#I understand what people are upset about with the mirroring effect

[lavander-galaxy]

I feel like this is an unpopular opinion rn but i actually really love the editing ???

The closeups and such add such a tense feeling to the episode that I really like, same with the effects and such. I feel like I wouldn’t really be getting into the “vibe” of the story without this sort of “tunnel vision” that the editing is giving. ESPECIALLY the editing during Brennans creepy smile as stepmother, it literal gave me a whole body chill

Anyways I just really like it, I can’t wait to see what they do with the visuals next episode :)

[fellhellion]

I have one (1) fear that btsv will reveal Miguel gets his spider powers from his T-shots.

Stabilisers for his spider dna/power was my original thought except I think Miguel took his shot right before throwing the bin at Miles so uh, doesn't seem very stabilising. And now my personal theory is that, given how they seemed to be "hugging" the cells, maybe Miguel spent too long LARPing as his alt self he became part of that universe. And now that that universe is gone he needed to give himself shots to stop from glitching out. Which, may not make sense since that's what the watch is supposed to do, but I think it'd be a neat parallel to Miles having cells from 42.

ehhhhh i don't think miguel exploding really swings the pendulum in either direction (in terms of what the shot actually does), at least in my conception of a dna stabaliser. your theory is a neat one though! it would be interesting if miguel was dealing with some longlasting sideeffects from dipping dimensions.

personally, i think given the visuals of the scene, the most likely answer is that it is to do with spider powers (very similar visual to miles's spider bite, the blue blood cells, the actual needle mimicking a spider bite in terms of the literal injection etc) but it's a toss up right now as to whether spiderverse's iteration of miguel is going to have him be irreversibly changed (and have that change be one out of his control like in the comics) or have it be a self inflicted transformation. the latter possibility of which im personally ehhh not a fan of. but again, at this moment just a possible direction and not a certainty.

[neversetyoufree]

Since we'll hopefully be getting out of the VnC hiatus soon, and this new arc seems to finally be turning the spotlight back to Noé and calling out some of his more troubling traits for the first time, I've been thinking a lot about him recently.

I've talked before on this blog about Noé's inability to recognize or process bad things when they happen to him alone. He bounces back from and idealizes almost any experience as soon as it's over, even when he absolutely shouldn't. It's one of my favorite traits of his, and it's been lampshaded a couple of times in-manga. Louis calls out how weird his attitude toward his kidnapping is during the mémoire 9 flashback, and the "be a little bothered" from Vanitas and co in mémoire 57 has the same effect.

We also recently got a whole extended sequence of Vanitas and Domi complaining about how Noé also never anticipates harm before it might come to him. He waltzes into dangerous situations like it's nothing, almost as if he thinks he's unkillable. Combined with the above, this is just more of his strange brand of optimistic denial. Everything is fine in Noéland! It can't possibly not be fine! He always trusts and thinks the best of people and situations by default, never wanting to expect they may do wrong, and so long as a given event doesn't involve harm to external innocents and/or Noé's loved ones that he can't rationalize away, he compartmentalizes and denies harm once it's done. Thus he carries on in blissful ignorance, his past suffering having no effect on the blithe trust with which he treats the world.

But in addition to all that, Noé is also very notably divorced from the consequences of his own actions. It's not that he's *incapable* of considering his own effect on people, and he certainly tries to be kind and decent, but much of the time, it just doesn't seem to occur to him that people will have reactions to the things he does. He does as he sees fit, and when his deeds impact the people around him, especially if they produce a reaction that could upset him, it bounces off his mind in the same way that potential traumas do.

On the more lighthearted end of the spectrum, this leads to things like Noé never noticing when people are attracted to him. It may also have something to do with his airheaded messiness—the way he's always thoughtlessly making a mess of the hotel room and incurring Vanitas's wrath in bonus materials. On the heavier end of the spectrum, this causes a lot of genuine problems for the people around him. He's largely oblivious to the depth of Dominique's mental health problems until she's pushed to her breaking point at the amusement park, despite the fact that he's inextricably entangled in the cause of them. He also completely loses sight of Vanitas's reactions to him when he gets caught up in his protective rage at the start of the vanoé fight, and it takes an outside reminder from Jeanne and a literal mirror to make him realize that his own actions are part of why Vanitas has devolved to such a state.

This lack of self-perception on Noé's part feeds back into the other problems I laid out at the top of this post, his obliviousness toward his interactions with the rest of the world helping to facilitate his denial. It's part of the happy little insulating bubble that he interacts with the world through. And as the other side of that coin, his automatic, unthinking denial of things that could hurt him is part of what enables him to ignore his own impacts on the people around him. You can't reckon with or worry about harming other people when you live in Noéland where everything must be fine. I think the fact that he wants to be a good person that doesn't harm others actually makes it harder for him to confront the truth of how he impacts the world, because him hurting others is a Bad Thing that would cause him mental harm.

We've seen Noé mess up, understand his mistake, and apologize for it before. He apologizes to Vanitas for making assumptions about him after the bal masqué, he apologizes to Vanitas again at the end of the amusement park fight, and he apologizes to Riche for speaking with ignorance about dhampirs. However, I think the bigger a mistake of his is, the more harm it causes other people (and the more understanding would hurt him as a result), the harder it is for Noé to comprehend his wrongs. He's clearly trying to make things right with Domi, and he's told her that he values her, but I don't know if it's yet occurred to him to conceive of their mess as a situation where he's done her active wrong. He also literally passes out on her mid-conversation, leaving Domi and Vanitas to carry him back to bed when he was supposed to be comforting her.

But I think the most fascinating example, the moment where all this comes together into Noé's most feeble and blatant act of denial yet, is the first time he sees Misha after clawing up his face. The anime actually changes this detail, which is its own can of worms to get into, but in the manga, when Noé sees Misha's injuries in the light of day after attacking him, he immediately fucking turns around.

At the end of his wits at the amusement park, Noé claws a child across the face in a fit of anger and protectiveness. I'm not interested in condemning Noé for this, especially given that the child in question was actively trying to stab Vanitas at the time, but I will say that his actions are quite extreme. Given Vanitas's response and the way Misha's injuries are portrayed, I think it's clear that the manga wants us to see how Noé hurts Mikhail as something troubling and extreme. He gives that kid a pretty horrible injury, and Misha will likely have scars on his face for the rest of his life.

And regardless of how justified he may or may not have been in hurting Misha in defense of Vanitas, it's clear that Noé himself is upset by the true extent of what he does to Mikhail's face. When he looks at him in the light of day, when he sees a numb-looking child with his face wrapped in still-bloody bandages, though we only get to see a small segment of his face in that moment, he looks sick. He knows that he's done something troubling, and I'm sure he feels all kinds of heavy and unpleasant emotions.

This is one genuinely bad thing he's done that Noé cannot deny. He can't rationalize this one away and make it all copacetic. He can't conveniently forget the emotional reality of suffering and harm, because that reality is standing ten yards away from him. And he can't just apologize for things either, because apologies cannot undo physical harm, and frankly, I'm not sure he'd be able to give an honest apology for his one. Sickness at the results of his actions doesn't mean he fully regrets hurting Misha, at least not at this moment when emotions are still raw.

But Noé, confronted with this undeniable source of guilt and pain, is still ultimately unable to look the pain he's caused in the eye. A problem piercing through the happy veil of Noéland and forcing him to acknowledge it doesn't mean he's capable of reckoning with that problem. Instead he just. turns away from it.

Noé, forced to acknowledge a harm he's done and unable to employ all the many layers of automatic insulation that usually protect him, physically turns around because he cannot bear to look at the person, the child, that he's hurt. He employs the very last possible form of avoidance available to him, even though it's useless in the ways that matter. Not looking at Misha doesn't mean he gets to un-know the fact that he maimed him, but he simply cannot bring himself to look.

Noé is extremely good at playing "I do not see it" with things that hurt him. He's good enough that I think he has genuinely no idea he's doing it a vast majority of the time. Whatever mental shield he has that's protecting him is automatic enough that the badness that could hurt him doesn't ever even seem to cross his conscious mind. But no matter how automatic and subconscious, this tendency of his is still, and the end of the day, nothing more than an unhealthy coping mechanism, and this moment helps to put that to our attention.

What's the difference, really, between him cheerfully acting like Jean-Jacques and Chloé's assaults never upset him and him turning around so he doesn't have to look at the wounds he gave Mikhail? Noé can't look at pain, can't acknowledge the things he finds upsetting (at least not things that cause him alone pain, as others' pain often triggers his savior complex and spurs action). This scene with Misha throws that into the light, forcing Noé to desperately cling to his avoidance in an obvious and physical way.

Even when there's no way to deny the harsh reality of having done something he finds horrific, Noé Archiviste cannot make himself look directly at a painful truth, be it others wronging him or his own wrongdoing. It takes an external hand to step in and force him to turn his head and acknowledge/reckon with a problem. And even then, who knows if intervention can always be successful.

The start of the dham arc so far has drawn a lot of attention to this pattern of behavior, with Vanitas having to sit Noé down and explain to him in detail why his words said in well-meaning ignorance make Dante so upset. This is Noé being forced to look at a harm he caused because he couldn't or wouldn't look at and comprehend the problem (his fellow vampires' racism) in the situation he was in. But upsetting Dante is ultimately a low stakes problem for Noé. He put his foot in his mouth and offended a peer; he didn't shred Vanitas's little brother. He's able to accept his wrongs and feel his discomfort without resorting to physically turning around and avoiding the issue.

I want to know what Noé will do if/when this arc forces him to confront a source of pain he can't handle in a context that's more high stakes than a social faux pas. I want to see what he'll do when something really forces him beyond his ability to believe that everything is fine. How badly would he have to be hurt to lose his ability to filter an event/events through rose colored glasses? How badly would he have to hurt someone else? Or is his instinctive shield good enough that he'll never get out of it on his own? And if so, who else might step in to make Noé own up to reality?

Teacher and the Archivistes are becoming plot-relevant now, and our attention is being drawn to Noé's issues. I think there might be something coming soon that even Noé can't turn away from and cheerfully pretend isn't hurting him. Teacher even ends his appearance at the amusement park with a little speech about having to "wake and face reality," which makes me even more certain that a wake-up call for Noé is imminent.

Either that, or Noé's going to mess up and hurt somebody even worse than he hurt Misha later this arc, and in that case, we might get to see a feat of denial even worse than him literally turning around to avoid looking at the wounds he caused.

[sorbetisfruity]

Imagine you and some of the TWST guys are preparing for a little party. Whether it be a tea party, or maybe an unbirthday party, idk but THERES A PARTY GOING ON OKAY?

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

Obviously Ace and Deuce are there, and so is Grim and Jack and Epel. They practically follow you everywhere so of course they’d help you set up!! Even if they really don’t wanna.

Riddle, Leona, and Vil are there too. Leona doesn’t really wanna be there, but he can’t let his poor weak herbivore do it all on their own, can he?

No, he can’t. He likes you too much to leave you alone because he knows only like, 3 people are gonna help you out.

Riddle is there to make sure no one breaks any rules and behaves accordingly and Vil is there to make sure everything is absolutely perfect. It’s a big party after all, and anything other than perfect could ruin his reputation!!! And we wouldn’t want that, would we??:(

You’re setting the table, trying to make everything as perfectly set as possible. Yet no matter how straight and how perfect you put down those plates and silverware, Vil is correcting it and criticizing you.

“Is it really that hard to set the table correctly Prefect? I know not having magic shouldn’t effect your ability to set a table..” he’d complain, fixing yet another fork you apparently laid down incorrectly.

And you’d stay quiet, getting more and more upset by the minute as you continued setting the table.

And everyone could tell you were getting fed up, but decided to stay quiet for their own good, because they know how Vil is.

“Prefect, at this point it might be better for me to set this table. You’re doing it all wrong. It looks absolutely hideous.” He complained again, making you look up from the fork he asked you to adjust.

“Vil, it looks fine. Can’t you go bother somebody else? I know how to set a table.” You finally talked back, making everyone look up and turn to you two.

“It doesn’t look fine. It looks horrendous. Just like your skin. Have you been doing that skincare routine I showed you?” He fussed, reaching out to touch your face, “and besides, the table only looks a little bit better because I fixed it. Like I said, it doesn’t take magic to set a table, now does it? You should be able to do this with no issues, right?”

You backed away from him, huffing as you did so. “No, I haven’t. I’ve been too busy planning this party and with school and with you guys. I don’t have time for that stuff right now.”

Leona then interrupts, getting in between you two.

“Leave the herbivore alone, table looks fine,” he mumbled with a yawn, “if it looks so awful, maybe you should do it yourself.” He leaned against you, closing his eyes as he spoke.

You sent Leona a thankful smile, looking at Vil as he glared sharply at the both of you.

“Are you being serious? Leona, look at it. It’s a mess. Great Seven, you can’t even set a table correctly. What are you good for, anyways? You’re magicless, you lack strength in general, you can’t even take care of yourself, and your grades are slipping!”

“You’re awful. I will never, never understand why the Black Mirror brought you here.”

The room went silent. The dishes in your hand went clattering to the floor, some shattering on impact.

You knew he can be an asshole, but fuck man.

That hurt.

That hurt a lot.

“You know what, Vil? Fuck you. I’m fucking trying, okay? But it’s hard to focus on things when I’m tackling one overblot and problem after another. I know you’re stressed out and shit, but you don’t need to take it out on me.” You took a deep breath, glaring at him as you teared up.

“I’m so fucking done.”

Before you knew it, your eyes were filled with tears and you were running out the door, hearing your friends shout for you as you ran.

God you wanna go home..

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Oh how I love angst!!

I really wanna make a part 2!! Would you guys like that? Lemme knowwwww!!

If I do make a part two, we’ll see Neige and get a lil more info about Vil and why he said what he said🤞🤞

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

All the Good Girls Go To Hell 18

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, obsession, power imbalance, injury, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You come home for the summer but your break is not as relaxing as you expect.

Character: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers

Note: this week has been a week!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you all. Take care. 💖

You steer along to Naomi's directions, hesitant as she has you turn towards the mall. You're pretty sure this isn't the right way but you have no idea. You just assumed they all lived in the same suburbs.

