#and both his fathers hate him. one of them is also dead. this poor boy

[linagram]

If we’re doing questions, I have one for everybody: what’s one thing you’d like to do when/if you get out of here? (This applies to the guards too, if we can ask them questions.)

this is such an interesting question, thank you for sending it!

Akio: I hope- um, I know that I will definitely get out of here, but.. I'm actually not so sure what I want to do when that happens. No, actually, how would it even be possible for me to go back to normal life? Of course, I want to go back to school, I want to continue getting good grades and being loved by everyone, but.. Even though he's not here anymore, it wouldn't be possible for me to just go back to that school and hope that everything will be fine. They already know what happened anyway. Maybe I'll convince my parents to let me go to a different school, I think they would be okay with that. But before that.. Maybe I'll try to reconcile with one person.

Aimi: .. Haha, that's such a silly question. I can't just go back to my normal life after what I've done. How can I go back to school and pretend like everything is okay? And my family.. They won't be happy when they hear about my crime. I don't know if they will forgive me.. No, no, they are very good people, trust me! They love me a lot and I love them too! It's just.. never mind. So, the first thing that I'd do if I manage to get out.. I miss my dogs. I want to play with them like I did before I ended up here.

Shun: To be honest, I don't really want to leave?.. This place isn't that bad. I finally get the attention that I've always wanted, isn't that wonderful? I don't want to go back to that apartment, I don't want to go back to my boring job, I don't want to see my parents who will just say how much of a burden I am again.. But if I had no choice and I would be forced to go back to the outside world, I think I would.. I just remembered how messy my room was. I really have to clean it, don't I..

Naomi: I think I would just move to a different town. I wouldn't be able to stay there after everything I've done. I love my students, I really do, but going back to that school would be too painful. Maybe I'll be able to start a new life, but I know I will never forget about my crime. Also I would never talk to my parents after that. I would ignore their phone calls, I would ignore their messages, I wouldn't tell them where I am. My siblings?.. Maybe I would talk to them, but I'm not sure if I can trust them.

Kei: I would just keep living like I did before arriving here, that's it. I miss the one who inspired me too much and I want to go and see him as soon as I can. I hope he's not feeling too lonely without me.. Hm? You think he already escaped? Haha, now, maybe I did kidnap him, but he stayed with me because he was okay with that. He was too sick and tired of everything, so I basically saved him. Uh, what do I want to do when I see him? You really want to know all the details?.. I'm just joking around, don't look at me like that. I want to take another photo of him, of course. But I think I would want this photo to be a bit different from my other works. It would be nice to see him smile and take a picture of it when I come back.

Eiko: I'd just go back to my normal life. I have a lot to do, I want to graduate, I want to keep working as a model, who knows, maybe I'll become popular.. No, I don't care about my crime at all. That guy was pathetic, no one would miss him anyway. Well, maybe except his friends.. Hm, maybe I should kill his friends next.. Just kidding. They do deserve it though.

Asahi: .. Me and my mom will try to figure it out. That's all I can say right now. But I will get out of here. I know I will.

Yurika: It would be nice to see her again, but I don't think she would be proud of me for getting caught. Also, I have a question: if I kill someone again, does it mean that I'll be sent back to this place? Because if so.. oh no, I'll become useless to her.. Ah, I also have to watch everything on my list when I come back. Sure, maybe I can watch some anime here too, I don't know how this place works, but doing it in prison is just.. weird.

Riku: I don't know about other high schoolers, but for me, I'd have no problem with moving on and living like nothing happened. Listen, that guy's death was so predictable that when he died, everyone just went "Yeah, I should've seen that coming". Other students didn't care and they just felt sorry for me, meanwhile the adults were like "Oh no, how horrible, we will just use his death to show how bad bullying is and we will talk about it for like a week and then ignore the kids who are getting bullied and need our help".. Maybe I also should start acting like my real self more. Maybe people wouldn't judge me for that.

Reina: .. Haha, who knows, maybe I'll get a redemption arc or something. Yeah, maybe I'll just come back to my family and say how sorry I am while crying. And then I'll continue committing crimes while they think that I'm done with all that stuff!.. Acting like this is starting to become boring, honestly.

Eiji: To be honest, if it's possible, I would like to stay here and keep working as a guard. There's too many criminals to punish and I can't just let someone else do it instead of me. And getting replaced sounds.. A-anyway, if I still had to go back to the outside world, I'd try to live like a normal person. I would go to college, I would make friends, I would do things that I like.. And I also would do anything to make Kei go to prison again. But like, not this one, just the "normal" one. Or I would just ignore him and my parents and pretend like they don't exist.

Miki: Um.. I guess I still have to graduate high school.. And I also have to decide what to do after that.. And my grandparents probably miss me.. There's so much to do, it's so overwhelming to think about. Wait, how can I even explain what happened to me? Oh no, now I'm scared.. But also, if that's possible, I think I would invite Asa- um, Yano-san to live with me. I don't know if he really is my younger brother, but I don't think there's anyone who can take care of him when he comes back.

[ewanmitchellconnoisseur]

𝑨𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒚 (Final) 𝑨𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

A/N: ...i'm sorry...🥲

Summary: The death of Luke takes it toll.

TW: Grief, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide,

←  Previous Part

Word Count: 2.5k (Not proofread, we die like men 🫡Im also just too tired I'll do it eventually🤣)

Quiet.

It was so quiet.

He waited. Aemond stood at the foot of your bed waiting...he knew by the look in your eyes that you somehow knew what happened.

He waits for some sort of reaction. For you to scream or hit him. Something...anything. Your silence deafining feeling heavy on his eardrums. Giving his brain room to think and go over what happened.

He silently begs for you to say something. To snap him out of his thoughts, to help get the images out of his head. He can't bare it. Any of it. He can see the anger that creeps on to your face, the pain that is starting to bloom in your heart. Can he survive you hating him? You not loving him knowing what he has done?

What has he done?

He's not sure how long you both stay in that silence. He knows once the first words are spoken its gone forever.

Finally willing himself to speak he takes a deep breath, licking his lip.

"...Iksan vaoreznuni."[I'm sorry] That is all he says, all he can say. What else is there really for him to tell you? He killed your brother. The war has started and you are trapped here. If you weren't a prisonner before you sure are one now.

"Get out..." that is all you can bring yourself to say, and he needs to hear. Despite everything in him willing himself to stay, to fight it out with you in hopes you would forgive him by the end. He knows that ending is unlikely. He's gone and ruined everything between the two of you and for what? Revenge?

He turns and leaves your chambers, his footsteps not making a sound. Aemond would not return to his chambers that night but instead would spend his time until the morning drinking his fill. Trying to push the face of Lucerys Velaryon out of his mind. Guilt eating him alive.

He sat on the ground in the old chambers of the boy he killed.

His face painted his memory. The last look Luke had before he was torn to shreds by Vhagar...by him.

He had not meant to kill Luke. He only wished to scare him, to envoke the same fear Aemond had felt when Luke took his eye. When he was ganged up on by 4 children, his family. Aemond only ever wanted to be one of them. To train his dragon alongside his nephews and brother. But instead he was mocked and ridiculed for not having one.

He watched his father dote on his sister and nephews and ignore the family he had wanted. The sons he wanted. Though Aemond disliked his older brother he knew that the balme for the way Aegon turned out was his father's.

He chose to take another wife. It was his choice to sleep with his mother, a mere child at the time and plant his seed in her. He wanted to a boy to carry on his name and when he got one he casted them to the side and named Rhaenyra heir and "his only child.".

How was Aemond to feel? How could he not feel resentment. Nobody was here for him. Nobody breathed for him or walked this earth in his name. He had no one.

Luke had everything he had ever wanted. Love.

Hollow. That was the only way to describe how you felt. The void the death of your brother caused was not one that could easily be filled.

Morning came and you remained in the same spot Aemond had left you in. You ignored your handmaids as they came to prepare you for the day. You ignored the sounds coming from outside your window.

Your heart hurt, your chest was heavy. Lucerys was gone. He was dead. Your poor mother...and here you were. Of no use.

Tears pricked your eyes once more. You begged them not too fall. You could not bare crying again.

Your servants returned once again. Leaving a tray of food. They begged you to let them get your washed and dressed but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

You thought of every moment you ever shared with Luke. He was a sweet boy. He was your brother. The tears that fell burned your cheeks. That hole in your heart grew ever so slightly.

Your sobs filled your room.

You remained in that spot for the entirety of the day. Tears no longer falling, your stomach empty and throat dry.

You do not remember when Alicent had come in. You do not remember her giving her condolences or trying to convince you to eat.

You didn't see Aegon smirking behind his mother next to his grandfather.

You do however remember the gentle touch of Helaena. She sat next to your her hand on yours. She was never one for touch. But even she knew you needed it.

You were in an ocean of your own emotions. Sorrow. Pain. Loss. Grief. Agony. It was pure agony.

How could you go on? You feel the love still in your heart when you think of Aemond. You were digusted by it. You still loved him even after what he had done. All while you hated him.

You hated what he has done not just to look but to the two of you. How could you both move on now? How could you marry your brother's killer. The chance at happiness, the chance at the life you always dreamed of having with him were gone.

There was anguish in your throat, all the way up to your chest.

How could you save this? How could you reverse what he has done?

You do not know when you stood up. You don't remeber slipping on your robes and your shoes.

When had it gotten so dark outside?

You opened your chamber doors. Your emotions controlling your feet as you walked towards the chambers accorss from yours. The hallway empty and quiet. Where were the guards?

You opened the doors and stepped inside. You looked around everything where it was the last time Luke was here. You walked over to a chest near the fireplace and opened it. All of his toys sat inside. His drawings, his memories...but he was not here.

He was in the water...you had to get him back...he was calling you to come and get him.

You returned back to your chambers and found a quill and paper. Your final words. You wrote three letters. One for Aemond, one for your mother and one for Jace. You got dressed quickly in your riding clothes with an added black cloak.

You left the letter for Aemond on your bed.

You opened the door again and peered out. The guards still not there you walked over to a different room. Your mother's. You knew of the passages inside it. You had listened to many stories of her escapades. You left her and Daemon's letters in here. You knew they would eventually come and would find them.

Your body moved on its own. Every twist and turn. You did your best to move slowly and cautiously. As one turn brought you down another hall you heard a footstep.

Halting all movements you looked ahead. Narrowing your eyes wondering what it was. You prayed its was a rat or some sort of animal.

You see another person turn the hall. But who it is does not send you running. Helaena looks at you shocked.

What is she doing here?

She does not say anything but lowers the hood of her own cloak and walks up to you. You don't get the chance to say anything before she pulls you into a deep hug.

She knows. Of course she knows. She must have seen it and came to say goodbye. Helaena wouldn't stop you. She loved you too much to keep you here nor to alert anyone of your escape.

With a final kiss on your cheek she walks past you and makes her own way down the passages.

It took you a while to locate Vermithor but you managed. He was excited to see you but could feel the pain you felt.

You got settled onto his back and rubbed his scaly back gently. You knew where you had to go. Where you wanted to be.

The flight was smooth but long. The sun had finally rised. You knew it wouldn't be long before the castle would notcie your dissapearence. As you finally arrived you spotted something on the beach. Something dark and large. You landed near it and as you got close your heart only broke more.

Arrax's bloody wing was nestled on the sand. For what felt like the millionth time you cried. Touching the wing gently. Evidence of the crim that took place only a day ago.

Luke was here...you could feel it.

You sit on the beach, enjoying a last moment of peace.

It is quickly broken as you hear the screech of a dragon. You look up to see the giant body of vhagar approaching.

"Don't be afraid." You turn your head back in front of you in shock. Luverys stands there. His clothes drenched. "It will be alright."

He turns around and begins walking into the water. You could hear Vhagar getting closer and Aemond calling your name.

Wasting no time you follow after Luke. Your shoes pooling with water. Aemond's only gets louder as he finally lands and rushes to get unbuckles to get to you.

Panic sets into his chest as he watches you get deeper in the water.

He finally manages to get out of the straps and climbs down vhagar. He kept his eye trained on you still screaming after you as you got deeper in the water.

You had not learned how to swim. It was not a skill you needed.

But you did not fight it. You did not fight it when water pooled in your lungs. You did not regret the choice. It felt warm and right. You opened your eyes. The dark water surrounding you as you sinked deeper and deeper into its depths.

Far down below you, you could see it. You could see Luke. He was looking at you with a smile. This was right. This was what you needed. Peace.

As quickly as the Dance of Dragons started it ended. When word of your death reached the ears of Daemon there was no stopping him. He had already sent blood and cheese to avenge Luke. But now. Now he had to avenge you. His daughter.

Your mother lost any hopes of this being a peaceful war. Of their being no bloodshed. She had already lost two of her children through no decision of her own. The Greens had started this and The Blacks would end it in red.

Daemon gathered everyone he could. Whoever could ride a dragon did. Dragonseeds were located and were quickly taught to claim and dragon. Though some died in failed attempts enough suceeded. There would be no waiting. And when word reached of Aegon's party he threw in honour Aemond for killing Luke and starting the war it only made him happier for the pain Aegon would soon feel.

It was easier then they thought it would be. The amount of dragons no match for theirs. The most shocking part? Vhagar and Aemond were nowhere to be found.

