aghhh. the next issue he and bobby go out on a date and he’s immediately like “yeah i only have my eyes on star”, so it seems to be more “it’s complicated” than “we’re broken up for good.” he sticks around to help out with a mission in #10-11.

they’re on again in new mutants: dead souls, where rictor is a part of the team and he’s hilarious and has so many great lines! shatterstar also makes a couple cameos throughout and they’re all super sweet! they seem very domestic and comfortable and happy, i love their dynamic in this. my favorite shatterstar panel ever is in #6, where he is making rictor pancakes and is only wearing an apron. please ignore all the big plot things that happen at the end of this, especially everything with karma. they are stupid, dumb, and do not matter.

related to nm:ds, rictor appears in multiple man #1 as part of that team and looks very very cute. and he isn’t whitewashed like in nm:ds!

off again in the shatterstar (2018) miniseries. i have a lot of mixed feelings about this because i LOVE all the rictor stuff, the first issue codes shatterstar as autistic in a very characterful way, it doesn’t whitewash rictor for once, and the covers are GORGEOUS! but it also attempts to retcon a ton of star’s emotional backstory AND arc set out in xforce, casting a black woman as his emotionally manipulative ex. also star is a landlord (ew). my advice with this one is to treat all the flashbacks as not-really-canon since they suck.

star appears in extermination (2018) #3-4 and gets mind-controlled into trying to kill the time-displaced teen o5 (timetraveling baby cable is trying to put them back where they came from), and the art looks great and i feel really bad for him. rictor makes a follow-up cameo in uncanny x-men (2019) #9-10, where you can see that he’s at the school in order to visit shatterstar since he’s with cecelia reyes. he then goes to fight nate grey/x-man, where he gets sucked into the age of x-man pocket universe/event.

around half the xmen get trapped and brainwashed in that pocket universe where there is no love or family, merely friendship and comradery (it’s an attempt by nate grey to ‘fix’ the xmen by getting rid of all the soap opera stuff - it’s a bit meta wrt how xmen are the soap opera superheroes). there are a couple different titles for this event: rictor appears in age of x-man: x-tremists #4-5. people have mixed feelings about this title due to the gay characters (northstar and iceman) enforcing no-romance laws that very intentionally parallel anti-gay laws from real life, but rictor is just chilling and running an illegal romance movies theatre, and then he gets drunk and then starts a riot and he’s just delightful in this.

everyone outside of the pocket universe thinks everyone who disappeared was killed. shatterstar is part of the team in x-force (2019) (there are two 2019 x-forces: this is vol 5, written by ed brisson) who are trying to track down young cable (baby cable, or “bable”), who killed older cable, who formed good old 90s xforce. boom-boom is the best part of this entire run, hands down. the art is expressive and interesting but i Hate how they draw warpath (the one time he’s free from comic book limbo!). shatterstar is in full “i only like fighting please let me fight i am a difficult asshole” mode, and talks about grieving rictor in #7 and #10. this is never really resolved since age of x-man is thrown over for hoxpox (BIG status quo changes & current era of xmen comics), but aside from my little ricstar heart i can’t really mind.

rictor is currently appearing as part of the team in excalibur (2019), and has been very... cozy... with apocalypse. at the time of writing (halloween 2020), it’s very heavily ambiguous what exactly their relationship is besides “intense” and i still have no clue what to think about it. he and star have been stated by the writer to be exes, but i also know tini howard is a ricstar fan so im holding out for good things! and it’s cool that rictor is getting a ton of focus and a lot of powering up. i remember reading xfi #1 and being amazed at how rictor described how soul-deep his earth powers were and wanting more of that, and excalibur has that for him in spades. (i am still withholding a lot of judgment wrt rictor’s writing in excalibur until i see how things pan out)

after reading to excalibur #12, switch over to x-factor (2020). read the first three issues because i love northstar and prodigy and rachel. please ignore a couple cringe comments towards poor daken. shatterstar appears in #3, trapped on mojoworld, getting traumatized, and breaking my heart as i write this. that last data page... free my boy!!!!

after x-factor #3, read x of swords: creation. more rictor and apocalypse being Close. after that, read x-factor #4 for apocalypse being very Attached to rictor, and then rictor looking very good and freshly resurrected. then continue reading excalibur. in may, x-factor is going back to mojoworld!!

that’s all there is so far! i think within the next year there will be even more content for us, and im very eager to get to that content. i will update this post as things come out.

#ricstar #xmen #rictor #shatterstar #julio richter #chirps #anonymous

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alarawriting · 4 years ago

Text

52 Project #29: The Last Boy (Inktober #11: Disgusting)

This is fanfic-adjacent; it’s an unauthorized sequel to Alice Sheldon (writing as James Tiptree Jr)’s story “The Screwfly Solution”. It is... less dark than that story, but if you’re familiar with it, that’s not saying much. (If you aren’t familiar, don’t worry, this story explains the backstory necessary.)

This is a horror story... or at the least, dark science fiction. (Nothing supernatural in this one.) I am not tagging any of the triggers inside because spoilers, which are destructive to a horror story, but I will include them at the end, which is below the cut. If you rapidly scroll through the story you can reach the trigger list without actually reading any of the story.

--------------------------------------------------------

Roy is very excited, running, practically skipping, ahead on the trail. “Uncle Matt! This is great! I can see the woods up ahead already!”

Matt forces a smile, because he’s very much afraid of how this expedition might end, but he has to try. He has to have hope. “Sure is. Ready to go hunting?”

“You bet!” Roy turns around and flashes Matt a big, heartwarming smile. His face is pocked with acne and he’s late to have lost his last baby tooth; it’s a gap on the upper left side of his face. He looks so young, so boyish. Which he is; he’s thirteen. Thirteen is still a kid. Matt’s sixty; thirteen’s practically a baby to him. They grow up so damn fast. “You think we’ll bag a deer?”

“We might. Or we might bag a goose. Or we might come home empty-handed. The point to hunting is to be quiet and patient, and let nature bring to you whatever it will.”

They hike up to the tree line. This is one of very, very few forest areas that’s still being tended and managed by people. The rocky hiking trail up to the tree line’s been kept clear of scrub; there are bushes and tall grasses on either side of the trail, but nothing on the wide stretch of packed dirt.

From here Matt can look down the side of the mountain, to the acres planted with corn and wheat, the women working in the rows, a couple of men stationed to sit by the road with their guns, watchful for whoever might come by. He knows them both. Good boys. He took Evan out on a hunting trip like this one, ten years ago, and they came home with a deer and a couple of rabbits. Jase was called Lisa back then, and didn’t need to go on a hunting trip like this. The tradition of the hunting trip when you’re thirteen isn’t for the girls, or the gay boys, or the trans kids. Most of them resent that, until they get to be old enough to understand why.

“This is the best,” Roy says. “Just me and you, Uncle Matt. How long has it been since we got to just spend time together, just two men?”

“I think you were 10. We went out to the river and went fishing, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. I didn’t catch anything,” Roy laughs. “You got a couple of fish, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Matt says, smiling as he remembers. “Had to throw ‘em back, though. They were too small.”

“Why don’t we do stuff like that more often, Uncle Matt? Just hang out, without all these stupid girls around?”

Matt sighs. “You have school and I’ve got work; crops don’t grow themselves and we don’t get security by going on vacation.”

“Yeah, but why do we have to even live here? Why don’t we go live somewhere where there’s just men?”

“That’s a little hard to find. There’s not a lot of men around,” Matt points out.

“Because the stupid girls wouldn’t go to them and have their kids,” Roy mutters.

That is a disturbingly misleading viewpoint on what happened, but Matt tries to let it go, for the moment. “Hey. We need to keep quiet now,” he says softly. “If there’s any deer, we don’t want to scare them.”

Roy nods, and the two of them walk quietly into the forest.

***

Roy was such a sweet little boy.

Matt remembers him bringing the pictures he drew to Matt and to his mother – who Matt, despite being called uncle, is not actually related to; Matt is uncle to all the boys he takes under his wing – and being so enthusiastic about showing it to them. He remembers one of the pictures, of himself and Roy holding hands. Another, of Roy holding hands with his mom. Roy hasn’t had anything positive to say to his mother in weeks; he’s been disobeying her, insulting her, calling her stupid and saying he doesn’t have to listen to her because she’s just a woman.

It’s biological. Roy wasn’t raised to even have the concept of men somehow being better than women at anything or for any reason. Most of the boys develop the attitude around puberty, the result of a disease that infected the entire world over a century ago. Many of them get over it. Many don’t. Matt never suffered it at all; it’s linked to heterosexual desire, and Matt knew he was gay ever since he was nine.

He remembers Roy running around with a toy airplane, declaring that when he was grown up he would help restore humanity’s control of the skies, working to bring back the airplanes. He remembers Roy making him lemonade when he was six, cooking him an egg when he was ten. Roy making a card for his mother’s birthday with a big heart on it. Roy asking him what stars were made of.

It’s going to be all right, he tells himself. Evan was a little ass to his mom and his sisters, and it all worked out for him. Lebron actually punched his mom when he was fourteen, and he came through it. Roy’s going to be fine.

All the boys mean so much to him, but Roy is special… maybe because he’s the most recent one. Matt hasn’t been working with the little boys so much, lately. There’s enough men in the settlement now that the younger men, with more energy, are taking up more of that role. When Matt himself was a child, there were almost no men – Uncle Harry was the only cis man he’d known. Of the boys he grew up with, only Andrew, Tyrone and Jose were still there by the time he was an adult, plus Deandre who was trans and joined them in their late teens. He’d dated all of them except Deandre, who was straight. Ended up eventually with Cole, three years younger than him. Cole had a heart attack six years ago, and after that Matt couldn’t bear to open himself up to any of the new little boys, not without the emotional support of an adult man to share his life with. Roy has been the last one to call him Uncle.

“Uncle!” Roy hisses. “Is that a deer? Over there?”

Matt looks where Roy is pointing. “It could be,” he whispers back. “Let’s see.”

They walk closer, carefully, trying to be quiet. But Roy steps on a branch he doesn’t see. It snaps, and the vague outline that might be a deer startles and runs, proving that yes, it is a deer. Roy pulls out his gun and fires, but misses, predictably.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Roy swears.

“What have we said about language?” Matt asks mildly.

“Come on, Uncle Matt. I’m not a baby anymore,” Roy protests. “Besides, I said ‘shit’ when I stubbed my toe on a rock on the way up here.”

“Yes, but ‘shit’ is disgusting and everyone makes it. ‘Bitch’ is an insult specifically for women, and calling something a ‘son of a bitch’ when you want to swear at it is basically saying that it’s the fault of mothers if their sons are terrible.”

“Well, who else’s fault would it be? Stupid b – stupid women don’t know anything, but they act like they know everything.”

“I think that’s a little bit of an overgeneralization. I know you’re not getting along with your mother lately—”

“She just makes me so mad. She’s always telling me what to do! Like she knows everything!”

“She is your mother,” Matt says mildly. “And she’s twenty-five years older than you. That does tend to make people know more than you.”

“Yeah, but not her. She really doesn’t know anything. Sometimes I just wanna punch her.”

“That happens to a lot of boys at puberty, but they get over it. By the time you’re twenty-five, you’ll be amazed at how smart your mother has suddenly become.” He smiles at Roy.

Roy glowers. “I don’t think so. Girls are just disgusting. I just want to hang out with men, like you. You’re not a dumbass, Uncle Matt. All the girls are dumbasses, but the guys aren’t.”

“That’s the hormones talking. You’ll get over it.” Matt points at the ground. “Do you see that?”

“No, what?”

“Tracks. For the deer.” Matt crouches down and points them out to Roy. “We can see what direction it went in, now.”

“Oh, yeah! I can see it now!” Roy starts to run, but Matt holds him back by the shoulder.

