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strangerivy · 4 years ago

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The Beginning - Sixteen

Summary: Things are going well for Kacy and Stiles but when things finally seem to be okay, a curveball is thrown. Warnings: Swearing | Violent Depictions Pairings: Stiles Stilinski x Original Character (Kacy) Genre: 18+ | Fluff | Angst Word Count: 3.7k Author’s Note: Let me know what you guys think!

|| One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Masterlist ||

Stiles and I eased into our newfound relationship easily, not much changed from our friendship other than now there was kissing. Lots of kissing. Not that I’m complaining. We became even more inseparable than before on days he wasn't here, I was with him at his house becoming a regular visitors at the Stilinski household.

Currently, we were both curled up on my bed, supposed to be working on homework but we both had other ideas. I let out a soft giggle as he pushed me back further on the bed I could feel his lips turn up into a smile on my neck. His hand slipped under my shirt as his mouth moved to my neck suckling and nipping the skin. His hand gripped onto my hip tighter as things got hotter. He moved his way back up to my mouth capturing it as he slowly moved me onto my back hovering over me slightly his hand moving up to tangle in my hair. Then the door burst open.

“Guys we- OH MY GOD!” Scott screamed after walking in unannounced sending both Stiles and I flying off the bed with a loud thump on the hardwood floor. I let out a groan rubbing my tail bone that now had a small ache from the hard landing, I popped my head up over the bed looking at a stunned Scott, eyes wide and cheeks bright red as his mouth opened and closed trying to find words for the sight he just walked into. I could see the instant regret on his face as he met my eyes with a frown.

“Scott,” I breathed using the bed to lift myself up putting on a smile “What’s up?” Stiles shot up fixing his shirt and adjusting his pants.

“I-um” Scott started shaking his head to regain his focus to the reason he burst through my door in the first place.

“You could have knocked,” Stiles grumbled sitting down on the bed next to me

“Right um-well- Derek needs us,” Scott finally stuttered out unable to make eye contact with either of us, I couldn’t help the small smile that spread across my lips at his nervousness. This was as new to him as it was to me. Before, I was just his twin sister who had never dated a guy. Sure I had kissed and made-out with other guys but never dated any so to him, I was as good as innocent.

“For what?” I asked lifting myself off the bed going to slip on my shoes

“He needs us to drive his car,” Was all he said before turning to leave out into the hall. Stiles let out a groan and I looked back to see he had flopped back onto the bed, legs dangling off the edge, I let out a small chuckle before going over to him grabbing his arms and pulling him up to go.

"He could have knocked," He repeated with a groan, I leaned up on my toes giving him a soft kiss

"Come on, Mr. Grumpy," I joked pulling him along

"I am not!" he yelled before we left the house.

“You know,” I gripped the handle on the ceiling of the mustang bracing as Scott hit a corner going well over the speed limit “When you said Derek needed us to drive his car this is not what I had in mind.”

The black SUV behind us was gaining speed as it chased us. Stiles turned back looking at the car.

“You need to go faster Scott,” Scott shifted gears hitting the gas launching us forward. We all were panicked as the car was still gaining on us

“Scott, I don’t think you're grasping the idea of a car chase here,” Stiles said staring at the car behind us as the headlights got closer and closer

“If I go faster, I’ll kill us,” Scott panicked I reached up grabbing his shoulder giving it a squeeze

“Well, they’ll kill us if you don’t,” I looked back at the car gaining on us “And I’d rather take my chances with your driving right now,” Scott sighed in frustration shifting the car again going faster a sudden screech of tires caught my attention and I saw the vehicle make a hard turn left before disappearing.

“They’re gone,” I announced confused turning back around in my seat leaning my head back against the headrest letting out a sigh of relief let myself relax for a moment. Stiles clicked the walkie on and the voice of his dad came through.

“All units, the suspect is on foot heading into the Iron Works.” It rang out, we all looked at each other as Scott headed for the Ironworks. We sped into the Ironworks and as we pulled in I heard gunshots hitting the car, I ducked down in the backseat holding back a scream as Scott screeched to a stop, Stiles opened the passenger door before hopping in the back with me over the center console.

“Get in!” Scott yelled at Derek who rushed into the car and we sped off “What part of laying low don’t you understand?” Scott yelled angrily at Derek; Derek hit the dash

“Dammit, I had him!” He yelled out, Stiles and I both leaned forward looking at Derek

“Who, the alpha?” Stiles asked

“Yes! He was right in front of me and then the police showed up!” Derek yelled nostrils flaring from his anger

“Woah hey,” Stiles started “They’re just doing their job,” he reasoned, Derek turned to look at him shooting him a death glare

“Yeah, Thanks to someone who decided to make me the most wanted fugitive in the entire state,” Derek shot staring over at Scott now

“Can we seriously get past that?” Scott shouted in a panic, “I made a dumbass mistake.”

“I knew it would come to bite us in the ass,” I muttered

“Then why didn’t you stop him? Huh?” Derek shot glaring over at me now, I went to fire back, but Stiles stopped me

“Alright! How did you find him?” Stiles asked changing the subject before Derek and I can bite each other head off, the tension lowering just a bit, I sighed leaning back in my seat. Derek scoffed shaking his head clearly not wanting to tell us.

“Can you try to trust us for at least half a second?” Scott asked eyes still focused on the road

“We did just save your life,” I reminded narrowing my eyes at the older man

“Yeah all of us,” Derek glared at Stiles making Stiles cower back resting his hand on my thigh. Derek did know how to shoot a frightening glare, I would give him that much. “Or just them,” I grabbed Stiles hand giving it a soft reassuring squeeze.

“Look, the last time I talked to my sister, she was close to figuring something out. She found two things. The first was a guy named Harris,” Stiles and I both shot forward using the front seats to hold us up.

“Our chemistry teacher?” We asked in unison getting an eye-roll from both Derek and Scott. We sat leaned forward waiting for Derek.

“Why him?” Scott asked looking over at Derek

“I-I don’t know yet,” He finally answered

“What’s the second thing?” I asked him, he leaned forward just enough to reach into his back pocket pulling out a folded piece of paper.

“Some kind of symbol,” He unfolded the paper and my eyes went wide recognizing it instantly remembering back to our history project not that long ago, Scott looked and recognized it as well. Scott let out a sigh turning back to the road. Derek was quick to notice our discomfort. “What? Do you two know what this is?”

I glanced over at Scott and then back at Derek. “I’ve seen it on a necklace,” Scott answered

“It’s Allison’s necklace,” I muttered just loud enough for them to hear the memory of Allison showing it to me flashing through my mind for the family history project, Scott’s jaw clenched as he shifts the car into the next gear and sped off getting us back home.

Even though the events of last night screwed with my sleep schedule a little I still got up with a little pep in my step, as I had been since the night of the full moon. The sun shined through my window and I reached over cracking it a little to let the fresh air roll in a small shiver running down my spine. I got out of bed padding over to the bathroom shutting the two doors getting in the shower quickly. I heard Scott's bathroom door open and him walk over to the sink and then the facet turn on and a sudden burst of freezing water shot down at me causing me to yelp.

"Scott!" I screamed in frustration moving away from the cold water, I heard him chuckle

"That's for last night," He chuckled walking out of the bathroom

"You could have knocked!" I shot back reaching out to test the water before finishing up letting out a few choice words at him quietly.

We got to school locking up our bikes and Stiles was right outside to greet us. He walked up to me with a warm smile as we got to him leaning down giving me a quick peck on the cheek before draping his arm around my shoulder as we walked to the school.

“So, how we going to get the necklace from Allison?” Stiles asked curiously looking over at Scott who let out a groan tossing his head back as we entered the school.

“You do know, this is gonna be impossible right?” Scott asked holding the door open for us to walkthrough

“Yeah, that necklace is a family heirloom,” I stated

“Okay, well just ask her if we can borrow it,” Stiles suggested as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“How?” Scott asked

“It’s easy, you just say ‘hey Allison, can I borrow your necklace so that I can see if there is anything on it or in it that can lead me to an Alpha that I need to kill in order to get back together with you,’” Stiles joked Scott and I both gave him a blank stare

“Sweetheart,” I said in the sweetest tone I could, he turned his head to look at me with a bright smile, my face dropped into a scowl, “You’re not helping,” Stiles let out a frustrated sigh

“Okay look, why don’t you just talk to her?” He asked Scott and I let out a small snort, Stiles shot me a small glare giving my waist a small squeeze as a nice way of saying shut up, we started to walk down the hall slowly

“She won't talk to me,” Scott frowned “What if she only like takes it off in the shower or something?”

“That’s why you ease back into it, okay?” Stiles said “Get back on her good side and remind her of the good times! Then you ask for the necklace,” Stiles made it sound so simple, Scott looked over at me as if asking if he was right and I shrugged as a response. Did I think it would work? Well, I mean probably not but it was worth a try.

Scott had a blank stare on his face and then a smile slowly spread across his face making me raise an eyebrow, I looked over at Stiles and he just rolled his eyes hitting Scott's shoulder to get his attention.

“You’re thinking about her in the shower now aren’t you,” Stiles asks, and Scott nodded his head

“Yeah,” he answered with a cheeky grin, I faked puking causing his smile to spread even wider

“Look just focus,” Stiles started ignoring us “Get the necklace, get the cure and get Allison back, got it?”

Scott nodded and Stiles turned grabbing my hand and started walking down the hall. “Let’s get you to class,”

“How kind of you,” I joked with a smile, he snorted shaking his head, I looked back at Scott who was walking towards there class. “Do you think he can do it?” Stiles looks back to before looking back ahead, he brought my hand to his lips gently kissing my knuckles.

“I really hope so,”

We got to my classroom and I went to walk in, but he pulled me back causing me to stumble but he was quick to catch me pulling me into him.

“Everything is going to be okay, Kac” He whispered only loud enough for me to hear his hand cupping my cheek and his thumb gently rubbing it. I gave a small smile and a nod. He leaned in gently pecking my lips before giving me a small shove towards my class.

First period went well, and I was walking down the hall towards my next class when I spotted Jackson talking with Scott. I raised an eyebrow in question ready to walk up to them when a voice broke me out of my thoughts.

“Hey, Kacy!” I looked over towards the voice to see Allison waving me over with Lydia. I glanced back over at Scott before walking up to her with a smile.

“Hey!” I greeted pushing my hair back so that I could still listen to Scott's conversation. “What’s up?”

“Well Lydia and I-”

“I’m sorry I have no idea what you are talking about,” I picked up Scott's voice I kept my eye on them through my peripheral while trying to listen to what Allison was saying. Something about dresses? I nodded my head as if I were listening.

“Yeah… yeah, you do and here’s the thing,” I picked up Jackson’s voice now “However it is you come to be what you are, you’re gonna get for me too,” My eyes went wide and my body tensed up, I fought the urge to turn my head as I felt my body heat up from panic. How does he know?

“So, do you want to come?” I heard Allison ask, I looked back up at her with a confused smile as I tried to playback the conversation to try and pick up something she had been talking about. She picked up on my confusion giving a small laugh,

“Just like Scott,” She muttered a bit of sadness in her voice “Come to the mall with us,”

“The mall?” I asked looking between her and an unamused Lydia.

“A bite, a scratch. Sniffing magic fairy dust under the moonlight-” I couldn’t help but turn to look now, trying to hide the panic on my face making eye contact with Jackson, who smirked when I met his gaze.

“Yeah- yeah okay,” I agreed to god-knows-what to Allison, she beamed up at me

“And from what I can see, it’s not only you,” My body tensed as I tried to fake being happy while Allison told me we would talk more about it in class. Scott looked back looking over at Allison and then me, I could see he was breathing heavily. Jackson had a huge smirk as he turned and walked away from Scott.

“Okay- yeah I will see you in class,” I waved goodbye and quickly walked up to Scott grabbing his shoulder turning him back around

“What the fuck was that?” I spat glaring at Jacksons back as he disappeared in the sea of students. Scott didn’t say anything just grabbed ahold of my arm and dragged me with him through the halls. “Scott?” I tried to yank my arm out of his grip, but he held on tighter. We turned a corner heading through a door and out into the courtyard and Stiles came into view. He spotted us raising an eyebrow seeing Scott’s grip on my arm.

We came to an abrupt stop and I finally yanked my arm out of Scott's hand rubbing the spot where he held his grip shooting him a glare. I moved over to stand next Stiles who put an arm around me.

“What’s going on?” He asked us, Scott stood there completely silent his mouth moving but no words making their way out.

“Jackson knows,” I grumbled out, Stiles looked at both of us confused not fully understanding what I was saying.

“Knows what?” He asked looking down at me a hint of panic shown in his eyes as he pieced together what I meant. I let out a sigh playing with the end of my shirt.

“About what we are,” I whispered, his eyes went wide and Scott turned to head back into the school with Stiles and me right on his heels.

“How the hell did he find out?” Stiles asked Scott as we walked

“I have no idea,” Scott panicked throwing his hands down

“Well, did he say it out loud? The word?” Stiles asked looking over at Scott, I shook my head no

“No, he didn’t” I answered out loud

“What word?” Scott asked confused, I rolled my eyes

“Werewolf!” I whispered loud enough for them to hear but quiet enough so no one walking by could

“Oh. No. But he did make it pretty clear!” Scott said I nodded in agreement

“Well it's not like he has any proof, right?” Stiles asked looking over at me and then Scott we both shrugged our shoulders “Who would he tell if he wanted to?” I jolted forward looking up at Scott with wide eyes.

“Allison’s dad,” We said in unison, Stiles sighed in frustration

“Okay, so it's bad,” Stiles said running his hand over his head

“We need a cure. Right now.” Scott said, Stiles scoffed

“Does he know about Allison’s father?” Stiles asked curiously, Scott sighed

“I don’t know,”

“Okay well where is Derek?” Stiles asked as we continued to walk

“In hiding,” I stated

“Yeah just like we told him to,” Scott finished “Why?” Stiles came to a stop placing a hand on Scott's shoulder to stop him as well. I eye him curiously and by the light, in his eyes, I could tell he had an idea.

“I have an idea,” He told Scott, “it’s going to take a little time and finesse, though.”

“We have that game tonight. It’s quarter-finals and it’s your first game,” Scott stated, and Stiles let out another sigh

“I know,” he breathed “I know.”

“Your dad is coming, remember?” I said tugging on his arm, and he gave a small smile nodding his head that he did remember.

“Look, do you have a plan for Allison yet?” Stiles asked

“No, but she’s in my next class,” Scott sighed in disappointment, I gave him a reassuring smile reaching out and giving his arm a squeeze.

“You can do it, Scott,” I said pulling Stiles away, “We’ll see you at lunch,” Stiles walked me in silence to my next class and I could see the wheels in the chaotic brain of his moving as he thought out this idea of his. I stopped in front of the classroom door turning to face him catching him off guard.

“Woah,” He said catching his footing coming back to reality, I let out a small giggle.

“You going to enlighten me on what is going on in that brain of yours,” I smirked that he quickly returned. He gently grabbed my face pulling me towards him kissing me on the head.

“Not yet,” he grinned before running off to his next class before the bell rang and before I could pester him more.

The next couple of classes went smoothly and I didn’t get any text from Scott or Stiles or Allison so I could only assume things were going okay. My phone suddenly vibrated and I pulled it out of my pocket while trying to hold my books.

Allison Argent

I through my head back letting out a sigh, maybe I spoke to soon. I opened the text using my heightened hearing to navigate through the crowded halls. At least it was good for something.

Do you think you could talk to Scott? He sent me some pictures… and I just… I’m not ready yet. To be friends. And I’m not sure he gets it.

I let out a groan adjusting my books, so they rested against my hip for a better grip. I quickly typed pausing in front of the cafeteria door.

“Kac!” I heard Stiles shout from inside and I held my finger telling him one-minute.

Yeah of course, sorry Allison :(

I looked up spotting Stiles with Scott and I walked over to them sitting across from them both. My phone vibrated again, and I looked at the screen.

Thank you. He listens to you.

I smiled softly at the screen before shoving it back in my pocket, stiles looked at me with a raised eyebrow

“Who was that?” He asked, I looked up at him and then glanced over at Scott shaking my head gently

“No one,” I smiled setting my books on the table, Stiles slid a plate across the table with a salad on it, I gave him a confused look and he smiled shyly

“I grabbed you lunch,” he said, I beamed up at him

“Thank you!” I grabbed the fork from his hand taking a bite, he turned to Scott

“Did you get her to give you the necklace?” He asked him, Scott shrugged

“Not exactly,” he answered, I kept my head down as he went on

“What happened?” Stiles asked him taking a bite of his chicken strip. Scott looked over at me as I tried to not meet his eyes, he probably picked up on my heart rate noticing I was nervous.

“She told you,” He asked, I finally meet his eyes and I grimaced with a small nod

“Kinda,” I muttered quietly, Scott let out a sad sigh

“Told her what?” Stiles asked eye both Scott and me

“She told me not to talk to her,” He stated, and I flinched at his words feeling sorry for him “At all,” Stiles took another large bite of chicken strip.

“So, she’s not giving you the necklace,” Stiles said with a mouth full of food

“She’s not giving me the necklace!” Scott said frustrated picking over his food. I shook my head taking another bite.

“Well I guess that means plan B,” Stiles said with a mouth full, I swear he had no table manners. Scott and I both looked at him confused.

“What’s plan B?” Scott asked looking over at him.

“Just steal the stupid thing,” He said, I nearly choked on my food, coughing out a lung as I reached for my water taking a sip.

“Excuse me?” I asked and he rolled his eyes at me

“Couldn’t we at least try getting to Harris?” Scott suggested, Stiles opened his water taking a sip with the shake of his head

“No, my dad has him on a twenty-four-hour protective detail, the necklace is all we got” He answered regrettably, Scott let out a soft sigh as our alternative options dwindled.

“Looks like you have to steal it,” I mumbled, Scott was staring off into the cafeteria when his eyes went why. I went to turn and looked but he quickly grabbed a hold of my hand stopping me. “What is it?” I asked Scott, Scott shifted his eyes around the room before looking over at me then Stiles.

“He’s watching us,” He whispered gesturing in the direction he was just now staring with his eyes. Stiles was in the middle of drinking his water when he looked over at Scott and then behind me.

“Who?” I asked growing frustrated, Stiles looked over at me giving a fake smile before reaching over and grabbing my hand. I could tell something was up. The sound of a loud crunch broke me out of my thoughts and my ears perked up and from the corner of my eye, I could see Scott's eyes scrunch up at the sound. The sound of chewing rang through my ears as I started to focus more.

“Kacy,” Stiles tried to catch my attention by squeezing my hand, but I was too focused on what I was hearing

“Scott…” Jackson’s voice rang through my ears and I instantly tensed up realizing now who they were talking about just now.

“Kac!” I felt a pinch on my hand that pulled me back I pulled my hand out sticking my lip out

“Ouch!” I pouted glaring up at Stiles. He pointed at my food.

“You’ve barely ate,” He said, I rolled my eyes with a small shake of my head taking a large bite

“Happy?” I said though it came out as more of a grumble with my mouth full, Stiles smirked tilting his head in adoration

“You're so beautiful,” He smiled, and I couldn’t help the blush that crept up my cheeks taking another more reasonable size bite.

“Talk to me, act normal,” Scott panicked turning towards us, both Stiles and I panicked our mouths moving but no sound coming out. “Say something! Talk to me!” He said through gritted teeth now

“I-I um” I stuttered

“I don’t know what to say, my minds blank!” Stiles said throwing his hands up

“You’re minds blank!” Scott asked in disbelief “You can’t think of something to say?”

“Not under this kind of pressure!” Stiles admitted with a frown, Stiles looked past me “FYI, he’s not even sitting with them anymore.” Scott looked behind me and then around the cafeteria as he tried to spot Jackson. I felt my anxiety start to build up. I stood up grabbing my books.

“I’m going to go now,” I mumbled quickly move around the table giving Stiles a quick kiss on the cheek before rushing out of the cafeteria. This day seriously couldn’t get worse.

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Tags: @criminalyetminimal @itshouldbe @sammypotato67 @capandbuck

#stiles stilinski x oc #stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski fanfiction #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles stilinksi x reader #Stiles #stiles fanfiction #stiles imagine #teen wolf #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf fandom #teen wolf imagine #Scott McCall #allison argent #derek hale #lydia martin

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lnc2 · 6 years ago

Text

Small Talk

Summary: Marinette and co. get coffee.

AO3

“So how long are we going to ignore that I’m insanely in love with you?”

Marinette choked, her coffee catching in her throat.

She glared through her tears, horrified and coughing, as she looked first at Adrien, then Nino and Alya ordering with the barista, and back.

“Now?” She hissed, reaching for his water without asking because, well, apparently it was time for sharing things.

“So you do remember,” He said, somewhat smugly as he passed a napkin over to her. “I was starting to wonder.”

Marinette wondered at his cool as she wiped at her mouth. Arms crossed and staring at her like she stared at her lucky charms. A puzzle to be solved.

And she thought this would be a simple coffee run.

Not that anything about the last three weeks could have been called simple. Not by Marinette’s standards anyways.

Then again, what did you say to your superhero partner after spending an afternoon playing house?

Nothing, if you were Marinette. Nothing at all.

Because despite what her memories and the Ladyblog and Chat’s quiet but searching glances were telling her, as far as she concerned, the events of that day were to be locked in a lead box and dropped in the bottom of the Seine.

A topic too heavy to be touched.

It figured Chat would have different plans. It figured Adrien would be the one to launch the first attack.

It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

“Well?” Adrien said, a little sharply as she continued to stare at her crush-turned-idiot partner in disbelief.

“Well what?” She asked, because, um, valid.

He couldn’t honestly think they would have this out here. Not with a soon-to-be caffeine-fueled Ladyblogger metres away.

“Well what?” He mimicked in a high falsetto. Oooh she could just smack him. “What do you think well?”

“I think,” Marinette said, face red, teeth gritted. “That you picked a horrible time for this conversation.”

“Because you’ve given me so many opportunities to bring it up before,” He scowled, falling back against the booth with a sigh.

Marinette stamped down her irritation. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t mean she wanted her cowardice thrown in her face.

“Chat.” She glanced over to their friends who were making their way back to the table. “Please.”

“Fine, fine.” He rolled his eyes before plastering a smile to his face. He almost looked sincere.

Really, the transformation was remarkable.

“Any Ladynoir updates for us, Alya?”

Remarkably infuriating.

She could scarcely afford a swift kick to his shin before Nino slid in beside him.

Alya pouted. “No. I still can’t believe they kissed.”

“It was pretty unbelievable,” Adrien said, nodding.

Marinette snorted.

Alya sent her a look. “And all it took was Nino and I tag-teaming it.”

“In evil and in health, babe.” Nino said, reaching forward to bump his girlfriend’s fist. “Too bad Miraculous Ladybug canceled it all out.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” She wailed, her cry muffled by her arms as she started to beat her head against the table.

Marinette refused to look at Adrien. “Careful, Al. You’re starting to sound like Hawkmoth.”

Alya lifted her head and fell back to the booth with a dramatic sigh.

“I’d take their miraculous myself if I thought it would get those two to admit they’re perfect for each other.”

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t know if Chat Noir would put up much of a fight.”

“Pfft, yeah.” She shook her head and reached for her danish. “Enough fantasies. Tell me something happy.”

“Adrien’s dad almost acknowledged me last week.”

“I thought she said happy, Nino.” Adrien rolled his eyes.

“Fine. How’s Kitty Section?”

“Neutered.” He grimaced. “Officer Raincomprix shut us down after the neighbors complained."

“Don’t the Couffaines live on a boat?” Nino asked. “Can’t they just… float away to new neighbors?”

“Because that worked out so well the last time,” Marinette said. “From what I heard, they’re trying to find rehearsal space at the university but Luka says it’s a long shot.”

She regretted the words almost as soon as they left her mouth.

“Luka says that, huh?” Alya grinned, nudging her shoulder. “What else does Luka say?”

Honestly, she could just kill Alya.

She watched Adrien freeze from the corner of her eye, but coward that she was, she refused to look at him.

“Mr. Guitar Hero himself, huh?” Nino leaned across the table with a mischievous grin. “And an older man too. Marinette.”

She could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks as she stuttered for some kind of response. Really, what explanation could she give for Luka? He was just a friend. In the same way Adrien was just a friend.

Well. Maybe not the same way.

So how long are we going to ignore that I’m insanely in love with you?

It was quickly becoming difficult to breathe in this little booth.

Marinette decided dignified silence was the best response and reached for her coffee–

“Luka could encompass everything Marinette is looking for.”

– and promptly choked.

Alya’s smile was was downright evil as she patted Marinette’s back in faux concern.

Death, slow and painful, was too good for her. She opened her mouth, a respectful fuck you on her lips, only to be cut off by Adrien’s languid drawl.

“I don’t know,” He said, leaning forward to rest one arm on the table. She dared to meet his eyes only for him to smirk at her over his tea. “Something tells me she can do better.”

“Really?” The redhead said, looking at him appraisingly. “What makes you say that?”

Adrien laughed off Alya’s suspicious tone. “Call it a gut feeling.”

The intonation was slight, but she heard it nonetheless. It made her want to scream.

Unfortunately for him, she could gut this feline no problem.

Because Marinette had more than luck on her side.

She had Alya.

Even as the thought formed she felt her best friend’s hand on her knee, squeezing lightly.

“Speaking of feelings. How are things going with Kagami?”

Marinette fought her twitching lips, ultimately giving up on hiding her smirk as Adrien processed the question.

“What about Kaga – Oh. ” His face transformed from cocky to confused to mortified in an instant. His eyes flashed to hers and she batted her lashes right back.

Take that.

Ladybug: 1

Chat Noir: 0

Nino laughed at his stunned friend.

“That good huh? I always knew you were a lady killer.”

Marinette ignored the twinge she felt in her chest as she took another sip of coffee. Okay maybe that hurt her a little too. But she’d be damned if she let him know that.

Not when he started it.

“You should see this guy when he’s on it,” Nino continued, grinning even as Adrien seemed to sink further into the collar of his shirt. “Back before you and I got together babe, when I liked Marinette, he had all the lines.”

“Sunshine’s a smooth operator huh?” Alya said, smiling. She squeezed Marinette’s knee again in a silent question. Marinette nodded to let her know she was fine.

She wasn’t fine.

Not when Nino said,

“You should have heard him. Whispering sweet nothings in my ear like Cyrano or some shit. Urging me to say I love you, Marinette like it was the easiest thing in the world.”

She nearly spit the last of her coffee.

“Okay,” Adrien snapped, practically shoving Nino out of the booth, his face fire engine red. “Enough.”

Nino and Alya laughed.

“Don’t sweat it. Like I said, you’re butter. No wonder Kagami likes you so much.”

Awkward. This was so, so awkward.

The only silver lining to the pit of nausea settling in her stomach was that Adrien looked like he could just die. Served him right for trying to embarass her.

She only wished this conversation weren’t just as mortifying for her.

“Coffee.” She squeaked. “I’m going to– coffee. Yes.”

She could hear Adrien’s halting explanations that things weren’t like that with Kagami as she escaped the table.

Tikki peeked up at her from her purse.

“Do I need to say I told you so?”

“No,” Marinette sighed. “But I know you want to.”

“You probably should have talked to him sooner.”

“Yeah, well,” Marinette muttered under her breath, pausing to smile at the barista and placing her order. Impulsively, she added one of the biscottis near the register. “He doesn’t have the greatest timing either.”

“No,” Tikki conceded, chirping gratefully when Marinette passed her the cookie. “But he doesn’t have to be such a butthead about it.”

“Well it is Chat Noir,” She said, before they both broke into quiet giggles.

Giggles that were quickly cut short by hot breath on her neck and Adrien’s wry voice murmuring, “Talking about me, my lady?”

Marinette yelped, whirling around to glare up at the blonde smirking down at her.

“No,” She lied. “Not everything is about you.”

Adrien glanced down at Tikki who nodded loyally.

The barista called her name and Marinette broke his too-knowing gaze to grab her drink. The drink she nearly spilled when she turned back right into Adrien’s chest.

“Stop doing that!” She hissed, sucking a few hot droplets off her hand.

Adrien didn’t acknowledge her scolding.

“Okay then,” He said instead, taking her by the elbow and turning her away from Nino and Alya’s prying eyes. “You weren’t talking about me just like I wasn’t talking about you. Can we now?”

