#and being punished for it by having reality collapse around them

[elowhinn]

Back to Where We Started. [ (?)Reader x TWST. ]

CW : Blood, Death ( Tell me if I missed anything :D )

Not edited! Not proofread!

Shouting- lots and lots of shouting you believe you heard, although the ringing in your ear made it hard to tell; in your arms you cradled him, Grim. And as much as you could, you kept him close to your ever cold body- hoping that his would heat up, your heart ached- his shallow breaths made you worry.

What if he doesn't live? The ebbed it's way into your mind- intrusive, and unwelcome, because you wanted- needed to believe otherwise, otherwise the growing pain in your heart might be the one to kill you instead. Everything that transpired- it felt like a blur, you shouted out half-assed commands in hopes you wouldn't hurt Grim more- wouldn't let him suffer more.

You held Grim's small body oh, so gingerly in your arms- doing so another thought crossed your mind making you laugh bitterly to yourself, and only yourself; You felt yourself laugh at the notion of you being motherly, but in some weird way you did think that- think that Grim was practically family.

How the sting in your heart would ever more increase.

Even as the dull ache that spread across your body made you want to collapse right then and there, you tried your damnedest to stay upright. Blood, and ruined structures surrounded you both- hiding you both, in secrecy from everybody.

The sun hung low in the horizon, and as the soft sunrise cast a glow that blanketed everything around you- You made a desperate attempt of begging, hoping that someone, anyone could hear your cries; but you knew that only the wind was the only being that heard you-

" Please.. This can't be how it ends.. " You murmured, thoughts spoken out loud with a voice so hoarse and dry maybe the sound of it could even beat sandpaper. But dully, it was for naught- and only you feel the uneasy feeling fester deep inside you, growing more as you realize your foolish attempts of believing in childhood dreams would somehow come true..

Even if this world had magic, mythical beasts- and all you thought were fantasy; this was still reality, not some fairy tale dream written by some stupid fool-!

But.. Seeing the battered bodies of your friends- rise from the debris; some even shouting your name.. You couldn't help but need to do the same, rise above it all- like you always did, show them that you were alive and fine- beaten, and bloody- but still alive.

You didn't. You couldn't, the ache in your body finally reigned in on you- every movement felt like needles pricking- nipping at your skin; punishing you for even the slightest movement, but you didn't regret persevering through it just to hold Grim, to have him in your arms once more-

His fur was matted, disheveled- and stained with crimson and or inky liquid; A result of your failure to realize that, failure to neglect the obvious signs that Grim shown..

The tears felt hot and heavy as they slid past your cheeks- dripping unto him, if he were awake- would he reprimand you for dirtying the 'Great Lord Grim's' fur? The metallic taste in your mouth seemed to increase,

Oh how you wished you spent more time with him, with all of them- would you have more memories to look back upon? People said in your last moments- you'd remember the greatest memories of your life, and if you could bet- most of them would be here.

Grim was your first anchor to this world, and the rest- slowly became one too; they helped you, created memories with you- and you cherished the bond you achieved with them even though the time was short- cut briefly.

" I'm a sucker for good endings, "

The words echoed back on you,

so as the ringing in your ear turn null,

you start to regret more,

You hope that during these last moments,

the pain that built up in your body

seemed to chip away,

You'll remember the times where you gave a genuine smile,

blinking.. felt like it was causing your

eyesight to deteriorate by the second,

Laughed until your ribs ached,

warmth leaves your body slowly,

making you feel numb.

Even during this short period of life,

the feelings you had before, now- felt empty.

You wish that you could've cherished them more,

but even then, you could still crack a

solemn smile as you reminisce.

" I'm a sucker for good endings, "

Darkness envelopes you fully, fitting isn't it? From the way you entered this world through pitch black darkness and a coffin, you'll leave it in pitch black darkness and in a coffin.

Oh how you loved stories that came in full circle, stories with detailed- and or simple premises; but to you that didn't matter, you've read your fair share of novels- and as cliche as it is.. You always appreciated the journey more than the destination, and as childish as you are- you adored endings where the narrator finally rewards the main character; giving them the peace they oh so desired and to you even needed.

.

.

.

.

You're not alive anymore to tell the tale.

....But you woke up, in a dark- tight area; but it feels so nostalgic… Was this H-E-double hockey sticks? Man, you could've sworn they said it a bit more- warm? As you tried to shuffle your way out, you then heard a familiar voice- a voice you desperately wanted to hear once more-

“ Myahahaha! Now, eeny, meeny, miny, moe… " Grim.. ? Was that you- !?

Mustering up all your strength- you quickly thrust your hands out; " What the- Myah! " Grim- ( You presume, ) Suddenly let out a loud yelp, from which you concluded probably was because of you- watching how the coffin lid fall and hit something you jumped out quick on your feet as you scooped up the Feline from the floor in your arms-

" Human- what are you doing!? Let go of me, fnyah! " You feel his paws- warm paws try to push you off; Wet- and sliding down your cheek, your eyes- finally capable of shedding the tears you wanted to before- the warm fuzzy feeling swelled in your chest; and so did the scratches on your cheek.

" Grim- I missed you so much.. ! " You happily let out, nuzzling into his fur even more even though he keeps pushing you away; " Stupid Kid… " He grumbled- " Let go of me! You're gonna ruin my fur! " Suddenly a burst of flames exited his mouth, causing you to squint and- instinctively letting go of him;

Grunting out as you used your arms to shield your face; you then notice it- your robes were of the same from when you first came here, and as your drifted unto your feline companion- you notice how his body is skinnier.. smaller even-

" Finally- phew! Alright, kid. Just who'dya think you're holdin' unto! I'm the Great Lord Grim! " Grim introduces, but you remain silent as the dots finally click-

" Great, now my plans to just snatch em' off ya while you're asleep is out- " He crossed his arms, which caused you to gush inwardly at how- adorable, and pouty he looked!

His then held up one of his paw's to you, making inward motions as he said, " Whatever, now hand over what you got on. " He demanded, blue eyes looking at you- alive, and healthy; your hands weren't bleeding and calloused- and everything that was happening- happened before- you remember it all, vividly well.

Did you just go back in time?

A/N : Writing on a whim seems to do the trick, considering i wrote this all in one sitting :D yay, i did say that i was gonna continue the AntiMag!Reader over the uh summer and guess what yay summer- so i'm back to writinggg :D if u hadnt guessed by the title or maybe drawn out from what i wrote, its a reggressor reader yayyyyyy kewl ik

early warning now, this story is very much ooc because while yes i do my best to understand the character unfortunately im not that good in the dialogue category of writing so if u feel that it is ooc, please uhm dont bash me for it im trying my best :D

[creampuffqueen]

hold you til you fall asleep

Summary: After a sudden bought of illness, Yangchen is convinced she's on the road to recovery. Kavik feels a bit differently about her healing process - and what caused the illness in the first place.

Word count: 5358

Read on ao3

----

It’s been a while since Yangchen’s body has ached like this. 

Not long enough, though.

This kind of bone deep, body trembling, head pounding pain can only mean one thing, and Yangchen is loathe to open her eyes and face the reality of it. She knows she must have slept for a while, if the dryness in her mouth is any indication. Perhaps, if she keeps her eyes shut, she can get a bit more real rest before she’s forced to think about anything else. 

And yet, the light streaming behind her closed eyelids beckons her to crack her eyes open, what feels like her entire being wincing at the effort. A groan of pain escapes her lips before she can choke it back, and her arms shake when she attempts to sit herself up. 

Yangchen collapses back onto the pillows, head spinning. 

Wait, pillows -

The last thing she remembers is standing up from the dinner table and nearly folding in on herself, clutching the corner for balance as her vision blurred. She remembers shouting. She remembers arms wrapping around her, holding her upright as her legs gave way.

But she does not remember getting into a bed. Which means that someone put her here, tucked her in, and cared for her for… 

How long have I been away?!

Yangchen digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, as if she can bring the blank in her memory back if she adds enough pressure. All she accomplishes is making her vision spark. 

She can hear her own pulse echoing in her ears, the thrumming noise of it a hammer on the inside of her skull. The room sways with each breath she takes, a threatening force should she dare to try and get up again. 

Still, Yangchen refuses to be deterred. She knocked out at dinner last night, surely she must have slept through the night and now it’s the next morning. She can catch up on her work; she won’t be too far behind, she’ll just grab a cup of tea and that will push away the lingering pain and –

The handle of the bedroom door twists and clicks, creaking slightly as it opens with a soft push. Yangchen turns slightly to look, propping herself up on a trembling elbow. 

“Oh. You’re awake.”

Yingsu’s normally deadpan voice carries a note of surprise, making Yangchen more confused than ever.

“Don’t get too excited about it,” She mutters sarcastically. Gritting her teeth, she manages to finally pull herself up to sitting, frustrated at the effort it requires. 

Yingsu lets herself fully into the room, shutting the door behind her and walking over to the bed. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to be up. I was getting kinda used to you being out cold these last few days.”

Wait. Days?

Yangchen can feel her stomach plummeting. When she speaks again, her voice comes out in a startled croak, “What do you mean by days?” 

Yingsu’s reply is uncharacteristically gentle. “You’ve been asleep for three days, Yangchen.”

A shiver works its way up her spine, her breath catching in her chest. The blankets tucked around her suddenly feel too heavy, too tight, too restricting. She shoves them away, trying not to let the panic in her head overtake her heart. 

“Woah, woah, slow down,” Yingsu urges, “It’s all okay, we’ve been taking care of everything.”

Yangchen slides her legs off the bed, ignoring the way she sways with the motion. “A lot can happen in three days. I need to look over my correspondence -”

“You need to go back to bed,” The larger woman insists. She places two hands on Yangchen’s shoulders, holding her in place. The airbender tries to swat her away, but her smaller, weakened hands are no match. She feels like a child being punished for throwing a tantrum. 

Yingsu seems unimpressed with Yangchen’s glare. “Stay here. I’m going to let the others know that you’re up.” Slowly, she removes her hands, backing away. “Stay. I mean it.”

As though she has a choice. Her head is utterly swimming.

When the firebender shuts the door quietly behind her, Yangchen slumps back onto the pillows, attempting to take stock; of herself, of her surroundings, of the situation as a whole. 

Build the bridge. One piece at a time. Build the bridge. Build it –

Yangchen digs her fingers into her own scalp, grimacing from the pain but grateful for the sensation nonetheless. There’s too much missing. She can’t build anything in this state.

Before her thoughts can spiral any further, a gentle knock on the door signals the arrival of more newcomers. Yangchen forces herself to sit up again, to meet the eyes of everyone coming to check on her. 

They enter one at a time, cautious and slow, as though she’s some kind of animal they can’t afford to startle. Yingsu leads the way, then is followed in turn by Jujinta, Tayagum, Akuudan, and Boma. 

Boma is the first to approach her, smile warm and comforting. “Glad to see you up and about, Avatar.” Yangchen accepts the hug he offers, appreciative of the warmth it provides. Her body can’t quite seem to decide if it’s hot or cold at the moment. 

The others move in to provide their own well-wishes, but Yangchen is finding it hard to focus. Her gaze flutters between each of her companions, easily detecting the gap in their retinue. She glances up at the door, but the hallway outside is noticeably barren of the one person she really wants to see.

Boma’s hand settles on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “He’s on a supply run. He’ll be back soon.”

Her pounding heart slows down a bit. Everyone is accounted for.

“Are you hungry?” Akuudan’s deep timbre pulls her from her wandering thoughts. “You haven’t had a proper meal in days.”

The logical part of Yangchen’s brain knows that, yes, she’s hungry. Starving, practically. And yet, the rest of her consciousness rails against the thought of stopping to eat, of all things. There’s no time for that at all.

“I’m not hungry,” She replies, attempting yet again to swing her legs over the side of the bed. 

Several arms move to block her way. “If you’re not going to eat,” Tayagum reasons, “Then you should keep resting. You need time to rebuild your strength.”

“All of you stop it,” Yangchen snaps, “I’m fine, and I need to get up so I can work.”

Her team retreats, chastised but wary, watching her every move. Still scowling, Yangchen removes the many blankets layered on top of her and settles onto the wooden floor.

She barely manages to stand for a few seconds before her knees buckle beneath her, sending her sprawling forward like a newborn wolf-deer. Only Jujinta’s lightning-quick reflexes save her from concussing herself on the bedframe. 

“Back to bed with you,” Boma insists, ushering her back onto the mattress with a tone that leaves no room for argument. “You’re still feeling weak. Rest for a while longer.”

Yangchen purses her lips, trying to hold back the tears of frustration she can feel springing to her eyes. She can’t rest; she’s missed too much time as it is already. 

However, much to her own displeasure, it seems her body is inclined to disagree with her mind. The headache she’s been attempting to ignore makes its presence known with a sudden throbbing pain, sending her reeling backwards with a choked groan of agony.

“Jujinta, close the curtains please,” Boma orders quietly. One of his weathered hands strokes soothingly across Yangchen’s forehead, the touch of a concerned grandparent. “I’m going to get you a glass of water, and then we’ll all leave you be. Please try and rest.”

All Yangchen can stand to do is nod.

She watches her team file from the room out of the corner of her half-lidded eyes, biting down on her tongue to try and distract herself from all the pain elsewhere. Squirming back beneath the blankets, she wraps herself up in warmth and darkness until it’s all she can feel. 

The blankets muffle the sound around her, of Boma placing a glass of water on her nightstand, of the door clicking shut behind him, of the others talking between themselves downstairs. All she can hear is the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears, thumping in time with the throbbing in her head. 

