#((they can call and send letters; so at least in that regard they can keep in touch with their family in the states))

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"That would be lovely," June smiled fondly, as she took another sip of her tea: Some might call her a Pollyanna for it, but she genuinely didn't want to write off the possibility for her fellow spirits becoming parents someday. Considering how many happy couples there were under the Mansion's roof, surely there had to be a good chance more than just her son and daughter-in-law would have little bundles of joys in their future!

The conversation brought out the other family album, this one dedicated to Lon and Erika's lives in the Mansion thus far, allowing for plenty of cooing over the twins, with a particular focus put on Halloween's past, and the birthday celebrations that came with it. There was especially a lot of giggling and cooing over the twins' first birthday, and the little pumpkin costumes they were dressed in.

"The cutest pumpkins in the patch!" Wilhelm chuckled, as both Lon and Erika turned bashful at these pictures of their infanthood-in particular one of Lon trying to put a crocheted pumpkin in his mouth, said pumpkin having been made by June for this little photoshoot, commemorating that milestone birthday in particular.

"Awwww, reminds me of when June was a little girl, and I made her a ghost costume out of an old bedsheet!" Josephine giggled, recalling fondly, "She ran all over the house, calling out "boo!" to everyone and everything-she even gave August a jump!"

Both sets of Pace twins, young and old, couldn't help but snicker at this (and August, for what it was worth, smiled a little at the memory) before Colin recalled fondly, "Ah, Cal and Willy and I, we all used to raise a little hell on All Hallows' Eve; before the big bonfire, we all used to go runnin' through the streets, telling everyone Stingy Jack was comin' to town! Dressed as him a few times too, between the three of us, amongst some other ghosts and goblins from our book of fables! You still have that, Willy?"

"That I do," Wilhelm smiled warmly. "Got it, and I've since passed it onto to Randall to read to his wee ones."

[callmewrinkles3]

All Too Well - DR3 x Fem!OC

Summary: Saying goodbye is hard. Saying goodbye to your family without telling them it’s a final goodbye is even harder. But Em has come to terms that Dan doesn’t love her the same way she loves him, and leaving on her own terms will hurt less than being told he’s ending things. March 2022.

Word Count: 12.3k

Warnings: fighting, all the angst this bad boy can carry, lil bit of a dickhead!Dan, running away from your friends, mentions of death, mentions of motorsport crashes and deaths, moving without telling anyone, lying to family, talk of medical procedures, frank talks about what people want to happen if they can’t decide.

A/N: We’ve kept you waiting, but we hope this was worth the wait! This part of our story is what started us on this madcap adventure together, and it’s a lot of what makes our beloved Em Em. Thank you in advance!

Em stared at the two boarding passes in front of her as she sat in the fancy Heathrow lounge, a caramel latte beside them. Heathrow to Dubai, Dubai to Melbourne. More than twenty hours spent on planes to get to Melbourne, to jump into work and get stuck in at the Australian Grand Prix. And it was the last thing she wanted to do.

She should be excited. She should be so happy because she was about to see the boys after over a week apart, she was about to see Dan. She was finally going to get to see the Ricciardos after almost two years apart. But she was dreading it, the memories from Saudi filling her head as she thought. Em forced her attention to the laptop sitting on her knees, emails up and the one she never thought she’d write sitting in the middle of the screen.

SUB: Resignation Letter

From: emmy@.ric3.com

To: blake@.ric3.com

Dear Blake,

Please use this email as my official resignation, effective immediately. I’m sorry that I can’t offer any more notice.

Working with you has been fantastic, and I appreciate everything we’ve gotten to do over the past three years.

Kind regards,

Emma.

Signing it Emma felt wrong. Emma was for Zak Brown and Andreas Sidle. Christian Horner had used it the one time she was introduced to him at Red Bull. She was always Em or Ems now. Except for Dan, she was his Emmy. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Or ever again. If he called her that she thought she might lose the last grip she had on her composure and break.

The email was scheduled and sitting in her outbox to send after the race, and the last thing she did before boarding was reschedule her flight home. Instead of leaving Monday morning with the boys, she was going on Sunday evening. She’d be somewhere over Queensland by the time Blake received the email and the boys would be at least twelve hours behind her. It was enough time to make sure she could be well ahead of them and get away.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be smiling and laughing, and she was supposed to be in Perth right now cuddling her niblings and laughing with Grace and Joe. Learning to cook yet another family recipe and insisting that she and Dan were just friends. She couldn’t even answer the question honestly if they were friends now.

He’d sent her away. The one thing she begged him not to do, the pinkie promise she’d made him give. The only promise she had ever asked him to keep. Not to stay safe while driving, not to do anything else. Not to leave her alone. The near screaming match they’d had in his drivers room that Blake and Michael had to break up. The way he didn’t even look at her but told Blake to “take Ems to the hotel”. How she had tears streaming down her face as she was escorted through the paddock like she wasn’t supposed to be there.

She still didn’t fully believe that she’d dropped her phone in the car. Em shouldn’t even have been in the car alone with Blake, but Dan insisted she went to the hotel room so she went. She was left there alone in Saudi Arabia, where Dan knew she couldn’t leave the hotel. She stared out the window at the smoke from the rockets, completely alone all night until Michael knocked on her door the following morning and she had to pretend everything was fine.

She’d worked from hospitality and as soon as the race finished she changed her flights to go back to London instead of Perth, making up an excuse. And Dan bought that she was going back for her parents.

“Family stuff.” She’d said when he asked.

“Em, you don’t talk to your family much.” She was folding clothes into her case, the one she’d brought that had her Australia clothes already standing fully packed.

“Yeah, but it’s family. My parents have their thirty fifth wedding anniversary in a few weeks, I’m helping plan it.” Only the last part of her words were a lie and she bit her tongue.

“Everyone wants to see you, they all miss you and they keep asking when you’ll be over. The kids miss you.”

“I’ll see them in Melbourne, Dan. You go, enjoy your time at home with them.”

She’d gotten a car to bring her to the airport and Dan hadn’t even asked a question, just a “text me when you land”. There was no hug, no even quick hand squeeze like they usually did in the Middle East. That’s when she knew whatever they were doing. The nearly four years of sleeping together and pretending they weren’t, of the media wondering who she was and why she was always there, was over.

She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to catch feelings, that it was just sex. That she could do it. That every time she told Dan “y’know, right?” it was purely platonic. That the slow sex was just them wanting to take their time, nothing else. That she hadn’t murmured to Dan to make love to her in Bahrain when they shouldn’t have even been sharing a room after Grosjean’s crash, when he kissed her and held onto her and whispered that he loved her as he entered her.

Because that was sixteen months ago and nothing had changed. It was never going to change between them. Their fight in Saudi had proven it, and now she had to pretend that everything was fine before she said goodbye to the people she loved for the last time.

She couldn’t keep working with Dan when not sleeping with him. She couldn’t watch him fall for another woman, couldn’t get introduced to more people as “Em, my best friend” anymore. She was his Emmy. He was her Danny. And not getting to love him and be loved by him how she wanted to was going to kill her.

The flights were what she expected, Dan had upgraded her tickets to first class like he always did and she wanted to kill him like she always did. She spent the flights and the layovers organising his calendar for the next three months, tracking his flights and cross checking the sponsor events that had been filled in. Everything up to Hungary was booked and ready to go. She checked her watch when she was halfway to Melbourne, realising that he’d be at the Optus event she was usually on his arm for. She was supposed to be there this year, but she told him to take Michelle instead. All the events around the Australian GP that she always went as his plus one, wearing the star necklace he’d gotten her for her birthday, and the matching earrings that were her Christmas present the same year. Her outfit was usually one he’d bought for her against her protests because “let me spoil you” was how he showed that he cared, and she always wore the gold moon ring on her thumb that matched the sun one she’d bought him for his little finger. Most of her wardrobe and all of her everyday jewellery were presents from Dan. Her life was completely entwined with his, and untangling it all was going to hurt.

Her flight got in at god-awful o’clock that Wednesday morning, she’d lost a full day having left London on the Monday evening, but she walked through Melbourne customs with her suitcase glad to just be through. She’d told everyone she’d get an Uber to the hotel and meet them for breakfast, but instead as soon as she appeared in front of the glowing Melbourne sign two small figures ran to her yelling.

“AUNTIE EMMY YOU’RE HERE YOU’RE HERE!” Em dropped her bags and fell to her knees, arms wide open to pull Isaac and Isabella into her and pressing so many kisses to their curly heads.

“I’m here, I’m here. I missed you both so much. So, so much. I’m so sorry I couldn’t see you, I wanted to see you sooner.” Stupid Western Australia and closed borders and not letting people through. Her eyes began shining as she took in the difference in the two kids, Isaac at least a foot taller and losing the childlike way he’d spoken. Isabella had doubled in size, long hair and a child instead of a toddler the last time she’d seen her in person.

“It’s ok, you’re here now! Nana said you’ll sit with us for ev’rything ‘cept the race? Cause we’ve got two years of birthday and Christmas pressies for you!” Isaac looked so proud, grinning as he took her wheeled carry on and pulled it.

“I can’t wait. Who’re you here with?”

“Grandad Joe! He has our sign, Uncle Mike and Uncle Blake told us we had to use all the glitter. We were gonna wait, but I saw you and I wanted a hug. Is that ok?” He looked almost worried of her response, but she ruffled his hair.

“It’s more than ok. All I wanted was hugs from the two of you.”

Isabella clung to her waist, Em lifting her up with one arm and mentally thanking Michael for the strength training that let her carry the girl and pull her suitcase with her. She looked around to see Joe holding a giant piece of bright orange card, Auntie Emmy written on it in blue and silver glitter. It was the shiniest thing she’d ever seen in her life, and it was coming home with her even with the craft herpes that would infest her suitcase. Joe pulled her into a one armed hug on the side his granddaughter wasn’t monopolising, pushing a kiss to the side of her forehead that made her want to cry.

“We missed you, kiddo. Grace wanted to be here but we couldn’t fit her in the car too, and Dan’s doing media today. You cut it tight to get in.”

“It’s my parents wedding anniversary next week, I’ve been helping. I have to fly out after the race on Sunday.” It was Wednesday, and she could see his face fall as he realised how little time they’d have together.

“We’re spending as much time with you as we can until you go. Those boys get you all year round, we get you for this weekend.”

“That sounds perfect.”

When they made it to the hotel Em was greeted with yet more hugs from Grace, Michelle, and Michelle’s husband Adam. There were tears in everyone’s eyes at the reunion, and the long hug from Grace was the best thing ever and broke her heart at the same time. It was so restorative, so good, but she wasn’t going to get many more of them.

“Dan checked you in, here’s your key. He’s got the room on the other side of you, Blake’s on the other wall, we’re most of our corridor. Do you want to get some sleep and we’ll call you at noon?”

The first thing Em noticed about her room was the adjoining door between her room and Dan’s. She closed the lock gently to make sure she was completely alone. After that she napped fitfully, waking up to knocks on the door and yet more hugs. The day was spent going to the zoo, kids hanging out of her as she swung them around and gave piggybacks, feeling exactly like part of the family. Blake told her to take the day off for jet lag, and she wasn’t complaining.

That evening was filled with fun as the kids clung to her while she pulled out the first of so many presents. Chocolate first so she could see their faces eating proper chocolate rather than the Australian stuff that didn’t melt in the heat. The bag of duty free was quickly eaten between everyone, a movie on tv as she filled everyone in on what she had been doing. It wasn’t until after eight that Dan appeared wearing a suit.

“Ems! I thought you were coming with me tonight?” She looked up from where she’d been half dozing with Isabella curled up against her, taking in her best friend wearing a navy blue suit and white shirt.

“Coming to what? I’m taking today for jet lag. What’s tonight?”

“The AusGP reception. You always come!” Confusion was written all over his face and Em swallowed once, looking at him carefully.

“I said I wasn’t doing anything this year. I have to leave pretty much straight after the race, I don’t have time.”

“Emmy, please.” She hated that she couldn’t resist him when he did that, when her name curled around his accent like that.

“I don’t have anything to wear.” This was the closest they’d ever come to an argument in front of his family. Their eyes were going between them as if watching a tennis match.

“I got you something.”

“Dan, you can’t do that.” It was pointless to argue but she had to try make her point. She couldn’t just do everything because he wanted her to.

“I did. C’mon, it’s three hours and some schmoozing and we can come back so you can go to bed. He did his best impression of puppy dog eyes, lifting Isabella from her. “You want to see Auntie Emmy all glam and pretty, right Is?”

“Yeah! She’s always pretty.”

“You’re very right. I left the dress in your room, Ems. Please?”

“Fine.”

She said her goodbyes and went into her room, making sure the adjoining door was locked before going into shower and change. As she walked into the bathroom she thought she heard the door rattle but ignored it, forcing herself to take time to put herself together.

Years travelling around the world had taught her how to make herself look presentable in very little time, forcing her to learn how to do a blow dry with a hotel hairdryer. It took less than an hour to have hair and makeup perfectly done, a wrap around her shoulders and a pair of heels on her feet. The dress Dan had picked was perfect for her. It was lavender, knee length with a corset top, and her jewellery worked perfectly with it. He had taste when it wasn’t about party shirts. Once she was ready she picked up a clutch and knocked on Dan’s door. He opened the door confused, but ready to go.

“I thought you’d use the adjoining door? It’s why I got us these rooms.”

“I’m tired, Dan. Can we just get this over with?”

The launch was like anything else, an event to deal with. There were speeches and then wandering around the room, Dan’s hand hovering at her lower back but not quite touching her. She smiled as she was introduced as “meet Ems, she’s my best friend and my manager’s assistant who keeps my life on track”, even while her heart was breaking. But she kept her cool, finally managing to break away from Dan for a few minutes to chat to Ted and Natalie from Sky while Dan did the rounds.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here. I was talking to Michael yesterday, he said you weren’t in Perth with them,” Ted remarked as Em looked at the almost empty glass of champagne in his hand.

“Is this going to end up as gossip on the notebook if we talk?” Nat nearly snorted with laughter, Ted shaking his head with a chuckle.

“Nope. I’m drinking so I’m officially off work duties. Unless you have any gossip about things? Anything that I can attribute to an unnamed McLaren source?”

“I don’t work for McLaren, thankfully Zak doesn’t sign my paycheque. But no, I’ve got no gossip. There’s some family stuff happening so I have to head home pretty much as soon as the race is over. But I needed to see everyone, it’s been almost two years and I missed them.”

“Fair.” They chatted about the season so far, studiously ignoring the controversy around the last race, until Dan arrived back to make excuses and get them to leave the party.

“Back to the hotel?”

��You read my mind.”

The car ride back was the most awkward one the two of them had ever done and Em didn’t know what to do. Usually if they were in a car alone together they’d be curled into each other or at least holding hands. But she was on her side of the SUV, Dan was on his, and the hand she’d stretched into the middle as a peace offering was ignored. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with that. Didn’t want to know, really. All his actions did was solidify that the painful decision she’d reached was the right one. Just because things could be easy didn’t mean they were right.

When they reached their floor in the hotel Dan stopped outside her hotel room as Em waved the keycard at the lock.

“Night, Dan.”

“But I thought…”

“What?” She was sharper than she should have been, but she was jet lagged and tired and heart sore.

“I thought we’d be sharing a room.”

“Your family are two doors down and the kids are here. The chances of at least one of them knocking on my door before I want to get up in the morning are high, and I don’t want to have to explain why we share a bed when we’re not married. Do you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Exactly. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As soon as the hallway door closed behind her she double checked the lock on the adjoining door before flipping over the door lock. If she’d looked out the peephole she would have seen a confused and disappointed Dan standing in the hallway.

The next few days passed in a haze of having the kids around, working, and ignoring Zak. She knew he was the original source of the rumours the year before, he was the one who got Mazepin to start spreading that she was sleeping with all three of her boys. It was her greatest pleasure to get to tell him no, and she did it with joy.

But in between finalising as much as she could before her resignation was sent she had time to wander Melbourne alone. She loved the city. It had always welcomed her in, it was Dan’s home race and the place where she knew everyone adored him. Em wandered around a craft market, finding a jewellery maker who made gold charms and engraved them on the spot. It took her all of ten seconds to buy two and get them put on different coloured leather cords, one each for Isaac and Isabella. The front had a pair of angel wings for each of her angel kids, and the engraving on the back read love you forever, Auntie Emmy. 

Leaving her family behind was going to be the hardest part of this, and she needed to make sure that they knew just how much she loved them. Em was so aware that she was about to be the first adult to choose to walk out of their lives, and she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to break their hearts the way hers would break too. She just hoped that when they realised she wasn’t coming back they’d know she wanted to tell them how much she loved them.

Practice and qualifying were shit and she felt her dislike of the team growing even stronger. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to deal with the stupid orange team and the way that they were favouring Lando already. Dan was the one who won a race last year, not Lando. He was the one who had proven himself with podiums galore. But they didn’t care.

That night she left the door between their rooms unlocked. Her bags were half packed, her resignation email was scheduled to send and she’d triple checked the timezone on it. Em had spent the last two days hugging everyone as much as she could, surprising Chloe by popping into the Aston garage before a practice and waving to Lance and Seb as she pulled Chloe into a giant hug. Scotty got one too, trying to put the love and care she had for her best friends outside her boys into a hug. There were waves to the people she couldn’t hug because rumours would start, giving Susie a recommendation for the restaurant they all ate at the night before so she and Toto could have a family meal with Jack in privacy. The small things to make sure everyone knew she thought about them and loved them.

