#Like throwing Red into the scroll? I get that. I understand why they did that. But why do it while making sure he didn't put up a fight??

[justmeclover]

These two were done dirty, man. Weren't even given a second chance. I mean you SAW what Nezha did with the SPIRIT/SOUL/POWERS OF THE JADE FUCKING EMPEROR. I think he should be cut some slack! If her sonic the hedgehog lookin ass can't do shit in battle then how could he seal away the Jade Emperor's powers????

I'm not even getting into why Red is an mvp. You all know the reason.

[baohanhanesel]

Calling them by their Call-signs.

Mentioned: John Soap Mactavish, Simon Ghost Riley

The reader is a civilian. The scenarios are separate. The reader is not gender specific.

John Soap Mactavish

"Soap!" You shouted from the other room, which earned you fast footsteps to the said room. The door was swung open and there stood John Mactavish in all his glory.

You had a basket in your hands, leaning it against your hip and holding it upright.

John was frowning at you, unusually quiet. It was obvious he wanted you to have the first word.

You, all too aware of what you had done with the name-call, smiled innocently and started speaking.

"Do you have any black clothes I should throw in the bin?"

John audibly relaxed before cursing.

"Yer think dats funny, hen?"

"What do you mean, Soap?"

"Nae. Nae. Nae. Dats nae reserved for ya. Not when we're home."

You shrugged. You knew exactly why. Soap was who he was on duty. The man who would kill with orders and clean the field with efficiency. The name meant John was on track. That he was ready to make a run for it. And it being spoken in this domestic setting...? It made him upset. The fact you were doing it knowingly? He was annoyed.

"I don't understand, Soap. Why don't you want me to call you by your name?"

John's eyebrows furrow, and he lets out an exhausted grunt before making his way to you. He grabs the bin and just throws it to the ground before scooping you off of the ground.

You don't act surprised, you were kinda rooting for this. A grin betrays your play of innocence and stretches wide on your face.

"Soap aye? Soap. Fucking Soap? Fine. Let's go w' it."

"What--"

"Let me remind mah name, bonnie. Maybe muscle memory will help ya?"

John throws you on the bed a little roughly, and you can see just how annoyed he is.

"Wait John--"

"Och, it is John now? There we fucking go. Told ya muscle memory helps."

You grumbled, face incredibly red and a smirk accompanying it.

"Wait where are you going?!" You sat up abruptly, about to stop John because he made a move to take a step away from the bed.

"... Aye ah wasn't serious... Ah would never initiate without... ye ken... That's nae very... okay ta just throw ye like that cause lil ol' me was pished."

"John if you do not get your hands on me I swear to god---"

"Do nae have to tell me twice."

You add the clothes in the bin after.

Simon Ghost Riley.

You grab the remote and raise an eyebrow at Simon. He isn't looking at you, he is looking at his phone; scrolling away.

"Hey Ghost, you won't watch with me?"

Simon snaps his head up the moment the name is out of your mouth. He stops. Looks at you with widened eyes and a piss poor expression. What did he do?

"Sorry, love. Yes, yes I will."

"Hop close big boy." You pat the spot next to you and Simon plops himself right next to you. What did he even do?

He just sighs, throwing an arm around your shoulders and looking at the screen.

"Ghost, you think we got popcorn?"

"What did you just call me, love?"

"Ghost? Your name?"

Simon frowns. His blonde lashes flutter aggravatedly. He huffs in annoyance and slowly wraps a strand of your hair around his point finger.

"Since when I am Ghost to ya?"

"What are you saying?" You fake innocence, but don't make the mistake of looking at his face. You can't. You know how upset he must be- how annoyed he must look.

Ghost is, well, the Ghost. Ghost is cold, he is a weapon. He is a man who dug his own grave and crawled out of it like the legend he is. He is no man. He is more than that. Simon thought he had told you that. That the Ghost wasn't meant for your lips. He was always Simon with you in his house. He'd never dare to look at you when he is Ghost. When he is dirty, when he is corrupt.

The dark memories make him frown deeper. His eyes darken noticeably and you think about giving up on this name calling here and now.

"Ghost?" Simon parrots, then he laughs.He laughs, with tears in his eyes. "You think that's funny?"

"You are laughing...?"

"Call me that again."

"Simon, love--"

"No, none of that. Call me by my name."

"Are you sure I--" You turn to look at him. That's not the reaction you thought you would be triggering.... You clear your throat. Asking if he is sure is stupid. "Ghost."

"That's it, you want the Ghost?" Simon hooks his fingers all around your hair and grabs a fistful.

"Ghost, please, I was just joking." You are sweating. You look into Ghost's eyes; they are not as bright. His thoughts are not very bright either...

He grabs your hair and makes you face him, rotating your head however he likes gently with the grip he has on your hair. His lips catches yours, and immediately drowns you into a deep kiss.

The dark thoughts, the memories... All of them flicker away as if your lips was all he needed all along. His mind clears, and he can't even feel anything but a strange giddiness. He doesn't let it show on his face, or the pace of the kiss.

When you part away, you pant for air. Your lungs are burning and heart is skipping multiple beats. "My love..."

"Shhh shhh..."

It is no surprise that Ghost is a petty man. It is a surprise that it is turning you on. You swallow hard, his hand pulls your hair and positions your head however he likes. He has a go at your neck, down your collarbone and all under your jaw.

His heart is light, his mind is empty. He smiles as he presses his lips all over your warm skin.

You stop when Ghost has left your torso bare of cloth.

His eyes search for a hint of discomfort in your body, he finds nothing akin to it. Not with you. Never with you.

"Are you mad at me?" You barely manage, mind too foggy.

"I am having a good time. Are you mad at me?"

"For pulling my hair?"

"And for stripping your chest bare."

You laugh, holding his face in-between your hands. "I am having a good time, Simon."

"Y'know... I don't mind being the Ghost with you."

"No?"

"No."

[delulu-is-da-solulu]

𝓓𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓽.:｡+•

⌦ .｡.:*♡Valentine's Day special˚ ◌༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ

(tmnt fanfic spin-off fic)

2k12! Donnie x reader

Hurt/fluff

A/N: Before I start this I wanna explain what this fic is. I'm really excited for Valentine's Day, it's my favorite holiday, so I wanted to post a fic in the context of my actual series that doesn't actually follow the story. so if you're okay with that, then let's start. <3

word count- 1600

While in your room scrolling through Tumblr and listening to music, you hear a tap on your window. Scince theres only four people you know that enter homes vian window, you get up to open it. “Hey Don. what are you doing her-” When you looked up from your phone you saw Doonies face, puffy, with strained red eyes.

He comes in, and instantly tumbles onto your bed. You don't need him to tell you what happened, today is Valentine's Day, Donnie has been working on something for weeks, and well… he’s Donnie. “D- did she not like it?”

“No, she did like it. She just didn't like me,” he curls up in a ball, and ruins your freshly made bed. “I- I don't know what I did wrong?”

“Donnie, you didn't do anything wrong she just didn’t like you.” You lay down on your bed next to him, while patting his shell in an attempt to comfort him. 

“Well, why not!” He jerks up, you jump back startled. Donnie’s never been aggressive towards you, he looks more mad than he does sad, and that bothers you beyond extent.

“Hey don't scream at me 'cause you got rejected! She doesn’t like you, get over it!” you push him off your bed, and look down at him irritated. “Donnie, I understand you liked April, but she’s like the only girl you know! your ‘feelings’ for her are just the way you react to seeing a woman.”

“Then what are you, a hermaphrodite?”

You burst out in laughter, “What!?”

“You heard me! If I’m attracted to every woman I see you mustn’t be one, cuz I’m not drooling over you!” He pokes your shoulders over and over again, till you're stating his hands away like flies.

“Well, screw you asshole!” the two of you started laughing together, “w- well my dicks probably way bigger than yours!”

“Wow, you've only been a man for a couple of seconds and you’re already trying to start a dick-measuring contest. I can feel the testosterone radiating off you.”

“Yup!”

 Donnie looks up at you with a somewhat remorseful face. “Hey, uhh… (Y/N), I’m sorry about lashing out at you. I don’t know why I did that.” he lifts himself off the floor of your room and rolls onto your bed. He rests his head down on your lap and cuddles up to your thighs. “Will I ever find love?”

You let out a light chuckle, “Oh woe is you. Donnie, it feels like people get mutated every day, one day someone might get mutanted and you might like them. And the Krang even being a thing proves that aliens exist! Who says you can't get an extraterrestrial baddie?”

“You flatter me, (y/n) if I can’t get a girl as beautiful, smart, and caring as April, what makes you think any other girl will want me?”

“Looking at how pathetic you are now, I have absolutely noooo clue. But you’ll make it work, you always make it work.” you pat the back of his head, much to Donnie's irritation.

“You know how much I hate that.” he pinches you.

“And you know how much I hate you.” you slap the back of his neck, and he jerks back holding neck as it stings, while you chuckle to yourself.

An hour or two later of just rotting in your bed, Donnie perks up with his "I’ve got an idea!" eyes. “Is your mom home, or siblings!?”

“No. why do you ask?" All of a sudden he picks you up by your thighs and he starts to go downstairs with your legs flailing. “Donnie what are you doing, put me down?”

you scream before you’re thrown on the couch, with Donnie sitting next to you. You were gasping for air, “D- dude, what’s your… FUCKING… PROBLEM!?”

“It’s Valentine's Day,” he said as if he didn’t just forcibly remove you from your warm comfortable bed.

“So?” you throw a pillow at him, which he catches before it can touch his face.

“What else do two single, hopeless romantics, do on Valentine's Day when neither of them have a valentine?” 

“Cry?”

“Already did that.”

“Watch romance movies?”

“Bingo,” he says with a cheeky smile, "so I’m thinking, of Mamamia, Enchanted, or my personal favorite. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!”

“Every time we watch a movie together, you say Beauty and the Beast.” you chuckle, while his once confident and excited face becomes slightly embarrassed. “What about the princess bride? Ooh, or Labyrinth!”

“You always say Labyrinth! It doesn’t matter how many times you watch it, you won't become Sarah, and get to dance with David Bowie, in an all-white puffy ball gown.”

“Damn, you can’t just let a girl dream?”

“You crushed mine of rewatching Beauty and the Beast for the 85th time, so NO.”

It took about ten minutes for you and Donnie to both decide on a movie, but when you did the two of you were so into it.

“Anastasia.” you sigh, with a hint of whimsy in your voice.

“It never misses,��� Donnie took another chocolate out of the box. “I thought you didn’t have a valentine, who got you these chocolates?”

“My dad.” you open the second box, “These ones are way better, I always open the shitty ones first.”

“These chocolates aren’t shitty, I really like them. And that's really nice of your dad to try and make you feel special.” Donnie's smile is truly adorable, even when it’s so obviously forced it can't help but make you grin. I guess people are referring to Don when they say, "a smile is contagious."

“Yeah, his are good, but I like the ones I bought better.”

He looks at you confused, “You bought yourself chocolates? If I knew you wanted some I would’ve gotten it for you. Now I feel bad.”

“No, I got them for someone else. But I decided it’d be best to not give it to them.”

“Wha- why not!?” The look of shock on his face is enough to make you choke on your drink. As you start coughing Donnie starts patting your back, trying to help.

“Hee- ha, hee- ha” As you were wheezing, you glanced back at Donnie and his face was even worse. If you had your phone you’d take a picture and meme it. “Donnie stop!”

“Stop what!?”

“You’re face! It’s killing me please…” After a couple of minutes, you managed to regain yourself. “Okay, okay I'm good now.” you look back at Donnie and he’s just waiting.

“You’re done?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why a pretty girl, decided to get a guy chocolates on Valentine's Day, and just thinks to herself 'he wouldn’t like me.' and gives up!”

“Donnie-”

“I’m a mutated turtle and I gave it a shot! Did it land? No. it didn’t even hit the target. But I tried! What kind of psycho wouldn’t like you? You’re great to talk to, you're so talented, you’re pretty, you're fun, and it’s impossible not to like you!”

“He already likes a girl. The two of us are friends and he likes a girl that isn’t me. And he’s been obsessed with her for a while, I would have given him the chocolates but- then it would’ve made things weird.”

Donnie was confused and angry, at this mystery guy he’s never met, and now he feels bad for ranting about something he didn’t know shit about. “I- I didn’t mean.” he felt bad for what he said… at least you think he felt bad, you had no clue why he suddenly had a poker face on.

“Donnie, Donnie?” you wave your hand over his face before he looks back at you.

“Why do you like him?”

“What?”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious when you like someone. You don’t exactly hide the way you feel about people, so I’m shocked he didn’t pick up on it. I mean if he was that great if a friend, he’d know the way you feel about him, that’s all I’m saying…” 

he started tapping his finger on his knee as we continued to watch the movie. Donnie tapping only occurs when he’s stressed or mad. But why would he be mad at?... then you got a great idea.

“Hey, Donnie.”

“Yeah?” he looked down at your hands.

“Want his chocolates?”

“Wh- for me!?”

“Yeah, you’re a way better guy than Danish anyway. You deserve then Donnie.” you grab his hands and place them in his palms, but not before kissing him on his cheek. “I know I'm not April, but I’m still a girl, so you should start swooning sooner or later.” you chuckled before laying back on the couch.

You took his attention away from the movie, and you had it for the rest of the night. He didn’t eat the chocolates, he put them on the coffee table and said he was gonna eat them when he got home. Instead, he cuddled up to you, in a totally ‘platonic’ way.

“Don, I appreciate the affection but don’t you think this is weird?”

“No, you have socks on. We should watch Atlantis next.”

“I’m always down to watch Atlantis. But you’re getting up to get the remote.”

At 4 am, Donnie you two finish Hunchback of Notre Dame, and you fell asleep on the couch. He cleaned up the living room so your mom wouldn’t get mad, then he picked you up and tucked you into bed.

“Thank you (Y/N)" he places a kiss on your forehead. Then he leaves out the window.”

You wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but on your way back to your bed you see something on your windowsill. You go over to see what it is and it’s a beautiful parasol, with a sticker on it, a purple turtle.

