#//so bizarre much terrible wow

[txtaetertots]

meet cute | choi yeonjun

pairing non-idol!yeonjun x gn!reader

wc 4.6k

genre strangers to lovers, fluff, lowkey crack

summary you meet your best friend’s roommate in the most bizarre borderline violating way possible.

warnings crack kinda wack, swearing, mentioned/implied nudity, yeonjun’s an embarrassing mess, suggestive joke at the end oop

notes this has been a wip for a few months now i thought it would be a funny little one shot to write.. i had too much fun writing it i fear pls enjoy 😅

most couples have what they call a meet-cute. in other words, a cute or unique situation in which they met. sometimes they’re quirky and awkward. and the way you and yeonjun met was definitely… something of the sort.

“i feel sticky,” you whined to your friend beomgyu. it was a hot day. there were barely any clouds to spare some shade and the sun seemed to have chosen to beam down especially hard on you. you tried your best to dress appropriately but even if you were naked there would have been no escape from the intensity of this heat.

beomgyu rolled over to his side and propped himself up on his elbow, squinting as he looked up at you sitting up and soaked in sweat. he grimaced, “ew. you look disgusting.”

you shoved his shoulder, causing him to fall flat on his back, inciting a cackle from him. the two of you had been friends for a little over six months. and in these six months, he quickly became your bestest most trusted friend.

the day you met, you had just finished settling into your new apartment and decided it was finally time to explore your new city. but, you failed to take into account your terrible navigation skills. you ended up in a random pc bang after trying to look for somewhere to regroup before trying again to find that restaurant you heard such good things about. you must have looked lost enough because a random boy sat beside you, peering over your shoulder to look at the way your thumbs twiddled on the naver map.

“you know,” the boy started, startling you. you jumped back, scooting away from him and staring at him with wide eyes. “if you want to find the soshi bar, you should try spelling it right.”

he looked at you innocently, sipping his cola. you furrowed your brows before looking back down at your phone, immediately noticing your spelling mistake. you shrunk in embarrassment as you corrected it before thanking him quietly.

“you must be new to the area. are you a tourist?” the boy asked.

“uhm, no. i just moved here a few days ago,” you answered hesitantly.

he smiled brightly, extending his hand out for you to take. “wow, welcome to the city! i’m beomgyu!”

you gave him a friendly smile before taking his hand and introducing yourself back.

you could’ve just left and forgotten him. but, considering you had no friends in the city, you took him up on his offer to show you around. and what ended up blossoming from that chance interaction was a friendship you’d both treasure for years to come.

“wanna go back to my place and wait for the sun to go down a bit before going back home?” beomgyu offered, getting himself up off the grass and dusting his clothes off.

you nodded, holding your hands out, asking him to help you up to your feet. he grabbed your hands and pulled you up with more force than necessary, causing you to stumble as you tried to catch your balance. if there was one thing beomgyu was good at, it was teasing you as if he were your little brother.

his apartment wasn’t very far from the park you two decided to take a break in after shopping together all morning. the walk felt like an eternity though. you could feel the sweat beads pouring down from your forehead and temples, finding their way down your neck to the collar of your tank top. you felt disgusting.

you came upon beomgyu’s complex and were immediately met with a smack of ac. the sensation was so satisfying you let out a contented sigh. but, your sweat began matting, making you feel even stickier than before.

“beomgyu,” you exasperated as you watched him punch in his door code. “is there any way i can shower here? i don’t think i can stand being this gross any longer.”

beomgyu shrugged, opening his door and letting you in. “sure, i don’t mind. i’ll get you a towel.”

it wasn’t your first time at beomgyu’s place. you’ve actually been over quite a few times. but, despite this, you’ve never met his roommate—yeonjun. beomgyu has told you about him a couple of times saying he was more like an older brother than a roommate. he always says how he wants to introduce you two since you’re both important people to him. but, yeonjun seemed to always be at work. according to beomgyu, he worked at a dance studio as an instructor. he was usually there all day. with the way beomgyu spoke so highly of him, you were sure you would like him and get along well. whenever it would be to finally meet this elusive boy.

beomgyu walked you to their linen closet, grabbing a fresh towel for you to use. “you can just use my products,” he offered as he motioned to the bathroom door.

you thanked him and walked into the bathroom, taking note of the blue basket of shower products labeled ‘beomgyu’. you smiled to yourself as you saw the rose and peony-scented soaps he had. no wonder he smelled so nice, you thought to yourself.

while you got yourself situated, beomgyu went back to his room, deciding to kill some time by playing some video games while he waited for his turn to shower. he sat at his pc and put on his headset, settling into his noise-canceling gaming world.

it felt so good to be out of your gross sweat-drenched clothes and under the clean running water. thank your luck you bought clothes you could get away with wearing until you got home. and thank the heavens you had a friend like beomgyu.

unbeknownst to anyone involved, however, this should-have-been refreshing shower was about to turn into the single most embarrassing and honestly violating moment of your life.

yeonjun was sloppily running up the stairs to his shared apartment with beomgyu. he really had to use the bathroom.

the ac unit at the dance studio stopped working, so they had to close down for the rest of the day much to yeonjun’s disappointment. he was already out of the subway when the urge hit him. he really had to piss. thank god he was just a few minutes away from his apartment.

he inputted the door code and rushed inside, not bothering to check if beomgyu was home. but, he assumed he was upon walking up to the bathroom and hearing the shower running. normal people would stay out of the bathroom when it’s already occupied, but beomgyu and yeonjun only had one bathroom. they had the agreement that it was okay for each other to walk in when needed if either one was showering or brushing their teeth. the only exception was if someone had to take a number two. that could wait until the bathroom was vacant and free of victims. but, yeonjun just had to pee, so it was fine.

the door was locked, which was unusual considering their agreement and should have raised some flags. but yeonjun just shrugged, easily unlocking it with a swift turn of the exterior locking mechanism with his thumbnail. when he swung the door open, he was met with an ear-bursting scream.

you were rinsing beomgyu’s apple-scented shampoo out of your hair when you began hearing noises outside the door. first, it was the sound of the front door opening and closing. then, it was hurried footsteps coming toward the bathroom. finally, it was the sound of the doorknob unlocking and turning. you peered around the curtain when the door swung open, eyes meeting with the man who had his hand on the knob and the color drained from his face. you screamed, clenching the curtain to hide what you could of your naked body.

“get OUT!”

yeonjun froze in place for a few seconds, trying to process what was happening. he stumbled with the door, forcefully slamming it shut. he turned around and leaned his back against the door, eyes still wide and mouth agape. what the fuck.

“what the hell is going on?!” beomgyu exclaimed, running out of his room and to the scene of the crime.

his face fell when he saw yeonjun against the bathroom door clenching his chest and face bright red. the shower stopped running and he could hear you fumbling around. when the puzzle pieces began coming together, beomgyu turned to yeonjun and glared.

“yeonjun, you perv!” he accused.

yeonjun shook his head furiously, taking awkward steps towards beomgyu. he moved his mouth but no words were coming out. of the thousands of thoughts running through his mind at this very moment, all he could say were splutters of sounds and exasperated breaths.

the bathroom door slowly came open, revealing you with the towel wrapped firmly around your figure and your clothes gripped in your arms. beomgyu looked in your direction, eyes sorry. but, yeonjun turned his back, not wanting to make you more violated than you probably already felt. you hurried to beomgyu’s room to change into some of the clothes you bought and get yourself out of this situation as quickly as you possibly could.

beomgyu turned back to yeonjun, crossing his arms and scowling. “mind explaining what you were doing walking in on yn showering?”

yeonjun’s eyes widened again. yn? as in the new friend beomgyu had been gushing to him about for months? the friend he swore up and down yeonjun would probably get along with really well.

“i thought it was you!” yeonjun finally managed to spat.

“you didn’t notice the smaller shoes by the entrance?!” beomgyu pointed.

“i had to piss, gyu! all i had on my mind was getting to the toilet in time!” yeonjun threw his hands up to his hair, clenching a fist full in each and letting out an embarrassed whine. “why didn’t you text me about bringing your friend over?!”

“how was i supposed to know you were leaving the studio early!?”

as the two continued to argue, you paced in beomgyu’s room and bit at your thumb. so, that’s yeonjun.

this wasn’t exactly how any of you planned to introduce yourselves. you’re just grateful the shower curtain saved you from exposing anything to him. still, it was humiliating and terrifying to be walked in on while in such a vulnerable position.

“yn? are you decent?” you heard beomgyu through the door. you cleared your throat, trying to collect yourself before answering with a yes.

the door opened cautiously, beomgyu slowly peering inside and walking in. he looked at you with an apologetic face, opening his arms for you to find comfort in his embrace. you smiled, making your way to him and wrapping your arms around his waist as he wrapped his around your shoulders. he rubbed your back, apologizing you were put in such an unfortunate situation.

“i’m okay, beom. i don’t think he saw anything. besides, it was a misunderstanding,” you reassured. you weren’t mad. it was just startling. and, you were certain yeonjun didn’t have any malicious intent when he barged in on you naked in the shower. as odd as that sounds to say.

you and beomgyu walked out of his room and met with yeonjun who was sprawled on the couch face down.

“hey, pervert,” beomgyu whistled, knocking on yeonjun’s head to prompt him to get up.

“i’m not a pervert!” yeonjun cried, lifting his head. when he looked up, his eyes met with you smiling down at him trying to stifle a laugh after seeing him so sulky. he gasped, falling off the couch in an attempt to get up. the thud caused you and beomgyu to erupt into laughter, watching the taller and older boy try to collect himself.

yeonjun stood up, shoulders stiff as he held his breath. he tried his best to avoid looking at you too long, choosing to stare at the ceiling instead. he was afraid if he looked at you he’d start imagining you the way you looked in the shower. the mere thought of that made his face flush a bright red again.

“yeonjun.. is it?” you asked, walking towards him little by little. he nodded, still insisting on looking everywhere but at you.

“i’m not upset at you for walking in on me anymore,” you comforted. “it was an honest mistake.”

your tone was so reassuring and gentle. he expected you to give him a piece of your mind (and he wouldn’t have been mad about it). he thought he deserved to get yelled at, but you were so understanding and kind. it made him relax a little. yeonjun released his breath, warily turning his attention to you.

once his gaze landed on you, he felt like he was knocked off his feet. his mouth fell slightly agape, face heating up as he admired the beautiful smile painted over your plush lips. your eyes were so kind, giving him a sense of relief.

“i hope i didn’t scar you back there,” you giggled lightheartedly, trying to brighten his mood.

he shook his head, eyes wide and still glued to your face. “no way! you’re gorgeous!”

the moment those words spilled out of his mouth his hand jolted up and slapped over his lips. you were taken aback but immediately fell into a fit of giggles. beomgyu joined you in laughter, absolutely amused by how clumsily yeonjun was behaving. he’s never seen him so flustered.

“i am so sorry,” yeonjun said, shoulders stiffening again. “i swear i didn’t see anything! i don’t know why i said that.”

you shook your head. “no need to apologize! if it makes you feel any better, i think you’re pretty cute yourself.”

none of this was making him feel better.

yeonjun was so embarrassed and hearing you call him ‘cute’ just made him want to crawl into a hole. just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, he practically violated his roommate’s new friend. and, to make that even worse, you seemed to be having fun teasing him about it.

“i’m gonna go now,” he quickly excused himself and ran to lock himself in his room.

you and beomgyu could hear him cursing himself and whining as soon as he closed the door. it was amusing, you’ll admit. but, it also made you feel bad for teasing him. he was clearly full of guilt and incredibly apologetic for the incident. beomgyu hadn’t given him a heads up that there was a guest and he obviously was experiencing a bathroom emergency. you understood him and decided to give him a pass this one time, especially because there was no real harm done besides startling you. as quickly as he intruded he left.

yeonjun didn’t dare step foot outside that room until he was sure you were gone. he paced around, debating whether six hours was long enough of a wait before attempting to crack open his door and check if the coast was clear. he walked up to his door carefully, pressing his ear against it, and held his breath, trying to hear if there were any signs of life besides beomgyu. not a single peep. he opened his door slowly, trying not to catch anyone’s attention in case you were still there.

just when he thought he was safe to come out, beomgyu jumped out from the blindspot of his door. yeonjun let out a scream, hands jolting up to his chest and clutching his shirt. beomgyu began laughing, taking enjoyment out of scaring the easily startled yeonjun.

“beomgyu, what the hell!?” yeonjun yelled, his fear quickly replaced with aggravation.

“sorry, it’s just too easy,” beomgyu teased, trying to suppress his laughter.

“did yn leave?” yeonjun asked, relaxing his arms.

“they left hours ago,” beomgyu informed.

“why didn’t you tell me!?”

“i wanted to see how long you’d keep yourself locked up,” beomgyu shrugged, walking back toward the kitchen.

yeonjun followed him, annoyed but relieved. he took a seat at their dinner table, finally able to relax a little bit and eat something. he didn’t know how much longer he could go listening to his stomach growl. beomgyu rustled around their cabinets and fridge, shaking his head and clicking his tongue.

“we need to do some grocery shopping,” beomgyu announced, shutting the fridge and grabbing his phone out of his back pocket. “wanna order takeout tonight?”

yeonjun nodded in agreement. beomgyu took a seat across from him at the table as he placed an order for their favorite restaurant through an app. yeonjun’s leg bounced as he watched beomgyu place the order, hands clasped together over his chin. the silence between them was making him think and he needed answers before his thoughts ate him alive.

“is yn really okay after what happened?!” he blurted, face twisting into displeasure.

he just couldn’t shake it off. no matter what you said earlier, he felt like he had to do something to make it up to you. it didn’t feel right having you forgive him so easily.

“yeah, they said no harm no foul,” beomgyu replied, eyes never leaving his screen.

yeonjun shook his head. he couldn’t accept it. “but, i say yes harm yes foul!”

beomgyu paused his tapping and looked up from his phone with an amused smile on his face. he raised an eyebrow upon seeing how guilt-ridden yeonjun still was. beomgyu admitted it was kind of a messed up situation, but you insisted that everything was okay.

“what do you want to do then? make it up to them somehow?” beomgyu asked.

“i have to,” yeonjun pleaded. “it’s eating me alive how humiliating that was, gyu.”

beomgyu sighed, tapping a couple more times on his phone before shutting it off and putting it face down on the table. he straightened up, folding his arms over the table, and gave yeonjun his undivided attention.

“okay,” he started. “what do you want to do?”

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

it was a ridiculous idea, but beomgyu would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see yeonjun go through with it. he thought it was a bit extreme, but yeonjun insisted that it was the only way to match up with the situation he accidentally put you in. it made him wonder why yeonjun was putting in this much effort, but the look on yeonjun’s face when he saw you walking up to them gave him the clearest answer.

beomgyu had texted you asking you to meet them at the park by his apartment. something about yeonjun had gone nuts and you needed to be there or else his feelings would never recover. it was weird and cryptic, but it was beomgyu, so you didn’t question it. though, that didn’t stop your confusion as you spotted the two standing and anxiously looking around. as soon as yeonjun spotted you, he smiled brightly and began taking deep breaths to prepare himself.

“hey, guys? what’s going on?” you asked, eyebrows furrowed as you got a better look at yeonjun’s attire.

beomgyu pointed at yeonjun, a smirk on his face knowing what was about to happen next.

yeonjun sighed, “i had to make it up to you somehow for what happened. and this is what i came up with.”

suddenly, yeonjun removed his sweater and sweatpants, revealing himself wearing a rather small pair of brightly colored swim trunks. your hand slapped over your mouth, watching as he rushed to the center of the walkway where buskers usually set up. he yelled trying to grab everyone’s attention, and once he got it, he pointed at beomgyu as a cue. beomgyu had his phone in hand and a small portable speaker in the other. as soon as he got the cue, he pressed play on his phone and music began playing through the speaker.

park patrons watched in amusement, some laughing and others rather appalled at yeonjun’s act. he was dancing and singing to ‘happiness’ by h.o.t, and rather terribly so. he was out of breath, purposefully exaggerating his moves and singing. despite everyone watching, his attention was only on you. watching intently how you were reacting and whether you were watching him at all. and how could you not? it was impossible to look away, you almost didn’t notice beomgyu on the ground holding his stomach from laughing so hard.

three minutes felt like an eternity in this moment, and when they were finally over, you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were keeping in. yeonjun stood in his ending pose for a few seconds, dripping in sweat, skin flushed red, and heaving begging for air. his audience cheered, laughing as he took his bow and rushed back to you and beomgyu. you were speechless as he grabbed his things, slapped beomgyu’s leg prompting him to hurry, and grabbed your hand before running back toward the direction of their apartment.

people on the street stared as you three rushed by and into the apartment building. beomgyu was still in a fit of giggles as you rushed up the stairs and finally into their unit. you stood quietly by the foyer, watching as yeonjun took a moment to catch his breath and beomgyu lay on the couch trying to stop his giggles as he replayed the performance in his head.

“what the hell just happened?” you finally asked, thoughts slowly coming together.

yeonjun stood up straight, still in just his swim trunks. he took one last deep breath, standing before you with his head held high.

“i put myself in a vulnerable, humiliating position to make you feel better for accidentally putting you in one, too,” he proclaimed. “i hope now you can forgive me and feel better about what happened. i’m sorry.”

you stood with your mouth slightly agape, slowly beginning to laugh. beomgyu erupted into laughter again watching you. the embarrassment finally began to settle in for yeonjun, his arms crossing over his bare torso and face turning hot. you sighed, an endeared smile taking over your lips as you reached behind him and grabbed his sweater off the couch. you held it out for him to take, earning a small smile of gratitude from him.

“yeonjun,” you began. “you didn’t have to do all that. i promise everything was fine.”

you paused for a moment, watching the way his lips began to pout. the doe-eyed expression on his face made your chest twist. god, he’s so cute.

“but,” you continued. “i really appreciate you for wanting to make it up to me.”

yeonjun finally smiled, happy to hear you accepted his gesture. you pushed him to go get himself washed up and comfortable while you dealt with beomgyu, who was clutching his stomach in pain.

you plopped beside him, sighing as he sat up and winced. “my abs are on fire.”

“that’s what you get for not talking him out of that!” you scolded.