Em couldn’t sleep straight away. Nights before races were hard, the crashes she’d watched with her own two eyes usually playing in her head. Dan in Anthoine’s car, Dan in Grosjean’s. Dan in Lewis’s place the year before with no halo. Dan in the rain and a tractor on track. All the ways she knew people had died racing she thought about and she couldn’t deal. Her fear every time Dan slid into his seat in the car was all encompassing but racing was his first love and she could never ask him to stop.

She was about to get up and go down to Michael’s room to ask for some melatonin, but the doorknob between the two rooms rattled and clicked open quietly. Em stayed still as she was, breathing in and out steadily.

Dan slipped into the other side of the bed. If she just opened her eyes she’d be able to see him. If she reached her fingers out slightly she could touch him. It was the first time they’d shared a bed since Bahrain and being just over covid and she wanted him to hold her. Her body was screaming to curl into him and tell him she loves him and she’s his and she doesn’t want him to fall in love with anyone else because she wants him to love her. To choose her over all the models in the world he could have.

She didn’t sleep that night, too aware of his presence in the bed. She could hear his snores but she didn’t dare look up at him, didn’t dare move in case she disturbed him. He needed his sleep the night before a race.

As the morning dawned through crappy hotel curtains she could feel the vibrations from the alarm on his watch, the one he always used to try let her get some extra sleep when he needed to be up early.

Please kiss my forehead. Please, Dan. Please just give me any sign you want me to stay. Don’t leave me again.

Every morning was the same when they shared a bed. He’d delay until the very last minute to stay in the warmth and then kiss her forehead in goodbye. And then he’d leave, not content to get out from there until he made sure she knew he said goodbye.

This time he slid out of the bed without touching her, padding across the still room and going back into his. Em heard the lock slide shut on his side and rolled over, tears filling her eyes.

It hurt so much already, how was she supposed to pretend that everything was fine? How was she supposed to act normal around everyone when she wanted to scream that they were over and nothing would ever be the same again? How could she be okay when she felt like this? 

He’d left her alone. Again. He hadn’t even touched her but he’d slept in her bed and she never thought Dan could be so cruel. She never thought he’d leave her with the barest hint of his scent, that if she hadn’t been awake she wouldn’t have known he was there. The ache spread through her chest and she tried to quiet her sobs but it hurt. It hurt so, so badly.

A cold shower soothed her puffy face, getting rid of some of the usual redness while makeup did the rest. She was dressed in her usual race day gear of shorts, vans, a McLaren polo, and a Dan hat on her head by the time there was a knock on her door, Michael standing there.

“Hey, I’m heading in with Dan and Blake now. He said you’re going in with his family in an hour?” Another cut in her heart. More space between them. But she schooled her face into a smile, hoping Michael would believe everything was fine.

“Yeah. I said I wanted as much time with the kids as possible, it’s fine.  See you there?”

“See you there.”

Michael was a couple of metres away from her when she stepped into the hall, grabbing her room key from the slot just inside the door.

“Michael?” He turned and she half jogged, pulling him into a tight hug.

“What’s this for?”

“Haven’t seen you as much. You know you’re my brother, right? How lucky I am to have you as my family?”

“You’re the most annoying little sister Ems, but you’re my little sister. I’ve missed having you around.”

“Miss you too.”

She watched him walk away as step one of her goodbyes was done. The next was to go to breakfast with everyone and pretend that things were normal for the next few hours until the race was over. She could do it. She had to.

Breakfast with the extended Ricciardo clan was fun, Isabella still clinging to her and Isaac insisting on sitting beside her. She soaked up every moment she got with them, walking out to the car Dan had arranged holding Isabella on her hip.

“That’ll be you in a few years,” Michelle commented as Em struggled with the car seat buckle before getting it right. “The mother, not the cool aunt. We can swap places.”

Another stab to her already mangled heart. “I dunno. Wait and see, but I’m not sure that’s on the cards any time soon.” Considering the only man she wanted to have a child with didn’t want to be with her, it was a no.

You’ll be a good mother, Em. Plus you’ll have loads of family around.” She wanted to scream that she was leaving her family behind for good this afternoon but instead she just smiled tightly. It was too close to home. She couldn’t keep this conversation going. It hurt.

The race matched her mood. The strategy wasn’t good, the car was a tractor, and the oblique team orders to not let Dan try overtake Lando made her want to scream. The team points would be the same, but no. Not for his home race even. The crowd were amazing and let out loud cheers every time the orange car made its way around the circuit, but it wasn’t enough and Em knew it. It hurt. Her last time at a Grand Prix, her last time cheering for the man she was so deeply in love with, and the team and car had let him down again.

The plan was already to delay debrief till Monday so Dan got to spend time with his family, and Em decided to head to the airport nearly immediately. She couldn’t stay any longer. She couldn’t deal with any more hints from Michelle about a niece or nephew in the future, couldn’t listen to Grace or Joe talking about how much they’d missed her. She couldn’t spend more time with Blake and Michael without wanting to break down and tell them that they had changed her life and she wouldn’t make them choose between her and Dan.

Because that was what it came down to. She was the last one in this group that was all united by their love of Daniel Ricciardo. She was the one who loved him so deeply it hurt, the one who loved every single member of the group to the moon and to Saturn. And she loved them so much she couldn’t bear to have them walk away from her. Because that was what would happen.

Her own blood family didn’t choose her. They saw her as a disgrace, as a failure because she was thirty one years old, unmarried and without kids. They didn’t realise that she was the one who kept Dan on schedule, who organised sponsor events and filtered out the crap he and Blake didn’t need to know about. She stopped the balls from falling out of the sky. Because she was just an assistant.

And if the people who gave birth to her wouldn’t choose her, she knew the family she’d built wouldn’t either. She was never the one who was chosen, and she didn’t blame them. She was just Emma. Danny was Dan. She knew who she’d pick if given a quarter of a chance.

She’d just finished packing when the adjoining door opened, Dan walking in already speaking but stopping when he saw the case by the door, her carry on full with the edge of the orange poster getting folded in.

“Where are you going?” His tone was accusatory and she steeled herself for the argument.

“Home.”

“Emmy…”

“Don’t Emmy me, Daniel! You know I have to go back for the anniversary.” She turned to look at him, watching as confusion turned to anger.

“And I also know that’s bullshit. I’ve known you for how many years, Em? You’ve visited your parents twice. Michael was with you one of those times, the visit lasted twenty minutes and even he didn’t have anything nice to say about it. Michael. Who has a good thing to say about almost everyone. So tell me the truth, why are you leaving now? Why not get on the flight with us tomorrow?”

“Because I have to go back.”

“Don’t lie to me Em!” He raised his voice and Em gave as good as she got, staring back at him.

“You want the truth, Dan? All of it?”

“Yes! That’s all I want, it’s all I’ve ever wanted with you.”

She took a deep breath, staring into his brown eyes for the last time, soaking in that even so angry he was so beautiful. She’d had the privilege of sleeping with him for nearly four years, of loving him for three. Whoever got to do that next would be so incredibly lucky.

“You left me alone. The one thing I ever asked of you, the only thing I ever asked you to promise me was to never leave me alone. I begged you. Whatever was going on, whatever was happening with us, please don’t leave me alone. And then there were bombs flying and I watched one explode and you made me get into a car and leave. You made me stay alone, and you didn’t come back to me that night. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know if you were even alive because I didn’t have my fucking phone until the next morning and all the news was in Arabic. You were gone to the track before I knew what had happened. You left. You broke your promise, Daniel.”

“I didn’t have a choice!” It was the worst thing he could have said.

“But Blake and Michael got to stay. Angela stayed with Lewis, don’t try to lie to me and tell me she didn’t. Britta stayed with Seb. You sent me away, Dan. I was sobbing and begging you to stay and you made Blake drive me away. You made me leave when I was scared.” She let her words sink into him fully. “Just leave. Get out of this room and leave.”

“Emmy…” His voice was soft and she blinked back the tears she knew she wanted to cry. Not until the airport. Not until then.

“GET OUT DAN!” She yelled at him for the first time, shock on his face. “JUST LEAVE! It’s what you’ve been doing this whole weekend, just leave.”

“Fine. Fine. If that’s what you want, I’m fucking gone. I’m done here, I’m gone. I’ll be downstairs in five for you to say goodbye to everyone.” She watched him walk through the adjoining door and lock it as Em’s heart completely broke in two. She’d ruined it. He was done. He was gone. He was leaving and she was going and she would never speak to him again because her Daniel wasn’t hers anymore. One person down, eight to go.

She brought her bags down to the lobby alone, everyone standing there waiting to say goodbye. Michael got a hug, she’d said everything she needed to earlier that day. Blake was beside him, wrapping her in a full body giant one and holding her tight.

“You know I love you, don’t you? I really love you.” Blake grinned and pulled her close again.

“Love you too, Ems. Moving beside you was the best decision I ever made.”

Saying goodbye to Michelle and Adam was hugs and whispers of seeing them for Christmas when she knew it was a lie. Grace pulled her into a hug that only a mother figure could, whispering in her ear.

“We’re coming over for Silverstone and yours and Dan’s birthdays, so we’ll see you then. We love you Em. If you need anything I’m only a FaceTime away. Don’t let them get you down when you’re with your family.”

“I love you too, Grace.”

Joe got a hug and a murmured love you, his hand patting her back soothingly. The kids were last, sulking as Em squatted down in front of them.

“So I got my angels a present to say goodbye, cause I know I didn’t get to see you lots. Want to see them?” There were identical nods and Em strapped the bracelets on, Isaac’s on a black cord and Isabella’s on a purple one.

“It matches the one I made you and Uncle Dan,” Isabella murmured as Em pulled her into a tight hug.

“It does. It’s a reminder that I love you both so very, very much. No matter how far away we are, I’m always going to love you, okay? Don’t ever, ever forget that. Pinkie promise me?” She held out her little fingers, laughing as they both enthusiastically took part in the ritual. She pulled them in for a final hug, pressing kisses to both of their heads.

“See you on winter break!” Isaac grinned as he spoke, Em putting a tight smile on her face. 

“We call it summer break, but I’ll see what we have to do then buddy.”

“Do you want a lift to the airport? I’ve got the rental?” Joe asked but Em shook her head.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve got an Uber coming, I just want to get on the road. It’s hard enough to say goodbye to everyone I can’t drag it out much longer.”

“Fair. Love you, kiddo.”

“Love you too, Joe.” Her phone buzzed with the notification that her driver was there and she started towards the door. Dan still hadn’t come down and that was it. He didn’t love her. He didn’t feel anything like how she did because no matter what he’d said, he’d never make her leave. But she made him leave. He was gone.

She was almost at the door when an oh too familiar voice called across the lobby, running up to them. 

“I didn’t think you’d be leaving already.”

“My Uber’s outside, I need to leave.”

“Oh.” There was none of their usual hugs, none of the subtle kisses he pushed to the top of her head when they were separated. He didn’t even squeeze her fingers. It was like they were strangers. “Send a text when you get to London?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She turned to get her luggage into the car, shielding her face from everyone with her hair. The driver lifted it in and she was soon safely ensconced in the back seat, tears falling down her cheeks as she waved goodbye behind partially tinted glass.

“Was that Daniel Ricciardo?” The driver asked, Em forcing a smile.

“Yeah, I work with him.” It was true for another five hours at least.

“He seems like a good guy.”

“He’s one of the best.”

Tears streamed down Em’s cheeks the entire way to the airport, through the fancy check in area and security, and following her into her first class pod. She mostly ignored the staff apart from nodding at them, continuing to cry and wipe her eyes on tissues. The tears barely stopped until Dubai, only aided by Blake’s near constant texts as soon as her email sent.

She knew when she arrived in London that she had about twelve hours before the boys landed, Blake texting even while he was on his flights. She sent a I got back safely, receiving another flurry of responses.

Em, what’s this email about?

What’s going on?

Tell me you didn’t mean to send this

Is it the travel? Do you want to slow down? Why?

Ems we need you. How am I supposed to tell everyone you’re not coming with us anymore? Did you meet someone? Did something happen?

We’re about to land in Heathrow. Dan’s going to his place and looks miserable. I’ll be at your door in less than two hours.

When she got the final text Em grabbed the bags she’d hastily packed with clothes and the things she needed for the next eight days until the boys had left London for Imola. The address of the last minute airbnb was in her email, getting an Uber to it handy. She was long gone by the time Blake arrived, sitting in her temporary home for the next while and planning what she had to do. They’d leave England on the Wednesday, she had five days to empty her flat.

It started with an email to her landlord to give up the lease. Her family reasons excuse was accepted quickly, the landlord told she had to leave London and the apartment would be vacant from the end of the month. After that she had to start planning on where to go to.

There were too many memories in London. Nearly every street reminded her of Dan, of days walking around hand in hand to show him her London, not the tourist one he knew. The city she’d moved to at eighteen with a dream and a student loan and where she’d discovered who she was. Dan was everywhere in the city for her - memories of their first kiss in the pub she’d spent too many hours in, museums she’d dragged him to, streets he’d stolen a kiss from her at with a grin and a chuckle when they were waiting to cross the road. The cafes and greasy spoons she’d brought him to with the promise of not telling Michael. She couldn’t stay there, it was too much.

But everywhere she thought of had memories of him. Filthy weekends away when they were at home because of covid, eating out to help out and driving to Manchester or Glasgow to spend time together and have hotel sex. The midlands were completely out because of Silverstone, of memories of Enstone and the Renault factory, of Milton Keynes and his goodbye from Red Bull.

The only big city she could think of without a memory of Dan - with only one memory of her boys - was Liverpool. Which meant her parents. Which meant a conversation she never wanted to have. Calling her mother wasn’t like calling Grace. But she didn’t have Grace in her life anymore, so she had to do it.

“Emma, what country do you deign to call us from today?” Her mother answered the phone, disdain dripping from every word.

“Good morning, Mother. I’m in England. I was calling because I need to ask for a favour from you.”

“Yes?”

Em swallowed, teeing up words on her too thick tongue. “I had to leave my job, they didn’t have the funding to keep me on. I was wondering if I could move home for a few weeks while I’m applying for new jobs. I want to leave motorsports, there’s too much travelling and I want to settle down.” She hit every keyword that her mother had as she checked her bank account balance, spotting her final pay deposited in the account. It was more than healthy thanks to travelling so much for work and Dan covering that under work expenses. But she needed to be sensible, and renting somewhere without a job would be a mistake.

“You can. You will need to pay rent while you’re here.”

“Of course. Just let me know how much. It wont be for long, it’s just a few weeks. It’ll be like I won’t even be there, if I’m not interviewing I’ll be in my bedroom.”

“Fine. Let me know when you plan to arrive.” She sounded bored of the conversation already.

“I’ll be back April twenty fourth. I can send you the train details then.

“See you then.”

The difference between the call with her mother and a call with Grace just cut the wound in her chest even harder. Grace never let a call end without a million “I love you”s between them. She made sure that Em spoke to everyone in the family, and if Joe was out at the garage she took a message and told Em that he loved her. Instead her mother hadn’t even asked if Em wanted to leave a message for her father.

It felt so, so wrong.

The list of things she had to do before the boys left for Italy was beginning to shrink, but there was still so much to do. She ignored Blake and Michael’s texts, refusing to even open them. The chats were archived so the red dots didn’t irritate her. Dan didn’t send her anything at all, yet more proof that he meant everything he said in Melbourne. He was done with her. She didn’t realise that emotional pain could hurt this much. She’d never believed in soulmates, never believed in fate. She always thought that if a relationship ended she’d get through it. But now? This not quite a relationship over? It ached to her core.

Friday morning she had an appointment with a solicitor, walking in with a tear stained sheet of what she wanted to leave to different people. She’d always fought with Dan about being prepared if something happened to him, not wanting to know what he left her. She was one of the two people who could decide what medical treatment he got if he couldn’t consent. She’d cried when he told her that day in Spa when they got that tragic news what he wanted if he was in a crash like that. That he trusted her to not let him stay on machines. Some of her nightmares included his plaintive “I don’t want false hope” that made her ache.

She didn’t trust her parents to not do the same for her. They’d keep her hooked up to machines for as long as possible, they’d insist it was for “hope”. Em didn’t know what hope, but she knew them. They’d barely spoken for five years apart from occasional texts and birthday cards, they didn’t have the right to decide what happened to her.

It was a blustery Friday morning when she walked into that office and signed the papers to say Daniel Ricciardo, Blake Friend, and Michael Italiano were the people who decided what would happen if she couldn’t make her own medical decisions. She gave the lawyer the makeshift will that was handwritten and tearstained. It was simple - her cookbooks and exercise equipment to Michael because he was always trying to adapt her recipes. All but one piece of her furniture to Blake. Her CDs and DVDs to Dan, along with the coffee table he kept falling over. Her collection of Dan’s raceworn helmets to Isaac and Isabella. Dan, Grace, and Michelle were to divide her jewellery between them based on who wanted what. The rest of her belongings were to be sold and the money put in Isaac and Isabella’s college funds. It was too easy.

