#I didn’t want to derail your post but I still wanted to make it clear I’m not anti endo

[many-but-one]

I didn’t want to derail your post, @the-alarm-system because I felt that your post is important and should stand on its own, but I also wanted to address that you screenshotted my tags here:

I want to explain what I meant by my tags, as I feel like you may have misunderstood what I was saying. l am supportive of endos existing. I've made that clear on more than one occasion on my blog! I meant I don’t like the phrase “the future is plural” because of the ambiguity of it and the fact that it’s been so misconstrued by so many. I feel like a better phrase that is less likely to be misunderstood would benefit the plural community but I’m not sure what that could be.

From the lens of endogenic plurality flourishing + plurality acceptance and education, I don't mind the phrase "the future is plural." I know plenty of endo systems and they are fine people who deserve to exist how they like! The only reason I don’t like that phrase is the ambiguity and how misunderstood it tends to be, and like I said, I think a phrase that is still concise but less likely to be misunderstood would be useful. I just, again, don’t know what that would be. I truthfully think it tends to be misunderstood because traumagenic systems are applying it to their own experiences (it’s what I did and why I was not liking the phrase at first, not realizing it was referring to endo plurals) and so of course we wouldn’t want the future to be plural because that means kids are being traumatized. However, from an endogenic system’s perspective and them applying it to their own experience with plurality, I can definitely see why they coined the phrase and mean it in the “I want more systems to exist” because a majority of endogenic plurals don’t see their systems as having come from trauma, which means endo plurality increasing =/= children being traumatized in order to exist as plural.

As an aside, I needed to update my “lean toward anti endos” verbiage anyway. I wrote that like…a year ago, maybe more, when I was still on the fence about the whole thing. At this point I’m pretty sure most anti endos aren’t a fan of my stance and so wouldn’t want me associating with them anyway. I say syscourse neutral because I don’t take sides in syscourse and typically don’t engage with it as much as possible for my own sake. Syscourse feels like a toxic minefield more often than not and I don’t like participating. I’m chronically terrible at updating my socials, so than a recent deletion of all of our alter info on our pinned post + an updated DNI, I don’t think we’ve updated that top portion in ages. So, thanks for pointing that out so I can change that as I didn’t realize that was still there.

Normally l'd ignore your reblog/tag screenshot but I just want it to be clear where I stand on the subject and don't want people who don't follow me to see my tags and see me as an endo-unsafe person. I am syscourse neutral in that I don't take sides, but I support endos existing. I used to be firmly anti-endo but l've changed my stance and am trying to be a better and less hateful person. I’ve said some hateful things about endos in the past and I want it to be made aware that I’m not the same person I was a few years ago (literally and figuratively, lol, I was very bitter, angry, and hateful toward MY OWN existence as a system, but with a lot of healing and acceptance of MYSELF I have also realized I needed to be more accepting of others too, even if I don’t fully understand them) so I wanted to nip your assumption in the bud and take a moment to explain my stance a bit more so my endo followers know I’m not against their existence. /gen /nm /just trying to explain myself more than tags would allow LOL

[atthebell]

Your Spiderbit post really nails one of the things that stuck out to me about many of the queer relationships played on the qsmp. So many of them are played with genuine care and affection for the role they are playing. This isn’t a jokey one-off, it’s something valuable worth depicting in a genuine manner. And genuinely Roier and Cellbit exceeded expectations with their care for the dynamic they were portraying. And maybe not to the same extent (married with kids) but the relationships between Fit and Pac, Bagi and Tina, and Foolish and Vegetta are all played seriously at their core. They don’t “drop the bit” when they run out of innuendos or sex jokes.

Foolish misses Vegetta when he’s gone and faithfully waits for his return. They are very proud to raise their child together. Foolish respected Vegetta’s aversion to marriage while still making it clear that he’s in love and not going to leave their relationship.

Fit and Pac played it so seriously, stressing over first dates and confessions and coming to terms with your own sexuality (on Fit’s part) and bonding with your partner’s kid.

Tina and Bagi’s awkward flirting and shy advances. The continued pursuit of something between them despite outside influences. Bagi left Tina a ring!

Sorry I know none of this is like, new info to you I just got so excited at that post because it put into words a feeling I’ve had for a long time but struggled to communicate effectively. I didn’t want to derail that post though so I thought a separate message would be better. Anyway Yes! Spiderbit! Truly doing it like no other! And qsmp as a whole giving us such a wide variety of heartfelt, genuine queer relationships!

it wasn't the queersmp for nothing

[lenievi]

a snippet from my Valjean/Javert post-Seine wip - you can read the whole chapter on ao3

Happy Javert Derailed day!

---

Javert coughed and spat out water. The cobblestones were hard under his knees, but he barely felt them. He coughed and coughed, his body twisting, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. His chest hurt. He was alive. The chains rattled as Javert tried to move his arms—to support himself, to grab on something, to make it stop. He couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

Helpless.

Javert’s breath quickened. His chest heaved; he breathed through his mouth, and tears fell slowly down his wet face. Disgusting. Unbecoming.

Like an anchor, a strong hand gripped Javert’s shoulder. Javert gave a start, his heart beating in his temples. The hand pressed harder. Javert exhaled and bent his head, chin brushing his wet cravat. Why was this man here? Why had Javert ever crossed paths with him?

Valjean. Jean Valjean. He was like a weed Javert could not get rid of. It took root in his mind, and even when Javert yanked it out, even when he planted different plants, he could never obliterate Jean Valjean. And now, the weeds were sprouting, covering every inch and nook of Javert’s mind.

He could not see clearly. The paths, so clear, so light just two days ago, were obscured and unbeaten.

Javert was lost.

His shoulders slumped. Valjean guided him gently towards the ground, and Javert let him. He lay there, on his side, noting the small clusters of grass growing between the cobblestones. Yes, weeds never cared about order and their proper place. Never.

Valjean sat down with a heavy sigh, close enough for Javert to touch him with his knee. For years, Javert’s only desire was to catch Jean Valjean, to put him back to where he rightfully belonged, but now . . . Now, he was tired.

“Javert,” Valjean said and stopped. His fingers tugged at the grass close to his leg, curling the straw around his index finger. It snapped.

“You cannot get rid of weeds.” Javert’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat.

Valjean’s fingers stilled. They were dirty.

Javert wrinkled his nose. “You smell,” he said. “Why haven’t you changed your clothes?” Javert didn’t wait for an answer. Now, when he started to talk, he couldn’t stop. “Why are you here? Did you not understand I no longer want anything to do with you? Why would a prey search out its hunter?” Despite the words, Javert spoke quietly with no derision or scorn. “I wished, for years, that chance would bring us together. I knew it would. It did, just hours ago. But this is ridiculous. Why aren’t you at home? You should have killed me. You should have let me die. That would be justice.”

“Do you still believe me capable of murder?” Valjean asked in a strange tone.

Javert’s head hurt. “Why does it matter what I believe?” Javert could see it again. The flames in Toulon, and Valjean risking his life to save his fellow convict. Risking his disguise to save an old man from being crushed by a cart. Saving that prostitute. Saving her child. Saving that idiot boy Pontmercy.

Letting Javert go.

“I let you go,” Javert said.

“That isn’t like you, Javert.”

Javert sat up, swallowing a groan. The manacles clinked. His arms were in pain. “Don't talk as if you know me.”

“That never stopped you.” Valjean raised his head. He looked as exhausted as Javert felt.

Javert sighed. “Go home, monsieur.”

“Where’s the key, Javert?”

Javert must have looked confused because Valjean added, “You’re wearing handcuffs.”

“Ah . . . yes.”

“Where’s the key?”

“There’s no key.” Javert looked at the river. “A crime was committed. I’ve sentenced myself to death.”

Silence, then Valjean laughed. It was a short and mirthless sound. “A crime? You?”

Javert’s stomach tightened. Did Valjean still not understand? Javert pursed his lips and said nothing, locking eyes with Valjean.

Valjean’s face was unreadable. Or perhaps Javert lost the ability to read in it. Maybe he never could—only seeing what he expected, never listening, never understanding.

Valjean stood up with a groan. “Can you walk?” he asked.

“Why?” Then, with a sigh, “Yes.”

Valjean helped him to his feet. Javert burned with shame as he stumbled and collided with Valjean’s body. The last two days couldn’t have been any worse.

“About that key . . .” Valjean said.

“I left it on the parapet.”

Valjean hummed and started to walk away from the river, Javert’s arm firmly in his grasp.

Javert could do nothing but follow.

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Febuwhump, Day 1 - Touch Starved

This is late, and turned out to be mostly a bunch of idiots fighting with each other. Oh well, it's still done. Doesn't matter if it's good or not - it's out. Unbeta'd, might post on AO3 later if it's worth cleaning up.

Snakemouth Den was dark, dank, and absolutely full of mushrooms.

Kabbu could have come up with a better description for it, really, but considering the amount of mythology surrounding it, the number of adventurers rumored to have died in its depths, the treasure rumored to lie within, and the century-and-a-half of people who had vanished into it never to return, he likely could have come up for a better description for it a week ago, when he was still taken in by the splendor of its myth and the many stories about it.

A lot of mythologized places lost their glamor, once you’d been wandering through them for a week and seen nothing but mushrooms and crystals. It certainly didn’t help that most of the cave was too clogged with spores to smell a foot in front of you. The place’s gory reputation certainly didn’t help – he’d been smelling hemolymph on and off for at least the past few hours, and he didn’t want to know if it was multiple corpses or if one of the undead ants that had attacked them earlier had followed them.

At least he had company.

Vi was quite the fierce fighter, doing away with foes far faster than Kabbu could on his own, and finding Leif was a stroke of good fortune all on its own. The moth had a sharp sense of direction, which was a boon and a half when every tunnel in the place looked the same, and had likely saved them from running in circles more than once. With his aid clearing their path-

“Vi.”

Kabbu’s train of thought abruptly derailed as the moth’s voice cut through the silence. He slowed, seeing Vi do the same out of the corner of his eye, her wings flicking open with an annoyed buzz.

“What?” Vi asked. “D’you need something?

“You’re injured.”

That made Kabbu stop in his tracks. Injured? When had-

“Your thorax. Under your secondary claws.”

“I- no, I’m not! I’m fine! I’m not- I didn’t get hit with shit!“ Vi hissed. She fluffed her fur up, glancing to Kabbu for rapport- but now that he was looking for it, the hemolymph plastering her fur to her body was unmistakable.

“You’re not very convincing when you smell like a crime scene.”

Now that he got a closer look at her… yes, she did kind of smell like a crime scene. He wouldn’t phrase it like that himself, admittedly, but it explained where the hemolymph smell was coming from. Kabbu wracked his brain, thinking of when she could have picked up an injury without her noticing. It couldn’t be the spider, or the fall, or the-

“Those… reanimated ants. They must have-“

“Those fuckers didn’t do shit to me! I’m fine!” Vi swung her weapon for emphasis- only to aggravate the wound, making her bite back a sharp hiss.

“Vi-“ Kabbu tried to say, but she just snarled at him.

“Shut it. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding all over the ground,” Leif pointed out. Vi growled at him.

“Team, stop fighting,” Kabbu tried to intervene, stepping between them. “We just need to bandage it, and she’ll be-“

“You don’t need to bandage it,” Vi interrupted. “I’m fine.”

“If that gash was half an inch longer, you’d be spilling guts out your sides,” Leif said.

“I’m not spilling guts out my sides now, am I?”

That… was not a particularly compelling point.

“If something gets in a lucky shot, you will be,” Kabbu said. “Just- let me take a look at it, and-“

“And what?! Do you think I’m just gonna lie down and let treat me like one injury’ll take me out of the running just because we’re teammates? I’ve only known you for a week, and-“

“Vi, I-“

"That's enough of that." Leif deftly weaved around him and plucked Vi off of the ground, and she went stiff, freezing like a weevil that had only just realized they'd wandered into the path of a northern moth. Kabbu poised himself to intervene – even he knew she disliked touch, after a week with her – but Leif just tucked her stunned body into his ruff, securing her into place under his wings with a secondary limb like she was a plush toy, and kept walking.

Kabbu just stood there, feeling as stunned as Vi looked, as Leif simply wandered off into the cave.

Finally, his brain kicked back into gear and he burst forward. “Leif, you can’t just-“

He was cut off by a purr. A very loud purr, the sort he’d only really seen from extremely contented bugs, and yet-

Kabbu looked into Leif’s arms, only to see Vi… melted into them. It was as though she’d lost any pretense of shape, simply dissolving into Leif’s claws like a slug or a snail. It was…

Leif shrugged. “If she won’t take care normally, then we’ll have to resort to manhandling. Usually bugs don’t take to it that well, admittedly.”

“Shut it,” Vi grumbled. Her voice was hard to hear through the purrs still swelling in her throat, rattling through her tiny frame like she was in the middle of the world’s smallest earthquake. She fluffed herself up, which only really served to make her look more ridiculous – Leif’s fur was far thicker than hers, and the fur on her side was still plastered to her shell with hemolymph.

“We’re just saying, most bugs don’t react like they’re being cuddled by a swarmmate when you give them a tiny bit of handling, especially not while they’re-“

“I said shut it, okay? How I’m doing is none of your business, and-“

“It might not be our business, but it is your teammate’s business, unless you were planning on never telling your teammates about anything.”

“My business is mine, and you’re not even part of the team-“

“And you were planning to bleed to death in a cave over asking your teammate to slow down so you can bandage your wounds.”

Vi’s mouth shut with a click, and she looked away from him. Leif tilted his head at her, waiting for a response.

A long moment passed.

Finally, Leif huffed, handing her over to Kabbu. “Fine, be that way, then.”

Kabbu silently plucked her out of Leif’s arms, feeling her melt into his carapace without another word. Her fur was surprisingly soft, even with the blood trickling down his claws as she shifted her weight. She didn’t say anything as he reached for their bag, pulling their medical kit out of the bottom.

He patched the wound in silence, Vi seemingly trying her best to ignore him as he tied the sturdy leaves over her shell. It was… gory, rough-edged and ragged, and every poke seemed to make it drip blood again. He had no clue how she’d managed to hide it for so long, let alone walk with it. She leaned into his touches, half the time, pressing the rough edges of the wound right into his claws and making her chitin grind against itself in a way that made him wince.

He had hardly taken three round of it before he broke.

"Vi, can you stop-"

"Stop doing what?"

"Stop leaning into my claws. It-"

"I'm not doing anything, okay? Just- keep going, and maybe you'll be done soon."

He gave an affirmative hum, and got back at it.

She kept leaning into his hands. He didn't know if she was even conscious of doing it- she'd lean, then pull back, on and on in a cycle as if she only just realized she was doing it after the fact.

He was just finishing the knot when she finally spoke, sounding like she was dragging the words out of her throat with a prybar.

“…Sorry,” she grumbled. “Just- I’ve had worse, okay? It’s not worth making a fuss over.”

“You’re soaking your fur with hemolymph,” Leif pointed out. “You weigh- what? Four ounces? You don’t have enough blood to spare for injuries like that.”

“I have plenty of blood, and I’ve had a lot worse, and you don’t have to go into this trouble over- over this.”

Leif looked like he was about to say something, but Kabbu darted in before he could escalate it further. “I know we don’t have to, but- we’re partners, Vi. We’re supposed to take care of each other. Don’t you…”

Kabbu trailed off, tying off her bandages. Vi turned her head away from him. “I can handle it. I don’t need you fussing over me every time I get a scratch in the field.”

Her side was a lot more than “a scratch”, but Kabbu kept that thought to himself. He brushed a claw over her back, testing the strength of the bindings, and Vi shivered. Kabbu stopped, holding still.

“Vi, are you-“

“Shut up, it’s fine, I’m- look, it’s embarrassing, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore, and-“

“Didn’t get held enough as a grub, did you?” Leif asked. Vi’s hackles rose, and Kabbu quickly pushed her down just in time to keep her from jumping at him.

“Shut up! You’re a moth, you don’t know shit about things-“

“We’ll take it that’s a yes, then.”

Vi growled under her breath, fluffing her fur. She was about to say something else, but Kabbu pressed her into the ground before she had the chance. “Now isn’t the time for a fight! Venus, you two, at least try to get along! We have a mission, remember?“

Leif stood still for a long moment, fur fluffed, hackles raised, and for a moment Kabbu thought he might have to mediate between them, or tear them apart from an attempt at a duel. Thankfully, Leif’s shoulders relaxed, tension bleeding from his form. “…fine,” Leif muttered. “We’ll try to get along for now. Don’t expect us to drop it, though.”

“Fuck you,” Vi hissed weakly from under Kabbu’s claws. Leif didn’t respond to her, simply wandering back to the other side of the cavern.

She had gone mostly limp, thankfully, all the fight drained out of her. Kabbu carefully released his claw, checking her bandages to make sure he hadn’t worsened her injuries.

He… needed to redo the bindings.

She seemed fine, thankfully. No worse than she was when he bandaged her, at least, though that was a low bar. He gave her a quick pet on the back after carefully plastering the bandages back into place, and she arched into it, grumbling.

Thank Venus that hadn’t escalated any further.

“I think we should make camp for tonight and have some rest before going deeper, all right, team?” Kabbu raised his voice so Leif could hear it, and saw the moth raise his head from the opposite end of the campsite.

“Sounds fine to us. We… could use some rest, before anything else happens.”