She closes her eyes fully. Sleep overtakes her before she even has a chance to recognize it. 

~~~~

When she wakes for the second time, something is different. 

Everything in her body is about the same. Her headache has subsided a bit, but the rest of her muscles are still filled with a low hum of pain. Additionally, she must have rolled onto her side at some point, because the shoulder pinned beneath her at an awkward angle tingles with pins and needles, springing yet another grimace to her features. 

The prickling sensation dies down after a few moments, allowing her to truly assess what is different this time: the presence of another person sitting on the bed with her.

She can sense the dip in the mattress beside her, feel the faint warmth of another body close by. And distantly, through the blankets piled high around her, she can hear the faint scratching of a pencil. Smooth, steady, and unmistakable.

Yangchen slowly pulls herself from the blanket wraps, taking in the person’s figure illuminated by a single candle. Kavik is seated on the bed, hunched over a stack of papers in his lap, thoroughly and methodically circling important passages. There’s a smear of charcoal across one of his cheekbones, and his lips purse together in that familiar focused pout of his, eyes never once leaving his work.

That is, until he feels her shifting on the bed and turns to face her, pencil at last stalling its gentle scuffing. 

“You’re awake.”

His voice doesn’t hold surprise, not in the way the others’ did. Instead, his lips twitch, the start of a smile, gaze brightening just at the sight of her.

For some reason, it makes Yangchen want to crawl back beneath the blankets and hide. 

“I’m awake,” She repeats softly, carefully easing herself up to sitting. The motion doesn’t make her quite as dizzy as before, but it still feels like it takes five times the effort it should. Her body hasn’t stopped rebelling against her. 

Kavik’s mouth opens slightly, as though he wants to speak, but no words form from it. He just sits and stares, unmoving as a statue.  

Eventually, he swallows, managing to find his voice again. “How have you been?”

“Asleep for three days, apparently,” Yangchen replies dryly.

Kavik flushes. “Oh, right. Yeah, I knew that.” Shaking his head, he manages to correct himself. “I meant to ask how you’ve been feeling since you woke up. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you with the others.”

“That’s not your fault.” 

He shrugs. “Still. I wish I was there.”

“You’re here now,” Yangchen points out. How long has he been here, quietly working and waiting for her to wake again? Her internal clock is completely out of whack, and with the curtains drawn it’s hard to see the outside light to judge it.

Kavik glances at the papers in his lap. “I guess that’s true. Let me put all this away for now. Do you need anything?”

“I need to see those papers,” Yangchen attempts. “I need to get caught up.”

The stack of papers is quickly pulled out of reach, Kavik tucking the charcoal pencil behind his ear. “No way. You still need to recover. Don’t worry yourself with this, I’ve been handling it.”

An exasperated breath huffs between her lips. “Yes, you’ve handled it while I was ill. But I’m awake now, and I need to keep up my own correspondence.”

She reaches for the papers again, but Kavik whips them away, holding them above his head. He’s playing dirty now, and Yangchen isn’t in the mood for it.

“Give me my papers, Kavik.”

“You don’t need these. They’re just accounting reports I’ve been annotating.”

“Then get me that papers that I do need!” She hates how shrill her voice is becoming, but she can’t stand this, this treating her like a child who needs a time-out. “Letters, sales reports, world news. Those are all things I need to be keeping up with!”

“I’ve been keeping up with them,” Kavik protests, “And I’ll continue keeping up with them while you recover! You need to rest, Yangchen.”

“You don’t get to decide what I need!” She snaps.

Yangchen grabs for the papers he’s holding again, but this time Kavik launches himself off the bed and crosses his arms. His smile has faded, leaving only a concerned frown in its wake. “Fine. Prove to me that you don’t need more rest. Stand up, walk over to me, and come get the papers.”

She kicks the covers off her body and reaches for the nightstand to haul herself off the bed. There’s weakness in each and every muscle, but if she chooses her path carefully to support herself with the furniture she can –

“Unassisted,” Kavik adds, frown deepening. “No bending, either.”

“You jerk,” Yangchen hisses. But she stays put. He read her too easily.

Kavik sighs deeply, placing the stack of papers on her desk. He walks back to the bed, sitting down on the edge a few arms’ lengths away. Perhaps he thinks she’s going to throw something at him. Part of Yangchen wants to. 

“I’m sorry,” He finally says, “but Yangchen, you’ve been pushing yourself too hard. That’s why you’ve been sick.”

Their eyes meet, and her anger begins to wilt underneath his concern and sadness. Kavik moves closer, until he can take a gentle hand to her back, rubbing in slow, soothing circles. “Why didn’t you tell me things were getting so bad?”

“I didn’t think it was this bad,” She replies honestly, hating the way her bottom lip is beginning to wobble. “I thought I was handling it.”

“Collapsing at the dinner table and then running a fever for three days is hardly what I’d call ‘handling it’,” Kavik adds softly. His free hand inches forward until the very tips of his fingers are touching hers. Warmth sparks from his touch, even at the barest hint of it.

Still, Yangchen is struggling to wrap her head around it. Three days. She’s missed so much. How can she catch up if she’s still being forced to rest for who knows how much longer?

“You need to take it easier, Yangchen,” Kavik sighs. “Not just while you’re recovering. I mean easier overall.”

She jerks her hand away from his. “That’s not possible. You know that, Kavik. I can’t afford to take it easier, not when there’s people who need me.”

“You won’t be helping anybody if you drop dead at twenty from not taking care of yourself!” Kavik snaps.

Yangchen’s eyes narrow into a glare. “Don’t exaggerate.”

“I’m not,” He insists. “You really frightened all of us.”

A pause. And then, much softer, he adds, “You really frightened me.”

How can she possibly respond to that? Somewhere, deep down, the knowledge that he cares about her so much places a seed of warmth and comfort. But on the surface, her hackles are raising, defenses shoring up around her heart. 

“I’m fine,” She insists.

Kavik sighs in exasperation. “Aren’t you tired, Yangchen?”

“Of course I’m tired,” Yangchen all but spits, “I’m always tired. Of all of it. But that doesn’t mean I can stop.”

“Do you even hear yourself right now?!”

“Do you? You don’t get to tell me how to handle things, Kavik; I can take care of myself!”

“Fine then!” Kavik yanks his hand from her back as though he’s been burned, standing up and heading for the door. “Take care of yourself then! Keep on starving yourself and staying awake for days and drinking your stupid poison tea and punishing yourself for things that aren’t your fault! See if I care!”

Before Yangchen can attempt to form an answer he’s already gone, slamming the bedroom door shut behind him. The force of it rattles the bed, and Yangchen’s bones along with it. 

She’s left reeling in his wake, shaking, tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. She looks up quickly, breathing deeply, doing her best to hold off from a full-on crying session. Her headache is back. 

Her efforts don’t work. When she wipes at her face her sleeve comes away wet. Another surge of frustration washes over her, causing her to grab the nearest pillow and hurl it at the door with all her might, biting her tongue to hold back her scream. 

The pillow falls short. She buries her face against the mattress, muffling the scream she lets burst forth. 

Kavik is always honest with her. Well, besides the one notable incident. Otherwise, in the years she’s known him, he’s been honest with her, more so than anyone else. Normally she appreciates it. Somehow, this is different.

Yangchen rolls back over, dragging her hands down her face and heaving a sigh. She’s fine. She can work. She can deal with… whatever just happened later.

Maybe after she cleans up, though. She hasn’t bathed in three days, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious the longer she lays here. 

She hauls herself up to sitting yet again. If nothing else, that is getting easier. Sliding gently off the bed, she makes a hobbling pace for the door to her bathing quarters, holding herself steady on the furniture as she walks. 

So what if she isn’t up to walking unassisted just yet? She doesn’t need to walk to answer letters. “What does Kavik even know?” She mutters to herself, “Who does he think he is?”

Yangchen stands at the entrance to her bathroom, clinging to the wooden doorframe as her vision steadies. The idea of a bath is a bit daunting, frankly, as she visualizes all the steps she’ll need to take. For a heartbeat, she imagines how much simpler it would be if there was someone to help.

She brushes the thought aside as quickly as it came. She’s Avatar Yangchen, for Spirits’ sake. She’ll be fine by herself. 

~~~~

Although she no longer carries the same aroma as her beloved lemurs after her bath, that seems to be the only benefit. Her headache has only gotten worse, and the steam from the water made her woozy. 

Her hair is still incredibly damp, despite having been dried with a towel. She would airbend it dry, but even the thought of it makes her weak in the knees. She just doesn’t have the energy. 

Yangchen leans against the bathroom counter to catch her breath. Normally after a bath Kavik would bend the water from her hair, his precision with the element often surpassing her own.

Tonight, it’s just her.

She takes a deep breath, rubbing the towel over her drying hair once more. It will be frizzy in the morning, but that’s an issue for Tomorrow Yangchen. For now, she needs back in her bed until her headache subsides again. 

Putting on her robes also feels like too much effort. Instead, she carefully maneuvers herself to the drawer she keeps her clothing in and pulls on a pair of flowing linen pants and a matching loose top. She wears these as sleeping garments – if she bothers to change into them to sleep. They’re looser, lighter, and far less suffocating than the many layers she normally wears.

Clothing sorted, Yangchen curls back up on the bed, knees tucked to her chest, trying to slow her pounding heart. Her body aches with every inhale. Somehow, sleep still eludes her.

She loses track of the time she spends like this, holding herself in the fetal position, too weak to even bother pulling blankets over herself to stave off the chill of the room. Her stomach begins to growl, and when she clutches at it her head throbs in response. It feels like she’s falling to pieces. 

A soft knock on the door startles her from her bed of misery, and Yangchen peels her eyes open to look at the source of the noise.

Peeking through a crack in the doorway, Boma’s gentle, wrinkled smile greets her. “I come bearing gifts, Avatar.”

“Hm?” Yangchen’s throat is scratchy, as though she’s been crying. She honestly can’t remember if she has.

“Dinner,” Boma elaborates, stepping into the room. He’s carrying a tray loaded down with dishes, and Yangchen can practically feel the way her body perks up at the scent. “You’ve hardly eaten anything for three days, you must be starving.”

Yangchen’s stomach decides to answer for her, letting out an audible growl. Her cheeks warm in embarrassment, but Boma just keeps smiling, walking over to set the tray down on her nightstand. 

“There’s churu, momos, shogo khatsa, shom-dae, lots of balep, and butter tea. Eat up, food will help you get your strength up.”

Yangchen certainly doesn’t need to be told twice. She dives in, not caring about how she’s slurping or chewing too loudly or anything else. Boma made her a traditional Air Nomad feast, and each bite tastes like home. 

“Don’t choke yourself!” Boma chuckles, noting the cough she makes after devouring an entire momo in barely two bites. Yangchen, still coughing, grabs the mug of butter tea to wash everything down. 

It’s after her cup is emptied that everything comes rushing back. Three days, missing from her memory. Her body, hardly functioning.

And Kavik…

“Boma,” Yangchen starts softly, taking small bites of rice pudding between her words, “Can I ask for some advice?”

Boma’s smile is warm and comforting, exactly like the food he must have spent hours preparing for her. “Of course you can, Avatar.”

Yangchen can’t quite meet his eyes, focusing instead on spooning as much of the cheesy churu soup into her mouth as possible. “Kavik and I had a… disagreement earlier. I don’t – I don’t know how to make things right again.”

Boma takes a sip of his own tea. “I knew you two had argued –”

Yangchen’s head snaps up. “What? Why? Did he say something about it?”

“Not with his words, no. But he was frustrated and upset after he went to see you, so it wasn’t too hard to piece together. He offered to help me cook, but he was being so rough when folding my momos I had to put him on butter-churning duty to get some of that frustration out.”

Well, at least she hasn’t been alone in feeling awful about it. 

“What was the disagreement about, if I may ask?” Boma questions.

Yangchen’s voice is nearly a whisper. “He told me I needed to accept more help.” Saying it out loud only makes her realize even more how ridiculous it was of her to fight about it. Of course she needs more help; she needs all the extra help she can get if there’s to be a possibility of her life’s work succeeding. 

“That’s all?” Boma probes with a pointed look.

“No,” Yangchen admits after a small pause. “He also kept telling me that I need to slow down and take it easier. But how could I do that, even if I wanted to? People all over the world are depending on me to make their lives better.”

“You can’t improve other lives by making your own a misery,” Boma offers sagely. “I agree with him in that regard.”

“But I – I’m not making my life a misery!” Yangchen protests. 

“Clearly your companion thinks differently.”

“Why does he get to decide if my life a misery?”

“He doesn’t, not really,” Boma agrees, “But I am inclined to agree with his assessment. He certainly has better judgement in that regard compared to anyone else.”

Yanghcen’s brow knits in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Boma takes another sip of tea. “You didn’t see the way he cared for you while you were ill.”

“I thought you all cared for me together.”

“We did at first,” Boma confirms, “But it became clear rather quickly that your waterbending companion was… better equipped for the job.”

Understanding crashes over her in a wave. “My gift.”

Boma sighs heavily. “There was plenty of time where you were just… well, just ill, I suppose. But there were also many appearances from your past lives. Times you were up speaking nonsense half the night.”

The pieces of Boma’s point are falling into place one by one. “Kavik helped with the episodes?”

Another nod from her guardian. “He did. Better than I ever have, honestly. And besides that he just cared for you. Brought you water, made sure you were comfortable, stayed by your side. All of that, on top of keeping up with both your work and his own.”

And I just pushed him away.

Yangchen stuffs more potatoes into her mouth so she doesn’t have to keep speaking. 

Boma carefully meets her eyes. “He cares for you, Yangchen. If he thinks you should ease up, let others take on some more of your burden…”

Yangchen places her spoon on the tray, no longer hungry. “You agree with him.”

Boma sets his mug of tea in his lap to join their gazes, expression serious. “No Avatar before you has shouldered their burden alone. Why force yourself to walk this path when you have people who want to help you?”

“I’m not alone,” Yangchen insists, “I have an entire team, I have you, Boma. That’s the opposite of alone.”

