#IT'S ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT so I'm getting this out of my system

[fallstaticexit]

Prev / Next / Beginning / Pillowfort

TW: Bruises/Hickies, Church

AN: Surprise shawtyyy! I was fighting demons to keep a poker face up until this point lolol also normally, I'd have a follow up post for Tuesday if I post on a Monday - but next update will be later this week, as I'm at the point where I'm just straight up making poses for the whole thing lol. (trying not to, because it's time consuming).

Transcript under the cut

Malcolm: Are they done yet? This is boring!

Jonathan: You don’t get it.

Malcolm: Get what!

Jonathan: Mom and Dad. They’re in love and stuff.

Malcolm: Bleh!

Nancy: [whispers] I’m sorry.

Geoffrey: Hm? What for?

Nancy Narrates: [For betraying you]

Nancy Narrates: [For always wanting more when this should be enough]

Nancy Narrates: [You don’t deserve this..]

Nancy: [whispers] Nothing. Nevermind.

-

Jonathan: What happened? What’s wrong with Mom?

Geoffrey: She’s ok, she just needs to rest-

Malcolm: Is it cause she’s drunk?

Geoffrey: Malcolm- Ok, how about you two find a movie for us to watch for boy’s night and I’ll get Mommy ready for bed.

Geoffrey: Nance. I need you to sit up so I can get your night gown on.

Nancy: Mhm.. s’fine.

Geoffrey: [snorts] Alright, suit yourself. Don’t try and steal all the blankets when you get cold tonight.

Nancy: [whimpers] M’ gonna be better, Geoffrey. M’so sorry..

Geoffrey: There you go, apologizing again. You know it’s ok if you do steal them, right, silly? I run hot at night any...anyway-

-

Nancy Narrates: [I made a silent promise to my family that I’ll never stray away from them again. I would make it right, somehow]

Deacon: Today we gather to reflect on the sacred gift of family. God created humanity in His image. From the beginning, we see family is part of His design.

Deacon: It is within our families that we first encounter unconditional love that mirrors God’s own love for us all.

Priest: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Nancy: Amen. [softly] Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been- [exhales] a while since my last confession.

Priest: What is troubling you, my child?

Nancy: I’ve- fallen prey to my weakness for the same sex. I fear what I’ve done will ruin my family.

Priest: Have you struggled with this before?

Nancy: I’ve never really acted on it, until now.

Priest: How do you feel about what you’ve done?

Nancy: Guilt. Shame. Disgust.

Priest: My daughter, these emotions are a sign of your conscience at work. You have acted against your own values. You know these unnatural ways is not in accordance to God’s design. For your penance, I want you to spend time in prayer and consider the harm you’ve caused for yourself and for your soul.

-

Judith: Oh, brother. He said that?

Nancy: It’s nothing I’ve never heard before, growing up in the church and all.

Judith: You know there’s nothing wrong with you, right?

Nancy: [scoffs] I cheated on my husband! That’s unforgivable, in any situation. If Geoffrey ever found out, he’d leave me. The boys would have to suffer through a divorce- a broken family. The media would eat us alive. And my mother, God, if she knew-

Judith: Oh, I am so sick of hearing about that old broad!

Nancy: I just need to put it behind me. Move on. I got it out of my system, so I have no reason to speak to Lily ever again. I’ll never think about another woman. I’ll be good. Normal.

Judith: What the hell is normal, anyway? If you’re abnormal, than so am I.

Nancy: [sighs] You’re not married or a mother.

Judith: Have you even allowed yourself a moment to revel in this?

Nancy: Why would I?

Judith: Because you finally gave yourself something you wanted. Put the shame and all those nasty feelings aside for a second and tell me about it.

Nancy: [groans] God, it felt so good. The sex yes, but there was something about her obeying everything I said that thrilled me. If I close my eyes now, I can still feel her teeth in my skin, her gasps when I squeezed her throat.

Judith: There.

Nancy: What? There what?

Judith: The real you. You pack her away so much that when you finally allow her to show, she shines.

Nancy: She frightens me..

Judith: Good! She’s a real bitch, and she’s ready for her debut! I want to see you at your brightest, darling. It’s when you’re the happiest.

Nancy: I don’t know if happiness was in the cards I was dealt.

Judith: I believe it is. And when it comes, bask in it, darling.

-

Jonathan: Move, Malcolm! I have the phone!

Malcolm: NO! Let me talk to mommy!

Nancy: Quit bickering, you two. Jonathan, let your brother speak too, please.

Malcolm: YEAH!

Jonathan: [groans] Fine! Mom, are you almost home? Will you be late again?

Nancy: I’ve just wrapped up my last client and I’ll be on my way.

Malcolm: Then we can look for a Christmas tree?!

Nancy: We sure can, my love. I’ll see you both very, very soon.

Jonathan: Promise?

Nancy: I promise. I love you both so much.

Assistant: Mrs. Landgraab, you have a guest asking for you in the lobby.

Nancy: [scoffs] You’re joking? No, no I can’t. Have them book an appointment. I’m leaving for the evening.

Assistant: I suggested that, but they refused to leave and insisted on seeing you.

Nancy: Oh, fucking hell.. fine. Page my driver to wait for me out front anyway. I’ll make this quick.

Nancy: [breathlessly] Vanessa.

Vanessa: Hello Nancy.

[tofics]

Comfort Has A Name

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!Reader

Summary: For you, comfort has a name: Joel Miller.

Word count: ~1.1k words

Tags/Warnings: fluff, freezing your ass off, soft!Joel, jokes about saggy balls in hot weather

A/N: Look at that, I actually wrote something. I'm literally drowning in uni work atm so I have no idea when I'll get back to my other fics, but I'm too overwhelmed with my task list tonight so naturally I had to procrastinate and think about a comforting Joel situation. This is literally no more than a drabble, but maybe it can provide some comfort for you too 🥲

Tough and gruff as he may be, Joel Miller is still your comfort person.

Occasionally, people will ask you how the hell you deal with him on a daily basis, and you never know what to reply. Where do you get the patience?

You're not a saint, by no means. Your patience does not exceed the normal amount, but you've never found Joel testing it.

It's more the opposite, really.

Where other people complain that he grinds their gears, you think of him as the drop of oil that smoothes out the kink in your own system.

Like that day him and you got surprised by a thunderstorm and had to take shelter in an abandoned building. Nothing about the complex provided a sense of comfort; bare and crumbling walls, dust and rubble-coated floors, and more broken windows than intact ones to show for. It was a miserable night. You were freezing, drenched from the downpour the two of you had gotten caught in, and the wind wasn't helping either, howling through the cracks and holes in the ceiling and walls like a wailing ghost.

Joel and you had taken cover in one corner of the building. In the dim twilight of the early night, your two cowering figures could've easily passed as two more large pieces of rubble to the untrained eye. Your soaked clothes lay strewn around, hastily discarded and exchanged for dry clothes from your backpacks in an attempt to not lose more body heat than necessary. (Joel hadn't looked, of course, and neither had you. Both of you had turned their backs to each other as you'd quickly stripped off your clothes, as quickly as the soaked garments would allow.) Still, your teeth were chattering relentlessly, adding a rhythmic element to the white noise provided by the downpour outside.

You reached for your backpack to retrieve your sleeping bag, hoping to wrap it around you like a blanket for extra warmth, but you noticed the mishap as soon as your fingers found the side compartment of your bag. The flap hung loose, and your sleeping bag underneath it was drenched.

"Fuck." You muttered under your breath.

The flap must've had come loose sometime during your sprint through the rain, which left your sleeping bag drenched and you without a plan to warm up. With a sigh, you pulled the bunched up material from its tiny compartment and rolled it out over the floor next to your drenched clothes. You were doubtful any of it was going to be dry by morning, but the chances were still higher than if you kept it all bunched up in your backpack.

You'd slept on solid ground enough to know how cold and unwelcoming any stone surface could be, but that night, you truly understood whoever had coined the term 'stone cold'. The hard concrete against your back was drawing out more heat from your limbs than you could conjure, despite your best efforts. You had curled yourself into a ball, knees tucked tightly against your arms which were crossed over your chest. Your hands, formed into tight fists, were buried in your armpits, but it wasn't helping. Frost was settling in your every limb, slowly working its way from the tips of your extremities all the way to the core of your bones.

That's what you got for getting caught in the rain in early November.

"Hey." Joel's voice grumbled next to you, barely distinguishable over the rain splattering outside. You shifted your head and squinted at him through the dark.

He too was curled up into a human ball, but he'd extended an arm to you as if inviting you for a side-hug.

"C'mon," he said and beckoned you over with a flick of his hand.

You didn't need to be told twice. With your backpack in tow, you scooted over to him, dragging both your belongings and your butt over the dusty ice-cold floor.

"Whoa." You breathed out in surprise as you tucked yourself against Joel's side. His arm came down around you instantly, locking you in place and holding you closer to him than you might've allowed yourself. Heat radiated from his center like he secretly harbored a little white dwarf in his abdomen.

Before you could even think about what you were doing, you pushed yourself into Joel's side as much as physically possible. Your arms snaked around his waist and just barely touched on the other side, while your head came to rest below his chin on his chest, your legs all jumbled up into a big knot drawn as close to yourself as possible. It wasn't really a comfortable position, and yet it was as comfortable as you were ever gonna get.

"Are you an oven or something? How the hell are you so hot?"

Joel snorted. You could feel the low rumble of laughter vibrate in his chest that followed. "Guess that's genetics for 'ya," he retorted, and you only then realized the ambiguity of both your remarks. A lazy smile formed on your lips and you softly boxed his rib cage.

"Not what I meant," you said with half a laugh and quickly wrapped your arm back around his torso. His warmth was too delicious to give up for even a second. Already you felt ten times warmer than you'd had on your own, and that was just from a few seconds of being wrapped around Joel's middle like a jacket you had been reluctant to bring and now regretted.

"I know, sweetheart," he replied and you could hear the smile in his words. "Always been warm-blooded. S' a blessing in winter and a curse in summer. Always sweatin' my damn balls off from May to September."

"Hmm." You feigned a sound of delight. "Tell me more."

His chest vibrated once more as another round of laughter rumbled through him. This time, it was him who faintly smacked your head at your jest. "I'm serious. Ain't no fun having your balls basically stick to your knees all damn summer."

Your eyelids fluttered close as you rolled your eyes. What a charming picture he was conjuring up in your brain.

"You know, when I said tell me more? I really didn't mean that." You shook your head at the picture of a sweaty ballsack stretched out all the way to the knees. "Christ."

Joel chuckled under you. "You said I'm hot as a' oven. I didn't start this."

Mobile Masterlist

Feedback is always appreciated! If you have any requests, feel free to send them my way. I'm always happy to practice my writing! :)

[rahuratna]

Minnie! I'm super excited for this one! Just settled in with my samoosas and tea and am ready to inhale this!

Tokyo HUNTER ACADEMY. (Rubs hands). I can already tell that the world building will be strong with this one.

Oh my GOD. MINNIE. The details of the backdrop you've given for this story. This is ... everything I want in a fanfic. This feels like sitting down and reading a fantasy dystopian novella. The way you've woven political power imbalances, capitalism, public relations and the overarching influence of technological development into this is incredibly well-thought out.

When the reader speaks about returning to a hunter's life, the longing for change and embracing the nostalgia and danger of this lifestyle, I'm strongly reminded of Nanami. The way you describe their meeting, after all this time, with the taste of cherry cola in her mouth, is ... I'm not normal about this. It's a fantastic form of capturing an old feeling that never died.

I'm supposed to be writing this review as I read each section, but this is SO HARD. I haven't felt this way while reading a fic in a while. Your style and the way you craft words is beautiful and reads like something absolutely of the quality to be published. It reminds me of the fics I read as a teenager that made me dream, transported me to another reality and stayed with me for days after.

Okay, enough rambling. The sequence set in 2006 is so nostalgic and really brings to mind the awkwardness of teenage years, the unbreakable friendships that form from such tenuous threads, the tension of unspoken feelings. Even considering what these kids have at stake, and the tragedy that will inevitably strike, I can't help but feel that you've captured the tenderness and sweetness of youth, of halcyon days cut short all too quickly, the pain of loss and the innocence stolen when the real world intrudes on our little bubble of peace. Also, the way you executed their little quiz as a means of introducing some of the lore about Bloodborn and Turned vampires was great.

Regarding adult Nanami, I always love how you write him. He's so understated, so literally difficult to read, so contained, that those moments when he shows passion, anger and remorse shine all the brighter.

The flashback to the 1870's is perfectly placed in the narrative. It gives a taste of foreshadowing, while also showcasing the poignancy of those who have to survive the harsh system of turning vs eradication, those who simply want to live simple lives in spite of what they are. Thinking about who her ancestors are later, and the parallels you create in the final scene with Nanami, this scene really stands out in my mind.

Also, yes, there was foreshadowing, but damn. I didn't see the majority of those plot points coming. When she discovers the report, I also gasped, lol. The way you build up the plot, taking into account such little details, like the manner by which Nanami gets his blood and WHY he'd be starving at that point, is what I truly appreciate.

"It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment when breaking down Nanami’s barriers became synonymous with breaking his resolve." I absolutely LOVE this line. It rings so true for his character. Most of the walls that Nanami erects are emotional ones, but even in the series, you start to realise over time, that they aren't really impenetrable. Nanami, in spite of his stoicism, is one of the most humane characters, his drive and zeal to perform his duty arising from this very aspect of his personality. He knows, better than anyone, the value of human life. This is what you've shown so clearly in your depiction of him.

And that leads me to the love scene between them. Utter poetry. The symbolism every step of the way was incredible. The exchange of blood, the feeding on each other, is so representative of the final barriers coming down between them. No more distance. No more half truths. No more concealing their true natures. And the flow of emotion that finally occurs, when they finally realise that dancing around each other is futile because the feelings they have for each other are so unavoidable, is wonderful.

The way you've used blood imagery in this scene is also inspired. The blood is almost a metaphor for this complete exchange, for the sealing of the bond between them. The weight of it is unmistakeable.

"You were not thinking clearly when you sunk your teeth right where the faded scars were, in an untenable attempt to draw out pain more than blood." THIS LINE. This sort of encapsulates their entire relationship. She always wanted to share his pain, to take on those burdens, to free him from the curse of his own guilt over Haibara, so the symbolism of this action is incredibly heartwrenching.

"Your bodies moved in tandem, a decade of longing that took classmates to fire-forged partners to blood-bound lovers, manifested in the most tender dance you’d engage in that night ... " This entire paragraph made me hold my breath. This is why I love your writing so much. The way you capture emotion, turn it over from every angle for the benefit of the reader, it's like your writing is a diamond that's being held up for inspection, and it never misses.

The final scene is such a catharsis, and a reflection back to the scene in the 1870's. It's not just about their duty to Haibara. It's about the step taken to acknowledge their own connection, the fact that they are bound together by so much more than the desire for revenge. I think this theme stood out for me most clearly in this story, the breaking of barriers and the strengthening and acknowledgement of bonds that run so deep in our blood. It works so well with a character like Nanami, who never wears his heart on his sleeve, but offers it up so readily for those he cares about.

Thank you, Minnie, for such an immersive and incredible read. I truly felt like I had been transported to my early days of reading fanfic and had to stop a few times to process the scenes and appreciate your writing. 🧡🧡🧡🧡

Title: Crimson Vows Pairing: Nanami Kento x f!reader (Vampire AU) Summary: An ocean, a tragic death, and a plethora of unanswered questions. For over a decade, these are the things that keep you separated from Nanami Kento. When presented with the opportunity to support the efforts in Tokyo to investigate and stymie the latest surge of Special Grade vampires, you're compelled to leave your life overseas and rejoin the Tokyo Hunter Academy's ranks as a vampire Hunter, only to find yourself paired on a mission with Nanami, a reunion that sets you both onto life-altering paths. Content warnings: 18+/MDNI, blood, blood-drinking, violence, language, biting, mature themes, graphic sexual content. Content tags: Vampire AU, romance, hunting/investigation missions, action sequences, angsty/hurt/comfort plot with smut, comfort sex, mentions of death, processing of grief, power dynamics, brief allusions to mind control, POC!reader. A/N: This fic is part of the Spookinky event. Thanks to @tsukimefuku for hosting! Thank you @espace--positif for helping me with reviewing and for the banner! [Also on AO3]

“Can you show me the one with incendiary rounds again?” you asked the staff armorer. 

“Of course. Let me bring it for you,” he politely replied as he disappeared into the backroom for the third time.

Less than forty-eight hours ago, you were turning in the keys to your apartment and placing your few remaining life belongings into a storage facility. Now here you were, halfway across the world, in a repurposed classroom that served as the Tokyo Hunter Academy armory, evaluating what would be the best weapon of choice for killing a vampire in your upcoming mission.

It was quite the displacement, and yet you did not particularly feel out of place. 

The existence of vampires had been a well-kept secret until the early 2000s, when the Internet and the era of social media democratized news, and the spread of information rendered global governments and their covert agencies incapable of containing such an enormous secret.

