#<- to the previous tags i saw on my dash just now. im sorry.

[savnofilter]

I think you're hilarious in such a good way and Im new to Tumblr. Your work is amzing and i was wondering if you have any bnha blog recommendations or must read fics?

WARNING! this gets long as SHIT. so im sorry. im on mobile so liek,, also there are shit ton of amazing writers on here but my memory has been terrible as of recently, so sorry about that. all the people mentioned have really good fics so going through their masterlist is the bes option i have on here for you!! also sorry this was so late, i did a lot of username checking and now finally got the balls to post this with their @s cnuidwneovn- also!! be mindful because i was iffy in tagging some because i wasnt too sure if they wrote for bnha anymore. so w/o further adieu!!!now for my fave ao3 fics (with no ranking)~

His Tryanny by goodboysensei (tumblr; @tobobio)

au: fantasy

summary: “Deep in a land just like in the fairy tales, lives 4 different kingdoms. But when a hot headed king of one kingdom wants to take over, he seeks for more power. A girl locked away in a tower for her entire life because of her forbidden power, finds a new life when an ash blonde male comes flying through her window. How will their life play out?”

my thoughts: FUCKINGT AMAZING BOOK LIKE I FUCKING STAN. TT its so fucking good! the angst, the tension, angry bloody bakugo?! fucking check! amazing book!! 12/10 will always recommend. mc will say “million reasons” i be like “his tyranny tho, 👀” (and other books but we have to appreciate my highness rq).

completed: yis!

My Angel by goodboysensei (tumblr; @tobobio)

au: greek mythology

summary: “The infamous fallen angel, serving under Hades (AFO), Bakugou Katsuki, was known for constantly wreaking havoc within heaven. Defying against God and other deities, he was blacklisted from Heaven. (l/n) (y/n) being an elite archangel under Athena (Miruko), is set on a mission to rid of Bakugou Katsuki but takes a 180 when you sudden began developing feelings for the crooked angel during the confrontation – him reciprocating the feelings. Though relationships between a worker of God and a demon was the greatest sin, and faced consequences to those who are caught. ~ Having to sneak around and hide your relationship with the fallen angel how would an archangel keep her status under God while simultaneously keeping an accursed romantic affair.(sorry i suck at summaries lmao)”

my thoughts: you know, i just have a craving to live a life in greekish-mythologyish and reading lore of olympus makes it partly redeemed. but this takes the cake. LIKE?! oh my fucking god! absoluetely love and im still reading it cause im slow asf but its so good so far! and she doesnt at all, the summaries are what got me interested!!

completed: neh~

I’m Broken Too (Shigaraki x Reader x Dabi) by Kikyo851 (quotev; kikyo851/tumblr; @heroes-among-us-all)

au: canon

summary: “What’s a girl to do when she can’t quite make it as a hero? Become a villain, of course.”

my thoughts: okay so youre thinking, “that summary is short asf” but godtdamn the book is motherfucking good dawg. lieke,,, this absolutely fueled my villain spark way back whenever. (you can gladly thank this book and all the dabi fics from @lord-explosion-baku, who also has a book called “thorns” which is also on ao3. i havent read it because im not into that au but it has many good reviews!!)

completed: neh~

Million Reasons by Chub_Rye (other socials; not listed)

au: future canon (?)

summary: “This is not a happy story, you really wished it was but how can it be when your marriage is falling apart. You truly love your husband, the thing is…he doesn’t seem to feel the same anymore ((Trigger warning: this is a very emotional heavy story, you have been warned.)) Inspiration: Million Reasons by Lady Gaga”

my thoughts: 

*if i had the time i would edit to: “im fucking sobbing fam”* because this shit hurtedt. like, HURTEDT. this book, this very book is the reason why fucking katsuki fucking bakugo slapped down the damn rankings on my list. didnt fucking like him for like two weeks, just thinking about him made me mad as FUCK. but its written so good i cant be mad?! i… okay moving on before i start crying and listing reasons why katsuki needs to CHOKE in this damn book. also if you dislike deku then this story will change. you.

completed: neh~

Muted by HecateSG (other socials; not listed)

au: canon

summary: “A collection of short one-shot stories where the reader has lost the ability to speak due to an incident that ranges from accident, to intentional, which now leaves you in the care of at least one of this dashing and intrepid cast of characters. There will be a variety of scenario’s explored and kinks touched upon for all you curious depraved little ones. ~ The only thing these all have in common is that the Reader will remain almost exclusively quiet the entire time ~ The tags will be updated as more chapters are released.”

my thoughts: this is a one-shot book (no cohesive storyline unless chosen) but its so good. so good. i thought shigaraki, dabi and all might in one book was interesting but never the less, super good! i never was interested in the mute concept but its written good? (but thinking about it all the other mute!reader fics are good but they wont nsfw so it didnt interest me-) furthermore, its so good. so pure. so hot. 11/10 would recommend.

completed: neh~

Nightclub AU by sour_pink29 (tumblr; @heros-amoung-us)

au: well… nightclub

summary: “U.A. is the most prestigious and well known nightclub in the world. It takes a high price and a creditable reputation to attend the club, but only because it makes your wildest dreams and fantasies come true. The workers are the best of the best: the 1A class; with the sexiest dancers, flirtatious waitresses and waiters, master bartenders, and high class security. It’s truly no wonder why the rich and famous travel from all corners of the world to have one special night at U.A. ~ As a waitress at the club, you were used to dealing with rich, handsome, high maintenance bachelors. But when 6 mysterious men enter the club and your life, you feel something different spark between you and them as they turn your life on it’s head. For better or for worse… ~ AU where you and the 1A class (and some other characters) are workers at the club. Kaminari, Kirishima, Katsuki, Shoto, Tetsu, Izuku, and Sero are all competing for your attention. ~ WILL INCLUDE NSFW IN SOME CHAPTERS ;)”

my thoughts: THGIS BOOK FUCKIN SLAPS. HANDS DOWN WOULD TOOT MY ASS UP FOR THIS! (thought about dropping my studies and just fucking doing stripper work-) like wow… its a good book and the writer was prob one of the first wirters i followed on here?! (thats if tumblr didnt fucking remove my damn following like it usually does. ._.) enough about that, its really good. i think about it often.

completed: neh~

Plus Ultra! One-shots and Requests by MistressPikachu (FinalVolition) [tumblr; @adelheidvonschicksal]

au: varies

summary: “A place to store all my smaller drabbles for BNHA. NSFW and SFW requests CLOSED!”

my thoughts: um so she write for *everything* but not like everything, everything. so sometimes it be like a red flag so make sure you are reading it carefully on the story you click on! personally, since theyre a good asf writer i usually dip my toe in all of them but sometimes i just cant but the ones i can, i read over and over and over again. worth a million reads tbh. 12/10 would recommend if youre nasty like that (and i KNOW you guys are).

completed: neh~

slutty one shots by cherrykwrites (tumblr; @cherrykwrites)

au: varies

summary: “Collection of some slutty short scenarios. Mostly Bakugo, could include other characters too. ~ Everything will be NSFW in this collection. ~ Themes like non con, underage, alcohol, bdsm, daddy kinks, ect could occur in these writings. ~ These are purely works of fiction and do not reflect reality, I do NOT condone any of the immoral actions written in these.”

my thoughts: so of course i could not leave the og, the real home slice, cherry-mother-k-fuckin-writes- CAN WE CLAP FOR THE QUEEN? so essentially, her shit is good asf. you should read it cause its good asf. shes not around that much but she def is really good! (also has my thinking about writing some tattoo artist!bakugo these days, or even a series for my husbandos…). never thought about sandwhiched between kirishima and bakugo until i came across her fics~

completed: neh~

Euphoria - NSFW Series by NekokoaFanfiction (tumblr; @nekokoafanfictions)

au: varies

summary: “Just a bunch of BNHA characters involved in several different kinks with you. ~ Summary of first chapter: ~ “Katsuki…”That mewl you made was hard to hear but somehow it reached Midoriya’s ears and he gulped as he saw said man standing up from the ground in front of you. A smirk as wide as it can be with his tongue brushing the corners of his mouth as if he just finished eating the best meal of his life.————————- Basically, Midoriya is in for a emotional ride lol”

my thoughts: they are such a good writer. another one-shots book but they will appear once again on the list but this book is just beautiful. and im a perv. so. have fun.

comepleted: neh~

⚠️okay so this is a series of fics from one writer, but instead of making a shit ton on the list (because if this isnt long already) its by the user QuillMind (tumblr; @quillmind) here are some of my faves:⚠️

Incendiary ~ a/b/o, “Mating season has come yet again. Bakugou has even more trouble controlling it than in previous years… and it’s all your fault.”

Mating Hunt ~ a/b/o, “You and Bakugou have been together for some time. Though you both know you only want each other, your bond won’t truly be permanent and known to all until he claims you during mating season. And as impatient as Bakugou is, as an Alpha, he loves a good chase. You decide to give him one.”

