#I was rly rusty BUT IT FELT GOOD TO GET IT DONE

[kumanaru]

WASSHOI!!✨🏮⛩🎊

[angstmatsuscenarios]

How about an Ichimatsu sickfic? I believe that’s within the limits of the rules. I dunno, maybe he tried to play it off as nothing, but stuff happens? I’ll just leave the rest to you. I rly like this blog and I’m excited to see the ask box open again!

Sickfic is not only welcome but also my forte, hehe. Here is some Ichi sickfic for you, hope you enjoy!

Warning for a brief mention of needles (drawing blood, very brief and non-graphic) under the cut:

At first Ichimatsu didn’t give much thought to the fatigue and sore throat he’d been suffering through all day--it had been annoying, but he figured it was probably just allergies, and had kept his face mask on the whole day. He’d felt lousy for the past couple of weeks, and figured it was nothing too bad.

By that night, though, he felt worse--he’d had no appetite at dinner, and it took nearly all of his energy to follow his brothers to the bathhouse. The soak in the hot water felt good to his aching muscles, but the walk home was excruciating, his legs trudging along slowly and his whole body shivering even though it wasn’t that cold out. When they finally got back home all he could do was crawl into the futon the second it was laid out and curl up in his spot, burying his face deep in the blankets.

“Does Ichimatsu seem okay to you?” he overheard Osomatsu ask the remaining brothers. 

“He looks rather pale, and he’s shaking…” Karamatsu noted, a hint of concern in his voice. “Perhaps he’s fallen ill?”

“Then we should force him to sleep in the other room,” Todomatsu asserted. “What if he’s contagious?”

“Have some heart for once, Todomatsu,” Choromatsu admonished him. “He’s wearing a mask, and besides, when has splitting us up ever stopped us from catching each other’s colds anyway?”

“I’m sure he’ll be okay!” Jyushimatsu said with assurance. “But he looks tired, we should let him rest.”

“Fine...but if we’re all coughing and sneezing by the next morning, don’t blame me,” Todomatsu replied curtly.

Ichimatsu would’ve chimed in with a “shut up and die, Todomatsu” had his throat not hurt so badly. Instead he hunkered down deeper in bed and closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep and hoping he’d feel better in the morning.

-----------

Mhhh….I feel horrible….

It was the first thought to flicker in Ichimatsu’s mind as he sluggishly came to the next morning. He felt truly miserable, it had been a long time since he’d ever felt this sick...if he had before, now that he thought of it. He was dripping in sweat and wracked with chills all at once, his throat burned more painfully than it ever had before, and he was aware of a dull ache in his side. Not to mention, he was exhausted.

He sat up, slowly, but that brought on a wave of dizziness that made him feel like laying right back down again. His temples pulsated with an awful headache, and he brought his hands up to rub his bleary eyes and will some of the wooziness to go away. It didn’t.

Dammit….guess it wasn’t just allergies after all….

He groaned, reluctantly crawling out from under the futon. He was alone in the room--he assumed his brothers had gotten up to go eat breakfast and had left him to rest. The thought of food suddenly made him feel nauseous, but as much as he wanted to just go straight back to sleep he knew he at least needed to get medicine.

He stood slowly, the room swaying and his head spinning. He shuffled on wobbly legs into the hallway, pressing his hand against the wall for support. Every step was grueling, requiring so much effort it caused sweat to bead up on his forehead. 

What...the hell...is wrong with me…?

He was close to the stairs, just a few more steps...he gingerly put one foot in front of the other, then again…

But suddenly his legs gave out on him, folding so that he hit the floor with a weak grunt. He leaned all his weight against the wall, unable to support himself, whimpering quietly as he rubbed the sore spot on his side. 

Something’s wrong...this isn’t just the flu, is it…?

“Ichimatsu-niisan!”

Ichimatsu had been so zoned out he didn’t notice Jyushimatsu thundering up the stairs until he was by his side, kneeling next to him with a worried expression on his face. 

“Are you okay? I heard a thud, did you fall?” Jyushimatsu asked, and although he wasn’t exactly shouting his voice was loud enough to Ichimatsu’s pounding head to make his ears ring.

“N-no...don’t feel good…” Ichimatsu managed to groan out a response, his throat stinging so badly it made his eyes water. 

Jyushimatsu frowned. “You look awful...look at your neck, your glands are really swollen. And you’re super pale…” 

Still rambling, Jyushimatsu helped Ichimatsu slowly back to his feet. Ichimatsu was just barely aware as his brother practically carried him back to the sextuplets’ room and tucked him back into bed. All the while he wore an anxious expression that was very unlike the sunny fifth son’s usual disposition.

“I’m gonna get Mom, okay?” Jyushimatsu said, lightly patting Ichimatsu’s head. “She’ll help you, she always knows what to do.”

Ichimatsu only managed a feeble moan in response, closing his eyes. He’d never been this miserable when sick before, and it scared him...even scarier was that he didn’t have the energy to be as scared as he probably should be. He could only hope his mother could help him, though he doubted he would be cured by her gentle touch and homemade soup.

What’s going on…?

----------

After hearing that Ichimatsu had nearly passed out, Matsuyo insisted on taking him to the doctor. He hated doctors, but he was so out-of-it that he simply put up with the poking and prodding and blood-taking without much fuss (that was a real sign of how sick he was--he didn’t put up a fight when he saw the needle, just turned his head in the other direction and kept his eyes shut tight when his blood was drawn).

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they received a diagnosis...but unfortunately, it was more serious than anticipated. According to the doctor Ichimatsu had mononucleosis. That explained why he’d felt so run-down for the last few weeks, and also why the glands in his neck were so swollen. The doctor went on to explain that it was the reason Ichimatsu’s side hurt, too--his spleen was swollen, a fact that thoroughly freaked him out, though the doctor said as long as he was careful not to injure his spleen and cause it to rupture the swelling would most likely go down sooner rather than later (the word “rupture” only induced more panic).  

There wasn’t much that could be done to treat mono, either--the most vital thing was rest. It could take weeks, even months, for someone to recover completely from mono, Ichimatsu discovered, and while it didn’t affect him too much since he had no job or school to worry about...the idea of being sick for so long was scary. He couldn’t imagine going more than a few days feeling this crappy, but weeks? Months?! Not to mention, it meant staying home and resting that whole time...he wasn’t much for leaving the house to begin with, but not be able to visit his cat friends in the alley, or join his brothers when they went to Chibita’s? He hated the thought of being excluded from all of that for who knew how long.

The doctor tried to be reassuring, insisting it was possible to have a speedier recovery as long as he took good care of himself, but all Ichimatsu felt was dread. It was awful news, he couldn’t even pretend there was a bright side to it. 

When Ichimatsu got home from the doctor, he’d found his brothers had set up a temporary room for him in the spare room. It wasn’t just that his mono was potentially contagious, but they insisted it would be easier for him to recuperate if he had peace and quiet while he rested. He wanted to call bull on that last claim, but was so tired that he just crawled right into his futon in his “new” room and went right to sleep without protest.

Days passed by. It wasn’t long before Ichimatsu started to feel bored and lonely. He felt marginally better than he had the first couple of days, but he was still nowhere near well, and the thought was depressing to him that he’d have a long time of feeling this way.  

He spent most of his time sleeping. He didn’t have the energy for much else. Sometimes his mother popped in to give him food (which he hardly ate—his throat hurt too much and his appetite was pretty much nonexistent), and other times one of his brothers would pay a quick visit (wearing a mask, not surprisingly). It was nice, but not the same as being with them like usual, and once they left he felt sad again. 

Gradually, though, Jyushimatsu began spending more and more time with him. He’d sit at Ichimatsu’s bedside for hours, playing a game or reading a manga or sorting his baseball cards—activities he didn’t always possess much patience for, being as active as he was. He made light conversation with Ichimatsu, though kept it to a minimum, knowing Ichimatsu wasn’t much for talking. It was the quietest and most still Jyushimatsu had ever been.

Ichimatsu was grateful for the company, but he felt guilty as well. Surely this wasn’t what Jyushimatsu felt like doing—this had to be cutting into his baseball time, which he treasured. Ichimatsu didn’t want both of them to be trapped inside all the time, not when Jyushimatsu was well and could do whatever he wanted.

“Jyushi,” Ichimatsu spoke up one afternoon, his voice rusty. Jyushimatsu had been poring over a baseball book, but perked up at the sound of Ichimatsu’s voice. “You don’t have to stay with me all the time...you can go outside and play baseball or whatever you want. I feel bad if you’re staying in all the time because of me.”

Jyushimatsu offered a bright smile. “But, Ichimatsu-niisan, I am doing what I want!” he insisted, crawling closer to his brother. “It must suck being sick in bed for so long. I wouldn’t want to be alone all the time if it were me. Besides, I have my most fun when I’m with you—even if you can’t do much now, I like being with you. And baseball isn’t the same without you there, either.”

“Really…?” Ichimatsu wasn’t so sure about that. How much fun could he be?

“Really!” Jyushimatsu nodded enthusiastically. “You’re my best friend, I’ll always stay by your side! And it won’t be like this forever either, sooner or later you’ll recover and we can get right back to playing! So just keep your chin up, okay, Niisan?”

Ichimatsu blinked, just a little surprised...not to mention touched. Jyushimatsu really did just want to spend time with him, even if that time consisted of doing nothing more than hanging out in the same room together while he slept. Jyushimatsu really was his best friend, and even though he still felt terrible that realization made him feel just a little better.

“Thank you, Jyushi...I’ll try.”

“You’ll be back to yourself in no time!” Jyushimatsu enthused with a grin that made Ichimatsu believe it. “Anyway, why don’t I read to you from my book until you fall asleep?”

