#also this was kind of just an excuse to draw my new load out

[boimann]

Artist rendition of the moment he left me

Sometimes I can still hear his voice

my heavymedic dreams finally came true today

i wanted to play some zombie infection mode so i loaded into Sanitarium.

first thing i hear as i spawn in is someone in voice chat telling everyone to go to the elevetor so we can have a dance party in there, so i go because that sounds fun and that's when i see him, this beautiful heavy. it was love at first sight.

As soon as he sees my name (kissing heavy sloppy style) he asks in voice chat if someone can put on some romantic elevator music and he starts getting really close and making kissy noises.

I, of course, am head over heels for him and i start pocketing him.

Together we start causing havoc. He protects me, i heal him, he throws me sandwitches, every time he adresses me he calls me "my love" and of course every time one of us dies the other goes back to the elevator and waits for him to respawn and reunite.

We danced in the elevator a lot and chat was surpriseingly supportive of our little love story.

He even took me out to dinner to the truck next to spawn that has a cauldron on the truck bed. He got very protective when a demo started staring at us, he killed him for me and claimed the kill in my honour.

but alas all good things must come to an end.

At the start of the next round he told me that he had completed his contract and that he was going to change map, with that he bid me ferwell and made one last kissy noise before he left.

i will always cherish those moments we had together,

i will never forget you my love <3

[jackie-gremlin-ghost]

Here’s a short oneshot involving my Thundermans Sona!

I was a bit inspired by @candyheartedchy to write this!

It’s nights like this that Jack really wishes she had stayed in her room.

It was Family Game Night at the Thundermans. And while she technically wasn’t family, Hank and Barb were kind enough to offer to let her join in on the fun. She graciously opted out, though, and decided to stand in as a referee.

A fat load of good that did, because things were getting… heated. Hank and Barb were stressing out, Nora was acting weird, and the twins were at each other’s throats.

All over a new car.

It hadn’t taken long for Jack to figure out that the house’s self-proclaimed “future supervillain”, and the actual supervillain that was his roommate, had rigged the family’s prize wheel to land on the most rare prize of all this time, and she was even less surprised when the two of them had planned to team up that night.

But things soon got complicated.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Max invited his girlfriend Allison to join in at the last minute. Turns out she’s a whiz at “Who Arted?”.

Jack couldn’t help but feel her heart go out for Colosso. The rabbit looked and sounded so upset, and she couldn’t blame him. If there wasn’t a civilian in the house, she would’ve immediately offered to partner up with him.

As Game Night continued, she swears that one could cut the tension in the air with a chainsaw. Allison was a talented artist, which quickly put her and Max in the lead. Billy and Nora on the other hand were a disaster. Nora would keep throwing out nonsensical guesses before Billy’s marker even touched the drawing pad. And Phoebe…

Phoebe was desperate.

Her frantic scribbles only confused little Chloe, who quickly became bored and headed up to her room, leaving Phoebe without a partner and all but disqualified from the game. But she wasn’t gonna let Max win.

“Please, Jack,” she pleaded. “You’re the only one here I can partner with!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Jack said. “I already agreed to be referee. And besides…” She then lowered her voice to a whisper so Allison wouldn’t hear. “The last thing we need is me getting stressed out, swarming the house with living shadows, and blowing mine and your family’s secrets!”

“…Good point,” Phoebe mused, then turned to glare at her brother. “Nice try, Max. I’m gonna find another partner. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault Chloe ditched you,” Max said, before turning to Allison with a sweet smile. “I’d never do that.”

“Hypocrite!” Jack exclaimed behind a round of coughs as Phoebe scoffed. “Sorry, I have a really dry throat all of a sudden. I’m gonna go get some water.” And with that, Jack excused herself to the kitchen.

As she grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, she could hear Phoebe’s voice protesting to her brother, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. When she came back into the living room, Phoebe was gone. A few minutes later, however, she came back with a smile.

“Where’d you run off to?” Jack asked.

“Just had to make a phone call,” Phoebe explained. “I found a new partner. He’ll be here soon.”

“Huh. That was fast.”

“Yep!”

————

About 10 minutes later, the doorbell rang.

“Oh! I’ll get it,” Phoebe said as she headed towards the door. “That’s my new teammate.” She opened it, and in walked a man Jack hadn’t seen before. He looked to be around Hank’s age, if not a little younger. Maybe a relative of his she hadn’t met yet?

He was also on the taller side, maybe around six feet or so (if her mental comparison to her own height of a little over 5-foot-1 was correct). His height wasn’t the only thing that made him stand out, though. Aside from his grey hat and khaki pants, he wore a bright magenta suit jacket with a pink silk handkerchief in the front pocket, over a pastel pink plaid shirt, and a… monocle? A little fancy for a family get together, but she wasn’t one to judge.

His eyes felt familiar to her, though. They were a warm brown that she could have sworn shined with a bit of mischief, but still felt safe.

As she wracked her brain over where she’d seen eyes like that before, she took a drink from her water bottle. This turned out to be bad timing on her part, as it was then that the man spoke.

“Hello, family!” He greeted as he took off his hat, showing his salt-and-pepper hair.

That voice. She knew that voice.

The instant she heard it, Jack immediately spit out her water in shock… all over Hank. It took everything for the man in front of them not to laugh at the sight. He cleared his throat to regain his composure.

“Uncle Colosso’s here for Game Night!”

Jack wiped her mouth with an apologetic look and glanced around the room to see everyone else’s feelings on the matter. Hank and Barb were stunned, the fact that the former was now soaking wet not even seeming to register. Billy and Nora were just as surprised. Allison just looked confused.

And then there was Max.

Poor kid looked like he’d seen a ghost and had the consequences of his actions slap him in the face all at once. His expression only fell even more as Phoebe and the now human(?!) Colosso leaned down to him, both whispering smugly.

“You’re going down.”

Well, this just got interesting, Jack thought to herself, failing to hide her amused smile. It was nice knowing you, Max. As her eyes met those of her best friend, he shot her a wink and let out that familiar mischievous laugh.

It was moments like this where she was glad that she decided not to stay in her room.

[purplelescent]

A Pair of Jokers

Pokemon Fan-Fiction: Grimsley/Reader

Summary: Now that you’ve lost a game of cards to your childhood best friend, Grimsley, you owe him a favor. Although you don’t know if you can survive the onslaught of his flirtatious teasing while spending the day with him. You’ve had sincere, secret feelings for him for years. Perhaps, it’s time to clear the air and let him know how you really feel.

Why do I always agree to play cards with him? The man's a world-class gambler and-

Ugh.

Look how pleased he is with himself. Dinner's always so nice until we get to playing cards. Sporadically, we get together to catch up every few weeks. This used to be a friend group thing, but lately, it's just been us.

Secretly, it felt kinda' romantic. It's not like I've had a crush on him or anything. For like… years…

…

I'd never admit it.

Drawing my next card, excitement hummed through my body. I had it! Victory! When we reveal our hands, I'd beat him. We bet something special tonight, a favor. We also wagered that the loser pays for dinner too, but that's clearly not as important.

When I played my hand, four of a kind, the odds were in my favor. His shock looked so genuine.

Then he revealed his hand, a straight flush of hearts.

My body’s hum of excitement turned sour and fizzled away. He flashed a coy smile, propping his chin on the back of his hand.

"How perfect." Grimsley purred.

"Yeah. Yeah…" I grumbled, trying not to blush at the tone of his voice.

"I apologize. I promise I'm not gloating. Just musing over the cards you dealt me. I’d almost think you rigged the deck. Are you trying to tell me something?”

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I caught a faint trace of his cologne from across the table. The scent held a soft, but powerful vibe, reminding me of a summer sunset on the ocean. My heart began pounding fast as I looked into his bright blue eyes.

“We should have played voltorb flip.” I grumble.

“That’s only a one-player game.”

“Exactly.”

“You wound me.” He chuckled as he leaned forward.

Leaning away, I rested my head against the back of the chair. The ceiling was the perfect blank slate to calm my emotions down. Sure. I'm acting like a sore loser, but better than letting him find out how he's making my heart race. Now that I've lost, I realized how screwed I am. That's what I get for being confident.

If he wanted his prize he'd have to bring it up. I started to wish I hadn't agreed to our little wager. He'd choose something embarrassing for me. Now that was a safe bet.

Grimsley and I have known each other since elementary school before we even got our pokémon. I remember when his family moved into the apartments we lived in. Everyone thought they were reclusive freaks at first.

"Getta' load of those snobs." My brother mumbled in my ear.

"I heard they was rich. They pissed it away and now they're like everybody else." Jackson said, or was it Mike? One of my brother's douchebag friends said it. That much I remember.

They introduced themselves to the boys and invited them to come play. Not out of a sense of goodwill though. The new kids were the entertainment. Grimsley and his older brother slowly joined the neighborhood pack of boys, but it was always clear they were the odd ones out.

I remember the day when he fully became one of the guys though. The boys were playing truth or dare, which means they were doing stupid things to one-up each other. I didn't think much of it even when they started betting money and candy. One of the neighbor girls, I can’t remember who she was either, and I were playing catch with a stolen dodgeball from school.

"Um… excuse me."

I squealed and fumbled to catch the ball. It made a harsh “poink” as it hit me in the chest. Turing to look at him, Grimsley cheeks glowed rosy red. I must have thought he was sunburned at the time.

"Du-de! What the heck!"

He smiled a little. His blue eyes betrayed his nervousness though. In a flash, he pecked my lips with his and ran back to the group of boys who were laughing and jeering.

"Told you he'd do it! Here's the one-fifty!" One of them sneered dropping the coins on the ground.

My heart was going to burst out of my chest. I felt like I was burning up. My heart fluttered and broke in an instant. That was my first kiss- stolen and sold for less than a bottle of potion. At that age, I don't think I was even thinking about romance yet.

I whipped around seething.

"Grimsley!" I screeched.

When I remember this part, it's always in slow motion. I knew I'd get in trouble, but in my nine-year-old mind, I had no choice! This was what he deserved.

He turned to look at me as he stood up. I threw the dodgeball. It slammed him square in the face. It bounced off with the same “poink” noise it made when it hit me. Coins scattered and clinked on the ground. I stormed off before he could pull himself off the ground.

So apparently, taking a dodgeball to the face made you “one of the boys”. I had inadvertently improved his social status in the neighborhood.

Lucky little bastard.

He's been toying with me ever since. I can’t even begin to tell you when or why my feelings started for him. Yet, after that, he never left me alone.

Grimsley made it his hobby to embarrass me any chance he got. He always tries to fluster me with pickup lines and innuendos. I learned to block it out by the time we became adults. Each time he'd flash a big, cat-like grin before pulling the "Joking!" card and have a good chuckle. Then I’d chastise him with a little slap.

To him, it was just friendly banter. To me it was torture.

In a pleasant way, but since none of it is real then it all circles around to make me feel worse afterwards. If he knew I really did have a massive one-sided crush, he’d probably be weirded out. So, whenever he starts up, I just go along with it. Then I move on as if I wasn't still entertaining the romantic ideas he provoked within me. I’ll get over him, someday.

Grimsley softly called my name, "Are you falling asleep?"

"No. I'm waiting."

"For?" he asked, his voice litling playfully.

I finally ended my staring contest with the ceiling to glare at him.

Arceus.

Look at his shit-eating grin.

If I wasn’t on the hook, I’d think it was cute. When gambling, he becomes unreadable, like a perfectly still pond. He has a few tells I try to look for; a slight twitch of the left eye, sweat around the side of his cheeks, his grin tugging slightly to left when he's sure victory will be his... But he's practiced to perfection at hiding them. Yet outside of the game, when he has nothing to hide, he's quite animated.

Dramatic is a better description, in my opinion.

He wanted me to bring it up. He'd leave me dangling on this hook all night if he had to. Just like a purrloin toying with his prey.

Steeling myself for the inevitable, I asked, "What do you want?”

The winner could ask the loser to do anything within reason. The second he presented the idea, I could only visualize one thing. I was going to make him clean my apartment.

Could you imagine?

Grimsley, member of the elite four and professional gambler, scrubbing a toilet, taking out the trash, and folding socks. It was too good to pass up. It’d make a great post for my socials. I wasn't even going to make him wear an embarrassing costume! I wasn't a total savage when it came to dares. Even if a cat-eared maid dress would suit him.

I mean, it's not like I would have had him clean a dump either. Work ramped up with a new project leaving me precious little personal time for the past three weeks. It was sleep and eat only! I couldn’t even bear to look at the vacuum, I was so tired.

That being said, what could he even want to make me do? I had been waaaay too blinded by my fantasy. How could I think I’d win? Like, how could I forget I haven't beaten him since… How long has it been? Was it since I was in college?

I must have had too much to drink.

I needed to mentally prepare for the worst. So, maybe… he'd make me wear a really stupid outfit and post pictures of it? Make me participate in a Pokémon Musical? Take a bite right into an extra ripe tamato berry?

Oh no!

What if he made me hug an extra mucus-y cubchoo? Ew! No! He wouldn't!

I drank from my water glass to clear my nerves.

"Tomorrow, I want to take you-" Grimsley paused.

I nearly choke on my water. He wants to take me, like what?! On a date?! My cheeks were alight with heat.

No way!

He's about to pull his signature bait and switch. I feel it. He always tries to get a rise out of me. And damn if he didn't succeed every time. Scraping the last bit of courage inside me, I looked him in the eye. Grimsley wore a smug, satisfied grin.

Ugh. Damn it.

His eyes narrowed like a cat Pokémon ready for the kill-

"-To watch my match tomorrow at the league!"

Bingo! Just as I suspected! No way was he ever going to ask me on a date. I know him a little too well.

Although… How surprisingly tame of all the things he could ask for. I must’ve missed missing something. He's never gone out of his way to invite me to a match before. If he'd ask, I'd gladly say yes. I'm sure he knows it. As the prize for a bet… it's kind of a non-prize.

How un-Grimsley of him.

I shouldn't complain. It's nowhere near as bad as the stuff I thought up. Before and after his comment.

“O-okay.”

He stood from the table abruptly; clearly riding the high of his victory.

"Fantastic! Do you still have that blue dress you wore to my brother's wedding?"

"Uh. Why?"

Now that sounds fishy.

"Because… we like to put on a grand presentation for our challenger. I don't want you to feel underdressed. Although! If you're uncomfortable, then you don't need to!"

Oh. I suppose I’m being paranoid.

"I mean, okay. I have it."

I reached for the bill on the table to pay for tonight's dinner. I was not looking forward to this. He always gets the pricey stuff. My consolation was the bill would still cost less than if I had bet our usual prize money on our card game. My fingers barely grazed the paper when he swiped it off the table.

"Hey. I'm supp-"

"Oh, and make sure to wear comfortable shoes. I remember how much you complained about those heels you wore with the dress last time. Or? Do you want me to carry you again?" He grinned as he recalled an embarrassing moment for me.

“Oh, stop it. You only helped me to my hotel room.” I grumbled.

I threw away the offending heels after the wedding. Even if they gave me the chance to be carried like a princess. That night was a bit of a blur, but I do remember being embarrassingly obnoxious when he carried me. I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye the next morning.

He started to walk to the front of the restaurant while he talked.

"After I trounce the little upstart we can go for lunch!"

I scrambled to grab my purse. Fumbling for some cash to leave as a tip, I noticed a neatly set of folded bills tucked under the salt and pepper shakers.

Man, when he's ready to go, he's got it all covered.

I chased after him, politely saying goodnight to the staff as I passed.

"Grim, the tab-" Did he forget I'm supposed to pay?

"Relax! Don't worry about bringing any cash. I'm not going to wring you for a meal."

"But right now-"

He had already handed over the receipt and his card to the cashier by the time I caught up to him.

I gave up.

When he remembers he'll send me a text at, like, three in the morning asking me to send it via Poképay.

*****

Waiting by the front steps of the league made me feel a little bittersweet. The faint breeze brought a refreshing cool to the morning. Every kid dreamed of coming here, standing before the Elite Four, and battling your way to the top. I dreamed that too. But I'm not here by my own strength.

I couldn't cut it. I told everyone I lost interest in battling, but the truth of it is my best isn't good enough to be the best.

The guard asked me regarding my badges, assuming I was the challenger.

"Oh no. I'm here to watch Grimsley's match today." I muttered, focusing more on some imaginary spot on my dress rather than looking him in the eye.

"I see. In that case, we have a visitor's waiting room where the matches are live broadcast. If you go back toward the PMC, you'll turn-"

My name was called out from the other side of the entrance.

Oh. Grim wasn't kidding about dressing up.

I hadn't seen this outfit before. He's truly a classy card shark. He wore a white shirt and tie, but the whole ensemble was ornate. His suspenders connected with a dark navy blue high collar that had a long scarf flowing from the back.

Despite the ornate golden decorations glittering in the sun and black straps on his forearms, Grimsley made it look so casual.

He smirked when we made eye contact.

Aw… come on man! He knows he’s cool!

And I couldn’t help, but smile in return.

"This is my guest. She has special permission to watch from ringside." He said, almost purring.

The guard gave a curt nod. He stepped back and gestured to invite me in. It was only one step forward, but I faltered at the threshold. I didn't belong on the other side. I wasn't powerful. My pokémon weren't fighters. They were, to put it delicately, fat, little, spoiled couch gremlins.

A strong arm, wrapped around my shoulders. Grimsley pulled me along and up the stairs with impatient energy.

"Come along! I want to show you my new arena before the challenger arrives!" He gushed with enthusiasm. "We recently completed remodeling everything."

Our hurried steps echoed across the ancient stones as we approached his arena. He gently directed me to the entrance, holding his hand out to gesture me forward.

"Ladies first." He said with a polite gentleman's tone.

The whole room drowned in darkness, which was to be expected of Grimsley's type specialty. A loud swoosh of igniting flames caught me off guard. I spun to ask Grimsley a question, but the door had closed and he wasn't with me.

"Grim?" My voice felt small in the dark room only lit by torch light.

Only the hammering thud of my heart responded.

The moment passed and nothing happened. Turning, I decided I would go ahead and wait for him. The red carpet led me to the stairs. Imposing, curved red claws barred my path. With a flourishing snap, the claws released the pathway. My body instinctively jerked back.

I reminded myself this is only a very elaborate set. The mechanism should let me pass and not impale me. Ideally. I decided I should go ahead, I took a confident step forward, but my gut was in control of my legs. So, that step was about as confident as a wimpod.

Still, I pressed forward. My gut twisted and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. I dashed up the stairs two at a time, mentally thanking Grim for telling me to wear comfortable shoes. My cheeks burned with embarrassment.

It's all for show. Why am I scared? No! How stupid!

I'm not scared of the dark!

I… I just…

Shut up!

The claws snapped shut at the top of the stairs. I jumped squealing forward only to be caught in an embrace in the darkness. A second later the lights from a chandelier above flickered to life.

Grimsley held me flush to himself. Violent ping-ponging beats of my heart hammered in my chest. Surely, he could feel it too given how close we were. His hand felt like it belonged on the small of my back. Once again, he looks so terribly pleased with himself. He clicked his tongue playfully. His cologne flooded my senses again. I had to catch my breath, but his damn cologne made me pleasantly light-headed.

"Aw, were you frightened?" His blue eyes glowed with mischief. He dipped his face closer to mine. "Nothing's going to hurt you, but I'll protect you anyway if you want.”

Warm tingles and shivers trailed from the top of my head and chased down the length of my spine.

Then it clicked.

This was a setup. He didn't want a ringside audience. He wanted an excuse to toy with me today! I pushed free from his grasp.

Come on brain time to get a grip!

"Oh so brave of you! How'd you even get here before me?" The beating of my heart refused to slow down. But I was satisfied I pulled out a little sass.

"A magician never reveals his secrets."

"Warp pad then?"

"So, what do you think of my domain?" He said, ignoring my obviously correct guess. He swept his hand in a grand flourish.

To an extent, it was a bizarre blend between gaudy and elegant. The green floor reminded me of the felt covers on a poker table. Golden chains suspended the platform in the air. Grimsley sauntered to a luxurious black sofa sitting on the edge of the battlefield. I followed him over while admiring the glittering chandelier.

"It's very you," I said.

"Then what do you think of me?" He said.

"Fishing for compliments?" I teased as I sat down next to him. "Well then, it's pretty cool. Quite bright for a dark-type specialist. Kinda’ unexpected."

He slid over on the sofa. I could sense another round of teasing coming. Before he could lean in to say only Arceus knows what, I pulled out my phone with the Poképay app at the ready. He tilted his head. Distraction technique successful!

"You were so wound up last night you paid for dinner." I deflected.

"Well… yeah. That's how restaurants work." He chuckled.

"Doofus. I'm talking about the bet. I was supposed to pay, remember? How much was the tab?"

Grimsley froze as if someone hit pause. His charming smile seemed thinner than usual.

"I'm… afraid I don't recall."

"You?" I scoff. "You can't remember how much money you spent? Mister "when on his Pokémon journey two years late to earn extra money before leaving home"? Mister "mental math who could do my calculus homework for me without a calculator"? You don't know how much dinner was?"

The second I saw it, a faint bead of sweat on his forehead, the lights extinguished. We plunged into darkness again. I couldn’t suppress my surprised gasp. I never was good with surprises. Only the faint light of my cell phone illuminated the couch.

A loud click resonated to indicate someone had arrived. The challenger no doubt. Grimsley's hand brushed my cheek and I gasped. My phone’s screen timed out, extinguishing the last faint light we had as Grimsley leaned forward. His lips were so close to my ear that it tickled.

"Looks like I'm first. Just sit and look pretty for me for now." He whispered in a low voice. Another rush of tingles burst inside me.

Sir.

Are you trying to kill me?

The sound of the torches at the entrance flared to life giving a dim glow to the room. He stood from the sofa, his scarf swirling dramatically as he walked to his place on the field. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. If this keeps up I'm going to have a heart attack. I only could hope the challenger wouldn’t notice how much I must be blushing when all the lights came on. My face, ears, and neck are burning. He was going hard today. It was different. Grimsley turned to look at me over his shoulder.

Even in the dim light, I could see his cat-like grin. He really just wanted an excuse to toy with me today.

How bored are you?!

The claws on the stairs unfolded and shortly after a girl with double buns came bounding up the steps. The claws snapped shut behind her. The torches and chandelier came to life. The girl didn't so much as flinch. Damn. How embarrassing that a ten-year-old has more stones than a grown adult… I wanted to curl up behind the couch.

“What will be determined here is which of us can absorb the opponent's light and shine... But who will decide that? It shall be I, Grimsley of the Elite Four, and I will fulfill my duty to be your opponent." He said,” But first, I have a special visitor today. You don’t mind having a ring-side audience do you?”

The girl leans to the side a little to get a better look at me. She must not have realized I was sitting here. I waved trying to appear casual. She cupped her chin, pointing her finger in a thumb like a checkmark and humming to herself.

“Oh, yeah! That's totes fine. I don’t mind your girlfriend watching!”

Grimsley shot a coy grin over his shoulder at me.

“Th-thank you! We're… actually friends. Not dating.”

“Ooooh! Sorry! ‘Bout that!” she laughed. The girl rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

His expression flattened in an instant as he turned to face his challenge. No doubt ready to get to business.

*****

Another fierce explosion shook the arena. The hot gust of rushing air flipped the hem of my dress a little more than I anticipated. I yelped, snatching it back to keep from revealing too much. When I looked up, I caught Grimsley's look over his shoulder. His eyes flitted over me from top to bottom. Then he sharply turned away back to the match.

As the debris settled, his bisharp, Philomina, lay defeated.

His shoulders slumped slightly. He slapped his forehead and dragged his hand down his face.

Thanks, kid! That's the expression I wanted to see last night. Even seeing it from behind was delightful.

It's a little mean to smile at the expense of your friend, but he's such a sore loser. Watching him squirm with frustration while trying to be a self-controlled gentleman was always funny.

Grimsley returned his pokémon. A loud joyful cry rang out. The challenger jump-hugged her huge darmanitan, celebrating their victory. He took their joyful moment to recenter himself. With polite applause, he began to speak to them with his usual grace and charm.

"See, victory shines like a bright light. And right now, you and your Pokémon are shining brilliantly." Grimsley gestured to the warp pad.

With a wave goodbye, she ran on ahead to her next fight. Grimsley stood still watching patiently until the last light of the warp pad vanished. A soft quiet calm fell over the room. I didn't know if I should compliment how well he did or console him on the loss. Grim flopped on the couch, drained of any of his usual grace.

"Maaaan…." He groaned. He was squeezing the bridge of his nose.

"It was very close," I finally said.

"A loss is a loss." He sighed and he started to rub his neck. "But what the heck are they feeding kids these days? If she defeats everyone else, she'll be the third champion under the age of fourteen in a row. Crazy, man."

"Yeah, it's all over the place like Kanto and Hoenn too. They’re calling it a generation of child champions."

We sat in a lull of silence while Grim shook off his defeat. He looked at the green floors where the remnants of debris and scars from attacks littered the arena floor. His hand paused on the back of his neck.

“Okay,” he breathed out in a whisper.

“Hm?”

Grimsley stood up from the couch. We locked eyes briefly. Whatever words he had locked and loaded didn’t come. He just smiled before turning on his heel and pacing in front of the couch.

“Grim? What’s up?”

This behavior was new to me. He finally stopped in front of me. A scarlet blush covered his face from ear to ear. I recalled that little boy he used to be from years ago, cheeks burning red right before stealing my first kiss. Was he still embarrassed about losing? I should have consoled him after all.

“Hey, it’s okay. You and your team were amazing. I certainly couldn’t handle such an intense battle like that. I’m very impressed.” I said.

Grimsley tilted his head as though he didn’t hear me. Before I could say anything else, he laughed. His charming laugh echoed around the hall.

“That’s not-” he sighed. “You’re so sweet. That’s not what I’m thinking about.”

“Then what’s wrong?” I asked, ripping the bandage off.

“At the end of the battle, when you cried out, I thought you had gotten hurt. That some debris had hit you. I could never forgive myself if you were hurt on my account.”

So, that's it. He was worried about me! I hopped off the couch to hug him. This time our embrace lacked the sensual nature of the first one we had shared before the match. Grimsley kept his arms wrapped around my shoulders. He sighed relieved. I still felt warm bubbles in my chest.

Shh! Stupid crush. Can you see we are having a very healthy platonic moment between friends?

“I love you,” Grimsley whispered.

I sharply inhaled. Platonically, right?

“Love like?”

“I love you. I want to be with you.”

I like Grimsley. I do. Really. Really. Really do. But if he dares to tease me now when we were having an honest moment... I can’t let him wind up my feelings like this again. I’ve had way too much for one day. If I hear him say he's only joking again I’ll lose it.

“Hey. I… I can’t do this right now.” I said, pulling from the hug.

Grimsley immediately took his hand off of me, wide eyes.

“I’m sorry!” He said. His blue eyes were piercing, but soft. “I didn’t mean-”

Of course, he didn’t mean it. That’s how this goes.

We stood frozen staring into each other’s eyes. I don’t think I have ever seen this expression of his. Gone was his devilish smile, and the cat-like glint of his eyes. To me, he looked like he was going to be sick. I took his hand and focused my attention on it. I couldn’t say what I needed to say if I kept looking at this- worrying expression on his face.

“Listen, you always do this flirting thing, and I get you find it funny, but-” I paused. “I don’t.”

Do I admit how I feel? We are friends. Surely, he’d understand. It might upset him to know my feelings aren’t the same, but if he knew how much I liked him, then he’d stop. Then I could finally get over this one-sided crush already.

“Like, it’s fine now and again, but all at once like this is… I… feel so overwhelmed and I know you don’t mean any of it. I know you’re not trying to overwhelm me and you don’t like me this way. You’re just… playing.”

My voice began to pitch up. This is the worst. I didn’t want to cry.

“I get that it’s a joke, always just a joke, but- Arceus. I actually- do. I mean, I love-”

The rest of the words were crushed by the tightening of my throat. I shut my mouth. This was a stupid thing to say. I should have brushed it off and played along like always.

Grimsley swore under his breath as he fumbled in his pocket before pulling out a handkerchief. He dabbed the fountain of tears in the corners of my eyes, careful to press too hard. He called my name in such a soft tone as if he feared he’d startle me.

