#BAM post made i can die in peace now

[secondhand-lions]

THE POST ABOUT THE LAYERS OF SIRENITY'S NAME

oh man okay. uhh

SIREN:

- high speech, high barter, pretty, hot, and handsome. what else is there to say? They'll string you along and you won't realize until it's too late.

- this was also a stage name, along with "Sir Wren"/"Sir Ren" which was a general alias.

- yayyy irony! there aint no water in the desert! where's a siren even going to LIVE??? but here they are! flourishing!

- edit because if uckin forgor: siren. 🚨. loud and flashy. warnings. a fantastic asset in a crisis, really annoying at any other time.

SERENITY:

- as in "the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled."; Sirenity can't feel fear. Well, they fear nothing, but that basically means they can't feel fear. Sirenity conducts herself with such grace and ease through very, very nasty situations that it's honestly pretty freaky.

- this one's also ironic because "serene" isn't a word that would come to mind when thinking about literally anything else about Sirenity's whole deal

- i didn't even realize this one until i was looking up the definition but "serenity" is also "a title given to a reigning prince or similar dignitary" apparently. so that, uh, also fits. OH SHOOT THIS MEANS THE LION THING FITS EVEN BETTER.

- The Lion Thing: the two animals that come to mind when i think about Sirenity are coyotes and lions.

- Lions because they're a big, regal cat who are protective of their families and very dangerous, except when you actually look at their behaviour, they are much, much closer to a lowlife scavenger than any sort of royalty. Something about profiting off of a mask you didn't even realize you were wearing.

- (Coyotes because they're not-quite-dog/not-quite-wolf/not-quite-fox, somehow loud and sneaky at the same time, scavenger-predator who's generally regarded as a trickster spirit in North American mythologies.)

[fairydollsteps]

Levi Ackerman as a Father

(Just a reminder here: This will takes place in the time-skip where the world is peaceful and Levi finally owns his dream tea shop. As well as, building a family with you.)

- Levi never thought that he would have a happy future after the brutal war and deaths of his loved ones. All his life is about surviving this cruel world. Killing titans, watching his dearest friends and comrades that he considered as families dies in front of him and carrying all the heavy burdens on his shoulder. 

- Levi is tired and he thinks he is also going to die in the future and reunite with his loved ones. 

-That’s when he meets you and gosh. He wants to thank the Gods for finally sending someone to him where he can love and be ease with. You have help him feel happy and take him away from his grief and pain. You were patient with him and read him like a book. 

- You always comfort him when he feels sad or has nightmares. Take care of him like a mother, making sure he is in a healthy condition. He was surprised when you still stay even when he yell at you with painful and cynical remarks because you know what he meant is not true. You know that he said that because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to have you as his lover. Yes, you always stay by his side and accept for who he is.

- You have proven yourself that you would never leave like the others and Levi will forever be grateful for that and fall hard for you even more.

- That’s when he proposed to you and you happily accepted it and take his last name. The wedding was beautiful and delightful. Both Levi and you had  wonderful time there. 

- After a few years of marriage, Levi and you have found out that you are pregnant. Levi realized that he is going to become a father. He is going to create a family with the woman that he loved dearly.

- Of course because of his past and never had a father figure. He was worried and was about to lose his mind. But you reassure him that he would be a great father. His doubts and anxieties perished when he saw his child finally born into this world.

- It’s a girl and she looks just like you. He couldn’t explains the feelings he is having now. It’s the same with his mother along with Farlan and Isabel but is more extreme that he froze. Then, a tear of happiness drop and he was crying. Crying in tears of joy.

- He loved his girl so much that he would do anything for her. He swore to himself that he would protect and care for her. He would give her everything that he never had as a child. Love, Education, Fun, Peace, Everything. Just anything just so she does not have up like him.

- Levi and you decided to name your child “Selene’ because her eyes is as blue as the night sky and shines brightly like the moon. That’s the only appearance trait that she inherit from his father. The rest is from your look and also your personality. Basically, she almost the copy of you but has Levi eyes. And Levi loved that a lot because he can see Selene in you. Your charming and intellect  personality and your ethereal beauty.

- Levi would be the protective type of father. Always making sure Selene is secure, away from danger. Eating healthy and stuff. Despite his protective nature, he would always teacher his daughter to take care of herself and be independent. 

- During Selene’s toddler year, Levi would spend his time with her a lot and take care of her while you are away for your work. You can trust Levi to take care of Selene.

-She is 100% daddy girl.

- Levi and Selene would play tea party together, hide-and-seek, play board games and so on. Levi would also help her do her homework that she don’t understand certain questions. He would always be pleased to see his daughter tries to solve a difficult question by herself and find her determination and attempt adorable, reminding her of you.

-Levi would take Selene to his tea shop to work. While he works, Selene would sit down on a table obediently and do her homework or read a book. Sometimes, she would bring her friends along to her father’s teashop to hang out.

-Levi would sometimes spoil his precious daughter. Like if she wants that book because it looks interesting? Bam! She is now reading it in her bedroom. Or if she wants that chocolate cake because she is craving sweets? Bam! She is now eating it happily. But of course, Levi would remember to control himself even looking at the puppy eyes and the mantra of “please”.

- Like I mention before, Selene inherits your intellect traits. Therefore, she would always come home with high marks and being the top of the class, making her father proud like a peacock and Levi would brag about it. (So cute.)

- Selene also inherit Levi keeping hygiene and tidiness but not too extreme. She and Levi would both cleaning the house and you would come home noticing that the house is spotless. You would always give her something as a reward for helping her father and pat on the head. ( and kiss on Levi’s forehead too lol)

-Selene is terrible keeping track of her time like she would be at the library for a more than she should or hanging out with her friends. Is not that does not want to listen to her parents. It’s just she does not know when what time is without anyone telling her.

- Which makes Levi worried constantly (and sick of finding where the hell is she  for hours), so Levi bought her a pretty compass and teach her to keep track of her time. Now Selene finally on time for dinner. Giving Levi a sigh of relief.

- Selene still keep and take good care of the compass that her father give for a long time and cherish it dearly as if is her treasure.

- The workers that work for Levi’s teashop enjoys spending time and taking care of her while Levi is away for a sec. They love to give her sweets and gifts. They all thought she is adorable and treats her like a little princess.

-In conclusion, Levi would be a good father. He is very happy to have you and Selene in his life and wish this happiness would last forever.

(Hey you made it to the end! Thank you so much for reading! This my first and ever post and I really appreciate for your time to read it! I am sorry if there is any grammar errors in her. I am too lazy to check it to send it to Grammarly! haha! Likes and reblogs would be deeply appreciated. Once again, Thank you Reading and I do Hope you enjoy reading my writing!)

[reeeyachi]

Thoughts: KilluGon Confession, Gon’s Emotional Control

Okay, so, this is a follow up post to my response/reaction/emotions on Tele’s post about KilluGon potentially canon explicit romantic confession. (Her detailed explanation was wonderful and beautiful and excellent, I just wanted to make a separate post on my thoughts because my brain is screaming into the void rn.)

Ok disclaimer: I’m working with the remainder of my caffeinated braincells right now so everything I say will be 100% subjective and just *thoughts* aka *mush*.

So…

I’ve also had/believed this headcanon that Gon fell first since I started watching hxh years ago because it’s too obvious, right? Tbh, I never thought of Killua being gay for Gon until recently (like 8 months ago-recently) because it’s always Gon who’s explicit about his thoughts on Killua. It’s too obvious. We could never miss it. So him confessing his love for him would make so much sense. Everything falls into place in my head.

Lea said some really good stuff about Killua’s character arc and how it sends a positive message to all the readers and everyone who identifies with him, a child who suffered from years of abuse. And him receiving love, accepting it and giving it in return would complete his growth process (I’m basically just summarizing here; please read Tele’s post they’re much more comprehensive and well-written).

A dramatic romantic confession to happen in canon would be the one to seal it – from Gon, a complete stranger he randomly met at the Hunter Exam, the first person to call him a friend, the person who went out of his way to save him from his family’s tortures, the boy who accepted him for who he is, wholly, unconditionally.

It would change everything. It would end past traumas.

Not only Killua’s, but also Gon’s.

Please allow me to lay down my 4am thoughts about what I think confessing his feelings for Killua would mean for Gon as well (with regard to his own character arc and self-worth issues).

Okay so before I go into that I want to try and explain how “confessing love” feels like / what it means to the person SAYING it. It’s nerve-racking. The tension. The pressure on your shoulders. The block in your throat. Your shaky hands. Your shaky voice. The fear of getting rejected. The fear of saying the wrong words or doing the wrong thing. The fear of jumping into the unknown. It’s a leap of faith. An ending and/or a beginning. It’s that line you cross where you can never go back. Once the words are said, BAM, it stays forever, and the very thought of that, the anxiety, the overthinking, nips at your brain.

The very thought of confessing to a person you like/love FOR THE FIRST TIME is fucking terrifying (Idk about you, but it is to me. And I feel like, for TEENAGERS, it would feel like hell’s pulling them to the earth’s core. Just. The thought of it.)

What I’m trying to say here is that, expressing genuine *romantic* feelings takes courage. And in this headcanon, with Gon being the one to SAY IT FIRST, he would probably go through all of these. But him being ABLE to say it would mean MORE THAN overcoming a fear of expressing. “But Gon doesn’t have any problems expressing his emotions.” Actually, you’re not wrong. But, for me, this isn’t exactly right.

Let’s jump first to me explaining my take on how Gon handles emotions:

For me, Gon has a hard time expressing what’s in his heart. Idk how to explain, but it’s just that, it’s so easy for him to say what’s on his mind all the time. But he has a tendency of neglecting negative emotions and hiding his true feelings; or letting himself feel it for a while but then he finds something that would make him forget about it. We’ve seen him breakdown. Emotions. Just piled up. And he exploded.

He said some bad things to Killua, he did some bad stuff. It’s all in the heat of the moment. And for me, I see it as lack of emotional control (bc he’s 12 and has abandonment issues and witnessed his father-figure severe his arm and basically dead in front of him give him a break YOU BREAKDOWN AND SAY BAD THINGS TO PEOPLE YOU LOVE AT 23Y/O DO NOT DENY IT) because he doesn’t know HOW to control it when it gets to him.

He’s afraid that he might break. And in effect, he would feel weak and helpless and useless. (Or even vice versa.)

Gon, unknowingly, protects himself from breaking by inserting the good things in his head. He protects himself from feeling useless by lending a helping hand, because he feels that he’s valuable that way; he feels that he’ll be loved and validated that way. He’d feel that he has purpose. It happens to people, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but it’s something that Gon could learn how to cope up with as he grows and matures.

(Read Tele’s wonderful meta about Gon Freecss here. I haven’t finished reading but I’m loving every bit of it so far.)

Ok back to the confession take:

Having said that, I feel that Gon would find it difficult to express what it is he’s feeling in his heart. But here we have to recognize the fact that Togashi threw him back in Whale Island, nen-less and Killua-less, doing homework and chores and good ‘ol Islander stuff. The beauty of this interval is that it would give him MORE TIME and the SPACE and PEACE he needs to get into his head and heart and just think everything through, learn how to deal with his emotions. Since he already experienced a peak of his emotional catastrophe at 12y/o, he would look back at everything and just… realize what it is that he has to.

Part of it is his feelings for you-know-who catboy. <3

And he wants to tell him. I also think that he would want something to happen after telling him. But, he doesn’t know if or how he could say it freely, unlike before when they were stargazing and he suddenly told him that he happy when he’s with Killua. At that time, it was a spur of the moment; at that time, him and Killua haven’t experienced the trauma that is CAA; at that time, it was simple. But now? How could Gon face him and tell him that he loves Killua after everything that had happened? Something would hold him back. He would hesitate. Something like…

So, again, him being able to say it (for me) would mean so much more than a simple get-together. Here’s a short list because I love lists!

Self-discovery and self-affirmation. You know how we see Gon as this sunshine boy who just wants to follow his dad’s footsteps to try and figure out what being a hunter is like / what’s great about being a hunter that Ging chose to not stay with him. At the present timeline, he already met Ging, he fulfilled his goal. What would he do now? What does he truly want? For me, him knowing that he *loves* someone dearly and *wants* to stay with that person would mean that he’s discovering which path he intends to go, for the long-term, and that sticking with that plan by expressing what he feels would simply affirm this self-discovery. It’s kind of related to that post by Tele here, of Gon following a path that’s not his dad’s footsteps. He’d have his own thing. He’d be his own person. Confessing your true feelings to your BEST FRIEND in the whole world would be a BIG STEP and Gon should know that it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a very mature thing to do! When this becomes canon, idk, I’d cry because I’d be so proud of him for realizing what he feels, taking that emotion carefully and maturely, and expressing it lovingly – which brings me to my next point.

Being open to give and accept love again. Emphasize on the “again” because he went through a traumatic episode in his young life. You know that saying that you can never give what you don’t have? Well, folks, I think this is also applicable to Gon’s character now, like, after CAA, and after everything basically. We always see him giving love to OTHERS. Do we see him give love to himself? Gon endures pain and suffering because he thought it’s what he deserved. He’s willing to die in his best friend’s place so that he’d live. He’s willing to die to atone for something he didn’t even do. Gon needed to love himself. He had to learn how to take care of himself. You can never give a love you don’t have – so him dropping everything and professing his love for Killua would also mean that he DID it, finally. He’d have so much love for himself to give. He’d be ready to give all the love he stored for himself, and I think that’s really pretty.

Overcoming past trauma / getting back up on his feet. Having said all those, it all boils down to overcoming and ending past trauma – everything – because it would be a start of something new and fresh and beautiful. It would be a beginning of a new world for him, bright, spotless, unadulterated. When you fall in love, everything falls into place somehow, and all you see are beautiful things. I think this is meaningful because, while he’d seen beautiful things, Gon experienced abandonment, he experienced trauma and all the awful things we saw so far. So, with this confession happening, this new beginning, he’d look at the world with brand new eyes, he’d look at Killua, and think that it’s not so bad after all, because he’d have this overflowing love stored in his heart. It would cancel out the bad. He’d have another reason to live and stay alive. He’d have that one thing he wants more than any material thing – and that is love and happiness. Confessing is a choice. And by doing it, Gon chooses love and happiness over any material thing he wished to hunt.

I don’t know if that made sense but there! lol This might be reaching but just imagine the symbolism. It would mean so much. <3

[blooms-of-ice]

Wyda is officially retired...for now. She had a good run, and I loved writing for her! GOD the existential dread I felt as I drew closer and closer to running the event that would end her.

Her story continues through another. Give a follow here! :D

I’ll be keeping this blog up as an archive, although I might still post every now and again. But since her arc is done, here goes! An unedited, unfiltered slurry of words-directly-from-brain-to-keyboard about Wyda! I’m warning you, this is true farm fresh to you stuff. And spoilers for many events in FF14. Read on if you dare.

Strap in, it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride.

Did I say that I love Primals?

Primal lore gives the FF14 devs a lot of creative freedom when it comes to designing bosses. Want the arena changed? Want something/someone to look absolutely wack? Want to spin up a threat without having a villain train for years prior? Bam, primals.

It also gives us, the players, the same creative freedoms when it comes to roleplaying!

The requirements to summon one are humorously low. At first, primals result from misguided and zealous beastmen shenanigans. Ifrit, Titan, Ramuh, Leviathan, Garuda...but then we get a bunch of weird summonings. Like when Ga Bu summons a funky version of Titan through his despair alone. Or when Yotsuyu brings forth Tsukuyomi because she really, really wants to see the world burn. Hell, Gilgamesh just thinks about his friend Enkidu in the presence of some crystals, and that’s enough to bring forth a primal. So I guess the only requirements for a primal summoning are 1) crystals and 2) thinking kinda hard? Strong feelings, especially negative ones, seem to be more effective but then again! What the heck happened with Gilgamesh? Who knows?!

But this is one of my favorite things in FF14. It’s a powder keg of a situation that will, and HAS, gone off multiple times.

Being tempered, meanwhile, is a fate worse than death. You’re forced to change sides and fight for the enemy. You don’t even find peace when you die - tempered souls linger in Eorzea thanks to how messed up they are by the process. But you don’t become a mindless servant either. *Points to Emet-Selch who is....kinda...on your side (???) but also on Zodiark’s side*

Things aren’t nearly as dark now that tempering can be cured. I’m very thankful, since otherwise my campaign would’ve had a very, very depressing ending. One that I originally planned for but STILL. I’m weak. ;_;

Riding off the Rails

Primal lore is flexible. In ARR, the rules are established, but later expansions took those rules and went “Well, what about this? And this? And this?” In other words, this is me admitting that I’m shameless and will stretch this lore until I reach the moon.

Developing Wyda was a ‘chicken first, egg later’ sort of situation. Though trite, I gave her amnesia in order to give myself an excuse for knowing nothing about FF14 lore (and because I was new to roleplaying). When I finally sat down to flesh her out, my mind kept returning to primals. I love ‘em and their potential for drama! So yeah, I was determined to make it work.

There were a lot of questions I had to answer. If Wyda is a primal, then why isn’t she tempering everyone she meets?! How is she getting away with being a ‘normal’ person? And how do I avoid power creep? I know, for a fact, that if I walked into an RP event and just said...hey. My character is a primal, are you cool with that? The answer would be a solid no. Nooooo! I’d tell that to myself! So I wanted to solve these questions in a fair way that would allow others (and myself) to remain immersed in the roleplaying world. Luckily, FF14 lore is like a bottomless chest of building blocks. It was just a matter of stacking them carefully.

Primals are summoned when someone thinks around some crystals (Ah, Gilgamesh...)

