#but also this is another example of artists refusing to put his arms down

[oswednesday]

tumblr wont find my "i wish i could write bill love letters" post so im reposting images instead

[ravensbug]

Self-Doubt

Fandom: Legend of Korra

Ship: Lin Beifong x Reader

Request: No

Prompt: No

Word Count: 1337

A/N: Taking a well-needed break from writing a research paper to do this. Just 6 am thoughts of drunk Lin thanks to some wonderful art by @nerdycanible1 Go check them out they’re an absolutely amazing artist and writer!!

Summary: You’re relaxing in bed reading a book when Lin comes home late at night. When she comes in and just falls down on the bed you finally can smell the alcohol that she’s probably been drinking for hours. She eventually starts speaking the thoughts in her head and you reassure her that all these bad things she’s saying about herself aren’t true.

It was late at night and Lin still hadn’t come home. A normal occurrence for the middle of the week, except this was a Saturday and Lin had gone out 8 hours ago. You couldn’t remember if she said when she was going to be back, but there was worry in your mind the longer she wasn’t home.

You tried to distract yourself with the book you were reading but it didn’t help much. You were in one of the more filler-type chapters and found yourself constantly looking out the bedroom door, listening for the turning of the lock that continued to remain silent. You continued to read the words on the page although you didn’t really grasp what you were reading, your mind in a different place.

Lin stumbled up the stairs towards her apartment, vision blurry and steps slow. She’s almost tripped on the stairs four times now on her way up and the thought that she was an idiot for tripping up the stairs made her grumble. She was leaning against the wall for support when she finally got to her apartment and tried to get her keys out. Having a hard time figuring out which one was correct she just used her metalbending to open the door instead, letting it swing open in front of her.

You heard the turn of the lock, although it didn’t sound as solid as a key being used, so you knew Lin had used her metalbending to open the door. You gently put the bookmark in where you had your book opened to even though you knew you would backtrack the next time you picked it up.

You looked down the hall and into the small living room to see Lin stumbling along in the dark. A normal occurrence for anyone else in the dark but she had seismic sense and you knew that. Your heart dropped in an instant when you thought that she might be injured. Thankfully you saw no injuries when walked into the light of your shared bedroom. She groaned and covered her eyes from the light and you suddenly knew why she was acting weird. She was drunk as all hell.

Lin practically fell on the bed with another groan and you turned off the light on her nightstand leaving yours still on. You stayed silent as Lin laid there staring at the ceiling. You thought that she would have fallen asleep, but she was still wide awake and her brain was thinking of anything but kind things about herself.

In the silence, you analyzed what Lin looked like. She looked beyond tired that’s for sure. Her hair was slightly messy and her shirt was even more so. Her shirt was also unbuttoned all the way and you could see her bare skin underneath.

“Why am I still chief?” Lin blurted out. You were spooked for a moment when she finally spoke. 

“Lin…” You spoke her name softly. You also didn’t answer her question so she asked again.

“Tell me why I still have this job? I’m certainly not good at it.” Lin didn’t make eye contact with you as she spoke again.

“Lin! You’re a better Chief of Police than your mother was and that’s already saying a lot, to begin with.”

“How? Dozens of my officers lost their bending to Amon because I was careless about sending them out.” It’s like this was an argument to her, and you really didn’t want to start yelling at each other.

“Those men knew what they were getting into. It’s not your fault.” You knew no matter how many times anyone said that Lin would always blame herself for her officers losing their bending.

“What about when I lost my bending? Why do I still deserve it now? I haven’t been able to protect everyone with it.” 

“Do not make what you did seem useless. You saved Tenzin and his family even after all he put you through. That’s called being selfless, Lin. You do it all the time and everyone is thankful for you.”

Lin scoffed at your reply. “If everyone is so thankful then why did my own sister scar me for life?” Oh, she was going deep now. You knew that meant she’d been drinking for hours.

“Lin please, what Su did was out of anger and you two have been working things out. You know she feels remorse for scaring you.” Your hands were on her shoulders now, rubbing them slowly to provide a comforting presence to her.

“Yeah, but mom certainly doesn’t feel bad for leaving.” You could see tears in Lin’s eyes but she still refused to look at you.

“Your mother didn’t care about you or Su in the way she should have. You need to stop looking to her for approval or as an example.” Now you were getting angry because it was like all the things you two had talked about together and worked through suddenly meant nothing to her and all her walls had gone back up.

“Lin, love, please look at me,” you asked. Your hands were now at the sides of her head as she finally moved her eyes to look at you. You had moved closer to her so you were at her side while she was lying down on the bed.

“I still don’t understand why you’re-” You stopped her before she could finish. You straddled her waist and your lips crashed into hers, finally tasted the alcohol that you’d been smelling on her. It was strong and overwhelming but you continued to kiss her. One of your hands was holding her hair and you stopped kissing her to get some breath. “Shut up, Lin,” you mumbled, still holding onto her.

“But after everything I’ve been through, the countless times I’ve had my life on the line, why?” A tear escaped her right eye and you wiped it away quickly. You gave her another kiss before you spoke again.

“Because you are the most amazing person ever.” you gave her a quick kiss on her forehead, “And if you keep arguing with me I’m just,” another kiss on her nose, “going,” another on her left cheek, ”to keep,” another on her scars, “kissing,” another on her neck, “you,” a final kiss on her lips again.

“I love you so much Lin Beifong. Don’t you forget it.” You held her face in your hands. Lin reached and took a hold of both your hands and gave each one a quick kiss.

“I love you too,” she smiled. You saw the blush creep on her face and you couldn’t help but smirk.

“What?” she asked like she didn’t know she was blushing.

“You’re blushing, love. Don’t worry I think it’s cute,” you smiled.

“I am not cute!” she pouted.

“Oh, my bad. The mighty Lin Beifong, Chief of Police, and master metal bender can’t be called cute by her wife.” Her blush only got worse and she mumbled something you couldn’t quite hear.

“What was that, love?” you asked.

“I said only you can call me cute,” she mumbled louder so you could hear her.

“Well, that’s good. But now we need to both get some sleep. It’s almost 3 am.”

“I’ve stayed up later before,” Lin protested.

“And this is a weekend and we both deserve to relax. It’s time for bed Lin.” You were a bit stern, but you knew Lin was going to have a horrible hangover so the sooner she went to bed the better.

“Get changed though, you smell like alcohol.” You stopped her before she started to doze off.

She complained the entire time while getting changed into sleepwear until she was back in bed with you. You turned your nightstand light off and quickly got comfortable in bed. You felt Lin’s arms wrap around you and pull you close against her as you both fell asleep. You would always love Lin, no matter how many times you had to do these conversations with her.

[chudleycanonficfest]

young dumb thrills

Day 26, Post #2 by @accio-broom

Title: young dumb thrills Author/Artist: accio-broom Pairing: Gryffindor pals Prompt: Studying together Rating: T Trigger Warning(s) (if any): Ron likes to swear, a lot. Also, the lads enjoy not speaking very nicely about the women in their year.

“Merlin, this potions essay is a pile of wank. I'm so fucking bored.”

Seamus snaps his book shut, his Irish lilt filling the dorm room and disturbing the peace. Until the rude intrusion, Ron had been attempting to write a Transfiguration essay on the benefits of Non-verbal spells, although he was struggling without Hermione’s usual help.

Four heads, belonging to the various bodies strewn around the place, lift from their books and parchment. The sixth-year Gryffindors throw frowns and obscenities at their friend.

“Well, it was your idea for us to do something together,” Dean comments, letting his head loll to the side to rest on his arms, his eyes closing.

“Yeah, but when I suggested it, I had a night of debauchery and booze on my mind. Not being shut up here on a Friday night.”

Ron laughs and abandons his parchment on the bedroom floor. He rolls off his tummy then wriggles into a sitting position, his back flush against his trunk. It allows him a better view of his dorm mates.

Seamus is sat up in his bed, resting against the headboard, his now shut Potions book by his feet. Dean sits in one of the window seats whilst Neville is perched next to his bedside table, crooning at his Mimbulus Mimbletonia. Harry is in one of the cosy armchairs next to the fire, switching his obsessive gaze between the Marauder’s Map and the Half-Blood Prince’s Potions book.

“Debauchery?” Ron scoffs. “What kind of stuff did you think we’d be getting up to stuck in Gryffindor tower? You tried sneaking in the Firewhisky, but you were thick enough to let Filch catch you. McGonagall has got us on lockdown because of you, and we can’t even sneak out the window for a fly ‘cos it’s pissing down outside.”

Frowning, Seamus retorts, “At least I tried. Anyways, you and Potter don’t seem to have any difficulties getting yourselves into trouble, despite the rules and detentions and any other fucking thing the staff throw at you.”

Harry, who has been a silent observer up until now, finally pipes up, “You know, I’d gladly trade places with you, Seamus, if it means getting a quiet year without Voldemort trying to kill me.”

The other four boys shudder at Harry’s use of You-Know-Who’s real name. Once he has recovered, Seamus waves a dismissive hand before flopping down onto his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah. We all know that Voldie prefers to wait until the end of the year before trying to kill you. You could at least enjoy yourself up until then.” A heavy sigh escapes his lips. “How did it come to this, lads? We're all virile, good looking fellas. Well, apart from Nev. Yet, here we are on a Friday night, with only each other for company.”

“Oi!” Neville frowns, swivelling to face his friends with his hands on his hips. “At least I managed to get a date for the Yule Ball. Dean didn’t go with anyone.”

“Yeah, but I have a girlfriend now.”

Dean’s cheeks darken as Ron’s eyes narrow. The redhead’s stomach churns. Sure, he’s adjusted to catching Dean snogging his sister in the common room now, but it doesn’t mean he enjoys it. He knows the type of stuff Dean gets up to, the sort of things he says behind closed doors. He’d rather Ginny didn’t get involved with a guy like Dean, but Ron knows it’s out of his control.

“Out of all of us,” Dean continues, “It’s only Weasley and me who have birds.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Ron joins in, mostly to distract himself from his overprotective urges. Ginny is more than capable of looking after herself, and she’s told him enough fucking times, too. “And I could be downstairs with Lav right now, but you were so adamant that we were going to have a good night. Anyway, you can take the piss out of Neville all you want, but I bet you haven’t even snogged a girl, Seamus.”

The Irish Gryffindor’s eyes brighten with glee. “Yeah, I have. Your girl.”

Ron isn’t surprised at the emptiness he feels at the jibe. His feelings for Lavender fizzled out ages ago, and he’s been trying to finish things for weeks. The only problem is he can’t seem to say or do the right thing to scare her away. He should probably come out and say it, try this honesty thing Hermione is always harping about, but Ron likes his balls attached to his body. Plus, it’s kind of nice having a girlfriend and feeling like someone wants him.

Still, he has to keep up appearances. He reaches behind his trunk and fishes out one of his trainers from under his bed before hurling it at Seamus. The guy moves fast, rolling to the side to avoid being hit in the head as he bursts out laughing.

“And a good kisser she is too,” he adds.

“Who do you reckon is the best snogger out of the whole of Gryffindor?” Dean muses.

Ron mutters, “Aren’t you still dating my sister, Dean?” 

He knows his anger is irrational, Dean has done nothing wrong, but the images of the guy snogging Ginny then moving on to the next girl to compare them fills his brain, making him feel sick.

Seamus interrupts, still laughing. “For the guys? Then it’s me for sure. But I don’t know who’s the best out of the girls. I’ve snogged quite a lot of them. Some of them are amazing, and others are shit.”

“Fuck off have you,” Dean laughs too. “You’ve snogged Lavender, and that’s it.”

“Nah, I’m being honest with you. Weasley turned me down. It’s only her and Granger I haven’t snogged, truth be told.”

Ron sits bolt upright, all his fury at Dean forgotten as his heart pounds an irregular beat against his ribcage. However, he tries to arrange his face into a calm look. A few times, his secret crush on Hermione has almost been exposed, mostly via mutterings in his sleep. But so far, he’s managed to keep a firm lid on it, or so he believes.

“I don’t think Hermione has snogged anyone,” says Neville.

Dean shakes his head. “I’d put five knuts on her having snogged someone. She went to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, after all.”

“Doesn’t mean she kissed him.” Seamus shrugs.

Harry pipes up again. “She did.” He blushes as all eyes settle on him. “Only a small one, though.”

The rest of the room erupts in fits of laughter, but Ron can’t hear it over the roar of his heart in his ears. He digs his fingernails into his leg, ignoring the flare of pain as they break the skin. So, Harry knows that Hermione snogged Vicky, too? How many people did Hermione tell? How the fuck could his best friend keep something like this from him? Why hasn’t anybody told him?

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron can see that Harry is staring at him, but he refuses to meet the git’s gaze. His blood boils around his veins.

“She must be a good kisser then if she managed to keep Krum interested. Not exactly a looker, is she?” says Seamus, in between giggles.

Ron whips his head around to glare at Harry. Despite instigating this latest uproar, the specky git does nothing to stick up for their best friend. Their dorm mates are tearing apart Hermione’s honour right now, but Harry already has his nose buried back in that fucking map, tracing Draco’s path through the school. Harry is bloody obsessed with the Slytherin prick. He probably fucking fancies him.

“You can barely even see she has boobs when she’s in her jumper,” Dean agrees.

“Yeah, and don’t get me started on her hair.”

Neville frowns. “Now, come on, guys. I think you’re being a bit mean. Hermione’s alright.”

“Oohhh, she’s alright, is she?” Seamus rounds on Neville now.

Dean joins in, wiping his eyes. “Aww, that’s nice. At least someone likes her.”

No longer in control of his reactions, Ron jumps to his feet, trembling hands clenched at his sides.

“Enough!” he roars, loud enough so that everyone has their attention pinned on him. “Leave her alone! What the fuck has she ever done to you?” He gestures around the dormitory, daring any of them to speak up. “Don’t get her involved in your bullshit talk.”

“Oh, so it’s alright for us to discuss snogging your girlfriend, but not Hermione Granger?” Seamus slides off his bed, squaring up to Ron. “You need to work out where your loyalties lie. If Lavender found out, she wouldn’t be pleased.”

Ron eyes his friend, trying to determine if he should punch him. After a moment’s deliberation, he decides it’s not worth it. Ron is a prefect and is supposed to be setting a good example. Plus, there’d probably be a fight, and he isn’t sure he has the energy for that tonight. Seamus has a good right hook, after all.

“Fuck off.” Ron pushes past Seamus and strides towards the door, yanking it open. He leaves the dormitory without looking back, pulling the door closed behind him so hard, he’s sure everyone in Hogsmeade can hear the resounding thunk. The dormitory bursts into another round of hysterical laughter, fuelling Ron’s rage.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he reaches the common room with a loud huff, only to meet a startled Hermione at the foot of the staircase. Ron’s face floods with heat as she eyes him up and down, a disparaging look on her face.

“Ron, wh—”

He doesn’t give her the chance to finish her question.

“Leave me alone.”

Stomping towards the portrait hole, Ron barks at the Fat Lady to open without saying please, before heading out. He picks a random direction, then walks.

Fuck the lot of them.

Fuck his friends for being dicks about Hermione and girls in general. No wonder Harry wanted to keep out of it all. And fuck that specky git for not jumping to Hermione’s defence. Fuck Hermione for choosing now to break her months of silence, only to piss him off even more. But most of all, fuck his fucking feelings for making him react so defensively about the fucking witch in the first place. 

He’s never going to live this down, for fuck’s sake.

[phoenixyfriend]

Time-Travel feat. Ino, Sakura, TenTen

The short of it is "Ino, in the Founders Era, sees Izuna and makes it her personal mission to Tap That."

The time-travelers are Ino, Sakura, and TenTen. Why them? I like girls being badasses, these three make a badass trio, and I don't want to deal with Caged Bird Seal politics. (Hyuuga just... complicate time-travel plots.)

Ino is the one that is clearly clan, and they make a group decision that the benefits of Yamanaka backing (and by extension Akimichi and Nara) outweigh the potential drawbacks.

It's pretty easy to convince them that they're Worth It. Ino doesn't bring anything new, really, but she's clever and knows the clan techniques and is very good at them, so the clan head (after performing a mind search to confirm the story) is like Sure, You're In.

Meanwhile, Sakura is a terrifyingly competent medic that knows hundreds, if not thousands, of medical techniques that don't even EXIST yet, and TenTen might not be a medic like the other two, or capable of explodey punches, or clan-trained, but the girl is a taijutsu powerhouse that's probably fast as hell because she was trained by GAI, and she's got at minimum a journeyman-level training in fuuinjutsu.

(Also just, don't argue with the 100% accuracy lady. Just don't. The reason she doesn't have a body-count to rival Minato's eventual count is because she doesn't want to and basically no other reason. There are some opponents that a Kunai to the Neck won't take down for whatever reason? Iron-skin, water body, super healing/shapeshifting, but for the rank and file? That's a one-hit. And she can throw hundreds of kunai at a time, so... if you take the 100% accuracy statements literally, she's a nightmare if she decides to go lethal.)

They run missions for a bit, and Ino is... usually the one sent out on field missions, because Sakura's busy teaching people how to save lives, and TenTen is currently the closest thing the Yamanaka have to a seal master--she's not a master, not on the level of an Uzumaki or even a Senju, but she's way better than most on account of village training schema and it's cheaper to give her a long-term role in the triple clan system than to hire independent contractors--but sometimes they all go out!

And... okay, I'm gonna be real here: Nobody approves of the way Ino dresses other than Ino and her girls.

Sakura extends her pants a bit. TenTen's fine. Ino refuses to stop wearing crop tops and short skirts, and none of you can stop her.

It helps that Ino's response to guys propositioning her is to tell them to back off, and then if they get handsy, she breaks their wrists. If they're ninjas getting handsy, she starts a fight, but most ninjas are smarter than that because they realize she's not just A Kunoichi, based on how she's moving, but a kunoichi with long, free-flowing hair, which is like... basically a big "I'm A-rank or better, come at me if you dare" flag. On the off chance that someone tries to fuck with Ino and they're actually out of her league in taijutsu, she has Mind Scrambling or, if absolutely necessary, an ear-piercing scream that summons a woman that can fistfight gods.

(And absolutely has.)

But anyway, The Girls go for a Girls Night Out one day. No plans to get laid, but they want to go shopping and have fruity drinks and maybe cause a little trouble.

They visit a blacksmith at one point, because weapons shops aren't quite a thing yet due to lack of centralized shinobi systems, and TenTen's talking up a storm with the smith about things like carbon infusion and alloys preferences, and Sakura's just standing off to a side reading something because most of what she wants/needs can be made by Akimichi blacksmiths, so she's not really in need of anything specialty. She wanders off after a bit, tells them all she wants to visit the apothecary to see if they have any herbs she's running low on. Ino is browsing examples of the blacksmith's more esoteric handiwork When In Walks An Uchiha.

TenTen has a VERY basic look, more or less civilian who got some ninja training, so Izuna doesn't pay her much attention, but blonde isn't a very common color in the Land of Fire, unless one happens to be a Yamanaka or Senju, and even among them it's not like EVERY clan member. (Or Namikaze but imo Minato's color is actually from Land of Earth immigrants and is a BLATANTLY different shade from characters like Ino and Tsunade.)

Senju is obviously, uh, bad, but the Yamanaka and Uchiha are basically neutral... mostly. There's some tension. Izuna isn't expecting to be attacked, but he's constantly darting glances out the side of his eye just in case.

Ino is... not unaware of Izuna.

She feels his eyes on her, notes the fact that he keeps making faces like he's not sure what to think, and Ino... Ino is of the opinion that this is funny.

She decides to drop something on purpose just so she can beeeeeeeeeeend over to pick it up and see what happens. Ino, again, does not dress appropriately for the decade she is in. Izuna chokes on his own spit.

Ino: I'm gonna be a bit of a ho. Yamanaka Clan: Please don't, our reputation is-- Ino: I'M GONNA BE A BIT OF A HO.

So Ino's fucking with Izuna's head by just... being Ino, really, she turns around like "OMG are you alright???" and lets him see that her eyes are lacking pupils so he doesn't keep worrying about whether she's a Senju, pats him on the back, coos over him, flatters his hair, and then insults his fashion sense.

She is of the firm belief that his expression is hilarious. Flirt Flirt Flirt "but you're wearing that? Really? Oh honey, you should know better."

(Ino pulls pickup artist shit on Izuna.)

Ino is fucking with him, and she is enjoying herself. She's a flirt, she's gorgeous, she's a bit of a ho, and Izuna is a hot, main family clan boy who keeps blushing. He's maybe two years older than her and he squeaks when she squeezes his shoulder and compliments his muscles.

And after all that, after Ino has wound him up and turned him around and gotten him confused and flustered and a little angry...

That is when they feel the ground shake and hear Madara screaming for The Pink-Haired Bitch to "come back here so I can kick your ass!"

So. Yes. Sakura has picked a fight with Madara. I don't know how or why, I just know that Sakura and Madara are fighting, Ino and Izuna are both going 'dude WHY' about their respective fighty person and fleeing the blacksmith to go stop whatever's going on before they get banned from town--because really, they can force their way in, but it's way easier to get those tasty daifuku mochi from that one shop when people WANT to serve them--and TenTen is... still chatting up the blacksmith. The girl is going to get a discount.

Sakura leads Madara on a bit of a merry chase so the fight happens a mile outside of town--Ino loves her more than ever--and there's a flare of "Sakura punches a Susanoo," and by the time Izuna and Ino get there, Sakura is yelling in Madara's face about how he's fucking up his eyes.

Madara is. Offended. Izuna is also offended. Those are clan secrets, and Sakura is just looking him in the eye without fear and I'm like. Half convinced that they want to just tear her throat out.

Except Ino is there, and Sakura called her by name, and they know that names with 'Ino' among the Yamanaka are only for clan heirs, and they can't just pick a fight with the entire clan.

They. They can't afford that right now. Tajima is ramping up the whole Thing with the Senju again and they do not have the resources to add another front.

"For fuck's sake, will you let me go alive if I fix some of the damage you've done to yourself?" "You can fix the Mangekyo?" "Uh, no, nobody can fix that hellscape of a doujutsu without some incredibly invasive surgery that I refuse to do in a non-sterile environment unless there's literally no other choice, but I can reverse some of the chakra strain on your ocular nerve if you stop trying to pick a fight because I got the last of the [some medicinal plant that only grows up in the badlands around Iwa]."

Izuna shrieks and demands if that's really what they were punching down trees for and Madara yells at him to fuck off and Ino just laughs at all of them.

Sakura is like. Two seconds away from putting Madara in a headlock and calling him a nerd. He's like a solid five years older than her and she's smarter than he is and he's a jock but she's going to dunk his head in a toilet, I swear to god.

[Image Description: a gif from Will and Grace where a man in a dark shirt approaches a woman in a white shirt for a hug. Both characters have their arms spread wide in greeting, but the woman subverts the expected hug and pulls the man into a headlock with an angry expression.]