Even after everything that had happened, even after walking away, she trusted her boys more than she trusted anyone else in the world.

After all of that her final task was to organise her storage unit and movers. That was easiest of all if Em was honest. A call to a moving company who agreed to put everything in the unit without her there, and walking into a storage company. She signed a two year contract and paid the full rent then and there, surprising the man at the counter. Now she was able to disappear.

The texts kept coming from Blake and Michael. WhatsApp and iMessage, even a signal account she’d forgotten she had on her phone. Michael sent her instagram DMs so she deleted the app instead of trying to avoid reading them and appearing online. But finally it was Wednesday and she knew exactly when the boys were flying out of London City Airport. She’d organised the private flight for them, booked the plane and made sure the flight was as clean as possible. As soon as they’d take off her plan could start.

Walking back into her apartment felt too normal, just checking her post and finding it mostly full of letters from Blake. Get in touch, we’re worried, we miss you. Sentiments she knew he’d share but it would be easy for him to forget about her. The letters went out in recycling and she began to pack up her life.

The boxes were settled easily. Storage, donating, and Dan’s stuff. The ones for him filled quickly, clothes and accessories and things he’d left lying around the apartment that had become theirs instead of just hers. It took three boxes to get rid of the sense of him.

The storage boxes were easier, but the final thing she had to do at four that Sunday morning was decide what to do with her helmet wall. Ever since Monaco and his win, Dan had given her his race worn helmet for any new race design. She could name which race each of them was from, and in the middle was her Monza win one. McLaren had wanted it for the MTC but Dan refused to give it over, insisting it was his and he was keeping it. They got the trophy so he got the helmet. And then he put it in the middle of the IKEA shelves that they’d spent a weekend putting together and laughing.

Part of her - a large part if she was truly honest - wanted to donate them. Get rid of them for the clean break she insisted she needed. But she couldn’t. They were the good parts of the last four years, the best part of her life and the reminder that for years she got to love Daniel Ricciardo and travel the world with her best friends. Once she was settled somewhere she’d put them all back up to get her and explain to whoever asked that she was a part of Formula One for a short while, and it meant so much to her.

It took longer than she expected to get them wrapped carefully and boxed away. Two just about fit in one box, but they were light at least. When they were carefully labelled with the races, a tear falling from her eye when she wrote Monaco 2018 on a box in looping letters, she sat down to write notes to her boys. They deserved more than a resignation email and leaving without saying goodbye but if she saw them in person she wouldn’t walk away. She was barely strong enough to do that the first time. Em couldn’t do it again.

Dan’s took the longest. It started with anger. How could you make me love you when you didn’t love me back scrawled angrily, tears staining the lined pages as she wrote everything. But she couldn’t give it to him how she’d written it. She couldn’t deliberately hurt him. It wasn’t Dan’s fault that she’d fallen in love with a man who couldn’t love her back the way she wanted him to love her. It was her fifth draft, still tear stained, that was the one she was giving him.

Danny,

I’m sorry I didn’t say this in person but I couldn’t do it. We both know that things between us haven’t been working for a while. It’s nobody’s fault. I guess we just wanted different things. It happens to us all. But we’re both done and writing this is easier than another long conversation and another fight.

Go be happy. I’ll cheer you on from wherever I end up, no matter what. You’ve changed so many lives, mine included. Thank you for the amazing years and experiences. You let me do things that so few people ever get to do and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Emma

Michael and Blake’s were harder and easier. She only needed one attempt at them, trying to wipe the tears before they fell.

Blakey,

I’m sorry for leaving like this. I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch, but I made sure that everything logistically is booked until the summer break. Just get him where he needs to be on time, you were always better at that than me.

I love you. You’re my big brother and i wasn’t going to make you choose between me and Dan, that was never going to be fair. I’ll be happy and I want you to be happy too. Find a girl and settle down or bring her around the world. I’m rooting for you the entire time.

Will you make sure everyone in the paddock knows I love them? Tell Chloe and Scotty to get their wedding planned. Chloe will be the most beautiful bride and I’m so sorry I won’t get to see her in person. Scotty will look ok, I guess.

Thank you for everything.

Love,

Ems

PS - the extra key is for my storage unit. A1 Storage in Wimbledon. Figured you’d be a good person to have it.

She folded Blake’s letter into an envelope and labelled it before writing the last one. Somehow this was the hardest, having to ask Michael to do what she couldn’t.

Mike,

I’m sorry for leaving and I’m sorry for asking you to pass a message on but I know you will. I love you so much. You made lockdown bearable even when I was being a bitch, and you made me actually enjoy exercising you cruel man.

Tell everyone that I love them and I’m sorry? You let me know exactly what a family is and how I deserve to be loved and that’s something I can never thank you enough for. Ever. I can’t make people decide between me and Dan. He wins every time and that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s easier if I just leave.

Tell Grace and Joe I love them and I will forever be grateful for their love and support. Let Michelle know that she’s the best big sister ever. Please make sure that Isaac and Isabella know that I love them no matter what. It’s not their fault I left and I will always love them. Whoever gets to be their auntie is the luckiest person in the world and I wish it got to be me.

Tell all your family I love them, and ti voglio bene to Nadia and your Nana. I love you all so much, and I’m cheering you all on from wherever I end up.

Love,

Em

When the movers came she handed them the key to the storage unit, letting them know what to do. Everything was out of the apartment in a few moments and Em took a last look around her almost empty apartment. The memories were suffocating. Dan tripping over the coffee table, the London lockdown when they got back from Australia and they lied to Michael about what the yoga mat’s primary purpose was. The way Dan danced with her in the dark kitchen, distracting her from finding food for them in the fridge and getting them to sway in the silence. The kisses and living together like he loved her the same way she loved him.

He’d been blowing up her voicemail since Wednesday and she deleted them I listened to. The first “Emmy” hurt her too much, so she decided to practice self preservation for once. As soon as her voicemail said “you have an unlistened to voicemail from Dan” it was deleted. The same with Blake and Michael. She couldn’t do it.

Finally it was time to leave, and she carried Dan’s boxes one at a time into Blake’s apartment. The three were stacked one atop the other, the letters on top of them. Em stared at her thumb, at the moon ring that had been there since Dan bought it for her calling her his moon on dark nights. She couldn’t bear to take off the three necklace hanging on her chest, but this she had to leave behind. She wasn’t his moon, and he was too bright to be her sun.

She slipped it off and rubbed her finger against the warm gold, pushing a kiss to it before stepping back. The final thing she needed to do was leave the envelope with her medical power papers and will on Blake’s coffee table before she locked the front door and slipped his keys in his post box. It was done. She was gone.

The tube to Euston was quicker than expected and she joined the trek to the Liverpool train, settling into her seat a few minutes before they were due to pull out. Her phone lit up with a notification that the race was about to start, illuminating the photo from lockdown of her and Dan holding Isaac and Isabella. They looked like a family. Em unlocked her phone and pushed her thumb firmly down on the F1 app to delete it. A clean break.

The train pulled off exactly at two, her mind echoing Crofty’s “lights out and away we go”. Dan was in the car and racing and all she wanted was a good points finish for him. But she couldn’t check. She couldn’t let herself find out what he was doing.

Her tears fell harder as the train pulled into Milton Keynes, the memories of the last time she’d done this train journey as Dan’s plus one. His leaving Red Bull party, staying in a hotel with him the week before they flew to Perth for Christmas. It was the only time she’d gotten to visit the impressive Red Bull factory. Meeting Max properly, Christian cornering her with his wife - and keeping her cool around Geri fucking Halliwell - to ask if she could convince Dan to come back. Getting whisked away from Helmut quickly when he tried to speak to her, meeting the mechanics and team that she’d seen at several races properly for once. Yet another place she could never visit again because all she’d think about was Dan.

Em made herself stop crying shortly after, pushing a cold bottle of water to her eyes. She couldn’t be red eyed or puffy seeing her parents. It was bad enough returning with her tail between her legs. She didn’t know if she’d survive the I told you so.

*

When Dan got out of the car in Imola he knew what he had to do. His first stop was being weighed and getting his slip, Mike pushing one of those AG1 drinks into his hand to down to get electrolytes and water back into him. After that it was media rounds, apologising to Carlos, and doing media. Once the debrief was finished it was London. He needed to get to Emmy. For the second time he’d gotten on a plane when he should have been with her and he needed to apologise. Needed to make things right.

“The jet will be ready when we finish? I need to get back to London tonight.” Michael handed him a McLaren branded shirt and pair of skinny jeans to put on once he was out of the shower.

“It’ll be ready. Mate, you need to know that she might not want—“

“She’ll see me. It’s Em. She’s my Emmy. She’s going to see me and I’m going to tell her everything. I can’t do this without her. I can’t. I dunno how I did it before.”

“Ok. Go shower and head out.”

The debrief was painful. Lando on the fucking podium, Dan last. They wrote off his technical debrief after the collision. It was clear Dan couldn’t have done anything, and the rest of his race was nothing to write home about. He should have just retired. It was shit and he just had to listen to how Lando had a flawless race and was extracting the most out of the tractor McLaren had built. He had to wait until it was over, half listening and taking notes while stewing.

All he could think about was Emmy. He hadn’t reached out because he thought she needed space, wanted time. He’d had the fucking ring in his pocket in the hotel room and then they’d fought and he couldn’t exactly get on one knee and ask her to marry him after that. But now she was gone and she’d been gone for weeks and he didn’t know. He needed her to be ok. He needed to go home and see her on the couch and beg for her forgiveness because he was hers. His apartment was so fucking lonely, driving in and out of the factory without seeing her. Without going to sleep curled up beside her and waking up with the fairy lights glowing as she read whatever dog eared book she was rereading that month.

The voicemails were being listened to. Her inbox went from full to empty and he kept texting, determined to get through to her. Needing her to talk to him. To say anything at all. People kept asking where she was, he laughed it off and gave the excuse of family stuff. Natalie had nodded and said she hoped Em would be back soon. Chloe had looked at him oddly when she heard the excuse but he shrugged and moved on. The elder Stroll could be terrifying and he didn’t want to get on her bad side. Not even Scotty could save him from that.

There was nothing he could do but wait to be freed. The moment they were able to break - after Dan apologised to the mechanics for the job they’d have to do on the car - he was on his way to the driver room. Blake and Michael were already there with bags packed and ready to go.

It was a two hour flight to London and they landed at nine. After forcing their way through traffic in a black cab it was after nine thirty by the time they arrived at Blake and Em’s building. Dan stepped out of the car and grabbed his bags, heading straight upstairs to the two identical doors. He didn’t realise when it became more normal to stand in front of Em’s door than Blakes, but it had years before. He knocked twice to no response.

“Em? I’ve got my key, I’m coming in.”

The lock turned easily with the familiar key and Dan set his bags down to flick the light switch. What he saw terrified him.

The room was empty. The couch that killed his back, the coffee table his shins hated, gone. The bookshelves and the kitchen table they’d spent a lockdown day building, gone. Her helmet collection was missing. Em had once told him that if the building went on fire she would save whichever helmets she could. If they were gone, she was gone.

He ran to her bedroom but everything was missing. The fairy lights they’d taped up with double sided tape. Her bed. The throw cushions he laughed about. Even the case at the bottom of her wardrobe with the lingerie he’d bought her was gone. Her pink boots weren't there. It was like nobody had lived there for years. He couldn’t even smell her perfume in the air.

“Dan?” He hadn’t realised tears were streaming down his face when he turned to see his best mates standing in the doorway. “Mate, you need to see this.”

He followed them back to Blakes, pausing to lock Emmy’s front door. She had to come back. The idea that she wouldn’t come back was impossible.

Until he saw the boxes.

Three of them, neatly stacked almost up to Blake’s chest. There were three envelopes on them, and a glint of gold on top of one. He nearly ran to it, ignoring the post race soreness going through his body to see the ring he’d given her sitting on top of the one neatly labelled Daniel.

She’d used his first name. Emmy never used his first name unless something was wrong. He’d fucked up so badly that he didn’t want to open it.

Instead he held the ring firmly in his palm, the metal cold against his hand. She was there. She had been there and now she was gone and he didn’t know what to do. But instead he followed what Blake and Michael had done and opened his letter.

It was how impersonal it was that killed him. Em was done. She’d be fine. Thanking him for bringing her around the world and letting her work with him. She didn’t want another fight and she thought he was done with her.

She didn’t love him like he loved her and for a brief moment that made him want to die. The moments they’d shared, the times they’d said they loved each other. The times he’d held her and traced I love you down her back or against her clit when he was eating her out, desperate for her to know but too afraid to say it. The 'y’know, right?'. Everything from the last nearly four years. None of it had ever mattered because she wouldn’t have married him. He had her ring in his fucking ever present backpack and thank God he hadn’t tried to propose because she’d have said no and he’d have been humiliated.

“I guess you were right. Buying the ring was a mistake.”

His choked voice broke the silence, but it was Michael who got the next sentence in, cutting off Blake’s question about the ring.

“Mate, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“She doesn’t love me like I love her. I was wrong. I just got my heart broken so please, don’t rub it in right now?”

“Did you read any of what she wrote?”

“Yeah. She’s done. She thanked me for letting her travel with us. Like she didn’t earn her place. She signed it Emma. I was wrong, ok? I was wrong and I can’t take you rubbing it the fuck in when I think Im gonna break.”

“What happened? Because the two of you were fine in Bahrain, and then after Saudi she disappeared and skipped Perth, and she was barely in Melbourne. What happened with you?” Blake was the one who asked, Dan flopping on the couch beside him. He held out his much shorter letter for them to read.

“Things were weird when we got back after Christmas. Then we had covid and got through it. And Saudi fucking happened. With everything going on and keeping her safe I didn’t see her till after the race and she was already leaving. And in Melbourne we… We had a fight.” The memories of what he’d said were circling again, the anger between them, Em telling him to leave again. Him walking away.

“We thought that much. You didn’t even hug her goodbye.”

“She told me to leave!”

“In self preservation.” Michael’s voice was low and Dan was almost afraid of his best friend. “She said she didn’t want to make us choose between you and her, that she knew we’d pick you. So she left. I have to tell your fucking family she’s gone, by the way. She asked me to. So you’re going to tell me everything that’s happened between the two of you and we’re going to fix this. What the fuck did you do?”

He wanted to be annoyed that he was being blamed but he couldn’t blame the boys. So he let everything out.

He told them about wanting to kiss her in Blake’s that first night, of Monaco and their agreement that it was over once she left Monaco. Coffee and Silverstone and her birthday drinks. Spa and I love you when they were faced with the reality of what could happen with his job again. Em begging him to never leave her behind, that no matter what he wouldn’t leave her alone. Her dick of an ex who’d destroyed her self-esteem and meant she lost her friends. The meaning of 'Y’know, right?', the phrase that had been their mantra since 2019. That he hadn’t slept with anyone else since he’d met her because he just knew she was supposed to be his. That he’d bought the ring when they spent Christmas 2020 together but was just waiting for the right moment. And then in Saudi she’d been sobbing and he sent her away. He made Blake take her away from him. From them. He’d broken his fucking promise and again in Australia he walked away when he should have stayed in that room.

She’d picked the fight. She’d picked it so she’d be left alone and leave and the realisation of how well she fucking knew him hurt so much. She knew him like the palm of her hand and for a minute he forgot about it.

“Let me get this straight. You’ve known just how shit her family is for longer than any of us, and I’m the only one who’s actually met them. She asked for exactly one thing from you which was don’t leave her alone. And in Saudi, one of the countries she’s most scared of being away from us for any length of time, you made her go back to the hotel and stay there on her own. She begged you to stay and was sobbing and you left her to cry when she asked you to stay? I could fucking punch you right now.” He nodded at Michael’s words, shame filling every cell in his body.

“You made us leave her alone.” Blake spoke and Dan thought he was going to be sick. “In Melbourne. The morning of the race. 'Em’s going with my parents. She wants family time.' She didn’t know she was going with them, did she? Why?”

“She… I… No. We weren’t ok. I didn’t know if I could be in the car with her. Not after that night.”

“What happened?”

“I… Fuck. She kept the door between our rooms locked that whole week. But Saturday night it wasn’t locked. I had a habit of just trying it, just in case. It was open and I went in. I just lay down on the edge of the bed and watched her sleep for a while before falling asleep. I left before she woke up. She didn’t know, she was asleep the whole time.”

“You think our Ems was asleep for a full night before a fucking race? Are you an idiot? Did you get brain damage in that crash today? She doesn’t fucking sleep! You slept in the same bed as her for four fucking years and you don't know that? She’s into me for melatonin every damn night because she can’t sleep worrying about you. She was awake that entire night and you left her without saying a goddamn word and then you abandoned her again. Again, Dan. Don’t tell me you did something stupid and cheated on her like her fucking ex.”

“I never cheated. I haven’t touched another woman.” The thought made him sick. “I’m not that asshole. You know I’m not.”

“I don’t mean to be funny Dan. She lived beside me for nearly five years. She’s my friend. And now her apartment is for rent, your shit is here, and she’s told us all goodbye and to give messages to the people she loves. So you might not have cheated on her, but you broke her. It took us four years to help Em feel like herself again and put her pieces back together and you broke her.” Blake was opening another envelope mixed in with the post on his coffee table that Em had left in as he spoke, eyes widening slightly. Before he could get the words out Michael had to.

