#I only have vague recollection of what is actually written here

[reptilian-angel]

The Cafe' Prince & The Killer Cook Pt. 1:

Chapter One - "Egg on your Face" Mega-Omelet

ME: Blitzø, having suffered a the worst day of his life, finds an unexpected silver lining when he awakens inside some random cafe hosted by a sweet (if oddly articulate) little girl, Via and her chef daddy, Stolas (Who looks like Hell on Wheels and cooks just as good, but who gave a shit.)

Later on after this chance encounter, a completely unanticipated offer might just be what Blitzø needs to turn his trashfire of an existence into a lifetime of amazing food, exciting moments and maybe even . . . Love?

Stolitz fluff, food chain puns, good food and healthy doses of angst await you at the Stars & Stir-Ups Cafe’!!! (Yet to be named)

Inspired by Pink Lomito’s ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE Stolitz Cafe’ AU fanart and written with their blessing, so I can only hope this will live up to the hype! (Displayed Below)

Full disclosure, I DO bake as a hobby, but I am NOT a career baker so most of descriptions of any foods mentioned, cooking and otherwise, will totally be written by an author completely in the dark, so please be gentle with any criticisms regarding any of the cooking displayed here. (Also see the end of the chapters for the recipes used, or at least the closest comparisions.)

Get Your knives and forks ready, you sinners & saints, and please enjoy!! I owe nothing!!!

Normal P.O.V.

When Blitzø woke up, he was automatically confused.

He had expected to be face flat, ass up on the shitty, grime covered flour of the bar he had trudged into last night like he had only hours to live. It had been a record-breaking shitty-ass day for him and he decided, like the many, many bitchy broke losers out there who had had their dreams squashed and trampled on like gnats in Hell, to drown his sorrows. Burning $ouls like tissue paper, he had began going for broke, mooching off other patrons and drunkards, earning petty shots in impromptu contests and maybe even performed a small strip tease for a gaggle of succubi and incubi.

He wasn’t a hundred percent sure how it ended, although he did have a vague recollection of plowing his dick into one of the incubi in one of the nasty as fuck bathroom stalls and wondering if the greasy pump soap could be used as lube before fading to black.

Christ on a Pogo stick he had REALLY gotten fucked up, didn’t he?

That said, he wouldn’t have been shocked in the slightest if he had found himself upside down, half- naked and definitely robbed of his wallet and phone in some shady alley at the crack of dawn. Yeah, that would have been normal for him.

Waking up in a plush, fancy-pants booth with a soft, comfortable quilt thrown on top of him was not.

He began leaning up to try and get some sense of where the fuck he was, but everything between his ears immediately started to bitch at him with an acute, relentless thrum that felt even worse than the headaches Moxxie gave him while bitching at him. On a good day.

He gave a low groan, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes in a sorry attempt to dull the throb. He swore everything was hurting, his horns were hurting, his scars were hurting, fuck, even his brand was hurting -

“Fudge.”

That innocent correction almost made him tumble out of the booth. He barely smacked his palms against the floor to keep him from actually falling face flat on its surface. Points for highly trained trapeze instincts. Centering himself, he found a pair of big, bright pink, and admittingly cute eyes of a little owl demon looking right at his.

Even with him being upside-down, he could tell they were a girl; maybe four or six, with a messy nest of long dark hair let loose save a small ponytail tied up on the side of her head with a scrunchie covered with moons and stars and a simple pink jumper with white stars of various sizes printed all over it.

It had taken a second for his hungover brain to figure out she was an owl, the white heart-shaped frame of her face like that of an owl’s a dead giveaway. The way she blinked at him only cemented that conclusion. She blinked calmly at him, despite how fucking weird he was sure he must’ve looked as a middle-aged, hungover, hot mess sleeping in what he just know fully realized was a restaurant booth.

Feeling caught off guard for a number of reasons, he could only respond with, “Sorry?”

The Little owl gave him a reproaching look, or at least as close to one as a toddler could manage. “‘Fudge’. You said it wrong.” She stated in all seriousness. “You’re supposed to say ‘fudge’ when you say the ‘F’ Word. Otherwise, it’s not polite.”

“Says who?” He asked.

“Says my daddy.” She said proudly as if she was referring to Lucifer himself. “He says ‘Politeness is the-” She paused, her face scrunching up in concentration, “- ‘Per-Ah-Get-Ive’ of sensible young demons’.”

He gave her a small smirk. “Oh yeah? And what is that?”

“What’s what?”

“Whatcha just said – Know what it means?”

He had expected her to respond with a "yes" as all little hellspawn do to prove they were just as smart as their parents who most of the time are dumber than the garbage man, and of course be all snooty and snobby about it too.

But, amazingly, she shook her head so much her hair flew in both directions. "Nope! But my daddy taught me that word. Which means it must be a smart grown-up thing to say. My daddy's all grown up and smart so it makes sense to try and apply it to my everyday 'Wing-guess-tics'."

"Uh, 'wing-guess-tics'?" He repeated with a smile.

The little owl nodded. "You know, the way you talk and how you sound to other people. Don't you ever take pride in how you sound towards others less proud of themselves?"

Blitzø sure as hell didn't. In fact, good mood or bad, he couldn't give two shits in a Gluttony Ring brand crapper what every other piece of shit thought about him or the way he talked. Which is exactly what he should tell to this innocent, sassy, too precious for words little oh satan's taint, he was too hungover for this.

Getting up at an old man's pace, he grunted, "I don't really have an answer to that, ow."

Okay, sitting up straight didn't quite stop the ache, but it wasn't harping so badly now.

The little owl made a sad sound. "That's too bad. Everything needs an answer."

"Does it?" He asked while once again pressing into his eyes to try and settle his headache. She gave an affirmative hum.

"They do. Sometimes."

Blitzø gave up trying to squeeze his eyeballs back into his brains and gave a slow roll of his neck, breathing with the small audible stream of cracks that followed. "Yeah, well, sometimes is better than no times I guess." Once his neck didn't feel so stiff, he looked down at the little owl who still was blinking up at him. "Hey kiddo?"

"Yes?"

"Can you, uh . . . Can you tell me where we are right now?" Geez, Blitzø, you need a little kid to tell your dumb, hungover ass where you crashed? Talk about hitting rock bottom.

She giggled like he had just told a funny joke. He admitted, even with a headache, the sound was nice to hear. "You're in our cafe, sir. Mine and Daddy's cafe. You've been here ever since last night."

He felt embarrassment collide with exasperation in a wave that only incensed the pounding in his skull. Grreeeaaat. Now he had to deal with a bitchy dad that could probably make a Karen more bearable. And considering his crappy luck, he could probably give Moxxie a run for his money when it came to whining and botching. Like he didn't have enough of a migraine already.

To distract himself from the imminent ass-chewing, Blitzø decided it was a good time as any to take a quick peek around. In case, things went tits up, he should know how much he could tag with horses and dongs later.

Look all over, he had to admit . . . He was pleasantly surprised.

The cafe was definitely a little ritzier than almost every other diner or bistro in Pride, at least the ones run by imps or sinners. It wasn't an 'in-your-face-so-suck-it-bitches' bourgeois nightmare that you found on the cover of rich people magazines, but it was still easy to smell the $oils that had been burned to buy the number of furniture and appliances that filled it. Pristine designer steel tables, floors tiles so clean you could eat off of them, cushy warm booths like the one he was sitting in that felt comfy enough to be small bed; yeah, this place made the local Hellbucks look like a gas station men's room (Which was also, coincidentally, one of the many places he would periodically wind up in after a bender).

He could probably make off with one of the tablecloths - Made with actual fucking linen, not rag or crappy burlap - And the money he would get for it would easily pay off his non-existent mortgage.

The walls, covered in perfectly intact, shiny wallpaper that was neither covered in mildew nor aged and peeling, colored the interior with a tasteful cream and vanilla striped pattern. Each dark strip of cream had subtle motifs of shooting stars, little crescent moons and cheery spiraling suns. The cushions seated on each chair and the fabrics of the booths were royal blue and spotted with muted violet stars, all differing sizes, each cleaner than the back seat of an Imp City taxi cab. Plus, no springs popping up to try and fuck him in his little red hole.

He then noticed the bar. A quaint but spacious counter as long as Blitzø's body and tail combined, a simple but pricey cash register at one end, with matching leather stools lined up perfectly beneath it. A large glass case half the size of his van sat at the other end, the inside holding shelves of numerous plates of decadent-looking desserts and pastries that drew an expectant grumble from his stomach.

It wasn't his fault, the last thing Blitzø remembered having that was even close to food was some outdated peanuts and the olives he wiped from some douche who had ordered nothing but martinis that were drier than Wraith in a heatwave.

And he normally hated olives, Christ, he must've been fucked up to devour those things, pit and all. Fuck, did I bang the guy who ordered then too?

Okay, not the priority right now, Blitzø. Especially with the cute little kid in front of you whose dad is definitely gonna throw you out on your ass the minute he sees you -

"Oh! Daddy's awake! Good morning, daddy!"

Fuck.

Blitzø jerked his head up at her cheerful greeting, opening his mouth if only to curse at how his head throbbed in response -

— Only for it to immediately die when he caught sight of "Daddy" coming into the cafe'.

Fuck him twice.

The demon that had stepped into his view was, hands down and pants down if his belt was loosened, one of the most gorgeous demons he had seen.

And the tallest, Jesus Christ.

The owl demon was as tall as a tree, with legs for days ending in jet black talons that clicked delicately against the immaculately clean tiles as he strode over. His body was much, much thinner than Blitzø had expected, delicate and lithe with sinfully svelte curves around his well-rounded hips that he felt an instant, barely concealed urge to wrap his legs around and squeeze. His upper body was just as long, lengthy frail arms that grew like willow branches from his shoulders with dainty but large hands and fingers that reminded him of spider legs as they moved and were just as dark as his feet. They were probably as soft as that little fluff of feathers that peeked out on his chest.

Looking at his face, he was slightly taken aback at the sight of not one but two pairs of eyes peering back, although the second pair were smaller and placed higher on his forehead, just as wide and bright as Via's, but instead of pink they shone with crimson and were as opaque as a ruby. It was obvious who this little girl got her looks from the most; the same dark spot at the tip of his beak, and the same shade of grey blue feathers, only his grew darker in hue as they climbed up his very lean throat, combed into a neat and very trim style that clearly was given a lot of attention. The only blemish to it would be the bold streak of grey that cut through the feathers which easily gave away his age, but somehow that had actually improved his looks as it contrasted the young (and pretty) features of his face.

His outfit wasn’t too extraordinary but still, Blitzø felt himself growing warm at the sight of the white button up dress shirt and the open cranberry pink waistcoat the owl was currently snapping shut dexterously and simple dark slacks that hugged his legs perfectly.

Fuck. I was once woken up with V wearing lingerie that was made pretty much just string but this guy is dressed like a fucking waiter and I wanna lay him flat on the counter.

Blitzø was suddenly that much more thankful for the blanket covering his lap, because he was sure feeling the telltale signs of a growing boner.

Oh well, he was sure it would go away once this guy started to whine about having to deal with a drunken piece of shit first thing in the morning -

The tall owl, even with the slightest of sleep still clinging to it, smiled warmly and brightly at his daughter. “Good morning, my Owlette.” Blitzø felt himself once again be knocked off guard by his chocolaty, silky tenor voice, the sound of it sending pleasant shivers down his spine.

Fuckhim three times, he sounded hot too. Satan, this sucked.

The owl’s pleasant chuckle only added to Blitzø;s horny chagrin. “I see you beat me down to the cafe’ today. I hope you slept well, my Starfire.”

The little “Starfire” nodded happily. “I slept good, Daddy! And so did our guest!” She gestured innocently at the imp, who then tensed at being put on the spot by a kid. “When I came down to check on him, he was snoozing like a kitten!”

Blitzø, of course, made a face. A kitten?

It went unnoticed by the little owl, but not by her father who gave her a stern, but still soft look. “Via,” He started. “You didn’t disturb our guest while he was sleeping, did you?”

“Via” quickly shook her head, he feathers swinging side to side in a flurry. “Mh-mm! No, Daddy, I promise I didn’t! I was real quiet until he woke up and said the bad thing wrong.”

He blinked at her. “The ‘bad’ word?”

“One of the words that Mummy used to -” He explanation was abruptly cut off by her father’s wincing and his hands waving the universal sign for stop. “O-oh, alright, alright, sweetie, I understand, no need to go further!”

Blitzø watched them quietly.

Huh. So pretty boy had post-marital troubles with the little former wifey, huh?

Yeah, that made sense. Aside from his friend’s, Blitzø had yet to see any marriage that wasn’t one step away to instating the “death do us part” vow.

This guy must have gotten out while the getting was still good. But not without a few licks dealt, judging by the signs of wariness on his face.

He mentally sighed. Alright the hottie daddy knows you’re here and first impression has clearly gone to shit so, get ready for take two, dumbass.

Blitzø, deciding that jokes was the way to go in a pinch, then said casually. “I guess ‘Mummy’ wasn’t a ‘fudge’ kinda girl.” He then put on his best smile as he looked straight on at the pretty owl. “Me, personally, always liked the mine with plenty of nuts.”

As smooth as it sounded, he still cringed on the inside. Oof, Blitzø, how lame do you sound right now?

However, to Blitzø’s surprise and relief, the innuendo did not go unnoticed by the only other adult in the cafe’. Both sets of eyes went wide and the haggardness on his face was instantly washed away with a swift, prominent pink flush that Blitzø definitely liked seeing. Next to Via, it was probably the cutest thing he saw this morning. It certainly took the edge off the ass-chewing he was sure to get.

Usually, anytime he cracked any sex jokes around others, he was almost immediately told off by whatever prude or asshole or Karen was in the vicinity (i.e. Moxxie) and who clearly had no sense of good humor. (Like they didn’t start humping on each other’s earlobes the second every one’s back was turned like the hypocrites they were.)

Anybody else who didn’t was either not giving two shits or just as eager to talk dirty after a line up of shots.

But this bird seem reasonably sober. But then again, judging by his frame, he was probably the type of demon to go for light drinks like martinis or cocktails rather than tequila or beezlejuice. Considering the little girl now running up to him and hugging his shins, it was more than likely. He had the bitter experience of always dealing with a parent more often found nursing a hangover rather than an infant and it was an all around shitty experience he had no wish to repeat.

However, right now, he wouldn’t mind getting another peek of that cute ass blush as the bird briefly ducked down to scoop up into his arms. “W-well,” He started, “It’s certainly good to see you awake, Mister . . . ?”

“Name’s Blitzø. The “O” is silent.” Blitzø stated without missing a beat.

The owl blinked. “What ‘o’?”

“Exactly.” Blitzø nodded without thinking and once again, groaned in pain as everything from the neck up throbbed.

“Oh dear, hangover not quite remedied yet?”

Blitzø hissed out a breath. “Yeah, that’s a big fat fff-fudgin’ no.” He smirked weakly at Via’s approving nod. “I feel like I decided to go dumpster-diving outside the nearest Sinnabon’s for a midnight snack-run.” His empty stomach than made itself known by giving an impatient grumble. “And it looks like I’m up for round two so I think it’s about time I get outta here.”

The owl blinked again. “I’m sorry?”

Blitzø carefully climbed out of his improvised bed and unsure of what to do, opted to take apart the bedding and fold it as neatly as he could. “Yeah, I know, I know, I should’ve been out of here hours ago, I get it. Satan knows no-one wants to deal with a hungover dumb-a first thing in the morning. I know I wouldn’t, plus you gotta kid here and I can’t imagine you want some strange weirdo around your baby-girl so I better clear out before -”

The quilt literally rising out of his hands cut him off like a record scratch. The fuck-?

He watched cow-eyed as some kind of blue sparkly whatsit energy surrounded the quilt and untangled the lump he had been making a mess out of. It than began folding itself in a much more professional fashion than his was and as soon as it finished, it levitated right over his head and towards the guys who, judging by the ethereal sheen wrapped around his talons, was making it.

“Mr. Blitzø,” He started calmly. “As the owner of a cafe’, I have often had ‘strange weirdos’ coming in and going out from here every day. Thankfully, most of them are courteous enough to show up around working hours, but I am no stranger to any who who wander in from the late-night crowd, which I’m assuming is where you come from.” His tone wasn’t accusing but Blitzø still frowned at the teasing lilt he definitely heard.

“As for my little Starfire,” The bird continued, nuzzling his daughter on the cheek which earned a giggle. “Via, I like to think at least, is an excellent judge of character, especially more so with strangers. So, if she thinks that you’re trustworthy then that’s more than enough reason to let you stay.” With a twirl of his talon, he sent the quilt through the door leading upstairs to, whatever the fuck it led to as he set Via down on one of the stools after a quick, dramatic spin that earned him another giggle. “At least, long enough for us to feed you a decent breakfast.”

That last bit was definitely NOT what Blitzø thought he’d hear. “Uh, excuse me?”

“Oh certainly, after you’ve been given food of actual substance to eat instead of the leftover, surely bacteria-ridden remains scrounged from a random dumpster.” The big bastard responded blithely as he made his way around the counter, to where Blitzø finally noticed the fancy-looking coffeemaker that made him feel more broke-ass than he already was. “But first, I believe refreshments are in order. Would you prefer coffee or tea?”

The asshole part of him wanted to deliver a pissy comeback at the offer. He was a grown-ass man, more than capable of getting his own food, fuck you very much and no trust-fund, (sexy) long-legged prick had the right to tell him what was okay for him to eat or not – Moxxie already got his ass enough about that, he didn’t need anyone else doing that shit.

Big bitch was probably trying to keep him here long enough to call the cops on him the minute his back was turned so he could stick him with some BS robbery charges just for shits and giggles. Which had happened to him before due to more than one nut-job Karen and/or Kevin.

And of course, since it was fucking Hell, there was only a certain amount of times that you could get arrested and get bailed out before the taxpayers think to simply say “Fuck it” and just take your money and never bother to find your cell keys.

That in mind, he was so not in the mood to bust out of prison again, that one stint in Greed was enough for the next five years.

Well, fuck this bird. The front door was right there and he was not gonna have to put up with whatever bullshit this guy was -

His stomach halted his would-be flipping-the-bird-at-the-bird-on-the-way-out escape with a rumble even louder and more impatient than before. The tell-tale smell of brewing coffee didn’t do anything to help quell it. And damn, did it smell good . . .

. . . . . . Oh, forget it, they dump that dumpster every other day and he was too hungover to spare the effort to drive. Or Look for his van. Or try to remember the name of the club he was at.

“. . . I usually have iced coffee. But right now, I’ll take a regular coffee, as black as blood.”

That request was responded to with a humored smile. “I myself usually take it black as sin, but I’m always up for a challenge.” Turning to the way too complicated than should be normal looking, coffee-making monstrosity, he also added, “Also, forgive me.”

“For what?” Blitzø asked as he came closer to the bar. This close, he could now spot a simplistic yet obviously custom-designed hotplate big enough to fit enough food for five people, flat black surface on one side and a classic stove-top on the other.

“For not introducing myself properly earlier.” A clean, see-through glass coffee pot that Blitzø didn’t even see him pull out appeared in his hand as he whipped out a coffee filter so finely made it looked more like a hankie, bypassing the coffee maker completely. “I’m Stolas, owner of this cafe’ as well as Chef and Barista. You’ve already had the pleasure of meeting my daughter, Octavia, my darling little helper.”

“Daddy says I’m his ‘Suzy Chef’!” Via, also now known as “Octavia”, chirped proudly. Before Blitzø took a seat on one of the stools, he moved as to help her up but she shook her head. Gripping the crank under the seat, she pulled it up and down like a desk chair’s until the seat was low enough for her to climb up. He watched in bemusement as she then adjusted the seat back up. Clearly, they were built with the varying heights of Hell’s diverse demographic in mind.

Not bad thinking, Blitzø had to admit.

“Indeed you are, my Owlette.” Stolas chuckled. Having placed the filter inside a clenex wrapped around a chic-looking coffee pot, he placed a silver carafe onto the stove-top side of the hotplate and flipping the switch. Taking out a bag of coffee grounds that smelled fucking fantastic. “She and I have been running this little cafe’ for about four months now. And if I may so, we’re doing rather well. Granted, we’re not millionaires but I’m certainly not complaining.”

In almost no time at all, the carafe’ started whistling sharply. Stolas took it off and replaced it with a small skillet that Blitzø didn’t see being pulled out either, only to stare unabashedly at the medley of cheeses, meats, veggies and eggs that literally flew in from the entry to what he guessed was the kitchen like it was something of out of a kid’s movie. He knew Via giggling at his face but he forgoed responding to that, as while Stolas attended to the coffee pot, a bottle of oil floated over to the skillet and poured a delicate amount inside with two slices of butter following suite. “. . . Uh, yeah, if you’re good at something, you should capitalize.”

“Perhaps, but it’s not really so much about the money as it is the business of cooking itself.” Stolas said earnestly as he dumped the grounds into the filter and sweeped up the carafe to pour in the hot water in one fluid motion. “I find that this line of work gives me much more gratification than that of my previous occupation.”

“Oh, what was that? Real estate spokesman? Attorney? Phone seee-” Blitzø was instantly reminded of Via’s presence as the little girl hummed happily while folding and unfolding a napkin she plucked from the napkin holder closest to them. “-eeecrecy operator?”

If Stolas noticed the near slip-up, he didn’t comment on it. “No, I’m afraid. Simply one of the cogs of the crumbling, over-heated machine that is known as Hell’s government.” While the skillet started to pop and sizzle, the owl than summoned a sizable knife to finely chop one onion to join the oil and butter. As the coffee grounds were left to bloom, Stolas made quite a show of crumbling up a thick sausage into bits with one hand while simultaneously conjuring an actual clutch of flames in the other hand, selecting a few strips of bacon to cook and crisp in a matter of seconds. Most likely to show off for Blitzø and his daughter who “oohed” at the sight.

Admittedly, Blitzø was a little impressed too, but he’d be fucked by a mime before he ever let on. “Geez, playin’ it up a bit, don’t ya think?”

“Perhaps a bit.” Stolas admitted, not so sorry in the slightest. “But compared to how stoic and quiet I had used to be, I relish any chance to ‘play it up’.” Having deemed the bacon thoroughly cooked, which it definitely was going by the smell, he extinguished the flames and set the crispy strips onto a cutting board for a magicked knife to chop up. Washing his hands in a small sink set by the hotplate, he gestured towards the enchanted parade of flying ingredients, allowing three eggs to gently land on the counter.

Blitzø, at this point, had taken his eyes away from the free magic show in front of him, cool as it was, to quietly observe Stolas’s shapely ass as he bent over to retrieve something from one of the lower cabinet.

Hmm. He could feel the tip of his tail flicking in appreciation. Guess the cake wasn’t only in good in the cases.

He tried to keep ogling as unnoticeable as possible as he asked. “Old job sucked that bad, huh?”

“Oh, abominably so.” Stolas groaned as he fished around in the cabinet obliviously. Eventually, he made a small sound of triumph as he located his prize; a small mixing bowl which he then set on the counter next to the eggs. A crooked finger brought a whisk right into his hand just as all three eggs were lifted and cracked into the bowl and the shells were tossed away. “And all I can say is that I’m bloody well glad that it’s behind me.”

“And now Daddy gets to be the bestest chef in all of Hell!” Via proclaimed, which was rewarded with a loving smile.

“Well, I certainly try my best.” He said cheerfully. He made sure to keep close attention to the carafe’ as it poured more water into the now ready coffee grounds as he beat the eggs thoroughly. As dark, fresh coffee began to drip into the pot, he set the bowl aside to neatly dish the sausage and bacon into the skillet. “I don’t know if anything I make will win any awards, but I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t. As long as I have my Via and this cafe’, I’ll be happy.”