The primal’s purpose is based on the summoner’s desires, but with a monkey’s paw twist (Ga Bu’s Titan punching the other kobolds away is indicative of this)

The amount of aether used in the summoning determines how powerful the primal will be (Shinryu being beefy as hell)

Primals can be summoned out of thin air, or be channeled into someone’s body

When a primal is channeled, the summoner needs the Echo to resist (Ysalye and Ryne). Otherwise the summoner is tempered by their own creation.

Now, with those blocks in hand, I started spitballing...and it led me to this thought. If a primal’s purpose is to NOT be a primal, what happens?

Would they know that they’re a primal?

Can they still use their primal powers?

What happens when the primal is based off of someone who still exists?

For Wyda, I chose to swing this way.

Her memory is garbage because she’s a primal based on someone else. Even if you know someone really well, you can’t perfectly recreate/emulate them.

She’s normal-powered because all her primal magic is going towards suppressing her powers. Extremely inefficient. And she’s very human-like because she’s possessing someone else’s body, as opposed to being made purely of primal aether.

Primals temper whether they want to or not - aether leaks, and it corrupts. To solve this for Wyda, instead of leaking aether out of the wazoo...thanks to the nature of her summoning, she just leaks a tiny bit all the time. Not enough to temper.

But I also wrote myself into a corner. If Wyda isn’t going to behave like a primal, then how does she exist for so long? They need a constant source of aether to survive, and she’s not doing primal stuff since she’s too busy being human. And so...the answer is that she doesn’t. Once her aether runs out, then poof.

See? Fun! (But also pain. So much pain.)

Playing with Fire

Eorzea (like most fantasy RPG settings) is a nightmare factory. Most, if not all, who make their living ‘adventuring’ are scarred from what they have to face. For every success story (WoL), there are countless more tragedies (Avere). And even if you survive...who wouldn’t get trauma if you were an adventurer and it was normal for your buddies to be eaten by a beast, tempered by a primal, possessed by a ghost?

Which is to say, Wyda's scars run deep. Shit goes down. 

To repeat that in slightly more words: Wyda is an accidental byproduct of Cravendy’s grief and longing. At her lowest moment, Cravendy (a Seawolf pirate) thinks of her friend Dots and the unfairness of it all. And oops, there are crystals nearby. So now, we got Wyda walking around in Cravendy’s body, thinking that she’s someone named Dots. By the way, Dots is still alive! Very awkward.

Wyda is a denial incarnate. She is Cravendy’s dream for safety, family, and happiness for Dots. But denial does not erase the past, nor does it change how you feel. By existing, Wyda suppresses those feelings for Cravendy and freezes the other woman in the past. With the both of them like this, Cravendy will never accept her trauma and Wyda will be plagued with a stranger’s guilt.

Primal souls are weird. I have no idea where they come from, but they seem separate from the summoner’s. So as Wyda’s influence wanes, Cravendy’s soul begins to resurface. This forces Wyda into a cycle of self-discovery and self-destruction that, unfortunately, convinces Wyda that she ought to disappear. It’s a tragic conclusion she reaches after having her worldview shattered. She’s a copy of Dots, she’s a primal. What’s real, and what’s not? What even matters?

The Power of Love

Love is a persistent theme for all of my characters. For Cravendy, love is why she hurts, so she would rather forget it than bear any more pain. But Wyda is the opposite - she loves too much. When all else is a sham, Wyda trusts that the love she feels is real. And ultimately, this love dooms Wyda and saves Cravendy.

Wyda’s fatal flaw is her self-destructive selflessness. Thanks to being mistaken for Dots all the time, Wyda develops a low sense of self. Then events of the campaign erode that into nothingness. She’s a second rate copy full of brittle memories, she’s a fake! And discovering Cravendy’s sleeping soul only pushes Wyda further into her flaw. Here is my purpose, she thinks! My original! And I’ll save her no matter what, because she deserves to live!

But it’s a mistake. Certainly, Cravendy is saved, but Wyda deserves to be saved too. Although she loves with all her heart, Wyda never learns to love herself and see her own self-worth. She doesn’t understand that her friends don’t share her view of herself - as a worthless copy that can only find value in saving another. Her selflessness loops into selfishness.

Maybe Wyda will come back...She certainly has a lot to learn still!

The TLDR version of all this is that I accidentally pulled a Kingdom Hearts plot with this character, and now I understand, Nomura. I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU BRING BACK YOUR CHARACTERS. ;_;

[ba-mi-soro-orisha]

when youre done recovering id love to hear your thoughts on the book(even if the post ends up being almost as long lmao)

Buckle up, y’all, cause this is going DEEP INTO SPOILERS. This is my no-holds-barred take on Children of Virtue and Vengeance!

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING

.

If you read any further past this, CoVaV is gonna be majorly spoiled for you. This is your last warning.

.

Okay, I gotta open with a minor - but really the only - critique I had about CVV: we know Tomi was rushed in finishing the book in time for the third pushed back date, and the book kinda reads like it. Book 1, I felt like we got a lot more detail and getting to know characters and buildup of the plot. Book 2, it felt like we were just rushing to get through all the action planned. There wasn’t very much in between downtime, which resulted in not only a kinda rushed book with way more plot than pages, but also a very emotionally devastating book. 

Which leads me to: I feel like the central theme of CoBaB was more “hope”, while in CoVaV it was straight up “conflict”. And there was no recovery time. Even the precious few hopeful times that were in the book, I didn’t really have time to process or chill or cope. I always knew something worse was coming, which is what made this such a raw read. I do think the book could have benefited from giving us a little more hope. Like three-quarters of the way through, I had to keep thinking back to CBB and how I felt reading it and hoping there would be more hopeful and optimistic feelings in book 3. I couldn’t put the book down, but as a result, I pretty much just sobbed through the last fourth (at least) of the book, finished the book, sat in shock, and then went to bed. This book literally exhausted me. What a godsdamned ride.

I completely get why the book was like this, even if it wasn’t as a result of being rushed, but I feel a little more for the readers to balance it out helps us survive, lol.

That aside, there was SO MUCH in this book, I have SO MANY feelings!!!

Firstly, the worldbuilding was GREAT. I loved the new insight we got on magic. I totally didn’t realize frm book 1 that tîtans and maji were different and used magic differently for the most part.

With the direction of the ending, I’m not sure Tomi will go in this direction, but I’d like to know more about these differences. Why is it that chants can work for tîtans but maji can only use magic through chants? Is it just most effective? Will we discover they can use raw magic in book 3? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

Learning about the maji clan setups was also really interesting, but I have to admit it threw me for a bit of a loop referring to the leaders as elders and then they were all children. xP

Also, I’m really glad Tomi listened and gave us queer characters. I love Nâo and Khani. Powerful leader girlfriends? HELL YEAH.

I think this book made it really clear that Zélie x Amari is not end game and will not happen. I know a lot of people were/still are hopeful for that, but I think there’s just too much set up that says otherwise. They love each other, but imo they firmly think of each other as family. I’m going to put my stock in our canon queer couple and support them 10,000%.

Next big one: FUCKING HELL INAN STILL BEING ALIVE, I AM REALLY NOT HAPPY. I didn’t check out the chapters in the table of contents, so I didn’t have the forewaring to see that Inan was getting perspective chapters again, so it took my by quite a bit of surprise. A lot of you called that Inan would still be alive, but I honestly so prefer “dead means dead” in stories (otherwise, I find deaths are used too much for shock value and it just devalues the overall story and plot) that I had myself convinced he really was dead. He got a convincing death scene. Listen, if you kill off a character, I am going to grieve them. It is not going to be the same if you bring them back. I will have completely detached feelings for them and have to form a whole new relationship and perspective on them, and I am always going to keep them at a distanced because they were dead, I saw it happen, and there is no going back.

But no. BAM! He’s not only alive but Zélie is the one to wake him from his connector coma. Not happy. I really feel that Inan’s story played out in CoBaB. It’s interesting that I’ve seen some real anti-Inan folk feeling more sympathy for Inan in this book, while I’ve talked about feeling that Inan was a really compelling villain in book 1, but I’ve got much more negative feelings towards him throughout book 2.  (And also why the hell should Inan get to come back but all these little maji kids - Zulaikha and Mazeli, c’mon - die and die for real??? It feels very cheap and very shock value to me. I don’t know if it was like some statement on privilege or Tomi just didn’t want to be done with Inan, but yeah.)

Honestly, the way Inan and Amari think in this book is so similar, and I found it so fucking conceited and narrow-minded. My view on both of them went down in this book. They just kept talking about how they have to be so selfish and they’re the only ones who can see things for how they are and how damn much they sacrifice and how tired they are because it’s up to them to sacrifice everything. Like!!! GUYS. No.

From the beginning when the CVV summary was released, I was wary of the plot focusing on Amari leading the people. It’s one of those things like: the system is not broken. It’s functioning exactly as it intends to. The monarchy has evolved to uphold a class system where diviners and maji are at the bottom. That’s what it wants to be doing. Can you really effectively change the system by accepting the system as your basis for change? Maybe it’s time to deconstruct the system and build something better. Not just put a royal back on the throne and think that’s gonna go smoothly.

And that’s exactly what happened here. They tried to use the system to buck the system and everything collapsed around them.

But I’m getting a little off topic - fixing a system of bigotry and oppression that your people built is not a sacrifice. You are still in the position of power here.

And Inan’s little bit where he thinks he’s so good and pure and better than his father because he offers the maji a place in society if they bend to his rules and follow him when the other option is that he will murder them had me wanting to tear my hair out. “Follow me or perish” is not a compromise. It’s not improvement. It’s literally a threat. And then when the maji don’t take this offer, Inan takes this as a sign that his mother was right and they can’t trust the maji to make the right decisions!?!?

Ugh. I was just done. I know all the factors of why I originally had sympathy for Inan are still there, and they largely control how he acts and thinks in CVV. (What he really needs for character growth and development is to be away from toxic influences and given time to grieve and work on figuring himself out. Not thrust into a position of power with his mother holding all the strings.) So, for me, Inan’s character really hit a wall, always getting stuck in the same patterns. And so now I feel less sympathy for him and find his story less compelling.

I honestly found Inan’s cousin, Ojore, really interesting. I think it could have been a really compelling story if somehow Ojore was allowed to take up the throne. WIth his background, being there in the burner attack that killed Saran’s father, he had a lot of backstory that we could have explored. And Tomi still could have revealed that it was Nehanda that manipulated things and let the burners in to encourage the war and the genocide against maji. Without Inan, we could have really gotten to explore how Ojore would react to that while on the throne. He could have potentially gone through the character development that Inan will never really get to see. Instead of him being killed pretty much immediately after he learns the truth behind his family’s death and the attack on him.

That being said, I do respect Inan’s decision to give up his position in the end. I think the whole “I’ll let your murder me” and Zélie apparently going to go through this was a little… contrived. But at least Inan did pull it out in the end. It will be interesting to see how these last moments between Inan and Zélie come into play in the next book. I’m assuming either Inan has been taken with the rest or will mount a rescue to go after them, so you know we’re going to get more on how this relationship develops. 

(I think with Tzain done with Amari right now, Amari and Inan trying to navigate a new siblingship with each other will be a more interesting relationship than Inan x Zélie, and I would look forward to getting to see these sibs talk and get to actually be there for each other like they never have before.)

And since I just went through Inan, let’s go ahead and talk about Amari.

Oh, Amari.

Amari, Amari, Amari.

GIRL. Why did it take you this entire book to realize that making decisions based off of what your father would have done was the wrong damn thing to do!?!?!? Omg, we all knew that was gonna crash and burn on you. The entire purpose of overthrowing your father’s rule was to not do things his way because his way was cruel and malicious. smdh

I was still rooting for Amari throughout the book. I am still rooting for Amari, but damn. She sure did try to make it hard doing things like going back on promises right after she made them (forcing Zélie to teach her chants that didn’t belong to her and then immediately using them on a maji) and acting like she new better than all the maji (I agree that just wanting to kill all the nobles and other peoples wasn’t a feasible plan, but GIRL. These are a traumatized, hunted people. They’re going to be angry, especially right in the thick of a war. Strongarming your way into a position of power over them is not going to make them feel any better about you or bring about peace. It’s just going to show them that they cannot trust you). And her move at the end? Sacrificing Zélie and all those people in that village? Being willing to murder them all? … If killing her father fucked her up, what’s this going to do? I still have faith in her. I want her to come back from this. But she’s going to have to majorly confront her own feelings and actions and work very hard to come back from this. Though, I have a feeling that she’ll mostly get forgiven in the next book because bigger and worse things will happen and they’ll have to come together, regardless of how they feel about each other.

Amari’s realization in the end when she decides she doesn’t have to kill her mother (uh… was I the only one expecting some sort of Avatar moment like when Aang took away Ozai’s bending? Like… Nehanda is still a threat… this part of the story can’t just be over) and that killing her father just fucked her up kinda made me feel ashamed for feeling so proud of her when she did kill Saran in CBB. Like, it was just such a powerful moment, and I think too many (simple “good vs evil”) stories fall prey to poor and simplistic messages like “killing in self-defense is evil and makes the good people as bad as the villains”. But it’s just been weighing on Amari this whole time and fucking her up, and now I feel bad. =(

Speaking of Amari feeling bad, though: Ramaya. The connector Amari beat for connector elder.

I hope either Inan was taken with everybody else or Amari will connect with him via their connector-sibling connection. It seems incredibly likely that Ramaya is stuck in her dreamscape similarly to how Inan was stuck in his before Zélie somehow entered it and woke him. Considering they were constantly saying Ramaya was their best soldier, it seems like it would also come in handy to wake Ramaya and be able to utilize her skills to help rescue the kidnapped crew. Like, this HAS to come up at some point, doesn’t it? She can’t just be forgotten in a coma. Did anybody stay behind to take care of her when they marched on the capitol? D|

Other relationships!

Fuck, I fell so hard for Roën in this book. He’s just so endearing. And it seems like it was really only Roën that was able to keep Zélie grounded and moving forward in this book. I didn’t really support Roën and Zélie getting together in book 1, but book 2 absolutely made me support the ship.

However, I think Roën’s actions at the end of the book are a very good insight into the types of things that Roën is capable of. I don’t know if this is endgame for Tomi, but after Zélie’s constant struggle of just wanting to leave and be free and start over in this book and how her rage towards Inan consumed her and caused her to make some short-sighted mistakes (promising she’d protect Mazeli at the temple, then Ojore almost killing him while she tussled with Inan), I just don’t know that this is a particularly healthy relationship. The bit where Roën takes her out to see and they get a ride from a whale? Absolutely adorable. Just what Zélie (and I suspect Roën) needed. But long-term? I have a feeling that Roën is going to have to let more of that mercenary self of his out, and it’s going to scare and wear on Zélie, and erode their relationship. I think this is one of those relationships that is good in the short-term but isn’t long-term sustainable.

Speaking of long-term - I know Tzain is absolutely done with Amari right now, but I think he’s overall shown a great capacity for forgiveness, and I do think Tzain and Amari are endgame for Tomi. I don’t think this break between them is permanent. 

But you know who we really need to talk about?

MAMA AGBA

What a heartbreaking arc. You know she had to sever the tie between Mazeli and Zélie to save Zélie’s life. I so wish she had gotten more time with Zélie for them to reform their trust and love for one another. I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to survive the maji elders sacrificing Amari to complete the linking ritual, but I can’t believe they really did sacrifice Mama Agba like that. She was really the only guidance these poor kids had. I can’t believe they really sacrificed her.

RIP Mama Agba. I hope you’re helping to look after Mazeli. 3

Now, for that damn epilogue.

I don’t know if I can take the next book. I don’t know how Tomi’s gonna make it through the next book.

Getting gassed and waking up on an eerie ship with the other elders? Anybody else get the feeling that Tomi is going to dive into a trans atlantic slave trade parallel? I hope I’m just being paranoid here (hey, the book seriously played with my emotions; I have no idea where I’m at anymore). What were y’alls takeaways from that part?

Predictions!

- Harum obviously has something to do with all the elders being taken and them being on a boat now, right? Tomi was totally setting him up as an antagonist and he got very little antag action in this book. He’s got to have something to do with this.

- This was always intended to be a trilogy, but I have to wonder if this isn’t going to end up turning into a couple more books than intended. There was so much to go over in book 2 and then the twist of an epilogue. They’re not even getting to rebuild yet. It just feels like Tomi has so much more planned it can’t possibly be wrapped up in just one more book.

- I feel like something’s gotta happen to sever or dampen the connection the elders (and Roën and Tzain) have with each other. After how powerful they were in the end, Tomi’s gotta counter that somehow. I just don’t know if she’s gonna dampen the powers or pull out an even BIGGER bad than Nehanda was.

- Obviously “Children of Gods” has to do with the title of book 3. If it’s not just Children of Gods, I predict: Children of Gods and Ghosts.

Ending Thoughts

CVV was well worth the wait and lived up to the hype, but if we don’t get some hope and optimism in the next book, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I need these poor kids to get some semblance of a happy ending. They’ve been through so much.