Story Time - A Reader x BNHA Multific by WhenSarahSmiles (tumblr; @makethiscanon)

au: fairytale/storybook/canon-ish

summary: “Whilst fighting a powerful villain, you find yourself sucked into the world their quirk created with no memories of your old life. Yet, the men you meet along the way have a familiar feel to them. Perhaps they can help you unlock your memories? ~ A Hero Academia/Fairy Tale mash up, there’s plenty of chaos to follow even if you think you know the classic stories well. ~ [Warning: Explicit Content from chapter 3 onwards] ~ [I will warn you which chapter features the non-con]] ~ “

-> Story one: Little Red Riding Hood (Katsuki Bakugou x Reader)-> Story two: The Little Mermaid (Shouto Todoroki x Reader)-> Story three: Jack and the Beanstalk (Eijirou Kirishima x Reader)-> Story four: The Three Little Pigs (Denki Kaminari x Reader)-> Story five: Sleeping Beauty (Shouto Todoroki x Reader x Katsuki Bakugou)-> Story six: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (Midoriya, Tokoyami, Sero, Monoma, Ojiro, Shinsou x Reader)

my thoughts: bitch i have no thoughts. i only have THOTS. this is a masterpiece, like ive been lacking, the one im on rn is the kirishima one and it worth the read, and i bet the ones after that have been just as amazing! amazing work 11/10 would recommend.

completed: neh~

Wolves Among Us (Mini Series) by NekokoaFanfiction (tumblr; @nekokoafanfictions)

au: fantasy

summary: “Something about watching him lick your chilled skin was stirring something within you. Your legs started to shiver, but not of the cold that surrounded your slightly exposed body but of a feeling blossoming in the inner regions of your lower stomach. You were getting lost in the rhythm of his pants, wandering in the hazy want of his intense eyes. Your breath began to tremble, and you tried to squeeze your legs together to withstand the odd sensation growing, but he held your leg still and showed no signs of letting go. You were suddenly aware of his hand on your lower thigh, and you noticed that it was the first time a man’s hand had touched there. ~ You were a flower that had yet to bloom in the late of spring. Pure, untouched and suddenly, bombarded with desires. You never shivered in the way a man could make you, and curiosity—maybe naivety, was keeping you from your fear of the beast. —————– Basically, you fall in love with a rude wolf man. ~ Mini series!! Werewolf!Bakugo x Human!Reader, Fantasy AU ~ Inspired by The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter”

my thoughts: i ride this books ASS for updates. my favourite bakugo au’s are fantasy (wit da dragoons) and were!katsuki (haluween). i fucking love it, i love their works. theyre busy with school (like i should be but scholars are all different-) trust me its so good. it has that good spice that make fill my heart with sexy uwuwuwuwuwuwuwus. love it.

completed: neh~

Katsuki Bakugo Scenario Collection by Hvalross (tumblr; @cutesuki–bakugou)

au: varies

summary: “A collection of oneshots and scenarios I’ve done for Bakugou, both personal works and requests on my blog Cutesuki-Bakugou. ~ Please note that the rating of each story will be in the notes of the chapter. Stories range from TEEN to EXPLICIT.”

my thoughts: oh my god. i reread this one chap over and over and over and over and over and over- and over again. the stories range from cute to just good smut and its so good. so beautifully written. and i cant help but just appreciate it. love it sm. (also sorry if i tagged the wrong tumblr im confsued as to which one you use ahaha)

completed: neh~

Wish the World Away by hoshigalaxy (other socials; not listed)

au: canon

summary: “bakugou katsuki is the number one hero. but with this title comes a huge target on his back. sometimes it’s better to stay single when you’re a pro hero. there could be accidents. ~ but that’s three years in the past now and bakugou is slowly moving on from what’s happened. that is until he runs into his mysterious new neighbour and things get complicated again.”

my thoughts: ;-; this one hits different. almost like a million reasons type of different. i dont want to spoil it but godt damn man. there is so much to be uncovered but it really hasnt been updated. (cri) its a beautiful book tho. fingers crossed for when it updates next.

completed: neh :

Up in Smoke. (Soulmate AU) by Grapelimeade (tumblr; @gojirabbit)

au: well,, soulmate

summary: “Bakugou doesn’t want a fucking soulmate.”

my thoughts: may i say…it is such a stark contrast to Million Reasons. it is so fucking captivating i will not shit you. this book, is amazing. im just saying, that midoriya scene tho,, 👀 that kirishima friendship,, 💪🏽 its so good…? got me panting for the next chap (and no not like that weirdos but there is nsfw because when tf do you catch me reading a fic without nsfw…?) but i recommend. mc: million reasons tho me: up in smoke tho-

completed: neh~

Vermilion by Morgana_Ren (tumblr; @morgana-ren)

au: canon

summary: “Tomura Shigaraki had a goal. It started out simple enough. Kill All Might, and watch the society that revered heroes above all else crumble to dust alongside their idol. However, what originally starts off as a chance encounter with a UA student during the battle of USJ sends him reeling down the crooked path of obsession.”

my thoughts: its just…? my shigaraki thirst was sparked from this very story. it good, supplies my shifty hands needs and it suffices the boiling lust in my clit. wish we’d see more cause i love it already and it blends the story line well. love it. 11/10

completed: neh~

words hurt [Bakugo Katsuki x Reader] by QueenExplosionMurder (tumblr; @strawberryandspiceandchocolate)

au: canon

summary: “*more tags to be added* ~ when Bakugo Katsuki friendzones the reader, their friendship takes a nose dive off of the face of the earth and he doesn’t hear from her for a while. that is until she is suddenly thrown back into his life, quite literally actually…”

my thoughts: well you think i can go a post without tagging my president? youre fucking wrong. i have actually posted my own prev of her book which you can find here. i am just astonished at well the mood is (because tb when all i would talk about is mood) because mood is just good. it doesnt seem cliche to me. cant wait until the next update.

completed: neh~

You and Yamada by Jo_Rutherford_Lee (other socials; not listed)

au: varies

summary: “Just a few short Present Mic/Reader PWPs I needed to get out of my head.”

my thoughts:

i love this book. couldnt find the yamada book i was looking for but i would be lying if this doesnt revive my yamada love every once in awhile. (jk i found the book but this one is really cute and a quick read!!)

completed: yis

Singed Rose Petals: (Alpha) Dabi x (Omega) Reader by Smutsy (other socials; not listed)

au: a/b/o

summary: ““The villains were always ugly in books and movies. Necessarily so, it seemed. Because if they were attractive - if their looks matched their charm and their cunning - they wouldn’t only be dangerous. They would be irresistible.” - Nenia Campbell”

my thoughts: ohhhh because you guys thought that i’d go through a post without mentioning dabi? LOL so,, this book has brought many many many happy coochie tingles to me. i would murder to be dabi’s omega. and DAS on baby. never was really interested in a/b/o stuff till i read this. love it so much 11/10.

completed: yis

special mentions:

BNHA Brothel by orphan_account [multiple, unfinished]

Hero Killer’s Charge by VulcanCaptain [stain x reader, unfinished]

Mouth Moods by Koalolive (twitter; renlup) [present mic, unfinished]

and god please dont fucking roast me i had a hawks faze. Birb Office for Birbs by insanityrunsinthe_family

[illfoandillfie]

hi i hope you don’t mind me being nosey but i was wondering if i could ask a few things about u being aro? i kinda just wanted to know how u figured it out? and also do u still get feelings for people but choose not to pursue it? sorry if i’m kinda intruding i don’t mean to, just curious

i dont mind at all darl! (actually...lowkey i love when people are curious about it lmao so feel free to ask more questions) also this is going under a cut cause it got longer than i meant it to lmao

figuring it out wasnt easy and it took a lot of self reflection and like months of questioning and doing research and then worrying i was getting it wrong. Basically i first considered the idea that i could be aro when i was approaching my 25th birthday. A friend of mine (the only guy i’ve had any sort of a fling with) had announced he was engaged and i was completely down on myself wondering why i couldnt get a single date when he was off getting engaged (not that i even Wanted to get married i just would have liked some attention). I figured there had to be something wrong with me or something about me that was broken. And then i saw someone i followed at the time reblog a post about being aro. I’d seen the phrase a little before but never really considered it as fitting me but i’d also never really paid attention to what it actually meant. 

I don’t remember what the post was exactly, it’s probably somewhere in the thousands and thousands of posts i’ve liked over the years but there’s no easy way to check so . Whatever it said it felt relatable enough that I went and googled aromanticism to try and figure out what it was and if it fit me. Because I was already in a headspace where I’d been thinking about my lack of a romantic history already, a lot of the stuff that i read had been stuff i’d been thinking about anyway. Like Reader said in Platonic when she was talking about how she figured it out, I’ve never had a proper crush. I spent months thinking about it after my friend told me he’d proposed. I have very vivid memories of literally deciding to have a crush on a boy in primary school because it seemed like i should (again, i included that directly in Platonic lmao down to the boys name and everything). And every guy I’ve had an interest in since has been either a brief physical attraction that i forgot about as soon as I wasn’t seeing him regularly or something that I deliberately manufactured either in an attempt to fit in with the people around me or because i was kind of bored. Even the cute music teacher at work last year like he was hot and i wouldnt have said no to a kiss or whatever but i just didn’t have any feelings about him beyond that. 

While I was trying to figure out if I was aro I read a lot of websites. The AVENwiki has a page on aromanticism and I think also has pages on some of the aro-spec identities like greyromantic and demiromantic so that was a good starting point for definitions. Google also gave me a few different forums and stuff where aro people were talking about being aro. A lot of aromantic resources are tied up in the asexual community though because that’s where the language and everything was first suggested and what it evolved from. I don’t think that necessarily helped me feel comfortable using the term aro to describe myself because i’m pretty confident i’m not ace but the more I looked into it the more stuff I found from people who were allosexual but aromantic. Anyway, I spent weeks just googling “aromantic” and seeing what came up  and rereading what i’d already read and resisting the fact that a lot of it fit me. Then I spent a while trying to find like a quiz or something that would just give me an answer. I found a few quizzes but all of them assumed at least one previous relationship so none of them were any use to me. But gradually I started feeling okay with calling myself aro. I think part of my hesitation was probably also because knowing I was aro didn’t feel like a solution it just felt my damage had a name. The other part is that romantic attraction is not easy to define which makes it hard to identify if you feel it or not so the part of me that wanted to be Normal kept being like ‘well if you dont know you cant call yourself aro’. But I thought about it a lot and I read any aro related post that crossed by dash and then ventured into the tumblr tag and found some helpful discussion stuff in there and then I started calling myself aro just quietly, only in my own head. It took a long time before I felt okay admitting that I was aro on my own blog but obviously i got there in the end lmao. That friend, the one who got engaged, he’s the only person i’ve told irl though. 

as to your second question....

I don’t think I feel romantic attraction. Truthfully, as i said before, it’s hard to know for certain and there is a possibility that i could form a romantic attraction to someone one day but i think it’s very unlikely. Other forms of attraction are different though. I can be attracted to people physically and sexually. And I think I could possibly be attracted to people in a platonic “man i’d really like to be their friend” kind of way though it doesnt come up very much because im not really one to like meet people. I like my own company. 