Marinette frowned. “Can we what?”

“Can we talk about me? And you. Me and you.” Despite his cool demeanor, his words ran together, giving him away.

That and his ears were turning red.

She was loathe to admit it was kind of adorable.

Stupid cat.

“Now?” She asked, again. Again. Her eyes strayed behind him to their waiting friends.

Adrien really did have terrible timing.

But when she looked back to tell him as much, her heart stuttered.

His eyes were wide, a little hopeful, his smile was small, a little pathetic.

And his ears, his stupid ears, were still red–

a lot more than adorable.

God dammit.

“Fine,” She sighed, more to make a point than any real reluctance on her part. “Let’s go talk about how you’re insanely in love with me.”

Just saying the words, even as a tease, made her stomach swarm with ladybugs. But Adrien’s blindingly joyful whoop! bowled over most of her reservations. The enthusiastic thumbs up Nino and Alya were sending from across the room removed the rest.

Absently, Marinette wondered just what exactly she’d missed when she left the table.

She didn’t have much of a chance to ask before Adrien practically swept her up in his arms. Only her indignant swatting and quick-thinking feet kept her on the ground.

“My coffee,” She said, scandalized, as half the contents of her drink sloshed to the ground.

Behind her she heard one of the put-upon staff members call for a mop. Adrien hardly looked repentant as he took the mug from her hands to set it down on the counter.

“I’ll buy you another one,” He said and this time he did sweep her into his arms. Marinette squawked, not at all dainty or ladylike.

Adrien grinned down at her anyways.

“After we talk.”

#post oblivio #miraculous ladybug #plot twist! they remember #everyone else was doing it let me have my fun #ladynoir #adrienette #post reveal pre relationship #flag ship dj wifi sailing strong #lnc2 writes #more humor and fluff than substance but what can you do

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inkstaineddaughter · 5 years ago

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Soft Drop Chapter 7: Ferromagnetism

Charlie/Reader

Fluff, implied smut, angst?

2k words

There’s time to kill between one task and the next. Work is over and you don’t have to be at the airport for a few more hours. It’s tea time. And trashy magazine time! The new issue of Cosmopolitan on your sofa has been tempting you with the promise of “13 Sex Positions to Drive Him Wild!” and you’re determined to find out just how wild that may be. You figure it might be a nice “Welcome home” for Charlie after one of his horribly draining West Coast trips.

You’re dipping your teabag into the mug and wondering why on Earth anyone would name a sex position Froggie Style, or name a perfume Guilt, for that matter when you hear the sound of your door being unlocked and opening. It must be either your mom or dad. They’re the only ones, other than Charlie who have a key. You glance quickly at the clock on the stove. It doesn’t really make sense for any of them to be here at this time. Especially when your dad is always complaining about walking in on you in various states of undress. Jesus, just stop showing up announced! You consider whipping off your shirt and greeting them with just your bra on. It would serve them right!

But there’s only a single figure in the entry, tall and slightly rumpled. He tosses his bags onto the floor and holds out his arms. “Charlie!” You almost sound more scolding than surprised. “You should have called me! If I’d known you’re were going to be early, I still would have met you there!” But you press yourself against him, bury your face into his chest as he rests his chin on top of your head. He smells like recycled airplane air and unfamiliar laundry detergent. Why can’t Nicole just keep her ass in one spot? Or at least wait until she gets back from visiting her mom to discuss Important Divorce Things. Is it really worth dragging him across the country on like, no notice?

It feels so good to have him back though. At least, it almost feels good. Today, it seems like there’s more than just jet lag throwing him off. And his muscles feel tense under your hands. You pull away and look closely at him. “I got an earlier flight,” he says and rubs a hand over his hair. “I just wanted to get home. Wanted to see you.”

“Something’s wrong. What happened?” you demand. But he only shakes his head and gives you a pained look and an irritable twitch of his shoulders. Whatever is wrong, this is a man that is badly in need of some TLC. And while you’re fresh out of candles and rose petals, you do still possess some creature comforts and maybe a few new sex positions too. But first thing’s first. “I have tea,” you offer, grabbing his hand. “Come have tea with me?”

You’re dragging him into the kitchen and he stops, pulls you back toward him. “We’re going to be all right, remember?” he reminds you. Of course, your heart drops through the floor at that. Why? Why do you need to remember? Why now? And why is it that, whenever anyone tells you not to worry, you immediately assume the worst and start worrying? You may as well just throw a chair through the window now and save some time. At least then, Charlie won’t have to say any more. There. Subject closed.

You both manage to remain calm long enough to sit down and drink your tea and clutch at each other’s hands. You lament over how much you missed him this time and Charlie vows to absolutely fuck your brains out that night. All is back to normal until he drops the bombshell.

“So, they’re moving the trial,” he says in a flat voice as he sits back in his chair. “To California.” That makes absolutely no sense and the only thing you can picture is a tour bus and a circus tent and taking the act on the road. Like Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, but with less acid and more divorces.

“The whole thing?” you ask. “I didn’t even know that was something that could happen.” You think back on your childhood days staying home from school when you were sick. All those episodes of Divorce Court never prepared you for this. “What the hell?!” you demand.

“Nicole refiled,” Charlie says, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. “She enrolled Henry in school out there and something about establishing residency, I guess.” You’ve known Nicole to be moody and changeable and a pain-in-the-ass, passive aggressive wife, but this is diabolical. And it doesn’t feel like anything other than an open declaration of war.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Charlie sounds almost desperate. His eyes are red as he looks back at you and you notice how his hands shake as he reaches for the teapot. “Hire new lawyers now? I’m supposed to make it look like I’ve put down roots out there and have a stable home environment for Henry? He has a stable home environment. It’s here! But sure, I can just rent someplace else like no problem. Fuck!” he swears as he drags his fingers through his hair, making it look even more disheveled. “The goddamn show is moving to Broadway and I can only be there for what, like two rehearsals a week now? How the hell are we supposed to manage with that?”

The anger is obvious, but you can hear the panic creeping into his voice and the sound makes you sick to your stomach. You’re trying really hard to let him vent his own feelings and remember that this is not about you, but you’re so damn frustrated! Why can’t any of this be easy for him? You’ll always be moral support and you’ll keep it together if he needs you to. But right now, you feel like flipping the table over and shrieking, “Universe! Stop doing shit to my married boyfriend!”

Charlie buries his face in his hands, pressing his fingertips into his eyes. You silently add a whopping dose of ibuprofen to the list of things you need to do for him tonight. “Apparently, I have to pay for half of Nicole’s legal fees and now my own housing costs. And all the fucking airfare? Flying there and back all the time? I… I can’t do this. She’s….” He stops and looks around your small apartment almost desperately, as if the answers could be hung on your walls or written in your grandma’s old cookbook. “God, she could destroy my whole life, (Y/N),” He continues in a lower voice. “All of it. Take my son away from me, my theater company, my whole life. Everything I’ve worked for and created, just gone. And I can’t do anything about it! I have to just stand by and let her?”

Again, he covers his face, whether to stop himself from crying or stop himself from screaming, you don’t care. Either way, it’s goddamn unacceptable and you have to fix this. “Okay, stop. Stop,” You order him softly as you pull his hands down. “Charlie,” you ask. “What do you need here from me?”

“Other than just you?” he asks and shrugs helplessly. “I really don’t know.” But the wheels in your head have already started turning. No way in fucking hell are you going to let things spiral away from him like this. “Okay,” you sigh as you try to organize the ideas already popping into your head. “I’m definitely not going to be able to spend four days a week out there with you, but I do have sick time and vacation days and I’m sure I can make something work with that.”

All right. Visiting hours are taken care of. This is a good start. Now keep going. You frown. “God, I don’t know how many off the top of my head, but I know I have a crap-ton of frequent flyer miles. I’ll go online at some point tonight and transfer those to you, okay?” You know that “Tropical Island Getaway” you’d vaguely been dreaming of since childhood is never going to actually happen anyway. You blame Wheel of Fortune for that one.

What else? What else? You bite your lip as you wrack your brain. Charlie sits across from you, staring like at you like the goddamn Easter Bunny has materialized in your kitchen and he can’t believe his eyes. You can send him nudes as a morale booster. Nudes? Sexting? Never mind. Not when phones records can be counted as testimony. Dammit.

And the words leave your mouth before they’ve even become a solid thought. “I mean, shit, if you need me to, I’ll move into your place and help with rent. That would take at least some of the strain off.” Yikes. Did you really just say that? And would you actually do that? The answer is easy. Of course, you would. For him.

“Really?” Charlie asks. He sounds utterly disbelieving, but a hint of sarcasm still colors his words.

“Why not?” you shrug. “I like your apartment. You have a washer and dryer. And your bed is bigger.” Unless it becomes public record and somehow jeopardizes him getting custody of Henry, there really is no reason why you shouldn’t move in together.

You can see he’s losing steam though and all the prior events are catching up to him. His shoulders are slumping and the dark circles under his eyes are getting darker as the sun moves across the sky outside your kitchen window. “You said yourself, it would take a hell of a lot to get you to leave your place.” Charlie’s voice cracks with frustration and defeat, but it’s still an accusation and he still throws it with as much strength as he can muster.

But you don’t deflect it or even fire back with your own. Instead, you’re out of your seat and in his arms in an instant. And if your combined weight breaks the chair, then so be it. Charlie’s dining set is nicer anyway. You want to be closer to him, to ease some of the anguish this whole thing causes him. Just see him happy and keep him that way.

He looks way too relieved and too grateful as one arm snakes around your waist and his other hand goes up to cup your cheek. “I really don’t deserve you,” he says and shrugs. “Shut up,” you scoff, smiling into his palm. “You know you do.” Just as you’re convinced that you deserve him. So, you’re both selfish and horrible, but why shouldn’t you be selfish together? Charlie sighs and rubs his thumb across your lower lip. “But you’re so perfect, how are you so perfect?” You have to laugh at that. “Do not put me on a pedestal, Mr. Barber. You know better than that. I’ll fall off that shit and break my leg.” Charlie shakes his head. “I don’t want you on a pedestal,” he says. “I want you down here with me.” He slides his hands down your arms and over your back, pulling you closer to him and cradling you against his chest. “I don’t intend on going anywhere else, I promise,” you tell him.

Knowing Charlie, it’ll only be a matter of time before you start to feel his hardening cock strain through his khakis and press into your thighs. Before you’ll swing your legs around and straddle his lap, when he slips his hand between your legs and his tongue into your mouth.

It won’t be until much, much later, after he carries you off to your too-small bed and makes you come at least four times, that you’ll finally allow your mind to wander onto topics like lease agreements and whose pillows are nicer, what train you’ll need to take to work now, address labels and Lord in Heaven, how the hell are you going to explain this one to your parents?

#Soft Drop #Charlie/Reader #Charlie/You #Charlie Barber #Marriage Story #new girlfriend story #writing #ew my fic

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lillaxtrigger · 5 years ago

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Young Hope: Chapter 28

“Motherfucker!” The spice queen’s angry roar echoing beyond the Spicer abode, Cayenne takes her seething frustration out on Kingsley’s broken bedroom wall; punching yet another hole that gives a wider view of the twilight sky outside. “Why couldn’t get to him in time!” Behind the furious spice queen, Kingsley sits completely unconscious at his desk; his head nestled above dozens of documents and reports. Lying at his side weeps the orange haired demon, Alex’s wailing echoing outside as he sobs for his crush with: “No! My beloved Kingsley, taken from this mortal coil against his will! Why do the good always die young!?” Passing by the sad display, the blue angel strolls over to the massive hole that was recently Kingsley’s bedroom wall; kneeling along the edge to gauge a closer inspection. Tore runs his hand along the jagged cracked edges of the hole, his fingertips scrapping against the burnt wood. He fancies a look down outside to see any evidence of any tools or parts left behind by the potential culprit; finding almost nothing of the sort outside of a few pieces of wall and glass along the walkway. “I’ve seen and caused a fair share of blast all through my life. One’s that I shoot out leave holes scarily similar to this one. This was definitely somebody shooting their way inside.” “Looks like the doors seen better days too.” they hear the orange skater claims. Glancing towards the boy genius’s bedroom door, all of them find Mally taking a careful look at the side of the wooden door; running her finger through the burnt remains of the doorknob. “Whoever did this sure wanted Kingsley outta the picture badly.” the orange skater reviews. “You think that the perp we’re looking for might be onto us?” her blue brother questions. “I’d say so.”

“It’s unforgivable...” they hear Alex whisper. All of them turn back towards the orange demon lying beside the comatose genius’s side; watching as he slowly rises from the desks side. “Uh, Alex?” Mally worries. “So long as my fiery red blood courses through my demonic being, I will hunt down whoever harvested my beloved’s precious soul and rip their flesh to nothing bloody chunky pieces!” the demon swears, growing more monstrous and demonic the further he rants. “Definitely loving the enthusiasm there, pal, but we still don’t got us any reliable culprit to speak of.” the blue angel reminds him. “Yeah, we only got a few minor clues to work off. Nothing really case breaking here.” Mally adds. “Not until now.” they hear Cayenne correct.

Upon hearing such, everyone in the room glances back to the spice queen along the side of the broken bedroom wall, Mally wondering: “You found some evidence?” “Un- Yeah. Paid some of my little cousins a visit and one of them was just all over this damn case; cooking up weird conspiracies and made up bullshit about the government being involve. Just the usual.” “And?” Alex asks. “Short version is that Ty wound up snagging a good pic of the culprit leaving the crime scene.” “Could you tell who it was?” Tore asks. The spice queen hesitates to answer the blue angels question, too afraid to give the answer as she looks away with a mix of disappointment and shame on her face. Her silence is all that both Tore and Mally need to process who their friend has in mind, the orange skaters pupils shrinking as her blue brother questions: “So it really is Chloe then?” “But...why? I know we had are suspicions, but...God, why would she be going around doing all this now; especially to her own family!?” the skater frets aloud. “She wouldn’t be doing this?” they hear the spice queen add. “What sort of brain damage induced nonsense are you on about? You said you saw photographic proof yourself.” Alex rudely counter. “I mean not by herself, asshole! Don’t you think its kind of an ass pull how she suddenly has the power to take souls from people in just one night? I guarantee you that whatever she’s doing in all this, she ain’t working alone.” “You think that she might have a partner?” Tore wonders. “More like a kidnapper. Someone has to be forcing her to nab souls in the dead of night.”

Before any of them could attempt to process their Spicy partners theory, all of them soon hear a familiar voice sounding off from the other side of the bedroom door; claiming to all of them that: “You got the right idea there.” All of them glance back towards the door to witness a lone arm breach through its mahogany wood; the entire door soon being ripped out of its frame by the purple merc himself as he finishes his statement with: “But that’s only half the picture.” “So who else you might think be the player 2 in this soul reapin game?” his blue brother asks; their sister wandering over to the desk where Kingsley lies. Pushing the unconscious boy genius aside, Mally riffles through the dozens of witness reports littered on the desk; her eyes shifting between the two she grasps in her hands. “Whoever they are, they might’ve been doing this long before Chloe came in their picture. Reports here talk about someone with a rainbow trail leaving the scenes of the crime a couple nights back.” “So were lookin for somebody who has a rainbow aura, eh. Wonder who that could be?” the blue boy wonders. Upon questioning such does everyone’s eyes stare right at the blue boy himself; Tore flustered by the sudden stare down as he defends with: “What...I just had that a couple times. What would I even want with a bunch of souls anyway?” “For Hera’s sake, it ain’t him. Not even closer.” Roy corrects. “How the hell can your sorry violet asshole be so sure?” Cayenne questions. “Doesn’t all this feel a little familiar to you? The rainbows, all the magic ass bullshit, the kidnappings; or guess soulnappings if you wanna be a nitpicky asshole? Plus, who else would have enough foresight or petty anger to go after Chloe and Kingsley like this?” “So it’s somebody who definitely knew we would be onto them and is trying to cover their tracks.” Mally reviews. “But who do we know that’s still alive that know which people to go after?” Tore further asks. “Hears a little hint. Which witchy bitch did we wind up screwing over a couple months back?” The merc’s apt description makes almost everyone in the room freeze up in but an instant; a strong, dreaded silence crashing throughout the entire room. The blue angel is the first to break through the horror inducing quiet, uttering the name of who his purple brother suggest be their culprit. “Circe.”

“Wait, which bitch may we be referring to here exactly? I normally don’t humble myself to mingle with any of you peons willingly at least, so most of your personal lives are a bit foreign to me.” the orange haired demon questions. “You seriously don’t fuckin remember that witch who you and the rest of our friends and family and almost killed you guys for their powers?” Cayenne wonders. “Hmm...the events you refer to do strike me as rather familiar...Though the rest of it seems rather as a blur.” “It was literally a month ago.” “Why the hell would Chloe of all people be so willing to help her with all this!? She was scared stiff the last time we went up against her.” Mally questions. “Your cherry coke crush might not be as willing as you think.” his purple brother corrects. “You suggesting that Kingsley’s sister might be under the influence of mind control?” Alex claims. “A+ on the upkeep here, my shape shifting student. That self absorbed, “Goddess” got some strange ass magic up her tight, rainbow spewing coochie; mind control would probably be a pretty standard spell for her. And who better to take advantage of for that kind of mental fuckery then an emotionally insecure teenage girl?” “Phrasing dammit!” the orange skater warns. “Mal, you said something a while back about her tryin to nab the red heads little pink trinket off her neck?” her purple brother mentions. “Uh, yeah. As soon as that witch grabbed hold of it, sparks of pink lightning just went flying out from her necklace; almost like some kind of defense mechanism. She mentioned something about it being sealed onto Chloe.” “So if that mystic cunt can’t use that trinkets for herself, why not use it through its owner instead? Swear to fuckin god, I’m gonna slug that witch bitch’s jaw clean off her damn skull! Beat her head in to a bloody pile of pulsating brains and bone!” the spice queen swears.

“So, we have our culprit. But we still don’t got a place in mind. Somewhere she could stash and conceal her horde of gathered souls from the feverish public eye while manipulating the body of her newfound pink puppet.” Tore describes, all the while Alex glances back to the desk that Kingsley lays upon. The demon gently pushes his crush aside to reach for his closed laptop, soon opening the computer and informing the rest of them that: “It seems my beloved Kingsley might’ve been onto that very fact moments before he was tragically robbed of his own soul.” This baiting the entire rooms attention, all of them look to the boy genius’s laptop to discover an entire map of Townsville laid out on screen; several lines and markers tracing themselves along a certain point of the east side of town. “So, if we ask around for where Chloe’s been constantly flying to last night, we’ll find where she’s been packing everyone’s souls. Maybe even the which bitch herself.” Mally claims. “Sounds like a plan to me.” her brother adds. After each of them take a quick pic of the marked part of the map on their phones, they quickly race out through the hole in the bedroom wall. The last of them to take off, the purple merc stops moments before he could glide off alongside his comrades when hearing a phone go off behind him. Glancing back, he notices Kingsley’s cell vibrating along the side of his desk; snatching the comatose boys phone and checking the message that he had received. “Tracking potion is ready. Bring something of Chloe’s to put in it.”

Once reaching the part of Townsville marked on Kingsley’s map, the rest of the gang descend down from the dark city skyline; landing within the bad part of the eastern side. Just from taking a simple glance ahead could all of them tell of the neighborhoods less than grandiose upkeep, reflected by the cracked asphalt roads and unkempt homes and buildings nestled along the side. “Dear hell almighty. Just look at this horrid dumpster fire of city block, it’s absolutely disgusting. What sort of depressing life wasting urchins could possibly spawn from such a filth ridden hole like this?” the orange demon repulses. After giving the demonic brat a swift smack to the back of his head, the spice queen moves in front of the entire team and relays to them: “Alright, bitches. We got us a missing red head to search for and some souls to set free. We don’t got a lot of time on our hands, so I need you all to get the dry shit outta yer ears and listen. Since the witch bitch we’re lookin is using Chloe to harvest a shit ton of souls, the people around here might’ve seen her going back and forth through here last night. I’d imagine a bright pink flyin teenage girl would be pretty eye catching to people around here, so they might’ve seen which way our little red head was going. The plan were cookin up here involves all of us split up and ask around the neighborhood; maybe figure out which direction Chloe’s been gliding back and forth from. Any of you dig up anything worthwhile outta anyone, give everyone a quick text and we’ll rendezvous to where that mystic cunt is cowering at. Everyone clear?” “Yep.” Mally confirms. “Of course.” Alex adds. “So were gonna bother people in the middle of the night to ask them straight faced if they’ve seen a pink little girl flying around?” Tore restates. “That’s the plan.” Cayenne reinforces. “Does it also involve them asking if they’re on any expired meds?” “Right then, lets fuckin move people!” Upon the spice queen’s orders, all four of them split off towards different directions of the district; Tore and Cayenne taking towards the north while Alex and Mally head out south. While skating off alongside her demonic partner, the orange roller blader pulls out her phone; aiming to text her brother to question him if: “You know where Roy wound up taking off to?” A few moments later, the blue boy had responded back with: “No. I didn’t notice he was gone until we landed.” Its in with her blue brothers lack of an answer does she decide to text her purple sibling herself with: “We’ve landed in the neighborhood. Where the hell are you?”

“Can’t join you right now. Little busy with the other half of our mission here.” After texting his little sister such, the violet merc puts his phone away as he stands in Serena’s basement potion brewery; turning back to the potion witch herself. The merc witnesses the young brewer carefully place a small glass veil on the desk set before him; its violet glow illuminating the entire brewery in a shade of deep purple. “And here we go. One veil full of Extra strength tracking potion. Took almost all day to make a single an ounce of this magical concoction.” As the potion witch slides the brew to her purple guest, she further state how: “I’m guessing I don’t need to warn you not to ingest any of this, do I?” “Eh he he. Nope. And I’m guessing I don’t need to ask you if we could make some steamy magic of our own later, do I?” the merc responds with a devious grin. “I’d gouge our eyes out with my spoon if you tried. Now you’re going to need to be absolutely careful with this particular batch of tracking brew, the ingredients I used to mix it are a lot stronger than the standard; so I need you to-” “Yeah, I know. I read the text. Gimme a sec.” Saying such does the purple angel pulls out from the depths his pants pocket a lone diamond earring; tossing the accessory in the brew as he review how he should: “Just plunk something with Chloe’s aura on in the mix and it’ll show the way to red head herself.” “No!” Upon the witch’s exclamation, Serena attempts to catch the small diamond earring before it could be dunked into the mix; her grip failing to grasp the accessory in time before it falls into the brew. “What!? What’s the problem!?” Roy wonders. “You were supposed to wait until we got outside to drop it in!” “Geez. Scared the shit outta me. You’re acting like its gonna violently explode and turn out faces into thick chunky meat soup.” Claiming such, both of them soon discover the potion sitting on the table starting to tremble and bubble before them; the brewing witch reinforcing that: “That’s because it is.”

“Duck.” “What?” “Duck now!” the merc demands, charging a beam in the palm of his only hand. Once Serena ducks underneath the table, Roy fires down onto the basement window behind her; blasting open a sizable hole leading out into the nightly neighborhood. Almost immediately does the purple angel grab hold of the rumbling brew shaking along the table; swiftly chucking the potion through the freshly blasted open hole. Once tossing the mixture outside; both of them soon then hear a booming explosion of shattering glass and metal sound off through the entire block. After the young witch lets out a relieved breath, her and her violet guest scuttle to the blasted side of her basement to take a peek outside. From looking out into the darkened neighborhood, the two find a bright pink aura trailing our from underneath the cracks of the scorched wreckage of someones car; the automobile left reduced to nothing smoking scrap. Beyond the destroyed ride, the purple angel watches the pink trail gliding out towards downtown; its bright pink glow contrasting with the jet blue night sky. “Might be biased here, but you really should warn about shit like this before you hand your potions over to them. Thanks for the help, Serena the teenage witch!” Once thanking the brewer for her aid, the violet merc takes off to follow the fleeting pink trail out towards downtown Townsville; leaving the witch doctors totaled basement behind. Seeing her guest glide away, a frustrated sigh leaves the young witch’s lips; wondering aloud how: “How am I going to explain this to my parents? No really, some purple asshole just waltzed in and blasted a huge hole through our basement.”

Knocking his black coated hand upon the one of the run down neighborhood residence, the orange demon is soon greeted by the site of a man who’s condition reflects his estate; disgusting, poorly dressed, not looking like he’s had a decent shower in literal months. Hell’s sake man, a stained tank top and unkempt facial hair is all that really anybody needs to tell how low your life has sunk. Best just get this over with then. “Greetings, my less than hygienic host. For once in your seemingly miserable life, you’ve been graciously lucky to be visited by such a powerful and distinguished demon such as I; humbly gracing you with my immeasurable superiority and intelligence. Its in arriving in your worthless hovel that you so unfortunately call a home that I may harbor from you a couple of needed questions from the drugged and alcohol ridden body part that you so unfortunately call a brain. May you be as so polite as to invite me in?”

Hearing the demons less than welcoming greeting, the less then fortunate man slams the door right in Alex’s face; turning away from the door and hobbling over towards his stain littered couch. A painful groan escapes from his mouth before he falls face first onto its cushions; the filthy dweller attempting to drift off to sleep on his couch. The man is jolted out from his drifting slumber when the sharp sound of breaking wood reaches his ears; jumping out from his makeshift bed and taking another glance to the door. He discovers a pitch black blade piercing through his front door, the sword roughly sawing through the aged wood until its splits right in half; the demon he shut out turning his arms back to normal as he lets himself in. The orange demon creeping ever closer, the junkie grovels right in the corner of his living room; small incoherent whimpers leaking from his lungs as cowers in fear. “I was really hoping that maybe the residence of this rat infested hole would be at the very least nice enough to cooperate; but I guess we’re all proven wrong from time to time. No matter.” The cowering man peeks out from his covering arms as the young demons shadow consumes his figure; Alex transforming his arm into a whip as he finishes his statement with: “I promise to make you talk one way or another.”

Descending towards the front of another home, Cayenne approaches the door and prepares to knock; her hand reeling back from the front when she catches the sound of insanely loud screaming and crying coming from inside. When finally deciding to knock, she punches the door as loud as she can in hopes of grabbing the attention of those living inside; her pounding soon drawing out a lone woman that looks just so fed up with life's shit. And who could really blame her, the woman’s got 5 to 6 screaming kids just racing around and jumping all over the place like fucking animals; just breaking shit constantly. “Eh, sooo...I was hoping that-” Despite the spice queens best efforts to talk, her words are ultimately drowned by the horrid chaos going on inside. “Maybe I could ask y-” Her words still fail to reach beyond her lips, the constant cries of rowdy children swallowing her voice. “A couple of questions about last night-” Even when shouting at the top of her lungs, her words are unable to reach the mothers ears; the spice queen soon met with the door. A small scoff is all that comes out from Cayenne in that brief interaction, the Spice queen walking from the home as she claims aloud how: “Hot damn there. Fuckin brats are worse then my little cousins.”

On the opposite end of the block, the blue angel gently knocks on the door of another abode; one of which sadly displays far more degradation and decay than the rest. Smells something hella bad in there too. Like somebody’s having a plastic bonfire from inside. Almost a little too much to handle. Even with the horrendous nasty ass stank coming from inside, the blue boy fails to hear anything coming from inside; no footsteps, no voices, nothing. Maybe they just didn’t hear the door. Attempting to bait the attention of those inside, Tore once again knocks on the wood of the door; this time being far harder enough for the pounding to echo across the street. Once done beating on the door, the blue angel’s ears catch the noise of panicked footsteps and shifting metal echoing from within; glancing to the window and taking a peek inside only to find not a soul in site. Rather than moving on to the next home, Tore attempts to investigate further; grasping the door knob and slowly letting himself in. “Hello...Anyone in here?...Don’t worry, I’m not some kind of crazed hobo; I’m just wanting to ask a couple questions here” Looking through the worn torn living room, the blue boy then runs face first into the wrong end of a shotgun barrel; the firearms blasting the boy right in the face.

The surprise headshot causes Tore to fall right on the coffee table, his body breaking the table straight in half upon impact. With the young man lying on the remains of the shoddy piece of tableware, a handful of shaggy, suspicious people come crawling out from dark corners of the run down home; all of them gather to gaze upon their intruders body. “Aw, dammit! It’s just some kid.” one of them curses out. “Guess we got worried about the fuzz for nothing.” “Fuckin dumbass! They’ll probably be snoopin around here more tryin to look for this blue dipshit.” “How bout we hide the body somewhere they won’t find it. Got a landfill a couple blocks back we could dump the kid in.”