“Exactly. You’re not alone,” Boma agrees, nodding. Finishing his tea, he stands from the bed, pressing a gentle kiss to the crown of Yangchen’s head. “Stop pretending like you have to be.”

~~~~

If he hadn’t stubbed his toe on the desk chair, Yangchen might not have known he was there. Kavik is good at sneaking, and he’s memorized the creaky spots on her floorboards. However, all the espionage skills in the world can’t prevent his misstep against the desk, and the pained hissing and cursing that follows that wakes her up from her nap. 

“Kavik?”

He turns to her with a wince, face shadowed in the half-dark of her room. “Did I wake you up? Sorry, I just needed to grab a few things that I left in here.”

“What are you getting?”

He glances guiltily at the desk. “Some letters that arrived this morning. I was going to sort through which ones needed a response of some kind.”

“Okay,” Yangchen agrees, “But you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. You can stay and work in here.”

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your rest.”

“You won’t,” Yangchen promises. She’s always found the sound of him writing to be soothing. If anything, she might fall asleep easier.

Kavik still looks unsure.

“You won’t,” Yangchen repeats, “I promise. Stay here and work. We can… talk for a bit.”

Carefully, each movement measured, Kavik pulls the chair from the desk and takes a seat. He spends a few seconds sorting through stacks of papers until he finds what he needs. Then he glances back over his shoulder, blue eyes somber.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

Yangchen lifts her eyes to meet his, heartbeat thundering in her ears. She holds his gaze, opening up every vulnerable part of her for him to see. “I’m sorry too.”

The apologies lift some of the weight from her chest, but now it feels as though they’re at a standstill. Kavik turns back to his papers, shoulders hunched. 

“You’re right,” Yangchen blurts before she can talk herself out of it. That makes him pause. “And I’m sorry for making you worry so much.”

“I only worry about you because I care,” Kavik replies softly. He isn’t looking at her, instead fishing around in one of the drawers for a pencil. 

“I know you care.”

Finally, Kavik turns around again, this time fully facing her. He tucks the pencil behind his ear. “I know you’re not used to having people care about you. And I mean you, Yangchen, not the Avatar.”

“Nobody has done for me what you’ve been doing since I lost my sister,” Yangchen affirms in a whisper. 

“I’m happy to do it for you. I want to do it for you, care about you.” Kavik takes a deep breath. “But I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

“It’s hard to accept help when you’ve had to do things alone in the past.”

“But you’re not alone now,” Kavik adds, in a nearly identical way to what Boma told her earlier. “Let us help. Let me help.”

Yangchen slips off the side of the bed, slowly making her way over to where Kavik is working. She’s steadier on her feet than she was earlier. The food must have helped even more than she realized. 

Tentatively, she places her hand on his shoulder. His skin is warm, even through his shirt. It makes her want to get closer.

“I want to let you help more. Can you just… be patient with me? Please?”

Kavik places his own hand on top of hers, a tiniest hint of a smile curling the edge of his lips. “We can ease into it. Together. I don’t want this to keep happening, Yangchen, I want you to be okay.”

She squeezes his hand, feeling a smile of her own starting to break over her face. “I want that too.”

Something unspoken passes between them as they lean in at the same time, eyes closed, noses just barely touching. Yangchen can feel the warmth of Kavik’s breath for a split second before she closes the distance and kisses him. 

His lips are gentle against hers, kissing her back with just the right amount of pressure. Yangchen breaks from it first, already out of breath. Kavik moves his hand to her cheek, tugging her closer with the softest motion to lay another kiss against it. 

“You should probably get some sleep,” Kavik whispers, kissing her cheek again.

“I don’t want to sleep,” Yangchen laughs breathlessly. But as soon as she finishes her sentence, a massive yawn parts her jaws wide. She and Kavik lock eyes when it finishes, neither of them able to keep from laughing. 

“I think your body might be disagreeing with you.”

Yangchen has to cover her mouth as she yawns again, this one longer than the last. “Fine, I’ll rest.” After a moment of thought, she adds, “You’ll stay, right?”

Kavik takes her hand and squeezes it, fully smiling now. “Of course I will.”

She hardly realizes she’s doing it, but in a swift movement Yangchen settles herself into Kavik’s lap on the chair, sitting with her legs across him and tucking her head against his shoulder. His breath hitches in surprise, but he just as quickly encircles her with his arms, rubbing a hand gently over her back. 

“You can still work, if you want,” Yangchen offers quietly.

“Is this some kind of ploy to sneak peeks at your letters?” Kavik asks, though his tone is joking.

Yangchen shakes her head, nuzzling further into the crook of his neck. “It isn’t. I just like listening to you.”

Sitting like this, she can feel each time his chest rises and falls with his breath, every thump of his heartbeat behind his ribcage. Every part of him that’s alive, and real, and holding her close like she’s something precious. 

Her eyes fall closed when he starts to write. One of his hands keeps circling over her back, spreading warmth with every movement. The other holds his pencil steady, scratching over the paper in perfect, precise marks. She could listen to him all night. 

She’s too tired for that though, truly. When her own breathing begins to slow she doesn’t fight it, and when the darkness behind her eyes beckons her closer she lets it draw near. The last thing she remembers before sleep finally overtakes her is this – the sound of Kavik writing, and the feeling of being safer and warmer than she has in a long, long while. 

[problemnyatic]

mythologizing abuse as this horrible thing that only evil, malicious Abusers do to Innocent Victims is a really, really dangerous way of thinking. You have to recognize that anyone is capable of causing harm, and that it is possible to address it and improve as a person after hurting someone.

This idea that harm is an Evil Act that comes from Bad People, or makes someone a Bad Person is a black and white framing that makes it incredibly difficult to actually address harm, and actually winds up protecting abusers.

Because that's just not how it works. It's not an accurate model of reality. So subscribing to it gives you some dangerous blind spots; you won't be looking for signs of abuse or harm from someone you believe to be a Good Person, and the people around you are very likely to be afraid to actually communicate with you when a line is crossed for fear of being made out to be a Bad Person.

Abuse is something you do, not something you are. It has nothing to do with who the individuals are, it's a description of the impact certain kinds of actions have on someone else. The idea that believing something bad or doing something hurtful defines something intrinsic to the person in question creates an environment where it is impossible to grow or change into someone who no longer does those things or believes those ideas; you've condemned that person as someone Inherently Bad, what's the point of trying to improve if nobody will give them the benefit of the doubt?

And, more to the point of what I want to get across here, thinking like this is unbelievably stressful. It puts you on constant eggshells forever - cross the wrong line, and you mark yourself as A Bad Person, someone deserving of punishment, vitriol, rejection, every and any hostility one might see fit to throw at you. It's fucking terrifying, you wind up believing that any mistake could be your undoing, that you have to do no wrong, have to convince others that you've done no wrong, that you're a Good Person, not someone who hurts others.

But that's the thing. Nobody's perfect, it's impossible to be. You can't know everything before it happens, you'll never have all the context for something before having to make a decision. Inevitably, you will cross a line, violate a boundary, realize something you were taught about the world is actually bigotry, and that you never questioned it until now. And you will have to reconcile with that. You need to be prepared to face that reality, again and again, at any moment, for the rest of your life.

Far more often than anyone wants to admit, abuse isn't a product of malice or hatred, it's a byproduct of someone well-intentioned who for one reason or another has a mental block keeping them from prioritizing someone else's needs and wellbeing as necessary. They behave in ways that hurt and shut down their victim because they can't wrap their head around the fact that that's what's going on, that they're hurting someone. Or if they do, they don't believe that there's a way to avoid it, or fix it, or change.

The mythologized model of the Evil Abuser who hurts the Innocent Victim because they're a Bad Person is more likely to create that exact kind of mental block than it is to protect anyone from harm. It makes every mistake the end, a personal apocalypse that collapses the situation around your feelings rather than addressing the harm done. It's dangerous.

Let go of the idea of Good People and Bad People. We're all just people, and we're gonna hurt each other sometimes. It doesn't need to be anything more than that. You can apologize, and try to change. You can be imperfect and still worth loving. If someone asserts otherwise, that says more about them than it does about you.

[agent-8449]

The Negatives: Masterpost

"Howdy there, to the audience beyond the screen! I'm your host Eris, and this is Late Nights With Disharmonia..."

The Negatives AU was borne, long long ago, by me fucking around with the ancient joke of Soul 2. Mind 2, Heart 2, Whole 2, etcetera. It evolved into something more sophisticated if light-hearted, and now it's psychological horror. Oops!

Firstly; Eris, this Whole, is American. That's the first part of the joke. The second is that he's supposedly everything a normal golden Whole isn't-- loud, confident, in control. The third part is that he's exactly like a normal Whole in those respects anyway. He might have willed away the loop amnesia, but this cold war he's started with himself might be worse.

Total and godlike control of his own Psyche means nothing if he can't stop himself from splitting anyway. His Thirds know what he does, and they're horrible like him too.

Phobos, the Green Heart, is the distillation of what Eris thinks makes him different to other people; acting and ingenuity, sure, but also a casual disregard for their wellbeings and a violent streak. His impulsive, or intrusive, thoughts.

Deimos, an Orange Mind, is what Eris believes the world wants him to be; a pencil-pushing pushover, dull and boring and content with mundanity. Deimos might be calculative, but that's in the literal sense. He's a calculator, with about as much personality.

Nemesis is where it gets interesting. This Teal Soul isn't needed to pretend to be him at all, not really. He's less so Identity, and more... self-hate. Sure, Eris intended for him to be an embodiment of social pressure/"cringe culture", yet all that's done is make his Soul even more viscerally self-aware of the futility of this all. Nemesis was built to hate. To hate what Eris wants to be-- to be critical, never-pleased, and cynical. By god does Nemesis fulfill these criteria. Because-- well-- what is he supposed to do? Not hate this? This insufferable, useless war? These two tumours Linked to his thoughts? The fact that him hating at all is decreed by Eris, and he's playing his role perfectly? So he hates, quietly. The other two overpower him, and Eris uses him again and again and again for the things he himself doesn't want to do.

What a cheery quartet!!!

The delicate balance of Whole and Thirds was disrupted by their additions to the chat. Entirely sick of <making his Thirds> running Youtube content farms, Eris seeks a way to monetize this supernatural happening. Mixed with his total control of his Psyche <due to being his Psyche>, it's a recipe for something finally interesting. Eris is more of a filmmaker than a songwriter, and to create The Perfect Story is his goal. If only it was that easy. Pretending to be nice and helpful in chat, in order to lure somebody over, did not go very well at all. Neither did exploiting the phenomenon of his self-duplication; the fact that sending constructs from his Psyche is literally sending chunks of his Psyche, i.e., him. If they're in the right shape to walk and talk and think like him, well, they do! Eris clones 3 and 4 both met separate grisly demises.

Why? Long story short, they're filled with assumption goop, and if Reality questions that too hard, it becomes real goop. They melt. This is what happened to 3. 4..... got beheaded. By Nemesis. OOPS! Turns out the breaking of the pattern gave the Whole-adoring Heart and Mind enough grievances for Nemesis to convince them to murder him. And thus ended a doomed attempt at coexistence. The following month unsupervised screwed up Eris' life, too, on his return. Punishment only made them hate him more, and now it's all collapsing...

Now, desperation makes men do terrible things.

This is all a very quick summary of the Negatives, of course. Feel free to ask for clarifications! I might even respond in-character... Toodles for now!

[mollymauk-teafleak]

now we're partners in crime

Some more Huskerdust! I just wanted to write something fluffy and happy for them, huge thanks to @minky-for-short for being a wonderful beta!

Please reblog and leave a comment over on Ao3! <3

-----------

Angel Dust is no stranger to the morning after. In fact, he's pretty much a professional.

And he has to admit, he's had worse in his life when he wakes up with a bitch of a hangover, in a random hotel and next to his boyfriend, Husker.

Though when he puts together the pieces of the night before, he realises they did something very, very stupid.

-----------

With all the things to dislike about living in actual fucking hell, the decor probably shouldn’t have been as high up on Angel Dust’s list as it was. But he’d argue there wasn’t a sin invented that deserved the punishment of opening aching eyes to a hotel room with a white and gold color scheme. 

Starting from his now burning eyes, Angel’s body parts checked in one by one, each one with its own minor disaster to report. His throat felt like sandpaper, his head throbbed like someone was playing the drums on the inside of his skull, his stomach turned over at the mere thought of moving. In short, he had a bitch of a hangover. 

“Fuck…” Angel groaned, screwing up his face and sinking below the surface of the blankets. 

His brain was a fog, making every thought a lurking, malformed danger. He was going to be late to the studio. He’d look a mess, the cameras would pick it up. He couldn’t remember any lines. Valentino would be furious, he’d smell the debauchery on his skin and know he hadn’t caused it, he’d try to drown it out with worse just to prove to Angel that he was the only person allowed to ruin him. He was in so much fucking trouble…

Something brushed his leg under the covers. Angel’s first impulse was to pull away from whatever loser his spiral of self destruction had landed him with, get dressed and get out before he even saw his face, like having it in his memory would be just another reason for Val to hurt him. 

But then that something wound its way around his leg and suddenly Angel remembered. The two years collapsed and he saw the panic rising for what it was, a bad memory. Like the two dimensional backdrop on a soundstage, as soon as he knew where to step he was past it and back in the real world. 

Angel ignored his churning stomach and rolled over, so he could see him. Really the snoring should have been his first clue, no one else Angel had ever shared a bed with snored like that, rattling and rumbling like a clapped out Chevy whose exhaust was barely hanging on. He looked as hungover as Angel felt, whiskers crushed against the pillow, smudges of lipstick in a very familiar color streaked across his face, somehow still wearing his suspenders even though he definitely wasn’t wearing trousers. His tail still looped around Angel’s leg, reaching out for him even while the rest of him slept. 

Husker. Still the loser Angel’s spiral of self destruction landed him with but also the one who’d pulled him out. 

He had a fantasy of leaning in close, smoothing down that wild bedhead and waking him with a kiss. Reality kicked in, however, before he’d gotten more than two seconds in, reminding him about his apocalyptic hangover. 

He took a screeching turn towards the bathroom instead, hoping his legs would get their shit together quick enough to get him there without falling on his face. Despite being clean for two years now, Angel hadn’t lost his touch, he made it in time to vomit what felt like the whole bottom shelf of a bar into the toilet. At least that meant his eyes were shut so he didn’t have to look at the equally tacky bathroom. 

“Fucking hell…” Angel groaned, once his organs had stopped trying to eject themselves from his body, slumping so his forehead rested on the seat.

“Okay, you remember where you are, that’s a good sign.”

Angel opened one eye, scoffing at Husk as he leaned in the doorway, somehow already holding a glass of water for him, “Funny…how the fuck are you able to stand up, I seem to remember you drinking as much as I did?”

“Vegas born and raised, baby,” Husk chuckled roughly, passing him the glass, “I promise, I feel like a corpse, I just know how to keep a poker face..”

Angel washed his mouth out, trying to follow that memory like a thread, figure out what most of last night had involved. It had been a while since he got this drunk, since he’d had a morning after not tinged with the clawing, hollowed out feeling of a come down or a heavy dose of shame. He found it was actually pretty pleasant when the hazy, disjointed memories you sifted through were full of good times with people you cared about. 

If you could ignore the whole feeling like death warmed up thing. 

“I remember drinking a lot,” he rasped, draining the rest of the glass and gaining a little ground on his hangover as he reward, “I remember dancing on tables. I remember karaoke…and not a lot else.”

Husk perched on the edge of the tub, wincing as he did, “Same here. So it sounds like we did exactly what Charlie told us to do, we enjoyed our weekend off. Right up until we woke up, anyway.”

Angel massaged his temples with a couple of hands, “Where even are we? I mean, I know we’re in a hotel but this place ain’t our Charlie’s particular brand of tacky. There’s no banners for a start.”

“We’re on Sinners Strip,” Husk answered without missing a beat, looking around like a detective surveying a crime scene, “Somewhere on the west end by the looks of it…The Fanged Flamingo, I think. You’d have to be fucking blackout drunk to wind up here.”

It was hard not to be impressed. Sinners weren’t allowed to hop from ring to ring, of course, but they brought their vices down to Hell with them, clinging to them like life rafts. The Pride ring they called home had ended up divided into neighborhoods, each an oversized shrine to whatever sin had bought their residents a ticket down below. Sinner’s Strip was the Greed ring in miniature and Las Vegas on crack so of course Husker knew every building along its length in intimate detail, enough to recognise what casino they were in through a blinding hangover. 

In fact, his territory had probably been here, back when he was an Overlord. 

Angel winced, feeling like an idiot as he realized too late that they’d woken up in Husk’s equivalent of Valentino’s studio, “Do you wanna go home? I can get my shit together real fast?”

Husk’s expression softened just at the asking, tapping his claws on the tub’s edge as he thought, “You know…I think I’m okay. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s tables down there, I can hear them. I’d be lying if I said no part of me wants to go do something real stupid…but then the rest of me says well, if I did, I wouldn’t be here with my man, would I?”

“So instead you’re gonna do stupid things with me?” Angel tried to joke lightly, like that would hide how misty his eyes suddenly were. 

“That’s the plan,” Husk leaned in and kissed his forehead, grinning, “Sap.”

Once Angel Dust would have pulled him down, turned that soft gesture into something heated, something open mouthed and involving teeth. He would have been panicked by the adoring ache in his chest, he would have felt foolish that he couldn’t form it into words and instead turned it into the only language he knew how to speak back then, pushing himself at Husk and begging him to take his body as payment. 

But now he knew better. This wasn’t lust, it was love. And love could be something small and not mean any less. It would fit in any box, gentle gestures and few words. 

“I just love you,” Angel Dust grinned, “That’s all.”

“And I love you too,” Husk smiled, “So take as long as you want. Then we’ll go scrape the girls up, wherever they are, and hit this diner I remember a couple blocks from here. About a thirty percent chance of getting food poisoning but their breakfast sandwiches will have your hangover begging for mercy.”

“I like those odds,” Angel let himself be pulled up, just about managing not to barf again. 

For a moment, with his hands- all four- in Husk’s, standing there in the bathroom with his head spinning, Angel had a flash of a memory. He remembered spinning, lights blurring around them, Husk dipping him and kissing him in that way that drove him wild. He remembered joy bursting in his chest, that kind that was so strong it actually hurt, like his body was struggling to find room for it all. 