But i’ve never really acted on any sort of attraction or feelings for others. I was definitely attracted to CMT but I never acted on it because it seemed like too much work. The was a guy who worked at a pop culture collectables shop a few years ago who i thought was very cute and I did contemplate asking him out but it just never felt like a real option and I sort of just ignored it until he left the job. So yeah I guess I do get some sorts of feelings and then choose not to do anything with them, but they aren’t romantic feelings. But like right now I’ve got no interest in anyone (apart from ben and roger but i guess they dont really count lmao). None of the teachers at work interest me and i havent met anyone else recently and it really isnt bothering me. Theres a guy in IT who i could possibly see myself fawning over a bit cause he’s handsome and has an unusual accent but he’s got the same name as my brother so i’ve already ruled him out as a no go lmao. 

Anyway, hopefully that answered your questions! If there’s anything else you want to know or you’d like me to try and explain something more fully my inbox is always open!

[illusionlockarchive]

pazam: a mess, truly a mess

so i usually dont do these kind of posts, i guess you could say its a call out of some sort? but i never liked that word, i prefer rather to just compile sources on WHY people would believe that a certain person is not truly as nice and understanding as they seem. consider this more of a psa post, detailing on whats going on with pazam on the sfm community, why so many people are against them.

So, a while back, tumblr user jymble made a post on the main tag stating that pazam was transphobic. they linked back to this post, which contains screenshots of pazam in a group chat stating that they do not feel comfortable with the idea of trans people. now, this did happen 9 months ago, true. however, for the record, pazam is already an adult, 24 years old, so they should have some tact. and as further and more recent events will show, they actually havent changed that much at all, at least not as they claim.

the screenshots should be in the post, but here is a transcript

[Screenshot one]

Pazam:

What????? Why?????

I literally HAVE NOT been doing ANYTHING malicious to them

And if it did I apologized

Yes I do have discomfort about them but I keep it to myself

Why are you doing this????

[End screenshot one]

‘Them’ here refers to trans people in general. Notice the defensive and victimizing stance they almost immediately take upon being confronted about their feelings on trans people.

[Screenshot two]

elliott:

of COURSE you dont

sammaku:

Like specifically

Elliott hush

Pazam:

This whole concept of transness and changing your gender physically

I hate to say it again but it weirds me out and it makes me question my own gender which flings me into anxiety, depression, and obsession

sammaku:

Its fine to not understand but are you willing to learn about it

Pazam:

I don’t want to talk about this anymore

sammaku:

That depression anxiety and obsession just comes with gender issues

(the rest of the text is cut off)

[End Screenshot two]

notice once summaku asks them if they would at least be willing to learn about it, pazam immediately deflects it by saying they dont want to talk about it anymore.

[Screenshot three]

Pazam:

Seriously??? That’s all it takes????

Wow I’m a moron

I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused to you

@.aziraphale @.elliott @.sammaku

I just don’t get this stuff period

And I’ve gotten into trouble with this stuff before

I’ll probably never understand it for the rest of my life but I’ll try to be more tactful around y’all

Especially since you’re all young

And I’m like an adult

[End screenshot three]

While at first this would seem like they had finally learned their lesson and apologized, the things they add on after the @s become quickly worrying. Not only do they admit to ‘have gotten into trouble with this stuff before’, meaning they have probably shown their transphobia in other places and been called out, but they also stand firmly on the fact that they will never understand it or ‘get’ it.

And of course, as jymble points out, the implication that the people they were talking to were only acting like that because they were young.

A while after this post was made, Pazam had posted an apology, and went onto contact jymble asking for the post with the evidence of their transphobic to be taken down. The reason? They were afraid people would see it and think they were still transphobic and not give them a chance.

In this more recent post, you can see the conversation play out between Pazam and jymbles. Long story short, Pazam feels that it’s unfair that that post is still up after they apologized, and jymble of course said they would rather not take it down, people deserve to know what they did and take their own conclusions, even if that involves avoiding them. How does Pazam respond? By flat out deleting the apology post. I’d love to show the apology post to give you both sides of the story but I cannot anymore, because Pazam in a very bizarre move just deleted it because they got mad a trans blogger wouldn’t take down their post with proof.

Here’s the transcript of the screenshots:

[Begin Conversation]

rebloggidy (Pazam’s personal):

I’m by no means transphobia-free after learning what I’ve done but at least I know my actions and am making an effort to be a better person towards trans people.

rebloggidy:

Hi again. So I hate to be that person but would it be ok if you took down that post about the transphobia claims? I know it took me 9 months to apologize but if people only see your side of the story and not realize the post I saw they’ll take it out of context and still think I’m transphobic. Do you understand?

jymble:

... i already told you im not taking down the post.

[jymble sends a screenshot of her own message in a previous conversation, the screenshot reads as follows:

however, i dont think im taking the post down, nor am i entirely comfortable with you interacting with me either. people deserve to know how you acted with this stuff, until youre really and truly *better* with it instead of just trying, and i was a direct target of it]

jymble:

you oughright told me "im by no means transphobia-free", word for word sorry, but i told you before. im not taking the post down.

rebloggidy:

I remember that. But what I'm trying to say to you is that if people who read it out of context will immediately think I'm still transphobic without the other side of it (my comment)

And I don't want people to think that in the future

jymble:

if people make assumptions without looking at the entire situation, thats on them

i am not deleting the post and thats final. people have a right to know what youve done, and they have a right to be uncomfortable

rebloggidy:

I'm ready to take down my post because frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to justifiy something that I did 9 months ago, and that people grow and learn even not 100% during that time and I'm ready to move on.

I'm still into smile for me and feel free to make a blacklist of my name so anybody who rbs my work on your dash can have it hidden or something.

Take care.

[End conversation]

a lot to unpack here, but perhaps most notable is when jymble simply stands her ground and tells pazam she wont take down the post, pazam straight up decides, without being told to or anything, that they should take down their apology. later on, they made a post stating why they deleted the post, and saying they had ‘been forced to’.

I also would love to link it here, but as of now of writing this, like, not even an hour or so after I had seen that post, it got deleted. The only memory I have of it is a conversation I had with my boyfriend about Pazam, in which I copypasted a fragment from that post that read:

“ So for those wondering where the apology post went, I was forced to delete it. I wanted to archive it in some way so I could pull it up for reference, but there was no way I could. Also I didn’t really want to see it every time on my blog because quite honestly it’s upsetting to look at.”

There are some lies and twisting of truths here. Pazam wasn’t forced to delete it, they decided they should do it as a way to somehow get back at jymble. And the excuse that it was upsetting for them to look at is just inexcusable, what matters most, letting people know of what youve done and that youre sorry, or just never addressing the situation?

But, well, I’m just hoping you’ll take my word for it. As you see, Pazam has officially deleted ANY traces of acknowledging this situation on their blog.

This worries me. If Pazam is truly as concerned that they will be seen as transphobic as they claim, why are they deleting anything that could give them a chance of showing their own side of the story?

Now, that is the end, for now, of Pazam’s history with transphobia. However! It is not the end for some other very shady things.

Namely, Pazam has consistently whitewashed characters from Smile For Me, specially Kamal, and when called out on it, simply deletes the asks.

Want to know how I know this?

I sent them an ask myself. I had come across this picture of Boris and Kamal:

And I knew that this wasn’t right. I can understand using light colors and doing watercolor, but if they can make Boris’ hair brown and vivid enough, why not Kamal? He looks like another character completely, or like he’s deathly sick! 

So I sent them an anonymous ask, perhaps a bit exhasperated, true, and my wording could be better. It went something like: “i am begging you to draw kamal with darker skin”.

I waited, checked. But nothing came of it. They never answered it.

Pazam flat out ignored when they were told they had drawn a canonically brown man with skin way too light. Not even a lone text post saying ‘hey anon, i dont agree with you’ or ‘hey anon im sorry it wont happen again’. Nothing. No word, no opinion.

And with this situation going on with them evading responsibility, I can’t say I’m fully surprised.

And, yet another thing. People had expressed concern over the fact they had drawn their Flower Kid, who is 17, in very intimate and close positions with Dr. Habit. It included nuzzling faces, cuddling in bed together, wearing his coat...

And they did hear the claims this time. As of now, their Flower Kid is 24, according to them.

Except... They do not look 24. At. All.

this is a 12 year old. at best. short body, stubby legs, big head. those are all attributes of a very young character, usually children. like, legitimately, thats how childrens anatomy is in real life. the younger the person, the bigger their head is in proportion to their body.

We have already had an adult trying to justify drawing their flower kid who barely looked like an adult if at all in intimate situations with Habit. Let’s not let it slide by again.

And yes, I’m aware Pazam claims that those pictures were not supposed to be interpreted as romantic, ‘only platonic fluff’ and that they intend to keep it that way, but I have talked to my boyfriend who is a survivor and he said it very well could be a case of someone just trying to cover their tracks.

BUT, all that being said, maybe this one particular instance could be just us being wary. Still, it does not diminish all that they have done, specially ignoring the whitewashing claims.

What you are going to do with this information, I do not know. Maybe you don’t care and will keep reblogging their content. Maybe you’re disgusted by them. But I’m just here to give you the facts. Personally though, I’m not willing to give them much of a chance after the way they’ve behaved. They are 24 years old, three years older than me, and I think I could do a better job of handling a situation like this, frankly.

[intheyear39]

Rainy Days and Wednesdays (Gwilym Lee x Reader)

Genre: Romance / Fluff

Rating: PG-13 for swearing

Length: 2637 words

Summary: Gwilym takes you for a drive.

Author’s Note: This was harder to write than Fleece Blanket for some reason despite having a clear prompt in mind—I’ll get to that in a sec—but thanks to the moral and creative support of my Discord, I was able to get over my first writer’s block since I started writing again (like, three weeks ago).

Shameless promotion but the prompt is from a Japanese song by a group called V6, 「意味のないドライブ」imi no nai doraibu lit. translation, “Meaningless Drive”. If you want to listen to it and/or read the unofficial translation, you can find it here. ANYWAY! I hope you enjoy it and I’d love to know your thoughts! <3

Special thanks to Ella @39-volunteers-to-space for making a moodboard for this huhu you didn’t have to and it’s already a great pleasure to proofread Kairos (GO READ IT IF YOU HAVEN’T BTW) ILY <3

Taglist: @39-volunteers-to-space @moonvinyls @grooveei @theoddowldoodle @bburellina @im-happy-at-home @dorkydeaky @seven-seas-0f-bri and one of my bestest friends Sera who knows both the song and Gwilym (and WHO HASN’T USED HER TUMBLR YET BUT TAGGING HER ANYWAY) @a--kind--of--magic​

—

“I’ll pick you up at six, yeah?”