The Blacks seized the castle by nightfall. By the morning Rhaenyra took her place on the throne, her fathers crown nestled on her head. Daemon had found your letters and both him, Rhaenyra and Jace read them and by the end their eyes filled with tears. Though against Daemon's judgement Rhaenyra spared Helaena. Though it would do no good. Helaena already wracked with grief would later that day throw herself from Maegor's Holdfast and die on its spikes.

Alicent would die begging her old friend. Claiming she still loved her and that she regrets her choices. Saying she had no other choice and that she only did what was expected of her.

The word Dracarys would be said three times that day. Alicent, Aegon and Otto were all sentenced to die. Rhaenyra would not kill a child though. She could not bring it in her to kill Maegor or Jahaera, the two had already suffered losing their brother. She would raise them as her own.

It wouldn't be until a week after her official crowning that word of Aemond and Vhagar were to delivered to her and her family during their meal. They were all on edge assuming the prince would be coming to burn them inside the castle.

But were shocked when they were told where he was.

Aemond had throw himself into the waters of Storm's End. He had tried to stay alive, hoping he could do good by yoru memory but it was all to much. The death of luke and now you had taken its toll. And all he wanted was to be with you.

The memory of him desperately trying to find you in the water. Trying to swim down but the instinct of survival making him swim back up. He repeated the process over and over until he simply laid on the sand.

He knew the blacks would be coming for his family now. And honestly? He could not bring himself to care. What had his family ever done for him. You were all he ever wanted and needed and he couldn't see that. There was never a need for revenge cause he had already won. He had you. You would've been married to him, spent the rest of your life with him.

How could he not see that victory? It was an easy choice. He could stay and die alongside his family or die where you were. So that's what he did, he joined you in the cold salty waters and felt the same warm embrace you did.

He had left a letter of his own. For his big sister Rhaenyra. Her hands were shaky as she opened the letter, the eyes of her family on her. Her eyebrows furred together as she began reading Her eyes pricked with tears and a sob escaped her lips as she read the first line.

"To Queen Rhaenyra."

The letter detailed how sorry Aemond was. For what he had done. He begged her forgiveness for the death of both Luke and you. He blamed himself for it all and wanted her to know he never meant for it. Rhaenyra would quietly thank her brother and prayed to the Gods that he was at peace now.

Rhaenyra was named the "The Black Queen." but also "The Merciless.". She would sit the Iron Throne and Jace after her. She would never be the same though, happiness never rteurned to her as she would dream of her two beautiful children every day.

Surrounded by clouds light and warmth. You watch. You watch your family continue on, to build, to heal. You watch with a smile.

On one side of you your brother's hand in yours as he shares the same smile. And Aemond's arms wrapped around your waist on your other side. This was peace. And you didn't regret it, not for a moment.

You were no longer in agony.

A/N: Finally finished!! I hope it wasn't shit to yall but i cried while writing this. Recently re read "Smoke, Fire and Ash" by @asumofwords and it made my cry and put me in this mood.

To be honest I always imagined reader dying in this. I just had different ways. One was her offing herself after Aemond dies above God's eye. The next option was Aemond killing her himself while drunk and blinded by pain then he would off himself when he woke up. And lastly was both of them dying together, sharing a final moment before commanding their dragons to kill them.

I did not imagine them having a happy ending. Ecspecially since reader was alwyas conflicted about her family. She did not know what side to be on, and the death of Luke would only make her more confused. So it was easier for her to just not be anything at all.

Anywho. That's it! I hope y'all enjoyed this. I do plan on writing a full Aemond x reader series but i gotta plan it out properly!

Gen Taglist: @valeskafics. @thought--bubble

Agony Taglist: @vyctorya, @cluz1babe, @alexa554, @sinistersnakey1427, @glitteryeggalmondherring

*Bold means I could not tag you.

[crisiscutie]

the reunion...is nothing to fear.

Pairing: Pregnant Darling/"Fluffy" Sephiroth

Word Count: 680

Content Warning: Psychological/Emotional Abuse.

The grandfather clock ticked away as Sephiroth traced the stretch marks of your swollen belly. He used his other hand to work the tension out of your back as you kept your focus on the clock. Judging by the time, your triplet boys aren't done with school yet. Few more hours. If only you could turn time faster. But it doesn't matter. The man you were trying to escape from has now invaded your new, lovely home, humming his favorite lullaby as you sat on his lap. Your new, lovely home, now corrupted by his presence. Maybe that's why your unborn child is kicking so much now; for you to get away from him.

Yet there was something peculiar about the way his hold on you felt. It's gentle and loving, but also constricting and possessive. You're almost like a poor fly caught in a spider's web. The spider is just waiting for the right moment to feast.

Despite the effort and hard work you put into escaping with your triplet boys, it amounted to nothing. Signs of Sephiroth's presence were always around you; Your precious boys kept asking about those strange dark feathers around your new home, their school, and even in other places, like your favorite grocery store. They wanted to know when their father would stop playing games. But you simply brushed it off, telling them that their father wouldn't be joining you all soon. They were confused, sad even, but they understood the hint to drop the subject. You hated saying that to them yourself, but it was necessary.

The dark feathers you saw were some of the many invitations to the reunion that you ignored. And now, this is fate. Your precious, innocent boys will become like their father. You still loved Sephiroth, but you could never love the path he took. His relentless slaughter of innocents and confining you all in his so-called "tower of love". That's why you had to get away from him. You tried your best, but this is where your "best" landed you.

Your baby's movements grew more forceful as he stopped tracing your stretch marks. He whispered into your ear with that same charming, velvety voice, but you knew it wasn't his old self. He still had that dark look around his slit eyes and a dangerous edge to his voice. You knew that his heart still beats for his family, but it's forever enshrouded in darkness.

"I wonder," he asked, "what name have you chosen for her?" Your dull eyes darted to your covered patio door, watching the rays of the beautiful sunlight slightly retract. You should have opened more windows when you returned from grocery shopping. You're amazed that you could still see in this gloomy and dark setting. You don't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing your voice. But his question weighed heavily on your mind. It's true, you hadn't considered a name for your unborn child, let alone knew that it was going to be a girl. Your unexpected pregnancy with this little one almost deterred you from making your getaway with the triplets, but you pressed on. In the coming weeks, you were so focused on getting away from Sephiroth, you've neglected almost everything else. You didn't even have to turn around to see that his lips curled into a smirk, almost like he knew what you were thinking. His lips pressed against your ear, speaking in a lower, ominous voice.

"...JENOVA... A fine name for her."

Your eyes had widened at both his voice and his declaration. Naming your child after a dead family member wasn't unusual, but something about it had made your heart race. Your baby had ceased her kicking as his hold on you had grown slightly more constricting. Gazing weakly at the grandfather clock, you had realized that not much time had passed. He had begun his delusional ramblings, a dark chuckle echoing in your mind, as a lone tear had trailed down your cheek.

"The reunion at hand may bring joy, it may bring fear, but let us embrace whatever it brings."

This fic is based on one of my favorite prompts I've done so far on this blog. Context: The darling fled with her children to find a better life after Fluffy Sephiroth's corruption in this alternative path of the Domestic AU.

Yandere Domestic AU chronology: Christmas Kids | The Reunion is Nothing to Fear | Wait for me | Homecoming | The Crowning Moment

[silvergreenseraphim]

The Relationship Between Glenn and Rufus

[Ultimania Screenshot Removed Until Square Enix Lifts Copyright Strikes]

Glenn, a messenger from Wutai, appears often before Rufus. Though their conversations suggest that the two were old acquaintances, the exact nature of their relationship remains a mystery. Here is a summary of their meaningful exchanges and the relationship between them and Wutai as depicted in related works.

In the small box, it has some information on Rufus and Team Glenn’s connections to Wutai.

In "FVII Before Crisis", four years ago, Rufus lent a hand to the Wutai-based Avalanche.

Glenn comes into contact with Sephiroth, who was dispatched to Wutai seven years ago, in the opening of "The First Soldier" arc of "FFVII Ever Crisis".

Matt and Lucia, who were Glenn's colleagues (introduced by Yuffie in CHAPTER 7 as the "three ex-soldiers"), appear as captains in flashback scenes of the original Avalanche soldiers.

A small text wall next to Glenn’s death scene says:

When Rufus heard Glenn's name in Junon, a vision of him shooting a man flashes through his mind.

Text wall beside the “Please contact Captain Matt” dialogue says:

It appears that Matt and Lucia were participating in the operation to attack the Shinra Building.

-

Examples of Important Conversations Between Glenn and Rufus

[Ultimania Screenshot Removed Until Square Enix Lifts Copyright Strikes]

Rufus: "You're alive?"

Glenn: "Most certainly dead.”

(This was a bit of dialogue in the game that was difficult to translate. If anyone has a correction for it, please let me know. It appears that Glenn says he is “Dead, of course” to Rufus’ statement).

Rufus is surprised at Glenn's survival, and Glenn responds with a laugh. It sounds like a joking response, but based on his later words and actions, it may not be a joke at all.

-

Rufus: "The Governor will not stand on such a poor set.”

Glenn: "I see! Growing up a young master/rich kid is so bothersome.”

Rufus said these words as if he knew Sufur’s personality well. Glenn calls Sufur a rich kid/brat, but in Junon, he also mocked Rufus, saying, “Fond of (drawing) visions as ever, young master/rich kid).”

(I once again have been trying to receive help on this specific line because the connection here is how Glenn calls both Sufur and Rufus “Botchan,” which is an interesting term for a rich young master or boy. More in this in another post).

Glenn & Sephiroth: "Our 'Promised Land' will be born." Good (for you), you’ve succeeded your father.”

In the commentary scene, Sephiroth's appearance and voice overlap with Glenn, implying that Glenn's actions up to that point were in line with Sephiroth's intentions.”

Glenn: “As good at shooting people in the back as ever.”

A line that suggests that Rufus once shot Glenn in the back. It is also revealed in this scene that the person who had been thought to be Glenn was one of those in the black cloaks.

-

My translations are rough at the moment because I am hurrying, but I trust that I was able to get the essential parts accurate.

This is not much new information but I would say it confirms some things.

-

1. Glenn is dead.

2. It was a black cloak in line with Sephiroth’s intentions. Based on the other instances where black cloaks interact with Cloud with Sephiroth’s intentions, it is safe to say that this was also Sephiroth. A part of his will perhaps.

3. There is nothing suggesting that this was Jenova, as some were saying.

4. Sephiroth heavily mocks Rufus at every chance he gets and appears to hate him passionately.

5. Glenn came in contact with Sephiroth 7 years after Sephiroth was dispatched to Wutai. This is the opening of the First Soldier.

6. Rufus and the Before Crisis plot of his involvement with Avalanche has been confirmed.

-

[yuri-is-online]

Ace!Yutu when he sees his father being an idiot and claiming he doesn’t like the prefect that way:

I swear I love the angst potential of Yutu, and more because it depends on the version.

Imagine Riddle!Yutu waking up screaming from a bad nightmare and watching his previously dead parent right next to him.

Tumblr and I have beef, it deleted this ask and then magically re-found it AFTER I typed it out somewhere else. Anyway, I have a second ask about aceyuu Yutu mentioning him judging his dad because you know that Marcille face is what he is making 24/7. But since he is also Ace's son you know he has a little fun with it:

"I see I see." Yutu folds his hands together, index fingers standing tall in front of his lips as he nods in exaggerated agreement before shifting ever so slightly to look at Deuce. "So he really lives like this?" "Yeah he does." Cackles Deuce, Ace's eye twitches as he tries to decide who is more annoying, the new kid or Deuce. "I'll let you in on a secret, he thinks he's being subtle." "I think I'm being normal." Ace huffs, but new kid ignores him and nods sagely at Deuce. "Ah yes I see, like a brick." "Hey listen!" Ace hates how much more of a defense this new kid is making him run, why's he decided it is his business if he likes Yuu or not? "Unlike you two losers I actually have a relationship history-" "What, with a mirror?" Yutu's unimpressed look is so similar to Yuu's Ace swears his heart leaps right up into his throat. "Look I'm just saying it sounds like there was a break up in there somewhere." Never mind fuck this, who raised this kid?!?!

I try to have each Yutu be a bit different to help reflect how each character's reaction to him would be a bit different. That and I think different boys kids would be different even if they have similarities, Riddle! Yutu is withdrawn and angry while Ace! Yutu is more laid back and sarcastic, but they are still both Yutu.

And speaking of Riddle! Yutu:

He can taste the ink in his lungs through his struggle to breathe, the branch around his neck tightens at his audacity to try. He panics on instinct, screaming as the Phantom's scepter is pushed into his chest as it screams out a command "OFF WITH YOUR-"

You open the door with a bit more force than you intended, something about hearing Yutu scream out for one of his parents makes you feel awful, even more so when you finally see him. The poor boy has tied his sheets into knots with his thrashing, you silently thank the seven that you thought to set down the milk you had heated up before you shake him.

Calling out to them he tackles you with a surprising amount of force, holding onto you so tightly you can't help but hug him back. Fat tears roll down his cheeks as he shakes like a leaf and you do your best to keep him in his bed, but let him cling to you.

"It's just me." You pat his back and he freezes, but doesn't loosen his grip and you laugh slightly. He's got to be so embarrassed, better let him re-set before he has to look at your face. "Breathe in, now hold one, two-" You softly guide him through his breaths and relax alongside him as he calms. "That sounded like a bad one, are you sure you don't want me to loan you Grim? He's a real good snuggle buddy, promise."

