#except for my parents. they remember but nobody else does.

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

I'm gonna pray to God that nobody wishes you a Happy Birthday on your birthday.

this already happens to me every single year

[bluem1lls]

✧₊⁺ Because of you, I can't love you

cheater! se-mi x gf! reader Synopsis: She was your number one, so why couldn't you be hers? Content: angst!! Authors note: OH MY GOD im pretty sure there's no one left here but i'd thought id leave this here and hopefully y'all like it??? i thought about this as a prequel to forget about everything for a while but it could not be that and i could do a part 2 for this one specifically??? u tell me<3 i love u sososo much and tysm to the people who kept asking if i was okay and all, I AM im just a lazy ass who went through a vv big block

It's so hard when love isn't reciprocated the way you want it to be.

Because she was always there; you never thought she'd leave.

So when she does, it doesn't matter how many years pass, she will always be there. At least in your mind.

january 2022.

"Oh, give it a break, would you?" se-mi says, her voice tinged with frustration as you hide your face on your hands, sobbing— trying to stop. "She's just a friend!"

"Except she's not! god, why are you trying to make me look insane? She's not a friend, she's not! I know it!" you say, your voice is cracking but you're still trying to hold your tone. Does she think you're this naive?

Se-mi sits on the bed, grabbing her head with a long sigh. The sharp, maddening silence fills the room as you stare at her, waiting for an answer. Anything.

Nothing comes out of her lips.

"Please…" you cry out loud, eyes filled with tears.

Please tell me you didn't ruin our relationship.

Please tell me you didn't forget about me.

Please tell me you didn't kissed her while i was here, waiting for you to come home.

But her eyes never look at yours. they're fixed on the floor, dissociating. she bites her chapped lips, her throath bobs.

And although you don't know what she's about to say, by the way your blood goes cold— you feel it.

"I'm sorry" she says with a small thread of voice.

And suddenly, every heavy weight on your thoughts comes crashing down.

"W-why? i.. did—did i do something wrong?" you ask with a shaky voice as the tears roll freely down your cheeks.

She stares at you, shaking her head 'no' as she gets up from the bed to try and touch you —quickly pulling away as she sees you flinching. "Never. you—you never did anything wrong i just.."

And once again, silence fills the room.

Because she wants an excuse, but she doesn't have one.

She doesn't really know why she cheated on the girl who loved her the most.

And maybe that's why. Maybe she just answered to herself.

Because you're the girl that always loved her the most. You always loved with your entire heart—all or nothing.

But you weren't the girl she loved the most.

For as long as she can remember, you were always just... there.

Yeah, you were there since high school. After the bullyng, you were the ray of sunshine. Her ray of sunshine.

The drama with her parents? You were there when her mom died, when her dad started to drink and pass out on the couch.

You were always there.

And it wasn't a surprise when you two started dating. After all, the popularity you once held was ruined once you started befriending the 'weirdo'.

And to you? It was worth it. You'd lived, you'd loved other people, yet, you decided that loving her was worth more than anyone else.

But she didn't get that.

Nobody loved her, so when someone suddenly did, it was everything to her.

Until, after a few years, it wasn't.

Because she realized she'd spent her younger years with you, but she never learned what else was out there for her.

"I'm done begging for you to see me, Se-mi" you spoke with the last bit of voice you had, standing up to grab a dirty backpack that lay on what used to be your room— yours and hers.

you began throwing inside everything you owned —or at least what you could fit— before she stops you.

"W-what.." she says with wide eyes, staring at your movements.

"You seriously didn't think I'd forgive the cheating, right?" you say with dried tears and a disgusted face.

"N-no but—"

You turn to face her, and she's never seen that expression on your face before. she thought she knew you like the back of her hand.

Turns out she didn't.

Because the way your teary —now cold and harsh— eyes set on her? the way your mouth twitches with anger and betrayal?

She's never seen that on you.

"You're staying with the apartment, because I'm nice enough" you say, your voice hard and angered while shoving more things into the backpack. "I'm nice enough to know if I throw you out of here, you'll be sleeping on the streets. But, God. Fuck off Se-mi. I hope you know i gave everything for you, and you didn't do shit for me. Go fuck yourself" you spoke grabbing your set of keys and your phone, slinging the backpack over one shoulder.

And with a harsh sound, the door slams behind you, leaving her in a cold, dark apartment that doesn't look like half of what it was before.

Before she cheated, of course.

She knew what she had coming.

She knew when she kissed her co-worker.

She knew when she allowed the pretty blonde to send pictures of her tits to her phone.

She knew when she saw her again.

And she knew the moment the notification popped and your eyes quickly read it. She saw that was all you needed —the confirmation of all those "Are you okay? Are we okay?" "Yeah, i'm just tired".

Thats when she knew she'd fucked up.

And there she sat, on the bed that once had her holding you in her arms.

Whatever warm remnat of that moment was now gone, thanks to her.

Her thoughts were clouded. Her hands buried in her frustrated face, rubbing it. A soft sigh leaving her lips.

She quickly got out of bed, dressing in the first thing she found —sweatpants and a hoodie— before heading out to take a walk.

Her feet gave out near the bench in the park. She dropped herself there, pulling out her phone.