(Tenten is just, she's having a good time with a random blacksmith, talking shop. She just comes out to see all this crap has happened and it's like she came back with pizzas to see the apartment wrecked.)

Anyway, Sakura does some Medic Mojo on the Uchiha bros, Ino continues to flirt with Izuna until he can't tell up from down anymore, and when they're headed back to meet up with TenTen and see if there are any ruffled feathers that need smoothing, Ino declares that she's going to get that boy to propose to her.

"Don't people usually say 'I'm gonna marry that boy' or--" "Nah, I don't know him well enough to make that decision. I just want him invested in me. Whether or not I do anything with that... depends on how well he woos me."

And anyway, things spiral from there, Ino keeps hitting on Izuna whenever she gets a chance, Izuna keeps being Very Overwhelmed by this girl that shows off so much of her body and has the confidence of a god--because Ino is the epitome of confidence and always will be--while Sakura fucks off to badger the Senju into peace by making friends with Hashirama and bribing Tobirama with medical developments and flirting with Touka (except Touka's almost a decade older than her and is flattered but not interested, thank you), and TenTen is... honestly I'm not sure what TenTen is doing except that there's a very solid chance she's sneaking off to meet with Uzumaki specialists to help her build a Zetsu Trap.

Our trio of badass ladies decides that Hm, Actually, Having Bijuu Backup Would Be Nice.

Ino's the best sensor of the three, but even she's not feeling out where the nearest bijuu is, so they go for the by-that-point tried and true method of "Sakura goes and hassles Tobirama for information while TenTen and Ino play cards with Hashirama."

Tobirama does point them in the direction of the nearest bijuu--it's the Kyuubi, even!--and Sakura just... invites Hashirama along.

Hashirama: Oh! What do I have to do if I come? Sakura: Stand there and look pretty, mostly. Hashirama: Yes, I can do that. Sakura: And then interfere if we piss off the Kyuubi enough that he attacks. He probably won't, but Mokuton is useful if he does. Hashirama: Oooooh yeah, I can do that.

Tobirama is so tired but these gals are pretty determined to do the whole Peace Thing and Hashirama can mostly take care of himself, and Butsuma isn't quite dead but almost there (idk some disease or infected wound, it doesn't matter), so Hashirama isn't a Clan Head ditching his job but there's nobody around that can stop him from running off, so Tobirama's just like "Cool, don't die."

Butsuma: [dying] Sakura: [sipping a mixed drink wearing sunglasses inside] Shame.

So they go find Kurama, and try to barter with him about the whole Zetsu situation, and... ngl okay I have an entire conversation in mind about "your evil goo uncle" and "none of us know how to seal a bijuu without taking away your autonomy, but sealing is the best way to hide you from Zetsu, so do you have any ideas on a compromise" and "I can SORT of figure out how to--"

And then Kurama just. Summons a smaller fox. Which has a scroll. And pokes it towards TenTen because she's the one that's Impressed Him The Right Way over the course of the conversation.

(Mostly by being vaguely sparky about fuuinjutsu and easily distracted by the Ifs of it instead of the Whys.)

And once she's signed--which Ino and Sakura are just like 👀 about because Oh???--Kurama nods and just. Presses his snout to her hand. And without telling her what he's doing, he just enters her body and settles in as a consenting jinchuuriki situation. He can leave without killing her if he wants, but he can also just chill out. He's hidden from Zetsu, TenTen gets a boost, and nobody's in prison.

(Time to belatedly note that TenTen was earlier suggested as the best jinchuuriki option since, among other things, she had the least to lose as far as chakra control went.)

TenTen: My chakra control is pretty shitty, but I can fight hand to hand for literal hours without feeling like I've done more than a light jog, is that good?

TenTen is such a different brand of ninja from most of the heavy hitters. Because her main attack is just More Knife.

Team InoShikaCho has their whole human yoyo thing, Sakura can punch gods, Naruto and Sasuke are literally insane levels of power, Kiba turns into a giant three-headed dog and Shino can insert exploding bugs into people, Lee can kick hard enough to make a bijuu pause, Neji and Hinata are... okay I don't have much to say about the Hyuuga, but... TenTen. She's just here with some seals and whole lot of sharp and pointy things.

Founders era, you have Madara and Hashirama with their god-level techniques, Tobirama is usually sword but has a bajillion other things like his Suiton, Izuna has a Mangekyo, Mito has her chains and was the first jinchuuriki... and then, here’s TenTen, with Many Sharp.

Her special attacks are Throw, Stab, and Kick the Shit Out Of because she still trained under Maito Gai.

TenTen is the current queen of "catch these hands."

After the village is founded, she challenges one of the og founders to taijutsu only and the literal only reason she doesn't win against Hashirama is that he has a healing factor and is built like a brick house.

TenTen: Hey, Izuna, if you beat me in a taijutsu fight, Ino might be impressed. Izuna: No weapons? TenTen: No weapons, no bijuu, no Sharingan. Izuna: Cool, I can do this. [five minutes later] Izuna: [screaming]

The triple clan alliance: We will gladly join Konoha on the condition that-- Izuna, internally, chanting: That I marry Ino That I marry Ino That I marry Ino-- Madara, internally: Please don't say that Izuna marries Ino Tobirama, internally: [math meme because he can imagine like eighty conditions] Hashirama, internally: [elevator music] The triple clan alliance: That you put Haruno Sakura in charge of the hospital. Izuna: [internal screaming] Madara: [sigh of relief] Tobirama: [internal cheering] Hashirama: That sounds great! I've seen her work, she's a great choice for hospital management, do you think she'd be willing to spearhead a medical training program on the side?

Izuna just wanted the politics to be his wingman here, she's killing him.

Ino has broken this man.

(At this point she's mostly made up her mind... unfortunately, she deeply enjoys messing with him! He's too fun to tease!)

Ino: I want to marry him, yeah, but did you see his face when I teased him about visiting the Daimyou's court and looking for a rich husband to bring to Konoha? He even knows I'd never marry a civilian, and yet.

(He knows, it's just that his brain is dumb when she is involved.)

TenTen asks Hashirama if he's opposed to threesomes, mostly because Mito is amazing and TenTen's a little in love with her. Hashirama is NOT opposed to threesomes, but only with Madara, sorry.

Ino is just... the queen of self-confidence. I want to include some gifs to explain but there are just too many.

As a rule, Ino wears high collars, but... she might try to pioneer Tiddy Shirts out of spite because people keep trying to tell her to dress More Appropriately.

Ino, adjusting her wrap top to show more of the chesticles: Relax, Hashirama, I'm just taking a page out of your granddaughter's book. Hashirama: [verbal keysmash]

This one twitter post.

Sakura: You can't just use your tits to get what you want! Ino: I didn't see you complaining when I got us free dango. Ino, misunderstanding Sakura's point: Uh, yeah I can? Watch. Ino: [gets drinks for the table and a free dessert too] Ino: See? Sakura: Oh my god. TenTen, cutting a slice of cake: Yeah I think she's got us here Sakura. TenTen: I love using Ino's tits to get what I want. Sakura: No!

Sakura: Why am I the only one of us who isn't down for Ino using feminine wiles for material gain? TenTen: Does it have anything to do with your unresolved childhood crush on her? Sakura: ..... shut up.

Sakura: Was Sasuke descended straight from Izuna's line? What if you just negated his existence? Ino: I mean, his soul still exists, right? Or will exist? It's not like we could have lined the genetics up perfectly anyway, don't worry about it.

Once Ino finally lets Izuna woo her, they turn into that couple that's just constantly making out in dark corners. PDA is over 9000. Sakura throws erasers at them to make them stop. TenTen catcalls. TenTen just. Not interested in being a thot in the slightest, but delighted by Ino being a thot.

Izuna: Help I don't know how to BDSM and my hot wife is a dominatrix. Madara: Sucks to be you.

(Ino being a bit of a ho fits and feels fun because she's also just like, very convincingly an actualized character. If Ino is acting like a bit of a ho it's very definitely because she wants to and is absolutely going to make that everybody else's problem.)

Ino, at any given moment: Did you miss the part where I'm the hottest person here?

I'm honestly considering platonic-marriage TenTen/Tobirama on the basis of Seals And Sparking. There aren't enough women in the Founders Era for me to ship Sakura with one so I'm going to say she ends up living in domestic bliss with a Nara kunoichi.

Sakura: Can I just. Can I just be Gay here? Like, can I just Be Gay and get Big Gay Married and have 2 dogs and lead a prestigious medical program? Tenten and Ino: Of course you can, hon! We'll be up to our nonsense the entire time, though.

Sakura: Well... at least Shikamaru isn't here to complain about Ino being the way she is.

OH I forgot to mention TenTen wearing Externalized Small Fox Kurama around like a scarf.

Kurama: [Gets to be out of the seal and See Stuff] TenTen: [Constantly has a companion around who is never tired of hearing her Special Interest Rant about smithing techniques and what will eventually be Aerodynamics after TenTen accidentally builds a plane while tinkering]

TenTen: I wonder if I could make Temari's giant fan thing work for me without wind chakra. [two years of tinkering later] TenTen: I can't remember what I was trying to do at the start but I can definitely fly now.

(Sakura's honestly lucky that Karin isn't there.)

(And tbh Sakura's only The Sensible One until Madara pisses her off and then it's time for people to remind her that she can't just go around Punching Things.)

When Sakura is forced to be the Voice of Reason she is always frustrated. When TenTen is freed from the responsibility of being the Voice of Reason? Shenanigans. TenTen's defense is that she never got to be the crazy one in Team Gai. Like, she’s still a little nutty, but she couldn’t go all out because she was constantly overshadowed by the YOUTH and also Neji’s fate situation.

ANYWAY. TenTen and Tobirama.

TenTen: Your brain makes me horny. Tobirama: Oh, finally, someone sensible.

I remember that while I was brainstorming, I had "TenTen tells Tobirama to marry her within five minutes of meeting him because they vibed so hard on weird fuuinjutsu stuff" followed by "Izuna sputtering and saying that everyone told him that he couldn't just propose to a girl he liked, why does Tobirama get to accept a proposal from a clanless kunoichi when Izuna can't even--"

The proposal is from TenTen to Tobirama, which imo is hilarious in the context of the Warring Clans Era, and also is done on a whim and is basically just.

Tobirama: [says a clever thing about one of TenTen's theories] TenTen, grabbing his hands and looking him in the eye, her own eyes full of stars and the classic Team Gai sunset genjutsu around her: Marry me. Tobirama: ...do we have to have sex? TenTen: No. Tobirama: Do you plan on children? TenTen: Students yes, adoption maybe. Tobirama: I'm sold. Hashirama:

[Image Description: Stephen Colbert, in a suit, dramatically crying at the camera. He has running mascara, and the caption says “I just feel like my heart is going to burst because it’s full of rainbows.” End Description.]

They're Nerd-married and it's the best.

I love the idea of Hashirama just being an Elevator Music Mind when it comes to Tobirama and TenTen. Like. An orange cat. Like, okay, yes Minato is the Hokage with the orange cat energy. And Hashirama is usually golden retriever energy.

But when it comes to Tobirama and TenTen, Hashirama is completely oblivious to their intention to do such things as Raise The Dead For Science.

They're not even raising a specific person for a specific reason, they're just vibing Super Hard and haven't slept enough and forgot this is a bad idea. Got so obsessed with "Can we" that they forgot "should we."

(And I feel like Kurama just encourages them like a chaos entity.)

Tobirama: It was a theoretical exercise. Hashirama, gesturing at the zombie army trying to eat its way out of a Mokuton Cage: !!!! Tobirama: We realized it didn't need to stay theoretical. TenTen: In our defense, we were left unsupervised. Tobirama: It's true, we were.

Sakura: TenTen! I expected better of you! TenTen, with sincere confusion: Why? Sakura: ... TenTen:  Like you knew my team, and my sensei, and also I agreed to help you go back in time and alter the past.

Overall.......

Ino: [here to fluster her pretty boy husband] TenTen: [got platonic married to a necromancer who shares some special interests and hyperfocuses with her] Sakura: [just wants 2.5 kids and a steady paycheck as she runs a world-changing medical program]

Anyway

Back to TenTen being Wild.

[Image Description: TenTen in her Shippudent outfit, which is calf-length red pants and a white qipao top with red trim, turning on the spot while flourishing a pair of scrolls that expel weaponry on her command. End description.]

I like to imagine TenTen has an abundance of common sense, but she just never, ever applies it to herself. She can only common sense when other people present her with their problems. TenTen: What if I combined Ribbon dances with the noble art of YEET, then made it into a fighting style?

"I've got 99 problems and all of them can be solved with sharp and pointy objects."

[This section of the brainstorming is removed on account of being deeply inappropriate for a post that should max out at rated M. Just know that Ino and Izuna are freaks, and TenTen and Tobirama are enablers.]

BACK TO TENTEN BEING ABSURD

Tobirama: Ugh, I can't match Hashirama's energy levels for another entire day. TenTen, a member of Team Gai: I can do it. Tobirama: Hashirama is literally inhumanly happy and-- TenTen: No, no, I got this.

(You have no idea how much practice she has at this Tobirama, no idea.)

Tobirama: I am currently the fastest man alive. TenTen: Only because you cheat with Hiraishin. I could totally beat you in a five-hundred lap race around Konoha. Hashirama: ...five hundred? Tobirama: Wait, what. TenTen, already stretching: Yeah, let's do this! It's been a while since I had a solid challenge, you know? Hashirama: ???? Tobirama, is she serious? Tobirama: She runs two hundred laps around the village every morning, so... probably. Hashirama, wheezing: That's a lot. TenTen: That's a warmup.

Someone, probably Madara: Okay but that's cheating because you have inhuman stamina from the fox! Kurama, chilling on a tree stump napping: No the fuck she does not. Hashirama: What do you mean she doesn't? Kurama: I don't just leave the faucet running 24/7 Senju, besides, she doesn't need my help to be a ridiculous persistence hunting nightmare monster in this regard. TenTen: Awww, Kurama, you flatterer.

TenTen: I was running 150 laps of the village every morning by the time I was fourteen. Hashirama: Why? TenTen: My teacher was fun.

At least one shitty joke from a stranger about stamina In Bed and TenTen and Tobirama just stare at the person.

Maito Dai would be... maybe a little older than the Sannin, younger than Hiruzen. Solid age for TenTen to take as a student, probably. Very feels-worthy, with the whole Passing the Torch thing that that whole family had going on, and that Gai passed it to his students since he didn't have children of his own, the idea of TenTen taking that shot to make sure she's still part of that... family, for lack of a better term? Even in this strange new world they're making by altering history like that.

And that’s about it.

As per usual, most of this was brainstormed with @firebirdeternal​.

[ye4gerismarchives]

the bachelorette: the wedding

an: h-hey guys😅 a whole month w/o rhe bachelorette. y’all prolly forgot about it. fortunately, i haven’t😭 sorry yall, i’ve been up all night for the past month reading about nasty white men instead of writing for the bachelorette. this chapter has 4768 words, so i guess that’s a plus.

tags: black, fem reader. i don’t have any triggers off my head, if something does trigger you, do let me know

taglist: @taybird

5:00 am

You had plans to send Levi to his grave. How dare he wake you up at like four in the morning only to start your makeup and hair an hour later? The makeup and hair team were completely respectful towards you and respected your space, considering today was going to be full of emotions.

As your face was getting beat, there was a knock at the door. The makeup artist working on your face stopped so that you could address the person at the door. "If your name is Levi, don't bother coming in," you say. The door opens and your heart jumps because

Her Royal Highness Princess Historia and her girlfriend, Ymir, were in YOUR room.

"Oh sh*t, Your Royal Highness," you let out. Members of your team start to curtsy and bow to Historia. Ymir stands awkwardly behind her. She must have been getting used to the royal bs around her.

You stand to curtsy as well but Historia raises a hand to stop you. "Today is all about you. Ymir and I are going to be your bridesmaids today! Levi called us and we decided we would support you today!" she says cheerfully.

So, Levi probably wasn't going to die today. Now, you couldn't bring yourself to be mad at him but you still side eyes him. He was a powerful guy- you were still under the impression that he said something to Mikasa during the show and caused her unusual behavior.

"O-Oh?"

"Yeah! Ymir and I will get changed but we'll see you in your dress."

And with that, the princess and her girl left your room. It was like a dream.

5:30 am

Weeks before the wedding came, you went dress shopping. However, it didn't go how you wanted it to go. Ideally, you would be dress shopping with Sasha, Mikasa, and Connie. There was no way in hell you would call Sasha and ask her to go with you. You called Connie, who refused to pick up. You thought about calling Mikasa but you felt uneasy about it. So, Levi and his husband, Erwin, went with you.

Erwin was a complete angel. He asked you respectful questions about your life and even made you laugh. Spending time with Erwin made you realized how...dark Levi was and even made you question why they were even together. But your thoughts couldn't stop you from seeing how Levi melted under Erwin's touch. They loved each other. You hoped that You and Jean would be like that.

With their help, you managed to pick the perfect dress.

Slipping it on for the second time was just as magical as it was the first. Your team awed and cooed over how beautiful you looked. Historia and Ymir entered in matching pink outfits and immediately started fawning over how good you looked.

You felt your face redden up and you couldn't help but smile. But all of that went away when a familiar face entered.

"You...you look good, y/n."

"Mikasa...what are you doing here?"

Mikasa was standing in front of you in the same pink color that Ymir and Historia were in but her outfit was a sleeveless wide-legged jumpsuit. Her bangs were brushed away from her face and the rest of her hair sat behind her ears- well, mostly.

"Levi called me. He apologized for everything and told me to come over to apologize to you too. And then he forced me to be your maid of honor," Mikasa explained.

Levi forcing her to come over sounded like him but apologizing? He must have realized he went too far, especially since Mikasa was his niece. Levi was too caught up in creating and entertaining drama that he probably forgot Mikasa's relation to him.

So, you decided to let everything go.

You walk towards Mikasa with arms open and she's shocked but she doesn't hesitate to envelop you in her arms are well.

"I'm so sorry, y/n. I know was so out of line. I'll never let any man get in the way of our friendship again," Mikasa said as she squeezed you harder.

"Same here. If things don't work out with Jean, I'll marry you instead," you joke. You can feel Mikasa's laughter vibrate against your neck. She pulls away first and you proceed to ask another question. "Have you been in touch with Sasha?"

Mikasa purses her lips and shakes her head. "She's been radio silent. I can't tell if she got more backlash than me. She's off social media and just unwilling to speak with anyone. The hate probably got to her and she's just hiding for now."

You weren't too surprised. Mikasa was doing a job- a terrible one- but Sasha went out of her way to sleep with one of your guys...but she was drunk. You could imagine Sasha being the most discussed and debated online. Without speaking to her, you wouldn't know what was really going on in her mind.

"Oh! You never said hi to Princess Historia or Ymir. They're my bridesmaids for the day," you point out. The color leaves Mikasa's face when she realizes who's in the room with her. "Sh*t. Your Royal Highness," Mikasa curtsies. Historia lets out one of her signature giggles and begins to introduce herself and Ymir to Mikasa. As that goes on, your team starts helping you with your dress again.

You were slightly glad Mikasa was by your side today. The situation between the both of you was awkward but you were willing to give her another chance.

7:30 am

In the last two hours, you've done photoshoots and chat with everyone around you. Now it was time for Jean to be yours and for you to be his. You did question the early wedding time that Levi gave you but this would probably be the last time you saw that man so let's just let him do what he wants.

You were visibly nervous. You were gripping onto Mikasa's hand like it would be your last time doing so. "Hey, just remember, he's not your real husband. At least for now. This is all show," Mikasa reminds you. She was right. Jean may have been romantic with you but also he got his hour of fame, he could possibly leave you. Maybe he would get married to Connie.

You started to take a few deep breaths as you pulled up in front of the venue. Levi had rented a beach (not the one you and Connie were on) for your wedding.

From what you could see in the car, there were multiple seats and people were filling them up. You hoped that Connie's family had no ill-feeling toward you and decided to show up. It would be a shame since you were caught on television talking about how you would love for them to be there.

Your car came to a slow end. "y/n, do not worry. Remember, THIS is all fake. Only you decide if it's real," Mikasa reminds you. Levi opens your door and offers his hand to you. "It's go time." Mikasa helped you with your veil making sure that it wouldn't hit the ground.

"y/n, I know I may have been a menace but I'm happy for you. You might have had the most popular season yet," he says. Him bringing up ratings was no shock to you. You don't reply and Levi have his moment.

You like to think that Jean would like to spend the rest of his life with you. You knew that wasn't the case with many Bachelorettes and Bachelors but you look at Levi and Erwin...ah well, that wasn't a good example, considering that Erwin wasn't a contestant. He was the previous host. 'CALM DOWN,' you tell yourself, 'YOU AND JEAN WILL BE GOOD. AND IF HE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, ITS WHATEVER BECAUSE I'M THE BEST THING EVER.'

Minutes later, you're at the end of the aisle. Jean has his back turned and he's pacing back and forth slightly. Next to him is Connie. You know this because you recognize his big egg head. You're happy he put everything aside to support the both of you.

Mikasa takes her place in front of you and the music starts. Levi offers you his arm and you take it.

This was really happening.

You looked into the audience with a smile on your face but everything was moving so fast, you couldn't recognize their faces.

Before you knew it, you were by Jean. He still couldn't look at you- not until Levi gave you away. The marriage officiant clears his throat and begins to talk.

"We are gathered here today to witness the union of Jean and y/n. Welcome friends and family! We're glad to have you with us.

Today is the beginning of a remarkable journey for this couple. Drawing on their mutual admiration, respect, and trust, they are ready to embark on the next chapter in their lives. We celebrate the love and light evident in their relationship and wish them well on this joyous occasion.

Who gives this woman away?"

"I do," Levi answers. He takes Jean's hand and places it on top of yours. Jean then moves his under yours so that he could hold it. He looks down at Levi and mouths 'Thank you'. The shorter male nods and takes a seat.

The officiant gives you and Jean a moment to face each other. Jean had the biggest smile on his face when his eyes landed on you. "You look gorgeous," he whispers. "You're not so bad yourself," you reply.

The officiant continues. "If anyone has cause to object to the forming of this union, speak now or forever hold your peace." You look over Jean's shoulder to see Connie. You couldn't see his whole face, thanks to Jean's height, but you could see his eyes. They were narrowed and looking straight at you.

You wanted to feel bad, but you couldn't. YOU decided that Connie would not be your spouse, and that was final.

No one responded to the officiant's request, so he continued.

"Marriage is an integral part of the human tradition. Let us remember, as we stand here before the Universe, that the vows taken today hold great importance, just as they did to our ancestors. As individuals, we choose to enter the union of marriage to share all aspects of ourselves with our soulmate. Today, this is true for Jean and y/n."

Soulmate. You hoped that was true for you and Jean. You did meet him on a tv show.

"There are few greater joys in life than finding someone with whom we truly "click." In that spirit, I will now share a short reading on soulmates from author Richard Bach:

"A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life."