“It’s not a joke! It’s never been a joke!” Grimsley said. “I thought you didn’t have feelings for me. So, I… pretended I was joking because I didn’t want to upset you. But I kept trying because… I couldn’t let my feelings go. I hoped you’d take it seriously one day.”

He squeezed my hand. I couldn’t process it all. This… this is real?

“You’re hurt because of me after all.” He muttered.

“That’s a terrible approach to courting a lady, you know,” I said, taking the handkerchief from his hand to wipe away more of my tears myself.

“I’m so sorry.”

“This whole time… you really liked me?”

Grimsley nodded, “And you liked me?”

I nodded in return. The tears still wouldn’t turn off, yet I couldn’t stop from smiling. The whole time we could have enjoyed being together! Instead, we wasted years dancing around each other's feelings. I couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling up. We're grown adults now! And we could even have an honest conversation? It was so absurd! Grimsley couldn’t keep the smile from growing on his face, perhaps having the same thoughts I was. The tears finally stopped.

“I always thought I’d be the king to your queen, but it seems the truth of it is we’re the pair of jokers.”

“That fits,” I said. “We’re so stupid.”

“Well, now that we’re on the same page, may I, at long last, take you on a date?” He said.

A date. This felt too good to be true. I felt a surge of confidence knowing Grimsley’s true feelings. And I knew then I had to do something to make up for all these years of cowardice.

“Yes, but-” I said in a lilting voice.

“But?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“I remember you took something from me. I need it back.”

Grimsley’s lips parted ready to answer, but it was clear he was racking his brain to figure out what I meant. My heart started up a ping-pong rematch as I took a step closer.

“I… don’t know what I’ve tak-” Before the poor man could finish his sentence, I grabbed him by the collar to pull him down to meet my lips.

It was quick. Just like it was this first time, a feathery, peak on the lips. When we pulled back, his face was once again rosy red. I’m sure my face was too.

“You stole my first kiss. I had to take it back, you know.”

Moving past the surprise, once again I saw that well-known cat-like grin appear. His piercing blue eyes sparked alight with mischief. Grimsley slipped his hand onto the small of my back. He pulled me in close and pressed his forehead to my own.

“Well, such a kiss can’t be returned,” he said, his voice low and sultry. “But allow me to repay you with interest. I insist.”

Grimsley pressed his lips to mine with softness. I let my hands slip away from his collar to instead rest on his shoulders. His thumb rubbed small, gentle circles on my lower back, as his other hand came up to cup my cheek. Once more, a pleasant lightheadedness overtook me from the calming scent of his cologne.

As we pulled apart, Grimsley sighed with happiness. I couldn’t help chuckling once more.

“My, look how pleased you are with yourself.” I tease as I stand on my tip toes inviting another kiss of many more to come.

*****

Bonus: Grimsley's POV - Just before you arrive

"Grimsley!" Shauntel gasped, scandalized.

"Please. It's too early in the morning for this." I stretched with a yawn.

Curse the trainer that scheduled to come in first thing. It's not unusual for me to be so tired in the morning like this, but today it's not because I was up all night at the poker tables. No. I couldn't sleep at all thinking about my date… or well almost date.

"Yes, Shauntel. I have to agree. It's much too early." Caitlin said, shuffling into our break room.

"You remember the girl- his childhood sweetheart? The one he was finally going to ask out."

Caitlin gave a sleepy nod. Her tea cup and the kettle floated around her as she used her telekinetic ability to pour the water.

"Now hold on- we were never sweethearts before-"

"He still didn't ask her on a date! Look at him! All dressed up and nowhere to go!"

Caitlin mumbled a sad oh noise before she mentally picked up a spoon to stir her drink. She doesn't care. Despite her girlishness, she doesn't give two cents about romance or relationship gossip.

"I'm going out with her for lunch after the challenger battle." I huff. Shauntel glared at me like gum on the bottom of her shoe. "Aaaaand we were alone for dinner last night."

"He beat her at poker and forced her to come sit around as his cheerleader."

"Slander!" Of all the indecent ways to describe it! She was too creative sometimes. But it certainly shone a spotlight on my failed plans. No matter how she or I put it, it wasn’t the romantic afternoon I intended to have.

"How inelegant." Caitlin shook her head, disapproving as always.

"I was going to ask her, but I-"

"Was too afraid she'd shoot you down if you bore your sincere desires and you'd lose your dear friend to awkward, unrequited love."

The psychic girl's words cut me to the quick. I glared at Caitlin. She took a seat at her favorite spot and sipped her tea, refusing to look at me.

"I thought we all agreed you wouldn't read our minds without consent," I said.

"I didn't have to read your mind. It's all over your face."

Liar.

But Shauntel nodded in firm agreement with her. I'm outnumbered. I know when to fold.

"If she doesn't have feelings for you then why even continue to pursue her? You'd think having dinner alone together for, oh, 6 months? You’d think it would have resulted in more romantic feelings by now."

And the brutal death blow.

Caitlin may talk about grace and elegance, but the girl was savage.

Before I could respond, the doors thankfully burst open with our much too energetic Champion and Marshal. The poor guy looked like he was going to collapse. Sweat dripped off his forehead in rivers. And yet, Iris looked barely misted. I wondered how many miles they ran today. Not that I would ask for fear Iris would interpret this to mean I want to join them.

Since Adler's defeat as champion, he took to traveling. Marshal ended up latching on to Iris as his new mentor. A grown man calling a fourteen-year-old his master would be funny if she wasn't so ridiculously powerful.

"Oookay! I'm going to get cleaned up and ready to face our new challenger!" She declared. "Are you all ready?"

We all mumbled an affirmative response. Except Marshal who gave a hearty, headache-inducing, "Yes ma'am!"

"Wake up sleepy heads! It's time to rumble!!" She yelled with a growl as she ran past us to her personal locker room.

"Iris, ah, a moment." She skidded to a halt and jogged back to me. "I have a friend coming. I know it's usually only the combatants, but you wouldn't mind if she watched my battle today?"

"As long as the challenger doesn't mind, it's fine by me." She said, Iris tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. She straightened up in an instant, "Oh! Is it your girlfriend the girls told me about? That's so-"

"Exaggerated." I huffed. Shauntel and Caitlyn turned away from my firey glare.

Cowards! Look at me when you heckle!

"But he's pining with desperate hope." Caitlin chimes in, looking me in the eye as she speaks.

Not reading our minds my ass.

She just smirks.

Taking the opportunity, I excused myself to get ready. I hoped I'd go first, honestly. I wanted to get this over as quick as possible so I could spend time with her.

I only fell in love with her by chance. Right time and place as they say.

I hated other people. I hate this town, this apartment, this group of "friends". All of it.

When the pack of neighborhood boys approached us, I knew they had been talking about us behind our backs. Clarence, my older brother who was too soft and naive, appreciated the "friendship". He couldn't figure out they were making fun of us at every turn.

I tolerated it with a smile. After all, if others know your true feelings, they can use it to their advantage. They'll have power over you. My childhood "friends" must have thought I was some plucky kid, a simple sucker. It was better that way.

We made stupid bets and dares. They must have thought it was funny what I was willing to do for money, but I had a plan for my pokémon journey, I was going to be prepared. I would never come back, just like my sister, Marinette.

I hate thinking back on the stupid things we used to bet. That kiss I stole is a bittersweet memory. In my young mind, I foolishly believed she was overreacting to such a nothing act. I only chose her over her friend because everyone knew how timid she was- or so I thought.

I hated her. Even if her assault had the unintended consequence of making me look tough to the other kids. I hated her so much.

And I cringe remembering how selfish I was. That should have been the end of any friendship. Forget love or romance.

Occasionally, when I felt spiteful, I'd tease her with some veiled romantic comment to watch her squirm. I always made sure I was out of her range before she realized I was joking at her expense. Seeing her range of emotion was amusing. She's incredibly expressive. I told myself it was funny. I couldn't find any reason I would keep doing it otherwise.

My twelfth birthday approached and the guys wanted to play poker to celebrate. They congratulated me for finally getting the balls to go on my Pokémon journey. Truth was, I had only waited so long to pull together a little more cash. As the night drew on, I was becoming more and more of an unwanted guest at my own party.

“You’re a cheating little shit!”

I was beating Jackson even though he was the one cheating. I had caught his scraggy slipping him cards out of its loose skin. I didn’t say anything. It made the game more interesting.

“I’m not. It’s only luck. I can quit.” I folded my hand together, returning it to the bottom of the deck.

My accuser looked like he was going to crack his teeth from how hard he was clenching his jaw. I ignored him as I tucked my cards back into the deck. I was content to just watch at this point.

After tomorrow, I wouldn't have to deal with any of these losers again. The night dragged on and we were all asleep only when the sky began to pale with the coming of the morning sun.

This was my mistake.

I didn't wake until two in the afternoon, still groggy from last night. No one was there. A soft clattering from my nightstand was the only sound in my room. Purrloin's pokeball was missing. Hopping out of bed, I knelt on the floor. The pokeball clattered and wiggled wildly under the nightstand. Poor Purry must have been so confused being unable to let herself out. I supposed I knocked her ball off the table and didn't notice. The tight space must have triggered the emergency locks that prevent pokémon from coming out in spaces too small to fit them.

The ball burst open the second I had it free from the confined space. She hissed and spit in a wild tantrum. Her tail lashed with violent abandon It was best to leave her be, unless I wanted to end up her scratching post.

I shuffled out to greet my mother who let me know my "friends" all went home. She asked if I was sure I still wanted to head out today since it was so late. She recommended I start here with the Castelia gym, but Purry and I would be severely disadvantaged. And Nimbasa is only an afternoon's walk. I'd arrive just as the city started to light up for the night.

Purry latched onto my leg. She waved one little arm with distress and led me back to my backpack. Nothing seemed out of place. I rummaged through my supplies yet nothing caught my attention.

My wallet slapped me in the face as she threw it at me, "Purry!"

It struck me. They all left before I woke up. Tearing the wallet open, it was empty.

Even though I had a savings account with more, I wanted to save it for emergencies. And as my anger boiled over, the indignity of being robbed couldn't go unchecked!

"Bye Mother! I love you! I'll call later. I'll tell Clarence to call too if I see him. Bye!" I cried out as I dashed out the door. I don't think I had ever gotten dressed so fast before.

Purry and I split up, I knew she'd find them faster. I began checking all the usual hangouts; the lousy bodega, the arcade, Casteliacone…

A sharp chirp caught my attention over a crowd from an alley. Purry led me through a corridor of trash cans and back doors until I could hear the voices of my "friends".

Before I could turn the corner, I could hear her. She blocked their way.

"What kind of friend steals! Take it back!"

"Piss off runt. No one asked you."

I glanced around the corner to see them. She stood on the other side, blocking their path. Her brother pushed through the group yelling at her to move.

"No! This isn't okay!" She cried.

"You're just mad about it because he is your booooooyfriend~'' One of the boys mocked. Another one made sloppy kissing noises.

"Sh-shut up. He is not! Don't be gross!" She squeaked.

"We didn't go out with a wad of cash. That spoiled brat can figure it out!"

"That’s his money! He should get to use it! It's not his fault you went unprepared and couldn't cut it!"

He threw her against a trash can. He threw his own sister.

I don't remember what I said. A strange, aching fire sparked through me. My arms and legs hurt from shaking. I moved and spoke on autopilot. I challenged them all to a fight.

Purry wasn't as high-level as the other pokémon they used. However, she weaved around them like a graceful dancer, letting their clumsy partners beat each other. She only struck when a critical hit could be certain. I was lucky to have such a battle genius of a pokémon for a first partner. Despite the abysmal odds, victory was certain.

A heavy thud of the last pokémon Timburr signaled the end of my first battle.

"Give me my money." I snarled.

They threw the cash on the ground before running off. Turning, I looked at her. She flinched and shrunk back into the trash. Of all the emotions I had provoked in this girl, I finally felt guilt. I hated that look. That fear in her eyes.

"You…" I fumbled with what to say. The adrenaline was wearing off. I didn't understand why she did that. Of all the rare times she was brave and she chose to stand up for me. I offered my hand to help her.

"Thank you." I finally managed to say. I gently beckoned her. Her expression melted as she took my hand.

Money secured and one trip to the Pokémon Center later. I was ready to leave. But I waited while Nurse Joy patched her up. She had scratched her arm when she fell in the trash. Thinking about it made my blood boil. I'd never hurt Marinette or Clarence like that! I offered to walk her home, but she walked with me until we reached the gates to Route 4. She seemed nervous.

"Are you sure you want to go now? It's almost dark." She said.

"Yeah. There are more interesting pokémon at night." I grinned.

She smiled at me. Suddenly, another warmth took hold of me. I couldn’t contain the smile spreading on my face. I liked her smile.

"I know we aren't, like, actual friends. But be safe, okay?"

And that's how it started.

How I found myself coming home to see her as often as possible. I know my mother was relieved another child hadn’t left forever. It took a while for me to realize that I had developed a crush. It was only when Mother asked me in my teens if we were dating that it hit me how I felt about her. Over the past years, I keep going back trying to coax her into loving me.

Caitlin was right.

We've known each other for so long. Never once has she expressed romantic interest. Oh sure, I could fluster her to no end with flirtatious teasing. Her teasing never held return any flirty vibes. In fact, as soon as she realizes what I'm doing she begins to give me the blankest stare. I always backpedaled or played it off as a joke, anything to keep it within "Just friends" territory. Then she sighs relieved, answering my suspicions. I know I should have given up, but when a little time passed, I'd get greedy. Then I'd try again to test the waters and see if her heart had changed. I've never wanted to push for a romance if she wasn't interested.

For all the heart-pounding gambles I'm willing to take, I’m unable to bring myself to risk what I have with her. Some of my gambling buddies would laugh at me if they ever knew. The stakes were too high and I say that having risked life and limb, literally.

But today is the day. I'll sweep her off her feet.

Her friendship warmed me like the sun all these years. She was my one safe spot. She’s where I felt at peace without feeling as though I was missing out on some worthwhile thrill. But I know now I need her and if there's any hope of having her by my side, then I'll have to risk everything we have. And if she turns me down, well...

Perhaps then I'd be able to move past this unrequited love.

But she's worth it.

I stopped by the front, guarded by a league staff member who kept all, but elite trainers out. She was waiting for me.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. She wore that cute dress like I asked. It wasn't extravagant or too formal. However, the flutter of the delicate fabric made her look like an angel.

I recalled the night of my brother's wedding when we danced together.

Her eyes sparkled under the fairy lights and her face was a beautiful blushed color. When the night was over, she cursed wearing those awful heels. They left nasty cuts on the back of her heels. She teetered unsteadily from indulging in a little too much alcohol, wincing from pain. Before I could stop myself, I had scooped her up in my arms to carry her. She giggled the entire way.

At the threshold of her hotel room, she leaned against the door frame with a wide, unabashed smile.

"Thank you my darling prince charming," she whispered, still giggly.

Oh. That had been so unfair and painful! In the most pleasant of ways. If she were sober, if she had meant it, those words would have sent me over the moon.

"Go to bed silly," was all I could respond with at the time.

I called her name as a breeze picked up, the wisps of wind playing with her hair like a lover. They flowed around framing her face like a painting. Her beautiful eyes focused on me. Is she blushing?

Man! How am I supposed to stay cool when she looks at me like that?

Then she smiled that smile I loved.

[snurgle07]

Say all your psychonauts 2 thoughtS

All of them huh? I think about this game so much, I’d be here all day, but this certainly gives me a good excuse to ramble about some things I love about pn2. :D

- The characters are amazing! 10/10 I care about pretty much all of those freaks. The art style makes them all look so charming in a lopsided weird sort of way, and the game is so empathetic to everyone that even the characters we don’t get much of or who serve a limited purpose still feel well rounded and real.

- Raz is excellent. He’s loads of fun in the first game and continues to be a blast in the second. He’s even more adorable and earnest in the sequel and I love that for him!! He’s definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, I adore him.

- Adoring the characters goes for everyone though. And pn2 has a whole new cast of characters who are all super fun in their own ways. The Psychic 7 especially are super cool. My biggest soft spot is for Lucy, but I love Bob, Ford, and well, the rest of the seven really, a whole lot. Getting to meet the Aquatos is also awesome, and the interns are cool too. Lotsa cool groups of characters to enjoy.

- The story? Awesome. Feels grander than pn1 to be honest, and I like that, but also it’s completely great on its own. It’s got loads of mind shenanigans, drama, great mental health commentary, and manages to balance out all the trauma with enough healing and empathy and even a bit of humor that it all still feels nice and hopeful despite everything. Like yeah there’s a lot of angst material certainly, and as a fan I gotta love that, buuuut sometimes I need a piece of media to punch me in the gut and then give me a warm hug afterward.

- On the note of mental health stuff, I feel it did great. It’s noticeable that they talked to experts and people with personal experience. They were able to convey the mindscapes of certain traumas and mental health issues with more accuracy. The first game was certainly empathetic and kind in regards to that, which was a big deal at the time, buuuut the accuracy was a bit lacking back then. Pn1 shows it’s age a bit in that regard. Pn2 improves on that wonderfully with both kind and more researched explorations into the mind.

-The morals regarding the complexity of the human mind and the messiness of humanity and how we often make mistakes and have more to us under the surface… heroes are often flawed, villains may just be a version of a person we made up in our mind based off of our limited perceptions… aughh good stuff. There are so many good takeaways from psychonauts 2 and I love it!

- Also on a more personal note, I probably owe this game my fascination with psychic powers and psychics in fiction. It’s tangentially what got me into Mob Psycho 100, and has inspired me to make some psychic ocs. The art direction really impacted me and even the way I draw. My style has opened up so much more since practicing drawing such funky looking characters. I genuinely think it has helped me improve a lot and helped me discover more about what kinds of art style I adore and inspired my own. The gameplay too, alongside the art direction, has impacted my aspirations a lot as far as being an artist and hopefully to work in game design— which is to say it’s super inspiring! I think it can inspire people in a myriad of ways, it’s a very unique game like that, and it really reminds me why I love art, storytelling, and games so much. I genuinely feel I owe it a lot for a variety of reasons and I’ve seen many others who play it feel the same. :)

TLDR: Psychonauts 2 my beloved…

Thanks for the ask! I will never not want to talk about psychonauts, this game is sticking in my brain for good.

[phoenixyfriend]

Okay so you know how one of my big things with fandom is forcing characters into completely new contexts that they just have to Deal With (recently most commonly with time travel, crossovers, and things like the suddenly omegaverse AU).

So, canon characters get Yanked and somehow tossed into a Modern AU context, possibly just as some Matrix-esque 'your brain is trapped in a simulation' thing, possibly as a Sith Holocron thing, possibly as a weird crossover, it doesn't matter. The point is mostly this:

1. Nobody has the Force. 2. Ahsoka is suddenly human, and she hates it.

This is mostly an excuse for Ahsoka to be overwhelmed by some things (her sense of taste is completely different) and underwhelmed by others (this is your eyesight???) and panicked by others (her sense of echolocation is completely GONE), and then Anakin calming her down by Brushing Her Hair, something she's never had before.

Ahsoka has a meltdown and Anakin, who is also very panicked because the Force is just gone for him, is doing his best to keep her somewhat level and ANYWAY Anakin knows how to do cool, solid, safe braids because Padme taught him how to do her wig-secure crown braids, so when Ahsoka's being overwhelmed by the sensory hell of her new hair touching her shoulders, Anakin brushes it out and braids it up for her while Obi-Wan tries to find them a way out, and Rex and Cody help him notice things like "we can't read this alphabet for shit" and "that's not a speeder... is it..."

The clones are Itchy without their armor in an unfamiliar space. The Jedi keep tripping on sidewalk cracks and stuff because they're not used to needing to look where they're going. Also they don't have their sabers or blasters.

Ahsoka tucked into Anakin's side in a coffee shop that they somehow managed to Exchange Currency at... sipping on something sweet and complicated-flavor that she doesn't recognize and is very confused by because none of these tastes are familiar... a barista asks if she's okay and Anakin has to stutter over "my padawan" in favor of "my sister" because it's kind of safer but anyway could they get a cup of ice water for the kid?

The clones get asked if they're from New Zealand or Australia because of the accents and just Blank Stare until the person leaves in discomfort like "Was it something I said? Maybe they think I should be able to tell the difference?" but no they just don't fucking know what New Zealand and Australia are.

Imagine if she couldn’t really taste sweetness before. She finally understands the appeal of candy!

Ahsoka doesn't like 'being' human but she decides she likes the Expanded Taste Range (now she understands WHY people add spices) and having her hair played with (she's maybe a little jealous of people like Padme now).

Several of the Jedi keep forgetting they can’t jump 20 feet high anymore and keep slamming into fences. One of them tries to jump off something and is tackled by a clone. The clones keep forgetting they can’t jump off things and get caught anymore.

“Normal humans die when they do that!”

The clones don't register as clones to anyone, just Young Hot Guys With Nice Muscles, so Cody and Rex get hit on by strangers more in the Modern AU adventure than in the rest of their lives put together.

They register as twins though. And some people are maybe into that specifically. Strangely, in this context, being genetically identical is more attractive.

The only person in this group that knows how to recognize flirtation and how to flirt back is Obi-Wan.

Someone sees a Marvel movie playing a TV store and just drags the other four over because IS THAT MASTER WINDU WITH AN EYEPATCH. Or alternately IS THAT AN OLDER SENATOR AMIDALA IN BORING CLOTHES.

Per @atagotiak on discord

Hey, it could be worse, it could be literally almost anything else Ewan McGregor is in. I enjoy the other movies I’ve seen him in (though I haven’t seen a lot) it’s just every last one would be jarring as heck to them.

Birds of prey “Wow Obi-Wan, you’re a dick”

It's just Moulin Rouge's steamy scenes and Obi-Wan is like [head tilt] is... is that supposed to be me????

(I'm going to say that none of the Star Wars movies exist in this modern AU, but only because that would get too complicated.)

Ahsoka gets yelled at by Someone (a store employee, a cop, a random douchebag on the street), and Obi-Wan steps in because he's closest and also the person most invested in making sure she doesn't start throwing punches.

Person: Sorry man, didn't mean to scare your, uh, daughter. Obi-Wan's face: [is doing complicated things]

(Being Ahsoka’s dad is probably less weird than being Anakin’s dad. Just agewise and all that.)

Obi-Wan objectively recognizes that this is a reasonable assumption and also a safe one to work with, in that explaining their actual relationship might be sketchy depending on whether or not apprenticeships are a thing on this planet, and going with a person's first not-terrible assumption is usually a safe bet to not draw too much attention!

But 'parent' is a bit of a loaded concept for a lineage so prone to attachment (and tragedy).

Ahsoka finds herself getting inexplicably tired a few hours into a walk that would normally leave her fine, and since Anakin and Obi-Wan are also having trouble, it's apparently not a humans thing, it's... not having the Force. They’re still pretty strong and have good endurance but they’re not superhuman anymore so.

Adding in that Ahsoka's a young teenager who has no idea what she can eat that she can actually stand the taste of yet, so she keeps getting sugar crashes since it's the only thing she can reliably stomach...

[teawaffles]

Forbidden Games: Chapter 3

From the end of the 18th century, gentlemen’s clubs had begun to proliferate rapidly in Britain. These were members-only social circles established by men of the gentry class [1] who shared common goals such as hobbies or research. At its peak, the area of London’s East End known as Clubland [2] was home to around 400 such establishments.

Normally, clubs have neither a doorplate nor signage. There was a rumour that one time, when a policeman became suspicious and entered a club, he found an archbishop, the president of a bank, and the prime minister all gathered there. The building that William and Sherlock had arrived at was no different, with a lone man standing at the entrance, and not a single item displayed that indicated what lay within.

Upon descending from the carriage, Sherlock gazed intently at the building, and spoke to William beside him.

“It’s a pretty big building, but this looks like the right address.”

“Indeed, the proof is in the fact that people are going in and out.”

Right at the corner of William’s sight was the figure of a gentleman who looked like he wanted to enter. He gave a slight bow to the doorman, then opened the door and went in.

Sherlock observed the sequence of events.

“They don’t seem too concerned about their surroundings when they enter.”

“True. Perhaps the club itself is not illegal in nature.”

“In other words, there may be people doing something illegal in there.”

The two men exchanged deductions as they drew nearer to the club. As expected, the apparent receptionist spoke up.

“Excuse me. Do you have business here…… Ah? You would be Durham University’s……”

As a nobleman and a young professor of mathematics, it looked like William was fairly well known around these parts.

William shrugged off his coat, doffed his top hat, and greeted the surprised man with a gentle smile.

“Good afternoon, I am William James Moriarty. I heard that this is a club where one may play certain games.”

At that, the man visibly relaxed and responded in a polite manner.

“Indeed it is you, Mr Moriarty, welcome. As you mentioned, this is a place where gentlemen with time to spare may gather, even when it is the middle of the day.”

William smiled at the man’s self-deprecating manner, and made a respectful enquiry.

“My companion and I have heard rumours about this place. However, could it be possible that we would be denied entry without an introduction from an existing member?”

“Not at all, there is no such rule. There is a token receptionist like myself for some reason, but in essence all newcomers are gladly welcome.”

“Including me?” Sherlock cut in, and the man nodded.

“That’s right, we have no qualms about that. I hope you don’t mind me asking your name?”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

Upon hearing that name, the man blinked.

“Could it be, that Sherlock Holmes? I’m astonished that a man like you would also come to such a place……”

Perhaps the mathematics professor and famous detective made for an unusual duo. More surprised than one would expect, a wry smile rose to his face as Sherlock continued.

“Right. I just have a little something to investigate here.”

“An investigation, I see……”

In contrast to his manner with William, the man seemed shaken by the appearance of a detective. William calmly pounced on his suspicious behaviour.

“Could something be the matter?”

“Um, that’s, uh”

The man glanced toward the door as he tried to evade the question. But eventually he seemed to give up, and revealed the situation to them in a hushed voice.

“In a manner of speaking, this is indeed a place where one can enjoy a variety of ‘games’, however…… to liven up the playing field, money does change hands as well.”

“I see.”

From the man’s faltering voice, William could tell what was on his mind. Gentlemen who shed appearances and amused themselves with gambling, contrary to social expectations of dignity — this was not something one would wish to make public.

On top of that, a place where gambling has become the norm could easily become a hotbed of crime. It was likely that the doorman was stationed here to ascertain if new participants were connected with the police or other related parties, hence avoiding any unwanted attention. With Sherlock being a detective, this would also be the reason why he was shaken by Sherlock’s visit.

However, the two of them had ascertained that exchanges of money were taking place here. The question now was to what degree.

“Could it be, that the bets placed here are large enough to draw the attention of the Yard?”

The man waved the question away. “Nothing of the sort. They are really just small sums. One could see them as an entertainment fee.”

“An entertainment fee, I see……”

Sherlock murmured strangely, and watched the man’s movements with nonchalance. By layperson standards, even if it was just for fun, there was likely to be a good amount of money involved where nobles were concerned. But the man’s demeanour didn’t suggest that he was involved in anything illegal.

“Well, you won’t need to worry about that. I’m pursuing a different case here, and besides, I can agree that it’s more fun when money is involved.”

“That’s certainly reassuring to hear……”

For William, who had a close associate who was fond of gambling [3], this was a statement he couldn’t help but smile wryly at.

However, at present, his prediction that there was nothing wrong with the club itself was correct. Hence, they would need to see it in person.

“In any case, it should be fine for us to enter, yes?”

“Y-Yes, please be generous with your wagers……”

“So it’s okay then. Well, let’s get going.”

Sherlock immediately opened the door, with William following behind him.

The interior of the building was a large hall, with simple and subdued decor, and good-quality furnishings lined along the walls.

Wooden tables and chairs were spaced equally, and seated there were groups of gentlemen in formal attire, playing various card or poker games. Gold coins and stacks of bills could be seen scattered across the tables. Although the gentlemen maintained the dignity of their upper station, the occasional groans and cheers revealed their enthusiasm for the games.

The two men stood near the entrance, gazing at the players’ figures.