“Roy. Slow. Patient. Quiet. The deer can run faster than you or me, but it burns more energy doing that. If we walk, we catch up with it, because it’s got to rest. But if it hears us, it’ll run again. So we walk, and we’re quiet.”

“Right. I get it, Uncle Matt.” Roy is much more quiet and careful about where he puts his feet after that.

***

When Roy was eight, Matt walked the fields with him and showed him how to sow corn. They went to the vegetable plots and planted carrots and lima beans. Roy was so proud the day they harvested his carrots, and he got to eat one. Matt took him fishing the first time, that same year.

The little boys are always so sweet, so bright, so full of promise. It hurts so much when they don’t fulfill it.

Please, God, let Roy be all right. Let him get past this. Of course he would. Matt has been training him, teaching him since he was small (but there were others, other boys Matt had loved like his own sons, who he’d trained and taught, and they weren’t around here anymore).

He should have been around more often in the last three years. Roy was heading for puberty and that scared Matt. Still does. He visits the boy often, but Roy is right – they haven’t done anything together, just the two of them, in a long time.

“You ever spend any time with any of the young men? Jase, or Evan, or Fred?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I hang out more with the guys closer to my age. You know any of them? Steve, Paolo, Rafael?”

“Sure, yeah, I know them.”

“Paolo has a dad,” Roy says enviously. “When I grow up I want to be a dad.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because humanity needs more men to be dads,” Matt says. “You can go live where they’re using your donation, if you really want to be a dad, and help to raise the kid you helped make, or you can stay here and help raise the boys as an uncle, and maybe go out and visit the places where they used your donations.”

“How come I can’t stay here and raise a boy here?”

“Genetic variation. If we let human men have sons with their sisters, we get inbreeding. All kinds of diseases. Sending your donations to the other compounds makes us strong and healthy as a species.”

“Did you ever donate, Uncle Matt?”

“Back in my day, if your balls worked you had to donate. We didn’t have enough men. You know old Gran Stacie, she had to donate too. She couldn’t take the hormones to look feminine until there was a safe compound for women to live in and plenty of donations so the human race could keep going.”

“She’s okay, I guess. But the other girls are really stupid and gross.”

Matt stops Roy there. “Hey. You keep saying that. It’s like you’ve forgotten everything we taught you about our history.”

“I remember history,” Roy protests.

“So tell me. Why do we live this way? Why do women live in secure compounds with only a few men? A hundred years ago the world was very different. Tell me how it was, and what changed.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. You do.” Matt sits on the ground, and gestures for Roy to sit across from him. “Come on. Tell Uncle Matt all about it.”

Roy rolls his eyes. “A hundred years ago men and women lived together but then there was a disease and it made the men sick and the sickness made them want to hurt women so they couldn’t live with women anymore, the end,” he says in a rapid sing-song.

“No. That shit doesn’t fly with me, kid, and you know it doesn’t. Tell it to me right.”

Roy sighs. “Okay, okay. So. Back then, women and men lived together all the time and every kid had a dad, and the men still took care of the women but there weren’t a lot of men trying to kill them, just one or two weird ones.”

Matt, being an adult, is aware of how far this is skewed off the truth of what life was like a century ago, but the boys are being raised with no awareness of historical misogyny. Nothing to give the disease any historical justification it can hook onto. They learn more details when they’re proven to be safe. “So far so good.”

“So back then, there was this thing we used to do to kill flies where we made the male flies wanna kill the female flies instead of mate with them.” This is also a distortion of the facts, but Matt lets it go as well. “Then suddenly, men were trying to kill women instead of having sex with them. But it was just the straight men who were affected and they had to have balls. Women weren’t affected even if they had balls, and gay men weren’t affected, and men who didn’t have balls weren’t affected, and men who didn’t want sex even though they had balls weren’t affected, but all the men who had balls and wanted to have sex with women wanted to kill the women. And a lot of the time, little girls or old women that no one wanted to have sex with, because they thought in their heads it was God telling them to kill women or something. They didn’t know the truth.”

“And what was the truth?”

“That it was aliens. They spread the virus around on Earth because they wanted humans to die, just like the flies, so they could take the Earth for themselves. But humans are more complicated than flies. So there were men who were affected too much, who killed little boys because little boys look like little girls, and there were men who weren’t affected as much, who’d killed their wives but they were trying to protect their little girls. And there were men who didn’t have sex with women even if they wanted to because they were trying to honor God or something, and those men could resist wanting to kill, because the wanting to kill thing was related to wanting sex. If they could resist one, sometimes they could resist the other. Plus, all the asexual men and the gay men and the trans men and other kinds of men without balls like castrated men, plus the trans women, who could fake being men so they could stay alive. And there were also a lot of women with guns, too.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, most of the women got killed, and the men who were doing the killing, they didn’t have any kids. But the women who survived, they went into compounds where all the women had guns and they would kill strange men who came near them. And a lot of the kinds of men who didn’t want to kill women would help women get to those compounds. They called them ‘allies.’ You’d have been one if you were alive in those days, Uncle Matt.” This is said proudly. Roy doesn’t realize how much Matt is still called on to be an ally, even today.

“I would have, yes. So how did we get where we are today?”

“A lot of the places were run by women who hated men even before they started killing women, called rads, and the rads were okay with women getting donations from ally men, but if they had boy babies they wanted to send the babies to live with the men or else throw them outside and kill them. And the moms didn’t want to do that and they thought it was stupid. So they made their own compounds and they let ally men live there. And if boys grew up and they didn’t want to kill women, then they were allowed to give donations and be dads. But if they did, then they couldn’t be dads and they couldn’t live there anymore.”

So much heartbreak, so much agony, skimmed over so neatly and briefly. Mothers pleading with their baby boys, grown to young men, not to do this, before the boy killed the mother… or the mother killed the boy, in self-defense. Entire compounds of women lost because some mother couldn’t bear to kill her son, so she locked him away instead… and he got out. Boys with the compulsion to kill sent to live with the femicidal men, only to be killed themselves, because there were no boys among the men anymore and the young boys were more feminine than anything the killer men had seen in years, by then. Or castrated, so that they would theoretically be safe to stay, except humans were complex and some of them retained the femicidal compulsion even in the absence of testicles, and the horror of boys everyone thought were safe suddenly murdering their sisters. Gay boys in love, their hearts shattered when their love interest proved to have enough interest in women that he became a killer.

They’re more careful now. Things like that don’t happen anymore.

“And the killer men thought that the aliens were like messengers from God or something, but the women and the ally men killed a lot of aliens. And when lots of aliens were dead, they realized that their plan to get Earth for themselves by making the humans die out from killing all the women wasn’t going to work, because humans are complicated. So we guess they changed their minds, because they left and no one has seen them since.”

“And that’s a good thing. We lost a lot of people when the aliens were willing to fight back in self-defense. If they’d had the stomach for it, they might have won, and humanity might have been wiped out. But, we assume, they weren’t willing to die to take our planet; they’d been trying to kill us off so they could have all the bounties of the Earth without doing any damage from removing us. If you try to settle in swampland and you try to kill all the mosquitoes, and instead the mosquitoes start killing you back, maybe you go find somewhere else to live.” Or maybe you come back, later, with a new plan… but humanity has collectively decided that, while it’s important to try to have contingencies for that possibility, it’s more important to rebuild humanity and reclaim what was lost. Matt worries about that, but it’s not something he can do anything about.

“You think they’re ever going to come back, Uncle Matt?”

Maybe. “No. We kicked their butts hard enough I’m pretty sure they’re gone forever. But they left us with this giant mess to clean up.” He sighs. “This stuff you’re feeling about how girls are stupid and irritating and you can’t stand being around them? That says, you’re in puberty and you’re going to grow up to be attracted to girls. Maybe guys too, but definitely girls. And the virus is waking up in you, trying to turn your desire for girls into hatred, but it doesn’t have to win. A lot of guys make it through this stage no problem, and never hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t feel like a virus. It feels like they’re stupid and boring and gross and I hate them.”

“Of course it does. If it felt like a virus, the men a hundred years ago would have figured it out before they killed most of the women. It messes with your emotions, Roy. It takes feelings that are natural and normal, and twists them around. But if you understand that, then you don’t have to let it win.”

“Okay,” Roy said, and rocks backward, looking around him. “Can we go hunt for the deer now?”

“Sure, kid.” Matt gets to his feet. “We’re done here. You remember what they taught you about controlling your anger?”

“Yeah. Take deep breaths, take a step back from the situation, walk away if you hafta.”

“Right,” Matt says. “Let’s get a move on. That deer won’t shoot itself.”

***

They amble along through the woods. Another deer makes itself known, and Roy takes another shot, but misses. “Dammit! I was sure I had that shot!”

“I thought you did too,” Matt says. “But they move fast. You gotta be able to sneak up on them and shoot before they hear you coming.”

“Can you do that, Uncle Matt?”

“Used to. I’m older now; wouldn’t be surprised if the deer could hear the creak in my bones.” He grins.

And then they circle around a big rock, and there’s a girl.

She’s a teenager, about Roy’s age, maybe a little older. “Hi!” she says cheerfully. “I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone from around here! You’re from the compound down the mountain, right?”

Roy’s face twists into visible disgust, and he backs away. “That’s right,” Matt says calmly. “I’m Matt, and this is Roy.”

“My name’s Jennifer!” Jennifer has dark, wavy hair and tanned white-person skin. She’s wearing cutoff shorts, sneakers that have been patched many, many times – there are no companies that make goods from the old world like sneakers anymore – and a short-sleeved blue buttondown shirt that’s been tied up under her breasts to show her midriff, and opened in the front far enough to see her cleavage. When Matt was young, women were advised not to wear anything that could be arousing, because if they ran into a killer male, their life might depend on how much he was not turned on. By now, though, so many of the killer males are dead, and with women outnumbering men by three to one, the women and girls dress in whatever they want. It was never a good strategy for dealing with the killer males anyway; too many of them were willing to kill women dressed in nun robes, so it plainly had nothing to do with revealing clothes. There are numerous large lumps in her front pockets, which could be rocks, or animal bones, or any number of things.

Matt’s gay and far too old to see teenagers as anything other than young kids, but Roy is plainly very uncomfortable with Jennifer’s state of exposure. “What are you doing here?!” he half-shouts, angrily, at her.

“I’m from a compound on the other side of the mountain, and I hiked up here to try to collect mushrooms,” Jennifer says, her voice just a little bit too loud.

“Well, we’re hunting, so I’d like it if you could be a little quieter,” Matt says. “Don’t want to scare the deer.”

“Ooh! Hunting sounds fun! Can I join you?”

“No,” Roy says, loudly.

“Oh, come on!” Jennifer pouts. “I’ll be quiet!”

Matt takes in Roy’s trembling hands, the whiteness of his lips. Terror, or rage, or both. Roy’s expected to control himself no matter what the circumstances, but Matt… really doesn’t want to push him. Not now, when he’s so fragile. “Sorry, Jennifer, but Roy and I really came out for some uncle-nephew time. Maybe you can join us another time, but not now.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Huh,” she says. “Okay! I know a lot of guys like to go hunting with their dads or uncles when they’re thirteen. You’re thirteen, right?” This is directed to Roy.

“None of your business!” Roy snarls.

“Yeah, he’s thirteen,” Matt says tiredly. “Nice meeting you, Jennifer. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”

“And maybe we won’t,” Roy mutters. He and Matt hike up the trail, away from Jennifer. “Good riddance.”

“I want you to think about this anger you’re feeling. It’s really out of proportion to the situation, isn’t it?”

Roy sighs. “Uncle Ma-att, I just wanna go hunting with you! I don’t wanna talk about my feelings!”

“Sure, but it’s safest for everyone if you do. What’re you supposed to do when you feel really angry?”

“I already took a step back from the situation! I told her to go away!”