Vi grumbled, but didn’t protest. Kabbu went about the motions of preparing a campsite – scooping out nests for everyone, setting out the bedrolls, packing up the medical supplies for later. Vi settled down to watch, after a while, uncharacteristically silent.

Making camp was meditative, almost. The same set of steps nearly every time, it was easy to get lost in it until it was ready to sleep in. Leif settled down quickly enough, Vi staying balled-up into a lump of resentful bee, and Kabbu could almost forget the argument if he just… laid down and tried to sleep.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be less… stressful.

It had scarcely been fifteen minutes before Kabbu felt something tapping on his shell.

Kabbu pulled himself out of the space between sleep and wakefulness, head still full of fog. He looked up at the source of the tapping to see Vi, fur fluffed and hackles raised like she was about to face down a horrid beast.

Vi took a deep breath, and Kabbu’s half-asleep brain could hardly keep up with her before she spoke.

“…look, I’m sorry about- that, but I’m not weak, okay?”

Kabbu was sure his startled look must have shown on his face, because Vi plowed forward. “I mean it, I’m not- I don’t need help, I’m fine on my own, I don’t need a team to prop me up, because I-“

“No one is saying that you’re weak, Vi. Are you sure you’re-“

“I’m fine, and you don’t have to worry about me, and- look, you don’t have to treat me like a cripple, okay? I’ve worked with worse, and I don’t need your pity, because it’ll heal over anyways-“

“I’m not trying to treat you like an- an invalid, Vi! You’re injured, I thought-“

“I can handle it! I don’t need you to- to kiss it better, or whatever. I’m fine!”

Leif stirred in his nest, and Vi quieted down abruptly, shrinking in on herself. She abruptly looked much, much smaller than she had before.

“…Sorry.”

She didn’t meet his eyes, staring off to the side. “I’m- look, it’s just… frustrating. Okay? I don’t…”

Vi trailed off, shuffling her paws. Kabbu shifted to the side of his nest, easing his elytra open just enough to shield it.

“…It’s okay, Vi. I believe you.”

She grimaced, avoiding his gaze. Kabbu shuffled a bit further to the side, eying the bandages over her side. She looked…

“…do you want to sleep with me tonight?”

Vi startled back into motion, fur fluffing up as far as it would go. “What?-“ she started. before wincing as her voice echoed off the walls. She shook herself out, whisper-shouting at him. “Why would I want to-“

“I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, you just- you look like you need it.”

Vi looked like she was trying to decide if she wanted to be insulted or simply surprised at the offer.

“I understand if you don’t want to, I-“ Kabbu hastily added, but she cut him off.

“It’s fine, I just- if you want to, I guess.”

“If you don’t-“

“Just move over before I change my mind.”

Kabbu shifted to the side, opening his elytra to allow her passage. She nestled into his side, curling close enough that he swore he could feel her shape imprinted into his underbelly, worming her way into the space between his belly and the nest.

…there was more space for her than just there, but Kabbu felt like bringing it up would be- poor.

Slowly, he resettled on top of her, feeling her shift under him. She was startlingly warm, especially compared to Leif, a miniature heat pack against his shell. It was a welcomed addition against the cold of Snakemouth Den, and he found himself quickly drifting off to sleep.

Yes, tomorrow would be better.

[mynamesaplant]

Lost in Transit and Translation (part 5)

I have an infection in my kidneys and school just started up again. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! Tumblr won't let me post all the words I want and I don't have the energy to figure out AO3 today.

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Plot synopsis: Subway Boss Ingo finds some lone Pokéballs and decides to hold on to them until the owner can be found. The Pokémon, however, aren’t too keen to stick around some stranger who they can’t understand, and decide to find their trainer on their own.

Characters: Subway Boss Ingo (Pokémon), Subway Boss Emmet (Pokémon), Olivia Kame (OC)

Just for clarification, my OC's Pokémon speech is italicized, Ingo's Pokémon speech is in bold, and Emmet's Pokémon speech will be in bold and italicized. I tried to make it clear who was speaking without signifiers, but just in case!

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“Arceus, not again.”

Ingo said as they vanished into thin air, this time not reappearing at all, but Ingo knew to look at his Pokémon. Chandelure had abruptly stopped screeching at Archeops, who sheepishly shuffled in place as he was scolded, and she twisted on the spot. He knew she could see them, perhaps by virtue of being a Ghost type herself, and she was tilted back, looking up toward the street.

“They’re really sending us on a wild Swanna chase now, aren’t they?”

Emmet sighed, following Ingo’s gaze before his twin broke out into a trot, headed toward the stairs that would take them to the street level.

“I feel terrible. I have completely mismanaged this whole situation.” He replied, clutching his hat as he made his way up the stairs, Emmet keeping pace beside him. “I didn’t realize how frightened they were until it was too late.”

“It’s okay, Ingo. We’ll find them and return them safely to their destination. A minor derailment.”

“I know.” He said, Emmet could tell he was stressed out by the tone of his voice. “I know, but I made them my responsibility and I have failed to ensure their safety.”

They were on the street now and it wasn’t hard to spot the Golurk hustling down the street, people hurriedly parting for them.

“It’s not your fault. They’re confused, Ingo. They’re lashing out because they’re confused. Our Pokémon are just trying to keep us safe.” Emmet tried to reassure him. “Their trainer will understand that what we did was for their Pokémon’s better interests. If not… well, maybe they should keep better track of their Pokémon.”

This did ease some of Ingo’s guilt as their Pokémon raced ahead of them, trying to interact with the runaways but the Infernape had clambered up onto the Golurk’s shoulders, perched in wait as if daring them to come closer. Chandelure at least knew better to keep out of lunging distance as she tried to get them to stop and listen.

Please listen, I apologize for what Archeops did-

I’m not sorry! They’re being real jerks!

You are not helping.

Chandelure hissed back at him before returning her attention to Infernape, his mouth was set in a grimace of pain, but his eyes were narrowed in concentration. He felt a little better being out of the enclosed space, he did not like how he ended up there, but Golurk had done what they thought was best.

We don’t want any apologizes. Just leave us alone.

He called back, holding tighter to Golurk as they swerved at the corner, briefly hesitating because they did not know where to go now. Their goal had been to get out of the tunnels, but now there were so many sounds and sights that is started to overwhelm them.

Where can we go? Raichu is injured, you are injured, and those two humans are still in pursuit. This is not an ideal situation.

Please, stop! They are trying to help you. If you would just allow me to explain-

You are very bad at listening.

Golurk said as Chandelure flitted in front of them, trying to make them slow down even a little bit. Brushing her aside like she was nothing as they continued their way down the street.

Leave us alone. We are not interested in anything you have to say.

You are being incredibly rude.

Undoubtedly.

Golurk replied curtly as they felt Infernape leap off their shoulder, grabbing hold of Chandelure’s arms and dragging her to the ground ferociously. He planted his feet and twisted his body, gathering momentum like he was attempting to throw her like a discus. She was shrieking in alarm, the Ghost Pokémon had never been manhandled like this before, especially by a Fighting type. Suddenly, she was hurtling through the air, smashing directly into Archeops at top speed. Both toppled out of the air.

“Dammit!”

Ingo huffed, returning Chandelure before she hit the ground, Emmet doing the same for Archeops.

“Ingo, this is getting more perilous. We need to knock them out. I understand it’s not ideal, but it’s the safest means of recapturing them if they’re going to keep attacking our Pokémon.” Emmet said, pulling another Pokéball of his belt and his Galvantula reappeared, he pointed in the direction of the three Pokémon, and she scuttled after them with surprising agility. “We also need to get these people out of here. Commuters and Pokémon battles do not mix well.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right.”

<<Previous--Next>>

||First||

[justan0therstar1nthesky]

I’ve been somewhat present throughout both situations, with this account and the one they mentioned. Here’s what I have to say. I will admit that I am a biased party,

1. I will not argue the definition of proship or anti-ship here.

2. From what I understand, the account in question made the post, and then saw that the post was screenshotted to @/anti-anti-otonokoji-twins, and then panicked and asked for the post to be removed. @/anti-anti-otonokoji-twins refused, and the user then ended up taking a break from tumblr. I would also like to note that those screenshots are still in @/proship-yuuki’s pinned post.

3. That is true, however I was told that @/catgirl-izuru did tell you in private that @anti-anti-otonokji-twins was blocked by @cat-girl-izuru and then (I’m calling the account “otonokoji twins�� for simplicity”) derailed the conversation, so he ended it.

4. That is true and I’m not going to pretend that @catgirl-izuru was doing the right thing here. I personally think mistakes were made on both sides, and was caused from anxiety and stress. Privately, I encouraged people to remove the posts mentioning otonokokji-twins, and to not make more.

5. Again, I am not denying this or saying they were in the right here. I do want to say however, that the people that otonokji-twins is addressing here are minors who aren’t completely equipped to make the best decisions. This isn’t completely an excuse, however, and I do disagree with these threats. Otonokoji-twins did not deserve those threats, and does not for trying to clear things up here.

6. I would like to thank @/proship-Yuuki for not continuing this situation or not sending that anon. I am not sure exactly where @/alloftheworldknowsmebynowsheep came from or who it was, and I will not speculate on that.

7. Some of the anons directly referred to the situation at large, and thus can only be in at least some way, aware of the situation. I will admit however, that I don’t have direct screenshots of this. I can say however, that this situation spurred them on, but whether or not they were your followers is something I cannot say. I personally believe the same goes for @/alloftheworldknowsmebynowsheep.

8. Sadly that’s the issue with anons. You can never know where they came from. Should @catgirl-izuru be assuming they’re from you? Probably not, but I won’t fault him for a knee-jerk reaction. I appreciate @/proship-yuuki saying however that he didn’t deserve the mess that @/allyhewprldknowsmebynowsheep, or any of the hateful anons.

As a short bonus, @/isthatafuckingcorpse was one of the ones to say things against otonokoji-twins, however they do not post uncensored gore fics, or at least in my opinion. The post otonokoji-twins cites as evidence was not exactly, gore in my opinion. However, this accusation comes from this anon that otonokoji-twins received

The first paragraph is addressing a fic that I wrote. People were assuming it was gore for some reason, when it was not. All of my posts with gore have written content warnings before the content itself. And that also is if I didn’t make a mistake, like I did with one of my posts. However, I’ve since fixed that and have not been informed of any more.

However, they’re not addressing @/isthatafuckingcorpse here not outside of the mention at the beginning, me. They’re addressing someone else. The user they are addressing however has gone back and added more appropriate content warnings to those writings.

Finally, to @/proship-yuuki because I want to make myself clear. The comment I made under that anon was not meant to be directed at you specifically. It was meant to express my intent to not put up with stuff like @/alloftheworldknowsmebynowsheep did. My apologies if it did not come off that way.

so first f all i should say i blokced Corpse after he sent me a long list of name n said 'why r u following these people they're bad', and when i looked into the accounts i couldnt find nything bad on them so idfk

im not sure still wht to think about this whole situation, i think ill have to do reserch of my own

[perfectlyvalid49]

Oh! Ok, I get it now. I’m gonna say something, and you’re going to want to take it as an insult, and I don’t mean it that way, so please bear with me:

You’re ignorant.

And I genuinely don’t mean that as an insult. No one can know everything, and there’s nothing wrong with needing to learn more about a topic. But if this is the first time you’ve encountered the phrase “am Yisrael chai” that’s a pretty good indicator that you really, REALLY don’t know a lot about the Jewish people, and you need to learn A LOT before you start speaking about Jewish topics.

And if you’re not willing to learn? Then you need to be quiet.

The good news is that there’s actually a good number of Jews on tumblr that are generally willing to answer any questions that seem to be asked in good faith. I’m one of them. I don’t in really think you’re coming from a place of good faith though and here’s why: you felt the need to machine translate (a famously inaccurate way to translate stuff) “am Yisrael chai” instead of just googling it. Because when you google it, you get this:

A few clicks and you probably could have gotten all the context you needed, but given that it seems like that’s too much for you, “am Yisrael chai” means “the people of Israel (or the Jewish people) live,” “Am Yisrael” has been used to refer to Jewish people since long before the State of Israel existed, in case you want to get prickly about it. This is part of that homework you need to do before you speak. The phrase is used to express the sentiment, “we have suffered antisemitism for thousands of years, but we are still here while the empires that persecuted us mostly no longer are.” In the context of my post, it was an affirmation that even though I am scared for my safety right now, we will endure this, and come out the other side.

And that’s the post that you decided to derail with “but, Israel!” And to be clear, again, the only time I brought up the state of Israel is to mention that the people there are scared too, and to mention some of the reasons why. That’s not an invitation to talk about their government. I put it in the tags of my last reply, but I guess it bears repeating: Holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel is one of the points in the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism. Responding to a post about Jews in the diaspora and Israel having trauma responses to antisemitism with a condemnation of the Israeli government is doing that. That IS antisemitic.

As for being chill? This is chill. I responded to your post with an explanation of why I found it inappropriate and how your behavior was antisemitic, even if you didn’t intend it to be. I then said that if you wanted to discuss your points further, I would be happy to do so, just not on this post. I am having a shitty week in a shitty month in a shitty year, and if I did not want to be chill, you’d be suffering from third degree burns from the heat of my response.

As a counter proposal, I will continue to be chill, and you should perhaps take some time to learn about Judaism from actual sources and not just what tumblr tells you before you continue to make a fool out of yourself.

On being Jewish, and traumatized (It’s been 5 months and I want to talk):

Judaism is a joyous religion. So much of our daily practice is to focus us on the things that are good. I know that there’s a joke that all our holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us. We survived – let’s eat!”, and you might think that holidays focused on attempts at killing us might be somber, but they’re really not. Most are celebrated in the sense of, “we’re still here, let’s have a party!” When I think about practicing Judaism, the things I think about make me happy.

But I think a lot of non-Jews don’t necessarily see Judaism the same way. I think in part it’s because we do like to kvetch, but I think a lot of it is because from the outside it’s harder to see the joy, and very easy to see the long history of suffering that has been enacted on the Jewish people. From the inside, it’s very much, “we’re still here, let’s party” and from the outside it’s, “how many times have they tried to kill you? Why are you celebrating? They tried to KILL YOU!”

And I want to start with that because a lot of the rest of this is going to be negative. And I don’t want people to read it and wonder why I still want to be Jewish. I want to be Jewish because it makes me happy. My problem isn’t with being Jewish, it’s with how Jews are treated.

What I really wanted to write about is being Jewish and the trauma that’s involved with that right now.

First, I want to talk about Israeli Jews. I can’t say much here because I’m not Israeli, nor do I have any close friends or family that are Israeli. But if I’m going to be talking about the trauma Jews are experiencing right now, I can’t not mention the fact that Israeli Jews (and Israelis that aren’t Jewish as well, but that’s not my focus here) are dealing with massive amounts of it right now. It’s a tiny country – virtually everyone has a friend or family member that was killed or kidnapped, or knows someone who does. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few months – think about the fact that the Iron Dome exists and why it needs to. Terror attacks are ongoing; I feel like there’s been at least one every week since October. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes, either because of the rocket fire, or because their homes and communities were physically destroyed in the largest pogrom in recent history – the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust ended. If that’s not trauma inducing, I don’t know what is.

And there is, of course, the generational trauma. And I think Jewish generational trauma is interesting because it’s so layered. Because it’s not just the result of one trauma passed down through the generations. Every 50-100 years, antisemitism intensifies, and so very frequently the people experiencing a traumatic event were already suffering from the generational trauma that their grandparents or great grandparents lived through. And those elders were holding the generational trauma from the time before that. And so on.

And because it happens so regularly, there’s always someone in the community that remembers the last time. We are never allowed the luxury of imagining that we are safe. We know what happened before, and we know that it happened again and again and again. And so we know that it only makes sense to assume it will happen in the future. The trauma response is valid. I live in America because my great grandparents lived in Russia and they knew when it was time to get the hell out in the 1900s. And the reason they knew that is because their grandparents remembered the results of the blood libels in the 1850s. How can we heal when the scar tissue keeps us safe?

I look around now and wonder if we’ll need to run. We have a plan. I repeat, my family has a plan for what to do if we need to flee the country due to religious persecution. How can that possibly be normal? And yet, all the Jewish families I know have similar plans. It is normal if you’re Jewish. Every once in a while I see someone who isn’t Jewish talk about making plans to leave because they’re LGBTQ or some other minority and the question always seems to be, “should I make a plan?” It astounds me every time. The Jewish answer is that you need to have a plan and the only question is, “when should I act?” Sometimes our Jewish friends discuss it at play dates. Where will you go? What are the triggers to leave? No one wants to go any earlier then they have to. Everyone knows what the price of holding off too long might be.

I want to keep my children safe. When do I induct them into the club? When do I let my sweet, innocent kids know that some people will hate them for being Jewish? When do I teach them the skills my parents and grandparents taught me? How to pass as white, how to pass as Christian, knowing when to keep your mouth shut about what you believe. When do I tell them about the Holocaust and teach them the game “would this person hide me?” How hard do I have to work to remind them that while you want to believe that a person would hide you, statistically, most people you know would not have? Who is this more traumatic for? Them, to learn that there is hatred in the world and it is directed at them, or me, to have to drive some of the innocence out of my own children’s eyes in order to make sure they are prepared to meet the reality of the world?

