#(( Her support was invaluable for making sense of this mess. ))

[magicshopaholic]

Please this was so 😭🥹💕🐶❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Firstly, can I just say how you've nailed the new dog parent aspect? Especially with a puppy, because I related to every single thing. No sleep, constant anxiety, unable to get mad, the straining on the leash - and the damn poop bags. Those damn poop bags.

Welp Seokjin's shoulders have made an appearance

Lmao "run until you're tired" Two years in and this is still a daily thing

I'm SO sorry about your shoes Y/N I really am but how do you get mad at a tiny chocolate labrador �� and the screaming when you leave the room for two whole seconds i'm dECEASED

Not Y/N thinking Seokjin's talking about HER 😭😭😭 No one pays attention to humans when there are doggos around woman

Also, I know this is fictional but I'm so jealous of Perfectly Trained Dog Owner Seokjin

Okay but who wouldn't trade a weasel of a boyfriend for a dog though WHO

I know I'm going on and on about this but every single thing is so accurate - the puppy messes, the spontaneous crying because everything is too much at once, the dog mom guilt - like, the PTSD is setting in fully 😭

PUPPY PURPOSES AKSJKSFJFKA SURE GUYS

Aight hold up Seokjin's cooking! Man's bringing out his move so smoothly it's insane. he's such a sweetheart though, with the conversation and the relief. Only Seokjin 🥹

Okay the sales pitch bit was so cute. I love a couple that can carry a joke longer than the actual joke ❤️ And that kiss - like my heart actually fluttered how are you doing this

Okay and the SECOND kiss - not Seokjin tugging and kissing her ughhh it’s so hot and it’s literally just a kiss? I love it I love it so much

Okay also - I love how you’ve shown how emotionally and mentally drained Y/N is, with work, a new dog, lack of sleep and so many things so when she tells Seokjin that she can’t commit to anymore right now, it makes complete sense. Like, even just reading her point of view I was so tired that I didn’t think a whole relationship was possible atm.

Seokjin nooooo don’t jump to conclusions you Neanderthal 🙄🙄😬😬😢😔😒😒

Okay he’s being so petty and annoying but kudos to Y/N for not being all woe is me about it and actually being a little pissed? Like excuse you shoulder man but we’re not in middle school anymore so stop fkn sulking

Yesss she told him off 👸🏻 idk why but it was still so hurtful? Every time he went all blank - it’s so much worse than actually making a face :(

Okay fine he apologised 🙄 idiot. Jesus Y/N don’t pretend like you don’t want to give him a second chance JUST LET HIM IN

Omg they’re having sex 😍 Yes yes yes Seokjin stay oml he’s stayinggg ♥️♥️♥️

I’m sorry I made most of this about me and my experience as a single dog mom but it was so so real and really, that kind of support from a fellow dog parent but an experienced one is invaluable so in conclusion I love them sm 🥹

Sit. Stay. || KSJ

(banner by @kth1)

Title: Sit. Stay. WC: 14k one-shot Genre: fluff, s2l, neighbors!au, baby angst for a quick minute?, smut

Summary: Your new puppy, Zinnia, has turned your world on its head. She’s ruined everything from your sleep schedule to your favorite shoes, and you know it’s your own failure to train her properly. When your cute upstairs neighbor tells you about a local obedience academy, he slowly starts to make himself a place in your schedule, your life, and your heart. After your last relationship went up in flames, will his affections be something else you can count as a failure?

Rating: NSFW - Minors DNI, i mean it

Warnings: language, casual drinking, a parent is having heart problems and seeing doctors for it, miscommunication sort of, immaturity lol, kissing, mentions of surgery/doctors/hospitals - but everyone is okay!, an argument, protected penetrative sex, doggy style (i mean how could i NOT), fingering, a nanosecond of nip stim

A/N: Written for the Paw Prints Academy Collab hosted by @kth1fics! Typo-check by @oddinary4bts - thank you, Ella!!!

--

You’re asleep, dreaming something plotless - your grandmother, long deceased, is there. It doesn't feel sad - it feels peaceful. It feels like, oh, it’s nice to see you again. 

And it’s ruined, too early, by a long, high-pitched, inhuman cry. You startle awake, heart pounding as your brain scrambles to make sense of the sound. The whine - it’s a whine despite the loudness of it - dies down and is followed by a series of yips and sharp barks. Every noise seems to pierce straight through your skull.

You haven’t slept through a night in four days.

“Zinnia,” you beg, pushing the comforter off your body and making your way blindly across the unlit bedroom, “you have got to chill. You are not dying.”

Zinnia, an eleven-week old chocolate labrador, yaps even louder once she hears your voice.

You’re reinforcing bad behavior by getting up, a voice in your head reminds you.

You know it’s true, but what’s the alternative? Let Zinnia wake up every apartment on the whole floor? 

You open the bedroom door, and Zinnie bounces with excitement in her crate, her tail flapping against the wall of it with a rhythmic thwap-ap-thwap-ap.

You sigh. She’s so dang cute, you can’t even be pissed that it’s two in the morning. “Hi, silly girl,” you say, resigned. She rolls herself in a full circle, going belly up and then back to her feet in less than a second. 

You unlock the crate and watch absently as she catapults around your feet, races into the kitchen, slides across the linoleum and crashes sideways into a wooden cabinet door, and then dashes - unphased - back towards you, barreling into your shins. 

You sigh again and head back to your bedroom for a hoodie and some shoes. Miss Zinnie needs to run, apparently. 

You hook up her leash and grab your keys, patting your pocket to make sure your phone is in there before heading to the hallway. Zinnia zips left and right, tripping you more than once on the way to the elevators. 

You take the elevators up instead of down. There are a lot of perks to your high-end apartment building - covered parking, a pool, a 24-hour gym - but the best is by far the dog run, outside on the twelfth floor. You’ve used it approximately sixty times in the days since you brought Zinnia home. 

You realize as you push open the glass doors to the rooftop space that you forgot poop bags. 

“Zinnia,” you say seriously, “I need you to promise not to poop. Got it?”

Zinnie gags once as she pulls too hard on the leash. You rub a hand over her face and reach down to pick her up, opting to carry her hyper ass the rest of the way to the dog run. You hold the door on your way back in for a tall guy with a baseball cap tugged low over his brow, leading a fluffy, blue-eyed dog back into the building. He nods in thanks and hurries past you. You have to step inside for a second to let him by, his shoulders take up so much of the doorway despite his slender frame. 

“His dog isn’t choking itself on the leash,” you point out to Zinnia sourly. You make your way over to the dog run and make sure to latch the gate before setting Zinnia back on the ground and unclipping her.

“Go, you absolute menace,” you tell her. “Go run until you’re tired. Please, for the love of god, run until you’re tired.”

–

You’ve always gotten a mid-afternoon energy slump; Zinnia’s nighttime shenanigans haven’t helped that at all. You’re bent over your desk, trying to inhale the caffeine from your two pm coffee, when your phone pings on your desk.

Your heart sinks when you see the name of the college kid who’s supposed to watch Zinnia on weekday afternoons. 

“Please just be a cute picture,” you mutter as you unlock your screen. No such luck. The text informs you that, in your absence, Zinnia chewed through a pair of shoes you’d been stupid enough to leave out.

There is an attached picture.

It is not cute. 

–

You get home earlier than normal somehow, letting yourself into the apartment and kicking off your shoes. You immediately pick them back up, cradling them against your chest like they need to be protected.

They kind of do. Zinnia hears you and blasts straight at you, running circles around your legs, tail flopping side to side so hard her whole butt wiggles.

“Hello, silly beast,” you say affectionately, though truth be told you’re still mourning those chucks she’d ruined. 

Ry, Zinnia’s college pal, gathers her belongings and tells you goodbye. Alone with your shoe-destroyer, you sigh and head to your bedroom, closing the door behind you. Abandoned in the living room, Zinnia begins to sing the song of her people.

“Oh my god,” you huff. “Please, can you let me pee and change clothes? It is okay to be alone for five seconds!” 

You ignore her complaints as you do just that, emerging in joggers and a hoodie, and sneakers that aren’t your chucks, since those live in the garbage can now. 

You’d been planning on taking Zinnia on a walk walk, but there are some pretty ominous clouds out there. You pull your phone from your pocket and check the hourly - 80% chance that it’s already raining. 

A quick trip to the dog run will have to be better than nothing. 

You two head to the elevator, and you push the button for the twelfth floor, the ring around the button lighting up red.

The elevator slows to a stop on the eighth floor. The doors open and you spot the dog you’d passed last night, the one with the pretty blue eyes. You raise your eyes to look at its owner, the guy with shoulders the width of the moon.

He’s got a cap on again, but you can see his face today. He lights up when he sees you, stepping inside to let the doors close behind him. He glances at the button panel to make sure his choice is selected - he must be heading to twelve as well.

“We met you last night,” he says slyly, smiling at you. You’re unable to answer for a second; he’s so good-looking you think he must model or something. He’s got a strong brow, beautiful dark eyes, and lips that should be a museum, carved from marble.

“I think we did,” you agree, feeling suddenly shy, completely unqualified to speak to this absolute god.

“We did,” he says confidently. “I’d remember a face that cute anywhere.”

You feel yourself flush, suddenly so warm that you want to strip off your hoodie and maybe your shoes too, just to cool down. Then you realize that he’s looking down at Zinnia, whose tail is wagging so ferociously that she’s almost toppling over as she sniffs noses with the stranger’s dog.

“Is she okay?” you ask suddenly. “Do I need to –?”

“It’s fine,” he says easily, flapping a hand at you. “Blue’s very maternal. She knows a baby when she sees one.”

“Okay,” you say, sighing a little in relief. Being a Bad Dog Owner is bad enough, you’d hate to make a mistake with someone else’s dog in the equation. 

The elevator doors open on the twelfth floor, and the guy holds out a hand, beckoning you to go first. You try to exit, but Zinnia is so obsessed with the guy’s dog - Blue - that she won’t budge.

“Good god,” you grumble, reaching down to lift her, stalking out of the elevator with only a scrap of your dignity. You’re pretty sure you hear the guy snicker as he follows you towards the doors to outside. 

There’s an elderly lady and a corgi in the dog run, and you and the guy from the eighth floor hurry through the gate and latch it quickly. 

Zinnia takes off sprinting the second you unclip her. Blue trots over to the corgi first.

“So,” you say. “You have a dog that listens.”

The grin he shoots you is amused. “I’ve had Blue for almost eight years. You have a baby. A lot of her behavior right now - the energy, chewing on everything she finds - she’ll grow out of.”

“That’s a relief,” you say, thinking of the ruined chair legs under your kitchen table. You’d had that kitchen set for a decade and Zinnia left it covered in teeth-marks within the seven minutes it took you to switch laundry loads. 

He shrugs. “Some of it has to be trained out, though,” he warns you.

“Damn,” you sigh. A raindrop hits the back of your hand; instinctively, you raise your eyes to the clouds. Beside you, the guy does the same. On the other end of the dog run, the older lady calls her corgi over and clips its leash, ready to head in.

“You better pee fast, you monster,” you tell Zinnia, who doesn’t hear you and wouldn’t care even if she did.

The guy laughs quietly under his breath, then whistles once. Blue stops sniffing the ground and trots over immediately. Either his competence is really sexy, or you’re biased by his face. 

“I’m Seokjin, by the way,” he says, looking up at you as he bends over to clip the leash back on. “Most people just call me Jin. This is Blue.”

As the rain starts to patter more strongly, you tell him your name, and then point at your bonkers puppy, who is currently trying to wedge herself under the metal beam below a bench. “That absolute disaster is Zinnia.”

He smiles and repeats it. “We’ll see you around,” he says, heading back in towards the building, leaving you and your puppy in a suddenly steady rain. 

–

You stagger like a zombie to the elevators in the morning, hands clasped around a travel mug full of hot tea. Inside, you lean heavily against the wall, willing your eyes to stay open as you descend. 

You’ve made it down two floors before you even register that another human is in there with you. One more before you register that you know that human.

“There she is,” he says brightly, when he sees that you’ve clocked him, finally. “Good morning!”

“Sorry,” you say, smiling ruefully. “I’m exhausted.”

He nods understandingly. “New puppies will do that,” he says, still cheerful. “Are you crate-training her at night?”

“Trying to,” you grumble. “It’s not going great.”

He seems like he’s going to answer, but the elevator stops on floor three and four more people shuffle in between you. When you’re released into the lobby, he nods goodbye from the opposite side of the small crowd as you make your way through the front doors. 

–

You barely make it through the work-day without taking an illegal nap at your desk, but somehow you do. When you get home, Ry slipping out your front door the second she hears you, you want nothing more than to collapse on the couch and close your eyes. 

Instead, you leash up Zinnia - without even changing clothes first - and head up to the dog run. You figure if she handles her business now, it might buy you a few hours of couch time.

You also wonder if the guy - Jin - is usually out there right around now. He was yesterday, after all. Maybe that’s his normal schedule. 

He’s out there before you, this time. Your hunch was right. You unclip Zinnia and lean back against the fence, hoping you don’t fall asleep on your feet like this.

Jin sidles up beside you and you can’t deny the warm, pleased feeling that rises up in you. 

“Tough day at work?” he asks.

You can’t fight the smile off your face - you don’t even try. “Normal,” you say. “Yours?”

He shrugs. “Normal.”

You wait a beat, two beats. Jin leans comfortably next to you, his eyes watching Blue as she runs happily alongside someone’s doberman. 

“What do you do?” you ask, curiosity getting the best of you. 

He gives you a sideways look that you can’t decipher. “You’ll be disappointed,” he says, sort of like a warning.

This surprises you. “Disappointed? Why?”

He shrugs. “It’s pretty boring.”

Your smile turns a little knowing. “And you don’t like looking boring?”

His mouth twists to the side. “I don’t like feeling boring. But anyway - I’m a salesman. I work at a sporting goods store. I do consultations for certain equipment, but most of the time I’m just trying to make commission.”

I think with that smile you could probably sell me a used tissue, you think unhelpfully. 

“That’s more exciting than mine,” you tell him, hoping it cheers him up. “I spend all eight hours behind a desk.”

He grimaces. “Do you hate it?” he asks. 

No one’s ever framed the question like that before. You ponder this as, across the dog run, Zinnia happily harasses a pair of doodle-mixes. 

“I don’t hate it,” you say slowly, weighing the truth of the words. “It’s just… monotonous, sometimes.”

“So you got a puppy to break up the monotony,” he guesses. 

Now it’s your turn to grimace. “I got a puppy because my boyfriend moved out.”

He turns to look at you sharply, expression stricken. “I’m sorry - I didn’t -.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him. “I kicked him out. Caught him - well - it doesn’t matter. The point is I wasn’t sad to see him go. And I’d been trying for a long time to talk him into getting a dog, so. I gave myself a few months to get back on my feet and then I got myself a damn dog.”

And now she’s eating everything I own, you don’t add.

“Sorry you went through that,” Jin says seriously. You wave him off.

“It’s ancient history,” you tell him. “Besides, I’d trade him for Zinnie any day. Even when she pees inside.”

He laughs at this. 

You stand chatting for a while - long enough for the doodle-mixes to get taken inside, and for a whole herd of dachshunds to come, chase circles around Zinnia for thirty minutes, and leave again, shepherded out by a middle-aged man. Long enough to learn that Jin went to college in the city, has an advanced degree in Business Management that he’s never used, adopted Blue when he was twenty-one. Long enough to learn that his parents live on the coast, that he can do most board-centered sports well, that he likes food and video games more than he likes most people. Long enough for him to learn your answers to the same questions. 

“I should probably take her in,” he says finally, as dusk settles around you. “We both need dinner.”

“Sure,” you say. “I should, too. Zinnie! Zin! Zinnia, come!”

Jin snorts as Zinnia happily ignores you. 

–

Your Friday is off to a bad start. Not only did Zinnie scream through the night, until you caved and let her out of the crate and spent the rest of the night on the couch so she wouldn’t feel lonely, but you break a heel on your way out the door. 

The sudden break sends you sprawling onto your carpeted entryway floor. Your thermos of tea rolls away - thankfully sealed tight - but you feel your tights tear on your knee where you land. And your face ends up almost under a kitchen chair, eye to eye with a delightful little gift that Zinnia must have left you sometime while you were trying to get dressed.

You pushed yourself to your feet, eye your ripped tights and then the clock, and burst into tears on the spot. “Zinnia!” you wail. “I do not have time to go change! And I definitely do not have time to scrub the carpet right now!”

You do both, shooting the puppy death-stares as you scoot out of the apartment twenty minutes late with a blotchy face. You’d better not meet Seokjin in the elevators today, like this.

Luckily you don’t - but that’s about the last good thing you can say about the rest of your day. You get a nasty email from your boss for arriving late, you realize once you get to your office that you’d left your thermos of tea back on your kitchen table after you’d tripped, and Ry texts you to say she’s got a flu and she can’t take Zinnia out to pee after lunch the way she usually does. 

You can’t leave early to handle it; you’re already in hot water for being late. You have to accept the fact that you’ll be going home to a mess - Zinnia can’t be expected to hold it that long, and it’s your fault, not hers. You just hope that, without someone there to play with her, her tiny, baby bladder is the only mess you’ll find, and not more ruined furniture. 

It sucks, and you feel horrible - hoping she doesn’t cry and bark all afternoon, alone - but there’s nothing you can do about it.

When you get home, it’s about what you expected. You spray the carpet, hurry to change clothes, then come out to scrub where the spray had been sitting. You clean this up, and then the shreds of paper towel from the paper towel roll that Zinnia somehow got from the kitchen table, and face the puppy, utterly exhausted and at wit’s end. Somehow, you find yourself wanting to cry again.

“Maybe,” you tell her, as she looks up at you expectantly, “I am just not meant to be a dog parent. Maybe you need someone who knows what they’re doing. Or works from home. Or has a roommate to help. Something. Something that isn’t this.”

Oblivious to your emotional spiral, oblivious that you’re questioning your place in her life, Zinnia lays down and yawns, pink tongue curling and paws stretching as far as they can reach. 

You skip the dog run. You think she probably needs an actual walk since Ry didn’t play with her this afternoon, and you don’t think you can face Seokjin in your current mood. He’ll either be friendly or sympathetic, and you can’t handle either of those with grace right now. 

You strap Zinnia into an actual harness, not trusting her on just a clip-leash off the apartment property, and head towards the river. You detour through the park on your way, hoping the fresh air, exercise, and sunshine will work their magic.

They don’t. You fight back tears all the way to the riverside, Zinnia trotting along at times, pulling the leash towards passersby and random garbage at others. 

Near the river, you spot a restaurant with outdoor seating. A few tables have brought their dogs; they lay on the pavement next to their humans’ tables happily, causing no fuss.

“What do you think?” you ask Zinnia wryly. “Can you be good long enough for one drink?”

You don’t give her the choice, getting yourself a table and tying her leash securely to your chair. One drink turns into two, then somehow you’re working on a third, your chin resting in your hand, a little stormcloud brewing above your head. 

You’re startled when a body drops into the chair across from yours. You reach for Zinnia’s leash, alarmed, and then you realize it’s only Jin.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, at the same time that he says, “You look miserable.”

You stare at each other, not sure who should address what first. 

“I was on my way home,” he explains. “The subway stop here isn’t that far from our place, so I’ll take it sometimes when the weather’s nice.”

You nod, accepting this. Then you decide to address what he’d said. “I am miserable,” you admit. “I am the worst dog owner on the planet. Come see me in five years, I will have one hellion of a dog, and exactly zero unruined square inches of apartment.”

Jin looks at you with an expression that’s both amused at your hyperbole and a bit sympathetic. You don’t know what you expect him to say, but it isn’t this - he leans forward, brows furrowing seriously, and asks you, “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Please,” you say, somewhat desperately. “I will take any suggestions.”

He sits back, the intensity leaving his face. “I have a few friends who work at this place in town? It’s called Paw Prints Academy.”

You chuckle. “Is it for bad dogs?”

He flashes you a smile. “Their secret, unofficial motto is there are no bad dogs, only bad owners.”

“Sounds like the place for me,” you admit. 

“They’ve got it all - obedience classes, experts to run your questions by, groomers, boarding, day care.”

“It sounds great,” you say. “I obviously need some expert help. I’m a disaster.”

“I’ll send you their website,” Jin promises, and then pauses, his hand halfway to his phone. He seems, suddenly, less sure. The tips of his ears are suddenly red. “I… that is… if you’re okay with giving me your number?”

You hide your smile behind a hand. “Sure,” you say, trying to bite back the grin. “You can have my number.”

“For puppy purposes,” he clarifies with a cheeky smile. As if you both know that’s a lie.

“For puppy purposes,” you reassure him, feeling your little stormcloud start to dissipate.

–

Seokjin doesn’t abuse having your number. He sends you the website to Paw Prints Academy, and adds, “my friend’s name is jimin, tell him you know me” and then you don’t hear from him again. You call the academy and get Zinnia registered for obedience courses. You also sign yourself up for a seminar called New Puppy 101. 

Slowly, things actually start looking up. It happens in a trickle, so gradually it’s barely noticeable. You don’t notice - until the first morning your alarm goes off and you realize with a jolt of terror that Zinnia hadn’t woken you up in the middle of the night, even once.

But when you trip over your own feet in a panic, throwing open your bedroom door, terrified of what you’ll find… you find Zinnia lying peacefully on her side in her crate. She begins to thump her tail happily when she sees you, and you nearly sag with relief. 

Things improve for you at work, too; it’s almost like getting a full night’s sleep makes you more productive or something. 

You go a full five days without scrubbing your carpet or throwing away any shoes.

And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that you meet Seokjin and Blue up in the dog run nearly every evening after work. 

It’s during one of these unscheduled, yet oddly routine instances that Jin points out Zinnia’s progress. 

You’re leaning against the fence together, watching absently as the dogs run around, as you have almost every day lately. Sure, you take Zinnia up as soon as you get home from work for her sake. But the coincidence that Jin is usually there around the same time doesn’t hurt.

“She seems way better,” he observes, turning his head to watch Zinnia zip by. “I can’t believe how big she’s gotten, too.”

“I know, right?” you explode, responding to both observations at once. But you can’t help it - you’re proud. “Watch this! Zinnia! Zinnie!”

And Zinnia, your wild baby, stops running and turns to look at you eagerly, waiting. 

“Sit!” you call.

And Zinnia sits.

Seokjin whistles low, appreciative. 

“Jimin’s a miracle worker,” he says. “I’m glad you called them.”

“Me too,” you admit. “Did I ever thank you for sending me their info? Because, seriously, I think you saved my life.”

Jin laughs, full and deep.  

It scares you how much you like the feeling of making him laugh. It makes you want to sprint out of there, with or without Zinnia, hopping the fence if you have to.

–

The next afternoon, you get home and get ready to head up to the dog run. It’s a beautiful day, but you barely notice as you rotely go through the motions - change shoes, clip Zinnia’s leash, grab your keys from the countertop, head for the elevator. You keep your phone in your hand, hoping for a vibration, terrified of the vibration.

The dog run is empty when you get there; normally you’d be a little bummed that Jin isn’t there with Blue as he is almost every weekday evening, but today you’re relieved that you don’t have to try to carry a conversation. You unclip Zinnia, who darts away, and give a heavy sigh, leaning heavily against the fence, your phone still between your white-knuckled fingers.

Your relief is short-lived, because the building door opens less than two minutes later and Blue leads Jin out into the sunshine. 

He smiles when he sees you, loping over and taking his now-familiar spot next to you as Blue sniffs the ground next to the metal bench to your left. 

He’s chattering at you, and you think you’re answering, but it all kind of flows around you. After a few minutes of this, he pauses mid-sentence, brows furrowing.

“Hey,” he says kind of softly - there’s a definite change in his tone, which is honestly the thing that grabs your attention. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you answer on instinct. “All good.”

There’s something sharp in his sideways glance. “You sure? You seem distracted.”

You wave the hand holding your phone a little, nodding your head toward it. “My dad’s at a cardiologist appointment right now. I’m waiting to hear if everything is fine… or if everything is not fine, in which case I probably need to go pack a bag and look up train times…” You trail off. Seokjin is listening intently, his face serious. You feel a flush of embarrassment anyway. “Sorry. I shouldn’t unload on you. We’re practically strangers.”

The crease between his eyebrows deepens with his frown.

“Well, now my feelings are hurt,” he complains. 

You blink back at him, surprised. This was not the response you were expecting. 

“I thought we were friends,” he continues, an exaggerated pout creeping into his tone and onto his features. “I don’t keep a steady schedule at the complex’s dog run for just anybody, you know.”

Your heart trips over its own feet and faceplants in the dirt. You feel your eyes go wide as he puts words to something you’d suspected but had been afraid to assume - that you’d both been coming here at the same time on purpose. Not just you, but him too.

The playfulness melts away with the fake pout, and he’s back to looking at you seriously. “Have you had dinner?” he asks. There’s something gentle about the way he says the words; you feel something warm drop to your toes, intoxicating. “Let me cook for you.”

“You cook?” you blurt. 

He smiles warmly, a touch of amusement in it. Like he’s thinking, but is too polite to say, how much you don’t know about him. It’s definitely what you’re thinking. 

“Come on,” he says, heading around you towards the gate, giving your elbow a gentle touch on his way by. “I’ll make you something good.”

–

Jin’s apartment is cleaner than you’d expected, to be honest. He sets you up at his breakfast bar with a generously poured glass of red wine and gets to work in the kitchen. 

“Is Zinnie okay?” you ask him, looking over your shoulder anxiously as Zinnia sniffs his couch frantically, like the fabric is holding every secret the universe could ever hold. “She tends to… chew. It’s been better since we started classes with Jimin, but nobody’s perfect.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jin says, waving a hand at you. “Blue did her share of damage to my stuff when she was a baby.”

You watch him in comfortable silence as he dices vegetables, a pot of water heating on the stovetop. Maybe it’s the wine talking, but it’s lowkey pretty sexy how he works a kitchen knife. It’s almost enough to distract you from the churning pit of anxiety in your stomach as you tap your fingers absently on your darkened phone screen.

“So it’s been going well with Jimin, huh?” Jin asks over his shoulder, and you tear your gaze away from your phone and try to catch up to the conversation.

“Oh,” you say, once you’ve processed. “Really well, actually. I think he’s a dog genius.”

Jin laughs at this, lifting the cutting board to slide what he’s chopped into the pot of water. Then he comes over to his side of the breakfast bar and picks up the other glass of red wine, still untouched. 

“He’s good at his job,” Jin agrees. “I don’t know about genius. Did you know he’s secretly a cat person?”

This makes you giggle a little, your eyes falling back to your screen. Again, Jin tries to pull you back.

“Is she following any other commands now?” He eyes you over the top of his wine glass as he takes a long drink from it.

You smile a little, well aware that he’s distracting you on purpose, well aware that you aren’t sure you deserve this level of care from him. 

But apparently you’re friends.

“She’s pretty good about here, and sit,” you say. “Not so good with stay. It’s a work in progress.”

Jin grins at this, something sparkling in his eyes. 

“She’s sleeping in her crate at night, too,” you add.

“Wow,” Jin says, eyebrows raising. “That must be nice.”

“I don’t know how I was surviving before,” you tell him seriously, and he laughs again as he turns back to the stove to handle something.

You chat like this, in starts and stops, until the meal is done. Jin slides a steaming bowl before you and sets up a few sides before coming to take the seat to your right. Zinnia appears underfoot, nose sniffing wildly.

“I agree,” you tell her seriously. “It smells amazing. Who taught you to cook?”

His smile softens, going a little sideways. “My grandfather, actually. Weird, right? He was widowed when my dad and my aunts and uncles were all pretty little, so he had to learn, had to feed all those kids.”

“That’s not weird at all,” you tell him. “It’s actually kind of beautiful.”

Emboldened, Jin continues, the fond smile remaining on his face. “He’s a brilliant cook - we’ve told him forever he should have a cooking channel.”

You laugh a little. “People would probably be into that. Especially if you were the assistant.”