[achingforthestars]

some things i liked and did not like about the rise of skywalker ***spoilers***

now having seen it and having had the time to sit and talk and collect my thoughts, i have a list of the things i didn’t enjoy and, amongst all this negativity, the things i did. 

contains spoilers of course!

things i did not enjoy:

finding out about palpatine off-screen

so stupid! this was one of the things i disliked the most because of what a cheap, lazy writing choice it was. i wanted to see the characters have to put it together, have to work for it and then when facing palpatine, have it be on their terms instead of his? instead we get him announcing his presence and kylo meeting him in the first 3 minutes. 

treatment of characters

i made a post about this. just so much wrong, so many deserved better, most of all rose, rey and ben. a lot of the characters were treated as afterthoughts. 

implied finn having feelings for rey

dumb. overdone. tired.

knights of ren

felt cheap and underused. learned nothing about them, it was something i was waiting 3 movies for and the final chance to show them was wasted. 

the resistance is back to perfect! 

i understand that this was due to the timeskip, which i guess was necessary, but i felt that it was kind of cheap to not show any sort of struggle. a year has passed and BAM they’re right where they were in TFA. the losses faced in TLJ very much felt erased. 

the pacing

awful. just awful. things felt too rushed or too slow pretty much through the entire movie. 

the visuals

much less well-done than TLJ. the use of colour and light was much weaker in my opinion, the locations more generic, and the imagery lacking. that said, palpatine’s lair was so fittingly creepy, and the reylo moment on kijimi/kylo’s ship with the black and white juxtaposition - those were nice. 

irrelevant or convenient plot elements

zorii bliss was not a necessary character. chewie was conveniently on another transport. d-0, while super cute and funny, was also just a deus ex machina. hux being a spy - could have been entirely removed but oh, finn and poe need to get off the ship somehow. rey’s return to ahch-to was rushed, her interactions with luke could have been on any other planet. she did not need to pilot luke’s x-wing specifically but they forced it. lando - lando was basically a consolation prize for chewie with little relevance. pryde literally could have been replaced with hux and made for a more interesting narrative. 

snoke clones

what the fuck was that?

the fleet

somehow the entirety of the fleet was magically stored, 100% operational and with fully functioning crew, under the crust of some random planet? and every single one of those ships has planet-destroying capabilities? 

the other “fleet”

where the fuck were these allies in TLJ, huh? i get that it’s the last stand and maybe more people showed up because of that but damn. 

leia’s absence was felt

i understand this was not in the control of the creators but truly, i felt like there was a gaping hole where leia should have been. 

the Trio

i enjoyed their banter but it felt inconsistent through the movie. rey and poe didn’t get along one minute, the next they’re fine. if this had been introduced and pushed in previous films, it would have made more sense and felt less hollow. as it stands, it felt like a forced attempt to call back the OT vibes that just fell flat.

rey palpatine

ugh. let’s reduce strength to a bloodline and in the process ignore what was set up in the last movie. yay! also, palpatine fucked someone at some point and that is utterly disgusting. 

rey skywalker

felt forced. she did not need to take the skywalker name.

kylo’s transition to ben.

before anyone jumps on me, i want to clarify that specifically i am referring to the speed of his transition from ruthless supreme leader to full on ben. i loved his redemption, i just wish i could have seen him do it more gradually and with a bit more struggle? he just goes from “i will find you rey and turn you dark like me” to “i am ben solo” so quickly that i found it a bit jarring? 

palpatine’s constantly changing plans. 

kill rey, no wait, take the throne rey, no wait, let me kill you both and take the throne myself. pick one you crusty fuck. 

force dyad

honestly why establish it if you’re going to ignore it in about 2 seconds?

inadequate expression of star wars main themes

the ideas of hope, of redemption, of love and of family - all central to star wars, and none properly delivered on. 

ben’s death. 

heartbreaking. he deserved love and happiness and a life. that’s all i can say about that. however, in a transition to things i liked: if he had to die, i’m really pleased that it was with an act of love. he chose to make a sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice, for his soulmate. i don’t like that he had to die, but i can find peace in the way it happened - on his terms, on the light side, in the arms of the woman he loved.

things i did enjoy (a lot actually):

babu frik

was so fucking funny. that is all. 

c-3po.

also surprisingly funny for a droid i’m usually annoyed by?

jannah

i surprisingly really loved her character. i thought she might be an addition like zorii bliss, but i enjoyed naomi ackie’s acting a lot. she felt much more genuine. however i do think there was a missed opportunity in working on her and finn’s shared background as ex-stromtroopers.

force healing abilities

i thought were super cool! i really liked healing the serpent, it was a nice subversion of the expectation to be trapped and outrunning a monster through a labyrinth of corridors. loved how when rey healed kylo, she healed his scar too. just also it’s always nice to see new things being done with the force.

force fighting. 

it was lovely to see force techniques being used in the lightsaber battles (as compared, for instance, to the throne room fight of TLJ); and also to see force-aided physical feats like jumps that don’t look like naruto-style ninja backflips. definitely felt more real.

poe’s moment in the x-wing

taking in the damage and destruction all around him. i felt the weight he was feeling in that moment.

rey picking herself off the ground

after palpatine drains her and kylo’s life force. i loved her moment of peace and centering, gathering the strength to do what comes next. while i didn’t love the voices of the previous jedi, it made for a lovely sequence of “i’m not done with you yet” and showcases her strength.

the moment with ben and han

gorgeous scene echoing han and ben’s last interaction in TFA. just an amazing callback with such different emotion and the final turning of ben back to the light. i really loved this bit.

adam driver’s acting performance in general.

absolutely the best, the most amazing, performance of the film. if nothing else, the switch from kylo to ben, despite having zero dialogue, should speak for itself. he managed to convey a completely different personality through his mannerisms, physicality and visuals alone. oh, and the death/ressurrection scene! the absolute desperation with which he crawls to the woman he loves. the infinite depth of emotion adam manages to transmit through only his eyes and his facial expressiveness. he deserves an oscar nomination for this in my opinion. 

reylo kiss

i don’t even need to explain this. the smile. the pure happiness, the tender touch, the moment of just love and joy and letting themselves be together, finally. i could not have asked for more of a beautiful first kiss. we’re ignoring what comes after. 

overall impression

tros fell flat. i lived for ben’s redemption and reylo, but this was not enough to make up for the mistreatment of most of the characters, the poorly coordinated and frankly rushed structure, and most importantly, the failure to deliver on its themes of family and hope. i felt like it tried to do too much and achieved too little. 

[lightningbugqueen]

The Adventures of Macho Bunny

Hello my good people! In fifth grade I wrote this horrible, super weird story about a superhero rabbit, so I thought, hey, why not post it here. So, here ya go.

Bobo, Chapter One

Once upon a time in a faraway land called Bunnytopia, there was a bunny named Bobo. Unlike all the other bunnies who liked carrots and celery, he liked chicken nuggets. He was shunned by all the other bunnies because of it. One day a loud ‘CRASH, BANG, BAM!’ startled the bunnies from their homes. They rushed outside to see what all the commotion was about and saw a large squash sitting in the middle of the carrot patch. The squash started to shake! Then outburst a….. chipmunk? The bunnies were all very confused by this discovery and started to get annoyed because they thought it would be something much cooler, like a carrot monster. Finally, all the other bunnies left, and Bobo was left alone with the chipmunk. That was when the chipmunk revealed what she really was, a magical squirrel called Finnaloopa. Finnaloopa explained that she had come to gave the bunnies a magical chicken nugget that gave you amazing powers if you ate it. One of the other bunnies was walking past and heard this, so she called all her buddies. But all the bunnies who liked carrots and celery didn’t eat the chicken nugget because they were………….VEGETARIAN!!!! But Bobo, sweet, little, Bobo, went up and ate that chicken nugget. All the other bunnies were horrified that Bobo had eaten it because of all the rules like don’t take food from strangers and chicken nuggets are bad for you, but suddenly Bobo went through an amazing transformation! His eyes popped out, his feet grew to an enormous size, and muscles poked through his fur. He had become………...MACHO BUNNY!!! Suddenly a hidden terror leaped through the bushes! Macho Bunny had no time to admire himself, he had to save to save the bunnies from……..MR. FOX!!!!

Bobo, Chapter Two

Mr. Fox ran in for the attack, but Macho Bunny was ready. He jumped over Mr. Fox’s head, bit him in the ear, and shot him with his extra accuracy, newly updated, chicken nugget shooter 2000! Mr. Fox coward and ran into the forest. All the bunnies cheered, but soon they left, which made Bobo sad. He had expected a much bigger celebration. He went to bed disappointed, even though had beaten Mr. Fox. Macho Bunny may have won that fight, but there were many more to come. That night, Bobo discovered that after every battle he turned back into that chubby little bunny he’d been before. But then, as he was laying down to sleep, he realized that underneath his bed, deep down in his rabbit hole, he had an unending supply of magical chicken nuggets. That night he fell asleep with the feeling that everything was going to be okay, or not…………..

Bobo, Chapter Three

The next morning Bobo awoke to the peaceful sound of silence, he had defeated Mr.Fox just one day earlier and the bunnies lived in harmony once more. Only one thing was different when he hopped out of his rabbit hole instead of getting the turned backs and hateful glances he was used to, there were balloons, cakes, and posters of Macho Bunny everywhere! When they saw him all the bunnies yelled “HOORAY!” “MACHO BUNNY!” “OUR SAVIOR!” Bobo was so surprised by the party that he looked behind him thinking they were applauding someone else. Before long he had been lifted onto the other bunnies’ shoulders, praised, found out that he was the new king, and much to the old king’s dismay, told that the bunnies of Bunnytopia would only be eating chicken nuggets from now on. Soon though, the party was cut short. The fox alarm started going off! Bobo ran toward his rabbit hole. The other bunnies thought he was abandoning them, but he was really going to eat one of his magical chicken nuggets! Once he finally got back out Bunnytopia was pure chaos. Bunnies were running around screaming, Mr.Fox’s army was dropping bombs in all the rabbit holes, and only Mr. Fox himself took notice of Macho Bunny. They both knew this wouldn’t be the final battle, but they could still hope. They began to circle each other. Even with his enlarged size, Macho Bunny was still much smaller than Mr. Fox. The bunny superhero took the first move. He leaped on Mr. Fox’s back, but the villain was ready for him. He flipped over and rolled around, squashing Macho Bunny to the ground. They fought for what felt like forever until Macho Bunny was exhausted. It was time to use his strongest weapon. He got face to face with Mr. Fox, took a deep breath and let it out. After only ever eating chicken nuggets and never, ever brushing his teeth, his breath reeked. Mr. Fox whimpered and ran away into the woods. His army followed. After a long day of fighting, the bunnies had won. They all decided to celebrate tomorrow and went to bed, but if they had known what was coming the next day, they wouldn’t have slept half as well………….

Bobo, Chapter Four

The Bunnies awoke to some surprising news. Overnight a new bunny had appeared in their village. There had only ever been those fifty or sixty bunnies in their village, so they were very confused about where she had come from. She was so scared that the only thing they could get out of her was that her name was Fufu, and she really liked “chez its”, whatever those were. Bobo decided that he just had to meet her. When he got there the new bunny offered him strange squares that looked like oddly shaped carrots. He soon learned that they were called chez its and that they were even better than chicken nuggets. Bobo didn’t believe her and decidedly refused to eat one. Finally, Fufu got to the point. She told them that an evil monster was going to kill them all! “ I know,” explained Bobo, “Mr. Fox already tried.” “Oh I’m not talking about him, I’m talking about something much worse.” She then told them something so scary that half the bunnies fainted, “ They’re the horrible creatures, they ride around in these huge things with wheels, and only have two feet!” “ You don’t mean……..HUMANS!?” exclaimed Bobo. Humans were a myth that all the bunnies had heard. They were enormous creatures that wore weird soft things on their bodies. They made the strangest contraptions ever, and killed things for sport! They were the only myth that scared every single one of the bunnies. “ Oh, that’s what they’re called”, said Fufu,” I thought they were called Chunans.” The rest of the bunnies took no notice of her, they were all running around screaming things like, “ Prepare for Battle!” or “ We’re all dead!” or “ Get out of here while you still can!” The new king had to stop all the insanity. “SILENCE!”, he yelled, stopping everyone in their tracks. “ Nobody, I repeat, nobody is going to die.” He announced. “ We will all prepare for battle and fight for our village!” After his amazing speech, all the bunnies felt calm and courageous. They had prepared for an emergency like this, they were ready. Bobo told all the bunnies - newest arrival included - to go to the carrot fields, dig up their hidden supplies, and prepare for battle. He, on the other hand, went down his rabbit hole and ate one of his magical chicken nuggets. He underwent the same transformation that had happened the first two times.  The bunnies were ready for the fight to come. Although it took several hours, the enemy finally arrived. Instead of being armed with swords and axes like the bunnies, they had big mechanical things and weird objects that looked like big, bulky, serrated swords. They spoke in a very weird language, they actually made sounds. They were very surprised to see the bunnies, it was as if they weren’t even expecting a fight. Macho Bunny yelled, “ATTACK!” All the bunnies ran at the humans and the humans…………...started to laugh? “What is this?” they all wondered, “weren’t they intimidated?” They hesitated for a second, then kept going. Soon, the humans weren’t laughing anymore. The bunnies slashed at them with their swords, bit them with their big teeth, and drove them back. The humans ran away, probably looking for another village to attack. The bunnies had won. Even though they knew there were many more battles to come, they celebrated this one.

Bobo, Chapter Five

During the big party celebrating the bunnies’ victory over the humans, Fufu was finally able to track down the guest of honor. “Thank you.”, said the new king, “If not for you we would have lost that battle.” “Toats fine dude,” said Fufu, and promptly threw chez its in the air. Bobo got up on the stage and made an announcement, “Today is a day of celebration, We have defeated the humans and saved Bunnitopia once more!” As all the bunnies were very excited they yelled “Yay! Praise the Chicken Nugget king!”, and the festivities continued. That night as Bobo and Fufu were taking a walk the savior delivered some sad news, “Chez its, Chez its, Chez its.” She said. “You have to leave!?” asked the king. “Yup,” answered Fufu. “We will all miss you so much.” The king called out as Fufu hopped out into the darkness. Then the fox alarm went off.

Bobo, Chapter Six

As Bobo ran to find his chicken nuggets he spied Mr. Fox stalking into the village. “I thought we were done with him,” the king muttered under his breath as he scampered down his rabbit hole. Soon, he had reappeared as Macho Bunny. At the back of his mind, he knew that this would be the last fight, one way or another. He saw that his subjects were managing well enough on their own, so he went to seek out the enemy’s leader. He found Mr. Fox freaking out the youngest bunny, Mima, and immediately called his war cry, “ACHICHIMUNGA!” The second Mr. Fox heard it he came running. It appeared that he had learned something from their last battle, as he wore a face mask and goggles. They slowly circled each other, and it seemed that they both knew that this would be the end of their battles. Bobo knew something that Mr. Fox didn’t though. Fufu had left right before the alarm went off which meant she must have heard it too, and was most likely coming back. Macho Bunny slowly herded Mr. Fox right where the chez its lover had exited. They fought for minutes, hours, days, Macho Bunny didn’t know how long. Finally, he heard the thumping of feet and the crunching of crackers coming from the forest. Mr. Fox apparently heard it too. Just as he turned around, the leader -and only member- of the chez it fan club came barreling out of the forest and knocked Mr. Fox out cold. The bunnies decided to give him the ultimate punishment, banishment to the human world. All the bunnies lived happily ever after……. for the next few years anyway.

The End

[travellingmonk]

PART 1 - An Image That Predicts The Future 3 by Sunao Ari - Translated!!!

Now, to explain this a bit, I don't normally go out of my way for a doujinshi. (pain in the arse for me to translate with conversational Japanese and I am, by far, NOT an expert in the language.) However, this one I just HAD to know the story of and share. Because reasons. Fair warning, this is a Seiji x Touma story... where Seiji dies... and Touma takes it EXTREMELY BADLY... then dies, too. And the art style is consistent... but... eh... It's not comparable to Ken Mizuki or Lapis Homme art style. (to be honest, took me 3 times flipping through this, and the third time actually paying attention to the story being told, not the art style, before I picked up on the very emotional story that was unfolding. -_-U) So... yeah, if that upsets you, keep on scrollin' and pay no mind to this post.

If you're curious, then keep reading.

Now, to give you a VERY short version of these 3 pages, it’s a summary of what happened in the past 2 books (lordy only knows where a copy of them could be since this was released back in the early 1990′s).

Short version summary : Touma’s got a disease that’s landed his butt in the hospital. At first he lies and tells everyone he’s fine, but gets worse, thinks he’s gonna die, then goes all ‘Seiji! I love you!’ to which the blonde Trooper goes ‘I love you, too <3′. By the time Touma is well enough to leave the hospital, he catches sight of his boy on TV, severely injured, trying to whoop some Youja bad guy butt. Only to end up getting himself rushed into the hospital. Which ends up with the truth coming out that Seiji’s got cancer, has a month left to live, and life sucks. They decide to get married asap, with Touma giving Seiji a wedding ring.

Not long after, a new round of attacks from the Youja World (and Arago’s army) is unleashed on the city. Seiji knows he needs to be out there to help fight back and to form the Kikoutei armor, but he’s too weak and can barely move.

He prays / begs to Kaosu for help, saying he’d give his life if it means he can help stop this. Lo and behold, POOF! Seiji is magically made better, the Youja gate the baddies came through gets sealed up, all the bad guys are dealt with, and Seiji says goodbye as he walks into the magical sphere that will seal all of that evil away. Touma doesn’t take this well, AT ALL. He tries to stop Seiji, Shin attempting to hold Touma back, and, just like that, Seiji, the Youja bad guys, and the Youja gate are all gone.

Current book starts off by jumping well over a decade into the future with Shin, all grown up, with his now 8 year old daughter.

It’s a weird way to start this book, but we go from Shin and his daughter in the future, to back in the past after Seiji’s death.

Touma is not taking his friend’s / husband’s death well AT ALL. To the point he’s having violent nightmares, wakes up still being stressed / freaked out, and to where Nasutei has to use sedatives on him to make him calm down to any degree. Even then, he’s still in denial, and the others have to lie to him, saying that Seiji is out but that he’ll be back soon.