Under the eyes of Ymir, together we take a moment to acknowledge the seriousness of the commitment being entered into today. With great joy, we also recognize the special bond shared by Jean and y/n.."

This...this was a special bond indeed. Not only that, it was completely random. The next part of the wedding was your vows. The next part of solidifying your relationship.

"I will now invite the couple to share their vows. Jean and y/n, the promises you make today are sacred; they are the groundwork from which your marriage will grow and blossom over time.

Jean, would you like to begin first?"

Jean nods and squeezes your hands. "y/n, hopefully by the end of this ceremony, you will be my wife. I know there's a lot that you're worried about but I'll do everything to make you happy. I'll always protect you and keep you satisfied."

"y/n, your turn."

"Jean. I'm not too sure what to say...you've out-speeched me," you joke. Jean chuckled. "But...I too promise to love and protect you. I'll also make sure we're on the same page because that's very important for our relationship. I'm willing to fight for us."

You look at the officiant, letting him know that you were done.

"Let us proceed. Jean, before your family and friends, do you take y/n as your beloved Wife, to have and to hold, through laughter and in sadness, through challenges and successes, so long as you both shall live?"

Jean is silent for a moment. He's rubbing the back of your right hand and staring straight into your eyes- almost as if he was reevaluating everything. This made you nervous. Jean was a smart guy. You know you couldn't hold him down and force him to do anything he didn't want.

"I...I do," he finally answers. The weight on your chest dissolves.

"y/n, before your family and friends, do you take Jean as your beloved Husband, to have and to hold, through laughter and in sadness, through challenges and successes, so long as you both shall live?"

"Yes, I do," you answer quickly. You hear small laughs coming from the audience.

The officiant gives you a small smile before continuing. "Wedding rings are a traditional symbol of the strength of the bond between two soulmates."  Connie comes from behind Jean with the wedding bands and gave you both one.

"This bond is never broken, and continues in a perpetual circle, glowing with the warmth and eternal light of two souls in a perfect union. By wearing these rings, you will be always reminded of the connection you share and the vows you have made today. Jean, please, repeat after me;

I, Jean..."

"I, Jean..."

"present you, y/n, with this ring..."

"present you, y/n, with this ring..."

"as a symbol of our everlasting love."

"as a symbol of our everlasting love."

"Let it never lose its luster..."

"Let it never lose its luster..."

"just as my love for you will never fade."

"just as my love for you will never fade."

Jean, still gently holding your hand, slips the ring on (whatever finger your culture uses for weddings!). He can't help but admire it for a moment. He looks back up at you with the biggest grin. All you had to do was place the ring on his finger and your marriage would be "official".

"y/n, repeat after me. I, y/n..."

"I, y/n..."

"present you, Jean, with this ring..."

"present you, Jean, with this ring..."

"as a symbol of our everlasting love..."

"as a symbol of our everlasting love..."

"let it never lose its luster..."

"let it never lose its luster..."

"just as my love for you will never fade."

"just as my love for you will never fade."

You slip the ring onto Jean's left finger.

"By the power vested in me by the Ymir Life Church and Paradis, under the eyes of the Ymir, I happily pronounce you Husband and Wife! Jean, kiss your bride."

At that moment, everyone disappeared. It was just you and Jean. Jean places a hand on your waist and pulls you in. You find your hands riding up his chest and resting on his shoulder as you get closer. You and Jean connect and all of sudden, you're not in that bubble anymore.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, I give you Mr. Kirstein and Mrs. l/n!!."

You and Jean left together as "spouses". The first thing you did was official wedding photoshoots that were to be spread all over Paradis and all over the world- thanks to social media. Y'all kinda look like Meghan and Harry tbh.

Anyway.

You both got an opportunity to change in your reception outfits. After that, it was another car ride to the reception venue. Jean held your hand and couldn't stop talking about how beautiful you looked. You were so flustered, you couldn't get a response out. When you reached the venue, the driver helped out first and Jean slipped out of the car after you. He took your hand and entered the reception venue with you.

When you entered the dining hall, you were welcomed by cheers and claps. It was extremely overwhelming- not in a bad sense, however. You looked around the room and caught some familiar faces. You saw Bertholdt and Reiner sitting at a table with another unfamiliar girl. Across the room, Mikasa is seated with Connie, Historia, and Ymir. Everyone else is family that Levi most likely reached out to.

You and Jean take a seat and the cheering calms down. You lean on Jean's shoulder and sigh. The day wasn't over yet, but you were already so tired. Jean places his head on top of yours. "I can't wait to just be with you. I don't know what you had planned tonight but to be honest, I just want to sleep. I haven't realized how tired I was until now," Jean says quietly. "I have to agree. Let's just take a shower, cuddle and just pass out."

Jean brings his head up and smirks at you. "A shower? Together?" You only roll your eyes jokingly. "Oh, look, I think Levi is gonna call us up to have our first dance." "Don't worry, I'll get my answer sooner or later, y/n. You can't run from me." Jean pokes your arm teasingly, which causes you to squirm a little bit. Levi calls you up and Jeans takes your hand to lead you to the dance floor.

(Song of your choice) starts playing and you're not even sure where to start. Jean has a hand on your waist and is holding your free hand. You have a hand on his shoulders. "I'm not even sure where to start, we never practiced," you whisper. Jean smiles softly. "Don't worry about it. We're in this together aren't we?" He begins to move, taking full control. You stumble a bit but your reception dress hides your clumsiness. After a bit, you weren't stumbling anymore. You rest your head on Jean's shoulder and he pulls you even closer. Your movements get even slower. The music slowly disappeared and so did everyone else. It was just you and Jean.

When the music actually came to an end, you pulled away slowly. "You did great," Jean says softly. "So did you." You both go back to your seats. Waiters started to come out and take everyone's orders for dinners and started to pour drinks- meaning a toast would be coming up.

Mikasa comes up to the dance floor and awkwardly clanks her glass, trying to get everyone's attention. Everyone turned their heads and it wasn't because of the awkward clanking of the glass. There were some 'What the hell is she doing here?'s and 'Eren's b*tch?'s. You could visibly see Mikasa's nervousness so you attempted to lock eyes with her. It took her a while but she could finally look you in the eye. Mikasa clears her throat. "Um, hi. You're probably wondering why I'm here but today is not about me. It's about y/n and Jean. I was once y/n's closets friends until I was pressured to do something that I wouldn't normally do." Mikasa gives Levi a side-eye. The shrimp man crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.

"y/n is absolutely amazing...I can't really put it into words but there's something about her that just make people want to be around her. I can see why Jean fought so hard to be with her."

Jean squeezes your hand when she makes that comment.

"I often think to myself about how y/n could have easily met Jean at a café or a movie theatre or something rather than on TV show. But at the same time, this was good for her...and all of us. Here we discovered the lengths of our friendship and who we really were as people. I believe these ups and downs helped y/n find Jean- her true love. Honestly, I wish you both a happy future. Make it worth it."

Mikasa raises her glass and everyone clinks their glass with their neighbors. Connie begins to walk up to the dance floor as soon as Mikasa leaves.

"I'm going to be really honest with you. This is was unexpected. I honestly thought that today was going to be about me." Connie raises his eyebrows at Jean, who furrows them.

"But I guess it's a good thing I didn't marry y/n. I wouldn't have been enough to handle. So, congrats to you, Jean. You're tolerable."

Connie gets off the dance floor without giving you or Jean a look. You look at Jean and he's hurt. "H-hey...maybe he's drunk or something. In his feelings, you know? Don't let him make you feel bad," you say. Jean gives you a small smile before sipping down his drink.

Moments later, it was time for parent dances. Jean got up to dance with his mom. It was a little bit uncoordinated than yours but they looked like they were having a lot of fun.

Next was the bouquet and garter toss. You started with the garter first. You sat in a chair with your legs cross. You knew this was going to happen but it wasn't rehearsed. Jean could see your uneasiness, so he started doing a silly sensual dance. It made you laugh and your laughter got louder once he started shimming down to the floor. He got closer to your thigh and you felt your face heating up. You slapped your hand over your mouth once he starting biting the garter and pulling it off. As he continued, you cupped your face. When Jean was finally day, cheers erupted and you uncovered your hot face. Jean closes his eyes and throws the garter into the crowd and it lands in the hands of Reiner. The guys cheer even louder for him as he awkwardly glances over at Bertholdt, who is a few people away from him.

Next was the bouquet throwing. You closed your eyes and the guest counted you off. Once you heard the number three, you threw the bouquet. You open your eyes and turn around to see that Bertholdt had gotten the flowers. His face is so red...he look like a tomato.

After your guest settled down, it was time to cut your cake, meaning that your wedding day was almost over. You picked a (cake of your choice) for tonight. "It looks delicious. I can't wait to try it," Jean whispers in your ear. "It is. You'll love it," you respond. You pick up a knife. Jean wraps his hands around yours. You both gently place the knife on the cake and pushed it down. You lean back to give Jean a kiss and he gives you one. Jean grabs two forks by the cake and hands one over to you.

Jean scoops a piece of the cake first. He places a hand on your chin and you open your mouth. "Ladies first," he says as he places the cake in your mouth. You take a minute to savor the taste before swallowing. You also take a piece of the cake and get on your toes to feed Jean. He chuckles softly at your struggle before taking the fork from you and feeding himself. "You're right, it's good," he says after swallowing. He bends down slightly to give you another kiss.

The night was slowly coming to an end. There was no sight of Connie after his stupid speech and Levi and Erwin were getting ready to get home. Historia and Ymir had left right after the cake cutting ceremony but had promised to call you once everything had settled down. You and Jean formally greeted your guest and started your goodbyes.

Mikasa had gone up to you with a slightly awkward face. "Today wasn't so bad, huh?" she starts. You give her a kind smile. "It wasn't. Did you enjoy yourself?" Mikasa pauses to answer. "Your wedding was beautiful...however, I can't get upset over the reaction about me being here. y/n, I have to apologize again. What I did was completely wrong. I shouldn't even be blaming Levi for everything. I could have told you at first and-"

You pull Mikasa into a hug to shut her up. "Mikasa, move on. Come on, we're adults! At least you're apologizing and trying- unlike someone we know," you joke. You pull away. "Hopefully, if Jean and I have a real wedding, it won't be as awkward for you." Mikasa nods. "I'll see you around. Congrats." As Mikasa walks off, Reiner, Bert, and this mystery blonde come up to you. Inside Reiner's pocket is your garter sticking out and Bertholdt is clenching your bouquet.

"Hey," you start," Thank you for coming. Who's your friend?"

Bertholdt looks over at the blonde. "Thank you for inviting us...um...this is Annie. My dad thought you were her."

Now, why did Bertie's dad think you was this yt girl?😟

LMAO. "Nice to keep you, Annie. You Bertie's girl?" you ask.

Annie shakes her head no frantically. "OH, NO. Never in a million years, no. Yuck!" she answers dramatically. Reiner throws an arm over Bert's shoulder. "He's actually my boy now," he says proudly. "OH-! Congrats! So we're having a wedding for you soon, yes?" You tease. Reiner nods and Bertie tries to hide his face in Reiner's hair. "When did this all happen...? I just eliminated you like...two weeks ago?"

"Well...Reiner and I were still in contact and when I left, he reached out to me. We met up a few times and we hit it off," Bertie explains. "Congrats. I'm really happy to hear that," you answer. You turn around to look for Jean. He's talking to his mom. He gives you a small glance before continuing his conversation with her. "I better go catch up with Jean. It was nice to see you...and finally meeting you, Annie." The trio say their goodbyes before leaving.

You make your way over to Jean but you're stopped by the human fit of annoyance- Levi. You were so tired of him but you threw on a smile since Erwin was walking over as well. "Yes, Levi? I thought we were done here," you say in a singsong voice. "Aw, you're ready to go?" Levi says sarcastically. You open your mouth to answer but he cuts you off. "For starters, thank you for adding on to mine and Erwin's paychecks. We really appreciate it. Arrangements for your hotel and honeymoon have been put together. You're tired of me, but don't hesitate to call me if something goes wrong. Besides that, I wish you luck. Make everything worth it."

Levi walks past you and Erwin stops to hug you before following his husband.

Jean makes his way up to you, his mom following behind. "Everything good? I saw shrimp talking to you." You take Jean's hand. "Everything's good." Jean pulls you into a side hug. "Aw, you guys are so cute. I really do hope you last," Jean's mom comments, "I've always wanted a daughter."

"Mom, nothing's official yet-"

"I'm glad you think of me as your daughter, June."

"Well, I'll see you later. Jean, take care of her tonight. Be good to her and listen to her. Don't be rough, she's not a rag doll," June warned her son. She had a finger up in his face and everything. Seeing their relationship on the regular was going going to be hilarious.

Jean swats his mom's finger out of his face before waving her goodbye. He then fully wraps his arms around you. "No offense. But I'm glad this is over. We'll get to know each other one on one now," he says. You can't help but agree.

ITS FINALLY OVER. well not exactly. i have one more chapter to write and y’all will never hear about levi, 12 guys, and dates ever again😭 but since this series has reached its goal (you getting married) please do me a favor and rate my series, it would be appreciated!

[ikleesfiction]

I'm a fucking alcoholic (with a sweet tooth)

Fandom : Chicago PD TV Word count : 1,623 words Pairing : Jay Halstead x reader Author's note : This is the third one shot of "Will you follow through if I fall for you" fic continuation. It would be better if you read it first. But if you don't, here's the quick summary. Warning : It's fluff. I hope it doesn't end up too cringy?

Disclaimer

◢◤

It is a cold Friday in Chicago. You would say it is super cold since you worked in the warm weather of Los Angeles last week. Jay is coming over to your place after work. Now both of you are snuggling on the couch, watching movies on TV.

"I cannot watch this part," You hide your face in Jay's chest, preparing for the frightening scene. The darkness in the room increases the tension.

"What are you talking about? This is not even a horror movie," Jay looks down at you, bemused.

"Say you! Watching Tom Cruise blowing up a Gallardo distressed me. My soul is crying. It is a nightmare!"

You move out from Jay's embrace to point out the screen where Maggie Q said it is such a nice car. "Yes, it is! Don't do it, Zhen," yell you at the TV.

However, The Lamborghini on screen still went kaboom and was engulfed in fire. "Oh, no!" You put your hand on your heart, feeling devastated.

Jay grins at your silliness, "I'm sorry for your loss," He rubs your back, offering his condolences. However, his smile turns flirty. "If there's anything I can do to ease your pain..."

You play along with his idea. "Hmm, is that so?" Your hands wrap around Jay, pulling him closer. Your nose is tracing his neck, up to his jaw, his cheek. Your lips softly grace his skin, make their way closer to his. Jay wasted no time to kiss you and keep kissing you.

You don't know how long it goes, and you don't care to know. Until Jay moves back abruptly, tilting his head away from you, "Your pho..."

Your lips cut his words as you get on his lap. Jay puts his hands on your waist to stop you, halfheartedly, "Babe, your phone is ringing,"

Your hands curl behind his neck. "Let it ring." You whisper to his ear. Jay shudders when he feels your breath on his neck. Your mouth soon follows to make a mark on the same point. Jay tries to hold himself back from reciprocating the gesture.

Unlike Jay and his work, you got no obligation to pick up your phone. No life or death depends on you tonight. But the phone keeps shrieking. It started to annoy you because Jay stops participating in this make-out session.

"Might be important," This is one of the rare times you want to curse Jay's occupation.

"I assure you it won't be," You try to get Jay back in the game.

"Well, at least you can tell them to call you back later," Jay lands a soft kiss on your forehead. With a loud sigh, you move away from Jay's lap to pick up your phone.

Seeing the caller ID frustrates you even further. "You are interrupting our date night," is the first thing you say to your best friend, Alex, when you receive the call and put it on speaker.

"Hi, Jay!" Alex chirps his greeting, ignoring your complaint.

Jay greets back with a chuckle, "Hey, man. Nice to hear from you," He takes the remote to pause the movie, where Tom Cruise is gunning a Mercedes CLK down the road.

"No, it's not." You grumble under your breath. "What's up? Did you just come up with a song idea that would make Bruno Mars wished he wrote it?"

As a fellow songwriter/producer, you understand that song inspiration could come anytime. But it would still piss you off if Alex insists on working for it tonight.

"Not yet. But we do have a potential project for you,"

"Couldn't it wait until next week?" You moan your refusal. "Jay and I got plans for the weekend,"

"Of course. As long as you promise to pick up your phone when Angelique calls. I know you have been dodging her." Alex chides you.

Huffing your aversion, you lay your head on Jay's lap. In reflex, he plays with your hair. "Who's Angelique? A new talent?" Jay never heard that name before. He is pretty sure that he knows everybody at Pyramid, Alex's record label in Amsterdam where you work for.

Alex starts to explain, "She is a singer. Been around for a while,"

"Country singer, turned bubblegum pop singer, and now I guess she wants to try dance music as well?" You elaborate to Jay and asking Alex at the same time. You have written and produced songs from various genres, but your notable works so far are mostly EDM.

"Maybe," Alex answers casually.

"Angelique..." Jay ponders for a moment before lighting up, "Oh! Is she the one whose songs you keep skipping whenever they pop up, babe?"

Your best friend lets out a big laugh from the other side of the phone. "Angelique wants Y/N to produce her next album, but all of a sudden Y/N here cannot find the receive button on her phone," Alex emphasizes his sarcasm.

"I took yours, didn't I?"

However, Alex begins his interrogation. "Why are you avoiding her calls anyway?"

"I don't wanna work with her," You know you sound petulant.

"Come on, Y/N, it would be great! Angelique's third album sold triple more than her second. Her last single went neck to neck with Taylor Swift's song. Now, she is gonna let you work on her fourth album! Other producers would kill for this opportunity," Alex tries to reason.

Jay whistles, being impressed by the story.

"Well, my boyfriend here is a cop. I don't wanna get involved in any criminal activity," You are intentionally being obtuse. "If it were so great, why don't you do it? You're the one who still works on stage."

"You know people talked about how you could be the next Max Martin, right? Made sense that she asked for you," Alex states. "Angelique doesn't need another artist to perform with her. She needs someone who writes and produces good stuff."

"Every producer could be the next Max Martin if they work hard," You shrug the notion.

Jay looks confused with all these new names. "And Max Martin is...?"

"We are never ever ever getting back together?" Alex starts singing a couple bars to show Jay some examples of Max Martin's works.

"Uh..." Jay doesn't show any recognition.

"ou make me feel like I'm living a teenage dream?" Alex sings another song. Your best friend is nothing but persistent.

"Uhm.." And yet, Jay is still clueless.

"Jay is not keeping up with pop music for the last decade, Lex," You joke to your best friend. "Try some songs from the Backstreet Boys,"

"Hey!" Jay protests. "I know your songs," He smirks at you in full smug. "Especially the ones that were written about me."

You laugh at his adorable and sexy smirk. Sitting up from Jay's lap, you kiss the smug out of him.

"Guys, I'm still here." The flat tone of Alex on the phone stops Jay from taking the kiss further.

You peck a corner of Jay's lips one more time. "Your own fault. Who told you to call during our date night anyway?"

"Since I'm not there to poke and pinch you, I hope Jay could help me convince you to take this project." Your best friend is shameless.

"Is Angelique not a good person or something?" Jay tries to understand the situation. He knows you are a hard worker. It is rare for you to run off from a big project like this. "She ought to be a good singer, right? With all of that achievements,"

You cross your arms and glare at your boyfriend, "It is a prerogative to hate your best friend's exes, no?"

Jay frowns, "Wait, Angelique is Alex's ex?"

"Oh, come on!" groans Alex. "It was years ago!"

"You know how the saying goes. Quote-unquote, "You are my friend. She is your ex. You get to forgive and move on. I get to hold a grudge until I die”

"That was kinda harsh," Jay comments.

"Your best friend still hates me until now, Jay." You roll your eyes at your boyfriend.

"Mouse doesn't hate you. I even haven't got a chance to tell him about you since he's been deployed," Jay raises his eyebrows.

"She meant your work partner," Alex answers Jay for you.

Jay frowns deeper, "Hailey doesn't hate you."

"Wanna bet on that?" You challenge him.

Alex prevents the couple from bickering further, "Guys, listen! Angelique and I broke up amicably. There were no hard feelings between us now,"

"Excuse you!" You exclaim. "I still remember those dark days. You cried over so many Tequila bottles. And those boxes of chocolate!! Why did we have to consume that much chocolate over a breakup?? My waistline did not come back to its original measurement for three months!!"

Jay lets out an amused snort.

"Oh, you don't get to talk, man!" Alex hits the couple back. "Your temporary breakup also forced me to replenish my Jenever stocks! I got bakeries phone numbers on speed dial for chocolate cake emergencies!"

Jay puts his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay. You guys continue to discuss business," He stands up from the couch. "I'm gonna go warm up some pie," Jay gestures to the kitchen area. "Alex, it's nice to catch up with you. Hope the next time we talk, it would be more social and less about business,"

"And you, love, try to listen to what Alex offers first before you cut him off," Jay bends down to kiss your lips teasingly. "Please don't pull out any bottles with more than 40% alcohol content. I need you sober for our plans tonight." He winks at you before moving to the kitchen, leaving you to deal with your pushy best friend alone.

+x Taglist +x

@lorenakaspersen @life-treatments @itsdesiree86

Foot Note: - Tom Cruise and Maggie Q blew up a Lamborghini Gallardo in Mission: Impossible III (2006). All of the MI movies are classics in my household. - Max Martin is a Swedish record producer, songwriter. You might not know his name, but I'm sure you know his songs. In reference to this fic, he co-wrote and co-produced Taylor Swift's "We are never ever ever getting back together", co-wrote Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream", co-wrote and co-produced some of Backstreet Boys' biggest hits. - "You are my friend. She is your ex. You get to forgive and move on. I get to hold a grudge until I die" line is taken from Henrietta Wilson on 9-1-1 TV Series S02E04 "Stuck". I thought it was hilarious. The line became the reason for this particular fic's existence.

I'm sorry for the long note. Thank you for reading this fic and the note. You are so welcome to reply, ask or tag me. We can talk about music, series or Jesse Lee Soffer's abs. :p

[unfunny-quips]

Of all the many people in the world who wanted him dead, All For One had to admit that he was rather surprised by the person who actually managed to both track him down and get past his impressive security.

He knew someone was there the moment he opened the door. Could sense the presence of another person in his high rise apartment that shouldn’t have been there. A steady heartbeat, unflinching and unafraid. Brave or stupid, he wasn’t sure, but they’d be dead either way once he wrung out of them how they’d gotten in and which of his security detail he was going to have to kill.

He shrugged off his coat - it was new and fit him well, he’d rather not get blood on it - and hung it up carefully by the front door. Slipped off his shoes and rolled his shoulders with a sigh. Though that particular apartment was not homey per se, there was something oddly comforting about returning to a living space that was entirely his own at the end of a day. Though centuries ago, a childhood fraught with uncertain living situations and inconsistent care had left marks on him that time and power had not fully been able to shake.