Her screen reflected her lockscreen, a picture of you and her kissing, her hand cupped your cheek. And right there, a message of the girl she cheated on you with. She didn't even learned her name.

She focused on it until she felt a heavy weight beside her. A man dressed in a suit with black hair seemed to be staring at her.

"Hey." he smiled as Se-mi stared at him.

And after thirty minutes, who would tell her she'd ended up beating him at ddakji? He gave her a card with a square, triangle and a circle and a number.

Whatever, right?

Let it be, she told herself as headed home to dial the number.

She took it as a sign.

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; “project sidekick”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“This is such bullshit,” Wally bites off, because it's not like he's not Wally, he's been Wally all this time, nobody could tell the fucking difference including Uncle Barry and his parents and Batman and his teachers and friends and him–except they're not, none of them are, the Flash is his uncle but he's not the Flash's nephew, he–he–

He’s not. He remembers them, but none of them remember . . . remember . . . 

It’s a different Wally West that they’re all remembering. A different Kid Flash. A different . . . 

They think he’s different. They think he’s not . . . 

He’s not Wally West to them. Not to any of them. 

He doesn’t–he doesn’t know what . . . what’s going to . . . what’s he’s going to . . . 

“We must only wait, my friend,” Kaldur says like they’re even actually friends at all, but Wally doesn’t know how to think of him as anyone else. He is Kaldur, same as–he remembers everything Kaldur remembers and he’s genetically identical to Kaldur and he’s actually technically probably more Kaldur because everything he did was something Kaldur would have, because he didn’t know the stupid difference! He’s Kaldur, just three months farther along. All he ever did was what Kaldur would’ve done. 

So he’s Kaldur. He’s more Kaldur than the real Kaldur. 

And literally no one else thinks that. No one else thinks that, and if Wally ever actually said that, they’d all think he was about to go fucking supervillain on them or something, which actually maybe would be justified, if only because supervillains get to do shit like burn down or explode or disintegrate entire fifty-three level labs and every single doctor who’s ever worked in them and also break into Belle Reve and personally vibrate Desmond’s larynx out of his fucking throat! 

It’d take longer to kill him than the heart would, and maybe Wally really is going to end up a supervillain. Maybe he’s a shitty person or he has mind control somewhere in his head that just hasn’t gotten triggered yet or– 

“I am actually very not-good at waiting, that’s kind of my whole thing is being bad at waiting, if you forgot,” Wally cuts his own thoughts off with, forcing his hands not to vibrate with speed–or Speed. “Or it’s Kid Flash’s whole thing, anyway, and my stupid ass didn’t know the difference.” 

The Flash kept looking at him like he was worried about what he was gonna do and his–and–and the Wests are gonna be so, like, upset and horrified and probably be upset with themselves, too, since it’s not like they tweaked he wasn’t really there–wasn’t their–wasn’t the same kid they’d been raising all his life, and Batman told Dick he was sorry, which–how often does Batman even do that, say he’s freakin’ sorry like that?! 

And–and the Wally who’s been in stasis on sublevel 53 for the past three months is gonna come get his life back and not know anything that’s happened or anything that’s going on, and–and–

And M’gann and Artemis are gonna be so freaked out. Like, Conner’s one thing, they came in knowing about Conner being a clone and he does, actually, look different from Superman, what with the whole “being half his physical age” thing, but them–they all look exactly like the guys whose lives they stole and maybe they do have freaky mind control in them, maybe they’re not safe to be around, maybe they’re creepy awful evil sleeper agents or–or– 

“And yet the necessity for the waiting remains,” Kaldur says gently, the total actual asshole who can only act like that ‘cuz he got cloned from the most chill and most responsible sixteen year-old who has ever walked the fucking earth, Wally is pretty sure, and he got made out of a socially-inept loser who literally no girl alive would ever look twice at and who can’t just slow down when he–! 

“Sure it does,” Dick says, then lets out a mean, bitter little laugh. It’s not a laugh Wally’s ever heard from him before. 

But he heard it when Dick told him about . . . told him about the circus, and Zucco, and . . . 

That’s not even something that actually happened to him. Not even something that happened to this Dick, which–actually, yeah, never mind, Wally will take the socially-inept loser who can’t slow down compared to remembering watching the Flying Graysons fall. Remembering watching that from their kid’s perspective, all the related thoughts and emotion and–and Dick remembers all that awful stuff, remembers losing his parents and his life and his whole world, and he doesn’t even get to feel anything about it anymore. 

He never even met the Graysons. Never lived with them or travelled with the circus; never performed in front of cheering crowds like he remembers loving, never knew any of those people, never actually felt all that rage and grief and helplessness. 

So no one’s going to think it counts, now that they know he’s not the Dick Grayson that actually did do all those things.

And now Dick’s actually lost his parents and his life and his whole world, because none of it them were ever his at all, and he remembers feeling that twice, and remembers exactly how awful it was the first time. Remembers what it did to him the first time. How it changed him, and what it made him, and . . . 

Yeah. Wally will take the socially-inept loser of a gene donor, actually. The socially-inept loser of a gene donor is looking pretty good right now.

[spectrum-spectre]

oh man... I just experienced A Thought™ again

I'm never gonna write this, so if someone else wants to, go right ahead (preferably with credit, please):

Everyone thinks that Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson are alphas, but they're actually hiding their true designations--not because they're scared omegas, but because they're both secretly betas.

