#but i gotta keep realistic expectations for my own personal peace of mind and right now? it ain't lookin good folks!

[lovecolibri]

The last four episodes of the season is going to be ROUGH.

Guuuuuuurl (gn) it's going to be a fucking STRUGGLE! I'm holding out hope for Madney but right now I'm firmly on the side of "their carefully crafted love story deserves so much fucking better than a marriage of "convenience" for tax reasons". Like, Chim proposed once out of fear already do we need to regress to that again? Maddie was already trapped in one marriage does she need to force herself into another one before she's ready? I would LOVE to be proven wrong and the story go differently than it looks like it's going to, but until then, I reserve the right to side eye TF out of it.

As for the Eddie and Buck dating storylines, AND the sperm donor mess, AND fucking L disgracing my screen AND a possible Tay Kay return, I honestly cannot think about any of that too hard or it makes me ill. (Love being a "carries stress/anxiety/annoyance in my tummy" girlie 🙄) I'm just binge reading Buddie fics right now while trying to figure out how shows continually get blessed with amazing cast chemistry and even write themselves the perfect set up for a romance for the ages and just squander TF out of the potential for no reason. I hate this. I hate all of it. And I wish everyone who signed off on any of these ridiculous nightmare decisions a very "backlash from every corner of the viewing audience until you are filled with shame for your poor choices".

ANYWAY, can 911 get a new showrunner now?

[billyhardgrove]

4 and 76 w/ billy ?

4: “I’m too sober for this.”

76: “Please put your penis away.”

Enjoy xx (Also thanks for over 1000 followers!!)

It all started with the keg stand, then the beer pong, then the body shots, then the keg stand again, and again, and again. Billy was fucking drunk. No, scratch that. Billy was fucking smashed, hammered, well-and-truly-fucked. And just the thought of being the one responsible for him tonight almost led you to the half full tequila bottle tempting you to drink in order to make the process easier. But you couldn’t really afford both of you being wasted that night.

“Billy, c’mon, we’ve gotta go.” You tugged on his arm trying to get his attention. He was in the middle of sticking his tongue down some girl’s throat and you really didn’t want to interrupt, but you knew that if you didn’t interrupt now then that would lead Billy to take the girl upstairs and you wouldn’t be able to leave the party for another hour.

Pulling back from the girl, he glared at you and how you were cockblocking him. “Just gimme twenty more minutes.” He told you, smirking back to the girl suggestively before making the move of leaning in again, but you stopped him.

“No, Billy, let’s go now.” You insisted, pulling him away from the girl again. You were doing this for his sake anyway. “It’s late and you were supposed to be home over two hours ago. Your dad will have your neck if you’re late again-“

“Fuck my dad.” He slurred, partially rolling his eyes but you couldn’t be sure because he was so drunk. Once again returning his attention to the girl, you weren’t going to let him make this worse. So you did what you had to do.

Grabbing a hold of his ear as if he were a child, you tugged him away finally, leading him through the house and toward the front door.

“Ok, ok, ok.” Billy whined, stumbling as he tried to keep up with you. “I can walk on my fucking own.” He grunted as you released his ear and tried to hold him upright. “That really fucking hurt.” He added, rubbing childishly at his ear while giving you a death glare but you merely rolled your eyes at him.

The pair of you walked over to where his Camaro was parked, Billy tripping over air a couple of times in that distance, before you opened the passenger side for him. He just stared at you as if you had two heads.

“Gimme your keys.” You told him, holding your hand out for them.

“What?” He snorted in disbelief. “I’m not giving you my fucking keys, I can drive myself.”

“Billy, you can’t even see how many fingers I’m holding up right now never mind drive.” You scolded him, while lifting up your middle finger to him as he squinted at your hand.

“Yes, I can. Uh, twenty-seven?” He asked before clocking on to what he said and giggling giddily at his own words.

You couldn’t fight the smile on your lips as he grinned to the ground at himself. You couldn’t lie, drunk Billy – especially this drunk Billy – was your favourite to be around. All child-like and happy, you didn’t mind it. It was when he decided to be an aggressive, violent drunk that he was a pain to handle, especially when he decided to start a fight with anyone that walked in front of him.

Here was the thing; Billy and you were friends, just friends. You never dated, never kissed, never slept together, much to the whole school’s surprise. Everyone was certain you guys just fucked when you hung out when really you did everything but. Your relationship just wasn’t like that (no matter how much you perhaps wanted it to be different). Billy enjoyed making his way through the girls of Hawkins and you just watched idly from the side lines at how every girl acted the exact same way around him; giggly, desperate and overly-seductive. And each one always grew angry when Billy would end it after they fucked because they truly thought they were the one to ‘change’ bad-boy Billy. You couldn’t lie, you did feel bad for most of them but sometimes it was satisfying to see some of the bitchiest and nastiest girls grow annoyed at him for treating them the same as every other girl. But never were you treated like that. No, you were the only exception.

Walking towards the boy, you hoked around in his jeans pockets trying to retrieve his car keys.

“Oh, y/n, I didn’t think you felt that way about me.” He taunted, poking fun at how close your hands were to his junk even though you were just reaching into his pocket.

“Oh, good God – I’m too sober for this.” You groaned, finally finding the goddamn keys before helping Billy into the passenger seat. Aiding him in putting on his seat belt, you quickly made your way to the driver’s side, trying to make this trip back to Billy’s as quick and easy as possible.

“Don’t you dare fucking crash my car.” Billy slurred, drunkenly pointing his finger to you.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

The drive back was bearable. Billy mostly stayed in his seat, sometimes air-guitaring to a song that wasn’t even playing and sometimes just drumming his hands on the dashboard. You would have to say it was probably one of the fewer tolerable rides you’d had with the drunk boy.

Finally pulling into his driveway, you switched off the car engine before glancing to the house where it didn’t appear to have any lights on. You took that as a good sign at least for that would mean you wouldn’t have to encounter a furious Neil. You couldn’t begin to imagine what he would be like to Billy if he caught him stumbling through the house way later than they had agreed and fucked up beyond all repair. You would’ve hoped that you being there would’ve tamed the man, but part of you wouldn’t put it past Neil Hargrove to let all fury rip at Billy, even with an audience. But thank God, it looked like you wouldn’t have to worry about that tonight.

Helping Billy out of the car, you practically carried the guy through the front door as quietly as possible. Dragging him through the hallway, you made it to his bedroom, closing the door ever so gently after you. Finally, you were in the clear.

Dropping the him face first onto his bed, Billy groaned at you. “M’ jerms.”

“Huh?” You questioned, not understanding as his words were muffled against his mattress.

Lifting his head ever so slightly, he repeated. “My jeans.”

“Are you serious?” You asked. Was he really too drunk to pull off his own jeans?

“My jeans.” He repeated once more.

Sighing at him, you groaned. “Fine.”

You tugged the boy to sit upright to make it easier for you before finally you helped Billy remove his jeans as well as his t shirt. Lord knew they would be uncomfortable to sleep in, especially since his jeans were so tight.

But it was just as your back was to the boy as you folded up his jeans and placed them on his desk that he had a surprise waiting for you when you turned back around.

“Oh Jesus, Billy. Please put your penis away.” You gasped, holding your hands up in front of you face to block the sight you weren’t prepared for.

“But I sleep naked.” He whined, his boxer briefs stopped at his knees and you half expected him to stomp his foot in defiance.

“Well, I think just for tonight you can make an exception.” You told him before he finally decided to pull his underwear back up. Turning to climb back into his bed, you told him you would be back in a second before wandering to the kitchen and grabbing a glass of water and some aspirin. You hoped he had the worst hangover in the morning, especially after putting you through all this.

Walking back into his bedroom, you left the glass and tablets on his bedside cabinet before sitting yourself on the edge of his bed. Billy’s eyes were closed, his hair was in disarray upon his head and his mouth was slightly parted as he breathed deeply.

Reaching to brush a bit of his hair out of his face, you couldn’t help but smile at how peaceful he looked. Nine times out of ten, Billy’s face held a stiff frown or a knowing smirk, but right now he looked perfectly at peace. It was refreshing to see.

Pulling back your hand, you made the motion to get up from your bed, about to leave when Billy grumbled. “’ love you, y/n.”

You weren’t sure if he was awake, if he knew what he was saying, if he meant what he was saying, if it was meant in a platonic way, and perhaps that’s why you thought your heart had stopped altogether. You and Billy never told each other that you loved each other. It just wasn’t something you did.

“I mean it.” Billy then spoke again, one of his eyes peeking open to look at you. “I really just think that you’re the best girl in the world and that you’re too good to be my friend but I’m grateful that you are and I honestly think I’m going to marry you someday because you’re the only person that tolerates my bullshit and actually cares about me and I care about you a lot and you make living in this place ok and I just don’t want to ever lose you.” He rambled drunkenly and it was very clear that he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying.

“Alright Billy.” You grinned down at him, giggling softly at how much word vomit just came out of his mouth there. You gently rubbed your hand up and down his arm, taking his words with a pinch of salt.

“You’re laughing but I really think I am going to marry you.” He spoke, and there seemed to be an annoyed tone to his words and how you didn’t take him seriously, even though you could hardly take it as truth. “Will you marry me, y/n?” He asked innocently, his eyes now closed again as he rested but you could tell he was still awaiting your response.

“I uh…” You stared at the boy, a little baffled at the whole ridiculous conversation you were having. “Sure, Billy. I’ll marry you someday.” You told him, mainly just to shut him up and keep him satisfied more than anything, but maybe a part of you grew excited at the thought of you and Billy being something more than friends. But the realistic part of you knew that this was all just the alcohol spitting nonsense and that the blonde boy wouldn’t remember this in the morning.

And sure enough, when you teasingly brought it up to him the next day, prepared to mock him about it until the new year, he said he didn’t remember it. “I just remember that brunette at the party that you stopped me from fucking, anything after that is just a blur.” He had said. You couldn’t lie, you were a little disappointed but you surely expected it. It was silly to think he’d remember, especially with the amount he had to drink.

But little did you know, Billy was lying; he remembered everything from that night, and he still – even sober – thought it to be true.

[tsipasce]

Same Difference, Ch.09

A/N: FYI, this part gets a bit violent. No domestic abuse or anything like that, just a good ol’ fashioned fight scene. Anybutts, hope y'all enjoy~

Chapters: 01  |  02 |  03 |  04 | 05  | 06 | 07 | 08

AO3 | Fanfic

Nanami began walking down the now-familiar, winding hallways from her tea break to return to the lab. She wasn’t ready to examine the feelings she’d had after her spat with Overhaul, especially the ones that caused her such sadness at the thought of not seeing him again. In the back of her mind, she knew whatever she was feeling could simply be the result of successful manipulation on his part, but it didn’t change the relief she felt knowing they’d continue working together. Hoping to push away the thoughts before facing him again, she decided to focus on her efforts to find a suitable class for self-defense. Sure, Hitomi had a point in that it would at the very least be a confidence booster, but Nanami felt like she needed more.

I know Kurono said it was a cheap shot in a 1 vs. 30 battle royale, but still. * BANG* If Overhaul, ~*killer extraordinaire*~ can get injured like that, * BANG* I might as well be a sitting duck. Nanami concluded, remembering that she had involved herself in a world much more dangerous than she wanted to acknowledge. But where in the world am I gonna find * BANG* a class that’ll * BANG, BANG* teach me how to survive a fight to * BANG* the * BANG, BANG* death? * BANG, BANG, BANG* Ok, what the hell is making all that noise? Nanami thought now annoyed at whatever had been interrupting her train of thought.

Following the sound, she found the source of the noise: a very large man beating a block of concrete in the training room as though his life depended on it. She watched for a moment in amazement as his fists covered in heavy, metal gauntlets wore down one block of concrete after the next, ignoring the traditional workout equipment. He stopped for a beat, sensing her watching him from the doorway.

“Hey, doc. What brings you here?”

“Hi Rappa, it’s nothing, just heard a lot of commotion and wanted to make sure everything was alright. Don’t mind me!”

Shrugging, he continued training, now moving to weightlifting. Man, this is nothing like the classes I sat in on. I wonder what kind of training you’d have to get to be this proficient… I wish I could… Oh, duh. Nanami thought at the epiphany.

“Hey, Rappa, can I ask you a question?” Nanami asked, with a plan already in mind.

“Who’s gonna stop you?”

“True. Have you ever tried teaching anyone?”

“A couple times, but most don’t last too long. They lack the warrior spirit.”

“So… if someone did have this ‘warrior spirit’, you’d consider taking them on, right?”

“It would be a dream come true, to trade blows with another man, hellbent on victory! They’d have to prove their mettle, but nothing would bring me more joy!” He exclaimed and she could tell he was already daydreaming about the next fight.

“Well, what if there was a person that was hellbent on victory and had a true warrior spirit... but they were a woman. Would you train them?”

“Impossible.” He responded immediately.

“What makes you say that?” Nanami queried, a bit miffed at how sure of his answer he was.

“They don’t have it in their nature. Besides, we yakuza have a code of chivalry. I could never fight a broad.”

“Even if said broad could kick your ass?” Now she was pissed.

He laughed heartily, “The day I meet a woman like that, will be the same day Mimic can keep his mouth shut for more than 5 seconds. Or when hell freezes over, whichever comes first.”

“Well get ready for 5 seconds of bliss and Satan in some long johns because that woman is here.” Nanami said with a renewed sense of resolve.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’ll talk to you later, Rappa.”

“Uh… Ok, see ya later, doc.”

On the remainder of the walk back, Nanami practiced her proposal in her head. She knew it might be a hard sell, but she was determined. Bursting through the door, she saw Overhaul focused on his laptop, going through some data sheets. Aw, he looks so peaceful—no, snap out of it. Back on task. Nanami chastised herself, though she was happy knowing she’d be able to see him like this regularly since they’d done their version of making up earlier. Focusing on the task at hand, she spoke confidently,” Overhaul, I need to borrow one of your bullets.”

“Who do you need taken care of?” he turned to her, a serious look in his eyes.

“Wait what?”

“What?”

They exchanged looks of equal confusion, before realizing what the other meant. “Oh no, no, no—I don’t need anyone ‘taken care of’, I want to take care of them myself—but not like that…”

“It would be clearer if you referred to them as the Eight Bullets or Eight Precepts of Death in the future.”

“Oh, yeah that sounds way cooler.” She stated matter-of-factly.

“Tch. Of course, it does.”  He said turning and she could tell he was grateful in his own way of the compliment. “What do you need them for?”

“I don’t need all of them, just Rappa. And I want... no, I need him to train me.”