All the more reason to make the intruder’s death slow, as insignificant a threat as they were, they’d at least been able to find him. Which meant finding a new luxury apartment, perhaps even in a new city. And he despised moving.

He kept his steps light on the polished wooden floors, stopping by the oversized and little used kitchen for some water before he meandered his way towards the living room where his uninvited guest waited. Perhaps he’d throw them out the window, eighty stories up would make for a rather long time to think about their impending death. Or maybe tear them apart inch by literal inch so they had to languish in their suffering.

Setting his glass down on the kitchen counter he stepped into his spacious living room and paused at what sat waiting for him.

All For One, Emperor of Darkness, King of all Villains, Boogeyman of the Boogeymen found himself...uncertain.

There was a woman seated on his couch. Casually dressed and relaxed looking, knees drawn up and tucked beneath her, an open book bag on the floor beside where she sat and a law textbook in hand. She finished highlighting a section carefully before capping the marker and turning her gaze on to him, letting him see her face properly for the first time.

Green eyes were the first thing that struck him. Clear and bright and intelligent, set in a kind face. Her hair, also green, was swept down a little past her shoulders with half of it pulled up in a fluttering little bun at the back of her head. He was struck by two thoughts as he took her in.

The woman sitting before him was entirely unintimidated by him.

And...

She looked a bit like Nana Shimura. 

The woman tilted her head, seeming to take him in while he’d been observing her. She shifted on the couch a little, shutting the book softly and setting it down. Her heartbeat was steady, her gaze unflinching but not combative. Purpose seemed to flow off of her, as resolute as her steady gaze. He understood that she knew exactly who he was and felt no need for fear nor sense of unease in his presence. A strong will, he knew the aura he carried around him well and it was someone interesting indeed who could face the overwhelming killing intent that drifted off him in waves without so much as a flicker of uncertainty. 

“Hello.” She said with a soft, clear voice. The kind of ease one has with an acquaintance or a friend not often seen, not a stranger whose house she had invaded. “I’m sorry to have broken in like this.” She started, with the appropriate level of apology one would save for knocking over a stranger’s drink. “But I was hoping you’d be able to help me.”

He should be irritated, he should just kill her and get on with his evening, he should make her an example for anyone else stupid enough to think they could waltz into his home without consquence. 

He wasn’t irritated though. And he didn’t kill her. Instead he found himself oddly...charmed by the stranger that sat before him.

“Indeed?” He asked blandly, slipping his hands into his pockets before leaning against the wall casually. “I’m afraid you’re rather lost if you think this is a police station.”

The woman broke into a small smile, a soft huffing chuckle leaving her. Shaking her head she dropped her gaze for a moment and he saw the faint pink of a blush on her cheeks. He was, he realized. He was absolutely charmed by her. And it wasn’t even her Quirk doing it, hers had the feel of a gravitational telekinesis, not a mood altering ability. The woman that sat before him, who had broken into his home and casually asked him for help as if searching for her stray cat, was oddly endearing. And it had been a long time since he had found himself endeared by anything, let alone a person.

“Sorry,” She said, shifting on the couch. “I’ve probably done this all wrong. But I wanted you to know I was serious.” Green eyes met his own and he was struck again by the intelligence he saw in her gaze. “I don’t know why I thought this would be the way to do it but…” She gave a shrug, then slowly got to her feet. Careful not to topple her bag or trip as she untangled from her comfortable position on the couch. “Here, let me try again.” 

He watched as she gave a short, polite bow, hands clasped before her. A neat and polite introduction, complete with a soft smile as she rose to meet his gaze again. “My name is Midoriya Inko. I’m a graduate law student at Kyushu University, and I was hoping you could take my Sensei’s Quirk.”

Well. 

How on earth was he supposed to kill such a charming, polite young woman when she came to him with such an interesting request such as that?

He couldn’t, of course, was the answer.

---

Inko always had trouble with authority.

Even when she was very young she’d been prone to doing what she was told she shouldn’t just because an adult told her not too. Her father - in what faint and blurring memories she had of him before his death - used to call her his little revolutionary and would laugh over the hijinks her stubborn nature would produce. Then again, her father had his reasons to support the wholesale refusal to bend to the whims of authority. 

Trying to take down the corrupt system the government had put in place had been the cause of his death, after all.

Her mother had been far less amused by Inko’s acts of rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Always begging Inko to please just follow the rules just once honey with a perpetually exhausted look on her face. Inko’s only picture of her mother - a snapshot of the entire family at a park, her small frame held in her father’s arms a month before he would be killed - showed Nana Shimura with a wide, infectious smile in place. It felt odd looking at it in years to come, as Inko could only recall her mother looking mournful and sad in those last days.

It had been Kotaro that was the well behaved one of the two of them. Thirteen minutes older than her, he took the responsibilities of the eldest sibling with a seriousness that was almost frightening at times when they’d been children.

He’d been the one to tell her not to get into trouble, the one to reprimand her when she misbehaved. The one to tell her not to sneak out when they were teenagers in one of their many foster homes after their mother had given them up. Rule abiding, strict and, as they’d grown, more and more obsessed with control. Of her, of their situation, of whatever he could. A strangling, grasping bid at a control that had only led their already rocky relationship to splinter even further.

Her last conversation with him before she’d stopped speaking to him completely he’d told her that she should be a quiet housewife. She’d gone and applied to law school the very next day.

She still found herself wondering if that had been Kotaro being clever. Using her own contrary impulses to make her commit to something she’d always wanted to do but been too uncertain about to try and follow. It would have been the kindest he’d been to her in years if it was true, and she’d been too afraid to reach out to him to find out for fear that it wasn’t.

Instead she focused on her studies, focused on being the person she wanted to be instead of the person she’d been forced to become over the years. Not the abandoned daughter of a hero that had to retire too soon, but someone who was able to take the rules she’d been so long rebelling against and reshape them. Twist them under her hands until they settled into something she could believe in. Something she could follow.

At nineteen, after careful consideration and one less-than-helpful conversation with her friend Mitsuki she changed her name to Midoriya. On her twentieth birthday enjoying the fact that she could - legally - drink herself into oblivion, she cut her waist long hair off in a single ugly cut with the kitchen scissors. The next hour was spent in laughter as Mitsuki’s shy fashion student boyfriend Masaru fixed the mess as best he could. At twenty-one she clutched her best friend’s hand and gritted her teeth as a tattoo artist brought to life a stylized kitsune on her shoulder. A mark of the trickster she wished to become. And in between all of that, she proved herself to the academic world at large and earned herself a full ride to Kyushu University’s much lauded law program.

The work was challenging, equal parts exhilarating and mind-numbingly boring. She spent her days working hard to get top marks in every class, to ace every test, and impress every teacher with her sharp wit and unbending will. Her nights were filled with studying and working whatever jobs she could pick up to cover what her scholarships didn’t cover. Mitsuki teased her that she would get wrinkles from squinting at so many books, but her friend was always supportive. 

Years passed, semesters flying by in almost a dream at times, whisking her closer and closer to graduation and her dream of reshaping the system into something she could believe in. Despite her exhaustion, she’d found herself happier than she’d ever been in her life.

Which of course was the exact moment that it all started crashing down.

It started with one of the girl’s in the same program as Inko suddenly dropping the ball on her studies, the other woman’s grades began plummeting at an alarming rate. The girl -  Shibata Aiko - looked ragged and exhausted, unable to focus and eventually being dropped from the program entirely due to the issues with her academic performance. 

A few weeks later it was another female student shutting herself away in her dorm room for an entire week. The girl finally left her dorm looking haggard and sick, refusing to speak to anyone as she walked barefoot out into the wider world and immediately attempted to throw herself in front of a bus. 

Then one of Inko’s senpai’s - kind and serious Hanako who had mentored Inko briefly when she’d first joined the school - had what could only be called a breakdown in the school library. Screaming and crying as she began tearing up law books and flinging chairs.

Each incident was quickly handled and waved away as young women not suited for the high expectations and difficulties of such a high ranking university. Most of Inko’s classmates had been, if not content to accept that information, at least too exhausted by their own heavy workloads to question further.

But Inko never was good at accepting the will of authority.

[axther]

every second i get

in which Midoriya is forced to deal with his friends trying to get him and his crush together. 

for @patt-writes-stuff

Midoriya tried not to make regrets. 

This might’ve sounded strange, maybe obvious. But he took chances when he had them. He took the leap, hurtled off edges that others might’ve been worried about because he was finally able to do what he always wanted to. He put a thousand percent into everything he did. 

But this? This was some bullshit. 

Recently, as an example of goodwill, U.A. took in several exchange students from other countries. They were all valuable and magnificent in their own right, with talents that Midoriya could only awe at. One had the ability to rewind time under a full moon. Another could breathe underwater. 

But most of all, one could read minds. 

YN LN rarely used it, but it was said that there was a villain attack back at her own school, and she defeated them by only spamming their mind with cringy, outdated Ugandan Knuckles memes. It was funny, of course, but also incredibly powerful. Some mentioned that she was in the same boat as Shinsou, but she seemed to take it much better than he did. 

Oh, and she was cute. Really cute. 

Midoriya would catch peeks of her in the hallways, waltzing to her class with her books close to her and her eyes shining in the afternoon light. She always seemed to have someone at her side, talking softly with them, or maybe laughing loudly. But she was popular, kind, and strong.

Everything that Midoriya felt he wasn’t. 

Of course, he had friends. His quirk was certainly useful, though it had it’s drawbacks. But she was gentle and sweet. Even Bakugou tolerated her and didn’t give her a nasty nickname, which was definitely new. 

So when Mina waltzed up to him with a sneaky grin, he was worried. 

“Heyyyyy, Deku!” She tittiered, leaning on him in a way that was more than friendly but less than flirting. “You like YN, right?” 

“H-huh?!” Midoriya flushed bright red, flailing his arms comically as if to fend off the accusation. “N-no! I mean, she’s really nice b-but I totally don’t have a crush on her and I don’t want-er, really need to dater her, I mean if she asked I would say yes but I don’t have a crush and it’s really not-!” “We get the idea, loverboy.” Mina cut Midoriya off before he could ramble any more, and turned him around to see Sero talking with Denki and Todoroki. “Sero’s gonna have a party tonight. And guess who’s gonna be there~?” “Y-YN?” Midoriya’s flush went down, but barely. 

“You got it! All the transfer are going to be there, and we’re going to rope her into a game of truth or dare!” Mina cheered, but Midoriya recoiled. 

“Wait! What?!” “Yeah! And you’ll get to find out if she has a crush on you!” “What?!” Midoriya leapt away from her, bright red again, and gasping. “That’s-!” “We’re fuckin tired of seeing you pine, asshole.” Bakugou bit from his seat. “Either get your shit broken or date her. I don’t give a fuck.” “Oh, don’t lie like that!” Mina chastised him and swatted at his head, making him growl in response. “He does care! It was his idea!” “Shut the fuck up!” 

Midoriya felt nervousness crawl up his spine, a chill settling in his heart. What if he got publicly rejected? Oh god! What if she said she liked him? How would he react? Would he hug her? Thank her and bow? Kiss her, even? Oh my god! Kiss her?! What kind of response is that?! 

His mind was on overdrive, thinking in all caps and screaming at the top of his proverbial lungs. All sorts of scenarios played through his head, most of which were not meant for public consumption. It was pure chaos until he realised he was being shaken by Tsuyu grabbing his shoulders. It made his head roll around until he came to. “O-oh! Tsu! Sorry!” “It’s okay, kero.” She let go, pointing at her chin. “If this is how you act now, I wanna see how you act with YN in the same room.” “S-same...room…” “Shit, it’s happening again! Someone! Stop him!” 

Midoriya was a foot away from her. 

They were sitting on the couch together, with Denki between the two of them. The room felt like it was filled with lava; bubbling, hot, and too full. Every other second was spent glancing at YN, who was preoccupied with a game of twister that Jirou and Bakugou were fully absorbed in. They were practically doing aerobatics, growling at each other in a refusal to step down. The tension was climbing until one of Jirou’s ear jacks conveniently got under Bakugou’s hand and made him slip. It was almost artistic how she still stood where he fell, but in the end, Bakugou lost, and most of the class was willing to overlook the foul. 

And then came the dreaded truth or dare. 

For whatever reason, Sero brought a bottle, but spin the bottle was quickly shut down once everyone realised they would have to tape Mineta to the upside of the ceiling. They chose to tape him anyway, which led to some confusion on what they were going to play, but it remained truth or dare. 

The first to go was Ochako, who dared Tsuyu to smack Kirishima with her tongue. She did so and almost knocked him out, but he assured her he was fine and the game went on. Late into the night, borderline dangerous dares (“Hey, Bakugou, can you explode in your mouth?”) and embarrassing truths (like the time Todoroki froze over his own underwear and used Midoriya’s All Might underwear, which Midoriya found more mortifying than Todoroki did) were traded around, until it landed on YN for the first time all night. 

“Eh, YN.” Ochako murmured past the thirteen marshmallows in her mouth. “Do you hath a cruth on nnieeone?” “Huh?” YN tilted her head, crossing her legs with a bit of sass. “Now, isn’t that a bit…?” “Nobe!” Ochako chirped, her face splitting into a grin. “Anthwer!” “Ocha…” YN extended her hand, sighing. “I, well…” “You tho! You tho!” Ochako cheered. Midoriya didn’t realise he was on the edge of his seat until he almost fell off. “Thay it!” “Well, maybe…” She pursed his lips. “I can tell you he’s in this room.” Midoriya’s heart skyrocketed. In this room!? There was only him, and Bakugou, and Todoroki, Sero, Denki, Mineta, and Shoki and Tokoyami, Aoyama, Iida, Ojirou, Kirishima, Koda, Sato… Midoriya’s hopes plummetted. It didn’t narrow it down by a lot. 

“Yeah?! Who?! Who?!” “He has...a darker palette?” YN tapped a finger to her chin, trying to dance around the question. It cancelled out Denki, Bakugou, Todoroki, Sato, Ojirou, Aoyama, Koda, and kind of Kirishima if Midoriya squinted. 

“And he’s really smart, and does really well in class.” That definitely outs Kirishima and Sero. Ojiro, Koda, Tokoyami, Aoyama, and Shoji weren’t exceptional in class, either. So all that was left was…

Midoriya’s brain stopped. It stopped fully in its tracks. 

All it left was him. 

It was like he did a mental stutter, the couch feeling like a rock and his hands feeling far too sweaty for his liking. He wiped them on his jeans, but they seemed to be just as sweaty as before. He swallowed. He slicked back his hair a bit. His eyes wandered. Every second felt far too long. 

“That’s not enough, YN.” Mina whined, tipping back so she was laying on the floor. “You have to tell tell us!” “Nah.” She reclined into her hand with a soft smile, blinking slowly. She seemed satisfied, despite the other girl’s begging for more information. Midoriya coughed into his fist, trying to regain his sensibility before slowly rising. 

“I, uh, I’m gonna head to bed!” “Whaaaatttt?” Mina crooned, leaning forward. “Why? Not even Bakugou has gone to bed yet.” 

“Shut up!” “I’m just tired,” Midoriya rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, trying to edge away. Before he could, though, YN rose up and took a deep breath. 

“I’m going to bed, too.” She smiled, nodding her head. “We need to get sleep while we can, right?” “Ughhhhhh,” Ochako groaned, finally swallowing the marshmallows. “Fine. But it won’t be the same!” 

“That sounds like a you problem.” YN sassed before walking past Midoriya, glancing at him when she passed. It was as intimidating and romantic as eye contact could be, and made his knees grow weak. 

“R-right.” Midoriya said, though no one asked him anything. “Sure.” “Huh? Dude, are you okay?” Kirishima leans over, but Midoriya just shakes his head as he watches YN walk away. “Y-Yeah!” He juts his thumb towards the hallway, wondering how long leaving was going to take. “I’m just...gonna go.” Before anyone else could say anything, he booked it until he turned the corner and was out of sight. He was panting, but less out of the running than it was nervousness. He kept looking behind him, like he was expecting one of his classmates to come barrelling at him. He turned a second corner, only to bump directly into YN. She had been standing, waiting there for him, with a deep stare. “Hey, Izuku.” 

Midoriya jumped, nearly hopping out of his skin at her gentle, quiet tone. Her arms were crossed, and her eyes were bearing into him. 

“O-Oh! YN! Hi! Hey! I mean, uh, I thought you were going to bed.” He started backing away slowly until his back hit the wall. “Yeah. But I wanted to talk to you.” YN brought her arms up and promptly slammed them on either side of Midoriya’s shoulders, effectively trapping him between her and the wall. “You’re bright red.” “R-really?!” His eyes looked everywhere and nowhere, speeding around until they landed on her. Her brow was furrowed and her nose was scrunched. 

“Yeah. Say...do you have a crush on anyone?” She leaned in, eyes glancing down onto his lips before flickering back up. 

“M-maybe!” He squeaked, desperately trying to figure out how he should respond. Everything about this was something out of a manga, not real life. 

“You know…” YN leaned in again, this time not only looking at his lips but keeping her eyes on them. "I've never wanted to kiss anyone as much as I want to kiss you."

Midoriya felt his face flush again, then go cold, then flush redder than before. It was a constant rapture that seized him, lifting him up higher than he could ever consider. 

“What?!” He yelped once his mind caught up with what was going on. “Shh!” She hissed, putting a finger over her lips, which looked very cute. “You don’t want the whole dorm knowing, do you?” 

“Oh…” Midoriya wasn’t sure if he did want everyone to know, but YN kabedonning him made his brain keep on stuttering like a broken record. 

“Hey…” For a second, there was a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Do you like me? All the girls say you do, but still…” 

“Yes!” Midoriya nearly shouted, jumping and almost bonking heads with YN. “Yes, yes, yes!” 

“Wait, really?” YN leaned back, surprise on her face. “I thought I was going to scare you off, or something.” 

“Not at all!” Midoriya started waving his hands, a happy flush growing on his face. 

“Then...do you wanna date?” “Yeah. “ He sighed softly. His eyes were wide and his heart felt like it had soared to the moon. The moment was pure ecstasy, and he couldn’t come down from this high.

“I would love that.” 

[mostlycompetentwriter]

Changbin Lyric Drabble #3 (SKZ Countdown)

F/M Pairing: Y/N x Seo Changbin (SKZ)

Warnings: Smut and Language

Song Lyric Prompt: “I just wanna look good for you,” Good For You by Selena Gomez ft. A$AP Rocky

A/N: Mafia Changbin is a concept.

He was, admittedly, much more handsome than my last co-star from that cheap movie about an alien abduction, but his cock wasn’t very big, and he was too young to understand that his pleasure wasn’t the only thing that mattered. “Can you turn towards the camera? We need to see your eyes.”

I obeyed the director’s request, tilting my head carefully to the side. The action caused my freshly dyed hair to fall across the red linen bed sheets in a permanent state of disarray. But I still focused on my facial expressions, closing my eyes around a moan when I felt the actor start to move his hips faster against mine. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to satisfy me, but I knew that there was only one person who could, and my eyelids fluttered open to look at Changbin standing behind the cameras, and his gaze was locked on mine. 

It turned me on more than the actor who was supposed to be giving me the best orgasm of my life, according to the title of this particular pornography movie. However, it was a well-known fact that I was notoriously difficult to please, and it was mostly Changbin’s fault because I had become addicted to the pleasure that he could provide. Actually, under most circumstances, I was forced to fake my orgasm for the camera, praying that the director would accept the fabricated release.

Despite the fact that Changbin was my agent, and he was supposed to help me find acting jobs on these porn shoots, I had also come to realize that he was an exceptional lover, and I required his presence in the room even though most of the directors were not pleased. Moreover, during my time in the industry, I had learned that I desperately needed Changbin in close proximity; otherwise, I couldn’t even imagine myself reaching any sort of climax with the boring partners that they assigned me.

Changbin knew this too, and he sometimes liked to put on a show for me because he felt bad for the actors who were trying to do their job for the shoot. Changbin always waited until the other actors started fucking me, catching my attention by stepping forward into my line of vision. Most of the time, I only needed his attention, but he might also take things a step further.

For example, while I arched my back, I finally released a loud moan when I noticed that Changbin was touching himself through the front of his skinny jeans. The outline of his erection was visible, and he was rubbing himself against the material to provide additional friction. The simple action made me remember the first time I took his cock because it had only taken me one good orgasm to realize that I was ruined for any other man, and that was dangerous in my line of work.

I swallowed hard when the actor leaned over my torso, grunting hard in my ear, and I tried to pretend that it was Changbin’s cock pleasuring me. I grabbed my thighs, forcing my legs wider apart, and I focused on the sensations of the cock rubbing intimately against my clitoris. “Fuck yeah, baby,” the actor moaned, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes since he was making it hard to imagine myself with another man.

Instead, I turned away from him, shivering when I realized that Changbin was mouthing something in my direction. I squinted my eyes to focus on him, making out the words as they formed in exaggerated syllables: “You’d better cum.”

I whined loudly when I finally found my release, and the director nodded his approval.

After the shoot, I returned to my dressing room to clean myself and change into something more appropriate. I tried to focus on the task at hand, refusing to remember how the director had praised my performance by telling me that the other actor would love to work with me again in the future. I had rolled my eyes in response, but pasted on a fake smile when I told him that I’d consider the offer. 

I meant to ask Changbin about it, but he had disappeared after the ending of the shoot. However, I highly suspected that he would eventually join me in my dressing room, and before I could even remove my robe, one of the assistants was calling my name to ask me if it was okay that my agent wanted to come inside to see me. I smiled at her in reassurance. “Tell him it’s fine.”

I was used to being naked around Changbin in the same room. It only made sense to the staff who worked behind the scenes because he was my agent. Plus, when we met for the first time, I remember stripping down in front of him, wearing nothing but a tiny pair of panties, watching him as his eyes studied me with obvious lust. 

“Y/N,” he said, bowing politely at the make-up artists who giggled before closing the door behind them.

It left the two of us alone, and I didn’t bother trying to fix my robe, turning around in my chair so that I could see Changbin. In return, he didn’t even bother to disguise his interest, and a look of longing affected the brown color of his eyes when he realized that my robe was too short and I had neglected to wear anything underneath. “Y/N.”

“What do you think?” I asked him, and the question was vague enough because I wanted to know if Changbin would give me his thoughts on the shoot or my appearance in this intimate dressing room.

“I like whatever they did to your tits,” he said, and I smirked at his crude words. His mind was clearly in the gutter, but it wasn’t surprising because our supposedly professional relationship extended far beyond Changbin scheduling for me acting spots in cheap pornography movies.

“It’s just glitter,” I said, allowing my robe to fall completely apart so that I could trace my fingers seductively around my nipples.

Changbin’s eyes widened, and I could see the way his breathing had changed as he took a step closer to me. I waited patiently, admiring the bulk of his arms as they constricted the fabric of his shirt. He knelt down in front of me, reaching out to delicately trace the swirling designs painting the skin of my breasts. “What did you think of the shoot?” I asked him, amused by his soft touches.