"Um, Nay?" You roll slowly between the rows of cars, "is this a shortcut or something?"

"Pfft, nope! We're going shopping. We need something cute to wear to the party."

"Shopping?" You frown, "I don't... have money."

"I do," she wiggles her phone, "the miracle of technology. I still have all the cards on my cell."

"Oh, do you think that's a good idea?"

"Look, we can't show up looking like this," she whines, "besides, it'll be fun. Girls' day!"

"Mmm, well, I'm fine in what I'm wearing," you shrug as you look for a spot.

Her phone lights up and she quickly reads the screen, blacking it out and rolling her eyes. She flips down the visor and checks herself in the mirror as you strain to see around her. You turn into an empty spot and roll up the windows.

"You have to get something extra cute. It's not about the boys, alright? It's about us."

"Sure," you say, letting your seat belt repel as you stare across the lot.

You still can't believe it. You're effectively homeless and Naomi doesn't seem to care. Well, she's used to the uncertainty by now, you can understand now how it made her so erratic.

You exhale. What else can you do? Wallow in reality. The distraction might do you well. No wonder she's always up to something. Anything. It's not pointless when the important things are so scary.

"Come on," she nudges you, "I wanna dress you up!"

You peek at her and give in with a nod. You grab your purse and fix your glasses. Anything to waste time, not that you're looking forward to anything.

She leads the way down the aisle of cars, almost skipping. You can't decide if she's compartmentalizing well or hopelessly optimistic. You drag your soles up the tarmac as she rushes ahead to the mall doors.

Inside, the crowd makes you want to turn around. Something about seeing the families clustered together and the teenagers hanging off each other makes you feel even more out of place. They all have somewhere to go after this. Ugh, how quickly it all dimmed to gray.

"Alright," Naomi hooks her arm through yours, "let's find the shortest dresses in this damn place."

"Nay," you huff.

"You're gonna rock it. Trust," she giggles, "you always look so sexy." She leans into you, "and tonight, we're gonna get lit."

☀️

Hours spent traversing the mall and your feet thrum. The day is far from over. As you drive down the cul de sac you dread the finish to the long day. A party. You're not a party person and the last one you went to…

Yikes.

Naomi has her seat belt off before you even stop. You shift into park as she reaches over to hit the horn, honking up at the large house. She trills and gets out, grabbing the bags out of the back as she watches the door expectantly. 

You climb out on your side, lingering nervously as she heads towards the winding little walkway to the steps. The door opens as she gets to the bottom. Harry greets her with a smirk and a wink, opening his arms.

"Kitty cat," he purrs, "funny seeing you here."

"Whatever, Harry," she chirps, "don't act like you weren't waiting for me."

"Mm," his eyes flit towards you, "didn't tell me you were bringing a friend."

"Two for the price of one," she lets him kiss her lips, "you know how… he is. Fucking nightmare. We need to let loose."

"Bring any goodies?" He looks at the bags in her hand curiously.

"No drinks," she pouts, "sorry, baby."

You slowly make your way up the walkway and hide behind her. You feel like an intruder. You wouldn't have let her bring you if you knew you weren't invited.

"It's fine," Harry says as he backs up, "Peter'll be here. Him and Gwen are on the outs again."

“Boo. So… can we come in or what? We gotta get all thotty for the party.”

He scoffs and waves her inside. You trail a few paces back and give a sheepish smile. He hardly seems concerned with you as he watches Naomi’s ass. Right, you’re not expecting much tonight. Really, you don’t know what to expect.

“Come on, sweetie,” Naomi looks over her shoulder as she struts on, “let’s get you dolled up.”

☀️

The lilac sheath overlaid in indigo and silver sequins is much to scant to your liking. When you tried it on in the store, you swore you'd put it back. Naomi insisted and put it in the basket before you could argue.

The dress is even skimpier than you remember, or maybe it’s Naomi’s insistence that you skip the bra. She didn’t like how the straps peeked out under the narrow purple ones. You’ll be spending most of this occasion with your arms crossed.

You hear voices as you follow her down the hall. You feel ridiculous. She spent too much time prettying you up and it doesn’t feel like long enough. The one thing she couldn’t convince you of is to leave your glasses behind. The last thing you need is to be stumbling into strangers.

“Harry,” she squeals as she takes you through the open sliding door into the backyard. There’s a folding table lined with colourful shot glasses and a cooler underneath. There are several guests already milling about and gabbing noisily. “There you are.”

She saunters forward and you stay stuck to the ground as you watch her sling her arms around Harry. He lets her and puts his hand on her lower back. They kiss, long and sloppy. You knew it wouldn’t be pretty with Naomi sipping vodka while she got dressed.

“Hey, didn’t know you were coming,” a voice shakes you from your worry.

You look over as Peter steps up. A reddish curl hangs down his forehead as he grins at you. He wears a striped short-sleeve button up and teal shorts. His muscled chest peeks out the top as he holds a red solo cup.

“How about a drink?” He offers.

“I don’t know–”

“Sort of the whole deal here, to have some fun,” he says, “she sure will be.”

He glances across the yard as Naomi hangs off of Harry, his hand now firmly on her ass. Oh, yeah, you don’t know why you’re disappointed. You cross your arms and turn back to Peter. You catch his eyes flick up from your chest. Great.

“Uh, sure, why not, I’ll have a soda.”

“Soda and…” he tilts his head coyly.

Your furrow your brows, “come on, specs, live a little,” he grabs your hand and you teeter as he tugs on you. You give in if only to keep from tripping over your own toes. He takes you to the long table and grabs two of the shot glasses, presenting the neon jello shots with a devilish grin.

“Let’s start with the appetizer.”

You accept the orange one. You examine it. You’ve never had one before. It jiggles as you move the glass.

“Go on,” he clacks his glass against yours and raises it, swiftly dumping it in his mouth.

You sigh and do the same. One shot won’t hurt. It’s sweet enough and mostly cool. You can taste the alcohol for sure but it’s not awful. You put down the empty cup and gulp down the melting gelatin.

“Mmm,” you hum through your full mouth.

“Alright, so what’s next? You want a cooler? You a beer girl?” He bends and flips open the cooler.

“Really, that’s good for me–”

“Raspberry lemon twist,” he pulls out a bright pink can, “that seems like a you drink.”

He holds it out. You stare at it. He still has his red cup in his other hand. You reluctantly take the can. He looks at you until you crack the tab open.

“Thanks,” you murmur.

He winks and takes a drink from his cup, “better catch up,” he pulls the brim back, “oh, and before I get obnoxious, I should tell you how good you look.”

“Uh, thank you,” you take a tentative sip. It’s not bad, stringent but palatable.

“You seem… grim,” his smile falls, “what’s up?”

“Nothing,” you lie.

“Look, I’m not looking for a therapy session but there’s obviously something going on–”

“Really, it’s nothing,” you crane and look for Naomi as you hear her giggle.

“Ah, yeah, trouble follows her around,” he says, “she can take care of herself. It’s a party. You need to let loose. You’re wound so tight, I’m sure you could use it.”

You turn back to him, “not to be rude but what do you care?”

“Well, I’m going through a break up. Again,” he looks into his cup and swishes around the contents, “and I need to get a little bit loose myself. So, you and me, we’re sticking together. Think you’re the only one here who doesn’t know Gwen so, yeah.”

“Ah, got it,” you say dryly.

“No, get it,” he insists as he pokes the bottom of your can, “let’s go, sunshine. Get messy.”

You let your eyes fall back to the top of the can. What is the point in staying sober in a sea of drunk idiots? You’re done being the wallflower and you’re done tiptoeing around. It’s one night and you’re not going to spend it thinking about Steve or your mom.

You lift the can and gulp from the top, stopping before you can choke. You cover your mouth and swallow painfully, holding back a bubbly belch. Peter chuckles and empties his cup.

“There we go,” he encourages you, “I knew you had it in you.”

☀️

The world is slanted. You feel light and heavy at the same time. Your vision is hazy at the corners and each step is uneven. You have your arms slightly out as you make your way across the room.

You fall onto the sofa next to Naomi as Harry talks loudly beside her. As usual, she’s in the middle of the crowd, enjoying the limelight. She looks over as you jostle her and she slumps towards you.

“Heyyyyyyy, you’re here,” she says as if she forgot.

“Mmm,” you withhold a hiccup, “yeah…”

She smiles and reaches up to pet your cheek, “are you drunk?”

“Little,” you admit as she caresses your face.

“She’s blitzed,” Peter perches on the armrest on your other side, “told her not to keep pace with me.”

“Whatever,” you blather, your tongue clumsy as his chirping piques your irritation. “You’re the one… giving me drinks.”

“Aw, babe, you’re silly,” Naomi preens as her hand tickles down your neck, “Pete, Pete,” she hisses as she waves in his direction, leaning over you, “doesn’t she look fucking hot?”

You grab the hem of your dress, remembering how short it is. She flutters her fingers down the strap and gropes your chest. You swat her away and squeal.

“You should see what’s underneath,” Naomi slurs.

“Nay,” you catch her hand as she tries to grab you again.

“What? Why are you being like this?” She snips, “she sleeps in my bed and now she’s acting like a little prude.”

“Naomi,” you exclaim.

“I made her cum, you know? She was whining and whimpering–”

“Naomi, stop,” you beg as her other hand crawls back up along your cheek, “shut up.”

“Why, baby? I’m being nice,” she looks at you with her glassy eyes. She’s so drunk her head wobbles. “You like it when I’m nice, don’t you?”

She leans in as you hear Peter snicker. Before you can stop her, her lips are on yours. You wriggle helplessly and push on her shoulder. She slips her hand behind your head, keeping you pinned between her and the couch as her other hand creeps along your thigh. You hear others oohing and awing at her scene.

You whine and shove her as hard as you can. She recoils with a gasp as she wipes the slobber from her lips. You can’t believe what she just did. You know she’s drunk, and you are too, but you don’t understand why she’d do that. 

“Ah, come on, that was fucking hot,” Peter growls.

“Yeah, that was sexy,” Harry agrees, “go on, girls, let’s get the full show–”

You grunt as you shove yourself up to your feet. It’s difficult to get them under you as your head swims dizzily. You feel Naomi try to latch on but you swipe her away. Peter pinches your ass and you yipe as you stumble and hurry away. What’s going on?

You stagger across the room without looking back. Are they following you? Where’s your phone? You have to call your mom. You’re scared.

You find your cell outside and find your mother’s number. You stop from pressing down on the screen. You can’t call her, she hates you.

You clasp your cell tight and wade through the shadows around the house. You sidle through the tight space between the fence and the siding and come out to the front lawn. Your car is blocked in by a bunch of others. It doesn’t even matter, you can’t see straight, let alone drive.

Your phone flashes suddenly and you answer without checking the screen. 

“Hello?” You garble as you walk aimlessly along the driveway.

“Hey, sweetie, you okay?”

“Dad?” You utter as the deep voice surprises you.

“No, honey, it’s me. Bucky. I’ve been calling you–”

“Bucky…” you mope, “no. I want… I want my mom. I want my dad, please.”

“Doll, where are you?”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I know what you did,” you close your eyes and push your lip out.

“Sweetheart, where’s Naomi?”

“Naomi?” You repeat, “she– please help me.”

Your legs fold and you sit in the gravel. You can’t move. You don’t want to. Moving means you need to think and you’re all out of thoughts. You don’t know where to go or what to do. You’re trapped here in this suburban hellscape. Drunk and dumb and desperate.

“Are you with Naomi?” He asks as you hear a jingle on his end.

“She’s here,” you admit as you hang your head.

“Alright, sweetie, stay on the phone,” he says calmly. The even keel of his timbre comforts you, despite everything, despite his lies, his certainty eases the swell of nerves, “how are you feeling? Why don’t you look around and tell me something. Find something red for me.”

“Red?” You sniffle.

“Yeah, like I Spy,” he says, “find something red. Make me guess.”

“Um, uh,” you stutter and look around, “alright…” you hear rustling, a soft click, and footsteps. He’s moving but you don’t know what he’s doing, “I see… something red,” you focus on the lawn gnome’s cap, the round-bellied figurine standing in the garden.

“Alright, is it something… big?” He asks.

You squint and focus on his question. Hm, it’s not very big but compared to the flowers, it is. Ugh, you don’t know. You’re too drunk.

“Doll,” Bucky urges, “stay with me. You’re gonna be okay, I promise.”

[handfuloftime]

#for all that duroc seems to have been widely well-liked i do wonder how his role as essentially napoleon's gatekeeper effected preexisting#friendships I would love to read more about your thoughts on this subject! Duroc never struck me as the gatekeeping type

I was thinking mostly of Duroc's role as Grand Marshal, rather than him as a person--gatekeeping in the sense of literally controlling access to Napoleon, as he was in charge of the security of the imperial palaces and also involved to at least some extent in determining who got an audience with Napoleon and who was invited to various court functions (though this was officially the responsibility of the Grand Chamberlains, Talleyrand and Montesquiou).

More broadly, I think a lot about Duroc's function as a sort of extension of Napoleon in the imperial court. Laure Junot writes at some point in her memoirs that Duroc was "a sort of mirror, in which the Emperor was in part reflected". A lot of the discussion of Duroc, both in various people's memoirs and the historiography, focuses on how his intimacy with Napoleon meant that he could exert some influence over his decisions (as Las Cases wrote, having "the secret, [and] perhaps the right" to managing Napoleon's emotions). But I'm also interested in kind of the inverse of that, which is what I was musing about in the tags: if he's inseparable from Napoleon (in the eyes of those around him, at least) how is he affected when someone he's personally close to is out of favor with the Emperor? Junot is the obvious example (back to the duchess of Abrantès's memoirs again, the bit where Napoleon has Duroc write to Junot to tell him that he was being removed from his position as governor of Paris, and Junot, understandably upset, accused Duroc of wanting the position for himself, haunts me). Or the part of Caulaincourt's memoirs leading up to the invasion of Russia, where Caulaincourt and Napoleon were arguing frequently and Duroc was hurrying back and forth between them, trying to persuade Napoleon to relent and Caulaincourt to not resign. That's a very complicated role to have to play. And that he kept Napoleon's trust to the end of his life while also being generally beloved speaks to how well he was able to manage it, but I still wonder what--if any--toll that took on him.