This comes out of your mouth without you realizing; the second you register that it has, you feel yourself blush furiously. And, dammit, Jin clocks the whole thing.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, that soft smile turning razor sharp. “Why’s that?”

You’re saved by your phone buzzing on the table, the screen coming to life, illuminating with the notification from your messaging app: Mom.

Frantically, you swipe to open the message, eyes flying across the screen as you read her update. Then, you close your eyes, pressing your forehead to the breakfast bar, the fake granite cool beneath your skin, letting out a shaky exhale.

You feel Jin; he’s instantly in your space, one large hand resting lightly over your shoulder as he hovers closer to you. Aside from his hand on your back, comforting, he’s not touching you at all. But somehow it feels like he’s surrounding you.

He says your name quietly, inquisitively. 

You reach out blindly, your hand finding his knee. “It’s okay,” you say, taking a deep breath and sitting up. Your head spins. You press the heels of your hands to your eyes and take another deep, bracing breath. Seokjin’s hand stays on your back. “It’s good news.”

You hear Jin exhale beside you, his fingers twitching against your shoulder blade, almost like he had the reflex to squeeze you and fought it just a second too late. It strikes you, deeply, that he’s relieved. He doesn’t know your parents, has no real stake here. But his relief is palpable next to you; your worry had become his own. 

“I’m sorry,” you tell him. Your problems shouldn’t be his to bear. “I know I wasn’t great company tonight.”

He shakes his head, following your lead and placing his hand back on his own legs, as if wanting to cover the spot on his knee that you’d left vacant. “I enjoyed your company,” he says openly. “I’m glad you came over.”

You sit in silence, both sneaking glances, neither knowing what move to make yet. You feel like you’re playing Chutes and Ladders and a chute just sent you sideways around the Peppermint Forest and dumped you seven spaces ahead when you don’t really belong there yet. Or maybe you’re mixing up your board games. 

“I should probably go give them a call,” you say reluctantly. “Can I help you clean up? You cooked.”

“No,” he says firmly, shaking his head. Both dogs look up at this familiar word, gauging if they’re the ones in trouble. This makes you smile, and it breaks you out of the weird headspace you were in. “I’ll clean up.”

You rise, calling to Zinnia as you grab her leash. You clip her up and head for the door. Jin trails behind you, walking you out. You pause near the door, looking at him balefully.

“Thank you,” you say quietly. “Seriously - for everything. For… caring about my problems. For the delicious food. For cooking and cleaning up. You should have let me do the dishes.”

He smiles at you, sunlight spun into the quirk of his lips, the soft wrinkle at the edges of his eyes. “If you’re that worried about it, I know how you can make it up to me,” he says, his voice a little teasing. 

“Oh?” You quirk an eyebrow. You’ve got emotional whiplash; in the last three hours you’ve gone from flirting to panicking to soft to awkward to flirting again and you cannot keep up.

He leans against the wall, crosses his arms over his chest, that smile turning sharp again. God, you like his face so much. You like him so much. “Mhm,” he says, mock seriously. “I found a trail I want to check out with Blue, but as a general rule I don’t do mountains alone.”

“Sure,” you deadpan. “You need an Adventure Buddy.”

“Yes,” he says eagerly, snapping his fingers in excitement. “Exactly. So, what do you think? This weekend? The weather’s supposed to be great.”

“Can I let you know?” you ask. “Text me the details.” Truth be told, you want to look up the trail first and decide if it seems too challenging. 

Jin slips out of that teasing, flirtatious mode easily. “Sure,” he says, all casual again. He’s so hard to keep up with, you think you’ll never get used to it. “I’ll text you.” 

You open the door, tripping over Zinnia a little as she pushes past you into the hallway, but you’re stopped when Jin says your name one more time. You look back over your shoulder, curious.

“I’m glad your dad’s okay,” he says, giving you a rueful smile.

You give a tiny smile back before Zinnia bodily tugs you further away, spurring you into movement. “Thanks,” you say, and turn to go.

–

[9:19 PM] You: idk about this trail…. looking at the elevation… do you think it’ll be too hard for Zinnie? she’s just a baby :’)

[9:21 PM] Seokjin: the elevation’s misleading, it’s honestly not that bad

[9:22 PM] Seokjin: you’ll be totally fine

[9:23 PM] Seokjin: oops i mean “Zinnia” will be totally fine 😏

[9:23 PM] You: … what exactly are you implying here

[9:24 PM] Seokjin: just that any and all babies will be fine :) 

[9:25 PM] You: …….i think we’re fighting

–

Seokjin drives you - and the dogs - to the trailhead early Saturday morning, the low rising sun dodging in and out between buildings as they pass you by. The forecast calls for a beautiful day - bright and clear, not too hot to hike, but not so chilly that you’ll shiver the whole first leg. 

As Seokjin parks and organizes his backpack, you stand next to the car, shielding your eyes and peering at the top.

He laughs when he notices, the sound alive and as bright as the weather. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he promises, coming close, looking at the top with you. His presence, so close to you, feels thrilling - like electricity, like a promise.

“You keep saying that,” you deadpan, “but if Zinnia conks out on me, you’re carrying her up the mountain and back.”

“Have some faith,” he teases, and heads for the place where the trees split, the path tamped down from many feet, leading into thick forest.

Zinnia keeps up pretty well, actually, and you and Seokjin set a steady pace up the trail. 

About a half a mile in, he asks, “How’s your dad?”

It startles you, and you look over at him kind of wildly. He looks back at you like it’s nothing - like it’s nothing that he remembered and thought to ask - waiting for your response.

“Fine,” you say, a habit. Then, reconsidering, you add, “I mean, the same. He’s got more tests and stuff lined up, but the verdict from the cardiologist was that there’s no immediate concern. So… that was a relief. His primary care doctor looked at his EKG results and said to go immediately, so we were pretty scared.”

“I’d be scared, too,” he admits. “I’m glad you got good news. I would have been a wreck.”

You continue talking as you walk - about your families, your parents, your siblings. This moves into a conversation about things you both remember from growing up, until the conversation has delved into you both laughing too hard to get a sentence out as you manage, “Wait - wait, do you remember -?”

This takes the conversation to old movies you remember fondly.

“Can you believe my ex had never even heard of those?” you ask a little indignantly, before registering that maybe that was a weird thing to say. 

But Seokjin takes it in stride. “The one who cheated on you? We’ve established his poor taste already.” 

This makes you giggle. “Yes, that winner.” 

He looks over at you, as the trail veers left and sharply steepens. “I’m sorry you went through that,” he says evenly. “I can kind of relate. It’s not fun.”

You peer back at him, not sure how heavy this conversation is going to, or should, get. 

Hesitantly, you ask, “Do you want to tell me about it? I don’t want to… y’know. Pry.”

He shrugs. “At the end of the day, there’s not much to tell. My last girlfriend… I don’t think she cheated - or, well, I never had proof that she did.”

“You suspected?”

He wiggles his head, indicating a maybe. “I think it was heading that way with her and a co-worker. It’s possible that I ended things before it got to that point. But she started lying to me about him - about little stuff, stuff that shouldn’t matter. And I just… I’m a pretty understanding, easy-going guy, but I’m not going to tolerate someone lying to my face.”

You continue in silence for a few minutes, weighing these words in your mind, adding this new knowledge to the idea of Jin that’s in your head. 

Then, he flashes you a cheesy grin and says lightly, “And that’s my sales pitch! Want to date me?”

You laugh out loud, mostly in surprise. But he’s still looking at you, and you feel your eyebrows raise.

“Was that a real question?” you ask, a little disbelieving. God, he’s the most unserious person you’ve ever met. 

“A little bit,” he admits. 

Stunned, you manage, “You might need to do a harder sell.”

His brows furrow dramatically. “Please, I’m a catch. Didn’t you taste my food the other night?” 

“That’s true,” you muse. “The food was bomb. I’ll think about it. Gotta decide if this purchase will break the bank or not.”

While you’re just going along with his little bit, it kind of feels like code. You do need to consider if you can afford dating Jin - emotionally. Mentally. Are you ready for a relationship again? Would that even be what he wants?

“That’s fair,” he says easily. “Crunch some numbers and let me know.”

You think with anyone else it would be awkward the rest of the way, but Jin doesn’t allow it to be. He carries the conversation onto the next topic - gossip about your dog-trainer, Jimin - without a hitch.

You follow the conversation somewhat absently, still in your head, questions rising up to stare at you like Marley’s ghost, covered in chains. What do you want? What are you ready for? 

You aren’t sure - about any of it. But Seokjin’s presence feels like warm rays of sunshine, warming you from a chill you didn’t know you had, and his laugh feels like the toll of city bells, telling you it’s time to come home. 

–

Zinnia doesn’t conk out on her way up the mountain, but she definitely slows. Jin ties the girls’ leashes to a low branch near the trail and fishes a collapsible water bowl from his backpack, filling it with water and setting it down.

“Wow, that’s fancy,” you marvel, as Zinnia attacks the water bowl with vigor, water splashing the rock beneath, painting everything a darker shade of grey. “If we’re gonna keep doing this, I might need to get one of those.”

But Jin’s attention isn’t on the dogs anymore - it’s on the view. He’s wandered to the edge of the flat expanse of rock, where grey meets the green of far down below. You join him, and he puts an arm around your shoulders, glancing at you to make sure this is okay. You look out at the view, and it is beautiful… but your mind is too busy to appreciate it.

“Jin…” you say slowly, and he looks down at you, hand tightening against your shoulder almost reflexively. 

“Hm?”

“If I were interested… what exactly are the terms of sale?” you murmur, feeling kind of shy. 

Jin laughs, delighted, throwing his head back with it. His hair falls away from his face and he uses the hand that’s not on your shoulder to push it back. “What do you want them to be?” he asks, and you feel a tingle down to your toes at the dangerous undercurrent that flows along with the question. 

“I’m not totally sure,” you admit quietly. “Is there any kind of… trial period? Any way to start is slow and see how it goes?”

Seokjin gives you an understanding squeeze. “Listen, as much as I love the bit and your dedication to it, I really want to communicate clearly about this. So - just to be very clear - I’d really like to date you. If you’re more comfortable starting slowly, I’m okay with that.”

You press your lips together, reaching a hand up to gently touch his fingers where they rest on your shoulder, considering. 

Seokjin watches your face, then says, “I know a great burger joint on the way home. Let me buy your dinner, and we can call this a first date. What do you think?”

You turn to face him, looking up and up into his warm eyes, and his hand shifts from your shoulder to the center of your back, holding you loosely enough that you don’t feel held in place, feel free to go if that’s what you choose. 

“That’s a pretty good first date,” you say seriously. “But it’s really gonna depend on how the burgers are.”

He grins, cocky. “They’re pretty good,” he says. “But, honestly, mine are better.” Then, he presses the knuckle of his index finger gently to the bottom of your chin and kisses you gently - again, so gently it’s barely there, so gently it would have taken just a breath of space for you to pull away if you wanted to. 

You don’t; instead you press forward, pressing your lips more firmly against his, your hands coming to rest on his upper arms, feather-light. Behind you, Zinnia begins yipping - loud, insistent, each sharp sound piercing the silence around you.

You pull away from Jin, flushing, pleased to see a smile on his face. “She’s just jealous,” he deadpans. 

You roll your eyes, laughing. “Please. She gets to kiss me all the time. She can share.”

Laughing, Jin heads for the dogs, ready to head back down to the cars. “Come on,” he says over his shoulder. “Let’s go get some pretty good burgers.”

–

They are good - better than pretty good, you think, and you tell Seokjin so after a beer and a half at the burger joint’s outdoor patio. The mountain you’d tackled looms in the distance, blue and shadowy.

“I’m telling you, mine are better,” Jin insists. “I have a secret method.”

“Yeah?” You tease. “Taking it to the grave?”

“You say that like it’s a joke,” he says seriously. “But I am.” 

On the wooden deck beneath you, Zinnia lays on her side, eyelids fluttering and paws twitching as she dreams.

“We really knocked her out,” you observe.

Jin laughs, reaching his arms over his head to stretch, the movement causing his shirt to ride up just enough to show a slip of belly before it falls back into place. You try not to look, try not to remember kissing him at the mountain’s top. 

“That’ll be us in a few hours,” he jokes. “I always knock out after a hike like this.”

“I’m going to be sore for days,” you agree, rubbing your calves in anticipation of the aching muscles you’ll have tomorrow.

“I have a suggestion,” Jin says, voice low. You flush, expecting him to flirt, to offer to rub your tired legs or something suggestive. Instead he says, “You ever try epsom salts?”

You blink at him, bamboozled. You just can’t predict him - he zigs when you expect a zag every damn time. 

“I have, yeah,” you finally stammer. “I don’t think I have any left, though.”

“I have a huge bag,” he tells you, finishing the last of his second beer in one long draught. When he sets down his glass he tells you, “I’ll bring you the bag later. It’ll help a lot, I promise.”

You look him over. “You’re a guy with a lot of solutions, huh?”

He coughs, averting his gaze. You notice the tips of his ears turning pink and you hide a smile behind your hand. So cute. 

“I try to be solution-oriented, yes,” he mumbles, embarrassed. 

There’s no sign of that - the pink ears, the averted eyes, the mumbling - when he shows up at your door about twenty minutes after you arrive home. Zinnia is passed out on the floor behind you, having first lapped up her body weight in water from her silver bowl in the kitchen. As for you, all you’ve managed to do so far is shed your sneakers, your jacket, and the tshirt that had been sticking to your back, leaving you in athletic leggings and a sports bra. 

Jin’s gaze sweeps you from head to toe and then settles determinedly on your eyes, like he’s got to work at it. “I brought the epsom salts,” he tells you unnecessarily, holding up the bag. 

“I see that,” you murmur, feeling warm under his gaze. “Thanks.”

You reach to take the bag from him, but he tugs back on it a little, effectively pulling you to him. You trip into his arms willingly, ready for it this time when he kisses you. 

He walks you backwards into your apartment, out of the threshold, letting the door close behind him. You hit the wall of your entryway, let him cage you in against it, his lips insistent against yours. When he runs a hand softly up your arm, summoning a wave of goosebumps in its wake, you sigh against his lips. 

He takes advantage of the opening, teasing your bottom lip with his tongue before venturing further. You open for him happily, leaning back against the wall, reveling in the feeling of his strong arms on either side of you, the feeling of his tongue sliding against your own, the feeling of his hair between your fingers - when had you grabbed his hair?

You kiss him until you’re dizzy, until your legs feel weak beneath you, until you feel his hand travel from between your shoulder blades, to the small of your back, to the side of your ribs.

You break the kiss gently, nearly panting for breath. You can feel Jin’s pulse jumping as he does the same.

You look at each other for a long moment, communicating silently, weighing options.

You could invite him in. He’s here already, Zinnia’s unconscious, you’re holding a bag of bath salts (wait, no, the bag is on the ground - when did you drop it?). But something in your stomach tugs, tells you not yet. So that’s what you tell him, on a whisper, your teeth coming to toy with your swollen bottom lip as soon as the words are out - not yet. I’m sorry.

“Hey,” he says, cupping your cheek with a hand, so soft. “It’s okay. I wasn’t expecting anything. Don’t apologize.”

You glance around the room, desperate for a distraction, but nothing comes. “I, um,” you say, looking anywhere but him, “I think I’m gonna try the salts now. My legs are like jello.”

He gives you a tiny grin, and you roll your eyes. “From the hike!” you protest.

He gives you a playfully disbelieving look but backs off, giving you some space again. “Sure, of course,” he says, smirking. 

You bend to pick up the discarded bag, holding it in your hands, feeling along the rubber zipper. Then, you cross Jin’s path and open the front door again, looking up to find him still watching you.

He gives you a playful smile. “I had a nice first date and a half,” he says, losing the fight against a pleased smile. 

You huff out a laugh. “This was the half?” you clarify.

“I don’t kiss like that on the first date,” he sniffs in mock indignation.

You giggle, following behind him as he heads to the hallway. “Goodnight, Seokjin. Thanks for the salts. And the date and a half.”

–

You soak away your sore muscles and sleep deeper than you have in months. 

Your days continue this way as April’s grey and rainy afternoons give way to sunshine, bright afternoons, trees starting to bud as the temperature grows milder. You meet Jin at the dog run every afternoon unless you text to make different plans - sometimes a walk with the dogs through the park nearby, sometimes dinner out, sometimes dinner in. 

Dinner in usually means more kissing.

Sometimes, dinner out does, too.

In retrospect, you should have known. You should have known that as you fall for Seokjin little by little something else must be coming. Things can’t just be bright sunshine and Seokjin’s laugh, Zinnia’s wagging tail and linked fingers under starry skies.

Your brother shows up at your door, unannounced, almost a full month after your first date with Jin.

You almost don’t recognize him; it’s not that you haven’t seen him in that long - you have. It’s just that he’s still a kid in your head, a gangly, acne-prone teenager with earpods and a scowl. The man who stares at you, a rolling suitcase in hand, is in a suit. He looks put-together, and grown.

You say his name nervously, and he sort of grimaces at you. 

“Sorry I didn’t call,” he says. “I’ve been on the phone with Mom and the doctors.”

“Doctors?” you echo, backing up to let him inside. 

He gives you a look as he wheels his little suitcase inside. You don’t like the look. It says something bad is coming. 

“It’s Dad,” he says.

–

You end up going out to grab dinner - you have no groceries to cook him a meal, and you’re a terrible cook anyway.

Your little brother fills you in - that cardiologist appointment over a month ago had ended with a positive outcome. They’d told your parents not to worry, there was no immediate danger, but there were certainly concerns.

Concerns that had worsened in the following month, apparently.

“They’re going to see a cardio team at the hospital here in the city,” your brother explains. “Mom was going to call and explain all of this to you, but I told her I was coming here anyway. She can focus on them - getting a hotel set up, packing, all that stuff. It looks like he’ll probably need surgery - they’ll decide at his appointment tomorrow. If that’s the case, they’ll stay in the city for a little until he’s recovered enough to go home again.”

You feel like you’re in shock; it’s a lot all at once. Your whole family suddenly in your city, under terrible circumstances. Surgery? Heart surgery?

“I’ll get a hotel, too, if it turns out they’ll be here a long time,” he says.

You come back to earth sharply. “You don’t need to do that. You’re welcome with me and Zinnia as long as you need, okay? Seriously. I’ll talk to Mom in the morning. We’ll get everything figured out.”

Just like that, the toughness drops out of him. Somehow he’d been the one your mom had called, the one responsible for relaying the information, the one responsible for making and supporting medical decisions. You’re the elder, it should have been you. As soon as you take the reins again, he folds, pressing his hands to his face and letting out a shuddering breath. 

You feel horrible, instantly. He’s the baby, he’s not supposed to have to shoulder the responsibility. 

“Hey,” you say softly. “It’s gonna be fine. Dad will be fine. We’ll find out tomorrow what his treatment plan is, and how long they’ll need to stay. You’re fine staying with me, okay? It’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” he says, uncovering his face and reaching for his water glass. “You’re right.” Then, quieter, “You’re right.”

At the end of the meal, walking back to the apartment, you stop near the door and give him a hug, your brave little brother.

“You did well,” you assure him. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

He hugs you back, holding you like he’s been drowning and you’re a buoy. It breaks your heart to think that may sort of be the case.

Neither of you notices Seokjin and Blue pass by, glancing at you curiously over his shoulder on his way into the building.

When he texts you that night, not long after you’ve set your brother up on your couch and crated Zinnia for the night, it’s not entirely unexpected, considering you’d skipped your normal trip to the dog run earlier, and you’d been too spun in circles to text him an explanation.

His message lights up your screen - “missed you earlier. everything ok?”

You hesitate, nibbling at your lower lip as you consider. What could you really tell him right now?

Not really, my baby brother showed up unannounced and emotionally hanging by a thread, and we’re waiting to find out tomorrow if a team of surgeons will be opening my elderly father up for heart surgery. 

Not really a text message conversation, right? Honestly, you’re not sure it’s an in-person conversation, either. The relationship - if you can call it that without having discussed exclusivity yet - is still new, blooming, fragile. Is it too much, too soon? Would you be better off telling him later, when things are settled, when you can tie up the story nice and neat?

We had another health scare with my dad, but it’s okay now. He’s recovering. 

Isn’t that less heavy? Your problems should not be Seokjin’s to carry, and you know he’ll try to carry them. He’s wonderful that way, always doing. There’s something scared and snappish inside you that wants to keep him far away from this until you’re sure you can look brave, until you’re sure you won’t fall apart in front of him. 

In the end you send back, “all good! just got busy. how was your day?”

It strikes you as a little weird that he hasn’t answered by the time you go to bed. But as soon as you’re up the next day, you’re completely focused on your parents. You call them before you’re even out of bed, checking up on where in the city they’re staying, what time your dad’s appointment is. You call out sick from work, glad you hadn’t wasted sick days back when Zinnia was keeping you from sleeping - even though you’d definitely considered it more than once.

You and your brother both go to the cardiologist appointment, you two and your parents squeezing into the little consultation room as the surgeon examines your dad’s results on his computer screen.

Your heart hammers as you wait. You see your mom’s foot tapping, tapping, tapping, and you reach to hold her hand, hoping to comfort her, calm her down.

The surgeon removes his glasses and looks at your father seriously. “I do think surgery is the best course of action,” he says calmly. Your heart drops. The doctor continues, “It’s a pretty routine procedure, as far as these things go. Nothing to worry too much about. I’m confident that a stent will work.”

You lock onto the words minimally invasive, listening eagerly as the doctor continues to outline the plan he thinks will work best. 

“I think it’s best to admit you today and schedule the surgery as soon as possible,” you hear the doctor says, and the rest of the day is a blur - signing papers, answering doctors’ questions, running back to your parents’ hotel to throw together a bag of personal items for your dad, running to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee that has been your only meal all day, more papers, waiting room after waiting room after waiting room.

When you finally get home, long after dark, your brother trailing wordlessly behind you, you’re so mentally and physically exhausted, you could cry. Zinnia waits for you in her crate - Ry had luckily been around when you texted, and came to take her outside a few times while you were gone. You let Zinnia out of the crate and collapse on the couch. Your brother takes the recliner, staring at you like you’ve both emerged from a warzone. 

As you unwind, try to unclench your brain and your jaw and your shoulders, you think to check your messages. Part of you hopes Jin’s sent you something.

But your messages are empty. Your heart sinks with disappointment. You plan to go to work tomorrow; your dad’s surgery should end midafternoon and you can go straight to the hospital from work. It’s another day that you’ll miss Jin at the dog run. You think about texting him with an explanation, but that last message you sent him still sits there, unanswered, calling you a fool. So, instead, you slide your phone into your pocket and ask your little brother if he wants you to order delivery.

–

It takes you two more days to really get the message - Jin’s silence is deliberate. Your father’s surgery goes well, and if all goes according to plan your family should be heading back home in just a day or two. Crisis handled, on the day after surgery you swallow your pride and send Jin, “Sorry I’ve been MIA - family thing. All good now. What’s new with you?”

Not only does this go unanswered - like the one before - but another three weekdays go by and your trips up to the dog run at 5:15pm remain devoid of company. 

Your father heals. Your mother takes him home. Your brother packs up and leaves just a folded up blanket on the couch he’d occupied for almost a week. April turns rainy, like the children’s rhyme says. And you… you slide back into your old routine, sans Seokjin.

You’re sad - of course you’re sad, you liked Jin. He was funny, charming, and so ready to do for you. You’d gotten used to having him around - his windshield wiper laugh, his great cooking, the way he’d carry the same joke or bit with you for a whole day before letting it go, the way the monotony of your day to day seemed interesting again once he was in it.

And you missed Blue, too.

But it wasn’t that deep - not yet. You’re not sobbing, heartbroken, into your pillow or anything. You feel disappointment above all else - disappointment at the loss of what could have been something. 

You really do think it could have been something real. 

You also feel… confused. What had happened? Had Jin seriously gotten mad at your silence for a few days and just ghosted you? You replay your last few conversations in your head, scour your last few text exchanges for anything that would make sense, but nothing does. 

Some little part of your brain niggles, suggests that you’ve been wronged, somehow. That something had happened to you that you didn’t deserve. It’s enough to start just the tiniest flicker of anger, deep in your belly. 

Thursday brings rain - relentless, cold, the kind of rain to make you wrap up in a jacket and tell Zinnia to hustle when you bring her upstairs to pee. 

For the first time since the day your brother showed up at your door, you run into Jin and Blue. Jin is coming in from outside, both he and Blue soaked from the rain. His jacket sticks to his chest, his drenched hair pushed away from his face. He pauses as Blue shakes the water from her fur, and that’s enough time for your eyes to catch his.

You freeze, not sure what will happen - will he talk to you? Should you say hi?

His face, already blank, somehow slides blanker, like something falls away from it and leaves it even more empty. Then he pulls his gaze away from you, orders Blue to his side with a single, muttered syllable, and turns on his heel to walk to the stairwell at the end of the hall. 

He’ll take the stairs, you figure, so he doesn’t have to walk past you to get to the elevator.

That little flicker of anger builds into a flame, and even the mid-April downpour can’t put it out.

–

It rains for days, your apartment cast in grey. You don’t know if it contributes to your mood or if it’s just mirroring it, but you feel grey, too. You quit using the dog run and start taking Zinnie on loops around the block, instead. After her walks, you lay on the couch, cheek pressed against the soft material, dramas playing on the screen without your attention.

Zinnia lays on the floor against the couch, occasionally whining and licking your hand. Sometimes she digs out toys - rubber kongs, plush ducks she’s practically decapitated, rawhides - and drops them at your feet, looking at you hopefully. You toss them for her or play tug each time, but you think she knows your heart isn’t in it.

Later, when you try to remember April, all you can think of is grey and rain.

–

It seems, though, that you’re not the only one who gave up on the dog run. On the first weekend in May, on a day that is - yes - grey, but thankfully not rainy, you run into Jin on the sidewalk a few buildings down from your own.

Blue wags happily when she sees you, but you feel yourself frown, already sliding your gaze to the ground. You don’t want to watch his face go ugly again, like last time. You can’t bear it, you think you might snap. That indignant little flame tickles in your veins. 

You have to pass each other unless one of you turns around, so you grit your teeth and push on. It feels like an imminent collision, tension and anxiety building in you the closer and closer you get - and then Zinnia decides to make it an actual collision, zigging sharply towards Blue at the last second, knocking you off-balance right into Seokjin’s space.

His hands take you by the upper arms, steadying you, placing you back on your feet. There’s something tender in his touch, you think, and then you glimpse his face. That blankness again, the flatness nastier than any scowl he could send your way. 

His hands are off you quickly, and he’s pushing past you, not a word spoken.

That flame bursts from a tickle to a storm.

“Hey!” you shout, the word tearing from your chest like it had to detach from something, burning up your throat like the burn of liquor. Seokjin turns, that flat expression starting to border on a defensive sneer. “What the hell is your problem?”

Now it is a sneer. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me!” you shout, stomping closer. Zinnia follows, her tail down, sensitive to your tone. “What exactly is the problem, Seokjin? I’m dying to know.”

He opens his mouth to answer you, but you cut him off with a bitter laugh. “No, seriously,” you say, that same bitterness marinating every word. “I’m dying to know. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and I can’t. So please, enlighten me. What did I do?”

Your body sings with adrenaline, your chest heaves with quick breaths as your body tells you it’s ready to fight. 

Seokjin lets out a single huff of a laugh. “What did you do?” he echoes sarcastically. “Literally the only thing I consider a hard no.”

You don’t follow. “What?”

He shakes his head, like he can’t believe that you don’t get it. “I saw you hugging that guy,” he says evenly, “and then I texted you to see what -.”

“That was my brother,” you blurt furiously, eyes narrowing. “Is that what this was all about? You didn’t strike me as a jealous, jump-to-conclusions kind of person -.”

“I don’t care about that,” he says over you, tone stoney. “You lied to me - right to my face.”

You stare at him blankly, trying to put the pieces together. He’d seen you hugging your brother, and then he’d texted you “everything ok?” and you’d said… “just busy”. It was a lie, sort of - barely. 