“Didn’t hear any deep breaths,” Matt says.

Roy manages to deeply breathe sarcastically. It’s an impressive trick. Matt would never have thought it possible to breathe in a sarcastic way. Most of it’s with body language and facial expression, but there’s definitely a sarcastic note in the breath itself. “Now can we go find a deer?”

“Maybe we’d have better luck setting up a snare to trap rabbits.”

Roy’s whole body sags. “I wanted to bring home venison, Uncle Matt! Nobody cares if you bring home a rabbit!”

“All right,” Matt says mildly. “We’ll keep going.”

***

The forest is full of sound. Birds chirp and call. Squirrels and other animals rustle in the branches and bushes. Many of the sounds go silent as Matt and Roy approach, but not all. They come up into a clearing, someplace where someone, long ago, had a concrete pad. Most of it’s broken and destroyed, but there’s enough of it that even after a hundred years, the forest hasn’t completely taken it back.

And then there is the deer, quietly grazing on the other side of the clearing.

Matt whispers to Roy as he points it out. “Quiet, now.”

Roy nods. There’s a broken half-wall part of the way through the clearing, blocking the deer’s view of them if they go low. Matt and Roy crawl toward it. Once they’re behind it, Roy pokes his head up, very slightly, following Matt’s hand signals. He lifts his rifle. Quietly. The deer doesn’t stir.

Matt hears a tiny click. His eyes go wide and his blood runs cold.

Jennifer comes bounding into the clearing behind them. “Hi, guys! Didn’t think I’d run into—”

The deer leaps and runs off. Roy spins around, utter rage in his face, and screams, “You stupid bitch!”

“Roy, don’t—” Matt tries to grab Roy, tries to pull him down, throw off his aim, but it’s too late. The gun goes off, twice. Splotches of red explode on Jennifer’s chest, and she falls backward, twisting as she does so she lands on her front. Red oozes out from underneath her.

Roy drops the gun from fingers suddenly dead white and shaking. “I – I didn’t mean to – I was so angry--”

Wounds where the red had blossomed on Jennifer would be fatal; she’d bleed out almost immediately, and the quantity of red seeping out from under her body suggests that that’s what happened. It looks like a strike to the aorta, or the heart itself, maybe. Matt cannot stop himself. “No, no, no—”

“I’m sorry!” Roy screams. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry—”

Matt gets hold of himself. “Roy. Roy, come here. Come here, son.” He means it as an endearment – Roy is neither his literal son, nor has he raised the boy as a father – but it’s real as well. Roy is like a son to him. All of them have been, and he loves Roy so much, and his heart is shattering.

Roy collapses in his arms, sobbing. Matt holds the boy tightly with one arm. “It’s not your fault, Roy, it’s not,” he tells the crying child, tears welling in his own eyes. “It’s the virus. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you’re a good boy.”

“I’m so sorry—I just got so mad, and the gun was in my hand—”

“I know,” Matt says, as the boy’s wet face presses against his shoulder. “I know. I love you so much, Roy, you know that?”

“I love you too, Uncle Matt,” Roy says into Matt’s shirt, still sobbing, and a sob escapes from Matt’s chest as well as he raises his pistol with the arm that isn’t holding his nephew, his child, his son, the little boy who trusts him and loves him, and as Roy cries against his chest and cannot see what he’s doing with his other hand, he lifts the pistol to Roy’s temple, awkwardly, being sure not to touch him with it, and fires.

The sobs stop. After a moment they start again, but they’re only Matt’s.

Jennifer gets up. “I’m sorry, Matt,” she says quietly.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” Matt snarls. “You provoked him! I told you to back off! I told you we weren’t having you join us!”

“I have to do my job,” Jennifer says wearily, and there is no longer any mistaking her for a teenager, despite the expertly applied makeup on her face. She’s short, she looks young, and with the right makeup none of the boys ever guess she’s not a teenage girl. There’s red all over her shorts, soaking her legs and belly, from where the bags of fake blood in her pockets burst, and splotches of red over her heart and her liver. The paint pellets look horrifically real; they even smell like blood.

No, wait, that’s probably Roy’s blood he’s smelling.

"Fuck your job.” Matt holds his little boy in his arms, with both arms now that he doesn’t need one free anymore. “You pushed him. If we’d just given him a little more time – a little more training—”

“And who might he have killed while you were giving him a little more time? His mom? One of the girls his age?”

“He wouldn’t have had a gun!—"

“He could have had a rock. Or a steak knife. Or a baseball bat. I’m so sorry, Matt, but—”

“If you say ‘that’s the law’ or ‘those are the rules’ to me, I will hit you,” Matt snaps. “Not because you’re a woman, but because you’re a piece of shit.”

She sighs. “I know you’re distraught. It’s horrible, having to do this—”

“You didn’t even know him!” Matt screams. “You didn’t watch him when he was little, you didn’t teach him to tie his shoes, you didn’t play airplane with him – you didn’t—”

“I had a son,” Jennifer says sharply. “Don’t tell me I don’t know how much it hurts, when we have to—I was 16 when I had my son. It was six years ago that – that he took his test, at thirteen, and he failed it.”

“There’ve been so many,” Matt whispers. So many little boys. Slightly less than half of them pass; that’s why the ratio of women to men is around 2:1. He was so, so relieved when Blake turned out to be a girl and took the name Cassandra, twelve years ago; the trans kids are immune to the violent impulses. He’d known that Cassandra wouldn’t have to face the test, that he’d never have to take her on a hunting trip she might never return from. So relieved when Joe, eight years ago, reported himself gay at eleven and then showed no sign of aggression toward his mother or sister or any girls his own age.

But all the others. All the others, he’d loved, and they’d loved him, and trusted him, and he took them up the mountain on a hunting trip… with a gun that could only shoot paint pellets and blanks, and the paint pellets only after the bait’s radio transmitter came into range and switched it on.

Roy would never have bagged a deer with that gun. But if he hadn’t shot Jennifer, if he’d controlled himself and proved he could overcome his femicidal impulses, Matt would have “discovered” that there was no ammo in it, and given Roy a different gun, and then they could have had a real deer hunt. Like Evan, ten years ago. Like Jamal, five years ago. Like LeBron… how long ago had LeBron even been?

He’d already decided he wouldn’t take on any new little boys, after Cole died. Roy was the last one, the last child to shepherd to adulthood, the last he had to test. “God,” he cries, holding the little boy he’s just killed in his arms. “Why couldn’t you have let me have the last one? Why didn’t you give him the strength to overcome it?” He rocks the body back and forth. “Why did you let any of this happen? Why do you make us have to kill our sons?”

“God’s got nothing to do with this,” Jennifer says softly. “This is evil. If God allowed such evil as this to exist, then She’s not worth worshipping, and if She can’t stop it, then there’s no point in blaming her. It was the aliens.”

The aliens his ancestors drove off planet, who he’ll never have a chance to fight, or get revenge on. There’s no one he can blame who’s here. He understands the system, he understands the necessity. Little boys who try to commit femicide once don’t have the control to stop themselves from doing it again, and if it’s not the bait with her paint bags in her shorts and the radio transmitter to make the gun fire paint pellets, it’ll be a girl or women who really dies because the boy will have a real weapon. They can’t let the femicides live among them, and they can’t send them away to live with the few bands of roving femicidal men that still exist… the only reason those still exist was that once upon a time, femicidal sons were turned out into the wilderness. Where they could grow up to be bandits who invaded compounds, stole the food, and murdered the women. The men, too, because the men would defend the compound, but the women they’d hunt and kill for fun.

He would never have wanted a future like that for Roy. But he didn’t want this, either.

“I’m… I’m going to go. I’ll radio the compound and let them know the results of the test.”

“You do that,” Matt says bitterly. He knows his anger isn’t fair. He knows his attempt to drive Jennifer off, put off the test at the last minute and get her to come back another day so Roy could maybe develop stronger self-control first, was wrong. He knows it could have resulted in Roy murdering someone he loves. Loved. But how much better is it that Matt had to murder someone he loves? Why do they need to kill the teen boys to protect the women? Oh, he knows why, he signed on for this job years ago because he knew why, he’s seen what happened when a boy grew into a killer and turned on the women he knew. But why has God or Fate or Allah or whatever the fuck is up there listening to human prayers allowed this? Why is this horrible thing something that they are forced to do?

After what seems like hours, crying and holding Roy’s body and whispering how sorry he is, he’s finally out of tears. He looks down at his pistol. Cole’s dead six years on now, and there’s no man in his bed waiting for him, back home. There’s no little boy he’s working with, and there will never be one again. Is there anyone to care if he lives or dies, now? What if he ate a bullet, right now, so he could stop seeing Roy and Jason and Manuel and little Matt, named for him and he still shot him in the head while the boy was bent over the bait’s body, and all the others, all the boys who loved and trusted him, and failed the test he brought them into? Was there any good reason not to?

…there were the boys who’d lived. Adults now, all of them, but they loved and respected him as their old uncle, and they still were willing to spend time with him, sometimes. There were the girls, who yelled “Mister Matt! Mister Matt!” when they saw him and crowded around him, showing off their accomplishments, and he’d never have to take any of them up the mountain. There are trans boys who just figured it out, and need an older man to mentor them and teach them how to be a man, and none of them will ever need to go up the mountain either. There are the gay boys who want to talk to him about boyfriends, and how to date a guy, and how sex works, and all the other things gay boys need to know.

He can still help the children. But he’s never going to take on a little boy as his nephew again.

After a few more moments, he picks up Roy’s rifle, which can’t fall into the wrong hands, and his own pistol, and slings them into the holsters he has for them, on his belt or on his back. Then he picks Roy up and cradles him. A fireman’s carry would be easier, especially with the long hike down the mountain, but he wants to give his boy’s body as much dignity as he can. He won’t sling Roy over his shoulder like a flour sack. He’ll carry the dead weight of the boy down the mountain, and then he’ll carry it for the rest of his life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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triggers listed at bottom because they are spoilers

dashboard removes all the line spaces

so I have to put lines in

Triggers: Child death. Serious misogyny. A backstory from the original story that involves a worldwide near-complete femicide.

#52 project #inktober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #horror #science fiction #spooky5 #more horrifying than spooky though

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charmspoint · 4 years ago

Note

One day I will stop disappearing. (1) the first ask about ships. Red Mars isn't lost yet, so what about Suwa and Takeuchi? (2) the second ask is about ships. 1,17,18, but maybe there is some question that you would like to answer, but no one asked it? (3) ask about mutual. I'm sorry, but I can't make sense of the question. Now I feel a little silly.

Please don’t worry about it! I do these for fun and when I need to get my mind off of things or just want something to talk about so don’t feel obliged to do them all hjbh this isnt your job, I won’t mind if you disappear and miss some. I appreciate it a lot that you do all of them I just don’t want you to feel like you have to you knowhgvhvvh <3<3<3<3<3<3<3

This got long so under the cut

Send me a ship to rate

Suwa x Takeuchi

vomit / don’t ship / okay / cute / adorable / perfect / beyond flawless / hot damn / screaming and crying / i will ship them in hell

I am the only one writing stuff in this fandom so I can do what I want uwu. I do ship them exclusively queerplatonically tho, I can’t imagine either of them having romantic or sexual feelings for each other. And I doubt we will get much more backstory on them then we already got (tho i am expecting we’ll get more from Suwa since his is more set up) but I’m just very interested in the time before the other vampires joined, the two of them would be all alone in a building full of humans. There is also the idea that Suwa was feral for a long time and we don’t know how he got out of it so I like to imagine Takeuchi figured smtng out, he’d be all over something like that. So I like to imagine the two of them simply finding home in each other as two things of same in the middle of a world they no longer belong to. It’s that feeling of home, acceptance and belonging I get when I think about them, rather than any romantic or sexual feelings.