Just as all of them approach the thought to be finished intruder in hopes of hiding him somewhere, the blue boy arises from the splintered remains of their coffee table; much to their shock and dismay. All of them swiftly back away as the young man stands before then; Tore rubbing the parts of his face that got shot and exclaims that: “Ah jeez! The hell is wrong with you people? Just sneaking up and shooting me right in the face. You know how painful a point blank shotgun blast is?” Just from the site of the unharmed blue boy, everyone else scrambles to the back of the room; pulling out their various firearms as one of the orders them all to: “Everyone, open fire!” Hearing those demands does the entire room unload everything they have onto their blue intruder, firing out a hailstorm of led bullets upon the young man. Tore himself is left absolutely unfazed by the barrage of bullets battering his entire body; so much so in fact that the blue angel opts to pull out his phone while waiting for all of them to run out of ammo; protecting his device with nothing but his bare hand. Soon enough though, the entire squad finally run out of ammunition; all of them horrified when realizing their assault having done fuck all to their intruder. Discovering this horrible realization, the only course of action left for them all left is to retreat, the entire room scrambling throughout to run down abode while one of them screams out: “Grab the stash! Grab the fuckin stash, man!” “I’m going! God, why did we get busted so fast!?” Figuring how he ain’t gonna be getting any answers of these loons anytime soon, the blue boy decides to simply take his leave; wandering out through the front door as the panicked chaos behind him continues. “Maybe I should ask around in another block.”

Skating away from block on the other side of the district, Mally rolls through the crumbling neighborhood as she ponders on where to look for answers next. That witch could be hiding out anywhere in this mess of a neighborhood; gleefully watching all of us wander around for answers to no avail as she sits on her harvested batch of stolen souls. The chance of finding somebody willing to take the time in this hour of the night to help out some random kids knockin on their doors are pretty much slim already; add the fact of asking them about a pink flying girl gliding back and forth through these parts of town and you’ll be hopeful at best laugh and mocked at. Hell, some people might even take a step further and shoot yo sorry ass for wastin their time too; god knows that people have been probably gunned down here for way, way less than that. Its getting kind of worrying if there’s any answers that could be gathered from this cracked asshole of the city. In pondering all this does a particular site grab the young skaters attention, a glimmer of light coming from a tower standing a little further in the district; though far too high above to gauge whatever could be shining out such a colorful glow. Could it be…

Hoping to garter a better view, the young lass takes off towards the tower in question; taking out her trusty grapple yo and casting it up to the brick wall of an upcoming building. As soon as the yoyo attaches itself to the buildings surface, its string retracts and pulls Mally up from the cracked concrete roads; flinging herself up to the upcoming buildings rooftop. Landing on top of an apartment complex, the orange skater speeds across the rooftop as she races towards the tower; soon finding a massive gap in between the complex and the next rooftop before her. Closing in towards the gap ahead, the skater gathers as much speed as she could muster; picturing the gap between as the crevice back at in the woods. Reaching the very end of the rooftop, Mally takes one giant leap out towards the building across the street; gliding above the poorly kept road above. Her jump this time proves to be a success as she lands right on the edge of the rooftop, letting out a loud cheer as she skates across the top of the buildings. “I did it! I actually did it! That whole gap just jumped over on the first try! Yeah!” In her premature celebration, she winds up tripping on the opposite end of the roof; tumbling down towards the alleyway below. Moments before she could hit the hard asphalt, the falling skater throws her grapple yo up towards the roof of the neighboring building; her gadget sticking itself to the very edge of the rooftop and stopping herself before crashing down. After dodging that nasty fall, the skater climbs up the hard brick wall of the alley, pulling herself up towards the edge of the rooftop.

Once standing safely on the rooftop, Mally manages to finds herself closer to the tower in question; gazing up to its top where she found the glimmering light. Despite the distance she had travels, the orange skater could not tell what shines such a rainbow glow; the windows making up its crown boarded up with countless planks of wood, leaving only a few glints of light to creep through. Yet despite failing to see what lies within, light coming from within proves all too well what may lies beyond its walls; no doubt the perfect hiding spot to horde a mountain of harvested souls.

Dwelling within the dark insides of the tower itself, a slim, feminine figure glares down to the buildings below her; her eyes locked upon the little teenage girl standing atop one of their roof’s. A sinister snicker passing through her devious smile, the figure raises her finger out towards the streets below; the tip of her fingernail illuminating a bright rainbow glow.

Gliding along the other side of Townsville, the purple angel speeds through the night skyline while tracking the youngest of the Spicers through her own bright pink aura trail; all the while the goddess echoing in his head: “So, might I wonder what you plan is once you find her?” “Don’t know. Trying to figure out the same thing. I still ain’t 100% sure if our little red head here is being mind jacked by the witch bitch or if she’s doing all this shit on her own.” “I certainly hope that she isn’t. If that’s the case, then we might have to try and talk her down. Poor baby.” Hera’s last comment throws the purple merc off a tad, her words stirring a hint of curiosity within his head. “Hey, Hera. Mind if I ask ya somethin?” “If its about how much people worship, in your own perverted words “My poppin lockin sweet bouncy bootay”, I will smite you where you stand.” “Nah, nah. Something else.” “Oh.” Just before the angel could ask the goddess his question, the trail he follows baits back his attention; discovering the neon pink aura he follows growing ever brighter. Gazing out ahead of himself, the merc soon catches a faint pink light glimmering in the distance; no doubt it being the red head herself.

Rather than rushing off towards the fleeing teenage girl head on, Roy instead decides to intercept her from the front; ascending up to the rooftops and continue his pursuit from above. While concealing himself from those below, the merc glides over the rooftops neighboring the fleeting pink glow; Roy speeding across the tops and towards the edge to attempt and get a peek of his pink pursuit. Just moments before he could however, the pink light takes a sharp turn away from the purple angel; the merc coming to a skidding halt before making an aerial u turn. Leaping out to the neighboring buildings, Roy lands atop the roof and flies out to the other side; gazing ahead for any sign of neon pink; the trail glowing bright despite not seeing a single glint of the girl herself. “Th-...The fuck...The fuck did she go?” In the midst of wondering such, an illuminating pink light begins to shine from the merc’s backside; Roy himself noticing the glow from the light on his hands alongside the sound of charging power. “Shit!” Seeing the readying attack behind him, the purple angel swiftly turns back and blocks his front with his only arm; such defense nowhere near enough to soften the blast. Facing the full front of the assault, the neon pink beam sends Roy careening across the darkened city block; the neon ray lighting up the night as both it and the merc streak across the skyline.

The purple angel’s trip across the nightly neighborhood ends with him smashing right in the face of a tall office building; the slam down leaving him lodged to the surface as crumbling stone and glass rain above him. Recovering from the crashing pink blast, Roy opens his eyes to come face to face with the one who shot him halfway across the street; beholding Kingsley’s younger sister staring the merc down with her bright pink eyes. Trapped within a translucent pink bubble behind Chloe be a myriad of colorful souls, moaning and wailing like frightened apparitions; all of it confirming the young red head to be the soul harvesting reaper dressed in glowing pink. “Oh Chloe...How could you?” the goddess questions in horrible shock. “I doubt its really Kingsley’s sister behind all that bright pink flare.” Hearing the purple angel’s accusation makes the red head raise a single eyebrow to her foe, a small smile forming between his cheeks as Roy presses further with: “That’s right, bitch. You really think I’m that stupid enough to not figure it all out? All the little things that were going on were more than enough to piece it all together. Getting a shit ton of power in just one night and not having my senses be enough to trace all of it right to the red head. It typically wouldn’t be hard for me to keep a good track on power that intense, but you very well knew that, didn’t you? You had the foresight and magic to mask the red head from my life sense so that you could prolong us finding the poor girl; and that is exactly what gave you away. Who else would have that kind of magic at their disposal and know to cast it ahead of time to throw us all off, but the witch bitch whose rainbowlicious asshole we kicked in a month ago. So quit the bullshit and show yourself Circe!”

Taking in the violet angels accusation in full, the red head can’t help but let a sinister smile gradually crack between her cheeks; a small giggle leaking out from her smirk. The young girls giggle eventually transforms into full blown cackling; her snide laughter ringing across the entire darkened block. Once the teenage red head laughter dies down, her bright pink eyes gaze back to the lodged merc; her voice resembling that of a full grown woman as she admits how: “I was honestly beginning to wonder which of you mortals would catch on next. I was starting to think that all of you worthless fools were basically braindead; well, except for that damn Spicer boy. Oh how he was so close to busting up my little soul harvesting operation and ruining everything; but I’ve learn from my mistakes from last time. I anticipated him be a potential thorn in my side and swiftly plucked him out of the picture before he could squeal. The rest of your pathetic group might be onto what part of this horrid city I’m hiding in; but by the time they figure out where, it’ll be far too late. Once that tank of souls I’ve been harvesting fills with the lives of this bustling metropolis, I shall devour them all and move on to the next town; and then to next, and the next after that. All the while I keep this cute little rose by my side, using her to harvest the souls of countless others; up until I garter enough of them to finally break that accursed seal put under placed on her Amazon crystal. With the crystal in my rightful possession and my magic at its peak, I’ll have attained enough power to trump anybody who dares stand in my away. Even against you...Hera.” Hearing the possessed teenager call to the goddess in his head takes both Roy and Hera herself completely off guard, the witch letting out a prideful snicker from the merc’s astonished gaze and continuing with: “That’s right, my goddess. I can hear you speaking inside that purple pricks head. I may never come to understand what drove you to take someone so undignified and crass as your messenger; but it really doesn’t even take a simple minded peon to understand how mine has the clear advantage.”

“You wanna bet?” Roy growls aloud. Its in asking this does the merc pull himself out of the mess of crumbled and cracked stone and glass; lunging out towards the hovering pink girl before her as he reaches his only hand out for the pink trinket tied around the young girls neck. Mere moments before the violet angel could grasp the possessed red heads smooth pink stone, a wall of translucent pink suddenly forms between him and Chloe; a smug smile cracking upon the girls face the witch asks: “Tell me something, mortal...What part of just rushing at me did you think was going to be effective?” Its in that moment that the shield blocking the merc’s grasp begin to expand around his entire body; the translucent energy quickly trapping the angel within a bubble of solid pink. Held captive within the bubble, Roy does whatever he can to attempt and escape from the prison of bright pink; punching and shooting the inner layer of bubble with as much strength as he can muster. Even when hitting his prison with all that he’s got, the inside of the bubble proves to hold not a single scratch; the self proclaimed goddess letting out a mocking laughter as she rises right above her caught purple pest. With but a single stomp, the possessed red head sends her violet foe rapidly plunging down to the nightly streets below; all while charging up a bright pink blast in the palm of her hands. Tossing the bright ball of pink down with the falling angel, the manipulative witch watches as both her foe and her blast slam down upon the concrete roads in a mess of smoke; the explosion ringing across the entire block. Gazing down upon the erupting cloud of smoke underneath, the goddess calls out to her unfortunate violet adversary; advising him with: “If I may humbly share a smidgen of godly wisdom, its that I suggest you take your losses and quit while your still breathing. Lest you desire for me to relieve you of your other arm.”

Out from the bottom of the smoke cloud, the purple angel flies out from behind the peering self proclaimed goddess; tossing out a ball of darkness out to the possessed red heads backside. As the sphere of shadows closes in towards the bewitched Chloe, a bright pink light shines in front of the young girl; turning back to the approaching blast with a huge pink hammer. With only a single swing, the mind controlled red head bats the ball of shadows aside; the sphere of shadows exploding upon the buildings beside her. After deflecting the purple angels darkness, the possessed red head uses the momentum of her swing to spin in place, quickly picking up breakneck speeds while keeping a tight grip on her pink hammer. Once gaining enough velocity, the bewitched teenager flings her bright pink hammer down the darkened streets; speeding towards the purple merc like a descending meteor. The streaking mallet proving far too fast to reliably dodge in time, Roy reaches his only arm out to the approaching pink weapon; hoping to stop the hammer with his only hand. Though he indeed manages to catch the head of the massive mallet with just the palm of his hand, the intense force behind it sends the purple angel skidding across the neighborhood; the asphalt breaking beneath his feet as he slides. His skidding trip comes to a very hard stop when crashing straight into a hard stone wall; the blow causing the entire building to collapse onto the violet angel.

The possessed teenage girl slowly descends down towards what remained of the destroyed buildings, her bright pink glare watching as her purple prick of a foe digs himself out of the resulting rubble. “What...the...fuck...is happening right now!?” Roy wonders aloud as he stands up from the crumbled stone. Hearing a devious cackle echo from above, the purple merc glances up witnesses the glowing pink young girl floating overhead; the self proclaimed goddess answering him by declaring that: “Tis divine justice, you barbaric darkling; Retribution for the heretics that have wronged me in the past. I dare say there may never be a more satisfying and sweet feeling than personally hand out rightful punishment; especially when using one of the guilty’s own companions to deliver it. Perhaps once I’m done toying with you, I’ll indulge in serving my holy wrath on the rest of your friends; reveling in the looks as my young puppets very site spurs betrayal, confusion, anger and hopelessness on their faces once ending each of their very pathetic lives. Oh, I can’t wait to see them all suffer in sorrow.”

Taking in the goddess’s condescending threats to kill his loved ones, a raw, intense rage stirs within the purple angel’s being; Circe’s maniacal laughter further fueling his unbridled fury. Focused by his anger, the merc charges out towards the cackling bewitched red head; a coat of black and violet darkness enveloping his armless side as he dashes forth. Distracted by her self indulgent glee, the bright pink teenager is caught off guard when Roy rams straight into her; the unholy assault sending the self proclaimed goddess towards the tall building down the road. Hurtling towards the buildings brick face, the enchanted red head starts slowing her flight down; decelerating herself the closer she reaches the wall. The manipulated Chloe manages to land on her feet when reaching the brickwork; her hands illuminating a bright pink glow as she rises from the buildings face. Soon after recovering from the unholy tackle, the possessed red head leaps back towards the angel who dares strike her; casting from the tips of her fingers a barrage of bright pink. The bewitched teens swarm of pink swiftly forms into a whole bouquet of blooming sharp roses, their razor thorn stems aimed at the approaching purple merc.

Seeing the barrage of razor roses incoming, the violet flies out to the side to evade their throny cuts; gliding inches above the stone face of the building. Witnessing more of them closing in fast, the merc kicks off from the buildings surface to dodge them in time; diving down to the dimly lit streets below. Once landing on the asphalt, the merc leaps back towards the possessed red head in front of him; all while the puppet herself stands without so much as flinching from his approach. As the purple angel charges towards the red head, he fail to notice the roses that he had evaded turning back towards him, their pointed stems darting towards his backside. Just moments before Roy could ram the self proclaimed goddess out, the roses dig their stems in the purple angels back; the surprise flowery backstabs throwing the merc off his charge. While easily evading her stunned foes unholy tackle, a bright glimmering glow shines out from the palms of Chloe’s hands; the light soon constructing itself into a sharp neon pink sword. Her newly made blade in hand, the brainwashed young girl swings her sword towards the merc; aiming the sharp end right at his exposed neck. Moments before the blade could swipe at his tendons, the lethal edge is caught just in time by the merc’s only hand; his palm bleeding on the sharp end as he halts the sword. Despite stopping the bewitched girls assault, the grin on her face fails to waver; the possessed Chloe gliding her glowing hand right to the merc’s stomach. In a flash of bright pink, the young red head shoots the purple angel square in the stomach with a powerful blast; the blow strong enough to send Roy rocketing through the sky in a trail of pink. Watching as the black angel careen through the darkened sky, the magical goddess can’t help but indulge in having warded her purple pest away; letting out a menacing cackle as the witch flies off into the distance.

Wiping off the stains of ruby red crimson from the black of his hands, Alex ventures further through the nightly backwater streets; the streetlamps he passes under reflecting off the bits of blood the orange demon wipes off. “Well, that was a rather unfortunate waste of time. Barely got any answers from that urchins frightened mumbling and wailing. Ugh, the absolute audacity of that man. A higher demon such as I took the time to stop at his worthless, dirt ridden abode in this run down, rat infested street hole, and he doesn’t even have the basic courtesy to even greet me, much less kneel at my very presence. I honestly wonder what this world has come to sometimes.”

On the cusp of this rant does the orange demon hear a faint sound of footsteps echoing nearby; the combined noise of kicking gravel urging Alex to transform his arms into lethal blades as warns whoever may be near that: “I dare warn you. My blades are sharp enough to slice through the very air you breathe. Think carefully before you rush into your doom.” Despite his brave words, the orange demon can’t stop his legs from trembling beneath him; his eyes constantly darting across the surrounding nightly streets in hopes of finding who may be stalking him. While the frightened demon gazes out to the streets ahead, a single tap to his backside causes him to jump; swiftly turning back and slashing out at whoever may be behind him. His arms lethal edge is blocked by the neck of a hockey stick, the demon calming himself when he hears a familiar voice urging him to: “Chill out here, Alex. It’s just me.” The reassuring tone makes the young demon open his eyes, finding Roy’s younger sister blocking his blade swing; Alex transforming into a girl as she turns her arms back to normal. “You!? D-don’t sneak up on me like that again! I could have sliced your head off your shoulders for satans sake!” “Aw, guessin you do care?” “Perish the thought. Killing an ally by accident would be seen as rather foolish in any case. And didn’t my brash older cousin split us all off to gather information on finding the witch that captured my Kingsley soul? If you have nothing significant to report, then I suggest you stop wasting our precious time and get back to your duty.” “And if I in fact do got something important to say?” “Well then, the night is fleeting. Spit it out already.”

“I got a pretty good idea where all the souls might be stowed away at. Saw some rainbow lights shining from the top of that tower over there.” the skater explains, her finger pointing out towards the towering building set to the north. “Hmph, your certain?” “As absolute as your horns be black.” “...Right. If that is the case, then there’s no time to lose. We best head out at once.” Hearing her demonic partners eager determination, the orange skater pulls out her phone and states how she’s: “Right there with ya, my black horned bud; just gimme a minute to text the others.” Just before Mally could get to her texts messages, Alex lowers the phone down from her face and claims how: “Oh please, we don’t need those brutes. I’d wager that the two of us are perfectly capable of freeing all those souls ourselves.” “Might I remind your sweet demon girl ass of the insanely powerful witch that’s probably lurking inside; ya know, the one that nearly killed us all. It’d be better for all four of us to go in at once to even the odds.” the skater informs. “Well then, if you insist on indulging in the notion, they you could at least come up with a halfway decent plan while your at it.” “Oh, and like you can come up with one on the spot?” “I in fact can. Clearly, the best strategy going in this is to coordinate a pinching assault; with your moronic brother and my brutish cousin coming in at the top while the both of us sneak in through the bottom. Even if that horrid witch dares to attempt and escape, she would have to handle wasting time dealing with us. Once we corner and finish her off, we free all the souls trapped within.” “Hmm...Since it sound like your coming up with all the idea’s, you got a way for us to sneak inside?” The young skaters question causes a sinister smile to form upon the demons face, a devious snicker escaping from Alex’s mouth.

Out along the green pasture of the Townsville park, a lone couple stands upon the stone bridge above the small river; both the girls staring upon to the darkened sky as one of the complains on how: “Aw, I can’t see even a single star out tonight. Wish this cloudy weather would just let up.” The other girl of the two glances back up at the sky as her lover eyes drift down, reassuring her partner on how: “Hey, I’m sure it’ll clear up soon. I bet we’ll even see something magical tonight.” Her eyes glued to the sky, the woman discovers a bright pink light high among the clouds; its glow urging her to grab the attention of her love and mention how: “Babe look! A shooting star!” The other girl pulls her gaze back up above to witness the trailing light drift across the sky, amazed by the site as she awes: “Whoa, I’ve never seen one so...pink before.” “It looks beautiful.” Its in admiring the star do they realize the bright pink glow growing in size; it’s luminescence beginning to blanket their bodies. “It look’s like its getting closer.” “Uh, yeah…How bout we take this date somewhere else?” Stating this do both ladies race off as the comet closes in; the couple running off as the bright neon pink light crashes straight into the stone bridge.

The resulting dust eventually settles, unveiling the park bridge reduced to nothing but crumbled and cracked stone; the water from the river leaking our from the cracks of the rubble. Out from the mess of rubble, a lone arm punches itself out from the pile of stone bridge pieces; the arms purple owner soon pulling the rest of himself out of the rock. “What...the...fuck...” Once taking in the biggest breath his lungs could possibly hold; Roy screams aloud: “What the fuck was that Sailor moon hentai bullshit about!?” “Roy, calm down.” the goddess in his head insists. “How in the...Why...What the hell was all that about!? I could barely land a hit on her! Nothing I threw at her worked! How the hell is she doing all this?” “Circe has been utilizing the full potential of the Amazon crystal through Chloe’s body; she obviously knows how to bring out its full power.” “Even so, nothing I did even slowed her down. She just scoffed it all off like it was nothing.” “Well that’s not much a surprise. The crystals were designed to counter and combat against the forces of darkness. I’m afraid your shadowy powers can do little against her.” “Agh, fuckin plot armor. Hate that shit. Wonder how it would stand against a slice to the jugular.” “Roy, your honestly not thinking about killing the young girl, are you?” “Hate the thought of it. Almost makes me shiver thinking about it. But if things get that bad, I might just have to.”

The purple angel’s regretful response draws out a surge of pink energy to course through the merc’s entire body; the flowing power causing the merc to let out a painful cry. “You will do no such thing!” Hera forcefully demands. “Dozens of lives are riding on all this. Kingsley and his parents, Tore and Mally’s mom. What other choice do I have?” Asking such causes another wave of pink to painfully course through the merc’s entire body; the shock proving intense enough to make Roy kneel on ground. “If you think of so much as hurting her, Roy. I swear that I will send forth a powerful shock straight to your brains.” “Why the hell do you care so much about that red head? You barely batted an eye when I wound up snuffing out a dozen others; what makes her so special to you?” “I...I can’t tell you. You’ll just have to trust me.” “Don’t you fuckin gimme that “blind faith” bullshit to be, dammit. I ain’t the kind of complacent dipshit that just believe whatever people say to me. Either you tell me why, or just shut the hell up.” “I can’t. If I did, it would potentially open old wounds that are just too painful to bear.” “And you think that’s any worse than what’s happening now?” the merc questions, arising from the wet dirt. The purple angel hears not a single answer from the goddess; not even a single word could be heard ringing in Roy’s head. “What urges you to prioritize one mortal over a dozen others!? Why demand me to spar one over the hundred other’s I’ve taken. Hypocrisy? Faith? Goals and end? Prophecy? Blood? Answer me, Hera!” “Because Chloe is my granddaughter!” Having finally drawn out an answer from the goddess, her words cause the merc’s pupils to gradually shrink; the only response that could escape from him being: “What?”

Strolling through the cracked, dirty sidewalk of the run down neighborhood, the blue angel can’t help but ponder upon where his purple brother might be. Mally did text something about him saying that he was taking care of the other half of the mission; meaning that he’s probably trying to find Chloe in all this chaos. If what he might have been talking about her being possessed is true, then we might be in some trouble if she winds up coming here.

In the midst of thinking of the potential consequences of going against their red headed friend, the faint sound of growling catches the blue boy’s hears; Tore stopping dead in his tracks and glancing around to try and find where he might’ve heard it. Was that a bear? Seriously, that sounded like a bear growling back there. Why is there one out this far in the city? Despite these questions, the boy finds next to no sign of any ursa in site; eventually shrugging off the bizarre occurrence. Eh, might’ve just been someone’s TV cranked up way too loud.

Once the blue boy turns his back away, a massive shadow emerges from around the corner; the shadow letting out soft, heavy breaths from its drooling maw. Once close enough to the boy’s backside, the shadow stands as tall as it can; towering over the blue angel as it begins to descend its claws towards his head. Moments before the beasts claws could dig into his flesh, Tore turns right around and catches its giant maws with his bare hands. The blue boy is caught off guard on discovering what stands against him, gazing upon the fuzzy underside of a huge ass bear; the ursa letting out a maddening roar as it attempts to push the boy down. In the midst of its roar, the blue angel headbutts the bear right in its muzzle; the blow sending the fuzzy beast reeling back. Tore takes the moment to follow up his head butt by charges straight towards the stunned ursa, driving his fist straight into the beast stomach and sending him flying into a brick wall. The unexpected ursa collapsing onto the sidewalk, the blue boy starts to carefully approach the downed bear; poking at its fuzzy hide while it remains unconscious. Just what the hell is a giant ass bear like this doing roaming the streets at night? The zoo’s on the other side of town. In the middle of inspecting the beast, the blue boys ears catch the sounds of a dozen animals worth of enraged growls; turning back to discover himself surrounded by an entire cavalcade of predatory animals; all ranging from tigers, buffalo, hyena, lion, eagles, bears, and pumas. As all of them encroach closer towards the indigo teenager, only a single thought rings in his head. “How the hell did this happen?”

“Seriously, how the hell did this happen?” Cayenne wonders as well, holding back a screaming wild baboon inches from her face. Before the simian could have the chance to tear into its foe’s face, the spice queen socks the ape right off her; sending the animal slamming right into a set of garbage cans that topple over on impact. After smacking the ravenous baboon off her, her ears catch the growl of a predator approaching from behind; turning back to discover a huge lion on the verge of pouncing right on her. With only just a single kick, the Spice queen plants her boot right in the lethal felines face; the blow causing the oversized cat to careen straight into the side of a buildings. Checking her side, Cayenne witnesses a speeding hyena lunging towards her; its bared fangs aiming at the side of her stomach. Right when the dog was ready to bite down upon the girls side, the spice queen grasps its neck moments before it could sink its teeth into her stomach; soon tossing the hyena down the neighborhood.

As she watches the wild dog scamper off into the darkness of the streets, her ears catch the sound of panicked children screaming from nearby; glancing behind her to witness a set of familiar looking kids racing across the street. “Help!” “Mommy! Mommy!” “Somebody, help!” “Ah, no, stop!” All of them cry out for somebody to come to their aid as they race away from the roaring wrath of a fearsome leopard; the feline claws coming out as it closes in on its feverish pursuit. Cayenne acts fasts and zips out towards the fearsome leapord, tackling the beast away from the children and pinning it to a nearby brick wall; the spice queen evading its constant claw swipes as she holds the feline down. “All of you get somewhere safe and hide, now!” she demands from the kids. “Mommy, no!” one of the cries. “Don’t worry, I’ll find your mom...Just beat it already!” “Stop it please, your hurting her!” another of them pleads. Hearing one of the kids mention such at first confuses the Spice queen, wondering what the hell they mean by it; glancing towards them all to find them staring upon her with pleading eyes.

As she looks away, one of the leopards back legs slashes its claws onto its captors stomach; the unexpected and sudden swipe causing Cayenne’s grip to loosen. This gives the wild beast the chance to turn the tables on its foe, shaking out of Cayenne hold and falling right onto her; the beast attempting to tear into her as the spice queen holds the feline back. “Mommy, please! Stop hurting her!” one of the children beg out loud. Its in hearing this that Cayenne finally realizes why these kids all look familiar, its the kids of that mom she could barely get a damn word out to; the pieces all quickly connecting for the spice queen. This giant fucking cat is their mom! “How...how the hell did this happen!? She just have enough of yer shit and thought you’d be better of as sirloins than kids?” Cayenne questions the children while holding their transformed mother off her. “We were all just having fun running around and playing tag, when she saw a bright rainbow light surrounding our mom and turn her into a giant cat. After that, she started chasing us all through the streets. We begged her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.” Rainbow light?...Circe. That witch bitch has to be onto us, tryin to slow us down with this shit. The feline beast swiping its claws inches from her face, the spice queen finally tosses the transformed mother off her; Cayenne kicking the ravenous leopard crashing straight into a set of trash cans. While the feral feline starts to pick itself up, Cayenne takes the opportunity to lunge forth towards the predator; grabbing one of the trash cans in her rush. The spice queen scoops the transformed mom into the garbage can and shuts it in, trapping the beast in the can as she holds the lid down; Cayenne struggling to keep her grip as the can jerks and shakes under her. Having caught the feral leopard, she turns her gaze over towards the set of children; demanding that they: “Don’t you little ankle biters just fuckin stand there; help me find something to tie this can down!”

