flailingfrog

[flailingfrog]

I once studied American Football- something I never cared for- including positions, titles, plays, and watching games, for weeks in order to write symbolism in a fanfic. I once studied how to play poker, practiced how to count cards, and played Spades more often just so that I could include them in a fic. And I am ass at math.

But if I can do those things, you are perfectly capable of putting in the far more important work and research to depict Black hair textures, including styles and hair care. While there are plenty of resources to lead you in the right direction, there is no bypassing the work and time required. Art as you currently do it took you time to learn- why would this be different?

I feel like I disappoint people on here kinda often when I don't have some link of a massive collection of "how to depict and understand Black hair". You're not just learning hair, you're learning an entire culture, as well as breaking biases you didn't even know you held- ofc it's not going to be an immediate process.

It's worth it. Be willing to commit to your Black characters.

[flailingfrog]

accidentally going to the for you tab on here is so scary. this isn't my beautiful house. these aren't my beautiful mutuals.

[flailingfrog]

TW: BBU/BBU-ADJACENT SETTING, SELF HARM (harmful stimming), GRIEF, GRIEF FOR AN ABUSER, RECOVERING PET WHUMPEE

Peyton belongs to @wildfae-afterdark and is used with permission.

TAGLIST: @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump , @poc-whump , @badgerwhump , @flowersarefreetherapy , @gottawhump , @oddsconvert , @cepheusgalaxy

Since they’d run from the shelter, everything around them had stopped. They knew, in some part of their brain, life was moving on without them but they couldn't find it in themself to care. They’re vaguely aware of Peyton’s hands coaxing food into their mouth, or him opening and closing the door. He was hazy, like a shadow, a whisper on the edge of the emptiness that surrounded them.

They embraced the emptiness and let themself be lost in the peace. It was an old friend, one they felt at ease with. Nothing good or bad happened in the emptiness and time itself was wiped from existence. At times, they were sure they themself didn't exist but they could’ve stayed there for eternity.

Like waking up from an afternoon nap in time to see the next day’s sunrise, it hit them. The realization and feeling of everything around them took a few moments for their barely conscious mind to process. Information crashed in on them, a giant, powerful wave that washed them away and forced them underwater until they were certain they were drowning.

Overwhelming and confusing, it was miles from their previous empty space. It had been peaceful there.

Simple.

Everything here was too much. They could hear and it was too loud. They could see, sitting on the edge of the bed. Light poured in, too bright, from the gap in the curtains. The way the light moved and changed colors was weird.

Every breath they took burned its way down their throat. The saliva in their mouth tasted weird and bad as it tried to trickle down their scratchy throat only to end up being coughed up in wheezing breaths. The coughing was so loud and everything around him too. They scrunched up their nose, as if that could help with the ear-splitting sounds around them.They could feel everything. Cramped muscles twisted their body, forcing them to be even more aware of every texture that made contact with their skin. The shirt hanging on their frame felt like a brand.

They tried to sit up, to be in a better position. They were exhausted and the awkward position on their knees was not helping. Their arms and legs shook as they moved. Somehow they made it to the bathroom.

They forced their breathing to slow as they washed away all the gunk and grime on them, but the lump in their throat grew and grew until the dam burst open, and the tears finally bubbled to the surface. They let themself cry, weaving their fingers through tangled locs and pulling them taut.

Slowly, they sunk into the tub, rocking themself and biting their lip to keep their noise to a minimum. Not that it mattered. They were alone. No Sir. No Peyton. No Wick. No Kes. It was only them and the rainbow of color bursting from the pressure on their eyes. The soft click of the door shutting as Peyton entered sounded like a gunshot and left their ears ringing. Despite the auditory discomfort, Dami’s chest clenched with emotions they’d never thought they’d feel with the other man.

Anticipation and relief.

They were relieved. That was a curious thing but they’d explore it later. . They wished they could beg him to come into the bathroom but the words remained stuck in their throat, trapped by a tongue that felt too big for their mouth. Everything was too loud.

For as long as they could remember, (which, thanks to WRU, wasn't very long), Dami’s life had revolved around rules. Don't stim too loudly or big in public. Smile when other people smile. If someone asks a question, they want conversation. Conversation has more than one word answers. Most people like being lied to when it's about themselves. Don't talk to police, military recruiters, or WRU recruiters.

They’d liked it that way. It had made social interactions easier, until it hadn't but that was another story for another day. They had lists in their mind, contingencies, a script on how to act, what to do in any given situation, what to say. It got tiring sometimes and sometimes other people didn't act according to the rules Dami was told they were supposed to follow. That was confusing and frustrating. Why make rules you weren’t going to follow?

Humans were dumb creatures.

What were they supposed to do in this situation?

They’d seen death before but it had never been anyone in the friends or family category.

They weren’t sure where to put Thane. He wasn't their friend. He had been their family at one point but not anymore. They’d loved him at one point too and they weren’t sure if that feeling would ever go away. They knew that grief sometimes came as numbness, the soul partitioning off the wound until a time when the heart is capable of feeling the pain without bleeding out and

Maybe they were feeling that numbness.

Relief overtook the hatred. Relief. Relief that he would never come after then again. Relief that they didn't have to be afraid.

WRU didn't teach them to admit defeat. It was beaten into them that they were supposed to fight until their fists bled, tough it out until their skin was thick and calloused. Fight until they’ve burned their tongue and scorched their throat, fight until they are hollowed out with nothing left to give. Guard Dogs weren’t gentle, they weren’t soft. The fire in their belly was never supposed to die. The fire that was supposed to protect their Principle but Sir…Sir was gone.

For the first time since training, Dami had failed their purpose and the fire that had served that purpose was cold, freezing, threatening to consume them from the inside out. They wanted it to stop, wanted the thought, the feelings, everything to stop. Their body buzzed with sundering anger and another vicious emotion they thought they’d left behind a long time ago.

Hatred.

Their body shook, their nails scraping their skin hard enough to draw blood when they weren’t pulling their hair. They knew, somewhere in the back of their mind, that wasn't okay. They needed to do something better, healthier, but they couldn't bring their hands to do anything else. Their sniffles turned to whimpers then sobs that became harder and harder to keep quiet.

Sir was gone and Dami wasn't sure how they were supposed to feel.

Loneliness wasn't new to them. It had never felt this crushing before. They missed him and they loathed themself for missing him. It didn't change a damn thing. They’d loved him once upon a time. Some would say they loved him because that’s the only thing that they’d known. Was it wrong to love something harmful if it was the only thing you’d ever known? They weren’t sure they could ever stop loving him.

There was a gaping hole in their chest, one they’d avoided for months and months with the misplaced hope that it would go away. It only grew sharper and sharper, throbbing whenever they let their mind wander. His death wasn't his fault but the betrayal (as illogical as it was to call it that) still hurt.

He’d been a bigger piece of them than they’d ever imagined and perhaps a piece of them had gone to the grave with them. He’d taken a possibility away from them. A future that maybe he would change and they could work through their differences, find forgiveness and love in each other the same way Wick and Kes had.

They would curse him, spit on his grave, and beg for his return as they forced the memories (good and bad) into the gaping hole he’d left in their heart.

[flailingfrog]

"Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Okay, this one is going to be half lesson and half a thought experiment- it may get a bit frustrating, as conversations like this often do- but remember, discomfort is not always a bad thing! So I ask that you walk with me for this one.

It’s also interesting, because I’m going to direct this towards everyone (readers included!), but specifically towards my fanfic writers of media with no visual medium, as I’ve noticed this pattern there, and it makes up a good amount of creators on this site. Okay? Okay.

Behold! Many shades of brown!

I had to wade through a lot of colorism for this, and even this link is subtly racist in its introduction- the idea that brown is ‘unexciting’ 🙄.

Anyway, you know where I’m going with this:

"Chocolate and Coffee"

Even the link above pulled this! Writers who use this... they’re not ‘wrong’ per se but… often uninspired. It feels... Lazy. When you can tell an author has put no thought into the brown of choice, it makes Black readers feel like you believe these are the only shades of brown- that that’s all we look like. Even chocolate is more diverse (white, milk, dark, marbled, cookies and cream?) Coffee can come in numerous shades as well (light, medium, dark roast? Type of bean?)

My first direction to help with this: make it a point to know what shade that character is (whether canonically, or if you're the original creator, look at a reference and write it down) and find a name! Be consistent! Find similar browns to one another. If the canon Black character's skin color is done poorly, find something similar and use that! (I'll get more into this in the next lesson!)

Our skin colors may modify as we age, it changes over the seasons/presence in the sun, and some people even have vitiligo! But we're not gonna be “dark roast coffee” one morning and “light milk chocolate” suddenly. We're not chameleons lmao.