Whatever they’d been doing last night, it had been really fucking good. Angel had to smile, his mouth tasted faintly of vomit, his hair was a mess, his head still contained an amateur percussion band that needed a hell of a lot more practice but this morning after still cracked the top ten. 

The room might have been tacky but the bed was soft enough, especially when Angel Dust rolled to pillow his head on Husk’s chest, grinning when he felt him purr and a paw come up to stroke idly down his spine. A hand went searching for his phone, finally snagging it amongst the blankets, along with his panties from the night before, a lipstick that wasn’t even the shade he was wearing and a crumpled piece of paper he ignored. If it was a receipt, he didn’t want to know how much money he’d blown on the food he’d just hurled up.

Angel flicked the screen to life, reassured by a recent text from Charlie that looked like it was trying to say goodnight and that they were in a room on the floor below, once he read around the drunken spelling mistakes and emojis, “Come on then, detective, let’s investigate. What the fuck happened last night…”

Husk made a vague noise, already one foot back in sleep, his purrs starting to blur into snores. Angel rolled his eyes fondly, starting to thumb through the fuckton of unfamiliar photos that had appeared on his phone since yesterday. 

Things started how he remembered, how they usually did. Charlie gave them nights off pretty regularly but it was rare for her and Vaggie to join in. Angel had been wheedling and wearing Charlie down for months, insisting that it wasn’t a real bonding experience until everyone tagged along, that she worked as hard as anyone and deserved a break too. At first he’d been doing it because he’d suspected- and been proven correct- that she’d make a hilarious drunk. But eventually he had to admit it to himself, he just wanted to see her relax once in a while. He saw her literally taking the weight of other people’s souls on her shoulders, putting every sinner in hell ahead of herself. Angel knew he’d never be able to fix everything for her but a margarita and some karaoke every so often could at least take the edge off.

So for the first time, Charlie and Vaggie were there in his photos. They’d started at the Broken Halo, one of the safer nightclubs not too deep into the Debauchery District. Angel smiled as he saw their night in stages, watched him and his friends dissolve into sloppy grins and flushed cheeks. There was Cherri laughing at Charlie’s expression of post-shot disgust and panic, a photo of himself taking full advantage of the pole the bar had, nailing it even though Husk’s thumb was taking up a corner of the screen, a photo of Nifty crawling on the ceiling and somehow not spilling her drink.

As he kept going, the photos lined up with his hazy patchwork of memories, gaps getting filled as pieces of the puzzle slotted into place. Angel could remember the walks in between clubs, cold night air but a pleasant buzz to keep him warm, laughing so hard his ribs ached. And always, Husk’s claws curled around his fingers or his wings stretching out to cover him when he noticed him shivering, grinning when Angel caught him tapping his foot to the music. He could remember sinking gratefully into a blissful, loose limbed oblivion, not because it was his temporary escape but because he felt completely and wholly safe. Husk was his anchor, Husk would look after him. Husk was his way home, a home he actually wanted to go to.

One thing wasn’t adding up though, a tangle as he strung thread between these memories. With the clubs these photos seemed to be taken in- and Angel prided himself on intimate knowledge of every place in the Pride ring that would serve him a drink- they’d stuck to the fringes of the district, in spitting distance of the hotel. The garish hotel they were currently coming back to life in wasn’t even in the same district, they’d gone out of their way to come here and wince at tacky gold accent pieces. Angel just couldn’t figure out why, he didn’t see what had brought them over to the Fanged Flamingo. 

Until he flicked to the next photo. 

Angel sat bolt upright, eyes wide. His stomach would have protested if it was still there, it seemed to have dropped a few rings down. Husk did though, giving a grumpy trill as the spider demon jerked out of his embrace. 

“You gonna barf again?” he mumbled, eyes still closed, “Just stick your head over the side.”

“No,” Angel Dust groaned, though he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain on that, “Husk, we did something really, really stupid last night.”

“What else is new?” he did drag himself upright and force his eyes open, hearing something in Angel’s voice that spoke of more than just a mile long bar tab or joyriding. 

It took him a moment of wincing and groaning to be able to look at the bright phone screen suddenly pressed into his hand, though once Husk realized what he was looking at, his eyes widened, “Oh…oh shit…”

The photo was clear and properly lined up, so it must have been taken by Vaggie who’d stayed relatively sober the whole night. Angel and Husk certainly weren’t, their eyes were glazed, their smiles bright and faces creased with an unrestrained delight that only came when alcohol had dissolved the walls you were used to putting up. Angel was being carried the cat demon’s arms, in serious danger of being dropped but he clearly couldn’t give less of a shit, two of his arms wrapped loosely around Husk’s neck. And the other two holding a handful of limp flowers, probably purchased from a gas station they’d stumbled across, and a piece of paper. Fuck knew where he’d gotten the length of lace he was wearing as a veil (or the one knotted around his thigh), Cherri had probably swiped it from someone’s washing line. Husk was already dressed pretty appropriately, with his hat and bow tie, his smile so wide he looked like he belonged in Wonderland. 

Between that, the shower of ripped paper frozen in the air and the blaring neon sign that said ‘chapel’ behind them, it didn’t take someone who wasn’t hungover to work out what happened. 

Angel found it again, the piece of paper he’d tossed aside and thought nothing of. He smoothed out the folds and creases, unsurprised to find a certificate apparently from the Fanged Flamingo 24-7 Wedding Chapel, registered trademark. It didn’t look legally binding, Angel wasn’t sure legal documents used bright pink font or had a crude logo featuring two flamingos going at it. But the rubber stamp across the top said otherwise, proclaiming the two signatures across the bottom legally married. 

His heart gave a reflexive ache at the sight of his signature, making him think of the last time he’d scrawled Anthony on the dotted line, all the misery it had brought him since. This should have felt the same, a reckless decision he’d made when he wasn’t in his right mind, he should feel that familiar acrid burn of regret. 

But he didn’t. Angel looked at his name, at Husks, his own handwriting swooping and flamboyant, Husk’s scrawling and hurried, he looked at this silly, kitschy souvenir certificate and the promise it meant. And all he felt was that memory of joy, except this time he saw where it was supposed to fit and it joined him in the present. He remembered the kiss, how they’d had their first dance on the chapel steps to music that only they could hear, how Husk had swept him up into his arms just as Cherri had thrown a handful of torn up flashpaper as makeshift confetti, that moment now frozen on his phone. 

Angel Dust just felt like he’d come home. 

But a low, guttural moan from Husk poured cold water on his awed smile, “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Angel bit his lip, realizing the cat demon had his face in his hands and shoulders hunched. Where he’d been delighted, Husk looked absolutely devastated. 

Trying not to sound like a black hole was opening up in his chest, Angel tried an airy laugh, “Hey, baby, it’s okay…”

“No,” Husk pinched the bridge of his nose, ears lying flat, “It isn’t, shit…fucking cheap whiskey, always turns me into a goddamn fool.”

Angel swept a hand over his hair, using his years of experience in painting over his emotions and acting like he didn’t care, “Don’t get your tail in a twist, Whiskers, I’m sure we can walk it back. Pretty much everyone who gets hitched there has got to be blotto, they’ll have an impaired judgment clause or some shit. I ain’t gonna slap a ball and chain on you…I mean it’s ridiculous. The idea of me being someone’s missus, what a joke, right? I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Wait…” Husk’s head snapped towards him, bloodshot eyes wide, “You think I don’t wanna be married to you?”

“Well…you haven’t seemed so ecstatic since you found out…” Angel said warily, pulling his knees to his chest, “It’s fine, I get it. I’m not marriage material.”

One of the good things about having a boyfriend with ears and a tail was how Husk’s emotions were impossible to hide. Angel was good at reading people, it was part of his job and part of how he’d stayed alive in Hell, people’s faces were like books to him. And Husk was a picture book with those thick cardboard pages and twenty point font, as his ears shot up and his tail dropped in dismay. 

“I am the biggest idiot in the fucking seven rings,” Husk rasped, realisation stark on his face, the expression of someone who’d just realised they were about to drive off a cliff.

Angel couldn’t help a giggle, lifting an eyebrow, “Okay…I mean, I love you anyway…”

“I love you too,” Husk took a deep breath, like he was preparing for that plunge, finding as many of Angel’s hands as he could gather up in his own, “And, fuck, if we were human, if we were back up on the surface, I’d have been down on one knee the second I realised you’d actually have an old hag like me. I’m only…I’m only mad at myself because I didn’t want it to happen like this…”

Angel felt suddenly breathless, “You mean you’d thought about this before? About marrying me?”

It was hard to see under the dark fur but Angel was sure Husk’s cheeks were burning red, squeezing his hands, “Fuck, baby, of course I have. And you deserve a hell of a lot better than a goddamn Vegas wedding where I probably didn’t even propose right or say half the shit I’d wanna say. It just…it just ain’t gentlemanly.”

Angel felt laughter bubble in his chest, swallowing it down hard. It was all just so damn cute, he forgot sometimes that while he was from an earlier time, Husk had spent longer in the past, that he was more of an old fashioned romantic than he’d ever admit. 

“You don’t get treated right by so many assholes, Angel, and I can’t do a damn thing about it, I just…I always dreamed about doing this differently for you.” 

Angel Dust swallowed hard, feeling that ache again, trying to find a place to put the love he didn’t know he’d been built for. He drew Husk gently down, until they were lying nose to nose, limbs tangled comfortably together, finding a way to fit. 

“Well then,” Angel murmured, burying his fingers in soft fur, setting them to stroke delicate feathers, “Ask me.”

Husk finally met his eyes, uncharacteristically shy, “What?”

“Ask me the way you wanted to, say all the things you wanted to say. I’ll give you my answer here and now, Husker, and you’ll know I mean it,” Angel could feel how hard the cat demon’s heart began to beat, his own picking up to match. 

Husk opened and closed his mouth, the words struggling to come at first. Angel Dust understood how he felt, the fear that came with getting something you never even thought to want because it always seemed so out of reach.

But his Husker was braver than even he knew, his voice coming soft and raspy, “Anthony. After I died, I thought I’d finally found a way to be more than the loser nobody I was when I was alive, everything that made me a shitty human suddenly gave me the power and success I thought I’d always wanted. When I lost it all and had to sell my soul, the only way to keep my sanity was to tell myself I didn’t give a fuck anymore and just drink until I believed it. When I met you…I was fucking terrified. Because I wanted you. I wanted you bad, you were bright and brave and so damn strong. I never expected you to let me in but you did and I fell so hard for you, baby. You’re the first thing in hell, fuck, the first thing ever that made me want to be better. After the shit you’ve been through, I have no clue how you trust me when I say I love you and I’ll do right by you but I’ll never break that trust. And to prove it to you…will you marry me, Anthony?”

“Shit…well how the fuck am I supposed to follow that act?” Angel Dust managed to croak out after a long pause, all of his eyes streaming tears, “Feel like my teeth are gonna melt from all that sugar…”

“Shut up,” Husk’s smile was sudden and warm and brilliant, like the sun Angel remembered from up on the surface, tears making silvery tracks on his cheeks, “Just answer me.”

Feeling like words might not be enough, Angel cupped Husk’s face and kissed him deeply, left with barely any breath to whisper, “Yes. Fuck yes. I’m so glad we did it last night cos I wouldn’t want to wait another goddamn second to be your husband.”

“God, I love you…” Husk kissed him again, pressing him close like he couldn’t bear a spare inch of space between them, purring like a chainsaw. 

“I love you too,” Angel sighed contentedly, “Can’t believe I had to die to find the man of my dreams.”

“Even though our wedding was kinda trashy?”

“Oh, sorry, did you not know we were trashy? Hi, my name is Angel Dust, nice to meet you, can I suck your dick?”

He would have been happy to let the words fall away then, to say the rest with their shared laughter, with his tongue and his hands and whatever other parts they had time for. The way Husk was stirring under the blankets, he seemed to agree but there was one thing he wanted to do first. 

Angel found his phone again, flicking through the photos again, unable to resist another look. There were more past the first one too, shots of them dancing, of Husk dipping him in a deep kiss, of Angel throwing his gas station bouquet directly at Vaggie’s head in one of his less subtle moves. Photos of them, of their family, of one of the best nights of their lives. And, as he kept scrolling, ones showing how their hotel room had gotten so wrecked. 

“Woah,” Angel Dust grinned, “You’re definitely stuck with me, baby, annulments off the table for sure. We consummated the fuck out of this marriage.”

“Damn,” Husk purred, kissing his shoulder, “Didn’t know I could still bend that way…”

“And you will again,” Angel smirked, finally opening the camera, “In a minute…”

He held out the phone, pulling Husk into frame, smiling for the camera and smiling even wider when Husk kiss his cheek as he took the photo. As soon as he dropped it into the hotel group chat, along with the message good morning from the happy couple <3 he received a buzz of delighted messages from their friends, all thankfully alive. He’d save them all alongside the photos to look at again and again, over the breakfast they’d all share once they’d dragged themselves out of bed, the next time he had to go back to work and needed to lift his mood, whenever his addictions reared their ugly head. Whenever he needed to remember the best day of his his afterlife. 

There was a lot to dislike about living in literal fucking hell, tacky hotel rooms being one of them. But there was nowhere else Angel Dust would rather be.

[lonelylittledreamer02]

I Found You - Eddie Munson x Female OC

Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4

Chapter 5 - Demons

"You're not paying attention, Angels!" My head snapped back to reality, when my brain managed to register the annoying, high pitched girl voice next to me.

"Yes, two plus two equals four..." I mumbled.

"Very funny. It's not math, dumbo, it's history."

"Whatever you say."

"It would be a whole lot easier if you could quit your staring at that freak for a minute..!" I jolted a little bit more awake at that and turned my head towards her.

"He's not a freak.." I snapped. "And I'm not staring...!" I said low.

"You're drooling, it's disgusting really.." Stephanie continued. I sighed.

"You call him a freak as if that would define who he is, but have you ever really seen him, Stephanie? Your eyesight seems faulty, might need some glasses to fix that."

"I doubt there's anything he's good at, except having girls sleep with him..." She snorted. I shaked my head.

"He's not like that."

"Oh really? And you expect me to believe that? He's playing guitar where most students hangout, you know all guitarists get the girls, yeah? There's no coincidence he chooses to get his band gigs here, he wants to impress, and well, get laid. Word travels around fast in such a small town as this, he wants to promote his little band, no doubt. And sell."

"You're all so unfair towards him, he's really sweet, unlike all the other douchebags running this school..." I say. My eyes travelled back to Eddie, who's seemingly doodling away in his notebook without a care in this world. His hair hid his face away from the rest of the class, I'm sure he would look gorgeous in this moment, with his dark eyes focused on the task at hand, tongue slightly peeking out like it used to do when he was focused or deep in thought.

"Just be careful is all I'm saying, especially while being new around here. You don't want to fall in with the wrong kinds of people."

"You know, Stephanie, people like you, are what I consider the wrong people. You guys don't think about anyone but yourself and your own worth in others eyes. Isn't it exhausting, to never just having proper fun without worrying about looking silly? To never wear what you want, but what you have to wear? You guys are the reason the world stays the same. You walk the same, talk the same way and do everything the same. You're boring, and you punish other people just cause they're not like you. Well, thank fuck for that, cause I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I was."

"You already seem like a nerd, and you've been here for what.. Two weeks? You think you've the right to have an opinion here? You're just a nobody, and you've got no one to stand up for you. Besides, it's not like you're able to compete with anyone.."

"What do you mean..?"

"Girl, look at you. The way you dress says everything about you. You're hiding what you are; wich is just skin and bones. You sure you're nineteen? You look like you're twelve still, it's not like you've got anything to hide, there's no need for you to follow any dress code... No one will look at you anyways." Her words tore through my heart like a hot knife. She saw straight through me, right into the very deepest of my insecurities... Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing them fall.

"You don't know what you're talking about.." I said sharply.

"Don't I? Both of us know that it's simply the truth.. You're worthless, and shouldn't even dare to think otherwise." I had to get out of here. I stood up, grabbed my things and left, I didn't even hear if the teacher had called my name.

My legs led me out of the school, straight into the forest. I went for as long as I could, until I collapsed against a tree trunk. It was so unfair! She had touched probably my weakest spot. My neverending feeling of never being feminine enough, or attractive enough just cause my body hadn't developed like it should've. There was a reason why I never wore dresses, why I didn't wear shirts with a low cut. Why I hated gymnastics class, having to change with everyone else afterwards... I felt so incredibly insecure in that regard, and it was a constant reminder when in these years, all what mattered to people was your cup size or what you looked like from behind. How your clothes hugged your figure. Girls loved to show their assets in any way, while all I felt was... dread, when people saw too much of me. I rested my head in between my arms, clutching my knees so hard it almost hurt. Of course no one would look at me, could I even be considered as a woman at this point..? There was nothing to show off if I had been chosen by anyone, I was just a hole to fuck..

"Hello?" A voice interrupted my thoughts yet again. This time it wasn't an annoying voice, but a sweet one. Please god, don't let him see me crying again..

"Mels, I know you're here. It's just me." I held my breath, waiting for the voice to disappear, but instead it sounded clearer.

"I just wanna check if you're okay, there's no judgement here." I tried to hide my sniffles, but at this point, there was no way for me to not get noticed.

"There you are.." Eddie crouched down at my level, and laid a hand atop my shoulder.

"P-please.. I don't want you to see me crying again..." I didn't lift my head up to look at him, I could only guess I looked terrible with my face all puffy and red, and eyes adorned with smudged mascara.

"Why not?" He asked softly.

"Bec- because it's embarrassing.."

"It's not... I don't know what that bitch said to you, but I saw just how much it affected you before you ran." I could hear how Eddie sat himself down in the grass next to me, his hand didn't leave my shoulder.

"Y-you saw?"

"Yeah, I did. I heard your voice sounding upset so I looked your way, and then you just left that girl at the desk."

"Oh.." I never realised the argument had gotten so loud.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" He asked after a while.

"Sh- she said bad things about you and I tried to defend you, and then she turned it all on me and-"

"You tried to defend me?" Eddie chuckled. "No, sorry sorry, that's not funny, then what did she say after?"

"Just the truth..." I said bitterly.

"The truth? Now you got me confused, sweetheart."

"She... said the truth about the way I look and how it would never impress anyone." I said low.

"I'm sorry, what?? What did she mean by that..?"

"You know.. I don't look like other girls so I wouldn't be able to compare to them and..."

"How do you not look like those other girls?" Eddie asked again, a slight anger prominent in his tone.

"I... well.. I don't look grown up enough because I'm skinny without curves, so she s-"