“You’re telling your family, by the way.” His voice was solid, a way Dan had never heard before. “She asked me to tell them but I can’t. I can’t break those kids hearts and tell them their auntie Emmy loves them forever but she can’t see them again. I can’t tell your sister that she’s lost a sister, and I can’t tell your parents that you ran off the woman they want you to marry. That the woman your mum teaches family recipes to had to leave, because you fucked up that much. You know she’s their second daughter, right? Even before whatever the fuck you’ve been doing started they adored her. From Monaco. Em’s lost the only decent mother she’s ever had because of you. She didn’t want to make us choose but if she was here right now I’d choose her over you any day.”

“If you think she doesn’t love you, read this.” Blake held out a package of papers, Dan skimming them.

Everyone in his line of work was familiar with leaving a will behind. The fucking academies basically demanded it at this point. He’d put Emmy on his own medical power of attorney form after Spa, told her what he was leaving her when she was ready for that conversation after Roman nearly died in Bahrain. 

But Emma wasn't racing cars every weekend, so she didn't need the papers she signed. She didn't need to leave a will behind, but his name was there to make decisions for Em. She’d left him specific things. The cold fear snaked up his spine, tightening around his lungs and making it hard to breathe.

“She wouldn’t. She won’t do anything stupid. It’s Em, she wouldn’t.” The words came out as a rush but certain. She wouldn’t hurt herself. God, he couldn’t live with himself if she did.

“It’s probably just a precaution. But Jesus Christ, Dan. She’s gone. We have no idea where she is, we don’t even know what country she’s in. We don’t know what kind of head start she has and with the amount of frequent flier miles she has she could be anywhere. We can probably cross off here and Australia, but that doesn’t take away much.” 

“I need to leave.” Dan turned to see Michael pick up his bag. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk. I’ll email you workout plans. She’s my fucking sister, Dan. She’s my little sister and I trusted you knew what you were doing with her. She said goodbye to me and I didn’t even know. You… I can’t look at you right now. I’m this close to quitting too because I don’t know you anymore. The Dan I grew up with? He would have said something. He wouldn’t make the woman he kept saying he was going to make his wife run away. He wouldn’t make her feel unloved. Just work out what you’re going to do. I’ll be on the plane to Miami but I don’t know if I’ll see you before then.” Dan watched as his oldest friend, the man he’d known since primary school, who’d supported him through thick and thin, walked out of the apartment into the London night.

“She’s gone. She’s really gone and she’s not coming back. I… I have to find her, Blake. I can’t do this without her.”

“You need to work out what you’re doing. You need to tell your family she’s gone. You need to do your job. We’re all hurting right now and yeah your heart is breaking. But its my job to do tough love and tell you that you need to work first and then think about her.” He stared at Blake in shock. “I’m pissed. But work first. Em somehow managed to take everything off my plate when she was leaving, because she didn’t want to make things hard on me. Go home, Dan. I have to call Chloe Stroll and tell her Em’s not coming back.”

“Not yet. Please. Let me f—“

“I’m telling her. You can hide it from the media, from your family, whatever. Chloe is Em’s best friend outside us. Do you really think she hasn’t tried calling Em already? Really?” Dan nodded once. “Go home. Your place, not the empty apartment next door you called home. Go home and get your shit together. Em would kill you if you fucked up a race over her.”

Dan got an Uber on his phone, taking his bags downstairs along with his letter from Em. He slipped the moon ring onto his little finger, settling it just above the sun. He needed her back. He just didn’t know how to find her.

[itsuki-minamy]

"K – LETTER STORY"

BLUE: "FUSHIMI AND THE REPORT"

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

Saruhiko Fushimi sometimes referred to himself, somewhat self-deprecatingly, as a middle manager.

He regards Reisi Munakata and Seri Awashima as his superiors, coordinates the special forces members on the scene, and sometimes acts as a supporter of both parties.

Both Munakata and Awashima had some quirks, but they were basically competent and understanding superiors, and the members of "Scepter 4" diligently and faithfully followed young Fushimi's orders.

It is inevitable that he will work in that position.

Fushimi knew each member of "Scepter 4" well, including their characteristics, temperament, and current health status, to the point of being able to laugh bitterly.

During the "Homura" era and before, he did not like to be in groups, but now, although he still clicks his tongue and has an apathetic demeanor, he has become an excellent facilitator.

From Fushimi's perspective, human resource management was similar to a card game. Choosing which people to assign which jobs is very similar to choosing which cards to play in a card game.

Fushimi was able to keep track of each employee's employment status using a highly confidential application that he had developed independently and which was now officially adopted throughout "Scepter 4" with Munakata's approval.

Of course, the application can be opened on PDA, etc., but Fushimi, who wanted to check multiple windows, often checked various documents on his PC when he returned to his base.

He also today ably read the reports presented by each member of the special working group.

A certain person has posted information about Strain sightings during the search, along with an accompanying photo. The person who came to court to obtain an order had submitted a report on the current situation.

Although they all differ in degree, their points are clear and their sentences easy to read.

Basically, although he rarely said it, Fushimi highly valued each member of "Scepter 4". He did not mention Akiyama, Benzai and Kamo, but Enomoto, Fuse, Goto and Hidaka were considered to have enough strength as they had unique skills and perspectives, and were patient and dedicated to their work.

In the game, there is only one person, Andy Domyoji, besides Joker or Wild Card. That day he also received a call from Domyoji.

[There's a weird guy, so I'm going to chase him.]

Fushimi let out a groan.

When he looked at the time, it was midnight. That was about half a day ago. For some reason, the message had been uploaded to the expense request folder, so it took Fushimi a while to review it.

Since then, a series of short messages have continued.

[It's really dangerous, so I'm going on a business trip to the north.]

He had no idea what he was talking about.

Fushimi made a tsukkomi that is uncharacteristic of him.

"Public servants should not act on his intuition!"

He slammed his fist on the desk.

"At least write down where you're going! No, first of all, don't go on a business trip without asking your boss for permission! That's too free! Also, don't use emojis in report emails!"

Domyoji always put a bright spot at the end of his sentences. He tried to contact him, but was dissuaded by the following text message:

[Oh, no. If I ever meet the culprit, I'm afraid I'll break my tongue. I will send you a separate report.]

At that moment, Awashima appeared, patted Fushimi on the shoulder as if to show her respect, and placed a postcard on the table in front of him.

"It just arrived via express delivery."

After saying that, she left.

It shows a man tied with a rope in the snow and Andy Domyoji next to him with a dazzling smile on his face and making a peace sign.

On the back of the postcard, the details of what happened are spelled out in small print.

Fushimi couldn't contain himself and screamed.

"Don't send me a postcard with the report about the arrest of the criminal!"

By the way, the captured man was Strain, who had committed a serious crime that "Scepter 4" had been chasing for the past six months. That's why Andy Domyoji is a wild card.

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

i have a request! + a little bit of a ranting because i love talking about this game (if you don't want to see the long rant you can skip to the two last paragraphs with the actual request :3)

ok so, i played SDV multiple times (although i never did the 100% challenge, i played at least 9 to 10 different saves), and i noticed that, throughout the entire game, the farmer's parents only send 4 letters for them, and for you to even receive said letters, you need to obtain certain amount of gold. plus, another detail is that only one of the parents will send you a letter (depending of the gender option you chose in-game), while the other one is never mentioned even once.

additionally, i also found interesting how, whenever Harvey mentions having to do "an emergency surgery" on the player, the parents never even send a letter mentioning it or anything. i would assume that for something as serious as a surgery, a family member would be contacted in case anything went south, but that never seemed to be the case. you simply wake up from the surgery, go home, sleep, and your parents never even show sign of being alive.

i know Eric most likely did this to 1. keep the past of the farmer as vague as possible for people who enjoy creating OCs/sonas to not have to ignore canon details, and 2. in regards of the letters, to reward the player for reaching x milestone. however, my little brain could not help but assume that the reason the farmer barely receives any letters from their parents (and when they do it's only from one of them) it's because they bought some heavy mommy/daddy issues™ baggage with them to the valley.

and that's where my request comes from: how would the older villagers (preferably those with no children and/or spouses, like Gus, Marlon, Willy, Linus, etc) react to the farmer accidentally calling them mom/dad, because the farmer views them as the parental figure they wish they had in their life? would it be awkward? would they be flattered? would they comfort the farmer? i NEED to know.

additionally, i would prefer if you could make it a mixture of angst and fluff. plus, you can choose any villager you want, i just ask you to include Willy, since he's the one that i made a father/child relationship with my OC and who inspired this request in the first place.

thank you, hope it wasn't too much!!! and take care :3

I have to say, when I first played the very first save, I was also interested in the fact that only one parent sent letters, and even the letter itself didn't say "me and your mom/dad are proud of you", but just "I'm proud of you, with love dad/mom). Then the letters stopped coming altogether. My first guess and failed headcanon for my OC is that Farmer only had one parent (the other parent abandon family/dead), and when the letters stopped coming, the other parent passed away as well. And then I thought it was a pretty dark headcanon and scrapped the idea. Don't want too much angst, nope!

I really like this ask, because in my opinion, even if Farmer has living and loving parents, they will still see some people in Stardew Valley as a parental figure, because Farmer's family is far away.

I hope you enjoy the stories, I tried to make them both sad and fluffy at the same time. Thanks for ask and enjoy! ❤️

Willy, Marlon, Linus and Gil react to Farmer calling them dad.

Willy:

Amazement, laughter and pride is what Willy felt as Farmer very emotionally showed how they caught the Legendary fish in the mountain lake, not forgetting to gesticulate. They and Willy were sitting on the docks on a late summer night when, a little tired from fishing, they began to tell each other their fishing stories over a bottle of mead.

"That fish almost tore the fishing line, but I still managed to pull it out. I swore and puffed, but I pulled it out! It was huge!" The farmer summarized his story.

"What a fisherman! Well done, lad/lass!" The old fisherman's heart rejoiced that young people were still interested in fishing.

"Thanks, Dad!" The Farmer quickly said the last phrase on emotion, but their smile quickly slipped and they slapped themselves on the mouth. Willy also sat silent, a little surprised at the last word. Dad... The sea wolf had his heart broken more than once in his youth, and he had already resigned himself to the fact that he would never hear that word. He wasn't sad, for fishing did bring him happiness. And still...

"Sorry, that was... Ugh, I didn't mean to-" The Farmer was already trying to get out of the awkward situation, except that they felt the old sailor's hand on their shoulder, Willy's eyes looking at them with pride and warmth.

"You're welcome, son/daughter. I'm really proud of you". Never did Willy think he could say such words, the words of a proud parent for his growing child. Willy did not have a wife or children, so he could not feel the pain of loss from something he never had. And yet, after that word, he felt as if a stone had been lifted from his shoulders, and a warmth flooded into the old sailor's heart when the Farmer, crying, hugged him back after his words.

Marlon:

"Kid!"

"I'm fine!" The Farmer's voice came up from the bottom floor of the mine, letting Marlon know that they weren't under a rubble pile of rocks or in a nest of monsters. After a moment, Farmer was able to climb out of the hole in the floor on their own, unharmed, just a couple of scratches and with dirt.

Seeing that the Farmer was standing on their feet and unharmed, Marlon sighed in relief. But immediately, anger filled the old one-eyed adventurer's chest. Using a mega bomb on slimes - how did they even think of this!? The uppermost levels of the mines can collapse from a not too strong explosion, and then there's explosives of such power!

"Things went a little off plan, but we still destroyed those slimes. I call it success," the Farmer didn't have time to finish, as Marlon walked up to them quickly and gave them a not too strong, but quite painful smack upside the head. The Farmer immediately writhed in discomfort.

"Ouch! Why?"

"What were you thinking!?" It was the first time the Farmer saw Marlon so angry, the one-eyed monster hunter rarely lost his temper, "Have you lost your mind? Using a bomb, here! You could have died under that rubble!"

"But I-" Marlon interrupted Farmer again, raising his hand in a gesture.

"We have to think about every step we make in a fight, and what did you do?" Marlon was already speaking more calmly, but his tone remained the same steely. The Farmer had already feel ashamed and regretted their careless decision.

Yet, when Marlon calmed down and scolded the Farmer, taking their word that they would never act so recklessly again, the elder adventurer offered to return to their Guild, since it was getting dark. The Farmer breathed a sigh of relief, and on the exhale they said: "You're such a dad..."

Marlon stopped after that, turning to face the Farmer, who seemed to be surprised at their own words. And Marlon himself was surprised at how he snapped at the shout: he knows that the life of an adventurer is a constant risk, but Farmer had become a close person to him to let them risk their lives so recklessly. Just like... Just like his own child. And then they call him dad...

After Farmer's words, the one-eyed adventurer hummed playfully:

"In that cases, I, as a 'dad', officially declare to you: once again you use a mega bomb at the first levels, or do another stupid act, and I will flog you with a belt so that you won't be able to sit for a week, let alone swing a sword", Marlon is unlikely to ever carry out his threat, but he must make it clear to the Farmer that he is not joking.

"Ok, ok! I won't do it again! Sheesh...", Not wanting to argue with their mentor any further, the Farmer quickly followed Marlon to the exit of the mines. Before they left the cave, Marlon put a hand on their shoulder.

"Stay vigilant, adventurer. I've lost many people dear to me to let this happen again..."

Linus:

Linus hadn't noticed that the Farmer had managed to doze off by the camping fire. After all, a hearty supper of fried mushrooms had put the Farmers to sleep and made them fall into the realm of dreams. Early fall had already rewarded the Stardew Valley with cool nights, and so Linus decided to wake the Farmer so they could head to their warm home. The task was not an easy one: besides the delicious food, the Farmer had been very tired lately, and so he slept like a dead man.

"Get up, my friend, it's time for you to go home," alas, all of Linus' efforts were unsuccessful, and then stopped altogether when Farmer sleepily said: "Dad, please, five more minutes..."

"...Dad?"

Linus heard many words for himself: homeless, crazy, wild man, freak, stinker, weirdo. But Dad...?

While Linus was processing the information, Farmer had already managed to fall back into a deep sleep. The wild man decided to let Farmer finish his sleep in peace here near his tent. He took out a warm blanket from the tent, which he had made himself from fur, and covered Farmer, who was shivering a little from the cold night.

"Sweet dreams, my child", Linus had never thought that Fate would let him consider someone his child and pass on his wisdom, even if they were not related by blood. He made a promise to himself to always keep an eye on this kid and to help them in any way he could, whether by advice or deed.

Gil:

The knocking of stone against stone. Bang. And another ban

Another failure.

"Ah, damn it..." The Farmer cursed, throwing two geodes at their feet.

"Try it again, kid, you'll learn in time. See, you do it like this..." Gil again demonstrates how to open the geodes by himself, without Clint's hammer. With movements that had been honed over the years, he again held two halves of a split geode in his hands, from which amethyst and rock crystal druzes glistened.

"You didn't get into farming the first time either, yeah? You told me yourself, kiddo". Gil was absolutely right - to achieve a prosperous farm, the young Farmer had to work really hard, and success did not come immediately. So Farmer, sighing tiredly, took the geodes in their hands again in an attempt to open the mineral. Knock, knock, knock.

Crash.... Pop.

It worked!

"Told ya, kid", Gil smiled at the excited Farmer, who, twisting the two halves of the open geode, couldn't believe their own eyes.

"Yo, I finally did it! Thanks, Papa!"

It took the Farmer about ten seconds to realize what they had just said. Their cheeks flushed. Oh...

Gil, on the other hand, was quite ok to such a word in his address. In fact, he did not even miss the opportunity to tease the young adventurer a little.

"Papa, huh?" Though deep down Gil was touched by the fact that he had become this kind of father figure to Farmer, he wouldn't miss the opportunity to have a little fun. Especially since he knows that Farmer, though embarrassed by their confession, will also catch Gil's mood.

And the old adventurer is not mistaken.

"Well, should I call you mom then?" The Farmer was not in debt, deciding to play along with Gil as well.

"And that's how you talk to your papa, kid?" Gil rewarded the Farmer with a playful slap on their shoulder, "Come on, get outside. There's a whole bag of geodes lying by the supply boxes. Bring it over here and we'll practice some more," Farmer nodded and ran merrily toward the Guild exit, almost hitting Marlon, who was just entering the building.

The one-eyed adventurer, seeing his cheerful friend (it was rare to find Gil in such a good mood):

"Did something happen while I was gone?" Marlon hummed favorably and waited for Gil to stop snickering and calm down.

"You can congratulate me, brother," Gil said, "I just became a dad."

[accirax]

DRDT New Character Talent Analysis

WHO ARE THESE GUYS???? GOING CRAZY GOING STUPID

Ahem. 

As likely everyone has now seen at this point, DRDTdev made a very exciting announcement on Twitter– namely, that he’s been working on another fangan alongside DRDT! (Very relatable, once you make one fangan it’s kinda hard to stop.) Understandably, assuming this fangan is ever developed in full, it will be several years down the road, given that it would only be published after DRDT is complete.