Thank you sooo much for reading!!! If you liked this please give me some feedback on ur favorite parts so I can get better at writing (cuz I’m really not the best) and I hope u have a good day <3

[avatqr]

Please Stay [zuko x reader]

-please enjoy this one shot I came up with in the middle of night:3

-some extra info you might want: You are apart a noble family in the fire nation, Your father is a Commanding officer and serving in the war

Things have been so great with Zuko for such a long time. Since his he has returned from his banishment and started talking to his father again things were looking up.

We spent all of our days together, running through the royal palace, trying the best restaurants in town, sitting down and having tea with his uncle. I have one specific memory though, I wasn't doing so well. I was running a high fever and throwing up nonstop. The smell did not leave my bathroom for weeks! Zuko stuck by me the entire time though. He made me soup, tea, fetched me water, held my hair the whole deal. I could never thank him enough for that. Things were going well for not just him but for us. I loved him so much and he loved me. That's how it always was. That's how it was always supposed be. But after a few months something changed. I don't know when I started to notice the changes. Zuko was suddenly distant, less excited. It was was almost like the fire in his eyes has went out. I spent countless nights awake in my bed worrying about what could be wrong. Was it me? Did I make him angry?

I was walking through the palace, I had finally heard my father was back from Ba Sing Se. I make my way down the dark flaming hallway. I saw Zuko walking a ways down, I ran up to him and just walked by him silently waiting for him to greet me like he normally does but this time I get no greeting. We walked in silence for awhile listening to the flames rumble and the way our steps sounded together. The silence was tearing me apart. I finally broke.

"Why haven't you said anything?" I whispered. The tension was choking me. A chain is around my neck, a whisper was all I could manage.

"Me and Azula talked last night, and I have been thinking about some things. And I.." Zuko stopped talking. He let out a heavy sigh and turned to walk the other way.

"What has been wrong with you this past couple of weeks?" The chains that have been suppressing me suddenly start falling off. "I have done nothing but been there for you before and after your banishment!" I exclaimed. He was still faced away from me, he looked calm and collected unaffected by my words. "Your just going to stand there and say nothing! I bent over backwards for you, proving my love fixing your reputation. Fixing your mistakes!" I screamed. He turned and faced me he no longer looked calm and collected. He looked frustrated and hurt.

"I never asked you to do that! I never asked for your help. I never wanted or needed your help." He exclaimed.

I felt hurt by his words. I felt the tears starting to well in my eyes, "Are you saying you don't even apricate my help?" He said nothing. All of the sudden I was angry again. "I hate you! Be a coward and run away for all I care. Without me your what? A traitor to the fire nation and a fugitive?"

"I don't know what you want me to say." He whispered. He walked off and I never saw him again until 2 weeks later.

I woke up to the sound of my door being opened. I jumped out of bed and opened the curtain to reveal who it was. It was Zuko.

"What are you doing here? You don't talk to me for two weeks now all the sudden your in my room in the middle of the night! Who do you you think you are?" I said sharply. He was wearing all black with a mask and hood. really does no good because you can still see him in the full moon. I look down and in his left hand is a scroll rolled perfectly wrapped in a red ribbon with a nicely knotted bow.

"I'm sorry..I have to do this." He set the scroll on the desk and ran out of the room. I ran out after him.

I chased him all over town. He was trying to escape me but I wouldn't let him. I didn't understand what was happening. Was he running away? I cried and yelled out for him. I just wanted to talk. And I didn't want to yell this time I didn't want to get angry. I never meant to hurt Zuko. I still love him so incredibly much. I don't understand why we won't except my help, why he keeps running away from me. I continue running after him until we reach the docks outside the city.

"Please just talk to me!" I pleaded

"You wouldn't understand. The avatar is alive. I don't want to be around when the news gets around."

"That's really what your worried about?"

He looks at me, his eyes start tearing up. "Do you know what my father would do to me? He already disowned me once. I have made so many mistakes, I am an embarrassment to him! To our family! To the royal name!" He yelled. I could hear the hurt and the fear in his voice. It made my heat feel heavy. I just wanted to give him a hug.

"I have to kill the avatar. For my honor." He looked at me with tears in eyes. But after hearing him say that all my empathy washed away with the roaring waves that were crashing against the dock. I hate it when Zuko talks about his honor. His destiny. It fills me with rage that he lets his family dictate his path.

"Your honor!?" I shouted. I started stomping toward him. "Shut up with this honor thing! This is not your destiny! You understand what killing the avatar would do to the world? Of course you don't understand! Your running away because your afraid! Not because you feel the need to restore you honor." I grabbed the collar of shirt and pulled him to me and looked at him. My face filled with frustration and disappointment.

"You know what maybe I am afraid! Maybe I'm afraid my father will burn me to death this time! I am always the fool! I am looked down upon every single day! I am a fraud. I am not the great prince I am destined to be." He started to sob.

"Your going to throw everything we had away because your afraid? I'm here for you always, always Zuko. Please let me help you. Please don't run away from me." I started to cry too. It breaks my heart hearing him cry.

"I'm not the man you need. You need someone strong and who can protect you. Your right. Last time we talked, I am a coward. I'm running away from my problems and I don't want to accept the help that's offered to me."

"Zuko.. your are more than enough for me. I can't imagine myself with anyone but you. It's like you were put on this earth for me. Please! You don't have to go through this alone. You don't have to go through anything alone! Just please don't leave me!" I clung onto him and sobbed hysterically like a child. But in that moment my heart was being torn right out my chest.

"I'm sorry.. I love you." He didn't look at me, nor did he hug me back. He gently pushed me off and started boarding a boat. I couldn't believe it. He just walked away. He said I love you but did he even mean it? He didn't even look at me.

"So that's it?! Your just going to leave? After everything we've been through? Zuko Please!" I cried out to him. I begged on my knees even and pleaded but none of my efforts were enough to make him stay. I watched him disappear into the night. The walk home was depressing. It was raining, my pajamas were soaking wet and the smell of wet concrete and metal filled the air. I made my way home in the dark following the line of street lamps that have been extinguished from the rain. When I got home I sat on the edge my bed staring at the neatly tied scrolled placed on the table. I pick it up. I read it.

"My dear love, I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. But this is the only way I can find my own destiny. Everything you have taught me about life I will cherish forever. Our memories I will cherish forever. Don't think because I am leaving means I don't love you. Because I love you very dearly. You encouraged and inspired me in so many different ways. I will be back for you. Someday I won't need your help. I am tired of finding the strength to keep going here. I am tired of being ridiculed and silenced. I wouldn't have made it any longer staying here. Please try to understand. I want to be strong so I can help you. And be strong for you. I have thought of you every single day since I have met you and I will continue to think of you."

I cried for the rest of the night.

[kyuusberry]

behind — red velvet 6th member

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝘀𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲, 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝘁, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻, 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝘆

𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆: 𝗻/𝗮

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 𝟴𝟴𝟵

𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀: 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝗺𝗶𝗰’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲?? 𝗶’𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗼 𝗶 𝗮𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗶𝗳 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗱! 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁!! :𝗗

© 𝗸��𝘂𝘂𝘀𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰. 𝗻𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀. 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴.

“joohyun unnie, isn’t this great?” you smiled, linking arms with irene. irene hummed in response, tightly holding onto you. “it is, yn. but where are the others?” irene sighed, only to let go of you and scream when she was surprised by yeri.

“kim yerim!” yeri smiled, feigning innocence as she tried to convince irene that it wasn’t her. obviously the camera caught it all, showing fans that everyone’s relationship was close.

it wasn’t all true, but you had to put on an act to convince fans. that you were the innocent choi yn. that you were perfect no matter what. the spotlight was always on you no matter what.

you were an idol after all. but things weren’t always fair.

“you need to lose weight. you’re getting fat.” your manager scolded you, your ears ringing. your manager’s voice sounded distant, distorted even. “did you even listen to me, yn?” your manager scoffed.

“from now onwards, till you lose 5kg, you’re only allowed to eat rice. do you understand?” you winced at your manager’s tone, “yes, i understand.” you bowed towards him before heading out of the practice room.

you felt sick to your stomach, the days of not resting catching up to you. but you had to force yourself to be okay, for your fans. it was always for the fans. you just shook it off, heading towards the your van.

once you got into the van, you immediately went on your phone, scrolling through the infinite amount of comments of your recent instagram post.

“she’s so ugly 🤮🤮”

“my queen!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻”

“if yn has a million fans i’m one of them, if yn has 10 fans i’m one of them, if yn has 1 fan i’m that person, if yn has no fans then i’m dead, and if yn has the world against her, then i’m against the world”

“kys ㅋㅋㅋㅋ no one likes you!!!”

“so prettyy!!! my baby, yn 🥺🥺”

“yn one chance please!!! 🙏”

“all visuals and no talent ㅋㅋ”

“waste of space”

you always got about the same amount of hate and normal comments. but for some reason you just couldn’t stop focusing on the bad. it always affected you, but you had to hide it.

sometimes you even wondered why you became an idol, why you became a trainee in the first place. it’s almost been 10 years since your debut and you’ve always felt like you’ve been falling behind all of your members. that you weren’t good enough to be a member of red velvet.

so you constantly overworked yourself to the extent of passing out. but still, you weren’t good enough. you weren’t a good dancer unlike seulgi, or an amazing vocalist like wendy. not even an okay rapper.

constantly feeling like you were overlooked by your members. even if everyone was just talking. the constant jealousy you felt towards your members was overwhelming. you never felt like you could even be on their level. not once in all of the years you’ve been together.

“you alright, yn?” seulgi asked, moving a strand of hair out of your face. you forced a smile, the churning in your stomach making you wanna throw up. “i’m okay, unnie. don’t worry about me.” you gritted your teeth, forcing a small smile.

“whatever you say, yn.” seulgi rubbed your thigh, which was awfully comforting. “hey. unnie.. if i died, would you miss me?” seulgi was a bit confused by the question, but she answered anyways. “i would, yn. we’ve been together for over 10 years and it just wouldn’t feel right if one if our members were missing.” she smiled, your heart starting to ache.

suddenly your manager came up to the two of you, telling you two that it was your turn to get interviewed for the behind video. you nodded, sitting closer to seulgi for the act.

after filming you felt drained, your legs dragging against the concrete as you walked to unlock your apartment door. you just couldn’t take it anymore, the constant pain you felt in your chest. the overwhelming feeling of envy. you just wanted to disappear, to be able to lift the burden of holding your members back. we’re

cake girlies 💗

goodnight everyone, i love you.

no one replied, so you assumed that they were busy or sleeping. you held the rope in your hand, eyes teary.

person i love and adore ♾️

i love you mom, sorry i can't visit you often anymore.

you sent the same thing to your dad. it was late so you didn't expect any answers. you were glad no one responded, so you didn't have to keep up this façade any longer.

you set your phone down and closed your eyes, letting out a shaky breath. then everything just went black.

you and everyone else was laughing, irene almost falling out of her chair in the process. "joohyun unnie!" your eyes were teary from laughing too hard, accidentally hitting joy while teasing irene.

"yah! yn!" joy scolded you, "don't hit your elders!" you playfully rolled your eyes, "you're only a few weeks older than me!"

tears fell on the screen, irene holding the stuffed bunny you gave her for secret santa. "i'm sorry, yn. for not noticing earlier. i'm sorry that i was a bad leader. i just wish you would've told me earlier instead of keeping it in."

[vveakfish]

do you have any thoughts about the core four whose gender(s) are basically just a trans fruit cocktail that you would like to talk about? because I would love to listen

oh boy DO I !!!

I have So Many thoughts about them Anon, so thank you for giving me an excuse to try and put it into words beyond “Damn, these bitches trans! Good for them.”

Honestly, there are so many different ways to explore these characters genders based on how you choose to interpret their life experiences, and their aesthetic changes, and their relationships with each other. I am of the belief that any of them could be trans in any direction

But, that said, I Do have particular gender headcanons for YJ that i am very fond of, so thats what I’ll be talking about today.

(Small disclaimer. I have not finished all of the comics referenced in this. I am using the information i have to inform these, but you know, i might come back to this post at some point in the future and look at it like “wow, i don’t agree with any of this anymore.” And i think thats okay.

I’m just here to have fun, and i thoroughly enjoy these little guys, and think abt them alot, so enjoy

(also if you dont want to read 4.1k words of blorbo gender analysis, or would like to avoid spoilers for Superboy (1993), Young Justice (1998) & (2019), and Red Robin (2009) in varying degrees of detail, or you just want to see what lables i assigned them, scroll down to the bottom <3))

lets get started.

Bart:

Bart's gender is the most complex, but his thought process about it is also the most simple. I think his view of gender would be very much influenced by the fact that he grew up in VR in the future like…

A body is just an avatar, do what ever the fuck you want with it.

That said, the lil guy has always given me transmasc vibes. These vibes, however, are by no means binary.

He understands that in the 21st century a lot of people do not have his sort of “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” approach to gender, so he’s okay with being put in the box of Boy™. But his gender is a lot more * hand waves vaguely *

Clothes don’t have gender in his eyes, they’re fabric you put on your body. Wear what ever you want forever!

Bart in skirts is something i have seen many people draw/talk about before, and its something i agree with wholeheartedly. He likes hair clips, and like, those loud (actually loud and visually loud) beaded bracelet type things that ravers wear. He like nail polish. He doesn’t grow facial hair, but he wouldn’t care if he did. He’s not on hormones, but he definitely considered it for the bit. “Gotta drink my boy juice” Kind of vibes.

For him gender has Nothing to do with performance, its all about comfort. About wearing what feels right, regardless of whether or not he’s adhering to expectations of masculinity.

Yes, he Will wear that god awful outfit out of the house, haters can die mad

Cassie:

Anon, I need you to understand how much i love early yj98 cass. She is everything to me — her process of coming to terms with herself, and being able to watch her start to feel at home in her own skin. It makes me absolutely feral.

lets see if i can explain why… succinctly

When we first meet her in yj98, her identity as “Wonder Girl” is this sort of amalgamation of What it Means To Be A Hero in her eyes. She has her party city blunt bob wig (Because Diana is who she looks up to), the gloves, leather jacket, goggles combo (that so clearly take inspiration from Kon).

At this point in her life Wonder Girl is not really her. Its very clearly a mask she’s putting on. which is what makes it the perfect avenue for her to explore gender expression without it having to actually be about her gender.

