#It’s bad enough when applied to characters but it’s disgusting when applied to real life people

[bisexualseraphim]

I can’t believe this needs explaining but a same-gender relationship by definition cannot be “heteronormative” lmao. The way two WOMEN date or have sex with each other or get married will never be heteronormative because they are not in a heterosexual relationship. And yes, this includes butch/femme relationships.

Like do you really think homophobes are looking at a twink and a bear holding hands and thinking “well the idea of them being inside each other turns my stomach but one is slightly more masculine than the other so I suppose it’s okay. Oh and they’re wearing T-shirts that say ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ which basically means ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ even better.” What world are you living in

[carrotsnake]

dungeon meshi fandom rant

i usually stay away from fictional autism headcanons or indulging in them wholesale because i'm more on the 'characters are constructs' side of things. some may exhibit traits we relate to but placing real-world diagnostic labels on walking metaphors makes things too nebulous. however laios touden is an exception to me since autism allegories are pretty hard-wired into both his arc and dungeon meshi's core themes. so for once the fandom autism memes feel genuine to me lol. it doesn't feel as fanon-heavy or platitudinous, actually it's pretty uplifting. i appreciate the positivity.

that being said the most dogshit dunmesh take i've seen lately is the assertion that laios and falin show us autistic men are villified for things autistic women are accepted for. the fuck are you people smoking? some rebranded MRA-pilled bullshit? log off tumblr and go outside, then point and show me where this is the truth. i don't know if you guys are all living in a feminist utopia that i'm not privy too, but if so send me the address because things couldn't be less like that everywhere i've ever been.

countless times i've been told 'oh you're exactly like a female copy of [socially inept male friend/co-worker/family member who shares my personality] and then i gotta watch them get special treatment as i get left behind and scolded for not being normal enough. him being blunt is rebellious & brutally honest, me being blunt is just being a b*tch with no filter. how many times do you see autistic women reaching high positions of power and being revered as a misunderstood genius.

how about everyone reminding us to 'be nice' to the supposedly harmless awkward guy who keeps making sexual comments & invading our boundaries because he can't help it apparently. but strangely enough, i have gone my whole life without creeping on others. only to be called creepy and off-putting by these same social equality preachers for not applying makeup or styling my hair right. autistic women are more likely to be sexually harrassed and/or abused than neurotypical women and no one gaf (let's b real they don't care when it happens to neurotypical women either if the man has a good enough sob story.) shit like walking strangely, having a speech impediment and talking too much about esoteric topics was enough to be outcasted for us. once more, with feeling: what are you people smoking?

and critically, falin is pretty. she's conventionally pure, self-sacrificial, beautiful with hollywood curves, soft-spoken, and never questions anyone nor asserts herself over others when her needs aren't being met. her dislikes in the adventurer's bible are 'nothing in particular', she never spoke out against her village's bullying even when she had it worse than laios, quickly forgives her parents for exiling her, and never shows any opinion on marcille's use of dark magic. she's a paragon of femininity. anything less than that, and she would probably invoke similar if not more disgust from her peers than laios through the audacity of not conforming to gender expectations. but she likes holding bugs or whatever so...whoa! she's so feral and subversive amiright guys. but crucially she looks cute while doing it so we're not too uncomfortable to stan.

i love laios so much, he's in my newest blorbo collection for sure but calling the female characters who don't like him judgemental is not a good look. we as the readers who have been inside the main chara's head know he's a good guy - but in the context of dungeon meshi's world, where sexism is as prevalent as stranger danger, it's fair for them to assume bad intent and keep their distance. they're looking out for their own safety and you're mad about that because, what, it makes your 2D nigel sad? cry about it.

so quit using anime characters as fodder for your thinly-veiled 'everyday men milk themselves' preaches. the touden siblings are not a good example of this. if you unironically agree with that take: it's time to go talk to some real women broski.

[all-pacas]

For fun, doing this meme list for my Tav. I say for fun. For MY fun. Also because what is "developing an original character."

TAV: Drow Durge. Forgot her actual name in the amnesia thing, is just barely sensible enough to not introduce herself as Dark Urge. Calls herself Tav because it 'feels right.' (It's actually her long lost adopted brother's name.) Was known as Enyo Atavian in her cult leader days.

-

what do they smell like at their freshest? (and/or after a tenday. your choice)

Dirt. Vaguely vegetal? Not in a bad way. Just a bit like rosemary or pine needles. Fresh, but mineral. Sometimes like blood. She's not one for flowery smells.

what would their blood taste like to vampires?

You know how hard water tastes like water but just kind of... more? Like that. Like her blood is just extra bloody. Just has a bit of extra blood to it. The difference between taking a bite of steak and a bite of fat. Almost too much.

how would they kiss their LI?

A bit passively so far. Amnesia is a lot. Coming to terms with the concept of emotions is a lot. She holds back with everything. Keeps a stranglehold on herself. Letting go is a lot. When she goes for it, it's all weirdly determined. I am going to get a good grade in relationships, something both normal to want and possible to achieve.

how do they sleep with their LI (what position, does one steal the blankets, is one too hot/cold, etc)?

Stiff until she actually falls asleep and lets her guard down. Then clingy, wanting to be the little spoon all the time. A real burrower. She sleeps badly, though. So many nightmares and memories.

what does their tent area look like? where do they prefer to pitch their tent (next to water, covered on three sides, etc)?

She's scavenged her arms and armor, she'd have to scavenge her tent stuff too. So it's all very patchy. Got her tent one place, her bedding another. Jars and random trinkets outside. She Collects. She'd prefer to be near Gale, Astarion, or Shadowheart if she can help it.

if they had a set of dnd dice, what would they look like?

I might just dig through my dice and see what I can do.

do they collect anything (gems, bottles, keys, etc)?

Trinkets. Jewelry, although she doesn't really wear much. She just likes little shiny bits she can play with. Wealth or design don't mean much to her as much as stuff that just appeals to her on some level. So that could be a super fancy ruby necklace, or a cheap ring she pried off a goblin. Whenever she kills someone, she likes to collect a trophy. Jewelry preferred because it's Shiny and Portable, but also the occasional bone.

if either, are they part of the astarion/gale book club (magic & literature) or the wyll/shadowheart book club (trashy romance novels)?

Astarion/Gale book club. Fiction makes her uncomfortable. Like she barely knows who she is, she's been three different people in her life, she's now expected to relate to these fake ones?? But nonfiction, history books are easier. She actually doesn't mind reading, fiction just stresses her out a little. She probably doesn't know enough to understand why.

if they had to be put in a “get along shirt” with a companion, who would it be?

SHE thinks Wyll. I don't know that Wyll would agree. But he's just so good and nice and noble! And she's a semi-feral murderer trying to cosplay a normal person! He scares her. She admires him a lot. Karlach to a lesser extent. Karlach would actually probably really get her "trying to be better but I still like violence" thing, but Karlach is so sunny and really close to Wyll, Tav applies it to her too.

do they prefer speak with dead or speak with animals?

Speak with Dead. It's fun to find out how people died. They can tell you about their own murders! Wait, that's wrong, isn't it? No. She just, uh, wants to learn more. About stuff.

what are their thoughts on clowns?

Absolutely fascinating. The disgust and distaste they cause in others. The fear.

their companions are gossiping about them behind their back! who is it and what are they saying?

Astarion: Complaining about her resting :| face. Can anyone get a read on her? Can we talk about how annoyingly trusting she is?

Gale: Is anyone else concerned that she doesn't just have magic, but psionic magic? He's Guardian-Curious as well, but she's really dipping into that magic and it is not Mystra Approved.

Wyll: Why does she avoid me? I just wanna be friends?

Shadowheart, Karlach: Can we talk about her completely destitute, covered in barely healed scars appearance? How she had nothing on her besides bones? Like we're worried but it's also incredibly suspicious, right??? She has scars on her head that literally look like someone ripped her skull open?

Lae'zel: Nothing. She has no issues.

what makes them laugh? what does their laugh sound like?

Her laugh always is surprised. Like she didn't expect it either. Bright and pleased. She thinks Astarion is really funny, which he's probably put out by: he considers himself charming and irresistible, not funny. She likes that sort of sarcasm, and the same trollish humor he does.

do they have any inside jokes among their companions?

Not so far.

what’s the description of their camp clothes in the inventory menu?

Destitute Tunic. None of these clothes quite match or fit. The sort of thing you'd throw together out of scraps.

She wears a shirt she got in the Druid's Grove, probably embroidered with vines. Trousers about her size she took from a bandit. A sword from a dead goblin, a jerkin that doesn't quite fit. Very fine boots, the only part of her Pod Outfit that was salvageable. The colors more or less match up, but you can kind of tell it's all third hand.

what’s the description of their underwear in the inventory menu?

Second-hand Pants. It's hard to be choosey in the wilderness. At least this set fits.

how do they celebrate their birthday?

She doesn't! She has no idea what it is! Currently she's not even sure how old she is, aside from "young adult by elf standards." (A bit over 100.)

what modern day tv show would they binge over a weekend? do they get their LI to watch with them?

She could actually get really into trashy reality TV. Like it's a documentary or something. Just zone out and enjoy the spectacle. Probably she'd also be kind of into nature documentaries or nonfiction.

do you have a playlist for your tav? if so, what’s the title + description?

Nope.

if you were to try pickpocketing them, what would they be carrying?

Eight cheap rings, some bones, and no gold.

[thelism]

I believe that men and women are inherently different. I believe that our sexualities are inherently different, and that they are repulsed by one another on an instinctual, genetic basis. Men sexually objectify women and women interpret this in their own way and our both disgusted by it and adore it. They use it for the attention of men and the hierarchal attention of other women and establishing their preferred pecking order (the head cheerleader who tries her best to apply make up and dress well as opposed to the shrinking violet bookworm who doesn't bother but straddles being different and the rage with "what if I did try to look like that?"). Men want women as young as reproductively possible whereas women either prefer their own age group, young-but-still-manly, or much older men. Men don't want real women. They want to do things to a woman's body that a woman in the right sense of mind wouldn't allow. As we can see from anime and porn, they don't want realistic minds either, with all the caricatures of women being unrealistic. Women know to copy these characters and begin to act like them. They smile as men want them to, and while women can't help but be themselves sometimes, they act in weird ways both to attract men and to adhere to their social status and social norms in ways that are developed from what women perceive men want, which is then normalized in their own ways. Men so not often act in the ways that women want. Despite being able to watch a chick flick or pick up some literotica, men are normally unable and unwilling to change themselves in ways that would actually pick up chicks or make them a woman's Mr. Wonderful. Women know how to apply make up to attract a man and smile and can bear bad sex just to stay with a man they love or need financially. Men seem to be repulsed and confused or otherwise ignore women's attempts to explain how they want men and have difficulty understanding how to act and transform themselves for the other sex thus.

In turn women romanticize men, wanting their perfect dreamboat and fixating on him. Women usually want a sort of man that is protective and kind. Men try to raise their talents and look cool or do cool tricks to "impress a woman". But women do not feel impressed by his ambitions or cool stunts, rather it may just puts him in the possible fuckability zone if he happens to be hot and have the right personality as well. Women want dominant men. Not necessarily people who order you around in the bedroom, but rather someone who is smart enough to develop a damn talent and maybe get a good place in the pecking order, or be too good for the pecking order and live alone. Sad but independent and strong enough to live on his own and maybe she could change him to be kind to her and her offspring and have a family and start a new clan. Men don't do that. When they want to live alone, they mean it.

Women are normally both more compassionate, empathetic, and mothering and competitive, vain, verbally violent, and hard working. In a family-type environment they both put their head down to do their work and take care of kids while also being ready to fight both their husband and kids at every turn. To be honest, I'm not sure how to describe men. Men have stereotyped women for thousands of years, but it's hard to pinpoint words on my knowledge of how men act. Men seem kind of airheaded to me, yet tend to be more logical. They balk at the interpretations someone might give them, especially if they're too accosting and unforgiving. Men are more likely to be pranksters but not always. Men tend to focus inwardly on themselves more. In a family they are either cold and focus on their outside life, focus on their family life and are brutal, or focus on their family life and are easy-going, playful parents. Socially men seek ambition through talent and being recognized as intelligent and fun loving (even if that fun is less partying, a comedy video versus sad poetry), as opposed to women who seek it through looks and social skills and use their intelligence to know when and how to please someone or many people and when to not. Men meet and figure out who their favorite person is, women meet and decide who is the boss. Writing this reminds me of how women throw a party. All the prep work and figuring out how much food is involved, all the invitations and knowing who likes and hates whom, the fuss over decorating. Men do these things to, but aside from the decorations it's not as...thorough?

Anyways, men and women are different instinctually and socially and we bounce off one another in this weird love hate, adored and repulsed relationship. It's weird and fascinating and you can't talk about it without sounding sexist because society has made us feel like gender roles are bad and noticing them is wrong. But it's really just normal people doing their normal thing, reflecting off the other gender and reacting back to it. Woman submit to marriage and then fight their kids and husband over their own choice. Men can't stop making art about sexy chicks whether they get laid or not and sharing it with their fellow men and women copy their art in themselves. It's all just stupid genetic brain stuff.

[queerofthedagger]

Look I like, talk a lot about how much I love Arthur but I feel like I rarely if ever elaborate, and it's 4 am and I'm running on little sleep but --

The thing about Arthur is, he isn't just inherently good. No, my boy grew up in an environment so fucking toxic, as a social worker I can say with confidence that it's a miracle that he didn't turn out really, really horrible.

Privileged to his teeth, no positive, caring influence in his life apart from -maybe!- some nannies, and a father that makes my pedagogical heart throw bricks. Like. There's absolutely no positive, constant role model whatsoever, the best influence you can argue for is Gaius and well. Let's just say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and leave it at that.

Do you think Arthur got hugged as a child? Told that he was doing great? That whatever he was into at the time was appreciated? That Uther ever took the time to sensibly explain what happened to his mother? That it wasn't his fault? Do you think Uther ever told Arthur that Ygraine's death wasn't his fault? And if you do, do you think it was convincing? Because Uther sure as hell considered it at least partly Arthur's fault and believe me when I say that kids sense this shit.

Arthur might've been cared for on a material level but honestly? I think that's about it and let me tell you that it's not even anywhere close to enough. Not, like, at all. I want to cry just thinking about it and to draw a real-life comparison - kids I work with that come from these kinds of situations struggle so badly because there's a whole axis of guilt to it. Of course, there are loads of kids who have it way worse but we're talking about children and this is not the trauma Olympics.

Anyway. "I've been trained to kill since birth." Ever think about a 6, 7 year old Arthur who gets a wooden sword pressed into his hands, not for fun but for a training that is ingrained in him, will be his whole purpose? Ever think of Uther always finding him lacking and him not having any real friends because again, kids sense this kind of shit? Ever think about a 15-year-old child being forced to murder people? Ever think about how disgustingly ingrained the whole "sense of duty" thing is and where it comes from? That shit doesn't go as deep as making someone who's in their early 20's willing to sacrifice their life if you start telling them at 16. And even that is disgusting but anyway.

Arthur's whole existence, from the moment he could understand it, was always aimed at duty and responsibility and what Uther wanted from him. I'd bet the little money I have in my bank account that Uther made damn well sure there were no outside influences to "tarnish" the mind of his heir; and I'm not only talking about magic.

And yet. And yet, the moment there actually was an outside influence, the second Merlin stumbled into his life, "I know I'm just a servant and my word doesn't mean anything," Arthur fucking Pendragon leapt that shit up. Lancelot, maybe a commoner and forged his sigil but if he can't be a knight, the code is wrong. Let's go save a druid child Uther is turning the castle upside down over because Morgana and Merlin asked (and if this wasn't a recent change, Morgana would've enlisted his help much sooner, fight me.) Ealdor. The unicorn, obviously magic and because Merlin said so. Etc etc I could go on and this is just season one.

This is getting ridiculously rambly and long and is basically just an incoherent version of my extensive Arthur character analysis but what I mean to say is: yeah maybe he didn't legalise magic in the first four years of his damned rule, and there are definitely things he could've handled better or where his character was just inconsistent (though I'm also going to die on the hill that opposed to what tv shows make you believe, actual change of ingrained beliefs and behaviours does take a lot of time and in that regard, Arthur was maybe more realistic than this fandom was ready for. Anyway.) Considering the 100 bad experiences compared to the maybe 3 good ones with magic, Arthur did fucking great and I'm so tired of people shitting on all he did in the context of his reign/the show.

Uther was a tyrant, and he was an abusive, horrible father, and frankly it's a wonder Arthur didn't simply end up worse than him. No one ever really took a leap of faith on him - and I don't blame them, no one is ever required to reveal something about themselves that could put them into danger (unrelated but yes this applies to Merlin telling Morgana too, deal with it) - and there was little to nothing provided that could've prompted him to change his mind in the first place. And yet he kept questioning it. I'm sorry yeah it's not the Golden Age and it's oh-so-easy to find a single culprit to blame it all on but Arthur is not it, it's -imo- never what the show was about, and I'm just about ready to throw hands over this.

Arthur wasn't just inherently good, he fought and worked to be better, constantly, and to be honest that is bloody hard and it eludes me how people can not see this.

[thatgoblin]

Portal Part 2

Summary: Reader is napping on the couch as a lightning storm rages on outside, creating the perfect event for a portal to open. She’s sucked into it as one of the Resident Evil animated movies plays on her television and she’s dropped in the middle of an outbreak and left to defend herself while looking for help and a way home.

Warnings: Violence, probably bad puns, and mildly descriptive gore.

A quick search of the room helped you find a first aid kit as well as a pair of boots and socks in your size. In fact you were able to find better suited clothes. You silently thanked and apologized to the person you were stealing from as you changed after covering your leg bite with a bandage. A pair of jeans, a sports bra, and a long sleeve baseball tee made you less vulnerable for sure. Searching for anything else useful, you came across the ammunition locker, but while it was open, there wasn’t much there. One glock handgun with some bullets. It was better than nothing at least.

All of your firearms knowledge came from video games and movies and a few youtube videos, you just hoped you retained enough to pull it off in real life. You looked over the gun to get a feel for it and was relieved it seemed to be as simple as in the games. You knew which ammo it took, the safety button, and how to load the clip. All you had to do was point and shoot. Everything in your being wanted to avoid that at all costs. Especially with help on the way. Unlike the video games, there was no holster that you could pick up or a life bar in the corner of your sight. This was real and you had the bumps and scrapes to prove that.

You double checked your leg, having cleaned it thoroughly and applied anti-bacterial cream. Your bandage was kind of thick, but you didn’t want to chance someone finding out about the bite and killing you. It still wasn’t clear how long it would take for you to turn or if you would turn at this point. There were so many questions flying through your mind. How did you get here? What would you do when rescued? How did you get home? This was a fucking fanfiction trope that you had read a time or two, but that never resolved itself either. Somehow the character magically woke up at home or it had all been a dream.

This felt too real to be a dream. The pain and fear and blood told you as much.

It had been nearly 10 minutes when you heard movement outside the room. You had drawn the shades to give you some semblance of being hidden, but the door was also locked. Wanting to make sure they didn’t have to break down the door to get to you, you unlocked it before opening it in case it was them.

You regret your decision as soon as you saw what was outside. It wasn’t Carlos with his majestic hair, no, it was a licker on the ceiling. Freezing, knowing they couldn’t see but could hear a pin drop in a crowded room, you held your breath as it paused to ‘look’ in your direction, the ceiling groaning under its weight as it stopped. It clicked it’s long claws before moving along, leaving you alone. You moved with bated breath to close the door as gently as possible, but it wasn’t enough. Even with the door shut, the licker knew you were there.

It came crashing through a window just seconds after closing the door, roaring as it whipped it’s disgusting tongue around to try to grab you. Stumbling back, you raised your gun and fired at it, hitting it in the arm and ‘hand’ but missing the other few shots. It was enough though for it to retreat to let you slip out the door. But where there was one licker, there were more. Two more came galloping down the hall as you took off. With boots on, you were able to run faster and not worry about anything slicing into your feet.

There wasn’t a real hiding place you could go, you’d have to kill these things if you wanted to live. The adrenaline and shakes from earlier had faded a bit, giving you a steadier aim as you dove under a desk to take cover. Pointing the gun at the first one's head, you fired 2 times before it fell over dead, 3 more shots put the second one down. Coming out from under the desk, you looked around for the other, knowing it had to have followed the sound of gunshots. You had to keep moving to stay away from it.

Ducking into a room, which turned out to be a choir room (because cops sang?), you heard the tell tale clicks of the monster creeping along behind you. There wasn’t much of a choice, but you saw an opportunity to trap it. The risers that people would stand on for singing looked less than stable with a few propped up precariously on their sides. If you could get it to land on them, it would knock the sideways risers free to fall on it. They looked heavy as hell and would probably hold it long enough for you to get away.

It was all you had as it came into the room, tapping the tiled floor in search of you. It was even grosser in person. The movies and video games couldn’t hold a torch to how much this thing made your stomach turn. Widening your stance, you got ready to duck and run as you whistled for its attention.

“Over here, you nasty,” you snapped.

The licker hissed, crouching to leap at you. Just like you wanted, it jumped at the weak risers as you dove to the side. The propped up risers fell down on it hard as it yelped and scrambled to free itself. Not wanting to wait to see if it would get away, you ran for the door as you heard voices.

“Hello?” The voice that had spoken to you over the radio called from down the hall. “Y/N?”

“Over here!” You cried as you moved out the door. There were flashlights on you as the sound of boots and tactical equipment rustling came closer. You barely had time to take a breath before a strong, slimy tongue was wrapped around your ankle and pulling you back into the room. You screamed as you grabbed the doorframe to keep you from the licker’s waiting maw, the gun you had just seconds ago out of your reach on the floor.

“Help!” You cried as you were tugged hard, losing your grip for a second to slide further into the room.

“Grab her!” A voice yelled. In seconds, strong hands grabbed yours just as you were about to slip. “Hold on, I got you,” the man grunted as the others rushed over. Rapid gun fire filled the room before the grip on your ankle let go. The man holding you pulled you quickly out of the room and into the hall away from the door.

“Fire in the hole!” Another man called as you heard a pin drop to the ground. The man next to you was instantly covering your body with his as an explosion rocked the building, putting an end to the licker.

“You okay?” The man on you pulled back before helping you to your feet.