Those words, despite himself, left a deep pit in Blitzø’s stomach.

He was all too familiar with the feeling to know that it wasn’t hunger.

And the cause of it was the warm translucent air wafting around in the little cafe’ that was more potent than the coffee.

And more pointedly, how out of place he felt to even be watching it.

He felt his claws clench the leather of his seat, the fabric creaking softly in response to his tightening grip. The pit felt like it was growing larger, making his shoulders tense. He found himself staring full-on at the clean surface of the bartop and tried to ignore the itch of his spines going erect. For the next few minutes, all that was heard was the sizzling and firecracker-like popping of the skillet as the eggs were poured in, the repetitive sound of coffee dripping and Via humming as she tried to fold her napkin into something other than a lopsided square.

Blitzø took a deep breath through his nose, his lips sputtering a bit like a horse’s (Didn’t he wish) as he exhaled.

“. . . Look, I’m . . . ” He paused a moment to think his words over carefully. The last thing he felt like doing right now was to sound an utter dickhead to the guy who was making him a hot meal for a total stranger.

No telling if he was the type to spit in on the plates of assholes who deserved it.

“. . . I’m sorry for, uhm, for having you make deal with me first thing in the morning.” He managed to get out rather lamely.

He wasn’t sure if the bird heard him. But that didn’t stop him from continuing. “I . . . I had a really, really real sh- crappy day yesterday, and – And I just needed to blow off a little steam.”

Images started to flash unbidden in his head. Of zeroes, of bottles, of bitter looks and smashed frames only made everything in Blitzø had been able to blissfully ignore up until that moment, then chose to rear its ugly head making him let out a barely concealed grunt. “. . . Point is, I-I’m sorry for screwing up your day and -”

He was interrupted by a good-sized mug being set calmly before him. He started as the smell of the dark roast curling in soft puffs and into his nostrils, the scent heavenly and already mending the throb of his head – only to be taken aback at the feel of a large, plush-soft hand petting the space between his horns in a comforting rub.

It took every single inch of Blitzø not to either smack the hand away or bite it off on sheer impulse.

He looked up and instead of what he thought for damn sure was going to be a patronizing sneer, – Because how else would any prick look after patting an imp’s head like a puppy’s? - Stolas’s face was as soft and reassuring as the smile on his beak.

A smile filled with nothing but understanding and warmth.

Sweet Lucifer, when was the last tim anyone had smiled at him like that?

“No apologies are need here, Mister Blitzø.” Stolas said simply. No hint of bullshit. “Nothing’s been broken, nothing’s been ruined. So please, don’t worry. I’m not a demon so easily rattled. Especially by lovely surprises such as yourself.”

. . . . Blitzø blamed the warmth he felt tingling on his cheeks on the steam coming from the mug.

Stolas didn’t comment on it, but he was sure that he heard some not very subtle amusement in his voice as he turned back to his cooking. “Would you like for me to add some peppers to dish? They were freshly picked this morning and I’m sure that they’ll taste wonderfully with the eggs.”

“UH-” Blitzø grabbed the mug and pretended to study it to keep himself from doing anything else dumb. “Y-yeah, sure, whatever, go nuts. I’m good with whatever.”

“Marvelous! I’ll add some as soon as the eggs have cooked for a bit.” Stolas said cheerfully. Blitzø muttered a “yeah, whatever” to his back as the owl reached from some green and red peppers big enough for Via to hold in both of her hands. He then made a small hoot that Blitzø, even with how off-kilter he felt at the moment, found cute. “Oh, and let me know how the coffee is, please. I’m trying a new blend I finally managed to put together a few days ago and I’d love to hear your opinion.”

Blitzø blinked at that. “Wha-? You mean this isn’t instant?”

Stolas shook his head. “Oh no. I try my best to use fresh items whenever I cook. Not that I have anything against instant or frozen food, but, as a chef, I find it almost like cheating if I’m not as authentic for my customers. The last thing I want is to have our cafe’ be mistaken for another Twink Trip or Hexxan.”

Blitzø would have taken a shot at that remark. Namely how if you loaded up gas station coffee with a fuckton of sugar, cream, and booze, it didn’t matter about the quality ‘cause who would give that much of a damn about dirty bean water -

That is, had he not taken a sip out of his mug.

It took a moment of peering down at his “coffee” to think up a much more direct response. “. . . . This is the best damn cup of coffee I ever had.”

“Thank you!” Stolas accepted the compliment cheerily. I admit it took much longer to properly cultivate and grow the beans for it than I had originally anticipated. I mean, I already knew the process was intricate but it’s a whole other experience when you actually attempt it yourself.” Stolas gave a weak chuckle as he prodded at the eggs simmering in the skillet. “I’ve lost count of the amount of times I almost blew up my grinder or ruined my insides.”

Blitzø, taking a much larger sip of his coffee hummed appreciatively. “Yeah, bad coffee can f- trip you up.” He knew that to be true. He once had to get his stomach pumped from drinking brew made by some dumbshit in his RV. That experience wasn’t really as painful as the telling-off Moxxie gave him afterwards. Little bitch always had act like he was right.

He took another big gulp. “You did good, though. Five stars.”

It wasn’t blind praise. Blitzø never bullshitted how he felt about what he drank and ate, (Much to Moxxie’s, Fizz’s, his Sunday Barista or, really, anyone’s annoyance) and the coffee was no exception; heavy and crisp with a balanced pairing of earthy and floral notes, the acidity like berries that left plenty of room for flavor instead of just tang. And the aftertaste didn’t linger like secondhand smoke, it left gradually with a mellow sheen that he didn’t mind in the slightest. Even though he was more an iced coffee guy, this was a kind of coffee Blitzø could see himself drinking again. When he wasn’t hungover, that is.

“Well, I’m thrilled to hear that, Mister Blitzø. Thank you.” Stolas responded gratefully.

By now, he had placed a lid over the eggs to let them simmer which allowed him to focus on chopping up the peppers. The imp assumed that had all he had been cutting up before Stolas turned to delicately slide a plate baring an apple that had been sliced in a way that the core stood erect as a tower with the slices spread open like a flower bloom. Before he can ask how the hell he did that so fast, Via chirped happily before plucking one slice and biting into it with a thank you.

Blitzø found her delight over the piece of fruit adorable, which the baby owl took as an invitation to pluck another slice and offer it to him with a smile. Satan, could this kid get any cuter?

He took the offered slice with a cheeky grin. Only to quickly toss it in the air and catch it with his tongue like an iguana’s, adding a “Bleh!” just for laughs, for which he earned a round of giggles from Via. He had almost missed by being blindsided by the cinnamon and spice flavor that had been baked into it. It had to have been made that very morning if the warmth and freshness of the slice was anything to go by, allowing the fruit to melt orgasmically well into his taste-buds. Wow.

He and Via had had unanimously agreed to split the apple between them, with no objections from Stolas as he busied himself with divvying up the vegetables and summoning other ingredients from the kitchen to prepare accordingly. Via filled up most of the time with chattering on innocently about little things, how funny her dream was last night, how home-school was “five times better than private school as there were less big dummy poop-heads” - Blitzø almost choked on a slice while Stolas lightly admonished her about “language” - And how her daddy once made her the bestest cake ever in the in the whole wide world for her fifth birthday. Blitzø, for as sweet as he found her daughterly praise, had to swallow the gag when she started going on about the “tasty” mouse chunks Stolas had added.

Bird or no, eating mice for Blitzø was a flat out no.

A sudden, horrifying though than popped into his head. Was Stolas going to add mice to his food?

Like mouse sausage? Mice bacon? Rat peppers? Was that a thing?! Or was he just pulling a Moxxie and asking dumbass question?

. . . Probably just being a Moxxie.

His internal debate was cut short by something else being set before him. A damn good-looking something.

An omelet the size of Blitzø’s fist lay before him, hot and steaming and straight from the hot plate. Yellow as can be with spots of golden brown, there were no signs of tears of breakage, with a perfect fluffy layer peeking from the folds stuffed with meat, veggies and oozing cheeses. The artsy fucker had even gone the extra mile and draped the top of it with a thin sheet of mozzarella, some garnish and a couple slices of baby tomatoes. Talk about extra.

“There you are, this morning’s special - ‘Egg On Your Face’ Mega-Omelet, with all the fixings and extra cheese for those unwelcome aches and pains. If I’ve done my job right, it should fix you right up.”

“Like magic!” Via dded with a bright smile. Both men chuckled at her.

“Like magic, huh?” Blitzø smirked. Well, I’ll just have to see about that.

Sure, the eggs may have looked good, but Blitzø had learned all too well that food looking good and tasting good were two totally different things.

What looked like a pile of slop to the naked eye could taste just as good as a five morning star meal served Beelzebub herself. The same thing applied to a plate of fancy finger foods that cost the same as a house mortgage but tasted like cardboard in the end. And Blitzø certainly had more than enough exposure to lousy food like that, thank you and fuck you very much, with no wish to repeat it.

Which he hoped he wouldn’t with this monster-omelet before him.

Deciding not to put it off any longer, he picked up his fork and dug the prongs into the soft-cooked eggs, scooping up a decent-sized bite with plenty of pepper, meat and cheese. After a moment’s consideration, he also speared one of the baby tomato slices. He gave the loaded fork a few blows to cool it, because there was no way he was going to down a maybe-shitty breakfast with a burnt tongue.

He stuck the fork in his mouth -

And his mind was BLOWN.

If there was such a thing as a bit of paradise, than these eggs were the mother fucking proof in the pudding. Or omelet, in this case.

The eggs were cooked to perfection; nice and fluffy to where they melt on in his mouth like luscious chocolate from Lust’s first class bakeries. And the flavor was like a parade in his mouth, from the salty onions, the crisp tomato and the sweet peppers, the numerous flavors sucker-punched his sense of taste without overwhelming the presence of the eggs. The meat inside was spectacular too, the bacon was at the optimum point between chewy and crispy, and the sausage was deliciously flavorful and greasy. His kind of meat, with the right amount of salt and black pepper.

He could barely hold down the pleasurable moan, but did nothing to stop all the muscles in his body from going lax.

Man, fuck trying to go to heaven, the key to fucking Eden’s Gate was right in his head hole.

A bemused coo. “So I take it you like it?”

Blitzø taste-jizzed mind abruptly snapped back into focus. Stolas’s beak was curled into a big, smug-ass grin that made his own fault in to a frown. The owl simply looked at him expectant. Dammit, if the kid weren’t here, he would have gladly told the bird exactly where to shove that grin.

Instead, he gave a disgruntled growl. “Yea, it’s . . . okay.”

Most chefs would have promptly gotten offended by such a dry appraisal of their “masterpieces”, especially if it came from an “uncultured swine” such as him.

But once again, Stolas surprised him by delivering a pleased smile in lieu of a hissy fit. “Well, I’m glad you like it. Eat up now, or it’ll get cold.”

Blitzø chose not to shoot off a shitty comeback, despite being rankled by the “order”. He took out his bubbling frustrations out on his food, picking up the plate and bringing it close enough to begin shoveling the omelet into his mouth like a starving man.

The petty, spiteful gremlin that was roughly, meeeh, ninety percent of his overall personality hoped that such a messy personality hoped that such a messy display would earn at least, would earn a groan of disgust. Always did the trick when he wanted to annoy Moxxie.

However, much to Blitzø’s complete consternation, the owl just gave a small humored hoot and returned to the hotplate with a single crack or insult. Like he didn’t give two shits about his bad manners.

Blitzø internally growled. What an ASS.

. . . A pretty ass, but still.

“I’m glad you’re pleased by my cooking skills.” The big bastard (Yes, Blitzø was calling him that again, suck it.) said happily, busying by wiping down the skillet while beating a new batch of eggs and sliding two slices of bread into a small old-fashioned toaster. “I have to admit, my main specialty is baking and drinks, but I try my best to expand my range of cuisine when I can.”

Once the yolks and whites were thoroughly whipped, there were poured into the skillet and almost immediately they started to sizzle and bubble from the rewarmed metal. “Unfortunately, I can’t cook the kind of food necessary to run a full-fledged cafe’.”

Blitzø swallowed a sizable bite of egg and pepper before asking, “Can’t you just wiggle your fingers and hocus pocus a steak or something?”

Stolas shook his head. “Alas that’s more Lady Beelzebub’s forte than mine. Even my magic can only do so much. Now if this was a flower shop that would be another matter, but it is what it is.”

“I’m glad it isn’t.” Via piped up. “I love Daddy’s cafe’! And I love helping him cook!”

“And you do such a magnificent job, my Owlette.” Stolas’s praise was followed by a small plate of scrambled eggs encircled by toast cut into the shape of flowers and mice, covered in butter and jam. Via took it with a bright thanks, digging in right away with a sparkly pink fork also provided by Stolas. “But sadly, a cafe’ needs more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk to cater to wider clientele. Not that I’m downplaying your talent as a chef, darling.”

“I’s okay, Daddy.” Via said, crumbs dotted on her beak from biting into one of her toast flowers. “I know it’s only because I’m not big enough to use the stove yet.” Blitzø mirrored her smile as she beamed up at him. “Once I can do that, Daddy said I could make even better dishes just like him.”

“Indeed I will, Starfire.” Stolas affirmed. “But for now, I’ll have to settle for looking for another cook. Sadly though -” Stolas pulled a face. “- There hasn’t been one suitable enough to help me run things here.”

“Yeah, it’s hard running the show solo.” Blitzø agreed. “Sucks even more when you don’t have a good crew to back you up. Don’t know where I’d be with M&M.”

Stolas blinked. “Uhm, ‘M&M’?”

Via blinked too. “Like the candy?”

Blitzø snickered. “Nah, Moxxie and Millie, friends of mine and my emplo-” He cut himself off with a grimace. “Well. Who were supposed to be my employees.”

The sudden downtrodden shift that overcame the imp id not go unnoticed by Stolas. “‘Supposed to be?’ What does that -”

“Don’t ask.” Blitzø said curtly. After a second, he added a little less harshly. “I-I don’t really wanna get into it right now.”

Because if I do, I KNOW I’m just going to get pissed off and do something shitty all over again.

“. . . . Alright then.”

Blitzø could hear it clear as day that the bird bastard had more questions, and would more than likely prefer to bombard him with rapid-fire questions like Moxxie would when he wanted to be particularly annoying. But thank Satan, he looked put off enough to put him off.

Small blessings.

The next few minutes passed in silence. The lull of it broken only by the sounds of silverware hitting the plates as Blitzø and Via ate, the drip of coffee as more was brewed in the pot and the subdued sounds of crunching each time either a somewhat concerned Via offered Blitzø a bite of her toast or, returning the favor, when he offered her a bite of bacon or sausage – He learned quick that she didn’t like peppers so much so he did well to avoid giving her any filled-to-the-brim bites. He could only hoped that the reason she liked it wasn’t because the meat that was in it wasn’t made from rodent.

It probably was, though, because . . . Birds.

Eventually, Blitzø had cleaned his plate, a satisfying weight settling in his stomach, he let out a contented sigh, his headache feeling miles better than almost a half hour before. “Woo, that was good. A frickin’ plus.”

The owl’s smiled chased away some of the terseness from before. “Happy to hear it. It’s always good to get good reviews on new dishes.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Quick question, though.”

“Yes?”

Blitzø pointed at the now empty plate. “Level with me – Was there any mice in that? Because, I get it, you and Via are birds, but I kinda draw the line when it comes to eating plague-carrying little turds.”

Stolas tittered at that. “No, no, I assure you, no lovely vermin of any kind was served to you. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that mice are terrible cures for hangovers.”

“What’s a hangover?” Via asked in that no-filter, childishly clueless way that all little hellspawn did.

Stolas, in a perfectly natural response to such a question, was freeze awkwardly. “O-oh, well, erm-”

Blitzø supplied the answer. “It’s like a really bad stomach bug, but for grown-ups.” Giving the little owl a conspiratorial grin, he added in a fake whisper, “Basically, if you eat too much green stuff, your poop comes out greener than Mammon’s butt.”

Via burst into a peal of little girl laughter that definitely brought an easy diffusion to Stolas’s unease, even earning a couple of barely smothered hoots that were poorly hidden by his hand.

Huh. That was twist.

Usually the parents were scolding him at this point, the usual uptight bullshit spiel about “using such vulgar language in front of their innocent little babies, you demented little firetoad!”

Not that he gave a shit because he was a comic genius, fuckyou, Moxxie.

After a bit, both birds managed to quell their laughter enough for Stolas to gently urge Via to head upstairs and get ready for the day. She agreed without protest, stopping only to allow Blitzø to ruffle her headfeathers as he added, “Gotta look cute for the suckers!” That earned him an admonishing look from Stolas that was weakened by his approving smile.

A smile that only grew bigger when Via caught the imp completely off-guard with an unexpected hug, her tiny arms wrapping swiftly and tightly around his waist, almost sending him falling off his stool. Before he could recover, Via was already heading up the staircase, humming cheerfully all the way.

Stolas’s soft chuckle drew Blitzø out of his shock. “Via has certainly taken a liking to you quickly.”

“Uh, yeah, I-I guess.” Blitzø rubbed at the back of his neck. “Last time I got hugged like that, some piece of shit nicked my wallet to buy thirty Bruiser King gift cards.”

“Oh, that’s a pity.”

“Joke was on him, though, he got food poisoning with the first card he used.”

Stolas hummed approvingly as he poured them both a fresh cup of coffee. “Well, I suppose there is such a thing as karma.”

Blitzø barked out a laugh. “Ha! Yeah, and maybe there’s a God.” He accepted the refilled mug, along with the offered sugar and creamers, and dumped almost each one in like an alcoholic adding liqueur. “Uh, speakin’ of, what do I owe ya?”

Stolas, who had added his own preferred condiments to his coffee in much more moderate manner, paused in his blowing at the steam rising from his mug. “Pardon?”

“What do I owe ya? For the food and coffee.” After a moment, he also added with only a tiny wince of guilt. “And whatever else my drunk ass did to your place before I blacked out.”

By emotionally-traumatized principle, he wouldn’t have asked outright. Often times, being the victim of a classist system that shat on those on the bottom rung, he had been subjected to grossly padded bills and unexpected expenses issued by a good percentage of the “well-to-do” owners of “upstanding establishments” where he wound up spending half the night washing up dishes. Once he got fast enough, and only if neither the food nor the service was worth the lightening of his wallet. Blitzø didn’t hesitate to pull a dine and dash; making escapes either through the bathroom window, the vent, or once through riding one of those fancy dining carts into the kitchen and out the employee entrance that admittingly had been fun to ride . . .

. . . Right up until he learned too late that the entrance opened right up to a three-story staircase with no handrail.

Needless to say, that had been one shitty ride to the hospital, Moxxie lecturing him the whole damn eight miles.

After everything – And he meant everything – in his lower body healed, he opted to hold out on anymore dashing. At least until the little baby-dick whineypuss would get off his fucking back about paying.

That aside, he saw no reason to be the deadbeat bun right now. Not when Stolas had been nothing but polite towards him. Even though he certainly didn’t deserve such kindness . . .

He braced himself for the amount as he took a long sip of his sweetened coffee -

“Oh, you needn’t worry – You don’t owe me a sint.”

Blitzø sputtered into his mug, nearly choking on the brew as he processed the owl’s words. “*Cough* *Cough* *Hack* Blegh! Excuse me?”

“You don’t need to pay me.” Stolas restated. “Like I said, you’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been nothing but civil, you are obviously sorry for any offense you think you’ve given – Not that you have, don’t make that face – And more importantly, Via likes you. So I see no reason to change you.”

Blitzø frowned at him. “You’re screwing with me.” He stated flatly.

“I assure you, I am not. Honestly, your praise over your breakfast was payment enough. In all honesty, you were doing me a favor.”

“Meaning?”

“I don’t get a chance to try out new recipes on new faces very often, so any new opinions are always appreciated.” Blitzø felt his face fault at the slow, awfully sensual smile the owl sent him. “Especially ones as sublime as yours.”

Blitzø forgoed looking him in the eye, each cerise eye of his hooded and looking at him like he was going to be the next dish for him to devour, choosing instead to chug down half the contents of his mug. Gulping audibly, he mumbled back, “Glad I was such a good guinea pig for you.”

“I prefer the term ‘freelanced taste-taster’, personally.” Stolas retorted politely.

“I don’t want your charity.” Blitzø bit at him.

“Nor am I giving it to you. Like I said, you did me a favor.”

“How do you know I’m not some thieving bastard taking adventure of goody-two-shoes shop owners like you?”

“I have measures set to prevent such an occurrence.”

“I’m an undercover health inspector and you just failed.”

“Now you’re just grasping, dear.”

Blitzø rubbed a hand over his face. “You can’t just -” He let out a frustrated breath. “Look, I get you’re an . . . Okay guy and you are obviously trying to set a good example for your kid. I get that, but I don’t want to be the lasting impression of what to expect when giving out freebies to poor drunken bitches like me. No one should have to deal with that without getting paid, -”

“Mister Blitzø.”

Stolas’s firm tone stopped him with the sharpness of a smacked ruler. His face was stern, but not completely harsh as he eyes were looking at him with a softness that pricked at his chest.

“You. Do. Not. Me. Anything. And when I say something like that, it’s because I mean it with all the sincerity that is implied. It is not just for the sake of looking good in front of Via and certainly not some sort of dastardly ruse to get you to lower your guard. You’ve apologized and you meant it, you’ve been kind towards my daughter and enjoyed my cooking without bias or sarcasm. That said, believe me when I tell that is something I care for much more than any check or bill.”

Stolas sipped at his coffee calmly, making no comment about the for certain mollified expression on his face. “So, please, no more apologies. They are appreciated, but to be honest, after twenty-two of them, it just feels repetitive.”

Blitzø gave him a look. “Sorry what now?”

“Mister Blitzø -”

“Nah, nah, what you just said, the fuck you mean I said sorry twenty-two times?”

Stolas’s beak dropped into a thin line, taking a moment to maybe think his words over before formulating a response, “When Via and I found you last night, you were in a . . . A great deal of distress.” He was clearly trying to more emphatic than judgmental. “You were greatly intoxicated and horridly incoherent. Once I was close enough, all I could hear was you saying sorry over and over.”

Blitzø could feel himself growing hot from the neck up in embarrassment. The apprehensive caution in Stolas’s voice was doing fuck all to help the crashing wave of shame following up like a speeding train.

He didn’t need Stolas to tell him what he was bawling like a baby over.

But, ever the bottom bitch for punishment, asked anyway. “. . . I say what for?”

Stolas then turned sheepish. “O-Oh well, uh-uhm, I don’t quite recall -”

“Bird, I don’t do any of that hee-haw Shit, it’s too early and I’m still hungover and all I’m gonna do is get pissed off now WHAT did I SAY?”

With two sets of eyes, it was easy to see that Blitzø was not going to give up on getting an answer. Stolas sighed softly.

“You made a great deal of apologies to a great deal of people. I didn’t catch every name but, erm, you had quite the list.” He sipped at his mug, stalling for only a minute before continuing.

“You apologized to a miss Mistly for dinging her car door while trying parallel park by a Wacdonald’s, a miss Queen for breaking smashing her one of a kind pirate ship in a bottle instead of the pinata by accident on her birthday, a miss Millie for chipping her favorite ax, a mister Moxxie for making him run all the way to Greed for a single battery for your TV remote, dropping his guitar fourteen times, borrowing his wallet, or more accurately, pinching his wallet to pay for Voxflix twice, a miss Barbie for stealing one of her skirts and ripping it whilst performing a split, I couldn’t really make out what exactly you were apologizing to a “Vee” and a “Fizz” for -”

“Okay!” Blitzø blurted out. “Okay! I get it! I get it! I was a hot mess, no more shit needed, I got it!” He cringed at the indignant crack in his voice. Christ, like he didn’t look enough like a pathetic shit already. He might as well plan to fake his own death again.

