#back into my hidey hole avoiding spoilers

[aetherixart]

• Vincent Valentine •

Available as a print!~

[separatist-apologist]

I would sell my kidney to read even a snippet of what Arina and Eris in that library

No need to sell anything. I don't think there are any upcoming spoilers for the next chapter in this

Eris Vanserra strode through the halls of his childhood estate, hands clenched at his side. Beron Vanserra had descended, taking the one casual, quite peace Elain had somehow managed to achieve despite impossible odds, and wrecking it with a few ugly, cruel words. His mother was hiding, her face bruised, her smile gone. Arina had also scurried into whatever little hidey-hole she possessed, having walked in to offer his mother tea and found Beron’s face looking at her with those leering eyes. 

“I remember you, girl,” he’d crooned, beckoning her to come to him. Arina could hardly resist and Eris had been forced to watch his father rise off the couch and circle her like she were a prized cow up for auction. “Pretty little thing then…and a prettier thing now.” Arina hadn’t betrayed any fear, which only made Beron want her more. He liked to break things, liked to draw their screams the way regular men tried to draw pleasure. Arina had merely thanked him for the compliment, not daring to look at Eris at all.

And why should she? He’d been avoiding her at best, assaulting her with angry words at worst. Why hadn’t she left? He’d made her swear an oath to him that day in the stables. She’d been a child, he far too old to look at her face with the kind of interest he had. She’d been eleven, himself fifteen, half dead with only the housekeeper's daughter brave enough to help him from the woods to safety. She’d cleaned his wounds, had fed him and when it became clear he could not crawl to his own bed, had created one in the straw of blankets she’d stolen from other places. She risked the wrath of his father, who had no qualms beating the servants regardless of their respective genders. He would have delighted in whipping the flesh from her back while she begged for mercy.

Eris knew he could no longer stay. He’d put off university to try and protect his brothers but it was time to go. He was only one boy, he could only do so much. Arina, though, was pretty. She could have risen up, could have been a merchant's wife if she wanted. His wife, he’d thought that day. Foolish, to think his father wouldn’t pick a bride for him and so Eris had grabbed her hand when the sun crested over the hillside and made her swear she’d turn her back on this place, that she’d go somewhere safe. Arina had agreed.

She had lied. He’d wanted to protect her from what he knew would come, now. Lucien would hide Elain away, would guard her with his life, the lovesick fool, but Eris could not protect Arina in the same way. Elain had her family pedigree and a family that would surely sue Beron should he dishonor her…should Lucien not kill him first. Arina was common, and the courts did not consider common women capable of having a virtue worth protecting in the first place. 

Eris prowled high and low until the only place he hadn’t looked was his own bedroom and the library. It was wishful thinking to imagine her there. He turned, instead, for the library, closing the door quietly behind him. Arina was there, bathed in cool, late autumn sunlight, a book in her hand. She was curled in a chair beside one of the stacks of books, head resting against her hand. Eris would have given anything to see her unpin her hair, to look at him with anything but polite interest.

“Lord Vanserra—”

“It’s fucking Eris,” he snapped, apparently determiend to make her hate him even when he didn’t mean to.

“My apologies, fucking Eris,” she replied smoothly as she closed her book. If Lucien had walked in, he knew she would have stood, would have offered respect. Arina assessed him coolly from her chair, legs curled beneath the ugly blue dress she wore everyday. He wanted her out of it, wanted her undone, wanted her to beg  him to touch her. “What can I do for you?”

It was him who would beg, he realized as he strode towards her. He reached for her arms, hauling her out of the chair and onto the table behind them. Holding the back of her neck in his hands, he waited a beat for her to scream or shout or slap…anything that would force him to stop. 

“What can you do for me?” he repeated, eyes drifting to the pink slant of her mouth. “Kiss me.” He didn’t give her a chance to reject him, pulling her against his face in a messy, desperate kiss. Eris braced himself for a slap that never came. She was motionless for only a moment before giving in, before her hands slid up his jacket for the silver buttons holding it together. 

It was to be like that, then. Eris was more than happy to let her pull them apart, shrugging it off his shoulders without removing his lips from hers. She sighed, opening so he could taste her. It was better than he’d been imagining. 

Arina tugged at his shirt, yanking it from the band of his pants with a whimper. He helped, nearly toppling over in his urgency to get it over his head. Eris couldn’t think of a time in his life he’d ever been so undone by a woman, so wild he was practically possessed. He had no self-control, no thought outside of claim her, as if she was his to claim in the first place. 

He pulled at her laces when her mouth found his neck, biting bruising kisses along his throat just the way he liked. She wasn’t soft at all but rough and edged like a serrated blade, beautiful and sharp. 

He pushed at the shoulders when he’d loosened it enough, exposing her breasts to the early morning air. “Fuck,” he whispered, laying her back on the table to press his face against them. Arina sighed, raking her fingers through his hair and pulling hard. This was what love felt like, he decided. There was no question in his mind, not other alternative but to figure a way to bring her back to Velaris and marry her, preferably as soon as possible. She was too pretty to be left on her own and apparently had no shortage of suitors from how Elain spoke.