You read Gwilym’s message to you over and over. He didn’t always pick you up from work, but when he did, you were always excited to see him. That’s no surprise of course—the two of you had been dating for a while now—but for some reason, it just always felt new.

At this point, you were just waiting for time to pass. He had texted over an hour ago, but all you had done was look at that message and not work. Not that your boss minded; he wasn’t here today anyway.

Yet you were still having a terrible day, and you couldn’t tell anyone about it because, you sighed, you didn’t know why.

And that’s the worst because how would you cure that?

How would you make that go away?

It’s just one of those days, a gloomy Wednesday, and so you were more than delighted that Gwilym would pick you up tonight.

Your phone buzzed one more time. Another message. 

“You okay?”

It’s as if Gwilym was reading your mind at that exact moment.

You took a long second to reply, mainly because you didn’t know what to type, so your mobile buzzed again, this time continuously. He was phoning you.

“Uh, hello?” you quietly answered so that no one else in the office would hear.

“You okay, love?” his voice sounded worried, but also rather sexy. It distracted you for a second.

“Y-yeah, I’m good.”

You didn’t know why you lied, because he could always tell when you did.

“Well, you don’t sound like it to me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I-I...” you started, but words just wouldn’t come out. It was hard to explain without sounding foolish.

You heard him sigh at the end of the other line. “You don’t need to worry about anything,” he said finally. “Also, I’m pulling in at the car park now.”

You let out a tiny squeal, which made him laugh—and you always wanted to make him laugh—and hastily grabbed your things, pulled out your thumb drive from your office computer without safely removing it (you knew you’d regret doing that later but who gives a shit, Gwil’s here), and dashed through the halls yelling, “See you all later!” to no one in particular as you exited your office building, dashing like mad.

At the car park, you suddenly realised that it was raining. Being confined in those tight, monochromatic spaces didn’t let you see much of the outside for most of the day. Despite that, you forgot how that made you usually feel because, standing outside the car, leaning against it, waiting for you, in his dark brown jumper with his glasses on, was Gwilym. He looked delighted to see you. You didn’t hesitate to run towards him and embrace him. He just felt so warm and nice and stable.

“Hey, bad day at work?” He asked in his signature dulcet tone, touching your hair gently, playing with it almost.

“Bad day in general,” you muttered as you instinctively bury your head in his chest. He held you closer for a few seconds in silence. You were beginning to feel better about things.

“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he whispered unto your forehead, his lips touching it ever so subtly.

You groaned, slightly muffled by your head being on his chest.

“But I like it here.”

He chuckled. “I know you fancy this, but we have to leave at some point. Parking rates are expensive. Come on now.”

You decided to pull away finally. “You’re wrong, you know,” you said, and you saw his eyebrows raise in faint surprise. You placed your index finger on his chest. “I love it there.”

He gave you a kiss on the lips because, at least based on his reactions in previous situations, it was a quick way to shut you up and at the same time, he would usually find you too cute not to do it (his words).

You two finally entered the car. He started the car and drove out of the car park; the rain seemed to only become stronger, and while you thought it was peak cuddling ambiance, it also made you feel a little somber. Even though you loved the rain, sometimes the darkness reminded you of your own, and you didn’t like that. Nobody liked knowing their own darkness. You continued to muse for about five minutes more, but then, you heard him mutter ‘Damn’ to himself, taking you out of your wretched thoughts.

“What is it?” You calmly asked.

“I think I forgot my car charger at home,” he said, also trying to be calm. “Do you have a phone charger with you by any chance?”

You also left your power bank at your office in your haste, as you discovered while rummaging through your handbag. “Erm, I’m sorry babe, I left it at work.”

He clicked his tongue, “That’s all right.” He seemed in deep thought.

“Was there anything important in your phone?”

“Well, your new address, for instance.”

Right. You recently moved into a new flat two days ago, and this was actually the first time Gwil would take you there from your office. The both of you hadn’t completely memorised the route yet.

“That’s okay,” you brought out your own phone. “We can use my—“

He looked at you expectantly. “Well?”

“Shit.”

“You’re joking, right?”

As if on cue, your phone drained its power as you checked it. You were hoping to rely on your power bank too, but that option was obviously moot now. You were hitting yourself on the head mentally; after all, you didn’t even hang up after that call with Gwil.

“No, sadly,” you answer rather hesitantly with the softest voice you could. “Sorry.”

He sighed and let out a small chuckle. “Don’t apologise. These things happen. Tell you what, it’s not that I don’t remember where your residence is—I do, mostly—but why don’t we just take this time to drive around the city for a while? No phones mean,” he waited a beat, “no distractions.”

He had the naughtiest smile on his face which you rarely saw, but when you did, you felt like you were falling in love with the man all over again. This time was no different.

“So, is that a yes, or...?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I get to spend more time with my fucking boyfriend? Fuck yeah I want to!”

He laughed, a little more loudly this time. “Let’s take a drive then. I reckon you need it.”

He reached out with his right hand and held your left hand. His touch was tender but firm, warm enough to send shivers down your spine. You then snuggled up to him, placing your head on his shoulder, your eyes closing. Now, with the rain, gloomy or not, this was definitely peak cuddling ambiance.

“You’re really loving this,” he said rather cheekily.

“Shut up and drive,” was your retort and he laughed again.

“Yes ma’am,” he responded in a cheerful tone.

You enjoyed the blissful silence that came after. Gwil seemed to enjoy it too, and sometimes, silence between you two was a comforting thing; no words needed. After a few more moments, you opened your eyes again. You went out of the city, it seemed like—cars and tall buildings were replaced by grasslands and cattle. It was getting darker, the city lights getting fewer. Where was he going to take you?

“Are you awake?” He took a quick glance down to you.

“Hmm, yeah. Where are we?”

“We’re not far off from where your flat is,” he said, as if trying to assure you. He probably heard the sudden panic in your voice. “About fifteen minutes? We’ll be back just in time.”

“No...” was your immediate response. You didn’t want this to end, because it meant that you would have to go home—it meant you had the rest of the week to face, two more fucking days, and you abhorred that feeling of absolute dread more than anything else right now.

“Oh, but you have work tomorrow, we both do.”

You groaned a little more loudly than intended, “I know, but…I don’t want to hear the truth right now. I only want to hear the good things.”

You didn’t want to get angry, not right now, especially not at him. He’s the only one you have.

“Right, I apologise.”

This time, an odd silence ensued. You both could feel it, but you thought it was better to let it go. You did say you only wanted to hear good things today.

“Erm,” he broke the silence, a bit hesitant, “you know what, you never told me what your favourite colour was.”

“What?” you were surprised to hear that question at this moment. Although, it was true—you had never told him what your favourite colour was, because, you never thought he would be interested in things like that. Gwilym was more of a conceptual thinker, an introspective kind of guy, so anything of this sort was too trivial to him. Honestly, it was cute that he’s bringing it up now. He’s trying.

“Uh, blue, I think,” you lifted your head to meet his gaze. Like his eyes. “Like your eyes.”

He blushed, but attempted to cover it up by saying, “You’re only saying that because you’re grateful that I’m spending my petrol on you.”

You giggled, “That is the least sexy thing you’ve ever said tonight.”

“Hey, you laughed! That’s my girl!”

And that’s when you realised: He was trying to take your mind off of things, distract you. He knew you were having a bad day, and he knew you didn’t want to talk about it. If you were honest, you wouldn’t know what to talk about with yourself either. He’s trying. You thought it’s the cutest thing. 

And most importantly, this reminded you that he’s there to take care of you when you needed him most. Always.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” you gave him a smirk.

He chuckled, “Well, it worked, didn’t it? Besides, I do enjoy spending time with you. It doesn’t matter what we are doing. I don’t care if it’s stupid or pointless, as long as we’re both having fun, yeah?”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” you nodded and laid your head back on his shoulder.

“Oh, you know I’m right.” You laughed. He then squeezed your hand before kissing it, smiling as he did so. 

You closed your eyes again. You hadn’t noticed all this time, but there had been music playing on the radio; it was turned down, but not all the way. You’d really love some music right now.

“Gwil, could you turn the volume up on the radio?”

“Of course.”

The radio DJ began, “Next up, a song from the hit movie Music and Lyrics, ‘Pop! Goes My Heart’ by Hugh Grant.”

“What in the fuck,” Gwilym was appalled, clearly, and you never usually heard him swear that aggressively.

It made you smile.

And of course, he noticed. “What’s that smile for?”

“Nothing—it’s a cute song. It’s fun!” Then, it reminded you of something that had been on your mind for a while now. “You know, you should do romcoms more.”

“What?” he was more confused than angry. “I’m bad at those.”

“No, you’re not.” you bit your lip—you wanted to say he was great at romance based on your experience, but you knew he would say that it’s different, that because it’s you. The song was fun anyway, so you decided to focus on that. 

“I can imagine you dressed up as a pop star in the 80’s, wearing a white studded polo, a black scarf that can engulf you whole, studded bracelets, that checkered belt around white trousers! I mean, you pulled off Brian May’s hair; I’m pretty sure you can pull off a mullet.” You put your tongue out just to annoy him.

He scoffed, but he was smirking. “No more costumes and wigs for me for the moment, thanks.”

“But you would be so cute though!” your voice went a pitch higher as you lifted your head up to face him. “You playing the piano, singing, dancing—!"

“You like my little hip shakes, huh,” he demonstrated (but still focused on his driving). “I said I wasn’t gonna lose my head, but then, pop! goes my heart~”

“Careful with that—you’re driving! You’re mental!”

Though, you had to admit, he looked good doing it. He sounded good, too. He’s perfect.

He laughed, “Perhaps you’re right. If they decide to do a remake of Music and Lyrics in another 10 years, maybe I’ll say yes. I’ll probably be Hugh Grant’s age when he did it.”