You laugh - actually laugh. “You’re out of your mind,” you say coldly. “You dropped me over that? I had things going on that I didn’t want to get into. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t care,” he says, not cruelly, just truthful. “It was a lie.”

You heave a frustrated breath, casting your gaze at the full clouds above you. “Seokjin,” you say slowly, “you’re not being fair.” It feels suddenly very important to you to defend yourself, to explain it all away - even if he still walks away after, you want to be sure he knows he was wrong. “I wasn’t lying about, like, where I was, or who I was with. It was just… omission. The situation felt… too heavy for whatever this is. Whatever this was,” you amend. 

He just looks at you silently, but you can see the changes in his expression - that flatness melting away almost imperceptibly, making way for something chagrined. You take this as a good sign and continue, explaining what had happened - from your brother showing up, to the surgery, to your family heading home again - leaving your space emptier than they’d found it. 

Finished, you look at him silently, watching him process. Then, everything off your chest, you move to continue on. You feel, suddenly, like you have nothing else to say to him. “We were just casually dating,” you point out as you take a step away. His ears are red again, but he hasn’t tried to speak. “At no point did I lose the right to choose what to tell you and what to keep to myself. You acted like a child when you could have just communicated with me.”

You give Zinnia a gentle tug and she follows as you head back to the apartment’s front doors. You don’t look back; you don’t think you can.

–

Upstairs, you unclip Zinnia and sink into a kitchen chair, head in your hands. It felt good to yell at him, felt good to find out the reason for his silence. You’d made your peace already with losing him - so why do you feel worse now?

You’re there only minutes when you hear a soft knock on your door. You sigh, knowing exactly who and what it is, and forcing yourself to rise anyway. All the anger you’d felt outside seems to have leaked out of you; now you just feel resigned.

Jin’s ears are still bright red. “You’re right,” he says in greeting. Then, he waits, leaning against the door jamb as you process, as you decide how to respond. Blue stands just behind him patiently, the leash slack. 

Mouth twisting, you look at him flatly. “Care to elaborate?”

“Ah,” he utters. He looks embarrassed, one hand still absently on the back of his neck, eyes on the ground. “I owe you an apology.”

When you still say nothing, he continues. 

“You’re right - you don’t have to tell me your business. I’d like you to - or, I’d like to feel like you can - but you’re not obligated to. I… overreacted. And then I was being too rigid to look closely at what was going on. I just…” 

He trails off and looks at you balefully. “I’m not trying to make an excuse,” he tries to explain. “I know I was wrong. I just made myself a promise years ago to never let anyone lie to me again… hoping I’d never feel so stupid again… and I let it… take over. I’m sorry.”

You consider this, foot tapping nervously. “Okay,” you say finally.

Something hopefully breaks over his face; he moves minutely closer to you. “I feel horrible,” he admits, voice hushed suddenly. “You were going through all that, and I absolutely made more problems for you. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you say, your voice echoing a little flatly to your own ears. “I forgive you.”

He takes a step back, like the unbending insincerity of your words actually knocks him off balance. 

“Okay,” he says, his voice somehow small. He starts to back away from your door, Blue scurrying out of his path, but his eyes remain on you. “I’ll, uh… I’ll probably be at the dog run tomorrow? Normal time?”

The way he says it, a question, asks if you will too.

“I don’t know,” you answer, even though he didn’t technically ask. “I don’t know yet. Maybe. We’ll see.”

You agonize over it all night. You’re mad - mad that he reacted childishly, mad that he added stress during a hard time for you, mad that he doubted you and judged you and didn't give you a chance to explain yourself. Mad that he let you down. 

But, something logical inside you counters, he’s apologized. He’s taken accountability for it, admitted he’d behaved immaturely. Didn’t people, generally, deserve second chances? Didn’t you want to give him a second chance, regardless?

By the time you get ready for work the next morning, you still aren’t sure. Your stomach churns with indecision all day. When you get home, you sit on the couch, still in your work clothes, and eye Zinnia thoughtfully. She sits and cocks her head to the side, almost quizzical. Like she’s asking, okay, boss, what’s the plan?

You still don’t know. With a sigh, you change out of your office attire and take Zinnia out. At the elevator, you stare at the buttons: physical embodiment of this choice.

In the end, you hit down, taking Zinnie out through the lobby and heading down the street. The idea of Seokjin up at the dog run, eyes on the glass doors - hoping to see you, makes you hunch your shoulders up against a wave of guilt.

You feel like now you’re being the childish one. You know you want to give him another chance. Pretending otherwise just to punish him for hurting you… it’s not a good look, and you know it.

When the knock on your door comes, several hours later, as the sunset casts your apartment in deep blues and shadows, you feel like you were expecting it the whole time. You feel like it’s your own second chance.

“You didn’t come,” he says, frowning adorably. 

You sigh, taking a step backwards to let him inside. He does, the door shutting behind him.

“Why are you here?” you ask; not demanding, not to fight - you want to know. You want to know what he’s hoping for right now, what he wants to happen, so that you can decide if you’re game or not. 

He seems to understand, seems to hear the question for what it really is. He says your name, still hushed, like if he says it with too much force the letters will blow away like dead autumn leaves in a November squall. 

“Well?” you prod.

“Please,” he says, something so desperate playing on the notes of the word. 

“What?” you repeat, hating that your voice is choked. “What do you want, Seokjin?”

He closes the space between you, one hand coming to cup your jaw so light you aren’t sure he’s actually touching you or if you just feel the warmth of proximity. “Forgive me,” he whispers. “I want you to let me try again. Let me do better.”

“I don’t know,” you whisper, but you lean into his touch, closing your eyes. He strokes your cheek gently with his thumb, then pulls his hand away and cups the back of your head, guiding you close enough to press his lips to the top of your head, the kiss lost in your hair.

“I promise,” he whispers, “I won’t fuck up like that again. I want to try again - I like you so much, I want to do everything right for you. I feel like such an idiot for wrecking it.”

“You are an idiot,” you say, and you feel him smile against your forehead before he laughs. 

“Never again, Jin,” you say sternly, leaning back to look up at him. His hand slides down to the back of your neck, resting comfortably. “I don’t do bullshit like that. We’re adults. We have to communicate. We have to speak -”

Behind you, Zinnia barks once, sharp and proud. 

You and Jin both dissolve into giggles, both of you praising Zinnia for following the command. 

When you turn back to Jin, he’s looking at you warmly, eyes shining with fondness. He dips his head to kiss you, and when he feels you kiss him back he tugs you closer by the small of your back, grunting into your mouth when your bodies collide. 

He breaks the kiss and whispers against your jaw, “Let me show you how sorry I am.”

You let out a breathy sound somewhere between a whimper and a sigh, tilting your head to give him more room as his lips go from whispering his desire to kissing your pulsepoint, teeth barely there before his lips soothe the spot. 

You fist your hands in the fabric of his shirt, holding on tight, relying on him to hold you upright as his mouth makes you dizzy. When his lips make it back to yours, you tug on his shirt and walk him backwards towards your open bedroom door. You giggle against his lips when he kicks it shut behind him. 

You’re kissing again as you shed layers in tandem, breaking apart to pull shirts over your heads, kissing messily again as you balance on one foot at a time to remove socks, giggling as you lean back to get a good look at him as he undoes his belt. Would it be crass of you to whistle in appreciation? His shoulders are just... so… wide.

When your leggings pool on your carpet next to his blue jeans, he backs you up to the bed, where you sit heavily. He crawls over top of you, mouths clashing again as he holds himself over top of you. You feel like you’re spinning - you cling to his shoulders, focus on the feeling of his tongue sliding against yours, his fingers tracing the outline of your breast, the insistent press of his clothed erection hot against your thighs.

He kisses you like he’s devouring you, like he’s claiming you, like he’s pouring out every frustration into his lips and teeth and fingers and tongue and they’re all spinning you in bigger and bigger circles, ever widening.

Then the spinning crashes to a halt, because his fingers are meandering lower and lower, skimming your last rib, skating over your lower belly, sliding over your cotton panties and hovering just out of reach from where you want him the most. 

He presses kisses down your jaw, down your neck, goosebumps rising up your arms as his breath ghosts along your throat. His fingers skim your slit over the damp cotton, making you moan shamelessly against the top of his head, but his hand travels back up, fingers sliding up your stomach and back to your chest. 

“Jin,” you breathe, as he rolls your nipple between thumb and forefinger, sending jolts of electric delight clear down to your toes, and he answers you with a low groan before capturing your mouth in another deep kiss. 

You’re spinning again.

Then his hand is back where you want it - fuck, you want it everywhere - fingers sliding through your folds before pushing deep into you. You gasp, but your body shifts to meet his knuckles, hips tilting to let him deeper still. 

It takes you only minutes before you’re begging for him, unashamed, whispering his name around a litany of please and I need you and more, please, more.

He rolls away from you wordlessly, shifting to dig through his wallet. You hear the telltale sound of foil ripping and then he’s back over top of you, lips marking a path from your stomach, up between your tits, past your collarbones, before latching onto your neck as he gives you exactly what you asked for.

The stretch stings but you don’t care, moving to meet him, to take him all the way. Seokjin buries himself deep with a throaty groan, the sound mingling with your own whine.

He keeps a slow pace at first, content with exploring every new everything - every new sound he can pull out of you, every new spot he can touch that makes you arch your back and moan a little louder, every angle that makes you pitch go high and your nails find his shoulders. 

It’s not long before his resolve breaks, his pace quickening as his hips snap into yours, the room filled with the sound of his thighs slapping yours. The tightening ball in the pit of your stomach swells, and your fingers find your clit as you careen towards the edge. Seokjin talks you through it when you crash past the precipice, calling you beautiful, telling you that you feel so good as you clench around him in waves. 

Your limbs feel like jelly as you come down from the high, but Seokjin isn’t done with you. He presses kisses to your jaw, your cheek, the space just beneath your ear. Then, he whispers, “Can I go behind you?”

You nod - words are still too far away, slipping just outside of your fingertips. You can touch them, but can’t pull them close enough to use. Jin uses gentle hands to roll you over and backs up to stand next to the bed; he guides your hips backwards until your knees rest on the edge of the mattress. Still boneless, you fold your arms and press your face into them, moaning loudly when he enters you slowly. 

At this new angle, you feel like he’s somehow, impossibly, deeper, and it’s all you can do to dig your fingers into the sheets beneath you and survive. His pace is slow for only a moment, letting you adjust, and then he’s pounding into you again, hands tight on your hips, pulling you backwards to meet each thrust. 

You can tell it immediately when he’s close - the sounds spilling out of him turn from deep grunts and quiet gasps to lengthier sounds that verge on whiny. You gasp in time with him as he pumps into you more shallowly, barely pulling out at all, as one last strangled, broken sound leaves his mouth. 

You collapse forward onto the bed the second he releases you, your heart hammering. Behind you, he must be handling the condom because when he flops next to you, eyes searching for yours, it’s gone.

“Hi,” he says, smiling. 

You laugh. “Hello there.”

He rolls onto his back next to you, radiating happiness. “So?” he asks your ceiling. “Am I forgiven?”

You roll your eyes, but you can’t erase the smile from your face. Oxytocin is a bitch. “I guess,” you allow. “But you’re on thin ice for a while.”

He makes a thinking sound. “I’ll have to fix that,” he muses, one arm thrown over his head. He looks over at you. “How about you go shower, and I’ll cook you something?”

You twist your lips, considering. “Mmm,” you say. “I think I’d rather you join me in the shower first.”

His smile grows impossibly wider, and his hand creeps to find yours, his fingers lacing between yours and squeezing tight.

–

When you think about May, you remember pink. 

Pink flowers blooming on the trees outside. Pink sunsets as you and Jin walk Blue and Zinnia through the park in the evenings. The pink of Zinnia’s tongue, lolling out of her mouth as she pants happily at your feet. The pink of Seokjin’s ears when you tease him or call him handsome in front of your friends. 

You started things slowly - even slower than the first time; you’re nervous that something will happen again, that this second chance was indeed a mistake. But, true to his word, Seokjin shows up for you every day - he misses no chance to remind you that he’s here, and he’s got a score to settle with his past mistakes. 

As the month comes to a close, spring teasing at tepid summer, you make a decision. You head to Seokjin’s place before dinner, as you do most evenings lately, letting yourself in with the door’s code. Blue is resting on a dog bed near the kitchen, placed there so she can see Seokjin even when he’s cooking and doesn’t feel lonely out in the living room. Zinnia slips through your hands the second the door opens, zipping into the apartment wildly.

“Zinnie!” you call.

Seokjin’s voice carries out to you from the bedroom - “Yeah?”

You laugh, shutting the door behind you and heading to where you’d heard him from. “I said Zinnie, not Jinnie!” you clarify. 

He comes out of the room, laughing at the miscommunication, pausing to kiss your cheek. “How was your day?” he asks, before heading around you into the kitchen, where he had apparently been halfway through chopping some veggies. 

“It was fine,” you hedge. “There’s something I was thinking about today, though.”

“Oh?” he says, looking over his shoulder at you as he picks up where he left off with the chopping.

You lean over the kitchen table, palms a little sweaty with nerves. Below you, Zinnia zips around, chasing a rubber ball of Blue’s, barking loudly as if scolding the toy for fleeing.

“I was thinking about us,” you say slowly, and Seokjin stills, setting down the knife and turning to face you, sensing that this talk is serious. His ears tinge pink almost instantly. 

“Okay…” he says slowly. 

You take a deep breath and push forward. “I was thinking about how I asked if we could do this slowly. How we were taking it one day at a time, not putting a name to it or anything.”

He nods, eyes on you, listening.

You shrug, look away and lick your lips. “I think I’m ready - I think what I want is…”

Behind you, Zinnia’s repeated yaps overtake the room, echoing through Jin’s kitchen. 

You try to speak over her, stumbling over your words. “What I’m trying to ask you is… will you…”

Zinnia’s barks get louder; the ball is stuck under the couch and she is pissed. You turn, calling to her, “Zinnia, sit!” 

The command works. She plops onto her butt obediently, and silence descends on the room like a sprinkle of snow. 

You turn back to Jin, heart racing, to finish your question. “...stay?”

--

Thank you so much for reading! <3 Please look forward to the other fics in the collab and support those excellent writers as well!!!

[virtuous-dignity]

Tentative notes on Modern. ( Thank you to @shikaal for helping with this. )

Disillusioned with the state of social services, which she aspired to do good within post her upbringing in the system.

( Lestara’s position within this setting is not solidified. )

Mid 20′s ( tentatively 24 )

Strong capacity for management and accounting, as a parallel to her skill as a merchant. Disillusioned by the roadblocks to change and the culture of “mutually using each other” / “scratching each other’s back”, left the system entirely.

She is one of those people who believes that if some jobs ought to be done by only those who have a passion for it. If you do not care about children, do not work in child services. That ‘obvious’ feeling was proven wrong and left her seriously jaded.

Music is part of her life. Tentatively, she does cooking / music livestreaming. Music is probably what put her through college, but its full impact in her life is as of yet unknown. She’s a little too modest about her skills, but not so humble. She won’t bring it up, but she will honestly state that she’s good at what she does.

After leaving large business and non-profit, she decided to decrease her scale. Rather than the system, just improving the local situation was plenty.

Now does two jobs. She feels slightly guilty for quitting and ‘abandoning people who needed her’ / ‘not having as much of an impact’, but she is just one woman. And she still thinks of community welfare.

Paints murals in the city. Her specialty is bringing a sense of vibrancy and wonder forward, contradicting the greys of urban planning to try and bring refreshing views. Also coordinates with officials ( using her knowledge from city services days ) to organize and procure mural spaces for community use.

Teaches yoga / meditation / self-care in a studio she rents out for classes.  Tentatively functions like this:

She typically gets the aid of someone to help call out any important information and will guide and correct posture as necessary.

After the mandatory yoga / meditation that is part of the class comes ‘pull out the super soft cushions’ time, where people can lie down and just listen and relax for some time. Destressing is important. There’s also time after for talking about problems people are having if they want.

I described this as  "24 year old ex musician & social welfare worker turned painter/yoga instructor"

The biggest, warmest smile that beams upon you when she sees you.

Will cut you out of her life in an instant if you attempt to take advantage of her. She refuses to be used or be anyone’s tool.

Extras / Parallels from mainverse

Her hobby of painting and the murals she painted in her home in mainverse are reflected with painted walls in her apartment as well.

Her skill as a merchant from mainverse is reflected in her work in accounting and management in this verse.

Continues to be someone who believes strongly in “not using others and not being used” and that “being kind is just the right thing to do.”

Lacking the zealotry and ambition to defend Runeterra from the Void, her convictions and relentlessly high standards are lessened.

Her skill as a cook remains. Due to her upbringing and her belief that food brings people together, she knows dishes from a variety of cultures, similar to mainverse.

Still often uses a chalkboard or tablet to communicate with writing instead of using TTS.

Is still the type to invite people over on a whim for a friendly dinner.

Suspiciously perfect. No one’s that well-adjusted, are they...?

Can still make you feel like you’re the most important person in the world.

Her apartment is furnished in such a way as to give her a feeling of liveliness, comfort, and refreshment. I’ll put a quote as I’d described it below the read more. Please give it a read.

From [this thread with shikaal’s Akali]

She laughs the same way the chimes that hang from her curtains do, softly, fading, easily forgotten and almost inaudible. [...] Fairy lights are strung across the walls and ceiling, illuminating the kitchen and living room in a glow as warm as her gaze. Murals cover her walls, depicting the oceans and the furthest forests - even the door to her room is styled as a doorway between two joined trees, a pathway to somewhere magical.

Even the large windows by the far end of the apartment are decorated with hanging pieces of colored glass, filling the floor with shimmering twists and turns of color and light. The music that always plays in her home continues even now, mixing sounds of waves and chimes that seem to melt into something else ethereal and iridescent - perhaps more so than the stained glass. Sona swears it is only because the house gets so silent otherwise, and perhaps for the same reason, her expression blooms. [...]

[amorgansgal]

Hey! This is an oddly specific requests…. So Arthur’s girlfriend is Italian, and he loves when she shows her Italian side come out. After meeting Angelo Bronte, Dutch sends her to work as a maid there, since her English is perfect and she would overhear their secrets. Arthur doesn’t like it, but he has to agree. After finally managing to capture him, the reader starts snarling at him in Italian, and the gang members look confused. She then breaks down and runs away. Arthur follows her and and admits a certain man tried to rape her, but she managed to break free. Arthur becomes furious and goes to kill him, coming back and comforting her. Ending with him repeating his everlasting love to her! Sorry this is so specific…

Ok, so I’ve slightly changed this. We’ve still got everything else there, but I’m going to fiddle with the working as a maid bit. I’m really sorry, this probably is so nitpicky and a bit sad that I’m making a fuss over this. But being a maid in a household like that would have been quite the prestigious role to have. You’d need excellent references and prior, proven experience. However, I think we could work with the reader forming a relationship with one of Bronte’s men. Hope that’s ok, sorry for messing with the premise. My historical brain just wouldn’t let me do it! Hope that's ok.

Arthur and Italian F/Reader

Arthur can’t stand this. It makes perfect sense and he understands why Dutch is doing it, but having you flirt with Bronte’s men is just something he hates.

And of course, he can’t really be around when you do so, because Bronte knows what he, Dutch and John look like. Trelawny is asked to keep an eye on you, but what the hell can he do if things get nasty?

You try to assure Arthur many times that you’re safe and nothing bad will happen to you, but even you don’t like it when one of Bronte’s men starts getting handsy with you.

You’re able to find some very useful information out. Hanging around them as they drink and play cards, they gossip more than washerwomen. You play the ditzy, foolish girl well and none of them think you’re feeding this information back to Trelawny who can then pass it onto Dutch.

You daren’t tell Arthur how pushy the man who has taken a shine to you is, how he tries to touch you, how it’s harder to laugh and smile teasingly and push him off.

At one point, the man can no longer take no for an answer, he pushes you into a private room, shoves you down on a table and begins to push up your skirts, determined to take what he sees as his right.

The only reason he stops is Bronte walks into the room and demands he comes to help with something. Bronte offers you no sympathy or support, just smirks on seeing your fearful, tear streaked face and runs his eyes over your bare legs.

On the rare occasion you finally meet up with Arthur and Dutch, you beg Dutch to let you finish this nonsense and come back to the gang.

But he’s not the same man you once knew and insists you continue you work there, because it’s invaluable. You can see Arthur looking angry and pained, but you keep the problems a secret because you don’t want him to suffer more.

***

You get no satisfaction from the contempt, anger and fear in Bronte’s eyes. Though his eyes widen as he recognises you and you snarl that maybe he shouldn’t have let one of his men try to have their way with you, if he wanted help.

You turn your head when Dutch drowns the man and as soon as you’re off the boat, you move away from the Van Der Linde Gang, trying to calm yourself and ignore the way you feel sick.

Arthur finds you and tries to get you to come back with the other gang members, but you adamantly shake your head.

For someone who is so usually confident and excitable, Arthur hates seeing this frightened, small version of yourself.

He tries to find out what’s wrong, but you say nothing. Eventually you cling tightly to him and he holds you, keeping you safe in his arms.

He whispers that he loves you, that he’ll never let Dutch do anything like that to you again, that you’re safe. But you feel sick to your stomach and know the only way he can keep all those promises is if you both leave.

[eirikaanemo]

Venti falls in love with an Inazuman rebel. The rebel has no vision, but what they do have is a belief that everyone has an inherent right to live freely. How does Venti know about this rebel in the first place? I honestly have no idea...

Visionless Visionary

Venti x GN!Reader

1.8k Words

Warning: Minor character death mentioned, prayer (if that bothers you)

Disclaimer: I knew next to nothing about Baal when I wrote this, so it may not be an accurate representation of her character.

Inazuma is a mess. That is just a fact now. Baal has suddenly become violent and a danger to her people. So many had done nothing but hold a vision she had bestowed upon them in the first place. And because of that, she struck your cousin down. You can still remember the thump of his lifeless body hitting the ground and the steady tap, tap, tap of Baal’s shoes as she walked away.

She seemed completely unaffected by her actions. You were anything but. The scene played over and over in your nightmares for weeks, and continues to haunt you. So when the rebellion reached out to you for support you were happy to assist. You found out he had just joined their ranks and that’s why he had been targeted.

However, you don’t have a vision so there’s only so much you can do. Of course they always welcome financial support and you gave it to the best of your ability. But you knew there had to be more you could do. So you spoke to some people and it was agreed that you would go to Mondstadt and position Barbatos for his support for your cause.

He hadn’t been seen in centuries, but he was the god of freedom, right? If anyone could help them, it would be him. So with the rebellion’s blessing you took your savings and made the long journey to Mondstadt.

Finding lodging was fairly easy. The people of Mondstadt were more than willing to help you. Especially once they found out what you were there to do. ‘Such a great and admirable cause,’ they said. ‘May Barbatos bless you!’ And all you could do was hope he did.

You prayed every morning and every night for help for your people. The heavens seemed quiet, but you didn’t let that dissuade you. Surely your sheer persistence would make a difference, you reasoned. And so you kept on.

One night, rather early on, you ran into a bard not long after your evening prayer. He had been not too far from the statue and you were captivated by the beauty of the song he played. It was ancient Inazuman and for just a moment you were able to forget and be caught up in the memories of better days.

When the song ended you were disappointed and tried not to pout. Judging from the laugh the bard let out when he saw you, it must have still shown on your face. “Did you like the song?” He asks. “I know I didn’t play for long. Would you like to hear another?”

“I would love to,” you admit. He smiles and simply starts on another song, this one also of Inazuma origin. From there he transitions into a more Mondstadtian style, singing The Ballad of Freedom. You know it well, as it’s a favorite of many of the rebels. As the last note fades he turns back to you.

“What brings you here, I wonder. Has it to do with your country being torn asunder?” He inquires.

“Yes,” you reply. “I’ve come to ask Lord Barbatos for his assistance in our cause. We fight for freedom from Baal, who has become nothing but a tyrant. As for me personally, well, she killed my cousin right in front of me. Her only reasons being the vision she bestowed upon him herself not many years ago and his belief that what she was doing was wrong. No one should have to suffer that.”

“Indeed, it seems you have a need. Your cause is just and swords you thrust. But the archons don’t just help everyone, so prove to him you’re worthy of some.”

“But how do I do that?” You question the cryptic bard.

“You’ll see in time, dear friend of mine!” He winks and you find your face warming. “Though I have a question if you don’t mind. Is the assistance you’re seeking a vision like mine?” He taps the glowing turquoise vision sitting on his belt by his hip.

“No,” you shake your head. “After what happened to my cousin, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with a vision. For me they’ve been nothing but trouble.” He nods in understanding.

“I see how that would be. I must take my leave for now, we’ll see each other later anyhow.” And he’s off into the night.

He’s right that this is far from the last time you see him. And he’s right that you start noticing the tests that Barbatos has set before you. More and more people seek your help in one thing or another, especially since the one they call “honorary knight” left to Liyue. There’s much to do, but you’re happy to help them.

Eventually you stop helping them because it’s a test and start helping them because you want to; because it’s the right thing to do. You help Lisa organize the library. You help Barbara clean the cathedral. You help Amber keep watch. You help Venti with his performances from time to time. You stand in for Diluc’s barkeep while he recovers from an illness.

Days and days have passed and your relationship with Venti grows and grows. You notice more and more things about him that you rather like. His laugh. His eyes. His hands. His music. His sense of humor. His optimism.

Really, everything about him is amazing. You try to deny it at first. But you know deep down that you’re falling in love. And you’re seeing some hints that he might be too. Lots of them, because he’s started flirting with you almost constantly.

However, as your relationship grows, your hope dwindles. It’s been weeks! You’ve helped so many people and have prayed so many times. And yet you have not received an answer. Not even an acknowledgement that he has heard.

When you express your concern and discouragement to Venti, he is very concerned. “I’m just not sure how much longer I can stay,” you explain. “While I would hate to return empty handed, I can’t stay here forever.”

“Try just one more time, for me?” he asked you, looking a little guilty despite not having reason to be. It’s not like he was keeping Barbatos from speaking with you. As if he could sense your hesitance he sweetened the deal. “If you do, I’ll give you a kiss!” He wiggled his eyebrows at you and flashed you a mischievous smile and you felt a warm blush bloom on your face.

“Alright,” you grumble good-naturedly. “I’ll try one more time.” His resulting cheer and more cheery smile were nearly enough to have made you do it by themselves.

That night you approached his statue, feeling unreasonably nervous compared to the nights before. “Lord Barbatos,” you prayed. “I seek thy assistance for my people’s cause. We seek the freedom thou dost represent. Someday may we all be free to live our lives reasonably, but as we please. This is my vision, my hope. Please, if it be thy will, let thy winds be not still. Guide us to better days, for this is what I pray.”

You stay there for a long moment, waiting. Then, the wind picks up and you hear a voice from it. It seems vaguely familiar but you can’t quite figure out why.

“Your diligence and passion for your cause has secured my blessing,” the winds whispered. “My winds will be at your back and support your cause. However, if you accept a vision despite your fears, you will be able to do far more. The wind will whisper secrets to your ears. All plans spoken will be carried to your ears.

“You need not fight with it. Trust in me, that I will not strike you down for accepting this gift. In your time here in my home I have found you to be a friend to us so I will be a friend to you.”

You feel tears come to your eyes. “I accept,” you whisper. This will be incredibly valuable.There’s no way you could turn it down. And this is the kind of god you can trust and accept a vision from. He is as kind, generous, and benevolent as his people.

After a moment of silence, the winds calm and a gleaming turquoise vision lies before you, dangling from a necklace like a pendant. It’s smaller than some others you’ve seen and is hidden easily when you slide it over your head and under your shirt. That will be invaluable when you return to Inazuma. It would be most suspicious for you to return with one after everything that’s happened.

You take another moment to catch your breath and wipe the tears from your eyes. Then you take a particularly deep breath to steady yourself and make your way back to Venti. “How did it go?” He asks, and you smile in response.