[mdhwrites]

Do you think the show rewards Luz’s Selfishness too much?

So I normally frame Luz's decision to self martyr herself and stay in her own world as not wanting to bother with the effort to fix her mistake. Let's shift that a bit so we can talk about why the show couldn't have Luz tell ANYONE this deeply selfish choice. A choice that by all means, Camila seems to think is just a bad choice for Luz and for no one else.

But... Luz chooses that her pain and angst is so bad that she doesn't want to help Amity reunite with her siblings. Or to make sure they can live in a world where they're safe. Gus' dad, Willow's parents, Darius, etc. All of them can rot as far as Luz is concerned. She even explicitly states this in For the Future. "Once Eda and King are safe, I'm going home."

No one else matters. LITERALLY no one else matters to her but the people she has chosen to care about and there aren't many of those. This is framed even worse by the fact that by the end of this episode, Camila will effectively say that Luz has NEVER done anything wrong. That trying to critique her at all, to try and give her life skills and friends with the camp after she put people's lives potentially in danger (snakes and fireworks are not meant for school for a reason), was wrong. That Luz just needs to be 'understood'. Part of understanding Luz, especially in S3, means that unless someone attacks her about it, like the dream sequence, WHICH ISN'T HER OWN MIND BUT A FABRICATION AND LIE, she isn't going to think about others. Just her adopted family and herself. And even then, maybe not even her adopted family since they sure as shit didn't matter in Thanks to Them.

BUT. we are supposed to sympathize with her and believe she did nothing wrong, just like Camila. Do not question her motivations, or her efforts, just believe her words.

This is emblematic of the show as well. The first two episodes talk a big game about fantasy vs reality and like Luz's selfish motivations, warped way of looking at things and her learning to be a human being, not a walking, wanna be protagonist will be interrogated. But... Not really. She repeatedly does things that are mirrored in her favorite series. Her final battle line will be a reference to that series and her delusions with that series. People might get briefly upset about her actions but most of the time she either doesn't have to do anything, like Reaching Out or Adventure in the Elements (where she gets a glyph BEFORE making up the fuck up she did) or show how special she is like in Lost in Language and Covention. I can only really think of like one episode after the first two where Luz fucks up and genuinely has to take the brunt of punishment for it, Winging it Like Witches, and even in that one, she is saved before anything bad happens to her before winning with the same trick that hurt her friends, just... Now it's okay because they're all on the same page about it I guess. Couldn't have had Willow come up with something herself because Luz actually was willing to listen to Willow and not force something onto her. That'd be too much work.

It's part of why the more you interrogate Luz's intentions and motivations, it gets BAD. So much of what she does could be easily grafted onto a kid trying to play hero or not learning anything from past mistakes. Don't ever forget that Teenage Abomination says "Listen to your mentor about their specialty," then The Intruder says "Don't take shortcuts to magic" before then in Adventure in the Elements, Luz takes a shortcut for magic while also not listening to Eda and almost gets people killed for it. GREAT JOB LUZ! Much development, such depth.

And yes, lots of shows will have characters yoyo and the like but these are within HALF A SEASON of each other. It usually takes a little longer for most animated shows to straight up start repeating lessons. Hell, yes, it is theoretically a problem for Amphibia too with stuff like Bessie and the hibernation episode both featuring Anne's impatience but also S1 is genuinely about how Anne is fighting between the lessons she's learning and her growing empathy versus how she used to be with her selfishness and laziness. Also, both episodes might be about her impatience but they genuinely tackle it in different ways, with one being about disregarding the rules because of overconfidence and the other one is out of boredom. For TOH... It's just that Luz wants the magic she thinks she should have, as easily and as fun as she thinks it should be instead of weird and actually taking work, and fucks it up because of that same motivation.

That same motivation that doesn't treat reality like reality. According to the show though, that's just the best way to be. Follow your own version, fuck everything else. That's what Luz gets to do in the end after all and she's the one literally blessed by God to be correct.

So yeah, I think her selfishness might be a touch rewarded.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[bijouxcarys]

I didn't have anywhere else to kind of talk about this, and I need to get it out of my system somehow, so I'm just putting this on here. Maybe someone can relate to it?

TW/ self-harm, suicidal ideology, please don't read this if it's going to potentially trigger you.

If you don't think this will trigger you, I still suggest you read on. Anyone around you could be experiencing this right now, and it's a very real thing.

Here's the reality of living as an adult with autism, who wasn't diagnosed until the age of 18.

It fucking sucks. To put it mildly.

Growing up as an undiagnosed autistic child is difficult. Especially if you are beaten down verbally by everybody to the point where you believe that you are, in fact, a bad kid. I'm convinced that's had a hand in why I'm so paranoid about my relationships with people. If I'm doing something to upset or annoy them.

You spend your entire childhood being told that you're the problem, when you're just trying to fucking survive in a world that's hard enough to live in without the added stress of developmental disorders, and you're going to believe for the rest of your life that you're the problem.

That is, unless you're able to go and see a therapist or counsellor.

Which leads me to my next point: we are conditioned to believe that we aren't allowed to ask for help, because we can never take on the advice anyways! 18 years of being told that I'm being dramatic, by my own counsellor as well, definitely dampens your willingness to attend any kind of talk therapy.

You get trauma building up over time from the rejection sensitivity, the amount of friend groups you plow through, the anxiety and depression that come as a result of how your brain is wired. It's not even that you have depression or anxiety; a lot of the time, they are symptoms of our autism. But they don't care. They'll feed us antidepressants.

I've been on antidepressant medication for a long time now. I'd argue about 6 years. I'm 22 now, on 200mg of sertraline daily. Last year I tried to come off my medication. Big mistake. Realised I'm kind of fucked without it.

Back in 2019, I used to take my antidepressant in liquid form because I had a sensitivity to swallowing pills. One day, my inability to read social cues and communicate effectively with my friends led me to drink the whole bottle of Fluoxetine.

When you're undiagnosed with autism and you have to go through regular life every day, it's damaging. So dangerous to the mental health of the child. The more we are put in situations that can overstimulate us, and overwhelm us, the more it takes from your ability to cope with life. You get beaten down, and beaten down, and beaten down, until you're an emotionless entity wandering the Earth with no solid ambitions or aspirations. You've spent your entire life in defense mode, mirroring everyone's behaviour and personalities so that you feel the tiniest bit "normal" out of pure survival, that you lose a sense of who you are as a person. You feel stripped of your personality. You don't know what you're doing.

Then you get thrust into the real world. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I don't know how to survive in a world that isn't made for me. I don't know how to tell people I'm autistic, because a) they very rarely understand what I mean by that, and what it entails, and b) I don't even know enough about my autism.

Why? Because I wasn't diagnosed until just before I turned 18 - got discharged from CAMHS (Child and Adolescence Mental Health Service) once I turned 18, with no referral to a counsellor that could help me, and no information on what the fuck I should do next.

I've stayed in education because it's the only thing I know how to survive. I went to college, university, and now I'm doing a master's degree online. And I still don't really know what my goal is in life.

I have no friends, and I flip-flop between being upset about it and being absolutely fine with it. I don't leave the house, I don't work, I even struggle to do the most basic of daily tasks.

I'm constantly fantasising about a life I could have, but ultimately realise I can't have.

My brain is fucked up, and I am traumatised by the life I've had to live and survive in. And now I'm stuck in survival mode.

And I don't know how to live, instead of simply exist.

That's where the suicidal ideology comes in. I'm constantly thinking about how much easier everything would be if I did just off myself. But the thing is, I'm not actively planning it, but the thought brings me great comfort. There's always a way out. And I can't expect that I'll leave this world any other way.

Now... when an autistic person, or any person, tells you that they don't want to die, but thinking about killing themselves brings them a sense of comfort and contentment... there's something wrong there.

There's nothing I want more than to start living. But when it takes 110% of my energy to do the bare minimum... living becomes synonymous with existing.

Not being taught how to deal with the meltdowns, the overstimulation, the understimulation, the food sensitivities, the way the world functions... has fucked me up, for myself, and for everyone else around me.

And when given the choice between spending the rest of my life putting all my energy into living the way I do now, and killing myself and saving myself from the pain, the latter sounds far more enticing.

I don't want to die. But to live is too much of an enigma to want anything other than the silence.

[ffviidirtyconfessions]

genuine question!! why do you care about sefikura so much when they are not real people? i get not liking a ship for whatever reason but your strong feelings on the ship seem unwarranted when you're literally running a dirty confessions blog. liking sefikura =/= condoning abuse nor invalidating real peoples trauma. cloud is not real. neither is sephiroth. thats why you can sexualise them silly style on a tumblr blog! i do not mean this maliciously, i am genuinely wondering

To start, above all of the other concerns, I don't like nor allow anything related to sefikura on this blog because it conflicts with the pedophilia rule. In game canon, Cloud and Sephiroth first met when Cloud was a young teenager, and Sephiroth was very much an adult.

That alone is enough to make it not the kind of content I want to promote to an audience. Though I do run a dirty confessions blog, I aim to make it as safe as a space as possible for everyone. Dirty, sexy, or NSFW spaces do not automatically have to be an anything goes, "you shouldn't have a problem with anything if you go here" place. In that light, I tag kinks that may be upsetting just as I don't allow underage, abusive, and other dynamics of relationships that can not only be triggering, but a bad, dangerous example for teens and other young people.

I am fully aware that fiction is not a direct equivalent to reality. However, I think it is very much true that it has a real effect on reality, especially in how individuals see themselves in it and relate to it. I've had a conversation on this same topic before with a veteran of the FF7 fandom who witnessed a Vincent/Yuffie roleplay couple online turn out to be a real pedophilic situation. Obviously, this is far from the case for every instance, but it happens. Just as I cannot allow confessions about underage characters to protect potential teenagers looking at this blog, I also cannot allow the romanticization of a relationship that could hurt or remind traumatized people of their own pain.

I do not believe that every person who ships sefikura "condones abuse" or "invalidates trauma". Likely, most don't even think about that aspect and simply like seeing the characters do whatever they want to together. I understand that. But speaking from the perspective of a traumatized person who has related deeply to Cloud Strife's story, I do believe that there is something to the dynamic that just isn't being understood if it's being ignored to play dolls. This is not to say that Cloud and Sephiroth being together is a 1:1 mirror that will remind anyone who's ever been in a bad relationship of their pain. Rather, it's what Sephiroth represents to Cloud, and how the games portray his feelings towards him. In some readings, you might even argue that Sephiroth is a metaphor for trauma: something unbeatable, always in the back of your mind, waiting to seduce you back to the patterns of self destructive behavior that the traumatic event might have created in you. I think that Cloud's struggle with this and his efforts to move past it are a large core of FF7's story, and to me it rings hollow to ignore that because neither character is, as you said, "real".

I don't expect to change anyone's mind, and my stance on this has already been clear on the front page of the blog for over a year now. I am sure that tens of dozens of sefikura fans who otherwise liked the blog have blocked me over this. And that's fine! Nobody has to agree with me, and there clearly will always be another space to go to for those that want to see that stuff. But it matters to me both on a personal level and as the mod of a public blog to talk about this stuff in a different light. Because if fiction can help people in a real way, it can also hurt them in a real way. I think that a level-headed perspective on all these issues can be reached. It's not all or nothing.

Thanks for asking.

[hehe-hoho-ohno]

So, uh, I get the general vibe that people are expecting a new chapter for Misfits on Christmas. Honestly, I was also hoping that I would be able to update on Crisis. Unfortunately, the chapter is not even close to being ready to be posted. I'm really sorry. (Combo of busy irl, writers block, and a new hyperfixation grabbing me by the throat.)

However! As a holiday treat, I do have a snippet from the next chapter of Misfits. Spoilers under the cut!

----

People Who Might Be Persuaded To Wind Ingo Up; a numbered list:

1. Emmet

I cannot ask Emmet, he gave a very clear no, as is his right. He seemed extremely distressed by the prospect and I don’t want to upset him further. There’s no need to burden him with my problems.

2. General North

I know that if I asked him he would oblige me, as he has done so in the past. After the entirety of the Taffy Battalion rebuffed me he came to my aid. However, this also caused him to reassign me to the Pine Battalion, effective immediately, because if they refused assist me with basic maintenance then our working relationship had clearly deteriorated beyond repair. He would not listen when I tried to persuade him otherwise.

I cannot risk him removing me from Gear Battalion. Do not approach under any circumstances.

3. Whoever it is that helps Emmet?

It doesn’t make any sense. Who winds Emmet up? He’s been working on his own for quite some time, and he doesn’t appear to have any friends. General North? It can’t be, Emmet hates him. Besides, if he asked the General now he would simply redirect him to me, or worse. There must be something I’m missing.

I can’t ask Emmet directly, but perhaps there is some other way to find out?

4. The fairy floss spiders

I talked to Emmet’s spiders about my dilemma and they were very good listeners. I had a far fetched and rather outrageous theory that Emmet might have trained them to wind him up. In my defence, they are the only living beings Emmet has a positive relationship with. Further thought proved that this was an even more ludicrous idea than first assumed, as they are too small and lightweight to physically turn a key, even if a whole cluster of them worked together. It is possible that exhaustion is making me slightly delirious.

It was not a complete waste as I feel better after putting my thoughts into words. Additionally, spending time with the spiders always puts me in a positive mood.

Update: a cluster of them worked together to drag a candy cane to me. They must have misunderstood my worries about running out of energy for me being hungry, not understanding that I don’t need to eat like they do. All the same, it was extremely sweet of them to try to help me and it’s a gift I will treasure.

5. Donner

Even when we were in the same battalion our relationship was transactional in nature. If I did a chore for him, such as cleaning or moving cargo, he would return the favour and assist me with maintenance. I have not spoken to him since my removal from his battalion. Although we parted ways on a sour note, he might still be willing to aid me if I offer my services.

Update: He refused. He laughed at me.