This was not how he’d imagined his first time with her. Eris was reaching for her skirt, intending to just have her anyway while he grasped at her breasts when the door behind them flung open. It was something from a horror movie, watching his brother grind up against his wife like some kind of animal…intruding on Eris’s carefully stolen space. Did he not have a million other rooms for such activities? Begrudgingly, Eris shielded Arina with his body, letting her sit up and frantically push her dress up over her body.

He’d drag her to his bedroom when everyone went to sleep. 

He’d have her for the entirety of the night.

And then?

He’d kill his fucking father.

[sparrowofsong]

Of Carrots and Cats

Whumptober No. 16 and Alt. 9

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - Hallucinations

Memory Loss

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Characters: Janus Sanders (Sympathetic)

Summary:  After being forgotten and locked away in his empty room for longer than he can remember, Janus has begun to lose his grip on reality. He's also quite hungry.

...You could say he doesn't carrot-all what he gets to eat as long as it's food.

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: Blood, starvation, self harm, implied abuse, triggered arachnophobia

Note: This takes place in my What a Nightmare! AU. (@what-a-nightmare-ts-au) However, it makes no real reference to the main plot to avoid spoilers (since I still have yet to. y’know. tell it.), so it could also be a standalone fic. 

--

Something orange flashed across Janus's vision. Taken off guard, Janus furrowed his brow in confusion. 

Orange? Since when was anything orange in his room? 

He turned his head in the direction the thing went, and his eyes widened at the sight before him. 

A carrot.

His chest swelled with elation -- or maybe that was hunger. Either way, he couldn't care less what Thomas, and him by extension, thought of carrots. It was food. And it was right there. 

As he reached toward it, it started to run off, much to his dismay. "Nnh, nh, no, no, no, stop, come back! Please!" It halted and turned to him at the entrance of its hidey-hole in the wall. (What Janus wouldn't give to be that carrot. The lucky bastard could have a hiding place but not him? Unfair.) 

He shook his head and focused on the sheer delight that it was listening to him, then began whispering gently. "Please come back. You're okay. Come on." The carrot didn't move. Wasn't there a sound people made for animals to come to them? He forgot which animals exactly, but there was something, he knew that much.

He absentmindedly clicked his tongue in thought, and realized that it sounded familiar in this context. He clicked his tongue a few more times. The carrot took a few more steps closer. Grinning from ear to ear, he stifled a gleeful giggle. "There you go, bud. That's it. Just a lll... lihh...." 

He paused. What was the word again? It felt like it should be easy to remember. Why was he having so much trouble remembering things lately? He was losing track of relative time more and more often. He was forgetting words, simple and complicated ones alike. He was always forgetting his train of thought (not that it was ever important, of course). A while ago, he-- no, it was more recent than "a while," wasn't it? How recent? Was it today, yesterday, a few days ago? How long even was a day these days? Huh. Day was a weird word. It was pronounced like there were two vowel sounds, even though it was treated like it had one. Deh-ee. Dee. Deceit. God, how he hated that word; just the thought of it made him shudder. If only he could forget--

Oh, right, forgetting things. He was thinking about that for some reason. When was he doing that? It must have been a few hours ago. Or a few minutes? Which one was longer, again? He hadn't thought about it in a few years-- weeks-- months-- decades? He couldn't tell you. He didn't exactly have a calendar available to him. But it didn't really matter anyway, did it? After all, time was meaningless in the face of eternity.

As he lay his head down in exhaustion, he spotted something orange out of the corner of his eye.

Orange? Since when was anything orange in his room?

He strained his neck to get a better look without exerting himself too much, and was elated by the sight before him.

A carrot!

Food!!

His eyes widened in excitement. Who cared how gross carrots were? At this point, he'd take anything he could get.

He forced himself vaguely upright once more, preparing to drag himself toward it, and he could almost feel his heart split in two when it ran inside its hidey-hole in the wall. (What Janus wouldn't give to be that carrot. The lucky bastard could have a hiding place but not him? Unfair.)

Knowing all too well he'd never be allowed to reach the wall, he decided to try and coax the carrot out to him instead. Maybe it was like a cat! They had the same letters, after all. Right? Probably. They sounded similar at the very least. He realized he couldn't remember the last time he saw the two written down. Or anything written down, really. When was the last time he read a book? When was--

He noticed a bit of orange peek out of a hole in the wall. Right, the cat! Wait, that was too small for a cat. Unless it was a kitten. Ooh, that sounded closer to the word he was using before, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. There must have been two syllables for sure. What was orange with two syllables and a "cuh" sound at the beginning?

Coral.

Construction.

Traffic cone.

Kayak.

Cantaloupe.

Cantaloupe sounded delicious right about now. Anything did, if he was being honest (like he was supposed to be). Even carrots would be--

Carrot!