“I’d watch a remake now, to be honest,” you linked your arm with his one more time and held it really closely. You looked ahead to watch the road; you noticed he was driving back into the city again. Your heart sank—the reality started to set in again, that you had to go back to your regular life, to the routine. You wished this could last forever. If only.

“You’re living that romcom now though, don’t you agree?” he whispered, breaking your train of thought. Without warning too, so it gave you goosebumps. The good kind.

“Not if it has to end soon,” you sighed. You were completely aware that this fun little ride had to end at some point. You knew you would face the reality of life again, that you’re not always going to be happy. But then, you also realised: You had Gwil. And that’s enough.

He made a melancholic face too. “You know what love, I’ll promise you something if you promise me that you’ll stop gloating about it. Deal?”

You hummed an answer. You were sceptical, but oddly excited about it.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up from work every day from now—"

You screamed in glee. He covered his left ear almost immediately.

“I wasn’t done yet, love!” he had to exclaim over your excitement.

“Sorry.”

“I’ll pick you up from work every day from now on, unless I have work or I’m out of town or for some reason I can’t make it to you in time. Okay? That’s a promise.”

Just in time, he parked the car outside your building. The heavy rain seemed to have turned into just a drizzle—enough not to need an umbrella—and it’s like a metaphor for your mood tonight. Before seeing Gwil, it had been sour, somber, melancholic, but now, it had become more optimistic, kind, merry. His promise was just cherry on top.

Sure, it wasn’t anything significant, but it made you excited, for the first time in a long while. That was rare.

Grateful, your eyes were twinkling. “You fucking promise?”

“I fucking promise,” his were too.

You reached out for an embrace, and he held you so tightly that you almost couldn’t breathe. It was still a good feeling. As he let go, he held your face delicately with his warm hands, his elongated fingers almost covering the sides of your face. He kissed you tenderly, and your noses touched afterwards, feeling the breath of each other in this cold, damp winter night.

“I love you,” he said, almost shyly.

“I love you too,” you said back, “and thank you for spending your petrol on me in this pointless fucking trip.”

He cracked up, “Good callback.”

“I do my best,” you bragged, shrugging.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah of course!” you answered as you opened the car door and got out. “And Gwil?”

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow I’ll drive. I know where we can take a detour.”

END.

A/N: A sequel may be possible? IDK. Let me know if you want one.

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Mockingbird of Whitestone [Critical Role]

Chapter 3: A Very Close Call 

Summary: Twenty years later, Vox Machina–or as much of it as can get to Whitestone at the time–reunite. It’s not their first time doing so, and they don’t plan on it being the last. It should just be another reunion.

But something completely unexpected throws everything into chaos, and leaves Vex’ahlia struggling with emotions she’d thought buried, and Percy trying to piece together the fragments of a very confusing puzzle.

Canon pairings, focusing on Perc’ahlia; warnings for minor blood in a later chapter and a whole lot of ruminating on a canonical major character death.

Author’s Note: The blood starts being a thing in this chapter; the tags on Ao3 will probably be updated to “canon typical violence” starting here, albeit that might be a little overboard but i mean better safe than sorry. also im so sorry this took so long but in my defense this chapter kicked my butt its a behemoth

Rating: T

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

The next day dawned bright and beautiful, full of sunlight and birdsong and a gentle breeze. What should have been a perfect day for the Spring Renewal festival was quickly soured, however, by a visibly exhausted guard dejectedly relaying the news that they still had no idea where the goblins were.

There’d been a very tense early morning meeting with the town leaders and some particularly concerned visitors about what to do, one which Vex had felt particularly twitchy all through.She wasn’t alone in that much, at least; she could see various shades of nerves and anticipation across faces all around her, even hours later as she carefully patrolled the streets, the kids (all of whom save for Crispin had insisted on going out to the festival) staying close as they’d promised to (for now at least) and Trinket in his full armor bringing up the rear, ever watchful.

The light but tangible weight of Fenthras in her hand was a small comfort as she waited for the other shoe to drop. This time, at least, she’d not be caught off guard.

The day trudged on, each hour with nothing new making her feel more anxious. Her rounds and the whims of the excited kids had brought their group to the street outside the temple of Erathis, where she gave them permission to step away from her side for a while to play some of the games that had been set up along the sides of the road there, so long as they all stayed together and kept Trinket with them.

She leaned herself up against the corner of a building, outwardly resting but inwardly on the highest of alert. Gods damn the blasted goblins, this was supposed to be a time to have some fun after the long winter, not—not all this.

Worst of all, her thoughts kept straying back to that first encounter, and how easily she’d let herself think that—really, it was ridiculous, twenty years went by and the first time a vaguely sneaky stranger showed up, she immediately got her hopes up that somehow he’d be back and everything would go back to a normal that wasn’t normal anymore. It was, she was…

She really wished the damn goblins would just attack already. At least then she could take out her frustration doing something productive, instead of being stuck here just waiting.

All the while, as she thought, her eyes scanned the sparse crowd. Not as many folks were on this road, as most of the attractions would be in the main square, but it was about noon and even out here there was significant enough activity. Off to one side she spotted the three tabaxi from the day before, the one with tufted ears attracting quite a few eyes as he juggled and cajoled; the rust-colored one sat behind with their cart, his body slouched but his single eye and both ears on constant watch. A couple guards were gently escorting a drunken (judging by how heavily he leaned on the guards for support) beggar off of the steps of the temple. A farmer holding a pitchfork and keeping a watch of his own nodded to Vex as her gaze passed over him, whilst two children, likely his own, cheered as they won a prize from a ring-tossing game.

Even with her senses on high alert, however, a human still seemed to almost melt out of the shadows. On a reflex, she jerked to grab an arrow, but relaxed on seeing that it was only Kynan.

He cleared his throat with a nervous smile, still a touch hesitant after all these years.

“Sorry, I’m a bit on edge,” Vex said, taking another moment to quickly scan for her children. They were crowded around a game of some sort, with Tiffany, too short to see over the counter, pouting and demanding to be told what was happening. All safe for now.

“S’alright,” Kynan said. Then, growing more serious, he said, “Anything happened out here?”

Vex shook her head. “It’s all been about as quiet as it can be, during a festival,” she said. “I don’t like it. Anything to report on your end?”

In the two decades that had passed, Kynan had proved himself time and again as very capable, elevated to the council as of five years ago, in charge of law enforcement and wartime movements. He’d been very much on top of things in this particular conflict, for all the frustrations that had come up.

Kynan shrugged. “Nothing violent,” he said, “But there’s been reports of thefts and a few people claiming to have spotted something.”

Vex tapped her fingers restlessly against Fenthras. “Any patterns to the thefts? The first goblin was raiding our larder, after all.”

“Not really. The odd coin here and there, a necklace, a child’s doll. Strangest things to have gone missing is probably a bunch of perfume, but other than that, nothing I’d think worth raising any real alarms over.”

Vex raised an eyebrow. “I think we can safely say that one’s just some thief. What would goblins want with a bunch of perfume?” she asked, dubious. “What would they want with cooking herbs?” Kynan shot back. “Ugh, you sound like Percy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And the sightings? What’s come out of those?”

“Not so much goblins for sure,” he said, shifting his weight. “People are jumpy. We’ve been taking every report seriously, but every time it’s turned out to be someone in a green shirt, or a blanket hung out to dry that someone spotted out of the corner of their eye. Old Jenkins reported that he saw a bunch of them at his trash last night, but that turned out to be a bunch of bears and a badger, which, uh, was pretty weird, but it wasn’t the goblins.”

Vex blinked. “Well, at least we finally worked out what it is that he keeps seeing, I guess. The poor man’s always claiming some monsters are lurking around his house at night.”  

“Tiff?” Crispin’s half-panicked voice rang out over the crowd. Vex stiffened. “Tiffany!! Tiff, you’re supposed to stay close, where are—did anyone see where Tiffany went? I swear I only looked away for a second—” She could see him, drawing Arthur near him, looking frantically around and grabbing at someone’s shirt, could see Trinket rearing up on his hind legs to better see over everyone’s heads.

It was probably fine, Tiffany wandered off sometimes, but now was the worst time to be doing so, gods. She didn’t blame Crispin for a second, not with four siblings to keep an eye on at once, but—fuck it, time to worry about that later, she exchanged a wordless nod with Kynan and stepped forward, looking around herself as Kynan melted into the crowd himself to search for the toddler.

As seconds ticked by, and the little girl didn’t appear, Vex could feel panic welling up inside her, heard it matched by Crispin’s increasingly hoarse shouts. Where was she, where was she, where—There! One of the passerby moved, and Vex spotted her daughter’s dress, saw Tiffany talking to a small, cloaked figure.

One with tattered green ears.

Her hand found an arrow in her quiver on pure instinct. In that same, slowed-down moment, she saw the goblin turn, spot her with those giant, animal eyes, and jerk forward toward Tiffany, reaching out with those terrible clawed fingers toward her daughter—

The arrow was pulled taught against Fenthras’s string as easy as breathing, and with the familiar woosh of wind, sang forward, aimed to take the goblin right through its chest. Time seemed to restart, sound roaring back in as Tiffany wailed, and Vex wasn’t sure if her arrow struck true. Someone screamed, and as the crowd all reacted at once to the goblin’s appearance, someone ran into Vex’s line of sight again as she tried to push forward. She spotted the goblin thrashing in the grip of the vines of the brambleshot, saw Tiffany on the ground, sitting up, howling, saw the goblin somehow manage to wrench itself free of the restraining grip and dash down the alley just as Vex finally got to her daughter.

Fuck the goblin, she’d catch up to it later.

“Tiffany, are you okay? I got you, I got you sweetie, come here,” she said, scooping the crying child into her arms. There didn’t look to be any wounds, thank Sarenrae, she didn’t look to be hurt anywhere, no doubt she was just startled by the shock of getting attacked like that. She’d have the little beast’s hide for this, how dare it lay a hand on her daughter, how dare it invade her city!

Trinket thundered up behind her, nudging her back with his nose as she held Tiffany close, shaking with an intense terror and fury. The bear’s touch brought her back into now.

“Thank you, Trinket,” she said, softly, and then, louder, standing, she pointed down the alley, still hugging Tiffany tightly to her. “It went down that way! Go after it, I’ll be right behind you!”