6. Captain Jawbreaker

Previously, he gave me an ultimatum: no member of the battalion would wind me up unless I smiled convincingly beforehand. At the time I was unable to. If this ultimatum is still in effect, perhaps it works in the reverse as well.

Update: I’ve tried in front of a mirror and I was unable to produce anything that Captain Jawbreaker would be satisfied with. Since my removal from the Taffy Battalion I have not been practicing as frequently and upon joining Gear Battalion I stoped completely. It’s noticeable. I’m terribly rusty.

Update: I can’t do it. My more recent attempts would be more likely to elicit a punishment than a reward. My cheeks hurt.

Update: I still can’t do it, I wouldn’t be able to even if I had days to improve and I don’t have days. I shouldn’t be wasting my time trying but I don’t know what else to do.

Update: I can’t

7. ???

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, who else is there? Everyone hates me. Everyone hates me. I can’t even bring myself to try pleading with more of my former squad members I already know they’ll say no they don’t like me no one does

I’m running out of time

8. Emmet

Beg. I could throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy. He’s been kind before and he’s shown concern for my well being in the past, he might take pity on me. He’s my friend, isn’t he? If he knew how dire my situation was

What a horrible thing to do to a friend. He was so distressed the first time I brought it up, I won’t add guilt to that too. I don’t want to risk our friendship by pushing beyond what he is comfortable with. I don’t want him to hate me.

Maybe he already does

9. Nobody

[cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien]

Solar Opposites: Unleashed Scene: You’re Jsut Trying Too Hard

As Korvo and Terry panics while pacing around, Yumyulack and Jesse continue looking down at the floor horrified while Phoebe comes downstairs after putting the Pupa down for a nap.

Phoebe: Okay, the Pupa is now asleep. We just need to come up with a plan to get you guys out of hou- notices the kids’ horrified faces Yumyulack? Jesse? Are you okay?

Yumyulack: This is all our faults.

Yumyulack: We should’ve known Barnaby was a crazy person. We trusted him and he fucked us like fools. Now, he’s took everything that is meant to help our friends, including the scanner, the files, everything! starts to hulk out as his horns appear on his head and his starts to grow bigger and muscular

Jesse: Ugh! I can’t believe we acted like fucking fools! Those headphone guys and the Stacies were right! We are total fuck ups! starts hulking out as she starts growing bigger and muscular and turning black

Korvo and Terry gasp as they realized how overwhelmed their children are and runs up to calm them down.

Phoebe: Whoa whoa whoa kids calm down!

Yumyulack: eyes starts growing lavender CALM DOWN?! CALM DOWN?! WHY SHOULD WE STAY CALM?!

Jesse: eyes starts glowing black and dark pink WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE UPSET!

Korvo and Terry: leaps towards and hugs their kids in a huge embrace Whoa whoa whoa! Hey! Hey now! Yumyulack… Jesse… soothing shushing sounds

The effects wear off on Yumyulack and Jesse as they shrink down to their normal sizes and starts weeping as Korvo and Terry gasp sadly and continue soothing them.

Yumyulack: tearfully We’re so scared guys.

Jesse: weeping What’s gonna happen to us guys? Barnaby was right. We’re just little kids. We can’t even do anything right.

Phoebe: What?! Who these bitches think they are- Korvo puts his hand on Phoebe as she grows surprised by the look on Korvo’s face

Korvo: to Phoebe Don’t worry, we’ll talk to them. turns to Terry; whispering You talk to Yumyulack, I’ll talk to Jesse.

Terry: Okay.

In separate directions, Terry takes Yumyulack outside while Korvo takes Jesse to her and Yumyulack’s bedroom as Yumyulack sits down on the picnic table and Jesse sat on her chair and looks at the mirror.

Terry: Buddy, what’s wrong? Talk to me.

Korvo: Jesse darling, is everything okay?

Yumyulack: tearfully; sniffles No Terry, everything is not okay. I can’t do anything right. All I do is fail and get beat up by other kids. I can’t even get Mark to notice me.

Terry: puts his hands on Yumyulack’s shoulders Hey come on, everything’s gonna be okay.

Jesse: tearfully No, it’s not okay. I wished I never found that glowing lipstick. chokes a sob Now it turned me into an ugly monster. sobs

Korvo: But why did you do that?

Jesse: sniffles as tears fall hard I just… wanted to be beautiful Korvo… just like the Stacies… and all the other beautiful women in the world…

Yumyulack: voice breaking I just wanted people to stop walking over me Terry… I wanted to be something more…

In each separate parts, Korvo and Terry put comforting on hands on their children’s shoulders as they deeply understand how their Replicants feel.

Terry: I know honey, but that is not true.

Korvo: You are the most beautiful sweetest girl in the world. You don’t need makeup to prove that.

Terry: You are so smart, so brave, yet stubborn. But, that doesn’t mean you should exhaust yourself from that. You are a very brave little alien who can do anything.

Korvo: To me, you are an amazing beautiful lady who is so kind and thoughtful and very caring towards other people.

Terry: Your father and I will always support you no matter what…

Korvo: And you have people who care about you too, and you are never alone…

Korvo and Terry: But most of all…

Terry: You don’t have to try so hard

Yumyulack sobs into Terry’s chest as Terry hugs his step-son and soothes him.

Korvo: puts his hand on Jesse’s shoulders You shine brighter than all of them.

Korvo puts his arms around Jesse for comfort as Jesse tearfully smiles and hugs Korvo by his arms. Phoebe smiles as she sees her friends comforting their children.

Two hours later, Yumyulack and Jesse fall asleep on the couch while Phoebe puts two blankets on them as she smiles. Korvo and Terry then approach each other as the two husbands look at each other lovingly.

Korvo: How come you never tell me how well you do with our kids?

Terry: Let’s just say, I got advice from a grumpy blue-ass alien who became my sweet hubby.

Korvo: Oh Terry. But don’t you worry, we’re gonna get out of here. Once and for all. It’s a promise I can never break with you.

Terry: And that’s something I can’t break with you either.

The two alien husbands French-kiss as they embrace each other lovingly.

Music for this Scene:

Phoebe MacCarthy belongs to @themagicwolf6677

[utilitycaster]

Is it just me or are some of the more intense Imaudna folk…kind of mirroring Imogen’s over-defensiveness of Liliana? Or at least uncritically accepting Imogen’s assessment of her, without acknowledging her “bias”? (as we are now apparently calling the characters’ family - so K-pop of us)

I’m not saying she’s a terrible mother - she’s literary moving heaven and earth for Imogen [and herself] - but she’s helping bring about what could be an apocalyptic event, on the off-chance that it could relieve them of their powers.

And I get why people wanna ignore that in favor of Imogen reuniting with her Mom and building a relationship with her. But it’s frustrating when you remember that some of the people her Mom has fucked over include Kiki and the Ashari (not just Orym) and that she’s working with a guy that allowed Trent’s abuse of Caleb, who Beau has spent years working to take down, and we still don’t know what’s happened to those two.

Again - shades of gray, and we all love villains and complicated, messy women. But it’s quite the slice of cognitive dissonance to see fandom *really* pile on Fearne’s parents for abandoning her (especially when it was only six years as far as they knew), but even after she’s party to nearly murdering Kiki, we shouldn’t be assuming the worst of Liliana?

(Just read this back and…I don’t think some these Imaudna fans are actually Marisha fans)

I don't think it's mirroring Imogen, per se. Or rather, I think this is all part of the larger trend I've touched upon for some time: there are a segment of shippers with absolutely no empathy for or generosity towards anything that interferes with the ship. Ideally, they'd like to also support Imogen and Laudna as individuals; but even then the ship comes before the characters. As you said, they're not really Marisha - or Laudna - or for that matter Imogen or Laura fans. They're fans of them playing characters who are in a relationship together.

When Imogen was upset with Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, there was a pretty prevalent attitude of "but it wasn't LAUDNA's fault, so why is Imogen upset, that's unfair" even though the rock is still broken and it happened when it was in Laudna's possession and, frankly, had Imogen not given the rock to Laudna, she'd still have it. In retrospect this has gotten even more wild, because since then, they've leaned very far into the negative effects Imogen experiences as a result of her powers as an argument as to why she's allowed to do whatever she wants, but at the time if you pointed out Imogen found relief from the rock and is justified in having an emotional response, you were met with screams of HOW DARE YOU BE MEAN TO LAUDNA. This hypocrisy is of course tied into the lack of empathy, because said lack of empathy rests on granting infinite grace to those who support or even merely recognize the ship, no matter their other actions (eg: Otohan), and dismissing the feelings of anyone else.

When Laudna died, it was a pretty common attitude among Imogen and Laudna shippers (I would say Laudna fans, but quite honestly almost every post grieving her was just as much about the ship as the character) that Orym would have been happy to have remained dead because he was a widower. This is a horrifying mentality to have - people's partners do die young, and most people choose to continue living - and was also notably untrue based on Liam's statements both in and out of game. You'll notice that "Orym doesn't want to die and felt like this was a massive failure" on 4SD never took off, but "Orym can't be objective" on 4SD has been blown to ludicrous proportions that show a stunning lack of understanding of like...basic human emotions and their role in decision-making. Because there's no consistency except The Ship.

When the party went to Whitestone, and Percy was in fact played as someone with very complicated and layered feelings about death and dying, and who was not going to change his developed principles for a stranger, he was lambasted. The fact that Delilah Briarwood is just as responsible for his trauma - repeatedly so, she was the architect of both his family's murder and the reason why Vecna achieved godhood, she's literally why his brother-in-law is dead, the Briarwoods have been responsible for two of Vex's deaths - was completely ignored. The fact that Vex and Pike were not spiting him in the end, but rather developed a mutually acceptable plan that permitted Laudna's resurrection with a contingency plan to kill her if Delilah returned led to some pretty harsh criticism of them as well.

FCG was pretty popular among the shippers for quite some time because he wanted everyone to get along and wanted Imogen and Laudna to make up after the gnarlrock fight (note: this is also true of Ashton and Orym, both of whom as discussed have since fallen from grace because they continued to exist as characters with their own thoughts and motivation) and had a lot in common with Imogen. However, a series of things occurred that led to their fall from grace among the shippers. The first was that FCG's coin is why Orym was resurrected instead of Laudna. The second is that Shared Dream was not, in fact, intended only to let Laudna go into Imogen's dreams, but rather allowed anyone in the party to go. The third is that FCG started to find a purpose beyond "help others no matter what," particularly after realizing they had a soul and were in fact a person, and specifically began exploring religion. Religion is unpopular with Imodna shippers particularly after 3x49 and Imogen's consideration of the Vanguard, but there's also definitely a mix of obvious ex-fundamentalists who never unpacked their feelings and instead just want all their fiction to validate their new beliefs. The fourth is that FCG/FRIDA "stole" the first canon relationship spot (which also confirmed that FCG was, in fact, shippable rather than some kind of robot eunuch with nothing better to do than push Imogen and Laudna together). And so you get some really fucked statements. Like, when I say I've seen "I hope someone makes that robot eat their stupid coin" that's not exaggeration; it's pretty much verbatim. That's not a post that a person who makes any attempt to understand experiences other than their own can make in earnest, but it does make sense from the perspective of someone who has decided Imogen and Laudna's relationship is the heart of the show and is angered that five other main PCs exist and have their own interests.

Ashton occupies a truly fascinating space, in that they're oddly popular, in part because their scenes with Laudna are genuinely unmissably fantastic scenes for Laudna. It's one of the only places where Laudna takes off the mask (though she's started to with Orym too). He also overlaps with a lot of what makes Imogen popular, except it's canon where Imogen's is subtext, or it's obviously more severe (Imogen's mom left? Ashton's an orphan. Imogen's had a few headaches? Ashton has chronic pain). So they hated when he pointed out he'd been abandoned by his friends in a way Laudna hadn't (also because Ashton and Laudna's conversation in 3x49 was just far more honest than Imogen and Laudna's, and because Laudna sought them out), but they like him when he's supportive of Laudna. They're constantly on the thinnest of ice because of this and because they're a genuinely compelling character, but because of that, might get in the way of what said shippers want, namely, a hundred episodes of Imogen and Laudna sipping tea at Zhudanna's and having a lovely time.

Following Imogen considering joining the Vanguard, Orym fell out of vogue despite his previous interactions with Imogen, because he very justifiably pointed out, as I've said, that the Ruby Vanguard killed his husband and his father-in-law (whom he saw as a father figure himself), and used a toxin that ensured they couldn't be brought back. I've talked about this a ton and so I'm not going to rehash every aspect, but the fact remains that while I like Imogen's choice to do this - conflict is fun! It makes sense for her character! - it's an incredibly insensitive thing to say. (It blows Ashton's statement about loneliness out of the water, for sure; incidentally, Ashton pointing out the more general hey girl they murder everyone who disagrees did NOT sit well with the hey let's harass everyone who disagrees crowd.) And when you mix it in with the god stuff discussed regarding FCG, Orym has become the periannath non grata of choice to the point of a similar response to the gnarlrock fight - if you sympathize with him, they see it as an attack not just on Imogen but on Laudna, for...not talking about Laudna as well. This has only gotten worse with Orym firmly committing to destroying the Vanguard, to the point that there are, generously speaking, misunderstandings or misrememberings of the text, and less generously speaking, outright lies. A notable one is that Laudna begins to tap into Delilah before Orym nods (Marisha's mention of the purplish hue is at 2:52:02 in episode 3x63; Orym's nod is at 3:01:42, a solid 9+ minutes later); he supports her decision, but he is not responsible for it.

