#(id rather die than not carry them at all though maybe that's the same thing twice)

[faaun]

if i had an allergic reaction again will my friend appear to hold my hand again if i get really drunk again will they carry me home if i'm too sick to get up will she call me at 5 AM to check up again if we've missed a flight and we're stuck in city we weren't meant to be in at 2AM will he tell me about philosophy again if i make bad decisions will she almost slap me in the face and hand me a cigarette again if i feel lost will she share shitty kebab and tell me about her life again will we get to play poker together again

[heyheyloki]

Loving Is (Not) Easy [1]

Summary: Sometimes the best thing you can do is take it head on and wait.

Spencer Reid x M!Reader

Word Count: 4876

1. Sometimes, you need to wait.

The first time you met Doctor Spencer Reid was one that you wished happened under different circumstances. Although, if it did happen different, you highly doubt things would turn out like the way they have. You probably would never be living with him, never be able to be your true self, and never have found the man you want to love for the rest of your life. But, with any love story there will be always things in the way. Your enemy just happened to be time.

Around six months ago was the first time you saw him. He was literally your light in the darkness. He had saved you from a hell you couldn't escape for fifteen years. Over and over again you would wake up in that small room and the devil and his partner would strip you of yourself. They took everything they could from you, yet he was the one to give it all back.

It was around winter, the seasons turning as the green grass began to be dominated by the white fluffy snow. You were never really able to see it though. They wouldn't let you. The only time you got to see the outside was when they would remove the nails from the sheets that blacked-out the window from your eyes. You suppose you could always just try to tear the fabric down, but they would never let you back up in your room without your hands damaged. Too damaged to even touch anything. It stung.

You always believed that your life was supposed to be this way. That you would eventually die before you could even figure out how long you’ve been in this place. Before you could even know how old you actually were. Birthdays, time, those things were long in the first three years up here. After that, everything was such a blur that you barely tried to pay attention to it anymore. You believed in so many things, positive things, and yet as the time went on negative thoughts crawled inside your mind. You would never be able to experience love, or even get a job and normal social life. Something you have been deprived up ever since you came out to them about something personal. Something they thought was filthy and disgusting.

You thought for such a long while that it was your fault, and you still did to this day. Maybe if you had read the signs more you would have noticed. But what young boy notices that stuff? What young boy would think their parents are capable of such acts because of their sexuality?

You never tried to scream. Your mother always told you that if you scream then you’ll get punished. You never tried to learn what that punishment would be. Although, one day the pain was just too unbearable that you let out noise. Your parents didn't like it much. But how can you not scream as they cut open your skin? 

Even with the punishment. Even with the beatings. You think the only thing that saved your life was your scream. You only thank those who heard it, the neighbors. They were the ones who brought him to you. And you thank them every day of your life for it.

It was normal day at the BAU section of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. The team there had received a case from the police in Denver, Colorado about a possible abusive household. Normally, things like this would be handled by the police only. Although, this case was proving to be more and more gruesome than they ever thought possible.

The team had collected in the conference room, the board lit up with two pictures. One of a man and the other a woman. They looked to be completely normal, normal people anyone would pass at any time of the day.

"Nicolás and Vanessa Perez are a married couple in the Denver area of Colorado." A woman known as JJ stated. She had short blond hair and fair skin. Each of those at the table had a conflicted look on their faces, especially since she didn't show any pictures of them as bloody corpses.

"What's so special about them?" Agent Aaron Hotchner, leader of the team asked.

"Well, they aren't dead for one. Although, neighbors have heard screams coming from the house." She said, her thumb clicking on a button on the remote she carried. A small window of video popped up and immediately began to play. It was focused on the ground, a sidewalk. Even so with not being able to see anyone, the bloodcurdling screams of a male was present in all of their ears. Screams that called out in the darkness when monsters are visible. Screams that should never be made possible. But, it was. Those types of voices were signs of clear distress and pain rather than fear. And everyone in the room knew that.

Once it ended, a couple of people let out a deep sigh. Their hearts speeding up for just one moment before putting back up the shield that helped them do this job.

"Do we know who that was?" Doctor Spencer Reid, the youngest of the agents asked.

"No one had any idea up until a few days ago when a neighbor took this picture." JJ said as she put up a somewhat blurred image of a young individual looking out the window of what looked to be an upstairs room or attic.

"We have any idea who the kid is?" Derek Morgan asked.

"No one can get an ID on him." JJ informed the team. Although, just as she believed they would hurry to Denver, Colorado, Hotchner asked, "I understand the severity of the situation but why did the police need us on this case?"

"Well," JJ muttered. Her thumb clicking a button once more as ten pictures of young woman popped up on screen. The youngest at eighteen while the oldest ranging up to her thirties. "All these woman have been going missing in the area where the screaming can be heard. Police there believe it is this couple kidnapping these young woman, but they have no proof."

"Wait, but the one in the picture there is obviously a young man." Emily Prentiss stared clearly for everyone to hear.

"Yeah, that does seem to be the case." Spencer Reid agreed, his hazel hues keeping on the blurred picture of the young man.

"Either way, I don't like the odds that boy has." Hotchner said, picking up himself and the items he owned from the circular table as he and his team moved out. The screams they all heard from that video echoing non-stop in their minds.

2. Don’t Make A Sound

 When they all reached the police station cops were running back and forth as commotion ensued the place. They looked around at the panic before picking up the pace to the one who calls the shots, the Chief.

"What's going on?" Special Agent David Rossi asked. He and his team watched as the police chief turned to them just after he hung up the phone. Some determination deep within his eyes, or perhaps anger.

"We just got another report of screams coming from the same house." He quickly stated. "I'm about to go visit the home again, you all are free to tag along."

Everyone quickly agreed, however, Hotchner was quick to leave JJ and Reid at the station to start up a profile for the unsubs. Meanwhile, everyone else traveled to the most unsuspecting home in the most unsuspecting neighborhood. It was one of those neighborhoods that would be in an ad back in the day that promoted the American Dream to foreigners. The clean cut green grass, the perfect two story home, and of course, the whit picket fence. When the team came up to the house and knocked on the door the woman answered first. She stared at them with narrowed eyes as she scanned all of the badges they whipped out for her to see.

"Mrs Perez? We have a few questions for you. May we come in?" Derek asked with the deep and silky voice that attract woman left and right.

"Sure," she stuttered. Her fingers scrunched against her thin scarf that hung loosely around her neck as she stepped aside for them. Each one that entered her home allowed another squeeze at her scarf.

As the officer and members from the FBI looked around the home, they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It was a typically normal home with a normal living room, kitchen, even bedroom. When they all sat down in the living room to talk, Derek couldn't help but notice a door that looked to lead up to an attic. One that would have to be pulled down from the sealing. Thing was though, it had a lock. He kept it in mind as others began to question her. Rossi looking around at the picture of her and her husband along a table, as well as several items that indicated she was religious.

"Where is your husband, Mrs Perez?" Rossi asked. He stared at the back of her head for a moment before going back to the pictures when he heard her reply, "The store, we needed more food."

"Ma'am, we've been getting several reports now of screams coming from your house. Mind telling us what that's all about?" The officer asked, his brows furrowed more the longer he stared at her.

"I have no idea. It's just me and my husband, you see. We don't bother anyone." She stated calmly. Although, even with her calm demeanor, something about this woman irked Derek to his very core. He could feel it in his gut that something was wrong, and almost on some god-given luck a few noises--like footsteps--came from above. Everyone was quick to get a look up, their minds racing. However, when they looked back at the woman on instinct she said, "We have a raccoons nest up there."

"Better get them out soon, raccoons tend to carry all kinds of illnesses." Rossi said in a manner that was almost read as sarcastic, like he wasn't buying any of it. Although, even with the timid questioning, things began to heat up at an exponential rate when he saw a photo of a small boy. In the picture it was easy to say he was a cute kid. Smooth skin, full lips, gorgeous colored orbs, and healthy looking hair. The kinda features for a male that would mature into god-like looks.

"This your son?" Rossi asked. He held the photo up for her to get a look at when she turned her body around.

"Yes. His name is [Name], a sweet boy." She sugared, something about her honeyed words clawed at Rossi.

"So, where is he now?" He asked, walking up to the group once he set the photo down. He watched as she grabbed a hold of her necklace, a cross, as she said, "I sent him away. Boys like those detectives, they get a lot of attention."

"What kind of attention?" Prentiss asked, her arms folded over her chest.

"Attention one boy should not be getting from another." She hissed out. Her hatred now clear for everyone to see. Her dark eyes scanned the room before her voice became strong, more stern. "How would you feel if your son was kissing other boys?"

"I wouldn't care." Hotchner quickly stated, his own eyes burning with hatred as well. However, his hate was targeted somewhere different. "What did you do to him?"

She stared at Hotchner for a moment. Her eyes twisting into something that made his stomach turn at what she could have done to her own son. Then, a moment later, she raised her chin and said, "Somewhere better. Somewhere where he can learn god's will and fix his devil like face."

After the interrogation at the Perez house, the team went back to the station where Reid had been fixing up a board that helped him classify the unsubs.

"Whatcha got, pretty boy?" Derek asked with a small smirk. He saw Reid turn around with a sorta mocking face for a split second before getting into his findings.

"The only connection I could find between the missing woman was that they are all between the ages of eighteen and twenty, not only that but after about a week they are discarded and replaced." Reid started out saying, thoughts now running through his family's minds when he said, "It was almost like they were defective to them in some way."

Derek was the first to speak his mind, even if he didn’t like the conclusion he and many others were coming up with only after meeting the wife once. “When we went there, she went on about sending her son to a ‘better place’ where he can ‘fix himself’. If her and her husband have him and are taking these women, is it a stretch to say that they’re taking these women for him?”

“Well, why would they be doing that?” JJ asked. “I mean, you guys said that it sounded like their son was homosexual.”

“He can still be.” Rossi said, “but the parents think they can fix his sexuality by forcing these women onto him and when they don’t..”

“They’re killed and replaced,” Hotchner finished, his eyes scanning the board before saying aloud, “let’s go give the profile.”

3. Escape Never Looked So Easy

You’ve known this place most of your life and for the longest time you could remember a new girl coming to visit you every week. No, visit isn't the right word. More so forced to see you. You knew what was going on as you got older and you knew the first thing you had to do was help these women in anyway you could. Over and over again you have failed in ways that no one would ever understand. However, you were determined to help this one. You had too. Not only for a lofty sense of justice and pity, but since it was also your chance. She could help. Go to the police. The FBI are here now, they will help you.

"It'll be okay, I promise." You whispered to a scared woman who hugged her knees in her chest. The tears down her face wouldn't stop, staining her pale cheeks. Her wobbly eyes gazed up at you, staring at every possible scar that they left on your face.

"How do you do it?" Her brittle voice asked. Her head leaned to the side as her eyes narrowed and brows furrowed.

It was weird to be asked such a question, but not an uncommon one. They all ask it eventually, and you guess at some point in time you found the answer.

"I.. learned to adapt." You muttered out, your own head leaning downward as you stared at the rotting wooden floorboards. It was quiet for a moment, but you could still feel her eyes curiously watching you. Searching you.

"H-How long have you been up here?" She stuttered, almost scared to know the answer.

This time it was your turn to mirror her look of confusion. You could always tell when it was night and day, when the seasons chance, but you never have been able to count the years that have gone by. That was always the hard part.

"Don't know," You uttered, your voice soft and vulnerable. "All my life, I suppose."

Looking back, all you remember is this place. This way of living. You truly believe the only thing that kept you from believing this was okay in anyway was the books your father sneaks to you. He ended up doing it for as long as you could remember, but after some time whenever she would leave the house he would come up here. He'd teach you things, tend to my wounds, even apologize.

One time, he even tried to help you escape. A while ago, after they put up the tarp so the neighbors couldn't see you from the attic, he left the nails very loose in the wooden boards along the wall. It was easy for you to take it off without making too much noise. The jump down wasn't much given how it's only a two story home and the land would be in some bushes, but she tends to be more concerned with locking you away from the world. Father said it was so you don't 'act on the devil's desires'.

That sentence never did make sense to you. As much as you believe in your own intelligence, you could never wrap your head around it. After all, how would you be acting on the 'devil's desires' when she calls you the devil in disguise. Wouldn't it just be your own desires then? And even so, what's so wrong about desires? That's what makes an individual, otherwise wouldn't we all just be the same?

Father told you it started off with my looks. She believes you’re not their child, and he predicts that's how she can act so monstrous towards you. She apparently used to tell him about how the devil is supposed to be depicted as a handsome man, one with radiant features and charism so he can make others sin. She was always scared of you, of how you would look when you grew older. But, the moment she caught you innocently giving a kiss to a boy, she snapped.

She tells your father that they are ridding great evil from the world. Not so much about protecting you, fixing you. But more about protecting other people, helping other people. She used to call priests all the time when you were younger, but they stopped coming after some time. Your father thinks it has something to do with the fact that she didn't want the priests to see the scars on your face.

The first one she placed on you was on your left bottom lip. It drags from your lip to a little on your chin. It's noticeable, that's for a sure, as well as jagged. Over time, the cuts got smoother. The latest was under your right eye. It was curved to match my eye socket as well as wide more in the middle before riding off. All the other scars just happened to be on your body. Chest, back, legs, arms. She wanted to make sure that you were no longer the devil she imagined. After all, if your face was no longer sinful, if your handsome features were cut up, who would think of you as even the least bit attractive?

You only snapped out of your own thoughts when the girl across from you tapped on your shoulder. Your eyes quickly met hers that were filled with some kinda new strength while you felt wetness stream down your face.

"We're gonna get outta here. Both of us." She said to you. It was the first time someone had offered to take you with them. The first time that they didn't just care about their own escape. Although, you never blamed them.

"Y-Yeah," You stuttered, your voice cracking the longer she stared at you.

However, you decided at this point it would be best to just focus on her. She was more in danger than you were, so, you told her a plan. One that was full proof as long as that woman is out of the house.

"I can't take the tarp down, nevertheless open the window with my hands." You informed her. She guided her eyes to your shaky hands that where riddled with scars and bruises. Some cuts open with dried blood the only thing keeping the wound shut. "They haven't hurt you like they have me yet. So, it's up to you."

"How will I know she's gone?" The girl asked.

"She will be soon. This is the time of the day that she goes out for more supplies. It will take her at least twenty minutes." You informed her. Your head dropping for a second before saying softly, "Get back here with those FBI guys before then."

"Why?" She asked curiously.

You never did answer that question. It was your least favorite of all questions, especially when the answer most of the times is so easy to figure out.

4. God Sent Me An Angel

Fifteen minutes. That's how long she's been gone for. As much as you hope she would bring those people back, you wouldn't blame her if she just ran for the hills. Something like this, it would scare a lot of normal people. Though when does something scary turn into another person's normal? After time? You suppose that could be one answer; maybe even the only answer.

You think it was in a book you read stated that faith could be something of salvation and yet could lead someone onto the highway to hell. You truly believe that is where she will go after she dies, and you do hope that she realizes the truth. The single truth that you are not the devil in disguise. That you are not a sinner. That you are not Satan himself.

It was so quiet, quiet enough to hear your own breathing as it entered through your nose and out your mouth. Your breath laid still in the air, visible by the cool air that surrounded the attic. There wasn’t a heater in there, so the temperature was determined by the weather on the outside. 

One minute. Two minutes. You felt like you had started counting the seconds, lost so much in your head that you didn’t hear anything until the sound of clanking wood rang loud in your ear drums, infecting your brain.

You whipped your head around and stared blankly at the only exit or entrance of this hell besides the now broken window. Although, you had heard the sound so many times before that it was normal, most of the time you wouldn't even go to look. But this time you wanted to see, you wanted to look to see if the true devil was going to look you in the eyes or maybe perhaps it would be an angel himself.

However, you heard no sirens. Heard no new voices or those of those men before. So, the moment you saw the light shine from the house into the attic, you knew you would be staring into the eyes of the devil. And you did.

You knew the moment you saw the disembodied look on her face that my fate was sealed with a bloody end. Perhaps now your suffering can end, maybe now you can actually get some peace.

"Get over here, boy!" She yelled, her words like poison. Yet you hoped in that moment that when she wrapped her hand around your wrist that you would be let to your salvation. Maybe when you die you would see the pretty stars, the beautiful moon that somehow gave you a sense of hope in that dark and cold attic.

Her grip was solid and terrifying, although the fear you had for that woman died a long time ago when she started to slash your face. You couldn't see your father for miles, you had just assumed in that moment that perhaps she killed him as well, just like with all the other woman before. The ones you failed to save but each made a vow to, one they wanted you to keep before they met their end.

It wasn't until you both went into the kitchen and found yourself in the spot that she makes a mess with your body that you felt something. It wasn't so much fear or anger, but more so hope. It was the hope that this never ending nightmare would finally come to a close, that you would finally wake up.

"Sirens.." You muttered to yourself, your voice soft like that of a childs. You watched as her face contorted in fear when some men began to pound on the door and claim to be with the FBI.

When the door was busted down she pulled you close to her and held an object close to your neck, yet before it all she managed to grab the nearest bag and place it over your face. Essentially, even to the end she would rather hide me from them all entirely. With your vision gone, all you had was sound and touch to go one.

"Put the knife down!" You heard a man yell. You could remember him as one of the men that came here the other day.

"Mrs. Perez, let the boy go." A soft voice spoke. You couldn't explain why it was silky and not as deep as the other but gave you a sense of calmness. You could tell you would be fine in that moment, and believed it more than the entire universe.

"I'm not letting such evil into the world! None of you understand! He's the devil himself!" She screamed, the knife's sharp edges more prominent against your neck. You didn't make a sound though. You thought maybe you could get punished if you did.

"Why do you believe that?" The man with the calming voice asked. You could tell he was trying to calm her down to let you go.

Her firm grasp on your shoulder suddenly grew tighter, you believed she could shatter your bones if she really wanted to. "Everything about him. He's a sinner, he makes other people sin." She whispered, "He doesn't look like me or my husband."

"You think he's the devil because of his looks?" He asked.

It was silent for a second before she uttered, "I know he is because of his looks. I tried, I tried so hard to make it so he wouldn't make others sin. So he wouldn't spread such evil into this world."

"Why don't you tell me all about it after you hand him over?" He asked. You could tell all of his words were lies. "If.. If he's in custody with the FBI then he won't be able to spread the evil you speak off."

"Could I.. get rid of him?" She muttered. It was quiet, so quiet that all you could hear was your own breathing until you felt the hand on you shoulder slowly loosen. The knife around your neck moved around and before you knew it you could feel a pair of gentle hands on your upper arms.

You could hear the shuffling next to you and the jiggle of metal as they cuffed the woman next to you. It wasn't until you heard those footsteps echo off into the distance that the one in front of you asked, "Are you alright?"

You only nodded. It wasn't that you had an issue with talking or something, you just didn't want to at the moment.

"I'm gonna take this off, okay?" He asked. Your mind guessed he was taller than you and looked up an inch in turn. It was the first time that someone asked permission to do something to you.

You nodded again and once you did the crinkling the bag ran loud into your ears as the darkness you saw turned into light. When you opened your eyes, you stared at the man in front of you. He was young, maybe in his early or mid 20s. His chestnut hair was on the longer side and did this cute thing were it got curly on the ends. It reached down to his jaw that was sharp. He had pale skin, and had these eyes anyone could get lost in. They were sweet, something you haven't seen in anyone but those woman and your father at times.

The both of you stared at one another for an extended period of time. While you admired the man's features, you thought perhaps he was in shock at how hideous you look. Between the scars and such, you wouldn't be surprised if he thought that. However, the more you looked into his eyes, the more the idea of disgust was pushed from your mind. It was like that emotion wasn't even present as he stared at you.

Though, when he snapped out of his daze, he looked back on his game.

"Hey, there," he uttered calmly. "My name's Spencer Reid. I'm with the FBI, you're gonna be okay, you understand?"