The bear grunted and raced off after his quarry. For the time being, however, she pulled back. Kynan and a guard were carefully guiding anyone unwilling or unable to fight into the temple of Erathis. She saw Leo, Trissa, and Arthur herded inside, but Crispin was hanging back, still calling out for his sister.  

Vex darted over, shoving Tiffany into his arms—she was still crying, but she was alive, that was what mattered, she didn’t look wounded, no time to freeze right now—and pushed him towards the temple entrance. “Go, get inside, now!” she barked, before running after Trinket.

The trail was easy to follow, she noted with a grim satisfaction; she’d definitely landed a very good hit on the goblin, and a line of blood droplets clearly marked out where it had gone. The trail weaved back and forth, at one point evidently crashing into a corner; here, more blood had splashed down, too, and Vex spotted the back half of her arrow. No doubt the goblin had tried to remove it, and only managed to snap it in half.

Rounding a few more corners, she found Trinket urgently pawing at a wall. Near its base was a cluster of droplets large enough to almost constitute a puddle, and on the wall itself, a few telltale four-fingered handprints were visible on a drainpipe. Vex looked up just in time to see a tail disappear over the roof.

“Good job, Trinket,” she said, and then set about quickly climbing up herself, Trinket boosting her up as best he could.

The goblin was there, cowering by a chimney and hastily wrapping something around the arrowhead, which Vex could see poking out of its shoulder. It heard her climb up, and with a yelp, disappeared around the chimney just as Vex managed to fire off another shot, the arrow shattering against the stone. She swore, and gave chase as the creature dropped off the other side of the roof, somehow catching itself one-handed on a window ledge to slow its fall.

With a whistle, Vex directed Trinket to round the building while she scaled her own way down. The blood trail had been lessened significantly by whatever fabric the goblin had found, but Trinket had its scent now, there’d be no getting away this time. she’d teach the little beast to lay a claw on her daughter—

She didn’t consciously register that the trail was leading right toward the main square until she spotted the Sun Tree. Was there a bigger attack happening there? What else was happening? She couldn’t hear any sounds of a struggle from that direction. She’d lost sight of the blasted goblin, too; she could see people calmly going about their business, could see Percy talking to what must have been a group of visitors looking nervous.

Too late, she spotted the goblin streaking out of the shadows and straight for the big cluster of people talking to Percy. Vex shouted out a warning, but it was quickly drowned out by screams as the group split apart in a panic. People were fighting to get away, raising a small cloud of dust low to the ground, and stampeding in all directions. The chaos was too much for even Vex’s keen eyes to pierce, and by the time everyone had dispersed enough for her to get a good view, the goblin was nowhere to be seen.

Furious, Vex gestured for Trinket to come with her as she raced in—not that she really needed to, the bear was hard on her heels. “Track it,” she said to Trinket, and then, to the crowd, “Which way did it go? Did anyone see?”

“It poured something on the ground as it passed,” she heard Percy say, somewhere behind her, “I didn’t catch which way it ran, but what did—”

Trinket gave a pained bellow and shuffled backwards, pawing at his nose. As he did, as she turned, the smell hit her nose too; a clashing combination of powerful smells, largely floral and all incredibly strong. Unbidden, the memory sprang to mind of Kynan, just before, mentioning reports of stolen perfume, and realized—somehow, the blasted goblin must have been smart enough to realize it could be tracked by scent, and had worked out a way to make a, a scent bomb of sorts; the smell must have been so strong as to almost physically hurt to poor trinket, and with it scattered everywhere from the onslaught of rushing feet as that crowd had split apart in a panic, that overwhelming smell would be everywhere…

There’d be no tracking it after this. Poor Trinket wasn’t going to be in a condition to be tracking anything after this sensory overload.

It had gotten away again, the little bastard!

The scream that tore out of Vex’s throat at this realization was wholly involuntary. Not that she made any attempt to stop it—she swore, and raged, and tore at her hair, a useless font of angry energy with nothing to direct herself against until a pair of arms locked around her. It took her a moment to recognize them—Percy, trying to calm her.

“Vex, Vex, it’s gone, we can’t get distracted running around after just one, we have to brace to protect civilians from the main attack,” he said, his arms tight around her as she struggled. “It might be trying to lead you into a trap, just let it run!”

“It almost got Tiffany,” she gasped, and heard him take a sharp breath himself. “It nearly took Tiffany, Percy, I saw it try to grab her—I’ll fucking kill them, gods damn them, they almost—”

“Oh, Gods,” he said, hoarse. “Is she—?”

“Crispin’s got her, it didn’t get her, but it was so close, Percy,” and she felt the anger fading into horrified tears, and hated herself for how powerless she was to stop them.

“Fuck,” Percy whispered.

The temple to Erathis was a chaotic hive of anxiety. Townsfolk and visitors alike crowded around some of the city leaders, all talking over each other in hysterics and demanding answers. Off by Trinket, as far out of the way as they could get, the kids (minus Tiffany) were talking amongst themselves, looking various shades of excited, bored, and, in Crispin’s face, pensive. Percy, for his part, was trying to help with this, but trying to calm down a horde of anxious townsfolk was hard enough without also trying to soothe a distressed toddler. Maybe it was for the best after all that Vex had insisted on rejoining the hunt for the creature; Percy’d been concerned and argued against it, with how distraught she’d been, but at this point, being left behind was starting to feel like the more stressful option. It took nearly two hours of himself, Cassandra, Keyleth, and some of the priests repeating themselves to regain some semblance of calm. No, we don’t know where they are, yes, we’ve got all the guards and a good number of volunteers out searching, no, no one’s been reported missing yet.

(And what a close call that was—Gods, they’d almost lost Tiffany.)

Keyleth ducked out for a moment, saying she wanted to ask if the Sun Tree knew anything, and Percy, still juggling three very persistent worriers and a fussy child, just waved her off without really listening. He really wished Pike were here; she wasn’t a city leader anymore than Keyleth was, but she was so very good at making people feel more at ease. But she’d joined in the chase, along with Grog and Scanlan, of course. Trinket was the only other member of Vox Machina to stay behind, and that was on account of nursing an apparent headache.

Mercifully, Cassandra ducked in and gently lifted Tiffany out of Percy’s arms, allowing him to spend a few minutes focusing on reassuring the last few stragglers. The rest had settled down into groups clustered about the pews, or had formed larger bands for the sake of safety in numbers before heading off to inns or homes. A sense of unease remained, but at least it was a quiet unease instead of the chaos of before.

(He still kept an eye on Tiffany, even knowing she’d be perfectly safe with Cassandra. Even hearing about how close she’d come to being taken had left him shaken. He couldn’t imagine what Vex must be going through, having seen it happen.)

Finally, sending the last of the worrying folk on their way, he sat down on one of the few empty pews and took a moment to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. Hopefully, the searchers were making some sort of progress—it should not have been this difficult to track down and deal with a bunch of bloody goblins, for heaven’s sake.

The trick that one had used to deter Trinket fascinated him, despite how worried he felt. Somehow, the creature had known to concoct a scent powerful enough to cover up just about everything, and then to drop that scent right where a huge crowd of panicking people would spread it out very quickly, creating a sort of…olfactory smoke screen, and overloading the bear’s nose, to boot. That was a level of thinking he was not used to goblins being capable of.

…Actually, that just made the whole mess more worrying. Trinket had only tracked down the one scout, yesterday, just for one brief instance, but that was enough apparently for the goblins to prepare ways to shake him off, and so quickly, too. Maybe that was why they were proving so hard to find; perhaps Whitestone had been unfortunate enough to attract a particularly shrewd set of goblins.

It’d be right about average for this city’s luck, really. Ugh.

He was shaken from his thoughts by someone plunking into the pew next to him—Keyleth, with the same more laid-back air she always seemed to have after her…conversations with the Sun Tree.

“Did you learn anything new?” he asked.

“Um. No.” Keyleth ran a hand awkwardly through her hair. “He said he didn’t know anything, because he’s a tree. I mean, he did notice a goblin running around a few times, apparently, but only ever one at a time? Which I’m feeling pretty vindicated about, but I guess that doesn’t technically prove that there’s only ever been one goblin, but, still.”

Percy ran a hand through his hair. “Would it know if they were hiding nearby?”

Keyleth pulled a face. “Um. Probably? Maybe? He’s not super observant, honestly. But he definitely would know if a bunch of goblins passed through the main square at any point, and it seems like that hasn’t happened, so.” Then, looking at Percy’s face, she added, “I’m really sorry, Percy, I wish I could help with this more.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s—everyone’s doing their best, it’s no one’s fault if there’s a few dead end leads. You were a huge help calming people down, anyway. We’re all frustrated and scared, is all. Thank you for trying.”

“What about Tiff?” Keyleth asked. “Have you been able to calm her down enough to get anything out of her?”

Percy was taken aback for a moment, and looked back towards Tiffany, still quiet in her brother’s arms. “She stopped crying finally, but I haven’t tried talking to her about it, no. I hadn’t really thought to. Keyleth, she’s three. She probably didn’t really understand what was happening.”

“Yeah, but it’s still worth a shot, right?” said Keyleth. “I didn’t really think the Sun Tree was gonna know much either, and, I mean, he didn’t, but it won’t hurt to try. If she’s too scared to talk about it we won’t press her.”

“Fair enough.”

Tiffany was still sniffling when Percy took her back from Cassandra’s arms, but had stopped crying at last for the most part. As Percy held her and sat down, she rubbed one tiny fist over an eye and hiccuped. There were some mostly dried droplets of blood across the front of her dress, he noticed, but he had no doubt she’d been looked over very thoroughly and found uninjured. It must have been the goblin’s.

He took a deep breath to steady himself at the thought of how close that had been, and forced a gentle smile. “How are—are you feeling better, Tiff, dear? I know that must have been really scary.”

Tiffany nodded emphatically. “It was!!” she said, eyes wide. “I was jus’ talking to a, the shadow person I seed yesterday a few times, an’ they, an’ all the sudden they pushed me, an’ there were vines, and they were bleeding, an, an’ Mama was scared too!”

Percy blinked, confused for a moment. Right, Tiffany was young enough that perhaps she didn’t realize that the goblin had been dangerous. The arrow had likely frightened her more than her actual attacker. “Right, well, in the future you should…maybe be a bit more cautious about going over to people you don’t know when they call you over.”