And you know what? That shade you choose might very well be 'coffee'! But it's not going to be because you didn't look and assumed we're all some random brown! That’s the intent showing! If we can find endless ways to describe the beauty of white/pale skin, we absolutely can for brown! Be willing to unpack why you may not believe brown to be capable of beauty, and work through unlearning that- it will show in your writing! One way is by pausing with yourself, and recognizing when you had a biased thought. Even by this, you’re learning!

Here’s where I want us to get into the thought experiment:

I want you to think about the description of characters in stories (as a whole). Challenge yourself- in the fics and stories you read, how often is anyone blatantly labeled 'White'? Read a story or fic; how long can you imagine them as not-White before it's ever clarified? Because not even 'pale' automatically implies a White person!

You know how I’ve mentioned before that 'Black people are not a monolith'? I can find you at least some examples of Black people fitting some of the common descriptions of white characters.

"Brunette with brown eyes"

(Fun fact: I actually learned back in my Masters program that genetically no one has ‘black’ hair- our eyes are processing it as black, but it’s really just dark brown due to eumelanin. Regardless, if you stand us in the direct sunlight, you will see that our hair is usually just dark brown!)

"Red hair with pale skin"

“‘tanned’ skin with hazel/green eyes”

“blond hair" (period!)

Now, I’m not saying that blond haired Black people or Black folk with albinism are overly representative of my people. What I AM saying is that it needs to not be taken for granted that a reader is automatically assuming a character is White in your piece of fiction- I can assume your character looks like anything if it's not stated! Especially if the OG source is a book or a podcast! We’re just used to assigning these features- and characters- as white until ‘proven not’! The default!

I am guilty of this too! Even still, I reread many of my works and go ‘ah, I didn’t clarify.’ And I have to work on doing better at it. This is having intent for your Black characters, but really, it’s having intent for all of them!

(This doesn't mean going “the Black man said,” the way sometimes people say “the Chinese said” (which…. Tbh we should all stop doing that anyway, it's weird and racist))

My Next Challenge:

Some people may disagree, but- Ahem:

Say BLACK!

Breathe lmao! Take the time to recognize that it's OKAY to introduce a character as Black, to say Black, it's fine! Obviously be sensitive about it, don't shove it in there to “win your diversity points”, but like… People are Black. It's not a bad word. What matters is the context in which you used it!

You don't even have to say it every single time. Really just the first, introductory sentence will do. For example:

“[Character A], a bright, young, Black girl with knotless braids to her mid back, glittering hair clips matching her bright green t-shirt, and a brilliant smile that shined against her bistre skin.”

I recognize that some might argue that by saying “bistre”, you don't need to say Black. But 1) you don't have to be Black to be brown or dark skinned, and 2) There's a social stigma behind even saying Black- of discussing race in general, because it leads to discomfort. Race (as a sociological construct) exists. When we say nothing about it, allowing Whiteness to be the default, we're still emphasizing race, however silently! If you're already doing it... Why not mention it? 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

(here's a good clip of Ijeoma Oluo discussing the difficulty of discussing race; while I highly recommend the whole thing, the relevant clip is 4:25-5:39)

Maybe they're in the Black student organization in a lead position, maybe they're in a Black main cast of a play- it's okay to have those things in the story to help develop the idea that your Black character is actively Black! Just do your research to make sure you’re not leaning into stereotypes!

“There’s no races in my fantasy/future world!”

That’s fair! But I want to give you an example of how people will still project these identities onto your characters anyway:

No one has an explicitly stated 'race' in Avatar: The Last Airbender (afaik); they’re all divided by element culture. YET, many people were offended that a mixed-Korean actress was cast in her role in the live action- they ‘just didn’t see it’, because subconsciously they'd imagined her ‘face claims’ as WHITE, despite it never once being mentioned in the canon! (there’s also a firm sexualization and east Asian fetishization argument to be made about it, but that’s not within the scope of this particular conversation.)

Point is, if you are including humanoid characters in your fantasy stories, fine. You don't need to say ‘Black’ outright. But, that just means that you’re going to have to be even more detailed in your description. Because if I were watching a TV show and a Black actor shows up as an elf… I know what features I’m seeing! Entire protests have occurred over the casting of Black actors in a role ‘meant for a white person’; so... everyone sees it!

Conclusion

This is another reason why intention in character design and writing is important! Context clues and socialization help me understand who your character is. If it works like this for white characters, it can work like that for everyone else! You just have to know enough about me to write it in (and that's where the social and societal bias lie, because how much do you really know about me?)

A way to better understand this is reading books by Black authors (for fantasy, I would highly recommend Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi) as well as Black literary classics! Finding and reading Black fic authors in fandoms with Black characters! By learning how we describe ourselves and our skin colors, you’ll learn and practice how to appropriately describe us!

Now I can't make you do any of this! But I do want you all- writers especially- to start noticing our bias, how we may default to the experience of whiteness- and how that affects the way we write. When we have Black characters, and really any character of color, we need to start paying attention to how often their features, culture, and activities are emphasized, even for what we may consider to be 'background' details. That’s how we normalize creation and understanding, and become better at writing!

It’s just something to practice; remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

In addition, if you are interested in a simple read into why approaching race is so uncomfortable as a whole, I've attached Robin DiAngelo's book here! Thank you to the PDF guru @toiletpotato for the link!

[flailingfrog]

@angst-after-dark 's Dami!

[flailingfrog]

Important question: is your character “I have bore a thousand storms and can bear a thousand more” stoic or “I have bore a thousand storms and my foundations are crumbling, my walls are trembling, my structure is unsound and one more might prove to be my fall” stoic?

[flailingfrog]

So let’s talk about POTS syndrome for a second yeah? There is a common misconception that this is just a “uwu fainting disease” and I really seriously need combat this idea lol.

I have diagnosed POTS syndrome. Yes I have fainted before. But it doesn’t happen as much as you think. In fact in the 3 years I’ve been diagnosed I’ve only ever fainted twice. Most of my symptoms include, sweating profusely, fatigue easily, heart palpitations, over heating/getting cold easily, getting dizzy, nausea, blurry vision, chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety and stress. Sometimes I just feel really sick. My toes turn purple sometimes. I can run a mile sometimes and be fine, but some days walking to my bathroom without my cane is a struggle.

I have good days and bad days. But this is a disease that had genuinely ruined my life for a time. I couldn’t do anything when I first started showing symptoms. I couldn’t walk to the bathroom without wanting to keel over. Forget classes, forget doing sports. Or exercising. I literally built myself up from ground zero.

I might seem pretty healthy? But honestly? I still have as needed mobility aid to help me get around so I don’t get too tired and over exert myself. I have to stay hydrated or else my symptoms will kill Me. If I skip a meal? Oh yeah I’m done for. I take steroids to keep my blood pressure up. I take these steroids once in the morning and once before any strenuous activities. I was on heart medication for a time. There is no cure for this. It’s an entire lifestyle change. Everything is affected, your nervous system, your brain, your blood, skin, anything you can think of, there is a POTS symptom for.

Like this disease genuinely ruined my life and I had restart from scratch. I have only recently been okay and starting to do more. But i still have bad days.

This isn’t just some random fainting thing that is really cute. And honestly it does make me angry to see it wrongly portrayed in media. Because this genuinely upheaved my life and I had to quit a lot of stuff so I could be healthy. If you’re going to write a character with POTS. Do your research, know how this actually affects people. Because it’s not some silly little disease that people can use to just.. create a good whumpy scenario.

It’s a fucking struggle and I hate having it. I’ve had to shape my life around it. It’s not just fainting. It’s feeling like your body is going implode, feeling like you might die. Pardon sounding like a dick, but if you’re going to write a character with POTS do it right.

Sorry this is a rant and I might lose some followers for it. I just.. it’s something I feel passionate about. And it’s something that has genuinely affected my quality of life.

If you have questions or want to know more. Feel free to ask. But don’t talk to me if you’re just going to argue or berate me for anything I’ve said here. Thanks.

[flailingfrog]

Febuwhump Day 29: Woofwoofverse: Not Allowed to Die

TW: Graphic? Character death (he gets better) (that might make it worse), implied abuse?

-

One second, Honest is edging away, safe behind his handler’s body as he tries to peer past at the fight, and the next he’s falling.

The last thing he hears is his name, a scream like the world’s ending, and then he’s underwater, going somewhere very far away very, very fast.

No one would ever accuse him of being smart, but at least he can say of himself that he’s smart enough not to gasp in. He pushes towards the surface, more clawing at the water than cupping it, but he only sinks. It’s not that he can’t swim—he can—he’s just never been in something moving this fast, something desperate to drag him down and not let him up. A part of him hopes none of his handlers try to save him. The rest of him knows that of course they will—it’s how they’re made.