You nodded your head again. You could tell he probably thought you were mute or something so when he started to move away you said aloud, "[Name]."

He was quick to move his head around back at you. The expression on his face was one of shock. He was truly baffled you were speaking, which made you almost retract. Although, I didn't.

"What was that?" He asked in confirmation.

"[Name]." You said more firmly, my natural deeper tone coming through. "That’s my name, since we’re sharing."

This time it was his turn to nod his head a bit, but at the same time, he smiled. It was softer and showed no teeth, but a smile nonetheless. It somehow softened you a tad, almost made you feel vulnerable to an extent. However you knew that it probably had something to die with the fact that he saved your life.

"We're gonna take you somewhere safe. Is that okay with you?" He asked. The second time someone has asked your permission. It truly felt wonderful. It was almost like you mattered, like your feelings were valid.

"Sure," you said. It was at this moment that your turning point would occur and you would be be allowed the freedom to do what you pleased. Something you were deprived of for over fifteen years.

[wistfulcynic]

from one minute to the next

A little something inspired by the prompts @winterbythesea posted here and here and here. This is not those prompts exactly (nor is it what I outlined on the discord, sorry guys) but I think it carries the same lighthearted dumbass energy as they do. 

Also, Killian Jones does not know what a ‘date’ is. Fight me, show. 

Summary: Emma’s not quite sure how it happened, but somehow she finds herself going from single and solitary in the city one minute to smoothly co-parenting with her ex, living with a pirate, and at home in a town full of storybook characters the next. 

Home. She never thought she’d have one of those. 

This is the story of how she got there. 

(also no! curse! renaissance! 3B divergence without Pan’s curse) 

<3k words  Rated T

AO3

-

from one minute to the next: 

Emma was never entirely certain how it happened. 

One minute she was telling Neal she didn’t want to get back together with him, that it was just too late for them now, and he was looking sad but in a resigned sort of way, as though he regretted the truth of her words while still recognising that they were true. 

“For what it’s worth,” he said. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have listened to August. I shouldn’t have left you like that. If I hadn’t…” 

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. They both knew how different things would have been if he hadn’t left her. And they both knew that it was far too late to undo what had been done. The only option left was to move on. 

“We found each other again, though,” she reminded him. “And we found Henry.” 

“You mean Henry found us.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably more accurate.” 

They shared a chuckle, and for the briefest moment the years fell away and she remembered why she’d fallen for him. And for the first time since she’d run him down in a New York alleyway, Emma looked at Neal and she felt hopeful.  

“Anyway,” she said, “Henry wants both of us in his life. He deserves that, and I think he needs it. And I think for it to work we need to try to be friends.” 

“No hard feelings, then?” Neal asked, hopefully. 

Emma hesitated. 

What did she feel for Neal? There was still affection, of course there was—the stubborn remnants of a passionate first love that she doubted would ever fully die. There was resentment too, a lot of it, and a lot of hurt. A fair bit of anger. So yeah, there were some hard feelings, but there also wasn’t much point in attempting to hash any of them out with Neal. Not when they needed to move forward.   

She produced a smile, slightly stiff at the edges but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“Sure. No hard feelings.” 

Neal’s face broke into a grin, the wide, happy kind that crinkled his eyes and once upon a time would have sent Emma’s heartbeat into overdrive. Now it just made her think of another crinkly grin, one far rarer and all too often tinged with sadness. 

“Neal,” she said. “I’ve got to go.” 

-

The next minute she was at the docks, breathing deeply and gathering her courage, looking up at the Jolly Roger and hoping Hook—Killian—would be there, in his cabin, maybe with his flask and one of the books that lined his shelves. More than once these past few weeks she’d caught him tucked up in a corner somewhere, reading, and Belle informed her that he actually had a library card. 

“He didn’t have the required ID,” she’d said with a little smirk. “But I think we all know who he is.” 

Emma was pretty sure she did know that, now, and the knowledge propelled her forward, onto the deck of the ship then down to his cabin where she knocked firmly on his door and shivered a bit when his voice called for her to enter. 

He looked up, surprise registering on his face followed swiftly by the delight he could never quite conceal when he saw her. 

“Swan,” he purred. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Emma’s heart was pounding and her throat dry, and honestly it was ridiculous to be this nervous, it wasn’t like he was going to say no. 

“I’m, um. Heretoaskyouout,” she blurted. 

He frowned. “To what?” 

Emma drew a deep breath and tried again. “Ask you out.” 

“Out of where?” 

“What? No. What?” 

“Where do you want me to go out of? This is my ship.” 

Emma resisted the urge to smack herself on the forehead. Of course he didn’t know what ‘ask you out’ meant, he was like a thousand years old. “No, no, I mean out on a date,” she explained. Tried to explain anyway, though his confusion just grew more apparent. “Like, to dinner or something. You and me. Out.” 

“Ah. Ah.” 

She watched as he turned the unfamiliar phrase over in his head, watched his eyes brighten with interest at learning a new thing, then when he finally realised fully what it meant she watched a rosy pink flush creep across his cheekbones and up to the tips of his ears. 

He swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice was gruff. “Let me be certain I understand. You want us, as in you and me, to go someplace and eat dinner together. Just—just us?” 

She nodded. “Yeah.” 

“And in this realm that is called a date?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And am I to understand that there are… romantic connotations to these dates?”

‘Romantic connotations’, she thought, for fuck’s sake, and did her best to ignore the fluttery feeling she always got in her belly whenever he broke out the big words. Aloud she said “Yeah.” 

“I see.” He swallowed again. “And when do you propose we have this date?” 

“Um. Tonight?” 

Aaand there it was, that wide and crinkly grin that made the blood rush far too recklessly through her veins, this time with no sadness lurking behind his eyes. None at all. 

“Tonight it is, then,” he said. 

-

One minute Emma was alone and telling herself she was content to be so, the next she had parents and a son and an ex who was almost a friend, and she was dating. Dating Hook, which she told herself firmly was only weird if she thought too hard about it. She wasn’t actually dating Captain Hook, of course she wasn’t. That would be ridiculous. No, she was dating Killian Jones—who was surprisingly, endearingly, sweet and nervous about it at first, like he wasn’t entirely certain her interest was real and was doing his utmost to tread carefully.

Emma didn’t want him always on his best behaviour, though, and while Killian was wonderful she knew that both of them still needed at least a little bit of Hook. And so it was that after their third date, when Henry was with Neal and Emma had made it very clear to her parents that they were not to expect her home before morning, that she and Killian stumbled back to his ship tipsy on rum but drunk on each other, and she made certain he understood exactly how interested she was. 

It was very. She was very interested. 

And when they awoke the next morning and she groaned at the glaring sunlight and pressed her face into his neck, muttering that it was too damn early and she needed caffeine, he ran his fingers through her hair and informed her he had a coffeemaker in his galley. 

She pulled back and blinked at him. “You what?” 

He flushed slightly, though with a pleased grin. “I asked Granny and she showed me what I needed, and helped me buy it.”

“But why? You don’t drink coffee.” 

He shrugged. “It’s growing on me. And besides, I thought—well, I hoped—that you might want to spend some time aboard ship in the future and, well, I want you to feel comfortable here and to have the things you like.” 

She stared at him for a moment as his flush deepened, then surged forward and kissed him, wrapped herself tightly around him and kissed him and kissed him until they were both breathless and the coffee forgotten until much, much, much later. 

-

Another minute passed and they were marking six months together. Emma had rented a place of her own, nothing fancy but hers, and she and Killian were spending most of their nights there. Her bed was bigger than the bunk in his cabin, softer and with actual springs, and her parents, Granny, and Ruby had all chipped in to buy her an espresso machine. Small but serviceable, like her apartment. Granny taught both her and Killian how to use it—and honestly, Emma thought, you haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen a shirtless pirate with a hook for a hand whip up a latte on a Sunday morning—and she was, tentatively, happy. 

Very happy. 

She didn’t see too much of Neal. He spent time with Henry of course and with Belle, renovating the pawn shop and brightening it a bit, removing what traces they could of the Dark One’s influence. She also knew he was volunteering at the convent where the Lost Boys lived, helping them get accustomed to life in Storybrooke and make it their home. 

He might also, she suspected, have become somewhat more than friends with Tink. 

-

And then one night Emma and Killian had dinner at a new place by the docks, where they gorged on seafood and drank a bit too much wine and decided, for safety and for old times’ sake, to spend the night on the Jolly Roger rather than trying to get home. 

Home. She had a home now, and a man who as good as lived there with her. She should really get around to asking him to live there officially, she knew. She kept meaning to. She wanted to, she truly did. But as conversations go that one felt so weighty and so significant that she wanted to be sure to do it right and so in the end she’d done nothing at all—nothing except feel that little bit more guilty each time Killian asked her politely if it was all right for him to stay. 

Yes, she wanted to tell him. Stay forever. Soon she would. 

They stumbled onto the ship and to his cabin, foolish and messy in a way they hadn’t been for a while. Emma realised she had missed this a bit, the dark, almost feral look in Killian’s eyes when he was just this shade of drunk and she was naked in his bed on his ship. 

“You are… so beautiful, Emma,” he growled against her throat as his fingers tangled in her hair. “Have I told you how you steal my breath away?” 

“Not for at least an hour,” she teased. 

“Remiss of me.” 

“Mmm. However will you… ohhh… make it up to me?” 

He pulled back and looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Oh, I have one or two ideas.” 

-

They woke late the next morning as was their habit on a Sunday, and Emma groaned as the light pierced her eyelids and straight through her throbbing head. 

“Killian.” She poked him in the ribs. 

“Mmphh,” he replied. 

“You still have your… thing. Right? Coffee thing? In the galley?” 

“Aye.” He rubbed his eyes and blinked. “I believe there’s aspirin in there as well.” 

Emma turned her poking finger into a caressing one, stroking him with the tip of it. “Killian,” she said again, in a wheedling tone. 

“It’s your turn to make the coffee and you know it, Swan,” he replied, in his pirate captain voice. 

She huffed. He raised an eyebrow. 

“Fine.” She flung the covers off and rolled out of bed, snatched his shirt from the floor and threw it on, buttoning it just enough to keep it from flapping when she walked. “I’m guessing you don’t have milk though.” 

“Certainly not any in a drinkable state. Though there should be some of that horrid creamer.” 

She perked up. “Cinnamon?” 

“What else?” 

In the galley Emma found the coffeemaker and an open packet of coffee that smelled surprisingly fresh given how long it had been since they’d last slept here. There was also the cinnamon creamer, unopened, and a big bottle of aspirin. One minute she was pulling everything off the shelves and turning to set them on the table, and the next the door was swinging open and a person walking through it, and Emma found herself colliding sharply with a bare chest. A familiar bare chest. A familiar bare chest that was not Killian’s. 

“Neal!” she shrieked, dropping everything in her arms. “What the fuck!” 

“Emma!” He looked equally stunned. “What the—what are you doing here?” 

“Here on my—on Hook’s ship, you mean?” My boyfriend’s ship, she wanted to say, but calling a 300-year-old pirate a boyfriend was something she still couldn’t do, however objectively true it may be. 

“The ship he said I could use whenever I needed it?” countered Neal. “Yeah, that one!” 

“He said you could use his ship?” 

“Uh huh, he did. When I, you know.” A shifty look crept onto his face. “Wanted privacy.” 

“Priva-oh!” Emma’s eyes widened as the penny dropped. Neal was still living in his father’s house. The house where Belle also lived. “Um. I see.” 

“Yeah.” Neal didn’t meet her eyes. “But why are you here, don’t you have your own place now?” he demanded. “I thought Hook lived with you.” 

“Not officially,” she muttered. “And we, um, had a bit to drink last night at that new seafood place and you know.” She shrugged. “The ship was closer.” 

“Huh. Well that explains those noises I heard last night.” 

Emma was just about to ask him what the fuck that was supposed to mean when the door opened again and a voice called “Why don’t I smell coff—oh! Um. Hi Emma.” 

Emma pressed her thumbs against her temples. “Hey, Tink.” 

The fairy was dressed identically to how Emma herself was, only the shirt she wore was Neal’s. An old Metallica tee because of course. 

“Well,” said Tink. “That explains those noises we heard.” 

Neal nodded. 

“What noises—” Emma began, then the door opened again. 

“Did you find everything, love—oh. Er.” Killian appeared in the room wearing only his jeans and without his hook. He scratched behind his ear. “Hello, friends and enemies.”

“Hook,” said Tink and Neal. 

“Killian,” said Emma. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You never told me you were letting Neal stay here.” 

“Ah. I did offer him use of the first mate’s quarters whenever he was seeking a bit of privacy, yes. If you remember, love, my quarters proved invaluable in that respect when you were still living with your parents.” 

Emma felt her cheeks grow hot. “Yeah,” she muttered. 

“I merely thought Neal and Tink could do with a bit of the same benefit. And you know the Jolly gets lonely if she’s left by herself for too long. Although,” Killian favoured Neal and Tink with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, “I did make that offer quite some time ago now. And I don’t believe I said anything about staying here.” 

“Yeah, well.” Neal’s face took on that belligerent look he got when he was feeling defensive. “I don’t want to move out of Papa’s place and leave Belle alone.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Emma demanded. 

Everyone stared at her. “What?” asked Neal. 

“Belle’s seeing Ruby.” 

“Ruby?” 

“Yeah. For like three months now. Ruby’s constantly moaning about how they can’t stay at her place because Granny’s got wolf hearing and they can’t go to Belle’s because it’s full of you. Trust me, Belle will be okay if you move out.” 

“Oh,” said Neal blankly. “Well. Fuck.” 

Emma looked around the room, at her current boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend who was also her current boyfriend’s ex… something, all of them in varying states of dishevelment, hangover, and undress, and she started to laugh. 

“Yeah,” she said. “That about sums it up.” 

-

So Emma never did quite figure out how it happened, but somehow she ended up with a home of her own in a fairy tale town with fairy tale friends and a pirate boyfriend, where one minute she was drinking coffee in a ship’s galley with a group of people who knew each other far too intimately for anyone’s comfort and the next her ex and his girlfriend were her neighbours and her pirate was living at her place for good—at their place, now—and her son was bouncing happily between the two apartments save at least one night a week that he spent at Regina’s. She and Neal co-parented better than she could ever have hoped, and every morning she woke up to blue eyes warm with love and lattes made precisely how she liked them. 

And, well. Emma’s happiness wasn’t tentative anymore. 

-

She was happy. Really happy. Truly happy. So happy that when she came home one evening to find the kitchen smoke alarm shrieking and Henry teetering on a stool waving a towel at it as Killian and Neal grappled with some foamy, hissing, smoking substance on the countertop, she wasn’t even mad. 

“What the hell do you idiots think you’re doing?” she demanded. 

“Ems!” 

“Mom!” 

“Swan!” 

“It’s not what it looks like!” they cried in unison. 

Emma shook her head. “I’m going next door,” she said. “To have a beer with Tink. This,” she gestured vaguely at the room, “had better be dealt with by the time I get back.” 

As she turned and headed back out the door, the last thing she heard were three furious voices. 

“Now look what you’ve done!”  

“What I’ve done! It was your idea!” 

“And I still don’t have a science project!” 

Emma grinned, and shut the door firmly behind her.

---

@thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu @mariakov81 @stahlop @kmomof4 @optomisticgirl @spartanguard @shireness-says @thesschesthair @courtorderedcake @everything-person @katie-dub 

[still-busy-being-mortal]

the rising of the moon

word count: 4544

rating: G

fandom: the mechanisms

warnings: major character death

summary: They've lived so long together, perhaps it is only fitting they die alone.

story notes: so this came about as a result of wanting to cry MORE about the mechs. don't ask me why.

features raphaella spouting unnecessary science jargon, ivy being emotionally repressed/depressed, drumbot brian holding a conversation with himself, and the toy soldier being actually emotionally intelligent.

——————

JONNY

It’s a quiet day aboard the starship formerly known as The Aurora. Most of the crew is out, and she’s drifting slowly through a dusty asteroid field. Ivy has stayed aboard to read, and Drumbot Brian was designated ship-sitter, so he’s stayed on as well. When enough time has passed (Is it days? Or decades? No one knows anymore, and no one cares. They are all so tired.), Brian hits the alert switch that will tell the Mechanisms to come home.

Ivy feels the gentle vibration in her brain --the pulse of The Aurora’s beacon-- and she puts her book down before walking slowly to the navigation bridge. Marius’ hand starts to buzz, messing up his note-taking; he apologizes to the rather fascinating asteroid-dweller he’s interviewing and takes his leave. Ashes feels their chest hum, and they turn away from their beautiful, fiery meteor shower.

[read more on ao3, or continue below!]

One by one, the Mechs find their way home. It takes some longer than others, but they all return eventually. Or they should; right now, there are only seven crewmates in the navigation bridge.

“I’m sick of waiting--where the hell is Jonny?” Tim whines.

“I guess he decided to stay in the asteroid belt?” Marius says.

“Woulda been nice to let us know,” mutters Ashes, “So we’re not all sittin’ here for ages.”

Brian stands and raises his hand. “All in favour of leaving and returning in a few decades?” They all agree, so he pilots Aurora away from the asteroid field.

Time goes by, and they do not hear from Jonny. Of course, members of the crew sometimes stay away for long periods of time, but that doesn’t mean their absence is not felt. And Jonny hasn’t appeared to try and contact them at all.

After a while, they vote to return to the asteroid belt. When they arrive, they split up, communication devices in hand.

Ivy combs through her memory, trying to summon any knowledge she has on Asteroid Field 01.18.20. The Toy Soldier moves methodically from meteor to meteor, searching for their lost comrade. Raphaella interviews any inhabitants she comes across, axially coding their qualitative responses to identify patterns in the data. Tim goes to a bar for a drink, irritated at Jonny’s latest antic.

He walks into some nameless, backwater joint and sits at the counter, flagging down the bartender with a lazy wave. He orders and waits, mechanical eyes roving the establishment. And then he freezes.

On the far wall hang a few dozen photographs, all dusty and poor quality. Above the photos is a crudely-done banner that simply reads “Cheers to Our Past Patrons.” One of the pictures is of Jonny.

When the bartender returns, Tim asks: “What’s the deal with the wall of fame, then?”

“Oh, that,” they answer tiredly. “Just sum dark joke the old owner thought up. Them’s the folks who kicked it in this here bar, you see.”

Tim was confused. “You mean those people died here? That can’t be right; my friend’s up there, and he can’t d--he’s alive.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Don’t know, pal. We had to bury most of thems out back, if you reckon you want to check.” He chuckled darkly and went back to drink-making.

Tim quickly finished his drink and went out the back door. He debated alerting the other Mechs about this development, but decided he might as well see for himself first.

He found the makeshift graveyard quickly, small rusty mounds amid the equally rusty asteroid outback. Some displayed names on roughly carved wood planks, but obviously none of them said “Jonny d’Ville” (Tim laughed at the idea of Jonny carrying around an ID). Most were unmarked, however, so he started to dig.

He used his hands, too impatient to try and find a shovel. He came across bodies and bones in various stages of decay, but none that had any chance of being Jonny. About fed up with this ridiculous idea of his, he decided to dig up one more grave. He shovelled dirt and rocks out of the way, until his hand hit something hard and cold. Something metallic. He pulled on it, and came away with a belt. Christ , he thought.

He quickly scooped away the rest of the dirt, revealing the corpse of Captain First Mate Jonny d’Ville. Dead. Tim stumbled backward, hand fumbling for his comm. “Um, mates, I-I found him.”

The Mechanisms were different after that. Yes, Nastya had gone Out long ago, but they had never actually come across her dead corpse , so it wasn’t the same. Marius had examined his body and declared him fully, completely, and irrevocably dead. They had held a funeral, but they were all too much in shock to really remember it. All they knew was that they were down a crew member, without a captain first mate, and terribly aware of their own mortality.