Looking at William, who was earnestly observing the situation to search for the missing young man, Sherlock made a somewhat envious expression.

“It sure looks fun. Since we came all the way here, I might join a game myself.”

“……Please don’t forget your original goal here,” William reminded him, looking troubled.

Just then, a stout man approached them, holding a glass filled with wine.

“Who might we have here? And on the young side too…… Ah, might you be the mathematics professor William Moriarty…… and your companion, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes?”

The man raised his voice, and a number of people in the vicinity turned to look at the duo. William kept a smile on his face, albeit a little awkwardly.

“Greetings….”

“Nice to meet you.”

Seeing how they had attracted attention so quickly, William spoke to Sherlock in a low voice.

“I would’ve honestly preferred to investigate more discreetly, but it sure is difficult when you’re known by name alone,” he scowled.

“Well, it’s the price of fame.”

After that somewhat sour exchange, William enquired after the man who spoke to them.

“It does seem that people who truly enjoy games are gathered here.”

“Indeed. These games have been brought by the players themselves. In fact, I’ve heard that games involving guns have become popular recently.”

“Guns?”

As the pair frowned at the unexpected word, the man continued, as if to explain himself.

“Please do not misunderstand. Of course, the games do not involve actual guns, but mere toys made to resemble the exact items themselves. One simply loads a bullet, decides the order in which he goes, and then—“

The man made the figure of a gun with his hand, and held it against his temple.

“One would pull the trigger on his own. The person who gets hit by the bullet loses. I believe this is a game that originated from Russia.”

“—Russian roulette, eh.” Sherlock murmured solemnly.

Even though the game was but an imitation, it was difficult to understand why these nobles would use such dangerous items.

However, the man proceeded to ignore the duo’s incredulous expressions, and pressed on with the topic.

“Although this game only became popular here a while ago, the company here got tired of it quite quickly. That’s why I’ve been trying to change various aspects of it on a trial-and-error basis. In fact just recently, based on a rumour I heard going around another social circle, I tried having three people use three different guns—“

“Ah…… It’s been kind of you to tell us all about this, but I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this some other time.”

Sherlock, somewhat disgusted, interrupted the man’s passionate speech and looked around the room.

“I’ve come here to look for someone.”

“I see.” The man seemed to change his mind and reacted distractedly.

“Yeah, it’s about a noble’s son……”

Then, Sherlock told him the missing young man’s name.

At that instant, William noticed that a gentleman in the vicinity had reacted vaguely to the name.

However, this wasn’t the first time it had happened. In truth, when Sherlock had entered the hall, a number of gentlemen had cast wary glances at him.

William memorised their faces as he spoke about the missing noble, casting a glance at Sherlock. The other man swiftly cast a glance back to him. Back then, Sherlock had knowingly used his fame as a detective to smoke out any suspicious characters as he entered the room.

Now all that was left was to determine the move their opponent would make.

The pair silently agreed on their next course of action. But before they had the chance to explore the movements of the people identified, a gentleman approached Sherlock.

“Could you be Mr Holmes?” he enquired.

He looked to be past forty, with a lithe figure that suited a swallow-tail coat, and a personable smile on his face. However, a cunning glint lurked in his narrow eyes.

Sherlock nodded and gave an affirmative grunt. Then the man put a hand to his chest and let out an exaggerated sigh.

“……Ohh, I simply can’t believe I’d be able to meet you in the flesh like this! Or rather, I think I’ve used up all the luck I had for today’s game.”

Saying that, he immediately straightened his posture.

“Apologies for my poor manners, I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Alan. I absolutely love exciting things that can even astonish people from the sidelines, and I’m a devoted reader of your thrilling adventures with Dr Watson.”

“Heh, I’m grateful you’re reading Doyle’s work [4]. I’m sure he would be pleased to hear that.”

“I’m deeply moved to be able to speak to you as a fan. By the way, I don’t mean to be rude, but it does appear to me that you are a little different from what’s been written in his works.”

He’d hit on a sore spot. Sherlock awkwardly scratched his cheek with his index finger.

“Ah—…… That would be due to the author’s focus on entertaining his readers. It seems he has somewhat glorified me. I suppose any differences between my image and myself are only for the worse, eh.”

“Not at all. In fact, from now on, when I read his works I’d love to imagine the real Sherlock Holmes instead.”

“Would you really enjoy that?”

As Sherlock chatted with the man who introduced himself as Alan, William made idle chatter with the man who spoke to them at first. He was carried away talking all about the Russian roulette from back then, and William nodded at the appropriate times as he observed the other gentlemen, who were gazing intently at Sherlock.

The cordiality of the conversation prevented Sherlock from bringing up the matter of the missing noble in a natural way. As such, his next move was fairly predictable.

“Well, I never thought I’d be able to have this much fun speaking with the detective I so admire.”

“If you’re that happy, then I’m happy for you too.”

“Fate’s a strange thing indeed…… By the way, Mr Holmes, would you happen to be interested in games?”

“Hmm? I did say earlier that I’m here on a different case…… but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. Since we might as well, why don’t you introduce me to an exciting one?”

“I see, I see. You would desire something exciting.”

Immediately, something in Alan’s smile had changed. He covered his mouth with a hand as he whispered to Sherlock.

“It is true that many of the games here provide a change of pace, but my friends and I have grown completely bored with them. Hence we are in fact playing a secret, thrilling game at another location.”

“Hmm. A thrilling game, eh.”

Sherlock put on a conspicuous smile. Alan, reading it as an expression of interest, gestured to William.

“How would your companion like to join us? As long as we do so in secret, so the company here remains unaware.”

“……Sounds like fun,” Sherlock replied.

He called out to William. “Oi, Liam. Have a moment?”

“What’s the matter?”

William turned to Sherlock, having missed their conversation as he was chatting with someone else — or so it appeared.

“Alan here wants to go somewhere else to talk. Care to join us?”

Alan smiled. It was a friendly expression, as if he were the master of a house greeting guests as they entered, but William saw the true nature behind it.

——It was the look of a hunter who had just caught his prey in a net.

William readily understood the situation.

“I see. Allow me to accompany you both, then.”

He apologised to the man he was conversing with, and left the hall with Sherlock.

Footnotes:

[1] The class of people right below the nobility, considered to be of good social position (Wikipedia)

[2] Located in the St. James’s area of Westminster, London (Wikipedia)

[3] i.e. Moran

[4] In case anyone is confused about this, Watson has been writing about Sherlock’s exploits under the pseudonym of Arthur Conan Doyle.

[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 4

A/N  Some strong reactions to the last chapter, which I admit caught me by surprise.   Writing is a funny craft, where you spend a lot of time and effort trying to show your reader exactly the picture you have in your mind, but then also have to surrender to each reader’s interpretation of what you wrote.  That said, some interpretations miss the mark entirely, and for that reason this chapter is entitled “False Assumptions”.   Trigger warning for childhood disease.

Jamie’s weekly appointments continued through the grey slumber of late April and into the wakening month of May.  Thursday became Claire’s favourite day of the week, for reasons she didn’t care to scrutinize too closely.

With regularity came a certain brand of predictability.  Their appointments took one of two forms, she realized.  Some days Jamie was full of life, witty and exasperating by turns.  He would spin long yarns about some trivial aspect of his life, fascinating tales that turned out to be nothing more than surface reflections, revealing little of the murky depths beneath.  He was also adept at using his considerable verbal charm to draw her into divulging more about herself than she ought.  Those visits left her equally frustrated and challenged.

The rest of the time her patient arrived with a weary slump, the thousand watt bulb of his personality dimmed to an occasional flicker.  Given his offhand comment about whisky and women, she tried not to ponder if he was hungover or suffering from the effects of an all-night hook-up.  From a diagnostic point of view these days of low ebb were beneficial because Jamie was far more likely to offer some nugget of inner revelation, truth sneaking out through the cracks of his weakened defences.

“I was away on business, in Hong Kong, when my Da passed,” he said on one such afternoon, the skin below his eyes drawn tight and the copper in his hair somehow muted.

“Did it happen suddenly?” 

“No’ really.  Jen had been at me fer months tae come hame, sayin’ that Da was workin’ himself tae death.”   Jamie looked out the window, eyes reflecting the overcast skies beyond.  “I ignored her.  Too wrapped up in my own grand self tae pay any heed.  Twas Ian, my brother-in-law, who called tae say Da had dropped in the pasture.  Massive coronary.  I caught the first flight back, but he was gone before I landed.”

She watched Jamie’s face closely as he spoke, but beyond the understandable emotion of reliving the sudden loss of a parent, he remained inscrutable.  The urge to draw him out overcame the deference she paid to Jamie’s well-defined boundaries.

“Do you think you’re to blame for his death?” she asked, half-expecting to be met with silence or a nimble deflection.

Jamie shook his head ruefully.

“Nah.  I dinna think I’m tae blame.  I ken it.  I was the only surviving son, ye see?  In the Highlands, tradition is everything, an’ a Fraser man had worked those lands fer generations.  I was only meant tae complete my studies abroad, an’ then return tae Lallybroch and take o’er from Da.  Instead, I left my sister an’ Ian tae watch o’er the farm while I played the business tycoon.”

“Is Lallybroch still in your family?” she wondered aloud, the name rolling about in her mouth like marbles.  

“Jenny and Ian couldna keep it.  I wasna well enough tae object, an’ they sold tae a developer.  It’s some kind of corporate wellness retreat now,” he finished with a distasteful grimace.

For every disclosure Jamie made, two more questions arose in its wake, like hacking away at a many-headed Hydra.  She wished she could delve further, but the chime from her computer announced the end of the session.

“Will I see you next week, Jamie?” she asked as he reluctantly rose to leave.

“Aye,” said with a sad smile.  “I’ll be here.”

***

The following Tuesday, Claire took the afternoon off work to perform an errand she’d long been avoiding.

Her departure from the Royal Hospital for Children had been so precipitous, she hadn’t filed the necessary paperwork to close her employment file.  The Human Resources department had been pestering her to complete the process for months.  The threat of holding up the transfer of her accreditation finally forced her hand.

To her great relief, the personnel offices were nowhere near the actual wards.  They lay at the end of a long white hallway broken by large windows looking into a series of meeting and activity rooms.  Her plan was to get in, sign the damn forms, and leave without running into any former colleagues or patients.   

The sun slanting into one of these sparsely furnished rooms glanced off the top of a bent head, causing it to glow like a freshly minted penny.  She stopped and stared, trying to reconcile the image of James Fraser seated in a too-small plastic chair, surrounded by a group of hospital-gowned children.

He must have caught sight of her while she stood gaping.  Running to the door before she could find the motor function to turn around, he called out joyfully from behind a blue hospital mask.

“Doctor Beauchamp!  Fancy meeting ye here.”

She mumbled something incoherent, damning herself for the blush she felt enveloping her cheeks.   Behind Jamie, a row of dewy eyes watched on.   She recognized the paper-thin skin and missing hair of chemotherapy patients, and a salty knot rose in her throat.

“Can ye spare a few minutes? Ye’re jes the pair of steady hands we need.”

She longed to decline, to disappear, to come up with a plausible excuse why she couldn’t enter that room.  Her heart thumped angrily in her chest, warning of its fragile state.

Seeing her conflict, Jamie extended a welcoming hand.

“Come, Sassenach.  The lassies would love tae meet ye.”

The space smelled of sterile laundry and sawdust.  With a habit borne of years of practice, Claire disinfected her hands in the small utility sink and donned a spare mask from the nearby dispenser, all while wondering what the hell she was doing.

The children were seated on colourful chairs arranged around a low table, its surface covered in pieces of pre-cut lumber, colourful pots of paint, a glue gun and all manner of cheap decorations such as you would find at a craft store.  The little girls ranged in age from pre-school to young teen, but they all looked at Jamie as though he’d hung the moon as he addressed them.

“Ladies, I’d like ye tae meet Doctor Beauchamp.  She’s a braw doctor but I bet she kens next tae nothing about woodwork.  Ye’ll have tae show her how it’s done.”

A chorus of nervous giggles was the only response.  Claire knew from experience that being a medical professional wasn’t going to endear her to children who spent much of their lives being essentially tortured in the name of science, hoping for some kind of miracle.

“Hello, everyone,” she waved meekly.  “You can call me Miss Claire, if you like.  Now, whatever are you doing with all this wood?”

It turned out that Jamie was supervising the construction of a half-dozen birdhouses.  He had pre-cut the lumber for easy assembly, but was assisting each girl to create a custom masterpiece that would hang outside her hospital window.  With the patience and steady manner of a primary school teacher, Jamie led the group through each step.  

A waifish girl of perhaps six sat directly to Claire’s left, her bare scalp covered by a brightly coloured bandana, offset by a huge pair of peacock-blue eyes that glimmered above her mask.  Eyes that were the mirror of the ones that visited her office every Thursday.  Something heavy settled inside her ribs.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” she asked in a low voice as she pushed an open pot of sky blue paint away from the table’s edge.  Small hands busied themselves pulling apart a package of cotton balls that looked suspiciously like the ones kept in the hospital’s supply cabinet.

“Margaret Murray, Doctor, errr, Miss Claire,” came the timid reply.  

Not Fraser, then.  But that didn’t necessarily mean anything.  She snuck a glance across the table at Jamie, who was just then teasing the youngest girl by tickling her cheeks with a fake feather.  Despite her heavy thoughts, she couldn’t help but smile.  That smile faltered when she noticed that the inside of Jamie’s elbows bore a matching set of fresh bandages.   A series of puzzle pieces tumbled into place.

Perhaps sensing the weight of her scrutiny, Jamie looked their way, whistling in admiration when he saw Maggie’s near-complete birdhouse.

“Tis a fine hame ye’ve built fer yer wee birds, Maggie.  What is all yon white fluff for?”

“Tis clouds, Uncle Jamie,” Maggie replied with the certainty of childhood.  “I dinna want the birdies tae miss the sky, even when they arenna flyin’.”

Claire watched the words hit him as surely as though they had been bullets.  A frozen gasp, a shudder that travelled the length of his body and the crest of tears that he tried valiantly to blink away.

“Aye, ye’re right, a nighean.  Any bird would be fair honoured tae sleep in yer skyhouse,” he managed to reply, voice bouldery with contained emotion.

When each birdhouse was complete and left along the window ledge to dry, Jamie set his small crew of helpers the task of clearing up the mess.   Claire stood next to him as he loaded his tools back into a small carrying case.

“Thanks for inviting me to join you, Jamie.  It was... well, it was unexpectedly wonderful,” she admitted.

“Ye’re most welcome, Doctor Beauchamp.  We couldna have managed wi’out yer steady hand manning the glue gun,” he teased.

“You’re not my patient here, Jamie.  You don’t need to use my title,” she said, a bit vexed by his formality.

“Aye, but it doesna feel right tae call ye by yer given name either.  An’ Miss Claire is jes weird.”

She had to acknowledge that he had a point.

“What was it you called me earlier?  Sassa-something?”

“Sassenach.  My Da woulda skelped my hide if he heard me call a lady by that name,” he said ruefully.

“Why, does it mean something terribly offensive?”  She was almost afraid to know, having enjoyed the delusion that Jamie felt as fondly towards her as she did towards him.

“Nah, tis jes an old-fashioned word for an English person in Scotland.  Seemed tae suit ye, is all.”  He shrugged, seemingly embarrassed by the explanation.

“Well then, Sassenach it is.  When I’m not on the clock, that is.”

Jamie’s eyes danced above his mask the way they did when he smiled, and she imagined hers replied in much the same way.  A long moment passed when nothing was said, neither of them looking away.

“You’re her platelet donor,” she said at last.  “Maggie’s, I mean.”

“Aye.  Every week while she’s in hospital for chemotherapy.  Tis the least I can do.”

It was an explanation that fit all the facts, but one that she never would have guessed.  Jamie had always worn long sleeves to his appointments, but she was certain the weeks when he was haggard and worn out coincided with the times he was donating the litres of blood necessary to distill into the platelet concentrate that would then be injected into Maggie’s body, helping her combat the poisonous effects of her chemotherapy.

“Whisky, women and song?” she prodded, relieved and yet frustrated that his offhand comment had kept her from seeing the truth.  “Why didn’t you just tell me, Jamie?”

“I didna want yer pity, Sassenach.  Fer once in my life, tis no’ about me, ye ken?  I didna want ye lookin’ at me like I was some kind of hero.”

She held back her reaction that his was a textbook definition of heroism, and instead asked the next obvious question.

“Are you a compatible bone marrow donor as well?”

Jamie shook his head slowly.  Although he was a close match, he explained, it wasn’t close enough.   Maggie’s older brother, Wee Jamie, was a perfect match but the law prohibited him from becoming a donor until he was at least sixteen, in seven long years.

“We’re jes tryin’ tae buy her enough time,” he said sadly before stepping out of the room, explaining he’d be back momentarily.

Claire stood in a daze, running through everything she’d assumed about Jamie in light of these newest facts.  A light tug on her hand drew her back into the moment.  Maggie was looking up at her with wide, trusting eyes.

“Are ye the Sassenach lady Uncle Jamie and my Mam argue about?”

“I suppose I might be,” she replied, curious what had been said between the siblings that Maggie had overheard.

“Are ye a heart doctor?” Maggie continued.

“Well, no.  Not exactly.  I’m the kind of doctor who helps people who are sad, and I try to find a way for them to be happy again.”  It sounded so easy when explaining it to a six year old.

“Sometimes Mam and Da talk about Uncle Jamie when they dinna ken I’m listenin’.  I’m verra good at sneakin’,” Maggie confided, and Claire couldn’t help but smile.  What a precious child.    “I’m sure you are,” she replied warmly, a hand coming to rest gently on the tiny cloth-covered head.

“Mam says Uncle Jamie is more stubborn than a mule and that he canna see past his own big heid,” Maggie continued.  Claire couldn’t say that she disagreed with that assessment.

“But Da says Uncle Jamie’s heart has been broken too many times, and thas’ why he’s given up on living.  Can ye fix his heart, Miss Claire, so that it isna broken any more?”

She couldn’t have stopped her tears if she tried.   She knelt on the floor and gathered Maggie’s thin, fragile body in her arms.

“Oh, Maggie.  I’m certainly going to try.”

[stillness-in-green]

MVA In Memoriam (4/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia) (Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party) (Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade)

Part Four, Episode 111: Origin: Shimura Tenko

Chapter 233 – Bright Future

• Twice clearly having arranged a Skeptic puppet to where its arm can be used as a pillow for Toga’s neck. A cute little character detail while also being kind of disturbing? Very on-brand for the League! A not-immediately-plot-crucial visual of a member of the League demonstrating obvious care for another member? The guillotine awaits!

• A little explanation about how clones’ physicality and memories work relative to the last time Twice saw the people the clones are based on. This is a very useful little nod of explanation to something that remained unclear from the dialogue of Mr. Clone-press last chapter. Twice’s quirk is pretty arcane in its ins and outs, frankly, and the clearer those details are, the fewer plot holes you’re leaving for later.

• The scene of Skeptic being right on the verge of confronting Twice. Skeptic has, oh, about five moments where he’s obviously a big tense neurotic who’s unpleasant to be around if things aren’t going his way, and the anime deleted or downplayed all but two of them. As ever, it’s obscenely damaging to the characterization of the MLA cast, who we have little enough time with as it is. Further, it was a particularly weird choice to make with Skeptic, who is as of this writing the only major MLA character who’ll emerge still free and active from the War Arc. Why shaft the characterization of the one of new characters who’s going to be getting the most attention out of any of them in the next arc, with yet more scenes yet to come after?[1]

• A full page’s-worth of Spinner’s rationalizations on targeting Trumpet and ordering the Twice doubles to do the same. This lays out the details on why targeting Trumpet stands to relieve some of the load on Shigaraki. It isn’t because Trumpet’s quirk makes the crowds more dangerous, though that is true. Spinner targets Trumpet because he’s seen enough to know that attacking the MLA’s leaders gets them crazy riled up; he knows that if he makes himself a threat to Trumpet, then all Trumpet’s followers’ attention will shift focus to Spinner, leaving Shigaraki with less to deal with.           Spinner also knows that that is ludicrously dangerous to him personally, given his weak quirk, but he actively makes that choice anyway, because that’s how much he’s devoted himself to Shigaraki without (yet) quite articulating the nature and reasons for that devotion. Targeting Trumpet without any of that reasoning made for a perfectly sound tactical decision, but it missed the regard Spinner shows the unnamed mobs of the MLA, and it really missed the probable savage beatdown and even possible death that Spinner consciously chooses to risk for Shigaraki’s sake.           Of course, a chunk of what the episode deleted is flashbacks to scenes the anime also cut, so they couldn’t figure into Anime!Spinner’s reasoning. This does not excuse yet more cuts to Spinner’s arc and characterization; it only adds to how badly the anime maimed him.           Also, on a less salty but still confused note, deleting all the Twice clones from the beginning of the scene and just having Spinner running along a wall past mobs of people instead of laboriously fighting his way through the street to the van was really dumb. Why did all those MLA people just stand there and let him run by? Where did all the Twice clones that just helped save Spinner from a huge flurry of long-distance attacks disappear to? Come on.

• Trumpet’s thought that using Sevens Loud will draw every bit of strength from their warriors, but that it’s necessary. Setting aside that it looks far less necessary when there hasn’t been a crowd of Twice clones fighting Trumpet’s people this whole time, just Spinner by his lonesome, we still lost quite a bit to this cut. Firstly, a nuance on the trade-off Incite gives—that its stat-boost is temporary, and that it’s borrowing from the future to pay for the present, a stock that is limited and a bill that will come due when the effect wears off.           Secondly, it’s another demonstration that the MLA leaders aren’t just thoughtlessly wasting their followers’ lives; they’re very consciously doing cost/benefit analysis on how much danger their people are in versus what stands to be gained by the potential exertion or outright deaths those people will suffer. It’s cold reasoning, yes, but that’s how the Liberation Army operates: not for the personal gain or lackadaisical ease of the people on top—Trumpet would just have been in the tower speaking through city-wide loudspeakers, if that were the case—but for the advancement of the group’s ideals.           It also just grants Trumpet some interiority, but of course the anime can’t have that.

• The note in Trumpet’s meta-ability explanation that the more his voice causes the air to vibrate, the stronger Incite’s effect. This is—good god, it is literally the entire design mentality behind Sevens Loud! Sevens Loud purpose isn't to make his voice louder so more people can hear him (which I would think is the most logical assumption an anime-only person would make as to why he puts it on); it’s to make himself louder because being louder enhances the boost. It’s about the quality of the effect, not the quantity of targets. This is why Trumpet has the thought about how using Sevens Loud will drain the strength reserves of his people. There’d be no correlation there if Sevens Loud were only about boosting his range.

• When Spinner got porcupined in the anime, they did a close-up on his face, possibly to avoid the gore of showing the spines piercing through his forearm. That’s fine, but they also emphasized the reaction by having him lose his grip on the huge fuck-off knife he had clutched in his teeth. In the manga, sure, he yells in pain, but he doesn’t lose the knife. Indeed, he gets the guy off him by slashing at him with it—a shot the anime dropped. So Spinner doesn’t even get to keep displays of his pain tolerance, a trait he doubtless improved during those six weeks against Machia. Why does the anime hate Spinner so much, you guys? Why did it go out of its way to make him look lamer, when Dabi and Toga were out there getting anime-original flourishes to make them look cooler?

• Spinner’s thoughts, “When I get inspired to act, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing! I’m just a loser jumping on a bandwagon. Or at least that’s what it looks like.” A humorous bit of self-awareness from Spinner here. The anime got at the self-awareness. The humor, as we’ll see, not so much.

• Spinner’s thoughts, “Look at me. Look at me!! With all that prejudice in your eyes!” Hah hah, laughed BNHA the anime nervously, what prejudice are you talking about, Spinner? No idea what you could possibly be referring to there! This one’s particularly annoying because, while one might think that the anime was just dodging the heteromorphobia angle it eradicated all references to back at the beginning of the arc, the prejudice line isn’t even about heteromorphobia, not really.           See, the Japanese line there literally translates to, “With those colored glasses!”—to see with colored glasses being a Japanese idiom for seeing something from a biased viewpoint. So aside from being a wordplay jab at Trumpet’s choice in eyewear, it’s also about Trumpet’s expressed view that Spinner, having been a shut-in with a weak quirk who decided to take his resentment out on the world, can’t possibly amount to anything much. So, what, did the people in charge of making those cuts think Trumpet was right? Why even keep the line where he disparages Spinner if you’re not going to let Spinner call it what it is? He’s not calling out fantasy racism there, anime! He’s calling out the bias against weak quirks that even the good guys in this world sometimes partake in!           Possibly it’s because non-villains in the world[2] sometimes use reasoning that leads logically to quirk supremacism that the anime got gunshy with it, or it was more reluctance to give the villains—and the Too-Real Iguchi Shuuichi especially—moral ground for accusations against their society that get too close to real life. Whatever the motivation, it’s a bullshit cut.

• Shigaraki calling RD “Detnerat,” presumably because he neither knows RD’s real name nor cares to dignify him by using his code name. The anime, again, made neither the connection nor Shigaraki’s recognition explicit, so it lost the specificity and pettiness of that little snub.

• A little exchange between Giran and a Twice clone as they flee. It doesn’t give you much you wouldn’t assume just from seeing them flee, but it always feels more immediate and empathetic when the characters talk and you can see their expressions, instead of just a quick shot of them from behind as they run away in complete silence. Heck, running away in complete silence is actively out of character for Twice!

• Because the anime has some kind of aversion/restriction on showing hand-related violence, it radically changed how Shigaraki lost his fingers,[3] resulting in the loss of several important shots. To the best of my parsing, in the manga, when Re-Destro makes that first big jump to avoid Shigaraki’s decay wave, he comes back down specifically aiming for Shigaraki’s outstretched left hand, spread wide and flat on the ground. Shigaraki tries to evade (you can see the blur of his left arm in the panel where RD lands), but either RD does manage to clip the hand or he simply hits the ground with so much force that the sheer explosive burst of rock shreds Shigaraki’s hand and part of his coat sleeve. Being so much larger, RD then simply snags Shigaraki by the wrist before he can get out of range. It’s very fast, a burst of speed and violence, and very different (read: cooler) from Shigaraki flipping end over end in slow motion in a way that seemed to imply visually that he was thrown well out of RD’s grabbing range.           As to the shots we lost? I counted three. First, Hana’s hand crumpling amidst all the flying debris. Second, that big dramatic panel of Shigaraki’s maimed hand ribboning blood into the air as the narration box finally drops Re-Destro’s identity and code name. Third, the shot of him catching Shigaraki, almost delicately, between one thumb and forefinger and delivering the, “Was it this hand that committed such evil acts?” line—a clear threat to what of that hand Shigaraki has remaining—as we find out what his meta-ability is.           This is all hugely dramatic in the manga, because, of course, readers always assumed Shigaraki needed all five fingers to activate his quirk, and here Re-Destro nigh-effortlessly robs him of fully half his capacity to use it. It’s a shocking turn-around and instantly ups RD’s threat level by allowing him to permanently maim Shigaraki in a way that no one, hero or villain, has done before or since. Robbing Re-Destro of the immediacy of that seemingly devastating blow—inflicted within moments of meeting the real Shigaraki—did immeasurable damage to his credibility as an arc boss.           The shot in the manga is also just arresting visually, with RD finally getting to properly loom over Shigaraki. Most of the shots up to this point have been framed such that, while RD is obviously bigger, he and Shigaraki have still been moving and fighting in a pretty level way. This is the first place where the viewer is situated so squarely behind Shigaraki that they can really feel how massive RD is in comparison. It’s certainly a more impressive visual than this mess—thanks, anime; thanks, whatever broadcasting standards forced overworked and uninspired animators to undertake a redraw of RD’s quirk reveal panel when every other member of the MLA brass had theirs carried over directly from the manga.