I think the part that specifically makes me feral though is her… we’ll call it admiration of Kon.

The girl is a self proclaimed Superboy stan + theres all the weird not-drama between Cassie and Cissie over wanting attention from Kon. (And i say Not Drama bc its like… Kon flirting with cissie (which like… have you met 90’s Kon?? he flirts with everything that moves) and Cassie being upset that he’s Not flirting with her. and cissie is just along for the ride. She’s not quite as much of a flirt as kon is, but she has her moments)

All of this to say i feel like its impossible to have a conversation about Cassie’s gender without also talking about her experiences with comphet and lesbianism.

At the beginning, Cassie sees Kon — this cocksure, conventionally attractive boy with powers that (at first glance) seem very similar to hers, and felt something about it. And, in the way of teen girls who have been told since grade school that they’re supposed to like boys, Cassie comes to the conclusion that what she feels for Kon must be romantic in nature, right?.

All of this, the jealousy over Kon and Cissie flirting, basing her costume off Superboy’s (intentionally or otherwise), the fact that she wont let her team see her without the wig and goggles at all for so much of yj98. To me it all reads as the tangled mix of undiscovered lesbianism and gender dysphoria that the poor girl simply doesn’t have the words to define yet.

So, then what IS cassie’s deal with gender???

i am so very glad you asked.

She, too, is a transmasc of the nonbinary variety.

I think her relationship to femininity is complex, and ever changing. She doesn’t feel comfortable performing femininity the way the world expects her to, but she is also part Amazon. And i think having a relationship with both Diana and Donna would greatly influence how she felt about femininity as a whole.

The Amazons are strong, their femininity isn’t about beauty, or being soft spoken — it isn’t about Men at all. On Themyscira, to be a Woman is about bravery, honor, skill, and in some ways, divinity. Getting closer with her Amazonian sisters would change her relationship to womanhood immensely.

But it still wouldn’t feel Right. She would be able to see that womanhood can be defined differently, but that wouldn’t change the connotations that womanhood had as she was growing up. She’d never be able to lean into it the way Diana or Donna do — they both grew up only having woman defined as strong and brave and confident. Their experiences are not analogous.

The baggage of growing up a girl under the patriarchy wouldn’t just… vanish because she sees that it Doesn’t have to be that way. In some ways, the knowledge that it didn’t have to be that way could make her dysphoria all that stronger (especially if she hasn’t quite deciphered that dysphoria is what she’s feeling).

but i think there would be a point where two things sharpen into focus for her.

fiirstly she has a big fat crush on cissie king-jones.

and second (which would only come AFTER realizing her feelings for cissie) is that what she feels for Kon is Not the same as what she feels for Ciss.

She didn’t want to be with Kon romantically, she just wanted his gender.

I could see her experimenting with wearing a binder, liking that she can get rid of her boobs if she isn’t feeling them that day.

She already has her short hair, and her leather jacket and jeans, and shes big and buff and strong (because she deserves to be butch!!! okay???).

I still think she would use she/her pronouns, but she wouldn’t be picky ab it (if she gets called sir while at the pizza place, she’s not going to correct them.)

But here’s the kicker — I think leaning hard into her masculinity would be EXACTLY what she needs in order to actually ENJOY expressing femininity again.

When putting on the mask that is ‘womanhood’ becomes something that she can Choose to do, rather than something that is being forced on her, it can be pleasant. Like playing dress up.

She has a new appreciation for it, especially since her friends respect her gender, and she knows at the end of the day, when she takes the makeup, the clothes, and the wig off, underneath it all she’s just her.

(Small addendum re: TT’03 Cassie’s fem phase. I have Many thoughts about this as well, and while they end up in roughly the same place, i exploring her experience with comphet and her decision to dress in a more traditionally feminine in that run is something id like to explore in another post (once i’ve actually read the run too.)

Cissie (bonus):

This one should be shorter than Cassies, mainly because my reasoning for it is much simpler.

YJ'98 (#11)

She lists all these names, all of them feminine except for Fucking Ralph. “One weird phase” she calls it.

To me, Cissie is a transgirl through and through. She has this huge list of femme names she tried on while she tried to find the one that fit best. She mentions ralph in this off handed way, as if its not important, and i think thats just her way of dismissing her deadname as something of little consequence.

(that said, i think there’s lots of fun to be had with transmasc cissie, or tried transing-her-gender and realized it wasn’t for her Cissie. But as a transfemme, tgirl cissie is So important to me <3)

Kon:

other people on here have made posts about Kon’s gender that are much more coherent than this will be, but i’m putting the words down anyway. bear with me.

Kon’s experience with identity (especially in his earlier years) is almost entirely about the external rather than the internal.

Kon has his whole life planned out for him from the moment he opens his eyes. It’s simple really — become Superman.

So you have this freshly hatched teenage boy, saving the world as Superman (not the Only one, but definitely the coolest one (Kon would argue)). All eyes on him, all the time. In some ways, performance is inseparable from who he is. From the very beginning, everything he does is on display.

He starts his life with a Name (Superman), a life path (…again, Superman), and all the confidence of a sixteen year old jock with nothing but wins under his belt. then it all gets taken away.

Turns out Clark ISNT dead, and the world doesn’t need its pint sized superman anymore now that its got the real thing.

enter Superboy

Kon’s entire identity, his whole purpose for being alive, was to step into the shoes of a dead man who is no longer dead. So where does that leave our genetically engineered test tube baby?

lost, and extremely confused.

But he’s good at using his charisma as a shield, and even better at keeping himself busy. His problems aren’t there if he doesn’t have the time to think about them, right?

and i think that’s true about his gender as well.

Similar to Cassie, his discovery and exploration of his gender feels incredibly tied to his sexuality (to me). If you’ve read sb93, you know Kon’s deal with women. He is cute & conventionally attractive & he's like superman with a fashion sense, so of course there are people fawning over him.

And he loves the attention. He likes that people want him, or that they are looking at him. The issue is he doesn’t have the life experience to realize that their reasons for paying attention to him are often very shallow, manipulative, or selfish.

He isn’t treated as a person very often. He’s a brand, a product, a tool, a weapon. He’s arm candy, he’s a photo op, he’s a headline, he’s a paycheck. And it takes him a long time to be able to tell the difference between someone Liking Him & someone Using Him.

For the longest Time, Superboy is all he is. He doesn’t have a name outside of that identity (except for the various pet names the women in his life give him (kid & pup, mainly)).

And even when Clark does give him his real name, Kon-El, its still Attatched to his identity as Superboy.

I dont think that he would really even be able to start dissecting how HE feels about his identity until he’s much older.

Part of this would come from the space to be someone else that gaining a civilian identity would give him. As Superboy, the goal has always been to stand out, to be seen, to shine like the sun.

As Conner Kent, he has to blend in. He doesnt want to draw attention to himself, or the Kents, or Clark. He has to fit in, which was never something he had to do as Kon. And i think it would kind of chafe at him — but he wouldn’t really know why.

I think he’d chalk it up to how different of an experience it is. Not being loud, having to be normal™. And so i think he’d just… continue to play the part. For a while anyway.

And like, part of being Normalest Boy Conner Kent would also involve actively un-queer coding himself for the sake of fitting into the ecosystem of Smallville High. and its like…

Young Justice, as a friend group, is SOOO queerplatonic. The lines between romantic and platonic intimacy are so blurred, and Prior to Kon’s YJ days he he was also like… living with these woman who he had complicated relationships with that also blurred the lines between platonic, romantic, and sexual (…looking at you, Knockout).

So learning where the line is when it comes to how he can acceptably interact with his civilian friends (particularly the boys) would Really open his eyes to just how close he is with Bart and Tim, and how similar his feelings for them are to his feelings for… lets say, Simon Valentine.

But i dont think That is what would actually tip the scale. I think realizing that these feelings for his friends aren’t considered ‘normal’ would make him shove them down deeper. As ‘Conner’ anyway.

from here it could go two ways, right?

Either we get Teen Titans ‘03 t-shirt Kon, who sheds his GNC 90s swag in exchange for adhering closer to traditional (read; boring) masculine gender roles.

or we get a Kon who leans Harder into his punk roots, but its a conscious choice now.

(this isn’t even digging into how he would feel once Jon comes into the picture, because while Kon cares for that boy Deeply, his feelings abt the new kiddo in the family could also be very complicated. But that’s a post for another time.)

Personally i prefer the second one.

Kon has always been a curious kid, i love the way he makes pop culture references, and how he bases his behavior off of 90’s teen tropes that he Most Definitely learned from TV. In his early days this wasn’t done in a research way necessarily, but he Did want to learn what it was like to Be a Teen™, and TV was the easiest way to figure that out.

(and, playing in the space of Kon adaptations, his love of media/pop culture, and just over all thirst for knowledge, are present both in the Reign of the Supermen Movie, and in his iteration during the n52 (which is one of the few things i personally have internalized from reading n52 Superboy/Teen Titans)).

But post gay awakening, i feel liked he’d be interested not just in behaviors, but also the context of them. Digging into punk as a subculture rather than as an aesthetic. Learning about its connections to queerness, and community, and self expression. And i think this would be extremely freeing for him. (especially if this were around the time of Jon becoming Superboy v.3, but again, not the point of this post.)

this all culminates in Kon being like yk? gender just… isnt for me. Like, it takes im a long time to get to this point, but realizing that the path that was set out for him is just one of the potential paths he can take, and while he might not know where this new path will take him, its his, that that matters.

And also like, Because his friends are who they are, he’s seen different versions of queerness, and transness, but i think it would take him a bit to see himself as someone who Isn’t Cis bc like… he doesnt have dysphoria in the traditional sense.

He’s still the beefcake he’s always been, but i think he’d start playing with makeup when he realizes it makes him feel good (he shows up the the cave one day with smudgy eye liner and Cissie is immediately like a) you look so good and b) can i Please do your makeup? (and then she does it, and he looks so pretty, and he gets these weird giddy feelings that he doesn’t realize is gender euphoria until his friends start talking abt gender euphoria)

His uniform starts to get more personalized too, like the designs where he has knee patches, and all his little belts, and stuff. maybe he starts experimenting with showing skin. bc he deserves it

(’its for maximum sun exposure!!!’ is the what he tells clark… he’s not sure if clark bought it or not)

And hey, exploring gender presentation more as Superboy might help him do the same as Conner. Cassie will take him thrifting, he’ll try of a flowy skirt or a sun dress or something and then its Over. Gender euphoria part two, electric boogagloo.

In the end, its about realizing that adhering gender roles (and truthfully, any socially imposed ‘rule’ about self expression) is something he can simply Choose not to do. And i think this freedom would be something that benefits him in his civilian life as well.

His gender is: literally what ever, man.

Tim:

Ok, here’s the thing about Tim and gender, right? I think he’s kind of just comfortable as he is. He’s good at playing the roles he needs to in what ever situation hes thrown into. ‘Robin’ and ‘Tim Drake’ (and even ‘Tim Drake-Wayne’ if you want to split hairs) might be masks he wears, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less him. if that makes sense. like…

Lets look at the differences between Bruce (or Brucie) and Batman for a second. They really are different people. Batman is who bruce is at his core, ‘bruce’ is this sort of liminal space between the cowl and his public persona, and then theres Brucie™, and well, you know how he is. These are personas that Bruce puts on.

With Tim its like he just highlights different aspects of himself when a situation requires it. (oh no, the autistic!Tim head canons are being loud today.) But like, he’s Always been masking. And i think this is something he would look at as like… getting a good grade in adapting. or something. He’s comfortable, all the roles he plays are ones he’s familiar with, and he doesn’t really question who he is outside of who he needs to be.

That is, until Caroline Hill makes an appearance.

I feel that the decision to go undercover as a woman was a wholly practical decision in the moment. It’s what the mission required, and therefore tim stepped up. Its just another mask, right? Surely this wont awaken anything in him…right?

But this is an entirely new mask. And i think it might like… shift the way he looks at/thinks about the other masks he puts on. He was able to step into a role that was very foreign to him, and it Worked. (and he felt pretty, which like… woah, thats a new feeling. and he kinda liked it? file that under ‘thoughts he doesn’t have the bandwidth to process right now.’ Bruce needs him back at the cave! its time to debreif! and he has a biology test tmrw! no time for gender scaries!!!).

I think it would take a while for him to be able to admit it to himself though. Because like… hes Not uncomfortable with his body, but he also keeps thinking about how good he felt dressed up femininely, and how he felt powerful, in a way. That putting on that mask felt just as good as putting on his domino.

Personally, i think itd be funny if instead of coming out right away, Tim doing undercover missions essentially in drag becomes a recurring thing. And i imagine some people give him a hard time. (not in a transphobic way or anything, i just mean like, teasing him fondly or what ever.) (Also, i like to imagine that when cissie Did kons makeup, bart and Tim jumped in there too bc like hey why not, and hoooooo boy, if Tims egg hadn’t cracked before then, it sure would have cracked after.)

The thing about him is, i’m not sure if he’d come to the realization himself. You know, that he would like to present femme sometimes, in a situation that has Nothing to do with a mission.

I could see Tim convincing himself that its a pointless or frivolous desire, which is Why he relegates his time presenting femme to when he can prove that it’s useful.

but i have this image in my mind, right? Of him, taking his makeup and wig off, and hes chatting with whoever is in the room with him (literally anyone else mentioned above… or Dick). And Tim’s just talking about how he wishes he could present this way in situations other than missions.

and the other person in the room is just like… i mean, you literally can.

and hes just like…. shit you’re right. i Can :0

I could probably go further into depth abt this, but i think this just frees him to start playing with gender more as Tim. and start to recognize when he’s feeling more masculine, more feminine, or somewhere in between.

His gender isn’t consistent, its this thing he’s constantly listening to, and trying to understand. but in the mean time, he can paint his face, and wear pretty clothes, or dress like just Some Guy, or be a hedgehog dressed in traffic light colors, or what ever his heart desires.

As far as like… how He describes his gender, i think he’d say something corny like bi^2 (bi of both the sexual and the gendered varieties). Or shrug, handwave, generally give a non-helpful vague description. Or tell who evers asking to buzz off.