Along with the revelation of the existence of vampires came the one of the existence of vampire Hunters, those humans with innate skills allowing them to detect, neutralize, and kill vampires with ease. As the daughter of two vampire Hunters, you were not unfamiliar with the inner workings of this world. 

The armorer returned with what you reluctantly settled on, being the closest thing to the beloved piece you were forced to leave back home, unable to board the plane until you were formally re-certified as a Hunter.

This would have to do. 

“I’ll take this one.”

As soon as the armorer registered the weapon to your name and gave you the corresponding ammo, you set out for your rendezvous point at the school’s gate.

A configuration of mixed sentiments swirled through you as you walked through the halls of the school you’d spent a year attending over a decade ago.

Some things felt the same, others were vastly different.

You walked past an old classroom repurposed into what was now a press room, where the Hunter association higher-ups would sit and give regular briefings, pretending that all things were under control and taking the credit away from the tireless Hunters that were perishing on the front lines. Every once in a while, they would begrudgingly trot out a prolific Hunter like Gojo Satoru, who was popular with the media for his blunt honesty and with the people for his affability. But not even he could lift the somber atmosphere that loomed over the city these days. 

Tokyo was living through its worst surge of vampire-related crimes yet. Several deaths and disappearances were reported daily now, some people were assumed to have been turned into vampires, and some were confirmed to have been.

The lack of support to combat these attackers did not help. As soon as it had become public, vampire hunting as a field of work, much like any other highly specialized training, had fallen victim to the human capital flight, with the top Western countries benefiting from the best training and talent by sitting at the top of the global capitalism food chain, resulting in other countries and regions being grossly understaffed.

It was partly what had compelled you to leave your equally important position as a World Health Organization researcher specialized in studying the effects of vampirism and to come support your old alma mater on the front lines.

But it wasn’t the full reason. There was something else, a restlessness that stirred within you for years now, a certain dissatisfaction with life, a sense that you were meant to do something else, and deep down, buried under these sentiments, a desire to live a life that could have been.

In hindsight, perhaps it was that rumination alone that pushed you to drop the life you were reluctantly settling into and rejoin the ranks of vampire hunting, straight to the perilous field.

The same force that fuelled the blooming feeling of nostalgia that hit you right now as you spotted the vending machine that sat by the exit you were just approaching, along with the cherry soda flavor you hadn’t had in years, compelling you to stop to purchase a can.

The same feeling that enveloped you as the first tinges of sugary carbonation hit your tongue, bringing a welcomed, familiar stinging sensation to your nose.

Perhaps it was that silent wish that you could never fully verbalize, as you closed your eyes and let yourself be transported by memories of simpler times. 

In hindsight, you wondered, if perhaps it was this deep-held sentiment that somehow made the universe conspire for this moment to happen, in the exact way it happened, when you opened your eyes and turned around in time to see a foreign yet familiar figure turn the corner, heading towards the exit, heading towards you.

He was different, much different from what you remembered, taller, older, more built. He wore a suit now, you’d never quite imagined he would. He looked different, but it was unmistakably him. You recognized him first, but only by a mere few seconds. He stopped in his steps when he did.

Knowing what you knew now, you wondered perhaps if it was not something you’d somehow willed on your own. 

Your mouth went dry as his eyes anchored yours. Your breath hitched, and for a moment, you wondered if you’d ever remember how to inhale again.

You stood in awe as you witnessed a decades-old forgotten wish, uttered in your deepest sorrows, granted in the most unexpected way, as a juxtaposition that no amount of fantasizing could have prepared you for; standing before Nanami Kento, with the sweet taste of synthetic cherry blossom soda and of as your name escaped his lips in a low rumble.

And suddenly, it was 2006 again.

September 2006, Tokyo

Changing leaves signaled a new beginning; a new season, a new semester.

For you, it also meant a move to a new school, a new country, and a new language, courtesy of the latest Tokyo-based assignment taken on by your vampire Hunter parents.

This wasn’t your first rodeo, having gone through half a dozen similar moves since your early school years. You’d grown somewhat accustomed to the instability concomitant with this lifestyle of traveling Hunters, had developed small coping mechanisms, and tried not to grow too attached to your classmates and your teachers, always keeping in mind that this would likely be temporary. It got easier, as you got older, and over time.

But it didn’t make it any less painful.

While you were raised in an era where Hunters were newly revered for their innate powers, this admiration didn’t translate well on the school playground. 

Following you was a perceived air of superiority and prestige that you’d never wished to carry. Even in the most diverse of environments, it was easy for you to stick out. Being alone was one thing. Feeling lonely while surrounded by people was the worst.

This year would be different, you told yourself. You would attend one institution dedicated to training the next generation of Hunters. Even if it was in a new country, you’d at least have that in common with them, right?

Wrong.

For starters, you started in September, which was the second semester of the Japanese school year. What you found instead were friend groups already formed, and after the novelty of having a new student wore off, you were quickly relegated to your own corner.

There were still some things that made you different, like your darker complexion, your textured hair, and the slight language barrier. So for the next couple of weeks, you began mentally bringing yourself down from the high hopes you’d created for yourself and attempted a soft landing at the reality that this year would be more of the same. 

One day, you were eating lunch on the school’s rooftop. You heard their conversation before you saw them, and could immediately identify their voices. Your two inseparable classmates, Haibara Yu, and Nanami Kento.

Haibara’s voice grew more animated as he seemed to be recounting the exciting twist from a movie he’d seen. Haibara paused when your eyes met and you heard him say something indistinguishable to Nanami, then he waved at you and they both made their way towards you. 

Haibara was the one who spoke first. “Have you seen it? Human Earthworm? I think it has the potential to become a series.”

You sat quietly, for a moment, watching Haibara open his bento box. You looked at him and then you locked eyes with Nanami briefly, before he returned his attention to unwrapping his lunch, what looked like a sandwich he’d just purchased at the convenience store.

“Haibara, you shouldn’t assume that everyone has the same weird taste in movies as you,” he said with a sigh.

You were so caught off-guard by the casual way by which they’d included you in their conversation, without preamble, without the awkward introduction, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“I have seen it, actually,” you finally replied. “I think it was good, but they left things too open at the end. Perhaps they’re saving it for a sequel?”

“Exactly! That’s what I keep saying. People say it’s a cult classic, but they underestimate this franchise. I think it has the potential to go mainstream. See, Nanami, I’m not crazy after all!” he said, elbowing his friend.

The conversation continued until you’d all finished your lunch and walked back to class together. It all happened suddenly and organically. You shared every single one of your lunches together for the rest of your time there. Soon enough, you did everything together, from studying to training to group projects.

The dynamic between the three of you remained the same.

With Haibara, it was an instant connection. He was so easy to talk to, especially since you had similar tastes in movies and games. It was like connecting with a long-lost brother.

With Nanami, it was a slower, more subtle connection, manifested in moments of understanding exchanged in quiet pauses between classes when it was just you two together. Or the one you had one day, after school, while you were studying for one of your theoretical tests. 

“Okay Haibara, rapid-fire questions this time. Focus!”

“Hit me!”

“What are the two types of vampires?”

“Bloodborn and Turned vampires!”

“Good. How do the two types of vampires come to be?”

“Bloodborn are vampires by lineage, Turned vampires are turned by Bloodborns.”

“Correct. And how do you neutralize them? ”

“A Hunter of equal level can kill turned vampires or above. Special Grade vampires are significantly stronger than graded vampires and must be killed by a Special Grade Hunter. Bloodborn vampires are even stronger and are rarely killed by anyone other than fellow Bloodborns.”

Nanami, who had disappeared to fetch you all some drinks from the vending machine, reappeared in your peripheral vision with two cans. He lightly tapped Haibara’s face with one of them.

“You forgot one thing,” he said, handing you the other can, a cherry blossom soda. 

“Bloodborns can temporarily cure Special Grade vampires,” he added, in his usual impassive tone.

“That is statistically so rare that it’s practically technicality. I don’t think that will be a question on the exam,” you said as you reached to take the can. 

“Why not?” he asked, pulling back on the can.

“Tell me, Nanami, what kind of Bloodborn would willingly cure a lowly Special Grade vampire?” You tugged on the can, finally snatching it out of his hands.

“I don’t know. Perhaps they have a pact or something. But there’s a non-zero possibility it could happen.” He took his seat on the bench on the other side of Haibara.

“That is way too specific. Haibara, I wouldn’t worry about it, Nanami’s just being pedantic. Again.”

“So you don’t think it could be a trick question?”

You rolled your eyes. Haibara, who sat between you and had watched the scene unfold quietly up to that point, let out a giggle. You could almost feel the inevitable teasing comment he was going to make melt onto his tongue as you watched his eyes focus on something ahead of him, glowing in recognition.

“Ah, Ieri-san. I have a question for you!” He jumped up, briskly walking towards Shoko, who was heading towards the vending machines.

“God, they never stock these machines, I swear,” Shoko lamented.

Her comment brought your attention to the vending machine, and it was only then that you spotted the glaring gap right where the cherry blossom soda was usually stocked.

Your attention turned to Nanami, who had since returned his attention to his textbook. Notably missing from his hand was his own drink, the one he’d expressed craving just a few minutes earlier. His favorite flavor. You knew this because he was the one who had introduced it to you. 

The one he’d let you have the last can of.

Nanami Kento was too altruistic for his own good sometimes. It was something that both frustrated you and endeared you to him. You opened what you now knew to be the last cherry soda, making a show of it. 

“Nanami, I don’t know if I can drink all of this. Split it with me?”

You got up and walked up to him to minimize his chances of refusing. You shoved the can into his field of view, forcing him to interrupt his reading. When he met your gaze, it was initially with an annoyed scowl he schooled back to neutrality as his eyes narrowed in realization.

“You don’t have to share with me,” he said as he averted his gaze and attempted to return to his textbook.

You acted oblivious. “I’m still full from lunch. I can’t drink all this.” When you noticed he wouldn’t bite, you added, “Come on, you know Haibara doesn’t like this flavor. If you don’t take it, I will literally spill the rest and it will go to waste. How tragic would that be?”

“Alright, fine,” he finally relented and accepted your offering, downing half of it in one shot. Just as he was about to grab his sleeve to wipe down the rim, you nabbed the can back and directly took a slow, deliberate sip from the can where his lips were a mere few seconds ago. You watched as his cheeks took a crimsoned tinge, your eyes anchoring his in playful challenge.

“I see you, Nanami.” It was all you said before Haibara returned and you retook your seat, savoring the saccharine taste of cherry blossom soda, and one of many silent, unspoken sparks that traveled between you and Nanami.

The end of the school year arrived in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, as did the end of your parents’ assignment. What you’d spent weeks convincing yourself to be a practiced indifference to the tension invoked by the separation from who you considered to be your two closest friends ever quickly proved itself to be a complete mirage on the last day of classes. Try as you might, you could not mask your melancholy.

On one of those last days, you were traveling back to campus from a rough Hunter mission.

“Geez, these missions are getting more and more intense, don’t you think?”

“They’re not only intense, but some of these are also borderline mis-leveled,” said Nanami. He seemed even more irritated than usual.

“Yes, but we’re the dream team! Together, we can handle anything!” Then looking at you, “Ahh, we’re going to miss this so much. These missions won’t be the same without you around!”

“Nanami won’t miss me.” The words spilled out before you could stop yourself. And you felt a thrill when his eyes finally shot up at you, the first reaction you’d gotten out of him today.

“What makes you say that?”

“He doesn’t sound like he will. He didn’t even acknowledge our final mission together. In fact, I think I was a pain for him more than anything else.” You replied.

“You sure enjoy making these snap judgments about me. Have you ever considered I’m still recovering from this brutal mission we were just on?” Nanami said.

“You couldn’t be more wrong. Nanamin will miss you the most! He’s just not good with goodbyes.” Haibara cut in.

“Yeah? Is that true Nanamin?” you asked, parroting Haibara’s nickname for him, feigning indifference to a question that suddenly meant so much to you. As you sat there at the mercy of his response, you felt everything inside you balancing on the edge of some invisible cliff. You wondered when exactly it was that this boy grew this much in importance to you.

“More importantly, we should get Haibara to the infirmary as soon as possible,” Nanami said, referring to the minor scratches sustained by your friend in an attempt to change the topic.

But you knew, in the way Nanami’s eyes averted yours, in the fact that he did not address let alone reproach you from calling him by the affectionate nickname that bothered him, in the way he deliberately evaded confirming the incriminating portion of Haibara’s declaration. You knew, later that month, when you stood at the school’s gate for the last time, and you embraced him in a hug, in the way he squeezed you for longer than necessary, in the way he tilted his head an angle so that this moment could stay between you two, you just knew that he meant every word when he finally whispered in your ear. “I do hate goodbyes.”

Haibara’s rambling cut into the moment: “… and besides, we’ve got online chat now! So there’s no excuse not to stay in touch, okay?”

It technically wasn’t your final conversation together, but it might as well have been because it ended up being the one you replayed in your mind the most in the years that followed.

You did stay in touch, even after you moved back overseas. Despite the time zone differences, despite the varying busy schedules, not a single forty-eight-hour cycle passed without your hearing from one or both of them.

Until one day.

Three days passed without action in reply to your last message, which was composed of you venting about the harsh winter you were dealing with in your current city.

Three days turned into a week, and a week into two.

Part of you assumed that your two friends were unusually busy, while the other couldn’t help but wonder if this was the point at which all your long-distance friendships seemed to inevitably taper off.

Only when your last message timestamp showed “17 days ago” did you finally get a message. It was from Nanami, asking if he could voice call you. You were thankful that it was a Friday and that you were uncharacteristically staying up and happened to be online at your computer at the time. You quickly typed your reply.

Yes, of course, is everything okay? You typed back.

You saw the typing indicator appear and disappear repeatedly as you fumbled into your drawers, fishing for your old headset. When you connected to the call, your blooming giddiness lasted only for the short time it took you to detect the pain in Nanami’s voice as he confirmed he could, in fact, hear you.

Almost a year and an ocean separated you from the last time you’d heard it and yet it was something like no other. You didn’t get to ask what was wrong before he engaged in a retelling of the worst news you could have ever received. 

Your friend Haibara. Gone.

A mission gone viciously wrong, mis-leveled, a Bloodborn of all things. 

What the fuck.

The shock immobilized you in your seat, and until this day, you didn’t understand how you’d managed to commit every single word Nanami said to your memory, a conversation you would mentally revisit over and over again years later. Perhaps it was in the substance of what he was saying, the incisiveness of his words, or the unusually heavy emotion with which he uttered them that made the entire call painfully memorable. 

You didn’t realize how uncontrollably you were crying until you reflexively sniffled and heard it unceremoniously echo on Nanami’s side. A reminder that you were here on earth, that this was not a nightmare, that you were on this call, on the other side of the world, with Nanami.

Nanami, who had barely escaped with his life, who had witnessed the entire ordeal.

Who had watched your friend die.

You desperately tried to calm yourself down, taking deep breaths, preparing to break the silence you were only now noticing had settled between you, punctuated only by your sniffles.

“Nanami, what about yo-”

“I have to go now.”

“Wait! Let’s chat tomorrow? Or I guess later tonight, your time. If you can?”

“If I can.”

“Nanami, you’ll talk to me? This is all so fucked, but I’m here if you want to talk.” You tried to keep your composure, because how could you offer to help you didn’t seem to have “I know I’m not there but I’m here for you.”

A pause and what sounded like a sharp exhale from his end. 

“I have to go.”

“Okay. Talk later.” Your intonation was more akin to a question rather than a statement.

The call disconnected, and its summary added itself to the bottom of your group chat, a string of text, showing that the call had lasted just under ten minutes and that only two out of three group members had attended. This screen, these words would be the only thing that held your company the next day, and the one after that, and the one after that, as you spent nearly all of your free time not spent in classes or getting what little sleep your mind would allow you to, staring at the screen in the hopes to catch a message or call that would never come. 

You waited, and you worried, and you wondered.

You pinged him. Every day, for weeks. Every week, for months.

Your worry grew into sadness, then frustration, then numbness.

It took you a few months to come to the reality that you should stop waiting. That you shouldn’t expect anything. That the circumstances would not change. 

That you had had your last conversation with Nanami Kento, and that you were alone again, mourning simultaneously the death of a friend and the loss of a friendship.

Current day, Tokyo

It was under a caliginous sky that you embarked on what would be your first mission back with Nanami. You learned Ijichi was the name of the driver who was escorting you to your mission location. You had barely caught it, in his unceremonious introduction, a welcomed interruption of whatever was going to happen after Nanami uttered your name.

By the time you turned your attention back to Nanami, he was already headed towards the exit. It took a moment for your mind to make the mental migration back to reality and connect the dots on what was occurring. 

You were going on your Hunter recertification mission. Nanami. He was your mission supervisor.

Your mind still couldn’t reconcile what you were seeing with your eyes. You hardly felt ready to tackle a real hunting mission. But you would have to. Your recertification now hinged on it.