His vision begins to tunnel, and swampy water and streaks of sun blend to nothingness, his head tight, his lungs shrinking. His body, dizzy with the lack of air, gasps in, and it burns sucking down his throat.

The clawing weakens, and it occurs to him that this–this is really it. There’s nothing after this. It’s… sad.

It’s with that thought things fade away, tunneling into blackness.

Then it’s no longer dark, only dim. The kind of dim other folk claim doesn’t exist, that only exists back home—back in the caverns. But it only takes a moment to recognize this isn’t his cavern, isn't any cavern he's ever called home or even stayed a time in, and one of the privileges of being consort is he's seen them all, in one way or another.

As he drags the tips of his fingers against the wall, looks from the walls pressed tight to him to the ceiling high above him with a tightness in his very fingers, it occurs to him he’s never seen a corridor like this in his life. The dark stone’s carved into halls by water and hand and magic, which is normal enough, but the halls are too narrow to be anything other than a building's hall, and there's no doorways, the walls instead lined with glyphs, only some of them even vaguely familiar, the kind of thing he’d sneak glances at in the books Faithful brought home from the nunnery. Their glow’s distinct from any color he’s ever known, disparate from even the glow of the lichen in the caverns.

A low hum of dread starts in Honest's stomach, and it pushes against him that something’s happened, something he can guess, if he's brave enough, but he isn’t today, even as it blares bold and crisp in the back of his mind.

With nothing else to do, he starts to walk, following the hall. Carvings paint the wall, just like the inner halls of the Goddess's temples’, ornate pictures of people Honest can’t recognize, stories Dwellers don’t tell, cutting more and more into the hallway until he’s sideways to keep going, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. He’s used to this kind of squeeze, Dwellers are good at this kind of squeeze, and he’s missed it.

Eventually, it widens again, just as some part of him was sure it would, and the compulsion to keep walking leads him to a pitchfork in the path. He stands there, thinking, sure he’s waiting for… something. Or maybe someone.

Sand digs into his back as the sun sears into his face, too bright even in the shade he can barely grasp comes from the trees above him. Water burns as he coughs it up, then swallows it back down as he tries to gasp in a breath. A hand slams into the ground, trying to grab at something, anything, to get him moving, but the coughs rattle him hard enough it’s difficult to move. For a second, all he can do is fear he’s going back to where he came from, the place he refuses to name quite yet. The place that, were he proper, he’d never have need to think to, because good Dwellers don’t think of the after.

But he manages to vault onto his side and half-near hack up his lungs, burning alongside his throat and nose. His eyes sting, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s from tears. He’s cold, and itchy from the sand, and he still half-feels he’s going to rattle out of his body. He gasps in again, then again, and he trembles with it.

And then he vomits.

Then he vomits again, for good measure.

The third time he’s about to fall off that cliff, he manages to stay where he is, instead gasping in breaths. His body doesn’t feel strong enough to stand, so he allows himself a few more moments of trembling on the beach before he forces himself to pull it together.

The facts are this: he is alone, on the surface, isolated from his handlers and still very much on the run, the absence of their protection be damned, a man with few survival skills and none of the charm to compensate for it, and, because he’s going through the facts, not his feelings, he shoves all emotion down his throat and lives by his name long enough to admit to himself he’s pretty sure he just died and then came back.

It could, if he lets it, end his world, but his world’s ended before, in ways he prays no one will ever know weigh heavier on him than this rebirth, so if he can keep on living when the rest of his brothers, the ones that matter, are dead, he can damned well keep going once he has finally failed to live and, in one last act of compulsive rebellion and dishonor, Returned. Finally, he looks up, well and truly looks up, and takes in what he has to work with.

The river’s slowed here, thick on either side, long trees with green leaves turning gold, painted pink in the light of the setting sun. He hopes it’s the same day he fell into the river. He can’t fathom what it’d mean if it were any longer, instead focusing on the fact it’ll be dark soon, an ease to his eyes, even if still far too bright.

It hits him, belated though it is, that everything is bright enough to burn, a white tint to it. It’s the moment he realizes the weight of glasses he’s grown so used to that he takes it for granted has gone missing, the world around him no longer painted rosy and dim.

His clothes are wet and heavy and cold, and he doesn’t want to think about the various things dirtying them at the moment—he’s next to a river, he’s not so reliant he can’t clean his own clothing.

Least worrying for the moment is his veil’s come loose, too, though it isn’t gone—it’d be a different matter if it were—instead just hanging, half-undone and weighing oddly on his head. He doesn’t want to know what’s become of his hair underneath it. 

It’s currently the least worrying matter of the affair because if where he’d been before was sparsely populated, where he’s washed up—and he doesn’t think of great halls, of silk beyond life that isn’t meant to be known by the living, that’s impossible to be known by the living, because souls don’t come back to bodies, doesn’t think of the myths, of those rare few that crawl out of the proper rest of the worm farms, grievous injuries repaired or half-rotted or a million other things varying based on who’s telling the story, the one thing the same the truth that whatever has risen is not what it says and can only bring ill to the cavern the body once called home, the house that laid claim, because that’s not productive right now—is desolate. He listens to every rustle of leaves, every bird call and twig snap, further than most folk could dream, and he hears no folk like him.

This is all made up for by the simple fact that missing from his side is the bauble he keeps tied to him at all times, come loose in the current. It means that, for the first time in several decades, She can actually see him. And for the first time in his life, he is alone–truly alone, no brothers, no handlers, not even the wayward, estranged, half-feral ward he shared a house and the Goddess’s attention with several lifetimes ago.

He cleans his clothes tactically, getting rid of the worse things that happen to a body when one dies with nimble hands uncaring of what they hit. The water freezes his hands, but he welcomes the cold–it drowns out the emptiness, brings to mind new questions. He needs something to keep him alive.

Down below, the cold felt different. If you asked him to explain it, he couldn’t, but the water here seeps into his bones and makes them slow in a way foreign to him. It’s too cold for him to keep his hands in long, and he can only wash so much without entirely stripping. Afterward, his clothes are even wetter, but he doubts he’d be any warmer without them.

He trails up the shore after that, up to where it becomes less sand and more grass, and he begins to walk.

This is the state of things: the last place he saw his handlers is upstream. The best course of action is to return to his handlers, and fast. Therefore, the best course of action is to walk upstream. He doesn’t let himself think about how long it’ll take, or how long has already passed, because if he does he just might give into despair and try to wither in this wood. Right now, for this moment, what he needs is the idea that he has someone who will protect him from Her if She finds him and keep him safe. Currently, the only advantage is She knows where he is just as well as he does, but that could change at any moment.

His shoes squelch, and his legs protest they’re still weak, but he stumbles up into the forest praying his feet will stop sinking into the soft, powder-like dirt. He’s not used to navigating roots and bushes and things that live, and it slows him down, trips his legs, forces him to remember a time where he walked as much as he pleased, constantly. He can’t tell you when the cage he’d locked himself in happily made itself known, but he dwells, even if it isn’t the time. He deserves a good dwell every now and then, and it’s not like there’s anything better to do. Certainly he’d rather focus on how unfair being the consort of the Goddess Below is than how cold he is, how She can see him again.

No one ever taught him how to start a fire. It never mattered before.

He thinks Endurant would probably know. Endurant knows most things worth knowing, would probably know which of these red and purple and blue fruits you pass are edible and which will harm, or at least know some way of finding out. Ezi knows the prayer for surface food, too, the prayer that makes it the kind of thing that won’t leave you curled in on yourself for hours.

Folk like him aren’t meant to be alone.

The sun dips down, and his eyes burn less as the light turns first rose gold and then black, lit up in a way totally unlike the caverns and the sounds change with the coming of night. Somewhere, there’s something very big moving through the forest, leaves crunching under it. He’s lucky enough it isn’t near the river, though if it was he could probably find his way back. Hopefully.

With the sun dipped, he gets colder, colder than he thought possible. He curls into himself as pins and needles shoot through him, and, as the night stretches on, his clothes still clinging damp to his skin, he starts to grow warm.

By then he can’t find it in himself to worry, even though if it were anyone else he would, can’t even think about the way his stomach has been eyeing the fruit, the fish he catches sight of in the river. For a brief second, he considers stripping, but no matter the ways he’s distanced himself from Her, he can’t, not when he can’t be sure what his creator would think. He can practically feel Her eyes on him, and then, for half a second, he remembers that She could look out his eyes now, if She wanted to, and he wouldn’t know unless She announced Herself. She’d be disappointed in him, if She saw him now. Despite everything, the thought of disappointing Her still sends a minute jolt of cold up his spine, even through the warmth of his body.