“What the fuck do you mean she’s your granddaughter!? You really sittin here expecting me to buy that Kingsley and Chloe are from line of demigods!” Roy exclaims. “Well, no. My daughter was born far before I became a goddess. I had perished in battle making sure that she and my grandchildren would have a future to live for, but left my little princess all alone in this world. I can’t imagine what any of them may think of me.” “And this has something to do with our situation because-” “Believe me when I say I can’t bear seeing my granddaughter reduced to a puppet for Circe’s plot, but I will not let that be an excuse to have her executed.” Hera proclaims. “Alright, alright, fine; I won’t touch your precious baby girl. But we still need to do something. If taking her head on and stealth killing is out; what the hell else you expect me to do?” the purple angel wonders.

“Hmm...there may be perhaps be one thing that we could try, but I’m afraid you may not live through the process.” “What do ya got in mind?” “Its rather in your mind, really. There is a tiny smidgen of the crystals power dwelling within you; specifically trapped inside your brain. It’s how I’ve been communicating with you all this time. That tiny bit of power might be enough to undo the seal placed on the Amazon crystal; effectively rendering Chloe completely harmless.” “Fan fuckin tastic. Mind telling me how I can use this power trapped in me head?” “I afraid that you can’t. Such raw goddess energy can only be wielded by those with the body and or mind of a woman.” “Why exactly is this called a plan again?” “Its because I can remotely control that power without you. I can essentially use it to project myself through you and lend you a fighting chance.” “I guessing this is where the “but” comes in.” Roy claims. “If we’re wanting it to be that effective, then we’ll need that energy coursing through your entire body.” “Sounds simple enough. Just get it outta my head and run it through.” “I’m afraid its anything but. Not only do I have to carefully navigate the energy out of your delicate brain; but also to make some adjustments to your insides so that there won’t be any complications afterwards. All of which will no doubt be incredibly suffering. I’m not sure you’ll make it through such a painful process.” “Bitch, have you seen how much shit I took this past few months? Beaten, blasted, frozen, set on fire, and stabbed through multiple vital organs. I got enough in me to take years worth of torturous abuse and come out of it sticking the middle finger outta my torturers asshole.” “I can’t exactly stop once we start. Are you sure your ready to endure such constant agony?” “I ain’t like we got a lot of choices or time on our hands. So we best get this shit show on the road.” “Well, if you insist. I suppose I should get started.” the goddess mentions. “Right...So just a heads up here, how painful is this going to be exactly? Will it just be a small numbing sensation or will it be a frothing agony so insanly torturous that’ll be like shoving an entire bramble branch entwined with barbed wire so far up yer ass that the thorns’ll be pokin out yer mouth. Or maybe could be that-” Interrupting his wondrous rantings, the purple angel’s entire body starts to glow a brilliant shading pink; Roy convulsing as he screams in utter pain that: “Aaaggghh! It’s worse! I didn’t think it was possible, but its so much worse than I thought!”

Set along the bottom of the dilapidated tower, a large grate stands dislodged right next to an open air vent; the midnight air blowing through its steel insides. Alongside the cold night winds, the sound of foot steps could be heard ringing through the tunnel; the breeze reaching the vertical tunnels and climbing up the shaft. Spreading itself through the tunnels, a bit of the wind reach out to both the orange haired demon and skater crawling through the sheet steel vents; Mally slightly shivering from the breeze as she checks her phone. While they traverse through the dust ridden vents, Alex swats away the dozens of cobwebs littering the path ahead of him; letting out a disturbed shiver as she glances back to her human partner to question: “Have either Cayenne or your blue dumbass of a brother called back yet?” “I’ve been sending both of them dozens of texts and voice mails, but I haven’t heard back from any of them yet.” Mally explains. “And what of your purple prick of your other brother?” “Busy.” “Gah, If none of them have even bothered to review my strategy, then I’m afraid the two of us will need to switch tactics. What else could I have expected from those incompetent fools; their lack of proper attention spans will surly spell our demise.” “Oh, don’t gimme that. Neither of us know what’s even going on out there. Maybe if you’d stop constantly putting other people down; you’d see that they aren’t as terrible as your constantly making them out to be.”

“Well, I’m so sorry that I’ve grown to have such low expectations of everyone; as if the occasional mockery and social exclusion hasn’t already painted a good picture for me already.” “I’m guessing having black horns and hands haven’t exactly given you that great of a social start; hasn’t it?” “I’m beginning to wonder what your first guess might’ve been. All the way back in kindergarten and stretching to this very day, everyone can’t help but give suspicious glares and wondering stares; as if questioning whether I’m nothing but a freak under these horns. Each and every one of steer clear of me whenever I walk by, not even bothering to talk to me when they bump by.” “...Not everyone does.” “Well of course. I’m certain that my family members have a sort of obligation to stand by me. But they’re no different in the end, glaring at me all the same.” the orange demon explains while gazing ahead. “While I’d argue otherwise, they’re not who I meant.” “Ah. Kingsley, of course. The only diamond in this hellish rough. Out of all of the people that I have encountered in my 13 year old life, he was the only one to have actually bothered to care; even stand up for me while I was being hounded by my older cousin. Quite the notable exception to this world filled with judgmental cowards.”

“What about Roy?” Hearing the purple angels name causes the demon to stop crawling in his tracks, Alex glancing back to the young girl behind him and questions: “What about him?” “He didn’t see some kind of loud mouth, pompous demon like everyone else. He saw somebody who wanted to be as amazing as they say. He could have just scoffed at you and continued with his life like every other arrogant asshat; but instead, he took the time and patients to try and change you into something better. Roy harnessed your spite, anger, and hatred to try and turn you from just another bragging and whining brat, into the demon that proves to be everything they say they are.” Hearing this sentiment coming from her masters own sister draws out nothing but silence from the demon; Alex’s eyes drifting to the sheet metal both her and her partner crawl upon. “So, now that your not bragging anymore. Can ya think of what else the two of us can do to free all the souls?”

Beyond the towers foreboding streets, the sound of screeching and roaring animals ring throughout the neighborhood; the blue angels wings lighting up the darkened streets as he glides across the skyline. In his flight through the run down neighborhood, Tore glances back to find himself being pursued by a flock of deadly birds; their talons aimed right at the boy as they close in. “Come on. Leave me alone already!” he pleads while casting forth ball after ball of light towards the chasing flock. The birds of prey evades the blue boys barrage of pale light energy, the flock dispersing in all directions while evading their pursuits shots; one of the hawks ascends high above the skyline to soon dive bomb straight down towards its target. Once close to the unsuspecting blue angel, the hawk draws forth its sharp talons as it prepares to strike; gliding across its pursuits side and slashing through his clothes. Upon the hawks sudden swipe, Tore hisses out in pain as he grasps the side of his stomach; the warm wet crimson of his blood staining his white blazer. Before the blue boy could heal the new wound, an eagle flies in from below; feeling its sharp talons swipe through his face and clip his eye. The two back to back assault cause the angel to plummet back down towards the darkened streets below; crashing straight into the asphalt road. After taking the hard fall onto the concrete roads, the indigo teenager rises from the pavement as the palms of his hands emit a bright glow upon the side of his stomach and face; uncovering them as the light fades to reveal both completely. “Agh! A slash to the stomach I can take, but the eyes...god, I never knew how much that hurts.” In that moment do his ears catch the sound of a cry for help sounding off alongside loud squealing; the blue angel gazing in the noise to discover an elderly lady being chased down the street by a charging wild boar.

“Help! Somebody please!” the old woman pleads aloud while fleeing from the mad pig behind her; the tusks of the pursuing boar closing in on her backside. Just when it was ready to ram right into her back, a pair of hands grabs hold of its tusks and stops the charging boar right in its track; the woman hearing the pig scream and gazes back to discover a blue haired angel holding the wild pig back. “Don’t worry, lady! I got this!” the boy reassures the lady; holding the boar in place as it struggles to escape from his grasp. Trapping the animal in his grasp, Tore heaves the boar off its four hooves; lifting it overhead to toss its hairy pigskin right into a brick wall. Watching the boar slam hard into the wall causes the old lady to let out a horrified gasp; her eyes gazing back to the young blue boy when she notices a bright light beside her. “I wonder if I can make bacon like this?” he ponders, charging a powerful energy the palm of his hand. “No!” the old lady shouts.

Just when the blue angel was about to fire out towards the stunned, Tore soon feels something tackle him straight to the concrete ground; his beam misfiring and speeding through the night sky. Tackled to the pavement below, the blue boy soon discovers the spice queen right on top of him; Tore questioning her with: “Cayenne!? What’s the matter with you!? I was just about to make egg sandwiches with a side of bacon bits outta one of them.” “Quit trying to blast the brain outta the animals around here, you blue dumbass! We can’t afford to kill any of them!” “Why!? They could seriously hurt people!” “Because they are people, Dammit!” Her Spicy comrades answer throws the angel back a bit; the boy proving confused as all hell as he letting out a preplex: “...Huh?” “It’s true.” he hears somebody confirm.

Glancing to their side, both of them find the old woman that the angel had just saved look down upon them, continuing to support Cayenne’s claim by recalling that: “That wild boar you just threw over there happens to be my husband.” “How...how’s that even possible?” “I don’t know. All I saw was a bright rainbow light that woke me up beside my husband; looked over and saw him transform before my very eyes. Once he turned into a pig, he chased me outta the house and across the streets. No matter how much I beg him to stop, he just wouldn’t listen.” After hearing the old woman’s story, Cayanne lets the blue boy stand back up from the cold concrete; Tore asking the spice queen: “So what’s our next move, captain? It’s not like we can just stuff them all in one building somewhere; all of them would just tear each other apart either trying to get out or just natural instinct telling them to go fuck them all up.”

To the blue angels question, the spice queen takes a moment to ponder what exactly they could do to combat this unorthodox situation; soon coming up with something and ordering the angel before her that: “What you’re gonna do is round up any people you see on the streets that haven’t turned and take them somewhere safe. While your taken care of all that, I’ll go around and keep the entire zoo’s worth of rabid animal people from getting further out into the city. God knows that if all of them start stampeding through town, all of Townsville would turn into a massive shitshow. That clear, bitch?” “Aye aye, captain!” Hearing the blue angel confirm her orders, the spice queen glides over to the wild hog and heaves it onto her shoulders; soon flying off into the night sky with the pig. Tore meanwhile sweeps the old woman off her feet; the elderly lady lets out a worrying yelp as she’s carried off, all while the blue angel warns her to: “Hold on tight.” As the blue angel flies off with the old woman in her arms, he takes a quick birds eye view of the rest of the district; discovering hundreds of wild, untamed predators roaming the entire neighborhood. This realizing site makes Tore let out a worrying breath; the blue boy can’t help but wonder how both Cayenne and him can sort out this giant mess on their own.

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Sorry about this. This finale is taking a little longer to develop then I had hoped. But I swear the next chapter will be the last this season. I want to thank you all so much for stick by this long and hope that you've been enjoying the stories that I've been writing.

#lillaxtrigger #Young Hope

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qhuinnbdb · 6 years ago

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It’s Time

Qhuinn: *Time didn’t exist in this mind fuck I was in. Seeing Crhis and Grahve fucking each other changed something in me and I didn’t know that was possible, but here I was. Playing that scene over and over in my head. Rewind, play, rewind, play, until I felt the walls were closing in on me. Everything I thought I knew was warped and thrown back at me in a twisted bolt of lightning, hitting every nerve as it spiralled through me.

Had it been minutes, hours? I had no idea… After leaving Crhis in his dorm room, I headed for my room and locked the door. At some point I heard a knock at the door but I didn’t care who it was. They could fuck off and bother someone else. Pulling my phone out my pocket, I fired off a text to Crhis “Meet me in the gym”. The gym would be quiet this time of the day unless someone was working off some frustration. The entire mansion was quiet. Most of members were asleep and those who weren’t asleep kept to themselves. His reply was almost instant.

I grabbed fresh clothes from my cupboard and went to the bathroom to take a steaming shower. A few minutes later, I stepped out, feeling a bit more like myself again and dried off. Dropping the towel in the laundry basket, I changed and headed out the door, thankful for empty hallways. The trip down to the tunnels and to the gym felt strange. It was me walking this road, but it wasn’t me. All the same. I was here and I wasn’t.

My chest felt heavy, as if something was pressing against it which made breathing a tad bit difficult. Instinctively my hand lifted, palm pressed flat over the cause of the pressure. My heart… my heart was the problem here. Fuck.

Stopping at the double door, I pushed it open and walked in. Empty. Perfect. I walked over the the far side of the gym and sat on one of the benches, waiting for Crhis*

Crhis: [What the fuck just happened. The thought kept running through my my head on rewind while my stomach threatened to reenact the Purge in 3D. And I let it loose. Not that there was much to purge aside from hours old alcohol and acid. Steam rose around me was the hot water pelted my skin; I no more felt it than I felt the growing numbness heavily in my chest.

Reliving the look on Qhuinn’s face brought another round of upheaving. How I missed the male entering the room bothered me. And the way both he and Grahve left, one after the other… I couldn’t blame G, fuck or Qhuinn for that matter. Oh look, another go with the up-chucking. Can I just say, fuck dry-heaving? And fuck feeling like this. Fuck feelings when they weren’t returned. Damn those blue and green eyes… Jesus christ I was a FUCKING WEAK ASS MOTHERFUCKER.

I needed to get my head back in the game. I didn’t join the program to play Let’s See Who’s Heart is Weaker. I joined because I needed to ahvenge my family’s death, and I wasn’t going to give up or be detoured. Grabbing the soap and a cloth, I scrubbed every inch of my body thoroughly. Right. Once the lockdown was lifted, I’d go out with whoever I was paired up with each night, without question, without reservation and without any emotional attachment and fight until the sun came up or until the Fade or a Lesser’s bullet took me.

Mind made up and my resolve in place, I rinsed off and killed the water before stepping from the shower. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I reached up and wiped the condensation from the mirror, studying the bastard staring back at me.]

Fuck.

[That about summed it all up. Nutshell and all. The ping from my cell furrowed my brows, after what went down in here not that long ago I didn’t expect anyone to need me.. but I walked over and checked it anyway. Flipping the phone open and ticking the New Messages tab, that fucking feeling came over me again, making my stomach drop. It was from Qhuinn, and he wanted me to meet him in the gym. Fucking /fuck/.

I didn’t rush to dress, but inside of 15, my shitkickers were stomping their way to the gym. Shoving the door open, I half expected to see one or two trainees or even a Brother working out. But it was empty except for one body. One I’d recognize anywhere, even if I’d been double blindfolded. Shit. All those feelings I’d just offloaded in the shower jumped back on board faster than that male could make my heart pump with a single look.]

Qhuinn: *I sensed him before he walked in and I felt my body stiffen. The walls were closing in on me again and my fingers curled around the edge of the bench, gripping it tight. My heart pounded in my chest and a sudden feeling of nausea swept over my entire body, leaving my skin covered in goosebumps.

My eyes locked on those ice blues and my body ached to get up and wrap myself around the male, but the very thought of doing that made my chest hurt. Nodding in an attempt to look casual and shifting on the bench, my hands releasing the edge slowly as I eased into the convo*

I’m not sure where to start or how to put this because I honestly don’t know what the fuck has been going on with us and you and Grahve and… yeah… with everything.

*My throat tightened causing me to pause and take a deep breath*

What I do know is that I can’t keep doing this.

Crhis: [Something was more than off. I offloaded those fucking feelings without a life preserver, slamming the loading ramp off the dock along with them. Just the look from the male screamed volumes at me. But fuck if those little traitors didn’t make me want to clear the distance between us until we were nose to nose. Lip to lip.

My chest felt tight, I couldn’t breathe without my lungs squeezing my heart at every turn. I was suffocating and the only one who could do anything about it was… Qhuinn. Schooling a neutral look on my face, what I hoped barely passed for neutral when all I wanted to do was.. Dammit. Hear what he has to say and go. That was the only way I was going to make it out of this gym under my own power, because right now, if I tried to move, it wouldn’t end well.

I nodded once when Qhuinn started to speak. I didn’t trust myself to say anything. I knew where this was going, but I had to let him finish when all I wanted to do was pretend shit was fine. And when the male finished his last word, I felt like throwing up again.

I tried anyway. Taking a deep breath, I met Qhuinn’s eyes and almost wish I hadn’t. It was too damn easy to get lost in them…. ]

There isn’t anything between me and Grahve. We’re partners. It was a one time thing. [Who went out drinking, fucking randoms in the bathroom and ended up back here fucking each other when you walked in. You should have joined in, and then I’d have killed G for fucking with my male.. Yeah, that sounded even worse in my head.]

And you can’t keep doing what? You’ve managed to ignore me for months, outside of training or the one or two rotations you had switched out, pretty god damned fucking well. [That really fucking hurt too. But I couldn’t, however, look away from Qhuinn. And that was squeezing the fuck out of my lungs. My heart was slowly disintegrating, I knew this was the end of whatever there ever had been between us. Better to just walk away, right? Scribe help me, I fucking couldn’t.. ]

Qhuinn: *Keeping my ass firmly planted on the bench for stability, I tried to stop the growl that rumbled from my throat and failed miserably. I felt my body vibrating, the air shifting and my skin crawling. Crhis made us out to be a random fuck and maybe that’s what it was to him. But for me this was much more than I had given anyone. 3 years… It didn’t seem like much when you could end up living a thousand, but it was more than I thought capable of giving.

As I looked into those icy blue eyes I was reminded of our first pool game… and the body shots and hardcore fucking that followed. Every time I saw him I had to have him, had to make him mine until I forced myself to take a step back. I was in too deep and I needed to take a breather. I needed the distance between us and now I was facing the consequences of those actions. This was exactly why I didn’t get close. This pain… and everyone in my life who was supposed to love me, ended up hurting me. My father, my brother.

This wasn’t any different. Crhis didn’t want me dead, but there had been a few times he might as well have pushed the dagger into my chest. The fucked up thing was that I did the same to him. And that is how I knew this was not meant to be. My mind scrambled over a few words before I finally spoke*

I put distance between us because we got too close. I can’t get that close to anyone. It never ends well.. Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but I want you to know that whatever you call this relationship between us, it was real for me. It meant something. But it’s over.

*I knew I owed him more of an explanation than this, but my chest was threatening to cave in. My body was as tense as a towing rod and my head was one major mind fuck away from a camping trip. I needed to get away from Crhis. Away from all this pain*

Crhis: [Gritting my teeth, I felt my fangtips just start to poke into my lip. No matter what the fuck was going on here, Qhuinn was mi… no. I couldn’t let my mind finish the word. I fought it. Hard. I was just another bang for Qhuinn. Just another fuck. I had to have been. One more notch in his bedpost. To finally admit that to myself was like nailing my own coffin shut.]

You’re right. I don’t understand. But you never gave me a chance to. [Each word came out slow and deliberate so I wouldn’t rush over to stand right in front of him. Like I wanted to. I ...needed.. to. Fuck.]

And you don’t think /I/ felt anything at all.

[The male had sucker punched me right then and there with his comment about me not thinking what had been between us was real. I bit down my grow as I spoke.]

How do you think it made me feel to catch the scent of sex on you, when I knew it wasn’t from me. Yeah, I knew when you and Murhder went out to the club. And that was after you told me about not giving up fucking Grahve.

[I needed to move. I paced slowly, my arms crossed over my chest to keep from punching something.]

Let me ask you something. Not counting tonight, do you have any idea how many times I’ve been with /anyone/ since the last time you and I were together?

[The breath I drew in was shaky, but I pushed on, letting the vice squeeze my chest and heart that much more. Because, why the fuck not. Qhuinn had already gutted me, what more was it going to kill me. Scribe, I felt nauseous.]

Not /one/ single fucking time. Not once. No one. Because I only wanted you, Qhuinn. You.

[I’d lost everyone I ever loved in my life, my entire family. And now? I’d fucking lost Qhuinn, too. My voice broke to a wavering whisper as I tried to keep the emotional tidal wave from drowning me.] I loved you.

Qhuinn: *The world shifted. With those three words, the air was knocked out of my lungs. The room darkened and the floor gave way, leaving me spiralling to a new low which promised to swallow me and chew me up. Breathe… just breathe… Taking a few deep breaths only afforded me a few moments and I had to take advantage of them. Standing up, I pushed past Crhis and turned to speak as I walked past*

You sure chose a piss poor way to show me that. We’re done here.

*With that I headed for the door and ignored the anger that radiated from the male. Every cell in my body was trembling and the need to get the fuck out of this mansion was met with the frustration of lockdown. I punched the double doors open and beat feet down the tunnels to the main house and sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for not running into anyone on the way. My mood was dark and dangerous and at this point I wasn’t in control. When I reached my room, I shut the door behind me and willed the locks into place before ducking into the bathroom for a scorching hot shower, a night of heavy drinking and shutting the world out*

Crhis: [Just like that, Qhuinn was gone. His words slashing razor sharp through every part of me, cutting out my heart like his blade took out Lessers.

I couldn’t breathe, the air wouldn’t fill my lungs. I didn’t blink. All I saw was the ghosted form of Qhuinn walking out the double doors rolling back on repeat. My heart and body roared to chase him down, my mind put a lead bullet between the eyes of that thought. The male didn't want anything to do with me.

Turning away from the door, something inside me burst. And not like a small pipe springing a leak. More like a mainline busting loose with an explosion. The animalistic sound that bellowed out didn’t sound like anything that could come from me, my chest heaving raw breaths I didn’t feel, my heart hammering wildly as if it were trying to claw its way out from behind it’s ribbed prison.] “We’re done here. We’re done here. We’re done.. We’re done.. done..”

My fist connected with a solid object and I didn’t feel it shatter the bones, the wet crunching sound was muted to nothing compared to the roaring din in my head. I didn’t feel the second that followed. Or the next. I just kept swinging blindly, everything going black and out of focus….]

#ItsTime #BondedBrothers

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musikat18 · 7 years ago

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Star Trek: Schism Chapter Two (Bones x Reader)

(Header made by me. Photos belong to respective owners.)

Pairing: AOS Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy/Reader

Summary: Ever since the Academy, Bones has known that Lieutenant Commander Y/N Y/L/N was not the ordinary security chief. Something about her secretive, aloof nature and red-tape-coated files make him more than a little wary of her friendship. When the core of the Federation is shaken, she’ll have to cope as her friends realize that some secrets are better off buried in the past.

Warnings: Mentions of tense situations, (sarcastic) death threats, language, mentions of past trauma, verbal argument

A/N: I mentioned that this fic would contain some Wonder Woman influences, and this is where we see some of these start to be hinted at. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Star Trek: Schism

Chapter Two: Rogue Ambition

This was going to be it. Leonard couldn’t believe it. He was actually going to murder Jim. He never thought he would be pushed to the limit, but the second Jim blasted that Nibirilla off its feet, he knew Jim had crossed the line.

“Dammit, man!” he barked. “That was our ride! Where the hell is Y/L/N?!” If he was about to be chased on this god-forsaken alien planet, he was not going to do it without the one person charged with keeping all their limbs attached.

“I’m sure she’s right behind me!” Jim tugged on Bones’ arm to pull him along, “Just run!”

Leonard grumbled as he started to pick up his pace. Jim was not going to get away with almost killing the three of you if he had anything to say about it...at least with you effectively MIA, he could at least get away with it.

You furrowed your brow as you poked through the thick, red brush, trying to find that telltale patch of dirt. You were certain you had dropped off a file here at some point...was this one Carraya IV? It had been a while, you supposed, but you were certain it was here.

You smirked when you found the small mound you remembered creating and carefully brushed back the dust to reveal the PADD chip marked with the familiar bird-like logo.

Carraya IV, you decided. Definitely Carraya IV.

You plugged in the chip just as you heard a rustling through the trees, making you huff. Jim Kirk was a handful enough when you didn’t leave him unattended-- you should have known better than to leave him alone, in hindsight, but there was no way you could tell him about what you were doing.

It was classified, after all.

You tapped your foot impatiently as the file opened on your smuggled PADD. Sure, you were far, far away from Federation satellites, but you were certain you’d still had at least some performance speed upgrades enough to get this moving. Your fingers moved nimbly across the screen to enter the deletion command; you contained your surprise into a quirk of your eyebrow as Doctor McCoy spotted you in the bushes and stormed up to you.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, towering figure bolstered by his hands on his hips. “We’re running for our damned lives! How did you even get that down here?! What is that?”

“None of your business, McCoy,” you said, ejecting and crushing the chip under your boot once the deletion had completed. “It’s classified.”

He frowned disapprovingly, “Oh, sure, like it’s not a big deal that the damned security chief is in danger of busting up the Prime Directive like Jim’s face after Centauri VII!”

When you caught sight of the advancing Nibirans in the trees, you threw the doctor over your shoulder without much warning.

“We can discuss your concerns later, Doctor,” you said amicably as you broke into a hard run, “though I’d greatly appreciate it if you agreed to keep running.”

“If it means you put me down, I’ll be glad to!”

You loosened your arm just enough to allow McCoy to slid back to his feet and begin running just behind Jim, with you quickly speeding ahead of the both of them.

“I HATE THIS!!!” Leonard bellowed, pondering how unfair it was that you were just far enough away to not seem to feel in much danger-- you’d had a singularly focused expression on your face, seeming awfully indifferent for a near-death experience. Perhaps that was just how all you security types were.

“I know you do!” Jim shot back. He had been, Leonard saw, carrying some kind of scroll-- perhaps that was his way of drawing the Nibirans away from the Enterprise’s true purpose for being on Nibiru. The captain opened the scroll and hung it on a tree, stopping the pursuit, but that didn’t at all explain to Leonard why neither of his two companions had stopped running.

When he realized that they were headed for the rendez-vous, though, he let out a frustrated cry at just how they appeared to be headed towards it.

“Oh, no,” he shouted, “no, no, no, no!”

Regardless, he made the jump behind Jim’s aggressive leap and your elegant dive into the Nibiran sea below, each of you tearing off your heavy outer guises for the Starfleet-standard wetsuits underneath.

“See, Bones?” Jim tried to plaster a ‘please don’t kill me Bones’ smile on his face as the water drained from the antechamber on the Enterprise and the door to the ship opened. “That wasn’t so bad. Nobody’s hurt.”

“I guess you’re right,” he frowned, watching you start to wipe water off of your PADD and disappear down the corridor, nearly knocking Scotty over on your way out.

Your strange disappearance and how he’d found you seemed more than enough reason to finally bring up that little matter of your file. Once that damned volcano was stopped up, of course.

“Come in,” you called, casually leaning on the small, padded bench in your quarters. You didn’t have to look up; you already suspected that Dr. McCoy would have some questions for you.

“Just be honest with me, Y/N,” he crossed his arms as the door slid shut behind him. “I don’t wanna have to report you to Jim for suspected treason.”

“It wasn’t treason, Leonard,” you looked up. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Then how else can you explain that Federation technology sitting pretty on that undeveloped planet? You know the Prime Directive, Y/N. That was a risk of development interference.”

You pursed your lips, “Which, Jim violated, anyway.”

“Stop being so damn difficult,” he huffed. You could tell he was trying to keep his frustration at bay. “I don’t want to see you pushed dirtside because you know something that the higher-ups don’t.”

You smiled a little, “Aw, shucks, doc. I had no idea you wanted me around so bad.”

“Dammit, Y/N,” he rolled his eyes, accent thick at your flippant response. “You know what I meant. You’re just trying to be evasive.”

You took a breath, keeping your relaxed expression, “Leonard, trust me, this was not an unsanctioned expedition. I helped keep the Nibirans away from the volcano in case Spock couldn’t prevent the eruption, like we talked about, I just happened to be given a secondary assignment, which I also completed.”

McCoy furrowed his brow, “Secondary assignment? From who?”

“That’s classified,” you said simply.

“Classified, my eye!” he scoffed. “Your whole damn file is classified!”

In an instant, your attitude toward the doctor changed. Gone was your casual posture and simple, friendly smile. In your place was the same stone-faced, steel-eyed instructor he’d faced during Basic Training 2-817.

“Doctor McCoy,” you said firmly. “I don’t appreciate you poking around my file. There’s absolutely nothing in there that pertains to your field of work here on the Enterprise.”