(small addendum wrt Kon and Cassie in TT’03. I haven’t read this run yet, so i didn’t really include it in this post. But i Do have thoughts about what might cause the two of them (my gnc besties from my comics books) to lean sooooo hard into traditional gender roles after being So Queercoded in their other appearences. Before i talk abt that though, i want to read the comic. So, that will have to be a post for another time)

ANYWAY, heres that TL;DR i promised.

Bart: NB Transmasc Cassie: NB Lesbian (of the transmasc variety) Kon: Agender Tim: Fluid (bi-gender) + Cissie: Transgirl

Thank you soooooo much for giving me the opporrtunity to ramble abt the silles and how Not Cis i think they are. Love you forever.

[countrymusiclover]

11 - Finally Awake

Princess Red Thief

Part 12

Tag list - just ask to be added @mystrey101 @melvia-ito @kmc1989 @tallrock35

Pacing back and forth in the backroom of the pawnshop Rumple closely watched my movements with my belly swaying as I shifted around. He was sitting on the cot bed that we would use on our breaks when we had long hours of work. "I suggest you stop pacing before you hurt yourself or better yet create a hole in the wooden floor."

"Rumple, aren't you a little concerned that something could have happened to it?" I snapped at him.

Back in the Enchanted forest he had learned that I might be carrying his child after the night we shared when Charming woke Snow from her sleeping curse. But he had been captured and then I was locked up before we could truly talk about it being possible. "Everly, there's nothing to worry about. We can have Dr. Whale examine you and get an answer."

"And if he says I'm pregnant we're screwed." Throwing my fingers up into my hair I began pacing once more. "I wasn't showing when it was cast. I mean think of Cinderella. She wasn't due yet but then she gave birth here after 28 years. That can't be a coincidence, so the same thing is going to happen to me."

"Hold on a minute, lass." He held up his freehand making me look back at him. "Are you actually thinking that the curse could have sped up a pregnancy?"

"It could be."

Rumple chuckled lightly at me. "Many things are possible but time travel and speeding up a pregnancy aren't one of them."

"A curse managed to create an entire town and dumped everyone from an entire realm here. Some unbelievable things are still possible, Dark One!"

He pointed his finger at me in a warning tone. "Keep your voice down, dearie."

"Oh please I don't care if someone overhears us. They won't understand anyhow."

"True, very true. Although I don't think either of us wishes to be locked up in the insane asylum." Rumple sent me a sad expression seeing my body shiver and I wrapped my arms around myself reliving the torture Regina gave me.

Rubbing my hand down my arm I sighed sitting down beside him on the cot. It had only been a few hours since I had awoken from the curse and I felt that everything had already become so much harder. "So what exactly are we going to do with breaking the curse?"

"We need to show Ms. Swan that her son is telling the truth about this place." He answered me, rising to his feet, leaning his weight on his cane.

Lifting my head up I asked my former teacher, now partner. "How do we manage that?"

"You tell the boy that you're awake. I am fairly certain once he knows that he'll have something in mind on what to do next." Rumple explained simply shrugging his shoulders.

Moving one hand over my stomach I parted my mouth open slightly. "I'll talk to him. But then you have to promise me you will be there when I talk to the doctor."

"Don't worry about me abandoning you, lass." Rumple offered me his freehand and I placed my small hand in his. He tugs me up to stand with him before he tucked a loose lock of my hair behind my ear. "I am never leaving you alone like the night of the curse ever again."

I squeezed his hand that was still holding mine. "It wasn't your fault. Those blasted bars were the problem."

"Yet you know why I never used the scroll to escape."

"Indeed I did. Yet I'm still surprised you altered one of our deals back then." I tilted my head to the side.

He shakes his head leading me towards the front door of the shop and I went on my search for the young ten year old boy. "You still owe me for that, dear. Now go find the boy and I'll find you afterwards." Removing my hand from his I knew where he would be, he always headed straight for his castle.

Snow had gone into labor before they could prepare her to go into the wardrobe while pregnant like they had originally planned. Pushing everything off the desk in my bedroom of my family castle I slammed a spell book down in front of me. "Okay so as long as I do this translation properly my memory will come back."

Removing my grandmother's ring from my hand I slid it onto the gold chain of a necklace. Letting the jewelry simply lay in front of me I pressed my palms on the wooden table, closing my eyes and chanting the spell. "Acti vase de cona. Acti vase de cona. Acti vase de cona." The candles around the necklace flashed up in flames before slowly returning to normal.

Picking the necklace I slipped it back inside my red cloak, waving my hand and transporting outside Rumples cage. "Well, well, well, I was hoping I'd be getting a visit from you."

"Awe I'm sorry is that your way of saying you've missed me." I teased him by swaying my hips walking up to the cage wall.

Rumple groaned in frustration at my actions. "Careful dearie. Don't let these bars fool you."

"You wouldn't hurt me. Not intentionally anymore. Now let's get down to business before we get separated." Removing my hand out from under my cloak I held up the necklace in his face where he held out his palms and I dropped it from my fingers.

He gently closed his fingers around the object. "I assume it was successful then hmm."

"I completed the spell but we won't know until 28 years from now." I gasped, whipping my head around hearing the castle rumble above our heads. My hands began shaking at my sides and I clutched the fabric of my red cloak knowing what it meant.

Rumple declared to me confirming my thoughts. "It has begun."

"What if it doesn't work, Rumple?" I blurted out the question I feared the most. My cloak blew slightly when I moved closer to his cell revealing my rounder stomach to him that I had gotten good at hiding under my cloak.

He was the only one who knew. Not even my parents knew what had happened between us, not entirely.

He reached through the bats grasping my right hand in his left. Our fingers looping around the others when our eyes locked. "Stop worrying your head, Everly. It will work. It has to work."

"Rumple, I'm..I'm scared." I whimpered under my breath hearing the castle rumbling louder and windows were being shattered too.

He squeezed my hand in his, drawing my attention back on his gaze alone. "Everly, focus on me. Nothing else matters right now. Just keep looking at me."

"What do you think will happen to us?"

He held up my ring necklace outside the bars allowing me to hold onto it with him as he spoke. "I made a deal with Regina. I'll have a good life and be rich. And you, my Red Thief, will be with me." Glancing over my shoulder I gulped nervously seeing green and purple smoke crawling towards us meaning the curse had broken through the rest of the castle before engulfing us in its spell.

Shutting my car door I made my way up to the old wooden castle seeing that Henry was there which was a relief to me. I ran forward up the stairs and plopped down beside him where he almost dropped his storybook on the ground. "Woah Eve. What's going on with you?"

"I remember, Henry. I remember everything." I grinned from ear to ear at the young child in front of me.

Henry nearly tackled me in a hug of joy. "Really?"

"Ask me something that most people wouldn't know."

He thought for a second. "What does the Dark One dagger do to Rumplestilskin?"

"It allows whoever has the dagger to control him." He hadn't told Emma about that yet or cursed me so only someone truly from the Enchanted forest could know the answer.

He throws his arms around me and I hugged him back with the same enjoyment. "I can't believe you found a way to wake up. How did you do it?'

"Rumple and I had this all planned before the curse."

Henry gasped. "He's awake too. How?"

Henry hung his mouth opened. "Wow,that's awesome. Oh hey it's almost five. I have to get home before my mom."

"Let's go." I got up to my feet and he followed before we climbed in my truck and I drove him home. "Henry, I'll find you after school sometime."

He spun on his feet calling back to me before go through the front door. "I'm excited your part of Operation Cobra, Everly!" Once the door was shut I sat outside his house for a few minutes before I saw Regina's car pulling up behind mine.

She got out seeing me through her windshield coming up and tapping my window so I rolled it down. "What are you doing outside my house?"

"I didn't want to have your son walk home from school." I responded to her.

She huffed, eyeing my stomach over the window. "I'd prefer if you stay away from my son. He doesn't need to be around that snake Mr. Gold."

"He's not a snake."

Regina sent me a glare. "You should've been more careful of who you jump into bed with, Ms. Royal."

"Who said the babies his, Madem mayor?"

She paused asking. "Who then?"

"Dr. Whale. I was more than a one night stand to him. Now I have to go." I turned the truck back and she stepped up onto the curve watching me drive away. I smirked to myself that she seemed to buy the lie, Rumple had taught me well.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[bullet-prooflove]

Hiya. I have an ask for Scott Forrester again. ❤️ The prompt is: #20 “There ain't no secrets anymore.” Thank you so much.

Tagging: @district447 @delightfulheroshoeflap @upsteadlogic @ottitt @too-strong-to-lose @@hearthockey @alice30martini @tems13

Takes place before When in Rome

It’s in Berlin that Scott learns you used to have a husband.

You’ve been quiet ever since you’d stepped off the plane, preoccupied, stressed. He recognises the behaviours but they seem alien on you. He’s worked with you for just over a year now and he’s only ever seen you calm and collected.

It gets worse when you step into Europol HQ. He sees the tension in your shoulders, the way you clench your jaw. You look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here. It’s because of the way they treat you, he realises.  Sympathetic looks and gentle shoulder squeezes. They tell you how good you look, how well you’re doing. The prodigal daughter returns, he thinks at the time.

It isn’t until later when he meets your father in law that he realises the truth of the situation. The older man is high up in the UN, the fly team are investigating the death of one their clerks. You don’t expect to see him, Scott can tell that much because you stiffen when he appears, your body rigid as he embraces you.

“Natalia.” He says as he steps back and surveys you. “You still look as radiant as you did on your wedding day.”

The revelation throws Scott, it throws everyone. He sees your cheeks colour as you excuse yourself and disappear from the room. He has always known there was a reason you left Berlin, something beyond your love of travel and old world architecture. He never imagined that it was a husband.

“I had no idea she was married.” He tells Jaeger later that evening as they share a glass of whiskey in her office.

She was the one who had chosen you to be her replacement. At the time he didn’t question it, you were smart, fierce, diplomatic. Everything he needed in a Europol liaison.

“Widowed.” Jaeger corrects him and it’s another blow. Suddenly he understands everything that’s happened today, why you’re reacting the way you are, why you never mentioned you’d been married. “Matthew died a few months before she arrived in Budapest, it was a very quick illness. She couldn’t stand to be in Berlin without him after that.”

She sighs as she takes a sip from her whisky glass.

“It was a very painful time for her. They had been trying for a child, his parents clung to the hope that she was carrying a part of their son with her but then the months went by…” She trails off, shaking her head as she looks out of the window. “Natalia felt like she disappointed them.”

It’s a lot to unpack, even for him. He can’t imagine what it must be like for you, the pressure of that, the weight of it. You’ve carried it all on your own over the past year, it breaks his heart to think about how isolated you must have felt.

“Do you know where she is?” Scott asks Jaeger as he sets his glass down upon her desk.

Jaeger checks the watch on her wrist before removing a post it note from the pad in front of her before scribbling an address.

“I know where she’ll be.”

*******

Scott finds you at Berlinchen, a restaurant Jaeger had described as a hole in the wall. You’re tucked away in the back corner, nursing a glass of beer as you hunch over your phone, scrolling through your pictures.  You don’t look up when he sits down alongside of you on the cushioned bench.

“I’m not interested.” You say, your gaze fixed firmly on your screen. “And I’m having a really bad fucking day.”

“I know.” Scott says quietly. “Jaeger told me.”

You raise your head and the expression on your face, it almost breaks his heart. Your eyes are red rimmed, your complexion ruddy, there’s moisture on your cheeks from where you’ve been crying. He can’t imagine how hard it must be, to come here again, be in this world, around those memories.

“Is that your husband?” He asks you, gesturing towards your phone and you look back down at the screen, clutching it in your hand. “Will you tell me about him?”

It takes a few attempts but finally you manage to force the words out. You tell him that Matthew used to be a translator, that you met through work. He spoke seven languages and was learning Pashto before he died because he wanted to work with the refugees who were coming into the country. You smile as you recall his laugh, how it sounded like a guffaw, always echoing through whichever room he was in. You remember Saturday mornings exploring the city, walking hand in hand as you studied the architecture. Scott holds your hand through every memory of it, the ones that make you laugh and the ones that make you cry.

You seem lighter when the two of you finally leave Berlinchen, it’s almost ten pm when they start shutting up shop around you. Scott wraps his arm around your shoulders, warding off the cold as you lean into him.

“Thank you for tonight.” You say softly as you tilt your head to look at him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about Matthew, since I’ve allowed myself to remember him.”

“Natalia…” Scott murmurs as his eyes meet yours. “Our friendship, it doesn’t come with conditions. If you need to lean on someone, lean on me.”

Love Scott? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[bluesylveon2]

#69 with Vil Schoenheit because I want to see the world burn

Hi anon! I am so sorry for posting this late! I was busy with school but now I'm done. This one is shorter than my previous works, but I hope that you enjoy! 😁

Note: Yuu/Reader is not the Prefect, canon divergence, fluff?, real life references

Word Count: 845

Warning: not beta read, possible ooc characters, and a poor explanation bout memes

"Hahahaha!" Vil rolled his eyes and continued typing his email.

"Oh my gosh! This is hilarious!" Vil started tapping his foot impatiently against the floor.  

"AHHAHAHAHA!" The blonde felt a vein pop out of his forehead as Epel laughed loudly from the next room. The lavender-haired boy had been like that for days now.

"That's it!" Vil exclaimed, and he immediately closed his laptop. Vil left his office to lecture Epel again (re: for the fifth time that day). The blonde rounded the corner to see Epel sprawled out on one of Pomefiore's sofas, laughing at something on his phone. Vil gracefully strode to Epel and took his phone.

"Hey! That's mine!" Epel attempted to grab the phone, but Vil dodged his advances by holding it up high. "Why are you lookin at my stuff anyway? There's nothing good." Epel jumped and internally cursed Vil and his heels.

Vil's only reply was a criminally bombastic side-eye. "Tsk. You would not understand Baby Potato. You laugh so loudly that you could attract a hyena to this dorm. I need to confiscate your phone so this dorm can have peace." Vil's eyes landed on Epel's screen, and the boy's eyes widened.

"Wait! That's-"

Vil only blinked. "Is that…me?" The boy asked, scrolling through the phone's contents, which had many memes of him. Usually, Vil did not mind this, but these memes were-

"UTTERLY PERPOSTEROUS!" Vil's scream caused Epel to close his eyes at the intensity. "Why does this one have so many unnecessary colors? And that font makes me want to vomit! These are not memes!"