“Why do you need him to train you? It’s you and I who share the same quirk…” He trailed off at the last part.

“Oh, don’t be jealous, it’s just that I... I want to learn hand-to hand combat. I want to protect myself. I need to. You were right earlier when you said I’ve entered a world that prioritizes violence. It’s not that I want to prioritize it myself, but I know it would be naïve of me to be unprepared.” She replied resolutely.

“Of course, I was right.”

“That’s what you got from that?”

“However, I fail to see how this benefits me. Technically speaking, you have yet to rectify the power imbalance between us; you being able to completely negate my attacks is… problematic. Making you stronger would border on foolishness on my part.”

“So, you plan on attacking me in the future?”

“No, but the point still stands and the question remains: what do I have to gain from this?”

Nanami’s resolve did not waiver. She had the answer to this one, “An ally.”

His eyes narrowed at her, almost cautioning her to use her words wisely, but he continued to listen, pushing his laptop to the side. “Go on.”

“I wouldn’t serve you or be an accomplice, nor conspirator to any crimes. However, I will not plot against you, attack you without proper provocation, and if you’re in a bind like tonight, I will be there. In addition to this… I’ll tell you how I was able to negate your attack. It’s still a working theory, but I’d be willing to share and practice it with you until it’s fully proven. I can teach you, but only after Rappa has trained me and you teach me a defensive move using Overhaul. This way, we will be equal, for the most part.”

He stared at her searchingly, considering her proposal. After letting her squirm for a bit in suspense, he responded,” It cannot interfere with our organization’s daily dealings or our work in the lab.”

“Of course.”

“Then it’s a deal.”

“Also, could you talk to Rappa for me? You know the whole chivalry thing…” She trailed off hoping he would catch her drift.

“You’re just full of requests today.” He said, slightly annoyed as she raised her brows waiting for an answer, “He will comply. You may have to prove yourself, but he will comply.”

 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was decided that Nanami would be tested by Rappa a week from the day. If she wasn’t sure about the nature of the test, it was certainly made clear when Rappa explained in a way only he could:

“I’ll take it easy since you’re a woman. If you can make me surrender, I’ll teach you.”

Such a generous soul~ Nanami mused to herself after pushing through the fourth lap. She didn’t expect to become a prize fighter in a week, but not getting winded just by going up the stairs at work was a good start. She’d kept somewhat in shape and had grown up doing club sports in school, but nothing she could think of that would constitute a “warrior spirit”. Looks like we’re gonna have to get creative with this…

Checking her watch, she realized she had just enough time to make an important call before her next appointment. “Hey Miki, how’ve you been?... That’s awesome, I’m doing alright myself… Hm? No, no we’re still on for dinner Thursday, I just had a favor to ask… Could I join you for some freerunning this week?... Nevermind why I’m breathing so heavy! Can I come? ...Thank you, Thank you, Thank you—I’ll see you at the station by your place. Bye!” The phone clicked.

She wouldn’t become a master in a week—maybe not even an intermediate level fighter—but at least she could have a sliver of a chance at winning Rappa over. With her plan coming together, she pushed for another lap, a little more confidence in her step than before.

 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A week came and went, now Nanami stood in front of her closet, unsure of what to wear.

“What do you usually wear to a fight anyway…” She pondered, remembering what every fighting person she knew wore on a regular basis. Rappa wore jeans and a t-shirt, “If I can’t sleep in jeans, how the hell am I supposed to fight in them? Next.” Overhaul wore business attire, “The man’s an enigma, not even realistic to compare wardrobe choices there…Wait.” Nanami had an epiphany. Her fighting style, if she could call it that yet, wasn’t much like either of theirs from what she knew. Deciding it would be smartest to wear what she’d been training in that week of preparation, she got changed and hurried over.

Rushing her park job, she sat in her car for a beat, trying to catch her breath. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been a nervous wreck anticipating her “trial by fire” today. Even with a plan, it would be hard to predict how she’d react in the moment when her safety was on the line. After rejecting her quirk and consequently, her body, for such a long time, it seemed like an impossible task to lean on it completely, to trust it, but what choice do I have? Nanami asked herself with equal measures of resignation and resolve. Deciding it was do or di—nope, gotta use a better phrase. We are not speaking the possibility of death into existence. Not today. Deciding it was now or never, Nanami took a deep breath, centering herself as she worked up the nerve to exit her car and march to the base and down to the training room.

Stopping in front of the entrance, she exhaled deeply once again, pushing the large door open. Upon opening it, she saw Rappa rotating his shoulders and stretching his arms. She gulped heavily, remembering his quirk, Strongarm, would soon be used on her. Focusing on her opponent, she hadn’t noticed someone else standing in the corner by the door.

“If you focus any harder, you’ll pop a blood vessel.” Said a familiar voice, startling her from her thoughts.

She put a hand to her chest, trying to calm down, “Oh my gosh you scared the shit out of me… and leave me alone. Everyone has their own way of preparing, I’m just… figuring mine out.”

“That and your sparring attire.” Overhaul responded too quickly for her liking, giving her a once over.

Defensively pulling her tracksuit closed, she gave him a look,” Did you come to roast me or root for me?”

“Neither. I am merely here to supervise. Whether you win or not is none of my concern.”

“Aaaand this is why I didn’t ask you to train me. If you need me, I’ll be stretching over there, ref.”

Nanami rolled her eyes, making her way to what she figured would be her side of the arena. The training room was large with two sections; one part took up a third of the room, hosting a myriad of traditional gym equipment and weights. The other part which was the arena, took up the remaining two thirds and was outlined on the floor in white with room on the sidelines for observers …and sassy referees. Nanami thought, remembering his dig from earlier.

Removing her tracksuit, she donned black leggings and a matching, sleeveless workout top. It was sleek and formfitting, maximizing her range of mobility. After she completed a couple toe touches, lunges and back stretches, Rappa took a step forward into the ring, “Alright, you know the rules! I’m making it easy on you by only asking for a surrender, but I won’t hold back.”

“I wouldn’t want you too. Let’s do this.” Nanami said, her game face on and her voice confident in an effort to override the doubts she had in her head.

“Now that’s the spirit! Come at me, doc!”

Getting into a stance, Nanami made a B-line towards Rappa, sprinting at full speed. He braced himself in a defensive stance, ready to attack when she came within striking distance. He was wearing his mask, but she could feel how serious the mood of the room had gotten. Just stick to the plan, it’ll all be ok, she said, steeling herself from further doubt. Focusing, she saw the second he was readying himself to take his first swing. Just then, she slid and dodged, slapping her hand firmly on the ground as she slid, sending a ripple in the direction she was headed, a pillar forming. She then slid past the new structure, extended her arms, and grabbed onto the pillar to swing herself back in his direction at full force. Keeping both her feet together she surprised him, landing a solid kick to the face. She followed through as he staggered, and she landed, rolling to minimize the impact. Before she could appreciate the look of surprise on Overhaul’s face, Rappa had recovered. Her refresher course on parkour with Miki had paid off and she had a few tricks up her sleeve.

“Now that was good. Give me more!” He exclaimed, punching the ground, barely missing her head as she dodged. Nanami had been fast, but Rappa was much more agile than he looked. She’d done some research on his quirk, but no amount of reading could have prepared her for the reality of it. Though it probably wouldn’t have seemed threatening if it had belonged to someone else, it suited him perfectly. He didn’t just have a quirk, he had a set of skills and used it to amplify them. Even without the added power, he was a force to be reckoned with.

Before she had the chance to think too much, he struck again and again, dodging becoming more difficult with each blow. Deciding to act, she erected more pillars.

“Putting up a wall for protection won’t gain you a surrender—come and fight me!” He warned, charging towards her.

“Who said these were for my protection?”  Nanami responded as she ran. She launched herself to gain enough momentum, bouncing between the pillars, she managed to land a punch to his side, just beneath his ribs, earning her a grunt. Now more confident, she went in for a second attack, this time she was going to aim for his chin, hoping to knock him out. In this movement, her lack of combat training caused her to make a grave error: she was wide open. By the time she saw Rappa winding up for an uppercut, it was too late to react. He landed a solid blow to her abdomen before grabbing her like a ragdoll, tossing her clear across the room and into the wall on the opposite side of the arena. Her back hit the wall with a thud, and she gasped for air as the wind was knocked out of her. She was certain she’d broken a rib or two. She fell on all fours, heaving as she grasped at the broken parts of her rib cage. She coughed up blood, accepting the consequences of being hit in real combat. When she expelled more of the red liquid from her mouth, she could’ve sworn she saw Overhaul reflexively lunge towards her. Without thinking she raised a hand motioning him to stop whatever he planned on doing, the other still clutching her side. Looking over to him, her expression must have relayed her determination. He took a step back, his face expressionless once again.

Reaching under her shirt to the affected area, she felt for a moment and healed herself, the sound of bones cracking back into place echoing throughout the room. She rose again, steadying herself as she took up her stance once again, “I’m not done yet.” Nanami gritted.

His mask was now ripped from her previous blows she could see a large smile forming. “Now that’s the look I want to see. IF YOU WANT VICTORY, COME AND TAKE IT WITH YOUR FISTS!”

Nanami charged forward, landing some solid blows as using her ability to manipulate the arena to her advantage. Though she’d used her quirk on their surroundings, she’d yet to use it on her opponent directly. Deep down, she was still too afraid to use it in that way. The only “fight” she’d ever used it against someone was when Overhaul and her first met, but really it was just a means to escape. Even in the face of danger, she found herself more afraid of losing control like she had all those years ago. As she hesitated, Rappa landed another solid blow, this time to her shoulder, dislocating it. She managed to stifle a scream of pain, but she knew this was bad. Before she had time to heal, he was charging towards her once again. She had enough mobility to dodge some of his blows, but not all of them. She couldn’t heal herself quickly enough to keep up with his attacks. He landed another to her ribs, a fist to her back and a knee to her abdomen. Rappa was enjoying himself and she was becoming less and less sure that he remembered this was a duel to a surrender and not to the death.

Completely forgetting where she was in her panic, an immense sense of danger crashed over her, the adrenaline taking over giving her tunnel vision. Judging by how he wound up, the next blow could have certainly killed her. She braced for impact, no longer thinking strategy and then… nothing. All she felt was the gust of wind that came from his fist stopping near her face and his breath on the back of her hand. Focusing her vision, she realized she had her finger pointed, mere inches from his neck and Rappa was frozen in his place, careful not to even clear his throat. Nanami hadn’t realized it, but her eyes were almost black and her face that of a cornered animal. She would have obliterated him had he not stopped short, an experience he wasn’t quick to relive a sixth time.

A smile slowly crept back across his face and Nanami was snapped out of her trance by the sound of jovial laughter. “I surrender, doc. THAT WAS GREAT! The look on your face right now, it’s perfect! I’ll see ya Thursday for training.” He boomed before shaking her hand that was aimed to kill him mere seconds ago. “I gotta make my rounds, but I’m looking forward to working with ya, doc. You’re one tough broad!” He said as he continued laughing to himself, exiting the room.

This whole place is just a dozen different flavors of crazy… I almost killed him, Nanami thought to herself, happy to have passed his trial, but terrified at the possibility of repeating “the incident”. Losing control scared her more than anything, but deep down she knew in order to master her quirk, she would have to take the risk and use it first. One step at a time, Nanami reassured herself, quelling the effects of the traumatic memories.  In reality, she knew whatever training he could give her would far surpass any of the self-defense classes she was going to settle for before. She wasn’t just going to be confident; she was going to be prepared. Just as she was riding the waves of her victory, the adrenaline began to wear off and the pain came washed over her like a tsunami. It left her breathless for a moment and all she wanted was to cry out but couldn’t as she felt one of her ribs pushing into her lung. Now laying on her back, she focused on moving the arm that wasn’t dislocated to her side, repairing her ribs and internal organs.

As she sat up to kneel on the floor and heal her shoulder, she heard footsteps coming towards her. “You’re going to have to get quicker at recovering if you plan on standing a chance the next time.” He said, looking down at her exhausted form still seated on the floor.

“I know.” Nanami sighed, reflecting on her sluggish reflexes with a bit of disappointment.

He stood in place, examining her for a beat. Suddenly something white entered her line of sight. Lifting her gaze, she saw his gloved hand extended to help her up, though his face was turned away. Quickly brushing off her surprise at his gesture, she patted her palms on her sides, before clasping his hand. He lifted her up with ease, and had she not already tempted death once today, she would have jokingly asked for a piggyback ride. Now standing close, their hands remained clasped between them longer than she expected. Craning her neck to make eye contact, she could tell he was thinking, his gaze unwavering with an emotion she couldn’t name. Just as she was about to get lost in those golden eyes, he spoke “You smell terrible.”

Ah. The ~emotion~ was in fact just stank face. Should’ve known he’d say something like that... She thought as her face dropped into one of exasperation.

“That, my very rude friend, is the smell of victory, so take a big whiff.” She retorted, moving past him, flipping her hair as she sashayed over to her bag to collect her things.

“Still wreaks… however, your performance was impressive, for an amateur.” The last part added as though it would break the very laws of nature itself to award a compliment without a catch. “See you tomorrow.” He remarked, leaving the room.

Her back was still turned as she zipped her bag, trying her best to hide the small smile that rested on her now proud face. “See you tomorrow.”

[luna-flow]

Pick a card: What should I let go of at this moment?

Here’s a simple and straight-forward pick-a-card reading ✨ Focus and see which group you’re drawn to the most. A shufflemancy will be done for every group too! I’ll be really happy if this truly helps even if it’s just one person to let go of what they should!

4 groups: blue, white, pink bracelets and a black gourd talisman

✨ Cards Reveal! ✨

Group 1: blue bracelet

Seems like you’re no longer feeling deeply connected with someone and you’re unsure what to do about it. You’re advised to stop stalling anymore time and make the decision to let go. People change as life paths change and you have to acknowledge it. You have to make the decision even if it’s hard. Don’t hold on something that feels forced and almost shallow at this stage. The cards also implying on prioritising yourself here even if it comes with a price. Take your time to really think of how to treat yourself better while seeing things from another perspective.

Shufflemancy: Youngblood- 5SOS

“Remember the words you told me, love me 'til the day I die Surrender my everything 'cause you made me believe you're mine Yeah, you used to call me baby, now you calling me by name Takes one to know one, yeah You beat me at my own damn game”

“You push and you push and I'm pulling away Pulling away from you I give and I give and I give and you take, give and you take”

“Lately our conversations end like it's the last goodbye”

The song implies of a romantic relationship that turned sour and became one-sided. The reading carries more emphasis towards a romantic relationship for those with a partner in mind. The relationship is no longer having all those sparks and connection it once had and it’s time to acknowledge it and let go this emotional burden within you. 