Relieved to see that it was still there, he clicked his tongue a few times to coax it out of its hidey-hole. (What Janus wouldn't give to be that carrot. The lucky bastard could have a hiding place but not him? Unfair.) 

"Tut, tut, tut, tut, come on out little guy! You're okay!" he whispered. The carrot took a few tentative steps toward him, and Janus was nearly overwhelmed by sheer delight. It was listening to him! Janus couldn't remember the last time something listened to him. "There you go, bud. That's it. Just a little bit cl... c.... more.. here? Nearer!" He mentally congratulated himself for remembering the exact word so quickly. "Come on. You can do it. Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut..."

As agonising a wait as it was, Janus made sure the carrot was a mere few inches away from him before he pounced. To his amazement, it only took one try to snatch it up! Tears of joy began to well in his eyes as he laughed triumphantly.

He did something right!

He succeeded!!

Janus held it closely to his chest for a few moments, savoring this rare victory, before carefully opening his hands a teeny tiny bit to peer inside. His heart dropped when he saw that the carrot was gone. In its place was something black that was rather unpleasantly squirming around. He opened his hands more to get a better look, and noticed first that it was not, in fact, one thing. It was many things. He noticed second exactly what things they were, and had only a moment to register the information before they began escaping his grasp. 

He screamed in horror as countless spiders crawled up his arms, down his neck and back, in his hair, through his wounds and into his veins, through his mouth and into his lungs and stomach, through his ears and into his brain. They were biting him, poisoning him, choking him, eating him alive from the inside out and the outside in. They were everywhere. 

The welled up tears of joy now fell as tears of anguish. He clawed at his skin to tear them out, but every spider he removed revealed two more in its place, and they seemed more than happy to infest the newly-created wounds as well. He yanked his hair to pull them out of his head, but only succeeded in transferring more from his hands. He hit his head against the floor to knock them back out of his ears, but they only latched more tightly onto his brain. He began hacking violently to clear them from his lungs, but every inhale between coughs drew more in. 

There was nothing he could do. He was helpless. As usual. 

Couldn't he just have one success? He knew he didn't deserve it, of course, but still, not even one?

It didn't take long for him to lose the little energy he'd spent so long trying to stockpile. Trembling with fear and exhaustion, his breaths unsteady and faltering, he managed to curl into a ball, clutching his head with now golden, bloody hands as though he could somehow protect himself. 

What wishful thinking.

...Hopefully it didn’t count as a lie.

[teacup-crow]

spiral slowly, screaming

My mental health is always worse when I stop for a while, and I reckon Five is probably the same. CW for a whole lot of anger, self-loathing and some suicidal ideation.

Set between S3M60 and S4M1, spoilers for all of S3. Hurt-comfort. Five starts to process some things. There’s some gentle 5AM. Also, I finally named my main Five in this! Only took three years!

((Title from Before the Breakdown from We Are the Tigers, a very unrelated musical about cheerleading and murder))

It’s a few weeks after the ice cream tower when Five finally unravels at the seams.

They’ve been bright and shiny and happy ever since, wrapped up in Sam’s excitement about the idea of the baby, in the soft relief that blankets the township as loved ones, confused but no longer mind-controlled, begin to return to themselves. In the first breath of peace that comes after war, Five smiles. They smile until their jaw aches. They smile, not in the twisted grimace She put on their face, but in genuine joy. At least, they think it’s genuine.

But now, a mile out from Abel, their face suddenly drops, and they stop walking.

“Five?” Sam asks. He’s not over comms, but at their elbow, breathless. “All good?”

They’re not far from the forest of fallen runners. Not far from where they finally, last week, laid Three’s armband to rest. Between there and here, there’s a trickling river, only shin height in the dappled summer afternoon. When Five was a child, they went wading in streams like these. They’d spend all their free time outside, wandering the parks and the scraggy woods and the boarded up town centre aimlessly, building forts, crossing rivers on stepping stones, trespassing. All skills that have come in handy since. The memories are a little hazy, a tad unclear, like someone’s rifled through them and put them back in the wrong order. They untie their shoelaces. Why are they out here? It’s hard to recall even leaving Abel, what mission they’re on, when they started.

“What are you doing?”

He has a gun with him, and they both know it. Of course, it’s stupid to leave Abel without any sort of weapon, but Sam has never carried anything more than a butterfly knife and a hockey stick before, so the gun isn’t for zoms.

He has it in case Five snaps. In case they try anything. In case they hurt him again.

They step into the water.

Five has always worn many different faces with different people. With superiors they were serious, dependable, reliable; with their Runners, funny and fair and firm. Sometimes with Sam - times like this, ankle deep in a rippling brook - they don’t have to be anyone. And that sounds like bliss, but really, it forces them to figure out who they are when they’re not being anyone else.

“You’re going to get your shorts wet,” he says, a tad anxious. “Shouldn’t we be getting back?”

As it turns out, who they are when they’re not being anyone else isn’t someone they like. That’s why they use this number, isn’t it? So that they don’t forget. So they don’t slip back into being reckless, feckless, worthless Rory Jeavons. Rory Jeavons who could never hold down a job. Rory Jeavons who could never pass an exam. Five has purpose, meaning, friends. Five is a symbol; Rory was nothing.