"Jesus H Christ..!" Eddie almost shouted out loud.

"But it's true so-" I continued. I removed my head from my arms, now looking at the ground instead.

"Holy shit... She doesn't have any right to make comments about your body like that..! That's.. so fucked up, it's so wrong, Mels, you do understand that, don't you?" I shrugged my shoulders in response. Eddie now moved over to my front, he grabbed onto both shoulders, gently shaking me as he spoke.

"Right.. You need to understand, what she's saying don't matter, okay? She's... a bully who wants to degrade you. You can't let her. You're so much better than her, yeah? She's just jealous of how pretty you are, cause you truly are, Melanie. Please believe me." I now gazed up at him, vision slightly blurred from the salty tears.

"You just don't understand... how much those words hit home, Eddie." I paused. "You think I haven't tried to tell myself that I'm good enough? Tried to convince myself that I can still live as a woman, without the proper body? That I can still enjoy women clothing, even if I don't fill a single piece out? That someone can look at me for even a split second, thinking I look hot? I look like a big child, Eddie, there's nothing worth to look at..." I averted my gaze. Eddie's face turned into a frown as I continued to babble, but his eyes looked sad. He shaked his head.

"Sweetheart, there's so much more to a girl than some stupid curves to ogle." I looked back at him. "Yeah, shocking, right? I'm a guy, I know how it all looks... Big tits, nice ass and there's a gold mine..? You got it all wrong, sweetheart. Not to say guys aren't like that, but most of us, don't care. It's the same as girls comparing dick sizes, alright? Everyone are judgemental, when it comes down to it. You wouldn't be less of a guy just cause your dick is small, so why should you be less of a woman for not having big bazookas up there..?"

"Or just being flat.." I muttered. He ignored my comment.

"See, what really matters, is not your tits size, but the size of what's behind.. And what's that? Your heart, Mels." One of his hands moved up to my cheek, and gently wiped away at some of the tears.

"And you have a great, big heart from what I've seen."

"I-" He shaked his head again, locks flying everywhere as he did so.

"No need to say anything, just come here..." He held out his arms, and slowly I fell into his chest, face buried into the crook of his neck.

"Such a sweet girl as you, with so many demons to fight..." He mumbled. "You shouldn't have to feel like this. Other girls aren't half as great, or beautiful as you, why should you feel like you ain't enough? You're more than enough."

"I just.. feel so incomplete.. worthless.. Feel like it's never gonna stop hurting.." Eddie held me tightly, while listening to my broken voice.

"I know, I know... I wish there was a way for me to help you... all I can do is be here and... hear you." We sat in silence, the only thing heard was the wind, rustling in the trees. I didn't know what I had done to deserve this man's kind heart and words. But I did know that right here, in the warm embrace of his I had found a safe space. I was mentally and physically intoxicated by him. And honestly, I didn't mind.

"You're okay..." He mumbled softly. Several minutes passed, until I finally gathered myself together enough to pull back slightly.

"Thank you.." I said low, slightly embarrassed.

"Of course." He scanned me over with a caring expression. "Hey you.. You wanna get out of here?" He asked.

"I think.. I think I just wanna go home." I answered. My gaze flickered around our surroundings for a brief moment, until it landed on Eddie again. "I don't- I don't wanna see her face again right now."

"Okay.. I can drive you?" He offered. I nodded.

"That would be nice. I appreciate it, thank you.."

"Nothing to thank me for, princess. Come on." He got up from the ground and offered me a gentle hand to help me up, then we both made our way out of the forest.

"Kevin, don't play with your food like that, how many times have I told you...!"

"But mom, I hate broccoli..! It's not.. cool." I looked up from my plate, listening with half an ear to the conversation around the table.

"You put the broccoli on the plate yourself, Kevin. We eat what we've gathered on it." Aunt Jo said sternly. Kevin made a sour face at her, continuing to pick on the vegetable with his fork.

"Mom, you never answered me before, I asked if I could go to Caroline's birthday party this weekend." My aunt sighed.

"I don't know, Stella. I think you're still too young for partying like that."

"But mom! Alison has also been invited, and Emma! It will look strange if I don't go.."

"You only wanna go cause Ian is gonna be there..." Kevin said.

"Who's Ian?" Aunt Jo asked and looked around at us all. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Ian Myers, Mrs Connie and Mr. Mitchell's son." Kevin informed.

"The couple who runs the hardware store? How old is he?" Aunt Jo asked.

"I think he's fifteen since he's a grade below me, isn't that right, sister?" Now Jackson threw himself into the conversation. Stella threw daggers into him with her look. He just smirked back at her.

"Fifteen?!" Aunt Jo exclaimed. "You're only thirteen, Stella!"

"And a half..." Stella muttered. "I'm old enough for boys, I'm not a child anymore!"

"I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear about boyfriends, or girlfriends, in this house, is that clear?" Aunt Jo let go of her knife with a clink.

"Then what about the guy who dropped off Mels this afternoon?" Jackson asked. He now looked at me with the same mischievous smirk. Oh fuck you..!

"See? She hasn't been here for even a month and she's already seeing someone!" Stella complained. "It's not fair!" Aunt Jo raised a hand to hush her.

"Melanie?" She clearly awaited an explanation.

"It's a guy from Hawkins High, we have a few classes together, that's all..."

"I think I recognised him, isn't he the famous "freak" of Hawkins? What's his name again... Elliot? Eric?" Jackson continued.

"Eddie." I corrected him.

"Oh yes that was it! Eddie Munson... Isn't he like.. a drug dealer or something if I recall correctly..?" I kicked his foot from under the table.

"A what now?!" Aunt Jo almost shouted.

"That's only rumours.." I said. "He's a nice guy."

"Nice in bed, too I bet...!" Jackson said, I slapped him on the arm, but he just giggled.

"Is this... Is this the same guy you were seeing the other night?" Aunt Jo asked me.

"Yeah... But we didn't do anything I swear! We just watched some TV and had dinner with his uncle."

"His uncle? Where are his parents?"

"His mom.. died, many years ago, his dad.. I don't know. He never mentioned him." I lied. Half lied, anyway. They did not need to know that his father was behind bars. Not his too.

"See, doesn't that already tell you enough..." Jackson mocked.

"Where does he live?" Aunt Jo ignored Jackson's comment.

"Forest Hill trailer park." I answered, looking down at my half empty plate.

"Good lord, that place is full of drunkards and god-knows-what kind of people..." Aunt Jo rambled.

"Believe what you want..." I muttered, as I drenched a piece of potato in gravy, shoving it into my mouth.

"Oooh, she's in loove...!" Jackson sang. I swallowed quickly.

"Am not!"

"You're one hundred percent down bad for the metalhead freak..!" I let go of my fork and raised from my chair, to properly slap the back of his head.

"Ow!" He raised his arms in defeat. "Okay okay, I'll shut up!"

"That's enough you two!" Aunt Jo shouted. I glared angrily at Jackson, until I decided to grab my plate and silverware and leave the table.

"Thank you for dinner. I'm going up to my room." I said cooly.

I laid on my bed, with Status Quo blasting in my ears, a lollipop in my mouth, and my character sheet in front of me. So far it was decided I was a level eight half elf wizard, with cantrips fire bolt, bone chill and blade ward. There was also some lore written down, but it would be too long to explain. I smiled down at the page, knowing wich parts Eddie had written down cause of his handwriting. A finger slid gently over his neat letters. I had never felt so seen before I met him. I had never felt so calm yet nervous at the same time. He had awakened something in me already, something I couldn't really put into words. Was it attraction? Or was it just me attaching myself to the only friendship I had? Attaching myself to the only attention I got... Surely enough, I did find him really attractive. Sexy, even. I didn't have enough experience to know what my type was, but something definitely drove me towards him. Not just his looks, of course, I loved his persona, his humor (even if it was dirty as fuck), I loved his laugh. His voice overall, there was something about it. He was rough around the edges yet still soft as honey... Wait, was that a knock on my door? I sharpened my hearing to try and hear outside of the music, but it seemed silent, so I went back to my thoughts. Oh and I loved his style as well, his ripped, tight jeans... his rings... god those rings. And those hands... His lips. I pictured it all in front of me, and caught myself biting down on my bottom lip. Now you're just being inappropriate. Shit!

"MELANIE!" The voice tore through me and snapped me out of my daydreaming. I pulled down my headphones immediately. I could still hear the music blasting out of them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you..." I excused myself. Aunt Jo stood with crossed arms, and she let out a heavy sigh.

"I could tell." She said. She gestured towards my bed. "May I?" I nodded silently. She sat down next to me, I propped myself up on one elbow. It took a few moments until she said anything.

"You should know, I'm just worried for you, honey. I don't want anything bad to happen if there is something I could do to prevent it."

"I know, Aunt Jo..." I said low. She laid a hand on top of my leg.

"Please, call me Josephine, dear, there's no need for formalities now... Not after everything that happened. I'm your family after all... Now more so than I've ever been." I nodded.

"I know..." She paused again.

"Was there a reason he drove you all the way here so early?" She asked. I took my time to respond.

"A girl was being mean to me and well he.. He helped me out of the chaos." Aunt Jo's face softened, and she looked worried.

"What did this girl say to you? I mean, you're usually good at standing up for yourself, am I right?" I Looked down, now it was my turn to let out a sigh.

"She.. she mocked the way my body's built, pretty much calling me a child... It... it affected me pretty bad. It's something I've felt insecure about far too long."

"The way your body's built?" She repeated. "What's wrong with how you look? I can only see a beautiful, grown up woman in front of me..."

"Not grown up enough..." I mumbled. "I don't have any breasts to talk about, I'm flat as a fuckass cutting board. My behind's pretty... small too." Tears pricking at the corner of my eyes again. I couldn't even utter the words out loud without turning into a crybaby, great...!

"My sweet child..." Aunt Jo crawled up to me, now embracing me in a hug.

"There's nothing wrong with you, dear. If anything you should be proud of yourself, proud of the body you have, proud to be such a fighter. I remember when you were little, oh you were just skin and bones the summers you were here... Look at you now! I can only see how far you've come, the accomplishments you continue to achieve. Be proud that you're still here after everything you've gone through." She was right, of course. I had been battling with an eating disorder all my life pretty much. No one knew what I had, or how to get rid of it. Those times it was really bad, I couldn't eat solid food at all, I only drank, I could have some occasional chocolate since it just melted in my mouth, and was prescribed medical nutritional drinks in order to not lose too much weight. I still had the disorder, so I wasn't free of it, but it would show itself much less than when I was a kid. I probably had the eating disorder to thank for not developing properly, I was probably too malnourished at the time to gain any additional fats on my body. My period still worked, thankfully, despite everything. But even with an explanation for my sad shape, it didn't make me feel any better.

"I just wish I looked... normal." I sniffled. Aunt Jo's fingers threaded carefully through my hair, in this moment I felt like a kid again, seeking the consolation in an adult's embrace.

"You look normal, darling, you look beautiful, just the way you are." She held me for as long as my tears fell. She released me slowly, and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Next time something like this happens, do tell me straight away, okay?" She paused. "I don't want you to be alone in this, if someone's being nasty, I'll have to make a call in order to stop it."

"I wasn't alone... Not today. Cause of-"

"Eddie." Aunt Jo and I finished the sentence simultaneously.

"I just want you to be careful, honey. Boys that age... it's all-"

"Sex, drugs and popularity on their mind." I finished. "I know. But he... Eddie is different. Kind."

"That's what they want you to think.." She said low. "But, I'll let you see for yourself, you're old enough. But be careful, yeah?" I nodded.

"Of course." She kissed my forehead and slid off the bed.

"Don't stay up too late." I smiled.

"I'll go to bed soon, promise." I said.

"See you tomorrow." Aunt Jo went and closed the door behind her. I threw myself on my back, then rolling over to my side. I was not tired yet, but I knew what, or who, I wanted to dream about tonight.

[chil-aglia]

𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 |ROTTMNT| (Male OC)

Mind Games

Be sure to read the tags on my Ao3 so you guys know what you’re getting yourselves into.

Art is done by me, but PLEASE feel free to make your own art and idk tag me in it or something—

Warnings: Implied off-screen torture, mind rape, vomiting/mention of vomiting, PTSD, forced visions/reality change, etc

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

Giovanni hates himself. He can’t believe he did that. Why did he do that? Shouldn’t the whole reason for training with his brothers was to keep the humans safe? And here he was, physically harming them. Breaking their nose—

“Hurk!”

He retches, bile spilling out of his mouth. He’s been like that for what felt like hours. It had been 2 days since the incident with Dr. Avery, and Giovanni was knocked out for those 2 days due to fatigue and hunger. He began feeling immense nausea the moment he awoke from being passed out. It didn’t help that his neck itched.

He froze and let out a bitter, exhausted chortle. He couldn’t even itch his neck. The collar was in the way.

God he felt sick again.

But he probably didn’t have anything else in him to throw up, so he slid down the tile wall. Dry tear streaks embedded on his cheeks, he almost felt like collapsing. He was a mess.

When are they coming to get me? Are they even looking for me?

’Alone…’

Alone….

’Forever and ever.’

Giovanni choked on his sobs; he brought his legs up to his plastron as he instinctively pulled his head down slightly into his carapace. He needed silence, he needed peace and quiet.

His stomach growled, and he too copied the sound from his throat. Annoyance clear as day, he was starving, he’d eat anything at this point, even the food they would give him on a tray. But no one had come around to his cell, no one gave him food or the water that he craved.

Was this punishment? It must be…perhaps he deserved it. 

Eventually the door opens, and a familiar figure steps into the room, Dr. Brookes. She smiles gently down at Giovanni who looks up at her, “How are you doing today, Giovanni?” She asks, and the slider couldn’t help but try to reach for her, chirping briefly in distress.

Dr. Brookes hums, kneeling down next to him and taking the outstretched hand into her own. She made a mental note of the chirp he made. “Poor baby….you must be so scared and tired. I’m sorry that Dr. Avery was so mean to you.” She cooed, letting Giovanni adjust himself hesitantly before he relaxed his head against her lap.

He nuzzled his face slightly into her leg, wanting nothing more than to hide from the cruel world. To stop the pain.

“Giovanni, can I ask something?”

The mutant peeps up at her, puzzled and a bit on guard, but she doesn't mind, stroking atop his head like a pet. “Your family….what are they like?” She curiously asks, catching the yellow-bellied slider off guard as he tries to move away.

But either he was too weak to do so, or she had an invisible death grip on him.

”I don’t…”

”I know…I’m sorry. I was just curious.” Madeline responds back in her usual warm tone that had calmed down Giovanni who let out a breath. He was quiet until he opened his mouth.

”…they’re nice.”

”Oh?”

He looks away to the side, head still resting on her lap as he closes his eyes. “I’m…the oldest. My brothers…are all so different from me.”

Madeline hums, acknowledging that she was paying attention.

”Raph…is the biggest of us. He’s the second oldest. He’s…like the family protector.” Giovanni mumbles, slightly quivering with a smile. He missed Raph and their talks.

”Leo, he’s the third oldest. He’s very…outgoing. But he’s the leader, which shows…he cares a lot about everyone.”

Madeline perked up at the mention of this ‘Leo’ being the leader, but she didn’t say anything, letting—wanting, the mutant to continue.

”Donnie is the fourth oldest. He’s the brains of the family.”

Giovanni could almost hear Donnie talking his ear off, going off one of his rants that Giovanni tried to understand and pay attention to.

”Mikey, is the youngest. He’s….he’s so friendly and kind. A good cook too.”

Giovanni goes tranquil, relishing in the memories of his brothers. He missed them. He really wants them here with him.

”And parents?” Madeline softly encouraged to hear more, “Splinter…he’s my dad.”

”And what about your mother?”

Giovanni twitched, tensing as he seemed puzzled by this. “I don’t think I have one.” He replied, trying to sit up, but he froze when Madeline rubbed the back of his head, cradling him almost.

”I see….”

She gave a tiny smirk at an idea she got, clearing her throat quietly. “Would you like to have a mother?” She inquired, the question making Giovanni frown in unsureness. He never really thought about a mother before.

”Maybe…?”

”Would you like me to be your mother Giovanni?”

He twists and turns on his side, grumbling slightly under his breath. He was conflicted, he didn’t know how to respond to such a thing. Madeline just softly chuckles and pats his shell.

”You can think about it. I don’t need an answer right away.”

Her comment had Giovanni less fidgety, nodding in appreciation as he could feel himself slowly drift to sleep. But he didn’t want to sleep. Not yet.

”Hungry…”

Madeline stared down at him and nodded in understanding. “You haven’t eaten since you got here, have you? What would you like?” She queries, giving him the freedom of choosing what he would like to eat.

Giovanni thought about it, mouth watering at every food that came to mind. But there was one food he was craving right now, one where he could feel like he was with his family again.

”Pizza.”

Madeline chuckles, “Pizza? What kind?” She asks, but Giovanni just softly shrugs, “Any…just want pizza.” He counters. He felt his body shift, his head being taken off from her lap, making him stir and look for the next comfort of warmth he could find.

His eyes settled onto the teddy bear that was on the mattress. He reaches over and takes the toy, nuzzling his snout into the softness.

”I’ll be back with your pizza.”

Madeline walks off, her heels clicking against the floor. The door opens, the sound of the heels getting farther away, and the door closes, leaving Giovanni alone once more as he took the time to try and get some rest.

He was hungry…he couldn’t wait for the taste of pizza in his mouth.

-----

Giovanni remained on alert, scratching at the collar, trying to wriggle his fingers under the metal but it was unsuccessful as he only made his fingertips ache.

He was so itchy.

He felt a bit rejuvenated from the pizza, he honestly didn’t think he was actually going to get any, but when Dr. Brookes entered with a box of the food, Giovanni had even wept a few tears.

He missed food.

He could care less; he was going to eat whatever they gave him. He had a lot of hunger to catch up on during his weeks here.

Weeks…how long has it been now?

He shakes his head, holding his teddy bear to his chest as he stares at the black beaded eyes on the toy. It was comforting, and pleasant.

”You seem high in spirits.”

Giovanni blinks and looks over to the voice. Agent John Bishop entered his space. When? He didn’t know, too entranced of the food earlier. “Come along, we have some tests to do.” He orders, but Giovanni only broadens his eyes and shakes. Whatever ‘tests’ they had in store for him, he didn’t want to be part of.

”No…”

“What was that S129?”

John held up a familiar remote, the same remote that was used to activate the shock collar around Giovanni’s neck. The slider stiffens and sweats, looking down. He didn’t want to be shocked again. If the last jolt he had was able to make him pass out for 2 days…

He shuddered as he stood up, a bit unbalanced, leaving behind the teddy bear as he cautiously followed John Bishop out his cell. He blinks when he leaves the room, meeting the gaze of the tall panther that was his regular escort to places.

The panther puts on the cuffs, making Giovanni frown. He truly was a prisoner in this hell hole. He instinctively treads after John who proceeds forward, the panther sticking behind Giovanni to keep an eye on him.

Giovanni glanced to the side when he saw the storage room that he remembered held his belongings. He had to look away when they rounded a corner, seeing an examination room ahead, making him visibly shake as he felt sick at the sight.