Years of imagining out how this moment, which you never believed would happen, could play out, and never did you imagine sharing the backseat of a Tokyo Hunter Academy issued car with Nanami on the way to a hunting mission. It was the closest you’d been to him in years, and yet somehow, the most distant you’ve ever felt.

The tension in the car was palpable. It had been a quiet ride so far. A glance at the GPS indicated you were still 20 minutes out from the mission’s location. You were growing restless. Nanami had not stopped tapping on his phone since the beginning of the trip.

“Have you been briefed?”

“What?”

“For this mission, has anyone briefed you yet?”

“No, not yet. At orientation, they told me I’d be briefed by my re-cert supervisor.”

“This process is so inconsistent,” you barely heard him mumble.

“What?” You said for the second time, feeling a little silly as you did.

He put away his phone and turned to face you. The moonlight filtered through the car window, perfectly hitting at an angle that highlighted his chiseled jaw. 

Even in the car’s darkness, there was no mistake; he was too handsome. His eyes levelled with yours and for a moment, you felt time stop. You averted your gaze for a bit to collect yourself, your eyes catching Ijichi’s in the rearview mirror in surprise, and he, in turn, also averted his. The reminder of another observer in the car was enough to school you back to reality.

“I apologize for the disorganization. The recent crises have completely destabilized the onboarding process. I’ll be your recertification supervisor. My task is to evaluate whether you’re fit for field missions, and to recommend a level for you. Seeing as you already have extensive field experience, this will mainly be a levelling evaluation.” He paused, as though to leave room for any interjection.

“Okay,” was all you could say.

“We’re heading to the lake shore forest at the edge of the city. The latest surge of Special Grade vampires points to a deliberate effort from a Bloodborn to create them. The intel collected over the last few weeks points towards this area s being a prime location for disappearances.”

“I’ve read about this. It seems to have seriously picked up in the last month or so.

“Yes. The entrance we’re surveying is opposite the one that was red taped. The goal is to retrace where specifically these Turned vampires seem to come from.”

He moved the tablet to the center seat to allow you a better view. You both inadvertently leaned in at the same time, meeting in the middle. You tried to pay attention to the indicators he was drawing on the digital map he was showing you, but your focus was elsewhere. His clean smell, a mix of leather and cedar sent you on a tailspin that somehow had you imagining what he looked like when he applied whatever cologne he had on. You desperately pulled yourself together, an attempt to prove to yourself that you were not so far gone that simple smells could make you lose control.

Until he spoke.

His voice was low, rumbling, baritone. 

“Ours is a recon assignment. Two, maybe three dozen Turned vampires are the most I’d expect, based on the reports from the previous teams who were recently there.”

And then he added, “Your first few missions back might feel daunting at first, but I’m certain that you’ll get quickly accustomed.”

You felt him lift his eyes to look at you.

Were those words of encouragement?

He was being so overly formal and professional to you. It would have driven you insane if he wasn’t also so kind and caring. It was reminiscent of the high school days where he took on the role of unofficial tutor in your friend’s group.

You recalled how your classmates gravitated towards Nanami around exam season, valuing his ability to break down concepts into their simplest forms, and to capstone his explanation with a few encouraging words. He was well suited for this kind of role, that much was undeniable. For a second, it was like no time had elapsed between the days he would pep talk you and Haibara before a big test.

It almost made you forget about the elephant in the room. 

Almost.

You wondered what this conversation would sound like, were you not on this mission, were Ijichi not in the car, were your Hunter license recertification not hinging on Nanami Kento’s sign-off.

It was not lost on you that he had, so far, successfully used professionalism as a shield against the major topic at hand. For now, you would respect this unspoken armistice, you told yourself.

But only for now.

You clipped your flashlight to your holster as the two of you advanced into the forest. You had already taken out two hordes of Turned vampires, already more than the three dozen Nanami had expected. You’d successfully taken them out.

“Something’s off tonight,” he mumbled.

Just as you were going to ask him to expand on his statement, you felt it before you saw it. It first came as a rapid movement from the corner of your eye, and you knew Nanami did too, based on his sudden alertness.

“Special Grade,” he said. “Two… No, three of them.”

“I don’t think so.”

Nanami raised an eyebrow at you.

“Care to elaborate?”

“The signature is too strong.”

“Which is why I count three…”

“No, I think it’s more than that. I think it might be-”

You felt its presence and signature for a moment before you spotted it in the darkness ahead of you. A colossal figure interrupted you, emerging just a few meters in front of you.

The atmosphere crackled with an electric charge. The energy shifted dangerously. A sudden wind picked up. A blend of foreign and familiar energy surrounded you, akin to a suffocating embrace.

Years of hunting, studying, and researching, along with an unmistakable gut feeling, helped you identify it to be a Bloodborn vampire. 

“Shit. Bloodborn,” you muttered in Nanami’s general direction.

With a practiced motion, you popped your weapon’s magazine free and counted five remaining bullet rounds. You might have been informed, but you certainly were not prepared. 

“Retreat plan?” you spoke again, your mind running through the protocols drilled into you by hours of training as your eyes searched the tree behind which Nanami had ducked a short moment ago. 

You found him standing a few meters ahead instead, out in the open. His usual composed countenance, the caution you’d known him to exhibit since the start of this mission, since forever, appeared to have long diminished.

What little light emanating from the moon above was enough for you to perceive brows furrowed in calculation, jaw tightened in concentration, determination manifest. It took you a few seconds to realize what he was plotting.

“Wait, are you-”

Nanami suddenly charged at the figure. 

What the hell?

As you watched him run and pick up an incredible speed, you fumbled with your weapon, looking to aim at something, anything, as you prepared to lay unexpected cover fire for your seemingly possessed partner. 

It was difficult to see anything in the dark, but thankfully you were able to get a surprisingly solid read on the vampire’s signature and could track its whereabouts with utmost precision. You’d have to track Nanami mostly through sound, you thought to yourself.

As if on cue, you heard the sound of metal against flesh, signaling a direct hit by Nanami on his target. 

“Left arm,” you heard Nanami’s steady voice call out from somewhere in the close distance. You moved closer, aiming down sights, and you saw what appeared to be its right arm for a brief second. It was the first and only shot you’d seen so far, so you took it. 

Another direct hit.

You watched as the figure staggered its steps, both limbs now affected, your closer proximity allowing you to distinguish the monstrous features it exhibited. Pointy ears, long limbs, and an extremely tall stature. 

You heard hit after hit, Nanami using the opening you’d created to his advantage, landing as many hits as possible. You lined up your shot as you moved closer, deducing you’d have at least one more good go at it before the beast recovered.

“Left a-”

A powerful surge of energy preceded a sound so rambunctious that you could feel it in your own body. Your eyes had gotten accustomed to the dark by now, at least enough to see Nanami’s limp body shoot off into the distance and land several meters away with a bouncing thud. 

Between being paralyzed at the prospect of the worst-case scenario, and the shock of having a Bloodborn vampire, in its most feral form, now fully set its attention on you, your attempt at calling out for Nanami wound up getting caught in your throat. 

You quickly started backing up, mentally mapping out the quickest way to back your way toward where you’d watch Nanami land and then back out through the nearest exit. You weaved off the beaten path to put both distance and some foliage density between yourself and your threat. 

What you had in heightened senses, the vampire seemed to counter with speed. You watched as the figure weaved between the trees, rapidly closing the distance between you two.

You took a shot. It landed on a neighboring tree trunk. 

Four bullets left.

You emerged from the wooded area and stumbled onto a fork in the road. 

You could sense but not see the beast closing in on you. You turned around and shot in its general direction. It completely whiffed.

Three.

You chose the direction you judged would lead you closest to Nanami. The closer the vampire got to you, the more you felt an uncanny draw to it. It was as though it was trying to communicate with you. 

It was gaining ground. You had to change strategies. You aimed and shot two bullets in a double-tap succession. One of them grazed the Bloodborn, and the other one missed.

One.

You turned around and broke into a sprint, hoping that the speed gained by running facing forward would make up for the fact that you wouldn’t be shooting at your target anymore. 

Your mind quickly flitted to a bird’s-eye view of your current predicament, about how quickly this had all gone wrong, about the domino chain that started at your dissatisfaction with life and would potentially end with an abrupt, violent ending of it, about Nanami Kento, the old friend you’d just reunited with and who likely needed your help now more than ever.  

Something snapped in you with that last thought, and for a brief second, you empathized with the way Nanami had thrown himself at his adversary a few minutes ago. Weaponizing your desperation, you stopped in your tracks and turned around. You pointed your gun at the approaching figure. You aimed down sight and you took your last shot.

The sound of your final incendiary round crossing into the air echoed through your ears and your mind as both your vision and sound faded out. In your suddenly weakened state, you felt the distinct stifling presence of a vampire closing in on you. Shortly after, you felt limbs around you, decidedly not human, grabbing you and slinging you over its shoulder. 

And the world faded to black.

1870s, Atlantic coast, Northern West Africa

The setting sun casts a warm hue of crimson red into the sky, carrying an uncanny air of peacefulness and tranquility; the energy that occupies the beach below is anything but.

Two figures scurry towards the coastline. The Bloodborn vampire reaches it first, and she waddles her way into the water until its level hits her midsection. She frantically unsheathes her dagger from her waist belt; it glows amber, both heat and light emanating from it.

She turns around just in time to watch the Hunter who accompanies her catch up to her, halting just at the coastline. Her eyes meet his just in time to watch him school his worried countenance back to fervent determination. 

Without further preamble, she chants an incantation that predates humanity itself, a mother’s plea, to both the forces of Light and of Darkness. The surrounding air shimmers as she slices her palm open with her knife, only slightly wincing at the sensation of the action that will seal her fate.

She watches as the drops of blood drip from her hand, coagulating on impact with the sea water below her and forming into a carmine coloured bead, which she picks up into her hand and brings to her lips. The next words she utters are whispered, a caveat, a Bloodborn’s insurance. The bright glow of her knife disappears, replaced by a wraith-like texture.

She feels her life force weakening as she waddles her way back to the coast. She knows she’s on the clock. The Hunter takes notice of her struggle, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes the trek as if to meet her halfway. She lifts her hand up to signal him to stop. He reluctantly does.

When the vampire finally reaches the Hunter, he opens his arm, revealing the small baby girl he is protectively holding, wide eyes blinking up at her parents. The woman bends down and kisses her forehead. Throughout this entire ordeal, this is the only time the mother truly feels emotive, the only time her tears form at the corners of her eyes.

She brings the crimson bead up to the child and slips it under the thin garment she is wearing, placing it just over her heart, and presses down. She watches as the blood turns back into its sanguine form and gets completely absorbed into the child, illuminating her small body for a brief second before she returns to normal, an action that seals the fate of the child and of their lineage. 

Only then does the woman bring up her attention to the man, who has been watching her intently the entire time, with love and reverence but also worry. 

“Don’t look so glum, Mr. Hunter. By the beach, together, for the rest of our lives. You lived up to your promise.”

On the beach, in the distance behind them, the distinct sound of Dongola horse hooves hitting the sand can be heard.

“For eternity,” he corrects.

“What’s that?” She asks, playfully feigning ignorance for one final time.

“By the beach, together, for eternity. That was the promise.”

“That will come too. But not before you complete your task.”

“The curse ends here.”

A promise to a Bloodborn from her consort, sealed with a final kiss on her forehead.

The woman walks towards a rocky structure by the coastline, leaning her back against it before she impales herself with the knife.

The Hunter turns his attention to the approaching delegation of his peers.

He raises one arm in surrender. He tells them he won’t resist. His only ask:

“Spare the child! She’s human.”

The Hunters don’t trust their betrayer and take the child from his arms. He holds back for a second and this is the only time he shows the slightest bit of resistance.

One of the Hunters brings a talisman to the child’s face. To the Hunter’s relief, it glows the right color. Now reassured that his child will be spared, he lets himself be taken prisoner by his former allies.

Now he could accept his fate.

Current day, Tokyo

Your eyelids fluttered open to fluorescent lights and the low hum of a heartbeat monitor. It took you a moment to remember that you were in fact, not visiting your grandmother in her village, nor were you waking up in your apartment at home, but you were in a school infirmary, on the other side of the world, in Tokyo.

Memories of the night’s events rushed back to you, like a wave washing back to the shore. The sensation of being carried by arms you knew could only belong to a vampire was indelible. The pain you’d felt before you lost consciousness. In fact, you felt surprisingly energized now, all things considered. Only once she spoke did you notice Shoko in your peripheral vision. 

“Welcome back,” she said in the flat tone you fondly remembered her by.

“How long was I out?”

Shoko glanced at the clock after glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. 

“Almost an hour now. Nanami was quick to bring you here. I do wonder how many traffic laws he violated to get you here so quickly. Poor Ijichi got relegated to the backseat and got carsick.”

You raised yourself on the bed and sat down, noticing the IV still hooked to you. 

“Is he okay?”

“It’s carsickness. I think he’ll be okay.”

“I meant Nanami.”

“Oh, Nanami seemed completely fine.”

“Seemed? As in, you didn’t examine him?”

“I didn’t have to. He said you were the only one injured out there. Okay, now I have to ask, are you feeling okay?”

Shoko’s question had you wondering for a second. Last you remembered, Nanami had launched across quite a distance. Surely, he must have sustained more than a few scratches. 

“Where is he?” you asked, evading her question. 

“He was here a moment ago. I think he went-”

Shoko never finished her sentence. Appearing in the doorframe at that exact moment was Nanami, holding a stack of papers in one hand and a soda in the other.

Cherry blossom.

He’d taken off his glasses, and you could see the marks where they usually sat on his nose. His eyes lingered on yours for a second. It was the first time you’d made actual eye contact since your reunion. This time his thick glasses were not there to hide his micro-expressions. He looked neatly disheveled, his hair was slightly out of place, and his tie was loosened. Was it a hint of relief that you caught in his hazel eyes?

“You’re up.” A statement rather than a question. Whatever it was, you watched it disappear just as quickly as it had appeared before he made his way inside the room, moving around Shoko who had stopped what she was doing and was quietly observing the interaction. You had almost forgotten that she was in the room. 

“I am,” you replied cautiously.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

You turned and looked at him for a moment before turning to Shoko.

“I’m fine, right? Please tell me you’ll discharge me right now.”

Shoko stared at you for a second, as though she was evaluating her response. 

“Only if you promise to show up to a follow-up tomorrow.”

“I will, promise.”

 “I need you to sign a few things, protocol, since it’s your first time here. I’ll be right back.” Shoko’s eyes moved between you and Nanami, as though she was hesitating to leave you two alone.

When she was finally out of the room, you quietly watched as Nanami approached you, and placed the soda can on your table side, his silent offering, before sitting on the visitor’s seat across the room.

“How are you feeling?” He repeated his question, and it somewhat irritated you.

“I don’t know, Nanami. Physically I’m feeling okay,” you said, as you attempted to cross your arms but got restricted by the IV drip still hooked to you. Without thinking, you swiftly ripped it off in frustration.

Nanami watched you impassively.

“And otherwise? Do you remember what happened?” He pushed.

“Do you?” you asked, your tone coming out more accusatory than you’d intended.

“I do, but also, I wasn’t the one who passed out.”

“Really? I guess you’ll have to teach me your ways, then. I watched you fly a good distance and heard the way you landed behind those bushes. I’m surprised to see you without a scratch.” 

“You sound disappointed.”

You stared at each other for a few seconds. You always found Nanami to be relatively harder to read. But now he was decidedly a shut book. 

“We should get our stories straight.”

“Excuse me?”

He gestured to the stack of papers he was holding and handed you a copy. Mission report was the heading.

“We were split off. We should align our reports so they match. What was the last thing you remember?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, and you thought he must have felt it judging by the uncharacteristic manner by which he was evading your glare, choosing to fix the report he was holding instead, as though it carried the answer to his question.

“Why would we need to line up our stories? We should just report the truth.”

“If our stories differ too much, or if there are gaps in the sequence of events, it will raise questions and it could affect your recertification status.”

If the circumstances of this entire mission didn’t feel sketchy enough so far, this bit definitely sounded off. He was speaking so casually about such a critical mission. His apparent indifference was driving you insane. You felt like a pot about to boil over. 

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think that you’re holding my recertification over my head and that you’re asking me to forge my report.”

His head snapped at you, irritation now visible in his knitted brows. Finally, a chink in his armor.

“Your next sentence better be that you do know me better,” he said, sounding annoyed. Finally, some emotion.

“Why should it be? The truth is, I really don’t know you, Nanami. A decade ago, I thought I did. But now?”

You felt yourself slowly losing control over your voice. The heart rate monitor started beeping, signaling your increasing heart rate. 

His eyes narrowed at the monitor and you could have sworn that they softened when they returned to yours. When your name left his lips in a low whisper, you felt the first tears stinging your eyes. 

“You should try to remain calm.”

And you lost it. A decade’s worth of frustration spilled before you could process the words.

“I was calm for over ten years, Nanami. A decade without a single sign of life from you. Do you know I got extremely sick and couldn’t eat for over a month after that last call? Do you know the number of sleepless nights I spent wondering what exactly happened? Worrying about you and your well-being? How long does it take to send a brief chat message? ”

“I got logged out and could not log back in.”