They're mimicking! You obviously can't choose what you present as (unless you go through bitching or studding, but this is rural Indiana in the 80's; nobody in that town has ever even heard of these things)--

BUT! Your designation can be partially influenced by your environment! That's why Steve's dad made him join three different sports teams; to encourage his body to develop into that of an alpha. Except, well... Steve doesn't really want that. He hates the culture surrounding alpha males, but he also sees how the world treats omegas of all genders, and he doesn't want to play a part in any of that bullshit. So his body decides to present as something else entirely.

Eddie's story was much the same, but he also went through a different kind of pressure from his family. His parents fought a lot, so he would play the mediator in a desperate attempt to keep them together (and so his dad would target his anger at him instead--just like he does with bullies at school).

Steve sees alphas as assholes, and Eddie sees alphas as abusive, but they both recognize they would be granted a certain level of safety and social standing if everyone thought that they were alphas instead.

That's not even getting into the fact that betas aren't exactly a hot commodity; Steve is terrified that people will find him boring--or worse, undesirable.

They came up with the plan together. Steve was a sophomore, and Tommy had dared him to try buying weed from the weird junior who still hadn't presented *yet. Eddie had just seen his last client for the day, but as soon as Steve approached the picnic table, both their presentations hit at the same time. There's no beta equivalent of a heat/rut, they just... suddenly Know™ that's what their designation is.

It was actually Steve's idea, at first. He remembered reading a book about mimicry in elementary school, and when he mentioned Monarch Butterflies, Eddie came up with the nickname King Steve (it only stuck because other students overheard Eddie refer to him as that while snarkily muttering under his breath). He helped Steve flesh out the details of the plan, and the two came to an agreement: they'd try to prevent targeted harassment from their respective cliques, under the threat of mutually assured destruction.

*in my mind, they go through their initial puberty around ages 11-13, and then their presentation/second puberty hits around ages 14-16. I imagine Steve was freshly 16, with Eddie just a few weeks shy of turning 17, so he was a bit of a late bloomer.

[thestarryeyedadmirer]

In my head, these four are brothers. Allow me to explain…

Tom:

Tom is the oldest of the bunch—the responsible one. An honest, well-mannered fellow, he’s spent his whole life having to look out for others, so he’s gotten pretty used to being the guy who speaks up and calls the shots. It doesn’t matter where he is, or who he’s with, he moves through life with a presentational sense of confidence and behaves as though he’s the top dog—in charge of everyone—which is something that stems from some deep-seeded childhood trauma. As far back as he can remember, he’s been second in command to his parents’ authority… the one that would handle his brothers’ petty disputes and emotional outbursts when his parents weren’t in the immediate vicinity. If something went wrong, he had to handle it… and when he couldn’t get things in order, he was the one who took the fall. Everything was his fault… and everything was his problem to fix. Each of his brothers’ actions were considered his actions, and every single one of his actions were seen an example… a precedent for his younger siblings. Somehow, the shame and paranoia that used to haunt him transformed into an unhealthy form of pride. These days, that natural tendency to overpower every other voice in a room tends to bite him in the butt… but it’s not totally a bad thing. With endless experience in being a mediator, Tom has grown to be an incredible problem solver and people-person, who values rationality and above all else, and possesses exceptional emotional intelligence. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. There is no gray area or leeway… only reasonable explanations, that sway toward either side. These days, he’s still parenting his brothers in many ways—keeping them from making bad decisions, lending them money whenever they need it, and breaking up their petty fights. That’ll never change. He’s a successful author—who’s written several bestselling motivational, business, and self-help books in his career—the co-owner of a small chain of coffee shops on the west coast, and he’s invested in several local businesses all over the state. Even though that may sound like a lot… and it is… Tom isn’t exactly rolling around in millions—just one or two. Living by himself, in a big house by the beach, just a few hours away from his childhood home and immediate family, he’s pretty comfortable. He’s got no spouse to compromise with, no children to chastise, and nobody around to put any kind of pressure on him, and him feel like he’s doing something wrong. It’s just perfect.

Jordan:

Jordan is the second oldest—the bad boy. Growing up with Tom as his big brother, micromanaging his every move, and constantly filling his head with arbitrary concepts of right and wrong, Jordan has always enjoyed the thrill of breaking rules. Even as an adult, he hates having to answer to anyone, and will go out of his way to defy the wishes of any authority figures that he encounters. He’s not dangerous, by any means, but more of a petty pest—the kind of guy who pokes the bear for fun, until it mauls him to death. He doesn’t go overboard with the things that he does to spite people, or purposefully put anyone in danger… but he’s still an asshole. An asshole who, deep down, has a good heart… though he tries his best not to show it. Jordan flunked out of college because he stopped going to class, after spending an entire semester causing disruptions in lecture halls and cheating on assignments. He got kicked out of his parents’ house because he kept rigging all of the electronic appliances to shock whoever used them. He’s even been to jail a few times, for a handful of stupid non-violent crimes that he committed in his early twenties. Nothing serious. Jordan is such a dick, he can’t keep a job, or a partner, or even a roof over his head. He lives fast, breezes through his life like a speeding train—one thing after another, after another—and now he’s so far down the wrong path, he’s hit a dead end. In his late twenties, he wants nothing more than to get his life on track, and find some sense of stability… but old habits die hard, and abrasive personalities don’t change overnight. Having not spoken to his family for years, he’s recently reconnected with his brothers, CJ and Stephen, and is trying to make up for the lost time. As far as reconciling with Tom and their parents goes, it’s still a work in progress. Tom sends him money every now and then, and checks in on him from time to time, but they haven’t really spoken in ages. Aside from his brothers, Jordan has no other family to rely on—no serious partners, or any kids… that he knows of—so it’s important to him that he un-burns those bridges as soon as he can. These days, Jordan is either living out of his car or crashing at CJ’s apartment. He makes his money via Onlyfans, Fansly, and a wide selection of cam sites, just so he can get by. Seeing the wonders that it’s done for others—like CJ—and feeling as though he has no other legal options, he’s only testing the waters of the porn world while he waits for something better to come along, but the money is looking good, and the job prospects are thin. Maybe he’ll ride the wave a bit longer.