“i tried to!” beomgyu retorted. “but he was dead set on it. honestly, i think he has a little crush on you.”

beomgyu laid back down continuing to massage his stomach, not thinking twice about what he said. his words were echoing over and over in your head, though. yeonjun has a crush on me? you thought. you bit your bottom lip, hiding the smile threatening to reveal your excitement over that revelation. 

yeonjun walked back into the living room, changed and freshly showered. beomgyu got up, excusing himself to the bathroom to look through their medicine cabinet for a topical pain reliever to massage over his ribs. yeonjun decided to take a seat next to you, finally feeling more relaxed to be near you. but, because he was able to actually look at you, he noticed the way you tensed up as soon as he took a seat beside you. worry began to cloud his thoughts.

“yn? are you sure you’re okay? you seem tense,” he asked, cautiously giving you space in case you were uncomfortable.

you shook your head, placing your hand on yeonjun’s shoulder for reassurance.

“i’m fine, yeonjun! i promise!”

“then, why are you so tense? do i make you uncomfortable? do you not want me here without beomgyu?”

he kept shooting questions at you, wanting to do whatever he could to make sure you felt comfortable and safe around him. you kept insisting that everything was fine and that he didn’t do anything wrong. he wasn’t buying any of it though and begged you to tell him what was wrong.

“you’re gonna laugh,” you warned. “beomgyu said you have a little crush on me.”

yeonjun fell silent for a moment, eyes widened. you stared at him, anxiously waiting for him to respond. an awkward laugh broke his silence, his fingers fidgeting with the drawstring of his sweatpants.

“he said that?” he asked, eyes wandering around the room.

there it was again. he was avoiding making any contact with you. you slowly scooted closer to him, making him freeze.

“well, do you?”

“do i what?”

“do you have a crush on me?”

yeonjun paused, looking at you for a brief moment before straight ahead at the powerless television screen in front of you. he cleared his throat before cautiously answering.

“i mean, i do find you… attractive,” he said. “so… what if i do?”

you smiled, finding his nervous mannerisms cute. 

“would it make you feel better if i told you i had a little crush on you, too?”

yeonjun snapped his head to look at you so quickly you could’ve sworn he got whiplash. his eyes were wide, nostrils flared in bewilderment. he didn’t even try to hide the smile creeping up on his face. he didn’t want to admit it to beomgyu then, but he was smitten from the moment he saw you. your smile, your laugh, your eyes. everything about you was so… pretty. so, so pretty. and it was killing him knowing he might have ruined any chance he had at getting to know you properly because of the incident. who would want to get to know the person who walked in on them in the shower?! even if it was an accident. but, hearing you say you took just as much interest in him as he did you, made him overjoyed. 

“wait, really?” he asked, almost as if it were too good to be true.

“i told you i thought you were cute, didn’t i?” you reminded.

“so, does that mean, if i asked you out, you would say yes?”

you shrugged. “i don’t know. try.”

he laughed, beginning to find your teasing somewhat entertaining.

“yn,” he said, his shoulders relaxed and his voice calm. “would you do me the pleasure of going on a date with me?”

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

you loved to reminisce about that moment, even though yeonjun would prefer if you didn’t remind him. it’s been a year, but no matter how long it’s been he will never get over the embarrassment that memory gives him. he still wished you two met in a better manner, one that made him look cool. but, you wouldn’t trade that moment for anything. you don’t think it could’ve gone any other way that would have made him appear more charming than that.

“you know,” you said, playing with his hand as you lay in bed together. “you could have just gotten me an ‘i’m sorry i almost saw you naked’ cake and we could’ve called it even.”

“baby,” yeonjun deadpanned, hand gently rubbing your back. “i was desperate and irrational. it was all i could think of at the time!”

you giggled, nuzzling into his neck and wrapping your arm around his torso. he was still as endearing as ever.

“we’ve come a long way since then,” he said. you hummed in response, closing your eyes as you allowed yourself to begin drifting to sleep.

“because i’m allowed to see you naked now,” he added quickly, suppressing his giggles as you playfully slapped his chest.

endearing and annoying as ever.

© txtaetertots

[girderednerve]

it's true what they say: small town libraries are different

at present i am like, wow, they might be worse! everybody keeps telling me that we don't have enough problems to bother developing a policy for things, and then when we have problems we're all just supposed to make a judgment call without ever having talked about our values in any detail, so it's a huge mess

in my larger urban library, we knew our patrons & had some background on our regulars, but we mostly tried to consistently enforce a clear set of rules, & i spent a lot of time getting into arguments (usually productively) about what our ethical orientation towards those rules should be (whose needs are we prioritizing, how & why; what are the trade-offs to interpreting this rule generously, &c &c) & sitting through training discussions about how to enforce rules with patrons in a practical way (what kinds of problems do we tend to run into & how can we mitigate them; tone & body language stuff; scripts). genuinely i think library behavior rules are extremely important & getting staff buy-in for a shared vision of what experience we're trying to make sure that patrons have in the library is vital. i think about this all the time because i worked in libraries that had real safety threats (e.g., brawls; bomb threat) & spent a lot of time arguing what i thought of as the liberty interest, insisting over & over again that people who break rules in the library should not be barred from our services unless they are truly preventing others from accessing the library. a written set of rules gives people a strong guideline for what to expect in the library, if you do it right.

this is why i am all the time banging on about it, because most of these rules are VERY BAD! they do not promote patron understanding of library services; they are either vague ("be respectful" oh okay great thanks? what does that mean? seems pretty fucking arbitrary, but i'm sure you'll be evenhanded about it, captain 'i-solved-racism-with-my-black-history-month-display') or they're ridiculously detailed & include terrible rules (notorious, common no-sleeping rule; limits on how much stuff you can have; rule against 'staring' at others, on & on). a bunch of these rules are obviously intended to bar not disruptive behavior but ""disruptive"" persons. in the united states, the legal precedent to which public libraries refer when they write their rules & impose restrictions on their patrons, kreimer v. bureau of police (1992), was about the library's right to prevent an unhoused person from being in the library because of his body odor. super common rule btw & it sucks shit! either the library is for everyone, & we're happy to make resources available to everyone (unless they are literally in the process of rendering the library unusable for other patrons) or it's nothing & who fucking cares. all this to say that i did not like it very much when the library staff meeting had a whole section devoted to our one (1) unhoused regular, featuring a bizarre & unpleasant amount of detail on his personal history, with the outcome that everyone except for him is allowed to use the library's phone for brief calls. 15 minutes of my colleagues jumping in to tell us all that they know which church he goes to. urban libraries have their own problems but this shit is ridiculous. why must we either be like angels decided from upon high to tend to the unfortunates or pompous little cops. can't we just be like you know a public service

[greenerteacups]

Hey! Recently I've noticed an influx of overly-detailed criticising comment on some of the fanfiction stories I've been reading and your post came at the right time.

I completely agree about the difference of criticising published works and fanfiction which is basically a free gift to us (though I'd count Lionheart as great writing worthy of publishing no doubt!). But some of the comments I've been seeing in the recent months regarding ANY fic, really make me feel bitter, I guess. Especially when the reviews seem almost pretentious (as if this is a teacher critiquing a 19th century novel in the most detailed way?) so I feel for authors who do this as a hobby and put a big effort to it, as well. Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate Lionheart, always!

Yeah, and it's really strange — when you reply to those comments saying you're not interested in concrit, they usually hit back with "wow, don't be so hostile," even when you were expressing a perfectly polite preference to not receive this kind of feedback.

It's bizarre to me that some people think the Internet is the kind of place where just producing content = welcoming and embracing criticism. My brother, this is not an artist's studio, it is the gallery. You are walking around at a showcase shouting about how you don't like the paintings. Even if you have really good, smart reasons for not liking them, you're still committing a faux pas.

It is embittering, but I try to remember that such an overwhelming majority of comments are effusively positive, and it's just a toxic human brain trait to fixate on the negative. When I engage with concrit — which I try not to do — I've tried to be reasonable, but a polite "hey man, I know you're trying to help, but no thanks!" is hard to do when a total stranger has just sent you an unsolicited message telling you you're doing something wrong. Still, one does try.

That said, I confess I won't be too terribly upset if some of those reviewers are insulted by my "hostile" responses. Whatever gets them out of my inbox, lol.

[joys-of-everyday]

I just watched ContraPoint’s Twilight and so clearly, I need to write about BL. She even told me too! (2:42:40)

Firstly, if you know anyone who goes “why is BL so xxx (derogatory)”, this is an excellent video to point them to. Yes, it’s 3 hours long. That is how thoroughly it defends BL Twilight.

Secondly, I don’t particularly want to discuss whether I agree or not with the finer details of every statement Natalie makes. In broad strokes, it is an excellent video.

I hope from point 1, 2 it’s clear that I don’t want to reiterate too much that the video covers, so if you have time to do anything, I recommend going to watch it. That being said, I think there are interesting points to go deeper with the slightly different perspective of BL, so I’ll jot down some loose thoughts.

DHSM

So apparently… Twilight is yaoi coded? I’ve never watched or read Twilight in my life so maybe I’ve been sold the wrong impression.

Yaoi, and then BL, has always been constructed on narratives of power and its subversions. Pio makes an excellent post here linking to a neat interview which covers, from a different perspective to Natalie (who focuses on straight romance), some of the conversations around power and fantasy.

Natalie defines a framework in which this narrative exists: Default Heterosexual Sado-Masochism, or DHSM (1:26:47). This is a series of dichotomies that are often associated to each other: masculine, active, subject, lover, dominant, top… vs feminine, passive, object, beloved, submissive, bottom… Yes. It’s seme vs uke, gong vs shou. The criticism and defense of such narratives have been well-trodden, and Natalie gives a good account. I’ll leave that for now.

What I find interesting, and what Natalie mentions, is the natural scope of BL to subvert DHSM itself. Notable is the myriad of tropes that seek to subvert the common dichotomy – the feminine seme, the muscular uke, the younger seme, and so on, so forth. Or works where both parties play the roles of gong and shou – WWX’s active pursual of LWJ’s affections… hell, almost the whole of MDZS is LWJ being reactive to what WWX does, flipping the dynamic in its entirety.

But I think that even in its most standard, vanilla DHSM version of BL is already subversive of these expectations. The almost infamous “but I’m a man!” uttered so often by the uke when faced with the affections of a man (wow, gayness, how terribly exciting) can be interpreted as mild homophobia, yes, but it occurs to me now that it is a subtle marker of agency. The uke is surprised to be the object of desire. And thus we learn that object/beloved is disjoint from womanhood, even if the work doesn’t go as far as to untangle it from femininity.

Is that surprise in itself referencing the default view that men are not objects of desire (women are), and therefore problematic? Who knows. Then again, it do be the case that you can’t comment on a thing without presenting the thing. (*cough* Scum Villain *cough*)

Ah Power

“Is it really fine though?” says Natalie, halfway thought the video. (1:23:07)

I’ve defended BL to the moon and back. I still would. But always there is a little person sat in the back of my mind reminding me of all the moments I cringed. The overwhelming DHSM, the casual misogyny, the slightly bizarre takes queerness… Don’t get me wrong, there exist BL works flying in egalitarian gay space communism, and BL isn’t like… uniquely bad among media despite the frequent bashing it gets (have you watched the average shonen?). But I like BL. That’s why I know intimately all the issues it has.

My gay male friends tell me that BL often disappoints them because it’s not reflective of their experiences. Fair enough. I think a lot of BL (by the nature of what it is) is on the whole reflective of female (and Asian) experiences/perspectives. While I have no intention of telling anyone what they can and can’t write, it… idk, feels strange, that so much of society’s perspective on gay men (overwhelmingly so in Asia, and increasingly so in the West) is shaped by… not gay men.

Food for thought.

Another question that sometimes strikes my darkest hours is… why yaoi and not yuri? Why BL and not GL? Well it turns out that a lot of women (the main target audience, if you weren’t aware by now) are into men (Surprise!), so I guess that’s not particularly surprising. Then again, it seems reasonable to think there’s an element of wanting a blank slate. Woman is Other, said idk… Beauvoir. For a woman to woman, there must be a reason she womans. A female character cannot exist without navigating – explicitly or implicitly – social structures that work against her. Even a world that removes those barriers with the good old worldbuilding becomes commentary on today’s society. And ngl, the last thing I want to be thinking about when reading my escapist fantasy is the unfortunate circumstances we live in (*big sigh*).

Is that internalised sexism? Should I think deeply about my biases and my apparent inability to think of women as just people? Maybe. Sorry, my political correctness is not high on my mind when reading smut.  

The seen seen, the desire desired

Who are you attracted to in BL? Some say you (the obviously female reader)(I’m feeling exceptionally sarcastic today, but I realise this doesn’t translate well to text) are meant to relate to the uke and feel attraction towards the seme. From experience… this doesn’t track. Often because erm… the audience of BL isn't all straight women it turns out.

But an interesting point that Natalie raises is the capacity for a reader to relate with characters in what are perhaps unexpected ways (cf Part 6: Identity). BL often jumps between the perspective of seme and uke. If straight fantasy gives women the opportunity to relate with both the desire and desired, then BL gives the capability of being everything at once – the powerful beloved, the pursued subject, the desire desired - through both the uke and seme. After all, how common is the sentiment “I don’t know if I want to fuck him or be him”? (I’m gonna digress and say I don’t think people mega-braining multiple POVs as they read BL, but I will highlight the way BL tends to portray both parties as loving and beloved.)

There’s something inherently voyeuristic or polyamorous about BL. Natalie states that blank slate characters are blank slate as to not generate envy – blurring the identity of the uke enough that they become indistinguishable from the reader. This is not the template of BL. The uke is often just as developed, if not more developed in character than the seme, with the reader’s capacity to relate to multiple POVs meaning they can see the uke from the outside, as separate, as object, as Other. Either the reader disappears in the narrative, everywhere and nowhere at once, or is tucked between them (“I want to fuck/be fucked by both.”).

Representation

In general, I prefer to be excited about what we do have rather than nitpicking the individual. Works that subvert tropes, tropes that subvert tropes, authors trying to better understand the queer community, conversations around what media representation we want to see etc. etc. get me excited. BL broadening its scope from escapist smut fantasy (tbc, nothing wrong with that) to more “mainstream” slice of life/fantasy type works is something I welcome. Some bits of BL fandom have been some of the nicest I’ve seen. It’s a community that I think is special, and whether I think media should be child friendly aside, I think it has the capability to be a really positive influence.

It strikes me that while BL isn’t reflective of the most standard gay male experience… it is, in some way, a gay male experience.

And I say this in a way that is literal for me and my trans brethren, but also maybe this is true more broadly, in an abstract sense. Natalie suggests that women relate to big, hulking alpha men in romance with a masculine element of themselves. When/if you relate to characters in BL, do you relate to them with a masculine element?

Well, not always and not everyone, and the gender of the characters themselves are often more complicated. ig what I’m trying to say, is that BL might not seem like an accurate reflection of the world to some, but it is a reflection of something, and maybe we should value that.

And as a final remark, I don't think anyone needs to intellectualise their interests as hard as I sometimes do. Keep enjoy what you're enjoying. You're doing great :)

[gorogues]

andrewmoocow replied to your text post: I just want to give her a hug.

Same, TBH!

demonbirdsforever said: Thank you!

No problem :)

Spoilers for Wonder Woman #12 beyond this point!

timethehobo replied to your text post: I’m of the same mind as you on this issue. Thanks for reviewing it as well.

Glad to hear it, and no problem! People needed a heads up on this.

demonbirdsforever replied to your text post: I heard from Wes (Critical Thinking) that Wonder Woman was going to get the… “Batman Treatment”. I guess this is the start of that.🧐

I hadn't heard that, but it's not surprising given that Tom King wrote Batman for several years. It's clear that to some extent he's differentiating between Diana and Batman/Batfam, but here she's not as different from them as she'd probably like to believe. That could be interesting if she realizes it in an issue or two and it leads to some soul-searching, but I'm not feeling a ton of faith in that.

demonbirdsforever replied to your text post: Side thought. The Interrogation was poor. I’ve seen tv investigators do it better without laying a finger on the perp. How embarrassing.

It was. In fairness, Damian's a kid, but Diana really should have had better control of the situation and of herself.

orion-nottson replied to your text post: DC writers try not to write a frankly bizarre amount of unnecessary violence challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

And it's in that weird awkward zone in which Digger gets the shit kicked out of him but is somehow not bloody and bruised. Not that I'm jonesing to see him hurt, but realistic consequences for the violence might better drive home how brutal this was.

lfthinker replied to your text post: What I don’t understand is why Digger’s so reluctant to betray Waller. I thought a big part of his character was that he wouldn’t think twice about selling out the Suicide Squad. Why wouldn’t he jump at the chance to screw over Waller if he knows he could get away with it?

It is weird, yeah. I guess it's possible he's allowed to be free in exchange for his silence (and maybe assistance), but I can't imagine that even Digger enjoys seeing his friends (or colleagues, if we're being pessimistic about his feelings for other people) depowered, imprisoned, and enslaved. I guess it's also possible he agrees with Waller's goals, but that seems less likely because she also wants to take down low-powered everyday villains like him.

eusouomar replied to your text post: Wow I really hate all of this. The issue, I mean, not your review. Your review is spot on.

Thank you, I'm glad :) But yeah, I feel the same about the issue.

longitudinalwaveme replied to your text post: Our heroes, whom we are presumably supposed to like and root for, engaging in acts of at least borderline torture for an entire issue: definitely not why I read comics. This is like when they had Zatanna and Barry be involved with brainwashing people in Identity Crisis and its aftermath. Or how they had Ray Palmer torturing Killer Moth in that terrible Justice League: Cry for Justice miniseries. Ugh. Who wants to read about superheroes behaving like supervillains?

Both Marvel and DC (but especially DC) go through their edgy phases, and it's honestly tiresome. But it's interesting, I did a quick google of some fan reviews of the issue at other sites and none of them expressed dismay over the torture or even had a problem with the way Digger was treated. It obviously wasn't an exhaustive search and maybe there are others who are upset, but maybe it's just us Digger/villain fans who are bothered :\

longitudinalwaveme replied to your text post: And while I'm glad DC hasn't totally forgotten about Owen, but I dislike the snobby jerk entrepreneur version so much that I almost wish they had.

It's honestly surprising that they didn't, as it was just one story more than five years ago. I would have figured that someone at DC would google Owen and get the more famous version.

ammomancer replied to your text post: wait wym douchey entrepreneur, i didnt realize owen had even showed up post new 52 before this

He appeared in one previous story, which you can see here. He was very different from his pre-Flashpoint self, basically a new character with the same name.

pixie-mask replied to your text post: Our…heroes? Not just as a Boomerang fan but this isn’t enjoyable to see. Last I remember they weren’t anti-heroes. But this is my opinion on a quick look. Will …enjoy reading later.