Group 2: White Bracelet

Competitiveness, pride, mental struggle and maintaining flow. What exactly are you mentally fighting about and is the mental struggle necessary in the first place? Your ego and pride seemed to be in the way. The competition and mental struggle are unnecessary and really not important in your life right now. Bring back that balance and focus on what you should focus on instead of petty thoughts. It’s okay to slip out of the track a lil sometimes, just come back! Protect your peace by first sorting out your thoughts.

Shufflemancy: The beaches- Snake Tongue

“I'm not going to play along I'm just going to cut you off”

“I can't say a lot for much attention Cause these creeps come in from all directions Getting in my face Everything single day”

“Cold snake tongue stuck out on the street I can see you staring at me Each time I walk by Cold snake tongue stuck in between Two fingers shaped like a "V" “

This song is about being in an hostile environment, getting unnecessary attention, hating it and cutting everything off. You feel cornered and all eyes on you. You feel perhaps people are talking shit and spreading rumours about you. So what? Don’t care, cut it off and move on. They don’t matter if you don’t give them attention too. Don’t allow other people’s attention and opinions to disrupt your flow.

Group 3: Pink bracelet

Maybe your head’s getting a lil big lately, you’re tempting to bite more than you can chew and swallow. Let go of unnecessary impulsive and intrusive thoughts which have lack of proper planning and foresight. What matter isn’t about appearing to be confident, wanting to be popular and being validated or what not. Is about truly being yourself and being smart about it. You have your own charms and you don’t have to pretend to be another person or force yourself to be. Who are you trying to impress aside from yourself? Are you sure this is the right choice to do so because it seems like a bad idea and you should let go of it.

Shufflemancy: Fire on Fire - Sam Smith

“My mother said I'm too romantic She said, "You're dancing in the movies" I almost started to believe her Then I saw you and I knew Maybe it's 'cause I got a little bit older Maybe it's all that I've been through”

“Fire on fire, we're normally killers With this much desire, together, we're winners They say that we're out of control and some say we're sinners But don't let them ruin our beautiful rhythms”

It could be due to your past experiences you felt the urge to partake those actions but you should just really embrace what you are and being yourself despite you see yourself very different from others. Be comfortable with who you are and where you are. Ride on your own beautiful rhythm.

Group 4: Black Gourd Talismen

You should let go of wanting to have everyone to get along and this overwhelming tension within you. Feels like there are a lot of inner conflict here but more towards your family, a group of people or a community. You want to connect more but you feel like it’s not working. There’s this sense of disappointment here, with yourself and everyone. Everyone are thinking differently and are coming from different perspectives which led to tension and you dislike conflict. You’re someone who is easily affected by your surroundings and just want a happy ending and win-win situation for everyone. However sometimes it’s really hard to please everyone and you’re giving yourself way too much pressure over this. Let’s start out bit by bit by finding common ground and building relationships carefully from bottom up. If it all fails, just don’t get involved in all the conflict is the best you can do while setting realistic expectations. This is to protect yourself.

Shufflemancy: Breathin’ - Ariana Grande

“Some days, things just take way too much of my energy I look up and the whole room's spinning You take my cares away I can so overcomplicate, people tell me to medicate”

“Just keep breathin' and breathin' and breathin' and breathin' And oh, I gotta keep, keep on breathin'”

“Sometimes it's hard to find, find my way up into the clouds Tune it out, they can be so loud You remind me of a time when things weren't so complicated”

It appears that you’re overwhelmed over this situation more than you think. Things are perhaps less complicated than you thought. Steady and relax yourself, calm yourself first before you want to try to resolve any conflict. However this song also seems to tell you to tune everything out because you’re so overwhelmed. Don’t forget to take a break from what is exhausting you. Take care of yourself before trying to take care of everyone else.

[1stunseeliefaelass]

Darksiders Arthurian Tales Revisited

Chapter 13: The Hunt Begins

Strife immediately panics and goes looking through his inventory to find a crystal. Death however grabs him by the shoulders.

"STRIFE! Calm down, Miriam should be fine. Uther likely won't pay attention to her. As far as he's concerned, he's probably among the group that doesn't view her race as people."

"Still worth checking on her, you know? I do not want tiny getting punted." Strife states.

"She can actually avoid getting stepped on you know. I taught her a spell to make herself taller. A better disguise than her running around in country bumpkin dress."

"Ok she can do a whole lot more than just country bumpkin, I know, I helped" Strife tells him annoyed.

"Right, and you have such a good style." Death remarks sarcastically.

Strife rolls his eyes before calling Miriam up finally. Miriam meanwhile is reading another romance novel as per usual in the city library. She ends up hearing her crystal go off and quickly hops down from her powder puff for a bed. From there Miriam hopped across a thin line with decorative lanterns on it, using said lanterns as platforms. Once across the line she gets down to the table her crystal is on using a bucket for a elevator. Finally upon reaching it she answers the call in a very cute, high pitched voice.

"Hello there?"

"Miriam you alright?"

"Mmhmm, you know I am my big gunslinger. What's cooking?"

Death suddenly busts out laughing in the background, "Did she just utter the expression 'big gunslinger'!?"

"Oh go sit on Harker's dick Death!" Miriam shouts in a mini explosion.

"Uhm no thank you. Ahem."

Then Puck walks in, "Already did it for him."

"Wait a minute.....Strife did you get into trouble at another bar?" Miriam asks.

"No no not at all my Sugarplum Fairy." Strife tells her gulping.

Puck looks at him funny, "Wait are you and her an item? I didn't know you were into shots of hard alcohol."

As Death continued to try and die of laughter, Strife retorted to both of them, "First off, she's a shot of Jaeger. Second off, you, shut up."

Miriam is of course squeeing at the comment, "Awwwwwwwww. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

"AH! Sugarplum you're gonna crack the windows, tone it down a peg. Anyway, I'm calling to ask if you're alright."

"As I said I'm fine. Why so worried?" Miriam inquires gingerly.

"Uhm just uh...telling ya....uh....if anyone bad mouths my brother, keep your head down. Don't speak up about it ok?"

"Oh sure, but what's he done this time?" Miriam asks.

"Uhmmmm.....I may have pissed off a King, again."

He hears a tiny facepalm, "Really?"

"To be honest, I was trying to stop him from harming an innocent person." Death expresses.

Strife adds on, "Yeah, he's got on crush on her too."

"Zip it."

"Hey you make fun of my love life, I make fun of yours. This is the game we play brother, this is the game we play." Strife states.

Suddenly Miriam hears the bell above the front door ring and glances over, "Oh, I gotta go now. May need to help with this customer. It's how I earn my keep here you know."

"Right right, just stay out of trouble. Swear to me you'll be safe ok?"

"Of course honeybuns, talk later." Miriam says before ending the call with a smooch. She then scurries to the front desk where a rather scary looking pirate is. The old librarian is noticeably concerned upon meeting them.

"Uh ah.......Mr Ding.......uh-uh I mean Captain Leatherbeard. What brings you to my humble library? A romance novel perhaps?"

"Heheheh haha....Nah nah, you know I'm not into those books. They're nowhere near realistic, or worth my taste." The bald man said simply. His 'beard' lived up to his name. Scarred tissue and calloused skin that when touched was comparative to leather. He had no true hands, as one was replaced by a massive anchor. The other looked like an unfinished prosthetic, that is unless it morphed another tool. A constantly changing piece of work that could become multiple things, using the mechanical parts mixed with a good dose of magic. Course he hadn't expected to hear a sudden small voice pipe up next to him.

"Actually sir, the romance novels can be very realistic."

He glanced over to the small Pixie Elf girl, "Hmhmhmhm....how so?"

"They just are, I assure you." Miriam insisted a bit flustered.

"Heheh....and have you experienced any of those things in your books?" The Captain inquired, getting closer to her.

"Why would I be so inappropriate as to tell a customer such things?"

"Heheh....I hear it's inappropriate to call a customer 'wrong' on a subject."

Miriam gulped, "Sir it was only an assurance."

"Oh assurance was it? So, you're saying this poor lonely soul of mine could find love? Have a peaceful life? Could have someone accept me for the way I look? The way I talk...heheh? For the way I act? You're saying I can find love? So naive. So filled with hope in this cruel dark world."

"I have love, and he appreciates me for who I am. Never judges my little stature." Miriam states.

"Heheheheh....Well I mean you are quite a pipsqueak but, I've seen smaller. And besides, how tall is your great prince? Is he as tall as me? Or is he as tall as my beautiful first mate here?" Leatherbeard asks her whilst pulling his first mate over, a female surprisingly.

"Shorter than both of you actually, but I still love him very much." Miriam says all dreamy.

"Oh well then, since there is a small height difference, you mind telling me how you get all 'snuggly' with him?"

"I'm afraid I can't say, it's private." Miriam states firmly.

"Hmm, we've already gone this far? Why can't we go any further?" Leatherbeard questions before suddenly snatching her in his fist. Squishing her big time he inquires further, "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't pop you? What makes you unique enough for me NOT to SQUEEZE?"

Miriam finally utters the spell under breath, which knocks Leatherbeard back slightly. As the light from the spell clears, he sees she's taller now. Slightly taller than a halfling, lithe, and actually rather 'blessed' as well.

"Hohohoh....now I can see it. Hahaha." Leatherbeard says before putting his hands on both her shoulders, "Now I can see why someone as tall as him could find someone like you pleasurable. Mind if I take a peek?"

"I'd rather you didn't....." Miriam says backing away like a frightened fawn. Her black doe eyes certainly don't help her image.

"Oh come now, you already gave me one good peek. What's wrong with seeing the whole show, as it were? I'm sure your, man, won't mind. He isn't here to give any trouble now is he?"

Miriam began looking around frantically and finally just forced herself through a window. Naturally she was cut by the glass but in her terror she paid no heed to her bleeding arms and feet. Scurrying away like there was no tomorrow. Only for Leatherbeard to pursue her. He takes a shard of glass, and upon sniffing it, "Got ya. Run run as fast as you can, nowhere to hide from me."

Miriam kept running, leaving a trail of even more blood as she went on in her fear. Meanwhile the librarian takes the opportunity to call Strife, "Strife you need to get down here, Miriam's in trouble."

Strife freezes and asks, "Wait what do you mean by trouble? What's going on?" Suddenly he hears the poor man being choked out and yells, "What's happening what's happening!?"

The first mate then picks up for him, "Captain's about to get himself a new gift. Thank you for her, honestly. Captain's been feeling a bit antsy today."

"Bitch where's my girl?!"

"Look honey my time is short, so if you know what's good for ya, let this happen. Or you can just get yourself killed, your choice buddy. Either way, this one's on you." She tells him before slitting the librarian's throat and ending the call.

Suddenly Death gets his own call from a very scared Miriam, "DEATH HELP ME!!"

"Ah! What's going on, and please speak calmly if you can?"

"Just get me out of here! Please!" Miriam screams at him.

"Merlin, get a portal ready! Miriam you need to keep running, who's chasing you?"

Suddenly Death hears a yelp and a voice he never thought he'd never hear again, "So your name's Miriam eh? Heheheh...and I can hear your friend there. Hello there Death, been a while. Hahaha ha..." Leatherbeard tells him before singing the song Oh Death.

Course he's interrupted by Strife, as he explodes whilst hearing Miriam whimpering on Death's crystal, "You motherfucking son of a bitch! Fucking damn you, you goddamn monster! I won't let anyone I care about become one of your playthings! No matter how demented you are, so come at me you bitch!"

Leatherbeard actually looks impressed, "Strife? Heh, last time I remember you were just a squirt. Heheh...been a while, been a while indeed."

"What the hell are you on about? Last I checked, we never met!" Strife yells at him.

Death notices Morgen looking a bit scared again, and inquires quietly, "Do you know him?"

"He's one of Uther's privateers." Morgen says in her fear.

"Shit. Strife you need to cool it." Death tries to tell Strife before they hear Leatherbeard singing that song again.

He then actually lets Miriam go surprisingly, and menacingly calls after her, "Keep running, just...keep...RUNNING.."

From there everyone hears the painful transformation that Leatherbeard undergoes. His 'screams' of pain more like moans that slowly become a strained hissing sound. The bones snapping in place, limbs and teeth growing. Every visceral detail and bloody pop they hear on the crystal. Finally a low hiss is all that's heard next before the crystal is smashed to bits. The wereshark has begun his frenzy. Strife begins having a panic attack, imagining whatever twisted being he fears Leatherbeard may be now. He can't get the image of Miriam being devoured by some twisted amalgamation out of his head. No matter how hard he tries.

"Shit fuck....shit!"

"Calm down calm down, Merlin get that portal ready damn it!" Death shouts.

"Working on it working on it! I can't keep a good lock on it when she's running around as fast as she is!" Merlin shouts back.

"Then let ME find her! My crystal's still intact so you can track me with that right?" Strife tells him.

"Riiiiiight." Merlin says.

"Be careful, he's a vicious monster and you still don't know what you're going into." Death warns Strife.

"I think I got this." Strife states confidently.

"Don't be cocky."

"Bitch please, I know what I'm doing. He's a Therianthrope, magic can still work against him right?" Strife questions.

"You have no idea who or what he is. That's it, I'm going with you in case you get yourself killed."

"I have this covered." Strife insists.

"Now is not a good time to argue. If you want to save Miriam, we need go now. Merlin get that portal ready!"

Merlin shouts back, "I already got it ready, now stand in the circle!"

As they do so, Miriam turns into her normal self. Letting a loud little shriek as she does so. As the glass still stuck in her scratches her up more. Miriam then slowly climbs up a wall pipe and after getting comfy she slowly begins losing consciousness. Course Strife heard her shriek of pain and immediately bolts in that direction. With Death running after him in worry. Miriam's extra blood however, brings Leatherbeard's attention all the more. Eventually Strife finds the blood trail Miriam left, and he and Death then hear Leatherbeard breathing nearby.

"You go get her, I'll take care of this guy." Death tells Strife before taking a stance for combat.

Strife nods and hurries on, finding the blood trail has led to the pipe she's hiding in, and it's practically leaking out of the pipe. He panics and quickly whispers up the pipe, "Miriam, you alright in there? Miriam I need you to say something."

He doesn't get much of a response, beyond a sudden rapid group of little thumps going down the pipe. Finally Miriam falls out of it, covered in her blood and scaring Strife shitless.