“I’m not dead or one of those things outside so I’d say I’m fine,” you said before looking up to see your saviors. Everything inside you wanted to curl into a ball and die of embarrassment.

Before you stood Carlos Oliveira, Chris Redfield, and Leon Kennedy. Leon in his ever present leather jacket and jeans, Chris his tactical B.S.A.A. gear, and Carlos a mix of the two. The nights you had spent crushing on them, knowing they weren’t real so it was safe and just fun, came back to haunt you. It wasn’t the time or the place for that though. You still had to get out of there and then you could think about your shame.

“I’m Carlos. That’s Chris and that’s Leon,” the man said with a soft smile.

“Y/N,” you said, giving Chris and Leon a wave, getting nods in return.

“Let’s get you out of here, huh?” Carlos said, taking point while keeping you behind him. Chris stayed behind you while Leon brought up the rear.

“Please,” you said with a nod. Following closely, you couldn’t help but keep your eyes and ears open for anything else that could be lurking. As you went to the side door you had tried to come in, there was a thunderous noise, as if someone shot off a cannon. “What was that?” You asked softly, looking at the men wide eyed.

“Fuck,” Carlos muttered. Chris looked away as he put a finger to his ear.

“This is Hound Wolf Alpha Squad, I need eyes on what just came down,” Chris said. A few moments later, the look on his face said how bad it was. It was very bad. “They released a Tyrant.” Those were only stopped with the heaviest of fire power. All you could do was hope to outrun it.

“Where?” Leon asked, keeping an eye out at the rear.

“4 blocks away. We need to hurry and get to the humvee before it gets here,” Chris said.

“Stay on my ass, got it?” Carlos said, getting your attention. “It’s nice ass and you have permission to be on it all you want.” You gave a choked laugh, but nodded. He was trying to keep you calm at least and you appreciated it.

“On three,” Chris said. Carlos counted down as he unlocked the door before bursting out of it with his rifle raised. You took his words almost literally as you stayed right behind him. The four of you sprinted to the waiting humvee that was parked on the lawn just a few yards from the door. Zombies were already between you and the vehicle, but Carlos mowed them down to make a path. You kept pace, hopping over the dead and undead alike before Carlos got to the vehicle to throw open the door. He pushed you in first, letting you crawl to the other side as he gave cover to Chris and Leon.

Once you were all in, Chris slammed on the gas to get you out of there. Even in the armored vehicle where you were probably the safest you’d been all this time with three heavily armed, well trained soldiers, you couldn’t stop yourself from looking everywhere. You had to make sure the Tyrant wasn’t coming for your group.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll get you out of here,” Carlos said, reaching over and giving your hand a squeeze.

“Thanks, for saving me and stuff,” you said, letting out a nervous giggle as you looked from your side to Carlos’.

“You’re welcome. It’s all in a day’s work,” he said, giving you a goofy smile. You almost returned it, but felt sick suddenly as you saw a pale figure charging at you from his side. It was fast and you had seconds to warn them.

“Chris look out!” You cried before the Tyrant was plowing into the vehicle.

No one had seatbelts on, turning the humvee into a giant human salt shaker as you tried to hold on while you were rolled. Coming to a stop upside down in a shallow construction pit, about two feet deep, it had already had some water in it but it was quickly filling up from a fire hydrant that had been torn from the street by the flying humvee.

You coughed and sputtered as you managed to get your head out of the half foot of water then tried to pull yourself up and out.

The others had been thrown during the rolls and were getting up faster, all grunting and huffing, but you couldn’t. In the upside down humvee something had fallen on your legs to pin them. Meaning as the water was rising, you were not only vulnerable to the Tyrant, but you also were at risk of drowning.

“Hey kiddo,” Leon said, as he trudged through the muddy water to get to you. “Can you move?”

“I’m stuck,” you said, grunting as you tried to pull yourself with the frame of the humvee. “Something’s on my legs.”

“Okay, hold on, let me look,” Leon said. He ignored the shouts from Carlos and Chris as they fired on the tyrant to distract it. “It’s the seats, they came off in the crash. I’m gonna try and lift them up then pull yourself out.”

“Alright,” you said as you tried to see where the Tyrant was or if there were zombies closing in on you. Moving next to you, he reached in to grip the seat and pull up as hard as he could. You didn’t even wait for him to tell you to try, as soon as he was lifting, you were pulling yourself as hard as you could. “Ah! Stop!” You cried as a sharp pain shot through your leg, making you fall into the water again. Leon was quick to help you up though, holding you above the water as best he could for you to breathe.

“I can’t budge it,” he grunted. “We need backup or something.”

“Leon!” Chris yelled, catching both of your attentions. The Tyrant was on you two in seconds, jerking Leon away and letting you fall into the water. As quickly as you dropped into the water, you were pulled back up by the vehicle being flipped right side up. Laying awkwardly in the seat, you gasped and choked out coughs as you tried to scramble away. The seats that had been pinning your legs were off of you, freeing you, but the Tyrant was right there. It stood there a moment, staring down at you as if it was trying to identify you before it’s big, meaty hand was reaching out to grab you.

Screaming, you scrambled backwards as fast as you could, but the Tyrant pulled you out by the leg before dropping you in the water. Had you not covered your head, you would have hit the frame and either been killed or concussed. Your whole body was screaming for you to move as you tried to run away, but it grabbed you again by the torso like you were an action figure.

“Let me go!” You screamed, beating it’s arm and hand uselessly. It could crush you so easily and you could feel it’s grip tighten a bit.

“Y/N!” You looked to see Chris aim his rifle, ducking your head as he fired directly at the Tyrant’s head. The beast roared and you felt it’s grip threaten to squeeze you in half, but the longer the men tried to shoot it and free you, the more you came to realize it wasn’t going to kill you. It could have done that so easily when you were pinned in the water.

“Carlos!” You screamed as it started to walk away, ignoring anything that the men were using against it.

“We’re coming, Y/N! Hold on!” Carlos cried. You don’t know where it’s taking you, but you don’t want to find out. It doesn’t even acknowledge the others anymore, not till something big and something loud is fired at him from what you could only tell was the sky. It sounds like thunder and it blows through the Tyrant no problem. Forced to drop you, you clamber out of its grasp to run towards Carlos who grabs you to put you behind him.

“What the hell was that!?” You cried as Leon and Chris circled around you, all facing a different direction.

“Back up,” Chris said as he put a finger to his ear before pointing to the building in the direction of the shots. “Go, now!” You ran with the three men, your body tired with the weight of sopping wet clothes and your lungs aching as you didn’t dare look behind you. The zombies were coming towards the sound and soon there would be too many to fight through. Another shot boomed as you got closer to the building, your legs screaming at you for rest made you stumble. Chris was right there to help though, grabbing your hand to keep you with them till all of you were rushing into the building.

It wasn’t safe to stop though, the Tyrant, if still alive, would just follow you until it was either dead or it had you. Carlos opened the door to the stairwell, leading the group into the basement area.

“Piers,” Chris said as everyone slowed down, his finger to the comm in his ear. “Rendezvous point now. I need eyes in the sky. If they’re sending in Tyrants shit’s about to the fan.”

At a brisk walk, you were able to keep pace as Carlos took the group down a hallway that had a door here and there on either side of it.

“Where are we going?” You asked, managing to get enough air to stop the burning in your chest and ease stitch in your side.

“We’ve got people to meet up with,” Leon said from beside you. “That humvee was the only way for us to get out safely. If those big guys are here, we can’t have helicopters coming in. It’s too dangerous.”

“So the people have a way out?” You asked, your boots squeaking on the tile floor from the water dripping off you. “A safe one?”

“Hopefully. The city has some tunnels connecting different buildings so we can skirt around the B.O.W.s above ground mostly,” he said. “They should have extraction vehicles there.”

Nodding, you went quiet, trying to keep from thinking about more than just what was happening in the next few minutes.

“Hold up,” Carlos said, coming to a stop at a split in the hallway. “When did this happen? All the maps that we have says there should be a stairwell here, not more hall.”

“Let me check,” Chris said. Holding up his arm, he squeezed what looked like a watch face, but a hologram of a map popped up instead. “What the hell? Did we take a wrong turn?”

“We didn’t take any turns,” Carlos said as he stepped further into the hall and out of sight. “It just keeps going.” As he stepped back into view, there was no time to react as the floor fell out from under him.

“No!” You cried, running towards him, but he was already gone and the floor was sealed up again.

“What the fuck was that!?” Leon snarled as you all looked towards the floor.

“Get against the wall!” Chris commanded. It didn’t work though. The floor opened up with a mechanical hiss under Leon and Chris to swallow them whole before you followed.

Sliding down a tube, you grunted and tried to slow down or stop. The only way you did was when you got to the end, flying out of the tube and onto hard concrete.

Groaning, you winced as you pushed yourself up to your feet. You were now in this blank room that was dimly lit by a light in the middle of the ceiling.

“Hello?” You called out, hoping the others were nearby. “Carlos? Leon? Chris?”

Silence.

Allowing yourself to catch your breath, you took in your surroundings. No matter how many times you turned though, it was always the same. No doors, no windows, nothing to suggest you’d been dropped in either.

“Hello?” No answer, but what were you expecting?

“Test Subject #417,” a voice boomed into the room, making you cover your ears to withstand the volume. “You have been selected to proceed with Project Genesis. After showing signs of immunity, you are to be tested against other viruses.”

“What, no, wait, wait, wait! Chris! Leon! Carlos!” You screamed as a doorway hissed open, allowing three people in hazmat suits to come in while carrying a metal briefcase. “Chris! Someone!”

“Test Subject #417, comply or you will be shackled,” one of the people in the hazmat suits said as you backed up from them.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” You cried, wishing you had your gun to at least try and bluff your way out of this. Knowing what the scientists did in this world to test subjects of any kind had you ready to fight tooth and nail to keep from being one. Cornered, you were grabbed by one of the people to be held as the one with the briefcase opened it for the third.

“Beginning testing with T-Virus,” they said as you were restrained. A metal stockade was forced around your neck and wrists, keeping you from lashing out as you were held in place. It didn’t stop you from trying though, choking yourself a few times as you tried to thrash.

“No!” You screamed. Held too tightly to stop it from happening, the scientist pressed the syringe gun to your arm and injected you with the glowing blue serum. It burned as it ripped through your veins, travelling through your body. Shaking as you were still being held, you could barely hold yourself up as your legs threatened to give out. All you could do was sob as your body tried to decide if you would turn or if you would die.

“5 minute mark,” one of the scientists said as you felt the burning finally begin to fade. When you were bit, all you could feel was the pain from the wound, not the virus. Did it stop at your leg?

“10 minute mark.”

“Injection site has healed completely.”

Looking at your arm, there were no marks to say you had been given anything. Right after the shot, there had been several needle marks, but now there was nothing but fresh skin. There were still scrapes on your hands from falling before. How was your body deciding what to heal and not?

“No signs of turning or infection. 15 minute mark.”

Slowly, the pain and burning subsided, leaving you panting and sweating at most.

“20 minute mark. All signs of the virus in the system are gone. Administering the G-Virus.”

Again, you tried to fight, screaming for the others as you were given the vibrant green serum. It burned just as much as the T-Virus did, making you nearly vomit from the pain as everything felt like it was on fire.

“30 minute mark for T-Virus. 10 minute mark for G-Virus. Injection site for G-Virus completely healed.”

Half of you wished you would turn just so you could rip into one of them, the other half of you wished you would turn so you could die and this would be over. They continued their reporting, noting no infection or turning. Another Virus was given to you as you sobbed, pleading for them to stop.

“45 minute mark for T-Virus. 25 minute mark for G-Virus. Administering the Golgotha Virus.”

It kept repeating over and over and over, the scientists making comments and notes as you were pumped full of these man made viruses. At one point they finally let you sit against a wall as you had stopped trying to fight them. All you could do was scream at the pain before sobbing, silently begging for anyone to find you and stop it. Your throat and wrists were bruised and raw from trying to get away, your voice nearly gone from screaming so loud. How could no one else hear you?

Despite them calling out the time on each virus and how long it had been since you were injected, you lost track of how many they had put in you. Was it 10? 15? When was the first one given? You weren’t sure and you were slowly starting to not care.

“Administering the C-Virus.”

That one was different, but not by much. Just a few minutes after being injected you began to vomit and shake as your body purged itself of anything that was trying to latch onto you from inside your blood. Even the injection site began to ooze with the rejected virus.

“Amazing,” one of them said as another unlocked you from the restraints. Free, you didn’t try to fight though. Instead you focused on not choking what was coming out of you. “Their body has rejected every virus given to them. Even when they were bitten, they barely experienced any symptoms, if any.”

“Send the data. We’ll start phase two soon. In the meantime, put them in a holding cell with a saline drip and keep them sedated.”

“What about the other 3, sir?”

“If you haven’t already, infect them and release them.”

Finished spitting out the mess that was black and overwhelmingly smelt of rot, you were pulled to your feet. They thought you were too weak to fight, that the injections had taken the last of your strength. Then they said they would infect the other 3.

Carlos, Leon, Chris.

They were going to get rid of them. No. No, you couldn’t let them. Despite your exhaustion, despite your want to just die, you couldn’t let them hurt the others.

It would be by tooth and nail that you would survive. Taking a tip from the zombie survival book of Rick Grimes, you turned hard suddenly on the one holding you and sunk your teeth into their neck. Clamping down, you didn’t let go till the suit ripped and you pulled away with blood and flesh in your mouth. It was harder than it looked, your teeth and jaw aching as you spit the gore out. The others were too shocked by that to try and restrain you as you stood there looking almost feral with blood soaking your shirt while you bared your teeth. Taking the chance, you grabbed the restraints to whip one of them in the face hard before doing the same to the other. They would sound the alarm and send the virus to the others.

All the pain and suffering they had put you through made the choice easy as you bludgeoned them to death. They wouldn’t be able to torture anyone else again. Grabbing the tablet, you looked at it to see the data transfer wasn’t complete. Good. Canceling it, you opened the door to your room then smashed the tablet, running out of the room before anything tried to close you in.

There was no time to process anything emotionally. Pushing it down, you wiped your mouth with the back of your sleeve before looking down the hall you found yourself in. The air was much cooler there than it had been in your room, making the sweat and muddy water soaked clothes become freezing. While inside the room it had appeared opaque, out in the hall the walls of the rooms were clear. There were only a few people still in the holding rooms and thankfully they were Chris, Leon, and Carlos. They all seemed safe and unharmed, but their weapons were gone. Shuffling to the first one, you tapped the touch pad with shaky fingers, opening up the room. Leon came out, ready to fight as you held up your hands.

“Holy shit,” he said, looking at you wide eyed. “Please don’t tell me you’re a smart zombie.”

“Not things I’d say are associated with me at this moment,” you said, clearing your throat before moving to the next to let Chris then Carlos out.

“You okay?” Carlos asked, frowning as he looked you over.

“Yeah. It’s not mine,” you said with a sigh, spitting again. “Some people came into my room wanting to experiment on me. I made it worth more than their trouble.” Though you wanted to trust them, you were too worried that too many people would know that you’d just been infected with B.O.W. viruses and didn’t turn. They would be the ones to tell and trust, but you also knew that if they knew they would have targets on their backs. The balance of trusting and protecting was difficult, making you feel more alone than before.

“Sounds like what’s left of Umbrella or Tricell,” Chris said. “We need to find a way out of here.”

“They took all our gear and weapons,” Leon said, sliding his jacket off to drape over your shoulders. It was then you noticed how you were shivering as you hugged yourself, giving him a nod of thanks as you put your arms through the arms of the jacket then zipped it up.

“They’ll have replacements nearby,” Chris said. “If they use these rooms for experiments they’d be stupid to not have weapons ready in case of an outbreak.” Going to the wall opposite of the rooms, you watched as he touched the plain white surface in a few spots before a cover slid to the side. There were radios, weapons, and equipment galore. “Some things never changed,” he said with a grunt as the men stocked themselves up with ammo and guns. “Here.”

You looked over at him, surprised that he was handing you a pistol. It looked like the one from the police station so it shouldn’t be too hard to handle. Taking the gun you look it over before checking the safety and clip.

“You’re gonna need a lot more than that, Kid,” Leon said with a soft chuckle as he held out a hip holster. It had small pouches on it along the back of the belt with a knife in its sheath as well.

“Just when I thought things were getting easy,” you said. Letting Leon take the gun, you put on the belt and adjusted the strap around your thigh before taking the gun back, slipping it into the holster as Chris handed you extra clips and ammo.

“It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing,” he said. “You know how to work one of these?” Chris asked as he held up one of the automatic rifles. You wanted to say no, but your blank stare said it for you. “Alright, quick lesson then. You aim, make sure the butt is in this part of your shoulder, then squeeze the trigger.” Chris showed you every step, making it clear and simple, even firing a few rounds. You jumped at the noise, your ears ringing a bit, but you expected that would be something to stay for a while. He stepped back for you to do it as well, letting you copy his movements all the way up to firing a few shots as well.

“Looks like she’s a natural,” Carlos chuckled. “I’m gonna start calling you CC.”

“CC?” Leon asked.

“Copy Cat. Better than monkey see, monkey do,” he said with a smirk.

“Yeah, I’ll take CC as a nickname any day,” you said, a small huff of a laugh was all you could muster. Barely any energy had come back to you, but survival was forcing you to stay alert and on your feet. After a quick lesson on loading and unloading the clip for the rifle, the group was ready to go.

“Well, we have two choices really,” Carlos said. “Either left or right. I don’t see anywhere else to go.”

“Let’s split up then,” Chris said. “I’ll go with Y/N to the right. Leon, you and Carlos go left.” The last thing handed out were radios that were clipped to belts, threading the ear piece wire under your shirt, you made sure it wouldn’t fall out. A frequency was found that was clear, giving the group a way to stay in touch. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Hey Kid,” Leon called as the pairs split off.

“Yeah?” You said, turning back to him.

“Don’t lose my lucky jacket,” he said before turning back to Carlos.

“He’d be better off buying a new one,” you said with a sigh as you and Chris went to the door.

“Yeah, why’s that?” Chris asked, punching a few buttons to open the doorway.

“The dry cleaning bill is going to be killer.”

“Oh god,” he groaned as you walked down the hall, finding another doorway just a few yards away.

“It wasn’t that bad,” you said with a soft chuckle.

“I have heard worse, but still earned a groan,” Chris said with a snort. The second door slid open, but you both paused. “What the hell?”

“What is this place?” You asked before the both of you slowly stepped past the threshold. It wasn’t another long white hallway or room.

“It’s a fucking nightmare,” he said, gripping his gun tighter. The door shut behind you, leaving you in the foyer of the Spencer Mansion. It looked to be an exact copy of it down to the rugs. The floor was real marble and the bannister real wood. The air was still, almost musty as if it had been closed off for years. There was just silence save for the faint ticking of a clock in the next room. Even your breathing sounded loud in the near deafening silence. “What are they doing?”

“Honestly? I don’t think I want to know.”

Stepping further into the mansion remake, you were keenly aware of every move you made. There was no hiding where you were and every thing the mansion hid was coming back to you. Zombies, dogs, plants, snakes, spiders, birds, tyrants. Chris was right, it was a fucking nightmare.

Next>>>

<<<Previous

[namenoted]

meta talk below:

ive talked about this before in a real meta but yotsuba arc is always difficult for me to write because it not only absolves light of his memories which is fine, but it takes away the personality we got introduced to right before he gets the book. given the circumstances i can understand some of his behaviors as well as the shock to the system of waking up imprisoned by L with no recollection of getting there and having his dad basically pull the trigger on him, a lot doesn’t line up. i’ve argued this is like a soft reboot but i think that this also is a degree of yagami that could have been more authentic to his personality earlier in life. he’s been playing this character almost from the beginning and how he’s manipulating people while being bored of the world and disgusted with the injustices that go unpunished, while also being utilized as more an object and tool for his grades and accomplishments. there is a cycle yagami is both held in and also perpetuating and that seems absolved completely because of the yotsuba arc. he goes back to playing ‘yagami’ again while being kira, but the yotsuba arc does a weird 180 despite only removing memories of kira. it seems to remove all memories of these bad feelings he had even before the death note and stripping him down to ‘understanding’ the original kira and having these strong senses of justice that he can align with kira, but having no sense of that boredom, the apathy, the disdain for criminals and other people he finds generally useless to society all just goes away. the second arc shifts to just him having to upkeep the books and these explosive scenarios while battling near, shifting the entire tone of the show while the aspect of killing criminals is on the backburner when it was equal to catching kira in the first arc. we don’t see anything really in the intermission other than key events so it’s hard to say what could have happened but it seems it was just business as usual. either way, the yotsuba arc yagami reminds me of like … a 14 year old in a way, especially with him being so physically violent? he’s always been physically expressive with his body language, but also very restrained especially in public. i’ve commented before that he’s thought of physical violence as an impulse or option, but never acts on it. overall the yotsuba arc yagami is so unlike all other facets of yagami’s character that it’s the most difficult for me to get a complete accurate hold of him.

the next part sort of applies but i can use the above as a segway:

yagami has a few times where he loses his cool, the most prominent being after the ceremony at to-oh where he goes into a brief fit of rage over being basically bested / cornered by L. he expresses this openly to ryuk, and knows he is truly alone. this is part of my reasoning that yagami is essentially the perfect counterpart to ryuk, and that they are obvious parallels to each other, but they need their own post separately to go over everything that makes their relationship successful, but also unique. to sum it up: yagami is comfortable with ryuk enough to basically be the most fully honest with him as a character over anything over character we encounter in death note. there is no value in lying to ryuk, thus ryuk is the only character yagami does not lie to. he is also the only character that yagami shows his ‘real’ self to -> the entirety of his thoughts, his motivations, his feelings. he shows some authenticity to misa, but there is a heavy aggression that goes with this, and thus he acts more with agitation towards misa than any sort of real authenticity. she sees a side of yagami most don’t, but he is still manipulative and withdrawn to who he is completely.

arguably as well we can say that yagami is more honest with ryuk than ryuk is with yagami, but they also sometimes withhold information. despite this, yagami is his most authentic self with ryuk because there is nothing to lose. it makes sense yagami would express that rage after the ceremony with so much gusto because he’s not only “alone” and completely able to be himself, but he also has technically has an audience in ryuk, so he’s more apt to make a show of it.

now my entire point of this post was just because i was curious if yagami is like this when so overwhelmed such as he was with L, is this a way he copes with anger that he cannot bottle up any longer before he had ryuk? i would say that’s pretty likely he has these private fits. he slams his elbows down on the desk, grabs at his head, grips his hair, and shouts all throughout his loss of control. i actually wrote this here a bit, but it’s more mentioned in regards to the larger post. interestingly enough, he then immediately regains composure and bounces back immediately to this. until he’s sure he’s alone, yagami would never ‘lose it’ in front of anyone in any serious manner, aside from his explosive temper we see in yotsu!yagami in his physical altercations with L, but i’ve talked quite a bit about that arc recently. going off what we know of yagami sans that, he’s likely to bottle it entirely until he can isolate himself and lose control, but he has to regain it almost immediately.