Then there's the guests. Deanna was obviously made to ask Imogen about Laudna. She's here to ask them if they're married. She's here to encourage Imogen to follow her heart. She's definitely not here to have her own active and interesting love life and personal feelings about the gods (that conflict with Imogen's) and history and perspective. Oh she's...she's calling out Imogen's nonstop use of psychic powers? She's having a three-way with Chetney and Fearne? FRIDA is hooking up with FCG and admitted their anger about the gods was mostly due to projecting their personal anger about feeling powerless and having been awoken without their consent? Uhhhhhh Deni$e was obviously made to to ask Laudna about Imogen. She's definitely not here to be a connection to Dariax and have her own active and interesting love life and personal feelings about the gods. Wait, no, maybe Bor'Dor will ask about it? Uhhhhhh *flips coin but not in an FCG way* Laudna will *rolls dice* mentor Prism and this will...make this ship happen? Oh, won't these people with their own distinct personalities and motivations who keep having conversations with Orym and Ashton and each other stop doing that and just presume that a specific one of the four other people in Bells Hells they've never met and probably don't remember the names of is married to Laudna? Won't someone stop playing their character as a fully fleshed out person whose life is entirely unaffected by Laudna and Imogen's respective love lives? Oh and then Bor'Dor did ask about the relationship, and it was because it was a weakness and he was trying to infiltrate.

Quite literally? It goes as far as the gods! Why didn't they save Laudna? To which I'd say sure, let's explore what happens if they did! Let's follow this thread! Do they just save Laudna and maybe her family and no one else? Why Laudna? Does she get saved at the expense of some other dark-haired girl in Whitestone? Or perhaps they save everyone. Perhaps the De Rolos remain in power, and Campaign 1 doesn't fucking happen I guess, and Laudna grows up, and she lives out the rest of her life in Whitestone, and she's a woman in her 50s now - maybe even married, perhaps with children - and has never been to Marquet and wouldn't know or care about some random 20-something with purple hair. Like, what are you driving at here? Maybe the gods let Laudna die because that was the only way to bring her to Imogen. Ever think of that? (alternately: how do you know they didn't? What if Laudna's undead state has to do with Vecna? You didn't specify if it was the Primes or the Betrayers, or how she gets saved; she's still living after a hanging, which some might consider a miraculous gift. What if it was the Dawnfather acting through the Sun Tree? Can you describe what you want the gods to have done and where that puts us in 843 PD or do you just say shit hoping no one will ever poke at it?) When do the gods intervene? Do they make sure nothing bad ever happens to anyone? Are mortals just dolls the gods move around with no free will?

So anyway. I don't think these feelings about Liliana are based on mirroring Imogen's thought process. I do not think there is a level of consideration that Imogen and Laudna have motivations (motivations mean they can be something other than perfect flawless victims who found each other). It is simply "Imogen wants this, Laudna will validate anything she does, and so it's correct." The party line for anything else "fuck your trauma, fuck your dead family and dead loves, fuck your own hopes and dreams and goals: you exist only to fawn over two random-ass women. It doesn't matter if they are strangers to you. It doesn't matter if you've only met one of them. It doesn't matter how they act towards you. It doesn't matter if you're one of them, if you step out of line. This is your sole purpose, and if you fail, you're not a person to me." There's absolutely no thought put into the implications of anything they say beyond "it supports the ship, or, if not, it perpetuates the blameless, perfect and thus boring frozen state of the characters."

[productofaritual]

limbo rant ^__^

limbo is a terrible time for cranboo, the worst of his entire life. at first he’s told that he’ll be okay and because people CARE, he’ll be out of there in no time. and he’s a pretty optimistic guy. so he believes ghostboo in thinking it’ll be okay soon and he’ll get back to his family. and he doesn’t. after a year in limbo time, he starts to get a little worried, but is reassured by his ghost. he makes excuses for the first few years, knowing time moves faster here so they don’t understand that it’s a while for HIM. ghostboo keeps assuring him people care and will try to get him back. except they never do. and cranboo wonders if anyone ever cared at all. if ctubbo ever cared. if ctommy ever cared. if ANYONE he thought was his friend or at least cared about him at least a little bit ever truly did. and if they did, it wasn’t ever enough. and he’s left alone with something that hurts him for over three decades. he’s miserable. in my mind— he doesn’t get any sleep. barely any. a few hours a week, if he’s lucky. and you know. if you have those kinds of sleeping habits for an extended period of time, you start to hallucinate. he doesn’t know what’s real anymore. if he’s real. if anything before this was real or if it was all a dream he’s lost and will maybe forget. he has little to no proper social interactions— the only one being the one briefly with mexican dream. he doesn’t know how to talk to people anymore when he’s finally out. he has no brain stimulation— nothing to do for 33 and a half years. he has NOTHING to do, really. everything he was originally doing to pass the time became boring or maybe it made him so upset. because no one ever actually cared about him. he tries to kill himself. because there has to be something else. this can’t be it. he only gets around sixteen feet underwater before he’s coming up for air with his entire body burning. and it never seems to stop. when he gets out, he deals with the lasting effects for his whole life. michael worries about him so much. cranboo wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he’s back, and he’s horrified every time. he always has to usher michael back to bed because michael can hear him scream from the other room. cranboo forgets he’s a person. forgets how to be a person. people find him weird but he’s just dealing with the effects of death. he can’t look in mirrors anymore because he can’t recognize himself. he’s no longer optimistic, and almost everything that made cranboo himself has been taken away from him because of 33 and a half years of torture. he’s the most awkward he’s ever been and barely knows how to hold a proper conversation, specifically with strangers, and it just makes him kind of unapproachable . he truly forgets that he’s an actual person because those years were so dehumanizing it’s like he was never human in the first place. he can’t sleep most nights and can’t take care of himself that well but does his best with michael. luckily he can manage a lot better because he’s getting older. even a decade after limbo, he still gets nightmares, and he’s still scared. but he’s better

:D Oh :D Wow :D Okay :D he's just having a grand ol time :D

Also depending on what sort of water burn system you're going off, that whole jumping in the water could only burn his skin off. Like. Nothing else just the skin. Which is fucking horrifying and please forget I said that because knowing you, you fucking angst Lord /pos, if you don't have a concrete plan that idea will get added and I can't afford everyone's therapy bills if that happens

...This fucking guy. Spent ALMOST TWICE the amount of time in limbo than he did alive. I need a minute to process that. Maybe a bit more than a minute. Maybe, I dunno, 33 years, give or take. "It gets worse before it gets better" PLEASE DO ENLIGHTEN ME, HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS GET ANY BETTER

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Jane of Lantern Hill chapters 3 and 4

Standard Jane warning for emotional abuse; new warning for genre-typical child servant abuse.

Two evening events in a row means that I am quite behind. We're doing these two chapters together because they're both about Jody.

The very first thing I noticed, and one that's purely craft-related, is that this appears to be the book in which LMM experiments with ellipses. Blue Castle was all about em dashes, Jane is all about ellipses. I haven't fully been able to pin down what she wants the effect to be. A pause, clearly, but why an ellipsis? I've never seen them used in the middle of sentences like this, to offset clauses or separate ideas. Did she get bored of em dashes? Did her publishers give her bonuses based on the number of characters she used? Was she playing a game with herself to keep the drafting process interesting? I feel like I'm reading this book through the medium of texts sent by my grandmother (who is much nicer than Jane's, thankfully.)

Second minor detail: Jane has RPG character or anime protagonist eyes, apparently. I know she probably intended them to be light, warm brown, but every marigold I've ever seen has looked like this:

This is an eye color that I give my characters in video games when I want them to look like aliens. And "marigold" as a color is a shade of yellow, not brown. So I'm not sure why that's the descriptor LMM reached for, but it is now my firm headcanon that Jane has yellow-orange anime eyes.

Anyway, on to the actual contents of the chapters. Between the rich girl befriending the poor girl and the whole imaginary garden sequence, I am getting such Frances Hodgson Burnett vibes, you have no idea. I don't know if LMM also read her books, or if they were just working similar themes, or if I just imprinted on FHB as a child and see traces of her everywhere.

So Jody is an orphan, kept on at the boarding house out of "charity", a word which in this context means "a servant you don't have to pay or treat well." She goes to school "every day there was no extra rush" which probably means she's not very well educated, which will make it even harder for her to find better circumstances when she grows up.

And she's clearly set up as a deliberate mirror for Jane. Here they are, two girls who on the surface couldn't be more different, who immediately recognize each other as kin because actually, under the surface, their lives are very similar. This is where we diverge sharply from the Sara Crewe/Samantha-from-American-Girls model. Jane doesn't just befriend Jody because she's kind-hearted and sees someone in trouble, she befriends Jody because here is another person who understands what it's like to live in fear of other people. Jane's material circumstances are much better than Jody's, but her emotional ones are just about as bleak.

That thread gets reinforced in chapter 4, when Mary and Frank are talking about Jane's mother. Jane's mother has every material thing she could possibly want -- and a great many that she doesn't want -- but she's not actually happy. She's just as trapped as Jody is, fully reliant on the good will of someone else to keep her home and fully aware that if she upsets that person too much she could be turned out with nowhere to go. And, like Jody, she doesn't seem to have the resources to just leave anyway and make a go of it. Jody is trapped because she's 11, and Mrs. Stuart is trapped because she's never had to make do on her own, and the one time she tried to leave it ended poorly and she's now too scared to try again.

Jane, meanwhile, is also trapped due to her age, and it seems that at each new turn she encounters a new bar in her cage she'd never considered before. "It had never occurred to her that she was not at liberty to give away her own doll" is such a good sentence. LMM is so good at simultaneously conveying Jane's youth -- she is learning these things for the first time -- and also showing the absurdity of the situation. No, says the narrative. Grandmother is not doing these things for Jane's own good. She will not understand when she is older. She is being a cruel and petty tyrant, and that's all she's ever been.

[saintsenara]

We share so many terrible faves! I've selected five per pairing:

Sirius/Severus: 

6. How do they make up/apologize after an argument?

14. Do they enjoy PDA, or are they more private with affection?

24. How do their personalities affect their relationship? Do their characteristics compliment each other, or clash often?

38. Who’s got a quicker temper?

32. Do either of them drink? If so, who’s the lightweight, and how does their partner care for them?

41. What would they do if they lost the other?

Severus/Voldemort: 

5. Do they argue often? If so, what do they argue about?

8. What do they love most about the other? Why?

17. How well do they communicate? Are they open with their feelings/thoughts or more reserved? Why?

33. How do they flirt? Who’s the worse flirt?

18. How do they care for each other when one of them is wounded/sick?

Bella/Voldemort: 

4. Who initiates affection? Why does the other not initiate affection as much?

9. What do they dislike most about the other? Why?

19. Do they wear each other’s clothes/jewelry?

48. Do they talk about their future together? Why or why not?

34. Do they have any inside jokes?

Tom/Harry: 

12. Do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent?

20. How do they comfort each other when one of them is upset? Is this method of comfort effective?

22. Are they comfortable joking around with each other and being silly/playful?

30. What are their respective love languages? Do their love languages work well together?

37. Who’s more emotionally sensitive/cries more often?

Tom/Dumbledore: 

10. Do they share any hobbies or interests? How do these things bring them together?

35. Is their relationship a secret? If so, why?

49. Do they keep secrets from each other?

27. How do they say “I love you” non-verbally?

44. Do they cuddle often? Why or why not?

thank you for the ask, anon! it's so nice to meet someone else cultured...

this ended up being enormous, so i've put the answers under the cut [thank you for giving me a very fun way to spend my breaks at work writing this out]. read on for snack, snapemort, bellamort, tomarry, and riddledore nonsense.

[ship game here.]

sirius black/severus snape

6. how do they make up/apologise after an argument?

by fucking.

to the extent that the first time they sleep together without arguing beforehand frightens them both so much - because, oops, you actually like each other boys, it’s not just hate-sex, sorry about that - that they have an argument afterwards instead.

14. do they enjoy pda or are they more private with affection?

when they’re pretending to have no interest whatsoever in each other, they avoid anything which could even remotely be interpreted as pda. it’s this - the fact that they immediately stop getting in each other’s space, and coming up with witty insults, and jabbing their wands in each other’s faces [behave] - that means everyone else knows they’re sleeping together. lupin tells sirius this and enjoys watching his old friend almost faint.    

once they’re forced to accept - very much against their wills - that they’re in a real relationship, and that people know about it and the world hasn’t ended, i think sirius is very keen on pda, entirely because he thinks it annoys snape. 

he’s wrong. but snape isn’t going to admit that. 

24. how do their personalities affect their relationship? do their characteristics compliment each other, or clash often?

the reason why snack is such an intriguing ship is because they’re narrative mirrors - and, particularly, because they’re both men whose relationship with the world around them is driven by a desire for forgiveness which they are never able to offer themselves.

that shared underlying faithfulness, steadfastness, capacity to endure, and the shared understanding of grief - and not only grief, but grief you brought directly upon yourself - and unrequited love [the implication of canon is absolutely that sirius’ love for james was not simply platonic, and i’ll die on that hill] forms the bones of their relationship, and is the thing which helps them survive the fact that the more surface-level aspects of their personalities - sirius’ recklessness, snape’s massive victim complex, sirius’ fits of melancholy, snape’s intolerance for those who find life hard or unfair, the fact that they’re both capable of being incredibly cruel - clash constantly. 

32. do either of them drink? if so, who’s the lightweight, and how does their partner care for them?

in the canon timeline, they both survive the misery of the second war by using alcohol as a crutch [although snape is less destructive, since he needs to remain sober enough to deal with voldemort]. should one overindulge, the other just leaves him in misery, believing it to serve him right.

after the war, however, i think both of them eventually come to the realisation that part of their long-overdue healing processes involves going tee-total. snape gets very into brewing interesting cordials. sirius becomes an expensive loose-leaf tea snob.

38. who’s got a quicker temper?

their argument over this destroyed the kitchen at grimmauld place. 

41. what would they do if they lost the other?

continue on in silent grief, as they were already doing with the memories of lily and james. 

severus snape/lord voldemort

5. do they argue often? if so, what do they argue about?

so, obviously, in most cases, attempting to argue with lord voldemort will be the last thing you ever do, but there must be an established frankness to the way that snape speaks to him which meant he could get through his "here’s why i was hours late to your resurrection" explanation without being murdered. voldemort appears to dislike sycophancy [or, at least, to think that he does] and he abhors liars [snape: lmao], so i do think - controversially - that he would regard a bit of pushback from his favourite death eaters as evidence of him being correct to rank them so highly. 

as for what they argue about? well, snape was pissed that he had to host pettigrew in his home. voldemort was paying for that for months.