Epel frowned. "What do you mean? I thought that one was hilarious. In fact, whoever makes them has been for a while, and they are always targeting you. Some are funny."

Vil stopped scrolling and just stared at Epel. "Like what?"

"Well, if you scroll up, there is one of you commanding a bunch of potatoes." Epel scooted closer and pointed at the device. "Another one where it has a man crying, and the caption is about you not being a villain. Oh, and this is my favorite one." Vil stopped scrolling. On the screen was a drawing of him lying still on the floor with a purple puddle surrounding him while a purple blob with arms and legs stood nearby. "You dying after drinking a Grimace drink." Epel could not hide his snicker. 

Vil gave Epel another bombastic side eye and shoved the phone back in Epel's hands. "This is too much. I need to rest my eyes." Vil sighed and strode off, only stopping when he was at the door. "Oh, and Epel. I am going to increase your training by tenfold. We will start when I wake up."

Epel gulped in fear.

---

"Monsieur Pommette? What are you doing?" Rook asked, causing Epel to freeze right before he could step through the portal connecting to the Mirror Chamber. 

Epel slowly turned to the blonde. "Oh, Rook, I did not see you there. I'm just going…" Epel trailed off. "On a trip?"

Rook raised an eyebrow, focusing on Epel's apple-shaped suitcase. "Oh really? Where to?"

Epel laughed nervously and looked anything but Rook. "Uhh, places…"

"Like?"

"AHHHHH!" Vil's scream echoed through the dorm, causing the other two to stop. 

"I wonder what that's about?" Rook asked aloud, briefly looking away and giving Epel enough time to run for it. 

Meanwhile, Vil was ready to throw his hand mirror at the wall. He had a bright red and angry pimple on his beautiful face that needed to be gone now! 

"If only I did not see those disgusting memes. The stress is getting to me…" Suddenly, a lightbulb flashed in Vil's head. He quickly grabbed his phone and dialed his manager's number. 

"Mira? It's me." Vil smirked evilly. "I have a job for you."

---

"Welcome back to NRC Gossip, everyone! It is your host Cay-Cay with none other than Yuu!" Yuu nodded to the crowd and turned to Cater. "So, tell me about your success?"

"Well, I like Vil Schoenheit but not like a huge fan. I thought, what better way to express it than through memes? That is the general gist of it." Yuu explained, ending her statement with a smile. 

Cater laughed and nodded. "You have to explain more, but first, I have a surprise that I want to show you."

Yuu's eyes lit up, and she shifted in her seat. "Really?! Is it a kitten?"

"Better." Cater made a motion to someone backstage behind Yuu. “Say hello to the Vil Schoenheit!” Vil walked out with an evil smirk, his amethyst eyes set on Yuu. 

Yuu felt the lights and whatever Cater was saying fly past her. She felt embarrassment and some fear grow inside of her, which only made Vil smile victoriously as her confidence faded away. Yuu's mind was telling her to run and get as far away from the man before she got a lecture about what not to post on the internet. Her body felt like lead, and her mouth only said one thing.

 "HUH!?" 

©: This story belongs to bluesylveon2 2020-23. DO NOT modify, republish, or plagiarize my work.

A/N: Tell me why I picture Vil walking in like the Eric Cartman Tiktok 😂

Disclaimer: I do not own Twisted Wonderland and its characters. Those belong to Aniplex, Walt Disney Japan, and Yana Toboso.

[winterpinetrees]

The Nuclear Engineering Department (The Gap Years 2x3)

September 17th

Salt Lake City, UT

There is significant overlap between nuclear physics and elven magic. Physicists love this. Elves largely don't. A secret society of gun-toting academics are trying to keep the reactor from getting set on fire. Sierra and the boys are here to help.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukkah! This one is very self indulgent because it is also a gift for me.

Navigation Guide

Previous

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Sierra doesn’t mind the lack of cell service too much, no matter what the boys may expect. She’s an analog girl. Software is finicky, and Python hates her in its silicon heart. If code really is a language, then she’s still tripping over the grammar, and her computer is a lot less understanding than her grandparents when she messes up Spanish conjugations halfway through a phone call. Because of that lack of cell service, Sierra misses the breaking news story that the head of the nuclear physics department at a university she’d visited was murdered in his office. His office was ransacked, and every sensor said that radiation nearby had spiked.  If she’d seen, she can’t say whether she’d have grabbed the wheel and had Brian drive them anywhere else but Salt Lake City, where students only a few years older than them run a functional nuclear reactor, or if she’d have headed straight for it. Instead, they get a hotel room for the night, and wake up smelling smoke in the air. 

…but this is the American west at the end of summer. Clay cracks the window open to confirm his suspicions, sighs, and doesn’t think much of it.

“Guys I jinxed it. Smells like wildfire out there”. He says once Brian and Marin have joined him in the room. This time the four of them have a suite with two adjoining rooms in a better hotel. Last they heard, Zerada and Jezero are twenty miles away on the outskirts of a salt flat. Sierra and Brian nod, but Marin walks to the window and looks out. There didn’t used to be a fire season, but there didn’t used to be cellphones either. Time crawls forward and humans adapt. Sierra wouldn’t have bothered to look, but Marin scans the horizon with his cat-like eyes. 

The window faces east towards a few foothills, and the sun rises blood-red just above them. The color is explained by the plume of smoke in the foreground. He looks back over one shoulder. Since the prison break, Marin has been dressing a bit more like a prince. The golden cuffs on his locs and fancy elven boots aren’t too noticeable, but it’s a change from how he started in June. 

“No, I can see the smoke, it must have been a building”. Then he blinks a few times and turns back around. “I am never going to get used to this desert smelling like radiation. How many nuclear bombs did your government detonate here?”

Three phones come out of pockets. They’re all googling different things, but Clay finishes typing “Salt Lake fire news” first and reads out his result. “That’s the physics department at Utah”.

“I think the bomb testing was in Nevada, but eight or…” Sierra replies to a different question. She trails off as she realizes what Clay has said. 

Brian jumps in. “Sierra, why is this news story saying that the University of Utah has a nuclear reactor on campus?”

“Because some colleges do! MIT has one of the biggest, but there’s like two dozen across the US”.

“I think what Brian is trying to say is that a nuclear reactor being on fire could be Chernobyl or Excalibur levels of bad,” Clay explains.

“It actually wouldn’t be. They’re super safe,” she says. The boys throw their hands in the air in defeat, and Sierra scrolls down to show them details. The Utah reactor was made for students, and it “could not, by its design, suffer from a meltdown”. Then Brian shows them the story of the murder back home near San Francisco. The hair stands up on the back of her neck. Elves rarely care what humans think is possible. Clay was right to be worried. Elves can metabolize radiation that will kill humans. A meltdown that makes even the safest research seem dangerous could be a useful attack. Screwing up Salt Lake City would also take out transit in the rest of the desert…

Sierra hears a series of metallic clanks behind her. She ignores it and hears Brian sigh. “You’re supposed to turn around. He’s trying to be dramatic,” Marin says softly. She turns. 

Brian’s holding something inside his red varsity jacket. “I know something about Utah too”. He takes his pistol from the inside pocket and pulls the hammer back. “The concealed carry laws here are really loose”. 

Clay has his head in his hands and is muttering to please put the safety back on that thing. They’re going on the offensive, apparently. 

During their six week pause, the small party managed to get all the weapons they could ever want. Nonetheless, even Utah’s “red state” gun laws don’t allow Clay to carry his concussion rifle across Salt Lake City, so the four of them all hide pistols and thin armor under jackets as they bolt across town. As expected for high-altitude desert, the air is cool this early in the morning. Sierra has a geiger counter on her belt and hooks her jury-rigged magic detector up to her cellphone. A few steps behind, Marin sends an urgent message to the Adusts and anyone nearby to help them avert a catastrophe.  

Brian speaks up. “So do the commoners really not care about any of this? Some of them definitely support conquest, but I’m getting the sense it’s controversial. Attacks like this are big”. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if no one local was part of this. Commoners aren’t easy to organize”.

They slip past a barricade. Sierra and Brian hesitate to duck under the tape set up by oblivious police, but not Clay. “Because commoners manage their own affairs, right?”

“Right. That’s why we’ve only been facing noble soldiers. By Lazarus’s design, it’s difficult to coordinate law enforcement in the human world, and commoners are hard to convince”. They pull the masks over their faces that they packed in case of a plague. Smoke is bad to breathe too. “If a human government wants information on a criminal, what do they offer?”

“Money?” Sierra yells. There’s sirens everywhere, but the fire seems contained to one section of the building. 

“Exactly. Commoners mostly barter. There’s no way for the nobility to offer a bounty people want. If elves report us, it’s due to coercion or because they personally want us taken down”.   

They all go quiet as Marin teleports to the elven world to “go around” a locked door. It isn’t just the young Betrayed who have been taken from their homes in the human world. In Susanville, Vya, Shiprock, every town they’ve driven though, houses have been empty and elves have avoided eye contact. Their emissary claims the apex issued an order for elves in the human world to isolate, or leave the human world entirely. In their place, teams of assassins and operatives (apparently the Apex knows all of the best, because her husband used to be one) have moved in to kill and destabilize.  

And as they step through the heavy door into the type of grey university hallway Sierra knows well, it becomes clear that the quiet was the calm before the storm. She can hear distant gunshots, and the sound of elven weaponry firing. The fire sprinklers have activated, and they’re careful not to slip on the wet carpet and tile. In some places, water pools where the linoleum has been ripped up from the floor. Brian kicks one tile and yelps out loud. It’s as heavy as steel. Underneath, she can see empty boxes like the whole building had hidden treasure under the floorboards. They run past painted murals, presentation posters, and torn-up floors until they’re deep in the building. It’s easy to forget the fire somewhere nearby. The sounds of combat have only gotten closer. 

Then she sees a barricade made of overturned tables and those same ‘linoleum’ tiles. There’s movement behind it! Brian grabs Marin by both shoulders and shoves him to the ground. She sees green trails where his glowing eyes used to be, and a bullet, a real human bullet, passes through as they fade. She ducks as well and covers her ears. 

“We’re human and he elf is a friend! Don’t shoot!” Clay shouts with a hand on his own hidden pistol. 

A deep voice yells back from behind the barricade. “Green elves are never friendlies. She’s manipulating you!”

She’s. Marin has long hair, but Sierra guesses that assumption was based more on his emerald magic, staff, and the memory of his base-wrecking mother. 

“Emer Sondaica has been dead since June!” Clay yells back, trying something out. “Attacks have increased because the elves had a regime change! The one we’re with is on our side! Humanity’s side!”

A pause. “Stand up. Hands up. Get behind the barricade. If I see her eyes glowing I shoot”. They stand. 

Marin cracks his neck and lets his eyes go dark. “His eyes. Call me Marin”. 

They scramble over the damp ground and duck behind the makeshift wall. There’s three humans back here, then a locked door. The speaker looks middle-aged and holds a high-powered human rifle, and the other two are probably graduate students. One grad student (the only girl) looks at each of them in turn, then looks back out at no-man’s land (hallway). 

Her peer tilts his head. “Are you new first-years? How do you know about this?”

Sierra shakes her head “Nah. Elves tried to kill us in June. Been on a quest ever since”. She adds that they're on a gap year, as if that will make things clearer. 

Brian keeps talking. “We saw fire and decided to try and help. We’re trying to stop elves from conquering the world, you know”. 

The physicists look at eachother. 

“We don’t know, actually,” says the older man. “The Professor warned us over the summer to expect more attacks, but if he said anything else… well he said it to the department head, not me. This Emer Sondaica was the Green Queen?”

“What? Yes. Yes, she was. She led the attack at Project Excalibur ten years ago,” Marin explains. “But she was killed in June. The new Apex -queen of the elves- is actively trying to take over the world. I think Emer just had a grudge against physics”. 

The scientists talk amongst themselves. “We never thought they’d attack like this. Actual combat only happens at research centers. Excalibur, CERN, Lawrence-Livermore. But there was an assassination last night and a warning from the Professor so we decided to set a watch, just in case,” The younger man points behind them. “The plutonium is back there, behind a second set of guards”.

It’s madly courageous and won’t do anything if the elves decide to use charms. 

“So you’re faculty? Are there any elves here?” Clay asks.

They say there are a few elves scattered around, including one behind them in the main vault, but they’re mostly researchers, professors, and particularly dedicated graduate students. Thankfully, there weren’t any 8am classes this morning, so the building is free of students who don’t know the secret. 

“We’re hoping The Professor will save the day. He likes this place a lot, but word is there’s been attacks across the country. He’s probably busy at Berkeley or MIT or some other fancy school”.

“If The Professor used to be a royal, then it’s no surprise,” The woman adds. 

“He? Are we sure about that? It sounds like you’re describing someone I’ve heard of, except for that,” Sierra asks awkwardly. She had a theory that Cai Sondaica, Emer’s too-powerful, disgraced, twin was The Professor, and everything adds up, but that elf was never exactly a man.

“I’ve never met him. They say he has that elf look? Long hair, graceful, slender. Creepy pale eyes. Everyone calls him a guy though”. 

Ah. It’s the gender stereotypes. Cai Sondaica it is. 

Brian doesn’t blink. “Well, we have magical guns and an elf. Whatever The Professor can do, we can do”.

“I don’t think that’s right”. The woman shoots, then ducks back behind the barricade. Clay and Marin nod at each other and stand. The elf vaults over the shallow wall and engages an opponent. He lands a strike with a dagger, and Clay shoots the soldier in the chest with proper form until it falls. Then Marin spins and puts his quarterstaff around nothing. A second elf in tactical gear materializes, and Marin grapples it until both humans can shoot it down. Sierra looks closely at the body and sees wet indents in the carpet behind it. Did Marin notice the attack from just those footprints? 

 “Point taken”. The older scientist points them down the hall in the direction of the reactor. Clay emphasizes again that the green elves are fighting to defend humanity right now, though he’s lying. He also says that there may be two orange elves with freckles and that they’re allies too. The scientists send a message. Marin sends one as well to warn the Adust duo, just in case. As the group jumps back over the barricade, the woman mutters that Brian “looks just like that Governor’s cute son on Instagram”. He sighs so loud Sierra half-expects him to let the elves shoot. 