Sometimes, it’s better not to think.

Everything’s flat by the time he finally settles on the floor. He can hear Her cooing when he slips away.

It’s only when he finds himself back in that web of halls, spider’s silk clinging and shaping the corridors, that he can think clearly again, can process that he was unwell, that, now, he’s in the place past living.

He doesn’t think he likes it.

He screams, screams long enough to go senseless, keeps screaming.

He’s still screaming when he wakes up, freezing and hungry. He cuts off.

The first time he nearly died, not died-died, but nearly died, is a soupy spot about two centuries ago, when he was on a boat and sure he wasn’t ending up off it. The way She gripped him afterward, like he could in any reality be one of Her worlds, Her grasp holding, possessing, claiming and reclaiming as it dug into his skin, kept him tied to Her for fifty more years.

He’d curled up against Her, and he hadn’t thought twice as his Goddess, his creator, said, as slow and cool as a glacier, “That will never happen again.”

Her touch had burned with it.

But the sun is up. His clothes are dry.

It’s not enough, still several minutes before he comes to terms with the fact he is alive and will continue to be, odds be damned, several minutes to stop himself from tearing at grass, shredding both the ground and his hands.

His fists are still in it when he stops, when it occurs to him, a blunt strike into his skull, that his hair must still be a mess under his veil—that it isn’t the type of thing meant for sleeping in. The styling was already at the end of its term. It’s going to be hell for Responsibility to fix. His handler’s going to chide him the entire time ezi does it, soft, with hands untangling it more delicately than the others are capable of.

He wonders what they’re having for breakfast so he doesn’t think about how, this time, there might be no fixing it at all, and his hunger worsens.

He knows better when he starts walking, knows better still as the idea starts forming, as he gazes at mushrooms and berries and other things that might, key word might, be safe to eat.

But at the same time reality’s setting in, the idea something’s very wrong, yes, but he can use it. If it hurts him, he might just come back. And even if he doesn’t… would that really be the worst thing? When faced with the reality he’s lived through the past two days? He shouldn’t be alive. She can see him now.

And hunger… hunger’s a powerful thing, even more powerful for someone who’s never been hungry, never missed a meal or a snack, for hundreds of years. Now, it claws at his stomach, makes it shrink into itself. His body trembles with it, leaves him dizzy. It’s as close as it can come to begging him.

Whatever he eats, he wishes he hadn’t. He’s still sick from it when he comes back, and the filth’s enough for him to try and bear the river. His hands burn when he’s done, and all he can do is pray.

It’s easy to lose track after that. He eats when he has to, sleeps when he has to, cleans when he has to. It’s night, then day, then day again, and he couldn’t tell you if it’s minutes or hours or days or weeks, has no one around to tell him—he’s almost sure the loneliness, the touch-starvation, kills him at one point. He’s not built to be alone. He’s not built for the sun. He is built for the terror, the weight of Her probability pressed against him.

He gets sicker, sees no one. The only thing he can rely on is this damnable river, and eventually he’s moving uphill. The burn becomes familiar, and, after enough time, if he waits for night and shuts his eyes, he can almost pretend he’s back home.

His shoes begin to fall apart from the wear, and with no way to repair them, his feet tear. Something infects them, and he could swear it at some point kills him, but in the string of hunger and giving in and the occasional freeze it’s hard to tell what or when.

He comes to a conclusion, though: whatever he is, it isn’t what lives in the tales. It’s undoubtedly worse.

You can’t go forever without running into other folk. He hears their voice first, and he’s almost too scared to approach, too scared of the things folk do to each other, but desperation leads him to at least hedge past them.

They’re fishing.

They don’t speak Port, and no one from the surface knows his mother tongue, and he can tell from the grip on the pole, the twitch of their mustache, that they’re thinking, though he never knows what surface folk are thinking. He almost edges away, but they reach out their hand the way he would to one of his brother’s dogs when he first met them, still unconvinced they wouldn’t bite, and he’s starving, so desperate for a way to fill any of his needs, that he takes it.

It helps that it’s the most gravely a stranger’s ever treated him when he was alone.

They guide him to their home, and he’s corrected on what a small community looks like—this one doesn’t even have a proper railway to link the worn stone to the trains he’s used to traveling, something older in its place.

The pair of them weave through the buildings, a weight of age to everything he’s only ever encountered anything similar to down in the caverns, the kind of thing he thinks can only be built when you stay somewhere for several eras. Eventually, the Human he’s with peeks into a building, the kind that’s loud with the act of creation, calls someone, and out comes someone with hair longer than his. His chest hurts with the tightness. Their face wrinkles up when they look at him, and he itches. It could be annoyance. It could be anything—he doesn’t know the faces of surface-folk well, and he’s made stupid mistakes before. Never stupid enough to be one of the times he’s nearly–only ever nearly before this–gotten himself killed, but there’s always a first. A Dweller would be so much easier to deal with, the connectivity of his own keying him in more easily than a face ever could.

Then again, a Dweller might know who he was, so small blessings.

They talk to each other, and he can’t tell if they’re fighting or if this is just a language that sounds angry. But the hand on his stays loose, and then it’s goading him forward with the long-haired one still speaking.

They get food in him.

It makes him sick, but at this point he’ll take the sickness of a meal eaten without prayer over the emptiness he’s been courting long enough time’s begun to bleed. They’re soft with him. Gentle. He can only just try to accept it. But he stays the night. Because he’s not dying. Because so far nothing bad is happening.

He doesn’t stop thinking about his handlers. How could he when they’re the only true siblings he has left?

In the morning he discovers the days are best described as ‘bleak’ here. They make him breakfast, and he’s sure for a moment it’ll kill him, but it doesn’t. They talk to each other more, and then they call someone on the old phone.

Even through the wire and muffled against an ear, he recognizes Composed’s voice.

He practically snatches the phone away, but they let him.

“Hey,” it says, and if he didn’t know it so well, he might believe that the lack of a snag was anything other than their curse of a name.

So he says back, “Are you coming for me?”

“Yeah.”

The relief hits him like the rail. He only has to worry about a Dweller with red gloves showing up and taking him away so much longer, and then he’ll be safe and hidden and with his handlers and the baubles again. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

A moment of silence stretches on, but he knows it. He knows that’s not the end of it.

He’s rewarded. Clipped in the familiar way it has, in a way others might believe the coolness it has, it says, “I thought you’d died.”

And Composed is just a name, a name that’s had its power broken, but it still cooler and calmer than most of them can manage, and he needs to bare the secret to someone, so he says, “I did.”

Silence plays between them all, buzzing on his skin.

It isn’t fair how calm it answers, “What?”

-

A break in our regularly scheduled programming! The girls are coming back soon prommy (I've got things Plotted. I've got Hard Deadlines for it. The WorksTM) but I really wanted to do this prompt and I had a setting and AU that just works you know?

I've tried to make my dear woofwoofs comprehensible without any prior knowledge and the reviews say I've done pretty well, so hopefully, if you read this, you can enjoy it! (This was... an issue in earlier drafts 🤦)

Happy Leap Day!!!

[flailingfrog]

what if unicorn cowboy

[flailingfrog]

Previously: Little Black Dress | Perimeter

“It's okay that you ran.”

Irina stays where she is, more than an arms-length across the sidewalk, her hands still extended and empty. “Lourdes, I'm sorry. I scared you, and your reaction was natural.”

Lourdes knows she sees them trembling. How could she not? They're shaking so hard they're having trouble keeping a grip on the wall. Their appeasement was sour with it, unconvincing and rote. They know better. 

But she hasn't grabbed them to drag them back to the car, though they wouldn't have fought if she did. She hasn't touched them once since the bridge. 

“I'm– scared?” they echo, trying out the word. 

They're supposed to be. They're supposed to be alive with fear, a rabbit racing and racing until the cat finally tires of playing with it - but they're never, ever supposed to say so. This rabbit must smile for the claws that shred it, arch its body into death's grip like the eager whore it is. 

Irina doesn't understand the rules. She only nods, smiling a little sadly. “It's natural to be scared. The way I got you away from him was very sudden and violent. And you've had to be scared of him for a long time, I think. Is that right?”

“I–” Lourdes doesn't decide to sit down. But their good leg buckles under them, and rough cement scrapes their back open as they slide down the wall. Their breath catches against bright terror over and over, and in the blur creeping across their vision the warble of Irina's movement is too much. They fling up a hand, testing the distance between them. 