It's especially disappointing from Wonder Woman, and even a bit surprising that it's in her own book (and not, say, some event comic like a Crisis title).

[episodeoftv]

Round 1 of 6, Group 2 of 4

propaganda is under the cut (359 words) - may contain spoilers

summaries (pulled from imdb or wikis)

propaganda

Danny Phantom - 3.12/3.13 Phantom Planet

When Plasmius' new ghostbuster team outclasses Danny in the field, the boy decides to remove his powers and retire, unaware of an approaching massive asteroid threatening Earth.

1) *points at Phantom Planet* LOOK AT IT! Okay there is a whole ass Power Point presentation on tumblr about why PP sucks major ass, but I can't find it right now. So my sybopsis: Danny just. Decides to give up on his ghost powers. After 52 fucking episodes. He's out. Vlad won. Bye. Except oh no who would've guessed that was all part of Vlad's plan and Vlad reveals his powers to the whole world and takes ALL OF IT hostage (wow such cunning, much intelligence, very smart villain). And he wants money. Not like Maggie, whom he has been pining for for decades. Like I get that it's a children's show and that'd be a bit too fucked up but money? Really? So Vlad fails in making the anti-ghost-meteor intangible. Danny goes into the Ghost Zone POWERLESS and gets blasted by every ghost ever and I guess those people who think that he died to get his powers are right because HE GETS HIS POWERS BACK??? LIKE THAT??? Vlad's plan of using ghost powers on the anti-ghost-meteor didn't work, but using ghost powers on the entire world as the anti-ghost-meteor is about to crash into it does? I thought that meteor negated all ghost powers??? VALERIE GRAY WOULD NOT CHEER AT THE REVEAL THAT DANNY PHANTOM IS DANNY FENTON. SHE WOULD BE INCREDIBLY ANGRY AND CONFLICTED, PROBABLY PUNCH HIM AND THEN LATER APOLOGIZE WHEN SHE ACTUALLY HAD SOME TIME TO STOMACH THAT REVELATION. HOW *DARE* YOU RUIN THAT REVEAL FOR US?! Also what happened to Dani? Tucker becoming mayor is stupid but considering this entire episode, it's also super funny. I let him have that win lol.

2) So bad the fandom disowned it, AO3 fics regularly tag "Phantom Planet didn't happen"

Roseanne - 9.23/9.24 Into That Good Night

The Conners welcome baby Harris Conner-Healy home. Roseanne is delighted Darlene wants to live at home and work on her parenting skills. The family talks about their lives after winning the lottery and are glad they have all come out of it stronger people. Over a pizza dinner, Roseanne suggests they say grace to thank God that Harris survived and the family is together again.

Family and friends gather at the Conner house to celebrate baby Harris' Homecoming and everyone takes a turn chatting with the new addition to the family. Mark and Becky have some exciting news, as do Leon and his husband Scott. During dinner, Roseanne takes time to reflect on each member of her family and reveals she has been writing a book; everything we see is Roseanne's altered version of actual events. Roseanne reveals the true story and admits she changed whatever details she didn't like about her life and the people in it. In truth, the Conners never won the lottery; it was all a fantasy Roseanne created in order to cope with a devastating reality. In the final moments, Roseanne sits alone in her basement writing room. She goes upstairs, passing through the old kitchen and the old living room. Roseanne sits on the old couch with the classic afghan on the back and silently takes in the warmth and comfort of the family home as the lights slowly fade.

Just focusing on the (at the time) series finale and not all the terrible things Roseanne decided to say and be later. This finale sucked. It was built to retcon the entire (admittedly bad) season that came before it as a bizarre fantasy of the titular character after her Husband died. They quickly and randomly undid different characters' development and swapped around couples just because.

[veryloovy]

The "Uzi is Cyn/the unknown mansion drone" Theory Masterpost because I have been driven insane by stuff I've noticed.

Choosing to believe I was right in my post-episode 2 theories in that the unknown drone in the mansion and Uzi were connected, but specifically because of these screencaps.

N, J, and V had white eyes in the flashback (if you level adjust the colors), unknown drone girl clearly has yellow eyes. Uzi's color briefly turns yellow in the pilot when Absolute Solver becomes enabled on her. Unknown girl's introduction glitches her eyes a few times in a purple tint.

So now I'm returning to this observation after episode 4 where this goldmine was dropped:

This goldmine, whatever it means.

This goes in one of two ways. One, Cyn is a disembodied AI/horror that can possess drones with Absolute Solver enabled. Cyn possessed the body of the drone from the mansion before. Or...

Or: It's MUCH more fun to consider that Cyn is the drone from the mansion... and is Uzi's previous identity. Or at least is part of Uzi's psyche somehow. Before I get into this idea, let me talk about N's reboot message from the pilot. It's "STRING "ABSOLUTE SOLVER" BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATION "CYN"" and I wanna point out that it doesn't actually refer to Cyn as an administrator. It's "Administration" and Cyn is placed into quotes, perhaps as a codeword? We know now from episode 4 the mansion drone did something terrible using Absolute Solver, so her name may have become the name of a failsafe placed on N, J, and V.

So, where is evidence for Uzi and Cyn being the same drone? I wanna point out something from the season 1 teaser:

Wow, that looks a lot like the mansion from N's flashbacks!

Same record player, wall lights, maybe same window even? It's very similar. So why's Uzi in this place she's supposedly never been in? Perhaps "Uzi" never lived there, but her life as Cyn did. If this theory is right, then the killed drones on the floor below her may represent J and V, whom she saw as competition to N's attention.

And also consider this:

Uzi sees this figure while investigating the campgrounds. This figure looks a lot like Tessa. That, or it's Cyn (with black hair for some reason?). They both wear bows so that's no help lol. It'd be very strange for her to see either of these characters in this sort of hallocination way because she should have never seen either of them before. Perhaps it's old memories resurfacing? There's also a hand she sees peeking from the side, which is exactly what Cyn does when she first introduces herself to N, V, and J.

On a weird note, it'd been pointed out to me that if you brush Cyn's hair down and cut her longer locks shorter, it would pretty closely resemble Uzi's hair style. I only find that interesting because Cyn's bangs are so weird there's gotta be some reason for them looking that way. Idk take a look.

Also while I'm at it, potential other clue to this theory or something AS-specific. When Uzi turns the arrow to flesh, her AS ability turns yellow. It turns red when it actually overheats later in the cabin (one wonders how this works on Doll). Every time we've seen AS and flesh it's yellow? Note Cyn showing off the tasty human hand in her mouth while her naturally yellow AS is activated. Uzi turns yellow when she decides to kill humans and later again when she turns the arrow to flesh. It was at the arrow scene where V became convinced that Uzi was Cyn. Yeah, this is all mighty suspcious lol.

Let's get into some weird stuff. Solver Drones have this zombie theme going on and Uzi does Fatal Error during this episode, so she's technically dead. Whether or not she's only dead now or has been for a while is debatable. See my last theory post on if she's even a Worker (anymore?) for additional doubt into our understanding of Uzi because we have never seen her Worker symbol at all for some bizarre reason.

On a related note, Eldritch J telling Uzi that "it hurts our feelings you don't remember us" is curious. It proceeds to show her an image of her and Nori. Nori's the key to whatever this is, this theory or not. Considering the "Uzi is dead" flags, perhaps the original Uzi died and whatever happened at Cabin Fever Labs led to Cyn becoming Uzi, who is only now beginning to remember this other past she had. The old Uzi being "reborn", so to speak, would provide an actual explanation for Khan thinking she had a totally different personality during the talk with the teacher and her classmates forgetting who she is. Might be a reach, but hey that's how it be when you talk about Liam's stuff.

Also wanna point out that Eldritch J's VA has been liking tweets about Cyn/mansion drone, most of which are theories like this where Cyn is the mansion drone. I can see that as only a confirm on her being Cyn's VA, but maybe a point for this theory.

Alternatively, this was all a huge red herring and Cyn is something entirely different. I am merely trying to read into this specific theory and see what connects.

[ziracona]

I finally got the intro to arc 2 done. Hope you have fun with it! As always, Tumblr gets the update first but before the final editing pass--a little glass half full, glass half empty ^.^' Enjoy: [Fate/GO AU – The Kid (pt: 1, … 22,23, 24, 25, 26, ?)]{Some spoilers for original Grand Order run/through Temple of Time, vaguer situational spoilers for later arcs}

.

.

“Roman?”

“Mmmmmhmmmph,” I groan unhappily, unhappy to have heard anything. I shift a little, trying to stay unconscious, because it’s better in here.

“Sorry, but you gotta wake up sometime soon. We’ve got like 100 people with guns who aren’t super happy about the 200 new people we just dropped on them without guns,” comes a woman’s voice, “You and I can take a real rest when we’re dead. Or when nobody’s looking. Which I wish was right now, but.”

I hear her, unfortunately, and I’m awake enough to know what the words mean, so I sigh, then scrunch up my face and drag my eyes open. I do not expect to find the blurry face of Da Vinci looking right down at me from above.

“…Da Vinci?” I double-check, squinting up at her. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it is.

“Oh wow, you actually woke up,” she says, patting my shoulder sympathetically, “I know you’re beat to hell, but, I’d love it if you cared to confirm what happened.”

“…Where is everyone else?” I ask, blinking and trying to shake off the lingering weight in my head. I feel sort of terrible, and sort of peaceful, somehow at the same time. It’s bizarre. Right. I shouldn’t feel peaceful at all right? Because there’s a lot of people to explain things to, who are upset and worried. And then there’s the whole situation to…to try and fix…

I look back up at Da Vinci, since she hasn’t answered me. My vision is starting to clear, and now that I can see her face, I realize she looks…sad. No, sad and happy. Nostalgic? Homesick? She’s looking at me like I have seen David look at me a few times now, when he thinks I’m not paying attention. Like it’s painful, in a way that is deeply good.

I…feel guilty, that I don’t know her. For all I know, she could be lying about knowing me, I guess, and I’m not a naïve person, but, I don’t think she is. And it makes me sorry.

There’s a little crackle in my head then, which I feel an instinct to panic at, because, you know, how could that be a good sound for the inside of a head? But then I hear her thoughts slipping through the space between us:

“I missed this. How can I be so sad? How can I miss him so painfully, while talking to him, face to face? I feel like I’m watching a memory, but, I’m not. Not this time.”

My stomach drops as I realize I’m unintentionally getting her thoughts.

“He looks so like he always did. Tired and cheerful and steady. He was our rock, and I’m not really sure I ever thanked him for that. That wasn’t my job. My job was keeping us alive, and giving him a hard time. But still, someone should have said it. It wasn’t easy. I know, because once he died, I had to be him. Dying the best you can for the people around you, and asking those kids who are like your own by now to live, and live happy, with the weight of the world on their shoulders? Is even worse.”

It ends then as soon as it began, with another crackle in my head like static, and I know I did not make that happen, but I still feel deeply wrong. I know whatever caused it, it wasn’t her either, and it was an intrusion; I wasn’t meant to hear it. I wish I’d been awake enough to think of a way to stop it.

I…I should be thinking about how to play this, or that this is confirmation then, that I am certainly going to die, because that’s important, but then, I’ve known that all along, right? And it’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking: “Wow. After everything, you have someone who misses you this much.” I should feel anything but reassured, but it’s all I feel. Peace. Or…gratefulness. I guess if only one of us two being able to remember it all, in the end, was enough for me then, then only one of us remembering at the start, here, is good enough for me, too.

Okay focus. She’s still staring into space. Maybe you can…

“Da Vinci…?” I ask, deciding to act like nothing just happened and hope she doesn’t know, “Did something happen? You look worried?”

“Not really,” she sighs, refocusing her mask with precision and speed, and putting on a smile while making a grand little shrug, “But you sure left us a situation. You try explaining the shit we just pulled to a room of angry mages sometime, and see how you like it.”

“Did anyone-?!” I ask with sudden fear.

“—Nobody got hurt,” she chides, “You think I wouldn’t have mentioned that? Your staff heard what you said before you passed out. We’ve got a bunch of confused civilians, which aren’t a threat, and a Holy Grail War’s worth of heroic spirits, which are, but are too much of one for them to want to start something. If they wanted to try to shoot us, they’d be doomed. And we have no reason to want to shoot them either. So no one did anything. It’s just been extremely uncomfortable.”

“Where am I?” I ask, blinking at the ceiling above me, and turning my head to try and see the room, and somehow only then realizing I’m using her lap as a pillow. Shit. I try to shoot up immediately, but she snags me and drags me back down. “-H-Hey!”

“Easy!” comes Makeda’s voice, from somewhere.

HUH?

“Hold still if you would? We’re sort of in the middle of something,” she says apologetically, and I see her as she steps into my field of view.

That’s reassuring, I think with intense distrust. “The middle of what?”

“Welllll,” says Da Vinci awkwardly, “Heh heh. Uh.” She gestures to the ground, and I turn my head from my prone position and see intensely complex sigil work on the ground. Makeda is holding a brush and ink, and seems to have been in the middle of adding more.

“What the hell are you two doing?” I reiterate, because this has absolutely cleared nothing up.

“We’re doing a spell,” says Makeda, “A divination. There’s a lot of strange stuff going on—I expect with you too, after the way you passed out. I’m happy to explain all of it, but a lot of it seems to be connected to you, so we’re using you as the focal point. I need you to more or less stay still. You can move your arms, and head, if you want!” she adds like it will cheer me up.

“We uh, thought you’d be unconscious longer,” says Da Vinci apologetically.

“It won’t hurt you,” promises Makeda.

I sigh. I know, I realize as I think it, and wonder why I was so concerned in the first place. I guess it’s that as out of control as all of this is, I want as many fragments of control as I can get, just to hang onto. Okay, Romani. Deep breaths. Calm down, and focus.

“Alright, go ahead. But please, do explain,” I add, unhappily accepting my fate. Couldn’t they have just gotten me a blanket and pillow or something?

Da Vinci sympathetically reaches down and rubs my shoulders absently, which in other circumstances sould be incredibly weird, but given…everything. I just really don’t care. I sigh again and accept it.

At least it feels good, and I feel like I’ve been thrown down a flight of steps.

You could have picked a better bench, though, I think just a little bitterly. I have no idea what conference room we’re in right now, because they all look the same, but the padding is too firm for a nap to be ideal. I’m going to be so sore after this… I guess at least Da Vinci’s contribution might save my neck.

“Well, you passed out, and we got to talking,” says Makeda as she goes back to finishing the edges of her sigil circle, I’m pretty sure massively sugar-coating the situation after I passed out, “And it was very easy to pick up that Chaldea wasn’t on the same timeline as us—that is to say—in the common sense. It’s our metaphysical timeline, obviously, but they seem to be a full two months ahead of the rest of the world.”

“So, for them, three days ago was the turn of the year,” says Da Vinci.

“Right.” I knew that part, and I guess Da Vinci can see it on my face, because she nods.

“I thought so,” says Da Vinci, pleased, “Just to cement a few things, can you confirm what happened when you exited the shadow border?”

Sure. Why not. “I got hit with a second set of memories,” I reply, “Both felt equally real, which was very disorienting, because they contradicted. The influx of that much detailed, emotional, and complex information all at once, overloaded my already very tired brain, and I passed out for…?”

“Two and a half hours,” says Makeda, glancing over.

“-Two and a half hours,” I finish.

“And this new set of memories?” prods Da Vinci.

I shrug the best I can on my back with my head in her lap. “About what I think you already expect. It was of being here, when Chaldea went through the turn of the year. I survived a bombing that took out most of the base, and the betrayal of a staff member. Ritsuka Fujimaru’s brother, Akira, and Mash both survived the bombing miraculously, by being rayshifted out. Our director ended up with them—Olga Marie Animusphere. We—the surviving staff—were able to fix enough equipment to contact them and try to help. They’d been transported to one point of history targeted by Goetia, Fuyuki city, during a holy grail war. A servant who’d lost his master helped them, thankfully—uh—an alter, of our Lancer, Cu Chulainn—oddly. They were able to succeed, and repair the broken point in time, just barely. The traitor to our organization, Lev Lainur, attacked our director, and took her out of commission, indefinitely. Then was killed. It was terrible. They’re just kids, and they went through hell with no preparation. I couldn’t be more proud of what they accomplished, or feel more awful, that they had to do it at all.”

They’re quiet this time, both of them. I guess it was more than they thought I’d say.

Honestly, it still feels so real I could throw up, and like a bad dream. I feel even more guilty over that. I get this…free sense of dissociation, to help me cope, and I didn’t even have to be there to see it first hand. God. The poor kids. Ritsuka too. Ritsuka, Akira, Mash, all the civilians—even our heroic spirits, who are tanks among men have all been put through hell. We need a break. They need a break.

“I’m sorry,” says Da Vinci, stopping her shoulder rub to pat me on the shoulder, “That is about what we’d gathered, though.”

“It’s not your fault,” says my father, popping up from over the back of a nearby chair he’s apparently been sitting in, and I just about jump out of my skin.

“Were you there the whole time?!” I ask.

“Of course,” he says in disbelief, “Did you think I wouldn’t keep an eye on you?” He clicks his tongue at me and crosses his arms over the back of the chair to lean on it. “As I was saying, you did everything the best you could, and it sounds to me like it’s been enough. The Fujimarus were ecstatic to see each other, and he and Mash both had a lot to say about how you got everyone through this.”

I don’t know if I believe him, but I’m too exhausted to consider arguing with my dad right now. I guess I appreciate it either way.

“Where are the kids?” I ask as it occurs to me, and I accidentally start to sit up on impulse, and am very kindly pushed back into place by Da Vinci, “—Sorry.”

“They’re outside,” says Da Vinci, “It’s just Sheba, me, and David in here with you. The kids all wanted in, but we forced them to stay outside—both so we could do the spell, and just in case there was anything you wouldn’t be ready to tell them as soon as you woke up, with whatever was going on. We three already know all your secrets.”

“Thanks…I think,” I say, then double-take, “Wait—you know all my—?!”

“Yes. Obviously,” she replies proudly, “Remember? I knew you later. It’s all old news to me.”

I start to say something, but then I remember what I accidentally heard, and I don’t. She looks at me quizzically.

“…When did we meet, the first time?” I ask instead as something occurs to me.

She smiles a softer smile, pleased. “Oh. A few months from now. –Or, a few days, depending on the memory set.”