[everything-laito]

hey,,, i've seen this controversial opinion about laito not being sexually assaulted by cordelia. . .as the only opinion of laito that matters, what are your thoughts on it? i know you've made some posts in the past about cordelia and laito's relationship, but i think that now would be a good time to i guess, remake a post or clarify your thoughts so people could follow along?? i hope you enjoy your day.

*proceeds to crack all my knuckles at once*

This isn't really my own "response" cuz oh boy I'm sick of this petty ass drama lmao. To begin, SKLDJF I'm very flattered that you hold my opinion in that high of regard! I'd say there's others that have interesting interpretations of him too though :) but again, thank you :') glad you enjoy what I have to say!

I know I've already kinda responded to this via a screenshot here, just to hold you––and others reading this––over. As much as this is a great time to talk about a how-to-analysis, I’ll still put that as a separate post eventually, but I still will go over the philosophy of truth and writings etc. But anyways, to answer your initial questions, they’re under the cut!

And no, I’m not specifically calling anyone out here. These are just issues with the fandom that I find as a whole, along with some extremists. Thus, I’m not going to be putting tags for people to easily find this post because I don’t want to be wound up in this drama––once again this is just more commentary on the fandom as a whole, which hopefully you can apply to people you find!

I have a lot of my own thoughts about Cordelia and Laito’s relationship here (just in case if people need it):

1. Goes over potential grooming of Laito, facts about Cordelia and what happened before she did stuff to Laito, and when did she rape Laito for the first time?

2. Stuff about incest and how any relationship out of a parental/child relationship is abuse even if it’s not penetrative sex, more incest stuff, and just more thoughts on their relationship

3. Neuroplasticity, trauma, Karlheinz, and isolation

4. What does sexual trauma look like? And some stuff on Laito’s facade

5. More stuff on his facade, and projection on Yui

6. My thoughts on Laito’s dark fate vampire ending + Conclusion

7. Answering some inbox stuff relating to Cordelia

Sure I realize I might be missing some stuff but that’s just my whole analysis on them. I’ll probably make some follow up posts eventually but I’m not sure when that will be.

But as for this analysis/ramble, I’ll divide it up into sections:

The issue of hypocrisy in the Dialovers fandom:

I- oh dear god. Ok, just saying, there’s a lot of people being like “oh I hate Cordelia because she was abusive” then ??? yo??? Why do you like the boys?? They’re abusive and we see more of them than Cordelia??? I just personally hate hypocrisy. However, it’s okay to hate Cordelia! It’s okay to love Cordelia! It’s okay to hate the boys and it’s okay to love the boys too. But recognizing that you don’t like one or the other just because “they’re abusive” is a fallacy at that point.

The reason why so many people hate Karlheinz/Cordelia/Beatrix/Christa/Richter (or at least start off hating them) is because they are written as the villains of the story! Karl’s the main villain, and the rest (including the diaboys and Yui) are kinda just tragically wound up in his plans. You sympathize more with the boys because you spend more time with them and watch them grow! It’s a whole “us vs them” situation. Since those people were awful to the boys/the boys hate them, you’re like “yeah they’re bad!” But the issue with the whole “us vs them” situation (as in real life) is that people tend to excuse the actions done by the “us” party.

Same thing goes with extreme Karl/Cordelia/Richter fans (I’ve never seen a hardcore Beatrix/Christa fan but they’re probably out there). Some hate the diaboys but love the people in that party. They’ve also done some shitty stuff too! Bro, even Yui has done some terrible stuff! But that’s because she was a product of the events she was thrown into––and same with everyone else.

Karl has been the mastermind of all this, and for me I don’t have any sympathy for him, mainly because we’re not shown anything to sympathize with (except that he just is tired of living but idk why he wants to create a whole new race like lmao science nerd ig, I feel that king). A lot of people like him for his looks, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing––he’s a fictional character, objectify these characters however you want. This is more of a personal opinion of mine though. And maybe people do just sympathize with his outlook on life, that’s totally fine.

But since these characters are all attractive in their own regard, they all get the treatment of “pretty-boy” syndrome (Idek if that’s the exact name for it). Which is just the privilege pretty people get. But again, this is fictional, so it’s not necessarily important in this case. Bro I got into DL cuz of “ooga booga hot vampires” and stayed for the complex lore and characters (especially one complex character, wonder who that could be). I imagine most people got into DL because of that, or out of sheer curiosity.

Ok, I’m throwing out a lot of points but not really connecting them. Lemme give you an example: I don’t like Reiji. His character doesn’t vibe with me most of the time aside from the fact that he’s hilarious. But I just am very neutral/neutral-negative on his character. But I’m not like “oh cuz he’s mean/abusive” cuz LOL EVERYONES MEAN IN THIS GAME. Sure you can still say that, it’s just not a very strong claim. Hypocritical claims tend to be like that. Same with a lot of Yui haters. In this case, they’re more jealous that she’s there and not them, which I’ve explained a lot in this post about toxic femininity and Yui in the fandom etc. But it’s ok to just not like a character! It’s alright! I know someone who just doesn’t vibe with Subaru. She doesn’t know why, she just doesn’t vibe with him. There’s no need to defend it either. But the use of hypocrisy is my main issue, and I’ll get to that in the next section.

(There’s a really good post explaining this too but I cannot find it for the life of me. I think it was made by @/abottleofkarlheinz or @/the-madame21)

How opinions of fictional universes left unchecked can effect real life:

I’ve said this a little bit in that Dialover PSA post I’ve made about Yui that I linked a couple paragraphs ago. But the reasons why people say they hate Yui is concerning. If you don’t like Yui, that’s totally fine! Again you don’t need reasons to hate on a character or defend it. But if you do choose to defend those characters, make sure what you’re saying isn’t out of some other place in your heart. Let me explain.

In that “Yui PSA” post I made, I say how your attitudes in being critical of a fictional universe usually does reflect on who you are as a person, at least when you’re making certain claims. In that Yui post, I say that the hatred on Yui is a result of the “other girl” mentality. On top of that, it erases her experience as a survivor. Yes, this is a fictional character, but bringing that into real life can have some dire consequences if you don’t differentiate them. If you have the same attitude of Yui with other survivors if the “abuser is hot” then thaaaaaat’s so fucked up.

For example, there’s people who have crushes on real life serial killers! That- that’s absolutely disgusting! Those real people killed living people and effected so many lives and families. Dude I have fictional crushes on fictional serial killers, and that’s different, because it is a removed universe. It’s why I can still call myself a lesbian but still have crushes on fictional male characters, for a further example (and vice versa! I have straight friends who crush on fictional characters of their same gender! But that doesn’t make them any less straight. And no, I’m not erasing bi people here either, just clarifying in case if you needed that).

Not being able to differentiate your opinions of a fictional universe can get very toxic. Like I love Laito, but I’m not like “omg I wish he was real so he could do that stuff to me uwu” like no!!! UH!!! I wouldn’t want to date anyone like him in real life! That’s literal abuse! And if Laito was here in real life it’s not a controlled environment, he’d literally be able to do anything with you, etc. That’s what makes a fantasy, a fantasy. They’re controlled.

Also vice versa, some people get really triggered by Dialovers, specifically Laito’s route. A lot of non-consensual acts that he does have been experienced by people in real life in any extent, myself included. For me, it’s a personal escape from that, because it is an environment where I am prepared for those events and can control my exposure to it. For some, they are reminded of the reality they had to experience. Fictional universes are inspired by real life, no matter what way you look at it. Real life people are making it, after all.

I feel like I’m going in so many circles, but trust me, I’m getting to the point.

I- I can’t explain this enough but it is most definitely implied that Cordelia had raped and sexually abused Laito. If it was explicit, DL would be an 18+ game, but they cannot do that in Japan. I’m not going to like defend this point because so many people (myself included) have defended this point. It’s implications carry over into Laito’s character and why he’s like this. He’s a textbook sexual abuse survivor. I just,,,, cannot explain this enough. Same thing with overwriting the abuse of Yui. They get jealous of Yui. Sure I’d say a good chunk of people have ravishment fantasies here. At least the 18+ people in the fandom who are into that stuff. But oh my dear god, ravishment fantasies are super super dangerous to enact in real life. It’s possible to do them, but it would take years of building up to that point in kink. That’s a whole other discussion though and I’m not incredibly comfortable talking about it knowing that minors read my blog (I’ll also have to say here: no minors in kink--its alright to educate yourself but pleaaaaaaaaaase don’t enact on any of those activities until you are of age, and even so that still can be dangerous right as you turn 18).

But anyways, saying that Yui should enjoy this because she’s experienced the ravishment fantasy you’ve dreamed of? Oh fucking hell, if you leave that opinion and mentality unchecked and it goes into real life, that’s incredibly awful. Abuse apologists are absolutely terrible people, almost as much as the abusers themselves.

If you twist the narrative that Laito loves Cordelia or Yui loves the boys at the end of the first game, that’s still–��ughhhhhhhh. Especially when it’s so obvious that Laito has so many mental issues with Cordelia. His whole monologue and breakdown at the end of Dark Fate definitely tells us that he has had such an issue with Cordelia. And MB+ Laito is still Laito. As for Yui, dude she literally goes through stockholm syndrome in the first game like it is so goddamn apparent idek how to explain this at this point.

Ok dear god lmao wow, uh I think that’s answering the first couple of questions?

The philosophy of truth:

“Truth” has been an incredibly debated topic in philosophy for years. Truth is more of a subjective item rather than objective. Sure you can have personal objective truths, but they may not be the same truths for others. For example, a tomato is red. However, that tomato is red to me, because I am not color blind. A red-green color blind person may see the tomato as being brown or more muted in color. That’s their truth. They can’t really imagine what red is (ok depending on severity of their color blindness), considering they have not experienced the color red in the same way people who don’t have color blindness do. God uh, here’s a whole ass essay about truth, I’m cherry picking some of the things in there that are relevant to this.

Basically what I’m saying is, truth is very subjective. However, there are philosophers arguing a more objective truth. But that’s a whole other discussion. Also, this isn’t to support any political opinion, but I can use that as an example. Let’s go for well... The death penalty. I’m in America, we have the death penalty in some states. Yes, this is a very controversial topic, and no I’m not arguing the ethics of it here. Just hear me out.

If you live in Europe for example (except in Belarus and Russia––ok when I looked it up they consider Russia in Europe and technically it is but also there’s the whole chunk that is not- lmao even the truth of geography can be subjective), you might be like “yeah what the fuck are Americans doing?” (a common sentiment that I also share lmao). But yeah, what the fuck are we doing? Why is the death penalty still in existence? Yes, there’s statistics that prove that it doesn’t deter crime, but even crime rates is caused by a lot of different things too. Even statistics aren’t always accurate, because of many different factors. They’re not objective either, although good statisticians try their best to get good results and not skew the data. (please try to see where your data is coming from and who it is sponsored by––it matters a TON)

I’d say the closest thing we have as an objective truth to argue the death penalty or not is money. Money, although the concept is subjective, is a very objective currency. It’s why artists hate “exposure” compared to “money” as sole currency. The death penalty is very expensive, and not even used that often.

So, although money is currency made by us, and is technically 75% linen and 25% cotton (in America at least) with some funky dudes n numbers printed on it, it doesn’t sound that special. However, it would be considered as a baseline of some type of “objective truth” in ~society~ because people are typically on the same page of what money’s worth. Even so, this baseline of truth is still subjective! If Bill Gates accidentally has a $20 bill fall out of his pocket, that’s nothing to him! But if someone who’s working very hard to make ends meet loses that same amount of money, it could deal a lot of financial damage to that person.

Ok, hopefully you guys kind of get my drift. There are a lot of theories of truth, I’m just explaining one (honestly I forget the name of this theory) because it is the closest to the types of truth we are dealing with. And in this case, it’s called “canon.”

What the fuck is analysis:

The concept of “canon” is the objective truth that we have when analyzing universes. They’re our bread and butter of interpretation and extrapolation. The art of analysis clings to this notion of an objective truth. It needs a baseline. I’m going off of Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, because that type of analysis I have the most experience with.

This is called rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric is the use of words in a persuasive fashion, and the analysis part is a breakdown of how words are used in order to achieve persuasiveness. I don’t typically use a lot of explicit rhetorical analysis in my personal writings, but I guess a version of it. Which typically has to deal with intention and execution. A lot of analysis on language has to do with this. Language is incredibly subjective. Certain words carry individual meanings to people. I have gone over the difference between real and lexical definitions before, and I’ll do it again.

I’ll just copy and paste what I’ve said before here from this analysis:

To put it simply, lexical definitions are the definitions you find in the dictionary. This is an “official” and “agreed upon” definition. Real definitions (quite a misleading name in my opinion) is the definition that’s more kind of “felt” in a way and how you internally interpret the word in context (these can be through individuals or any niche group). What I mean by this is that when you say a word (for example) to convey a feeling, you usually won’t know the dictionary definition off the top of your head. You say that something’s “savage” for example when you want to describe something violent or gruesomely awesome (it depends if it’s in a slang context or not) but there’s many lexical definitions (and outdated lexical definitions) of the term. But the first definition that usually comes up is “adj (of an animal or force of nature) fierce, violent, and uncontrolled.”

But people typically don’t think of the lexical definition when they learn what a word means; they usually learn the context of it and apply it as such. And that’s what a “real” definition is. Laito has a differing definition of what affection and love is, and that’s his own meaning and what it means to him.

I’ll even add another example to that too. The word “cunt” in english refers to a vagina. That’s just it. It’s lexically synonymous with “vagina,” “pussy,” etc. However, “cunt” has a subjective meaning to it. This is where “real” definitions also come into play. Many people view the word as vulgar and dirty. And that’s cuz we live in a ~society~ lmao. Our use of language has shaped what this word means in a context outside of the dictionary. I’ll do you one more. The Japanese word マンコ (manko) is also vulgar slang that’s kind of like our word “cunt/pussy.” Sometimes I say “cunt” for jokes, but I don’t use it that often to begin with since it’s just a very strong word to most (albeit it’s not that strong of a word for me). However, マンコ is a strong word to many Japanese people, but if I hear it even though I’ve been learning Japanese, it doesn’t have that same effect as hearing “cunt” for me is (which still, idc if I really hear it depending on context) because I haven’t been shaped in a culture that uses Japanese.

Even so, tone, intention, and context is HUGE in this. If someone called me a “useless fucking cunt” when they’re angry at me, I’d be close to crying. If someone told that to me as a joke, I’d be like “lol yeah you right, bitchass” and if someone said that in a consensual sexual context, it would certainly tickle my masochistic heart.

DSLKFJ also sorry if you don’t like hearing that word, I just had to utilize a strong example for this. But anyways, now let’s change the lens to Dialovers.

No, it never explicitly says that Cordelia rapes Laito. It doesn’t. However, there’s this WACKY thing called being able to infer, reading between the lines, and identifying implications. Those are kind of all the same things. However, indirect exposition is used a lot in effective creative writing. The utilization of this type of exposition is more preferred when writing a story, because direct exposition is kind of referred to as “info-dumping” when used excessively. Forgive my jargon: this is just showing vs telling as we’re taught in every writing class. I’m personally very bad at it, which is why I stick to writing these, and stick to reading creative fiction. (NOT SAYING IF YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT THIS TO NOT CONTINUE TO PRACTICE CREATIVE FICTION, I JUST DONT HAVE THE CURRENT MOTIVATION TO GET GOOD AT IT)

Dialovers uses a LOOOOOT of showing. And even so, its “showing” ability is very minimal considering the Japanese language can be vague on its own, it’s medium (visual novel) does not show a lot of things explicitly most of the time (and even when it is shown it doesn’t convey a lot). There’s several CGs of Laito and Yui where it doesn’t show the amount of pain or the dire situation Yui’s in, compared to what she’s saying she’s going through.

When I made my whole breakdown on Laito’s HDB route from Yui’s perspective, I got several comments about how they didn’t realize how bad his route really was. That’s either because people might not have experience with verbal abuse themselves, can’t exactly see Yui’s body language except her head (and even so, her expressions are limited), or don’t know a lot of gaslighting/verbal abuse techniques/have done research into it. Honestly verbal abuse is kind of hard to realize, so I’m not calling anyone dumb here. Despite me knowing a lot of the signs, I didn’t know I went through it––and even so I’ve denied it. And that’s what is so effective about this game though! Especially Laito’s route! Because you’re also sucked in with limited knowledge because you’re seeing this through Yui’s perspective, and on top of that it’s isolating. You can only make so many choices, and I feel like Dialovers is perfect as a visual novel. You get caught up with a lot of shock value things that Laito says, which serves as a perfect distraction for your first time through. But anyways, I’m getting off track.

For example, many people found his Maniac 07 chapter to be very confusing. I broke that one down here as well, and even so I was confused at first (also I was like 14/15, dear god). It tells you SO little, but you know that Laito’s incredibly upset at Richter for some reason, and even so, Yui comments on it a little too. Laito is shown to still hate Richter in DF, but he talks about it a tad more.

Here’s a further example from my writings in that first part of the Cordelia/Laito analysis series but I have bolded the terms I use to convey this rhetoric:

There hasn’t been any flashbacks that specifically show us the first time that happened. However, I believe that there was a flashback in HDB that shows one of the first times. Here’s a scene from Laito’s Dark Epilogue:

Cordelia: ー Laito…Laito… Laito: …Hm? Is something the matter? Cordelia: I have a favor to ask. It just isn’t enough. You can do it, right Laito? Laito: You really are something…So that’s why you came to me again? Cordelia: Fufufu…That’s right, Laito. Come on, quickly… Laito: …Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll love you plenty. Cordelia: Aah…My cute Laito~ I love you. I really do. Laito: I can do it…right? Cordelia: Of course, Laito. Now, quickly…

First of all, ew. Second of all, Laito’s diction implies that this was maybe the second or third time this occurred. He asks a question, and ends it with “again.” We know by this that it is not the first time, but the question also means that Laito might not have expected to occur again. His tone also implies some surprise to it, at least in my ears. His other question, “I can do it, right?” screams hesitance to me. If this scene took place down the line, or after many times he did this with Cordelia, I don’t believe he’d be some level of surprised or hesitance.

That’s what rhetorical analysis is. You take the contextual meaning of the words, the tone they use, and extrapolate what they imply. On top of this, we know that the term “love” here is sexual, implying that they did something sexual. We are not given the details of this, but considering we know that Laito uses “love” before he rapes Yui in the game, we can infer that’s what happened (or something similar) to himself with Cordelia, considering he projects on Yui quite a bit.

I was going to go over what is good/bad analysis, but I think I’ve implied it anyways here. Utilizing separate information from different sources of canon in order to make sense of something is good analysis. That’s our objective truth: canon. I’m not saying I’m the best at analysis, but I am fairly confident in it. It’s how I’m able to attempt to answer some of your “how would Laito react” questions without it being specifically hinted in the game. You cannot cherry pick specific sentences and go off of that alone for analysis. It’s context. It’s reading tone. It’s knowing the characters attitudes towards things, how they speak, etc. There’s a lot going into analysis in general. I know I didn’t elaborate on Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle right now, but that’s for another date I suppose.

Oh dear god I hope I didn’t lose you guys, I know this is a lot of information, but if you have any questions/comments/clarifications, as always, please let me know!

Hope you enjoyed! -Corn

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Redux! Oct. 13, 2020)

Gooooood evening good evening good evening, all! I started the VOD late for this recap and somehow the first four or so minutes of the show have a Twitch audio copyright claim, so I am reduced to only reading Brian's lips when he asks if we're on the internet. Hilariously, Marisha's background room is a comfy-looking blue/gold fabric wall with a ceramic colorful abstract lamp and a yellow silk scarf over the lampshade, and Taliesin's is an industrial looking games room in grey and black with multiple monitors, overhead speakers, and mysterious metal fixtures behind him. What a treasure this group is, honestly.

Tonight's guests: Marisha Ray & Taliesin Jaffe, discussing episodes 110 and 111 again. I wildly speculate once more about what might have caused their absence: jury duty? Sam appearing on The Masked Singer? Something to do with the animated show? One day, we’ll know, one day... (One day this “copyrighted audio” section will come back from the wars, too. Ugh!) Finally! The audio comes back to reveal Brian discussing the endless reality of digital meetings and Marisha talking about (I think) her glare-reducing glasses she’s wearing. Welcome to the New Age (welcome to the New Age, to the New Age).

Announcements: Marisha suggests checking out Dimension20, another live tabletop gaming group, which premieres live on Wednesdays at 4pm (CollegeHumor). 

Brian immediately wants to know how they feel about the revelation that Molly is alive. Taliesin’s personal reaction: he “knows some things” he can’t talk about and is aware of several possibilities that might be going on, but had a sneaking suspicion that there would not be a body for them to find. He says it’s almost all there for anyone to see in past material. Marisha’s personal reaction: she just wants to know how she’s doing with her theories, & was trying to block Tal’s face out deliberately as she was going off on her theories in the last episode. Taliesin says he thought her ideas were pretty good!

Cad has no clue what to think - it’s like listening to your friends talk about Buffy. Marisha thought it was a 50/50 Molly would still be there, but Beau had no idea. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Matt went through with it the reveal still blew their minds. Tal laid out his plans for the character with Matt during Campaign One (towards the end) after they all got their VM tattoos.

It is a “horrifying and gross” thing to dig up a body, and Beau was pretty reluctant to do it. Tal, as Cad: “Sometimes dead’s better.” The moral quandary of trying to speak with a dead friend was very different here than the frequent occasions they used the spell in C1.