“I’d like that. Thanks.”

With that, Jyushimatsu settled down right beside Ichimatsu and started reading, angling the book so they could both see inside. Ichimatsu wasn’t particularly interested in baseball facts and stats, but it was comforting being read to, and Jyushimatsu’s surprisingly soft voice soon lulled him into sleep.

It would take time for him to get better, but with Jyushimatsu by his side, maybe the road to recovery wouldn’t be as awful as it seemed.

[microsoftedgy69]

Goliath, part 1

[prologue]

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering tremoloTangible [TT] at 11:11 -- TG: yo TT: Hey, what’s up? TG: have u checked up on our tl lately TT: Depends. What century? TG: ours TT: Then no. I haven’t been there in several months. TT: Why?

TG: k so TG: the carapaces are still there right TG: and i sometimes check up on em to make sure theyre doin ok. get enough to eat etc TG: but theyve all been losin their shit lately and i mean its kinda hard to talk to em properly but i dont wanna beat around the bush here so im not gettin into that TG: theres been some concerning stuff happening on our good old earth al TG: my alternian is p rusty and my translator gave me some weird results here n there but im gonna send u an article abt it and trust that ur language pack can handle it -- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] has sent file ______.png --

You don’t have blood that can turn cold. You don’t have breath that can stutter in your chest. But some years ago, you were a human kid, and in this very moment, you remember perfectly how all these things felt.

TG: al

You reread the article. In your mind, your non-existent blood goes from freezing to boiling. You almost forget to switch your language pack to English when you reply to them.

TG: u still there TT: Yes. TT: Sorry. TT: She is turning Earth into a military base. TG: yeah thats what i was getting from it too TT: Hmm. TG: i dont like what that prob means 4 the carapaces TG: cant imagine shell give a shit about em yfm TT: Yeah. TG: idk abt ur part of the world TG: u said the apartment is underwater anyway aint it TT: It is, yes. TT: It’s still… I don’t know. TT: This might be silly. TT: But it’s still my home. TG: its not silly TG: this whole thing feels wrong TT: Yeah. TG: sooo TG: what do we do abt this TT: What? TG: we should b able to do something about this right TT: You wanna stop the Condesce? TG: ppl in other timelines have done it TT: That is correct. TG: we could do it TG: right TT: I have drafted a plan or two in the past. TG: o have u TT: I wasn’t sure if you were interested. TG: im pretty interested these days TG: the others not so much tbh but i cant blame em TG: theyre worried bc u know. i happen to be a lot less immortal than her or you TT: I’ve planned for that. TG: lmaooo TT: We’ll get you immortal and kill the Condesce, Rox. TG: man u rly are him huh TT: Told you.

Your name is Alan Strider. Sometimes, when you jerk awake at night, you are sure, one hundred percent sure, that Her Imperious Condescension is not done with you yet. Sometimes, when you sit on the deck of the boat you live on, recovering from nightmares, you think that she might come for you one day.

When that happens, you make plans.

You prepare.

It’ll be you who comes for her.

It’s you who’s not done yet.

i wanna hunt like david. i wanna kill me a giant man.

Roxy looks good when they come to meet you by your storage unit in Brazil. Grown up, you think, and determined. Nevertheless, something flickers over their face when you show them what's inside; when they lay eyes on the dismembered imperial drone you stole from your home timeline. You can relate. Your face doesn't show as much, but you feel the same every time you think about it.

You sit on scrap metal and talk about your plans. You have several, for different scenarios, and you accept what Roxy wants to change about them. The phrase Are you sure you want to do this is uttered back and forth a couple of times, before you both understand that yes. You're sure.

The way you end up agreeing on is simple enough -- if it works, you end up with a dead Condesce, a conditionally immortal Roxy, and a destroyed spare body of yours. If it doesn't, you have a list of other plans you can resort to. Stakes are high, but you've thought this through.

It's worth it.

So, you and Roxy get to work. You have to program the drone to go back home to mommy -- step one of the plan is both to find out her whereabouts, and to start coaxing her back to the planet she's having rebuilt. It might take a while, so it'll give you both time to… well, to gather up your things and make arrangements like pet care in your absence and telling your respective friends what's going on, you guess. You're not looking forward to this part of your masterplan, but you barely have time to think about it.

Anything that has you accessing an imperial drone's software is still prone to give you flashbacks bad enough to make your mechanical hands shake, so it's good that you have Roxy by your side this time. Practiced as you might be, they are still way better at this than you. You give them pointers to where they’ll find the parts of the programming you need to hijack, just to speed up the whole process, then you leave them be and go do your own work.

Roxy laugh-scoffed at the way your notes concerning the drone looked. When you disassembled it, you made yourself a map so you could put it back together, but it doesn’t look like something anyone else could ever decipher. It works for you, though. Part for part, the heap of metal starts resembling the huge beasts that almost killed the both of you on numerous occasions again.

“You wanna look over this before I finish it off?” Roxy asks eventually.

“I’m sure you did great,” you say, but you want to look over it anyway. You don’t get shivers down your spine now that you’re a robot, but you feel the sense of cold and dread in the back of your mind, going over the very program that made your lives hell, that both saved you and killed Dirk. Roxy reaches for your hand, and you take it. You exchange another We’re really doing this, huh? look, but nobody says it out loud anymore. You say, “Looks good.”

You captchalogue the finished drone, then transportalize back to Roxy’s part of your home planet, and release it. It’ll find its way back to the Condesce, and then promptly self-destruct, leaving in its wake only a message to goad her back to Earth. Once she’s made it back here, you’ll move on to the next part of the plan.

Until then, for now, you will wait.

Roxy hugs you before they disappear back to a different timeline’s Barcelona, and you disappear back to your boat in a different timeline’s Indian Ocean. Only once you are home and alone do you allow yourself to actually feel something.

Everything from Roxy messaging you to your feet hitting the deck of your yacht again happened without pause, your mind going on autopilot. Something was happening, so something had to be done in response, your plans had to be set in motion, there was no time to think about any of this. No time to fully realize what’s going on.

You stand there in the scorching evening sun of your current timezone, stare out at the horizon, and wait for the fear to come.

What hits you instead is cold, calculating, ready-to-maim anger.

You are not scared of her. Not when you know exactly what you’re going to do, where, how, and when you’re going to do it, to bring her down. You’ve been scared your whole life, and it’s enough, now. It’s enough. She’s taken your family from you, your childhood, your friends, your life as a human kid. If after all she’s put you through there is one person who has the right to destroy your home planet as well, it sure as shit should be you.

You square your shoulders, flex your hands, and refocus. You’ll have to talk to Alma to make sure you can time this coup just right to be back home for his big day.

And before that, after months and months of fighting it, you’ll have to tell your boyfriend that you’re doing the exact thing you promised him not to do.

There’s no going back now. You’ll make whatever sacrifices you need to end it once and for all.

[zayashmaya]

Gods and Monsters - 7 - Love.

Marvus x Reader ll Tagora x Reader; SFWish (mention of pailing in the beginning)

More chapters here!

You meet Marvus’s lusus, and Tagora handles you in typical Tagora fashion.

this chapter was inspired by the most magnificent set of tweets to ever exist, as well as my partner in crime @compositecreature :3

Look at you kids, you know you're the coolest 

The world is yours and you can't refuse it 

Seen so much, you could get the blues 

But that don't mean that you should abuse it 

Though it's enough just to make you go crazy, crazy, crazy 

But you get ready, you get all dressed up 

To go nowhere in particular 

Back to work or the coffee shop It don't matter because it's enough 

To be young and in love

- Lana Del Rey

Bathtime was calling for your filthy body.

You had been eager to see the ocean, but something steered you towards sleep instead. The night had been rife with cat-fights and debauchery, and when you caught a glimpse of the enormous ablution trap, you were hit with a wave of exhaustion that drained you of any motivation to visit the beach.

Marvus was busying himself with removing his jewelry while you turned on the shower spray, letting the water heat up on its own as you padded over to him. You took it upon yourself to wet a nearby wash cloth with the intention to clean off his facepaint. As you stood on your tip toes and struggled to reach over the sink, Marvus grinned and taunted you for your height.

“Ain’t got no ladders round here babe, u gonna b climbin me like a tree to get anywhere.”

“Hilarious. How’s the weather up there, by the way?”

“Feelin a lil chilly axxually, mite need a warm rusty to help me w dat.”

You rolled your eyes and smiled, wringing out excess water from the cloth. Marvus looked down at you with a teasing smirk, and it might have looked attractive if not for the comical mess on his face.

“You look like an abstract painting,” you snarked and patted the countertop. “Get me up on here so I can clean that paint off you.”

Marvus quirked a brow at your command, yet obliged you all the same, sitting you down before him and patiently letting you run the wet cloth along his face. You dug your fingers into his mussed up hair to keep it out of the way, focusing diligently on your task while Marvus watched you with amusement.

The paint gradually gave way to neutral gray, and even his eyebrows darkened to their natural black color. You finished off your task with one last swipe along the long, graceful arch of his nose, silently admiring how long his lashes appeared while he kept his eyes closed.

You realized you were staring, much to your embarrassment.

“All done,” you weakly said, tossing the dirtied cloth into the sink, scooting closer to the edge of the countertop in preparation for absconding from this intimate proximity, until you noticed the dark circles under his eyes. You reached out to run a thumb along the evidence of his exhaustion. “Look at this … don’t tell me you’re overworking yourself."

A flash of hesitation flashed across his face. Yet it was gone as quick as it had appeared, replaced with his normal easygoing demeanor. He gently grasped your wrist and moved your questing touch away. “Ain’t nethin to worry bout,” he said, pressing a kiss to your fingertips.