But then…they turned another corner. Giovanni was confused as they passed the room and was led to an elevator. He halted his steps, a bad feeling flowing inside him as he took a step back, only to collide with a body of fur and a threatening growl.

Right, the panther was here. He wouldn’t be able to run away or fight back, not in this state.

”Hurry up.” John commands, awaiting inside the compartment as the panther shoves Giovanni against his shell, pushing him inside, the turtle letting out a pained grunt as he rolled his shoulders to loosen any tension.

He gave a little glare at the panther but focused on ahead as the elevator doors closed, and he was unfortunately squashed in the middle of the large yokai and John Bishop.

His mind was in a state of anxiety, urging him to bolt or fight. They were taking him somewhere unfamiliar, going underground from the feel of the elevator.

He jumps when the machine stops, a ding being heard as the doors open and they step out. Giovanni looks around the new environment. It was dark, with only the light of machines and badly lit up pendant lights.

Where was he?

He saw a few scientists moving around, doing their work, only a few giving curious glances to Giovanni before looking away when John Bishop leers back.

A large, sealed enclosure was in the middle, with thick glass to see through. To the sides that attached to the enclosure were large duct Insulations. This whole place was eerie.

”Ah, good, you’re here just on time.”

Giovanni perks up slightly at the soothing voice of Dr. Brookes who eyed Giovanni and smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. “Are the preparations ready?” John blankly questions, arms crossed as Dr. Brookes gave a sigh, “They are. All we need now is Giovanni to enter inside.” She informs, but Giovanni had no clue was what going on.

”Inside…?” He repeats, unsure of what she meant, growing visibly nervous. “You see that room?” Dr. Brookes points to the ominous enclosure before she continues her small explanation.

”We are going to try something new. We call it K.E.T. A new program we want to try. And you’re the perfect candidate.”

Giovanni tilted his head, confused but didn’t argue back. He was apprehensive but he wasn’t given much of a choice when the panther led him to the enclosure, taking the handcuffs off him before the door opened and he was shoved inside.

A click of a lock was heard as Giovanni turned around to stare at the scientists and agents watching from the other side.

K.E.T.? What did that mean?

Giovanni looks around, high on alert as he could feel his chest tighten and hands getting clammy. Why was this enclosure big? What were they keeping in here? And why was Giovanni classified as the ‘perfect candidate’ for this mystery program?

What was going to happen to him? Surely he’ll be alright—

“What a wonderful surprise…”

Giovanni grew cold. He felt like his heart stopped beating.

No….

He slowly turns around, eyes wide as saucer plates as he gapes.

”What's the matter, Vermin?”

Pink tentacles slithered out from the darkness, her feminine, demonic voice reaching his ears as he flinched back.

”Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Sister Krang emerged from the shadows. Her sharp teeth curled into a large and maniacal smile as she focused her one eye on him. That was different. Giovanni recalled her having both eyes. She must’ve lost one during the battle she had with his brothers.

Giovanni let out a choked gasp as he shouted out to the scientist, turning around with wild eyes, terror clear as day on his face.

”Let me out! I don’t wanna be here! What is this?!”

He didn’t receive a response, only calculated looks. “Let’s catch up, Vermin. It’s been too long.” Sister Krang taunts, wrapping one of her appendages around his foot and pulled.

”NO!”

Giovanni screeched as he was dragged towards her. He claws at the ground, desperate for an escape. His pleas and begs were ignored and taken over by Sister Krang’s chuckles, she manoeuvred him to be hung in the air, holding his legs and arms out so he couldn’t move them.

Giovanni lets out terrified chirps and grunts as he tries to free himself, wriggling in her grasp. “Stop squirming pet. I deserve to have my fun after all this time of being trapped here.” She hisses, throwing him and pinning him to the floor. He wheezed, feeling the wind getting knocked out of him as he coughed. Hyperventilating as he tried to crawl away.

Sister Krang held him down, chuckling sinisterly as she placed two pink tentacles on the sides of his head. Giovanni struggled to scream as he knew what was happening. She was going to mess with his mind.

”Stop….!”

-----

He gasps, opening his eyes as he looks around. He was somewhere unfamiliar, but it was dark and there was disgusting pink goop hanging off the walls and ceiling. He pants, as he moves forward.

He didn’t know where he was going. But he needed an out.

His legs felt like jelly but he broke into a sprint, but nothing changed. Like every corner he turned it led him back to the same spot he woke up in.

”Raph?! Leo! Donnie! Mikey?!” He calls out the names of his little brothers, eager that they’ll hear and rescue him.

He yelps when something wrapped around his foot, hauling him back. He whimpered when he saw pink slime move and wrap themselves around him, holding him tightly so he couldn’t move.

He felt like a fly in a spider webs trap.

He then heard pained groans, making him falter as he looked ahead with fear. He saw his brothers, his father, April, Casey and Cassandra all on the ground. “Guys!” He yells for them, but then he froze when he saw Sister Krang appearing behind them, smirking as she raised her tentacles up in the air.

”No! Leave them alone!”

She laughs loudly, striking her appendages onto the group who all yelled in agony as their body starts transforming. Morphing into…Krang.

”No! Please, please. Not them! Please!” 

His throat felt raw as he watched helplessly as his family were forced to become Krang organisms.

-----

It was all in his head, a trick from Sister Krang who only did that because she was bored. But to Giovanni, it felt so real.

He was dropped by Sister Krang, twitching and curling into a ball as he sobs. His mind ached and throbbed, as did the rest of his body. Sister Krang laughs, inching closer to him but hissed when she felt shock engulf her body. Retracting herself away from the mutant and glaring ahead at John Bishop who let's go of a lever that was next to an electrical box.

”You know the agreement. We let you do as you please with S129. In return, you can’t kill him or severely damage him physically.” John reminded the alien who huffs, “You will be the first to die by me. Count yourself lucky that you are able to have some power, by electrocuting me.” She threatens, her voice dripping with venom.

Giovanni couldn’t register what was happening. All he saw was flashes of the Krang. His time in the dimension. How much pain he was in, both mentally and physically.

He wanted to….

He wants to die.

He slowly looks up, noticing the blurry vision of Sister Krang getting close once more. She wasn’t finished with him. How could she be? Giovanni was after all her favourite pet to play with.

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

So….how is everyone’s day going—

I APOLOGISE FOR ANY GRAMMAR MISTAKES THAT WERE MADE, I TYPE PRETTY FAST AND OFTEN DON’T SEE THEM UNTIL I ACTUALLY PUBLISH THE CHAPTER. THEN I’D TRY AND FIX ANY MISTAKES WHEN I SEE ONE.

quotev - 𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 |ROTTMNT| (Male OC)

Ao3 - 𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 |ROTTMNT| (Male OC)

First chapter here

Previous chapter here

Taglist:

@fluffyyyfrog9000

[coyotescribbles]

Continuing on from where we last left off...

Thinking about maybe pulling a Love, Death, and Robots and referencing "The Very Heart of the Machine" for this thing's eventual title.

We'll see.

Edit: Title has been titled!

Like A House On Fire [Part 3]

-----

It was a rare thing for Z to be warm.

But sometimes, when the ward was quiet and dark, she would sneak out of bed and crawl over to the heating duct to soak up the hot air for a few precious minutes.

She hadn't heard any guards in a while, though, so she pushed her luck, pressing her cheek to the wall and closing her eyes as the warm, dry air washed over her. If she tilted her head back and forth just so, she could even almost trick herself into thinking she was being rocked.

Just a little longer… this is nice, please let it last a little longer…

But eventually the warm air dissipated, much to her disappointment, and the chill started to creep back in. She realized, with a sad little sigh, that she was going to have to be sneaky getting back to bed now, and just hope that her dawdling didn't get her in trouble.

(She was always in trouble, she didn't want the warden to have another reason to punish her.)

Pressing her little hands to the floor, she tried to lever herself up onto her knees… but her body wouldn't obey her brain, leaving her frozen in place. Panic crept into her belly as she struggled to move at first, and then to call for help, but nothing worked.

The window of the ward's locked door, which had been a dim red, brightened to a fiery orange, and then to a bright, bright white light that spilled across the floor, illuminating rows of empty beds. Someone stood just outside; it sounded like they were tapping a hammer to the hollow metal.

Panic changed to fear, and Z redoubled her efforts to unstick herself from where she was frozen to the floor.

Almost as if in response to her frantic tugging, everything around her began to shake.

Then came the pain. Horrible, burning pain that coursed through her veins and blood, so much blood, soaking her pajamas and pooling on the floor between her hands and she screamed-

Her hands tore free of the bloody tile, and Z toppled to the side - only to be stopped by an invisible barrier. There was confusion, and as she blinked fog from her eyes, her surroundings flickered, switching between the ward and her brittle smallness and some strange place with pain and bars and - and -

And then sudden, crystal clarity as the stims fully kicked in and reality hit her with the full force of a Devastator's punch.

With a wordless howl, she pressed the palms of her hands to her face in a vain attempt to soothe the agony and pressure as nanites stitched bone and cartilage and burst blood vessels back together and heavy-duty anti-inflammatories relieved the soft tissue and brain swelling. Out of pure reflex, she blindly lashed out in her pain, kicking at the bars that confined her and rattling the cage until she heard and felt the dull thud of a bot's hands coming to rest on the top.

God dammit why couldn't they have just let her die?

Z's back arched as she vented her raw frustration with a scream. "You… motherFUCKERS-!!"

Finally, though, she collapsed back, breathing hard as the burning pain of the stim shot ran its course.

"Better?" The bot's thick synthetic accent made its voice hard to understand, but she did understand it, and kicked at the roof of the cage in response.

"Fuck off!" She snarled, curling onto her side as best she could and covering her head with her arms; the stim may have stopped burning, but that blazing bright light sure hadn't, and the stimulant properties of the shot meant that her pupils were wide open to that particular onslaught. Part of her wanted to tell them to turn the damned thing off, but… well, she wasn't exactly in any position to make demands.

As usual.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

Somewhere above her shoulder, there came a sound almost like laughter, stoking her annoyance further. All she could do, though, was flash an obscene gesture in the general direction of the noise as she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

Z didn't know what she expected in response to that, but it certainly wasn't two sets of retreating footsteps - one heavy, the other much lighter - followed by the closing of a door and the heavy tha-THUNK of a locking mechanism engaging.

The room settled into silence after that and, a minute or so later, the lights dimmed on their own, fading from the harsh white to a deep red, and she finally almost let herself relax.

But only almost.

Carefully shifting herself around, Z slowly sat up - there was barely enough room to do so in the tiny cage she was trapped in - and took a long moment to peer through the crimson gloom. What little she could see didn't tell her much about the space she found herself in, just that it looked like some kind of workspace, and her cage sat on a broad metal workbench. It didn't seem like a repair bay… fabrication, maybe? If so, it certainly didn't seem well-used…

This place is out in the middle of nowhere, and it didn't seem very well-garrisoned. Maybe they just don't have many reasons to use a fabrication shop.

With a sigh, she found herself laying back down, tucking herself into a corner with her face towards the door and making herself as comfortable as possible… which wasn't very, all things considered.

At least they'd let her keep her jumpsuit. It meant she didn't get too cold when the ambient temperature started to drop.

And, although the stims were in full effect, she closed her eyes and willed herself to stillness. She didn't sleep, per se, but simply let herself sink into a state of mental quiet.

It was favorable to working herself deeper into distress. After all, distress had never done anything to improve her life before, and it sure as hell wouldn't now.

So she simply let herself drift, lost in the red-stained silence.

The hours crept by.

Gradually, she registered a lightening of her environment; rousing from her daze, Z opened her eyes to find cool, pale blue light filtering into the workshop from a number of long, narrow windows just below the ceiling.

In spite of everything, she felt a lingering sense of disappointment at the fact that the windows were much too high to reach, and much too thin to climb through. Even if she could get out of the cage, she couldn't get out of this room.

As if on cue, the door's locking mechanism thunked open, and she immediately focused her full attention there, sitting up and fixing her eyes on the entrance.

She wasn't kept waiting, at least; once the lock cycled, the doors slid open to admit two Automatons - a hulking Devastator unit, and a smaller bot that she thought she recognized as a Commissar.

That was the one that stalked towards the table, arms behind its back as it leaned in close to leer at her.

Z just curled her upper lip in a silent snarl, leaning in as well to glare in the thing's face.

"I'm gonna warn you right now, mechwarrior," she growled; "if you came to hear me beg, you're gonna be real disappointed. One, I don't have any info for you to torture out of me, and two, I don't do begging."

It regarded her silently for a painfully long moment.

Then, grinding out something in that harsh machine language that she didn't understand, it proceeded to grab the bars of the cage and yank. Z barely even had time to yelp in surprise before she hit the ground hard, cracking the back of her head against the top of the cage and feeling the sharp impact radiating up her spine.

And it wasn't done, either; planting one foot at the end of the cage, the Commissar gave it a rough kick that knocked her on her back and sent the cage skidding out into the middle of the open floor.

Heart hammering in her chest, Z struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, watching the Automaton as it stalked across the floor like a hunting predator, those vivid red optics pinning her in place as surely as that wicked arm blade could. All she could do was push herself back up into a sitting position, pressing her back into a corner and watching the bot as it slowly circled her, dragging the very end of said arm blade across the bars.

It stopped.

She glared, almost daring it to kill her.

In the blink of an eye, she almost got her wish - when it raised its bladed arm and thrust the red-hot weapon through the top of the cage, stopping barely an inch from her eyes.

It took everything she had not to flinch, but somehow she managed. She wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction of cowering.

They stayed locked like that for several long moments, each staring the other down. The heat radiating off the blade made Z's eyes water, but she refused to look away.

She barely breathed, either, until it finally relented, withdrawing the blade and resuming pacing in circles around her.

"A bit small for a Helldiver, aren't you?" It asked, just as her patience was starting to fray.

The question was so absurd that she couldn't help but bark out a single laugh.

"Not a Helldiver, just rank-and-file SEAF," she corrected. "I know, it surprises me, too. I would've been dead by now if they'd been smart enough to induct me. But, hey, nobody ever accused SEHC of being particularly clever."

The machine cocked its head at that, making a clicking sound in whatever passed for its throat.

"Unusual talk for Super Earth scum."

Z's left eye twitched involuntarily.

"Fuck Super Earth."

The words left her mouth before she could even think about stopping them, and she immediately froze in shock.

Well, fuck me, if I wasn't guilty of treason already, I sure as hell am NOW.

But those words were a crack in a dam a quarter of a century in the making, and once the crumbling started…

"…Oh, shit, I can't believe I just said that," she laughed, more to herself than to her strange audience; "I've been waiting twenty-five years to say that! Bug-fucking hell…! Fuck Super Earth."

Z threw her head back with a borderline-manic giggle.

And the dam burst.

"Do you know what Super Earth has ever done for me, big guy?" She leaned forward, teeth flashing in a wild grin. "Nothing! Not a single fucking thing! It took me from my parents, it farmed me out as a child slave, and it dumped me in the Cannon Fodder Brigade the nanosecond I aged out of its absolute fucking circus of a childcare system. I was never even given a name, just a legally-identifying serial number. Super Earth raised me on crumbs and made me pay for every last milligram in blood and tears doing shit that would probably shock even a heartless fucking machine like you and I am sick to fucking DEATH of having to hold that in oh my fucking god-!"

Z had to pause, taking a deep breath to steady herself; the two Automatons just exchanged wordless glances in the brief silence.

"So!" She sat up straighter, fixing the Commissar with a cold smile and a steely glare. "If you're going to put me out of my misery, just do it already, but don't fucking pin a 'Super Earth Lover' label on me because I'm not."

The Commissar regarded her carefully for another agonizingly long moment, but this time she didn't bother staring it down. Instead, she turned her attention to the Devastator which had, up until now, been utterly silent, standing by the door.

The look it returned was infuriatingly inscrutable.

Then it turned its optics towards the Commissar, grinding out something that sounded like a question. The smaller bot snapped out of its contemplation, turning sharply to face its compatriot with a staticky hiss - before stalking back out into the corridor, tapping the Devastator's arm as it passed by in an obvious "follow me" signal.

It hesitated, just for a heartbeat, looking her over one last time before following the Commissar out.

The doors slid shut. The locks cycled.

And Z finally let herself collapse into a heap as the adrenaline drained away - along with all of her strength.

[mistralxsoul]

Planned Starter for @bravewolfvesperia

Flynn should have been more prepared. He should have seen the warning signs. Yuri had never liked the vision orbs and even warned him that he would be projected up there one day, for all to see. Flynn, at the time, had quickly requested a change of topic at the time because the idea of Yuri being branded as a criminal was too much for him to handle at the time and he told himself he had more faith in Yuri than that. Yuri was genuinely a good person. He would never ever end up like that. 

But then Captain Aegis from the kingdom of Medegal had been condemned for the crime of trying to run away with the Queen and then murdering her. Flynn knew instantly that it was a false crime. While he didn’t know the circumstances, he knew Aegis. Not on a deep personal level but he had plenty of interactions with the man and had even come to respect him and his convictions. He was loyal through and through and Flynn knew he would never betray the kingdom he served like that. The entire kingdom, from what he had seen, had held Aegis up onto a pedestal as the perfect knight. And within the hour, the entire world had turned their back on him.

If it was that easy for the world to turn their back on someone so cherished by the kingdom, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if one of his own appeared on that screen. They wouldn’t stand a chance. The world would gladly condemn a rat from the Lower Quarter with no second thoughts. The idea of it was terrifying.

That idea became reality and it was worse than Flynn had ever imagined. 

Yuri Lowell. Accused of killing an innocent man in his own home in an attempt to rob him. That was the explanation that appeared along with the recording from the vision orb that night. Flynn had been on patrol in another town entirely, having been in the middle of a trip at the time. He remembered his blood running cold when he saw the face of his childhood friend– his best friend– appear on the Vision Central. He couldn’t remember how to breathe. He couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away, couldn’t even speak.

The story was spun by the man’s adult son who had come across the killing. He had rambled on about how Yuri had snuck in and had been caught trying to steal from the man’s coffer. When he was caught, he went in for the kill. If there were any protests for Yuri from the recording, Flynn didn’t hear them over the sounds of judgment that soon erupted from the people around him (Had he protested? Had he fought the accusations? Flynn wasn’t sure. Surely he did… he did, right?). 