Ah. I smile back as it clicks. “You’re the first successful summon, aren’t you?”

“Clever boy,” she replies.

“And you chose to stay and help? And became the…’technical advisor’?” I ask.

She nods. “Most of the building was blown up. Why not give me a title? You were the only staff head left. Although, I guess by now you know that.”

“Yes,” I say, glancing away and fiddling absently with one of my gloves. Even if I wasn’t close to everyone here, and some of them were awful people, it’s so much death. And not everyone deserved it—not by a long, long shot. It’s…

“You really need to start watching your health better.”

I look up in surprise to see David shaking his head at me.

I give him something between a grimace and a smile. “If I had any choice in the matter, believe me.”

“Well, if you won’t do it yourself, I will,” he warns pleasantly.

Terrifying.

“You do remember both sets of memories fully, right?” asks Sheba. She seems to have finished her sigil, because she walks back over and kneels by the bench and holds out a hand for me. I take it, and feel her magical energy fill the room like a wave lapping at the beach: soft, gentle, but unstoppable in sheer mass and power if circumstances change. “We weren’t totally sure that after…”

“-Experiencing a temporal displacement overlap?” suggests Da Vinci.

“-It would be smooth,” continues Sheba, “That’s also part of why we wanted you to get a chance to talk to us first. Everyone out there is hoping you’re ‘their’ Romani, but, you’re ours regardless of what information you retained. We both knew you from before,” adds Sheba, gesturing to Da Vinci and herself with her free hand.

“-And any version of you is my ‘Romani Archaman,’” says David, playful inflection on my new name.

“We just couldn’t get rid of him,” explains Sheba tiredly.

Unsurprising. David is a force. “Well, everyone’s about to be relieved, I guess, because I have all of both,” I confirm. Hadn’t even occurred to me that people would be worried about that, but, of course they would be.

“I’m not surprised, but it’s still a relief to hear,” says Da Vinci, “By all accounts from the Chaldea staff, it’s January, and you’ve been here the whole time. Actually—you are on-camera, vanishing, the second the door to the Border opened. There’s a little ‘flicker’ and the you at your desk is gone. The you at the Border flickers twice, like an electromagnetic spike, and then the video is normal, but you’re a half foot to the left.”

“Fascinating,” I say, not sure exactly what that means, “I’d have thought it would be when we finished the zero sail, not opened the door. I wonder if it’s a temporal delay, or if there’s more weight triggered seeing yourself face to face when it comes to time fluctuation than I’d thought?”

“So, convergence set aside for the moment without enough information to pursue it, what’s the point of divergence?” asks Makeda, something in her tone suggesting this is a much more important question.

“Oh, uhm…” I scrunch up my brow, thinking it over, “…The…day I heard about Ur-Shanabi, I think.”

David looks very interested by this.

“It’s…strange. My memories since the Incineration are very strong in both versions, but…the time at Chaldea leading up to it is…foggy,” I continue, a little disturbed to find this as I go, “…I. I hadn’t noticed, until you asked, but…”

“It’s the same for the others,” says Makeda, “When we heard their accounts, we checked some of the readings from SHEBA-“ She pauses to give me a coy smile in recognition of the device being named for her, and I flush.

God, I used to have so much game. The only thing my second life is giving is anxiety.

“—and saw a lot of distortion. After being quizzed closely, everyone here we’ve been able to talk to, only remembers the time before what I’m assuming is the day a version of you heard about Ur-Shanabi, and the time since December 31st on. They have…ideas, and impressions—generalities—of the rest of the time. But, it’s more like it’s there to sustain the jump in time, than of enough material stability to be truly real.”

“That’s so bizarre,” I say, truly fascinated, and again starting to sit up on instinct so I can truly think. Both women pull me down this time. Right. “Sorry. So, the version of me who summoned you inside Unlimited Blade Works, that timeline, I do have concrete memories of the days since I heard about Ur-Shanabi. Which makes the second set the anomaly, I think.”

“I’m inclined to agree, to a point,” says Makeda.

“To a point?” I ask.

“In the other timeline, the one that’s mostly just since the end of the year, did you not go to Ur-Shanabi, or not hear of it?” asks Da Vinci, ignoring my question.

“I never heard of it,” I say, “Which…should be impossible. It’s not like I heard about it in the other in some passing comment.”

I do not love that. Or that they could guess so on their own. I don’t have a good feeling about this.

“Do you think someone meddled with your memory?” asks Sheba.

“…No,” I say, glancing down at her, “I…think someone meddled with time.”

“Yes,” agrees Da Vinci, “They absolutely did. But we weren’t sure if they did both.”

“Why though?” I ask, “Shit—wait! If Chaldea is past January first, then, we’re no longer somewhere we’re seeing the effects of Goetia’s actions before he’s taken them are we? So-”

“-No, we’re still ahead of schedule,” says Makeda calmingly, giving me a smile.

I can still feel her magical energy pulsing through me and the room slowly, in steady beats, like a heart at rest. It occurs to me to wonder finally what exactly she’s doing.

“That’s what we were able to use your SHEBA observational lens to discover. It’s the first—well, second, after making sure you really were alright—thing that we checked. It’s like this space, just the building, is in its own bubble,” adds Makeda.

“Couldn’t Goetia be in one too?” I ask dubiously.

“No,” says David happily. I look over at him. “She checked,” adds my father smugly, pointing to Makeda.

“Really?” I ask.

She nods gracefully, long hair cascading over her deep brown shoulders. It’s been so long, but I’ve never forgotten how smart or how beautiful she was.

“Thank you, Makeda,” I say softly.

“For you? Of course,” she replies.

“So, you’ve already found him then?” I ask as it occurs to me.

“Uhhhhm,” says Da Vinci, and she teeters a hand in a ‘kind of’ gesture.

Makeda sighs, looking worried. “It keeps…changing.”

“Every time we lock on, the coordinates shift,” says Da Vinci.

“He’s moving?” I ask in surprise.

“No. The coordinates shift as if they’ve always been something else. The log always reads completely changed, all two hours of it, in an instant—as if it’s performed one search function, and gotten the same answer. But what’s on the screen changes about every two seconds—it’s half real, half moving, and half make-believe,” says Makeda.

“That’s not…possible,” I say, thinking quickly. I’m missing something obvious, because I’m exhausted, and I can’t afford to.

“No, it’s not,” agrees Da Vinci, and I look up from where I’m still stuck on her lap, and see her watching me with those fixed, calculating clear eyes. I think about what I shouldn’t have heard her think, and for some insane reason, I feel desperate to live up to my own future reputation.

“…It’s not real yet,” I say. It was a question when I thought it, but it’s a statement as it exits my lips.

“That’s what we think,” agrees Makeda, closing her eyes, and I feel an intense increase in her magical output.

For few seconds, we are all quiet, waiting. I feel her familiar circuits where her hands hold mine, and I feel a sudden pause in the heartbeat-like pulse of her magical energy.

It’s like time has stopped.

The energy holds, but she opens her eyes, which glow like a breathing galaxy.

“I’ve got it,” she says in an inhuman voice, and then the tide of her energy ebbs back into her, soft and controlled like it filled the room, and she releases my hand.

“What’s the news?” asks Da Vinci excitedly, seeming to forget she’s holding my head, and bending over so far towards Makeda that her stomach is smashing me.

“Can I get up now?” comes my muffled voice.

“Yes,” says Makeda apologetically.

Da Vinci sits back and I drag myself up, still and sore, and lean against the bench seatback, rubbing my face, and trying to get sensation back in my limbs. Makeda climbs up beside us, on my other side, and, apparently feeling left out, David drags his chair closer, then climbs back in.

“We were right,” says Makeda, to both Da Vinci and me, “It’s a spell.”

“A…” That is cosmically not what I thought was going on, or said. I—I guess she means about Goetia’s location not being real yet.

“A spell…” says Da Vinci, who I personally think from her expression, also did not actually think that’s what was going on.

Weirdly, I look at David, and he, alone, seems unsurprised. What do you know, old man…

“Can you elaborate?” I ask.

“Well,” says Makeda, “We’re not a singularity, and we’re not a lostbelt.” A what? “We’re built a little like one or the other though. Or a wish.”

“Like a grail?” suggests Da Vinci rather dubiously.

“Only in vague concept,” says Makeda, then, reconsidering, “…But, in vague concept, not a bad analogy. The ways in which we are similar to a singularity or lostbelt is in nature—partially complete and partially real, still growing—not in function. Functionally, more like a grail. The same way holy grail rituals have set rules and functions, so do most rituals and big magic. And this is certainly a function of intricate structure.” She suddenly looks embarrassed to be explaining this, to me, I assume because of my rank.

“So, the timeline we’re on has been altered. In a very significant way, from its original. It’s not a naturally occurring alternate timeline, but an intentionally constructed one,” I say, then pause, to consider. “…Any guess as to by who?”

She looks at me for a long few seconds, and then says, “No,” but I can’t help but feel there’s more to it than that.

“Okay,” I say, not pressing her for the moment, and moving on to the question I don’t want to ask, but know I have to, “…Can you tell if this…aberration, is it dangerous, like a singularity? Is it…are we hurting the world, by existing?”

Makeda shakes her head.

Oh thank God.

“Whatever we are, we’re not convergent, or concurrent,” adds Makeda, “Even if we’re not an alternate timeline in the natural sense, whatever bubble we are, it’s its own in the same way one would be. It’s magic, but, it’s magic not growing or building in opposition to, well, anything. It’s…disconnected. In ways that are zero sum.”

“Alright,” I say, feeling a few worlds better, “Then. …Whoever, and whyever they started whatever this…spell is, if it’s still in construction—if the magic is still in process—that probably means we either need to dismantle it, which, if it’s not dangerous, I’d very much prefer not to do, since in this timeline we could save a whole lot of lives by reaching Goetia before he acts, and uh, well, I have to assume this version of all of us would probably die—or, we’ve got to finish it—the spell, I mean—get it to cement—so it doesn’t deviate, or unravel.”

“Exactly,” agrees Makeda, “I think that’s where we should start.”

“Great! A plan,” says David happily, “So, how much are we telling the others?”

I hold up a hand. “Before that—you said this is some sort of spell. You mean magic—not magecraft, but magic. Like, First Magic.”

“I do,” says Makeda, “It’s the only class of magic that could do something like this.”

“What do we know,” I ask, ‘we’ meaning ‘her’.

Makeda sighs and places her chin in her hand, bouncing a leg absently as she thinks it over. “This?” she decides after a moment, glancing over at the rest of us, “Doesn’t leave this room. Not until we’re sure it should.”

I nod, and see Da Vinci move in my periphery.

“Alright,” says Makeda, and she opens the little lamp she carries, and smoke billows out, forming distinct shapes in the air as she sways her fingers through it, like the shadow puppet show of a master.

“Da Vinci and I have matching knowledge of another timeline. That alone isn’t odd. But in it, we know of events and people spanning from before the Age of Gods,” A sprawling mountain and a cloud city appear, floating islands of smoke, desert kingdoms, "to the distant future.” Building shapes from countries around the globe and centuries apart, fell into a timeline. Frontiers, temples, castles, modern skyscrapers, and past them, massive space ships. “We, should be here.” She indicates a modern urban skyline in her set of smoke-made history. “And we are. Ritsuka should be, and she is. Akira wasn’t at Chaldea, but him being here isn’t really odd. You’re mostly where you should be. But some people, are missing.”

Here, she makes a handful of figures out of the curling whisps, and then passes her fingers through them and watches them go.

“What’s more,” she continues, “A lot more, is that there are a considerable amount of people who shouldn’t be in this time, who are.”

Makeda raises a hand to her lips and exhales like she is blowing a kiss. Smoke forms humanoid figures along far separated points on the timeline, and they lift from those places by floating cities and icy mountains and desert sands, and settle into the urban skyline.

“Actually, they shouldn’t be at all,” she says, eyes on something far away, no changes in her smoke story this time, “At least many of them, should never have existed. Yet, here they are.” She looks at me. “And not transported, and confused. Here they are like they’ve always been, with normal memories and normal lives, somehow, in spite of everything, alive.”

“People who should never be?” I ask, a sinking feeling in my chest.

“It will take a little while to explain to you fully, but for now, people who lived in versions of time that only existed at all by destroying the time around them, and whose broken time had to be corrected, that is, erased,” says Makeda softly.

I nod, and keep quiet. I can imagine, since I’d been a little afraid after waking up with two sets of memories, that I could be a version of me that shouldn’t exist.

“Our reality, it’s real,” says Makeda, refocusing, “But instead of starting at the beginning of time and moving forward, as time is meant to, it starts here.” She indicates a point not long before what she’s designated as ‘now.’ “And it grows forwards and backwards from there. No, grows isn’t the right word. It…’becomes set.’ Like a writer starting a book in the middle: the beginning happened, because otherwise the characters wouldn’t be who they are, or have memories of their upbringing, or loved ones they share a past with. But it’s not stable, until it’s on paper, because once the writer forgets, there will be nothing to hold it all in place.”

A terrifying metaphor, I think, but I don’t say it.

“Whatever, or whoever, caused this,” says Makeda, “it hasn’t stopped working. But it’s magic still in progress. At a guess, something has to be…done, or ‘finished’—fulfilled—for the ritual to be complete, and the timeline to stay. If it doesn’t, it’ll collapse back in on itself, and…”

“…And we all cease to exist,” I say shakily.

“Well,” she offers me a sympathetic smile, “This version of us.”

That’s great for the heroic spirits, I guess, but it really sucks for the rest of us. God, especially the ones she says ‘shouldn’t exist’ at all anymore. It’s…a heavy fate, that. Not to be taken lightly…

“And this point?” I ask, tapping the little swirl of smoke she’s left to indicate the start point. The smoke is surprisingly warm to the touch, and almost thick enough to feel soft to me.

Makeda watches me with her bright eyes full of their knowledge and sight. “You, Solomon.”

I am so taken aback I don’t know what to say.

“Me?” I check after a full ten, very suddenly awkward seconds.

“Don’t you mean ‘Romani’?” asks David, whom I’d completely forgotten was even in the room with us, and it makes me jump.

To my surprise though, when I look over, he’s not joking. He’s being pointed about the name.

“What,” he says, looking from one of us to the other, “That’s about when you would have been ‘reborn’ into a last life, right?”

He points and I look at the timeline again, and my breath catches in my throat.

“How many terrible things did I cause?” Wait, did I say that out loud?

“Not terrible,” says Da Vinci, patting my shoulder with one of her gloved hands, “So long as we can keep this thing going, it’s good.”

“Very, I would say,” agrees Makeda, and again, I see in her face that there’s something she knows she’s not telling me, and I’m sure she has her reasons, but it distresses me a lot not to know. This is beyond high stakes universe poker. This is all or nothing, eleventh hour Russian roulette shit.

“That’s not all,” adds Da Vinci, stretching, and looking very gleeful to have her own lore to share, “I ran some tests when you were out because something about Ur-Shanabi has been bothering me ever since the others told me about it.”

“And?” says David with interest.

“And,” says Da Vinci, looking annoyed to be interrupted, “There’s been a change in the world state. You know how in a holy grail war, the ritual is designed so when a heroic spirit dies, their energy is used to fill the grail—to power it, more or less.”

We give our various forms of assent.

“Well, it struck me really odd the Counter Force would let something like that go on so long without proper recourse, and it wasn’t apparently even Alaya that finally sent in the Counter Force Agent we’ve got—Ritsuka summoned him. But, when something like a grail war is on, the Counter Force tends to be less active. Rituals bring their own, shitty ass rules, and tend to be allowed more—some might even say inadvisable –catastrophic damage.”

“Yes,” agrees Makeda, “It’s about the way magic works. Even the universe itself, is bound by rules. That’s why the Counter Force has to use agents in the first place. Even power has limitations.”

“So, I looked into it,” continues Da Vinci, “And the way this thing works, the whole world is…sort of designed to soak power up, from everything, but especially from people.”

“That’s horrible,” I say, disturbed.

“Not really,” she disagrees, leaning forward and gesturing broadly, “See, it’s not like a leech. It’s designed to soak power out of people only when they’re trying to give power—like—it’s in a hyper-high-performance catalyst state. But it’s not forcing anything—people aren’t all slowly taking magic-radiation-damage or something. It’s just wildly amplifying and accelerating physics around energy and its transfer, when it comes to magic specifically. Heroic Spirits, though, we’re made of magical energy. And with the rules around magical energy, and the transformation and transfer of it altered—altered to make the change in form easier, not just when it’s offered from or created by humans, but in all forms. Well. ...”

“The physical structure of anything made of magical energy entirely has become a vulnerability,” I say, mental calculations locking into place, “The same way Achilles’ heel would be, or Samson’s hair.”

“Exactly,” says Da Vinci, way too happy about this.

“Well that’s genuinely terrifying,” I say.

She shrugs, a grin on her face. “At least we know what we’re up against. Half the battle.”

“I suppose so,” I agree a little uncertainly.

“Anyway, the other half of the issue may be that we’re not the only ones to have figured that out,” adds Da Vinci.

“Meaning who?” I ask, “I mean—obviously if Ur-Shanabi had it working, it was only a matter of time before someone else did too, but. The world is currently…well, incinerated. It seems like one problem takes care of the other, in the temporary anyway.”

“Well, you know how when she described what was happening with Goetia, you said ‘it’s not real yet’?” asks Da Vinci.

Makeda raises a hand and gestures to her smoke tapestry, and it begins to curl and dissipate, leaving a few floating ‘islands’ almost, as it were, along what was once a solid timeline. “Goetia’s attacks, when they come for real, target specific points in history, to de-stabilize and collapse the timeline. We know where, from our own memories, and the data we’ve been able to run with the effects already in place here. But the thing is…”

Slowly, almost delicately, Maketa weaves her fingers into the smoke, and then tugs like the is pulling it apart, and the image shifts from a 2D image, to a three-dimensional timeline, pieces splitting away in different direction. Of these, a select few’s smoke begins to shift into shades of pink, and I am sure this must be the ones Goetia has picked, because I recognized the 2004 Fuyuki a version of me has just vicariously experienced as one of them. Other pieces stay their original, almost purple shade of grey, and then a few more begin to turn a cyan blue. These, as Makeda makes a circular motion with her index finger, begin to rotate.