“I think it was your best,” he said, looking at me like he was moment’s away from taking me against the wall.

“You were watching me,” I said.

Changbin smirked. “There’s nothing better than watching this little pussy get stuffed full of cock.”

I shivered, and he suddenly resumed his full height, leering down at me while I uncrossed my legs and spread them wider. “His cock wasn’t as good as yours.”

He was even closer than before, straining against the front of his pants. “Well?”

I reached for his belt, pulling it through the loops of his jeans before breaching the fabric of his underwear to grab his half-hard cock. Meanwhile, I carefully tugged down his jeans and boxer shorts so that his cock was exposed to the room, and we could both watch the way my hand encircled the head of his erection. I placed a delicate kiss on the tip, giving him the sultry look that I had come to perfect for the camera. “Maybe one day we can do a scene together.”

Changbin swallowed hard. “Yeah, that would be fucking hot.”

I allowed my tongue to finally taste him, closing my eyes before hollowing my cheeks to take his entire cock into my mouth. 

[twomanyideas]

The Search for the Supreme Scent

Fan art used with permission from @x-thekid A Collaboration by @mdelpin and @oryu404​ with @x-thekid

Fairy Tail Reverse Bang 2020 Pairing: Gray x Natsu AO3 | Ch 1 | Next: Ch 2

Summary: Natsu has decided he’s lived with his feelings for Gray long enough. It was one thing when he thought that Gray and Juvia were together, but now that he knows differently, he refuses to wake up one morning only to find that it's too late.

When Erza forces the two of them to do a job, he discovers it's just the opportunity he needs.

0-0

This is our entry for the Fairy Tail Reverse Bang, which was a really fun event hosted by @ftguildevents.

We were lucky enough to be paired with @x-thekid who is the wonderful artist behind this fan art. You can see her post here. Please take a moment to let her know how much you liked her art!

A few notes:

This story touches upon three in-game quests - Isosceles or Love Triangle (Juvia Character Story), Monster Outbreak from the Very Difficult Requests Set DLC, and The Search for the Supreme Scent (Ichiya Character Story).

This AU has elements of Fairy Tail canon, game canon, as well as game elements we have attempted to incorporate into the story. An example of this is duels, which is an in-game mechanism and not at all as dramatic as Gray might make them sound. ;)

In the game all the playable characters are always at Fairy Tail, this includes Jellal, Ichiya, Kagura, Sting, Rogue, Lyon and Chelia.

We had a lot of fun working on this story and we hope you enjoy it! It is four chapters long and we will post a chapter daily until it is done.

Chapter 1

Natsu entered the newly restored Fairy Tail Guild in his usual manner, kicking the door open and announcing his presence.

“I’m back!”

Only a few people looked up from what they were doing, accustomed as they were to his loud entrances.

“Morning Natsu,” Lucy greeted from her spot at their team table.

“Oh, hey Lucy,” Natsu walked over to the table, plopping down across from her while Happy went off searching for the other Exceeds.

“Are you taking a job with the slayers today, or are we going on a team job?” Lucy asked, and from the look on her face, he could tell which answer she was hoping for.

“No rent money again?” he asked with a knowing smile.

“I’ve been going on a few requests with Levy and the others, but the jobs they take don’t tend to pay as much,” she explained quickly. “Although,” she teased, “there’s definitely a lot less destruction.”

Natsu chuckled. He certainly couldn’t say the same of the jobs he’d been going on. He was bad enough on his own, but adding Sting and Gajeel to the equation, it soon grew beyond anything he could have imagined.

“Sorry, Sting and Rogue should be here any minute.”

“Oh well, I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” Lucy began, but her voice was drowned out somewhat unexpectedly.

“For the last time. NO,” Gray’s yells cut through all conversations, and everyone turned to see what was happening. “I don’t want to go on another job with you!”

Gray stood by the request board, holding a flyer in his hand. His mouth was set in a hard line, but his fingers moved ever closer to the hem of his shirt, which Natsu knew meant he was anxious. Juvia stood next to him, leaving barely any space between them, as she usually did. Her eyes filled with tears at Gray’s tone, her gaze imploring him to change his mind, but it seemed for once the ice mage was determined not to back down.

Natsu heard the murmurs start, and given the things that were being said, he hoped Gray wasn’t able to.

“But Gray-sama, we make a perfect team,” Juvia pleaded, still determined to get her way, “Our magics are compatible, and Juvia can protect you better than anyone.”

“I don’t need protecting,” Gray scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. “What I need is a partner who can keep their head on the job, and not on me.”

“Juvia can do that!” Juvia exclaimed, utterly oblivious to the rebuke. Her tears disappeared, and in her excitement, she grabbed on to Gray’s arm.

Gray shook himself free from her grasp and took a step back. “I said, NO,” he repeated firmly.

The guild’s murmurs only grew louder and more disapproving of Gray as Juvia once again began to cry, running off towards one of the rear exits that led to the pool. Many heads turned to follow her, some even sparing sympathetic looks, but no one offered to check on her, and after a few awkward seconds, Gajeel sighed and stepped up to the task. Natsu couldn’t help but feel bad for his rival, although his mind was swimming from what he’d just seen. Gray, however, seemed to have had enough. One second he was there, the next he was gone, and all that could be heard was the sound of the heavy guild doors slamming shut.

Natsu was as shocked as everyone else. Gray had always had a temper. He knew that better than anyone, but it was unlike him to lash out at any of the girls.

“What was that about?” he asked Lucy, who, like Mira, usually knew just about everything that went on in the guild.

Lucy peered at the guild doors thoughtfully and shrugged, “I guess she finally pushed too hard.”

“I thought he liked going on jobs with her,” Natsu commented, his brows furrowing in confusion when Lucy began to laugh.

“You really have been gone a lot, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?” he frowned, not liking that there was something about Gray he didn’t know.

“All I know is last week he practically begged me to go on a job with the two of them,” Lucy confided, “I thought Juvia was going to find a way to stab me with her eyes. It was so awkward.”

She glanced around the guild to make sure no one was paying any attention to them before revealing, “He looked miserable too. And the sad thing was when I asked him why he wanted me there,” Lucy paused, looking pained by her next words, “He said he didn’t feel like his body was safe around her.”

Natsu tried to come up with some sort of retort but found he couldn’t focus on anything but the maelstrom of emotions brewing inside him at hearing those words. On the one hand, he was cautiously hopeful that maybe Gajeel had been right when he’d told him he was reading too much into Gray’s relationship with Juvia. But that was short-lived. It was soon replaced by an increasing fury at the idea of Gray feeling that way about someone in their guild- the one place where they should all feel safe. “Aren’t Cana’s drinks great?” Erza commented as she joined them at the table, holding a mug full of some strawberry smelling concoction, and saving Natsu from having to come up with a reply.

“They sure are,” Lucy agreed, seeming just as relieved to change the subject. “Just the thing before going on a job.”

His two friends continued talking about some of the other upgrades they had added to the guild while Natsu struggled to control himself. He could understand being angry on Gray’s behalf, but this rage flowing through him seemed excessive, and it disturbed him.

Gray had always been able to take care of himself. He didn’t need protection from anyone, least of all him. Natsu tried to take part in the conversation around him when Juvia happened to walk past him. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and to his great shock, he found himself growling at her, his fists balled and ready to attack. Juvia gaped at him before hurrying away from their table.

Lucy glanced at him curiously while Erza’s eyes narrowed at the display. Natsu could already tell he was in for it, and he wasn’t disappointed when he felt the sharp sting of her fist connecting with his head.

“For goodness sake, pull yourself together, Natsu! Is that what you slayers do on these jobs, act like wild animals?”

“Of course not!” he complained, rubbing his head, even as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

“Did we miss something?” Sting Eucliffe asked as he promptly shoved Natsu further into the booth to make room for him and Rogue. “We saw Gray as we came in. He looks pissed.”

Natsu shrugged in reply, not wanting to get into what had happened.

“Are Gajeel and Wendy here yet?” Rogue asked, looking around the guild for the other slayers.

Natsu could tell the moment Gray reentered the guild, not just by the surge of his familiar scent but also by the whispers. When the ice mage took his seat at their table, Natsu made sure to look down at the tabletop so that Gray wouldn’t be able to see his face, just in case it betrayed his feelings.

Natsu could feel the guild’s temperature drop a few degrees as soon as Gray noticed Sting and Rogue. “Great, you two are here again.”

“Gray!” Erza scolded, “Is that any way to talk to our friends?”

Gray covered his eyes with his hand in what Natsu recognized as a futile attempt to control himself. A few moments later, he fixed his gaze on Natsu and scoffed, “So I’m guessing you’re going off with them again today?”

Natsu nodded, not trusting his words not to anger Gray further when he was so clearly holding on by a tenuous thread.

“When you talked to us about this, you said this shit was only going to be once a week,” Gray reminded him.

“I haven’t been gone that often,” Natsu protested, even though he knew it was certainly more than they had initially planned. “I don’t hear anyone else complaining.”

“Oh, believe me, we’ve all done plenty of complaining. You just haven’t been around to hear it. Lucy can’t make her rent from the jobs she can manage on her own.”

“If you’re so worried about Lucy, why don’t you go on a job with her?” Natsu challenged.

“Hey!” Lucy snapped, “Leave me out of this.”

“That’s not the point, and you know it,” Gray pinched the bridge of his nose, “Ugh, you’re giving me a headache.”

“What’s the matter, Princess?” Natsu goaded, “You miss me?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Flame Brain. You’re neglecting your friends- our team- to go off to play with the other dragon slayers.” To make matters worse, Sting decided to butt into the conversation. “Nah, we’re not playing! We’re, uh...pushing each other to get stronger!” he grinned, casually resting his elbow on Natsu’s shoulder. “You know, similar magic and all that.”

“Oh God,” Rogue hid his face behind his hand, looking ready to slide underneath the table.

“Did you just say I’m weak?” Gray spat furiously.

“Huh? Where did you get that from?”

“Just shut up, you’re only making things worse,” Natsu scolded his friend.

“Natsu! You can’t talk to Sabertooth’s Guild Master like that!” Erza berated, horrified by his words.

“What?! He doesn’t care!”

“That’s it!” Gray pounded his fist on the table, “I challenge you to a duel!”

If looks could kill, Sting would have dropped dead that very second.

“Yes, that’s a great idea!” Lyon exclaimed, suddenly appearing next to Gray. “If Sting wins, Natsu and Wendy can go to Sabertooth. And if you win, they can stay in Fairy Tail!” “Not this crap again!” Gray scowled at his foster brother. “Where the hell did you even come from? And why are you people here all the time?!” he complained, raising his hands in disbelief at all the non-Fairy Tail mages lounging around. “Don’t you have your own guilds?”

“I don’t see what your problem is, “ Lyon shrugged, “seems to me like it would fix everything.”

“Oh, hell no, I do not agree to that,” Natsu chimed in, “I love you guys, but I am a Fairy Tail wizard.”

“What the hell, Flame Brain, are you implying I’m going to lose to him?” Gray scoffed, looking offended, although Natsu thought he caught a glimpse of hurt in the ice mage’s expression for a moment.

“What?! I didn’t say that!” Natsu objected, but Gray refused to look at him.

“Who even said we wanted you?” Rogue pointed out, even though it was evident that Sting’s eyes were already lit up at the idea of a challenge.

“ENOUGH!” Erza shrieked, and when they continued to bicker despite her outburst, she muttered, “I’m surrounded by complete idiots!”

She watched them for another minute, looking from one wizard to the next. She grabbed Natsu and Gray by the collar, swiftly realizing they were the only two she could do anything about. Knocking their heads together, she managed to shut up Sting, Rogue, and Lyon, who could only stare at her in shock.

“They’re all insane,” Rogue muttered under his breath, but thankfully Sting was the only one to hear him.

“I’m sorry I’m late. Carla wanted to stop at the market and-,” Wendy stopped mid-sentence, marking the unnatural quiet at a table filled with people known for their loudness. She peered closer, noticing Natsu and Gray glaring at each other and sporting two large bumps on their heads. “Did I miss something?”

She moved over to their side of the table, calling on her magic to heal them, although this didn’t seem to ease their hostility in the slightest.

Thankfully the awkwardness was interrupted by Master Makarov making his way over to the stage.

“Settle down brats, I have an announcement to make,” Makarov yelled from the stage, waiting for a few minutes until he was sure he had everyone’s attention. Peering at the faces that were now intent on him, he remarked cheerfully, “Oh good, I see many of our friends are here! This concerns you too.”

“Do you know what this is about, Erza?” Lucy whispered, but Erza only shook her head.

“We have been through a lot in the last couple of years. All of you have shown courage and skill far beyond your years, and I am incredibly proud of you.” Makarov beamed.

“Now, about eight years ago, we were rudely interrupted in the middle of one of our time-honored traditions, and I, for one, think it’s time we finish what we started.”

“S-Class Trials?” Natsu and Gray chorused eagerly.

“Indeed!” Makarov confirmed with a wide grin, “When I informed the Council of my intentions, they asked that I open the testing up to the other guilds since we currently have the best setup for it. For that reason, the rules have changed a bit.”

“There will be no nominations this time. As far as I’m concerned, you have all more than proven yourselves, so anyone who feels ready is welcome to participate. Teams can have up to five members and may include wizards from different guilds. You may ask one S-Class Wizard to be part of your team if you wish. Any team that completes every exam phase successfully will see all its members promoted to S-Class. The exam will once again take place on Tenrou Island."

“That’s all I have for now. I will have more details on the test itself once I have spoken to the other Guild Masters,” Makarov peered down at Sting and Rogue with a smile. “Master Sting, am I right to assume you and Rogue will be participating?”

"Of course we are!" Sting was almost glowing with excitement, and even Rogue gave an eager nod.

“Alright then, we’ll figure out a way to keep you in the loop so you can pass the information along to the rest of your guild,” Makarov informed him, “We’ll talk about it later.”

Sting nodded in agreement, and Makarov turned his attention back to the others, “ I want you all to think about whether you will take part in the exam or not. I firmly believe you’re all capable of this, but only you can decide if you’re up to it. I’ll need your response by the end of the week, along with a list of your team members.”

With that, Makarov walked off the stage and made his way over to Cana’s bar, climbing onto a stool and ordering a drink. Everyone began to talk all at once, the guild’s noise rising to almost unbearable proportions for the dragon slayers.

Natsu couldn’t contain his excitement any more than the others; he would finally become S-Class! Something he and Gray had dreamed of doing from the moment Erza had joined their ranks so many years ago. He looked towards where Gray had been sitting just a few minutes earlier, only to find the seat empty.

[itsuki-minamy]

“YATA'S FIRST DRAMA”

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

"Eh, are you crazy?"

In response to the offer, Misaki Yata raised his voice.

It was too late when he thought about what had happened. Kusanagi's eyebrows, sitting next to him, snap up and he hits Yata's head with the corner of the folder in his hand.

"Are you angry?"

"I am sorry. This fool does not know courtesy.”

However, the key producer who brought the offer did not break his smile.

"Do not worry. It is natural for Yata-san to be angry, right?”

A person who can do it. Or are you used to the profession or rudeness of idols? Yata leaned down while rubbing his beaten head.

"Sorry, you had to listen to this rude mouth."

In the entertainment world, courtesy is second only to popularity. It is something that Kusanagi, like no other, has said with a sour mouth. Yata believes that it is a line that pays courtesy to the superior.

"But I cannot do it."

Still, he had to say that. If you value courtesy, don't say you can do what you can't.

Appear on a drama show starting this fall. That was the offer they brought.

As an idol, he has appeared on various variety shows. There were many situations where improvisations were required, and he has played a role in a bit of control.

However, those experiences are quite different from the usual serial drama. It seemed impossible to Yata to be able to interpret someone other than himself or naturally speak the determined line.

Kusanagi looked at Yata with a worried face. Yata's expression looking back probably confused him.

"Well, if Yata-chan says that, it's no use."

Kusanagi said that with a sigh. Yata looked down, biting into the feeling of being forced, and wondered why he had that feeling.

The producer looked at them with a gentle look and said...

"That's right. So for now…”

++++++++++

That night, "Homura Entertainment Office". In a corner of the HOMRA bar...

"Oh, what about me...? I do not care. So now, um... right now..."

With a notebook on his chest, Yata closed his eyes and desperately tried to remember the dialogue.

The producer suggested, "Take the script home for now."

“If you are concerned with remembering or acting, read the book once. Still, if you can't avoid it, you can reject it. If you refuse even if you say it's too much, "Homura Entertainment Office" won't insist. "

"No! I can't remember at all!”

Launching the script, Yata sat on the sofa.

(Damn! In that case, I was going to study a little more seriously...)

(Since graduating from high school, I have never had to study anything. Idol lessons are all about moving the body, and I have come across projects that I have never done before. Until now I have been managing it.)

(But the drama doesn't go that way. It's the artists and staff around me who forget the lines and get upset. It's not something that can be handled with glue or impulse.)

(In that case, I wonder if I can do it skillfully.)

Suddenly, such an idea shook his head. Yata frowns and hits the couch in anger.

"Eh?! What happened, Yata-san? What did I do?"

Suddenly I hear a voice. When he turned my head, Kamamoto was entering the HOMRA bar.

"Oh, no, no. I was afraid of myself.”

"Afraid of yourself...? It is not like you, Yata. Is it an example script?”

Yata nods relentlessly. Kamamoto sits down on the opposite sofa and picks up the script.

"Oh, there are quite a few lines. This is certainly difficult.”

"Really. I have to give up acting or at least just dialogue.”

"Maybe I will get another offer. I can't help but embarrass that producer. The frustration is that I'm not sure it will please my fans.”

"Hmm, I see."

Kamamoto leafed through the script for a while, but suddenly said:

"Speaking of which, Yata-san. It looks like Anna was worried about something, but she seems to be busy, making it impossible to hear her, right?”

"What?"

Yata jumped up, changed his blood phase, and went to Kamamoto.

"I don't care about myself! What happened to Anna? I'm going to listen now!”

Anna is like the family at the "Homura Entertainment Office" If she is worried, he has to help her with anything.

Kamamoto started laughing. Yata looks at Kamamoto suspiciously.

"The script dialogue right now is the same."

"What?"

"This character looks exactly like Yata-san. He is also rushing because he is worried about his sister, like Yata-san.”

He received the script sent without knowing the reason. When he opened it, it was exactly the situation and the line.

As inspired, something flashed in Yata's head.

"I see. This boy is almost like me!”

(When he was happy, sad, or angry, I read that most of the reactions were "I would do this if I was angry" or "I would say this if I was myself." It was like seeing me in a photo.)

"I just thought about learning the lines and didn't realize it. If this is...!”

He only need to learn the lines at least and understand the flow of the story. There is no need to act. This is Yata himself. If he lives in a play, there is nothing easier to do.

Yata finally realized why the producer was trying to offer him so much. It is not a matter of popularity or exposure. It is because Yata can do this role better.

Yata looked at Kamamoto with a complete smile.

"Thank you, Kamamoto! That's pretty good!”

"No. I only know Yata-san well.”

Yata approaches Kamamoto laughing, scratching his head. He puts his arm around his shoulder.

"More or less. By the way, one thing I want to say is…”

"Yes?"

"It was simple, was that wrong?"

He shook his head.

++++++++++

As a result, Yata's first appearance in the drama was a success.

He lost his words and the flow of the story, but above all, his natural acting was appreciated.

Sometimes they are called "natural actors who don't seem to be acting," but because Yata really sought to "do this as if he were" rather than actually acting, it is a good place for Yata.

"I thought I was going to be successful from the start."

It was the producer who said that while smiling. Yata wondered what kind of people were involved in the production.

Just because…

“So I would like this project below. Okay, it's a special children's program, so you can play without hesitation.”

The following offer submitted cannot be rejected. Even better, because he found the name "Fushimi Saruhiko" as a co-star.

[nthnstrky007]

Unit Alias #1: “The Flow of Water Breaks the Dame!”

As the bullets whizzed passed my head, only one thought stood out from all the noise and panic around me: I know I should have eaten toast instead of that bagel this morning. It’s just, I get so tired of the same old whole wheat toast and almond butter; it’s not my fault the fabric of reality starts to fold in on itself everytime I choose something new for breakfast. After another twenty seconds of some mindless brutes trying to turn my apartment into a modern artist’s tribute to swiss cheese, a voice of remote reason finally speaks up:

“Leonardo Crews, please step away from the bean bag chair”.

I can’t help but roll my eyes. It’s her: Sharon Winstead. The woman who would surely be my handler if the US government had their way and I became a secret agent or lab rat or whatever the heck they’d want me to do with these powers. I stand up and make a couple steps to the right as I put my hands on my head. At least the government sent a nice pair of legs to yell at me.  

One of the armed boneheads she brought with her speaks up, ‘Why would you hide behind a froggy bean bag chair?”

“Cause who the hell would ever shoot a froggy bean bag chair?” I challenge him and the two other armored doofuses.

They all mumble and meet eyes until one of them sheepishly says: “he’s right…” 

Sharon, the not so love-able stick in the mud that she is, won’t let me have fun for too long. “Your work here is done unit Alias. Go downstairs and do the usual routine with the landlord; come back, as I planned, when you’re done”. 

A couple ‘yes ma’ams’ and military mumbo jumbo is thrown around as they leave. I can’t help but feel sorry for guys who would willingly join an organization that has the loyalty of a teenage boy after a positive pregnancy test. 

“Real smart fellas you have there.”

Sharon looks at me, I guess with a hint of disappointment. “You know as well as I that if they were going for the kill, you’d be dead”. 

“Along with a couple billion realtites and, knowing how much the universe seems to adore me, time itself. And what’s up with ‘your plan’ anyway? The military never came in guns blazing before. Don’t you geniuses know how important I am?” 

“Are you threatening us now Leonardo?”

I relax my arms at my side as I walk into the pantry. The universe is on my team, as always, when I see one of the only undamaged things is what I’m looking for. I walk out in a sufficiently better mood with my packet of poptarts. “I’m just asking questions that pertain to the continuation of existence itself”. 

Sharon scoffs and continues on: “Do you understand the magnitude of such threats, Leonardo?”

 I wave her off with my free hand after opening my second breakfast. “ What threats? And please, it’s Leo; I’m not an award winning actor, just a potential destroyer of the timestream” I see the red emerge in her face and can’t help but chuckle. It's a mystery to me how she was able to secure one of the most secretive and ‘important’ jobs in the world with such a short fuse. Despite the fact that she is totally unlikable, the babe has grown on me over the years so I give her restless mind a break: “Y’know I’m not gonna go awol, especially when you pay for all my streaming service. And, uh, time wouldn’t be destroyed, just altered in some terrible heinous way. Such as your occupation being changed to stripper.” 

She gives me one more uneasy look before moving on. “You have a place I can sit?” 

“You mean a place you geniuses haven’t shot up yet? Don’t make me say it.”

“The frog chair?” She groans.