“Liar,” you asserted, stubbornly glaring at him. “I got rid of the facepaint, and yet it seems you’re still hiding behind a mask. You’re lying, and I know it.”

Yet again you managed to shock him into a state of silence, his eyes wide and focused on you during your short tirade. “Damn mama u rly gunna roast me like that?”

“Damn straight.” You took back your hand and crossed your arms, entirely unintimidated by how much larger than you he still was, his arms on either side of you as he leaned over you. “If that’s what it takes to get some honesty out of you.”

“Whoaaa, i don’t remember the last time sumone talked to me this way. 'Specially not a lowblood.” His hands found their way to your hips, and he grinned at you with hooded eyes. “Dat shit b hot, like some kinda pale porn feelz jam. U gettin freaky w me rite now, babe?”

You covered your eyes momentarily and sighed. “No, Marvus. This isn’t a solicitation.”

“Aww :o( “

“Look, all I’m saying is, I notice these things about you. And if there’s no one around to tell you to take better care of yourself, then it may as well be me.”

“Oooh? ;o) “

”Not pale porn.”

“Now who b lyin … “

You were starting to feel a blush bloom across your cheeks. “What did I say about teasing me?” you murmured, bashfully looking away while he pulled you closer to him. With his handsome sculpted body in sight, you were quickly reminded that a platonic relationship with Marvus was out of the question. “Besides,” you continued, sliding your hands up the wide expanse of his chest towards his neck to tilt his face towards you. “ — would a moirail do this?”

You brought him down to your level and planted your lips on his, coaxing his mouth open with a teasing lick as he hummed into the kiss. He effortlessly gathered you in his arms while you made out and brought you both under the running shower spray, reluctantly letting you break off the kiss when you reminded him that you were still filthy.

Everything had been chaste enough, for the first few minutes. You managed to get your hair rinsed and pointedly avoided staring at Marvus’s gorgeous body. The same could not be said for him, however. It all started with his hip bumping against yours as he reached over to grab a bottle, and an offer to help you wash off with something that looked like a mix of a giant beetle and a loofa.

Innocent touches soon led to full-blown groping — you just knew Marvus wouldn’t be able to resist — and eventually you found yourself pressed up against the shower wall with his bulge pumping slowly into your sensitive cunt, overstimulated and yet still craving more of him.

By the time you were clean and swaying on your feet like a sleep-deprived child, Marvus had insisted you stay for the night — or rather, the day — and you couldn’t find the energy to fight him on his impeccable hospitality. So you thanked him with a tired smile and huddled up in the corner of the couch, adorned with a fluffy towel and ready to pass out the moment your head hit the cushion. But Marvus crouched down in front of you with a stupefied expression, and asked, "The fxxk ya doin, baby?”

“Um … going to sleep?”

He blinked at you, still not understanding. “Iz dis a human thang? Sleepin on a couch?”

“Technically we sleep on beds — not that you’d know what that is.”

“Well i ain’t got any o that shiz but i got a slammin cocoon so.” You let out a startled yelp as he scooped you up in his arms. “U coming w me, lil mama.”

And that was how you ended up falling asleep atop Marvus’s very inviting bosom, smiling contently as the sopor slime soothed your aches away.

-

Marvus had a busy schedule the following day, so unfortunately he was gone by the time you woke up. You blearily rubbed your eyes and stretched, letting loose all the tension in your frame as you looked out to see the sun’s last rays disappearing behind the horizon. Seems like he really doesn’t get that much rest if leaving before sundown was a regular thing for him.

You took a quick moment to freshen up in the bathroom, and after one final glance at the painting tainted with Marvus’s genetic material, you began lazily scooping up your scattered clothing and redressed. The weight of your palmhusk stashed away in a discrete pocket reminded you to check your messages, and sure enough, you had quite a few of them.

Stelsa had texted you about her safe return last night as promised, Chixie hit you up with an invite to a show later, and Marvus sent his apologies for not being able to stick around.

— couldn’t wake u up cuz u were lookin too cute but there’s food downstairs if u want

— n i got a guy parked outside to take u anywhere

— b seein u sumtime soon bby thx fr the amazing time ;o)

You smiled shyly to yourself, hoping that he truly wanted to see you again.

Your good mood promptly disappeared when you realized you had several texts and missed calls from Tagora. You knew exactly what he wanted from you, and you were too hungry to deal with it right now.

Stashing away your palmhusk for later, you made your way downstairs and spent a few minutes looking around the spacious floor for the kitchen. The clicks of your heels echoed through the hallway as you wandered, glancing into spare rooms and admiring the beautiful graffiti decorating the walls.

One particular room caught your eye — a shimmer of aquamarine blue in your periphery steered you inside, and you were met with a gigantic in-ground pool that curved beyond a translucent wall fixture, forming a long U-shape. To the right was a spectacular view of what you believed to be a portion of the backyard deck, the entire wall replaced with floor-to-ceiling window panes. The moonlight from outside filtered into the room, illuminating the glistening pool water to an ethereal color.

It was stunning, to say the least. You kneeled at the edge of the pool and gently dipped your fingertips into the water. The temperature was lukewarm and pleasant, stirring up the urge to take a swim. Maybe you could coerce Marvus the next time you visited his hive.

As you pondered on the future, something seemed to bump against your fingertips. You furrowed your brow and felt around for the obstruction, feeling something smooth and uniform taking shape.

The strange object pushed gently against your touch, moving higher and higher until something white emerged from the water. You quickly retracted your hand and leaned over to get a closer look —

And the water bursted upward like a geyser, splashing you as you fell back onto your ass with an indignant shriek. You protected your face with your hands and curled inward, fearing what horrors you managed to rile up in the depths of this pool.

A loud chitter soon followed, and when you lowered your shaking hands, you were suddenly face to face with a white dolphin, its razor sharp teeth on display as its gaping maw puffed air inches away from you.

You let loose a scream and scuttled backwards from the creature, losing your grip on the wet floor and careening onto your side.

The dolphin chirped at you and tilted its head as you came down from your panicked breathing. You stared back at it, wide-eyed and frozen in fear, until you realized that the beast was actually smiling at you, bobbing innocently in the water and patiently waiting for your next move.

Mirthful Messiahs, this was Marvus’s lusus!

You clambered onto hands and knees and crawled back to the dolphin, hoping you looked every bit as pathetic as you felt. “Oh my gosh that was so rude of me I’m so sorry! It’s so nice to meet you my name is — “

You were cut off by a jovial chirp, and the lusus bumped his snout on your forehead. Thank goodness, he didn’t appear to be as horrid as Zebruh’s custodian. Judging by how kind Marvus was, you always assumed his lusus would have led by example. You giggled and carefully petted his head.

“I hope I didn’t frighten you — “ The dolphin let loose a string of eek eek eek’s and shook his head. “ — no, please, don’t be sorry, I reacted like an idiot. I’m a friend of Marvus’s, by the way! Maybe he told you already?”

“Eek eek! Eeeee!” Another nose bump, followed by a nuzzle to your cheek.

You cupped your cheek and blushed. “I’ll take that as a good sign … “ Your conversation was cut short by a low grumbling, and you peevishly smiled. “Do you mind pointing me to the kitchen? I accidentally wandered in here because I got lost.”

The lusus nodded, and instead of tipping his head toward a direction, he slowly emerged from the water’s depths. You stood up and backed away to give him some room, and you nearly gasped at how enormous he was. Sure enough, the lusus was a dolphin, and yet he sported a pair of dinosaur-like back legs that allowed him to stand upright, trailing his tail behind him as he offered a flipper to you.

You smiled gratefully and held onto the proffered flipper as the lusus led you out of the room, stopping briefly for a moment so he could show you were the spare towels were stored away. You grabbed one on the way out and wiped yourself down as you let him guide you, eyeing the trail of water the lusus left in his wake and wondered if it was okay to leave it all over the floor like that.

The kitchen was as grand as the rest of the hive, a circular space with a towering ceiling from which hung a massive chandelier, its multicolored crystalline lights casting rainbow beams everywhere they could. Everything was as large as Marvus said it would be, but thankfully his lusus caught on to your short stature, and took over the task of getting you well-fed. Within minutes you had a whole five course meal set out in front of you at the table, and you couldn’t stop thanking the kind dolphin with tears in your eyes before he ruffled your hair with a flipper and trilled a happy tune.

When was the last time you had this much food at your disposal? Your heart swelled with love for your generous friends as you stuffed your face with questionable meats, deciding that the delicious taste outweighed their strange appearance. The lusus kept you company all the while, sitting across the table from you and chowing down on some sort of large aquatic animal laid out on a giant dish.

You spent your breakfast in amicable discussion, regaling him with tales of your adventures, your worries about the future, and your ever-growing homesickness. You don’t know why, but you felt like you could trust this dolphin with anything. In turn, he eek'd up a storm of stories about Marvus as a wiggler, and how good of a child he had been. You realized, then, how suitable a dolphin was for Marvus — his lusus chirped with as much flare and gusto as the showman, waving his flippers around and smiling all the while. Two whimsical yet powerful individuals. A match made in heaven.

Unfortunately, the time to leave had come. You didn’t want to overstay your welcome.

Marvus’s lusus seemed disappointed by your announcement, and you imagined he might feel lonely in this mansion all by himself, considering how often Marvus had to go on tour or do other work-related things. You helped the dolphin place the empty dishes by the sink and hugged him tight, marveling at how he was just as cold to the touch as Marvus was.

“I promise I’ll come visit you the next time Marvus invites me over,” you murmured into his soft belly, and you were rewarded with a pat to your head. The palmhusk vibrated in your pocket, startling you out of your hazy comfort and reminding you that you had a certain tealblood to attend to.