An exhausted Nasutei commenting (after he’s fallen back to sleep) commenting about why can’t he just accept Seiji’s death like everyone else has? Having Touma go through this is torture on all of them. Time flows ever onward and the warm weather turns cold. Touma gets past the worst of it, more or less, but is depressed and suicidal. To the point he locks his bedroom door, slits his wrists, and tries to bleed out. The others rescue him, get him to the hospital, to which, afterwords, comes back to Nasutei’s house where EVERYONE keeps an eye on him and makes sure anything sharp is locked away.

This stresses out everyone, and gets Shin, who’s been the most patient and compassionate of the bunch, to snap. Saying that Seiji wouldn’t have wanted his friend to behave this way, and that there’s no guarantee that if Touma WOULD die, that they’d end up meeting in the afterlife.

Things really aren’t made any easier when Kayura comes to visit and has news. Sure Seiji’s sacrifice was a noble one and did seal up that one location so no other evils, gates, or soldiers could return, but it’s messed up stuff to the point where any wickedness happens, a gate will appear and, well, we all know that the Earth isn’t the most peaceful place in the universe.

Touma gets upset, to the point he grabs her by the neck and slams her down onto the dining room table. Despite her best efforts, she’s unable to open the seal at all and reclaim Seiji’s body. At least if they had his body they could have a funeral and say a proper ‘farewell’. Eventually he releases her, then gets super depressed. One day while out on the the terrace with Ryou, a tree branch breaks and wallops Touma upside the head, giving him a nasty bleeding cut.

As his friends tend to the injury and stop the bleeding, Shin gives the blue haired Trooper a letter. After everything, Shin had claimed the bag of Seiji’s clothing and belongings from when he was in the hospital and, among the things is a letter addressed to Touma.

In the letter is a lock of Seiji’s hair and the letter basically reads ‘By the time you read this, I’ll be dead. Don’t be sad. Are you lonely? Are you alone? Go out and live your life. You still have one to live. Make me proud.’

That seems to be what it takes to snap Touma out of his mood and turns his whole world around. The next morning finds the Trooper of Tenku coming downstairs to breakfast wearing clean clothes, with the lock of hair tied to a necklace, and stating that he’ll be leaving the house soon. He’s decided to aim to become a doctor and to find a cure to the cancer that took Seiji’s life. (Line of logic here would probably be more like ‘if he hadn’t had that cancer, he wouldn’t have gotten so severely injured, and wouldn’t have had to sacrifice his life to safe the city. Hence, is all cancer’s fault that this happened’.)

Chapter 3 picks up in the future (or would this be considered the present?) with Doctor Hashiba getting called into surgery to save someone’s life.

The surgery went well. He gets praised. Then his mother decides to swing by for a visit. Half because she just won a Pulitzer Prize and wants to celebrate, and two, because she’s now got some time off from work to do so.

The only thing is, she’s got bad timing. This is Touma and Seiji’s wedding anniversary, and the anniversary / observance of when he died.

They have a bit of an arguement. She saying ‘I don’t want you to be alone’ and he saying ‘I’m not alone. I can’t love anyone else. Seiji was the only one in the world for me’. The conversation dies out when Shin arrives for a chat and Touma’s mother leaves. (And, yes, that IS Shin with the really long hair. I honestly think that Sunao Ari was channeling Shin’s early design from when the characters were still in developtment. Not even kidding, here.)

Anywho, onwards with the story~

Touma and Shin get to chatting. Shin’s here because, thanks to Touma, his daughter is cured of the same kind of cancer Seiji had. Today is the day she’s being released from the hospital and can go home. Touma asks if they’d seen Seiji’s inspirational statue out in front of the hospital. Shin has but his daughter hasn’t. She goes out to look? He sends her out to look? Not really clear on that, BUT, either way, she’s outside meandering about while the two men talk. The conversation is basically ‘everything changes, but it sure seems like Seiji / the memory of Seiji has never changed’. Touma makes an offhanded comment about his own disease and says that he knows / he has a feeling that he’s going to die soon.

Suddenly there’s noise from outside and, come to find out, Shin’s daughter (4 years old at this time) is out in the middle of the road. The two men race outside, with Touma being faster, and shoves her out of the way of danger.

Unfortunately, this lands Touma smack dab in the middle of traffic instead. And, well...

The headlights of a truck? ambulance? are all too familiar to the light that Seiji walked into all thos years ago. Just like that BAM!!!!

Shin rushes to his friend’s side and, understandably so, freaking out. (Pretty sure the pictures speak for themselves here. Also, TOUMA! NUUUU!!! I may be a loyal Ryou fangirl at heart but, TOUMA! NUUUUU!!!)

As Touma is dying in Shin’s arms, Seiji in angel form appears. Touma manages to whisper out the name of his beloved significant other before completely giving into death.

Is super sad. (DANG IT, SUNAO ARI! WHY MUST YOU HURT ME SO!? GWAAAHHH SUCH A SAD STORY!!!!!)

The story picks up later at Touma’s funeral. 

Despite the super sad atmosphere and Shin blaming himself for his friend’s death (’it’s my fault. I killed him.’ Shin, sweetie, no you didn’t. Your daughter wandered into traffic and Touma died saving her life. You didn’t do a thing! ~*sad hugs*~ ) Touma’s dead body had a gentle smile on its face. At least he died happy.

Around his neck is the same lock of Seiji’s hair from the letter so many years ago.

(Shut up, dun look at me! I’m not crying! You’re crying! Bwaaa~ :,( )

The story ends with Shin noticing the fact that it’s beginning to snow. In October. Too early.

He wonders if the snow is a sign that Touma and Seiji are now happy together, or sad.

Sunao Ari, I know it’s been decades since you made this story, probably the first time someone NOT Japanese has been able to read it, but I hope that where ever life finds you, that you’re doing well, are enjoying good health, and are no longer torturing Seiji and Touma. (not sure mah lil ol’ fangirl heart could take another book like this one from you! ^_^U) Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the story and the fact that it was translated for your .... it’s not right to say ‘enjoyment’ here, is it? for your reading pleasure? ... still doesn’t sound right. ~*offers you soft tissues and a warm blanket after that story*~ excuse me whilst i go hunt down some cute pictures of fluffy kittens to console mahself with.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

oh? Typhon?

hell yeah

Here’s some transcripts and speculation

i want you guys to imagine these with a very thick new york accent. 

Recording 4: “I remember the day I arrived on Promethea. Those buildings looked so majestic! I was so busy sky-gazing that a thief stole the pants right off my keister! Promethea’s no Pandora, but a city is still plenty dangerous! I knew this was the sorta place I would either find my destiny or die in a gutter! And thanks to my partner slash nemesis, Azlan DeVega, Promethea was almost both!”

Recording 5: “I thought a city like Promethea would be crammed full of opportunity. But, actually, it was a tinderbox of violence and greed. Corporations were pulling out, calling the joint a dead end. People were starving! Eating stone soup and boiled rats to get by. But, somehow, I survived. It was a real wrong place at the right time type of situation. You know, sometimes the trick to being successful is just staying in the game longer than the other guy.”

Recording 3: “Azlan DeVega: my partner slash nemesis. He talked a big game, but there was a reason why he was down on his luck. He was lazy! But I was hungry to prove myself. Then, one time, we were wandering through the Quazmarian Quarry and I fell through some brittle rock! Azlan calls down: “Nice knowing ya, Deleon!”, grabs my stuff, and splits! Well, I had to find another way up. And, bam! That’s when I found the Vault! I guess the moral is: sometimes you gotta fall before you make it big.”

Recording 1: “I saw the key just sitting there in front of the Vault. Good thing I didn’t open it! I gave the Vault Key to Atlas, got a butt-load of cash and the rest is history! Anyway, as soon as I made my money, who shows up at my door but Azlan DeVega? Sayin’ that I owe him half of the cut! Baloney! I was on my own, and after that, whenever someone wanted to find Eridian ruins, they called me! Typhon Deleon! The first Vault Hunter!”

Recording 2: “So I found that Vault! Atlas was lagging behind those other guys! They almost got wiped out during the corporate wars and were looking to rise from the ashes, like the, uh, what’s it called? The fire bird. Anyway, the Atlas CEO was getting desperate just throwing explorer(s?) at ruins. Now, I never thought growing up on Pandora would do me a lick of good, but I spent my childhood hunting Eridian ruins and that gave me the edge! How about that; Pandora is good for something!”

(I got REALLY distracted while writing this and started analyzing all the Sanctuary 3 footage we got lmao so expect a post on that soon)

So to start, I find it really interesting that Promethea already had a city on it before Typhon arrived. I had assumed the city popped up because Atlas got rich from the discovery of Eridian ruins on Promethea, but that doesn’t seem to be the case! It looks as though a bunch of different corporations all had their hands in the city, but pulled out once the going got tough.

Wild.

Ah, Azlan DeVega. 

Azlan apparently means “Lion” and DeVega means “of Meadow”. This is kinda important for 2 reasons.

1. A very important lion in greek mythology is the Nemean lion, which had golden fur that was impervious to physical attacks and was the child of Typhon. 

2. “of Meadow” didn’t really turn up anything of note within Greek Mythology directly, however! it did return the Epimelides, goddesses of meadows, which translates to “Protector of Sheep”. Sheep and Lions in general are usually associated with Peace, which I thought was a pretty neat connection. I wonder if Typhon is lying... 

3. There’s also this neat bit of mythology here: “When a lion attacked her father's sheep, Cyrene wrestled with the lion” and “when Eurypylus was still ruling Libya, a monstrous lion was created, which was a great terror to the citizens. So Apollo sent Cyrene to kill the beast. After she succeeded, she was made the ruler of the city Cyrene”. I don’t know if this has anything to do with this story tbh but Cyrene is suspiciously similar to Tyreen lmao. Her name even means “Sovereign Queen”... Supreme queen... god queen...... I wouldn’t be shocked if Tyreen goes after Azlan DeVega and/or his descendants

So we’re 100% definitely visiting Quzmarian Quarry, right? This is somewhere on Promethea, so we’ve got a few options. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where the abandoned research base is. 

I say that mostly because it looks as though there’s a door in the floor here. It’d make sense if Typhon fell somewhere and found the Vault there, that Atlas would rush on top of that and ensure nobody else was getting in.

Also, this confuses me, because in TFTBL, its mentioned that Gortys was “Atlas’s last ditch effort at opening a Vault”, but they had the opportunity here! What gives?! I imagine there was resistance, but it sounds like Typhon escaped with the Vault Key just fine, which is weird to me. I suppose if we’re considering opening the Vault being the be-all end-all then Atlas had opened a Vault on Pandora, too. It’s just that they never killed the Destroyer... since, well, y’all know what happened to Steele. And if we’re not considering the Destroyer’s Vault to be a tally in favor of Atlas, then perhaps something attacked those who 'opened’ the Vault and they could never actually access the things inside. It’s likely then, that their technological advances were due to basic Eridian treasure troves, like the one in Captain Scarelett’s DLC (y’know, just, without the Leviathan). 

Furthermore, we can be certain there are at maximum 3 Vault Keys at play in BL3, and minimum there’s only 1.

The one used to open the Vault on Promethea.

The ‘Vault Map’ we see in the Holy Broadcasting Center.

And the Vault Key Lilith had in Sanctuary.

Personally, I was of the theory that the Vault Key we see in the HBC is the same Vault Key from Sanctuary. It’s literally described as a map of Vaults on other worlds, which is what Lilith discovers at the end of BL2 and obviously something happened to Sanctuary before the events of BL3. Of course, its possible this is also the Vault Key used to open the Vault on Promethea, which could mean there’s only one Vault Key (weird considering it takes 200 years to naturally charge, but considering there are Sirens about that can charge the Vault Key forcibly using Eridium, not too weird. Let’s not think about the fact that Eridium only started appearing after the opening of the first Vault for now cuz im super tired lol)

“Sometimes you gotta fall before you make it big”. 

100% this is foreshadowing for the game’s story somehow and you can’t convince me otherwise.

“Whenever someone wanted to find Eridian ruins, they called me!” 

I find it kinda interesting that Tannis never mentions Typhon in BL1 in any of her ECHO logs detailing her time spend on Pandora trying to find ‘evidence of alien life’, however if this is due to DAHL not wanting to use an Atlas schmuck’s info or because the writers created his character for BL3, I’m not certain. Let’s pretend it’s the first one and move on because it really bugs me that Tannis is forced to look for evidence of alien activity on Pandora when apparently Typhon grew up there and “spent [his] childhood hunting Eridian ruins”. 

A reference to the “fire bird”. I know, I know, its a reference to a phoenix, but honestly? how fuckin’ cool would it be if this was actually a reference to the ‘Firehawk’? the mass murdering bounty hunter like the Lilith Firehawk? like if the Firehawk was actually a mythological thing in the borderlands universe. I mean, there’s a pistol called Firehawk in BL1 (y’know, before Lilith starts her cult), so I wouldn’t put it past them to pull that shit. It would kinda make sense for the bandits (who are usually DAHL workers in the first place) to start worshiping the Firehawk as a god if there was a precedent for it already. Even better if it was a dude god, which, outside of Jack not knowing Lilith was alive, could explain her usage of the voice changer.

As for my shitpost? Because you all knew it was coming....

Tannis, Tyreen, and Troy are all descendants of Typhon Deleon in one way or another.

Look at that poster. You tell me it doesn’t look like he’s wearing that giant-ass feather collar Troy’s got going on. 

All their names start with T (oh, such compelling evidence I have here, I know!)

Tannis and Typhon both have yellow goggles

Typhon is basically known as the father of all monsters lmao and he worked with Atlas and baby you KNOW im in love with the Atlas and the Calypsos theory. maybe perhapeth they used Typhon’s dna or his cryo-frozen body to create the twins and thats why they believe the vaults are their birthright, hmmmm?

but hey maybe that’s just because he helped lead to the opening of the first Vault which, y’know, lead to the opening of all the other Vaults. all of which house Vault Monsters

[danbensen]

…or how tracking my life told me I was abusing coffee and social media

So there I was, my nails digging into my palms, my right molars pressed into each other. The air hissed in through my nose as my vision narrowed to a point. It was like hurtling down a roller-coaster. It was was terrifying, and I had no idea why it was happening.

I’d be doing nothing especially ominous – sitting down on the couch, carrying my younger daughter, thinking about bread – and suddenly I’d be gripped by this intense sensation of danger. BREAD! The image of a whole-grain loaf gained the mass of a church bell. DOOM! It rang. Toll the yeasty knell, oh brazen fate, for all men shall one day die. Die, oh, mortal flesh. Die and meet thy baker. (whoo! I am so sorry about that pun. Deep breaths now…)

Tiny drops of steam Ebb and flow before the light With each of my breaths.

It was ridiculous, but of course knowing that it was ridiculous didn’t help. I was like a cat, freaking out for no reason. Or was there no reason? Aren’t I supposed to listen to my body, now that I’m meditating and whatnot? But what exactly was my body supposed to be telling me? Avoid carbs? Run from the couch? Something about my daughter…? Yeah, If I searched hard enough for a reason to be terrified, I’d surely find one. Now there’s a reason for fear.

So I meditated more. I stopped using social media. I took my daughters to the park and watched the sky as it changed from brass to rose and the street lights blinked on. I talked to Pavlina. And I realized that over the course of the past month, I’d gone from drinking two cups of coffee a day to four.

The trees turn black and The sky, indescribable. Look up and it’s changed.

Scheduling is hard. My older daughter’s in first grade now, and school starts at 8:10 in the Center. The younger one’s in kindergarten, which starts at 8:30 in Levski G. At some point, it would be nice if Pavlina and I could go to work, which is back in the Center. If we want to have breakfast and drink our coffee in peace, we need to wake up at 6:15. Three hours later, I’m finally in the office and I’m tired. That scares me because I associate being tired with being sick. Fatigue=death.

I’m supposed to listen to my body, but my body is a stupid animal. It’s not going to say, “you’re drinking too much coffee.” It says “coffee reminds me of being happy!” and “not being productive scares me!” It says “I’m tired! I must have cancer again!” It’s up to me to keep track of what I’m doing, cut out the distractions, and give myself enough mental room to notice the patterns.

Right. So that’s why I’m not doing social media any more. Because part of the reason I was too distracted to notice I was drinking too much coffee was the last newsletter I wrote. I posted it on facebook, which made me want to check facebook for likes and comments. And once I was on facebook, why not see what other people are posting? Oh. Oh. That’s what they’re posting. Oh no.

I debated writing this explanation. Why not just stop using social media? Why talk about it on social media? But my litmus test for whether I should write something is “will this help people?” Maybe this is helpful: social media is distracting and depressing. It fills my head with noise. Maybe you have the same problem and this is the solution.

The sky at seven The color of hope that hurts And the crying swifts

I’ll continue to post my work on my website (including these newsletters) and mirror or link to those posts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Readers are welcome to like and comment, but I’ll only read those comments once a week (Friday seems like a good day). Comments on my website, PMs, and emails to me will get my attention earlier. I won’t read any content that isn’t sent personally to me or that I didn’t sign up for. Hopefully that means I’ll still get news from people I care about, but not about tragedies that I have no power to solve. That way, I can continue to function from hour to hour.

What do you think? Is this going to work? Can I stay connected without sacrificing my mental health? Let me know in the comments. Or even better, email me.