Taliesin says his poker face is very bad, so it’s easier for him to over-react and let it all play out. The only other player he can see very easily from his place in their current setup is Travis, and because he knows Travis doesn’t watch TM, tweet, or participate in social media, he admits he thoroughly enjoyed watching Travis freak out at his freaking out. He says he only knew about 20% of what Matt described at the end of that episode. He was picking things to mug to increase Travis’s surprise. I love this so much.

Taliesin provided the table left leg shake; Travis provided table right. Ha!

Beau is really accepting her role in the Cobalt Soul. It’s good when “as a person, you feel like you can settle into your calling. Sometimes you can do more from the inside than fighting from the outside.” It’s a mirrored but opposite path of Keyleth from C1; Beau felt like she was too good for her duty, while Keyleth thought she wasn’t good enough.

Caduceus is not a big believer in jumping to conclusions. He does have an idea/notion of the “city of the undead” and thinks all this necrotic energy must come from somewhere, and wonders if this is the “capital of anti-death.” He’s willing to believe whatever he sees. This is one of the few things that trigger a bit of loathing and disgust in him. It was terrifying that the Wildmother didn’t know anything.

Beau is pretty confident in her Charlie Day impression laying-out-the-research last episode. She enjoyed taking the things that were known & extrapolating around them; this is a huge facet of Marisha’s own personality and she really enjoys it, so she built a character this time that would allow that kind of puzzle-solving. It’s also why she repeatedly notes when Beau journals, so she can avoid metagaming. Trent’s mention of Vess Durogna’s tomb raiding was completely circumstantial, and the only reason she’d made the connection to the Tombtakers was because she’d recently reviewed those notes for a separate unannounced project. Sometimes she tries to make connections and Matt is like, “It was...just descriptive. Just flavor. The curtains were red...” and she has to discard a paragraph of notes. She feels like it’s still something they have to do because of “look at what he does! Look! It’s totally valid!”

Cosplay of the Week: @kitsunstudios with a gorgeous Caduceus with a very intricate silk vest.

Caduceus’s takedown of Trent! One of my favorite moments in the entirety of C2. Taliesin felt Trent was an asshole; Caduceus felt sorry for him because of how dumb he thought he was. Caduceus’s response was "this is the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so dumb! Is nobody going to tell this guy how dumb he is? Oh, they’re all freaked out. Somebody needs to tell this guy he’s an idiot before somebody gets hurt.” (Marisha: “Before?”) Tal says it was the product of several years of therapy and many drunk conversations with Whitney Moore. It was from a genuine place of concern from Caduceus. “How are you allowed to have this much power and be that dumb?”

Brian loved how funny it was to watch everyone tiptoe around Trent and then Caduceus bulldoze through the end of the meal.

Taliesin: “Damage doesn’t make you interesting or better. It’s not what makes you good. Character isn’t found in damage. Just recovery.”

Brian & Marisha commiserate going through the stage where believing surviving something automatically made you a stronger person, better for the pain; instead it just meant you had to pick up the pieces after. Marisha talks about how strength through survival may be true for some people, but it shouldn’t be considered a necessity. Taliesin talks about how he used to think he had to be miserable to write. Brian talks about how believing he liked reading and writing miserable things only limited him for years.

Marisha feels it’s a C2 theme that almost all the PCs have someone trying to handwave or take credit for their accomplishments or explain their pain as being for their own good (Trent, Beau’s dad, Obann). She thinks it’s interesting to see all the various ways people try to take credit for your work/delegitimize you as a person. She loves that RPGs allow you to explore these odd moralities in interesting ways. The only way to fight it is to have a sense of your own self-worth, which is a problem a lot of the M9 started with.

Caduceus likes everyone, and really likes people who appear to need role models (Eodwulf). “With the right friends and the right bar and the right attitude, I think he’d be okay. Come over here where it’s so much better. That seems like an exhausting friendship that you have there.”

Marisha loves the mix of personalities in the M9; Veth, Cad, & Jester were all “we kind of like them!” after the dinner, and she immediately made eye contact with Travis and they both shook their heads. She knows Beau has to go along with it for Caleb’s sake for now, but she & Fjord are pretty sus of Trent’s proteges.

Beau is less concerned about Artagan’s relationship to Jester because “he showed his ass--she’s less worried about Jester now because a little of the magic is gone.” It’s a little like becoming an adult and realizing your parents are also just adults & human. Caduceus wasn’t suspicious of the Traveler for a long time until they got to the island. Aside: Taliesin loves the pantheon in D&D. “The notion of attempting to apply common Western conceptions of religion to a world where you have a pantheon of interventionist gods as baseline makes no sense to me. Everyone admits that every other god is there and doing shit; it has more in common with ancient Rome than anything else.” Now that he knows it was a con, he feels the wind had been taken out of it. He does have a sense that Jester’s gotten back together with an ex: “I hope that I’m really happy for you.” They’re both interested to see how Jester navigates the new relationship.

My internet goes out, of course. I panic for a second, thinking I’ve lost everything above, but all is well! Thanks, Form History Control addon!

Marisha loved punching Artagan, but regretting rolling so poorly. “I miss violence.” Dani lets us know it’s been about four episodes since the last battle.

There’s no way the Cobalt Reserve doesn’t have a single document on the Eyes of Nine. Beau believes “there are no real secrets” because people are just bad at not writing things down. For there to be no information at all seems really suspicious for her.

Fanart of the Week: @oddalchemist on twitter with some awesome Beau conspiracy red-thread boards overlaid a distant shadowy Molly walking away.

Caduceus feels a little guilty for really enjoying his time right now with the M9 and not wanting to go home. He’s starting to suspect that he’s going to go home very different than when he left. “He has the softest problems. I don’t know if I want to move back in with Mom & Dad.”

Beau is trying to get comfortable with the idea of being happy. Jester is probably Beau’s first real best friend & one of the first healthy female friendships she’s ever had. As long as she still has Jester in her life, she doesn’t care. For Yasha... “At the end of the day, Beau is a lonely person and has always been a lonely person. And I think you kinda reach this point where once you’re not lonely anymore, you can kind of come out of the fog and realize that was horrible! And terrifying! And is even more terrifying now that I know what I could have, and I don’t want to go back to that. At the end of the day Beau doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. There’s always been that flirtation with Yasha, but everyone had to figure their own shit out. And now it feels like it’s coming out a little bit of that haze, maybe this actually could be...” There are a lot of ways they complement each other & are good-different from each other. Marisha believes people can be attracted to more than person at once.

Caduceus doesn’t think nature turned against him on Rumblecusp, it was just a reality of nature being dangerous and violent. “He has a complex relationship with nature.” He doesn’t expect special treatment.

Thoughts on the mansion: “Man, it’s nice to be seen.” Marisha: “I don’t know how I ended up becoming the Scanlan of this campaign, but I’m living for it.” It felt like an echo of “I’m better for having known you.” They compare Marisha taking specific notes on the campaign to Liam taking specific notes on people’s favorite tapestries, comics, etc.

They talk about missing theme parks and daydream a park version of the mansion in CritRoleLand. It’s lovely.

Taliesin never expected Divine Intervention to work; he just wanted to roll some dice. He’s still processing what he saw/heard. They all agree it was very useful in the Vokodo fight.

Vilya! Marisha: “Ah! Ah! Ah!” As a player, Marisha was so deep in Beau’s eyes she didn’t pick up it was Vilya at first (especially since Matt really emphasized they should not be looking for C1 NPCs). Marisha’s brain melted. She bawled her eyes out on the ride home after that episode. Right after it ended, Laura told Marisha “Keyleth finally gets her happy ending,” and it makes Marisha emotional again since Keyleth’s story ended so bittersweetly. She talks about the very real feelings of “just wanting them to be happy, though!” She went back and listened to all her old Keyleth playlists. Everyone was teary after the episode. “Everyone has these 100% real memories of being these characters and having these good times.”

And that’s that for that! Thanks for your patience, all, and is it Thursday yet?

[bnhasalt]

Long post time

Okay unpopular opinion I guess but I. Really don’t like the takes I’m seeing in the anti B*ku tag right now. Particularly about M*tsuki.And I know she’s a character I haven’t talked about extensively on this blog, because it’s true that depending on what way you choose to dissect mha as a piece of media,[either by judging it on the basis of the content in-universe (ex: character a’s actions were affected by character b’s) or by judging it based on the real life aspect of it (ex: the author did this because x)], M*tsuki really can be pretty divisive.  On one end you have people saying that M*tsuki being abusive is what caused B*kugo to turn out... like that.. And use that as a justification of his behavior.  Then on the other end you have people saying ‘hey- no! Her hitting him was clearly just a joke- it was slapstick! the author clearly didn’t intend her to be interpreted as abusive so you shouldn’t blame her character at all! B*kugo is the ONLY one at fault’ And see, I don’t find either of these opinions fully correct. But since my main criticisms of the series have to do with B*kugo , and a lot of people in the anti side of the fandom subscribe to the second idea, I DID turn a blind eye to it for a rather long time. However when I see people actively DEFENDING HER, and saying her actions aren’t abuse at all? That’s when I have to put my foot down.  So. Ahem. Let’s clear a couple things up.

𝙄 𝘿𝙊 𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙃𝙊𝙒 𝙔𝙊𝙐'𝙍𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙊 𝘼𝙉𝘼𝙇𝙔𝙕𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙄𝘼, 𝙃𝙄𝙏𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝘼 𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙇𝘿 𝙄𝙎 𝘼𝙇𝙒𝘼𝙔𝙎 𝘼𝘽𝙐𝙎𝙀, 𝙒𝙀𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙃𝙊𝙍 𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙏 𝙊𝙍 𝙉𝙊𝙏. ’corporal punishment’ or whatever you want to call it is nothing but a shitty little scapegoat. Every single expert on the subject of child psychology (and psychology in general as well) - they’ve been screaming for ages how it’s a terrible way to raise a child, that only leads to trauma , the child becoming reclusive and -unlike what any abuser likes to claim- loosing respect for the perpetrator, either becoming hateful towards them or living in fear of them. (some sources: l. II. III.)

And if you’re still on the authorial intent intent train wondering just WHY I’m saying it shouldn’t be justified that way, let me phrase it like this:   H*rikoshi also intended for 𝙈*𝙣𝙚𝙩𝙖 to be just a comic relief character and nothing more, yet we still all seem to be in collective agreement that he’s actually a disgusting pervert and a danger to all the girls in ua.  Again: Authorial intent does NOT matter when the content itself is harmful. I’m hot telling you to crucify H*rikoshi over this, what I’m saying is that critical thought needs to be applied here.  If you think that the sexualization of the students,  M*neta’s entire existence, and scenes like the one where B*kugo throws the sharp bit at M-doriya and makes him bleed are bad/harmful even though they weren’t intended as such, there is no reason whatsoever to excuse M*tsuki from being judged the same way. If anything, it reads like this abusive behavior is being excused so the ‘’B*kugo is just a terrible person by himself, don’t bring anything/anyone else into it’’ narrative can be furthered. And because the abuse portrayed is ‘not bad/severe enough’ that’s apparently an acceptable take to make.  But not all abuse looks like the T-doroki family. Not all abusers are End*avors or Ov*rhauls. And just because the victim isn’t a Sh-to or an E-ri (see: a good person with the typical signs of trauma) , it doesn’t change the fact that they were abused. To imply otherwise is to undermine both the range of effects abuse has on real people, and those people’s experiences as a whole. So to sum up the first part of this post, say it with me kids: 

Good? good. So at this point you may be thinking ‘’so what then? If you do think that B*kugo was abused, does that mean you find his behavior justifiable?’’ And the answer to that is:

Haha, NO.

See, being abused doesn’t grant anyone saint status. Just how you can be abused and turn out an amazing person, you can also be abused an turn out an absolute sack of shit. At that point the abuse may explain the behavior, but it does not under any circumstances justify it.  (And no, young age doesn’t justify it either. Yes teenagers - young adults do get a bit more room for error generally speaking, but when they commit horrendous acts that doesn’t change jack shit about the magnitude of the act or how it affects others.) From a certain point on people are fully responsible for their own actions and you can’t pin their every error on something from their past (especially if they’re not even TRYING to correct said errors, or if the error itself is unforgivable). To conclude- The point of this post isn’t to show that either of these characters is morally ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the other , but to point out that BOTH of them can be bad at the same time for different reasons, without using one’s behavior to justify the other’s, or ignoring one’s to attack the other. With the added secondary suggestion to analyze media from various angles for the most objective results in any critique. . . . Ps: i forgot to say anything about the couple of people i saw saying that B*ku deserves the beatings from his mom, so let me add it here. :) ahem. I do not CARE that the bastard is my most hated character of all time, I WILL manifest inside your house and drink your bone marrow like a fucking soup, FUCKING LISTEN TO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING FOR ONE DAMN SECOND P L E A S E-

[lesbianlotties]

the only touchstone of truth - I Care A Lot (2020) - Marla x Fran

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: I Care A Lot (2020) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fran/Marla Grayson Characters: Marla Grayson, Fran (I Care A Lot) Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Origin Story, Canon Backstory, First Meetings, First Kiss, First Dates, Getting Together, Morally Ambiguous Character, Illegal Activities, Eventual Smut, Flirting, Partners in Crime, crime wives Summary: The American dream. The small business that Marla Grayson built from nothing. And now it's all crumbling down back to... nothing. Marla is left to pick up the pieces of the broken dream, but this time she's determined to start a fire with what she has left. The problem, or rather, the solution, comes in the shape of Fran, a gorgeous woman that, unlikely as it seems, has just as many tricks under her sleeve as Marla. This is how they meet, this is how they fall into each other's dangerous games, and most importantly, this is how they fall in love. Love, the only honest thing about each other, and the most important part of their story.

Chapter 1:

Marla was sitting behind the counter in her shop, wearing a sharp white shirt and her blonde hair falling in soft waves on her shoulders. The place was desolated, only Curtis stood by, idly reorganizing the shelves for maybe the hundredth time. Restlessness disgusted Marla. When she caught herself starting to lazily spin from side to side on her swivel chair she shook herself out of it by planting her feet firmly on the floor and picking up her vape pen. She’d only started using it to become a master of the trade she’s decided to pursue, but she’d grown quickly attached to it. Like an assassins’ favorite knife, it could be used as a weapon, but it brought comfort in unexplainable ways too.

“Curtis,” Marla exhaled, staring at her friend, “What is… the most American thing you can think of?”

The man smiled, an objectively beautiful smile, and said, “Cowboys.”

Instead of laughing, Marla nodded very seriously. That was, indeed, a very American thing. Men proudly resorting to childish ideals of what it is to be a man, hoping to use boyish charm to earn points in a game nobody could possibly win something worthy of. The problem was, Curtis wasn’t like that, not with Marla at least, and his answer was genuine. Besides, the fictional idea of a traditional cowboy was very American indeed. “What would a cowboy do,” Marla wondered slowly, “when facing a god-awful rival?”

“Get rid of them?” the young man replied. That was a certain answer, and the impulse of making it sound like a question at the end was just a consequence of answering to Marla. It was a common thing, he wasn’t immune to it, and she actually relished the fact that she could make people doubt the most obvious things they should be confident in.

“Exactly,”  Marla clicked her teeth and winked, adding a playful gesture as if she’d just shoot him with an invisible gun.

Her friend and employee chuckled fondly at her. “Yeah, sorry, Marla, but I don’t think you can get rid of them.”

Gracefully, Marla stood up from the chair. What she’d been staring at so intently on her computer’s screen was the view from one of the security cameras outside, pointing across the street at the line of people waiting to get in at the bigger and flashier vape shop that recently opened up. “I know,” she said, almost soft enough to hide the venom in the words of acceptance of her downfall. She spread both hands on the counter and stared. It was the beginning of goodbye. She wasn’t an overly emotional person, she didn’t exactly hold a sentimental attachment with the place, not even to the person she had been when she started this journey. But, she had to say goodbye. However, “I won’t go down without a fight,” Marla stated. She walked around the counter and toward the front of the shop.

Personally, Marla had a different idea of what was the most American thing a person could do. Walk away from a suffocating family to the big city, make the most of what the world currently wants and turn it into a business, build it all from the ground up, turn it into an empire, make yourself rich enough to become a challenge to royalty and deities alike. It was a perfect plan as long as nobody warned you of the impossible to overcome obstacles that would appear in your path. Marla had done her work, she had spent the better part of her youth working inconceivable schedules and begging for loans. She had studied the market, the competition, the ins and outs of one smart investment, and it had worked. Until the grand opening of a monstrous shop close enough for it to be humiliating. They sold a brand, and Marla couldn’t compete. She’d done everything right, perhaps it was time to do a little bit of wrong in order to come out as a winner.

Marla had chosen that particular place to set up her shop because it was convenient for her type of business, but she never liked the place very much. That was something she could admit now that she was saying goodbye to it. She was staring out the glass windows and almost grimacing at the view. She’d always wanted an office that would be at least one floor up from the ground, before reaching the highest level of the building, of course. Now she was making herself the promise not to rest until she achieved her real goals and desires, the bigger the better, no space for conformity with accomplishing the bare minimum, not anymore.

“Maybe they can get rid of me,” Marla finally said, much to the confusion of the young man listening to her. She didn’t have just an idea, she’d just come up with an entire plan

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

The police sirens were a perfect soundtrack, just like Marla had imagined it. But they carried, along with the blinking red and blue lights, unexpected effects. It was the perfect background for a few of Marla’s nightmares, and for most of her dreams. If only she didn’t have to hold back for one reason or another. If the men that threatened her ever came to something. If only she listened to that little voice in the back of her head that encouraged her to push further and harder against life. It felt like every “ what if ” of her life ended up with police sirens and red and blue lights at her back. Only one slight movement of her shoes on the broken glass that covered the floor of her shop was enough to pull her out of her deep thoughts. Only of discreet shake of her head to push her hair off her face was enough to bring her back to the conversation at hand.

“I didn’t see it, at first,” she said in a frail tone of someone retelling an awful nightmare, “it wasn’t until Curtis pointed it out that… Christ. It looks bad.”

Marla, her loyal employee, and the police officer were, of course, discussing the broken windows, trashed shelves and, more specifically at that instant, the graffiti painted on the floor of her place, it was the logo of the big store just down the road.

“There are a few options,” the detective mumbled, “Could be the competition, of course, but could be simple, overenthusiastic buyers with an interest in causing trouble. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m positive we’ll catch the people responsible for the attack to your shop, Miss Grayson.” After a pause, she added, “I wonder how far they went. May I look over the office, the storage?”

The blonde looked away with a pained expression, “I don’t think I could,” she forced herself to take a deep and steadying breath and when she looked back at the other women she had a perfectly sweet smile on, “Curtis will accompany you, detective.”

As the two of them walked further inside the store, Marla walked out. She’d left her own car parked out front, so she leaned her back against it and put her vape pen on her lips. Only a couple of seconds later, the second officer that had shown up to the place had joined her.

“That’s not going to work,” was the first thing Fran said to Marla.

“Excuse me?”

“Using that guy as bait.”

Marla blinked, reeling back her slight surprise. “And why is that?” she inquired.

Fran shrugged, staring straight at the broken windows of the shop. “Lou’s my ex,” she mentioned as nonchalantly as she should have introduced herself but instead had only nodded when her partner was the one to remember the protocol, “she’s not gonna fall for your boy’s charm.” She finally turned to look at Marla, as if it were the first time, but knowing that since she arrived at the place she’d been casting furtive glances at the striking and intriguing blonde. “You, on the other hand, give her another one of those smiles of yours,” Fran said, with barely a hint of a smile on her pink lips, “and it might work.”

Along with a breathy and quick chuckle, Marla did smile. She wasn’t used to being so blatantly called out for her strategies. People complained all the time about the way she constantly managed to get what she wanted, but nobody ever seemed to know exactly what about her they were upset about. Then there was this complete stranger that with one look and right from the first sentence she spoke, she caught Marla. And the best part, she didn’t even seem to be complaining about it. Marla would have been lying if she said it didn’t feel strangely good. Partially, because she knew she was good at her games, and if no one played at her level then nobody could actually appreciate her. It was pleasant to be seen. Partially, too, it was just because of the way the other woman was looking at her.

“Not that one, though,” Fran continued. She leaned in closer, talked in conspirative whispers, and for some reason was displeased with Marla’s smile. She was fascinating almost to a point of dizziness. Her presence, to anyone of slightly weaker disposition than Marla, would have brought them to their knees. “That one’s sincere,” she said of the smile they were discussing, “and that’s dangerous.”

This time Marla scoffed. She looked away, hoping that the brunette, without looking into her eyes, wouldn’t be able to read how much Marla was struggling to draw the line between being fed a flirtatious line out of the millions of them, and the shockingly unique feeling of it all, something that she’d only seen in Fran.

“You look too young to be a detective,” Marla said, as a way to change the course of the conversation. Only after she said the words she started thinking about what they meant. What could this woman, with the imperfect ponytail, worn leather jacket, and secretive smile, have done in order to get to where she was in life?

“And you look,” Fran started to say, pausing just long enough for Marla to think that if she dared called her old she would simply walk away and never return to the damned shop, “too smart to own a place like this.”

She wasn’t the first person to point out the fact that simply something about Marla’s eyes revealed that she was meant for things greater than a vape shop. She would’ve laughed, or smiled, but that would’ve made things too easy for Fran. “It’s just business,” the blonde said slowly.

“Is that why you did all this?” Fran nodded toward the broken windows and the mess beyond.

Marla turned to look at her and remained speechless for a moment, even if her cold expression did nothing to reveal the spark of surprise that Fran was fueling with every word she spoke. The silence wasn’t as uncomfortable as expected. Marla quickly figured out that if Fran was smart enough to figure out in a few minutes the complexities of her carefully crafted smile, then it wasn’t all that shocking to see her solve a case that she’d probably even seen before.

“Do you think she’ll notice?” Marla finally asked, talking about Fran’s partner. For some reason, she wasn’t worried in the slightest about Fran being the one to ruin her plans.

The younger woman tilted her head from side to side, genuinely thinking it through. The impulse to talk shit about her ex was strong. But she knew and respected the woman as a professional. Plus, a consequence of being so good at pulling the truth out of unwilling people was that she wasn’t that interested in the effort it took to lie.

“There’s a chance,” she replied at last. “But, really, give her one smile,” Fran continued, “and she’ll probably give you that signature you want to take this to court.”