"Miriam!" Strife shouts in his panic whilst trying to patch her up. Even ripping her clothes off to get to her injuries better. As he's working on getting the glass out and wrapping her up quickly. Occasionally he nudges her with a finger and each little moan she lets out gives him the reassurance he needs. All of a sudden, Death is sent flying through a building. Landing conviently right beside his younger sibling.

" What the fuck?!" Strife shouts before looking behind him. Seeing a massive wereshark staring him down.

"Heheheh...three birds, one stone." Leatherbeard says in a low, hissing voice.

Strife pulls out Redemption and uses charge shot on him. The first shot sends him back a ways. Leatherbeard looks at Strife, then at where the bullet hit him, and laughs. Strife then realizes, the bullet didn't even penetrate through that thick bastard.

"The fuck?"

"Heheheh, cute." Leatherbeard laughs before flexing the bullet off of his skin. It left a dent, but nothing more. Not even blood.

As Strife is trying to think something to do, he feels something grasp his hand. Looking down he sees Miriam hugging his hand as tight as she can in her state. Shaking a little bit as she does so. Strife then hears Death behind him getting up.

"Nnngh...try the electric shock and run!"

Strife does so and hopes for the best. Using his electric shock on Leatherbeard seems to be somewhat effective. The electricity slows him down and it pumps through his body. Strife then immediately takes the borrowed time to try and help Death up.

"Go! I'll be right behind you!"

"I'm not leaving you behind!" Strife hollers before getting Death on his shoulder. His other hand grasping onto Miriam still. From there he hurries as best he can to get himself and the others out of there. Suddenly Leatherbeard forms his prosthetic into a massive anchor flail and then slams it down in front of Strife.

"No more running boy. Heh....you grew up big and strong. Compared to the pipsqueak you were when you were young. Absalom didn't see your potential, while THAT ONE on your shoulder nearly smothered it out. Heheheheh...."

"Last time I checked, if there's one thing my brother taught......don't give a shit about what others think. Give a shit about what you think. And personally, I think you're an asshole." Then he set Miriam in Death's hand pulls out Mercy, and aims at Leatherbeard's dick. Using a lazershot he continues, "And just for you scaring my lady, prepare to lose your dick!"

Strife begins firing, whilst Leatherbeard pulls his anchor back to deflect the shot. He succeeds in doing so to Strife's anger. Strife brings out his daggers but sees even those seem to not affect him. As unfortunately his silver enchantment doesn't work as he'd hoped. He's then bitch slapped backwards into the square, hitting a fountain at the center. Strife then gets up with some effort and fights on, only to get slammed in the ribcage by the anchor. He spits out blood briefly and Death meanwhile finally searches his mind and finds Crom.

"I need a little bit of your power, that's it."

"A small bit, in return for your time later." Crom states to Death's confusion.

Death suddenly feels a surge of power in him, like a rising flame, a burning sensation as vines begin growing around him. He then shields Miriam in a small bubble before going on the attack. The vines catching a flame and wrapping around Leatherbeard as Death begins floating in midair. A raged fuelled fire consuming him, slowly eating away at his sense, as he begins burning Leatherbeard. Even thorns form eventually that hold Leatherbeard in place as he burns within the vines' grasp. The shield bubble housing Miriam soon harmlessly bounces towards Strife, who's looking at his older brother in horror and shock. As the vines are also wrapped around him and burning him as much as they are Leatherbeard.

Scooping the bubble up he shouts at Death, "That's enough! We've got her let's go!", Strife then hollers out, "Merlin we've got her! Get us out of here now!"

Death however gives no indication that he's hearing him. Fighting the power as much as he is using it. Unable to do much else beyond attacking and fighting for control of himself. The pain making it even harder.

He thinks he can hear Strife shouting at him, "Death snap out of it! Merlin pull us out now!"

"If Death's like that I can't! He'll pose a danger to others! If I bring him here he'll probably burn this whole place to the ground, try and snap him out of it!"

Strife then yells at his brother one more time, as he can see Leatherbeard smirking. Healing from the flames as fast as Death could burn him, "Dude it isn't even working on him, stop!"

"I.....must burn...." Death shouts as he begins to lose control of himself, then in Strife's mind he tells him, "Douse..me.....now!"

Strife nods and sees the broken fountain spewing water. He only needs to redirect it. Strife takes a manhole and tries redirecting the water towards Death. The water hits Leatherbeard at first but isn't doused. Death however is then hit square in the chest and is doused. Death reacts quickly by throwing an attack at Strife, being under the influence of the power still. It misses luckily and Death grabs his head suddenly. Finally coming to his senses with effort, and realizing he is massively burnt. He begins healing and gets over to Strife, only to turn around as he hears Leatherbeard snapping the vines. Death takes off towards Strife despite his extreme pain, then shouts,

"GET US THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Merlin then finally does so," Got it got it, it's on its way."

"We're low on time! Death's hurt bad and Leatherbeard's coming right at us!" Strife replies.

The circle then begins forming around him, and Death manages to get into the circle. However his achilles tendon is suddenly scratched by Leatherbeard's prosthetic hand, which he morphed into a harpoon gun. Just as the group finally teleports away, Leatherbeard picks up the bloodied harpoon bolt. Death meanwhile is screaming in pain as the adrenaline shuts off, he can feel the burns all over his body and his injured tendon. War immediately grabs Death, throwing him over his shoulder.

"Gah! Could you please be gentle!?"

"Sorry." War says simply before hurrying to find a medic.

Strife meanwhile stays behind with Miriam after getting her out of the shield bubble. Merlin is about to ask but Harker comes in and does it for him, "What the hell's happening here? Why is your brother screaming bloody murder?"

Strife only shook his head, "Leatherbeard....nnngh....", he then holds his side as the adrenaline rush in him dies down too.

"You, sit down. I'll take care of your girl as best I can. Ok lassie, geez what'd ya do to yerself in order to cause this?"

Miriam shakily explains, "I was big at first....and broke through a window....got glass in me though. Me going small again.....well you can probably guess what happened...."

Strife then looks at her, "Seriously, you shrunk down with glass in you?"

"I was scared......but it was even scarier while I was hiding......I thought.....I thought......" Miriam begins to say before sniffling.

"Take it easy, he's not after you right now. Plus he doesn't know where we are, and he can't find us." Strife tells her whilst nuzzling her with his finger.

Then everyone freezes as they hear Leatherbeard call them up and begin singing Oh Death once again. Harker drops to the floor, screaming, "NO!", over and over again. Having a full blown panic attack. Miriam hugs Strife's hand right away and begins sobbing into his palm. The taunting singing goes on until after the third or fourth time Harker screams no.

"Ah Harker, I didn't know you were here. Heheh I'm on my way to wherever you land lovers are. And Harker, keep yourself warm for me. I don't want it to be too hard on ya."

Harker immediately hides in his serpent form inside an empty pot. Muttering gaelic swears to himself in fear and occasionally uttering things that suggest pleading. Eventually they hear him having what sounds like a PTSD flashback in there. Death comes back into the room with help from War and Morgen, having heard the commotion.

"What's going on? I heard Harker screaming." Death inquires with a slight hitch to his tone.

Strife points at the pot, "He's having a....'moment' in the pot there. Might want to go check on him."

As Death goes to do so, Leatherbeard has one final thing to say to Strife, "So, how often do you use the cocksleeve?"

"You son of a...!" Strife goes to retort before the crystal hangs up. He then notices Miriam looking extremely hurt by that. Naturally he scoops Miriam up and brings her close to him. Gently placing her to his face after removing his helm. She of course hugged his nose for being so sweet to her, a gave a teensie peck to it's bridge. His warm smile gave her a big reassurance as he oh so tenderly returned the kiss to the side of her head.

"Sugarplum, I love you more than anything. You're so much more to me than a cocksleeve. You give me what matters, you accept me just as much I do you. And that's just fine by me, in fact it's perfect."

"Awwwwwww.....you always know what to say." Miriam replies blushing hard.

"And she's completely red, you sure she's bandaged correctly?" Death states sarcastically.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure I patched her up just right. And uh what did Leatherbeard mean by he'll see us soon, he has no idea where we are? Right?" Strife inquires of him.

He thinks back, and remembers how effective a shark's sense of smell is. And both of he and Miriam have bled profusely between themselves, "He has both our scents. Damn it!"

"How the fuck did he do that?"

"He's a shark! Think about it." Death growls at him.

Both Strife and Miriam get a horrified look, and Miriam in particular begins having a mini panic attack. "Don't worry, I won't let him get to you. I'm gonna find a way to kill this bastard, you hear me?" Strife tells her calmly whilst cupping her in both of his hands.

Death then remembers Harker and checks on him inside the pot. "You in there?" Death asks tapping the outside of it.

Harker then comes up from the pot and is now in a smaller version of his true form. Being about the size of a house cat once he comes out. He then hops into Death's arms and begins to make a slight purring noise.

"Seriously?" Death asks before petting him like a house cat.

"Thanks Death. I know it's......probably not the best....time right now but.........thank you." Harker expresses slowly.

"Don't mention it. I'm only doing this to calm you down." Death states.

Harker sighs before telling him, "Thanks anyway, it helped."

Death notes his depressed and hurt tone, and can't help but say something, "Sorry if my cold, callous nature is making itself too apparent. Just trying to handle all that's happened."

Harker perks a bit at that and questions him, "How's Miriam? Is she alright?"

"I daresay she's probably about as scared as you are. Perhaps it'd do her good to hear from a person who knows how she feels right now." Death tells him simply.

"You think so?"

"Yes, I do."

Harker thought a moment before deciding to make his way over. Going into his serpent form and floating over in a flowing motion. He lands on the table near Strife and coils up into a circle before asking him, "May I speak with you and Miriam by chance?"

"Yeah sure." Strife responds before revealing Miriam from within his hands. She looks over to Harker and waves a bit despondently, "Hello Harker."

"You doing alright?"

"Better now, just still not great." Miriam replies snuggling her man's hand.

"That bastard. He just knows how to get inside your head, and mess with you." Strife adds on in anger.

"Yeah he gets inside your head and messes with you, real bad." Harker responds simply.

Miriam lays down on Strife's hand and tries to fall asleep, course Strife has a better idea for her. He stands up and thanks Harker for the brief talk, even suggesting they continue another time. For now he takes Miriam to his room, placing her on his bed and breathing heavily as he removes his armor. Still in pain all his own, but masking it as best he can for her sake. Wanting nothing more than to make sure she's fine. He soon has his armor off and checks himself in the mirror. Making sure he's not hurt too badly as he looks over his massive bruising.

"Damn, he really did a number on me. But it's worth it. Nnnnngh." Strife says before hissing as he turns around, looking at his back next. Covered in scrapes and bruises from the fountain.

"Ah damn it!" Strife hisses out when scratching his head, right where a bump happened to be.

Strife ultimately sighed to himself and laid down at last. Seeing Miriam all curled up on the bed was both warming and adorable all at once. Gently he stroked her teenie body up and down with his finger, only for her to hug it. He couldn't help but continue to let her hold him that way. Falling asleep slowly as he watched her keenly. The next morning Miriam woke up and seeing Strife asleep with his finger in her grasp made her truly happy. Gushing and squeeing on the inside, Miriam gently kissed his finger before carefully maneuvering around so as not to wake him up. Granted it was easy, given that she was barely the size of his hand. Eventually she made it to the floor and made a pitter patter sound running along it. Miriam upon reaching the door placed her tiny hand to her chin and began thinking of a plan. She wanted to test to see if it was locked. She found some long wire and formed the end into a hook shape. From there she tried to place it on the door knob, which took a few attempts. Once she finally hooked the door knob, she began to shimmy up the wire. Once all the way up it took some effort to balance herself on the knob. But after managing this, she hopped from the knob to the latch lock. From there she checked it's position and saw it wasn't locked, so she thusly latched it that way. She heard Strife stir with a light groan but he didn't wake up. Miriam then sighed with relief before hopping onto the hook wire and sliding down it to the floor. She then went behind the room's partition and decided to borrow a chair cushion to sit on the floor. Her grabbing of the cushion's tassel was enough to pull it down surprisingly, but it landed on her as well. Causing her to get smothered a little before she made her way out from under it.

"Mmmmmph.....mmmmnnngh....eeh! Whew. Ok. Now to wait." Miriam whispered to herself before getting on top of the cushion.

Strife then curled his hand up and realized Miriam wasn't there. He bolted up, "Miriam, agh........damn! Knew I was gonna be sore in the morning. Uh Miriam, you here? You alright?" He goes to get up but is way too sore to move.

Miriam however finally answers, "Over here honey! Behind this big, tall.....thingy! I wanted to surprise you with something."

"Oh ok, whew."

War however comes on by and tries the door. Seeing as it's locked, he can't open it normally. So he knocks and calls out to Strife, "Is it alright to come in?"

"Yeah it's alright, none of us are doing anything. You can come in now."

"The door's locked." War states.

"Well I can't exactly get up!" Strife retorts.

As War begins searching for a key, Miriam calls out, "Sorry, was hoping to surprise your brother with something. But, I guess it can wait.....want me to unlock the door?"

War laughs, "Uh yes, I need to check on him. Make sure he's able to move."

"Dude, I'm having a really hard time moving my arms, my legs.....just nope." Strife informs him.

"I could do without the mocking, but I'll unlock the door." Miriam states before going the through her earlier process all over again.

This time Strife is awake to see what she's doing. Naturally he can't help but give some comments and encouragement, "Doing pretty well, although one thing would make this easier and better. Try swinging, it makes it easier. We practiced on your landing remember?"

Miriam sighs and begins swinging like he says to. Course she ends up going in circles and in her little panic forgets to let go. "Aaaaaaaaaaahhhaaaaaaaaahhaaaaaah!"

"Let go let go let go!" Strife shouts at her.

War meanwhile hears the commotion and readies his fist to punch through the door to catch her.

Miriam finally lets go and has her eyes shut the whole time. Strife then let's her know, "You're fine, if you kept your eyes open you'd have gotten a 9.5 landing. That's an 8.5."

"Hmmm? Oh....ok whew. Also, zip it." Miriam retorts before hopping to the door's lock from the knob and then unlocking it this time.

War settles down at this and then opens the door. Seeing Strife stuck on the bed and letting Miriam hop onto his massive gauntlet hand. He then lets Miriam down onto the bed and begins checking Strife over.

"I've never seen you this fucked up. Even up against Moloch."

Strife gains an grumpy face, "I would flip you off, but I can't seem to move my fingers."

War shakes his head, "You're probably just exaggerating.", then upon seeing all the welts and massive bruises he has when removing the covers, "By the nine hells, what happened? Next time you go up against him, I'm coming with you."