Shipping asks

1. What was your first OTP?

HhHhhH The first one i remember is Soul X Maka from Soul Eater. Soul Eater was the first anime I watched when i was like ???? 11-12. And obviously since i was that age i consumed other media before that and probably saw other relationships but for life of me I can’t remember them. That’s probably because when I discovered Anime i discovered fanfiction too so Soul x Maki is the first ship i remember actually searching and reading fics for, sorta getting involved into a fandom for the first time, tho i wouldn’t be actively involved until i started writing for Durarara. I still haven’t rewatched Soul Eater in its completion since i watched it that first time ;-; Every like 5 years or so my brother and i will start a rewatch and never get very far hjbhjhj we watched it together first so we wanna rewatch it together too but maybe at this point we should just watch it separately. We aren’t very good at watching shows we actually like together hvhjh

17. Are there any popular ships that you just don’t like? What are they?

As I said I think my shipping tastes run p vanilla so I usually like the popular ships or at least don’t mind them much. That being said I did think of few.

Endhawks – I used to be passionately against this because I passionately hated Endeavor but since my feelings for Endeavor simmered down my feelings for this ship also simmered down from ‘THIS WAS MADE IN HELL’ to ‘gross no’. While I do think it’s best for Enji and Rei to separate or at least distance themselves, I hate this idea of Enji immediately getting into another relationship with someone that much younger then him who idolizes him. Like my man, that’s just not what you do when you are recovering from being abusive towards ur last spouse, that’s just a recipe for disaster. I do like their relationship as friends tho but I don’t like the idea of Hawks healing Enji or being a relationship where he can finally really fall in love or something because that just makes me very uncomfy.

Gojohime – apparently this is??? Pretty popular??? I had no idea until Foxy told me ppl were legit considering it endgame. Like…I’m just really not into ships where the guy and girl obviously hate each other and don’t get along and the way Gojo acts around Utahime can classify as nothing but piggy tail pulling. I like ships in which Gojo is compelled to act more mature and responsible but not ships that make it seems like his partner would be his babysitter or his mom or something and that’s v much the vibe this ship is giving me.

Itadori x Nobara – this ship doesn’t have bad vibes I just HEAVILY prefer them as besties. I like that JJK has little to no romantic fumblings and that the main three can just be friends J it’s refreshing. It just wouldn’t feel right for me if they hooked up.

18. What is your favorite unpopular ship?

So this is kind of interesting thing to ask cuz most of my ships that aren’r popular come from me uhhhh roleplaying bnha for over 3 years I think now. Yeah so I used to be super involved into the bnha roleplay community and the thing is with roleplay that you start looking for popular ships (My first was Tododeku) and then it kind of….goes off all over the place with time. The thing is roleplay servers die out and you follow people elsewhere. Sometimes you stay with the entire group, sometimes you just follow 1-2 people you really like. You change servers, you change groups, you stick by the few ppl you really like roleplaying with and eventually you ship together whatever the fuck because at that point the partner is more important than the ship. With a good partner you can make everything work. I mained Hawks, Shouto, Shinsou and sometimes Tamaki and one of my fav rp partners (we mostly rp ocs now) mostly mained Sero so….we did a LOT of Seroroki. I very rarely this ship anywhere but it was very fun we did it in a lot of aus. Same goes for Izuku x Sero X Shouto which we did with another friend in such a nice domestic au it was great. Also Momo x Shinsou with another partner, we didn’t do this for long because the server shut down soon after but uhhh they did yandere Momo and it was such a fantastic performance it sold me on yanderes forever.

Some honorary mentions of other crack ships I did: Midnight x Hawks, Kurogiri x Hari x Kai, Tamaki x Camie, Shishikura x Shouto.

That’s just off the top of my head all of these were surprisingly very good and fun, as I said, the partner matters not the ship. I think this is why I’m like way more lax in shipping in bnha then like in jjk. In jjk I need a ship to have a chemistry I can consider at least somewhat romantic to consider it, in bnha just fuckin everything goes because I’m so used to it just being this sandbox I can do anything in.

Uhh as for bonus question uhhh

29. Do you like OCs (Original Characters)?

I like ocs a whole lot I have a metric shit tone of them and I’d like to talk about them but idk how to start in a way that would be interesting to anyone ;-; rip

#justfreshapple #ask game #the writing on the post actually started to buffer so i had to stop jhbjhbj

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tameila · 4 years ago

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I used to be on tumblr but I gave it up and I'm afraid to log back in but i'm DESPERATE to know what was up with Vax and Percy (and Percy's backstory) from TSAR - also I binged it all in one night, and you'll get a review on ao3 in a bit - it may be 4:30 in the morning here, and one of my contacts fell out while I was reading because eyestrain oops. Just please, I'm so desperate to know!

first of all, I hope you got a nice, long sleep after reading!! It doesn’t matter how many times I hear someone say it; it humbles me to this day that my fic can be the kind that people wanna read straight through without stop. 🥺💜☀️

also, thank you so much for leaving a comment, which I shall reply to asap, because I was literally lamenting just the other day that I was sitting pretty at 398 comments and all I needed was one (1) more comment - to which I could reply - and I could have a nice even 400. thank you for making my dreams come true!

now, onto your question...I always say that eventually I’m going to get around to writing out the story of Perc’ahlia and Vax in TSAR ‘verse. I do have a prequel of sorts to TSAR planned that is the story of Perc’ahlia, but...I’m gonna be completely honest, I don’t see it being written in the next decade. so, while I usually answer this question with a general overview, I’ve decided to go a little more in-depth and I’m gonna try to lay out the whole story of Perc’ahlia in TSAR as concisely as I can...

TL;DR (in case you don’t wanna read the bullet point novel i’m about to write): Vex’s story of finding Percy in the woods is the truth. She found him in the woods while on fire watch. Percy, by all legal means, is a man that died years ago. Vax, being a reasonable brother, does not trust that shit. I originally planned for Pike to find this out in chapter 16 during her convo with Vax with Vax again mentioning how he does not truly trust Percy but knows he has to respect Vex’s decisions. Pike, unable to control her curiosity, weasels the story out of him. but, in the end, taking their convo in that direction didn’t feel right for the story, so I took it out.

and, now, the main course!

Vax and Vex left home as soon as they finished high school and began traveling together across the country. Vax loved traveling, and Vex went along with it. She wanted to go where Vax went but, deep down, she longed to settle somewhere. As the years went on, it became clear that Vax did not share that want. Eventually, that divide in their wants for the future led to an argument and a falling out between the siblings.

This is when Vex took up the fire watch position in the mountains near Westruun. She figured it would be good - to be off the grid so she could really think and consider what she wanted - and, selfishly, it was nice to finally be on her own for once in her life. With her, she took her newly found lifelong companion, a Newfoundland puppy named Trinket.

About two weeks into her fire watch, while making her way back to her post at sunset, Vex stumbled upon a man who appeared to have been lost in the woods and mountains for some time. However, as she reached for her comms, the man stopped her and begged for her to not turn him in. He only asked for a place to rest for the night. Swayed by his pleas, Vex agreed, and that night he slept on the balcony of her post while she lay awake all night in fear that he might reveal himself to be some wild woods murderer. He didn’t and, in the morning, he accepted the breakfast that Vex offered and then disappeared back into the woods.

Over the next month, Vex would continue to run into Percy or traces of him. They began to build a rapport. Vex would leave him food and clothes and other supplies. Percy, in turn, offered connection, a human touch point in a vast wilderness, that Vex found she needed as she struggled with missing her brother but accepting that she needed to sever her dependence on him if she wanted to grow on her own.

Eventually, Vex invited Percy to just stay at her post with her. He refused at first but, slowly, over days and days, he came by everyday until he just never left again.

For the rest of the summer, they grow together and closer. Percy comes out his shell more and more. Vex discovers who she is in the woods and the fiery sunsets and muggy summer nights. Vex definitely has at least one more moment where she’s like,”holy shit what am I doing? this man could turn on a heel at any moment and murder me” but, as she reaches for her walkie to call hq, she finds she just can’t do it.

and eventually, she does get the story from Percy: He’s a ghost, a dead man walking. Legally dead, that is. See, there was a horrible tragedy some years back, the de Rolo family of Whitestone Enterprises - the Mr. and Mrs. and their seven children - all died in a house fire. Well, all seven children as far as the news knows, but Percy claims to be the third child and says that it was not a tragic accident but a murder instead. He has been on the run ever since.

When the summer ends, Vex tells Percy that she plans to move to Westruun and start her new life. Percy asks, if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, if he might go where she goes. He’s tired of running. Maybe it’s time to live again. Maybe it’s time to see what comes next.

Now, imagine this story from Vax’s side, he has an argument with his sister. She leaves to go off into the woods for a whole summer and, when she comes back, she comes back with some random guy that she found out in the woods. Vex tells him that he can trust Percy, but...Come on! That’s sketchy as hell!

It gets even sketchier when Vex asks him if he still has contact with people who can get fake documents and IDs. He knows they were teenage runaways, but -- damn, he’s an antiquer now!!

He does get the full story eventually. Not that it helps Percy’s case. and Vax spends years, up through TSAR as you know, not sure of Percy’s intentions and never fully trusting him.

there is more to the story! I am planning to reveal a bit about it in the TSAR sequels, whenever I get around to them, but I hope this was enough to satiate your curiosity for now 💖

#ask #anon #The Sun Always Rises #thanks again for stopping by!!#thank you so much for reading my story!!#and thanks for giving me the opportunity to word dump about the perc'ahlia side of the 'verse 😙✌️#Anonymous

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beatriceeagle · 4 years ago

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no pressure if you're busy but i was wondering - is titans good? or is it more a show where you're like it's not /good/ but i like it? i thought it looked interesting but then everyone was so negative about it i kind of got put off. And then your (really excellent btw) video resparked why i thought it'd be interesting to watch in the first place. thanks!

I haven’t paid a ton of attention to what fans have said about Titans, although I’m aware that there’s a general negative vibe around it. I suspect that whether Titans is worth watching for you depends a whole lot on what you want out of Titans.

I went into the show having never read a DC comic in my life. I was coming off of a week-long Wikipedia binge on Batman and his associated characters—the Robins, the Batgirls, some dude named Signal—and was talking to @thirdblindmouse about how it had become overwhelmingly clear to me that we’ve been doing Batman all wrong for decades, and the way to tell the story is as an ensemble family drama about intergenerational trauma. And she was like, “Uh, have you seen Titans?” So all of my pre-existing understanding of the characters comes from Google and selected comics scans.

I suspect that the show’s interpretation of Dick Grayson, in particular, is... skewed? I’m almost certain, based on scans of comics I’ve seen/the half a season of Teen Titans I watched a lifetime ago, that its interpretation of Starfire is highly nontraditional. There are certain storylines that I know they’re adapting, but like, they are playing very loose with the adaptation of even some of the characters’ basic personalities. (I’m pretty sure—again, not really a DC comics fan!)

So if you’re very committed to a generally cheerful Dick Grayson, Titans will not give you that. If you have a vision of Batman as a generally decent man, Titans will really not give you that. In general, I think that the show would be better if it erred more towards a lighter tone for Dick—there are moments where he has shades of Quentin in season three of The Magicians, when Q was kind of endearingly hapless, and the show is better for it. But I think it earns its ambivalent stance on Batman, and uses it well. Batman in Titans looks and acts like your dad whose office you’re not allowed into. And Titans!Starfire is really amazing. Like, Anna-Diop-is-a-revelation, fuck-now-you’ve-got-me-shipping-against-my-will amazing.

The bigger issue that Titans has—and this is not unrelated to Dick’s characterization, I guess—is its relationship with violence. Titans is a really violent show, especially in its first season, and it’s off-putting. Pretty much every superhero show involves the heroes beating up bad guys; not every superhero show involves the protagonist mutilating someone in the course of a fight.