You know what they say, fifth time’s the charm.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Stolas’s weak attempt to reassure him only bounced off of the imp like a ping-pong ball. “It really wasn’t. Really, you should have seen me afterwards when I was binge-drinking.”

Blitzø scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you got real frisky from all those white wine spritzers.”

“Actually, I tended to lean more towards absinthe.” Stolas retorted, with no little bit of sass, taking a small bit of gratification from Blitzø’s surprised. “Of course, with how I was knocking back each bottle, you’d almost believe they were Purgerade drinks.”

Blitzø lifted his head from where he had been pressing it into the bartop. “Damn, how many we talkin’?”

“At least two to three on a good night, or whatever was close to that.”

The imp gave a low whistle. “”Fuck me, bird. I get shit-faced after half a bottle, how the fuck are you still standing?”

“At this point, stubbornness and sheer dumb luck, I believe.” Stolas quipped.

That startled enough mirth in Blitzø to actually make him laugh. “Join the club, pal.”

“I fear I cannot, as I have cut back my vigorous drinking to properly attend to Octavia. Leaving my former occupation did wonders for helping me cub the habit.”

“Bosses sucked that bad, huh?”

“Doubly so, considering it was a family business, sort to speak, although, I can assure they were family in name only.”

“Ugh. Preachin’ to the fuckin’ choir – there’s only so much shitty family a bitch could take in one day.”

“That, Mister Blitzø, I can wholeheartedly agree on.”

There were getting off-track. Blitzø bit his lip. “. . . I’m sorry for my shit.”

“For the final time, no more apologizes are necessary.”

He angled his head towards the staircase door. “I probably scared your kid.”

“Via has seen far worse, I assure you. Even when off your cups, you weren’t untoward her in any way, so you can save any of the claims of indecency that you’ve half-heartedly concocted in that crafty little mind of yours.”

“Just let me fuckin’ pay you.”

“I neither require nor want your money and I promise you, should you try to force any $ouls on me, I will promptly set it to aflame.”

“Lilith’s titties, you’re a stubborn bitch.”

“And you are an equally stubborn spendthrift.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not without dinner, if you please.”

Blitzø groaned. “God, we’re gonna keep talking in circles if you don’t just charge me and get it over with. I’m not fucking broke, I have the $ouls, just let me pay you.”

Stolas’s counter remark definitely caught Blitzø unawares. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s done something genuinely kind for you, hasn’t it?”

Blitzø’s hackles rose instantly at the “innocent” statement. “You trying to say something?”

Stolas merely sipped at his coffee. “Just an assessment.”

“Or you being a dickhead.”

“I made you a free breakfast for which I expect nothing in return. I am being absolutely forthright whereas you are choosing not to believe that I have no ulterior motives. Who, might I ask, is being the dickhead here?”

Oh, this smug bitch.

He had wanted to let loose a snarl that would make the owl falter in his not requested charity streak. He felt the urge already rising in his throat, ready to finally tell off this prick who was seriously starting to piss him off . . .

. . . But could only let out a low whine at the exhaustion of prolonging the one-sided argument, the fatigue of a bad night, getting totally smashed and crashing just as hard setting in. Being still half hungover sure as shit was not helping to keep the spark of pride burning.

If anything, Blitzø felt even more tired.

He wanted nothing more than to lay everything out, pay whatever the fucking bird deserved and drag his broke-back ass back home and lick his wounds from last night. And the only thing that was stopping him was getting through to this royally stubborn and feathery (Not to mention pretty soft-looking) bastard of a demon.

“Alright, look – I want to pay you back, but for some weird ass reason, you won’t let me.”

“I think we have perfectly established that.”

“So we got a problem.”

“Which could be solved by you accepting my putting your breakfast on the house.”

“And it should be clear as fuck that ain’t happening.”

“So I’ve gathered.”

Blitzø blew a breath of air out of his nose. “I’m not just being an asshole here – I don’t like owing people anything. I’ve been dipping in and out of debts for years, financial and personal. And just that fucking recently I finally managed to pay off a good chunk of them only to literally be screwed over again almost the same fucking day. So now I’m once again edging too damn close to bankruptcy for my liking.”

He gave the owl a flat look. “Meaning I can’t take any chances, such as freebies or random handouts, cuz Charity was just as easily turn into high-interest loans with zero time frames for return payments, unless you want to set up an installment plan that involves cutting out pounds of flesh ever week. Obviously, a guy like me can’t afford to look any more fucked up than he is with a chunk of anything missing.

“All that said, do you see what I’m gettin’ at?”

“. . . . I’m starting to.” Stolas said with a considerate look.

“Satisfaction eased through Blitzø’s frame. “Great. Glad we finally got that -”

“All the same, you needn’t pay me.”

And just like that it was gone.

He growled so sharply it would have destroyed eardrums had he done it inside of headphone speakers. “You fuckin’-”

“But since you won’t accept the gesture,” Stolas interrupted calmly. “How about just doing me a special favor?”

“‘Special favor’?” Blitzø blinked. “What kinda -”

A sound not unlike a light bulb dinged in his thank full-no-longer-as-sore cranium.

Oh.

Oh okay.

He gave a resigned sigh. “Hooookay, look, tootsie hootsie, if you just wanted a quick shag in the back all you had to do was ask. But I gotta warn ya, the place I’ve fucked in was a public bathroom that probably wasn’t cleaned in the last year or two, so I’ll probably need to wipe down the goods with something. Baby wipes would be good if got’em -”

“NO!” A spluttered hoot brought his attention back to Stolas, whose heart-shaped features had turned an almost violent shade of crimson in the span of half a minute. “No! No, no! Not that kind of favor, no! I mean I need your mouth!”

Blitzø gave him a deadpan look. “Yeah, I got that much, relax.”

“No! No! I mean -” Stolas let out a shaky warble before planting his face into his hands while muttering to himself in fit of bashfulness.

Blitzø just sipped at his coffee, waiting for him to spit whatever he wanted to say out. To his credit, he didn’t stare, knowing from his own share of verbal vomiting moments that doing that would just make his embarrassment worse.

Even though he no clue what the fuck he was suddenly so damn worked up about.

I mean, fuck, if I had a sint for each time I said the “wrong” things, I’d be raking in more money more green than Mammon.

A deep breath. “Forgive me, I’m doing this all wrong. I’m trying to offer you a deal. Something, I hope, will mutually beneficial to the both of us.”

The incredulous look on Blitzø’s face was quickly addressed. “Nothing vulgar or dramatic involved, you needn’t worry. Nothing of the sort.” He took another deep breath. “I would like for to come in again, and try my cooking.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Say what now?”

Stolas made a small noise of exasperation. “As I said, I’m still relatively new to running a business dealing with dining and catering and the like. I’m often pushed into having to spontaneously expand my range of techniques and specialties depending on my success. I know I’m capable, but I know that I can’t just rely on my own opinion and preferences alone. Even more so when I’m attempting new dishes. As such, I need an outside opinion.”

The imp blinked. “And yooouuu think that’s me?”

Stolas nodded. “Very much so.”

“Some fucking rando off the street who broke into your private property, was wasted out of his mind and could just as easily rob you blind despite these so-called ‘measures’ you said you have?”

“Not as ‘so-called’ as you say, but yes.”

“Rrrright.” Blitzø rolled his eyes. “Don’tcha have, I dunno other foodie friends, you can ask? Or maybe just wait for some famous food blogger critic douchebag to to come in and give you a rating?”

“None that would trust to be fair or take seriously, or assume my want for approval is really a want for cheap compliments – that I’m desperate enough to give someone license to either be obnoxiously petty or to deliver the best shallow review that procures them a not so low-key invitation to my bedroom.”

Blitzø grunted. “Asshats.”

“You should see how quickly they recoil as soon as they learn of Via.”

“Fuckin’ asshats.”

“Quite.” Stolas affirmed. “And to answer your other question, yes, I do have others whose say I do value, but I’ve heard relying on the biased does not help one’s credibility. I do appreciate the precious few whom I’m fortunate enough to have as friends, but I need a healthy dose of honesty from outside sources to provoke me to experiment and expand myself.”

“And you think that guy is me?” Blitzø repeated, gesturing to himself crudely.

“Of course.”

“Bullshit.”

“Good gracious, and you call me stubborn.”

“It’s not -” He let out a small snarl.

Seriously? He was still keeping this up? Enough was enough.

“Look, I get you’re trying to be nice, I get that. But, trust me, I’m the last fucking guy you want to be nice to let alone have around. Seriously, ask fucking anyone in hearing distance – I’m a right bastard on a good day and a pushy dickhead on a bad one, I’ve fucked up more people than I’ve actually helped and you would have more sense to shoot me rather than invite me over again. I mean, you gotta kid to think about, and -”

Blitzø shook his head. “And you don’t want me messin’ with your business. The one I tried starting flopped before I even got my feet off the ground. Pretty sure that speaks a fuckton for how helpful I can be towards you.”

He could barely ignore the burning sting of truth in that statement.

Saying all the shit that was a constant boiling inside him all out loud sucked.

It sucked balls.

He knew it was better than letting it all rot and fester like he let everything else – But it still sucked.

Fuck what his therapist said about it being being cathartic. He should quit that bitch.

It’s not like he would be able to pay them for much longer anyway.

Blitzø knew he was not the kind of person to be asked to come back. Even the scraps of friends he had managed to hang on to could barely wait for him to leave as soon as he said hello.

Moxxie was the leading example of proving him right. Even when Blitzø actually adhered to his demands of privacy and properly asking for invites to visit, (That Blitzø still found completely anal of him although he bit his lip) Moxxie was adamant to get him out the door before he could even get two fucks in.

Even Millie, Moxxie’s blast and a half of a wife, who was far more accommodating than her whore-back husband, drew the line when it came to his company being longer than necessary.

That was to say fucking nothing about his own flesh and blood.

Barbie Wire, his twin sister, his other half, would sooner see him six feet under before seeing him again.

Cash Buckzo, his father, never asked for him, never wanted him, and made it a point of telling him so straight to his face more than once.

His mother, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . She sure as fuck would have been better off without him.

And his exes? Those who he didn’t remember or couldn’t care to remember, those he never took a chance on because of him being too much of a pussy to try?”

Verosika? It was pretty fucking clear on how that went.

Fizz?

He was never wanted.

He was never missed.

He was never asked to come back.

Not for a visit.

Not for a drink.

Never just to hang and shoot the shit.

He was always tossed away as soon as necessary.

He was always left behind, pushed aside, shoved into the background.

Forgotten.

Dead for all those concerned.

Dead, except in the way he wanted when he was at the lowest he could be.

No one ever missed him.

No one ever wanted him back.

Nobody.

“. . . . I fuck things up more often than I get them right. There’s a pretty good chance if you get involved with me, shit’s gonna go sideways for you too.”

He wasn’t sure if he had muttered that part aloud or not. Not that he gave a shit.

He halfway expected to be asked to repeat himself.

Or maybe Stolas would curse him under his breath for being such a dramatic bitch.

Maybe he would finally cut the bullshit and be real about what the fuck that he really wanted from him.

However, all Blitzø got in response, was a soft touch at his wrist, soft as silk and just as gentle.

Along with two sets of big cerise rose eyes that crinkled gently at the corners as they held his gaze with calmness and sympathy.

And maybe something else, but that could’ve been that whiny, fractured part of himself making up what wasn’t actually there.

“I’ve taken far riskier gambles than trusting a stranger out of the blue, Mister Blitzø.” Stolas spoke in such a comforting voice. “And I have yet to lose from any of them. Perhaps it’s rather cocky to say so, but since my winning streak has yet to be broken, I think you’re a rather good bet to take a chance on.”

The tender smile, that was nothing short of dazzling, he gave Blitzø at the end such a declaration was a damn good seller.

Satan forbid this man ever works for Vox – cause with that smile, he could sell gas station keys like they were the keys to gates of Eden itself. I mean, if his touch alone could send sparks up my arm like he was doing right now. . .

Fuck him if he knew.

The hand causing such a feeling than gave two soft pats to his wrist before lifting away to grab the coffee pot once more, refilling Blitzø’s mug with still steaming java and the exact number of sugars and creams he had diluted it with before.

“So, how does coming in twice, three times a week sound? I usually close the cafe’ around seven since I try to get Octavia in bed by eight thirty on weeknights. If you like to come by over the weekend, I close around six thirty to seven o’clock depending on how busy I get. Except any catering orders or special events, I’m not fussy over whenever you come over. All I ask is that you let me know when you’re coming by in advance so I can have something ready for you. A day or two ahead would be just fine.”

Blitzø, this time, could not find in him to groan loudly in protest to the blatant hardheaded dismissal of the what seemed like hours long argument. The argument he bitterly realized that he couldn’t fight against.

That did nothing to stop him from throwing his head back and scowling at the annoying as shit clean ceiling tiles above them.

“. . . . . . . You really aren’t gonna give this up, are you?” He said after a while.

“I suppose I’m about as bull-headed as you are.”

Blitzø gave a chuffing laugh at that.

Well, fuck.

What was he supposed to do with that?

What could he do with that?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fuck it, if the worst happened, he could just disappear again, right?

Not likely Stolas would look for him just for a review, right?

. . . . Right.

“. . . . . . . . . . The peppers and onions were both sweet.”

Stolas blinked at him like the owl he was.

Heh. Cute.

“The omelet was good, but it was kinda over-sweetened; I don’t know what kinda onions you added but personally I would use a more subtle kind of onion to help round out the sweetness of the peppers.”

He let this sink in for a moment before continuing, “I remember seeing you add a green pepper so next time I would recommend using a shallot, maybe about half a tablespoon’s worth should be right. A regular tablespoon’s good too if you don’t use too much of the peppers.”

He sipped at his refreshed coffee. “I personally, like some spice in my eggs to help me wake up, so don’t be afraid to throw some in the mix in the future. Like oregano or basil. You don’t have to go crazy with the amount, though, - just about when you’re making the bowl and a few dashes of it on top when ya put it on the plate. It’ll pair well with the tomatoes and not distract you too much from the rest of the food.”

He took a breath. “Coffee’s good, strong enough to double as a chemical peel, everything any caffeine addict is looking for. The aftertaste doesn’t turn me off from drinking the rest and from how it feels going down I am a hundred and fifteen percent sure you’re a nit-pick bitch cuz I taste how finely you ground the beans without turning them to powder. It’s good ya didn’t because that shit’s only good foe about half hour before fighting to keep your eyes open by either shooting up some dope or knocking back enough 66-Hour-Energy drinks to give the Big B a heart attack.”

Shouldn’t he stop? Maybe he was saying too much. Stolas had asked for honesty and Blitzø was doing his best to deliver it with as little jackassery as possible.

Problem was, for Blitzø, jackassery was his default language, according to practically everyone and their fat mom’s. And, most of the time, he didn’t even realize how much he let slip out before he got a sharp crack across the face. Or a knee to the balls.

He chanced a look at Stolas. If he looked upset, he could take it all back. It wasn’t too late, he could still backtrack -

Tiny stars sparked in Stolas’s wide eyes. Small and bright and beautiful, looking every bit like the twinkling little lights his mom would tell stories to him and Barbie back in their childhood. After the circus ring was cleared of trash and the last Hellhorse was tucked in their stall. Back when, even thought hings weren’t easy, everything was okay.

Before everything suddenly wasn’t.

Stolas, upon noticing Blitzø looking at him, instantly grew more flustered in some odd cacophony of joy and mortification, his plumage fluffing up from the top of his crown to the little floof of feathers on his chest. His hands belated came up to smooth them back into place, unfortunately they did little to quell them along with the rosy blush that tinted his face plate into an eye-catching pink.

Damn, this bird was so cute it was unfair.

The anxious itch in his chest was put to ease right there and then.

This couldn’t actually work, could it?

. . . Could it?

. . . . . . Maybe. Just maybe.

Emboldened, Blitzø sent the owl a lazy smile that easily darkened the pink on his face, matching the warmth the imp felt on his own face. “The apple was like a fucking angel feather, so soft and tasty. You have got to show me how the ever-loving fuck you made it turning to to applesauce ‘cause that shit was better than fuckin’ crack.”

Stolas looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be elated or overwhelmed.

After an awkwardly long amount of time, he clearly had settled on elation. His upper set of eyes turned upward in little crescents as his beak returned the smile with a brightness that Blitzø felt proud of bring out.

“I’d be happy to, darling.”

To be continued . . .

ME: Hey all you sinners & saints! Who’s excited for HAZBIN HOTEL coming out this friday?!?!?!? (Or Thursday if you actually watch it at it’s appointed time) I know I am!

I am SO EXCITED AND DESPERATELY TRYING TO IGNORE THE FACT THIS STORY IS LITTERALLY GOING TO LOST IN HAZBIN HIGH THAT I KNOW IS COMING FOR THE PAST WEEK. AND THE WEEK AFTER THAT. And the week after that . . .

ANYWAYSO, here is the recipe for the Mega-Omelet, which let me tell, just reading the ingredients alone mad me feel full! Also, what do you do for your respective hangovers? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll have the next (& FINAL chapter of this installment) written and posted as soon as I can, so until then, eat hearty, everyone!

Oh, and enjoy your stay at the Hazbin Hotel . . .

[chaotikanvas]

Ok, ok, so incoming ramble about the Glamrocks that I keep thinking about under the readmore! 

Disclaimer: I can’t promise too much structure to this since I’m just putting some thoughts down, but hopefully it’s still an enjoyable read or something to think about ghfdkñkjgh

—

SO!

A while ago, when I was first planning my first ever fic for SB (which has been thoroughly planned but not written and I haven’t talked about it here at all but that’s! Beside the point!), I started really wondering how the glitch/virus worked (I will keep referring to it as virus as I think it fits a bit more).

And I was so happy that the DLC seemed to be in line with what I was thinking or at the very least it supports my headcanon in a way!

(And oh gosh this is gonna take setting the scene a bit at first so bear with me)

So, I’d like to make a note first of all, that I’m not entirely convinced Glitchtrap is gone, because the end to the princess quest 3 minigame means Vanessa gets freed from possession (via opening the door). There is not a fight with him as a boss that seems to deactivate or get rid of him once and for all, at least. But what happened to him is entirely guesswork on my part. Also, while the DLC implies very strongly that all the other endings are not canon and more stories Gregory drew himself, there are still elements from those endings that I feel cannot be discarded, and they help understand the story. (The blob does exist after all and that is only discovered in the Burntrap ending, and it is my belief that the friend that has the schematics for the underground mentioned by Gregory must be Vanessa, because Freddy seems to have only vague recollections of the place when Vanessa had him clear the way for her before, and also he is not capable of accessing all areas of even the main pizzaplex)

(Also, I squint a little wondering if they changed their minds on which ending was the true ending because the Burntrap ending is the one that has animated cutscenes and a cgi ending image. I actually like that Princess Quest is the canon ending now, since Vanessa gets to be free, but it does come with some inconsistencies. But anyways!!!)

So taking all of that into account! To me, the way the virus works, and considering that there must be a supernatural element to it due to the existence of Glitchtrap, has to do a lot with it locking away the “consciousness” of the animatronics. Much like in the way Vanessa’s true self was locked away actually! In past games, the animatronics only seemed to act outside of their programming due to possession of some kind, but these specific ones seem to actually have self-awareness. I have no doubt that the way they were programmed influences their personality, but the DLC has really emphasized that they are not actually just limited to their functions. 

They have true intelligence! Not a surprise, since Freddy was clearly self-aware since SB, but I like that it seems to be a confirmation of it being the case in general and not just an exception. And I believe this because there are animatronics that are able to snap out of it after Cassie interacts with them. They do seem to think things are normal like any day in the pizzaplex, at first (Eclipse and Roxy) and it would seem like this means they are not truly sentient, but considering that Sun was aware all this time that things were very wrong, and that Moon would attack Cassie if not rebooted, and that Roxy later awakens, realizes the danger and goes to rescue Cassie from the Mimic, makes it clear to me that their self-awareness is the real deal. 

So not only would the virus have to infiltrate the robot’s systems, but it also would have to fight against the “consciousness” of the animatronics to gain control. While we know the Burntrap ending didn’t happen, I think when we see Burntrap trying to take over Freddy is a good visual representation of what might have happened over a long span to the other animatronics.

Ok, ok so! With all that said (again gfkjh)! I’m getting to the main point of this post, which is that I cannot stop thinking about the little backstory we got for Monty and what might have happened with Bonnie!

The damaged model of Bonnie we find in Ruin makes it clear to me that yes, it must have been Monty the one who destroyed him. The scratch grooves that join with the hole in his chest do match with the marks we have seen on other spots, (I thiiink Monty’s room has them), and we know the claws are the characteristic associated with Monty.

(And here I make a sidenote acknowledging some buts, because I went back to read the SB messages, and according to those, Monty only received the upgraded claws to play the bass, which means Bonnie was already gone by then. One of the messages states clearly that Monty received modifications only after being moved to the position of bassist, when Bonnie was out of commission, so either Monty already had really strong claws or it's a bit of an oversight there, but I digress!)

But! Even with that clear evidence, and here it’s where I admit it’s more speculation on my part, I find it a bit hard to believe Monty, the real Monty, at least, would destroy Bonnie just like that. Which makes me think Monty must have been one of the first, if not THE first of the band being infected with the virus. I think it’s a generally accepted headcanon that the virus alters the glamrocks personalities in a way that some of their main character traits are twisted in a destructive way. 

Now, Monty already clearly existed back when Bonnie was in the band. He had his own (large!) area even though he wasn’t part of the main band. The DJ is large and has his own section too, but he seems confined to it and was bought from outside the plex. And Monty seems to have been able to roam around anyways, so I think that probably means the higher ups were counting on Monty being a main animatronic in the future. (I have to wonder if the whole one man band thing from the backstory was something he did do for a brief time at the start, but admittedly that could have been added just in the cardboards). 

With all this in mind, Monty was probably the newest addition, a newcomer in a place that already had the four main animatronics. Almost known by no one in the public and without an established personality in a franchise he’s never been part of before. One of the messages says Monty could be more popular than Bonnie, after Bonnie’s disappearance, which makes me think he was mostly a side attraction, and nowhere near as known as the main glamrocks. Why mention that he could be more popular if the audience was as aware of him as the band right?

So, I think the main trait programmed for Monty’s personality is ambition. The backstory in his ride seems to hint at that. A young Monty with his own little music business, looking in amazement at the Glamrocks and dreaming of one day reaching their level. It would make sense to have one of the robots have this as their main trait, since kids would relate to the big dreams. And it seems to fit with other main traits from the other Glamrocks: Roxy seems to have been made with self-confidence in mind (winning races and having a beauty salon) which might be for encouraging kids, Chica is obviously all for being chipper and energetic and enjoying food (useful in an entertainment establishment that wants kids to indulge and get their parents to spend their money when they’re having a good time), and Freddy is meant to be nice and fatherly and the approachable gentle main face of the franchise.

(Though I am a bit sad Chica gets pushed aside a bit in regards to explicitly showing what she’s really like)

(As a small parenthesis from all this, I want to say that the Pizzaplexes troubles with the virus (or at least the more worrying behavior of the animatronics) are likely relatively recent before Gregory’s arrival. Could be months or a couple of years, don’t know how much exactly, but the fact that there are old messages all around, how some of those help give Gregory hints to where he can find stuff that is still there, how Bonnie’s Bowling Alley has not been rethemed to get rid of the evidence of his existence, Freddy’s hurt over Bonnie being gone sounding (at least to me) still fresh rather than from that long ago, and the message about the disappearances makes me think it can’t have started a decade ago or something like that)

Anyways! 