“It went very well,” you said, pulling the pendant out to show him your new vision. “Now we match! Now… I believe I was promised a kiss?”

The smile on his face at your teasing words could have lit up a room, if you were in one. He took your hands in his and tugged you closer gently before leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. It was a pleasant kiss, chaste but lingering and sweet.

He giggled at the face you made when he pulled away. You joined it, adding your laughter to his. Between the blessing and his kiss you felt like you were on top of the world. Then you remembered something that brought you down from your high.

“Venti, you know this means I have to leave now, right?” You inquire.

His face fell to a serious and thoughtful expression before it softened and he sent you a small smile. “Yeah, I know. You know I love you, right?”

“I know,” you respond softly. “I love you too.”

He nods. “Then I’ll wait for you. So don’t take too long, okay?”

“Of course, I’ll do what I can,” you reply.

Your parting is sad, but hopeful as he waves you goodbye until you’re so far away that he can’t see you. He sings nearly nothing but sappy love songs for the next week. He misses you, but knows you’ll be back. His winds won’t let anything happen to you after all.

When you return to Inazuma you find that all the rebels with anemo visions had their power boosted, the ships sailed swifter with the wind behind them, and the information the wind brought you gave you many victories. The struggle was still difficult, but the help you had obtained made a serious difference and soon enough you were headed back to Mondstadt.

You are headed home. After all, home is where the heart is.

tag list: @clouds-rambles

[radiowallet]

A huge thank you to Maia @shite-art for creating this adorable Frankie cat and taking a truly hilarious idea and making something so unique and special- a perfect birthday gift for our dearest @jazzelsaur Maia was a dream to work with and their commissions are OPEN! You can find all their details here!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESS!

This Birthday Surprise #1 was commissioned as a gift to @jazzelsaur for her birthday today! My dearest wife- We wanted your day to be as fun and amazing as possible and what better way to achieve that than with a Francisco!Cat taking his piggies dippin! You are such a kind and generous spirit to everyone you meet and you deserve all of that and more in return! We hope that your day is incredible- filled with fun, relaxation, and all the birthday cheer! Happy Birthday!

Some love for you, below the cut!

(We welcome everyone to reblog with your own message for Jess and tag @jazzelsaur so she sees it!)

From @magpie-to-the-morning

Jess!! You are wonderful and talented and we adore you. It's not just your wicked sense of humor, or your gorgeously hot smut, or that big beautiful brain of yours, it's YOU, all of you. You're marvelous and loving and talented, and you share yourself while also balancing writing, fandom, work, and being a person in the world during this truly bonkers time. You're an inspiration and one of the best people I've had the pleasure of meeting on this hellsite (affectionate). I'm so honored and delighted to call you a friend. I hope you have the best birthday and that these gifts and messages put a smile on your gorgeous face. Lots of love!! ~Emma xoxox

From @heartsofbeskar

to my sugar mama, throuple partner, little scrungly, chubba bun, across the lake lover… happiest of birthdays! its feeling very “i love thee let me count the ways” in here as i try to wrack my brain to describe just how much you mean to me. the truth is there isnt words, but there is feelings— the laughter at our exchange of tiktoks, the fondness when you call me any of numerous nicknames, the pride at your talent in writing porn. perhaps mostly importantly, though, is the warmth of your kindness and love and support that burns steadfastly in my heart and helps keep me going. even through the vast abstractness of the internet, you’ve been an invaluable part of keeping me sane, and i can never thank you enough. you’re a beautiful, intelligent, curly haired goddess, and you deserve the absolute best this universe can give. p.s. can i get my allowance? xoxo

LOVE YOU!❤️ olive aka scrimbo

From @sharkbait77

Jess honey ❤️ I've not had as much opportunity to get to know you as well as the other lovelies here, but you have never failed to make me feel so seen, so listened to, & just be a great friend & person to me in general. In a world like ours, it seems like pure, beautiful souls like yours are so hard to come by, but when we do have the luck to know a person such as yourself, it makes all the difference to someone like me. Always know how appreciated you are for your friendship & talent & know that you're always on my mind & I'm always sending good vibes & well wishes your way. I'm happy to know you Jess! Have a very happy birthday & I hope you have very many, great birthdays to come ❤️ Love, Lex 😘

From @asta-lily

Jess my most favourite hot mess, where to even start? You always credit me with being the one who first befriended you in the tumblrverse but you're the one who truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Always going out of your way to send love and golden hearted wishes and never asking anything in return. You are a prolifically beautiful writer and person and I am so so grateful to know you. Have the most special day, and make sure Dr hot mess is spoiling you as you deserve. Love you lots angel, keep being the ray of light that you are - a true diamond 💎 Love, lilsabeth 💙💙💙

From @djarinsbeskar

Darling Jess, from the first moment I met you I knew you were a special bean. You possess so many traits that I think everyone should aspire to have even some of; filthy, fabulous (i mean just look at those curls 😍 ) fiendishly talented and utterly fearless in your exploration of the human psyche through your writing. Your presence has been such a wonderful gift in an otherwise stressful year and your humble, selfless kindness is truly something so rare and precious that I hope you never forget it! I hope you have the most wonderful day surrounded by love and attention (yes, phd or not I'm looking at the doc in the house) and that you enjoy your gifts! Happy birthday!!! xxx

From @thirstworldproblemss

Happy Birthday, Jess! You are such an amazingly funny, strong, supportive, really-freakin'-talented human being, and I'm so glad to have fallen into your circle. Chatting with you is always a kick in the pants in the very best way, and whether you are detailing the relative merits of wookie-fucking, talking me down during a tough day, or just committing puss-on-puss violence, it always makes my day a little bit brighter. I am so very glad to know you, and I hope that your special day is every bit as lovely as you are! <3 your fellow angsty clown whore, twp

From @the-ginger-hedge-witch

Jess- You talented, brilliant, kind, fucking hilarious, fiendish human. I adore you. You are such a bright light, not just because of how wonderfully you write, but also because of how warm and lovely you are to the people around you. You make people feel seen and loved and appreciated. And I feel so lucky to know you. I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful year, Jessafina. You deserve nothing less!! ❤️❤️❤️

From @mandocrasis

Happy birthday Jess! You are an absolute treasure and I'm so so glad to have met you. Your writing constantly makes me want to bust a nut, both because it's beautifully written and because of the top notch, chef's kiss, whore-ny content you provide ❤️You are so kind and caring and offer so much love to those around you. I feel so lucky to be anywhere within your light ❤️ I hope your day brings you every joy imaginable!! 😘

From @leslie-lyman

Jess - Just seeing you on my dash always makes my day brighter. I still remember the first time we slid into each others’ DMs - I literally could not believe that one of my favorite writers was interested in talking to me! You’re always so generous with your time and your talent and your support and I am thankful every day for it. You are such a beautiful person who creates such beautiful things. Thank you for sharing them and your wonderful self with us. I just freaking adore you and hope you have the absolute most amazing birthday! Love, Leslie

From @letterfromvienna

Lady Jessica, my dear—happy birthday! what can I say about you that’s enough? you’re wonderfully talented, so funny, creative, sweet, and supportive. really, just an all around delight. you’re such a bright light in our community: you’re always so welcoming to others, always ready with a funny message or a reply or a supportive comment that really means the world. you put so much of yourself into your work and your friendships—your lovely personality always shines though. I feel so very lucky that this fandom brought us together and I love you to bits (even if you keep sending CiCi @ Law after me) ❤️ thank you for being you and happy birthday, lovely!

From @honestly-shite

Happy Birthday Jess, you gorgeous person!! You are one of the most kind and supporting people I have met on this hellsite, not to mention you are a beautiful writer. You've made me cry with Frankie and Ellie's emotions too many times to count tbh and I love that because through them, you give me the wonderful gift of falling in love. Please know that whenever I see you in my notifications, I do a happy squeal, and whenever I see you on the dash (probably affectionately whoring it up) I read and smile and laugh. You're so lovely. Thank you for always supporting my art 💚 Here's a birthday smooch for you 😘 have a lovely day, you talented lady!

From @loversandantiheroes

Happy big damn birthday to one of the coolest, kindest, funniest, and horniest nerds I know. Thank you for blessing us with your talents, antics, and friendship. We are all the better for it, despite any legal forms you may or may not have received on account of 🐱damages. May your day be filled with love and joy and booze and as many dicks as your whorish little heart desires. 💖🥳🎊🎉🍆💦✨

From @frannyzooey

Happy Birthday to one of the most amazingly sweetest people I know! Thank you for gifting us not only your superb writing, but also gifting us YOURSELF - our lives are all made better by having you in them. Your massive, incredibly enthusiastic reblogs honestly sustain me and I am so very thankful to have you in my life. I love you and Happy happy birthday!

From @astroboots

My favourite whore in the whole wide world (except don't tell the other whores in my life, cause you know how jealousy they all get over this title) you're not just my favourite whore but also one of my absolute favourite people in my world, whether it's virtually screaming horrific nicknames to each other affectionately, debating on the cockulations of wookiee sex, cry-laughing about fat cats on tik-tok, or simply daydreaming about our favourite helicopter pilot husband, you always bring me so much joy in my life. I still remembering reading your humble little poly-story and how I felt like I was being physically attacked by talent. And I don't know if it was the wealth of talent embedded in the story, how your empathy and emotional intelligence shone so brightly in your words, or the filthy porn that had sprung forth from your mind— but what I did know is that I knew from that moment on was that I wanted to befriend this talented filthy horny genius, and I am so glad I did, because I have one of the most supportive and rewarding online friendships I've encountered. You are warm, kind, talented, funny, and just all around best, and I hope that this birthday and even this year against all fucking odds will be absolutely amazing for you, because you if anyone deserves it. All my whorey love, CiCi xx

P.S. The dino-cock was my idea.

P.P.S. you should be so grateful I didn't have Maia draw graphic wookiee porn as part of your birthday gift

And from me:

Jess-

My love, my wife, my whole damn heart! It of course stands to be said that I have let you know just how much your mere existence means to mean on many many occasions. But I'm going to say it again, because as far as I'm concerned, it cannot be said enough. From our very first conversation about writing I knew you were someone I wanted to be around forever. Your kindness, enthusiasm, joy, humor, and love were utterly intoxicating. There hasn't been a day since that very first conversation where I haven't counted myself so very lucky for having you as a friend. Whether we're making terrible jokes together, laughing about our sweet husbands, or giggling about our fictional men, I enjoy every single second of it. Your kind heart and your generous spirit is a gift, and your ability to break me (and my puss) down with your words is unmatched. I am so thankful that I have found a supportive and loving friend that I can count on in all times. You are funny and warm and so so wonderful. I hope you have the most fabulous day where you are pampered with wine and cheese and all things that make you happy. You deserve the best day today and every day!

All of my love to you, Cat

Stay tuned... ;)

[raeynbowboi]

Building the Titans as a DnD Party

A typical DnD party is best off being a 5-man band, with roughly five main roles to fill: the Tank, the Blaster (ranged damage), Healer, Stealth, and DPS roles, and the Teen Titans fit this very very nicely. So, I want to approach building the team as a cohesive unit. I’ve tackled building the characters independently, but some fall into a build in relation to other characters’ builds. The challenge here is to build the team to function nicely together as a unit.

ROBIN ( Party Role: Leader, Stealth, melee combatant)

Race: Human Background: Entertainer (Acrobatics, Performance) Classes:    Mastermind Rogue (12)    Battle Master Fighter (7)    Monk (1) Stats:    (SA) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 20 CHA 9    (PB) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 12 WIS 20 CHA 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Deception    Investigation    Perception    Performance    Stealth Fighting Style: Dueling Battle Master Maneuvers:    Disarming Attack    Feinting Attack    Maneuvering Attack    Parry    Reposte Tools: Thieves’ Tools, Tinkerer’s Tools

With Robin’s subclasses, he can study an opponent and discern their HP, Level, AC, and any stat compared to his own, allowing Robin to be an expert in deducing the weaknesses of his adversaries. He also has the ability to give himself advantage, allowing Robin to make use of Sneak Attack damage even in a one-on-one fight. Robin’s 1 level in Monk is only there for the AC, and if you feel it’s unnecessary, he can drop it for another level in Fighter and another ASI or feat. This Robin excels at infiltration and finding clues like a classic detective, and with his maneuvering attack can reposition his party around the battlefield, moving injured allies toward Raven for healing, or helping melee fighters close the gap with enemies. Robin’s other maneuvers make him adept at creating openings in his enemies’ combat, such as making mages drop their spellcasting focus. If the DM is willing to rework Commander’s Strike maneuver to not be exclusively for melee attacks, letting Robin tell his party to attack instead of him can allow party members to exploit an enemy’s weaknesses that he can’t bypass himself, which is a good quality for a leader.

STARFIRE (Party Roles: Blaster, Tank, Talker)

Race: Protector Aasimar Background: Soldier (Athletics, Intimidation) Class:    Phoenix Sorcerer (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 10, WIS: 9, CHA: 20    (PB) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 20 Skills:    Arcana    Athletics    Intimidation    Persuasion Feats:    Elemental Adept (Fire) Metamagic:    Empowered Spell    Heightened Spell    Quickened Spell    Twinned Spell

Between the boys who are all mostly melee combatants and Raven who is more of a support role, Starfire is the long-range magical powerhouse whose spell list is exclusively Fire and Radiant damaging spells. While Starfire lacks the superhuman strength she really should have, I figured her alien endurance was more valuable, as it made her able to get up and keep fighting harder. While I did in earnest consider a build where she’s an aasimar Brute Fighter or Zealot Barbarian (both of which would prioritize her super strength) while reducing her starbolts to the Firebolt cantrips she’d pick up with magic initiate, when it comes to party composition, the party already has Cyborg who tends to use physical combat more often than Starfire, despite her being stronger than him, as well as Robin and Beast Boy who are also close-range fighters. The party is better aided by her making use of immense magical power.

BEAST BOY (Party Roles: Utility, Wildcard)

Race: Longtooth Shifter Background: Folk Hero (Animal Handling, Survival) Class: Circle of the Moon Druid (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 12, INT: 8, WIS: 13, CHA: 14    (PB) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 10, INT: 8, WIS: 14, CHA: 14  Skills:    Animal Handling    Nature    Perception    Survival

This one’s pretty straightforward. We need to turn into animals, a druid is the only way to do that. If you want to channel your Beast Within, feel free to do a 16/4 split and add some Barbarian levels with the Path of the Beast, but for standard Beast Boy, focus on wildshaping into the highest CR monsters that you can.

RAVEN ( Party Roles: Healer, Magic Utility, Diplomat)

Race: Asmodeus Tiefling (Variant: Winged Bloodline Tiefling) Background: Far Traveler (Insight, Perception) Classes:    Theurgy Wizard (Knowledge Domain) (19)    Rogue (1) STATS    (SA) STR: 8, DEX: 13, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10    (PB) STR: 8, DEX: 14, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10 Skills:    Arcana    History    Insight    Medicine    Perception    Religion

While the single level in rogue is not mandatory, it gives Raven the ability to have Expertise in two skills, letting her super charge her Insight and Perception. As Raven is an empath who can sense people’s emotions, read people like an open book, and even sense how many people are in a city on the other side of a bay, Raven’s extrasensory powers should be extremely impressive. So despite Raven not being much of a people person, her ability to sense emotions makes her invaluable as a negotiator and lie detector for her party, as well as scouting for lost children and fugitives. With her Wizard levels, Raven can have a truly staggering amount of spells, including abjuration shields, telekinetic spells to move objects, psionic blasts, messing with the senses or emotions of other creatures, and bypassing environmental hazards. With this extensive list of abilities, Raven becomes a veritable swiss army knife of dealing with problems. Between healing, defensive, offensive, and utility spells, Raven becomes insanely adaptable. While Psychic Soul Sorcerer and Fiend Warlock could work for Raven, those are CHA casters which steps on Starfire’s toes as a Sorcerer. So, Theurgy is the best way for Raven to be a healer, and makes her an INT caster. Knowledge not only gives her extra expertise skills, but it fits her character as the wise scholar of the party. Asmodeus, the Greater Deity of the Nine Hells, has Knowledge as one of his domains, allowing Raven to pray to him while fitting her character. Arcana is another good option, as it adds to her Wizard spell list and helps her break spell effects on her party, but at the loss of her extra expertise. Life Domain can also work if you’re leaning toward White Raven and making her a dedicated healer. Making Raven a Winged Bloodline Tiefling gives her the ability to fly endlessly, a good answer for her floating in the show, but not all DMs will allow it. Her WIS score can be lower, I used 16 to super charge her Insight and Perception checks, but if concentration and health matters more, she can easily get by with a WIS score of 14 or even 12.

CYBORG (Party Roles: Tank, DPS, Blaster)

Race: Variant Human (PB: +1 CON, +1 INT) (SA: +1 STR, +1 CON) Background: Athlete (Athletics, Acrobatics) Classes:    Brute Fighter (16)    Artillerist Artificer (4) Stats:    (SA) STR: 20, DEX: 11, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 12    (PB) STR: 20, DEX: 10, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Athletics    Intimidation    Investigation    Perception Fighting Style: Unarmed Combat Feats:    Heavy Armor Mastery (V. Human) (+1 STR) Items:    Molten Bronze Skin (Plate)    Force Ballista (Tiny)

Some may cry foul that Cyborg is neither a Warforged nor a 100% Artificer, but Cyborg was born Human, that is is his racial identity. And with the Molten Bronze Skin from Theros, the metal can coat Cyborg’s skin so skin-tight that it can’t be removed, like having metal skin, making it a perfect parallel to Cyborg’s lore and character. While Starfire is physically the strongest Titan, she doesn’t tend to prefer physical combat, opting mostly for ranged combat with her starbolts, opening a spot on the team for the heavy-hitting melee combatant, where Cyborg comes in clutch. Between multiple attacks per round, and being able to fire his Force Ballista every bonus action, Cyborg walks away with about the same number of attacks per turn as a full level 20 Fighter as early as level 14. As a Brute, he’ll also add to the damage he deals with each punch, making Cyborg a serious bringer of pain. If your DM hates UA though, Champion works fine for him, it just doesn’t deal as much damage.

This party composition makes the Teen Titans extremely well-balanced, as every member of the party has a primary role, but also cover a wide variety of skills, play styles, and abilities. They’re diverse enough to be able to handle most anything as a unit, and can handle just about anything thrown at them in combat. There may be some shortcomings like that many creatures resist Starfire’s Fire magic, but her Elemental Adept can help with that, and her other party members can make up for her shortcomings in such fights.

[that-wizard-oki]

Hello! I've been aware of your blog for years, and made a Tumblr blog very recently. I want to say that your posts are extremely well thought out, and give the storyline of Wizard101 a lot of much needed depth. I think if Wiz had the gameplay and story structure of Pirate101, it would benefit highly especially for worlds like Azteca and Khrysalis. Currently I'm rewriting Wiz and your posts are a huge inspiration. Finally. what are your thoughts on Arc 3? Imo it had potential but failed.

Hey there! Thank you so much for all your kind words, I’m glad you enjoy my thoughts and theories about the game-  and I’m flattered to hear they inspire you to create your own fan work :D 

Personally, I wouldn’t say that Arc 3 failed in any sense. I think the idea of a children's/family game to tackle the theme of a broken family\divorce is pretty smart- it gives the opportunity to adults who play this game with their kids to find a way to perhaps talk about their own experience with the same themes in their real lives (if it applies to them). Likewise, i also like that the story focuses on that the CHILDREN are the one who have to clean up the PARENTS mess, more or less. Often times the children in families who have a parent/parents that are either split, should split, or are abusive to one another, are the ones who get caught in the cross fire- this is SO evident with Mellori and Bat in Empyrea.

Following that, I think it was also super clever to have Mellori (and the wizard) initially ALSO be fighting against Spider’s children. Another common occurrence in families that experience abuse between their parents/ect, is that one or both of the parents will try to divide their children onto sides- furthering the divide and conflict in the family itself. THIS was exactly what was happening in arc 3- we weren’t technically fighting Raven and Spider, but their children were fighting each other in their names.

One of the most beautiful things to come out of this game was the fact that Mellori and Bat WERE able to see through that, and instead focused on the real threat at hand- their parents. In fact, it is their COMBINED power that allows the wizard to defeat the result of Raven and Spider- the Aethyr Titan. This reflects so well into reality, where when the children of broken families try their damned to support one another, instead of letting their parents continue to control and divide them, it leads to the kids being able to break the domino effect that comes with that kind of family dynamic. They are able to become individuals- instead of being some mini version or “part” of their parents (which is also clever on KI’s part to make Mellori and Bat/Rat/Scorpion LITERAL extensions of Raven/Spider, which makes it seem like they are just kind of mindless bots doing whatever their entrusted parent tells them). 

One part i particularly like as well is that towards the end of Empyrea, Mellori talk about how she’s going to go home to her mom- and it’s not Raven, it’s Baba Yaga. I absolutely love this idea that, yea, Mellori (and any kid for that matter) SHOULD be able to choose who their mom/dad/parent is if their birth parent(s) don't provide for you the way a parent should. I think that is a SUPER important lesson for Kids AND parents to hear. You choose your own family if that’s what it comes down to, and there is NO shame in that. 

That being said, i do have my issues with some things too- this might seem small, but I never liked how when we’re in the Husk, and Raven and Spider are talking to one another about who’s “really” at fault, and eventually Raven goes “oh what have i done?” and Spider just goes “.... Yea were were BOTH really bad huh?” Like.... listen, sure, Raven probably shouldn’t have locked Cob away for eternity and stole his chaos heart in order to reform the spiral, BUT imma be real with y’all... Spider also did shit to aggravate Raven- specifically, he messed with her kids into a fucking war. I mean this half sarcastically, but tbh, if you mess with a mother’s kids... that's fucking on you man, you know the grave your digging for yourself on that one lmao.

But more seriously- i feel like they REALLY tried to make Raven out to be “worse” than Spider, and having Spider just beguile her with his words at the end in a way were she ended up being like “oh nooo IM the really bad one, oh no oh noo :((” JUST for him to be like “no its ok babe :) we’re BOTH equally as bad, stay here with me and we can be bad and alone together :)”

Actually now that i write that out, it is a little.. weird that Spider kinda got what he wanted- to be with Raven, when imo, they really should have STAYED split. I don’t come from a divorced family, but I’ve many friends who do, and I’ve gathered that more often than not... divorce can be a good thing, as it is likely to stop/lessen the conflict within families. I think that yea, they both did bad things to one another, and need to stay apart, not spend the rest of eternity together.

That’s probably my biggest qualm with the entirety of Arc 3, beyond the various obvious one, which is that Morganthe played like, absolutely no part in it lmao. I’ve talked endlessly about it, so i won’t repeat myself too much lol. 

Just to briefly reiterate- i think that Morganthe, the one who re-discovered shadow magic, was groomed by the Shadow Magi, and very blatantly infused with something akin to the conversion tables we see in Khrysalis, I think she would have been an invaluable source of information and help for the Wizard. Not only does she probably know the most about Shadow Magic outside of Spider, but it’s insanely alluded to that she was under his control- perhaps even had contact or conversation with him somehow in her time as Shadow queen.

The biggest frustration of her lack of presence though, comes from the way Khrysalis built up this INSANELY interesting Foil between the Wizard and her. The way that they both weirdly fit the prophecy, the way their lead into The Hive was so eerily mirrored, the fact that we were both called the Children of Light and Shadow by Spider, and not to even mention how the shared feelings of loneliness and fear of failure as students of Ambrose... like I could go on about these two and how amazing it would have been for them both to work together in arc 3, but also help heal and grow as The Children of Light and Shadow... but that’s not what we got unfortunately. 

Anywho, i don’t wanna ramble on about that too much because i touched on it in another ask post and you can look at that if ya want in my tag, but yea! Those are my general thoughts on Arc 3. Again, i love this arc, i think it truly has some of the most nuanced writing and characters thus far in the game. 

Besides, i always think they could easily write in Morganthe’s return for a redemption with the wizard, especially now with the Wizard seemingly trying to fight their own shadows.

Hope that satisfied your question though, and good luck with your writings :D

[argylemnwrites]

Fight or Flight - Chapter 11: Weighing

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Heir (canon divergent from the end of book 2)

Word Count: ~3300

Rating: PG-13 (language only)

Summary: Six days since The Walker Absconding

Author’s Note: This series follows the Walkers, their friends, and Cordonia as a whole after they flee the country with their daughter during Barthelemy Beaumont’s attempted coup. To catch up on this series, check out it’s masterlist. (link can be found via my bio - sorry, Tumblr is once again not putting my posts with links in tag searches)

Rashad sighed heavily as he sat in a chair that was much too big behind a desk that was much too formal in an office that was much too stuffy. He’d agreed to be king-regent because he knew Liam was backed into a corner, and that his previous turns as legal counsel to both the palace and the Beaumonts made him the only obviously neutral party in the nobility. But not even one week in, and he found himself wishing he’d refused the appointment. He missed his job, his duties, his office, and that didn’t even touch on the mess he’d been handed.

It’s not like he wasn’t used to complicated and stressful work. But at Sloan Enterprises, it was work he was passionate about, work that he found stimulating and enthralling. Now, he was engulfed in so many decisions ranging from the banal to the insane. It was work he honestly wanted no part of, but that hadn’t exactly been an option.

His goal had simply been to get through the social season and reach the Conclave without rocking the boat, so to speak. Keep Cordonia on a steady course until someone who wanted the title of monarch could assume it, then return to his life as quickly as possible. But that had rapidly proved to be an impossibility. He’d already had to initiate a treason and kidnapping investigation, strip a duke and duchess of their titles, and postpone the social season. He’d done more in a few days than he’d hoped to do during his entire “reign.”

Now, he was facing numerous protests across the country that he had no idea how to handle. He wasn’t some verbose, eloquent speaker. Any speech from him was unlikely to quell citizen unrest. But in the past 36 hours, he’d watched news coverage of five different protests from five different groups. There was the group that called themselves the True Cordonians, a collection of traditionalists who had always opposed Drake and Riley and their connections to the United States, who were upset that the “traitorous” Walkers hadn’t been found yet. Counter-protesters to them had popped up in front of the Valtoria estate, denouncing the kidnapping and treason charges. That group hadn’t named themselves, but “She’s their kid” had become their rallying cry. Then there were the protests in Lythikos that called for Olivia’s installation as the “rightful regent” as well as a pro-Beaumont group that had come out in support of Barthelemy in Ramsford following his exclusive interview with Ana de Luca. And of course, the Liberation Core was using all the turmoil to spread their anti-monarchy message. Even if Rashad had been confident in his abilities to give a national address, he was completely unsure how to find a message that would even partially unify all those opposing groups.

All he wanted to do was to leave as little of a mark as possible as a ruler and to hand off the crown with Cordonia in a stable position. But it was rapidly seeming like those goals were mutually exclusive. And as loathe as he was to make big decisions, hiding away in the palace and letting the country fall to pieces was not something he could do. He needed to steady the ship, so to speak. And that’s why he was meeting with Lady Hana today.

Almost on cue, he heard a sharp tap on the main office door. After a second, Stefan entered, bowing his head slightly. Liam had offered to let his personal assistant stay on and help him with day to day tasks and the basics and essentials of the role. Rashad wasn’t naive enough to think that Stafan wasn’t essentially spying on him and reporting back to Liam, but he’d needed all the help he could get, and Stefan had proved invaluable, preparing daily briefings and news summaries, so he’d kept the man on his staff.

“Your Regency, Lady Hana is here for her appointment.”

“Thank you, Stefan. Send her in, please.”

A few moments later, Lady Hana entered, bowing her head slightly.

“Good afternoon, Your Regency.”

“Same to you, Lady Hana. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk. He was well aware this was probably awkward for her as well. She had probably been in this same office not that long ago with Liam behind the desk. 

“Thank you,” she said with a little nod, smoothing her skirt before she sat down.

“So, I figure we better get right down to business.”