They walk in a triangle with Marin casting a spell of protection (shielding them from bullets and radiation) from the center. Clay hugs the right wall for cover, Brian takes the left, and Sierra listens to her geiger counter click from behind. The scientists let them through, and Marin, prince of the elves, effectively soaks up the fire. No soldier wants to be the one to kill the prince, but everyone wants to take him down. They push forward. It’s wet, miserable work, especially when the carpet is soaked with blood as well as water. How will the elves explain these deaths? In one place, the water sprinklers have stopped and water gushes through the wall instead. There are thin cracks running along the sides of the hallways. She looks up and imagines them spreading like a fractal until the ceiling caves in. 

Brian tries to use a tile as a shield, and keeps holding it even after it proves useless. Clay’s new body armor saves him from the blast of a concussion rifle, and Marin nearly makes a fatal mistake trying to send a bullet to the elven world. They’re underground now. That tactic is impossible. They test every door knob to see if it will burn, but it seems like the fire is somewhere far away. Are there spells to control fire? No one she’s heard of has specialized in anything elemental… except for the new Apex and her earthquakes. 

Marin puts an ear to the door. “I can hear elves talking, but I can’t really understand them. It might be Old Mercurali. There’s old Eight-Point nobility in here”. He’s referring to the noble alliance centered around Genus Mercuralis. Marin’s allies, the Lazarins, speak the mostly dead Old Lazarin, but their ancient enemies have a language too. 

“So what does that mean right now?” she asks. 

“It means don’t shoot anything vital. This is war, but things have been civil so far”. 

Clay and Brian look at her, and she looks back. Hopefully Marin ignores their disdain.

The lock is already broken and they enter invisibly with their guns raised, but it’s the control booth. A shattered rectangle where a window used to be separates them from the reactor room. She can see three soldiers standing around a small circular pool with red railings. They wear the same tactical armor with glowing veins as the  elves they killed in San Francisco on day one. They are all masked and faceless, but one has removed its leg armor to treat a wound, and the largest (seriously he has to be two meters tall) has a clearly kidnapped person slung over one broad shoulder. He doesn’t seem to mind the weight. The radioactive material is deep under the water. Three scientists are dead or unconscious on the ground. Without any warning or explanation, the giant turns to face them. 

Brian hesitates for half a second to check if he’s still invisible, then shoots first. The bullet hits the giant’s indigo glowing chestplate and ricochets right back. Everyone ducks, and Marin is so panicked that he leaves an after-image. The other two soldiers gasp in surprise. Crouched beneath the concrete wall, she compares their magical colors to the ones she knows. The new Apex’s oldest allies are the neon blue Tiercels and gold Eburos, but Marin’s mentioned lavender special ops as well. No one matches. She hears a voice so deep and accented it has to belong to the biggest elf. She understands Marin’s name and nothing else he says. 

Marin yells back, in English. (thanks!)  “Didn’t expect me? Well I didn’t expect a real Mercuralis either! I mean, how many of you are left of fighting age? Two, counting Her Eminence?”

“Three,” The Mercuralis says, and the ground shakes. Salt Lake City isn’t a seismically active area, right? It’s not like home, at least. This royal is going to bury the evidence under the rubble of Salt Lake City. 

“You should be thanking my cousin on your knees for not massacring your family like they did ours,” he continues. 

“Well, I’m not letting you destroy a city”.

Another soldier speaks. “Perfect! We’re not. We’re cutting out your aunt’s influence and brining down a few buildings. Now get lost before His Highness decides to ignore his cousin’s orders and kill you all”. 

In spite of everything or maybe because of it, Brian actually laughs. Marin shakes his head. 

“The big one is Kishar. He’s even younger than I am. If he dies, then it’s over. Ishtar Mercuralis will burn both worlds to ash”. 

Brian lowers his gun, but the rest of his posture becomes rigid instead of deflating “So what, we just leave? There’s dead bodies in the reactor room. We saw them. That goliath led a strike team to murder dozens of us and he’s still going to bring the whole campus down to cover his tracks”. 

“It’s a lot better than a meltdown”. Marin replies. Then Kishar says something else she can’t understand, and Marin doesn’t translate. This negotiation is for elven ears only. That doesn’t mean they can’t shout their disapproval.  The giant roars for Marin to shut his humans up.

He doesn’t, or at least it doesn’t work. Nonetheless, it’s a cease-fire. Marin stands, gives a single sharp nod through the used-to-be-window, and Kishar gestures with his massive gun. His other hand is on the bound person he’s kidnapping. Sierra holds Brian’s hand to keep him from punching their friend in the jaw. As they run out, patches of ceiling have begun to cave in from the fire above them. The barricades have all been abandoned, except for a few where a slumped body still keeps watch. They’re running on wet tile when the shaking starts, and despite a lifetime of earthquakes, Clay slips. Brian doesn’t waste a second pulling him to his feet. 

Outside, she thinks that the soldiers were lying. The reactor must have melted down, or done something magical and worse, because the world is nothing but acrid smoke and the dust of buildings. It sticks to their wet skin and clothes and chokes out the sun. They look like ghosts, and so do the survivors who gather outside the police tape. She hopes they aren’t on camera. 

Brian veers off into the dust, and they try to reel him back in until the rest of the group sees Zerada and Jezero standing uselessly at the edge of sight. Useless. Marin cares more about his ancient enemies than them and now they’re almost outnumbered by elves. Then Sierra’s phone calls. It’s her mother. 

She coughs before picking up. “Hey Mama”

“Oh good. Have you seen the news?” Her mother is panicked so rarely that she has trouble telling. 

Cai was occupied somewhere else. “Uh, there’s a lot going on. What specifically?” What does the exhaustion in her own voice sound like?

Her mama calls them terrorist attacks. Labs across the world have all but sunk into the earth. The one at Berkeley somehow kicked off a magnitude five earthquake, the biggest one they’d had at home all year (and the second caused by an elf). If Sierra had been in Massachusetts for college, then maybe she’d have been in the nuclear engineering lab, and then maybe she’d have been caught up in whatever happened that nearly caused a nuclear accident.

The scientists were right. Cai was helping out at a bigger, fancier, lab. MIT is safe, thanks to the ex-prince[ss]. She promises to stay safe, promises to call again soon, and hangs up the phone. She wants to tell the group the news, but the elves are talking too loudly about the unexpected Mercuralis boy for her to get a word in. 

Zerada has a perfect kiss mark of destroyed laboratory dust on one cheek. Brian’s arguing against the little ceasefire trick, but he’s also in her arms. 

“We’ve got to hold an intervention,” Clay whispers.

She opens an email to their emissary “For which one?”

“Brian? What, you want me to confront the elf prince?”

“You’d do a better job than me”. 

……………….

Real university nuclear reactors are nothing to be afraid of. They are extremely safe and important for both research and job training. Do not let my silly oc thing turn you against nuclear energy. At the same time, when Sierra says that the US detonated "eight or..." nuclear bombs in the Nevada desert, she isn't saying eight or nine. She's saying eight or nine hundred. The fallout drifted downwind and caused widespread radiation poisoning and cancer. In summary, safety first when dealing with magic rocks formed by the decay of particles themselves.

Kishar Mercuralis is second-cousins with Ishtar’s kids. He is eighty-two, equivalent to barely eighteen. He’s also six foot seven without combat boots and built like a truck. However, he doesn’t have Ishtar’s strange durability. In a fight without magic or weapons, even Brian might be able to win just by toughing it out for longer.

@lokiwaffles @reggie246 @wishndreamer

[thunderclaw100]

(Tallest Lich belongs to https://messinwitheddie.tumblr.com/)

Lavender paces in front of the tallest’s chamber. Carrying her tablet in hand while she listen to her leader’s angry outburst. This isn’t her place to get involved, but with no one else available, Lavender was called to see what her tallest needs. She can hear him calling out to his staffs but none of them came to him. After gathering up the courage she needs. Lavender opens the door and enters.

Inside, tallest Lich lays on his spiky, somewhat comfy lounge couch. He heard the door open and got up. “FINALLY! I’ve been calling for ages. Where the heck have you been- wait a second….”

The tallest squinted his eyes to get a better look at her. “You’re not one of my staffs!” He said.

Lavender quickly looked down at her tablet’s blank screen. To avoid staring at the tallest. Lich is not even fully dressed. He’s wearing a long red robe but only the top doesn’t have the chest cover. Her antenna’s twitched at the sound of him moving towards her.

“Speak drone. Why are you here?”

“Greetings, my tallest! My name’s Lavender. I’m an Information Technology Specialist. As well as a pilot in the elite-B unit.” Lavender is then silenced by Lich raising his hand. Not in the mood for introductions.

“I did not ask you that. I want to know why you are here? I did not call for you. Hail wardrobe for me!”

He demanded that with a slight growl in his voice. Lavender turned on her tablet and checked for the list of Lich’s crew members. As she expected, none of those drones are available. Some even have their face images crossed out. Meaning they either quit or tallest Lich fired them on the spot. Even the food service drones are avoiding him. Lavender saw the last guy get kicked out and sentenced to janitorial duty as a way of punishment to those who displeased the tallest. It’s gotten out of hand now.

“I’m sorry, my tallest but it seems no one is in right now. They have all called out.” She said softly.

“What do you mean, they’ve called out?!” He shouted. Reaching down and snatching away her tablet to get a good look at the list. Lich grumbles and scroll down the screen. Once he got his fill, he tossed the tablet over his shoulder. Luckily Lavender caught it before the device could hit the floor.

“They are a useless bunch. And I’ve only fired half of these drones! The others didn’t need to quit.”

Lavender was tempted to ask why the tallest won’t just put on the rest of his robes by himself. It came to her understanding that since they’ve been measured. The tallest have to deal with discomfort in their bodies and suffering of back pains sometimes. This is why wardrobe staffs are there to get their tallest ready with new clothes, depending on preference and the occasion for them. Lavender looks uncomfortable just standing there with him.

“Wardrobe should be here. I need my cover top and my gauntlets! What’s a tallest got to do to have loyal subjects around here!” Lich throws the nearest table. Which was surprisingly light weight for him. He cussed and kicked over a bag of large chips.

“This must be the tantrums my co-workers are talking about. Why did they send ME over here��.”

“Forget them. They are ALL replaceable. I will hire more staffs soon.” Lich turned back around to face the drone. Lavender frown at his words.

“Why bother if they’re just gonna quit on you?”

“What was that?!” Lich marched up to her. Sizing her up with his tall height. Lavender stayed still but did. It repeat herself. Instead she continued onward.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re a tyrant, Lich. Everyone’s afraid of you. Heck they hate you, actually. With good reason too. You’re not easy to please and most of your staff can’t even do their jobs without you yelling in their faces! It’s hard to believe you’re even a tallest. I doubt your predecessor was ever like this towards his subjects.” Lavender knew she shouldn’t be saying this towards her leader, but Lich obviously needs to hear it from someone. Her hands gripped the sides of her tablet. The tall Irken was livid.

“I am a better tallest than Cini could ever be!” Lich shouted in her face. How dare this drone bring up the bane of his existence like that? Tallest Pepperoncini was nothing but a lazy old dream catcher. A people’s pleaser for all to see. He never took his title seriously and Lich believes he has fixed that image by showing his subjects how fearless and powerful he is. It is still early in his reign and he spent some of it by getting rid of Cini’s followers. Those who did not want Lich to be tallest and have even wanted Miyuki to stand as a better candidate instead of him.

“Cini is ten times the better tallest than you! Say whatever you want about his leading tactics, but he had a LOT of irkens who love, admire and respect him! Your personal staffs all run away or fired because of you.” She’s walking on thin ice with this one. Lavender had to put up with a lot of shit from taller drones but this one plucked her last nerve. Some of her close friends were treated unfairly by this man and it left them with an emotional/mental scar on them. Two moved to conventia, just to get away from the tallest. Lavender lowered her tablet.

“You have a lot to say for one so fat and short. Who sent you to me….Lavender?” He said that as if he didn’t hear her introduce her name already.

“It was Kleff. One of the field directors at the training site for the assigned co-pilots. She told him.

“Is that so? Well you better be worth my time. Fetch me the rest of my wardrobe gear. Read me back the new reports and my schedule list.” He went on as he walked towards her. Lavender’s body jolted a little.

“Oh and by the way….”

In a swift motion, Lich sends a slap across the drone’s face. Making her stumble backwards into the wall. That action stunned Lavender and her body shook as the tallest advances on her, growling.

“If you EVER talk to me like that agin. Or mention Cini in my presence. I will tear you apart and leave your fat carcass for the glorba beast to feast on!”

His threats nothing but true. She has heard enough from the other irkens that Lich would be brutal to anyone who crosses him. Even to his own generals. Not wanting to get hit again. Lavender dipped her head in a respectful way. “I apologize for my behavior, my tallest. It will not happen again.”

“See that it does not! Now go and do what I asked of you drone. My patients run thin!”

Lich returned to his lounging couch and slumped down into it. “I will inform your advisor to come by.” Lavender said. Making one last scroll through her tablet. The tallest waved his hand, dismissively.

“Just get going. I don’t have all day!” He grumbled.

“Yes my tallest.” She salutes and was out of that room in a hurry. Once outside, Lavender let out a long breath she never knew she could breathe.

She shakes out her whole body. Getting rid of the tension that has swallowed her up from just being in the same room as that Irken. What shocked Lavender is hearing her own voice talk back to the leader of the Irken empire. Lich could have easily killed her. Break her down, or throw her out the airlock and no one would care.

“It’s the rush! I’ve never felt so much in control back there. Why did Lich get so offended when I mentioned Pepperoncini? I may not have been around long enough to get to know our former leader, but I do hear tales from those who are close to him. I don’t know why Spinch put up with this guy. I fear if she slips up, he’ll put his hands on her!”

The image of that made Lavender shutter. Those sharp-bladed gauntlets of Lich’s have also been used for his torture games over his inferior subjects, such as his table drones. One in particular has been spared this fate but has had her eyelashes plucked.