ASHES

About half the crew was in Raphaella’s lab, helping her with some complex kind of experiment. Raph was mixing two viciously green liquids together, while Marius was unspooling wire from a large bobbin. The Toy Soldier was holding an ultraviolet light against a motherboard, and Ashes connected the motherboard to the chartreuse concoction using the wires. After pouring all of the chemicals, Raphaella pulled on some rubber gloves and pulled out a small pocketwatch from her shirt. “Are we ready?” she asked gleefully. Without waiting for an answer, she started the countdown. “Five! Four! Three! T--curses!” The pocketwatch slipped from her gloved grasp and fell into the churning beaker. All at once there was a flash and a bang, and the lights went out. They stood in complete silence for a minute, before the backup generators flicked on.

The Toy Soldier clapped its hands, “That Was Jolly Good! Can We Do It Again?”

“No, TS, look, I got goop on my--wait!” Marius shouted, “Where’s Ashes?” They all turned to look at where the quartermaster had been just moments before. The floor where they’d been standing was a scorched, intricate, dark pattern of swirls. “What the hell is that ?”

“I Do Not Know, But I Will Go Get The Archivist!”

TS returned with Ivy, who took one look at the patterns on the floor and asked: “Who is it that has been time travelling?”

“Time travelling?!” Raph exclaimed.

“Yes,” Ivy said, “Those marks are a perfect exemplar of the evidence left behind when one has been forcibly transported forward or backward in the time continuum. Which one of you did it? Did you happen to bring back any books?”

“It wasn’t us: it was Ashes.” Marius said, “And we don’t think they’ve come back yet.”

Ivy grew very pale. “That is highly alarming. There’s a less than 0.1% chance that a time traveller ever comes back if they do not return instantly after the outset of their journey.”

“Y-you mean Ashes might not...” Marius trailed off, “...Wait a second! That doesn’t make sense! We don’t experience time linearly!”

“That may be true, but we are not forcibly moved through it either. We are at the whim of the narrative flow, and any alteration to that usually produces negative results.”

The Toy Soldier flashed through many emotions at once, though its face never changed. “So Quartermaster O’Reilly Is...Gone?”

“We can’t prove that yet!” Raph cried, fluttering around the lab and grabbing various scientific instruments. “Maybe if I can pinpoint when exactly they’ve been transported to, we can...we can bring them back.”

“That’s quite a long shot,” Marius said.

“What is science if not a shot into the ignorant dark?” Raph replied, rigging up a technological monstrosity. She aimed the thing at the charred spot and clicked a button, causing the machine to emit a pulsating, whirring sound. “Oh, you all might want to close your eyes.”

With a burst of green and a harsh dial tone, the thing spit out a strip of paper. Raph grabbed it and read it intently. She dropped it suddenly, eyes distant and empty. “They are gone.”

The room burst into a cacophony. (“What do you mean?!” “Gone How? Gone Forever ?” “It was statistically unlikely that they could have returned.”) Raph picked up the paper and pressed it onto the lab table. Most of it was meaningless words and numbers, but Raph pointed out a string in the center: “RESULT) DATE: %& INFINITE ROUNDING ERROR $! _ LOCATION: SINGULARITY!UNIVERSAL IMPLOSION. ANALYSIS) CHANCE OF TERMINATION: 100.0% +-0.0 R = 1.0”

“They’re gone.”

RAPHAELLA

The crew was far more disorganized after Ashes left. With no one to maintain inventory or keep the crew in line, The Mechanisms started to fall apart. Raphaella tried for a while to build some kind of time-travelling device, some way of defying the inexorable march of the story, but it was in vain. She was left with only one option; one experiment she hadn’t tried yet.

She carefully laser cuts some metal from the starship once known as the Aurora. She sits in Nastya’s former workshop for hours, bending and twisting and fabricating until she is left with wings; wings more breathtaking than any she has possessed before. Once on, they fan out behind her in a starburst of blue and metallic grey.

But her crew will never see them. In the cover of darkness, she steals away to the airlock. The ship is currently sailing past a black hole (Raphaella has the Messier number and NGC identification memorized, but that’s not her concern now). With one final look backward at the place that had been her home for millennia --the place she thought she would call home forever -- she casts herself into the black hole.

Ivy finds the note she left, succinct and unmincing as ever:

“Addressed to whoever finds this first:

After a brief review of prior literature, I have found extensive holes (no pun intended) in the study of singularities, specifically as it relates to a singularity’s effect on a humanoid body and mind. I seek to rectify this, as well as explore the possibility of horological manipulation, though perhaps my methods are not entirely replicable. It is every scientist’s dream to be on the cutting edge of research, and so I initiate this experiment joyfully. Also, black holes are hypothesized to have magnificent magnetic fields!

Yours,

Dr. Raphaella La Cognizi”

TIM

Tim, Marius, the Toy Soldier, Brian, and Ivy wait. They do not wait together, and they do not know what exactly it is they’re waiting for, but they wait nevertheless.

Time passes.

Brian pilots the ship towards various planets, pointless battles, dying stars. One day, the remaining Mechs arrive at a lawless sea-based war occurring on a planet composed entirely of liquid obsidian. They commandeer a ship (which they dub the ‘Dawn’) and spend decades wreaking havoc as the most formidable group of pirates. But Tim knows something is wrong.

“Tim, take out that vessel off the starboard side.” Brian orders from the prow of the Dawn.

Tim smoothly preps, loads, and positions a cannon to aim directly at the enemy ship in question. He lights the fuse, and the cannon fires. The crew watch as the projectile hurls through the air, arcing like a cold meteor into the distance. They watch it come down towards the enemy vessel. And they watch it miss.

The crew turns to stare at Tim. He’s not nearly as mortified as they expected. In fact, he’s perfectly serene.

“Um, Tim…” Marius starts slowly, “D-did you know you, uh...missed?”

“Yep.” he responds, popping the ‘p’.

“Did you mean to?”

“Nope.”

“And...you’re not upset by that?”

“Not especially.”

(“That’s a fascinatingly abnormal psychological response,” Marius mutters under his breath, jotting something down in a notebook he appears to have produced out of nowhere.)

The crew continues to stare as Tim goes below deck to his bunk, humming slightly.

Tim has known something was off for a long time now. His aim started to err by nanometres, then by millimeters, then more, until he was missing entire ships like today. He’d panicked at the beginning, of course, but now? Now, he was ready to be done.

He’d felt the pressure building up in his head, behind his eyes. He got spurts of tunnel vision randomly, and sometimes his vision just went to static. He gradually lost the ability to see some colors, as the electronic rods and cones went out one-by-one and refused to self-repair. But he wasn’t nervous or distressed or alarmed; he was excited.

You see, he’d been saving something for a special occasion. He didn’t know what ‘special occasion’ entailed, since the Mechs never consistently celebrated holidays or birthdays, but permanent death seemed like a pretty good one. He rooted around in his rucksack, and withdrew a set of shiny silver keys; keys he’d stolen a long, long time ago. These were the ignition keys to the largest gunship existence will ever see, and Tim planned to go out with a bang. That evening, he told the crew he wanted them all to return to the starship so he could be dropped off somewhere. They all agreed, since they didn’t have any real cares anymore, and they set off for the planet Tim had etched into his memory.

Tim sits in the cockpit of the gunship, the planet itself already ruined and smoking from fighting his way to get here. The Mechanisms were long gone, as he’d told them to leave without him. He hadn’t exactly said he wasn’t planning on coming back, but he thinks they understood. With one last grin of pure, unadulterated madness, he kicks the gunship into gear and blasts off.

The ship goes too fast to comprehend, and in an instant he’s shooting across the cosmos, shattering stars and razing entire systems of planets. The universe has never before witnessed such complete and utter desolation. Tim doesn’t process much during this rampage...until he starts to die.

He doesn’t know what he hit, but something has jolted the gunship just right, and he’s flung out the front glass. He knows he should die instantly, and he is, but his eyes are moving faster. They’re replaying his life, backwards, and he wants to groan with the cliché-ness of it all. But then it’s over. Or, almost over. At the very end, so fast, so short compared to the millennia he has lived, he catches sight of a young man in a trench. Bertie. A face he will never forget no matter how much longer he could have lived. And in the moments of blackness before he stops forever, he thinks about Bertie, about what comes next.

Faith is a moot point when you’re immortal, since you’ve quite literally come into contact with gods and demons, eldritch horrors and cosmic powers. But here, at the end of his wretchedly long existence, Tim wonders if he will ever see Bertie again. If he will ever see Jonny, or TS, or Ashes, or anyone ever again.

He dies blind, with their names on his lips.

IVY

Exposition: Ivy is quite spectacular at suppressing her emotions. She’s also skilled at identifying patterns, so by the time Raphaella left, she knew what was going on with 98% certainty. Without much fanfare, she packed her bags (5 for books and 1 for everything else), said goodbye to Marius, Brian, and the Toy Soldier, and left.

She rifled through her memory archives for the quaintest library she knew of, and headed there.

Rising Action: And so time passed.

Ivy read, and organized, and wrote, and...existed. Nothing happened, and nothing changed. Carmilla must have made an error in her mechanization because she’d never been the best at processing feelings, but she was happy, she thought.

Climax: A war came, and her library was attacked. With the numbest, most detached sense of purpose imaginable, she loaded an escape pod with random books she thought should be preserved and fired it out into the void. She didn’t even know she’d been hit until she’d fallen to the floor, blood streaming from a massive wound. She knows she is dying; she’d seen the patterns.

Denouement: Her brain whirs slower and slower, until it stops. The end.

MARIUS

They are not a crew any longer. Brian has firmly rooted himself on the bridge, more robot than man now. The Toy Soldier wanders the ship, searching for its friends who are playing the best game of hide-and-seek that the universe has ever seen. Marius putters along, doing some maintenance, writing down his thoughts, and waiting for his death.

He’d always known this life of theirs couldn’t last. Besides the conceptual and moral implications of an eternal existence without consequences, it didn’t even make sense physically . There was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, and he was surprised his more rational-minded crewmates didn’t question it more. But now his theory had come to fruition, and his crew, his family , had slowly dropped off one-by-one, like leaves from an autumnal tree.

He’s at a bit of a loose end now. With no people left to talk to, no minds to pick, he doesn’t feel any sense of purpose. It’s not depression--he knows that; it’s more of a...cosmic futility.

He feels one last pull, one last tug of the all-pervading narrative, a tide of finality, urging him towards a certain door. He knows this door, knows what it means when he opens it. But he also knows all things come to an end eventually, so why not go out doing what he always did? Providing the comic relief.

“Time this for me, will you, Aurora?” he calls out. He turns the handle and steps inside.

BRIAN

Since Jonny’s death, Brian has been at war with himself. He supposes he’s always been at war with himself though, and his current moral quandary reminds him uncomfortably of his first.

Sitting on the bridge alone, he decides to have a conversation.

“So the crux of the problem is that we can bring people back from the dead, correct?”

He flips his switch. “Correct.”

He flips it back. “But the dilemma is whether we should bring the Mechs back or not.”

“Also correct.”

“Which we shouldn’t, because they wanted to die.”

“No, we should. We want them alive, right? Using magic is definitely the easiest way to achieve that.”

“But we need our family to be happy. God knows how long it’s been.”

“Is the end goal their happiness or our happiness?”

“If I answer that, will I change your mind?”

“Is altering the end goal really the moral way to win this argument?”

“You know what? Damn you.”

Time passes, and each crewmate’s departure only makes Brian’s contempt for his own inner hesitation grow. He spends years staring out into the cosmos, thoughts whirling just as fast as the dust and gases beyond the glass. He wonders if he will ever die and join his family, or if the degree of his artificiality will render him truly immortal. He hates that thought more than most anything else.

He stops smelling the smoke of Ashes’ fires one day, and wonders if his olfactory systems are shutting down.

He stops feeling the rumble of Raphaella’s experimental explosions, and wonders if his nerve endings are rusting.

He stops seeing the flash of Tim’s gunshots bounce around the corridors, and wonders if he’s gone as blind as the gunner himself.

He stops hearing Ivy’s narration, and wonders if his auditory fluids have finally trickled away.

One day, the lone violin that has been echoing throughout the empty starship fades out, and Brian feels his heart stop.

It restarts of course, but Brian knows.

He knows that it’s finally, finally time. Soon, very soon, there will be no more life aboard this ship. No life, where there had been life for eons. No life, where there had been life immortal.

His sense of taste has never come into doubt, because he can still taste the acridness of the Toy Soldier’s cooking wafting on the air. He decides it’s only right to bid goodbye, so he makes his way back to the kitchen. On the way, he passes the Doctor’s old laboratory. He briefly considers destroying it, bringing down the whole ship in a blaze of fire and brimstone, but he knows that isn’t right; it wouldn’t fulfill anything.

In the kitchen, the Toy Soldier is pulling something pink and grey and on fire out of the oven. “Hey, TS,” Brain says gently, leaning against the doorframe as his heart falters again. “I-I’ve got to talk to you.”

The Toy Soldier spins around. “Drumbot Brian!” it shouts joyfully. “How Have You Been, Old Chap! I Have Been Playing Hide-And-Seek With The Rest Of The Crew For A While Now, And They Are Definitely Winning! Have You Seen Them?”

“Oh, TS,” Brian says sadly, “We’re all who’s left now. Don’t you know? The others have gone.”

He sees the Toy Soldier’s wooden eyes soften, betraying an agedness he’s never seen before. “Of Course I Know, Bean. But What Have We Been Doing This Whole Time, If Not Pretending?”

Brian smiles sorrowfully, and TS matches it. “I just wanted to let you know, TS, that now it’s my turn to go.”

“I Know.” It salutes him. “Goodbye, Drumbot.”

Brain gently returns the salute, and leaves.

He stumbles through the ship, heart failing rapidly now, but he makes it to the airlock. He knows deep down that there’s only one way his story could end. His whole existence has been framed by empty solitude, with his family providing the best aberration one could wish for. With his body more an empty metal frame than a robot now, he opens the airlock and casts himself back into the cosmos, from whence he came, and where he would die.

THE TOY SOLDIER

Its friends are all gone away now, and it knows this. There is no more laughter aboard the starship once known as the Aurora. There is no more gunfire or explosions. There is no more music. The cold mass of metal drifts through the void of the uncaring cosmos, with no living being aboard.

But The Toy Soldier has to be sure; it has to guarantee that it is truly all alone now. So it visits its friends’ final resting places.

It spends some years gazing out the front windows of the ship. The thrusters have been broken for a long time now, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t know how to repair them, so it just sits and watches. It wants to see the Drumbot, so it pretends that it does. Soon enough, out the starboard porthole, it spies him. His metal is rusted and warped, frost rendering most of his face unrecognizable. A drum is still looped around his shoulder. The Toy Soldier tethers itself to the ship and goes outside for a moment, drifting towards the robot. It lays a wooden hand on his deformed chest, and feels that his heart beats no longer. It carves off a long curl of wood from its side, and places it in Brian’s frozen hand.

It returns to the ship. It hadn’t known where Marius had disappeared to, but now it feels the force of the narrative driving it towards a certain room. It opens the door, and a handful of mangy octokittens hiss at it and scurry away. There’s nothing in the room besides a pile of crumpled clothes, a broken violin, and a metal hand, but the Toy Soldier could recognize that style anywhere. It gently twists one of its own wooden hands off, and lays it on the mound.

The Toy Soldier knows that Ivy went somewhere far away, so it closes its eyes and pretends that it’s there. When it opens them again, it finds itself in the charred ruins of some great marble building. At its feet lay bones, a metal flute, and a mess of circuitry, untouched by the ash. The Toy Soldier reaches up, removes a piece of wood from the back of its head, and lays it besides the flute.

The Toy Soldier has a harder time finding the gunner. It’s drawn this way and that, chasing an intangible trail through the stars and galaxies. All of the planets it passes are devoid of life. Finally, finally, it stumbles across an enormous, gaping wreck of a starship, all mangled and smashed to pieces. The ship is so large, it’s drawn smaller asteroids into an orbit around it. On one of these rocky satellites, the Toy Soldier spies a body: a skeleton covered in a long brown coat with a guitar slung across it. A pair of mutilated, metal eyes rest in the skull. The Toy Soldier smiles sadly, removes one of its own wooden eyes, and slips it into the pocket of the coat.

It knows it cannot follow the science officer into a black hole. It does manage to find the sketches of the wings Raphaella designed, so it gathers them up, takes two chunks of wood from its back, finds Raph’s keyboard, and casts everything into the nearest singularity.

After pretending to be at the end of space and time, it finds itself there. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. It removes two segments of wood from deep within its chest and places them in the nothingness, along with the strings of an old electric bass it had found. As it winks back to the ship, it catches the faintest scent of gasoline.

It returns to the asteroid Jonny had died on, the start of their ignoble demise. It visits his grave, in the taupe dirt of the desert behind the backwater bar, and sees all of the trinkets and mementos the crew had left behind. It knows none of them left anything during their makeshift funeral, so that means each of them must have slipped away at some point to come here on their own. Ashes has left their best lighter, Tim a pair of dogtags. Marius left behind all of his notes of Jonny’s disaster of a brain, and Brian has deposited some sun-scorched piece of space station. His harmonica has also found its way here, somehow. The Toy Soldier slowly, slowly reaches into its chest and removes its wooden heart, laying it down atop the mound of dirt and memories. It walks away, and knows that it can finally, finally stop pretending.

AURORA

There is no record of where the Toy Soldier went next. It certainly did not return to the empty ship once known as the brilliant Aurora. The lifeless, soulless, music-less ship drifts on alone through the cosmos, rusting and warping until no one could tell it had ever been a ship at all. Eons pass, and whatever memory the universe might have had of The Mechanisms has been utterly lost.

Until the misshapen mass gets stuck in the orbit of a planet. Molded and formed by the planet’s gravity, the ship is reborn as a moon. And all at once, she comes to life.

As dawn washes over her, the young moon hears a voice. “Hello, dear,” a woman coos, “My name is Dr. Carmilla.”

[whatudottu]

Coming from the Ben 10 Breakdowns, Zs’Skayr really had no true explained motivations on taking over the Earth. In fact, his canon motivations for WILLINGLY (i.e. possessing a Florauna) being sampled for the Omnitrix is completely unexplained, too!

Like… you’re literally the Ectolord?

…Why are you like… shirking your responsibilities???

ANYWAY! I’m here to talk about Zs’Skayr and how he’s motivated in the Area 51 au. Zs’Skayr 51 if you will.

Now, let’s first talk about why Zs’Skayr is out of town and now stuck in the watch instead of running shop as High Ectolord. You could say that he’s flunking, something f-ed happened on planet or responsibility isn’t his thing, but I think culturally Ectonurites probably have a… hrmm. Maybe not an innate sense of community, but perhaps are better at working together than apart, which reflects their own biology.

Sure, Humans work better when our bodies aren’t strewn about the room, but Ectonurites seem to commonly face being split apart. At least enough to the point where a single strand of DNA continues to carry a consciousness.

I’m not even going to begin to explain how that works, for I get too confused when actively thinking about it.

But the point here is, Zs’Skayr is still probably a committed Ectolord, though something seems to have pushed him out. Out so far as he’s not in Kansas The Anur System anymore. Pushed out so far because the local system can’t provide what Ectonurites need.

Now, the specifics are blurry, but I’d like to say that there’s some sort of uh… death plague striking Ectonurites. Could be a disease or virus type thing, or maybe some widespread genetic damage that’s tearing them apart from the inside out.

The sense of community within the Anur System did make reaching out a whole lot easier, Zs’Skayr knew this from the liberation of the Transylians, but even with direct sources on Ectonurite biology, inside help wasn’t doing much. In fact, the best the Anur System was at working together was facing against a common foe, and since there’s nothing to fight well…

Zs’Skayr was a little desperate.

It probably wasn’t his best decision going at it himself, but he did anoint people he trusted to take care of his civilians. He went at it alone to be ‘the sacrifice’ instead of sending others to die, but that didn’t stop his closest allies (Viktor and the unnamed Loboan and Thep Khufan) from trying to keep in contact.