In other news, I had some good writing stuff happen this month. Interchange has hit its 2/3 mark and, more importantly, its rhythm. I’ve managed to block off a fairly reliable 90-minute chunk of time in the mornings, which I use to meditate and then “speedwrite,” which means writing without thinking about what I’m doing. I generally end up with a single element of a scene, such as the conversation the characters are having, how they feel, what’s going on in the environment, or what actions the characters are taking.

Then I usually have some time after lunch (and my second and final coffee), and I can layer those scene-pieces onto each other and smooth the edges. If I have more time, I do research, which usually involves shooting messages to generous experts. In this way, the inestimable and inspiring Thomas Duffy helped me tie a ribbon around the center of my book, in which a biologist’s subconscious belief that she owns the environment she’s studying leads her to destroy it. As the forest crumbles around her, she blames herself…then makes exactly the wrong decision about what to do next. Yeah! Fiction! Thomas, I’m going to send you roses or cacti or something.

Another new tradition I’ve instituted is spending my Friday mornings not working on Interchange. It’s a little release of pressure, a chance to play and remind myself that writing isn’t just another chore I have to do. The first week, it was a short story. That one turned out so well, I’m going to try to publish it. It’s called “The Sales Event” and it’s about smart phones and general relativity. Do you want to beta-reader it?

I got another couple of “no”s from publishers about The Sultan’s Enchanter, but one of them was that very gratifying “no” that comes at the head of a long list of things I could do to fix the story. Making those fixes will be educational, even if that particular publisher still passes. Wealthgiver is rather like The Sultan’s Enchanter, after all, and the lessons I learn from one will be important for the other. The world needs more books about amoral Balkan people!

Yeah, I’m still working on Wealthgiver’s neo-Thracian language. I even posted a little of it on Tumblr. But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my little goats!

Kapt kapēnon ainē kesa / byźai darsai ypo dēsâ. Ēbron, aiźi, byźâs kâ / skalmon, bleptē, bystâs kâ, As tae yper iatśikan / kapâ pe ta ve abbrinkan.

There were at one time / brave goats under heaven. A kid, a nanny, and a billy goat / clever, loyal, and tough, Who would dance up / a hill for to make themselves fat.

Dâ ispilsen opē rinkon strymē / parân ân, śân târâ dymâ. Iśē iserpa źēryntē / źymlē mērē urdēnē. Byźulâs ada pyrân źilmân / dâ bolvarâs pia rhobton saimân.

But a quick-flowing river blocked / the path with an evil guard. There coiled a beast / a great water-dragon. A goat will eat green grains / but a serpent will slurp blood

Peskēnon ērga ēbron do. / Pliskon ērga śân negō. Źymlē zē semân iglytsa. / “Kis ēs tu?” Neston iglâtsa. “Semâs manon ēm ēźo.” / “San ar ēsti? Abadam so!”

First comes the kid. / It splashes with its hooves. The dragon heard this. / “Who are you?” she roared. “This only am I.” / “Is it so? I will eat you up!”

Things are heating up! I’m still not entirely comfortable with the articles and deitics, but I do like that last line. And the orthography is shaping up nicely. I love googly things over letters.

Another potential conlanging project for that other hundred years I plan to live: Western Hellenism. What if the Greeks had conquered Iberia?

And finally, PROTECTOR! This is the comic project I’ve been working on for literally six years. Words by me and Simon Roy, inks by Atryom Trakhanov, colors by Jason Wordie, and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhadu. What a crazy, fun, glorious process this collaboration was!

Protector is a post-apocalyptic scifi story about a slave who stumbles across “a demon of the Profligate Age,” a military cyborg who’s been in hibernation for the past thousand years. The post-human robots who are terraforming the Earth are not amused, and send in some sweaty future-vikings to put a stop to these shenanigans.

There will be five issues, and issue one comes out in January. If you’re interested, please order a copy, or better yet, tell your local comic or book store to order lots of copies! Give us some numbers that will convince Image to ask for a sequel

And finally, some books and stuff

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown – this book wasn’t as transformative for me as it could have been because I’ve read Brown before and I already agree with her. Shame is bad. Vulnerability is the cure. Bam. What I like about Brown is that she collects good data, lets it prove her wrong, and suggests how the lessons from the data can be usefully applied. It’s not just science, it’s engineering.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold – I think this was the third read. What happens when GM humans become obsolete? What happens when an engineer has a spiritual epiphany? It wasn’t quite as much fun as some of Bujold’s other science fiction, but it has a lot of heart.

Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser – an excellent physics book, examining the concept of space, which lies at the center of the contradictions of relativity and quantum physics. If space didn’t exist, the universe would be chaos, but a lot of experiments only make sense if space _doesn’t_ exist. Great stuff, and it inspired that short story I’m so proud of.

Death by Water by Kerry Greenwood – a refreshing splash of chilly New Zealand sea spray. Phryne pursues a jewel thief and has a little bit of sex, but a lot of good food, drink, and dancing. There’s also a hakka.

Wicked Prey by John Sandford – it was actually a little boring. The police’s side of the story didn’t hold up as well as the criminals’. But this is a relatively early book in the series, which means Sandford is improving.

The Upright Go Pro – it’s a little device that you glue to your upper back so it will buzz at you when you slouch. Immediately after I put it on, I realized I have little tiny tyrannosaurus arms that don’t reach any table or counter-top. It ran out of batteries one day and man did my back hurt that night. So I guess it’s working.

Gravity by Against the Current and Brighter by Patent Pending – Good Interchange music.

Be Kind to Yourself by Andrew Peterson – It makes me feel better.

Song of Durin by Clamavi De Profundis – I haven’t gotten goosebumps from a song in a long time. It’s about dwarves.

The Twits by Roald Dahl – I read it to my older daughter and boy howdy did Roald Dahl know how to write for children. Everything seems utterly ridiculous but it all somehow satisfies. Like eating dirt cake.

Steven Universe – My younger daughter found me rewatching it on my phone and made me cast it on the big TV. Now it’s all “I wanna watch Steeben dabout a Giant Woman. I’m Pearl.” No, younger daughter, you are not Pearl. Pearl is my older daughter. My younger daughter is Amethyst. Nobody is more Amethyst than my younger daughter. (I’m Peridot)

[markhyungh]

namjoon time traveler!au

was inspired by this post

so it was preeetty late at night and you were walking home after a really gr88 night out with your pals

& when you’re about to reach your house in no time, you notice this huge black lump just about two houses down

and at first you were all “?????? wat dat” but then it suddenly mOVed and groaned

& like your first aid instincts (did i mention you were trained in first aid during the summer how convenient) kicked in and you ran over to the lump

surprisingly it was one hot lump

like at first you were so taken aback bc WOW this dude is smokin’ he’s totally your type what even

his hair is orange which just got you like waddaheck at first but it looks sO GOoD on him

and he’s dressed to the nines, looking all suave and sophisticated like man that’s just killer in your book

also you noticed this cool looking vintage gold watch on his right wrist that had numbers flying all around?????? weird, but it adds to his sophisticated look anyway so who’s complaining

but then reality smacks you in the face and you’re just “omg can i just calm my raging hormones for one second bc this guy is about to bleed his guts out”

ye he has this huge splash of blood all over his lower abdomen & you’re freaking out bc….. um……… you don’t know if you’re trained for that shit

but anyway you gotta try & you’re talking to yourself at this point bc you’re lowkey panicking and u don’t wanna be witnessing someone dIE right in front of you

“ok omg omg i gotta call the ambulance” and you’re taking out your phone and dialling

when all of a someone grabs your hand and you look up and it’s tHE DUDE

“don’t call them”

and you just look at him like he’s literal nuts and you pointedly stare at his abdomen before looking up into his eyes (wow reALLY nice eyes) (& did you mention his voice dAMn son)

speaking in a surprisingly calm tone for someone who is internally going crazy “your lower abdomen is bleeding. i think any decent person would be calling the ambulance right now”

he then looks down and so casually goes “oh ye, about that, this ain’t my blood”

and when you hear that you’re like bOI DID U JUST

you whack him on the head (throwing away aNY mannerisms straight outta that window) and whisper scream bc you don’t wanna be THAT one neighbour that annoys the shit out of everyone “I WORRIED OVER YOU FOR NOTHING!?!?!?!??!”

and you know, you had a long tiring day (social interaction is cool and all but it leaves you drained dry) and at this point you’re just like “i’m gonna pretend i never tried to be a good samaritian i’m just gonna take a shower and sleep for a solid 10 hours peace out bro”

and you’ve gotten up to leave when he’s like “you could actually continue to be a good samaritian by giving me a place to stay tonight”

you just turn and look at him like this dude is uNBELIEVABLE HOW DARE HE

but then he gives you THAT look, that cute puppy face and as already mentioned beforehand he kinda is (just a teensy weensy bit) your type and you’re weak

so you’re just like “ugh, get your ass up before i change my mind”

and he gives you this grin that just gets you in the feels but duh, you’re never gonna admit it

so he gets up and you choke cough just a little bc damn he’s tall how is this boy ticking all the boxes off your list

and while both of you walk to your house you’re like “if i die i’m never gonna be a good samaritian in my next life”

but the dude just smiles “i promise you you won’t” and you just sigh

so when both of you enter your house you’re like “i think you should get cleaned up first bc that’s a shit ton of blood on your shirt” and you’re about to ask whose blood is on that shirt when it clicks and you’re like “nope i don’t wanna know”

and it seems like he knows what you’re thinking bc he laughs “don’t worry i didn’t do anything that jeopardizes whatever morals you have”

and obviously you don’t trust him bc you’re 21 and you weren’t born yesterday but you decide to just roll with it like “yeah sure whatever” before asking for his shirt to clean

he raises his eyebrows like right now??? you mean???? 

you roll your eyes like boi my hands are put out right now wHat do you think

and he just grins a little like okay, if you say so

and then proceeds to strip

wHat

yep

before handing you his bloody shirt

you just huff and grab the shirt before storming off to the laundry room to clean it like yup those lean musclies are totally not affecting me right now 

he smirks a little before moving off to the toilet to wash up 

it takes you some time to get those stubborn ass blood stains off the shirt but thank goodness you’re proficient in the art of stain cleaning after all those times you dripped sauce on your shirts

and you realise like “oh wait i forgot to give him clothes to change into” so you quickly dash to your guest bedroom where your older bro kept some spare clothing for when he stayed over

you made to your way to the bathroom and was about to knock when the door suddenly opened and BAM wow hot dude with a towel wrapped around his waist

“hey yo do you have anything—“ before he looks down and notices you that damn height difference

you immediately shOVEd the clothing to his face and turn around, trying to speed away as fast as you can bc you can’t help it if you’re kindaaaaaa little attracted to the dude

trying to forget that mental image you obviously weren’t gonna forget anytime soon, you hopped into the shower in your bedroom to just relax and not think about all the crazy things that happened to you

like, why is this turning out in to some weird ass romcom shit???? why is your life such a cliche???????? 

no one has the answers so you mournfully get out of the shower after you’re done bc even if you don’t wanna, you gotta face life

when you head back downstairs you notice the dude just sitting on the couch in your living room

he somehow??? notices your presence?? and turns around, grinning

“thanks for the shower, man. i really needed that”

and you’re just like “yeah...,.,,.,.,., no kidding”

he stands up and you kinda just appreciated your brother’s clothing a whole lot more bc it was just so flattering on the dude 

but /cough/ you gotta make it not so obvious that you think he’s cute so you look away after a second or two

judging by the smug look on the guy’s face you’re pretty sure you unconsciously stared for a few seconds too long though

anyway

he’s like “i was waiting for you since i thought it’d be rude to just leave”

and before you can control that damn mouth of yours you just reply “already?????’

which he laughs at. “why, hon, did you want me to stay longer?”

and you just can’t help but turn a little red bc even though you were like omg this is such a pain, deep deep down in the dark recesses of your mind you actually wanted him to stay

even though you didn’t even really know him???? how is that actually possible is your life really turning into a cliche like what you feared

but anyway he chuckles and is all like “don’t worry i’ll be seeing you again soon” 

and more ??????????????? bc what

he then looks at his watch before looking back up at you, smiling slightly

“i’ve never broken protocol before, but since i’ll be seeing you again soon, i don’t think it really matters”

you just scrunch your eyebrows because what is he even saying right now

he’s doing some adjusting motion on his watch and all of a sudden, he actually starts to glow a little while slowly fading away???

what the hell is the world coming to

you don’t even know how to react because ?????? how does one actually react to this??????? you just stare at him in shock

“you know, you’re kind of reacting to this better than i thought” he gives this half grin that is totally illegal

thank lord you regain your wits and you’re like “is this what you meant when you said you had to go?”

“yeeep, can’t be late for another time turnover. but i’ll be coming back soon!” 

he’s about to completely fade out before he yells out, and the voice sounds so echoey and faraway 

“before i forget, my name’s namjoon! don’t forget it!”

and the living room just—  turns back to normal. with namjoon gone.

you don’t even know how you got yourself into bed after all that happened but you just did

and the next day, you don’t even know if that was a dream you had because of how tired you were last night but then you see namjoon’s crisp blue satin shirt drying in your laundry room and you know it wasn’t a dream after all

note:  so, hello there, this is like my first time doing this so it’s probably so rambly and yikes but i hope you enjoyed it!!!!! tbh this was a super spontaeneous post but the minute i saw the post i was just like i HAVE to write it. and actually, i’m not quite sure whether i even like this ending bc as i was writing it my mind started flowing with sO many possibilities and i felt like i could actually do a full length fic with this?????? idk man, but if this actually gets notes and all i might consider it???? but man, i don’t even know. i just hope ya’ll didn’t find it too draggy or anything. cheers!! ask me anything if you have questionszz.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Girl Genius Liveblog #136

UPDATE 136: Joyous Plant

Last time Agatha, Gil and Tarvek had gotten to one of her ancestors’ seraglio, the library may be nearby. Also Zola is still on the run. Let’s continue.

Apparently Agatha and Tarvek really believe they’ll fill the seraglio with people. It’ll all be her harem, and Gil will have special privileges, maybe because he was the first person to show interest in Agatha. The early bird gets the worm, people say! Buuut they need priorities. Get the castle working first, then form your harem.

Don’t underestimate Zola, Gil, that marshmallow gun killed a man already!

There’s something a tad unnerving about watching everyone suddenly be so cheerful. I’m not saying they’re not allowed to be happy, but it’s so sudden that everyone’s shouting how good they feel. Oh, figures, it’s not natural. Tarvek feels there’s something wrong, he shouldn’t be so happy, so there’s a cause for that? Something maybe in the air, since it’s affecting everybody here? It could be a trap set by the Castle or by one of the Heterodynes that lived here.

Aha, there are shenanigans afoot! The exact kind of shenanigans is unknown; all you need to know is that it causes everyone to feel positively elated. I think I have heard of stuff like that before! Aren’t there predators that inflict feelings of peace or lack of danger on their prey? I’m pretty sure there’s a species of ants or wasps or something that does that. Luckily for everyone here, it doesn’t seem like there’s a giant wasp liberating pheromones in the air. There are tendrils. So...like an octopus thing? An experiment, perhaps?

Okay, it was a plant. That’s a new one, I didn’t think a plan would do this! A predator plant the Smoke Knights use, I suppose to inflict feelings of extreme happiness and make their targets less likely to be able to defend themselves. Good thing Zola doesn’t do that!

That thing grew a lot, I’m both impressed and horrified. I wonder how many prisoners got caught by its vines and killed? A lot, I bet. And Agatha and Tarvek must be furious in the inside, even if they’re smiling widely.

As expected, the Heterodynes fulfilled the mad scientist tradition of experimenting with carnivore plants, and there’s more than one, too. Okay, now I have to say it: I’m aware there’s a Twitter account of Othar with posts from a timeline where Gil died in Castle Heterodyne. I haven’t checked not even a single word of it yet – for obvious reasons – but if the reason Gil died was because he was chewed to bits while he was high in plant pheromones I’m going to be immensely disappointed of Gil!

Agatha truly can work on clanks no matter the situation. She’s currently being hung in the air by vines, and she’s working on pruning clanks. This is why she’s the main character of this awesome story, because she’s really good at doing what must be done. She’s too late to save Gil, though, because from the ceiling comes the Pink Menace, and I can’t tell if she’s affected or not by the plants. Seems like she isn’t. She’s real happy to have the chance to save Gil, but not even for a second I’ll think she’s doing it out of the very, very microscopic goodness of her heart.

Nobody seems to be happy anymore. Since Agatha is busy at the moment, Zola decides to take the chance to kill her, and goes ahead with her dagger. Thankfully for Agatha, Zeetha and Higgs arrive just in time! And unlike the last couple times Agatha got saved from death, this one isn’t out of the blue! Thank goodness for that, Foglios.

Yeah! Now that’s great! Say, now I’m realizing just how many times Zeetha has inadvertently saved Agatha’s life by forcing her to get fit back when they were in the circus.

Maybe Agatha doesn’t have any training with swords, but she can fight well enough. Besides, the pruning clank she fixed/made/something not too long ago is an advantage, it cuts the cord Zola was hanging from, she falls down to the ground. Bam! That must have hurt. Now that Zola’s going to let that stop her, she wants to kill Agatha even if it means losing her own life.

If Movit 6 could get a rather injured Tarvek to move and start clinging to mechanical tigerdogs as if it was no big deal, then this can’t be good news. Why do you even have Movit 11, Violetta? Are you immune to it or something? Is it a Smoke Knight thing?

The story is interrupted to show a photo of a mess, with a trophy and a clank:

So that’s the Hugo trophy they received! Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones. So the volumes have titles? I guess those titles are for the novelizations of the story, or something like that. Also, I really like the clank. I wish I had one.