“I better get my tallest what he wants before he has another fit. Then blame me for everything….” With that said, Lavender disappeared down the hallway.

[gaoau]

Stir — Night Study Session

A Mother's Instinct note — i did the math. with balconies having an average height of 2.3m and yakus jumping reach being 3.1m and the mandatory minimum height of a railing being 90cm, its technically possible for yaku to run up and reach a hand leaning over the railing of a balcony. warnings — none. word count — 1.4k

prev. — next.

The ungodly hours of the night were, for some annoying reason, [Name]'s favorite moments to burst into tears. Yaku had come to know this all too well, for he was unfairly doomed to suffer alongside her. His eyes would snap open to the utter darkness of the eigengrau engulfing his room, and then he'd realize his stomach was doing backflips. The digital clock on his bedside table would read times between two o'clock and half an hour past four—sometimes a little over one o'clock on a good night.

His first response was always to groan quite loudly, growling to himself words of [Name], what the actual fuck are you doing? After contemplating his options for a couple minutes, he would unplug his phone from its charger and wince at the brightness of his dull screen. More often than not, he'd find his notification bar entirely flooded with texts from Illiterate Dumbass Ankle—contact name courtesy of [Name] herself. When he opened the chat, the count of unread messages stood above fifteen every single time. Yaku had to scroll through pictures of her crying, red face and an impressive amount of exclamation points to figure out what was going on.

[Name]'s reasons for crying in the middle of the night ranged from the death of her favorite character in a series she was watching, to accidentally stepping on her cat's tail as she went to the kitchen for a snack, to getting startled because she thought she'd seen a humanoid figure standing on her backyard, to finally being able to understand that one math problem she'd been stuck on for forever. The amount of times Yaku had fallen asleep after reading text messages saying Holy shit I'll drop out and become a stripper I have never seen a number in my entire life only to wake up to [Name] challenging Albert Einstein to a trigonometry battle was insane—it happened so frequently that he was starting to get worried.

There were times, however, that his message app was left completely blank and untouched. Every once in a while, Yaku would jolt awake because of his stomach stirring itself up, pestering him to check on [Name] since she was most likely crying her eyes out. But when he pressed the power button on his phone and found no new messages at all, his stomach would become an empty void of nothingness as it tried to eat itself. Those were the times he would get genuinely worried, wondering what was making [Name] cry at night and why she wasn't telling him as she usually did.

Yaku sat up on his bed, the springs of his mattress creaking beneath him. His fingers swiped rapidly across his phone's screen and in no time he had sent three concerned messages in the span of five seconds. He patiently awaited a response, knowing full well [Name] kept her phone by her side every waking moment of her days. When a few minutes passed and his mess of a friend had yet to even read the messages, Yaku sighed resignedly.

He was quick to throw on a hoodie, grab his keys and wallet, and sneak out the window without waking up his parents. He knew [Name]'s favorite treats for a stressful night—whichever the reason for that stress was—and buying them presented no trouble. Maybe he could throw in some fruit for a smoothie and two cans of whipped cream to see who could down theirs first.

It was well past three o'clock when [Name] jumped at the sound of tapping on her window. An irregular rhythm, with very irregular pauses in-between—ah, Yaku was throwing rocks at her window again, wasn't he? Glancing with furrowed brows at her clock, [Name] forced herself to stand from her chair and draw her curtains open.

Effectively, ready in position to fling yet another pebble at her window, Yaku stood on the street, staring up with squinted eyes. His face lit up instantly upon seeing [Name] walk out her balcony, goosebumps erupting on her skin at the change in temperature. He retrieved his plastic bag from the ground and held it safely between his teeth.

[Name] leaned over the railing, stretching out her dominant arm out of habit—after her parents locked their ladder away, these two had to improvise. With a small run-up, Yaku leaped into the air and clasped his hand around [Name]'s forearm. "Goodness fucking gracious, Morisuke, what are you doing here?" [Name] grunted as she struggled to pull her friend onto safe land without falling over. "I'm also trying to study, so, yeah… You know…?"

Yaku shot her a quick thanks while ushering her back into her room, scolding her for heading out into the cold without a coat and barefoot. He set the plastic bag on her desk, right next to the open biology textbook and [Name]'s notes. "So that's it, then."

[Name] crashed onto her chair. "What's it?"

"That's why you're crying."

[Name]'s brows seemed to dance; one rose in confusion, then fell into a frown with its pair, before finally bending into a grimace. "Cry—I'm not crying, though?" Yaku brushed the back of his finger up her lashes. [Name] blinked repeatedly, before flinching at the unexpected sensation of tiny water droplets hitting her face. She locked eyes with Yaku's knowing look. "…Oh God, I'm crying."

"Come here."

And she did as told, pressing her forehead against his cushioned stomach, inhaling the scent of his deodorant on his hoodie. "Sorry, I've just been kinda stressed lately." A few sniffles sounded as she wiped her eyes with her fingers. "I really need to save my biology grades or I'm done for."

"[Name], come on, it's only the first semester. You'll get it back up the next one."

"You trust me too much."

Yaku laughed, tracing his hands up and down her back in an attempt to soothe her. "I should. I'm sure you'll do fine. Don't you like biology?"

"Dude, I like plants, not learning however the fuck humans came to be."

[Name] pulled away and raked her fingers through her hair. Yaku smiled down at her, placing his palm atop her shoulder. "Trust me on this one, you'll do just fine."

"I need better than fine, though." Her eyes strayed to the open textbook, riddled with thousands of unreadable characters. A heavy sigh fell from her lips. "I should really go over some stuff, just to be sure."

"Here." The rustling of the plastic bag caught [Name]'s attention. Yaku knew her too well. "I brought snacks and your favorite ice-cream. We can review together."

"Morisuke, it's, like, three in the morning."

"We will review together."

[Name] giggled, accepting the package of blueberries Yaku had tossed to her. She popped a small handful into her mouth. "Thanks, dad. Hm, also, how'd you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I was crying."

Yaku blanked. "Uh, I just did." He shrugged his shoulders while opening the cans of whipped cream. "I just know. Here, no cheating." He passed one of the cans to [Name], who gingerly took it in her hands with glimmering eyes. Almost instantly, she coated her blueberries with whipped cream. "Oh, for fuck's sake, I said no cheating."

"Good thing there's no practice tomorrow." [Name] snorted loudly, watching how her friend hurried to fill his mouth with sugary whipped cream. She gulped down her fruit before joining him.

"You can crash at my place."

Yaku's words—albeit muffled by the amount of cream puffing his cheeks—brought a warm smile to her face. "Much appreciated. Okay, let me teach you about human evolution."

Together, they laughed the night away, tossing fruit into each other's mouth and playing with their cans of whipped cream. [Name] explained her biology material with exaggerated hand motions and always a spoonful of her favorite ice-cream flavor trapped between her fingers. It was the following morning while she flunked her test when she wished she had gotten more than an hour of sleep. But looking back, the nights in which she started talking about the evolution of human beings only to end up rambling about the thumb not being considered a finger by certain definitions were her favorite.

[ssgaveyard]

household essentials

1–

Sarada was used to the hustle and bustle of their home even though growing up it was just mostly her and her mama.

Now that's she's an adult, the house was never quiet either, but what throws her a little off balance is that it's her papa filling the silence.

He seemed so different but still so gentle and patient with her. Mama used to joke that papa's quiet because he's still growing into his tongue. Papa would glare at mama halfheartedly, and she would grin. He'd shake his head and smirk with a low muttering of 'annoying'.

What an odd couple. How could that one word means so much to them?

'Annoying.'

Then she remembers that her parents had a life before her, one filled with pain, sacrifices, and war. That one word encompasses their history and everything they had to get through to where they are.

"I'm leaving for my mission, Papa!"

He comes to the door and sees her off, like he did every day without fail.

"Have a great day, Sarada. I love you."

She still gets flustered when papa does this! She was an adult, not some kind going off to the academy, but she understands.

She meets the Hokage and before official business he'd always ask, "How's Sasuke doing?"

And she'd say same old, same old. He'll wake up, prepare breakfast, see her off, talk to mama, clean, read scrolls, talk to mama some more, and more chores.

"Still afraid of the silence, huh?"

She'd nod, and they'd let the conversation sit between them. This would be the part when one of them confesses to the other.

"I think he just misses her."

"We all do, Sarada." He wasn't wrong. In the haze of the morning, she'd still sometimes to open the door and rush her into her routines, just so she won't be late, but her father bears a heavier cross.

She shakes her head, "I think he regrets it. Not saying that he loved her with words. before she…."

"Sakura knew," he replies without any hesitation.

"I don't think it matters that mama knew. I think he still aches about how she was always the one to say it for the both of them."

"That bastard was always a coward." She didn't approve of this, she still held a torch for the only man in her life, but he let him continue.

"He's terrified that if he said it out loud, she'll be taken away from him too." Like his parents, his brother, everyone he ever loved.

"Now, she's still gone, and he's missed his chance," she finishes for him.

The blonde nods. There was a beat before the blonde was Hokage-sama again and briefs you on your short mission.

"Papa, I'm home!"

"Hn. Welcome back. Dinner's ready so go wash up."

She indulges him like this, talking about her day, asking questions so he doesn't feel the weight of the looming fact that it's just the two of them now, devoid of doting, nagging pinks and red in their life.

The conversations grew thin, and words were few and far now when she finds her courage, disliking the stillness.

"Papa, what did you love most about mama?"

He hummed and she knows he's reminiscing. It's so easy to fall into it,

"Sakura…" He lets mama's name slip from his lips, so gently and nostalgic.

"She gave me the reason to continue living."

He looked at her then and saw the tremendous love and affection he had for her. How even before she knew what it meant, she knew they were connected because of her. She recognizes why mama never needed words, never asked for it when papa's feelings are tangible enough to touch.

Cross posted on my AO3 here

[eggyboyoart]

LMK Tang Headcanons

Love this funky little cicada guy

Tang’s scent is like, parchment, wood and incense.

Hes like, obsessed with incense and also smoking herbs

And not just weed, okay? There are other herbs you can smoke

He mostly partakes in blue lotus and rose for his anxiety (totally not for the psychoactive properties, noo…)

I was very tempted to say he was asthmatic, but the image of a high Tang was too funny to pass up

After the events of Season 4, he began to develop changes to his physical appearance, relating to him being the reincarnation of the Golden Cicada

He got lil antenna and lil cicada wings (what a silly little guy)

After Season 4, Macaque taught him how to use a glamour, so Tang could hide his new features :)

While I am a fan of inky pages (Macaque/Tang) I am also a fan of free noodles (Tang/Pigsy)\

But that’s okay, you know why?

Tang has two hands :D

He can also speak/understand bugs

Because bugs are… bugs, there isn’t much to understand because they have a limited intelligence, but it’s a fun little party trick ig

His house is a MESS

There are books and scrolls EVERYWHERE on every surface (even the floor) and don’t even get me started on his DESK

His hands are like, pretty much permanently stained with ink

Like little splotches and dots and lines of all different colours (mostly black, blue and red but there are some yellow and green lines in there)

His hand writing is IMMACULATE tho

Its like, still swirly and fancy but you can actually read it

He also reads ridiculously fast

Like, he’d be finished with two whole pages before you’ve even finished half of one page

Now that Tang can teleport, he takes advantage of this all the fucking time

Like, why would he ever walk somewhere again, when he can just teleport?

No more public transport, no more walking, no more cars

Hes livin’ the life

Meanwhile, Pigsy is standing in the corner with a mf rake like, ‘FUCK. YOU’

Tang is very meticulous with his hair

His hair does not lay like that naturally

In reality, his hair is pure chaos

Using just a brush will NOT tame that mane

He uses gel, hair spray, a straightener; all to get it all to lay perfectly

He also gets super pissy when his hair gets wet

Hes like, “I did NOT wake up early to do my hair for it to be RUINED-“

Hes a bit of diva – like, hes very dramatic and complains a lot

He uses his childhood injury as an excuse to get out of a lot of things all the time

Which would be perfectly acceptable, if he didn’t use that excuse to get out of even the most BASIC chores

‘what do you mean you can’t take your own plate to the sink?’ ‘my ANKLE-“

Pigsy and Tang live together, but Pigsy avoids going into Tang’s room like it’s the damn plague

There might as well be a damn plague in there given all those old history books/scrolls

Tang is also a hoarder and has trouble throwing things away

[vikenticomeshome]

Does Anyone Remember Which Cybersite This Was?

Hey Cyberchase fans! Help me out here! Does anyone remember the name of this Cybersite, or which episode it appeared in? There are some flashing effects in the rendered video, so some people may want to stick with my still images and explanations of what happens. I'll put the link to the rendered video under a "read more" at the end. I will be spoiling the different scenes, so if you want to scroll all the way down the "read more" and follow the link to watch the video first, I will understand.

We start out with a shot of the great green void of Cyberspace, though the mathematical equations are notably absent.

Then, we get our first look at the actual site. I can't show it properly here, but those two segmented belts are continuously moving in opposite directions. The belt on the left is moving towards the bottom left, while the belt on the right is moving towards the top right. There must have been a scene of either the kids or the duncebuckets having to run along the belts, jumping between the segments.

I can't see the belt anymore in this shot. I assume that they zoomed out to show the true scale of the site. It looks like it's made of spines, like a porcupine. I really like the look of it.

And then, we get a shot of this infinitely long rectangular prism that is, itself, covered in rectangles. It doesn't really tesselate. I already knew this wasn't the tesselation episode, though.

And now, we seem to be inside the rectangular prism. There are rods coming out of the floor, walls, and ceiling. There is probably a scene of the kids flying the Cybercoupe through here, with Buzz and Delete in hot pursuit.

It was a bit difficult to get a good shot of this, as the camera angles kept changing for dramatic effect, but it appears to be two cylinders slamming together hard enough to make a spark, and then coming apart again. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grim Weaker gets crushed between there at some point. Also, the normally green void of Cyberspace starts looking very blue, as if the hammer is causing some distortion. I think we just found The Hacker's plot for this episode.

I'm not sure what to make of this next scene. We have the green void of Cyberspace with three tendrils. This doesn't match the prior shape of the Cybersite at all. Did it reformat like Topsy-Turvy Island?