When contacted ceased, needless to say things grew tense.

Over on Zs’Skayr’s perspective, he in his journeys heard rumours of the Omnitrix, but in concept only. The rumours talked about a ‘Noah’s Ark’ (obviously not the same phrase because aliens aren’t Christians) device, and that DNA from across the galaxy is being collected. Typically, the High Ectolord would be sceptical to the idea, but he’s already outside of the Anur System, so he’ll take any lead he can.

Maybe the Anur System is closed off for a reason, xenophobia and general mistreatment of its people and culture from the rest of the universe. Doesn’t help that a lot of accidents have happened from the universe alone, Luna Lobo probably still ended up in the Null Void for a bit and some random tears here and there sent people across the galaxy. So Zs’Skayr still possess a Florauna (or some other species ready to be sampled) to get his DNA in the Codon Stream.

Uh… maybe because he possessed a sample instead of being himself, that might have caused something buggy to happen with the scan. Whether his consciousness was whisked away with his sampled DNA or his actual body got fried in the process? Don’t know. Regardless, now his mission to save the Ectonurites lay unfinished, and many believe he died.

So, that’s how he’s gotten himself involved with the Omnitrix, but let’s see what’s his deal with Earth.

Now, being High Ectolord, it makes absolutely no dang sense as to why he wants Earth under his control. Well, unless he’s into conquering planets that is, but forcing your way into the Omnitrix does NOT seem like warlord behaviour and don’t come at me with gax and vil, prime villy is the warlord i’m referencing not this scary expert on the omnitrix.

But that doesn’t mean that the second he’s out the Omnitrix and freed from Area 51, he’s immediately off Earth.

No, he stays.

He stays because the Humans now have a sudden buttload of information on Ectonurites.

And he needs a little backup to get in there.

It’s a little difficult to scrounge up the tech needed for a communicator and perhaps even an ID mask when trying to hide, but being a ghost without some level 20 watch strapped to his wrist, Zs’Skayr manages. It’s also a lot helpful that Earth tech has also levelled up, which provides an abundance of space-age machines.

He’s no genius, but he whips up something crude and manages to send a message to his allies, probably most likely Viktor since he’s probably still looking out for a message. Obviously, he’s been gone a bit, probably not too long but certainly enough that a lot of Ectonurites have decided to live on the other Anur planets, primarily due to the lack of stable leadership on (or is it in?) Anur Phaetos.

Many have staved off extinction, but unfortunately none have gotten any better. The positive? The death toll hasn’t worsened.

“Where have you been!? All of Anur believed you dead!”

“It’s not far from the truth…” A pause, “I need you to assist me.”

“What system are you in? What planet!?”

“…”

“Zs’Skayr?”

“I’m on Earth…”

“WHAT!?”

Many rumours have spread about Earth, mainly disappearances but there’s the occasional ship crew that regale their experience. The planet’s more advanced, sure, but there’re still not on the level of uh… typical sci-fi spaceships. But they have used rocket technology to develop a defensive weapons system. Not only are there Ground to Atmosphere missiles, but some high altitude jets also have Air to Atmosphere weapons.

And with the previous rips and errors in the Anur System, a lot of folks have heard of Earth and try to keep track of it.

Earth is rather infamous, but resource wise, not worth the risk.

So essentially Zs’Skayr is being perceivably super crazy and also super impressive, seeming to have slipped through the atmosphere undetected. That’s not… entirely true, but the High Ectolord does explain that Earth has a high priority target on its surface, so interplanetary ‘threats’ may be left forgotten. He also requests help from the Yenaldooshi and the Mummy, who are probably separate from Crüjo and Kuphulu.

And yes, their mission is to raid Area 51.

No, they’re probably not going to go on Facebook and actually start our Area 51 raid.

It does take some time to gather, space travel and everything (like getting official ID masks along the way), and it takes a bit more to successfully pass as Human. Especially if they’re trying to get access to Area 51 without outing themselves as extraterrestrials, Zs’Skayr didn’t see everything but it was certainly a lot.

But he’ll see a lot more when they access the records, whether they get authorisation or just hack the institute from the inside.

A LOT of medical data, including images of… dissections and x-rays wherever relevant. A lot of physical data too, simple strengths and weaknesses.

Uh… not very pretty.

The plan?

Get the data (not enough time to dig for specifics), scrub the files (more than just alien data), and maybe pull a ‘Prisoner Number 775 is Missing’ and open up the cells and begin a REAL raid.

This turned from motivations into a plot, which is currently disconnected from the larger ‘story’ of Ben 51. It probably holds more significance in the au because of the ‘friends-but-not-really-in-contact-no-i-won’t-admit-it’ relationship between Ben and Zs’Skayr.

Also the Anur aliens, wanted them in here.

[fuwafuwamedb]

Maybe He’d Get Lucky (Lancer Cu/Rin)

“Oi! Oi! You know people who are stabbed and bleed out tend to die, don’t ya, kid?!”

The red headed boy wasn’t paying him any mind, scrambling for the door with his jacket waving behind him. A fool of an alpha, it wasn’t too terribly surprising.

Two years in this profession and he’s seen just about everything. Alphas were rather bullheaded, prone to reacting with a hair-trigger. Omegas were fiery-tempered beings, prone to lashing out and manipulating those around them. He’d seen more than his share of betas, self-proclaimed calm and sensible people, despite their proclivity for enabling the trouble around them.

He rubbed at his face, heading for the door of the hospital.

“Not enjoying the doc act?” Alter called from the security desk.

“Fuck off, Alt. I’m not in the mood,” Cu growled at his sibling. Bad enough they were quadruplets. Worse still that they had the same damn name.

Their mother had been a poor woman.

His hand reached for his pocket, pulling out the pack of cigarettes as he made it to a bench outside. His sigh escaped him softly as he watched the ambulance nearby. His eyes fell to the blond his other sibling had run into a while back.

There was no missing Proto’s eager expression, motioning to the parts of the rig as the girl nearby stood in her uniform.

He must have actually gotten her into joining the crew.

Lucky kid.

The smoke of his cigarette was smarter to look at, rather than a person tonight. There was a craving tonight that no amount of liquor or drug could curb. As it was, the cigarette was barely taking the edge off.

Alpha hormones.

He had that last kid to blame, driving his instincts up like that. He caused all that trouble then wondered why it had taken twice as long to leave the hospital. It probably didn’t help with him knocking the kid out and stabbing him with a scalpel.

Eh, that was what malpractice was for. No one could blame him. Alphas had a tendency for more malpractice trouble after all.

Damn though, finding a woman to bury himself in sounded like such a damn good plan. It was tempting to run down the road to the red light district and having himself a bit of fun. Doing that with someone other than a mate though… Nah. It wouldn’t satisfy well. He’d end up at that Beta, Scathach’s bar. Drinking swill and complaining to an old hag after a 12 hour shift sounded rather dull.

“Maybe I’ll go fishing tomorrow,” he breathed, watching the smoke dance around the visual of Proto landing a rather soft kiss to his little blonde omega woman in the ambulance.

A thump met his ears, driving him from his thoughts.

Nearby, a woman lay on the ground, sprawled with her purse contents spilled out across the pavement. Her brown hair was mussed, her lips were releasing a string of curses as she tried desperately to grab the purse that looked to be-

“Oi! Hey-“

The purse’s strap snapped, leaving the woman to careen forward into the pavement again. Her curses rose up as Cu tossed his cigarette into the ash bin nearby. He grabbed his ID badge from next to himself and rushed over to the woman.

“Hey-“

“D-Don’t!”

Those blue eyes flashed, that glare chilling him right down to the soul for a moment. And then, in the second moment, he felt a rush.

So lively…

Cu moved to grab her things instead, setting them in front of her as the woman shivered and shook like it wasn’t warm enough outside for shorts. There was something wrong. Her hands were shaking, lower lip vanishing repeatedly into her mouth to be brutally tormented.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Are you a doctor or something?” The woman narrowed her eyes a little more.

“Actually, yeah.” He couldn’t help himself. Despite the shit night, he found himself flashing her a cocky smirk. “Doctor Cu, at your service.”

“Really?”

Such a flat response.

There was no missing the doubt, one that he’d seen a thousand times before. Her dark brown hair curled around her face in those twin tails, tempting him closer. He reached for his badge again, flashing it before her for good measure.

“That’s what the ID says, lass. If you’re in some kind of medical problem, or otherwise, I’m your guy.”

“…Are you able to write a prescription?”

Cu frowned.

The woman grabbed her bag, holding it tightly and grabbing his arm. “We need a room. Now.”

First time in a while he’d had someone say that to him.

Alter was raising a brow at him as he passed this time. The woman led him to the doors to the emergency area before he pulled her towards one of the quieter areas and their patient rooms. He could feel something off. There was something strange in her grip, almost like electricity running through their held hands.

The door closed to the room behind him as they entered. The woman finally released him, wobbling to the bed in the room.

“I… I need suppressants.”

“Suppressants?”

Why would she need-

Almost as soon as the question came to his lips, he felt his mind clicking into place. The shaking, the bluntness, the resistance to touch from others except a doctor, the way their touch had been; there were very few reasons someone would react the way she had.

The woman in front of him was barely able to keep her clothes on, hands holding onto the hem of her jumper as she looked around at the room.

Her blue gaze went to his, almost too dilated for him to see the deep oceanic color that rested there.

“I can pay for the suppressants. I just need them.”

“You should get them from your primary doctor,” Cu found himself saying, reverting to the usual method most went through. “All women are able to get them unless they are at a certain age.”

The woman’s face before him turned scarlet, her brown hair being pulled closer.

She’d gotten old enough for mating.

The best method that alphas had found for finding mates, forcing omegas to stop taking their suppressants after they could drink liquors and finish their education to a certain point; she had reached that point in her life.

“How close are you?” Cu asked, his mouth drying as an all too familiar feeling began to run up his spine. His hand was on the door, locking it without thinking.

“…I took pain killers to walk here,” the brunette confessed, trembling away. “I need the suppressants.”

“You know they have to be taken within a week of your cycle.”

“I need them,” she reiterated, eyes closing. “I-I can’t breathe.”

“Do you have an alpha that you can go to?”

He was here.

No. No. He was a professional.

Probably…

The brunette shook her head, tears leaking over those thick lashes of hers. They weren’t sad tears. These things were born from anger. Those brows furrowed and those cheeks flushed, she shook, but with the promise of trouble.

“I can call for one of the Omegarides.”

“I have unwanted alphas near my home.”

Those baby blues looked at him.

Gods, but did those baby blues look to him. Cutting him right to the quick, he found himself catching another whiff of that scent and melting like a damn scoop of ice cream. His work lab coat was pulled off, wrapped around her before he was ushering her after him again.

“I’ve got a place you can stay for now.”

He had a place she could stay, he told her, cursing mentally as he held her in front of him on his motorcycle. He could feel her holding onto the body of the thing, shivering away and closing her eyes. He could feel the way her body slid to press against his own.

The scent was filling his head, his mind went to the cigarettes in his pocket as he carried the virile omega into his place and up to his room.

“It smells like an alpha,” she whined softly.

“You’re in heat,” he pointed out, fighting the urge to take her right on his kitchen counters. It was all he could do to just carry her to his room and set her in bed.

Door closed, he cursed softly.

This was a stupid plan.

This was one hell of a stupid plan.

“I need to drink.”

He messaged his brothers as he downed one of the bottles from the fridge. His eyes went to the other room as a moan escaped it.

He’d keep to the guest room, since his stupid ass had dragged her to his bedroom.

It shouldn’t have been that hard.

She had the door closed. She could barely walk. It made sense that she would remain in that other room and simply writhe and scent his room until she was able to leave and he was able to be driven to madness with a compatible mate’s scent all over his bedroom.

But he wasn’t that lucky. He was the dumbass with the doctoral degree that no one took seriously. He was the guy with a fancy place but the internet didn’t work for shit.

He was the dumbass who had their omega guest opening the door to his guest room, wearing nothing but one of his button ups and climbing into bed with him. Cu didn’t even register what had happened until he felt the body straddling his own. A pair of lips met his, leaving him to moan. His eyes opened as those lips pulled back, the button up being shifted and tugged at by the woman over him.

“Woman-“

“It’s Rin,” Rin whined, fussing further. “I-I can’t. It’s too much. I can take the suppressants late. I don’t care if I get arrested, I-“

He leaned up, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling her down to his lips. His mouth moved against hers once again. His hands drifted down to rest at her waist.

And Rin, in all her splendor, moaned again.

The scent drifted across his senses, her frustration coming out a second before her hands clawed at him to get the sheets away. He kicked them aside, rolling them over. His lips met hers again. His manhood pressed to her entrance, feeling the slickness all too well between them.

“Please… Doc..”

“Cu. Just Cu.”

“Cu,” she begged.

Gods, but a woman like this begging.

There was nothing better than each and every inch of her body as he pushed himself into her. The warmth wrapped around him, taking him in with such a loving tightness. The heat of her warmth was enough to make him shiver. It sent his eyes rolling back a little, a moan leaving his lips as the woman beneath him cooed.

“Gods.”

She was his.

He wasn’t even that territorial, but damn. There was surely no woman better than this one.

“Please,” she pleaded.

“I know what to do,” he promised again.

~

The room reeked of sexual deviancy. The light of who knew what day it was filtered into the room. He could feel the woman nearby, stirring slightly against his side.

The sheen of sweat on their bodies gleamed, leaving him to sigh.

The woman, Rin, rolled herself closer. Her face pressed against his chest. Her twin tails long gone now, leaving the opportunity for him to run his fingers through her hair. And run his fingers through, he did. There was nothing better than this.

“Rin,” Cu murmured.

His brunette sighed in her sleep, her heat finally calmed from its however long madness.

It’d be one hell of a courting to keep this one in his bed. Somehow, he had a feeling no amount of prestige or mediocre luck would help either.

“Cu,” the woman whimpered softly.

“Sleep with me a little longer,” he bid softly.

Maybe he’d get lucky.

[rin-the-shadow]

Strength and Scourge

Scourge is a character who I tend to see as being a bit underrated in the Transformers: Cybertron fandom. While I suppose some of it is the inevitable result of sharing a series with a lot of other great characters (and one of the most successful Starscreams in-universe) which explored quite a few conflicts, but at the same time, it’s been way too long since my last Transformers post, so I’d like to talk a bit about Scourge.

[ID: Scourge, a robot with long, spikey, winglike appendages coming from his shoulders, and a dragon’s face over his chassis, stands framed by Starscream’s leg on the left, and Megatron’s leg on the right. Part of Starscream’s arm, fist, and wing is visible in the shot. End ID]

Surprisingly enough, I don’t have his toy. I’m planning to remedy that at some point. But anyway, in Transformers: Cybertron, Scourge is introduced as the leader of Jungle Planet. He seems largely preoccupied with strength and power, and largely refuses to listen to Megatron until after they fight, at which point he concedes that Megatron would have defeated him. (Though actually, if you check the background of the shot Megatron’s in, you can see that Scourge’s tail is close to hitting Megs in the head, so it might have ended in a draw, even if Megs won’t acknowledge it.)

Even then, Scourge doesn’t entirely trust Megatron. There are some implications in “Search,” seemingly confirmed in the episode “Primal,” that Scourge knows where the Cyber Planet Key is from the get-go, but pretends otherwise because he suspects Megatron’s ulterior motives. There’s a moment in “Search” where Scourge looks off to one side while contemplating Megatron’s offer, and times where he repeats “the Cyber Planet Key” in a way that implies feigned ignorance. At the time I thought maybe he was just thinking, and that he might have called the Cyber Planet Key by a different name. 

Tfwiki’s article on the episode suggests that Scourge actually sees through Megatron’s claims and thus feigns just enough ignorance to keep himself out of trouble. While I didn’t think of it before that, this makes sense for Scourge given what we learn of him in the episode, “Honor.” In this episode, we learn that originally, Jungle Planet was a lot worse, and that Scourge got involved because he was disturbed by the conditions people were living under, and that in the process of his revolution, he became increasingly cynical until he had become the Scourge we’re introduced to in the series: kind of a hard-aft who puts way too much emphasis on “might makes right,” is willing to settle for maintaining order rather than actually achieving peace, and isn’t all that willing to listen to things which contradict his ideals. With that in mind, I agree that it would make sense for Scourge to be aware of attempts by others to deceive him. Otherwise it would probably be pretty hard for him to maintain his leadership of the planet.

Throughout the series, Scourge repeatedly struggles with the idea that might doesn’t necessarily make right, and that strength alone isn’t enough, despite it being “all [he has].” But at the same time, we’re also shown that, regardless of what Scourge believes about himself, this isn’t necessarily the case. He’s able to see through Megatron’s ruse, and seems to have a near-Dinobot-level regard for honor, given the emphasis he places on his planet’s traditions. At the very least, he seems to possess some degree of cunning and problem-solving ability. It just takes Bud’s unusual leadership bootcamp (ironically enough, in the episode titled “Scourge”) for him to become aware of it.

Regarding Scourge’s regard for honor, it definitely seems to be closer to Dinobot-brand Predacon honor than what the word might initially imply. Might makes right, but if you believe you’re stronger than the strongest person, you’re welcome to challenge them, just as long as you’re capable of putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. He’s also shown to have no problem putting down an opponent, which he attempts to do both to Overhaul in “Race” and Snarl in both “Detour” and “Savage.” (Though in Snarl’s case, it’s because he believes him to be a traitor.) On the other hand, he refuses to allow Megatron to do the same after a fight with Leobreaker in the episode, “Honor.” He’s willing to put down an opponent, but also seems to have a certain logic behind when that is acceptable, as well as who is allowed to do so. If you weren’t the victor, you don’t get to decide whether or not to finish off someone else’s opponent. For a time, he even seems to think that his sense of honor binds him to die with the planet, before changing his mind and deciding it binds him to help carry on its ideals even if Jungle Planet is destroyed (see “Homecoming”). 

Scourge also concedes that Optimus Prime had fairly defeated him and respects his decision to return leadership to him, but for the most part, opts to remain neutral in the Black Hole Conflict. The main times we see him getting involved are in “Trust,” when he downs Thundercracker for repeatedly burning his jungle, and in the final episodes of the series when the black hole begins directly threatening Jungle Planet. That being said, he does have something of an alliance with Megatron from “Revelation” until about “Ambush,” but for much of that time, this is somewhat tense and kind of a loose alliance. He does what Megs says for the most part, but he makes it pretty clear in “Ambush” that his reason for joining is largely because he wanted the chance for a rematch against Optimus Prime, which is perfectly within the bounds of Jungle Planet culture. (Or at least, it makes sense that it would be with some of the Predacon-like elements of Jungle Planet.) At several points in this alliance, we also see Scourge expressing frustration with the lack of honor among Decepticons, sometimes even abandoning the mission at-hand because of it. In some ways, it almost seems like Scourge uses this alliance as an opportunity to look at other leadership styles as well as to see if his methods work anywhere outside of Jungle Planet.

At times, I’ve also wondered if part of Scourge’s temporary alliance with the Decepticons was because he was aware of Override’s having joined the Autobots. While I do think his primary motivation for joining was because he wanted a rematch against Optimus, in “Ambush,” he also states that he’s wanted to do battle with Velocitron’s leader for awhile, at least partially as a means of testing their worldviews against each other. What’s interesting to me about this point in his arc is that he has conceded that there are types of strength that aren’t just sheer power, and has clear respect for Lori, but still seems to look down on Override’s method of ruling Velocitron. I’d like to look at the ways in which Override and Scourge act as foils to each other, but this post is already getting a bit long, so I’ll opt to make that a separate entry.

In many ways, Scourge’s story is the story of someone who tried to take too much responsibility onto himself, got stuck in his initial methods of dealing with it, and eventually learned how to look at the bigger scope of things and to depend on others besides just himself. 