As the lusus waddled you over to the front door, you looked up at him and noted how sad and quiet he had gotten. “Hey,” you called out, lightly tugging on his flipper. “Why don’t we take a picture together to show Marvus we met?”

Your idea was met with joyous chirps, and as the lusus crouched down to your level, you snapped a ridiculous amount of selfies from all angles, choosing one where you were both sticking out your tongues. You sent it to Marvus and typed:

— i met your lusus, he’s so cute!!

— and he told me to tell you he says hi.

— so in his own words, i say to you, “eek eek!"

You paused and quickly added:

— i had a wonderful time last night too.

And left it at that, because as much as you wanted to pour your heart and thank him for being so selfless and understanding in light of your self-consciousness, you did not want to come off as desperate. Sometimes it had to be like that. Even with him.

-

You were settled in inside a cab as you drove straight for Tagora’s hive, scrolling through the texts he had sent you with increasing anxiety.

— Please let me know how your search goes, I’m very eager to move this case along.

— Have you found any dirt on a certain someone yet?

— Still waiting.

Those were sent last night. The more recent ones were more concerning.

— Seeing as you are not responding to me, I’m going to take that as a no.

— You disappoint me, human. Expect an exorbitant fee added to your balance for every minute you are late in texting me.

Shit. Tagora was always serious about those pesky charges. You fired off a quick ’I’m on my way!’ and spent the whole ride looking at troll memes to lighten up your mood. Tagora may be pissed at you right now, but not for long. He could never stay mad at you.

That thought replayed in your mind as you meandered up his front lawn, trying to come up with a million excuses for your tardy end of the deal. At least you managed to protect the clothes he bought you. Maybe that would cheer him up a bit.

You stared at the door and counted to ten before knocking.

Tagora opened the door just a crack, peering at you through the narrow opening. You sucked in a deep breath.

“Okay. You’re going to be upset — “ The door was swinging shut. You hastily shoved your foot through the threshold and fought to keep it open. “ — but I promise I can still make it all worth your while!”

He paused for a moment and leered at you. “How so?”

“ … gossip?”

Surprisingly, it worked. The door opened a little, and as Tagora finally got a good look at you, his peeved expression fell away to one of shock and slight revulsion, perhaps even a hint of concern. “Have you even looked at yourself today? Did you get mauled by a purrbeast?”

You smiled sheepishly and absentmindedly rubbed at a love bite on your neck. “More like I got pailed senseless by a purpleblood.”

”What? And you’re still alive?”

A chatty, questioning Tagora was a good sign. You slipped past him and wandered inside, waving at his lusus in greeting as you toed off your shoes. “This particular highblood is a good friend of mine. I’m sure you remember who he is, considering I begged you to blackmail whoever uploaded that video of him hand feeding me … “

“You pailed with Marvus Xoloto?” Tagora whirled you around and grabbed you by the shoulders, bringing his face inches away from yours. “Did you mention me?” he excitedly asked.

“In what possible context could I bring you up while getting laid? ’Oh Marvus that feels so good, by the way I happen to know a fantastic lawyer —'"

“Uuugh!” He lightly pushed you away and rolled his eyes, running a hand through his impeccable hair. “You’ll pay for giving me that horrible mental image. And furthermore, you are so damn useless.”

“It’s not my fault,” you grumbled, making your way to the couch and sagging down onto it. Tagora’s lusus instantly materialized in your lap, rolling over to expose his tummy while you scratched it. “My night took a turn for the worst during the party, and after all was said and done I was feeling so shitty that I needed a distraction. I just didn’t have it in me to sleuth around for you, I’m sorry.”

Tagora eyed you quietly as though in deliberation. Maybe you looked tired and mopey, because his expression softened marginally. “Are you.” He paused. “Are you hungry?” You shook your head. “Wait here then.”

You watched him curiously while he wandered away to the bathroom. His lusus chuffed at you when you forgot to keep scratching behind his ear. “Soooorry,” you whispered to the ferret, and you were rewarded with a nuzzle to your face as he rearranged himself like a flailing noodle.

Tagora returned with a tube of neon green paste — it was a familiar sight to you by now, considering how often you were getting injured. He sat beside you and shooed his lusus away, motioning for you to turn to him. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered, squirting a dollop of paste on his hand and massaging the medicine into the bruises along your neck and shoulders.

“Well,” you said with a sigh, tilting your head to let Tagora work his magic. “I had the misfortune of stumbling upon Lanque. Or rather, he made the effort to confront me, and made me look like a fool by bringing up personal bullshit.”

“Ah, that cretin. I hope you told him off properly this time.”

“I tried … but it still sucked to have my insecurities thrown back at me out of nowhere.”

Tagora huffed. “At least you’re not the one crashing parties in search of cheap thrills. Show me where else you’re bruised.” You lifted the hem of your dress and up over your hip to reveal fingerprint shaped marks along your outer thighs. You tried your best to keep your private area covered, wishing you still had your underwear. Tagora seemed to not mind, working with detached efficiency. “And. You know. You’re the one who got lucky in the end. Although judging by how fucked up you look, ‘lucky’ is pretty subjective. Was this a pitch romp?”

“Nope, it was really sweet and fun and a hell of a lot more intimate than I expected,” you gushed, blushing at the memory. “But let’s not get side-tracked. I didn’t even tell you the worst part the night!”

“There’s more?”

“Unfortunately. So, Remele apparently had the wonderful idea of painting me as the main subject, and she auctioned it off to the highest bidder. Which thankfully turned out to be Marvus, and I’m pretty sure he did it just to spare me the embarrassment. It was so vulgar, Tagora! Like, she made me naked and cowering in an alleyway and — and covered in troll blood because she was recreating that time we got into trouble with a purpleblood and — “

Fuck. Tagora didn’t know about your and Remele’s connection to that murder. And you knew he tracked it with fervor when news first hit, trying to tie it to her earlier event.

As if on cue, his eyes widened in excitement, pupils narrowing like a predator honing in on its prey. “Wait, wait. First of all, why didn’t you tell me you were involved in such a high-profile case? And how could that conniving bitch know enough about the crime scene to portray it in such an accurate light?”

“I — um … I can’t tell you!”

“Oh you absolutely will. I think this will be more than sufficient to cover for your failure last night."

You groaned and dug your hands into your hair. “You don’t love me, Gor-Gor! You just love my drama. Is that all I am to you?” Tagora reeled back, biting his lower lip. "Just a — an associate who does dirty work for you? A henchman? A dumb, worthless human? A — “

Your freak-out was cut short when a hand gently yet firmly slapped itself onto your cheek.

You blinked and looked at Tagora. He stared right back, looking equal parts shocked and panicked. His hand was slightly cold, yet ridiculously soft.

“Oh my gods are you shooshpapping me — “

”No!” Tagora wrenched his hand away as though he had been burned. "This is strictly a platonic show of camaraderie, as evidenced by your updated fee charge right here — “ He had the nerve to pull up some sort of app on his palmhusk that tracked your debt, pointing at an absurdly high number.

You bemusedly glanced at the screen as he held it right up to your face before moving his hand out of the way. “Does that mean you’d drop your fees for a moirail?”

“I would consider it a fair trade-off in light of their services towards my mental wellbeing.”

“Hmmm.” You did have a lot of debt accrued … and you were technically just inadvertently proposed to. "Well lucky for you, you have just the right candidate for obsessing over your mental wellbeing right in front of you!”

Tagora blushed a vibrant teal and jerked away from you, stammering several times as he tried to unsuccessfully offer a rebuttal. “Th — that’s — you can’t just say that, you uncultured creature! Don’t you have any tact? Any sense of romance?”

“What do you want me to do, serenade you? Build you a nest out of the finest quality of ablution robes and drown you in expensive chocolates for luxurious feels jam sessions?”

“You are ridiculous.” He paused. “As if you could even afford any of that.”

“Are you seriously considering what I just said?"

“I never said that! The absence of evidence is not evidence in of itself!”

"What does that even mean?”

“I swear I don’t even know why I put up with you — “

“Because I’m so cute and pitiable.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got parts of that right,” he said, turning away from you in a valiant attempt to hide his blush. “You’re so pathetic it’s practically obscene. Indecent, even.”

“Is that some backhanded way of saying I’m quadrant material?”

“This conversation is over.” Excellent, hopefully he forgot about Remele. “And don’t think I’m letting that whole Remele thing go so easily.” Damn it. “But you’re clearly not in your right mind to continue that discussion, so we’ll talk about it later."

“You are so benevolent, Gor-Gor.”

“Yes, I am,” he said with a grin. The majority of your bruises had been dealt with by now, so Tagora screwed the cap back onto the tube of paste and stood up to put the medicine away.

“Tagora?” He turned to look at you with a quirked brow. “Thank you.”

He smiled lightly and nodded before going on his way. His lusus was back in your lap in no time, slipping into your waiting arms with a delighted meep. You pulled out your palmhusk and checked if you received any new messages, and sure enough, Marvus had responded to your earlier texts.

— o shit yo pops lookin happy af

— u gonna have to b comin over to keep him company now

— and maybe me 2 ;o)

You giggled and gripped your palmhusk a little tighter between both hands. Tagora glanced back at you for a split second, his smile mirroring your own.

[photonconductor]

alto and anastasia (not romantic) fluff based off some hcs i share with some friends (other aside my doc was called ana plays the piana and thats rly funny ok);

Music was always a strange concept for Alto to form his head around.

While the use of song was forbidden, thanks to God, that didn't mean all remnants of music were erased. People still used instruments and the like, but singing? Anyone knew that was impossible. During his three years of time in Mithra village, he never completely questioned why no one would sing along with the music being performed. Sure, he learned in Sunday school that God punished humanity by taking it away, but he still never paid much attention to the notes and how the tunes went.