And now, we see another aspect of this Cybersite. We have a broken-up pathway, and then the reflection of that broken-up pathway above. In the distance, we have some sort of central core (?). I can't easily reproduce the effect here, but it is shooting sparks to the left and right.

Here's another shot where we can see just how far the sparks are going.

We get another shot of the broken-up walkway and its mirror-image. This time, we are looking down from above. Was this a POV shot from the Grim Wreaker?

Here's another case where I cannot reproduce the full effect. Believe me, all of these interlocking are spinning. This must have been from the climax of the episode, where The Hacker throws the site into chaos.

This scene actually scared me as a kid. Why is everything red? Why does it look like it is shattering into a million pieces? What did The Hacker do to this Cybersite?

This scene happens later, and it looks like the kids have saved the day. The Cybersite is back to how it was earlier.

Maybe not.

It looks like The Hacker's Doomsday Device is still active.

In the next scene, the conveyor belts appear to still be running. Is that good? Is that bad? I don't remember what they meant in the context of the episode.

Maybe the Cybercitizens managed to turn The Hacker's weapon against him, though. This feel like a POV shot of the Grim Wreaker about to crash into that infinitely long rectangular prism from earlier.

Yeah, this shot has to be from the happy ending, where the site is restored.

So, that's the long and short of that. Do any Cyberchase fans recognize the Cybersite or the episode? The Cyberchase WIki is coming up with nothing.

Yeah, this isn't some secret lost episode of Cyberchase. But this is something that I am personally nostalgic for. I remember watching this 10-15 years ago. This was a graphics and audio demo called "Chaos Theory". It was created by a demoscene group known as "Conspiracy" all the way back in 2006 for a gaming festival in Finland called "Assembly".

The cool thing about this being a graphics and audio demo is that, if you get the executable version, it doesn't play a pre-rendered video. The executable contains instructions that it sends to your graphics hardware, which constructs the models, creates the visual effects, and generates the audio in real time. It essentially creates everything from scratch every time you run the executable. Because everything is created at runtime, the executable is only 64KB, which is very small. If I recorded this at 720P resolution, the pre-rendered video file would be about 160MB. The pre-rendered video would be roughly 2,500 times larger than the executable that renders it in real time.

And now, here we are, about 18 years later. It still looks great. The executable still works on modern systems, and it has options to render up to 4K. The "Conspiracy" team is also still active. I need to see what else they have made.

Here's a link to their main site.

And here's a link to their subdomain where you can download "Chaos Theory" and run it for yourself.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Bound, Part 11

Previous part

He eyed the woman who had slung herself across his couch without hesitation, a little wary. He thought it was perfectly understandable to be on guard, considering she had greeted him by punching him.

She didn’t pay him much mind. Her gaze stayed firmly on her phone. She scrolled through along, scanning over webpage over webpage over webpage…

He knew, almost before she started to do it, that she was going to start biting the nails of her free hand. Pain just barely twinged at his fingers. Not enough for it to really bother him, just enough for it to be noticeable.

It was strange, really. He knew many of her most intimate habits. He couldn’t tell you what her favorite color was.

“You know, you could help,” she said, still not looking up. “Might be more fun than staring like a creep.”

“You know,” he mocked. “Maybe you should have researched more on how to get rid of our bond before you traveled over to get rid of it with me.”

“Oh, I was going to come anyways. Wanted to beat your ass.”

“That went well,” he said, trying to push down his vindictive glee at the reminder of her newly-broken nose. It was wrong, he knew. It would be wrong if it was a random person, and it was especially wrong knowing she was his soulmate. They were, supposedly, meant to be made for each other. Wasn’t this technically abusing his potential future spouse? He swallowed thickly, wondering whether he should apologize. She had hit him first, he had just reacted. But did that make it okay?

She rolled her eyes. “Hey, watch it, or I’ll choose the easy option to get rid of our bond.”

The guilt he had felt for half a second disappeared so fast that he wondered if its existence had been an illusion.

He snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the one who was constantly dying.”

For the first time, she seemed mildly caught off-guard. She looked at him fully, her eyes wide and dancing with an emotion that was too complicated for him to decipher. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean ‘what do you mean’?” He sneered. “You died a solid few times –.” He cut himself off. His eyebrows knit together just barely. He… why was he so sure of that? Sure, he had a couple of memories of her dying, and panicking over it, but… that didn’t make sense. How would she have come back? She certainly hadn’t fought like a League member earlier, and the League couldn’t even bring people back from the dead… and, besides, he didn’t feel anything when he thought about the event. Surely, he should have some kind of emotional response to that, if only because he had had an entire breakdown over it at the time and remembering something so terrible should make him at least somewhat anxious. But it didn’t. He pressed his lips together thinly. “Nevermind. That… was a dream, I guess.”

Something else flickered across her expression, too much for him to get a read on in the few seconds it was there before she wiped it away in favor of that same bored expression she seemed to just love to wear. “Hm. Well, help me research how to get rid of this?”

She motioned vaguely to the air between them. To the red string that he couldn’t see, but now couldn’t ignore thanks to the lines digging into his arms.

He sighed and nodded, dropping into an armchair. It was his father’s, but it wasn’t like the man would ever notice that Tim used it far more often than him.

“Give me a rundown on what you already know?”

Marinette muttered something under her breath, and he could feel a twinge of annoyance from her that he quickly returned, but she set down her phone and turned to look at him.

“Basically, the original story of the Red String of Fate goes: a boy talks to an old man, and the old man says he can see who his soulmate is because he can see a red string that connects him to a girl just beyond the fence. The boy throws a fit… and also a rock –.”

“Wait, he threw a rock at his soulmate?” Tim spluttered.

She snorted. “Yeah, keep up. Anyways, eventually, he gets married. He lifts his unknown bride’s veil and finds that she has a scar on her face. She gets nervous and asks why he’s staring, and whether he would choose not to love her because she was tainted, but he responds with another question – how did she get it? Apparently, when she was a kid, a rock got thrown over the side of a fence and it hit her in the head. She asks again if he wishes to cancel their marriage, but he tells her that he would never, as she had just proven that they were meant to be.”

Tim mulled this over in his head a few times. That… honestly, sounded terrifying. Not only because he didn’t like that it somewhat paralleled the way they had hurt each other over the years, right down to the way they waited a while before meeting up once all of the pain had settled down… which had some damning implications… but because the idea of fate being predetermined was a hard pill to swallow. Yes, he had always known that he had a soulmate, but that was different than being told his life had been planned out from the moment he was born, that everything he did was meaningless because he had only ever done what he was supposed to. Having someone he was (at least in theory) made to get along with was one thing, being told that he was going to be forced to by fate to fall in love with them was another thing entirely.

A tiny shiver ran through him. Suddenly, he wanted to get rid of the string as well. He had agreed because he knew better than to try and force someone to be with him – and, possibly, partially out of spite as well – but now he was motivated. Being bound to someone sounded horrifying in a way he had never truly considered before, and being bound to someone like Marinette only made it worse.

He pulled out his phone. “The String is an East Asian thing, right?” He asked absently, already navigating to Google.

She hummed. “Yeah. Mostly Chinese, I think, but I’ve seen it bleed into other countries... I have a theory about it being about belief and heritage. My family believes in it, has for centuries, and so I have it.”

“And then I got all caught up in it,” Tim said, nodding slowly. That made sense.

She gave a tiny nod, and a twinge of guilt that didn’t belong to him surfaced, but it was gone the moment he recognized it for what it was. She ran a hand through her hair, something between frustration and anger and something else he couldn’t quite place making its way across her face. “I found a couple of stories where people tried to get rid of their strings, some stuff on forums where people asked how…”

A pit formed in his stomach, and he finally recognized that third emotion she was feeling: fear. Underlying all of it, there was an undeniable terror.

He swallowed thickly. “What happened?”

“Every single one of them ended up with their soulmate,” she said. Her hands curled into fists. “Every single one.”

A chill ran through him, though his house was supposed to be the perfect temperature.

“Then why did you come here?” He said, and his voice came out a hiss. Anger that wasn’t truly his roiled under his skin, but it was so much easier to deal with that than the fear making bile rise in his throat. “If you knew that we were probably going to be forced together by fate, why allow it?”

“It would have happened either way,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in a way that was supposed to be nonchalant, and yet he could recognize the way she bristled. “I figured it was better to do it on my own terms. And, really, do you think that this will be easy? That we can just find some magical fate-altering scissors on our own and break it? No, we’re dealing with magical creatures – things with power beyond our fucking comprehension – and I don’t think that you should be forced to deal with the consequences of that without knowing what’s going on.”

She made sense, and yet Tim couldn’t even bring himself to give her that.

“You never bothered with any of this before.”

She smiled in a way that was really more of a bearing of her teeth than anything. “Before you were getting hurt nightly.”

Tim opened his mouth, only to snap it closed.

He thought it over for a few moments.

“You… really did just do it because I did?”

She blinked at him, and this time he knew to look for the second-long flashes of her true feelings when they flitted over her face, and he could recognize something akin to exhaustion. “I wouldn’t have had to if you had just used fucking painkillers,” she said, shaking her head, and for just a moment she looked far older than she actually was.

And Tim blanched.

“I did.”

Marinette’s head jerked up to look at him. “You…?”

“I used painkillers all the time,” he confirmed.

A quiet kind of devastation settled over him, and he wasn’t even sure whether it was his own. He had spent all this time furious at her, because she had been giving him far more pain than he had been giving her, but what if she hadn’t known? What if she’d only been giving him what she’d been getting? And what if she had been on painkillers too, and wasn’t even aware of just how much she’d been hurting him?

What if it was all a misunderstanding?

But he shook off that thought. The words from before hadn’t quite left his mind yet, the promise that they would one day, by some literal twist of fate, be forced together by the universe. What if this was the start? Whispers of the possibility that this was all less serious than he had thought it was and he had found himself already wanting to forgive her… that wasn’t like him. Not at all. He was a bat – or, at least, had been, once – and he knew better than to forgive so easily.

He jerked back, away from her even though she wasn’t even close to him, practically trying to become one with the plush armchair in his desperation to put some distance between them.

They’d only just met, and fate was already toying with them, pulling them along like marionettes on strings, forcing them to act out a play they’d never signed up to be in.

They needed this to be fixed, and fast. Before they stopped remembering to fight back.

“What do we need to do? Did anyone on the forums come up with anything before…?”

She snapped out of it. Her jaw clenched and her gaze snapped away. “There’s nothing in Chinese mythology about breaking the String of Fate – most people rather like it, apparently… but… I have some ideas… it all just depends on whether I can see magic from other cultures or not. I can lead you places even if you’re blind, but if even I can’t see where we’re going…”

He thought about that for a long while. “If it’s based on culture and the people around us, then maybe I can do something with my Jewish heritage. Try and summon, like, Asmodeus or something and see if you can interact with him.”

She shook her head, smiling sadly. “It’s not that easy, I don’t think. I wasn’t just born seeing magic,” she said. “At least, in my experience, you have to be allowed to see everything.”

He frowned a little.

“‘Allowed’? How did you start seeing it?”

“I’m afraid it’s not my story to tell,” she said, shrugging. “And I’m not sure you’d believe me anyways.”

“... I’m believing that we’re tied together as soulmates because of a magic red piece of yarn. Honestly, you could tell me that that one weird Flying Spaghetti Monster Religion is true and I’d probably believe you right now.”

She laughed, but it sounded a little bitter. “It’s not that I don’t think you would, it’s that I don’t think you can.”

He tried to convey, both through his expression and through the bond they were forced to share, just how confused he was.

Something like amusement quirked at the corner of her lips, and she reached out to tap his nose. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Tim blinked, and the moment of half-sincerity was gone as if it had never existed at all.

And, well, if she was going to evade his questions and be mildly condescending while she did so, he thought it was fair game to be a little petty himself. He grinned and rested his head in his palm. “You think my head is pretty?”

“And little,” she offered, and the amusement in her eyes sparkled to life for real now. “Very tiny. Practically baby sized.”

Tim scoffed, but even he couldn’t keep the laughter out of his voice when he said, “I’ll take any compliment I can get from you, darling.”

“Oh, doll,” she said, mock pouting. “You need some higher standards.”

“Maybe they are high, maybe you’re just meeting all of –.”

He got cut off by a jolt of horror so intense he wanted to curl up in a ball and hide, but it was coming from within and he was pretty sure he couldn’t run away from this, no matter how hard he tried.

And he realized, seconds after Marinette had, what was happening.

They were getting along.

But was it real? Was it forced? Was it because they felt like they were supposed to? Fuck.

“Any…” Marinette said, her voice choked. “Any other ideas?”

He nodded slowly, his eyes sliding carefully away, to a very interesting coffee table a few feet away. “Just one, but we’re gonna have to go on a bit of a road trip to do it.”

“I’m sure it can’t be too bad, considering where we’re gonna be going if it turns out I can interact with things from other cultures.”

“... where are we going?”

“Well…” She said, smiling nervously. “There’s only one other reference to a String of Fate in any other mythology.”

She showed him her phone.

Three women, of varying ages, were crocheting together. The youngest of the three was spinning thread, her lips curled into the barest of smiles, the kind of soft look a parent might give their newborn baby. The middle one, in both age and position, had brows furrowed in concentration as she worked on looping the threads around each other in intricate patterns, intertwining and deciding fates with simple flicks of her fingers. The oldest stood by her, watching over her, her lips pulled back into a toothless smile full of that pure kind of glee you might see a grandma give over a game of bingo, her scissors open in preparation to cut out a loose, fraying thread and make the tapestry perfect once again.

Greek mythology’s three Fates.

He eyed the scissors in the crone’s hands.

And then he looked at Marinette. He wondered, quietly, whether she was insane.

“They could kill us for even daring to ask.”

She nodded slightly. “Hence why I came here. There are other options, don’t get me wrong, but… djinn, demons, fae… they might be able to help, but they all come at the price of even worse fates than death. This is the one with the least risk, and it’s probably the hardest one of them all… but, if we do it, we’ll be free.”

And maybe he was insane too. Maybe that was why they’d been paired up together in the first place.

Because he shot her a grin, however weak, and said:

“We’re just taking one little trip to the Underworld to ask for a favor from the gods. How hard could it be?”

~~~

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