“They aren’t the only points reading as anomalies,” said Makeda, turning to look at me, “Da Vinci is till collecting data, and we expect it to take a while, but…”

“What we know for sure, is the Counter Force is—or at least was—active in all of them,” says Da Vinci, “But as far as we can tell, Goetia wasn’t.”

I look at the blue points on the map unhappily, and let out an exhale. “And…these all activated in the years between now, and 1985.”

Da Vinci gives me a sympathetic grimace.

“Well, think of it this way!” suggests David, “That certainly limits the damage, and narrows down the search area. Besides.”

He tries to reach way forward and tap Makeda’s smoke diagram, and his hand goes right through it, dissipating an image.

“Since what Ur-Shanabi did was considered ‘breakthrough research,’” he continues, totally nonplussed, “I would bet a lot of money that the points before the last couple years won’t have deeply significant change. If they had, someone in the mage world would have heard about it.”

Da Vinci and Makeda both look annoyed by this, but Da Vinci mutters, “…He’s probably right,” rather unhappily, and my father grins.

“See?” says David, reaching too far forward to try and pat me on the shoulder, and just having to latch onto it instead to not fall off the chair, “All good.”

“Well, that part is an overstatement, but, he’s right it’s not an immediate threat,” says Makeda, miffed, and she waves her hands and the smoke curls back inside the lamp she wears at her belt. “In the meantime, you should go talk to your staff and the others and let them know you’re alright.”

“Yeah,” agrees Da Vinci happily, swinging her feet in anticipation while she watches David very awkwardly make it back upright in his chair, “I’ll keep running calculations and try to get some kind of gameplan together. But we need more data before doing anything concrete.”

“I’ll help,” I say, honestly just relieved to have a little breathing room.

“You will NOT,” says my father sharply, “Not until you get some proper sleep! Look at you!” He gestures broadly with both arms. “You’re a wreck! You’ve been up for three days straight, and went comatose from memory bombardment for almost two hours! You’re exhausted! You transplanted a magic crest, onto yourself, then summoned two heroic spirits inside a reality marble, and stayed up for another forty hours!”

“I, uh,” I try awkwardly, taken aback.

David crosses his arms and eyes me. “You and Ritsuka are both going to take a rest. You act like you forget, son, but you’re only human now. The last thing anybody needs is you to work yourself to death. Or past usefulness.”

I wish he didn’t have a point, but I feel like death warmed over. Still… “I should be able to help though, and it’s-“

I was going to say ‘my fault in the first place,’ but all three turn to look at me as one with such a united front of deeply terrifying energy, like a pack of guard dogs just itching for the command sick ‘em to come,that I don’t.

“…I think David is right,” says Da Vinci, recovering her mask of pleasantness first, and smiling at me with her eyes shut. She pats me on the shoulder. “You can come help in the morning.”

“…Yes,” says Makeda simply, but the way she says it has an undercurrent of chilling.

I’m not getting out of this… “Alright, alright,” I say as I feel the pressure in the room begin to grow tense again, and I put my hands up, “I’ll rest. But, I do need to talk to staff first, at least a little, to explain things—and the kids.” God, poor Mash. She is so inclined to worry, too.

“That’s fine!” says Da Vinci, her same eyes-shut smile still on, “Just don’t stall too long.”

“Yes,” agrees David, hopping out of his chair and offering me a hand, “Let’s do that.”

I let him help me up, but the second he lets go, I almost lose my balance, with my legs so completely asleep, and me so dead-tired. The instant I do, David, Makeda, and Da Vinci all make a move at the same time to help me, and I can’t help but laugh, a deep, full body laugh, as I catch myself and then straighten up on my own, feeling a lot better now.

“It’s so funny,” I say, glancing from one to the other with a smile, “I’ve been the most isolated I think I’ve been my entire existence, for months, and now that things have really fallen apart, I’m surrounded.”

Da Vinci smiles back. “Good.”

I nod. “Good indeed.”

As I wait for my painfully asleep legs to get some feeling back in them, I survey the room for real for the first time. “Where are we right now, anyway? Which conference room is this?”

“It’s the one closest to the command room,” says Da Vinci.

I nod. Finally getting a little painful feeling back, I take a few steps towards the door, testing my balance. Ow.

As we begin to walk, my whole little horde of tag-alongs staying suspiciously within ‘he might fall again’ distance, David says, “Question, Miss Da Vinci. You seemed to know Ritsuka, from Chaldea, but it’s her brother here who’s done this Rayshift, which should be how you meet, or met her, in the future. And then you said it was odd for him to be the one in the Fuyuki singularity, but not very odd. So, was it both of them who helped you, originally?”

“No,” says Da Vinci, seeming surprised—by the question, or by it being from my father, I’m not sure, “I’ve never met the brother before, although I knew he existed.”

“Interesting,” says David.

Interesting indeed.

“Where are the kids?” I ask.

“Didn’t I tell you?” asks Da Vinci, “They’re outside.”

“W—You mean in the hall?” I ask, taken aback, “They’re not resting?” Ritsuka is dead on her feet, and Akira and Mash just returned from a rayshift like three hours before we arrived!

Da Vinci shrugs. “Like father like-” She stops and almost seems a little flustered, then just offers me an impish grin.

Weird, I think, since it’s really no secret I see Mash as a daughter, to anyone. I guess I probably deserve that though. …Damn it! WHY didn’t I do a better job at teaching her to prioritize her health? Stupid! Kids watch what you DO, not just what you say! Stupid stupid! Bad job, Romani! Bad job!!

“Okay, well, let’s fix that too,” I say, increasing speed towards the door. God knows we ask enough of them as it is. I hope they haven’t been too exhausted and miserable out there.

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

“I just can’t believe you’re here!” says Akira, beaming at me, “I mean, what are the chances?!”

“I know!” I chirp. I’ve been grinning so hard the past few hours that it hurts my cheeks, but I’ll never stop! “And you?! Holy crap! The Last Master of Humanity??”

“No-no!” he corrects, his mouth full of the pb&j he’s been working, raising a hand and then pointing from me to him, “The Last Masters of Humanity.”

I laugh.

“Like, go Fujimaru twins, am I right?” he asks, mouth even fuller as he takes another bite.

I elbow him. “Don’t do that! Didn’t dad teach you manners? Not in front of a kouhai!”

He chokes on the pb&j and desperately grabs his milk bottle to help wash it down, then after a solid swallow, gives his friend an apologetic little, “Sorry Mash.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” she replies hurriedly, flushing at us both, “I know you’re hungry and tired.”

“Well, you must be too, right?” I say, offering her a box of pocky.

Hesitantly, the purple haired girl just a year or so younger than me, takes the box and opens it, giving me a little smile.

Mash is neat. We’ve all only been talking for like, two hours or something—it can’t possibly have been that long since my group even arrived—but, I like her. Somehow, she feels like somebody I’ve known all my life. I guess she just must be that kind of person. And, it makes me happy. And relieved.

She’s timid, and quiet. Big eyes, soft voice, always watching the stuff around her like a baby deer taking in the world. But, from Akira’s stories I’ve been getting, she’s also like, super brave and dependable. And a ‘Demi-Servant,’ which, as far as I gather, is a heroic spirit kind of reverse-possessing someone, so instead of them getting the body, they let a normal living human use their power. Apparently, back when the building exploded, Mash got trapped under a fallen pillar, and my brother went and was going to die like a hero holding her hand while another bomb went off, so she wouldn’t be alone (a story she told me trying not to cry, and while staring firmly at the ground, while he turned the reddest I’ve ever seen him, and also looked so, so smug). But instead of either dying, they were saved by whoever is letting Mash use their heroic spirit power, and got rayshifted out.

Rayshifted, as far as I gather, is like teleporting and time travel. Okay, mechanically, it’s more like going to another plane in D&D, where you’ve got a thread connecting your body to a duplicate body, but if one dies the other is in big trouble—you know what—I don’t get all the science. Miss Da Vinci said you’re broken down into your spiritrons, and those are transported to other coordinates in time and space, and re-assembled. So, I wouldn’t know how to do it, but, I get what it does, which I think for me is the important half.

Anyway, when time got incinerated in the city, apparently it was because specific points in history were getting messed up, and my bro and Mash went and repaired one. So one ‘Singularity’ is now stabilized, and, if they fix them all, the world will come back.

So far, it’s been a crazy ride—I mean, his story might be even wilder than mine. And we’re both not even totally done telling the stories. We’ve really only covered bare-bones.

But anyway, to me, the important part is that he’s here and okay and alive, and that this can all be fixed. And, that I’m really glad Mash was here. Akira is brave, but we’ve always done stuff together. We’re strong because we were born with somebody to lean on—I think that’s part of why I’ve been able to do so well with these heroic spirits helping me, despite not being very good at magecraft: I literally came out of the womb as part of a team.

Akira’s the same. We’re strong when we have somebody to lean on, and to prop up, but not alone. And, while I wasn’t here, Mash has done that for him—really reliably!

Plus, I think, smiling as I watch her chomping on the pocky with more gusto than I’ve ever seen anybody else eat it, like a toddler trying ice cream the first time, I bet they’re good for each other. He’s got a lot of charisma and adaptability and he knows how to make you smile when it’s rough, so you can keep going. Mash sounds like she’d be there to be a voice of reason, and pull you up when you fall, but might need somebody who can make her feel like it’s okay for her to smile and talk more too. I bet they’re going to be great friends.

“I’m glad he was the first one you summoned,” says Akira, who has already forgotten what I just said, and gone back to talking with food in his mouth—indicating Billy with his head. “He smiles a lot.”

“He smiles a lot?” I echo.

“Yeah,” agrees Akira, giving me a grin, “You don’t have me there to crack jokes when you need them, so you need somebody else to remind you it could always have been worse, and it’s gonna get better.”

I snort, but then I think about it, and I smile. He’s not totally wrong, and even more than that, it’s reassuring. Twin-morphic-resonance. We were thinking the same thing.

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

“How’re you doing, you sad bastard?” asks Lancer, sidling over to where I’m sitting slumped against a wall near the conference room, holding a bottle.

“I feel like I might do nothing but throw up for the next year,” I reply dryly, annoyed to have to pry my eyes open again at all. It just makes the headache worse.

“Well hey,” he says, sliding down against the wall next to me, and slapping me on the shoulder, “You got the world record now, for longest sustained reality marble. That’s gotta count for something.”

“Great. Put it on my tombstone,” I reply, shutting my eyes again and leaning my head back against the wall.

“Oh, get over yourself. You’re not even injured,” he replies in an annoyingly amicable way.

I sigh. “Why are you over here bothering me. What do you want?”

There’s a clink as he taps something glass—I have to assume the bottle—against the metal guard on the back of my hand.

Annoyed, I crack open an eye and glance over. He’s raising a large bottle of what up close I can tell is definitely alcohol of some kind.

“Come on,” he says, “Gotta push through.”

‘Push through’?! I think, irritated, I just sustained a reality marble for almost three days. I’ll kill you.

“Alcohol isn’t exactly going to make a headache better,” I reply dryly.

He snorts. “Not going to make it worse.”

Yes it will, stupid. “What do you care, anyway. Go bother someone else,” I reply.

He rolls his eyes and removes the glass cork, then takes a swig. He holds the bottle out to me.

I’m annoyed, but I’m too tired to keep arguing, and I want him to go away, so exhausted, I take it, and drink. I'm even more annoyed that it's actually pretty good.

“Not bad, huh?” he says, grinning at me.

Oh go fuck yourself, I think. “How’s the doctor?” I ask instead.

Lancer shrugs. “Seems fine now. Everyone who’s useful at that kind of magecraft is in the command room, trying to figure out how the hell this happened. Everyone else is supposed to rest up.”

Great, is there a bed somewhere then? That actually might help. “Anywhere better for that than here on the floor?” I ask.

When we arrived, after what was more of an awkward than dangerous standoff when the doctor fainted, we were more or less asked to stick around this general area, and it would have been more trouble than it was worth not to comply. Besides which, as tired as I and everyone else are, the civilians who are actual living humans have it worse, and some of them are injured. They were given access to a large conference room and as many pillows and spare blankets as the staff here seemed able to find. Us spirits, and the Fujimaru kids, stuck around near the command room to wait for the doctor to wake up.

“They’re working on it. We brought in almost two-hundred people,” says Lancer, a little more seriously, “And the facility was bombed not long ago, so a lot of their shit is under rubble right now.”

“Bombed?” I ask. News to me. But then, I missed a lot the last few hours. Basically as soon as I could tell there wasn’t going to be a fight, I went to collapse and rest somewhere, with as much dignity as I could, before my core knocked me out completely.

“Yeah. Right—You left,” says Lancer, cocking his head and thinking, “Some guy turned traitor, and took out a lot of the staff a couple days ago—to them, right at the turn of the year. They’ve been scrambling ever since.”

I nod, too tired to ask a lot more right now. “Anything pressing, for us?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. You can pass out.”

On the floor? I’m not sure I’m that desperate. Not with this group of people.

Lancer takes the bottle back and drinks, then passes it back to me. I give in and take another swig. Energy is energy, and it’s not bad. Even if it won’t help the headache. I guess I’m physically past caring about that.

“…It’s weird, isn’t it?”

I glance over at Lancer, waiting for him to elaborate. His tone has changed. It’s light, but there’s an undercurrent of seriousness, study, almost. He’s not really looking at anything I can tell, though, just eyeing the empty hall.

Finally, he turns his face back towards me, and smiles, but I don’t believe the smile. I don’t really think I’m meant to. “It’s familiar.”

Is it?

I’m skeptical, but, as he says it, and I turn my own head to look over the nondescript, white-blue walls, it’s…

“There’s…a cafeteria. That way,” I say, not sure why, pointing to my left. “Two halls down.”

I haven’t walked that way at all.

Lancer nods. “There is.” We meet eyes, and we both understand something I almost wish we didn’t.

“…We’ve been here before,” I say. It’s not a question. “Together.”

He nods, very slowly.

“How did you know?” I ask.

“I…remembered,” says Lancer, thinking, and quieter than usual, “And I didn’t. ‘I’ haven’t been here. I’m sure ‘you’ haven’t either. But some version of us has. Because I remember, a Christmas with you.”

“…And…Robin?” I ask, perturbed by the sudden inkling. It’s not a visual memory. It’s like…information, like the throne fills in when we’re sent to a different area. Or the familiar emotion a smell brings, if you knew it well. “…No. David and Robin, but not you…” I add to myself, under my breath. The hell? Were all of us…?

But then, Da Vinci said that, didn’t she? That she knew all of us aside from Salieri.

“It’s our own future summons,” I suggest, “That we’re remembering.”

“But if it is,” says Lancer skeptically, “That would mean we’re all about to die. Then get re-summoned, and be remembering the re-summoning. We can’t remember the summon we’re on.”

He’s right. “That…seems a little far-fetched. But I don’t know what else it would be,” I say. Maybe I do.

“Parallel timeline?” suggests Lancer.

“Our memories, or, sense of them, is way too keen for that…unless, there’s a reason we’re being allowed this much,” I add, thinking.

He shrugs, seeming to completely relax again suddenly.

“What?” I ask.

He glances at me and smiles. “Ah, nothing. I could tell you remembered stuff too. Figured if we were about to die, we’d both have some kind of bad feeling. Or one of us would, at least. But neither of us does. If we aren’t about to die, the memory stuff is a problem for future us.”

The way you live your life, I think, smiling at the absurdity in spite of myself. He holds out the glass and I take it and drink. “Well, good luck to them then,” I say tiredly.

Lancer grins and holds up the bottle in toast. “To them. Probably gonna fuckin’ need it.”

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

“So, that about bring everyone up to speed?” asks Da Vinci pleasantly.

The Chaldea staff around us trade looks, confused, but glad to have answers, even if they’re answers they don’t understand. The civilians who aren’t resting, and chose to attend, seem to be feeling an even stronger version of the same response. Something like ‘Oh thank God somebody has an idea.’ –I guess I can kind of relate. I flip up the hood of my cloak, and relax a little against the back wall. Even if the situation sucks, it’s reassuring to have some answers. Plus, the doc and his two casters look a lot more relaxed, so, I gotta believe they have a plan forming now, at worst.

In the front, I see Ritsuka’s hand shoot up, and just a half-second later, her brother’s beside her. Da Vinci nods at them both.

“So…” says Ritsuka with great focus, glancing at her brother then Da Vinci, “If our best move is to stabilize things enough we can find Goetia, then what’s our next step to stabilizing?”

“Our next step,” answers Doctor Romani with a tired smile, “Is for you to rest—for everyone, to rest. Those of us who do analysis, we’ll take shifts, so we can keep running tests on the situation. Everyone else, we need to be in tip-top shape.”

One of the kids goes to ask him a question—the brother—Akira? – and Doctor Romani cuts him off with a gentle hand.

“-Akira, Mash, you two just got back from a harrowing experience. Eat, sleep, and then report tomorrow for a physical exam and mental health checkup. Ritsuka, you just helped sustain a reality marble for the better part of three days. After almost dying, and contracting a grail war’s worth of spirits. You do the same. On the subject of spirits, obviously Emiya needs time to recover, but as much as possible, I want everyone else to, too. Rest up, because we need you sharp. We’ve uh—finally—got accommodations and rooms worked out. Sylvia has a print out with room assignments, as well as directions to bathrooms, the cafeteria, and medical quarters.”

“And after we report?” asks Akira.

Doctor Romani sighs. “…We don’t know for sure yet, but, it’s pretty likely we’ll be having to send out small groups to contend with both the targeted singularities, and the new anomalies. We’ll let you know more when we do. But for now, the assignment is rest.”

“Yes sir!” calls out the little purple haired girl—Mash—almost over the end of his sentence. She turns pink and stutters out an apology.

“I can’t believe he wasn’t lying about the daughter thing after all,” mutters Emiya in disbelief nearby.

I try not to laugh.

“And that goes for the Doctor, too! I’m afraid he’ll be out of commission while he sleeps,” says David in a friendly tone with more than a little danger hiding inside it warning against being challenged, “There are other people on standby at the medbay though—don’t worry.”

Doctor Romani sighs again. “Any last questions?”

“I got one, but not for him,” says Billy’s voice in my head, “Robin, uh—everything he said—you got the gist of it, yeah?”

“I did,” I reply, mostly ignoring the end of the briefing in favor of this.

“Well, if some human mages figured out some kind of First Law type magic altered the world state, I can see those greedy bastards runnin’ around breakin’ all kindsa shit tryin’ to get more power—ain’t like mages ever been careful before,” he replies, “But they ain’t the ones who changed it. Too much experimenting. And I believe the Doc didn’t do it. I know the kid didn’t. So who do you think did?”