Strife then told him, "He punched Death through a building! This guy then bitch slapped me through a fountain, and he threw an anchor at my chest! Who the fuck brings an anchor to a fight!?"

"Oh my gosh! Is that why these look so bad?! I'm so sorry." Miriam says before cuddling Strife.

"Not your fault, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ow." Strife assures her.

"What would win, his anchor or my fist?" War inquires.

"Depends, how close are you going to get?" Death questions from behind War, whilst on crutches.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Strife immediately asked.

"A harpoon to my achilles tendon doesn't bode well for me. Although the question you asked me is one I have to ask you. What the hell ha-?"

"Anchor to the chest, and being smashed into a fountain too. Yeah be happy you're able use crutches. I can't do shit." Strife tells him.

Miriam meanwhile curls up onto Strife's neck and snuggles him a little. Course Death has an idea.

"I have some ointments that can help heal....all that. But I'm not doing it, Miriam, if you'd be so kind. I'm going to get check on breakfast, War let's give them some privacy."

"Why must we?" War inquires.

"Do you really want to our brother naked?"

War immediately shakes his head and follows a snickering Death outside the room. Once it's closed Miriam taps Strife's face to get his attention.

"Yes Sugarplum?"

"Think I could show you that one thing? Since we're alone now, and because it might make things easier." Miriam suggests.

"Yeah go ahead and show me."

Strife then watches as Miriam goes behind the partition again after using the blankets to climb down to the floor. Then after a moment he sees a flash of light and hears her speak again. But her voice sounds a smidge lower now,

"Are you ready?"

"As ready as I can be."

Strife then sees Miriam step out as a nude short woman. With long black hair and quite the 'blessing' for such a small girl. The curves she has aren't that bad either, in fact it's a welcoming sight. Only her eyes remained the same, pure black like a raven's.

"How do I look?"

"I'm glad that one muscle's working." Strife smugly remarks.

Miriam's giggle makes him smile warmly as she walks over to him to get the ointments on. "Guess that means you like it then? I was worried you might not..."

"Miriam, all I need is you."

She gushes and does her best to hold in the squee before finally beginning to get the ointment on him. Being as gentle as possible so that he doesn't feel pain. She hears a few pops and feels them too as things go back into place. Strife groaning and moaning all the while.

Meanwhile Morgen began tossing in her sleep again. She could hear that one voice again, in that ever dark void. Immediately she screams for Death to help her. But is taunted by the being for the effort.

"Why scream for such a man who cannot understand us for what we are? My sweet Ilona."

"Please Death, if you can hear me, help me....please." Morgen continued to beg, ignoring the voice as best she could.

Suddenly she heard a brand new voice, one just as terrifying though, "Let the poor girl rest. She needs it after all. Don't you have anything better to do, other than tormenting children?"

The voice from before answered, "You know as well as I do, this is no mere child."

"What is going on? Please just....no more....Let me go..." Morgen begs the two voices in her fear. One presence tries to pull her away, another however keeps her in place.

"She must stay." The voice spoke up.

The other however explained angrily, "I will not allow her to remain here. Release her now or else."

"Or else what?" The original voice laughed from beyond the haze.

Death is using the crutches to get around, and catches a sudden dizzy spell. Nearly toppling over but catching himself with the strength he's got left in him. He then hears a creepy, grandiose voice speak in his mind, "Prepare yourself for an unexpected trip."

"I'm not exactly in the best condition for...oooh" Death begins to warn him before completely faceplanting on the floor.

He comes to in a darkened plane, one with a swirling blackness that he can't begin to make sense of. He hears the screams of several men, women, and children. Then he hears a familiar voice from within. One that he recognizes above all the rest in that void,

"Please stop.....please...."

"What the? Morgen? Morgen?! Is that you?! Where are you?!" He shouts into the void.

"Death!? Death please help me!" Morgen replied as a sudden light quickly bursts from her chest.

Quickly the light travels forth and finds Death after a moment. Circling him briefly before leading him along. Good thing the Horsemen's mental strength is enough so that he can actually run. Chasing the light down, and hoping it's leading him to Morgen. Luckily he's correct in his assumption, and grabs Morgen once he reaches her. Morgen naturally hugs him in her panic.

"Morgen are you alright, what's going on here?" Death quickly inquires.

"Morgen? Funny name. You're not supposed to be here."

"Neither are you, whatever this place is." Death retorts.

"It's all in my head, that's where we are." Morgen explains whilst shaking.

"Come out and show yourself coward!" Death shouts into the void.

"Coward? I find that hilarious coming from you. Given your fear."

On cue some burning worms begin traveling up Death's body. He tries swiping them off and stomping on them, only for a pile to begin forming. Morgen quickly reaches into the pile after him and searches for his hand. Course the more frantic in her search she gets, the more her light begins shining. Finally it bursts from her entire body, engulfing the worms in a bluish white light, as well as the void around them. Morgen is left dazed after the experience but pulls herself together enough to make her way over to Death. Death's on his knees when feeling Morgen's hand on his shoulder. He glances up to see her looking dazed still and the world around them is now a bluish white void instead. Only a few patches of black remain, like parasites in her head.

"What's going on?" Death asks sighing.

"I truly don't know. Either it's an evolving nightmare, or some unknown tormentor. But this has happened twice now. It horrifying each time I go through this." Morgen informs him whilst sitting down to try and manage her dazed state better.

"Are you alright?" Death implored.

"I'm fine, just dazed." Morgen replies doing her best to stand up, nearly falling down.

Death of course stands up to catch her, "Woah easy there. I have you. You sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm only dazed. But thank you regardless. What about you? That looked horrifying." Morgen says to him.

"Little shaken up, that's all. Now, where the hell are we?"

"My head, like I told you before." Morgen replies simply.

"Ok I must've been seriously messed up from that incident."

"Uhm so long as I wake up we should be fine, I think. We just need to find a way to achieve that." Morgen explains a bit unsure.

"Please tell me that there is no ridiculous requirements or tasks to get the hell out of here."

"I'm trying to think of something believe me. Perhaps knock me out here and see what happens? Shove me off a cliff maybe? Falling dreams do wake people up usually." Morgen tells him.

"Are you insane, where are we going to find a cliff here? Secondly why would I even do that?"

"Then let's hear yours then smartass." Morgen retorts.

"Uhm let me think let me think, let me think of something good."

Morgen looks at skeptically before she starts hearing something. Turning around she sees the black spots pulsating. They're silent, then one begins talking and starts to sound eerily familiar.

"Hello little bun oven. When you grow up you're probably gonna be all nice and pretty. Yeah your Papa's pride and joy, and other things maybe, heheh..." Morgen heard Leatherbeard say.

[the-amaryka]

Unpopular Opinion:  I enjoyed season 8

So first, I’m mostly doing this to sort out my own feelings, but I DO think there are some things worth considering here.

To be clear, Enjoying something and thinking that something was perfect are different.  I enjoy plenty of things that are garbage and I do think this season had it’s fair share of flaws, but it’s not nearly as awful as some of ya’ll are ripping into it over.  In addition, regardless of if it is bad or not harassment of the creators is never justified.  EVER.  So if you feel the need to take out your frustrations on the cast/crew stop what you are doing then DON’T.

Sorry in advance if you’re on mobile cuz this is a long one under the read more.

Why I was able to enjoy it:

Three major things I always keep in mind going into a new season:

1.  Don’t watch it FOR the ship, enjoy the show for what it is.  I think the primary thing that has allowed me to enjoy each season is I try to watch it without shipping goggles.  At the end of the day, shipping is fun but it is for fandom and not the reason I’m watching the show, especially a show made for 7 year old boys.  

2.  I (along with most of the fandom on this website) am not the target audience for this show.  Voltron may be an abnormally good kids show, but it is still a kids show.  I have never walked into a season thinking that it is content made for me, and the things that are important to me just aren’t important enough to 7 year olds to have the time I want spent on them.  I have to be okay with that because as much as I would love to have a whole episode of Shiro really struggling with what it means to be a leader, and the weight of Adam’s sacrifice, the 7 year old this show was made for is going to be bored shitless and decide “I don’t want that Voltron toy for my birthday after all.”  So yeah, that is going to change the choices the crew makes when they create these episodes.

3.  This is a reboot.  Several different companies have BIG stakes in Voltron.  Things like LGBT rep are only going to go as far as ONE important old white man who thinks (insert your fave here) is straight.  Anybody who has followed me for more than 3 seconds knows I ship Sheith, but knowing how the entertainment industry works changed how I thought the direction of the series was going from day one.  If it was so hard for them to get even ambiguous ‘Takashi, how much do I mean to you’ when both Shiro and Adam are legally original characters, there is NO WAY the powers that be will allow them to gay up big names in the franchise like Keith or Lance.  For that reason I never expected a canon gay relationship between any of the main characters.  No Sheith, no Klance, no Pallura, no Hance.  I do believe it was important to the creators and they did they absolute best with what they had, but ultimately it was not their decision and a lot of ya’ll need to stop acting like you are performing some kind of holy service by harassing them about it.  They did their jobs as best they could and the fandom was pressuring them the whole time to make promises they didn’t know if they could keep.

For these reasons I was able to enjoy the new season for what it was: a reboot aimed toward children that I shouldn’t expect a primary romantic plot out of.  And honestly?  Thats what I got.  The only big romantic plot revolved around Lance and Allura and even that was only a handful of scenes.  I think the main problem with this fandom has always been people putting unrealistic expectations on a show that wasn’t aimed at them.  Why people chose to put all of their expectation eggs in the Voltron basket specifically is beyond me, and frankly a bit unfair to the people who made it.  But we don’t have to get into that right now.

Things that I enjoyed:

1.  Hunk is best boy.  I loved his and Lance's friendship shining through and when he turned into team mom.  Some highlight include:  “It’s happening tonight, young man!” “I’m sorry I yelled at you.  I’ll make you dog treats later.”  When he made that Altean dessert because he is so sweet and knows how to bring people together.  What a star, what a diplomat, what a fine, fine man. 2.  BaBy LoToR 3.  Seeing all the paladins in their under armor.  I would feel robbed because Shiro was left out but the entire series has been Shiro fan service so I’m not even mad. 4.  VERONICA AND AXCA BONDING?  NICE.  Didn’t expect to ship them?  I do.  Nice. 5.  Everything about Day Fourty-Seven.  A filler episode I genuinely enjoyed.  MY only wish is we could have gotten Keith and Krolia in an interview together and she went out of her way to embarrass him like “while we were in the Quantum Abyss-” “Mom, why are you doing this to me?” “I have 20 years of Mothering to catch up on, young man.” 6.  Shiro feeling like a bad ass and looking cool during the arm wrestling competition.  What a good. 7.  This was really Allura’s season, wow, what a queen. 8.  Keith giving Lance a bunch of pep talks and opening up to become not only a good leader but a good friend. 9.  Keith YELLING at the Zarkon mech because he had leadership responsibility feels. 10.  I did not expect to have FEELINGS over seeing young Zarkon. 11.  Honerva’s motivations were honestly....so honest.  So realistically human, you know?  It seems so fitting that this whole thing began with a rift into another reality, and a broken family.  And it ended with a rift into another reality, and that family finally being able to be at peace.  That is the theme that has been following us form the beginning: family.  And even the final villain just wanted to fix the damage that had been done to hers.  Though I do feel like her turnaround was a little quick, I can forgive it for kinds show reasons. 12.  Allura getting to hug Alfor again. 13.  Lance getting the stamp of approval from the dad. 14.  Speaking of which, even I thought the Allurance scenes were pretty cute despite not being a huge fan of the ship. 15.  The character development that is evident.  If you compare all these characters to who they were in E1S1 they are all vastly different.  The only exception to this is Coran, though I do feel like Allura’s is mostly internal and she has a way of conducting herself that can make it difficult to perceive. 16.  I am VERY SAD about Allura dying...but you know what?  I think this ending actually suited her.  I don’t think she would be satisfied withotu making a grand reality wide sacrifice.  She restored Altea, and returned into the fabric of space-time itself with her family.  This has been being foreshadowed since Season 1 to be honest.  She is always taking risks and wanting to keep moving and bettering things.  She is perfect and we don’t deserve her and in my heart she is the goddess of reality itself. 17.  The scene where the lions all came to life and flew away, and then that lovely art of them going into the rift.  I really think they went back to Allura, and the next time the Universe needs Voltron, it will be her spirit leading the way.  And honestly?  I don’t think she would want it any other way. 18.  The MFE Pilots grew on me... 19.  MMMMMBIG ROBOT PRETTY 20.  We got Shiro and the rest of the paladins piloting all together again. 21.  ALMOST Galra Emperor Keith.

The things I didn’t think were great:

1.  What the fuck happened to Ezor’s voice?  She only said one word and I thought she was dying? 2.  Keith and Shiro like...didn’t even talk.  And even without shipping goggles that just seems wrong to me.  Their bond has been one of the points the story has turned on.  We got all the build up but none of the payoff.  No shoulder touches, no ‘I’m proud of you, Keith’, none of the usual friendship or dynamic they usually have with each other.  It felt kind of empty honestly :(  And whats more is...Keith has been sacrificing and fighting and loving Shiro for 7 seasons now, and Shiro never got to repay him.  Like he wasn’t in his hospital room when he woke up and nobody can fucking tell me when Shiro said “spend time with the people you love” Keith wouldn’t be spending time with Shiro.  It just....feels so dissatisfying to see one of the major emotional bonds in the show not even be acknowledged in the end.  It makes everything Keith worked for feel...not...there.  Like what did all that mean in the end?  As many times as it takes but he gives and gives and gives and the only one who returns what he gives is Krolia.  It used to be Shiro returned it too, but now...  Even without it being romantic, their relationship was done a dirty.  I didn’t need canon Sheith I just needed some kind of acknowledgement that all the suffering they endured was worth it.  I wanted to see them happy. 3.  Despite what I said above I am sad Allura is gone. 4.  Shiro was hardly in the season at all actually :((((((((((((((((((( 5.  Yeah, as cute as the scenes were I’ve never felt Allura and Lance have a chemistry that makes their relationship sit well with me.  But I guess it was necessary to show how Lance has matured as a person.  I always thought they have the POTENTIAL for chemistry but it’s always fallen short for me.  Allura just takes her life too seriously and her walls never actually came down enough for me to see a connection there. 6.  James and Keith never like...talked?  I would have liked for them to have had a reconciliation like Keith and Lance did. 7.  Lack of Krolia. 8.  Something was off about Kolivan’s voice 9.  TBH, I feel like The real fulfillment for Keith’s arc would have been his teammates encouraging and lifting him up as well.  Display his emotional availability which was completely closed off at the start.  I feel like they may have just dropped the ball on a couple of character’s arc resolution but...eh.  You gotta pick and choose what to focus on when you have an ensemble cast, and 7 year olds just aren’t always interested in that. 10.  Woulda been nice to get a bit more detail on the nature of the rift creatures and some more clarity for a through line from the beginning thousands of Years ago to now.  Along with that exactly what kind of entity IS Voltron itself?  A lot of seeds planted that made a half attempt at being resolved but weren’t quite clear enough to create something cohesive. 11.  I can’t put my finger on why but overall it just feels...Incomplete.  Like there is still a pit in my stomach that doesn’t feel satisfied by the ending.  I’m not sure how much of that is the season itself, and how much is I’ve been involved in this show for nearly 2 years and it’s hard to let go, especially on something that doesn’t quite feel like going out with a bang.