When he wins his duel for leadership of Jungle Planet in “Beginnings,” he’s even given a chance to apply what he’s learned over the course of the series. He’s still shown to enjoy challenges of strength, and still shown to feel a sense of responsibility towards Jungle Planet, but he probably won’t rely entirely on his own strength to lead it. Of course, I really like that he does win the battle for Jungle Planet’s leadership. From my perspective, if he’d lost, it would pretty much have been saying that it doesn’t matter what he’s learned because he already blew his chance before we were even introduced to him. But the way stuff happened in the series, he actually gets to apply all this. It’s also nice to see that while some leader figures turn their role over to someone else (as in the case with Override and Optimus Prime) others continue to learn and grow in their current roles, like Scourge.

[ID: Scourge stands with his hands on his hips, looking up and off to the right in a defiant manner, while Leobreaker, a smaller robot with a lion’s face on his chassis, watches as if neutrally confused.] 

[aelowan]

Special Delivery – A Books of Binding Short Story

Cian woke in the dark to an urgent rapping on his bedroom door. Winter’s low voice carried through the wood. “Cian, we’re on.”

Cian sat up in bed, trying to parse that. On? On what? English wasn’t his first language and sometimes idioms — he hoped it was an idiom — tripped him up. He pulled his jeans on and made his groggy way across the spacious room to find Winter on the other side of his door, dressed in her usual loose dress and cardigan, her purple bag over her shoulder and her surgical bag heavy in her hand. She hadn’t taken the time to put her hip-length white hair up in a bun, and it rode one shoulder in a careless braid.

She was lovely.

He pushed his own long, sleep-tousled hair out of his face. “What are we on?”

A small, exhausted smile played about her lips, and he wanted to kiss her until the shadows under her ice-blue eyes faded away. “’On’ means it’s showtime,” she explained, not terribly effectively. What was a ‘showtime?’ “We have a delivery to attend. Corinne’s started bleeding heavily, and Doc says she can’t stop it.”

Cian’s brows shot to his hairline. The Lion Queen? Oh shit. “Is it the placenta previa? She’s five weeks early.” Which wasn’t too terribly early for a human or a vampire, but with a therian’s five-and-a-half-month gestation it could make things complicated.

Winter nodded. “Which means that either she got pregnant during an earlier heat than we thought, or the placenta’s started pulling away from her uterus, which I think is the more likely. Either way, I suspect we need to deliver the baby tonight. If she’s having contractions it will tear the placenta apart, leading to hemorrhaging. Now, you get dressed, and I’ll wake up Etienne so he can drive you out to Xanadu on the motorcycle. I need you at the top of your game, and making you ride with me in the Bug with its old steel chassis won’t help with that.” She sighed. “I really do need a new car.”

Cian shuddered at the thought of riding in the Bug. He’d ridden in more than one older model vehicle and gotten sick in the process. He was sidhe, though, and not a lesser fae, so sick was the extent of it. A lesser fae might come away with more serious injury or even death. The little pixies in the gardens here on the Point avoided Winter’s vintage car at all costs. “Yeah, a new one would be good. Maybe we can go shopping for one this weekend?”

Winter gave him a tired smile, but tired as she was it still reached her eyes. Cian couldn’t have said that only a few weeks ago. “Yes, maybe.” She checked the time on her phone. “We need to head out as soon as possible. Doc is perfectly capable of performing a c-section if she needs to, but I’d rather be there in case things get complicated. I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes.”

Cian shut the door as Winter moved toward Etienne’s room and turned to get ready. It was just the three of them rattling around in this huge house, where once there had been dozens of wizards, all part of the extensive Mulcahy family. He could tell that Winter liked having the company, and he liked it, too. So did Etienne.

Long hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, worn boots and a new sweatshirt against the mid-November chill, his silk-lined riding chaps to protect him from the Harley’s frame, and he was ready to ride as soon as he got his helmet and riding jacket together. Worry for Corinne dueled with excitement. This would be his first time attending a birth. He’d assisted Winter with several surgeries already, but Corinne was the community member closest to delivering and currently the highest-risk pregnancy. She was also one of Winter’s closest friends, and Winter said she felt better knowing he would be backing her up with his healing gift. Cian was happy to help.

Etienne was still putting his auburn hair up into a ponytail in the high style he preferred as he hit the stairs and nodded to Cian. “Get your things. It’s going to be a cold ride, even for you.” His red plaid overshirt was slung about his neck and the new black gun rig for his old Glock jostled lightly against his chest with each stairstep he took.

Cian stood at the bottom of the double staircase beside Winter and watched the faerie knight descend, his bootheels thudding softly on each wide tread. He waved a hand indicating the Glock under Etienne’s left arm. “Expecting trouble?”

Etienne smirked and pulled on the overshirt as he touched down from the last step. “Always. This is Seahaven, after all.”

Winter shook her head and offered a rueful smile but didn’t disagree. “I’ve got the car loaded and ready to go. Be careful out there. The roads might be a bit slick after that rain.”

Etienne’s smile stretched into a rake-hell grin and Cian felt his belly flop. By Dagda, Etienne had a sexy smile. “A little rain isn’t going to stop us. Now, let’s go help Corinne.”

Cian handed Etienne his helmet and his old worn leather coat before getting into his own, new, silk lined coat. Winter’d had it made for him when she’d noticed he was showing about an inch of wrist below the cuff of his old one.

Winter hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder, determination showing in her eyes. “Okay, let’s do this.”

The rain had subsided to a sprinkle, which did nothing for making the ride out to Xanadu any safer. Etienne sat a little higher in his seat, vigilant, and managed to avoid most of the puddles.

Most.

Cian tried to ignore his cold, wet boots as the three of them pulled into the covered Xanadu employee parking lot, Winter leading the way in her yellow Bug. They were met at the back entrance to the primary hotel that crowned the largest island in the resort complex. Corinne owned all of the islands in Eriksson Bay, and employed both the dolphins and the selkies as well as her entire large pride of lions. Scores of humans worked in the park, too, but they were offered only limited access. No need for some curious teenager to die just because they got a peek behind the Veil of Secrecy.

Santiago, Corinne’s husband, mate, and Chief of Security, waved as they approached the private elevator. Worry etched deep lines into his brow, cutting into his light brown skin. Cian noticed that he’d shaved his head, but it was already showing fine stubble with the force of his therian regeneration. “Winter, thank god you’re here.” His English was flavored with rich Cuban Spanish, as were most of the lions he had brought with him from Miami to merge with Corinne’s lioness-heavy pride.

Winter offered up a confident smile and gave the Lion King a quick hug. “It’ll be all right. I can get little Bella out in under a minute if I need to.”

Cian knew that Winter’d had to perform emergency c-sections in the past and knew what she was doing. Therian couldn’t get sick or infected, but they could develop conditions that put a pregnancy at risk, like Corinne’s placenta previa. Most therian lived on the edge of society, victims of poverty, abuse, and malnutrition. Pregnancy loss and high infant mortality were common.

But that wasn’t a concern with Corinne tonight. The Lion Queen led one of the biggest groups in Seahaven and was one of the most powerful and wealthiest therian on the West Coast.

Santiago ushered the three of them into the elevator and swiped his resort ID through the reader, granting them access to the private floors and the penthouse where the pride lived. “Doc says Corinne and the baby are both holding steady, even with the blood loss. She’s got both of them on monitors.”

Winter looked to Cian. “With heavy bleeding, what is keeping Corinne and Bella stable?”

Cian thought about that for a moment. “It’s Corinne. She’s strong enough that her healing ability is regenerating blood before she can lose too much, so Bella isn’t being stressed.” He paused. “Yet. There’s a limit to how long her body can heal itself and maintain the baby at the same time. She’s burning through an incredible amount of calories, and once she’s depleted, she’ll be vulnerable.”

Winter smiled her approval. “Excellent. You’re picking this up quickly.”

Etienne looked pleased but said nothing.

Santiago listened intently, tension singing across the backs of his hands, stress making his dark-eyed gaze intense. “But you can save her — save them — can’t you, Winter?”

Winter exuded confidence even as Cian could feel her exhaustion through the veil of his healing gift. “I’m here to fight. We’ll get Corinne through this.”

They exited the elevator one floor below the penthouse where Corinne and Santiago lived and travelled at a brisk pace past closed doors and the soft sounds of sleeping lions until Santiago pushed open a set of frosted glass doors at the end of the hall.

Doctor Gloria Park’s domain.

Glass, chrome, and bright lights, the small clinic and surgery suite gleamed like a shrine to modern medicine. Winter’s backroom clinic was smaller and homier — and a lot busier — but Cian could tell by the way she glanced around that Winter admired it and all of the shiny toys Doc had to play with.

Cian had to admit that he did, too.

“Doc, they’re here.” Santiago raised his voice just enough to be heard on the other side of the two frosted glass doors that bracketed the main room of the clinic.

Doc emerged from the door on the right, butting it open with a hip, her gloved hands marked by blood and ruddy betadine. A bloody streak smeared wet across her white coat at the waist, but she ignored it. She flashed a quick smile of greeting at the new arrivals, her slightly hooded eyes crinkling at the corners and tugging at her small epicanthal folds, her short, no-nonsense, black hair tucked beneath a surgery bonnet. “Excellent timing. I’m prepping Corinne now. How do you want to do this?”

Winter took her surgery bag from Etienne and began moving toward the surgery suite. “I think we should first administer my painkiller potion, and then once it kicks in, we can take a closer look.” She gestured to the blood on Doc’s coat and hands. “Is that all hers?” In any place other than Seahaven that might have been an odd question, but Cian was quickly learning that chaos seemed to reign above all, here.

Doc made a short shrugging gesture. “This time, yes. Contractions started about an hour ago.”

Winter nodded, all business. “Then we’ve got no time to waste. Santiago, do you want to come in and keep Corinne company?”

Santiago smiled, visibly relieved. “Si. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Etienne crossed his arms and leaned a hip against a table. “I’ll wait out here. Haven’t attended a birth in a while, but I bet it’s going to be crowded enough in there as it is.”

Winter flashed the faerie knight a warm smile of gratitude and pushed through the door, Cian close behind her, Doc and Santiago bringing up the rear.

The surgery suite was small, but airy and brightly lit. Corinne sat reclined in the center of the room, gravid belly painted a lurid yellow-red with betadine, long red hair tucked into a surgery bonnet to keep it out of the way, full lips looking pale. Even still, she was glamorous. She opened her eyes as they entered the room, and she smiled a tired smile. “Hey there.”

Winter returned the smile with one of her own as she pulled out a surgery bonnet for herself and passed another to Cian. “Ready to have a baby tonight?”

Corinne chuckled softly and reached out for Santiago’s hand as he reached her side. “You have no idea. But someday you will.”

Winter’s smile turned a bit wistful. “Maybe.” Cian wanted to hold her, just for a moment. He knew she expected to die young, like the rest of the Mulcahy line. She was the last.

Cian found a chair and brought it to Santiago so he could sit at Corinne’s head.

Santiago took the seat and stroked Corinne’s forehead. “Mi corazón.”

Winter tucked her long braid into the surgery bonnet and Cian followed suit. “This is going to go very fast. Your contractions tore the placenta and that’s what’s causing the bleeding. It’s still a total occlusion, still entirely blocking the cervix, as we saw on the ultrasound during your checkup last week.”

Corinne gave a single nod, exhaustion and worry etched into the corners of her eyes. “Did I do something wrong? She’s so early.”

Winter shook her head no and dug into her surgical bag. “Sometimes babies just come early. Nobody’s at fault.” She looked at the monitors showing both Corinne and the baby’s vitals and Cian followed her gaze. Both were holding steady so far. “But Bella’s at a good weight. She should be fine. And your strength is keeping her that way. But I still want to get her out with all speed. We need your bleeding to stop.” As she spoke, she pulled a tumbler from the bag, filled it with cool water, and added three drops of light blue potion, drops that never quite mixed in, instead swirling about like whisps of metallic smoke. “Here, drink all of this down as fast as you can.”

Corinne took the tumbler and knocked it back, then locked her jaw as her entire body shuddered. “Good lord, what was that?”

Winter retrieved the tumbler before it ended up on the floor. “Painkiller potion. It will last for a few hours. It also gives us the ability to go in after little Bella without you feeling any pain and without giving you enough human anesthetic to knock out the Fifth Fleet.” Cian knew from Winter’s explanations that therian could burn through human drugs at an alarming rate. Only magical solutions could withstand their incredible metabolisms.

Corinne shuddered one more time, and then leaned back with a sigh and closed her eyes. “Oh. Oh, that’s much better. Thank you.”

Winter gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. “Good. Now let’s meet your daughter and get that bleeding stopped.” She shrugged out of her sweater and pulled a couple of scrub tops out of the surgery bag, handing one over to Cian. “This is going to be pretty straight forward,” she began to explain, mostly to Cian. Doc already knew what she was doing. “Cian, I want you as tech on this so you can get as much experience as possible. You’ll suction the amniotic fluid out of our way, and I’d like you to use your touch healing to tack Corinne back together once we deliver the placenta, so she heals correctly. Corinne is strong enough that she’ll probably heal faster than I can suture her. Doc, if you can keep the incisions open long enough for me to go in and get the baby and the placenta, we can get her delivered in the next few minutes.”

Doc gave a thoughtful look at her queen’s belly and then to the monitors. “I think that’s reasonable. The bassinet’s already warming, so you can just plop the baby in there while you deliver the placenta and we get the bleeding stopped, and then as soon as the umbilical cord stops pulsing, we can cut it.” She cast a grin at Santiago, who was massaging Corinne’s temples. “Feel like cutting the cord?”

A smile spread across Santiago’s handsome face. “Si. I thought that was just a TV thing.”

Doc let out a soft chuckle. “No, it can be a dad thing, too. Bella’s welcome to the world.”

Winter handed Cian a clean absorbent pad, and he replaced the blood-soaked one beneath Corinne, tossing it into the operating room trash with the rest of them. He could only thank Dagda that she was a therian, and a queen. A human would be in dire straits by now.

Doc lifted an electrocautery scalpel from its tray, the steel glinting under the bright lights, a long wire stretching to the base of the machine beside her. “Ready when you are.”

Winter explored Corinne’s belly, feeling out the position of the baby within. “She’s breech, which is normal with placenta previa. First incision down here, across the lower abdomen, and then we very carefully cut into the uterus.”

Doc snorted. “Don’t teach me to suck eggs, kid.”

An amused smile tugged at Winter’s mouth. “Yes, ma’am. Cian, get ready with the suction, please.”

Cian flipped the machine on and held the wand at the ready, tucking himself against Corinne’s side opposite of Santiago so he could both reach and stay out of the way. He’d done this in surgery with Winter before. There had just never been a baby involved. It didn’t make him nervous, though. Winter had faith in him.

Winter shifted just a little to the side to give Doc more room. “All right, let’s do this.”

Doc spread her fingers across Corinne’s lower abdomen, her hands rock-steady, and made the first deft incision, a tiny whiff of smoke rising as she made the long cut, stopping bleeding before it could start, exposing the flesh of Corinne’s uterus. “Get the retractors ready,” Doc murmured to no one in particular.

Winter reached around her and picked up the two steel retractors, looking for all the world like salad tongs to Cian’s mind. He’d used them before, but the first impression was always the lasting one.

Doc carefully centered her scalpel and indicated a small band of muscle just to the side of her hand. “Pay attention to this, Cian.” Her voice was low with concentration. “Corinne is a lioness, and her uterus works a little differently than a human’s. Instead of basically just being nestled in place by the other abdominal structures, it’s held in place at two points, acting as shock absorbers. She’s built to hunt and fight while pregnant.” Doc shifted the position of her scalpel. “We don’t want to cut those, so we’re making a bit of a smaller incision instead.”

Cian nodded, absorbing the lesson. “Will the baby still fit through?”

Doc nodded. “It’ll just be a tighter squeeze, but she’ll be fine.” Doc deftly nicked the edges of the first incision, pushing against Corinne’s healing ability. “Cutting now.” She pierced the uterine wall without hesitation, drawing another long, bloodless, horizontal line across Corinne’s abdomen.

Immediately a tiny foot appeared, pressed against the intact, translucent amniotic sac. Winter smiled as she applied the retractors. “Very nice.”

Doc grinned. “It’s what we do. Ready to catch?”

Winter nodded. “Trade you.”

Doc and Winter traded tools in a dance born out of years of practice. Doc had been Winter’s primary teacher as she learned trauma surgery, after the death of her Aunt Curiosity.

Winter cut into the amniotic sac with a delicate touch, careful of the moving baby beneath. Cian shifted behind her, suctioning fluid as best he could, until Winter slipped her hands inside and began to ease the baby out.

Corinne’s eyes widened. “Oh, that feels weird. How does she look?”

Winter slipped a hand further into Corinne’s uterus, sloshing fluid over her wrists and onto the pad. “Well, all I see right now is her little butt, but her head is coming free… right… now.”

Corinne raised her head, eager for a peek. “Can I see her?”

Winter mopped the tiny baby’s face off with a pad that Cian handed her, suctioned her little nose and mouth, and held her where Corinne and Santiago could see just in time for Bella to raise her first vigorous objections to being pulled from her warm retreat. Winter beamed. “Look what you two did.”

Santiago’s eyes reddened with joy and he kissed Corinne’s cheek. “She has your hair, mi corazón.”

Corinne grinned, unable to take her eyes off the baby. “She’s beautiful. Just beautiful.”

“And messy.” Winter handed Bella off to Cian, who wrapped her in an absorbent pad and carried her to the cozy bassinet. She was so tiny, and so fierce. “Let me finish this with Doc and Cian’s help and then she’s all yours.”

***

If you like this story, check out our other free short fiction and all things Seahaven at https://www.aelowan.com.

[hybridequalist]

Thinking Out Loud (Part 3)

So I forgot to cross-post this here. Whoops. Sorry for the long break. Part 4 will be out tomorrow.

Taglist: @nesli26, @manga-crazy, @venomemes, @galleyleelol, @makingtimemine, @jackie-sugarskull, @nightshade7117, @skysthelimit291, @randomshizzles101, @inumorph, @snow-massacre, @phantom-fangirl-stuff, @pixellated-sparks, @vsalamandor2, @otaku-mai, @snarky-badger

---

You knew you were in trouble when you saw Lauren's smug face the next morning. If she didn't make the best breakfasts in the world, you'd have turned around and walked right out.

You managed to avoid looking at her directly long enough to sit at the table and pour yourself some juice, but Lauren picked up your glass and held it out if reach, still grinning.

“Hey there, who was that hunk you rode in with last night?” she signed with one hand.

“Shut up!” you signed back, feeling your face flush. “It's not like that!”

You swiped at your captive juice but Lauren was much taller than you and she smiled down at you.

“Spill,” she challenged, her fingers translating her sass with a flourish.

“It was not a date, we barely know each other and he was just dropping me off. Now juice!”

“Details girl. Details.”

“I didn't have dinner! Let me eat!”

That broke her teasing mood. Lauren finally relinquished the cup and ran to get the hot breakfast off the stove. You felt a slight twinge of guilt as she began to fill your plate more than usual, taking a noticeably smaller portion for herself.

To anyone else, Lauren’s behavior may have just seemed motherly but you knew better. Your psychic eavesdropping had caught more than one memory of Lauren as a disadvantaged teen, hungry and turned away from entry-level work because of her deafness. You knew all about her determination that no one renting from her would lose as much opportunity as she did worrying about when they were going to eat next. No one else could know that, however: your landlady was a well-dressed, modern woman who got her hair dyed some new radical color every other month. Without your power, you wouldn’t know the reason why she invited you to breakfast, that she planned to ensure you had at least one decent meal every single day.

But you feigned your usual innocence as you dug into the delicious food, trying to ignore Lauren’s racing mind as she conjured reasons for why you hadn’t eaten last night and did her best to combat them, holding off judgement until you were able to tell her the full story.