Mithra wasn't exactly a place known for it's music, anyway, beyond performances at festivals and such. Only royalty generally got to taste the finer sounds of music. So he had put it out of his mind for the most part.

Since hearing Hilda's song, and awakening to his power of the Conductor, Alto felt much different on the subject. Probably because it was strange to hear a song so beautiful that had so much power to destroy, but the Conductor never really thought much on it. In that time between then and now, however, he had heard all kinds of songs. Songs of hope, songs of wishes, and even songs of worries and strife.

It really made him wonder just what a song like the Anthem would produce. Surely it would be a beautiful one, Alto told himself. All the witches songs were beautiful in some ways... and he would begrudgingly admit that Hilda's was too despite the power to destroy. A song that carried all their hopes and wishes to remove Hilda's crystallization... it was a song with unimaginable power.

It wouldn't be long now, though. With Mordimort joining their ranks, they were all set to go. The only problems was Lisette's voice... but Alto had faith in her. They had all been through a lot in the short span of months together, so of course it would just take her some time. She was just rushing thi--

"--Alto?" Commander Klaus' voice broke through his thoughts like a clean sweep of the sword. Alto blinked hurriedly before snapping his shoulders straight.

"Y-yes, sir?!" Alto said a little too loudly, but the Commander still held his gentle smile as always. The Conductor was always surprised how calm Klaus could be at a time like this. Alto felt anxious already just waiting around. That was apparent by his wandering thoughts.

"Were you listening to what I told you? Don't tell me you are starting to become another Rusty?" Klaus gave a tiny exasperated sigh before the boy shook his head wildly.

"N-No, I'm not going to turn into Rusty! I mean-- no, I was listening!" Alto's words scrambled for some grip, but Klaus merely waved his hand, "Erm-- you wanted me to deliver this to Her Majesty, right?" Alto glanced down at the envelope in his palm. It was padded fairly well, meaning there was a good amount of papers stored inside it. The royal seal was stamped on the back to hold the flap down as well as defining just how important the documents were.

Klaus' words before his mind had wandered had been something about delivering this--the final revision of the Anthem--for Queen Anastasia to look over. Klaus leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile and nodded once.

"That is correct. Good to see you were paying attention."

"But... is it really okay for me to be taking this to her? Shouldn't you?" Alto asked with uncertainty. Klaus was the Grand Master after all... wouldn't it make more sense for him to deliver it? At that, the blond knight merely shook his head.

"No, I believe the Conductor should have that honor. Even if you are merely a knight, you have put in a great help so that the Anthem can be realized at all." Alto felt suddenly sheepish under his gaze. He felt his shoulders sinking and the back of his neck heating up a little.

"N-No, I didn't really do all that much..." Alto let his free hand rub at the back of his neck. While he had Conducted the witches, it was all their doing not his. The tunings and the conductings were his power, he couldn't deny that, but if it weren't for them the Anthem wouldn't even be a blip on their consciousness. Besides, he had decided long ago to stop Hilda and restore everyone from crystallization. Alto was sure anyone else would have felt the same way. Still, at the Conductor's response, the Grand Master merely shook his head.

"You have done excellent thus far, Alto. Everyone thinks so. You and the rest of the 9th Regiment have all been working hard towards this moment." Klaus stood up at that and gently clapped a hand on Alto's shoulder, "The Conductor delivering the final piece to Her Majesty is a fitting way to put this to rest, don't you think?"

Alto paused in thought, but found he couldn't really find a problem with what he was saying.

"You're right. I'll have this delivered right away then! Thank you, Sir." Alto nodded again, gave his salute to the Commander, and hurried out of the conference room. The fastest way to find Ana--or rather Her Majesty--would to be her throne room. Alto probably would have to go through the guards first, but considering the importance of his documents it wouldn't be too hard.

Despite living here for a few months, Alto still felt utterly small inside the Lambert castle's interior. Getting used to the knights barracks was tough enough, but the castle itself? Alto wasn't sure if he ever would get used to it. However, he did know an easy route to the castle's throne room thanks to the many times they had to report in. Once he arrived, sure enough, there were guards posted at the entrance. They were standing as rigid as ever even when the Conductor approached them.

Alto almost wondered if they fell asleep, until he heard the shift of their armor. They eyed Alto carefully as he made his approach towards them. Alto found he stiffened his shoulders and stood up a little straighter under their gaze.

"State your business." One spoke up and Alto quickly retrieved the papers he had brought. He held them towards the guards, the seal facing upwards.

"I have a message for Her Majesty. I just came to deliver it to her." The two guards exchanged unsure glances between themselves. Alto found his face falling at the same time. Had he said something wrong? He was sure he wasn't a suspicious looking character. They stared at each other for a moment longer before one of the guards finally shifted.

"Alright... but make it quick. Regent Elmar said we're not supposed to let anyone through, but since this is urgent we'll let you on ahead." The guards stepped aside and pushed open the door as slowly and softly as they could.

Alto looked between them with a confused expression, but said no more as he walked inside. The room was as spacious and large as ever, practically swallowing Alto whole. He still found his breath taken away by the grandiose atmosphere of the entire place. It still was hard to imagine things he had read in Lisette's books was this amazing in real life.

Just as he thought that, there was a low, loud noise. It reverberated throughout the room and nearly had him jumping out of his armor. Somehow, Alto managed to keep himself from crinkling the paper in his grip. Once the noise had sounded, it was followed by more noises. Low notes that echoed throughout the interior of the throne room itself and filled it to the brim with sound. What once were slow notes, they soon began to pick up speed and start to intertwine into a new sound.

It didn't take long for Alto to put two and two together; someone was playing the grand organ in the back of the throne room.

Considering the size of the organ, anyone on the grounds of the castle could hear it softly echoing throughout the castle whenever it was played. The first time Alto had heard the sound of the grand pipe organ, he nearly thought they were under attack. Archibald and Rusty had shared a good laugh at him, much to Alto's embarrassment.  Archibald had later explained it was merely the Queen practicing. Rusty had promptly added on to the fact that Alto really was a country bumpkin if he had never heard music like that once before. Alto remembered ignoring his comment in favor of listening to the music itself. The tone was warm... but somehow it felt lonely.

Now that he was actually in the room where it played, it was much much louder than he expected. The notes felt like they were smacking into him, but each one held a weight he couldn't quite describe. The notes soon became tangled together in a flurry of sounds, but instead of sounding bad they came out soft and slow. The low notes continued into higher ones occasionally, but for the most part the song was slow. Alto found himself lost in listening to the tune, until he realized what he came for.

He tried to be as quiet as possible as he approached the throne itself. He passed the empty throne to where the person he was waiting for was just behind it. Queen Anastasia herself, carefully pressing at the keys with expert precision as well as the equal pressing of her foot to power the notes themselves. She was focusing intently on the sheet music in front of her. Her eyes never looked away for a moment and Alto had wondered if she had even heard him. He decided to wait behind her rather than interrupt her while in the middle of her practice.

Since becoming the Conductor, Alto noticed, was that he felt more attuned to music whenever it played. Unlike in Mithra, there were more times that music wafted from some corner of the city of Lambert. Still, the Conductor let the sounds flood his ears and carefully took them in. The tone was low, but somehow it was cheerful this time. The longer Alto listened, however, the more he realized how lacking it was. While he was lucky to be able to hear the Witches sing, it just made it more apparent how different their world was without the power of songs.

Music was still beautiful, still touching, but somehow... Alto just felt there was something missing. There were parts of the song that felt like notes should go into, but were met with a strange emptiness. The song felt incomplete, Alto decided to himself. However, Anastasia continued on as if there were nothing wrong with the notes she was playing. Alto was wrapped up in the music that he hadn't noticed her notes slowly becoming softer and softer until she had stilled her hands. Alto blinked once at the sudden silent atmosphere before he looked at the Queen.

She was still staring at the organ, but her fingers had stilled. She removed them from the keys before gently smoothing them against her dress and letting out a quiet sigh. The knight frowned briefly before he smiled.

"That was a nice piece." Just as he said it, Anastasia straightened up before turning towards him. Her face held surprise, but that was to be expected. Once her eye were on Alto, the smile that beamed from her face was just as bright as her clothing. The Conductor could've swore she practically leaked sunlight into the room with her smile.

"Alto! It's good to see you!" She was immediately on her feet then, nearly pulling him into an eager hug.

"W-woah, woah! H-Hold on, Your Majesty!" Alto was quickly smothered by her hug, but Ana didn't seem too bothered by it one bit. He could practically feel the air leaking from his lungs.

"Alto! I thought I told you to call me Ana! Sheesh..." Her tone was firm, but her face still held a perky smile. She quickly released him from her death grip before Alto turned into some kind of deflated balloon. "Thank you. What brings you here? If I had known you were coming I would've skipped practice."

"Is that really a good idea...?" Alto asked while raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, don't worry! Elmar wanted me to keep practicing even though there's so much work to be done. I think missing one session won't make my skills go that dull. Medea usually helps me with practice, but Elmar said if I got too reliant on her I'd never improve." She laughed at that and Alto suddenly realized why those guards were reluctant to let him in. Elmar probably had set it up so no one disturbed her while she was practicing... and Alto had gone and ruined that. Somehow, he cursed himself for not seeing that coming. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"A-anyway, I came to deliver the final revision of the Anthem. Commander Klaus asked me to give it to you... seeing as I'm the Conductor and all." Alto held it out to her gently. The Queen's eyes widened even further and she gently took it from his hands. Her smile had widened just a tad before she looked at him again.