"I think I'll pass." Yutu pulls back, but he still can't look at you, eyes instead going to the milk on his nightstand and rolling his eyes. "Really? I'm not a baby." But still he takes it and you let the insult go.

"Do you want to talk about it?" You hope he will, this is the third time this week he's had an episode and you really want to help. You think Yutu wants to, he looks at you now with a deeply strained look in his eyes that almost makes you think he is looking at a ghost.

"It's... not nothing." He had tried saying it was the first time you found him in the throws of one. "But I can't- I can't tell you." It's progress enough that he's willing to acknowledge it's a problem, you can't heal unless you accept that something is broken.

"I'll be here if you change your mind." You mean it to be kind, but it makes the ghost look worsen. Still, Yutu sort of smiles at you.

"I know and... thank you." He closes his eyes briefly to reset himself and remember. You're alive, that's enough for now.

"You want to play go fish?" More than enough.

[tea-potato-gt]

Kæmpe Stør’s life part 4:

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4.5

Welcome to High School Stør!

Puberty is hitting Stør like a train. He’s also growing rapidly now. Ah yes… the awkward teenage phase! Stør still has a baby face COVERED in acne. He’s very self-conscious about his acne because one pimple about the size of a human fist👊 and hard to miss.

The bullying has increased in the last few years, with people realizing Stor is just a big push over. Literally. He would never retaliate or raise a hand to anyone who mistreats him. Both out of worry he might accidentally hurt them and because Stør doesn’t have it in him to hurt anyone on purpose.

Thankfully, Stør has Yilan to stick up for him, and he does. Constantly. (Strega can’t do much, she’s still in middle school.)

By now, Yilan’s father ran out on them, he sends money, but they haven’t been in contact in a few years. Yilan HATES his mom’s new dead beat boyfriend, so he stays away from home. Yilan practically moves in with Stør, staying after school and on weekends. Luckily for Yilan, Stør has two dads who love Yilan.

——————————————————————————

It’s in his freshman year of High school that Stør meets Mizu Rivers for the first time…

She was in his 3rd period English Lit class. At first Mizu didn't stand out from the rest of the class, she stared at Stør or acted nervous when he was near. Not an unusual reaction, Stør tries to not take it personally, he can only imagine how intimidating he looks to others. But it still hurts. A lot.

----------

It's not until Stør gets (reluctantly) assigned to a group project with Mizu and her two "Friends" Nero (A water nymph & Mizu's cousin) and Lilith (a Succubus), that Stør finally interacts with Mizu.

Nero and Lilith slack off on their work and largely ignore Stør as he's trying to get the group on track to write their paper on the book "Gulliver's Travel's." Mizu doesn't make eye contact or talk to Stør so he's left at a loss for what to do.

Stør: H-hey, maybe we should actually start working on the project like the teacher said…

Nero: If you want it done so bad, do it YOURSELF. You’re a big boy…

Nero: (looks down) …literally…

Stør: 😟😵‍💫😧

Nero: Whatever. Let's go girls. 🙄

Nero stands up and leaves the classroom. While poor Stør is left red in the face and realing.

In his shock he looked at the other girls at the window. Lilith dgaf and just walked after Nero. And Mizu--- did... is Mizu making direct eye contact with Stør for the first time?

He could have imagined it, in fact he probably did, but she held fast. She quietly mouths the words "I'm sorry," and quickly runs after her friends.

Stør was left sitting alone, dumbfounded, and at a loss of what just happened and what to do next.

—————————————————————————

That night, Stør contemplates telling the teacher of his peers unwillingness to do the assignment, when he gets an email from Mizu:

"Hey Store, Story, Stor? (However you spell it, idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

sorry about Nero and Lilith today, they never want to do their work. But don't worry about the assignment! ;D I'll type My part and their parts. Just worry about yours!

See you tomorrow!"

Stør quickly messaged back:

"Hi M. Rivers,

Thanks for reaching out, and explaining the situation, I really appreciate it!

I think it might be better if we split the assignment between the two of us?

I can write Lilith's part and you can do Nero's?

I don't want you to get overwhelmed with extra work!

See you tomorrow,

PS. My name is spelled "Stør""

A little later, Stør receives this email:

"That would be lovely!

Thank you, Stør!

Ps. just call me "Mizu" ;)"

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

4.5 here

More about “The Biggest Heart” world here

[rvllybllply2014]

Oh I can't even imagine what Willem & Samwell's father was like!  I wonder if he really was worse, or if Willem just always had a darker/more violent streak in him than other Blackwoods?  Given that Samwell is calmer & nicer?

Ooh good point! If madness can be inherited then why not other traits? Especially with how certain houses are know for theirs! Anger & quickness to act being inherited by the Blackwoods would just make sense, considering they used to be kings in the more brutal north, dealing with houses like the Starks & Boltons before they were finally forced out of their home and into the Riverlands!

And then we have the Brackens who have raised & bred horses since the founding of their house, and like you said you can't be angry or quick tempered around horses, they need a steady calm hand to thrive. And it takes patience & gentleness to earn a horse's trust, to learn to read their body language. So house Bracken learning to turn their anger into sternness early makes so much sense! Also through all the peace marriages, there's Blackwood blood in every Bracken and vice versa, both houses know this though they'd hate to admit it. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they'd fear their own anger is the Blackwood blood in them, that it needs to be controlled as soon as possible.. Pff with this in mind, imagine Amos & Aeron sometimes looking at Willem & Davos and just seeing a tempermental stallion? One that just needs to be called with firm-but-gentle touches & sweet words?

Samwell being the one to introduce Willem & Amos is not something I expected! =O Oh that's so bittersweet, you know he'd have had hope for their future children marrying too! How could you see Samwell reacting when he learns of Amos ending their relationship? If he'd know what Willem would do after his death? Did he know just what Bracken his brother killed in the past?

I love how their big fight would start with something so small & petty, something that could have ended so differently if the wrong word wasn't said.. Just like how a simple argument over the boundary stones turned into the carnage of the burning mill D= And to think it's the first time Willem admitted he loved Amos too, oh my heart!

Ah of course it couldn't work out so nicely could it, no Blackwood would willingly let themselves be held prisoner (even if treated well) and Davos likely wouldn't stop to consider if he's treated well or not, or Amos's words to him. At least Amos would be there to hold Aeron, wondering if their family had angered the seven, or if they were cursed by the old gods to love their enemies as punishment for abandoning them for the faith of the seven. (i do find it so interesting that the brackens used to worship the old gods too, i wonder what caused them to turn to the faith of the seven? maybe simply because adaptability is something one has to have while working with horses too? i think more likely is that the brackens of the past worshiped the old gods in a different, less bloody way than the blackwoods, and the blackwoods tainted the old gods for them in their brutality)

Oof I can anderstand Willems bitterness & hurt here, but just like with everything else he takes it too far doesn't he? One thing to spread the rumor, another to actually believe in it. And even if Raylon were a bastard, he wouldn't deserve what the guards do to him, poor boy :( Oh can you imagine if Davos survived the burning mill but Aeron didn't? If he's the one tasked with guarding Raylon? I imagine "it should have been you dead, not him!" would be the kindest treatment Davos would give him.. And when Amos later learns what happened to his son, after Willem is beheaded..well Willem is lucky he's already dead.

Oh this is so sad but perfect in a way? Like I could finally see Willem doing this, even convincing himself the tears in Amos's eyes are of pleasure, that Amos deserves this punishment, needs it even! To remind him of who he belongs to, that he can never leave him again.. And the marks! I can only imagine what the ones on his face & hands look like! And Amos isn't dumb, he know what message Willem is sending to his men when he marks him and makes him howl his name for the camp to hear. The humiliation he'd have to fight down every morning afterwards would almost be too much, but a small part of him might hope he gets executed for treason at Harrenhall, that his son might be sent back to rule their house and be free of Willem. Which speaking of, there's more ways to bring someone to justice than death..and I can't help but wonder if Willem would have planned to ask Daemon & lord Tully to make the Brackens a true vassal house to the Blackwoods, as they always should have been.  With him being allowed to keep Amos for himself and marry Raylon to a Blackwood girl of his choosing before sending him back to Stone Hedge.

And Willem blaming Amos for his own darkness is just so in character for him isn't it? Forgetting that everything he did was still his own choice, because he wanted to.

Ooh I like the thought of them seeing their proof of slavery as proof of what they survived, marking them as warriors! Pff Amos making Willem ride behind him the whole time is fun, up until he feels what is clearly not Willem's knife rubbing against his ass from behind >w> You know Willem gets jealous of the attention Amos gives the horse at some point too =u= Dothraki horses would be pretty damn prized by Brackens wouldn't they? I imagine they'd admire the Dothraki skill with horses, even if they'd hate everything else about them. Makes me wonder what the Dothraki would think of Amos and the horse sigal he wears..

Also got another small idea, this one is less about Willem/Amos, but imagine while checking the border stones himself one day, Amos catches Davos & Aeron spending time together? Amos keeps his calm but the shock of being found jolts both teens and Davos ends up hurting his ankle? Since Davos arrived without a horse, Amos knows he won't be able to limp all the way home by himself, and sends Aeron back to Stone Hedge as he chooses to escort Davos back to Raventree Hall himself? I imagine during the ride there could be a storm, with them having to take cover for the night in a cave for the horse's sake and during this time the two could talk, with Davos learning the truth of what happened between his uncle n& Amos and why? Pff also imagine Davos running his mouth at Amos so much (out of anger at this whole situation) that Amos finally looses his patience! Only rather than striking his face like Davos expects, Amos takes him across his knee and gives him a spanking? Just like he's done to his son & Aeron when they were younger? Of course Davos has experienced far worse than a hand against his bare arse, so it'd be far more humiliating than painful for him =w= 

Ah sorry this got so long btw! I hope you don't mind these essays I'm leaving you ;w;

I love the essays you’re writing. My thoughts under the cut. Once again non con/rape/sexual assault mentioned. And a character delusional enough to believe that it’s all warranted and wanted. Read at your own risk.

I think Samwell and Willems father was like Willem, prideful quick to anger and embraces the darkness. But his wife helps keep the darkness away, she’s the light of his life and her light will chase away some of the darkness. Lord Blackwood only gets darker after his wife dies from an illness, especially if he prayed everyday for the old gods to spare her and they didn’t. Samwell was probably around 10 years old when she died, so she was able to influence his gentler personality while also letting him know that it’s okay to embrace some of the darkness that’s in him, both light and dark are apart of him. Willem was about 7 when she died, she did influence some of the softer parts but with years passing Willem forgets quite a bit of her lessons. Especially if lord Blackwood takes out his grief on him, Samwell was too grown to easily beat whereas Willem is easier to beat.

Yeah the Blackwood anger definitely came from having to try to control the Boltons. They had to teach their kids to be angry and use it to fight against the Boltons, it’s the only way to not become flayed. The Starks were more brutal too, but not as bad as the Boltons. So yeah after several generations of being told that they’re kings and they have to fight off Starks and Boltons by embracing their anger it’s bound to pass down through their blood. The inherited anger/darkness/pride was thrown into over drive after the Starks became the kings in the north and they were kicked out into the Riverlands.

Every Bracken after a peace marriage is worried about Blackwood blood influencing their anger, so it’s a relief when generations pass before another peace marriage is forced onto them. The Brackens are taught from infancy that it’s okay to be angry but they can’t let it control their actions. They need to let their anger turn into a sternness if they want to be useful horse breeders for their house.

Amos sees Willem as the equivalent of a wild untamed stallion and goes I can fix that. It does work for a while but it does take a lot of Amos being stern in meaning what he says to Willem and sticking to it. Amos is used to working with difficult horses, he’s basically a horse whisperer. Aeron also sees Davos as an untamed stallion, but Aeron is not great with taming with horses so Davos just ends up with hurt feelings and being a pouty mess. Aeron does try to apologize to Davos but he just doesn’t want to hear it.

Samwell is heartbroken for both Willem and Amos. He knows how gentle hearted Amos is, and that it would take a lot to make him leave Willem. Samwell also tells Willem that it’s okay to mourn the lost possibilities for his future. Samwell only found out that Willem had killed Amos’s brother Jerrell, years after the fact. Lord Blackwood had bragged about Willems first kill to him but Samwell didn’t connect the dots until after Willem got with Amos. Amos does send Samwell a raven after he breaks up with Willem asking if he knew and why would he let him date Willem. Willem apologizes to Amos telling him that he didn’t realize that Jarrell was his brother until he had already gotten with Willem.

Davos was also told by Willem that it would be more honorable to die than to be held prisoner by a Bracken. Which causes Davos to escape as soon as he can, even if Amos never hurt him or planned on hurting him.

Exactly there’s just something about how a more even head could prevent heartbreak. If only Willem had kept his mouth shut before he said that he killed Jarrell. Then history repeats itself with Davos and Aeron, Davos forgot that Brackens will dare when pushed too hard. It’s also how the messiest break up in history happened, aka the burning mill. But unlike Willem and Amos, Aeron is dead and Davos will never be able to apologize.

Amos probably thinks it’s a curse from the old gods to have Blackwoods and Brackens to love each other in generations. The Brackens switched to the seven, mainly because they didn’t want their house to be wiped out and they can adapt easier to different things just like how they do with different horse’s personalities. And the Brackens wanted to prove to themselves and house Blackwood that although they share blood they aren���t as savage as the Blackwoods.