Highly unpopular opinion in my neck of the woods:

That wedding at the end?  I’m happy about it.  Do I think its bad writing to marry off one of your main five to a rando we don’t even know the name of?  Yes.  Am I annoyed that the fandom was SO awful and so accusatory toward the showrunners they felt the need to shoehorn in a last minute wedding because they honestly felt bad when the truth is this has always been a glorified ship war?  MEGA YES.  They shouldn’t have felt like they had to make this bad writing decision on the behalf of fans who have treated them and their efforts like shit.  Shame on the people who treated them this way.  They tried so FUCKING hard to give us something and ya’ll threw it away and called them evil.  I get how you feel but damn why don’t YOU try to make social change happen in the entertainment industry and see how well your LGBT paradise vision goes over when there are dozens of other people with a say.  (I could go on about how poorly that was handled on both ends, but that is another point altogether.)

More than anything, I’m happy that some 7 year old kid who LOVES the badass Captain Takashi Shirogane is going to see him get married on screen and kiss a MAN.  Like holy shit, that is HUGE.  Do I think it could have been written better?  Absolutely.  But This show wasn’t made for me it was made for the 7 year kid out there is going to think “Shiro kissed a boy, maybe I’m not weird for wanting to kiss boys” and THAT is what Representation in children’s media is all about.  I’m going to celebrate this and everything else related to Shiro’s LGBT status because what matters to me way more than ships or satisfying romantic arcs is maybe when my little nephew sees his favorite character is gay he will be a little more open and comfortable when I bring my girlfriend to family dinner.

I think it would do the fandom (especially the Sheith shippers) some good to step back, take off their shipping goggles, and recognize this for the stride in Children’s media that it is. That being said I’m gonna be reading and writing the fix-it fics along with the rest of you, because fandom and how I enjoy the show can be whatever I want.

The conclusion and why I still love Voltron:

You know what?  Yes I felt a little let down by the writing, but Voltron is one of the first fandoms I’ve been so involved in and I have had such wonderful experiences while enjoying this show.  I’m never going to let some dissatisfaction ruin this for me.  The nice thing about fandom, is I can enjoy my version of the show however I want it, and it doesn’t have to effect how I feel about canon at all.  And when I take off my fandom goggles, this season was actually pretty enjoyable.

I encourage anybody who has enjoyed the show up to this point to put your bitterness aside and do what you’ve been doing from the start.  Create some content, consume some content, ship what you want, and don’t you dare let anybody ruin this for you.  You have good memories with this show, keep them good and move froward.

Peace out my dudes, I’m gonna be hanging out in Sheith hell for at least another 6 months.

It was an honor flying with you all.

[fallenangelspnfanfic]

Wayward Huntress: Chapter 11

Summary : Shit hit the fan. You’re in Hell being the prisoner of a prisoner, Lucifer. 

Warnings : Language, Blood, Pain, Suffering

-Y/N, my dearest Y/N, would you like to see your little boyfriend of yours get his fingers cut one by one again?

*Pffffttt*

You spat blood in the face of the speaker who sat in front of you. He blinked and kept his eyes closed while he swiped the mix of your saliva and blood away from his face with his thumb.

-I gotta give you that, little Y/N....  the demon that held the chains that were attached to your wrists gave you another powerful kick in the guts that took your breath away. He then, grabbed a handful of your hair and pulled them so you would be forced to look up.

-You're really strong headed.... the blonde man licked your spat off his thumb while you frowned at him with disgust. Which is going to be a great asset... Once you let me finish what I started!

You faintly mumbled something through your swollen lips, you were so weak but you wouldn't give up. You could not give up. Not to him.

-Uhhh... Excuse me? Can you repeat that?

You lower your head for an instant as you try to hide the pain that was drawn all over your face but the demon behind you once again pulled your hair off your scalp with force.

-I said.... EAT. ME. DICK. HEAD. you hissed as loud as your broken ribs could let you as you deadly stared at Lucifer, who ironically, was a prisoner of his own too, a rusty metal necklace hung around his neck as he was stuck on his chair.

The demon behind you pulled swiftly on your chains as if to shut you up from disrespecting his master. You flinched, your wrists were probably infected since the metal was rubbing directly against your flesh, they were swollen, red and full of bloody crusts.

-Master, Crowley is on his way.  another demon claimed as he entered the room in panic, his facial expression clearly demonstrated how he was apprehending Lucifer's reaction over his sudden arrival. You, on the other hand, sighed in exasperation because you knew what was next to come.

*sigh*

Lucifer exaggerated his frustration as he glared the intruder with deathfull eyes.

-Alrighty then.

A couple seconds passed as both demons and you stared at Lucifer who rolled his eyes in annoyance when he noted no one was moving.

-What are you waiting for, you idiots! Gag her and bring her back to the cage!

In a instant, the both demons pulled vigorously on the metal links that were attached to your wrists, not even letting you time to crawl to follow them,  they just trailed you on the cold concrete floor as you held back cries of pain that were sitting in the back of your throat. The physical pain was nothing compared to what was next to come and you were dreading it.

-See you in a bit, cutie pie! Lucifer cooed as he tried to wave his hand to you, his own chains restraining his arms from moving.  I'll make sure to bring Cassie with me, alright!? Lucifer continued with a playful tone as the door was closed shut behind you.

-NO! PLEASE.  NO, PLEASE I BEG YOU! you screamed as loud as you could while you were still getting trailed down to your own prison.

-Heyyy guys? Why do I still hear this little mouse crying, I thought I ordered you to GAG HER.

You heard the Devil shouts through the metal door and both of your guards winced under his tone. One of the metal chain hit the floor as the tingle echoed in the dungeon and a moment after one of the demon appeared in your face.

-Don't touch me, you black eyed sons of a bitch or I swear- the demon laughed frantically before you could even finish your sentence.

-Yeah yeah, we know. You'll be the last thing we'll ever see. Whatchu gonna do, princess?  he bent down to be at your height and waved a hand in front of your face. Your mouth was instantly stitched closed and you could feel the cords painfully pulling on your lips as you tried to mumble something.

At that point, you gave up. You let them trailing you down to the cage without a single fight, your stomach threatening to spill itself even if it was totally empty as you feared the next few hours, days, months that were to come in the cage, stuck with Lucifer in your own imagination. You closed your eyes and wished for your body to let you rest in peace, you wanted your own body to give up and to stop struggling to stay alive. You wanted to die. Except in your case, dying wasn't the solution. If you die, Lucifer would bring you back. You died again? Lucifer brought you back again. You stopped counting how many times you've died since you've got here.

When you opened your eyes, you already were in the cage, alone. For now. You must've passed out in between, you were getting used to passing out here and there now. The human body can only endure so much before fainting. A little too much to your own taste.

-Y/N??

Your heart skipped a beat as you heard your angel's alarmed voice echoing through the emptiness of the dungeon.

Oh no, no. No please, not this again.  

-Y/N!  you felt your eyes filling with water as you watched Castiel running towards the cage, his unbuttoned trench coat floating to his sides. You knew this was only another of Lucifer's scheme to force you to give up to him.

I know it's you, Lucifer. Fuck you.

-Blossom, I... the cage's door opened magically as the angel stepped to get closer to you. He looked so real, you only wanted so much to throw yourself in his arms and rejoice yourself of his presence. He kneeled down next to you and peered right in your eyes, his ocean blue eyes were so realistic.

-I've been looking for you everywhere, I missed you so mu-

GRRRRRRWWWHH

You just had time to close your eyes as a vivid hellhound jumped and assaulted Castiel out of nowhere. You flinched every time you heard the angel that you love crying for help as he was being eaten alive right in front of you. You sobbed and brought your knees up to your face with your arms around your legs to keep your legs as close as possible to you. You couldn't stop crying while rocking yourself frantically forward and backwards waiting for the hallucinations to fade away....

-------

3 months earlier, somewhere in Indianapolis

-We told you to stay back, Y/N! Dean furiously punched the motel's frame door and Castiel instinctively stepped in front of you as if to shield you from Dean's tempered reaction.

-You can't expect me to stand aside from that, Dean Winchester! I'm a hunter of my own, for fuck's sakes! you countered the angel's frame to get a better glimpse of the eldest Winchester.

Sam who looked as furious as his brother took a deep breath before joining in the fight.

-Guys, we need to act fast now. It's our only chance to trap Lucifer. We can't screw this up. So both of you, shut up. NOW. Sam snapped as he pointed to the both of you. Y/N, Dean is right. This is absurdly stupid to come here when we agreed you should stay back! You're putting yourself in danger. In fact, we don't even know what kind of power Lucifer has on you. You could be putting us all in danger!

Sam's reaction hit you right in the guts since he's the most reasonable person you know. You peered at your side to see Cas apologetic smile as silently agreed with his friends. You knew you shouldn't be there but you couldn't stand the idea of letting your bestfriends facing Lucifer alone. If something was to happen to them while you weren't there you would never forgive yourself.

-I bet you would've stayed if he weren't coming with us, huh Y/N?  Dean mumbled as he passed next to you.

-Dean... Castiel deeply warned. Now, isn't the right time to-

-What did you say? you growled, your ears twitched when you finally understood Dean's remark.

-I said: maybe if his angelic ass would've stayed at the bunker you wouldn't be costing us so much right now!   

-You, little shit! SHUT YOUR MOUTH! you were about to throw yourself on Dean when Castiel stopped you from getting further, his grip held you in place even though you craved to slap Dean's face so much.  

-Crowley haven't mention me that the huntress had a wee problem with her temper, how saddening. Rowena chuckled as all of your heads flew in her direction.

-Rowena, now's not the time.  Sam warned as he regained his composure. He stepped towards Kelly who just sat there, on the bed, an expression of fear and confusion stuck on her face.

While Sam and Castiel took charge of her as they tried to convince her they were being genuine, you had an internal fight with yourself. Even though they were being real jerks about it, the brothers were right and you had to leave, being here was not just putting yourself in danger but also meant that everyone else could be in danger, well even more in danger than they already were. You had no idea if Lucifer could have some kind of hold on you.  

You approached Dean who stared through the window with a murderous look.

-I'm leaving. Call me if anything.

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

Everytime he cried for your assistance, your heart ached and your stomach twisted so hard you were on the verge of barfing. You sighed in relief as the last version of Castiel's dismembered corpse was finally fading away.

It must have been the 100th version of Castiel's death you've witnessed today. Every single one of them seemed more real than the previous one.

Lucifer was relentless, you couldn't catch a break. He was playing with your mind armed with your biggest weakness.

-Y/N.

Your eyes flashed opened as Castiel's stiff voice echoed through the cage. For the first time yet, Castiel sounded angry rather than relieved, his eyes showed no trace of affection, they were filled with rage and hatred.

-The plan failed because of you. Lucifer is still free and it's all because of your stubbornness.

The bonds that held your lips sealed suddenly disappeared and allowed you to speak your mind.

-Wh-What? You scoffed. What is it this time, Lucifer? Huh? New game?

-Lucifer? Castiel spat. You're delirious. Look around you. Lucifer is gone. All that's left is the cold bodies of your friends, Y/N.

You took in the decor around you, you were no longer in the cage, but in that same motel room you had plan to gank Lucifer weeks ago. You followed the blood trails until your eyes found a pool of blood, where was lying Dean's lifeless body.

You brought a hand to your mouth as you silently gasped, Dean's body getting blurred as your eyes filled up with tears.

-It's all your fault. Dean is dead because of you.

-It's not real. you closed your eyes as you shook your head. It's all in my head.

-W-we told you to stay away, Y/N.

Your heart pinched as you recognized Sam's weak voice. He was laying on the ground in between the two motel beds and from the blood that was running out of his mouth, he was agonizing.

-I wish we've never met you.

Your eyes landed over Castiel who was staring at Dean's body, his coat smeared with blood. He finally teared his eyes away from him and glared at you, his piercing blue eyes showed revulsion.

- You caused this atrocity...

No...

- I've never hated a human that much before... You've killed my family.

This isn't what happened...

-I hate you, Y/N.

You fell down to your knees as Castiel's hatred words hit you like a wave.

It's a trick...

-I've never loved you, anyways.

You closed your eyes as you were trying to keep a steady breath but there was a ball of energy growing inside you. You felt your whole body shaking as you kept telling yourself that all this was only Lucifer playing with your mind, your soul ignited with pure rage.

- You. Killed. Them. Castiel's voice reverberated in your head.

ENOUGH

You opened your eyes and you were shrouded in the darkness once again. You felt the coldness of the metal bars pressed in your back, you were back in Hell, in the cage.

But how the tables have turned... You've never felt this energized and powerful in all your life.

Time to get the fuck out of here.

[one-more-miracle-gatsby]

I just finished Impyrium by Henry H Neff and I’m gonna talk about it because I have a lot of feelings so spoiler warning

-I completely forgot the demon’s conditions for the Red Winter Treaty so I saw the Prusian Sea on the map and I was like “huh I wonder what the crafty bastard did to get an ocean named after him” and then I got to the line about underwater demon kingdoms and I was like THAT’S RIGHT THEY BANISHED HIM TO THE SEA and of course he still managed to go make himself a successful kingdom like ffs Prusias just enjoy retirement.

-Sigga Fenn is my new favorite character. What a bro. I mean yeah she played Hob like a panther stalking a rabbit and absolutely would have killed him in an instant and we don’t still know what her exact orders are but there are times when she does seem to be as sincere and friendly as she can professionally be and like honestly it’s nice to have such a chill agent. Disguising herself as the old lady was hilarious like that was so unnecessary Sigga you didn’t have to steal her dessert

-I love the dynamics between the triplets. Isabel is great.