“Don't touch–”

Another rule broken, another forbidden phrase. When will she snap? When will she tire of pretending to let them say anything and run before they're told? What will it take for her to break the nameless, formless feeling burgeoning in their chest with a return to normal? 

“I won't,” she promises. 

Liar. 

It helps. Finally, something that they can understand, something to which they can shape themself in response. Of course she’ll touch. Everyone does. They breathe deeply, all the way in and all the way out. Their vision slowly refocuses. She's playing the long game with them. That's alright. They know how to play too. 

Someone skirts by their little tableau, eyes firmly on the street as they sidestep the sidewalk to get around them. People don’t look up in this part of town. 

Irina’s head turns, tracking them till they’re around the corner. She crouches across the sidewalk from Lourdes, tilting her head to watch as they start picking the glass out of their foot. 

“So, we need to get past the police line,” she starts softly, conversational as if they’re discussing dinner options. “I have some things in my car that might help. Different clothes, shoes, stuff like that. Bandages, too. For your foot. I think the best plan is to walk through, since they’ll be focused on cars, and then once we’re through I’ll get us a ride to where I was actually planning to switch cars. Sound doable to you?” 

Lourdes drops a bit of glass. It tings softly, barely audible against the underlying hum of the city. They run a testing thumb over the bottom of their foot. 

“And then what?” 

“Then I’ll tell you where I’m headed next. And you’ll tell me whether you want to come with me or whether you’d rather head out on your own.” 

Lourdes stills the flare of resentment before it can rise to twist their face. They know exactly where runaway pets with no real people to help them go. It’s the same sort of choice pets are always given. 

This time, they put effort into the tremble of their lip, the plaintive need in the way they lift their eyes to hers and extend a hand to ask for help up. 

“Okay. I can do that much, I think.” 

She gives them a too-long stare as she pulls them to their feet, but only offers her arm when they wobble through the first bright burst of pain as they put their foot down. 

They wish she’d just call them on it. They hope she doesn’t. If she tells them what she does want, they just might believe her. 

The car offers a welcome distraction from their circling thoughts. Irina pops the trunk and unzips the duffel bag inside it. 

“Here,” she offers, pulling out a dark pair of sweatpants, a long-sleeved tee, and hoodie. “You can put these on over the dress if you don’t want to change out here.” 

Lourdes’ flat look goes unnoticed as she continues diving for socks and a pair of sneakers. They strip quickly and flash a smirk as she bangs her head on the trunk at the sight of them. 

“Like what you see?” 

“I’ll like you not getting arrested for streaking,” she says drily. “Hurry up, it’s freezing out here.” 

They slip into the clothes without comment. Everything is baggy and a little too long, but the shoes stay on well enough once they wrap the laces around their ankles. Irina continues pulling things out of the duffel. Lourdes recognizes an array of makeup and wrinkles their nose. 

“This isn’t the right outfit for makeup.” 

“It’s for disguise. They’ll probably have a picture of you, but they won’t look as hard at a boyfriend.” 

Lourdes glances down across their outfit. Something feels… they shiver, willing their ghosts to stay where they left them in the white rooms. “You can do that with makeup?” 

“Yep. You ever heard of drag kings?” 

“...Queens?” 

“Yeah, same idea.” Irina turns on a small battery-powered light and guides Lourdes to sit on the edge of the trunk. She rattles through a bag of makeup. “Except people dress up as guys. I go out some weekends, have fun with it. I don’t have my full kit along, but with some contouring and a baseball cap I think you’ll pass. Try to think about the way your ex-asshole walks, like he owns the world.” 

“And drop my voice,” they try, slipping into a register they’ve never used with Geoff. It fits easier than every tailored piece he ever dressed them up in. 

“Yeah, exactly like that.” Irina flicks them a pleased glance, and for the first time since she pulled them out of Geoff’s car they feel like they’ve done something right. They tilt their head easily with her light touch along their face, letting their eyes drift over her shoulder to watch the entrance to the alleyway. Finally, she lifts up their hair and sweeps it up into a baseball cap. 

“Okay… take a look, tell me what you think.” She offers them the small mirror from her bag. 

Lourdes squints in the low light. The face in the little compact… they look at Irina, startled, waiting for a joke. She only smiles a little, refusing to give them a hint at how to react. They go back to the compact. 

“I look…” they glance at her again. It’s nothing like how they’re supposed to look. The angles of their jaw look sharper, their eyelids bare of color but heavier somehow. This isn’t the kind of makeup they were taught, which emphasizes their lips and cheekbones and clogs their eyelashes with heavy mascara. 

Geoff wouldn’t like it. 

“It looks good.” They grip the little compact tighter. They can like things without him. He’s not here to smother them with their need for him. 

“Yeah? I’m glad.” Irina tosses her supplies back in the trunk and shuts it as Lourdes stands up off the bumper. “Oh, one last thing. Can you get that bracelet off?” 

Lourdes fidgets with the hoodie’s sleeve until the long silver cuff is displayed again. “Why?” 

“I’ve got something that will cover your barcode. It’s just temporary, but it’ll fool scanners if the police line has any.” 

Lourdes inches the bracelet down over their wrist slowly, holding their breath against the discomfort of folding their thumb inwards enough to work the metal over their palm. 

“Eugh,” Irina observes sympathetically. “Did he make you put that on?” 

“We were going to a club with a no-pets policy.” 

“So he was going to just sneak you in anyway. Typical.” 

They lift a shoulder, noncommittal. It’s his right, isn’t it? They’re his pet. 

Are. Until another option is proven safe. They can’t let themself think of words like were. Not yet. 

Their wrist, proffered meekly to Irina, inks truth in stark lines across their skin. A product made for a purpose. 

She peels what looks like a square of clear plastic out of a paper sleeve, then smooths it over their wrist. It sticks like a bandage. As they watch, tilting their wrist a little to watch the play of light across it, the clear shine of it starts to melt away. They hiss a startled breath as the black of their barcode fades as well, disappearing into their skin as if it was never there. They yank their wrist away and step closer to the light, rubbing their thumb over the skin. Their skin feels… covered, slightly, but their thumb against it detects only a slight textural difference between the rest of their arm and where their barcode should be. 

“It’s not gone,” they confirm, looking back over their shoulder at Irina. “Is it?” 

“It’s still there. A friend of mine has been working on these for a while now, patches for temporary cover-ups. It’ll match your skin tone, but it’s specifically calibrated to ignore the shade of ink that WRU uses for their barcodes, and overlay the skin tone it picks up from the area around it instead. Scanners will read skin there, unlike if I were to just try to pack foundation over it until the tattoo was hidden. Lately they’ve been working for a full day, which is really exciting since it gives our people who haven’t wanted or been able to get the barcode fully removed a safe way to seek employment.” Irina grins and locks the car. “Now. You’re my boyfriend and we’re going to dinner. Ready to go scam some police?” 

Lourdes follows her out of the alley, still absorbed in watching the play of streetlamps across the skin of their wrist. As warm yellow flares with the blue and red of the police line, they snap to attention and yank their hoodie sleeve down. Irina’s fingers splay open at her side, inviting them to link hands with her. Her palm is warm and dry against theirs, as steady as her voice as she chirps a hello at the police officer watching pedestrian traffic. 

He glances across them, outwardly disinterested. “Where are you two headed tonight?” 

“Dinner,” Irina says brightly. Her voice is higher than a moment ago, her competent, brisk delivery softened into a more lilting, laughter-edged invitation. “We were thinking Chinese, right babe? Or maybe Thai.” 

Lourdes nods. 

“Got ID on you?” 

“Oh yeah, sure. What’s going on, was there an accident or something?” She pulls a slim cardfold out of her pocket and flips it open to show the officer the card in a clear case on the inside. “You brought your wallet, right babe?” 

Lourdes makes a show of patting their free hand across their pockets, hoping the movement will disguise the way their hand shakes. “Uh, no. Guess I forgot.” 

“Seriously?” Irina swivels to face them, exasperation painted across her features. “So I guess dinner’s on me again, right? You know, I’m starting to think you forget on purpose, you always do this, you call me up and it’s all, ‘hey, babe, you hungry? I wanna take you out babe, you deserve it, let me spoil you,’ and then you fucking leave your wallet–” 

“Alright, alright,” the officer interrupts. He hands Irina’s cardfold back, visibly annoyed. “Just show me your wrists, both of you, and you can take your argument elsewhere.” 

“Our wrists? Why– for fuck’s sake, fine, whatever.” Irina yanks her hand out of Lourdes’ and makes a show of shoving her sleeves up and baring her wrists for inspection. “Happy, officer?” 

“Him next.” 