And the reality of the world is that it is FULL of antisemitism. There’s a lot of…I guess I’d call it mild antisemitism that’s always present that you just kinda learn to ignore. It’s the sort of stuff that non-Jews might not even recognize as antisemitic until you explain it to them, just little micro-aggressions that you do your best to ignore because you know that the people doing it don’t necessarily mean it, it’s just the culture we live in. It can still hurt though. I like to compare it to a bruise: you can mostly ignore it, but every once in a while something (more blatant antisemitism) will put a bit to much pressure on it and you remember that you were already hurting this whole time.

On top of the background antisemitism, there’s more intense stuff. And usually the most intense, mask off antisemitism comes from the right. This makes sense, in that a lot of right politics are essentially about hating the “other” and what are Jews if not Western civilizations oldest type of “other”? On the one hand, I’ve always been fortunate enough to live in relatively liberal areas so this sort of antisemitism has felt far away and impersonal – they hate everybody, and I’m just part of everybody. On the other hand, until recently I’ve always considered this the most dangerous source of antisemitism. This is the antisemitism that leads to hate crimes, that leads to synagogue shootings. This is the reason why my synagogue is built so that there is a long driveway before you can even see the building, and that driveway is filled with police on the high holidays. This is the reason why my husband and I were scared to hang a mezuzah in our first apartment (and second, and third). For a long time, this was the antisemitism that made me afraid.

But the left has a problem with antisemitism too. And it has always been there. Where the right hates the “other”, the left hates the “privileged/elite/oppressors.” It’s the exact same thing, just dressed up with different words. They all mean “other” and “other” means “Jew.” It hurts more coming from the left though. A lot of Jewish philosophy leans left. A lot of Jews lean left. So when the left decides to hate us, it isn’t a random stranger, it’s a friend, and it feels like a betrayal.

One of the people I follow works for Yad Vashem, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a video they have with testimonies from people who came to Israel after Kristallnacht, with an unofficial title of “The blow came from within.” The idea is that to non-German Jews, the Holocaust was something done by strangers. It was still terrible, but it is easier to bear the hate of a stranger – it’s not personal. But to German Jews, the Holocaust was a betrayal. It wasn’t done by strangers, it was done by coworkers, and neighbors and people they thought were friends. It was done by people who knew them, and still looked at them and said, “less than human.” And because of this sense of betrayal, German survivors, or Germans who managed to get out before they got rounded up, had a very different experience than other Holocaust victims.

And I feel like a lot of left leaning Jews are having a similar experience now. People that we’ve marched with or organized with, or even just mutuals that we’ve thought of as friends are now going on about how Jews are evil. They repeat antisemitic talking points from the Nazis and from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and when we point out that those ideas have only led to Jewish death in the past they don’t care. And if someone you thought of as a friend thinks of you this way, what do you think a stranger might think? Might do?

The Jews are fucking terrified. I’ve seen a post going around that basically wonders if this was what it was like for our ancestors – when things got bad enough to see what was coming but before it was too late to run? And we can see what’s coming. History tells us that they way people are talking and acting only leads to one place. I’m a millennial – when I was a kid the grandparents at my synagogue made sure the kids knew – this is what it looked like before, this is what you need to watch out for, this is when you need to run. I wonder where to run to. It feels like nowhere is safe.

I feel like I’ve been lucky in all this. I don’t live in Israel. I have family and acquaintances who do, but no one I’m particularly close to. Everyone I know in real life has either been sane or at least silent about all of this (the internet has been significantly worse, but when it comes to hate, the internet is always worse). I live in a relatively liberal area – there’s always been antisemitism around anyway, but it’s mostly just been swastikas on flyers, or people advocating for BDS, not anything that’s made me actually worry for my safety. But in the last 5 months there have been bomb threats at my synagogue, and just last week a kid got beat up for being Jewish at our local high school. He doesn’t want to report it. He’s worried it will make it worse.

I bought a Magen David to wear in November. At the time it seemed like the best way to fight antisemitism was to be visibly Jewish, to show that we’re just normal people like everyone else. Plus, I figured that if me being Jewish was going to be a problem for someone, then I would make it a problem right away and not waste time. I’ve worn it almost constantly since, but the one time I took it off was when I burnt my finger in December and had to go to urgent care. I didn’t think about it too much when I did it, but I thought about it for a long time after – I didn’t feel good about having made that choice.

The conclusion I came to is that the training that my elders had been so careful to instill in me kicked in. I was hurt, and scared, and the voice inside my head that sounds like my grandmother said, “don’t give them a reason to be bad to you. Fight when you’re well, but for now – survive.” It still felt cowardly, but it was also a connection to my ancestors who heeded the same voice well enough to survive. And it enrages me that that voice has been necessary in the past. And it enrages me that things are bad enough now that my instinct is that I need to hide who I am to receive appropriate medical care.

I wish I had some sort of final thought to tie this all together other than, “this sucks and I hate it,” but I really don’t. I could call for people to examine their antisemitic biases, but I’m not foolish enough to think that this will reach the people who need to do so. I could wish for a future where everything I’ve talked about here exists only in history books, and the Jewish experience is no longer tied to feeling this pain, but that’s basically wishing for the moshiach, and I’m not going to hold my breath.

I guess I’ll end it with the thought that through all of this hate and pain and fear, we’re still here. And we’re still joyful as well. As much as so many people have tried over literally THOUSANDS of years to eradicate us, I’m still here, I’m still Jewish, and being Jewish still makes me happy.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[teamconductors]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Lost Tracks of Time, Chapter 15

Summary: Team Conductors get rescued by an independent rescue team called Team Galaxy. Emmet takes his time exploring their base while waiting for Ingo to wake.

Author’s Note: For those who aren’t aware, there’s a new Derailed short story! It’s called “Derailed: Unchained”, and it’s technically an AU of Chapters 15 and 16 but you only need to read up to Chapter 14 to understand it. And if you haven’t already, check out the first chapter of Derailed called “Abduction”. It may not be canon, but please check it out! Here’s a link

This is a casual reminder that the characters of this AU with a clear canon counterpart do not perfectly match up to said counterpart.

Also, there might be something in here that qualifies as body horror? Nightmare sequences are fun.

Thank you @furiouskettle! Are you tired of me tagging you in every new chapter post? I am sincerely asking.

(Shippers DNI)

Emmet woke up in an alien location. His bed was a proper bed with linens, a blanket, and a pillow. It was soft and a great contrast with his hay bed at the Pearl Guild. In an identical bed next to him was Ingo. His coat was folded next to Emmet’s, and their hats rested on top of their respective coats, all on a bedside cabinet. A folded towel covered Ingo’s forehead. Across from both of them was Chandelure, who sat in a reclining chair. They were sleeping, but their flames were of healthy size.

Emmet realized he worked up a sweat during his sleep. He vaguely recalled the nightmare – it was the same one he always had, after all. He doesn’t know how many times he had seen it, but he could never remember much beyond screaming, falling, and wind. But one element lingered in his mind that wasn’t there before: sickness. An aura of nausea and weakness penetrated the entire dream, and he wanted to throw up or rip apart his stomach. At least that feeling didn’t follow him to the waking world.  

Laventon walked into the room. “Oh! You’re awake! Hello, I am Laventon. I’m Team Galaxy’s doctor. We found you lot in the fieldlands nearby our base. Eelektross said he flew you all here. Are you doing well, Emmet?”

“I am well. What happened to Ingo? Where is Sneasler and Eelektross?” Emmet asked.

“Oh, okay. Well, Eelektross is in another room because he’s a large specimen and needs more space! As for Sneasler, that’s your Noble friend, right?” Laventon paused and saw Emmet nod. “Yes. I don’t know where she is, so I can’t help you there, but she doesn’t know where we are, I think.”

“What is our location?”

“Jubilife City! Or what’s left of it, that is. Cyllene and I found this building and made it our base! It’s no Pearl Guild, but there’s plenty of room for my studies, Rei’s tinkering, Cyllene’s training, and medical rooms for pokemon in need!”

“What happened to Ingo?” Emmet pointed at his brother. Chandelure napped in peace, and he felt well-rested. Ingo, meanwhile, twitched in his sleep like he was still feeling pain. “Why is Ingo still sleeping? He doesn’t like naps.”

“Well, it’s a peculiar thing. You, Chandelure, and Eelektross were all poisoned, but Cyllene and I were concerned about Ingo looking the same despite being a poison-type pokemon. Well, we took a closer look and… It should be okay for me to remove this temporarily.” Laventon hopped up onto Ingo’s bed. He was so light that the bed didn’t squeak under his weight. His little hand popped out and slowly removed the towel off Ingo’s forehead.

A crack stretched across the yellow gem on Ingo’s forehead.

Emmet struggled to keep his smile on. “Is he broken?”

“Well, yes, but not really?” Laventon replaced the towel to cover his gem again. “How shall I explain this? …Usually, pokemon with gems embedded in them have the gems as a power source or amplifier of power. The Lake Guardians is a good example of that! But for your species, I don’t think that’s the case. Ingo’s other injuries have been healed since we first found you all, which makes me think this crack is connected to his current state.”

“You can’t do anything else to heal him?” Emmet asked.

“That’s what the towel is for! It’s soaked in a salve that is slowly healing the crack. This only works because the gem isn’t connected to psychic powers or anything, but I do wonder… Head trauma alone isn’t enough to cause a crack like that. He had to be under a lot of pressure first before the final strike. Emmet, was he under a lot of stress? Or have anxiety issues or depression or anything similar?”

Emmet fidgeted with his blanket. “…Ingo puts a lot of pressure on himself. I tried to get him to rest. He couldn’t.”

“I see… In that case, we’ll just let him rest for now,” Laventon said. “And you can rest as well. We don’t need two Sneasels to get cracked gems. If you need anything, please shout for one of us!”

Laventon left the room. After a few moments of waiting, Emmet, unable to handle the silence, put on his coat and hat and jumped off his bed.

***

Rei had finished checking on Eelektross. On his way to check on the Sneasel twins and Chandelure, he encountered Emmet. He was pacing up and down the hallway with his arms and legs completely straight while swinging about. A trail formed on the rug he paced on.

“S-Sir? Are you okay?” Rei asked, taken aback from the sight.

“Thinking,” Emmet said. He continued taking laps in the hall, even waving at Rei once he realized he was present.

“What?”

“I am thinking.”

“…Thinking about what?”

“A lot of things.”

There was a pause in the conversation. Rei wasn’t sure how to approach Emmet. “Are you… worried about your brother? I heard from the others you’re siblings, right?”

“Yes. I am Emmet. Ingo is my twin brother. I am worried about him.”

“Well, you don’t need to. The Professor is really smart with medicine, and Ingo will be back to fighting shape soon.” Rei played with the ends of his scarf. “Are you… worried about Lady Sneasler?”

“Hmm, yes, I am.”

“Well, that makes sense… You know what? I’ll let you get back to… whatever it is you’re doing. Sorry for bothering you.” Rei walked past Emmet, who had not stopped pacing at any point during their conversation, to check on Chandelure and Ingo.

Emmet had gone back to pacing so that he could think – think about Ingo, think about Sneasler, think about his strategy to defeat and free Sneasler, think about what moves he would need for their battle, think about how he freed Ingo but couldn’t free anyone else from the Red Chain, think about how many of his rules he broke, think about what to tell Ingo as soon as he woke up.

Rei, however, brought him out of his thoughts. “Oh, Emmet! Can I ask you something about Ingo?” he asked from inside his brother’s infirmary room. Emmet ran inside and saw Rei using the bedside cabinet as a stool to see Ingo at eye-level. “What is on his wrist? I don’t recognize that sort of technology.”

“It’s a watch,” Emmet said.

“Really? Never seen one like it.” Rei turned his head around the watch, trying to look at it from different angles without touching Ingo. “Though it looks like it could use a new screen… Do you think Ingo would let me tinker with it if I asked?”

“Not sure. Ask him when he wakes up.” If it was up to Emmet, he’d let Rei check out the watch, but Ingo was possessive over certain items beyond his reasoning. He figured the Arc Watch fell into that category.

“Yeah, I’ll just wait until then. Thank you anyway, Emmet.” Rei watched Emmet return to the hallway and walk around without so much as a goodbye. He was just busy and forgot, Rei thought.

***

Emmet was no longer satisfied in pacing outside of the hallway of Ingo’s room and decided to explore more of Team Galaxy’s base. Despite the building being hundreds of years old, it held firm and had minimal signs of age. Even the paint and wallpaper appeared to have been applied within the past few years. Though that may not sound important to others, Emmet knew appearances mattered. One of his rules is to smile, after all.

Emmet noticed a closed door and opened it. Inside, Eelektross tried and failed to sleep on a bed like a normal-sized pokemon. Instead, his long body was piled around like a discarded scarf. He used the bed as a headrest.

“Eelektross, you look cramped,” Emmet said. He recalled Laventon’s words about needing to give Eelektross more space.

“I’m fine, I just tried to stretch… It didn’t work out…” Eelektross said. He wiped his eyes. “Emmet, I’m so glad you’re okay…! Sneasler’s poison was nasty...”

“I am Emmet. I will not let poison stop me in my tracks,” Emmet said.

“Of course you wouldn’t… Uh, you really are the real Emmet, aren’t you?”

Emmet furrowed his eyes in confusion. “Yes, I am Emmet. I am a Sneasel, but I am Emmet.”

“Right… I’m sorry for doubting you. I just thought… it’s been a long time… maybe you were just some reincarnation of Emmet… but you really look like him. You sound like him. I think you are him. Is that… pathetic?”

“No, I am Emmet.”

“…Okay.” Eelektross wasn’t sure what other response he expected.

“While I am thinking of it, I must thank you, my Eelektross.”

“What for?”

“You brought our team to safety when Ingo and I couldn’t. Thank you.”

“Oh, of course. I’m glad these pokemon are nice… Is… Is Ingo awake yet?”

“Nope.”

“What is happening…? I don’t remember Ingo getting sick this much...”

“Laventon said it’s stress.”

“Okay, that makes some sense… You two don’t remember much, but you also say that a lot still live in your hearts. I wonder if his heart is remembering something causing it?”

Emmet’s default smile softened. The battle was a blur, but Sneasler’s distorted cries echoed within his head. ‘Warden Ingo’, she called him. The combination of words meant little to Emmet’s ears, but he watched Ingo’s defenses fall from the same words. Sneasler’s strike made Ingo crash into the ground headfirst. “…Okay, I’ll ask him.”

“What, now?”

“No, when he’s back at this station. Later, Eelektross.”

“Bye…?” Eelektross waved as Emmet tipped his hat and left his room. As sudden as it was, it didn’t surprise him too much. There were plenty of times Emmet forgot his usual manners because he was focused on something else. Eelektross shrugged and resumed his attempts to untangle himself.

***

When Emmet went back to exploring, he noticed a room different than the others. Several bookshelves were precariously stacked on each other, all filled with aged books. There was a couch and desk with a chair for reading. It reminded Emmet of a smaller version of the Pearl Guild’s library. Laventon sat in one of the chairs. His book about the Hisuian Nobles hid his body, and he had to lower it to look at the pokemon that entered his library.

“Hello again, Emmet!” Laventon said. “Are you a fan of reading?”

“Reading is good. Reading is important. I have done a lot of reading recently.” He and Ingo combed through Calaba’s library so much that they found books she didn’t realize she owned. He was almost tired of having to do so much research. Still, curiosity guided him, and his eyes scanned Laventon’s collection.

“If you’re feeling anxious, I could make some tea to help calm nerves,” Laventon said.

“No, I do not need tea right now.” Emmet pointed up to a book on the higher shelves. “That one looks interesting.”

“You want to get up there? Sure, give me one-“ Before Laventon could offer a ladder, he witnessed Emmet climb the shelves. “Please be careful!”

By the time Laventon pushed a ladder to Emmet’s location, Emmet pulled out the book he wanted and jumped back down, falling from a distance three times his height. “Here it is.” He showed Laventon the book. It was titled On the Rails: A History of Trains. He began flipping through the pages.

“Oh, do you like human modes of transportation, Emmet?” Laventon asked. “I’m studying humans! I like learning about their history, culture, lifestyle… I read a lot about what it was like for humans and pokemon to live together, but I wish I could have seen it myself. But I also am studying pokemon behavior in mystery dungeons! It’s so strange, how normal pokemon can behave so differently after long-term exposure to a mystery dungeon environment! And then there’s pokemon who can resist it, like your friend Eelektross. There are so many mysteries in the world, Emmet! I formed Team Galaxy with Cyllene to help me uncover mysteries and help my studies, so I’m so glad to see someone who shares a similar passion!”

“Indeed,” Emmet said. He flipped through the book, but despite appearances, he listened to Laventon’s every word. “Ingo and I have memory troubles. I think we were passionate about trains specifically, but we couldn’t remember what they were. It was strange.” He paused his page flipping and stared at the book for a moment. “…Can I keep this?”

“Sure! I think you want that one more than me, so feel free to have it!”

“Thank you. I will now depart.” Emmet ran out of Laventon’s study room, book still in hand.

***

“Ingo!” Emmet ran back to the room Ingo was resting in. “I know what trains are!” He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Ingo’s bed. “I can’t wait to show you when you wake up.”

Chandelure woke up and floated next to Ingo at the opposite side from where Emmet sat.

“You are back to operating condition?” Emmet asked.

Chandelure smiled and nodded.