CJ:

Cj is the second youngest—the sexy himbo. He’s gone his whole life skating by on his looks alone, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He first knew he was handsome when he was a little boy… when women at the grocery store would stop him and his mother in the aisles and gush over how cute they thought he was. They’d pinch his cheeks, ruffle his hair, and go on and on about how he was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up. Little did they know that they were creating a little monster. When he got to elementary school, and started to interact with other kids more frequently, he quickly noticed how all of the little girls in his class would fawn over him. They’d bat their little eyelashes and giggle like mice whenever he spoke… and, at first, it made him a bit uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to that kind of attention from kids his age. Most, if not all of his typical admirers were grown women, just being sweet… but, as the years went on, and the girls got more bold, he began to learn how to use his looks to his advantage, and get the better of his peers. CJ wasn’t good at long division in third grade, so he’d always ask the smart girls to do his math homework for him—bribe them with quick kisses, or by inviting them to play with him at recess, and use them like his own personal minions. They were so easy to trick. Middle school was just the same. He got taller, his voice dropped, his teenage features started to take shape, and his lean physique became more muscular… and from the time he entered the sixth grade, all the way up through the end of his eighth grade year, he hardly ever had to try academically. That’s how easy life was for him, up until he graduated high school. Instead of doing things himself, he’d just pass the buck to someone else and take the credit for what they did—whether it was a beautiful, naive girl, or his own brothers—and, by the time he was a legal adult, he had nothing to show for himself. He couldn’t do simple math, or read any books that didn’t have interesting pictures on them. He couldn’t cook for himself, do his own laundry, or drive a car. He could hardly even hold a conversation. Tom tried to help him learn, teaching him how to care for himself—past maintaining his appearance—but he quickly gave up the effort when his career started to take off. Left to his own devices, as an extremely late bloomer, CJ didn’t have any of the skills that it took to make it as an adult… but he did have his amazing body. Using what he had in order to get what he wanted, CJ dove headfirst into the porn industry, taking any job that came his way, and stacking up the money. He did both amateur and professional work—hardcore stuff, fetish stuff, taboo stuff, and vanilla. He slept with guys, girls, and everyone in between, all in an effort to make enough cash to move out of his parents’ house and live on his own… and it didn’t take long before he had the keys to his very own apartment. Now, he’s living by himself, pumping out NSFW content like a peon factory, making thousands of dollars a week, and showing Jordan how he can do the same. Having been in the business for a few years, CJ is a very successful entertainer… and, after years of being a lackluster student, he’s finally discovering the joys of teaching and mentoring someone else, for a change.

Stephen:

Stephen is the youngest—the kind-hearted, awkward geek, who’s just trying to start what will be the rest of his life on the right track. Having idolized his eldest brother, Tom, for pretty much all of his life, Stephen knows that it takes hard work, intelligence, and integrity to be successful in this world, and he wants to build a great foundation for the rest of his life to thrive on. He sees the things that his other brothers are doing, and he doesn’t judge them for it, or see them as any lesser, but he knows that he wants more for himself than what they have. He wants to be like Tom. His only problem is that he’s in his first semester of college, and he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life yet. There are so many possibilities, and so many paths that he could follow. He could be a doctor, or an engineer, or a writer. He always did have an interest in biology and anatomy, and he’s got his academic transcripts are outstanding. He could be an architect, or go into the business world. The choices are endless! Just barely nineteen, living under his parents’ roof, he’s a blank canvas with the world at his feet… and he has no idea what he wants to do with it yet.

Maybe I’ll end up writing some story with these characters soon… explore them some more.

[jack-of-heartstrings]

More thoughts on El Toro de Piedra, specifically on Juleka's side.

First and of course, I do really wish we'd gotten to see more build-up and more screentime for Juleka getting a big moment, though I'll never complain about her getting any focus. (Fingers weakly crossed for episode 6 when we get it...? my hopes are low but not-zero I guess.)

For me personally, juxtaposing the song with the fight made the fight harder to follow. Part of that was just that I struggle to watch both subtitles and the action, so that's not a fault or anything. And I fully respect the decision to not include fight sound effects alongside the song, as that DOES make it much easier to watch the song on its own later, but I think it would have felt nicer AS part of the episode itself if it had included at least some of the fight sounds.

HOWEVER, I do think it was a WONDERFUL decision to also throw her in with the theme of this episode.