• A chapter-ending cliffhanger of Slidin’ Go helping direct traffic on the outskirts of Deika and the warning rumble as Gigantomachia approaches. Aside from being a nice little tension boost—Will Gigantomachia roll up just in time to see Re-Destro making a mess of Shigaraki? Who will he target? Will Shigaraki ever be able to win him over if he sees a scene like that?—it’s good foreshadowing for what the news reports will eventually be saying. Remember, the claim is that a bunch of villains lured Deika’s heroes away and then attacked the city while it was defenseless; that’s why we never see any of the MLA’s heroes involved with the fight once it starts. And now, here, we find out where they’ve been the whole time: making sure no outsiders get in who might be able to undermine that narrative.

Framing Shifts

• Once again had an MLA member using their Detnerat item say its name out loud, when it’s clear in the manga that they’re just thinking the names internally. Once again, it was kind of silly.

• When Spinner flashes back to watching Stain on TV and being inspired, the manga uses a shot of Stain’s face, snarling and defiant. The anime used—a shot of Stain from behind, only visible from the shoulders to the knees, hunched so that his lower back and ass were towards the camera. Bones… What exactly were you implying lit Spinner’s fire there? Or did you just not have the time or budget to go pull Stain’s reference sheets for drawing his face?

• A tone issue, but a major one: Spinner should be grinning, face alight with accusatory challenge, as he hurls his accusations of the MLA/Trumpet being the same bandwagon-jumping nobodies that he is. This is the moment in the manga where we see Spinner truly throw his hesitations and his doubts to the wind and embrace Shigaraki’s nihilistic fervor and the beauty, value and profundity of emptiness. So what if I’m empty? So what if he wants emptiness? Who cares about other peoples’ ideals if their ideals leave no room for me? It’s not a heroic triumph, but it’s a triumph all the same, and losing Spinner’s smile made the moment far too bitter.

• Meanwhile, in exactly the opposite problem, Shigaraki by this point is not smiling. In fact, he’s barely on his feet, swaying violently in place with accompanying sound effects. While his words are openly mocking, he seems to wholly lack the energy to back them up with his usual verve. The anime didn’t have him smiling, admittedly, but the whole time the ‘camera’ wasn’t directly on his face, his voice actor was reading the lines with an uneven, chuckling cadence that suggested Shigaraki was seconds away from breaking into howls of laughter. He was also, of course, impossibly clean, at a point at which his manga counterpart is muddy, bloody and tattered from the horrifically extended combat he’s been living for six weeks. It’s stuff like this that made it so impossible to take the Army or even Machia as much of a threat in the anime, when, other than the red cords on his hands being broken, Shigaraki looked absolutely no different than usual.

Additions

• Gave Spinner a tiny bit of new animation when he got mobbed by people hopped up on Incite. It was nice, but if they were going to give him a flourish, I’d rather it have come when he swipes Porcupine Dude off him with a combat knife. Or, you know, just kept the bit of him telling the Twices to attack and his reasoning on why.

• Cut inside briefly to show a ballerina girl dancing through a darkened apartment right before she sliced a neat circle out of the wall. I love it, A+, exactly the kind of expansion on the action of the manga I wanted to see. My only complaint is that her manga self looked more like Pearl from Steven Universe.[4] XD

• A quick new shot of RD when Shigaraki was hounding him about his feelings. His teeth were visibly gritted, the corners of his mouth pulled down. It stands out because there’s only one shot of RD there in the manga, and in it, he’s smiling, close-mouthed and calm. The anime copied said shot, smile and all, then cut away, and when it cut back, Re-Destro had a totally different expression on his face. Baffling. Anime!RD having a dour scowl everywhere manga!RD is smiling in a tight, controlled way was all over the fight scene, and it detracted from the sense of RD’s menace every time.

Chapter 234 – Destruction Sense

• The illustration(s) accompanying Re-Destro’s, “Let’s not judge people by their quirks,” line. The pictures are cute, but the real loss there was the note informing us that they’re excerpts from a children’s book published by Shoowaysha—Curious’s outfit—called Quirks and Us. That’s a very concrete illustration of the kinds of things the MLA is getting up to in the world, and an equally concrete thing an anime-only viewer lost. Of course, that viewer never even found out Curious was in publishing, so it wouldn’t have meant anything on that front, but there is one other thing I think is notable: the way that book implies that the only people explicitly pushing a “don’t judge other people by their quirks” message are the radical Liberationists.           See, the rest of the story touches on the virtues of a nonjudgmental attitude here and there, but actually finding people willing to say it out loud is—unprecedented, I think. Deku comes across situations where he could say something like that multiple times and he never, ever does—not to Shouto, nor to Shinsou, nor to Eri, nor to the giant fox lady. And that’s not even touching on Shouji’s mask, or the discrimination Spinner faced, or the CRC “losing support” without being declared illegal. I think the manga itself is against judging people by their quirks, but it’s interesting that it doesn’t make its characters into mouthpieces to say as much. This is because its characters are thoroughly enmeshed in a society that very much does judge people by their quirks, regardless of whether or not it will say that doing so is bad or rude or prejudiced.           Re-Destro and the MLA aren’t immune, of course—Re-Destro himself says that quirks are linked to personality—but they adhere to a different set of values than the larger society does. While Hero Society talks about quirks in terms of being heroic and/or useful versus villainous and/or useless, the MLA spectrums instead emphasize how capable a person’s quirk is of helping them exert their will and how ambitious the quirk’s bearer is in that exertion. That is, their ethics are less about morality and utility-to-society than they are about aspiration and utility-to-self.[5] Both worldviews have their pros and cons, but that, I think, is what the children’s book is getting at when it says not to “judge”—don’t assign an arbitrary moral value to a quirk; judge a person by their actions.           And isn’t it interesting, that the only explicit verbal statement of that value comes from the leader of a radical cult descended from a famous insurrectionist quoting a children’s book published by a member of selfsame radical cult? The value is not ever stated by a member of the heroic cast, so are we to assume that the heroes don't actually believe it? Do people profess to believe it but everyone knows it’s only for courtesy’s sake, with only the MLA willing to breach that wall of “things we don’t talk about in polite society” to actually talk about it in anything other than platitudes? Obviously, you lose this entire line of discussion when the "don't judge people by their quirks" value is just never mentioned at all.

• The phrase, “In that case,” from RD’s, “You will never measure up to me.” It establishes continuity to what RD was saying before. He’s not taking breaks from talking while Shigaraki has flashbacks; the two are happening concurrently.

• RD’s, “Cracking apart…?” reaction to his Decayed fingertip, and the dripping blood from the injury. I’m not hugely fussed about the former, but I like the latter as indicative of what Re-Destro’s Stress powers actually do. That is to say, he isn’t covering himself in a thick shell of Stress power or something; his Stress powers make him physically larger, infusing his body and swelling his size. That’s why he bleeds when Shigaraki touches his fingertip.           Admittedly, the size distinction was more obvious in the anime, where the audience watched RD’s shoulders inflate like balloons last episode, compared to the manga, where you don’t get in-between animation. Still, given that RD still has that wound even when he goes back down to normal size, and is still wearing bandages for his speech a week later,[6] it’d be nice to mark the severity of the wound with a bit of blood. Oddly, the anime did keep the wound for the crater scene, visible red slices opened in the flesh along the length of his finger, very obviously the sort of injury that would have bled upon being first sustained. Maybe RD ran afoul of whatever the studio mandate is on when Decay has a dust effect and when it leaves gore? (More of that later.)

• Shigaraki’s, “Mother!” for the first panel we see of her. It’s obvious enough who she probably is, but odd that we got a whole bunch of narration for Hana, and likewise an acknowledgment of his grandparents, but not even a single word for Nao.

• Very significantly drops the grandfather’s, “Eating yummy things helps make the sadness go away.” Grandpa’s not just randomly handing Tenko his favorite snack in that memory—he’s trying to treat some kind of grief or wrong without actually addressing the wrong, opting to just put a flavorful band-aid on it. That could be fine if it were something outside Grandpa’s control, but we’ve already gotten some early hints from Hana’s phrasing that things are not okay in the household, and thus the grandfather’s attempt to bribe Tenko with sweets is just as ominous a sign of what’s to come as the grandmother’s attempt to guilt him into not crying lest he make her cry too.

• A little shot of Shigaraki stirring in the rubble when RD answers the phone. It’s a nice demonstration of their size difference, especially comparing both of them to Machia, who we just saw tearing through buildings like the kaiju his theme music declares him to be.

Framing Shifts

• When Shigaraki narrates that Hana always took him by the hand when he got weepy, she actually does take his hand in the manga, her fingers wrapped around his, his clasped over hers. It emphasizes that this is what he can’t do anymore, simply hold hands with people, the innocence lost aspect, and it suggests the closeness he once had with his sister.           In the anime, she reached out a hand but wound up taking him by the wrist instead, his hand splayed open beneath hers. This suggested, albeit very implicitly, that maybe that innocence was something he never had from the beginning; it also suggested less reciprocity in his relationship with Hana. Even though Tomura said in narration that their hands were joined, what we saw was that Hana just pulled him where she wanted him and he didn’t fight her on it, not that he held her hand in return.           Alternatively, the anime could have been drawing a parallel to how her hand would eventually be gripping his wrist in a much different context (a more necrotic one, for starters) later in life, though if that's what they were going for, they could have stood to tweak the dialogue so it actually matched the onscreen action. (Credit to @robotlesbianjavert and @aysall respectively for these two theories!)

• Shigaraki still having his fingers when Re-Destro squeezed his hand made RD look like a real moron. I assume the intention was that he assumed he’d done enough damage—broken bones, torn ligaments, etc—to prevent Shigaraki from being able to move his hand in more than spastic twitches, but like, if all it takes is a hard enough spasmodic clench to dust you, you are playing much riskier games than the MLA is generally portrayed as favoring. (Not that the anime kept many of the scenes that demonstrated all the planning and prep that the MLA did as groundwork for their attack, as I have complained about at length.)           In the same sequence, Anime!RD turned and bodily hurled Shigaraki away from him, while Manga!RD threw him a similar distance with nothing more than a flick of a finger. Anime, why you gotta make Re-Destro look so lame all the time?

Additions

• Just one episode prior, the anime managed to turn in an entirely reasonable assemblage of swiping and dodging between Shigaraki and Re-Destro while RD was rambling on about the Mother of Quirks. What the hell was the excuse for this episode’s ridiculous shot of Shigaraki literally running circles—big, broad circles—around RD multiple times in the time it took RD to finish one (1) thought? For heaven’s sake, if you don’t have the budget for flashy, just use slow motion or more flashback animation or something. I know there’s more leeway for long thoughts in manga, where the reader understands that thoughts are moving far faster than action, and that it can be hard to bridge that gap for anime, where motion is motion but voice acting still has to rattle its way to the end of a sentence. I understand that measures have to be taken to account for that. Still, I promise, something that just looks a bit padded is much preferable to something that looks outright dumb.

• I admit to having found huge Stress monster RD pulling out a teeeeeny-tiny cellphone very funny—even more so the distinct cracking sound it made when Skeptic reported in bad news and RD’s fingers tightened infinitesimally—but the manga suggests fairly strongly that RD’s just answering on some kind of earpiece or micro-receiver, the same kind of thing Ujiko hands out and that Skeptic is associated with on multiple occasions. It’d be nice if RD could have kept more of the jokes he actually makes, the ones that stem from his native good humor, rather than the anime making up new ones based entirely in the contrast of Re-Destro and the viewer’s expectations of Re-Destro.

Chapter 235 – Shimura Tenko: Origin

• The man at the door, whom Nao is apologizing to at the beginning of the Tenko flashback and the apparent reason Tenko got busted for playing hero. I don’t love the way deleting this obscured that Tenko, in some fashion, troubled someone to lead to Kotarou dragging him down the hall (the anime also dropped Kotarou’s subsequent line, “Causing trouble?!” that’s supposed to supplement his, “Playing hero again?”), but it’s not like the manga doesn’t imply that the same thing would happen for any hero-based rules infraction, regardless of whether it troubled strangers or not. No, the much, much funnier thing to me is how it just fuckin’ torpedoed the most obvious thing people point to when they posit that All For One gave Tenko Decay, kicking off the entire tragedy: the man at the door with the conspicuously shadowed face and the even more conspicuously AFO-like suit and dress shirt with the top button unfastened.           Listen, I hate that theory and what it would do to the narrative of Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko as Hero Society’s long-overdue reckoning, the villain they can’t put down and the victim they can’t silence, so watching the anime summarily cut out the scene that really kicked the theory into overdrive was very validating! Conversely, I still can't deny that it's a plausible theory, so if it does turn out to be true, that means the anime shot itself in the foot on the most obvious bit of foreshadowing this side of AFO addressing Tenko by name when he finds him in the alley. The schadenfreude of that would also be very funny. Really, unlike every other cut this season, I regard this one as win-win for my personal experience with the anime.           Incidentally, I was very prepared to complain about the anime dropping all the changes of clothes the Shimura family goes through over the course of the flashback—I regard the timelapse as one of the major points against the AFO Gave Tenko Decay theory, since it’s never taken a quirk bestowed by AFO multiple days, maybe even multiple weeks, to kick in before—but it turns out I’m a lot less bothered about them not taking the time to change the side characters’ clothes when the anime also deletes the dude at the door who is the only reason I care about clarity re: how much time the flashback covers! But just for the record, while they had more outfits than I was expecting them to, the family did go through fewer changes of clothes in the anime than in the manga.

• The full echo of the line about kids being sneaky and simple in favor of Narrator!Shigaraki just letting out this exhausted, rueful, “Ahhh, kids are…” I actually rather like it. It’s a clear reference back to the earlier line without having to restate the whole thing, and Uchiyama Kouki’s delivery is really excellent.

• Kotaro’s first slap of Tenko, the only one directly portrayed on-panel, and Mon-chan’s barking in response. On the one hand, I think there’s an argument to be made for the scene flowing a bit better like this—why wouldn’t Grandpa try to stop him from going for that second slap; why wouldn’t Nao pass Hana off to Grandma and do something instead of just standing there yelling for the entire scene? It makes a bit more sense if they’re hesitant to intervene because Kotarou has “only” grabbed at Tenko’s collar and they don’t yet know how that it’s going to escalate to naked physical violence in a way that it never has before.           On the other hand, that first slap is so visceral and shocking. Nowhere else in the manga is domestic violence portrayed more sharply and directly, in greater detail or more cruelly generous panel space than in this moment. It’s in the difference in size between Kotarou and Tenko, the force behind the hit that’s enough to knock Tenko clear off his feet, the pages upon pages of gut-churning lead-up to this moment and what we know will be following soon after.           Also too, it makes the family’s failure to help Tenko much worse that no one else acts when Kotarou pulls back for a second hit. The first one, you could almost excuse because no one saw it coming; the second throws those justifications out the window and spits on them afterward. Two hits are important—not only for what they tell Tenko in the moment about his family's inaction, but because two hits speak in ways one hit doesn't to how wildly uneven the power balance is in the house, that Nao and her parents could witness something like that and not only fail to intercede, but then take who knows how long to work up the courage to confront Kotarou afterwards.           I understand very well the fear of showing this in a family TV timeslot—the violence is so much more real than any big fantasy beat-‘em-up could ever be—but it’s the kind of thing that really drives home what Tenko needed to be saved from even back then, a social issue that heroes as they currently exist were in no position to address. Far from demonstrating that heroes aren't at fault for what happened to Tenko, though, what this scene truly does is vividly illustrate the flaws in All Might's social contract, in which his power and smile seem to promise that he can save absolutely everyone, only to leave children like Tenko out in the cold with no explanation as to why. It's brutal because it has to be, and the anime shying away from depicting Kotarou's physical abuse undercut that.

Framing Shifts

• There was a bizarre, nonsensical change to the scene at the beginning of the chapter where RD is figuring out how Shigaraki survived/got back up after taking a Burden attack head-on. The manga’s explanation is that Shigaraki didn’t actually take a full force hit because he was Decaying it even as it was blowing him back. This is somewhat silly, given that even a reduced-strength Burden is still strong enough to put him through multiple buildings. It is, however, less silly than the anime’s take, in which Shigaraki touched Re-Destro rather than the corporealized Stress of Burden. How Re-Destro survived a full-fingered touch from Shigaraki’s completely uninjured right hand[7] went totally unexplained; the problem was then compounded by Re-Destro delivering manga-accurate lines about Burden not being an evadable attack despite “evasion” having nothing to do with Shigaraki’s actions.           Anime!Shigaraki didn’t dodge the Burden attack any more than Manga!Shigaraki did; unlike Manga!Shigaraki, however, Anime!Shigaraki also did nothing to reduce the impact of the attack. So not only was how Shigaraki survived the Burden attack not explained, the change to the material also opened up the plot hole of how Re-Destro survived a direct touch attack that Shigaraki in the manga never lands.

• There was also an extremely weird decision made to give Tenko dark, gray-blue eyes, obviously reminiscent of Nana’s, and suggest that they became red at the same time as his hair was changing to white. But in the manga, other than the size, there’s no difference between young Tenko’s eyes and how Shigaraki’s eyes have always been drawn—an unshaded iris with a visible pupil and a relatively thick line delineating the iris from the white of the sclera. Tenko’s eyes never matched those of anyone else in his family, least of all his dark-eyed grandmother. His hair changed color because of a trauma response,[8] but his eyes were always red.

• Relocated Shigaraki’s first, “Little kids…are sneakier than you’d expect. And simpler,” to underscore Hana showing him Nana’s picture in the study, squarely centering the line on her. And like, yes, that line does get its bitter echo later when Hana panics in the face of her father’s fury and throws the blame onto Tenko—but that line isn’t just about her; it’s also about what Tenko wanted to hear from the other adults in his life. It didn’t matter that his father didn’t approve; if he could get at least one adult to say he could be a hero, to take his side, then he could feel vindicated.           It’s a child’s sneaky, simple reasoning: if an adult’s words are absolute, you just have to get one (1) adult to agree with you. It’s asking Dad if you can do something you don’t think Mom will agree to, and then going to Mom with Dad’s permission held defensively in-hand. Laying the line over Hana obscures that it’s as much about Tenko’s craving for external validation as it is Hana’s (entirely understandable) deceitful streak.

• After half a season full of internal monologue being voiced aloud even when it made little sense to do so, the anime decided to render clearly talk-bubbled dialogue—Tenko’s chatting at Mon about how he feels like he could take on the world—as internal monologue instead. Who talks to their animals in their heads when they could be talking at them directly like pet owners the world over?

Additions

• Added a few extra stills of Kotarou rebuking Tenko and dragging him around. I don’t think they’re inaccurate to the situation, though I wonder if it really needed to be underlined two more times than the manga did. Maybe they were trying to make up in advance for deleting the first slap?

• Added a few new stills of Nana and child!Kotarou. They hurt my soul and I love them without reservation.

Chapter 236 – Shimura Tenko: Origin, Part 2

• Hana’s second apology. What needs to get across was communicated with her first apology, but I do think the second one adds some naturalism to the dialogue. It feels very normal for a child feeling extremely guilty to apologize multiple times, like the more times they say it, the more true/convincing it will become.

• A bit of Tenko’s internal monologue—thinking Hana’s name, and Mon’s, and that he can’t talk. The anime slipped some attempts at verbalizing “Mon” into the dialogue, and it was painfully obvious just from listening to him gag and choke that he was too horror-struck to get words out, in ways that would be a little harder to convey on the page. Also, he thinks again that he can’t talk just as Hana runs away, so it gets across regardless. No real complaints here.

• Some thoughts about how he’s itchy, which, given what his itch represents (or at least what he thinks it does), they probably should have kept for continuity’s sake.

• Tenko’s last, “Hana-chan!” just as he grabs for her. I can imagine it having just that little bit more desperate impact, especially given Sekine Arisa’s great delivery of the first “Hana-chan!” but his delivery of the first one was great—weeks later, I can still remember it clearly—so it’s not a snip I’m inclined to doomsay about.

• Hana’s verbalization as the Decay hits her. Given that they kept Mon-chan’s last whimper, it’s kind of inconsistent not to keep this. It’s grueling, sure, but no more so than the rest of the horror show shortly to follow.

• An echo of Nao’s defense of Kotarou’s anti-hero stance. Frankly, I think anime already over-indulges in echoing dialogue we’ve heard not ten minutes prior, so I don’t mind losing this—in the manga, the moments would have fallen in different chapters, so it makes more sense to squeeze in the little reminder, but that wasn’t necessary for the anime, in which the original moment and the callback happened barely more than five minutes apart. It was obvious what the mental image was meant to draw attention to, since Tomura was narrating about exactly what his grievance was, and the image was followed by the two equivalent moments with the grandparents. (Admittedly, it hurt that correlation a bit that Grandpa’s line about the ohagi being intended to make the sadness go away got cut, but the sentiment was pretty clear from the man’s expression of nervy, abashed guilt regardless.)

• The line of Decay that splits Nao’s eye, one of the more vividly horrific little grace notes in the chapter. It undercut the grotesquerie just the tiniest bit, but the scene’s grotesque as-is, so I can understand that slight edit for TV standards. The discrepancy between Decay-to-dust and Decay-to-gore, discussed below in Framing Shifts, was much more damaging.

• A shot of Kotarou just after he hits Tenko with the tree pruning shears in which he looks, briefly, incredibly distraught, like he’s just realized what a monster he’s become. The anime didn’t make the slightest of attempts to keep that spasm of horror, grief, and regret, and thus lost that last moment of sympathy for a man deeply traumatized by a heroic character’s actions. It’s my only complaint about Anime!Kotarou, who I was otherwise far more pleased with than I was afraid might be the case, but it’s a complaint I must register nonetheless.

• A bit of inarticulate yelling before Tenko screams, “You... Die!!” It helps get across Tenko’s rage overflowing, to have that wordless garble before he can actually wrap words around it. He was still having trouble talking, too, so it makes sense that his first vocalization would just be a long, incomprehensible screech. That said, with the music there to supplement the mood in a way the manga would lack, I don’t think the anime’s rendition of the scene suffered overmuch from its absence.

Framing Shifts

• The anime, of course, has always gone the dust route for Decay because Decay is a little too gruesome for family hour TV, and anyway, when Tomura gets as fast with Decay as he is in Deika, he really is just insta-dusting people, such that not even blood remains. But he wasn’t that fast or that thorough as a child, hence why it’s all so much gorier—and it needs to be, because it’s hard to imagine Hana freaking out like she does if all she sees is a pile of dust instead of, well, dog gobbets. (Also, if his family had gone the dust route, it would have been very hard to convince the audience that Tomura’s hands are his family hands and not fakes provided to AFO by Ujiko.)           This obviously put the anime in a difficult spot, but apparently the decision they settled on was—to not decide? Everyone we saw in the active process of decaying decayed into dust as usual, but then once they were done decaying, once that transition from person to ruin was complete, there were all these heaps of gore everywhere. It was a very strange and distracting inconsistency that hurt the scene much more than any of the nearly invisible cuts, and I hope the blu-rays will change it.

• Added Grandpa catching Grandma as she staggered at the sight of things in the yard. Since his body language in the manga (the only non-Decayed shot of him in the sequence) has him leaned more forward, like he’s still halfway through running towards the kids, I thought this was a nice little touch on why he stopped, for reasons other than just the obvious.

                                                         ---

Episode 111 was about half of a really strong episode. Most of my complaints about the Shimura Family flashback are very minor, and most of the ones that are less minor are still easy to overlook when the rest of the presentation was so strong. Unfortunately, the non-flashback half of the episode had as many problems as ever, and those aren't over yet.

Come back next time for Part Five, Episode 112: Origin: Shigaraki Tomura. Assuming my complaining about the finalized gutting of Spinner's arc doesn't get too out of hand—which it may; if so, I'll tack on one final part to wrap things up—I'll also be running down a quick overview of the Paranormal Liberation Front scenes in the Endeavor Agency arc and some various odds & ends.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Yes, I know the Skeptic Confronts Twice scene goes nowhere, but maybe, instead of deleting it, they could have patched it up by showing Skeptic turning away from the confrontation when the tower went down? You know, actually made an effort to improve on the material?

[2] Bakugou, of course, but also Inko, Kotarou, and, very prominently, even All Might. Deku circa MVA has an entire arc lying in wait for him about how much he’s internalized All Might’s paternalism re: having the strongest quirk.

[3] Indeed, as of the scene in the crater, he still hadn’t lost them at all! He had his prosthetic by the time of the speech, so I guess we’re meant to assume that Ujiko or some MLA doctor declared them past saving and amputated them. I hope I don’t need to tell you how unbelievably lame it is to have a shounen manga character sustain a permanent injury like that off-panel.

[4] It’s the pointy nose.

[5] That, at least, is the best way I’ve found to reconcile all the related-but-distinct values professed by the various members of the MLA brass, from Re-Destro’s focus on liberation and purpose, what exactly Trumpet chooses to cite when he’s talking about Spinner not “amounting” to anything much, Geten’s open extolling of quirk supremacy, and so on.

[6] In the first big double-page spread. Oddly, no bandaging is visible in the other panel that has a good shot of that hand, possibly because Horikoshi was more focused on drawing RD’s empty pant leg. The anime kept the obvious wound during the crater scene, but not the bandages during the speech.

[7] I assume, anyway, that Re-Destro only survives Shigaraki’s first touch because it’s a weaker Decay, coming as it does from only from two fingers rather than five.

[8] The fabled Marie Antoinette Syndrome. Never been scientifically documented as such (hair can whiten because of extreme stress, but not overnight) but it endures in fiction because it’s pleasingly dramatic. Trauma-based eye-color changes, not so much.

[flying-nightwing]

Fluff Alphabet - Jason Todd

Hello guys! This is my first alphabet because I saw everyone do it and i wanted in. I took this alphabet. I had a lot of fun to indulge in Jason, because well. Do I need to explain? 

Anyhow, enjoy this little thing inspired by my feelings for Jason Todd!

Disclaimer: This is my vision of the character and in no way an universal truth

Check out my masterlist in bio // pinned!

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

Your eyes. Jason could get lost in them by a simple glance. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, and he found it to be very true the second he met you. He will sometimes doubt he’s worth your love, but your gaze is enough to reassure him at every turn. He also can’t get enough of that spark that lights up when he makes you laugh, it draws him in. Your eyes are so kind and loving, the rest doesn’t really matter to him.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

Let’s be truthful here, Jason is terrified of having kids. Everytime the discussion gets even close to the topic of family, he gets vivid images of his own father with him and it fills him with dread that he'll end up just like him. Then, he thinks about his lifestyle and how just being the Red Hood (or having been, as a matter of fact) could endanger his family. But I think deep down he craves having a family, having kids (whether they’re biologically his or adopted), because he’s just that natural caring person.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Continuing on that natural caring person wave, Jason will usually cuddle as the big spoon. His large frame makes it ridiculously easy for himself to wrap around you completely, and he loves to see you curled up around him, safe and comfortable in his arms. He likes to know he’s shielding you from any potential danger, it just eases his conscience. But sometimes he’ll have a bad day, or a rough patrol, and he’ll wordlessly slip in your hold in bed. It surprises you every time how small he can make himself, with his head on your chest above your heart and latched around your waist holding for dear life. Then, he’ll rely on you to make him feel safe, and he’ll fall asleep like that (he also likes when you play with his hair when he gets like that).

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Jason is insanely romantic, nobody can prove me otherwise. With the amount of novels and books he read, it would be hard not to know how to be an exemplary lover. However, doing grand gestures in public and/or expensive shits is not his style. So it isn’t rare to come back home from your job after a tough week, to see Jason lighting up candles on a rose petals covered table, smiling at you and telling you to get changed in your pajamas and relax a bit before he finishes cooking (probably one of you favourite meals, or something new he knows you’ll like to surprise you). Dancing on your building’s rooftop or driving outside the city to take a walk under the stars are also his ideas of dates. It’s always something private and meaningful and a proof Jason is a hopeless romantic.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…))

“You are my reason to keep going on.” I believe at some point after he came back from the dead, Jason had a really hard time finding a reason to keep living (finding out he was replaced as Robin, that Batman didn’t kill the joker, etc…). He was in a really dark place and numb to everything. But then, he met you and suddenly life wasn’t so terrible. After a while, he even finds himself excited to get up in the morning (or early afternoon if he’s been on a long patrol) and smiling at random times. He wants to make an effort for you, because you deserve his best self and the least he can do is try (you still love him at his worst though, and he still can’t wrap his head around it but he’s insanely grateful for it).