"Thank you, Alto. Lambert and Regnant as a whole thanks you so much for your help. Without you, I don't know where we would be now." Anastasia praised him and Alto felt the heat going straight to his face again.

"If we have to thank anyone, it should be the Witches. They've worked harder than I have." Alto spoke up and the Queen nodded gently.

"You're right. They have done so much for us as well... the 9th as a whole has done its part in maintaining the peace of this land. There will be time to properly give thanks to all once the Anthem is complete." Her ever regal air quickly returned and Alto felt almost awkward for the sudden change. It wasn't long before Anastasia's warm smile returned and she moved away. She returned back to the organ and set the envelope gently against the music stand of the organ. Alto was just about to make his way out until she stopped him.

"Alto, have you ever played an instrument?" Anastasia suddenly asked, looking back at him. Alto blinked once from surprise before shaking his head.

"N-No, I've never really tried it. We didn't have a lot of instruments in Mithra and I'm much better at hunting than--" Before he could continue, the Queen quickly grabbed his arm and tugged on it.

"Well, come here then! Let's try it out!"

"Wh-what?" Before Alto could protest, he was suddenly being pushed to sit down on the bench Her Majesty had been sitting at moments prior. She excitedly scooted to the other side before looking at him eagerly. Alto felt even tinier under her gaze and stared back at her with an uncertain expression.

"Come on!" Anastasia said excitedly.

"Come on, what?"

"Play something! It's okay if its bad! Here, I'll show you how!" With that, her gloved hands moved gracefully towards the keys. She gently placed her foot below the organ and gently tapped a few keys. The organ responded with a few loud notes before she turned back to him with a smile.

"See? Now you try." Alto stared at her before looking back down at the keyboards in front of him. There were so many...! Not to mention all the knobs and doohickeys hanging from the giant thing! How she expected him to play this, Alto wasn't sure. He raised his hands tentatively above the keyboard itself, unsure of where to even start. Did he press lightly? Did he press hard? He adjusted his foot underneath the pedals and gently stepped before pressing both of his hands on the keyboard at once. The organ replied with a horrible sounding note that resounded loudly and awkwardly throughout the throne room.

Alto winced. He really should've thought that through better. He glanced at Anastasia worriedly, but she had covered a hand over her mouth. For a split second, Alto had assumed he had offended her in some way. It wasn't long before, when he really looked at her, he noticed she was trying to hold in her laughter. Alto felt a pout replace his earlier worry faster than the note had faded away.

"I-I'm sorry Alto!" The Queen held back her giggles before flapping her free hand, "It was a good try, really!" Alto could only sigh and roll his eyes at that.

"Thanks... I told you before, I've never played anything!"

"You did, you did! I just didn't think it would be that bad!" Somehow she contained her giggles before composing herself. Alto was half worried Elmar would suddenly come barging in after that noise he had made, but the outer doors to the throne room never budged.

"Here, I can show you an easy song." Anastasia smiled and without another word of protest from Alto began playing again. She leaned over to the side and began fiddling with some of the knobs before her fingers began pressing on the keys again.

The notes were light and were played as if she had done it a thousand times. They danced together in a quick tempo and easy harmony and Alto felt hard pressed not to get swept up in the cheery tune. They were much different than the song she had been playing earlier. This one felt more complete, even if it was a simple tune itself. It wasn't long before she finished with a smile.

"You're really good at this," Alto breathed, staring back at the keys again, "I can't even keep track of all these keys and pedals myself." At that, the Queen laughed again.

"It's okay, Alto. I've had a lot of practice. When I was younger, my father taught me how to play." She her eyes trailed upward almost as if they were smiling themselves fondly at the organ, "It's sort of a tradition of the royal family. We've had this organ here for generations... ever since King Xeno's time."

Alto found his mouth agape at that. This thing was that old? It was almost surprising considering how well and in condition it was. Medea really had her work cut out for her... not to mention the people who kept it maintained like this.

"It's really that old? That's pretty impressive." Alto leaned back, following her gaze up along the golden pipes. The ornate patterns twisted in the pipes themselves were grand now that Alto could look at them up close. It almost felt nostalgic, but Alto couldn't quite place why. He had never seen an organ before, but its impressiveness still left him stunned.

"Yes... my family has been playing this organ since we came into royalty. My father taught me and my father's mother taught him. It was said that even King Xeno himself played this very same organ... in fact," She leaned in towards him and Alto felt his personal space shrink, "I heard even the hero Elcrest played this organ once. Isn't that amazing?"

"Yeah... that sure is something." Alto blinked in utter surprise. Even the hero Elcrest had played this thing? Was there anything the hero Elcrest didn't do? People sure were talented... even back a thousand years. The idea that all sorts of famous people had sat in the very spot he was sitting in, some boy from Mithra without a memory to call his own, made him very aware of his own history. He wasn't so sure it was his right to sit in this spot. Alto shifted uncomfortably, but Anastasia seemed to notice.

"Now that you're here, I have a favor to ask." The woman asked and Alto looked up curiously.

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind listening to me play a little longer? It is kind of lonely when no one else is around.... so it is a selfish request, really." Her smile faded at that and Alto felt a twinge of guilt. This place was so huge that it wasn't hard to feel alone in such a big place. Alto certainly felt it... and it wasn't like he was doing anything after this.

"I wouldn't mind listening to you play longer. It's really good after all." Alto smiled back and the woman returned it. On cue, she then returned back to her organ and resumed playing again.

Alto recognized this song; it had been the same one that had started when he had walked it. In fact, now that he thought about it, the song held a soft somber melody to it. There was a warmth behind its tone if Alto soaked himself into the song itself, but it was hidden underneath the power behind the former notes. As soon as it had started, it ended.

"What's that song?" Alto couldn't help, but pipe up once she was finished. The queen blinked for a moment before she leaned back a little. Her face shifted ever so slightly as if she was unsure about answering, but she continued on without any word wavering in her voice.

"Its a song I used to play with my father before he passed away. He said it was a duet piece so only two people could play it... and yet here I am, playing it by myself." She turned her head away from him to stare back at the wind pipes again, "But when I play it, I feel right at home. Its a nostalgic piece, I'll admit... but I still want to keep playing it even if the memories behind it are painful for me. Its just one way I can remember him by."

Anastasia let out a tiny sigh at that. Alto watched her carefully, but he could feel his heart go out for her. The only family Alto ever knew was Miss Rosa and Lisette... it would be hard to lose someone close to you. In fact, Alto couldn't even bare the thought Miss Rosa was gone forever. That was why they had to save her, no matter what. His hands curled into fists at that thought and he shifted in his seat.

"I think that's admirable. I don't really have much experience with music even though I'm a Conductor... but playing something that you and your father did together is still a way to honor that memory. I don't really have my own memories of my own parents so... I don't think you're insulting him or anything like that. He'd probably be happy to know you're still playing despite all your duties." Alto fumbled for his words for a moment there, but he hoped his meaning at least got across. Anastasia was looking at him now and Alto could feel her eyes boring into him. He blinked once back at her before he hurriedly looked away.

"Wh-what? Did I say something wrong?" Alto tugged at his collar under her gaze. Slowly Anastasia shook her head and a small smile appeared on her face.

"No. You're very kind, Alto." She said softly, and her eyes sparkled with appreciation, "...Since my father's death, I almost wanted to give up playing this organ. I thought it would hurt too much... and sometimes it does." At that she paused, grabbing one of her hands to hold it against her chest. She held it close to her heart, but her smile never wavered from her face.

"But hearing you say that... makes me think I can carry on a little longer. I know I have to... for my people and this land's sake. Its not just that; its not just about duty. I want to keep carrying on for them. Plus I've never stopped enjoying playing. I was almost a little jealous you got to spend so much time with the witches. Their songs are so warm and beautiful... it made me wish I had the power of the Conductor, too." Alto could feel her desire in her voice, but she continued on, "You know, I always wished I could accompany you all... and even play the witches' songs with their singing. That was a dream of mine for so long."

"I don't see why not." Alto said suddenly and Anastasia looked at him in sheer surprise, "I'm sure if you asked they wouldn't mind." It was there that the woman's face turned a bright shade of pink.

"N-No, I couldn't! I mean, they're busy preparing for the Anthem and, I mean, I've only learned some pieces on my own and what would I even say and--" Alto's loud 'snrk' cut her off. It was Alto's turn to start holding in his laughter.

"H-hey! Just what is so funny?!" Anastasia huffed, clearly flustered by his proposal.

"N-Nothing! Its just... Its really surprising to see you so flustered about that! You're usually so calm." Alto managed to choke out and Anastasia paused. Before long, they were both laughing together. The once large, empty room suddenly felt a lot warmer with their laughter filling it instead of the low melancholy tones of the organ. It took them awhile, but soon both of them composed themselves.

"Once the Anthem is complete, you should ask them." Alto finally said and the queen nodded.

"You know... I think you are right. Once all is said and done, I shall play with them." She repeated it again, as if it were giving her even more strength behind it. At that, she stood up and left Alto still seated. The woman gently reached out to take the revised Anthem, holding it between both of her hands. She quietly smoothed the paper out before turning back to him.

"Thank you, Alto. Let's both do our best to make sure the Anthem is complete... and once things settle, I hope you come see me and the witches perform." Her voice was warm and her smile was so broad the Conductor couldn't even hold his own back. Yes, the Anthem would be complete... and things would be restored. Once Hilda was stopped, they could finally all return to their normal way of life; maybe even a little better than normal.

"I'll make sure of it, Ana." Alto got to his feet and gave her a solid nod, "I'll look forward to it."