“Excuse me?” his eyebrows quirked. “I’m the chief medical officer on this ship! Your file is supposed to contain information on your medical and physical history, and when I can’t read it, there’s a problem! What if something happened to you?”

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” you insisted. “That information is classified, admiral or higher access only, for a damn reason. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stick your nose where it didn’t belong and stopped being so stubborn about it.”

“Like you were so hesitant to leaf through my file, or any of ours! How are we supposed to trust each other if we can’t tell each other things? That is what colleagues are supposed to do, you know!”

“Simple,” you shrugged. “You let this whole thing go and trust me. I wouldn’t let you or any of your medical staff near me at all if I didn’t do the same for you.”

Leonard wanted so much to fight you on this. It wasn’t that unreasonable to ask for the CMO to be able to read the medical needs of one of the crew. Was he being a bit of a stubborn ass? Maybe, but only out of concern, and not entirely for you at this point.

He was jolted from his thoughts when you steered him toward your door.

“Take my advice, Doctor McCoy,” you said, ice lacing your words as you stared him down with firm disapproval. “Classified things are kept behind walls for a reason. Don’t go trying to knock them down…you’ll live longer.”

Your door slid shut with a finalizing swoosh. He stood there for a moment, questioning what you could possibly mean, before he headed back towards the medbay for the trip back to San Francisco.

There was something ominous about all this secrecy, and if your words were right, it was putting the crew at risk.

He needed to know what you had been looking at on Nibiru, and he needed to know just how much trouble you’d all be in for it.

You kept your expression positively neutral as you sat across from Admiral Pike. He looked over the separate report you had written on the Nibiru mission, though he wasn’t reading much about the volcanic incident.

“So you deleted the Carraya file,” he said bluntly.

“And destroyed the hard chip,” you nodded. “That should be the last of all my old reports.”

He sighed, almost as if he wasn’t sure if he should share your approval of the assignment’s completion. You tilted your head as he leaned on the arm of his hoverchair.

“Sir? Is everything alright?”

“Y/N,” he said. “I can understand your...aversion to these files still being out there. I know you were eager to transfer to Starfleet’s main division.”

“I know,” you nodded. “It’s only logical to get rid of as many of those mission reports as possible. We don’t need them anymore, anyway. Admiral Marcus authorized-”

“Which is wonderful,” Pike said. “I’m glad you have the opportunity to start your own path...but don’t you think it’s a little detrimental?”

“Sir?”

Pike looked out his window, lost in thought. “You have a lot of dirt out there, Y/L/N. Lots of ghosts. But you know ghosts don’t become a problem unless they’re disturbed. We never asked you to do this...no one is asking you to dig all this back up for termination. I’m worried that this process of destroying these reports will destroy you in the process.”

“It’s fine, now,” you assured him. “Carraya was the last one, and it’s gone. All my ghosts can be laid to rest.”

He didn’t look like he believed you in the slightest, and that was what worried you.

“Is something wrong, Admiral?”

Pike’s normally confident gaze looked troubled as it turned on you, “Archanis. The Archanis file is unaccounted for.”

Your stomach dropped.

“I see,” you steeled yourself into not running out and throwing up. “...Are you positive? That one was kept-”

“-in the Themyscira Zone, I know,” he said. “Themyscira has been compromised, Y/N. There was an attack in London today...beneath the Kelvin Museum.”

In spite of the sudden wave of grief that hit you, you showed no emotion on your face.

“Ah. ...Any word about-”

“Dead. All dead,” Pike kept his eyes on his desk as he shook his head. “Every last one of them, and Archanis was left unaccounted for in the wreckage.”

“Will there be a directive to search for it?” you asked. “...Will I be asked to leave the Enterprise?”

“No,” Pike looked at his clock and directed his hoverchair around the desk, prompting you to stand. “No, Marcus hasn’t discussed it with us yet. I’ll keep you posted, if he decides to leave you out of it. I have another appointment, so we’ll have to discuss it later if you’d like more information.”

“Of course,” you nodded as Pike opened the door for you, waiting in the threshold as you backed out of it. “Thank you, Admiral. I’ll stay in touch.”

“Hey, Y/L/N,” Jim waved as he and Spock approached Pike’s office. “Doing okay?”

“I’m well, Captain,” you said. “Have fun in your meeting, boys.”

You held your dress uniform hat tightly in your hands until you left the building, counting your steps as you walked. You were surprised to see Leonard waiting on a bench just outside.

Leonard picked up his pace just so in order to reach the young ensign.

“Mr. Chekov,” he asked, catching the young man’s attention, “may I ask you something?”

“Of course, Doctor,” the Russian nodded, stalling his pace and facing the older man. “What is the issue?”

Chekov may have made an excellent bright-eyed young navigator, but very few among the majority of the crew knew of his expertise and tactics, as well. It was common knowledge for you to be seen chatting with the younger officer, falling into step in a sibling-like arrangement of coffees on stations and gentle reminders to avoid troublemaking ensigns.

If anyone on that ship knew what your deal was, it would be him.

“I wanted to talk to you about Lieutenant Commander Y/L/N,” he ventured carefully.

Pavel nodded, curls bouncing, “Yes, she told me that you two had...a conversation.”

“Conversation might be putting it lightly, kid,” Leonard mumbled, mostly to himself. “I was just wondering-”

“I’m sure it will not be too difficult to gain her forgiveness,” the young blond suggested. “She is fond of you, you know. You both seem to have a...how you say...spunk about you.”

Leonard was caught off-guard, “What- No, that wasn’t what I meant. I mean, yeah, I wanna patch things up, but I actually meant-”

“You know, when in doubt, my father always said that vodka is the best way to mend a-”

“I’m not asking about her taste in liquor, kid,” McCoy huffed, “I just want to know what her deal is about anything that has to do with her damned career history!”

Chekov sobered-- so he was aware, at least partially. McCoy wasn’t able to glean from the ensign’s troubled puppy eyes exactly what he meant, but whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

“Miss Y/L/N has...very much compassion for all of us, you know?” Chekov measured his words carefully, “She has said she would do anything to keep us safe. I do not know what she is trying to keep from us, but I have asked her about it before, and if she would rather keep it private, I see no reason to press for access. It has not gotten in the way of your medical procedures?”

“No, but-”

“Then the best way to earn her forgiveness, I think, is to respect her privacy,” Chekov said. “She has already proven herself to Starfleet as a capable protector and security officer. Why push so hard to take away what she views as necessary to protect us?”

McCoy receded into his own thoughts as the ensign headed off towards the engineering buildings; he hadn’t seen it that way at all. Where she had seen necessary precaution, he had seen a rogue operative...and now he’d possibly lost her friendship over his own bull-headedness.

Great job, McCoy, he thought bitterly. That’s the second woman you’ve fucked up interacting with in the last five years.

He saw a chance at redemption, though, when he spotted you coming out of the administration building, clutching your hat in front of you and having the distinct expression of being the witness to a particularly malevolent ghost.

Tagging: : @annathewitch @tellmeoflegends @ha-tep @ncc-1701mccoy @jelaha @southernrebel12 @phanofmanythings @eyeofdionysus @mad-girl-without-a-box @feelmyroarrrr @taylorjacksonandtheolympians

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pixelatedrose · 3 years ago

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The Weave of Silence

Letter Entries

Letter entries written by Callahan at varying parts in the Weave of Silence campaign

Note: Anything that has a strikethrough is meant to represent either something that was erased or heavily crossed out.

Session number 26: Ancestral Spirits

Entry 11: Let Me Explain How You can be Full of Emptiness

Dear Mother and Father,

I think…

…

You know I never got much of a chance to feel any normal emotions after you left me. I mean, I don’t even remember you. My earliest memory is of me and Mar-Mar sitting in his chair, me on his lap, drinking spiced cocoa and reading a book. Mar-Mar says that I was just about ten when that happened.

But I don’t remember you.

I don’t remember what it felt like to have you leave me- to have you die…

I never felt sad, like how all the children in my storybooks did.

I never felt angry, like the way little Henry was when his dad never came home from war.

I never felt.

I think I know, now, what I should have felt like, all those years ago when you abandoned me.

…

Haru left me.

Well, I suppose it was me who did the leaving part…

It wasn’t my fault, but in a way that it entirely is.

I suppose I should stop dancing around the subject and actually tell you what happened…

We woke up in our actual bodies the next ‘morning’, just like the Queen had said would happen. After a bit of reorienting ourselves back into our normal bodies, checking to make sure everything still felt the same and all, I kind of realized that, well, we could go home now.

Now back in my own fully rested body, I had forgotten that Monty still needed a bit of rest. But quite honestly, Monty didn’t care. He wanted to get home just as badly as everyone else. Fortunately for him, Sylas was having none of that and cast a spell to help him recover quicker.

If my memory is serving me at all, I’m pretty sure it was lesser restoration? I’ve seen it cast more than a couple times by Sylas and Monty, and I remember reading about it a little back when I was still trying to find some way to mute my magic.

In any case, Monty was feeling better, so now there was really no risk to going home!

It...I still can’t describe the feeling it gave me, knowing that within the hour we’d be back on the prime. Back where I could...Where I would be leaving everyone to live with Mar-Mar again… It felt like an almost nauseous mix of pure excitement and relief, and...something else, that was a lot heavier. I don’t know what it was- maybe the universe’s sick way of a warning sign, I don’t know. The feeling is long gone now anyway, it doesn’t matter.

While everyone else was packing up, I asked Haru if I could use his bracelet- the one that had let him speak with Archion. He smiled at me and said of course. He asked if I wanted to do it here, with everyone else in the room. I didn’t...so I told him. But I also didn’t want to go off into the castle on my own, not after what I saw could wander in here. Haru asked if I wanted him to come with me, I said yes and I thanked him.

When we were walking through the halls, he asked me again about me leaving.

I couldn’t find the words again…

...I still don’t know why…

I changed the topic and went inside a little room off to the side and asked Haru how to use the bracelet.

I apparently would only get one minute to talk.

That was okay with me, I don’t think an extended conversation with Mar-Mar would have gone well anyway…

So I spoke. I told him that I didn’t know how long it’d been, and that I didn’t want to know. I told him that I was safe, and I told him that I was coming home. Soon.

I...still don’t know how well it worked or if he even heard me. All he said in that one minute was “Fuck.” and “Not again…” and then that was it. My minute was up. I only pray, to whatever gods will hear me, that he actually heard me. I have my doubts though…

That was fine though, whatever, that’s okay. Mar-Mar didn’t hear me and that’s alright, just means my arrival will be a little more of a surprise than originally intended.

And that was it.

We went back to the group and all got ready to travel back.

Well, okay, so Becket had apparently just disappeared while we were gone- the asshole- he didn’t even leave his goddamn BELT BEHIND!!! And MAYBE if he HAD, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE FUCKING HAPPENED-

I...Needless to say, the next time I see that damn fucking changeling I will kill him.

...Everyone decided to activate their belts at once, save for Xinniani and Shade of course, who didn’t have any, and Haru, who was taking a moment to speak with Shade.

I swear I only hesitated for a moment or two before activating my belt, I just wanted to make sure Haru was also coming along.

But when I tried to activate it, it only...it only sparked.

It was broken. Maybe...but it didn’t feel like how it had felt the first time I tried to use it. Back then it had felt completely powerful, just like there was a heavy wall or block between myself and the magic inside. This time it felt...broken.

In a split second that felt like my world reordering itself, all the gears painfully crunching to try and reverse their ever-steady churn, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be stuck a little bit longer than the others.

But- it was okay!! It was okay!! It would have been okay.

Shade would be there with me, and between the two of us, we could have made it to the rift in the capitol safe enough. Maybe he could have shown me a few new tricks with my magic.

I wasn’t upset, I wasn’t.

After all that I had been through, I think I would have been okay.

But dammit…

Dammit…

Haru just fucking HAD to be the goddamn self-sacrificing JACKASSED IDIOT HERO!!!

He just-

He just--

Why couldn't you trust me, Haru…?

I...He saw that I was struggling with my belt. He asked me about it. I waved him off, told him it was nothing to worry about- that he should go along with the others, that I’d be right behind him.

It wasn’t a complete lie.

It wasn’t anything to worry about and he should have gone ahead with the others.

...Maybe I wouldn’t have been right behind him, but...was that really such a horrific lie when we both knew it wasn’t true…? Was it really, truly, so bad when it would have made everything so much easier, just to have said it? Just so that maybe at least one of us could convince ourselves it was true enough to be okay??

Do I have to say that Haru didn’t bite the line?

It didn’t take a fucking scientist to figure out that my belt was broken, and Haru knew it. He got upset that I had said it was all going to be okay. I continued to press on that it was because it would have been.

I told him not to wait- by all the gods he made it so fucking hard for me to be okay with everything that was happening. It was so so hard, every single moment he stayed longer. Every moment he argued back. Every moment I had to think about watching him leave.

Haru, the stubborn asshole, wasn’t having any of it. He managed to somehow put his own working belt around my broken one. I shoved it back at him, but he just put it right back on me. I saw where that was going so I just let it sit there. I had no intentions of activating it anyway...god I was so fucking stupid, stupid, stupid-

I argued with him that he had people waiting for him- Archion, who he’d never been without for just about his entire life; and Sylas and Monty and Askrath, who he’d been traveling companions with- friends with- for more than a month now at least! I reminded him of the job he has left to do, people he needs to see, everything to try and get him to leave-

God, I don’t know why it hurt so damn much the longer he stayed, the more he tried to get me to go back, the more he looked at me, saw me, was with me- I suppose I’ve never had a friend like Haru in so long...maybe ever, I guess I forgot how care the right amount…

Haru argued back with me but it was full of holes and I just- I still- I don’t know why he pushed so fucking hard to get me home when he had so much more waiting for him.

He argued that I also had Sylas, and Monty, and Askrath waiting for me- Xinniani was gone now, I don’t recall when or where she left from, but it was safe to assume she was in the Prime now too- he said that I had her and Becket to go back for and everyone else. He said it like I was going to stick around them for much longer! He said it like I was close to them the way I was close with him I had been traveling with them for as long him! He said it like I had always felt the need to complete their mission with them!

He argued that I had Mar-Mar waiting for me too, that I needed to go see him. But he knows that while Mar-Mar may be the only one I have, we’re not so close anymore like him and Archion are...God DAMMIT HARU!!! Goddammit…

I…

…

I got upset.

For just a moment, for just a fucking moment.

I lost control.

It...It wasn’t a lot.

It wasn’t even as strong as some of the surges I had had in the past few days.

But...It was...it was enough.

Haru’s belt around my waist began to glow, the instant I felt myself slip. It was a bright white that began to fountain out of the thing and pool and flow, whipping around me like a gentle river flow, unaware, innocent, pure, unknowing of what it was doing.

I couldn't help but panic more and I tried to unclip the belt- I didn’t care if the thing would have broken too, at least then we would’ve been-

But it couldn’t unclasp.

I don’t know when I had started crying.

I just remember a horrible and primal fear latch onto me. Or at least fear is the closest thing I can think of to what was smoking and bubbling in my stomach. It felt as if I had swallowed an entire hot tar pit, and my insides were fuming toxic and scorching itself with the sticky poison.

I tried to grab onto Haru- anything that was him- I couldn’t leave him like this!!! I couldn’t- I can’t- I didn’t want to leave!!

I swear on my life I’ve never wanted something more, never, than to somehow, somehow, show up in the Prime with Haru right where I held him.

I pulled him as close as he and I could get- as if maybe...maybe if I held him close enough, we could just go home together. That maybe the magic white flood would engulf him along with me.

I don’t know how or when, but looking back, I think I made a silent sort of vow to myself to never leave any of them behind, no matter what. Not if this is what it felt like.

…

I…

I was in the Gatekeeper’s house.

Far too quickly, I was there.

I’m not...ashamed, to say I screamed. I pounded the ground like it was to blame for the friend that had been ripped out of my grasp with no consent of my own.

I don’t know when he had even walked in the room, but the next thing I remember is being in Monty’s arms.

It was the most numbingly empty comfort I’ve ever felt.

We just sat there a while, me crying like a scared child into a person I’d met weeks ago and already cared about like family. Monty rocking and running a hand through my hair.

I finally calmed down enough to...kind of retell what had happened.

Everyone seemed to understand, they gave me space to process along with telling me that we’d been gone for at least four years, probably more. I don’t think I was even that surprised. I didn’t care.

I can’t even remember how long I sat there, silently letting tears fall down my face, recalling what had happened.

“Say hi to Archion for me, okay?”

He said that to me, you know?

Gods...I can’t believe this HAPPENED!! Haru was such a damn fucking idiot- HE HAD NO RIGHT TO MAKE THAT DESICION FOR ME!!!

And hell- WHY does it hurt so fucking much?

Why do I care so much?

Why?

And after all we’ve been through, after the shit we were forced to deal with together-

Why didn’t he-

...Why didn’t you trust me…?

What did I do…?

…

I was there for a long time before it hit me.

Haru was one of Remmy’s warlocks.

As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one besides Xinniani that really knows that.

I didn’t give a shit if anyone else found out. Not if it could mean a way for Haru to come back to me us now rather than however long it would take us for him to reach the rift.

I screamed Remmy’s name, I was so angry, and it showed when missiles of magic shot from my hands, narrowly missing everyone else in the room. The bolts were quietly absorbed into the house, little firework sparks of harmless energy sprouting softly where they had disappeared.

I wasn’t even phased, honestly. I was too furious. I screamed Remmy’s name, demanding he show himself to me until it hurt my throat to do so. I stormed over to Xinniani- gods I hardly knew her- and I ordered her to bring her patron to me, told her that there were some things that needed to be discussed between us.

After minutes, she told me she couldn’t reach him. But I was fuming. I demanded she try again, that if he was busy, then he better make time for me. It didn’t work. She told me he was preoccupied- “he’s busy at the moment...sorry.” was what she’d said.

If I had been thinking any clearer than the blood red vision I had pinned on Remmy for having the fucking gall to ignore me so completely like that, I might have directed my fury at Xin. Honestly, even now, I’m still upset she didn’t fucking try harder, at least don’t give me a fucking “sorry, he’s busy” when I am on the brink of tipping over and drowning in my own rage. Goddamn drow-

I suppose she’s lucky, then, that I was too focused on contacting Remmy to remember that she existed outside of that link...I don’t...know what I would have done. Despite what everyone knows about drow, Xin...does seem different.

But now the only other thing I could think of to get Haru back was unavailable and wasn’t wanting to become available.

...Maybe that’s for the best.

I don’t know the lengths I was willing to go for him in that state.

I probably would have done something I regretted.

...not that I hadn’t already made myself a whole fucking mountain of regrets that day…

I think somewhere in me a tiny spec was willing to try and calm down after that. But when I heard Monty and the others talking about just, leaving, I...I was so furious. A kind of rage that I’ve quite honestly never felt before was bubbling and blistering everything inside me.

I didn’t even know or care what I was doing or what I thought I’d do, but I left the house. I only really registered the foreign countryside and the colors of everything around me after I had come back to the house.

I walked until the cottage was a small pebble against the setting dusky black and orange sky.

And then I screamed.

It set the grass around me on fire.

How could he have fucking done that to me?

I actually managed to cast a spell, and a ball of flame and destruction erupted in front of me.

Why the hell didn’t he fucking trust me?

I screamed again, thinking of all the shit that had happened, and a lightning bolt crashed into a nearby rock, crumbling it and turning parts of the rubble into specs of glass, the ground ripped apart.

Why, why, out of ALL the times for my magic to go to hell, why did it have to be then?? And why did it have to do that?

Another spell shot from me, and I didn’t care what it hit or even if it hit me. It didn’t.

Why couldn’t I have just been better, why couldn’t I have just held control of my damned emotions? Why can’t I be better…?

I destroyed everything I possibly could around me until all the magic had been sapped out of my body, and I physically lost my ability to cast.

It was my fault I left, it was my fault I left him, it’s my fault he’s not here, it’s my fault, my fault, my fault.

By the time I couldn’t cast, I could feel my eyes burning, red and hot like iron, my skin stung with beats of electricity and it burned when it pulsed over my cuts and scrapes. I collapsed to the ground and wanted to scream again.

All that was not heard was a sad, choked sob of someone who had been betrayed by himself, and the cries of someone who had lost a friend.

…

Is this what it would have felt like to remember you reading stories to me as a child, only to have that softness tainted by the fact that you were gone, Father?

Is this what it would have felt like to remember you singing me to sleep on nights I couldn’t, only to be struck with the emptiness you left in your wake, Mother?

Is this what it feels like to remember a kind of love after it’s been torn apart?

…

Maybe this is how you felt in your dying breaths, knowing you were abandoning me, that you had to, that you were leaving me with no consent of your own.

...Maybe I should think of you a little kinder…

God...Haru, I…

…

I’m sorry

Listen I need you to know

I can’t

…

I never wanted to leave you.

Callahan

#the Weave of Silence #Weave of Silence Letter Entries #Callahan McBlithe #Haru #Monty Silverbeard #Xinniani Illier #Uncle Mar-Mar #my writing #d&d #d&d writing #d&d ocs #ro's ocs #oc writing #WOS canon #WOS storyline #I will say; this is far more embellished and emotion than how Callahan actually writes #I amped it up as far as actual writing and as far as the emotionally revealing things written here #Also to answer the question already coming up: no. Callahan is completely oblivious to his own emotions #this dumb fuck has NO idea he's got the biggest fucking crush on Haru #Callahan wouldn't recognize his own emotions if they sprang to life and flat out told him he was in love #also YES there will be art with this........eventually...........when im finally happy with the design ._.#until then please stew in the WRECHED angst that I had to fully rp :')

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elizas-writing · 7 years ago

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How I Would Fix Steven Universe: Beginning the Fifth Season (1/2)

Jesus Christ on a cracker, this show can’t decide if it wants stakes.

So I put off seeing the episodes from Dewey Wins to Kevin Party mostly because I was swamped with school at the time and also because from what I could pick up from the rest of Tumblr, nothing much of interest happened that I needed to see them immediately. And boy, did I underestimate how absolutely pointless and annoying these episodes were. This is right up there with Lion 4 Alternate Ending as what I think are some of the worst episodes of the show. And of course it doesn’t help that this is coming off some major plot episodes which sadly were not as well polished as they should be. And then after these five, we have the Stranded special which felt like it was getting the plot going again but also introduced some confusing things.

So, let’s go back to the drawing board and fix up season five, shall we? I’m expecting this to be a bit of a long one, so let’s start off with The Trial arc.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’d change up the fight with Aquamarine and Topaz to include Lapis Lazuli and Peridot in the major climatic fight. Originally I considered cutting The Trial entirely and just ending the conflict right then and there, but after mulling it over, I think there’s still potential to explore if worked correctly. Just needs way less Steven guilt-tripping himself into taking responsibility for his mother’s actions. And I’d have Aquamarine and Topaz realizing who Steven is during the fight when they recognize his powers which only a Rose Quartz would have as well as Rose’s sword.

So, just when it seems Lapis and Peridot have the upper hand, Aquamarine and Topaz make a fast escape, but not without going empty-handed. Wouldn’t you know it? It happens to be Steven, clinging on to his loved ones for dear life before the beam taking him yanks him away, and the ship takes off on light speed to Homeworld.

I still really liked what they did with Topaz (because soft butches are everything), but let’s put her on the backburner for now and go right into The Trial. It more or less plays out the same, but I’ll cut Steven’s whole “I am my mom” bullshit since it wouldn’t apply after my fix it to Lion 4 Alternate Ending. However, knowing that the Diamonds can and will do anything to him, he’s still on guard and scared for his life, trying to think of some way out of this. Blue’s sniveling is dropped to reveal a furious dictator ready to exact her revenge. The actual “trial” is more of a cruel show for formalities with everything set up against Steven and capital punishment inevitable regardless of what the Zircons say. All the while, Steven is absorbing the Homeworld’s perspective on what happened to Pink, trying to think of a clever way out, especially since if he reveals too much from his mother’s latest video, it’s instant death. Perhaps he would only reveal so much to Blue Zircon which would lead her to her own conclusions, prompting immediate regret when she and the other Zircon are poofed by Yellow Diamond.

I couldn’t really get into the idea that one of the Diamonds might have shattered Pink instead, but after Jungle Moon, it was fascinating to see the imbalanced power dynamic of the Diamond Authority right from the get-go. I wouldn’t end up with one of the Diamonds killing Pink because it’s such a cop out on how much Rose’s gray morality was built up, but it wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of them intended to keep her out of the picture as long as possible, even if they didn’t anticipate her death. Just let her colonize a planet and take out her wrath as long as she needs until there is something of use which definitely explain some of the odd circumstances around her shattering and why they didn’t see a rebellion coming.

Anyway, after the Zircons are poofed, Steven rushes for their gems as fast as he can before fighting off the Diamonds and making his escape. He has no idea where he is or where to go; just run like hell. We’d meet the Off Colors, give them way more personality, and dive more into Homeworld’s obsession with perfection. Perhaps the Rutile twins are out of sync with each other and constantly struggle to work together. Padparadscha feels self-conscious on her delayed predictions (”Oh no, did I miss it again?”), but they come of use when learning of Steven, and she can possibly dive further back into the past. We’d explore more of Fluorite and Rhodonite and fusions, and a quick dive into how Garnet’s fusion affected the rest of Homeworld. All the while Steven knows he can’t leave them to suffer any longer under the Diamonds. It takes some persuasion, but they eventually start concocting a plan to escape Homeworld.

This part would be a massive rearrangement of episode placement as the gap between Lars’ Head and Lars of the Stars really disrupts the pacing. And as fun as the Stranded special was, it felt like way too much happened off screen which would have been so much better to see than Steven being an obvious fuck up.

Moving on, the Zircons reform and are of course panicked on where the hell they are and what the consequences will be of Steven running away. Steven is only able to persuade Blue Zircon to come while Yellow Zircon stays behind, still believing she won her case and surely her Diamond would be merciful on her colleague’s ridiculous analysis. Knowing time is short and he can’t force everyone to change, the new team hurries off through the chasms of Homeworld to find an escape route. They come across Emerald’s ship which docked after a recent planet acquisition. It’s the biggest one they can find which can fit them all and take them to Earth. But just as they’re about to come up with a plan, Topaz finds them and is ready to alert other guards until she sees Rhodonite and Fluorite and wonders what in the hell these fusions are doing. She takes it upon herself to rid of such imperfect fusions, but something inside her knows what their love is and how it reflects her internalized feelings about fusion, prompting her to break down. Rhodonite and Fluorite consolidate Topaz with promises that maybe she can have a more free life on Earth.

But just as Topaz joins, the team is ambushed by guards led by Aquamarine. Few of the Off Colors have experience in combat, and are, of course, scared shitless. Then, Fluorite breaks down to her six individual gems (I could not even begin to tell you who they would be, cause I haven’t thought that far into fan theories) who fight off the guards and Aquamarine, giving the rest enough time to get on the ship and prepare for take off. Insert a fun action scene with Steven working off new gems, Topaz taking a stand and poofing Aquamarine (cause god damn, is she annoying), and a rush onto the ship with a course set for Earth.

The next episode will be in a similar vein of Lars of the Stars with just pure space battle action against the intimidating Emerald. Padparadscha keeps up on planets and systems they just pass, the Rutile twins focus on working together, Fluorite’s components are making sure the ship runs, etc etc. It’s just grand teamwork of these gems’ first instance of rebellion and running like hell from authority.

I’d also keep in the episode Jungle Moon, but the whole team crashes (because shit happens when a recently docked ship wasn’t given updates... and gas). And they spend a couple days surviving in the wild of an abandoned Homeworld colony and fixing up the ship. More questions burn from Steven which the rest o the gems are happy to oblige, especially as his dreams get weirder and he sees the seeds which would create a tyrannical Pink Diamond. Why Earth? Why a Human Zoo? How many more planets were wasted away for space colonization? In return, Steven tells the Off Colors and Homeworld gems as much as he can about Earth and the Crystal Gems. The homesickness starts kicking in and dammit, he just wants to be home because he misses everyone.

Once the ship is repaired, the team is back on course for Earth but not without Emerald back on their tail, resulting them being forced to light speed away and crash yet again. But this time they finally made their destination: Earth. As fate would have it, the Crystal Gems are on the scene thanks to Garnet’s future vision, leading up to a tearful reunion.

And the rest is to be continued in part two!