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

One night, Jason woke up in sweats and screaming his lungs out. He had a nightmare where you were kidnapped and tortured by the joker the way he was; it was the first time you were the victim in his nightmares (usually it was faceless people or himself, and even sometimes his brothers. But never you). He found himself wanting to have you in his arms, needing to have you in his arms, and that’s how he knew it wasn’t just a crush anymore, that he was in deep with you.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

People have this misconception that Jason is rough, judging by the everything about him. But you would have never foreseen him to be so delicate and gentle with you. He is very strong and can be rash sometimes, but with his lover, he is always careful. He has enough pain and hurt in his life there is now way he’d put the most important person in his life through that. You have to almost beg him to be rough with you, and he’ll only let go if he’s 100% sure you’re okay with it.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

Absolutely. He’s not big on PDA but he always wants to hold your hand, especially in public. He can get uncomfortable if there are too many people around, and the little subconscious squeezes of your hand never fails to bring him back to reality and help him focus on you instead of feeling trapped. Also he’s afraid of losing you in a crowd, even if he’s tall and could spot you easily. So yeah, his hand in yours is a constant.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

Depends on how you met really. It’s hard to say really, he might have seen you as an angel, or as a simple acquaintance until he discovered your character and you grew on him. He’s a versatile boy in the people he falls for.

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Not jealous per say, but insecure. Everytime he sees you talking with someone who seems to be (subconsciously or not) flirting with you, he gets this feeling you’ll suddenly realize you could do much better than him and leave him for someone less broken, less messed up than him. It creeps in his chest and hurts like a heart attack, and it only dies down when you inevitably come back in his arms and look at him like he’s your world. Then, the storm dies and he knows he at least got one more day with you. And as much as the idea of Jealous Jason showing you who you belong to (wink wink) is appealing, I don’t think it would happen unless it has been established both of you were into that kind of foreplay and he knows for sure you’re in for the long haul with him. Then it becomes a game rather than an actual insecurity thing.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

Jason’s kisses are soft and wholesome. You can feel every ounce of love and admiration he has for you, and even if they do get emotional or even dominant at some points, it’s never forecefull. Who initiated the first kiss is nebulous, I think it was more of a mutual thing than an unilateral decision. I like to think it happened in a magnet effect, where both parties met halfway because Jason is a very respectful person in general (except if you piss him off for real) and he wouldn’t make you uncomfortable by kissing you without your consent.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

It’s gotta be you. Jason, who’s afraid of saying it and getting rejected/mocked would definitely not want to get his feet wet first (what if you laugh? What if you leave?). He will show it in his way, but he’d wait for you to say the words first. But once it’s out there? Hooty hoot. He’ll say it like a mantra. He’ll never ever stop saying it at every occasion he gets. 

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?)

At the fair in your city. Spending the afternoon going from attraction to attraction, having fun in the small roller coaster you were pretty sure was one heavy loaded train away from toppling down. After sun down, you went from game booth to game booth, collecting small and colorful stuffed animals and eating everything sugary and fat you could get your hands onto. You were convinced you could beat the rigged shoot the duck game, and when you couldn’t, Jason stepped in and absolutely made the smug smirk drop from the guy’s face. You walked away with a giant Panda, sleepy as hell after you sugar rush, and Jason had to carry you out of the car bridal style. That picture you took on top of the ferris wheel is on his nightstand and is his favourite possession of his. 

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

No, he’s not that kind of guy. I think he’s much more into meaningful acts and gestures than buying your love. He would sometimes spoil you if the occasion came to it, but I don’t think he’d be the type to open up his wallet as a demonstration of love.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Aqua blue. No other reason than the fact it’s probably the color the most opposite to red. While he absolutely loves to see you wear red things (it drives him crazy in the sweetest way), he doesn’t want to associate you with the darkest part of him. You’re the beautiful blue to his glaring red, because you’re the best thing in his life and he wants to outline and highlight you out as much as possible.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

I don’t think he has a signature pet name, he probably uses one that fits with the object of his affections and the history he has with them. He’d also be mindful of what you like and don’t like, and adjust them accordingly. 

Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?)

Libraries. The old ones that smell of paper and leather. The ones with the shelves that climb up to the wall and the old worn seats that are just perfect to sit into and read for hours. Jason loves a calm environment and a quiet victorian library does the trick just well.

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

Read, cuddles, adult cuddles... ;) I think Jason likes rainy days because it gives him an excuse to spend time with you at home. He’d probably bake something in the afternoon and you might or might not turn it into a flour war, make a mess in the kitchen but make a bonding activity of cleaning it up after (he and you know when to be kids and when to be mature and you both respect the line, and that’s why it’s so fun). Rainy days are domestic days and nothing is more pure or adorable than domestic Jason. It’s a hill I’ll die on. 

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

That’s a tricky one, because when Jason spirals down he has trouble getting out by himself. But when you are down, Jason will go to hell and back to make sure you feel better. He’ll cook you your favourite thing, skip patrol to stay by your side, do a dumb tik tok dance to put a smile on your face or hear you laugh. He’d be attentive to your needs and do everything in his power to help you.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

Everything. Jason is a smart boy, he’d enjoy either talking about art, or about larger questions in the universe, or maybe about the birds that made a nest outside. Jason is incredibly easy to talk to when he’s receptive to the person talking to him, and that surprises anyone who knows him on the surface or less. 

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

Massages, but only by you. He trusts you, he is as comfortable as he can get with you seeing him shirtless with his scars (no professional masseur/se will ever get up close to him), and with you touching him in perhaps more sensitive or vulnerable places. He’d close his eyes and let involuntary moans when you’d unknot the tension in his muscles (and you’d secretly enjoy having such a force of nature all putty and soft under your hands). Then it’d be cuddle time and he would be relaxed as he’s ever been.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

That’s simple: you. You’re his beautiful partner, the only one he has eyes for, so the world should see how great you are. He’d find a way to place you in every conversation, whether it would be to point out that hey, you can do that too, or because he just can’t shut up about you. That earns him infinite teasing from his family on how soft he is for you, but he can’t bring himself to care because he loves you so much. 

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

Jason wanted to marry you, and you had talked about it enough as a couple that he knew you wanted it too. But he wanted to wait for the right moment and he couldn’t plan that. The proposal probably happened at an unexpected moment, like when you tried to make him soup when he got injured and ended up messing it up bad. You came back to the couch and apologized to him profusely, and with stars in his eyes he asked you to marry him. Or when one of his enemies tried to take you while taking out the trash, but you chucked the garbage bag AND the metal lid to them, and Jason got down on one knee the second you finished recounting the story, out of breath from running back inside. The wedding was a private affair (Roy was his best man) somewhere quiet and meaningful, without too many artifices or big set up. It was perfect for you two.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

This is a hard one. I feel like Jason would be into soul/jazz, in the style of Marvin Gaye, Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra. To some extent he is a very old school person, and I believe music is one of the topics that falls into that old school side of him. It’s just a feeling, it’s how I imagine Jason. Unforgettable by Nat King Cole would be his to-go song when it comes to you. 

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

Oh yea. Jaybird’s got the ring in mind as soon as he knew you were the one. See Wedding above.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

I don’t think he’d want a pet, because he can be absent often, or he wouldn’t have enough time. But if he’d have to, he’d get a cat, I think. Walking a dog morning and night would get a little bit much, especially since sometimes he might have trouble getting out of bed after patrol. But a cat, a rescue stubborn older cat who has seen others, that would be a match. The cat would be distant at first, but one morning he’d wake up with his grump of a feline curled beside his pillow and purring, or after a rough day the cat would bring him its toy and Jason would just. Cry. Because this little creature became his friend. And it’s so pure. (Also Jason building cat trees and climbing installations for the cat? Satisfying image).

[tinyboxxtink]

"Weird Secret Friends" *Chapter 14*

Chapter 13

Chapter 15

This chapter literally took me all day, and it's kinda super long, but since I'm only going to 15 it had to be done. Also, I wanted to get a certain part and all the bullshit detail action needs to be written before we get there so I just kept writing to get there. Lulz.

Tag List

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@mrsrafaelbarba

Okay and can I just say about the Goodbye Love thing it was in my head since I had her say "I need to go away".

This was supposed to be the preview:

Mimi Please don't touch me Understand I'm scared I need to go away

Mark I know a place - a clinic

Benny A rehab?

Mimi Maybe - could you?

Benny I'll pay

And this is for chapter 15: Mimi Goodbye love Goodbye love Came to say goodbye, love, goodbye Just came to say Goodbye love Goodbye love Goodbye love Hello disease....

*DUN DUN DUNNNN*

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

The next thing you knew you were waking up in another room. This one was more lavish and beautiful; the sunset was peeking through green silk curtains with a matching chaise lounge. You were now in pink silk pajamas as opposed to a hospital gown, and you weren’t hooked up to near as many wires. Just a pack attached to your arm linked to your sides.

“What the…?” You cautiously crept out of bed, examining the room.

So many questions flew through your mind at that moment. How did you get here? Where exactly were you? Who the hell changed you while you were passed out? It was too much to imagine. You walked over to the full length mirror and examined yourself. You were still semi pale, but you looked pretty damn good for just having surgery this morning.

You walked back towards your bed where your phone was laying on the nightstand. You went to check your messages when you saw the date-- it had been three days. THREE DAYS?

“What the actual fuck--?” You muttered.

Were you in a Black Mirror episode? How did you lose three whole days of your life?! You began to panic, making you pace the room. Wasn’t there a button you could do? You quickly looked around the room for anything, but all you found was a TV remote.

“Oh are you fucking--” You started to curse the world when you saw a little drawing of a nurse on one of the buttons. You frantically pushed it until a girl who looked like she was a nurse out of a porno as opposed to a hospital came running in.

“Oh my god, I thought you were like, dying or something,” She rolled her eyes and twirled her hair like she was a teenage stereotype.

“Where the hell am I? Why am I---”

“Okay you need to like, chill babe,” Nurse Betty put her hands up. “

“I’m not your babe, mmkay pumpkin? We are not friends,” You pushed her hands down. “Now why don’t you get your little chart and explain to me what’s going on in the Twilight Zone?”

“Alright, well--” She whipped out a mini tablet from her scrubs and flipped through it. “You got here three days ago with an order to keep you in a medically induced coma-- Ooooh, wow that sounds like some soap opera shit. Where your organs harvested on the black market?”

“WHAT?” You grabbed the tablet. That DID sound like some soap opera shit. “You read the tablet, all it said was the details about the coma and then FILES SEALED.

“Can you-- unlock this, please?” You shoved the tablet back in her hands.

“Um no, you need a supervisor for that babe,”

“Can you please get someone to unlock this then, BABE?” Your eye began to twitch from stress.

“Yeah, sure I’ll try,” She shrugged and walked back out of the room. You continued to pace faster now, googling “HARVESTED ORGANS ON THE BLACK MARKET”, when a doctor came in wearing navy blue scrubs, looking like Derek Shepherd.

“Well hey there, beautiful,” He grinned at you.

“...What is happening?” You muttered, staring at him. He was gorgeous, you’d probably be more flustered if you weren’t so freaked out and pissed off.

“What kind of soap opera hospital is this?!” You scowled.

“Hey, just because we take care of ourselves around here doesn’t mean it’s Grey’s Anatomy up here,” He made a face.

“...Could’ve fooled me, McDreamy,”

“....Just because my name is Derek doesn’t mean I’m that tool,” He frowned.

“Oh my god you’re kidding me right?” You had to laugh at the irony.

“You’re probably just grumpy because you haven’t eaten for three days,” He patted your head. “How about a nice filet mignon?”

“Wha…?” You looked around the room in disbelief. “How about you tell me where I am and how I got here?”

“You’re at Whistling Pines Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Hartford Connecticut, Miss Y/N,”

“Connecticut?!” You gasped. “Sonny said it was just upstate New York. Jesus Christ he sent me out of state?!”

“Calm yourself,” Derek put a hand on your shoulder. “We’re basically on the state line, Mr. Carisi didn’t send you to Siberia,”

“...And why exactly was I brought here against my will?” You crossed your arms.

“Against your will?” He snorted. “Your paperwork says you requested to be out while you recovered so you wouldn’t be tempted to ask for pain meds or anything. Part of the detox, you understand,”

“Detox?” Your face scrunched. “Seriously? So...so now what, you escort me down to the padded room now that I’m healed?”

“No, no of course not,” He shook his head. “Our rehab rooms are much nicer than this. And yours is all ready for you,”

“....Yeah, alright,” You shrugged, looking around the room.

“Wonderful,” He gave you another 100 watt smile before opening the door and motioning you to follow him. You walked for a while through what seemed like a normal hospital wing, then you came to two large doors that said “REHABILITATION WING”.

Derek opened it and let you go through first, into a beautiful lobby. The walls were made of marble, there was a koi pond with a waterfall in the middle of it, sparkling water stations next to big leather chairs. It was like a spa.

“Wow...” You whispered as you admired it while you walked.

“Yes, I know,” He chuckled. “It’s quite impressive, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” You began to feel guilty; how much was this costing Sonny? This place looked like it cost the down payment on a house to stay in. You followed Derek down a hallway that looked like a hotel room hallway more than a rehab center, until he stopped at a door labelled 312.

“Ah here we are,” He opened the door and let you go inside first once again. It was an even more lavish room than you woke up in. A nice king bed with fluffy pillows and silk comforters were covered with extra blankets if you needed them. There was a huge sofa in front of a large screen TV, and a little kitchenette with a small fridge, cabinets, a dishwasher, and a microwave.

“....Wow,” You continued to stare in awe at the luxurious amenities this place had.

“Indeed,” Derek smiled. “Now, the TV comes loaded with digital cable and all the streaming services. Our WIFI password is LIVELAUGHLOVE, the fridge is stocked with organic, healthy foods only, but if you’d like to request something you can give our front desk a ring,”

You just nodded as you checked out the room.

“Now,” He cleared his throat. “For the icky part,”

“...The icky part?” You sputtered with a sarcastic smile. “Where did you go to medical school, Sesame Street?”

“Ha ha,” He rolled his eyes. “You will need to stay in your room at all times unless it’s social time, or group time. We do have several common areas such as a pool and a gym, but you’ll need to schedule times to use them, you can’t just walk around on your own,”

“Ah,” You nodded. “So it is a prison, just a very nice prison,”

“It’s not a prison, Miss Y/N,” He shook his head. “Not for you, anyway,”

“Really? Because it sounds like--”

“Your cousin did pay for your residency here, but you’re not under a court order or anything so you’re not confined here. Most of our residents have to be here several months before they’re even allowed out of their rooms at all, you should consider yourself lucky,”

“...Right,” You rolled your eyes. “Where is my cousin, anyway?” You asked. “Is he back at the hospital in New York?”

“Excuse me?” He looked at you in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand,”

“Oh I guess it’s been a few days,” You thought out loud. “He must have gone home by now,”

“...Well I’d sure hope so,” He chuckled.

“So..” You took a seat on the couch. “What am I doing now, warden?”

“Well like I said, I can have food sent up to you if you’re hungry,” He explained as he handed you your own tablet. “We have these for you so you can browse our menu for food and amenities,”

“Mmmkay…”

“Tomorrow’s social time is at 10 am, and your group therapy is at noon,”

“..Uh huh,” You nodded as you absent mindedly flipped through the menu.

“It’s mandatory,” He added.

“...Right,”

“Wonderful,” He beamed. “Now your bathroom is there, obviously,” He nodded to a door on the other side of the room. “It has a shower with three different pressures, and a spa bathtub. I recommend you take a long hot bath and relax, the first night is usually the hardest to get used to.

“Right…”

“Alright well I’ll leave you to it,” He nodded at you with another dreamy smile.

He walked out and left you to your own devices. You walked over to the drawers and pulled them out. They were full of your clothes, how did they get these so fast? It was so bizarre all of this happened while you were out, it really did seem like some kind of episode out of Dynasty or something.

You decided to call Sonny and get some things sorted out. You picked up your phone and dialed his number and let it ring.

“Oh hey...you, how you feelin’?”

“I’m good,” You went and sat on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Me? I’m good,”

“Really? Not sore or anything?”

“What? OH-- Yeah, y’know, of course, obviously,”

“...Thanks so much for this, Sonny. It’s gorgeous here,”

“Anytime….sweetie,”

“Is um, is Rafael doing better? Do you know?”

“Uh he’s...he’s fine, I’m sure,”

“...Well that’s good,”

“I’ll be up there next week to see you, you hang in there okay?”

“...Yeah, alright,”

“Night darlin’, you sleep well. I love you,”

“Love you too,”

Sonny hung up the phone and glanced over at Rafael who was busy writing his closing arguments for their case tomorrow.

“....Who was that?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Niece,” He lied.

“Mmm,”

“...How are you feelin’, by the way Barba?”

“Carisi, we’re not discussing anything personal, ever again. I told you that,” He grumbled, not looking up from his desk. He winced in pain every so often when he pulled on his stitches while writing.

“...Right,” He nodded sadly. He did feel guilty about all of this, but he knew in a few weeks it wouldn’t matter. You’d both forget about each other and move on, it was for the best.

--------

The next day you woke up and felt this overwhelming sense of dread. It was like everything had finally caught up to you, all the memory of how you got here came back to you. You missed Rafael almost immediately, Sonny’s words about how you had traumatized him rang in your head.

You wanted so desperately to call him and apologize, tell him how you would have never hurt him on purpose, and that all you wanted to do was make it up to him-- but you knew you had no way of doing that, and there was nothing you could do about it.

Your tablet began to go off, alarms for SOCIAL TIME were set on it. You tried to turn it off, but apparently a counselor had to do it when you arrived. Sneaky bastards. You sighed and pulled on some PJ pants, trying to ignore the blaring sound. You stomped out of your room and down the hall, down some stairs to a huge room labelled “REC ROOM.”

“Welcome Y/N!” A bright and cheery nurse came over and greeted you. “We have lots of activities for you here,” She began to show you around. “We have arts and crafts, several board games, and the Cards Against Humanity rounds get quite rowdy!”

“...Right,” You nodded softly, feeling more and more hopeless as you saw all the other “residents” mingling-- and by mingling, meaning most of them were walking around like soulless zombies. Was this your life now?

----

One Week Later

“Hey…” You saw Rafael laying down in front of you, reaching out for your hand. You took it, not believing this was real.

“I love you, Y/N…” He smiled at you, his green eyes sparkling.

“I love you too Rafael..”

You shot up in bed, it happened again. You had been having the same dream ever since you had gotten to Whistling Pines. It felt so real, especially when you touched his hand. And you always woke up alone, stuck in your prison. Never to see Rafael ever again; It was torture. No matter how fancy the prison was, it was still a prison. You looked at the clock on your bedside table- 3:30 am. You wondered what Rafael was doing at that moment-- well, probably sleeping, duh. Or maybe he was up late, working on law stuff.

You wondered if he was thinking about you, if he ever thought about you. He didn’t seem angry the last time you saw him, in fact you were pretty sure you remembered him holding you and crying. Well, like Sonny said he was probably just upset having to see someone like that again. But-- something inside told you that you didn’t leave on bad terms. Maybe you had been too quick to just delete and block his number. But it was too late to do anything about that now. You laid back down and cried yourself back to sleep for the fifth time that night.

=============

Two weeks later

Sonny drove up to Hartford early Friday morning, hoping to get back to the city that night. He signed in at the front desk, muttering obscenities under his breath. He paced the lobby waiting for you, trying to keep his calm. Finally you emerged from the big double doors: You were dressed in a t-shirt that used to be tight, but now it draped on your shoulders. Your hip hugger jeans were more like men’s jeans, hanging off your pelvis. Your hair was pulled into a messy ponytail and you had no makeup on. You walked over to Sonny who crossed his arms at the sight of you.

“Hey, Sunshine…” He pulled you into a tight hug, your face barely moved into a small smile.

“Can we talk?” He asked as he led you to one of the leather couches.

“Sure,” You nodded like a robot as you sat next to him.

“So Sunshine,” He sighed. “They tell me you haven’t uh, been doin’ so hot,”

“Oh, have they?” You mumbled, playing with a hole in your jeans.

“Yeah they said you’re not eating, you skip the group, you won’t talk to anybody,” He put a hand on your knee. “Is everything okay? Is it your new liver? The diabetes kicking yer ass?”

“...No, I’m fine,” You shrugged feebly.

“....Seriously?” He removed his hand, his soft tone gone. “So, nothing’s wrong with you physically? You’re just being a brat?”

“Excuse me?” You suddenly blinked in surprise.

“Here I came up here because I was worried somethin’ was really wrong with you, like you were rejecting the donation or-- or the trauma was too much, but you’re tellin’ me you just won’t cooperate?” He snapped at you.

“...What do you want me to say, Sonny? Sorry?” You snarked back.

“I want you to tell me why!” He tried not to yell but this was ridiculous. “Do you know how expensive this place is?!”

“Oh wow,” You scoffed. “Well I’m sorry my recovery is so expensive for you, Son,”

“It’s not even recovery, Y/N! You’re-- You’re just laying around here like a fuckin’ angsty teen!” He barked. “Why aren’t you trying? Don’t you wanna get outta here and get back to your life?”

“Maybe I don’t!” You yelled and stood up. “Maybe I don’t care about getting out of here, or not. There’s no point anymore,”

“What?” Sonny furrowed his brows. “Why not?”

“...Because,” You looked down at the floor.

“Oh for fuck’s sake…” Sonny threw up his hands, finally standing up himself. “Is this about Barba, really Y/N? You knew him for a few fuckin’ days, gimme a fuckin BREAK,”

“He was wonderful to me, Sonny! He was wonderful and loving and caring and YOU made me go off on him, and then I--” You paused, tears caught in your throat. “I fucking traumatized him. I hurt him so badly he didn’t even want to see me when i was dying,”

“I mean-- how bad of a person am I?!” You tried not to break down in the lobby. “I shouldn’t be allowed to be around anyone anymore, I just destroy things. Hurt people. I shouldn’t be around anyone,”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Sonny sighed. “You need to stop, alright? If you actually tried to get better, you wouldn’t--”

“I don’t want to get better!!!!” You flat out stomped your foot, not caring about making a scene now.

“Y/N, tough love time. You need to get your shit together and forget about Barba, alright? I can’t keep paying for you to stay here--” He put both hands on your shoulders.

“So let me out,” You glared at him.

“....And if I let you out, are you going to stay sober?” He gave you a suspicious look.

“Nope,” You said with a smirk.

“Y/N come the fuck on,” He threw up his hands.

“What?” You crossed your arms. “I’m being honest. So either you keep wasting your money here, or let me go,”

“And what, let you kill yourself?” He asked angrily.

“...Maybe,” You muttered.

“Sunshine, come here--” Sonny went to wrap you in a hug, his t-shirt caught up on yours causing it to pull up on his torso. Your eyes went wide when you caught sight of it, letting go of him.

“....Where’s your scar?” You blinked in disbelief, trying to wrap your head around what you were seeing.

“What?” He began to panic.

“Your scar,” You pulled your t-shirt to reveal your own scar from the transplant. “You should have one,”

“Oh, Um--” Sonny began to rack his brain for an explanation, but your brain was moving faster.

“.....You didn’t give me part of your liver, did you?” You pulled away from him.

“Uh well--” He sighed “Not exactly, no,”

“Then who did?” You eyed him accusingly.

“They got you an anonymous--”

“Oh don’t even give me that shit, Sonny,” You stopped him. “This-- this whole thing, when I got here. It felt so much like, like a set up. A soap opera plot,”

“A soap opera?” Sonny laughed. “Come on Sunshine, don’t--”

“Why did you ship me here so fast, Sonny?” You asked, your brain now on a roll.

“What?” He half laughed. “So that you could get started early--”

“No,” You stopped him. “You could have just let me come here on my own, CONSCIOUS,”

“Well I just wanted you to skip the DT’s--” He tried to think of a defense.

“DT’s don’t happen to you if you get drunk ONCE, Sonny!” You raised your voice.

“Well how was I supposed to--” He looked around nervously.

“Who really gave me their liver, Sonny?” You narrowed your eyes.

“I told you, I don’t--” He began to lie again.

“I’ll look it up,” You threatened, making his eyes go wide.

“Y-You can’t do that,” He protested.

“Why wouldn’t you want me to?” You challenged him.

“...Because--”

“Rafael did, didn’t he?” You weren’t letting him think of any more lies.

“Look Y/N, he just wanted to help you out so that you wouldn’t die, like his dad. He couldn’t save him so he saved you. Doesn’t that sound like him?”

You had to admit, it really did. But why lie about it?

“So why didn’t you tell me that, Sonny? Why tell me you did it? Why didn’t you just tell me he did it to be nice, and not that he hated me?”

“I never said he hated you--”

“If you lied to me about that, what else have you been lying to me about?” You put your hands on your hips.

“What?”

“Oh my god…” You started to remember your recurring dream. “It was real, it was real. I know it was real!”

“...What was real?” His eyebrows furrowed.

“I keep having this dream where Rafael is across from me lying on a table, and he tells me that he loves me. And I know that happened I know it did,” You explained.

You were absolutely sure of it now. So many thoughts were running through your mind, you hated that you didn’t remember any of this before.

“What?” Sonny laughed again. “Sunshine it’s just a dream, don’t you think you would remember something like that?”

“They...they gave me something before I went into the OR,” You looked off into nowhere as you tried desperately to recall that morning. “The nurse called it…’giggle juice’,”

“Giggle juice?” Sonny rolled his eyes.

“Did you make them give me that too?!” You went for his collar, but a nurse came out of nowhere to hold you back.

“Wha who whoa, Sunshine calm down,” Sonny waved the nurse off of you. “I got her, thanks ma’am,”

“I didn’t tell them to give you anything,” He said softly.

“Yeah, just to keep me out for three days so I wouldn’t ever see Rafael before you sent me here,” You accused him.

“...Not true…” He shook his head.

“Why wouldn’t you want me to talk to him, Sonny?” Tears choked your throat.

“He didn’t want to talk to you--”

“Bullshit!” You stomped your foot, eyeing the nurse who had her eye on you in case you lost it on Sonny again.

“Bullshit, were you scared he was going to tell me what you were really doing? That you were trying to keep us apart?” Tears began dripping from your cheeks. You couldn’t believe this was happening, you couldn’t believe you could have been with Rafael this entire time.

“No!” He protested, his eyes darting back and forth. “No, I--”

“I don’t believe you!” You pushed him, the nurse stepped forward but you put your hands up in defeat. “You’re keeping him from me right now, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“That’s why you sent me so far, he has no idea where I am, and he wants to know doesn’t he? He wasn’t traumatized by my ‘incident’, he’s traumatized he lost me!” You hated that you cried when you got angry, it made you so much less intimidating.

“Traumatized is a strong word, Y/N…” Sonny rolled his eyes.

“Y’know what Sonny,” You shook your head while you wiped your eyes. “I’ll make you a deal. You bring Rafael here, and I’ll try to get better,”

“...I can’t,” He looked at the floor.

“Wha--Are you serious?” You half laughed sarcastically. “You’d rather me rot in here than--”

“I don’t know where he is, Y/N,” He looked up at you seriously.

“...What?” You asked, not wanting to know the answer.

“He…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “He left,”

“What do you mean ‘he left’?” You air quoted left.

“He went on some campaign trail, Hilary I think. He took off across the country, I literally have no idea where he is right now,” He explained.

“Why would he do that?” You asked.

“I don’t know, he said he had to get out of the city--” He shrugged.

“And you couldn’t imagine why?” You gave him a knowing look.

“Oh puh-lease Y/N, he’s not a drama queen like you--” He stopped, thinking about it. “Okay well he might be a drama queen but--”

“You can call him,” You pointed to his pocket.

“I can’t,” He looked down at the ground once again.

“WHY NOT?!” You were getting fed up with him.

“He was….he was super pissed at me for keeping you apart, alright? You’re right. He...he changed his number when he took off, he wants nothing to do with me,”

“So he’s just...gone?” Your voice cracked.

“Sunshine, I promise you. In a few weeks you won’t care about him, and you’re gonna wanna get out of here,”

“Why, you're gonna start adding memory pills to my regiment too?” You scoffed with angry tears in your voice.