The Vision Central had never sounded so loud before and then after Yuri had been condemned and the recording showed the Enforcers appear on the screen, the recording died and Flynn wished that he had died along with it. Even after leaving Sodia in charge of the Squad so he could try and get back to Zaphias as fast as possible, when he returned to the Lower Quarter, he was too late. And when he nearly collapsed in the middle of the Lower Quarter, he barely registered the tearful voices of Hanks and the other residents as they helped him back to his feet.

Word was that the transgressor that killed that poor man had managed to escape the enforcers but the common opinion had been that it wouldn’t be long before that dirty criminal was caught and punished. Flynn learned that any move to try and defend Yuri resulted in the people nearly turning against him and the Lower Quarter and they soon learned to keep their mouths shut and keep their heads under the radar. 

That was the hardest part, Flynn believed. At least, right under Yuri just… no longer being there. Yuri being gone and not knowing what truly happened. Not knowing if he was still alive out there but knowing that if he was, he would never be able to come home to him ever again. He knew that Repede had run off with Yuri but the fact that Repede hadn’t come home showed that maybe… maybe Yuri was still out there somewhere. If not… then… it was safe to assume that Repede, too, was… Yeah, Flynn didn’t want to finish that thought either. 

It had been a month since then and the days did not get any easier. Flynn doubted that they would, honestly. He and Yuri had been inseparable since they met and they had been through the worst of it together. They were a part of each other and now, with Yuri gone, that part of Flynn was gone as well. He just… no longer felt like himself. All he had now was that fake mask he had to wear at all times, following the strict protocol he had set up for himself in his head. 

Follow orders, don’t argue. Don’t get angry. Do his best to smile and be polite. Earn favor with the higher ups so he could rise through the ranks and change this rotten system. Never let his true feelings show as the nobles will be sure to latch onto the smallest sign of weakness and tear him to shreds. He had to remember this. Especially knowing that he was all alone now. 

At least, he thought so. But then… he receives a report that catches his eyes, causing him to hold in a breath without realizing it. The Vision Central in the middle of Zaphias had been destroyed. There were very few witnesses but the few who had been around had mentioned seeing a man and a dog leave the scene soon after it had been destroyed and Flynn’s chest held a tiny spark of hope. 

He decided to follow this trail, ordering his knights to keep investigating the broken Vision Central. He knew they would have to investigate a way to repair it but that damned thing could stay broken and could burn for all he cared. 

He knew he shouldn’t just assume that this person was Yuri but if a suspicious individual that was a stranger to Zaphias had wandered into the city and destroyed the Vision Central, he would have been found a lot easier in a city this big. No, whoever had done this had managed to find the best way to not be seen by as many people as possible. And no one knew the backpaths of the city as much as he and Yuri did. 

So, Flynn found himself traversing through the alleys and shortcuts that he and Yuri used to run through when they were kids and teenagers growing up together in the city. The paths weren’t well known so he didn’t have to worry about someone spotting him as he hurried down the pathway, taking random turns that he and Yuri had committed to memory. 

And just as he was about to reach the end, just as he was about to doubt that he was simply chasing after a ghost of a man he would never see again, he turned the corner and was met with the sight of a retreating form of a man with long hair that Flynn would know anywhere. The dog that trotted along his side stopped suddenly and whipped around with a growl but the growl stopped short when he saw who their follower was. 

Repede’s ears lower as he whines and Flynn could only take a deep breath and he hates that his voice cracks just slightly when he calls out to the other, just overwhelmed by… by everything. 

“Yuri. …Were you planning on just leaving Zaphias without even bothering to try and find me?” His voice breaks because there’s no room for doubt anymore. This was Yuri in front of him, clear as day. He was alive. He was alive and Flynn wasn’t sure if he could cry from relief or anger that the man was trying to leave without a single word to him. 

[ethos-and-epics]

Searching for Morality in The Point That Contains The Universe

by KA, SM and WR

Have you ever wondered what you’d do if you witnessed everything in the observable universe at once? The totality of everything, each moment, location, and event, all past, present, and future colliding into one right before your eyes. What would you do? This is what our protagonist experienced when he looked into the Aleph, a singular point that contains all other points in space.

The Aleph is an autofiction written by Jorge Luis Borges, published in September 1945. The story focuses on the persona’s experience with the Aleph, exploring concepts about memory and reality, giving a fresh perspective on how we view our world. Allow us a moment of your time to dive deeper into the aftermath of observing the entirety of the universe and the consequences of a limited perspective that stem from it.

Once Beatriz, the woman Borges loves, passes, he expects that everything in the universe will change around him while he remains in the state he was in when she died. True to his word, he persists in his limited perspective, his reaction towards any contradiction being to doubt anything but himself, despite overwhelming proof that he may be wrong. When he discovers Beatriz’ flaws by looking into the Aleph, he doubts the authenticity of what he witnessed despite his entire reality being shifted. When Daneri, Beatriz’ cousin and Borges’ resented friend, is awarded for a poem Borges passionately criticized, he blames society for rewarding envy and dullness. His own work did not receive a single vote. Through the conclusion of the story we can see the author’s viewpoint on his protagonist’s self-centeredness. He is punished in his limited point of view, his work unawarded, his reality uncertain, and his Beatriz slowly forgotten.

This short story shows a snapshot of the consequences of allowing a single factor to so heavily affect our lives. Borges, who hinged his happiness on Beatriz, found his world collapsing following her death, and his purpose tainted once her flaws were exposed. Denari, despite being awarded in the end, only receives success with the Aleph’s aid, and questions his sanity when Borges lies about not seeing it. Their entire realities are put into question once the bubble of their own perspective is popped. In the face of seeing the truth of everything in the universe, both characters remained closed-minded, a symbolic representation of real life. Sometimes, despite being presented with the truth, we remain in our own little bubbles and refrain from acknowledging different perspectives. This leaves the reader with a profound message; Life is not meant to be seen through one unchanging lens or lived solely for a singular object.

Overall, the story encourages the reader to consider what they have made their Aleph or their Beatriz. It invites the reader to explore outside their typical point of view, to look beyond their usual focal point, and consider what the world around them looks like when their perspective is refocused. It cautions against keeping a fixed mindset, as reality is often different when approached from another angle. This story reminds us of how little we know about ourselves and the universes, and how comprehending it better requires understanding others.

The Aleph, containing all points in the universe, ultimately challenges its witness to look beyond what they see. It is a story about the simultaneous power and danger of perspective told through a character with such a limited point of view. While Borges used the Aleph to see all of time and space at once, all he truly needed to see the world was to look beyond himself.

References: Monegal, & Rodriguez, E. (2025, April 17). Jorge Luis Borges | Biography, Books, Poems, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jorge-Luis-Borges

[theoutcastrogue]

Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives Episode 7: The Outlaw

Outside the law

“We like to think of the story of the outlaw as a black and white tale of goodies and baddies. The reality was less clear cut. During the Middle Ages the very notion of what an outlaw was changed dramatically and so did the legal system the outlaws sought to avoid.

In Anglo-saxon England, people had been accustomed to administering the law themselves, a sort of neighborhood watch. But with this big difference - you could make money out of it. You see, the Anglo-saxons weren’t particularly bothered about punishments. What interested them was victim compensation.”

“Back then to be declared an outlaw was a fearful thing indeed. People then lived in small, self-regulating communities, and to be excluded was like being sent into exile. Worse, an outlaw was a wolf’s head, someone who could be killed on sight. They were forced to live a life on the run, outside normal society.

But in 1066, England became an occupied nation. A legal system that depended on the cooperation of the conquered with their conquerors was simply not going to work. So the Normans introduced certain legal refinements such as collective punishment and trial by battle.”

“If that was Norman justice, the Normans could keep it. Well, that’s what many Anglo-saxons seemed to think. And they chose to be outlawed rather than stand trial. By 1150 the whole legal system had collapsed so Henry II totally reinvented it, developing a legal process unique to England which put power back in the hands of the local community. Trial by jury.”

“With people rushing to court to sue each other [even] over hedge clippings, more and more people were failing to turn up to trial and consequently being outlawed for non-attendance. By the mid-14th century, almost everybody seems to get outlawed at some point in their lives. It was no big deal. It was a bit like having your credit card refused.”

Into the forest

“A forest was simply wherever Forest Law applied. It was policed by an army of royal officials who ruthlessly enforced the draconian penalties for poaching imposed by the king. Richard I set the penalty for killing deer as removal of eyes and testicles. In lots of ways the deer of the forest had more rights and privileges than the locals who lived around it.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the Robin Hood stories were so popular. They celebrated a time before the conquest when the forests were a place of freedom. Since the Normans, the forest has become a place of repression and brutal punishment. But once people had been free to hunt and gather wood here and that was never forgotten.”

“The story of Robin Hood wove together the myth of pre-conquest freedom together with the later myths of chivalry and knighthood. The English actually celebrated being a land of bold robbers.”

The Rogue adds: The episode also tackles: prisons, sanctuary, litigiousness, execution methods, and the complicated relation between gentry, robbers and knights (in any combination). The whole series is hilarious, and mostly accurate. I’m also very fond of the Knight episode.

My only comment is that celebrating your bold robbers is hardly an English peculiarity. And while outlaws’ legends are often influenced by a warrior culture of some sort, said warrior culture need not be chivalry. This is a widespread phenomenon that can be found in all corners of the earth, from China (Water Margin) to Brazil (cangaceiros) to Australia (bushrangers) to the Balkans (hajduks/klephts and so on) to right next door (rapparees).

[n7punk]

I've been meaning to get back into pokemon games, but I haven't played any since sun/moon. Any thoughts on which would be a good game to jump back into?

(Also omg shiny hunting, good luck!)

Okay so here's the thing about pokemon: Gens 1-6 are mechanically the same game. Starter pokemon, rivals (that transitioned more towards being friends over time), linear routes, pokemon trainer sight lines to dodge around or get caught in, gyms for badges, evil team, some story in driven by an evil team leading to a legendary encounter, elite four. Gen 5 shook this up a little bit here and there (especially with the "champion" battle) and Gen 6 shook it up just by going 3D and removing the pixel grid you can walk on (changing trainer sight line encounters) and I thiiiiink it was the game where they started favoring more "gym challenges" instead of trainers ambushing you as punishment for fucking up a puzzle (and some being mandatory)? I could be totally wrong on that, it has been ten years lol.

This formula got stale eventually right? So they started changing things up more with Gen 7 and the island challenge instead of gym badges which serve the same purpose in the story but play differently, plus the fact you're creating an Elite 4 and also the inter-dimensional time travel collapsing realities stuff. Unfortunately the cutscenes..... bro it turned into a visual novel.

God you're getting way more than you bargained for in this answer but basically Gens 7 and 8 ended up being "transitional" generations. Gen 8 had similar routes to Gen 6/7, and the gym system is the same as always they just dress it up differently, but the elite four is different and they start introducing stuff like the wild area with is an open-world area with some overworld encounters but still mostly relies on the traditional random grass/water encounter, and in the DLCs there's a lot more focus on exploration in a way the old pokemon games felt but are not now lmao. So if you like the old formula, but want something fresh, Gen 8 is actually a good bet in my book. The story is... lets go with boring, but the story is boring in 90% of pokemon games like truly if you go back and play them most of them are not any better (GEN 6 MY BELOVED YOU ARE SO SPECIAL DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS).

I know the internet collectively hates on it but legitimately, I think Gen 9/ScVi are the best mainline pokemon games. The story starts slow and then gets great (highly recommend NO SPOILERS if you can). I've only ever cried/gotten teary twice in a pokemon game and once was gen 6 and the other was gen 9. If you don't like open world though, you're not going to like Gen 9 the most, which I think is another reason the internet hates it (they are right about the bugs, but that's another conversation). The reason I love Gen 9 so much is that it feels like I always thought pokemon could be. Pokemon are all around you in the overworld, there's no annoying surprise encounters in the grass but sometimes pokemon will still chase you down and you have to run, different species behave differently (hiding from you, wandering up curiously but not initiating battle, Veluza trying to fucking murder you, etc), you can find them taking naps or eating a snack... It's so good. Also it's the entire reason I got into shiny hunting because finding them in the overworld is so fun. And it's still solidly familiar pokemon with the battle system and gym leader fights (though the "gyms"/gym challenges... not my favorite.). the "evil team" is fun and they shake up the formula, so it's nice just to have something new. Like with SwSh, the DLCs give you a lot to explore.

HOWEVER. There is another game that has those cool aspects and both super shakes the formula up and somehow feels even more old-school pokemon? And that's Legends Arceus. Legends arceus has like, nothing in common with traditional pokemon. I still don't know the battle turn order works to this day, no gyms, no fucking pokemon center, open-world, entirely overworld encounters, just pure exploration and some story. However, the vibes, for reasons I cant describe, feel how it felt to be a kid playing FireRed or whatever again. Legends Arceus is a lot less buggy than ScVi, more unique, and was kind of the testing ground for some changes they made in gen 9.

So, my recommendation is this:

(top pick) open-world, ready for something a little fresh but with the traditional progression: Scarlet/Violet (i recommend scarlet, it's story is better even though its the same story, no i cannot explain why it's full spoilers)

ready for something completely new but that feels nostalgic (be prepared for being literally murdered by wild pokemon, YOU, not your pokemon, YOU): legends arceus

Old formula, fresh coat of paint: Sword/Shield

never: BDSP (im being mean but ughhhhhh its bringing nothing to the table except a shiny manaphy now i guess. and the ability to shiny hunt some old legendaries in the pal park ig)

[yanderes-galore]

Fandom: BioShock (infinite I guess? Idk some time during Atlas was around)

Character: Atlas, Irish twat

Pairing: Romantic for Atlas, altho darling would theoretically not like them.

Type of Fic: a short. Plot being, darling tries to escape Atlas again (who wouldn't the dude is nuts) and he cements his craziness by giving her a lobotomy (like in the game) as punishment. Whether he finishes the surgery or not is up to you, all I know is that you can theoretically survive a lobotomy. Or not, idk I ain't a doctor

I'd love to! I watched the cutscenes with Atlas in them for Infinite and I'd love to write something similar to that!

I had to do lobotomy research for this fic-

Change In Mindset

Yandere! Atlas Short

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Female Darling, Manipulation, Failed escape attempt, Kidnapping, Lobotomy attempt/Punishment, Forced relationship, Sadism, Violence, Torture mention, Murder, Sexism if you squint ig, Blood, I kept the Lobotomy scene vague and not detailed because I hate the idea of it and I was cringing the entire time, Put the image under the read more as it could be a triggering gif.

Traversing Rapture alone was a dangerous feat. Splicers roamed everywhere and actively hunted each other down. Rapture was a collapsing city consumed with conflict.

To you, the idea of hiding from Splicers like some street rat in a sunken city was better than going back to Atlas.

Ah, Atlas... a revolutionary leader against Andrew Ryan's tyranny. In reality, the two weren't all that different. If anything you found Atlas a bit more sadistic and cruel than Ryan.

Atlas was also your lover. You wish you could say he wasn't... but he was never too keen on the idea of letting you go. You had become an item with him on a whim, he's charismatic and has such a way with convincing people.

When you got closer to him you realized the truth of who Atlas was. He wasn't a charming leader, it was an act. He's cruel, manipulative, and willing to kill and torture to get what he wants.

That very same Atlas tried to be sickeningly sweet with you. He called you his girl, his doll, his lovely lady.... The very same mouth that hurled insults and threats towards others... kissed you with passion and complimented you.

He's a charming monster. One who metaphorically chained you to him to keep you as his. You had no doubts he killed and tortured for you... just so he can keep his claws in your flesh.

There was a certain point you couldn't handle being beside him anymore. His kisses and hold were always too rough. He made you do what he wanted, regardless on how you felt.

That look in his eyes screamed possessive. He always looked at you with hunger as he held you. He scared you... sometimes you feared he'd kill you.

You escaped... you ran the moment you sensed danger within the man who claimed to love you. The Splicers were not much better but with some stealth you could probably survive, right? In all honesty... you had no idea where you were going to go after this.

Escaping Atlas was simply a dream. Ever since his whole crew had been sunk by Ryan, you have been stuck here. It's like you were in a cage, really.

He'd find you at some point... there was no doubt he was looking for you now. You knew he'd never let you go willingly. In fact, many of his thugs swarmed this area.

You felt like everyone was your enemy. Think of your situation, a young women lost in a city that's falling apart. Her lover being a cruel tyrant for "the people"....

Being caught was inevitable. You could only run for so long. As much as you wanted to ignore the truth, the truth would slam back into your face.

Just like the wrench that collided with the back of your head.

...

By the time you're able to regain your bearings, you're strapped to a chair in a familiar room. The lights blind you and your head throbs painfully like a rhythmic drum

This looks a lot like... the room you and Atlas would frequently stay in? You can't think much without the back of your head ringing in pain. You shake in your restraints, trying to pull them off.

Only to stop when the shape of a hand grips your chin.

"Don't move, doll, it'll only make it all hurt a lot worse."

The tyrant rears his deceptively charming head.

"Atlas...."

"Now where were you running off to, little lady? Needed some fresh air? You know it's dangerous without me around...."

You stay silent, what were you thinking....

"It hurts, really. To think you'd run away from the one I thought you held so dear. Luckily I had one of my men carry you in..." Atlas then leans forward, grinning. "Of course, he hit you rather hard, so I had to correct that by slitting his throat. You aren't getting off easy either, love."

"You really are going to kill me, aren't you-"

"Kill you? I could never. I love you too much for that..." Atlas leans forward to kiss your lips teasingly before pulling away. "I would never kill my doll... however, a man has to correct his lady's behavior, right?"

