#AND THIS IS JUST THE FIRST PART - I HAVE SO MUCH FEELSY SHIT LEFT TO WRITE

[prince-liest]

Your last 666 series installment is the best thing that happened to me. Its full of gore, somehow fluffy and wait-.. do I finally see some FRICKING COMUNICATION between the two idiots!?!?!

Ngl, Vox's 'Alastor not being able to love' statement hurt my soul. Your writing is brilliant and and let's just see what ending ya wro-..O MA LORD IS THAT VAL'S LOVE POTION!?!?!?!?

Now I need to know what's next!!!! And VOX I SWEAR IF U USE THIS SITUATION IN ANY WAY IM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE.

This series is a blast♡ love it!♡ makes me weirdly passionate and excited hah!

Some communication, and some communication failure, hahaha. They're going to be talking a lot more in the next one, actually, because I meant to write some NSFW and they had to go and attempt a healthy conversation instead. What can you do.

Thank you so much, I'm delighted that you're enjoying! :D

And: Way more anon asks about the latest 666 getting answered under the cut! <3 I combined a bunch from the last couple of days.

prince, I'm going insane over the latest fic. so we know from Alastor's inner monologue that he knows the roofie was an accident, but considering the super stressful situation, the fact that Vox was the one to ask for a kiss and the fact that Alastor accused him of wanting instead of loving him not a few minutes ago…. makes me wonder if Vox might not be at least a little worred that Alastor might think it was on purpose <3 gonna be rotating this in my head for the foreseeable future - ✨

I am so glad that these things are on y'all's minds, hahaha. Because you can bet they are on mine. >:D And THANK YOU, very pleased to be dragging everyone down into insanity with me.

“Should I stitch together the scars your teeth left in me in a mirror of my own signature on your body.” Fucking. POETRY. 🐈‍⬛

I am always so happy when I write shit like this and instead of everyone pointing at me and going, "Look, what an EDGELORD!" the response is you people being VERY nice and leaning into the feelsy fun! 💛

holy moly ??? i love the new 666 addition aaaah 😭🙏 the trials and tribulations of feeling scorned and ghosted by a loser who confessed his love to you and the next time you see him he’s holding your LITERAL heart in his hands by alastor ! OMFG this was too good esp the part where vox is like “bro why do YOU CARE ?? i thought you didn’t love me huh?” and alastor is like well. maybe i.do. 😐 LIKE CMONN this really played out like some soap drama and i loved the neat details on resuscitative thoroctomy (learned a new word too so double bonus) the fact vel was on the line w her and val’s apparent surgeon for val’a little ‘incidents ??? GOLDEN I SAYY hope we see more of ur oc … 🫣🫣 btw ofc vox would love to an end an argument with a kiss OF FUCKING COURSE HE WOULD 😭 thank u sm for this chapter princeliest my dear <3 hope life is treating u well too !! -🦌

Vox is ahead of Alastor in terms of effective in-the-moment conflict resolution, but goddamn if he isn't fucked up in his own fun little ways. They're so not done with most of these issues, but at least they're on they're way to maybe be able to have a real conversation about them!

You know. If they chose to do that kind thing. Instead of whatever they will probably do instead.

Anyway, THANK YOU!! I had a great deal of fun writing this chapter and digging into some of the issues that have been slowly collecting underneath the surface of kinky radiostatic, so I'm happy you guys are enjoying as well!! :D

AS FOR MY OC... I WILL POST ABOUT THEM SOON. I LOVE THEM A LOT AND IT EXCITES ME THAT PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW MORE OF THEM. Tysm for asking Q^Q

Just read the new addition to the 666 verse, and inside of me are two wolves: The first is saying: Immaculate, artistry of the highest form. We finally get Alastor’s own confrontation with his vulnerability and him trying to figure out what exactly the relationship with Vox means to him. Cannot wait for how this all is going to develop. The other part of me: THE BREADCRUMBS WORKED THE MUSE IS WRITING!!! Followed by this image (since tumblr won’t let me attach it while being anonymous) https://i.redd.it/hx2shk642vs71.jpg -🕊️

LMAO THAT PIC. Amazing, flawless, thank you. The breadcrumbs DEFINITELY worked, please keep feeding. Digging into Alastor's shit is bringing me life and I'm happy to share it, hahaha. We're swinging even harder on the introspection in the next one!

As a sucker for medical gore and aroace angst, I lack the words to express my love and appreciation for your most recent installment of 666, but your writing of radiostatic's dynamic was captivating and proved to be such a lovely read as always! I loved that you touched on Alastor's relationships with the women around him as that has always been such an interesting aspect of his character to me! I never really put much thought into how Vox's apparent avoidance of Alastor in the show could mirror Alastor's disappearance, and now it will Not leave my mind. My heart hurts for these two dorks, super looking forward to chapter 2!

"Medical gore and aroace angst" should be the title of my memoir. Honestly, this series has ended up a lot more edgy-bloody than I expected it to, since I usually tend to prefer to portray my whump/angst/violence/etc in a much more roundabout way, but it's actually kinda tipped over into, like... part of the point is how banal it is, how beside the point. The upsetting heavy-hitting bits aren't the blood, they're everything else that goes on around it. Anyway, thank you so much! <3 I think your heart will find some relief in chapter two, haha, I hope you enjoy!!

Meanwhile alastor, completely convinced that there’s no situation where vox actually loves him and is happy with the way things are—either vox wants more and is going to start asking for more, or he doesn’t actually love him and just wants to have sex with him and thus either way he is a Liar. They’re so fucking bad at this. No one is capable of being the adult here. I think they need an auspitice.

It's really funny that you said that, because that is kind of exactly the role that [spoiler] ends up playing, though in a more roundabout way, hahaha. They certainly need someone to, like, get them to be having the same conversation with each other instead of two parallel ones. I think the fun thing about writing Alastor reacting to his own feelings is just how much his reaction can change based on how things are framed for him, and it leaves a lot of wiggle room for how differently I've ended up writing him reacting to the season 1 finale in 666 vs in Happily Ever After, and Other Shit Nepotism Can't Buy.

But, god, you really nailed the description of what Alastor is feeling. <3

Vox in the latest 666, my ENTIRE HEART. Literally nothing about how he read the situation was a bad take or a leap to conclusions, but alastor constantly says the opposite of what he means and refuses to admit vulnerability or friendship and what the hell else was vox meant to do with that, of course he backed off, they need to have this talk so badly

YES, PRECISELY! Like, I hope it came through that really neither of them was completely crazy to react the way they did! It's a result of how much of their communication has been nonverbal, implied, and talking around things - they'd been doing so well up until this point, but there's only so far that can take you before you start thinking that you're on the same page when really you're reading two completely different books! Thank you sm! <3

‘But I am capable,” Alastor says gently. “I love you very much.” Vox gapes up at him. “...I. Fuck you.” His voice is tight, strained. “I don’t fucking believe you.” Alastor feels his smile thin. “Well. That’s just dandy, then, isn’t it?”’ I AM NOT OK GOING FUCKING FERAL

Probably one of my favorite lines to write, ehehehe. THANK YOU ANONNNN <3 It's kinda interesting to see how differently some people read this. Some folks thought Alastor was saying it to hurt Vox (which is how Vox read it). Some folks thought it was true (how Alastor intended it). Some folks thought Alastor was trying to fit into the mold that he thought Vox wanted from him (how I intended it). All of them make sense as readings! >:)

[theateared]

I Will Forgive You. ❜

 Summary:  I can’t allow you to win this particular game of chess, Edgar. Warnings:  None.

     ❝ This has gone on long enough, Edgar. ❞

     The lye was sprawled out on the wooden bench closest to the preacher’s podium, wholly inelegant as he stared up at the church ceiling.   ❝ I do agree.  The  damp  in this building has been building up for millennia--  might I suggest a deep-clean? ❞

     ❝ This isn’t a JOKE. ❞

     Raku had not once raised his voice to him  before, and the sheer volume of it boomed like thunder.  The sacred walls surrounding them echoed his disdain clearly, an uncharacteristic hint of malice oozing like pus from his sharp rebuke.  It prompted the lye to sit up slowly, an air of sobriety returning to him as he stared up at the floating deity with a hint of wonder.

     He was a tiny thing, barely reaching the lye’s knee with his ears stood to attention, but the way he hovered over the podium made him look like a Goliath.  Though he hadn’t finished yet, Edgar felt a pit of dread open up in his stomach.

                                                                                                Is this my day of Reckoning?                                                                                 Has the unending dark reached for me?                                                                                       I didn’t even kiss Grace goodbye--

     ❝ I brought you back from the dead for one  very  specific reason, ❞   the God continued.  In the dim light of the church, he appeared different.  Menacing despite his small stature;  eyes a familiar shade of black and red, fingers looking all too sharp as he stared down at him.   ❝ You’re breaking the rules, Edgar.  You’re destroying the natural order.  Do you know what happens when you do that? ❞

     ❝ No. ❞

     ❝ The universe gets angry.  It never forgets. ❞   He moved closer then, floating form seeming weightless as he came to rest in front of him.  Small black hands settled on either side of the lye’s face, cool skin burning tenderly as he gazed into his eyes.   ❝ You can’t do this. ❞

     Edgar scoffed quietly:   ❝ So, what, you’re going to kill me? ❞

     In a soft voice, Raku continued:   ❝ You aren’t supposed to be here like this.  Don’t you see that? ❞   He paused a moment, tucking hair behind his ear gently.   ❝ You did things.  Terrible things.  And you need to be held accountable for that.  And rest assured--  I will forgive you.  I always will.  Even after all this time, even after all the other  countless  people  you’ve killed, and maimed, and tortured , I will forgive you. ❞

     ❝ ... ❞   For a lone moment, the lye looked relieved.  It dissipated in a second as a noise began to build in his throat.  It was low and suave at first, a mere rumble in the dark, before he suddenly  EXPLODED  with laughter, reaching out to wrap a gloved hand in the collar of the deity’s robe, dragging him close--  too close, his nose pressed taut against his, wide grin unrelenting as his frenzied gaze bore into his.

      Without his mouth moving at all:   ❝ You’ll forgive me?  WHAT A SAINT! ❞   He pushed him a short distance away then, standing up from his place on the bench, arms spread wide and long above his head.   ❝ EVERYBODY  MAKE  WAY  FOR THE BENEVOLENT OVERLORD!  PLEASE, HOLD YOUR  PRAYERS  UNTIL AFTER THE SHOW! ❞   Even in a place with no light, he was able to manipulate his shadow into forming a small crowd of people;  people that looked equally as enthused as he did, willowy arms waving frantically, gap-smiles jagged and squirming as if locked in silent cheers.

     This isn’t good...  you’re  stronger.  Much  stronger.

     ❝ Edgar... ❞

     ❝ NO!  HAHAHA! ❞   He snapped his fingers then, the crowd dissipating in a puff of smoke.  As soon as he had started, he had stopped.  Manic joy was replaced by fury in a heartbeat, disposition now solemn and serious.   ❝ You’ll  forgive me,  will you?  Quaint.  Cute.  Very  drole-- ❞

     ❝ Edgar-- ❞

     ❝ I  won’t  forgive you, ❞   he hissed, a clawed finger jabbed in his direction.  God or not, Edgar  refused  to cower.  He wasn’t so foolish to think that he could take Raku in a fight--  and hell, despite his inflammatory behaviour, he was truly trying to avoid one--   but he wouldn’t see himself behaving as a simpering fool either.  I do not  bend.  You do not  own  me.   ❝ For all you’ve  DONE  to me?  Perhaps  YOU  should repent too!  You refused to end my suffering.  You let me travel down this dark path, turn INTO this monster--  you could have saved me.  But what did you do instead?  You left me to rot.  You heard my prayers, and you  IGNORED  THEM! ❞

     ❝ That isn’t--  I can’t stop people-- ❞

     ❝ BULLSHIT. ❞   The expletive felt foreign and hot in his mouth, like a ball of molten lava, and he hurled it at the deity with such tenacious resentment that he swore he saw steam when he exhaled.  In a calmer tone:   ❝ You’re God.  You can do anything. ❞

     ❝ I couldn’t save your wife and child.  Peoples’ actions are out of my hands-- ❞

     ❝ THEN YOU COULD HAVE LET ME DIE, TOO. ❞

     The words were unexpected  -  and as such, Raku  flinched.  The whole time, he’d assumed that Edgar expected to live out his perfect life, that he was angry because his slice of heaven had been taken away by somebody else, and his saviour hadn’t been able to intervene...  this was a  different  side of him, one rooted in emotion, one that was aimless and grieving, lost.

     ❝ ... if there was no way for you to intervene, if that is  TRULY  the case, then all I wanted was to go with them.  Even if I’d have had to live through the terrible things that he did to them both, it ultimately wouldn’t have mattered, because I wouldn’t have been alive to grieve over it.  Do you have  ANY  IDEA  how much I  hate  myself  for not being there?  For choosing  WORK  over going home for dinner that night?  DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE--?! ❞

     For a moment, the God swore he saw a hint of  something  in the corners of his eyes, something wet and all too human, but when he blinked it was gone, replaced with iron-clad rage once more.

     ❝ Of  course  you don’t.  That’s why you’ll never understand me.  That’s why you’ll continue to villainise me--  continue to demand an apology that you don’t deserve. ❞  Edgar’s smile had vanished, and it made him feel even more eerie;  frightening, even to a God.  In a defeated voice, exhausted and worn:   ❝ ... do with me as you will.  I know that I can’t stop you.  I’m powerful.  I’m the Alpha of my creed.  I’ve achieved great things, stricken fear into so many hearts... but I’m not God.  I just hope, when you vanquish me, when you rid Huron’s soil of my pitiful existence, you recall how much pain you inflicted on me.  How much suffering you put me through.  That you created  this animal that I have become, and that you’re no less guilty of impurity than I am. ❞

     His hands slid into his pockets, back turned to his maker.  There’s nothing left to say.  If it cannot change my fate, then so be it.  At least I said my piece.  

     ❝ ... be ready soon, ❞   Raku said quietly.  Edgar heard, but he did not respond.