The first time Davos is assigned to guard Raylon, Raylon is relieved to see his cousins ex. But Davos tortures him psychologically, he tells Raylon that it should’ve been him that was killed at the burning mill. That he should’ve followed Aeron and tried to talk him out of it. That it was bad enough that Raylon could be a bastard, but he was also raised as more of a brother to Aeron than a cousin. He tells Raylon that he failed his house and Aeron by not dying.

Davos never touches Raylon, he only ever wants to touch Aeron but since he’s dead he won’t touch another Bracken. Davos would feel some pity for Raylon when he hears what the other guards do to him, he can’t help but imagine Aeron in that situation and how nobody deserves to be sexually tortured.

Willem does tell Amos that he should feel luckier than his son, Amos only has to fuck him unlike Raylon who is his guards sexual play thing. Amos doesn’t believe it, at least not until Raylon confirms what happened to him. Amos also doesn’t pray for someone to be tortured in death but he does pray for Willems torture in death.

Willem might’ve gotten his wish for the brackens to become his vassals if he hadn’t allowed Raylon to be tortured like he was and if Amos hadn’t looked like Willems personal chew toy. Willem still would’ve tried to convince Oscar and Daemon to force a marriage between Raylon and a Blackwood girl, Daemon would’ve agreed to it but Oscar is disgusted by how horribly Willem treated Amos and Raylon. So no Willem your stupid actions once again killed the peace between both your house and Amos’s. It’s one of the only times Amos is glad that he has visible marks on his body.

Willem is delusional enough to believe that Amos crying means that he loves the brutal way Willem fucks him. Willem also never lets any of his marks heal on Amos, he wants Amos to associate pain with pleasure but the only pleasure that Willem brings him. Well that Willem thinks he brings him.

Thankfully Amos men know that he’s not a willing participant and Willems men are deranged enough to say that of course Bracken cunts deserve to be treated like cunts. It will take some time for Amos to be able to face his men without feeling the burning shame of them knowing that he was raped repeatedly by Willem.

Amos also tells Willem that only Willem is responsible for his actions and how he reacts to situations. That the Willem he knew wouldn’t have hurt him like this Willem does and his Willem also wouldn’t let the Blackwoods hurt Raylon like they are. Basically Amos tries his horse taming techniques on Willem yet again but this time Willems light can’t be reached.

As for the slavery thing I’m working on a separate post with more details, you’re tagged and credited with the idea. But I will say that Willem definitely pushes onto Amos’s ass constantly while telling him that his problem will not go away until he also gets ridden like a horse. Amos tells him to wait until they can get to civilization, if Willem can behave then he’ll get his wish if he can’t then he won’t get ridden and he’ll have to fix his problem by himself. Amos is also seen as an amazing warrior when he gets back to Stone Hedge, he managed to keep a Dothraki horse and now that horse will be bred into their other horses bloodlines making them a lot of money.

If Amos finds out about Davos and Aeron while checking on the boundary stones, he just calmly asks them what they’re doing? But Davos being raised by Willem is terrified that Amos would hurt him, it’s what Willem would’ve done in Amos’s position. So of course in his panic Davos manages to trip over a hole in the ground causing his ankle to twist in an unnatural way. After Aeron helps him up and Davos realizes that he can’t walk let alone make it back to Raven Tree Hall, Amos tells Davos to get on Aerons horse they’ll go back to Stone Hedge to see the maester there. Davos really wants to refuse but with his ankle hurting like it does and storm clouds rolling in,he feels like he doesn’t have a choice.

Even with the amount of pain he’s in and with Amos riding next to them Davos is still rubbing up against Aeron and whispering what he wants to do to him. Aeron is a blushing mess telling Davos to stop, and Amos just finds it all amusing. They’re still pretty far out from Stone Hedge when the storm clouds finally break. Amos tells them that there’s a small cave that they can shelter in. Once all of them are inside Amos tells Davos and Aeron to cuddle for warmth, any wood they find will be too wet to light a fire with. Amos also tells them that he’ll sleep next to the horses for his warmth, and he knows how horny teenage boys are but could they please keep their nighttime activities behind closed doors? There will be plenty of time for that later at Stone Hedge.

If Davos does try to say that he has more respect for himself so expects the same respect towards him from Amos, but in a moody teen way Amos finally snaps and pulls him over his lap, it’s only three quick smacks on his bare ass with the last one hitting him right on his hole, but man it does hurt his pride. Aeron checks up on him later in the night asking if he’s okay, while telling Davos he also used to get smacked on the ass by Amos but it’s been years.

[transgenderer]

The Cult of Twins

Twins (marassa), living and dead, are endowed with supernatural power which makes them exceptional being. In the voodoo pantheon they hold a privileged position besides the grand mysteres. Some people would even claim that they are more powerful than the loa. They are invoked and saluted at the beginning of a ceremony immediately after Lega; in some regions, notably Leoagne, they even come before him.

Any family which includes twins, either among its living members, or in one of its ancestral lines must, under pain of 'chastisement', serve them with offerings and sacrifice. Sometimes a family reeling under a series of misfortunes learns form a hungan (voodoo practitioner) that it has been neglecting twins far back in its ancestry 'at the time of Guinea'. A child counts as a twin when it is born with webbed feet, for this is a sign that it has 'eaten' its brother in the womb...

The child who follows twins immediately in order of birth (the dosu if itis a boy, dosa if it is a girl) unites in its person the power of both twins and there can dispose of greater powers than they. 'The dosu is stronger than the marassa and stronger than the loa.' Hence he is treated with the greatest respect and in the event of offerings being made, he as the precedence over the twins, On the other hand, the child born before twins = the chuket or dosu avant - has no great standing, though it is said of him that he 'dragged the twins after him'

The presence of twins in a family involves its members in constant attentions and thousand precautions. It takes very little to make a twin turn against his parents and, as is his wont, 'grip' them in the stomach - that is to say inflict serious trouble upon their intestines. It is true that twins are to prepared to be punished for some fault which they have really committed, but they take cruel revenge if they think they have been unjustly treated...

A worker employed at Marbial told us that he and his twin sister almost killed their mother for refusing them a dish of crabs and gomboes which their father, out of concern for their health, had advised her not to give them. The boy placed a stick in the moist earth beside a tree and each day he went and pushed it in a little farther. His mother fell dangerously ill and would have died if the twins, as the result of family entreaties, had not acknowledges the wrong they were doing. They were offered a feast and a pig was killed...

It is normal for twins to hate each other: 'Marassa yo raisab' (twins dont get on) is a proverbial saying. At marbial I knew a boy Andreno and a little girl Andreni, who were twins in a large and poor family. Each of them grew with difficulty for want of adequate food; but the little girl was bigger and stronger than he Brohter. The parents said she was 'eating' her brother and explained that the two children had dedicated themselves to mutual hatred before they even saw the light of day. The moment she war born Andreni had tries to strangle Andreno by looping the umbilical cord around his neck - to such good effect that as he came into the world Andreno found himself 'hanged like a young goat'. Usually when twins are of different sex it is the boy who prospers, at the expense of the girl.

Twins can hardly be too carefully supervised if they are to be precented from harming each other. As soon as one of them shows signs of failing, the other is implored to give up his criminal intention. At meals, when they are not looking, parents seize the opportunity of switching round their plates so that each ears the food of the other - which has the effect of restoring a good relationship.. They also get given a dose which has the power of changing the hated they feel for each other into affection. Such is the power of twins that no one will make take any steps against one twin who causes the death of the other; indeed, people will even take care not to show him the slightest resentment.

Twins must be treated exactly alike if jealousy is to be avoided. Their clothes must be identical, their share of food equal and any praise exactly divided between them. As to twin sisters, they must be married as far as possible at the same time. if a woman with a twin brother marries, she and her husband will load him with presents to obliterate any possible resentment he may secretly feel. Even death does not break the ties which links twins together. The survivor puts to one side, for the deceased, a symbolic portion of whatever he eats or receives by way of presents. Herakovitz traced these practices to that belief, so widespread in West Africa, which attributes but one shared soul to twins.

The power of marassa is not entirely negative. Certainly their ill-will i all the more to be dreaded for being sometimes involuntary. But provided they are happy and satisfied, they turn the strength which is in them to good account. Their intervention is often sought on behalf of the sick; in serious cases recourse may be had to ancestral marassa who, either by dreams or by medium, will prescribe appropriate remedies

-Voodoo, Metraux

Thoughts:

ive never heard of anything like this! i might read a book i found about twins. very interesting and strnage. this sort of "born shaman" feature is odd. the whole thing is odd, and interesting. also the parent/child power inversion is something i havent seen before

i know the igbo are veyr anti twin, so its interesting that partially-igbo-descended haitian culture is so pro-twin

[kluskinoodles]

OKAY OKAY SO—so buckle up buddy boy!! I’ve been waiting for this moment!! Warnings for child abuse, period typical homophobia, and Cohen being Cohen.

Also sorry if this is all over the place and possibly incoherent, I am horrible at writing. I’m doing this in two parts because my brain isn’t working right now and im super excited to share these. I’m also super sorry if all of this is cringe 😭😭.

First up, MARTIN FINNEGAN!!

It is well known that Martin was found by Cohen in Marseilles, France in 1937. While Martin admired Cohen’s paintings, Cohen simply admired his body or “carriage” as he puts it. I’ll get back to Cohen and him later. Now my take on his background, Martin was born January 2nd, 1917 in Marseilles, France. He was the 2nd oldest of 6 kids, he was the quietest one out of all of them. My mans got the ✨Autism✨, but was never diagnosed because, you know Early 1900s. He learned at an early age it was easier to mask his emotions than express them and get punished for it. He has a horrible relationship with his father because of a huge fight they had over how “embarrassing” Martin is because he likes men. He was forced to come out after his father forcefully made him have a mental breakdown. He then got kicked out :(. His favorite media is clay, his usual art is sculptures and pottery. He doesn’t get social cues so when Cohen started flirting with him, he just stared at him dead panned like 🧍‍♂️. Since he masks like all the time, it makes him seem emotionless, just serious all the time. I know I said before but when Martin trusts/likes someone he makes him little trinkets. He’s made Cohen three small rabbits, Silas two cats, Hector a few elephants, and Kyle a dog. Martin’s also multilingual, he can speak Italian, English, and his native language French! He works out a bit but not much, just when he can get the motivation to do so. He has done a multitude of drugs with Cohen, with Martin kind of being peer pressured into doing them. He was not a fan of the nose bleeds. He has been to jail once for public intoxication and assault. Even though he is usually Cohen’s stage hand, he really wanted to be in one of his performances, but Cohen just wouldn’t let him. After getting locked up in Fort Frolic he started to splice up and go insane himself. He got really obsessed over ice sculpture. But when the ice started melting and ruining his work. He had to find a new medium to pair with ice and started freezing other splicers.

On to relationships!!! His relationship with the other disciples is kinda weird. Silas and him have a weird bond, basically neurodivergent to neurodivergent communication. He just kind of wishes that Silas would stop calling him a new nickname every conversation, but he really likes the nickname “Iceman”. His and Hector’s, it’s complicated, Martin sees him as a friend and a colleague thingy while Hector has been flirting with him (drunkenly of course) for a while. Martin has not realized he’s being flirted with and thinks Hector’s just being his drunk, incoherent self. Now Kyle, he doesn’t despise the kid but he is a bit jealous. Ever since Kyle came around Cohen’s attention has gone solely to him, than Martin and the other two. They are both on a mutual respect level. Now with Cohen, that’s a different story entirely. Like all the disciples, he loved Cohen for his art and romantically. But after Kyle came along and Cohen fell deeper into insanity, like the others, his love quickly turned to hate.

Okay okay!! Next up is Silas!! We don’t really know how Cohen found him so I’m here to fill in the gaps!!