This is not unthinking hyperviolence. Titans (which is actually annoyingly pretty good about tracking character through action sequences) is trying to make a point: The compounding traumas of Dick’s childhood resulted in an explosion of rage. Batman funneled his anger into Dick; Dick funnels his anger into whatever bad guy he’s fighting. The show isn’t subtle about this idea. Dick says it out loud several times. Nor (after the first fight) does the show endorse Dick’s over-the-top violence. Everyone from Donna Troy to Dick himself remarks on it with, at minimum, concern. And over time, Dick’s fighting style changes; he consciously leaves the hyperviolence behind, until his final fight of season two is primarily evasive.

But Dick is not the only Titans character who is working out his rage on the criminals he apprehends, and the show is considerably less coherent in its tonal approach to other characters’ violence. Hank and Dawn—the masked hero team Hawk and Dove—have an origin story that plays out like the the backstory of a serial killer couple, their interlocking trauma and rage and grief finding expression and acceptance in each other. The show is aware of the dynamic, but it’s not clear that it’s aware of how disturbing it is. Hank and Dawn are, primarily, people who need to cause violence in order to be at peace in their own heads—and only secondarily, people who want to protect others from danger. Season two does do some work exploring this idea, but the exploration is confused by the fact that, in the end, the show wants both of them on the cast.

Which is kind of the problem with any superhero show that sets out to explore the ethics of superheroism—at the end of the day, the characters aren’t gonna retire to Wisconsin, you know? So Titans presents hyperviolence, presents it as problematic (sometimes), presents it as almost an inevitable consequence of traumatized teenagers deciding to pursue vigilante justice... and then builds a superhero team of traumatized teenagers and young adults. As is its basic conceit.

And on a more fundamental level, the hyperviolence just sort of makes the show feel very grim. It’s already an aesthetically dark show, a lot of the time, and then you’ve got people getting mutilated, and Batman’s an asshole and Dick Grayson’s got anger management issues, and it feels like the show’s grimdark.

I don’t think it is, though. First of all, despite everything, Titans actually has a sense of humor, both in general and occasionally about itself—I mean, it’s not Legends of Tomorrow, but it understands how to crack a smile every now and then. (They have a superdog. He shoots lasers out of his eyes!) But more importantly, at the end of the day, Titans is hopeful. Yeah, it’s a show about anger and violence and intergenerational trauma—but it’s more specifically about moving beyond those things. At its heart, it’s about being a better parent to your children than your parents were to you.

That central relationship between Dick and Rachel—Dick trying, and sometimes failing, but always caring and trying to be better for Rachel, and Rachel’s absolute fury with him when he fails, but her unshakeable devotion to him for being there, the unbelievable amount of sway he holds in her world—that’s what makes the show work for me. There are other vital relationships, too—Rachel and Kory, especially, but also all of the pseudo-familial relationships built up between all of the characters—but it all comes back to Dick and Rachel.

I mean, it’s a found family show. So much so that in season two, there are like, three separate speeches about how this is a family, not one of those stupid biological families, but a family we found, and isn’t that the important kind? And how grimdark can a found family show really be?

The other thing that might throw some people off—but which is actually one of my favorite things about the show—is the structure. If you take a look at the Titans episode list, you’ll see that roughly 75 percent of the episodes are named after a character or characters. Season one of Titans is basically about Dick, Starfire, Gar, and Rachel (Raven from the comics) traveling the midwest, picking up the people who will eventually form the main Titans team. When they encounter those people, they get a spotlight episode. So in episode two, “Hawk and Dove,” when Dick and Rachel lay low at Hank and Dawn’s, the episode starts out with an extended cold open, entirely disconnected from the main characters, just introducing us to Hank and Dawn as characters. Episode eight, “Donna Troy,” sees Dick go to visit his old friend Donna in Milwaukee, and... basically just hang out with her for half the episode, while the rest of the cast does plot stuff. Occasionally, these spotlight episodes stop the plot completely: Towards the end of season one, an episode ends on a cliffhanger. the next episode, rather than showing the outcome of the cliffhanger, is “Hank and Dawn,” an episode that flashes back to show the story of how Hank and Dawn met and became masked heroes. (There’s an in-episode device that eventually makes it clear why this story is related to the cliffhanger.) Season two uses the cliffhanger-into-a-flashback-spotlight-episode structure two more times, once with a character we’ve never met before.

I can see this being deeply frustrating to a viewer watching week-by-week (and I would not recommend watching Titans in that manner). And it’s certainly an unconventional way to structure a season of television. But honestly? I think it’s half of what I like about the show. The spotlight and flashback episodes are good—often some of the best the show’s produced. They don’t stop the plot for no reason; in season two, in particular, they provide context and backstory and characterization in a way that would be almost impossible to do, or to do so well, without the space of a full episode. They make the show more episodic than it would otherwise be—always a joy, in a television landscape full of 10-hour movies—and give it space to experiment with tone and genre. They make the characters richer, and the relationships more complex.

Does it slow down the plot? Absolutely. But Titans is not overflowing with complex plot, and I don’t really think it should try to. The plot of Titans hangs together juuuuuuuust enough to make the themes and characters and relationships work. It’s coherent—we’re not talking Teen Wolf, here—but it’s not brilliant, and honestly, that’s fine by me. But I suppose if you want your plot to be really good, this may not be the show for you.

Finally, I’ll say that Titans, though not what I would call a feminist show (it has a primarily male writing staff and I think it shows) does have a kind of surprisingly large female cast? I wanna say it’s five men, five women, by the end of season two? (Yeah, it’s a fucking enormous cast.) And the women have actual relationships with each other, ones that the show puts some effort into maintaining and remembering. I realize this is damning with faint praise, but honestly I’d just expected a show like Titans to not do that, and was prepared to ignore it, and was kind of pleasantly surprised when I didn’t have to.

In summary: I told my sister that Titans is 10% men in spandex standing on cars, 30% team as family, 30% intergenerational trauma, 20% an uncomfortable relationship with is own hyperviolence, and 10% Krypto the Superdog. I think that tracks. That show, despite having Anna Diop’s glowing presence, has a lot of flaws, but it also really worked for me on some soul-deep level. I am exactly on its wavelength.

I do not think that Titans is a fantastic television show, but I also don’t think it’s a very bad one. I think it’s generally competent show that is very interesting in some aspects, is weak in some areas, falls prey to some inherent trappings of its genre, is thoughtful about familial trauma, is not thoughtful enough about violence and criminal justice, has a lot of very compelling performances, is really poorly lit a lot of the time, pays a lot of attention to its visual language, kind of thinks Batman’s an asshole, and has Krypto the Superdog. It really worked for me; I can see why others might not be into it; it might work for you!

#thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about titans #a show that has EATEN MY BRAIN #titans #meta

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dingoat · 5 years ago

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HEY. I wanna know more about this alternative universe plot! Can you summarize what it is, what's going on it, and specifically who these ~tortured love birds~ are?? Only if that's fun for you. I'm curious!!

HEY MY DAWG

So the whole thing is really the brainchild of @askshivanulegacy who as far as I can tell has a PhD in Angst Narratives majoring in Sci Fi and Magic, and had concocted an alternate Star Wars universe where the Empire’s Ministry of Intelligence (aka the bad guy spy club) developed a procedure that effectively turns their top agents into werebeasts, all the better to serve the Empire and go about their evil spying business. In this universe, their main OC - one Cipher Agent Omega Blakk - is thus a werefox, specialising in stealth operations, loyal to his cause to a painful degree.

NOW, we’d chatted OOC back and forth for a while because hey, I guess at some point it became obvious that I like werewolves and star wars too (who knew, weird right?), and through a bit of silly back-and-forth we let our main characters get to know one another in the ‘canon’ universe. Eventually I sent a single fateful writing prompt one fine October day, from which a little drabble was born. And we loved it, and decided to keep going with it, and it… kept going, and going, and backstory kept getting filled in and possible futures kept getting screamed about, and now we’re in so deep and loving every minute of it hahaha.

So that’s where it came from OOC! Narrative wise, holy heck, I could go on forever, but I’ll try to be brief for everyone’s sake. Actually I’m gonna stick the rest behind a READ MORE because I get the feeling my attempt at brief isn’t going to be very brief at all!

So Blakk is a loyal Imperial werefox spy, and my girl Ahuska is a werewolf. SHE was afflicted with her condition some time earlier, being stolen away as part of a secret Imperial military project that basically turned civilians into sleeper soldiers/Jedi killers. They have their memory messed with so that they don’t remember a thing about their time as animals, and the full moon is their trigger. So every now and again she’d be ‘placed somewhere by work’, not realising that at night she’d go off on a murderous rampage after being strategically positioned to take down a target, and then return to life as usual none the wiser. But the project messed up baaad and was shut down, with all subjects terminated; except Ahuska, who was rescued by ex-Agent Nines (one of @humanrevolt‘s characters, written by me in this au with blessings!) in the nick of time. She lived and traveled with Nines, who revealed her condition to her but not all the details; Ahuska felt obligated to stay with her, with the promise that Nines would help resolve her memory issues and let her gain control, meanwhile Nines had the security of a monster wolf who could help her with her own agenda. (At one point Ahuska met one of Nines’ old comrades and started crushing hard, oh no.)

Fast forward to the drabble written above that started this whole mess; one night, transformed, the werewolf meets the werefox. Blakk has had a malfunction with his cybernetic implant that controls his shapeshifts and winds up stuck as a fox with an injured leg; Ahuska protects him as a wolf and then wakes the next morning as a Bothan. He knows exactly what she is, she thinks she has a cute wounded fox to tend to. Things are adorable and awkward and innocent, then bit by bit things are revealed and shared and miscommunicated. Blakk accidentally leads Imperial soldiers to Ahuska and her crew; there’s a showdown after which he’s re-captured, now known to them as an Imperial Agent, and she feels horribly betrayed and confused. Nines tries to torture him for information and at first Ahuska is ordered to help but then her werewolf half takes over (knowing instinctively that what they’re doing is wrong), and she turns on her crew. She’s eventually subdued (gassed!), Nines tortures Blakk further (with Ahuska shut away this time) and he manages to antagonise her enough that she slips up, he makes a run for it, and takes Ahuska hostage into an escape pod to make his getaway.

THEN THERE’S A LOT MORE ANGST and mistrust and hating one another while they stumble through a swamp with one set of clothes between them. But every time one storms off, the other eventually comes to find them, and bit by bit they work through their differences and misgivings and realise neither ever actually wanted to hurt the other. Shaky trust starts to build again, but Blakk’s injured arm (between being caught in a trap, having shapeshifting malfunctions, and being flat out tortured) develops a hideous infection and he becomes deathly ill. Still miles from any settlement, Ahuska finds herself hopelessly worried and desperate to help him and without having a clue what she’s doing, manages to connect to him and heal him through the Force, and without realising it they develop a Force-bond. By the time they make their way out of the swamp, they trust one another, and matter to one another, and their eventual parting to resume their totally incompatible lives is heartbreaking.

When Nines wants to continue her persuit of the fox-Agent who is clearly her new nemesis, but Ahuska tries to stop her and insist that he won’t hurt them, Nines is livid and kinda loses it, thinking she’s being controlled somehow. Ahuska realises she can’t stay with Nines any more if she wants to maintain any sort of personal freedom, and makes her escape.

Blakk, meanwhile, has been reassigned to a new handler, (as his previous Watcher had been killed in the original altercation courtesy of the Dice Gods). I had the dubious honour of creating the New Watcher who rapidly evolved from a generic Imperial Bad Guy into a truly terrible, absolutely nasty piece of work, a manipulative control freak with depraved appetites and horribly unconventional training methods.