Well, Five only had those things before She stripped them away, so the difference these days is harder to spot.

They sit. The water is cool, and laps their stomach. There’s birdsong in the forest. The world is a little bit fuzzy, although they’re not sure why until Sam says-

“-are you crying?”

He’s crouched on the riverbank, the toes of his pumps curling in the mud. He has size twelve feet, and comfy, fitting shoes are hard to come by, but Five found these for him in a burnt out Brantano and he’s tried to avoid wearing them down by cutting out his habit of scuffing his heels as he walks. If Five just focuses on those shoes, they won’t have to think. The shoes. The water. The stones underneath them. Birds in the distance. Shoes, stones, water, birds. Don’t think.

Shoes, stones, water, birds. The teenage boy on the Laetitia Greenwald, skimming pebbles on the sea, a fat gull arcing and swooping over his head. He wore hi-tops in still-luminous colours, clearly a prized possession. They see his face, a second before the explosion. They see a hi-top with a calf still attached, sinking below the ocean surface, sinking down for a long time.

“Five…” Sam’s voice is far away, and muffled, although they know on some level that he’s in the river too, now, that his hands are on their shoulders. Doesn’t he know they don’t like to be touched? They kick, and try to scream, but no sound comes out, and somehow they don’t have the energy to fight as his fingers dig in and he drags them, coughing and spluttering, onto the bank. The splashing finally makes those birds scatter back into the trees. The gull, circling away in smoke.

“What the hell was that?!” He demands as they cough and retch and wheeze the filth of the river back out again. He’s panting, white pumps covered in slime. “Are you trying to kill yourself?!”

When they don’t reply, he repeats the question gently. A-are you trying to kill yourself?

Five rubs their mouth with the back of their hand, and starts to laugh, the sound still a little watery, then hoarse and unpleasant and lacking all mirth. Isn’t every Runner trying to do that somewhere deep down?

“...Rory, you’re scaring me.”

That should snap them out of this, their real name handled with so much care on the tip of his tongue. The fear in his eyes should make them want to protect him, and the best way to protect him is to get far, far away, because they’re the one who hurt him. They’ve hurt him once, so they could do it again. The fear in his eyes is justified.

It shouldn’t make them so angry.

“C’mon, let’s go home. It’s not far. We can both grab a shower and you can maybe just talk about it for a while with Maxine, yeah?”

No. “Leave me here,” they sign in shaking hands.

“I promise, that’s not going to happen-“

“You should leave me here.”

He frowns. He’s so happy, Sam. Of course, not all the time, but his mind doesn’t crawl into the darkest possible shadows when he leaves it unsupervised for a moment. He doesn’t split himself into a thousand shards for a thousand different situations. He is whole, and he wholeheartedly believes that things will get better.

“You need to come home, Runner Five. Janine’s orders.” He feigns seriousness to match his furrowed brow. Five steps back.

“I wish I’d died on that boat.”

He turns cold for the first time at that, a beat of silence between them as a cloud breaks the warmth of the sunlight.

“No. No. None of us get to say that, okay? Being alive is a gift. You don’t get to wish it away. And sometimes it’s awful, and it’s hard, but you keep going for all the ones who didn’t make it. You keep going because they fought for you to survive. You keep going for Sara Smith and Archie Jensen and, bloody hell, you keep going for Simon!”

“You don’t understand!” They vocalise it, try to shout, but the words are barely more than a whisper. They’re going to hit something, they’re going to scream, something, something, something. The rage inside them feels like it’s sparking, waiting to find touchpaper, to catch light.

“I understand that you’re trying to process the truly horrible things that you’ve been through in the last few weeks.” He sighs. “No, the last few years, and that’s okay. I know you’re angry. I know you’re frightened of yourself. And I know I don’t know the half of it, but Five… I’m not letting you go. I’m not giving up on you just because you’re struggling.”

He’s crouching again, his arms outstretched and non-threatening. They could push him into the water and take the gun from his waistband in one fell swoop-and-run. Then what? Move into one of Simon’s old hidey-holes, or roam the hills like Tom de Luca carving words into their skin, or run right over the cliffs and fly for just a moment? Sam would never catch them, never find them, and eventually he’d move on. He’s strong enough.

“Please, just come home with me.”

“I can’t. I don’t deserve it.” And, because he’ll refuse to accept that truth, they’ll give him one he can’t refute. “I’m not… I’m not safe to be around.”

Broken people just break everything they touch, even when trying to be made new. Didn’t Si teach them that?

Sam’s eyes are sparkling with tears. “Please, Rory.”

“I can’t,” they try again, but their knees are already buckling with exhaustion, and they’re falling into his arms. All they can do for a while is sob.

[dwsecretsanta]

Spoilers Are Rude

I own nothing.