We have three characters— Ivan, Adrien, and Nathalie— all with very complicated relationships with their dads, all of whom are/were really shitty and want their kids to go down the same shitty paths.

But then we've got this girl who barely knows her dad, met him for the first time less than a year ago, who also has a really complicated relationship and hasn't gotten over the ways in which he was shitty. And unless it's changed in the last few months, her greatest fear is presumably still him hating her and discouraging or breaking her dreams. But her dream IS to be like him, and has been since before she learned he was her dad. And honestly I think that's so much nicer than anything else they could have included. Someone like Marinette who just has a good relationship with her dad or even another dad that used to be bad but improved wouldn't hit nearly as hard as a dad who used to suck, who's improved but still has an at best tenuous relationship, yet whose legacy is still what one of his children wants more than anything in the world.

Just. What a good contrast. Sometimes a parent's legacy is imposed against your will, and sometimes it's embraced enthusiastically, but sometimes it's something you want despite your relationship. Sometimes it's actively something that helps connect you and can lead to improving the relationship.

And on a separate Juleka note, of course LET'S GO JULEROSE, but specifically...

Given Juleka's reaction to the kiss, I think I've decided the funniest interpretation of the ship (and thus the one I'm choosing to believe) is that they weren't dating before, and might still take a little longer to Officially get together now. Imagine. Imagine for me.

They're that cuddly all the time. They talk about how much they love each other and stare deeply into each other's eyes. They give each other cheek kisses way more often than other friends do, more than either of them gives other friends. Rose kisses Juleka on the mouth during the Zombizou incident and Juleka is super flustered by it but that was clearly just an akuma thing and she never mentions it afterward, or if Rose remembers since she wasn't akumatized herself then they just choose not to talk about it. They watch Marinette and Adrien be clueless all year and Rose keeps complaining about why won't those two just get it already. Rose marches down and tells the idiots if they don't kiss already then she's just gonna kiss them both. Nobody has this same problem watching Juleka and Rose be clueless because everybody genuinely though they were already together. Except them. They still took months to realize, and then both of them were like "but what if she doesn't feel the same way and then I make it weird" until Rose just went for it this episode. Absolute disaster sapphics if I ever saw them. 12/10.

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 5

You end up on a rooftop, you and Tenko and Kurogiri. Tenko has a pair of binoculars, and he lets you look through them before you have a chance to ask what he’s looking for. “We’re in Hosu,” he says. “The current location of the Hero Killer.”

“Are you going to fight him?”

“I’m doing what you said.”

You can’t remember what you said, except for your stupid joke. “Making him unfuckable?”

Tenko snickers, and somewhere behind you, Kurogiri does the same – which is extra weird. “No. Putting us back in the headlines.”

“Oh.” You don’t like this. “I’m not a strategist. You shouldn’t listen to me.”

“Why?” Tenko gives you a weird look. “You’re not stupid. Your ideas aren’t any worse than mine.”

“I don’t want you to get mad at me if it goes wrong,” you say. “I’ve heard you get mad at Kurogiri.”

Kurogiri chuckles. “That’s different,” he says. “Shigaraki Tomura. Tell her why it’s different.”

“Shut up,” Tenko says. He put the hand back over his face once he let go of your hand, but he’s turning red around it. Again. “Kurogiri’s not my sidekick. I don’t have to listen to him.”

“You don’t have to listen to me, either,” you say. “I don’t know anything about being – this.”

“You understand them better than I do,” Tenko says. He gestures at the expanse of Hosu before you. “What would it take to make you stop trusting heroes?”

You already don’t trust heroes very much. What would it take to move people like your parents or your siblings, who live in the other Japan, to where you are? “To see them choose wrong.”

Tenko gives you a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“Heroes can’t save everybody. They can’t be everywhere. They can’t be there all the time. But nobody ever thinks that the heroes won’t choose to save them,” you explain. “If you wanted to shake things up, you’d have to make it so the heroes choose wrong. For everybody to see.”

Tenko’s eyes light up, and the smile on his face this time looks less like your friend’s and more like the villain he’s become. “Then we’re in the right place,” he says. “This city is crawling with heroes looking for Stain. Let’s put them in a bind. Kurogiri, bring the Nomu. All of them.”

“Nomu?” you squeak, even as multiple portals open around you. “You have more than one?”

“We have lots. Sensei only gave me three.” Tenko gestures proudly at the monsters emerging from the portals. Everything about them looks like they’ve been put together wrong, from their staring eyes to their featureless faces to their pasty skin that smells like rot. The news reports about the attack on UA were clear about one thing – the Nomu that faced off against All Might was fast and extremely strong. “What do you think?”

One passes close to you and you cringe away, closer to Tenko. “They’re awful.”

“Exactly,” Tenko says. He stares down at the city, an expression on his face that’s somehow grim and vicious at once. “Let’s see what the rest of them think.”

The Nomus crawl down the sides of the building and vanish into the city. Tenko hasn’t given them orders, and neither has Kurogiri. You have questions – a lot of questions – but you’re not sure what it’s safe to ask. You’re Tenko’s sidekick, but that doesn’t mean his plans are yours to comment on. It feels weird to keep quiet, too. You and Tenko used to get in trouble for talking in class because you never ran out of things to talk about.