However, we have these designs now, and I wanna know what their talents are, dammit! The blurb says that they are students trapped in a killing game, so I assume that they have been given Ultimate abilities. Thus, here’s my best shot and first look analysis. I tried not to look at anyone else’s work too much before presenting my opinions in order to get them out as fast as possible, so, sorry if I missed any major details that people have uncovered!

Notably, when I downloaded the images to my computer (so I could look at them without waiting for the website’s load time), all of them saved with weird number/letter codes. These probably mean nothing, although they do all end with “_o”, which could indicate that they were put through a code scramble of some kind. At the very least, the codes are a kind of convenient way to refer to the characters, so I’ll use the first three letters as a name. Also, I’ll be using they/them pronouns for all characters, since we don’t know how they identify.

We’ll start with the Protagonist, and go alphabetically by code from there. I’m so excited!!! Here we go:

I’m glad that this guy is basically confirmed as the Ultimate Teacher, because I honestly have no clue what I’d call them otherwise.

The main thing I noticed throughout their design was the repetition of red undertones everywhere. You can see them in two places: on the jacket, and in their hair. We know from the July 31st Q&A that characters in the Despair Time Fanganronpa Universe (DTFU) see blood as red, and that Monokuma’s color palette is black, white, and red. It’s kind of a suspicious color– the children’s hospital color theory of it all. O-or, maybe it’s just their favorite color…!

The bows in n9Z’s hair kind of remind me of the one on Peko’s sword case (sorry I didn’t put in a picture), although I doubt there’s a connection there. The gloves make me think of something fancy, the trenchcoat makes me think of a detective, the ID makes me think it’s something top secret… dude, what are you doing?

I guess there is the question of what exactly this person teaches. If we assume they’re the teacher Min mentions in A History of Hope’s Peak, it seems like the answer would be, “Ultimates.” If you want to teach Ultimates, you need to know and be able to do a lot of stuff, so that could explain the utilitarian design. They could have also initially had a background as something else, such as a government agent or employee of XF-ture Tech, before winding up as a teacher.

The fact that their eyes are always closed is also notable. Given DRDTdev’s penchant for putting important stuff in the eye designs, it’s possible there’s some important info in there that he's not ready to release yet. Like, if n9Z had black/red heterochromia or something, that would send us spinning. (Personally, I’m kinda hoping there’s an apple in there…) I also had the thought that n9Z might just permanently have both of their eyes closed, kind of like how Setsuka Chiebukuro of SDRA2 always keeps one eye closed. That would be a cute parallel to Min, whose eyes are always obstructed.

So, yeah. Ultimate Teacher, probably. Despite the fact that we more or less have their Ulimate talent, I somehow feel like we know the least about them…

My first impression of this person is that they’re definitely athletic in some regard. The ponytail that ends in a braid would be keeping the hair out of their eyes, and the athletic shoes would be helpful for running around.

About the marks under the eyes... While the comparison to my superhero design for Arturo is still a lighthearted jest, the reason for them being there may be fueled by the same reasoning. The superpower that @1moreff-creator gave Arturo was a skill that involved his vision, so I put those marks under his eyes as a natural mark that would mimic eye black. If you don’t want to read the entire link, eye black is those lines of paint (or sometimes stickers) that baseball or American football players wear under their eyes. While it’s not entirely scientifically proven, the point of the marks is supposed to be absorbing the rays of sun around the eyes to reduce the glare you would see. Thus, 0a6 may have these marks under their eyes to make it easier to see in a fast-paced situation (even though they're not particularly dark in color).

Additionally, if we didn’t already know who the protagonist was, I would guess it was 0a6. They have an ahoge in very much the same way that Teruko does, and they share an eye design with Hajime Hinata. The styling of their belt buckle also reminded me of how truth bullets are designed. However, 0a6 is NOT the protagonist, which must mean that these things mean something else. I don’t have much to say about the ahoge, but the eye design might instead imply that this person’s talent has to do with rejecting, opposing, or ending something. The bullet could be a regular bullet, and therefore imply that this person’s talent has something to do with guns.

For whatever reason, the hairstyle already made me think Ultimate Archer at first glance, so with the gun thing, I’m going to submit my guess as Ultimate Sharpshooter. This talent (and other slight variations of it) shows up pretty commonly in fangans (Kiyoka Maki of DRA, Desmond Hall of P:EG), and for good reason. It’s a talent that gives off a cool vibe, a potentially level headed yet aggressive personality, and can obviously be involved in many cool murder tricks.

My other guesses besides Ultimate Sharpshooter are in a similar ballpark– aforementioned Archer, Ultimate Bounty Hunter, Ultimate Spy, etc– but I could be way off track. I don’t see any weapons on 0a6, which would be weird for any of those talents. It could be more of a Debater type talent (with the eye symbol and truth bullet), or the blue gloves could hint at something more scientific (a la Charles and Arturo), although I don’t see the benefit to the sporty under-eye mark in either of those cases.

3Km is interesting, because they’ve got a lot going on. Hexagons, fire, zebra print– put it all together, and what does it mean? One interpretation is that their personality, too, is a lot.

I was immediately drawn to the markings on the left side of 3Km’s face, because I don’t know what they are. They could be angry veins, but… I don’t think veins really work like that in the shoulder. It’s far more than the typical anime stylization, not in the same place, and they don’t look particularly angry, so that's probably wrong. In that case, it’s probably a scar. But, what kind? Acid? An animal? Fire, like the symbol on their shirt?

Let’s move on for now and take a look at their pants. There’s a zebra pattern, which could imply a connection to animals/zoos or travel/Africa. The kind of pants they’re wearing are called chaps, which, hey, are typically ridden by horse riders! They’re meant to protect the rider’s legs from “thorny vegetation, extreme temperatures, and the animals they work with.” That definitely makes it seem like the zebra is important, as an equine animal.

Thus, my guess for this character is Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer. They wear chaps and gloves to protect them from the untamed animals they work with, yet they may have gotten a scar from a taming gone wrong. They’re strong so that they can get the upper hand, and the fire and piercings could speak to their rebellious, similarly wild personality. @venus-is-thinking also suggested that, as a Wild Animal Tamer, this character could work in the circus, which could further explain the flamboyant clothing and fire motif. They definitely seem like a character who could be putting on a show.

As for the other character pictured… that person is almost certainly 3Km’s sibling, likely a twin. However, as a fellow member of the killing game cast, we’ll get to them later! For now, let’s check out somebody else.

This character is one of the ones that I’m the most baffled about. They don’t wear a lot of symbols or field-specific clothing, so, it’s kind of a shot in the dark.

They definitely seem kind of fancy, what with the super swirly hair. Square scarves also typically seem to be worn in professional circumstances for stylish people. They’re wearing a lot of layers (including said scarf and a sweater), so it’s possible they work in a cold environment? Or maybe they just naturally run cold. There’s a lot of draping elements in their clothing, between the folded jacket and two-layered skirt, but that doesn’t really correlate to a specific location or profession.

The eyes patterns are also weird. They’re very spiky and not perfectly circular. What they reminded me of first were either an explosion, a loud noise, or a circular blade distorted while spinning quickly. Glasses are typically associated with nerdy or smart characters (like Eden and Charles), but anyone can wear glasses, so I wouldn’t use that as a huge selling point.

Anyways, the combination of fanciness, loudness, and potential nerdiness made me think some kind of talent incorporating a voice and art. I had ideas ranging from Ultimate Opera Singer to Ultimate Art Critic. In the end, I settled on Ultimate Stage Director, mostly as a vibe check. I could imagine this character ordering writers, actors, and set designers around with the goal of following their vision. A person like that who’s used to being in charge could be an interesting figure in a killing game. Again, though, I don’t have super strong feelings about this, so I’m extra looking forward to learning more.

I was going to slam dunk this one as the Ultimate Shepherd until @fuji-iri pointed out to me that there’s actually a sewing needle pattern in their eye! I’m kind of glad, because it gives me more to talk about and might explain some of the weird things I noticed if this character were the Ultimate Shepherd.

Besides the sewing needle, the eyes are definitely reminiscent of a sheep. Same with the braids in their hair– they’re arranged in a spiral reminiscent of a sheep’s horns. The cloud-like pattern on their cloak, as well as the soft-looking trim, seem fluffy and wool-like. 9lt definitely has a sheep motif, but that doesn’t mean it’s the talent exactly.

9lt’s bell hints at that concept. Although sheep often wear bells, according to google images, they’re more often regular bells than the circular bell depicted in their outfit. It seems like sheep can wear these bells, but they’re more commonly seen on cats.

There’s also a strong focus on pastel colors in the design, particularly pink. The design is very fun and childlike, it’s silhouette appearing smaller due to the large bow and lack of visible arms. (They’re also just pretty short.) The cloak, which obscures most of their body, kind of reminds me of Toshiko Kayura of P:EG. Small, cute, and childish, yet kind of mysterious and strange: that’s the vibes this design is giving me.

Given the sewing needle, it’s tempting to give this character a talent in fashion design. They do have a very specific style, which could play into their designs. However, with the strong connections to animals and fluffiness makes me think that they actually might be something along the lines of the Ultimate Plush Maker. It’s cozy and cuddly while also involving the sharp eye (of the needle) that a creator needs to have.

Now, this is a character with a lot going on. They’ve got symbols all over and a really fun hairstyle, so, let’s see how it could all fit together.

One of the aspects that first caught my eye was the flower in hwR’s hair. I’m pretty sure it’s a dandelion, which could be read in a couple of ways. The first is that a dandelion is a weed. hwR could be a character who often isn’t wanted, but manages to persist regardless. Secondly, dandelions have a lot of medicinal benefits if you consume them. So, hwR could be a character focused on health, especially in alternative ways. Thirdly, there’s the superstition that blowing on a dandelion will grant you a wish. I’d lean against this one because the dandelion isn’t… ripe(???) enough to be blown on yet, but the interpretation is still there.

The bunny symbol also has a lot of interpretations. As I listed out in the image, some options are good luck, longevity, opportunity, and adventure. The white rabbit is also a main character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which DRDTdev is clearly familiar with if the LGI MV is anything to go by. Generally, rabbits are also fast, cute, and known for multiplying. White rabbits seem to have generally positive connotations, which is a good sign for this character.

Other symbols include the crescent moon and sparkle type shapes, which seem to indicate nighttime or mystery. The symbol in hwR’s eyes is a spiral, which is also mysterious and could have to do with hypnosis. Apparently they also represent the circle of life, which could be suspicious…? Dying and living, killing games, and the like.

Anyways, with all this supernatural and superstitious imagery, I feel like the talent has to deal with something similar. I’m not exactly sure what to call it, or what the specific niche is. The one I wrote down in my notes was the Ultimate Alternative Medicine Practicioner, tying in the medicinal uses of dandelions and therapeutic uses of hypnotism. However, that title is a mouthful, and there are definitely other options. I sort of wanted the talent to just be someone who believes in spiritual practices, but given that a spiritualist is apparently someone who believes in talking to ghosts, the best name I could come up with for that was Ultimate Believer. hwR could also be something like an Ultimate Fortune Teller or a straight up Hypnotist, or a Lucky Student who really leans into the title. There are plenty of options, but I think it’s something in this genre.

This guy is fun! The fashion is pretty plain so there’s not a lot to work with, but I’ll give it my best shot.

As compared to 8CT (the one with the curly hair), Jfl at least has the very obvious symbol on their shirt to point us in the right direction. I’m pretty sure those are audio levels, which means that their talent probably combines something with sound with something with technology. I don’t know why they would need a lot of pockets or a hat with a visor for that, but hey, always good to be prepared.

The hat is pretty plain, but there is that green square on it. It may just be a large tab, as appears on many baseball caps to show off a logo. This one is blank, though, so it could be something else. It kind of looks like the press marker that appears on stereotypical reporter hats in, like, the 1920s, but those weren’t typically lime green, either (unless the black and white movies are fooling me hard).

The overall color scheme plus the fingerless gloves sort of make this character look like an Ultimate Hacker to me, but then I’m not sure what the connection to the audio levels are. They could also be something more like an Ultimate DJ, but the hat, jacket, and cargo pants make me feel like it’s something a little more active/outdoorsy. Thus, I’m going to go with the kinda-compromise that this character is the Ultimate Podcaster. In my mind, they would do some field reporting first (hence something that looks kind of like a reporter hat), and then come back to their home office and talk about it to publish in a podcast.

With my argument about the clothes feeling more outdoorsy, I have a few ideas for what the podcast could be about. The first is something along the lines of hunting cryptids. Jfl goes into the woods, looks around, and then reports their findings in, like, a ghost log. A little more in the realm of realism, Jfl could tail important figures around, either as a paparazzi-type person or someone who’s unraveling a conspiracy, and then release a report on them. That could also get Jfl involved in some kind of scuffle with XF-ture tech, which makes me lean more in that direction.

With the fish scales, knA is pretty obviously nautically coded. Their talent probably has something to do with water, but, in what way? Let’s look at the other details.

Just like Nico, knA has slit eyes. In Nico’s design, it was meant to make them look catlike, due to their profession as the Ultimate Pet Therapist. Similarly, 9lt has horizontal slit eyes, which are meant to make them look like a sheep. It seems like these elongated pupils are meant to make us think of animals, so knA’s talent probably heads in that direction. They also have a catlike mouth ( :3 ) and wear a collar, which (like Nico) makes them lean feline. Maybe it’s a catfish? Or maybe that’s more of a personality beat.

On the other hand, knA’s eye pattern has two circles in it, a larger one that goes around the long pupil and a smaller one that’s sort of hidden behind it. In context, this most reminded me of a sonar/radar system, which sailors use at sea to make sure they aren’t running into anything. Through that lens, the belt(?) that wraps around their leg reminded me of an anchor wrapped around a post. That’s kinda confirmation bias with the water thing, but it may have been intentional.

To be honest, I was really back and forth on whether to call this character the Ultimate Angler or the Ultimate Diver, but by the bolding, you can tell I settled on the former. I liked Ultimate Diver because it would place the character more among the fish (why they’re coded as an animal) as opposed to someone who catches them. But also, cats are known for catching fish, right? Plus, my interpretations of a sonar and an anchor would connect the character to a boat, which is less important for diving and more important for fishing.

Now this is the character that seems to be the talk of the town! And for good reason, too: they have a lot more recognizable imagery that specifically ties them to DRDT than anybody else.

First off, there’s the obvious XF-ture Tech logo, shaped like a hexagon, which appears on u1l’s jacket. That certainly connects them to the company in some way, whether they’re an employee or just someone who received some merch. This is extra interesting given that u1l wears the same pin that Min has on her design. In A History of Hope’s Peak, Min says she was sponsored by XF-Ture Tech, so maybe this guy was, too? It could be a kind of alternate company logo. Or it could have some kind of bug to listen in with. That’d be fun.

Otherwise, it’s pretty nondescript. They have regular eyes, a regular shirt, and a regular ol’ pink tie (other than the connection it may have to the Sleepy MV). The jacket is tied really weirdly at the bottom, kind of looking like a fish tail, but I think it’s a normal jacket. The boot design kind of reminded me of Xander’s, which could indicate that this character has to be prepared to run around.

Pinning down u1l’s talent is kinda hard because… honestly, I kinda feel like they’re just “Ultimate XF-Ture Tech Guy.” Like, they’re clearly connected to the company, and may be here as their representative. Thus, in my notes, I called this guy the Ultimate Technician.

A technician is “a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant field and technique, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles.” Is that vaguely tech-ish as hell? Yeah. Is XF-Ture a tech company that also does vague other things? Yeah. Ultimate Technician lets this u1l have a lot of skills yet not have to elaborate on it at all, which is something that I feel like they would enjoy. Just like how they might enjoy how all of us are chomping at the bit to learn more about them, and yet, we probably won’t hear anything for a while…

A very pretty addition to the cast! I love their vibes. Time to figure out what they mean.

There’s a lot here that signifies wealth. The crown hairpin is very obvious in that regard, as is the cape. Purple is often thought of as a color of royalty, and uBg is wearing a lot of it. Same with the cape– it’s an article of clothing often worn by kings. Their eye pattern contains a diamond within a circle. Diamonds are a jewel; wealth, royalty, etc.

This character also has some elements of promiscuity to them. Garter socks (which is what I think is what they’re wearing on their left leg?) are typically thought of as a sexually-charged thing to wear, and their other leg is fully exposed (oh my!). You can also see their bra peeking out from under their shirt, as well as some cleavage. Is this related to talent, or just to personality? I’m not sure.

While it’s tempting to go with something more along the lines of Ultimate Celebrity or Ultimate Heiress, I’m actually kind of partial to my interpretation of Ultimate Treasure Hunter. They wear a crown because it’s the treasure they’ve won, and there are diamonds in their eyes because that’s what they’re looking for! The cape could read as more of a heroic/adventurer thing, and the gloves also feel like ones belonging to someone more active. I’m aware this has nothing to do with the promiscuous aspects, but… like I said, that could just relate to personality! Plus, if you’re traveling the world searching for treasure, you might want a chance to tour the people, too.

Finally, we’ve returned to the probable sibling of 3Km, the potential Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer! If the similar color schemes and eye designs weren’t enough, the fact that their little chibis were obviously paired together makes it pretty obvious that they’re related. Assuming that everyone in this cast is the same age (18+), they would be twins.