“I’ve told Bastien and the investigators everything I know, but I can-”

“No! Not that; I know you’ve already given your statement. I wanted to talk to you about Valtoria.”

Hana was still and silent for just a moment before nodding crisply. “Very well. I would appreciate if I could have a day or two to move my belongings out of the estate.”

Rashad grimaced. This was so uncomfortable. “No, you misunderstand me, Lady Hana. I wanted to discuss whether you were open to accepting the title of Duchess of Valtoria.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Me? As a duchess?”

“Yes. You’ve been living there for about a year and a half at this point, and I am guessing you have served as an advisor to Lady Ri- er, the previous duchess at various points.”

“Well, yes. But it was really nothing.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

She gave him a little smile at that. “Why are you looking to appoint me?”

Rashad figured he had better level with her. She wasn’t going to respond well to flattery she found insincere. “There is too much instability across the kingdom at the moment. Too much is unfolding, and the citizens are rightly unsettled. You are a known presence at that duchy, and you are more than qualified to hold the title. You stepping into that role would help reduce the sense that everything is changing. I might not be able to keep Lythikos and Ramsford calm and peaceful, but if I can give Valtoria some sense of stability, that would be a start at least.”

“I don’t know. This seems like a gigantic call for you to make while you’re…”

“A placeholder?”

“I didn’t know how to phrase it politely,” she said with a little smile.

“That’s quite alright. To answer your question, I’m not sure if this is the right call, but it seems like a natural place to start. You know the people of Valtoria. You’ve lived there and you’ve served them and the country as a whole well. You have the skills and talents required for the position, and professional recruitment is one area I actually do have some experience, so I am confident you would do well in that role. But the choice is yours, of course.”

He watched her swallow, trying to read her expression, but her face wasn’t giving much away. He had no idea what she was thinking, but after a few seconds of tense silence, she nodded. “Alright then. If it’s what the citizens of Valtoria need, I’d be honored to accept. 

With that, she stretched her left hand across the desk, so Rashad grasped it firmly. As he pulled out some of the paperwork he’d prepared in hopes that she agreed and started going over some of the logistics, he hoped that his first major decision as regent would be one of his only major decisions. The fear of public scrutiny already loomed large in his mind, and this was a decision he was actually fairly confident in. Sadly, he was a realist, and he knew things were likely to get worse before they got better. All he could do, though, was keep trotting along, trying to get the country through the next couple of months relatively unscathed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Riley let out a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “Drake, this fucking sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

She glanced out the window, almost feeling like she would see a drone with a little camera courtesy of Amalas just peering into their room. Was she using drones? Did she have spies tailing them? Was she just scanning publicly accessible photos tagged in Greek cities with facial ID software? Did it even matter? The end result was the same. Someone she wasn’t sure she could trust knew where her family was, and that was mad nerve-wracking.

Riley glanced back down at Drake, who was sitting on the floor with Bridget, keeping her from using the dresser to pull up to standing. She’d discovered how to do so this morning, and she kept wanting to repeat it, but the last thing they needed was for her to pull the dresser down on top of herself. It made Riley think about all the furniture around their private quarters that Drake had bolted to the wall in preparation for this milestone. None of that would matter anymore.

For the moment, Bridget was distracted with a pile of blocks she was putting into a pillowcase over and over. Riley knew she would return to trying to escape Drake’s reach to try out her new skill soon enough, but for now, at least, she was safely and happily playing. 

Riley and Drake had been discussing what to do next for hours and hours at this point. They had called Olivia earlier, and after some back and forth, Drake and Olivia had both seemed confident that Amalas wasn’t actively following them and didn’t know their location beyond the city. After all, she had been eager to contact Olivia with her intel, and it seemed like too much of a coincidence for that call to come just a few hours after they had spent any real time out in public since their fleeing was common knowledge.

The best guess Drake had was that they had been in the background of someone’s Pictagram post or some shit like that, and that Amalas was just constantly running some sort of facial recognition program constantly on posts tagged with various cities in Greece. After all, she had to know they were trapped in Greece at this point. If they attempted to cross the borders, they would have to show their ID cards and they would likely be arrested on the spot.

Even if Amalas was just aware of their general location, it still was concerning that she was devoting that much effort to keeping tabs on them. But what actions they needed to take next were unclear to both of them. Hence them talking around in circles for hours and hours, just waiting for some idea that felt better than all the crappy ones they’d both thrown out there. 

“I just don’t like sitting around with her knowing where we are, Drake. Even if she doesn’t know the exact details.”

Drake glanced up at her and gave a little shrug. This wasn’t the first time she’d expressed that sentiment. “I don’t like it either. But there’s no guarantee things will be better if we move on to a new city.”

“Olivia said that she’s trying to use us as leverage. How does that sit right with you?”

He shot her a clearly annoyed glare before looking back at Bridget, emptying the pillowcase for her to start filling with blocks again before he said, “It doesn’t fucking sit right with me. But we need to think long term here. We will need to find places to stay for at least a couple of months. That’s the earliest the Conclave can happen, and the charges won’t be dropped before then. We’re also going to need food and warmer clothing when it’s not the middle of summer, and that beater of a car is not going to hold up forever. We need to be frugal and cautious now.”

Riley knew he was right. Her instinct was always to scramble and react, often impulsively. If they kept following her lead every step of the way, they were probably going to make things harder than they needed to be. And she did appreciate that Drake was trying to put more thought into concrete plans. Both of them drifting along without a clear plan, complacent beyond belief was how Bridget was named heir and they found themselves in this situation in the first place.

“Are we even going to have enough money to get us through the next couple of months?”

Drake let out a sigh and shook his head.

“How long?” Riley asked, scrunching her eyes closed as she braced for the answer.

“Three weeks, more or less, if we keep our expenses like they have been.” She opened her eyes and locked them on his. His shoulders sagged and his eyes were sad and heavy, like he was somehow letting her down by telling her the honest facts.

“Drake… How are we going…” she trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

“I’m gonna need to pick up some odd jobs or something, find a way to make some money.”

“How are we going to do that without any ID we can show or anything. I mean, Amalas is out as a source of forgeries at this point, so unless-”

“Olivia told us she was going to poke around, see what she could do. Hana has our passports, so that’s a start at least.”

“I don’t know. I just… I hate this. Everything we have to do feels like it’s gonna get us caught.”

Drake ran his hand over the stubble on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and in all the time she had known him, Riley could count the number of times he hadn’t shaved on one hand. She wondered if he was trying to grow a beard to make himself less recognizable or if he had just been too stressed and sleep deprived to bother today. She knew he wasn’t sleeping well.

“I don’t know how to fix this perfectly, Riley. I just don’t.” He looked so dejected, placing his chin on his bent knee, so Riley slid off the end of the bed and joined him and Bridget on the floor, threading her legs under his raised leg in hopes of conveying some degree of comfort.

“Well, we’re just going to have to make a decision and not look back here. And it looks like the two least bad options are to either stay hiding out here for as long as possible and hope that Amalas doesn’t go blabbing, or move on to a new city and hope she doesn’t find us there and that it isn’t too much of an expense to do so.”

He nodded, reaching for her hand. She grabbed on tightly, threading their fingers together. Maybe it was for the best they were both mad conflicted here. It allowed them to really decide on their next move as a team.

“I know I’ve been kind of reluctant to head to a new city, but one thing that is worth considering is that if we went to a bigger city, I might be able to find some under the table work. Day labor, that sort of thing. Plus…” he trailed off and shook his head a little at that, so Riley pushed on.

“What?”

“Well, we have a better chance of finding someone to do a forgery for us in a bigger city, too.”

“You think we should just find a random stranger to forge us passports with new identities?”

“We might have to. I hope Olivia can come through for us, but I’m not counting on that. She’s not going to risk her reputation and good standing to really put her neck out there for us. It’s one thing to keep our location a secret, it’s another to draw attention to herself by asking a lot of questions about how to fake a convincing Greek passport. So if she isn’t able to help us, we’re probably going to have to find someone to do it for us at some point.”

“I thought you said the bigger cities would be the first place they would try to track us.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a few days. They are probably broadening their search at this point. I feel like that risk isn’t as bad as it used to be.”

“So are you saying you think we should head out?”

He paused for a moment and swallowed roughly, running his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I think we could stay here for a little while longer and wait to see what Olivia can do for us about fabricated identification, or we could cut our losses and start trying to plan for that on our own. I don’t exactly like either option, Walker, but I think those two I could live with. Where are you at?”

She bit her lip, trying to figure out what was best. She wished there was a clear sign that one option was better than another, but there just wasn’t. They were going to be gambling here no matter what, and while she normally loved a good game of poker, the fact that the stakes here included the safety of her daughter and her family left her feeling sick to her stomach.

“I guess I don’t trust Amalas knowing even our general location.”

“Even though…,” Drake started, taking a deep breath and giving her hand a squeeze before he continued, “even though you thought she might be a good resource for us yesterday?”

Riley opened her mouth to snap back at him, frustrated that he seemed to be trying to trap her or accuse her or something, but she stopped when she saw the look in his eyes. He was afraid of her. She’d never seen that look directed at her before, not quite like that. Sure, she’d seen him upset and terrified, but she had never been the source of it before. So she swallowed down her instinct to lash out and defend herself and let out a little sigh. She’d put him through enough with this whole fugitive status already, and she didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t be honest with her, couldn’t challenge her. They had always pushed each other, even before they were together. She couldn’t risk losing that now.

“The situation has changed,” she said, trying to keep any defensiveness out of her voice. “If she’s putting the effort into keeping tabs on our whereabouts, she has something up her sleeve, and I don’t trust her. It was one thing when I hoped we might be able to leverage some juicy info and future political favors, but now… I just don’t think we’re going to be willing to pay the price she wants.”

Drake nodded a couple of times before he said, “Okay, so we’re moving on then?”

“If you’re okay with that.”

“As long as we go to a bigger city, I’m okay with it.”

She gave him a little smile and reached up to cup his cheek with her free hand. “Got a place in mind?”

“If we’re gonna do this, we might as well commit. I say Athens, unless you-”

But she cut him off, shaking her head before leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Drake.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I’m-” he started, but threw himself to the side and grabbed Bridget who was crawling over to the dresser, tugging her into his lap. “Oh no you don’t, Peanut.”

Riley felt her lips widening into a genuine smile, a feeling that almost felt foreign after the past several days. But her family was here, and they were all just doing the best they could. Even if it all fell apart, at least she could take comfort in that fact. So for now, she just took in her husband and her daughter sharing a normal moment, happy simply to be together.

Permatag:  @walkerswhiskeygirl​   @riley--walker​  @bebepac​ @ravenpuff02​ @oofchoices​ @octobereighth​ @drakewalker04​ @kimmiedoo5​  @mfackenthal​  @thequeenofcronuts​  

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir: @iaminlovewithtrr​ @ao719​ @mskaneko​ @katedrakeohd​ @jovialyouthmusic​ @marshmallowsandfire​ @axwalker​ @kingliam2019​ @sirbeepsalot​ @texaskitten30​ @princessleac1​ @ladyangel70​ @dcbbw​ @yaushie​

Drake x MC: @no-one-u-know​ @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria​  @iplaydrake​ @gibbles82​ @drakewalkerisreal​ @notoriouscs​  @drakesensworld​ @drake-colt-lover-99​

Fight or Flight: @masterofbluff​ @burnsoslow​ @bobasheebaby​ @shz256​​

[alovevigilante]

(Warning: responsible over explanation out of fear of judgement from others forthcoming... thank you in advance, the management of Kari keillor, that’s me.)

My informed precursor to my personal process (re: this writing piece): in my opinion and from my own personal experience, before you try any unfamiliar therapy on yourself, it’s good to have support, from both yourself, and a professional versed with the ability to also support you, guide you through any eventuality of feelings you may experience, and remind you, that you can decide to be present, and focused on that, at any point.

Before you read this piece, you will be triggered by its message or not, depending on your beliefs. These upcoming words are my own experiences from my specific filter, given to you, with love. Please be responsible and respectful of me, and yourself after reading them, by not being hyper critical. Is Kari keillor even allowed to share her POV without her own judgements? We’ll see. Read on, or not.

Wait! Now how are you reading this? What is your personal filter saying to you about my writing all of this so far? Are you defensive because I created a space for truth about people’s judgements including my own prior to your reading my opinions about my upcoming writing? Or, are you still open minded to my thoughts? Are you still here reading this, or did you blow me off a long time ago? Did you look at my selfie and make assumptions about me, and who I am? Or, are you open to hearing me speak about whatever it is that I’m going to? Will I ever know how you, the reader, feels about any of this? Do you know how I’m feeling as I type this? Are you sure you do, if you do? What’s my intention? I told you it was love, but do you believe me? Why am I asking all this? Why, out of fear of rejection, and a little bit of messing with you, of course. How did that make you feel? I don’t feel good about it, cause it’s not really me. It’s the defensive me. So, let’s try again with a more loving energy shift.

Trust, in the self and then subsequently in others, is the key to the Allowing love in, and that is the key, to all of my aforewritten blather. When you trust, you release your resistance to love. You are then capable of seeing things from a more positive and yes, beautiful new place. You can I’ll be able to look at old situations with a new loving perspective and energy. You will recognize the love in others. Allowing yourself to experience love, is the support you need from you, to finally kick the shit in your mind, whatever that may be blocking you from communing with others and yourself and just be happy. That means, to support your opinions, by not judging yourself, or prejudging your audience thinking they will also judge you too. And even if they don’t, you’ll most likely think they are anyway, because that’s how fear works. Fear, is a specific filter that messes with your solar plexus chakra. That is where your self esteem is housed.

Now, If I was really worried about how I was going to be experienced by others I probably wouldn’t write publicly to begin with, and sometimes I don’t, as I also keep a journal. If I was truly upset about what others thought, I may say, “I will now delete all the rest of the shit I wrote below, because I’m not attached to it. I’m going to choose, to love myself out of fear, and not share any of me with anyone ever again. But first, I’m going to take the next 2:13 seconds to finish on the treadmill, because sometimes I write while I’m on it.” Then I may say, “Ok. I’ve completed my work out, and I’m sitting on the treadmill, writing again.” And I did say and so all of those things. And now, I’ve thought better about deleting anything, because everything I was, even my fears, has made me the me I am sitting here writing now, and you know what? I’m a pretty decent chick, and I deserve to be treated better by me. So I will preempt myself next time, and not even get this far, in my mental negative self talk, prejudging myself and others. Maybe I’ll use that my time more productively next time. Maybe I’ll eat a twizzler, and dream about what feeling I actually DO want in my life as opposed to fearing and entertaining the feelings that I don’t want, and then by thinking it, I will inadvertently feel better, or something much more fun like that. Yes. That.....

I love to write. I love to share my feelings, my thoughts, and my experiences around all of it with you. So, instead of being defensive about my upcoming thoughts, I’m going to allow you, the reader, to create your own thoughts about what I wrote, because I trust in the process, that the messages will get to the right directions they need to. Thanks for listening, and thanks for letting me let my hair down about all this. 😉💕

Bed head goals. Rainbow colors, all represented. Even orange. See, that’s life. Everyone, is included, but not everyone is equally aware of that fact. Everyone is family. I am not speaking specifically about the family you were born into or married into, or choose to cohabitate with. I am speaking of the family of the human race. We are all interconnected. How do you treat your family? Do you relate to people as you perceive they feel about you? Do you hold grudges? Do you treat people, as you last remembered them to be? Did you cryogenically freeze people in time in your head according to how you felt, at that certain time in your life? Do you remember the good things? Do you care about how you feel now?

I do. I care about how I feel. Right now, in this moment I’m choosing to. So I’ve decided to do that, right now, and stop answering those questions. Because the answer to them all, is to choose love. A loving feeling, a loving thought, a loving action. That’s the process to recognizing every one and everything as family. A functional family... 😉

In the moments before this one, as I wrote, I was recalling, thinking, about how I do all those things, in a more personal way. And how I felt as I recalled those specific memories, wasn’t great. For some people, it may have been good memories they were reviewing in their minds. But if you’re anything like me, most of the things you recall about your past, aren’t so very helpful or fun to think about, due to some outward situations and experiences, but underneath that, how I felt about myself at the time.

I was in therapy some years back, and we did this exercise called, “internal family systems model” or “IFSM” (1) for short, where we (my therapist and I) linked my feelings in my body or my thoughts to specific times in my life, and labeled them as parts of my former self.

For example, I would close my eyes and breathe into a relaxed state, and connect to my 15 year old self that couldn’t articulate the feelings she felt at that time, but I was holding beliefs as my current self deriving from that specific time in my life. Sometimes I would feel a pain or a physical symptom that turned into a memory I had from the past. Then, I would feel into that memory as it would arise, and explore it with the younger me that experienced it.

I would describe it as a kind of like a deliberate reverse Sybil situation, where as sybil was a dissociative case, I was fully conscious and chose to experience, as was completely aware of the process, and was able to return to a more normal, and integrated state after each session. It was an associative process for me. It’s a conditioning of the mind, where the goal, is union of the self. The purpose was to pinpoint my specific feelings in my physical body, and talk to them as if they were separate from me, because in a sense they were, by my subconscious choice out of self protection. Some of me was not on board with the me I am today, because they were stuck in the hurt of the past, and the feelings I was holding. And sometimes not on purpose, these younger parts of me were hindering me with my old stories and beliefs about myself, from fully realizing the me I wanted to be now.

The work was invaluable, and I’m extremely proud of my internal work that I’ve done. I was able to go back to my specific memories, and to the me I was at the time. I would discuss things with the younger me, and ask what the younger me needed to share with me, and to consciously choose to care for myself, council myself, and send myself love.

Sometimes it took awhile to develop the trust between the younger me, and the now older me, to reveal things even to myself. All of those feelings of hurt and pain that I held inside for years. Why the younger me felt the way she/ I did. How different as we, a whole Kari, are now, and how I can listen, to my own needs, and care for my parts of me that didn’t feel loved or appreciated back then; because I wasn’t capable at the time to show up in a supportive and loyal way for them at the time I felt hurt, betrayed or abandoned by myself. It took awhile, but I eventually came to a place of understanding from within myself, to get really honest, and then trust again. You, are also a person that feels, you. Ignoring yourself, is ignoring the person that you are the closest to.

I choose to create inner peace, with self love and kindness. I support myself, by telling those parts that act out in hurt or shame, that I still love, me. I sometimes don’t have to say a word, but I make a conscious effort to connect directly to those feelings inside of myself, and offer myself, a chance to heal, with space and love. It’s not the usual technique that people do, but I believe it helped me connect to the parts of me that felt betrayed by my former actions and thoughts, and allowed me a chance to get on the same page with where I’m at today, in a healthier way. It’s a fantastic coping mechanism for regaining the trust you need to rebuild, from within.

I honestly believe that that, regaining trust within the individual, is the key to healing the planet, and here’s how; the love cannot be recognized, understood or internalized by you, until you trust you. The trust is what allows you to let go of harsh judgements and beliefs, and allows the inner love, to be both created and experienced. If you do not trust yourself to feel love, you will act out accordingly. You won’t trust another person to have your best interest at heart. You won’t be able to feel love, even if that is the way it was intended for you.

So, the first step to experiencing love, is developing a better, more honest relationship with you. Go into the places you feel, and see. Sometimes it shows up physically. For me, it was in my throat. I felt constricted at times, like I couldn’t articulate how I wanted to verbally. I still feel that way sometimes. Writing, for me, has been a serious blessing, that I appreciate. I do it a lot. It helps me sort out my feelings on a way that I can understand, and externalize. It’s a form of self expression that allows me the time and the space, to get really honest with myself, and about my feelings. And some of those feelings, are old stories that don’t serve the current me anymore.

I found doing the parts work, that the loudest voices that I thought, meaning my loudest thoughts, were always the most hurtful to me, and others. They were what I called, “judges” and “the stenographers”. I realized they served a very important purpose in the grand scheme of me, and that purpose was to protect the smaller, younger parts of me that didn’t have a voice, or were afraid to speak their pain. The judges didn’t realize they were hurting me. But my self talk was this constant reminding of hurtful things past. The stenographers would remind me, in full detail what had previously been recorded, in order to never allow that to happen again. Only, that act of reminding was and still is, holding me back from trusting other people because of it. The judges concurred, and cast their verdicts according to the perception of the stenographer’s recounting.

I was internally protected alright, but not in a way where I could comfortably connect with others. I’m still having an issue with connection myself, as my stenographers do a very excellent and thorough job, or reminding me over and over, and over again, what I have experienced, all of my old, unhelpful stories. And anything else I didn’t know, I surmised, and filled in the blanks, usually negatively. And my judges are great too, and on it, and they cut that shit right out of my life alright, but unfortunately not out of my head. And it’s always my decision, to allow them to do it, until I decide to focus, on a new, and better story that I myself, create. So essentially I had to work backwards. I went from my life in the present, to my current actions, to my own old beliefs, to my own old thoughts, to my own old experiences around those thoughts, to my old feelings. I have decided to bypass that now, when I can, and just decide to focus on feeling better whatever that takes. It’s the current deliberate energy shift to better that changes feelings. And everything looks better, from that vantage point.

Retelling ourselves old stories, serves to keep us in a very uncomfortable place. As we grow, and we all do, what fit our lives to think and believe about ourselves and others, don’t always stay the same. The more we live, and the more experiences we have, the more we develop resolute ideas to create a semi false sense of stability on the inside. “Well, I’ve talked to her before... she’s weird....” or, “I know her type, she’s not cool.” Whatever judgements we cast upon others, we have felt and experienced ourselves in some capacity. It always starts, and ends, with us as individuals, and how we’ve felt, and how we choose to feel, next.

People can only truly believe what they have experienced or can truly connect to, and not necessarily what they have learned or heard from others. So the recognition that we are all interconnected is the first step to healing the world, but the precursor to that, is recognition of the self, and taking responsibility for how we as individuals feel. The healing must begin there first, otherwise our individual perceptions will always reflect on others, what we feel about ourselves. The basic need for belonging is in all of us. We are social beings, in need of feeling loved. If we start there, and are kinder to ourselves with our self talk, and how we choose to feel about ourselves in general, it will allow the individual to open up to see that reflection outwardly.

Because of this work, I became really interested in the process of becoming, and then began reading up on, and listening to speeches about the law of attraction, and from there, I started linking the two. My internal guidance is my family unit. And my love, is a co-creation between me, and the god force that works through me. It’s my process, my life, that I write about frequently. How can I get in touch with my feelings enough to feel, better. How can I do it? For years I looked for outside validation and acceptance for others to fill me up, but it never worked. Going within, was my only choice to feel better. I had to take responsibility for my own feelings, and ownership of my own thoughts and beliefs. No one can do it for anyone, as we are all in charge of our own filter, and how we see the world.

I am working on how I feel now. I have decided that regardless of the judgements or opinions good or bad that others hold of me, that I will no longer abide by that as my self definition. That said, I am still human, and fall prey to insecurities and depression about my life. We, as individuals can go one of two ways with it. We can project outwardly to others directly about how we feel internally or we can internalize every hurt we’ve ever felt and become a doormat for people who project their hurt onto others. I went that route first, and then I stopped. I became the me I always wanted to be, only alone. I aligned with myself, and realized that a good majority of the people that were on my life were comfortable with the old scenario. I had changed, but the dynamics of my life hadn’t. It takes awhile for the new energy to integrate with the old, established, formerly agreed upon 3D world that we all share and experience. I’m still working it out internally, so I can mesh with the already established energy in my own life in a way that better suits myself and others.

I don’t necessarily feel fabulous yet, but I’m practicing. I choose better feelings due to my focus on things that please me more often. I tend to act silly a lot, purposefully, to lighten my mood and change my energy for the better. I ask myself this question, “What can I think and believe, and truly hold that emotion as long as possible, to feel good?” And that’s how it starts. I used to be very concerned about what people thought about me. I sometimes still am, but less so now that I’ve decided to be myself more often without having to constantly apologize for it. I have noticed that genuinely happy people do not decide to think ill of themselves, then subsequently do not speak ill of others, so I’ve tried to stop gossiping. Being happy and talking trash is not the same vibrational energy. Those of us who choose to practice feeling good on the inside, are generally going to treat people with the same respect.

Loving yourself, isn’t wrong. Loving yourself, is the link you can create to become trustworthy to yourself, and to others. The lies we tell ourse subconsciously and consciously every day serve as a dissonance from within. You are love. That’s it. It’s only as simple or as complex as you want to make it. Telling yourself anything but that, is untrue, and the trust you develop with yourself can’t fully be realized. Choosing to feel good, to support yourself, and to act in accordance to that support, is the way to true happiness. And that goes for everyone. It’s not the people you need to separate from, it’s the loveless energy that we as individuals choose to hold, and to share. That decision starts with your feelings.

We are smarter than allowing our fears to override the truth about who we are. And our thoughts are a vehicle to our healing. Holding better thoughts, and disrupting old thought patterns with better energy and better topics to ruminate on will bring forth the change we wish to see in the world, but it needs to start from us, individually, and taught to our children as well.

Sister sledge sings a song called, “we are family. I got all my sisters, and me.” Yes. We have our brothers too. But the key word, is, me. We so often leave ourselves out of the equation. Love starts and ends with us. So make it happen. Be the one, who chooses, decides, and makes it different for all of us, and for you. Let’s become whole again. Let’s choose love, and everything that entails, one person at a time. Start with you. Because your internal family, needs you the most. 🌈💕

(1) from the book: Introduction to internal family systems model by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph. D.

[i-write-and-therefore-i-am]

One Monstrous Miracle (Part Five)

Okay. So. This one got away from me. It got unexpectedly dark, and I’m not sure how I feel about that but I’m going to post it and move on with the story. I am not a happy author about this chapter, for many reasons. Nevertheless, I love each and everyone of you and I hope you find it within you to enjoy this <3 (Pst! If you’d rather read on Ao3, here ya go!)

Previous-Next-First

Pairing: Aziraphale/Human!Reader

Summary: Michael takes some initiative. So does Sandalphon. Uriel is basically the emotional support nerd ig. Aziraphale has a nightmare. Reader does NOT have a good time.

Warnings: Okay listen closely. I have written a non-graphic description of a kidnapping, and subsequently a heavily-implied violence segment. I might be overstating or understating (please tell me if I am understating!), but I just want to keep you lovelies safe. 

ALSO: This is NOT a warning, but while you’re here I might as well tell you that I have used they/them pronouns for Michael, and it/its pronouns for Sandalphon (from the script).

Word Count: 2730

(@gif, shits going down)

Michael was not stupid. They were not dimwitted, or blinded by heavenly goodness, or any of the things that they could very easily accuse their fellow celestial beings of…being. They had been paying the Angel Aziraphale very close attention these past millennia, and they had seen exactly what they had expected; the Angel had gone native. Worse than that, he had gone native and he was fraternizing with the enemy. THE enemy. El Numero Uno. The Demon Crowley.

Because Michael was none of the things mentioned above, they had quite a bit of room to be some other things, like cunning, vigilant, and good at waiting for just the right moment. They didn’t bring the aforementioned knowledge to Gabriel’s attention straight away for the sake of…strategy. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the Archangel-Fucking-Gabriel wasn’t the only gosh darned Archangel around (and that’s with a capital ‘A’, thank you very much), and so there really was no pressing need for Michael to give the information in the first place, now that they thought about it. They could investigate on their own, build up a solid case, and then work from there. Maybe get some respect around the elitist promotion trap that was their Heavenly home. If only.

Michael enlisted Uriel, knowing that she would be invaluable when looking for documents or anything paper related. She had the memory for things exactly like that. Michael brought Sandalphon precisely because they knew that Aziraphale was still terrified of it after what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. Together, they monitored Aziraphale’s every move—although the angel had somehow devised a way to keep the group from ever being able to overhear any of his traitorous conversations with the hated Crowley, they weren’t deterred in the slightest bit. They could follow the pair, take pictures, perhaps the odd selfie when the mood hit. Michael was building their case against Aziraphale, and it was only a matter of time.