“That is good.” Emmet turned the book around in his hands, then he set it down next to Ingo. His smile softened. “I have been thinking. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. …I like taking challenges as they come. I don’t worry about the future as long as I have fun. I have fun winning battles, and I have fun when I’m fighting serious battles. …But battles have become too serious. The Nobles talk like the world is headed towards a final stop.

“…I want to talk about battle strategies with you, Ingo. We will need teamwork to free Sneasler. It shouldn’t be hard for us once you heal.” Laventon’s words about Ingo’s injury bounced around in Emmet’s mind. “…I found you, but it feels like I’m losing you again. Please wake up, Ingo. I don’t know how we ended up on this track, but I can’t travel it alone. I don’t want to. I already failed as a conductor by not helping Sneasler in time. I don’t want to fix my mistake alone.”

Ingo didn’t respond. Feeling that he couldn’t enunciate his feelings into words anymore, Emmet rested his head on the bed and waited. He watched Chandelure’s flames burn. Though the fires made him sweat, they weren’t too uncomfortable for him. Chandelure’s power hadn’t worked on him before due to his typing, but before he knew it, Emmet fell sleep.

At first, the familiar vague nightmare took its hold on Emmet’s mind, but then it burned and made way for a new, stranger dream. Emmet was human. Two pokemon stood in front of him. One was a smaller, younger-looking Eelektross, and the other was Chandelure. Next to Emmet was another human. He sounded like Ingo. There were two other humans and two pokemon across from them, but he couldn’t identify who they were. The walls were of metal; Emmet realized their location was a “subway train”. The pokemon battled, and Emmet and the human who had to be Ingo conducted their pokemon together. The train was warm and lit in a vague violet-blue light. All was well.

All was well until Emmet looked up and noticed the metal walls and ceiling melting. Molten steel dripped around everyone to the point that Eelektross and Chandelure both were dodging drops of metal like any other pokemon attack. Emmet himself noticed he was shorter than before. He looked down. His legs were melting and pooled onto the floor. He tried to step back, but because half of his legs liquified into a substance like white paint, he fell onto his back with a splat. Ingo called out to Emmet and offered a hand. Emmet reached out, but his hand and arm burst apart. The rest of Emmet’s body followed suit.

Emmet woke up with a gasp. Sweat matted his fur. He noticed Ingo was still sleeping, his condition unchanged. Across from Emmet, Chandelure stared at him with a concerned, scared expression.

“You. You tried to stop my nightmare?” he asked.

Chandelure nodded.

“Don’t. Don’t do that again. That was not fun.” Emmet gave Chandelure a smile to let them know he wasn’t angry.

***

Emmet took to pacing around the room. Chandelure was uneasy watching him, even if he did it back when he was human, too. The walking just made it easier to think.

Ingo stirred. “…Emmet?”

“Ingo! You’re way behind schedule,” Emmet said. He jumped back to his seat next to his brother.

“What is this station? Where are we? And where’s Sneasler?”

“We are at Jubilife City. We are at Team Galaxy’s base. As for Sneasler, her location is… unknown.”

“Sneasler is in danger… We need to depart!” Ingo sat up, throwing the towel off his forehead. He then grabbed his head and slowly laid back down. His forehead gem was still cracked, though not nearly as deep or large as it was earlier.

Emmet retrieved the towel. “Sorry, Ingo. There will be no departing until you are back to standard operating condition.”

“I see… I may not like it, but very well. I am still worried for Sneasler. From what I remember of getting connected to the Red Chain, she must be in critical pain and distress.”

“I agree. I want her to be back to normal, too. I have been trying to come up with a new strategy. Our last one wasn’t good enough.”

“Did we have a strategy?” Ingo asked sincerely.

Emmet placed his hands on his hips. “I attacked Sneasler with all I could. You didn’t attack at all.”

Ingo rubbed the fabric of his blanket between his claws. “I was hoping to appeal to her emotionally to stop her. We wouldn’t be able to beat her in a battle.”

“We can. I am Emmet, and you are Ingo. We are pokemon. We are a two-car train. We have to battle.” Emmet let himself show a little irritation, though he kept his smile on. “Please don’t be ridiculous. Battles worked before. Why change a successful strategy?”

Ingo frowned more. “…I did hesitate from battling against Sneasler, which I now regret. I try to make sure all of our passengers are treated the same, but it appears that I have a weakness for Sneasler. But I would likely hesitate again if you were the one Chained, Emmet.”

Emmet’s signature smile softened. “…Oh.” Emmet cared for Sneasler, but Ingo’s words made him reflect on his perspective. Ingo was always the one who was better at talking. “In that case, if you somehow still got Chained, I would battle you. But I would only do it if it was the correct course of action. I will not hesitate to help Sneasler, and I would not delay in helping you, Ingo.”

Ingo’s eyes widened. He had a realization, too. “Ah, I see. I apologize.”

“I do, too.” Emmet relaxed a little with Ingo’s response. He didn’t like getting angry at his brother. He literally couldn’t remember the last time they disagreed so deeply, but at least it was resolved quickly.

“I thought I heard a new voice!” Laventon said as he entered. He was on a different floor of the base, but the new voice clearly travelled around the building. “Ingo, good to see you’re awake, my boy! Though you’re still not fully healed, I see.”

“Good day, Professor. My name is Ingo. You are part of Team Galaxy, correct? Thank you for assisting us!”

“Of course, of course, Ingo! We’re glad to help another rescue team in need,” Laventon said. Only Rei called him ‘Professor’, so he wasn’t sure how Ingo knew about that nickname. “As soon as you’re all healed, we’ll let you go out and do what you need to do!”

“Thanks,” Emmet said.

“Yes, thank you! We will need to meet with the Nobles for assistance to…” Ingo’s eyes widened. “Oh no!”

“Ingo, what is wrong?” Emmet asked.

“Sneasler’s Toxic Plate!” Ingo sat up as the horror set in. His mind spun around, but the shock from the realization was too great for him to mind it. “Lady Sneasler was the only Noble who still held her plate! But now she’s Chained, so she must have delivered her plate to the conductor of this nefarious plot!”

“Oh, the Toxic Plate? I am ahead of you.” Emmet reached inside his coat and pulled out a familiar purple slate.

“The Toxic Plate! How did you obtain this?!” Ingo asked.

“When I was battling Sneasler, I used Thief,” Emmet said. “Thief is a good move to surprise an opponent. I am glad I learned it.”

“Excellent! Bravo, Emmet!” Ingo was so relieved that his hands shook. “Now we can prepare for the route ahead and aim solely for freeing Sneasler.”

“I see everyone in Team Conductors is conscious.” Cyllene floated into the room and stood firmly on the ground. “This should make our coming battle less taxing on my team.”

“Come again, Cyllene?” Laventon tried to remain calm, but he didn’t like Cyllene’s grim tone.

“Professor, it’s bad news!” Rei said as he charged to rejoin everyone. “Lady Sneasler is approaching our base!”

[moririki]

⤷ A BLOODSTAINED CONFESSION

RENGOKU KYOJURO X READER -> 3.6K
you patch up your fellow hashira after the hardest fight of your lives

REQUEST -> ✰
CONTAINS -> MUGEN TRAIN SPOILERS like before the cut and everything, mentions of blood + gore, so kinda angsty but definitely a fluffy ass ending, reader is a hashira but it's left ambiguous as to what element you are👍, i watched the movie two months ago so my recollection of dialogue and plot may be *slightly* off, near-death experience, idk how to write combat so i just... didn’t, reader lowkey thirsts over rengoku's back muscles and shit because why tf not, idk how injuries work aaaa
MORI'S THOUGHTS -> rengoku my beloved,,, he deserves the world,, i think i should have made this less angsty im SORRY (i rlly heard "extra fluffy" and it just went 👩🏻➡️ straight through my head huh) also i bet you guys missed me and my late-ass posting <3 but here i am!! for now!! yeahhhh!! i feel like the writing in this got a little repetitive so i apologise for that

APPARENTLY, THE DESTRUCTION OF AN ENTIRE TRAIN wasn't enough to end this mission. even with one lower six demon defeated, another much stronger one had replaced it. the arrival of akaza was a significant turning point in the battle, and one that you cursed yourself for missing.

you should have known that this mission would he more dangerous than expected when both you and rengoku had been deployed to the train, alongside three rookies. you should have known better than to let rengoku convince you to stay back and help evacuate rather than let him handle it alone.

he had been so full of confidence- squeezing your hand firmly before rushing off, leaving you feeling slightly lightheaded from the brief contact of his warm palm. you should have wished him luck, told him to be careful, anything, but he was gone before you had the chance.

you made quick work of evacuating the passengers of the derailed train, making sure that they were all confirmed to be outside of the carriages before entrusting their safety to zenitsu and nezuko. it was around when you had carried out the last passenger that you felt the ground rumble beneath your feet, coming from the other side of the embankment that you were currently placed at. 

before you gave yourself time to really think things through, you were shouting instructions to the pair of demon slayers and dashing off towards the source of the noise, hand readily placed on your sword. that was the direction that rengoku ran is all that went through your mind.

the scene that you found yourself facing did little to quell your fears. you reached two bodies first, recognising them as the hapless figures of inosuke and tanjiro. from a glance you could see the extent of their injuries, with the latter laying on the ground barely conscious. the boar-headed one could only stare at the fight happening several metres away, his shoulders slumped in defeat and swords hanging by his sides.

“there’s no opening,” he only whispered, barely audible. that much was true. even you had difficulty keeping up with the movements of rengoku and the demon that he was fighting. the fact that it had already been several minutes and that there was no clear advantage concerned you, and you unsheathed your sword.

“you two stay put, and learn what it means to be a hashira, alright?” you tried offering a brilliant smile, much like you had seen the flame hashira do so many times, but you hoped that yours didn't fall flat. from the slight relief shown on tanjiro’s worn face, though, you took that as a good sign.

without wasting another second, you rushed towards rengoku and the demon, assessing their movements. inosuke wasn’t joking when he said there wasn’t any opening, their movements equally matched. you took the chance and struck when rengoku managed to get the demon to stumble back. bringing your sword down in a vertical strike, you severed one of its arms, before taking a cursory glance back at rengoku to make sure that he was alright.

your wound did little to hinder the demon, as it simply chuckled before regrowing its limb.

“oh? another hashira? don’t tell me you think that this is a fair match,” the demon sneered as you held your sword in front of you, still nervously eyeing the blood that was beginning to drip at rengoku’s feet. it amazed you as to how he was still standing, let alone also ready to keep fighting, but you weren’t going to stop him with that amount of determination in his eyes.

“i wouldn’t say that you appearing after we had to fight an entire train was fair either, but here we are,” you glared at the demon, adjusting the grip on your sword.

“think you can hold on a little longer?” you asked rengoku, still facing the demon.

“always.” you could picture the steadfast smile on his face, lending you his strength whenever you needed it. you took a deep breath, starting your total concentration breathing and launching off of your foot, propelling yourself forwards.

you heard rengoku's footsteps right behind you, dependable as ever. when you swung your sword and sliced through, you knew that the flame hashira was there to follow through with a co-ordinated attack.

despite your best efforts, the upper six demon lived up to its status and provided to be more than a challenge for even both you and rengoku fighting him simultaneously. in fact, akaza had even managed to gain the upper hand a few times, leaving you with a cracked rib that was making it more difficult to focus and control your breathing.

but you and rengoku's big break arrived in the form of a rising sun that leeched itself into your surroundings. the glow was nothing but welcomed by you, though your demon opponent let fear flicker across its face for the first time this night as it turned foot and fled. the invisible adrenaline-fuelled strings that held you up snapped, and you felt the strength from your body sap, too spent to gove chase to akaza.

the bitter taste of defeat crushed you, numbing your senses as you barely heard the cries of tanjiro as he yelled at the retreating figure of akaza. you turned to your fellow yashira, eyes widening and senses returning as you took in the way he had slumped to the floor, head bowed as he kneeled.

"no, don't you dare," you mumbled, dropping to your knees too in front of him. panic gave your limbs a new purpose as your hands stretched out in front of you, seeking out the warmth rengoku still emitted even when mortally wounded.

the most pressing matter was the dark stain of blood that gave his uniform an unnatural sheen that was still spreading. you pressed a hand to the source of it, a large gash across his stomach that was much too deep for your liking. your other hand came to rest on his face, tilting his head up to look at you for any sort of good sign to cling onto.

"you better stay alive!" your voice was shrill, harsher than you wanted it to be, but those were factors you could hardly control more than the blood oozing from rengoku's stomach. you could see how unfocused his eyes were, and how heavy his head was when only being propped up by the waning strength in your hand. your own injuries had been forgotten, cast aside in favour for you to fear for the flame hashira's life.

and still, despite everything, the man still smiled. the blood covering half his face did little to mar its radiance. rengoku raised a shaking, bloody hand of his own, letting it fall heavy against your own as you felt your hold begin to slip.

"you're hurt too, you know." his words were more of a shaky exhale, though you heard it all the same. you felt a smile slip onto yours too as rengoku proved to still be so vigilant in the wellbeing of others.

"you don't need to remind me, shut up and save your energy," you whispered back. you didn't trust yourself to speak any louder in fear of your voice cracking.

"but.. i have to tell you something." the insistence in his eyes was back, burning into you so mich that you couldn't help but lean closer, trying to ease his burden of being audible.

"quit talking like you're dying." you were practically whispering into his ear, close enough to feel the rasp of his breath as he laughed, holding your hand tighter. his other hand came up to your own face, rough thumb brushing against the skin underneath your eye, wiping away a tear you never realised had tracked its way there.

"let me bandage you up." your voice may not have shook, but your hands definitely did as you disentangled them from rengoku's hold, urging him to put pressure on his wound while your fingers found purchase on the hem of your uniform and ripped off a strip of it. it was barely enough to cover his injury but you managed to wrap the severed cloth around his middle a few times, tying it tight and hoping that it was enough to stop the bleeding.

"just.. stay with me until backup comes, alright? you've got tell me something once we get out of here, remember?" rengoku nodded into your palm, smiling at your words as his eyelids fluttered shut. but you were close enough to still feel that he was warm, to feel the slight rise and fall of his chest as he managed to still breathe, and that gave you some comfort.

minutes felt like hours when you had to talk to fill the gap. whether it was to give rengoku something that tethered him to this mortal realm, or a way for you to distract yourself from your own pain, you onew that you would both have to tough it out a little longer, just until the others arrived.

"you know, i've always admired you." you were surprised at both his words and how clear rengoku's voice sounded. your grip on his hand tightened a little, and you leaned towards him so that your forehead pressed against his.

"this is hardly the time to say something like that, kyojuro." you tried not to laugh, the pain of your ribs starting to edge back in as the adrenaline left your body as the sun soaked your bodies.

"i just wanted you to know." you would have responded to the man if it weren't for the shouts that became all too clear. help was here, and everything was going to be okay now.

you didn't want to let rengoku out of your sight, but many insistent hands prised his body from your grip, and with barely the strength to speak there was little that you could do about it except succumb to the pain of your wounds and finally fall unconscious.

recovery was never an aspect of fighting that you looked forward to. when you finally came to, there were a few gripping moments of panic when you asked a nurse if rengoku was here, if he was alive. you had been assured that he was before the pain and medication kicked in again for a fitful sleep as your body healed.

but no matter how you were pressed back into bed, into the constraints of sleep, you never really felt like you were at rest. your mind was still racing to places your body couldn't as it pieced together the events just before you got hospitalised.

when you could finally get up without keeling over, you were stumboing your way through the hallways as stealthily as possible, leaning on walls for support and peering into rooms as you walked past, in search of your fellow hashira. your cards of luck had lined up when you stumbled upon his sleeping figure less than three rooms down from yours.

he looked a lot cleaner, still donning a serene smile even when unconscious and you felt the panic gripping your body loosen its hold. the throb of your most likely broken ribs was enough of an edge to keep you awake, and you made your way over to rengoku's bedside.

there was a convenient chair placed next to him, and you tried not to grunt in pain as you sat down in it. rengoku didn't even stir at your approach, and you resigned yourself to sitting there, studying his figure and resisting the urge to check whether he was actually breathing or not. if you focused enough, you saw the subtlest rise and fall of his chest, just enough to qualm your fears.

your concentration was broken as you heard the sliding door open again, and the hesitant voice of a nurse breaking your intense silence.

"ah, i'm sorry to interrupt but i need to change rengoku's bandages." to prove her point, the nurse raised her arm to emphasise the strips of fabric held by them. you stood up hastily, sending a cursory glance back at the still-sleeping form of rengoku.

like all matters regarding the flame hashira, you found your mouth and body working a little faster than your brain.

"it's alright, i can change them for you. i'm sure that you have plenty of other patients to tend to." the nurse nodded, though she still looked hesitant to hand you the bandages. you gave her a reassuring smile, stretching out your hand to take them. "i've had plenty of experience with this, don't worry."

the nurse appeared relieved, giving you a quick thanks before exiting and letting the door click shut behind her.

you turned your attention back to rengoku's sleeping figure only to watch him crack a single amber eye open and give you an almost sheepish smile. you couldn't help the flooding sensation of relief that drenched your bones, and you returned his gesture.

"i'm glad to see that you're alright." rengoku's eyes never left yours, and you felt yourself grow hot underneath his gaze.