“You got logged… You’re telling me that the reason I never heard from you again was because you conveniently got logged out of a messaging app a mere few hours after you called me to deliver the most devastating news? I call bullshit.” 

“I did get logged out, eventually. But you’re right. I was dealing with the most brutal and gruesome loss imaginable, so you’ll have to excuse me if I didn’t drop everything to get back to you right away.” His voice was growing in a frustration that increasingly mirrored yours.

Each sentence was a new arrow in your quiver. Your tears were freely flowing now, the sentiment of scorn rising to your head as you lined up the next words.

“You gave up, Nanami. You didn’t get back to me at all. He was my friend too, and you robbed me of a proper mourning. I couldn’t even get his address to send proper condolences. What you did was completely fucked up, and you know it.”

In the past, in the rare moments you’d been able to suspend disbelief and delude yourself into imagining ever crossing paths with Nanami again, you’d played out the different directions this conversation could take. In your hazy enactments, you’d imagined this scenario to be a lot less confrontational and always believed you’d be able to approach discussing this tragedy with sympathy and a certain level-headedness. 

You told yourself that normally, you would. And while there was nothing normal about the last twenty-four hours you’d lived through, it didn’t make you feel any less guilty for the reproachful tone you’d slipped into and wielded against him.

Nanami got up and handed you a box of tissues from the counter. You expected him to return to his seat, but he stayed where he stood just by you.

“The Bloodborn we ran into today. I’ve been tailing it for the last ten years. Today’s confrontation was the first time I’d gotten this close since…”

Nanami did not need to complete that sentence for you to put two and two together. If you thought your guilt couldn’t get worse, you were proved wrong at that moment.

“Lately it’s grown an army of Turned and Special Grade vampires at his beck and call. He’s the source of the latest surge. It seems to be going for numbers over strength at the moment. They’ve formed a perimeter around what I suspect to be his base of operations. I left my life behind once, but I haven’t halted my hunt. And I certainly haven’t given up on anything, or anyone.

“I came back to the school because they happen to have the resources and intel that will be useful to stopping this menace, particularly now that there is public pressure and internal interest in actually stopping this threat. This is the closest I’ve come to bringing justice for Haibara…” he paused, his breath hitching ever so slightly, and only then did you realize that this was the first time either of you had uttered your dear friend’s name. 

He returned to your side. “But none of this happens without weakening the Bloodborn. And with public scrutiny and the recent emphasis on protocol…” 

“Okay, I understand,” you said, cutting him. “I’ll line up my report with yours, to avoid scrutiny, but only on one condition. And it’s non-negotiable.”

“And what is that?”

“I get to go on all missions related to this matter too. 

“I don’t-”

“Non-negotiable, Nanami, I insist on this.”

You saw him glance at the heart rate monitor before he finally relented with a nod.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” That this was his third time asking you was not lost on you. He seemed hellbent on closing out the conversation with you with more gentleness than he’d opened it.

It made you question if you were imagining it.

“Sign this, then you’re discharged,” Shoko said as she returned to the room with visibly more urgency than she’d left it.

“A sudden eagerness to get rid of me, Dr. Ieri?” You chirped in your best attempt to engage in a tone that you hoped would draw her attention away from what you could only imagine was still very much a teary countenance.

“As much as I’d love to keep you with me, I’ll need the room.” Her voice was grave as she absentmindedly handed you your discharge documents before adding, “There’s just been another major attack.”

An air of gloom hovered over the school for the following days. You learned, both through hearing firsthand accounts of your surviving colleagues, and through their reports, of the gruesome details of the latest attack. All indications pointed towards the same Bloodborn’s elusive hideout as being ground zero for the crisis at hand.

You’d sat in the briefing room the day following your first mission, listening as one of the squad leaders detailed the way by which the turned vampires had prioritized Hunters as their targets, and had successfully done so, based on the death count. He’d vocalized the odd configuration of the two conclusions drawn from this latest failure. That the number of human casualties might be lessened with this shift in strategy and newfound sophistication from the vampires, but that Hunters would be the ones to pay the ultimate price. 

“Hey, what are your thoughts on all this?” You caught Nanami at the end of the briefing just as he was about to slip away.

“On what, specifically?”

“This latest attack, it almost feels retaliatory.”

“All vampire attacks against Hunters are retaliatory by definition.”

You rolled your eyes at his pedantry. Some things never changed.

“I know that, but you’ve read the reports, yeah? There were cases where they literally walked past human targets and spared them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Have you?”

“So by retaliatory, you mean…”

“I mean against us, you know, considering how our last mission went.”

“We shouldn’t talk about this here,” he said, in a lowered voice.

“But we will talk about it right, Nanami? It’s already been a couple of days. I know what we put in the report doesn’t tell the full story.”

“Nanami-san!”

A younger fellow Hunter had just turned the corner and called out to him. You only recalled Ino’s name by the way he stood out from the other hunters with his energetic demeanor. Without knowing him beyond that, you found that he bore an uncanny resemblance to… 

“Have you been assigned the stakeout mission yet?” Nanami turned back to you, cutting into your thoughts.

“I have. In two days… with you.”

“Good. So we’ll talk then.”

With that, he broke away from you and began walking towards Ino. Judging by the handful of interactions you’d observed between the two, the younger Hunter seemed to have taken a great respect towards Nanami. This didn’t surprise you one bit, but it made you wonder who was the other version of Nanami Kento, the elusive man beneath the thick mask he’d put on over the last decade?

You knew he had the answers. But you would not wait on him to discover them.

It was Nanami himself who’d sparked the idea within you, by his revelation both about the Bloodborn’s connection to Haibara’s death and his intention of leveraging the school’s resources. Thus you found yourself, later that afternoon, in the school library, digging through the Tokyo Hunter Academy archives.

With the budgeting issues the school had gone through, the digitization of hard-copy reports was at the bottom of the list of what was being prioritized. You figured that perhaps there was something that was missed, anything that could help shed some light on the motivations of this old new adversary. 

Your hopes were dashed after a couple of hours of tallying the hard copies of what was available in the school portal, as you realized that all the digital versions of the reports surrounding this particular Bloodborn vampire were accounted for.

You raised yourself, perhaps a bit too abruptly, from the crouched position you’d held for the better part of the last half hour, sifting through the bottom shelf that covered the year 2006, feeling a bit lightheaded and disoriented, and dropping the file you were holding as a result.

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself as you picked it up and mindlessly opened it. 

Having read these countless times, you instantly identified the words that comprised the report from one of the first responding hunters, the one that had found the two young student Hunters who had encountered a new, underestimated foe; Nanami in critical condition, and Haibara deceased.

You recalled that one day, a couple of years following the incident, you had been so desperate to find out everything you could about it that you’d managed to connect to the Global Vampire Hunting database, and with the help of stolen credentials from your mother, successfully pulling the files related to this mission gone wrong and sneakily printed them out. You’d since committed every line to your memory.

Which is why the discrepancy stood out immediately to you, like a sore thumb.

Your heart rate sped up as you fumbled with your phone, not wanting to waste time making the trek out to the computer room to sign in to the network. A few authentication clicks and you were in.

You pulled out the digital version of the same report and quickly scrolled down to the section you needed, the line that began with “number of vampire signatures detected at the time of arrival”. You couldn’t help the gasp that came out of your mouth as you read your phone, then the paper report, then your phone again.

The number on your phone was the one you’d always believed it to be: one. It made sense, as it was the signature that matched the Bloodborn.

And yet, in the hard copy version, the number shown was two. One signature belonging to the Bloodborn. The second one was unidentified. The paper report also mentioned that the signature was only detected momentarily before fading away.

Even more shocking than this revelation was the very presence of this discrepancy.

What was the truth, and who was trying to hide it?

Your second mission with Nanami kicked off on an overcast mid-January day. Having had the privilege of sampling the delicacies that were North-East American winters, this climate, by comparison, was rather mild to you. That said, there was not much to like about cold and dry weather, icy roads, and shorter days that translated into shorter periods of daylight and more time for vampires to be out and about.

The mission comprised a stakeout and mapping out the comings and goings of one particular area of the forest whose specific configuration eluded the school’s records. It marked one of the few unmapped areas of the forest, making it a prime suspected location for the Bloodborn vampire’s hideout.

The school had lent you two sets of keys, one for a car, and one to a literal cabin in the woods, to serve as your base of operation for the upcoming days. This was supposed to be a solo mission, and you imagined that his request to have you accompany him had raised a few eyebrows and God knows how he managed to make it happen, but none of that was not your concern.

No, your concern was to solve the enigma that was the connection between Nanami Kento and this Bloodborn vampire, and this mission would serve as the perfect stage for your investigation.

You decided that your best bet would be to ease Nanami into becoming comfortable around you. Anything less and he would revert back to shutting you out. 

This endeavor proved to be a difficult feat, at first.

The cabin was one of those chalet-style units, its layout symmetrical, barring one difference. It contained one primary bedroom at one end and a guest bedroom on the opposite. From the moment you arrived, Nanami dropped his duffel bag into the guest bedroom, marking the end of whatever debate you were going to have about the decision before it even started. From there, a mental border was drawn, separating both sides of the house, one that was only crossed on rare occasions, when you were using the central kitchen. 

You knew he couldn’t avoid you forever, especially not in this predicament. So on the first night, you bode your time. 

You both decided to begin your patrols as close to sunset as possible, to maximize the chance of catching prime-time vampire activity.

On the first night, the patrol began quietly, the sound of your trudging steps in the fresh snow your only companion. After a while, he finally broke the silence and started sharing his findings about the Bloodborn. It was the most you’d heard him talk since your reunion so you actively listened as he recounted in chronological order, all of his encounters with the wretched beast.

It was not lost on you, that he’d begun at his first encounter with the Bloodborn following the initial incident, which would have been years later. But you took what he gave you, and you interjected with clarifying questions that helped paint a better picture of the years you’d spent apart. By the end of that patrol, you’d managed to pinpoint a perimeter around which the hideout was most likely located.

The second night began with him asking you questions that you would have gladly welcomed just a few days prior. Now that you were on the clock, you were not fond of the idea of spending your limited one-on-one time discussing yourself rather than him. But you took the bite and tried to steer the conversation with your answers.

You talked about your experience studying public health, about your research around vampirism, and your work at the World Health Organization to find a cure for people who were recently turned.

When Nanami admitted to having followed and read your research and gave praise to the specific advancements you’d contributed to the cause, you felt conflicted. Part of you felt flattered, no, your heart soared at the fact that he’d meticulously read and understood your work, at the idea that he’d even been thinking of you in any way, even all those years later.

The other part of you wondered why he hadn’t reached out and resented the fact that he had found a way to stay connected to you while severing any type of access to him.

This dilemma dampened your mood as you almost found it hard to match Nanami’s tempered optimism after you’d stumbled upon a cavernous opening from which you’d observed several Turned vampires stumble out, indicators of an entrance point to the Bloodborn’s hideout.

You’d all but written off the evening as a failure until the end, when you returned home and you were ready to split off for the rest of the night, but saw Nanami waiting for you at the door as you took off your boots.

“I want to apologize for not reaching you out for all those years. I went through it after… Haibara’s death. But it was no excuse to inflict more suffering on you. Nothing can change those years, and that time, but if you ever want to talk about it, about him, about the past, about the memories, know that my door will always be open for you.”

You were speechless. This truly came out of left field, and though you’d always wondered what this apology from Nanami could sound like, you found yourself more than unprepared for it when it finally came. So you simply stared at him.

“Good job out there today. Have a good rest of the night,” he said after a moment, as he turned away and closed his bedroom door behind him.

That encounter left you so agitated that you’d barely caught a wink of sleep, a factor which more than likely played a role in the events of the next day. 

The day had already started differently from the previous ones. Nanami had woken up earlier than usual and had gone for a walk, something you learned when you woke up much later through the text message he’d left you.

When he came back, the sun had already set, and you were already running behind your planned schedule, which comprised placing inconspicuous trackers into the ground surrounding the suspected hideout location. When you questioned him about it, he’d been uncharacteristically short and vague about his absence, something that only added to your fatigue-induced irritability.

The previous day had brought along with it some milder-than-usual temperatures, which had caused large puddles of melted snow which was now turning into ice under the freezing night temperature. It made the trek down to the hideout even more treacherous. You’d both slipped a few times, further slowing your advance. 

But the night quickly and drastically shifted tones when you found yourself confronted with a fully transformed Special Grade vampire. It looked just as monstrous as the Bloodborn you were chasing, except it was smaller in stature and still retained some of its humanoid features.

This one was a strong one, and had somehow slipped your senses until the last possible second, when it came up behind you and slashed at you, its sharp claws cutting through your thick coat clean through the skin of your left arm. 

“Behind you!” you called out to warn Nanami, who was just a few steps ahead of you, seemingly as oblivious as you were. 

He turned around, engaged in a flail more than a slash, only in the general direction of the vampire, missing his target and quickly turning back away from you. 

You had never seen him miss. Ever.

Only then did you realize just how bad of a shape he was in. You had half a mind to equip your gun, before realizing that you may have to take the close quarter fight yourself. You watched as Nanami bent over his knees, seemingly on the brink of collapsing.

You could almost hear the mental calculation the vampire had made in its head, as it charged for who it now understood to be the weaker target. Your aim was unsteady, the vampire’s movements too erratic. As much as you trusted yourself with a gun, you refused to risk the sliver of a chance at harming Nanami. 

You charged behind the vampire, who was now closing in on Nanami. You failed to see the vast patch of ice ahead of you. Your slip sent you on a trajectory that would have found first into the ground. 

But in yet another intense moment of desperation, you refused to yield to gravity. You twisted your body upwards, tapping into a kinetic force that surprised even yourself, and launched yourself upwards into the air.

When you saw the ground rapidly approaching you this time, you redirected your movement to target the vampire who had yanked up Nanami by the collar and landed squarely on him. Without thinking, you nabbed your partner’s cleaver from his loose grip and dove the blade into the vampire beneath you, putting a definitive end to the attack.

When Nanami dropped to his knees beside you, still catching his breath, you climbed off the vampire and kneeled next to him, bringing your face down to his level. He closed his eyes and tilted his head down, and you just knew he was hiding something.

“Nanami,” you said, as calmly as your adrenaline would allow you. You unzipped your coat and took out your right arm, pushing up the sleeve of the right arm of your sweatshirt.

“Nanami,” you called out again, a warning this time, as you prepared to vocalize what you’d known deep down for days now and had refused to acknowledge on the surface. 

“I see you, Nanami. I know what you are. You need to drink. Here’s my arm. Please. Enough with the games.” 

When the figure before you finally anchored your eyes with his now bright red pupils, you told yourself that it was the beast within that was in control when it forcefully yanked your other arm out of your coat instead, the left one, the injured one; when it swiftly pulled back the sleeve of that arm, revealing flawless golden brown skin and that had, in fact, fully and very much unnaturally healed. You told yourself it was the beast that spoke when it finally uttered these words in a voice you barely recognized, before biting down on your arm.

“Shouldn’t I be saying the same to you, Miss Bloodborn?”

A jolt coursed through your veins as his fangs pierced your flesh. Your face was heated, and you felt yourself transform.

The realization that hit you at the moment felt like a reversion to a mean, like a final puzzle piece finding its place, like order being restored.

You were falling backwards, losing your balance. Everything felt both slow and quick at the same time. You desperately clung to consciousness as you grabbed onto the presence before you. It was calling out to you, repeatedly so. Was it saying your name? Familiar safety wrapped in a foreign host, ruby orbs reverting to a recognizable hazel color, hints of the man that once was fighting to regain surface.

Nanami…

His name melted on the tip of your tongue, a silent prayer as darkness enveloped you.

You awoke with a start and immediately felt the difference. You were back at the cabin, lying in your bed, but it felt different. The surrounding colors were more vibrant, the sounds louder, the scents stronger. You felt like a new firmware was downloaded into your brain, and you were armed with newfound knowledge, an instinctual drive.

You were awakened.

You felt him before you saw him, by the heat that radiated from him, the steady but fervent tempo of his heartbeat, the pureness of his soul.

He carried with him an aura, an unmistakable signature so familiar to you, one that you now realized you’d felt from the moment you met him all those years ago, faint and unidentifiable as it had been to you at the time.

A Special Grade vampire.

But a good one?

And when you finally turned your head to face him, sitting in the chaise that bordered the opposite wall, he must have felt your movement because he raised his to face you at the exact moment. 

Trying to get a read on Nanami had never been easy. And despite your newfound ability to read his vitals so clearly, you still were left playing the usual deciphering game.

“How long have you known? And how did you know before me?” you finally asked.

“I had my suspicions… The first mission we went on. You were right in your recollection that the Bloodborn launched me back. What you failed to remember is that we both were, you even more so after he’d chased you. The state I found you in… I thought I had lost you…” he paused, and you watched the pain cross his features as recalled the moment.