At this point, Ahuska and Blakk can only see one another when they dream, through their Force Bond, and those sequences are beautiful and magical and full of love (which they’ve finally admitted to one another) and hope (mostly, maybe some nightmares and seeping in of waking-world problems), where they’re exploring their feelings and one another and even what it means to trust and know their animal selves. Problem is, while Ahuska, very in tune with the Force (if unknowing), can remember everything that happens in their dreams, using them as fuel to push on through a world that is suddenly otherwise huge and lonely and dangerous, Blakk’s Force connection is broken and stunted and he doesn’t remember a thing once he wakes. He’s developing a relationship that he spends more than half his life unaware of, and in his waking life he’s being slowly but surely molded into Watcher Five’s perfect, obedient, unquestioningly loyal little fox-Agent-pet.

SO AS YOU CAN IMAGINE there is an AWFUL LOT of terrible times and amazing times in store, and honestly all that up there doesn’t even come close to touching on everything that’s been going on and fleshing out the world around them. I did my best to just whittle it down to enough basics to given an idea of just what exactly our poor characters have been through, and I hope it’s not too rambling ahaha. I’m sure it’s more than you needed to know but I will ALWAYS WELCOME MORE QUESTIONS as I’m sure will @askshivanulegacy (yo feel free to elaborate on any points here, I mean I haven’t even given Thirteen a look in 8) ) so ahhhhh yes. Ahh. I’m also NOT GONNA PROOF READ THIS so sorry if it’s awkward as hell to read I’M TIRED XD XD

It is specatcular fun and I’m so glad we decided to just run with it!

#character asks #werewolf au #not a very good summary #i tried XD #but I love that you asked!!!#<3 <3

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wydmariana · 5 years ago

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hi my loves ! dani here , i also play our hailey fc alanna ! i’m bringing back my bbyg mariana ! she’s my original wealthy character & i’ve had her for like over 3 years , i’m super excited 2 be playing her again & i hope u guys rly like her ! i’m gonna put all the tea on her under the cut & if u wanna plot like this & i’ll come bug u , i rly always need connections n love plotting ♡

new york’s very own mariana cavello was spotted on broadway street in nike air force ones . your resemblance to selena gomez is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty fourth birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being reticent , but also kindhearted . i guess being a gemini explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be fishnets , notebooks filled with lyrics , the lingering smell of weed . ( i deafened a girl in a fight when i was 17 ) & ( cisfemale & she/her ) + ( dani , 20 , she/her , est . )

╰ ˚･ﾟ ♡ STASTITICS :

full name: mariana marisol cavello

nickname(s): mari,

age: twenty four

date of birth: june 4th

hometown: new york city

current location: upper east side, new york city

ethnicity: half mexican

nationality: american

gender: cisfemale

pronouns: she/her

parents names: alexander hastings, liliana cavello

orientation: pansexual but she doesn’t like labels

religion: grew up catholic, undecided

political affiliation: democrat

occupation: singer/songwriter

living arrangements: lives in her own mansion in the upper east side

language(s) spoken: english, spanish

accent: american

face claim: selena gomez

hair colour: x (most basic/accurate/but it changes)

eye colour: brown

height: 5��5

weight: 113lbs

build: petite

tattoos: mostly selena’s canon, but x instead of the music note

piercings: x (both ears)

drugs/alcohol/sex: yes/yes/yes

pets: one cat, 5 years old, named sergio - x

astrological chart: gemini sun, libra moon, leo rising

╰ ˚･ﾟ ♡ BACKSTORY & ABOUT ( tw : abuse , violence , sexual assault . ) :

ok i changed her around quite a lil bit so i’m excited to rEdevelop ! :~)

mariana was born into a seemingly perfect family , her older brother & her having been born heirs to alexander hastings , billionaire hotel & business entrepreneur , shark-tank cast member ( think kevin o’leary vibes .. yeah . ) & liliana cavello , legendary supermodel ( think cindy crawford )

she was spoiled bc they were rich af , so like she never NEEDED for anything , except LoVe :)

mari was quick to blow her dad’s money but did he notice ? no

she still is kjdfnsjdf

mariana was a happy child, but growing up in a household with her father quickly became toxic

she started noticing it when she was around 10

his yelling , his anger against her mother , the hostility towards the entire household

the relationship between her parents always had been toxic but now that they had kids it was quick to spread through the whole household

as mariana grew older and started high school , there were times where she would sit in one of the offices of her father’s buildings and do homework while she waited for him to finish so they could go home

at the mere age of fifteen was the first time one of her father’s co-workers sexually assaulted her in an empty conference room after everyone else went home & she’d be waiting for her dad

this continued for a little under 2 years .

this is when her behaviour at school started to get out of hand, she’d start skipping class, get caught smoking pot, talking back to teachers, etc

it went on for months & mariana suspected that her father knew and wasn’t doing anything to stop it

when she turned 16 & got a boyfriend , it started affecting her even more . she was struggling w being intimate bc of these things that were happening to her

which is when she eventually confronted him about it , in tears , in the kitchen with her mother

it resulted in a screaming match

mariana’s behaviour completely went off the rails after that day & she went to school one day & got into a fight with this girl who was taunting her

they fought and mariana’s anger got the best of her & she ended up beating the girl so bad that she became deaf in one ear

shoutout to degrassi for the idea Ok female sean cameron in the house

( i needed a secret for mari n i was watching this so i was like .. ok why not lol )

she turned 17 shortly after this argument and by some miracle ( aka money ) her dad was able to keep her out of juvie despite the charges that were brought against her

this is mariana’s secret!!!!!

anyway now , she doesn’t talk to her father really , at all . unless her mom ambushes them into the same room which sometimes happens jkfnsf

mariana moved out on her 18th birthday , still has a good relationship with her mom and brother & extended family

when mariana turned 18 was also when she started her career !! she started out as an actor in a few different movies

she got her big break when she starred in a ‘riverdale or like , grey’s anatomy’ type of show a few years ago prob when she was about 19

and that went on for 2 or 3 seasons before she stopped it to pursue music bc !

writing and singing and performing have always been Mariana’s passions & emotional outlet

anyway , she dropped a single while on the show & it did well so she proceeded to drop an album which also blew up

she is now rly successful w her music career and loves it sm , like it’s literally her dream come true ok

it’s the one thing that makes her happy

so yah , if ppl knew she deafened a girl totally wouldn’t b all sunshine n rainbows :/ hehe .

╰ ˚･ﾟ ♡ PERSONALITY ( tw : drugs ) :

mariana is very lowkey crazy

like she knows how to hide it but girl , it’ll come out

she can definitely be a brat , she wasn’t raised with proper consequences & often thinks she can do whatever she wants , has a bit of an attitude about it

she hates being told what to do

and will voice her opinion

she is also the most loyal & loving person you know , but the thing is it’s very hidden deep down rn . she is completely walls up , doesn’t wanna let anyone get close to her bc she’s a PUSSY

and like , she hasn’t worked through her trauma & probably never will

she’s lowkey based off meredith grey a little bit ? just less ... extra

she’s also based off serena van der woodsen a lil bit

the only opening up she does is when she’s writing music

daddy issues galore over here

but she’s a lowkey softie when she waants 2 be

when she loves someone she loves fiercly !!

mariana . is a . party . animal

it’s basically all she does

like every night , her stamina is insane bc she can go out every single night until 3 am if she really wants to .

and she’s fun too , if she’s going out she’s getting WASTED

she’s the type of drunk girl to make out w all her friends

she loves cocaine, is most definitely an addict ( but who isn’t in this city ), tequila is her alcohol of choice, but she’ll drink anything you give her & weed is her creative saving grace

we luv a bitch who doesn’t care abt her health !

u will most likely find her in sweatpants and a hoodie or a big tshirt

she will dress up to go out & luvs lookin cute for paparazzi & career stuff

um , she listens to a lot of rap and just lays in bed w her cat smoking blunts

um n ya .. sad bitch vibes :/

i have a wanted connections page here & a wanted tag here !!! i need & want every connection so pls hmu ! like this & i’ll come to you .

#wealthyhq:intro #tHIS IS A LOT IM sorry sdkfjsfd #i can summarize <3

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mooifyourecows · 5 years ago

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The playlist anon strikes again! I absolutely enjoyed your playlists. Trust me. I LOVE THEM. Btw I am curious about ALL of them. Like the titles ‘ Push and pull’, ‘ force of impact’ , ‘something special’ , ‘hit below the belt like EVERYTHING IS INTRIGUING . If you don’t mind could you share a master post regarding all your WIPs. Like just short summaries. Only if you wanna I mean. No pressure at all. Like even a sentence about them is enough. Once again,I love your fics and playlists!

asdfjhsdf you’re a doll and i love you

I don’t mind giving some short summaries for all my WIPs. Uhm... i have more WIPs than I have playlists for them, so I’ll just go through the playlists and talk about those ones but if you wanna hear about the playlist-less ones too then i wouldnt mind sharing those either.

salonpas: oh man this is an angsty boy. (which is why Blue October dominates the playlist) Daichi is married and has a young son. like ehh... 5? ish? His wife is divorcing him and demanding full custody. He’s close friends with Oikawa, who owns a cafe that shares a glass wall with Iwaizumi’s hair salon, at which Suga is a hairdresser. Suga, who is dealing with his own issues with a stalker ex boyfriend, falls for Daichi at first sight. He and the others convince Daichi to fight for custody over the kid and it’s angsty because wife is a selfish meanie head but it’s also cute because Suga only manages to keep his job at the salon because he’s GREAT at cutting children’s hair and he bonds with Daichi’s son and it’s doki doki sickly sweet and ew gross

Force of Impact: this is my playlist for my original story that i’m supposed to be writing for Nanowrimo right now but i’m slacking off instead because i’m a lazy loser, RIP. It’s got gays, lesbians, a tragic backstory, MMA, a sassy 4th grader with a prosthetic leg, a crotchety old Pakistani retiree with a soft spot for raccoons, and a rabbit named Missile Launcher. what more could you need?

Just Another: this is the fic i’m going to start posting in December, so I won’t give much away about it. I’ll just say that it’s canon compliant, takes place between the 3rd and 4th season of the anime, and has a really good dad in it like seriously i want to marry that man

Something Special: hnn this is my major fantasy/supernatural DaiSuga fic. It’s a continuation of my entry for Day 6 of DaiSuga Week 2017. It’s essentially about Suga, who has the ability to take a form and “something special” from other beings. He’s on the run and is traveling around the world gathering up forms and winds up getting picked up by a drunk Daichi one night, who thinks he is a lost child. Suga gets immediately attached to him and is insistent that Daichi will protect him so poor human Daichi gets roped into the adventure and terror of realizing that just about every person in his life is some supernatural/fantasy creature in disguise and he does not have a fun time. Godzilla may or may not have a cameo.