“I do believe it's pronounced froggy bean bag chair.” 

She gives her eyes another roll as she sits down in the thing. “Can you sit with me?” 

Sharon likes to remind me that in some ways I’m still a normal human. An example of 

this being a woman with a face and a body like hers asking me to sit down with a voice like hers using a tone like that,  regardless of if she is a facist pig or not, I’m probably gonna sit with her. 

“What’s the prob Bob?” I sit criss-cross applesauce a yard or so across from her. 

To my disappointment, not exactly my surprise, she grows serious as soon as I sit down. 

“We can’t keep doing this dance Leonardo.” 

“Doing what dance?” I let out the question with a bit of playful innocence.

“That.” She takes a moment to think before she begins her spill. “The U.W.O is not going to remain patient. The fate of existence potentially depends on what you have for lunch and you refuse to follow the guidelines that we give you. You probably can’t count how many times you’ve been told this, but you’re an anomaly. The only thing we have to go off of is my father’s theories: the regular flow of time is completely dependent on you. Every decision you make can drastically change our world’s past and half the time we can’t even detect those changes. Not to mention, if certain parts of that theory are true, the effects you can be having on our future. Leo, history is a book that you can rip up on an unknowing whim and the future is more uncertain that it has any right to be”. 

“And yet we keep dancing…”

“Excuse me?” 

I look at her for a second thinking that she for sures knows where I’m going, but it becomes clear to me she doesn’t. “You’re coming here to warn me. The U.W.O  knows that you’re the only person I can stand getting yelled at by so they send you here every time I decide to live my life so you can flutter your eyes and tell me not to. How many times have you been here this month? I admit the whole shoot-em-up bit is new, but other than that this is the same old routine we’ve done for the past year. The  only difference is I’ve been doing it my whole goddamn life and you’ve been doing it for a fraction of yours”. 

The woman actually cracks a smile as she comprehends what I’m saying. I don’t know if it’s mocking or understanding me, but, seeing as I have nothing else to do, I let her spill. “You call this living Leo? I don’t know what you do to mess up the timestream, but, judging by the hours of footage that features you exclusively watching ‘He-man’ reruns, I sure as hell know it’s not living. What, you played a new video game? Flushed the toilet too fast? You’re not living; the life you’re leading is not worth risking history for”. The sarcasm and aggression starts to leave her eyes as she looks at my face. I begin to open my mouth in defense when she shushes me with a new, almost maternal, attitude. “But I didn’t come here to play our twisted game of house. I’ve been in contact with my father”.

The news strikes a rare chord of hope in me. Sharon’s father was the closest thing I had to a dad when I grew up in the compound. He was also the one who convinced the board of directors to let me out when I turned eighteen. “Let out” is an odd way of saying letting me live in a heavily guarded cell that just happens to be in an apartment building. He ended up deciding he didn’t want to be a mindless puppet and left the U.W.O along with all his research. Last I heard, which was a very long time ago, he was up to a more scholarly pursuit. “How is he?”

She smiles as she thinks of her father. “He’s getting philosophical in his old age. After he left, he started living like a hermit in some remote island in the Atlantic. A place they’d have trouble finding if they ever were to look; he’s getting into some rebellious stuff there Leo. He wants you to leave and come see him. He wants to end this dance.”

“By ‘rebellious’, do you mean some dooms-day shit?” the words come out as the hope comes out of me. “We don’t know what the reaction will be if I get in a boat or plane. We barely know what’s gonna happen if I leave this building again. Make fun of me all you want, but, you basically said it yourself, 80s tv is the only life I can safely lead”.

“He told me to trust him. If he’s wrong, the situation will be no worse than it was before”. I could easily read the doubt in her face. “Or at least to him.”

“So what? The world ending is the same as the world not ending? Existence is all a lie and it doesn’t matter anyway? Don’t tell me he’s become some quasi-intellectual pothead who posts on psychedelic-themed online forums.” 

She rolls her eyes in response to my joke. “He’s disillusioned with our current world authority. He lived his whole thinking a plantery world order would be a good thing, so much so he helped to achieve it. Apparently after all those years and work, he thinks their practices are going to end us all. The way he sees it, the world may just end tomorrow; it’s any day now to him. In a certain manner of words, he’s desperate.”   

“And you?” 

She gives me another genuine look. “I trust my father as a leader and I care about you. He believes it's the right thing to do and you can’t keep up like this. Some of the things I’ve had to do this past year is enough for me to give up on doing the right thing through the government. Your problem is a problem that we might be able to fix on our own and trying is a lot better than you just rotting here waiting to die. Any ‘director’ who doesn’t like that can screw off.”

I let my eyes widen. “No one’s in on this? Why’d you bring the unit with you? Surely the bigwigs wire you up before you take their dogs for a walk?” 

“Watch your words; dogs we are no more, unit Alias, at least, is on this. No wires or strings attached. The general consensus is the current plan of keeping the world safe from you is eventually going to collapse without change; I can’t say they have the personal stake that my father has with the way he views us as siblings”.   

“Can’t really blame them for being worried or not particularly liking me, but they’re not here because of  what happened because of my bagel?” 

“What?”

“You came here to break me out, not to punish me for eating a bagel instead of toast?”

Sharon pulls a phone out of her pocket and scrolls through. “Oh…”

“What?”

“The ephilfel tower was built in Germany”.  

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes on Robert McKee’s “Story” 25: The Four Things You Need for a Perfect Scene

In this chapter we are going to look at all the essential pieces that go into designing a scene and how they impact it. I recommend that you revisit my notes on “the gap” because it will be discussed heavily. Get ready for a long but INCREDIBLY important post about all the little parts that go into writing great scenes that culminate in a great story.

I’d also like to preface this by stating that when I first read this chapter, I thought to myself, “There’s no way in hell I could live up to these expectations and write a story in which every scene ticks all of these boxes” and I felt really downhearted. 

But then I remembered, That’s why I’m here reading this book, taking these notes. And maybe that’s why you’re reading this post, because you’re like me and feel that your writing has room for improvement and/or you want to learn more about how storytelling works. 

Don’t read this post and think, “Oh my God, every single one of my scenes has to have all of these things happening or it’s worthless.” That would be the entirely wrong way to use this post. Instead, think of these parts of the scene coming together as one brilliant, glinting golden statue of The Perfect Scene that’s sitting up on a pedestal. Not all of your scenes have to be this flawless. Maybe not all of them can be. 

Instead, I advise you use the below information when you have written a scene and something about it seems “off” to you, but you can’t put your finger on what it is. Take a look at these four essential parts of the scene and ask yourself: “Does this problem scene have all of them? Is it missing something?” If it’s missing at least one, rethink the scene and work it in. Already this has proven eye-opening for me and several of my works where I’ve been stuck.

I think that this has turned out to be the most helpful section out of the entire book so far.

1. Turning Points

“A scene is a story in miniature--an action through conflict in a unity or continuity of time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a character’s life. No matter locations or length, a scene is unified around desire, action, conflict, and change.”

In every scene, a character is pursuing a desire related to their immediate time and place. This immediate desire (Scene-Desire) should be an aspect of the Super-Objective, the story-long quest that spans from Inciting Incident to Story Climax. In other words, you don’t want to have a scene in which the character is pursuing something that has nothing to do with the main plot. 

Within the scene, the character acts on their Scene Objective by choosing under pressure to take one action or another. However, from any or all levels of conflict comes a reaction they didn’t anticipate. The effect is to crack open the gap between expectation and result, turning their outer fortunes, inner life, or both from positive to negative or the opposite in therms of values the audience understands are at risk. 

Example: 

Let’s say the story is a crime novel in which a serial killer is behind bars and a copycat is suspected of being on the loose. Our protagonist the detective must put a stop to this. 

The Super-Objective: to identify and stop the copycat killer as soon as possible

In this particular scene, the detective who arrested the original serial killer must go question him to learn whether the copycat is in leagues with the serial killer. 

His Scene-Objective: to learn whether the copycat is in leagues with the serial killer.

The detective steels himself. He knows that it will be difficult to face this man again, even if he is chained to his chair in the safe interrogation room within the prison. The criminal is more beast than man, and the detective nearly lost his sanity and life putting him behind bars. He knows the serial killer is manipulative and knows the most cutting things to elicit the emotions he wants out of his victims. The detective refuses to be swayed by this.

Choice: Steel himself and face his old nemesis, or have someone else do it.

Expected Outcome: The detective, having steeled himself sufficiently, will not be swayed by the killer’s cunning words and will obtain the information he needs.

Actual Outcome (Gap): Before entering the interrogation room, he takes a look through the small glass window in the door and sees the killer staring right back at him with the same flinty eyes and bone-chilling grin he wore when he killed the detective’s partner all those years ago. The detective has a PTSD flashback and backs away from the interrogation room, unable to go inside. He is escorted away, and now there is doubt over whether he can handle this case.

Conflict: Inner, Personal (He is fighting against his own mind and emotions.)

A scene causes change in a minor, albeit significant way. A Sequence Climax is a scene that causes a moderate reversal--change with more impact than a scene. An Act Climax is a scene that causes a major reversal--change with greater impact than Sequence Climax. 

“Accordingly, we never write a scene that’s merely a flat, static display of exposition; rather we strive for this ideal: to create a story design in which every scene is a minor, moderate, or major Turning Point.”

There are four main effects of Turning Points:

Surprise (”I thought the detective could handle the interrogation!”)

Increased Curiosity (”What exactly did the serial killer do to his partner?”)

Insight (”The detective always seemed kind of aloof until now. This case and the loss of his partner made him become a cold person scared to let people close.”)

New Direction (Now the higher-ups are questioning their decision in choosing our detective to head this case and are thinking of taking him off it.)

The Question of Self-Expression

...Okay. I want to be professional and summarize this in my own words, but McKee has written it so damn well I can’t water it down or reword it, so here is this section its entirety. I think it’s very important for all writers.

“The storyteller leads us into expectation, makes us think we understand, then cracks open reality, creating surprise and curiosity, sending us back through his story again and again. On each trip back, we gain deeper and deeper insight into the natures of his characters and their world--a sudden awareness of the ineffable truths that lie hidden beneath the film’s images. He then takes his story in a new direction in an ever-escalating progression of such moments.

To tell a story is to make a promise: If you give me your concentration, I’ll give you surprise followed by the pleasure of discovering life, its pains and joys, at levels and in directions you have never imagined. And most important, this must be done with such seeming ease and naturalness that we lead the audience to these discoveries as if spontaneously. The effect of a beautifully turned moment is that filmgoers experience a rush of knowledge as if they did it for themselves. In a sense they did. Insight is the audience’s reward for paying attention, and a beautifully designed story delivers this pleasure scene after scene after scene. 

Yet, if we were to ask writers how they express themselves, more often than not they’ll reply: “With my words. My descriptions of the world and the dialogue I create for my characters. I’m a writer. I express myself in language.” But language is merely our text. First, last, and always, self expression occurs in the flood of insight that pours out of a Turning Point. Here the writer opens his arms to the world, saying: “This is my vision of life, of the nature of the human beings that inhabit my world. This is what I think happens to people in these circumstances for these reasons. My ideas, my emotions. Me.” Our most power means of self-expression is the unique way we turn the story.

Then come words. We apply our literary talent with vividness and skill, so that when a beautifully written scene is acted, the audience is carried willingly and pleasurably through our Turning Points. As important as language is, however, it’s only the surface by which we capture the reader to lead him to the inner life of the story. Language is a tool for self-expression and must never become a decorative end of its own. 

Imagine now the difficulties of designing a story so that thirty, forty, fifty times over, scenes turn into minor, moderate, or major ways, each expressing an aspect of our vision. This is why weak storytelling resorts to substituting information for insight. Why many writers choose to explain their meanings out of the mouths of their characters, or worse, in voice-over narration. Such writing is always inadequate. It forces characters to a phony, self-conscious knowledge rarely found in actuality. More important, even exquisite, perceptive prose cannot substitute for the global insight that floods the mind when we match our life experiences against an artist’s well-placed setup.”

2. Setups/Payoffs

“To express our vision scene by scene we crack open the surface of our fictional reality and send  the audience back to gain insight. These insights, therefore, must be shaped into Setups and Payoffs.”

To Set Up: To layer in knowledge

To Pay Off: To close the gap by delivering that knowledge to the audience

A setup is a little nugget of information or a seemingly small event that, come payoff (or the big reveal/plot twist), takes on a bigger an deeper meaning. 

Take THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK for example. When Darth Vader reveals that he’s Luke’s father, we rush back to the scenes in which Ben Kenobi and Yoda are greatly troubled over Luke’s command of the Force, fearing, we presume, for the young man’s safety. We now realize that Luke’s mentors were actually concerned for his soul, dreading that his father would seduce him to the “dark side.”

Setups are delicate in nature. Be too subtle about them and they will fly under the radar. Beat the audience over the head with them and they’ll see the payoff a mile in advance. Keep your target audience in mind, creating more and bigger set ups for youth audiences, and more subtle ones for middle-aged audiences. 

“Turning Points fail when we overprepare the obvious and underprepare the unusual.”

3. Emotional Transitions

This was a pretty enlightening section. I don’t think I’ve thought this hard about emotion since I took a class on Buddhist Philosophy back in uni. How do we move our audience? How do we make them laugh or cry or become outraged? 

“We render the precise experience necessary to cause emotion, then take the audience through that experience. Turning Points not only deliver insight, they create the dynamics of emotion.”

In order to create emotion within our audience, we first have to understand that there are only TWO emotions that can be broken down into variations: pleasure and pain.

Pleasure

Joy, love, happiness, rapture, fun, ecstasy, thrill, bliss, etc.

Pain

Anguish, dread, anxiety, terror, grief, humiliation, malaise, misery, stress, remorse, etc.

The audience experiences these emotions when the telling takes us through a transition of values. However, in order for the audience to feel these emotions the following criteria must be met:

We must empathize with the character

We must know what the character wants and want the character to have it

We must understand the values at state in the character’s life

Basically, we aren’t going to feel sad if some henchman gets offed, but we will feel sad if the protagonist we’ve rooted for and grown to love becomes unable to achieve his desire. 

As McKee spoke of in previous sections about the importance of alternating the positive/negative charge throughout the telling of the story, it is important to alternate between shades of pleasure and pain, because the Law of Diminishing Returns applies to story as much as it does real life.

Law of Diminishing Returns

“The more often we experience something, the less effect it has.”

When you have a slice of pie, it’s the best thing ever. The second slice isn’t too bad. The third and you might hurl. 

“The first time we experience an emotion or sensation it has its full effect. If we try to repeat this experience immediately, it has half or less than half of its full effect. If we go straight to the same emotion for the third time, it not only doesn’t have the original effect, it delivers the opposite effect. The repetition of “serious” emotion is, in fact, a favorite comic device.”

I think maybe this is why I’ve always had a hard time getting into most angst fanfictions. First off, I’m an emotional sponge soaking up everything on the pages, and I don’t like to feel sad. Secondly, I think there are a lot of angst fics that are just non-stop pain and it gets old for me. 

McKee points out that there is one exception when a story can go from positive to positive or negative to negative and successfully elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. If the contract between these events is so great, in retrospect the first takes on shades of its opposite.

Example: A couple argues and breaks up (negative). Next, one kills the other (DEFINITELY negative). The second turn is so powerful that it makes their break up seem almost positive in retrospect. “At least they were still talking then.”

Once a transition of value creates an emotion, feeling comes into play. However, “emotion” and “feeling” are not the same thing. 

Emotion is a short-term experience that peaks and burns rapidly.

Feeling (also known as “mood” in film) is a long-term, pervasive, sentient background that colors whole days, weeks, even years of our lives. It can even dye a personality. 

Depending on the feeling that dyes the character, scene, or story, the emotions evoked can change. If a man is feeling good about life and his career and relationship are going well, but then his lover dies, he’ll grieve and recover and go on with life. But if, on the other hand, he is already dark, stressed, and depressed and then his wife dies...the story may take an even darker turn.

“The arc of the scene, sequence, or act determines the basic emotion. Mood makes it specific. But mood will not substitute for emotion. When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller. It odes the writer no good to write an exposition-filled scene in which nothing changes, then set it in a garden at a sundown, thinking that a golden mood will carry the day. Undramatized exposition is boring in any light.”

4. The Nature of Choice

“An original work poses choices between unique but irreconcilable desires: It may be between two persons, a person and a lifestyle, two lifestyles, two ideals, two aspects of the innermost self--between any conflicting desires at any level of conflict, real or imagined, the writer my devise. But the principle is universal: Choice must not be doubt but dilemma, not between right/wrong or good/evil, but between either positive desires or negative desires of equal weight and value.”

I think in this age of prolific superhero films, a lot of creators feel the need to frame their story in “good vs. evil” or “right or wrong.”

Human nature dictates that each of us will always choose the “good” or the “right” as we perceive the “good” or the “right” one-hundred percent of the time. Therefore, a choice between “good and evil” or between “right and wrong” is not an actual choice.

However, each person’s perception of what is right or wrong is different. A thief knows that society views stealing as “wrong.” However, if he is stealing food in order to feed his family, in his own eyes, he is doing the “right” thing to keep his family fed. 

“True choice is dilemma. It occurs in two situations. First, a choice between irreconcilable goods: From the character’s view two things are desirable, he wants both, but circumstances are forcing him to choose only one. Second, a choice between the lesser of two evils: From the character’s view two things are undesirable, he wants neither, but circumstances are forcing him to choose one. How a character chooses in a true dilemma is a powerful expression of his humanity and of the world in which he lives.”

To construct and create genuine choice, we must frame a three-sided situation. 

“As in life, meaningful decisions are triangular. The moment we add “C” between “A” and “B,” we generate ample material to avoid repetition. Now there are three possible relationships between A and B: positive/negative/neutral, love/hate/indifference, for example. And we add the same line between A and C and B and C. This gives us nine possibilities. Then we may join A and B against C; A and C against B; B and C against A. Or put them all in love or all in hate or all indifferent. By adding a third corner, the triangle breeds over twenty variations, more than enough material to progress without repetition.

What’s more, triangular design brings closure. If a telling is two-sided so that A vacillates between B and no-B, the ending is open. But if choice is three-sided so that A is caught between B and C. A’s choice of one or the other closes the ending with satisfaction. Whether B and C represent the lesser of two evils or irreconcilable goods, the protagonist can’t have both. A price must be paid. One must be risked or lost to gain the other. If, for example, A relinquishes C to have B, the audience feels a true choice has been taken. C has been sacrificed, and this irreversible change ends the story.”

There’s a lot to be digested here. But basically, what McKee is saying is that a choice between yes/no, good/evil, right/wrong, he loves me/he loves me not is boring and inconclusive. If during the whole story the character vacillates between loving and not loving a man, if the story ends up with them breaking up again, the audience will just think, “They’ll just end up getting back together again at some point.” 

But if you add in a third variable, a price to be paid, something to be gained and lost with the final choice, there is an interesting story. 

In Summary

I know this was a LOT of information to take in at once. But remember the four key elements that create a beautiful scene:

Turning Points

Setups/Payoffs

Emotional Transitions

The Nature of Choice

If you have a problem scene that just doesn’t feel right, that feels flat, take a look and check whether it has all of these four aspects within it. And never give up.

Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print

[angelspigeon]

Rewrite the Stars - Chapter 03

Here is a new chapter!!!

I hope it still please you?

You can go on AO3 if it’s easier for you!! => |  °|

“Wake up, sleepy head!”

A groan replied to this happy voice.

“Come on!! I brought you the breakfast so you can stay with me a little bit longer.”

“Perfect proposition.”

Arms grabbed the slight waist and with a scream of joy, the young man landed in the bed and blankets covered them. He couldn’t stop laughing as he hugged back the other.

“Come on, brother!”

“Doesn’t this seem better?” he asked, caressing the chestnut hairs.

“It’s awesome! But don’t you need to train for your spectacle, Isa?”

Isa didn’t reply and hugged him more. Of course, Demyx still believed the spectacle grew more complicate and, yes, if it had been a part of the spectacle, he really should have continued to practice it with his friend, surely. But it wasn’t a part of the spectacle and he didn’t believe Braig would want to learn that. It was chance, or bad luck, if he had caught him on time.

Uh… maybe he really was awaited to prepare something as great as what they did yesterday?

“What is that?”

Isa moved his head to look what his brother had in his hand. It was Lea’s scarf…

Yesterday, the man had given it to him because he was still cold and he had kept it in his hand while sleeping. Why? Because it was the only spark of hope in his life. Demyx was important and he loved him so much but he couldn’t talk with him. He had to stay strong. Well… it was quite ironical because he didn’t think he was strong as he wanted to die but… but if this looked like an accident, maybe.

Maybe…

“It’s just… nothing. I was a bit cold yesterday.”

“Tonight, I’m sleeping with you so you’ll be warmed!”

Isa hugged him. “I really would like it. However… I think I will stay with Xemnas tonight.”

“Oh? Okay! I’m happy you allow this to you!”

Isa caressed Demyx’s hair with a light smile. His little brother thought he was forcing himself to come back because he was worry for him…

All he wanted was to come back, not to have to stay in Xemnas’ arms when he’d have done what it was expected from him… But he was too afraid. Too afraid of what Xemnas could do if he didn’t yield to his envy. And the worst? He didn’t know what his Ringmaster could make him pass through. Perhaps it was the reason he was so afraid?

Sometimes, he thought… they just should run away with Demyx. They could, in the mid of the night, the Moon being the only one to guard them. He could.

But for what?

And… Demyx seemed to be happy here.

He didn’t know how to react anymore. Just comply. Continue until the thin string of his conscience would break.

Isa kissed his forehead with softness.

“I’ll get ready for the training,” he said.

“I’ll come with you!”

“Very well.”

“And don’t forget to eat!” Demyx smiled.

“Yes.”

“You need strength to show them how much you’re awesome!”

The man forced a gentle smile for him and went out of the bed, readying himself to face the whole day…

Wearing a short and a tank, his hairs tied in a ponytail, Isa arrived with Demyx in the Big Top because it was where they always trained. They were already a lot, some warming them up, others just chatting. They were all ready for training.

Isa noticed Lea and he slightly nodded to him while the man waved his hand to him.

“Saïx.”

Isa turned his head to Xemnas. This one approached him and grabbed his chin before kissing his lips.

“Greetings, Xemnas,” Isa whispered.

“Hello, boss!” Demyx added.

“Hello my favorite moon!”

Braig quickly came to them to press a kiss on Isa’s cheek. Lea could recognize the guy Isa did acrobatics with yesterday. The one who actually saved his life…

“Perfect,” Xemnas said as he passed his arm around Isa’s waist and his hand landing on his hips. “We have a new recruit.” With his other hand, he showed Lea. “Please, show us what you can do so we can move forward.”

“Yup, Sir!”

Since he had talked about fire, a bit of materials have been brought here and as other where still chatting and warming up, Lea moved forward to a jerrycan filled with fuel and different stick. He quickly set fire in one and put some fuel in his mouth. The second after, he spat out the liquid on the flames and as soon it was out of his lips, hitting the fire, this one transformed immediately in a big snake.