"glad to see you too." you offered a hand, helping rengoku shuffle further up the bed with minimal effort on your side. despite the bandages covering a large expanse of his upper body, his grip on your hand was still stable and you bit back the fond smile threatening to bloom on your face.

luckily for you, rengoku seemed to get the message that he needed to get shirtless without you asking him, which saved you a whole lot of embarrassment. you weren't confident in your ability to look him in the eye and ask him to strip without blushing, though you did exactly that as your eyes raked over his bare skin.

littered with scars and covering taut muscle, it was hard not to let your eyes wander down his form. from the look on rengoku's face, he looked well aware of the effect that he had on you and fixing you with a practically imperceptible smirk. you were quick to ask him to turn around, and he obliged as quickly as someone with broken and bruised bones could manage.

his back was the same story, with broad shoulders and defined shoulderblades that had muscle twitching without you touching it. you sucked in a breath, way too audible for your liking, and tried not to let your hand stretch out to run your fingers down the expanse of his back. you were here to help treat him, not indulge in some fantasy of yours.

your mindset snapped back to professionalism as you grabbed hold of the fresh bandages, opting to put them on after you removed the old ones. while there was no sign of infection, you still grimaced at the bloody sight of rengoku's major wound. you tried not to show how much it had upset you, both now and in the moment, and your attention turned to your slightly trembling fingers.

you were careful to avoid where his skin was obviously discoloured from bruising, not wanting to cause him any unnecessary pain. he was warm to the touch, enough to invite you in with some false sense of confort before burning you alive. the way his back muscles jumped at your touch did little to help your concentration, but you shouldered on.

your mingld escaped you, insisting on recounting those painful minutes where rengoku was vpeeding out on the battlefield. there was a particular focus on his insistence to tell you something, and you bit your lip. surely, he would ask you at some point from now.

"how are your ribs?" rengoku's voice cut through the silence, its rasping edge acting as evidence of hiw soundly he had been sleeping earlier. while it wasn't the question you wanted him to ask you, you were never one to turn down conversation. especially from him.

"worry about yourself, kyojuro. i'm fine." your appliance of the fresh bandage meant that you would now have to be stood in front of him, a development that had your face flaming from the close proximity. silence set in, and all that distracted you from the rise and fall of his stomach was his breath tickling the sensitive skin of your neck. your eyes flickered towards the ceiling, relying on your hands to guide yourself instead.

you dared to glance down and saw rengoku’s eyes fixed on your face already. there was something about his softened features and the look in his eyes that had you scrambling to stare at the blank ceiling again. as much as you would like to retreat at every first sign if danger or confrontation, you knew that you woukd have to talk to him soon, whether it was you or him who brought up the conversation topic from that day.

taking a deep breath, you perched yourself on the edge of rengoku's bed, still maintaining a professional amount of distance from him. still close enough to spot how his smile brightens when you choose to stay. you glanced down at your fingers, twisting knots into themselves as they were placed in your lap. you almost cursed and placed them underneath you to stop that, but instead you fixed your gaze on the flame hashira's ever-present smile.

"do you remember when you said you had to tell me something? right after akaza?" rengoku straightened up a little, nodding. you gave a cursory glance to the bandages safely wrapped around him, and winced as you remembered how much blood had left him that day. 

as if he could tell what you were thinking, rengoku reached forward and took your hand in his. you sucked in a breath at the sensation of his calloused hands, wincing as your ribs ached in protest. you couldn’t bring yourself to break his stare as your fingers intertwined, and rengoku brought you slightly closer to him. the tension was palpable, and you squeezed his hand in an attempt to alleviate some of it.

“what did you want to tell me, kyojuro?” you were still closing the distance between the two of you, voice barely above a whisper because there was no need to talk any louder for him to hear you. everything about him drew you closer, and the thought of pulling away never crossed your mind. you finally stopped, inches away, staring at him expectantly.

“well, there was a chance that i was going to die that day, so i was going to be selfish and tell you that i love you."

it amazed you how he could say that with such confidence when that statement had effectively swept you off of your feet. you were well aware that you looked more than caught off guard- your eyes had widened, and your mouth probably hung open from shock. that was nothing to stop rengoku’s words, though. if anything, it only encouraged him to keep going.

"and when i said that i admire you, i meant it. i admire your strength and how willing you are to help others. i admire you when it's sunset and you're laughing and i admire the way your hands feel, especially here." he guided your hand to his face, letting it cradle his cheek as he rested his own hand at your wrist, not willing to let go. you were sinking into the warmth of his body, letting his borrowed strength keep you upright.

“and most of all, i admire you because i find your beauty striking in everything that you do.” you were silent as rengoku’s eyes searched your own, watching as his lips split as he laughed. “you’re crying again.” you raised your other hand to your cheekbone, feeling the liquid there that began its trek down the planes of your face. you wiped them away with the back of your hand, keeping yourself anchored to rengoku as you curled your fingers around his own.

you felt so light that you could float away, and you couldn’t  help but laugh and grin as you fully processed the confession of the man lying underneath you. tears still rolled down your cheeks, and you couldn’t help the bittersweet pang as you remembered exactly why he was here recovering.

“you really scared me back there, you know?”

“it wasn’t my intention.” you laughed through your sniffle, feeling his warm hand trace patterns on the back of yours. you shuffled forwards and, as best as your shared injuries allowed it, you gave rengoku a hug. while your arms were around his neck, his rested squarely on your lower back, and it was better than anything else you could imagine.

you pulled away, relinquishing the comfort of his arms in favour of looking him in the eye as you prepared what to say next. admittedly, it was a lot easier when you knew how the other person felt about you.

“you know i admire you too, rengoku, and i love you. so much.” joy rewrote itself within his eyes, and they almost glowed with how intense his emotions were after you uttered those words.

“you do?”

your yes came out as a barely audible breath before you were being snagged forwards by him again. you practically crashed against his lips, but you welcomed the sensation, pulling yourself closer to him and settling on his lap.

you sighed into the searing kiss, only truly appreciating his warmth now as you felt it spread through you. you kissed him back intensely, ignoring the dull ache of your ribs to chase the addictive feeling that you only got around him.

around the person who loved you back.

take a look at the menu - ,, ⛩ ·˚ ༘ ꒱

[bucksangel]

A Love That Lasts

a/n: this is a REPOST from my old account @losaslut​ since i’m deleting that blog i’m reposting it here

Pairing: Hank Loza x Reader (non descript reader but if i missed anything please let me know)

Inspo came from this post by @withmyteeth 💕💕

Warnings: none except for tooth rotting fluff and so much love it’ll kill you

Word Count: 2.8k

Moodboard made by me

It’s nearing two in the afternoon, you’ve been cleaning and re-cleaning for about three hours now to distract you from the fact that Hank got called to go to the clubhouse. “It’s an emergency” is all he told you. Never mind that today is your anniversary, you’re more upset because it’s Saturday, a day both you and Hank agreed that nothing would get in the way of your time together. But, you understand, you’re always understanding. If the club needs him, then he’s there. But as understanding as you are it still doesn’t take away the ache in your chest from not having your boyfriend home with you.

Hence why you’re cleaning. It acts as a good enough distraction but you’re quickly derailed from your tasks by Bishop calling you, and concern is all you feel now. With the ‘emergency’ that’s happening at the clubhouse, your thoughts are spiraling, but the one at the front of your mind is that Hank is hurt, he must be.

You’re quick to answer the phone, fingers shaking and your heart pounding. “Is Hank okay?” You ask, demand really. You’re already shoving your shoes on before Bishop even speaks.

“You should get to the clubhouse, sweetheart.” Bishop’s voice is calm, almost melancholy, and you’re pushed into even more of a worry when the call cuts out.

You can’t help the tears that pool beneath your eyes, nor the shakiness of your hands as you fumble with the keys. Nor can you help the absolute dread in your heart at the thought that Hank could be hurt. He can’t be, your brain tells you, he can’t do this to you, not today. So, you rush out of the house, shoes untied, and make the ten minute drive to the clubhouse. Those ten minutes feel like ten hours, every red light only serving to aggravate you further, but it gives you time to think. Think, really, is not the right word. Worry is more like it. You spend those ten minutes worrying yourself into a panic, preparing for the what if’s.

And when you do finally make it to the clubhouse, you barely have the car parked before you’re tripping over yourself to run up the stairs and slam open the doors, searching frantically for Hank. You don’t find him though, in fact, no one is in the clubhouse. And if you weren’t in such a rush to get to your boyfriend you’d realize that none of the guys’ bikes are out front either. Looking around the room, your confusion triples. Hanging along the walls are fairy lights, meeting in the middle of the roofing to create a canopy that surrounds the lone table in the middle of the room. The lights have been dimmed, a single candle along with two plates of what you assume is Hank’s cooking (you’d recognize the smell anywhere) and an empty vase sit on the table.

You don’t have much time to figure what this could all be about before Hank comes out from the back, stepping into the light and wearing clothes he definitely did not leave the house in. He’s in his nicest pair of jeans (the only ones without grease stains), a simple black button up with the sleeves pushed to his elbows (swoon), and most notably: he’s not wearing his kutte. Now, you’re more amused than anything. It’s clear this must have been a set up, that Hank must have faked the emergency to set all of this up. For what, you’re unsure of. You could be pissed that he lied to you, pissed that he put you through the worry, and you are, sort of. Yes you’re mad that he tricked you, but you’re more in awe over the fact that he put this together for you, like something from a fairytale.

Hank is the first to step towards you, one arm is behind his back while the other reaches out to you. He takes slow and deliberate steps, and you take only one towards him before his hand grasps yours and you’re pulled into his chest, his arm wrapping around you. During this hug you recognize two things. One being that his heart is beating at a rapid pace, it thumps in his chest where your cheek lies. Two being that, with the way your arms are wrapped around his waist, you can feel flower stems. Now, it should be said that you’re not the most intuitive, but you’re starting to suspect this has to do with something bigger than just an anniversary date.

Before you know it, Hank has placed a gentle kiss to the top of your head and pulled back to really look at you. You’re starting to feel underdressed in just shorts and one of Hank’s shirts tucked into it, but with the way your man is looking at you, you can’t help but feel like the most beautiful person in the world. Your arms travel from his back to smooth over his sides and run up his chest, one hand placed behind his neck and the other one fiddling with the top two buttons of his shirt that are undone.

And you smile, you’re smiling so wide it hurts but you don’t care, all you care about is how Hank is staring at you. So much adoration pouring out of him that it makes you want to cry (but you’re using all your willpower to not, you’re going to save your tears for the end of the night). When Hank pulls the flowers from behind his back, four light pink roses (one for every year you’ve been together), you laugh. You’re not sure what else to do honestly, you’re filled with so much happiness and love for your man that it bursts out of you in a laugh that Hank swears is the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Baby-” You’re cut off by Hank kissing you, not too deep, not what some would call passionate, but a soft and slow kiss that lets you know that he’s here, he loves you and he wants you to know it. When he pulls back, your head is spinning for a different reason, spinning with love and thoughts of wanting this to last forever, until the end of time. “What’s all this about?” You breathe out, the wind almost knocked out of you while your brain tries to catch up to the situation.

Hank’s smile widens, and he lets go of you so he can walk over to the table and place the roses in the vase. Turning back to you, he extends his arm again, and once you’re close he lifts your hands up and presses a kiss to your knuckles. And once again, you’re swooning, heart so filled with something you’re sure is greater than love. “You didn’t think I would actually leave you alone on our anniversary, did you?” Hank chuckles softly, kissing your hands again before stepping to the side and pulling out a chair for you to sit in.

“How long did it take you to put this up?” You ask, looking around at the beauty that surrounds you, still in awe of it all.

“Well,” Hank chuckles again, “It was supposed to take an hour at most, but you know how the guys are with getting distracted.” Both of you laugh at this, because it’s true. You wouldn’t doubt that Angel and Coco were probably causing more of a mess than actually helping. Hank sits next to you, and takes your hand in his again. “But I will admit, this has been a few weeks of planning.”

Four years together and Hank still knows how to take your breath away, he still manages to surprise you in everything he does. But you don’t get a chance to speak before he’s pushing your plate closer to you (not his BBQ for once, but an alfredo pasta dish that you’re starting to recognize as the same dish he cooked a few weeks ago, and then again last week (probably preparing and perfecting the recipe)). So, you don’t say anything, you both dig into dinner while throwing glances at each other like teenagers going on their first date, and it’s perfect.

Dessert comes next, Hank goes to the back again and reemerges holding a pie that he definitely made himself (he’ll deny it if you tell anyone, but he does happen to be a pretty solid baker). Through dessert, you’re talking softly about anything and everything. You’re both just happy to be close and together that you don’t bother with any heavy topics. At one point, Hank makes you laugh so hard you throw your head back and snort (something that’s never happened before you met your boyfriend (because that’s how happy he makes you, so unable to control your reactions)).

And when you look up at him, ready to tell him about your adventures yesterday while visiting your mother yesterday, your voice cuts off. Hank is moving towards the bar where, how did you not notice it, a stereo rests. He’s quick to press a few buttons and a soft tune fills the air. It must be something from a symphony, with how melodic and peaceful it is. He returns to your side to pull you from your chair, and you don’t even have time to think when suddenly Hank twirls you around and pulls you into his chest. And the next thing you know, you’re being twirled all around the room, Hank’s hand covering your hand that rests on his chest and his other arm wrapped around your waist.

You’re giggling almost the entire time, both of you gazing into each other’s eyes and smiles so soft that if anyone were to see you, they’d probably be sick with how in love you two are. The songs flow into each other, and you dance for what feels like hours (realistically it’s probably been twenty minutes), no words spoken besides whispering I love you’s periodically. When the songs finally end and you’re both dizzy from the spins and the dips, you both step back from each other and again, the clubhouse is silent. It’s not an eerie kind of silence, but a pleasant one. Being with Hank has taught you that you don’t always need to talk to be able to understand what someone’s feeling. And what you’re feeling right now is an emotion so overwhelming, you do cry. You’re not sobbing, just letting out a few tears from the happiness that flows through your blood.

Hank wipes away your tears, presses a kiss to each cheek, and whisks you away to the back porch where, again, you’re caught off guard by the sheer beauty of it all. More lights are strung up on various boxes and around chairs. The fire pit is lit and the flames dance upwards, filling the space with light and warmth. It’s not until you turn around that you notice blankets and pillows piled together to create a make-shift bed. In front of the set up is the side of the clubhouse, empty. Your thoughts as to what this could be about are answered as Hank steps away from you to turn on a projector that’s sitting on top of a crate, a laptop next to it. You watch as he fiddles with the machines and when you turn back, the projector comes to life, casting light to the otherwise blank wall. When the opening credits of Little Women start playing (because let’s be real, it’s a cinematic masterpiece and the scene with Jo in the attic makes you cry every single time) you don’t bother to wait for your boyfriend while you rush to the pile of blankets (and wow does it feel like you’re on a cloud).

If you could see Hank, you’d see the nervousness plain as day etched into his face, you’d see how his hands shake ever so slightly, you’d see how he gazes at you with a love that even he can’t quite wrap his head around. But soon enough, he joins you in your own little paradise. He wraps you in his arms and lays you against his chest and kisses your head, and you know. You know that this is what heaven feels like. Laying in your man’s arms, feeling his feather-light kisses placed anywhere he can reach, feeling his love radiating off of him and getting absorbed by your mind, body, and soul.

You’re maybe halfway through the movie when Hank shifts and reaches into his pocket (trying so very hard to be stealthy so as to not alert you to what he’s doing (he does, but you don’t say anything)). When you’re both finally settled and the movie continues on, you don’t even realize Hank is fiddling with your fingers, nor do you realize the sudden cool metal that slipped onto your ring finger. It’s not until a whopping eight minutes later (Hank was counting) that he pulls your hand up to his lips and places a delicate kiss onto your knuckles. You turn in his arms, leaning your head back and using the hand that he was holding to rest on his cheek, and pull him down to meet your lips.

The kiss is soft and slow, like you’ve got all the time in the world to just sit here and relish in each other’s love. You move to deepen the kiss and then all of a sudden Hank’s pulling back, grabbing your left hand again, and placing another soft kiss to your knuckles. Only then do you realize why he’d been so focused on your hands, specifically your left one. Because on it rests the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen. Small diamonds line a gold band, with a slightly larger diamond in the middle. It’s simple, and with the lights all around you it glimmers with every twist of your hand.

You’re too stunned to speak, too in love with Hank to express how your heart is ripping apart and is being replaced by everything him. You’re staring at the ring, mouth open and tears now heavily pouring down your cheeks. And when you finally get your wits about you, you scramble to turn and face Hank, straddling him and placing both hands on his face, eyes searching desperately to find any sense of humor, any sign that he’s joking.

But you don’t find any of that. You find tears gathering in his eyes as he leans you forward to press your forehead against his. His voice is soft, almost afraid to speak too loud and ruin the moment. “Amor,” He stops, taking a deep breath before speaking again, “You’re my everything, my heart and soul, you’re the courage I need to take on anything and everything. You’re…” He pauses again, and a stray tear falls out of his left eye. He pulls you back a fraction so he can stare deep into your eyes, one hand holding your waist and the other takes your hands from his face so he can kiss them once again. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. And I hope you keep happening to me for the rest of our lives. I’m pleading, make me the happiest man in the world and say you’ll marry me.”