     I can no longer keep this a secret from Grace.  Or my creed.  At the very least, I should say goodbye to them.  To her especially--

                                                                     --------    I’m sorry, Gracie.  I’m going to die.

[after-avenging-hours]

Out of Time [2]: Steve x Reader

Series Masterlist with dates on chapter releases - tag list will not be used for this series

Summary:  After Steve gets injected with a mysterious substance during a mission gone wrong, you come to find out that the only thing that can save his life is a pure sample of Dr. Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum. Unwilling to let the love of your life die without a fighting chance, you travel through the quantum realm back to 1943. Equipped with little more than your knowledge of past events, you have to figure out just how exactly you’re going to get your hands on that serum. Not only that, but with the infinity stones no longer protecting the reality you’ve come from, there is now a chance that your presence in the past can change the future you’ll return to. Can you succeed without messing things up? And if things go wrong, can you fix it before it’s too late? Or will you run out of time…

Word Count: 5766

Warnings: Major character injury, triaging a wound, blood, stitches, gets a bit feelsy at the end

“Whoa! Hang on!” He doesn’t quite have the strength to keep you standing. But he follows you down as you collapse to make sure you don’t hurt yourself even more. He wraps his arms around you, pulling your body into a frame much smaller than you’re used to.

The gun in your hand clatters to the floor and you then press that hand into your throbbing side.

Steve blanches when he sees the weapon. “Is that yours?” he questions.

You shake your head weakly. “No. It was one of theirs.”

His brows raise in surprise. He knows that dames carrying weapons were more likely to have them taken by their assailants, not the other way around.

You look down at the hand clutched to your side, peeling your palm back to see that it’s completely covered in red. “Shit,” you curse, gritting your teeth. You close your eyes tight and tilt your head back against the brick wall, attempting to will the pain away, so it’s not completely clouding your senses.

Steve follows your line of sight and pales when he sees your blood. “Oh my God… I need to get you to a hospital.”

“No!” Your eyes snap open and you grip the collar of his shirt. “No hospitals,” You urge. You can’t be tied down to a hospital bed and potentially miss your window of opportunity. “I just,” you huff, your head dizzy now from the rapid movement. “Need to get someplace safe.”

“Miss… You’ve been shot. If we don’t get you-”

Your groan of pain cuts him off as you push yourself into a more upright position. “Is there blood on my back?” you question breathlessly.

“Wha-” Steve gapes for a second, before leaning over your body to check. “Yes��” he confirms. “A lot.” He leans back once more the look of concern returning to his eyes tenfold.

“That’s actually a good thing.” You tell him. “Means it’s a clean shot. Through and through. A hospital’s not going to be able to do anything that I can’t do myself with a bit of first aid.”

Steve finds himself only wanting to ask more questions, but he knows if you don’t start applying that first aid quickly, then you really will need a hospital. “My apartment is just around the corner,” he offers without thought.

More likely to run straight into trouble rather than think things through, it doesn’t even cross Steve’s mind that maybe he shouldn’t get mixed up in whatever this is. He grabs the gun, knowing that it wouldn’t be a good idea to just leave it behind. He looks around the alley to make sure there aren’t any other witnesses.

“Do you think you can stand?” he asks, almost wishing Bucky was around to carry you, but he knows Barnes would have his head over this.

You nod once, shifting one arm around his shoulders while removing the one from your side to grip the brick wall for purchase. You mentally count to three before pushing yourself up, Steve trying to do what he can to help. You release a guttural cry of pain with the movement and your vision goes black for a second. You hold still, keeping your grip on Steve and on the wall while you huff for breath.

You wait for your vision to clear and for your head to stop spinning before you give Steve a nod. “Okay. Let’s go.” You bite your lip to keep your whimpers in while you limp along with Steve holding you up.

It’s slow progress to make it down the alley and into a small courtyard area surrounded by apartment buildings. “I’m on the second floor,” Steve gives you an apologetic look when you reach the base of a set of metal stairs.

You release a long breath and grit your teeth before taking them on. Each step feels like an icepick getting jammed into your side. You nearly pass out after reaching the top but managed to keep it together a few more steps to reach his front door.

Steve is immensely grateful that he remembered his key this morning and doesn’t need to fumble around looking for it. The door opens with a push and he quickly shuffles you inside. He helps to lower your body onto the modest brown couch in his living room that Bucky got from him at a yard sale. The cushions are a little stained, no matter how he’s tried to clean them, the pillows are mismatched, and there’s a soft floral perfume scent permanently attached to the thing from the previous owner.

You give yourself a second to catch your breath before you begin pulling your shirt out from where it’s tucked into your skirt and start undoing the buttons. Steve’s eyes widen and his ears turn pink when you completely remove your top. You catch the way that he stares and would laugh if you weren’t in so much pain. You mentally pat yourself on the back for getting the vintage lingerie set for Steve’s birthday a few years ago. It certainly came in handy to keep your whole outfit authentic.

“Do you have clean linen and hot water?” you ask, needing to give him something to do for a quick moment.

He snaps out of it and nods. “Yeah,” he confirms before disappearing deeper into the apartment.

You wait for a second to make sure he’s really gone before hiking up your skirt to unclip the small pouch you have attached to your thigh holster. Opening the pouch, you turn it over to dump the contents onto the couch cushion next to you. A slim metal case, about the size and shape of a smartphone, falls out first, followed by what may appear to be a series of Barbie doll accessories. There’s a tiny red bag with a white cross that you pick out from the items.

Everything else goes back into the pouch before you open the metal case and reveal the series of discs inside. The ones on the left have red in their center, while the ones on the right have blue. You take a blue disc and throw it at the miniature first aid bag, allowing it to grow back to normal size.

“Thank you, Scott Lang,” you mutter under your breath, closing the metal case and returning it to the pouch. You clip the pouch back to your thigh holster and pull your skirt back down.

You have the first aid bag open and are rifling through the various compartments when Steve comes back into the room. He stops short and looks at you with confusion. “…Where did you get that?”

You turn to see him standing in the doorway, a few hand towels draped over his shoulder while he carries a large ceramic bowl. “Oh, that’s perfect.” You indicate for him to bring the items over. Ignoring his question.

Pulling a packet of painkillers from your kit, you rip open the foil and take them dry. You follow that up with a drop of hand sanitizer into your palm and work the liquid gel over your hands and between your fingers. Steve places the bowl of water at your feet and kneels down next to it. You then hand him the bottle of sanitizer.

“What is this?” he questions.

“Isopropyl alcohol mixed with aloe gel. It will disinfect your hands. You just need a small drop.”

“Okay…” he looks a little unsure, but follows your lead and drops some into his palm. He hands the bottle back and mimics your earlier movement to spread the gel. He then drops a towel into the bowl, letting it soak up the water before he wrings it out and folds it into a neat square.

You thank him softly when he hands it to you and you then press it to the wound on your front. “Can you get the exit wound?” you ask.

He nods once, wringing out a second towel and then presses it firmly to your back. He tries his best to keep his focus on the task at hand, despite having your breasts, pretty much at eye level. Before this, the closest he’s ever been to seeing a woman dressed in only a brasserie is the mannequins at Macy’s. What in the world would Bucky think, if he found out there was a half-naked woman in Steve’s apartment right now? The bastard would probably congratulate him, honestly.

“That should be good enough.” Your voice snaps him out of his thoughts. “Just clear the dried blood from around the wound.” You’ve gone back to rifling in your kit and pull out a small aerosol canister. The cap comes off with a pop and you quickly aim and spray directly onto the wound at your front. The substance inside comes out as a sort of gel spray, but soon begins to froth and bubble where it makes contact with the wound. “Here,” you give the can to Steve.

He takes it hesitantly. “That looks like it hurts.”

You laugh dryly. “It’s a gunshot wound. It already hurts.”

Can’t argue with that. Steve aims the canister and sprays the mystery substance onto your back wound. You take the canister back, cap it, and put it away. You can already feel the gel beginning to work its magic. Given to you by Shuri during one of your visits with Steve to Wakanda, the gel was a coagulant to stop bleeding, but also could promote cell regeneration to expedite the healing process, and even worked as a numbing agent to dull the pain. It certainly helps when getting to this next part.

“How are you with needles?” you ask, pulling out a curved needle and some stitching thread next.

He gulps audibly before he slowly nods. He and Bucky have had to stitch each other up, more than a few times, but neither of them were surgeons by any means.

Seeing the worry on his face, you try to ease his fears. “It doesn’t need to be perfect, just enough to keep the wound closed. The gel will be able to take care of the rest.”

“Okay,” he agrees, taking the needle and thread from you.

With the gel and the painkillers beginning to take over, you finally have a clear enough head to actually be able to take him in. It’s a little strange seeing him like this in person. You’d seen the photo that gets taken at Camp Lehigh and your Steve had eventually opened up enough to paint his own picture of what his life had been like pre-serum. But you never thought you’d see it with your own eyes.

His clothes hang loose around his frame, nearly engulfing him. The air of stoic confidence you’d grown used to is nowhere to be seen. His shoulders are rigid, back tense, and he almost looks a little uncomfortable to be so close to you. That’s certainly different. The Steve you knew had always been comfortable around you, even from the day you met.

You had been working at the SHIELD Headquarters in New York when Steve’s body was found in the Arctic. You didn’t actually get a chance to meet him at the point, and after the Battle of New York, you were relocated to the other side of the country. Then, after SHIELD fell, you ended up moving overseas. It wasn’t until after the whole Ultron fiasco that you were recruited by Natasha to check out the Avenger’s compound in upstate New York.

You’ll never forget the look on his face when Nat stepped out of the way to introduce you. His eyes had lit up like the sun peeking out behind a cloud and when he smiled your heart had stopped. You’re also pretty sure you may have swooned a little. He shook your hand and held it tight. You remember how he had looked deeply into your eyes like he was seeing into your very soul, and then his gaze flickered all over your face like he was painting your picture in his mind. He then welcomed you to the Avengers, without even giving you an initiation test.

You try to find hints of that Steve in this one. The more you look, the easier they are to find. The eyes are obvious. Highly expressive that he has a hard time concealing his emotions. His brows still furrow the same when he’s trying to concentrate. His ears are still red, which is a good sign. This means he’s not completely unaffected by you.

“My name’s Vic, by the way,” you introduce yourself just as he’s finishing up the stitching on your front wound.

His gaze lifts up to meet yours. “Steve. Though, somehow you already seem to know that.”

You give him a look of confusion, trying to understand what he means, but then you recall saying his name when he first reached you in the alley. You quickly try to come up with an excuse. “I didn’t, actually. You look like someone I know. His name is also Steve,” you try to play off. Badly.

“Huh. Small world.” The corner of his mouth tilts up into the barest hint of a smirk. It’s still enough to make your heart race.

Even 95 pounds soaking wet, you’ve still got it bad for this man.

You hand him a pair of small surgical scissors to cut the thread. While he gets to work on stitching up your exit wound, you grab the supplies you need to finish triaging the front wound. You apply a small amount of disinfectant cream over the stitches before packing it with sterile gauze and taping the gauze to your skin. Steve helps you do the same on your back once he’s finished with the stitches there. After that, you take a long strip of self-adherent bandage tape to completely wrap your torso.

“That should do it. Thanks, Steve,” you send him a smile as you begin to pack up and close your first aid kit.

“Is that standard-issue?” Steve askes, nodding to your kit.

You breathe out a soft laugh. “Not quite,” you respond cryptically. “But a girl’s gotta be prepared.”

He raises a brow. “Do you often find yourself running into men with guns in back alleys?”

You mimic his look. “Do you often find yourself running toward the sound of gunfire rather than away?”

He blinks once, then shrugs, his shoulders relaxing a little. “More often than I should, if Bucky had anything to say about it.”

You have to bite your tongue to keep from laughing outright. “This Bucky sounds like he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Maybe you should listen to him more often.”

He scoffs. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

“Trust me when I tell you that getting shot really isn’t high on the list of things I’d consider fun,” you tell him with a grimace.

That sobers him. “No, I imagine it wouldn’t.” He drops his gaze and busies himself by rinsing your blood off his hands with the water in the bowl that has started to turn pink. “So, what does ‘Lady V’ mean?” he asks, the curiosity getting to him.

He looks up and catches the confusion in your eyes before his gaze drops to your chest. You realize he’s talking about the tattoo written in a curling script below your right collar bone, the letters framed on either side by a pair of small wings. Your Steve had actually been the one to design it for you.

“It stands for Lady Victory,” you explain. “It’s my code name.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “You’re an agent?” he questions like he can’t believe it. His cheeks then flush as he attempts to backtrack. “I mean- not that you couldn’t be. It’s just you’re so beautiful, you could have been anything. And not that there’s anything wrong with being an agent, it’s just-”

“Steve…” You say his name gently, trying to get him to breathe, while a smile of amusement creeps onto your face.

“Sorry,” he mutters, dropping his gaze once more and releases a long breath. “Just, why go for something that’s so high risk?”

You take a moment to compose your thoughts, trying to figure out how best to answer his question. “We all have things that call to us. Be it duty or a sense of purpose… I don’t know. It just always felt like the right path for me. And believe it or not, looking like just another pretty face can actually be advantageous in this line of work. People will often underestimate you.”

Steve releases a long sigh. “The underestimating part I could handle. Been dealing with that my whole life. But I can’t even get enlisted. They take one look at my medical record and write me off before even giving me a chance. How did you do it?”

You realize where he’s trying to steer the conversation. At this point, he would have already tried to enlist and thus been rejected, four times. “Just because it’s the right path doesn’t mean it’s the easiest. Keep trying. Keep moving forward and eventually, you’ll end up where you’re meant to be.”

He shoots you a wry smile. “You make it sound so simple.”

You huff out a laugh. “Oh, it’s definitely not. But if it were, it wouldn’t be quite as satisfying when you finally succeed.”

He releases a low hum, letting your words sink in. “So, Lady Victory…” he says like he’s tasting the words in his mouth. “Is that where ‘Vic’ comes from?”

“It is,” you confirm.