And then Zeetha gets too cocky. That makes...what, the second time Zeetha gets in big trouble? I admit I’m a bit disappointed of her. She’s a warrior princess, and I have seen she can resist against an attack, but still...it’s a bit jarring that she has been in danger twice. Kind of undermines the whole warrior princess part. Then again, maybe she just didn’t think the Movit 11 would be so effective. I know I didn’t! It’s pretty dang effective! One moment Zola is in the air, the next she’s with Zeetha, punching her and taking the sword and—

--yeah, and that. Aaaw, come on! Don’t you dare die now, Zeetha. There are a lot of characters I’d say are safe from dying, but Zeetha isn’t one of them. I’m hoping she survives, although it can’t be easy to survive a sword to the gut, much less when you’re in middle of a conservatory away from a laboratory where Agatha and the others can help with the power of MAD SCIENCE. Would they even have the time to help Zeetha while Zola is here? Because Zola isn’t going to sit back and let them help anyone, that’s for sure.

With these recent developments I think I’ll stop.

Next update: next time

[qqueenofhades]

bloodsport [fighting in a love war]: two

you all never stopped asking for a second part of this, and since timeless is officially back from the dead, well, the occasion should be commemorated. tagging @crazykittehcat​, @queenofexplosions​, @extasiswings​, and @prairiepirate​. sorry for any typos, as it is a horrible pain in the ass to post fic on a tablet, but my computer is still dead, so.

rated e.

part one/ao3.

Flynn and Lucy do not speak to each other for the next three days. This is noteworthy enough, given that Wyatt and Rufus have generally relied on her to communicate important bulletins to the fourth member of their team (or as Rufus puts it, ''translating it into asshole''), that it causes both of them to take notice. It's kind of hard not to, given that they get caught in the 1863 New York Draft Riots, straight out of Martin Scorsese, and Flynn is shooting on one side, Wyatt is shooting on the other, there is absolutely not a word exchanged between either of them, and they nearly all get killed by the Gangs of New York before they can bail. Once they arrive back at the Lifeboat, sooty and shouting and with bullet holes through several dangerously nearby pieces of their clothing, Wyatt finally explodes, ''What the hell was that about, man? Huh?''

''It's my fault now, Wyatt?'' Flynn is sleek and suave and showing his teeth, which means he's feeling especially dangerous. ''Given the fact that I was the one who told you Boss Tweed was Rittenhouse, you should thank me for -- ''

''Is that what you call it? You ordered Lucy to tell us that Boss Tweed was Rittenhouse, which I am sure she already knew, and which anyone could guess by looking at the guy for two seconds, and then you went to peace out in Five Points while the rest of us were dodging mobsters, so yeah, Flynn, you were a big help!'' Wyatt shoves his gun into the holster as they clamber in and slam the door, not wanting to hang around here any longer than they have to. He goes to help Lucy with her seatbelt as usual, but she shakes her head at him. Flynn looks smug, goes to help instead just to show up Wyatt while briefly forgetting he's not talking to her, and then smartly decides he does not want to try to touch her in any capacity after the look she just gave him. He sits down, buckles up with a black cloud almost visible over his head, and nobody says a word as Rufus fires up the jump to launch them back to 2017.

Once they land, Lucy angrily undoes her harness, picks up her skirts, and storms out of the Lifeboat without a word, which leaves the men behind for an extremely awkward competition of who can get out the fastest without running into each other. Rufus books it like he's trying out for the track team, and Flynn starts his usual melodramatic stalk off to brooding solitude, but Wyatt grabs his arm. ''Hey. I'm not done with you yet.''

''What a pity, I'm done with you.'' Flynn's eyes smolder back at him like burning coals. ''All of you, really.''

''Yeah. We know. You haven't stopped telling us every day. We get it. You hate us. But you know what? Fight me. I can take it. Don't you dare hurt Lucy, or -- ''

''Is that what you think I did? Hurt her?''

''I think you did something. What the hell happened?''

''Why are you asking me?'' Flynn frees himself with a jerk and stares down at the shorter man evilly. ''Why aren't you asking her? Not sure you want to hear the answer? You know I won't tell you, so now you can say you made the effort without the risk of uncovering the outcome. Good job, soldier. Gold star. Put it on your report. Now piss off.''

''HEY!'' Wyatt almost runs between him and the door, increasing Flynn's nearly-to-boiling-point temper still further. His face is still angry, but his tone is close to frantic. ''Just tell me you didn't hurt her! Look. We're not friends. That is clear to both of us. But I thought -- possibly idiotically, I admit -- that the one common ground we had was her. Was I wrong?''

At that, as much as Flynn wants to bark at him again, it feels like the air draining from a balloon, the water from a pool, the light from the sky. He's momentarily flummoxed, not the least because he has no idea if he has or not. He has been doing his best not to let the events of three days ago cross his mind in any capacity, cryogenically freezing them on the spot, consigning them to the dark place of his memory where he doesn't go. He's not going to be able to function otherwise.

''I didn't hurt her,'' he says at last, heavily. ''Not on purpose.''

A flicker of uncertainty crosses Wyatt's face. He clearly wants to believe this, but he is preconditioned to expect the worst from Flynn, and if Flynn is honest with himself, he knows the bastard has not exactly been given any compelling evidence to the contrary. As he has told them many times, he indeed is only helping because they have just about sworn a blood oath to bring Lorena and Iris back when they're done. And while Flynn doesn't want to believe them a tiny bit, not after what happened the first time, he's found himself doing it anyway. Because if he isn't fighting for them, he doesn't know why he's fighting at all, and if he's not fighting, he might as well just go curl up in a dark corner and die. It's been like this as long as he can remember. In different ways, yes, but it isn't something that started with losing his girls. Living in his head has been a total disaster from day one, and he's never once been sure how to stop it. He's tired.

''What do you mean, not on purpose?'' Wyatt says at last, somewhat less heatedly. ''Did you -- ''

''Nothing.'' Flynn turns to go. He wants a stiff drink, or three. ''It was nothing, all right?''

''Whatever that nothing is, it's affecting the mission. Lucy is doing her best to pull her weight regardless, because she's a professional. You're...'' Wyatt considers his words carefully. ''We didn't ask you to be on the team just because you were the nearest grunt with a gun who could be briefed about the time travel thing. If that was the criteria, we would have gone back to Pendleton and gotten another of my buddies. Another Bam-Bam, a -- ''

He stops.

Despite himself, Flynn feels a faint flicker of guilt, considering that he is -- indirectly, but not very -- responsible for Dave Baumgardner's death. Add it to the list. What comes out, of course, is caustic. ''Of course not. He didn't last very long, did he?''

''Yeah, because one of your guys shot him.'' Wyatt's head comes up, eyes flat and hard. ''You're a dick, Flynn. I know it. We know it. I'm pretty sure you know it, because you're too smart not to. Strictly speaking, both of us should probably still be in jail. But that doesn't matter now, and we asked you to be on the team because you are literally the only other person in the world who can help us. You think you're the only one who has to forgive us for the betrayal that we've already told you ten thousand times was not Lucy's fault. There's plenty on our side of the ledger too. You ever think about that?''

This is the last conversation Flynn wants to be having, especially given the unhappily low whisky content in his bloodstream. ''That you're so much better than me and I should be grateful you gave me a second chance at all, from the goodness of your hearts? There. Yes. I thought about it. Can I go now?''

''No.'' Wyatt remains looking at him levelly. ''That we're so much the same. As much as both of us hate it. And yeah. Fine. Go. Spend the night listening to Finnish death metal and watching grimdark YouTube videos, whatever you do to stay in the zone. Just don't take it out on Lucy.''

With that, he spins on his heel and strides off on double-time parade march, as Flynn stares balefully after him, wondering if he could nail Wyatt between the ears from here. Probably, but it would be messy, it would be very difficult to explain to the other two, and, well, Rittenhouse would be very pleased if he did. So, tempting as it is, he has to resist. He was hungry, but he doesn't think he is anymore. He has no idea what to do. Sleep? As if. Go back to tinkering with the Lifeboat -- Rufus hates it when he does that, but Rufus can eat his Chocodiles and shut up. Besides, Flynn's modifications work. Usually.

Seeing no other option, he goes to the charging station and pulls out the circuit board he's been rewiring. These Boy Scouts he's working with shot down his suggestion of stealing another nuke to power the Lifeboat the same way as the Mothership, which Flynn himself didn't see anything wrong with, and they keep losing time since Rittenhouse can jump whenever they want, while the Time Team has to wait for their battery to top up. Like driving through a tunnel shouting ''can you hear me now?'', while your enemies are taking the helicopter over the top. Not exactly a recipe for success.

Flynn sits down wearily, opens the case, and stares at the circuits until his eyes go out of focus. He picks up the pliers and makes a cursory adjustment, then drops his hand. Tries to work up the motivation for another one. Prove he's valuable, not that he should be caring about what these chuckleheads think of him. He knows he blew it today, hung them out to dry -- but he came back, didn't he? He could have bailed, left them there, taken the Lifeboat himself (well, he'd need Rufus at least for that, but he could have worked around that) and gone back to working alone. After all he's complained, both before his absorption into the time team and after, about having to delegate, that would seem to be the simplest solution. After all, he hates them. Doesn't care if they get stuck for good in the Civil War (funny, that, considering the civil war going on with them). Could have left. Etc. Etc.

But he came back.

Flynn doesn't want to think about this either, and if he does go to get something to assist him in forgetting, he'll probably run into one or all three of them, doing their insufferable team-bonding thing. Drinks after work for the crew. He can't stand that.

(He might want it. Just a little. To sit there and be part of something. Part of them.)

(He ignores it harder.)

He has made a further few futile attempts to modify the circuit board, when he senses more than hears someone by the entrance to the warehouse, a slight shift in space that nonetheless he has become too-attuned to. He lifts his head, flicks his eyes over as surreptitiously as he can without appearing to look, and sees Lucy standing on the far side, arms folded. She's changed out of her 1863 clothes and showered, her hair damp and dark around her pale face, and Flynn can catch a whiff of some floral shampoo that makes his throat briefly dry. He swallows hard, ignoring that too, as well as the simple sweatshirt and leggings she's wearing. He's seen her in all sorts of clothes by now, from every time (and less, an unhelpful voice in his brain whispers) and she looks beautiful in each, but this is a different Lucy. Lucy without her armor, without her makeup, without her never-flagging, steely strength as the undoubted captain of their ship, with just her hair loose and her walls down. She doesn't even appear to notice Flynn. She's here because by the looks of things, as tired as she is, sleep isn't in the cards for her either.

He hesitates, telling himself not to do anything stupid. Then, because he is Garcia Flynn, and stupidity is embedded in his DNA, he puts the board aside and gets to his feet. ''Lucy.''

She jumps, turns, sees him, and flinches. He can see her hastily putting her walls back up, her game face, preparing to deal with whatever crisis he's about to bring to the table in any sense of the word, and he feels guilty, in a way he didn't even for Bam-Bam, that he's the cause of it. She gets so little rest or respite, and even here, in whatever few stolen hours she gets before their next trip, she can't relax. Not with the Minotaur lurking in the labyrinth -- that makes her Ariadne, Flynn supposes, and it makes fucking Wyatt Theseus, which, you know, might explain a lot. Especially the throttling each other part. But Lucy is Lucy, and even now, she will give him another chance, listen to what he has to say, even if it will inevitably hurt her. She'll put that aside too. ''Yes, Flynn?'' she says tiredly. ''What do you need?''

That twists his heart. Of course she'd ask what he needs, prepare to fill a vacancy, requisition resources. Keep everything on track. He can hear Wyatt telling him that Lucy is still pulling her weight because she's a professional, and he's... well, he is clearly not. Briefly, he wonders if Lucy is not Ariadne, but Atlas, and you'd never know. ''I...'' Christ, he's not good at this. He and Lorena rarely argued, and when they did, the actions were already there, the instinctive and implict permission to make it better without the words that still came so hard to him, but which he tried, for her. He has none of that with Lucy, no shortcut or safe place. ''About today. It... could have gone better.''

A corner of Lucy's mouth quirks wryly. It's the closest thing that there has been to a smile on her face for the past several days, and Flynn feels almost abjectly grateful to be the reason for it. ''Yeah,'' she says. Calmly and matter-of-factly, not ripping into him unduly, but also refusing to let him in any degree off the hook. ''Yeah, it could have.''

''Wyatt told me too. Earlier.'' Flynn attempts a nonchalant shrug. ''I didn't mean to bother you. I'll just...''

With that, he tries to sidle back off toward his fruitless circuit board pursuits, but Lucy's quiet voice stops him. ''Garcia.''

As it does every time she uses his first name, that roots him to the spot like a bolt of stinging lightning, pulse suddenly tripping too fast. He waits tensely, hoping she won't say anything -- well -- dangerous. (Yes, it's true, this is usually his department, throwing verbal bombs at her, and he would deserve it if she wanted to make him pay more for what he could have cost them today, after everything they've endured already.) When she doesn't, he finally prompts, ''Yes?''

''I just -- '' Lucy bites her lip, which makes her look younger than usual. ''What... happened the other night. I'm sorry if it... I didn't want it to make things more difficult. They already are enough. If that's the case, I just... both of us should forget. We won't say anything to the others. I haven't, and I know for a fact you haven't. The job comes first.''

Flynn regards her, worn, muted, and ashamed that she feels as if she is the one who has to apologize to him, when his own actions -- well, he has still never encountered a situation that he has improved, at least without blowing it up entirely first. Finally, gruffly, he says, ''You know someone needs to teach you how to fight.''

Lucy looks as if she can't decide whether to accept this out or not. She glances down. ''I wasn't exactly talking about the fighting.''

Of course she wasn't. They fight all the time, they exist in a constant low-level state of conflict, why would she be talking about that as anything different? Like two reverse polarities forced together, clashing and sparking, except for when they're not, and that becomes the most dangerous state of all. And all that energy, that determination to keep up that division and distance, this war and its bloodsport, comes from Flynn. Lucy has been silently asking, begging for a truce this entire time, and all he has been doing is twisting the knife.

That, at last, is the one thing that breaks the increasingly rickety dam inside him, the one holding back his rationalizations and justifications and his anger, the way it's been easier to focus it on her, because she's here, and Rittenhouse isn't. Has remained just as elusive and shadowy and multi-headed as ever, just out of reach, counting on him to do half of its work for it by continuing to punish Lucy -- the others too, yes, but especially Lucy. Both sides have always known that this turns on her. Rittenhouse attempting to recruit her hasn't worked, but why come up with another plan, when they can see Flynn eating them out like a cancer from within? Must be waiting. Placing bets. Wondering what day Lucy breaks, and turns at last to them.

Slowly, so slowly, Flynn's hand comes up. He reminds himself that he'll punish himself for this later, but for once -- God, for once -- not Lucy. Wyatt's right, she deserves this least of all, and while Flynn himself would never admit that short of having it tortured out of him (and maybe not even then), and even he can see the appeal of a détente, if a temporary one. He waits for Lucy to push him away, which he would deserve if she did, or worse. But when she doesn't, his fingers end up brushing lightly over her cheek, his thumb tracing the bow of her lower lip, the indent of her chin. He starts to move his hand away, feeling as absurdly self-conscious as if he's done something far worse, but Lucy takes an unexpected step, and his arm gets stuck between them.

Flynn's throat closes as if a fist has wrapped around it. He was not counting on this, and isn't sure how to extricate himself, as they were almost having a genuine moment there and for once, he doesn't want to ruin it. His hands skim down Lucy's sides to her hips, hovering but not quite taking hold, though both of them can surely feel the electricity crackling in that remaining breath of space. Lucy's eyelashes flutter, her lips parting, until Flynn realizes, with an entirely different sort of shock, that if he leaned down and kissed her right now, she probably wouldn't object at all. Not that he should. That is exactly the sort of action that ''don't do something stupid'' from earlier was supposed to prevent.

To Flynn's credit, he does make an effort. Perhaps less to his credit, the only thing that effort does is draw him downwards, as Lucy rises on her tiptoes. Her arms wrap around his neck -- perhaps less from a desire for deeper closeness than because of the fact that simple statistics dictate she needs to achieve considerably more height to comfortably kiss Flynn. That indeed appears to be what is happening here, as their mouths open and turn and seek hungrily deeper, as he lifts her and presses her back against the Lifeboat's cold metal hull, as the kiss turns raw and insatiable. Until Lucy's hand comes up to pull at his cravat, as Flynn has once more not bothered to change out of his nineteenth-century suit, he freezes, and both of them come to their senses as if doused in cold water. Lucy jerks away, Flynn puts her down, they take three steps back as if from a piece of live ordnance, and remain there, staring. It is excruciating.

''I -- '' Lucy says at last. ''I should go.''

''Yes.'' Flynn wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to let on how breathless he is, blood roaring in his ears (and in other places). He's only aware of how dangerous that was, the need to push her away again, before she starts feeling too sorry for him, before she thinks he deserves any kindness at all. ''Run back. I'm sure the kindergarten class needs you.''

Lucy arches one eyebrow at the irony of him calling anyone else a kindergartner, especially when it comes to emotional maturity, but infuriatingly, she doesn't take the bait. Instead, she gives him one of those piercing looks that he can never quite withstand, no matter what he tries. After a moment, she says, ''Rufus.''

''What?'' Whatever Flynn was expecting -- and frankly, if he was expecting anything, that would mean he thought this through, which he did not -- it wasn't that. ''What about Rufus?''