“You don’t look weird.”

You cough. “What?”

“You don’t look weird,” Tenko says again. You look at him, surprised, and find him looking straight ahead, peering through the binoculars. “I should have let you fix my shoulder the rest of the way.”

“What did you end up doing with it?” You reach over and part the cut fabric on his shoulder, wincing as you get a look at the bandaging job. “Next time, just let me finish.”

“Can you fix the rest of it?”

“I can’t do more stitches when it’s been open this long,” you say. Tenko grimaces but doesn’t swear at you. “There’s a chance it’ll get infected. If it does –”

“I’ll send Kurogiri to find you.”

“Tell him to give me a heads-up instead of just snatching me. I might need to grab antibiotics and I don’t want to make two trips.”

Tenko nods like this makes sense, which it does, except for the context. You’re standing here on the roof of a building in a city that’s already facing one villainous threat, while your childhood best friend turned aspiring supervillain has just released another – on your advice, no less. You try to rationalize it. Hosu is crawling with heroes, like Tenko said. If they’re good heroes, they’ll divert their attention to protecting the civilians. Heroes fighting Nomus will get Tenko the headlines he wants for the League of Villains, and if nobody gets hurt aside from the heroes who signed up for the job –

You need to be careful with that line of thinking. With that line of thinking, you could excuse what happened to the students during the attack on UA. “Can I ask you something?” you say, and Tenko nods. “Why did you go after the students?”

“I wasn’t after them. The point was All Might.”

“But you brought all those other villains,” you say. “On the news they said that Kurogiri moved the kids all over the training facility so the villains could kill them. And –”

You’re thinking of something else you heard, from Kazuo – that Tenko tried to kill at least three students directly, and All Might’s arrival was the only thing that stopped him. “He was supposed to be there from the beginning,” Tenko says. “All Might. Dividing the students up was supposed to distract him. Split his focus so he’d be more vulnerable to Nomu.”

You don’t know what you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Those villains were weak,” Tenko continues. “The brats could deal with them on their own. It would have taken All Might two seconds. But two seconds is all we would have needed.”

“So it was – strategy.”

“Yeah.” Tenko lowers his binoculars, glances at you. “Do you believe me?”

The words leave your mouth before you can think better of them. “I’d believe you more if I could see you.”

Tenko was in the process of looking away. Now he glances back, and you can tell he’s startled, even through the fingers of the hand. You’re not sure what the hands are for. When he attacked the USJ, he was wearing multiple sets, but usually he only wears Father around you. You haven’t asked him to remove the hand before – only asked him where it was when he wasn’t wearing it, and when you think it over, you can’t see any commonalities between the times when it’s off and the times when it’s on. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you can ask about now that you’re Tenko’s sidekick again.

Tenko grips the binoculars one-handed, reaching up to remove the hand with the other. “The brats weren’t the real target,” he says.

“But you still tried to kill three of them.”

“Yeah,” Tenko says, like it doesn’t matter, without care – and without malice. “They were right there, and I thought All Might wasn’t coming. Everybody had to see how he failed again.”

Again? You’re not the biggest All Might fan, but you don’t remember hearing about All Might failing to save children who were being held hostage. In fact, when All Might has to prioritize, he saves children first. Tenko is watching you now. “Do you believe me?”

“I believe you,” you say, and you see his shoulders relax. “You’re not a very good liar.”

He never was. When you were trying to get away with things as children, you did the talking. Tenko’s job was to stay quiet and not make eye contact with whichever adult was questioning the two of you. No matter how desperate he was not to get caught, a few seconds of eye contact was enough to break him. In the present, Tenko smiles slightly. “Lucky I’ve got you.”

You like seeing him smile, and you’ve seen it twice tonight. The knot in your chest relaxes, only to tighten again as a chorus of screams rise from the city below. Tenko lifts his binoculars eagerly and you twist your hands together, trying to contain your unease. You have your best friend. He wants you with him – his sidekick, just like you used to be. You still know how to make him smile. And he’s a villain, the kind of villain who, when his plan to kill All Might looked like it wouldn’t pan out, decided to kill three children instead. What are you doing here?

More screams from below. You wonder how many civilians are being hurt, how many heroes are protecting them versus chasing Stain. You know there’s a free clinic branch in Hosu, one that’s open overnight just like yours is. They’ll be busy tonight. At least you won’t have to worry about them treating injured villains as well as civilians.

Or will they? What are the Nomus, exactly? Where did they come from? Is that the kind of question you’re allowed to ask Tenko now that you’re friends again? “Um,” you start, but he doesn’t look at you, just keeps peering through the binoculars. Sometimes he focuses so hard it’s like his ears stop working. You remember that from when you were kids. “Tenko?”

He still doesn’t answer. You reach out, touch his shoulder, and he startles so badly that he drops the binoculars. If he grabs them with all five fingers, they’ll disintegrate. You catch them for him, since it’s your fault, and pass them back once he’s ready. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s – fine.” Tenko’s shoulder is tense beneath your hand. You’re still touching him, and you shouldn’t be. You pull your hand back. “What is it?”

“The Nomu,” you say hesitantly. “What are they?”