-homunculus breeding is fascinating oh my god

-”Hazel saw that Harkün had also drawn a dagger with a wavy black blade” TFW you’re such a die-hard Cooper fan you can recognize his weapon 3000 years later

-speaking of the devil, I hope that Mystic with mismatched eyes was a descendant of who I think she was because please imagine Hazel Cooper’s reaction to finding her greatx3k granddaughter gambling with a domovoi

-Like. I know Prime is not going to turn out to be Cooper but there’s a tiny part of my sappy fangirl heart going, “if anyone were to volunteer themselves to be turned into a statue for all eternity to protect Rowan it would probably be him”

-Hob’s sass is beautiful can he give me lessons

-THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SHROPES COOKING AT ROWAN

-I love the quotes at the start of the chapters, not only did they bring more meaning to the chapters but they also provided some context and backstory, like how old David lived to be.

-Honestly Hazel’s mentality was so unapologetically realistic like she was so innocent and oblivious but then she started learning things and I love her revelations that she can take control of her own life. But like she was still allowed to be delicate and cry and sleep with a stuffed giraffe and it wasn’t depicted as weakness.

-I will be forever be impressed at the all the political webs Henry weaves

-Montague’s character development

-I wonder what Ember really did with Mina like did he really eat her or is she chillin in his mouth under the sea

-The two perspectives were so great and it was awesome because you can’t trust the Fellowship and you can’t trust the royals, you can only trust that the main characters themselves will see the faults of their respective sides and make the right decisions. I love how they opened each other’s eyes to new things.

-It’s so cool because The Tapestry was so heavily based in Irish mythology and now Impyrium is based in Tapestry mythology like the original series became the mythology of the new series, which means that our world is part of that mythology. I remember Henry saying something about how The Tapestry was partially a story about human perseverance and that really spoke to me in some parts of this book too. That ancient, scratched-up, barely-working Disney film was so unsettling but so wonderful. Burke’s line about “would you believe we lowly little humans once walked on the moon?” The part where the Fellowship is explaining about how humans once built flying ships and split matter to its smallest components without any magic, just with the sheer power of their minds. It’s inspiring. And it was interesting seeing that different perspective of the destruction of the Book of Thoth, like we were just starting to explore the heavens themselves and then that technology was taken away from us. But like it said, at least we’re still walking on the Earth. It’s surreal reading this and realizing that in this book we are the ancient civilizations. Much of our history is either not known at all or considered a nonsensical fairy tale. But Disney films and the Brothers Grimm tales still exist. Stories persevere, no matter how rare or expensive or illegal they may become. Getting even more meta, it’s just like the stories of the original series becoming the mythology of this one. Stories stick around, no matter how much they may change, and apparently the same applies to humanity.

-I would love to talk to someone who read Impyrium without reading The Tapestry first and find out what that realization was like, when it suddenly dawned on them that this had once been our world.

-It’s also really interesting and kind of funny seeing the empress and the princesses have the whole week-long pilgrimage and put themselves through such physical and mental duress to go worship this mysterious scary god-king from another world when those of us who have read The Tapestry know that this all-powerful warrior is the same guy who got repeatedly bossed around by a talking goose and once used magic to leap 20 feet in the air because he got startled by a robot centipede. The Hound of Rowan, everybody. One thing I always admired about Max’s character was that no matter how much he grew and changed the core of his personality, his kindness and his humor, stayed the same (and even when he went full supernova god in the Workshop he was still able to keep from destroying everybody because of the love he felt for his friends). And I’m glad that even just from that little glimpse we got of him we can see that he still holds that same personality, that he was so eager to help this teenage girl that he forgot about the FATAL WOUND that would literally kill him if he went through the gate like Max never change

-I was not expecting this story to give me so many Max feels like I thought I was over the end of The Red Winter but apparently not. I actually laughed when they brought out the lyrmrills as offerings because it was so beautifully nostalgic and sentimental but also like, what else would it be? The man loves his lymrills.

-Speaking of Max getting bossed around by Hannah I seem to remember her saying she was immortal at the end of The Red Winter so are she and her goslings still wandering around the Direwoods oh god

-Again it must be such a different experience reading this without the context of the first series because that whole Direwoods field trip was kind of a punch in the gut. I remember in The Hound of Rowan reading about the abandoned charges wandering the Sanctuary and forgetting that humans ever cared for them and I thought that was so sad and now the entire Sanctuary is like that. The Sanctuary was such a beacon of hope and peace and now it’s just a creepy haunted forest where little rich kids are afraid to get their feet dirty. Who knows how long selkies live, that could have been Frigga or Helga in the lagoon being so glad to have some humans to play with again. And the ruins of the Warming Lodge and the dvergar brother’s forge. Dude that one classroom had Nile Croakers and domovoi and stuff in cages and the selkies were described as “water beasts” like that was so sad it feels so wrong and it’s such a good representation of how the culture has changed

-Like honestly it’s just such a message about the nature of history. It reminds me of Church’s monologue from the end of season 13 of Red vs Blue, where he talked about the hero never getting to know if his sacrifice was worth it. Max didn’t know what became of his friends or the world he left behind presumably until David’s death (and don’t think I don’t have a fanfic idea about that), and then Max and David and everyone presumably don’t really know what became of their world 3000 years later, like they know the gate and the dragon exist and they know about the Faeregines coming on pilgrimage every few years, but I guess they probably don’t know much beyond that. They never get to see the long-lasting effects of their efforts, and they don’t get to know the perspectives with which people view them and the legends they’ve become. They didn’t want Rowan to become a place for snobby elites, and they didn’t want nonmagical people to be discriminated against, but they can’t do anything about it. Because we can act to change our history, but in the long run we never know how our stories will end up being told. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take action to better our world for the present and the foreseeable future.

-I love all the subtle parallels, intentional or not, between this story and The Tapestry. Kids sneaking out at night for a sleepover on a ship, kids sneaking out for a duel. A man losing his face. Workshop specimens getting stolen. Being betrayed by a friend (honestly, I didn’t suspect Viktor at all until he suggested that they collect firewood and then my mind immediately went to Rolf and Connor for some reason even though there was no real connection). The illustration of Hob outside Hazel’s tent with the House Blade next to the fire reminded me so much of Cooper sneaking into Max’s tent with the poisoned Atropos blade, and it was Scathach the shadow who saved Max and Sigga the shadow who saved Hazel and Hob. History repeats itself. No matter how much some things change, some things still repeat.

-Olly was such a great character, like he had flaws but he acknowledged and apologized for them and he was so great. Sniff.

-Seriously Sigga is that teacher who’s like “I know you’re going though a lot so I’m going to conveniently forget to close the submission box until a while after the due date so I won’t know if you turned the homework in late but if I do catch you turning it in late I gotta fail you sorry”

-Also can we talk about the fact that Ember apparently fell in love with Astaroth’s hell dragon that he conjured from dead people like oh my god Ember plz you guys almost killed each other

-I feel like remember Henry saying something about us eventually getting to hear more about the grymholch from Prusias’s arena and the world it was from and I hope that happens

[dawndreamt]

If I leave a message in a bottle and set it off this coast— will it reach you, where you are now?

( The sound of waves crashing is the only answer he receives )

His gaze searches far and wide, watches a shoreline and looks— Riku is the one looking everywhere this time, in search of two people. And then you want to go home, when you conclude that you’re really alone here. Is that a selfish thing?

Perhaps, if this isolation is meant to be some sort of penance, then it is selfish to want to leave here. Want them to be here.

( But his home has always been with two people by the sea— or not by the sea. The islands had not been his home, but the people. Two people, no more, no less than that. Even if you had one here, soul would still long for the other. This is not a home, this is not living: this is just survival, trying best to cope with nightmare he has been faced with )

Of course he could go— back, that is. Briefly anyways, bracelet would lend you that much. You could go back to a time when nothing had yet gone wrong and he could pretend like everything would be all right. While they were still blissfully unaware of all the wrong things he’d done. It is all right, he is living proof of that, isn’t he?

Coping, it is all a process of coping in the end: so you pick up pen and write a letter you know may never reach.

Sora. Kari.

To be honest, I’m not sure which of you I should address this to, on the chance I dare decide to send this out. Let’s see, right now... Kairi, you’re still training right now, right? With Axel Lea? And Sora, I’m not sure where you are... not still in Olympus, I hope. So I don’t know if this can reach you, wherever you might be.

Have you maybe all ready gotten your powers back, Sora? You’re not one to stay down for very long. Have you been helping his majesty in my absence? Is he doing all right, for that matter? He’s not on his own out there, looking for her, right? Send my apologies to him— I’m not very happy knowing I’ve abandoned you all at such a crucial moment. You guys haven’t had to fight yet, have you? It’s not like I want to be there to fight, but...I would like to be there to make sure things don’t go wrong. You need every helping hand you can get, but I suppose the fight won’t be waiting for me to get home, will it? Try and use some precaution, you two. No amount of training will make you prepared enough for what’s coming your way, I’m sure of it.

That’s probably enough worrying about what your situation is like, I’m sure you two are sick of reading me write about that and would prefer to hear about how I am here. I’m good great awful— sorry, trying to be truthful here, it’s the least I can do. If it’s you two, it’s okay. It’s a little hard to be here, honestly; besides feeling horribly homesick, I just feel guilty. I know it’s not by choice, but I should be with you two— no, with everyone else, fighting. Helping. Saving.

( Not that you had ever been good at that, have you? He tries so hard to protect— save what matters. And yet, here he is; lips set in frown and scratches out another sentence )

I’m working on it, I swear. It’s hard, but I’m trying my best to help out here too— but it’s a little hard? I think I’ve been taking it out on everyone here. Not everyone, but more than I should. I’m just scared tired. I expect everything to go all wrong again, you know? I’d like to borrow some of your optimism here, both of you are better at it than I, but— I don’t want to burden you with that.

The city here is... interesting, to put things kindly. The ‘project’, as they call it... I’m not entirely sure what it’s compromised of, but I’m sure there’s something more hiding here. Perhaps I’m being pessimistic, but I’d like to hope that precaution is realistic for once. There’s nothing normal about bringing people from different worlds, anyways. I don’t know what else is going on here, though. I’m not giving up on figuring that out— I don’t think I could have peace of mind anyways, although I’m a bit hindered here. There’s no darkness here? No, let me rephrase that: even if I cannot sense it, I am sure that darkness in some form lingers here. But they took that— my darkness— from me. A price to pay, perhaps. I don’t like it. Before, I think I would’ve been happier about it, you know, even if I’ve come to terms with it now. It’s always been like a plague, I was always afraid he was still lingering in me... I’d be lying to say I don’t still fear it, but, I just— I don’t know. I feel a little, even if I’ve got everything else still. At least having Way to the Dawn makes me feel a little more at ease. I can still put up a good fight, at least.

But how can I find the light if I cannot even sense the darkness...?

Anyways. The city is weird, but I’m sure you two could find a way to appreciate all this even when I cannot. The people here are kind of odd too, not that we’re exactly normal— though there’s not much here that’s weirder than the worlds we’ve been to. No, that’s not quite true, I cannot even pretend on that regard. Some of them are definitely way different than what we’re used to. It’s... fine. I can appreciate it, in a way, just, you know... it’s hard to appreciate being here in particular knowing what’s going on back with you guys. It leaves a bitter taste on my tongue to enjoy things here. I probably sound ungrateful. Sorry.

I know, I know. You can have fun every once in a while too, Riku. You don’t gotta do it all on your own all the time. Yeah, yeah. I’m aware— I’m trying, even if you can’t see it. It’s a hard habit to break.

So, the people. They’re all right. I’m sure you two would have no problem making friends here. I’m... it’s fine. It’s only temporary, anyways, so I’ll deal with it. You don’t need to worry about me. Speaking of friends, Sora, I saw some of your friends here. Neku says hi...? I don’t think he really recognized me, but he recognized my keyblade, I guess it reminded him of yours— maybe it was something else, I didn’t really press him for details. It was awkward, honestly. It’s not like I wouldn’t recognize their weird fashion, but maybe that’s because it’s fresher in my mind. So, yeah. It’s weird having gone from taking a test to being back in school, but I have to do something with my time. Not all of us get to slack off, you know.

Ah. The project— we get roommates here? I feel like being shoved into a building with a random stranger is the exact kind of thing you guys would get a kick out of. I... the one I’m staying with— he’s interesting. I’d say I think you two would like him, but you two like most people, so that doesn’t really help much. He reminds me of you, just a little bit— you both have that certain kind of quirk ( and you know I mean that in only the nicest manner ). He’s a kind person though, just like you. So it’s okay, I’m in good hands, I promise.

When I get home, I promise I’ll tell you guys in detail more about the stuff here— getting away from it, I’ll probably be able to be more positive, in retrospect. For now though, I think I’m out of things to write home about. I miss you two dearly. Please stay as safe as you can be. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be back as soon ask I can. At least, that’s the goal. You two are working hard on your end, so I’ll do what I can here. So I can see you one last time, at least.

( Exhale. Breathe. You have poured out so many things that you’ve been keeping inside onto parchment, exhale— you shut those emotions back up. There’s no place for weakness here.

They’re waiting.