Being born Silas Joseph Maurice Cobb on October 18th, 1926 to a poor family in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the middle of 3 siblings. He has an older brother and a younger sister. His father was put in jail after he broke Silas’ jaw after finding him playing around in his mother’s makeup. Well he didn’t go to jail straight away, Silas’ mother Dolores beat the shit out of him before throwing him out bleeding in the streets. The man was too embarrassed to go to the police but after Dolores took Silas to the hospital, she was forced to file a police report. And that’s why Silas face is messed up on his right side! Silas has ADHD but isn’t diagnosed because you know early 1900s. He’s was a huge Mama’s boy, I think Silas is the only one out of the four of them that didn’t get kicked out and/or shunned when he came out to his mom 😭😭. He kind of was a draft dodger. He has had cats ever since he was little. From childhood up til leaving for Rapture, he had owned over 16 cats. He was a college drop out from a college in New York. Being the first of his family to go to college, he didn't have the heart to tell his mother. He lived on the streets and in his beat up car with his 11 year old cat, Bia. He sung on the streets and anywhere he could, and did prostitution to make money before Cohen found him in 1944 and took him in. Cohen liked Cobb for his singing voice, and also other features. Cobb knows how to play guitar and saxophone. When he got down below, he started making Martin dye his hair brown and when he got his Record shop he started to collect records, and also taught himself how to mix his own. He was also big on sound profiles. He was an Audiophile! Later down the line he started to hang out with Culpepper, just to piss off Cohen but then it turned into an actual friendship between the two. When Culpepper started to create "Cohen's Songbird", she bounced ideas and gained info through Silas on Cohen and Ryan. Like Martin he also puts on a mask. Which makes him seem like he doesn’t give a shit about anything, that he only cares about his “darling little shop”, and that he is a hothead with arsonist tendencies. This personality he puts on makes him an overall nuisance, just a real brat. Doing everything super slowly to piss people off, setting things on fire, picking fights, just an overall dick. Hell, he even taught himself how to make timed Napalm explosives for a plan B. He’s done coke before, but his preferred drug of choice is probably morphine, he raided one of the pharmacies for some. He will tell you he doesn’t have an addiction and then turn around and shoot up. He may have some gender dysphoria, but as he puts it “Everyone feels that way!” Like no honey, not everyone feels uncomfortable in their own body. After getting locked up in Fort Frolic, he held himself up in his record shop and basically waiting for Cohen to take him up on his challenge to fight him. His relationship with the others is neutral mostly, he calls all of them pet names like “Sugar”, “Kitten”, “Honey”, and “Baby Doll”. He calls Kyle “Fitzy” to get under his skin, he basically gets on everyone's nerves. He also flirts with all three of them. He really doesn’t like that Cohen dragged Kyle into all this, since Kyle is young of only 20. So when Cohen would get mad or annoyed at Kyle, Silas would do something bigger to make Cohen pissed AT HIM instead of Kyle, this can range from making bomb threats to setting some of his paintings on fire. He’s not going to admit it but my guy is down bad for the newbie (Kyle). Now with Cohen, he loved Cohen for his art, romantically, and because Cohen paid his rent for his record shop and apartment. After a while, he started to get annoyed with Cohen for not crediting him and all that jazz, and getting jealous when he didn’t get his attention. So he started being a brat. But when they all got locked up in Fort Frolic, like the others, his love turned to hate and then he just really wanted to beat Cohen to death (he’s always wanted to but now he really wants to).

Heres part 1 of 2! Sorry if it’s incoherent. They both mask like me fr fr but without me the illegal stuff.

@arsont-t @js-sexchange-surgeon-steinman

[toxic-mothers-tourney]

Toxic Lightning Round 1: Warriors

Rainflower vs. Millie vs. Lizardstripe vs. Mapleshade

Why they're the Worst (TM)

Rainflower:

Basically disowned her son after he was permanently disabled due to falling in the river and smashing his jaw on a rock. Had him RENAMED after his injury (Stormkit -> Crookedkit) and said she couldn't love him because he was "ugly". Spent the rest of her life ignoring him and heavily favoring her other son and Crooked's brother. AND YET. SHE STILL GOT TO GO TO HEAVEN???

She didn’t allow him as a small child to sleep in the same nest as her and his brother, basically the cat version of throwing him out on the streets. Rainflower also forced their leader to change his name to something that reflected his disability, and once he was old enough to provide for himself effectively disowned him. This extreme emotional abuse had a huge effect on both of her sons, and caused her disabled son to literally start training in cat hell because he didn’t feel appreciated anywhere else.

read more here

Millie

Treated her daughter's disability as a tragedy and used it as an excuse to neglect her other children. Briarlight deserved better 🔪🔪🔪

Lizardstripe

tw: cat murder)))) let the kitteh win the tournament, she pretty much just hated her kits including a foster kitten she was forced to adopt, and that foster kitten was bullied by her kits and he was blamed for it. pretty toxic mom ngl also she's a kitty look at the lil hissy girl look at her /affectionate (this also goes for rainflower too I just hate her)

Mapleshade:

Oh boy, strap in bc this one’s crazy. So, Mapleshade was a cat who died several generations before the main series began. She had kids through an illegal relationship with the man who killed her leader’s son, and she and her very young children were ultimately exiled from their Clan when the truth of their parentage was revealed. Mapleshade tried to take them across the river to their father, and all three kittens were swept away and drowned. Mapleshade then went on a grief-fueled killing spree, driven by hallucinations of her dead children urging her to kill the cats she perceived to be responsible for their deaths. Eventually, she confronted her ex and his pregnant mate (bc oh yeah, it turns out Mapleshade was the Other Woman), and the ex was killed protecting his pregnant mate. Mapleshade also died in this fight, but her hatred was so strong that she basically became a demon in cat hell and declared eternal suffering on her ex’s entire bloodline. Two generations later, the ex’s grandson breaks his jaw as a kitten and is rejected by his mother. Mapleshade swoops in as a maternal figure and promises to make the poor kid into the best warrior he can be, despite his broken jaw being a significant disability. She grooms and manipulates him throughout his entire life, and every person he loves dies horribly, one by one. Whether or not Mapleshade actually caused these deaths is unclear, but she does make Crookedstar (the cat she’s been manipulating) believe that she’s caused them. This is because when Crookedstar was a small, rejected child, she made him promise her that he would always put his Clan first. Being a kid, Crookedstar made the promise without a second thought, not realizing that Mapleshade meant that he could never be close with anyone (since that would mean putting his loved ones before his Clan). Therefore, Crookedstar thinks that every death of his loved ones is a punishment from Mapleshade, his maternal figure, for breaking the promise he made as a kitten.

mod notes:

[six-improbable-things]

Oh my god, I can't with this fucking dnd campaign. (/pos)

Warren, the gunslinger who Rook is quite close with and almost views as a father figure fucking died during today's session. PERMANENTLY. As in "truly dead and never coming back". (It's been planned for months, apparently.)

And he died saving Rook (which wasn't planned but worked out perfectly). Rook had just died (temporarily), and was on a piece of ledge that was about to crumble and fall. So Warren runs over there, pushes Rook onto stable ground, and uses his magical tarot card he's had for months to revive Rook.

The ground breaks out from under him and he falls, along with both of the bad guys we're fighting. He knows both of them can teleport, etc. so he uses a bomb that he has with him and blows the three of them up.

His last words? (before he fell) "I have to get Rook." 😭😭😭

My poor baby boy who already feels SO incredibly guilty over causing the party pain (bc of the Sigmar mess) and already hates himself SO much, now is utterly convinced that he is 100% responsible for Warren's death. Not only bc Warren died to save him, but also because if Rook hadn't befriended Sigmar, none of this would have happened.

But now, the core member of the party, the one everyone looked up to and loved and trusted more than anyone else -- the one Rook looked up to and trusted more than anyone else -- is dead.

I already wrote Rook's "eulogy" for next session's funeral, and dear god, I've written some depressing shit, but I think this takes the cake. I could write an ESSAY about what I chose to say in that eulogy, and why it hurts more than the party will ever even know.

[begaydodrughailsaten]

Every time a new ep comes out i always post a hundred things as i listen to it so this time im gonna put them all in 1 large post :)

(Teen facts)

JIMMY MY BELOVED!!!

Taylors SO stupid god I love him so much

Mat stop stalling

brunch boy is my new favorite gay slur/j

Will is being milked

FREDDIE ACCIDENTALLY DOING THE PORNHUB INTRO

JODIE NOOOO WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS HE GETS WORSE EVERY EPISODE

"THIS PAGE IS A LITTLE STICKY" JIMMY WHY

Anthony is a feminist 😌

I NEED THAT TEESHIRT HOLY SHIT I LOVE THAT

(Ep start)

LINK IS FUCKING 12?? WHAT LINK 14?? EXUSE ME MAT LINK IS 16

Poor norm😢

LINK MY BABY BOY

LINK THANK FUCK FOR LOVE THEN FEAR HELL YEAH!!

Why are they talking about cum so much this ep?

SCARY MY POOR LITTLE MEOW MEOW I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU I WILL NEVER HATE YOU

Taylor i love you but please shut up

Armless loser nick

Funky buttloven???

Nick screen time??? 👀👀

i NEED to give norm a hug or i will explode

LINK MY SWEET BABY BOY SJFBAUFKANFIABDU

HEROS THE FUCKING CHOSEN ONE OMFG NORMAL MY POOR BABY BOY LET ME FUCKING HOLD HIM PLEASE

HOLY SHIT LINK

Hermie my boy hes back<3

OH NO HES UPSETTY SPAGHETTI

NATTY 1 NORM NO

"As a family"👀

god the close foster swfit unworthy family are all so cringe fail omg

your honor they are brothers (jodie and glenn)

LINK!!!

This podcast is the 3 saddest teens ever and Taylor

FUCK YEAH KICK JODIE IN THE NUTS link derives to go ape shit <3

Jodie shut the fuck uppppp

NICKY!!!

Damn jodie thats mean

MORGAN MY BELOVED!!!

LMFAO GLENN AND JODIE

Id listen to a entire podcast of just glenn and jodie being dumbasses

HERMIE KNOWS HOW TO GET TO THE GOOF RELME??? I WANNA GO TO THE GOOFS!!!

God nick is hot (i remember that he has horns)

I HATE jodie /pos

Jodie is such a shit dad omfg

Poor hermie:,( hes angy poor baby

Holy shit Rebecca is a badass

IS HERO WITH WILLY??

"Your dads" ?? Rebecca??

Rebecca the conspiracy theories my beloved <333

"Your gonna go to the bathroom by yourself?" Link what???

Link doesn't wash his hands?

Link what are you talking about

Hell yeah willys blood<3

HE HAS NICKS HAND? FUCK YOU

Honk shoo honk shoo

Link ik your in the right but without an explanation its kinda creepy man

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU WILLY FUCK YOU

NO SCARY HES NOT LETTING YOU TALK TO THE DOODLER BECAUSE HE TRUSTS YOU ITS BECAUSE HES TOO SCARD TO DO IT

WILLY YOU MOTHERFUCKER LEAVE MY GIRL ALONE SCARY NO PLEASE IM SORRY I LOVE YOU PLEASE SCARY I LOVE YOU

Pissfoot gumtoucher i love you <3

HERMIE ALSO KNOWS HOW TO GET TO GOOFS ASK HIM PLEASE

SCARY SHUT UP DONT TALK SHIT ABOUT MY SWEET BABY BOY LINCOLN

Loving Link and Scary is so hard i love them both so much

WOMEN CAN VOTE

SCARY MY POOR LITTLE MEOW MEOW NOOOO

NICKY!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH NICKY MY BELOVED!!

Normal making the guy whos ON FIRE go to the most burnabul room ever

Taylor has his body back<3

Awww father son bonding<333

NICK WHAT THE FUCK NO WE ARE NOT KILLING SCARY WHAT THE FUCK NO SHES ONLY A KID

Are we going to goofs??? PLEASEEEEE I WANNA GO TO GOOFS IM BEGGING YOU!!!

ARE WE TRAPPING SCARY ON THE ISS?? PLEASE THIS IS SO FUNNY

Ewww norm thats grossss

PISS BOY PISS BOY PISS BOY PISS BOY

"Im glad you went to the bathroom, i pissed myself" link is everything to me

HES ONLY IN A SHIRT NOW

Link is SO CRINGE FAIL I LOVE him!!

"You wanna blow this popsicles salesmen?" Nick what??

NICK WHAT??

Nick keeps losing more body parts every ep

WAIT IS NICK ALIVE?? IS NICK FUCKING DEAD??

NOOOOO I LOVE SCARY AND LINK SO MUCH STOP FIGHTINGGGGG

[thedawningofthehour]

doth!draxum is the type of villain you want to squeeze really tightly in your fist and scream at him in angry tears but at the same time acknowledge his absolute genius.

ngl i see a lot of fics with intentional holes in villains which the protagonists use to save the day and yada yada (which is still obviously important sometimes), or just blunt personality traits that do not add up to the character as a whole when you think about it; like "oh, i, draxum, will hate the very beings i have created and treat them like absolute shit just because i can, despite the fact that if i treated them properly then they'd thrive and be open to whatever plans i have for them because they actually understand what i am doing for yokai and be met with little to no resistance and, /bonus/, have (some) kickass son(s)"

there are still a lot of good fics with this but. idk. it really just doesn't strike me as something draxum would do.

doth draxum is the complete opposite and is just so downright realistic. i haven't angrily loved a villain like this in a good while. fact, i dont even think villain is the right term, since what he's doing could potentially save both yokai and humankind alike from an even worse fate. reality sucks and draxum already knows that, and he taught galois that too. donnie just viewed it as draxum killing off the human race(might be wrong on that part since i need to go re-read) and didn't quite take in the actual crisis approaching.

what i just spewed might be literal bullshit but. it's my bullshit.

anywayssss love the writing sm can't wait for next chapter even if it'll break this poor little heart even more.

I don't want to start ragging on other writers/artists here. They had their own visions for how their creative works would look and Evil Draxum fit that. That's fine. It's just a different vibe than what I wanted, that's all.

I think the point a lot of Grimdark Draxum people get hung up on is the scene where he throws Leo off the roof, with the whole "I will not hesitate to destroy you" thing. (sidenote, I do not have Leo be salty about that NEARLY enough) From there, yeah, he does look like a ruthless villain who would do classically evil things just because he can.

But Draxum is one of those characters whose words say one thing and his actions say another. He does hesitate to destroy them. Not Leo, he legit thought Leo was going to die and didn't give a fuck, (in my canon he did this because Leo is his least favorite-he wouldn't have done it to the other three) but he deals with them all several times before coming to the conclusion that they have to die. And even after he assembles Evil Justice League and does a whole music number about killing them-he stands there and asks them to join him again. He has a group of pissed-off mutants at his back who all really hate the turtles and got all excited for murder. He's 100% willing to burn those bridges and piss those guys off if it means he doesn't have to kill his turtles. And even then, after giving them what he explicitly states is their final, point-of-no-return offer...he's out there trying to convince them again, using Lou Jitsu as an in with them. Draxum does not want them dead. He's willing to kill them, but it's established that Draxum is willing to sacrifice just about anything for his cause, so that's not saying much.