This is for @emkaywho who wanted a soulmate AU with either Nine/Rose or Twelve/Rose. They left the choice up to me, so I hope they enjoy this. The title’s a bit of a giveaway as to which I chose, but my brain latched onto the idea so here it is.

When the words I can’t believe Dumbledore dies first appeared on his skin, he is less than impressed.

One, his cousin was never going to leave him alone about it.

Two, it meant that there was at minimum an eleven year age gap between him and whichever poor sod fate had decreed was his perfect match.

“What kind of name is Dumbledore anyway?” Donna questioned, poking at his shoulder where the messy script was written.

“How should I know?” He grunted, swatting her hand away. “Hand me the wrench, would you?”

She handed him the requested tool. “At least it’s better than mine.”

“Don’t know about that,” he was referencing the stuttered ‘Hello Donna’ written in painstakingly neat cursive on her forearm. “Seems like you get introduced to yours. Speech impediment aside, could be worse.”

“Does the age thing bother you?” She pushed the box of random bits and bobs towards him. The last time she’d reached into it, her hand had come out covered in grease. It had taken ages to get it all off.

“Why should it?” He absently reached into the box and pulled out what he needed. He was going to get this car working before Grandad got home. Why should he care about some babe in arms that he may never meet?

He wasn’t like Donna, who even at thirteen dreamed of meeting her soulmate and dragging them to the altar. She was also at the other end of the spectrum, having been born with her words already in place. Most people were, or they received their words within a year or so of being born.

Jonathan Noble didn’t rightly care one way or the other. Science and machines were more interesting. So were books and history.

Donna rolled her eyes at him. She despaired at ever getting him to interact with the rest of the human race, the big eared lug. She knew he was a boy and boys were different, but annoying or not her cousin was special.

A spark arched from the part he was working on and he leapt back. Donna shrieked, tumbling off her stool and sending his cobbled together toolbox scattering across the garage floor.

He laughed. “Fantastic!”

“That’s not what mum’s gonna say if you start a fire in the garage again,” Donna dusted herself off once she regained her feet. “If it’s sparking, does that mean it’s working again?”

“Think so, let’s close her up and find out!” He eagerly began putting the casing back around the engine.

Rolling her eyes again, Donna opened the door. She wasn’t going to let the idiot kill them in his excitement.

“Donna, are you and John about done in there?” Wilfred Mott stuck his head out of the back door. He had heard something, but far be it from him to discourage his grandchildren from trying things. If Jon could get the old girl working again, he’d just teach the boy to drive it.

“He thinks so,” Donna grinned. “Jon got his soul mark!”

“Is that so?” Wilfred chuckled. That was good. His grandson needed something good in his life after the loss of his parents and home.

“Yeah-” whatever else she had planned to say was cut off by the loud BANG from the garage.

Jon stumbled out, coughing to clear his lungs of the smoke. “I’m fine!”

Wilfred ran to get the fire extinguisher as Donna dragged the protesting Jon away from the garage. Nothing was actually in flames, but probably only due to the lack of flammable material.

“I think that’s enough tinkering today,” Wilfred patted Jon’s shoulder. “Come on lad, let’s have some tea. I picked you up some new books while I was out.”

It was Donna who discovered it first. She had picked up a slightly tattered copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and opened it to begin reading. At first she didn’t get why the name sounded familiar, but when she did she burst out into laughter before scowling.

“You’re soulmate’s rude,” she proclaimed later on once they were together again.

“How are they rude?” Jon asked calmly, focused more on the manuals Wilfred had found at the second hand shop at the moment.

“Literally the first words they say to you are a freaking spoiler!” She waved her book in his face.  “I know who Dumbledore is!”

He took the book from her, flipping through it to read the first chapter. “So?”

“So?!” Donna scowled at him and took her book back. “So, this is the first book in a series! There’s going to be seven! If his death is major enough to be included in the first words your soulmate says to you, then it means he’s a major character! Even I know that much.” She had looked it up before coming over. It was nice to know things before her too-smart-for-his-own-good sometimes cousin.

Jon blinked at her. Alright, so perhaps she had a bit of a point. What was he to do about it? It wasn’t as if anyone had any control over what their soul-words said. It wasn’t as if he were prone to wearing silly things like sleeveless shirts and jumpers. He wouldn’t be giving away any ‘spoilers’.

Donna threw her hand into the air. “You’re impossible!” She turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. “You can read it after I’m done!”

Despite himself, Jon did read the stack of books Donna eventually left for him. The first three were already out, the characters well established even as fans awaited the release of the fourth book. He found himself fascinated, even if he knew the fate of one of the characters.

Considering he found Dumbledore a bit daft, he found himself able to ignore it. He may or may not have read several pieces of fan work by likeminded individuals, but he admitted to nothing.

As he got older and the series finished, the movies came out and the world was consumed with the universe created by Rowling. He did not get as involved as Donna did (he supposed he was alright in being considered a Ravenclaw to her Gryffindor, although he argued her loyalty and work ethic made her a Hufflepuff), not that he would admit to in any case.