This time, the two women laughed together. When they made eye contact then, it was completely different. No careful glances, no studying the other one, simply looking for the sake of a beautiful and frightening view. Right from the first night, they came across that feeling of absolute freedom and awe of standing at the edge of a cliff that would paralyze in fear those of faint heart, but that they would eventually come to fondly associate with each other.

“And you?” Marla dropped the smile. If Fran could see her tricks, she could return the favor. It was her turn to lean in closer, whisper, and look just disinterested enough as she asked, “What do you want before you give me what I want?”

Fran looked away for just one instant, but they both knew this game well enough to know that such small action would count as a big win for the blonde. When she looked back up at those striking blue eyes, Fran thought for a moment, about what she wanted, what Marla could give, and how far she could push or pull at this unlikely and tremendously exciting situation so she could get the best deal possible.

“I’ll let you know,” Fran announced, pulling out a presentation card and offering it to Marla with a smile. “Someone might break into your business again. So dangerous,” she playfully shook her head and pulled herself away from the car they’d been leaning against, “Call me when you’ll need me.”

[trashahime]

Anon, sorry for taking so long and the length. There was a lot to address and I tend to ramble. Due to the length I am going to divide your ask in chunks and respond to each paragraph individually for clarity's sake.

I'm curious as to why you have addressed this to Sesskagu shippers both here and later. TBH, this alone will make many doubt that you are truly neutral because you seem to have fallen for the common but false claim that the anti sentiment has it's roots in bitterness over a lost ship war.

Those supporting the end are made up of a variety of people who are simply united in their dislike/disappointment. Among them are shippers and non-shippers, antis, neutrals and even some SR fans who are bothered by how their ship is portrayed.

Personally, I don't think it takes any kind of mental gymnastics to have a problem with how Sessrin is depicted in Yashahime. There are some antis who probably do purposely make the worst possible interpretations to fuel their disgust/anger. But most are being completely sincere in their belief that Rin was married and pregnant by the time she was 15. You have probably already seen and dismissed all the anti arguments to support this view so it would be pointless to rehash them. You can believe it's just about disliking Sessrin but there were many antis like myself who were willing to accept the relationship even if we found it distasteful had Sunrise gone about things differently.

Each "hater" has their own reason for continuing to watch the show and I can't speak for them. Or as a "hater" either as I enjoyed the show. But I also think it's a trainwreck with many issues and problematic portrayals.

If people are targeting individuals and maliciously interacting with their posts then that is definitely harassment. However, I suspect you also mean the general posts made by antis criticizing those who watch the show.

The belief that watching/supporting Yashahime equals supporting a p*dophilic portrayal of Sessrin and other unsavory stuff is an opinion I disagree with. But I also disagree that expressing that opinion is harassment.

I get why you find it to be extremely harsh and hurtful but I also think you are taking it very personally when you needn't.

Consider my position. I'm an anti that still enjoys Yashahime. Most of those posts are made by my moots, some of which I have very friendly interactions with. I have even more reason to feel personally attacked by them but I don't. Just because I respect someone's right to an opinion that doesn't mean I am obligated to agree with it and make it apply it to myself. Unless you agree that liking Yashahime means condoning p*dophilia, then I'd advise you to take the view that those posts don't pertain to you at all.

As for petitions, bad reviews, being glad Yashahime is almost over... Well that's some of the least offensive actions an anti can take. Two of the three are against corporations, not fellow fandom members and the other is just a celebration amongst themselves.

They don't affect anyone else unless the petitions and bad reviews are substantial enough to put the shows future in jeopardy. IMO, the correct counter action is good reviews and supportive petitions, not telling antis to stop. They have the right to express their opinions.

I have seen many grooming and csa survivors say they also don't view Sessrin as having those aspects. However, there are many survivors on the anti side that strongly disagree. While I think that the opinions of those who have endured similar circumstances have more weight, it also creates kind of a never ending tug of war situation where neither side can really "win" the argument because they are equally balanced. For every survivor saying it is, there is one saying it's not.

Generally, I choose not to use the words p*dophilia or grooming when describing the Sessrin relationship or say that everyone who likes the pairing is a P&G apologist.

Many antis don't agree on this, but I think it's possible to have headcanons and scenarios that result in a version of Sessrin in which those things are not present. Fanonwise anyway. To me, the canon situation can definitely be interpreted to believe that they are present.

Mostly, I tend not to use the terms because they have specific psychological and legal definitions. That makes it very easy for SR fans to completely dismiss the idea that they could apply to Sessrin because it's not a perfect fit. I think if it turns out to be part of actual canon or if it's just part of one's own headcanon that Sesshomaru was "waiting" for Rin to grow up and courting her with gifts like the kimonos then that means he had a romantic interest in her when she was too young for it to be acceptable.

He might not be a technical p*do in that he is attracted to children, but his thoughts and actions are of one with regards to Rin. I agree with those that say Sesshomaru would never intentionally manipulate or pressure Rin to be with him, thus not "technically" grooming.

However, informing her via courting that he wants to be with her when she is older does put a type of manipulative pressure on her. For years, she will have to live with the knowledge that her literal savior, the most important person to her in the world, someone she loves and doesn't want to disappoint, is waiting for her. It will absolutely influence her life choices and who she becomes.

No need to apologise, I don't mind being vented at and am clearly prone to long-ass messages myself.

I think you do have some valid frustrations but I don't think they all are.

It's often forgotten that antis are major fans too. Many wanted to love Yashahime but in their eyes Yashahime "bashes" the OG and it's characters. It's ruined something they held near and dear. And they are highly upset about it.

Think about it, that's probably why you and others are so angry at the criticism. It's bashing something you all enjoy or maybe even love and it's making you highly upset. You all are more alike then you realize.

You can let it all impact your fandom experience or realise there is very little you can do about it because that criticism, even if you find it unfounded, harsh or extreme has the right to exist provided it doesn't break the rules of the website. You won't be able to block it all away.

it's a tired old cliche but it's true that you can't control what others do, only your own reaction to it. And frankly I think some of your reactions are as extreme as to what you ascribe to antis. I mean, you want them to stop celebrating the end of Yashahime. How does that really personally affect you?

A change in perspective as I described earlier goes a long way in not taking anti criticism personally. It even works when you are being personally attacked. I have seen posts about me specifically saying I am a deluded and deranged individual with real life mental health issues just because I think Kagura is the mom. Those people don't know me and I know the truth about myself. So why let someone's unfounded false world view affect me or my fandom experience?

Anyway, you probably just wanted to rant and weren't expecting or wanting this massive response. I hope you find a way to deal with the negativity because it's not completely avoidable but it will die down eventually.

[kat-katsuki]

Lower Jaw Bone | Dabi x Reader Oneshot

A/N: KYAAAA I couldn't contain myself after reading chapter 291, and I got inspired to make this oneshot. It's a little angsty, a little fluffy, and most of all it's just heart wrenching.

Warning: Spoiler!! Chapter 291!!!

Word count: 5k

----------Enjoy--------

He still remembers the first day he met you. Even up till this day, he will never forget the way you shivered in your own ice on a cold, dry, winter night, trying to keep his body cool.

He had no idea why you were there that day, because it was supposed to be a secluded mountain where only Endeavor went to train. He had planned to end his life then and there, using his own fire which was passed down to him by his bastard of a father, the one who tortured and tormented him. However, you saved him.

You had an ice quirk, just like his mother. You covered yourself in ice, releasing your quirk continuously in order to get through the fire exceeding 2000 degrees just to get him out of there. Your arms and legs were severely burnt, much like his, and you had carried him out of that mountain all by yourself.

His body temperature was still very high, and both of your clothes were burnt off by the fire. You had to build an igloo out of your ice to protect yourself from the cold, and at the same time you kept hugging him while activating your own quirk to cool his body temperature down. When he woke up, he felt excruciating pain all over. At first he thought he was dead, because when he saw you, he thought you were an angel. Even though it hurt all over, the area you touched felt unbelievably good.

He noticed you were shivering all over, teeth chattering. The two of you were naked, and both of you had burn wounds all over, his more severe than yours. His entire jaw was burnt off, and he couldn't talk. He just weakly stared at you while you quivered, and he didn't know how many days passed, just like that. By the time you were awake, you told him he was going to be okay. He couldn't move his body at all, nor speak, and you were also severely injured. He watched you drag your body into the depth of the forest, and he thought you would just leave him there to die, because for hours you never returned.

But you came back. You came back with bandages, clothes, medicine, and blankets. He wondered why you didn't bring an adult, and why you were still naked when you came back to him. He laid there motionless while you applied whatever medicine you were able to find on him. Poor him. You had no idea if the medicine was meant for burn wounds, but it was all you had. You rubbed the strange cream all over his body, and wrapped him up in the little white bandages you owned. "I'm sorry, I don't have much, so I can only cover up the worst parts for now. I'll try to get more later," you apologized to him as you covered his face, neck, and torso with bandages.

He noticed how you didn't apply any medicine to yourself. All of the cream in that little jar that you had went on his body, and even that wasn't able to help cover all of his injuries. You made sure to reconstruct the igloo every day, and you made sure he was covered in blankets and bandages.

The next few days were excruciating. His skin peeled off and the blood dried onto the bandages. He would lay in the igloo alone every day as you limped out to scavenge for food. Every day you'd come back with bandages and medicine, and a little bit of food. You were finally able to find clothes for yourself at some point, but it hurts to wear them because of your peeling skin. You always apologized to him about not being able to provide better, but he didn't understand why you should be sorry. You barely had enough for yourself, and whatever you had you always prioritized him. You don't even know him. Why would you go so far just to save a stranger like him? He didn't understand.

At first he blamed you. He wanted to scream at you for saving him, and he wanted to tell you to let him die, but he couldn't talk. However, as days passed, and he watched you limp out of the igloo every day and back, and how you'd always apply whatever medicine you could get your hands on to him first, how you always ate the left overs of what you gave to him first.... He could no longer tell you that he wanted to die. Tears slowly seeped out of his eyes, his last tears, and each time you wiped them away, telling him sorry, and that you knew it was painful, and asked him to bear with it. Little did you know it wasn't the pain that made him cry.

Because he lost his jaw, he couldn't chew. As disgusting as it was, you had to chew for him and then feed it into his mouth. That was how you kept him alive. You were quite the talkative person. Whenever you weren't out looking for food and medicine, you were telling him about yourself.

You didn't have friends, and your parents are villains. Your father was convicted for mass murder, while your mother was a drug addict. You escaped home at the age of seven; you never went to school. You were originally living in an abandoned cottage in the depth of these mountains. Alone, yet safe. You used to walk miles every day just to get to a small farm at the edge of these mountains. There lived this old couple, who were farmers, and they taught you how to plant vegetables, and sometimes offered you bread and milk. You told him you saw him in the fire, and your body just moved on its own.

Two months. The two of you lived in the igloo for two months, until spring came, and that he was finally able to walk. His legs were in worse shape than yours, and you had recovered pretty well. Although you still had difficulties walking, you were able to support him back to your abandoned cottage. "It's probably really dusty since I've been gone for so long. Sit here! I'll clean up real quick!" You told him as you set him down on this old, worn out chair at the doorway.

He grabbed you by the wrist before you went inside. He couldn't speak, so he just stared at you with his teal blue eyes, trying to convey the words 'thank you.'

You simply smiled back at him and told him to wait. You were very slow, and he could hear loud thuds coming from inside every once in a while, and he knew it was you falling. Even though he never asked you to save him, and he still wasn't sure if he wanted to stay in this world, he swore to himself that day that he would spend his entire life protecting you.

At some point, when the two of you were able to walk normally again, you began to bring him with you out to look for food. You had a little garden that you would tend to, but there were no crops that grew during the spring time. "Harvest season is summer and fall," you told him.

You were a year younger than him, barely eleven. Yet you already knew how to survive in this hellhole of a world. You taught him how to look for expired packaged bread thrown out of the supermarkets and bakeries. The two of you always hung out at the dark alley where the big supermarkets throw out the goods that they couldn't sell anymore. You knew this one worker who would always secretly sneak out some fresh milk for him, since he couldn't chew.

He tried to tell you his name, but you could only read hiragana, since you never went to school. "To-u-ya," you read the characters he wrote into the ground with a stick. He then pointed to himself. "Touya! Your name is Touya!" You threw your arms around him. His eyes curved into downward crescents as he tried to smile. You already told him your name. Your name is (Y/N). The two of you held hands, and he swore he'd never let go.

Child labor was illegal, but you two were able to get a job in an underground club. It was a place where bad people did illegal business, so they were very secretive. You were a sweet talker, and the owner there must have took pity on the two of you, so he let the two of you work as janitors. He paid very little, but it was enough for the two of you to get by. You were very stingy with your money. While Touya would always spend his share on some fresh food for the two of you, you were always saving up in this big jar. He told you multiple times through writing that you two had enough money to buy food, and that you didn't have to live off of those expired goods anymore, but you wouldn't listen. You still went to that dark alley every day to get those expired bread and canned food.

It wasn't until he turned fifteen that he realized why you were always saving up. One day, when that sorry excuse of a piggy bank of yours was finally full. You happily picked it up and hugged it to your chest. You grabbed him by the wrist and told him today was his big day. He had no idea what you were talking about, but you held his hand with one hand, and the money jar with the other. He then found himself standing in front of a run down, sketchy looking building that had a red cross on it. This was a hospital? He thought.

You pulled him inside and there was a man with frizzy curly ashy brown hair and a pair of round, cracked glasses. He wore a white lab coat with a name plate on it that said Dr. Taniguchi. "Doc, about the jaw implant surgery I asked you about, I have the money for it now!" You placed the big jar of money on the counter. Touya's eyes widened. Jaw implant?! Was that what you were saving up for? All those years you diced and mashed up the food for him since he couldn't chew. He was already used to it. It sucked that he couldn't talk to you, but he had honestly accepted it. He had no idea you were secretly, this whole time, saving your own hard earned money just so he could be able to live a normal life. Him! A stranger! Someone who had no affiliation to you whatsoever.

Touya grabbed that money jar from the counter and pulled you away. He shook his head violently, trying to tell you no. He didn't need a jaw. You should use this money for yourself. He was okay like this. Really! You snatched the money from him. "We agreed that we wouldn't interfere with what we choose to spend our money on Touya. I'm spending my money on getting you a new jaw!" You placed the jar back down. "This is the only place that doesn't require identification Touya. And it's cheap. I know it's sketchy, but Doc promised me he'd get you a new jaw. I saw him do surgery on other people before, he's trust worthy! Please.... Promise me you'd go through with it. With a lower jaw, you can talk again, and eat! You'd be able to return to a normal human being!"

He kept shaking his head at you. Since his tear ducts were burnt, only blood seeped out of his under eyes, streaming down his scarred face. You can't do this! You need that money too! That leg of yours hasn't been doing well the past few years, most likely because you were treating his wounds instead of yours back then. You need medicine and money too! He held your hands and placed them to his forehead. He begged you not to do this. Please (Y/N)! Please! "Ahhh! AHHHH!" his voice only came out like this. No words, just sounds.

"See? You need it to talk Touya."

The doctor brought him into this small bright room that smelled of rubbing alcohol. You waved at him behind the doors as it closed, and he was pressed to the bed. After one shot of anesthesia, he was out cold. When he woke up again, he had bandages wrapped all over his lower jaw. Yes, jaw. He had a jaw bone implant. He could feel it. "You need to keep the bandage on for at least three weeks," the doctor told them. The surgery was a success.

You cried for hours with joy and relief, and kept telling him she was finally able to hear him speak now! Touya cried too. He didn't know how to thank you. You were an angel. You were his angel. How was he ever going to repay you?!

Three weeks later and the bandages came off. "Try moving your jaw!" you exclaimed excitedly.

"Ah! Ah!" he moved it up and down. "Ai' ish?" It's been so long since he talked, he still needed to adjust to the new sensation, but for the first time, he was able to say something that wasn't a series of 'ahh's. You were bawling.

"WAAAHHHHHHH! TOUYAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

You helped him regain his ability to speak. With a few months of practice he was talking normally again. It was weird for him, because he had hit voice change by the time the jaw implant was done, so when he spoke he felt like the voice wasn't his. His favorite thing to say after he regained the ability to speak was your name. "(Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N)!" he'd yell every day.

"I'm here! What?!" you'd ask him.

"Nothing. Just, wanted to say your name." He smiled at you. Every time he smiled, you smiled. One of the reasons you wanted him to do that surgery was for him to smile. Even though his lower jaw was covered in burn scars, his smile was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. "(Y/N)!" He picked you up by the waist, and twirled you around in the air. You squealed as you held on tightly to his neck. "(Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N)!" He would never get tired of saying it.

You thought the two of you would be able to be like this forever. Your ice, his fire, small cottage, just the two of you, secluded from this suffocating world and it's shit society. However, one day, as the two of you were walking down the streets to buy some groceries, he saw a billboard, and he stopped. He stared at the billboard for a long time, and wouldn't budge. "Touya?" You called his name. You gasped when you saw the look in his eyes. Those wide, teal blue eyes, staring at a strange, red haired man with beards of fire. His stare was so cold, colder than any winter, any frostbite you've ever felt. You could sense the pure hatred radiating off of him. He looked like he could kill just by glaring, and it scared you. "Touya?"

Your voice snapped him out of his trance. "Yeah?"

"W-What's wrong?" you asked.

"Nothing...." He looked down. For the first time in forever, you saw sadness in his eyes. He stood there for a long time before telling you, "There's a place I must go to."

He brought you to a flower shop, and there he purchased a small bouquet of two blue Amaryllis flowers. You didn't know why he chose such a weird flower, since Amaryllis usually come in red and white. He then took you to a hospital, and he asked you for a favor. "Can you hand this to the counter? Tell them it's for Todoroki Rei, and tell them not to tell her who sent it."

You didn't ask who Todoroki Rei was, because you could already see it in his eyes. He probably didn't want to scare people with the scars all over his face. You had scars too, but they were on your legs and arms. You went inside as you were told, and handed the flowers to the counter. You repeated his instructions to the nurses. They asked you who you were, and you just told them they didn't need to know.

After you were done with that, he took your hand in his, and you two left. He never visited that hospital again. Ever since then, he changed. You would always find him glaring off into the space, but you didn't know what. His eyes would sometimes turn really cold, and it scared you. Every time you asked, he would tell you it's nothing to worry about.

You found out he started leaving home in the middle of night. You didn't know where he went, and you didn't know if you should ask. One day he came back with a bottle of hair dye, and asked you to dye his hair. You didn't know why he wanted you to dye his hair. You liked it. It was a snowy white. But he told you to just do it.

You didn't like how things were going. You had a bad feeling in your stomach, and you were too afraid to ask him. However, those secret outings at night had you suspicious.

When you were sixteen, still working at that underground club, there was a man who came up to you. He grabbed you by the butt, and started saying really inappropriate things to you. "Hey little cutie. Why don't you come with me and we can go have some fun?"

Almost instantly he was thrown against the wall. It was Touya. Touya held the man by the throat with one hand, and in his other hand were the blue flames that nearly burned him to death five years ago. "I'll kill you!" Touya hissed at the man. 

"Touya no!" You cried as you threw your arms around the one he held with fire. He immediately put out the fire when you touched him, afraid to burn you again. "Don't!" The two of you were fired on the spot. However, as you guys walked out of the club, a tall man in black called out to you guys.

"Hey, you two. You two seem pretty capable. Wanna work for me?" he asked. Touya stopped and turned towards the man, but you held him by the arm. You knew all those people in there were criminals, and you wanted nothing to do with them. Working as a janitor is one thing, but working for criminals like him is another.

"Touya no...." you pleaded softly.

He looked at you with soft eyes, and smiled reassuringly. Then he turned to the man and said, "We'll think about it."

"Great. This is my business card. Come find me when you make up your mind."

Once the man was gone, you shouted at Touya. "Touya you can't! He's a criminal! We can't work for criminals!"

"You can't... But I can."

"What!? You can't!"

"We need the money (Y/N). Your leg has been getting worse by the day. I know you think you can just get by by taking pain killers, but you need treatment. Proper treatment. Not that shabby sketchy hospital, but a proper, big, hospital with clean facilities and good doctors!" He shouted. He was talking about the leg that got burnt that year when you saved him.

"It doesn't hurt Touya. It really doesn't. I don't want to work for bad guys. Please promise me you won't do it..." you pleaded.

He cupped you by the face, and pressed his forehead against yours. His beautiful teal orbs gazed into your (e/c) ones. You felt a hard thumping sound inside your chest. What is this feeling? A strange wave of heat rushed to your cheeks as you attempted to pull away, but he held you there. "I'm sorry (Y/N). I need to do this. For you....and for me." He couldn't tell you about the certain man he had been plotting to kill. He knew you'd try to talk him out of it. You were just too kind.

"You don't have to do this for me Touya, really. My leg is fine," you told him.

"It's not fine and we both know it. I can't see you in pain (Y/N). I really can't. I love you..." he whispered.

"What?"

"I said I love you. I want to be with you. Forever, always. I want to give you a normal life, just like how you've given me." He tilted his face and closed his eyes. You felt his chapped lips press softly against yours, and you stood still wide eyed. What is he doing? What were you two doing?! You just froze in place, not sure what to do. You've seen people do this lip touching thing in the club, and you thought it was gross. You never once thought that one day someone would do this to you. It felt...good... "(Y/N), do you love me?" he asked after he took his lips off of yours.

"I-....I don't know..." You were someone who grew up without love, so you didn't know what it was. You hear people say it all the time, and it sounds like the same thing as 'like,' but not quite the same.

"Do you want to be with me forever?" he changed the phrasing.

"Yes! I wanna be with you forever Touya. Just like the way we are now!"

"That's love (Y/N), but (Y/N), I don't want to stay the way we are now," he smiled. "I want better. I want better food, better house, I want you to walk without feeling pain. I want a world where we can live out in the open, where we don't have to hide. This world that has hurt us, don't you wanna change it?!"

"I-...." You had no idea what he was talking about. But one thing you did know. "I don't want to hurt people."

"You won't."

"You can't hurt people either," you said. "Promise?"

"I promise," Touya nodded as he intertwined his pinky with yours. You smiled softly at him, and he connected your lips once again.

He had to teach you from scratch what people do to show their love for one another. He didn't blame you for being so clueless, since you did practically grow up secluded from society. Slowly, he taught you how to use tongue, and he taught you how to make love.

Years passed.