He nods like he’s pondering over something else. “A guy takes you in off the street, then helps you patch up a bullet wound, and you don’t even give him your real name?”

You can’t help but grin at his cheekiness.

“I mean, Bucky probably won’t even believe the story to begin with.”

That promptly wipes the grin from your face. “Steve, you can’t tell anyone that I was here. Not even Bucky,” you urge desperately. You’re already terrified that there are going to be ramifications from this interaction, you have to try to prevent it from rippling out even further. “I… I should go.”

“Go?” he repeats, startled.

You turn to grab the first aid kit and your blood-soaked shirt, wincing when the movement tugs at your wound. “I’ve already put you in enough danger as is.”

“Do you think those men will come back?”

You shake your head, feeding your arm through the sleeve of the shirt on your injured side, and pull it up onto your shoulder with your good arm. “I don’t know. They might.”

You feel Steve’s hand settle over yours, stopping your movements. You pause and meet his gaze. “Well then, all the more reason you should stay. They won’t find you here and I can’t send you back out there injured and into the night.”

“Steve…” You know you shouldn’t. The longer you stay, the more you’ll risk messing up the timeline. But looking into his eyes, you can’t find the strength to pull away. The image of your Steve laying in the hospital bed looking steps away from death’s door pops into your head. Comparing that to the one in front of you; alive, breathing, vibrant… It makes you want to grab onto him with both hands and never let go.

“Stay,” he repeats once more.

“Okay,” you find yourself breathing the word out without thought.

His eyes soften and his hand gently squeezes yours before he pulls back. “And I promise not to tell anyone about you as long as you give me your real name.”

You huff out a laugh, dropping your head and shoulders. “You’re a sly one, I’ll give you that much.” Lifting your gaze back to his, you tell him your full name.

He grins victoriously and you can feel yourself falling in love with him all over again. He holds his hand out for you to shake. “Steve Rogers.”

You find yourself matching his grin as you place your hand in his. “It’s nice to meet you, Steve Rogers.”

Your hands shake once before he pulls back and moves to stand on his feet. “Now, how about I get you something to wear that’s not covered in blood and bullet holes?”

You look down at the shirt you only have half on, your cheeks flushing with heat. “Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.”

He moves deeper into the apartment once more, leaving you alone. You pull your shirt back off and lift it up to take in the damage. It’s pretty bad. Even if you could get the bloodstains out, the two bullet holes didn’t really help matters. Huffing, you toss it into the bowl of water and do the same with the two damp towels, also covered in your blood.

You grunt quietly as you attempt to push yourself up and off the couch. The pain killers may have dulled a majority of the pain, but movement causes a sharp sting to push through. You kneel onto the floor and try to keep your torso as straight as possible as you lift the bowl into your arms and straighten back up. The movement is a bit awkward, but you manage successfully without pulling your stitches.

You follow Steve’s direction to head deeper into the apartment in search of the kitchen. It’s not difficult to find, as the apartment is fairly small. A short hallway separates the living room from the remainder of the apartment, with the hall opening into the kitchen on the left and with the bedroom and bathroom doors on either side to the right. There is light pouring out of the open bedroom door and the sound of Steve rifling through various drawers and his closet.

You turn into the kitchen and set the bowl down into the sink. Tipping out the bloody water, you open the tap from the faucet to fill the bowl once more. There’s a bar of soap on the edge of the sink next to the faucet, which you grab and start rubbing into one of the towels to work up a lather.

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve’s voice sounds from behind you.

You glance over your shoulder to see him standing there, some folded, striped pajamas in his hands. “I didn’t want to stain your towels,” you tell him.

He moves in next to you. “I’ll take care of that. You just worry about healing your injury.”

You set down the soap and towel, rinsing your hands clean. There’s a fresh hand towel by the sink, which you use to dry your hands before taking the offered clothing. “Thank you, Steve,” you tell him, holding the clothes to your chest. He nods once, dipping his head to avoid your gaze. He never was any good at accepting gratitude. “Really.” You insist. “I don’t know many people that would take in a complete stranger and help them the way you’ve helped me.”

He shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “Bucky is always telling me that I’m reckless in my pursuit of doing what I think is right.”

Isn’t that the damn truth…

“Besides,” he continues. “You’re also pretty trusting of a complete stranger that offered to take you in.”

Your sweet laughter reminds him of springtime. “I’m a pretty good judge of character,” you tell him, smiling brightly. It lightens your heart to see him relax just a bit more around you. Your fingers fiddle with the fabric of the clothes in your arms. “Well, I should probably go get changed. Thank you, again, for these.”

“Oh, sure,” he sweeps his arm to the side, gesturing for you to walk past. “They’re actually Bucky’s, so I hope they fit okay. I figured my clothes might be too small…”

You catch the slight shift in his demeanor when he brings up one of his biggest insecurities, pre-serum.

Reaching out, you gently touch a curled finger to the underside of his chin. You guide his face back up until he meets your eyes once more. “Chin up, Rogers. You’re looking far too glum for a man that’s got a half-naked woman walking around his apartment.”

You grin teasingly when his whole face goes red. “Oh, I-I didn’t look!” Almost instinctively, his eyes dip down the length of your body, before they widen in horror when he realizes what he’s just done.

You giggle girlishly. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.” You then turn and step out of the kitchen to head for the bathroom.

With the door firmly shut and locked behind you, a long breath slips past your lips. “Girl, what are you doing?” you whisper to yourself.

Stepping over to the sink, you muster the courage to look at yourself in the mirror. You look a little worse for wear, but that certainly comes with the territory of getting shot. Your lipstick is smudged and your hair is a mess. You can’t do much about a shower right now with your freshly tended to wound, but hopefully, by the morning, the healing gel will have had enough time to make at least that possible.

Removing your thigh holster, you open the pouch again and use another particle disc to bring your toiletry bag back to size. You run through your night routine as quickly, yet carefully as possible, feeling the tension of the day beginning to weigh on you, and now all you want to do is sleep. With makeup removed and teeth brushed, you manage to track down and extract all the hairpins from your hair. From there, you move on to shedding the remainder of your rumpled uniform, including your stockings and heels. The sight of blood down the back of your skirt makes you grimace when you realize it’s probably gotten onto Steve’s couch, too.

Unhooking the back of your bra is a bit difficult to manage while injured, but eventually, you get it. You slide the garment off, letting it pool to the floor. Checking in the mirror, you find that your undies didn’t make it unscathed either from all the bloodshed. With a sigh, you push them off your hips and down your legs.

You dig through the cupboards and drawers under the sink until you find a clean washcloth. After soaking it and wringing it out, you use the damp cloth to remove the last bit of dried blood from your skin before sliding into the pajamas. God, they’re so vintage. Baby blue and white vertical stripes with a pocket square on the left breast. You make the adjustments you need to feel a little more comfortable in them; rolling the cuffs and pants, and tying the drawstring.

You run both your undies and skirt under the tap, rinsing as much blood as you can out of them, but anything more than that will need to be dealt with in the morning. You fold the skirt in on itself, leaving the dry side out and the damp side in, with your undies tucked inside as well.

You then find a place to hide your toiletries, not wanting to use a particle disc just yet, since you’ll need them in the morning, along with your first aid kit. Gathering your clothes and holster into your arms, you venture out of the bathroom. You can look into Steve’s room from across the hall and find him standing next to his closet, buttoning up the shirt of his own pajamas.

Like a moth to a flame, you find yourself entering the space. His scent hits you and it brings tears to your eyes because he still smells the same. Walking into his room here smells exactly like walking into his room at the compound. It smells like coming home.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, noting the slightly distressed look on your face.

You shake yourself out of your thoughts and force a smile. “Yeah, just tired. It’s been a long day.”

“Well, you should lie down, then.” He indicates to the full-sized bed, with a corner of the covers pulled back already.

You move toward it, setting your clothes on the bedside table next to a small lamp and reach out to finger the covers. You turn and take a seat on the mattress. It’s a bit lumpy, but the fatigue is really starting to settle in, so you’re sure it won’t matter.

Steve watches you for a moment before turning to leave the room.

“Wait, where are you going?” you ask.

He stops, turning to you in surprise. “I was going to sleep in the living room,” he states like it’s obvious.

The distressed look comes back to your face. “Will you stay?” you ask, your vulnerability cracking through. Last night, while he lay dying in the infirmary on the other side of the compound, you’d struggled to sleep by yourself in a room that smelled like him. No matter how exhausted you felt, you know you won’t be able to sleep comfortably if you had to do that again.

He looks a little conflicted. “Are you sure?” he questions.

You hold his gaze when you nod.

“Okay…” he relents, though he still sounds unsure.

As he begins to head over, you turn to push the covers back and shuffle toward the other side of the bed.

“What are you doing?” he questions, stopping his movement as he was preparing to walk to the side you’re currently settling into.

“Moving, so you don’t have to sleep by the window,” you respond automatically as you settle under the covers. It’s one of his weird quirks that you’ve grown used to. He’d explained once that before the serum, sleeping near the window would make his asthma worse if there was a slight draft. After the serum though, he still didn’t like it, because he’d grown more sensitive to lights and sound. So, you always took the window side wherever you both slept together.

You pat the empty space of the mattress and grin, “Come on, Steve. I don’t bite. I promise.”

He reaches to turn off the bedside lamp before he slowly lowers himself down onto the mattress, legs tucking under the blanket. He looks like he’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice as he lays on his back and stares up at the ceiling. You lay on your side, so you won’t irritate the stitches on your front and back while you sleep. You tuck your hands under your pillow and close your eyes.

A few moments of silence pass. “Steve, you’re never going to fall asleep if you keep your muscles tense like that,” you whisper in the dark.

You feel his body shift around slightly beneath the covers. “Sorry… I’ve never done this before,” he admits.

You want to laugh because he’s freaking adorable, but you hold it in. “Turn on your side,” you encourage. He hesitates a moment before complying and turning onto his side to face you. “Close your eyes.” There’s just enough street light coming in from the window to be able to see him. He holds your gaze for a second before his eyes close and he releases a long breath.

You untuck one of your hands and reach up to gently run your fingers through his hair. He tenses up even more with the first touch, but your nails scratch at his scalp in a way that makes him shiver. Your hand slips down the back of his head and curls underneath his ear before you move back up to his forehead and do it again.

The longer you keep doing that, the more the tension eases from his body, until he’s completely relaxed. Just a few more passes of your fingers through his hair and soon his breath evens out as he falls asleep. Your hand curls around the bottom of his ear one more time before your palm settles on the edge of his jaw.

He looks the same when he sleeps here as he does in your time. His features soften, that pinch no longer between his brow and the stern tilt of his mouth eases up. He gains an air of innocence and loses the weight of the world that he carries on his shoulders.

You watch over him for a minute. Memorizing his features before you shift closer. You dip your head down, tucking it beneath his chin to bury your face into his chest and you gently wrap an arm around his waist. He stirs a little but doesn’t awaken.

He feels different, but you’re still able to draw comfort from his closeness. A huge portion of the weight he normally carries has now fallen to your shoulders, and God, are you feeling it. If you fail in getting a sample of the formula, or if you take too long and the components break down before you’re able to get it to Dr. Banner, then these may very well be the last moments you’ll get to share with Steve.

If there’s any hope of salvaging the timeline, you’ll disappear by morning and be nothing but a dream to him. If you forsake the timeline and stay, not only could you mess up your chances of getting the serum, but there will also be the potential for a domino effect to spiral out and shift the entire course of Steve’s future. Could you really risk that just for a few more days of basking in his presence?

On the flip side, do you really have the strength to walk away? Sure, you’re terrified of failing the mission, but you’re even more terrified of losing out on your last few moments together, should you fail. And what if, by some tiny miracle, you could have your cake and eat it too? What if you could succeed and still spend time with him.

If there’s one thing you know for certain… you’re not ready to let him go.

Just as that thought crosses your mind, Steve’s arm curls around your waist, pinning your body against his.

Taking that as a sign, you push all remaining thoughts out and settle comfortably against his chest. You’ll stay till morning and then see how the rest pans out. For now, you’re safe in his arms and you’re going to cherish this as much as possible. With eyes closed and legs tangled, it doesn’t take long for you to join Steve in the realm of sleep.

Part 3

[peepingtoad]

OKAY SO. 

It’s not that often that I talk about what I really think about Jiraiya, and I guess I mean more how I feel about him, since I always try to write my ‘deeper’ headcanons/metas from a more... idk, trying not to get too emotional about it point of view. Basically it’s because I know how controversial he is, and I pretty much ritually avoid a lot of takes because I don’t want to get irritated about something that really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme, because we’re all entitled to our opinions and I largely get my say through the act of writing and developing him how I see fit.

Which is enough for me, mostly, but for the purpose of reinforcing/building upon how I see my muse’s plight, working through some of my Sannin-feels and also to dip my toes into why I find blindly judgemental/single-faceted takes of him, his priorities and the Sannin’s bond so exasperating, I kinda feel like rambling my thoughts (feelings) anyway! 

Politely sticks this stream-of-consciousness mess under a cut.

So sometimes I do think about the fact that Jiraiya kinda, lmao, forgot about Everything Else in the world because of Orochimaru and his (frankly) obsession with him/them. And the fact that a ridiculously significant portion of bad shit that happened is down to his actions/inaction. And the fact that he really did go and leave the likes of Naruto (and maybe to a degree Kakashi, although there’s zero actual evidence he didn’t get involved given the strong indications of a great rapport in the canon), just because he was so hellbent on pursuing Orochimaru, who was not even shown to be affectionate towards him at the best of times. When I think about it in terms of Jiraiya being gone and the main reason we’re given for it, things suck for a number of people, and quite largely because of potentially unrequited/horribly communicated/obsessive JiraOro pursuits, in essence :’)

(And for all it’s still quite the rarepair, Jiraiya does express on accounts that he was destroyed when Oro left. I mean... this is the guy who rarely acknowledges his sadness so... It’s not my bias at all I sware)

Of course JiraTsu is very real in my eyes too, albeit a very different kinda tragic, as is OroTsu. And the messy poly ship? Ohohoho, even better, but... yeah. Tsunade does at least go her own way for a long time, as messed up as that is in itself, for reasons including the fact she seems to pointedly not heal or move on from her grief. And given the absolute debacle that was her and Jiraiya reuniting... and both her and Oro even discussing a possibility of sacrificing him... and just, them in general for that whole arc :’))) yeah. They are without a doubt messy and troubled, but even despite how fraught things become I genuinely think all the furtive expressions and the undercurrents of longing and the evasion of their past exhibits a history much deeper and full of lost love compared to many other team dynamics we get (otherwise the Three Way Divorce wouldn’t have been quite so horrible on them, would it? That and they’d probably have split up after Team Hiruzen was no more, if they really hated each other/just tolerated each other out of familiarity like I sometimes see speculated).