Your heart drops to you stomach when Atlas turns away only to come back with two tools. A metal spike, and a mallet. Your eyes shakily trail from the tools to his disappointed face.

"I thought you'd be a good girl and listen to me. I guess not... which is where these come in. Normally a doctor would do this but I'd rather do it on you myself, my love."

He pushes your head back and aims the pointed tool near your eye socket. You shake and tell him 'no'. He doesn't listen.

"This is a lobotomy, my dear." Atlas hums, pushing the tool closer.

"You could say it will correct your behavior. I always felt you've been a bit too rebellious for my liking."

You feel the tool starting to prod its way into your skull. Atlas grabs the mallet and grins while blood flows down from your eye.

"How about we change your mindset, love? I promise to be gentle...."

You scream for him to stop... he ignores you and taps the mallet on the tool lodged in your skull.

----

You felt like you lost a part of yourself after Atlas took you in. In fact, you literally did. Atlas had removed a part of your brain. Some memories from your past were replaced with what felt like blank holes.

Your emotions... were nearly non-existent. Apathy was all you ever felt. Actually... you felt quite hollow.

Atlas didn't seem too upset about it. In fact, he felt it was deserved. Running away deserved punishment... now you wouldn't run away. Now you had to stay by him.

Atlas still kissed you and said he loved you. Even though he mutilated your mind beyond repair, he simply used it to his advantage. Now you were just like he had wanted you.

You were like a doll that listened to his every word. You never showed much emotion afterwards. That only allowed Atlas more control, which kept him happy.

"It's such a shame I had to change you like this, doll...." Atlas murmurs, kissing you once again while holding your cheek. "But if I'm being honest... I like that you no longer fight me with anything now."

He pulls you closer, combing his hands down your back.

"Now you won't run... you won't even rebel..."

Atlas holds your chin upwards and meets your distant gaze.

"You can just be my girl... with none of the added fuss, right, love?"

He kisses you once again, but you don't react.

[senkothewarlock]

DWC #6 (November '24 Ed.)

Day 6: Crack / Positive (Knew a few people who were more positive on crack.)

Warning: Dark and Edgy themes of slavery and slaughter ahead. You’ve been warned.

As the palms met one another; their eyes went white as fog, and so too did their minds become foggy. A surge of energy shot into the hands, like the prick of a needle or the brush of static electricity as their minds began to paint a vista, under the narration of Senko’s voice:

“Allow me to share with you what our people have suffered… Aburasozo, I envy you. Far removed from the imperial territories, you heard only rumours and saw raids. Let me show you the brutal realities.” She said, her gaze slowly moving onto Zarester.

“As for you, my friend, what Arthas brought to Quel’Thalas was terrifying and horrifying, I do not mean to downplay what happened to your people, but I shall say this: Fortunate that you did not have to contend with a Lich King for millennia.”

Softly, Senko’s voice disappeared and the mind fog broke, centuries of lavish living was brought to mind. Plush pillows, airy apartments, fresh food, water and wine. However, the more sinister aspects became to mind. Enslaved Vulpera and Zandalari alike, with bodies shredded from flogging and punishments, gently swaying the flabella with malice in their eyes.

Another vision began to build in the eyes of the minds gathered: Luxurious coffers of wealth, coins nestled between thick shards of skyglass and azerite, gems on tables in the background being refined and polished. Much like the previous memory, however, the reality began to seep in. Starved and withered Vulpera, on the urge of collapse, lugging ore and resources out of work camps began to flash into the mind, like a rapid series of photographs.

Another image. Another innocuous scene. Another lie. What looked like a simple Sethrak hunter, posing with his vulture, soon turned into a horrific scene of cruelty. Strung up Vulpera, worked till naught but skin and bone, being feasted on alive while hanging upside down by the scavenger birds. Senko’s voice continued.

“For generations, we suffered, we fought, we endured. Unable to mount a large movement, we remained operating in the shadows – small skirmishes to make them bleed as much as they bled us. How can anyone thrive and prosper when pinched between two empires?”

The images broadcasted in the minds of the two worsened, the abhorrent condition of slave pits, auctioning of kits, mass burials for the depleted workforce, swept aside as if they were broken toys of a petulant toddler. Senko watched the faces churn with disgust as her own expression softened into sorrow. For a brief moment, one may have mistaken it for regret.

“So, I did what I could. To even the score. To fight a war the world would rather ignore.” Senko said, her teeth gritted, and words laced with malice.

The images portrayed in the heads of Aburasozo and Zarester would begin to flicker between the viewpoint of the Sethrak in the shard, and their hostess, Senko. The former would be seen running around villages, burning in the night sky as acrid smoke plumed into the night sky. A head full of screams of agony and pain, while the latter would be carefully pacing around the outskirts of the village in the dusk, a pointed claw etching runes and symbols along the perimeter with a low incantation of a foul, evil language best left unknown… Yet Zarester winced, she knew the words of the demons.

“Akhor aar dharketh anakh katranish.” “Akhor aar dharketh anakh katranish.” “Akhor aar dharketh anakh katranish!”

An excerpt from the black litanies. A call to the malevolent energies of the world to draw in and feast on the suffering of those whom the caster deems ‘miserable’. A call that soon became answered. As the two parallel sets of memories flashed closer and closer into convergence, one final scene played: Senko’s gnarled hand, wrestling against itself as energies concentrated themselves into her palm. With a swift upward motion, the runes around the village flared up into a pillar of sickly green that sought to scorch the very stars with its height. 

Curling her arm inwards, the memory of Senko past grinned as large reams of soul energy flew into her crude batteries for containing and dispensing soul shards. The first village, once one of Ts’kon’s holdings, was now nothing more than a literal ghost town. And then the next, and the next. The fires that would’ve lit up the settlement from the skies, gone in a flash of hateful fire and the lamentations of the howling dead.

As the stream of history began to merge into a cohesive narrative, Senko spoke: “Were it not for the intervention of people I thought were my allies – friends – I would’ve burnt a path to their misbegotten capital and stamped out their miserable empire once and for all or died trying.”

The two found it unnerving to listen to the coldness and calculating tone of Senko’s recounting of villicide – five villages gone in a single night, yet the never-ending stream of equal atrocities that had taken place and had been for centuries quicky diluted the direct disgust of Senko’s crimes. Aburasozo, knew deep down, Senko’s actions, had a modicum of logic behind such senseless slaughter. Zarester shook her head from the fog and asked a pointed question.

“Just who is this Viceroy to you, Madame Senko? He appears to be no more than a bureaucrat. Surely there are more-… important targets?” Zarester asked, canting her brow.

“Allow me to show you the answer. Allow me to show you how positive I am that I must do what I do.” Senko answered, motioning with her hand, another stream of visions burning into the minds.

The viewpoint shifted, Aburasozo and Zarester gazed at a map etched on krolusk shell. Despite being in the Sethrak scratches, the words were ‘known’ to them. It was a map of the eastern desert, towards the borders with Nazmir. On the fateful day Sargeras drove his blade into the planet, the world’s vessels burst across the planet, sprouting the blood of Azeroth upwards: the powerful, magical substance known as Azerite. The blistering wastes became a hotbed of activity, to which the Sethrak spared no time building an elaborate system of work camps.

Senko’s voice penetrated the display once more: “Camp zero-three-seven, it was to this one I was sold, a commodity of interest to the overseer – ‘a fox with spells’ he deigned to call me.” The image shifted, the camp now burning and scavenged by freed slaves. “I had learnt that the land belonged to the Viceroy, and so when I returned to Vol’dun years later, he was the first to suffer my wrath.”

“So, you cut into his bottom line, ravaged his lands to starve him.” Aburasozo interjected, adjusting her monocle, trying her best to mask the tears welling in her blue ponds.

A wry smirk formed on Senko’s face. She enjoyed hearing how people navigated her twisted logic. “Correct, as he starved us. After I was-… made to withdraw from Zandalar entirely, Ts’kon spent years trying to assassinate me, half from rage, half to use my death as a token to the Imperial throne. He finally found me on my wedding night, yet it was not enough. I had simply grown even stronger in the years he wasted.” Senko said, licking her lips, tasting such a sweet memory that audibly played back.

“… Surely you aren’t telling us, madame Senko, that a territorial administrator tried to kill you personally?” Zarester asked, in a state of disbelief.

“Oh, he tried. You see, my mentor had been ‘helping him’ by providing where I was, in reality, it was all a test to see how strong I was. His wedding gift to me, amusingly, was the Viceroy in a befuddled state. I overpowered him as one would a hyena cub. His soul burnt with anguish, yet it survived longer than I thought. So, I kept him as a battery. For today’s specific purpose.” Senko said, concluding the mind visions. She dispelled the two with a simple swipe of her paw.

As she had finished her speech, the room had turned warmer. The Sethrak slaves had found themselves affixed to the six octagons in the chamber. The distinct sound of a small rift opening and crackling, before collapsing under its own weight was heard as Senko turned up to look at the overlook platform. Atop of it stood a lady, clad in garments best described as immodest beachwear. Her body possessed six arms, two holding onto the guardrail of the mid-way point from the plinth to the base of the lake’s cavern, two on her waistline and the last two folded beneath bosom. Her skin was a pale, off-cream tone speckled with slashes of purple with ears that might’ve shown elven heritage.

By the time Aburasozo and Zarester had finished taking note of the bound Sethrak, Senko was atop of the plinth, standing high above all, she placed a hand on the staff and pulled back. The clattering sound of machine began to rumble in the underground. Dust and small chunks of material fell from the ceiling, as under each of the octagons, great turbines would turn on, blaring lights from beneath shined up into the ceiling, a stadium of slaughter.

“Shahrathal, please begin your litanies when ready.” Senko asked, directing her statement towards the newcomer, a demon of the Shivarra race.

“With pleasure and with precision, Grandmistress.” The Shivarra replied, summoning books to her side and placing hands on pages, on texts and remaining on handrails.

“Senko, miss, may I just ask one question?” A panicked Zarester said, the sounds and whines of turbines filling the house. “Do you not fear that your actions here will cause further reprisals?”

As the Shivarra began to speak, Senko turned slowly to face her friends: “The goal is to cripple their whole, misbegotten race from ever being in a position of power to do this to anyone ever again. As for my morality, I do not care when my boot heel stomps on the ants.” And to that last part, she made sure the smile of sadism was seen – even through the faceplate.

[fantasyinvader]

I think there's something to how Houses deals with trauma that bears discussing. It's not just that a character's trauma serves as a justification for their actions, more an explanation, but there also seems to be something about how dealing with other peoples' trauma is addressed.

There's Edelgard's trauma, and the implications that it's been used to manipulate her into rejecting the teachings of the Church and starting a war by her abusers. There's Dimitri's trauma dealing with Duscur and the injustices he's seen. Claude's trauma stems from being othered his entire life and Fodlan not being the enlightened land he hoped it was, with killing his brother added to Hopes to push him over the edge.

But the game doesn't present their actions in a good light. Edelgard is still the villain while Dimitri, while seen as a folk hero for his actions, is suicidal while Claude's prejudice lead to the collapse of the Alliance if left unchecked. Ferdinand says this following the Gronder battle, with extra dialogue added for Verdant Wind.

Ferdinand: Dimitri, the late prince of Faerghus. He despised the Empire with all his heart. He should not have tried leading an army while his emotions were holding him captive. (Byleth's responses are "leaders are people too" and "Leaders can't be emotional?") No. If a leader's emotions overcome them, others must step in to prevent poor decision-making. Why did his followers not intervene? His attendants? I used to call Edelgard my leader, and now she is running amok. I am duty-bound to stop her.

It really calls to mind that the people around the leaders need to challenge the leaders on their decisions, not blindly follow. It was people that blindly followed Dimitri in his emotional state that led to the fall of the Kingdom, with Ferdinand's comment putting Edelgard on the same level. And when you think about the recruitment mechanics, how characters will abandon their countries and leaders to follow Byleth, recruiting characters could be seen as an extension of that. Conversely, look at how unrecruited characters act fighting Byleth. In most routes, it upsets them whereas in Safflower they're angry at Byleth for joining Edelgard. They're calling out Byleth's decision and try to stop them.

But going back to the recruitment of the other characters, with the Black Eagles's they can't bring themselves to support Edelgard after the events of White Clouds so they leave the country, the Kingdom has no clear leadership in Azure Moon so they end up joining with the Church's resistance forces, while Claude's dislike of the Church has him attempting to remain neutral in light of what the Empire has done which includes recently starting to attack the Alliance. So while they all can abandon their countries, the reasons for doing so are understandable. Especially when staying with their countries and following their leaders results in their deaths at Gronder or becoming villains themselves. Golden Wildfire shows that Claude is not exempt from this, while I think the game was trying to make Dimitri continuing the war to punish the Empire after Azure Gleam was meant to be his failing.

The lords don't need enabling. Dimitri needed to be confronted on his beliefs that people died for him rather than for what they believed in, and how Dimitri needs to live for himself rather than living for the dead. Claude needed to work with those he hated and blamed Fodlan's issues on, letting go of his misconceptions and truly getting to know them in the process. Edelgard's issues makes it so that she only listens to and empowers those who support her, viewing everyone who doesn't bend the knee to her as an enemy while turning her head away from the reality she doesn't want to see. It's You can't help Edelgard because of it, it's why her path is meant to represent the opposite of enlightenment in the Japanese script, the best thing you can do is stop her. Just going along with the lord isn't going to help them, just look at Shez, instead they need to be confronted on their various levels of shittiness.

And there's just something to this I can't help but feel is rooted in the Japanese mindset. The stories you hear about how employees have to work to make their bosses and companies look good, adhering to the hierarchy in place and treating those above you with differance in spite of their shortcomings. Or just how the generational gap is really bad there because the young are expected to follow their elders despite the elders mistakes, a reason why there's a slew of media like Gundam about entrusting the future to the next generation. This feels rooted in the Silver Snow route, where Edelgard is the pawn of some really old fucks, but then there's Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, showing how helping other rather than leaving them to deal with their problems themselves (another staple of Japanese society and a barrier to getting mental help) can help them improve not just as a leader but as a person as well. Both these are messages people in the West tend to believe are universal.

So, yeah. This was just something that popped into my mind when I wanted to explore the effects of trauma on each lord and how it can turn them into a monster, in addition to how others can stop them from doing so or accelerate the process.

[ragingstillness]

BUNGO SPOILERS

ok so I have Thoughts.

First of all, the anime going ahead of the manga I have seen before in other fandoms. Sometimes it meant that the plotline had been neatly wrapped up for the anime and the manga would diverge. Take that as you will

Fyodor is not dead. Come on. An arm? I’ve watched anime for too long to think he’s dead without a full body. Not to mention that an arm is particularly suspicious considering Gogol’s ability. Remember when he convincingly cut himself in half? He could very easily have transported Fyodor out of the helicopter and cut off his arm because he knew it’d convince Dazai

Speaking of Gogol, if Fyodor is dead I am robbed of seeing Gogol kill (or at least try to) Fyodor and that isn’t fair. To me.

Chuuya being a fake vampire? Checks out, sounds like some shit Mori would do. Sad we didn’t get to see him act directly in this episode but eh.

Chuuya’s teeth being glued in and him unable to get them out? I have literally had this exact experience trying to glue in vampire teeth for a Halloween costume once. I was picking glue out of my gums for a week it was awful

Tecchou and Kenji being alive? What I expected.

Jouno and Tachihara are still up in the air I guess

Poe’s book. Can it suspend death? Is Fukuzawa somehow not still bleeding out from being stabbed through the heart? Bsd hates medical science. Also does Poe’s book write stuff on command? I thought he had to deliberately write the story which would mean he was working with Fukuchi? I’m confused.

Ranpo being alive and healed? Makes sense but I wanted to see Yosano do it so I knew she was alive.

Akutagawa no longer being a vampire and being alive? THAT’S MY FUCKING BOY! Also his new medieval knight outfit is fucking brilliant and I want him to know it makes him look very sexy

Bram saving Aya. We all knew it but were glad to see it.

Bram having his whole body back when it got mentioned (at least in the manga) that he’d die if the sword was pulled out? I mean I support it but that feels like a plothole

Bram being Aya’s knight? Adorable, I want to see him adopt her. I want the adventures of the weirdly old adult who knows nothing of the modern world and the reckless kid with a good heart and an iphone

Whoever Atsushi and Aku are fighting? Unclear but it looks like it’s holding Fukuchi’s sword so maybe it’s the sword itself? He did say smtg about a legendary sword maker. I’d guess it was Crime and Punishment but it doesn’t look Russian enough

Fyodor’s Hebrew: excellent, we love to see it, last words of Jesus, that’s the good shit. Also irl Fyodor getting out of prison and living a better life vs bsd Fyodor getting out of prison and dying…idk where I was going with this anyway irony

The bullet not piercing the skull trick. Frankly was one of the ideas I thought of, not surprised Dazai’s a fucking cockroach.

Fukuchi’s plan. Naive at best but relatively good intentioned. I’m not ready to like him as a character and probably never will. Killing 500 people, how the hell could he keep it so precise? It’s also an interesting debate about the life of an individual vs the life of the collective, almost a trolley problem thing, curious to see how Fukuzawa decides about it

Not a fan of Fukuzawa crying. If I do not see it, it cannot make me sad

Fukuchi’s plan cont. changing reality with the book is the only way I can think of to make this plan even somewhat feasible. Without it the plan would collapse. Do you know how many wars would be fought just over who controlled One Order? Why can’t the original ability user use it? So many questions

One Order’s design: Soul-Eater-Kishin-ass-looking-thing

Can One Order even still control armies without them under control of the vampire ability? What about the seal on Fukuchi’s wrist that made him control Bram? The sword being coded to Fukuzawa’s voice? How???? There are so many questions around that alone

How does Bram undo the vampirism I want to see it?! Is Aku still injured when he is de-vamped?

Fukuchi said it was a U.N. ordinance about One Order. Is he aware not every country is in the U.N.? Also, if someone manages to launch and nuclear missile before One Order is activated it can’t exactly be deactivated. There are so many issues with this plan it’s like Thanos’

Where is the book???? I want to know????

So Sigma is just dead then? Fuck. And we still don’t get to lean what Fyodor’s ability does

Fyodor having vampire spies among the Mersault guards is such a cop-out, give me something cool like Dazai’s communication strategy

Strongest opponent after /that man/. WHO IS FYODOR TALKING ABOUT I NEED TO KNOW GIVE ME TOLSTOY OR GIVE ME DEATH!

I’ll probably add more thoughts as I have them but these are my preliminary ones