#how i would fix steven universe #su #steven universe #su critical #su criticism #my writing #off colors #off color gems

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coalitiongirl · 7 years ago

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ive been watching your scenes to rewatch and ive been crying at literally all of them. out of curoisity, what are your favourite ouat scenes? either sq or general? also side note, i love your latest fic, such an interesting premise. i get so scared every time someone says an order and emmas forced to comply, that scene with the trolls had me on edge. and the fact that cora must suspect something about emma now - im so scared but excited ahah :D have a nice day :)

OH I super dropped the ball on those omg, i have so many others!! but i haven’t been able to rewatch in a long time, it hard 😩

of course i LOVE almost every swan queen scene!! it’s hard for me to pick favorites because nearly every one pings something else inside me omfg. I don’t think there’s a single sq scene I couldn’t write an essay about WHOOPS. so lemme try to answer this with just some of my favorite non-sq scenes 😅

Emma in True North: hoo boy, this is probably in my scenes to rewatch but that scene on the road, MAN. there’s so much careful buildup with emma’s abandonment issues and how much she sees herself in nick and ava. and they have a chance she never does and dammit, she fights for them!! she fights for two kids just like her and they get their moment and jmo turns that realization into agony with sheer artistry in emma’s FACE in their final moment. god.

Regina in We Are Both: this was the episode that sold me on Regina! tbh i’d marathoned s1 as soon as they announced mulan was going to be in s2 so i hadn’t been focusing much on thinking before that?? and then suddenly there’s Regina, in all her rich and layered stories, and i fell hARD. the whole narrative of the episode- Regina resisting parental abuse until she becomes what she’s always feared to be free!! and that translating into her saying ‘no, this isn’t going to continue to the next generation. even if i lose the only thing that matters to me.’ do u ever stan!!! I DONT KNOW HOW TO LOVE VERY WELL. END ME.

Emma in Firebird: listen. never follow ur idols to ur next fandom or you’ll suddenly realize they actually hate women and then get ‘’’muted’’’ for ‘’’yelling at her too much’’’ but jane espenson did a GOOD with the flashbacks in this one (present day still literal and figurative hell tho!!). The concept of Emma’s jacket as armor isn’t an original one, but the execution was honestly stellar. Emma forging this connection with an older hardened woman who can’t let go of the past either!! emma destroyed and remade into the lady we met on her twenty-eighth birthday. GOD. SHE FINDS HER DAUGHTER. and i gotta say, the vulnerable-tearful-young thing jmo was doing w emma in s5 didn’t work for me in terms of what present day was trying to convey, but it’s a perfect fit for that flashback, i WEPT.

Regina in Quite A Common Fairy: Lana OWNS the cave scene with Tink, god. The depth and breadth of emoTION. The episode and the narrative itself builds it up from episode one! because this regina on the road to redemption but finally giving us a glimpse into the emotional and mental state she was in as the young queen- she has all this rage and she’s SUSTAINED by it, it’s her only real truth and constant and she’s terrified of what might happen if she lets it go for even an instant and chooses hope instead. (Lana’s voice when Regina says she’s afraid that without rage she might just ‘—float away’ is something that has stayed with me for a long, long time.) REGINA PULLING OUT HER HEART TO MAKE A POINT. far from the last time she will, but how affecting!! god!!

Emma and Snow in S1: There are a few moments i’m thinking of (and i’m literally writing this on the treadmill so pls forgive the lack of episode names) and all of them are so stellar, god. The moment when Snow finds Emma living out of her car early on. Snow and Emma sitting at the table at the loft holding hands. Emma lying down next to a crying Snow. Snow yelling at Emma for being so selfish when she tries running off with Henry?? EMMA SHOWING UP AT MARY MARGARET’S DOOR SEARCHING FOR A ~PERSON~ AND MARY MARGARET SILENTLY LETTING HER IN. Snow and Emma work best in S1 in the silences and the fights, where they’re allowed to just care and be family, and I treasure each of those moments as much as they do.

Regina and Zelena in the Kansas: There’s a lot of effort put into this dynamic right near what seemed like the end, playing with how exactly Zelena perceives her happy ending to go- and then Regina strikes it all down by being different, by changing, by being someone Zelena hadn’t believed either of them capable of. And then Regina goes to Zelena’s cell and offers her!! sisterhood!! my god. i instantly fell in love with the dynamic in that moment and i’m forever pressed that the ‘it’s nice to have family in town’ line was cut. because you can tell that regina craves family and craves unmaking this second monster of her mother’s and zelena was going to TAKE that second chance and hey! this seems the perfect time to go off-message and

Belle in Family Business and Heroes and Villains: imma be honest, i like belle just fine in the early seasons but i have zero interest in rumbelle, which means a lot of fast-forwarding through her scenes. But these two scenes were ENCHANTING. Mirror Belle preying on Belle with the truth that she’s afraid to face! Emilie does such a fantastic job conveying so much cruelty in that scene, I was gaping and enthralled and hoping shattered sight was going to work exactly like that (and tbh props to ginny for doing a hella creepy snow at the start of Shattered Sight). And that town line scene!!! What a stunning, evocative scene. Belle reclaiming agency and taking action in such a 100% cold-blooded but necessary way!! that’s my ravenclaw babe!!!

Mulan and Aurora: I was young, and I Believed, and I Believed for a very long time. I am appalled at my naïveté too, don’t worry.

Regina in Enter the Dragon: LOOK it’s not about the leather but it’s a lil about the leather!!! I really appreciate both Regina in the past and present in this one and also how gay it is, and I’m most charmed by lil evil pep talking nugget Regina who just wants you to be the very best villain you can be! It’s such an artful melding of the exuberance of young!Regina and the delight in chaos of eq!Regina and i, for one, am a fan.

Emma (and Henry) in The Stranger/An Apple Red as Blood: my gOD. Okay I think one of the first times I cried while watching this show was in Emma’s desperate, hysterical denial to August about the curse. She’s so clearly hit rock bottom and she’s TERRIFIED of believing and it’s breaking her. SHE DIDNT ASK TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYONES HAPPINESS. SHE DOESNT WANT IT. THAT IS CRAP!!!! i love her!! i love emma swan!!! i do!!!!! and then moving into the end of the next episode when she tells henry she’s leaving and just!! ‘henry! life isn’t a story!’ man this show had some incredible early work. sigh. emma kneeling in front of henry begging him to listen! my god.

Regina in the Cricket Game: so i’m leaving out all my fave sq moments which severely limits the number of regina and emma scenes i can talk about here but the flashbacks in this one SURE ARE SOMETHING. regina has hit rock bottom in this set and you feel it in every moment, in her REGRET THAT I HAVE NOT CAUSED MORE PAIN and frickin stABBING snow and that dark scene with the candle oh god. this is a regina who doesn’t think about looking back anymore but who doesn’t think about looking forward, either, and she’s terrifying. it reminds me a lot of the scene later this season in Welcome to Storybrooke where she takes out snow’s heart and ‘see? i can have everything’ but there are tears sliding down her face. regina in enraged despair is something to behold!!

Henry (and Emma and Regina) in Operation Mongoose: Henry doesn’t often get lengthy times to shine that aren’t about other characters, but he was literally a YA hero in the author’s universe! man! what a kid! and his scenes with bandit Regina are some of my all-time favorites, as is that heartstopping moment when he reaches the top of that tower and flings the door open and Emma KNOWS him. reader, i wept. i wept hard. talk about your earned moments!!!

Emma as Dark Swan: posture! clothing! positioning! voice work! dark swan was a revelation i’m still rightfully bitter about, because she was EVERYTHING in those early episodes. the way she caressed snow’s face in first episode of 5a. the faux-innocent with the calculating eyes on the ship with whats-his-name. every interaction with henry where she was trying to be a PERSON. the way she moved! the way she felt more reptilian than human! i wanted to know everything about her!! (then i did and quit the show lol) honestly some of jmo’s best acting to date, i’m forever in awe.

That Still Small Voice: look, this is an episode about a cricket and it remains one of my favorite quality ouat episodes. Archie sells it best as an adult influenced by his past without quite knowing it, and Archie and Henry make for a really engaging dynamic in here. There is nothing about Archie’s professional behavior that doesn’t make me want to scream but this remains a very, very good episode.

Emma in Sympathy for the De Vil/Lily: okay this is cheating a little because so much of this is also Regina but!! Emma individually shines in this narrative and throughout 4b. From the moment she finds out about what her parents had done, you can watch it slowly draining a part of her?? yes her eyes got redder but there was also this kind of apathy about EVERYTHING. And tbh the Cruella episode is pretty awesome on its own (I love the slow revelation that Cru is the villain, what a stellar execution of a fave trope) but WHEN EMMA KILLS HER. In the exact moment that Cruella says ‘heroes don’t kill’. that’s what pushes emma over the edge!! and then emma ready to kill again the next episode because she feels like she’s sliding into an abyss, i couldn’t BREATHE. emma is incredible when the narrative lets her be angry, and i wanted So Much More. Speaking of which, Emma getting angrier and angrier and almost losing it in The Snow Queen was more of that anger!! i am HUNGRY for it.

Regina and Snow in The Evil Queen: This episode is messy af but damn did my heart skip a beat when a hooded hero saves Regina and tears off her hood and it’s SNOW. This episode does so much of what makes Snow/Regina so fascinating and frustrating, both in the present and the past. Their interactions in the woods moved me! changed me! and Regina had already crossed the point of no return but oh man, oh man, the way they’d almost gotten somewhere for a minute there.

Regina and Henry in Save Henry: A classic, a work of art, and I’ve said so much about it in the past that I’m exhausted just thinking about expressing it all again now. But what a STORY of an evil queen who falls in love with a little boy. What a narrative!! The promo pictures from this episode came out when I was sitting in the hospital for a checkup while I was expecting my daughter, and I was tearing up and the nurses thought it was about the ultrasound. I’M NOT PROUD. This is a love story!!! And it culminates again in A Curious Thing, by the way, which put another ten years on my life, an Epic !

Emma and Henry in New York City Serenade: boy was this a journey, but I was absolutely spellbound omg. This was a love song to a fantasy but it’s a fantasy that never unmakes Emma– she’s afraid of commitment and happiness and everything permanent in her life that isn’t Henry, but she’s still going to take that leap despite herself. It’s a wonderful character study that captures Emma’s essence in a new world, with a new past.

Snow in The Miller’s Daughter: Snow is at her best when the show isn’t painting her with rose-colored glasses and we get to see her darker side, and I don’t think she ever gets quite as dark in the first three seasons as she is when she’s standing there, smiling earnestly at Regina as she tells her that the key to Cora loving Regina is in the poisoned heart she holds. My god. It’s so incredibly cold-blooded and vile, and it’s absolutely the kind of manipulative pragmatism that suits Snow best. I am enthralled and horrified.

Neal and Emma and Henry and Gold in Manhattan: This is one of those really cool scenes where even though I don’t particularly care for half the characters within it, everyone acted the hell out of it and it’s so GOOD. There’s so much tension and you’re holding your breath through the squabbling, and then Henry shows up and you KNOW. You know what’s going to happen and you’re terrified for Emma and it’s so visceral, right up until the instant when Neal demands Henry’s age and Henry shouts ELEVEN and my god, my god. What a reveal. What a scene.

There are more!! so many scenes and moments i’ve loved over the years. Emma and young!Lily! Snowing in Snow Falls! Anna of Arendale!! Snow and Emma in Lost Girl!! Ruby in Red Handed! The David/Emma dragon fight in A Land Without Magic! Regina tearing out that heart in The Doctor and meeting Daniel again?? Regina and her father in hell. all of Hat Trick. i think twenty is a good place to stop, but hoo boy, when this show was good, it was GOOD. alas.

#ouat #Anonymous

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willelbyers · 7 years ago

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Rain

Summary: After they leave from a successful D&D campaign at Mike's, Max cries in front of Lucas for the first time. To her surprise, he knows what to do.

Pairings: Lucas/Max (pre-relationship)

Notes: About 1,800 words, implications of emotional abuse. For a prompt from @lucassinclairstan: @he-lives-on-mirkwood Another Lumax (I ship them a lot!) A oneshot where Max cries in front of Lucas for the first time and he comforts her

Another one for my prompt fills. Posted on Ao3, here, as well as written out under the cut. Enjoy!

“Bye, kids!” Mrs. Wheeler calls from inside as the kids pile out the door. “Get home safe!”

“Night, Mrs. Wheeler!” Dustin calls back as he picks up his bike. He glances at his watch. “Shit. I have to be home… five minutes ago.” He’s pedaling onto the street in an instant, seemingly ignoring the pouring rain. “See you tomorrow, guys!”

Will, hovering in the doorway, laughs a little. To Max, it sounds like normal, but she knows by the way Mike eyes him that something’s different. Not that she would recognize it—for the boys, there’s a clear definition of the time periods BUD and AUD, Will before the Upside-Down and Will after it. But for her, the Will she knows is capital-a After, and always will be. And as much as she enjoys hanging out with her new companions, she’s never going to get to know Will Byers Before, and she’ll never really be able to understand.

“It’s getting late,” Mike says, eyes fixed on the shorter boy. “Will, you want to go back inside?” Jonathan had come to pick up him and El with his car several hours before, and though El was exhausted (she always is, these days) and went without a fight, Will insisted on staying and finishing the campaign. Mrs. Byers—Joyce, she’d insisted after a few months of Max dropping by the store—had called to give Will the okay to stay at the Wheeler’s instead of going home himself. They aren’t repeating the Worst Mistake of 1983.

Will nods, offering Max and Lucas a small smile. “Movies tomorrow at noon, right?”

“Yup,” Lucas replied, flipping the kickstand of his bike up. “Don’t forget, we have to meet before we go so we can buy snacks to sneak in.”

“Michael!” Mrs. Wheeler calls again from inside. “It’s getting late, and we don’t want you or Will getting sick, and your friends have to get home before anyone worries!”

“Coming!” Mike screeches. He turns back to face them. “Alright, where do you want to meet? We could have lunch at the diner—I’ll call Dustin on the supercom—if that’s cool with you guys. And—”

He’s cut off by Nancy, who is walking toward the stairs but stops with a grin when she spots them. “Hey,” she says before glancing down at Mike. “You should get inside, it’s pretty cold.”

“You sound like Mom, oh my God,” Mike complains before grabbing Will’s wrist. “Let’s go. Goodnight, guys.” He pushes past Nancy, dragging Will inside. Will manages one final wave before he’s being pulled upstairs and out of sight.

Nancy rolls her eyes fondly, smiling after her brother. “You guys heading out?” she asks, leaning against the doorframe.

“Yeah,” Max replies, glancing at Lucas. “We really should get doing, though. Oh, and tell Mike that his plan is fine.” She grabs her skateboard from where it’s been leaning against a post. “Bye, Nancy.”

“Bye,” Nancy replies as Max and Lucas walk out into the rain. Max feels her eyes on them for a moment as they walk out onto the sidewalk before the lights turn off and they hear the door click shut.

Neither of them were prepared for the weather, so Max is armed only with her skateboard and a hooded jacket. Better than Lucas, who only has his hoodie and bike. Then again, Lucas only has to walk a little way down the cul-de-sac.

Your friends have to get home before anyone worries.

Mrs. Wheeler’s voice pops into her head, unprompted, except Max does know exactly why this is happening.

Please, not now. Because if she can hold out for five minutes, it’ll be okay, but she can already feel her eyes burning and Lucas is still right next to her. For once, she’s glad it’s raining, because maybe that’ll hide the tears welling up in her eyes.

Before anyone worries.

Sure, she laughs bitterly to herself. Like they’re gonna worry.

“This is me,” Lucas says, coming to a stop and startling her out of her reverie.

“Oh,” she says. Her voice sounds strained. Sound normal, sound normal… “Okay. See you tomorrow.” She’s turning away, already congratulating herself on fooling him, when he grabs her arm. On reflex, she jerks away, turning around to face him as she pulls her arm tightly to her chest.

“Max,” he says quietly, pausing for so long she thinks she might have just imagined it in the soft patter of the downpour. Then he says it again. “Max.”

“What?” she grumbles, trying to make herself bored instead of unreasonably upset. Maybe the rain will hide it. Please let the rain hide it.

“Will you look at me?” he asks, and it really is a suggestion instead of an order.

Just because he’s not making her do anything, she listens to him, meeting his gaze. “What is it?”

He grins humorlessly. “I should be asking you that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says flatly, turning away. “Look, Lucas, I have to get home.” Before anyone worries.

“I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay,” he tells her, and that stops her in her tracks because back in San Diego she never had friends and if someone cared they’d just ask are you okay are you okay are you okay until the words became background noise instead of genuine concern. “Because I know you don’t want to answer that. I just want to know what’s wrong—and don’t lie to me, because something is wrong. And friends don’t lie.” And now she knows that he really is serious, because he’s pulling Eleven’s lines right now. Friends don’t lie.

And that’s when she breaks completely, because he’s used the word friend and he’s used it to describe her. Her sobs are quiet from years of practice, but she feels hot tears streaking down her face and mingling with the rain. Dammit, a little piece of her still completely aware says. She’s never cried in front of him before—there was a close call, once, when she thought that they were all going to die, with Dustin screaming into his supercom as the bus they were hiding in shook. But she didn’t cry then and she most definitely is now. You blew it, Mayfield.

She doesn’t know exactly how it all happens, but she finds herself sitting on the stairs leading to the Sinclair’s front door, Lucas beside her—not quite touching her but definitely still within her personal space, their shoulders a mere inch apart. She doesn’t push him away, and she isn’t sure whether it’s because she’s too tired or if she doesn’t mind.

She struggles to catch her breath, not ready talk, and instead focuses on breathing in and out, in and out. Lucas fills the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if this was my fault, but even if it wasn’t, I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, tears making her contact lenses uncomfortable. She pops them out expertly, not caring when they fall to the ground and are washed by the water down the drain. She has more at home. “It wasn’t you,” she finally says. “You’re actually the good part. I just… I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“Something that makes you upset isn’t stupid,” Lucas replies, and though she can’t see more than a blurry outline of him, she knows his eyes are on her.

She sighs, pulling her glasses from her pocket. She doesn’t put them on, just holds them up closer to her eyes and studies them as rain splatters against the lenses. “I… I guess, when Mrs. Wheeler said that people would worry if we didn’t get home safe… I wish I had people like that.” I wish my family cared.

She stares down at her glasses, a few more tears escaping, not daring to glance up at Lucas, so she’s a little startled when hands reach forward and tug the spectacles from her hands. She hears the faint click-click of them unfolding, and then they’re being slid into position on her face. The world, though a little water-spotted, clears, and Lucas has his gaze fixed on her.

“You do,” he says, and she frowns.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, because she’s not really following.

He rolls his eyes. “You have people who care about you. I care about you. Dustin and Mike and Will and El care about you. Steve, too. We would worry if you didn’t make it home safe.” He sighs. “And I know that… you know, everything that happened with Billy… wasn’t great.”

“No shit,” she mutters, and she feels him shake once with the force of his snort beside her.

“Yeah, he was a piece of work. But, you know… he sucked. And I’m sorry you had to go through with that. And I know your dad…”

“He’s trying his best,” she finishes, using her pinky to push her glasses up her nose. “But it’s hard. And we go over to Mike’s house and his mother is so nice and his sister is a thousand—no a million—times better than my brother ever was. It just reminds me, every time, that my dad would probably only care about a week after I didn’t come home, then he would go collect some insurance bullshit, and that would be that. I haven’t heard from Mom in months. And Billy would have been the one to kill me. They wouldn’t care.”

Lucas scrubs a hand over his face. “But, Max, you don’t have to worry about Billy anymore. And your dad, yeah, it’s hard, but give it time. And just… remember, if you ever need to get out of there, you can stay at my place. I’m sure Mike and Dustin wouldn’t mind, either.”

She breathes in, out. “Thanks, Lucas.”

“I’d offer you a tissue or something, but I don’t think it would do anything in this weather,” Lucas says, slight smile gracing his face.

She manages a laugh. “No, I don’t think so.” She stands, grabbing her skateboard. “I should get going. I’ll see you tomorrow at the diner, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pushing himself up, too. “See you tomorrow, Max.”

She walks down the street without looking back, and through the pounding of the rain she hears the door shut with a click. She pushes her glasses up her nose once more before tossing her board down to the ground and pushing off, gliding under streetlight after streetlight as she heads home.

So I don't know why all my Lumax stories have one-word titles so far, but whatever. I like them.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, everyone! Leave a comment, if you like, and send me more prompts! Read more of my stories over on my Ao3. Thanks for reading!

#stranger things #stranger things season 2 #lumax #lucas sinclair #max #mike wheeler #will byers #dustin henderson #eleven #and here's another prompt fill enjoy guys #logan writes stranger things stuff

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imagining-supernatural · 7 years ago

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As It Seems: Chapter 14

Table of Contents

Según Parece: Lista De Contenidos

Summary: You and Dean sneak away for some of that alone time he's been wanting, and Crowley makes another reappearance

Word Count: 3180

Warnings: Implied Smut

A/N: I’m sooo sorry it’s been forever since I’ve updated this! I’ve been so incredibly busy and I don’t see my life slowing down any time soon. On the plus side, I just moved into a new apartment that is 40 minutes closer to my work and school, so hopefully I’ll have more time and energy to do everything. As soon as I catch up on my school work (ha!) I promise that I’ll sit down and actually write the last few parts of this series (It’s all planned out! I just need the time and motivation to write)

Beta’d by: @kclaire1

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

~~Dean’s POV~~

“Well, if you and Alex want to leave everyone, why do I have to go too? I can still sleep on the couch.” Claire was standing in front of Jody with her arms crossed. Jody had adopted the I’m your mother and you will do as I say look, but I’d always felt oddly protective of the rebellious blonde teenager, so I strode over.

“What’s going on?”

Claire moved her glare from Jody to me. “Since Ash is here, there’s nowhere for him to sleep. And since Jody has a house in town, she decided that the three of us are going to go home tonight. But that just means that we’re going to miss out on all the good stuff! Miss all the action!”

Jody has a house in town. Empty. No one staying there right now. I was speaking before I even finished crafting my argument. “Y/N and I can go. Ash can bunk with Sam. You three can stay here.”

Claire’s look told me that I wasn’t fooling anyone with my altruistic motives for sleeping in town, but she wasn’t about to argue with something that could keep her at Bobby’s. “Good. We’re all set.”

“Young lady!” Jody called weakly after Claire when she started walking away. Then she turned her motherly look on me and managed to drag my name out into two syllables. “Dean.”

“Jody.”

“I’m not about to let you keep dictating what Y/N does or doesn’t do. She may be your assistant, but she’s not your puppet.”

She’s my future wife. “Ask her if she wants to stay with me at your house. I guarantee that she will say yes.”

Still, Jody didn’t let up on her look. But I didn’t back down either. The air was finally clear between Y/N and me, and I couldn’t wait to get her alone. And after the few minutes in the shower before she shut me down, I knew that she was on edge too.

After a minute or two, Jody gave in and went in search of Y/N. I disappeared into the room we were sharing and started packing. As soon as we could slip out, I wanted to be gone. Sure, I could help with more research, but there wasn’t really a need when there were so many people who were smarter than I was. In this team, I was the point man. As soon as they found something I could act on, someone I could punch, I would be right there.

But until then, I would be with Y/N between the sheets of Jody’s guest room.

If we made it that far.

After dinner, I tried to grab Y/N and sneak out, but Ash called her into the research room and I knew that I lost her until Ash decided that she’d helped enough. With all of the personal crap she had to wade through between the two timelines, I knew that she needed to feel needed. She needed to feel useful.

But it sure didn’t make the wait any easier.

Half of the house was asleep by the time Y/N finally found me in the kitchen.

“Hey, Dean. You ready to go sleep in town?”

I was on my feet in an instant. “Babe, if you think we’re going to be doing much sleeping, then you and I are obviously not on the same page.”

*****

“Dean,” Y/N’s scratchy voice punctured my dreams and her hand on my shoulder shook me into consciousness. “Dean, there’s someone at the door.”

“I don’ care,” I slurred, rolling over and burying my face in her neck. We’d been up much later than normal last night and I was thoroughly exhausted. I definitely needed a few more hours of sleep next to her before I could deal with any real-world problems.

But then someone knocked, or rather pounded, on the door and I heard it that time. Along with that annoying British accent that I would prefer to not hear first thing in the morning. “Dean! Y/N! I know you’re in there! If you two think I don’t have cameras set up to watch my dear friend Bobby’s house then you’re even more moronic than I thought.”

“He’s not gonna go away,” she groaned, pulling a pillow over her head.

Well, he really needed to. I blindly groped for my phone on the bed side table and squinted at the screen long enough to pull up his contact info and press call. He answered halfway through the first ring. “Squirrel, I expected better from—”

“Go ‘way Crowley,” I snapped before ending the call and throwing the phone across the room.

Y/N chuckled beside me, lazily moving until her arm was wrapped around my waist. Carefully, I eased my face away from her neck and opened my eyes just to see her smiling softly at me.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “I just forgot how grumpy you are in the mornings.”

Though she said it fondly, I still felt slightly offended. “Hey now, I’m—”

But she cut me off with a kiss before I could defend my morning honor anymore. I had a feeling that she meant the kiss to be brief, but it wasn’t two seconds later that her arm was wrapped around my back and every inch of her beautifully nude body was pressed firmly against me. I gave myself completely over to her, rolling onto my back and letting her take control.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she said a few minutes later, trying to catch her breath. “I happen to love how grumpy you are.”

“Mmm.” My hands were gently rubbing at the muscles in her back and I couldn’t help but be completely entranced by her breathtaking face hovering above mine. Except for being woken by Crowley and assuming that he was impatiently waiting outside still, this was exactly how I pictured every morning for the rest of my life. It was my idea of a perfect heaven. “I’m gonna marry you, Y/N.”

Her eyes widened and I immediately started backtracking. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I know we promised to leave anything heavy back at Bobby’s and—”

Once again, she cut me off with a kiss. “Dean, it’s… it’s okay. I need to get over myself and this stupid self-loathing and the only way that’s going to happen is if you don’t hold back.”

Don’t hold back, huh?

She must have seen all sorts of ideas flicker through my eyes because she rolled off of me and sat up. “But, like, don’t push too hard. It’s still going to be hard to figure out how I feel because in this timeline I’ve always felt fine. But in that one I never did. So I don’t know if I need to find a happy medium or lean all the way into the Y/N in this timeline, because let’s face it, happy Y/N is better, but that also feels like I’m cheating and—“

Since she was the one blabbering this time, it was my turn to shut her up with a kiss. Against her lips, I mumbled, “Heavy things at Bobby’s, remember?”

“Speaking of, we should probably get back.”

And, as if he sensed the perfect timing, Crowley started banging on the door again. I rolled my eyes. “Or deal with Crowley.”

“Can’t we just kill him? He’s human here. Jody’s a sheriff. I’m sure she has a few guns laying around here somewhere.”

Oh, God, I loved her so much. “That’s my girl.”

Crowley’s knocking and yelling got more insistent, so Y/N and I finally gave in and scrounged up some clean clothes before yanking the door open to shut him up. Surely there were a few neighbors who had already called the police about a noise complaint. Maybe we would get lucky and Crowley would get arrested, then the police would do some digging and find all of the unsavory things in his past and he would be put away for life.

That would definitely solve a few of our problems.

“What do you want, Crowley?” Y/N snapped.

“You, my dear,” he said with fake seduction dripping off his words.

Y/N just crossed her arms and leveled a glare at him. “Too bad. I’m already spoken for. What do you really want?”

“You know, you two are being rather rude. Why don’t you invite me in and we can have a little chat?”

“Perhaps over some tea?” Y/N added sarcastically. “Not my house. I don’t know where Jody keeps her tea, and I don’t trust you. You’ll stay right there on the doorstep.”

“Great plan. This way the whole world can see us, chatting about monsters and different timelines. And, oh, that’s right, we have Dean Winchester here who just stole a rather important piece of technology from one very paranoid government agency. I bet they’re just dying to find you and shut you up for good.”

“We were just fine when we went to the mall,” I pointed out.

Crowley gave me his signature, You really must be stupid look. “I found you, dimwit.”

Dammit.

I pushed the front door open further and motioned for him to come in. “But don’t touch anything.”

“I’m not a child,” Crowley said with a touch of insolence.

“Right. A child wouldn’t whine as much as you do,” I mumbled as I took a seat on the couch. Y/N took the recliner, leaving Crowley to sit on the other end of the couch, in between the two of us.