8. what do they love most about the other? why?

"love" might be pushing it, but…

snape’s reasons for joining the death eaters are varied and complex, across a whole spectrum from misguided to contemptible, but it’s very clear that none of them were ever the conviction that "the dark lord will put the purebloods in charge" that hooked in characters like regulus black or lucius malfoy.

what gets him, instead, is clearly a belief that voldemort can offer him a way to transcend a background which he hates and which - given the way we know the wizarding world works - will actively hinder him in his adult life. [as an aside, i think this is the reason for his view, which otherwise seems nonsensical, that lily is overreacting to his interest in the death eaters: he thinks that they could offer her opportunities otherwise restricted to her as a muggleborn.]

and, in this, i think he comes closer than many other death eaters to understanding how voldemort actually thinks, and this is the reason for voldemort’s obvious - and unusual - affection for him. voldemort clearly has a great desire to be perceived, and the sense that snape is someone like him, someone who understands him, someone he has given the opportunities denied to him and essentially made in his own image, is meaningful to him.

similarly, snape feels seen by voldemort - and, in particular, seen for the intellectual creativity of which he is so proud. voldemort describes himself in goblet of fire as a keen inventor of spells and potions, as well as someone with an insatiable academic curiosity and extremely flexible morals on how that curiosity is sated. even once he switches sides - since dumbledore is, sensibly, wary of his undiminished interest in the dark arts - i can see voldemort remaining the only person snape feels truly understands just how much his intelligence and creativity matters to him. 

17. how well do they communicate? are they open with their feelings/thoughts or more reserved? why?

on the one hand, given that - canonically - snape spends the majority of their acquaintance lying to voldemort and voldemort kills him and only half says sorry for it, obviously they don’t communicate well at all.

but, on the other, there must - as i’ve said - be a frankness to their communication style. a common gripe i have with fanon!snape is that his skill as an occlumens is portrayed as the result of granite emotional repression - occlumency, instead, requires manipulating your emotional responses to questioning in a way which enables you to lie fluently, and snape’s skill in the medium comes from the fact that his authentic self is incredibly petty. 

indeed, he displays this in front of voldemort - his interaction with yaxley in the dark lord ascending is uncomplicatedly spiteful, and voldemort doesn’t seem surprised by it; the way he speaks to wormtail in spinner’s end suggests that voldemort has given his tacit approval for snape to humiliate pettigrew; the fact that he tells bellatrix to report what he says in the same scene to others suggests that voldemort would not be angry to hear him insult his erstwhile favourite.

similarly, snape’s emotional volatility must have been displayed to voldemort at other points - he is implied to have begged desperately for lily’s survival, for example, and it’s clear that a great deal of voldemort’s opinion on harry [especially the fact that he mentions more than once in the later books that harry has been pampered and protected] must come from snape’s unhinged dislike of him. 

so, while snape’s communication style with voldemort is dishonest, i don’t think it can be described as inauthentic. in fact, voldemort is, like dumbledore, probably one of the only people who sees the full emotional range of snape.

[voldemort, of course, communicates only in half-truths - i think he’s probably more open with snape than with most other people, but that’s not saying a lot.]  

18. how do they care for each other when one of them is wounded/sick?

when snape is sick or wounded, lord voldemort convinces himself that the only reason he is brewing healing potions, and watching carefully for how they interact with orange juice and chicken soup, is because he has a readily available test subject in the vicinity. 

being immortal means you never get sick, and no amount of "you have a fever, my lord, and you should rest" will convince him otherwise. snape, since he’s fond of his limbs, doesn’t force the issue.

33. how do they flirt? who’s the worse flirt?

by arguing about potions theory. voldemort once described himself as "quite impressed" by one of snape’s modifications to a common poison. snape considers it the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to him. 

if by "worse" we mean most incorrigible, it’s voldemort - although that’s only if you consider being threatened to be flirting. snape, with his latent humiliation kink, does. 

if by "worse" we mean least sophisticated, it’s also voldemort. a menacing aura is not the same as having game. 

bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort

4. who initiates affection? why does the other not initiate affection as much?

she’s more casually tactile, which drives him round the bend, because someone constantly trying to stroke your arm at death eater meetings doesn’t do great things for your "evil and unapproachable" vibe. the absence of passing affection - hand-holding, cuddles etc. - upsets bellatrix [who, whatever else was wrong with her childhood, did grow up with that sort of openness with her sisters], although she is careful never to mention this to him. 

but, this being said, voldemort is clearly a man who is, deep down, desperate for affection, and i think on occasion the dam must burst - only ever behind closed doors, only ever when there is plausible deniability [he was drinking, she had done something she was being particularly rewarded for etc.] of his feelings for her - and he must reveal himself as deeply, and probably oddly tenderly, passionate.      

9. what do they dislike most about the other? why?

i’ve answered this here. 

19. do they wear each other’s clothes/jewellery?

bellatrix thinks his dress sense is too ascetic, voldemort thinks hers is too ostentatious. neither would be seen dead in the other’s clothes.

she will never understand the significance of him lending her a large gold locket - which, if she’s honest, she thought was quite ugly - to wear to a new year’s eve party in 1978.

34. do they have any inside jokes?

bellatrix does a fantastic impression of fudge seeing them in the ministry atrium. 

48. do they talk about their future together? why or why not?

she does, he only half pays attention, convinced that she is in such awe of him that she would never make a decision that impacted them both without his express permission. this comes back to bite him, when he discovers he was thinking about a rare curse he wanted to try on some muggle prisoners while bellatrix was talking about how her youthful desire to never have children had been changed by her experience in azkaban. 

in a voldemort wins au - with or without delphini in it [i’m quite fond of her as a concept, but perhaps that’s because i’ve neither seen nor read the cursed child] - i think that bellatrix does snap and demands that he acknowledges their relationship in some way, since his go-to excuse of "nothing is certain in war" no longer applies. rodolphus is shuffled off to become the ambassador to some faraway place and bellatrix gets to hear overcautious ministry underlings refer to her as "my lady" at state events.

he's never a good father, though. i just can’t see it.   

harry potter/tom riddle

12. do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent?

both harry and voldemort are very self-sufficient, so i don’t think they would be the sort of people who went mad with pining if they were apart from each other for a while. voldemort’s enormous ego means he can’t see a reason to be the jealous type [canonically, rodolphus would be dead if he were, i'm sure], while harry’s commitment to just suffering through stuff means he endures separations without temptation. their shared mental connection - exploited by hundreds of authors for porn reasons - helps there too. 

however, one of the issues with your boyfriend being a terrorist [even if, occasionally, he’s reformed] is that it’s very difficult to leave him alone without worrying what he might get up to. harry prefers it if they’re joined at the hip, just for his own peace of mind. 

20. how do they comfort each other when one of them is upset? is this method of comfort effective?

voldemort awkwardly pats harry’s head and tells him to get over it. harry says something which voldemort decides to take as colossally insensitive. in the ensuing argument, they forget what they were upset about. 

22. are they comfortable joking around with each other and being silly/playful?

yes. harry spends canon roasting the death eaters, why not scale his operations up to the big boss? he regards pointing out that he won literally all of their encounters/that voldemort didn’t realise he was a horcrux/that he stabbed the diary/that his body isn’t ⅓ wormtail/that he knows more than one offensive spell/that he has a nose as foreplay.

30. what are their respective love languages? do their love languages work well together?

tom "magpie" riddle’s love language is gift-giving. harry, who is shown in canon to understand the childhood trauma behind voldemort’s hoarding, takes the theory that this is something he would like seriously but is not a great gift-giver in practice. he makes hermione give him lots of suggestions, and sees it as a net positive that this forces voldemort to be nice to her.

harry’s love language is acts of service. voldemort’s belief that he alone knows how to do everything properly and so harry shouldn’t be forced to do anything without his help, fulfils this surprisingly effectively.   

37. who’s more emotionally sensitive/cries more often?

harry is probably the more emotionally sensitive one - which is a damning indictment on how emotionally damaged voldemort is - and the one who, as he comes to terms with the griefs of his childhood, is least afraid to show his feelings.

however, harry is very good at compartmentalising his feelings and, outside of order of the phoenix, has a remarkable capacity to just let things go. voldemort, in contrast, is canonically someone who has a very mercurial temper - he feels things much more suddenly and deeply than harry, and holds grudges so profoundly that he tanks generations of students’ education to indulge them. part of their relationship is him learning that, sometimes, harry’s willingness to not fester in emotion is good, and harry learning that screaming at people is, on occasion, very cathartic.  

albus dumbledore/lord voldemort

10. do they share any hobbies or interests? how do these things bring them together?

although by the later books the idea that voldemort has an interest in anything other than dark magic [or, if you go by the films, an interest in anything other than shrieking] has gone out the window, it’s clear that he and dumbledore are the characters in the series who can best be described as polymaths, and that voldemort is one of the few people alive who is dumbledore’s intellectual equal [and, maybe, in some areas, superior]. i like the idea of them competing to out-do each other with huge displays of set-piece magic [dumbledore is unimpressed by the horcrux cave, voldemort takes that personally] and bickering constantly about new techniques or theories which would enable that, both enjoying - but never admitting to enjoying - the fact that the other actually understands what they’re talking about. 

i also like the idea of dumbledore finally getting his grand tour, somewhere on the albanian riviera.

27. how do they say “i love you” non-verbally?

by not murdering each other. and by voldemort keeping quiet about the mistake he found in the formula for the eleventh use of dragon's blood.  

35. is their relationship a secret? if so, why?

my preferred riddledore dynamic is either student/teacher [don’t judge me] or both of them growing so tired of their spies’ incompetence during wartime that they just start communicating directly with each other. so yes.

but even in a hypothetical happy-ever-after, i still think the relationship would be kept secret - not at voldemort’s request, but at dumbledore’s. dumbledore’s relationship to his own sexuality is defined by denial - while i don’t think at all that he's ashamed to be gay [or bi, or pan, or however else you think he might identify], i think he does view desire itself in a negative sense, since it was allowing himself to give in wholeheartedly to desire in his relationship with grindelwald that led, as he sees it, to ariana’s death. we can get hints of how this might work in the specific context of his relationship with voldemort in canon - dumbledore views love as sacrificial and noble, rather than pleasurable; he has a low tolerance for hedonism or indulgence; he is, in his manner of relating to others, distant and ascetic. while voldemort is similarly self-controlled, his obvious need for comfort, recognition, and affection is something i think dumbledore would find it very difficult to provide openly, and i think - in a situation where the whole thing didn’t crash and burn - they would live entirely separate lives, punctuated periodically by some very creative sex.

44. do they cuddle often? why or why not?

no, of course they don’t. that would be emotionally healthy and healing for two such touch-starved people. they have to refuse on principle. 

49. do they keep secrets from each other?

they don’t do anything but, at first. in particular, dumbledore goes out of his way to keep his relationship with grindelwald secret, until rita skeeter decides to break the story one afternoon because she’s just feeling silly that way. the ensuing argument - "how dare you judge me for murdering my father when you killed your own sister!"/ "it was an accident!"/"so was the basilisk!" and so on - is legendary and destroys half of godric’s hollow.

but it brings about a reckoning too. it’s clear in canon that one of the things voldemort particularly dislikes about dumbledore is his belief that dumbledore is a hypocrite - "you do not seek to kill me, dumbledore? above such brutality, are you?" from the ministry duel always stands out to me, given that voldemort knows dumbledore has sent half the order to risk death without a second thought, as does the fact that the death eaters tell harry that voldemort was genuinely shocked to discover dumbledore hadn’t told him about the prophecy. the cause of dumbledore’s complicated relationship with honesty - profound childhood/teenage trauma - is something voldemort can understand, and it gives them something to relate to each other with which helps there be a little, teeny-tiny bit less lying in the relationship from that point.

[letsbenditlikebennett]

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @ironcladrhett @magmahearts & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Rhett can sense there's a fae nearby and ends up following Cass towards the Magmacave where she's meeting Alex for date night. Having met Rhett before, Cass is friendly... Rhett? Not so much. CONTENT: Eye trauma, unsanitary (blood)

Date night was something Cass took pretty seriously now that she had a designated date night partner. There were so many things Alex hadn’t experienced throughout her life — an unfortunate side effect of her upbringing and her parents, the oread knew. It made her angry to think about, sometimes, made her upset to know that her girlfriend had suffered so much under the ‘care’ of people who made an active effort not to understand her… but it also meant she got to be the one to help rectify that. And that wasn’t all bad. She could show Alex the best movies, introduce her to the coolest comics. She got to be there to see the way the other girl’s face lit up when she experienced all of that for the first time, and that was a good thing.

It also meant that Cass was bound and determined to make everything as special as she could. She knew what Alex liked now, and she always made an effort to make sure she had as much of it as possible. Everything in the Magmacave was ready for a new kind of movie night. A projector she’d ‘acquired’ from Walmart that worked with her phone, a bunch of snacks she’d stored away just for this moment, blankets and pillows of every shape and size… It was bound to be one for the history books, she thought. She was just finishing up her very last snack run before Alex’s arrival, grocery bags slung over her arms as she made her way back to the cave with the less ‘nonperishable’ of movie night snacks. It was perfect. It was going to be perfect. 

She walked towards the cave with a spring in her step, pausing momentarily at the sound of something rustling behind her. If this was a monster that was going to ruin movie night — or worse, try to steal her carefully acquired snacks — she was going to be mad. Cass turned around, putting a hand to her hip as she prepared to scare off whatever animal was there, only to come face to face with a man instead. He looked familiar, though it took her a moment to place him. “Hey, I know you. You were at Alan’s that one time, right? With the pool!” She offered him a bright smile. “You probably shouldn’t be out here at night time. There’s animals and stuff in the woods, you know? You don’t wanna get eaten!”

—

It had been happenstance, really, that he saw the fae girl at the store. He’d not even been inside, but walking past outside when he felt that familiar, horrible feeling that accompanied the presence of fae. Diverting his path and forgoing whatever plans he’d had in mind, Rhett followed the sensation until the girl was in his sights, then tailed her at a respectable distance. She seemed distracted, which was good, or she might’ve noticed sooner that she had a shadow that was following her out of town and towards the Flat. He dropped back even further as their location became more and more remote, careful to just use his senses to keep track of her, even when he couldn’t see her. Not like his eyes were much fucking good, anyway.