You worked multiple part time minimum wage jobs to get by, and he would be out doing 'business' with that new boss of his. He would come home every other day with cash and food. You learned not to question what he does or how he got the stuff, simply because you were in no position to deny them. Deep down you knew your leg needed treatment, and maybe it was the excruciating pain, or maybe it was just your desire for that world he was always talking about, you turned a blind eye to the things he did.

You were in your early twenties when your leg completely gave out. He found you collapsed on the ground, unconscious. There were no words that could describe how he felt when he saw you laying there, almost motionless. He screamed your name until you woke up. You told him with a weak smile that you were okay, but you knew you'll never be okay. You couldn't walk anymore, so you could no longer work. No work, no income. You couldn't even tend to that small vegetable garden...

He told you not to worry, and that he would take care of it. He had saved up enough money by now. And he found a doctor he trusted, a doctor who promised to turn your legs back to normal.

Later you were admitted into a big hospital. You didn't know how he was able to get you admitted, since you didn't have an identification. However, you didn't ask. The doctor who tended to you was named Ujiko. He told you that you would be able to walk again once you finish surgery and rehabilitation.

Touya was busy with his work. He'd come to visit you in the hospital every once in a while, when he had the chance, but gradually you saw him less and less, and you missed him. You missed him a lot.

Surgery was a success, just as Ujiko promised. You were in the hospital for three months after surgery, rehabilitating and strengthening your newly repaired muscles.

When heroes started evacuating the hospital that day, you immediately knew something was wrong. And you knew it had to do with Touya. Despite never asking him, deep down you knew he was affiliated with bad people, and he did bad things. As long as he promised not to hurt innocent people you were okay with the things he potentially had to do to get by, but little did you know, that he had long broken the promise not to hurt others.

The man who groped you in the club, he killed him.

Your drug addict mother who beat you as a child, he found her and burned her alive.

Your murderer father was long dead, so there was nothing Dabi could do to him. He had made it a personal mission to kill every single person in this world that had wronged the two of you.

He was confident he hid everything from you. The things he did, the league he joined, everything. Yet why were you here? You were supposed to be in the hospital, safe. So why were you here in the midst of all the chaos?

"See ya, Hawks." He was just about to kill the hero, the one who just killed Twice. Just as he was about to increase the temperature of his fire and incinerate him for good, a large glacier of ice formed in between him and the winged man. His eyes widened, for he thought it was Shouto. That split second gave this teenage bird man just enough time to snatch Hawks and get out of here. Touya turned around and was about to throw fire at whoever messed up his plans. But his eyes widened when he saw you. You were still in that blue and white striped hospital gown, barefoot. He could see blood under your feet, probably from running over the sharp rocks and debris to get here. "Why? How did you know?"

"Touya.... Please.... Stop this," you pleaded. "No more killing."

At that point you had finally snapped out of your denial, and you faced the fact that you had guessed but never wanted to confirm. Touya was a murderer, a criminal, a villain...

Behind you, a man waved his knife. He probably thought you were a hero, and was going to kill you.

"DON'T TOUCH HER!" Touya blasted his fire at his comrade, and grabbed you by the arm, pulling you into his embrace so he could protect you from heroes and villains alike. "(Y/N), what are you doing here?!"

"Please Touya, let's just go. My legs are fine now! Let's leave this place! If it's you and me, we can definitely survive out there in the wild!" you pleaded. You grabbed his shirt in both hands, clinging onto him for your dear life. "Please! Please! I beg you!"

"It's too late now (Y/N). I can't turn back now." It was too late for him to let go of his hatred, to stop when he's so close to his goal. He had to do it. For him. For you.

You shook your head. It's not too late. You knew it wasn't too late. With your power and his, you two can get out of here easily. Escape to somewhere where no one can find you. "Touya...."

His eyes softened when he looked into your beautiful watery orbs. He gently locked his lips with yours, and placed his hands over your ears, as if trying to block out all the screaming and crying from your world. You deserve better. He'll give you better.

You felt him push something into your mouth with his tongue. Once he made sure you swallowed it, he pulled away from you face. "Sleep my love. By the time you wake up, you will be in a changed world." He smiled gently at you, the smile you gavr him, the smile he only showed you. Your head became hazy as your vision blacked. You fell limp into his arms, and you could no longer move a muscle. You weren't fully unconscious, you could still make out sounds, though they sounded muffled and staggered.

While you were out, you could hear him talk. You heard him talk about his identity, his past, the abuse, and his sins. Everything he hid from you all these years, you heard it through that half conscious state. Tears streamed down your closed lids as he uncovered the dark secrets of the hero society. You were the one who gave him this chance. You were the one who helped him regain speech. You were the one who helped him tear down this society. You were the one who replaced the lower jaw bone he had burned off.

Touya... Stop... This isn't what I want. I just want to be with you. That's it. Please Touya... Stop this madness.

Too late. He had already destroyed society. He was ready to burn the whole world down, and rebuild it for you. He will tear down this hellhole and build a heaven, a place where an angel like you belong.

Fin

A/N: if you liked this story please feel free to check out my wattpad for more BNHA oneshots!

https://my.w.tt/JT91aC2spbb

[our-wargame]

when you say nothing at all

Summary: Dazai isn't called a genius for nothing. No one can self-sabotage better than he can.

Relationships: Dazai Osamu/Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs) Characters: Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Minor Characters, Sakaguchi Ango (Bungou Stray Dogs) Rating: M (to be safe. In reality it’s T except for the swearing and references to sexual stuff but there’s no actual sexual content) Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: Dazai Osamu is a Mess (Bungou Stray Dogs), Developing Relationship, Trust Issues, Slice of Life, Friends With Benefits, Light Angst, Self-Worth Issues, References of Sexual Content, As in 0 sex happening, although not for lack of trying on Dazai's part, That's Also His Biggest Mistake, I HATE THAT TAG BUT THAT IS THE FIC, Dazai's pretty trash but his greatest accomplishment, was getting Odasaku to love him Word Count: 2500 Notes:

co-written with SwordintheThrone (they have some ridiculously good shit, check em out.).

can be read on ao3

reblogs are appreciated ty

---

It's a shame that he has commitment issues, Dazai muses to himself. Because Odasaku isn't just the best fuck of his life, Odasaku is good to him.

Too good to him.

That's most of the problem. Odasaku will look at him, expression so gentle, so brilliantly sweet and patient and trusting, as if he doesn't think Dazai will rip him apart at the first sign he sees that as necessary. (Still, sometimes Dazai can stand it. Sometimes he even gives into it and the peace that comes with it hurts like a hell he could learn to adore.)

Is this self-sabotage? He doesn't know. And he's still fucking trash for pushing the issue away and ignoring it as he sends Odasaku a text to ask him if he's still not busy tonight.

Odasaku replies within the hour. I'm not, he confirms. Can I come over?

Dazai tries not to laugh, self-deprecatingly amused rather than annoyed at Odasaku's attempt to save him face. He's not that proud, he really isn't. 

He imagines if Odasaku were here, he'd tell Dazai that it has nothing to do with that. That Odasaku really does just want to spend time with him, and that's why during their last encounter, Odasaku casually, lightly mentioned the fact that he was free for the next week. Should they want to do anything. 

It is self-sabotage, Dazai comes to decide. Because no matter what Odasaku's intents were, Odasaku is going to end up in Dazai's bed, because Dazai desires it. And then Dazai won't be able to fool himself into either deciding the reason for this outcome is because Odasaku thinks Dazai knows himself well enough to make the right decision, or that Odasaku wants to give Dazai the choice to make bad ones.

Both options are better than thinking Odasaku just wants to fuck him. If he minded, which he doesn't, it'd be his own fault too. Everyone knows that you start texts with can we talk and not are you busy unless you want to bang.

Dazai closes his eyes, already tired of himself, even without having to pretend around Odasaku. He thinks about calling it off but that's rude and it'd make him look weak and it's all a lot more troublesome than going through with what he has so far. It's freezing but somehow, the heater is the one thing he doesn't have the energy to bother with as heg gets off his ass to fix up the apartment. He turns the TV on, keeps the volume nice and low on that channel that only replays old movies. Neither of them are wine people but that's what you're supposed to have for these kinds of occasions, aren't you? So he leaves a half empty bottle of sake on the coffee table. Lounges on the couch as he sips from his glass.

How classy is he.

A knock at the door. Odasaku knows it's already open and only does it to alert Dazai. But he still waits outside until Dazai calls, "Come in." It's so unnecessarily considerate of him, Dazai shivers. And hates Odasaku a little bit, even as he thinks about pushing Odasaku against the door and kissing the gentleman right out of him.

"Hey," Odasaku says as he closes the door behind him gently. He smells like takeout. Looks as rugged and handsome as ever. Dazai wants him so badly.

He moves his eyes to the TV as he puts down his glass so he can refill it. His hands are shaking, fuck. "Day go okay?"

"Yeah." Dazai listens for the sound of fabric shifting, Odasaku hanging his coat up on the hat rack. Soft steps signal Odasaku having taken off his shoes and switched them for slippers, walking light out of habit so they don't clack against the tiled floor. "And yours?" 

Dazai's half-distracted with trying to remember the last time they had sex for fun instead of thinking he needed Oda's body to make his own shut up. "It went okay," he replies to Odasaku, and it's a miracle he doesn't add, 'it's about to get better, I think.'

That would just be tacky.

He shifts on the couch, still a little chilly, but trying to signal Odasaku should come closer. 

"I brought you curry. And soup in case it's too spicy. Can I put it in the microwave?" 

Dazai blinks. His mouth starts curving up. "Odasaku, has anyone told you you're too polite."

"You probably haven't eaten." Odasaku easily ignores his teasing jab, placing the takeout on the kitchen counter but not quite walking behind it. "It's crab soup."

He hasn't eaten and yeah, he's a little hungry, and of course Odasaku knows all of this and brought him his favorite. But he doesn't like to eat before sex. It just makes him feel bloated and a little repulsed by himself.

Crab doesn't go with sake, he could try, only it does. He could try 'not in the mood for curry or crab', only Odasaku will probably ask him if it's okay to take a look at his fridge and make him something.

"I'm not hungry." He sips at his glass again. Isn't alcohol supposed to make you feel warmer? "Can I have a kiss?" He wants Oda's tongue burning up his mouth, wants Oda pinning him down and chasing the darkness out of him. It's a stupid thought. He humors it and waits for a reaction from underneath his lashes.

Odasaku's surprise is practically audible in the silence. Dazai starts to move over so the length of his gangly body stretches across the couch, then puts his elbows on the armrest and props his head up to watch Odasaku. Please?

Odasaku closes in slowly, but Dazai finds himself holding his breath, nervous anyways. He can feel his heart in his throat, feels it pulse when Odasaku bends down, warm hand sliding up Dazai's face, cupping his chin. Dazai tilts it up as his eyes fall closed.

And then his breath catches, when Odasaku kisses his forehead instead.

He blinks and Odasaku's already straightening. Retreating to give Dazai space.

"Odasaku...." That's not what he wanted, but-

Odasaku prods his elbow and Dazai takes the cue, pulling his limbs back and sitting up straight. Odasaku takes a seat besides him, their shoulders a couple of inches from touching. Looks at the TV as he says, "Can I hold you for a bit?"

He has to think about this one. Says, "okay," even as he thinks about how he doesn't really want to be touched, at least not if it isn't Odasaku pushing Dazai onto his back.

Odasaku shifts his weight forwards so he's sitting on the edge of the couch and able to comfortably reach for the coffee table. He pushes Dazai's  glass inwards- farther from Dazai- and then picks up the remote. When he readjusts his sitting position again, he's still sitting a few meaningful inches away from Dazai. And now he's left his arm stretching over the top of the couch.

It's such a date move, except it's them. Odasaku is doing this for Dazai.

He hates Odasaku a little more in the moment. He hates feeling inconvenient, because it's a reminder he cares about what Odasaku thinks. The desperation of his attachment- he's so fucking weak, it's pathetic. God, he disgusts himself. 

"Are you getting enough sleep?" Odasaku asks. Dazai is still leaning away from his arm, but he's not breathing as hard and so he supposes, this is good.

"No." He hasn't. Before they started their arrangement, Dazai would have answered that with a smirk, an 'is Odasaku coming on to me or am I still daydreaming?' 

The stunt actors throwing themselves across the TV screen are alright. If this were also back then, Dazai would poke Odasaku, tease and bet that he could do it better. Oda would consider it in his seriousness and Ango would scold them both into the next year. Everything's different now and he's not sure if he likes it or loathes it, even though having to ask himself which one it is, is pretty determining. 

Five minutes is how long it takes for him to finally calm down, enough to shift and holds himself against Odasaku's side. Odasaku radiates warmth. The rise and fall of his chest is steady. Dazai tries to ignore it. His neck prickles.

Some more minutes trickle by before Odasaku murmurs, "Can I take you to bed?"

"No," Dazai blurts out immediately, because he understands what Oda is saying, but the answer is no because it'd stress him out, be even worse than the little fiasco going on right now. He'd have to try and force himself to sleep around someone who should be a source of comfort and failing that would just be gloriously useless of him-

"Okay." Odasaku says, gentle. "No worries." A pause. "Would it help to invite Ango over?"

Dazai breathes. It would. He can put on a front if it's for people, if it's for friends. It's harder to put on a show if it's for individual people; he has to make sure their gears mesh together but they're so damn complicated. Odasaku more so, than most. 

"We should drag him out of the house a little more."

Dazai opens his mouth. It's not you, he wants to say, urgent, needy for someone else to know what he does. Odasaku, you're not the one making me uncomfortable, it's me.

"Maybe you can teach us how to make hot pot?" 

Dazai wants to yell. Fall apart out loud for a change. They're monsters, not shadow puppets on the wall, and they don't go away when the sun comes up or what their parents say it's bedtime, for real this time. Oda's trying too hard, and it aggravates him. 

Odasaku can't wrap his arms around him and make him okay. That's never going to be him. He's afraid that Odasaku still doesn't know that, and he doesn't know what Odasaku will do when he really, really understands this. Even if Odasaku doesn't leave, Dazai can't stand the thought of Odasaku suddenly thinking less of him. It'll be just like losing him.

"Dazai?"

He shakes himself out of it. "Yeah. Call him." He pauses. "Can I have the crab soup after all?" He's still not completely ready to hug it out with the idea of eating, but it'll give him something to do.

Oda rises. Dazai stares at the grace, the strength in the lovely curve of his back. He feels cold all over again.

Oda glances over and holds his hand out. Dazai stares at it for a second before he lets Oda lead them away, carrying the two empty glasses with him in his free hand. Dazai pulls away to work on transferring the takeout into bowls to send them off to the microwave while Oda runs the glasses under tap water, swishing the residue round and round before drinking it down and then washing them clean.

The smell of reheated curry overpowers the room. Oda watches Dazai drop into a chair and then watches Dazai plop spoonfuls of curry rice into his soup, stirring this way and that.

"Did you know," Odasaku says, and Dazai looks up at him. "You have happy-cat face."

Dazai sputters. "I'm sorry, I have what?"

"Happy-cat face."

"Odasaku," He purses his lips, but he can't stop his shoulders from shaking. "Odasaku, that's not a thing."

Odasaku keeps his gaze, the slightest rise of his eyebrow explaining yes it is because you have it.

"You're so silly. Did you know that?"

Odasaku hums. When he dials Ango, he places his phone on the dinner table. Dazai's eyes gleam as he shouts like he's from the next city over.

"Oh my god," Ango's voice is very grumbly. "Odasaku-san, please remove me, I think he broke my ear."

Oda turns off loudspeaker and brings the phone against his ear. "So when are you coming over?"

"Ugh, give a man twenty-minutes. I still have work to do."

Dazai throws himself into Oda's side, squashing his face against Oda's other cheek as he chirps, "Tell him all work and no play makes Ango grouchy. And that he has old-man energy."

"Tell Dazai-kun, I think his Brat Card should have an expiration date."

"Tell Ango, there isn't an expiration date on fun~"

"Tell Dazai-kun-"

Oda disentangles himself from his executive, passing him the phone and letting them go at it. Dazai sits back down, adjusting himself so he can bring his knees up to his chest and leave his feet on the chair seat. Even as he chatters away, he keeps his eyes on Oda, who moves to wash out the takeout containers. He reuses everything because he's an environmental dork. Dazai would be more of one if he wasn't interested in dying before the planet. Still, watching Oda so patient, quietly determined to withstand the overpowering...it makes Dazai soften.

"Hey, is Odasaku-san still there?"

"Nope." Dazai says, popping the p. "Odasaku is busy. Being perfect."

"Yeah, yeah. Why don't you two just get married already? Make it official and everything."

He doesn't recover as quickly as he'd have liked. "Ango, weddings are not good places to pick-up women. They're all crazy. And non-sober. And crazy. We'll find you your little lady elsewhere, don't you worry." He watches Odasaku shake off the excess water into the sink, wiping the counter dry and putting the containers to the side. Then he dries his hands, he drifts over to the living room and picks up the remote.

"Ha. Not that I wouldn't reject your delightful request to be your best-man, but are two groomsmen allowed to be each other's best man? I think so." 

"Has anyone ever tell you not to drink on the job, Ango?"

"Speaking of which, you'll have alcohol waiting for me, right? I had to train a new accountant today. If it was there, you would have fainted from the painfulness."

"Delightful. So. How much longer?" He'd really like for there to be someone other than Odasaku around him.

"That depends. I don't want to walk in on you two fucking."

Dazai sighs into the receiver. "It's not my fault. Odasaku has a really nice dick."

He can practically hear Ango roll his eyes. "Don't expect me anytime soon then."

"So. Fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah, alright. See you dumbasses then."

There's no immediate beep! Ango is waiting, letting him end the call. Dazai shakes his head. His friends are really something.

Odasaku keeps flicking through the TV channels, only looking up when Dazai leans over the couch from behind, gently resting his chin on the top of Odasaku's head.

"Hi."

"Odasaku's hair is really soft."

"Thank you."

"Odasaku smells very nice. Like mango-watermelon. And curry."

"Thank you." Oda sits very still so he can hand Dazai the remote without jolting him. "What do you want to watch?" 

Dazai breathes. In, out. "Anything is fine."

[rip-a-dip-dip-you-potato-chip]

what have I created?

idk if yall like this, but they just exist not i guess :/

ok the the first one is Royalty AU

first things first, when I say Royalty AU, I don't mean the classic shit we've all become accustomed to. Im talking about the good old Chinese royalty! And I want to emphasize that these guys will/should be dressed in century appropriate attire. As someone thats read a handful of 'marinette, princess of china' fics from the ML Fandom, I've noticed a common trend. Marinette wouldn't be in the culturally appropriate clothes, always ballgowns. Not that there's something wrong with it, its just most of if not all these fic are set in China, so I'd expect Chinese royalty to dress as THERE dress code calls for. And since this AU takes place far in the past like, it won't make sense for any of the characters to be in royal clothing that wasn't from there region. I'm not trying to white knight/gatekeeping. Im Guyanese not Chinese. But since JTTW and Monkie Kid take place in China, it's only right. In my opinion that it. You don't have to outright agree with me.

With out of the way, it's time for that good old AU crack

- Wukong is the king of the Flower Fruit kingdom(or a different one if you'd like, again I'm only familiar with what western culture has taught me, but I'll try my hardest) 

- he’s single but rumor has it he used to/still is dating the Vigilante/thief The Six Eared Macaque

- *chants ShadowPeach violently* 

- no one know whether it true or not

- On of his wanders around the kingdom he finds an abandoned baby in a basket. 

- and no shit sherlock it's fucking baby Xiaotian 

- I think we all know where this is going because i'm a simp for Monkey Dad & Monkie Son shenanigans

- Xiaotian becomes prince

Shit, ill be referring to Xiaotian as Mk from now on, I mentioned this before in a fic I wrote for lmk that Mk's a nickname for Xiaotian for some reason- wait i don't have to explain my self to you people!

- Sun loves his son

- MK is treated differently by staff and others because he's not blood related to the king

- no one mistreats MK per say, because there King loved his adopted son, but words are said behind his back

- Sometimes MK hears what’s said, and he feels as if he won't live up to his dad’s legacy.

- He meets Mei during a festival

- Mei is from a noble family, that wouldn't mind if they got a connection into the royal family.

- but it becomes hella clear to Mei’s family very fast that the two are just friends, and will always will be. but hey there daughter is bffs with the prince so that's a plus.       

_

- the Demon Bull Family is rules a kingdom as well, I dont/am not creative enough to think of a name I leave that to you.

- It's a common misconception that DBK is a tyrant, when he’s not. 

- most of the time...

- they have been at war with the Monkey King for some time now and settled for a peace agreement.

- that agreement being there sons to marry

- oooo original i know

- MK and Red Son are roughly the same age, Mk being 20 and RS 22

- RS is revolted/disgusted at the idea of being wed to the Monkey Kings child, even more so when he realizes MK is adopted,

- but, that all changes the second he meets MK while he meets him by accident when he gets kinda lost in the palace when he and his parents go to discuss the arrangements.

- the second he looks at MK, he's instantly in love. MK less so, he's nervous and honestly kinda bummed he's not marrying someone he loves but it's for the good of his ppl, and he'll do anything for them.

- RS isn't even aware that MK is Suns adopted son until MK walks him back to the meeting room.

"Oh There you are MK! I was about to have a servant go fetch you!" Sun Wukong says, gesturing for his boy to come sit with him.

"S-sorry for keeping you waiting I got caught up in my lessons with Mr. Tang" MK responds, sitting next to his father. Red Son looked gobsmacked. The beautiful young man he had bumped into, was the prince of this land? Damn, life truly blessed him. Or cursed him depending on how you looked at it.

- the two are left alone in a separate room for a while.

- And MK straight up tells RS why he's agreeing to this union.

"Look Red Son. I've dreamed about meeting my one true love for a while. And I would give almost anything for that dram to be real. But I wouldn't ever dare give up my people, for as there price they mean more to me. I'm doing this for them, no other reason" MK says, his back straight and hands folded neatly in his lap. The look in his eyes was a mix of sadness, but that was drowned out by loyalty and determination. It just made Red Son fall for him even harder. Clearing his throat Red spoke.

"I understand, for im doing this for the betterment of my people to. But I propose a wager"

"A wager?"