However, I also want to propose that 3Km isn’t the only character XWu is “related” to. Remember how I mentioned that the XF-Ture logo was a hexagon? Well, the pattern in 3Km and XWu’s eyes is a hexagon. Could they also have a connection to XF-Ture tech, and thus, u1l? Maybe they’re part of the family who founded the company. It’s a big stretch, but it’s possible. Just wanted to bring it up.

Back to XWu, it’s interesting that they’re probably the twin of 3Km, ‘cause their designs are pretty opposite. While 3Km seems wild, XWu is very fancy. They have a chain, much like uBg; some boots that look sort of princely; and a very fancily-patterned vest. I didn’t notice while I was making my visual, but I think that the vest has snowflakes on it to mirror 3Km’s fire. Honestly, I don’t know if that means it’s more likely that it has something to do with their talents, or less…

I feel like XWu might have some kind of managerial talent. It could be something more business-y, related to XF-Ture Tech, or if 3Km is part of the circus, XWu could be, like, the Ultimate Ringleader. Leaning on the former, I settled for the Ultimate Business Consultant. I was thinking about 3Km going around the world taming animals or whatever, and XWu tagging along, making business connections and deals along the way. The “X” in their bangs makes me think that they might have a talent or personality that revolves around rejecting things. That could lean business leadership, so… yay?

-

And that’s that! To summarize, the cast of talents as I determined them were Ultimate Teacher, Ultimate Sharpshooter, Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer, Ultimate Stage Director, Ultimate Plush Maker, Ultimate Alternative Medicine Practicioner, Ultimate Podcaster, Ultimate Angler, Ultimate Technician, Ultimate Treasure Hunter, and Ultimate Business Consultant.

Obviously none of this is concrete, and I’m speculating based on very few details. I won’t be disappointed no matter what the talents are because, hey! We get more fangan content from DRDTdev either way! I feel like the Ultimate Winner with that fact.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and, if you have alternate interpretations or design elements I missed, I'd love to hear about them! I might make an update if we get any additional information any time soon.

[sleepingdeath-light]

being best friends hcs ; frank

requested by ; 🐝🍯 anon (09/05/23) [2/3]

fandom(s) ; welcome home

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; frank frankly

outline ; “My welcome home obsession is creeping in too 😂 can I have some best friend headcanons of Barbaby, Wally, and Frank? They’re my blorbos. ❤️ if you can’t do all three I’d like just Barnaby! He’s so SILLY!! And I wanna be his best friend ✨

Also I claim bee anon!! 🐝🍯”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

whilst he is rather calm by nature and has his expression turned down in a perpetual frown, frank is the most loyal friend you could ask for

he’s always there when you need someone to talk to, only being a phone call or a house visit away from making you a cup of your favourite hot drink and sitting down in your/his living room to talk through what has been bothering you

he tends to take a more logical approach to problems and will help you construct a plan to approach and tackle your issues — be that something tangible like work stress or something less so like being unable to get to sleep or struggling with creative block

you’re the first person he calls upon when the weather is just right to go and catch butterflies — he even makes sure to keep a spare net handy for you whenever he sets out for it

he even gifts you some of his pinned specimen of that’s something you’re interested in — saving some of the best quality catches and setting them aside to gift to you at a later date

has your phone number written on a note that he keeps right next to his phone, despite having long since committed it to memory

he keeps each and every card and letter you send him — being far more sentimental than most give him credit for

whilst he is unfortunately stuck with a permanent frown, he does show his emotions quite openly with you through his eyes — you’re one of the few people to see him laugh so hard he’s cried

always keeps some of your favourite sweets in his pockets when you’re both out and about, always pretends it’s a coincidence though

he also keeps plenty of your favourite foods at home, always ready for a surprise visit

you are the only person who doesn’t get a stern talking to for messing with his hair or mistaking him for something catchable with a net — though he’s still not best pleased whenever his vision is suddenly obscured by the all too familiar fabric

doesn’t really use nicknames, preferring to use your name as fully as you’re comfortable

like if you’re a robert and are comfortable with it, he’ll call you robert — but he’ll also call you bob if you’re more comfortable with that

same for beatrice versus bee/bea or literally any other name

he is not up to date with anything like slang, please don’t introduce any to him he’ll just get a headache

isn’t too big on matching with you as best friends, but if you make a friendship bracelet or something like that then he’ll get misty eyed and he won’t ever take it off (not if he can help it, at least)

remembers all important dates but tends to forget things that you mention to him regarding gifts — which usually leads to a mad scramble involving him enlisting your neighbours to help him solve the accidental puzzle he created for himself

[lady-astras]

Healed Promises - Pt 1

! By Xizara i mean Evil Xisuma, that’s the name I have him !

! These phone numbers are purely randomly typed into the keyboard, please do not try calling them !

Xisuma prided himself on the fact that he kept his promises. He was a man of honor - whatever he told someone he’d do (or implied that he’d do it), he would do it. No one would be let down under his watch, least of all his hermits. 

He didn’t see Wels all that often, but he liked to think of their pride as a bonding connection.

Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe it was the guilt that consumed his soul every single day since he was eighteen. The guilt that ate away at him, constantly reminding him of a fateful portal he’d opened.

He’d let them down by leaving.

He always kept promises after that though. Ones he could keep, ones that were iffy. He always kept them. A promise was like a little trinket, something small that meant something big to someone else. They’d entrusted him to keep it and so he honored that wish.

Which was why he was initially so hesitant to send a reply letter back. By no means was it a huge commitment. But… did he really want to see him again?

Xizara had never, ever done anything wrong. He had always been the one to wrap Xia in blankets and whisper soothing words to her, all while he himself was the one who invoked arguments with his parents as a last-ditch effort to try to help. Maybe if he’d been more emotionally available for his siblings they wouldn’t resent him so much. Xizara had probably asked to meet him just to tell him off after gathering the courage to see him after fifteen years.

He picked up the letter to read it again, parchment clearly ripped out of an empty notebook, the paper softened from the times he’d crumpled it up and instantly regretted it.

Xisuma -

I write to you after a while to tentatively ask to meet. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, and as everyone knows, twins always stick together.

Void if only they could have stuck together, like False and her twin did. 

I know you’re busy - you always are, precious Admin child.

Was he being made fun of? Was that some form of anger being expressed in the note of always being overlooked?

So if you could please write back that would be great. We can arrange a time or something?

My new comm number is 682-720-8165 if you want to save it. If you’re mad at me just say that.

Inanis’ blessings,

Xizara Void

Dammit this was difficult. Was he annoyed or not? Surely if he was annoyed the letter would be worded differently? But he could be trying to hide it.

He pulled out a piece of paper and a fancy pen from his stationery drawer.

Hey Xizara,

Yeah I’d be down to meet! I’m pretty busy lately but as the admin of the server I’m sure I can delegate or something, haha.

Do you want me to come back home or do you want to visit me here? I can make accommodations for the air and stuff, but it’d be helpful if you still have the helmet or mask I gave you.

I don’t have much of a preference but I get the feeling I’m not really welcomed at home anymore…

You can contact me as well if you like by personal comm at 451-269-0157. If that’s the wrong number just let me know, I get my work and personal numbers mixed up sometimes.

Regards,

Xisuma Void, Ad.M

He sighed, setting down the pen. The promise was inked and he was now obligated to send it.

If this was a trap waiting for him he’d rather be prepared, but if it wasn’t he didn’t want to estrange his siblings even more.

To the interdimensional post office.

[the-monkey-ruler]

Silly question, but Is Baigujing a ghost Yaoguai? I wanted to ask how strong a ghost could be because I understand that ghosts can become immortal and that they could even be stronger than other Yaoguai despite not having a physical body. I don't know what powers a ghost can have. I understand that in LMK it is understood that she can "revive" people but I don't know if that is true in terms of Chinese myths or legends.

Silly question, but Is Baigujing a ghost Yaoguai?

It’s not silly. She is always referred to as a corpse yaoguai from what I can tell. It was said that she was a female corpse that was able to absorb enough qi to get a human form. She would have at least in her human life have her yang qi gathered enough to keep her spirit in the mortal realm.... but I don't think she would have a mortal body. Ghosts are technically immortal because they don't have a body anymore that could weigh them down but I don't recall them having much power beyond that. Ghosts can possess other living beings until they can take over but we don't see White Bone Spirit possessing other people in the book, just that she was able to make her own transformations as she was able to have her own body from the start.

I do think that White Bone Demon is just a corpse that turned into a Yaoguai rather than a ghost that stole a mortal body since that is never mentioned and Wukong is able to kill three of her fake bodies and we see that none of them were real people, just illusions. There are ghost types of yao, or at least ghosts so terrible that they are considered yao.

I wanted to ask how strong a ghost could be because I understand that ghosts can become immortal and that they could even be stronger than other Yaoguai despite not having a physical body.

I can't say I know how strong Ghosts can be really... I would suggest looking more into 餓鬼 "hungry ghost" and preta in Buddhism since those are the ghost's realms in the cycle of reincarnation. I only know that these ghosts rather just suffer for as long as they are on earth and that their suffer out on the living as well.

In the end they only have one path and that is to accept they have nothing left in this world and reincarnate but I can't recall any powers beyond possession. "They are born and destroyed, and they are destroyed and reborn. If you fail to realize it and fall from life to life, you will lose your body among the masses, and your soul will be in another shell. The true nature will no longer be in human beings, and they will reincarnate along the way, forever. There is no liberation."

I do see cases of when people die they are considered to be giving a divine body in heaven and thus immortal with divine intervention. But these are cases of where they are to be considered on the same level as perhaps other Taoist cultivators in terms of power.

I don't know what powers a ghost can have. I understand that in LMK it is understood that she can "revive" people but I don't know if that is true in terms of Chinese myths or legends.

"There are five levels of immortals, including ghosts, human beings, earthly immortals, gods and heavenly immortals. They are all immortals. Ghosts and immortals are inseparable. Regarding ghosts, human beings and immortals are not separated from humans, earthly immortals are not separated from the earth, gods and immortals are not separated from gods, and heavenly immortals are not separated from heaven.” "They are called ghost immortals because of their one will and Yin spirit that never disperses. Although they are called immortals, they are actually ghosts"

I would say that if were to consider ghosts the same as immortals then they would have similar powers. That being said reviving people isn't really a normal power from what I remember.

There are only three cases of bringing someone back from the dead such as the Dragon King who saved Chen Guangrui be sending a letter to get his soul back from Hongzhou City God and preserving his body with the 定颜珠. Wukong does the same with The King of the Wuji Kingdom and they put the pill in his mouth to save him. Wukong also saved another soul Sqiure Kou being going to hell and just getting his body himself and bringing him back to the land of the living with the help from Bodhisattva Kingitigarbha in the Region of Darkness. And then there is Nezha's master Taiyi Zhenren who was able to give Nezha a new body of Lotus. In two of those cases, a pill was used, and in another Wukong just went to hell and got him since it was a death-date issue and Wukong made a strong case for him. I'm not sure besides Taiyi Zhenren was able to really bring someone back by using a different body but that it to be considered unique.

In any case, while LDB in LMK could revive people I can't say that it is a common thing in Chinese mythos at least from what I am used to. But it isn't impossible just very unique and circumstantial. Either powerful immortals could know such acts or Wukong. But I haven't heard of a ghost doing such things or another yaoguai.

The best I can say is to read up on 鬼仙 yourself to see what powers they could have but at best I would say to compare then to other immortals. Each immortal is unique but powers of cultivation and transformation would be common enough.

[letters-from-dekarios]

The letter had been delivered by a cardinal with bright red feathers and a kind look in its little eyes. It flies away after dropping the letter. The mail is in a tea stained envelope, and the letter inside is also tea stained, but smells lightly of flowers, as well. It had been sealed by a golden wax seal with the image of a lute indented within it. The writing is a bit messy, but legible.

Dear Gale, 

(wait- can I call you that? Or do you prefer Mr. Dekarios? Man, i am terrible at writing letters-) 

You don’t entirely know me.. I’m Casea Redwood! More well known as the Songbird of the Sword Coast- not that that particularly matters, really- HOWEVER, I am writing to send you a warning. I am often troubled with images of tragedy in my sleep. This has been worsened by my uh.. Experimenting with the more macabre aspects of the Weave and all that.. Just a bit of Necromancy- nothing to worry about!

As I was saying- I have been sent an image of grave happenings regarding your more.. Failing connection with the Goddess, Mystra. You ought to exercise caution when dealing with her in any form. I know that you’ve had a rough go about things- and this letter is probably a smack to the face- (sorry about this by the way..)- However I have cause to believe the winds of change are heading your way.

Some omens to look out for- a sphere, a hand, a familiar face, a tomb of sorts (at least it looks like a casket to me..), a gateway, and a boot. I have no idea what any of these mean, yet I hope that this can aid you in the future! Whatever it may look like. Hopefully you can figure out what is happening and uh.. Get to the bottom of it! Word about you is that you’re one smart cookie!

So I’m sure you’ll be alright. If you ever need more insight from me you can always write a letter, seal it with a golden seal, and send it with a bird. Any bird! They find their way to me eventually! And a bit of a final word- Keep hope, my Not-yet-possibly-friend! I don’t know much about the Weave itself, but I do know that it has a way of making things work out. As someone who knows it better than I, I’m sure things will be okay. If not tomorrow, then someday.

Your (Possibly) Friend, 

Casea Redwood. 

(OOC: I went for a pre-events of BG3 kinda thing with my future Tav, Casea Redwood! He is a human Bard who is Odd, but tries to help when he can! I am so sorry for how long this is/gen and I hope you’re having a wonderful day! Your blog is so cool, btw! Okay, goodbye!)

Dearest Casea,

I can see why you’ve received such a title for a Sword Coast dweller. It’s not every day one has a cardinal-delivered letter sent to them and not a pigeon.

However, the contents of your letter deeply disturbs me. My connection with the Goddess is all but fragile, I would hope, considering my extensive history with the Weave. It’s not usual for one to experience so-called “visions” picturing the destruction or alteration of that. Though things may, perhaps, be a bit rocky at the moment, my ultimate connection to the Weave is what counts!

Fear not, my friend, I will heed your vision with utmost warning. Though, I do have to ask, was it through your vision that you heard of my… current status with Mystra? Or was it by any chance at all through other means? Curious minds lead one to wonder! You can imagine the state I may be in with comments like those.

Regarding your omens, none quite ring any bells for this mind of mine. Is there any chance of elaboration on any of them? A sphere I can allude to perhaps an orb already part of my current reality, a familiar face… well, that could mean many people. And a tomb, or casket, you say? Unless this is a devil’s mind trick cast on you, these relay no sense of familiarity to anything happening within my state.

I appreciate your optimism despite your worries and your visions. If you happen to have one in relation to myself again, I would like to hear of it. If you ever have a moment to travel the Coast to Waterdeep, it may serve us both peace of mind to discuss the matter over tea.

Your aptness to write me over this does prove hopeful, however. I caution you with your dabbling in the darker side of the Weave but appreciate the notice nonetheless.

From the desk of,

𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒌𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒔

text reads: gale dekarios

never apologize for writing long I absolutely Love it. it gives my brain more to feed on and you know brains do need food. also I'm giggling at gale receiving this after just screwing up his relationship and someone going ‘hey dude your life is Fucked rn AND in the future’ and him just sobbing cause why can’t he catch a break haha ~ kore

[lovesosweeet]

better left unsaid // cth

chapter seventeen

in which orion has leukemia, and calum doesn’t know.

calum hood x fem!oc

read other chapters

august 14, 2018 los angeles, california orion

Since our tense conversation — I can’t call it a fight, nor do I want to — Calum has texted me at least once every hour that he’s awake. It’s refreshing. He’s a much better partner and boyfriend than any of my previous relationships in all regards, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s actually following up on what he says. 

My ex that I’d dated from the start of freshman year through a few months before I left for Spain was horrible about texting me. He’d always forget to text me good night, then didn’t bother to reply to my good mornings. We wouldn’t start texting until I’d text him again a few hours later. I would time that message by posting a Snapchat story and then waiting to see if he’d viewed it. It was toxic, and he never followed up on his promises that things would get better and he’d text me more.

It had always felt silly to get so hung up on something so seemingly small, but it kept being a recurring problem. He always promised that he would text me more and show me just how important I was, but the proof never showed up. 

With Calum, the moment he knows I have a problem with something, he works to fix it. This is another instance of it. While it may only be two days after he promised he’d keep in better contact with me, he has upheld his promise impeccably. 

Just more reasons to love him, and more reason to be racked with guilt from keeping a massive, literally life or death, secret from him. 

Today is round three of chemotherapy, and since we both are going to the same place, Macy and I are going together. Her mom will drop us off and Emelia will pick us up. I’ve packed my fluffy blanket again, along with Uno and a phone charger. It’s yet again another day where I wear one of Calum’s left-behind sweatshirts with a pair of shorts that are hidden underneath the oversized top. With my worn-out but very comfortable Birkenstocks, I’m wearing fuzzy socks.

Macy knocks on my door to let me know she’s here, and I give Duke a peanut butter filled Kong to keep him busy while I’m gone. I swing open the door and find her standing there, wearing an outfit almost identical to mine, except her sweatshirt is likely her own, with UCSD in large, embroidered block letters across the chest. 