Demyx let out a tiny scream of excitation. Braig immediately let applause swirl in the tent, followed soon by other.

Xemnas wasn’t stupid and knew it wasn’t just pyrokinesis…

He wasn’t stupid at all and could guess Lea just wanted all the chances to be a part of this Circus… It would be stupid, indeed, to refuse something like that among his spectacles.

The firesnake swirled under the Big Top and no flames brushed the slightest part of fabric or wound. It came down, next to the Artists, turning around them before spreading beautiful wings and rising to the very top where it exploded in a rain of stars.

“What a poser!” Braig smiled.

“That’s so beautiful!!” Demyx said.

“It is interesting,” a man with long blond hair commented next to them.

“Yes,” Xemnas replied. “It’s indeed, something we could use.”

Braig grabbed Isa’s hand and make him move back before bringing him in the part where the others warmed up.

“I can’t let you be a part of the spectacle before I’m sure you can have a correct spectacle, obviously. But we will work on this. Zexion!”

The young man, busy to talk with a blond one with a few piercing, turned his head toward them, the long lock hiding one of his blue eyes. Lea wondered if he was only able to see with that… He jumped on the floor and walked toward the new member of their Circus.

“Zexion, may I introduce you…” Xemnas watched Lea from his flamboyant hair to his toe hide in good sport shoes. “Axel.”

Lea could hear Isa saying ‘He adds an X in the things he owns’ at this exact moment.

He went from another Circus so having an Artist Name wasn’t that surprising but he did know that his one was different. Because, for example, Isa had been introduced as ‘Lunar Diviner’ and you could tell this was the Artist Name.

Isa was probably lying to himself because… Because it was easier to accept everything.

“Zexion, I expect you to help him to have a place here and to think with him about a spectacle. If I like it, you will be scheduled, Axel.”

“Very well,” Lea smiled.

He watched as Xemnas turned and walked to Isa.

“As for you, we’ll make your spectacle less dangerous. Come with me.”

“As you wish,” Isa replied.

At the second Xemnas showed a clean pair of heels, Braig spread out his arms from each part of Isa’s shoulder, giving him the finger in a total treachery.

“Isn’t it good?” Demyx wondered, looking genuinely afraid for his brother.

“Axel?”

Lea turned his head toward Zexion.

“Isn’t it dangerous?” he asked, showing Isa. “He didn’t have warmed up.”

“He warms up in his trailer, in general. Now, come. We’ll see what we can do with your… talent,” he smirked. “And I’ll tell you what you have to know.”

“Thank you,” Lea said as he followed him, putting down what he didn’t need where he took it. “You can call me Lea!”

“Oh… You can call me Ienzo,” he said back.

As the tribunes had been pushed off and the curtains leading to the ‘employee tent’ pushing out, the Big Top was even bigger and it was easy for everybody to train. Those who didn’t need the actual materials for the training used the other tent. The neat had also been spread over the Big Top and Lea felt stupidly relieved.

“You will have to help for the spectacles incoming because you can’t stay here and receive food and a home while doing nothing,” Ienzo explained. “More you’ll do, more advantage you’ll have. The more your spectacle is good and the more the public loves you, the better your act is placed. You’ll certainly start at the beginning once your spectacle will be decided. You can choose three or four examples and we’ll work on it. You will show it to Xemnas and one day, he’ll let you be a part of the spectacle.”

“Neat! This shouldn’t be too hard,” Lea smiled.

They walked in the second tent and Ienzo looked for a place that could easily let them work. Especially because Lea using fire…

“You know what? We’ll go next to the lake! That’s the best thing to do, think a bit more about what you want to do for your spectacle?”

“’Kay! But tell me! What are you doing?”

“I’m helping organizing, mostly, with my father, Even. He’s doing an act where he uses chemistry to create beautiful and impressing playful science. And I’m Magician with Ludor. For the public, I’m just his assistant.”

“Why?”

“A magician never delivers his secrets,” Ienzo smiled, mutinous.

Lea couldn’t help but smile when he heard those words. He was very curious but he did understand.

He followed him through the trailers, thinking about the spectacle he could possibly do. He had numerous ideas to be fair. He could take back his hold number in Radiant Garden Circus? He could create a new one. He could play on flowers, animals or others forms. But he could also team up with someone. He could…

“Do you think I can do something with someone being a baby?”

“Depends of who and what?”

“I thought about Isa and…”

“No,” Ienzo said, firm.

“No?”

“You can’t do something with the favorite when you’re new,” the young man explained.

“Honestly, I could have guess that. But I thought that could have make him smile!”

Ienzo stopped in his tracks, next to a trailer, not far away from a couple of zebra lazily eating. Lea imitated him and he could read a lot of emotions on his mentor’s face and then he saw Ienzo smirk as he folded his arms.

“Just in case you hadn’t noticed it, Isa isn’t only the favorite of the public but of our boss too.”

“What are you saying? Maybe I want to become friend with him?”

“Obviously. But I also can tell were people’s interest is. That’s my job. And I can tell you’re showing interest into him.”

“As friend.”

“Of course,” Ienzo smirked.

“’Kay! Then, Kairi! She deserves to be somewhere than in a tank, exposed as if she was just a pretty fish!”

The young man started to walk once again, shaking slightly his head.

“I wouldn’t count on this. It’s nice to have a big Heart but you won’t change things just because you wish it. Kairi is in that Tank because some people don’t like the Circus but want to see strange things. And I don’t think she’s able to do things interesting enough once she’s out of her tank.”

Lea gulped with a slight anger. Kairi seemed to be used to her condition but not happy at all…

“We always stay on place for one month or sometimes more, the numbers change every day. We need people to come back. Some day, we have up to four representations. You must be ready to vary your numbers though you can certainly stop at one at the beginning. But as I said to you, the more you’ll get the attention, the better it is for you.”

“Yeah. I’ll think about stuff…”

“You already have been a Circus Artist and you seem to know what you’re doing so I bet you can be scheduled pretty soon. But first…” Ienzo turned in front of him and smiled. “You need to impress me, and that’s difficult.”

“So you’ll see! I’m good to impress people!”

“Xemnas, excuse me?”

The man turned his head as the curtains opened.

“I’m not disturbing you, isn’t it?”

“It’ll be alright,” he replied. “Saïx,” he added toward this one.

His fingers passed along his throat with tenderness and he moved away, coming outside of the little booth. As soon as the curtains closed, Isa let the gravity drag his weight toward the floor and his butt hit the stool in front of a mirror. Just at his right, his outfit was hang, kindly, waiting for the correct moment.

Isa pressed his face in his hands, whispering for himself.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pursue like that.

If he tried to talk with Xemnas, maybe he’ll understand, letting him leave? But he doubted… He doubted so much about it…

He didn’t know how he would do it tonight.

He heard a knock against the wood of his booth then the curtains opened.

“I’m changing here, don’t mind me!” Braig said as he undressed.

Having a booth was quite rare, most of them changing in their trailer or in the back of the preparing tent. Braig was popular enough to have his own booth but he almost never used it, coming here as often as possible.

He was sliding up his leotard when he noticed Isa had said nothing and he turned his head toward him.

“Something’s wrong, honey?”

“I don’t want to go…”

Braig lift up his zipper and approached him, crouching in front of him. “If you don’t want to, don’t go.”

“I have to…”

“Come on, we’re placing another number in place of your and it’s gonna be okay! The coot won’t annoy you if you don’t wanna go!”

Isa watched him, realizing they weren’t talking about the same thing there. And he didn’t know how he’ll tell him what was the real thing simmering in his guts. Braig was his best friend but if his brother didn’t see what was wrong, he didn’t hope a lot from him.

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said. “I will prepare myself… Once you’ll leave my booth.”

“Sure!”

Braig kissed his cheek and quickly finished to get himself ready. He tied his black and silver hairs in a ponytail and slid armband and legband in matching purple colors on his body then bent to kiss Isa’s forehead before walking backward and coming out of the booth. Isa got up to close a bit more the curtains then he changed himself, putting on his leotard, the mittens and combing his hairs so he could tie them in a bun. He made sure that he looked perfect and came out of the booth. The spectacle will soon start and you really could sense it because everybody was getting ready.

“Isa! Isa?!”

He turned his head toward the teenager running toward him. She had short black hairs and was wearing a black leotard with long legs and sleeves. Stars were sparkled all over the fabric.

“Can you help me?”

She turned and showed the zipper almost up but not totally. Without a word, Isa slid it up.

“Thank youuuu!”

She kissed his cheek after having jumped to reach it and then left, running to the other side of the tent. Isa looked around, searching the silvered mane. He didn’t see it and felt relieved though he knew the moment would arrive anyway. Xemnas was the Ringmaster, the Show will start because he was there and nothing else…

He walked toward the large red curtains closing the backstage to the crowd and slid in his fingers to spread them, glancing inside. There were so many people. Thousands of people waiting to see what they wished for. He never paid attention to their public so he didn’t know if that was only new people or not. He knew some, really rich, could come every day. Xemnas certainly knew those…

“Hey!”

Isa didn’t react, looking the ring, watching the huge poles almost touching the top of the tent.

“Are you okay?”

Isa turned his head and noticed Lea.

“Of course,” he replied. “You’re not getting yourself ready?”

“Me? I’m not scheduled.”

“This look like an error.”

“You think? Ienzo asked Xemnas and…”

Lea stopped talking when he saw the look of Isa, his arms crossed.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been in a Circus before, isn’t it? You’ve impressive skills. It’s an error not scheduling you.”

Lea shrugged. For him, being scheduled today or another day was the same. But Isa didn’t seem to think the same. Honestly, Lea knew he was a good artist and that his fire performance would please people but after, it was just in the hand of his Ringmaster. As long as he could make smile people, he was happy. After all, in his previous Circus, conditions were horrible and, often, he had the feeling he was nothing more than an object for his boss. So, as long as he hadn’t to deal with bad conditions, he will follower the directives gave to him…

“Come with me,” Isa said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

Isa took his wrist and pushed him to follow him. They walked through the changing area and then the booths. Isa opened his, pushing Lea inside it. He raised his finger, telling him in silent to not move. He walked back and went to the place where they had so many outfits. He quickly watched them, passing through the different clothes.

“What are you doing?”

Isa glanced down to one of the three pair of twins they’ve here: Sora. He was already in his outfit created with a turtle-neck sleeveless and a short along with high boots. And he seemed really perturbed.

It was pretty rare to see Isa here, it was true.

“You’re ready?” he asked to him.

“Uh… Yes?” Sora smiled back.

“Perfect,” Isa replied.

And without further more explanation, he walked back to his booth. He installed the clothes in the little table in front of the mirror.

“Undress yourself,” Isa commanded.

He pushed the clothes to search after the make up. He used it mostly to hide his dark circles. Sleeping was difficult.

He turned his head to Lea and pressed his palm in front of his eyes. “Not completely, you idiot!”

“Sorry!” Lea said. “It’s good!”

Isa sighed and grabbed clothes to see if they’ll fit Lea.

“You’re taller than I thought…”

He lifted down a top and glanced at him to see his right morphology but… stopped there, as Lea waited without a word and a slight uneasiness. Which would have been ironic since he just totally undressed in front of him, if Isa didn’t have noticed old traces attesting burn here and there. Mostly on his chest but there was also on the thighs and he could suppose… on the back.

Lea felt the silence becoming so heavy and he pointed out his finger toward a tights. “What about those?”

Isa turned his head. “I don’t think so…” He grabbed another clothes. “You could have talked about that.”

“I could. But why would I? It’s old stuff! I preferred to have you happy!”

“Why?” Isa asked.

“I guess I love to make people happy? I guess… I didn’t want you to…”

“Listen… If you’re just seeing more fun in ‘making me smile’ because it’s a challenge or anything else, quit.”

Lea frowned.

“You believe that?”

Isa pressed the Bermuda shorts against the new recruit’s chest so the man could put it on.

“Believe what?” he asked.

“That you’re a toy or something?” Lea asked.

Isa frowned. Lea was definitely too tall because he seemed to have put on a short.

“What do you think I am?” he asked, turning to search a top.

Lea grabbed his wrist, making him swirl toward him.

“A Human being.”

The Fire Performer was stabbed by the intensity of the look Isa had. He wasn’t just bitter because of the situation. You could tell, just by watching his face, that he really truly believed he was nothing. Just a toy. A Trophy in the hands of Xemnas. An act.

“I want to make you smile because I think no one should be sad. I want to make you smile, make you happy, because the life you’re living… no one deserves it. You deserve happiness. If people make you think something else, they’re wrong.”

Isa shook his head and moved away, looking through the tops.

“Isa…”

“You’re new here and you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. You talk as if you had left the Hell and found Heaven.” Isa grabbed three different tops and turned to him. “That’s just a regular place, with defaults. Xemnas is just a man,” he added in a whisper, not wanting people to hear that around.

“He’s just a…”

Isa pressed his hand over Lea’s mouth.

“I don’t know… I don’t think you can know what’s happening here. But thank you for your consideration.”

Lea knew it was stupid. Lea knew Ienzo told him not to do it and that he had zero chances but…

“I’d like to do an art with you.”

Isa stared him.

“Why?”

“Yesterday, when fire danced around you, you seemed happy… I want to make you happy.”

Isa turned toward the desk and took a top. Lea put it on. Tied around his neck but letting his back appear, and spreading over his chest, though it couldn’t reach the lowest part and showed Lea’s navel, you could also saw a really slight transparency and it showed Suns all over his skin.

“I don’t know if you want to hide your scars,” Isa said as he took something in the desk.

His fingers came around Lea’s chin, making him stay on place and he started to draw something on his cheeks.

“My previous boss said it was giving me a style.”

“A style?”

“That showed I had worked very hard to tame the fire, he said…”

“He burnt you on purpose for that?”

Lea shook his head. “When I was younger, I was afraid of fire… I always used my power without wanting it and…” He looked down. “That didn’t end well most of the time.” He was smiling when he looked up at him. “At least, he helped me to control my power! I’m not afraid of this anymore!”

Isa put down the pencil he was using and walked toward the curtains.

“I’ll see to schedule you at the end of the spectacle, it would be easier to prepare yourself.” His hand close on the side of the booth. “I’ll ask to do an art with you. I believe this could be something great for the public.”

“Thank you!”

Lea smiled and glanced at the mirror when the curtains closed after Isa. On his face, there were two upside down tears. Purple. He never thought about this color but… he liked it…

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

On Sabotage as One of the Fine Arts: a contribution to the topic of the theory of the practice of Sabotage

Chapter 1

Who will revive the violent whirlpools of flame if not us and those that we consider brothers? Come! New friends: this will please you. We will never work, oh tides of flame! This world will explode. It’s the true path. Forward, on the march.

— A. Rimbaud

The spread of sabotage, its increasing practice, on a greater or lesser scale, far and wide against the domination of the market is a given fact. Burning ATM booths, disabling locks at shopping centers, smashing shop windows, setting fire to the offices of temp agencies and employment offices, the sabotage of the infrastructure of capitalism (high-speed railroads, dams, expressways, construction projects) ... are offensive practices against the colonization of our lives by the most advanced form of colonialism — the integrated spectacle.

All this is put into practice by individuals bored with survival as commodities (life reduced to economic imperatives) and disillusioned with false opposition (more false and less oppositional with each day that goes by), parties and unions that want to manage our misery and integrate us into a mode of production that prevents us from any participation in the decisions that relate directly to us and that assist in enslaving us, mutilating every gesture of negation of the existent.

The spectacle writes the scenario and distributes the roles: worker, professor, student, housewife, mother, father, son, daughter, unemployed, police, soldier, artist, humanitarian, intellectual... the majority, individuals who assume different roles in the course of 24 hours, see their existence as still more terrible, assuming this is possible. Everyone with his neurotic-schizoid viewpoint will react to the stimuli launched by power in the way that was already expected.

All social activity is planned in order to reinforce the spectacle, thus slowing down its unstoppable process of decomposition. Though we don’t want to hear the shrieking of militants of whatever organization, clearly we are not against the concept of “organization” as such, but against “organization” conceived as an end in itself , as the crystallization of any ideology, and as a separated organ, representing a class.

We are for the autonomous self-organization of the exploited. History has shown through two clear examples that the traditional form of the party (Russian revolution) and union (Spanish revolution) were nothing more than two attempts to manage capitalism and not to overcome it, and this is something that, consciously or unconsciously, everybody knows. In the seizure of power, it is not destroyed, but exercised: in the first case, the class of bureaucrats replaced the bourgeoisie, and in the other case, the anarcho-syndicalist leaders participated in bourgeois power, calling for the self-management of exploitation and alienation, while the base tried to overcome the relationships of production and social relationships in practice through the direct management of every aspect of their lives and not just work.

To be precise, both forms have the exaltation of work in common (something that they also share with national-socialism and with every political form of capitalism).

Their quantitative vision sought an increase in production, leaving aside the qualitative increase of life. This (practical and theoretical) defeat of the traditional organizations, which claim to represent us, has not been absorbed by the working class (it seems that we only know how to work), and we go along without maintaining any possibility of control over essential aspects of our lives, in a world that is developed, not only without our participation, but against us.

But, comrades, history is not cyclic; it is a cumulative process and already weighs too heavily upon our weary bodies.

Chapter 2

Never did mockers waste more idle breath.

— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The contradiction between the possibilities of the means of production (the use of a few of them for the enjoyment of all, since most of them are useless and harmful and would be destroyed) and the relations of production (waged exploitation, commodification, the exclusions of class society) has reached an insurmountable point of rupture. In the spectacle it is easier to falsify the nature of this contradiction than to increase mercantile production with increasing use value. This inertia forces it to display all of its methods for recuperating any real movement of opposition and to turn the spectacular critique of the spectacle to its advantage.

A self-critical hypocrite directed by its own police of decomposed thought (pro-situationists, cadres, non-governmental organizations, recuperators, artists, journalists... the clique of politically correct alternatives).

These toilet brushes of modernity, like good priests, hope that with their patches, the proper development of the system will lead us, hand in hand, into an ideal world planned by their false consciousness and by the putridity of their armoured brains; as if they had ever given us anything. Their social function, which has been denounced for decades already, has been worth more to them than any aggressions, beatings or assassinations, and we are sure that these will not be mere anecdotes. They deceive and manipulate us. We must not allow them ta have a single day more. They are the guardians to the keys of our informal chains. They amuse us with insignificant debates. They impose their opinions on us, avoiding questions so simple that they make them tremble with terror: How best to live? Who and what keeps us from this? Questions that immediately unmask the professionals of the lie. Critical coherence and the critique of incoherence aid this operation.

Chapter 3

Injustice is not anonymous; it has a name and an address.

— Bertold Brecht

Situationist theory, as integral critique of the totality of the conditions of survival and of the mercantile-spectacular capitalism that necessitates them, has been confirmed in events by falsification.

One cannot fight alienation by means of alienated forms. The sabotage of this world starts with the break with the roles the system imposes on us, the sabotage of our death in life and the refusal of the roles that they have allotted and appointed to us. To speak of the Revolution in these times is “to have a corpse in one’s mouth”. We only need to look around ourselves to see a scenario that constantly reminds us of the defeat. Sabotage is thus an action that serves as a propellant against the unreality that oppresses us. A practice that has not gone unnoticed by ideological recuperation, which has transformed it into “terrorism” (the professionalization of sabotage that has done no more than reinforce the system, due to its centralist, hierarchical and militarist character). Today, what is proposed is not the creation of an armed organization of this type, but widespread attack by small affinity groups, uncontrollable by any higher organization, that come together and dissolve like the lunar tides. The tides that are born of the awareness of how bad things are and of the worsening that awaits us due to events.

In the 19th century, such a practice existed that put the incipient capitalism in check. Beyond the Luddite attacks, the “proletarian rounds” rendered their repression and recuperation, in which the embryonic unions would play a role, almost impossible due to their lack of a rigid structure and their maximum flexibility in attacks. A group of people came together, struck and disappeared into the mass, while a new group came together within it. Such widespread sabotage makes it difficult for the enemy to organize repression. Thus it transforms the attack into a universe of pleasure for the enlightened hooligan, the feelings of which are impossible to describe or communicate with the poor and banal language of words.

The game of subversion, the rules of which are written by those that participate in it, becomes an effective weapon against capitalism in all its forms.

There is much more to destroy than to build.

Chapter 4

Our epoch does not need to write poetic slogans, but to realize them.

— Situationist International

It has been demonstrated that small groups that attack do more damage than large organizations that specialize in armed struggle. The Angry Brigade continued its actions when people were arrested and the English state assumed the movement had fallen apart. The Kale Borroka (street struggle) in Euskadi, which Jarrai (the youth organization of the Basque nationalist left, NDR) recently declared uncontrollable is another example. Power has difficulty repressing and eliminating little groups that with complete security do not know each other, and the only thing that unites them is the desire for the destruction of a system that prevents them from living and condemns them to survival and uncertainty. They don’t attempt exhibitionist actions in order to make propaganda as some acronym or mark of origin. In the case of the Asturias, sabotage was a class weapon used innumerable times, particularly in labor conflicts with these enterprises: Duro Felguera, Hunosa, Naval and Ciata...(Asturian businesses and mines where sabotage was determinant in the struggles going on in the 1990’s); every weary person, regardless of her or his ideology, uses it. From the clerk who steals office supplies to the worker who damages the machine to which he is chained, passing through the use of plastic explosives like the licensed professionals of Duro Felguera. Today, the example is the burning of the ETTs (temporary employment agencies). The practice of sabotage remains limited to precise and very localized conflicts, without global perspectives, simply aiming for partial solutions with economic demands that remain within imposed limits where capitalist logic unfolds. The same holds in the case of the ETTs, an attack that goes beyond the temporality of a conflict in one enterprise, but that does not place wage slavery into question. Instead it only questions its most extreme form, not aiming at putting an end to exploitation, but rather to the ETTs. Today the conflict is global and it is not resolved through partial struggles, but through total struggle and through the refusal of this society as a whole. It is necessary to put an end to the reduction of our lives to commodities and to wage labor that wears us out, not just to ETTs. We must put an end to class society and not just fascism. Misdirecting our attention toward partial objectives only benefits the managers of our misery and those who will one day lay claim to its management., and both are among the targets for sabotage.

The widespread practice of sabotage (unhindered autonomy, maximum flexibility, self-organization, minimum risk) among like-minded individuals, opens the possibility for real communication, destroying spectacular communication, smashing the apathy and impotence of the eternal revolutionist monologue. Relationships and the possibility of contact with other people in the refusal of the spectacular role, these are transient situations that in their preparation and development carry in their essence the qualities of the revolutionary situation that will not retreat and that will suppress the conditions of survival. It does not fall into the irremediable alienating hierarchization that every specialized armed group of an authoritarian and militaristic character, to which the masses delegate their participation in the attack, carries within itself

The quantitative growth of this practice does not come to us from the hands of propagandists of the spectacle, but rather by taking a walk through the scenario of capitalism, and finding in this drift the burned ATM, the ETTs with shattered windows, the smiths changing the locks of a supermarket. These visions make our complicit smiles blossom and move us to go out that very night to play with fire with the aim of making the same smiles rise on the faces of unknown accomplices through the fellowship of destruction. The number doesn’t matter, but rather the quality of the acts: sabotage, expropriation, self-reduction... they return part of the life that is denied us back to us, but we want it all.