“Jesus,” He rolled his eyes. “No, because you’re 22 and you can fall in and out of love like that,” He snapped his fingers.

“No I won’t,” You shook your head. “You’re gonna have to let me out of here or I’ll die in here,”

“God you’re such a--” Sonny sighed in frustration. “I can get them to get you to eat, y’know that right?”

“Do it!” You dared him. “Start treating me like some kind of mental patient, control my life like you think you need to,”

“...I can’t deal with this,” He waved his hands and started to walk away. “I’ll be back in a few weeks, I’m sure you’ll be over this by then,”

“Don’t count on it,” You stomped back into the ward.

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

A week later

You let the night nurse into your room, she brought your meds and a nightly snack.

“Well, are you excited for tomorrow?” She asked, making conversation.

“...What’s tomorrow?” You asked as your downed your pills.

“Your last day!” She smiled.

“...What?” You quirked an eyebrow.

“Well, honey you’re not here on a court order or probation, and your cousin only paid for 30 days. So, you’re leaving tomorrow!”

“You’re just...you’re just letting me go??” You asked in disbelief.

“You’re not happy about that? I’m sure we could talk to your--” She started.

“No!” You stopped her. “No, No I’m totally excited, ready to get back to real life,”

“Good!” She smiled and patted your head. “Make sure you’re all packed, we’ve already filled this room once you leave,”

“...Of course you have,” You rolled your eyes.

She left and you began to frantically pack, ready to get out of here as fast as possible. You would find Rafael on your own, you knew you could.

----------

Sonny’s phone went off while he was out on a call, he saw it was Whistling Pines so he excused himself from the scene and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Yes, Mir. Carisi? This is Sylvia at Whistling Pines, we were just checking on Miss Y/N,”

“....Why would you be checking on her? Don’t you have her?”

“...No sir, she checked out a few days ago,”

“WHAT?!”

“Well it had been 30 days and you had only paid for a month--”

“So you just let her leave?! Why would you do that?!”

“Well sir, for one she’s a grown woman who’s a law abiding citizen, she wasn’t committed here by any kind of law enforcement. And like I said you only paid--”

“For a month,” He growled. “That’s all that matters to you people, isn’t it?”

“Well sir, this is a very expensive--”

“Where did she go?”

“What do you mean where did she go? She left with you,”

“Uh she sure as hell did NOT,”

“...Well she got in a car with a man…”

“Oh my god,” Sonny almost dropped the phone. “I swear to God if something happens to her because of you people I will sue you SO fast--”

“Okay no need to get hysterical,” She began to panic. “Why don’t you just come here and we’ll figure it out…”

“No I think you’ve done enough,” He growled before hanging up on her.

Where the hell had you gone? And with who?!

[ceaderblocks]

Like Real People Do

A collab with @mine-sara-sp ! She drew the amazing art for this fic ♡ 

Iskall was in the middle of working on Sahara with Mumbo when he realized a very important, completely out-of-the-blue fact.

Iskall had been hanging around Mumbo for years before realizing they had never done a redstone grind together. Sure, they had gone End Busting and raided the Nether together, but they had never once strip mined for redstone.

“What a waste!” Iskall said out loud, slamming a shulker box down on the ground with much more force then required.

“What’s a waste?” Mumbo startled, looking at Iskall after his sudden outburst.

“You are!” Iskall gestured to Mumbo with both arms. The redstoner looked offended, and then a little hurt.

“Well, I think my skills are valuable and contribute greatly-“

“No, no, no no no,” Iskall cut him off. “You’re a magnet to redstone. You always seem to mine a bazillion shulker boxes-“

“It’s easy to find!”

“-and it’s a waste I haven’t gone mining with you. If we go together, you’ll do your weird redstone-attraction thing, and I’ll be set for the season! Plus, I need more for Sahara anyways.”

“... Do we need to go right now?”

“Yes,” Iskall said cheerfully, placing his hands on his hips. “I accidentally broke the last repeater I had when I slammed that shulker box down.”

Fifteen minutes later, Mumbo and Iskall found themselves underground in a long, hollow strip mine.

“Alright,” Iskall rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get mining! I’ll take the left side, you take the right.”

“What?” Mumbo asked, scrunching his nose in confusion. “Why?”

Iskall stared at Mumbo for a moment.

“So we can spread out and quicken out chances of finding redstone?” Iskall said, suddenly uncertain of his plan.

“Oh, well there’s a vein three blocks down and to the right,” Mumbo said, pointing in the general area he had just stated.

“Dude, what.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Mumbo asked.

“No! Oh my god, Mumbo,” Iskall squished his friend’s face between his hands. “How much redstone have you inhaled to get this superpower?”

“Well- I mean- well, you know,” Mumbo stuttered, gesturing wildly.

“Can you do this for other blocks?” Iskall asked, Mumbo’s face still in his hands.

Mumbo shook his head. “Just redstone.”

“That’s insane!” Iskall said with a laugh, dropping his hands. “You might want to get Xisuma to check that out, it doesn’t seem right.”

“Oh,” Mumbo said, his face falling. It was news to him that other hermits couldn’t detect redstone. Iskall said it was wrong, but Mumbo, from his first memory, could always sense redstone.

“It’s alright dude,” Iskall said, and threw an arm around Mumbo’s shoulder. “I don’t think it's an immediate health concern. Plus, we still have redstone to get!”

Iskall patted Mumbo’s chest with his free hand, spun away from him and pulled out his pickaxe in one smooth motion.

“Let’s get mining!”

Mumbo agreed nervously and directed Iskall where the nearest vein of redstone was.

That night, covered in redstone, Mumbo sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his red shulker box. It hummed with power, and Mumbo could see the faint outline of the redstone dust wrapped in a bag. He wondered why no one else could see it too.

——

Grian stood in front of Mumbo’s witch farm, humming to himself. He needed some goldstone (and gunpowder), and decided to borrow some while Mumbo was AFK. The problem was Mumbo was AFK inside the witch farm, which threw a very large wrench in Grian’s plan.

“I can sneak around while he’s AFK! It’ll be fiiine.” Grian said to himself. “It’s not like he’s awake.”

With his pep-talk out of the way, Grian opened the door to the farm. He immediately gave a small scream as he came face-to-face with Mumbo, staring directly at him.

“Oh!” Grian gave a nervous laugh. “Hey Mumbo! I was just coming to borrow some glowstone!”

Mumbo didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t react at all. Grian frowned.

“Uh, hello? Mumbo?” The builder waved his hand in front of Mumbo’s face. The redstoner stared on, unblinking.

“Oh! You’re AFK? Who AFK’s with their eyes open?” Grian asked. Leaning forwards, he frowned.

“Don’t your eyes get dry?” Grian asked. “You really are AFK. I can basically see the loading screen in your brain.”

Grian scoffed, and stood back. Then he frowned, and leaned forwards. Now that he was looking, there was something in Mumbo’s eyes. It didn’t seem like a reflection, either. As Grian looked closer, he could see three circles ellipsing themselves, moving constantly to create a sphere shape.

“Huh, it kinda looks like a screensaver,” Grian said, tilting his head and leaning in closer to admire Mumbo’s eyes.

“Kinda like NPC rebooting...” Grian muttered. He was much too close, their noses almost touching when Mumbo suddenly blinked, the sphere shrinking and being replaced with a pupil. Grian shrieked and jumped back, but Mumbo didn’t respond for a moment, robotically blinking again before giving his head a small shake, emotion returning to his face.

“Grian!” He said. “What’re you doing- hey, are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Oh! I, uh,” Grian waved his hands around, trying to come up with an excuse why he had been nose-to-nose with Mumbo. “I was, uh, stealing glowstone?”

“Oh, you just had to ask.” Mumbo said, unfazed.

“Wait, do you not…” Grian paused. Mumbo had a terrible poker face, and would tease Grian mercilessly about this interaction. But he wasn’t. It was almost like he wasn’t aware it had happened, which was impossible.

NPC sometimes takes a few moments to reboot and never remembers the first 5 seconds of waking up. A rogue thought in Grian’s head provided.

But NPC was a machine, and Mumbo was not, and Grian was a little thrown off by the whole thing.

“Gri?” Mumbo asked, looking concerned.

“You know what? I just remembered I had some at home. Bye!” Grian said hurriedly, snatching rockets from his inventory and flying off.

“What in the world was that?” Grian asked himself, a large frown on his face and worry in his mind. “People don’t need to reboot.”

——

The more Grian thought about his interaction, the more concerned he became. He knew how robots acted, and Mumbo was not a robot. Uncapping his marker, Grian set to work writing everything down on his large whiteboard.

Robotic Traits. He wrote, underlining the title.

Robotic Movements

Rebooting when AFK or offline

Monotone or simple emotions

Overly polite

Grian paused, and added a smaller bullet point under the last.

(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)

He started on his next list, switching to a red marker and drawing an arrow from each robotic point to an explanation of why Mumbo Jumbo couldn’t possibly be a robot.

Mumbo Jumbo

Robotic Motions -> He’s just lanky and exhausted most of the time

Rebooting when AFK or offline -> dissociation(?)

Monotone or simple emotions -> mumbo is deadpan

Overly Polite -> ???

(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)

Grian sighed. His answers weren’t very convincing to anyone, let alone his own paranoia. He had been killed and kidnapped by both NPC Grian and Robot Grian in the past, and he couldn’t get Mumbo’s AFK loading icon out of his head. What if Mumbo wasn’t really a robot, but had been replaced by his own copy? What if this mechanical copy of his friend was trying to overtake the server? What had it done with the real Mumbo?

How long had the real Mumbo been gone for?

“Dude,” Iskall said, breaking Grian out of his spiraling thoughts. “What is… this?”

“It’s, uh,” Grian paused, trying to think of an explanation. “Well, I think Mumbo has been kidnapped and replaced by an evil machine counterpart.”

“...What?” Iskall said, letting out a nervous chuckle upon seeing how serious Grian was.

“No! Seriously!” Grian grabbed Iskall’s shoulders. “Listen, I’ve been replaced by robots many times in my past-”

“ You Have!?”

“-And I know what they act like! Seriously, Mumbo is always jerky and uncoordinated, just like Robot Grian. He’s suspiciously polite, almost like manners have been programmed into him! Plus I saw him wake up from AFK just a few hours ago, Iskall, it wasn’t natural. He rebooted.”

Iskall stared at him for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“Well,” He finally settled on saying, gently removing Grian’s hands from his shoulders. “That certainly is a theory.”

“You don’t believe me?” Grian cried, wrapping his arms around his torso, clearly distressed.

“Woah, woah,” Iskall said, “It’s not that I don’t believe you! It would explain Mumbo’s weird redstone mining.”

“His what?”

“He can, like, see it through blocks. It was so strange. He could also feel it when it was deeper,” Iskall said, deep in thought. “It was very useful when we were mining it, but it was very odd.”

“Oh my god,” Grian muttered, and sat down on a nearby shulker box. “He’s a machine. Mumbo’s been replaced.”

“Oh Grian,” Iskall placed a comforting hand on Grian’s back. “Let’s not jump ahead, okay? Why don’t we get more information first?”

Grian brought his head from his hands and nodded in silent agreement. He just prayed that Mumbo wasn’t suffering like he had.

----

Embarrassingly enough, it took Mumbo almost a week to notice Grian’s silence and avoidance of him. No more Sahara meetings were called, and Grian often said the bare minimum to him. Uncomfortable, Mumbo brought it up to Iskall once while they worked on Sahara together.

“Hey Iskall?”

“Hmm?” his friend responded, chest deep in a shulker box.

“Is… Is Grian mad at me?”

Iskall’s head hit the top of the box, and he let out a short curse. “Why would you think that?”

“I feel like he’s been avoiding me. Since he swung by my witch farm last week, actually.” Mumbo said, frowning. If he said something that made Grian angry or uncomfortable, he wanted to apologize for it.

“Nah,” Iskall said with a lackluster shrug. If Mumbo had been paying attention he would’ve seen the sweat on Iskall’s brow. “I think he’s just busy.”

“Oh,” Mumbo said.

“Speaking of busy,” Iskall stood. “I’ve got to go grab more redstone. I’m out. See you in a bit!”

“Okay,”  Mumbo said, his friend flying off with a wave.

Biting his lip, Mumbo noticed Iskall left his Redstone shulker box. They had just gone redstone mining a week ago, had Iskall run out that quickly? Mumbo opened the shulker box (not that he needed to) but he hoped the red outline he could see around it would be wrong for once.

He inhaled sharply.

It was full.

Sighing, Mumbo closed it. He decided that instead of overthinking why his friends were suddenly ignoring him and lying to him, he’d work on redstone instead.

Redstone, at least, was easily fixable.

-----

Cleo stood in front of Sahara, her face scrunched in an unpleasant emotion. Something in the shopping district stunk, and she followed her nose to find out what. It had led her to the redstone part of Sahara, overwhelming her senses.

It wasn’t a stench that could be smelt by normal hermits. She knew it well, it was her own. It was the stench of magic overworking itself to keep something alive.

Whatever this magic was keeping alive, it was working very, very hard.

“Hello?” She called out. “Wow, you guys need an air freshener in this place- oh! Mumbo!”

“Hello, Cleo!” Mumbo said cheerfully.

Cleo smiled, watching the redstone-covered hermit approach. Then she frowned.

“Mumbo, you smell dead.” Cleo said. “Well, not dead. You smell... un-alive.”

“I- wow. I don’t know what to say.” Mumbo said with an awkward laugh.

Cleo leaned closer, taking an intense sniff. Mumbo leaned backwards, a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah. It’s you.” Cleo confirmed. “What’re you working on?”

“Oh, uh... redstone?” Mumbo said, gesturing to himself, very confused with the whole scenario. His usually neat suit was covered in redstone, the red dust already settled in his hair.

“Are Grian and Iskall here?” Cleo asked. Mumbo made a face at that.

“Uh, no, actually. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“How long is a while?” Cleo asked, pushing past Mumbo and walking into the redstone circuitry.

“Oh, uh, maybe two weeks?” Mumbo said, frowning and fiddling with a ring on his finger.

“Huh,” Cleo said. “It’s because you need a shower.”

“Excuse me?” Mumbo said.

“Seriously, you smell like redstone and overheating code.”

“I showered this morning, thank you!” Mumbo said, a little angry.

“Then why,” Cleo turned and poked Mumbo in the chest, a small amount of redstone poofing off his suit. “Do you smell like an overheating machine?”

“I don’t-“ Mumbo stopped talking when Cleo took another long sniff.

“Mumbo, are you human?” She asked suddenly.

“What-“ Mumbo was furious. “Yes! Of course I am! God Cleo, what is wrong with you?”

Mumbo grabbed rockets from his inventory with much more aggression then they probably deserved. He lit one and flew off before Cleo could get another word in, and the Zombie watched him go, unbothered by his words.

“I guess I should see X,” Cleo muttered to herself, the scent lightening as Mumbo flew away.

——

NPC Grian usually kept to himself. He had a small plot of land that he had built outside the Hermit’s main map, not to be undiscovered, but to be peaceful. Hermits swinging by to say hello was not uncommon, and Grian came by every week or so to catch him up with whatever chaos had happened.

NPC was not surprised to hear a knock at his front door on a stormy, Thursday night. Grian often stayed when it stormed. He was a little surprised to see a soaked Mumbo standing at his door instead.

“Hello, Mumbo Jumbo.”

“Hey NPC.” Mumbo said, shivering slightly in the rain. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Of course,” NPC said, stepping to the side and letting the redstoner in. As Mumbo passed, a line of stats popped into NPC’s view, as it did for all hermits.

Name: Mumbo Jumbo

Species: Machine

Level: 54

Health: 20/20

Staus: Online

Role: Player

“Thanks. Sorry for invading, I needed somewhere without any Hermits.” Mumbo apologized.

“I understand,” NPC said, handing Mumbo a blanket and a towel. Mumbo smiled appreciatively, taking the towel and scrunching his hair dry. The dark, normally neat locks fell around his face, highlighting how pale Mumbo actually was.

“Sometimes humans get a little overwhelming,” NPC smiled, and Mumbo paused, a confused look coming over his face. NPC waited for his response.

“Uh, yeah.” Mumbo finally settled on saying, removing his suit jacket. “I guess we can.”

We? NPC mentally filed away the way Mumbo had used that language.

“Would you like some tea?” NPC offered instead, guiding Mumbo to the couch.

“Oh, yes please.” Mumbo said, all but collapsing into the cushions. The large fireplace in front of him was flickering, the fire strong but not overpowering.

NPC didn’t say anything while he made two cups of camomile tea, letting the clinking of cups and the whisper of the fire fill the air. Mumbo seemed much more relaxed by the time NPC came in, wrapped in blankets and eyes half-lidded.

“Your tea,” NPC said, offering the mug. Mumbo reached to grab it. “Careful not to spill it, you’ll fry yourself.”

Mumbo paused, retracting his hands. “Fry?”

“Your circuits,” NPC said, as if it was common knowledge, and he shoved the mug into Mumbo’s hands.

“I don’t have circuits?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused. “You sound like Cleo. She said I smelt like an overheating machine.”

NPC hummed at that, realizing a few things at once.

One:  Mumbo has been confronted by Zombie Cleo about his origin, and most likely ran away from that conversation if the knock at my door meant anything.

Two:  Mumbo’s friends are starting to realize he might not be human.

Three: Mumbo does not realize that he is not human.

Four: Mumbo Jumbo must be malfunctioning if he is unaware that he is a machine.

A reset should fix that problem.

“Mumbo,” NPC said and sat next to him. If Mumbo thought he was human, NPC would have to treat him like that. “What made Zombie Cleo think that?”

Mumbo scoffed. “She said that I smelt ‘un-alive’ and like a ‘machine’. And redstone! That one was probably true though. It’s just like Grian the other day! He came over to get glowstone while I was AFK, and when I woke up he was a few feet away and super flushed. He said something about rebooting, and then flew off before grabbing glowstone!”

NPC took the mug from Mumbo’s hands as the redstoner got more animated when speaking.

“Oh! And then Iskall! We went redstone mining and he said he couldn’t see the redstone under the blocks, but he must be able too, because he always has lots of redstone too! He acted the whole trip like he didn’t know where it was, which, frankly, it just rude. Now Grian and Iskall have been ignoring me!”

Mumbo huffed and sat back. NPC handed him his mug again, and Mumbo took a very long sip.

“Thank you, NPC.” Mumbo finally said after a minute. “For listening. And also the tea.”

“Of course,” NPC said with a gentle smile. “Can I suggest a solution?”

“You have one?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused.

“Of course. You just need a reset.”

“Not you too! Now you’re talking to me with weird machine terms that I know you don’t use those with Grian!”

NPC frowned. It was worse than he thought.

“That is because Grian is not a machine.”

Mumbo stared at him a moment, before placing his mug down and standing abruptly.

“Thank you, NPC. I have to go.” Mumbo headed towards the door when a strong grip caught his wrist. NPC tightened it as Mumbo struggled against it.

“Mumbo, when you get to respawn, don’t restart right away.”

“NPC, let me go!”

“Listen to me,” NPC said. “Don’t respawn right away. Just wait until you feel ready.”

“I don’t control respawn!” Mumbo said, his voice rising in fear. He desperately tried to break NPC’s grip, but his exterior was not made of metal as the builder’s was.

“Good luck, Mumbo Jumbo.” NPC said, and summoned a sword into his hand.

“NPC, no-!”

< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >

——

Mumbo reached the void and was filled with panic. Immediately he went to hit the large, looming ‘Respawn’ button out of muscle memory. Right as his fingers brushed the lettering, he stopped.

He stayed still and waited as if he expected some invisible force to push his hand on the button, but nothing happened.

He always thought he had to respawn immediately, but here he was, hand hovering over the option as time ticked on.

The other hermits just woke up in their beds, he was sure of that. He moved his hand from the looming button, and took a deep breath.

Something else to add to the list of odd things about himself.

NPC said he could wait until he felt better, right? Besides, he had a lot to think about. Iskall and Grian were ignoring him anyways, and he didn’t really want to see Cleo or NPC. He could just wait a few minutes and collect his thoughts. Nothing bad could possibly happen, he was already dead.

He’d just stay here for a while. Just enough to collect his thoughts. Then he’d go back.

Just a few minutes.

Just a few...

----

Xisuma had never felt so much anxiety in his life. Having been an Admin for ten or so years, he was pretty adept at solving all problems. Evil counterpart destroying the server? Xisuma could deal with it. Bugs and code problems? He could do it in his sleep.

A server player being killed and not respawning for two days despite there being no bugs and his code being perfect? Xisuma was out of luck.

“God damn it!” He swore, covering his face in his hands and inhaling sharply. The line of code he had run had failed to bring Mumbo back, the redstoner still being stuck in respawn void.

Mumbo had been quite a character in Xisuma’s last few weeks. Iskall had come first, worried about Mumbo’s health when the man could apparently sense redstone through solid blocks. A few days later Grian had swung by, babbling feverishly that Mumbo had been replaced by a robot and was up to nothing good.

Xisuma had brushed both off with a gentle smile and a ‘I’ll look into it, thanks for letting me know’.

He wasn’t able to ignore when Cleo walked through his door three days ago, claiming Mumbo smelt un-alive. This very much caught Xisuma’s attention, and he sat her down to get her to explain everything.

Only an hour later the death message had come across his screen.

< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >

Grian whispered to Xisuma: See! Even NPC realized Mumbo was replaced! Or worse, NPC is orchestrating the entire thing. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Xisuma left a concerned Cleo, teleporting immediately to Mumbo’s spawn point, waiting anxiously for the redstoner to reappear.

He waited.

And waited.

Xisuma sent a message to Mumbo.

Waited some more.

And then realized something was very wrong, teleported to his base and started working on Mumbo’s code.

“Okay, another try. Then a break.” Xisuma muttered to himself. He had been awake for far too long, but he needed to figure out what was wrong for Mumbo not to respawn. He couldn’t have the other Hermits panicking if something was wrong with respawn.

A gentle knock at his door brought Xisuma out of his thoughts. Standing and stretching, Xisuma walked over to the door, and opened it to find NPC Grian. He immediately took a step back. Grian’s messages creeping in the back of his mind.

“NPC Grian! It’s... good to see you.” Xisuma smiled, trying to look friendly, forgetting for the most part his helmet didn’t show his mouth. “It’s been a while.”

“Indeed it has, Xisuma Void.” NPC said, as emotionless as always. “May I come in?”

“Oh! Actually it’s not really a good moment,” He muttered closing the door slightly.  “There’s just a huge mess, I’ve been-“

“Trying to bring Mumbo Jumbo back from respawn?” NPC interrupted.

“... Yes, actually.” Xisuma said, a little wary.

“There's no point in forcing him back.” NPC leaned in closer and patted Xisuma’s shoulder. “He’ll come back when he wants to.”

“Sorry,” Xisuma asked, confused. “But how do you know this?”

“Because he is like me.” NPC said. “If you need him back sooner, I can go get him.”

Xisuma decided to ignore the first part of NPC’s statement and the suspicions around him. He opened the door and let the robot come in. “Would you go get him? Everyone’s worried.”

“Of course. Set Mumbo Jumbo’s spawn point here-“ NPC put down two beds, and gestured to the bed on the right. “And I will set mine here. Then, kill me.”

Xisuma took a moment to fully digest the plan.

“And then what?”

“Well, then I will talk to Mumbo Jumbo and bring him back.”

“Oh,” Xisuma said, grateful for the apparently easy solution put before him. He was exhausted and decided that NPC was his best shot at this point even if there was the chance it might be a trap or something. If NPC tried to take over the server like Ex did he could deal with that later. He had already tried fixing every line of code of Mumbo’s, and he had nothing to lose.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, and I already set my respawn.” NPC said.

Xisuma nodded, and brought up Mumbo’s code again. He changed the respawn to the nearby bed, and then closed the menu, drawing out a sword.

“Are you ready?” Xisuma asked.

NPC nodded.

< NPC_Grian was slain by Xisumavoid >

--

Being dead wasn't so bad.

Well, he wasn't really dead right now. Dead in the overworld, maybe, but not dead here, even if it wasn't clear where here was.

Was it respawn void? It didn't really matter.

Strangely, Mumbo felt better and better the more he stayed there, suspended into nothing with the looming respawn button hovering not too far away from him.

It was odd, resting here. Mumbo felt as if he had taken the longest sleep. Compared to how he usually slept, it felt like he had never once truly rested in his life up until that point.

Mumbo felt rejuvenated, his mind sharp like he could go and rebuild all the machines in Sahara from the ground up in a week.

Strange how NPC was right apparently.

Just about respawn. Mumbo reminded himself.

There must be some other explanation for all the weird things going on. Regardless of all the strange things that had happened, he wasn't a machine.

Mumbo would have noticed, it's not like he was born a week ago.

The redstoner felt ready to go back to the server, even if he would have had to talk with Grian and Iskall about why they were avoiding him. Also talk with Cleo… Maybe she was just having a weird zombie flu? It’s the only reason Mumbo could come up with for why she was smelling weird stuff.

It’s okay, it was just a weird couple of weeks! It happens.

Mumbo looked at the button ready to press it. He reached out and - wait.

Didn't he use to have fingers and hands?

He would have blinked but he realized he didn't have any eyes that needed blinking. He didn't have a mouth to speak, ears to hear anything, arms or legs.

He should have been terrified, but strangely enough something very, very deep in his mind felt almost comfortable with this sudden realization.

Which, arguably, was the really terrifying part.

He was reduced to… nothing? No, he was still something. He wasn't sure what. He felt immense but not really, like he'd always been wearing something too tight and only now he could finally stretch out.

His body…

His body didn't fit what he actually was.

What was he?

He was human! Right? Right?!

This void was just messing with his head. It must be--

"Are you ready to come back yet?” A familiar monotone voice spoke.

--

Xisuma watched the beds with bated breath. A few minutes passed and panic filled his chest, quickly becoming overwhelming.

“Shit,” Xisuma said, pulling up the Admin menu again. Fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard, Xisuma didn’t even know where to begin. Should he access NPC’s code first? Try and drag him back? But it hadn’t worked on Mumbo, and NPC was not a traditional player.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to enter any code, as NPC and Mumbo respawned on the bed. NPC sat up and gave Xisuma a emotionless thumbs up while Mumbo clutched his chest and rolled to his side, coughing.

“Mumbo!” Xisuma rushed to his side, rubbing his friends back.

“He’s alright,” NPC said. “It takes a moment to adjust back into a body. I go through it too after extended time in respawn. Being a machine forced into a flesh cage is very difficult sometimes.”

“I don’t…” Xisuma said, brain blanking after that information. “Okay, I’m going to ignore that. How do you spend so much time in respawn?”

“Machines are not affected the same way humans are.” NPC said.

“Shut up!” Mumbo wheezed, and pushed Xisuma away, stumbling from the bed. “I’m not a machine! Stop saying I am!”

“But you are.” NPC said, almost sounding confused.

“Okay,” Xisuma said, reaching towards Mumbo. “Regardless if you are, are you okay?”

“Regardless?” Mumbo squeaked, voice rising in anger. “Xisuma, you can’t be siding with them! Everyone has been treating me weird and now he says I'm a machine, and I’m not!”

“Mumbo-”

“No! There’s no proof! Everyone is just imagining things!”

NPC sighed, and brought up Mumbo’s code, displaying it for everyone to see.

Name: Mumbo Jumbo

Species: Machine

Level: 1

Health: 20/20

Staus: Online

Role: Player

“Okay, so, you get very different stats than me. ” Xisuma said. “But that doesn’t matter- It’s okay, Mumbo. Not everyone on the server is human. Hell, I’m barely human myself.”

“No,” Mumbo muttered to himself. “No! It’s not right!”

"Why can't it be that you're not hum-"

"Because I bleed!" Mumbo shouted. "I bleed and I cry and I get headaches and I get sick and all these stupid things that make me human!"

He tried to rub away some tears forming in his eyes as he continued shouting. "I can't just be a machine all of the sudden! It doesn't make any sense. I can’t be!"

There was silence, and for a moment no one knew what to say. The only sound was Mumbo's erratic breathing, muffled slightly by the hands covering his face.