The Monty “rise to fame” story from the ride establishes that Bonnie “gave” his bass to Monty in order to have him join the band, though that Bonnie cutout is obscured. If they really wanted to make it seem like Monty had retired, why not make a cutout with the most important part of the story clear? They made one with Roxanne styling Monty’s hair! So maybe the plan had been to establish that (in the “in universe” narrative for the animatronics) Bonnie would be the Glamrock that took Monty under his wing and teach him the ropes of being a star? Though probably not with the plans of having him be a Glamrock at all, but maybe appearances with a Glamrock would increase the chances of the new gator attraction succeeding (again, speculation on my part, I know).

Coming back around Monty likely being the newest addition, him still not being established as a popular character would maybe mean that he was an easy target to spread the virus. Way more attention would be paid to the main stars, I think, so I think the probability of him being infected from almost the start is high. And with his main trait being ambition, and Bonnie maybe having been planned to be a sort of pathway to him being more known, it wouldn’t surprise me that by the time the incident happens, the virus has already twisted Monty’s ambition into jealousy and aggression and so he ended up destroying Bonnie that one day. Was Bonnie summoned by Monty? Did Bonnie go to Monty out of his own will because he noticed something was wrong? (which ouch if that was the case. It could very well be even that Vanny noticed that Bonnie noticed something was off and had Monty dispose of Bonnie in order to not have any secrets exposed) Who knows! But this is mostly what I think happened.

And why am I so convinced Monty would not have done this without the virus’ influence? Well… Mostly because of Roxy.

In the main game, Roxy is such a bully. Many of the phrases she says are outright cruel, and at a point where Gregory has done nothing to her yet. But in the DLC we see Roxy as she was meant to be. Encouraging. Lifting a child’s spirits up. Assuring them that they are fantastic how they are. 

We know that Cassie is a lonely child. A bit of an outcast who probably spent a lot of time in the plex while her dad worked. We know that her friends did not show up to her birthday and she treasures Gregory as a friend for being there when she was down. Cassie, seems to me, is the kind of child that would be an easy target for bullying. Insecurities and loneliness seem to be main struggles for her, which is why, if Roxanne was already a bully without the virus, why would she be Cassie’s favorite? Why would she be so nice to this kid that obviously needs the confidence boost Roxanne was made to provide? One of Roxanne’s literal lines in SB towards Gregory is “I bet you don’t even have friends!” Knowing that Roxanne knows this is an issue for Cassie, it seems even more brutal that if she’s in her right mind she would use that as an insult when chasing after Gregory. The Roxanne we see in Ruin is so kind. She is a source of comfort for Cassie, soft spoken, and making sure she feels like number one, instead of being self-obsessed (even if it’s born out of extreme anxiety over her own image). 

So if there is such an extreme change from a virus riddled Roxy, why would Monty’s extremes not be the same? We know not even Freddy is exempt from this sort of change though this one is more evidence from the books (slight not too consequential book spoiler and can’t quote from which book exactly it was, but I remember there was an off handed mention of Glamrock Freddy fighting over a plushie with a kid and then feeling dejected when people got angry at him, so it seems if Freddy was ever truly infected, his change of personality would entail being a spoiled main star?).

And it makes sense! Because Freddy considers all the Glamrocks his friends! We know Chica cares for him, because in the intro to SB she takes a step towards him when he malfunctions. And in the base SB game it looks like Freddy is just in denial about his friends (with the arcade minigolf game even having the famous Freddy in a trashbin course to hint at Monty’s jealousy, which you know could very well a real danger with what happened to Bonnie) (and now that I’m writing that it makes me squint a little at that arcade, since it’s very heavily implied the arcade in Sun and Moon’s room infected them so hmmmmmmm, but I digress), but honestly, seeing Roxy acting how it seems she’s supposed to act right before Cassie turns her off as the final node, really makes me think that the true selves of the animatronics are pushed back by the virus to replace them with a caricature of themselves that will obey Vanny’s commands. I mean, the Glamrock Freddy body is completely headless, and doesn’t even appear in the AR world! I don’t know whether it “attacks” because it’s what it would do if infected, or if it is simply leftover code from the way Freddy hid Gregory in his chest, but there sure as heck isn’t anything resembling a consciousness in there. Besides, we know Vanny was invisible to Freddy.

And if consciousness really is pushed aside by the virus, then it would explain why Monty is like that right now. (At least if my speculation of him being the longest with the virus is true) He would know nothing but anger and at this point he is acting like all he knows how to do is attack. Monty’s mind seems to truly be absolutely gone by now. :(

But aaaah this is getting way too long now fkjdghkjf

I guess I just want to talk about Bonnie a bit more, because we don’t have that much more about him that I can form any conclusions about. I do love the poster in his room! The fact that he really was this close to Freddy! They saw each other everyday and Freddy still decided to write a heartfelt message for Bonnie, that Bonnie decided to hang where he would see it clearly everyday! It really seems that Bonnie cared for Freddy just as much and that makes me so happy! It makes it all the sadder to know how heartbroken Freddy is over Bonnie’s disappearance…

Also I am incredibly confused by the whole wetfloor bot stuff! I don’t know if it’s implied that Bonnie’s “consciousness” somehow managed to transfer to the small bots (or why children screams can be heard from them), and if he managed to stay present through them after all. The little bots never really try to harm or sound alarms on Gregory unless shot at I think, so there’s that to think about! Or maybe Glamrock Bonnie was able to connect himself to them but not transfer? Kind of as long as there are any functional he too would be able to hang on? (Or did someone did that for him and it wasn’t himself who did?) Because deactivating the ones where we find Bonnie makes Bonnie’s eyes go dark. But why?? This I really have no idea about!

There’s also that one floorbot that remains beside a pile of Monty’s merch! And if Bonnie is looking or controlling the wetfloor bots that could mean a lot of things!! If Bonnie is in control, is the bot gathering the merch? Is it a negative thing? A sort of attempt to just collect the merch so it can’t be found ever again like Bonnie himself was? Or maybe, if Bonnie did have the most contact with Monty, did he get to know the real not-virus-infected Monty, and saw the merch as a way to remember someone that was briefly a good friend before things went terribly wrong? Hmmmmmm…

Well, I think that’s all I have! Just wanted to get my thoughts out there! It’s not very organized but if you made it all the way to here, thank you for reading!

[wastelandmoony]

Déjà Vécu: Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine : Doomsday

Characters: Remus Lupin/Reader, Sirius Black/Reader (no use of y/n), James Potter, Petter Pettigrew, Regulus Black, Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald, Lily Evans, Evan Rosier, Barty Crouch Jr.

Warnings: 18+ Only, Minors DNI; talk of SA and ab*se.

Déjà Vécu Masterlist

Companion Playlist

Read on AO3

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 5th, 1977

Someone was launching paper airplanes at her head, and though it was incredibly distracting and annoying, she knew that if she turned around to acknowledge it, the offender (most likely Barty Crouch Jr seated two rows back) would burst out laughing. So instead, she stared ahead and tried to focus on copying down the proper ingredients for Veritaserum. Another muffled thump as the fourth airplane made contact, this time landing on the desk. On one of the wings in neat, tiny handwriting read open me.

She unfolded the parchment so cautiously she might has well have been defusing a bomb. The note written within was in the same uniform script: Meet me on the viaduct bridge after class.

The penmanship wasn’t familiar, and she didn’t share this class with any of her friends, so who could’ve written it? It definitely wasn’t Barty, mostly because she wasn’t entirely sure he could read or write. She didn’t dare turn around in fear of an onslaught of laughter or a quick jinx. Crumpling the parchment and shoving it deep into her bag, she spent the rest of Potions trying to decide if venturing across the castle after class was a smart idea.

———

It was in fact, the stupidest idea she’s probably ever had. It was fucking freezing outside, pair that with the breeze coming from the river below the bridge, and she had ceased feeling her extremities 15 minutes ago. Against her better judgement, she waited for the note’s mystery author, leg bouncing with a combination of anxiety and possible frostbite. 

After 20 minutes, she sighed, standing up and resigning to the fact that she had fallen right into the trap of some stupid little—

“Hey! I didn’t think you’d actually show up,” a voice said from behind. 

She turned to find a familiar tall, sandy blonde Slytherin boy grinning at her. 

“You wrote the note?” She narrowed her eyes, more certain than ever that this was a sick joke.

He laughed softly, the sound giving her goosebumps…and weirdly not in a bad way (she’d unpack that later), “Yeah, that was me.”

“What do you want?” She gripped the strap of her bag, white knuckled against the cold.

He dragged a hand through his hair, “I uh…I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

Her blood sizzled, “My attention? Your group of neanderthal friends have been terrorizing me since first year!”

His face fell slightly, becoming more serious, “I know, and I apologize. It might not mean much, but I always fought against them. It never felt right…at least not when it came to you.”

She shook her head, pulling her scarf tighter. She’d have liked to say that his words were believable when hell froze over but well…here they were. 

“We’ve never even been properly introduced, have we?” He smiled. His teeth were perfect.

“I’m Evan, Evan Rosier,” he held out his hand.

She stared at the gesture, then up at his face, taking in the sincerity of his expression. A light dusting of freckles covered the bridge of his nose; it reminded her vaguely of Remus. She tried to remember every time one of his friends had spat insults at her across the corridors, or thrown something at her in passing. To the best of her recollection, Evan had never actually been the aggressor. Maybe he was being genuine. She’d misjudged character in the past…look at what happened with Sirius.

She extended her hand apprehensively, watching as their palms touched. Evan smiled, lifting the back of her hand to kiss it softly. 

———

February 14th, 1977

Valentines Day was always one of her favorite holidays. Though she’d never really had an actual Valentine (save for the chocolate Remus gave her every year that he swore wasn’t for any special occasion), she’d always enjoyed the electricity that bounced around the castle. The boys always went on and on about their hatred for the day, especially Remus, who would groan all through breakfast as love notes and hearts fluttered through the air, about how the holiday was “a marketing ploy to scam poor saps”. This year however, he kept the comments to himself, opting instead to raise his eyebrows skeptically as she was tossed a small red parcel from an unfamiliar owl. 

“OOOO!” Mary screeched from down the bench, a veritable pile of sweets and cards in front of her, “Who’s it from?!”

She blushed, turning the little card over, “Evan…”

“Rosier?!” Sirius yelled across from her, bacon crumbs spilling from his mouth. Emmeline had been making herself scarce the past few weeks, the two of them fighting practically every time they were together. No one had complained, it ultimately was leading to a more normal breakfast routine.

She ignored Sirius, just as she had for the past nine or so months. Evan had approached her after their joint potions class a few weeks prior, and at first she thought it was some sick joke orchestrated by Regulus and his cronies. But he turned out to be quite sweet, and more of a gentleman than she had originally given him credit for. They’d hung out a few times, mostly just for walks around the grounds, and one date to Hogsmeade, where they’d sat at the Three Broomsticks and laughed over drinks. It felt nice to be wanted, especially by someone that she hadn’t been friends with since she was eleven. 

The little gold card held Evan’s neat handwriting, asking if she’d meet him in the north courtyard tonight after dinner for a surprise date. No further details were given, just his signature: XX - Ev.

Her heart fluttered as she turned around to find him at the Slytherin table, sitting between Barty and Regulus. He smiled when their eyes met, a wry, seductive smirk that made her head pound, even more when he winked. When she turned back, Sirius and James were staring at her, the former making a dramatic show of pretending to vomit. 

James shook his head slightly, “Be careful with that one.”

“You’re being unfair,” she snapped, opening the little parcel to reveal a box of Peppermint Toads, her favorite. She smiled, despite the four pairs of apprehensive eyes boring into her from all sides. 

“He’s an arsehole,” James said sternly, “you’ve seen what those pricks do to people they deem ‘beneath’ them.”

She rolled her eyes, “Evan doesn’t act like that anymore.”

Remus didn’t lift his eyes from his plate as he spoke, “I saw him push a fourth year into the Black Lake a month ago.” 

“Maybe they deserved it,” she said sharply, standing up quickly and gathering her things, “I wish you’d just be happy for me, and stop trying to scrutinize everything.”

“We’re not scrutinizing,” James exhaled, “we just…don’t want you to get hurt—“

“—especially by some slimy fuckin’ snake,” Sirius mumbled through a mouthful of food. 

She’d had enough.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Potter! Worry about your own girlfriend!” 

Lily’s head shot up from down the table, “Oi! Don’t bring me into this!”

“Sorry Lils,” she mumbled, turning to walk back to her common room, having had enough of her friends for the day. 

Remus grabbed her wrist before she could leave, “Are you coming to study group later?”

She wrenched her arm from his grasp, “I’ll think about it.”

Without sparing any of them another glance, she stormed out of the Great Hall.

———

Evan was always on time, it was one of the things she liked most about him, the consideration he held for her. The courtyard was quiet as she walked through, save for the few couples cuddled up in romantic bliss. Evan was leaning against the far wall leading out towards the north exit. He looked so handsome in the golden light, like something out of a romance novel or one of those old Hollywood movies her mom loved. Upon her approach, he pushed off the stone and sauntered over, smiling brightly before offering his arm. 

“Happy Valentines Day,” he spoke softly as she threaded an arm through his.

“Thank you for surprising me,” was the best she could muster. She was a little breathless at the thought of the date he had apparently planned. No one had ever done something like this for her before. It was exhilarating. 

In his other hand, Evan extending a small bouquet of daisies. The blush that erupted on her cheeks was embarrassing, but she met his eyes nonetheless and thanked him again. They strode arm in arm through the north exit, toward the road that led to Hogsmeade.

“Where’re we going?” She smelled the daisies, still not believing how lucky she was to deserve such treatment. 

Evan chuckled lightly, “It’s a surprise. You’ll love it, I promise.” He looked at her, and the sun setting in his eyes was so beautiful that she almost kissed him.

They meandered toward the town, passing the entrance to the north side of the Forbidden Forrest. Evan turned down the uneven path, deviating from the main road leading to Hogsmeade that they always took. 

“The town’s that way,” she said, pointing towards the tops of the thatched buildings in the distance, “where are you going?”

Another one of his mega-watt smiles, all perfect teeth and cunning eyes, “Shortcut. We found it last year while exploring the grounds.”

When he clocked her hesitation, Evan leaned forward and placed a hand on her cheek, “I’ve got you, don’t worry, nothing in there will touch you.” 

She didn’t get the chance to tell him that nothing in the forest scared her, because he quickly pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was soft, and gentle, and unhurried. It left her wanting so much more that it almost hurt when he pulled away. 

With a small smile, he tugged her towards the edge of the forest, and she followed willingly and without reservations.

Evan led her along a roughly hewn path through the trees, the sounds of birds and creatures scurrying through the foliage nearby. At the sound of a particularly loud growl from the east, she grabbed his arm on instinct. He didn’t flinch, or even seem startled, he just wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders and held her close. 

A small clearing opened to their right, surrounded by a thick cover of trees and climbing moss. Small dots of fireflies flew around the circle, dancing among the ferns and brush. It looked like something out of the fairytale books she read as a child, almost half expecting a fae prince to come and whisk her away. But then again, she had already gotten her magical realm, hadn’t she, there was no need to wish for another. She looked up at Evan, with his hair flecked gold by the fireflies, and wondered if he’d be a part of her happily ever after. Some piece of her hoped so. 

“Evan,” she gasped in wonder, “this place is—“

“—perfect.” He was staring directly at her when she turned.

He loosened the arm around her shoulders, slowly lowering it to grasp her waist. She was putty in his hands as he kissed her again slowly, quickly gaining ferocity as she dragged a hand into his hair. This was going a little fast, and for a moment the overwhelming feeling of everything became too much. Though they’d been talking for weeks, her and Evan hadn’t so much as kissed before tonight. Did she want this?

Evan let out a groan as he backed her against a tree, claiming her mouth as she opened for him. The feeling of his lips trailing down her neck sent her into outer space.

Oh.

She definitely wanted this.

She was so distracted that the footsteps on the other side of the trees barely registered. 

“—over here,” a voice said. Evan didn’t stop his ministrations, snaking a hand down to hike one of her legs over his hip. 

The footsteps grew near, their presence finally clicking as she heard another person speak again, this time much closer. 

“Evan—“ she breathed as he bit at a particularly sensitive part of her neck. He hummed in response, never ceasing. 

“Someone’s here…I hear people…” 

He didn’t respond, instead rolling his hips as she made eye contact with Barty across the clearing, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. 

“Well, well, well,” he crowed, prowling closer, hands in his pockets, “What do we have here?”

She felt Evan smile against her neck. 

“Took you long enough,” he purred, kissing her jaw one last time before turning to look at his friends. Mulciber had joined them now, followed by Regulus. She locked eyes with the latter, the usual mixture of boredom and disgust evident on his face. Suddenly she felt too hot, too exposed, too embarrassed. 

“I thought you said we were messing with my brother and his menagerie of losers,” Regulus drawled to Evan.

“We are,” he responded, “and what better way than to fuck with their little pet mudblood.”

The realization of what was happening hit her like a speeding train.

“Evan—“ her heart sank, finally seeing the cruelty ebb back into his eyes. It had been prevalent during their early time at Hogwarts, but he had gotten very good at hiding it to his advantage over the years apparently.

He looked down at her, pure predator in his gaze, “It’ll be over quicker if you don’t fight.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” she spat, trying to wriggle past him, but he was stronger and slammed her back into the tree. 

Barty pushed past Regulus and came to stand beside them. He towered over Evan, and she couldn’t help but shiver at his looming presence. She wouldn’t go down without a fight, even though the odds were very clearly not in her favor.

“Is this the only way girls will fuck you?” She tried to push through Evan again, looking at Barty’s cruel grin. He reached for her face in an effort to silence her, only to receive a hard bite to the hand.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” Barty pulled back, staring at the trickle of blood running down between his thumb and forefinger.

Evan grabbed her neck and squeezed, “You can make this easier or harder. Your choice, sweetheart.”

She whimpered, legs giving out as Barty begin groping her thigh with a hand so harsh she could feel the bruises forming already. 

When she was six, her dad hit a deer with the family car. As a child, she could never understand why the animal froze as it did, coming to a halt in the center of the street as the headlights barreled towards it, promising certain death. Her mind could never wrap around that level of primal fear.

She understood now. 

Her brain screamed at her to fight, and she knew that she should. But her body was in full arrest, rooting her to the spot. As she stood in the forest, the bark from the tree cutting into her back, she stared wide-eyed at the oncoming crash, hoping that it would end as quickly as the deer from her childhood. 

Evan began to kiss her again, only this time it was aggressive and sloppy, and she tried to pull her face away. 

She heard footsteps again. Felt a third person restrain her arms. The fireflies were gone now, leaving her alone with the four creatures that had scared them away.

She closed her eyes and began to recite the lyrics to her favorite songs, pretending she was back with her friends, safely lounging in Gryffindor Tower. 

———

Valentine’s Day was for suckers. Everybody knew that. At least Sirius thought so anyway.

Being surrounded by grandiose displays of romantic love was nauseating to put it lightly, and by the time dinner rolled around, he’d had quite enough of it. 

James had scampered off somewhere with Lily (gag), Mary was probably snogging her current boyfriend by now (double gag), and Pete was drooling over some poor Ravenclaw girl from the year below them (triple gag). Even Moony had left him, but at least it was just for a study session in the library, and not for some dumb date. He’d blown Emmeline off earlier when she asked what he had planned for Valentines Day. Apparently she didn’t share his sentiments about the bullshit holiday, leading to a tearful display on her part.

Sirius had resigned himself to the quidditch pitch, deciding that fresh air would do him some good after enduring the suffocating fumes of romance all day. He flew around the goal posts, the only person practicing tonight, the vast majority of the students paired up for the holiday, or sulking alone in their rooms. Looping down closer to the field, he leaned forward to pick up speed, pulling up as he got towards the opposite end and soaring as high as he could before the clouds overtook the view. It was quiet up here, and for the briefest moment, he felt the noise in his head stop.

As he descended to do another lap, he saw a small figure running from the north road leading from Hogsmeade. Students snuck off to town all the time, so it was wasn’t that bizarre, but the urgency is what caught his attention. Sirius returned closer to the ground, just as the figure entered the field and stopped to double over, hands on his knees. 

It was Regulus. 

“Sirius!” His voice was a strangled, out of breath from however far he had just sprinted.

Sirius landed with a thud, grimacing at his younger brother. 

“What do you want Reg,” he growled. 

His brother took a few heaving breaths, “…the forest…Evan and Barty…Mulciber…they’re going to hurt her…”

Sirius didn’t think. Didn’t even consider his broom left lying on the field.

He just began to run. 

Though winded from the first sprint, Regulus kept pace with his brother, the two of them only speaking once when Sirius demanded to be shown the way. At the entrance to the forest, Regulus skidded to a stop. 

“I said I was going back to the common room because I was bored. They can’t know I’m the one that told you, they’ll—“ 

Sirius nodded once, not needing an explanation, “Thank you, Reggie.” The sincerity in his voice was legitimate as he met his younger brother’s eyes, identical to his own.

He didn’t look back as he raced into the forest.

———

The laughter is what would haunt her.

While they stripped her and ran their hands over every inch of skin, they had laughed. Enjoying her whimpers as they called her names and threatened to do even worse things. She couldn’t think of what could be worse than this, worse than losing your humanity. Though she wanted to desperately, she didn’t cry.

At least she didn’t give them that satisfaction.

Brush crunched from a few feet away, and she prayed it was some sort of creature come to devour them all. There was a sickening crack, and suddenly the pressure of the body on her left was gone. She opened her eyes slowly, and watched as Sirius brought his fist into Evan Rosier’s nose. 

Barty was already on the ground, bleeding from his mouth, Mulciber was darting through the trees like a coward. As Evan stumbled back against a boulder, Sirius pulled out his wand and held it straight towards him.

“Leave. Now. Or I will kill you all where you fucking stand.”

His tone made her legs begin to shake; she’d never heard him speak like that.

Barty got to his feet, still cradling his jaw, and shot a glance over at his friend who was staring at Sirius with pure malice. 

“You have one chance,” Sirius’ voice was so icy and calm it scared her. 

Evan pushed off the rock and moved towards the opening of the clearing, Barty following suit. All while Sirius kept his wand fixed on the pair of them. 

“You’ll pay for this, Black,” Evan snarled.

“I’d like to see you fucking try,” a muscle in Sirius’ jaw twitched. 

The moment the two were out of sight, she broke.

She fell to her knees as both legs buckled, realizing quickly that her shirt was completely torn away, leaving only her skirt in place. Doubling over, she hugged her body tightly, the cold ground seeping into her bare legs. Everything was spinning. Her entire body becoming numb as she squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to disappear. Instinct was nagging her to move, to run as fast as she could back to the castle, back to safety, but she couldn’t bring herself to rise. Distantly through the fog, she heard her name being called.

Sirius knelt, shushing her calmly as he pulled off his red and gold striped quidditch jumper. “Hey…” he soothed, careful not to touch her, “look at me Yellowjacket.”

She looked up slowly, shivering against the chill permeating through her bones. 

“I’m going to put this on you, is that okay?” His eyes were glued to hers as he held up the jumper. 

She nodded, allowing him to pull the wool garment over her head and arms. It was warm, and a few sizes too large, but it smelled like home. The realization of his presence hit her fully, and she let out a heartbreaking sob. 

Sirius instantly gathered her in his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair, voice breaking, “I’m so sorry, love.”