"Yes, if i can make you fall in love with me by years end, before our marriage, we can live together like in the fairy tales from far away. But if I fail, in a years time afterwards you will be permitted to find your own path in life" Red Son stated. MK took a moment to process what was happening.

"So, if you succeed in making me fall in love with you, before our marriage we can live happily ever after?" Red Son nodded in response, letting the younger continue.

"And if I shouldn't fall for you, in a years time after our union, im free to leave?" Red Son nodded once more.

"So, what do you say?"

...

"Deal"

In the end, your free to choose their fate, should Red Son win the hart of Mk? Will he fail? Or will he let him go, and let him travel the country, after all Mk's a free spirit and keeping him trapped in a big house is like keeping a cannery trapped in a cage only for its song, only for it to dul. Or will the unthinkable happen and will both boys find their freedom? together or appart? I don't know, because that's all up to you 😉

personally, I’m partial to where MK and Red Son both find freedom together. Like they straight up run away together to somewhere far away and just live out there lives together. 

this could also be genderbent thing as well. MK or Red as their respective counterparts. Again it doesn't have to be, but it’s whatever bro. im just spitting out the idea. 

Also, there is a main side plot that they fight the WBS throughout the year as well, along with other shenanigans you wanna throw in.

____

The second is a My Hero Academia/BNH/MHA AU

truth be told i'm not a big fan of MHA i think it to over hyped(this is also coming from the same person that’s a Fairy Tail fan lol), and the fandom i don't even know how to describe that mess, but I will admit not the whole of its toxic since every fandom has some toxic members, some even more so. 

I just sometimes find myself enjoying MHA AUs like the Fullmetal Alchemist, Danny Phantom, Evil!Deuk AU and several others. 

to make it clear I don't see this AU taking place the same time as the main plot of the actual Anime/Manga. This could be either like 6-10 years before or after the plot idk bro. But i’ll do this after the main story plot of MHA, so keep that in mind ya? another thing, the gang is still in China, the top hero school in the world just so happens to be in Japan, and it’s only ever mentioned by Sun wukong and other pro heros. So MK never attended AU. in short it’s only ever mention/ reference.  

_

- Mk was considered Quirkless as a kid. 

- he was just a late blumer, i swear  

- Mai’s Quirk is called Dragon. 

- it pretty much works the same way as it does in the show(duh)

- Tang’s got a knowledge Quirk, 

- my man can retain information and he’s basically an archive of information drawback being his personality lol 

- Piggsy is a Animal that gained a Quirk

- in cannon to my current knowledge, there are two other characters that can confirm animals can become sentient. the characters being Fumikage Tokoyami, & Nezu the principal at the school UA.  

- Sandy is just Conner Kent, aka he like superman but can't fly, or shoot lasers from his eyes. And blue.  

I have two scenarios for Macaque and Wukong  

*- The first one is that, Sun Wukong & Macaque are brothers. twins to be exact. 

- they where legit people, but have mutation quirks that made them too like monkeys. 

- the added powers were just a boues. 

- Sun and Mac are close growing up, like there brothers but also best friends.

- the draw back to there quirks could honestly be whatever you want bro idk, same with the others tbh. Personally I like to think Sun just has lack of motivation, and Macaque needs to draw on other people's energy.

- Sun is a hero, Monkey KIng and Mac is a villain Six Eared.

- Sun was always treated has the golden child in the family, Mac always resented that, but there shitty up bring didn’t stop the two from being good brothers to one another.

- soon tho the resentment became hatred when Sun was able to attend UA in Japan, while Mac didn't.

- Mac be angy 

- so he became a villain, and joined the Chinese branch of the LOV(league of villains)

- Sun doesn't know this till he finds out during the all out war during the main story. and by that time he’s a full on hero with is own agency(The Flower Fruit agency)    

- when the hero's ultimately win and Mac is arrested 

- This ultimately hurts Sun a lot, his brother was in jail now, arrested for his involvement and wrong doings, he knew nothing about this! this brother, his blood. A bad guy? why? he hadn't seen his brother since he left for UA, he hadn’t seen him when he came home, and started his agency. 

- this just puts Sun into a funk so he’s not as active as he used to be, and he starts thinking he might need a successor 

*- The second one is that they were two separate people that had similar quirks and both attended UA but Sun ended up in the hero corse. so 1A.

- Both Macaque and Sun have similar quirks, Sun’s is obviously more light based while Macaque’s is more shadow based(this applies to the first one as well)    

- Macaque was placed in class 1B, U.A.’s High's Heroics Department, I believe, you can correct me. 

- In cannon Class 1A and 1B both went to the training camp. I can see the teachers pinning Sun and Macaque against each other to hone their skills. 

- And because of that they become great friends    

- In fact when they graduate they both co-found there hero agency together in China and are a duo.

- But due to Monkey King’s popularity and Six Eared's association with shadows(people sometimes saying he has more of a villains quirk than a heros) the public see’s Macaque as Sun’s sidekick when thats far from the truth. 

- now it’s up to you whether you think that Wukong and Macaque would be in a relationship together, but knowing how cooked we all are, ShadowPeach is a thing here more than likely. 

- If you do or don’t support/ like the ShadowPeach aspect, the two would be living together regardless since its more cost efficient. 

- They my be heroes but living costs are expensive!   

- I would imagine there would have been a huge fight/argument between the two in privet of course, at there home.(or in there shared office if you want the extra angst of the other people they work with hearing them fight)   

- If the two are dating, then this would either lead to an out right breakup, or Macaque just up and leaving with Wukong thinking he’ll come back once he’s cooled off. But after a week, with no sign of his partner, or him answering texts or calls, not even coming into work. Wukong gets worried that something might have happened to him. so there wouldn't be a confirmation if they were still a thing or not. 

- But Wukong remains hopeful, despite the nagging at the back of his head, and gut telling him to go find Macaque, or atleast make a public statement, or even just tell another pro hero about it.   

- on the not so shippy side, Macaque and Wukong still have there argument, and much like the ShadowPeach esc side, Macaque up and leaves, and isn't seen for weeks. the only difference here is that when Wukong comes home one night to there flat, most if not all of Macaques stuff is gone. 

- where as if this was the ShadowPeach side, Macaque leaves all of his possession in the flat he and wukong share. for the simple reason being, he still loves him and wants to go back, but Macaque being Macaque can’t bring himself to do it, especially after seeing just how hurt Wukong looked when he yelled at him just before he left.  

- in other words, ANGST DIALED UP TO A 10 BABY  

- in either case, its a news report that confirms Wukong's suspicions that he desperately didn’t want to believe, and that is Macaque turning into a villain.

- much like if the two were brothers, Wukong just can’t take it and is no longer as active as he once was, and is thinking about, either A) Retirement  B) Saying, “Fuck Society, Be Gay Do Crime” and join Macaque as a villain himself, or C) find a successor, and a way to bring Macaque back to there side, but most importantly, back to him.    

- also extra points if you're after people's hearts and want to make them suffer;  - If there dating, Wukong curle’s up in the bed he and Macaque shared, holding/wearing something of great value to Macaque and just crying himself to sleep, where as Macaque is getting wasted on alcohol, as he stumbles out of the bar he’s in, he either see’s something that reminds him of Wukong or while he’s trying to put his wallet back into his pocket, a photo of them on their first date fall’s out. and Macaque just cries in a nearby alley way. And it’s there where he gets indoctrinated into the League.

       - If there just friends, macaque heads to the nearest forest and just levels it, where as Wukong just gets engrossed into his work, trying not to think about it. you could add you own spin on this, again i'm just spitballing.             

- NOW BACK TO MK! :D     

- Obviously MK is a huge Monkey King fan     

- at Twenty MK has come to terms he's quirkless (HE’S NOT)

-for ANGST reasons MKs fokes kicked him out at this realization at 13.

- he works at Piggsy's Noodle shop, and has been since he was 14.

- don't need a quirk to drive or cook!

- the boy lives a content life with his new family, till DBK happens :D

- DBK runs a Mafia(in conjunction with TLOV) and has been in jail for like 5 years thanks to Monkey King, PIF and RS brake him out one night when MK's out making a late night delivery since Piggsy had the bright idea to go 24/7 service!

- one thing leads to another and Mk somehow manifest what looks like the Monkey King's staff, but its not, it’s MKs powers, it just so happens to be the same power the Monkey King has. And it practically goes down the same way in the pilot. 

- but unlike the pilot Mk and Mei go straight to the FF Agency, after making a panicked call to Pigsy and Tang.

- one way or another Mk are lead into Wukongs office. Mei being forced to stay in the lobby.

- they have there convo, butterfly monkey squishing included.

- "And so, I want you do be my success-" BOOM 💥

- from there they rush downstairs and see that the lobby has been infiltrated by the DB fam, and you know fight.

- once the DB family seems like there down, PIF wisks them away. Much to Monkey King’s displeasure.

From there stuff kind plays out like cannon, the calabash ep is just a conjoint quirk the Demon bros have. As for EP9, ill have to script that one out myself lol. I'll get onto it as soon as my will to commit stabs me in the face. Till then have a dancing Kermit the frog.

Now if you'll excuse me, am about to Kermit a felony :D

(For legal reasons thats a joke)

Psst @writingamongther0ses its done

[snaileer]

Chips & Salsa, Chp 8

Keith had decided that Altean medical beds were the worst thing to curse the universe since the discontinuation of 2-in-1 hair products.

At least he definitely thought so from the last 30 minutes he’d spent sitting on one. Coran was still looking for the right salve or something for his bruises. He’d tried to get out of it but Shiro had stared him down all the way from the armory to the Medbay.

Even Keith wasn’t immune to ‘The Look.’

“Aha!” Coran jumped in triumph, holding up a small container like treasure, “I found it!”

Keith tried to get off the bed again, “I told you, Coran, I don’t need any treatment or-”

“Sit.” Shiro rumbled.

“But I-”

“Sit, Keith.” Shiro glared back. Keith would never admit that he pouted as he settled back on the medical bed, it was only a little childish spitefulness. His brother sighed again, “I know you hate doctors but it is only by the grace of god your nose isn’t broken. He almost-”

“Actually, his face is mostly unharmed.” Coran piped in as he got closer. Shiro raised an eyebrow in confusion as the Altean started applying the cream to Keith. “Yes, Lance certainly did a number on him, but there is a degree of restraint. His nose is bruised, a little bloody sure; but it wasn’t hit with anywhere near enough force to break it.”

Keith winced at a bloom of pain on his jaw and growled, “Then why does it hurt so much?”

Coran scoffed and moved to collect more salve as he mumbled, “Probably because I chose the one without pain relievers in it.”

“Coran…” Shiro gave him a stern look, but Coran shrugged it off and kept applying the cream.

“What? I’m not team leader, I have no problems showing favorites,” He said incredulously, “And besides, restraint doesn't mean he didn't hit hard. He just avoided your important bits, y’know, eyes and such. Could be much worse. In fact, this one time Alfor and I had a nasty run-in with some street thugs on a Gaali planet. Nearly ripped my ear off those fuc-”

“Not the time, Coran.” Shiro stepped in, handing Keith his jacket as he hopped down from the bed. “Keith, you need to talk to Lance.”

“What!? He hit me!”

“I don't want to hear who started it Keith,” Shiro followed him out of the room, “You and Lance have always been at each other’s throats, but this is different.”

“It really isn’t, Shiro.”

“Yes, it is. We both know that Lance wouldn’t have commented on your scoff, wouldn’t have taken it that far.”

“Yeah, obviously, I got that. So, what? You want me to just shut up? Stop talking to him?”

“No.” Shiro sighed, “We don’t need to be walking on eggshells around him, god no; but we still have to recognize that he’s gone through something traumatic. Is still going through it.”

“So did you Shiro. And he took advantage of your sympathy. I’m not going to give him mine, because clearly, he only cares about himself.” His voice grew in agitation.

“That’s not true, Keith, and you know it.” Shiro said, trying to convince Keith to just stop being so stubborn.

“Then why can’t he act like it!”

Shiro looked back over his shoulder, then over the other.

“What the hell are you doing, Shiro!?” Keith shouted. He was sick of his brother always-

Shiro crossed his arms and glared down at Keith, “I’m trying to find who you think you’re yelling at, because I know for damn sure it’s not me.” 

Keith growled and grit his teeth, “I’m not up for your stupid-”

“Try again.”

“I don’t-”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? I was trying to-” Keith threw his hands in the air at Shiro. Shiro and all his stupid vagueness.

“I mean, no. You don’t get to write him off this quickly. I want you to give him a chance.”

“I already did!”

“Then give him another one.”

“Why!?” Keith shot back.

“Because he deserves it,” Shiro answered, his words solemn enough to shut Keith’s mouth with a snap. “Don’t you think, that after everything, everything we’ve been through, everything he went through, everything he went through for us.. don’t you think he deserves another chance? Don’t you think he deserves a few chances?”

“But I- But he- We can’t just-” Keith shuffled through refusals, but each one fell short. 

“I’ve been where he is, Keith. And it isn’t as easy as ‘go back to normal.’ Surviving that… it takes everything.” Shiro took a deep breath to steady himself, “You can’t afford to be kind, or caring, or selfless. And even when every, single, part of you rushes to save somebody,” He paused and made eye contact again, “You have to push it down.”

Keith stood silently for a moment, looking back at Shiro. Sorrow, guilt, regret washed over his face because he hadn’t been able to save Shiro.

Not just Shiro, his brain reminded him. 

Keith shifted his eyes away, staring at his shoes. “Is it really going to be that hard to get him back?” He said softly, the air fragile.

“We still have to try.” 

Keith twitched his lips back and forth, clenching and unclenching his jaw. Rolling the debate over his tongue. He hated to back down from an argument.

“So?...” Shiro questioned, raising an eyebrow and leaning back on his hip. Keith sighed dramatically.

“Fine.” He threw his hands up for good measure, “I’ll give him another chance.”

“Finally! God, I thought I was gonna have to bribe you or something.” Shiro dropped his arms from his chest in exasperation, “I swear, for how much you two care about each other, it’s ridiculously hard to get you to just talk.”

“What?”

Now it was Shiro’s turn to sigh, “Nothing. Just… trying to get this team to function is like pulling teeth. And I very specifically refused my parent’s desire for me to become a dentist.”

Keith gave a breathless laugh, “Ha!” He looked Shiro up and down, “Like you’re any better.”

An affronted look grew across Shiro’s face, “I’m not-” 

Keith took that moment to dash down the hall, away from any more lectures.

“I’m not that bad!... And apologize to Lance!” Shiro shouted out after his rapidly disappearing shape. Keith threw back a rushed ‘will do!’ as he made his escape.

Shiro stood in the hallway, unmoving for a second. Thinking.

“Oh! Number one, you’re still here,” Coran walked out from around a corner, “Did you need something? Why are you just standing in the middle of the hall?”

“No reason…” Shiro paused, “I think I’m just now understanding why my grandmother got paid so much to be a matchmaker.” He stared off into the distance; his face the picture of resignation.

“Ah! A noble profession indeed! Y’know, one could say that I’m responsible for Alfor and Melenor getting together. Pah! The kingdom would have fallen without me!”

Shiro resisted the sudden urge to remind him that it did.

Instead, he listened to Coran regale him with tales of how he saved the castle (“more than once, might I add”), while they walked, side-by-side, through the corridors.

-x-x-x-

Lance ran his hands across the grass. Trying to pick out each blade of green beneath his fingers. He couldn’t.

It made sense, honestly. In a weird sort of way. Same reason the clouds never moved across the picturesque blue sky. Same reason that though he could see the wind shift the grass, he couldn’t feel any breeze on his skin.

It was fake. A hologram. The wonders of alien technology to create a world that seemed so real and yet-

Wetness dripped onto his cheek. 

Lance squeezed his eyes closed tighter and tried to ignore it. To relish in the momentary sense of peace. 

The peace that always came after a fight. As petty as it’d been, his fight with Keith had helped. He needed it; to fight, to fight without restraints or routine practice. Just to fight, to grapple for the right to exist like he had in the-

Something blocked the light in front of him, casting a shadow over his face. He peeked open an eyelid… Just in time to see a blob of saliva dangling right above his eye.

“Kaltenecker!” Lance flung himself out of the cow’s drool range. He groaned, awkwardly rubbing his cheek against his shoulder in a desperate attempt to wipe it off.

“That’s so disgusting!”

“Mooooo,” Kaltnecker glanced up with half-lidded eyes as she continued to eat at the spot where he was just laying.

“I can’t believe you’d betray me like this! Oh, the pain!” Lance put his hand to his forehead dramatically, “How ever will I go on?!” 

Kaltnecker, seemingly unbothered by him, continued chewing. Lance tried to sneak a glimpse at her without breaking character, disappointed to see her lack of reaction.

“Oh, tough crowd, huh?” 

She turned to the side, flicking her tail at him dismissively.

“I bet…” he paused and got to his feet, “THIS’LL change your mind!” Lance jumped at her, aiming for surprise, “Raahhh! Oof.” He hit her side like a brick wall, Kaltnecker sparing him no more than a look.

“I think I’d forgotten how hard it is to mess with cows.” He narrowed his eyes at her, then shrugged and smirked, “Oh, well.. Guess I’ll just have too....” Lance took a couple steps away, before turning back, “Lay on you instead! Ah-Ha!” He leapt onto the cow’s back like a starfish, searching for enough grip to stay attached.

He leaned his head down to her eye-level, “Still nothing, huh girl?” She blinked at him, smacked her lips, …. And then kept chewing.

“Lance?” Both cow and paladin’s heads shot upright at the voice. Hunk stood in the doorway with a bucket and a weird container next to him.

Kaltenecker found this infinitely more exciting than Lance’s efforts at bothering her and a loud ‘MOOO’ came from below Lance. 

Uh oh.

Kaltenecker galloped for the door, suddenly full of energy, hauling Lance along with her as he held on for dear life.

She finally stopped in front of Hunk’s feet, pausing for a moment until-

“Hoe, don't do it-” Lance scrambled to get off her in time, but failed as she plopped down on top of him. Sitting like a dog. 

Lance groaned at the sudden weight, resigned to trying to keep her tail from slapping him in the face.

“Hey there big girl! Excited to see me?” Hunk’s words only served to make her tail slap harder. Lance struggled to lean around her enough to see what he was doing.

Hunk pulled a package of some type of ‘alien-hay-feed’ out of the container at his feet. Hefting it into his arms, he carried it over to the small stall they had for the cow, Kaltenecker following behind him dutifully. Finally releasing Lance.

“Are we sure you’re not giving her too much of that stuff?” Lance groaned and rubbed his sides.

“Nah, Pidge calculated the perfect amount, I just don't think you're supposed to have cows sitting on you.” Hunk waved him off as he emptied the food into the trough. Hunk perked up like he’d remembered something, “Oh! Pidge! I promised her I’d help fix the glitches in the-” 

“Then go, I’m sure Kaltenecker will be fine,” Lance assured him as he got closer.

Hunk glanced from the cow, to Lance, to the bucket he left by the door, “But I have to-” 

Lance followed his line of sight, “Oh! I can do it buddy! Just go do your computer thing,” He smiled at him and went to grab the bucket.

“Are you sure? ‘Cuz I can stay if-” Hunk’s hands started fidgeting as he crumpled up the feed package and came closer.

“Gooo. I’ve done this before! Or did you forget who taught you?” Lance got behind him and playfully started urging him out of the room.

“Who? Your Uncle Leo?” Hunk said as he dug his heels in.

“No, me!” 

“I think I distinctly remember Leo teaching-” Hunk caught Lance’s eyes, joking glare and all, “Fine. Fine, I’ll go. But I’m making ice cream for dessert so make sure to bring the milk by the kitchen so you can help before dinner.” Hunk smiled back at his friend as he was pushed out of the room. It was nice to have someone take over with Kaltenecker, he was finally free to work on stuff with Pidge like he’d been putting off.

Behind the doors, Lance picked up the bucket and faced Kaltenecker with determination. 

“Now you have to pay attention to me, pretty girl.”

-x-x-x-

By the time Lance had finally, finally gotten Kaltenecker to cooperate enough for him to milk her, he’d already wasted half an hour.

So he had absolutely no qualms about leaving her alone in her ‘pasture’, and he was definitely not sulking.

Still, the whole process satisfied something in him. Something about the actions just brought him back to his childhood trips to Uncle Leo’s dairy farm.

And yeah, they were in space, not south eastern Cuba. And yeah, the cow they had was definitely genetically or hormonally modified by aliens to keep producing milk.

But it is what it is. And Lance would take what bits of home he could get.

Home.

A surge of homesickness rattled through him. It ached. A bone deep ache that he hadn’t paid attention to in so long and-

It was quickly pushed out by ringing.

Right. That.

Lance pulled his mind away from thoughts of his family, of any happiness he used to have. It was all gone for him now, and the ringing seemed to hate any happiness he even tried to scrounge together for himself.

Something clicked. If the ringing grew every time Lance thought about his family, or his home or-

Ow. 

With the Galra, when he’d thought the ringing was self-inflicted, that it was his punishment; it’d made sense for his happiness to make it worse. Why should he get to be happy, when he’d taken that from somebody else? Why should he get to keep his family? When he’d ripped someone away from theirs, permanently.

And he’d thought hearing the screams of his opponents, his fights, his kills, his victims was fair. Justified. Why should he get any peace when he’d taken any chance of it for them?

No.

This wasn’t on him. Yes, he deserved the guilt he felt. And yes, one day, he’d see retribution for his actions, but that wasn’t what this was.

This was Haggar.

Haggar trying to rid him of his memories. Of his home, his family. Of his team. Haggar trying to rid him of his hope.

Rid him of weakness, a voice whispered, No weaknesses, nothing to chance.

The memory of that phrase made him grit his teeth. 

Haggar was such a bitch when she was being condescending.

Lance took a break from his thoughts to peek his head into the kitchen. Still empty, thank god.

He loved Hunk, he really did, but there was no way he was sitting through another awkward team meal. Especially not right before they did something potentially hazardous to his mental state.

Again.

He quickly dropped the milk on the counter and left as fast as he could. He had somewhere to be, things to do, and a theory to test.

But first, a change of clothes.

x-x-x

Keith was sick of looking for Lance. I mean, seriously! The guy is over six foot, he shouldn't be that hard to find! Keith grumbled as he turned another corner in his search.

It was just his luck that he’d been chosen to ‘collect’ Lance. Shiro wasn't even subtle about it! ‘Give him another chance’ ‘He deserves it’ ‘blah de blah de blah de blah.’ 