Then NPC stepped over and patted Mumbo on the shoulder, which felt almost mocking.

"Silly! All those things only mean your body is human. Being a machine goes a little bit deeper."

Mumbo’s hands dropped, and the man looked exhausted.

“Mumbo,” Xisuma took a step closer, and Mumbo took a step back, hitting a wall. Uncertainty and confusion flitted across his face. “Please. Mumbo, not being human doesn’t lessen your worth. We still love you.”

There was a long silence, and finally Mumbo leaned against the wall, sliding to the ground and placing his head onto his knees. Xisuma sat beside him, hesitating for only a moment before pulling Mumbo into a side hug.

“I hate this.” Mumbo muttered.

“I know.” Xisuma said.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”

“I am human. I have a human body, NPC said so. I’m human.” Mumbo said, sounding unconvincing to even himself.

“It will be okay, Mumbo.” Xisuma said, praying that it would.

Mumbo said nothing, hoping with all his heart that tomorrow, when he woke up, it would be nothing but a feverish dream. That he had worked on redstone a little too hard for a little too long and had fallen into some strange lucid dream. Mumbo felt Xisuma rub his arm lightly, the up and down movements calming.

“It’ll be okay.” He said again.

Mumbo had no choice but to trust him.

[livesincerely]

keepsakes

Also on Ao3

00000

Davey stops and stares, absolutely stunned.

“Jack,” he breathes.

“Hi, Davey,” Jack quietly greets, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his jacket.

“You...” Davey swallows around a sudden lump in his throat, a hand braced against the doorframe in an attempt to steady himself. “What are you doing here?”

“I got the address from Les,” Jack says, rocking a little on his feet. “I’m in town for the week visiting Ma and Charlie, thought I could swing by and see you for a sec.”

“Oh,” Davey says, still trying to process the fact that Jack is here, that Jack’s actually here, standing outside of Davey’s door. His hair’s a touch shorter, his skin a bit tanner, but he’s still Jack.

He’s still Jack.

“So, uh, can I come in?” Jack asks.

“Oh, right.” Davey gives himself a little shake, then takes a step back and holds the door open wider. “Yeah, sure. Please, come in.”

“You moved out of the old place,” Jack comments as his eyes rove around Davey’s modest entry and living room, and his tone is casual but the words are weighted with an unspoken question.

“It was a bit too much for just one person,” Davey says, averting his eyes. “A smaller apartment is easier to keep up with.”

He doesn’t mention that he hadn’t been able to afford the rent for their old apartment by himself, or that even if he had been, all the reminders of their life together, all the hollowed out spaces Jack had left in his wake—the places he used to be but isn’t anymore—would’ve driven him away regardless.

“Can I get you anything?” Davey asks after a brief pause. “Soda or coffee or...?”

“Coffee would be great, actually,” Jack says. “But, uh, only if it won’t put ya out.”

“It’s no trouble,” Davey says. “Here, go ahead and sit down and I’ll fix you a cup.”

He leaves Jack to pull up a stool at the counter while he pulls two mug out of the cabinet, turning on the coffee maker with a quick press of a button.

“So, how have you been?” Davey asks, careful to keep his head down and his voice light as he waits for the coffee to brew. “How’s Santa Fe been treating you?”

“‘S good,” Jack says. “It’s great, it’s got everything: clear skies, gorgeous sunsets. If you go out to the desert at the right time of day the views are unreal. So, uh, life’s pretty good.”

“And work’s going well?”

“Real well,” Jack confirms. “Now that I’ve been there a while they’re startin’ to give me my own projects to work on, which is great. Nerve racking, and I’m constantly terrified that I’m gonna fuck it all up, but great. Honestly, the studio space and the stipend I get for supplies on its own is pretty incredible, let alone all the experience and connections I’m getting too. So, yeah, things are goin’ well.”

“That’s great, Jack,” Davey says, even as his heart gives a painful little lurch. “I’m glad things are working out for you.”

“Couldn’t ask for much more,” Jack responds, and the way he says it is strange—strange enough that Davey risks a glance at his face. But Jack’s expression is flat and impassive, giving nothing away. “How’re you doin’, Davey?”

“Good,” Davey says, turning back to the coffee maker. “I’ve been good.”

“Yeah?” Jack asks. “Anythin’ interestin’ goin’ on?”

“Just the same old, same old,” Davey replies. “Nothing new to tell, honestly.”

“Nothing at all?” Davey can’t tell if Jack sounds disappointed or relieved. “Did you ever end up gettin’ that transfer you wanted?”

“I, uh, rescinded the request after you— after everything,” Davey answers, watching the the coffee bubble and drip, his chest tight. “There wasn’t really a need, and it was easier to just stay at my old branch.”

“Oh,” Jack says. 

The silence stretches between them, stiff and heavy and awkward. Instead of coming up with something to fill it, Davey busies himself with serving up their coffee, fixing one mug with his usual creamer, then the other with even more cream and a heaping spoonful of sugar, which he sets gently in front of Jack.

“Here you go,” he murmurs. 

Davey takes a small sip of his own coffee, trying to decide what’d be worse: asking Jack another question and having to listen to him talk about how wonderful and perfect his life in Santa Fe has been or just sitting there quietly and trying to pretend like this whole situation isn’t agonizing. 

He tries, “So, um, have you had the chance to—”

“What the fuck, Davey?” Jack bites out. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

Davey freezes, eyes wide. Jack’s holding his mug in both hands—like he was about to take a drink and got distracted halfway there—and the look on his face is one of absolute fury. 

“Why do you still have this?” Jack demands, setting it down so hard that a bit of coffee sloshes over the side. “Why would you keep—?”

Davey looks, and then he realizes. The mug is a simple, sturdy thing, bigger than most of his other ones so he doesn’t have to refill it as often. He’d grabbed it out of habit—it’s always sitting near the front of the cabinet because of how often he uses it, and he honestly hadn’t thought anything of it.

But now he’s seeing what Jack sees: the trellis of flowers that encircle the rim, painstakingly painted by a careful hand in yellows, golds, and blues. Remembers the smell of the clay and the rainbow wall of glaze, remembers the satisfied grin that had turned so sheepish and shy when they returned a few days later to pick up their creations, remembers the flutter in his stomach as he reached out for the surprise gift, remembers the thrill of electricity when their fingers brushed…

Davey swallows.

“Why wouldn’t I keep it,” he says in as even a tone as he can manage. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“Oh, so that’s where you draw the line, huh?” Jack says, and his voice his like the rumble before a storm rolls in. “That’s how it is? Knick knacks, keepsakes, sure, those you’ll keep around, but the stuff that’s actually worth having? That’s actually worth fighting for? You can just let all that go without ever sayin’ a fuckin’ word otherwise because who gives a shit—”

And suddenly Davey’s furious too.

“Right, because you were so fucking eager to stay?” he asks with a derisive scoff. “Give me a break, Jack, you couldn’t wait to leave. Just fucked off to the other side of the country and left me here to pick up the pieces—”

“You were all but pushing me out the fucking door!” Jack yells, throwing his hands up. “‘It’s a wonderful opportunity, Jackie,’ ‘You’d be an idiot not to take it, Jackie,’ ‘It’s what you’ve always dreamed of, Jackie!’ What a load of horseshit—”

“Oh, so it’s my fault for being supportive?’ Davey asks, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“I’m just sayin’, you weren’t exactly bent outta shape at the thought of me leavin’,” Jack says coldly. “Didn’t seem to bother you one fuckin’ bit. Probably relieved to finally have an excuse to get rid of me—”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Davey hisses, stepping forward until they’re standing nearly chest to chest. “I’ve missed you like you wouldn’t believe, missed you every single goddamn second of the last eight months, don’t think for a moment that I didn’t, you fucking asshole.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack asks, chin lifted in challenge. “If you missed me so fucking much, then why’d we break up?”

“Because you were moving to Santa Fe!” Davey yells, completely fed up. “You were leaving, Jackie! What else was I supposed to do, except let you go and try my best to be happy for you?”

“If you really wanted me to be happy,” Jack growls, “you would’ve come with me.”

“You didn’t ask me to come with you!”

“And you didn’t ask me to stay!” Jack roars back.

“Ask you to stay? Ask you to stay?” Davey says, a wave of emotion stinging at his eyes, a note of hysteria shredding his voice, something aching and frenzied clawing at his chest. “Of course I didn’t fucking ask you to stay, I was never going to ask you to stay! It was Santa Fe, it was all you ever fucking talked about, it was your dream, Jack! It was everything that you wanted! I would never even suggest that you give that up, God, what kind of shit-ass person do you think I am, that you thought I would ever, ever try to stand between you and Santa Fe when I know how important it is to you—?”

“I’m not fucking hearing this,” Jack says, with a frantic, jerky shake of his head. “I am not fucking hearing this. I— You—“

He rakes a hand haphazardly through his hair, the other pointed accusingly at Davey’s chest, jaw clenched and eyes glittering. His throat works silently for a moment, two moments, then he turns on his heel and storms out, the apartment door slamming behind him with a thunderous bang!

And Jack’s gone, tearing right back out of Davey’s life like he’d never returned in the first place, the abandoned coffee mug the only evidence that he’d ever been there at all.

And Davey’s alone, his heart pounding a lurching, deafening beat in his ears, the churning, curdling, swirling feeling in his gut a perfect mirror to how he’d felt all those months ago, quietly, impossibly heartbroken as he watched Jack walk away.

Davey takes a shivering, shuddering breath, scrubbing a trembling hand across his mouth. Fuck.

He might’ve been standing there for thirty seconds or thirty minutes when the front door swings open again. Davey’s head whips up just in time to see Jack step inside, closing the door behind him with a soft, purposeful click. Then he can only watch as Jack stalks forward, eyes blazing, fists his hands in the front of Davey’s shirt, and drags him into a bruising, desperate kiss. 

“I love you,” Jack says. “I love you. I loved you before I got the job offer, I loved you while I was searching for apartments and planning the move, I loved you every time I talked up Santa Fe to you, tryin’ to convince you to come with me any way I could think of. I loved you when we broke up, I loved you when I left, I loved you when I landed, and it’s been eight fucking months and I’m still so fucking in love with you—”

Davey interrupts him with another heart stopping kiss, threading his fingers in Jack’s hair as he pulls him closer. They still fit together so perfectly, lips and teeth and tongues all moving together like they’d never been parted, and its so good that Davey could almost cry with it because he’d never thought he would have this again.

“I love you too, Jackie,” Davey promises. “I love you and I’ve missed you so much—”

“I missed you,” Jack says, punctuating the declaration with another kiss. “You’re it for me Davey. There’s just you. And I… I can’t give this up again. Santa Fe ain’t worth nothin’ if you’re not there with me.”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Davey murmurs, and its a confession and an apology. “I thought I had to let you go.”

Jack shakes his head. 

“I wanted you to keep me,” he whispers against Davey’s lips. “And I wanted to keep you too.”

“Then keep me,” Davey says. He realizes now, that it’s as simple as that. “Keep me.”

00000

Jack’s pov here

Tag List!: @yahfancyclamwiththepurlinside @corbinthecowboy @stroopwafeldetective

[silvia7272]

ML Salt ~ The Cardigan Story

This is based on a true story.

Honestly, I always remembered this story because it constantly made my Sister and Mum laugh when I told them I outed a liar at school by wearing a cardigan, they were so proud of me because what I did wasn’t mean and I wasn’t even doing it out maliciousness so I thought, hey why not put it in the ML universe?

This isn’t canon to my main series so no Rosina since there isn’t any need for her, sorry sweetie.

And since I doubt Mlle Bustier would never out Lila, I’m changing the teacher to someone who actually has a backbone.

Word Count: 2303

Tags: @queenmj10, @fangirl39, @animegirlweeb, @northernbluetongue, @maribat-is-lifeblood, @raisuke06, @indecisive-mess-named-me, @luleck, @themotherofhogwarts, @more-or-less-human-i-guess, if you wish to be tagged all you have to do is say. Also, if you change your name please tell me, I don’t want to leave you out since you’ve asked to be tagged.

I know you may not wish to be tagged for one-shots, but I thought you might enjoy some salt I was able to come up with.

Also, I wrote this in one day so I’m extremely proud of myself.

***

If you told Marinette that Lila’s reign over the school would end over a cardigan, she would tell you you’re as crazy as she was about Adrien.

A lot.

But, she did just that.

She had to thank Adrien really, the ‘advice’ he gave her was what really pushed her.

She wouldn’t outright expose her, no, she had tried that before and look where that got her, near expulsion that’s what. And not one of her friends tried to stick up for her. She always remembered that glare Alix gave her, and since then she had been ignored, turned away by them.

Even after Lila came out with ‘the truth’ she was still seen as an overly jealous girl.

“Lila’s promised she hasn’t lied about anything else she’s said to us, it only acts up around people she doesn’t know as well, maybe next time, instead of being jealous you should give her a chance and stop being a baby. Girl this all could’ve easily been avoided if you weren’t so Adrien crazy”

Really? They actually believed that load of crap?

Whatever, Marinette was done, done with everyone.

If they wanted to show her how wrong she was then she’d let them wait until hell would frost over, because fat chance that would ever happen.

If Marinette was proud of one thing about her then it would have to be her stubbornness to get to the truth.

And she could be extremely patient.

***

It was just an average day at Collège Françoise Dupont. There weren’t any Akuma’s caused by anyone the previous day so Marinette was finally able to have a good night’s rest, something the exhausted teenager really missed.

She felt so re-energised she danced in the kitchen as she made breakfast without a care in the world.

.

Before she fell over that was.

“…Owww”

“Careful dear, you wouldn’t want to be hurt before school hours, now just sit tight and I’ll get you something to eat,” Her Maman said. Marinette felt grateful. After breakfast, she gave her Parents a kiss before leaving.

She had loving parents that supported her every beck and call.

…Well most of the time, but that didn’t matter, she would never let Lila manipulate them ever, her Parents were off-limits.

By the time she arrived at school she was one of the first ones there, Nathaniel in the back drawing his comics, texting Marc as well, it seemed like he was in his own ‘do not disturb’ bubble. Max was talking to Markov about some new type of game, and Rose and Juleka were just cuddling.

She made her way to the back feeling a positive emotion before exhaling.

Because it was about to be ruined.

Lila walked in with Alya, Nino and Adrien by her side.

She was telling a story about her ‘one of a kind cardigan-

Wait-

“My Grandmother made this cardigan especially for me carving her signature on as well, it’s the only one in existence because shortly after she made this, she ended up being in a terrible accident that left her bedridden.” They pandered to her of course. But for once she wasn’t focusing on the lie but the cardigan.

Oh, Lila’s only gone and done it now.

“I’ve always wanted to wear it, but I didn’t want it to end up ruined by someone” Her gaze casually went up to a lone bluenette, but she really wasn’t bothered.

“Don’t worry girl, I’ll keep a watchful eye on your cardigan for you. Ain't nothing gonna come between me and my besties property” They hugged before sitting down in their spaces.

‘Oh my god, I have a plan’ Marinette had that thought circled around her head until break. It was all she thought of.

Mind you, she wasn’t trying to expose everything she’d done, just that one lie. And that would be enough.

As soon as the bell rang, she was ready, she gathered her stuff and rushed home.

And thank god as well, Lila would not shut up about that cardigan, through Literature, Science and PE, it was constantly my Grandmother made it for me this, it’s the only one of its kind that.

Ugh, she wanted to rip her ears out at some point but had to endure it. No one else was bothered since they all believed her, even the teachers!

Yeah, you don’t really need any proof if it was handmade, some of Marinette’s earlier stuff didn’t have her signature on, but still, it was the principle of the matter!

And she could right that wrong.

In her room she was frantically searching for that item as Tikki dodged different articles of clothing, one hit her as she wasn’t looking, and she was down for the count.

“Marinette what are you looking for?” Marinette paused to look back at Tikki before continuing a bit calmer.

“Lila’s been lying about that cardigan and this time I can prove it.” Her eyes lit up as she lifted a cardigan up from her cupboard.

“One of Maman’s friends gave this to me a few years back, it was one of the reasons I got into fashion because of how soft it is and I wanted to replicate that. Don’t you think it looks familiar?” As Tikki looked over it her eyes widened, she knew Lila was lying anyway but she had no idea Marinette had definitive proof of it.

“That’s the same cardigan Lila has!” Marinette nodded before wearing it.

At least it still fit.

“But Marinette I thought we were gonna take the high ground?”

“Tikki it's tiring having to listen to them being lied too. I may not want them to be my friends anymore, but I just want the lying to stop. If I go and tell them that she’s lying with this as evidence they’ll clearly see she’s lying”

“But outing her like that won’t make it better!” Marinette wished she could respond with ‘are you sure’ but didn’t want to piss the mini-god off.

“Fine, what if I just wear it until someone notices, that way I’m not actively looking to publicly shame her? Better?” Tikki gave a reluctant nod, she knew her chosen wouldn’t let up about the situation, besides this whole thing was really just pettiness, nothing too serious. If no one noticed nothing bad would happen.

“Bye Maman, bye Papa” As she began walking back, she grew a bit nervous with her plan.

What if Lila made a whole other lie about her cardigan? What if she lied that Marinette had stolen it out of jealousy and everyone would try to take hers? She’d have to run away and live with a secret identity, all before getting caught and going to prison, and she’d never have her three kids and her hamster named-

“Ahem Marinette, is thou there?” A hand brought her out of her trance

“Ahhh!” She waved her arms before composing herself and seeing D’Argencourt in front of her.

“Ah, yes Monsieur?” How long had he been standing there? How long had she been rambling in her head?

“As I was saying, these new garments of yours, where did they originate from?” It took her a while before realising he was talking about her cardigan, she was so used to wearing her jacket it felt strange she had changed.

“Ohh this, well it was a present from Maman’s friend. They were on sale a few years back, so I thought I’d wear it again” He furrowed his brow before telling her to carry on with whatever she was doing.

“Well, that was weird. Do you think he liked the jacket?” Tikki ponded as her head ever so slightly popped out the small handbag.

“He’s always been weird Tikki. But whatever, let's just get back to the classroom.” All she had to do was wait.

***

‘How the hell hasn’t anyone noticed yet?’ Marinette was secretly fuming in her mind right now. None of her classmates noticed the change in her outfit.

Not one.

Bustier did however, the bluenette was sure because she’d see her teacher quickly glance from Marinette to Lila but never said a word. Probably thinking of that whole, ‘be the bigger person’ crap.

And not even the excuse of maybe Bustier didn’t know, bs. By the time break happened everyone in the school knew about that damn cardigan so don’t get her started.

‘Oh well, looks like that’s it. My petty revenge came flat… At least Lila didn’t pull a Marinette ruined my belongings stunt’ That would’ve been the last thing she needed.

Knock Knock Knock

The door opened before Bustier could reply, a teacher would reprimand a student for this type of rudeness, but it wasn’t a student.

It was a teacher.

And it was Monsieur D’Argencourt.

‘What the-’ Marinette didn’t remember this part of the plan.

“Excuse me Caline, but I need to interrupt the class for an announcement.” Bustier was about to deny but D’Argencourt the stubborn teacher as he was, walked straight on through ignoring whatever Bustier would’ve said.

“Lila Rossi, may you please step in front of the classroom?” Lila looking completely confused let go off Adrien, much to the relief of the boy, and walked in front of her desk.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng?” He didn’t need to repeat the command.

Yes, command not a request.

“Can I ask you where you got your cardigans from?”

“Armand, I don’t think this is appropriate-” He shot a glare back at the teacher.

“I can assure you this won’t take long if I’m not interrupted”

Lila looked over to Marinette and realised with a sinking feeling what was happening. But she would win this time. Just like all the others.

“My Grandmother made this specifically, you see-”

He held a hand up to silence her.

“Yes, that’s quite alright, and Marinette would you like to repeat what you said before?” As Marinette did just that Lila was seething, he cut her off. How dare that simpleton cut off Lila Rossi!

He would pay.

“Well, it appears one of you is lying, and I expect that person to own up to it now” The class gasped as they all looked expectedly at Marinette, they knew she was petty but to do this was so low.

Lila looked at her smugly, she had tried to play with fire but got burned in the process. How could she even think she’d get away with this?

“I was talking about you, Lila Rossi”

“Eh, what?” The class gasped as they tried to say of course Lila was innocent, Marinette was the one lying. Or that Marinette must’ve tricked him.

He shot a glare towards all the class members as they instantly shut up.

“I don’t remember this being a class discussion, if I want your opinion, I will ask for it. Understood?” They nodded before giving sympathetic glances towards the brunette, D’Argencourt almost had the urge to shout at their incompetence but alas they were kids.

“I can tell you why you are lying Lila, with a photo. But as I’m feeling generous, I will give you one more chance to reveal yourself.” The class was silent as they all looked on in anticipation.

But Lila stood her ground defiantly, as if he actually had proof-

Oh…

Oh no she’s doomed…

“Then I don’t suppose this looks familiar? Hmm?” On his phone was a picture. Lila immediately lowered her head, too ashamed to look him in the eye.

3 guesses of what it is?

No.

.

.

No one?

.

.

Too easy?

.

.

Ok, it was the cardigan.

And at a fairly cheap price. No wonder she had it in brand new condition.

“I first knew you were lying once I saw Marinette wear the exact same one, however, hers was clearly worn out, evidently she has worn it for several amount of years. You had already messed up when you said it was the only one made. So please…” Lila looked up to see D’Argencourt giving one of the most frightening glares of the century.

“Don’t ever lie about anything to my face or anyone ever again, you will be court out and I will be keeping an eye on you. Is that final?” She meekly nodded her head, trying to give a frightened appearance to make him have sympathy but he was immune.

“That will be all. I hope your class has learned a valuable lesson of not taking things at face value” And with that, he left. Leaving Marinette with a different impression of her PE teacher, it seemed he didn’t like liars all that much.

Marinette smiled, her plan worked, and she didn’t even out her herself. Tikki surely can’t be mad at her now.

Bustier tried to get the class to go back to normal but she couldn’t. The class erupted into a screaming fit, asking how Lila could lie about that sort of thing?

It wasn’t until someone unexpected said the next few words she wondered if this was a dream.

“Hey if Lila lied about this what else did she lie about? She even said herself she doesn’t lie to her friends but that was a lie” That made the class tick as they soon realised and soon torn into her about it.

Leaving Lila, a ‘sobbing mess’ on the floor. All before she stopped that fake display and arguing back.

But the one who said that…

Was Adrien.

He was able to slip by the crowd and stand next to Marinette.

No words were said, she knew what he would’ve said even without the noise.

‘I’m sorry’

It was a start, and maybe through time, she could start trusting again.

But for now, she just wanted to enjoy this chaos…

.

.

Before there was an Akuma alert.

***

I want more D’Argencourt I want more D’Argencourt I want more D’Argencourt. I probably screwed his speech but oh well this is salt, doesn’t have to be accurate.

Phew, hope you enjoyed it, sorry its shorter than the others but this happened when I was in Year 5 and I was 9/10 years old. Woo 10 years ago, god that makes me feel old. Also, not everything was exactly this way, the teacher did out the person in front of the whole class, but she admitted it and went back to her class, we had two classes for maths. Anyway, I actually have to give Lila credit compared to the liar we had at our school, this person actually knew I had that cardigan and actually complimented me on it like months earlier and still had the audacity to say that. I think that’s the reason why I think if I was in their world I wouldn’t believe Lila because I already had a Lila at my school who would always say they’ve done the exact same thing as we had (They even said they had the same Aunt as me living on the same street, crazy right). Mind you they never said anything to me, I think they were too embarrassed plus, I was a goody little two-shoes there.

Anyway I really hope you enjoy it and if you like real-life stories so much I can always try to ask my friends for more ideas, I did have like some slightly toxic friends there that I may be able to tell you about but I’ll try to think how later.

Cya next time.

[five-rivers]

Glowsticks

Sneaking in before midnight on Halloween~

This is another continuation of Exhumed.

.

.

.

McGee had talked to several people about the strangely popular gravestone.  What he had learned made him feel sick.  Literally. He wanted to throw up.  First, the person buried there was the kid that had been found in the park.  Second, the locals had made him into a cult figure practically overnight.  

Or, at least, a tourist trap figure.  These people had no shame.  

On the other hand… Didn’t they say that Daily person was in charge of cults?  Did Amity Park have a cult problem on top of everything else that was going on?  Was the cult the problem, the root problem?  If there even was an actual cult…

Cults were dangerous and took vicious advantage of legal loopholes.  Maybe he should call the FBI.  They were the ones that were supposed to deal with cults.  

He took a deep breath, pulling himself together. No.  This was his case.  His job. He didn’t know that there was a cult involved, not yet.  Besides, it didn’t matter if they were religious so long as they were breaking the law.  Yeah.  

“Are you okay?”

McGee almost jumped out of his skin, his hand twitching towards his firearm before he realized that the person who snuck up on him was a kid.  The kid from earlier, to be precise.

The boy’s eyes narrowed.  “Were you about to pull a gun on me?” he asked.  

“No,” said McGee.  

The boy blinked, suspicion still evident on his face. “You’ve got to be more careful with guns,” he said.  “There’s no reason to go for one just because someone surprised you.”

McGee didn’t grace that with a response.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  Weren’t you across town, earlier?”

“Yeah.  So were you,” said the boy.  Danny. His name was Danny Fenton.  “Why are you here?”

“I asked first.”

“You shouldn’t ask questions you aren’t willing to answer yourself.”

What the hell was up with this kid?  “I’m just trying to get a better feel for the town.”

“Hm,” said Danny.  “I help out here at the cemetery, sometimes.  Got to lay all those ghosts to rest, you know?”

“Don’t you think that’s a little much?” snapped McGee. “Death isn’t supposed to be a roadside attraction.”

“Oh, don’t worry.  We take death very seriously around here,” assured Danny.  “But seriously.  I do help out.  The caretaker lets me take that stuff away when it gets to be too much.”  He nodded at the blank headstone and all the offerings around it.  “Mom likes the flowers.  Jazz is making a collage of some of the cards.  You know.  Stuff like that.”  He shrugged, angling himself away from McGee.  “Someone left a tiny copy of the Tempest once.  In one of those teeny tiny books.  Post.  It had that one passage from Ariel’s Song decorated.  It was nice.  I liked it.”

“What?”

“Ariel’s Song.  Full fathom five thy father lies;/Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes;/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange. Shakespeare.  I think it’s supposed to be a commentary on ghosts, but the guy in the play isn’t actually dead, people just think he is.  So, I’m not really sure how to take it.  You’re a detective, right?  What do you think?”

McGee stared at the teenager. The kid who was buried there was his age.  “This isn’t a joke,” said McGee.  “A person is dead.”

Danny tilted his head. “I’m not joking?”

“How are you even connected to all of this?”  McGee waved his hand, frustrated.  

“I just told you how I’m connected to the cemetery.  If you mean the town…  Well, I do live here.”

“Why do Patterson and Collins know you?”

“I know everyone,” said Danny.  He started backing away.  “You should go get something to eat soon, if you don’t want to be late.”  He turned and disappeared in the crowd.  

What the hell.

.

McGee did not go to get food. He went back to the station.  He had some questions to ask Cameron Daily, and he got the impression that the man was the kind of person to practically live at work.  

When he opened the door, though, he had to stop.

“What is this?” he asked, loudly.  

“Glowsticks,” said one of the secretaries.  “You have seen them before, right?”

“Yes, but why?”

As much as the police department had been infested with Christmas decorations before, it was now covered with glowsticks of all varieties.  

The secretary shrugged. “You’ll find out.  And, no, this isn’t hazing.”  She broke a new glowstick with a snap.

“Right,” said McGee.  “Where’s Daily?”

“Cameron Daily is in the computer bay,” said the secretary, pointing.

“Thanks,” grunted McGee, once again wondering why there was a separate computer bay when everyone had their own desks, computers, and, in some cases, additional laptops.  

Screw it, he might as well ask.  

“Hey, Daily.”

“Mm?”

“Why’s there a separate computer bay?”

“Oh, it’s shielded,” said Daily.  

“Shielded.”

“Yep.  No signals, and the Fentons did some pretty neat stuff to the walls.  Bunch of, ehm, nasty hackers.  We learned our lesson, eventually.”