Lourdes slides their sleeves up and proffers their wrists. The police officer glances at their face, then unhooks the scanner on his belt. The rush of blood in their ears partially drowns out Irina’s brassy protest. The scanner beeps over each wrist. 

“Move along,” he says, back to boredom. “And ma’am, keep your voice down.” 

Irina grabs their hand and tugs them up the sidewalk. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, I’m hungry. And if I’m paying, I’m picking.” 

She carries on until they turn the next corner. Lourdes follows, playing the chastised boyfriend with their head hung low and their free hand, with its hidden barcode, stuffed into the pocket of their hoodie. 

Out of sight of the police line, Irina drops her sentence in the middle and breathes out in explosive relief. “Fuck, it never gets easier. Are you okay?” 

Lourdes nods. They can feel their palm trembling against hers. They squeeze her hand tighter, hoping she won’t let go. 

“You were amazing,” she says, smiling as she squeezes them back. “The hard part’s over. You got out, and you’re safe. Now we’ve just got to call my ride and wait for them to get here, okay?” 

“Okay,” Lourdes echoes. They repeat it back to themself. They’re out. They’re safe. But the hard part’s just beginning: they might have to believe it. 

[flailingfrog]

It's such a mervyn peake dead rat poem morning

One of the poems ever.

[flailingfrog]

Safe From Harm

I’ve been on holiday but I have some bits to contribute to the BBU Community Day 3, Discipline (and technically Day 4, Facility). Thank you @bbu-on-the-side​!

@neuro-whump​, @rosesareviolentlyread​, @whumper-in-training​, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @whumpsday, @firewheeesky, @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question, @highwaywhump

Handler Gisemba always arrived on time. 831010 knew she did, because she always scolded him for not being ready on time. “What are you doing?” she’d snap, as he scrambled to stand and present himself properly. “You have been wasting so much time. There is work to do.”

Handler Gisemba always had work for him to do. Her hands were full of it, her sleeves rolled back from it, her hair kept tightly-wound away from it. Sometimes it was cleaning, other times cooking, or laundry, or gardening, or handywork. Handler Gisemba oversaw his attendance to a majority of the household upkeep courses, along with the other trainees she managed. Every day she watched over them as they worked at the direction of the instructor, and came to inspect their performance. At the end of each week, she announced her rankings.

831010 was a new trainee when he first saw the rankings posted. Huddled among the others, arms tight around his knees and collar heavy around his neck, he watched the Handler set a list of numbers on her whiteboard in their training room. From top to bottom she wrote, and 831010 glanced around as the others smiled and relaxed, then tensed and flinched, depending on how long it took for their number to appear.

In that sea of white shirts and soft, white trousers, which almost everyone had managed to keep pristine through all the work they’d done, proving their dedication to clean and diligent work, 831010 felt like an outlier. He had a yellow stain on one knee. He had dirt under his fingernails. His body ached and his joints screamed as he tried to hold the same neat position as he others.

His number was written at the bottom of the list. It had only been a few days since he started. But there he was, mercilessly condemned.

Keep reading

[flailingfrog]

If you’re unhappy with who you are, view yourself as a foundation. You will expand, you will grow and you will reassess, while also realizing that who you are is necessary to who you’re becoming, and that there’s an inherent goodness inside of you already. It’s okay to start from where you are, with who you are.

[flailingfrog]

A Reintroduction of Sorts

TW: BBU-adjacent setting, dehumanization, abuse

Holly does her best. Kit knows this, deep and well into her gut. But she does the same thing everyone else does and carries on like there isn’t a crack in her world even when it’s obvious that there’s something there, edging worry into her. It’s obvious, when you know what to look for, and Holly doesn’t wear it the same as Daphne did, but there’s a stress to her hands, a permanent tug at her shoulders and lips. Kit knows Holly well enough to know what they mean.

But Holly doesn’t want to discuss it, so Kit won’t bring it up, at least not directly. She’s very good at side-stepping issues like that—It’s part of what made her a good pet to Daphne. Besides, Daphne always said there were ways to make someone feel better other than talking.

Kit would still like to know what it was—What about looking at her left Holly’s lips thinning. Maybe then the tightness in her chest and threatening pain in her neck disappear.

Part of the anxiety is good, of course. Being anxious means she cares, and she should. After all, today is the day Holly takes her home. Her nerves need this sticky coating of not quite terror.

She’s never met her husband, or her children. And she’s never been to Holly’s house. It’s too messy, which Holly says is the nature of three kids, a husband, and busy lives, and that there’s only so much you can ask Renee to do in a day when she’s also cooking and helping Holly with her Etsy store and the kids. Renee sets off her nerves, too, though that bit she can admit is unreasonable. Renee and her will probably make great friends, if Holly allows it.

She’s settled perfectly for the moment Holly will arrive: Daphne had arranged the living room so that from the largest of the couches you could look straight across the coffee table to the front door. To herself, Kit can admit she’s always thought the furniture clashed with the wall of glass, high ceilings, and large, sparkly tiled black floors. It’s like her, though, and she’d feel warmer about that if Daphne weren’t gone.

Her crochet bag’s by her feet and she works on one of her current projects, one of what was supposed to be a series of rose doilies her and Daphne made as a pair.

The key scratches in the front door’s lock. Kit wills her heart to stop thumping and looks up from her vantage point on the couch. Downstairs, as the door scrapes across the inner floor mat, Paul starts to yap, which Kit forgives even as it stings through her brain.

It doesn’t show in the easy smile she always gives Holly from rising to her face as the door opens, doily slid back into her bag, and that is another success today.

But it’s not Holly at the door. It’s Nikole, Holly trailing after her with a flat face that makes Kit’s heart stutter.

“Does he always bark like that?” Nikole asks over her shoulder to Holly.

“He’s a barky guy,” Holly says, then to Kit. “He still downstairs?”

“Yes, Holly.” She hadn’t asked her to carry him up them. She digs through the words regardless, looking for any sign of what she’d done.

It must’ve been something bad for Holly to bring Nikole. Of course, asking’s out of the question. She shouldn’t have questions, not the kind that wouldn’t leave Daphne with a fond smile to her lips. She should just know what she did. Can she effectively lie about it this time? Her heart is a traitor in her chest.

Nikole looks away from where she’d frozen staring at the quilt on the wall to Kit, and already Kit can see something building in her. “You’re on the couch?”

Kit’s mouth freezes in the smile meant for Holly. She reaches for it, wills it to act for Nikole, but can’t locate her nerve.

Before she can be punished for it, Holly speaks up, sharper than Kit would dare. “Daphne let her on the couch.”

She could melt into her for the defense, press apologetic words into her skin for whatever she’s done.

But Nikole doesn’t so much as tilt towards her, even as Paul reaches a new crescendo. “Even when she wasn’t home?” Her legs carry her in measured steps deeper into the house, and Holly follows, softer.

This is stupid. That’s what Kit thinks. And she would smack herself for it if she were by herself, because that’s not a thought Kit’s supposed to have. The itchiness of annoyance isn’t supposed to be there, either. Under that, there’s an ache. This is different and she misses Daphne. Her face stays in perfect bland pleasantry as she asks, “Do you want me off the couch?”

“Yes,” she says, and Kit’s heart ratchets at how little it gives her.

She slides to her knees. She shouldn’t have asked. Asking would’ve upset Daphne, and Nikole is worse than Daphne. She’s been to the family events, has seen the way Nikole snaps at her daughter and husband over imagined slights.But sitting there, Nikole digging into her as she danced around an issue so easily fixed…

She aches.

On the other side of the table, Nikole stares at her.

She tries to keep her focus on her, face bent to neutrality and care even as her heart beats faster. She keeps waiting for her to speak, but she doesn’t.

Her eyes flit past her to Holly, as covert a question as she dares. Holly looks back with something Kit thinks might be guilt, and she barely has time to snap an internal rubber band at the elation that comes with it before Nikole speaks.

“What are you looking at her for?”

She snaps back to attention at the accusation.

Frowns settle easily on Nikole’s face, and this one is no different. “Don’t you think you should focus on your owner?”

“Nikole—“ Holly reaches for her, but Nikole flinches away and Holly follows suit, as strongly as if she hit her, further away from the pair than where she started.

Kit doesn’t dare look at Holly, her eyes stuck somewhere at Nikole’s collarbone. Holly said she was going to take her home. She pretends Paul can understand the terrible fate that’s befallen them from even downstairs and that’s why he won’t stop barking. It’s easier to deal with the pulse of pain brought on by each sharp burst of noise that way. If it made all the other pain easier, she’d never stop pretending.

Eventually, Nikole will be as familiar to her as Holly or her mother. For now she isn’t. The safest option, she tries for as much earnestness as she can spare, as much as she dares, and says, “I’m sorry, Niko—”

*“Miss,” she interrupts, a haziness to her. “You can call me Miss.”