“I intended to carry you back to the car, but then you healed on your own. It was both strange and familiar. By the time we got you to Shoko, you were exhausted but fully healed.”

You sat up on the bed, suddenly feeling restless. He stood to stand at the feet of your bed to stay in your view. You patted the spot in front of you, inviting him to sit.

Only then did you realize that he’d long since crossed your unspoken border for the first time and that he was in your space now, in your room.

The first of many breaches to occur that night.

In your shared silence, bridges were being built. In your curious glance, an unspoken question hung.

Nanami took a deep breath and began telling the story of the day his life changed.

He recounted how the mission had started, how Haibara had been optimistic as he always was, how everything had escalated so quickly, so badly. He spoke of the Bloodborn looming over him and how he was ready to accept his death. He recalled when he awakened, first from unconsciousness as he realized in horror that he had survived and that Haibara hadn’t. He spoke of the second agonizing awakening as the beast he was trained all his life to destroy.

You listened as he spoke of the moments when the despair was too overwhelming, when he contemplated ending it all, only to read about another attack, another victim somewhere in the world, and the sheer determination of ending this curse took precedence over the sweet release of succumbing to it. You noticed how he instinctively reached for his neck as he recounted this part.

You asked about his transformation and his symptoms, and he described patterns that you could now retrace in your own life. You asked about how he sustained himself, and he described depending mostly on blood banks nearing the end of their shelf life, occasionally animals when times were dire. The infirmaries had been running low on blood lately, due to the increased number of injuries caused by the surge in incidents, he told you. He’d been rationing what he had left but had run out during the stakeout mission. He’d tried to go hunt but was stalled by the hazardous patches of ice.

After a moment, you came to a realization.

“You’re still in Bloodthirst,” you said.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine, and I know it. How long had you gone without?”

You shoved his hair out of his eyes, fingers brushing against his forehead. Suddenly you felt yourself gain access to him, to his mind. You dug deeper, deeper still, and like your other abilities, it was desperation that powered your attempt to convince him to let you ease his suffering if only for a little, driving you deeper and deeper.

Until you hit a wall.

Nanami grabbed your hand by the wrist and abruptly pulled it away from his forehead, his eyes flashing red momentarily. The beast was surfacing. 

“Don’t...”

“Nanami, you’re too deficient. I can feel it.”

“Don’t try to get into my head.”

“I’m not trying to. Not deliberately. And, I don’t need to be in your head to feel your suffering. How long have you been holding back?” You pushed.

The conflict of his instincts warred within him, clear in his eyes, which flicked between bright red and their usual sweet honey. 

“You won’t hurt me, so please, Nanami, let me help you.”

You bit your lip out of nervousness, and your sharp fang clumsily pierced through the corner of your lower lip. You were still unused to it. You winced at the sharp pain. You felt its scent before you felt the drop of blood slowly slide down and you knew that Nanami felt it, too. You could feel it in the quickening pace of his heartbeat, in the hitching of his breath, in the way he met your gaze, in an electrifying moment. 

And yet he didn’t move. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment when breaking down Nanami’s barriers became synonymous with breaking his resolve. All you knew is that your body was now moving of its own accord, your mission becoming singular. 

You engaged your newfound strength to push him down, and you were, surprisingly, met with little resistance. His back hit the mattress harder than you intended. You straddled him at his hips and placed your hands on the bed on either side of his face. Your disposition made it look like you were the one in control. But the truth was that you were at the mercy of his expression, unreadable as always, desperate to bring relief to the man who’d suffered alone for over a decade.

Your arms wobbled as you lowered your face to his. His expression remained impassive, but his vitals betrayed it. Pulse quickened, pupils dilated, rapidly switching on and off red and amber. Your eyes fixed his. You had half a mind to offer your arm again, bravery had brought you this far, but you wondered whether it would take you all the way. Your eyes moved back to Nanami’s, an attempt to decipher what calculation he appeared to be making. 

The decision was made for you both, when the drop of blood, which had been sliding back from your lips, trickled down to your chin unbeknownst to you, falling to the whims of gravity, and landing directly on his own lower lip.

And then his tongue darted out to lick it.

And something snapped.

You couldn’t tell whether you moved first, or he did. The exact sequence of events would remain unclear, discarded to the back of your mind as you felt the acerbic taste of your own blood on Nanami’s lips.

You felt the restraint melt away with the growl that emanated from Nanami’s chest. You squeezed your eyes shut as though it would help mute the moan that remained captive in your mouth, escaping only when he forced yours to open by ensconcing his tongue between your lips, as he lapped up the remaining blood and proceeded to suck on the spot on your lip where the incision was made. 

Your eyes opened to a squint only to meet piercing red eyes. They told a story, one whose ending you’d successfully deducted earlier, one that Nanami still now appeared to be unable to accept. 

This wouldn’t be enough for him.

You felt the world tilt suddenly, and it took you a few seconds to realize that he had flipped your positions, his eyes never leaving yours. When you felt his arms carefully cushion your fall, you knew that he was still more man than beast.

You could not say the same for yourself.

Years of studying vampires, of hunting them down as a Hunter, could only help you label what was happening, not control it.

You used your right hand to pull the box braids that had bunched around your neck aside, tilting your head to the side to give him access to your neck. 

Under your observation, he hesitated, ever the paragon of self-control.

You reached your hand up and placed it on his, and slid it up his arm, then to the back of his head, right at his undercut. When you pulled him down, it was again without resistance. His eye color flickered faster as he got closer.

“Forgive me,” you heard him whisper, a warm breath that went into your ear and straight to your core. 

Your mind was hazy and you couldn’t tell what he was apologizing for. Either way, your answer would be the same.

“Don’t hold back,” you whispered so softly that you didn’t know if he’d heard it. 

The act didn’t shock you as much as the first time; it came in a brief sting and a sensation of soft lips that contrasted the sharp fangs that already established punctures. You gasped, and he stilled; you felt him reverse, but you stopped him before he could, pushing his head back down onto your neck. After a brief pause, he picked up where he left off and you heard the rest more than you felt it. His quick rhythmic breaths and inaudible gasps evened out as he sated himself. 

“Why would a Bloodborn feed a lowly Special Grade vampire?” 

It was a genuine question you’d asked, what felt like several lifetimes ago. Back then, it was unfathomable. Right now, it was blatantly obvious.

“Shouldn’t I be saying the same to you, Miss Bloodborn?”

You tried not to think too hard about the contempt that dripped in Nanami's tone when he’d referred to your identity, at the reality that your feelings would likely never be reciprocated.

You could have sworn that Nanami detected your disquiet, because as if on cue, he brought up his right hand, tracing soothing small circles around your exposed shoulder.

In your confused haze, you tried to tell yourself not to read too much into this sudden attuned gentleness. You didn’t realize that you too had started scratching circles with your nails into his undercut until you felt the perceptible shudder that ran through his body right as you did.

He shifted his position slightly as you felt drops trickle down your neck, and you held your breath as he chased them with his tongue, moving lower down, over your collarbone, getting dangerously close to your chest. When he closed in on the drop of blood, he sucked a little harder at the fleshy skin just above your chest, eliciting a small moan from you. The heat that was slowly forming in your core ignited like a solar flare. He stopped his movements and when his eyes shot up to yours through his disheveled hair; they had reverted to their natural hazel hue again. 

A pang of arousal shot through you violently. Centuries of dormancy came roaring back to life. The lines between human and vampiric urges were now thoroughly blurred. 

Nanami straightened up, and you watched a second conflict cloud his eyes, primal but very much human. 

The sight of your red blood over his skin should not have been doing this much to you. But it did.

“You’re going through Bloodthirst.”

A statement more than a question. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve before he started rolling it back, exposing a veiny arm.

“The first waves after transforming will be brutal. I imagine yours will be intense since you’re-”

“Bloodborn.” You completed his sentence for him. “You must really hate me right now.” Even as you identified the self-destructive mental pattern you were sliding into, it’s not like you could stop it. Anything to get him to change his mind. Anything to have him push you away. 

“I don’t hate you,” he simply said.

“You hate Bloodborns.”

“Still quick to make snap judgments, I see.” 

You sensed a reversing shift in your dynamic; his invitation, your resistance.

You said nothing in response, and he simply extended his arm. You kept your eyes locked on his as you sank your fangs into his arm. 

Nothing could have prepared you for the taste of Nanami Kento’s blood.

You were a lot less gracious than he was, a lot less controlled. It was like being catapulted through a range of vivid emotions, colors associated with feelings, sounds associated with sentiment.

You were lost in the sensations. You ached with him and you raged with him; you felt his sorrow and his devotion. Overwhelmed by the sentiments he was telegraphing, you opened your eyes to Nanami quietly observing you, his usually unreadable face twisted into a perceptible sadness. Only once you were finally sated, once the intense pang of thirst subsided to a low baseline hum did you finally pull back, your eyes still trained on his.

“I could never hate you,” he added, as though to emphasize what he’d just undeniably showed through his blood, the corners of his lips tugging into the tiniest, sad smile that brought tears to your eyes.

Nanami brought two fingers up to your chin, pushing the rest of the dripping blood into your mouth. You closed your lips over his fingers, maintaining eye contact as you brought your face closer to his, emboldened by the combination of your awakening, of his words, and of the little glint in his eye. He didn’t move until you released him, like he was awaiting for permission.

“I don’t hate you either,” you managed to whisper against his lips, before closing the distance.

When you did kiss this time, it was in earnest. It was fervent and urgent, all tongues and teeth. There was a moment you were both clinging to, both determined to not let escape. You’d never felt so attuned to someone, it was as though tasting his blood had opened a new dimension within your mind. 

His tongue snagged onto your sharpened fang, and he hissed at the contact, sending a shiver down your spine. You tasted his blood and this time it wobbled with treacherous exhilaration. The first signal that he, too, was unraveling.

When Nanami’s mouth moved downward, it was in a mix of kisses and nips and bites. He was gentle but left marks. In his onslaught, he paused just above your breast and gave the area a sly lick before he continued. He finally tugged on the corners of your shirt and gently pulled it over your head, finally able to grant attention to your left side, starting at your neck, peppering every inch of your body with his kisses from your collarbone to your breast to your abdomen. He pulled your pants down, your underwear followed. His movements were optimized, precise.  

When he stopped and called out to you, you almost did not hear over the now overwhelmingly loud sound of your blood coursing through your veins and your pants as you tried to keep yourself tethered to reality. You raised your head in time to see him hovering over your core, stormy eyes telegraphing a question. 

“Please, Nanami,” you breathed out.

It was all he needed to hear. With the two fingers that were between your lips just a moment ago, he slid between your legs and began to work you.

The gasp that escaped your lips was one of both shock and pleasure. You moaned as he played you, like a musician would his instrument, first with his fingers, then with his tongue, then with both. Your heightened senses made you feel every brush, every knead, every minute variation in movement as he found alternating rhythms.

“Hah…fuck!” you cried out.

“My good girl. Don’t hold back on me,” he said, echoing a markedly less tame version of the coaxing you’d whispered into his ear earlier, and only then did you realize how utterly flipped this script had become. Your mind spun at the swiftness by which the tables had turned, at the polarity, at the juxtaposition of is controlled passion and your erratic unraveling.

The vibration of his voiced praise rumbled into your core and tingled up into your brain, and that was enough to push you over the edge. You couldn’t coherently voice your pleasure if you tried. Only words of gibberish ran through your mind as you slowly came undone on his fingers, exhaling expletives punctuated by open-mouthed gasps of his name.

He continued lapping at you, cleaning off every inch of your surface area, until you grabbed the back of his head, right at his undercut again, your new favorite place. You brought him up to find the remnants of your blood on his chin, now newly covered with a sheer layer.

He looked so alluring.

“Nanami…” you murmured.

In a manifestation of your newfound ability for quick recovery, you raised yourself up and straddled him for the second time that night. You grabbed his face into your hands and kissed him, intoxicated by the taste of all versions of yourself in his mouth. This time it was slower, more careful, tongues caressing each other in a reluctant fight for domination, a battle you both dragged out, not wanting it to end. You found a back-and-forth rhythm that you emulated with your hips, grinding against his, chasing any form of friction, realizing only now how bothersome of a barrier his clothes were between you two.

You pulled back, working your way down to undo the buttons of his shirt, and he watched you. You couldn’t help but trace your fingers against his muscles as you did, working your way up from his stomach, up his chest, to his shoulder. He let out a soft and low groan as your cold finger traced his heated skin.

You had already grabbed his belt, eager to pull more of those sweet sounds out of him by returning the favor he’d so graciously done for you, when you spotted it, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, a prominent scar denoting two incisions, unmistakably from a vampire bite. 

“Is this from…?” You trailed off, still struggling to label the horrific event that nearly destroyed his life.

“It is.”

You glanced at him as he averted his eyes, but not quick enough for you not to catch the expression on his face. It did not belong to the vampire, not even to the man, but to the young boy who bore the misplaced burden of not being able to protect his dear friend, and who came out of that incident less human than he went in.

You’d never known Nanami to be emotionally expressive. Even throughout this passionate encounter, his countenance carried a control that paradoxically garnered both your admiration and your frustration. But right now, as you traced a finger over the reminder of that painful memory, you watched his face twist beyond its usual air of melancholy, his features betraying the sorrow that still festered beneath his surface.

The thought of another Bloodborn being the source of the torment of the sweet man before you triggered something violent within you. You were ruled by extreme emotion, by an unharnessed urge to make things right, driven by a desperate powerlessness at what should have been the height of your powers.

How you longed to go back in time and undo the calamity inflicted by this beast.

How you wished you could absorb all of his pain, if only for a moment. 

How you desperately wanted to overwrite the damage caused by this destructive bite.

Logic said that you couldn’t do any of these things. But you were a far ways from being anything within the realm of logical right now. 

You were not thinking clearly when you sunk your teeth right where the faded scars were, in an untenable attempt to draw out pain more than blood. Your mind was a haze when your hot tears mixed with the blood you were drawing. You were disoriented when you finally relented, burying your face into the side of his neck and squeezing him into a tight hug. But you were very much in your right mind when you uttered your next words.

“I’m here for you, Nanami,” you said in his ear.

“I know,” he whispered back, after a moment. 

This wouldn’t be enough.

He shifted his weight over you, bringing you back down. Your hands flew to his pants as soon as he freed you from his embrace and for a moment, you wondered what you looked like: tear struck face, bloody mouth, disheveled hair, fumbling with his belt like your life depended on it. You wondered how it was, that after he placed his hands over yours to help you remove the last barrier of clothing that separated you and you finally looked up at him, that you found him gazing down at you in quiet reverence. 

“Can I-”

“Yes, please, yes,” you said in a low whimper as you buzzed with anticipation.

His lips found your forehead just as you felt him notch into you, and you squirmed and gasped into his chest at the sudden but welcome invasion. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Did I-”

“No, hah, don’t stop!” you sighed, grabbing his arms to brace yourself.

He kept going until he filled you completely. 

And then again. 

And again. 

Your bodies moved in tandem, a decade of longing that took classmates to fire-forged partners to blood-bound lovers, manifested in the most tender dance you’d engage in that night, pure affection finally triumphing over ferality, even as you exchanged the most breathless words and the most salacious sounds, even as you vigorously met each other at each thrust, each trying to prove an unspoken point, even as your bodies violently thrummed with the need for release. And when your flashing eyes met as you both barrelled towards your climax, a wordless plea floated between you two.

Don’t hold back.

And neither of you did.

It was early afternoon now. You were lying on your side, facing Nanami, who was lying on his back. You were in a mesmerized trance, tracing over his taut muscles, accustoming yourself to your newfound heightened senses of his vitals. You basked in this warm cocoon of comfort, stretching out what you both knew to be a mirage of a moment of peace.

“What am I thinking now?” he asked. You traced over where you saw his chest rumble from his voice.

“I told you, it doesn’t work that way. So far, it’s only been sensations at given times. And it seems to be in moments of intense emotion. I still have a lot to learn about… all of this.”

“It will be an adjustment. Your case is rare but not unheard of. And you won’t have to face it alone,” he said, after a moment.

“I’m not even sure I could reliably trace far enough to find my Bloodborn ancestor. Both sides of my family are from old Hunter clans, as far as I know. A Hunter breaking ranks to get with a vampire must have been considered to be the ultimate act of treason, especially in that time.”

“I might be biased, but I could see how treason can be relative,” he said playfully as he took your hand in his. You pondered on the weight of his words, on the uncanny parallels to your current disposition, on history rhyming.

“We should have Shoko check you out. We can trust her.”

“No. We’re closing in on the hideout and that beast. This is our chance. I’m not leaving until we finish this. There’s a reason you haven’t told anyone either. We have to do this our way.”

Nanami’s reservations were palpable, but you both knew that he couldn’t counter that argument. You attempted to change the topic.

“So… you heal quickly, and have heightened senses, though not as good as mine. You’re also a weakling to sunlight and you sometimes eat for two.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it.”

“This is like that video game. You remember the one with the convoluted stats, that one RPG Haibara kept trying to get us to play?”