“They didn’t do that, tho,” Tiffany sniffled. “They were just sorta hiding over by the wagon. But they—I saw them take a teapot, yesterday, an’ Mama said that, um, that we’d tell the shadow person that it’s not, it’s not nice to take teapots!! So I went to tell them that.”

“That was really dangerous, Tiffany,” said Keyleth, leaning over.

“Why?”

“Because it was…” Keyleth chewed her lip. “Do you know what a goblin is, Tiffany?”

Tiffany nodded. “They’re, um, there’s some in the stories Papa reads to me.” Before Keyleth or Percy could respond, though, Tiffany continued, “But, but they’re always mean an’ stupid, an’ the shadow person didn’t seem either of those things! They were just, um. They were really…um. They didn’t even notice me until I talked to them, and they, and they weren’t even interested in what I said about the teapot or anything, they kept looking all over the place instead! An’ they barely even said anything about the teapot, they just said a buncha other stuff.”

Keyleth tilted her head, but said nothing beyond a quiet, “Huh.”

Percy could think of a few reasons for the goblin to be distracted, and none of them were particularly good, but…perhaps they could work out more as to what the actual intentions of the invaders were, since Tiffany seemed so eager to talk about what had happened. Maybe he could get more of a bead on what sort of plan required goblins to steal herbs and, evidently, a teapot. Hesitantly, he asked, “What did the…the shadow person say to you?”

Tiffany sniffled, and seemed to think for a moment. “Um. They asked if, if I saw a…a weird man.”

That was…entirely unexpected. “…Did they? That’s…What do you mean by weird, Tiff?”

“Um. They said, um, a guy in a…a guy wif a coat, an’, an’ he was messy, they said, an’ that he talked funny.”

Percy looked across at Keyleth, who looked every bit as confused as he felt.

“Did they say why they were looking for this man?”

Tiffany shook her head. “Um! They also said the weird man was on the, was in front of the temple, but he was gone now! They wanted to know if I saw where he went, an’ I didn’t, an’ I said so.”

“And then did the go-the shadow person ask you to lead them to him, or anything?” Keyleth said, sitting down next to Percy. It was exactly what Percy’d been meaning to ask next. It’d make the most sense—maybe the whole thing about some man was a ruse to draw the child away from the watchful eyes of the many armed adults in the area.

“Nuh-uh,” said Tiffany. “They just sorta made a sad noise an’ then they, they said I shouldn’t talk to strangers wifout my parents around.” Percy couldn’t help but slowly turn to make eye contact with Keyleth as the toddler continued on, “An’ I said that my momma was real close so it was okay, an’ they said no it wasn’t, I shouldn’t be talking to them without a, um, an adult I trust, knowing that I’m talking to them. An’ then they asked where mama was, an’ looked around, and then they pushed me!!”

That was…Hm.

“…I mean. That’s. They weren’t wrong about all that, actually, that’s…very good advice, and I’m very conflicted about the fact that—you’re sure that’s what they said, Tiff?” Percy said, feeling completely lost.

Tiffany gave a single, adamant nod. “Yeah!! An’ then they got hit by an arrow, an’ I got real scared, an’ everyone started screaming!” She sniffled. “Why’d they push me like that? We were jus’ talking, an’, an’ they seemed nice!”

“It was…it was trying to grab you,” Percy said, but the words felt…wrong in his mouth, now. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces didn’t make sense. The gears that had looked to fit perfectly were entirely the wrong size, and it was entirely possible that what he’d thought to be a screw was instead a nail. What…what were they dealing with, here?

Keyleth shook her head. “I don’t know, Percy, this is getting weird…” She chewed her lip for a moment, and then, quietly, trying to keep Tiffany from hearing, she asked, “Is it—she is little, maybe she’s remembering wrong?”

“It wouldn’t be like her to make something like this up,” Percy whispered back. “Leo or Trissa at her age, certainly, and in a few days she may have a very embellished version of things, but right after things happen, she tends to be pretty honest.”

“It didn’t feel like a grab,” Tiffany pouted. “It felt like a push. I fell down on my butt afterwards an’ it hurt a lot.”

Percy tried to imagine the scene with the new information. Tried to fit it in with what he knew about goblins, and kept hitting walls. It didn’t fit. So, then, maybe…

He tried looking at it again, but this time, instead of thinking of the individual as a typical goblin invader, he tried just…thinking about their actions in the context of a normal person. And in that context, things started to make sense. They’d been going about their business when a very chatty, particularly bold toddler had demanded their attention. And then they’d…well, he still couldn’t quite make sense of looking for some strange man, but at the very least it told him that Tiffany’s shadow person had something on their mind.

The advice about strangers made a lot more sense, this way; they were very much busy and distracted and likely didn’t have time to be talking to a small child. They’d told her off a bit, and then looked around for the child’s parents. Perfectly normal behavior for someone who wasn’t seeking to kidnap and devour any small child they could get their hands on.

And then…

“So you told this person that Mama was near?” Percy said, to be sure. Tiffany nodded. “And then they looked around to find her…”

…And would have seen an arrow pointed in their direction, wouldn’t they. Ha. Now he was starting to see how the gears were meant to fit together.

It was a bit of a crazy theory, probably. But the truth was, so far, no one had really been attacked, except for perhaps Trinket a couple of times, and both were justifiably self defense. If Tiffany was right in her understanding of what had happened today, then…

“Keyleth,” Percy said slowly, “You don’t suppose it might have been trying to push Tiffany out of the way?”

“Of what?” Keyleth asked, but before he could answer, another commotion broke out. The goblin hunters were back, it seemed. And judging by the grim looks on their faces, they’d been unsuccessful again.

He ought to have been worried by that, but in the moment, his mind was buzzing. He felt at once like he’d worked out the shape of the thing and like he knew less than ever—there were so many pieces that were missing, ones that he didn’t even know how to START with, but even so, it was an explanation that felt like it fit. He needed to tell Vex, she’d be thrilled to hear there was some sort of lead on all this.

Somehow, Keyleth managed to get ahead of him, getting caught up in the knot of people forming around Vox Machina. Percy, with Tiffany still in his arms, couldn’t break through the crowd, but after a couple minutes of worried folk clamouring for news and Grog’s voice booming out his disappointment above it all, he saw Vex push her way out of the throng and make a beeline towards him.

The rest of the kids, who’d been off in a corner with Trinket, ran up as well, gathering in close as Vex took Tiffany from Percy and held her tight to her chest. There was a heartbreaking tension around her face, accompanied by the kind of exhaustion that comes only from great stretches of stress.  

“Did you beat the bad guys, Mama?” Arthur demanded, tugging on Vex’s tunic. Before she could respond, Trissa and Leo both tried to shout over each, asking for details just as loudly.

Crispin had been unusually quiet and withdrawn for quite some time, and now, whatever dam had been holding him back finally broke, the boy nearly in tears as his voice shook. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” he said, frantic, “I was—Trissa and Arthur were arguing, and Leo kept screaming that he was hungry, and I think Trinket was distracted by something else, and I—I’m so sorry, there was so much, I swear I only let her out of my sight for a couple minutes!”

“Kids, stop—Hold on just a second, please!” Vex chided the three middle children. One arm still firmly holding onto Tiffany, Vex stretched out a hand and gently but firmly made Crispin look at her. “Darling, listen to me,” she said, “You didn’t do anything wrong here, alright? A lot happened very quickly, I’m not angry and this isn’t your fault.”

“I’ll try and pay more attention next time, I swear—”

“You did your best,” Percy said, drawing Crispin in close and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Tiffany’s alive, and she isn’t hurt, it’s alright.”

“Yeah, but did you kill them?” Leo piped up.

“No, damn them,” Vex spat. “Couldn’t find hide nor hair of the little—ugh.”

“Aw, what?” Trissa complained. Crispin somehow managed to look even more distressed.

Percy, sensing a potential storm brewing if the conversation continued as it was—Trissa and Crispin would get into an argument over just about anything these days, with Leo egging the former on, and that was the last thing they needed right now—quickly stepped in. “Alright, kids, your mother and I need to talk privately for a moment. You can hear more about how things went later,” he continued over the loud whines of complaint from Arthur, Leo, and Trissa. “For now, just—One of you take Tiff and just…wait over by Trinket, won’t you?”

Thankfully, they did as they were told, albeit with a lot more complaining from most of them. Crispin took Tiffany with a nod, and helped push the rest to follow Percy’s instructions. As they left, Percy heard Trissa say, “You don’t have to be such a goodie two-shoes about it, Crispin,” and let out a deep sigh.

“I’m really starting to worry, Percy,” Vex said, falling heavily back onto a nearby pew and burying half her face in one hand. “The goblins have somehow managed to completely disappear, they shouldn’t be able to just up and vanish like this, and I hate not knowing where or when they’re going to turn up next! By some miracle, no one appears to have been hurt or killed yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Maybe not,” said Percy, sitting next to her. She turned a tired eye towards him. “Keyleth and I talked to Tiffany about what happened, and it’s got me thinking. I know it’s a bit out there, but honestly, what she described didn’t feel like an invader at all, so much as just another visitor to the festival. She certainly never felt that she was in any danger—”

“Percy,” said Vex, but Percy didn’t stop.

“And, if anything, it sounded like the goblin was trying to push her out of danger rather than attack her. And if that’s the case, then it would follow that we may not be in danger at all, that we’re actually dealing with a, a harmless group of goblins. Which would go a very long way in explaining a lot of the weirdness that’s been—”

“Percival!”

Any further elaboration he might have had lined up died in his throat when faced with the hardness in Vex’s eyes. “I’d say that you can’t be serious, but I’d sincerely hate to think you’d make such a thoughtless joke in a time like this,” she said. “They’re goblins, Percival, of course we’re in danger! One of them tried to take our daughter!”

Some other eyes in the temple were looking at them, he noticed out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t quite in a full on shouting match, but Vex wasn’t trying to be quiet, either. He swallowed. “I mean, Tiffany was very sure that—”

“Tiffany is three years old!” Vex hissed. “She probably didn’t understand what was happening! You can’t go basing an entire insane theory on the word of a toddler!” She pressed her face into her hand again. “Gods, Percival, not everything is some bloody puzzle that needs working out, sometimes things just are what they seem on face value! People’s lives are at stake and we can’t afford to risk calling off our defenses based on a complete fantasy!”