Plow Me: heh, ignore the name, that’ll change. This one is inspired by Stardew Valley because I’m Stardew Valley trash okay SUE. ME. Suga lives in a small rural town with the rest of the Karasuno characters (minus Daichi) when a new farmer moves to the old farm outside of town (there he is). Suga is bored with the small town life and basically searches for entertainment anywhere he can find it. Daichi becomes his newest victim. Cue cute farm fluff and stuff. But then cue angst because some other people in town get jealous that Suga’s time is being taken up by the new guy so they do some research and find out about Daichi’s angsty backstory/reason why he- a city kid- is suddenly running a farm in the middle of nowhere. there will probably be a skinny dipping at a waterfall scene eventually. you know. for science. Oh and Tsukishima is the main side character because i don’t give him enough love and it’s gonna be great, friends

Sweetheart: this is probably my favorite playlist. all the songs just come together to really... fit. I love the mood. I listen to it all the time, regardless of whether I’m working on this WIP or not. The WIP itself was supposed to be a birthday present for @mrssugawarakoushi last year but I suddenly decided it deserved a full length fic and didn’t manage to write it in time. It’s on the backburner for now but I hope to finish writing it in the near future. The first part of it was posted as Day 5 of DaiSuga Week 2018. Suga is a famous actor who shows up randomly at Daichi’s house after years of them not seeing/talking to each other since Suga disappeared in high school. It’s a lot of mutual pining and things left unspoken. I took some inspiration from Bojack Horseman surrounding the darker side of fame and the pressures put on child actors, namely the child actors who wind up being forced into the roles of “sex symbols” in their teenage years. The angst is balanced out with the wacky shenanigans of the tenants of Daichi’s shared home, so it’s not all melancholy, I promise.

and the emi goes to: this is pure domestic fluff. the sweetest, fluffiest thing i’ll ever write. it’s another single dad AU, but Suga is the single dad this time and it only has a fraction of the angst as the other one does. it’s set in the US and Daichi is a 6th grade English teacher. One day he splits up a fight started by the shyest girl in his class, Emi. Her dad is called to come into the school and Daichi meets Suga. they become friends and soon after, Daichi develops a crush on him. Suga is oblivious to his feelings, but Daichi is funny so he takes every opportunity to spend time with him if not for any reason other than to bully him. Commence slow burn. I’ve written 130,000 words of this fic so far and there hasn’t even been a kiss. Suga is still oblivious as all hell but it’s adorable and we stan. there will eventually be some family related angst but you gotta wade through the thickest cotton candy fluff to get to it and omg i want to write some more of this story now rip me

Hit Below the Belt: this fic idea was inspired by the MV for GD and T.O.P’s song “Zutter”. I watched it like ten times and then thought, “I want a Kenma and Daichi best friend assassin story. Basically, Daichi and Kenma grew up on the streets together and are now professional bad bois. They get hired by a disgruntled wife(Mika) to catch the mistress of her politician husband(Kuroo) and wind up capturing Suga, who insists that he and Kuroo are only friends and Mika definitely knows that. They take him to where they were supposed to make the trade for their payment, just to get ambushed by a group of people that Kenma owes a LOT of money to, on account of him scamming their underground gambling ring and running away with a big ol bag of cash like a wacky cartoon bank robber. Kenma is captured and Daichi and Suga team up to follow the trail of Kuroo, who is also missing. Along the way they gotta get the help of other crime boys (Daishou and Bokuto and maybe Oikawa i dunno) while Kenma is held captive with Kuroo, who definitely saw Mika’s betrayal coming and isn’t really all that mad about it because he totally deserved it by being stinky and bad with their money. the end

Push and Pull: this is my totally original “super power” AU. Suga has healing abilities and hates himself for it because his entire family has incredible powers that make them leaders as heroes. His mother resents him for his weakness and takes every opportunity to let him know how big of a disappointment he is to the family, despite healing being one of the most rare and coveted abilities in the world. Speaking of rare though, Daichi is a Berserker. Which basically means that he occasionally gets pushed into an irrational state in which his strength skyrockets and he feels no pain and he wreaks havoc until he can pull himself back out. Total Hulk mode, my dude. Suga sees them as a perfect pair. Daichi is destruction and Suga is restoration. What Daichi destroys, Suga can fix. Berserkers are widely feared though. The reason they’re rare is because they’ve been hunted nearly to extinction by the totally cleverly named “Hunters”. Wow, give me an award for thinking up that one, fellas. Problem is: Suga’s dad is the most renowned Hunter in the entire country. Draaaamaaaaaaa~ Cue angst about people being wary of Daichi and not wanting to allow him to be a hero. Cue also totally gay soulmate “you and I were meant to be together forever” bullshit that will most definitely be put to the test on more than one occasion. Also cue Suga having a really good dad because in this house we stan good daddies ammiright boys

Before I Go: this started out as an original story idea but then i was having a lot of fun writing DaiSuga fanfic that I was like, “i’m gonna convert this into a DaiSuga fanfic” but then i decided it worked better with my original characters instead so it’s back to being an original story. It’s sad. Like... really sad. It involves afterlife stuff. It’s about what it means to be alive and it’s sad. It makes me tear up just thinking about it because it’s very heart wrenching. Saddest thing I’ll ever write. But hopefully it will also be beautiful. I want it to be beautiful. I want it to be important and stick in people’s heads. I want people to say that it’s sad but it’s beautiful and that life is hard and scary but really, truly worth living. I’ve written the most important dialogue of the story already and it’s sad. And it makes me cry. But I’m really proud of it and I hope to someday write the rest of the story and people will read it and like it a lot, even though it’s sad.

Welp, that’s the end of the playlists. Thanks for reading, I love you okay bye

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starlight-matrix · 5 years ago

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Nabari no Ou 15th Anniversary!

@nabaridays wrote up some prompts to celebrate the 15th anniversary of NnO and as it’s my favorite manga series of all time, I had to join the fun!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the prompts’ existence until we were about four or five days in, so instead of starting in the middle of the prompt list, I wrote all mine up in a Google Doc and decided to do a big masterpost in the day of the anniversary. And here it is! Beware for a lot of reading, this shit’s at 4.1k words.

- Catherine Lynne / catielynnelove.tumblr.com Fan of NnO since 2012 -

DAY 01 (Jun. 3rd) - Favorites

My favorite character has always been Miharu, though I do struggle to choose between him and Yoite. I have always been fascinated by his apathetic nature, the way he uses is as a shield while loving the people in his life so incredibly fiercely. He appears neutral and uncaring, but the moment you look beneath the surface, you recognize that he would give his life for those he loves in a heartbeat - and has shown this on multiple occasions.

I also love his development over the series. His apathetic facade slowly falls out of use after he meets Yoite, and he learns that feeling your emotions is important, that letting the people you love know when you’re happy or sad or pissed the fuck off is important.

In the first few chapters we as readers honestly can’t tell a whole heck of a lot from what we’re shown of Miharu. He’s plain, uninteresting, even to us (unless you’re the kind of person who automatically reads between the lines, but let’s face it, not a lot of people are). But by the end of the series, he’s such a vibrant and expressive character that I marvel at Kamatani’s ability to drastically a character’s personality in a way that feels so gradual and natural.

Another reason Miharu is my favorite character is because I tend to see parts of myself in him, as many people do with the characters they like most. I can understand and relate to his apathy in the beginning of the story. His memory of his parents deaths is so deeply traumatic and that the very fibre of his being (objectively, Shinra) locked the memory, and most of his childhood, away for years to come. Because at that time in his life, the pain of it all would’ve broken him.

(E/N: I now remember that Asahi actually erased Miharu’s memories of that event, but I think a good chunk of this will still make sense, and I’m lazy, so I’m not gonna edit it out. Enjoy.)

Emotions, especially ones he didn’t understand - or couldn’t understand, like his feelings toward his childhood that didn’t quite make sense because of his augmented memories - were simply so overwhelming that Miharu pretty much just went “lol don’t wanna deal with those so yEET now they’re gone” and locked them up in a box to be dealt with at a much, much later date. That speaks to me, as a person who has struggled with depression, and the fact that he finds a way to recover from this is very reassuring.

Overall, Miharu is a very complex and realistic character that undergoes more vivid character development than I’ve seen in almost any western media. I love him very much.

DAY 02 (Jun. 4th) - What got you into Nabari no Ou?

This is actually quite a funny story, so buckle up for a wild ride y’all!

When I was 12 years old (God, this sounds like the setup for an angsty villain backstory), my family had a housemate who liked anime. One day I came to beg for him to let me use his video game console to play Little Big Planet and he happened to be watching the second half of the anime - I distinctly remember the second Alya Academy episode being the first one I ever saw. It was my first anime experience outside of a Studio Ghibli film, and to this day remains close to my heart, even though the anime adaptation itself really… just… well, it sucked.

After I finished watching it with him, I went and found the first half of the series on Netflix (back when Netflix did the whole send-a-DVD-to-your-house thing) and watched the whole thing from episode one. And then very quickly became obsessed. I probably watched the anime four times in two months. I had every single one of the English VAs names memorized. I was dedicated.

Eventually I looked up the manga online, and HOO BOI, this is the point where my Nabari no Ou origin story becomes ridiculously hilarious (and stupid).

When I read the manga, I was disturbed by the idea of Kouichi being a villain-type character, as he had been one of my favorites when I watched the anime. And, at the time I was first reading the manga, the apparent “ending” from my perspective was the scene where Kouichi takes the newly-made hijutsu scroll from a bleeding, dying Thobari.

Looking back, I figure the website I was reading it on just didn’t have all the chapters, or perhaps I had happened to start reading while the manga was on hiatus, but at that age I didn’t know of or understand either of those concepts and accepted that sad scene as the end of the manga.

And as such, I wrote the manga off as terrible and ignored it for years.

Flash forward to about 2014, two or three years after writing the manga off as a Fat Mistake, I finally decided to give it another shot. And BY GOD did I cry reading it a second time. Whether it was the two years of maturity, my experiences during those two years, or simply the fact that I read the whole thing that time - I was sobbing in my desk chair over NnO.

It was the most beautiful story I’d ever read. Even now, after five more years of reading beautiful manga, Nabari no Ou remains my absolute favorite, and likely always will.

DAY 03 - What are your favorite scenes?

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Alya Academy arc, even back when all I’d shunned the manga and all I had to go off of was the inaccurate anime adaptation, simply because of how well the character relationships are shown during those sequences (this is one thing the anime did really well in my opinion, actually - Shijima’s verbal reflection on how humans connect to each other and how important those connections are is stunning). Not to mention the displays of how the characters care for one another regardless of what side of the war they’re technically on.

I’ve always loved Subaru as a character, too. I find her motivations to be very realistic and really quite understandable, and I love the little easter eggs in later chapters that imply the Kouga ninja are helping Miharu’s side of the fight even though they’re not visibly involved. The scores from the Alya Academy arc are especially chilling and memorable as well.

Another of my favorites are the chapters following Miharu and Yoite’s escape from the Kairoshuu and their travels afterward. They feel mundane and peaceful, yet blanketed with this layer of grief, like we’re all aware that at any moment their calm could be destroyed and lost forever.

The scenes about Yoite’s gender were very special to me as a teen still learning about the LGBT spectrum and how different people could be, and the scene of Yoite bandaging Miharu’s aching feet? My heart literally swells every single time I think about it! It was so sweet and loving, my fragile fangirl heart does flips when I read over it.

DAY 04 (Jun. 6th) - Photos & Fashion

I like to think that Miharu keeps every photograph he’s taken and has them stored safely away in a box or chest or drawer. In my experience, people who have lost loved ones tend to treasure photographs, more than someone who hasn’t experienced loss might. A lot of times a photo is all someone has of someone they loved outside of a memory, and contrary to popular belief, if you don’t look at someone - physically or in a photo - for a long time, you do forget how they look.

Miharu has lost many people: his parents, Yoite, Kouichi and Shijima, even Shinra, in a way - so I imagine this observation would be doubly true of him. Especially if he has Yukimi as an example to go by - pretty sure that guy has kept every photograph he’s ever taken in his life!

(As far as fashion goes, I honestly think everyone’s fashion in NnO is horrendous, so...)

DAY 05 (Jun. 7th) - Favorite character design in the series?

Gosh, it’s hard to choose, I love so many of them! Gau is fascinating to me because I figure his hair must be difficult to draw, with all those little curls and cowlicks. Shijima’s too, with the way it frames her face and leaves just a tiny little opening for her eyes to peer out at you through.

But, as with most of these character-specific prompts, my answer will have to be Miharu. The idea that Asahi reshaped his face to look more like her own when she used Shinra to save him is very interesting, and the fact that Kamatani manages to draw Miharu in a way that both clearly shows their resemblance to one another and establishes Miharu as his own character with his own unique features and gestures and ways of carrying himself is incredible.