“Good morning,” I tell her. I close the door behind myself and lock it.

“Damn, I really thought I might get an Orion latte this morning,” she pouts.

“Oh, shit, I can go back in and make you one? It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Macy shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. Maybe next time, though?” 

I nod and we start walking toward the elevator. “Yeah, next time. How are you feeling today?”

Macy has just this week and next week left on this treatment cycle. Her team is pretty confident that this final round should hopefully send her back into remission and she can resume her coursework in the spring. After years of going in and out of treatment, Macy doesn’t want to get her hopes up, so she’s currently still planning on starting school again in the fall next year. That said, she’s felt pretty miserable for the past few weeks. 

Her cancer — Hodgkin’s lymphoma — is currently just in stage one, caught early because she has regular visits to her oncologist over the years to monitor. While my treatment is supposed to be six weeks of chemo appointments, hers is only three weeks, but she has them twice a week. 

“Like death, but, just means it’s working,” she says, pressing the button for the lobby. “You?”

“Same.”

We ride down to the lobby in silence, listening to the hum of the machinery that makes it move. There’s no elevator music, which I’m grateful for since I don’t know if I could listen to it every time I take the elevator. When the doors slide open, we find Ron behind the desk like normal, and he smiles when he sees us. I fight to smile back at him.

“Good morning!” He calls out.

Macy and I both raise a hand in a haphazard wave. 

“Morning, Ron,” I manage to reply.

Macy’s mom is waiting for us in the car in the parking garage, and she’s on some kind of business call when we get in, so she doesn’t say anything to us as we buckle our seatbelts and she pulls out of the parking space. Macy and I are both just on our phones for the drive, since her mom’s call seems pretty important and I don’t want my voice to be echoing in the background.

I check my phone for the first time since I woke up and see that Ashton has texted me. It’s in the wee hours of the morning in Adelaide, which is where they should be now, so I’m going to guess that he’s out partying or just coming back to their hotel from it. 

From: irwie will you be honest can you tell me how you’re really doing none of the bs where you pretend you’re fine i’m worried i can’t stop thinking about it i can’t sleep i know you and i know you’re pretending it’s all fine and you’re not miserable. please just give me a real update

After reading through, I decide he’s probably not drunk. I don’t think he is out either. I think he’s probably just laying in his bed and overthinking. Kay is probably sound asleep next to him. I triple check the time conversion, and it’s 3:42 am there. I wish that he was as blind to what I’m actually doing back in LA as Calum is. 

To: irwie ash, please go to sleep i’ll be fine

Calum had texted me goodnight a few hours prior, too, complete with a selfie of him wearing a sweatshirt I bought him, but I wait to reply to him, since I don’t want the notification to wake him up. I’ll send a message in a few hours while Macy and I get our drips of poison.

Ashton replies almost immediately.

From: irwie orion, please it’s late, i just want to know the truth

To: irwie ash… it’s fine just go to sleep

From: irwie stop it. tell me the truth

To: irwie i’m not lying. it’s fine. it’s gonna be fine

From: irwie you keep saying that but i literally don’t believe you at all just give me an ounce of the truth please

To: irwie oh my god fine i’ve lost 10 pounds bc i’m so nauseous i can barely eat and my body feels like it’s covered in bruises but there are no bruises it just hurts and i’m so fucking tired there’s your update 

There’s no activity from Ashton after I send that, and when I look up, we’re at the hospital. Macy’s mom is still on the phone, so we quietly open our doors. I get out of the car and I watch as her mom gives her arm a squeeze, and then Macy joins me. We walk inside and check in, and then we go our separate ways to get our vitals taken. 

When we reconvene at the armchairs, Macy is waiting for me. 

“My mom says she’s sorry she couldn’t talk in the car,” she mentions as I sit down. 

Two employees come over with their carts to hook us up to the IVs. As usual, I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch it happen. 

“No, it’s okay, I know she has work.”

I feel the coolness of the wipe on my arm, and I brace for the impact of the needle in my skin. With the pinch, I feel my phone vibrate on my lap.

“I told her you wouldn’t mind, but I just wanted you to know she did apologize.”

I nod, my eyes still shut. When I feel tape over the IV in my arm, I open my eyes again, giving the nurse who’d done it a smile. She tells us to let them know if we need anything before they disappear to tend to other patients. 

“Tell her I said thank you for the ride,” I say. I pull my phone out again, seeing what the notification is. It’s Ashton, unsurprisingly. 

From: irwie orion promise me you’ll ask for help if you really need it we can’t lose you

His third text is gut-wrenching enough to send me into an emotional spiral, but I do my best to hold myself together. I fight the urge to start crying in the middle of this room where I’m surrounded by people who are all fighting the same battle. It would feel like I’m belittling them. We’re all struggling through the same thing. Why would I be special enough to cry while everyone else is acting fine?

I take a deep breath before I reply.

To: irwie i’m fine. it’s fine.

From: irwie can you please stop lying

To: irwie everything remains as is until i can tell calum.

When he doesn’t reply instantly, I follow up again.

To: irwie please, please go to sleep.

From: irwie 👍

Now he’s mad at me, but hopefully he will at least go to sleep now. 

Frustratedly, I lock my phone and push it into the kangaroo pocket on my sweatshirt. 

“You good?” Macy asks from next to me.

I gulp, rubbing my eyes. I feel like crying, but this isn’t the time or place. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just Ashton.” 

“What do you mean?”

Macy knows that Ashton is the only one on the tour who knows about my leukemia, so I know she understands why there may be a problem there. I guess I didn’t really give much context, so her question is valid. 

“So it’s like 3:30 am there and he’s texting me saying he can’t sleep and I need to tell him how I’m really doing.” 

An unusual smile paints itself across her face. “And that bothers you?”

Bothering me isn’t exactly how I’d describe it. “I just want him to live his life.”

“Orion,” she starts. “Just because you’re stifling your emotions about this whole thing doesn’t mean he can.”

I’m not stifling my emotions. I’ve cried almost every day since Calum left. I feel like I’m drowning in everything that’s going on and it’s practically the only thing that I can think about. My little detour to feeling sad that Calum wasn’t communicating with me as much as I wanted him to was brief, and most of the time I’m just thinking about my literal impending doom. 

“I’m not stifling my emotions.”

I don’t meet her eyes, but I know that she rolls them. 

“Just because I’m not talking about them doesn’t mean I don’t have them,” I add.

“Can I be honest?” Macy asks.

“I’d prefer you always be honest, so yes.”

“I feel like you’re still in denial about all of this.”

When I don’t have something articulated to say straight away, she adds more.

“I don’t know if it’s truly all set in, and I think a lot of that stems from you not telling Calum.”

She’s probably right. I don’t feel like I can let myself really think everything through, because I know that once I do, I’m one step closer to calling Calum and messing everything up. I’ve worked too hard to protect Calum from my reality. I can’t just throw it all away because I get depressed about my lack of potential future. Even when I’m just home and all alone, I don’t let myself feel sad about the cancer. I just focus on being sad about being alone. 

My life is ending, at a faster rate than most other people’s, but right now, I just feel like someone going through a long distance relationship while having the flu. I’m sick and I’m lonely but I don’t feel like I have really processed just how sick I actually am.

read next chapter

a/n: day 2 of nanowrimo we are just over 5k words so far!!!!!!

[the-s1lly-corner]

Can I get E, F, I, and W for the slenderman fluff alphabet, please? Your take on my favorite pasta cryptid of all time is so nice and interesting. Adds a certain depth I don't typically see.

Fluff Alphabet w/ Slenderman but it's these letters!

side thing but guys go listen to redoin by jerryterry its so fucking good im listening to it on loop while im writing this and its making my vibrate

E (EMOTION)-

stone cold exterior, warm squishy interior. still hung up on the "slenderman longs for companionship just like everyone else but rarely gets that need met due to his nature and way of existence"

in other words he can be a passionate sap in regards to you, behind closed doors. he can wrapped up easily in things, so sometimes his passion can be mischaracterized as rage or annoyance but rest assured he's not angry with your existence

right in the middle of the "heart on the sleeve" and "cold and distant" thing, he feels he needs to keep up his image of powerful monster but he doesn't let you think at any moment that you're not important to him

F (FAMILY)-

i don't think he would want kids, and thats assuming he even can. in my au he was created by zalgo with the sole purpose to cause problems for people, i dont think zalgo was thinking about whether or not slenderman can reproduce when he making him

of course adoption is always an option, and who knows, maybe if you guys find some stray kid in the woods he might just take them in

this is where my take on slenderman strays a lot from the original since i personally think slenderman just. kicks kids out of the woods (which leads to them talking about him, which leads to slenderman being a known cryptid in universe) but thats mostly just me not wanting to dwell on child death + giving the dude some level of morals that at least somewhat align with the self loathing that comes with his "i dont want to eat people but i have to in order to survive" thing

but hey i think thats because i love those comics where people draw predator and prey animals where both sides are sympathetic

love shit like that

slenderman is only one part of this huge web that we call nature, simply existing because that's just how things are

whips and nae naes

I (INJURY)-

rest assured that he will tear the world apart should someone or something ever send harm your way. god forbid you are mortally wounded or even killed

he knows some basic first aid stuff thanks to watching people for so so so long, but he's a kriller not a healer, he doesnt know what to do if youre losing a bunch of that red liquid that fuels your insides

oddly calm about it, though, though with the way he holds you you can feel his rage seething under his skin

he himself /can/ get injured but its rarely something to fret about unless its like, from some real powerful person or some human who knows how to take down a specific man eating forest demon; i've actually never really thought about what conditions would need to be met to outright krill slenderman but

yeah

when he's the one hurt he insists you not to worry, it's going to take a LOT to keep him down

if you're injured and its something he can treat he will make sure you take it easy but hes not going to baby you about it

W (WARRIOR)-

okay so im writing this segment first because i can write a whole essay and really i dont know if theres going to be anything stopping me from doing just that. curse you jerryterry, the bops are so good. anyways onto the topic; a lot of my interpretation of slenderman is admittedly based around the early fandom characterization of him + a very specific fic that will remain nameless (though im more than happy to spill the link in dms, said fic also has some influence over my entire au/hc thing but thats not todays topic)

despite what many may think, i feel like, at least with my hyper specific take on slenderman, i feel like he wouldnt want you to fight along side him or be a proxy. only time i can see him date a proxy or fellow kriller is if you were already one prior to the relationship. in my au, slenderman resents his own existence for being what he is, and if he could he WOULD choose to be something else; however he cant rewrite the laws of this universe or fight against his biological functions

like i can go on an entire tangent, but my au is still so scrambled around that im not entirely sure where to start or how im going to make it make sense, but i feel like he would much rather keep you by him and safe (and even then i feel like thats pushing it, sure hes more than capable of protecting you but what if something stronger than him comes and fucks shit up? not all the creepypasta characters are buddy buddy)

but perhaps i will write a collection of loosely connected one shots one day detailing the world building and dynamics

i make no promises

[wumiings]

Okay but what if Merlin had openly used his magic in 1x10??? That would have been so great actually because like. The others in his village have always been so wary of him both because he’s a bastard and because they suspect he has magic, so for him to turn up and deliberately use the very gifts they shunned him for to save them would absolutely shake up their mindsets a bit. Now instead of a Heroic Prince (from a different kingdom) swooping in and saving the day, proving that royals can be Good Actually, it’s reinforcing the idea of magic as the great equalizer — something that allows common folk to look after themselves and grow less reliant on monarchy.

Let’s say Arthur is still There (though a version of this where he doesn’t come along also works). Merlin is initially hesitant about using magic in front of him, but after his talk with Will, he’s resolved to not hold himself back on Arthur’s account. Will still gets injured; Merlin heals him and explicitly takes credit for the sorcery. When Arthur get pissed about it, Merlin reminds him that they’re in Cenred’s kingdom and Arthur doesn’t have the authority to execute him (since he technically has no proof that Merlin used magic in Camelot). In the end, Arthur banishes Merlin from Camelot but makes no other move to harm him.

So now Merlin is free. He has his family, a community that’s more welcoming than its ever been before, a book of spells to study (and potentially teach others), and nearly a year’s worth of wild stories about what the fuck goes on in Camelot. Gwen and Morgana both know where he is and can send letters/come visit if they want, which also means that when Morgana’s powers starts manifesting, she knows at least one person she can reach out to for support who isn’t affiliated with the Pendragon regime.

Maybe he travels. Maybe he seeks out the druids for more education on magic and/or the prophecies. Maybe he tracks down Lancelot, or runs into some of the other errant knights (Gwaine, Elyan, etc). Maybe he meets and frees Freya, or finally gets some answers about his heritage and tracks down Balinor. Literally any of the above are on the table.

Eventually, Uther dies. (Actually, it probably doesn’t take that long. He would die like two episodes later.) Arthur is king— untested and vulnerable and far too young, but with so much potential if he can just survive long enough. And at some point, there is some magical attack on the citadel because of course there is, and Gaius once again tells his king that the threat can only be defeated with magic. And after all else fails (because there’s no one to secretly solve the problem with magic and let everyone think it just resolved itself somehow) and all hope is nearly lost, Arthur gives in and reaches out to the one (1) sorcerer he knows who may actually be willing to help him, if only for the sake of his other friends in the city.

Naturally, Merlin agrees, but he outright refuses to keep his involvement a secret. The people of Camelot are going to know that it was a warlock who saved them, not the renowned Knights of Camelot. They’re going to have to think about what that means regarding everything they’ve been taught to believe about magic. And, of course, they’re also going to know that Arthur was not too proud to turn to sorcery if it meant protecting his people, even though it calls into question his father’s legacy of magical persecution.

The Golden Age is built on the open negotiation and collaboration of magic and non-magic, not to mention nobility and peasantry. And the “union” of Albion isn’t about conquest but rather strong alliances built between nations as the benefits of maintaining a healthy relationship with magic become obvious to more and more people.

Yes, one day Arthur will die and be laid to rest in Avalon to await an age when his strength and wisdom is once again required. Yes, Merlin will live through the centuries, traveling and learning and watching humanity grow, assisting wherever he can instead of endlessly grieving and waiting for Arthur’s return. For now, though, they can all just take life one challenge at a time.

[regarding-stories]

The Ever-Changing Story (Part 2a): Nobody can keep track of SAO anymore

This was too funny to pass over... So, I have a guilty pleasure. I love reading tvtropes.org because I love to see their take on what tropes are contained in media I consume, and while writing the previous article I started reading the character page for Asuna.

And today I found this gem:

"First Girl Wins: Asuna is the first of the many girls in Kirito's (virtual) life, and the only one to win his affections. While Sachi was possibly Kirito's first love, he actually met Asuna first." (from tvtropes.org)

If you know Sword Art Online (SAO) only from the anime series, this is true. If you accept Sword Art Online Progressive (SAOP) as taking place in the same continuity as the previous books, this is also true - at least if Progressive overrides things that were actually written before it. This is the magic of retcontinuity. A character's context is shifted but the character remains, changing the role they play in another character's life.

In Sword Art Online 1 - Aincrad the following things happen:

Kirito joins the guild Moonlit Black Cats, meets Sachi, then the guild gets wiped out, all including Sachi die. This is on floor 27 which at that time is close to the frontline.

If we take Asuna's word for it, she first noticed Kirito when she met him (on Floor 59), taking a nap. This starts her infatuation with him - it grows over the following weeks and months.

(There's a parallel between the two girls since both experience Kirito's presence as something that helps them sleep.)

If Sword Art Online 8 - Early and Late is your guide, Kirito was at least aware of who Asuna was, but then again supposedly anyone in Aincrad was at some point in time. But even then Asuna's rise to stardom must have been gradual and knowing "of someone" is not the same as "meeting them first."

But the makers of the anime felt that the gaps in the continuity of Aincrad were a bit too big, and so Kawahara gave them access to what became Aria of a Starless Night, the first part of Sword Art Online Progressive 1. Even SAO 8 predates SAOP 1 by full year.

So the "book chronology" is:

SAO 1

SAO 2

SAO 8

SAOP 1

All the later books shoehorn events into the timeline of Aincrad as a retcon:

SAO 2 adds Liz/Rika and Silica/Keiko as characters and adds a story of Kirito's dark days when he can't get over his guilt regarding the death of Sachi. Includes Sachi "sending" him a letter to the future.

SAO 8 adds the Safe Haven Incident, beefing up the early phase of Asuna and Kirito's history together with a joint murder investigation. Another story introduces us to events on the first day in Aincrad that almost got Kirito killed by another player.

SAOP 1 one pulls the meeting between Kirito and Asuna forward to within a month after the start of the game.

To add further to the confusion, only Aria of the Starless Night is included in the anime, but not The Reason for the Whiskers nor Rondo for a Fragile Blade (both contained in SAOP 1), so for viewers of the anime Kirito and Asuna teamed up for the first boss battle then went separate ways. (And Kirito left Asuna behind. Surely the actual, official end of Aria was written after the anime was already made. But in SAOP 1 Asuna turns around and leaves Kirito. He doesn't just wander off and leave her.)