Hank barely gets out the last word as you smash your lips to his, it’s a little messy, and you do miss his lips at first, but it’s perfect. You’re unable to sustain the kiss for long with how heavy you’re breathing, so instead, you peck his lips once, twice, and then one more time. And then you’re pulling back, and Hank will swear to the end of his days that you’re glowing, shining so bright as you stare at him, and he wants to make you feel like this always. He wants to make you so happy, he wants you to feel the love that he feels, the love that has consumed his entire being.

“Ask me,” You breathe out, lips curved up and shaking from the sob that’s threatening to burst. Hank looks confused at first, so you continue, “You have to ask me first, then I can say yes.”

Hank laughs, he tilts his head back to rest against the pillow behind him and looks up at you with the softest smile to ever grace his beautiful face. “I guess you’re right. So, will you marry me?” And this time, you laugh.

You’re giggling from the sheer happiness of it all, so much that you’re barely able to get out your answer, “Of course I will, handsome.”

The movie’s ended, but you and Hank are still lying wrapped in each other’s arms, content to spend the rest of your lives like this. And you’re hoping with everything in you that this love doesn’t fade, that you’ll be this happy and this in love when you’re both old and gray. But you also know that it won’t. The love you feel could never fade even if you wanted it to (and by the grace of god, you’ll never want to stop loving him).

And while you’re there, in your slice of heaven, you’re already planning the wedding in your head, too excited to become a Loza.

[disenchantedif]

This was a ko-fi commission I'm also posting here; thank you to everyone who has supported me there and on Patreon. I'm still saving for tuition again, so commissions are indefinitely opened lol!

They can be personalized down to the name, pronouns, and RO of your MC. My ko-fi is here if you'd like to order one!

I had to cut this because it is very long, so continue reading below!

“Hey, are you…” Theodora drags the word out for a moment, considering what she’s about to say, “I suppose it’s stupid to ask if you’re alright.”

You only shrug; it wasn’t anything new, being subjected to ridicule everywhere you went. Sometimes, occasionally, you would let your guard down and feel safe enough that it broke your heart anew when the other foot dropped. Sometimes, like today, you believe you’re accepted only to be harshly reminded otherwise.

She purses her lips for a moment, sitting beside you on your shared couch. Your dorm’s furniture isn’t brand new and it makes a soft creak when she scoots closer. She seems to hesitate for a moment, and you know she wants to reach out, but you can’t find it in yourself to open your mouth and give permission.

You can’t find it in yourself to move, or offer your hand, or do much of anything, really. It feels like you’ve been dunked in freezing water and left for dead; numb and in shock, accepting your fate, quietly contemplating how you got here and regretting everything that led up to this moment.

She places a warm hand on your knee and you pause. Maybe not everything that led up to this moment, then. Theo is different than the others, different than even Viktor, different in the way that you don’t dread her touch and would, in fact, welcome it.

She brings forth a warm glow beneath your skins, a light to help you stumble out of whatever darkness you’ve found yourself in. The only question is if you’ll accept it.

Slowly, carefully, you move your hand and place it over her own, giving her plenty of time to withdraw if she wants to. She doesn’t, and your skin meets hers.

“I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but stop it.” She says softly, “They don’t define your worth.”

“Then who does?” You finally speak, voice cracking.

She frowns slightly, a slight furrow between her brows, “You.”

“Well, then, the outcome still isn’t looking very bright.” You laugh softly, a bitter sound.

She’s silent for a moment before she sighs, turning her hand and lacing her fingers with yours, “I wish you would talk to me more.”

“About?”

“This. Anything.” She sags a bit, tightening her hold, “I’m worried.”

“You actually being concerned about something?” You say in disbelief, “The same cambion that took a tumble off a cliff in our herbology lesson and flew back up laughing?”

She smirks slightly, “I only get concerned about the important things.”

You freeze at the implication, all thoughts of derailing the conversation and escaping lost. She turns even more on the couch, sitting so she faces you fully, and grabs your other hand with her own free one. Both your hands are wrapped in hers, and despite what you were feeling earlier you can tell you’re beginning to thaw.

“Speechless, hm?” She says, tilting her head, “Not that that’s new. Is this alright?”

You nod and then clear your throat, “Yes, um, yeah, it’s fine.”

Her smirk turns into a full-blown grin and you glance away to avoid her smug face. She leans forward, making your gaze jerk back to hers anyway, but she’s not smug when you meet her eyes.

“Can you tell me who was talking shit?” She says, deathly serious, “I won’t do anything, swear.”

“You won’t do anything?” You say in disbelief, “You’re just as bad as Viktor, and I didn’t think that was possible before this year.”

She huffs out a laugh, “I’m a very protective roommate. Now, who was it? I come back from class and you’re all mopey and I want to know who did it.”

You sigh, already bracing for the reaction, “It was...Bree-”

“Fucking Bree!” She releases you instantly, shooting to her feet.

“Wait!” You rise to your feet too, “You just said you wouldn’t do anything!”

“I lied.” She hisses, “I’ve told her to keep her mouth shut before, and I’m about to show her why.”

You see her eyes, normally a blue so clear they match the sky, turn a deep black that nearly matches her hair. You have maybe a minute or two before the claws and wings make an appearance.

“What would you even do, Theo?” You ask, reaching for her again but not quite making contact, “Just...sit back down.”

She stills for a moment, seeing your hand hanging in midair and reaching the rest of the way to accept it, “I’d bust her kneecaps is what I’d do.”

“And get expelled.” You say, “So sit down.”

She hesitates.

“Please.” You add.

She collapses back onto the couch, tugging at your hand and making you do the same.

“Only because you asked so nicely.” She lets out a sharp breath, “That just...pisses me off.”

“There’s no use getting upset.” You say.

Glancing down briefly, you feel bold and swipe your thumb across the back of her hand.

She stares at the spot you’d touched for a moment, “There is. If they knew you like I did, they’d never treat you that way. Instead, they listen to bullshit rumors and never bother learning anything beyond that.”

“And how do you know me?” You ask, finally making her eyes drift upwards.

“I know enough.” She smiles softly, the blue slowly returning to her eyes, “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

You shake your head slightly, “That’s a lie.”

“It’s not.” She insists.

She leans forward, much like she had earlier, but this time she looks determined. She stops inches from your face, removing her hand from yours only for it to end up hovering against your cheek.

Not touching.

Not yet.

“Can I?” She asks.

“Do what?” You ask, you feeling hopeless.

“Kiss you.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, your words always fail you, so you push her hand until her palm meets your cheek and nod the slightest bit. You hold your breath as she leans forward and…

It’s not fireworks. It’s not an explosion.

It’s warm skin against your own. It’s safety. It’s feeling like you finally, somehow, belong.

As she weaves her other hand through your hair, pulling you closer and closer, your pulse picks up and you feel like you might actually faint. You don’t, though, and she breaks away. Her eyes scan your face, searching for discomfort, and when she finds nothing but awe she smiles. Resting her forehead against yours, you both sit for a moment, perfectly content.

“I’m still kicking her ass later.” She mummers, the sound quiet against the roar of your heart.

“Theo-”

“I am. Lucia’s too. I know she had something to do with it.”

“Probably not-” You try to intervene.

She pouts slightly, “If you’re really against it, I won’t right now. If either one of them says something where I can hear it, though, not even you can save them.”

You chuckle slightly, “I’m sure.”

You’re silent for a moment before you say, “Thank you.”

“For what? Causing a lot of trouble?” Her mouth quirks up the slightest.

“For caring enough to cause trouble.” You say.

Her smile falls for a moment before it returns, her fingers brushing against your temple and down your cheek and jaw, “Whenever you need it, I’m your troublemaker.”

[baejax-the-great]

Alternate Ending

Working on a fic that got derailed when Garrus and Shepard decided to make out. Figured I’d post this version here while spraying them with cold water on the other version.

Shakarian (AO3), Rated T, mild suicide mentions

~

“You know I thought those shield fluctuations were just my sensors getting confused by your teleportation act?”

Shepard barely glanced over her shoulder before going back to removing her armor. “Did you?”

It wasn’t until he saw a slug hit her in the shoulder that Garrus realized she really was launching herself into the center of the fray—and exploding—completely unshielded. “Shepard, what the fuck.”

She waved a hand in the air. “The dark energy—the way it—in order to—look it overloads my shield emitters, or, well, not exactly, I sort of overload them on purpose along with everything else—but they recover pretty fast. It’s no big deal.”

No big deal? He’d never heard her trip over her words like that. “You’re standing there with your hump out—”

“It’s really good body armor, not even scratched, and I don’t have a hump unless you mean my ass—”

“You’re a sinking pigeon!”

“What?”

She dropped her chest piece on top of the pile, the sound echoing through the armory, and they stared at each other in mutual incomprehension. Garrus wasn’t angry, not really, but he veered into distinct annoyance when Shepard started laughing, a quick burst of startled air as her shoulders dropped.

Had she really lost her last shred of self-preservation?

“The expression is ‘sitting duck,’ birdman. Anyway, why do you think I bring my best sniper with me everywhere I go?”

She turned back to her armor as Garrus huffed. “I thought I couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

“You can’t. I was talking to the visor. You’re just its mobile weapons unit.”

“Huh.”

She tossed the armor pieces into her locker in a way that would have made any turian commander give her latrine duty for a month and kicked the door closed.

Kasumi’s words came back to him, and in spite of himself, Garrus laughed. “Dammit.”

“What?” she asked with a sidelong glance as she began unsealing her softsuit.

“Kasumi called me your emotional support turian.”

That gave her pause. She got her suit rolled down to her waist, just some thin civilian clothes up top now, exposing a dark purple lump on her shoulder. She shrugged. “Well if I have any emotions that need a shot between the eyes, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Shepard had gone unreadable while she fussed with her legs, and the weird tension that filled the room had Garrus bouncing on his feet. It occurred to him that he was now just watching Shepard undress for no particular reason.

“You should get that shoulder checked out.”

She slammed her suit down in front of her. “I might be a sinking pigeon, but you are a mother hen. It doesn’t even hurt.”

On what may have been his most suicidal impulse to date, Garrus reached out and poked it.

“Shit.” Shepard snatched his hand, and the very real possibility of Shepard decking him floated through Garrus’s head. But she just threw his hand to the side and said, “Fine. I’ll hit the medbay.”

Garrus didn’t know what made him do it. Gun to his head, he couldn’t have answered. But with seemingly no rational thoughts left in his brain, he reached out poked her again, one turian finger into the soft flesh of her side.

She caught his hand, and this time didn’t let go. “What are you…?”  She let the words linger in the air, a questioning smile on her lips.

And yeah, Garrus was definitely feeling suicidal because when he tried to pull away and she didn’t let go of his wrist, he poked her a third time with his other hand, or, well, he tried to, but she intercepted before he made contact, and now she had both of his hands in a tight grip on either side of her hips, and…

Oh. That was what he was doing. He was flirting. Apparently. Like a twelve-year-old who didn’t know how to just talk to a woman and instead provoked her with juvenile antics.

Shepard was provoked.  

He gave another weak attempt to pull his hands back, but Shepard didn’t let go. Pulled him in tighter, and either she was an expert in turian flirting or she was lining herself up to headbutt him straight to Andromeda.

She wasn’t smiling anymore.

His heart was in his throat as her eyes traveled over his face, inscrutable. He realized he was leaning in even closer, looming over her, really, but he couldn’t figure out how to stop.

Just when Garrus was about to try to excuse himself to take a dive out the airlock, just to cool off, Shepard lunged forward with the weirdest headbutt of all time, planting her mouth over his. Garrus made a noise that was something like “grggghhll?” but Shepard had released his hands and they were back at their absurd stunts, grabbing her around her squishy human waist and pressing her against his body.  

Whatever this was, it was happening. Shepard sure as hell wasn’t pulling away, one of her hands creeping up around his neck to hold his face more firmly to hers. Her lips were warm against his mouth, and her nose was sort of smashed into his cheek, but she didn’t seem to care. And now that she was in his arms, he did not want to let go. This was, she was—weird, but good weird. Soft and kind of wet and Garrus had no idea what he was supposed to do next.

What he did was clumsily push her against the table and jostle her injured shoulder.

Shepard broke away with a hiss and a curse. She gave him a light shove, enough to knock him back two steps, though there was that smile again. Garrus’s hands, instigators of all of this, were now hanging limp by his side, no help at all.

Shepard’s eyes flicked over him. She absentmindedly ran a finger over her lips, which looked a bit pinker than they had earlier. “I’m going to, uh, I am going to go see Chakwas about this. The shoulder, not the uh—” she laughed “—You can… you can stay here and figure out what just happened. Yeah.”

Shepard left the armory in her socks, her softsuit still in a pile on the table. Garrus mirrored her earlier action, rubbing a finger over where her mouth had been just moments before. She’d left a little spit on him.

Weird. So, so weird.

After a minute, when his heart rate had slowed down to something approaching normal, he typed a query into his omnitool.

“That is what they call kissing?” he asked to the empty armory.

More importantly, could he get her to do it again?  

He jumped when EDI’s voice filled the room. “The Commander has asked me to relay a message to you.”

He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Go ahead.”

“She says that if you wish to continue your earlier conversation, you should wait for her in her quarters. She anticipates being done with Dr. Chakwas in about fifteen minutes.”

Garrus rubbed his thumb over his mouth again. Fifteen minutes was not a lot of time to learn… everything about human romance. “Thanks, EDI. I’ll, uh. Guess I’ll go wait. Ah, hm. You don’t have to tell her that.”

“Understood.”                                                                                                

Garrus shuffled into the CIC and just hoped nobody noticed that when he called the elevator, he had pushed the up button.

[aseioh]

Of Cakes and Late Celebrations

Author’s Notes: This was supposed to be posted on Mother's day. But just like this fic, I got derailed and ended up being late. (picture taken from the internet)

It was Mother's day.

Or to be precise it will be Mother's day in 15 hours 25 minutes. It shouldn't be a problem for Alcina, she usually just buys something from the Duke to give to Mother Miranda.

Unfortunately, such a thing is not possible right now. The Duke was delayed with his routine arrival at the castle opening, something about a spooked horse and lycans trying to get a nibble.

Honestly she lost interest after the word delayed was spoken through the phone. How is she going to remedy this. The gift itself was one of the finest silk she was able to obtain, she was sure Mother would appreciate a new ritual robe.

This is bad. To show up without a gift on this special day. She was sure she would be made a mockery during the gathering. Whats worst was that fool Heisenberg would be the first to lead with his pathetic insults.

Just the thought made Alcina's blood boil.

”I should send Bela to switch that man's shampoo with dog shampoo. Although the man still smells like wet dog. No. I'll think of something more devious.“

But back to the matter at hand. It's almost Mother's day and she doesn’t have a gift. Taking a deep drag off her cigarette, she considers her dwindling options.

At western part of the village

Donna is also facing a similar problems.

"What do you mean you're not coming?! Where am I supposed to find a present at this hour?!" Angie's raspy voice filtered through the phone "do you know how hard it is to find a 1st edition book on occult and rituals."

"Apologies Miss Angie, but the horse spooked and the carriage suffered a broken wheel. Even if the servants manage to haul themselves your house to the Duke's location and back it would still be too late." The main servant said trying to sound as apologetic as he can come across.

"This would not do" Donna said finally in her normal voice.

Somewhere inside the Stronghold.

Karl Heisenberg was having a meltdown.

"YOU STUPID LYCANS! I GAVE YOU ONE JOB AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO IT RIGHT!!" Heisenberg paces around the small assembly hall. Ten Lycans looked very apologetic, although it was very hard to tell from their looks. One even lets out a soft whimper.

“I told you to stall The Duke for a while. I didn’t said to derail him completely. The man has a package for me, now how am I supposed to get it!?” Heisenberg seethes.

His plan was a simply one really. Stall The Duke so that he would arrive at Castle Dimitrescu late, that way Alcina would not get her package and present it to Mother Miranda. That would show her, a little payback for calling him a child.

What he didn’t count on was the utter incapability of the Lycans to follow simple directions. Now even he doesn’t have a gift. Oh Miranda’s gonna blow a gasket.

“Augh... I hate the consequences of my actions” He lamented

 At Moreau’s Reservoir

“NOOOOOOO!! That’s not fair, that’s not fair!!!” Moreau starts throwing his stuff on the floor. He had finally saved up his money to buy Mother Miranda that nice jewelry that would go perfectly with her black wings.

“Someone’s gonna pay” He vows to take revenge on the Lycans responsible for his problem.

 After all his pet fish has been hungry for some Lycan meat.

 Castle Dimitrescu (13 hours until Mother’s day)

“I have gathered you here today for a very important meeting” Alcina starts looking at the sad (Donna) and tearful (Moreau) faces of her so called ‘siblings’. Heisenberg is surprisingly calm which puts Alcina on high alert, but lets it slide in favour of the more pressing matter

“We have a big problem. The Duke will not arrive on time for Mother’s Day. That means all the presents we bought for Mother will not arrive”

“We need a solution, any ideas?”  

“We kill the Lycans responsible and feed them to my fish”

“Yes Moreau, but that’s after we solve this problem” Donna said and tries to placate a Moreau by patting him at the back.

“Whoa, that’s a bit dark but I like it. And Moreau is right, we’re gonna make fish food out of those Lycans” “Better off those basdards, after all I don’t want to implicate myself” Heisenberg thinks

“People, you’re missing the point here” Alcina says pinching her nose to ward off an incoming headache. “Listen, we don’t have time. You know Mother Miranda, She’ll say she wasn’t really expecting something and then low-key punishes us for missing the day. We don’t want a repeat of the 1967 incident do we?”