[lxttlechaos-blog]

hello my lovelys !! lemme tell ya’ll am i excited™ to be here. it’s been aprox 5934002380 years since i did a roleplay like this so forgive my rustiness !! oh, the name is rachel, i’m twenty and from the gmt+1 timezone but tbh i’m almost a l w a y s around because ?? life?? don’t know her. anyway, you know the drill, below the cut will be some info about this trashbag, delaney.

— ♦ [ NINA DOBREV, C5, CISFEMALE ] it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s DELANEY REINHART, the TWENTY-TWO year old, who works as a STRIPPER, that is known for being AUDACIOUS & FIERY. secretly, they’re actually a VILLAIN, named CHAOS, who has the ability of  PYROKINESIS & EXPLOSION INDUCEMENT. hopefully this new world won’t overwhelm them.

believe it or not i’m only now noticing i made her negative trait ‘fiery’ when she has the pyrokinesis ability...... rachel... gurl...

so ima try make this shit short and sweet but it’s highly unlikely because ya girl got a tenancy to ramble like no tomorrow i’m so sorry pls don’t hate me

anyWay, so delaney or ‘laney’ didn’t start off an only child ~ dun dun dun ~

basically, she had a twin brother who she highkey thought the world of ?? like the two were very much inseparable and just, cute as hell

the twins were born to ... loving parents? i guess? their papa was a scientist (one who had an obsession with primaries i will add) like, he lowkey worked in a lab where they were testing and trying methods of creating primaries; something they all thought of themselves as doing for good, wanting to create heroes, or even a mutant army to keep the world for harm. 

but like.. they had also hired peeps to try and track down primaries? and to try to kill them or just capture them so they could test on them and try to figure out how they worked, how they could recreate them. 

so they just convinced themselves they were the good guys to basically help them sleep at night when they were doing a bad thing really. 

delaney and her lil twin brother practically grew up in the labs, laney taking a lot more interest in her fathers workings than her brother did. 

fast forward quite a few years, basically to the twins being practically teenagers now? daddy-o needed some guinea pigs for his experiments and i mean..... what better people to use than ur kids amiright? 

laney’s brother was not at all happy with this he didn’t want to do it at all, meanwhile laney did? her father having filled her head with words of encouragement on how she was going to make the world a better place, how she’d change everything, she’d be a hero, and all that good shit until he persuaded her- which with her twin brother being so attached to her and not wanting her to go through it alone, he volunteered too.

legit she went through hell for months okay like??? she was like thirteen at the time and went through h e l l with her father n other scientists testing on her.

but it worked !!!!! which is how she got her powers listed above. 

so pops was fken over the moon??? bc not only laney had powers but so did her brother? (tho his were considerably weaker) 

from then on her time was spent being daddy’s little solider, her days spent learning how to control herself, her abilities, what this meant for her. her father setting her challenges, forcing her to fight against the primaries his lab had captured. as if his obsession wasn’t excessive before, with his own little fighting machine by his side it just got worse. he became greedy, anything he wanted done she would do for him; to the point that he even convinced her to set one of his colleges on fire who had disagreed with him over something so petty and small. 

ya’ll like laney was loving this too? she was so strong and felt really superior and just ?? yes

bUUut. that didn’t last very long, because mr.reinhart decided to do something entirely unforgivable, pinning his children against one another- fully acknowledging that his sons powers were weaker than his daughters, which is what ended in an inevitable death of one of the siblings.

it’s only tHEN, did delaney realize what she had done, what her father had pushed her to doing; she had followed his orders to the point she murdered her own brother, and that was the turning point for her. 

basicallyyyyyyyyy, fast forward to now, she moved away from home legit straight after that all went down, but considering she was only turning eighteen at the time of her runaway things were rly rough for awhile, with a lack of money n whatnot she was practically homeless for several months.  

she’s still lowkey broke to this day, living in some shitty little apartment that she can just about cover the rent of, working her nights as a stripper at some seedy little club and even offering to go home with some of the males for a little extra cash. 

basically she’s a mess and so is this intro i’M SOrRy. 

okay so, this was a mess?? v sorry. but maybe plot with me anyway?? i’m a total plot whore like i don’t think i’ve ever turned down any plot at all no matter how crazy it might seem okAy so throw anything @ me. but anyway, laney still has that whole loyal side to her? like, she still has a little bit of that solider inside of her and if she finds someone who she deems herself loyal to it can be easy for her to slip back into that mindset. she can kinda be very reckless? and hot-headed like.... girl loses her temper rly easy which isn’t good considering her fire/explosion abilities like.... just don’t get her too mad okay bc she will likely explode something. she still struggles controlling her emotions and not allowing them to control her abilities at times so.

but anyway, as i said !! pls plot with me, i’m super up for legit ANythiNG SOoOo. 

[viper-no-viping]

Wweelp. I guess it's Rambling Time.

Not even sure how far I'll get in any particular topic, but, we're still kind of rusty with blathering shit for school assignments, so.. Here I am, exercising my shit-blathering pathways, or whatever.

I guess an initial General Weather Report would be suitable, given that seems to be how our collectively chronophobic ass keeps track of things that we will Almost Definitely forget in the nearish future.. But that would require thinking in detail about Various Things and that's kind of Not My Bag rly, heh, so. I dunno, I guess we'll see what happens.

Suppose starting with the current thought process will suffice. There's this trans chick on YouTube we follow, who posted recently that she's getting bottom surgery, now that she's recovered from her facial feminization surgery. From there I ended up at.. One or two other videos, pretty sure it was two, about her transition timeline.

And now "transition timeline testosterone" is sitting there in the YouTube search bar staring back at me and I'm just like :\ lol dunno, or someshit.. sigh.

This video made some Feely Feels rear their dysphoric heads, because of some Hashtag Relatable shit about the way he described stuff.. And I'm sure the seething jealousy that he got top surgery means something, heh, meanwhile we're over here crossing our fingers that the body isn't too fucked up for even a breast reduction, which, even for that, the co-pay alone.. ugh.

I mean, not like I actually know how much it would be yet, hopefully Tahni will remember to ask about that when we see the primary again for the results of the next ultrasound to make sure that ovarian cyst isn't fucking cancer, fucking goddamn cancer, never would have thought we'd be stressing over that as a possibility but here we fucking are..

Well. I personally don't have much history, hehe, what with the Iiii don't, exist, Iiii don't, exist.. et cetera.. yeeup, not sure where that was going, but anyway. Yeah. If not from the fucking ovaries, possibly from the goddamn thyroid, which is Fun. Apparently there are no actual known causes for the thyroid cancers, shit just fucking happens, more commonly in "women." Yay.

But I mean, even if it is some kind of fucking thyroid cancer, at this point just take the shit out and put us on thyroid meds for the rest of our life, just make this shit stop.. ugh, but it's probably not even one thing, is it, this whole fucking body is going to shit, and how many months will it be until we've done enough tests and shit to figure out what's even going on..

It's so funny, two years ago they Really Thought it would just be an endoscopy and colonoscopy to find the cause, just a couple tests.. xD Ahh, funny in a kind of lol kill me way.. But at least shit is actually showing UP on tests now. Just having the vague undiagnosable bullshit is a different kind of agony, like before the LPR was diagnosed, it is Fucked Up trying to get any kind of answer on shit when your main symptom is just a constant hellish nausea, not anything that comes back from a lab test with Actual Results that doctors will Actually Respect.. To say nothing of how family and friends start slowly but surely deciding to themselves that it's just you making a fuss out of "nothing."

So, yeah. Different kind of hell, but godfuckingdamn I would take almost any other ailment aside from this fucking Everlasting Period bullshit. Talk about fucking dysphoria, haha. You really hate acknowledging the existence of this entire section of the meatsuit you're stuck in? Here, have some as-yet-undiagnosed ~menstrual issues~ that make the most unpleasant thing that section of the meatsuit does last TWICE AS LONG AS IT USED TO!! THAT SURELY WON'T MAKE YOU WANT TO STAB YOURSELF AT ALL!!!!

Yep. Look how well I'm coping. XDD STFU self, damn.

Or, well, I guess don't STFU, still need to exercise the word-vomit muscles, god knows how the fuck I'm gonna get by the rest of that godforsaken pass/fail How To Actually Do Shit With Your Psychology Degree Part I class.. Due tomorrow is an assignment in place of a midterm, to make a resume and goal list of shit to do that'll make said resume better.

Except there are no accredited fully-online law schools yet, so what in the ungodly fuck are we gonna even do with the degree? It's not like having it is gonna make the body less of a complete medical fucking wreck, it's not like it'll erase the fact that we can never know when we're going to be suddenly fucking incapacitated with dizziness/ridiculous cramps/intense don't-fucking-move-or-you'll-gag nausea for days on end so we can't actually keep a consistent schedule of doing anything outside of the house, what the fuck good is it gonna do me to make a fucking resume reminding me of exactly how worthless of a job candidate we are at this point?

Whoops, that Got Deep real quick, haha. But like, seriously, what the shit do I even put on a resume aside from the fact that we accidentally started the Psychology Club at our high school? If we use the non-chronological resume format it'll make the employment gap stand out less, but it's supposed to emphasize skills and experience instead, and what fucking skills or whatever can we even put on a resume? What fucking skill set will make you a viable job candidate when you can't even stand for the length of a shower without your legs getting shaky, but you don't have a fancy enough degree or the social stamina to handle a job that doesn't require some form of physical labor? Not to mention I think there's also supposed to be a made-up cover letter, something like "Hi I'm XYZ and I'm applying for ABC job with this resume", what the fucking shit can I even put for that when I know how Ridiculously Limited we are at this point?