Lucy shrugs, lightly but with an unmistakable edge. ''Chicago,'' she says. ''1931. We weren't supposed to go there originally. Rittenhouse had taken over Mason Industries and they knew how they were going to solve all of this. My -- biological father had it all worked out. Wyatt was in jail for stealing the Lifeboat and Baumgardner was dead, so Rufus and I had been assigned a new soldier. Or should I say, hired gun. The plan was for us to jump to 1962 Texas, and kill your mother. Maria Thompkins.''

''Wh -- ?'' Flynn feels punched. ''You knew my mother?''

''After the moon landing,'' Lucy goes on, coolly and dispassionately as if reading a medical report. ''We found out who the woman you spent all your time with there was, and that you saved your half-brother's life. So, of course, Rittenhouse found out as well. The easiest way to stop you, according to them, was just to kill your mother before you were born. Rufus and I both vehemently opposed it, fought against it. I told Cahill to his face that it was the wrong decision and that I wouldn't do it. It didn't matter. We still ended up in the Lifeboat in 1962.''

''But -- '' Flynn is reeling, struggling to keep up with this. Knowing that she would have been justified in letting this happen, as he was willing to let her grandfather die in the explosion in 1954. Her father was already born, yes, but -- ''I'm still... here, I didn't -- ''

''Yes,'' Lucy says. ''Yes, you are. Because Rufus, the shy tech geek who has never fought anything except in a computer game, took on a trained Rittenhouse assassin to save your mother. I helped,'' she adds, clearly as an afterthought. ''We managed to knock him out, subdue him, and jump back to pick up Wyatt and follow you to 1931. You remember what you arranged to happen to Rufus in 1931?''

Flynn cringes.

Lucy folds her arms, chin tilted back -- showy displays, major breakdowns aren't her style -- but transparently and totally furious. ''So,'' she says. ''You know why Rufus snarks at you and you snark at him and so forth? It's because he's scared of you. He's scared to be alone with you, he's scared you'll try to get him killed again, and he knows it would jeopardize the mission if he said anything, so he swallows it and he never tells you what he did for your mother, and just ignores it, because he's that brave. Wyatt is used to hating your guts. Me, well, I know you well enough that I'm not that bothered by you anymore. But Rufus? How does he protect himself?''

''Lucy -- '' Flynn's cheeks feel hot. ''Lucy, I'm -- ''

''I don't want your apology,'' Lucy says. ''Not for me. What I want is for you to apologize to him, and mean it. Not that I'm holding my breath for that. So. Suit yourself. We're stuck with each other anyway.''

She shrugs again, having never raised her voice once through all of this, while Flynn can feel each of the stripes she left scalding on his backside. It strikes him how deeply, truly connected the three of them actually are, much as he derides it and snorts at it and rolls his eyes. Wyatt wants nothing for himself, if Lucy might be hurting more, and Lucy wants nothing for herself, if Rufus might be hurting more. Whatever each one of them are facing, struggling with, they don't care about that pain if they need to cover someone else's back, close ranks, shield whoever might be nearest to breaking. That's why they kept beating Flynn, stopping his plans. He knew as much about where and when they were as them, if not more. He was willing to do far more than them. He was certainly not concerned with whatever collateral damage he might inflict. But they do have something he doesn't. They have each other. And it's true that they have far more to forgive him for than he does them, and yet, they've still offered him a place with them. Out of necessity, yes, but they've tried to make it more than that. And he's --

Flynn doesn't have any idea what to say. He feels as if the ground has gone out from under him, as if she's reached into his chest and torn something out of him, that small, endless fire that he keeps burning against the world, the sense of righteous outrage, the only thing he really has left. It hurts him, but it hurts his enemies more, so it's always been a sacrifice he's willing to make. Now, though. Now, he's completely at a loss. Just him, and Lucy Preston across the way, still confoundedly expecting him to change, to make a better choice. He wishes she wouldn't. That she would just give up. That would make this easier.

And yet. He knows that that -- as with him -- is the one thing she is never going to do.

He takes a step. Another. After what Lucy just said to him, she would once more be deserved in backing away, in running screaming. But Garcia Flynn has always been a man of action, and that is the only way he knows how to go about fixing this, in whatever small part. When Lucy doesn't back away, when he's reached her and closed the distance between them again, when she's practically straining her neck to look directly up at him, he holds her gaze. Then, slowly, goes to his knees in front of her, which makes them just about even. He waits.

Lucy's cheeks flush pink, as her tongue darts out to touch her lips. He can breathe the faint lingering fragrance of her shampoo, that fresh scent that hangs around women, something bracing and clean, a bit like sunlight. It's going to his head, it's making him giddy, so he's thankful to already be on his knees. As his hands come up, almost span her waist, and then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her leggings. Punish yourself later. His mantra, every time he comes close to forgetting, for a moment, why he is doing this. As he tugs them slowly down her hips, pulling her panties with them, as he brushes his nose against her slender thigh and she sucks in a breath and braces her hands on his shoulders. He is light-headed with want for her. He is starving to death, and the banquet is laid before him, but he will not take a bite.

Lucy utters a small impatient noise in her throat, trying to shift herself into his mouth, and Flynn is a number of things, but he's not quite strong enough to resist that. He kisses her as suddenly below as he did above, all at once, thorough and devouring, and Lucy's grip tightens on him almost hard enough to hurt. Not that she could hurt him, not this way. In other ways, she's quite adept, but it is only in seeing his weaknesses and targeting them as unerringly as a sniper. Never cruel, never for sport, but simply because she knows exactly what he is, and always has.

Flynn braces himself, hands on her thighs, as he licks her, delicately circles her clit with the tip of his tongue, and then moves lower, slipping his tongue into her, starting a slow rhythm. He increases the pace steadily, pulling her leg to drape over his shoulder as she grasps for purchase on the Lifeboat again, knuckles white. As with everything Flynn does, it is done wholeheartedly and with utter abandon, no stopping, no slowing, no mitigating factor. He bites lightly at her, moving her leg to get a better angle, as he can hear the ghost of a moan catch in her throat. She doesn't say anything. Likely for the best. Talking rarely goes well between the two of them.

Flynn can taste her slickness on his tongue, a light citrusy tart that must be from whatever she washed with in the shower, feel the rasp of her fine dark hair against his lips. He doesn't let up until Lucy's toes clench, her body shudders, and she comes with a choking, muffled gasp that reverberates against his mouth, through both of them and into the Lifeboat on the other side. Oddly fitting, considering that he feels as if they are adrift on a wild and stormy sea, and this is the only chance they have of survival, of ever making it back to land. He remains where he is for a moment more, then slides back on his knees, once more wiping his mouth with his arm, feeling hot and bothered and fragile as glass himself, but not about to ask her for satisfaction. He will handle it. Later. Alone. As usual.

Lucy stands there weak-kneed, mouth open, eyes dark, gasping, until she finally recollects herself, pulls up her panties and leggings, and shoots a half-tentative look at him, as if waiting for him to do something else. When he doesn't, she bites her lip, ducks her head, and says softly, ''Good night, Flynn.'' Shoots another look back as if wondering or perhaps even hoping (though surely that is his imagination) that he will stop her. But he doesn't.

Flynn watches her go for a long moment, head thundering. Then, when he is sure she's off to -- wherever she's going, whatever she's going to do for the rest of the night -- he shuffles gingerly out of the warehouse, out across the courtyard, and up the stairs to his room. Shuts the door behind him and swears, in several of the numerous languages he knows. He doesn't exactly feel better, and he needs to attend to things, so he angrily wrenches off his shirt and trousers, gets on the bed, and takes himself in hand. Closes his eyes and imagines Lorena, imagines her smiling, saying something earthy, pushing him onto his back. He was always happy to let her lead; she enjoyed sex, enjoyed having it, knew what she wanted and how she wanted him to give it to her -- which was good, because he was clueless. Not about the sex part, as he could manage that well enough, but making her happy, truly being what she needed and wanted. Women have always been a mystery to him, like most men, but she took him by the hand and patiently showed him how, never made him feel stupid for not knowing. Chose him, for some baffling reason, when he was just as much a wreck as he is now, though somewhat differently. And now she can --

Flynn's eyes flash open. Because he has been thinking of Lorena, but the face he's picturing, that came the most easily to his mind, wasn't hers. Figures. He isn't sure that he shouldn't be completely ashamed of himself, trying to jerk off to his wife's memory after going the ''I'm sorry I'm a disaster, does oral sex help?'' route with another woman. He feels hollow and tawdry and unsatisfied, struggling to recapture the exact details of Lorena's face, the arch of her lips, the fine network of blue veins under her skin, and almost panics when he realizes that he can't. He has no pictures of her. He went off the grid after the murders and had to destroy every bit of potentially trackable electronic equipment. All the hard copies, all the photograph albums, were packed up and taken away by Lorena's parents. They never were terribly fond of Flynn, blamed him for their daughter and granddaughter's death (they're not wrong, he thinks, they're not wrong) and saw no reason to let him have any, especially if he was going on the run. The only place he sees her now is in his dreams.

He is starting to forget.

He is starting to forget.

He can't stop it. It's going to keep happening. There is no way to reverse the process. He has to do this, he has to get her back, because otherwise one day in the not-so-distant future, he might wake up and find even the ghost of her gone. He might not even remember exactly what he has lost. And when that happens, she'll be truly gone. Rittenhouse will win.

In a cold sweat, Flynn eases himself down on the bed, letting go and abandoning his efforts, lying there with his eyes screwed shut until things go somewhat slack on their own. He feels nauseous, panicked, at the edge of control, forcing down the screaming in his head. One more night. He can make it one more night. Then decide tomorrow if he can keep going. That's the trick. Make it through a day, remember that you can always die if you can't. That's the comfort.

Flynn waits until his breathing steadies, until his heart unclenches. He should get some sleep, though he rarely does. Doubtless they will be once more charging into the breach soon enough.

He decides he will apologize to Rufus tomorrow. It's oddly comforting.

He listens to his breath. He tries to count sheep. He always told Iris to, though he wasn't sure it worked. He listens to the night go on. Listens to the earth spin, the stars rattle softly in the heavens, the world move inexorably toward another morning. It won't stop. It won't stop.

All he can try to do is spin the planet back. Pass through the doors of time, rewrite the annals of time and space and history. He has always known that he is a difficult man to love, and that Lorena is the only woman who could, who was willing, who understood. Without her, he has no chance.

(No chance, he insists.)

(No chance.)

Eventually, shivering, silent, solitary in the dark, he sleeps.

[naturetorn]

deathrisen replied to your post:

talk about how his manipulation shaped pam and formed her opinion on men

oh, you know. the easy stuff. the quick stuff. this is both the worst and the best prompt i could have gotten cause now i’m filled with stuff to say but also !! you know me charisse, i’m shit at explaining and putting down good headcanons and just... stuff.

technically, it’s pretty easy. like on paper: he betrayed her in such a sick, twisted way that there was no outcome whatsoever that would have her fully okay with men again. that shit scarred her for life and in ways she doesn’t even notice. to this day.

give how trusting and much more open and willing to interact she is with women. it’s natural, sure, but it also makes her naive all over again. she is so sure that she cannot, under no circumstances whatsoever, trust men that she almost forgets to remember that some women are just as untrustworthy. take how ready she was to give harley the serum, the antidote to not only her most powerful weapon but also what’s basically her last line of defense (no matter what happens in a fight, if she goes down people will still die if they touch her. that’s one hell of a defense mechanism, which also caused its problems when it comes to intimacy and human contact but that’s a whole other post).

the thing with harley is, it’s so quick given where ivy is in her timeline. she has already met her as a psychiatrist in arkham, sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t know each other that well (because harley being devilishly good at her job and prodding ivy’s mind where it hurts the most doesn’t exactly count as prime bonding time), she has come back from another traumatic even in her life** (we’ll go back to this) maybe a year or two before and has already that much time as a villain under her belt. and then this woman drops on her lap and the first thing she does is act annoyed and at the same exact time give her the serum. she is so desperate for contact, at this point, that she’s willing to risk it. and she doesn’t even see it as a risk. probably has never thought back on it at all and realized how naive it was to do it out of the blue. 

** jason betrays her, experiments on her, leaves her to die. when she finally comes to, she goes through quite another shocking event before finally deciding to quit and leave. this is when she goes be one with nature and is ready to embrace whatever this new body of hers is going to gift her with. she hasn’t made peace with the circumstances that have given it to her but she’s willing to work with it; find out the silver linings. so she’s chilling out, ready to pass the rest of her life on this island away from everyone and everything (##) and bam. in march the greedy, wasteful, destructive humans setting fires and bulldozing all of it.

pamela, highly unstable and now basically made 95% of hot, red rage and 5% of pain that doesn’t even belong to her but she can feel nonetheless, goes back and becomes ivy.

(##) and that’s always because of what woodrue did, btw. let’s not forget that. she accidentally kills her at-the-time bf, a day or two after getting out of the hospital. cause her powers start showing and she consequentially basically vows to never touch anyone ever again. which, jesus, that’s all it is. that’s basically the core of ivy’s character. she doesn’t want to touch. and she sure as hell doesn’t want to be touched. because the last time she was someone she loved and trusted and thought of as the reason the sun came up in the morning, betrayed her in the ugliest way possible. it wasn’t just that he experimented on her, it was more about the effort before that. she loved him. they went out. they kissed. they discussed plants in their labs. and she thought he loved her back. and he doesn’t tell her ‘hey it was all a lie’ but he also doesn’t reassure her that it was all real (not that it would make it better, of course, but you’re following me right?). so this girl finds herself one second being sure as hell that this man loves her just as much as she loves him, and the next she’s literally fighting to keep herself alive while having her entire dna rewritten so, like you said, the manipulation behind it. the months spent together she has to not forcefully tell herself weren’t real. this huge period of time she has to try and detach herself from. and this was the one person she thought cared about her, her parents didn’t give a shit about her; she only really served to complete the happy family cliché and as long as she kept out of trouble and didn’t publicly embarrass herself (and by proxy them) she could do whatever she wanted (just as long as she kept out of their way and came to events when asked to). so woodrue? that showered her with some much needed attention and praised her and gave her special lessons and basically put her on a pedestal as the best student he ever had? he was like a tall glass of fresh water for her.

and bam, that was that. when harley burst into her life she was back to square one, except even worse. she wasn’t just starving for affection she also couldn’t touch anyone.. and she had slowly learned to control the toxins on her skin to actually touch people without causing them any kind of harm whatsoever but there hadn’t been a reason to actually put some effort in it and she barely, if ever, really put herself into it and worked on training that part of her skillset.

i am not sure why harley. maybe because it was clear she had no intention of leaving no matter how rude pam was to her. maybe (definitely a lot of it is this actually) because she knew damn well how her relationship with the joker was and she immediately promised herself she’d do something about it; harley didn’t ask for her help but it didn’t matter (which is also what they end up fighting the most about, i told piri once that. pam is so busy trying to help, trying to remove her from that situation, that she can’t hear harley clearly telling her that she doesn’t want to be helped. she doesn’t want to be picked up and removed. she’s fine where she is, thank you very much, and she knows what she’s doing). and after so many years together, i do believe that pam has softened with this, she doesn’t press as much. and honestly? it’s not because she started listening but because she has learned that if she pushes harley will only get mad and leave and they won’t talk for days or weeks or months and.... and ivy can’t have that. she’s still starved for contact, and harley is literally the only person with whom she has (and wants to have) that kind of contact, that trust (and will continue to trust no matter what happens). so she has learned to tone it down, in different ways.

the thing with men is, she doesn’t trust them. that’s true. and it is because of woodrue there is absolutely no doubt about that. but she can tolerate some, while for like the rest 99% they can literally all choke and she wouldn’t even blink. i think it’s mostly having grown used to them, honestly. cause, like i said, it’s not trust but tolerance. take the the male rogues, ivy trusts them as much as they trust her back (and yes, it’s mostly cause they’re all fucking villains) but she can still find common ground with some; have lively but harmless banter with others; mock the rest. there have been instances where the rogues have fought each other, sure, but that does include harley as well. so. yeah. like even bman ?? actually, i think she has been shown to trust bman quite a few times but also it’s not that kind of deep, unwavering trust. you feel me? (me? trying to actually fit canon into this? more likely than you think)

and then there’s the whole deal with har.vey. you all know me, i love me some animated series mixed in with everything else and i like putting in 1) ivy and joker’s banter from their pre-harley existence, although that has nothing to do with this, and 2) you guessed it: her and harvey’s history. i also like to make it a bit less brutal on her part, cause the animated series doesn’t really touch on woodrue so if you actually take that into account as her origin story, then you can see why her living through that and then turning around and basically pulling the same shit on him would be hypocritical af. so like, i am definitely not saying ivy loved or even trusted harvey, but for the sake of the act she had to get pretty close and that’s not something someone who literally hasn’t been intimate with someone in YEARS (remember this is pre-harley, and pre-pretty much anything) goes through without getting affected in some way. 

so yeah, idk. i have weird thought about it. like. i’m not saying they were in love or anything, the guy proposes after a fucking week for god’s sake. but i also don’t like thinking she used her pheromones for it? i don’t like thinking she would manipulate him like woodrue did to her, i just don’t. and it’s not like people can’t be intimate and have a connection without romantic feelings being somehow involved. anyway. that’s a whole other thing.

woodrue’s manipulation shaped her in ways that, while not permanent, are definitely still relevant to how she acts and thinks. it’s not about not trusting (although she most certainly doesn’t trust men), it’s more about not wanting to have anything to do with them. ever. in any given situation. the only exceptions are the children she took care of, coming back to her after having grown up (she would recognize them even if they came back forty years later tbh, it’s her kids after all).

i wanted to go all tl;dr right now but i just noticed this shit is long af and it’s more about off topic shit than the actual things you asked and i am sorry. that’s my summary: sorry.