It’s quiet for a second. “Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri warns. “You should not –”

“She won’t tell,” Tenko says without looking at him. He hasn’t put the hand back over his face. “They’re – I guess you could call them zombies. They’re made from bodies. Usually two or three bodies, and three or four quirk factors. It’s usually the same quirk factors. Shock absorption, regeneration, speed. I don’t care if you touch me.”

You’re too busy trying to wrap your head around the fact that somebody’s figured out how to raise the dead to catch the last thing. It takes you a second to get to it, and even then, you have to ask a clarifying question. “You don’t care? Or you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind.”

Something is wrong with you. Something is really wrong with you that you’re more interested in why Tenko doesn’t mind if you touch him than in the fact that Tenko has multiple zombies at his disposal to turn loose on unsuspecting heroes and civilians. You try to focus. “Where do the bodies come from?”

“I don’t know,” Tenko says. He’s frowning slightly. A moment later, he puts the hand back on his face – but before you can decide if it’s because he’s mad at you, he hands you the binoculars. “Look.”

You look through them. You’re looking in the wrong spot, and after a few seconds of trying to give you directions, Tenko gives up and just covers your hands with his, moving you in the right direction. His index fingers are lifted, protecting you from his quirk. You see what he wanted you to look at quickly enough – heroes facing off against the Nomus. Endeavor facing off against the Nomus. It looks like the heroes chose right.

You can’t deny that it’s a relief. The civilians will always be your priority, and even if almost everyone has a quirk, most of those quirks are useless when it comes to defending against zombies with multiple quirks, and they’re banned from using them anyway. But you have the sense that Tenko’s not pleased, and when you look at him, you see him scowling behind the hand. “They’re making it look too easy,” he complains.

“These Nomu were not as strong as the Nomu from USJ,” Kurogiri says. “You were made aware, Shigaraki Tomura.”

“These heroes aren’t as strong as All Might,” Tenko snaps in response. “Master set me up – again –”

You spot something through the binoculars. Something Tenko needs to see. You push them back into his hands. “Look at that.”

Tenko’s still scowling, but he lifts the binoculars to peer through them. A second later he startles. Even without the binoculars, you can see a dark shape in distant flight over the city, something clutched in its claws. You don’t know who the Nomu grabbed, or where it’s taking them, but Tenko can’t fail to be pleased with that. Can he?

He can. A moment later he swears. “Fucking Hero Killer –”

Your heart sinks. “What happened?”

“He killed it. To save some hero brat.” Tenko’s binoculars are crumbling in his hand. You wonder if he even notices. “Fucking Hero Killer. Fuck!”

You’re pretty sure that’s not the end of the story. The Hero Killer saved a hero, after claiming that there’s only one true hero, and it’s All Might? You slide your phone out of your pocket, clear a bunch of notifications from your friends’ group chat, and navigate to Twitter. Somebody’s got to be reporting on this live, and sure enough, you find “Hero Killer” trending, plus a livestream of Stain’s arrest. He’s getting arrested, and with at least twenty murders under his belt, there’s no way he’s getting out of Tartarus in this lifetime. You touch Tenko’s shoulder again – after all, he said it was fine – and speak quietly. “Hey.”

“What?”

He won’t look at you. “Look at this,” you say instead, holding out your phone. “The heroes got him.”

“So?”

“So that’s it for him,” you say. “He’s going to prison for the rest of his life. All Might’s definitely not going to fuck him now.”

It’s quiet for a second, aside from a wheeze emanating from somewhere behind the two of you. It’s still weird to hear Kurogiri laugh. You don’t even know if he has lungs. Beside you, Tenko’s doing everything in his power to hang onto his scowl, and it’s not working very well. “Is that the only joke you know?”

You feel a surge of relief. “I’ll stop using it when you stop laughing at it.”

You hear the sound of helicopter blades in the distance, growing closer. Tenko can hear it, too. “Kurogiri, let’s go. We’re done here.”

You barely have a second to wonder where you’re headed before the black mist wells up, and you’re not entirely surprised to find yourself back in the bar. Kurogiri’s behind it already. Tenko’s sitting at it, the chair next to his kicked outwards. As you watch, Kurogiri sets two glasses down and lifts an unopened bottle of champagne. He opens it, pouring first Tenko’s glass, then the glass in front of the empty chair.

Tenko glances over his shoulder, spots you, and gestures impatiently at the chair. You sit down next to him and study the glass of champagne. Tenko’s already chugging his, but he stops halfway and glances at you. “Why aren’t you drinking it?”

You could lie, but you don’t want to. “I watched him pour it, and I don’t think you’d drug me. But I still have to be careful.”

Tenko doesn’t look offended. Instead he swaps glasses with you, and Kurogiri makes a discontented noise. “She doesn’t want to drink your backwash, Tomura. Even if you did brush your teeth before we left.”

“Shut up,” Tenko snaps at him. He’s turning red again. You look down into your new glass, trying not to laugh. “I brush my teeth all the time. You’re not special.”

That one gets you. You start laughing, and Kurogiri makes that weird wheezing sound. You’re starting to realize that unlike the villain you met earlier today, who was all over the place, Kurogiri’s got two distinct aspects – one that’s more formal, more severe, and another that’s significantly more relaxed. The second one sounds younger, too, and the impression only grows stronger when Kurogiri speaks again. “If you drink someone else’s backwash, it’s like making out with them indirectly.”