“Why would I know?” I ask, turning to lean against the wall and trying to find him in the crowd so I can give him a look, “I’m not a Caster, or any kind of magic user, for that matter. If they don’t know, no way I do.”

“Well, sure,” says Billy awkwardly, and I find him in the crowd finally, near the far left side, already watching me. To my surprise, he looks…deeply contemplative. “But you would know who would want us to have a chance to see each other.”

“Come again?” I say, truly taken aback.

“I…thought it over,” says Billy, meeting my gaze, “What got said back in the bar—about how everyone but Kotarou seems to come in a set? Think about it.” He ticks off on his fingers. “You, Me. Emiya, Cu Chulainn. David, the Doctor. Mozart, Salieri. Doesn’t it seem way too random to be random?”

… “I take your meaning…” I offer slowly, “…I do. …But. …No one would. Right?”

Billy nods, looking concerned. “I could only think of Geronimo, for us. But, I don’t think he’s ever even met any of the others. They sure as shit don’t remember him. And I can’t think of anybody else. But it can’t be coincidence, right? Two is coincidence, three is a pattern—that’s the sayin’.”

“Well…whoever did, it seems non-malicious, right?” I say after a few seconds of thought, “Even as much as Emiya and Cu Chulainn bitch at each other, they’re not actually mad to both be here. And it’s a straight-up gift to most of us. I don’t think we need to be worried about it.”

I look across the room at Billy, and the expression on his face says he could not be more sure that I’m wrong.

“I think you want to know a donor, not just a robber,” offers Billy.

And when I consider the re-painting of the whole world going on around us, I realize pretty quick he couldn’t be more right.

“Alright!” comes Da Vinci’s voice, loud through the speaker system, and sharp, snapping me back to attention, “That concludes the briefing! Everyone rest up. We all need it, and it's a big day tomorrow.”

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

It’s quiet in the room. Somehow, it feels almost like being home. I really like it.

I mean, it doesn’t look like home. The walls there are not the off-white of paper walls like I’m used to at home, and there aren’t all the pictures and posters Akira and I hung up on them; it’s kind of sparse in here—just white-blue walls and floor, the Chaldea emblem on the wall, a desk and an empty shelf, and our beds—but, just the same. …It feels like getting in your bed at home does. Dunno why. Maybe because Akira is here, and we’re always okay together.

“Aki,” I say. He’s been quiet, but I know he’s not asleep. He doesn’t like, snore when he sleeps, but he breathes louder, and I know the sound super well. He isn’t doing it right now.

“Suka,” he replies. I can tell he knew I was awake already too.

“…Are you okay?”

I haven’t gotten to ask that before. We always had Mash, or Doctor Romani, or Billy, or somebody else nearby. I mean, I could ask, but he couldn’t have said the truth, if I had, and I couldn’t have either.

“…”

I hear him sit up, so I roll onto my side and look over. Even in the dim light from the hall outside, spilling under the door, I can see him enough to make out his expression, and see he’s looking at me, too.

“…No,” he says simply. He leans against the wall, and tucks his knees up to his chest.

I climb out of my bed, and walk over to his, clambering up beside him. Taking my place next to him, where I always am, I sigh, letting out some real tension finally, and I feel him lean his head on my shoulder.

“How about you?” says Akira.

“I’m not either,” I say quietly, “…But. You know. It doesn’t matter.”

It’s weird. I wish it did, but, I feel selfish, and bad, for wishing it did.

“Yeah,” he says in the same subdued tone as my own.

“…We’re gonna be okay,” I promise, looking over.

He exhales slowly. When he speaks, I can hear an attempt at a smile in his voice. It makes me sad… “Are we?”

I take his hand. He squeezes mine, and we sit in silence for a few minutes, just thinking, and breathing together.

“…You wanna tell me about it?” I ask finally, in the stillness of the room that feels like my bedroom at home somehow, even though it’s on the other side of the world, at the end of it, “About it for real? With all the bad parts, and awful feelings, and stuff you’re afraid to even think? The stuff that wakes you up at night?”

He thinks about that. “Yeah. I would. But you go first.”

“…I got somebody killed. For real, forever. Not because I wasn’t fast enough to help. The heroic spirits helping me killed them, for doing bad stuff. And now they’re just dead.” I think about that for real. About Mr. Toujou. Miss Ayase.

I turn and look at Akira, and see his eyes reflected back in the dim light, like my other half.

“…I feel bad. I didn’t want it. But, what’s worse is…I don’t feel very bad. I know I should feel worse than I do. I know I should feel guiltier, and have tried harder. But, Mr. Toujou threatened to kill you, and Mom, and Dad. He was going to kill me, and make me kill my heroic spirit. They were torturing people. Director Ayase was running that whole place. And I…I saw, what they did to Billy, to Robin, Cu Chulainn, David, god, Salieri. …Kotarou. I just…”

He's still watching, listening. No judgement.

“…I’m scared it’s gonna change me,” I whisper, letting go of his hand to bury my face in my knees. “What if I become bad? What if I care less someday? I don’t want to stop being me, but I feel like I’m already letting myself down.”

“…” Akira watches me a few more seconds, then looks away. “…I saw a bunch of people die,” he whispers, “When that bomb went off, there was fire everywhere. Parts of the ceiling had fallen on them. The walls. Some had even burned alive. The worst part, was that not everybody was dead yet. And…” His eyes tear up. “…Mash was there. A column had crushed her body. Everything in her midsection must have just been pulp, and I couldn’t lift the column, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I could. She was dead, it was just taking a while. And I could hear another bomb ticking down. I was so scared. I wanted so bad, Suk, to live. I wanted to run out that door, and not look back. But god, she was so scared. She was crying, and shaking. I knew the scariest thing on earth, to her, was to die alone. And I knew I wasn’t gonna achieve anything, except a few seconds being less bad, if I stayed to die with her. If I died, you and Mom and Dad would all be so sad, too. It would have been so easy, to leave her. I wanted to leave her.”

I realize he’s crying.

“…But you didn’t,” I say.

“I’m scared it doesn’t matter,” says Akira, “Matter enough? I thought about it. She was so pitiful, and helpless, and I thought about leaving her to die alone, to save myself.”

“But you didn’t,” I say again, putting a hand on his back.

He nods, breathing slowing back down. “I know. …What if I do someday, though?”

Oh. We’re exactly the same, huh.

“…You won’t,” I say after a few seconds. “I know, because I know you better than I know myself. Even if you did, I’d still love you, and I’d forgive you, and you’d still be good, but you won’t. Because you’re glad, right?”

He glances at me.

“You’re glad you stayed. And not just because you got a miracle, and survived. It was scary, when you were deciding, but after, it was easy, right? Like peace.”

“…How did you know?” he asks, shifting to face me more completely.

“I saw how you looked at Mash,” I reply easily, smiling, “You were grateful, right? That you got to save her.”

He nods. “I was really glad.”

“Then don’t worry. You aren’t how you feel, you’re how you choose to be. And you’d always save her. I bet you know that already, deep down. It’s just really scary, the first time you have to act the way you always thought you would,” I say.

“You realize you’re not holding yourself to the same standard, right?” replies Akira with a tired smile, plopping a hand on my head, “You’re worried you’re bad because you aren’t feeling guilty enough.”

“-W—no—and I didn’t try hard enough!” I argue.

“Didn’t you?” he says, unimpressed.

Did I? I’m not sure anymore. I’m so jumbled up, it’s hard to tell.

“You know how when we were kids, you always really liked the character who was the hero’s friend, who got trapped sort of turning to the dark side—not because they were bad, but because sometimes someone had to do something a little bad, so the hero didn’t have to?” asks Akira, “They were such a good friend, they’d even lose themselves, so the hero didn’t have to?”

“Is that what I’m turning into?” I ask nervously.

He grins and shakes his head, like I’m being stupid. “No. But you should love yourself at least as much as that, if you ever started to. Those people who died, it was to protect your friends right? And you feel guilty you didn’t try harder to keep them alive, even though probably there was no way to do it at all?”

But…what if there was? And I’m just not good enough to find it…

I nod, and look at the sheets.

“So if you even did anything wrong, which I think you didn’t, even a little, you only did it to protect somebody you love,” says Akira, like it’s so easy, “You put them before an ideal that was gonna hurt them. That’s not bad. That’s love. You’ve always been good, and you always will be Ritsuka. And if you ever have to do things you wish you didn’t, I already know the only reason you’re gonna do them is so someone like me doesn’t have to. I hope you never, ever have to do that again. But if you do, thank you.”

He reaches over, and he pulls me into a hug.

It’s a little unexpected, since we were talking, but, I think I needed it. I feel the urge to cry build up in my throat, and lean in against him, wrapping my arms around his back.

“I know you want to save everybody, and have everybody be good, and never hurt anyone at all,” whispers Akira, “You want to love everybody, and see it all turns out alright. So thank you, for taking a bullet for everybody else. I know it hurt. And I know it hurts to ever act how you don’t want to be. But thank you, and I love you for it. Thank you for loving me enough to do the hard thing yourself.”

“Do I have to do it?” I whisper, voice shaky, trying not to cry. I can’t, so I stop talking, and lean my head into his shoulder, doing it silently.

“No,” says Akira, “You never have to. I hope next time, I’m the one who does.”

I don’t want that at all. I’d much rather it be me.

Oh.

There’s something in that thought that gets through the way the rest of what he’s been saying hasn’t quite been able to. Maybe…maybe not every part of it isn’t bad, about me, even if most of it was. Maybe there’s a little piece of love in there too, after all.

“Let’s hope neither of us has to ever again. I want to grow up a little slower,” says Akira.

“Me too. But so long as I get to do it with you, I think we’ll both be okay,” I whisper back.

And it helps.

In the way my twin has only ever been able to help me.

Akira and I talk, for several hours, when we should be sleeping, but, I think we both need this a lot more. I talk about helplessness and weakness and my inability, and the weight of quick choices, and my fears. He talks about failing to save somebody, and needing to never do it again, and how lonely it feels to survive.

But, it’s not all bad.

I already knew it wasn’t, for me, but somehow when I say the good and all the bad together to Akira, I really hear how much is good in a different way—even with the parts that are bad; like, how I was so scared Toujou would kill him and Mom and Dad, and how Emiya said he wouldn’t blame me if I made him die there to save them, and how he thanked me after. How he promised he’d keep them safe from Ur Shanabi, and did it too. How Salieri makes me so sad and worried, and said he’s not like a real person, but I gave him food, and talked to him the same, and I didn’t think it would matter, but I saw him smile at the shop. How Doctor Roman bought the goofiest swimsuits in the gift shop, to try and help me relax, and wore it all through an operation. How I was a little worried about tying my pool of energy to somebody I didn’t really know, but he keeps coming to check on me and make sure I’m okay, and he hasn’t betrayed me or hurt me once. I keep gambling, and winning—I said that to Akira. He said, ‘No. You keep putting faith in people, and they keep proving you right.’

I’m not sure if it’s different. But, I like the way he says it.

It’s been scary. I watched the world wipe away, like a bomb was taking out the whole planet. But, we saved people—people that weren’t alive in the version of the world Akira knew about, here in Chaldea. Maybe it’s only ninety-six people who wouldn’t have made it, but that’s so much more than zero. I’m really proud of it. Even in the horror, we’ve done little things okay.

It's the same for Akira. He doesn’t tell me until the next morning, when we’re getting ready for the day, but, he feels awful for what happened to Olga Marie, but he says he also saw her change—grow—that, in the short time they worked together, she got less mean, and less hard, and he was proud. She said she didn’t want to die, because she hadn’t proven herself yet, but he said, ‘I wish it felt like it might have mattered to her that she did, to me, in Fuyuki…’ I said, ‘I think it would.’ He smiled. And he talked about Mash, who’s shy, and awkward, but she’s brave, too. He said she’s gone from being barely able to say no to a request, to risking her life to protect him—and she’s not just braver, she seems happier. Not that all this bad stuff happened, but she’s really…alive. He says Doctor Roman told him that talking with Akira after the mission was the happiest he’s ever seen her. It would be great, if nobody had died, and she still got to feel that way, but the fact it happened a bad way, doesn’t make the goof part not good.

I can tell he’s different, too. Akira’s impulsive, like me; Mom and Dad call us ‘the tornado twins,’ because we ran around causing messes on accident so much when we were little. I know he hasn’t changed much, but, I can see him thinking hard now, and I know he’s thinking about how to make everybody happy and safe. I wish he hadn’t had to grow up a little so fast. I wish it hadn’t happened at all. But, for parts of him to grow into early, I’m really happy he picked such a nice one.

We talk for several hours, quiet, like we used to when Mom and Dad had said it was bed time and we better not, and we’d whisper to each other through the wall of our rooms anyway and be bad, because we were too excited about a trip the next day. I know they were right, and so is the Doctor now, but I think this time we were too, because at the end of it all, I climb back in my bed, and I hear Akira whisper, “Hey, Suka? I really love you, you know?” and I whisper back, “I love you even more,” and we go back and forth trying to one-up the other for a minute, and then call it a tie, and the room gets quiet, and I really rest for the first time since this all started, since the day I got Billy out, like I’ve learned how to sleep again by talking with my brother.

Maybe I have. Maybe if he can be proud for me, and I can be sure for him, we can both really be…okay.

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

Timeline: Two Months, Sixteen Days, Two Hours Forward. Coordinates: -4.R48X91, -R1.559X46 Graph: 10912.1326

The jungle is dark and full of shadows, but it is not quiet.

That is a good sign. There is nothing more fearful, in a jungle, than the absence of noise. Can you even imagine the terrors it would take to scare every type of beast living in one, into silent submission or flight?

So, it is a clearly good sign.

What is clearly not a good sign, is the man-made structure up ahead.

Kuhaha, I mutter as a scoff in my throat. Irritating, being dropped here for this. Not that I’d prefer a master; I wouldn’t. But I’d prefer some damn idea of what I’m being flung here to do.

It isn’t like planning or persistence are issues for me, which is probably why the Counter Force chose me, but it’s not my job, and I don’t love being spat out by it. I shouldn’t be here at all. And if I’m in the prison tower after this again, I’ll hunt her and that demon down myself.

Still. I let myself melt into the shadows and fade in and out, towards the building. It’s an ugly thing, built at odd angles and jutting out, like boxes of different sizes stacked haphazardly about. I have become curious, so, I may as well indulge. Despite my distaste for the system, it does tend to throw heroic spirits at the more disgusting humans in this miserable world, and I have a taste for blood.

There is movement behind me.

How. The HELL, did I not notice the-?!

Cursing, I swing around, and am uppercut in the face by a massive blunt object the size of a bed.

Shit, I think it is a bed, I register as I fly backwards, breaking through two trees before catching onto a third one with a clawed hand and swinging around it with my momentum, landing back on my feet with an aching jaw.

Fast—hell—too fast! I feel almost no spike in magical energy, but the red figure who attacked is a blur, tearing at me at a sickening speed. Tch-!

I leap up, and call black flames to my hands, raining them down on the thing, but it dodges and weaves, and I see it raise a gun, so I mentally calculate the time it takes for a bullet to be fired and aim taken, and dodge, leaping from the tree I’m clinging to, smack into the path of the gun, because it THROWS it at me! Not shoots! No! It throws the whole gun at me!

It doesn’t even hurt that much, but it catches me by surprise, and expecting that, the red figure takes that fraction of an opening, leaps, and kicks me out of mid-air, through another three trees. I hear trunks snap and thud around me, and curse as I dig my claws into the ground to bring myself to a stop. It’s going to draw guards, like this.This thing is probably their perimeter security. I need to retreat, if I want to at least avoid being identified.

I sink into the shadows, and begin to melt from one to another, and the stupid thing appears from among the trees at a full-tilt run again, going right for me—I swear! The damn thing locks eyes! It’s a human, too—a heroic spirit, it must be, and it’s running at me like a football player going for a tackle.

FINE! If that’s how you want it!

I dash forward myself, and having run away before, I catch her by surprise, ducking under her arm and slicing her through the gut with a black-fame’d claw.

She cries out, more in surprise than anger or pain, and whips around to follow me like she hasn’t even noticed.

Tch. It didn’t go as deep as I meant.

The woman twisted on impact, like even too late to dodge, she somehow knows the best place in her gut to take the hit. This is a pain. I’m not really hurt yet, but neither is she. I need to make this really fast, or whatever is in that building that the Counter Force found important enough to throw me at, is going to come out here, and I’m not a man who likes to rush in blind. I should take this more seriously.

Annoyed, I catch another tree and swing myself around it again, sliding past her as she barrels after me, and slicing into her leg.

Almost too easy. She caught me by surprise, but she’s not as fast as me, just odd.

Moving faster, I tear off into the cover of shadows again, her, single-minded as a bull, plowing after me through the underbrush, then I turn and leap to a tree, propel myself off the side to another, and then from it, dive down at her, tearing a gash across her chest as I go past.

Breathing hard, she hesitates, turning to see where I went, and I use the opening to dash in and swing at her back with a claw, and my fingers sink in and find flesh, just as I feel a vice-like hand clamp down on my neck, raise me up, and slam me hard into the ground

JESUS! How strong-?!

It actually stuns me. Just a split second, but she slams me down so hard that the ground dents around me, and I’m at least two feet down, in a crater, throat burning.

“Hold still,” she says like a mildly-irritated reprimand, and that tips me off like nothing else has. She’s not even mildly threatened.

Shit-

“I don’t need mercy!” I shout, raising a hand towards her face, and managing to dig my fingers into the side of it, drawing blood, but her eyes are fixed on me like steel, and she’s already calling hers out, too:

“I will purge all that is toxic, all that is harmful.”

“I follow a path that is beyond love and hate!” I spit, digging my claws deeper and feeling my mana surge around me.

            “For as long as I have this power-“

“Enter Chateau D’If!”

I do it—I’m faster.

Around me, I feel my body speed up, my mind sharpen, until the pace is so frantic, time may as well stop around me. Wrenching myself from her grasp, I rip a claw up and through her torso, scouring her body with black flames, curses of death. I move at the same time left, right, behind her, above, tearing her back, her legs, her arms, her face; I am everywhere, I am fire itself, I am death and hate in that moment, I am the concept of inescapable suffering and the unconquerable march of the reaper. In an instant, I attack from every conceivable angle, and cover her body in the flames of the cursed poison inside me, then skid to a stop on her left as the phantasm breaks and ends around me, the world catching back up.