But yeah, back to our main man. Jiraiya’s intense (and frankly very Scorpio of him) love for our first series Big Bad kinda did ruin him and what he was setting out to do in some ways, to the degree that the actual story of Naruto wouldn’t be very much without him in terms of drama. I mean, he always loved a good story, right? So art imitates life, and innit just pathetic poetic.

And in so many ways it is incredibly tragic and pitiable that he’s Just Like That. Idealistic and warping everything terrible, no matter how bad, into adventure in his mind! As growth! As pain that makes you TOUGH and makes you a stronger man! As something to be pushed aside while you just keep on truckin’! Whatever anyone you love throws at you, it’s Totally Fine!

After so long narrating through his personal lens, I’ve come to realise he truly is so convinced that everything bad that happens, is sort of just... something he has to deal with and feel big and guilty and feelsy for while spinning it in ways that enable him to keep going. He just loads it on himself and sorta holds it. The fact he’s so sad and filled with sickly pining grief that he has to try and exorcise it with impulsive bouts of decadence? Fine. And it’s not abnormal at all, how he approaches things with such broad scope and just kinda... thoughtlessly wrecking-balls his way through everything he thinks is a great idea at the time. He experiences the fallout of these things and simultaneously feels the entire ravages of it acutely while compartmentalising it ever so neatly away. The crazy thing, too, is that he’s exceptionally convincing at making everything he does and how he handles things seem so grand and noble and romantic and tragic... but in a humorously self-deprecating and still ultimately very hopeful way, to the degree that I as a mun get caught up in his relentless optimism and forget he actually is a sad and heartbroken guy wrapped up in all this grandiosity.

Sometimes I do step back and look and I just think yeah, fuck, he really is a total disaster! He’s a walking disaster and he’s been so damaging to himself and others in so many ways, all because of acting on emotions and impulses without really thinking about the impact! He really did kinda give up on those who needed him and for what? A love that will never love him or prioritise him back? 

A wonderfully tragic theme that I do love with him, don’t get me wrong.

But then at the same time, there’s always more nuance to be had than just ‘he is a disaster and made bad choices, as tragic and romantic as it is, he was actually just selfish and kinda sucked in the end, pathetically whipped by his friends and unable to let go of what they had’. There’s more nuance to be had than reducing him to a purely romantically-inclined character, who just snubs everyone else for a doomed love... because in the end, I think a huge part of JiraOro’s demise in particular was that Oro felt immensely snubbed by Jiraiya when he stayed in Ame, when his loyalty to Konoha (as a place and people, not necessarily a system) and of course loyalty to his own ideals was prioritised over Oro.

To an extent, I feel like Tsunade could have been a similar case, were she not preoccupied with already having lost so much, and besides I really do think she and Jiraiya were quite firmly in best friend zone at that point. With Tsunade not being able to get comfortable around Jiraiya or to pursue any underlying affection for him because of the dumbass way he always behaved (understandably of her tbh), probably until she got with Dan, by which point I reckon Jiraiya started to really come through by showing how he valued her for her, where we see by them having each other’s backs so closely in the second war. Not to mention him generally respecting that his feelings for her have no place by the time he gets her back to Konoha.

In terms of that first split in Ame, Jiraiya, I feel, simply didn’t think him leaving was going to be a big deal, because the three were always fiercely headstrong people who had their own shit going on (simultaneously independent while also being, perhaps not to their knowledge, So Very Codependent). Not only that, but his overly affectionate ways and incessant jolliness were probably considered such a joke that he was basically like ‘they’ll be fine without me’. I certainly don’t think he felt needed by them, which I don’t think is their fault or a point of angst and ‘waaah poor blameless Jiraiya’, because quite honestly, the strain on their relationship was something I fully believe even he didn’t realise he needed out of at the time. His one-track mind was just on ‘save kids, teach kids, this is right, must seize opportunity to be the change I was told I’d be, not continue with this godforsaken war’

Selfish? Maybe. Well-intentioned? Certainly. Intended to hurt anyone or imply he stopped caring? No.

In essence, when it comes to why in the end Jiraiya seemed to be so horrendously bad at being around at the worst of times, at being responsible, whatever else (and I’m not even going to go into scenes intended to be comedic because, they are comedic)... I’ve got to look at it from more than just one view. It’s easy to say ‘he’s ridiculous and terrible because he pretty much flaked on what was important based on his whims/a doomed love/his dick’ (which I have seen said lmao) but there are so many other things at play here.

So I’m thinking, while he was shirking duties (godfatherly mainly)... did he actually consider that his most important duty? Was it anyone’s place to tell him it was? Minato didn’t, as I recall, and when he sacrificed himself he specifically left it to the Third because he (presumably) respected what his teacher was about and knew he wasn’t for staying put. Did Jiraiya not consider his primary duty to be to the prophecy, and in a more general sense fixing the big wrongs and trying to foil big dangers to his home? Were these things not pretty much what he existed for (as much as his faith wavered and went off the rails at times)? Was that not the main source of any real purpose he ever had, being a kid who showed practically no ambition before? Did he not pretty much redesign himself as being ‘from Mt. Myōboku’ rather than Konoha after two devastating wars, and thus is it not understandable for him not to focus solely on Konoha—not outright destroying it, still ultimately loyal to his home and not about to let anyone destroy it, but seeing that the world is in fact so much bigger than just his little town? Is that really something that’s so bad and wrong of him, in a story where the main cast’s country has a pretty fucking nasty system and is established to do so very early on? Is he not pretty revolutionary in his own brand of not blindly serving, but not going on a destroy-it-all frenzy either?

Also, was he not the only one who actually bothered to investigate Akatsuki and the forces that would see Naruto dead, in time? For all he did help bring Akatsuki into existence in ways, it was inevitable from before he even met the orphans that they were going to be groomed/moulded into what they became, regardless of whether Jiraiya came onto the scene. Jiraiya leaving them was just a different kind of suffering to what they were inevitably going to suffer anyway, and hell, with his influence at least there was a time where they might’ve stood a chance of going totally against Madara/Obito’s path, especially while Yahiko was still around. Jiraiya didn’t know that the whole thing with the Ame orphans was, by a design out of his control, doomed to end horribly. So while he felt personally responsible not knowing this, and it’s taken as a given that he was... actually, was he, when there was a master manipulator at play? Was it wrong to want to give some kids a chance?

With regards to all those things I see people say he should have stayed and fixed, that he should have been there, he should have done x y z... Is it not the responsibility of everyone not satisfied with their lot to step up to the plate and make where they live better? Jiraiya wasn’t the only adult. Tsunade, and I absolutely love her, does seem overwhelmingly to be absolved of leaving Konoha because... ??? Kicker is that she too is related to Naruto, of course. 

So... was she not also needed for the very material ways she could’ve helped at numerous points? Was she not also placing her grief and lost love before everything else? Are some reasons inherently more ok than others to ditch? As Kakashi’s generation grew up, was it not also then up to them to decide whether they’d change the status quo? Were Minato’s own generation, presumably his own peer group, not complicit in Naruto’s ostracisation? We got a slight taste of rebellion with Asuma, Hiruzen’s own son, but the fact is many Konoha-nin were overwhelmingly complacent with how things were. And yet never get demonised at all for it. Because it’s Jiraiya’s fault for... not staying and giving it all up to be a guardian who could well be depressed and unfit to raise a child... or just being a flaky as hell one that’s never there anyway because he has shit to do? (and in doing the former would let too many things go unchecked by a completely tuned-out Hokage, not gathering all that spicy useful intel, y’know... essentially he wouldn’t have ended up largely doing his job along with the personal shit in between).

Basically when I see claims saying that Jiraiya as an individual should have done pretty much everything better, and somehow been there for everyone that needed him at any given time, and that (mostly Naruto’s) suffering was a failing on Just His part because of his selfish whims... I feel like the point of his tragedy is absolutely missed. That tragedy being that barrelling through things alone is definitely a failing and harmful in numerous ways, as we see with Itachi shouldering everything alone too, and we see them both miss out on Naruto and Sasuke as a result... but at the same time, is just settling down and leaving everything else to chance not also a huge failing, when there are so many other circumstances and enemies acting against you, when you do have the power to change tides, and when so many other people refuse to or can’t seize their own agency? Jiraiya does put his faith in a lot of people too, and a lot of people fail. Don’t fail him, but in a general sense many, like Minato, fail to make the change they wanted to. That’s life in this world, it’s tragic, and after losing a lot of loved ones yeah, he retreats and goes at it alone. 

But how can he win? How does he do what’s right, other than by chasing what he thinks he can do to actually help the world, which happens to be bigger and not centred on individuals, even those he cares about?

(and remember, nobody knows Naruto is special-reincarnation-prophecy-boi, which is why I tend not to blame-game any characters for him being treated like so many orphans were because... while it’s not morally right or nice at all, it’s tone deaf to how the world is, to the fact all characters having different degrees of knowledge and priorities, and it’s insensitive of the fact most the characters had their own struggles and were just doing their best with a bad lot gdi). 

Hell though, Jiraiya even does put Oro, his big obsessive wild goose chase that whisks him away into selfish pining hopelessly devoted land, on the back burner at points. Maybe not in a lasting way, particularly by the last databook where he’s inspired anew by Naruto, but he does prioritise other shit on numerous occasions. And there’s a lot of shit to try and prioritise.

What I’m trying to say is, Jiraiya can’t solely be held responsible for people. Sure, he’s a character whose decisions were pivotal to events, but what of every other character in the story? Why are they not held to the same crazy high standard of doing and protecting and preventing and somehow doing everything ‘right’ that would have also meant him fitting neatly into the Konoha mould? Would other characters really have been that much better in the position of The Big Guide/Martyr/Tragic Hero/Force For Change character? And also is having a tragic Chaotic Good bastard of a hero not a sign of a damn good and interesting character, that at the very least tried where so many others didn’t? Would Naruto not have been a boring as hell story, whose main protag didn’t really have much conflict to make him compelling, without Jiraiya (among others) being a mess with the best intentions? Without so many other characters having failed him, for him to overcome it and still be able to love and inspire change (albeit through sometimes-clumsy talk-no-jutsu)? Was I missing the point of the story?

............. Hmm!

No longer sure where else I’m going with this now, so.... here, I guess, ends my ode to why character hate (especially that reduces them to One Thing) is dumb, why demonising truly well-meaning characters doesn’t feel particularly woke to me in a cast full of flawed characters and horrible circumstance, and why I’ll defend this poor bastard with far too damn much hinging on him to the end I guess :’)

TL;DR HE’S A DUMBASS AND HE TRIED, OKAY?!

[mimiorzea]

4, 9, 12, 13, 22, 23, 29, 33 for disaster pirate (3/3)

(in reference to [this ask meme]!)

4) Who is someone they’ve hurt?

who hasn't he tho

while i can't give an exhaustive list, i think the pirate crew that looked after him from mid-childhood to at least his mid-teens or so was probably pretty hurt by the events that took place. my impression is that something happened that accidentally triggered Vhox's feral state, and he killed someone he absolutely did not mean to in the crossfire, which caused all sorts of uproar amidst the crew (which was thereafter divided on their perspectives of Vhox / what they should do in the aftermath), and Vhox cut ties with all of them in the process of bailing -- even those people who he had formed genuine bonds with and who wanted to support him in the fallout. Vhox refused to let them do so, too afraid of the prospect of reaching back out only for something else to go wrong, because emotional investment is scary and fuck all them, anyway, #yolo, he’s fine on his own. it has nothing at all to do with the fact that the entire thing aggravated all of Vhox's fears of abandonment and being a dangerous monster in all of the worst ways. nope.

beyond that, this boy tends to hurt a lot of people in his proximity without necessarily meaning to, so it's likely that Rin suffers a lot for being tied to him, too -- but at least that's something that he ends up trying to work on. he plays best with people he feels like he can't hurt, for some reason or another. Charlotte works well for this, because she's connected to him in a way he can't deny or really run from (as his blood sister), she's got the same problem he's got going on with the feral anomaly, and she's also a strong fighter in her own right, before one considers that she's got the thick skin and experience to recognize a lot of Vhox's shit before Vhox himself might.

9) What is something that would break them emotionally?

accidentally killing someone he really cares about. (i mean, that would probably break most people, but it’s a very present possibility in his mind.) he's so afraid of doing this that he's already more or less sequestered himself away from people beyond very surface-level relationships, so killing someone like Rin would probably push him so far off the deep end that he would either submit to whatever his blood family wants for him (bad news), or completely abandon any future prospect of emotional investment in people while simultaneously discarding his moral compass (also bad news). in the latter case, essentially he would get so stuck in the idea that he is a monster and destined to hurt people that he would stop attempting to moderate his behavior to avoid doing that, thus doing absolutely whatever reckless, harmful, and hedonistic shit he wanted until he either killed himself by "unfortunate happenstance" or was killed by someone else.