Letter is sealed away in a glass bottle and saved away in a desk drawer )

[alengthyread]

I Tried to be Nice about This!  :-)

It’s time to surrender.  Give it up. Am pretty popular in the Christian world, when I was in highschool, I told my friend that I sang in the choir, and he laughed thinking it was funny. The other time, I invited my other friend for a youth gathering. I understand now that the temperament need control. Because am tired with the gossips, am tired with the stupid knowledge, am tired with the kindergarten approach to things. The problem with Christianity, first of all, “Christianity” is a pagan name, you don’t see the word “Christian” in the Bible. Surrender. Pun, really surrender though. The problem is that people don’t know Christ. You have these statements of follow Christ, but where is Christ? If Christ had an ascension, why not follow Him all the way to heaven? Realistically, saints have the Holy Spirit, when the Spirit resides in you, there’s no more following. When the Spirit resides in you, you can literally take God with you anywhere you go in this planet earth. Because the Spirit has seven characteristics, and wisdom is one of them, the problem now is that we’re bombarded by stupidity that we don’t know how to talk to anyone in public. It seem now that there’s so much protocol, because you can be accused by your own words, and that you could be sued if you say too much. The focus really is the Holy Spirit, obviously people use the whole Bible to gain financial term, and you can’t judge that, money a lot of times have a seemingly value that it’s gonna change our lives forever for the good. Money has a lure that it’s going to lead us to happiness. And you see this in the life of King Solomon, King Solomon pursued everything he could imagine life under the sun, and eventually in his old age, he died a fool. The problem with western Christianity is that it’s easy in this western hemisphere. People of God are only motivated for its stance when persecuted. And this was the problem with King Solomon, he had an easy life, and a lot of times ease is a bigger problem thinking it’s the best solution to a problem-free life. At the same time, I don’t blame the west, the west thrive on peace, the west thrive on happiness dealing with all that vacation. The problem when there’s no threat nor persecution, you’re basically stuck with a Hillsong song, and the problem with its teaching is that, “You have to be closer to God.” And I noticed that a lot of the instructions over the years have gotten ridiculous. Because I feel there’s a lack of examination. But you have to understand that a peaceful western world has nothing else but to suffice itself, this western thing is to go to work everyday, and hope that there’s no mental illness, that’s the west. And people have to understand that the financial flow where the commercialism, and advertising, all come relevant to any human being in North America, you can’t expect to go to a bus stop, and have the ten commandments written on the pavement. It’s ridiculous to say, “Follow God, commit to God” when we’re already hurting from work, or when we’ve already been hospitalized. It’s ridiculous when you negate the content of the Bible to please whatever context you wanna imply. Churches don’t say this often, in fact I’ve only heard this one said once, and Jesus suffered, Jesus was hanging on the cross for hours. Job suffered. King David cried and suffered. And it’s really aloof to super impose the lack of knowledge there is, visit the medical field, if you wanna say who are: If you say love people.  Visit a road car accident. Visit the Emergency Room. Visit hospital beds. Because salary out here in the west is not easy, the adage is no work, no pay. And if there’s no pay, no survival: No food, no nothing. Having said that, these expert will come again, in arrogant form of course, they don’t know the value of a dollar, they just say whatever is to probably look like a celebrity, this is probably a popular contest.  And now you gotta read the whole Bible, you barely know your own work, you’re stressed at work, and now the boring Bible, and the boring church services. And the percentage of youth going to church is very little now, and that’s because it’s not enjoyable, you can’t expect modern day people to read one sentence of a verse? What people need, especially youth is nurture, people are troubled now, people have vices where the financial term and aide is credit card, it’s no longer a rich world, people debunk, or bankrupt the fund - because there’s just too much marketing and business. The wise question to ask is, why is the world like this?  And what can we do to improve the situation? People limp, and you tell these people they’re going to Hell?  Examine yourself. I often wondered if Jesus was still around 2018. What if Jesus was still walking around your streets twelve in the evening, what would the experience be like? Do you also get crucified with Christ?  Christ said the thief will be in paradise. Jesus suffered, but at the same time He could’ve waltzed on that hill, because let’s face it, we all wanna leave this, w world. And the word waltz is used there, because why did Jesus never sinned while brutally hurt? If the cross is the crucifix, why did Jesus never sinned? Our time now, a little problem, a little noise, a little dirt, and all temper go. Am not gonna step forward, and say, “Hey, am an apostle.”  It’s true that apostles get followed, and I understand that people are interested in this, but let’s look at the bigger picture. The gospel can be found in the book of Genesis.  And I say this, because the animal that God sacrificed for Adam and Eve atoned for their sin. And everyone has to bear this in mind, because the gospel is really easy, the gospel is easy to understand.  Don’t miss the gospel by a stupid theologian. The gospel in the New Testament is Christ shedding his blood on the cross - or while on the cross.  Period. It’s preposterous now what people are saying. And there’s just going to be a great divide, because there’s already been a division, it’s just that a lot of people now are so uncomfortable with their reality. Joel Osteen is basically church scientology, but I believe that this is only a fad, Joel Osteen has all the right inspiration, he has the right advices to keep you surviving in America, because let’s face it, if you don’t act up on what you know on a street level, you will starve to death. Jesus Christ himself again, people treat him like he’s nothing.  But you have to read the four gospels of the New Testament to understand who he really is. Don’t go by these intimidating sermons, don’t go by these foolish preachers, Jesus was a friend of sinners. And of course when I say that, the youth will go in hysteric, but that’s part of life, you can’t control what’s gonna make you happy. When the Pharisee caught a woman in an act of adultery, under Mosaic law, she is stoned to death. Now, how come Jesus over rides the writings of Moses? And when Jesus posed the question he who has no sin, cast the first stone, how come the Pharisees left?  The issue was adultery, right?  The Pharisee could’ve stoned the lady enough to bruise her. See the historic change here? We’re not dealing with anything petty here, adultery is real, sex is primal, and our eyes wander. And what does Jesus say to her? The thing is, the church is a commercial entity in North America now, I don’t know how it is in other parts of the world. When I say commercial church, it’s an entity where the finances need to be protected. Anything adultery is miscued, and that’s because it’s not part of church financial. And that’s why am not gonna get involved with it. I’ve been on this church thing for almost forty years now. And it’s one of those things where you learn what its nature, or what its reality, normally so. It’s just like a game of basketball, the more you put your mind into it, the more realization come, and thirty, forty years could go by, and your greatest player could change along that timeline. We’re dealing with a coin here. Jesus preached about money more times than Hell. But it’s really up to you, the church is a commerce now, and the church is on a seam of a gold bar.  When you say Joel Osteen now, you say, “He has a private jet.” It’s hard to admit it, but money has a way of controlling us, because it takes us to the mall where you can have a good time. I suggest to go to the Christian bookstore, and really learn more of Christ, I understand that the fashion, the cars, the shoes, I mean I deal with those things, too. But for Pete’s sake, visit the Christian bookstore, and there’s enough resources there that can lead you to Christ.  I know what I know, but am also struggling here, am continually learning these things to almost on a daily basis. The last story I wanna say is the Samaritan woman on the well, because people now use marriage to save their dear life. The thing is, Jesus knew that this woman had a problem, and she kept getting married almost up to six guys from divorce after another. Of course, men during her time will just go to the field in the afternoon, and do wheat sheering. But just like anyone else, she was frustrated. And a lot of us are like that, we think we have the perfect marriage, in fact you don’t need a contract to get married nowadays. But, a couple of months will go by, and ah, “Am not happy with this marriage.” And usually a divorce will just follow, because you get caught dealing with another person who supposedly was going to be better than your last. Am glad Jesus visited her, because I have that problem too where humanistically is the solution, so I listen to Marc Anthony, I even cry. I don’t have all the answers, I wish I can say that Jesus was gonna finalize this, the woman did leave happy, she was celebrating along the streets, but you can’t say that her life then would be perfect for the rest of her life. I still think that you can’t be anti marriage, if you have attraction for a person, I think it should be pursued, and that’s because the gender male, and female, is just too powerful.

[realtalk-tj]

why is everyone at tj so competitive? like why can't they mind their own fricking business and stop making others feel bad about taking "Omg only 2 APs as a sophomore??" like even in summer chem people r so competitive for like top 5 and stuff why cant they just do something because they like it???

Response from Flitwick:

seems like a vent but ok

Why is everyone at TJ so competitive? Why do people [insert toxic behavior here]?

TJ is certainly a competitive place - a lot of people come in with the mentality of striving for the highest echelons of achievement, and I suppose that’s a not a bad thing. As for “why,” I think it’s mostly just the culture of parents and students putting pressure on students to “do great things” so they can look good. (I guess, in your case, that includes summer chem top 5. :/) This still isn’t really a bad thing - however, as you noted, putting others down in order to get ahead is really just a toxic thing to do and it’s really not ok. Unfortunately, it’s really really common. Bragging about how many AP classes you take or how little sleep you get is the norm nowadays.  

Apparently, the end goal of all of this is to look better to good colleges and get admitted to them (maybe even an iVy lEaGuE  :O). Personally, I’ve been disillusioned by the whole “ivy-league-top-college” thing, but a lot of people are shooting for it, and allegedly the way to make yourself feel ever slightly closer to it is to belittle the person next to you for being “farther,” where the metrics are the things I’ve mentioned before - sleep deprivation, hard classes, etc. I find it sad that this is what we value now, especially for newly minted freshmen who’ve already adopted the toxicity that TJ has.

(Validation intermission - 2 APs as a sophomore is pretty good. Of course, at base school, people can take APs with more freedom because TJ’s AP courses are really rough in comparison. You will have plenty of room to take more in the next two years yourself and don’t be discouraged by people who look down upon the potential for expansion that you have.)

Why don’t people do things because they like them?

There’s a surprisingly fine line between being passionate about something and doing something because they feel forced to do. This goes back to the “ivy-league-top-college” thing once again, unfortunately - the more extracurriculars and high achievements you get out of school, the more ‘well-rounded’ you are and the better you look to colleges. Often people tend to do clubs that have officer positions that are easy to get or claw their way to the top of one because an officer position shows leadership, which looks good on college apps.

However, I find this is not the case for some. I remember talking to my recently-graduated senior friend who ran two pretty large academic clubs - and he does what he does because he wants to give back to the community/ies of people that he was welcomed into as an underclassman, and not for some ulterior motive. I think people who are really passionate about things and like them will give back to the community - and even though it may be work, it’s enjoyable, and eventually, they become really good at what they do.

This response was way longer than I initially intended it to be - but yeah tl;dr people are motivated by getting into good colleges and stuff and so they do these things to feel like they’ll have a better chance at getting into one. My advice: you do you, they can do whatever they want. Pursue the things you like, and make room for yourself - after all, you’re the one you always have to live with after high school and college, and you gotta take care of yourself.

Response From Fleur:

People at TJ have some misguided beliefs. Like...

False Belief #1: I will not get into college with my grades. You sure will. In reality, you will get into a college even with some Cs and Ds. There are thousands of colleges out there. Everyone except maybe like 3 or so people each year at TJ get into and go to a college right out of high school. And then maybe those 3 or so people went into the military or joined the Peace Corps or took a gap year before applying. And trust me when I say my class did not all have mostly As by a long shot.

False Belief #2: I will only succeed in life if I get into an ivy league. Nope. Nope. Nope. This could not be further from the truth. There are some people who are unemployed after graduating from an ivy league because finding jobs is not always the easiest thing in the world. There are also people who are swimming in tens of thousands of dollars of college debt. Some people decline ivy league admission to avoid that because they know they’re better off without it. Also, school rewards people who conform and not people who take risks. The most successful people would fall into the latter category, many of them did not do well in school at all. And again, there are thousands of colleges out there. There’s no reason why you need to go to an ivy league. It’s a great opportunity if it comes your way and you can afford it, and that’s why so many people apply. But if it doesn’t, that’s perfectly fine it’s not necessary.

False Belief #3: I have to get into ___ college to be happy. Again, completely false. There are many different paths in life. You could take a few years off from school, go to NOVA, transfer, graduate from a four year college, get into graduate school, go get your PhD...etc and be perfectly content with your life. You could also go to college right out of high school and end up in the same place doing the same thing eventually. What matters more than anything is that you get that degree at all that you’re hoping for. Simply going to a specific college is not what’s going to make you happy. There are tons of people dealing with depression, sexual violence, childhood trauma and all sorts of other rough things at highly selective colleges just like everywhere else. The name of the college you go to is not going to make your personal or interpersonal issues go away. It’s the most important things in life that will lift you up and help you build resilience through the rough times ;)

False Belief #4: I’m not good enough because of my grades, GPA, extracurriculars...etc. Everyone who goes to TJ is not stupid. You can’t be stupid and get into TJ. Having a good head on your shoulders and a decent amount of potential is a prerequisite to admission.

False Belief #5: If I don’t get into _____ college, I’m a failure. Woah there. Your life is just beginning. Ya’ll just become adults when you leave high school. You’re not expected to be experts in a field like some middle-aged professional at age 16.

False Belief #6: If I'm going to succeed, somebody else must fail. When you lift other people up, you all do better. Not competing with others has been shown to help in the long run. It enriches your life, and you gain connections down the road too. And realistically, if you help out 1 classmate, or even 5, their higher test scores from your help are probably not going to change the curve enough for refusing to help them to do you any good. The classes I do best in college in are when I have a study buddy. We make sure that the other one does well. Screw the curve, if my study buddy is struggling with something, I’ll take time away from my life to review that part with them for an hour, knowing that they’ll probably repeat the favor with me later on. Again, screw the curve, I’ll go into it with the attitude that I’m going to make sure we do so well the curve won’t matter. And that helps a lot. It builds character and rock-solid friendship to help other people out and endure a weed out class with them.

False Belief #7: I'm a disappointment to my family because my GPA isn't up to their standards. Children cannot physically be disappointments or failures. Ya'll haven't lived long enough to have the opportunity. If this is the opinion your family holds, then it's a wrong one. You have too much worth for this to be true. You haven’t even started on a career path yet! In addition, failure is necessary on the path to success. You cannot succeed unless you fail. That’s a secret to doing well when you’re creating things. I’m someone who produces novels and songs. Sometimes I’ll spend months on a project only for people to hate it, agents to reject it, and leading me to feel like I suck at what I’m doing and have zero talent. Only about 1 in every 10 songs I write seem real good in pursuing. The rest collect space on a shelf. But you can’t quit when things don’t work out. You have to keep going. And going. And doing. And creating. And going. And creating. Until something that you do works. That’s what you do, just keep producing until something works out. So keep it up! :)

False Belief #8: My future depends on me taking more AP classes and getting better grades. It does not. There are many paths in life to get to the same place and none of them depend on the amount of AP classes you take, getting all As at TJ, or going to a specific college. Some high schools don’t even offer AP classes or tests. Because we’ve already established that you have intellect and potential and worth, you’re already set up to have the ability to go places in life.

False Belief #9: My friends won't like me if I don't get good grades. People are self-centered and most likely they will be too busy focusing on themselves to bother you about your grades. You’d be surprised at how little people care to judge each other.

False Belief #10: Other students are out to get me in this cutthroat environment. Even if you feel there is competition, you can still find other people to collaborate with! Collaboration is what you’re after, after all :) And even when it seems like there are people who are not on your side, remember that there are a lot of ridiculously nice people in this world who have love to give and will support you if you give them the opportunity to. For example, complete strangers do a lot for each other and a lot of the work I do capitalizes off how strangers can best help each other. I volunteer on two suicide hotlines. Volunteer means you don’t get paid. You also choose your hours. When you want to remember that there are people too good for this world, remember that every single day there are people who sign up to take a hotline shift from 2am-4am in the morning to talk to people who are suffering out of the goodness of their heart.

As for why people don’t do things because they like them, I honestly think it’s because they just don’t know how. I also think that many TJ students are told what to do in terms of “you should do this because it looks good to other people” and I’ve found that some families of TJ students emphasize looking good to other people or making a certain amount of money or having a certain amount of prestige surrounding them, and it’s understandable that parents want their kids to be successful in life and such, especially if they worked really hard to give their kids opportunities they didn’t have growing up. So I think that sometimes people do things because they think they should and don’t think enough about what makes them excited about being alive.