But then for readers of SAOP 1 this lasts only for a few days of in-game continuity - covered in the interlude The Reason for the Whiskers. Then, in Rondo for a Fragile Blade Asuna pulls Kirito into her party again and never lets go. The series has now progressed into eight light novels and that hasn't changed.

What has changed in regards to Sachi is the order of events. It has been turned on its head.

The Off-Screen Girl

There is a character whose existence practically all happens off-screen - or when she's on-screen, she calls from the dead. Sachi.

If Sachi is Kirito's first love (which the anime heavily implies), then this has not been established in SAO 1 where we first hear of her. Kirito doesn't mention it. I have to admit, I have not finished the story in SAO 2 yet, so in this case I had to look it up. The events from the anime indeed seem to be taken from SAO 2 (according to a summary on the interwebs).

But that is already a story told from memory of another person, Kirito. Sachi reappears in SAO 22 when her emotional residue on the old Aincrad server calls for Asuna. Theosophists would be proud of that one - Sachi's emotional residue attracts Asuna's soul into a scene through a sort of out-of-body experience where she can convey a final message to Kirito, expanding on her first message from beyond the grave.

Sachi is a character of echoes, of reverberations. Her death makes waves. She goes on in a sort of half-digital, half-unexplained afterlife. She reaches out. Her love for Kirito finds a way to reach his soul.

We don't know if Sachi was Kirito's first love. But he loved her, and her death broke his heart. We also know that Sachi loved Kirito, and loved him enough to leave an emotional residue so strong, it creates an undeniable attraction in the digital world towards the spirit most suited for transmitting her message. Asuna loves Kirito, and so she becomes the conduit for Sachi's love to speak through her.

Sachi is one of the characters that unsettles me deeply. Her death in Aincrad is a hard thing for me to confront. Aincrad loves its drama, but it hides the cruelty of what actually happens behind the imagery of exploding into blue polygons. But with Sachi I can't help think back that this is a person that Akihiko Kayaba kills. An innocent, scared girl in the middle of her teenage years, lying in a hospital bed somewhere, having her brain fried by a burst of microwave radiation. She stands for all the Aincrad players that are slain, and if you look at it visually, slain in their sleep and utterly helpless.

In this sense Sword Art Online is more cruel than most any survival story to me. Some are more fair, more less. But whether it's Squid Game or Alice in Borderland, whether it seems a bit fair or an utter screw job, somehow these people fought with all they had against their fate. But SAO's villain kills teenagers, and in this case what feels to me like children. Sachi is the fearful child in all of us. Kirito wants to protect her also because we all would.

And any of the characters in SAO could have had the same fate, characters that we learn to love over the course of the series, like Silica/Keiko. People of a certain innocence and with lots of potential. That makes Sachi's story very hard to read for me. Sachi's power is that she doesn't make it. (Just like Yuuki Konno's story in Mother's Rosario is powerful because she dies.)

I love Asuna as a character, I love the whole Progressive series and want more books of it. But pulling her forward steals something from Sachi and detracts from her story. It creates a deeper rift than other aspects of this retcon.

Yes, Sachi's story will always be strong on its own merit. But by placing SAO Progressive in the same continuity as main series SAO, it takes away Sachi's role as the first girl to touch Kirito's heart. Now she is relegated to be a low point between two Asuna bookends.

Not particularly hopeful

The Hopeful Chant side story released before Ordinal Scale movie seals this. It's written as a top-down mid point between Progressive and the main series continuity. Mainly this story exists to "patch" Yuuna and Nautilus into the Aincrad continuity, but Kawahara used the opportunity to shine a quick light on Asuna and Kirito's relationship at the time the 40th floor was tackled.

According to this story, Asuna broke the party with Kirito at floor 25 to join the newly formed Knights of Blood, creating a continuity between the Progressive Asuna and the Asuna of the main series. But by floor 40 she is terribly conflicted and guilt-ridden about having abandoned Kirito (like she sees it). Even though this is pretty much in tune with what Kirito would hope she would do in the first place, it happens after four months of adventuring together in the early period of beating the game, thereby (top-down) establishing a timeline for as-of-yet unwritten Progressive volumes. (SAOP 8 has progressed as far as the 7th floor, so this leaves an 18 floor gap to the events supposedly ending the partnership between the two - and also that event is again only alluded to. It's unwritten as well.)

This changes the core of both Asuna and Sachi. Now Sachi becomes a filler in a gap Asuna left. There may be barely a month between dissolving the party and meeting the Moonlit Black Cats. But even worse for Asuna! Her inner life gets ripped out and rewritten.

Yes, patching in the 40th floor encounter between Kirito and Asuna seems to establish a mid point between "We were together all the time, then I left" and "I start chasing Kirito" for Asuna. But it changes all the inner stuff behind it. Originally Asuna came to Kirito only with her own baggage. She fell in love with him and decided gradually to act on her feelings, then basically "caught her man." But her inner motivations were simply those of an infatuated teenager. She was impressed with Kirito, and she realized that she was lacking love in her life, she learned to step out of her compulsive sense of duty to beat the game. She learned to love life. And nothing prevented her from acting on that impulse.

The Asuna Progressive leaves us with already has done all of that. And then she leaves. She makes a painful personal decision that might have hurt both of them, and thus puts her duty above her feelings for Kirito. Then she buries her feelings for Kirito under her guilt over her actions (the events of Hopeful Chant in regards to both of them). But then there is nothing connecting that Asuna with the Asuna that starts chasing Kirito. How does the Asuna of Hopeful Chant overcome her powerful guilt? How does she realize that she loves Kirito enough for other things to become secondary? How does she go back on her previous decisions? How does she decide to act?

The truth is that that Asuna would also need to be written. Hopeful Chant inserts an Asuna into the timeline that fits the retcontinuity of what happened before her but she does not connect to what comes after her. Instead of the thread flapping loose at floor 25 or at floor 7, it now hangs loose at floor 40. The story is still disjointed, the puzzle pieces do not match, but now the waters of character continuity have been muddled further.

Because it's "easy" (in relative terms only, of course) to break something up and to saddle a character with guilt and pain, but it's hard to get them out of that hole - especially if that character (Asuna) has a powerful sense of having done wrong by another person and no right to approach that person anymore.

And to make things perfect, that is another pulling forward of her character arc. That is the Asuna, internally, of the moment when Kirito kills Kuradeel. That Asuna of that moment wanted to leave Kirito alone because she felt she was incapable of protecting him, she was in her mind also endangering him. So she was about to give him a speech, out of her sense of duty, out of the pain she felt over almost losing him, that she will leave him alone. The Asuna of Hopeful Chant does that! She's an alternate reality Asuna that runs away from Kirito by failing to run after him. And Kirito is no shape to remedy that, either.

In other words, the events that happen later in original SAO continuity get pulled forward, the inner workings of the character are similar, but they lead to another outcome. Every time such a powerful retcon of the inner workings of a character happens, it just creates more character "plot holes" further down the line.

The reality is that SAO needs rewriting ever since SAO Progressive was introduced. By not making it an outright reboot, the timeline keeps fracturing under the paradoxa of retcontinuity. The makers of the Re:Aincrad manga seems to understand that almost better than Kawahara - the naming is telling in terms of what they think Progressive is. SAOP is not the telling of how SAO was beaten, floor by floor. It's a retelling of how Aincrad was beaten. And as long as it is not considered its own parallel timeline, it will keep pulling characters apart and forward in its wake.

[fortressofserenity]

Why do you want more?

When it comes to the Bearded Disciple saying that love marriage paved the way for gay marriage, I also think it paved the way for open marriages and polyamory. Like if you could marry the opposite sex partner at will, you could also marry the same sex partner at will, have multiple partners at once at will and so on. So it really opened a can of worms where people can do anything and everything they want in a relationship.

Because I believe America popularises many bad habits that God will call us out for when we do those at all, polyamory could be one of them and it needs to be brought up. As God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman, bringing up another partner would still be adultery/cheating in some way. If somebody commits adultery just by having a crush on someone (something the Bible pointed out or hinted at), then it's no different if you commit polyamory.

Then comes the bad consequences like say the death of a child for David when he seduced somebody else's wife, or something like divorce, STDs, unwanted pregnancies and so on. Supposing if somebody like P.D. James were to be outed for adultery because she had an affair with a man a lot like the character she based on him, then she'll have her awards stripped because of her keeping this affair a secret for long.

This is hypothetical for now. Though it will come true in the coming months if some investigative journalist were to stumble upon her letters to her boyfriend, despite being married herself. Even then it seems if polyamory is a form of adultery, practically no different from sending romantic letters to your extra-marital partner or even having a crush on someone else despite being married yourself, it's not as good as it's cut out to be.

Something like dealing with competing loyalties to other partners that it seems having one partner is just good enough, just like the way God designed marriage to be. It should be noted that one of the people who coined the word polyamory used to be Christian, but became rebellious and thus got into a polyamorous relationship as a pagan witch. So witchcraft and rebellion are connected, or at least are similar in some regards.

That it shouldn't come as a surprise why she turned out this way, admittedly I was kind of rebellious before and got into devil stuff then, so you should know about the connection between witchcraft and rebellion by now. As if she did these things to spite her Christian relatives with, which makes her a massive ingratiate. If the Bible says don't let a witch live, then it's also not surprising why she died early. She brought it onto herself and God saw through it.

So don't mess with God's intentions for you, lest something bad happen as it did to me multiple times before.

[signorinavongola]

((So this isn’t our first rodeo with me writing something for ya, but it is your first ‘Haru Haru Choco Delivery’ with us. Like with previous drabbles written for you, you’re free to do with them as you like. You can post them, keep them in inbox, consider them canon interaction between our muses (or not), you can reply to it or not. Whatever you want, that’s your freedom to choose! Thanks for indulging me! I am borrowing one of my other muses for this again, yes))

-

The alternative methods were to either wait for Tsunayoshi to visit Japan herself, to send something through the postal system for Tsunayoshi.

Neither option seemed to pique Haru Miura’s attention this time around as she normally dared to think the unthinkable- use Hibari Kyouya as a courier service.

Though the majority of the Vongola were based in Italy, Hibari was the one Guardian whose location always varied based off what had caught his attention.

Just like the free-floating clouds in the sky, the man often drifts around the globe investigating odd phenomenon or possible enemies to bite to death. When he wasn’t investigating a topic of interest, the Cloudian was often based in Japan.

You could take the man out of Namimori, but you cannot take Namimori out of the man.

At the end of the day, it worked out in the sense that it would be comforting to know that should anything happen in Namimori, a powerful Cloudian would be nearby to bite the perpetrators to death in a prompt manner.

Of course, this meant that sometimes Haru would contact him and ask ‘when is the next time you’ll be going to Italy? Oh? Do you mind doing Haru a favor…?’

That’s how he found himself reorganizing his schedule on the unspoken (but implicitly understood) behest of the brunette woman.

“Haru Miura sends her regards along with this gift.” The aloof man sets down a box of cookies along with a letter in front of the mafia boss. “If you’ve something to send back to her in the next coming days, that can be arranged through me. I will be in Italy for a few days before returning to Namimori.” Seeing as he’s already being used as a courier service, he may as well be the return service as well.

It was the least he could do for the woman who had the tireless job of looking after children who incessantly crowd around visitors.

Inside of the box Hibari brought were Mochi match chocolate cookies. They were shelf-stable cookies. Haru added cocoa powder to the batter to add some chocolate to the treat. It’s not a proper Valentine’s day gift without chocolate.

The letter reads:

[Dear Tsu-chan,

Did the Hibari Kyouya express deliver the cookies to you safely? Haru asked him very nicely for a favor and he was kind enough to say yes. When I told him it was for Valentine’s day, he reorganized his schedule to coincide with the day.

Hopefully the change in schedule didn’t come as a big inconvenience for you. If it was, that was my fault, so please don’t hold that against him for listening to my whims.

The important part is the cookies! Mochi cookies are delicious and are relatively shelf-stable. Matcha is a taste of Japan, and I added cocoa powder to the mix, you know, for Valentine’s day. The cookies would travel well and will keep for a while, that’s why I supplied a lot of cookies in the box for you to enjoy.

Everyone here is doing well, so you don’t have to worry much. All the kids are fairing well. I do miss you a lot, but we’re both doing big and great things! I feel I don’t say it enough that I’m proud of you and that I’m happy that you’re out there doing amazing things.

Don’t forget to get rest and to take good care of yourself! If Haru finds out you’re not taking good care of yourself, she’ll give you a call and scold you~

Your friend who misses you dearly,

Haru Miura]

Lexy.

I've had this treasure in my inbox for 8 months now, maybe it's out of date, but I'm posting it because I appreciate your effort and creativity, @queenharumiura. ♥

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

I made a post the other day that mentioned IEPs. So I wanted to make a post as someone who was worked for the american school system, and explain IEPs versus 504s. I double checked by looking online just to make sure I wasn't spreading misinformation. (Or just the way my severely underfunded county did things, bc they cut corners) And I found this site above that gives a great break down. It offers a pdf with a chart that compares the two. There is a video that explains it as well. There's also video, a podcast, and the transcription available here . That link also has a few links to other resources.

I'm going add a quick summary of the most important details below regarding IEPs vs 504s. I'm also to going to add a link for parents/guardians who either don't speak/have limited English. (Unfortunately the pdf is in English, but you could probably put it through a one of online translators and the gist of what it saying.)

Most important differences between an IEP and a 504:

IEP: Is always written. Includes related services and specially designed instruction.

Generally much more in depth.

Requires any changes made to the IEP are given to parents/guardians in writing before the IEP team meets and makes any changes. You are automatically part of your child's IEP team. You have to right to attend these meetings. They will send a letter, by snail mail, telling you of a time and date they would like to meet. (If your kid has a good teacher, they will call and try to find a date that works for you. If not, you can contact the school and request a different day. Most schools are willing to be accommodating.)

Written consent from parents/guardians is required before evaluation and before the IEP is put into affect. HOWEVER, the student has to fall under one the 13 disability categories.

Typically includes modifications of the what the student is expected to know and learn. (For example, if the student has an intellectual disability, their learning goals will be established by the IEP team.)

This doesn't mean the student will not be presented with general education grade level concepts, just that they will be modified to meet the student's capability.

IEPs have annual goals that are measurable. These goals are made by the IEP team, including parents/guardians. (Aka, there is a lot of progress monitoring.)

Usually teachers will send out a progress report every two weeks. However, most teachers send out less formal methods of progress monitoring weekly or daily. Sometimes it's just a chart in a file folder where the teacher will jot a note of anything that the student was doing well with, or anything the were struggling on. Sometimes it's their complete work for the week sent home, excluding anything the teacher is keeping for records.

An IEP team has to include at least one gen ed teacher, one special education teacher (special education is usually called EC these days) a school psychologist/specialist, a district representative, and the parent/guardian of the student.

An IEP team is required to meet at least once a year, and the student is reevaluated at least once every three years. (Typically they are reevaluated and deemed still in need of an IEP. Though there are cases when students (mostly in high school) have received enough support that they no longer feel the need an IEP)

An IEP is a legal agreement. You have the right to sue the hell out of the school system if they fail to meet it.

504s:

Doesn't include specially designed instruction. Is meant to help student remain in general education.

Doesn't have to be a written document. (Though typically most schools do write documents. Bc otherwise they would not be able to keep track of what students need, bc there are so many).

Usually provides accomadations/assistive technology, but not related services of modifications. (Though sometimes these are also provided, especially if a student fails to qualify for an IEP, but still needs services and/or modifications)

Requires a student have a disability that impacts their education

Much easier to obtain than an IEP bc less requirements

No specific set of rules of who is on the student's plan team. Generally includes the parents/guardians, the student's general education teacher, (in the event the student has multiple teachers, the teacher will probably be their 'homeroom' teacher, and/or the teacher(s) of whatever subject/area your student is struggling in) and someone from administration, such as the principal or assistant/vice principal. Hopefully also someone from EC who has been trained to teach students with exceptional needs.

Parent/guardian consent is needed to evaluate the child, but this consent does not have to be written. (Many schools will still send some sort of consent form, bc the school system believes in documenting everything.)

The school has to tell you of any big changes to the plan, but they do not require your consent before starting them. Generally you'll be sent a letter of those changes in the mail. (If your students team is good at their job, they'll contact you before. Like, the teacher will call and say we are planning on starting x thing on y date, or email you if that's your preferred method of contact.)

504s don't track annual progress or create annual goals. (Though usually teachers will keep their own form of progress monitoring, bc a student with a 504 could be reevaluated and found they meet the criteria of an IEP. For that reason, many schools treat 504s as if they IEPs. Some schools suck though.)

For parents/guardians with limited or no English language known.

Most importantly, if you have a language barrier, your school must provide a competent translator/interpreter. They should NOT expect your child to work as translator for you.

And there is a lot of times where the translator isn't available that teachers will ask a bilingual staff member to translate for them. How you feel about that is up to you. A lot of parents don't mind in my area, bc we are severely understaffed when it comes to translators, and they want a quick response. If it's something you absolutely don't want, be sure to tell the school. You don't have to do so verbally; send a letter in your language stating your wishes. The school will find someone to interpret it. Keep a back-up copy for yourself.

Just as a general rule to all parents/guardians, keep documentation of everything the school sends you. You never know when you may need it.