You’re finished, I think, relieved, and surprised to be threatened enough to be relieved, No one can survive those flames.

And no living witness to a phantasm, no identity given away.

Her uniform, as I’m only now recognizing it to be, hanging in tatters around her, blood seeping from her chest over breasts and down her torso, past the hole through her stomach, and along shredded leg muscles, she blinks in surprise at where I was, then turns to see me where I am now, as if she can still sense it. Her face is not twisted in pain or anger. Her eyes are red, like mine, and burn, like mine, but burn a different color. Blood seeps down her forehead, and it’s like she doesn’t feel it, the way I don’t. And she looks at me, but not the way I am looking at her. She reaches out a hand, but not the way I reached out mine, and she calls:

            “I shall lead everyone to happiness!”

She’s still using it, I realize, taken aback. She has to know using that much energy would kill her instantly, with my flames consuming her body at speed already. She’s going to take me out with-?

“Nightingale Pledge!”

A waterfall of white flames erupts around her and the black flames of my phantasm that are burning out her life, and behind her, a massive figure the size of a building appears—like her—I think it is her, but made of white flame as well, and with a sword, and she raises a hand and the sword comes down with a ferocity and speed—I try to move, and find I can’t, and it hits me.

And passes through.

I breathe raggedly, reaching a hand to my chest, and I find myself undamaged, only—Wait. My flames have gone out?

They always glow around me and my claws, but-

Shit!

I look back at her and see they’ve vanished around her as well, and as she stands there, unmoving, the slashes across her face heal, and the hole in her stomach closes, and-

Mer…

I see her. I see me, in the Chateau D’If, and—?

“Mercedes?” I ask, taken aback, and I forget for just an instant, to move.

She is on me like an attack dog, her force and size knocking me to the ground again, and I see an outstretched hand holding a pad with what can only be chloroform on it from the smell—Stupid! Poison won’t even work on me! I just used my own-

My back hits the ground and the pad rams into my face, and WHY THE FUCK IS IT WORKING?!?

What the HELL is going on with her?! WHY-?

Damn it! Her phantasm! That’s right—some part of me remembers; it blocks the effects of other—

“Mercedes!” I try, voice muffled by the pad, “Get off of me!”

I could stab her until she lets go, but now that I remember who she is, I suddenly don’t want to; I also suddenly remember she’d probably die before thinking to move, the insane  nurse! Instead, I try to just grab and pull her off, but it’s like wrestling a goddamn rhino.

What kind of insane strength do you HAVE, woman?!?

“Please sit patiently. You are in need of treatment,” she states calmly, pinning me down without mercy, and not budging an inch.

“I do not need treatment!” comes my muffled voice as I thrash around under her, trying not to breathe, “I’m fine! Get off! We’re on the same side!”

“I’m sorry, but you are clearly disoriented and unwell. You may be suffering an injury to the head,” she says with sympathy, “I am not Mercedes.”

YOU BITCH! Do you remember me too, and you still-?!

Shit, it’s getting hard. We don’t exactly do body functions the way humans do, but it doesn’t matter, because her chloroform is seeping in not exactly the way it’s supposed to either. Holding my breath seems to slow it down, but I think it’s sinking into my skin anyway. Also, it’s also agonizing, which it shouldn’t be, because I don’t actually have human lungs! I should be able to hold out until it starts damaging my prana cycle, and instead she’s…fucking somehow forcing my body to think it’s functioning like it’s flesh and blood! “You remember me?” I manage.

She tilts her head and blinks at me, considering my face, staring deeply.

“…No,” she decides.

LIAR!

“Listen to me!” I choke out, “I don’t want to kill you, but if you don’t get off me, I’ll rip you to shreds! We both need to get out of here, before the people in that building get here to check out the massive disturbance you caused!”

She turns her head to look, then looks back at me.

“Oh.” Her eyes widen. “I do know you.”

Finally! Thank-

I relax for just an instant, and she dumps a whole bottle of chloroform onto my head, then slams me in the gut so I involuntarily take a breath, before I can even process what just happened.

Shit…

“I’m sorry,” she says, sounding genuinely sorry, “You were agitated and needed to be sedated. I decided the best way for you not to hurt me like you want, is for you to go to sleep.”

“You bitch…” I wheeze weakly, forgetting not to take a breath, with my head suddenly so hazy. This is so stupid. I’ve made so many mistakes in a row, and it’s just because I remember her! This is why it’s a mistake to ever let anyone get close to you—only someone you trust can ever stab you in the back! Why did I do this?! I’m so frustrated I almost do hope she just bashes my head into a puddle now. Maybe I’d finally learn that lesson.

“That’s extremely inappropriate language,” she reprimands harshly, as if she’s disappointed in me now, too. Gripping the lapels of my coat firmly, she jerks me up, and hoists me over a shoulder in a fireman carry.

…this sucks.

“Just…kill me,” I hiss out unhappily. Damn it. My head is starting to feel numb.

“I told you—I am not going to kill you,” she replies, “You need treatment.”

Great.

I feel a gloved hand pat my head. “That’s good. Please remain calm. Your anger was consuming you so much you could not listen to reason, but do not worry; I will find a way to cure you even if I have to kill you.”

“…please don’t,” say dryly, giving up and hanging limp over a shoulder.

“I am Florence Nightingale,” she says, ignoring me.

No shit. “I know…who you are,” I manage between labored breaths.

She glances at me and tilts her head again, curious this time. “Then why did you call me-?”

I pretend to pass out, because I don’t want to answer, and I’m exhausted now anyway.

“Hmmm. Poor man,” she says with a sad sigh, and forges on.

Angel of Crimea, more like Angel of Brute Force Sanity, I think, but I’m not as annoyed as I could be. I’m not as sick as I’m acting, either. The effects of her drugs will knock me out if I’m not careful, but they only worked full force when she was smashing me in the face with them, and with her noble phantasm wearing off now too, I could choose to activate my poison resistance and shake off the effects. The thing is, though, I actually don’t really mind letting her have her fun, and just going along with whatever it is she’s planning. I could fight back now, or break free, and run away, but I don’t really have a reason to.  I mean, she’s not going to kill me, no matter what she said; she just isn’t like that—and it isn’t like Alaya gave me instructions, so if it can’t be bothered to lift a finger, why should I run around slaving for some malicious god? Besides, as much of a pain as that crazy nurse can be, she can also be fun, and the fact she’s here at all is interesting.

The fact both of us are?

Maybe there is a reason, I think, contented, and I begin to plot.

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: Wyatt & Ahmed (NPC penned by Caitlyn!) SUMMARY: NPC Ahmed is out hiking and stumbles upon Gator!Wyatt during a meal. Wyatt decides he’s still hungry and gives chase. A cleverly hidden pit is Ahmed’s only saving grace, and Wyatt is now trapped. CONTENT WARNINGS: Creature death (lamia dinner)

—

He stared at the strange thing, his massive crocodilian head cocked to the side. It stared back, silent and unbothered by the lamia’s presence, somehow. Most creatures that didn’t attack on sight were instead prone to fleeing from the reptilian beast, and for good reason—he was always hungry. This one, though… maybe it couldn’t run? Its back half seemed covered in the plant life it was nestled amongst. Was it trapped? Why else would a lamb just lay there when confronted by the likes of Wyatt? The staring contest continued for a few moments more before the lamb let out a loud, startling bleat. Wyatt winced away from it, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing happened. 

It bleated again, and the lamia parted his jaws in a toothy grin. Wow. What an easy lunch this had turned out to be! He was still curious though, not quite content to eat the thing just yet. So instead he lowered himself onto all fours and began nosing around the lamb’s hindquarters, trying to find the roots or whatever it was that were holding the pathetic thing in place and assess the damage. If there was rot, he might want to avoid its back half. What he found instead were fruits growing on whatever kind of bush this was that had ensnared the creature, and they smelled terribly sweet and delicious. Curious and not particularly cautious, Wyatt bit one from the bush and swallowed it down, releasing a pleased rumble in response. Delicious! He bit off another fruit, munching happily and rooting around for more while the lamb continued to wail, not sounding very much like it was in pain, but just disturbed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to you,” he muttered as he gulped down another fruit. Dessert was coming first today.

—

Ahmed didn’t mean to get himself into sticky situations. Honestly, he didn’t. But they kept finding him. One minute, he was enjoying his walk on the trail, a few miles out from where he had started. The next, he heard bleating and decided to check it out. Big mistake. He was greeted by the sight of a giant crocodile creature about to chow down on it. Ahmed blinked a few times, trying to figure out if what he was seeing was real. When he realized it wasn’t disappearing after a rapid succession of blinks, he took a step back, then another. Before he knew it, Ahmed was backpedaling away from the scene and promptly tripped over a root sticking out of the ground. He made a loud noise as he fell onto the ground with a loud “Oof!” 

The strange creature turned its attention to him, and Ahmed’s expression turned from fear to embarrassment as he slowly raised his hand up into the air and waved awkwardly and slowly. “Uh. Hi?” He called out to the creature, then to the lamb stuck in the brush, then back to the obviously hungry crocodile. “I… didn’t mean to…” Ahmed trailed off as he scrambled to his feet, backing up a bit more to put more space between himself and the creature. “I’ll go.” He insisted with a sure nod of his head as he turned to leave but then locked eyes with that sad, pathetic lamb. “Uh.” He uttered dumbly before pointing to the creature. “What’s uh, what’s he doing all the way out here?”

—

Humans sure were good at interrupting his meals, weren’t they? And after he’d been so polite, choosing creatures over sapient beings for his lunch. God. His yellow gaze fell upon the stranger, permanently bared teeth parting as a low hiss rumbled out of his gullet, a warning to back off. It wasn’t needed, of course, the human tripping over himself to get away… but he messed that up too, of course. The raised hand and awkward greeting was unexpected, and Wyatt had to wonder how many other bizarre things this one had seen to illicit a response like that. 

No matter, he was leaving. 

Or, he was supposed to be, but then he stopped, turned, and asked about the lamb. The gator grumbled to himself, thinking that of course it couldn’t have been that simple. Of course.

“Bold of you to assume I was smart enough to answer that question,” Wyatt started, sounding annoyed. His gaze then flicked over to the lamb, who was bleating pitifully and trembling where it sat. “And I dunno. I found it here. Stuck or somethin’.” He glanced back at the human, dragging his long tail across the forest floor behind him to partially circle it around the lamb. “Finders keepers, mon cher.” With a snort, he craned his head back to face the lamb, who now seemed to realize the peril it was in and began wailing even louder. Annoying. Wyatt didn’t feel like making such a huge mess this time and was pretty sure that he could swallow this little guy whole, so instead of snapping off that hollering head, the gator bit down on the lamb’s middle and started to pull, trying to free it from the brambles that covered its back half so he could gulp it down. 

—

Ahmed felt frozen in place, none of this felt real. But the gator… thing didn’t seem to be keen on attacking him so much as it was keen on making a snack out of that poor lamb. Ahmed decided that it was better the animal then him in that situation, not wanting to risk the thing’s ire more than he already had just by being there. The creature hissed, and Ahmed was glad he was already backpedaling away. No way did he want to see what those teeth were capable of. 

The creature could talk, and that was enough to shake Ahmed to his core. Of course he’d spoken before, but this time it was directed at him. “Just… are you sure it isn’t a trap?” Ahmed questioned as the creature took a big bite out of poor lamby and tried to pull it free from the bramble. He winced and turned his head, not wanting to bare witness to the gruesome sight. “I mean, really. What if it’s a trap?” He then questioned again as the creature struggled to free his meal from the bramble. The lamb hollering was going to replay in his head for quite some time. 

Ahmed looked around, waiting for something bigger and angrier to show itself. There was no way it wasn’t a trap. In a town like this? Oh yeah, Ahmed was finally catching on. Ahmed took another step back, brows raised in worry as he continued to look around, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for anything to happen. 

—

A trap? That was ridiculous. What kind of predator would be setting a trap, besides… a hunter? Maybe? But weren't they against the killing of innocent creatures? This lamb was practically the poster child for innocence. It was cruel to use it as bait, but maybe hunters were just cruel people. It made enough sense to Wyatt. He eased up on the animal, letting his jaw slacken slightly as his gaze darted around the area, looking for any obvious sign of something or someone lingering in shadow. 

Nothing made itself readily apparent, and the lamia bobbed his head to get a better grip on the lamb again, who was now bleeding rather profusely and making one hell of a racket. If there was anything laying it wait, they ought to have sprung out by now. It was probably fine. Wyatt huffed out a breath and then bit down hard, thrashing his head from side to side to rip the creature free from the brambles that held it in place, only to realize that it wasn't so much tangled in the plants as it was a part of them. Surprised to see vines and leaves instead of back legs, Wyatt still gulped it back, muffling the pitiful thing's final, muted cries in the back of his throat. 

“Wasn't expecting a side salad,” he spoke as soon as his mouth was clear of lamb and vegetation, and his focus then turned back onto the human who stood there in.. shock, maybe? Abject horror at how he could ruthlessly devour such a cute, helpless critter? The cute ones tasted best. That being said…

“Too small, though. Could do with more.” He rose up into a standing position, glaring the human down. If he could smile while like this, he would have. As it was, his teeth were permanently bared, slicked with blood. “Bet you'd hit the spot…”

—

Ahmed was busy trying to get away while the creature took a look around to see if it was safe. Then froze like a deer in headlights when they set their sights on Ahmed as a snack. “Oh, you really don’t want to eat me. I’m lean and gamy. No good for eating.” Ahmed waved their hands in the air, quick to backpedal away from the scene. “Really this was just a bad place for me to be and if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just leave you be.” He insisted, taking another step back, not wanting to take his eyes off of the creature. The sight of the creature’s bared teeth was enough to spark some survival instinct in Ahmed, going from afraid to downright angry. “I’m getting really tired of being tossed around and beaten, so if you wouldn’t mind, I’m going to leave.” A hand went to the knife he kept in his pocket, suddenly not afraid to use it as he had been in the past. 

It wasn’t a special knife, it wasn’t big. But in the end, it got its job done when it mattered, especially in a town such as this. Ahmed took another step backwards, getting far enough away that the creature was becoming smaller and smaller in his vision. “You want a real meal, find a deer or something.” Ahmed added before turning and breaking into a run. It was a long shot, and that creature was probably fast, but Ahmed couldn’t be a sitting duck like he felt he was. He ran, and looked over his shoulder to see if the creature was following him, grateful that he kept up with running that he had gotten into when he was in middle school. Thank god for track and cross country, at least he was fast.

—

“You keep sayin’ it, but you ain’t doin’ it,” Wyatt snapped, hunkering down, preparing to leap forward. He didn’t usually just go after innocent bystanders like this, but he was hungry, tired, and cranky from a lack of sleep… and they were alone. No chance for witnesses (though his shrewdness in this regard left something to be desired, lately…). It was too easy a setup, and runner or not, Wyatt had a feeling that this guy couldn’t outpace him. 

The man bolted, and the gator charged after him, crashing through the trees and young foliage that was just saying its hellos to its first spring. He was quick, and smaller than Wyatt, so he had an easier time threading through closely clumped trees. A few times, Wyatt had to race around such thickets, annoyed that this meal on wheels seemed to be smarter than the average deer in his attempts to lose the predator. Still, his gait was long and his powerful limbs carried him swiftly over the earth, slowly gaining on the human as a stretch of flat land greeted them. And to Wyatt’s delight, at the other side of this swathe of even ground was a hill, stretching as far as he could see in either direction. He’d definitely catch the stranger on that hill, humans weren’t built for inclines like he was. You’d have to be part goat! 

With the promise of a big, satisfying meal on the horizon, the lamia basked in the chase. There wasn’t a care or concern in his large, empty head as they reached the foot of the hill, and he opened his jaws to better scoop the human straight up into them. Craning his neck, he was focused on the man, not watching where he was stepping, and—

Something creaked, groaned, and snapped. The bouncy patch of earth that Ahmed had run across without issue gave way under Wyatt’s hefty weight, sending the creature tumbling down into a deep pit. He roared in surprise, twisting in the air and landing with a heavy thud on his side. The little knapsack that was secured to his back spilled its contents all over the dirt floor of the pit—a change of clothes, his phone, and keyring scattered around him while he himself lay still, breathing but unmoving. 

Ow. 

—

Ahmed felt like his heart had leapt into his throat as he ran, the creature gaining speed on him. He had to get out of there, he had to– something felt strange as he ran over a patch of earth, it felt as if he bounced off of it rather than ran across it. He didn’t stop to investigate, he didn’t have time on his side. Then, a crashing sound. Ahmed skidded to a halt and turned around to notice that the patch of earth he’d traversed was now a large hole in the ground. What? 

He took a hesitant step toward the hole, peering down it with a blink. Sure enough, there was the creature at the bottom of the hole, unable to escape. A breath Ahmed had been holding escaped, and he took a step back, heavily debating leaving him there. After all, he was about to eat him, was he not? Ahmed swallowed thickly, breathing heavy as he struggled to catch it. He thought about it for a while. This creature was sentient, obviously. It had been talking to him, conversing with him. It had the head of a giant lizard, but the body of a man. The whole situation was strange, but then again, he was starting to get used to the strange. He let out a deep sigh before peering back into the hole, silent as he waited for the creature to say something.

He noticed a phone, some clothes, and a keyring. So this guy had a life, a car at least. “You always have the whole gator thing going on?” Ahmed questioned, brows furrowing as he assessed the creature. “Like, are you able to look human? I’ve never seen an alligator with a cellphone before, that’s all.” 

—

His whole body ached, head spinning as he picked himself up off the dirt. Still on all fours, the creature angled his head skyward to see the human peering over the edge of the pit at him, and felt an immense surge of anger and shame at having been caught like this. “Oh, fuck off!” he shouted, crouching low and attempting to leap up to the ledge. His claws raked through the dirt but it was no use, the pit was too deep and the earth too soft for him to get any kind of traction. He fell back to the bottom and began a rapid, circular pace on all fours as he tried to think his way out. 

First, his would-be lunch needed to leave. Then he would get his phone and text someone to come get him. Caleb came to mind, but he didn’t want to stress him out… Charlie came to mind next, who would probably find the whole ordeal pretty funny, but was likely to keep it between them if Wyatt asked. Of course, Charlie didn’t know he was a lamia, but that might not need to become part of the conversation. 

He looked up again, squinting his eyes against the light of midday. “You won, all right? Get lost.”