Nanami hummed. Silence. Then a scoff.

“What is it?” you asked.

“He was hellbent on you and I getting together. Even after you moved away. He said that it was inevitable and that if we couldn’t make it work, then he would. I was just thinking that in a twisted way, he did.”

It was your turn to scoff.

He raised a curious eyebrow at you.

“You just implied that we ended up getting together. I don’t remember that happening.”

“Oh, you don’t think so? We’ll have to rectify that. After the mission.” He grabbed your hand in his.

“After the mission,” you echoed. A silence. You fidgeted with his hand.

After a moment, you pulled away from him, and turned on your back, mirroring his position as you faced the ceiling.

“We’ll avenge him, Nanami.” Your words fluted upwards, a crimson vow, binding a Bloodborn and her consort.

“We will.”

You felt the cocoon of warmth dismantle as you both made the mental migration back to the task at hand.

Two nights later, you set out to execute an assault.

You’d composed a message to the school, detailing your plan of attack and strategically scheduled it to send for the last possible moment, right before your planned incursion. It was the best compromise you and Nanami had settled on, as you looked to minimize any detection that could be triggered by the other Hunters in order to maximize your chances of success.

You’d found the entrance, combatted the weak forces that grew stronger as you approached their leader and had found yourself facing your ultimate target.

The plan had gone as anticipated, until this moment, which found you contending with the one thing you’d both failed to plan for: a mental hold the vampire revealed itself to have on Nanami, drawing from the tethering connection a Bloodborn could exploit with their victim.

At first Nanami’s movements were simply slowed, then stalled, then stopped. For the moment, it seemed to have incapacitated him.

You’d continued to dodge the vampire’s attacks as you evaluated Nanami’s condition, and for the moment that was all you could do. Your current plan of attack relied on both your dexterous movements and Nanami’s close-range combat to land incisive blows on the beast.

You’d prepared to take a defensive stance until you noticed that the Bloodborn was no longer attacking Nanami. And was instead fixing you.

Your eyes moved to Nanami’s just in time for you to watch them flicker to those crimson irises, markers of the vampire within.

The Bloodborn growled out an order in a language you did not need to understand in order to decipher its message, the validity of your interpretation confirmed as Nanami turned to you in what appeared to be a sudden, combative stance. You backed up as he trudged towards you, his cleaver wielded, his vampiric eyes fixing you in calculation. A cackle emanated from the Bloodborn, visibly pleased at the scene unfolding in front of it.

Nanami was now a few meters away from you, and you had half a mind to catapult yourself off the back wall to dodge what was obviously an imminent attack. If you could just dodge the attacks coming from both and hold off until the reinforcements arrived…

Instead, you stayed in place, opting to call out his name, an attempt to appeal to the human you hoped could still hear you, to the man you cherished.

You watched his eyes flicker ever so slightly, so subtly that you wondered if you’d imagined it.

Finally, he reached you, and you heard the distinctive shot of one of your incendiary rounds traveling through the air before you registered that, in a swift movement, exploiting a moment of arrogance on the part of the Bloodborn, Nanami had grabbed your weapon from your holster and fired a direct shot clean through its heart.

When the Hunter’s eyes flickered back to normal, showing a definitive break from his mental captivity, you knew you were back on track. He leaned against the wall for support, likely having used up all of his energy into executing his gambit.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the Bloodborn struggle in attempting to get back to its feet. Without a word, you took Nanami’s cleaver and used the back wall to launch yourself towards your weakened target.

You flew through the air and landed an incisive blow, cutting the vampire in half, ending his torment over the region and its inhabitants, once and for all.

You detected a large amount of familiar signatures approaching. A group of Hunters.

You rushed back to Nanami’s side, who was still leaning on the wall but on his back, having watched the final scene unfold. You gently grabbed his hand from his side and raised it up, and placed the handle of his cleaver into it. You brought your other hand to cup his cheek and his eyes finally met yours.

In the moment, it was not joy, nor sadness, nor relief that ruled his expression, but a wordless acknowledgment of a vow kept.

[wraithdance]

https://www.tumblr.com/wraithdance/765961917651140608/i-really-liked-your-explanation-of-the-whole?source=share

I am really bad at articulating my thoughts but I think about this a lot as someone who hopes to 1- major in neuroscience (i'm 18, going to uni next year) and 2- is trans. I know being trans is not the same thing at all as POC experiences with fic, very cognizant of that, but more to the point where I relate to the aspect of not being able to get over the like mental wall of seeing "neutral" readers as me? I don't know what my brain is doing when i read certain fics but sometimes i can't do it.

I feel like I should close read some of my favorite fic and least favorite fic to see if there are triggers I didn't notice on the first read. does that make sense or seem similar to what you experience? Again I know it's not the same thing, but like i am so curious as to what cis straight white people put in their fic that makes it so obvious that they're cis straight white.

I am sorry if this bothers you, really not my intentions, I am obviously a future brain nerd and i can't stop thinking about this

Congratulations fellow Nerd! You've activated my interest in Race theory and fandom writing from an academic perspective!

Writing reflects life and to answer this question properly, I have to talk about life shit to catch you up to speed, (this should help if you take a sociology or cultural anthropology class lmao) So, Welcome to:

Calvary yaps: Sociology & Intersectionality in fandom writing 101!

Disclaimer: I'm just a random bitch on the internet who loves English and the ridiculousness of social hierarchies, this will be referencing American social constructs and in groups only, with a focus on my experience as a Black American woman who reads a shit ton of books. Don't fight me if you hate my explanation, I will simply not respond.

Read my house rules before sending me an ask, I'm just being a dumb ass rn and word vomiting my interests, so pls i beg no follow up questions unless I say I'm open to em later.

Definitions to know:

Socialization: the act of preparing individuals to participate in society by learned social norms taught in ones family or social settings like school/friend groups. (one can be socialized in gender, race, cultural practices, etc.)

Social Hierarchies: systems of social organization in which some individuals enjoy a higher social status than others (in my opinion this is a lingering safety measure from lizard brain cavemen hunter/gatherer days)

Intersectionality: A term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw; The process of acknowledging the unique parallels a marginalized person experiences when they have more than one marginalization (ie: race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, size, etc.)

Matriarchal society: Social groups/family structures that center female figures as representatives of authority.

Implicit Bias: Unintentional bias a person may have towards a group or individual based on learned stereotypes, prejudices, perceptions based on another's background or state of being.

first, yes anon you are making sense! So the main question:

'What cis straight white people put in their fic that makes it so obvious that they're cis straight white?'

I've been mulling this question around in my head for a few days and tried to figure out how to articulate this without going into depth in Sociological theory, but I can't! So here we are lmao, this is long as fuck so TLDR here.

I've talked to a LOT of Black and PoC people over the last months because I thought I was the only one who felt strange or could tell immediately when a writer was white, despite doing the best job they could to be neutral.

Every person I spoke to agreed they could tell right away even if we don't share similar racial backgrounds.

The answer I've come up with to why that is, is because white people are socialized (taught by society/their parents how to behave) in a way many black and PoC people are not, so their reader characters will often act in a way PoC people have learned not to, so it flags for many of us.

I plan to answer another question about this at a later date so an example is with shit like:

An over deference to hyper masculine male characters (for PoC cultures like certain Black/Latine groups that are often matriarchal in nature and don’t ascribe to as many traditional gender roles, this is a flag), lack of interpersonal/familial connection, over meekness, no challenging of external factors so things just HAPPEN to the reader and lack of awareness of surroundings to name a few. 

A lot of the language of the irl world places white cis people from Western countries as the default and everyone else as others. In which, PoC people have learned to navigate the world very carefully with a hyper-focus on what will potentially bring them harm/scrutiny/ostracism especially in white dominant spaces.

That extends to when we have down time while reading or partaking in media smfh.

I'm sure you've had to learn the same as a trans person navigating cis spaces and it's the same with any marginalization! If you are disabled you have an awareness of able bodied people and their expectations, same with being fat amongst skinny people, etc.

The more marginalizations you have, the louder the rules of social hierarchies become. Which is why many marginalized ppl stick close to those who 'get it' in their social groups as an act of safety in numbers. (Many of us attempt to have strong family connection/harmony because of this)

So referring to your comment about being trans is not the same thing at all as POC experiences with fic, it is when you are a Black or PoC trans person! My angel face @/buttdumplin has spoken a lot about that as a Mexican transman reading fics by cis people!

(Please for the love of God no one come to me explaining how marginalized they are so they shouldn't be lumped in with the white ppl PoC are cognizant of, I will check myself into a psych ward)

So what does that gotta do with reading fics?

No matter what anyone thinks, it is damn near impossible to not frame your writing from the perspective of your lived experiences. It's why even when I try my hardest to make my characters not sound Black, they will always read that way because I have been Black all of my life!

And it doesn't just happen with race, go on tiktok and search male authors writing women. (or here's another article lmao)

Also ask a Southerner how they know someone has never been to the South and don't know shit about our accents when they write Graves. There are linguistic tells that flag off and why we flame actors who pick up southern accents for their roles.

(They chew on that terrible goddamn Appalachian or Louisiana Accent not realizing Southern accents come in many fonts.)

So when I read a fic about Kyle Garrick from a non black person, I can tell the writer is non black by linguistic implications, the things they emphasize about him and what they don't. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading fics from non black people, I can just tell!

And sometimes that means I, and other PoC's associate the Reader as a white OC while reading fics.

For example, all black people are not monolithic because of our cultural and regional experiences, but many of us share common threads. That's usually family involvement, colloquialisms, that stupid fucking cookie tin our elders put sewing supplies in...

Other non Black PoC people might share similar cultural practices, so when I'm reading fics from say a latina, I will cock my head and go wait.... are you...? And surely enough, they are a person of color. 

But even while reading from a non black PoC, I have to tread carefully because anti black sentiment exists in many cultures, which is why you'll hear me say Black and PoC/Non black people interchangeably.

It’s how the conversation of Implicit bias comes up, because unknowingly non white characters can sometimes be written with a hyper focus that makes them seem inhumanly one characteristic or with little to no background while the other characters are fully fleshed out.

like the character of color is just a stand in to move the plot around white characters forward. 

So all that to say, without sometimes meaning to white writers will always sound off to me in a way that my brain can pick up on in the most minuscule ways because my awareness of my blackness/otherness has been drilled in from birth and reinforced by social norms.

I can even tell immediately if a white person has been around only white spaces their whole life with the jokes they tell lol.

In the grand scheme of things the race of the writer is most important to me when something jarring comes up that slaps me away from the experience, it explains so much of the disconnect.

Every marginalized person has a threshold for what they can ignore as a ‘trigger’ before they’re ejected from reader inserts, mine is usually the association with racial historical happenings, certain gender dynamics, etc.

It's why I mention crying like a little bitch when I read my friend Jess's (Kyletogaz) TF 141 Hair series, Dragon’s (Dragonnarative-writes) Transferrable Skills, and even Xavi's (Buttdumplin) Piercing fic.

Reading those fics felt like safety and familiarity. It was a moment where I realized I could drop the mental load I had no idea I was carrying, where I was trying to prepare myself for potential emotional damage and just READ.

It's also why as a Black person who fucks with kink and sex work it's been so touch and go when navigating dark fics/kink fics/fics about Sex workers.

Because there are different rules of engagement non white kinksters have to be aware of and that leads to a point on the collective vs. Individual experience as a PoC in kink, that I’ll eventually make a post about at some point or another. Maybe…

So yeah I’m tired of yapping. I hope this long shit was enough of an explanation!! Thanks to my friends Kiko, Jules, Xavi and Folded for yapping with me so I could articulate this better!!

[ccrisntok]

Your Masterminds, Whit Young, and Ace Markey! (mm! whace au)

(Spoilers lol)

what normal fellas ahahahahaha (I have poured my entire soul into these two there is nothing left of me)

A basic summary of their relationship:

Whit has spent like, over a year manipulating Ace into being complacent in his plans. In his own eyes, Ace is a sorta-stupid lacky, who he's constantly love-bombing to keep obedient. Although, he is a bit glad for the company... it was sorta empty when Ace was "dead" and they couldn't really talk. And maybe Ace almost dying from his fake execution was a bit disturbing. But he's sure its nothing! (He fell in love with him like a moron.)

Ace has fully fallen in love with Whit. He's not happy about it, but it happened. As a result, he's basically ruined any semblance of his own morality, just so he doesn't lose Whit, or the affection he knows is mostly performative. He's more than happy to kill his fuck-face classmates, after a... bit of prodding, and honestly, he'd do anything Whit asked at this point, even die. He'll still complain about it, though.

i tried to be as original as humanly possible, but I'm def giving credit to @talkativeanonymous, @acethehorseishere, and @a-blog-for-kat all for inspiring these two in one way or another (esp. a-blog-for-kat lol).

anyway there's the art, here's the promised lore. warning for like a million words. I'm serious. It's 1,400 words. you can stop here i don't blame you.

also sorry for the odd looking bullet points, didn't realize you couldn't have gaps lol!

This au operates on a probably un-canon assumption that I pulled out of my ass. That is that Mai Akasaki is both a student in the class of 27, and that she is the "time loop" student. She is usually a part of the killing game, but she isn't this time, for reasons I'll explain in a sec.

This specific loop, Mai is attempting to dissuade the (usual) mastermind from wanting to start a killing game in the first place. That mastermind is Whit Young.

She goes about this by trying to curb Whit's main reason for his descent into despair, his resounding loneliness, by giving him championship. Charles hasn't softened up to the others in any regard yet. But that wasn't the main reason, unbenouced to Mai.

In this loop, and this loop alone, Mai sets Whit and Ace up to be friends. She hopes they can help each other, since they usually end up more or less alone in their school life.

Surprisingly, it works. They get along decently well, although a codependency starts to develop on Ace's side.

Around this time, Whit takes up an internship at XF Future, which Mai doesn't realize. He innocently wants to explore other job options, "Matchmaking" not really being a stable career forever.

Obviously FX Future isn't a normal Tech Company. Whit starts to change, in a barely noticeable fashion, the longer he works there.

Ace notices Whit's contacts start looking a lot more vibrant after Whit takes a couple weeks off school for a "company trip." He thinks it's... sort of pretty.

(Whit's time at XF Future showed him a side of humanity he didn't realize existed. Insane levels of greed, using the concepts of "ultimates" to guide a stupid pubic where the Government wanted them, generally a dystopia. It feeds into his existing detachment from humanity, until he hits a breaking point, setting his sights on ending the "Ultimates" concept by killing the newest class in the public eye, including himself.)

(XF Future develops a new sort of technology, prosthetic "eyes" that basically turn you into a living remote control, able to connect to an entire building if its connected via a computer system. Security cameras, doors, fucking air conditioning- everything.

(Whit offers himself as the test dummy, and it goes perfectly.)

Anyway, Mai decides to talk to Ace, since she's starting to realize he's becoming a bit... softer after hanging out with Whit so much? And hopes like, for once, he'll actually accept help for his mountain of problems.

He doesn't take this conversation very well.

Mai, with knowledge from dozens of loops, accidentally brings up an extremely traumatic event, simply mentioning the name "Tyler" once.

In a blinding mix of rage and horror at Mai's knowledge of the event, that Ace has literally never even spoken about in this timeline, Ace shoves her away from him.

She falls backwards, and splits her head on a desk, killing her instantly.

Ace, in a horrified frenzy, calls Whit, literally his only friend.

Whit shows up. Ace expects him to freak the fuck out, call the cops, or something like that... But he doesn't.

Whit simply tells him they were going to hide the body together, not even remotely caring about Mai's death.

yeah that's a little fucking weird, and its terrifying, but going to jail is scarier sooo Ace goes along with it!

After this, Whit wraps Ace into uncharacteristically cruel pranks against some of their classmates and others at Hopes Peak, oftentimes resulting in physical injury.

He acts like these are completely normal and funny, while Ace is both freaked out by it, and sort of enjoys enacting pain on people he didn't like.

Along the way, Whit notices Ace starting to fall for him. Horrible news for Ace, since Whit plays into those emotions by becoming much more physically and emotionally affectionate. Which he doesn't enjoy, like, at all... not a bit...

Whit convinces Ace to assist him in greater and greater acts of violence until Whit just straight up kills someone (not a classmate, a stranger.)

Ace is of course tied into everything way too deep to stop now, and after all this... he doesn't really want to. So he stays as Whit's accomplice for months, up until Whit's weirdo behavior arrives at the idea of the killing game. He references the "First Killing Game", which Ace had never heard of.

The idea is a bit intense for Ace, but at that point, he didn't have anything beyond Whit. If it took this to stay with him... He'd do it. Even if in the end, they both were going to die.

So they get to work!

Ace had been taking engineering classes at Hope's Peak in hopes of getting out of jockeying, and he'd helped his family build sheds and shit since he was a kid, so he focused on the construction and executions.

Whit wired the building an all-encompassing computer system he could control, as well as stealing "Mono-TV" from XF Future, a robot he can fully control to be the "host" of the game.