12) What is the fastest way to upset them?

see previous question for an extreme case, see following question for a less extreme case. outside of those two situations, some other things that would probably upset him:

obviously wealthy people looking down their nose at or otherwise mistreating less fortunate individuals. bonus points if they were at all capable of helping said less fortunate individuals instead. seeing someone who is obviously struggling and in need of help try to steal food at the market or lift some gil off of a rich merchant, only to be caught and dragged off by the Yellowjackets, really bothers him in a bad way. encountering the mere suggestion of child neglect also upsets him (even if that just amounts to a kid being left unattended on the street). these are both sore spots because they hit close to home, so to speak.

people (most especially authority / law enforcement) who try to control or tell him what he can’t do also rub him the wrong way, although “upset” in this case looks more like becoming suddenly very argumentative / intentionally inflammatory with them, a lot of the time, unless it’s a situation where Vhox would quickly be in over his head for not keeping his mouth shut (and, admittedly, sometimes even then). he has a fairly childish knee-jerk reaction to people treating him negatively to give them even less reason to like him, possibly as an unconscious mechanism to soften the blow of the rejection.

13) What is something that makes them uncomfortable?

talking about gushy uwu feelsy stuff is one thing. he's also not great at commiserating about trauma. if his ever comes up, he's likely to be playing it off with humor or otherwise talking pretty flippantly about it, and if someone else talks to him about theirs, the best they're likely to get is an underwhelming "that's rough, buddy" sort of response. it's not even that he outright doesn't care -- he's just really uncomfortable processing those things, and rolling up his sleeves to have a deep heart-to-heart is a lot more emotionally taxing than having a morbid laugh and moving on to something else.

he's sort of uncomfortable around kids, too. he likes (some of) them and thinks they're cute, but there's always a part of him that's worried that he's going to fuck a kid up somehow, either by saying or doing something wrong, or, gods forbid, something happens to trigger his feral anomaly and he hurts them. that's one of his worst fears.

22) How indecisive are they?

he's very much a "do shit first, ask questions later" kind of guy, so all in all he's pretty decisive -- at least in the moment. if you start asking him to plan things, or where he thinks he's gonna be in 10 years (the answer: facedown in a gutter), etc. then he might give you an answer, but it's liable to change at a moment's notice, so don't put too much stock in it.

23) What do they want most in life?

if you asked him, he'd probably tell you he wants the freedom to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to. part of him is always hung up on the idea of a lucrative job that will pay him so much money that he doesn't have to worry about not having enough for a place to sleep or for a good gourmet meal or whatever else strikes his fancy in a given moment; unfortunately, he's not very wise with money, so even when he does get a moderate chunk of it he can end up spending it all on an evening of lavish entertainment and a lot of booze. he's gotten better at this over time, because experience has taught him that being completely, utterly broke generally leads to an empty stomach and no roof over your head, which is not fun.

the truth is that he needs, and in his heart of hearts wants, stability. he's been absent stability for much of his life (whether that mean stable relationships, stable employment, housing, etc.), and a part of him sorely desires that, even if he's likewise afraid of the idea of being emotionally tied to someone he might hurt (thanks to that pesky "feral" genetic anomaly) or someone who has the power to hurt or abandon him.

29) What do they do to relax?

smoke fogweed, drink alcohol

Vhox is the sort who finds the (calmer) ocean soothing, be it listening to the waves crashing on the shore or lying on a dock that gets rocked by the waves a little. it's an easy shortcut to relaxing him.

33) Do they have a signature accessory?

do weapons count? Vhox is highly uncomfortable without some kind of weapon on his person, be it a gun or at least one knife. every other feature of his attire would be subject to change, i think; he can rotate through clothing surprisingly quickly as a result of damaging it during jobs or whatever other nonsense he gets up to, and although i can see him owning some other accessories at times (necklaces, etc.) it would rarely be anything he’s particularly attached to, and so would be willing to take it off and sell it if he needed a little extra gil.

[extasiswings]

FLYNN RELATED META FOR YOU: When do you think Flynn realized he was in love with Lucy? I mean, he clearly felt close to her through the journal and by season two he's total heart eyes, but I personally wonder how much he saw her as a friend/support/ally in season one and how much he saw her as the woman he was in love with--and as we all know trash men like to be in denial. So when, in your opinion, did he realize he was actually in love with this tiny firecracker?

First of all, how dare you. Second of all, ahahaha I hope you’re ready for this. 

As we all know, our main man Garcia Flynn is a classic tragic garbage lord who most likely spends a lot of time in denial when it comes to Feelings. (On a feelsy note, this is actually probably because he feels so much and it’s overwhelming to have to deal with it all). And being in love with Lucy is a big complicated mess that is tied up with the grief of losing his family, guilt over moving on, self-loathing over all the things he’s done to fight Rittenhouse, etcetera, so there’s…a lot going on there.

I’ve mentioned this before, but despite my myriad of Flynn/Wentworth and Garcy/Persuasion parallel feelings, I also think of Flynn as very much in the “I was in the middle before I knew I had begun” category when it comes to loving people (including Lorena. This is not an issue exclusive to Lucy). 

All that said, I imagine his “I’m in love with Lucy Preston” saga happens in three parts: 1) pre-canon journal Lucy; 2) S1 savior Lucy (1x16); and finally, 3) S2 real, messy, flawed, human Lucy (2x10). And they’re very different types of love and very different acknowledgments. (Under the cut because I can’t shut up apparently).

For the first, Flynn has about 2 years with the journal before the pilot. By his own admission, he started off seeing it as just a tool to take down Rittenhouse, but then it became something else. And based on what we know, that Lucy came to him in his darkest hour, saved his life, and gave him hope. Based on the fact that he then was left with a diary of her private thoughts, a window into her soul as his only real companion for years…yeah, I think he fell in love with that Lucy. But the way you might love a fictional character or a relative stranger; it’s half a fantasy, half hero worship. And he was not remotely in a place to deal with that so I figure he maybe admitted it once or twice over the course of those years and decided to let it lie.

And then of course he actually meets Lucy. Lucy the historian, Lucy the innocent, who doesn’t believe him, who gets in his way, who is everything and nothing like the woman in the journal. She’s frustrating and maddening and he almost hates her as much as he likes her because she doesn’t live up to his expectations…but she’s also real in a way that journal Lucy isn’t. He knows her and he doesn’t. And there’s definitely attraction there, reluctant as he may be to admit it, but I wouldn’t call it love. Not yet. 

He’s acknowledged something by 1x10. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, because I have always and will always believe that his “What kind of husband or father could I be after the things I’ve done?” was never just about Lorena and Iris. But even then, I don’t think it’s love per say. It’s an “oh shit, I have feelings of some kind and she’s acting like she cares better cut that right off immediately.” And I feel like the idea that he has some sort of feelings by that point is supported by the strength of his reaction at the end of 1x10 and throughout 1x11. Maybe it could just be seeing her actions as a betrayal, but if I don’t care about someone, I’m going to react very differently if they betray me than if it’s someone I care a lot about.  

Skipping ahead to 1x16, this may be cliche, but I think “What if [god] led you to me” was a hell of a realization moment for Flynn. It put him back to “I love her, I trust her, I need her” in a very similar way to how he was with journal Lucy. BUT. At that point he still doesn’t know her know her. It’s still a love born out of desperation, he still has her at least somewhat on a pedestal as his savior and redeemer, it still isn’t quite real. But it is a form of love and I think he admits that. It’s probably why he gives her the journal at the end of S1 because he doesn’t need it anymore, this touchstone, this security blanket, when he has her in front of him.

And then he gets arrested, which in some ways wipes the slate clean for them. He still believes in the journal, but not in the same way. They start working together the way they were always meant to. He gets to know her as a real person. Not his savior, but as the real, messy, flesh-and-blood Lucy Preston who drinks to deal with heartbreak and is as desperately lonely as he is despite being surrounded by people. She starts trusting him. Really trusting him. Leaning on him. Accepting support and care and help. And honestly, I don’t think Flynn thinks too much or too hard about everything he does for her because that would require serious self-reflection of the messy, complicated feelings sort, and as noted at the very beginning, he is a tragic disaster man. 

Which is why I think it happens in 2x10. The ultimate realization, the ultimate acknowledgment to himself of how he feels. “That’s not why I’m here,” he says, and when she asks, “Why are you here?” it feels like one of those moments where your brain speaks before your mouth does and answers the question that you’ve been pushing down and refusing to acknowledge. And the answer is “Because I love you.” Which is…startling and difficult and it is the most inconvenient time to have that conversation (or that realization), but in for a penny, in for a pound, and despite the fact that he’s panicking internally, I do think he was probably going to admit to some version of that before they were interrupted. And I think Lucy knew that, too. Which is why she looks at him the way she does and why he looks at her and Wyatt the way he does at the end (even though I’ve talked before about the fact that I don’t think he could hear that conversation and was moreso hurt because she was hurting and he couldn’t be there for her). 

…anyway. Garcia Flynn loves Lucy Preston, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.    

[autumnsidhe]

Answer all the things

D&D Ask Meme

ah fuck. i can’t believe you’ve done this.everything’s going under a read more b/c it’s gonna be long as all fuck

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.ollie……….. little shit idiot i love him? he and james are both anarchist dumbass but in different ways. brothers in arms.

3. Your favorite side quest.oh christ. there’s no real particular side quests but my fave side plot in general is what i’ll summarise as “alora is a rat bastard.”

alora met a hot rich socialite guy who seemed really into her and she decided she was gonna play the long con on him b/c he might be useful

she and james both agreed to side w/ king clockwork, but when the king actually mentioned it alora gave james a Look™ and he was mad as fuck. he’s still kinda mad as fuck

she decided to be pals w/ a main antagonist (gluto) and didn’t tell us until days after it happened that he’d talked to her in his dreams

alora was told to not tell anyone abt the repugnant’s secret organisation. she immediately spilled the info to everyone

she was told to not mention the organisation’s meeting or anything that went on there. she immediately spilled the info to the motley and literally sent us a photo of the repugnant on his throne speaking to everyone

she was told to keep a specific person away from castle repugnant. she let him waltz right up to the castle w/ everyone else and seemed confused when they said he couldn’t go in

she broke into somewhere w/ gluto and then left him in a room full of very important documents b/c she somehow didn’t think taking him there to begin w/ wouldn’t backfire

the last thing james said to her was literally “i take it back, you’re a stupid shit idiot and i hate you”

4. Your current campaign.random sideplots get to go here this time! most of them are james or ollie b/c we interact the most w/ npcs

james and galant romance sideplot and the sheer amount of wild scenes that have happened as a result (the date, le fway showing up, addy’s dating advice, “ollie, you’re pretty ignorant”, “so you killed your boyfriend”)

ash coaches a baseball team

ollie tries to handle pink drugs, fails to provide any evidence that he’s not the cause

alora helps the repugnant, always immediately regrets it b/c he’s a little bastard man

the gang trying to figure out what’s going on w/ the repugnant’s amnesia

james accidentally making friends w/ a black spiral dancer and being heavily in denial abt why cylus probably got so attached to begin w/ (hint: it’s the anarchy and the horrid rebellious streak)

james nearly sides w/ the main antagonist b/c he’s got the right idea but his methods are fucked

ollie goes to fairy prison, makes friends w/ a vampire and some old sidhe, is currently in the middle of trying to break out

5. Favorite NPC.unfortunately it might be cylus? cylus is like 6 levels of batshit at any given moment and was introduced to us as a nameless dangerous prisoner that galant was holding for some sort of treaty? and james and addy were told to not listen to him for any reason and to not let him free. and of course james let him free. he shifted into a giant 9ft-ish tall war form and then james realised he was really in over his head. upside: he went back in his cell afterwards. downside: he got attached to james. also downside: james didn’t actually get warned that he was a dangerous war criminal until after all this went downthen cylus literally showed up in james’ dream to tell him a few things and warn him that he was planning to escape? and there was nothing james could do b/c “i heard it in a dream” isn’t exactly a solid claim esp when he doesn’t have any sort of future sight. and of course cylus broke outthen james ran into him in the dreaming and james was losing his mind the entire time b/c cylus is an absolute freak and james was stuck walking w/ him for like 2 hours. then like an hour after they parted ways james got flung into a ditch on the edge of town (in the real world) and cylus carried an unconscious james like a sack of potatoes into waffle house and just let him sleep on the table for a bit. then like 3 days later cylus broke into his apartment and made him breakfast.and then james got flung out into the middle of nowhere again for reasons and cylus was there and james had the choice of dealing w/ cylus or being horribly lost in the woods so he chose the first one. and he nearly got caught in the middle of a big werewolf fight that cylus orchestrated. and also nearly got caught in some extremely violent family drama.throughout all of this cylus is acting like he’s james’ best friend and last time they spoke cylus really wanted to do buddy cop stuff! they’re pals! totally! and james wants absolutely none of it but he can’t explode on him b/c he’s a skinny little twink and cylus could snap him like a twig w/ no effort

to summarise:

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).we actually haven’t had many deaths! the only ones i can think of in game that aren’t random monsters were the old bastard and nor nan, which. were both interesting in their own ways, but nor nan’s was mostly tragic and i don’t wanna get feelsy so i’ll just use the old bastard here.to set the scene: we’re at a fancy party. ash and marike (an npc, he’s an unseelie lord and overall a hell of a time) are off on their own trying to catch chimerical creatures that stole their weapons. marike curbstomps one, meanwhile the other has climbed up onto a curtain rod. the place has really high ceilings. his solution? pick up ash and toss him at the creature. ollie and the old bastard (who owns the house) walk in just as this is happening, and the old bastard sees ash tear down the curtain rod for no damn reason. of course he demands answers. ash tries to bullshit a story abt an entire family of raccoons they were trying to chase outthen the old bastard gets shot in the head. ollie and marike are splattered w/ blood. he hits the ground, ash makes a joke abt “telling his wife the bad news”then he notices his wife is the one who just shot him

7. Your favorite downtime activity.the entire arc’s taken place over the course of 15 days in-game, including downtime. we haven’t had any specific downtime activities per say, but the best moment we’ve had during downtime was when ollie broke into james’ apartment and now he refuses to let ollie anywhere near his apartment complex