—

Usually, Ahmed would go out of his way to help. But how many times could he do that before it wasn’t worth it anymore? Ahmed thought of all the moments his life had almost been forfeit in a town such as this. He shuddered, then backed up away from the hole. He’d won, the creature was right. Ahmed shook his head, a tremor starting as he realized just how tired he was of having to run away or get hurt to learn his lesson. 

Bewilderment clear in his face, Ahmed took another step back away from the pit. He’d never left anyone to die before. He’d never thought he’d had it in him before. But there he was, letting his feet carry him away from the scene with his brain on autopilot, away from the creature, away from another almost untimely death. One day, Ahmed would stop getting lucky. He just hoped he was well-equipped until that moment came. “Sorry, man.” He mumbled under his breath as he got back into his car and drove away from the path he’d hiked in from. 

[knaveofmogadore]

Thinkin on this fine and terrible monday morning. We don't really talk about the micro-cults that spring up on the internet and how easy it is to get sucked into that cult-like, "don't break the groupthink" mindset in groups on the internet. And how much harder it is to break out of those groups mentally when they're completely online and so their impact on your life is harder to pinpoint. When you're trapped in a toxic circle in real life, it's easier, I feel, to pinpoint exactly where your problems are coming from. But when those people are online? When it's "less real" (it is not less real) and so harder to fathom the impact they're having on your mental health, it's much harder to snap yourself out of that mindset to see you're being treated badly.

And like, this obviously applies to MLMs online, and insular subcultures like Virgin Support Group that eventually turn into groups like incels, sure. Obviously. MAGA also.

But I'm also talking about hold on I got a customer call

Some guy wants a cabinet built for his fridge. Anyway

I'm also talking about like, gaming groups. Fandom discords. Closed subreddits. Places within public space but isolated from it. Places where people feel that everyone else is on their wavelength. Then it's "wow, you didn't know that?" and "X's feelings were hurt when you asserted yourself" and The Game of A Mod's Million Whims. It's being mad when you're offline, the double standards, the Share and Shame (the outsider). These environments are bizarre and they're everywhere and we do NOT talk enough about how unsafe they are. The One True Mod culture can get kind of scary. Public ostracization is just as if not a more effective threat online as it is in real life. They use the same tactics as real life cults too; love bombing, elitist mentality, black and white morality, group will, group mood swings. Enforcing guilt through esoteric social rules or Political Praxis, asking that you demonstrate the values of the group publicly at every opportunity. The GROUP values, mind, not yours.

Some of these groups are more of a mob mentality, while others have a person that they rally around and depend on for the final ruling. I think the ones with The One True Mod are much harder to leave because at least a few people know you personally. For mob scenes, you can just kind of lurk your way out of there.

Anyway, we should bring back the 1980's PSAs on cults. Also the satanic panic was not a real thing, a therapist scammed a kid's mom hardcore and a bunch of people made shit up. Not all religions are cults and not all cults are religions. hmn what else. I disagree that calling a cult a cult is somehow obfuscating the word or demeaning the idea, if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it's not a fucking duck. Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan is a good book published before the satanic panic, he was a member of The Moonies in the 70s and 80s and republished the book in 2015, though I think the 1988 version is better as a beginner read.

More random opinions from someone who used to get spit on by jahovas witnesses in walmart:

If you're in your thirties+ and run a discord where you encourage people younger than you to see you as the final opinion on what's problematic you have a problem with control and need to leave those people alone. Subcultures are NOT cults but create a breeding ground for small time personality cults which are a really shitty way to get bullied. It's good for teenagers to have adult friends, but be wary if an adult doesn't have friends their own age. Well adjusted adults will have a mix of friends from many age groups. Do NOT hang out with adults that exclusively hang out with teenagers, there is a reason other adults avoid them like the plague. Form your political opinions based on facts, not peer pressure. Disobeying your parents in small ways is good and healthy. uhhhh.

Cancel culture is terrible and not productive to creating a kind society, it's just a way for a lot of people to feel comradery by being upset at the same thing. Friend groups that exclusively complain about others and have nothing nice to say will drain your brain. If the people you hang out with never have anything nice to say about YOU, stop hanging out with them. You are not better than anyone else especially as a collective. And be wary of people who can't handle it when they're upset about something and you're not.

[therealvinelle]

Hiya! Been following you for a while, just finished LITR. Binged BONB and LITR in like a couple of days. I have to say this is one of my favourite fics because, a) it is so bizarre that is laughable and b) somehow it is totally believable for our wonderful (terrible terrible) Cullen clan. You are a great writer, kudos to you friend.

First of all, the fate of Renée and Bella is so dark. Like I kept waiting for the ball to drop because I know better than to expect “everyone lived happily ever after” in your fics. But it just kept getting worse, and then we didn’t even get to see the end for Bella and that just made it worse. Like god, I hate Renée so much in the series but still for her to have to make the decision to MERCY KILL her daughter, like wow.

And Edward… I just… do I even need to say anything? Edward is Edward x10

(*The Romanians, fallen gods who have waited 1000s of years for revenge*

Edward, completely serious, channeling all his century worth of wisdom, going off on his noble quest: We are going to bring an end to tyranny through the power of friendship)

Jacob is whole level of disturbing I never considered before, I just can’t even.

Poor Renesmee/Carlie. Like so many reasons for this girl to hate the world.

(Also Jessica Stanley was an absolute gem. The amount of excitement I felt when I realized that she would also be kidnapped by the Volturi was unreal.)

But hey, considering you started Bleach on the Brain thinking it was only gonna be 2 chapters, and it turned into 2 parts with 40 chapters, I’d say it went pretty good eh?)

Thank you so much for leaving such a wonderful message! I really appreciate it, I'm glad you enjoyed the fic(s).

Look, @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin, sweet praise!

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

COOL AND NEW WEBCOMIC

This one comic. This one comic. It’s one of the highest favourited comics, besides the previous webcomic I took a look at and Vast Error. It’s also the worst of the three, bar none. BAR NONE.

I hate it. I despise it. I also *have* to talk about it, because it kind of signals a change towards like, mocking the webcomic itself? Much like the last webcomic, there is a shift in attitude towards Homestuck, and people do not like the ending of Homestuck. Unlike the last webcomic, which had atleast the decency to have a little flair to how it goes about things, this one does not have one ounce of sincere bone in it’s body.

Its concept is similar: basically, what if the terribleness of this comic was…gasp…intentional! And it’s a virus, infecting everybody from Homestuck except for a few characters. So basically, it’s the trickster arc, only less engaging on a meta and non-meta level. It so desperately wants to be the trickster arc, too, and it so desperately wants to be Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, but it fails in every measure.

Remember, I don’t particularly enjoy Sweet Bro and Hella Jef’s comedy stylings, but at least it has like. Something compelling to it. It’s this weird balancing act where it’s being very sincere in its appreciation of like. Amateur comics and how they have passion to them.

Like. Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff is bizarre and baffling, but it’s INTERESTINGLY bizarre and baffling. That’s what this comic lacks. All the jokes are typical “haha” front page reddit humor stylings. Oh, Dave’s locked in a chest with a gag over his mouth, wow, that’s really original and funny I guess? What if his hands were HAMS? LAUGH, AUDIENCE, LAUGH!

And people did. Oh, they did. The culture shifted. Or rather, I guess it became more noticeable. Suddenly, you couldn’t have a popular comic without somebody making a “Cool and New” version of said comic. Heck, even in the earlier comic that I covered today, “HOUSEHELD”, there was a panel that was LITERALLY ONE OF THE PANELS IN THIS ONE. This is a symptom maybe rather than the cause, but it’s the largest symptom of the problem of the dissatisfaction of Homestuck by a country mile, and it’s not even compelling.

Also, it can’t even have the decency to write Rose in a compelling way? Which is like. You have no hook for anybody who doesn’t like your “comedy” if you don’t write Rose in a compelling way. You have to write Rose IN CHARACTER, which is hard to do if you don’t want to do anything sincere or honest. Like that’s necessary for this concept to work, and it just…doesn’t.

TLDR; This thing sucks.

[onsomekindofstartrek]

It’s weird. English/Anglophone exceptionalism in popular culture seems to have come 180 degrees around from colonial chauvinism (English is uniquely good/civilized) to the opposite (English is uniquely bad/hard/awkward/“barbaric.”)

And it’s like… bizarre to me because English is just… some language.

Like, sure, there’s a long history of colonial conquest making it one of the most common second languages in the world. That’s not unique. French and Spanish have both done that. And yes, owing to the long period and wide range of countries in which it’s been spoken, and the prestige which English has been given in print, it does have one of the largest documented lexicons of any language, to the extent that it’s often claimed that it’s “the biggest language.” But I genuinely think that’s just situational.

And like, sure, it’s a little notable that it has lexical influences from both Norse and Medieval French, owing to different conquests of the Isles, and from Latin, owing largely to the Catholic Church. But it’s not unique for a language to pick up words from conqueror’s languages, and in fact this happened more recently to Modern Norse, as well as like… most of the common languages in the colonized parts of the world.

Or we can discuss some popular American misconceptions about English spelling and grammar, most of which are down to the fact that in America, English grammar and phonetic reading are literally no longer taught in most schools.

Like, yeah, it’s a little weird that our spelling has a really poor phonetic correspondence to pronunciation and lots of wildly irregular words in the common vocabulary. But so does Danish! It’s not even unique among the Germanic languages much less among languages in general. Vowels in Arabic vary wildly from region to region and can be more or less strictly correspondent to the written or implied letter. There are languages where you have to memorize the pronunciation of most words because they’re written with one or two characters per word.

And our insistence on using present participles to form the unmarked present tense of verbs (is doing, is going, is walking, etc.) is not unique or even particularly strange or clunky either, it’s just that not many West European languages do it. Spanish can do it but it’s not the unmarked form. German technically can but it’s rare. And those are just the two that I speak. I don’t know about the other common ones.

And Christ, no, English is not unique because of [weird pseudolinguistic hypothesis that I heard someone say once and took as fact.] Why are there like a million of these?

So I really wonder why this narrative of English being so exceptionally weird and bad sticks around.

Like, again, I do have to stress how badly most US citizens under a certain age have been failed by the public school system. They’re taught very little grammar and a lot of them are taught to read in elementary school by a completely fallacious method where they don’t sound out a world letter by letter, but instead try to recognize the whole word at once like an adult fluent reader would, or guess from context if they don’t recognize it. Which is not how you acquire literacy. Your average US citizen under 35 has an impoverished formal education in language. Actually I’d go so far as to say that the average US citizen under 35 has an impoverished education about the humanities in general.

But this alone doesn’t account for the prevalence of weird scurrilous myths about the English language.

Is it… is it an attempt by European-American L1 anglophones to paint themselves as victims of cultural imperialism? Because if so… oh boo hoo, the two most powerful empires in history imposed our native language all over the world. How terrible for us, we surely don’t benefit from that all the time. Oh, it’s such a terrible language? Oh wow, you’re right, you’re the real victim.

But that feels like it’s not entirely true either. I mean there’s definitely some useless liberal self-flagellation involved but I don’t think that’s entirely it either. And I get that there’s some amount of overcorrection for the old English-chauvinist narrative, but that doesn’t feel like enough of an explanation either.

Does anyone have a better explanation?

[meet-at-tycho]

sorryyy its late and i am filled with joy and whimsy. i love them so much, my sibling always gets annoyed with me cuz theyre all i talk about.. can you blame me? to have that vast boring nothingness shift into excitement and happiness and real true love? if you were me, youd talk about it too

its so funny cuz my life seems to move in cycles, familiar patterns that ive grown really sick of.. traumatizing and terrible, horrible bloody mess.... and then the most long drawn out boring slice of life youve ever witnessed. trauma! nothing! trauma! nothing! really tired of that.. i never thought that my nothing could be broken with joy, isnt that strange? for once, im not really hurting anymore. when i do hurt, i can handle it on my own and let go, and if its too much then i know im safe to express it

ive come such a long way, i dont tend to see myself positively, but.. its hard not to be proud. guys it turns out all you need to be happy is like. LOVE isnt that so corny isnt that so unbelievably predictable... APPARENTLY its true, i guess it feels different when yr actually experiencing it firsthand

im like on the verge of tears right now but. theres no sweeter joy than this, its so fucking BIZARRE. how did it happen this way? all the little bits and pieces that fell into place, delivered me angels and made me whole again.. cheesy, i know im being cheesy but i cant help it!! im sweet on them as often as i can be but theres still a lot of things i just.. dont have the strength to say directly. so i say them here, im sure only one of you will see this anyways. but i dont need either of you to see it, just speaking my feelings out into open air eases my mind a bit more

sometimes im like wow! theres no way this is healthy im . can i really experience true love? love that doesnt hurt? love thats REAL? as much as im tempted to deny it, im living it every day!!! i wake up and theyre both there to greet me, isnt that sweet? the first people i speak to when i wake up, the last people i say goodnight to when i go to sleep

i think i just need someone, i think im the kind of person that just.. ive been alone for a while, its OKAY its whatever, ive definitely grown used to it but. i thrive when im with them, its so? maybe all i need is someone else to keep me here.. ive got two!!!!!

maybe thats not clear enough

the way id get through that droning loneliness is escapism, nonstop daydreams and dissociation, i was barely here. only to eat and take care of my body a little bit, then its back to fantasy, because .. theres people who love me in my dreams! but.. im honestly finding it so hard to slip back into that habit now. its scary, because its whats kept me safe. hiding in fiction has kept me safe, kept me calm, happy.. but i cant shake it out of my head!!!! any time i try to fall back into those routines, the only thing i can think of is THEM.. like yeah this is great and all but.. i dont want to be trapped in my head anymore!!! theyre out there, i want to be out there..

if im honest? its terrifying. im forced to come to terms with ME as a person, who i am, something ive neglected to acknowledge for my entire life, but. im so completely wrapped up in my love for them that i hardly think about that!!!!! for once, it sorta almost feels like time is moving how it should be.. like every day that passes is different, every day that passes is SPECIAL. it hurts me to say this, but i think i love being alive? can you imagine that? how is it possible that two strangers could just.. fall into my life one day and before i even know it, im healing, im happy, im whole. MAKE ME SICKK its so foul. its almost pathetic!!! is that really all ive needed? this whole time, and i couldnt find ONE proper candidate throughout 20 years of life? its hard to really be upset about it, cuz.. ive got them now. thats all that matters

idk, i just. i think its really telling the kind of people they are, i know im only me, but.. for what its worth, theyve improved my life so drastically, i wouldve never thought id see myself happy like this. they do that for me, they do that and so much more. i love you 💞

[relaxxattack]

meta about Rose’s relationships with her mom and Kanaya…..

WAAUGH ok so like…

roses relationship with her mom the most nebulous thing of all time because they really give it basically ZERO screentime like we’re never fully able to understand how much of mom was actually cold or enjoying of mind games and how much of it was sincere

it can be assumed that a portion of it was definitely sincere just based on like.. wizards, or lack thereof, and roses conversation with roxy about her love of wizards and what that means about her views on mom

and at that point you have to assume that mom was mostly well meaning but perhaps not all there in the head at ALL, enough for rose to make up this cold calculating woman who bizarrely coordinated everything about her life including the decor just to make rose as miserable as possible

and therefore rose lives her entire life thinking her mother hates her and likely lashing out in weird ways and trying to do all kinds of shit for attention (the no tears coconut shampoo tumblr post comes to mind) and it’s basically just so desperately sad. she is so fucking lonely and tries so hard to come off as “above all that”, she thinks shes soooo self aware just because she knows her mother has issues and knows her situation is bad. she goes off about all this and how terribly unwanted it makes her feel and the other adults around her are like “wow you’re so self aware!” and she gets so satisfied about that, like, yes she’s so self aware, she’s so smart and understands her problems and mental health so well, she must be entirely above it actually. nothing else to dissect there.

and then kanaya comes in and kanaya is so very painfully similar but also not above it all. kanaya has about as much trouble saying things as rose does but unlike rose she’s not afraid to admit when she’s scared or wrong

kanaya is so bad at social cues but rose has made cues her whole life and so they are CONSTANTLY misunderstanding each other, circling around and around the point but kanaya keeps taking jabs at the issues and rose just tries to flirt the problems away.

this is literally just an incoherent fucking ramble because tbfh i need to reread acts 2-5 and write a fucking dissertation on rose and kanaya so i can say a thing that actually makes sense but the TLDR of the matter is. i am foaming at the mouth over them

also i know canon sort of implies towards act 6 that mom was well meaning but mostly off her rocker but personally i MUCH prefer the hc dynamic that rose and her mom have where mom is just as fucking dramatic, just bad at expressing emotion and shit (the rose lalonde vampire slayer fic has such a GOD TIER example of this, please read that fic everyone) and basically yeah that version of mom is actually the canon one To Me

[bw-after-dark]

Dose atreus love Heimdall the way he is really or deep down he would want to change him?

Oh wow, now that is an interesting question

To start off, I typically work within the framing of @fanboy-asylum ‘s fic/universe. The best way to start this off are to think about what exactly are things that Atreus admires and loves about heimdall. He might love things like his loyalty, his conviction, his honesty. He can admire his intelligence and wit and diligence. He enjoys the secretly soft side like showing him his personal favorite spots in Asgard.

I think Atreus generally likes learning about people and understanding how they work. People intrigue him after all the time he grew up alone with only his parents and then later with mimir and sindri. Heimdall is complicated and almost sort of fascinating in how he challenges and provokes him. The way that heimdall is able to read him so clearly upon their first meeting and the sort of pessimistic worldview he has gained through his powers. Heimdall operates in this very bizarre state of how he can embody the best qualities in the worst way possible. He is honest, but he uses it to be cruel. He is loyal, but in a sycophantic way to someone with ill intent. And that aspect of always having to look at the worst in someone can blind you to an extent because people can be more than their worst traits. Loki as a figure of chaos is always built to disrupt and poke and prod and it’s what makes him want to do this especially to heimdall. He wants someone so stagnant and stubborn to change, to show him there are other ways to view the world.

And that’s not even considering the terrible things heimdall has done. Remember that heimdall is a war criminal and he’s done sadistic crimes things while serving Odin. Tormenting the dwarves during their rebellion with Faye. To say the least of his own aesir supremacist worldview. He’s very much not a good person and stands by what he’s done.

So part of the interest does come from wanting him to change on some level. That hope for redemption and growing past your crimes. It’s an unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object. They will always be challenging each other in some way