For all intents and purposes, Kit and Nikole are alone. Very soon, that will be the reality, too. Something drips in her at the thought.

*Her face has fallen out of standard, but she puts back on a smile as soon as she can muster and says, “I’m sorry, Miss.”

“Look at me.”

She wouldn’t refuse a direct order.

Nikole holds her gaze for a long second, mouth a thin line, as tightly coiled as a snake. And then she relaxes with a cock of her head, and for half a moment, Kit can almost relax, too.

“What other bad habits did my mother let you develop?” Nikole asks.

For a second, she can’t process the words. There’s something scrambling in her throat, a smokiness to her thoughts that leaves her woozy. If you had asked Kit before Nikole came through the door, she’d have said she didn’t have any bad habits. She was perfectly suited, the best friend an old lady like Daphne could ask for.

Out the corner of her eye, Holly almost says something to Nikole, jittering in an almost-step into Nikole’s space, but then she stops, glancing at Kit. Kit doesn’t dare glance back. She’s too busy trying to answer properly. Her throat’s grown too thick. She searches for any flaws Daphne had pointed out in the last few weeks, but as always, there’s nothing.

Instead of an answer, Paul echoes off the high ceilings and inside her skull.

*“You’re taking too long.”

She’s too aware of her heart in her chest. She ducks her head to fulfill the image of contriteness demanded, hands cupped in her lap. It’s like she’s admitting to some kind of crime when she says, “I’m sorry, Miss. I can’t think of any.”

“Why is Paul downstairs?”

Paul barks his own accusation, a throttle to Kit’s heart.

Her chest squeezes her tighter. She manages to say evenly, “His things are downstairs, and he can’t walk up the stairs.”

“So you didn’t think to carry him?”

It’s an accusation, but she can’t grasp the crime. “No one asked me to.” She doesn’t let it sound like she’s begging for understanding. No one likes when you beg. If she explains calmly enough—

“So you’re lazy.”

The words dunk her in water, and she missteps. “No, Miss, it’s just—”

“And you’re argumentative.”

Her mouth snaps shut, the label tight around her. She focuses on the whorls of her fingertips as she fights to keep her shoulders rounded.

“I want you to say it.”

She chances a glance up at Nikole. From the floor, Nikole towers over her, even when Kit knows her new owner’s shorter than her. She fights the urge to glance at Holly, knowing she’s already pushing her as her stomach clamps. She pushes down the thoughts that she shouldn’t have and instead pushes worse. “Miss?”

“Did you not hear me the first time?” she asks, a snip to the warning. Daphne used that word a lot when describing her daughter. It’s like her chest is aching all over again.

Her mouth tries to do something funny, and she’s not quite sure what it is, only that it makes her temple pulse. She forces her jaw to work out, an even mumble, “I’m argumentative.”

“Louder,” she says, the upper knees of her faded light blue jeans pressing into the coffee table. Nikole doesn’t look at Kit like she could ever love her. She doesn’t think she could even love Paul.

Louder, loud enough to be heard clearly over Paul downstairs, she just manages not to rasp, “I’m argumentative.”

*Nikole leans over, sides of her cardigan brushing against the magazines on the table with a slick noise. “That’s right. And my mother might have tolerated argumentative, but I won’t. If you talk back again, you don’t want to know what I’ll do.” She pauses, and the words sit between them just long enough for Kit to feel sick.

Then she says, “You can pack two bags for you and a smaller one for Paul.”

*It’s nowhere near enough for either of them. But it’s not her place to argue. She should be grateful. She reminds herself that in the death of an owner, several pets have it worse. She could be refurbished if Nikole so chose, and even the thought leaves her damper, but instead she’s just…

Being forced out of her home with far too little for her or the little dog Daphne has always trusted her to care for.

*Kit is not grateful. Instead, she is bad.

She still nods, not daring to try and see what Holly’s doing now that she’s gone quiet.

Nikole stares down at her, and Kit waits for her dismissal.

Finally, she says, “I meant now.”

*“Thank you, Miss,” Kit manages, loud enough she won’t be asked to be repeated, and she leaves the room as quickly as she can.

-

@angst-after-dark @black-hole-cobra

[flailingfrog]

One trap that All the Time Daydreamers, Sometimes Writers, fall into is this idea that writing is transcribing the daydream.

It's not. The daydream is a fuzzy thing. There are gaps that you don't need to fill in a daydream, because you already get the emotional point. A lot of it is emotion. And because it makes you feel like a complete story would, your brain is tricked into thinking that's what you have.

Then you sit down to actually write the thing and you realize you're trying to write a Space Opera without actually inventing any planets or space ships. You don't even know if the characters start out on the same planet. If they're on a planet at all. You didn't bother to check.

Now you will vaguely reference this in first-second person in any writing guide you make up for the rest of time.

When you write, you're building something. It's not a pale imitation of what you have in your head- what you have in your head can't exist on the outside. This is a whole new beast. It's going to ultimately look different and this is a good thing.

Also the internal critic is dumb.

I'm not even trying to be nice to your writing specifically here. The internal critic is looking for a completed story and you don't have one yet. So anything it has to say flat out does not apply.

[flailingfrog]

Raid

Adrian takes part in a WRU raid.

[pet safety masterpost]

Content / warning: BBU, frankly discussed noncon (by whumpers), implied forced prostitution, WRU things, reacquisition teams, biting, beating. It starts very fluffy, but most of this is in fact very much not.

Slowly, Adrian and Bea began to develop a routine. Marta helped, from a distance, sharing what she knew from years of safehouse work and adapting it to Adrian's reality.

Physical activities, she had recommended. Touch that is affectionate, yet not physical. Defining and defending boundaries for each of them.

It was a challenging journey for both of them, but Adrian found himself enjoying the ride.

Bea helped with and prepared cooking. She didn't have any words for it, and barely any memory, but there was definitely some physical memory to kitchen assistance - with the slight drawback, that that had been with full vision, as they'd learned the hard way when she'd seriously cut herself while chopping onions, and the ER had sent them off because they wouldn't treat pets.

From then on, there were weekly therapy sessions for Bea, a work therapist (WRU-licence for work with pets) visiting them at home and teaching her how to deal with her vision impairment.

Bea refused to leave the apartment without him, but he taught her how to order groceries via app and she took over that task, too.

And then, there was dancing.

Every day after Adrian came home from work, he'd put on a playlist and they'd dance in the small space of his living room for almost an hour. Bea was a great dancer - of course she was, he thought grimly, nobody came out of WRU's training who didn't have perfectly sensual movements and flexibility. But she also seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

They danced Salsa, New York style, and Bea took to it like a fish to water. When he was at work, she browsed YouTube playlists he'd set up for her to find new combinations or try out stylings and decorations, and after he had been the one to teach her for their first two or three sessions, the roles were quickly reversed and she became the teacher.

"That pet really does wonders on you," his colleague at work said. "Haven't gotten laid enough before, huh?"

"She's fantastic," Adrian would reply then, nonchalantly enough not to provoke any follow up questions, and he'd hate that it was true. He was better.

Happier.

Of course, this didn't last long.

---

Adrian was just filing away the reports on his last uneventful inspection, humming the tune of a Salsa song, when his phone rang.

"Hey, Delgado," Kelly's voice was pressed. "Need you for a raid downtown. Illegal brothel, WRU pets involved. Police have requested a WRU team to deal with them. Dispatching three handlers and you. Departure in five. You'll answer to Grimm."

Grimm. The asshole who'd performed 'quality assurance' on Bea. It was even more sickening to imagine now, than it had been back then.

"Grimm and I aren't exactly-"

She cut him off. "You're both professionals, Adrian. He's the most senior employee on the team. Deal with it." She'd hung up, before he could add anything.

Cussing, Adrian grabbed his protective gear and jogged to the car park.

"PSI Delgado," Grimm greeted him, as he eased himself in the back of the van. "What an unpleasant surprise. I don't exactly need moral guidance to raid a house full of second hand Romantics."

"Seems our bosses think you do." Demonstratively, Adrian reached to his chest and turned on the body cam. "Pet Safety means to keep WRU property safe and well-kept. Would be a shame for the company if that weren't your highest prerogative."

Grimm clicked his tongue. "How's your own little whore anyway, eh? You keeping her safe and well-fucked? Or you defending your moral-superiority-slash-virginity against her?"

Adrian grabbed the handle over the door as the van went into a sharp curve. "What happens in my bedroom is none of your business."

"Ah, I see." He chuckled. "Nothing much, then. She's fun when you get her to scream, you know? Three fingers up the ass should do the job."