Armageddon threw everything into quite a pretty mess, now didn’t it? Aziraphale was openly discussing his meetings with his “wily adversary”, reporting on the current status and whereabouts of the Antichrist (Warlock. What a revolting name). Things were starting to get fun for the first time in about a hundred years, and Michael simply didn’t have the time for their surveillance missions anymore. Not to mention that Gabriel was demanding that they all stay together as often as possible, which was a nightmare in and of itself. Michael was rather looking forward to the end of the world, not for the gargantuan blood bath that would ensue, as most of their angelic associates where no doubt panting for, but for the endless peace that comes after a job well done.

One day, when the Antichrist (still Warlock, despite Michael’s very best efforts) was 10, nearly 11, Michael noticed something very strange about the familiar bookshop that they and the rest of the group had been watching for the last couple of centuries. There was a woman, well-dressed (Michael assumed. Angels, proper Angels, that is, Aziraphale not included, have no real sense of human fashion), practically cantering down the pavement, apparently towards Aziraphale’s shop. “No, that can’t be right,” Michael thought to themselves. Although, thinking back, that woman did look strikingly familiar. So familiar, in fact, that—

“Uriel! Take a look at this.” Michael had rolled her rolly chair away from her workstation and towards the cubicle to the right of hers. Uriel popped her head around the weird, cloth divider separating their “offices” with a curious expression.

“Yes, Michael? What is it?” The other angel asked from her rolly chair. Michael gestured that she should roll her rolly chair into Michael’s cubicle.

“I’ve found something strange in the Eden files, take a look at it.” The Eden files was their special code name for anything pertaining to Aziraphale that was not, strictly, on the books. This strange something happened to be a livestream of the street where Aziraphale lived. The woman was getting closer to the shop, although not quite close enough to tell if that was, indeed, where she was going. Michael pointed the woman out to Uriel.

“Now. She looks awfully familiar to me.” Michael’s gaze drifted from their finger to Uriel sitting beside them. Uriel had her thinking face on, which could mean one of a million different things and by this point in their long, coworker relationship, Michael had learned to just let her think. Uriel frowned slightly, moved closer to the screen, tapped a single key on the keyboard in front of them on Michael’s desk, and rewound the feed. She paused it. Zoomed in. Michael wondered why it was so difficult for the Management to install some touchscreens on the ground floor, at least for the Archangels and Possibly a few of the Principalities. They’d seen inside of Gabriel’s office (Yes! A whole, bloody corner office with glass windows instead of walls so that he can survey the worker bees in their nest and not one but TWO whole touchscreens!), after all. Uriel snapped her fingers in front of Michael’s face.

“Michael? Were you listening?” Michael, as you know, had not been listening. At all.

“Of course, Uriel. What was that last bit, again?” Uriel sighed and pointed at the woman zeroed in on.

“She visits the shop almost every day. She might be important.” Michael leaned forward in their rolly chair, squinting at the grainy image despite the fact that every angel had perfect 100/100 eyesight. They hummed.

“Yes. I quite agree. Sandalphon?” They called out the name of the coworker whose cubicle stood on the left side of theirs. They heard the familiar sound of the rolly chair growing nearer until Sandalphon sat beside the two other angels. Michael pointed to the woman on the screen.

“Let’s keep an eye on her.” They all watched as Uriel unpaused and the woman entered the shop.

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They did not have to wait long for the woman to make another move. Only a few hours later, she was hurrying out of the doors, clutching onto her purse and…crying?

“He doesn’t hold on to them long, does he?” Sandalphon remarked, rubbing its forefinger across its teeth diamonds. Uriel giggled but sobered when Michael glared at her. This was not the time for making jokes. That woman was certainly a human woman, there was no doubt about that. Why was she spending so much time around Aziraphale? Why had she run sobbing from his shop? Was this like that holiday Aziraphale took with Alexander the Great? Michael very dearly hoped not—Aziraphale had positively ruined that poor boy.

“Keep your focus on that woman. We need to learn more about her.”

The kept the feed trained on her as she made her way home. She didn’t live too far from Aziraphale’s shop. But just far enough that walking was just slightly out of her way. Uriel, the more softhearted of the bunch of angels huddled around the screen, wondered whether they should miracle her a taxicab, but she was quickly shut down.

“What, and give ourselves away? Gabriel would have our halos!” Michael exclaimed, shifting in their chair. Once the woman was in the door, Michael cut the feed, gaining the attention of the others. They cleared their throat.

“Ahem. So. Not only has Aziraphale been seen consistently in the presence of known Demon Crowley, but he also appears to have developed some sort of relationship with a…mortal woman. Once again, Aziraphale proves that he does not have the strength required to walk among them. Instead, he cavorts with them, befriends them—”

“Runs a bookshop,” Sandalphon growled helpfully. Michael nodded appreciatively.

“—and runs a bookshop. Clearly, he is no longer fit for his position.”

“That’s all well and good, Michael, but he can’t be removed from said position. Only the Almighty can deal with that level of personnel change.” Uriel reminded them calmly. Michael sighed deeply.

“I know that. We all know that. The only problem is something must be done about it. Aziraphale can no longer be allowed to continue this way. It’s heinous.” All the angels nodded their head in mutual agreement. They all tried to think of something they could do, but nothing seemed to jump out at anyone. It stayed like this for a few long moments before suddenly, Sandalphon gasped loudly, startling the other two.

“I know!” it said. “The girl. She’s important to him, right?” Uriel scoffed.

“She did just run from his shop in tears, Sandalphon, did you miss that part?” It was unfazed by Uriel’s goading.

“Exactly. It’s Aziraphale! He’s so soft, he’ll go groveling for her forgiveness within a fortnight. And when he does…”

“They’ll make up with each other. Where are you going with this?” Michael interjected impatiently, not in the mood for idle chatter. Sandalphon grinned, its teeth glinting in the Holy light.

“We kidnap her. Get us in Gabriel’s good books, get some information, and, of course, to scare powe ickle bitty Aziwaphawe. Perfect plan.”

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It was not, as it happens, the Perfect Plan. However, credit is due where credit is due, and that credit goes to Sandalphon for thinking of a Nearly-Perfect Plan. It would have been the Perfect Plan had Aziraphale and that blasted woman not been so stubborn and stayed apart for so long. The days until the Antichrist’s birthday were slowly running out, and the time during which the angels could execute said plan was drawing thin. Thankfully, the two made up just in the nick of time, so it had worked out in the end.

The trio had made the trip to Crowley’s flat, knowing that they would find Aziraphale there. Aziraphale had been flustered, but his story about checking about in the demon’s abode appeared to check out. Michael refused to take their eyes off of him the entire time. After they miracled away, they appeared in an alleyway not far from the woman’s home, and on her usual route. Michael had decided, because Michael was a little bit of an ass at times, to make the mystery just a smudge more difficult by abducting the woman outside of the home BUT simultaneously leaving a single, white wing feather on the floor of her locked flat. It really was quite devious for such a pure-hearted creature. Hmm.

The kidnapping went swimmingly. Uriel snuck up behind the woman, Sandalphon had thrown the bag over her head, and once everything was settled (or as settled as can be with a kicking and struggling woman in tow), Michael miracle them into a top-secret location. I’m afraid that I, as the author, am not at liberty to disclose the location of the following events, because of course I’d have to kill you afterwards, and I’d rather not do that.

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Angels do not have dreams. Angels cause dreams in other people, they take away dreams from other people, and they may, upon occasion, serve as conduits for messages from the Almighty, which often appear to other people as dreams. But Angels themselves do not dream. Except for Aziraphale, evidently, whose subconscious had decided to do away with the natural order of things to just…you know…spice it up a little. Aziraphale frowned deeply in his sleep and rolled over, sniffling.

He was in a corridor. There were no lights, only a faint glow that seemed to come from nowhere at all. There was one door, ahead of him, but the rest of the corridor was bare, empty grey concrete. He began to move towards the door, but the corridor seemed to get longer the closer he got, until he was nearly running, trying to make some progress down the hall but never moving one inch.

The scene changed, the corridor erupting into grey and black smoke that smelt faintly of saltwater taffy. The scene reconstructed itself as a square room lit with an old-fashioned lightbulb swinging slowly back and forth from the ceiling. There was a figure shivering on a metal chair in the center of the room, hands tied behind their back and a sack over their head. Aziraphale heard whimpering from the figure and made to rush over to help them but he found that his feet were rooted to the ground, as though someone had glued them straight to the floor. Aziraphale looked up from his shoes and gasped.

Surrounding the figure were Michael, Uriel, and Sandalphon. Michael stood directly in front of the figure, bending over slightly. Sandalphon stood directly behind the figure, fingers grasping at the sack. Uriel stood apart from them both, in the corner opposite to Aziraphale. Michael made a motion at Sandalphon and it yanked the sack off of the person’s head to reveal—

Y/N. Eyes red from crying, hair a mess, makeup smudged and beyond repair. Aziraphale felt his heart stop beating. What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of joke? A voice, nagging at the edge of his consciousness told him that no, it was not a joke. Aziraphale struggled against whatever was holding his feet down with renewed vigor. He stopped when he heard your voice, hoarse and trembling. It broke him to hear you like that.

“W-who are you? What do you w-want from me?” You coughed, and Aziraphale felt a miracle dance along the tip of his fingers. He would make you well again, he would heal whatever has happened to you. You continued. “I have m-money if that’s it! It’s n-not m-m-much but—”

“Silly girl, we don’t want your money.” Came Sandalphon’s voice.

“Mmm, that’s right.” Michael responded. They leaned in closer to you, and you sank deeper into the chair to escape them. “What we want is information.”

“Wh-What? What information? I don’t- “

“What do you know of the Angel Aziraphale?” Azriaphale’s blood went cold. He had been so close to telling you himself! After all of the Armageddon mess was straightened out, he had promised himself, he would march right up to you and tell you the truth. But not now! Not when he couldn’t be there to explain, when you were hurting, being hurt, tied up like some criminal. A noise horribly like a snarl erupted from Aziraphale’s throat, startling him. Was he truly invisible in this room? After a couple of seconds of pure terror, Aziraphale’s pulse began to slow and he realized that this was most likely a vision dream, a message from someone showing him something that was either already happening, or about to happen. He prayed to anyone who would listen that it was neither of those two options.

“I swear I don’t know!” The sound of your terrified voice brought him back. Sandalphon laughed its ugly laugh and Michael chuckled.

“Should we really be doing this, Michael?” Uriel inquired softly from her spot in the corner. Aziraphale was sure he was just projecting his terror onto her, but he thought he could almost see a hint of concern in her deep black eyes. Michael just shook their head.

“It’s not as though she’ll have very long to remember it, will she?” At this, your body seized in horror, eyes open wide in shock. Fresh tears were streaming down your cheeks. Aziraphale wanted to burn this room to the ground.

“Are…are you going to kill me?” you whispered through your crying. Aziraphale held his breath to listen for the answer:

“Oh, dear me, of course not. Do you know how much paperwork that would be? Oh no. Definitely not killing you. As long as you give us the information we need.” Came Michael’s reply.

Aziraphale felt that old rage bubble up inside him, and his sword hand itched, as though the missing sword were a missing limb instead. He took a deep breath and clenched his hands into fists. He would not debase himself in such an appalling manner. He had grown since those days, and he would not be brought to his knees by a dream.

“I told you, I don’t know anything!” you pleaded desperately. The room was beginning to fade away, smoke swirling at the edges, illuminated by the swinging bulb. Aziraphale cried out, reaching out for you only to be met with empty air.

“Oh, we’ll see about that, now, won’t we?”

The last thing Aziraphale heard before waking was the sound of Michael’s laughter.

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[yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy]

Why So Jaded? Chapter 2

And here we go, part 2. In case you missed it. Part 1 AO3 FFN 

Chapter 2

A decade can be a long time.

That much time can change a person, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse and sometimes it just makes you grow up, mature you and give you perspective.

A decade ago, Bartholomew Maximillian Pine aka Buddy Pine- had built an empire fueled by his hatred and resentment for Supers and more importantly Mr. Incredible. He had become successful, powerful, on a scale beyond imagination. His creations helped topple governments, weaponize vast armies and made him more money then he could ever hope to spend in a thousand lifetimes. And with Mirage by his side, he had it all at the relatively young age age of 21.

A decade ago, Violet Parr was coming to terms with her powers, was coming into her own and finding her footing in life. She was learning to bear the load that all Supers carry.

But a decade can be a long time.

In a decade, you can see the empire you built be turned against you in a flash before it's dismantled into pieces that can never be put back together again and the people who you thought you could trust turn on you then leave you and realize their own agendas before you found yourself trying to start over and rebuild with some of the pieces you had managed to scrape together. No small feat and one made harder by extensive injuries, in not just a physical sense, but a mental and emotional and physiological sense as you attempt to rebuild yourself just as much as you rebuild your empire. Letting go of old grudges and hate in an effort to accept change and the present in order to have a future. And that is where Buddy Pine had currently found himself.

And a decade can be a long time.

In a decade you can see things that make you question yourself, your morals, your loyalties, your career and sense of right and wrong. Make you resent the burden placed on you by your parents, by your siblings and peers, your superiors, by everyone around you, and worse, make you resent the very ones who put that burden there. You got to see first hand how the world was rarely black and white and everything was a shade of gray and how even when you want to do the right thing and try to do the right thing, no good deed goes unpunished. You're struck and reminded over and over again by how profoundly fickle it all was. And how you can rise to popularity one moment and fall the next, like the waves of the sea, rising and falling and rising again as cycles began anew and how even the most altruistic super has their price. And more importantly, what yours was. You learned who your true friends were, as well as your enemies. And most importantly that the only one you could truly count on was yourself when you get pushed past your breaking point several times over and who you needed to pull you back from the edge over and over again. You become jaded and disillusioned yet worldly and discerning from your experiences and recognize patterns and cycles remarkably well. When you see enough shit go down and get covered up and how when people are wealthy and powerful enough, or hell, even talented, famous or important enough they can get away with literal murder if not atrocities that would make God himself shudder. You learn that justice was a joke but vengeance was attainable if not valid and very understandable, if not sympathetically so. Which can sadly- make you even more valuable and sought after and you become the best at what you do, even when you had no intention of being so. Until you realized you didn't have to play by anyone's rules except your own, in fact, you didn't have to play their little game at all and sometimes the smartest thing was to walk away when you had had enough and your sense of self preservation was the biggest instinct you cultivated in yourself and was sometimes the only thing that kept you alive.

That's where Violet found herself now. Not necessarily at a crossroads, but simply a spot on a map. She had been pulled back into this Super world a little over a year ago but it was supposed to be her last job. It was supposed to be an easy one, a babysitter post for a genius, billionaire playboy that had taken Buddy's place in the weaponized technology field. Only the big difference was Buddy did this all on his own, while her current employer had bought some of the pieces of Buddy's empire and was very much at the powers that be- beckon call and he was a master at catering to all of them so that he had no governmental resistance or interference world wide. So that the only ones in his way was his competition in his various markets from technology, science, medicine and most lucratively- weapons and while his ego was huge, it wasn't as haughty as Buddy's had been and if Violet had placed a bet, she would say he was a low grade Super himself, only his power was the charm and disarm anyone and gain their trust and help them feel safe so they turned vulnerable and honest and even she was not completely immune to him and his powers. It's how he learned who her true identity was and was able to get to know the real her as well as he did, or more importantly, as well as he thought he did. But for every take, there is a give because she in turn, got to learn more about him than anyone else did and thus, bred their closeness that they both got to enjoy and Phillip had sworn on his life and the lives of his family, that he would never betray her as long as she never betrayed him.

Phillip Edward Sebastian the Fifth was a European Aristobrat who had turned his family's modest fortune but grand history to his absolute advantage and with smart investing and playing the stock market, he had used that modest fortune to turn it into unimaginable wealth and power and was now on the cutting edge of all things weapons, electronics, medicine and far beyond and he had asked for Violet in particular because of her history with espionage, corporate and otherwise and the like. He was willing to pay her 15 times more for her services as his handler than he had offered anyone else and in just the short year she had been working with him, she had risen through the ranks, and was now not just as his right hand woman and personal assistant and she was a one woman security detail who he trusted with his life, his privacy, his confidence and confidentiality because of her skillset and ability. And once her own bank accounts swelled to the point that she used her former mentor's own financial staff to make sure that even in the worst case scenarios, her safety nets had safety nets and she had back up plans for her back up plans and contingency plans for her contingency plans several layers deep and learned to buy stocks in what he bought and sold what he sold on her own since he never hid that information from her and through that alone, she was one of the more independently wealthy Superheroes and she ensured that not just herself but her family would be safe and taken care of, which, in the grand scheme of things, was all she ever wanted and cared about. So she was happy and content, for now. That's why Violet could easily retire after this job. Plus she still collected her super hero paycheck. She wasn't the only one getting two paychecks for the same work, if not multiple checks.

And Phillip had always been the ideal employer, sure he had his own trust issues and paranoia, not to mention, his own daredevil antics and recklessness. But he respected her boundaries because she respected his and their relationship worked as beautifully and seamlessly as it did because they respected each other and Phillip treated her better than he treated everyone else because he knew that Violet, ultimately- didn't want or need him or his money or power and didn't ask too many questions because she didn't need to know the answers and kept her personal life very separated from her work life and didn't judge and kept her opinions to herself as closely as she kept her head and her wits. Which were all things he respected, admired and even adored and their relationship even blossomed enough to include certain "benefits" and Violet was the only one who could use Phillip as her personal fuck toy without the hassle and mess of a committed, monogamous romantic relationship and that kind of emotional entanglements even though Phillip still held out hope that at the end of her "servitude" she would stay with him because he had grown to rely so much on her and it would take a team of a hundred people to do what she did for him and do it as flawlessly as she did.

Before this job, Violet had disappeared in the far east- Hong Kong specifically, with a large city of over seven million, it was easy to disappear into but easy enough to spot agents from a mile away. She figured her superiors spent at least a million dollars trying to find her and once they did, they made her an offer she couldn't refuse and found, and named, and gave- her price, as their most highly sought after and paid agent. She was 24 now and would retire in just two more years at the age of 26 into a very comfortable life as a multimillionaire. But even she had to admit, the urge to do Super work had been getting to her while she had disappeared before The Agency had tracked her down since she had been 'in the wind' for over a year after a particularly brutal assignment gone to shit. But saving people and being a hero, even an invisible one, was an itch that most Supers, even when under ban, was impossible not to scratch. Her father was living proof of that. But she had learned from her parent's mistakes. She had learned to be careful. But being careful and playing it safe, while inherently easy for her, was getting mundane. She had taken up a few hobbies, learned a few languages along with some invaluable skills so that she could, in theory, go anywhere and support herself and blend in with any crowd and she was lucky that while she was in Phillip’s employment, she could still do a few hero jobs of her choice on the side and Phillip’s technology had made those jobs a breeze. But she was smart enough to not become dependent on any of the technology provided to her, either by The Agency or Phillip.

Invisigirl tapped on a screen as she flew her secret spy plane back to Spain to contact her employer, Mr. Phillip Sebastian.

"Do you have a report Vi?" Phillip asked.

"Yes, Mr. Pine himself has taken the nanochip, just like you predicted and is on multiple cameras doing so, he took both baits so I'm now en-route to you." Violet answered as she took off her mask and tied her hair up, revealing flawless makeup under the mask as her lipstick changed from an ultra violet to match her suit to a soft dusty rose on her pouty lips.

"What are the chances that he will follow?" Phillip furthered.

"At this point, medium to high." Violet estimated with a shrug as the plane achieved the proper altitude for a transatlantic flight.

"Excellent. Well we have him dead to rights, so he's as good as ours anyway." Phillip grinned victoriously as he rewatched the feed.

"So hopefully that objective can be fulfilled sooner than later," Violet assumed.

"We will talk about that when you get back, see you in a few hours." He placated.

"Understood," Violet said as she closed the channel since the plane was on auto pilot. She wanted to get changed into civilian attire and hopefully get a chance to relax and possibly take a nap before she would have to play babysitter again as she popped a few pills of very high level painkillers that would make Oxycodone look like children's Tylenol.

Meanwhile Buddy had made his escape and had arrived back at his compound, a different island this time since the 'authorities' literally blew up the last one. But while Buddy was getting a bit desperate, he wasn't stupid. He installed the nanochip into an ordinary laptop that wasn't connected in any way to the internet in case there was some kind of signal embedded. Fifteen seconds later he found himself staring at a melting piece of trash on fire before he put the fire out.

"And that's why we don't just hook things up into the system." He muttered aloud as he retrieved the other nano chip, the one that was on the left, he had taken both, just in case she was leading him astray. He picked up the dead computer with thick work gloves and simply dumped it into the trash and retrieved another, turning it on and repeating the process. This time, it worked perfectly.

"Well, it appears you didn't steer me wrong, this time," he mused as he retrieved the nanochip and put it into his system. Since the 'incident' aka him almost being completely shredded by a jet engine, his ability to create new technology had been hindered greatly. But he could reverse engineer anything and make it better, and that was his intention now. Once he had all the specs down it would be difficult to put the nanochip back along with another dummy one but not impossible.

Except when he came back a week later, it was a trap. The moment he opened that safe, there were more guards on him than he could count coming almost out of nowhere. He was immediately detained in a holding cell in the basement of the building and stripped of all his gear but thankfully they still let him keep his original clothes on.

Buddy wondered who would be coming, would it be the local police? The FBI? The CIA? He ended up waiting a few days when Phillip Sebastian came in himself.

"Good morning Mr. Bartholomew Maximillian Pine, I understand that you like to go by "Buddy" less formal." Phillip greeted formally with a smug smirk on his handsome face.

"Good morning Mr. Sebastian," Buddy mirrored warily as he looked down to see the hairs on his arm raise as if the static electricity in the room was getting charged as he wondered if Invisigirl was with Phillip, in fact he would bet on it as he glanced at the space around Phillip to see if he could see any distortions and he couldn't see any but he could sense her the way he could sense Mirage in the past, the way she had taught him to anyway, and realized Invisigirl was so close to him, he could reach out and touch her if he tried but he got the sense she had an invisible weapon targeted at his head and knew that if he attempted to, he'd be dead by the time he made contact with her. His heart still stung at Mirage's betrayal which had hurt him the worst and when he was seen how she married some other billionaire playboy, it had dumped his ass into one of the worst depressions of his life and almost completely broke him, but the lessons she taught him were invaluable and he was finding himself grateful for them right in this moment.

"Mr. Pine, you are either really smart or really stupid, you had the nanochip, why didn't you just keep it? Why risk putting it back?" Phillip inquired curiously.

"I need a lawyer," Buddy answered firmly.

"Why? You're not under arrest. The authorities haven't been called, however if you don't cooperate with me I will be forced to contact them but for now, let's leave them out of this." Phillip said dismissively.

"What do you want?" Buddy asked wearily.

"I want you to work for me, not against me." Philip answered simply.

"I refuse to work for anyone but myself." Buddy defied.

"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider? You would have your own lab and assistants and an unlimited budget, you could set your own hours and have some say so in your own salary and have access to all the compounds and technology you could ever dream of." Phillip proposed. "You would even earn a high percentage of all sales of whatever you create in collaboration with SEB Enterprises, you'll even get press for IRize and all your other little corporations, shells or no and more opportunities for your collaboration with me and my company and all of my associates and other collaborators, of which we share a surprising amount of them." Phillip generously offered.

"So what's the catch?" Buddy asked with a subtle tilt of his head in Invisigirl's direction and just barely registered the feel of his hair brush up against something. She was right next to him and his gut feeling told him she had a weapon was pointed at his head as he felt her withdraw just a little to keep from getting too close.

"You will have to work for me for a minimum of 3 years. You will stay on campus at all times unless accompanied by a security detail and you will be monitored at all times in all things." Phillip informed him solemnly. "So it's either this or some high security super prison for 20-life. Because the evidence against you is pretty damning." Phillip specified.

"Can you give me some time to think it over?" Buddy inquired.

"Of course, take all the time you need, simply knock on the door when you've made a decision." Phillip replied as he got up and left the room as Buddy watched the hairs on his forearms lay back down before another meal was delivered to him, this time it was breakfast. At least Phillip knew how to treat a guest. Even a detained one, because Buddy wasn't in shackles and was being fed decent food at least and his little one room cell, while bare, was surprisingly comfortable.

Three hours later Buddy knocked on the door and a few minutes later Phillip came in, ready to hear his answer.

"I'll do it, however I have a few conditions of my own." Buddy started and was pleased to see Phillip nod.

"I want everything in writing, I want my criminal activity erased." Buddy began.

"Of course, my lawyers are writing our contract up as we speak and any and all evidence against you and IRise will be destroyed and dissolved within the hour. Anything else?" Phillip reassured him.

"I will only work for you for two years, no more," Buddy specified.

"Five years then because you want to negotiate the time frame. Or that 20-life in a super max prison." Phillip countered.

"Ok fine, three years it is." Buddy huffed.

"Agreed." Phillip said as he held out his hand for a handshake. Buddy took it and shook firmly as he could have sworn he heard a huff nearby. The two left the room and walked to an elevator where a secretary was waiting for them. Her hair up in a bun and her gray business jacket accentuated her tulip skirt with patterned hose and killer heels along with a pair of glasses that helped her see things most eyes could not as she used her stylus like a pen.

"Everything is ready Mr. Sebastian, the notary is already in conference room 12A." She informed him as she continued to work on an electronic pad diligently.

"Excellent, thank you Ms. Parr," Phillip replied in thanks before turning to Buddy. "Mr. Pine, I believe you already know my colleague and associate Miss Violet Parr." Phillip gestured before getting on the elevator that opened once they approached.

Buddy had to do a double take, he hadn't recognized her, she was standing right in front of him and she might as well have been invisible at first. However, now that he really looked at her and took notice, she was stunning. Like just...knock out gorgeous, should have been a model herself kind of beautiful. Even she could effortlessly rock the sexy assistant look but now that he saw her, he couldn't quite make himself look away. She was gorgeous even with glasses and just as breathtaking out of her suit as she had been in it and most likely, just as lethal. And just like that, those butterflies were back in his stomach, fluttering away.

"Yes, we are already too well acquainted," Violet answered as she stepped on the elevator herself, standing on one side of Phillip, using him like a shield between her and Buddy as she continued to work on her tablet and actively ignored him.

"Well I don't know about that," Buddy answered with a smirk before he could feel static electricity instantly build within the elevator as the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rose again. Ha, he got her tell.

"Easy," Phillip warned Violet, his tone surprisingly gentle. Violet exhaled in a huff and Buddy felt static electricity lull, the rest of the ride was in silence, the only sound, their breathing and the dinging of the elevator. Buddy noticed her breathing was noticeably huffy and almost labored while Phillip's was calm and even until they reached the twelfth floor before Violet was the first to cross the threshold before the doors fully opened, walking quickly while Phillip walked in tandem with Buddy as Phillip subtly studied Buddy's reactions to Violet.

Violet led the way to the conference room, she tapped her ID card against a reader and the door opened, revealing a notary and three lawyers, one of them being Buddy’s. All sitting at the table in the middle of the room with stacks of paperwork around them as Buddy was allowed to have some private council with his own lawyer who basically confirmed that it was either this or super max prison before they sat down to negotiate more terms of the contract.

Buddy wasn't an idiot, he read each and every single line on those contracts before signing them.

And it took four hours, a bottle of scotch, lunch and a whole variety of snack and dessert trays.

Violet looked like she wanted to die of boredom despite playing a game on her tablet for most of it and couldn't get out of there fast enough when it was all over, signed and notarized by everyone. Another assistant came to escort Buddy to his new 'apartment' which had already been filled with his things that were taken from his new compound while Phillip and Violet retreated to Phillips office.

"Well I am so glad that didn't take too long," Violet drawled sarcastically as she crashed on the comfy couch in his office after kicking her heels off. Phillip chuckled as he tossed her a bottle of water from his mini fridge in his desk and smiled when she caught it with ease.