And then another thing is his behavior at the end of s1 when he gets close to the dark armor, with the whole kidnapping the boys and threatening to torture them to death in front of their father kind of thing. Yeah. That was fucked. I feel like the dark armor and the taunting of power really, really fucked with Draxum's head. In my canon Cass kind of snapped him out of that when she told him that the armor would all but kill him, and he realized how far gone he was. Cass and Gale kind of serve as good grounding points for him now.

Also, I just want to point out, this was the face Draxum made when he first laid eyes on his creations:

That is not the face of a man who is ambivalent about them dying.

So yeah, while Draxum's original plan for Donnie was not as fluffy and affectionate as what he ended up going with, it wasn't cruel. He would have still fed him well and made sure he was getting enough sleep because those things would have affected the quality of his work, he would have provided medical care because what use did he have for a sick or injured engineer? Taking care of Donnie was worth the extra time and expense because a healthy Donnie would be more productive and would do better work. Just in terms of numbers, it made more sense to be decent to him. There probably would have been some mental and physical abuse, but mostly just to make Donnie reliant on him and keep him from rebelling.

Also he still absolutely thinks of the change of plans as purely a numbers thing. It would simply produce better results of he did it like this. Feelings never came into play here. Baron Draxum does not get attached, especially not to turtles who cuss him out while strapped to his lab table.

Oh no, Draxum is 100% genociding the human race. He's willing to mutate some of them-mostly kids, because they aren't shitheads yet and he thinks they might be redeemable. This isn't exactly mercy-this is something real-life colonizers do to ethnic groups they're trying to destroy. Take their kids and make them 'their own'. That was the whole deal with residential schools and there are definitely people who utilize international adoption to 'save' and Christianize non-white babies. Draxum genuinely believes that humans are evil by virtue of being human. Most human adults are too corrupted, but he might be able to save some of them by mutating them, and the children deserve a chance to be saved.

It just kind of goes to show what a shit situation we're in that That is actually something that could halt the impending mass extinction event caused by climate change.

[sleepy-achilles]

That teen angst Leon fic was great! How about Leon and Shawn during this phase? I can imagine Shawn being the more understanding parent. Poor taker couldn’t catch a break 🤣

Papas Boy

Shawn is the understanding Parent, solely because, despite what everyone thinks, shawn knows Leon and him are copy and paste. He knows how Leon works. Yeah Leon's got takers curse, but Leon is Shawn in every other way. How he thinks, how he acts, talks, hides. And that makes Shawn extremely protective of his boy.

And yes I got a bit side tracked from the ask but that's because I got distracted watching a Netflix doc about kids excused of being troubled teens and suffering because of that.

------------------------------------------------------------------It was crazy. Shawn went from Leon's least favourite to his favourite over night.

Shawn is being slightly dramatic. Leon didn't hate either parent he was just closer to taker for obvious reasons. Leon still loved Shawn like he was the entire world and that didn't change after the incident. But now he had a deep rooted hatred for taker that no one could explain.

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

It's the night after Leon smashed up Brad Daniels car. Shawn and Leon are the only ones home. Shawn watches as the boy pulls at his shirt uncomfortably. "Its gonna be like that for a few weeks." Shawn comments. Leon looks at him. "What?" "The tshirts will rub against them, atleast the tattoo you can cover, can't cover them. There will always be rubbing." Shawn explains. "How do you even know?" Leon asks. "Because your not the only one to get nipple piercings and try hiding them from others" Shawn huffs as he continues eating. "Also I do your washing. The ink on the tshirt I washed was a dead give away" Shawn adds.

Leon nods. "Can't argue there." "Just don't let your father find out until you're older, yeah?" Shawn asks. Leon squints at him as the house creaks. "¿Por qué estás siendo tan relajado todo el tiempo?" (why are you being so laid back all the time?) Leon questions as cassie stumbles in. Shawn smiles. "¿Quieres que yo también sea el policía malo? Seguro que puedo arreglar ese bebé" (You want me to be the bad cop too? I can sure arrange that baby) Shawn smirks.

Leon shakes his head. "Im going to school." Leon huffs grabbing his car keys. "Wait for your sister and remember, you are grounded." Shawn calls. "I know and I know!" Leon shouts as he walks out. Shawn glances at his youngest who looks barely awake. "Aw baby, grab something to eat on the road" Shawn chuckles handing her, her lunch box and then a snack. "Thanks papa, love you papa!" She calls as she rushes out.

Shawn smiles slightly. There's still a sweet boy in his baby. And that's all that matters to him.

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

Leon watches as the smoke rises to the ceiling. He keeps smoking as he feels the vibration of Matthews voice. His head rested firmly on the boys chest as matt speaks on the phone to Val, twirling the cord like a girl. It made Leon smirk, knowing matt and val had typical girl talks.

Leon never smoked inside at home, but he was in mattie house and Matthews parents are never home. Matthews dad is a military man turned cop whilst his mother is a nurse. It's the only reason Matt is a only child. His parents don't have enough time to make a child. Matt just happened to be conceived the one day they both had off.

'You are supposed to be home.' His papas voice echos in his head. 'Homework assignment.' 'Takes you twenty four hours does it?' Leon can't help but chuckle. Got him there. 'Youll father will be home in an hour. He doesn't have to know if you-' 'I'll stop by Joe's on the way home.' 'Good boy.'

Leon sits up and stretches like a cat. "Going somewhere Bub?" Matt asks. "Papa wants me home. Wants me to grab some pizza too." Leon yawns pressing the cigarette bud to his stomach to put it out before reaching down and pulling on his tshirt. "Want me to walk with ya?" Matt asks. "Sure." Leon nods standing and grabbing his jeans. Matt watches as Leon pulls his jeans up. Leon glances back at him as he pulls his leather jacket on. "You coming, or what mutt?" Leon asks. "Yeah, bye val" he hangs up.

-

Matt takes the cig from between Leon's lips and smokes it. Both men are leaning against the pizza shop, waiting for the pizzas to be cooked. "Your parents home this week?" Leon asks quietly, glancing up at the bigger boy. "Nope. Another weekend alone." Matt hums keeping his eyes on the cars driving by. "Still grounded?" "Supposedly so." Leon mutters glancing back at the pizza shop. "Gotta lay of your parents man." Matt hums. Leon looks back confused. "What?" "Their there for ya, you know? I spent my last birthday with you guys because my parents forgot. I won't lie, I'd probably be a dick to them if I saw them, but dude, if I had your parents I'd never say a bad thing to em" matt explains. Leon sighs. "You know your always welcome at ours matt.. but there's just somethings you don't know." Leon mutters. "What like ministry? Cmon boy, you ain't the only supernatural around here. Its death valley." Matt smirks baring his fangs.

Leon rolls his eyes. "Look, what happened to your face. With your dad. It's shitty. But, ministry isn't your dad. Taker is your dad, not him." Matt tells him. Leon huffs and pushes off the wall. "I know." Leon states. "That doesn't make shit easy." Leon mutters watching as a familiar car pulls up. "He fixed that quick." Matt mutters pushing off the wall, putting the cig out. "No shit." Leon whispers as the boys get out of the car. "You boys supposed to be grounded?" Brad smirks holding a very familiar baseball bat. "Fuck off Brad." "I know your daddy ain't in town. And my dad's on duty" Brad smirks moving forward. Matt stands infront of Leon. "Fuck off" matt growls.

That's when matt is hit with a bat, sending him to the ground. "Fucker!" Leon yells, knocking out one of brads goons trying to get him. He goes to swing for the other when a baseball bat hits him across the head. He groans as he falls to the ground. He rolls onto his side and that's when he starts getting beat on.

He can't be mad, yeah he deserves this, but not now. Not this time in his life.

--

Shawn frowns looking at the clock. "He'll make it. Right?" Cassie asks. "Of course baby, hot fresh pizza too. Thats probably why he's taking so long." Shawn explains. He can't get ahold of Leon.

That's when the door opens and closes. "Leon?" Cassie calls. "Got pizza." Leon mutters as he walks past the living room too the kitchen. Shawn stands and follows after him. He can't help the gasp when he sees how broken and bruised he is.

His favourite leather jacket is ripped. "Leon.." Shawn signs. "I didnt start it." Leon whispers. Leon can heal himself, the issue is, he needs to have area he can almost copy the healed tissue to the broken. Which is why he'll never be able to heal his face, stomach or back. Bruises heal normally, cuts, broken bones will heal magically and just leave a scar or bruise. This tells Shawn that both sides of Leon's ribs are broken or bruised. "What happened?" Shawn asks taking in Leon's bruising eye and busted lip. "Got jumped waiting for pizza. Matts okay. Sent him to his mom to get fixed." Leon explains placing the pizzas onto the island as cassie walks in. Cassie frowns as she catches her brothers face. Leon turns away from her.

"You should go clean up before-" "before I see him?" Takers voice cuts through the room. "Cassie, John, go eat in the living room." Taker orders. The two children glance at their brother before taking the pizza away.

"You are supposed to be grounded. So unless your about to tell me papa did this, you better explain yourself" Taker growls. "Fuck off." Leon growls. Leon goes to walk past taker when taker grabs his arm and pulls him back. "You pickin fights with Brad again?" Taker asks. "Is that what he told you? He jumped me and mattie when we were getting pizza. I didn't even touch him. But let me guess he's chiefs son so who cares? What about matt? Matthews dad is a cop and yet no one believes him!" Leon rants.

"You cannot talk. The only reason you aren't sitting in a youth prison is because of me and my status in this valley" taker growls. Shawn doesn't like where this is going. Leon tugs his arm with no luck. "Whats it going to take for you to behave, huh?" Taker growls. "Military school? Boarding school?" Taker pushes. Shawns eyes widen.

Shawn all for the troops, but as a child of a military man, he would never wish that life on his own children, and taker knows that.

"Taker, enough" Shawn warns. "Hell maybe I should send you to one of those troubled teen industries? Huh? How about that?" Taker yells. Leon's eyes are wide with actual fear. "UNDERTAKER! ENOUGH!" Shawn yells pushing Taker away from Leon. Taker looks at shawn. "Go cool down. Now" Shawn orders, his hand rested on Leon's hip as he keeps the teen behind him.

Taker huffs before turning and walking off. Shawn turns to Leon. "He doesn't mean that...he's just scared. Scared about what's going to happen with you." Shawn states. Leon keeps his eyes down. "Baby, I'm scared. Anytime I see you, you have a new bruise or scar. Hell, your body can't even heal from this." Shawn sighs cupping Leon's face. Leon looks at him as he leans into his touch. "Ill stay home for the rest of the week." Leon whispers. "Thank you baby" Shawn smiles softly. "Go shower up. And when your dad comes to apologise-" "ill listen to him and accept it." Leon nods. "Atta boy. Go on." Shawn nods. Leon smiles slightly before limping away.

Shawn sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He understands the anger towards taker. Fuck Shawn did the samething before cassie was born, ministry had drained him so much and it just took a while to see they were not the same person.

Shawn just hopes this doesn't last too long.

Shawn picks the ripped jacket up and vows to fix the boys favourite jacket.

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

Leon's 17 when Shawn watches him become vinces new cash cow.

"Your dad tells me you've been having some issues lately" Shawn lifts his head to see vince stood with Leon by the makeup table. Shawn hates seeing the man so close to his son. He hates that vince has taken to Leon the same way he took to him, the same look in his greedy eye and everything. "You know, if you wanna be a wwf superstar still, you gotta drop that bad behaviour. I'm not dealing with another bad tempered michaels" vince states resting a hand on the back of Leon's neck and squeezing. Shawn watches how Leon tenses. "Yessir." Leon whispers. "Good boy. Be a shame to waste you." Vince chuckles running his hand down Leon's arm. "Goodluck tonight." Vince squeezes his arm before walking off.

Shawn feels sick. His own son. His carbon copy. Is that what Shawn looked like when vince talked to him? He stands as Leon rubs his arm.

When vince told him he owned him, he didn't think his son would be included.

Shawn approaches Leon and pulls him to the side, the shadows. "Stop." Shawn mutters removing Leon's hand from his arm. Leon looks at him. "I know I've asked you to be behaved. But not for him." Shawn tells him. "What?" Leon whispers. "Not for vince. You make his life hell. He asks you to jump, you tell him to get fucked." Shawn explains. Leon nods. "Good boy. Remeber, you always protect number 1 before anyone else" Shawn tells him, pressing his finger to Leon's chest. "And we keep this between us?" Leon asks. Shawn chuckles. "Knew there was a reason I liked you" shawn smirks causing Leon to laugh.

He can't protect himself, but he sure as hell will protect his child. His son has been through too much these past few years to become another mcmahon victim.

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

"Any reason your being a massive dickhead towards vince?" Taker asks at the dinner table. "Any reason your sticking your nose in my business?" Leon bites. "I agree with Leon." Shawn speaks up shocking everyone. "What?" Taker asks. "What? Not like Vince doesn't deserve it. You always told Leon to not take shit off anyone, he's doing as you told" Shawn hums before popping a piece of steak in his mouth.

Taker and John glance at each other as Leon smirks and eats his veg.

For once, Shawn just wished Taker would leave Leon's bad behaviour alone.