Adrian forced himself to remain calm. "What about the mission, Grimm?"

"Illegal brothel, bunch of whores with bar codes on their wrists. Police are coming in for the gangsters running it, need us to secure and seize the pets."

"How many?"

"Half dozen Romantics. Guard Dog or two." Grimm smirked. "My handlers and I will handle the Romantics, so you don't need to burden yourself with that depravity."

"Called the wife already, not to wait up," one of the other handlers chimed in. "Going to be a long night evaluating the products. We'll need to make sure they're still functional."

"While Delgado here can check if the Guard Dogs are still functional," Grimm added cheerfully. "Excellent team work."

"Truly." Adrian grinned at him darkly. "Always a pleasure working with other departments."

In his pocket, a burner phone was holding connection to his sister's, continuously sending his location data in the background.

---

It was worse than he'd expected.

Somehow, it always was.

None of the Romantics were registered to the brothel's owners. Runaways, who had either been collected off the streets by criminals or even taken the job up by themselves, earning money by doing the one thing they thought they were good at.

All of them had one thing in common - they were terrified seeing the dark gray WRU uniforms.

Some of them folded into Respect position even without the command, crying and whimpering.

Some tried to make a run for it.

Like the young man Adrian was pinning to the wall right now, barely twenty, high cheekbones, tousled black hair that fell down his back. His translucent robe hid nothing, not the too thin shape of his body, nor the bruises on his neck and thighs.

"Please," he whimpered. "Please, Sir, no, I can't go back, I'll do anything, please."

Adrian pressed him closer into the wall and leaned in. The boy reacted by curving his body against him, baring his neck, trying to rub his ass at Adrian's crotch.

Adrian squirmed. No. He couldn't do this. "See that window to our right?" he hissed. "There's a roof underneath. You hit me, get out there, down, two left turns, there's a red car. Get there, and you'll be safe."

From the end of the corridor, someone whistled. "Delgado trying to get some after all, huh? Need help?"

Adrian flipped the handler off, while he wrestled the pet's legs apart with his knee in an effort to show her what she expected to see. "Not help, fucking privacy would be nice!"

She chuckled. "Sure thing. We help each other, don't we? Be quick." He heard her press a button on her radio. "First floor clear."

Adrian reached for his own pants, pulled open his belt, while watching her leave.

His lips brushed over the boy's ear. "Got it?"

"Sure." The boy pushed back his ass. "I give you a good time and you look away for a second," he purred.

"No. You don't give me anything," Adrian said sharply. "No time. You hit me, you get to the red car. You ran away once, you do it again. Now."

He loosened his grip, and luckily, the kid had understood.

He spun around and punched him in the stomach, then a knee between the legs.

Adrian's loud whine wasn't entirely fake, as he stumbled back and rolled up on the floor. The kid stared at him for a second, and then darted towards the window Adrian had indicated, long hair flying past him like a flag.

Adrian counted to five, before he hit the button of the radio and yelled "Fuck! One got away!"

He just prayed it was true.

"One whore doesn't matter," Grimm's voice cracked in the radio. "Found the jackpot down here, be useful for once, Delgado. Basement, now."

Adrian pushed himself back to his knees. His cheek throbbed where the kid's punch had landed, not much more, but the kick between the legs had been hard. He groaned, as he started to limp towards the stairs.

The police had mostly retreated, a bunch of well dressed people loaded in the back of police trucks, some other officers carrying out computers from upstairs.

Adrian's colleagues however were in the basement, where a group of four trembling pets was huddled up behind a huge Guard Dogs shielding them against the handlers. He was growling lowly, swinging a long iron bar in one hand.

The handlers kept safe distance at the bottom of the stairs, shock batons and guns ready.

"Why don't you just shoot the dude?", the woman who'd been upstairs with Adrian demanded.

"Big guy is worth a mill," Grimm said lowly. "Top grade. Has titanium enforcements and shit. Reacquisition have been on the lookout for him for months. He'll go to refurb in mint condition, and still be on the larger end of six figures."

"Go. Away," the Guard Dog growled.

"Ressource guarding." Adrian mumbled. "Classic side effect of that sort of conditioning. Question is, does he defend all of them, or just one."

"Check the files." Grimm gestured at one of the handlers. "Did one of them escape with him?"

"Twink at the left. Not even a Romantic by designation. Domestic. Valet to their owner. Worth... neglectable."

"Huh." Grimm raised his gun and fired.

The gunshot echoed from the walls, deafening by itself, multiplied by the inhuman scream that rose from the Guard Dog's throat when the Domestic went down.

He lunged forward, at the same moment something pushed into Adrian's back.

Adrian only had time to draw his shock baton before the Guard Dog was on him, metal teeth sinking into the armour on his neck, digging through it, tearing skin and flesh. Grimm, he dimly thought. Fucking Grimm had pushed him in the line of attack.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't even raise his arm with the baton, could only scream, as the man on top of him shook his head with Adrian's neck between his teeth.

Punches rained down on the Guard Dog, vibrating in Adrian's body, his bones, his skull, everywhere. He couldn't see straight, everything a foggy blur, the only thing sharp the teeth in his neck.

There were calls around him, screams and footsteps and groans, and then finally, finally a heavy weight sinking down on him, a release of the stinging hold of his neck, and the welcoming darkness of unconsciousness.

---

When Adrian came to in the hospital the first time, it was for some minutes to a doctor changing the IV bag.

The second time was at night, when he woke up disoriented, trembling from a nightmare about Eric wearing a translucent robe, kissing his neck, then turning into a zombie biting him. Adrian's trembling fingers found a thick bandage around his neck. He rang the nurse for painkillers.

The third time, late in the morning, it was to Handler Grimm sitting in a chair next to his bed.

He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep again and make him go away.

It didn't work.

"Morning, Delgado," Grimm said cheerfully. "Man, you really went all in for the team there, didn't you?"

"Fuck you," Adrian rasped. "You fucking threw me to him as.... as bait."

"You wore armor," Grimm said with a shrug. "And you messed up right before. Plus, you're a fucking pain in the ass." He clasped Adrian's shoulder, and Adrian gasped in pain as it tore at the fresh wound. "And it worked out. I'll cash in the reacquisition bonus, and both of us will keep silent about the details, eh? I'll get you a share."

"What... about the pets?"

"Got more than half of them. They're on the Drip as we speak. Your cutie is still on the run, but don't worry, they all get picked up sooner or later. Until then, I'll make sure you'll get a little solace."

Adrian groaned, and Grimm just chuckled. "Was good working with you, eh? Cheers, PSI Delgado."

Adrian passed out, came back, and passed out again.

Somewhere in between, in the fleeting moments of consciousness, he felt someone curl up at his side, gentle hands brushing over his skin.

"I'm with you," a soft voice whispered. "I'm with you, Adrian Delgado, and I'm keeping you safe." She hummed against his skin, the cheerful tune of a Salsa song.

This time, when he fell asleep, he smiled.

--

---

tag list (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @gottawhump @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @highwaywhump @tauntedoctopuses @pigeonwhumps @whumppsychology @labgrowndemon n @whumpinggrounds @somewhumpyguy @whumpzone @tragedyinblue

[flailingfrog]

The Bitten Hand

Masterpost 

CW: heavy dehumanisation, animalisation, whumper POV, Tullo is getting Weird(er)

AN: In a failure of democracy, the poll did say that the majority of people wanted the invader/king to get a name, but I realised that I prefer him without one. 

-

The King expected the Earl and his men to arrive buzzing for stories of his invasion, of his martial spirit and the famed might of his soldiers. The Earl, bowing and hard-eyed, did compliment the very strategic skill which had starved his peasants until he capitulated. Soldiers who had fought on opposite sides of the fields and forests, however, could not easily share their feats. The dungeons were already filling fast with men of both sides who could not break bread peacefully, proving Sir Quellin’s injunction not to allow weapons in the dining hall correct, churlish as it had seemed. There was only one story which held appeal, which was whispered and regaled and retold. A common enemy, a coward and a turncoat, a man who had taken the place of a dog.

Is this the King you follow, that would do that to a man?

Is it a man who would do that? Is that the Duke of Arlington that you would ally with? I saw him run alongside the hunt with the dogs. He’s filthy, you can smell him as much as see him. He does not speak- only barks.

Bullshit he does!

Aye, barks and growls like a cur. He went mad from the dungeons. And now he eats meat from the King’s fingers, and sleeps beside his chair.

I heard it was grief that drove him mad.

Either way- your precious duke is our King’s lapdog.

No duke of mine.

Of course, friend.

Tell us about the hunts, you never saw them…

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