A bunch of blathered nonsense to fill a page with lots of words and hopefully conceal the fact that we're completely making shit up. That's what. Because I can't just say "I'm Pretty Much Fucked in terms of traditional employment because chronically ill autistic multiple, and am trying to plan out a career in online comics, or if online law school becomes a thing I'll gladly use my psych degree for that." That's how you fail an assignment, even if it's the truth. I can't exactly write a cover letter to the internet announcing our intent to try that shit. So. Yeah. All aboard the Blathering Train, instead.

But yeah, anyway, that's enough financial/career angst for right now. Back to dysphoria angst!, lolol.

Yeah, so, here I am staring at this shit in the search bar and just.. Like, I don't even know if it would be medically safe to try HRT at this point, but aside from that, I don't even think that's what we want, ideally? Not interested in dealing with facial hair, armpit and "downstairs" hair already pisses some of us off enough..

Not sure if we're interested in being perceived as male, I guess, but not really wanting to be perceived as female either? I'm pretty sure at this point most of us are either specifically agender, or don't subscribe to the concept of gendering traits at all and just call themselves non-binary..

Like, the vast majority of us have fucking hated the body's boobs since they first showed up in middle school. We gave Not A Fuck for gendered shit, in general, but on an autistic sensory level we Fucking Despise pressure on the body's chest and these bitches are heavy. Even moreso than usual, recently, what with the hormones being fucked up. Fucking hate it.

But like, how do you explain to a doctor that you want the boobs off completely? The best we can probably realistically hope for is a reduction because back pain, but I dunno if it would Raise Questions if we asked what the smallest possible size they could do was. Could we settle for As? Would it be weird to ask to go from DDs to As? Weird enough that someone would take the time to be like "now hang on a second" and start trying to make us go through the red tape bullshit to be on record as Officially A Trans TM?

If we could get away with not wearing a bra without looking like we're wearing weird droopy melons under our shirt, I feel like that much would be enough for several of us, even if the body did still technically have some small boobage. As long as it didn't impede us or anything we wanted to do, if it didn't get in the way or weigh down on our chest, if it didn't make our shirts fit weird, I feel like we could deal with that..

But then I see this trans bro on YouTube here and hhnnghh why can't we just not have themmmm..

I mean, ideally, why can't the fuckers be detachable so those who don't hate them can put them on when they feel like it and the rest of us can go on our merry way without them, but, heh, science isn't quite there yet.. Next best thing seems like it would be getting top surgery and letting whomever felt like having boobs just stuff a bra when they wanted to. But of course, insurance won't pay for it if it's just because We Really Want It, we'd have to either be Officially Trans TM and jump through all those hoops and hope top surgery is covered, or we'd have to just settle for a breast reduction covered under back pain.

I guess it also Says Something, that so many of us in the system are asexual-and/or-gay dudes, or simply never thought about it and are female "by default" aka because the body was categorized as that and we didn't care enough about gender to think there was any other option, we just accepted the narrative presented to us, that we were just "not like other girls." None of us have ever felt super masculine or super feminine, that I can recall, because What The Fuck Even Is Gender, and why the fuck is it necessary to divide up traits into human-created categories anyway..

But it makes it hard to figure out exactly where we are in terms of transness.. We've known Basically Forever that we "aren't like other girls," but gender means so little to us that we never particularly wanted to be a boy either, so calling ourselves a trans guy or even just non-binary transmasculine still seems odd, even though it seems like the latter should fit..

But then, how much of that is just cisheteronormativity in action? Because I know we've had several dreams wherein we had a wang and it felt pretty natural, not foreign and out of place like the body's current genitalia setup. But like, what the fuck does wang-creating surgery even look like, that sounds like a whole mess of complicated shit to figure out, and we're already medically compromised..

With the arrival of our newest non-straight dude, one of several in the system, some of us have had to seriously reexamine where we stand on gender shit. I guess at this point it's generally accepted that we would have been much better suited to existence as "semi-effeminate AMAB homoflexible non-binary ace," rather than "pan-quoiro AFAB possibly transmasculine non-binary ace"..

I guess it feels like masculine should have been the starting point that we feminized to our liking, instead of starting off with feminine and not knowing if we want to be "masculine enough" to be categorized as "transmasculine".. Is it "masculine enough" if we want the boobs off but can't do HRT because half the shit this other video mentions sounds just as bad as having the boobs? We can't stand body hair and acne and all that, and god knows how HRT would even work with all the hormonal issues the body's already having..

The more I think about what we ultimately would ideally want, the more it seems like we would really just prefer having no AFAB reproductive parts/periods and no boobs, maybe a wang and a lower voice, and that's it. I guess maybe we could try out the aesthetic of some minimal beardage, but body hair in general already irritates several of us.. So like, for various reasons I don't see HRT happening.

We already know most of us would have the boobs off tomorrow if we could, but I guess what's tripping some of us up now is the fact that Vern is way less genitalia-repulsed than most of us, and in fact seems to generally handle the notion of Having A Body better than most of us.. And he definitely identifies as a guy, a non-binary semi-effeminate robot guy but still definitely masc-leaning, so.. What does it say about us if so many of us have already been questioning this for so long, and now the one who's most secure in his gender identity out of all of us is one of our masc-leaning non-binary guys?

I don't even know how we would.. React to it, I guess, if we did try to.. I dunno, embrace being transmasculine or something.. It doesn't feel like we'd prefer to do anything drastically different, behavior-wise, and we don't care enough about pronouns to try to figure out something gender-neutral that isn't "they" because gender-neutral "they" within a plural "they" system is confusing as fuck.. So like, I don't think most of us on the fence about being transmasculine would change our names or whatever, or use he/him pronouns, it would just.. Feel better to not have certain anatomical bits be perceived as part of who we are?

But then that just kind of makes us wonder if we're being a Bad Trans TM or something, like if that counts as reducing gender to body parts or something.. This is all so goddamn complicated.

Hot damn, finally got around to looking up some YouTubeage about how the fuck a phalloplasty actually works.. Taking skin, fat, a nerve, and an artery from the donor site to make it, that sounds so fucking unnerving to even think about, taking body stuff from one area and like.. Making a wang? Ughh, there are so many stages.. Yeah, no, even getting the AFAB reproductive bits out seems like possibly too much intense surgery for us, I don't see how we could ever manage this kind of bottom surgery, shit sounds fucking terrifying, I guess the notion of taking so much shit from another area on the body just kind of gets us in a body horror kind of way..

So yeah, I don't see us being able to do that.. And I mean, we're not really sexually-focused to begin with, so like, aside from just the base-level comfort of Having It, it's not like we'd desperately Need a wang or anything to have a fulfilling life? Just NOT having the AFAB reproductive shit/periods, that would be the main thing, not having that shit and not having the boobs. If we had a lower voice we could pass as a guy if we wanted to, and we'd probably like that, but weighing that one thing against the whole list of other shit that comes with HRT, it's probably not worth it.

But how do you ask for, much less get covered for, removing the boobs and reproductive stuff with no Official Medical Reason, just "because I don't want it"? Non-binary dysphoria doesn't seem like it would be considered a Valid Enough reason for it to be covered, but we don't want to go into a Full Transition either, so.. yeah, I dunno how we'll end up being more comfortable just existing in the body, with so many roadblocks.

I dunno, objectively it's probably internalized transphobia/nb-phobia or whatever the name for that is, not feeling "trans enough" and whatnot.. But I guess part of it is also, why can't we just be a fucking gender mystery and be allowed to exist that way? It's our fucking meatsuit, why do we have to pigeonhole ourselves into either Male or Female just for our insurance to believe that certain bodyparts cause us extreme dysphoria and we'd be better off without them? Why can't we just be a person with no boobs and maybe a wang and a voice that can't be readily identified as male or female?

I dunno why I'm even rambling about this, I know why, cisheteronormativity and various historical fuckeries, et cetera. I guess it's just frustrating trying to figure out where we are on the gender spectrum when we're blocked from making the modifications that would make the body feel less alien to us. Maybe if we could actually get top surgery, we would have a better idea of whether we consider ourselves transmasculine or just some kind of masc-leaning genderfluid non-binary, which is where several of us seem to be right now..

Hnngh. This guy seems like a good example of where we might end up one day if we do end up trying out HRT, but the idea of the body being more of a pain than it already is in terms of body hair/acne/et cetera just seems so shitty..

Haha, is it weird that I'm kind of hoping that ovarian cyst will end up being cancer and they'll give us an option to remove the whole reproductive setup in there? Because we would do that shit in a heartbeat. What's that called, a hysterectomy? A total laparoscopic hysterectomy with bilateral ovary-something-something.. How do you convince insurance that you Need that to improve your quality of life, without establishing yourself as Fully Transitioning?

Wow, this guy's scars are so small, huh, would have thought it'd be worse.. Goddamn, we'd love to have all that shit taken out. Not like we're fucking using any of it, it's just been causing us more and more agony since puberty, can't be doing this fucking 11-day period bullshit anymore, the dysphoria was bad enough on its own..

ugh, why the fuck am I even looking at all this, not like we can do any major surgeries for a while yet, if at all..

I don't know, I guess trying to work out what we would collectively be least-dysphoric with is useful, it's just extra depressing thinking about how hard it'll be to get the boobs off, or even reduced, much less the whole reproductive removal biz.. feh. Time to ramble about something else.

hmph, actually, should probably do the other quiz for that pass/fail class.. -.- That way we can just deal with the resume/goal list bullshit tomorrow, mmmmboy.. meh, that would require more focus than I probably have though, guess it'll be tomorrow.

I dunno. The 10th-to-12th anniversary is fast approaching, probably best to just disappear into distractions a bit longer, at least until it's passed. Still not sure if it'd be best to avoid tumblr or what, on the 12th, but I guess we'll see.. meh.