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.i’ll stick to generally hostile meetings for this since we’ve only a small handful of solid fights? but it’s either “james nearly dies” or “ollie is a good distraction”

to set the scene for the first one: the hospital chimerically burnt down, so the motley decided to investigate and sneaked in as janitors. james ended up alone down in the morgue after finding a body covered in chimerical burns getting wheeled down there. he checks it out, takes a couple photos on his phone. then the door opens.james starts cleaning and stuff, but it turns out the person who came in (gluto!) was also a changeling and very easily noticed the fact that he’s got really noticeable pointy ears in his fae mien. and of course he starts threatening james. and after he pulls out a massive scythe. james sends everyone an sos but they all get stuck in the elevator. so james pulls a gun in a fucking hospital. and he gets called on the bluff but before he can put it away, in bursts galantgalant starts kicking a bit of ass, and then gluto ripped the (already weak from the fire) chimerical ceiling down on top of them! galant did some shit to lift the rubble off them with little to no effort and james was kinda like “oh no he’s hot” for a second before galant kicked a bit more ass and gluto ran like hell!then he next night galant literally died for james (it’s okay, he got better) and confessed that james is his true love and just. man.

for the second one: there’s 3 assassins after galant. he fucked off to lovescreek in order to avoid them, but when ollie found him, one of the assassins had found him! so ollie joins the fray against this troll (who are like 8′ at the shortest), and after a short bit gluto joined in as well to distract ollie from the main fight! so what did ollie do? start loudly singing “i’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts” for a chicanery bunk to turn galant invisible. and of course both assassins turned on him and he ended up having to run like hell but when he lost them galant reappeared and was like “well that was fun”

9. Your favorite thing about D&D tabletop RPGs.i’ll keep it real, i’ve disliked every dnd system i’ve experimented w/ and i’m not a fan of most fantasy so it’s unlikely i’ll every actually play a proper dnd game but god… tabletop stuff is just so much fun? mostly the story and the fact that joe is absolutely godly

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.cylus may be my fav npc but my fav antagonist is definitely king clockwork? ic my very first encounter with him led into him and james talking about their beliefs and ideals for like 2 hours straight and when he was getting ready to leave james was ecstatic that he’d finally met someone who fully understood his mindset. then the bomb dropped that he was the boss of the other antagonists and james was hit w/ this utter horror. and then james considered siding w/ him for a long ass time before eventually trying to kill him to put a stop to everything. yeah. yeahmy fav enemy/antagonist is absolutely gluto b/c he’s creepy as shit. during anyone’s first encounter w/ him i was completely solo and it was horribly unsettling and i simultaneously love and despise him

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?we meet once a week! what game we run varies but recently it’s been changeling every week since we’re still waiting on player characters to start hunter the reckoning lmao

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.we have a bunch of them but uhhhhh random ones off the top of my head

“it’s always sunny in coolville” b/c i realised early on that we were going to be up to a lot of dumb shenanigans and it was easy to make it’s always sunny title cards based on each session

#saveduke b/c there was a whole thing at one point where we had to keep him from getting kidnapped. spun off from that are #SaveDukeFromHimself, #SaveGalantFromJamesStupidity and #SaveDukeAgain?

“appearance 4, captivating” b/c dom said it regularly for multiple sessions until his character dirty danced with a hot guy at a party, after which he decided that alora was a lesbian

“does [insert art] let me throw fireballs?” b/c dom wanting to throw fireballs down the street is a running joke but also he unironically asked if primal 2 would let him throw fireballs

“james got norted” b/c he nearly joined the main antagonist, which devolved into “[insert random character] got norted” at the most random times

james and galant touching tips b/c at one point while they were casually talking ollie just started going 👉👈 in the background and james got really mad and flustered abt it so everyone started doing it

“ultra instinct ash” b/c he’s our shaggy and also has done like fuck all nothing productive in game so him going fucking super saiyan to kill the final boss is hilarious

“i got two hands!” b/c people regularly ask why ollie dual wields broadwords

#OllieOllieOxenFREE b/c ollie got himself sent to fairy jail

“i did [stupid thing], can i buy [half related skill]?” like “i attempted murder, can i get chronos 2?” or “i was an assassin in a past life, can i get melee 3?”

“people, let me tell you bout my best friend!” abt james and cylus b/c boy does james have bad taste in friends

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.uhhh exalted is the only one i’ve been a part of that’s been solidly active, but we’ve got characters for scion for when 2e drops, and i’ve got characters set up for chaos reigns when joe starts the next arc b/c i didn’t wanna peter parker myself into the finale. i don’t remember the rest of the scion crew well enough but i love them

15. Do you have snacks during game times?we almost always grab food on the way there and eat before we properly start

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?in person! it’s the only way i’ve ever done it but i’m 🙏 that maricopa gets running online b/c……….. vampire good………..

17. What are some house rules that your group has?the big house rule for changeling is “ run things fast and loose.” joe knows the characters well and what’s on their sheets so we don’t do too much dice rolling except for arts. joe also takes some artistic liberties w/ some things, mainly wayfare and the inanimae, b/c his main goal is to make a good story and he’s sure as fuck succeeding

18. Does your party keep any pets?do addy and duke count? they’re a white rabbit and a beagle. beyond that, addy’s got pet rabbits, and ollie might be feeding a stray cat

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?not really. dom claims that dice rollers hate him but he also keeps using his dice roller rather than pulling out physical dice

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?i got into tabletop years ago when harley introduced me to the dystopia rising larp and i decided to check out the tabletop version for more lore. the current tabletop system sucks but onyx path is handling 2e and i’m so hyped for it. at some point a bit later i played vampire the masquerade bloodlines, and it got me into the world of darkness and well. i still love it.as for how long i’ve been playing, uh. around a year i think? i forget when we started exalted the borderlands-ing. i’d been sitting in on the group for around a year before that, mostly getting a feel for things and also we were trying to figure out a good jumping in point for me and i wish i could’ve started earlier but it let me mesh w/ everyone a bit easier and also have an outsider’s viewpoint when it came to certain issues

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?oh absolutely, “i fucked up” is the semi-catchphrase for james for a reason. he theoretically has common sense b/c i usually say “this is gonna be stupid/bad” either ic or ooc before i do some shit and well. yeah it doesn’t usually go well but we have fun

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?i think the only thing not original we’ve run since i moved up is strange aeons and maybe a coc scenario? everything else has been original campaigns

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?not too much, really. i sometimes plan out a little of what i’m going to do, but half the time i never actually have the chance b/c stuff moves in a different direction than i was expecting. however i also write the summaries of the shit we’ve gotten up to every session so there’s that

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?i’m not a dm but i’m answering this for joe b/c he flat-out admitted that he couldn’t predict what was going to happen in at least half of changeling b/c we’re an unpredictable mess but everything’s come together to make a really interesting finale

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?answering this one too even tho it’s still a dm question b/c the players themselves are half diplomatic (me, mal, joe depending on game) and half murder hobos (fredy, dom). dom’s been going more diplomatic w/ alora but also she’s so bad at it and it’s wonderful

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?classes aren’t a thing in changeling but out of the kiths ouuuuuuuugh i love sidhe a lot. like they’re honestly cool as hell and i fucking love the house lore? i’ll also do houses b/c fuck it, my fav house is beaumayn b/c they have no chill and every bit of house lore they have is brutal as hell

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)just looking at my trends of characters i’ve got currently (re)built, i have:- the face (james, rex, val)- support (henri, caoimhe, river kinda?)- the antisocial son of a bitch (nomi, neil)- “i’m going to wreck anything you point me at” (hound, oliver, elliot but not by his own choice)- pure chaos (nora, glitch mage)gemma is kinda hard to put into any category b/c she’s babey?

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?it depends on the character? some characters don’t have backstories (caoimhe, nora), some i’ve fleshed out heavily (james). it’s usually assembled from a bunch of random snippets written over the course of however long. some of it’s heavily thought out, other parts are just kinda arbitrary. i also tend to run some more important chunks past joe or mal just to see how they feel? james being from house gwydion was originally arbitrary and wasn’t really gonna matter (joe himself said it would just be a bit of flavour) then he figured out how to fold it into plot and i’m thriving b/c le fway is wild

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?flavour, though use is also a bonus? artswise james currently has naming/chronos/contract, which are all useful in their own ways but also reflect his past lives / him as a person

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?yes. if i’m not able to embrace the character i’m playing is it really that fun? is it really? no b/c when that happens to this group we get the dumbed down version of chaos reigns and i go fucking batshit b/c of the fact that combat takes way too long

[petite-neko]

Chapter Characters: Corazon, Doflamingo, Law, (Baby 5, Buffalo) Pairing: (eventual) LawLu Rating: M Warnings: Vampire AU, (Mostly) canon compliant, Angst, Survivor Guilt, Blood, (Kinda) drug use/addiction, dependency, child grooming, child abuse, abusive relationship, major character death (Other warnings may be added) A/N: Well. I made one part of this story less feelsy....

Except I then proceeded to make the ending far more worse than it originally was. Ooops.

Also all the love to @oturai who is an amazing sounding board for ideas~ Thanks for your help. Helped me flesh out a few more things for this story. AND she’s beta-ing~

Also!!!!!! Just so I do not overwhelm you guys, I add in world-building facts as they become relevant. Don't feel afraid to ask. If it isn't a spoiler I'll probably answer the question :D. I just don't like just plopping a bunch of world-laws all in one text dump. Because a) you may not recall all of it if I give it to you all at once and b) it's boring af to read through that shit. XD.

.xxx. > Time/scene skip

.+++. > PoV change

(Wanna buy me a ko-fi? Link in blog description!)

Prologue || Chapter 1 || Chapter 2

From what I could tell, my brother had turned his most loyal subjects. The ones who found him. The ones who convinced him to kill our father.

And, of course, turning them was not an overly concerning issue. Not in the grand scheme of things. But, he did keep it secret. In fact, he hid behind the charade he had created for us:

We had found an old ruin containing a stash of vials that had not been exposed to the air.

And so, he had used those vials to make us stronger. And, my brother had leftover vials that he had kept. Vials that he would grant to those who proved an undying loyalty to him. Vials were hard to come by, after all.

(Of course, not many knew the truth. And, even from what I could tell, only those original four had known the full truth. Any others who found out due to my brother turning them only thought him a ranked vampire, and not a full breed. Vials, to us, were hardly a barrier. We could make them at any time to prove his story true. In fact, I am very certain he has them, stored somewhere to backup his story. My brother is very meticulous, if anything.)

Perhaps that was why this cursed child came to us. Why he sought us out, of all pirates, to pledge his loyalty to. To have us assist him with his revenge. Maybe he hoped to be injected, just like my brother’s executives had been, supposedly. That – or… well, we were one of the most powerful pirate crews in the North Blue...

(Of course, that was merely because we had two purebloods, and plenty of rank 1 vampires turned by my brother himself.)

Looking at this human child, however... it was eerie. It reminded me of things that I would rather be left in the past. Memories I hid away, but never truly forgot.

This human child, the one driven by vengeance... he reminded me of my brother. All those years ago. The pureblooded vampire who killed his father for the mere action of trying to live amongst those lesser than him.

(Part of me couldn’t help but wonder. Did he use our father’s blood as our charade? Did he have Homing’s blood in vials in a fridge somewhere... to use as proof of our injector status? Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him. Doflamingo was an egotistical bastard. Of course he wouldn’t use his own blood unless he had to...)

And, frankly, I do believe my brother saw the same thing I did. That, upon looking at this human child, he saw a reflection of his past. And perhaps that was why he kept this child. Fostered him and trained him... Even though this human was doomed to die.

But - merely because of that. Because this child would die, I didn’t worry. Why should I worry about a potential threat if it was only to die in a short period of time, anyway?

.xxx.

Of course, despite that, I did encourage the children to leave. Baby 5, Buffalo, and the new one. I tried to show them rejection. I challenged their abilities. Pushed them away. All in hopes that they would leave. Leave and become respectful citizens of the world.

Of course, it never worked.

No, they were set on remaining in this faux family that my brother created.

If I was honest, I think they would have made good marines. Just... except my brother had gotten his hands on them first. He had a knack for attracting those who had bad pasts. Drawing them in with the promises of happiness and acceptance. Of protection and support. To give them just exactly what they had lacked.

He attracted the trash. Attracted them and lured them in.

And I knew. I knew all too intimately just what those promises did to a person.

Sengoku had made the very same promises to me.

There was a reason why Doflamingo picked this trash pile as his headquarters.

He wanted humans. Humans desperate for a change in their lifestyle. Humans who had been neglected and rejected by the marines and vampires.

The marines, or should I say: the government’s loyal guard dogs.

(I also knew just how literal that phrase was. At least among the higher ranks...)

Of course, the marines were full of vampires. Humans, too. Those loyal to the government and their cause. Or humans who opposed the vampire hunters known as pirates or revolutionaries. Many humans who, upon promotions, were either turned, or at the very least, were offered an injection if they wished to remain human.

My brother attracted the darkness in mankind. And he abused it.

That was one of the reasons I had returned to his side.

I knew my brother was planning something. Something to upset the very nature of our world. He wanted to disrupt the hierarchy. Making high ranked vampires, where there were few. Creating injectors when they were a rarity. He was plotting something. Something bad.

Sengoku did not approve.

Of course he didn’t. He saw just how affected I had been after witnessing my brother murder our father in cold blood.

Perhaps I was what my father wanted. A pureblood child able to empathise with the mortals. Able to understand and support them. My brother, however, had lived too long amongst the purebloods. He had been tainted, per se, by them. Learned to live like them. Act like them. And, with the negativity that had greeted us... it had only emphasised his hatred towards the humans.

My brother thought himself superior. A god.

And, it was my job to stop him. I was the only person he would trust within his family. Not to mention... well...

The more pure blood there was around, the better.

And now, now I observed. I observed as he trained and tutored this doomed child. Law, they had called him. Trafalgar Law.

The lone survivor of Flevance.

Just - why? I could not understand. Perhaps it was to show the other children that, no matter your fate, he would help you. Perhaps it was a show. An example.

Another reason for them to follow and revere him.

My brother sickened me.

Almost as much as seeing that look in Law’s eyes. The look that reminded me of those moments before my brother shot our father.

It only spurred on my motivation further.

.xxx.

Law was the oddest child of the group. Death-doomed or not.