“Hey Dipshit,” Keith glanced down at the phone in his hand, not at all surprised to see Pidge’s face on the screen.

“Yes?” He said irritably.

“He’s in the pool room.”

“Fine. Meet you guys in the Lounge room.” Keith quickly shut off the phone and spun around to go the right direction.

Of course Lance would be wasting time swimming while they were all waiting for him. It was becoming unfortunately normal for him to skip team meals. And everybody else just let him! Shiro never let Keith skip meals. 

Keith opened the pool doors fully ready to shout at Lance, --

Only to find himself stopped short and mesmerized by the blue paladin.

Now, one thing you have to understand is, Keith grew up in a desert. He didn’t really like pools. The community pools were generally cesspits of germs and packed to the brim during the Arizona summers. And that’s if he could convince a foster parent to bring him along.

This was decidedly not the case for Lance.

Even from the doorway, Keith could tell where Lance had haphazardly thrown his towel to the side before jumping in. And based on the amount of water collecting on the sides of the pool, he’d been here for a while.

Keith watched as Lance flipped off the wall, turning into yet another lap, without even a pause. He hadn’t even realized how close he’d gotten until he felt water splash his boots. 

He growled at the wetness soaking into his feet. Shouting it was then.

“Lance!” Keith yelled. Nothing, “Lance! Lance! LANCE!” 

There! A stutter in the smoothness of his actions.

Lance flipped around at the other end of the pool and started back towards Keith. 

“Finally!” Keith crossed his arms and waited for Lance to finish. Meaning that he’d completely missed Lance’s smirk forming under the water. And that he was utterly unprepared for Lance to kick an entire wave of water at him the moment he was close enough.

Now Keith really shouted.

“What the hell Lance!” He yelled, then continued trying to get his jacket off before it would be ruined.

Lance scoffed playfully as he hefted himself out of the water, “It was worth a try to see if that mullet was any sort of salvageable when wet,” He grabbed his towel and turned a cursory glance at Keith, “News Flash: the answer is no, there’s no hope at all for the mullet, it’d be a mercy just to cut it all off now.”

Keith was left a little shocked by the almost normal comment from Lance, before he finally registered what he’d said. 

“My hair is not that bad,” He growled, “And your hair’s not any better now. So there,”

“Oh, I’m well aware my hair is a disaster but unlike you, I don't make a routine of hacking it off in the bathroom.”

“It’s efficient!” Keith threw his hands up.

“It’s ratchet at best, Keith. But still, I am going to have to cut it soon, it kept getting in my eyes on my free-stroke.” 

“Wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t swimming for like 3 hours straight.” Keith said snidely. Lance paused to glare at Keith, then went back to wrapping the towel on his head.

Once he’d finished he started walking towards the door, making Keith follow, “Did you know that as it turns out, the pool’s easier to access when you actually go through the elevator entrance? Rather than some off-ramp vent airway?” Insert pointed look at Keith. Insert Keith blatantly ignoring said look.

“It was your idea that got us up there.”

“It’s not my fault you’ve never seen Emperor’s New Groove. Besides, I actually have a reason for swimming this long.” Lance answered as the aforementioned elevator started moving. 

Keith scoffed, “Yeah, I’m sure you have plenty of excuses, Lance. And yet, you still missed dinner, and you’re still late to the team meeting.”

This time it was Lance who growled, “Let me talk, Keith, I’m serious, this is about the ringing.” That made Keith pay attention. He looked at Lance next to him, startled a bit by how stern he looked. Especially with a towel piled on his head.

“I’ve always loved swimming, and it’s been years since I’ve had the opportunity. The Garrison only allows the pool to be used in simulations, not for leisure.”

“Really? You call doing a hundred laps ‘leisure’? Wow, Iverson must’ve been so upset.” Keith rolled his eyes and ignored the look he got from Lance.

“Swimming makes me happy, it reminds me of my family, my home, everything I love about earth.” Lance said wistfully. But Keith’s eyes caught the slightest wince at the end of his statement. “And something that I’ve just now realized, is that Haggar didn't just want me to fight, she wanted me to lose hope too. So every time I think about my family, or I think about Earth, or even you guys, the team, I-” another wince, “The ringing gets worse.

Keith stopped dead in his tracks, not even noticing that the elevator had opened to let them out. Lance turned back to hold the door for him, and Keith rushedly stepped out, once again following Lance mindlessly.

“So you mean-.. Haggar tried to-” He couldn’t figure out how to phrase this. Was there really any good way to say, ‘Hey, an evil witch tried to make you into her own personal death drone,’?

“Yeah. And it worked.” Lance said softly. Keith hated that tone, he was becoming uncomfortably familiar with it, and much preferred Lance’s sarcasm. 

“I mean, I think it worked. Not so much now that I know, but.. When I was still there… Before I knew what the ringing was… I thought it was fair that I wouldn’t be able to think about my family without it hurting. I caused so much pain there, it was only fair I felt some as well.”

“Lance, that’s not-” He started through clenched teeth, but Lance cut him off.

“And I’ve always known what it takes to get rid of the ringing. I needed some time to think. And I needed to get away from the ringing for a while. Swimming does that for me. It makes me work hard enough to drive back the ringing, but I still love it, I can still enjoy it. It’s the one thing I have that hasn’t been ruined by all of this.” Lance’s fists were clenched tightly and he stopped walking.

“And you needed three hours for that?” Keith asked doubtfully. He hadn't realized they’d already reached Lance’s room.

“Like I said: it gave me some time to think,” Lance turned to face him fully, sucking in a deep breath, “I realized that I shouldn’t have fought you like that. I was desperate, but I crossed a line. I said some things I shouldn’t have and I wish I could’ve stopped myself because you didn’t deserve that from me. Not saying you don't need some sense knocked into you, but that wasn't my place.” Lance gave a small smirk, but it faded quickly, “I can’t keep lashing out at you guys like this. First it was Shiro, and then you. Who’s next, Pidge? Hunk? Coran?” Lanced sighed heavily, “I really am sorry about all of it. And you don't have to say anything back, I just didn’t want to leave it like this.” Lance barely waited before stepping away into his room, letting the door slide between them.

Keith stood there for a second.

He was really getting sick of doors closing between him and Lance. It’d happened three times today alone!

And what the hell was he supposed to say to Lance apologizing? The suspiciously Shiro-sounding little voice in his head could shut up about ‘just forgive him.’ No way.

But it was just… ugh! Every time Keith tried to think of the reason why he couldn’t, it was an actual reason. Keith hated excuses. They made him sound pathetic and weak. And honestly, screw that.

He just wanted things to go back to the way they were. Before. When Keith could argue with Lance and not nearly get his nose broken. No matter what Coran said about it.

They’d been on the road to a tenuous ‘friendship’ or whatever Lance kept calling frenemies. And… and… and he kind of liked it. Being friends that is. Because he’d never had friends. He had people he fought with. And that wasn’t what he wanted Lance to become. He wanted more than that. He-

“You’re still here?”

Keith would deny to the day he died that Lance Mcclain had actually managed to startle him. “Yeah….?” Keith said slowly, then furrowed his eyebrows, “What, did you think I’d leave?” 

And for Keith, all the excuses in the world fell flat against the tiny, half-surprised smile on Lance’s face.

“Then let’s get going, Mullethead, there’s no use making them wait for both of us.” Lance said as he smiled and turned down the hallway.

“You’re the one that made us late,” 

“Pffff, I made me late, you just decided to stick around and you should know by now that I have no problem being late.” Lance propped a hand up on his hip.

“Oh believe me, we’re all very knowledgeable about your timekeeping skills, except I don't understand how you’re late at all, considering you’ve got legs the size of giraffes.” Keith may have grumbled through that last statement. 

But really, every step he took was easily double the size of Keith’s, it was ridiculous. He kept having to shuffle to keep up with him!

“What can I say? I’m just pumped to get to work,” Lance plastered on a sarcastically fake smile and gave him a tight thumbs-up.

Keith crossed his arms as he rolled his eyes, “You know we have to do this, it’s the only way to-”

“Yeah yeah, spare me the lecture. I get it already.” Lance waved his hand at Keith like he could physically swat the conversation out of the air. 

“Who’s lecturing Lance?” Pidge’s voice cut in when the automatic doors opened at their presence.

“Nobody. Absolutely nobody,” Lance said as he made a bee-line to the couches, “We’re going to do this, get it over with and then put it all behind us. Good? Capische? Great. Let’s fire it up, Coran.”

“Don't you dare. Fire would ruin the headbands irreparably.” Coran said, clutching the headbands to his chest.

“Relax, Coran. It's just a figure of speech. It means Lance wants us to get started,” Shiro patted him placatingly as he passed the man to sit down next to Keith.

“Yeah, only time Lance’s ever been in a rush and he still wasn’t on time. Go figure. Worked out for me though, more time to process my code.” Pidge finally pulled herself away from her laptop, relinquishing Hunk to sit next Lance.

He whispered something about ice cream and new milk to Lance that Keith couldn't really hear, but Coran was already passing out the headbands. 

“I’ve already modified the quintessence modules in each of the headbands,” Allura moved towards the group, “But I’ll still need to activate yours individually, Lance, so that you all end up on the same plane.” 

“You won’t be joining us?” Keith added when he saw Lance hesitate at the request.

“No,” Allura paused, “Unfortunately, this will require that I act as a guide from the outside. Coran will help me monitor your quintessence levels so I can keep them stable and stay focused.”

“I’m sorry, guide? That implies the ability to get lost; is that a possibility? I mean, we’ve been to the astral plane before, right? So it should be just like that, we’re not going to get blindsided by some evil-astral creature, are we?” Hunk rattled off the random worries flitting through his head, some of which were slightly valid. At least to Keith’s perspective. Can’t be too prepared, right?

“None of that, we just need to keep the headbands from bouncing back like they did last time. Allura is simply guiding the quintessence stream around all you.” Coran chipped in as he went back to the princess’s side. Hunk visibly sagged in relief.

“Lance?” Oh right, apparently Shiro was the only one who remembered Lance still hadn’t answered Allura’s question. She’d need to get really close to him for this, something they’d all subconsciously tried to avoid.

“You can trust us, Lance. You have to for this to work.”

“I know.” Lance sighed and placed the band on his head. As Allura approached, Keith watched Lance rub his finger over something on his other hand. And yet it looked like every muscle in his body went taut at Allura’s touch.

Keith could barely catch a glimpse of Lance’s breathing picking up before the world in front of him exploded with stars. The astral plane.

It’d been a while since an astral projection had been so stable. Keith looked out and could see his teammates standing around him. Even Lance, to a degree, though he was shrouded by a thick fog. They could see it now, because unlike last time, they were actually in the astral plane, not just mentally. However, they could still feel the gap in the Voltron link. 

The gap where Lance was supposed to be.

“Guys?” Lance’s voice sounded anxious, though it edged into frantic surprisingly fast, “Guys? Guys, I can't see anything, why can’t I-” 

“Lance, calm down buddy, we’re here.” Hunk’s voice echoed across the void. Keith could hear it in the astral plane and through his actual ears. Hopefully Lance could too.

“Why can’t I feel any of you? Or see you?”

“Just-- give- me--  a minute-- I-” Allura’s voice was tense with effort. Keith watched in amazed confusion as the fog around Lance started to shift. 

The rest of the team approached it and Keith followed. He tried to put his hand through it, as if he could just reach through and pull Lance out. But his hand hit a barrier.

The light blue fog finally whirled itself into a more distinct form as it settled.

A wall. 

The outside shimmered as magic seemed to ripple across it.

“You all will have to take it from here.” Allura’s strained voice cut through once again, “I was able to shift and gather the quintessence of the block but I fear I do not have the ability to do more without losing my grip on it. It’s up to you, Paladins.”

“Absolutely, Princess,” Keith turned back to the wall with determination. 

Hunk and Pidge had already started pushing on the barrier. Yellow and green magic shimmered across the surface where they touched it. All of it eventually fading back to blue as it spread out farther.

Keith’s hand caused red to join the colors. And he could see black start to ripple from Shiro’s position as well.

But all of the color seemed to disappear too quickly, none of it touching each other. Just evaporating into the shifting blue of the barrier.

“I can only barely feel you, you guys,” Lance’s voice came from the other side, “You still just look like blurry shadows. Are we sure this is gonna work?”

“Lance is right, this isn’t working, you guys.” Hunk’s voice cut in.

“Then keep trying,” Keith ground out, “We’re not just going to give up.” He clenched his jaws tighter, his teeth starting to ache under the pressure.

“No, we’re not. But maybe…” Pidge leaned away from the wall, placing her hands on her hips and looking up at it. She suddenly snapped her head to their leader, “Shiro, we need to connect all of our energies. Instead of trying to put pressure on the entire thing, we just need to concentrate on one point. If we can crumple one part, maybe the rest will come down with it.”

“That sounds like a big maybe, Pidge, I don't know…” Hunk added as he pulled back as well.

Shiro looked at Pidge with a question in his eyes. Keith had seen it enough to know what it meant, ‘Are you sure?’

Pidge nodded with pursed lips.

“Alright, everybody, come over to me and Keith.” Shiro slipped right into leader mode, bringing the rest of the team closer, “We need to connect all of the magic we’ve been setting off and we need to make sure it works.” He motioned Keith even closer.

Keith briefly stepped away before placing his hands back down about a foot away from Shiro’s. The red light flowed out, just as it had before, moving towards the black tendrils.

They collided harshly, but stuck together. The magic fused to each other and Keith found he could no longer pull his hands away. By the look he got from Shiro, it was the same for him.

“Wow, I felt that,” Lance’s voice abruptly cut in, “What the hell was that?”

“We’re not quite sure. But we’re about to do it again, be ready.” Shiro beckoned for the other two paladins, “Pidge, you next, right below Keith’s.”

Pidge cautiously placed her hands down and they all watched as the green reached out for Keith and Shiro’s. It snapped into place with a flash of light, the wall shuddered allowing Keith to catch a glimpse of Lance through the fog.

He looked…

“Lance, what’s wrong with your face?”

“Nothing’s wrong with my face! What’s wrong with yours?!” He said incredulously.

“But I saw…” Now Keith was just confused, “I saw a glimpse of you through the wall…. You looked injured.”

“What? But I’m not-”

“Injured how?” Shiro said sharply.

“Like he’d just gone ten rounds with a blender and a sentient punching bag, Shiro. It didn’t look good.”

“Excuse you, I look fabulous no matter what.” Lance’s affronted protests were heard through the wall.

“Lance, do we need to stop?” Shiro asked, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine Shiro,” Lance’s eye roll was audible, “Keithy-boy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Shiro looked at him warily, “Keith?”

“If he says go for it, go for it. Who am I to police the actions of an idiot?” Keith tried to sound casual as he shrugged, but he still wished he could see Lance instead of just hear his scoff.

“Alright.” Shiro gave a short, decisive nod, “Hunk, get over here, Lance get ready again, we’re going through with this.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” 

Keith could visibly see Shiro glare Hunk and Pidge down from responding back with ‘I can’t hear you.’ He, of course, would also deny having the spongebob song stuck in his head for the rest of the day.

Hunk hesitantly placed his hands to the wall, surprised when it jerked him closer like a magnet. 

Yellow started flowing out, reaching for Pidge, then Shiro, then finally making contact with the Red of Keith’s own. Each time glowed brighter than the last.

The world around them rumbled.

“There! I saw him!” Pidge shouted out.

“I saw him too! Keith was right, he looks hurt!”

The fog had gaps in it now, places that were thinner than others, and some thicker spaces were shaded a darker blue.

Through one of the gaps, Keith could see Lance drop to one knee.

“Lance!” “Lance! What’s wrong!?” “Are you okay?!”

“I- I’m fine you guys. That blast just knocked me off my feet.” Lance lifted his head to look at them, “I always knew Keith would give me a killer headache, but I never expected it from the rest of you,” He gave them a grin that looked like it should hurt. But it seemed like he didn’t even notice the injuries on his face. 

“Wait, the injuries, they keep changing,” Pidge pointed out, “Why do they keep changing?” Keith looked closer, she was right. The injuries faded in and out on Lance, never the same.

“Seriously guys, I have no idea what you’re talking abou-”

“AS GREAT as it is to see you speaking as a team, I don't think the Princess can hold all of you in the Astral Plane for much longer.” Coran’s voice echoed around them, followed closely by Allura’s.

“It is true, my grip on the quintessence is slipping, something is interfering with it. I fear I may not be able to keep it stable for-”

“What the hell is that!” Hunk’s shout forced Keith’s head to snap towards him as he watched in horror..

The pale fog surrounding Lance was starting to change color. Purple leeching across the surface, like ink in water. It trampled the blue, growing as it surged towards the team.

“Guys, you’re starting to fade out again. What’s going on? Why is it going dark? You guys?” Lance’s shouts jumped through the barrier, but no one could spare a second to respond. The world rumbled again.

A splotch of purple got close enough to touch a tendril of black, seeming satisfied when it leapt away from the color in time with Shiro’s jerk.

“I know what this is,...” Shiro answered, fear building in his voice, “This is druid magic! It’s trying to get to Voltron!”

Keith caught a final glimpse of Lance’s worried face, before the wall started to close off again. And the purple got stronger as Lance pulled back.

“Shiro! We can’t let them get Voltron! She can’t-” Lance sounded more desperate than before.

“I know Lance. Everybody! Channel your lions, we have to push this back.” Shiro’s statement ended with a growl as he pushed more into the quintessence of the barrier. Keith followed suit and could see his team do the same.

Voltron’s colors rushed out against the purple. Even if the Black seemed to push from behind the others, Keith could feel his team hold strong against the ominous pressure.

The entire wall of fog swirled with color now. Not just blue, but Red, Yellow, Green, and Black all curling across each other in smooth cooperation.

Keith had to grit his teeth to keep the flow of power steady. And by the looks of it, everyone else was in the same boat.

“Shiro, it’s taking everything we’ve got just to keep the druid magic back, how are we going to break the wall?”

“I don't know, Keith,” Shiro raised his voice to rise above the barrier, “Lance, we’ve got the druids pushed back, for now, and we’re holding strong!,” The fog returned the thinned state it had been in before, revealing Lance in the middle, curled in on himself. He looked up at them, seeming more weary than he had before.

“Is there anything you can do from your side?”

Lance shakily stood up, almost losing his balance as the ground shook around them. Keith watched Lance steady himself before reaching for the wall. 

The wall glowed a bit brighter, and Keith could feel the pressure even out across the five of them. The bond grew stronger. 

But it wasn’t enough.

“Paladins! You must hurry! If we are to do this, we must do it now! I cannot hold it for much longer!” Allura’s words made Keith look up to see she was correct. The world, the Astral Plane, was quite literally falling apart around them.

A loud thumping sound shook them as shards of the sky fell to the ground.

“Hey, uh- guys,” Hunk’s leg shot out to kick incessantly at his shins, “Hey, guys, guys, guys!”

“What, Hunk!?” Keith snapped as he looked at him.

“I think something’s coming towards us!” Hunk shouted. Keith turned to follow his line of sight. Sure enough, there was a growing blue light at the horizon, slowly getting bigger as it got closer.

“What is that?” By now the whole team was looking at it, Pidge trying to get a proper look with her short arms still stuck to the barrier.

The thumping sound got louder, mixing in with the rumbling of the collapsing Astral Plane.

“Focus, team!” Shiro ground out beside him. The pull of quintessence from Keith got stronger as Hunk and Pidge’s focus shifted. It almost hurt to keep the flow open.

“What are you guys seeing? Is it something bad?” Lance’s voice sounded in his ear. When he looked back, Keith was surprised to find Lance almost right against the barrier, their eyes meeting.

“We don't know what-”

“Is that-?” Pidge asked in an unsure voice.

“I think it is!” Hunk sounded giddy, making Keith look away again, “It’s the Blue Lion!”

The thumping sound grew louder as the Blue Lion’s shape became clearer, now recognizable as the sound of paws running towards them.

Hunk cheered, losing focus even more, and Keith nearly stumbled under the weight now resting on Shiro, Lance and himself.

“Pidge! Hunk! If Blue is coming, then we need to be ready. Focus on the barrier!” Shiro commanded. Pidge immediately turned back to help them. Hunk…. not so much.

“She’s not slowing down. She’s not slowing down! I repeat, she is not slowing down! We are about to be crushed by a giant charging Space Lion!” Hunk’s signature anxious voice filled the air. Pidge looked back.

“Actually, I think she’s getting smaller…she’s almost normal sized.”

‘Normal-sized’ was an exaggeration. Blue was still several times larger than a normal ‘Earth’ lion. A fact becoming readily apparent as she got closer, and again, did not slow down.

“The Blue Lion knows what she’s doing. Get it together you two, we need to keep this wall stabilized.” Shiro used his Galran hand to forcibly turn Hunk’s head around to the wall. The purple had already started to come back the moment the team wasn’t pushing at full strength.

“Yep, uh huh, got it, focus on the evil purple magic, not the giant lion. Can do, boss man. Can, do.” Hunk rambled under his breath, still sneaking glances out of the corner of his eyes.

The thumping of Blue’s feet was deafening; and when she roared, every paladin, even Shiro, had no choice but to look back at her in reverence. 

She charged forwards with all the might of a mother, crashing towards Lance without pause for the wall between them.

All remnants of purple were pushed out of existence as Blue’s magic rushed through the barrier, scattering the world around them. 

The paladins were thrown back into the real world with a shock, Allura stumbling backwards into the waiting arms of Coran.

Lance was laying on the floor in front of them, a smile on his face. There were even a few joyful tears gathered at the corner of his eyes

“Lance?”

“She’s back.” He whispered, the words coming out in disbelief. “She’s back. I can feel her again.” If possible, Lance’s smile grew even bigger as he sat up, the tears falling down his cheeks. “Blue, I missed you so much, girl. I missed you so much!” A rumble echoed through the castle, very clearly originating from the hangers.

“Don’t worry Lance, I think she missed you too,” Hunk smiled back. The pure happiness radiating from them was contagious, despite how exhausted everyone felt.

Pidge moved closer, peering up at Lance curiously.

“So, Lance,” She paused,

“Do you remember?”

First Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/613092735756402688/chips-and-salsa-chp-1

Next Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/653555387542405120/chips-salsa-chapter-9