They knelt on the forest floor for a while, Sirius rocking her as she clung to his t-shirt. 

As her sobs eased, Sirius tilted her head back, “Let’s get you back to the castle, alright little bee?” He offered a small smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. She nodded, eyes bloodshot and hollow, allowing him to help her up. When he deemed her stable enough to walk, Sirius loosened his grip, not wanting to overstep. She didn’t let go, gripping his hand like it was the only tether keeping her moored. 

They walked back to the castle, hand in hand, her donning his jumper. And to any outsider, they looked like a couple, returning from a Valentines Day date. 

———

Sirius brought her to Gryffindor Tower, assuring her that the other boys weren’t around. The majority of her fear had dissipated, leaving just shame in its wake. She hadn’t spoken a word since they left the forest, just nodding her head numbly whenever Sirius asked her a question.

Standing in the dormitory entrance, she motioned towards Sirius’ bed, “Is it okay if I sit down?”

Her voice sounded distant and small. The rasp was more embarrassing, evidence of her unruly sobbing.

Sirius shut the door, his face falling when he heard her question.

“You’ve never needed nor asked for permission before, please don’t start now…”

He walked over to the window and opened it wide, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one with the snap of his fingers. Leaning against Remus’ bedpost, he blew a stream of smoke out into the night.

She looked around the room, between the empty beds of her best friends, “They won’t be back for a while, right?”

Sirius nodded, his face solemn and contemplative as he watched her sit uncomfortably on the edge of his mattress. He held out the cigarette towards her in a silent offering.

She nodded slowly, joining him to lean out the open window. The cold air washed over her, and despite everything that happened, the night was unfortunately beautiful. 

Sirius handed her the cigarette and she took a drag, the smoke curling around her fingertips. 

“D’you wanna talk about it?” He asked quietly, scooting closer to her against the ledge. 

She lingered on the question for a moment, passing the cigarette back. The warmth of his fingers was enough to give her the strength to speak.

“…it was all a joke,” she whispered, staring out over the now indecipherable forest. 

“What was?” Sirius exhaled out into the night, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“Everything, all of it. The dates, the notes, the…attention,” she shook her head in disbelief, tears blurring the view of the castle grounds, “…I was so stupid.”

Sirius held the cigarette closer and she leaned in to take another drag from between his fingers. 

“You’re not stupid,” he whispered, “you’re incredible.”

The corner of her mouth quirked upward as her head rested gently against his shoulder. Sirius passed the rest of the cigarette to her to finish, and afterwards she tossed it out the window, watching as the embers ricocheted off the stone turret on its way down. 

“I should probably go back to my room,” she said quietly, playing with the sleeve of the jumper. 

Sirius shook his head adamantly, “Stay here, there’s no way I’m letting you be alone tonight.” 

The offer caused her to tear up again, “I can’t—I don’t have any clothes or—“

“Here,” he went and dug through his trunk, pulling out a pair of red and gold pajama pants, no doubt a gift from Mrs. Potter from Christmas’ past, “Keep the jumper, it looks better on you anyway. Whatever you need, I’ve got it, just please…stay here tonight.”

After showering and changing in the shared bathroom, she climbed into Sirius’ bed, burying herself beneath the covers. The boys clearly didn’t keep their room as warm as she did.

Sirius slid in beside her, closing the curtains tight and throwing up a simple warding spell. 

“Please don’t tell the others,” she whispered as they stared at each other in the dark. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, like it was calling to her. 

“Of course, anything you want,” he said, brushing back a stray piece of her hair. 

“I’m still angry at you,” she grinned slightly, shifting closer towards him, if only for the fact that she was freezing.

Sirius chuckled lowly, opening his arm to allow her in, “You can be angry as long as you want, love, just please don’t shut me out again.”

———

She woke up to James’ singing.

For a second, she couldn’t remember where she was, or what events had led her here. After a brief reprieve, the memories of the night prior came flooding back. The scent of smoke and spice provoking the realization that her face was currently buried against Sirius’ chest. He stirred, arm wrapped protectively around her waist. 

She hated how right this felt.

But what she hated even more, was how she pretended to still be asleep, so that they could stay this way a little longer.

Beyond the bed curtains, she listened to James moving about the room, still singing some Beatles song that Lily had no doubt shown him. Somewhere on the right side of the room, Remus groaned, “Prongs, I swear to everything holy, if you don’t shut the fuck up I will murder you with my bare hands.”

James laughed, “Wake up then, Moony! You’ll miss breakfast, and Merlin knows how you get when you don’t eat—ow!”

Remus must have thrown something at him, a soft thud echoing a millisecond later. Sirius began to trail his fingers up her back, and she leaned up to see him smiling, eyes still shut.

“Morning,” he rasped, completely content with their proximity.

“Pads!” James called from just outside the curtains, and she stiffened. 

Sirius didn’t remove his arm from her waist as he called back, “Yes, Potter?”

“Breakfast?”

“Got a little pissed last night, mate. Think I’m going to bunk off this morning.”

James hummed, “Suit yourself, then.”

She listened as he and (presumably) Peter left the dorm.

Remus’ voice grew closer to the bed, “Did you seriously get drunk in here alone last night? That’s a new low, even for you, Pads.”

She watched as the curtains jostled, remembering the warding spell Sirius had cast last night.

“Oi! What’re you doing?” Remus called suspiciously, finding the bed curtains unable to open.

Sirius groaned, “I’m fucking trying to sleep Moony, that’s what I’m doing, but the lot of you keep trying to disturb that!”

“Christ, mate, sorry. I’ll see you this afternoon then, yeah?” She heard him walk towards the other side of the room.

“Yeah, sure,” Sirius called, closing his eyes again and settling back against her as the door shut.

“Are you really not going to class this morning?” She murmured.

He huffed into her hair, “I’m not leaving this bed until at least noon.”

“They’ll notice I’m not at breakfast.”

Sirius hummed contently, “We can think of a lie when we wake up, Yellowjacket.”

[ocie-vt]

Thoughts on ARCADEA / AWOL

Quite a while ago now I played the ARCADEA demo on stream with my good friend Purea Patel… I'm only writing this review(?) so much later because Ive just uploaded the VoD.

To get things started, ARCADEA Is an upcoming RPGmaker game in which you take control of Maisie, a mute girl on a quest to find her brother Jas. To do this, we must go through the world of Arcadia. It should be noted that Arcadia here does not refer to the Greek province, but instead refers to one of the interesting phenomena that can be found here: you see, In everyone's dreams lies an Arcade machine which represents their innermost psyche or something. It seems that we can go into these arcade machines for… reasons. Something to do with a cat? Here's the problem with writing a review of sorts from memory months after I've played something, A lot of the exactitudes of the game story have become hazy in my mind. For instance, I remember there was a talking cat who acted slightly sinisterly and seemed to be important somehow… The only other thing I remember about him is that we made him Australian for some reason. A lot of my recollection is like this, so from now on ill just mention the stuff that's stuck with me the most about the game.

Firstly, I must mention the art here, especially the character portraits. It's very good, I feel like all the main characters have very distinct designs, they're all vaguely colour coded in these nice lighter colours which both makes every character easy to tell apart which also giving them a nice sense of cohesion. It's all very cute, and this carries over to the level art, which also has pleasing pallets whilst keeping a good sense of variety between zones. Secondly, I must mention the minigames: they are of paramount importance in a game literally structured around arcade machines, and they most certainly do not disappoint. Even this demo has quite a few varied little gameplay segments, and it honestly does better in them than even some other extremely well produced or popular RPGmaker games like Pocket mirror, which relies a bit too heavily on variations of the chase sequence. Of course ARCADEA isn't exempt from having one or two chasers, close to the end there's a chase sequence against a paintbrush monster thing… but at least there is a mechanic there where you can leave bait for the monster to stall it a little. The other games are a bit more interesting though, for instance there is a puzzle in which you have to stand on a certain spot and then line up a piece of paper to reveal a symbol that tells you what direction to go next. It's a bit like that one forest sequence from Metal Gear, except in Metal Gear, the devs just left you to flounder until you got out. There's also one or two quick time button presses that I was very bad at… but it's also an interesting change of pace from other games I've played.

Last thing I'd want to mention here is that in one scene you are put in a greenhouse and told to draw one of a few plants highlighted in the room, except there was also a random set of vines highlighted that had nothing to do with this, and I was very disappointed when I couldn't try to select the random set of vines over all the pretty flowers to draw.

Anyway, all in all I had a very good time playing ARCADEA, and I'm excited for the full release. I would highly suggest that you play the game for yourself, you can download it here.

After we finished that demo on stream, me and Purea still had a fair amount of energy left, so we decided to look at the other game that the ARCADEA dev has worked on, A Wave Of Lights (AWOL). It's a cute little visual novel about a shut in girl meeting an alien girl and then, like, being gay for two hours. I've not much to say on the actual game itself since it's relatively short, It's just well written and the art is also cute. I will say that, uhh, I made some choices on the stream's end that might have impacted the drama of it a tad… When we played it we decided to voice one character each and whilst Purea gave a pretty neutrally toned voice to the main character, I heard that the other character was an alien and like… I can only decide the voice I went with as somewhere between Skeletor and a Dalek, because alien. It was really something going into the more dramatic or serious scenes with the characters opening up to each other and whatnot, where Purea was playing it 100% straight, and I was doing the silliest goddamed voice I have ever attempted.

to close this out, I should say that the Dev for Arcadia is named Aishin, and you can find them here on tumblr @arcadea-rpg.

Whilst Aishin was the artist for AWOL, it seems that the writer and lead dev listed was Tabby Wright, who you can find here.

AWOL itself can be downloaded from here, and finally you can find the VoD for my stream here.

[liskantope]

Last week I attended a seminar at my university on how to write a good DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) statement. I misunderstood the nature of the seminar topic: I was thinking it would be advice on how to write a diversity statement as part of an academic job application (as I have to submit for the great majority of applications I do now-a-years; as recently as 2015 or so it was only a few California schools that asked for this). Instead it was on DEI statements for companies and institutions. I had only noticed the existence of these in the back of my mind (although I suppose I'm going to take more notice of them from now on), because I don't know when I'd ever find myself in a position of having to write such a thing as part of the face of an institution/department.

But the seminar was interesting in its own way. Since 2020 or so, I've attended a good handful of different seminars/talks/meetings/orientations at my academic institutions that are in some way related to DEI or marginalization within academia or something closely adjacent. I typically find something thought-provoking and a potentially useful concrete idea here and there among all the insubstantial and unreflective fluff. I would say that this time, the fluff-to-meaningful-idea ratio was unusually skewed, however. I want to jot down what I recollect from this meeting before the details start to fade, as I think a lot of it is emblematic of this moment in our academic culture.

The seminar began with a bingo get-to-know-you game, where we had to go around the room acquainting ourselves with each other and seeing if we could find someone to fulfill each characteristic on identical sloppily-written 3x3 bingo boards (using one person to satisfy multiple squares was cheating). I think I hadn't done this kind of thing since high school. I found a number of the squares to be a recipe for awkward conversations, in a way that seems to be becoming a typical norm within this particular subculture: for instance, "is of Gen X" (do we need to be estimating each other's ages?), "uses they/them pronouns" (misspelled as "pronounce" -- I personally hate going around asking and telling people my pronouns, and I'm pretty sure a significant number of trans people feel the same way), and "someone that has a different racial identity than you" (shouldn't be too awkward, but it kind of is). Also, "observes religious holidays": are we going to be asking each other's religions now, or do non-religious people celebrating something like Christmas count, so that the description applies to a vast majority? Bemusingly, nobody in the room of 15 or so people used they/them pronouns, and we all wound up with bingo cards completely filled out except for that one square.

It's hard to find words to describe the overall tone and vibe of the seminar leader, except to say that she somehow epitomized a certain inflection and sense of humor that I'm coming to strongly associate with marginalized-demographic SJ activist types I see in real life. The closest I can come to describing it is coming across like a deliberately crafted attempt to appear superficially upbeat and energized and constantly inserting good-natured, almost light-hearted, shallowly tame jokes here and there while at the same time looking like that takes real effort because beneath it all you're just so tired and the world around you sucks so much.

The leader of the seminar began with a spiel about how she refuses to be just a black face used as token for these roles, but requires that everyone actually care about her voice, or else she would rather not be chosen at all. She talked about how our university is often praised for its diversity and would appear at first blush to be doing pretty well at that, yet when you look at the athletics program you see some kind of racial disparity among the students (she was vague on what) so clearly we're not as anti-racist as we pretend to be. This was probably the closest the discussion got to the topic of concrete evidence that we (or any particular place) are falling short, rather than basing it on the wording in DEI statements (what?! see below) or vague ratings that marginalized academics give and that nobody claimed even exist non-hypothetically.

There was a good bit of discussion on the "cultural tax" of members of marginalized groups having to do the lion's share of the work in organizing/running programs/initiatives or otherwise working to get departments' attention with regard to DEI issues. Whenever this comes up, nobody shows any sign of reflecting on the obvious severe tension between this complaint and the popular notion that only marginalized people should be in leadership roles for social justice activism and only their voices can be the source of valid ideas in this arena.

There was also some minor discussion about how to measure results (with "results" being how marginalized academics feel about their environment), which might even start to get one's hope's up that something concrete will actually come out of this, except that the consensus was that it seems almost hopelessly impossible to track anything like this (it would have to be done through surveys, and it's hard to get enough colleagues to even participate in surveys).

Obviously some of the seminar was on what to include or not include in DEI statements, with examples given of good DEI statements at certain companies and universities. There was one main point, which I would summarize as follows: don't just say you work towards diversity and inclusion in vague tidy-sounding language that doesn't actually mean anything, but demonstrate concretely in the statement exactly how you work towards diversity and inclusion... through vague tidy-sounding language that doesn't actually mean anything. Or in other words, don't just say something in a flowery way about DEI being great; say something longer with more pointed-yet-flowery phrases about how much you care about DEI. This was honestly pretty much all I could glean from what was clearly meant to be the leader's overarching point.

She picked carefully over examples of DEI statements at a couple of companies and four universities. Her only criticism was with one of them using the phrase "all types of people", which she condemned as problematic without explaining why or offering an alternative (nobody asked; I almost did). She spent a lot of time reading meaning into particular (very stock and cliche) phrases of different statements. To what I consider a ridiculous extent, she claimed with confidence and an air of wisdom that each phrase about intent reflected a corresponding problem that the department had had just prior to writing the statement. For instance, Boise State's DEI statement includes an email address to report problematic behavior to, which means hooo boy there really must have been a particularly large amount of problematic behavior at Boise State that needed reporting. More absurdly, much was read into particular words in Cornell's statement -- specifically, the phrase "communicate, cooperate, and collaborate with diverse individuals", whose inclusion of the word "collaboration" indicates specifically that oooh Cornell must have had an unusually serious problem with collaboration for instance! -- that couldn't possibly just mean the writers thought it would sound nice to put three fancy-but-vaguely-commonplace verbs beginning with co- in succession.

Everyone else in the room nodded along in solemn reverence for all of the points being made in the seminar. I guess I'm just weird and obtuse for coming away from discussions like this one feeling that they consisted mostly of waffle and twaddle.

[bornofchalk]

amidst the snow, a windwheel aster

The year's first snow.

diluc x gn reader

words: 333

warnings: fluff, little actual diluc screentime, mostly reader's thoughts (feel free to suggest any warnings!), written with modern au in mind (though could be read as not)

author's note: this is for the ice & snow event @yae-publishing-house! writer’s block hit me really hard for a while so i've been struggling to start this for the past week! woo!! but i absolutely refused to give up so here it is!!! written in the early hours of the morning!!!!

⠀

You are warm, but not warm enough.

The room is bright, yet not exactly sunlit.

And in place of your red-haired lover is an imprint in the covers where he had been lying.

These are the first thoughts that pass through your mind as it pulls itself out of sleep, whatever dream you were having slipping just out of reach.

You frown blearily for a moment at the empty spot beside you, only to roll over and find that not only have you slept in, but that Diluc had indeed left a note on the nightstand.

You trace the neat script on the page absent-mindedly, and you cannot help a smile brimming with fondness as it tells of how he tried his best to not wake you. So the vague recollection of mumbling "five more minutes" and a warm touch soothing you back into your slumber hadn't been a dream after all. You smile a little wider.

The mention of snow has you awake for good and out of bed. A thick blanket of snow leaving nothing uncovered greets you through the window, unmarred save for a single set of footprints.

When the snow comes each year, so does the lighting of the fireplace, preparing and indulging in warm drinks, and the best time to bask in the warmth of one all too willing Diluc Ragnvindr.

A trip to check on the bar shouldn't be too long. That's what you tell yourself anyway, as you nurse a mug of hot chocolate, listening for Diluc's return through the crackling of the fire. You can already imagine the pleasant chill of touching his reddened nose to yours as you greet him at the door.

So when you spot that shade of red that you so adore in the sea of white, brighter than even the snowflakes that so beautifully adorn it, and you rush downstairs in time to see the lock turn, you waste no time in throwing yourself into Diluc's open and waiting arms.

[fandomsoda]

what are your thoughts on vriska? I don’t follow many homestuck fans so I was hoping to talk to you about it ^w^

Oh, I personally despise her. She is The Worst and did everything wrong. She started off as a prick and then way overstayed her welcome. I wanna preface this with- this is going to be a very negative ramble, but I am not upset with you for asking this at all anon. I’m very glad you’re curious and I appreciate someone being genuinely interested in my Homestuck opinions, and you’re totally welcome to disagree with me. Just because I dislike this character doesn’t mean I dislike talking about her and the story’s flaws, since critique is often how I show my appreciation for the more chaotic media that I enjoy and my wish for it to improve or be better, even if HS is long over and done with and not changing. Either way- Vriska lovers proceed with caution, spoilers ahead, here’s my honest opinion on her.

She was the most repulsive person in the story so far when she was first properly introduced, the way she talked to and treated Tavros in Hivebent (act 5 act 1) literally made me physically ill and scared the shit out of me, and there is absolutely no excuse for her behavior. Vague explanations, but no actual excuses and the explanations don’t directly link to her obnoxiously vile actions.

Even then, she was a good villain figure for a while, and her arc was pretty good up until her death, with that whole scene not only feeling like a justified end to her story but also being a great landmark in Terezi’s character arc as well.

But then she came back.

And that’s where she started to just become fucking annoying.

Because it is so painfully obvious that the only reason she stuck around in the story is because she was the author’s favorite, and a lot of weird shit happened along the way. Her return and subsequent attention got in the way of the opportunities we had to see other characters get more development, and she was basically just a total limelight hog and had no traits that were worthy of that.

Her redemption ““arc”” was half-assed and forced and completely skipped the ARC part of it. She doesn’t feel bad for her actions, she doesn’t apologize, she doesn’t try to fix anything, she’s just like “I’m just gonna keep fighting in the only way I know how” pretending to be some sort of anti-hero when she has NEVER stood for ANYTHING other than her own gain.

She just suddenly starts getting written more likably, and even if she does become more likable because of that, her change is not gradual or meaningful or caused by anything specific or in any way an “arc”. She doesn’t become more likable over time, she just kinda gets a 90° change in how she’s written out of almost nowhere. She is not an asshole with a heart of gold, she was a standard asshole character that got retconned into having a heart of gold. And it was only an excuse to keep including her in the story.

Vriska is a classic example of “angsty edgy character had a perfectly good and complete arc but was brought back for no reason and has no reason to be here anymore”. My dislike for this trope actually started in my time in the Sonic fandom, with how I feel about Shadow. I share the same sentiment with both Vriska and Shadow: they should have stayed dead/not come back. Because now they’ve become botched, overused, annoying limelight hogs that steal development and time away from other secondary characters that deserve it more.

If we had seen more of Vriska’s “good side” earlier on and her arc had ended at her first proper “just” death, I would say she was a pretty good character. But she didn’t, and that’s what upsets me.

it’s not just “ew, she’s a bad person!”, it’s “she’s a bad person who had her arc botched and was poorly retconned into being “good”.”

I do want to note that it has been a while since I refreshed myself on HS and I’ve not finished it in it’s entirety, but this is my recollection so far and what I understand.

thank you for asking! Hope this wasn’t too negative or spoiler-laden for you.

[asachuu]

(4/10)

Part 3: Fifteen

Content warning: major Fifteen light novel spoilers.

[List of all parts]

[Part 2]

This may be a far, far shorter section than you would expect from me as we don’t get too much to analyze in Fifteen, compared to Stormbringer later on. I will not be summarizing the entire novel, since I have stated before that I’m going into this assuming my readers have seen both books already. This is merely a summary of the most important things which occurred that I will be referencing/referring to in terms of Rimlaine as a ship itself, and also to bring up details that could have been missed along the way if the reader wasn’t focused on them.

I would also like to add an additional note before I begin— as for Fifteen, I am only talking about the events of the written novel, not the anime adaptation of it. I believe I make this explicitly clear everywhere when I say “novel”, but I’m aware some people still may think of those two as the same or similar to each other and don’t actually distinguish between the two, even when I directly state which piece of media it is. I need for it to be said before going to write about any canonical events, solely to avoid statements such as “I remember watching something else”, “when did that even happen”, etc., considering the anime could practically be interpreted as its own separate story. Additionally, this will also apply here if an anime adaptation for Stormbringer is released, as I can’t say I have any faith in a short, animated version’s ability to not cut out or twist extremely crucial or important details from such a long novel either to save space, budget or provide fanservice, just as it did in S3.

So then, what exactly do we establish in Fifteen?

Part 3.1: the fight and Arthur’s memories

Despite talking about this novel and a major part of Arthur’s character, I will not be going over the entire section where he gets introduced into the BSD universe, nor where he explains his initial recollection of events about the Arahabaki incident. Instead, I will skip right into the fight with Dazai and Chuuya. Why? Because, to put it simply, the former parts have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. As much as I could talk about them for a rather long time, they provide me with no information I could give out in terms of Arthur’s relation to Paul, which is the sole focus here.

Now, during the fight in the second half of the novel, we get to learn of Arthur’s true identity, as well as his purpose in Japan. His initial mission was to research “Arahabaki” and take it back to his home country alive, however his intent had changed significantly over time. He had no longer planned to take Chuuya, or rather, “Arahabaki” back alive, rather deciding to kill him— as we learn further on, this was not done due to a simple desire for violence, power or anything of this kind. In fact, that would go against his whole character, as it’s not only implied, but also outright stated by him he doesn’t truly want to go along with it and does certainly feel remorse for his actions…so then, what might his reasoning possibly be?

That reasoning was Chuuya’s memories. Eight years ago, when he was sent on this very mission, he wasn’t alone. Here, we learn of another character, one who supposedly accompanied him and worked with him, according to his vague recollections. Arthur had long since forgotten what happened to that person, whether he died or survived the Arahabaki explosion— all he remembered was the two being partners, even “best friends”, as he referred to him. Unsurprisingly, Arthur wished to know what happened to someone so important to him, especially after eight years of having no possibility of finding this out, and due to Chuuya/Arahabaki being present at the time of the two still being together, he believed he could retrieve his lost memories by taking in Chuuya’s ability, though unfortunately, that could only be done if Chuuya was killed. It wasn’t an act of anything other than simply a desperate wish to know what happened to an old friend of his, even if it now went against his actual mission. Despite his amnesia, desires and even his own orders, he still cared about his partner strongly enough to try and go through with his plan. That plan, however, failed.