Because, well... he was one of the weakest. Baby 5 had come from a mother who abandoned her because of the scarcity of food. Buffalo had come from origins just as sad. They had both survived on scraps. Digging through garbage cans.

And, in the process, they had apparently pricked themselves on discarded syringes.

Syringes in which remained a small amount of blood. Syringes that had changed them. Empowered them.

These children were injectors. Not by necessity or desire, but merely by accident.

But Law? Law was nothing. A plain human child only driven by vengeance. A desire to make those pay just as he had. Make them pay while he still breathed life. While he still survived. Because his time was limited and scarce. Soon, his sickness would get the better of him and he would succumb to the pain his family and country had.

Perhaps, in an alternate universe, this child would have become a great doctor who saved many a lives. But in this one, he had become a homicidal teenager. A being that used his medicinal knowledge to the detriment of others.

All because somebody had decided that his illness was contagious, when it was not.

And every time I looked at him, I was only reminded of my own mission: to stop my brother before he enacted his plan.

Both of us, it seemed, had time limits...

.xxx.

Months turned into years and I watched as the disease slowly ate away at this human.

Which was why, when I saw him getting better - stronger - I became concerned. Suspicious, even. I know my brother had mentioned that he would look out for Law. That he would try and find a cure for him while he remained here, but...

Well, to be frank, the only cure that I could think of was turning the child.

Of course, that was not remotely an option. Once a human was turned, their lifespan increased dramatically. They aged at a much slower rate.

And, with that being said, nobody turned children.

Not the purebloods, who were above the law, turned children slaves. Not the ranked, who were born as and gave birth to humans. Turning a child - it was the ultimate taboo.

To turn a child, a person at the age where development was timely and key... it could do irreparable damage to them. They also did not have the proper... morals to survive in this environment. It hindered their development. Slowed it. It extended their puberty process from a mere five years to at least fifty. And growing children hungered more than any adult would.

It was torture. Torture and...

The world would not easily be able to sustain many children vampires.

That was why the noble ranked vampires waited until their children’s eighteenth birthdays to turn them. Why anybody who was a candidate for turning had to wait until they were adults.

Of course, Law was only a child. A child who, quite simply, did not have enough time. He would die before adulthood. Thirteen, was what he had said. He wanted to kill as many people in the next three years before his time was up, which was somewhere between his thirteenth and fourteenth birthday - if he was lucky. That was what his father’s notes had said.

Pirates or not, even I knew that my brother was not above that law.

(Not only would a child vampire be high maintenance for a crew filled with vampires - if the world government ever found out... well, Sengoku didn’t need my assistance to find a reason to permanently rid the world of my brother.)

And so - how? I was baffled. Baffled at just how this human child - who should be encumbered by his progressing illness - was moving faster. Was getting stronger. Was... progressing as any other normal human should be. It just... was inconceivable. He should be dying, not thriving.

If Doflamingo had found a cure, I knew I would have found out one way or another. The children would be celebrating. It would be broadcasted... something. So... just what was it? From what I had heard, the disease never did seem to let up, even in the final stages. It only ever worsened until the inflicted could no longer move or feel....

It only made me wonder if the path I chose with the children was wrong. Should I have been bonding with them instead of pushing them away? Should I have been offering my ear and my smiles? Should I have been happy and supportive?

Perhaps, then, Law would have indulged me in just what was going on with him...

.xxx.

It had been a few weeks before I had begun figure out just what was going on.

My brother was off on one of his missions. He said it was too dangerous for the children. That he had to look after his family, after all. And he was quite insistent that I remained behind to defend the children. (Part of me worried that maybe, just maybe, he suspected me. That he thought I was the reason the marines were hot on our tails. That they always seemed to know just where we were.)

It caused a momentary panic, but I agreed. I didn’t press. I couldn’t give him for cause for concern. Perhaps he was just worried about the children in his own twisted way.

And the children? Well, they were off on their own. Training. Gossiping. Playing. Just as children should be. (Well... minus the former point.)

It was Law, however, that drew my attention. Something was off with him. It had been a few days since my brother had left and he seemed... impatient. Jittery, even. There was this way his eyes darted back and forth. The way his fingers fidgeted. The bitten lip. The way he would grasp at his arm, or face, or neck or shoulder.

The latter, if it weren’t for his newfound strength, wouldn’t have been as concerning as it was. I knew the spots he was gripping. They were the places that were afflicted with the amber lead.

There was this certain... look in his eyes. It bespoke desperation. Fear, even.

Those amber eyes met my red ones. And suddenly an entirely new emotion reached them, and I was afraid to even name it.

Then, his eyes darted down. Down to my waist. Down to where he had jammed a blade into me all those years ago.

“C-Corazon...”

He never did call me the affectionate nickname the other children had given me. But then again, Law was an unusual child, after all.

Our gazes met again.

The desperation - it had reached his voice now, and he was clinging to his arm again, but only for a moment as that very hand grasped at my coat.

“Com’ere,” he said, tugging me away. “I gotta ask you something.”

I was suspicious - but at the same time, I couldn’t say no. No, if I did I would be pushing him away, and by now I did not want to do that. I wanted him to confide in me. I wanted to know just how and why he was looking healthier.

Very well.

I let him tug me away.

However, while his... question, per se, was not exactly expected, it was not entirely unexpected either.

The little bastard had drawn his dagger and lunged at me once more.

This time, I was not oblivious. This time, I was not unguarded. And, so, I twisted and grasped tightly onto his wrist - ensuring to use my superior strength against his.

What the hell?! I thought we were past this already!

I looked at him with a guarded and discerning look in my eyes.

And his eyes met mine, with that same disturbing expression.

They met mine before he tugged his hand away and-

Wait. No. That was impossible! There was no way a dying human child could have pulled out of my grasp!

It was the surprise that allowed him to gain a blow against my palm, drawing blood.

How the hell?!

However, it was when I followed his gaze that all the dots began to connect together. The way that his eyes were focused on one thing, and one thing only: my palm. Or, more specifically, the blood pooling in it.

His regaining vitality. The strength he should not have. The look in his eyes. The desperation. Those jitters...

The way he looked at my hand. Eyes entranced by the blood there...

The fact that he asked me. The sole targeting of me...

My brother - Doflamingo - was feeding this child. Feeding Law his blood to keep him alive. Strengthening him so his body could battle the disease that was eating away at him. Giving him the ability to overcome it. To live and survive. Prolonging his life day by day...

And now Law was feeling the effects of it. Feeling that addiction that was so common with humans who ingested the blood of a pureblood. The dependence and that need. To feel that strength again. The high and adrenaline rush...

All of which was only emphasised by the fact that Doflamingo’s blood was - quite literally - the only thing keeping Law alive...

(I only remembered that hint of fear I saw within the child. Of the way his illness began to manifest once more as the blood left his system, as he weakened once more...)

I did not know I could hate my brother anymore until this very moment.

I sighed dejectedly, feeling as my heart sank. This wasn’t Law’s fault. He didn’t attack me out of malice, but out of fear. Out of desperation because his body was craving it. His mind was, because Law wasn’t a stupid child. He knew that our blood was, or would be, the only thing keeping him alive. Keeping the Amber Lead at bay. And so, he did the only thing he knew how to do: go after the only source nearby. Because if Doflamingo was a pureblood, so must be his blood brother.

And, so, I held out my hand.

I definitely had a number of words to exchange with my brother when he returned...

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 Loki angst/feels moments from both the MCU and the comics?

ffffff. okay I guess I’ll break this down into two separate categories because I’m pretty sure I can come up with five from each, easy. 

COMICS

1. from Journey Into Mystery: Loki’s I TRIED moment in Everything Burns.

The shit has hit the fan for Loki on a number of fronts at this point - basically somehow everything he’s tried to do has gone somehow awry, despite the best of intentions. 

Fortunately, the panel after this one sees one of the great Thor and Loki hugs of this run. Unfortunately, things only get worse from here.

2. from Journey Into Mystery: the entirety of #645 but especially kid!Loki’s last three conversations. These are, in order: 

A question to the Disir looking for a last ditch solution to the need to dissolve himself to save the world, because Loki would take having his soul devoured rather than having himself supplanted by his old, eviler self.

Sending Leah, his best friend, away, presumably to protect her from said old, eviler self.

Asking Thor to kill him if he ever goes bad.

Right at the end, facing the annihilation of his entire self, Loki spends his last three conversations on trying to protect others. Because however unorthodox, whatever his methods, in the end kid!Loki was what he tried to be: a hero.

3. from The Mighty Thor: 

I metaed about this here, but the basic context of this moment is that Loki steals something called the World Seed from Asgard and hides it to keep Galactus away from Asgard, and when it comes out that Loki was the one behind the theft Thor attacks him, accusing him of betraying Asgard and threatening to break Loki’s neck. Thor does later apologize, but the moment itself is still heartbreaking, and exemplifies everything about the tragedy that is kid!Loki’s life on Asgard. Even when he tries to do good, it comes back on him - here, from his one and only protector, and the person he most wants to please. And, in this case, save. 

4. from Agent of Asgard: Loki finding out he’s been played by the All-Mothers and they intend him to end up as his evil self after all. 

It’s just such a painful moment of betrayal, and underlines one of the major themes of this series about the expectations of others, the weight of story, and the pressure to stay the same - especially as it exerts itself on Loki. 

5. from Agent of Asgard: ”It’s all right.”

This isn’t angst, but it is feelsy. 

I’ve talked about it before, I’ll probably talk about it again, but just…guh. The theme, about forgiveness of the self, is one that’s really personally powerful to me, and the execution of it is beautiful. The way it culminates the whole story about being able to choose what you are, and the way it brings Loki around from his earlier rejection of his older self to the ability to understand, to empathize, and to accept, even while saying definitively: “this isn’t what I am.” 

But it’s a part of him, and Loki recognizes that and takes it in, but turns his back on the potentially crippling weight of guilt, instead choosing to move forward. 

I will probably never read another series that speaks to me quite as much, or in the same way, as Agent of Asgard did.

MCU

1. The scene in the vault. I mean, this one is obvious. Everything about it from start to finish is painful - seeing Loki absolutely break and fall apart, the failure of communication between him and Odin, his panic and fear and horror. It’s Loki’s breaking point and part of the strength of Thor is that you see it happen, and it happens so fast.  

2. The scene after Frigga’s death. I loved this scene - Thor coming down to get help from Loki, the initial attempt to fend him off with an illusion of certainty and confidence and sharp edges - and then how quickly it melts away to reveal the devastation underneath. Not only does it hurt because of how much it says about Loki’s grief, but also because of the way it’s a microcosm of the way Loki operates as a whole: the shell of confidence and mockery, and the wreck within. 

I also love that Loki isn’t very visibly emotional other than the leftover wreckage in his cell - he’s burned out, just tired. There’s nothing left.

3. The opening scene in The Dark World. I come back to this scene all the time because it’s so dense in what it says about Loki and especially his relationship to Odin. The way his carelessness and insouciance melts away the second it becomes clear that Odin doesn’t intend to kill him indicates a lot, to me, about the reasons behind Loki’s behavior in the first half of the scene: he’s expecting it to be a chance to spit in Odin’s face one more time. But instead Odin does the one thing that really, really hurts: buries Loki, dismisses him to be forgotten. And you can see it dawn on Loki that this is it - he’s going to spend the rest of his life alone. 

And god, “your birthright was to die” still makes me want to scream.

4. Loki’s death in The Dark World. I don’t care what Marvel says, this scene was Real and you can’t tell me otherwise. Loki believed he’d die, and whatever happened afterward was a surprise to him. Everything about this, from the moment you can see Loki turn toward Thor being beaten by Kurse to “I didn’t do it for him” makes me want to sob. And I did. Do. 

e v e r y t h i n g. Loki using his moment of closeness even as he’s mortally wounded to kill Kurse. “See you in hell, monster.” The babbled apologies, the fact that it’s the first time Loki’s been held, or even touched in gentleness, since he embraced Frigga at the end of Thor. Thor crying because he just lost his mother and now he’s losing his brother too. And what I’ve talked about before, too, about Loki recognizing that this is the best possible ending for him: he’s never going to be a hero, but at least he can die like one. 

Regardless of what comes after, it’s a damn painful scene. I love it.

5. Loki and Thor on top of Stark Tower in The Avengers. The entire thing is so painful, but my favorite part is when Thor finally gets the chance to address Loki, telling him to stop, trying to get him to see sense, and Loki’s “It’s too late. It’s too late to stop it.” 

It says so much about Loki’s fatalism, his belief that he can’t turn back, that his bridges are burned and that the outcome of everything going forward is inevitable. It’s not just that there’s no resisting Thanos, but that there’s no resisting the inevitable course of his own existence and what he’s meant to be. 

And yet he comes so close, for a moment, to turning around. Teetering on the edge. 

Only to turn his back on that in the (literally) sharpest way he can - by stabbing Thor and throwing himself off the building. (Onto a flying alien motorcycle, but still.)

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK]

It took me all night to stop feeling embarrassed about the scene Knives caused. Maybe deep down, I really did feel flattered that she cared this much, but it was buried under so much shame and annoyance that I couldn't even feel it accurately. Where did she get off inserting herself into my life as some weird kind of protector? Especially since I didn't need any protecting. At all. That was just some random crap I made up to make it clear that I wasn't interested in her hanging around and making me feel better. Not my fault she was too dense to realise.

A few days later, I saw her again. Just enough time to forget that the whole incident happened before I was freshly reminded because she came barging back into my life. Great.

"Are you stalking me?"

"What?" Knives asked, trying to casually drop down from the tree branch. She landed with a quiet tmp against the little patch of grass around the trunk, a would-be innocent smile playing across her lips. "Noooo… not at all."

"Because it feels like you're stalking me. And what's with that?"

"Nothing!" Her hand whipped to one side, throwing the binoculars so hard that they disappeared into the sky with a brief gleam. "Nobody was watching you since you left the house this morning, don't be silly!"

Sighing, I continued walking down the pavement. She kept pace with me; now that I'd found her out, apparently she had decided there was no point in keeping a low profile anymore. My hands clenched into fists in my hoodie pockets. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Well… I'm trying to do surveillance."