[negan-is-god]

Your Savior

Ok, so after reading soooo many wonder fanfics ( @negandarylsatisfaction , @imagine-thewalkingdead , @grungedaddykinks @crzcorgi , @thewalkingdeadfanatic , I love you all! Your amazing works keep me up into the wee hours of the morning reading! You are all my muses, please don’t ever stop!) I’ve been wanting to try my hand at it. While I’m sure my work won’t be able to compare, I figured Negan’s Smut Week was as good a week as any to try it out! I’ll just do Chapter One for now and post more or not based off of reviews. This one is mostly character/plot development, but I have big plans for the upcoming chapters! Reviews are welcome, but please be gentle with me! Warnings Violence, gore (it’s a TWD fic, c'mon), rape (trigger warning), swearing, eventual smut. Chapter One Your day started out much like any other, you buried the remaining coals from last nights small fire, erased any signs that you may have been there, grabbed your pack and headed back towards road. You had no real planned route, you’d been working a rough grid scouting for supplies and a safe place to stay for months now since being separated from your group. You kept hoping to cross paths with them again but in this world…you didn’t even know if they were all still alive. You had been on your own when they first found you, when the world turned you were the only one from your family to make it out. You lasted solo for almost a year before finding your group. You had scouted them from a distance for a time, and once you had deemed them trustworthy you had approached asked to join them. Being alone again after all of that time with them….it was a rough adjustment. You knew the road you were headed to lead to a very small town, and you were hoping to scavenge some supplies from it. Your pack was getting dangerously low, and hunting had not been going your way. The sloshing from your canteen reminded you how low on water you were, and the clear sky showed no sign of rain in the future. *sigh* It would work out, it always did. You emerged from the woods onto the road, sticking close to the trees for cover. Moans from the trees ahead of you caught your attention, you slowed your pace. Fight, or flight? How many were there? After a moment, three of the dead shambled out from the woods toward the road, they hadn’t spotted you yet, you could duck into the trees and wait, but you knew you could handle them just as easily. You dropped your pack to the ground, and pulled your knife from its sheath at your waist, quickly and quietly making your way around behind the small group. You efficiently dispatched the first walker by jabbing your knife deep into the back of its skull, the second was put down just as easily before it even knew you were there. The third one had heard the commotion and turned to face you, now reaching toward you with its bony fingers dangling with rotted flesh, teeth gnashing. You swiftly kicked it in the chest, knocking it to the ground, before driving your knife through its temple. You let out a sigh, you hadn’t realized you had been holding your breath. As much as you hated the dead, you couldn’t help but pity them. As easy as it would have been to let these three go, they would have been a risk to any living they passed, and at least now they had a chance at some peace, if there was such a thing anymore. “Nicely done!” The voice startled you. You jumped back, holding your knife at the ready. “Hey there, settle down, we don’t mean you no harm. We were just passing through and caught some of your handy work! Mighty nice, the way you took care of those biters.” The man that spoke slowly approached you from the opposite tree line with his arms outstretched in the universal “I mean no harm” symbol, still, you kept you knife out and ready. “I’m Thomas, but most call me Tommy, and this here is Bill.” You paused, sizing them up. They looked clean and well fed, signs that they must have some kind of community nearby. Even if it wasn’t a place you could stay long, you still had things worth bartering in your pack. But could you trust them? They were armed, but not heavily. They each had knives, and the talker, Tommy, seemed to have a handgun tucked into his waistband. What had brought them from the safety of their camp, you wondered? “Y/N.“ You finally responded. “My name’s Y/N. What brings you out this way Thomas, Bill?” Calling him by his formal name to keep things in neutral territory. The desperation of your supply situation the only thing keeping you engaging with them, that and maybe loneliness. It had been months since you had seen anyone else alive. “Y/N. Well now, that’s a fine name.” Said Tommy, moving closer and dropping his arms, he and Bill were now about 10 feet from you, you took a step back, and they stopped. “Don’t be scared honey, we just want to be friends.” “I’m not scared, you just never can be too sure about people these days, now can you?” You responded sweetly. It wasn’t exactly true, they did scare you. You had noticed both of their eyes doing a fair bit of traveling over your body. Fucking pigs,you chastised internally. You had experience fighting, in this world who didn’t, but both of these men definitely out weighed you, if it came to that, it would be a close fight. And they both had the advantages of full bellies and good nights sleep. Tommy put his head back and roared in laughter “You’re right about that honey, you never know who you can and can’t trust anymore now can ya? And to answer your question, Bill here and I are out scouting for supplies for our camp.” Yes! you thought, I was right! They DO have a camp! “Well,” you began slowly, “maybe I could help you. I’m a pretty good scavenger.” You still weren’t sure about these two, but you needed supplies desperately, at least on a run you could feel them out a little more. “I’ll bet you are.” Said Tommy hungrily, taking the smallest of steps toward you. “You scavenge a lot for your group, honey?” LIE Something inside you yelled. These two men were starting to set off red flags in your head, suddenly it was all you could do not to run away. “Um, yeah. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now. They’re waiting for me back at camp, so I’d like to get to it and get back before they start to worry.” You said briskly, turning on heel and walking toward your pack. “How many of there are you at your camp?” Said Tommy, his footsteps following behind you, much closer than you would have liked. “Uh…a dozen or so? I’ve never really counted.” You bluffed, picking up your pace slightly, you were closing in on your pack, just a few more feet…. Suddenly, you were pulled to a halt as Tommy grabbed your arm. “Liar.” He breathed. “You don’t have a group, no one is waiting for you, you’re all alone. Aren’t you?” Fear prickled up your spine. “Don’t do this. Please. Just walk away.” You murmured, hating the weakness in your voice, especially as it just seemed to excite him. You noticed his pupils enlarged, his breath quickened. You took the opportunity to swing your knife toward his chin as fast as you could, at the same time hearing a twig snap behind you, but by then it was too late. BAM! The pain was blinding and intense. What the hell? You rolled on the ground clutching the back of your head and through blurred eyes looked up to see Tommy and …. fucking Bill. He was so quiet you had forgotten about him. Apparently during your altercation with Tommy he had snuck around behind you and when you had tried to stab Tommy he had clubbed you in the back of the head with his knife handle. “Fuck.” You moaned, pulling bloody hand away from your skull. “Yeah honey, something like that.” Laughed Tommy, unbuckling his belt. It was then that real panic began to set in. You tried to get up, through your pounding head, tried to crawl away, but Bill grabbed your arms, holding you down. “Don’t worry baby, it’ll only hurt if you struggle. Honestly though, I kind of hope you do, I like it better that way.” He breathed into your ear before licking it. The feeling of him that close to you made you fight harder. You started kicking your legs at Tommy and began screaming in earnest, tears pouring down your face and mixing with the dirt below you. “Now stop that, this is happening honey, ya might as well accept it.” “Nonononononono.” It was all you could say, just pouring out of you like a mantra. Tommy roughly pulled your pants off, leaving scratches along your hips. As he began to close in you landed a kick square in his face, causing blood to spray from his nose. “Dammit woman!” He yelled, pinning down your legs with his and punching you in the face. Don’t faint, whatever you do, don’t faint. If you want to live, stay awake. “Hurry up Tommy, I want some!” Whined Bill. “I’m trying Bill, but this little bitch won’t stay still!” And you weren’t, every time you felt Tommy start to position himself you would shift yourself as much as possible, when he made the mistake of laying on top of you to try to hold you better you bit his shoulder deep enough to draw blood. And then….hot searing pain pierced your side. You looked down to see that Tommy had taken out his knife and stabbed you. Not enough to kill you…yet, he still needed you alive….for now. “That should slow ya down, bitch.” Shit, shit, shit, shit. This is it. Fuck. You were going to die. These two idiots were going to rape you, and then you were going to die. Would they be kind enough to finish you quickly? Would they destroy your brain or let you turn? With everything this world had thrown at you, with everything you had survived so far, THIS was going to be it? No, it couldn’t be. You had to think of a way out. Tommy pushed his way into you and you started screaming. Bill covered your mouth, releasing one of your arms in the process. Through the pain you took your opportunity, your grabbed the knife handle sticking out of your side, pulled it out of you, causing pain to radiate throughout your torso, and slashed Tommy in the face. “What the hell?!” He muttered as he pushed back from you. You turned and swung the knife at Bill, managing only to graze his forearm before you began running. You had no idea where you were going, but away from them was a start. “Get back here you bitch!” You could hear their footsteps pounding the pavement behind you. Your head and side were throbbing with pain, but you knew stopping meant death. Run, just run. You told yourself. “There’s nowhere to go honey!” Yelled Tommy. But he was wrong. Just ahead of you was the town you were headed to only that morning. If you could just get to a building….“Shit, hurry up Bill!She’s getting away!” Tommy must have been thinking the same thing. You saw a gas station, focusing on that instead of the pain, your feet were beginning to bleed through your socks from running on the hard pavement. The glass front of the gas station was broken, but it was the closest building and you could feel Tommy and Bill closing in on you. There’s got to be a bathroom, or closet, or something. Please. Please. You leapt through the broken window, skidding on glass as you landed. STAY UP! you chastised yourself, miraculously staying on two feet. Then you saw it, salvation. The bulletproof glass cashiers box. “You fucking bitch! Get back here!” You ran toward the cashiers box, throwing open the mercifully unlocked door, slamming it shut behind you, fumbling with the latch sliding it into place just as the two men reached the door. “No!!!!” Screamed Tommy. Pounding on the door with his fists as Bill tried hopelessly to open the door. You started to laugh, leaning up against the door. You could hear them on the other side, but it didn’t matter anymore, you were safe. “C'mon honey, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t you come on out of there and let us take you back to camp? We’ll get you all patched up and talk this out, what’d'ya say?” You couldn’t believe him. Did he actually think you were that stupid? You flipped him off through the glass with a small smirk on your face. Fuck you assholes. Eat shit and die. you thought. “You know what honey, that’s alright. You go ahead and stay in there as long as you want. You’re bleeding pretty good there, and you won’t last long with no food or water. You’ll be dead in no time, and then you’ll be a biter just like the rest of them, no skin off of my nose. At least I got a small taste of that sweet ass before it went to waste.” Tommy sneared through the glass. Your smirk was immediately replaced with a look of terror. Shit. He was right. Shit, shit, shit. “C'mon Bill, let’s get back before the boss starts looking for us. And hey, at least we have her pack to take back so we don’t go back empty handed! Toodles honey! See ya around!” And with that, they were gone, leaving the door open allowing a few of the passing dead to enter the station, effectively cutting you off from the supplies inside. You slumped down to the floor and finally began to take stock of your injuries. Your head was throbbing, and still seeping blood from your initial blow, beneath your socks your feet were ripped and bleeding from the pavement, you could feel bruises forming on your arms and thighs from being pinned down, and between your legs was throbbing with pain. The worst though, was your side. You pulled your shirt up to take a peek and almost vomited from the sight. The wound was small, but jagged and deep. Obviously he has missed any major organs or veins, but he wasn’t lying, blood was seeping out at an alarming rate. You looked around in the cashiers box for any supplies, only to find receipt tape, old magazines, garbage, and the knife you had pulled out of yourself and escaped with. You finally grabbed a wad of napkins from the garbage, pressed them to the wound, and sunk to the floor, holding as much pressure to the area as possible. You wanted to sleep, but the blow to the head and the blood loss scared you. I can’t die, not like this. I can’t become one of those…monsters. You focused instead on memorizing the details of your new surroundings to keep you alert as long as possible. After counting the dust bunnies under the counter 100 times (47) you turned your attention instead to the knife by your side. It was in great shape, and was actually a fine knife. Had it not been inside of you you would have liked it a lot more, but it did enable you to escape, so it had that going for it. As you turned it over you noticed something carved into the handle. You licked your finger to wipe off some of the blood to better make it out. What the hell? Engraved in the handle was a baseball bat wrapped in…barbed wire? What in the hell was this world coming too? ________________________________________________________ Thanks for sticking through to the end! This was WAY longer than I expected it to be! I hope it wasn’t too slow, I really wanted to set the scene. We’ll meet the man in the next chapter, and we haven’t seen the last of Tommy and Bill. I promise a slow burn and smutty goodness to come in the future.

@grungedaddykinks @crzcorgi @imagine-thewalkingdead @negandarylsatisfaction @thewalkingdeadfanatic

[bsinoranges]

B, d for nowhere in the sea, f, I, j for nowhere in the sea, k, m, n , r , v and z (for the fanfic ask game thing)

Wow. This is long. I’m putting it under a cut because I went overboard.

B: Any of your stories inspired by personalexperience?

Yeah, I did have a sweeping and lovingly mundane love that ended with marriage by the time I turned 18.

Seriously though, Nowhere in the Sea has some stuff that might have come out because of my subconscious.

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associatewith [insert fic]?

No? But I listened to my sad music playlist and the OST for KimiUso while writing.

F: Share a snippet from one of your favoritedialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I went searching for something I was proud of. Hahaha. In the end, I just ended up rediscovering stuff I’ve written before.

This is from LDL.

Takumi starts playing with magic at six years old. The younger Sugawara tumbles around the dried leaves, sending withered remains skyward. It looked like ash as it rose the cold blue expanse of the sky.

Magic suited Takumi just as much as magic wanted to kill Koushi.

Koushi watches from the open window of his room. The frigid air whispers against the worn pages of his book, his fingers on the paper are flushed red. He can see the inky mana pool at his brother’s fingertips. They ebb and flow like water pulling at the sand.

“Takumi,” Koushi leans over his desk and onto the sill, “have fun for me too.”

His brother stops, and the leaves hang static in the air. “Can’t you do magic too?”

Koushi smiles a facsimile of a smile. “I have to sleep if I do.”

“Does that mean I have to sleep too?”

“No, it’s just me.” Koushi shakes his head.

I liked the imagery in this one, and I liked how the atmosphere just complemented Suga’s despair over his situation. Also I was legit shocked because I did not realize that I wrote the I have to sleep if I do line. It has some impact for me, especially that I’m rediscovering it.

This next one isn’t from a fic, but it’s from an ask. But I’m so proud of it. 

“You have to stop this.”

Kyoutani bites into his fries and tastes iron. Fuck this. Iwaizumi shouldn’t be butting into his problems.

He sucks on his thumb before stuffing it along with his fries in his pockets.

“Shit.” Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrow deeper, and he pulls Kyoutani’s arm out of his pockets and into the light, “Are you bleeding?!”

He yanks his hand away. “Fuck no, and it’s none of your business.”

“Stop being such a dumbass and show me.”

Kyoutani turns and starts walking before Iwaizumi could fuss some more. If it were any other time, he would have listened – appreciated it even. But he’s not going to deal with this now. Not now.

The park was empty. As empty a park can be at twelve midnight. An empty midnight park was not somewhere Iwaizumi should be.

“Kyoutani.”

“I’m not going to die from something like this.”

He hears his senior click his tongue. “Not from that, no.”

Even with his back turned Kyoutani knows that Iwaizumi is staring him down with the steady ferocity that made him ace.

Kyoutani stops in his tracks and turns to look at him. The gravel shuffles at the movement. “Then I don’t see what’s the problem.”

His wound begins to sting,

“I’m doing this because I have to, not for some fucked up sense of pride. Not for that glory shit they sell, Iwaizumi.”

“That’s not all there is. You don’t need to do this-”

“You can’t protect me. You won’t always be there.”

His heart races. A shadow passes over them, it hides the thinly veiled shock on Iwaizumi’s face.  “You can’t always protect yourself, Hajime.”

I’m sorry I went overboard and just posted the whole thing. But it just feels so intense, and agitated. The exchange doesn’t seem to lag and everything just goes bam! And the last line feels like a great ending. Haha.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (readingor writing)?

Domestic fluff and many forms of hand holding.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to[insert fic].

You co-wrote this senpai. But the ending for Nowhere in the Sea was supposed to end with Yamaguchi and Yachi skipping school in the winter to go on an extended roadtrip to find her dad. Tracking magic wasn’t a thing. They would find incriminating evidence that he was dead. And it ends on a sad note with Yama pulling Yachi in for a hug in the snowy winter mountain.

My how different it turned out to be.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come upwith? 

It’s about this character that severely injures a very important limb. They use magic to keep said limb more functional than it is now until they can find a better cure. But in the end the cure is not found, they lose all function in that limb, but have found a certain kind of peace with themselves.

L: How many times do you usually revise yourfic/chapter before posting? 

Hrm. It varies, but usually I redo the piece more than five times, then I do it once more and post that one unedited. It’s a brutal cycle that usually requires external influences to break.

M: Got any premises on the back burner thatyou’d care to share?

OH! I have a DaiSuga fic planned. It’s a one-shot similar to the Lights in the Sky are Stars, except that it’s moments set while they’re travelling to destinations and shit.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else wouldwrite (or finish) for you?

I wish someone would write  my just kiss fills  LDL for me. Because that is a monster. At the same time, I don’t want anyone to write it for me.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise)you consider an influence?

Maggie Stiefvater is basically my ideal writing style before I even knew about her and it.

The amount of times I’ve reread Harry Potter is obscene. So I might’ve gotten stuff from J.K. Rowling.

I also love the writing style of Khaled Hosseini. 

Just agh. I am doing them an injustice by not explaining why, but god.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) toany fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Hrm. I’d really rather write my own fics than others. It feels wrong, and I probs won’t do them justice

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/readit? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?

I plan to write them and I have read them. Many of what I’ve read are misses rather than hits, because they seem cheap.

Hmm. I probs can’t take it if any of my 4 top 1 Haikyuu faves die, but I could be persuaded if the story rightfully calls for it.