Just as Arthur thought he succeeded in their altercation, with Chuuya seemingly not being able to fight back any longer after being heavily injured, he was fatally stabbed through by a scythe he used to pin the redhead to the ground. Instead of Chuuya’s ability itself, that was the action which made him remember the true events of his past. In his final moments, he states he was betrayed by his partner at the last minute, who is now revealed to be named Paul Verlaine. According to him, Paul had tried to kill him, and thus it’s implied he had to defend himself. In his recollection of events, he believes to be the one who ended his partner’s life, and while he does not explicitly state this himself, as I assume he wasn’t even able to, he hints at it. This part of Fifteen ends with Arthur passing away, thinking about Paul in his very last thoughts.

Part 3.2: Paul’s appearance

This is a part which many people are not aware of– Paul’s actual appearance in Fifteen after Arthur’s death, which was not even mentioned a single time in Fifteen’s animated rendition. It will most definitely be a very short summary, given it is a rather short part itself, yet it’s quite crucial to my points.

The section revolves around Paul getting into the Port Mafia’s office during nighttime. As he himself claims, it was to retrieve a document of “[his] best friend’s life”. One could even begin to think he did care about Arthur the same way he was clearly cared for by the latter just with that line alone, yet the rest of his dialogue entirely disproves this.

I could certainly point to his proclamation of Arthur’s memory being “interesting” due to him having mistakenly remembered ending Paul’s life, seemingly being amused by it with such wording, but there’s a far more glaring example of this that does not require any amount of analyzing whatsoever. Following this, he then goes on to thank Chuuya for killing his former partner on his behalf before stating he wishes to meet him. Even if one was to reach for rather far-fetched assumptions, there is no grief or regret expressed by him to be found at any point during this specific part, rather the opposite— this was supposedly what he wanted to see happen. The section ends with him disappearing into the night, confirming a sequel to the novel.

[Part 3.3]

[arc-en-disco]

👻 🎃 trick or treat! 💀 🕷️

OMG thank you :D

Well... since you passed my door... and my jack o lanterns tonight... I will post a snippet from my yet unfinished James Wan / Patrick Wilson silliness!

Here's a scene: Patrick, invited over, has stumbled upon James's stack of script ideas, notes, and - GASP - letters to his leading man he has collected over the years. James walks in the room with some tea. Patrick, intrigued by the few lines he has read, slips a few pages in his pocket. Later, James is frantically checking the stack of paper. He senses some of it is missing. Is it, really? And which parts? Hopefully not the worst parts?

His second concept was an action movie, plain and simple. He hadn’t had the time to work out the golden excuse that would seamlessly combine tight spandex suits + Patrick and the script hardly had a fleshed out story. There were a couple of keywords: trained spy, chameleon personality, high-level sabotage, phoenix-like revival after getting seriously hurt – and that was all. He had finished only a few of the scenes that would eventually be in the movie. In one of them, Patrick wooed a group of powerful corporate executives just by being his charming self. James had left a small uncredited part for himself as a desperate director looking for the executives’ millions to fund a movie. In another scene, Patrick stood naked in front of a mirror as to make the audience familiar with his scars and the extent of his injuries. Writing it had been a battle between James’s knowledge that scenes like this were cheap and his ravenous wish of shooting it one day.

He fervently went over the pages. His action script appeared to end at scene 8. There was almost nothing there. It said: rooftop escape / water element.

I could make it classy, he had written on the next page. But he had crossed that out and changed it to I could get away with it.

Bloody hell. This meant that the infamous nude scene- that was supposed to be in between these two pages- was missing. Feeling his mood sink like water down a drain he tried to recollect what he had seen Patrick do. He had perhaps taken a few pages. Where could he have hid them? The most logical spot was his pockets but James had not seen him put them there. Let alone which pages they were.

He checked again, flicking through the pages of his third concept; the romantic comedy. The mere thought of this project materializing one day gave him the chills. Chills of insecurity, of leaving his comfort zone further behind than ever- mixed with a vague confidence. He knew he could do it. Knowing that he could somehow made it worse; it wasn’t just a fancy and that meant that not only could he do it, he probably would.

It was a dumb story. He had tried to make it smarter than romantic comedies usually were and it was still dumb. A naïve teacher makes a house visit for a creepy child in his class whose grades have been dropping lately (not to mention her intensely scary behavior towards other pupils and her commentary about dead tissue and blood during biology class) only to meet the love of his life: the child’s single mother, who might be a witch, might have murdered the dad, and might be the kindest woman in the world. He wanted to go absolutely bonkers with the house. Think carnivorous plants, antique standing clocks ringing off key, dolls on the barbecue, dolls in the oven, dolls on the cutting board. It should never become clear if the ladies were actual witches, could actually use real magic. With every line he wrote down he thought: I have to make this more goth. At the same time he didn’t want to rip anything off. It shouldn’t be a Little shop of horrors remake, or a new version of The Addams Family. He wanted it to be small, intimate; just the family and the teacher, perhaps with a sub plot involving the suspect neighbors and the classmates. In the end, the teacher should join forces with the witch family he has grown to become so fond of, and take part in a spell to get rid of the dad, who returns in a plot twist. Did he mention that it was dumb?

He was forced to give up. He had checked everything, even ‘SATANIC CURSES SHORTLIST’, 'MORE CREEPY DOLLS PART 3' and 'MISSION: BATMAN' and they weren't anywhere. This could only mean one thing.

He needed to stop dragging them along. They were baggage and they were a risk and they were blackmail waiting to happen. He had money, he could afford a guarded safe, or an underground bunker storage somewhere. When I get back home, he told himself, silently rocking back and forth, sitting on the floor. The first thing I'm gonna do after I get back home is find a safe place for these.

Not yet willing to accept that one thing, James went over the scripts and concepts again. Not once, but twice. Wait. His fingertips touched a well-known stack of paper, tied together with a string, and he sighed the deepest sigh.

Okay, okay, a few pages of his older scripts were probably missing, but the letters- including the worst of them- were still present. From newest to oldest, the piece of string around it tied into a little ribbon, because he was a goddamn romantic and he couldn't help himself. He held them to his chest, realising in how big of a mess he could have been right now. Thank God. Thank God.

So why don't you get rid of them?

He had shaken his head when he saw the date on that letter. The thing was two years old. He shook his head at himself, at his silly way of dealing with things, his juvenile feelings. At the James of two years past and the James of that day. He hadn’t thrown the letters on his barbeque. It had felt like he was taking pity on his own folly, somehow.

"I know, I know," he muttered, putting the stack of letters back where they belonged, buried underneath his works-in-progress. Double-checking if it was really locked. It was true; the easiest and most permanent solution was to run his love letters through a shredder. He had been so close, once. Ready to shove the entire heap on the remains of a barbecue, one late summer night, after his friends had left. Drunk and tired, a familiar paranoia had overtaken him and he had gone inside to get his pathetic confessions. All fifty-six hand-written pages of them. Even this one? He had thought, his hand not quite willing to include the very first- and longest- of his letters. Yes, even that one, he encouraged himself. The job had to be done. It had to be done sooner rather than later- had to be done now in the exact same way it had to be done back then. The damage of his hesitation was still visible on some of the pages today. But standing in front of the fire, holding the fragile paper over the hissing coals he had read a few lines on the top page.

“You are an affliction. You make me want to pour fake blood all over you then wash it off-”

“I am the most privileged of all, because I get to stare at you, full-time, get paid for it, and people think nothing of it. The perfect disguise, better than a one-way mirror-”

“I had to write it down somewhere, because I can never tell you. You will never read this, either. It’s still a bit better than keeping it all inside. It felt like a growing disease gnawing its way out from the inside-”

It was stupid, he was aware that it was. He guessed he was simply too attached to his own words. Wasn’t that a pretty common disorder among authors? Pulp or not, you could call him an author, right? Whatever his diagnosis (terminal sentimentalism) he had held on to them. He’d take them out sometimes and give them another read. And throughout the years, the stack of letters had grown. He’d add to them every now and then. Particularly, when something had happened on set or after events that he needed to write down and relive. It had morphed into a very private kind of diary.

James put the last of his concepts on top of the others, carefully checking if it looked like any regular bunch of typed documents. The drawer passed the test, and he locked it.

[ravenclaw-questions-gone-writing]

Outline # -1 Abandoned Lore (Trinity)

@fanfics-and-fangirling

I have learned my lesson, I will be writing these on Google docs and then copy-pasting onto Tumblr. While I am on GD, I figured I might as well open the docs I used to write the actual fic. Man, I went through a ton of hoops to get where I am. I will be using the most coherent ones for reference. 

I can literally track my thought process as I went through writing all the different versions and I still have no idea how tf I went from this to dropping a flaming papermache whale on Ra’s Al Ghul. And I will die mad about it. Which means more meticulous notes in the future I guess.

Also, I’d like to apologize for how long it took to get this out, I have no sense of time whatsoever and as always, there’s a lot more than expected. This was 7 pages long

Original Ramble Post 

Like most of my stories, the MC is an OCI - reincarnator brought into a fictional world they once watched. (Because I am obsessed with that trope.)

I now find the original name I had for her cringy and out-of-place given these are norse gods. So, from now on her name is Lokka, which is the female version of Loki

There’s a whole ass backstory about the transition of godly names and power I won’t go into. Just think Thor and female Thor kind of thing I guess. She’s basically seen as a spare Loki but it’s also a respected position.

Was tempted to name her Sigyn since Marvel doesn’t care about actual norse myth relations. No, Idc that there’s a canon Sigyn.

If you’re curious, the original name was Aradia. Yes, like the queen of witches.

MC is an asgardian, the daughter of the librarian in the royal palace and a blacksmith

She managed to get an apprenticeship under Loki and is occasionally taught by Frigga. She also learns under Eir when both her royal teachers are busy.

Lokka found her way into the central plane, probably having found it’s location from Loki’s notes and is unaware that it’s unstable.

So, Lokka is in the central plane, having the time of her life exploring new lands when she stumbles across a crying Marinette who is very lost 

Unlike Lokka, Marinette does not know where she is or what is going on. She literally just tripped into a portal and has no way home.

Lokka takes Marinette under her wing and promises to help her find a way home

Problem is, she doesn’t know which of the three universes Marinette is from.

Even if/when she finds out that the girl is from MLB-verse, she still wouldn’t know which one that is because she has no reference to which world is which. Only that Marinette is probably not from Asgard.

At this point, she is unaware she lived in Marvel, she just knows Asgard is Norse Mythology.

So they continue to wander the central plane, Marinette ends up picking up a card guardian for a pet, accidentally becoming a cardcaptor. 

Marinette has trouble pronouncing Lokka and Lokka gives Mari permission to call her Cosette (pre-reincarnation name)

Meanwhile, Ra’s sends Damian and Talia into the Central plane for combat experience and resource gathering.

Ra’s might be 700 years old, he might have access to the Central plane but he sure doesn’t know about magic or how it came to be or the current state of it. He might know something’s off because all the inhabitants have been increasingly on edge and the weather’s been stranger than usual but he didn’t deemed it important

Notably, he has never seen anyone other than those who he’d sent in himself in the central planes (CP, from now on bc I am getting tired of typing the entire thing out) so as far as he knows, the CP’s only entrance point is under his control.

Talia and Damian, who’s still going by Hafid, go hunting for resources and training

They separate for a bit for individual hunting/training time

Marinette and Cosette (Lokka) stumble across Damian’s camp

Misunderstandings occur, Damian fights them, more accurately he fights Cosette

Cosette tries to protect Marinette while also making sure not to harm her opponent

It was harder than she expected considering her opponent was a child

Asgardian training pulls through and she is able to do both

Damian’s tied up, Marinette is confused, and Cosette does not want to deal with this

Negotiation time

Marinette can’t speak Arabic, Damian doesn’t know french, and Cosette has all-speak

This means Cosette’s sitting there, having to repeat everything the kids say to each other for translation’s sake

also misunderstandings before the kids realize allspeak is a thing

Cosette is stuck with two kids who don’t like each other, one of which barely puts up with her so she does what most adults do when kids are too troublesome

Distract them: she does magic tricks with actual magic

Damian+Marinette are fascinated, Cosette accidentally gains two magic students 

even though she’s still learning herself and all she has for guidance right now are Loki’s and Frigga’s notes

So, the trio end up travelling together

Damian demands Marinette should at least be able to fight so they train her too

They also figure out that Marinette and Damian’s worlds are not the same.

Cosette drills some value of life, basic morals, and feminism into Damian’s head

Marinette and Damian (Hafid) have trouble pronouncing each other’s names

They chose nicknames for each other from Cosette’s bedtime stories

Marinette is obviously angel or Tenko

Damian is gets Kabane, the name of a half demon

Kabane later changes to Kasane, protective blade

Yes, Cosette was/is a weeb and yes, they still mispronounce names which defeats the whole purpose but at least they kids don’t notice now even if Cosette is cringing every time they

They run into another card guardian and this one goes to Damian.

Cosette does not pout about this, it would be very immature

One training montages, several fights, a couple language lessons, and an abandoned (and Cosette-raided) house later, Cosette gets to the part of Loki’s notes where she figures out that the CP is collapsing in on itself and uh-oh

She tells the kids the gist of it but they’re too smart, ask all the right questions, and end up figuring out the important parts of situation that she’s trying to keep from them

Cosette is both impressed and a little put out, mostly impressed because not only did they figure out extremely complex magic, they also mostly remained level headed.

Marinette wants to rescue the card guardians and for once Damian is backing her up so Coestte gives up the notion of returning home and they go collect the guardians.

Remember, DC and MLB universes are closing in on each other 

MCU is drifting away

If they don’t collect the guardians, Cosette would have the time to just drop them off at their world collection points and head back to hers

After collecting a couple guardians, they end up finding Talia and explain the situation to her.

Talia joins the gang, she may or may not be plotting a marriage

They raid a couple more houses, collect the 54 card guardians, and complete the power transfer ritual (replacing the Yue’s trial because the cards are the guardians)

The cards end up latching onto the three kids. 

Marinette gets the Mistress title, Damian gets Sun Guardian, and Cosette gets Moon guardian.

Originally Cosette was going to be the mistress and Marinette the Moon guardian but because of the way I’ve decided magic works in this world - explaining that will need a whole other post - if Marinette is the moon guardian and gets the Ladybug miraculous, she will - for lack of better word - get sick and possibly die... or not.

Y’know what, it made sense at the time. But now that I think about it, we’re going back to the original idea.

Cosette’s the Card Mistress, Marinette’s the Moon guardian and Damian’s the Sun guardian.

Spoiler alert: that is a plot point for tropes-verse.

The completion of the ritual breaks puts CP deteriorations in high acceleration

Damian and Talia get into their circle, Cosette and Marinette in the other

Damian doesn’t have any cards bc he doesn’t want his grandfather trying to get to them. He and Talia agreed Ra’s would only know about the CP’s destruction. He does, however, have a CP beast that they picked up.

CP beast: magical creature that was born of CP’s magical residue or smth

Damian’s looks like a Teddiursa (Teddy bear pokemon) it is not

They have a notebook from a raided house detailing CP’s deterioration for proof

Cosette goes with Marinette because she can’t make it back to her universe and in the event that Marinette’s also from Cosette’s universe, she won’t be alone

They separate with the promise of meeting again.

At this point, I have had several differing ideas

They all go into DC world because they aren’t sure of Marinette’s world

Child trio goes into MLB world and Talia tells Ra’s Damian died

Everyone goes into MLB and Ra’s finds out about the collapse when he tries going in himself and finds out he can’t and just assumes they died

Y’all, I’m starting to see why I can’t do one-shots…

One of the things I forgot to mention in the rambling post is that while Marvel-verse was pulling away, it also messed with the time regulation thing, a day in the Maribat-verse will

Time in CP was very messed up

Kind of assumed readers could piece it together but I figured might as well make it obvious and straight up say it

MLBU: Cosette and Marinette arrive safely 

Marinette is delivered home and Cosette has to figure something out

They find out Marinette has only been gone for a week

Marinette has some separation anxiety for about three days

Cosette slowly realizing this is an MLB universe and having a crisis

Cosette gets adopted by the Dupain-Chengs and starts working at the bakery

I have not figured out ages for Cosette

MLB goes like most Maribat fics pre-gotham because I’m lazy

Will likely be adjusted if I ever actually write this fic

Except Cosette steps in when things got too far and Paris has 3 heroes

Cosette is the known as the Sorciere or Lokka

Her uniform is just her asgardian armor

Good but misguided Adrien, Cosette probably adopts him too

Love square goes platonic and Cosette is glad this rom-com is over

Magic tutoring continues

Cosette is neutral with Fu and fascinated by the miraculous

You remember those ghost interactions? Those are filtering in

One of the first things to merge is the internet, because it doesn’t have a physical body and it’s just waves of information

News and discoveries between the world are being swapped

Given what I remember from DC and dimension travel, it wouldn’t be surprising if they figured out universes were merging.

The news about JL and Paris’s situation are causing all kinds of confusion

Cosette beings looking for information on Damian

As the physical world begins merging, there’s pockets of space where you can slip from one world into another; not quite portals but close

Eventually the trip to NY became a trip to Gotham because their plane slipped between planes (sorry, I saw the chance and I had to take it.) but yeah, that happened.

There’s quite a few details I’m forgetting

DCU: Damian and Talia arrive ok and report bare basics to Ra’s

It has also only been a week

Ra’s is displeased to find them back until they report the state of the CP

There’s the whole coup not long after and Damian is sent to Bruce

Damian is much more innocent looking when he’s bringing what appears to be a teddy bear with him

It’s name is Abd and it has grown wings by now. Actual name pending.

He gets teased about it, but under Cosette’s teachings, he has learned the virtue of patience, underestimation, and getting revenge with a side of entertainment

He does not try to kill Tim either

He also has to make the choice of bringing Abd with him as Damian or as Robin

He choses to make a side company for WE making toys based off creatures from the CP so Abd wouldn’t look too out of place

It takes two weeks for the bats to realize there’s something off about the Abd

They are convinced it’s haunted and Damian is very entertained

Abd only moves in daytime when no one - Damian excluded - can see it

Movement can expel magic that interferes with recording tech

Alfred is the first to figure it out and surprise, surprise, he has some magic books for Damian to learn from

It’s from the Wayne family library and they just assumed the language was lost to time. At least three are from Alfred’s own family.

Bat brothers spend the next 6 months trying to convince Damian his magical pet bear is a haunted doll.

Damian sort of getting along with Poison Ivy because his Sun magic is very compatible with plants and they love him

On an unrelated note, the plants seem to refuse to attack the new Robin

Damian randomly, unconsciously humming to songs Cosette and Marinette sang

Damian just vibing with the magic users of JL and Teen Titans

No one took him seriously at first but he pointed something out during a conference

“Robin, stand down and let the magic users handle this” - Green Lantern, probably

Constantine who actually knows what he’s talking about “No, no, let the boy talk.”

The plan was twice as efficient after Damian was through with it

Now Constantine’s trying to adopt Damian as an apprentice, he’s failing bc the bats are protective and possessive of what is theirs

Reminder that Damian brings Abd with him everywhere and he’s still getting teased about it from anyone who is not a bat (still convinced the thing is haunted)

The only thing the magic users have picked up about Abd is that he’s a magical construct which could mean a number of things but they brush it off as just a doll.

No one is prepared for the thing to come to life, multiply in size, and start spitting ice, sleep sand, and illusions. (Hiccups bubbles and can also turn into a cloud.)

They are also not prepared for the thing to quadruple in size and for Damian to ride it like a horse into battle. Reminder that Abd has wings and can fly.

Confusing talk about what’s going on in Paris and some other parts of the world

JL slowly figure out the universal merger that Damian already knows about

Damian is not impressed, it took him and Angel about 2 hours as 9 year olds

Somehow, Damian still has the ice prince image, less demon spawn though, that goes to Abd

Time moves on and one day, a plane from the other world arrives in Gotham

There’s a bit of confusion but it’s not exactly the first time something like this has happened at this point

WE steps up and offers jobs and a tour and all the usual Maribat plans (not just for the kids but all the other people on the plane)

Given the merger of the internet, MLB class and crew have some idea who the Waynes are and they accept. 

Estimated about 6 months for full merger so people from MLB world are kinda just stuck there until then

Lila literally cannot lie about knowing the Waynes personally but she sure can lie about other things.

Dick and Damian are sent in to monitor the group

The reunion is awkward given they can’t freely interact and are not supposed to know each other. 

While Dick is talking, there are just wide eyed staring between Marinette, Damian, and Cosette. With something a little extra between Marinette and Damian.

Cosette is torn between laughing and groaning at another rom-com trope coming in fast.

She ends up filming it bc blackmail is always good to have

Adrien is confused and quite frankly, he’s really just there to cover for them

The tour begins and about five minutes in, the trio breaks off and exchanges stories and names.

Cosette hears about Batman and has a dawning realization of what this world is, mentally nopes out, later digests that they are going into Maribat verse

Starts checking off Maribat tropes they’re coming across bc she might as well have fun with it

They continue to meet up

Batfam thinking Damian somehow managed to get two girlfriends

Damian choking on his breakfast when it is brought up

The girls are invited to dinner and Damian is just dying inside

Cosette blatantly hitting on all Damian’s brothers in the first 5 minutes

Damian screaming internally while Cosette cackles

Dick is awkward until he realizes it’s a joke, Jason plays along, Tim has an awkward bean crisis

Tim x Cosette? Maybe.

Cosette does that sit and repeat thing at least three times out of habit

Batfam gets full explanation about how they met and everything

I have played with the idea of Cosette getting fear gassed a couple times and Idk how it would go tbh.

That’s as far as I got with this version, so shenanigans ensue

Pretty sure they used the cards and magic throughout even if I didn’t mention it

Absolutely would be useful for being in two places at once

I later changed so the merger happens and then Paris’s heroes meet the Justice League

Damian immediately recognizing Cosette but not Marinette bc magic

still effective but weaker because of Damian’s magic type

He later recognizes Marinette later when she pulls off a move he taught her way back in CP

Nickname confusion for everyone else

Cosette vs Constantine on who gets to teach Damian magic

Damian goes to Paris. They beat Hawkmoth and then go to Gotham.

Also had a general idea of a plot with LoS that never got fleshed out past existing

If we’re going for the rebound version: Cosette reunites with Thor and Loki during the Avengers movie

Also, poor Heimdallr. He probably had a lot of headaches with the universe crash

Accelerated merger because of the convergence in the dark world.

I wanna go with 2012 Avengers towers shenanigans. + Loki and his sort-of but not really daughter

Cosette vs Antman, shrinking/growing, science vs magic.

And then there’s the whole Ironman vs Batman vs Arrow rich boy fight

Hammer x Luthor or Hammer vs Luthor?