He also steals the "mind wiping" technology from XF Future. It's weirdly easy to steal stuff from this company, hm? It's almost like they aren't protecting it...

Whit also uses another piece of experimental biological technology... on Ace.

A screen connected to his brain, a lottt less invasive than Whit's eye surgery. It doesn't impact Ace mentally, it just gives him the ability to produce visible projections for easy construction, communicate with Whit remotely, (and give Whit a way to always know what Ace's condition.)

The screen is unclipped when the game starts, but the brain implant is still connected to Whit, so he can detect Ace's condition.

After kidnapping the class of 27 and wiping their memories... It all starts. A killing game, streamed live to the entire nation.

Whit and Ace start off as a part of the class, interacting with the others like normal, a pretty decent show. Things go roughly as planned, putting everyone in the positions Whit wanted them. Untilll... chapter 2.

Ace gets his ass jumped, and almost dies prematurely. This is fine, Whit privately makes sure the wounds properly cleaned, but it does fill Whit with an... ominous feeling.

Ace still kills Arei, a part of the plan, and gets "executed", so he can more easily upkeep the executions and such behind the scenes.

After the screen playing the fake execution turns off, Whit checks to make sure Ace didn't get injured in his running around... but can't detect anything.

At all.

Ace's heart wasn't beating.

He actually, seriously, had a fucking heart attack.

(Ace's heart attack was for a combination of reasons. Firstly, his heart was actually in pretty bad condition as a result of his eating disorder, something Whit had figured was "over" by now. It wasn't!)

(Second, in that moment, the idea that maybe, just maybe, Whit could have been double-crossing him came to Ace. What if Whit loaded the guns? What if Ace's use was done, and Whit was finally getting rid of him? It was terrifying because he could die, and terrifying because... It'd make sense. It was all that ever happened to him.)

So he had a heart attackkk lameeeeee

This makes Whit tweak the fuck out, internally. (lol pretend his spooky ass sprite happens AFTER the execution, not before. shh its all made up its all pretend)

After Levi gets taken to the infirmary, Whit drops Charles off at his room as quickly as he can, then fucking BOLTS IT to a hidden passageway in his room to the like... Mastermind area, with the execution chamber.

Whit manages to resuscitate Ace in time, barely. And even after that, he's in pretty bad condition. But he's conscious and mobile.

Whit gets him as comfortable as he can, and after spending the night, he sort of... has to leave. He does some tweaks to Ace's brain screen thing, creating a functional heart monitor that Ace (and he) can watch.

As often as he can, Whit sneaks off to the Mastermind area at night to make sure Ace doesn't fucking die in his sleep. But Ace gets... decently better quickly, and returns to his duties overseeing the killing game.

Whit still visits almost every night to make sure Ace wakes up, which he can't really explain to himself. Ace was... supposed to be disposable anyway. Why would it matter if he died?

Anyway yeah the rest of the game happens. No clue there.

In the end, Whit and Ace come out as masterminds (happy pride).

I have a comic planned for how the end goes, soooo... that's it!

holy fuck! my fingers! hi the whole 2 people who made it down this far... uh... did you like my lore.....? do you want me dead now for having you read 1,400 words of two evil homsexuals...? 😅 love you thank you im sorry.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

What do you think about the AOS Kirk x Old Spock ship? I would have liked to see a deleted scene in AOS2 or AOS3 or at least a hint that Aos Kirk visited old spock, not for something romantic or sexual but simply because they had a friendship, old spock seems to be so lonely….

I can totally see the appeal of this ship for doomed romance reasons! It could be very compelling, if done well. (I think I've seen a few fics like that, but I haven't read them, in part because I like happy endings, and in part because I do prefer it when they're with the one from their Own universe, but there's a hell of a lot of potential. actually, there was one that i read because it was mistagged, but it was also. like. character assassination of the aos guys To The Extreme, like holy hell wtf NONE OF THEM WOULD ACT LIKE THAT. i get that aos kirk is apparently your little pooky but WHY did you decide that Every Other AOS character is apparently the devil incarnate? why are spock and uhura like that?? what did SULU do??? god, even bones??? wtf.)

I personally don't really ship it because I do kind of think that Prime wouldn't want to take Kirk away from his own Spock. (I know Spock is technically with Uhura, but. I'm a gay Spock truther, I'm afraid.)

I also kinda think that Prime would still miss his own Kirk and wouldn't actually be able to just. move on to a Kirk from a different universe. This wasn't the same Kirk he'd lived his life with, after all. He was still Kirk, but he didn't have the memories and experiences. (I think Prime would feel irrationally guilty about this - he'd remember his own Kirk still accepting him after the Fal Tor Pan, when he didn't remember their life together, and he'd ask himself why he couldn't bring himself to do the same for this Kirk.)

I could easily see early-aos Kirk crushing hard on him, though, (at least with how I've seen him written in fics) just because, well, Prime is kind to him, and genuinely cares. Like, if you've had a bit of a messed up life, and no good parental figures or support systems, I can see how the sort of blatant adoration Prime would direct towards Kirk would just. instantly win him over. Prime smiles at him and tells him 'good job' very sincerely and Kirk starts experiencing shrimp emotions. (Though he's been introduced to a bit of kindness by then, mostly from Bones and Pike, but still. I think it would hit hard.)

Of course, then his Spock would warm to him, and they'd just kinda connect and many of the ooey good feelings caused by Prime might snap onto Spock, and Kirk would very suddenly go from "haha i want this old man to pat me on the head please what who said that" to "oh fuck oh shit i'm in love with this guy and really want him to like me as much as his old man self does".

I do love the idea of them having a friendship, though. Prime does seem lonely, and I can't imagine ANY Kirk being. just. okay, with letting any version Spock be alone. I feel like Kirk would randomly show up at Prime's house, hotdish* in tow, and be like, "I brought dinner, get in here, we're socializing!" or call him up out of the blue to complain about Spock or paperwork or just to talk.

Prime, I expect, is delighted by this. And, just like Kirk would get protective over Prime, I think Prime would be really protective of both Kirk and his younger counterpart. Kirk could call him at literally any time of day or night, and Prime would answer without question.

(Personally, my favorite dynamic is Kirk adopting Prime as his penpal and friend, and then Spock getting. confusedly jealous, while really most of what Kirk is doing is talking to Prime about his totally hopeless crush on Spock and ask for wooing advice (which Prime only occasionally gives. he can't change the universe too much after all). Prime, of course, is absolutely delighted to be able to watch this younger kirk and spock fall in love. idk, he's a sappy old man. it's an excuse to be unbearably sentimental about his own past. he watches them court and his heart aches, but it's sweet, y'know? it's a sweet pain.)

(and of course the real best case scenario involves kirk and spock pulling kirk prime out of the nexus and depositing him on spock prime's doorstep. let prime have a happy ending, dammit! give him his kirk back! and then all four of them have supremely awkward double dates lmao. kirk and spock prime are Besties while spock and kirk prime are. uncomfortable.)

also do bare in mind that i haven't actually seen all the aos movies whoopsie so take this. with salt.

*kirk is a midwesterner, so you know it's hotdish and not casserole. he has very strong feelings about this.

[syscest]

[not a confession] y'all mentioned sys4sys sex now i'm, curious about the intrasystem sex basics.... i don't even know where to begin looking for info on this, but i'd like to be more intimate with my headmates. can y'all talk a little bit more about that or share any tips. thanks a bunch (anyone can share tips btw)

hi ^^

so intrasystem sex ends up being a lot more complicated and individualized than intersystem stuff in our experience. a lot of it comes down to how your individual experience of systemhood works.

for folks with fully realised "headspaces" where it feels like headmates all hang out while not in front. headmates interacting with each other, or having fucked in headspace, is sometimes just like. a fact of life. or at least that's what I'm led to believe.

we personally don't have much of a headspace, and interactions seperate from the body tend to feel pretty floaty to us. it's good for flirting or bullying your headmates, but doesn't manage sex for us.

if you're capable of co-consciousness, or even just fairly rapid switches, we can definitely recommend masturbating together. mutual masturbation counts as sex for folks in different bodies, so why should the shared body experience be different.

getting off to smut that you can project a fantasy about you and your headmate onto and passing control of your body back and forth in the process, is probably our most common method here.

at the same time having a headmate instruct you how to get off, or order you to do particular things. is very hot. and once again a kind of kink/sex you can do with people in other bodies, that translates pretty easily to in-system sex if you're co-con.

if you have the ability to be co-con and also pass control of parts of the body back and forth, you can also sometimes get the sensation of another headmate touching you through the body (e.g. their use of a shared hand on your use of the shared face). or, if they can immobilise parts of your body for you, you can sometimes get a good approximation of what it might feel like having them pin those parts of you down.

even if you can't share bodily control, you can try things like having one headmate put the body in restraints (collar and a leash tied around a bedpost, cuffs around the ankles - normal kink precautions apply make sure it's something all ur headmates can undo in a pinch) and then switch out of front, leaving another headmate tied up in a compromising position. while it might not be a direct headmate on headmate interaction, you're still very much doing a kink scene with your headmate.

if you don't have the capacity to talk back and forth in your head or similar, things get a bit more difficult from here. sexting your headmates or leaving them slutty pics in a private chat for them to read later is always an option. as is just getting off thinking about them and seeing if they express opinions about that later.

our experience is a blend of a lot of the above, and we've found a solid horny rapport between headmates can be really positive. getting caught off guard by a headmate's horny thoughts and stumbling to catch your breath? having a headmate throw you onto your bed. grope you. tease you. push you around? getting collared and leashed to the bed and left to relax half naked and feeling very cute about it? finding porn that reminds you of another system member and masturbating furiously while you tell them what you'd do to them? being ordered to cum in a glass and then swallow your/your headmate's cum? well it all ends up a nice pleasant blur of experiences, at least for our own median-ish system.

if anyone else has tips or experiences feel free to chime in. again what works best for you will likely be very individual and require some trial and error to figure out ^^

[hell-is-not-an-excuse]

Not so sorted Ghostfuckers thoughts

Firstly, this episode was an improvement over the last few, at least in my opinion - That isn't to say that it's great, or even particularly good, but I can say that I was more invested in this episode, even if only a little. It had more focus on the original concept of the show with an I.M.P mission finally not just being reduced to a short... Though the mission still doesn't take full priority, something I will expand on momentarily.

Before that though, I'll start off with the things I did actually like.

The bankruptcy joke got a quick giggle out of me. It may be that I'm still an immature little homonculus, but the jokes that don't fall into the unnecessarily crude/sexual category still elicit a reaction from me.

This joke got me too - I know that this was almost definitely intended as a jab towards critics, however it loops back around to being funny to me, as I joke a lot about being "objectively correct".

These frames of Moxxie specifically - I love him a lot and wish he was in a show that took better care with its character writing

I enjoyed seeing the flashback designs for the I.M.P crew - Moxxie isn't too different, but I actually sort of prefer the others past looks here.

Lastly, this specific moment/line! This is a massive improvement over what was given to us in those leaked boards - In the original boards, I had a hard time believing that Millie would have this suicidal fit out of seemingly nowhere because... Some other demon told her she was a bad wife? This is a much more "in character" line for Millie, given what we already knew about her as an audience (which admittedly, wasn't a lot, but she never gave off the sort of insecurity/suicidal ideation that the original boards appeared to have been pushing for).

I think I've gotten all the praise I can wring out of my system - Now comes all the issues I take with this newest episode. These criticisms come in no particular order.

There's the usual thought that comes whenever a new episode drops - The swearing and sexual humour is too frequent and over the top. I'm an enjoyer of well placed crude and sexual humour, but this isn't well placed. With every second line containing profanity, innuendo, or explicit sexual content, they become less and less special and interesting to hear, to the point that watching characters interact becomes a slog.

Blitz is supposedly having this month long breakdown because... He had a breakup that wasn't really a breakup? He himself admits they were never in a relationship, and gets upset at the concept that him and Stolas will never be together. Obvious criticism of Stolitz notwithstanding, until Apology Tour, there have been no genuine moments of "love" between the two - This all comes off more as Blitz mourning this potential (now dead) relationship because the writers feel it's time for him to do so, without selling to the audience why he would give a damn about Stolas in the first place. I hardly believe Stolas and his pining back in Ozzie's, let alone the shameless display that we're getting now.

Speaking of Stolas, this is a perfect segue into what I said I was going to expand upon further down in this post; despite this episode having an I.M.P mission be a main setting, that's all it is - A setting. I wouldn't mind so much if this was purely for character building, but it's yet another instance of things happening because of Stolas. This feathered fuck haunts the narrative even when he's not present! The mission is presented more as an avenue of helping Blitz "get over" Stolas as opposed to just being a job that the members of I.M.P need to, you know, live.

Speaking of, how financially stable are I.M.P and its employees? Despite having nearly two seasons to expand on the concept of a business owned by the lowest caste of Hell's systems, nothing is done with it. With a setup like that, there should at least be some narrative drama involving the company facing challenges and instances of being in financial dire straights. Instead of this however, Blitz is able to blow a months worth of money on useless knick-knacks and owls to burn? With no real show of consequence as a result of this?

While I enjoyed seeing a bit of Millie backstory and her relationship to Blitz, Helluva still suffers from its "tell don't show" rule. Millie mentions she loves to have fun with Blitz, but we have never seen an instance of these two having fun together in show.

Honestly, the backstory of Blitz/Millie's meet and subsequent partnership should have been its own episode; we could have actually seen her steal the target from I.M.P as a solo assassin, we could have seen the state of I.M.P before her addition - If you wanted a bit of shipping fuel, you could also have an instance of Moxxie being too starstruck by this mysterious, wrathful rival to take a shot on her. So many possibilities! All wasted.

Millie's development episode shouldn't have come at the tail end of season two - She's been in the show since episode ONE, she deserved something in the first season to flesh her out.

I do not buy her reasoning for looking up to Blitz; if she thinks of herself as only a simple country girl or a brute, this would have been nice to actually see hinted to us throughout the show.

The casual ableism in the joke about the Hotel Owner's new cleaner - Not only is the way he is depicted simply dehumanising, framing him as this object of disgust rather than a person, this is driven further by being called a "poor thing" and only being reacted to with vague disgust by Blitz and Millie. And of course he's barely verbal, with the exception of a funny swear word (/sarc).

The whole sequence where Blitz is alone and being tormented by visions of Millie and Tilla is... It sure exists. Subtlety is lost in most of this dialogue here as once again, we are bluntly told what the problem with Blitz is - We know he makes decisions that fuck over others for his own benefit, we know he's selfish. We've seen this time and again!! This is not something that needed to be explicitly spoken for what feels like the millionth time in this (so far) two-season run.

Speaking of mothers! Millie and Loona get shafted into a role of taking care of their respective man for the episode - As a matter of fact, both their conversations involve Blitz or Moxxie. After nearly two seasons, I don't think they've had a conversation that wasn't about their male coworkers/relationships.

What is an infestor demon? Have they shown up before? What in God's name am I supposed to know about them? Somehow when it comes to worldbuilding, the need to explain everything explicitly is gone.

Why is Blitz being emotionally tortured again while Stolas sees no real consequence? This is getting to be a really tired pattern.

The whole ghostfucking bit was already testing my patience within the first couple of minutes.

Anyway, that's all I have of like... More surface level critiques of this episode. I'll probably make a few more minor posts about this episode later and elaborate on some new thing my brain is sticking to.

[baronessblixen]

Eyyyyy, saw your tags! :DDDDD

I will say: knowing more about an actor doesn't change my perception of their work; but I know a lot of people-- older generation, mostly-- who do think the way that he does. To them, the more they know, the more they can't "forget" the actor/actress in a role.

Maybe it's an older generation thing? A thought process left over from the world of 90s-and-before-media, before the advent of smartphones? Or maybe it's a broad audience thing: the type where people aren't so invested in someone's career or anyone in particular, and just want to go to the movies on a Friday-- the normies that fund most of the ticket sales. I do know I've been hearing a lot of sentiment lately from others who are over-saturated with celebrities talking about their opinions rather than marketing the product... maybe that's the modern day equivalent? Maybe that's what he was trying to articulate. (Sometimes he communicates in half measures when trying to work something out.) I think so, anyway.

But today's landscape is also so different: people are selling themselves-- branding, as he called it-- their personalities to sell their products. It just is that way. Hopefully he doesn't feel the pressure to do so, as well (I don't think he does, or would care. But it's a thought.) Maybe there's pressure there, but there's also freedom (or can be): the landscape for his professional fears have changed... but they've also changed in ways that are, to him, a net negative. So. XD

Hope you have a great weekend! :)))))))

When I read your ask, I realized that most people I know - regardless of age - don't care about actors' private lives 😂 that's slightly different though than not wanting to know as it might skew the viewing perception.

I guess it makes sense. DD was born in the 60s when Hollywood's star system was breaking apart. Back then the actors were brands too - though different than today. The studios gave them new names more often than not and a personality. They needed them to be certain types to lure the audience in.

The history of the star system is really interesting. Back in the very early days, actors didn't have a name. Audiences didn't know who these people were - but they wanted to know. Same with the first magazines. They'd be about movies originally, but people wanted to know about the actors instead. That's not at all a new thing.