“The Fentons.”

“Yeah.  And Foley did the firewalls.”

“They’re the ones who did the computer filing system.”

“Uhuh.  Kids are geniuses.  The parents aren’t too shoddy, either.”

“The—” No.  There was no way.  “Are they the same Fentons that hunt ghosts?”

“Yeah.  You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but apparently they live off of their patents.  Made a bunch of fiddly little things that every other mass production factory in the country uses.  Also, they own a toilet paper company.  Not my favorite brand, but it isn’t the worst, honestly.  Kind of wish we’d buy it here, but, no, we get that gross single ply. I swear, that stuff should be classified as a crime against humanity.”

“You let the ghost hunters deal with your computer security.”

“Oh, I know that tone. You met them, huh?”

“Just the kid.”

Daily looked up at McGee over the computer.  “What?”

“I only met the kid. Danny.”

Slowly, Daily uncurled from his hunch in front of the computer.  The man was taller than McGee thought.

“Then what’s your issue? Danny’s a good kid.”

A good kid whose parents were allowed to run roughshod over the town, who was allowed to steal from graveyards, and knew all of the police officers.  For some reason.  

“I heard you’re in charge of monitoring the cult?”

Daily snorted.  “You make it sound like there’s just one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, after all the ghosts, most religions had to modernize, you know?”

Oh, god, this was part of the tourist trap.  Or the tourist trap was part of this.  Did they recruit from people who actually believed this nonsense?

“There’s more than one cult?”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like quite a job.”

“Eh.  I’m mostly just keeping track of their online activity.”

“So, how are the Fentons involved?”

“They aren’t.  They’re pretty areligious, overall.  Danny’s been almost kidnapped a few times, though.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Kidnapped.  By a cult.”

“Cults.  Gotta remember the plural, man.  Cults.”  Daily was hunching again.  “But, hey, if you’re interested in the subject, I can give you a thorough run-through of this new group that started up last week.  Their philosophy is wild.  I can’t even tell you—”

“Hey.  You’re early,” said Patterson, leaning through the door, her braid swinging.  “Great. Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” lied McGee.  

“Get better at lying,” said Patterson.  “Come on, let’s go.”

.

Patterson and Collins weren’t the only ones there.  In fact, there were more people in the station than there had been that morning. All with glowsticks.  Said glowsticks were being loaded into unmarked cars while office staff and police officers whispered back and forth.

“Did you get the green stuff?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. Gave me more than enough.” Glowing green milk jugs were loaded into a car.  The car McGee would be riding in with Collins and Patterson.

‘Green stuff.’  Was this some kind of bizarre drug smuggling ring? McGee had fallen behind in drug slang, if so.  ‘Green stuff.’  Were they lacing it with glowstick fluid?

Never before had he felt so lost on a case.  Amity Park was messed up.  

“You’ve got the howlers hooked up?” asked Collins.

“I asked Daily to do it this morning.”

“But did he do it?”

“I mean, it looks like it. Are the howlers really that important?”

McGee had no idea what was going on.  

The cars all started off in a group.  Their car was the last to leave and soon peeled off to trundle slowly down back roads.  

“You probably have questions,” said Collins.

“You could say that,” said McGee.  

“You’ve been a good sport about them,” observed Collins.  

“So,” said McGee, drawing out the word.  “What is this about?”

Patterson swallowed a laugh. “Ever hear of the Men in Black?”

“Look, I’m humoring the ghosts.  Conspiracy theories are where I draw the line.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it’ll stick.  Anyway, here in Amity Park, we deal with their less intelligent cousins.  The Guys in White!”

“That’s not their actual name,” said Collins, glancing back over his shoulder.  “But, well, their appearance fits.”

“Alright, let’s say I believe you.  What does this have to do with the jugs of glowstick fluid in the trunk?”

“Oh, that’s not glowstick fluid,” said Patterson.  “It’s waste from the reactor that powers the town.”

“Don’t worry,” said Collins, hastily, the car swerving somewhat.  “It’s completely harmless!  Not radioactive at all!”

“That’s not what—” started Patterson.  

“You absolutely will not get cancer from it!”

McGee raised a hand.  “You have nuclear reactor fluid in the trunk?”

“It isn’t nuclear reaction fluid,” protested Patterson.  “It’s—"

“Back on track,” interrupted Collins.  

“Yeah.  Anyway.  It’ll trip the Guys in White’s sensors—”

“Eventually,” Collins grumbled.  

“—so we can lead them on a chase.”

“And…  why do we want to do this?”

“Because it’s a quiet month,” said Patterson.  “Don’t want the Guys to get antsy.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means what it means. You’ll see in January.”

McGee looked between his two ‘partners.’  “Are you trying to get me to quit?”

“Because you’re a spy for the county?” asked Patterson.  “Oh, no, never.”

Before McGee could process that statement, the car’s radio crackled to life.  

“We’ve got a class-3 northbound on Orion at 35 miles per hour.  Ectosignature suggests an amorphiform ghost—”

“Hah!” shouted Patterson. “That’s us!  Punch it!”  She twisted the dial on the radio as Collins slammed his foot into the accelerator.  “Bogey to Redrum!  We’ve got followers!”

“Copy, Bogey, this is Redrum. We need a few more minutes to set up. Can you stay out of sight?”

“The hell?”

The radio crackled.  “Forgot you had the new guy!  Don’t shake him up too much, okay?  Over.”

“Copy.  Collins you catch that?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m taking Pan and Laurel.  The holiday tour.”

“Ooh, good choice.” Patterson held up the radio again. “Yeah, we can manage.  Over.”

Collins went faster. For the next several minutes McGee occupied himself with not throwing up.  He succeeded.  Barely.

“Bogey, this Cam,” said the voice of Daily, “followers are gaining.  They’re on Brassica, just passing High Street.  Triggered the speed cameras.  Over.”

“How many and what type? Over.”

“Three gliders.  Don’t think they’ve spotted you yet, though. Over.”

Gliders?  Who did these people think they were kidding?

“Copy, over,” said Patterson. “Not like those guys care about speeders, though,” she muttered.  McGee could barely hear her over the beating of his own heart.

“Sharp right, brace yourselves,” said Collins, split seconds before matching action to words.

“Redrum to bogey, we’re moving out now, over.”

“Copy.  We’re on our way.  Over.  Head to the park, Collins.”

“Gotcha.”

It didn’t seem possible, but Collins somehow pushed the car to go even faster.  Then, just as quickly as the whole ridiculous thing had begun, the car skidded to a halt in a parking lot.  Seeing his chance, McGee clawed at the door handle and dragged himself out onto the pavement.  

Collins and Patterson, meanwhile, were pulling the almost-certainly-toxic waste out of the trunk and launching it into the glowstick-filled woods with—

“Is that a bazooka?” demanded McGee, so far past his wit’s end that he couldn’t even see it anymore.

“Nah, just a modified T-shirt canon,” said Patterson, stowing the object away again.  “Fentonworks special.”

“I don’t believe you,” said McGee.  

Three – Three things – McGee did not want to call them gliders – raced overhead, jets roaring and wind whistling.  They came to a stop approximately where the ‘reactor waste’ had fallen.  

“What the hell?” whispered McGee, passionately.  

“Come on,” said Collins.  “Time for us to go.”

“Yeah, better to spectate from afar,” agreed Patterson.

“I agree,” said a third voice.

“Oh, Danny,” said Patterson.  “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

The boy walked into McGee’s field of view and glanced down at him before shrugging.  “Couldn’t sleep.”  He looked up, at the park.  “Thanks for this.”

“Had to get them to blow this month’s budget somehow,” said Collins.  “But, really, we should all go before the fireworks start.”

Danny sighed.  “Hope they don’t blow up the fountain again.  It just got fixed.”

“Same,” said Patterson.

“Well, see you later.”

“Yep, we’ve got that wellness check tomorrow,” said Collins. “You don’t have any excuse to forget, this time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the teen, waving over his shoulder as he walked straight into the dark.

“What,” said McGee.  

“That’s just Danny for you,” said Collins.  “Great kid.  Super creepy.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d he even know we’re here?” asked McGee, trying to keep his voice even.  

“He did give us that eeeeehhhhhhh—reactor waste,” said Patterson.  “Come on, get up, we’ve got to—”

A small explosion sounded from the park.  

“Seriously.  I don’t want to have to pick you up.”

“I’d wind up doing most of the lifting,” grumbled Collins, who was sliding into the driver’s seat.

Patterson put her hands on her hips.  “Excuse you?”

There was another, larger explosion.  McGee climbed back into the car.

As they drove, he realized that no one had made fun of his name. Not even once.  

Amity Park was weird.  

[hoseas-angry-ghost]

YES YES YES I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR UR THEORIES

Hello anon! I am very surprised anyone wants to hear my chutney but here's my Strange Man Hot Take with some hopefully interesting info for curious parties:

To be honest, R* included so much misdirection around the Strange Man's identity (especially in RDR1) that I'm not *totally* convinced they're married to any one idea. RDR2 also complicated things by introducing new religions into Red Dead's world (Voodoo, Old Norse, etc.): he's no longer limited to just Christian / Western interpretations, as in RDR1, and it's possible R* might try to syncretise him with figures from other faiths (they did place Bayall Edge in Bayou Nwa, where most of the Voodoo stuff is).

At the same time, though, I think RDR2 actually narrowed things down somewhat in terms of the direction R* chose to take his character, and what we were shown of that. There's still a level of misdirection in RDR2, but IMO, it almost comes off as half-hearted in comparison to what was basically trolling in RDR1 -- it seems like they were a lot more focused on playing the "bad news" angle the second time round.

Based on what we know, and on the balance of things, I'm not convinced that the Strange Man is necessarily meant to be any one thing or figure, but I do think he's meant to fulfil some type of Satanic role within Red Dead's world, either in main or in part.

I won't compare and dissect other theories or anything, I just thought I'd list off some things that people might find interesting:

Armadillo. The deal between the Strange Man and Herbert Moon seems to be a pretty textbook Faustian bargain: Moon is offered earthly rewards ("happiness or two generations"), and although the price was (tellingly?) never specified, it seems like the recent Blood Money update for RDO all but confirmed that the cost was probably his soul. Although it's left ambiguous what Moon actually chose, the Armadillo curse was possibly an unforeseen (for Moon) consequence of the deal's terms, which would fit with similar tales of the devil or demon in question taking liberties with their end of the bargain.

In the files, there's some great audio of Moon off the shits and straight-up saying "I've made a deal with the devil, and I will never truly die!" It's possible this was cut for its own reasons (too overt?), but as a lot of stuff was apparently cut from Armadillo, I'm guessing it was either cut when Arthur in New Austin got cut, or it was part of something that R* didn't have time to implement in the epilogue. Either way, if it's not actually in the game then it's not technically canon, but it is an indication of what R* was thinking during development.

There's a lot of audio from the Armadillo townsfolk in general about devils and "devil curses," but the only thing I know of that definitely made it into the game is a line from the town crier ("Devil has the town in his hand").

There's audio of the Armadillo bartender saying "I heard the Tillworths made a deal with the devil to keep from gettin' sick! I don't wanna die any more than the next man, but ain't no safety worth a man's soul." Possibly idle gossip, but given Moon, possibly not.

RDO seemed to flirt with the idea of soul-selling a little bit with Old Man Jones' line "Well, this is America, so anything can be bought -- even souls," but then RDO pretty much just came right out and said it with Bluewater John in the Blood Money update. Bluewater John also apparently made a deal, almost definitely with the Strange Man (given the Moon deal and how close Bayall Edge is to all the drama); he was based on blues musician Robert Johnson and the myth that he sold his soul to the devil for mastery of the guitar. It's basically a rehash of the Moon deal, except it's... not subtle in its dialogue about deals, devils and souls.

"I GAVE EVERYTHING FOR ART, AND I LEARNED TOO MUCH AND NOTHING AT ALL" written on the wall at Bayall Edge also sounds like a reference to another one of these deals to me ("everything" being their soul, and "I learned too much and nothing at all" the foolishness of accepting eternal damnation for temporary knowledge). I think Bayall Edge might have originally belonged to a painter who struck a deal with the Strange Man for artistic skill, but then the Strange Man slowly possessed him or something -- which could be why some of the landscapes depict RDR1's I Know You locations, and why the writings on the wall kind of look like they deteriorate in quality. The puddle of blood at the foot of the portrait might also be linked to this somehow (whose is it?).

It's the deal-making for souls that really pushed the "devil" theory over the edge for me, because I can't think of whose wheelhouse that would be in except a devil's, or someone similarly malevolent.

Alternative name. The Strange Man's character model is called cs_mysteriousstranger in RDR2, and he's referred to as "the mysterious stranger" at least once in RDR1's in-game text. This could be a reference to The Mysterious Stranger, written by Mark Twain between 1897-1908, in which the stranger is a supernatural being called Satan. (At the end of the last version written, he tells the protagonist that nothing really exists and their lives are just a dream.)

Bayall Edge. Bayall Edge was possibly based on a Louisiana urban myth called the Devil's Toy Box, which is "described as a shack. From the outside, it is unappealing and average. ...The inside of the shack consists of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, including the walls. No one can last more than five minutes in this room. ...According to the legend, if you stood inside this mirror-room alone for too long, supposedly the devil would show up and steal your soul." The Strange Man does show up in the mirror eventually, and it's kind of curious that the paintings that change depending on your Honour act as metaphorical mirrors. This was also cut, but in the files, Arthur's drawing of the interior of Bayall Edge is unusually sloppy, like his faculties were impaired or something.

"Awful, fascinating and seductive". John writes this about Bayall Edge after the portrait is finished, and I think that's as good a description of something like the / a devil as any, but "seductive" is a big red flag for me, because it's such an odd choice of word and, from a Christian perspective, it's so loaded with connotations of evil and sin and temptation.

I Know You. Some have pointed out that I Know You in RDR1 resembles the Temptation of Christ, as it also takes place in three separate locations in the desert, and John is given moral tests in which he must choose between higher virtue or worldly vice. John is also, in a weird way, a kind of Christ-like figure in that he ultimately sacrifices his life for others. I do think the "temptation" in these encounters is very surreptitious but very much there ("Or rob her yourself" -- excuse me??), but they may also be operating on a Biblical definition of the word, i.e. a test or trial with the free choice of committing sin.

RDR1 dialogue. I don't want to get *too* much into this because I feel like we're all just getting punked in RDR1, but I think the Strange Man's dialogue broadly fits with something like a "devil" interpretation, or at least doesn't contradict it.

I'm thinking particularly of lines like "Damn you!" / "Yes, many have" (which would work metaphorically but also literally, given that the devil was thrown from heaven by God and his angels), and "I hope my boy turns out just like you" (of all the leading theories, I think Satan is the only figure who's popularly conceptualised as having a son, or prophesied to have a son -- God obviously had a son, but that ship kinda sailed).

I think the "accountant" line refers to Honour (which even uses an invisible numerical system), and how John's fate depends on the number of both good and bad acts he's committed throughout his life, and how these weigh against each other. If the Strange Man likes to collect souls, then he would have a vested interest in auditing you and seeing if your accounts are in the black or the red, as it were (and providing you with opportunities to push yourself further into the latter...), because if you're bankrupt, you're his.

Blind Man Cassidy. Interestingly, Cassidy seems to distinguish between "Death" and the Strange Man, implying that he's something else beyond his understanding: in one of Arthur's fortunes, after his TB diagnosis, he says "the man with no nose [Death] is coming for you," but in one of John's fortunes, he says "Two strangers seek thee: one from this world, perhaps one from another. One brings hatred; I'm not so sure what the other brings."

Arthur's cut dialogue. In the files, there's audio of Arthur having the exact same conversation with Herbert Moon as John in the epilogue, asking about the Strange Man picture because he "just seemed familiar". I think it's interesting that, like John, Arthur also would have apparently recognised the Strange Man despite (presumably) never seeing him before. Given how strong a theme morality is in Red Dead -- and how much both John and Arthur struggle with it -- my theory is that they find the Strange Man vaguely familiar because they're both familiar with the evil within themselves, or the potential for evil; and likewise, the Strange Man "knows" John because he embodies evil in some sense, so is aware of John's worst sins (like his involvement at Blackwater), or possibly even all of his sins (which would be, like, a lot).

Honourable mention: There's such a greater emphasis on conspiracies, myths, etc. in RDR2 that I half-wonder if the Strange Man's RDR2 incarnation was partly inspired by Hat Man (~excuse the link~ but often it's hard to find good sources for the kind of weird shit R* includes in their games).

ANYWAY, this got a little long but I hope someone found all this at least passably interesting. Thanks again for letting me ramble about the video game man, anon!

[jawritter]

Dean Winchester One Shots

Happy Birthday Dean pt. 1

It’s Dean’s birthday, and you realize something about yourself you never knew before… Until now…                                

30 Minutes til Midnight (Happy Birthday Dean pt. 2!)

Sequel ot Happy Birthday Dean, will you finally tell him how you feel?

Middle of the road

Can you keep pretending your just friends, or will it all come out in the middle of the road.

Lonely as the grave

Dean struggles with his reality visiting the graveyard in his hometown of Lawrance, Kansas

The Fool

The reader comfronts Lisa, based on the song The Fool by Leanne Walmack

The Meeting

A secret releationship getts heated during a meet up

Waiting…

Waiting on your hero hunter to come home can be one of the harderst things you ever do.

Finally Yours

Alpha!Dean is in Rut, and only one Omega can help him through it!

Home

Six years ago Christmas Eve Dean made the biggest mistake of his life under influence of the Mark of Cane.

It Was Fifteen Years Ago Today

Haunted by the past tramas even Dean needs a little comfort sometimes.

I Did It Because I Love You

Dean’s been a complete and total asshole, what happenes when the reader finally has all she can take.

Happy Valenties Day Sweetheart

Dean shows the reader a little bit of his softer side….

I Kinda Like The Disease…

Your search for your demon boyfriend takes you to New Orleans during mardi grag…

Challenge Accepted..

Requested: ok so here is a request(idk if you do these)(also it’s smut) so dean talks about how good he is in the bedroom and the reader says something along the lines like “i bet you can’t make me come” Dean challenges this. In the bedroom and you know they doing the dirty or whatever. Dean edges her and edges her and just when the reader had enough of the teasing Dean finally takes her over her edge and the reader is left with the most hot shaking orgasm ever. I hope this makes sense! ❤️ur stories!!

Your Perfect

Request: the reader is always willing to go down on Dean but when Dean goes to return the favor the reader stops him and always finds an excuse. No one has ever offered to go down on her before so she’s insecure about it and doesn’t want to look weird in from of dean. i Hope this makes sense!

Curves

Requested: Can I request a Dean Winchester x plus size reader, where she really shy and dorky but believes that she really bad at sex because she is bigger? And dean shows her that she not 😊💕 I hope this make sense haha! I know this sound awkward turtle 🐢

You Deserve Better Than Me

Requested: Dean winchester x pregnant Reader. Dean feels the reader deserves better than what he can give her in his life, what will he do when he finds out that she’s expecting his baby?

Quarantine

Summery: Everyone is stuck in quarantine right now everywhere, and your stuck alone with Dean, who really needs to blow off steam… Oh what has your big mouth gotten you into now…

My Best Friend

Request: hiii i have dean x reader request! the reader and dean are friends with benefits but recently she’s just been down in the dumps and just wants some platonic affection and not sex. as the writer you can do what u want but could you add Dean playing with the readers hair? i have a weakness for it lol thanks!

Just A Dream…

Part 1

Part 2

Winchesters Fantasies 1000 follower Challenge…

Daddy’s Home

Request: Hey I know this is odd, but I really enjoy your writing and I was wondering if you could possibly do a little smutty Dean thing? Maybe using the name Lyn, and really anything is on the table, I mean, it’s Dean Winchester. (Or if you want, some daddy kink and maybe just rough stuff :o) Thank you dear!! You don’t have to if ya don’t want to, no pressure 💕💕

Like Pulling Teeth

Request: Okay, so I was just watching few recent spn episode and saw Garth episode. Which gave me an curious idea, can you write dentist reader x dean? They’re in a relationship, one day when dean eats something, it pains and reader has to look into it? and then reader says wisdom tooth extraction? Also the fear of dentist which dean already has (shown in the episode, I found it very funny) I know it’s a weird request but I also think it would be very funny🙈

Little Details…

Request: Could I maybe request a Chubby!Reader x Dean story? She’s super sweet and kind of laid back, just going along with the boys as a research partner, but she’s also super artsy and loves to draw Dean while she researches. Maybe some sweet and soft smut, oh! And maybe he plays with her hair? :) Thanks dear!! 🌻💛

Age Is Just A Number…

Request Hello :) How do feel about an age difference, post sex one-shot? Alternate universe (no hunting), consensual, not underage but quite a big age difference (like at least 10years) where Dean is like freaking out because he’s Dean and doesn’t want to destroy the girl’s life?

Mine…

Request: Could you do a one shot where the reader lives with Sam and dean they are best friends. The reader and dean have a secret relationship and dean gets jealous of the reader and Sam hanging out all day. So dean shows the reader who she belongs too in the bedroom.

Right In Front Of You…

Request: Dean x Reader. Reader is hunting with Sam and Dean, and she is constantly getting annoyed at every single thing that Dean does. And she always acts very bad with Dean with this making dean think that she hates him. And that makes mr very sad because he has feelings for her but when Dean save her sacrificing himself from a hunting gone wrong. She stars to develop feelings for him.

Jealous Of My Demons...

Requested: Dean get’s jealous of the reader’s former boyfriend Brady, who is now posses by a demon and working as a stable boy for the horseman pestilence. Who will they work this out?

Princess...

Request: Thank you for answering my question love!💕 can I request a Dean x plus size reader where she is super shy and it drives dean crazy? Fluff, smut? I’m sorry to bother you hahah and that this sounds awkward turtle 🐢 🖤😻

My Girl...

Requested: Hola! request for dean x reader: the readers current boyfriend always puts her down and one day threatens to breakup with her if she doesn’t lose weight, even though she’s not even plus sized or anything. She constantly pushes her body to the limit to lose the weight and dean notices. it ends all fluffy and protective!dean comes out and has a “talk” with the boyfriend. side note for anyone reader this: YOUR BODY IS BEAUTIFUL MAMA 💗🥺

Your Dean...

Request: Heyy! I'm sorry to be a bother. I was wondering if you can do a one shot where the reader is prone to severe panic attacks and her husband Dean is the only one who knows how to calm her down? She gets a really bad attack but Dean for some reason ain't there, and no one is able to help her but eventually he comes back and takes care of her. Sorry if this is a lot haha.

Safe. Warm. His...

Request: Are you taking requests? If so would you possibly write a one shot with Dean where the reader is in little space and just wants to cuddle and nuzzle her head in his neck and give him lots of little kisses and play with his hands? It’s just superrrr fluffy 🥺🥺🖤

One Hell Of A Thank You...

Request: Can I request a Dean Winchester x plus size reader, where the reader is really quirky and dorky and goes on a date but turns out her date is a vampire and kidnapped her and dean saves her and falls in love with her, maybe some angst, fluff and smut 💕

Voices..

Request: Can I request? Dean x reader were she has an Eating Disorder and she’s recovering but today was an off day for her and starts to go back to her old habits and Dean notices and helps her through it.

His Girl...

Request: May I request a Dean Winchester x plus size reader where the reader is very shy and she at a bar and some dirt bags are picking on her about her shortness and weight and dean stands up for her? Some smut and fluff ?? Also want to say you are a bop of a writer my love! ✨💕🥰❤️

Happily Ever After...

Request: Hey beautiful! May I request a Dean Winchester x plus size reader where the reader does all the research for the boys and she is very shy,she a huge Disney fan, one day demons get in the bunker and make fun of her and dean stand up for her and confess his love for her (smut)? And after they cuddle and watch lady and tramp? Fluff and smut you are a gem my dear! 💕

His New Toy...

Request: Hai can I request dean x reader smut with breast bondage and nipple play?? plot (if there is any) is up to you ;)

His Heaven...

Request: Heyy I love your ABO fics and I have a request for you. You can always say no to this if you’re uncomfortable. I’ll completely understand and I’m very sorry. Can you do one with Alpha!Dean x Omega!reader. Where the reader is on a supply run and she gets assaulted and tortured by a monster and when she gets back to the bunker somehow, she only allows her Alpha anywhere near her and refuses help from anyone else. Dean takes care of her and helps her heal.

Something Worth Fighting For

Request: Hi love! Your writing is amazing and I was wondering if you could do a Dean x depressed!reader? Like dean finds the reader about to jump off the roof of the bunker after reading the note she left him and sam saying goodbye. He had never suspected anything cause she hid it so well. Dean saves her and tells her his feelings for her? You can also add any details you want or anything like that! There is no rush! Thank you!

Unlikely Places

Trigger Warning: Non-Con

Request: Hi! I love your work! Can you do a ABO? One where the reader is Beta, and Dean Alpha, and she’s his true mate/soulmate, but they don’t know it, and he gets possessive and goes into almost a feral rut where he tries to claim, and it almost kills her but Sam and Rowena save her and give Dean his Omega back? You come up with the plot because you’re amazing at that!! Please! I’d be forever in your debt!

I Hurt Too

Request: hi there! I have seen loads of fics and one shots where Dean is sleeping around/having a one night stand and the reader gets jealous and upset, but I was wondering if I could request one with the other way around? or maybe one where they sleep around equally? as smutty, fluffy, or angst as you want!!

What’s Left Of Me

Summary: Who know one little woman could have turned his whole world upside down? He had done so good alone for so long. Then here you come along, and ruin everything

Elf

Summary: Maybe being stuck at home alone with Dean for Christmas isn’t so bad after all.

Save Me

Summary: It’s not always easy being the hero, especially when no one is ever there to save you.

Saving Grace

Summary:  Some things are worth fighting for, even when they think they’re not. You can either roll over and die, or you can pick yourself up off the ground and go get what you want. That’s the place Y/N now finds herself in.

Living With Regret

Summary: Death can be hard to deal with in any aspect, but when you’re in the life, it's something you deal with all to often, and carry with you until it's your turn to burn.

Happy Halloween

Summary: It’s Daddy’s favorite holiday. So what’s a good girl gonna do, but let him blow off some steam after a successful hunt?

I’ll Wait For You

Summary:  Sometimes when we’re angry, hurt, or scared we say things wrong. Say things that hurt the ones we love. When Dean takes things a step to far can you find it in your heart to forgive him?

An Alpha And His Omega

Summary:  Sometimes Alpha’s aren’t the assholes, sometimes words Omegas say things that can hurt too. 

No, Screw You Sweetheart

Summary: You HATE Dean Winchester, I mean you really, REALLY hate Dean Winchester.

30 Minutes In Heaven

Summary: Your life, like many hunters before you, was cut short. You had no idea at the time the Fates that were at play in the universe were really those of dick angles and egotistical assholes with massive god complexes. And you also had no idea that they were really the reason you lost your life, and you had no idea why… Until around 30 minutes after you made it to Heaven.

The Devil And I

Pt. 1   Pt. 2   Pt. 3

Summary: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right? You survived after you thought your mate had died, but how will you survive finding out he's alive, only different.

Don’t Let It Show...

Summary: She’s had enough of him, just like every other woman always seems to, and normally, he doesn’t care, but this time...this time it hurts.

Don’t Fear The Reaper

Summary: They took him from her, her knit, her king, her Dean, “cured” him, and now she’s going to get him back, she’s going to set him free.

Scars And All

Summary:  You and Dean have a strange, mutual relationship, but that’s all it is, physical. Until an almost bar fight brings some things to light that you thought you’d never hear.

I Almost Lost You

Summary:   Sometimes, monsters aren't always monsters...sometimes they're people.

Touch Starved

Summary: Sometimes when the hunt is hard, and his mind is loud, Dean just wants to be close to someone he loves, but is to scared to say it out loud. Thankfully, she knows him better than he knows himself.

I Wanna Be Your Everything

Summary:  After a huge fight, and a week away from Dean, he’s finally decided it was okay to have the ending he’d always wanted.

One More Sunset

Summary: Dean just wants the pain to go away...