"He's still smart, he wanted to make sure I wasn't taking him for a complete fool," Phillip countered as he took a long pull from his own water bottle as he idly watched her stretch and relax as she reclined on his couch in a very unladylike pose, with her feet up on the arm of the couch. But he loved the fact that she felt so comfortable around him and could just be herself rather than the super secret agent she felt she had to play with him. She could just be when she was alone with him and he liked it that way. No pretenses or anything like that.

"Do you think he'll honor the contract? Or do you think he'll run the first chance he gets?" Violet inquired.

"Oh I think as long as you're around, he'll stay right here. He looked at you at least a dozen times an hour, every move you made, he tried to catch." Phillip began as he glanced at Violet who had rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Speaking of which, I have a new assignment for you, I want you to be the liaison between him and I until the end of your contract." Phillip proposed.

"Hell no," Violet immediately spat as she gave him a dirty glare.

"Oh come on, all that means is you see him once a day for only a few minutes all the days we're stateside. Make sure he has everything he needs to keep him focused and relay messages back and forth," Phillip specified.

"That's what email is for." Violet retorted.

"But email is so impersonal," Phillip playfully argued in a mock complaint.

"That's exactly it, I don't want to have to deal with him any more than I absolutely have to. He did try to kill me as a child. What kind of monster purposefully kills kids? I'll tell you. Him. He's that monster. He tried to kill me, my family and kidnap Jack..," She began to go into a seething rant.

"And take over the world, yeah I know, I was there- but, that was a lifetime ago, clearly everyone involved has changed. I mean you saw him, the man is just one failed attempt away from completely imploding. And the fact that he was desperate enough to steal from me himself says a lot." He reminded her, keeping her from going into her full blown rant because he didn't want to rearrange his office...again.

"I still don't understand why he would stoop that low," Violet admitted as she thought that over again.

"I think he lost a spark ," Phillip conjectured. Violet raised a curious brow at his choice of words. "Writers and artists have muses, engineers have sparks." Phillip explained as he came over and sat on the couch with her before he nestled her head into his lap so she could look up at him.

"But if he's lost his spark, he's no good to you, it's been a decade, surely if he was going to get his 'spark ' back, don't you think he would have gotten it back by now?" Violet questioned.

"He's searching for it, pretty hard, I've been keeping him under surveillance for the last several years once he was recognized by my software. A man can only tinker so long." Phillip soothed as he began to pet her head to calm her down further.

"So he's either going to find it with you or die trying," Violet guessed.

"Exactly, besides, I know your past with him makes this especially hard and I am so proud of you for doing your best to put that aside and try to be professional and not kill him where he stands right now. But it's you who will have the last word in the matter. It's you who will get to decide if he lives or dies after his contract is up and inherit everything he has when we're done with him. Why do you think that contract included you as his heir apparent? Because once he dies, you and your family will get due recompense for everything he's done, he owes you and your family that much at least. You can put your big girl panties on and suck it up for two years. Then you get to spend that third year devising all the ways you want to torture him to death if you still want him dead after." Phillip soothed her as he started to pet her head, letting his own super ability lull her into a peaceful state, which worked extra strongly when he was able to touch her as she rolled over and faced him and took a deep, cleansing breath and mulled it over as she simply closed her eyes and soaked up this attention from him before she seemed to come to her own decision.

"You know, if I didn't know any better I would think you were an evil mastermind," Violet teased with a smug grin as she opened her eyes and tilted her head to look up at him.

"Hey now. Keep it to yourself, Edna hasn't finished my super villain suit yet," Phillip countered teasingly, causing Violet to glare at him, unimpressed by that dig. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Phillip placated with his hands up in defeat.

"You better be, ass," Violet grumbled.

"So will you take the job or not?" Phillip asked.

"You're going to have to up my salary again, make it worth my while." Violet insisted.

"I'll match his salary 200% as your bonus salary as long as both of you are in my employment- for the "suffering" of having to deal with him and be our liaison. And to really sweeten it, how about….oh, how about I give you a percentage of whatever he touches." Phillip offered.

"Twenty percent," Violet started.

"Ouch, no, I'm thinking 10 at the most," Phillip frowned.

"Fine, fifteen, same as Mr. Pine's percentage." Violet rebutted firmly.

"Deal," Phillip agreed. "And you start now," Phillip stipulated as he offered his hand for a shake and by now Violet knew that his handshake was as good as any contract, even one written in blood before he leaned down and kissed her sweetly.

"Fine," Violet caved before gave his gut a light playful punch that was barely a tap which made him recoil and hold his gut like she had really sucker punched him as his face scrunched up in pain which caused her to laugh which in turn made him beam a proud smile at her.

"And I want it in writing by the time I get back." Violet insisted.

"Of course," He nodded in agreement.

"And you still owe me dinner because lunch sucked." Violet reminded him as she slipped back into her heels before going down to a different lab and got the appropriate hardware for Buddy and made her way to Buddy's floor, using her key card to get to the floor, since his floor wasn’t shown on the elevator and she had to press two floors and press her keycard to the reader to get to it. She thought it was ridiculous that he would have more than a bed and a lab let alone an entire floor full of equipment and an apartment that rivaled most penthouses but Phillip wanted to give Buddy every opportunity to succeed by making sure he stayed comfortable.

She came into the lab to see him already at work. She knocked on a countertop to make her presence known so as not to startle him.

"How come you couldn't do that before?" Buddy asked wryly as he looked over at her as he was still putting things away in the lab section of the floor.

"Because you weren't supposed to know I was there. We have a few details we need to discus Mr. Pine." Violet began as she watched him pause and turn to face her to give her his complete attention before he started walking towards her and joined her at the island.

"First, you are never to address me as anything other than Ms. Parr and you will always conduct yourself in the utmost professional manner when dealing with me or any other employee, partner or associate of SEB Industries. I am your liaison to Mr. Sebastian himself so if there anything in particular that you need regarding your living and your work you can tell me. These are yours, your phone has been cloned into this before it was put to sleep, you can retrieve it once your contract is up." Violet stated as she held up the phone and the tablet before putting them down on the counter and sliding them towards him. "My number is under speed dial one and is only supposed to be used in emergencies and for vital business needs and inquires during reasonable business hours. And I swear to God if I get any flirtation from you or heaven forbid dick pics, I will personally cut your dick off and shove it down your throat and watch you choke on it before I throw your body into another jet engine turbine and feed your remains to the rats in the subway and then inherit everything you have and sell it off at auction to the highest bidder. Any information mining or manipulations by you will be met with the same treatment. Is that understood?" Violet specified as her gaze bored through him with a look that if it could kill, he would have been dead already.

"Yes Ma'am." Buddy nodded with a gulp.

"Now, while at SEB Industries we suggest little to no contact with the outside world other than of course the contact with various associates and colleagues to complete projects. However SEB does understand that there are certain 'needs' that only the outside world can satisfy." Violet explained as she cleared her throat and fought not to shudder and gag when she said 'needs'. "And those will be handled by the appropriate liaison which is not me. And that proper liaison is Leslie, she's on speed dial 2 who will also take care of anything outside of the normal business hours. Now, is there anything in particular you need or want at this time? Perhaps dinner?" She offered as she noticed the time.

"Dinner sounds great, as long as you will eat it with me," Buddy answered hopefully but she narrowed her eyes as he felt the static electricity build up again for a moment before she simply took a deep breath.

"Unfortunately I have prior engagements, but you do have access to a full kitchen in the apartment side of this floor that should be well stocked, and if it is lacking feel free to create a grocery list and I will have an assistant fulfill it. We also allow take out to be delivered although anything you receive will be subjected to inspection and scans. But there is a drawer next to your fridge full of menus of all the restaurants who deliver here or you could order something online. Do you understand the terms I have dictated?" She explained as explicitly as she could and as calmly and as professionally as she could because she had to swallow all the anger and rage she felt towards him down for now because it was her job. But if he dared cross the line, she had no qualms about ending him where he stood.

"Yes," Buddy confirmed with a nod.

"Do you have any questions?" Violet obligatorily asked.

"Are you free for dinner tomorrow?" Buddy asked before he saw her slip her metaphoric mask on more tightly.

"No. Good day Mr. Pine, good luck with your work," Violet coldly replied before turning and leaving her heels clicking in her wake.

Buddy smirked and went back to work. His own plan was working well.

[desdraws]

Comic update 01.01.2020

My goal for 2019 was to finish my comic prologue for David’s Gate and an Owl corps book, but I didn’t meet either of these goals.

First of all I just want to talk about comics for a little bit, particularly shounen.

The shounen genre of comics had always been my favourite genre for the wacky and fun premises it managed to get me invested in when I was new to manga. Despite the fun I’ve had reading the genre, as I’ve grown, it’s become harder and harder to suspend my disbelief for crazy powers and plots that seemingly pop up without rhyme or reason.

I began to find that the shounen I stayed very fond of were those with structured spiritual systems for superpowers (Hunter x Hunter [Nen], Magi [Rukh], and even Naruto [Chakra] come to mind). I also loved having something that would let me in a little bit on how the world I was getting invested in worked, like a set of rules I would be able to go back to if things got too complicated. I still had my cravings for cool and wacky fun, but I think my value for intention, research, and writing levelled up beyond some of the initial stories that got me into the genre.

This craving for cool ideas that touched on aspects of spirituality in a way that still made coherent sense within a large ecosystem is part of what drew me into writing and creating. It gave me a goal, to fill a gap I saw in my favourite genre, with themes, powers, stories, and characters I desired to explore, knowing that they could only be taken seriously if the crazy world they were made in allowed for it.

This brings me to back my own work.

For the past few years I had been developing a structure for the powers in my setting, and it was largely based on my interests in ancient mythologies, theology, cosmogony, psychology, and general engineering, but I had no way to visualise them under one umbrella for the sake of intuitive coherence. I studied a bunch, and last year I thought I had something I could build on, but as it turns out, theory and reality are two different things. My attempts at realising these Ideas (aesthetic dreams -> intelligible representation in this case) kept resulting in dissatisfaction, failure, and a great sense of self loathing. I just found myself drowning in a sea of chaotic ideas for the larger part of 2019, it made me unable to commit to anything, in fear that I might create something that fell into that category of unstructured shounen comics I couldn’t suspend disbelief for, and as a result, not fully enjoy.

I couldn’t afford to stop creating however, so I shifted my focus towards Owl Corps content. 

The Owl Corps play an important role in my setting, but at this time in my mind, it was largely a self indulgent distraction from the headache of trying to figure out the fundamental rules of my setting. Throughout the time I spent on Owl Corps content, I always called into question my purpose for this shift in focus from something so vital to my comics’ creation, but since I kept finding myself back here, I decided I had to make sure I put in my best efforts, even if at the time the Owl Corps shouldn’t have been my priority.

Don’t misunderstand, I love all my Owl Corps characters, and I don’t regret the time I spent working on them, as I still plan to going into 2020. I just wish I knew how to express what I was struggling with a lot better.

Thankfully for me, I had a bit of a breakthrough in my latest addition to the Owl Corps. 

5V-Eta and Grischa the Harriot.

I had a few goals in mind that lead to Grischas’ visual design. Yes of course my self indulgence wanted it to compliment 5Vs’ big bum, but my other aim was to build her a single seater on-road vehicle with hovering capabilities for fast off-road travel. It took me 3 months of studying, and numerous online videos/lectures on engineering and electricity to finally understand how I could practically (or believably) make it work. 

What I didn’t anticipate was for the studying I did on Grischa to turn the cogs in my brain, and give me the practical insight I was missing in my struggle to unify my settings’ cosmology. I could finally make sense of my scattered jigsaw puzzle of ideas, and it was all thanks to my devotion in creating a functional vehicle for 5Vs’ fat arse. Unbelievable. Embarrassing.

Maybe I sound a little crazy, who knows. I’ll just sum up my feelings and takeaways from recent developments. 

My visual output in 2019 has been quite dismal, hardly inspiring for the grant I won in 2018. The grant has been invaluable, especially for the time it has given me to be able to just sit down, study, and think. I have a much stronger grasp of everything I’m trying to make, and while my setting is a very ambitious one, I finally have the tools and knowledge to move flexibly and create intuitively within it without having to worry about breaking my own rules, because I found new understanding.

I guess the main costs throughout all this has been, a lot of time, lack of content, broken deadlines, and failed expectations. For these things I’m truly sorry, but I’m also happy about what I can create from here.

To those of you that reach out to me, or still secretly support me from the shadows, thank you so much. I hope you all had a good christmas, and I wish you a happy new year. My schedule is still a mess, but I’m a mixture of anxious and excited for 2020.

[lbibliophile-mcu]

Star Spangled Bingo 2020 masterpost

The @star-spangled-bingo​ for 2020 is complete! 

I was hoping to get a blackout, but a combination of being side-tracked by ATLA fandom and misreading the closing date made me just miss it - I’ll just have to ssav those ideas for the next round!. But I’m still impressed by the number of Cap fills I managed (although none Sam-centric this time).

Fill details and links are below the cut (all fills are gen/teen).

Sleeping Bucky Prompt: Rescue Mission Fill type: moodboard and drabble  Characters: Steve Rogers / Bucky Barnes  Tags: fairytale au, cryofreeze, amnesia  Summary: They say that true love’s kiss can break a curse. But love is too vast and complex an emotion to be encompassed by a single kiss.

Armed and Ready (Winter Soldier braid]  Prompt: Losing Control of Powers Fill type: fancraft and drabble Characters: Bucky Barnes Tags: tablet weaving, Bucky Barnes’ metal arm, Infinity War Summary: He looks at the open case; at the dark limb with its bright tracery. He should have known this was coming. He had known. 

Conduction Prompt: Cuddling Fill type: fanfic (970 words) Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Tags: touch-starved, Bucky Barnes needs a hug Summary: Conduction n, the transfer of heat energy via contact. It is a small thing that makes him notice. A simple clap on the shoulder, emphasis for whatever point he is making. But when he moves to take his hand away, Bucky follows, just for a moment, prolonging the contact.

Wounds Unhealing Prompt: Home Alone Fill type: poem (440 words) Characters: Steve Rogers Tags: canonical character death, grief/mourning, Steve Rogers has PTSD, Endgame Summary:  They say time heals all wounds. But how can he heal when every memory tears away the slow-forming scab?

How Many Times? Prompt: “Where’s the fight?” Fill type: moodboard and poem (160 words) Characters: Steve Rogers Tags: grief/mourning, Steve Rogers has PTSD, Captain America as a role, suicidal ideation - potential interpretation Summary: When Steve agreed to become Captain America, he pledged his life in service to his country. And he gave his life, crashing a plane full of bombs into icy water. But then he wakes. He wakes, and they ask for Captain America once more. Again and again... He never thought about what it might mean that his contract had no end date.

Fri on the Wall Prompt: Friday Fill type: Drabble sequence (600 word) Characters:  Friday, Bucky Barnes / Tony Stark Tags: mutual pining, supportive Friday, 5+1 things, dialogue-only Summary: Friday watches her idiot, pining boys. Or, five times Friday tried to support their relationship, and one time she decided to take more drastic measures.

Ice Bound - pt 1 Prompt: Soulmate AU Fill type: fanfic (620 words) Characters:  Steve Rogers / Bucky Barnes Tags: assumed character death, soulmate AU, cryofreeze, CA:TFA Summary: Steve and Bucky are Bonded. From the day they first meet they are inseparable – best friends and brothers – hardly a day goes past without the other’s company. People say they are lucky, finding each other so young, so close, never having to search and wonder; they say that it is a sign of the strength of their bond. They will need that strength

Workout Prompt: “I need a new set of lungs” Fill type: moodboard Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Tags: animal AU, dog!Steve Rogers and dog!Bucky Barnes, human!Tony Stark Summary: If there were such a thing as supersoldiers in dog form, Bucky and Steve would be it. Tony loves them, but their energy will be the death of him someday.  

Trauma Bingo Prompt: PTSD Fill type: fanfic (1120 words) Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Avengers Team Tags: PTSD, therapy, crack, many traumatic topics touched on briefly and non-graphically - full list in AO3 tags Summary:  SHIELD remembers that trauma therapy exists, and their sights are set on the Avengers. Aka. How many issues can you fit in one team, and can you also get them all in the same person. Succeeding at trauma bingo is not actually winning…

Decorating Bucky’s Arm Prompt: Avengers Tower Fill type: moodboard/graphic Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Avengers Team Tags: Bucky Barnes’ metal arm, Avengers family, joke gifts Summary: “I’m noticing a trend with these gifts…”

Captain America braid Prompt: Free Space Fill type: fancraft Characters:  na Tags: tablet weaving, Captain America’s shield Summary: na

Visions of Xmas Past, Present, Future Prompt: Time Travel Fill type: moodboard and drabble Characters:  Bucky Barnes / Sam Wilson Tags: A Christmas Carol remix, blood, future relationship Summary: Christmas Eve in his shity little apartment in in Bucharest, a recovering Bucky Barnes is granted a gift: a reminder of how far he has come, and how much more he still has to gain.

Subject SS2 Prompt: Crying Themself to Sleep Fill type: fanfic (540 words) Characters: Steve Rogers Tags: Hydra, imprisonment, implied torture, implied medical experimentation, supersoldier serum, hurt no comfort Summary: Hydra has finally managed to achieve something they have been dreaming of since WWII: the capture of Captain America. But what to do with him? The science division calls dibs. After all, there's only so much you can learn from a historical sample size of one.

Cleaning up the Evidence Prompt: Giving the Kids a Bath Fill type: moodboard and drabble Characters:  Bucky Barnes / Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Tags: deaged!Steve Rogers, fluff, dialogue-only Summary: Tony discovers the unexpected pitfalls of an artistic toddler

Hunters and Haunted Prompt: Chance Encounter Fill type: moodboard (and pre-published drabble) Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanoff Tags: nightmares, blood, guns Summary: Not all monsters can be fought with guns and steel. But a friend to guard your back is always invaluable.

Preventative Measures Prompt: Losing a sense Fill type: moodboard/graphic Characters:  Bucky Barnes Tags: self-mutilation, ear trauma, blood, Winter Soldier trigger words, CA:CW Summary:  ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones...’ but words turn me into a mindless killing machine. So Bucky takes matters into his own hands.

Heat-sensitive SHIELDRA Mug - Buy Now! Prompt: Mistaken Identity Fill type: graphic Characters:  na Tags: Hydra, crack, merchandise Summary: Do you want to show off your loyalty to your organisation? Frustrated that undercover operation cramps your style? Worry no more!

BUCK-E’s Problem Prompt: No-One Believes Them Fill type: fanart and drabble Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Tags: DUM-E’s Drawings, Bucky Barnes’ metal arm, cats, mechanical repairs Summary: Hanging out in TON-E’s workshop, DUM-E collects the best stories. BUCK-E is not amused.

A Dead Man’s Face Prompt: “I thought you were smaller.” Fill type: fanfic (530 words) Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Tags: Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, partial amnesia, brainwashing, CA:TWS Summary: The Winter Soldier knows that he was once called Bucky Barnes, and had a childhood friend called Steve Rogers. The Winter Soldier knows that Captain America is his enemy and the enemy of everything Hydra stands for. The Winter Soldier now knows that Captain America is the type of man - monster - who would use the face of Bucky’s dead friend as a weapon against him. But he will not falter; he has a mission.

Collage Prompt: Mental Illness Fill type: fanfic (400 words) Characters:  Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Tags: PTSD, therapy, self-identity, Steve Rogers has issues, Bucky Barnes has issues but is dealing with them Summary: “You really think you don’t have anything you need to talk about? Because my therapist doesn’t just help with the Winter Soldier shit, y’know. I’m learning how to be a person again, and that means dealing with everything that makes me who I am. “In your case, there’s Captain-America-who-fights-aliens, Captain-Rogers-who-fights-Nazis, Steve-from-the-40s-who-fights-bullies, and Stevie-who-became-a-big-buff-supersoldier-to-hopefully-win-some-of-said-fights. And that’s just the obvious. No wonder you’re a mess.”

[scribbles97]

Left Behind - Chapter 34

PART 1 / PART 2

Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24 / Chapter 25 / Chapter 26 / Chapter 27 / Chapter 28 / Chapter 29/ Chapter 30 / Chapter 31 / Chapter 32 / Chapter 33

Read on on AO3

The week training was worth it, even if Alan had moaned every evening that he hadn’t been involved. The simulators were something for the youngest, but clearly not enough to keep him entirely pacified. Scott couldn’t blame him, but it was enough having the safety of three of his younger brothers on his mind without adding that of the youngest. 

It was bad enough that Gordon was still technically a trainee. 

Plus John and Ridley were on Five full time. 

But that was why the training had been worth it. It had given them the time to figure out how they all worked together and how they could better manage their rescues.

John had been invaluable that morning at the uranium mine. Without his input Scott never would have known of the incoming weather system that would have spread the fall out. Not that he’d admit it, but it was kind of handy to have the reminder about his suit integrity too. 

Virgil on the other hand had been less than impressed with how he had charged ahead and dealt with the incident. There had been a few choice words on their way home and Virgil had insisted on supervising the decontamination of both Scott and his ship.

He could see Virgil’s point, he had acted irrationally. Scott had put it down to itchy feet and the need to do something other than business paperwork and sit and worry about Mom. 

What were his family trying to do to him? He wondered to himself as he paused on the trail, appreciating the cool sea breeze to blow away his sweat from the steep incline. 

Eli had reported that Mom was improving, her brain activity was increasing and the occasional flicker of her eyes or twitch of her hand seemed promising. The wounds were well on their way to healing now, only the burns on her arms needing the specialist bandages for a little longer. 

Grandma had insisted though, Mom wouldn’t wake up and be back to normal straight away. She would no doubt need time, professional therapy and all the support her family could give her whilst she recovered. 

Leaning on the nearest tree, he took a slow breath, things would get better soon. They’d find an even keel before long and…

His thought was cut off as he doubled over, his stomach cramping and clenching as acid burned his throat. 

“Shit.” He whispered to himself, wiping the bile from around his mouth and knowing better than to hope it was simple coincidence. 

Virgil had been right to give him hell once they got home. Radiation wasn’t something to mess around with. 

“Hey John, you there?” He asked, pressing a finger to the bud in his ear. 

“John’s in the shower,” Ridley answered, “But I can help.”

His stomach was empty but somehow that was worse, he could feel it churning as he moved. With each step the acid threatened again, but he couldn’t stop, he had to get back to the house. 

“Scott?” Ridley prompted, “Talk to me.”

Catching himself on a tree he doubled forward again, heaving as his stomach protested its emptiness. 

Ridley uttered something under her breath, her voice little more than a buzzing in his ear that wasn’t helping the building headache across his brow. His wrists and neck hurt, like they were burning from being in the sun too long. He was in the shade though, and he was sure it hadn’t been that warm out just a few minutes ago. 

“Scott?” Virgil’s deep baritone was breathless. 

He looked up, swallowing against the foul taste in his mouth as he shook his head, “I don’ feel so good.”

“You don’t look it either.” Virgil agreed, “What were you thinking going for a run after today?”

He had only wanted to clear his head, get away from the buzz of the house for a little bit and have some space for himself. 

An arm under his pulled him up, tugging at him to keep him upright and forcing him to walk down the incline he had run up. Keeping his eyes shut helped, the movement too much for his stomach and brain to deal with in that moment. 

Then there was a bed, not his bed though. It wasn’t comfortable enough for that. Someone was pulling his t-shirt off, talking urgently, demanding stats and readouts. Something crackled and beeped over him, less urgent words and a gentle tap on his cheek that made his whole head ring. 

“Scott?” Virgil again, “Come on, talk to me. Did you hit your head today?”

He groaned as something tapped his cheek again, attempting to swat it away he was met by something holding his arm down. 

“Come on Scotty,” It was Grandma that time, voice tight, demanding, “Tell us what happened.”

“Ugh,” He moaned, arm waving at them, “Yeah, mm I think, anyway.”

Virgil sighed, “Concussion?”

“And mild radiation sickness.” Grandma agreed from somewhere above him, “You wanna place the IV line?”

Virgil snorted, “A chance to stab him on purpose, yes please.”

From the sounds of it he could guess things weren’t as bad as he had first feared. If Grandma and Virgil were up for joking, he could cope with that, it was a good sign. Just, maybe not so good for him. 

“What happened?” He muttered.

His neck and wrists were still burning, hot despite the coolness in the room. He forced his eyes to open, wincing against the brightness of the infirmary, everything a bright, clinical, white that stung his eyes. 

“You thought you’d got lucky with the radiation,” Grandma told him from where she was stood on one side of the bed, “But you didn’t consider the concussion you apparently have.”

If his stomach hadn’t have been rolling, he would have perhaps nodded at her statement. Instead he winced as something sharp poked the back of his hand,

“Ow.”

“Call it your prize for today's idiocy.” Virgil sniped, not looking up as he taped the line in place, “A night's stay down here on fluids and anti sickness drugs.”

There were worse places to be. At least the infirmary was home, and at least it meant he was near to Mom. 

“Sorry.” He sighed, leaning back into the mattress, “I didn’t… it wasn’t… she jarred my rope and I lost my grip.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, finally looking up to Scott, “The Van Arkle woman? I thought you were joking about her trying to kill you.”

He wished he could have confirmed it, laughed it all off as some joke that didn’t matter. His head hurt though and he wasn’t sure he was going to manage anything to eat ever again. What he had said was true and was fact, he had fallen when his rope had jarred, and he knew there was only one reason that might have happened. 

“I think I’m gonna be sick again.” He mumbled, grateful for the bowl that was shoved into his hands just in the nick of time. 

Grandma was slightly more sympathetic, at least rubbing his back as he heaved, something he remembered Mom doing plenty of times over the years. 

“It looks like you’ve got burns coming up where there’s joins in your suit,” She commented, “I’ve got some cream somewhere that’ll help it.”

Leaning back again he sighed softly, everything drained from him as he swallowed, “Thanks.”

She shook her head at him, brushing his hair back with a tight smile, “You need rest Scott.”

For once in his life, he didn’t have the strength to argue it. No matter how much he wanted to be out there, trying to do his bit in saving the world, his energy was spent. There was nothing left to argue with. 

“Virg,” He mumbled, trying his hardest to keep his eyes open, “”m sorry.”

His brother looked back from where he was stood, a bottle of something in his hand as he nodded, “I know Scott. You didn’t mean it.”

He hadn’t, and didn’t. If he was stuck in the infirmary how was he meant to keep his brothers out of trouble? How could he keep them safe if he couldn’t even keep himself safe?

His brain was too heavy to think and find answers to the questions, eyes too tired to stay open as he let himself give into the pull of sleep.

“Hey.” Virgil’s soft murmur drew him back from the edge of sleep.

“I came as soon as Gordon told me,” Kayo’s voice, equally soft, “Is he okay?”

“He will be.” Virgil replied, “For a minute we were thinking the worst. Grandma is sure it’s just a concussion though.”

It was rude to earwig, Mom had always told him off for it. Something made him want to keep listening though, he wasn’t sure why Kayo had been the first one down there, it didn’t make sense. 

“You going to come up?” She asked softly.

“Not tonight Kay,” Virgil sighed, “I promise I want to but--”

“I know.” She whispered, “It’s okay.”

None of it made sense and his brain was too tired to think about it as the emptiness of sleep wrapped its dark tendrils around his brain and dragged him under. 

[lyricalive]

A soul is an electric force, full of potential energy.

——Can we find souls in unlikely places, and set them into motion?

中���技術 〜 Electric Spirit Seance

#01  Lullaby of a Deserted Hell

From a bird's-eye view, the figures of two sprightly maidens would appear like dolls amidst the surrounding range of artificial mountains, a stunning silvery wasteland.

The taller of the two small-looking girls, Maribel Hearn (Merry) planted her hands on her hips as she surveyed the junk that encircled them in all directions.

   – "I can't believe you managed to convince me to go dumpster-diving.  Is this a step up or down from graverobbing?"

   – "We didn't rob anything from the graveyard.  I definitely want to find something worth taking from here, though."

   – "So this is a step down."

   – "Nah, it's fine.  These are all things that no one wants."