Comrades, the game is yours and we take courage in its daily practice. Organize it yourselves with your accomplices.

Against the old world in all its expressions, in order to leave pre-history, let’s launch and multiply attacks.

FOR THE ABOLITION OF CLASS SOCIETY AGAINST THE MARKET AND WAGE LABOR FOR ANARCHY STONES AND FIRE

[zippdementia]

Part 84 Alignment May Vary: City of Lies

For the last few sessions, we’ve been playing through Mirrors of the Abyss, a wonderful glimpse into the insanity of the Abyss and a perfect dungeon for what we needed at this point in the game. But last session I talked about how I could sense my players were ready to get back to the storyline, so we’re more or less leaving Mirrors behind for the time being and focusing on some of my own material. Not entirely leaving it behind, though. We actually start in a secret area from the Mirrors module, an area where maybe the only creature Esheballa’s fears resides, a mysterious figure known only as Abbraxas.

Who is Abbraxas? There are a few demons working behind the scene to topple Esheballa’s crazed rule. Darragor, who contacted Imoaza a couple sessions ago, was one example, though he has since secretly been found out and disposed of by Imoaza. His head actually showed up in the treasure hoard where Milosh found his broken arm, but Milosh didn’t recognize him as he never met him and Imoaza never described that scene to anyone.

But Abbraxas, he’s an entirely different creature with a whole other layer of power to him. Abbraxas served the Abyss long before Esheballa arrived on the scene. I’m not sure Mirrors fully defines exactly what he is. He may be another Demon Lord, or maybe a Demonologist who became exceptionally powerful and poses a real threat to Esheballa. In my head-canon for our game I think he is a piece of Primus left in the Abyss, still trying to make order out of the chaos. Regardless, Esheballa does fear him and his power. It is said he helped her take over the Abyss after the Blood War and that she believes he can undo what he helped create. She knows he still lives somewhere in her realm but she doesn’t go looking for him, not even to evict him. She’d rather just pretend he doesn’t exist and hope that if she pretends long enough it will become true. So Abbraxas has lived mostly undisturbed on the fringes of Esheballa’s game... or maybe it would be better to say he has lived behind the scenes of the game, in between the spaces that Esheballa uses to build her chambers and challenges. The players slipped into that in between space when they traversed the Fossil Wall and now they are on the edge of Abbraxas’ lair, which is the lighthouse shimmering through the thick fog ahead of them.

Ruze leads the way through the fog. He has an instinct of where to go in the Abyss, having spent so long here. Also, secretly, he is keeping an eye on Imoaza. Ever since meeting her, he has been seeing strange shapes flit in her shadows and dance around her, gone when looked at for more than an instant. He doesn’t know it, but this is the influence of the Necronomicon playing on Imoaza, drawing her ever closer to some unknown, unfathomable purpose. Ruze sees only the blurred edges of that purpose and it is already enough to cause him to sweat in pure terror.

Statue Walk

There is a fun little section of Mirrors where the PCs have to traverse an area made up of statues of different aspects of Esheballa, each one representing a different riddle and a different challenge if the riddle is failed. There is a little mechanic involving having multiple maps and having to figure out the right map to use, but I simplify this down into just three encounters with statues, each encounter taking the players closer to the lighthouse. Each encounter is actually two statues that the players can see partially through the fog, and they have to pick which one they which to approach, then solve the riddle suggested by its pose. For example, they see a statue of a little girl kneeling and holding out her hands and a statue of a vulpine warrior. They choose to go towards the little girl, feeling certain the vulpine warrior will just want to fight them. Then they examine the girl’s statue and realize she is not holding out her hands, she is clutching at something near her neck, something missing. They figure out it must be a necklace of some kind and Ruze, who has some gems in his possession from years of wandering the Abyss alone and exploring wherever he pleased, places a gem before her, which the statue suddenly moves to scoop up, and a path opens ahead for them.

This ends up being a fun and interesting section, as the players  first have to debate which of the two statue options I present them with they think will provide the most beatable challenge (or the least painful consequence), then they actually have to approach the statue and see if they can solve its puzzle. I offer a little direction but aside from the final statue which has the difficult ask of giving it something “pure,” they nail it. The first statue is maybe the most surprising, as it is a huntress statue which definitely wants a sacrifice put on its arrowhead. Milosh grabs his new sea monkey buddy and slams it into the arrow, leaving it to writhe and die there in agony. It’s a surprising sign of his character changing, maybe as part of the influence of Illrastayne, the sword of Envy containing a piece of Bitterberry’s (Tyrion’s) dismantled and broken soul, which Milosh has attuned to in order to have a weapon while his gun arm is smashed and broken. Illrastayne has also told him that he knows someone who can fix Milosh’s gunarm, and that “person” is Abbraxas.

A Turning of the Page

It doesn’t take long after entering the lighthouse to tell that (A) it is magically much bigger on the inside than it could be from its exterior dimensions, and (B) someone clearly lives here.

Foremost, this space is a shocking spectacle of the triumphs of alchemy and machinery, as hulking struts, cogs and gears turn astronomical orreries and churn vats of arcane potion. You don't have to investigate to know that the conductor of this place has used unparalleled intellect to manifest this laboratory. In the farthest corner, there sits a stout magician, dressed in silks. He is attended by a cadre of malformed vrocks and other low-level demons while a huge wheel of open books spins for his perusal. He strokes his thin beard and moustache, as he reads, unaware of or unconcerned by your presence. A nervous artist paints his portrait, constantly repainting over his own canvas in an attempt to capture any changed position of the man or movement of his demonic servants.

This is Abbraxas and presently the players address him, asking where they are and have they left Esheballa’s game. Abbraxas tells them that they have left the game “for the moment,” and are occupying a glitch in the realm that he built, a pocket space within a pocket space, undetectable by Esheballa. He also says he can get them home, back to Faerun, but that they need to help him topple Esheballa’s rule. He says the time has finally come for such a thing to pass, because just before they arrived, someone else new came and brought with them the key to change. Unfortunately, he says, that person (whom he refers to as a “she”) became trapped in a world of their own creation, spun from lies that they told themselves. Now she is lost in this “City of Lies” and the companions will need to enter there to retrieve the key.

Abbraxas also tells Milosh that his arm can be reforged in Esheballa’s inner sanctum, where she keeps a fire hot enough to forge even the most magical of items. He gives Milosh a strange mechanical spider looking thing, that crawls into his tunic to hide, and tells him that if thrown into the fire along with his gunarm and certain other key items, the gunarm will be remade more powerful than ever. He indicates the golden crown taken from the Lich and the ruby that Hecate took from the museum as two such items.

With that short scene, the party has a quick discussion about what to do next (and slaps Daymos, still in the Quasit’s form, away from stealing one of Abbraxas’ books... remember what I said about that player wanting to just mess with the world and see what he can get away with?)

Hecate: I’ll follow where mother leads.

Imoaza: There doesn’t seem to be much choice. We either go back to Esheballa’s game-

Ruze: Which I refuse to do.

Imoaza: -or we take direction from Abbraxas.

Milosh: Ah! I believe that the best option is to take the advice of this... man? Demon?

Abbraxas: Yes to both.

Milosh: Man-demon.

Daymos Quasit: It’s not a bad thing to be.

Imoaza wants to ask Abbraxas about the Rod of Storms, too, as it has been radiating more and more power recently, but he immediately tells her not to touch it. “The Abyss is already too fickle a place and this dimension I’ve made more unstable by its very nature. If you pull that out here, you could do terrible damage.” He warns her the Rod of Storms is becoming extremely volatile. It wants to be used by her and her refusal to do so has built up in it a sort of anger. The piece of the elemental that has been infused into it was meant for Aldric’s use, and Abbraxas knows this, but he only shares this with Imoaza in veiled terms because he also knows what her companions don’t: that she killed Aldric to claim this item of power.

“It will reshape history,” Abbraxas tells her. “And sooner than you think. Until then, keep it close and be wary of drawing it out on the Abyss.”

With that, he creates a portal and tells them to find the “marked door” and not to step through any other door lest they end up back inside the game. He tells them that once they get to the City of Lies they should “seek the one that doesn’t belong.” More than that, he does not know, but he can feel that the key they need “doesn’t belong here.” He wishes them luck and they step through.

Choices and Lies

The portal leads to a white stone corridor, lined with old doors. The corridor twists and turns but only goes in two directions, forwards and backwards, with no discernible end point. The players start looking around for a marked door and before long they find one, a door with a massive gash in it that looks like an old wound on necrotic skin. The players hesitate for only a moment, then push their way inside.

They end up in a dark alley, on stone streets with buildings towering over them. Movement in the dark puts them on edge and a shape lurches out at them. They prepare to fight whatever demon is approaching, but it turns out it is not a demon. It is a devil. Hecate recognizes it as a Chain Devil, from her days spent on hell. What’s more, it is drunk. It stumbles forward and peers at them.

“Where the hell, heh, did you come from?”

Everyone hesitates except for Hecate, who strides forward.

“We are emmisaries from the lord of hell! Bound for the ruler of this city! How dare you speak that way to your betters! Do you not recognize this woman?” she gestures to Imoaza. Right on cue, Imoaza summons a disguise to surround herself, black swirling cloaks form to disguise most of her features. The Chain Devil peers at her for a moment, uncertain.

“Give me your name, so I can report you,” Hecate says. At this, the Chain Devil stumbles backwards, stammers out an excuse and flees into the night.

Hecate nods at Imoaza and Imoaza nods back. About as much thanks as a Yuan Ti is going to give, or accept.

While trying to get their bearings, they see a poster on a nearby wall. It reads:

Worship the Queen of the City of Lies. And underneath it is a painting of someone they recognize: Alyss.

What follows is a bit of improvisation on all of our parts. I know who it is they have to find and where he is being taken, but I leave it up to the players to really build the scene and the direction we are going in. When doing this as a DM, I find there is a really simple structure that can be followed that helps keep things moving. Have an end goal in mind and communicate that to the players, then ask what they wish to do next. Whatever they come up with, give them something to push them forward, and then add a complication, so that they have to react to this new obstacle.

In this case, the players know they have to find “the one that doesn’t belong.” At first they think it is Alyss herself, but Ruze brings up that Abraxas said that the one who built this city is trapped here by her own lies and somehow he doesn’t think that fits the idea of someone who doesn’t belong here. This is HER city after all. That’s when Milosh and Imoaza remember Puck and wonder if it is him who doesn’t belong.

To figure out what to do next, Daymos decides to adopt his thought form (he can still do this, even as a Quasit) and flies high into the city sky to survey the area. He immediately sees that the city is laid out in symetrical streets, much like a vast spider’s web, and not far from where they are a group of devils is carrying something in a small cage towards a grand and imposing building. This is a clear goal, so that’s the thing I “give” the players. The obstacle is that Daymos lingers a little too long and suddenly a group of three Erinyes, vicious female devils with whips and magical longbows, spot the light and come to investigate. This leads to another deception round with Imoaza, who claims that the light is her familiar and that she is on her way to interrogate the prisoner (a nice bit of on the spot thinking!) Hecate whispers in her ear that Devils respect authority and so Imoaza plays this up, acting like she is higher on the food chain than these devils. The Erinyes buy it and press down on the cobblestones with their hands, sending a light into it that lights up a path to the prison, that imposing structure. This is a fun bit of on-the-spot description I come up with, where the actual stones change color to “direct” the players to where they need to go.

We continue with this back and forth problem solving and obstacle laying for a while, the players making their way to the prison and talking their way past a disgruntled Pit Fiend warden (who is dealing with problems at home) into seeing the prisoner for interrogation and torture (another good deception!) The prisoner does turn out to be Puck and he fills them in on what’s going on and what they need to do next.

Puck seemed exhausted as the four companions crowded inside his small cell and he began to explain. “The Abyss is chaos. But it is also capable of being influenced by outside emotion. This layer of the Abyss in particular is very susceptible to that. It is built on the broken hopes and dreams of Esheballa and she is not a very detail oriented creature. She’s left holes in the realm, places where the lies we tell ourselves hold sway.

Alyss, she spoke to you of her past, yes? She told you she was the queen of an age, long ago, when the followers of Asmodeus ruled the land. It isn’t true. It is a lie she told herself. I know, for I am Asmodeus, or what was left of him after the Blood War ended.

“My body was all but destroyed in the attack on the Abyss. Even in my death throes I was able to strike down the last of the demons, but I could not escape the Abyss except as a thought, a belief. I found a home in the City of Ghosts, on Hell, where all the unclaimed lost souls go to wander. And there, my most fervent believer found me. Alyss gave me shape again. She knew what I was from the start and plotted to get me off of hell and back to the Abyss, to reuinite me with the remnants of my body somewhere in the void. That’s why she redirected your ship. That’s why she brought you to Hell. To rescue me. Only now, she needs rescuing. The lie Alyss told you is one she told herself for a long long time, to shield herself from the pain of the truth. That truth is buried deep inside of her and you must now find it, force it to take shape on this plane, and confront it.

“You’ll need to take me with you. If you can find Alyss here in the City of Lies and bring me to her, I can get you inside of her sleeping mind. We’ll only have one chance at this. I can only do this once before my power will be finally spent. If you do not find the truth then the lie will reign forever and this City of Lies will become the only truth Alyss knows.”

A Sad History

Puck turns himself into a beetle and crawls inside Milosh’s tattered tunic, reminding him they need to get close enough that Puck can make physical contact with Alyss. Then the party heads out again to find her. They bump into the Pit Fiend again and Imoaza gets the idea to ask him where Alyss is. The Pit Fiend, bored with manning this prison and impressed by another good roleplay and deception roll by Imoaza, decides to take them to Alyss, whom he says is preaching at her church. He summons a light into his hand and presses it into the floor, much like the Erinyes did, which lights the way to the Church of Eternal Sin, where Alyss holds court in this world.

When they arrive at the church all hell breaks loose (if you’ll forgive the term). Alyss recognizes Milosh and Imoaza and realizes why they are here. She demands that her congregation stop them and suddenly the whole party finds themselves facing a mob of 80 cultists, Alyss four bone devil bodyguards, and the Pit Fiend Malphiss, who is overjoyed to have something to do.

Combat is swift and dynamic. Daymos turns invisible and flies towards the ceiling, avoiding the mess altogether. Milosh rushes forward, using misty step and the dash action to begin to cross the huge 200 foot long expanse of the church, rushing for Alyss. He gets stopped by a horde of cultists, who tear at his metalic skin and claw at his tunic, nearly knocking Puck from where he clings to Milosh’s back. Milosh draws Illrastayne and the raspy voice of the demonic version of Tyrion rings out in gleeful song as he directs Milosh’s sword arm to cut down cultists and clear a path to Alyss. Ruz also flees, using his own teleportation magics to avoid the crowd, who is distracted by Milosh, but then he comes face to face with the Bone Devils. He begins summoning magic, throwing balls of fire and acid and magic missiles while the Bone Devils dive at him with deadly poisoned scorpion-like tails and vicious razor sharp claws. Alyss begins to chant and a summoning circle appears in the middle of the church and large, indistinct shapes can be seen forming inside of it. 

Hecate and Imoaza, meanwhile, are facing down Malphiss, the two sharing the split version of Drosselgreymer, mother and daughter darting in and out of Malphiss’ attack range, slicing the Pit Fiend and spilling his foul blood on the church floor. But the Pit Fiend finally catches them and with two mighty blows demonstrates his ungodly strength. The Yuan-Ti retreat, but Malphiss isn’t ready for them to go. He summons a wall of fire, cutting down several charging cultists as he does, and the wall essentially traps the pair, creating a fiery arena which he lopes into gleefully, happy to finally face a challenge... especially since he knows it is one he will win.

This is one of my favorite moments of the fight. So much suddenly happens at once! Milosh breaks free of the cultists and charges Alyss, slamming into her and grappling her. Puck runs out and latches onto her neck then psychically cries out for everyone to touch Alyss or be left behind. Daymos swoops down at Ruz and casts a haste spell on him, then clings to him as the now twice-as-fast Ruz breaks free of the Bone Demons, barely avoiding attacks of opportunity, and long jumps onto the stage where Alyss and Milosh are grappling, grabbing her wrist. Imoaza yells for Hecate to hold on and she grabs her daughter then pulls free the grapple hook she got on the planet of air, firing at a high balcony railing that overlooks the church interior. She pulls her and Hecate out of the Arena as the Pit Fiend moves forward to slice them down with a fiery blade. They reach the railing and three cultists try to cut them down, but Hecate wraps her snake body around the railing and fights them with both her hands free, slicing with the sickle version of Drosselgreymer and firing at the with her gun arm. The Pit Fiend follows and Hecate screams at Imoaza to leave her and go join the others, that if she doesn’t do this they are all dead anyway. Imoaza feels suddenly concerned for her daughter, an unusual feeling for her, but listens and fires her grappling hook towards the stage where everyone is gathered around Alyss. She soars towards Alyss just as the Pit Fiend reaches Hecate and prepares to tear her apart. Imoaza grabs Alyss’ hand and shouts “Now!” Puck uses his magic and they all deep dive into Alyss’ mind and memories.

And suddenly all the PCs are handed level 2 character sheets and told to chose one to play. There is a Dwarven Cleric, a Halfling Rogue, a Drow fighter, and a Human Paladin.

What’s going on here is that the players are actually replaying history. We’ve had a few moments over the course of the mega-campaign where similar things have happened. Karina, Trakki, and Tyrion all dove into Rayden’s mind to figure out the truth of Karina’s time in the War of Forgiveness, for instance. This is very similar, only here the PCs can’t change history, they just have to survive it.

The situation that is set up for them begins in a cornfield, at dusk, outside of a farmhouse. The PCs are all part of a mercenary group, led by the Halfling Rogue (player choice on this). The rogue has a letter, instructing them that a young noble girl named Alyss was kidnapped thirteen months ago by cultists of Asmodeus. She has been spotted recently in a neighboring town and reports have suggested she is being kept here. She is also said to be heavily pregnant now. The group has been hired to recover her if they can, though there is rumor that she has been brainwashed beyond repair by the cultists. The baby is to be brought back at all costs. It is of noble birth and the family wants their potential heir to be under their care. The letter is signed simply “Z.”

I set this up with a number of different possible approaches. The house has cultists in it, and the PCs initially try to sneak up to that, but they are spotted by a strange tall man sitting on the farmhouse stoop, with glowing eyes (he is actually possessed by a minor devil). He chases them off with some choice words and the PCs then decide to avoid the main farmhouse and instead focus on a barn on its outskirts. They break in to find the barn full of zombies, which they dispatch, and then they discover a secret door in the floor that leads into a small trapped dungeon. They avoid the traps and come to its final room, interrupting some kind of summoning:

The room’s floor was totally covered in a complex pentagram, inscribed here and there with powerful runic sigils. Surrounding the pentagram were red robed cultists and in its center lay the noble girl, Alyss, naked from the waist down and moaning in the throes of childbirth. She was not bound, unless it be by invisible chains, but she gave no sign of being able to fight back, either. Her entire attention was concentrated on the birth, her screams and cries punctuating the chanting of the robed clergy. Blue flames floated about the chamber, illuminating everything in an alien light.

One of the clergy stepped forward, his face covered by a complex mask shaped like a devil’s visage. “Interlopers,” he hissed. “Your presence befouls this sacred place!"

Then another voice spoke, seeming to come from within the pentagram, though it was not Alyss: her cries still rose above the deep, sepulchral command: “KILL THEM.”

A fight of course breaks out and actually some of the characters do die... though whenever they do, it is like a glitch in time: they come back to life with full health as if nothing had happened. That’s because that isn’t how it happened in the true past. That doesn’t mean it is without consequence: the bodies of Imoaza, Daymos, Ruz, and Milosh are all taking damage back in the Abyss, as psychically they channel the pain of these second level mercenaries here in Alyss’ memory.

But eventually history wins out, and the PCs are victorious. The cultists are defeated. And then we see how history played out.

See, Alyss was never truly ruler of a great satanic cult that lived “ages ago,” as she had claimed to the group. She was as was depicted here: a young girl of 19, kidnapped from her family and brainwashed into thinking she was meant to be the bride of Asmodeus. In a satanic ritual she was impregnated with Asmodeus’ seed, and planned to give birth to a baby that would rise to command the cultists.

But instead, a group of second level adventurers found and disrupted the birthing ritual. As they killed the cultists around her the head of this branch of the clergy, the masked cultist, used his last breath to dive into the pentagram and stab Alyss, mortally wounding her. At that moment, the cleric of the party was killed, as Asmodeus released his rage at what had been done to “wife” in a flurry of psychic energy. In the same instant, the baby was born, a deformed thing with skin of purple, two horns, and a long tail. Nevertheless, a job is a job and they were ordered to bring the baby back The Paladin snatched her up and backed out of the room as Alyss bled to death on the floor, her final cry following after them:

“No, you can’t have her! You can’t have my Karina!”

Passing On

This is a big reveal. For those who have not been reading since the beginning (and even for those who have, it’s been a while), Karina was one of our original cast of characters, played by Morganknight who has since played Nysyries and Imoaza. Karina also was the only character to survive the entire first arc and the Haggemoth campaign before being retired to take a bigger role in the overarching plot. The question of her parentage is one that originated from the very first session where, as an offhand question, I asked the player “who are Karina’s parents?” I still have my notes from that first session, where I jotted down her answer in the margins: “I don’t know.”

Figuring out Karina’s backstory has taken literally years to come up with and connecting her here to Alyss feels so perfect, both in terms of explaining her powers and devilish heritage (she is a direct descendant of Asmodeus) and why she was so important to the fate of our world. And it takes a side character, Alyss, whom the players have enjoyed as an NPC for a long while, and makes her much more complex and complete.

Sadly, while the rest of the party has a lot to appreciate about the reveal, Daymos’ player talks to me later and says that this is his sign it is time to pull out of the game. This moment seemed so big for the other players and he says that he “felt no connection to it.” It is the clearest sign he and I have both had that story isn’t his motivator, or at least not this story. The discussion that follows confirms a little of what I talked about last post, that playing for a narrative reward doesn’t really work for him and he feels like there is too much consequence to any action he may take, because it could throw off a story that the others are so deeply invested in. I had hoped, like Ruz’s player, he would find a way to join them in that investment, but it wasn’t able to happen.

So Daymos leaves the table. The character still remains, though, and has been changed in interesting ways by this player’s decisions. Those decisions will change the shape of the story as originally envisioned and lead to some intriguing possibilities a little later on. For now, though, the party still has a game to play, to put An End to Demons.