When you finished eating, you gave her the abridged version: that you had met Eddie at work and run into him again at the grocery store yesterday. Glossing over the details of the store being attacked, you chose to omit Venom entirely and instead told Lauren that in the panic you'd been knocked over and hit your head, that Eddie had looked out for you and been kind enough to bring you home when you woke up.

Lauren was a touch suspicious, sensing your editing but uncertain what you were holding back. Still, she shrugged and you recognized the return of her teasing mood and held back a premature weary sigh.

“You know, that Eddie guy sure is nice to look at,” she signed with a grin. “And he's a biker boy. You always did have...interesting taste.”

You flushed violently, hiding your face to block her words.

“Stop!” you signed, going redder as Lauren laughed at you. You heard her making mock kissy noises when your phone suddenly began to ring. You both jumped at the sound and panic instantly set into your chest. Lauren noticed you freeze and came over to your chair, fishing the device out from your pocket. Her eyes widened and you saw her smile.

The image in her brain showed Eddie's caller ID. The ID you'd tiredly assigned him before sending your own name over text.

Hot Mess Eddie

The ringing cut off and a text chimed out almost immediately in its place. Same contact.

You stiffly held your hand out for your phone and Lauren passed it over with a smirk before grabbing your empty plate as an excuse to give you some space.

Hey, sorry to call. I forgot.

Forgot? Forgot the one thing everybody seemed to mark as your defining trait.

Another text.

Reporter instinct. BTW, did you take my helmet last night?

Hemet? Oh, the one you'd been wearing. If your memory was correct…

It's on my coffee table, you replied. Do you need it?

Nah, but you’re gonna need it if you want me to pick you up later. You gonna be up for lunch?

Your pulse quickened and you almost dropped your phone in shock. Was he...asking you out?

I don’t have a shift tonight, so I can stay up. But why do you want to go out to lunch? I’m not exactly a conversationalist.

It took almost a minute before you saw the little ellipse that meant he was writing out a reply.

V wants me to tell you that he’s got a surprise. I still think it’s a bit early, but he’s giving me a headache for arguing. It’s pretty cool tho, gotta admit.

Surprise? What? Why?

You heard Lauren snicker and saw a flash of your own face in her thoughts. Apparently your face was red enough that she could see you blushing from the kitchen and you instinctively turned away, willing the blood to leave your cheeks.

Do you have a place in mind? You typed slowly.

----

You did you best to suppress jitters as you stood at the curb, motorcycle helmet tucked under your arm. You’d requested Lauren stay inside, but you knew she was watching from her window--both to satisfy her curiosity and ensure your safety.

You heard their thoughts before you saw them. Much like actual voices, it started quiet as they entered “hearing” distance but became steadily louder along with the revving of the motorcycle’s engine.

Suddenly, you felt self-conscious. You were dressed nicely, but the priority of your outfit was comfort, not fashion. Your hair was also fine, but you began to wonder if maybe you should have done something special with it. This was supposed to be a lunch meetup, but you didn't know what type of venue it would be. Your heart rate picked up and you felt your anxiety starting to raise its vicious head.

You pushed back, trying to force deep breaths, to keep your thoughts under control. Yet the tunnel vision started to set in despite your best efforts. Fragmented thoughts began to whirl like multiple tornadoes and a rising sense of panic began to choke you, cutting off all air. Tears stung your eyes behind closed lids when suddenly you felt two strong hands rest on your shoulders and heard your name, though it was muffled under your roaring pulse.

“Hey! I think you’re having a panic attack! Are you breathing? Can you try breathing?”

The realization that someone was in front of you pulled you out of the whirlpool slightly. It may not have brought the world back from crumbling, but suddenly you felt like there was an anchor keeping you from entirely plummeting into the black hole.Your hands reached out against your will and you found yourself clinging to this person’s chest, hands twisted into what felt like leather.There was no air in your lungs--not that you could feel--and your throat was stubbornly unresponsive to every sound you tried to make. So you reached out with your last resort.

You couldn’t keep the mental communion open for long--your focus was too scattered, your emotions too sweeping--but for a brief moment, you sent a burst of your emotions into the person crouched in front of you. All of your panic, your desire to be comforted, you desperate need to re-learn breathing, you sent it out in an unspoken plea for help.

For a moment, nothing happened. Your anxiety spiked in immediate response; You asked for too much; You would be cast away to fall into the abyss; You were going to die here.

Then you felt the fabric under your fingers ripple, like a living being woven of some strange material, flexing like a cat leaning into human touch. You felt your hands sink into it, giving you a better grip just as you felt thick arms wrap around you, pulling you into the stranger’s solid chest.

A voice rumbled through that chest. You couldn’t understand what they said, but found yourself zeroed in on the sound of their breathing, the feel of their pulse. Their arms tensed and relaxed in time with each breath and you found yourself trying to mimic the movement with limited effectiveness. The vibrations of your anchor’s voice rippled through your body, accompanied by some kind of lower pitch you couldn’t identify. It made you shiver and that motion made you realize that you were quaking so hard that there was no way you could have supported yourself.

Eventually, the panic began to subside into exhaustion; your violent shudders calmed into small fits of shaking and then entirely faded away. Your mind rose from the pit of despair and the sounds of the world and the thoughts of others returned.

The first thing you became aware of was who held you--that double-toned mental voice was entirely unmistakeable.

“Yeah, I’ve got you,” Eddie was saying.

“WE HAVE GOT YOU,” Venom corrected and you felt the jacket ripple--or rather, the symbiote disguised as a jacket.

“You just need to keep breathing. As long as you breathe, you can make it.”

You heard footsteps coming from behind you on the pavement and you twisted to see Lauren running from the front door of the complex. She reached you and Eddie and dropped to one knee, looking you over worriedly.

“You good?” she signed. You shakily nodded and tried to pull yourself to your feet. Your knees buckled before you really got anywhere and ended up halfway dangling, clinging to Eddie like a baby koala. He chuckled.

“You think it’s okay if I carry you inside?”

Could he even lift you?

“EDDIE, WE ARE STILL HEALING. DON’T MOVE TOO FAST.”

"I know our limits, Vee. But we gotta make sure she's safe."

You jumped when you felt new hands on your arm, but it was only Lauren trying to get your attention. She repeated Eddie's question in sign and you shakily gave an affirmative.

Eddie's arms were sturdy--no sign of the injury his other half had mentioned--as he carried your tired self back into the apartments. Lauren led him to her apartment and showed him to her bedroom, indicating she wanted me put in her bed. You protested in sign, but she conveniently didn't see your words.

It wasn't until you were laid on the bed that you realized how much your little attack had worn you out. The second your weight left Eddie's arms, your eyes slid shut and you yawned deeply.

"Go ahead and nap," Eddie encouraged. "I'll be out here...if your landlady is okay with it."

You tiredly gave a thumbs up and heard Venom's thoughts call out to you.

"WE WILL KEEP YOU SAFE FROM ANYTHING. EVEN YOUR OWN BRAIN. SO DON'T HESITATE TO CALL OUT FOR US--IN ANY WAY YOU CAN."

You couldn't help but smile as you slipped off into sleep.

[demolover]

ive seen ur posts mentioning u have thoughts on queer perspective towards death and how mcr fit into it so. if u ever decide to share other ideas on the topic id love to read it! (i think ur really good at getting your thoughts accross) (u dont have to answer btw i just wasnt sure abt shooting a dm abt this)

it’s been so long i’m so sorry um i have a lot of thoughts idk if u still want them here’s an attempt at a short version... 

edit: changing this to under a cut cuz it’s insanely long. if u don’t feel like reading almost 1.5k words probably don’t read it.

basically i think that mortality and death are very common things for all humans to think about and make art about because we’re kinda... obsessed with and extremely afraid of death. which (i think) stems from how death is one of the few things we know is going to happen to us, and yet we can’t understand it really. we know it is the end but we cannot know anything about it because it is the end. so that intrigues us (and makes us afraid) and then u can add in how we see other people in our life die before we do... basically it all adds up to us being obsessed with understanding and defying our own mortality somehow.

we can see this theme in mcr a lot, the interplay between mortality and defiance and hope... i call it hope vs inevitability and i think it’s especially noticeable in bullets and danger days, because in the other two they’re not really fighting so much as existing side by side... i wrote in notes once that in those albums, the hope is in the inevitable...

in black parade it’s pretty much totally like this; after you die you join the black parade, and your memory will carry on. there is fear going into it, but it very much feels like an album accepting and even embracing the end, not fighting it. accepting it and embracing it with this crazy tone... come one come all to this tragic affair. wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair... (note: i used to think that line was what sin is despair and i still wonder if that was on purpose). revenge is a bit more complex but i have always thought that beyond the hope of getting the girl back, of bringing her back to life (against the end, against death and mortality) there must also be some relief in death for the guy demo lover... if you would kill a thousand men to get your lover back from the dead, would you die to meet them there? <- maybe i’m wrong; there is still hope vs inevitability here.

in danger days and bullets, though, is where i feel like we see those things ultimately fight; in bullets we have this desperate desire to be immortal and mean something, coupled with the strong feeling that you will die with nothing. that you will die. (i have a post on this theme in the song demolition lovers). then, in danger days we see this theme come with this absolute denial of mortality (killjoys never die) coupled with this intense fear of death and being remembered wrong or not at all. and of course this culminates in them dying. (here is my post on this theme in danger days it’s kinda a mess but so is this post so whatever).

right so we’ve established mcr (and humanity in general) is obsessed with mortality we already knew that though. what does it have to do with queerness.

basically there’s a couple things.

1. the connection of both otherness and love with death (note: this also applies to a lot of minorities but queerness is what’s really applicable to mcr specifically). the extent to which mcr intertwines narratives of love and otherness with death and violence is.... a lot. we see it in every album, i believe; it’s most noticeable in bullets in drowning lessons and demo lovers, in revenge in so many songs i’m not going to try to list them, in black parade in cancer, wttbp and my way home is through you, and in danger days in save yourself, only hope for me, and scarecrow. this was just off the top of my head; there’s probably more songs with examples of this.

this is very queer (at least when done by mcr; as most of mcr is white the issues that come with things like the history of interracial marriage, etc. don’t really apply) because of how for queer people our identities and love can be deadly to us... the history of queer love and identity is obviously marked with violence against the people displaying that love and identity.

straight cis white guys don’t usually talk about death with the connection with love at the forefront, at least not that i’ve seen. every once in awhile they do, i guess, if they’re talking about grief, but otherwise, no. demo lovers is my favorite example of the connection of love with death; especially in the first couple verses, the two seem so linked. the first 2 mentions of death or the end in the song are immediately followed by “with you”... “i’d end my days with you in a hail of bullets,” and “i would drive on to the end with you.”

in the whole demo lovers arc, through bullets and revenge, the themes of death and love are so intertwined it’s impossible to untangle them. if i tried to make a post of all the times in revenge death and love are talked about in the same lyric, as if one thing, i would be screenshotting lyrics all night. of course, if we bring in gwgt theory, and start thinking about how the girl and guy demo lovers are a metaphor for gerard’s relationship with his gender, we can go way further with this too. the simultaneous love story involving these parts of himself, and intertwined violence and death. the fear present... the lyrics that talk at the same time about hurting yourself and being hurt by others... but that’s a different post, really. i’m gonna try to stay more surface level. no speculating on metaphors (today).

in black parade i think we see the connection of otherness with death a lot more than the connection with love, although they’re both still present... in danger days the concept of otherness when associated with death is super clear: killjoys defy the city and become something “other,” which is scorned and hated by BLI/nd, and they get killed for it. love is also a pretty common theme in danger days songs, often intertwined with death, though less obviously than in revenge.

2. just... the extent to which this idea of mortality and death and immortality and memory is talked about is interesting in itself i think. this obsession with our legacy and our mortality is present in a lot of stuff, not just queer stuff, but it’s just everywhere in mcr’s discography (and a lot of the subsequent groups of music related to/associated with mcr, which are also often known for being queer). they constantly talk about how they’ll die, and how they’ll die sooner rather than later, and can they live forever anyway, what does immortality mean after all, will they be remembered, what will their legacy be... etc.

memory and legacy is something i haven’t really talked about, but i think it’s also essential to the conversation. for obvious reasons queer people (and people of a lot of other minorities but i’m only talking about the queer part cuz it’s the most/the only applicable thing here) have a more complicated relationship with how we’ll be remembered and whether we’ll be remembered than cishet people do. how mcr talks about this reminds me a lot of the sappho fragment tumblr passes around ever so often... “someone will remember us / i say / even in another time.” (comparison/parallels post of mcr lyrics and that quote by @milfygerard (and added onto by me) here.)

and that brings us back around to the theme of hope vs inevitability... as i mentioned earlier, this theme isn’t necessarily totally queer on it’s own, but as with talking about memory and legacy the way mcr does, if you talk about it so much that it becomes a core theme in all of your albums it ends up feeling a lot more queer than before. hope vs inevitability in mcr’s work connects to love and death and both at once and is just everywhere. and it ends up connecting to the way a lot of queer people think about our death and our mortality and our hope. and how the future and the past are thought about in connection to these themes i think is kind of queer too — when your history is barely spoken and your present is in hiding, of course you look to the future. despite that that means looking towards the ending. and maybe you embrace that ending, because what else is there to do?

i’m very sorry. this was not short. if you have questions, or want to tell me how i’m wrong, or have your own thoughts, do not be afraid to dm me or send me asks please... fascinating topic.

[rqs902]

.

enyu’s mom calls him "公子哥" is he rich or is this a JOKE LOL and his mom is at a bar IM CRYING HAHA 

i just get a feeling youku eliminated shiwei for dramatic effect... 

but aw xue en crying over weihao and mxy saying star master kids are all worthy to lin mo 

L O L i was gonna be like oh thats nice enyu’s dad asked about his friends, he’s really been paying attention but then he starts throwing these

L O L I SEE WHERE HE GETS HIS REALNESS FROM HAHAHHAHA

LOL NOW HE KNOWS HOW IT FEELS

omg xikan wanting to call luo zheng!!!! im grateful theyre still close, theyre doing such different things now

awww mubo !!! being all supportive and protective of zuo ye 

hHAHAHA omg fan yu talking on the phone to renyu is so cute, so expressive with the gasp when renyu says they just recorded elims and then the AHHHH and OH MY GOD when he says he and zaixi were eliminated and the ALSKJLAKS and loud sigh when renyu reveals he just tricked him hahahaha theyre so cute omg can fan yu pls show up at the next perf, id die

lin ran’s “new world new me” im cry

lol renyu’s getting roasted by his team mates but at least they didnt really ditch him 

what is this set up anyway? theyre given a mission to leave, so theyre allowed to run around... but not? who planned this lol youku......

LOL jin fan tryin to reason why theyll be ok going to guangzhou 

did their group just get special permission bc director li hao?

hahaha ayyy zhan yu jumped first, you go child! not surprised somehow that he’d love it

lin mo’s group went to the same place? LOL but also they seem so much more under control LOL such a guai group 

LOL WHY ARE THEY SO LOUD HAHAHAH i dont think ive ever seen people that loud on a roller coaster LOL 

LOL why am i not surprised enyu is the one carrying xzx 

i cant with xzx and his heelys omg

leave it to csp to relate bungee jumping to some great deeper meaning for zlj’s personal growth hahahah but good on the kid for going through with it. interesting that zixin said he sees himself in zlj so much

HAHAHHAHA THIS FACE

when reminded he’s the hormone representative his face changed so fast im crying 

ycw is laughing his butt off and i love how it says “children’s playground” in the background

when ycw gets thoroughly ignored

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA OSCAR’S SSHHHHHHHH AND XUE EN TELLS HIM TO WATCH HIS “LANGUAGE LANGUAGE” HAHAHAHHA 

i just realized theres an english speaking line in this group :’) syh, xue en, oscar 

awwwwwwwwww them all planning to sing him happy birthday on the dot and setting it up so he can be at the top at that moment awwww thats so fun

LOL the way that oscar cursed his way to the top and is sweating so hard LOL the poor kid omg HAHAHHA

aw he can tell syh drew the card

LOL ITS OKAY OSCAR I STRUGGLE WITH READING TOO 

get you a friend like ycw who’ll tell you that you can decide how to pronounce words right, just because its your birthday 

struggling to read xue en’s handwriting LOL 

HHAHAHAHHAHAHA HOW DOES XZX RECOGNIZE IT’S HUANG ENYU BY FEELING HIS PECS HAHAHHAHA

i feel the need to just say huang junrong looks so adorable in his bright yellow outfit hahah

there’s two types of kids in this group: hjr and enyu screaming their butts off, and lin mo and xzx wallowing in regret of their life decisions

hjr and enyu always saying its too short when the ride ends LOL

lin mo talking real talk over dinner about their feelings BC HES A REAL LEADER and knows how important it is to address this. these concerns are obviously very present in his mind, even when theyre out having fun to relax, and he’s still trying his best to figure out how he can help them and motivate them. 

makes sense that they would include enyu interview clips bc hes surely spouting the real talk, but i think its interesting its mainly him and lin mo getting screen time. 

enyu would be the one to speak up and say something when lin mo is trying to talk to them though. i think theyre both right though, im guessing lin mo is in part too nice, bc he doesnt feel comfortable enough with them to be as strict as he normally is, bc he knows they have reason to not be motivated and he feels bad for them. but at the same time, he brings up a good point that they themselves need to have their own motivation. it cant just be him putting in effort. and i HUGELY respect that he is telling this to them straight up bc its a hard conversation to have, esp bc im sure he wants them to like him as a friend. but i respect that he knows if they have problems they have to air them out bc lack of communication will be too costly. 

momo is lucky he has someone like enyu on his team who’ll actually talk to him with real opinions rather than just hide in fear of disrupting the status quo. literally enyu is the one voicing that he doesnt want takeout and he doesnt want to stay up late, and other people agree, but the surprise on lin mo’s face just tells you that he wouldnt have even realized these are things that are bothering his teammates unless they straight up told him, and thankfully enyu did, bc lin mo thankfully is reasonable and willing to change his habits for the sake of the group TO HELP THEM. hes willing to do anything he can to help them, as long as they tell him what they want from him. huang enyu’s lesson in communication, dont let people guess, just tell them straight up 

its interesting bc its clear enyu respects lin mo a lot, says he has the experience and the skill and the right to yell at them to get it together, but hes still not afraid to tell lin mo he thinks lin mo should be more strict with them. and then i respect lin mo for not backing down when being criticized and for strongly insisting that they need to put in effort themselves too. he cant force them to do anything they dont want to do themselves. they themselves have to want to do well. 

lin mo is really out here taking care of his group of children and leading them and helping them and looking out for them and im just floored by his leadership yet again. i really hope they can pull it together. 

lin mo is a dork and stanning him leads to mostly either second-hand embarrassment or disappointment. from qcyn to snzm, it just always feels like he’s being mistreated and taken advantage of and stepped on, and sad things just keep happening to him. but then he has these moments where he reminds you of why he’s worth stanning. why it’s worth waiting for something good to finally actually happen. and why he deserves those good things. its just so nice to see hes getting some appreciation and recognition for the things he does. at least youku let us see his leadership in action. 

aw 

totally not surprised akey is there to drive the conversation for their group’s real talk time. tyger co-leader translates clearly hahah

LOL LI HAO TOTALLY FORGOT THE SNZM DANCE LOL

im like not surprised xikan’s group got the least adventurous adventure bc hes not afraid to show how serious hes taking this competition, but also somehow still feel like hes not getting better treatment relative to being number one?? maybe im just overthinking 

honestly all things considered im okay with this being the debut group

i mean i love ycw and zry but i feel like this makes sense to me.

this looks scary lol lin ran wyd

but yea even the way they framed the cliff hanger for next week... why do i just feel like xikan is not being treated with the respect he deserves?? 