“Well, let’s just get right down to brass tacks, shall we? I’ve done some research and—”

“We’re not going back,” I interrupted. I really didn’t want to listen to him go on and on when it didn’t even matter. “You’re wasting your time.”

Y/N sat forward. “Dean, we might as well hear him out. Sam will never let us hear the end of it if we don’t get more information first.”

What the hell? She was the one who was so insistent on keeping me and Sam in the dark, and now she wanted to listen to even more of Crowley’s bullshit? “What does it matter?”

“He’s not going to change our minds, but I’d still feel better knowing all the facts. You know, so we’re not picking and choosing anymore.”

Sure, her argument made sense. She was repeating the same argument we’d had the entire day before. But there was something behind her words that I would have to question later when Crowley wasn’t around. “Fine. Crowley, continue.”

“Most of what I found was utter bullshit. All fiction. Science-Fiction. Hogwash—”

“We get it. Move on.”

“You’re impatient today, aren’t you?”

“He’s grumpy in the mornings,” Y/N said, catching my eye and trying to lighten the mood slightly, but I wasn’t having it. If it hadn’t been for Crowley, she and I would still be in bed right now. She seemed to sense my mood wasn’t going to budge because she turned her attention back to Crowley. “But he’s right. Get a move on.”

“Geez, you two used to be more fun. Anyway. My research found a few promising leads. First off: angels.”

“We know about angels, Crowley.” I was ready to deck him then kick him to the street.

“But have you considered that one of them is responsible for this? Like that time you told me about when that angel sent you to the future? Something similar could have happened here.”

“Okay, fine. Angels. We’ll run that idea past Sam. What’s next?”

“There’s the obvious witches, but I don’t believe I’ve pissed off any witches lately besides mother. So unless you three idiots have done something…”

“Angels. Witches. Got it.”

“It’s possible that one of the Titans did this to us. We don’t know the full extent of their powers.”

“Oh my God, this is ridiculous.” Y/N groaned. “The supernatural isn’t real over here. Anything you might have been able to find probably isn’t going to be helpful. It’s all going to be fiction. The only reason research helps in the other timeline is because there are first-hand accounts. What if the thing that messed with us over there doesn’t even exist in anyone’s minds over here? We would have no idea what it is unless one of us has researched it over there. So we don’t know how to get back there, even if we wanted to.”

She had a point. But she was also all over the map today. She wanted to hear what Crowley came up with, but then she said that none of it would matter. What was going on in her head?

“What about a Djinn?” I asked. If talking about this would help Crowley leave faster, then I could contribute. After all, I did have an entire lifetime of monster knowledge that was fresh in my mind. “I have first-hand knowledge of them. They mess with reality.”

“But not timelines,” Crowley pointed out.

Reality, timelines… they were practically the same thing. “What’s the difference?”

“Different timelines happen on the same plane of reality. Something changes, and suddenly the future that was going to happen doesn’t happen anymore. There is only one timeline in each reality. But there are more than one reality and they all happen at the same time.” Crowley explained with a surprising amount of patience. “Really, Squirrel, I expected better of you.”

“Why are you so insistent that this is a different timeline?” Y/N asked with narrowed eyes. “This could just be a different reality. Nothing to do with timelines at all.”

“If it was, then how would the four of us be in the exact same alternate reality? Djinn don’t work that way.”

It was way too early to deal with Crowley being right.

But Y/N was more awake and argumentative than I was. “Alright. Not a Djinn. Something else could have send all four of us to the same alternate reality.”

“I doubt it. Something about the memories and the way this world works with the other one just doesn’t make me think of differing realities.”

And of course Crowley had the last word on the matter based entirely on his intuition. This was going nowhere. “What else did you find, then? Tell us so you can leave us alone.”

“Well, I found a little something about time wrai— Leave you alone? Squirrel, you really think I’m going to leave you alone? I am going to get back to the other timeline and Y/N seems to be the key.”

“I’m never going to help you, Crowley.”

“Oh, really?” He turned a calculating gaze on Y/N and I was instantly on edge. That was the look of a man who had an ace up his sleeve. “What’s keeping you here, huh? During our little chat a few days ago, you kept mentioning how you had the Winchesters and how you had Addy here. Your dear, sweet, precious niece. Did you know that she had a piano recital yesterday? Played a riveting rendition of Fur Elise. She’s got quite the natural talent for those ivory keys.”

Y/N leaned forward with a death glare on her face and it surprised me that Crowley didn’t seem the least bit concerned. “I swear to God, Crowley, if you so much as look at her—”

“I’ve got my people watching her. You either do as I say, or I’ll give them the orders to take—” He never got to finish that threat because Y/N punched him so hard that it was impossible to mistake the sound of his nose breaking. Without giving him time to recover, her hands were wrapped around his neck, pushing him back into the couch. He struggled against her hold, but she wasn’t budging, and I wasn’t about to get in the middle of that.

“You listen to me, you asswipe. If you or any of your people hurt anyone I care about in any way, I will torture you nice and slow just because you’re human here, and I can. I will make sure that your death is not quick or easy. I’m going to make you regret ever meeting me.” She let him go and took a step back, watching him sputter and try to get air back into his lungs. “I suggest you get it through that thick head of yours that you don’t get to order me around. And I will never help you.”

Without waiting for either of us to react, Y/N stormed out of the house.

“What is it with you people and punching me?” Crowley squeaked, gently prodding at his broken nose.

“Threatening an innocent little girl? That’s low, even for you.” I really didn’t want to sit around and explain boundaries and limits to that douchebag, so I followed Y/N’s trail outside to where she was pacing the driveway, shaking the hand that she’d just used to punch Crowley.

She saw me and grimaced. “First time punching someone in this timeline. Apparently this kind of muscle memory didn’t transfer timelines because this hurts like a bitch.”

“Well, you looked great. Nice right hook. And I bet it felt pretty good.”

“Felt great. Wish it was a gun though. Hey, can I use your phone? I really need to call Addy and hear her voice.”

I dug the phone out of my pocket and handed it to her. She immediately unlocked it and dialed. She took a few steps away before hesitating and returning to my side. As she raised the phone to her ear, her other hand reached for mine.

“Hey Addy, it’s Aunt Slushy!”

Aunt Slushy? That sounded like a story I would love to hear, but I knew better than to get in her way right now.

“Yeah, I know. I’m so sorry about that. Mr. Winchester and I went on a business trip and I lost my phone at the airport… You’re right. Maybe the gremlins took it. I’ll have to check with them and see if I can get it back…”

She laughed at something Addy said and I disentangled my fingers from hers so I could wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side. She seemed to deflate against me, allowing me to be the one to hold her up.

“Well, you’ll just have to ask your dad about that. If you do find any gremlins, then you’ll have to make them start paying you rent. I’ve heard they hoard candy like a dragon hoards gold… Fourteen pieces of candy for a night sounds like a reasonable rate to me. Run it past your dad and see if he thinks it should be more… So tell me about your recital last night. Did your dad record it? I’ll have to watch it next time I come visit.”

Just listening to Y/N talk to Addy and feeling how relaxed it made her strengthened my resolve to keep Addy safe, and to keep us in this timeline.

Y/N deserved this life. She deserved to be happy.

NEXT CHAPTER

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anzacanary · 7 years ago

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So I’ve been listening to The Adventure Zone, and I just got through the Eleventh Hour arc, and then I made some rash suggestions about needing fic where Merle leverages his party-god-of-the-forests connections and gets Magnus baked to make him talk about his feelings, and, uh, anyway, have some The Adventure Zone fic, I guess. (I’ve barely started on The Suffering Game and have been spoiled for maybe one-and-a-half plot twists, don’t tell me anything that happens please)

Truthfully, Taako had been a little worried about selling this, but he had maybe underrated how boring guard duty was, because Avi just said "Hey, thanks, dude. These are really fancy!" and took a brownie without a hint of suspicion.

"It's just a caramel-and-ganache drizzle," Taako said, watching intently. Avi had swallowed the first bite, was working on the second, and showed no signs of collapsing or asphyxiating or any other exciting stuff like that. "Feeling okay? Not noticing any poisoning symptoms?"

That did make Avi pause. "Should I be?"

"Nope!" Taako gave Avi his most reassuring finger-guns. "Absolutely no reason to think that anything I cook might be poisonous at all, my man- what do you think? Where do they rank on a scale from one to delicious?"

"Pretty ridiculously tasty. Are they just plain chocolate?"

"Nah, there's caramel and raspberry sauce in there, and also just a minute dash of cayenne pepper, which oh hey Angus where did you come from I'm putting a fucking bell on you do NOT take a brownie. Not for Anguses!" Angi? Better get that sorted out before they had to fight an army of Angus clones.

Angus, deprived of the brownie Taako had smacked from his grasp, looked as wounded as ten kicked puppies smushed together. "But Avi got a brownie!"

"Yeah, well, Avi... Avi earned a brownie. Because he's been working so hard. Guarding our stuff. Good job, Avi."

"Oh." Angus was instantly downcast. "Okay. I guess. If you don't feel like I've earned a brownie-" Dammit, that disappointed lip-wibble was powerful.

"Although I have been working very hard, sir-"

Oh, fine. "Actually, Angus-" Instant perk up. "You can't have a brownie-" Perk down again. "-because these are for everyone else, and I'm making you your own batch of brownies later. Special Boy Detective brownies. Cubbies? Like... brownies, but cub scouts...? I'm still working on the name. The point is, I can't allow you to ruin your appetite now."

Angus was already back to his natural state of perkiness. "That's so kind of you, sir!"

"Yeah, well, I'm really nice like that. Hey, Avi, still feeling alive?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, for sure." Avi had been looking dreamily at the lantern on the opposite wall, and it took him a moment to focus on Taako again. "I'm feeling great, actually. It's just a really good day to be alive, you know? Hey, can I get another one of those brownies?"

"Nope," Taako said, and bolted. "Well, that's... fancy," Merle said, squinting at the brownie pan.

"If you wanted boring brownies, you should have said so," Taako said, throwing himself onto the couch to make his disdain extra clear. "Or no, you should have taken your bootleg Pan-oregano to a different chef. You ask Taako for brownies, you get fancy brownies. Guaranteed non-poisonous brownies too, I fed one to Avi and he didn't keel over at all, you're welcome, by the way."

"There's nothing bootleg about this shit! You don't go to Pan camp every summer of your teenagerhood without making some connections, I'll have you know." Merle was cutting the brownies into squares methodically with somebody's jeweled dagger that had been lying around. Taako hoped it was a clean one, but couldn't be bothered to check.

"You planning to eat all those yourself?"

"I am planning to eat none of these myself, my friend, these are intended for Magnus."

"Magnus?" Taako squinted up at him. "Does Magnus know these are for Magnus?"

"He does not so much know that, no. It's what you might call a charitable gesture. You were there for the chalice thing, weren't you? You saw how he was afterwards. Whatever he was tempted with, he took it a lot harder than you and me." Undeniably true. "And now, if you try to bring it up to him, he just looks sad and brave and lip-wibbly and starts talking about holding it together for the sake of the team." Also true. Taako had been lip-wibbled at far too often lately. "So in my semi-professional opinion, it's time to bring out the big guns. And if that means we have to get Magnus stoned out of his gourd to talk about his feelings, well, we're just gonna have to suck it up. For our teammate's sake."

"I hear what you're saying," Taako said, chewing on his lip, "but have you considered how you're gonna convince him to eat one in the first place? He's a pretty canny guy-" and was interrupted by the dorm door opening and Magnus edging through, arms full of mysterious carpentry equipment.

"Yo, Magnus, brownie!" Merle lobbed a brownie square at him underhand. Magnus looked startled, twisted, and in an impressively dextrous move, caught the brownie on the flat of a saw blade. He looked pleased with himself and jammed the entire thing into his mouth.

"Zatsreal- mmf. That's really nice of you, Taako, I appreciate you sharing with us. This is fantastic, what's in it?"

"Well, chocolate, obviously, and caramel and raspberry sauce, and a tiny little bit of cayenne pepper," Taako said, pushing himself off the couch and moving to intercept Magnus, who was eying the brownie pan. "That's very kind, Magnus, and I also appreciate the way you always keep our furniture in, uh, furniture-condition?" He broke a brownie in half and handed the smaller piece to Magnus, who took it obediently, then figured what the hell and bit into the larger one himself.

Damn, these were good. He ought to set up some kind of brownie dojo, where lesser bakers could come and learn the art of brownie-making, ideally without ever quite surpassing his skill. In the background Magnus was saying something about liking to be useful which Taako tuned out to think about flavor combinations. Maybe mint next time?

"-another, or are you saving them?" Magnus was already reaching for the brownie pan. Taako sighed and gave up.

"Look, maybe... maybe just wait a little while and see how you feel first?"

Magnus looked at him, and then at Merle, and then at the brownies. Back at Merle. Back at the brownies. He dropped his mystery tools on the counter with a clatter, stepped back, and spread his arms.

"You *shitheads*, I had things to do tonight."

"Looking mopy while sanding joints doesn't count as things to do," Merle said firmly, taking him by the arm. "You know what does? Because I'll tell you what does: lying out baked on the empty quad at midnight to stargaze and talk about your feelings. And look what's conveniently available-" There were actually some people trying to play Night Frisbee on the quad, but they fled when Merle glared at them. Magnus followed him slowly, looking like he was concentrating on his footsteps. "Do you guys ever feel uneasy out here? With all that open sky, and it's not like moon gravity is as strong as earth gravity, it's always made me kind of edgy."

"You're worried about... falling off the moon?"

"Maybe not falling off, but what if you jumped too high? Or just walked really hard? We can't expect the moon to do all the work for us. If you move wrong you might slip right off." Magnus stood stock-still in the middle of the green, looking at the sky tensely.

"Like the dogs? Sit down, you'll feel better when you're touching more of the ground." Taako patted the grass beside him. Magnus went to sit down, critically missed, and fell over on him.

"Okay, that works too. There, see, if you start to drift off I'll catch you. Your hair is way softer than it looks, you know that?"

Merle's eyes were narrowed at him. "Exactly how much of that stuff did you sample while you were baking?"

"You don't taste raw batter, dude, gross. Unless you're some kind of salmonella fetishist? I think half a brownie may have had a strong effect because of my natural elven attunement to the rhythms of, uh, trees and shit. Our constitutional resistance to this kinda thing is just naturally lower than average." Taako really was feeling pretty good. Better than normal, honestly, not that he wasn't super fucking chill all the time, but... this was nice, was all. The quad was cool and peaceful and looked pretty in the dim light- with the lanterns and the black sky, it looked like the Night scene set in a magic picture show. Magnus was lying half in his lap and wasn't objecting to having his hair petted.

"Exactly like the dogs," Magnus said well behind the conversation. "But we could just be careful to keep the dog on a leash when it's outside, right? Or build a little dog jetpack for it? We could totally get a dog."

"We're away a lot, though. I mean, do we take the dog adventuring or what?"

Magnus made a distressed sound. "I wouldn't feel right exposing it to that kind of danger. I'm sure somebody here would feed it. Killian has a tear-away calendar where every day is a different adorable puppy, I bet she'd feed it for us. Are there any more of those brownies?"

"Absolutely not."

"They were really good."

"I know! Totally not poisonous, either. I tested them on Avi first cause I'd be kind of sad if you guys died, plus I need you for backup."

"What?" Magnus shifted to glare at him but didn't bother moving further. "Dude, you can't kill Avi, Avi's great."

"Um, obviously I didn't kill Avi? If I'd killed Avi then I wouldn't have given you the brownies, would I? 'Oh look, the brownies are deadly after all, glad I found that out, now I guess I'll go feed them to my team-'"

"I worry about Avi," Magnus went on thoughtfully. "He seems like a great guy, I just don't know if he has any friends? I mean, there's us, but we're terrible. How much opportunity for a social life do you get on the moon?"

"He's on Moon Grindr," Taako volunteered and instantly regretted. Merle was doing the eyebrow-raise thing at him.

"And you know this how exactly?"

"I got lost looking for beignet recipes, how the fuck do you think?!" Taako huffed out a breath and let himself fall backward. "Moon Grindr sucks anyway," he told the black sky. "There are four guys on it, and I'm not making a humorous understatement there, I mean I actually counted. And that includes me. And you think, hey, you could hook up with that guy and if it's weird you'd never have to see him again except for how you would, every day, because we live on the fucking moon, what're you gonna do, hop on a caravan to another fucking moonbase? It was not a good use of my data plan."

"This isn't making me feel any better about Avi's love life," Magnus mumbled into Taako's thigh. "We should keep an eye out when we're on the planet, for someone who might like him. Someone who wouldn't mind living on a moonbase."

"It's a tough sell," Merle said. "There you are at the first-date bar, eating your first-date tapas, you ask 'So, what do you do for a living?' and they open their mouth and what comes out is nothing but maraca noises. Off-putting."

"Yeah, it wouldn't be a great place to invite people back to. The moon thing sounds romantic, but then they get here and it's all screaming eyes in the sky and people wanting them to drink aquarium waste, and not even any dogs."

"You're really stuck on this dog thing, aren't you?"

"I like dogs." Magnus reached out and dragged Taako's hand back into his hair, which was still ridiculously soft. How did that even work? There was no way Magnus knew what conditioner was. "Julia and I were gonna get a dog. Or six or eight, maybe. Really cute dogs. Dress 'em in stupid outfits and laugh at them, that kind of thing." He sounded drowsy but clear. "I thought we were gonna have a chance to bring them up in a city at peace. Watch them grow up, send them to school-"

"This is still dogs we're talking about?"

Magnus shrugged. He had picked a moon dandelion and was carefully stripping it of fluffy bits one by one. "She did like dogs, though. I brought in this puppy one time, it had been hit by a cart in the road, she made a little prosthetic paw for it from wood and leather. She was good at that kind of stuff, fixing little helpful things. Before we- she used to repair my stuff, even before I noticed it was wearing out, she'd yank it away and give it back all tuned up. Later she told me she had just wanted to impress me. Which, she didn't need to work hard at that, but she liked to do it." He dropped a piece of dandelion fluff and watched it tumble in the air. "She should have had more time to do it in. I was figuring we could live to ninety-five or so together, she had decades to spend fixing things, and picking flowers, and petting dogs, and all those years were stolen from her."

"That's rough," said Merle, who was apparently taking point on this, thank all of the gods individually, Taako just wasn't great at this kind of thing. "And hard on you, to have to live with."

"Harder on Julia." More dandelion fluff. "I've been wondering if I should have accepted it," he went on in the same conversational tone of voice. "If she hated me, and she would hate me if I let scores of people die and fucked over the world for this, she'd still be alive to do it. She'd have all those years back. Even if I never saw her again, she'd be alive."

The silence went on for so long that Taako felt really awkward about breaking it just to say "Well, no. She'd be pink tourmaline."

Magnus exhaled sharply with a sound that might have been laughter-related. "Hah. Yeah, okay. But you can't be sure the Bureau wouldn't have found someone else."

"I can be pretty damn certain! It's been going on for how long? And we're the most competent people it's ever managed to recruit. *Us*. You know as well as I do, if it had been anyone else they sent in there, this moonbase would now be orbiting a rather attractive semiprecious gemstone of astronomical size."

"He's got a point," Merle said sagely. "Very dramatic effect, not so great for sustaining life."

Magnus threw his arm over his face and said "Yeah, all right," which came out muffled. "You know," he went on, indignant like this had just occurred to him, "for a guy who wants me to talk about my feelings, Merle, you were pretty unconcerned about me falling off the moon."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot you were stoned out of your mind." Merle scooted closer and planted one broad hand firmly in the middle of Magnus's chest. "There, that should keep you. Better?"

"Mhm." Magnus hummed a contented little tune. "I'm really glad I met you guys, you know? Even if I did think about erasing it with a magical time goblet. It would be sad if we were never a team."

"Yeah, well, you're a giant fuckin' sap."

Merle threw a handful of grass at him. "I think what Taako is trying to say, Magnus, is 'you're our teammate and we care about you and you can talk to us if you need to'."

"Come on, I don't wanna lay all my problems on you guys."

"I'm not offering free therapy indefinitely, okay? Just talk about it, a little, if you think it'll help. Tell me about Julia. How'd you meet her?"

"That's kind of a cute story, actually," Magnus said, and told it. Taako drifted off a little. You got a great view of the stars from a dimly-lit moonbase, but they were a little askew from how they looked from the ground, and it was disorienting. None of the constellations looked quite right. Were those the Dioscuri, or were they some other starry fuckers pretending to be the Dioscuri? Hard to tell. Somewhere Magnus was still talking, but Taako wasn't quite awake enough to listen. This was nice, even if he wasn't going to admit it out loud. It wasn't like he needed physical contact or anything- he'd been alone most of his life, hadn't he, and that had been fine, hadn't it?- but there was something kind of comforting about falling asleep next to other people. People he could almost certainly trust to have his back unless something really distracting was happening. At some point Magnus cried for a while, not very loudly, and Merle made soothing noises at him. Merle was great at that kind of thing. Damn, they were a well-oiled team. They should also, Taako thought vaguely, probably not all fall asleep in the middle of the quad. He'd point that out to everyone, in a minute.

He awoke, not for the first time, being prodded delicately in the ribs by the toe of somebody's buttoned boot. "Dare I ask what precisely took place here?"

This was probably the time for his most charismatic excuses, but in the moment of clarity of awakening Taako had had a terrible revelation. "Oh, shit," he muttered into the grass, "I missed the most obvious Boy Detective baked goods pun ever, Angus will never respect me again, fuck."

"Now, I'm sure there's no need to be so harsh with yourself," the Director said. "Angus is a kind-hearted boy, and with time and effort on your part he may perhaps regain a portion of his former esteem for you. Try to think positive thoughts. Ideally, think them in a different location. Good Lord, boys, we didn't build the dorms as background set dressing, you know." She looked them over. "Are you going to need help dragging Magnus inside?"

"Oh, yeah, probably, why don't I just go and find some people to help with that," Taako said, and ran for it. An hour later he tracked down Angus, yanked the book out of his hands, replaced it with a plate, stared him down and said flatly, "*Encyclopedia Brownies*."

"That's *brilliant*, sir," Angus said, wide-eyed.

"Yeah, I'm pretty smart like that," Taako said, and took a brownie. But he let Angus keep the corner pieces. What the hell, he could be a good teammate once in a while.

#did i have a fic tag i've already forgotten #canary writes a thing #it doesn't have a plot or anything it's basically just stoned dudes cuddling

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duelingdestiny · 8 years ago

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☠ ♥ ♦ ♢ ✮☄ ☯ ☀ ☁ ☂ ☢ ☣ ❀ ✧❥ ❦ ❧ ✖ ♒❣

☠ What does someone have to do for an instant unfollow from you?

Start public shit on my dash. I literally cannot handle it. I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to see it. I’ve been a part of it before. I’ve screwed up and started it myself before, and at this time in my life I’m avoiding it like the plague.

♥What's the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

Oh my god. Uhhhhh. Wow so okay the thing I actually regret rp wise is losing one of my favorite partners due to something really stupid that could have been handled WAY better on both sides but it’s really helped me to handle things better as a person. Still, I regret losing that person as an RP partner, and I probably always will.

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise?

I mean the really big thing that messes with me is because of character bleed. When people just leave Atem. It really messes him up. Or when any relationship he’s in just ends. It’s like he has no closure and it messes with me to have to deal with his pining ass.

♢ Has anyone ever tried to steal your blog? Your headcanons? Icons? All that jazz

In short Yes. I’ve been around possibly the longest at the point and I’ve seen a lot of my hcs migrate to other Yami/Atem blogs, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m flattered, besides most of them aren’t so far fetched that people couldn’t come up with them on their own. I will however flip shit over my icons Masaya90 made them for me as a commission and I will absolutely fight someone over them, but you know how I feel about stolen art anyways

✮ Have you managed to stay away from drama?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. I’m sorry give me a moment. Honestly yes. Other than the drama I have caused for myself in the past? All and all I am very careful about who I interact with. I just don’t deal with it. I ignore the “discourse” and just do what I’m here to do. That’s all I can do.

☄ Have you ever been in the middle of drama?

Yes. I have been in the middle. And I’ve handled being in the middle badly, and I’ve tried my best to rectify my mistakes which is all anyone can do. I’ve made amends to the people I feel like I needed to make amends to and as a general rule I just ignore drama altogether now.

☯ Have you ever tried to bring peace to a situation?

I have. Sometimes I succeed, others I have failed miserably. I’ll tell you this. I will generally always try to bring peace to things. I don’t like being at odds with anyone. It’s too much work and I’m too lazy to hold a grudge.

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

Oh this is a tie, between people just putting Atem in a situation he would NEVER be in, in a starter (without discussing it with me prior) or people who don’t cut their posts and use mobile as an excuse. I am on mobile some times and I just make a new post and mention my rp partner in it so we don’t clog the dash. It’s not rocket surgery.

☁ Have you ever forgiven a partner when you shouldn't have?

I don’t think so mainly because if two people can work through something I think they should. I used to not think that but I’ve learned a lot and some times people just fuck up you know? So no. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven someone when I shouldn’t have because everyone deserves another chance.

☂ Have you ever been forgiven when you knew you shouldn't have been?

Again, see post above

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

CONTAINER BLOGS!!!!!!!!! Seriously, I have fucking unfollowed people for this shit. I understand that you want your blog to be pretty, but holy shit. Just font that’s a size 7 and I have to blow up the page like 9 times in order to read anything and most of them have the practically non existent scroll bar and AUTO PLAY fucking terrifies me. Like just please know every time I have to go on your blog and music starts out of no where you are giving me a HEART ATTACK. Just I know you think it looks pretty but before you decide on the things like that go on your blog and look at it. USE it. User friendly is a REALLY important thing guys.

☣ Have you ever rp'd with someone you knew for a fact was abusive but tried to give them a chance/to make up your own opinion on the roleplayer? Did they change or did you understand what people were talking about?

Due to past personal experiences I like to make up my own mind about people. Honestly the best relationship came from that. Making up my own mind. A lot of really good friendships have come from that so yes, I always try to give people a chance no matter what I’ve heard, because what you hear is probably only half of the truth to being with.

❀ What has made you completely lose your chill?

People being shitty to others on the dash publicly. And yes before anyone points a finger, I have been in on that once and it was an awful stupid idea. It doesn’t help anything. It literally doesn’t. Tearing someone up in public makes you look like a giant asshole. We have Inboxes and IM systems and a plethora of other social media so if you have an issue with someone you can talk to them like they are a person and explain your grievance and if it’s THAT big of a deal just unfollow them and block them if you need to, but there’s no reason to be Captain Asshole on the dash. No one really wants to see it and it makes everyone’s experience really uncomfortable so bottom line? Just don’t call people out publicly.

✧ Do you agree with reblog karma or is it forced interaction?

I’m up in the air with this. I have WAY too many followers and it’s extremely frustrating to reblog a meme get 30 reblogs off said meme and get literally not one thing in my inbox from said meme. But I remind myself timezones, and maybe people don’t feel like that will work for our muses but here’s the really easy thing that you can do if that’s the case. REBLOG FROM THE SOURCE. Then people don’t get the hit that basically looks like “I don’t WANT to interact with you.” and it makes everyones lives a little better. But I REALLY support sending memes in. I have days where I will just make a post that is MEME HOUR which is if you post a meme as long as I think Atem would be down, I will send you in an ask for it. It’s really fun and it makes up for the times when I’m not on to spam peoples assboxes.

❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you?

Honestly someone has ruined every character for me at one time or another lol but FC I’ve got a good one. Now it wasn’t from RP but Gina Torres who is one of the prettiest people imho was RUINED for me by the show Angel. Because (SPOILER ALERT) She’s a giant pile of maggots okay? And she’s in some of my fave shows: Firely, Any Day Now, Suits. But I cannot unsee her face on Angel. She just shows up in shit and I scream. She popped up on Criminal Minds once and I just shut it off. She’s in Hannibal and I REALLY want to watch that. DAMMIT.

❦ Has someone been jealous of you?

Maybe, but I wouldn’t know why...I mean I’m just me. Oh! Maybe when I go to cons and meet awesome people? I’d be jealous of me then too.

❧ Have you ever been jealous of anyone?

Yes. There are people I get jealous of. People who get more interaction, people who are here all the time, people who are in a better time zone. So yeah, happens.