Also, Cosette just staring at her home universe in betrayal and being insulted she didn’t think of it earlier because classic Nordic myths had Loki as Odin’s brother and not his son among other things but still

Fight against Thanos is a bit anti-climatic when you give a gremlin murder child magic and a sword that can through anything, including magical artifacts.

this baby boy can and will fight God and Cosette’s not really the kind to hold him back

If I actually wrote this, a lot of things would probably change because I’d actually have to put more thought into logistics and how things work

[be-good-be-safe-be-kind]

'No matter how much research I had done, I constantly felt like I was "missing" something - like everybody else around me already caught on and understood their experiences and their alters and everything, and I was an outsider'

entire post and this line especially is very relatable. been researching and in therapy on/off for dissociation and possible disorder already uhh... 7 years? documents say 2014 but that doesn't feel right (2015 still feels like 5 years ago and age feels stagnant), and still have the 'missing' feeling.

therapy today actually went through notes that were found while cleaning out an old backpack. there's a familiar name on the papers and the handwriting looks enough like mine but the content makes no sense to me. how could 2018 me have written 'epiphanies' about the past ("had to attend training before working at [childcare place]; reviewed signs of abuse and neglect and if/when to report. by those standards, i guess we [me and siblings] were 'severely mistreated' at best") when 2014 me had very, very detailed recollections of these things ("the bar soap tastes doesn't taste as bad as the liquid soap" "cost $10 but fuzzy pajamas were worth it. it's cold at night outside" "[friend]'s mom has to know it doesn't actually take us this long to do homework. she makes sure we sit at the kitchen table instead of the living room, she's gotta see we're on youtube, and she says things like 'dinner will be ready soon' even though i already got to eat snacks from their fridge") and where did those 4 years go? how could all that be forgotten and all feel like me and not-me at the same time? what makes this not just 'regular' memory loss and an actual dissociative disorder thing?

there's times of 'where did the time go?' and 'what was i doing in this room?' and 'why is this in my search history?' but also i have focus and sensory issues. i forget to eat or drink if i'm too uncomfortable to move, and that can be minutes or hours. and being in that weird zone can lead to weird searches, so the idea of these things being alters switching is... yeah, a weird idea to me personally. i'm not 100% on board with my diagnosis (i'm 100% on board with accepting DID as something that exists; it's the 'this exists and you have it' that i have trouble with) because of the 'should's - i should know if and when i'm experiencing symptoms, i should have a vague idea at least of how many alters there are, etc. - even though this isn't how it works.

OP, i dunno if this counts for anything, but i also don't really relate to the descriptions of dissociation. i can sometimes connect with certain aspects but like you said, the 'this seems explainable / a regular thing' and amnesia kinda makes it difficult to identify symptoms. it's frustrating and furthers the cycle of shame and doubt.

"When the only language you are given to explain a phenomenon is language you cannot relate to, it only makes sense that you then decide you must not relate to that phenomena."

^ exactly. i'm glad that the first sources i had for researching dissociation was formal literature, as opposed to community blogs and more 'average reader friendly' material (i'm glad these things exist as well but dang are they a lot to filter through to find scraps of information). seeing the language shifts in those contexts felt less alienating, because they were already from outside perspectives and dealt in hypotheticals ('if a client' 'subjective symptoms' etc.) as opposed to things with personal accountability ('here is a list of the names, ages, sexualities of my system'). (<- this also seems really irresponsible and dangerous to me, maybe i'm just old but giving out your info is like... not a great idea). papers describing 'heightened emotional states' acting in ways that the client felt disconnected from feel easier for me to connect with than 'alters.'

the examples of people being able to point and say "[name] did this/feels like that/behaves and appears in these ways" is frustrating and like i can't even be disordered in the right way, so that must mean that i'm not disordered at all? which yeah, not how disorders work, i know, but brains be weird like this sometimes.

with the apple example, i feel like there's also the inverse, like someone gives you sweet + green + large = ? and they expect you to say ? = apple when it can be honeydew melon or zucchini or donut or a race car, if you use 'sweet' like 'cool.' memory gaps + disconnection from surroundings + symptoms causing distress = ? where ? is expected to be DID when this can be ADHD hyperfocus or autism overwhelm and shutdown or PTSD. it's hard to have 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 when the the numbers aren't objective. the DSM has 5 diagnostic criteria for DID, the last 2 of which are exclusions so it's more like 1 + 2 + 3 + -5 + 5 = 6, like there's more variables than you originally thought but the outcome is meant to be the same. there's probably a metaphor or comparison to something here but i'm too tired to follow this thread.

going back to the start of the post, i'm really curious about this part - "I think what people don't realize is that you oftentimes might not know you have the symptoms of DID until AFTER you start to explore the idea of having it in the first place." maybe it's 'cause i'm new to the tumblr side of DID or 'cause i'm tired, but this confuses me. it seems to say that there are people who seem to have awareness of DID symptoms specifically as DID symptoms, like they can recognize them as DID as opposed to other things. "You don't realize what symptoms you have until you really dive deep and try to LOOK for the symptoms in the first place" yeah this i get. i dunno. been a long day and this is getting too long.

AAAA I have so many thoughts actually

I think what people don't realize is that you oftentimes might not know you have the symptoms of DID until AFTER you start to explore the idea of having it in the first place.

It was so difficult trying to figure out what symptoms applied to me, what symptoms I related to, what symptoms I was exhibiting, etc.

And that's because DID in and of itself oftentimes even hides those symptoms from you in the first place (especially if you are polyfragmented).

You don't realize what symptoms you have until you really dive deep and try to LOOK for the symptoms in the first place.

Like, not only can a LOT of the DID symptoms be chalked up to "normal, everyday things", but the amnesia and general dissociation that comes along with the disorder makes it difficult to really KNOW if you have those symptoms, how often you experience them if at all. It makes it hard to say for certain "yes, I relate to that" because amnesia can make it seem like you never experience it, or that you "only rarely, if ever" experience it. And dissociation, shame, denial, etc. can make it to where you downplay it if you DO experience it. AND, as I said, a lot of it is oftentimes excused by other things.

Especially, for me particularly, I never really related to "derealization/depersonalization."

I certainly did in the past, and I know I still do, but the thing is, I don't personally relate to the way that dissociation is DESCRIBED.

And I don't know if I'm alone in that?

That DES test that everybody talks about is like my #1 enemy (this is a joke/light-hearted lmfao) because I could never really understand or relate or apply the things that the questions are asking me to myself. I also could not understand what they mean, and a lot of them did not apply to me because of my specific life circumstances, etc.

I would try taking that test on multiple different occasions and feel upset, frustrated and invalidated, because I could not understand the questions; I could not understand what they mean and apply them to myself; I could not make an accurate guesstimate on "how often" they applied to me; and I couldn't relate to them.

I would try taking it and would get scored anywhere from around 23% to 32% at MOST. And it invalidated me so bad, because my friends would be getting scores in the 40% ranges, and I felt like "I guess I don't have DID then" and "I guess I just don't have it that bad"

I would see people making posts about the test online and "brag" almost about "haha lol I got 48% lol oops" and I felt so invalidated because I never saw anybody get below that. It made me feel like I don't have DID at all and that I didn't have it that bad.

And the people who would tell me they didn't think I had DID, etc. and even one therapist (who was really shit honestly oh God I should make a post rambling about him cause. Oh Boy.) and a random psychiatrist I tried to see for a diagnosis (I hoped to be able to get diagnosed and go straight to a therapist instead of having to see a therapist to diagnose me first - I do not recommend this) (She was also horrible), coupled with the fact I just never met or saw anybody else like me, made it real difficult to believe that I could possibly have DID or OSDD.

And looking back at everything, my unawareness of everything - my symptoms, my feelings, everything - made it so much more difficult to be able to describe the precise experiences I was having.

Here I was, going out of my way to "that wasn't another alter- it was just.. Me, doing and saying things, by choice, I am always in control, it wasn't someone else!!!" while every single person around me so outwardly, so flawlessly, and so effortlessly seemed to fit right into system spaces; using the language of "fronting", "switching", "co-consciousness" as if it came naturally to them, and I could never understand, I could never relate.

No matter how much research I had done, I constantly felt like I was "missing" something - like everybody else around me already caught on and understood their experiences and their alters and everything, and I was an outsider intruding in spaces I didn't belong.

No matter how much I thought I knew about DID, no matter how much people and the internet would say "hey, you know DID doesn't require (xyz)", I still felt like "but surely there's something missing that I'm not getting; surely there's something that these people are experiencing that I clearly am not, because if I was, wouldn't I be able to relate to these words to? Wouldn't I know who my alters are by now? It's been years, why am I still so in the dark, and everybody else around me knows so much? There MUST be something I'm missing."

I still felt like I was waiting for myself to pass out or have some experience where I've just "teleported" somewhere with no memory of how I got there, or some "obvious" sign that I've switched, and no matter how much research I did, no matter what people told me, I was still waiting, I was still expecting SOMETHING.

SOMETHING that would make it "obvious" that I've switched; SOMETHING that would make it "obvious" that I have DID; SOMETHING that would make it clear as day and undeniable.

Of course it never happened, because it doesn't work like that.

But when people so effortlessly talk about their alters using language like this:

"Gary is really depressed and likes to write poetry; he only fronts to feel our depression. He doesn't really like to talk to people, so he keeps to himself. He speaks bluntly and doesn't even really like to speak in general, it's too much energy for him when he fronts."

Instead of:

"When I'm really depressed, I really like to write poetry. I don't really like to talk to people when I feel that way, when I'm in that state, and I don't really like to speak at all, it feels like too much energy, when I'm in that state of mind. I also tend to speak more bluntly when I'm like that."

It becomes hard to believe that you have DID at all when the first example is the only way people seem to talk about their alters and their DID.

With the first example, it gives the impression that you're speaking about a totally separate person (which, is totally valid if your alters work that way, but that is besides my point here). It gives the impression that the person who has DID/OSDD is speaking about totally separate people, and like "someone else is in control of that person" or something. At least to me, it did. And that's what I was waiting for, some "obvious" sign, some "obvious" THING to happen to me that would make it clear as day that I had switched, that I was a totally different person, etc. and I was still waiting for SOMETHING to happen, despite what I had researched, despite what people said, because the only way people ever talk about their alters is with the first example.

And I couldn't get it, I couldn't relate, I couldn't understand.

When the only language you are given to explain a phenomenon is language you cannot relate to, it only makes sense that you then decide you must not relate to that phenomena.

It's like if I tried to find resources about DID/OSDD in a language I can't understand, putting it through Google Translate a few times, and then trying to read it and then trying to apply it to myself.

There are endless ways to describe subjective experiences, and when you are only given a few descriptions to choose from, it's easy to say "I don't relate to any of these!" when there are billions of other ways to describe the same phenomena.

It's like if you were told to describe an apple, but you were only given three descriptions to choose from, all of which may or may not be true, depending on the size of the apple, what kind of apple, the color, etc.

Like you're given these three options to describe an apple:

Sweet

Green

Large

Like, sure, all three could apple to a wide variety of different apples, but... There are so many other descriptions you could choose from, and these three descriptions may not apply to every single apple. Sometimes apples are not green, and sometimes they aren't so much sweet as they are sour. Sometimes they are small.

But when you're only told that these are three examples of descriptions of an apple, and you're not given any other language, you start looking at red apples or tiny apples or sour apples and questioning "is that really an apple..?"

*This also applies to OSDD if it applies, I'm just a guy with DID and can only speak about DID since I don't have OSDD

[beels-burger-babe]

Hi! I saw that requests are open, if it's not a problem could i request Satan reacting to MC coming to him with new books every time they hang out because they want him to read them out loud since they have a short attention span? Like, Satan would be reading said book while MC is drawing or doing something else.

I have adhd and reading books that are not digital is a nightmare for me, so him reading out loud would be pretty relaxing.

Btw it's up to you if you wanna do headcanons or a oneshot!

ABSOLUTELY!!! So this is actually my first request and I'm super excited because as someone who also has ADHD I can totally relate! I hope you like it!

Too Still, Too Quiet

GN!MC with ADHD Summary: Satan notices that MC seems to have a hard time hanging out with him; he's determined to get to the bottom of the issue and find a solution.

After living in the House of Lamentation for nearly a year, you've grown accustomed to the many quirks that came with living with the seven Lords of the Devildom. You had gotten close to the brothers, and as they picked up on your symptoms for your ADHD, they each found their own ways of being helpful. Lucifer had always known, as it was written on your file, and made a point of sending you subtle reminders throughout the day to keep you organized and on task. He brushed it off saying that it merely prevented him from having to go after you later on if you forgot or did something incorrectly.  Mammon was no stranger to having a hard time prioritizing and staying focused and took pride in lending you some of the different tools he used to fidget with. After all, his human deserved the best, and you couldn’t get any better than using something that belonged to the great Mammon. Leviathan’s room provided a relaxing atmosphere with just enough stimulation to keep your brain satisfied enough to focus on your school work and tasks. The sounds of the aquarium provided a fantastic back ground noise, and Levi always took caution in wearing his headphones when he gamed if you were working in his room to not add to the distractions around you.  Asmodeus had a good eye for when you were growing too frustrated by the regular chaos that tended to fill the House of Lamentation and would pull you aside to his room for some self-care to help calm you down. There was nothing like a head message and face mask from Asmo as he happily gossiped about the latest drama in The Fall to help ground you.  Beelzebub, on the other hand, was great at noticing when you were starting to grow restless. In those moments, he’d not-so-subtly state that he was heading to the gym and it’d sure be nice if he had someone to join in before very obviously making eye contact with you. At first you had a hard time figuring out a good balance between a work out that satisfied Beel while also not killing you. But now the two of you easily worked with each other until you were both sweating, smiling, and happy. He also made sure to remind you to eat through out the day whenever you went to a round of hyper-fixation on something. Belphegore wasn’t particularly helpful when it came to your forgetful spells or disorganization as, being the Avatar of Sloth, he would normally encourage such behavior. Instead, he did what he did best, and helped put your wandering mind to ease whenever you were trying to sleep.  The only person, and not for a lack of trying, that you just couldn’t seem to find a flow with was Satan. 

He was too quiet and organized for you to be able to stand being around him for long periods of time. You had tried hanging out with him a couple of times, but after a few minutes of him silently reading or him explaining whichever text he was currently studying, you would grow restless and distracted.  Which brought you to your current situation.  Satan had invited you to come relax in his room with him, as the rest of his brothers were dealing with the aftermath of their most recent dilemma. It wasn’t so bad at first, some light conversation here, some banter there, but soon your mind started to wander off to the spines of the endless books around you as you pondered on what might be inside them.  “MC?”  Your attention snapped back onto Satan, who stood frowning at you. You blushed and scratched the back of your neck. “Oh, I’m sorry. I got a little distracted. What were you saying?”  Satan sighed as his frown deepened.  “I’ve noticed that tends to happen a lot with you. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” He quickly amended raising his hands in defense. “But it seems particularly bad when you’re with me. You get quite jittery and I don’t think you’ve ever stayed in my room longer than ten minutes,” for a second his eyes almost looked sad as he looked over at you, “Is it something I’m doing? Do I make you uncomfortable?”  “No! Satan, no, it’s not you I promise!” You quickly reassured moving closer to him. “It’s just well I have a hard time staying still and focusing on things and when it gets too quiet it bothers me because then my brain is like hyper fixating on the smallest noises in the room, even though I’m supposed to be focusing on what you’re saying or my work, and it’s like, is that a page a turning or a something scratching at the door and then I start wondering about what kind of things could be in here and-”  “MC.” Satan cut off, though he didn’t seem annoyed. In fact, his eyes now gleamed with a sense of understanding. “Do you happen to have ADHD?”  “Yeah, I thought you all knew? Lucifer told all of you when I arrived right? That’s why everyone is so-” you moved your hand in a vague gesture that even you weren’t entirely sure what it was meant to symbolize.  Satan huffed and shook his head. “Lucifer did no such thing. I imagine he would’ve told us if it came to be a big enough problem. But you know him. He takes pride in being the only one to know certain things. “  You frowned and tilted your head in confusion. “But then what about the others? They’ve all been helping me out for months now.”  Satan placed a hand under his chin in thought, “They most likely took note of individual symptoms and decided to help. Belphegore, and possibly even Leviathan and Asmodeus may have put two and two together, but the rest probably think you’re just forgetful or that you’re restless,” he smiled reassuringly at you, “but that’s besides the point. Now that I know, I can help make you feel more at ease when you’re with me. What’s the main issue that you-” “It’s too quiet!” You quickly cut off, causing Satan to raise an eyebrow. “When we’re in here relaxing and you’re just reading and I’m supposed to be reading too, it’s too quiet. I try to focus on the book, but my mind keeps jumping around to other things. And I want to read all those books you’ve recommended to me, I really do, but I start feeling bored after a little while and next thing I know I jumping sentences without noticing and then I’ve gone an entire chapter with no recollection of what I’ve just read because I wasn’t really paying attention to the words at all I was just flipping pages without realizing it, so I have to go back and re-read the whole thing all over again!” You throw your hands in the air in frustration. “Is exhausting and makes me feel dumb, so I get up and do something else instead.”  Satan nodded, taking in every word carefully. “Well first of all,” you yelped as he flicked your forehead.  “Ouch! What was that for?!”  The demon smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “For calling yourself dumb. Just because you have more difficulty with literature than others, does not mean you’re dumb. You simply require a different reading strategy than what most consider “usual”, and I believe I have a solution that would suit both of us,” you perked up at his words. “I recommended those books to you because I greatly enjoyed them myself. How about, when you’re here, you can choose a book you want to read, and I will read it out loud for you? That should help, yes?”  A light airy warmth filled your chest at just how accommodating Satan was willing to be. “But what about the books that you were reading?”  The demon shrugged, “I can always read them in my spare time.” He moved closer to take your hands into his, silently demanding your full attention. “I want to spend more time with you and get to know you better. I want you to be comfortable and be able to be yourself when you’re around me without feeling stressed. This is honestly the least I could do for you, MC.”  Blushed rushed to your cheeks as you felt your heart flutter in your chest. You awkwardly cleared your throat and took your hands back, rubbing them on your legs as you noted how clammy they were. “I think I-I would like that a lot” The grin on Satan’s face widened as he took one of your hands and lead you deeper into the bookshelves of his room. “Splendid! Then why don’t we get try right away? Take you pick, MC, I will be your narrator for the evening and for as long as you wish.”  ***** I hope this was something along the lines of what you were looking for! It is a little short, but I hope you like it. Thank you so much for the request, I loved it! Requests are OPEN and I would definitely love to complete some more if anyone has any ideas or prompts that they’d like me to complete. Just send in an ask and, if I feel comfortable with it, I’ll do my best to make a fic for it!

[piracytheorist]

I was writing out a long ass ask about a series of youtube comments i saw from John Wolfes (I have a vague recollection of him being included in a reaction video for the ending of Video and him being sad Ethan died) final playthrough of Village (laptop lagged a bit and I clicked on it by accident) and for some reason I got curious and looked through the comments and there was a series of conversations with this one person who well let me show you the highlights for two of them (I did respond to this particular comment cos internet arguement mode kicked in)

comment one: "That's what RE8 does. It doesn't try to explain anything, despite literally telling the player that Mother Miranda is an uneducated peasant from the 1900s who becomes the greatest virologist in the world through unknown means, experiments on the Mold and ends up creating an embryonic clone of her daughter Eva for the sake of The Connections' research. Oh wow! She accomplished her goal of getting her daughter back before RE7 even happened? What impact does that have on the story? Fuck all! It's just a stupid, shortsighted retcon to try and give the two games a proper connecting element. It's plain bad writing, so no, I do not have to come up with an explanation or suspend my disbelief further, because I already suspended my disbelief the exact way you're insisting I should, in the DLC for RE7 where Zoe is saved despite becoming calcified the same way her parents died."

--the Bakers turned into actual mould then crumbled away (look at pictures of mould on food and compare what was left of the Bakers)

comment two: "The issue is not that I want a detailed breakdown of every single educational establishment she went to, I want to know how the fuck some rando widower with a dead daughter knows what Mycology is in 1912. Miranda is an uneducated, potentially illiterate woman from the turn of the century in the arse-end of nowhere in Romania. It's not a particularly compelling piece of fiction to show me a character and say "she has all this hyper-specialised knowledge and was able to completely bypass the functions of her local society...somehow". I don't know much about Romania, I'll admit, but I do know that in 1912 one of the only women in the world generally accepted to be above washing dishes was Queen Victoria, and that's quite a social standing difference between her and what is essentially some hick. It doesn't matter how much time she had, or if she is immortal, you need more than that to become such a phenomenal expert in a niche field of study that wasn't even widely accepted until MAYBE ten years before The Connections showed up to ask her for a Mold sample. And to finish off - Yes, her goal was in fact achieved when she created an embryo clone of Eva to experiment on alongside The Connections, because her goal was to get her daughter back. And since the Megamycete stores the genetic information, memories and subsequent personality of the people who are infected by it, she could have easily imprinted that onto the embryo clone. Why am I so sure that she could? Because the writers already established a precedent of not actually setting down hard rules for how the damn thing works. (As a side note, the T-Virus never had this issue because it was stated from the beginning that engineering specific outcomes among humans requires a specific combination of genetics, so no, the old games did not actually have this problem to such a degree.)"

the thing is its not like midwives and apothocaries exist is it?

because i'm interested in this shit I looked it up and according too All American Restoration: history of mold and building related illnesses

1837 – Stachybotrys Chartarum (known as “toxic black mold”) is first described by Corda from wallpaper collected in a home in Prague.

and the huffpost also has a brief history of mold where a defilling mold was mentioned In the Old Testament – Leviticus 14 – you will find the first written mold remediation protocol. Here’s an excerpt:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mold in a house in that land, the owner of the house must go and tell the priest, ‘I have seen something that looks like a defiling mold in my house.’ The priest is to order the house to be emptied before he goes in to examine the mold, so that nothing in the house will be pronounced unclean. After this the priest is to go in and inspect the house.

“If the mold has spread on the walls, the priest is to order that the contaminated stones be torn out and thrown into an unclean place outside the town. He must have all the inside walls of the house scraped and the material that is scraped off dumped into an unclean place outside the town. Then they are to take other stones to replace these and take new clay and plaster the house.

sorry for how long this got but I am interested

"telling the player that Mother Miranda is an uneducated peasant from the 1900s"

Wh-when did the game say that???

Someone tell this RE fanboy and his weak masculinity that people didn't start being "woke" when the internet came... the problem was that history was being written by straight white men and that's why we don't have a lot of info about women or queer people or people of other races and the role they played in history.

Like this dude thinks there weren't female scientists in the 19th century? Does he know what happened in 1911, when Eva in the RE universe was just two years old? Marie Skłodowska–Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, having already shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her then husband in 1903.

Like yeah, women scientists haven't been many - but that doesn't mean they did not exist, even before women's rights was a thing. He sounds like the kind of guy who recognizes the patriarchy hasn't allowed women in higher positions for centuries, but who also doesn't realize that women have been mentally capable of such positions and have achieved them occasionally, just not as often as men did because well, the PatriarchyTM. To him it's like, Women got their Rights and Now they are as Smart and Capable as Men. Before they got rights they were only illiterate plebeians. It was us men who made them smart!

I don't even know where the guy got that Miranda was uneducated--- and illiterate???? Seriously??? Does he even know what the word illiterate means, and that this is immediately rebuffed by the fact that we see that Miranda has written entire books of notes on her experiments along with a letter to her daughter??? Spencer's letter on her lab??? Does this guy think Miranda had a scribe to read and write for her???!

Y'all, sometimes I think internet was a mistake. Dudes being bros are just unstoppable here.

But yeah, if these comments are verbatim, it just screams to me that he's a bitter, butthurt fan of the older RE games (like, the way he mentions the T virus and how it doesn't fall into PLOT HOLE SINS like the Mold does - and by the way, he probably watches too much C!nemaS!ns and unironically thinks they're right) who is also pretty uneducated himself (the only woman who was above washing dishes was fucking queen Victoria are you real bro? also good job on jumping from Romania to England, cause ofc there weren't any other queens in the entirety of Europe at the time, he's probably one of those MuricansTM who think that Europe is a country) and thinks he's right anyway because HE'S A TRUE RESIDENT EVIL FAN! and he's just bummed with how the RE team decided to take a different route and felt he had the knowledge to actually criticize their work.

Also, of all the things to hate Miranda for, lmao. The way he talks about her supposedly being "illiterate" sounds like he hates her for that and how the game made her OP and I'm like... dude. The game gives you so many reasons to hate Miranda for. She kidnapped Mia and Rose, then killed Rose and experimented on her and Mia. She experimented on thousands of people and made the Lords' lives miserable. She tormented Ethan. She's obsessed with her daughter to the point where she'll abandon all morality in order to get her back even a century later. And I'm like, y'all don't get that, you have to create a trait of hers out of fucking thin air to hate her? Y'all that shallow?