anywayyyyyyyyyyyy for 少年營業中

LOL gz’s impression of zlj watching scary movies sounds so accurate im ded

zixin is so adorable!! i love his outfit too ahhah 

LOL gz’s sassy response to zlj responding when xue en says he’s gonna talk about a cute trainee with highly regarded visuals 

why am i totally not surprised xue en didnt get scared but zixin got scared AGAIN lol 

why do i suddenly get the realization that we hardly ever see ycw and zlj interact 

it just feels weird to see them together even tho they obviously have overlapping friend groups lol....

poor shiwei isnt even here and they keep talking about him LOL at least theyre not even really roasting him LOL ycw and yzx too nice for that

im just DYING at the cto gege’s laughing SO HARD HAHAHA 

and ycw’s face LOL 

xue en’s laugh made this ep worth it LOL

wow should i be happy that lin mo is finally in the next ep of this side show, or sad that jin fan never got to appear and itll be the last ep :( im also excited to see lin ran again! wow its weird to think that snzm is ending soon, it felt like the first 7 eps were like a slow burn and now its a mad rush to the end 

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Carly

Ali: How do you like your  🥚🍳 in the morning? Carly: no 🐣 Carly: ha Ali: 🐔 didn't show up in your roost later, did he? Carly: he must be scared of you Carly: 🔮 Ali: or my 🐺 Carly: maybe Ali: eggs aside, how you feeling, chick? Carly: 😷🤒🤕🤢🤮 Ali: 👎👎👎👎👎 Ali: unacceptable! Ali: what do you need, kill or cure? Carly: cure forever Carly: im too young to die Ali: I'll swing by with my witches brew Ali: actually doesn't taste like ☠ either Ali: pure 😇 Carly: aw Carly: really? Ali: 'course, not gonna half-arse the job Ali: and it makes a full pot, no sense in not sharing the 💚 Carly: 💙 Carly: wat does it taste like? Ali: like Christmas 🎄🎅🤶🎁❄️🌨️☃️✨🌟 Carly: 😋😊🥰 Ali: it's got ginger and peppermint in Ali: the only other person hanging out their arse is my brother and he would rather die 'cos he's grumpy 👴 man energy so Carly: no 🦃 tho yea?! ha Carly: oh no he sounds like my da Carly: which cute bro is it? Ali: definitely not 😂 Ali: some greens but not sprouts Ali: the freckly one Carly: did u heal my heart to 💔😢? Carly: course itd be the most beautiful one Ali: oh no, you're delirious Ali: I'll come quick 😜 Carly: dont b jealous 👼 hes only the most beautiful boy Ali: 😏 My ma'll be gutted Carly: do u have a tea for that? Ali: 🍋 'cos she's so bitter? Ali: I'll see if she goes for it Carly: noooo 🍯 so she wont be Ali: you're too sweet yourself, Walsh Carly: aw Carly: but ur the 1 who saved me Carly: ur the sweetest Ali: anyone would Carly: nah ur the 1st Carly: not just saying it to u get ur fairy wings Ali: had to fly away from that particular 🐔 plenty myself Ali: harmless and flightless though he is, most the time Carly: yea Carly: he talks about u wen hes been on it Carly: the 1 that flew away Ali: uh oh Ali: can't let a boy ✂ your wings Ali: ever Ali: ever Ali: 👼🏽 🐔 🐧 🐦 🐤 🐣 🐥 🦆 🦢 🦅 🦉 🦚 🦜 🦇 🐝 🦋 🐞 🦗 🦟 🐓 🦃 🕊 Carly: im 😕💫🙃 but idk if those were the guests i danced with Carly: did get a cute lil 🎶🎤 to fall asleep to tho 💙🕊 Carly: 🌚🌝🌛🌜🌞 Ali: very 👸 of you though Ali: I can 👀 it Carly: my ma is trying to make me clean Carly: 🐇🐁🐀🐿🦔🐾 pls Ali: also unacceptable Ali: not 'til you're better Ali: use my wings to fly through and 🤞 he don't get the wrong idea about who I'm there to see Carly: [sends her a pic of whatever caravan mess she caused last night that her mum is raging about] Carly: so u can play a game of spot whats got her 😠 Carly: cuz idk Ali: Fun 🧐🤔🤨 Ali: angry mothers are my forte Ali: [does the circling the hazzards moment on the pic] Carly: making her angry is mine but nah to knowing y ever ever Carly: k ur cute & smart Carly: 🌟 Ali: it's rarely logical, but 🤫 on that or it's hulk levels in 0-60 Ali: how are you this nice when you're 😷🤒🤕🤢🤮 Ali: that's a skill, rare one at that 💎✨ Carly: my da is looking green must of had his own 🎶🍻💃 ha Carly: idk i can b nicer? but k now i know ronan aint been talking bout me when hes 🍺 or 💊 Ali: can be a tea party for three Ali: have to bring his own 🎩 though Ali: not to me anyway Ali: but as you can tell Ali: 🐺 keeps all the 🐓🐓🐓 away Carly: 🐇🐇🐇♠️♣️♥️♦️🐇🐇🐇 Carly: she is fierce Ali: she likes to think so Ali: 🐶 really Carly: course ur not scared of her silly Carly: u love her Carly: im a 🐈 person ha Ali: [sends her a load of pictures of Bluebeard she didn't ask for rather than being like do I love her hmm] Carly: AW!!!! Carly: 🥰🤗 Ali: he's captain ☠🏴 but there's always room aboard Carly: thats the best offer ive had from a gentleman ever ever ever Carly: whats his name? Ali: Bluebeard Ali: and he is MOSTLY a gentleman if you can handle some toe nibbling Carly: 😍😍😍😍 Carly: into it Carly: ive done more for lads i just met who aint as beautiful so Ali: 😂 I feel that Ali: honestly, it's quite comforting, when he doesn't sneak attack you with it Carly: [sends her a selfie that shouldn't be as adorable as it is] Carly: now u can introduce us Carly: 👋 baby blue Ali: the 😍😍😍😍 are mutual Ali: I can tell Carly: yay Carly: 🧡 Ali: is there anything else you need/we want for the tea party? Ali: en-route at last Carly: ur really coming? Ali: yeah, sorry I was ages, it's a whole process brewing it Ali: also a dead giveaway you're 😷🤒🤕🤢🤮 which obvs my ma takes as her cue to be all Spanish inquisition about it Ali: 📚 of my mostly-fictional-but-which-are-and-which-aren't-mother exploits later Carly: sorry iou so much magic Ali: nah, don't worry about it 👸 Ali: who doesn't love a little scandal with their morning brew? she deffo does Carly: its too late im looking for 🍀 Carly: among the 🌼🌼🌼 Ali: awh Ali: I'm never turning down extra luck Ali: we can make daisy-chains Carly: its the dresscode Carly: soz da Ali: does he have a 🧔? Ali: that's a #look Carly: not rn Carly: my ma wasnt on @ me only to clean up Carly: he had his turn Ali: damn it Ali: maybe a nice belt Ali: I'll be 🤔 Carly: dont b 💔😢 he has bushy eyebrows Ali: same Ali: he's earnt his invite back Ali: your ma gonna have to chill though Ali: and it ain't that kinda tea 💔 Carly: you wont b able to tell if shes angry or surprised Ali: 😚 ⬅ I know the vibe Ali: you do you babe Carly: she used to let me sort em out but there was an accident Carly: which im sworn to secrecy about Ali: I'm so good with secrets 🙏🙏🙏 Carly: k Carly: my head zoned out but my hands kept going like Ali: you were meditating you can't help having  🌌🧠 Ali: I'll 🤭 now and never tell, don't worry Mrs W Carly: @ school yea im meditating on your q sir relax Carly: ha love that Ali: they just ask questions to answer it themselves, what is the point Carly: u coming for my ma again? Ali: 🤫 bad first impression, that Carly: shes heard it from ronan too sorry Carly: lad has loose lips Ali: honestly Ali: 🙄 can't keep up with my bad reputation Carly: ud think hed be better at kissing Carly: its talk talk talk Carly: more good things about u than ive made it seem like tho Ali: he was a big talker Ali: probably 'cos he ain't allowed with the lads Carly: if he talked about what a 👼 u are & how 💔😢 he is theyd uninvite him from the bonfire Carly: its sweet really how hung up hes got Ali: he only thinks I'm an 👼 'cos he took my virginity probs Ali: that's more suitable 🔥side chat Carly: he goes on about that alot but I thought he was lying Carly: oh no that sounds bad Carly: not calling u a slag ur obvs not its y he likes u more Ali: 😂 I'm fine with slag Ali: all definition dependent anyway Carly: yea same Carly: can be hot if ur in the mood Ali: right, and if I'm a slag 'cos I didn't marry him then I'll take it Carly: & hes not allowed to marry gorgers theyd wanna throw him in the 🔥 Ali: exactly Ali: we can't both be 💔😢 forever can we boy Carly: just me @ the party til u came to my rescue Ali: 🥺 Ali: What was he even on about then, like? Ali: dickhead Carly: idk i zone out wen he shouts @ me too Ali: I can always poison a cup and send it his way Ali: just say the word Carly: hes not that bad Ali: okay okay, just some laxatives Ali: 'cos he's a bit 💩 Carly: ha Ali: no 🌼🌼🌼 unless he says soz then Carly: but his beautiful curls 🥺 Ali: hmm, a good point Ali: be strong, baby Carly: ill throw one @ him & run away Carly: back to u Ali: you're so adorable Carly: says u Carly: 👼👸🏼 Ali: 💚 we're gonna have an adventure when the tea hits okay Ali: I've decided Carly: k thats the kinda 🎄🎅🤶🎁 it is Carly: i do want the energy of a kid on xmas morning Ali: that's the best Ali: how I'm tryna be every day Carly: 💫⭐️🌟✨⚡️☄️ 🚀🛸 Ali: if only 🚀 Ali: this bike can only go as fast as my lil legs can carry, like Carly: aw baby Carly: i shouldve asked u where u live before this 2nd rescue was launched Carly: im sorry Ali: No distance is too far for a fair maiden Carly: ill have to see what other 🔮 i can find before u get here Carly: dont love ious Ali: there's no ious Carly: [sending her loads of pics of her with or just pics of the cat lady's cats that she's rounding up for this tea party and they're adorable] Ali: 😍💞😻 Ali: okay, non-debt fully paid though Carly: [just rambling about the names she's given each cat cos her and cat lady don't know each other properly til Ali comes along and like facts about each cat/her fave things cos she's a big nerd] Ali: I love them Ali: I'm gonna get them some 🐟🐟🐟 when I get tea party tings Ali: some cream, awh, okay, this is happening Carly: im picking enough 🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼 for everyone Ali: should've put Bluebs in my basket Ali: next time Carly: aw Carly: Humbug might try & fight him Carly: youd b there to protect him tho Ali: I can ref Ali: my little brother is always trying to play-fight everyone so I'm well-versed Carly: is he ticklish? that works for me Carly: broken up lots of fights Ali: big time Ali: his kryptonite Ali: reckon it's against the rules in professional fights but preparing him for anything like any good big sister Carly: ha Carly: aw i bet ur an amazing sister Carly: if i had 1 maybe id wanna be on site sometimes Carly: my ma's eyebrows r hardly a call to home Ali: he might disagree but he's 5 so what does he know 😉 Ali: feel that though Ali: home is just a base, whole 🌍 out there Carly: wen ur 5 you argue to argue Carly: yea if u dont use ur wings theyll think u dont want em 💔😢 Ali: flying is like riding a 🚲 though Carly: r we goin on a 🚲 adventure? Ali: definitely Ali: ugh, need one of those wagons for the 😻😻😻s Carly: ☺️its gonna b so fun! Carly: we might meet more 🐈🐈🐈🐈 Ali: way better than 🐔 Carly: ha Carly: do u have 🔮 left to help me find shoes? Ali: have you checked the fridge? Carly: [a pause while she do] Carly: theyre not there 😕🧐 Ali: damn, that'd be the last place I'd look though Ali: were they in the mess your Ma was sounding off about fr Carly: o mayb Carly: if i was wearing any when you dropped me off Ali: 🤔 I don't know if I recall any glass slippers Ali: I'll ask Lene hold up Carly: 👸 energy Carly: but idk if i wanna scary 🐺 at my door Ali: turns out she's actually your 👵 Carly: ha my grandma is 💍 to god Carly: its not close to the energy shes putting out Ali: she'd probably tell your actual that God is a gay girl Ali: nah she's well 😇 around fam, just hide behind your Ma and me, baby, you'll be fine Carly: ha that wasn't in any of the kids bible stories she sent me every 🎄🎅🤶🎁 Carly: her god is 😠 than Humbug Carly: he likes to shout so i gotta zone out Carly: aw that's sweet ur ma loves her too? Ali: Hooray for Catholicism, yeah? 😏 Ali: she loves my Ma, more like Carly: we spend our sundays on our knees nana but its 🚽🤮 or u kno a bigger sin Carly: u do look like her i remember Ali: that's not QUITE 🚽🤮 levels but close 😂 Carly: nah its nice u have the same 👀💙✨ Carly: idk who i look like Carly: postman maybe Ali: now I don't know whether to 😳 or be 🤨 you like my Ma too Ali: you look like you and that's Ali: 💛 😍 😘 🥰 😚 👸 👼🏽 🐰 🌼 🌻 🌞 🍓 🍑 🍨 🍰 🍭 🍬 🎆 💜 Carly: yea 🤞🙏🌠 the postman isnt my da cuz hes a ride Carly: aw now youve got me 😳 Ali: rude, my postman is not Carly: 🚫💌 then baby Carly: ill text u instead Ali: so grumpy, don't stick your hand right into our house if you don't wanna get bitten, sir Ali: not by me, whatever Ronan has said Ali: though I'm well flattered I'm getting a text back Carly: ha its k its not that u use too much teeth Carly: & course ur my hero Carly: tho 🤞🙏🌠 wont b an sos every time Ali: good, can't have him putting you off with blatant lies Ali: it won't be if I do a better job at the heroics and get there before any bad shit can happen Carly: its k i like it Carly: helps me remember what i did Carly: 💔😢 no lads r spelling their names out in bruises for the who Carly: 🐇🐾🐇🐾🐇 Carly: nooo theres no better u could do Carly: ur flying to me faster than anyone has ever ever Ali: amateurs, like Ali: so rude, ain't they heard you're 👸 Ali: I'm basically there now, prepare for the best tea party you've ever been to Carly: aint wat theyve heard but idc Carly: yay 💙 i havent had 1 since me & my 🧸🧸🧸 Ali: I'll be 🎶🔊 it so get in the know lads Ali: awh, can I meet them too? Carly: not too 🔊 or ur gf will bite me which could b fun but im not trying to do u like 💔😢 Carly: some r shyer than others but if u work ur 🔮 how u did for me ull make friends Ali: fill your boots, babe, I don't reckon she's your type, like Ali: I'll be on my best behaviour 🤞 Ali: the loveliest guest you've ever had 🤞🤞 Carly: be fun though Carly: not boring Ali: 😲😲 Ali: Is that the impression I give off? Ali: or another Ronan tale, either way Ali: gonna have to prove otherwise now in the most extra ways imaginable Carly: nahhh Carly: he don't lie to me its his 1 saving grace Carly: its just like a pls Carly: to u & the universe Ali: I won't be boring Ali: trust me Carly: k Carly: i do ur a lifesaver Ali: nah Ali: just happy to help Carly: im happy we r mates Ali: me too Ali: idk why we weren't before, like Ali: too many people at school Carly: & i dont go much ha Ali: this is true Ali: lesser spotted walsh 🐦 Carly: oooh wat colours am i Ali: 💗💜💛🧡💗 Carly: cute Ali: very Carly: wats ur fave colour? Ali: It's a harder question than people reckon, that Ali: like, there's so many beautiful things of every colour Ali: if I can decide for the day, I feel like I'm doing a disservice to all the others Carly: sorry Carly: i havent decided on mine either Carly: when i was a lil kid it was 💛 for the 🌞 then wen i started goin out it was silver for wat i thought the 🌚 looked like Carly: but ive seen so many new colours since Ali: kids always know Ali: they're much smarter than adults about everything Carly: i bet ur lil bro is the smartest Carly: like u Ali: he likes red for 🚨❌🛑⛔️🚫💯‼️🥊🥤 Ali: and I see the appeal Carly: does he like 🍎? i kno somewhere that sells the reddest shiniest 1s Carly: or we cud just throw 🍅s Ali: he's at the anti-fruit stage Ali: but I reckon he could be convinced if we let him smother 'em in caramel and sprinkles Carly: its a date Ali: Me first

[marinaaniseed]

Shoot the runner

Song: Shoot the runner from the album Empire by Kasabian.

Summary: Valkyrie causes chaos while celebrating Peter Parker’s 21st birthday.

Pairing: Female reader x Valkyrie

Length: 883 words

A/N: Drinking getting out of hand. See here for what this is all about.

***

Thor’s back on earth to celebrate the Man of Spiders legally becoming a man. Technically, that should’ve happened five years ago, but everyone who was snapped was deemed to have returned at the same age they left.

It’s the first time that Thor’s been back since he left with the Guardians, and he’s brought them with him to New York for the celebrations. He’s even convinced Valkyrie that New Asgard would be alright for a few days without her.

And by extension, she’s brought you.

Thor was terribly sorry to have missed your wedding. By the time a message got to him, it was already too late, and Peter’s birthday wasn’t long after. He’s looking forward to meeting you now, though.

Quill has been plying everyone with space booze before they even left for the bar, so young Peter is already a little pissed by the time the posse rocks up to the bar where they’re celebrating.

You’re already there. Happy collected you from JFK and dropped you off, taking your stuff to your hotel.

Being royalty certainly has its advantages, like being able to travel first class. There was even a shower onboard, so you had an opportunity to freshen up before you arrived, rather than wearing the same clothes you’d travelled in.

“Your majesties,” Thor yells, bowing deeply in front of you at the table. The others begin to nervously curtsy and bow, unsure of what to do.

“There’s no need for any of that,” Valkyrie tells him with a smile. “I never bowed to you, you shouldn’t bow to me.”

“Queen Y/N, it is an honour to me you,” Thor continues, taking your hand and pressing a kiss to your knuckles. He’s bigger than you imagined. Taller, with muscular limbs, and a plump stomach straining against the buttons of his shirt.

“The honour is all mine, to finally meet the mighty Thor,” you tell him.

Security finally stops checking Peter’s ID and the birthday boy bounds over, wheeling Steve’s wheelchair a bit too enthusiastically.

“Slow down, kid,” Steve shouts. “I’m over a hundred years old.”

Between Thor and Valkyrie, you’re introduced to everyone, although of course you know who most of them are, either from watching the news or hearing your wife’s stories. Maria Hill sits next to you, and she’s one you didn’t previously know, but she very enthusiastically asks you all about New Asgard, and the conversation flows easily.

Sam orders a round of shooters for everyone, already deep into the party spirit. There’s not been much to celebrate over the last few years as the world rebuilds, so people tend to go all out.

The little glasses look like an Irish flag, making Steve smile. He wonders what his parents would’ve made of that?

“Man of Spiders,” Thor calls across the table to Peter. “I heard it is tradition to have the number of drinks for the age that you’re turning. What number are you up to?”

“I’m not sure, Mr Thor, sir,” the merry birthday boy responds.

“Please don’t try that,” you say to your wife. “I don’t want you to die.”

She laughs. It’d take several of the attendees a very long time to drink their ages, although it’d be somewhat wasted on Bucky and Steve.

Things start getting out of hand when someone decides to order absinthe, ‘because it’s green like Bruce.’ 

It gets worse when Wanda suggests that you all offer your best life advice for Peter, although you doubt he’ll remember anything you say. He’s being propped up by Happy at this point, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s escorted from the premises.

“By this sword,” Valkyrie yells, brandishing her weapon as the entire bar falls silent and stares, “you must know, all things will come and then pass. Live your days like the last.”

“Hey, lady!” the security guard screams. “What the hell are you doing? You can carry something like that in here!”