   – "Or things that no one wants to be seen.  Of course, that means…"

   – "It's the perfect place for the Secret Sealing Club!"

The club's current president, Renko Usami, pumped her fist with plenty of good cheer.  Merry smiled back, although she had mixed feelings about calling a land of literal garbage home.

   – "We can't just have normal dates, can we?"

Fortunately, at least, the garbage was not excessively odorous or grimy.  The site was a landfill specifically for electronic waste: frayed wires, boxy television frames, old phone models of all kinds.

The time was just around sunset -- more specifically 7:42 and 33 seconds, according to Renko's discerning eyes.  The mild starlight reflected off of broken LCD screens, making them appear ever so slightly less lifeless.

 #02  Rigid Paradise

   – "What exactly are we looking for...  Let me guess.  Hoping to find some retro videogames?"

   – "I won't lie.  That'd be great."

   – "But finding both a game and the console to go with it is going to be tough."

   – "Did you know, if a company manufactures more games than it can sell, they end up buried underground to get them out of circulation?"

   – "How wasteful.  At least they were given a proper funeral."

   – "The first time this happened was long ago in another country.  Thousands of unsold cartridges...  Just because they weren't popular at the time, now they'll never be played.  I'd love to give them a chance."

   – "Hee-hee, so much for a funeral.  I suppose we're not in the business of letting the dead rest in peace."

In this unique sort of graveyard, the bodies had been piling up for countless years.  Most of the material would never biodegrade, so the mounds kept accumulating, one layer buried under the next.  In fact, despite the oceans rising drastically over recent years, this dumping ground remained unusually high above sea level for the sole reason that its foundation was constantly being reinforced by layers of tightly packed waste.  

Renko, who had taken the precaution to wear pants and gloves on this excursion, knelt down to examine a mess of circuitry at the bottom of a looser heap.  Merry meanwhile nudged the tip of her shoe against the ground, pondering how deep down was the earth.

#03  Poison Body ~ Forsaken Doll

The girl in black and white impatiently murmured the time, for the fourth time that hour, before stretching her back and turning around to check on her partner.

   – "Find anything interesting yet, Merry?"

Merry, who had been spacing out for some while, quickly darted her eyes around for an improvised answer. A glint of light led her gaze to a long, flat cell phone teetering unceremoniously atop of a pile.

   – "This...  Haven't I seen this model in advertisements recently?  How did this already become trash?"

   – "Oh, you know.  Technology becomes out-of-date awfully quickly these days."

   – "Mm.  I'd like to see it as a sign of progress, but…"

   – "Yeah, it's not good at all.  We're in an age of quantity over quality."

Manufacturers who design their products to poor standards, so as to improve on them soon after, are akin to the type of trickster youkai that disguises itself in beggars' clothes to take advantage of others' low expectations.  In this selfishly self-deprecating society, it had become a disadvantage to show one's best.

   – "Everyone knows this, but thinking about it makes me so irritated."

   – "Right?  Humanity is really holding itself back."

   – "On top of that, don't they know that this is how vengeful tsukumogami are born?"

An object that has gone unused for 100 years is believed to develop a consciousness.  Some end up harmless -- but if its short life was spent being used as nothing more than throwaway capital, naturally it would make sense for it to become unhappy.

Merry laid one hand gently on the phone, as if in a gesture of sympathy.

   – "Hey, be careful not to touch more than you need to.  It may look clean, but the chemicals released by e-waste can still be toxic."

   – "Ah, right..."

She felt a bit sheepish for needing safety lessons from Renko, of all people.  But, having thought too hard about it, it became difficult for Merry to view the objects as just physical material.  A great majority of one's life was lived by virtual communication, so this material had great amounts of personal information stored in it.  Of course, the information's original source was in people's minds, so it's not as if it would be instantly forgotten once the plug was pulled.  But there were certainly more petabytes of raw data in a square meter of this dump than a human brain could hold.

#04  Electric Heritage

   – "Come to think of it, though, have you ever actually heard a story about an electronic object becoming a tsukumogami?"

   – "Well, no..."

   – "I have a theory about that.  I don't think e-waste is even capable of that transition."

   – "How do you figure?"

   – "Consider the crossover of electromagnetic fields and the detection of spirits.  Electricity is a simulation of life energy, almost too spot-on.  Like forces repel... so true life energy can't coexist with it.  Because they're flowing with this imitation power, I don't think electronics get a chance to develop real souls."

   – "I see.  Then, we can't properly call this a graveyard..."

   – "...if these bodies were never truly alive."

   – "I can't decide whether that makes me feel relieved, or lonely."

Merry let out an audible sigh against their eerily silent backdrop.  Then she braced herself to deliver the next news.

   – "But, if that's so... then why can I still feel something spiritual around here?"

Renko's eyes lit up instantly.

   – "Do you?  I was hoping you'd say that!"

   – "It just started... which is odd, since we haven't covered all that much ground since getting here.  It's as if a border connecting to somewhere else just opened."

   – "That supports the second part of the theory.  Like forces repel, but opposite forces attract.  They may not have souls themselves, but these empty vessels surely attract souls."

It felt fairly certain, now that both of their minds had helped confirm it:  Some spirit, human or non-human, seemed to have decided to take up residence in the wasteland.  Merry took a moment to feel proud of herself for her invaluable contribution.

   – "By the way, where do robots fit into your theory?"

   – "Well... I mean, there's no doubt we're getting closer every day to the A.I. revolution."

   – "Oh, my.  I knew I should have tipped our e-waiter last time we went to that café."

   – "But that's a completely different phenomenon than what births a tsukumogami, right?  It has to do with the software, not the hardware."

   – "Yes.  Though, it would seem to imply that there is a border of 'false' and 'true' life that can be crossed..."

  #05  Entrusting This World to Idols ~ Idolatrize World

   – "Now all we have to do is narrow it down, and we'll --"

As if on cue, Renko's thoughts were interrupted by a loud crashing sound from behind... music to her thrill-seeking ears.  She whirled around to catch the culprit, her eyes fixating on Merry and the dark-colored object that rested a few paces away at her feet.  The blonde girl threw her hands up in a display of innocence.

   – "I didn't do it.  It moved on its own!  I just saw it fall out of nowhere."

Renko's attempt at a professional retort failed to conceal her excited, twitching grin.

   – "Merry, Merry...  This is the most basic of physics.  An object can't move on its own!  Unless..."

They approached the rectangular object and peered over it.  It seemed to be a tablet PC, roughly twenty centimeters in length.  It had landed face up, luckily enough to not have not shattered the screen, though there was a significant surface crack down its center.

   – "Hm..."

   – "We've ruled out tsukumogami.  You think it could be... a poltergeist?"

   – "I don't know.  Rather than an outside force, the energy seems very contained in here."

   – "So then... a spirit living inside?"

   – "Something like that."

In response, the light of the screen flashed briefly on and back off.

   – "Ahh!  Electricity, a simulation of life energy..."

   – "It also works the other way around!"

This was a very lucky revelation for the two investigators, as it would have been nearly impossible to find a compatible charging cable.  In an age where each and every product was developed with its own unique cord design, this feature was marketed to consumers as a collectible game; the infinite variety, a controlled channel for creativity.

The device seemed to call out to them, understanding what they wanted.  The power flashed again, on and off and on, in a quirky rhythmical pattern that almost evoked a personality.

   – "We've definitely found something worth taking home!"

   – "Wait.  Isn't it wrong to remove a spirit from the place it's attached to?  We can't just adopt a ghost like an abandoned baby."

   – "Like you said, it's attached to the item, not the place. We're just fostering it for a bit before it moves on!"

   – "All right...  Just don't raise it to be wild like you."

   – "And you, Merry, make sure you don't spoil it!"

#06  Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World

The pair reached Renko's dorm with the haunted vessel tucked inconspicuously into their satchel, grateful that the spirit hadn't chosen to bind itself to a full desktop monitor or CPU instead.  The question moving forward would be how to unlock its secrets.

   – "How old do you think it is?"

   – "Because it wasn't buried under anything, it seems like we should assume it to be fairly new.  But it just feels so out of place."

   – "Actually, I meant the spirit."

   – "Oh."

Hand in hand with the phenomenon of planned obsolescence, the fashionable aesthetics of electronics changed as often as water under a bridge.  Sleek designs were popular, then retro designs, then designs that mimicked the mimicry of two eras past, a vaguely deteriorating cycle.  As a result, it was difficult to tell which era this piece of technology belonged to.

   – "Remember that I saw a border open?  Maybe not just the spirit, but the whole item came from somewhere else..."

They had been scrutinizing the home screen for quite some time, attempting to navigate the ancient interface, and hadn't made much headway.  As far as they could tell, the data was heavily corrupted, and most of its history had been erased.  They were able to access only the most basic types of apps, like the calculator and the keyboard.

   – "Hey, Merry.  I think we should use that other thing we picked up."

   – "That?  I don't even understand how we would use it..."

As evidenced by her smug grin, the more scientifically-minded of the pair had full confidence in the strange idea she was about to suggest.

#07  A Tiny, Tiny Clever Commander

   – "I mean, really?  A mouse?"

Renko had insisted that they bring home a wired peripheral mouse, which she had spent an extra half hour scavenging for.  However, of course, the end of the cable did not match the outlet on the tablet.

Currently, she was back in the scavenging position, digging through the pile of unorganized junk that cluttered her closet (mostly books and occult items). Or rather, it looked unorganized, but she seemed to know exactly where everything was.  ...Or rather, Merry concluded, it truly was unorganized, but her eyes were sharp at scanning through even a complete mess.  She wondered if this small pile would ever become as large as the one at the dump.

   – "A-ha, found it!"

Renko had managed to track down the very particular treasure she was seeking, the final piece of their forgathered puzzle.  A small cube with many variously patterned notches rested in her open palm.  The material's finishing was uncolored and plain, likely to have been produced independently with a 3D printer rather than as a commercial product.

   – "W-Where did you get a thing like that?"

   – "I have connections you don't know, Merry."

Merry thought she had heard this line before, and felt a bead of sweat roll down her neck just like the first time.  The source was certainly shady.  Universal adapters were not at all legal.  Treating it like a Rubik's cube, and glancing back and forth for reference, Renko cleverly manipulated the block in her hand in ways that Merry was unable to understand.

Renko's partner, who had long embraced being an accomplice, appreciated her resourcefulness; she only wished to be kept more up to date when the other girl's mental plans ran ten steps ahead.  But she supposed that this was how Renko felt in return when it came to supernatural sights that she couldn't see, so perhaps they were even.

   – "Just like that?  Like magic..."

   – "Tell me, Merry.  Can you see the border of magic and science?"

With all the pieces aligned, Renko ceremoniously linked the mouse to the tablet through the intermediary box.  As a pop-up window indicated the drivers being registered, it was, they determined, a truly magical feat.  The light on the screen dimmed a bit, as if the spirit were expressing slight disappointment that it was no longer their only option for a power supply.

   – "Still...  Better technology has been around for decades.  These are so unwieldly.  Does anyone use an optical mouse anymore?"

   – "No, but no one's done this ritual in a long time either."

#08  No More Going Through Doors

Renko took Merry's hands in her own and conveyed them in a stack atop of the mouse.  Holding this pose, Merry squinted at the screen in front of her, which displayed a neatly spaced virtual keyboard with a complete set of lettering.  A mild shiver ran through her, either nervousness or excitement.

   – "Hang on.  This setup looks familiar somehow."

   – "That's right.  We're having a séance!"

Although Renko was very skilled with computers, hacking was not her expertise.  She did, however, have the kind of mind that was able to think around the box, discovering back doors.  The opportunity here was simple:  If they couldn't reach the secrets, they would consult the only one who knew -- the spirit itself.

   – "Huh!?"

   – "This mouse is a perfect planchette to use as an interface.  Sure, we have voice and touch technology.  But you don't want the spirit to possess your actual body in order to touch the screen or activate your voice, do you?"

   – "Definitely not.  ...Wait, did I ever say I wanted to be the medium at all?"

Merry pulled her hands back from the mouse and saw the screen's light flicker weakly.

   – "Oh, er...  You're right.  We didn't really decide that, did we?"

   – "Mm..."

   – "I think you'd be better suited, but I'll gladly go first.  I've always wanted to try something like this."

Merry's eyes glazed over as she thought about the prospect of communicating with the spirit.  They had assumed the sealed entity was harmless enough to bring home, but could there be some risk in directly channeling it?

Then again, what was the other option?  To leave their investigation at a dead end?

You don't belong on this side of the unknown.

A faint voice bubbled up inside of Merry, almost like an intrusive thought.  This had been happening to her increasingly often lately, though she always forgot about it after the fact.  Because, at the same time, they certainly felt like her own feelings...

Maribel Hearn was sparked with a surge of curiosity that made her want to take the lead.  These were precisely the club activities she had signed up for.  How much more dangerous could it be than anything else, so long as one made sure to follow the protocols and say goodbye at the end?

   – "No...  I'd like to do it."

Renko blinked in surprise.

   – "Really?  ...Well, gee, make up your mind.  You made me get all excited for myself.  Go ahead, but I call next!"

#09  Shoutoku Legend ~ True Administrator

Having cleared the area and turned off all the lights, Merry sat with her back straight against a chair and took a deep breath.  No candle was necessary, as the warm glow of the screen cast a ring of illumination around the table.  They had thoroughly discussed the questions they desired to ask, though the words felt awkward to speak out loud.  Nevertheless, the young medium opened her mouth.

   – "What is... your name?"

...

The atmosphere of room was deathly still.  Merry let all the muscles in her arm relax, preparing.

...

I...

   – "It's working...!"

The spirit was conscious and listening.  The planchette began to glide beneath Merry's loose grip, landing on the letter I.  When it paused on the letter for several seconds, she clicked the mouse button to confirm before the involuntary movement slowly began again.

...FO RG OT.

   – "Ah.  So it's going to be up to us to give it a name."

   – "Did you own this tablet?"

While Merry was lost in thought about a potential name, Renko chimed in with a question of her own from the opposite side of the table.  However, the spirit seemed to hesitate in answering.

Suddenly, the other girl's focus returned.  On an instinct, she broke the silence with an unexpected change of the question.

   – "Does this tablet own you?"

...

YE S.

   – "Huh... The tablet owns the spirit?  How did that happen?"

Although Renko's words were more thinking out loud than a direct question, the spirit was responsive.  Merry's hand immediately began to move.

...

SN AP.

   – "Snap...?  That sounds kind of scary."

   – "What does that mean?"

The cursor then swerved dramatically past all the letters on the keypad and down to the app menu along the bottom edge of the screen.  It hovered over an icon barely recognizable as an antique camera.

   – "Ah..."

The app launched, reproducing a dark, blurry image of the table on which the device's lens was turned.  Upon clicking the screen, a photograph was taken, and the damaged speaker emitted a distorted snapping sound.

   – "Spirit photography!"

The two girls burst out in unison, solving the riddle simultaneously.

   – "Right.  We've all heard the old belief that getting a photograph taken of you might steal a piece of your soul."

   – "It has some basis.  If captured in a photograph by accident, a minor spirit's energy might become trapped."

Somewhere in the hidden files, such a photograph must exist, binding some foreign essence to this device.  The spirit was likely eager to get free.

Merry minimized the camera app and returned to the keyboard.

   – "Who took the picture?"

...

Unlike its own, this name seemed to be one the spirit knew.  The pair observed with bated breath as the cursor navigated itself around the maze of letters.  Ultimately, it came to a halt, and Merry clicked on the final letter.

   – "...Eh?  Merry, stop kidding around!"

Merry turned to her partner with a genuine, solemn expression.

   – "I'm... not.  I swear."

Renko's face went pale. In ink-black font, three familiar syllables stood on display beside a blinking cursor.

#10  Dream World Folklore

To disprove the influence of the ideomotor effect, they had asked the question several more times, using both girls as mediums, until the spirit ultimately stopped responding altogether.

   – "Oh, no.  We scared it away..."

   – "Well, it did spook us first."

   – "Renko...  You weren't kidding about your connections, were you?"

Renko scratched her head with lingering bewilderment.

   – "Is the spirit messing with us?  Or could it be..."

Her gaze wandered over to the stream of occult paraphernalia still spilling out of the crack of her closet door, and she experienced a strange sense of longing.  The adventurous scientist was heavily accustomed to investigating mysteries from an observational and objective point of view.  Finding herself personally a step closer to the subject was a bizarre and almost gut-twisting feeling.  She supposed that this was how Merry felt in return when the focus of investigations was on her own powers, so perhaps they were even.  Almost.

After a few more sessions of séance, they managed to navigate to an encrypted folder.  A full-screen photograph had flashed open... but, before they were able to make out any details, the tablet's power instantly cut off.  Following this, it no longer responded to any input.

Their assumption would be that the spirit had been able to cross over, after deleting its digital ties to the physical container and unsealing the information it was attached to.

   – "I suppose this is goodbye..."

   – "Is the spirit free now?"

   – "I think so."

   – "That's good for it, at least."

   – "Too bad for you.  If we kept it, maybe it would have served as your personal shikigami."

   – "Isn't that a bit cold-hearted?  It was supposed to be our child!"

A shikigami is the perfect phantasmal servant.  The owner may input commands, and it carries out orders with extraordinary speed and calculation.  Of course, a normal computer already fulfills essentially the same purpose.  Outside world humans of the modern era aren't in need of such a spirit under their possession.

Even so, the force of attraction that had drawn them to cross paths with this spirit would be a mystery to chase going forward.  The two present members of the Sealing Club had a new story to tell, an urban legend that could be shared only amongst themselves.

Afterwords

Hello, this is someone who absolutely promised themself that they would publish at least one Hifuu fic per calendar year.  The idea for this one began with a conversation with my real-life partner (as is usually the case of inspiration) about the excellent aesthetic of using a computer keyboard as a Ouija board.  This subject in turn came up because of a "ghost" that haunts her keyboard by making a certain cryptic message appear on the screen at random times because the "." and "0" keys are in an easy position for us to accidentally press.  So, this story is dedicated to our precious child, ".0-chan."

Then, while it was already being written, WBaWC came out and confirmed that a technology-themed fic would be totally appropriate, and my favorite song from the soundtrack had the perfect title to be used in it.  (Also, its blatant dystopian themes justified playing up the similar themes of the Sealing Club's society even more than usual.)  And yet, despite many things lining up, it almost didn't get finished in time.  It's been such a busy and stressful year, which I hope gets better next year...

Another source of inspiration was the blog "Yukarisuggestion," whose portrayal I respect a lot.  When they drop minor bits of supernatural trivia, it definitely feels like they are coming from the youkai sage herself, very natural to accept.  I latched onto these posts in particular, finding the concept fascinating, and I only hope I interpreted it acceptably.  ...I was really aiming sharply this time at the Sealing Club's conversational aesthetic of "casual confidence in super obscure things that outside listeners would hear as nonsense," so I'm afraid some parts may have crossed the border of B.S.

Also, I wonder if it's okay that the second half of the song choices are almost entirely bad puns?

ASA    (Our ghost child's pen name would be "0.4" / "Rei-ten-shi"!)

Hifuu CD-style stories:

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3]  自封夢幻 〜 Sentimental Reverie

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3]  陶然夢幻 〜 Transcendental Revelry

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3]  羨望横断 〜 Unenviable Crossroads

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3]  外来土産 〜 Adventive Reminiscence

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3] 中古技術 〜 Electric Spirit Seance

»  [Tumblr]  [AO3]  幻想惑星直列 〜 Phantasmal Syzygy

[silveranjyil]

It’s not about Right or Wrong

The biggest raging debate in the RWBY community is: who is right?  The lines are clearly split between team RWBY and co, and Ironwood, with many feeling that RWBY is being wrong and hypocritical. It is amazing to see that people are missing the point.

 Neither are wrong or right.  They are both being human—and actually, team RWBY is being more human that Ironwood right now.  This is on par with Magneto and Professor X from X-men.  Their goals are the same, but they are following vastly different paths towards that goal and their ideals are completely different based on their own experiences.

 I have done a whole expo on Ironwood and I don’t think I need to add to that.  But I do want to look at RWBY’s perspective in this.

 One thing that has been established is that team RWBY and the others are in the same boat as Ozpin: they want to protect the PEOPLE, and not just a few.  They have come to view life as precious and are not willing to throw it aside as the only way.  A lot of people cite the Apathy messing with their reaction to Jinn’s reveal of the truth, but they were too far from the farm town for that to happen just yet.  Their reactions were genuine—and human, but they did not let their emotions completely destroy their belief in saving people.  That was why they all signed up to be hunters and huntress: to make the world better.

 All of them have had their trust shattered and faced betrayal by people very dear to them, or by people whom they never would have expected.  Ruby saw a supposed huntress-in-training destroy her home, unleash Grimm all over Beacon, and kill one of her friends in cold blood.  Yang’s mother abandoned her, and later sided with the bad guys to get the relic, and Blake did abandon her at one point (seems like they are still working through that).  Poor Blake has been betrayed by her lover and her best friend. Qrow’s experiences are probably uncountable, but his sister was probably a big one.  The biggest one we have for team JNPR is Pyrrha’s death, caused by same reasons and Ozpin.  So to call them children, or naïve, is a disservice to what they have already endured up to this point.  They are still learning, bu they are no longer children, nor are they naïve.

 The headmaster at Haven was the final straw to break any illusions in that.  They trusted him, as did Qrow, up until things started falling into place.  By the time they get to Atlas, face off with a pompous official, and nearly die a few times, they get it.  The world is not perfect, it isn’t a fairy tail, and they can not trust everyone. But they want to.  They really want to trust Ironwood, to have someone with experience in being an authority take the reigns and let them have a break.

 When the team arrive in Atlas, they discover that there is a military-enforced curfew.  People are afraid, hungry, miserable, and restless.  That would be my FIRST red flag that something is not right with the person in charge.  If you want to know what kind of person you are dealing with, look at the people around them and the consequence of their actions.  Ironwood said he wanted to help protect the people, but how was he SHOWING that?

 What makes things even more conflicting is that Ruby and Yang remember the General as someone who supported them and encouraged them: he praised Ruby during Dance Dance, somewhat tried to listen to Yang after her encounter in V3 and even sent her a new arm.  But the town was not how it should be, even Weiss commented on how this “wasn’t right.” In other words, it had never been like this before.  The people had freedom to move around and no curfew, no binge drinking in the streets, etc. How is this protecting the people?

Ironwood greets them as a host—but it seems off.  Him hugging Qrow, for one.  Qrow and he were always at each other’s throats for differences of opinions.  I admit, he probably was glad to see a familiar face, but…

 In any case, Ironwood gave them a LOT of things.  Made them official hunters and huntresses, top of the line training grounds, returning the lamp to them.  He assigns them to his Right-hand Yes-men, not to earn trust, but to sway them.  The Ace-Corps is always talking about how they need to follow orders, that emotional connections and such are unnecessary, etc.  Did you see the reaction from RWBY and team?  Winter is also in on this as well, but we see this mostly with Penny.  Weiss has already heard all this before during her training to control her semblance, after all.  Ironwood was a wonderful host who was trying to lure them into his side with “gifts of gold and jewels”. But he would never listen to them.  He would not consider their ideas, opinions or fears, and the people were still suffering.  And THEN they meet Robin, who gives them a little bit more of the picture.  Why isn’t the wall being repaired to protect the people? Why all the secrecy?  They kind of understand, but things are not adding up.

 You see, a long time ago, in Volume 3, Ironwood gave them a choice.  Fight to protect your school, or protect yourselves. The teams are starting to see that Ironwood is leaning more to the latter, and it bothers them.  We are seeing a dynamic clash of perspectives here, and Ren acts as the gateway to show how both sides could be right.

 But here is the thing.  Here is where we talk about why it isn’t about right or wrong, but about being human. In Volume 3, Ozpin shows both remorse and apprehension about utilizing Pyrrha as a guinea pig to possibly save the powers of the Maiden from the corrupt hands of Cinder.  He weighs everything meticulously, admits to his faults, and you can see the burden of time on him.

 Ruby and her teammates also show this same heavy burden.  They are conflicted about the hard choices they have to make, talking to each other and trying to figure it out.  They don’t try to justify it, either.  They WANT to trust and tell him, but experience has been a cruel teacher to them.  Weiss and Penny show true human feelings about what the plan is for the Winter Maiden, especially Penny.  They have always recognized and felt that just because it was logical did not make it the best path, or even the right path.  They questioned it, but they were always shut down.

 Ironwood has no qualms about this.  He does not show remorse, he does not show apprehension.  He had walled up his heart a long time ago.  He says do it and he expects his soldiers to comply.  And none of them can speak up against him, despite their feelings.  They try to crush their own emotions as well.  1 death?  1000 deaths? The general ordered it, so be it. They have fallen to the mantra of “the greater good”.  What is really interesting is, in a real world sense, there have been some studies that suggest that emotions are CRITICAL in making logical decisions.  Too much logic and reason without the support of emotion tends to make things worse, actually.  Spock was proven wrong many times in Star Trek, despite his “logic”, and this was also explored in that movie “I Robot” where the Robot logically chose Smith over the little girl, even though emotionally and species-wise, the little girl would have been the more appropriate choice to save.  I love how in this volume, they really outline how useless logic is without emotion, and they use Penny as a pillar for that exploration.  Anyway...

 People will say that Ruby should have told him earlier, before things got out of hand. Based on previous evidence in an earlier post, I can guarantee the result would not have been any different. He had already written off half the world.  And the funny thing is, the only result would have been a brief window of safety for himself and maybe those closest to him.  None of his actions would have saved the world or many people, only a select few.

 As team RWBY began to understand this, see it play out, it was too late.  He had already cut off most of Mantle and was preparing to sacrifice them.  For the “greater good” of course.  The fact that Ironwood had NO intention of talking to Robin in any way showed more of how untrustworthy he was.  Robin was fighting for the people with the knowledge she had.  She would have been an invaluable ally to them and would have been able to help in managing the people and the resources.  But Ironwood knew that he would never be able to control her.  She would question his authority.  He can not have that.  That is why Yang and Blake disobeyed him.  They had presented this possibility, and he had shot them down like a bullet train.  He was keeping his secrets until HE was ready to release them.  Any loss of control was unacceptable to him.

 If it hadn’t been for Penny, Winter or Cinder would have gotten the powers. Winter would have been nothing but a puppet for Ironwood and would eventually be responsible for more deaths under his watch.  We already know what Cinder would do.

 I will be honest.  Had I been in Team RWBY’s shoes, I would have done the same thing.  I wouldn’t have told him until he proved that he was trustworthy.  Kicking the people down like he had been doing since before we came would make me less likely to trust him.  The fact that he could have had a very good ally, but he wouldn’t accept it at all would also make me hesitate.  Anyone giving me all this good stuff--upgrades, licenses, etc—for almost no reason would make me question their motives.

 But RWBY not telling Ironwood is no worse than him not telling him many things.  He did not share all of his plans, only the highlights.  Enough to keep them content.  We all have to be mindful of the words we say and to whom we tell them to.  And RWBY technically did not lie to Ironwood.  It was a small scene, but the point where Nora and Ruby were discussing the possibility that she might be killable in another sense from Ozpin’s question means that they haven’t lost hope yet. They believe that they will find a way, somehow, but they do not know where to start.  There is also the fact that they know Ozpin has been fighting this for a long time, and somewhere in his past he might have tried some of these things.  If he isn’t doing that now, it was probably for a reason.  Team RWBY are not as dumb as people would like them to be, and they are being cautious, which is a necessity in these situations.

 If they had come out and said that they would do everything they could to kill Salem, etc—THAT might be lying, but they didn’t.  They just asked how they could help him.

 Fear is a cruel master.  Team RWBY have worked through some of their fears, and part of that was probably thanks to the Apathy that magnified their emotions and doubts.  Ironwood has allowed his fears to consume him.

 And by the way, Ironwood did mention how sometimes certain things still held you from long ago during his pep-talk with Yang after she was framed for busting Mercury’s legs.  Something tells me that was a precursor for this as well.

 Anyway, those are my thoughts on that.