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

Another day, another fight.

And Shawn's left to clean up.

Shawn sighs as he climbs the ladder. He looks out at the city as he reaches the top. The he drops down next to his son.

"Howd you find me?" Leon asks quietly. Shawn looks at the young man. 18, and one of the top stars of the wwf. And yet he's doing the worst mentally. "Its called heartbreak ledge for a reason." Shawn hums leaning back. "Its been what 3? 2 years since the incident. You finally gonna tell me why your still giving dad a hard time?" Shawn asks. "Why?" "Because I can see those demons in your eye Leon. Its good for the character yeah, but it ain't good when that character follows you home, trust me." Shawn explains. Leon sighs. "I..I have nightmares still...a familiar shadow, sound...smell..just sets it all off. And dad..he just expects me to shrug it off all the time and I can't. I'm just...so angry at the world. Everyone. Because why is it always me? Why am I cursed but John and cassie are gifted? Why am I fighting life or death. Why am I death?"

Shawn frowns and pulls the boy into a hug. "You don't have to be okay baby. But you need to talk. You need to let us help you instead of letting that anger build up. Instead of letting it break you even more." Shawn explains. "Hell, I'm still suffering from something that happened to me when I was 16." Shawn admits. Leon pulls back slightly. "Seriously?" Leon asks. Shawn nods and looks up. Leon sees that look he's seen on his own face. "Had a shotgun pulled on me. By someone I was supposed to be able to trust, like you and Paul. I..well what happened doesn't matter. Sometimes even the pyros can set off those memories. Just when I think I'm over it, a fire work goes off too close...or a Explosion from kane. And I'm just a scared 16 year old boy trying to survive again." Shawn explains. He doesn't have to say it, Leon can do the maths. Hell not like Leon can judge after what 12 year old him did. "Is that why you use arrows instead of guns?" "Yeah...don't like guns." Shawn admits.

"So your trauma is guns and mines knives. What a pair we are, hey?" Leon tries to joke. Shawn chuckles. "An amazing pair, that's what" Shawn smiles. Leon can't help but smile back at his Papa.

"I love you Papa"

"I love you too Peach."

----------------------------------------------------------------------Notes

Mmm we love a reference to the only two killers in fod not being kane or taker.

Also yes Shawn did fix Leon's jacket and yes it's the one he wears to the ring. Even with a broken leather heart patch covering a old rip.

And yes, Leon and Shawn speaking Spanish.

Which I put the translations straight after because putting them in the notes is something I dislike.

[callipraxia]

The Unexpected Memoirs of Fiddleford H. McGucket: Prologue and Chapter One

I was going through my writing desk and found a notepad I had scrawled about seventy pages, I think, of an attempt at first-person narration on a while back. It was about Fiddleford, attempting to type his way into his own memory in the gap between "Society of the Blind Eye" and his flight from town at the beginning of "Not What He Seems." Figured I might as well type it up in a few installments here if only so I have an excuse to remove the notepad and make some storage space, and to help with wanting to write so bad when I know I have too much work going on to commit to a brand-new project.

For whatever it's worth, Chapter One *probably* isn't as dark as the tags might suggest. It just includes Fiddleford typing up a basic overview of his life before he met Ford, and since that period involved being poor and living in the Deep South in the fifties and sixties...Certain topics are inevitable, at least in passing. Religion gets most of his focus, but there's also brief mentions of racism, classism, homophobia...good ol' days, am I right?!

Prologue

My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, and I wish to remember what I have seen.

Or at least, I want to be able to wish to remember what I have seen.

Or at least, I think I do.

Maybe I just know that I have to, now. I don’t know what I helped create, or why, but I know one thing: from what I saw of myself in those tapes in the museum basement, and from what I read in the Journal, I either went crazy a lot earlier than I thought, helped create something that could end the world, or both. If it’s just that first one, well, that's all right - but what if it's one of the other two?

I want to run, but there’s nowhere left to run. I want to hide, but too many folks know where I am, now. I’ve got no choices left, besides sitting here at this typewriter and letting my fingers lead me back thirty years, into a world I gave up everything to forget about. All I’ve got is a story.

My name is Fiddleford McGucket, and I need to remember what I have seen. Whether I want to or not.

Chapter One

I think I might have tried to forget everything, but if I did, I messed up at least twice. There's two things I've never forgot about. I've always known my name, and I've always known that I’ve got a son. It's from the time after my life starts up again that I also know that if I said I was a bad father to him, I’d owe all the bad fathers of the world an apology for comparing them to the likes of me. Even a bad father is one who’s around to be bad, I think, and I wasn’t. I'd forget that, if I could, but somehow, I ended up without the gun....

My son hates me, and I can’t rightly blame him for that. He’s ashamed to be related to me, too, and as much as I’d like to, I can’t blame him for that, either, not with the fool I’ve acted. He was little when I left. I know that in part from such memories as I already had, and for sure because there was a picture in that Journal-book Dipper showed me. For some reason, the Author drew a picture of a picture that used to sit on my desk – copied it just like it must have been in life. He even bothered drawing the way the light reflected off the frame and hid my wife’s face, so I still don’t know what she looked like. I reckon I ought to be annoyed about that – but all I can think is, oh, you. You would do that, wouldn’t you?

Who are you, you faceless son of a cornshuck? Why did you do this to me? Why did I do that to you? What did we do? What’s this? What’s that?

The boy doesn’t know much about it. He was so young, then, and his mama didn’t like to talk about me later. Or so he says, and I guess I got no choice other than to believe him, because who else can I ask? My wife’s dead – I remember when he told me about that, a few years ago – and there’s nobody else in town that knew me before I lost my mind and remembers it, at least as far as I know. Not that that means much, of course.

More to the point, the boy does remember a few things. I was born in Tennessee, where I lived up to the age of seventeen, and where I’d probably be today if not for two things. One of them things is that I can’t think of many things more boring than plants – I liked machinery before I even knew what it was. The other one, probably more important, is that I caught every virus known to Man, probably, or at least Tennessee Man, as a baby, up until I took the rheumatic fever when I was six. If that hadn’t happened, then I probably would have been expected to quit school – assuming I went at all – and help Papa on the farm until I was old enough to get married and start my own, but instead, I got sick.

Mama and Papa, though – they didn’t know what they were supposed to do with me, but they knew I was theirs and they had an obligation, and that it wasn’t my fault I was feeble for a long time and peculiar even after I got my strength back. They lost their tempers with me all the time, sure, because I was so peculiar, but once they were done yelling, they knew I couldn’t help it, being like that. Mama, who was born a Baptist, used to say it was God’s will and proof of His marvelous constancy from generation to generation – Hannah had prayed for her son, and when she got him, it was with conditions, specifically, that she’d have to return him to God. Mama had also prayed for a son, and she’d got...me, who was clearly not going to be of any use to anyone unless I got me some schooling. Well, that was all right; the best preachers didn’t go to school, of course, everybody knew that, but she’d hauled off and married a Catholic, and they expected their folks to have some book learning even though that didn’t make much sense for men of God. Sense or no sense, though - that was how my mama decided I was going to be a priest.

I can’t remember much about how I felt about this, no matter how hard I try. The one thing I remember is that I did have one sister, name of Gladiolus, and that she used to think it was funny. Fatherford, she’d call me, when she thought Mama couldn’t hear her, especially when she thought I was being stupid on the subject of our mutual religion.

I was scared of God – not possessed of a holy and proper fear of God, just plain scared, like you’d be of a monster under the bed. I’d heard since I was a baby that it was only through His mercy that I was living, and I remembered just enough about being sick to know how bad it had usually hurt. I don’t know how, but I took it into my head that this meant I was bad, somehow – worse than everyone else, that was, a sinner among sinners, mainly because sometimes I asked questions that made Mama tell me that I was questioning God Almighty and that she’d have Papa take a belt to me if I done it again. Every time the priest raised the Host and talked about the transubstantiation, I’d imagine God looking out at me from inside the monstrance and whispering: just you watch yourself, Fiddleford McGucket. You better get your crazy ass right with me, or I’ll send it right on to Hell. And I would have - if I'd had any idea how. How many times did I sit there and pray, crying on my knees to stop thinking wrong and wanting wrong and doing wrong? Pulling out my own hair, because that was the only thing that could calm me down on a real bad day? I’d learned by the time I was ten not to ask my family such questions – that me asking Mama how I was supposed to just not think things that went through my head when I knew it upset her so – but I thought surely, surely, if God cared about me at all, despite knowing all my wrong thoughts….

Well – maybe He will have mercy on me for my doubts and questions and pride. Maybe He will take me in even if I keep an inability to see why it’s supposed to be so wrong to marry someone who doesn't look enough like you, or happens to be another man, or whatever else folks down home would say today. Or maybe He won’t. I don’t know. That was one thing I could never take about Mama’s people – this “I know that I know” attitude. Arrogant, ain’t it, assuming you Know anything about what God’s going to do? The predestination people are mighty peculiar, too, but that doesn’t even seem as arrogant as this idea that you can know you’re right with something as alien as God -

Or that’s the theory, anyway. In practice, the predestinationists aren’t any better, as far as I can recall, but even though thoughts like that kept me from ever considering going Evangelical or Holiness or any of that stuff, I still didn’t become a priest. I never even applied to try to be a priest – heavens to Betsy, I didn’t even apply to no Catholic universities! Admittedly, that was in part because of money – Mama went to work after she decided I was gonna live after all, so we could afford enough shoes for me and Gladiolus both to go to school all year in, and the sewing plant was real generous in giving out scholarships to the best-performing employee kids in the high school. I’d have been the biggest ingrate in the state of Tennessee if I’d started quibbling over which college I was going to go to, even considering that I broke every record my high school and that sewing plant had ever seen. And that’s how I ended up at Backupsmore University.

*********

Had to take me a break from typing – got to going too fast and my hands locked up. But the boy says he always heard I went to Backupsmore University, so I reckon I did. Makes as much sense as anywhere else, though from what I came to understand, the degree to which my crazy ass went really wrong, at least by home standards, while I was there could have happened in any reputable college or university in this country just as well.

I try to think back to it, and I have just a – blur. Strings of colored lights, which I’d never seen before. The taste of beer, and later of stronger stuff – took me two months to work up the nerve to try the beer, of course, and then I reckoned it was nasty, but I was so tired of being the oddball hick by then that I figured it was the lesser of two evils, even knowing what my mama would have said about it. Not like she wouldn’t have said worse about other stuff, such as when I went to required classes and didn’t say a word in protest when they taught that the world was millions of years old, or when I was all right with the idea of the rules changing to allow for blue jeans in classes, or when I discovered my roommate didn’t go to Mass and stayed roommates with him anyway, or when I would occasionally kiss girls and a few times boys, or….

Well. Maybe I went a little wild my first year or two, but I know that I know I didn’t ever risk my scholarship. Partially, of course, this was because of how easy everything was to me, but I did my work, no matter how tedious it was. I knew within a week that I didn’t want to go back to where I come from, and I knew that doing real well in college was my best way out. So I did real well in college, though it probably helped that my roommate was so dang uptight that I was partially obliged to drop the wayward habits of my freshman year, because there was no questioning which of us would have won in a fight.

I was taller than him, though. I remember that. Didn’t seem to bother him much. Not much did, I reckon. He was there to work, not to deal with people no more than he could help. I had to drag him out of the room most every time he left it for anything except for class, after we became friends...because we didn’t do for a while after we moved in together, not right away. I remember that first day - how I introduced myself, trying to be friendly and polite, and how he acted like the idea of shaking hands offended him, even if he did finally do it. I remember, too, that I thought he seemed like he got mad about my name for some reason? Though how that makes any sense, I don’t know. I think he might have just been mad at everything, the whole world, even himself, but definitely most everybody else.

I’m starting to type too fast again. Got to put down everything I can remember – it feels like I might forget it again if I don’t get it down fast enough, and like I need to remember this man. Like he’s got something to do with what happened, though it might be just that I can’t remember his face, either -

That does seem strange, and not only because I lived with him for a right long time. There’s also the other things that come back to me, strange little things. He’d done some kind of athletics in high school, for instance – why do I know that, but not what the feller looked like? That makes about as much sense as this band-aid being on my beard!

I remember that, though. And I remember that time when it snowed a foot, real early in the year that year even for that far north, and even though I'm sure that he was funny about his hands for some reason – fancy-pants musician, maybe? But that don’t explain this – how he let me borrow a pair of gloves upon realizing I’d never had any cause to own such an item before – and by ‘borrow’, I mean ‘threw ‘em at me without comment before leaving the room.’ And the first time he unbent enough for us to have a real conversation, and what it felt like, realizing I was really talking to someone who was a little like me – someone else who worked just fine, but his circuits were just arranged different than most folks’. Never thought it could happen, but....

It all blurs, even now. I can’t see his face, however I try to think on it. But I remember another thing, too. I remember one day when I fell down because I was laughing so hard. I was in Gravity Falls already, then, and I started laughing till I ended up on my knees as I thought to myself – there was a time I’d have said that I would follow that man into Hell - but this ain't what this was supposed to be!

*********

In between them memories, I’ve got what the boy told me I did. He doesn’t know why I did it or when, but at some point, I did go back to Tennessee. That’s where I met his mama. She was a schoolteacher, one of the only other folks my age who’d been anywhere near a college, at least that I could find to talk to. So, for lack of anything better to do, I suppose, she became a Catholic and then we got married.