Moreau whimpers from the trauma.

Donna goes into a slight trance and starts to shake.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough” Heisenberg stands. “Why don’t we just bake something and say it’s from all of us”

 *beat*

“Do you know how to bake?”

“I work at the Factory, I make steel molds for a living how hard could it be?”

“That doesn’t answer my question Heisenberg”

“We could make a small doll” Donna pipes up

“Sorry Donna that would still take time. And I don’t think we have the right materials on such short notice.” Alcina says

“For someone who’s looking for a solution you sure are shooting down all of them”

“Because it’s not feasible Heisenberg.” Alcina huffs “Can you gather all the materials in less than 10 hours? No? Of course not”

“And I keep telling you just BAKE A CAKE!”

“I don’t know how to bake, child! I’m a BLOODY COUNTESS not hired help” Alcina bellows at Heisenberg

“I know how to bake”

Everyone turns to Donna.

“Really?”

“Of course, I used to watch my Mother bake cakes before the accident. I just need help decorating. I never got a hang of that part” Donna beams with pride as she explains the basics of baking

“And we can gather the ingredients no problem. You have a pantry here somewhere right Alcina?” Moreau asked

“Of course. We always have a full pantry for the servants.” At that Heisenberg looks at Alcina with a hint of disbelief

“What? We need them healthy to serve us. I’m not a complete monster.” Alcina defends

“In any case we should start early. It takes time to cool and decorating is hard”

 Castle Kitchen (12 hours 30 minutes before Mother’s Day)

It was truly a sight to see. In a way it was enough for the Castle’s servants to wet themselves in fear when they saw the 4 Lords gathered at the kitchen in various forms of concentration. Needless to say, everyone was warned to steer clear of the kitchen for now.

Moreau was together with Donna supporting her with mixing the wet ingredients. Meanwhile, at the other side of the cooking station Alcina and Heisenberg are charge of measuring out the dry ingredients.

“You need to be precise, don’t put too much. Remember what Donna said and look at the damn recipe”

“I know what I’m doing you damn woman. I’m all about precision. Why don’t you move away and get that mixing bowl at the top shelf.” Heisenberg grouched

“I’m not your servant. And I certainly will not start fetching stuff for you” Alcina shot back

“Alcina, we need to work together. We don’t have time and you’re the tallest of us all. Please cooperate with Karl just this once. Please?” Donna implored

“Once. I’m helping him for this one time only. When I get my hands on the Lycan responsible for this problem, I’m gutting him and throwing him at Moreau’s reservoir.” At Donna’s admonishment of Alcina, Heisenberg gives a shit eating grin, showing some rather very pointy canines.

“And Heisenberg, stop provoking Alcina.” Donna adds

“Fine, you’re no fun Donna”

Suffice to say, the baking went well. Who knew that the 4 Lords working together would be a great success? If only Mother Miranda saw her children working together peacefully she might have had a heart attack and thought that she suffered one as well.

Or she might have been dreaming.

 Castle Kitchen (6 hours before Mother’s Day)

“Alright, the cake has cooled down completely, So what color will be the icing?” Donna asked

“Yellow” “Cream” “Light Blue” the other three said simultaneously.

 *beat*

“Light blue? Really? Not everything needs to be manly Heisenberg”

“And not everything needs to be boring like your color, Alcina”

“It should be yellow, like Mother’s sunny smile” Moreau explains

“And in which ever universe has Mother ever smiled like the sun?” Heisenberg counters Moreau

“Hey now. No need for that tone!”

“Tsk, sorry Moreau” Heisenberg apologizes to a quiet Moreau

“Fine, let’s do pastel yellow it’s easier for the eyes anyway” Donna supplies, getting ready to start coating the cake with the yellow cream

 Inside the Sanctuary

“Happy Mother’s day”

“We hope you like the cake Mother”

“Yes, we poured out our love in baking it. I hope you appreciate it” Heisenberg said

“Why thank you loves. This is a wonderful surprise. And Moreau said that you all worked together in baking it. How wonderful!” Mother Miranda said grateful for once that her children worked together without collateral damage (that she knew of).

“Although Heisenberg, I heard something interesting from Urias” Mother Miranda looks pointedly at Heisenberg, who for some reason starts to sweat and turn pale.

‘oh shit’ “Really Mother? Good news I hope” Heisenberg tries to bluff his way out.

“Why it was quite peculiar really. He said that you got 10 of his Lycans for a special project. I wasn’t aware that you have some side projects”

 The 3 Lords turn to Heisenberg

“Wait what?”

“I KNEW IT!!” Alcina unsheathes her claws

“You’re responsible for this mess in the first place!!”

“Really guy relax, if anything I just proved that we need more than one traveling merchant in the village for a successful and on time delivery” Heisenberg starts to carefully ease his way to the nearest exit.

 “GET HIM”

In the end, Alcina was more than ready to feed Heisenberg to Moreau’s pet fish. Only Donna stopped her, citing Moreau would probably be inconsolable if his pet got indigestion from all the metal.

And that is how Heisenberg saw himself in doggy jail for a week along with his Lycan cohorts. Mother Miranda did get her Mother’s day gifts from her children although a bit later than expected.

 And the cake?

 The cake was surprisingly delicious.

[shinygoku]

Trust Thomas, the Better Version

I find Trust Thomas to be a guilty pleasure of sorts, an episode of Season 3 that has some serious writing issues but I can’t bring myself to hate it. But I can bring myself to improve it significantly with a rewrite!

Helped along by @mean-scarlet-deceiver ‘s commentary tags on the post I’d made about it before, I present to you my saltier, spicier interpretation! 😼✨

Maybe a smidge over the target audience’s recommended intake.... no actual swear words but still, I give it a PG for Parental Guidance ;3 Also no, I’m not gonna put this on my Ao3 as it’s an Episode Rewrite and not one’a my Original Plots.

===

======

Thomas the Tank Engine was feeling bright and cheerful. It was a splendid day, with warm sunshine, birdsong and lush green fields.

“Good morning!” he whistled to some Cows, but the Cows didn’t reply. “...Never mind, they’re busy with their breakfast.”

He stopped at a red signal, somewhat relieved that Bertie only came by after a brief pause, so he probably hadn’t heard Thomas talking fruitlessly to the cattle. Instead, Bertie was preoccupied with a large jolt as he drove over a hole.

“Owch!! That’s another one!”

“Um, sorry?” Thomas was preoccupied with the signal changing and set back off.

Thomas was still in good spirits when Bertie arrived at the next Station.

“Bad luck, Bertie!” he teased. “Now, if you were a Steam Engine, you’d be running on a pair of Reliable Rails!”

“Huh!” Bertie spat. “The Railway was supposed to deliver tar to mend the road two flippin’ weeks ago! You can’t trust a thing that runs on rails!”

“Oi, I run on rails, you big red lunchbox! I’ll show you, I’ll sort the matter out! You can at least trust me to get results.” 

Thomas left Bertie and chuffed away importantly, along the branch line towards the Big Station by the sea.

James was snorting about in the yard. He was saying many rude words and bashing the trucks roughly, cross about having to cover for Percy.

“Ooh!! Arghh! Oww!” wailed the Trucks. They longed for vengeance but were powerless to bump the big Red Engine back.

Gordon watched the events from another rail and chortled. 

“You know, James, if you were ill, you wouldn’t have to shunt trucks here, would you?” he offered, safe in his luxurious role pulling coaches that day.

James’ furious scowl lifted, all too ready to latch onto this half-baked suggestion. “That’s a good idea! Here comes Thomas, I’ll start pretending now!”

Thomas was perplexed to see the two big engines looking miserable.

“Cheer up, stick-in-the-muds! It’s a beautiful day!”

Gordon assumed the air of quiet suffering, his face creased with frown lines. “Not for James, it isn’t. He’s sick.”

“Yes he is --I mean, I am.” wavered James. There was a pause, and then he coughed a couple of times. “Ooh, I don’t feel well at all!”

Thomas narrowed his eyes as he looked over James. He didn’t really look so poorly, but then, Henry didn’t often look as bad as he’d felt before getting Welsh Coal, and then that new shape. Shame he wasn’t here to help judge.

“Hmph, really? I suppose I'll help out, if you're ill. Lucky for you that I'm already headed for the Quarry.”

He bustled out with some of James’ trucks. Once out of earshot, Gordon and James sniggered.

The Trucks were still furious over their mistreatment, and Thomas was a tempting outlet for their pent up aggression. They began to plot amongst themselves.

Thomas collected the heavy stone from the quarry and set off back to the junction. “Can’t let James forget he owes me...” he muttered, going slowly over the wooden bridge. There was something else he wanted to remember, but it was escaping him at the moment.

He was too preoccupied with these thoughts to prepare for the Trucks’ plan. “Go faster, go faster!” they shrieked, pushing forwards, assisted by the weight of the rocks they were holding.

“Augh! Slow down!!” Thomas was braking hard enough for sparks to kick off his wheels, but it was no good. He was forced off the track and derailed into a shallow, muddy pond.

He was dazed and confused, but in the wait for help his mind cleared enough to become rather cross. “Lovely flippin’ day, indeed!” he muttered, further disappointed by the lack of onlookers to hear his withering sarcasm. The only audience was a horrible slimy toad, it’s warty arms climbing up by his lamp-iron.

Eventually two engines came to his aid. Duck pulled the Trucks away, giving them a bump on the way out. “Hard luck, Thomas!” he called, over the pained sounds of the battered Trucks.

Edward helped Thomas back to the Junction and patiently listened as Thomas ranted about the horrible day he’d had.

“I’m going to find James and stuff the stones down his funnel! Gordon, too! James barely has enough brain power to think of a stupid plan like that, it must have been his smart idea! Oooh, when I get to him, I’m going to wait until his fire is out and I’ll dump him off the quay!”

“Thomas, you can’t kill them,” Edward said, soothingly. “You’d have to pick up on James’ work, for one thing! That would probably be after the Fat Controller takes Ffarquhar away from you, cause if you off Gordon we won’t have an express! That’s very costly for the railway, you know.”

Thomas muttered but privately conceded. “Can’t take Ffarquhar away, it’s a place…. Oh! Ooh!! Edward, I just remembered something!”

Glad to hear the shift in tone, Edward listened keenly. “Yes? What?”

“The roads are all dodgy down part of my line, Bertie was complaining about it earlier. He said something about us having supposed to have delivered Tar for it, d’ya know anything about that?”

“Tar… oh, yes! There’s tankers in my station, but they never said what it was for! Must be that, Driver will make arrangements when we’ve dropped you off!” 

Inside Edward’s cab was a slight sarcastic muttering, but Edward and Thomas ignored it.

Later, James spoke to Thomas. He was having difficulty making eye contact with Thomas, who was still perched on the flatbed and needing to be cleaned from the pond, and whose expression had taken a darker turn once he’d noticed the Red Engine.

“I’m uh... sorry about your accident, and so is Gordon,” he shot a pointed glare back at the Big Engine who was lurking nearby. “We didn’t mean to get you into trouble, honest!”

“No, indeed,” spluttered Gordon. “A mere accident, but all’s well that ends well, isn’t that right?”

“It bloody well isn’t right, you big blue blimp! Make sure you don’t rest too close to the sea or you’re going to find yourself well acquainted, you hear?!”

Thomas’ tirade got cut off by Bertie’s arrival.

“My road’s being mended now!” he beamed, having completely missed the atmosphere of the scene.

“Oh.” Thomas was rapidly rearranging his face to put on a smile for Bertie. “I am glad!”

James was using the chance to slip away. Gordon was a bit slower on the uptake.

“Now I know I can trust an Engine, especially if his name is Thomas! Thank you!”

Gordon slinked away like a dog with his tail between his legs.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Oh, enough of that soppy stuff.” But he was genuinely smiling, at least.

The toad had managed to stay on for the ride over, but Thomas was looking forward to watching it get put in the ditch when he was washed down. Maybe he should name it after a certain Express Engine who had ended up in that water himself some years before? The thought amused him greatly.

[five-rivers]

DP/HP twin fic chapter 1

This would be the first chapter of that DP/HP twin fic...  I need a name for it before I post it elsewhere...  I can’t think of a name... help...  @ladylynse I blame you for this entirely.  It’s 3k and they haven’t even met yet.  What am I doing.

.

Here’s the thing.  Danny had encountered wizards before.  And witches.  Multiple times.  

He was not a fan.  

Burning, or other forms of murder, hadn’t ever crossed his mind as a solution to them, even when Freakshow decided to derail his life yet again.  Still. There were only so many times you could stumble upon members of a certain group zapping people with bargain-bin neuralyzers and leaving hours’ worth of uncertain memories in their wake before you got sort of fed up.  

Memory erasure was great in fiction.  Not so much in real life.  

Danny got it.  He’d erased a couple of memories himself.  Well, a lot of memories, depending on how one took the Reality Gauntlet incident.  But as far as motivations went, ‘trying not to be dissected by the government’ was a lot different from ‘we can’t be bothered to be discreet about our sporting events and we think it’s funny that our venue managed to attract ghost hunters when these magicless fools have never seen a real ghost in their lives so we’re going to mess with them.’  

Yeah.  Danny was still annoyed about that.  Also, about their reactions to him when he crossed an invisible line that was apparently supposed to repulse ‘no-majs.’  

That was before getting into Desiree, one of the few witches to become a proper ghost.  According to her, witches and wizards had a different system, and it was rare for magic users to enter the Infinite Realms.  Dora’s dragon amulet had also been enchanted prior to her death, although that could have been a ghost’s work, and Dora had never shared where it had come from.  

Anyway, the point was that Danny knew about magic as an entity separate from ghost powers and at least a small subset of the living beings that relied upon it.  

So, when the woman who dressed like she was living a century ago and smelled of magic walked up to his house, he’d braced himself for a fight.  He wasn’t going to let his parents be ‘obliviated’ again.  They were oblivious enough as it was!

But.  No. She’d come in, no wand in sight (although Danny still wasn’t entirely sure those were necessary) and sat down on the couch, hands primly folded, ignoring all of the… rather questionable features of the Fenton living room.  

To add to the weirdness, his parents had been expecting her.  They knew her by name.  They wanted Danny to be in the room to meet her.  

“Edna,” Jack said, with a strained smile.  “How have you been?”

“Well enough,” said Edna, her eyes flicking to where Danny stood in the kitchen door, watching. “And this must be young Deneb Alased, correct?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, frowning.  There weren’t a whole lot of people who knew his legal name, let alone his middle name.  So, who was this?  “I am.” He looked at his parents, willing them to clear up whatever this was.  

Both of their faces were sour, but they were trying to hide it.  Maddie was doing better than Jack.  

“This is Edna,” said Maddie.  “Why don’t you come and sit down, Danny?”  She patted the back of Jack’s favorite recliner.

Danny noticed how Edna’s mouth twitched down at his nickname. His fingers curled, ghost energy buzzing under his skin just barely kept from his eyes.  He didn’t like this.  

“It’s alright,” said Edna, smiling kindly.  “This must be very confusing for you.  I would be concerned myself, under these circumstances. What I’m about to tell you may be difficult to process, however.”

“We’d like to start it off, actually,” said Maddie. “When you called this morning—” She broke off, making a face.  “We were told this wouldn’t happen.”

“Yes, well,” said Edna.  She shrugged.  “Purebloods. What can you do?  Evidently—Well.  You should have your say, first.”

Danny gave Edna another suspicious glance.  Maybe all wizards weren’t bad.  Maybe Freakshow was an outlier and sports fans just sucked in general.

Yeah, honestly, that tracked.  (Cough, Vlad, cough, Dash, cough.)

He sat down.  “Okay,” he said.  “Way to be ominous.  What’s going on?”

“Well, Danno,” said Jack.  He laughed nervously.

“You’re adopted,” said Maddie, bluntly.

Danny blinked.  “Wait, what?” he said.  “Adopted?  But I look just like you guys!”

Jack’s nervous chuckles continued.  “We are related to your birth parents…  not closely, but…  Yes.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Danny, feeling several layers of personal identity float away from him.  He’d always blamed his weirdness on genetics and family history.  Especially the ghost stuff.  Then again, his name, which definitely did not match with his parents’ or sister’s, probably should have tipped him off.  “You’re serious?”

“I’m afraid so, Danny,” said Jack, kneeling by the chair and patting his knee.  “But don’t worry!  You’ll always be a Fenton, no matter what!”

Danny nodded, swallowing back emotion.  “And Jazz?  Is she…?”

“She’s adopted, too.  At about the same time as you, in fact,” said Maddie.  “So am I and Alicia.  It’s a long story.”

“Okay,” said Danny, determined to get that story at some point.  “Why is she here, then?”

“I was involved in your adoption,” she explained, “and certain members of your birth family want to get back in contact with you.”  

Ancients, that was sure a thing to hit a guy with right after the ‘you’re adopted’ revelation.  

Hold up.  He was forgetting something.  This was a witch.  How did that play into this?  Because it had to.  Witches and wizards, as far as Danny could tell, tended to isolate themselves from the rest of humanity.  

He decided he did not like the probable trajectory of this conversation.  

“Why?” he asked, because he wasn’t going to say he knew about magic until and unless someone else cracked first.  

“Yes,” said Maddie.  “Why?  Why now? We were under the impression that they would never contact us.”