She stopped, he stopped. Must have reached her destination, then. Or—oh. No. She’d spotted him. But she wasn’t scared, she was smiling. She recognized him. 

He managed to mirror the emotion, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Aye, with the pool,” he confirmed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “That so? Well, don’t worry, I think I can handle any ol’ animal what wants to tango with me,” the warden chuckled. He glanced past her at the cave, brow raised. “You live in there?” he asked. “No judgment… live out the van, myself. Cool cave.”

—

What was he doing out here, she wondered? Had he seen her and grown concerned? It wasn’t entirely unheard of for people to worry when they saw someone Cass’s age walking alone into the woods at night, and he had met her at Alan’s, so maybe he felt some… silly sense of responsibility. It might have been exciting if she didn’t know it would likely be a temporary thing. Most adults only cared about a kid until it stopped being convenient for them to do so, and she doubted Alan’s boyfriend was any different in that regard. 

She glanced back to the cave with a shrug, opting not to answer the question verbally. He said he wouldn’t judge, but… Wait. He lived in a van? Cass squinted at him. Hadn’t Aria said the man who’d put her in his van had long gray hair, too? Uneasiness crept down the oread’s spine, but she was quick to shove it away. Alan trusted this guy, and Alex trusted Alan. It was probably just a coincidence, wasn’t it? “What are you doing out here, anyway? Just walking around? It’s kind of late for a hike, moke.” She let her tone take on a teasing lilt in spite of her uneasiness. It wasn’t fair to be suspicious of him, not really. Driving a van and having long hair wasn’t a crime or anything.

—

“Oh, night time walks are pretty much the only thing keepin' me sane these days,” Rhett laughed, though the gesture of friendliness didn't quite meet his eyes. It never seemed to, these days. He thought about how he needed to get in closer without spooking her off, and decided to lean into the misinterpretation she and Alex had had regarding his relationship with Alan. Or lack thereof, if you were the type that cared about semantics. Rhett was not one of those people. 

“Anyway, Alan says it's good fer me, so here I am. Walkin' out all the ol' troubles.” He was doing a pretty good job of being convincing, or so he thought. “Spotted you not far back... sorry I didn't call out sooner. Didn't wanna scare you. Guess followin' you ain't a much better choice, eh? Whoops.” He shrugged. “Say, Alex ain't around, is she? Been meanin' to ask her for a wee favor in regards to the grumpy ol' man back home, but ah... if she's here, could just get it outta the way now. You know how it is, I ain't great with the technology.” Now he was just lying, but it didn't really matter if this fae was going to die in the next ten minutes, did it? Besides, he felt this was a pretty decent way of making sure she was alone before moving in for the kill. Or... kidnapping. Again? Couldn't rightly kill her here, what if someone else did show up? What then? No, there'd have to be a secondary location. Didn't matter much where, just not here.

—

Old people did like night time walks, actually. Cass was pretty sure she’d seen commercials featuring old people walking at night while a disembodied voice read off a list of potential side effects, so it made sense that Rhett would rely on them. They probably kept him feeling young, or whatever. 

The oread softened a little at the mention of Alan, too, thinking of the two of them at Alex’s mentor’s house the night with the pink pool. Most of it was a little hazy �� in retrospect, she so should have recognized the whole ‘high on mushrooms’ thing way before she had — but she remembered thinking they seemed good together. Balanced each other out, in a way, with Alan’s seriousness and Rhett’s willingness to join in on her and Alex’s little game.

“Yeeeaaah,” she said with a small laugh, “following a girl alone in the woods at night isn’t the best way to avoid scaring her, dude. But that’s okay.” At the mention of her girlfriend, she perked up a little. “Oh, she’s not here right now, but we’re meeting up later. I could pass along the message for you? No offense, but I don’t really want you crashing date night with my girl.” She wrinkled her nose at him, a teasing glint in her eye. 

—

“Ah! Of course, totally get that, no problem. Here, ah…” He patted his pockets for a second before fishing out a scrap of paper and a pen. “I’ll write it down just in case, howzat?” Not giving her much time to respond, the warden scribbled… well, nothing. It was just scribbles. Clicking the pen shut, he pocketed it again before folding the paper and closing the distance to hand it to Cass. “‘Preciate it, kid.” 

As he held out his hand, waiting for her to accept the paper, his heartbeat quickened. And when she mirrored the motion to take it, he struck out like a viper. The paper was dropped as that hand came to circle her wrist instead, the other jumping to her throat. He wasted no time with words, simply twisting them both around until he stood behind her, pinning her arms to her own torso while the other jumped to cover her mouth and stop her screaming. Alex was coming, and there was no telling when she’d arrive. Couldn’t stay here. Rhett began to back away from the cave entrance, dragging the nymph into the brush with some difficulty but not too much, thanks to his superior strength.

—

“Oh, that’s a really good idea!” If he wrote it down, they wouldn’t have to play the telephone game and whatever it was he needed to say wouldn’t have to go through Cass before getting to Alex. She’d probably have a hard time remembering it; when Alex was around, most of Cass’s thoughts were reduced to the gay kind. Rhett writing his thing down was a relief, and she waited patiently as he scribbled. It looked like it was probably going to be messy — she hoped Alex would be able to read it.

When he held out the page, she flashed him a quick grin and reached for it. But before her fingers could close against the paper, he grabbed her. His hand around her wrist was like a vice grip, too tight and bruising. The way he twisted her arm behind her hurt, too; she felt something snap under the pressure, but the resulting scream was muffled by the sudden presence of a second hand covering her mouth. The pain was momentarily blinding, and she checked out for half a second. When she was back to herself, she was already moving. Already being moved. He was dragging her away from the cave, and that was bad. She needed to be in the cave. She didn’t understand what he was doing or why, but she knew she didn’t want it, so she fought back. She kicked at his knees as best she could, tried to bite the hand over her mouth. Her glamour dropped, and she kept screaming throughout even though it was muffled. What was this? Why was he doing this? She didn’t understand.

—

Nearly the whole trek to the magmacave, Alex found herself wishing that she could convince Cass to stay at the cabin with her. She wasn't under some illusion that anywhere in Wicked's Rest was safe, but she at least knew there was no goo at the cabin for the time being. Every time she saw one of the faces around town, entrapped in the sludge that hardened around them, Alex couldn't help but see Cass. The pure black of the sludge was different from the obsidian and magma that made up her girlfriend. Light didn't catch the abnormality or the sludge in quite the same way. It was like there was only darkness there and it scared the hell out of her. She supposed that was part of the problem now. Her heart was too full. There were too many who's single misstep into the goo could break her. She didn't want to keep being a broken thing, not when she was only starting to piece together what she looked like as whole. 

Still, Alex wasn't going to let her own worries ruin date night. She was dating a superhero, a little bit of danger came with the territory. If she stopped Cass from protecting her cave, she'd be asking for her to give up some fundamental to who she was. It was part of her. That bravery and dedication to protecting her little piece of nature was something Alex loved about Cass. She found her cheeks grew flush at the thought and she held the little pouch of rocks she'd collected close to her chest. 

Her feet followed the familiar path to the cave and Alex smiled at the way she knew the way like the back of her own hand now. It was a pretty thought that was rudely interrupted as she heard what sounded like a whisper of a scream, as if it had been stamped or drowned out, and she felt something shift in her. All of her senses went into overdrive and she followed the sound of footsteps and dragging ahead past the cave. 

Part of her wanted to call out, but Alex didn't dare alert anyone to her presence. She could hear sounds and while there was no scream that followed, something heavy was dragging against the forest floor along with the footsteps and she had to follow it. She could smell Cass and something else vaguely familiar. 

She ran past the cave with careful steps. Alex moved as quickly as she could, avoiding patches of dead leaves that would crumble under her steps and alert someone to her presence. It had been a good move because when she rounded a tree, she was taken aback by what she saw. Cass's glamour was off and she could see a charred mark around her wrist. 

Then there was Rhett, holding her by the throat with hand over her mouth and Alex felt sick. What was this? She knew. Part of her knew right away, but it couldn't be right. Cass wasn't a monster to be hunted. It didn't compute in her mind despite what her eyes were showing her. Her eyes had to be betraying her. 

“Cass,” she called, “Rhett.” She looked between the two, begging for the picture to adjust and show her anything else, but it never did. Her fists clenched at her side and her features hardened as she found herself glaring at the warden. “Let go of her,” she demanded coldly, “Now.“ 

—

Rhett paid the screams no mind, determined to get Cass away from the cave mouth before someone came along. Someone like Alex. But, as was typical of late, the universe had other ideas, and those ideas consisted of throwing as massive a wrench in his plans as possible. 

Goddamnit.

“Doin’ you a favor, kid.” There was no surprise in Alex’s voice to see the nymph looking the way it did now, glamour dropped. That didn’t make things easier. She was a fae sympathizer. Fuck. Well, there was no point in trying to haul it off somewhere else before killing it, now. The thought that it might traumatize Alex to see her friend be killed crossed his mind but he didn’t care—just like he didn’t care about the fact that this would certainly… complicate things. He’d be alienating himself again. From Alex, which was no great loss, but then also probably from Alan, who he had a feeling she’d tattle on him to. That one hurt a little, but there was nothing to be done about it. The fae had to go. He’d wanted to see if it knew of anyone in the area named Ophelia, but that wasn’t gonna happen now. No, all he could do was draw his iron dagger and press it to Cass’ temple, his battle-hardened gaze fixed on Alex.

“Go on, nymph. Tell yer girl here how you’ve definitely never ever hurt someone. Definitely never killed anyone with yer promise binds.” It was literally a shot in the dark, but honestly, Rhett had met more fae that had killed with their words than he’d met ones that hadn’t. Not that it mattered, not that it’d stop him from burying that blade in the creature’s skull. But maybe, just maybe, it’d give Alex some clarity on the situation.

—

She was afraid, and she hated that. She hated the way her heart was pounding, the fact that she couldn’t think straight. She was a superhero. She was supposed to be a superhero. And what good was a superhero if she was trembling? What was a terrified hero worth? 

(About as much as a dead one, she thought, and if the hand around her throat was any indication, she’d be that soon, too.)

She kicked and struggled and screamed against the hand still pressed over her mouth, but Rhett was strong. It was like he didn’t notice her struggles at all, like she was a fly pounding against a glass someone had trapped her in. Her arm hurt where he’d twisted it; she thought she could feel bones grinding together in a way they really shouldn’t have been, like maybe something had broken. And the only thought her half-hysterical mind could come up with was that she’d never had an x-ray before. She’d only ever seen them on TV.

There was a quiet vibration of approaching footsteps, muted by her panic. She screamed against Rhett’s hand again, as loud as she could, and it was shameful. She wasn’t someone who needed saving. She was supposed to be the one who did the saving, supposed to be brave and fearless and invincible. But she saw a flash of red hair cutting through the brush, and all she could feel was a crushing relief because Alex was here. Alex was here, and Cass would be safe because Alex wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

The hand covering her mouth vanished, but Cass had only a moment to bask in the relief of it before something cold pressed against her temple. Even without the sharpness actually being driven in, the mere presence of the metal against her skin hurt. She didn’t understand it for a moment. Not until she remembered what Alex and Teagan had told her about fae and iron, about how there were metals made to kill her. Cass froze all at once, terrified that any continued struggle might make that blade find its home in her skull.

Rhett spoke; she felt the vibration of his voice rise up from his chest, like a dragon growling into the darkness. Her heart stuttered, because how had he known about that? How did he know about Kuma? Her eyes darted to Alex, fear suffocating her just as much as the hand gripping her throat. If Alex knew, would she leave Cass here? Would she walk away the same way everyone always had? 

“How many people have you killed?” She ground out, her voice distorted by the lack of glamour and strained by the hand around her throat. “You want to — want to talk about hurting people? You’re the one with the knife.”

Avoidance. It was a good way to lie without lying. Cass had always been so good at that.

—

There was a breath of a second where Alex found herself unable to move. She didn't trust herself to move. Every muscle in her body was already tensed as she watched the pained, contorted expression on Cass's face and the way Rhett seemed almost amused by it. Her arrival seemed to be more an annoyance than anything else and she wasn't sure she had ever felt so much anger coursing through her. It took everything in her to not snarl and pounce the moment she saw him, but maybe he didn't know. 

How could Rhett know that Cass was a superhero? How could he know that she spent her nights looking for people to help? She was good, maybe if he knew that, it'd make a difference. She wanted so badly for it to make a difference.

It was naive. Alex knew as much. Without the beard, there was no hiding the determined look on his face. There was a stubbornness in the tightness of his jaw that she recognized too well and even his touch was hurting Cass. “You're not doing anyone any favors here,” she spat, “Cass is good. She saves people and picks up litter... Doesn't look like you bothered to ask that though.” 

Because Alex knew that when he happened upon her, Cass hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary. She was at the cave, probably about to get it all set up for their date night. She wasn't hurting anybody and here he was, holding her tightly in his grip like she was a thing that needed to be put down. He wouldn't even say her name. Her fists curled into balls at her side. “I don't need a man to tell me anything about my girl,” she barked out, “I know everything I need to know about Cass and she's good.” 

'Unlike you,' she thought bitterly. 

But then the iron blade was pressing into Cass's temple and Alex knew this was useless. That look in Rhett's eyes reminded her too much of her father's. There was no reasoning with that look and suddenly all the anger she had finally allowed herself to feel towards her parents had a convenient outlet. 

Alex let the green backpack slide off her shoulder and into the mess of fallen leaves on the ground. She thought of warning the warden this was his last chance to get away unscathed, but a warning was more kindness than Rhett deserved. Even with her true face, stony as it was, Alex could see the fear in her glowing eyes and her voice was so strained. He did that. 