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started?

Like I said before, I think I have been here longer than most in this fandom at least the rp side and HOO BOY, things have changed a lot. Remember when we had to tag a post on the side? Remember when Missing E was the extension we all had? No? That’s because I’ve been here forever. Before this I was in the SPN fandom. So yeah. I feel like I’ve stuck around a lot longer than a lot of people. What kills me is that things have changed but not really improved? When are we going to be able to lock a post so people’s art can’t be stolen? When are we going to be able to delete a post and all clones of that post are deleted as well so someone who made a mistake 6 years ago and LEARNED from it doesn’t have to wake up with hate in their inbox every morning?

♒ Thoughts on the fandom you're currently rping in?

I actually really love both the fandoms I’m in right now, though both have some issues. Voltron is fucking unhinged about some shit I won’t get into because no one really cares in this fandom but HOO BOY I’m glad we don’t have that here because we literally have the same thing going on here. HA! I just thought of that. But yeah age gaps man. Just fuck everything about it. Okay done ranting about this before I get my first hate mail

❣ How salty are you feeling right now?

Ask Sophie she’s had to listen to me rant for the last hour about everything on this list. I just screamed about the SPN fandom confusing reality with porn for 20 minutes and then the Josh Keaton thing with his kids so yeah, pretty fucking salty that people can’t just get the fuck along.

#((outoftheafterlife))#Answered meme #Talking with Tiffers #ghostofthering

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i-am-a-fan-of-empty-spaces · 8 years ago

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in which i revisit everything i’ve written in the past year to mine for quotes. don’t bother reading.

romance goals: no jealousy, no insecurity, no pressure, no forced friendships, no pursuit. just me, like i always am, only full of fawning adoration

“1P-LSD was a very emotional experience, intense for a guy like myself who considers himself something of a tough guy and an egghead. I had many moments-- thank God nobody saw me--- of simultaneously laughing and crying with extreme intensity. The very things in life that are pathetic... are staggeringly hilarious, and vice-versa. And for the same reasons. The crying had to do with becoming aware of how all creatures hurt and suffer at times... and the laughing is all about my instinctive knowledge that 'God' is always there with infinite forgiveness. So one minute, I'd find myself crying with shame and pathos... then the very next moment finding it all uproariously, staggeringly, cosmically funny, because I knew that God always loves me and forgives me.”

i have a fascination with fungi. the way they sprout out of bodies, the way they turn bodies into these blooming colorful gardens no longer living but also not quite dead. i dream a lot about dead things, sick things, blind and naked writhing things, things covered in beetles and ants and beautiful fungi.

“I've got a really detailed fantasy world that I escape into in my imagination when I'm lying in bed at night or driving alone, where I've been in an accident and my life was saved by transplanting my brain into the body of a ten year old girl. She was in a vegetative state and her body had been donated to medical science. The doctor performed the operation illegally and therefore had to pass me off as a real ten year old girl. In my new life, I get placed into foster care and then adopted by a family whose ten year old daughter I go to school with, and have a lesbian relationship with. I have been having this fantasy for over ten years now. I could fill thirty seasons of a bad harem anime...”

“The first time we had dinner together, I told her a story from high school about sitting on a porch swing and thinking about all the things that might happen to me, and how I never thought I'd end up in Chicago across a table from Sarah Urist. And she said, "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia," which I put in my book Looking for Alaska.”

“Pedal, since just a you when you’re sucking beneath shut a grinning wriggling, trembling spruce over nothing arms. “

“[Ikuhara] On this point, Anno-san and I differ in our way of creating. I'm not trying to connect anime and voice that much. But if I have a sentiment close to that, I think it's the complex about the body. I have moments where I think that, not just anime, but nothing can win against the human body. A while ago I was watching the Nagano Olympics on TV. There was this girl who was nothing special during her interview, but who became sublime when she started skating. It was only for instant while she was doing it, but I felt like God was dwelling in her body. A moment when I thought there was nothing more beautiful in the whole world. And it's not like her body changed, either. It's that kind of complex towards the human body that I've got. Even though my work is in anime, I have moments when I doubt we matter compared to a real body. When counting on the actors to do something, I wonder if what I'm actually looking for is corporeality.”

if i were a ghost who couldn’t move on to the next life, it would be because i wouldn’t be able to stop watching the people i love. i would be so unable to look away and so filled with longing for them and enthralled by their actions that i would forget i was dead. i would stir shit up in their lives and bring in fun and excitement. i would throw things off their shelves and cause a commotion so loud they would know it’s me.

“ The last thing I can recall while inside the van was everything switched to a birds eye view. I saw the entire accident occur but from about 50ft in the air. This is likely a vivid concussion of some sort but I can't at all remember "feeling" the crash just observing. I woke up in some random ladies arms whom was crying immensely trying to comfort me, all while I had no idea what happen. When I was watching from above I saw myself in my mothers arms but woke up to a stranger.”

“Sandwiched in-between the enthusiastic, conversation-seeking Ne and the opinioned, action-driven Te, is Fi. It’s pesky, because it’s not a dominant, so often at the time, they don’t know how they feel about things. Unlike Fe-users,talking about how they feel won’t help them solidify their feelings; they find it uncomfortable to discuss their deepest feelings. Even though they are extraordinarily kind and loving, their inability to fully put their feelings into words can make them look “cold” to outsiders. ENFPs would rather take an outsider’s perspective to their own emotions, in an attempt to understand them; they’ prefer to discuss how they reacted to something (through action … Te) than how it made them feel. Typically, when something bad goes down in their life, they work through it alone. Sometimes, they might want to open up to someone and talk about it, but the idea of doing so is so deeply uncomfortable that they suppress it, or never send that e-mail, or tear up that letter. Because their Te is such close friends with their Fi, though, they are more obviously emotional than their introverted cousins, since they’re not as good at hiding their feelings. It channels into Te, which kicks into action (and can make us cry, dammit, even if we don’t want to).

Fi is private, but it’s also directly behind Ne, which is very forthcoming in “sharing,” while channeling into Te “directness,” so often they can “over-share” when they are young, and as they get older, may become more reserved and private (particularly if being too open with their views in the past has caused them pain). They’re most comfortable using metaphors and indirect ways of expressing their emotions and although they can be very kind and helpful in a bad situation, are somewhat envious of Fe’s ability to say the right thing at the right time. Their Te enables them to act on their feelings, morals, and principles, and be confrontational if necessarily, but typically these confrontations are objections to shutting down ideas (Ne), moral judgments they disagree with (Fi), or general unfairness (Fi), rather than confrontation on their own emotional behalf. If you hurt an ENFP, they will turn on passive-aggressive behavior rather than call you out on it like a Fe-user might.”

we were stopping at a place to rest for the night. the town wasn’t right, it was probably a town of vampires. this house we stopped at had doors raised a foot and a half above the ground. inside, the window curtains were sown shut. a door leading to the next room was only a foot and a half high. a song was playing, some kind of folk song. the place was empty.

god was not there in the beginning. god robbed our mother of her children. god killed mother and cut her into 21 pieces, now she lies asleep at the bottom of the world. on the last day she will climb back to heaven, she will eat his flesh and drink his blood, she will carry us home.

“When I was about 10 my parents sent me to summer camp in Minnesota. It was a large establishment right by a thick forest. The first night we played capture the flag, and I got lost in the woods. It was getting dark out and I distinctly remember the fireflies starting to light up around me. There was one in particular which was larger than the rest, so out of juvenile instinct I thought I should try and catch it. Every time I swiped for it it would disappear and reappear further in the woods. I did this for about 5 minutes when I finally looked up and realized I was deep in the woods and it was almost pitch black. I started screaming out of fear and luckily people came to my aid. Looking back at it I know deep down that I was not chasing a firefly. I frequently look up what it could be, but honestly haven't the slightest.”

i want to tell a story about a world like where i am right now, in a town that is warm even in january, with big skies and quickly moving clouds. it will be about me and my spirit friend smoking cigarettes on roofs, and a friendly android that works at a cafe in the neighboring town, and a train that passes through the town every so often, and huge storms in the spring, and an old schoolhouse, and the smell of wet grass. we will pass our days like this for a while.

if i were to write like a manifesto for what i want to do in life, i think it would be to experience the intensity of feelings in the moment and hold them close to me and know that i’m alive, and to watch this aliveness in other people, and to celebrate it, and somewhere in there is the hope that everything, morality and God and truth, will unfold from this if I hold it closely enough.

i think when i'm sad the world and God together become this beautiful thing for me. some non-self that i want very badly to consume the self. to transform it through suffering and sex and beauty and horror. i want to throw myself into the open arms of the world. i feel very much like i'm in love a lot of the time, but not with any person. just an intensity and excitement that grows and grows and when i'm sad looms over me like the weight of heaven

“I came to this dilapidated temple when I was thirty-two. One night in a dream my mother came and presented me with a purple robe made of silk. When I lifted it, both sleeves seemed very heavy, and on examining them I found an old mirror, five or six inches in diameter, in each sleeve. The reflection from the mirror in the right sleeve penetrated to my heart and vital organs. My own mind, mountains and rivers, the great earth seemed serene and bottomless. The mirror in the left sleeve, however, gave off no reflection whatsoever. Its surface was like that of a new pan that had yet to be touched by flames. But suddenly I became aware that the luster of the mirror from the left sleeve was innumerable times brighter than the other. After this, when I looked at all things, it was as though I were seeing my own face. For the first time I understood the meaning of the saying, "The Tathagata sees the Buddha-nature within his eye."”

NEXT TIME I GO ON VACATION I WON’T BRING GLASSES OR CONTACTS. I WON’T BE ABLE TO READ ANYTHING OR SEE ANYONE’S FACE. THE WORLD WILL BE A MUDDLED BLUR. I WILL HAVE TO PRACTICE THE ART OF SURRENDER AND TRUST IN MY LOVED ONES. IT WILL BE FUN.

“writing is catharsis. it aids the reader in catharsis. it must be written as an act of catharsis. in doing it, you must feel absolutely compelled to do it by some divine force. it must be written with a beating heart if it is to have a beating heart. the best writing comes when in moments of unspeakable joy you write letters in gratitude to everything and everyone around you, without pausing to press backspace, then hide the writing away for future selves to read. it comes when in the midst of drunkenness you ramble incoherently about everything that has been happening in these past weeks because you’re sick of keeping it to yourself. it is like deep conversations.

writing is a description of the self and requires that you live honestly and keep your gaze fixed on yourself. feel intensely, spend time with your thoughts, pinpoint and dissect them in pictures and words and conversations. every feeling in your life is part of a larger map of something holy that can’t be described in words, some feeling of the Fullness of Being Alive. maybe you’re on the bus coming back from a town in the mountains late at night, and you pass by a forest, and something about it feels strange and sick and wrong. hold that feeling close, take a shitty picture of trees in the dark, let yourself feel the sickness and wrongness so much that it scares you, remember that moment. you read a poem about a stream divided by rocks, and it makes you fall apart and cry, and you don’t know why—it doesn’t matter why, copy that poem, write it on your shirt, write it in abandoned buildings, make it a manifesto. you see a picture on tumblr that’s absolutely angelic and holy. get that picture printed on a poster. hang it in your room, look at it often. over time the picture of that Something Holy will slowly become clearer. you’ll become more loving and accepting of the darkness in your own heart and in the hearts of others, you’ll become more comfortable expressing it.

writing is performance. when i was in in 9th grade, my art teacher loved absolutely everything i drew and believed i was special among her students. she asked me questions about my life, shared moments from hers. i felt like she was seeing me through my art, and that i was an interesting person, and perhaps this wasn’t true or healthy, but i was compelled by this to keep creating, creating interesting things, pretentious things, bold things. angels with holes in their hearts, flocks of crows, haunted dolls. that was the year i wanted to be a manga artist. i felt like i had something interesting to say that nobody else could say. if you want to create, you must be brave, you must believe that you’re interesting and that the contents of your heart are interesting—to yourself, to friends, to the General Public, to God? i don’t know. but if you can believe that, and art becomes a way of breathing for you, letting yourself into the world, i believe that you’ll one day write well, or express the contents of your heart beautifully however you choose to do it.

technique does matter a lot, sure. it’s a tool for conveying, it’s how you speak to the public and to yourself. writing is an act of clarifying, technique gives you the skills to express with greater clarity. but the message you bear, the beating heart of art, that’s the real point. if you focus on making what you think is good, the technique will always follow, as you try desperate to shake out that feeling of not being able to write how you want, as you search for the right words and images in the quiet moments of your life. “

What is the creepiest thing you have witnessed out at sea? “When diving, a huge seiner net drifting towards you. It wasn't anchored or attached to anything. Just a huge whirling cloud of death, full of barnacles and dolphin skeletons and decomposing fish.”

“When you were born, your mother told me, a hush fell over the delivery room. A great red birthmark covered the left side of your face. No one knew what to say, so you cried to fill the vacuum.”

“When I was coming round from the operation, I remember the light they shone in my eyes to check for pupil contraction. It was like staring up at a moonlit sky from the bottom of well. People moved at the summit but I could not tell if you were one of them.”

after an accident, whenever a man closes his eyes, he sees a hole in a wall looking out to an opposite wall in a hallway. this persists for several years, and then one day it goes away. years later, he comes across a hallway with the same wallpaper. disturbed, he looks over the wall for holes.

“When a person relies too heavily on Fi at the expense of Te, their outlook will be too subjective. This leads to feelings of isolation or disconnectedness because you will feel like an island, i.e., you will have no way of verifying whether what you believe or value is appropriate or healthy or adaptive because you have nothing outside of your own experience to use for comparison or measurement. This is why high Fi users have an underlying need for validation. They need some way to verify the worthiness of their own beliefs and values. What they actually need is to learn that all humans share certain universal values and, until they can get in touch with those universal values through better balance with Te, they will be very prone to developing some form of low self-confidence, or they will easily fall into feeling insecure or uncertain about things.”

i think that one of my greatest assets is my ability to communicate honestly to others about my own feelings. i’m able to express my discomfort with a situation while not placing blame on them. “i feel this way right now,” but also “i have this motivation here and it might not be right and i feel bad about it” and “i understand you might feel this way and i’m not trying to invalidate that, i just want to talk”. it’s something that takes a lot of effort to act out, usually. my gut reaction is to get defensive or angry or abrasive when i feel something threatening my values or identity, and it takes quiet time alone and deliberateness and urgency to feel the need to communicate more nuanced and honest feelings. usually, it’s something that happens after a whole lot of frustration has built up with no resolution. but the fact that i can, that i have in the past put my defensiveness aside in talking to my parents and to people who have hurt me, i think it’s something i’m glad i can do. i also think it’s about a state of security, as in, there are states where it’s absolutely impossible to do this. it takes a safe place alone and security in my own worth for me to reflect without feeling my identity threatened. i don’t think suffering automatically creates moral strength—that’s an idea that gets tossed around in the bible study. i think in most people who lack self-worth already it further hardens the walls around them against the world. but i think when you finally do find a place of security, suffering can reveal who you are. the security is important, though.

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

i am getting tired of drawing and i tried drawing today and it seemed so pointless like lines on paper, and maybe writing lacks the INSTANTANEOUSNESS and REALITY i am looking for. on nights when i am especially reckless my main thought is always that i need something new something LOUD, that broadcasts the message like a punch, that knocks the SPIRIT out of you. practice is boring, patience is boring. they say dig a six foot well instead of six one foot wells. i say dig one hundred million one foot wells with speed and recklessness until the entire top layer of soil is gone then dig another hundred million one foot wells and then continue until there is no surface and the ancient seas are all that remain. this requires no skill, only sincerity and a willingness to scream.

i think there's a tendency for some people to want to look for reasons and lessons from events in their life so they have a sense of control over what went wrong, so they can feel that it’s no longer a problem for them. the problem with this is that you’re looking for reasons as a defense instead of thoroughly figuring out what this event means to YOU. like, you may be totally right, but WHY do you need reasons for what happened? why do you need a lesson from the event? why is your first instinct for every small event in your social life to find a life lesson to learn from it? is this self-serving in any way? i would say: logic is a terrific tool for self-deception. don't look for lessons first thing. the real lessons you need to find will find you if you examine yourself enough. never have unshakable faith in these moments of insight. entertain the thoughts, let the thoughts pass and if they're right they'll show themselves to be right. it’s more important to ask the right questions than to find the right answers.

there are events in life that will absolutely change your perspective and stay with you forever. when you come across them in life, give thanks to God. but your whole life has become an attempt to maximize these moments and that misses the point. you will not climb your way to heaven through these moments. if you let go of all of these moments, the things that you need to find you will still find you. once in awhile, learn to let go of everything entirely and let God come to you.

“Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese. He admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualized and precise physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a "Theatre of Cruelty". At one point, he stated that by cruelty he meant not exclusively sadism or causing pain, but just as often a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality. He believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.”

“I am not ashamed of reading self-help books, or of liking them despite the fact that they do not possess the subtlety or nuance or pacing of the classics. "Show, don't tell" kind of disappears: you are being told more often than you are being shown in these sorts of reads about how to deal with feelings and emotions, which can be off-putting to like-minded fiction buffs, but I feel like my readings in fiction led me here. This is in part because I was seeking counseling in my fiction: counseling in sadness, wisdom on relationships, insights into how to stay enriched in life despite how awful life can be. Fiction can do this for sure. But at some point I felt like the slow-drip of self-help for which I was exploiting fiction - and the pressure I was placing on the form of the novel to grant me these answers - was a means by which I was misreading fiction and doing a disservice to myself.”

“at the risk of sounding super kiss-ass, though i think this is true - i don't think your personality punches people in the face. i think your personality is super magical and amazing and externalized with an uncompromising honesty and stark clarity that makes it difficult to not be changed by”

It is Thursday, April 14, 2016. I am on a bus returning to Taipei from Taichung. The ride has put me in a strange mood. I wish I could capture it for you. I’m passing by these buildings lit by colored lights, bright blue and green and red, and the night is foggy, and the lights bleed into the fog and make it glow strange colors. There are big concrete highway overpasses weaving over and under each other, illuminated by rows of street lamps giving off an orange glow. I will attach a picture if I have the time. I’m happy. The world is holding me close like a womb. I am thinking of people I know and love, people I do not yet know but would love, I’m thinking of wandering into this night with them, sitting in cafes and looking them in the eye,

excerpts from hearn letters:

i am living in a sea of endless chaotic ideas, flying from one to another at seeming random, unable to zoom out. my spirit animal is a magpie, collector of shiny objects, trapped and dying in a box of christmas ornaments.

everything in life is so terrifyingly uncertain and every rule has its exception, and i am paralyzed by the complexity of it all. my other spirit animal is the trilobite: immobile, thoughtless, asleep for eons under petrified oceans.

i float above the tops of the trees in the night and arrive at your door by morning

salvia:

“I noticed the entire courtyard starting to shift, not with my eyes. But with a very strong feeling, akin to a grand Ferris wheel starting it's cumbersome first spin after a season of dormant winter.”

“The first time I thought I was a book and my pages were flipping in the wind. Turned out I was spinning in the kitchen against the wall.”

“With eyes closed, I could see these spinning wheels diving left to right, and the force was there, a very carnival-like yet child-like force I must say.”

“The wheel is something all too common. I always get the impression that this wheel is rolling over our reality, or creating our reality in its wake.”

there’s an answer somewhere in the tangled mass of thoughts in my head, and i keep reaching in that direction, trying to bring this thing out of myself and lay it out before the both of us, but i don’t know, i feel like it’s not making sense to you. i don’t think i’m speaking the right words. when it makes sense to you, it does only in bits and pieces. i’m sorry if this comes off as harsh: sometimes i feel like you’re grabbing for familiar reference points in order to understand me.

“Honestly though, I think sometimes people just dislike someone, maybe for a legitimate reason, but then constantly look for more reasons to justify it and find it in things that don't really matter.”

“Sentimentality is simply emotion shying away from its own full implications. Behind every sentimental narrative there’s the possibility of another one — more richly realized, more faithful to the fine grain and contradictions of human experience. The distinctive characteristic of sentimental art is not, as is sometimes claimed, that it “manipulates” (all art does this in some measure) but that it manipulates by knowingly simplifying, Photoshopping or otherwise distorting the human experience it purports to represent. It isn’t sentimental for Dickens to want us to feel compassion for Jo, the homeless street sweeper; it is sentimental for Dickens to try to secure that compassion by making Jo more virtuous, humble and forbearing than any boy who ever lived.”

maybe to make art requires a kind of discipline, a kind of insistence that everything else must be sacrificed for the product, for the beauty, and i lack this discipline. i want too badly to satisfy other, momentary impulses.

“I think that sometimes people place their faith too readily in the ways in which consuming narrative or art makes us more empathetic. I feel like The New York Times puts out an op-ed every six months about empathy and reading! But Empathy and the Novel, by Suzanne Keen, basically poses a skeptical view of that and even suggests that there’s a way in which empathizing for fictional characters relieves—we feel like we’ve done our work, but there weren’t really any stakes to that work. Because empathizing with a fictional character didn’t necessitate any kind of action.”

“Religion is the outcome neither of the fear of death, nor of the fear of God. It answers a deep need in man. It is neither a metaphysic, nor a morality, but above all and essentially an intuition and a feeling. ... Dogmas are not, properly speaking, part of religion: rather it is that they are derived from it. Religion is the miracle of direct relationship with the infinite; and dogmas are the reflection of this miracle.”

a few years ago i went back to virginia with my parents and i thought everything would have disappeared but it didn’t. everything was still there, the people in my church hadn’t changed at all. i was invited to play tabletop RPGs with my friend again. i took a walk to my high school. the hallways there were all the same. that week i was filled with all the feelings i used to feel, that guilt and loneliness but also the longing, and i didn’t want to leave.

“In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person.”

“We have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile.”

dipping hands in cool water in an empty garden. wet leaves stuck to skin.

there is a sort of joy in the scrambling of the tarot cards, like the scrambling of the contents of the mind. then in the drawing of the random cards, saying "the truth is for sure this" and believing it. surrendering the self to novelty. every act of magic is a surrender of self. the results are irrelevant.

a few gods of light and countless primordial gods

“Days, weeks, or sometimes even years later, such people may suddenly emerge from the fugue state and find themselves in a strange place, working in a new occupation, with no idea how they got there.”

“Jones (1909, as cited in Kihlstrom & Schacter, 2000) studied a patient with dense amnesia and found that although he could not remember his wife’s or daughter’s names, when asked to guess what names might t them, he produced their names correctly. “

one of inio asano’s techniques is those moments where panels are suddenly cut away but a huge spread of a single frozen moment. speech is cut away by a shocking reveal, extraneous actions of people are frozen by shock, etc.

“The first time this happened to me was when I was pregnant with my 3rd child. I heard what I thought was my husband coming home (our bedroom was upstairs), I heard the door shut and him run up the stairs, i laid in bed w my eyes closed waiting for him to get back in bed, i figured he got rained out at work. Well he didnt get back in bed and when i lifted my head to look for him there was a man standing in front of me in a running suit, he had his hood on and no face, it was shadowed out, i was sooo scared and couldnt move! then he leaned down to me with his hand reaching out to my belly--i closed my eyes really tight as i was so scared and felt sumthings weird as if something went inside my stomache.(this happened 8 years ago) throughout the pregnancy there would be times when my body would vibrate and I was unable to move, the day I gave birth to my son it happened again in the hospital only this time felt like something left my stomache”

maybe i would say at its core i see religious belief as a language that can be used to sacralize concepts. religion makes things holy, religion creates worlds where these holy-fied things become the central pivot for their reality. i want to play with this language, write stories with it, change my world over and over again in interesting and beautiful and scary and fun ways.

rule: overkill is always better than underkill. everything should always be a little bit too much. beauty should be overwhelming, sweetness sugary and cloying, music so loud it hurts. things aren’t effective on the psyche unless they have the power to threaten. the mind’s natural inclination is always to fight to remain in control, but the problem is that so long as the mind is in control it will make things ugly, because to exist is ugly. art is effective when it crushes you in between its teeth.

if someone genuinely loves something deeply and is changed by that thing and you don’t respect their love as sacred then i think you’re doing something morally wrong

maybe you ARE fucked up, but maybe (i don’t yet agree, but MAYBE) it’s not important to find out a standard for ultimate good and bad or to fix everything about you that’s bad, and instead maybe you should just do what you can to make you feel okay about yourself and group off with other people who are more or less okay with your fucked up ness. and if you still get in other people’s way and ruin stuff by oversharing or crossing boundaries or saying mean things accidentally then maybe shrug and say whatever.”

“Go higher than every height and lower than every depth. Collect in yourself all the sensations of what has been made, of fire and water, dry and wet; be everywhere at once, on land, in the sea, in heaven; be not yet born, be in the womb, be young, old, dead, beyond death. And when you have understood all these at once—times, places, things, qualities, quantities—then you can understand God.”

reading pun pun has made me more aware of just how little control we have over who we are… like, shimizu who joins a cult, and pun pun who can’t seem to connect to other people for any good reason, their lives are not all that different from mine. i think of the very real possibility i could go down some dead end road, it feels realer than it did before. usually i believe that if we follow goodness and beauty we will find fulfillment in our lives, and that this is something we can reach by being honest about our feelings. but lately i’ve been thinking that we need help from outside ourselves and a whole lot of blind luck to get there.

“York’s comment—his criticism of New Age shamanism because those shamans do not fear—is the key to understanding the unique features of this modern spirituality and the reason it has become so compelling. The person who practices modern magic doesn’t fear the jaguar’s claw or anything else (like dark supernatural forces) because on some fundamental and basic level, the person knows that the magic may not be real and so magic can be simply fun. This is not an ontological claim about magic but an observation about secular modernity. Those who practice modern magic are acutely aware that other people like themselves do not believe in magic. They set out to make the magic real in the face of a presumption of its non-realness. They are not describing an enchanted world but a re-enchanted one, which is a very different proposition, because the baseline—for practitioners—is non-enchantment.”

“Media theorist Jonathan Sterne, writing of early sound documentation and reproducibility as a result of the advent of phonography, explains how progress in aural archiving coincided with improvements in archiving the human body through embalming techniques. He writes, “…if sound reproduction simplifies vibration in new ways, if we learn to ‘hear’ other areas of the vibrating world, then it would make sense that we might pick up the voices of the dead. In this formulation, the medium is the metaphysics. The metaphorization of the human body, mind, and soul follows the medium currently in vogue””

THE BLACK BOX: in the story, there will be something like a computer terminal that connects to something like the internet. the catch is that when people use it, they go into a trance state, and because of this, what they see will be SLIGHTLY distorted by their own dreams and fears.

people who spend too much time inside the box are immersed in their minds to a degree where they begin NOT to see who they really are, they begin to get USED to seeing with their own cognitive distortions. when this happens they get more disconnected from reality. this is a type of burnout that happens frequently with the people who use the box—they have to take a break and use grounding exercises to remain grounded in reality.

one subject of collective fascination is the contents of the box from hundreds of years ago. this stuff is distorted beyond recognition, and many people believe that the distortions have turned it into something like a holy book for the collective unconscious.

one way to avoid the distortions is to fragment your personality so that the part of you that’s consciously in control of your body isn’t the part receiving information from the box. this is the origin of familiars in this world—fragmented selves who are always connected to the box, who become feral and alien but also holy and fearsome because of prolonged exposure to it.

great paradox of life: the more stuff i CAN do, the more bored i am. i'm like "yeah this is alright but i could be doing something better". but when i'm on a vacation with no internet, every game and anime i have on my computer is suddenly way cooler. boredom relies on the promise of better things.

“A mandorla is a vesica piscis shaped aureola which surrounds the figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary in traditional Christian art. It is commonly used to frame the figure of Christ in Majesty in early medieval and Romanesque art, as well as Byzantine art of the same periods. The term refers to the almond like shape: “mandorla” means almond nut in Italian. In icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the mandorla is used to depict sacred moments which transcend time and space, such as the Resurrection, Transfiguration, and the Dormition of the Theotokos. These mandorla will often be painted in several concentric patterns of color which grow darker as they come close to the center. This is in keeping with the church’s use of Apophatic theology, as described by Dionysius the Areopagite and others. As holiness increases, there is no way to depict its brightness, except by darkness.”

#not the most interesting or insightful #but the most un-internalized #the stuff i forgot ever writing and strikes me as fresh #a collection of

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