So I don't think it has anything to do with social media and smartphones and more like you said with the broad audience. Before social media, tabloids were HUGE. That was the only way to glimpse more into the private life of your star. I just don't think any of it is new. The means are just different.

There's middle ground between putting your whole life out there and being private. It's not just DD, but one thing I've noticed with celebrities saying they're private is that usually, they have no problems talking about their kids or their family - people, weirdly enough, who didn't choose to be part of this life. Then when it's about their romantic life they're like, oh no, I'm private. That seems like a cop-out.

This is already half an essay but don't get me started on celebrities becoming a brand these days. Why do celebrities need to sell us products? That is a trend I really hate. Maybe I'm too old to get it and thankful for every celebrity who doesn't feel the need to create a drink/food/candle/skin product.

Hope you have a great weekend too 😁

[cinnamonest]

Don’t worry about replying to this in any capacity. Just wanted to say that I read your most recent post and it was extremely helpful and informative for me. I was just talking to my dad earlier about really struggling to understand how anyone could support Trump when he is just a complete bumbling fool of a man at best and a piece of shit bigot and sexist at worst. (Not to say that Harris is some beacon in the darkness, not a fan of her either.) But the perspective you offered was really enlightening so thank you for it. and I hope you are doing well enough, all things considered, and that regardless of what happens in the coming days that things get better for you and your community.

Thank you, that's very kind. I'm very glad it was helpful, I was worried I was coming across the wrong way or didn't word it very well or could be misinterpreted.

If it helps, I had some more thoughts I think would expand upon that, specifically for women — since I see a lot of posts essentially asking how women can possibly vote for the guy, and I think I can explain that too, as I've been thinking and talking a lot about that with women who I know intend to do so.

1) I think for the upper class, they tend to focus more on social issues, because economic issues don't affect them as strongly.

But for some of these people, especially moms, the increased cost of living is literally a matter of "how am I going to feed my children, how am I going to pay electric AND water," etc. So it becomes a priority, especially as many families have lots of kids, and some are single moms. They don't really think as much about social issues, whereas when I went to college, most of the kids cared only about social issues. The more financially secure someone is, the less preoccupied they are with economy.

But for a mom, the safety of and provision for their kids is paramount above all else, so economy and crime will take priority.

But since we only have 2 major parties, people often assume that whichever you vote for, you must agree with ALL of the party's official stances, which is often not the case. That's part of why our bipartisan system is so divisive and breeds hostility, because it creates an "us vs them" mentality.

2) women in the area I talked about don't really even think about abortion/reproductive rights. They're not militantly anti-choice (like some of the more suburban moms of kids I went to school with), it's more that no one ever really thinks about it at all. Many of them have kids very young and lots of them, it's just normal. They also don't have careers to focus on in the way higher-class women do, and many have no chance of ever going to college, so there's less reason to hold off on it.

People do what's normal per their class/local culture — so here, if a girl gets unexpectedly pregnant (which is... not uncommon), they don't freak out or think about how it will affect their future, how they'll afford it etc, they usually just... shrug, drop out of high school, marry the guy, have the kid.

When we were 16, one of my good friends got pregnant, and she too did exactly that. She was unironically overjoyed to find out too, rather than panicked or dismayed. Like, when she took the pregnancy test, I was there with her, sitting on the tile floor of the church bathroom at 9 pm with the test we scraped cash together to buy from the gas station-pharmacy hybrid shop down the road, and she, as a 16 year old high school junior, was actively hoping, fingers crossed and smiling and everything, that it would be positive. She's now 24 and is about to have baby #5.

And part of the reason she was fine with it was... because her mom had her at 15. It's a very cyclic thing. The possibility of abortion would not occur to them unless someone else brought it up.

3) Moreover, when women vote, they focus on what affects them specifically as a woman — and prioritize what's most "real" to us as an individual woman, the hypotheticals one can most realistically see happening to them. But what that most realistic thing is, varies a lot from woman to woman.

For a woman living in, say, Maine or northeast California or even a safer rural place like Idaho, I can see how abortion is probably the most "real" thing to them, that they can see themselves being in a position to affect them.

Whereas for me, having experienced harassment and aggression, reading about these statistics and headlines, violence is something I am much more afraid of happening to me. I'm very careful to avoid an area where I was harassed before.

But for someone in a low-crime place, that isn't something that's going to be a priority.

I personally now realize that a lot of the misunderstanding and clashing is a matter of the fact that women in many blue areas simply don't think about this, because they've never had a reason to, and that's perfectly understandable.

But a lot of women in areas like my home do not realize that. Many women at home strongly believe that "them uppity rich white women out in California or wherever the hell" (quoth my 90-something year old neighbor), are aware of, but simply don't care about, the consequences women here/poor women face. I used to think so too, when I was younger, because that's what I was told.

As a result, they view their blue vote as a very "let them eat cake" heartless-rich-person sort of thing, as selfish and/or classism, in the same way that women in blue areas likely view their red votes as female-class betrayal, religious brainwashing, believe their husbands must be controlling them, etc.

Now, with greater life experience, I not only understand that it isn't like that at all on either side, but I can also see why many blue-area women dismiss our experiences as "not really happening" or "right-wing propaganda," simply due to the fact that it's very difficult for them to fathom it, because it's so different from the reality they live in, it feels like it can't be real.

3) it *is* true that these women are often demonized and gaslit for talking about the rapes, job loss etc, so that has shifted even more moderate women very rightwards over the last few years, because they feel silenced/censored.

Donald is a sort of savior figure — he acknowledges the issue they otherwise feel censored on, and moreover, has essentially promised to take away the men that hurt them, their daughters, sisters etc. They want to feel safe again, they want their husbands to get their jobs back, feel like they have a secure future, etc, and his platform is literally "make America safe again, make America rich again, make America great again."

That line you may have seen all over the internet a few days ago, where Donald said something along the lines of "I'm going to protect the women if they like it or not"? And you know how it earned disgust from the mainstream population of women?

That line was received extremely positively by women at home. I've already seen them sharing it around with my mom/aunts/grandma on facebook, in a positive light, ecstatic. It makes them feel seen and heard in a culture that otherwise puts a hand over their mouth, and they cling to those words in hope of a better future.

Tldr: it's women who are vulnerable and afraid and desperate, going for the only option that has promised to address their needs. Much conflict comes from the limited human ability to grasp things outside of ourselves, our tendency for solipsism — an unfortunate part of the human condition that has plagued our species from the dawn of time.

[cursedvibes]

Hey sorry for disturbing you but I would like to know your opinion on silent hill 2 like what is your favourite boss, character and scene. Also, do you think the remake was better than the orginal?

Unfortunately, I was never able to play the original and didn't find any good playthroughs of it either. Only knew the general gist of the plot and themes through video essays. So I'm glad the remake made it more accessible. I've heard from long-time fans as well that they think the remake is well-done and are even hoping for the same treatment for the other Silent Hill parts.

Favourite boss is Angela's Dad. The way he writhes on that bed his movements, his lines, it all is so incredibly uncomfortable and sickening. He's also one of the more complex bosses. That's one of the things I know the remake improved a lot, the fighting system. I still wouldn't say the bosses are incredible in terms of mechanics, usually you just shoot or hit them until they drop dead. The Dad is a bit more than that and I also like Maria as Endboss, although the design and themes play a big role there. Something I like about the regular encounters though is how they animate and voice James when he beats them down and how you are required to keep hitting them even when they are splattered on the floor to make sure they don't stand back up. It's nasty and James' screams sound so incredibly angry. Considering the design of the encounter creatures, particularly the nurses, and knowing what he did to Mary...it's a really nice detail that gives you an early clue to his character.

Favourite character...idk James or Laura, I think. My favourite scene is a toss up between Laura's letter aka when James starts figuring out the truth and when he watches the tape. I just really like the reveal and how it unsettles James, how it puts the whole game into perspective and makes you question even little details like how Laura keeps running away from him and flinches when he gets loud or grabs her arm. She's not just some annoying kid messing with him for no reason, she has legitimate reasons to be scared of him and as it turns out also was right in not wanting him around Mary.

Great story and I'm glad more people can experience it now.

[darkestmetamorphosis]

I definitely feel like what sites it's on is a part of it; I always hear ao3 talked about as where you go to find good quality fics, fanfiction.net as a barely functioning site, and wattpad as... not great quality lol. And I think ao3's tagging system makes it leagues better than the others for finding things and filtering out things (I will occasionally go back to fanfiction.net to find stuff for old dead fandoms I was years late to that almost no one writes for anymore) so whatever is more popular there is going to get more exposure.

Admittedly I am not very experienced as a fanfic writer and started with original writing; I get caught up in worrying if I'm doing the characters justice in a way that I never needed to when it was only my ocs.

That and I'm writing for a game that had very minimal dialogue (between the characters I'm shipping; they were both individually in other games where they got more character development but no more interaction with each other) so writing their voices both in dialogue and in their thoughts and introspection has been difficult, for one moreso than the other.

I haven't written fic for (or read much of) a lot of fandoms of first person pov books so I didn't know there were not many writing in the same style! I think that if I were to it would be easier than it would be for characters with less information to go off of, granted, I haven't tried it

I think third person limited has the potential to be either almost as intimate as a good quality first person fic, or it can flatten the characters just as a badly written third person omniscient would, depending on the writing. Like if you put two similar characters in the same situation, in third person (if written with none of the characters voice in it) they could be described as seeing and feeling all the same things, but in first person they'd likely describe it differently. I also just find it easier when I can describe things around the character as detailed as I want without having to question whether they'd actually describe it like that, or the dramatic irony of the reader seeing important things that the character hasn't picked up on, if that makes sense.

That said, I feel like writing first person in a generic writing style is more of a glaring flaw when it doesn't suit the character. So like, the quality of third person can range from amazing to kinda bad but at least passable, and the quality of first person can range from amazing to WTF IS THAT EVEN THE SAME CHARACTER MY BLORBO WOULD NEVER SOUND LIKE THAT. And the fear of getting them that wrong may be part of what holds people back from trying

All of which is to say I agree that it's more of a writing style problem than the pov itself

Been thinking lately about the Fanfic Writing Style(TM) and how incredibly restrictive it is because any deviation from a fairly paint-by-numbers third person POV tends to be wildly alienating to the average fanfic reader, and will actively be avoided.

This is especially obvious when you look at how first person POV fics are treated; they are automatically associated with bad quality, and people will immediately turn away from a fanfic the moment they see it's written in first person. There are reasons for this; firstly, it is true that beginning writers will often use first person because it feels a little more accessible than the other options, and most beginning writers are of course not very good yet on a technical level, especially not if they are also children, which many fanfic writers are. So the association between first person and bad quality is not entirely baseless (though, y'know. definitely at least a little mean spirited, if unintentionally so). Secondly, and this is a personal sentiment but one I've seen some people echo: first person can read weird when combined with fanfic, because fanfic often does not benefit from a closer connection with the POV character. We are here to watch blorbo do thing, it can feel a little weird when it is instead I doing the thing, y'know? This is personal preference, of course; no accounting for that.

However, regardless of the reasons, kneejerk avoidance of first person POV fics is probably one of the driving factors behind the homogenization of the fanfic writing style. It's difficult to put into words to me, but especially if you read a lot of fanfic, at some point it's obvious that most of these stories are written in the exact same way, with the same sentence structure, cadence, and metaphors. The often-mocked italicized Oh, usually used in its own paragraph, usually used in a romantic context, is an example of this: a writing quirk turned universal enough specifically in fanfic to be singled out and ridiculed for its frequency.

This style isn't inherently bad, many authors pull it off very well, but it's certainly restricting. Essentially banning the usage of the first person POV alone is already severely limiting, but even just a slightly different usage of the third person POV is discouraged if everyone is writing the exact same way.

This leads to an overarching problem in fandom, namely that all characters tend to sound the same. The style of writing is the same whether writing about a jaded 40-year-old man or a peppy 12-year-old girl. A story set in 1940's France will have more or less the same writing as a story set in 2010's America. Writers do often try to add little details to their narration to distinguish different characters, and success with this varies, but is usually limited. Narration in fandom is rarely personalized to the character, and instead falls into the homogenized fandom style more than anything else.

I don't have a specific goal with this post. I'm not necessarily saying 'we need to STOP big fandom's writing style' or whatever, I don't think that's productive or feasible. I do think that we should all, as readers, be a little more open to stuff like first person POV fics or stranger prose experiments rather than skipping over or closing out of a fic as soon as we encounter them, and as authors (if you actually care about improving your writing) I'm encouraging you to take a look at the prose style used in your fanfic and see if you could diversify it because oftentimes readers do respond positively when they see it, so I guess if there's anything to take away from this post as a call to action, it's that. But mostly this is just me musing on something I've noticed in my own fanworks recently that irritates me.

[tricksterlatte]

New story idea: We begin with the son of famous athlete Tom Brady, years after the NFL player himself went missing. Our protag, let’s call him Tom Brady Jr., is now a beloved sportsball player in his own right, but always lives in his father’s shadow. As a result, Tom Jr. resents him. One day, his home stadium and city are attacked by a space whale mid-match, and as a result he is isekai’d to another world.

There he finds out technology is mostly forbidden, and cultic religion reigns supreme, but football is still real! Everything is okay because ball is life. He meets new friends and overhears that a local girl, the daughter of Jesus the 84th, is about to embark on a race to become Jesus the 85th. So he tags along. They grow closer and closer with every passing day, forming a bond because they both understand growing up in your father’s shadow.

Then our football loving son finds out Tom Brady is this world’s evil space whale, who keeps destroying every city in his wake, though Tom Jr. has no clue why. After this, the Pope is assassinated and replaced by an incel Pope, who wants to marry Jesus the 85th so they can perish together. So they all kill the incel Pope, and later they kill him two more times just to be sure! Tom Jr. finds out Jesus the 85th will be dying for everyone’s sins and he doesn’t like that, but later finds out this will accomplish nothing in the long run. Their dads and friends prepared them for this! They kill the concept of sin, and also god, and a bunch of other gods, and now Jesus the 85th is just some girl again.

Unfortunately, Tom Brady Jr. was a Bible fanfic character all along, written into existence after the apocalypse wiped out computers and everything except football. As a result, he fades from existence, because god kinda kept him alive. He fades away, along with his samurai godfather, after jumping off the top of an airplane, and Jesus the 85th is left behind with her goth best friend, another football player who helped kill the pope with his favorite football, a furry, and her cousin.

Anyways I love Final Fantasy X.

[icewindandboringhorror]

On average, what is the total MONTHLY amount that you spend on dining out*?

*(This doesn't only count going out to restaurants, but also stuff like picking up fast food to bring home, getting a coffee on the way to work, getting a premade sandwich from a grocery store deli during lunch, buying a quick snack from a convenience store or food cart whilst walking somewhere, ordering a pizza or any other food to be delivered to your home, etc.)

*(If you often dine out in groups/as a household: calculate and divide the costs so that you get a Per Person average. This is for YOU individually, NOT the total household/group costs)

(I'm sure polls similar to this have been made before (very common topic), I just haven't personally seen one that I can remember, so, I was curious to do my own! I was discussing this with a group of people today and it was very interesting to see how widely the number varied between individuals. :0c )

(Reblog for bigger sample size if you can, and feel free to explain your answer in tags if there's anything extra to add!)

[msmc-796-official]

-I managed to finally contact the HRA division with me to stop firing at your people. For the love of Christ-the-Buddha get your asshole commander away from me she won't stop screaming slurs in languages I don't understand at me over the comms channel we're stuck in

Who in the-?! Oh, wait, shit, that's right, I forgot you were still awake in there. Christ-the-Buddha Almighty, that scared me.

Are you sure that's still Kennedi screaming? She (or, rather, her unconscious - and hopefully not lifeless - body) and her molten wreck of a Caliban have been with us at MSMC-148's drop site for like two hours now, waiting for pickup. Slipshod managed to pry your casket outta that slag heap you used to call a Genghis Mk. 1 and get you connected to a "life support" of sorts on one of their backup generators, but if you can still hear Kennedi's voice screaming bloody murder at you, then your systems might be fried worse than we thought. (No clue if that sort of thing is fixable or not...)

Hopefully the Albatross will be here soon. Our distress beacon is still up and running, and they should more than have our coordinates by now. We'll all be out of here soon. (I hope.)

-- Angel

[dsntwrk]

help me i've gotten so deep into the steddie rabbit hole i haven't gotten this stuck on something since destiel

this really isn't good for my health

THESE ARE THE FICS THAT I SUBSCRIBED TO / LIKED READING (I'VE BASICALLY READ 1/5 WORTH OF STEDDIE FICS COMPARED TO DESTIEL FICS - I GOT INTO DESTIEL 4 YRS AGO, I ONLY STARTED READING STEDDIE FICS SOME TIME LAST MONTH WTF)

tbf, i have taken breaks from destiel to read other fandoms/fics so, ig the timing works out? if you think about it?