She didn't let her eyes leave Rhett as she focused on the shift. Alex had been practicing and even had some success when it came to tracking down Gael with Ren, but she always closed her eyes when she pictured her own shift. She found she couldn't do that now and her glare remained trained on Rhett as she focused on the feelings in her body. She felt the ground beneath her boots and concentrated on how it felt when it was the forest floor beneath her paws. She imagined Rhett as the moose, muscles and sinew pulling apart beneath her claws and teeth. She remembered that feeling of connection that came with being part of a pack and how she felt more connected to Cass than any of the werewolves she knew. 

Alex tuned into how the werewolf in her felt when it was protecting Alan and she felt the claws emerging from her fingers. It stung lightly in the way they ripped from her skin, but it felt almost natural now, like slipping out of her sports bra at the end of a long day. Her bones creaked under her and red tufts of fur emerged from her skin, but icy blue eyes stayed trained on the warden, as if she could pounce mid shift if he so much as moved another inch to hurt Cass. 

She stood taller once her bones all shifted into place and drool was already hanging from angry jowls as she snarled at the warden. One last chance, the wolf thought. If her mark moved a muscle, she would tear out his gut and leave him there on the forest floor. 

—

“I don’t kill people, I kill abominations. I kill killers. S’what I was made for.” Rhett’s expression was callous, his heart unsympathetic to the claims that the nymph in his grasp had done good things in its life. That didn’t matter, that didn’t make up for the bad. Hell, it didn’t even make up for the potential bad, as far as he was concerned. That was what he’d been taught. They’d all do bad, given enough time. It wasn't their fault, not entirely. It was just in their nature. But that didn’t mean he had to sit by and let it happen. And he wouldn’t, not if he could help it. Not ever. 

There was something about Alex’s body language that felt threatening, and soon enough, the warden was made to see why. Ah. Well… that was… a surprise. His eyes narrowed, his grip on the fae tightening. He didn’t have a lot of experience fighting werewolves, or at least… not shifted ones. He knew a bite from one would be his undoing, if it didn’t kill him. Which it seemed like Alex kind of wanted to do. Couldn’t blame her. Didn’t change anything, except that he’d have to try and kill her as well. 

Hey, at least then maybe the news wouldn’t make it back to Alan. Silver linings. 

The werewolf was staring him down like he’d be an easy meal, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what he looked like to the supernatural things he killed. Hm. Wasn’t really food for thought. To the matter at hand—Rhett wrenched his arm up beneath the oread’s chin to hold its head in place so he could drive the blade into its temple, but he’d barely pierced the soft, thin space between rocky plates when the werewolf adjacent to him leaped forward, claws reaching out and slashing across his face, massive digits hooking around his head and ripping him away from the nymph. His blade did find purchase, but it was in the top of the fae’s shoulder, digging deep before his grip on it yanked it back out as he was thrown to the forest floor. He screamed, not out of fear but out of anger, feeling the adrenaline dump in his system as he wrestled with the beast atop him, trying to avoid a bite from those slobbering jaws.

—

Abominations. Killers. The words were hurled out in a way that was so matter of fact, not even spoken to Cass. Like she wasn’t worth speaking to at all, like she was nothing. She thought of the nymphs back on the island who’d never seen her as anything more than an inconvenience, of the kids she’d met throughout her ‘adventures’ as a homeless teen who were lost and traumatized just like she was and didn’t know how to get away from that without using someone else as a stepping stone. She thought of Kuma, of the look on her face when she’d finally seen Cass in her true form, of the fear in her eyes when she spat out the word monster instead of her name and told her never to come back. 

So many people, throughout her life, had treated her like she was nothing at all. She’d been a problem in the making in Hawai’i, a ticking timebomb whose eruption no one had wanted to be in the blast zone of. After, when she’d found herself alone on the mainland, she’d been largely ignored. Homeless kids were hard to look at, after all. They made people feel ways they didn’t like feeling, and it was so much easier for someone to avert their gaze than it was to do anything to help. Kuma hadn’t been a bad person, either, not really. She’d been afraid, but not malicious. Cass had just been a little too much for her, the same way she was a little too much for everyone. 

But she wasn’t too much for Alex. 

Alex didn’t look at her like she was nothing, didn’t avert her eyes. In fact, Alex looked at her like she was everything. She looked angry right now, but not at Cass. Never at Cass. Instead, she was angry for Cass. She was furious on the oread’s behalf, and how many people had ever been that? How many people would have stood up for her against a man with a knife and a terrible certainty that what he was doing was right? 

It didn’t remove the blade from where it rested against her skull. It didn’t ease the grip holding her in place. But if that knife found its home in her head, if she died on the forest floor just feet away from the cave where she would have been safe, at least she’d die seen. She’d never thought she’d have that before.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked out. Not to Rhett. She wasn’t sorry to him at all. But to Alex. That she was here, that she had to see this even if Cass was grateful for it. There was more she wanted to say, too, but it seemed cruel, almost. To say the only other thing in her head and die right after would be terrible. Alex would never be the same.

But… hope sprung up in her chest as Alex’s skin began to ripple. Cass knew she’d been working with Alan, training to shift without the moon, but she hadn’t known how far she’d come with it. She never would have blamed Alex if the shift hadn’t come, of course, never would have held it against her. But her bones were cracking and her body was changing and maybe things would be all right after all.

Or maybe they wouldn’t.

One hand moved under her chin, holding her in place. Cass struggled anyway, letting out a scream as she kicked and swung her elbows and did anything she could to make the target harder to hit. She felt the knife pierce her head, and she closed her eyes and waited for it to go the rest of the way through, but it didn’t. Alex was there. 

There was only a heartbeat of relief before the pain hit. For a moment, she hadn’t even realized that the knife landed someplace else. She was so happy to be alive that it took her a moment to process the knife in her shoulder, buried to the hilt. The moment her mind caught up, the pain hit. With the hands holding her in place gone, there was nothing holding her upright, either, and Cass staggered forward, falling down to her knees. 

The knife had been yanked messily from her shoulder when Rhett fell backwards, leaving nothing to staunch the bleeding. The blood had followed the knife like a fountain when it was removed, and was gushing pretty heavily now. Cass moved to put a hand on top of it, because wasn’t that what they always did in the movies? But her arm hurt from where it had been wrenched, and any pressure applied made it so much worse. The blood seeped through her rocky fingers, staining stone. 

She felt cold. And that was funny, wasn’t it? She didn’t think she’d ever been cold before. How could she? There was magma running through her veins, lava pumping through her. Volcanoes didn’t get cold, and neither did Cass. So why was she shivering now?

“Alex,” she gasped out, looking for the wolf. There was blood on the ground. Not all of it was hers. Fear gripped her by the throat. “Alex. I — Alex, are you hurt?”

—

The furious gaze of icy blue eyes never left the warden. They couldn't—- not while Cass was so firmly in his grip. Alex felt a low growl rumble through her. He regarded Cass like she was nothing and it all clicked into place. Nothing was ever black and white and men like Rhett, like her father, were too stubborn to see anything else. It was its own form of evil and she knew he wouldn't let Cass go. As the warden's arm began to move, the werewolf sprung forward claws first toward him. 

Alex dug her claws firmly into the side of his head and dragged down his face, clinging onto him as her momentum sent them tumbling to the ground. Too much of the blood she smelled in the air wasn't his and it sent a guttural snarl through the wolf as jowls hung over the warden's face. Some part of her wanted to let go of control and tear into his throat. It'd be so easy even as Rhett wrestled beneath her. Both the wolf and person in her understood one thing, this man threatened the pack— her family. 

The warden wrestled beneath her and Alex rustled atop of him keeping sharp claws at the ready. Several blows were delivered to her sides before the warden managed a shove that sent her stumbling back with her claws dragging as he pushed her away from his head, leaving shallow claw marks down his chest. It ignited more of a fighting instinct in her, more feral than anything trained, and the pulsing in his throat was something of a temptation. The coppery scent of his blood already coated the air and he was beginning to look like more of a meal. And some instinct in her knew that he deserved it. 

But then the sound of her name came out as a gasp and Alex was pulled back to what was important. Cass. The werewolf bellowed and put all her strength into a swipe at the warden's upper leg. More blood splattered onto the werewolf's coat and she knew the warden wouldn't be moving for a while. Some bitter part of her hoped he bled out there. 

The werewolf dashed towards Cass and stood in front of her protectively. Alex grabbed the fallen iron knife with her still clawed hand and waited a beat, panting heavily as she watched the warden to make sure they were safe to run. 

As her breathing slowed, Alex relaxed back into feeling like herself. She needed to help Cass now, she was bleeding and it was pooling all around her. The sight made her sick but her bones shifted back into place and her form turned back into something more human. The air was chilly against her skin, but she still felt like she was on fire. 

“Cass,” she murmured, “I'm fine— I'm...“ Alex looked over Cass and there was so much blood. Fuck. She needed to get help. “He hurt you,” she said solemnly, grabbing for the bag that had fallen to the ground and throwing on an oversized t-shirt. They needed to get far away from Rhett.

She knelt down beside Cass eyes still watching the fallen warden. Alex extended her arm and braced herself to take on Cass's weight. ”Come on,“ she said, “We have to get out of here— I'll take care of you, ok? You're going to be ok.“ She had to be ok. 

—

For the briefest of moments, there was a flash of fear in the warden’s eyes. For a moment, terror gripped him, plunging him into an proverbial ice bath and delivering a shock to his system that woke parts of him that’d been dormant for decades. He didn’t beg, though, no—he only grit his teeth, set his jaw, and closed those useless eyes as he hiked his legs up to his chest and delivered a two-footed kick that knocked the werewolf away from him. The claws that raked across his chest and stomach pulled a groan from him, but he quickly tensed again as he waited for the beast to return. He couldn’t muster the strength to rise from the forest floor, and just as quickly as that instinctual drive to stay alive had descended upon him, it fled and left him empty once more. He coughed, blood staining the backs of his teeth, and then he felt the thing tearing into his leg. It ripped through denim, muscle, and bone with ease, and the pain was blinding. Truly blinding. What little sight remained in his right eye flashed with white and all he could do was inhale sharply, feeling that he might die. Was this it? At the mercy of a werewolf? Motherfucker. 

But then the monster was gone, retreating to aid the fae he’d stabbed, and Rhett let out a low, miserable moan. He tried to pick himself up, but his leg was ripped apart and the wounds on his face were bleeding into his eyes and everything hurt. All he could do was lay there, listening to them speak, promising to take care of one another. It made him sick to his stomach, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He was down, and unless someone came to get him like the werewolf was there to aid the fae, he’d probably bleed out. 

He waited until their uneven footsteps retreated before he dared move again, lifting his ass off the dirt with a pained grunt and digging his phone out of his back pocket. Holding the device between his teeth, the warden summoned the last of his strength to drag himself over to the nearest tree and prop his back against it, spitting out the phone and retching from the pain along the way. Once he was as settled as he was going to get, he reached for the phone and unlocked it, staring at the screen with exceptionally blurry, reddened vision. His thoughts were disjointed and growing more so by the minute—the clock was ticking, he knew. He thought about contacting Emilio, but… no.

His thumb found Parker’s name instead, and he pressed the call button. There was only a brief wait before the other warden picked up, and Rhett wasted no time with pleasantries. 

“Werewolf got me. Probably got ‘bout twenty minutes afore I bleed out. Bring supplies. It’s safe now. Send you the coordinates in a sec. Somewhere near the edge of the Flat.” He didn’t even wait for the other man to respond before hanging up, looking up his longitude and latitude and sending the number his friend’s way. If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely going to have to spring for that eyepatch. He was pretty sure lefty was toast based on feeling alone, but didn’t have the stomach to reach up and touch it. The phone slipped from his hand then, head leaning back against the trunk of the skinny tree, eyes closing again as he focused on keeping his heart rate down. 

Hellfire, that hadn’t gone to plan.

—

Black spots danced around the edge of her vision, and wasn’t it strange how everything hurt when she’d only been stabbed in one place? There was just that — bleeding more than she’d thought it would — and the broken arm, but wasn’t it silly for those two things to knock her down this hard? She thought of the comics she’d read, the movies she’d seen. In media, this kind of thing would have never been enough to keep someone down. People on TV got stabbed and finished the fight before they realized it had happened at all. People in comics lost limbs and stayed on their feet. It was misleading, she thought; none of it ever told you how much things hurt.

Alex’s face was blurry in front of her, those black spots trying as hard as they could to blot it out entirely. Cass squinted around them, letting out a small sigh when she came into focus. Alex didn’t look hurt. There was blood on her, but Cass couldn’t trace it back to any injuries. More likely, the blood wasn’t hers. She wondered how much of it was Rhett and how much of it had come from her. If she weren’t so out of it, she might have asked, might have said something about how it was almost romantic to see so much of her on her girlfriend’s skin. “You’re so beautiful,” she said instead, the words a quiet breath of air.

“I’m okay,” she murmured softly, reaching up to twist a strand of Alex’s hair around her finger absently. It hurt, but it was worth it, anyway. Alex’s hair was always so pretty, and Cass hadn’t touched it enough. She should have always had it twisted around her finger like this, should have kept it there. “I’m just kind of tired.” She knew you weren’t really supposed to sleep at a time like this, because that was always a dramatic point in every show, too. Someone was bleeding, someone closed their eyes. The episode faded to black, the words to be continued flashed across the screen. The audience waited weeks or months to find out if those eyes would open again, or the show was canceled and they never found out at all. Either way, it was simpler to experience it from your sofa than it was to live it. When this screen faded to black, Cass thought, she might never even see the words.

Alex reached down and helped her up, and it hurt, but Alex wanted her to walk so she walked. Or… maybe walked was a generous term. She was dragged, she was half-carried, she was draped over Alex and guilty for making her girlfriend do the majority of the work here when she’d done so much already. She stared at her feet, tried to get them to move. One foot in front of the other. One foot. The other. God, had her feet always been so heavy? Had it always been so cold here?

She faltered, tripped, would have fallen long ago if not for Alex holding her up. The black spots were bigger now, the world felt darker than it ought to. One foot stopped in front of the other, and she couldn’t lift it again. Her knees buckled. 

The screen faded to black, and she was right — she couldn’t read the words there.