He entered the army in order to assist in paying for University. He blew things up and understood why his grandfather was proud to have never fired a single shot during the Second World War. He completed his degrees in mechanical engineering and history, moving on to working his way up to professor as he tinkered in the garage turned lab during his free time.

Jon inadvertently introduced Lee Williams to his sister. The man stuttering out Donna’s words as, enamored with his face and shy demeanor, she said his without either realizing it until deep into conversation and Donna agreeing to go fishing with him the next weekend. Jon had a good laugh at the both of them, dodging the wrench Donna threw at his head.

Life went on. Donna got her dream wedding (smaller than she originally imagined, but a singularly enjoyable day nonetheless). He somehow ended up running a small bookshop near the university campus, giving history lectures and assisting an ever expanding assortment of people in various endeavors.

It was a day like any other when the blonde wondered in, ratty bag at her side as she perused the shelves. He would have greeted her like he did most customers, but he was busy dealing with a rather rambunctious red-head who had six questions for every answer he gave her. By the time he was finished with her, the blonde was nowhere to be seen.

Donna, who sometimes watched the shop while he was giving lectures, mentioned her once or twice. She called her polite and mentioned that she had found several of his hidey-holes. He never found her in any of them, although he did spot her coming and going several times over the next few months.

It was a bit silly, really, how they met in the end.

The day was overcast and threatening rain, a typical day in London during the fall really. A new semester had begun and he was avoiding a faculty meeting by being in the shop.

He heard the soft sniffles coming from his favorite reading nook on his way back from the storage room. He set the stack of adventure books down and turned the corner to look inside the little nook. It was the quiet blonde that he was always meaning to greet and never had.

“You alright?” He asked gruffly, uncertain what to do with crying women. Kids he could handle, even bothersome cousins who sometimes had more bravery than sense.

She looked up at him. “I can’t believe Dumbledore dies.” She swiped at her eyes. “Sorry, first time readin’ it and it caught me off-guard.”

He blinked at her, taking in the book on her lap opened to a well-known chapter. “It’s you.” Was all that he could think to say.

“What?” She looked up at him in confusion, mascara smeared a bit from her tears.

He chuckled, feeling his ears redden. “Sorry, that part’s always shockin’, even when you know it’s comin’.” He shifted. “Known since I was eleven, and it still gave me a twist when it happened.”

“What?” She frowned at him, even more confused.

“Words,” he blurted. “My words,” he explained further. “Had no clue what they meant till my cousin threw the first book at my head all pleased with herself for figuring it out. Called you rude for spoiling it.”

“Wha-oh!” She reddened this time. “I…wait…” She tugged her shirt sleeve up, revealing You alright? in his messy script. She giggled. “I suppose it is a bit rude, ruining a plot twist like that.” She held out her hand. “Rose Tyler.”

Jon shook the offered hand, the tingling sensation alerting the both of them they had met the right person. “Jon Noble.” Now what was he supposed to do? “Tea?”

She smiled at him. “Sounds lovely.” She held up the book. “Least you didn’t make fun of my reading choice.”

“Harry Potter is a classic,” he defended stanchly. “Fantastic book for any kind of day.”

She laughed. “Yea, it is. Seen any of the movies?”

That sparked a lively conversation that lasted well past tea time and ended with an invitation to join her in seeing it when it premiered later that week.

She stayed in the shop until closing. He offered her a ride home and she accepted.

By that time the rain that had been threatening all day had arrived in a steady downpour. He pointed to the beaten up old blue truck he had eventually gotten and kept working.

He grabbed her hand. “Run!”

Laughing, she did just that.

I hope this makes you smile! Happy Holidays @emkaywho!

[orcoftheday]

What kind of mental illness(es) do you think the Goblin Slayer is dealing with? I'm not extremely knowledgeable on the character but I do find him cool and interesting.

This got kinda long so I’m gonna put it under the cut! There are also some minor Goblin Slayer spoilers, too, but I still keep it vague. I have a tl;dr at the bottom for anyone who wants to avoid spoilers or a lot of reading.

Someone in the replies compared him to Guts, and while that’s a good comparison to make in a lot of senses, there’s a big difference; Guts’ mental issues are all trauma. Nothing from way back when really jumps at me as being anything but issues with trauma, which have actually managed to be toned down as of late thanks to a support network of close friends.

Goblin Slayer (Orcbolg), on the other hand, is prrrrobably some kind of autistic even before his traumatic event. This isn’t just me Reaching to make a character autistic like a lot of Tumblr likes to do -- there’s some real implication there, intended or not.

For anyone who doesn’t have a mental illness in my audience and anyone who does have a mental illness in my audience, I pose this question to y’all: If you were like, 10-13 and your childhood friend was going to leave town, would you be sad or angry? Would you be upset on your own or would you yell at them?

I’m a high-functioning autistic weirdboy myself, and if I was rewound mentally back to being 10-13 and my best friend was gonna move, I’d be pissed. I wouldn’t understand. And that’s exactly the way Orcbolg threw down with his childhood friend when she told him that she was leaving -- she even expected him to ask to come with, or ask for a present. Instead, he started yelling.