Emma-May Dixon. Couldn’t get a name more like where we come from than that if you tried, but Emmy wasn’t too much like Gladiolus or my girl cousins or most home folks. Well, if she’d been like most folks, she wouldn’t have got lonely enough to marry the likes of me, would she have? Emma-May. Emmy.‘Emmy’ is what I called her sometimes, I think. Just Em when she was annoying me, though, which she did sometimes, as everyone you ever live with or know especially well must. I’ve remembered that for a while, somehow – that, and how she didn’t like being called Em or Emmy very much. After we left Tennessee, she tried going by Emma, out in California. Like Jane Austen. She had a whole set of books by Jane Austen, and every house we ever lived in, she made sure they were as prominent as they could get in the living room.

They weren’t just for looks, though. She had read them. She read them every year over again, in fact. She had the darkest, curliest hair I’ve ever seen – when it came into fashion, she started putting permanents in it the same as everyone else, of course, but she could have saved herself some time and just left it as it was, because she got close to looking like she had one just in her natural state. She wore perfume – Evening in Paris, I think it was – which was the kind of thing that would have gotten a gal talked about back home even if she hadn’t had the audacity to go buy it for herself, long time before she ever met me. I didn’t mind it, though; I liked that she didn’t need me, because I might not have pulled my hair out over my fear of God as much anymore by then, but someone needing me – that I couldn’t stand. Which did make it mighty inconvenient that she got pregnant not too long after we got married, because you ain’t never known how Necessary you can be until you get stuck being responsible for a baby human.

These days, of course, I doubt that would have happened. For one thing, I’d have been on ten different pills time I left Backupsmore, so I probably never would have gone home in the first place. For another – well, back then, it just didn’t occur to us to do much of anything to not have babies, because that was what you did, wasn’t it? You got married, you had a bunch of kids. That was what the Church said was proper, but it wasn’t even just the Church – my mama was a Baptist and had ten brothers and sisters. You had ‘em to keep up the work on the farm with you; that was why everybody felt so sorry for Mama and Papa, only having two young’uns, and one of them being me.

I don’t know what would have happened had we stayed in Tennessee – but thing was, Tater was still a baby when I realized we was not staying in Tennessee. For one thing, Mama and Emma-May couldn’t get along at all after the baby was born, Mama being intense on the subject of her first and only grandbaby – and for another, we just couldn’t stay there. I would have gone crazy a lot sooner than I did if we had. After Tater was born, all I could think was – my God, I can’t have a young’un of mine grow up here. If this place isn’t dead, it’s definitely dying. What if he’s like me, but he doesn’t get sick enough? Of course, this wasn’t rational of me – by that time, going to school was not only mandatory in the law, but it was something that was actually enforced even for backwoods families – but I couldn’t even think about the likes of ration, not then. I scratched up my head so bad trying not to rip out my hair that I ended up getting some kind of skin infection for a while – and then, once I was over that, we got as far from everybody we knew as we possibly could.

*********

California. On a map, it was easy to say what California was; where I come from, it was a whole different question. To some, it meant everything you could ever want, everything that home wasn’t; to others, it was a neat bit of shorthand just for Hell on Earth, for all the sins of the world (I reckon home folks didn’t all know about Las Vegas?). To my mama and papa, and Em’s mama and daddy, it was the second one; to me and her, it was the first one.

I think we were happy there? It’s another blur – but the edges don’t hurt, wherever an object or an image floats to the surface and gets clear enough to see. I remember shoes in the hallway a lot. Some balls and bats, a lot of books. Tater was reading before he was three, and we made sure he had plenty to read, because as I told my wife – it was pretty clear, from early on, that the boy was indeed like me, so he might as well lean into it and get as smart as he could, so he’d have the best chance to find some way, some place in the world where he could be happy.

You say that like you aren’t happy where you're at, Fids, said she – she was the only one who called me that, I’m assuming as retaliation for the Em thing. What am I supposed to do with that?

But I think I was. That we both were, for a while anyway. In a way, I think we both felt about like young’uns ourselves, because of how odd we could be in California without anybody knowing or caring at all. It was 1975, baby! Every woman in America had a right to her own bank account, whether she was married or whether she was not, and Emma-May got one I reckon just for the hell of it. Or because she was the one with more to put into it, though she never once mentioned it, and she was a saint for that. Who ever heard of a woman with a baby going back to teaching school, and letting some fool of a man look after a baby? Nobody, but we weren’t in Tennessee, we were in California, and it was 1976, 1978 – the world was all on its head and it was going to keep spinning like that forever, up and up, freer and freer, no stops!

I know how wrong we was now – but even today, it makes me smile, when I think of this one picture in my head. It was Emmy, just outside the church – since she took it sort of serious, after having gone to all the trouble of converting, we still did go to church. She was standing on the stair, wearing this dark blue dress with little white polky-dots on it, and one of them big, wide lace collars – this thing was up to her throat, and the ends of it were on her two shoulders – and by standards of the time, she was looking sharp! But she had on these sensible shoes, you know, and little white gloves, because she had a habit of that from her mama, who had not been one bit amused by Jack Kennedy taking his presidential oaths with no hat on and thereby giving everyone permission to run around in their bathing suits in broad daylight. Jack Kennedy was dead, though, and Jackie had betrayed all of America, to my folks’ way of thinking, by marrying some foreigner instead of gracefully playing the queen dowager until John, Jr. could take his daddy’s place, and I had two suits, one for every other Sunday, and a pretty wife with more dresses than there were days in the week standing there with her rosary in one hand and Tate by the other one, and I imagine we looked at each other like – you believe all this? You believe we’re here acting like decent people, without a soul in this church knowing you’ve got your own bank and them new pills, or that I get what money I got by some combination of picking a banjo while I run around in floweredy shirts like a hoodlum and spend my days trying to build the machines of the future? This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of!

Of course, I don’t know that this memory is real. Even if I do remember it right, there ain’t no guarantee that Emma-May was thinking anything of the sort, about how we looked like everybody else and were yet living in ways that would have shocked out parents out of this life. I felt like a young’un lifting candy from the store, though, and I recollect I laughed – from her point of view, for no good reason – and gave her a kiss right there on the stair.

What was that for?

You just looked pretty.

You crazy fool.

She’d call me that again another time, and it wouldn’t sound anything like it did then. Another time, she was screaming at me, shaking me, telling me to snap out of it, to quit what I was doing, to look what I was doing to my own son, to quit it right now and be a man, be a father, for the love of God, Fiddleford! But that day, it wasn’t like that, and I never could have guessed how soon it would be.

*********

I don’t remember much about how it started, that day. Right now, I remember everything about that afternoon and evening – the afternoon that marked the beginning of the end of my life – but not so much about the beginning, not even what I was doing right before the phone started to ring. I assume it was all normal, though: that I’d got up like I most always did, got the kid off to school, got the wife some kind of lunch put together before she went off to school, and then it was out to the garage and another day of trying to scrape together a dream. Just like so many days before. There was no way, no way at all, I could have ever known what was going to happen.

It was getting late, I think, when the phone started to ring, but in July it’s hard to be sure. Only the sounds of Emma-May and the boy in the house gave away that we’d passed the hour where most folks called the day finished. Despite that, I wasn’t working on one of my own projects yet – was still working on something for a client, scraping together the money I needed to keep working on my prototypes. Well, to my way of thinking, I was working on a client project, anyway – to most folks’ eyes, it would have looked like I was just picking on my banjo, but that was what I did when I needed to think about a tricky problem with some wiring. I was chewing on some chewbacca, too, as I was accustomed to do, and I recall I gnawed on it some just about the time the ringing started.

Why do I remember that? Nothing that unusual about that moment. Nothing should have made that specific plug of tobacco brand itself into my neurons, but I remember it right now, as clear as I do anything else – I can taste it as if I was chewing on it this moment, practically feel it between my molars again, though unfortunately, just remembering the feel of getting a hit of nicotine doesn’t do much to sharpen me up and calm me down all at once the way an actual portion of the drug would. It was real that day, though, and hit my system as I picked up the phone, and, without a care in the world, said, “Hello! Fiddleford Computermajigs!”

Another man’s voice came through the other line, and for a few seconds, I didn’t even recognize it. It was the kind of landline connection you got back then, I reckon, along with me having not heard this particular man’s voice in...Lord, how long had it been? Going on five years, maybe. Even during those few seconds, though, before my life changed, I felt a sort of – ripple – go through the world, as though I had gotten a shock, as the voice spoke, getting straight to the point without any salutation or introduction of its owner. Guess he was already too close to the edge to care about such things by then – that is, unless he knew that, just from the sheer audacity of the proposition alone, I’d know exactly who it was by the time he got to the end of his sentence.

“What would you say,” he said in a low, almost conspiratorial tone, “if I told you that I’m building a trans-universal polydimensional meta-vortex?”

By the end of the sentence, I knew who I was talking to – but that was bizarre enough even for him that I had to repeat it back to myself to be sure I’d heard it right. “You...say you’re trying to build a trans-universal polydimensional meta-vortex?”

“Yes.”

And then I did it. Without even knowing I was doing it, I said the words that would near enough to damn us both, and my wife and son along with us, and who knows how many others, before it’s done.

“Well,” said I, and the numbers were running through my head – I hadn’t felt them like that since college, that was how quick I started on the problem, even before I had any confirmation that it was any of my business. “that’s...mathematically feasible, I reckon!” I spat to clear my mouth, just in case the next remark he came up with was somehow even more surprising than the one he’d used to barge back into my life without so much as a howdy-do, and then I added, “Stanford? That really you?”

Click here to proceed to chapter two!

[healersadjust]

Oh, boy... Well, I have somewhere around 70 FFXIV characters, and only one is a WoL. Well, current WoL- Aki’s adoptive family used to be the Warriors of Light, but that’s not the point. Anyway, I’ll show off some of them!

Spoilers for Shadowbringers with a few of them!

Leo by far is my most popular WoL! He is a scion, and is the one who writes down all of my WoL’s (Aki!) adventures. He’s mostly unable to speak, and is blessed by Azeyma. As such, he’s a powerful fire mage- but he’s incapable of any other form of magic. He’s a father of a beautiful girl, Julia! He also has a bunch of people who he kinda fathers- he’s like the group dad tbh.

(More under the cut!)

This here is Dohv’a! He’s a terrible person, I hate him, and I’d die for him. He’s a vampire who has been cursed ever since before the Sundering. He was the first vampire, and has created many, many more like him. He is cursed to reincarnate endlessly, always transforming into a vampire in his lifetime. Each time, he regains all his memories from the time before the current one. He has a loyal... Well, demon..? Named Irene! She belongs to @stargazing-in-ishgard​. Dohv’a wishes to break his curse- much to Irene’s dismay.

Celeste here is something of a assistant to the Scions. She works closely with Tataru, but she herself strongly prefers the role of receptionist or medic over working in the battlefield. She takes care of the Scions during the events of Shadowbringers alongside Krile! She claims her work is backstage- she has no desire to step into the spotlight.

Eros is a fun one! She is from the First. She was taken in by the Crystal Exarch somewhat, and views Lyna as a sister. She’s a hopeless romantic who also greatly enjoys crime. She is the one who trained Thancred to be a gunbreaker, and before finding Minfilia, she was the one who imbued his bullets. She’s a master of espionage. She’s somewhat similar to Robin Hood- stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Not all her action’s are morally “good,” but most are!

(Bonus- she was quite the ruthless mentor. Thancred once slacked in his duties and got dragged back to work, quite literally.)

Ever wanted to meet someone incredibly annoying, and so damn good at everything she does? Well, this is Vivace! Her hobbies include bitching and moaning, while also shooting down enemy after enemy. She was Aki’s number one enemy for a very, very long time- and while Aki hated her, Vivace LOVED their relationship. However... She struggled greatly with self confidence issues. She always viewed herself as less than the rest of the scions. As such, she took a blow to protect Aki... Though no body was ever found, she is assumed dead. But is she truly?

Don’t let her looks fool you- Mae is a fierce warrior. Hailing from The Ruby Sea, she always wished to go above the surface. When Yugiri left, she joined without question. She trained as a Shinobi warrior, but had to leave Doma behind to join many of her new countrymen to Eorzea. She didn’t wish to lean on the Scions for too long- she wanted to make a name for herself. She left and became a Warrior, and returned to the Scions stronger than ever to join their fight against the Empire. She refuses to speak of her time when she left the Scions- rumors spread about what might have happened to her, but her lips are sealed. Her cheery demeanor is the same as ever, but there is a sadness behind her eyes that none can deny.

Lastly, Annis! She was born in the South Shroud, but her family soon went to Ul’dah in seek of a more secure future. Her father was a merchant, and was able to make a name for them in the Jewel of the Desert. However, one night, both her parents disappeared in the night. Annis relied on her older sister growing up, and they struggled greatly. When she was old enough, Annis became a dancer for the rich in Ul’dah. One day, her sister became sick, and soon enough, Annis was left alone. She left Ul’dah in search of employment as an adventurer- she joined the Scions not long after.

There are many, many others! However, these are a few that I’ve had the most brainrot over as of late.

Okay but I wanna see ALL of the non-wol OCs, send them my way, I gotta follow more peeps. I want more FFXIV inhabitants on my dash.

Also like, let me know, what do they do, what are they like?

Please reblog for visibility so more people can poke me.