“Evidently,” said Edna, “Deneb’s birth mother was not properly informed of the decision to put him up for adoption.”

Okay.  Yeah. That was a lead-in to his biological parents being magical because he couldn’t think of a single modern western country where that would fly.  

“So, what?  I was kidnapped at birth or something?” asked Danny.

“Not exactly,” said Edna, wincing.  “It was your birth father who filed the paperwork.”

“And she’s only now wondering where Danny is?” asked Maddie, a little shrilly.  Her stress from before was now spilling over into anger so sharp Danny could taste it like a knife on his tongue.  “Did she somehow manage to forget giving birth?”

“No,” said Edna.  “Which brings us to the other matter.  One of the other matters.  The one who first sent the request for your adoption information was actually your twin brother.”

A third monumental revelation.  Wonderful.  What next?

“We, of course, contacted his parents, and discovered the irregularity regarding your birth mother’s consent.  Hence my presence here today.”  She opened her bag and removed a small glass tube, about twice the length of Danny’s palm and the same diameter as a quarter.   “There was also the issue regarding how young you were when you were put up for adoption.  Generally, our agency deals with the placement of children aged from five to eleven.”  She held the tube out to Danny.  “Could you hold this, please?”

“Do you really need to do this?” asked Jack.  

“Due to all the irregularities involved, yes,” said Edna. “Our organization charter unfortunately requires it.  If the mother was not consulted, as is required, the reasoning is that other required things are not as certain.”

“Hold up,” said Danny, hands tightening around the ends of the armrests.  “These people—” Who were most probably wizards, and wasn’t that a thing to get his head around, “—they’re not trying to get custody of me again, are they? After giving me away?”

“No,” said Maddie.  “We won’t let that happen.”

“We’re not going to give him back to people who were going to abandon him just because—!”  Dad broke off.  “Uh. Because.”

Smooth.  

“You know,” said Danny, deciding to cut off… whatever this was. “Even if this ‘test’ is, like…” He trailed off.  “Whatever result you want it to be.  I don’t know.  I’m still going to find out whatever it is you’re dancing around anyway.  Because I’m not going to forget this conversation.”

Silence.  

The witch twitched slightly towards where Danny knew her wand was hidden.  

Screw it.  “And I’m not going to let you erase my memory.  You people do get how messed up that is, right?”

Danny was treated to the sound and sight of three jaws dropping open.  

“How do you-?” started Maddie.  

“You remember when we went to that camp because people thought it was haunted?  But you didn’t find anything?  Well, they managed to get both of you that time, but not me.  And I know you’re one of them, so I’m betting that whatever this is, it has to do with magic.”  He paused. “It was some weird magic sporting event, apparently.”

“The-?  You went to the Quidditch World Cup?” asked Edna.

“What?  No!” protested Maddie.  “That was in Britain, wasn’t it?  We were just in the next state.”  She scowled. “I’m going to write a letter of complaint.  Even if we’re living without magic, we’re not no-majs.  We’re squibs.  They had no right to obliviate us.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Yeah.  You’ve lost me.  Squibs?”

No one seemed willing to answer the question.  

“If you’d just take this,” said Edna, holding out the tube a little desperately.  “It will be much easier to explain all at once.”

Danny looked up at his parents.  Jack looked at Maddie.  Maddie drummed her fingers on the back of his chair.  

“It’ll be fine,” said Maddie, “probably.”

“Fine,” said Danny.  He took the tube.  Almost at once, it started glowing green.  

“Oh,” said Edna, frowning and leaning closer.  “It usually isn’t—”

The tube exploded, embedding several small glass shards in Danny’s hands.  

“Ow,” said Danny.  

“Oh,” said Edna again, evidently not registering the small splinter of glass in her cheek.  “Well. Whoever your birth father hired to test your magic as an infant obviously got it wrong.  Congratulations, Mr. Fenton.  You’re a wizard.”

“My hand is bleeding.”

“Yes,” agreed Edna.  “It isn’t supposed to explode, you see.”

.

Once Danny got cleaned up, which involved a lot of glaring at Edna from Maddie and Jack, they adjourned to the kitchen, which was free of random glass shards.  

“The adoption organization I work for,” said Edna, “places squibs—people born to magical parents who do not have magic themselves—with families of squibs.  Assuming the child’s birth parents do want to give up their child over something like not having magic.”  Her nose wrinkled.  “The common wisdom is that it is easier for such children to grow up in an environment that is not explicitly magical.  In any case, it is my personal belief that anyone who would give up a child over something like that isn’t going to be the best of parents.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “so… all of us are squibs.”

“Except you, apparently,” said Edna.  “It’s hard to tell whether or not someone as young as you were when you were given up will be magical or not.  Which is why we usually only deal with older children.  I don’t suppose you’ve noticed anything odd happening around yourself?  Or unusual abilities?”

Danny stared at her flatly for several long moments.  His entire life could be classified as ‘odd,’ and most of it he wasn’t about to share with Edna.  Or his parents, as much as he loved them.

But, on the other hand, he now had a great excuse for at least some of his weirdness.  His parents wouldn’t think ghost if they could think wizard first.

“Like, define ‘odd,’” said Danny.  Despite his earlier encounters with wizards, he had no idea what was normal for them.  Other than memory wiping.  Which he could not do and wouldn’t have demonstrated anyway.  

Okay.  If was actually a wizard, and Edna’s doohickey wasn’t just reacting to his ghostliness, he probably could learn how to do the memory thing, but he didn’t know now, so the distinction was meaningless.  

(Maybe being a wizard or a squib or whatever was why he wasn’t just.  Dead.)

(Yeah, he didn’t want to think about that.)

“Just…  Being in one place, and then a different place.  Surviving something you shouldn’t have been able to unscathed.  Things moving by themselves or changing color or size. Temperature changes.  Something you want very badly happening, even if it is impossible or extremely unlikely.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Yeah.”

“To which one?” asked Jack, concerned.  “I haven’t noticed anything like that except what the ghosts do.”

“Um,” said Danny.  “This?”  He put his hand down on the table, intending to leave an icy handprint.  That should be acceptable, right?  If temperature changes were normal…

His nerves got the best of him.  He knew he was nervous showing even one of his powers around his parents.  He overcompensated.  

The table was covered with frost.  

“Oops?” said Danny.  

All the blood had left Edna’s face.  Jack and Maddie didn’t look much better.  

“Dear lord,” said Edna.  “You can do that at will?”

“Yes,” said Danny, holding his hand close to his chest. “More or less.”

“Danny,” said Jack, “why didn’t you tell us?”

“I thought you’d think it was a ghost thing.  You kind of shoot first and ask questions later about ghost things.”

“Oh my god,” said Edna.  “Never mind that.  You can do wandless magic and you’re fourteen?”

“Fifteen,” said Danny, “but, yeah.  I guess.”

Evidently, this wasn’t normal.  

Also, his comment about shooting first hurt his parents’ feelings.  Go figure. Not like they weren’t keeping a massive secret.  

.

“So,” said Danny, once the other discussions had been shelved for the time being, “I have a brother?  I think a brother was, at some point, mentioned.”

“Yes,” said Edna.  “A twin brother.  He wants to meet you.  Along with your biological mother.”

“And if I don’t want to?” asked Danny.  “If I don’t want to have anything to do with them?”

“I don’t even know,” said Edna.  “I can’t believe you slipped under the national detection spell. There’s going to be so much paperwork involved in this.  International paperwork.”

“Huh?”

“You were born in Britain,” said Edna, as if this were a minor detail.  

Yeah.  Like his sense of self needed any further pummeling.  

“But it isn’t our fault everything is so messed up,” said Danny.  He maybe had some curiosity about his twin brother, but if there was any risk he’d be taken away…

“I understand,” said Edna, “but nothing like this has come up before, as far as we know.”  She sighed. “If it makes you feel better, I will use any influence I have in the matter to recommend that you retain custody of Deneb.  In the meantime…  Do you want to, uh, open communications with any members of your biological family?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.  “Can I think about it?”

.

Relations in the Malfoy household had been strained ever since Draco’s investigation of his family tree (unrelated to the return of the Dark Lord and how blood purity was now much, much more important) had revealed that his twin brother had not, in fact, died at birth.  

And by strained, Draco meant that his parents had taken to living on opposite sides of the manor, interacting only when there were visitors.  Visitors such as his father’s Death Eater friends, members of society, and various government officials.  All of whom were more alike, and had greater overlap, than even Draco had initially suspected.  

This left Draco walking on eggshells between the two of them and wishing for Hogwarts to start again.  Anything he did to please one had to be entirely out of sight of the other, or else they began to fight again.  Truthfully, Draco was more on his mother’s side, all things considered, but his father was the one with the friends, and Draco couldn’t stay home under his mother’s wings for all his life.  Like his dragon namesake, he had to fly.  

Which he would most certainly do.  Soon.  No, he wasn’t hiding from his parents in his room.  That would be ridiculous.  They knew where his room was.  They could find him if they wanted to, and neither of them was anywhere near him.  He knew.  He’d checked.

This made the inarticulate shriek of rage he overheard from his mother all the more concerning.  

It was enough to make him emerge – cautiously! – from his self-imposed exile.  

He was curious.  And stupid.  It got him into enough trouble at school, why not at home?

Also, he really needed to know.  For his own safety.  Tiptoeing around whatever disaster just happened would be impossible if he didn’t know what it was.  

Instead, he tiptoed after his mother.  

His mother, who was angry enough that sparks were coming off the end of her tightly gripped wand.  Green sparks.  

Draco had never actually seen the killing curse in action, but his mother’s face screamed murder all on its own, no magic required, despite the fact that Draco was only catching glimpses of it as she strode towards his father’s half of the house.  

This was going to be bad.  Terrible.  Possibly the kind of event that saw one of his parents in Azkaban and the other in little, tiny pieces all around the smoking room.  

Lucius, for his part, looked paralyzed where he stood, and Draco briefly entertained the notion that Narcissa had managed to cast petrificus totalis on him without moving her wand or speaking the words.

Narcissa planted herself firmly in front of Lucius and glared up at him, seething, her breath making sucking noises as it passed through her teeth.  

She punched Lucius in the face.  The man toppled, clutching his nose.  Narcissa kicked him.

It was a good thing that the Malfoys had no neighbors, because what Narcissa screamed next likely could have been heard for at least a mile.

“He wasn’t even a squib, you lying bastard!”

[qlala]

Hi here's my money for that Barry and Len "guilt versus shame" essay. Thanks! 💰💰💰💰💰 (I drew the dollar signs on the bags myself. I'm crafty)

Anon when I said essay, I meant essay. But alright. Here you go. for you and your hand-drawn dollar signs. Come, take this journey with me. (A journey of character analysis for fun—please, no one take this as reliable psychology.)

As I said, I consider the main conflict between Barry and Leonard not one of good versus evil, but of guilt versus shame. Specifically, the difference between them is that Barry is a character motivated by guilt, while Len is motivated by shame.

(And to get this out of the way - I’m not talking about sexuality, but how Barry and Len relate to the world and other people. I don’t think Len is the least bit ashamed of his sexuality; Wentworth Miller has always said that Len is someone who knows exactly who he is, and I think that’s true).

A more accurate way of talking might be to say that guilt-driven characters are motivated by love, while shame-driven characters are motivated by respect.

I’m going to start with Barry, because guilt-motivated characters tend to be much more straight-forward than shame-driven characters. Barry grew up (with some bumps along the way) in supportive, loving homes. His parents, and later Joe, always treated him with love, which allows Barry to love himself and other people.

Treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can afford them, and they’ll always have that basic core of respect to fall back on in the face of outside adversity. (Barry is remarkably hard to ruffle with insults—antagonists always have to target the people he loves, because he just… does not rise to the bait when it’s just his own pride on the line.)

This kind of early exposure to love and respect are fundamental to being able to feel guilt about harming others later in life. Barry was raised to respect and love other people (in the general, “love your fellow man” sense), so he would feel guilty if he hurt someone innocent. The core sense of self-respect and self-love that Barry developed in childhood means Barry’s sense of self can always take the hit when he feels guilty about hurting other people.

Guilt makes us feel, temporarily, unloveable. But because Barry was raised to feel fundamentally deserving of love, he can afford to feel briefly unloveable when he hurts other people—it just means he needs to make amends, and then he’ll be worthy of that love again.

That’s why Barry’s a guilt-driven (or love-driven) character: when he interacts with the world, the thing he’s most afraid of losing is love. He’s never been put in a position where he feels like what he’s missing is respect.

And that’s where he and Len differ. Len’s not guilt- or love-driven; he’s shame-driven.

Len appears to feel zero guilt for hurting innocent people, at least when we first meet him in season 1. And the reason for that is Lewis. As I mentioned, love is a prerequisite for guilt. And unlike Barry, Len wasn’t brought up in a loving home. I highly doubt that Lewis’s love for Len was ever freely given, even before he became physically abusive. And if it was, that sense of self was absolutely ripped away from Len when that abuse started.

As I mentioned, treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can give them. By withholding that love, Lewis taught Len that he was inherently worthy of neither love nor respect. Raised in that environment, where violence was the way Len saw power exerted over others, the natural response was for Len to seek out respect, not love. He had nothing to gain from loving others—and therefore, from feeling guilt—because he’d already been taught he could survive without love. What he couldn’t survive without was respect, because disrespect meant becoming the object of violence—first from his father, and later, from the criminal justice system.

(Prison is a conversation for another day, but suffice to say, the dehumanizing treatment incarcerated people face parallels that childhood lack of love, robs them of the self-respect and self-love they need to have healthy relationships with other people, and increases the likelihood that they’ll commit violent crimes, not reduces it).

So Len did whatever it took to survive, and survival meant accumulating respect. There’s an obvious cure to this obsession with respect, of course: 1) love, and 2) safety.

Now, as eager as I am to jump into how Barry helped Len break the cycle of violence, Barry’s not the source of love I want to talk about here. Barry comes in later; when I talk about the love that saved Leonard, I’m talking about Lisa.

Because, listen—I’m as exhausted as you are by the trope of “female loved one is male character’s humanity,” especially where, like in some of the Flash comics, it means killing off Lisa to make Leonard a more ruthless (and, I guess the the theory goes, interesting?) villain. But Lisa isn’t just some crack in Len’s armor; she fundamentally changed Len’s life when she was born.

Len was already somewhere between thirteen and sixteen by the time Lisa was born; for the sake of convenience, let’s put him around 15. (For some more detailed meta about the Sniblings' ages, check out this excellent post by @coldtomyflash). If Len was five when Lewis went to prison, and ten when Lewis came out a much more violent man (see: everything I said about prison earlier), that means Len experienced several years of incredibly traumatic treatment before Lisa was born.

He and Mick were in juvie together at least once when Len was still young enough to be “the smallest kid in there,” and Len was nearly killed. Mick saved him, yes, but the experience had to further numb Len to guilt and reinforce that violence and respect were the only real paths to survival.

And then, Lisa. Len clearly, canonically loves Lisa from the moment she’s born. We know nothing about either of their mothers (and it is pretty likely, given the 15-year age gap between them, that they have different mothers), but they’re clearly both out of the picture—Lisa says Len raised her. Len raised her! Fifteen years old, three years away from being free and clear of Lewis’s house forever, and Len stays to raise her.

Lisa is absolutely the one person keeping Len from sliding fully head-first into the path carved for him by Lewis and reinforced by the prison system. He is still primarily shame- and respect-driven—we see him kill people without any guilt, hell, he tries to derail a train with children on board in season one just to see what Barry will do.

But Lisa taught Len that he’s deserving of love and capable of loving others, and because of that, Len cannot, will not respect Lewis for his violence he rains on them both.It leaves open a door in his mind: Lisa doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, which could mean, if he could ever afford to consider it, that he didn’t deserve to be treated that way, either.

It’s why Barry is so unbelievably smug at the end of “Family of Rogues.” He’s figured it out; he wouldn’t put it in terms like guilt and shame, but he’s cracked it all the same. He always knew Len was like him, was someone who had been forced into violence by his circumstances, and now he has proof. Barry is remarkably unconcerned that Len shot Lewis; he’s briefly surprised, sure, but by the end of the episode he’s visiting Len in Iron Heights and goading him about the good in him.

And that’s where Barry comes in. He’s the crucial second ingredient to that cure for shame—he’s the safety.

He blazes into Len’s life and praises him for things no one else ever praised him for: for his morals, for his mercy, for the way he loves Lisa. He gives him an acceptable out to stop killing (he appeals to his vanity, says he’s good enough at what he does that he doesn’t need to hurt innocents, and they both know it’s an excuse), and he makes it clear that he respects not Len’s capacity for violence, but his desire to escape the need for it.

He also offers Len protection to start making that transition. Len knows, even if neither of them say it, that Barry would drop everything to help him if he called. When Len’s reluctant do-gooding puts him in harm’s way, like with King Shark in ARGUS, Barry does drop everything. He gives up a tool that could save Iris’s life to save Len’s instead. This is not me hating on westallen at all—Barry’s sense of obligation to Len is just that strong. He knows he’s put Len on slippery ground by helping extract him from the safety net he’d built himself out of violence.

And that’s Barry’s guilt drive in action—because yeah, he loves Len. He cares about him, and he respects him, and that’s love to Barry. He just wants to give Len the chance to love people that way, too. And in the end, Len, despite all his misgivings, ends up letting him.