That’s not, like...a thing you see people who aren’t mentally ill, at least at that point in their life, do very often. Maybe when you’re really REALLY young, but Orcbolg is probably like, ten-to-thirteen years old here (although I know that anime characters have very nebulous ages at the best of times) and that’s usually old enough to understand that yelling at your friend because they’re moving means...literally nothing.

And then you have the Big Trauma of, you know...his village getting raided by goblins and him being forced to hide away while his older sister gets raped and killed in front of him, all the while he’s hiding away, doing nothing. He didn’t even seem to completely gather she’d been killed, just saying “Onee-chan was not Onee-chan anymore.”

Now the event itself clearly completely broke him, because the first thing he decided to do after leaving his hidey hole was eat dirt.

Yeah, really.

Any chance of him recovering mentally was completely quashed by the thing that taught him to fight, who trained him using guilt, torture and devaluing him constantly, using that to encourage him to get stronger and in turn fueling his newfound mental problems, leading to the man he is today.

The signs are easy to see in how he is today, too. He’s obsessive, genuinely antisocial (not Kirito antisocial where all he does is mope in the rain alone sometimes -- as in like, “one or two word answers to everything to reduce how much time he has to talk to people” antisocial), extreme hyperfixation on what he does (Him talking about goblins all the time isn’t a joke. Him talking about goblins are literally the longest sentences he has while speaking with other characters) and a real lack of understanding and interest in anything outside of his area of expertise, like when he confronted the Ogre and the first words out of his mouth were “You’re not a goblin?”

I wouldn’t even say he has Guts-tier PTSD, although he probably has some of it. He actively compares himself to a goblin several times, considering himself to be a goblin to the goblins themselves. If I had to pin anything else down on him, I’d say he probably has a thing with sex and attraction. 

He has a ‘harem’ in the loosest form (in that it is made up of 2 people who like him a lot, 2 that like him as a friend and 1 that likes him romantically but hovers so far outside his friend group she’s not even really a part of it), but unlike a lot of Chaste Anime Boys from harems there’s no embarrassment or sense of Dignity or even outright obliviousness. He’s fully aware and just...doesn’t reciprocate. At one point there’s a spell that requires him to basically be asleep and have a virgin sleep next to him, and he has absolutely 0 response to it when he wakes up, even while she’s panicking and getting flustered.

If I had to take a guess why, I’d imagine your first real interaction with ‘sex’ as a concept being having to watch a bunch of monsters rape your sister would probably warp it a lot, kind of like how for the longest time Guts had a thing about being touched because of his own experiences with rape.

tl;dr Goblin Slayer is a really interesting character and more than likely was autistic at a young age, eventually spiraling into a sort of single-minded ball of antisocial mental illness due to trauma and a brutal training regiment.

[thekillingmoonmoon]

hellooo 💐 i missed your post haha

i’ve got no real thoughts about the recent chapters except that in my re-read i did note at the beginning that mikey and draken were jerks XD. so being able to fill in the gaps in the story with what i know now, it’s pretty interesting what you can see this time around. i’m reading it with a friend (we have just witnessed the fall of taiju) and it’s really hard not accidentally give things away from future chapters :/

i feel like i should have more to say but i’ve been in a bit of a creative dip lately (as you have seen) so i moseyed on over from my hidey-hole with some tea. how was your break? how is the thesis? is that a good thing to ask about… haha

☕️ 🫖 ☕️

my sweeeet floower anoon! (I am singing this, very out-of-tune)

Oo - I love the idea of reading Manga with a friend (I'm trying to read Black Butler with another dear moot and I am definitely the weakest link that is always ten chapters behind :'( ) The urge to give spoilers is so strong - I have no IRL friends who are into TR, but I do have JJK friends, but they're all anime only - and the urge to give things away is near impossible to avoid :[

As for the beginning of TR - I've also been meaning to go back and reread it, just so that I can get characterisation right and such - but I do find that Wakui softened up Draken and Mikey as the story progressed. He made Draken much more mature than the beginning (remember that fight Draken and Mikey had at the start? seems mad that the Draken we came to know would get involved with something like that). Wakui definitely softened up how Mikey treated Takemitchy (giving us this tragic relationship where one cannot be happy without the other) and made Mikey a far more tragic character? idk, I need to reread the manga now.

Usually a creative dip indicates a need to rest, both mentally and physically - so please look after yourself and let your brain have a break <3

My break didn't feel like a break, really, since there was a lot happening in my life at the time (there is still a lot happening but I'm using writing to cope lol) It is safe to ask about the thesis XD I'm currently doing critical analysis of one of the series I'm writing on, which is a lot more fun than slogging through theory (at least for me, some people love theory) so I'm having a good time :]

What kind of tea do you drink? (this may be a strange question, I'm sorry if it is) i really like tea, and different types of tea, so I'm always curious about what people enjoy and how particular they are about tea :]

Lots of love to you <3 🐰🌙

[clonerightsenthusiast]

So I started writing the Campaign fic I spent yesterday outlining and worldbuilding for, here are the first 930 words. (spoiler alert, Leenik is not fine)

“I said enough, Bacta!” Leenik slams his hands down on the table (avoiding smashing the rooster salt shaker only by the swift intervention of Lyn yanking it out of the way) and stands up, glaring at his crewmate.