“Well, but, I…”

“Well, why don’t you fight them, then, Mr. I Know How To Use A Big Pointy Stick?”

“Yeah, you’re the one with sword lessons, why don’t you use them, you big chicken?”

Vex and Percy’s heads both turned towards their kids at the rising sounds of Trissa and Leo’s voices. Gods, if they were egging on Crispin again—yep, sure enough, Crispin and Trissa had their eyes locked, Leo at her back adding on to whatever she said.

“There’s a world of difference between sparring with Aunt Cass or whatever guard’s on break and being in an actual fight, Trissa!” Crispin shot back.

“Oh, like you’d know,” Trissa said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know even know how you’re my brother, sometimes. How’d Mom and Dad have such a big coward?”

“You want me to end up like our uncle?!” Crispin snapped, and Percy felt Vex tense beside him. “Or did you forget about what happened to him? Our parents weren’t living out some fantasy in a book, they were fighting for their fucking lives, and two of them didn’t survive!”

“Mom and Dad did!” Leo said.

“No they fucking didn’t, they just got lucky and were able to come back!”

Percy swore under his breath and got out of his seat, heading toward the kids. He could feel Vex doing the same.

“They all died, the whole group, at least once!” Crispin went on, “I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad both went down twice! And resurrection ceremonies aren’t a guarantee! I’m pretty sure they were just really fucking lucky—I know you know this, Trissa, you can’t just ignore it! All of them, Mom, Dad, fuck, something even managed to kill Grog, and they were all well fucking trained fighters, what the hell are we supposed to do?!”

Arthur started to wail.

“Stop it right now!” Vex said, getting ahead of Percy and planting herself right in the middle of the three arguing children. Percy knelt down and drew Arthur close to him. Tiffany didn’t look like she’d really understand any of what had been said, thankfully—they’d been careful to wait until each kid was old enough to handle it before telling them certain parts of the stories of Vox Machina’s exploits, and neither of the two youngest had been let in on the details Crispin had just laid out.

Judging by the stricken look on his face, Crispin was well aware of his mistake. The boy stammered an apology, but Vex waved it off and turned toward Trissa and Leo.

“Your brother’s right about one thing, neither of you two are anywhere near ready for a real fight,” Vex said, “Especially if you can’t even recognize that this is not the time or place to be fighting amongst yourselves.”

“But Mom, Crispin—”

“Is trying to protect you, like a good brother, and I’ll not have you antagonizing him over it.”

“We can—” Leo piped up.

“No. We’re going home.” A cry of complaint started, but was instantly cut short by a single look from Vex. “All you’ve accomplished with this is scaring your little brother, and you’re going to march back quietly and really think about what you’ve done, do you understand?”

Arthur, at least, was calming down into sniffles rather than outright sobbing. Percy kept trying to soothe the boy, unable to bring himself to look at Vex until he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Did you hear me, Percy?” she said, her voice softer than it had been, but not much. “I’m taking the kids and Trinket back up. Are you staying down here?”

Percy swallowed. “Um, yes, I think I…there’s so much to do, you know.”

“I’m not angry at you, you understand that, right?” she said. “I just…I’d love for everything to secretly be fine, too, Percy, but it’s just not feasible. I know what I saw.”

“…Of course,” he said, standing. “Travel safe, all of you. I’ll see you tonight.”

He kissed his wife on the cheek, and stood by, quietly reeling as the rest of his family walked away.

It was funny how many things one could find to do when they were definitely procrastinating. Percy managed to busy himself until the sun had begun to set, helping out with arranging things, answering questions, doing whatever he could think of to keep busy. But as the last few people started heading to beds, and guards started up the first of the evening patrols that had been agreed upon for the time being, Percy begrudgingly had to accept that it was probably time to head home.

He’d thought that maybe his theory was a bit far fetched, sure, but he’d not been ready to be so thoroughly shut down for it. Normally that only happened when he was being dangerously stupid, which—well, alright, the town was in danger, fair.

Maybe it really was overly optimistic. It would be so much easier if this was all just a misunderstanding.

“Hey, Percy!” Keyleth’s voice right behind him nearly made him stumble, so sudden did it seem. “What’s up? I’ve been trying to get your attention for like half a minute,” she said, moving up to keep pace with him.

“Sorry, I’m just…distracted, I suppose.”

“…By the argument with Vex?” Keyleth said, and Percy winced. “Sorry,” she added. “Don’t mean to, um, rub dirt in the wound or anything, I just—things seemed tense.”

“It’s…my fault, probably,” he said. “She’s got every right to be stressed out, anyway. It’s been a bloody stressful day.”

“Yeah.”

A comfortable, if slightly awkward silence stretched between them for a few moments, as they walked. Eventually, Keyleth broke it by asking, “Hey, what were you saying before, anyway?”

“Hm?”

“When we were talking to Tiffany,” Keyleth said. “You were about to say something, and then we got interrupted. It’s been bugging me all day!”

“Oh, it was—I—it was nothing, Keyleth,” he said, hurriedly.

“It didn’t sound like something,” she pressed. “It sounded like you were onto something! Come on, what was it?”

“A lot of wishful thinking, apparently,” Percy mumbled.

“About what? Come on, this whole thing’s super weird.”

“You’ll laugh.”

“Promise I won’t?”

Percy looked sideways at her. She had that earnest look about her that was so very Keyleth, the one that meant she wasn��t going to give up on this. He sighed.

“Alright, alright, fine. I had a…theory, of sorts, that was forming. One which Vex very quickly pointed out the holes in,” he said, taking off his glasses for a moment to nervously clean them.

“Oh?” Yeah, he should’ve known that dropping that hint wouldn’t stop her from pushing on.

“It’s…I was thinking at the time that maybe the goblin pushed Tiffany because it saw the arrow pointed at the both of them and wanted to get her out of the way,” he said, feeling a fool for even saying it aloud again. He slipped his glasses back on, adjusted them on his nose, looking away from Keyleth as he continued, “And following from that, that maybe we’re not dealing with anything malicious. Which is…”

“Makes sense to me,” said Keyleth. “I’m not seeing the problem here, yet.”

Percy felt his jaw drop as his head involuntarily snapped to look at her.

Nope, no humor to her expression, just more of that sincerity.

“That’d explain what it said about strangers, too, actually,” Keyleth said, “because if it cared enough about her safety to try and push her out of the way, it’d wanna make sure she’s with her parents, too, right? Yeah! Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Plus, no one’s gotten hurt at all, yet, and with this many vulnerable people here that’s super weird!”

“I—but—Keyleth, the idea of an entire tribe of goblins randomly showing up who just happen to be quite possibly the one single tribe of nonviolent goblins is—it’s patently ridiculous!” he stammered. Yet, at the same time, part of him felt vindicated—Keyleth may have been a bit foolish at times, but she was far from stupid, and their years traveling together had brought her much more down to earth. If she thought that he might be on to something…

“I mean, with the stuff we’ve all seen together, friendly goblins doesn’t sound all that weird,” she said with a grin. “But, consider this: maybe it’s not a whole tribe!”

“…Oh?”

“Sun Tree’s only ever seen one, I’ve only ever seen one, has anyone so far reported seeing more than one at a time? I mean, like, any reports that we’ve been able to confirm? I know there’s been a ton of false alarms, but. Actual, for sure sightings.”

“…Now that you mention it, no, not to my knowledge,” Percy said, feeling the gears start turning again.

Keyleth’s smile widened. “Right! And I really was searching the whole city yesterday, too, so I had a really wide view! It might be that it’s just the one that’s here, and it’s a nice one on its own, right? I didn’t get a good look at it the second time, but do you think it might be the same one?”

“I…didn’t get a good look at the one from today,” Percy said. “It ran by very quickly. Although…that in itself might be a sign it’s the same one. The one Vex found in the storeroom was very fast.”

“Okay, so, there’s your theory!” Keyleth said, bouncing on her feet a bit. “We’re just dealing with one goblin on its own that might not want to hurt anyone!”

“Which still doesn’t answer what it is doing here,” Percy said. “We’ve possibly explained what it hasn’t done, and that’s a start. But no matter how I go about it, I haven’t been able to make everything it has done make sense.”

“So maybe next time we see it we just try talking to it?” said Keyleth. “Although that…might be harder now. Vex apparently shot it with Fenthras.”

Percy winced. “Oh, Gods,” he said, “no wonder the thing tore past like a bat out of hell, then.”

“Speaking of Vex, though, it’s super weird that she got mad at you for suggesting this,” said Keyleth.

Percy shrugged. “I don’t know, Keyleth,” he said, “she’s really very certain that she saw the goblin attack our daughter. I’d be pretty peeved in her shoes, too. Honestly, I’m not even entirely convinced that she was wrong. There’s no real proof for this, it’s just one possible explanation. It may well be that we’ve only seen a couple scouts.”

“I guess,” said Keyleth, frowning, “But normally I feel like she’d…consider it.”

Percy stopped. Keyleth followed suit, looking at him intently as he thought. “Now that you mention it, she really didn’t even hear me out all the way. I’d hardly started explaining when she just…shut me down.” His own frown deepened. “She didn’t want to talk about the possibility of the goblins being unusual yesterday, either, and I’d not even considered that they might not be attacking at that point. You…you don’t suppose there’s something wrong, do you?”

Keyleth chewed her thumbnail for a moment. “She has been acting kinda weird since she saw the goblin,” she said.

“I…just attributed that to stress over the situation.” Percy folded his arms.

“Yeah, but I mean, even for that, she’s been…off.”

“Hm. I’ll…I might try talking to her, tomorrow, if I can,” he said. Then he allowed himself a smile. “Regardless, thank you for…taking me seriously on this, I suppose.”

She beamed. “No problem!” she said. “We probably shouldn’t bring this up with the others until we’ve got a little more proof, though, huh? Vex might, uh, not be the only one who reacts…badly…to the suggestion.”

“Scanlan.”

“I’m talking about Scanlan, yes.”