"Yeah, I got that."

"For the challenges? You know… see if I can tell from the outside anything more about what I'll face on the inside. So far, nothing obvious. But I wanna be ready!"

"For the imaginary challenges? Wow, quelle surprise."

"Are they imaginary though?" she breathed with a slight squinting of her eyes.

"Dude… you are so weird." For some reason, that made her grin at me, and I rolled my eyes. Didn't seem to be any point in trying to get rid of her anymore, so I just said, "I'm going to work. You won't have anything to do there but watch me watch old movies."

"I love old movies! Like, like… the first Harry Potter!"

Inwardly, I died a little.

                                                      ~ o ~

This manic chick actually came with me to the video rental store. I shouldn't have to tell you that in this millennium, especially after the first decade of it, there's really no point in even having a video rental store anymore, so we had no customers. It was literally hours of sitting around and watching movie after movie, while maybe one guy came in and asked where 'the good stuff' was kept. My glare sent him packing.

"So was it that bad wherever you went for uni that you ended up slumming it back here again?"

"Not bad," Knives told me as she sat on the counter, spinning the orange she had gotten from a convenience store on the way in her hands. It was the last thing either of us had to eat after we made our way through some cheesy Nineties rom-com. "Just not home. Toronto is just, you know? Like… everything's so cool here."

"Yeah, it's freezing."

"Not right now. Summer in Toronto is like, the best. Plus my friend Tamara lives here, I was hoping I'd see her."

There was something about how genuine Knives was that reminded me of Scott when we first met. That could probably play a role in why they were attracted to each other in the first place, and I might be more certain of that if I were some kind of TV pop-psychologist. As in, Scott saw something of his younger self in Knives, the way he was before he broke my heart and Envy broke his in turn. Yadda yadda.

Maybe that's why I hadn't thrown her out yet. Nostalgia.

"Kim?"

"What?" I snapped, since I had been snapped out of my stupor.

"The movie's over."

"Oh…" Ducking my head, I reached over to pull the DVD of 'The Mystical Head' out of the player. "Shit…"

Head tilted to one side, Knives asked me, "What would you be watching if you had to pick? Right now?"

"Zombie Corpse Mutilator IV: The Zombining."

"Really? Is it any good? I don't watch very many scary movies…"

With a long sigh, I stood up and stretched my arms over my head. Knives tried to balance the orange on the bridge of her nose, failed, and caught it before it fell very far. "You probably just want me to put on some drivel like 'Let's Hope There's A Heaven,' don't you?"

"No," she laughed easily. "What about… 'Seven Shaolin Masters'? I like action, but not like, just a bunch of stuff blowing up. And I heard that one's supposed to be pretty authentic, it was done by a Chinese director."

The way she looked all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed reminded me of a squirrel spotting a nut it hadn't cracked yet. Maybe I was the nut. Who knows? But for some reason, her excitement and complete disregard of whether or not I crapped all over her good mood was getting past my defenses. So much so that I said…

"Sure. Think we have a few copies."

We watched it. Not a bad flick. I guess I like it about as much as I like anything, really. Not high praise, but you get the picture. Knives was eating it up. Really… the weirdest part is that she never complained about having to sit there on the counter, just hopped down once in a while to stretch her legs and lean against it instead. Like we had been doing this for years: her coming to hang out with me while I 'worked'. Felt like the plot of some low-budget indie film, shot in black-and-white to be 'ironic'.

About halfway through, she did go to the lavatory, and when she came back she stayed behind the counter. I started to tell her she wasn't allowed, but decided I didn't care enough. Maybe I'm getting soft at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

"Hey," I suddenly asked, during a boring part in which the main character was meditating.

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Watching a movie."

"No… I mean like, going to uni. What's your whole deal?" I cringed; that was a pretty crappy way to ask the question. But, as usual, Knives didn't seem to mind.

"Not really sure. Just want to figure out what I'm doing. My mom wants me to be a doctor, but that is so not happening. Like… I kinda want to found a martial arts school. Super cliché, but I've never really been good at anything else, except fangirling. Which isn't really a 'job' I can get."

"Sure you could. Rent yourself out as a professional fangirl."

Her eyes went round. "You can do that?!" But for once, she seemed to get that I was teasing and smiled. "Aww, silly Kim. But… actually I wonder if there'd be any interest in it… maybe I could start a whole new thing!"

"Weirdo."

"What about you?"

That caught me off guard. "Huh? I'm a drummer."

"Yeah, but you aren't really in a band right now, right? You said you and Neil's sister are just kind of trying stuff."

"It's none of your-" But I cut myself off. This wasn't an interrogation, and Knives wasn't trying to pry. Wasn't trying to. "I just… am trying to figure that out. My life got kicked in the butt by a few events and I need a rebuilding year."

"But it's already been a year since your last band-"

"Knives…"

She fell silent, turning away to finish the movie. She looked guilty, which wasn't really what I wanted; I just wanted her to take the hint that it's not the most fun subject to bring up for me right now. But I didn't know how to tell her that without getting all sappy and feelsy, so I didn't try.

When Comeau came in to relieve me, we split, and she followed along behind like a good puppy. A good stray puppy. One I never wanted, but for some reason, I didn't mind her there. We did start getting along toward the end of Sex Bob-omb's career, I guess.

"You wanna get some food? It's about dinner time. Or you probably have plans, huh?"

Shrugging, I managed to mutter, "Eh." I didn't have any plans. I never had many plans anymore; met up with Stephen once a week, or less. Steph wasn't so much a friend as a colleague… which I guess was where both of them stood with me. Where did everybody go?

"Cool. Wanna get Sneaky Dee's?"

"Ugh… too noisy. Not in the mood."

"Poutine? Sushi?"

I started to make a very vaguely racist joke about sushi being the wrong food for her, but decided it would be more hurtful than funny. Especially to Knives, who only seemed to get the most obvious jokes. "Poutine works. I could use some gravy-laden goodness."

"Cool. Let's do it!"

She skipped off down the path, hair bouncing on the breeze. I didn't notice before that she was still keeping it short, I was so focused on the fact that she stopped dyeing it in the front. Kind of a compromise between who she had been before Scott and who she was after, maybe.

Not that I knew why I was noticing now. I must really have been bored. "Wait up, you dumbass," I grumbled under my breath as I trudged after her.

                                                      ~ o ~

Somehow, grabbing dinner with this almost-a-stranger was fine. She gushed about college life, about some group of friends she found online and really connected with or whatever. I was only half paying attention while I chewed. Between bites she was drinking a ginger ale, and kept setting it down so hard that a few droplets would fly up and land on the table, or even on her face. That annoyed me, but it was also kind of… cute somehow. Maybe I needed therapy.

Once we finished up, we walked to the bus stop that would take her back in the direction of her house. It was awkward. There was no real reason for it to be awkward but it was; she looked down at her boots, rocking back and forth with her hands in the small of her back.

"U-um… do you mind if I drop by more? You seemed kind of unhappy to see me at first. If you really want me to leave you alone forever…"

"Yes. I do."

"Okay. S-sorry, Kim."

Now I felt like I was kicking a puppy. She wasn't really that bad; I just hated being forced to endure the company of anyone besides myself and my inner demons. "Ugh… just don't make a big deal about it, and shut up if we get too busy, alright? God."

Her mopey face turned into a wide smile over the course of the following five seconds. "YAY!" No seriously, she said 'yay'. And meant it. What the fuck was she even? Her arms sprang forward, and before I could tell what was about to happen, she had me caught in a crushing hug.

"Let GO. Dude, seriously! Off!"

"I'll see you tomorrow! Oh man, this is gonna be a great summer!" Without any further ado, she pranced over to the bus stop, walking backward so she could wave at me the entire time. Anybody could have predicted that she would trip over the old man's dachshund, but she picked herself up right away with a light giggle, apologising to both of them before waving again.

Our definitions of "great summer" don't have much overlap.

                                                       To Be Continued…

[ghost-town-story]

He Was Never Mine to Have: A Hopeful Conclusion

For the first time in this unexpected series, I’m not writing this at fucklate at night, so we got that going for us here.

The first part was bittersweet, the second part was bitter, and the third part is (hopefully) sweet.

There’s not multiple parts to this story. Just one night to talk about.

Last Tuesday, we had a concert. The people performing were Percussion Ensemble, Acapella Choir, Woodwind Choir, regular Choir, and Brass Choir, in that order. I’m in Woodwind Choir, along with a friend I’ll call Y, and Tech was in Brass Choir, and Acapella with Chuck. 

So I’m sitting with Y and we’re watching the concert while waiting to go, and Acapella goes up to sing. I’m excited cause another of my friends is singing in there, plus I’ve heard them sing once before and they’re pretty good. And damn did they sing some pretty songs. There’s two really feelsy ones that I keep listening to on repeat now. (Plus they did Radioactive with Chuck singing the main part so that was cool). The whole time I was like “Okay chick, don’t stare at Tech,” but I did let myself stare a few times, especially during the more feelsy songs. And damn my crush was definitely there. I’ve found, within the past few weeks, that no matter how bitter I am at what he’s done to me, I can’t be bitter at him. Not because I’m helplessly in love, but... idk. I’m just not bitter at him anymore. And I’m okay with that. 

We went up right after Acapella, so I passed by Chuck and Tech. Chuck laughed at how the bari sax is nearly as large as me, and I challenged him and Tech to separate fights. Chuck’s like “nah.” Tech says “sure,” but I’m past him by this point cause I gotta get on stage. 

After the performance, we got pizza. I was putting away my sax in the instrument storage room when Tech walked in to put away his baritone.  “Now the real question is,” he said, “is not whether the bari is the same size as you, but whether you can fit in the case.”  “Probably,” I replied. “If you take out all the fuzz. It’s nearly as tall as me after all.” Tech laughed and told me a story of when he was in high school, and they tried to prank his band teacher by hiding a student in a case and saying there was something wrong with the instrument. It went wrong, and I snickered at their failure. 

I met up with Y again (she owns her flute, so she doesn’t have to/doesn’t store her flute in the instrument storage area), and we go to get pizza. We got food and sat down on a bench right after the pizza. Tech got pizza soon afterwards and came to sit next to us. He asked how my quarter was going. “Death, but what’s new,” was my response. It’s ninth week, what do you expect lol. I chatted with Y and we ate in relative silence, until Tech got up to go talk to other people. It was better than him sitting in awkward silence next to me, cause I still didn’t (and kinda don’t) know how to interact with him.

Soon after Tech left, Chuck got pizza and came to stand next to Y and I (he knows Y from some community service frat thingy they’re in? Idk much tbh all I know is it’s co-ed). By that point Tech’s seat was taken, but he stands next to us and eats pizza and we chat. At one point I tell him to fight me (as usual) and he pulls over a person from choir and is like “I’m gonna use you as a weapon to hit a motherfucker with a motherfucker.” Tech has returned by this point, and starts laughing. At another point, Chuck details how he would use Tech to beat me up.  “Please don’t smash me into the floor,” I said. “I don’t need to be shorter.”  “Smol,” Chuck called me. 

We sit around and talk until everybody’s gone. Chuck takes a plate of cookies to take home cause it’s like who else is gonna eat them and the music directors ain’t gonna care lol.  “You better share those,” Tech said.  “I was planning on putting these in the kitchen,” was Chuck’s response.  “Good boy.” Jeez Tech.

At some point, Y and I are standing by Y’s car, Chuck and Tech are nearby but not yet by their cars, and we got on the topic of lighters and fire.  “Yeah, I gave SM fire,” Chuck said. “And I offered some to you, but you said no.”  “My heart said yes, my head said no,” I clarified. Tech walked off towards his car. I was confused, but mostly ignore him as Chuck said, “You know, you should always follow your heart.” Yeah, well, too late for that, I think, at least in terms of lighters.  “Catch!” Tech yells from his car.  “Please no,” was my response, because if my guess was correct, I didn’t want to try and catch it, and I didn’t want to have whatever hit Y’s car if I just missed entirely. Tech walked back, a shit-eating grin on his face, and when he gets close, he hands me a lighter. I’m excited, Y’s like “oh no,” and Chuck’s like “Don’t burn shit down.” 

Y got into her car while Tech and Chuck were talking, and I asked her if we were going (she was driving us to Walmart). At that, Chuck is like “Well, I’d better go. Have fun at Walmart, and don’t burn it down.” Since I was getting into the car at the time, and Tech was saying something at the same time, I didn’t hear if Chuck said do or don’t, so I asked him. Tech responded. “I said, do, he said don’t.”  “Who should I listen to then?” “The one who can beat you up,” said Chuck.  “The one who’s gonna be here longer,” responded Tech. “And I can beat her up.” I laughed. “You guys have fun fighting over who gets to beat me up. See ya!” And I closed my door, and all three of us drove away. 

When I got back to my room, I took the lighter out to look at it more. When Tech handed it to me, all I noticed was that it was blue, and was kinda beat up, but I was so excited anyways. The siding was starting to peel at the bottom, the wheel at the top was gritty, and along one side was the name of Tech’s frat, and a picture of a unicorn (I think that might be their unofficial mascot for reasons mostly unknown to me). And that lighter’s really too goddamned precious to me now. Not just because it’s a present from Tech, but I’d wanted a lighter for so long, and now I have one.

It’s really weird you know. But it’s like that concert and that lighter kinda flipped a switch, and now I’m really not bitter anymore. I mean yeah, I still have a crush on him, and it’s so one-sided since I know he doesn’t want to date me, but I also don’t want to date him so there’s also that, and ugh it’s just hella complicated lol. 

Long story short. I’m not quite over you yet Walt, but I’m far more at peace with my crush now. And thanks for the lighter. It’s cute :)

I don’t need the love of a boy over 80 miles away because I have a lighter in my pocket and nicknames that stick. I have friends who tease me mercilessly yet love me for who I am I have a theater family that made me feel like I belonged from the very first show. I don’t need to pine and wish for what I had and lost, because I have a lighter in my pocket, and optimism for the future.

That could be an alternate title for this part. I Have a Lighter in my Pocket.