Bacta holds up both palms entreatingly, leaning back away from the seething Rodian. “Look, Leenik, I just think that if you talk to us about what’s going on, then we can help you--”

“Yeah, well,” Leenik cuts in, shoving away from the table and clicking his fingers for Tony to follow him. The Vornskyr, already on alert from the shouting, heaves himself to his feet from his spot under the table and pads over to his master. “I think that some people on this ship don’t understand the concept of privacy and not sticking their big fat noses into other people’s business, so Tony and I are gonna take a little walk and maybe find some friends who do understand!”

“Leenik…” Lyn begins, sounding exhausted, but Leenik turns his back on them both and storms out of the kitchen, Tony trotting faithfully at his heels. A few moments later, they can hear the door to the ship open and close behind him.

Tryst pokes his head into the kitchen, sunglasses pushed up into his hair despite the twilight outside. “I heard big fat noses, is something up with Leenik?” he asks, raising both eyebrows.

“Not now, Tryst,” Lyn warns, and he shrugs and saunters in to plop down in Leenik’s abandoned seat, pulling out a magazine with spaceships emblazoned across the cover from the folds of his evening kimono.

“Why won’t he just talk to us?” Bacta asks, dropping his head back to stare up at the ceiling in despair. “We’re his friends, right? What’s so bad that he won’t just let us help him?”

Tryst looks up from the magazine. “Oh, are we talking about Leenik’s emotional problems?”

“Tryst!” Lyn says, throwing her hands up.

“Leenik’s not like you or me, Bacta, he doesn’t thrive on sharing every juicy bit of his illicit personal history. If you keep prodding him, he’ll just trust you less and be even less likely to share. You gotta let him come to you.” Tryst shrugs. “Or he’ll just bottle it up more and more and continue to lash out in pain and confusion and become increasingly self-destructive until it all comes to a head and he hurts himself somehow, in which case it’ll all be out in the open anyways. Y’know, one of those two.”

Bacta stares at him for a beat. “Wait, I do not ‘thrive on--’”

“Actually, Bacta, I think he’s right,” Lyn cuts in.

Bacta rounds on her. “You agree with him?”

“Well, at least with that second bit.” She shrugs helplessly. “Obviously asking him directly isn’t working. He feels attacked, and probably feels like you don’t trust him to take care of himself. We need to give him some space to work things out on his own. We’re his friends, if he feels he needs help, he’ll come to us. But pushing him like this is just going to drive him away.”

“Yeah, like you drove him off the ship,” Tryst puts in.

Bacta sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. He feels tired; lesai or not, worrying about Leenik is exhausting. “Speaking of which,” he says, looking up. “We should go get him.”

“Should we though?”

“Yes, Tryst,” he snaps. “We only just got to this planet. We don’t know what’s out there.”

“Uh, I thought Professor Nerd over here said nothing was out there.” Tryst raises an eyebrow and gestures towards Lyn with his head.

Lyn rolls her eyes but otherwise doesn’t comment on the nickname. “I said there are no native lifeforms on this planet,” she says. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any non-native lifeforms out there. Bounty hunters, smugglers, even the Empire could have hidey-holes around here. We need to be careful.”

“Exactly!” Bacta half stood out of the booth, gesturing towards the hallway. “And Leenik’s out there all alone. We have to go find him before he gets lost or hurt.”

“Listen, Bacta,” Tryst says, leaning forward over his magazine, “if you go charging out there right now and tell him to get back on the ship, he’s just gonna run off even further and then he’ll definitely get lost. Just let the big baby have his private crying time. He’ll be back.”

Bacta makes an unconvinced noise in the back of his throat, but Lyn lays a hand on his arm.

“Tryst is right,” she says. “Under all the… Tryst. Leenik is armed, and he took Tony with him. He knows not to stay away too long or wander off too far. Let him have his space.”

“Yeah, he’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.” Tryst leans back in the booth and flicks his sunglasses over his eyes, looking back down at his magazine. “Now if you’re done pining over the bug person, I’m gonna go back to my stories.”

Bacta frowns, distracted. “Wait, are you… actually reading that magazine?”

Tryst scoffs, turning a page. “Of course not. I just look at the pictures and make up stories in my head. It’s called imagination, Bacta? Maybe get some.”

Bacta shakes his head and stands up. “Whatever. If you need me, I’m just… gonna go to the gunnery and keep a lookout for Leenik.”

Tryst waves a hand in acknowledgment and dismissal without looking up. Lyn gives him a sympathetic look. “He’ll be fine, Bacta. Really.”

He sighs. “I sure hope you’re right.”