Miharu’s stance are also very telling to me as a reader: he often stands loosely, almost lazily, as if he really couldn’t care less about where he is and what they’re doing, which rings true for a good chunk of the story. It matches well with his (mostly) fake apathy and kind of makes him seem bland and boring as a character. But as the story progresses, he becomes more open, shows affection more easily. He’s quicker to stand up for his beliefs and the people he loves. All of this shows in the way he carries himself throughout later chapters.

DAY 06 (Jun. 8th) - Favorite location in the series?

The Shimizu estate, without a doubt.

The secluded area, the forest in every direction, the house itself - it’s all so beautiful to me. Ot gives me the feeling of rural Japan and more traditional Japanese living. Even after the house has burned away and all that’s left is a field full of Spider Lilies, there’s a kind of sober beauty lying over the place, made even more intense when Shirogamon stands watch over it.

DAY 07 (Jun. 9th) - Positive Influences

The thing that I preach about the most when I talk about NnO to others is the fact that the series has no absolutes. There is no true right or wrong, no clear villains nothing that actually puts our heroes above anyone else. Which, in a way, means that are really are no heroes in the story at all, which is a very rare and interesting way to tell a story.

The entire series deal with a greyscale in morality. There’s no bad vs. good or moral vs. immoral, just your own goals and people whose goals don’t match yours. Opinions and ambitions differ vastly even between people on the same side of the fight - Thobari and Raimei want to seal the Shinrabanshou, Kouichi wants to use it to defeat his immortality, Miharu even changes side on a few occasions - yet they all work together together to achieve their own very different ends.

Even those who can be coded as villain on the surface have something motivating them to do what they do, and more often than not, those motivations are understandable to the reader and actually have you sympathizing with the character. Hattori wanted to rid the world of the need for war. Subaru wanted to save the person she loved most in the world. Yamase wanted to win his family back (I think? It’s been a while).

Even Katarou and Kannuki, two characters who have practically nothing to redeem them, at least have motivations that are pretty damn realistic. Kannuki wanted to capitalize on Kouga’s Forbidden Art and use it to grow Alya Academy’s profit and power through the surface world. A Lot of people are like this in real life, and while you may not sympathize with him over it, it is a motivation that is true of our own world as well as the one in this story.

An Katarou, as far as I understand, is obsessed with Shinra herself, rather than the hijutsu and the power it holds. He manipulated hundreds of people and hundreds of situations to suit his own needs, then literally got himself killed - just to see her one last time. And… yeah, I don’t think anyone really sympathized with him, but hey, I can see what pushed him to do what he did.

To me, Katarou is symbolic of someone with an addiction - their mind is so clouded by a need for some specific thing that all other human aspects of that person just fall away, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get what they want.

I also appreciate how the characters handle their differences throughout the story. Their honesty with each other, the way they support each other even when they’re all heading in opposite direction. The Alya Academy arc (I really love this arc okay) especially shows this, in how the ninja from Banten and Kairoshuu - two very opposing factions - fight together against the Kouga without hesitation, despite the fact that in most other situations, they’d be fighting each other.

It’s a wonderful thing to promote: that even though people might have different opinions or goals, it doesn’t mean they have to hate each other.

DAY 08 (Jun. 10th) - Favorite Extra?

I am IN LOVE with the little between-chapter 4koma pieces, especially the ones from the Alya Academy arc (God, I’ve talked so much about this arc). Subaru fantasizing about Miharu being her little brother and making her birthday cake? Adorable. Miharu and Yoite getting stuck behind a bookshelf and terrifying an opponent by asking for help out? Hilarious.

I love that Kamatani put those in, both as a peek into happier aspects of the world he created, and as a way to add a bit of sun in between the much darker, much sadder chapters.

DAY 09 (Jun. 11th) - Headcanons

I’m not much of a headcanon person, to be honest, and especially not with this series. It feels off to me, to try and add to something that’s already so perfect. However, I do agree with a couple of headcanons I’ve seen - particularly the ones theorizing that Yukimi is aro-ace. It makes a lot of sense to me in how his character is portrayed when nearly every other character in the series has a romantic match, and as an ace person myself, more representation is always welcome.

DAY 10 (Jun. 12th) - Alternate Universe

I once started (and quickly abandoned out of shame) a very cringey, very out-of-character fanfic, in which the Nabari world didn’t exist and all the characters meet through natural means in the surface world. Other than that, however, I’ve not put much thought into Nabari no Ou AUs.

But something I would LOVE to see is a crossover between NnO and Shimanami Tasogare, as the two stores canonically take place in the same location - NnO being in Banten, a fictional town based on the real town of Onomichi, and Shimanami Tasogare being confirmed to take place in plain old Onomichi itself. It’s been a while since I’ve read Shimanami Tasogare, but I remember the leader/owner of the little house the cast gathers in as giving me a distinctly Nabari-world vibe, and I think it would be interesting to see the NnO characters react to a community like the one presented in Shimanami Tasogare.

(And also perhaps have some romantic relationships and sexualities proven canon. Perhaps.)

DAY 11 (Jun. 13th) - Favorite song from the OST?

It’s a firm tie between the opening theme and the second ending theme. I have every song in the OST memorized after years of hearing them day in and day out, but those two themes always give me this tingling nostalgic feeling, like rereading a book from your childhood or finding a toy as an adult that you’d thought was lost forever. The animation and symbolism in those themes are also very telling of the series and the character’s connections to each other (a bit obviously, at times), and the lyrics are special to me in a way I can’t describe. They’re precious to me, and to me experience of NnO as a whole, considering I started with the anime first (a bad idea).

DAY 12 (Jun. 14th) - Are there any songs that make you think of NnO?

“Neopolitan Dreams” by Lisa Mitchell ( X ) ( X )

I once watched a cute Raimei/Kouichi AMV set to this song listened to the lyrics, I understood how the author had put them together. I very much feel like the lyrics echo Raimei’s thoughts on how Kouichi starts to act in later chapters, becoming more and more distant until he almost appears to be an antagonist rather than one of the perceived heroes. The song also makes me think of Raimei’s stubbornness and pride, her unwillingness to accept option besides her own conclusions until she’s had the full story and nothing less.

I can never get their faces out of my head while listening to this song, which I guess means the song reminds me more of Raimei and Kouichi than NnO in general, but it still counts, right?

DAY 13 (Jun. 15th) - Food

I’ve never really thought too hard on it, but now that I am, it’s actually very interesting to note how different characters use food - the Rokujo Okonomiyaki shop, in particular - to their advantage.

Thobari uses his (implied, before the start of the overall plot) regular visits to try and get Miharu to believe him about the Shinrabanshou and the Nabari world. Thobari uses the close proximity to explain his motives to Miharu, who physically cannot leave the situation, lest the food burn to a damn crisp (and I figure Naoko wouldn’t be pleased if that happened every time Thobari came in). He also very clearly uses this to keep tabs on Miharu when outside of a school setting where Miharu has no choice to be in Thobari’s sight, and later, as a way to either catch up on what’s going on in the Nabari world or - as in several cases - simply demand answers from Miharu.

Raimei uses the shop as a way to get closer to Miharu. She charms her way into getting free food (and sometimes, free lodging as well) and I assume her thinking is probably something on the lines of “Free Food + Spend Time With Miharu = Information on Where Raikou Might Be.” Of course, this likely isn’t her motive in later chapters, because, well, character development.

Food is also an important bonding thing for Yoite and Yukimi. In a lot of the scenes where we see Yoite and Yukimi in their home, they’re eating together, and I always took it as a display of their familial relationship - cooking dinner for Yoite the way a dutiful older sibling would for their younger sibling - thoughI doubt either of them would admit they’re like brothers. The significance of lemonade should also be noted for this topic - I could go on for ages about it.

(But I won’t unless people ask me to, because this piece is long enough already!)

I don’t have much memory of this scene being as big a deal in the manga as it was in the anime - but I also haven’t seen either in a while, so I could be wrong - but the birthday cake scene from the latter half of the anime left an impact on me even back when I’d only seen the anime, and it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the prompt was “food.” Gau’s pride in the cake he made and his determination to get any kind of praise out of Yoite is very touching, especially when you take into account that Yoite literally saved Gau’s life, and that Gau knows this, as well.

The Kairoshuu - particularly Yukimi, Raikou, Gau, and Kazuho - are all shown bonding on more than one occasion at Kazuho and her husband’s sushi shop, and there is significance to those occasions in the rather heavy conversations they have during those visits. And there’s also the time Miharu cooked okonomiyaki for all the main Kairoshuu member after he’d first joined their clan - similar to how a recently hired employee would bring cookies for their new boss.

Food has a lot of significance in Nabari no Ou, no matter where you look.

DAY 14 (Jun. 16th) - Favorite village, and thoughts on the Forbidden Arts?

As far as morals and motivations go, I would have to choose Banten, as their (or at least Thobari’s) main opinion is that the Shinrabanshou shouldn’t be used because it throws off the balance of the universe. I definitely understand this opinion, because a lot of things can go wrong if the wrong kind of person is making wishes to Shinra and having them granted.

Although, I think that if anyone were to use the ability in a way that leaves the balance of the world intact, it would be Miharu, and this is even shown in the series itself. He doesn’t have the kind of greed or anger that would taint a person’s motivations when making their wishes, he just wants to do what is best for others- especially Yoite. Yoite is important to him, and therefore Yoite’s wish is also important to Miharu. And, as we see in later chapters, Miharu puts granting Yoite’s wish above even his own happiness. I feel I would make a similar decision were I in his shoes.

(For aesthetic, though, I’d choose Fuuma. Their village is hidden and surrounded by forest and in that lovely traditional Japanese style, and their uniforms are great. If Saraba were Chief I’d join.)

DAY 15 (Jun. 17th) - Favorite minor/supporting character

Gau! Definitely Gau! Gosh I love him so much. He’s optimistic and tries his best to look for the best in situations and in people, and his smile is so freaking sunshiney, I bet he lights up rooms with it. He’s awkward and quirky and I can relate so hard. But he’s also strong? He stands up to other ninja even though he really doesn’t have the physical ability to defend himself or others. He puts his life in danger to tell Raimei the truth about her family immediately after swearing silence to Raikou, his boss, who could 100% kill him if he found out Gau had broken his promise. And I bet you Gau would’ve told Raikou about him telling Raimei as soon as he’d gone home, if the bullshit at the Shimizu property hadn’t gone down the way it did.

And speaking of that scene- he throws himself in front of Raikou’s katana to save the life of a girl he hadn’t known for more than a day, who had threatened to kill him, who was seeking to kill the person he treasured most in the world. Who does that?! Gau apparently. He literally gives his life for just the possibility that Raikou and Raimei can make up and be happy siblings again. He gives his life so that the person he loves can maybe reconcile with someone else they loved.

He makes a conscious effort to include Yoite in conversations in which he would otherwise be largely ignored, and while I doubt Yoite would care either way, it’s the thought that counts, right? And, at least in the anime (it’s been a while since I read the manga) he puts his life on the line to help Yoite and Miharu even though, as I said before, he can’t really defend himself all that well.

Basically, I’m in love with Gau and want him to be happy. Sweet baby!

DAY 16 (Jun. 18th) - Free Day

I don’t really have anything else to say but I’m posting all of these today (I was late for the original posting by like four days so I figured I’d write them all out and post them together) so I’ll count this as my day 16 entry! Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, I know it was probably daunting to look at this long as fucking post but I’m glad you took the time to read my personal reflection on NnO! This manga means a lot to me and it’s nice to discover other people who love it as much as I do (I’ve literally met two people in my entire life who’ve read it without me suggesting it).

Keep the love going y’all, I hope to see you again! And feel free to hit me up if you’d like to talk about NnO, I’d love to connect with other fans! Seeya owo

#nabari no ou #nno anniversary prompts

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