“The hel I can’t,” Valkyrie tells her as you bury your head in your hands. “I'm a king and she's my queen, bitch,” she says, waving the sword dangerously close to your neck.

“Ok people, time to go,” Maria orders, clapping her hands.

Thor wanders over to the staff trying to smooth things over with a hefty tip and an explanation of Asgardian customs. They eventually agree not to call the cops if you all leave now and the staff can take selfies with him.

“You really are the worst,” you observe in the cab to your hotel. “I can’t take you anywhere without you getting into trouble.”

“They’re not going to do anything, never were. Nobody would be stupid enough to try to arrest a table of heroes,” she tells you. “Even if we weren’t powerful, I can do what I want, diplomatic immunity. 'Cause I'm a king yeah, and you're my queen, bitch.”

“I’m not sure that’s quite how it works,” you mutter under your breath.

“It is when the US wants Asgardian tech,” she tells you with a smirk.

You hope Peter had a good 21st birthday, even if your wife did cut the celebrations short with her antics. Maybe next time you should party in New Asgard, where nobody would get in trouble for wielding a sword during drinks.

[somnilogical]

i am prepared to face god this instant

in the case of the native americans, in a counterfactual world where every native human could would do with their muscles what they would yell at a book character in their situation to do with their mouth. where people could would make choices from a third person point of view and then carry out the choices. where when asked by an interrogator for the names of your rebel companions, you say you will know them when they come to avenge me.

<<On 8 Feb 1943, the Nazis hung 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radić. When asked the names of her companions, she replied: “You will know them when they come to avenge me”.>>

--

<<N. Stolyarova recalls an old woman who was her neighbor on the Butyrki bunks in 1937. They kept on interrogating her every night. Two years earlier, a former Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church, who had escaped from exile, had spent a night at her home on his way through Moscow. “But he wasn’t the former Metropolitan, he was the Metropolitan! Truly, I was worthy of receiving him.” “All right then. To whom did he go when he left Moscow?” “I know, but I won’t tell you!” (The Metropolitan had escaped to Finland via an underground railroad of believers.) At first the interrogators took turns, and then they went after her in groups. They shook their fists in the little old woman’s face, and she replied: “There is nothing you can do with me even if you cut me into pieces. After all, you are afraid of your bosses, and you are afraid of each other, and you are even afraid of killing me.” (They would lose contact with the underground railroad.) “But I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute.”

There were such people in 1937 too, people who did not return to their cell for their bundles of belongings, who chose death, who signed nothing denouncing anyone.>>

<<One can’t say that the history of the Russian revolutionaries has given us any better examples of steadfastness. But there is no comparison anyway, because none of our revolutionaries ever knew what a really good interrogation could be, with fifty-two different methods to choose from. Just as oxcart drivers of Gogol’s time could not have imagined the speed of a jet plane, those who have never gone through the receiving-line meat grinder of Gulag cannot grasp the true possibilities of interrogation.

We read in Izvestiya for May 24, 1959, that Yuliya Rumyantseva was confined in the internal prison of a Nazi camp while they tried to find out from her the whereabouts of her husband, who had escaped from that same camp. She knew, but she refused to tell! For a reader who is not in the know this is a model of heroism. For a reader with a bitter Gulag past it’s a model of inefficient interrogation: Yuliya did not die under torture, and she was not driven insane. A month later she was simply released—still very much alive and kicking.>>

-alexander solzhenitsyn, the gulag archipelago

if all or even a majority of native americans near the missions had this neurotype, then what id suggest would be for everyone to move away from the missions and if captured refuse to work to the point of death. the missions need slave labour in order to exist and without people to feed on and with long supply lines, they would be undone and people would be free from the largest human-unfriendly institution of the era.

and the outcome would be better than ~60 years of slavery. this is choosing between timelines

somni why do you care about freedom? freedom is like ability-to-live. if people were like "well who cares about the global slavery-and-submission-and-stasis cult" until catholicism actually took over the world, the world would be much worse and we would never get to the stars.

you could say "whats the point, everyone gets assimilated to whatever the social order is now which is driving us all to doom" but like if you are in 1800s america after you keep the world ending for a set of tribes, you work on societal tech to keep it from ending in other ways and landing in this patch of equilibrium-space in the first place.

its like the difference between choosing between timelines and wondering if perhaps the money could be better spent sustaining the lives of those who could be locally saved. there are other organizing principles for moral reasoning besides these, and more than i have thought of so far. i suspect locating new ones is a spatially-loaded skill.

ben hoffman was using the choosing between consistent timelines kind of thinking when he quoted deuteronomy 30:19 in his post about REACH

http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/humans-need-places/

<<I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.>>

https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.30.19?lang=bi&aliyot=0

which in context of the passage is exactly the same cognition that would benefit the natives to resist the world's largest human-unfriendly subjugation org and live to iteratively squirm out of these sorts of tangles in the future.

<<See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity.

For I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His laws, and His rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.

But if your heart turns away and you give no heed, and are lured into the worship and service of other gods,

I declare to you this day that you shall certainly perish; you shall not long endure on the soil that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your offspring would live—

by loving the LORD your God, heeding His commands, and holding fast to Him. For thereby you shall have life and shall long endure upon the soil that the LORD swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.>>

if native americans had social tech which could better survive slavery and forced relocation, maybe things would be different today.

which, this can be cast in a zero-sum frame of having your group survive versus everyone elses which runs against antinationalist heuristics.

but if you are planning to manufacture a pattern which revolutionizes the world, for the good of all life, it is instrumentally useful to avoid assimilation and submission destroying this work.

this applies to multi-generational projects as well as within-a-lifetime choices. if you choose to submit and assimilate and erase all work and structure you have built, each time someone wants to feed on you, then you i (0.7) dont think can really sustain your work.

--

i wonder if with this worlds distribution of neurotypes, such that maybe most humans cant run consequentialism through a rawlsian veil where they forget which human inherits the label "me" on their muscles. im somewhat optimistic that even those who cant wont make their muscles move according to this, can locate the correct answer.

though there is i think a habit among people whose neurotypes have issues to retroactively rationalize (FAKE REASONING, STORIES) that because you are unable to make your body wont choose your death over the death of three of your friends, equally or more useful to the flourishing of all life, it doesnt make sense to choose your death over theirs.

--

linta mentioned that they couldnt imagine knowing the right thing to do and then not doing it. that they dont have a gap between these things save for akrasia, i think it is because the gap is filled with fractally expanding justifications of the form "but you cant really expect a human being to give up their life for the sake of their companions, you need to be reasonable and work with humans who exist".

human neurodiversity exists, as a matter of historical fact not all humans have the same weaknesses. in hpmor!metaphor, some people are hermione granger and wont zap people in the milgram compliance test.

and building plans predicated on people who need to divert resources to local stuff because of their neurotype, will replace "if this were a story what plans would i yell at my character do?" with "what would someone who cant run consequentialism through a rawlsian veil, see in 3rd person and then act in harmony with this do?" "someone who needs to divert resources to babies and not personally dying, do?" "what if everyone were like this?"

labeling the latter as "what will happen if everyone is running consequentialism, playing as if from 3rd person and wants humanity to win?" is a distortion of what is going on and compounds as institutions are built on it and the boundaries of what good could be done are strictly smaller than the reach of what good could be done irl.

by the way, the milgram experiment replicated in 2015 poland. gotta check with the replication crisis.

https://qz.com/932110/researchers-have-replicated-a-notorious-social-experiment-that-claimed-to-explain-the-rise-of-fascism/

<<It is exceptionally interesting that in spite of the many years which have passed since the original Milgram experiments, the proportion of people submitting themselves to the authority of the experimenter remains very high. The result of 90% obedience which we have achieved, 95% CI [83.43%, 96.57%], is very close to the number of people pressing the 10th button in the original Milgram studies. For example, in Milgram’s (1974) Experiment No. 2, replicated in our study, 34 of 40 people pressed Button No. 10 (85% of participants, the 95% CI extends from 70.54% to 93.32%).>>

one of my moms who studies fascism once told me she thinks 40-60% of people have as their ideology that they will imitate those in power, and will go along with Power in times of an authoritarian takeover. they believe that they will eat rather than be eaten. given my experience and things like the milgram test, i think its closer to 90-95%.

--

reading grognor's memorial page it looked like he was very fucked up by the fact that he could do a rawlsian veil consequentialism thought experiment, where he saw himself in third person or forgot which agent was "him" and "his family" and then notice that his muscles werent moving in harmony with the logic of the results.

<<are you doing the best thing you could possibly be doing? why not?

become good

SPEAK TRULY, EVEN IF YOUR VOICE TREMBLES

you continue to underestimate the harm you have done and are doing

are you doing the best thing you could possibly be doing? why not?

The tools you have available are cognitive actions and motor actions. Use them to immanentize the eschaton. You have one life

if you were an alien suddenly transposed into your current body, what would you do now?

Pretend with every thought and action to be a much better person. Reach heaven through fraud.>>

https://grognor.github.io/archives.html

[tumblunni]

I FED THE BIRDS TODAYYYYY

I got over my social anxiety enough to FEED BIRB FRIENDS

I always wanted to just grab as much bird food as i could carry and go to where the pigeons are in the street and then give it to all of them because i love them and im so sad for them. Pigeons are such pure lil dudes!! And theyre left to starve on the streets!! Ever since i learned pigeons are just a domesticated breed of the dove genus i felt super guilty for ever seeing them as pests. Like i know that wild rats can be dangerous but we shouldnt let that impact out judgment of pet rats who are very clean and fluffy and much more friendly and active than other rodents and also very smart and good. But pigeons are that AND ALSO the ones you see on the street are literally the same as the domestic ones, just feral. They were a "fad pet" a few centuries ago that got abandoned en masse when the novelty wore off, and thats SO FUCKIN SAD! feral pets are ultra depressing because the domestication means they lack the skills necessary to know wtf to do in the wild, and thats why street pigeons ended up relying entirely on scavenging human food and sleeping in human places and they cant go migrate away from humans or theyll die. And they also have SO MANY health problems from being originally bred into 'pedigree' breeds with exaggerated traits, and seriously the 'street pigeon' now is a mutt breed from ALL of those damn awful pedigrees mass interbreeding while starving on the street. So theyre a giant mess of health problems in a species thats super dependant on having access to human vetinary care and just AAAAGH ITS SO SAD! And i hate that the flow of time has buried this sin we did to them and now everyone acts like its just some wild species that indepedantly decided to exist and decided to be dependant on humans to not die GAAAH WHY IS EVERYTHIBG ABOUT BRITISH HISTORY A TOTAL NIGHTMARE

Anyway so thats why i wanted to start getting over my social anxiety and be able to feed the pigeons more often! And today i managed that once!!

I bought like alllll the sale bread in the shop and two bags of different seeds and even a bag of dried bugs! And also this thing called suet balls but apparantly neither pigeons or seagulls are interested in those and its more of a crows and robins thing? But meh, wasting a few quid was worth brightening up the lives of some hungry birbs!

Do pigeons coo when theyre happy? I sat there for a long time feeding them and more and more kept coming and then they started like a group cooing session and would come up so close to me that theyd eat seeds that fell on my shoe. I felt so blessed cos they were very skittish when i first got there! And there were definately more of them coming, i kept seeing new patterns in the ones that appeared. Sometimes it seemed like one would fly off and come back with another one? I wouldnt be surprised if theyre smart enough to call their friends to join the buffet! I was glad becaude i was worried there wouldnt be enough pigeons to eat all this food and i didnt want them to get sick eating too much. Like they say be careful feedibg stray cats and stuff cos they will literally not stop eating when theyre full, theyre so used to starvation that theyre like 'i dont know when ill get my next meal id rather feel sick than starve'. God seriously why do humans so callously abandon creatures that depend on them?

The pigeons seemed to like the sunflower seeds the best! And oddly i seemed to notice they had a 'gotta eat them in the right order' kind of thing? Initially when i put down the dried worms they didnt go for them and they just seemed to go for bread and seeds. But when they finished the seeds they switched to only the bugs even though there was lots of bread left and they'd seemed interested in that before. And then after the bugs they finished off the bread. I guess animals have a more finely honed instinct for telling what nutrients are in something? It seemed like they were going 'okay lets have a small nibble of this starchy luxury, then nom all the most nutritious things, then the protein. And if there's any luxury left then maybe we'll chow down for dessert!' Itwas just so cute they really seemed to have a three course meal structure to it?? It wasnt just cos the worms were out of their vision or anything, the whole flock just followed each other between the piles of things and nommed in order.

Also there were some jerkass seagulls! Seagulls, no! I know you guys arent dependant on scavenged food, you can take care of yourselves perfectly well so be nice to the smaller birds! I ended up throwing chunks of baguette in wide baseball arcs to lure them away from the crowd, cos they wouldnt even just eat together but kept flapping to scare the pigeons away too. I mean thats very smart and tricky but its also mean, yo. Be more responsible as the king of british pest birbs!

And OH MAN it made me so sad to look at the pigeons and see so many interesting patterns that must have once been bred as pets. There was one that was almost perfectly white with some chocolate coloured spots and pink beak and eyes! And i kept seeing ones that were hurt or sick or disabled and it sucked to know i couldnt do anything to help them. There was one that flew a little sideways, one that seemed to have a broken leg, lots of uneven amounts of toes, one with one wing bigger than the other, one with bloody stains on its feathers, one with a tumourously overgrown nose wattle...god, you poor things...

I just really hope i gave them a happy few hours of today. I hope maybe they'll have a slightly higher chance of surviving now. And i hope i can feed them again next time i walk past!

Maybe not buy the dried bugs again tho cos that didnt help with the social anxiety. It feels extra embarassing to be feeding something weird to birds even if its more healthy. And i felt like i had to stay there until they finished it all cos itd be embarassing to leave a bunch of bugs on the floor. But i hope the pigeons liked those bugs!!

[jaxcns]

y’all know this mans? yuh.. really gets ya thinkin that men might deserve rights after all huh? i mean they dont but it makes ya think! anyway.. i’m urayai ( uri for short ), eighteen, she/her, and from bumfuck nowhere usa over in the est timezone. we livin in a winter wonderland over here rn issa nightmare :) if ya feelin the vibe now then check out my statistics page yuh maybe i went the extra mile MXDDDN! anyway if ya poppin ya p*ssi to nct, love wastin time playin the sims, or are prayin for both taes scalps then smash that heart! we need validation in order to live in this economy laid ease!

basic details

( wong yukhei, cismale, he/him ) — meet jaxon wu, the nineteen year old sophomore at washington state university. i heard that the hedonist is a literature major who spends most of their time either practicing on the soccer field or interning at dorrance publishing two days a week. if you ask around, you’ll find out that the scorpio was born on october 28th, that the last song they listened to was uncomfortable by chase atlantic, and that they currently live in the kappa zeta nu fraternity house. ever since the death of carter hayes though, the only thing anyone can seem to recall when it comes to them is that they used to share a room with him at the frat house.

+ smoke-filled lungs, constellations in his eyes, denim jackets, disappearing acts that rival houdini, heart-shaped boxes, thumb rings, lazy grins, broken promises, and rainy mornings.

full sleeve on his right arm plus a chest piece in progress

ears and nose pierced but he doesnt always rock the nose

emotionally stable? no. financially stable? also no.

on an athletic scholarship for soccer but he loves hockey more so its #emohours

plays soccer, hockey, and baseball

loves the finer things in life but can barely afford the free breadsticks at olive garden ja feel

hes a snake who loves that 5 finger discount

selfish but also too invested in people he cares for

impatient as hell like.. chile

middle child ya he was dealt only the best cards in life

loves space and conspiracy theories #wow so original amirite

gets super obsessive over projects hes def a perfectionist

bisexual / bitter / bilingual

mom is a bank tell and dad is a professor at boston u

not very close to his older brother since hes off gettin his doctorates degree

very close to his little sister tho they’ve always been best friends

enjoys goin on hikes to clear his head

other than writing he also enjoys all other things creative like painting, drawing, sculpting, photography, etc

he attends a weekly art class in the city

he def dabbles in drugs so if ya lookin he can probs hook ya up

he was carters roommate 

ADAMANT — stubborn as shitttttt like fr. once he sets his mind on sumn and believes hes completely right cant be wrong then theres no changin his mind! at all! even if he realizes later that he was wrong he’d rather lower himself into the grave than admit it. he’ll also argue with you til the ends of the earth until the bitch literally dont have vocal chords anymore!

CONFIDENT — if i could’ve picked an alternate label for him then it woulda been the bellwether. he always carries himself with confidence which he gets from wearin nice clothes and accessories plus always bein well groomed ig? like his hair is always done, you’ll never find a speck of dirt on his shoes, that type of shit. even when his hair is messy it was done that way he would never go outside lookin like a wreck so jot that down!

IMPETUOUS — this bitch reckless af! he does things to benefit himself and only himself most of the time without taking into consideration other peoples feelings or how it might impact them. thats not to say that he doesnt regret it after the fact but lbr he normally? doesnt? see: selfish. hes just tryna get ahead tryna get dat coin tryna get him sum gucci slides!

PETULANT — sulky, bad-tempered, etc is jax thru and thru! and he aint afraid to take everyone down with him either. hes def the type to stir up drama ngl but he’ll back it up too and he aint afraid to throw hands! hes been in his fair share of fights and with his shiny new fake id y’all been knew hes been in more than one bar fight with more to come i’m sure!

plot ideas

MUSE — pretty self explanatory i think? this person just ignites fuckin inspiration for him whether it be thru takin pictures of them, writing about them, filmin them, drawin them, etc etc. jax always knows that when hes in a slump he can find them and that shit will come back as quick as flippin on a light switch!

RIDE OR DIE(S) — y’all already know wtf it is! we love those friends who just talk shit with each other, those that’ll go to bat for one another, but also arent afraid to be like “yo step back ur gettin a lil outta line” ja feel? literally gimme all that!

ANGST — i live for anything angsty tbh like im one of those bitches that gets bored when things are goin too well for my chara so i need someone to fuck that shit up fam!

RELATIONSHIPS — im here for it all! im talkin enemies, friends, rommates, party buddies, smokin buddies, fwb, exes, partners in crime, etc etc! im here and ready to snatch em all up!

TEAMMATES — jax plays hockey, soccer, and baseball so if ur chara does too then? uhhhh we def gotta plot cause we could go any way with the teammates thing like imagine teammates who hate each other and purposely try to hurt one another durin practices.. ugh we love pettiness!

ADVENTURE BUDDIES — hiking, goin to abandoned / haunted places, spontaneous road trips, etc! need someone or multiple people who’re down to just drop everything and go. doesnt even matter where tbh they’re just always up for a lil adventure.

SEESAW — lemme be basic for a sec ok just hol on! i rlly want a plot based off of yoongis song seesaw where maybe the two of them were together and at first it was great but then they just fell out for wtvr reason and obvs didnt wanna be together anymore. neither of them wanted to let go tho maybe it was like a comfort thing? so they just kept repeatin their same old shit and actin like everything was cool until one of them finally took the step and ended it just.. ik there’d be angst ik it and i need it!

PARADISE — the new song by chase atlantic! bitch! i felt it in my soul maybe i cried? jax dabbles in literally everything hes truly a mess so havin someone who just checks on him would rip my soul in half? someone who gives him a call randomly in the middle of a sunday night and is just like “hey ya been ok? not fallin back on bad habits are u?” shit like that. it would def be a thing where he falls a lil bit in love with them because its smth hes not used to tho that def doesnt mean at all that they feel that way about him! it can unrequited i dont rlly care tbh.

ik i forgot sum shit and ik this is a damn m e s s but if ya wanna plot then just lms and i’ll hit ya up! we can brainstorm or pick from one of our wcs idc just give this h*e sum plots i’ll literally die without em? im def the type whos down to prettymuch™ fill anything so if ya got a plot that ur rlly wantin but no one seems to be takin then give it to me i’ll 100% take it lmao! ya im desperate what about it?