"a niche field of study that wasn't even widely accepted until MAYBE ten years before The Connections showed up to ask her for a Mold sample"

WHAT THE ACTUAL FCUK??? Alexander Fleming created penicillin from mold in 1929! Penicillin was then widely used during WW2! WHO THE FUCK GAVE THIS DUDEBRO INTERNET

Like seriously people like him suffer from an inability to shut the fuck up and especially to think before they post. He hates a female character for supposedly being "illiterate" and how the game made her OP despite that supposed illiteracy, and he doesn't have the self reflection to think wait, I don't know shit about the history of science, maybe I should either shut up or do my research before I post shit on the internet.

And I'm like... I don't know that much myself. Everything related to science I posted here was from a five minute search on wikipedia. That's all it took, yet that dudebro couldn't do it. But Miranda's the uneducated one, sure.

But y'know, I find it so ridiculous, lol. Of all the reasons to hate Miranda for! Her one and single redeeming quality is that she was determined to get her daughter back - every other trait of hers is there for us to hate her (not in a hate-hate way, but in a way that makes her a compelling villain - love to hate if you will) yet dudebros have to come up with shit to hate her for, lmao. Sadly he's not the only one. But at least we can make a laugh out of their shit, lol.

[monsieur-guimauve]

Theory on how human Vanitas’s ending will turn out or be a result of

Spoilers ahead ! (Theories are of my opinion and not fact)

I love MochiJun’s work and there’s no telling how things will turn out when she writes a chapter. Therefore, I wanted to see what the fandom thinks about how Noe will ‘kill’ human Vanitas, as I personally don’t think it will be as straightforward as how Noe makes it out to be.

Firstly, there was an interview MochiJun did before the release of the VnC anime. One question she was asked was whether she wrote VnC based on her current inspirations, vs. if she had the whole plot thought out already. She responded that when she writes, she has a goal/destination in the storyline in mind, but how she gets there along with other things, seems to be something she does on the go.

This led some others in the fandom to believe that the dreaded scene described in Memoire 1 could be happen anytime in the storyline rather than the end, however, I personally think this could happen close to the end because Noe’s mentioned in Memoire 1 that ‘how at the END of that journey, I would kill him with my own two hands’.

As an Archiviste, it’s fitting that Noe is recording down the memory/understanding of his journey with Vanitas (including of all we gained and lost) through his perspective and how the memories of others have effected him too. The final record of this journey is the manga we know as ‘The Case Study of Vanitas’. (MochiJun you genius magnificent b********) Therefore, human Vanitas’s death towards the end makes more sense.

Now onto why human Vanitas will die because of Noe is one of the following theories:

1) Salvation for human Vanitas may be death, and he asks Noe to kill him.

I thought of this theory (though I don’t think this is very likely) because there have been hints on what salvation means to different characters. In the scene after Vanitas grants death to Catherine (little girl turned curse bearer), Noe freaks out because Vanitas couldn’t save her. Noe learns that his understanding of salvation isn’t possible or the same for others, but has a difficult time coping with it.

Salvation is brought up by Noe again after Laurent helps him and human Vanitas escape the Catacombs. As Vanitas is resting behind him, he wonders if the one who’s always saving others (Vampires) without fail, is the one who wishes to be saved the most, which is human Vanitas himself. (Something along those lines)

And after Chloe is saved from being a curse bearer, Vanitas has an inner monologue about using Blue Moon Luna’s power:’ the more you call on its power, the more you will be re-written yourself’

^We don’t know what it means to be re-written in terms of VnC. Does it mean death in general? That human Vanitas and Mikhail will be ‘reborn’ as vampires? Cease to exist or remember as you were or something worst than death? What kind of salvation does human Vanitas need to ‘remain’ human until the very end? What can Noe do to grant that to human Vanitas is something I suspect to be the cause of the scene where human Vanitas ponders about being re-written.

Also, there is a chance that Noe doesn’t owe human Vanitas in this sort of scenario, but I highly suspect he will as his guilt for not granting Louis his last wish has been glooming over him in this series. (Vanitas and Louis do share some uncanny resemblance too.)

2) Vanitas ‘dies’ in the border between the Human World and Altus

Since Vampires are the result of the Babel incident, only Vampires can cross the border into Altus. Should a human enter without physical contact of a Vampire, they risk getting lost forever between both dimensions, or that no one will know what happens to him.

We are told by Noe as he scolds human Vanitas for the risk he took, but Vanitas says there’s nothing to worry about because Noe grabbed his hand. The story continues into the Bal Masque Arc from there without much thought.

But this is significant because there are additional two instances in the story which relate to this. One is Noe’s recollection on the day he failed to grab human Vanitas’s hand. The second is back to the first Memoire when Noe’s talking about killing human Vanitas, there is a voice over of human Vanitas saying ‘Don’t worry Noe, even if I’m not here, I won’t ‘die’’. This is pretty vague, but we aren’t told exactly if getting lost between borders means actual death for a human, or whatever human Vanitas will become due to the likelihood of being ‘rewritten’ when using the Blue Moon’s power. We also need to remember that Noe, being a moralistic character with defined values, may be a bit bias when he describes intangible things like love, salvation, loss and death to the audience. (Kind of like how the OP theme song Sora to Usturo lyrics reflects the themes of human emotion, but it’s not clear if it’s in Noe’s perspective or Vanitas’)

If we stick to the theory that human Vanitas dies towards the end in relation to getting lost in the border, I suspect this may have to do with something related to Altus or the story is located in Altus around this time. Will Vampires be returned their humanity? Will there be some form of the Babel incident being re-written again? How will that effect human Vanitas, who is an artificial kin of the Blue Moon?

3) Ruthven’s curse on Noe plays a role in Vanitas’ death

I don’t think this will be a direct cause, because Ruthven’s initial intention is to use the curse to make Noe a pawn against his Teacher. Vanitas is a human who is cunning and vague motives in his eyes, but he is young and has extremely limited resources to do anything on his own. Compared to Noe’s teacher, who is probably one of the oldest vampires, he’s seen everything and probably knows and has the power to do anything against anyone, but he chooses not to, but instead, puts a huge curious responsibility on the last surviving member of a clan that’s died out to that job (Noe). That position of choice seems to unnerve other vampires like Ruthven. He has gotten some news of Vanitas’ inconsistent character from Noe, but I think at most Ruthven sees the both of them like minor nuisances, and his target is Noe’s Teacher. If Vanitas dies because of Noe’s curse, it’s likely to be indirect cause.

By this time or around Retrace 59 in Pandora Hearts, we were revealed many details and it was a huge turning point of the storyline. There’s still too much we don’t know about either protagonist's past, their future goals or those of the Vampire Senate. And the relationships between all the characters will be a key focus of the storyline too. 

Is there more to human Vanitas’s backstory? What about ‘that night’ human Vanitas killed Luna? What is Ruthven’s goal? What’s the relation between Faustina and Luna Blue Moon? Who’s No. 70? Why is Noe the last survivor? What’s Jeanne’s curse? What do we need to know more about astermite? All of these questions, I’m very very interested in learning more in the near future.

I hope that VnC will be longer than PH, as I enjoy reading things from an earnest perspective of a character like Noe.

[quizzyisdone]

Guilty (Part IX) | Female Bell! Reader x Russell Adler

A/N: I told you there’d be cute fluff. This is the last chapter to the series, but I still have an epilogue in the works and I’m currently planning a series that’d be a direct sequel to this one about hunting down Stitch. (I’m sorry, Stitch simps) Most of the chapters I’ve written for this series are full of angst, so I thought I’d throw in some fluff, y’know, as a treat. (2000+ Word Count)

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of blood and torture

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) (Part Four) (Part Five) (Part Six) (Part Seven) (Part Eight)

“I Know”

0900

London, United Kingdom

September 19th, 1984

You awoke to the sound of rhythmic beeping of various monitors and machines. You attempted to open your eyes, but the bright, fluorescent white lights of the sterile room irritated them as you squeezed them shut once more. It was then you noticed a gentle, much larger hand entwined in your own, a thumb grazing gently over your skin.

“You’re awake.” A familiar, normally gruff and husky voice said softly. You slowly opened your eyes, groggily turning your head to the direction of the voice, and in your blurred vision you could make out the vague form of Russell Adler.

“R-Russell?”

“The one and only.” Alder chuckled lightly, he was noticeably disheveled. His normally perfectly groomed hair was out of place as stubble littered his jaw. He looked ruggedly handsome like that, a refreshing change from his normal appearance.

“Where am I?” You whispered.

“You’re safe.” Adler stressed that last word. “No one’s going to hurt you anymore. How are you feeling?”

“Like fucking shit. Everything hurts.” You whined. “But, I, that night in Prague.” Your memories of what had happened were foggy at best as you struggled to recall how you even got here in the first place. Only vague, violent images plagued your mind of ruthless violence and psychological torture. “Wha-what day is it?”

“It’s been a few weeks since Prague.” He said, his hand moving to gently touch the bruises and scratches that littered your arms. Adler sighed, his brows furrowed and he frowned, but his eyes were sympathetic. “Do you remember what he did to you?”  

“Kind of. They were horrible, horrible things.” You whispered, vivid memories of the torture you were subjected to rearing their ugly head as the images began to turn into events you could actually recall. “He beat me a lot, he’d come in everyday a-and.” Tears began to well at your eyes, and Adler moved his hand to cup the side of your face, stroking your cheek with his thumb as he hushed you. But sobs still continued to rack your body, bringing sudden, sharp pain with every inhale.

“You don’t need to continue about what he did.” He reassured, wiping fallen tears with a kind smile on his face. In some sad way, he already had a good idea of what happened to you. Perseus wasn’t known to be a kind man. Adler’s hand moved to push a lock of stray hair behind your ear. “You got fucked up.” He quipped, attempting to lighten the moment with a bit of humor.

“You’re telling me.” You attempted to smile through the tears, but winced in the sudden jolt of pain. You pulled down the blanket that concealed you to reveal your abdomen. Nearly your entire torso, save for your arms and your right shoulder, were completely covered in thick layers of clean bandages. Your finger lightly grazed over one of the covered up entrance wounds on your stomach as you shut your eyes. You could vividly recollect exactly how it felt as it entered you all those weeks ago.

“Your gunshot wounds, they were infected. The doctors said it was the worst they’d ever seen.” Adler sighed. “You’re lucky to even be alive right now. When we got you here, you spent eight hours in the operating room. I-I was there for all of it.” He rubbed his eyes, he had not gotten any sleep since you arrived at the hospital. Something within him urged that he needed to be there when you woke up.

 “You were there for me?” You were admittedly shocked at that revelation.

“If you were to die, I wanted to at least be there. To say goodbye, to say I’m sorry.” Adler said, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. He looked down, turning his head from your gaze. “I almost had to a few times. They had to resuscitate you. I-I hadn’t been that scared in a long time.”

“Why were you scared?” You cupped his chin, bringing him to face you again. 

“I was scared you would - gah." Adler breathed out, trying to find the right words. "That I would lose you.” He admitted

“You can’t afford that, our job is too risky for such sentiments.” You were baffled as to why he suddenly cared so much, and he was too. All Adler knew was that you were important to him.

“I know.” He agreed. “But, what’s life without a little risk?” Adler chuckled, his finger stroking your forearm, being careful to avoid the bruises. “I know nothing can change what I did, and I know you might not ever forgive me. But now that you’re awake, you deserve this.”

You raised your eyebrows as he rose from his chair next to you, striding towards the opposite of the room, where a backpack was slumped in a chair. He zipped it open, grabbing a file which had a giant red stamp on the front that read ‘Classified’. He looked conflicted as he paused, but then grabbed a small photograph, which you couldn’t quite make out what exactly was on it. “Here.” He said, handing you the file. “Park found this at the MI6 headquarters. Said she’d been trying to get top brass to part with it for years. She only got it just a week ago.”

When you opened the dossier, Ronald Clarkson’s name was printed at the top. “Isn’t he the guy I-”

“Yeah. Turn to the third page, it has stuff about you.” Adler cut you off, and you obliged him. Your eyes went wide and your lips quivered, there was a black and white photo of you and your real name on the top, as well as some basic information. What stood out the most was what was under the ‘DOB’ section.

“What’s today?” You asked Adler.

“September 19th.” He replied.

“That means…”

“Happy birthday.” Adler smiled, his baby blues shone brilliantly in the white, sterile lights of the hospital, but there was a pained look to them. “Woods, Park and Sims went to grab you something to celebrate in case you woke up today.”

“Damn, I’m old.” You chuckled, a small grin creeping your face. 

“You don’t know old, sweetheart.” He laughed, and your smile only grew wider and a blush rose to your cheeks as your heart skipped a beat at that nickname. “Read the rest.” Adler encouraged, inwardly preparing for whatever you’d do with this information. Would you hate him? Tell him he ruined your life? Those were all fair assessments, to be honest.

 You read further, the little biography on your life and how you came to join MI6 sent your heart to your feet. 

“I wish I could remember this.” The smile left your face, and your happy tone was replaced with a painstaking dejectedness, it certainly wasn’t the reaction Adler was expecting. “I wish I could remember my parents.”

“I took that away from you.” Adler braced himself, waiting for your hatred for him to come welling up in your heart once more, he deserved your vitriol, your anger. “There’s another thing. I, uh, this is long overdue but I,” Adler hesitated. “I found this on your body when I rescued you back in Turkey.” He handed you the photograph he pulled from the backpack earlier.

It was a polaroid, a picture of yourself smiling gleefully with two much older people who bore an uncanny resemblance to you, they were wrapping their arms around you as you held a paper. It was an acceptance letter to some university. On the bottom was scrawled ‘Happy 18th’ dated 1972 in sloppy penmanship. You must've carried it with you everywhere before Arash tried to kill you.

“Are they my parents?” You glanced back up at Adler, gripping his hand, desperation in your voice, tears still streaming down your face.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’d assume so.” He affirmed. “I didn’t give it to you back in Berlin because it was a liability, but kept it in case it proved necessary.” Adler answered the question that was already forming on your lips. “I held onto it after Solovetsky.”

“Why?” 

“I meant it when I said you were a goddamn hero. I-I don’t know.” He paused. “It was the least I could do.” That had raised even more questions than it answered, on top of the existing ones that still needed answering. But not now. You didn’t want to ruin this moment with painful questions with painful answers. Later, you promised yourself. You wanted to simply enjoy this moment.

“You’re getting soft in your old age, Russell.” No matter how many times you said his first name, it sounded just as sweet as the first time you ever did. He smiled, lightly smacking your uninjured shoulder. 

“I’m not old, nor am I soft.” Adler retorted, attempting to sound offended, but his laugh betrayed him.

As the laughter died down, you sat up in the bed, sliding over so that you were closer to Adler, not caring for the pain in the moment. His face was only a foot away from yours, and he tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear.

“Why are you being so kind to me? Why don’t you hate me?” A sad smile tugged at his lips. There was something about the way he looked at you, he looked so vulnerable, so emotional. It was so unlike him.

“I don’t know.” That was all you could manage to get out. It was truthful, you didn’t understand why you didn’t want to beat him bloody anymore, you didn’t even want to hate him. You just wanted him. 

Your eyes glanced to his mouth then locked with his eyes. You barely noticed that your mouth was opened ever so slightly, as if in anticipation for his touch. He took the opportunity to close the gap, one hand moved to hold your own while the other went to cup your face as Adler joined his lips with yours.

It was unlike any of the others he had shared with you. It wasn’t a heated make out session designed to distract others or a sad, mournful goodbye like the one in Prague. The kiss was a gentle gesture of affection, sweet, unfettered by a looming, larger than life threat to the free world. Neither of you had realized just how much you were starved for such a thing until it actually happened.

You broke the kiss, resting your forehead on his own. Your eyes were still closed as his lips still ghosted your own. You could feel him smiling, content to stay there for the moment. It was a moment before you pulled back, cradling your cheek in his hand, your thumb stroking the hand that held yours.

“If you would’ve told me a year ago I’d be making out with you, I would’ve maimed you.” You giggled breathlessly. “What do we do now?” Reality had struck you again. Perseus was gone, the thing that you had made your life’s mission had now been accomplished. 

“Hudson approved my request for PTO, and MI6 has you on medical leave until November.” Adler furrowed his eyebrows as you watched conflicting thoughts dance through his mind. “Stitch is still out there, but we don’t have anything on him yet.” Adler paused, wondering if it was right to even ask this of you. “But I was hoping you’d stay in the states. With me.” He added. “You could stay here in England with Park, but you’d be safer there with me, I could protect you and-” 

You cut him off with a simple, tender look. “I would love that.” You said without thinking. Adler looked taken back by this but smiled. You rested your face in the crook of your neck as he held you with such caution and tenderness, as if you’d shatter into a million pieces if he was any rougher. “I don’t need your protection, though.” You whispered.

“I know.” Adler kissed the side of your head, enjoying simply being here with you. It was something he couldn’t ever imagine after Solovetsky, no matter how badly he wanted it. But here you were, in his arms, no longer recoiling from his touch. It was as if everything that had ever happened between you two had faded away, leaving only this sweet moment in its wake.

_______

Some of the lovely people who wanted to be tagged

@multi-fandom-imagine​

@whimsywispsblog​

@its-crank-time​

[scoups4lyfe]

Hebi Anon

Donbrothers is a show that, by some unfortunate coincidence, seems determined to dig up and expose everything I find traumatic and try to reframe them as jokes.

I was traumatized for good reasons, I do not appreciate them being used for cheap laughs

So, I did see your TW ask Hebi-san. I haven't done anything with it yet because its real personal and I didn't know if you wanted me to post that. But I will at least say that I've read it.

First things first, your thoughts/feelings/opinions are 10 billion percent valid.

Remember to take care of yourself FIRST, my friend.

I know what it's like to get triggered by something in tv shows. Episode 10 was a good example of that. The idea of being replaced and forgotten fills me with unholy fury and rage 🤪.

Another good example would be the first time I watched episode 15 of Revice (not so much anymore lol, cuz I know it was written that way for a reason and thematically I appreciate that). So funny tho cuz other liveblogs were like "True sibling behavior <33" while I was like: "Ikki and Sakura. You two are DEAD to me." (lmao)

So I 10 billion % get where you're coming from.

Thank you for choosing to share something so personal with me. I always appreciate your input.

And yeah,

I understand exactly what you're saying about asking a lot of questions that seem incredibly obvious to some people.

In school there were times I hated certain essay questions or multiple choice questions because it was too ambiguous / abstract for me and I had the constant fear of "this is too vague? What if I answer it wrong?!?"

I feel like the only time I really get stressed/anxious is usually when I have to ask a lot of questions for things I have no understanding for. Mostly because I'll probably ask the same question like 6 times just to make sure. And like you said, others kind of peg you as incompetent when you're like that.

It's rather unnecessary for me to put here, but since you shared something personal, I might as well reciprocate, if only just a bit.

I know why you hardcore empathize with Haruka/Haiku. Absolutely understandable.

For me, it's not that I solely empathize with Tarou -- am I a Tarou apologist? Lol absolutely. But I don't only see just his side.

Often I actually had "?????" times as well about a majority of his actions LOL! But I could tell he was written like that for a reason. Esp with how he's hella coded as being on the spectrum. So I knew that I needed to do a lot of research on topics I knew jack-all about so I could parse out theories/deductions.

(Which is what I've been doing lol)

I think for me, I fall right on that line of being not emotional at all, and also being overflowing with emotions always. Strong emotions tend to fizzle out quickly, like it's impossible for me to hold grudges -- I know, I've tried 🤪.

But because of this I don't get too overly attached to characters. / Situations, because my mind places that in "short term" and I forget about it by the time I wake up . (Unless, of course, it's a re-occurring thing, because then I'm not able to put it on the periphery.)

This gives me a detached way of recollecting/examining things, as the emotions don't come up with the memory I'm recollecting (usually).

So when it comes to Donbrothers, I view most of the situations neutrally. Obv I have my favoritism and what not, but that's because I looked at both sides and chose the one I felt for the best.

I said it once, twice, and I'll say it thrice, but I saw Momoi's attempt at complimenting them > over Haiku's nonsense 🤪.

And this is because out of all the people present, I felt Momoi was the one who took the biggest L in that entire interaction.

It's like I could see behind his eyes, and feel the fear and pain of dying, as well as the anxiety, confusion, etc. over the other team members essentially going "you failed to do this. So fvck you then <3. Have fun fighting alone."

AND THEN, also holding into account the fact that he's been abandoned all his life. And now his teammates are abandoning him over something he has no control over (i. e lying) / something he failed to do (compliment them).

And my heart bled for him and this injustice. ESP seeing how affected (emotionally) he is about it on the rooftop with Sonoi.

I get where the others are coming from. But to me, Momoi was the one hurting the most in the situation, and so I sided with him <3.

Now, on the topic of taking sides.

Just like how you're influenced by your experiences, I believe I'm just built to (mostly) look at both sides of the equation.

I grew up in a very small household (imagine 3 rooms, 1 bathroom and 12 people living there); and my household was/is also filled with mentally ill people.

I say this because, such small space meant A LOT of fights. But you had to 'forgive and forget' quickly cuz if not you'd be miserable for days when the ppl that screwed you over are just fine and dandy. So it's easier for me to forgive and forget than probably a lot of people.

Growing up, I also wasn't able to see myself in/mirror myself from either of my parents. So instead I mirrored myself/found comfort through tv shows. Because I didn't see myself in either of my parents, this also led me through a lot of self-reflection cuz I assumed there had to be something wrong with me (lol).

(Though this was all subconscious. The self-reflection led me to a lot of self-analysis and gave me the analytical lens I have today of viewing things from a more detached perspective)

And for me, instead of asking questions (I do sometimes, and I always have the running commentary in my head anyways) I learned to not ask questions ever.

For example, I stopped asking my mom to help me with my homework because my questions always led to a beating and my mom accusing me of making her do all the work. (RIP <3) And to this day I'd rather die than ask for help LOL.

I also never got diagnosed until literally last year. (Prior to that I didn't realize I had anything like ADHD or Bi-polar), so I was def riding the "I could do so well if I only tried harder and wasn't so lazy <3" train for basically all my life.

I can't say I've ever been bullied (by anyone outside my immediate family <3), and I always had at least 1 friend in all the schools I went to (even if I don't at all remember how I befriended them LOL).

But my traumas being directly related to my family has made it so I can't really hate or despise them. Because, they're my family you know? And they really do try their best.

The worst part is, where I'm at now I can see exactly where they're coming from. Which makes it virtually impossible to hate them for anything because it's like I can see behind their eyes and know their thoughts and feelings and worries, and idk.

I'd say my family is very dysfunctional. I could tell you a normal day in my family's household that would blow the hair right off your head.

The only way I can describe it, is (for us siblings) literally you could mirror us with the Umbrella Academy sibs.

(My older sis is Luther to a T, my younger sis is Five, my younger brother Ben, and everyone in my family unanimously agreed I'd be Klaus LOL)

Another example to what my life growing up was like,,, I'd compare it to being eerily similar to Shameless (U.S vers)'s Gallagher family.

If you. haven't seen any of those shows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There are youtube compilations LOL.

TLDR;

You didn't deserve the BS you got from those losers at ur school, I get much better now why you don't like Momoi, and I absolutely respect your opinion. Once again, thanks for sharing your experiences. If you want me to post that ask, I will. But only with your permission. Like you, I'm also influenced by my experiences/personality and because of so I'll more than likely continue my Momoi Tarou apologism.