“No it isn’t! I didn’t ask you!”

Tenko is bright red and sputtering, and Kurogiri’s yellow eyes are crinkling, almost the way a person’s would. It occurs to you what this aspect of Kurogiri reminds you of – a sibling. You teased your younger siblings the exact same way, when you could get away with it. Well aware that you’re making some kind of statement about the whole thing, you pick up the glass that used to be Tenko’s and take a small sip. It doesn’t taste like anything but champagne.

When you look up, you find Tenko and Kurogiri watching you. Staring, more accurately – Tenko’s jaw is dropped. You will your face not to flush. “Thanks for switching with me. As long as you don’t pass out in the next half an hour, we’re good to go.”

“So you have to stay at least that long.”

He doesn’t want you to leave. You take another sip of champagne, giving yourself time to get under control. You don’t want Tenko to know how pleased you are with the thought, or how ambivalent you are at being pleased by it. “I guess I do.”

You stay for another hour and a half, reading over the news coverage of the Nomu attack and the Hero Killer’s capture until you can barely keep your eyes open. But you have an early morning, and even though Tenko complains that you have to go and makes fun of you for agreeing to take Yoshimi to her appointment, he doesn’t suggest that you back out of it. As Kurogiri is determining where to set a warp gate to send you back to Yokohama, you ask him why not.

Tenko gives you a weird look. “I know you,” he says. “That’s not who you are.”

He’s right. It isn’t. And as much as you’re pleased by the thought that your best friend still knows you after all these years, the disquiet lurking underneath it follows you home, curls up on your chest as you try to fall asleep. You’re not the kind of person who’d turn your back on a friend, or go back on your word once you’ve given it. But apparently you’re the kind of person who watches a villain turn monsters loose on innocent people and does absolutely nothing to stop him.

You might have made your choice already. You might have stepped over the line. But you have a bad feeling that you’ll be looking back over your shoulder at it until it’s vanished over the horizon, knowing you made the wrong call and knowing deep in your bones that there’s nothing else you could have done.

You’ve done basically nothing, but you still get the sense that you’re leading a double life. You comfort yourself with the thought that even if you went to the police, you’d have nothing useful to tell them. You don’t know where Tenko’s hideout is. You don’t know anything about who makes the Nomus or where they’re hidden. You don’t know anything about Kurogiri except that it seems like there are two personalities in there, and what Kazuo said about his quirk not being natural. You’re still not sure what Kazuo meant by that. Just like you’re not sure who Tenko’s master is.

The things you know would be absolutely useless to them. You know that Tenko recovered from his USJ injuries only to get immediately slashed up by Stain. You know Tenko likes champagne but can’t hold his liquor for shit. You know he’s smart and strategic, a lot more than the news gives him credit for, which is bad for them and probably also bad for you. You know he likes video games more than he did when he was a kid, but he likes you just as much as he did back then. You like him just as much, too. Probably too much.

You haven’t seen him again since that night in Hosu. You know he’ll send Kurogiri to find you if he needs you, and the fact that he doesn’t need you means he’s not getting hurt. But you’re watchful anyway. No matter where you’re walking, day or night, you find yourself keeping a close eye the shadows, watching from your peripheral vision in case one of them hides a warp gate. Or better yet, hides Tenko.

“Hypervigilance,” Kazuo remarks when he catches you at it, one partly cloudy day in early June. “A hallmark of traumatic stress. You could benefit from counseling.”

“It’s not wrong to be wary,” you say. “Things are more dangerous than they used to be. Don’t you feel it?”

“Another hallmark of PTSD. Persistent, negative cognitions about yourself, others, or the world, exemplified by statements like The world is more dangerous than it used to be.” Kazuo can be a real asshole sometimes. “But you’re correct. Crime rates have steadily increased as All Might’s taken a step back from the public eye.”

“You really think it’s All Might?” You glance sideways at Kazuo. “Not the League of Villains?”

“The League of Villains is a symptom,” Kazuo says. The two of you got to the park early; the rest of your friends are running late for your meetup. “I looked into the backgrounds of those who were captured in the attack on USJ. For the most part, I found petty crime – thievery, fleeing from the police, physical violence committed in the course of fleeing a crime scene or an altercation with heroes.”

That tracks with the kind of villains you run into at work. Most of them have done next to nothing to earn the title. “Looking back further,” Kazuo continues, “I found poverty, substance abuse, quirk-based discrimination, childhood trauma. There were some among the criminals at USJ who sought violence specifically and consistently from an early age, but for the majority of them, it was far from inevitable that they would become criminals. It could have been otherwise.”

Thinking about what’s going on with Tenko, you’ve gotten in the habit of playing devil’s advocate. “And that’s on All Might? One hero can���t fix poverty, or childhood trauma –”

“No, they cannot. But the presence of heroes gives everyone else an excuse not to try to fix anything,” Kazuo says. He gives you a look. “There will always be some villains. The existence of enough villains to allow your friend to form a League of them means that society is failing.”

“You’re not wrong,” you say. Usually when you admit that Kazuo’s right, he moves on, but this time he keeps looking at you. “What?”

“At least try to deny it,” Kazuo says, and you know what he’s talking about. “One day I won’t be the one asking.”

You know he’s right, but as much as Tenko occupies your thoughts, you don’t have much time to dwell on him on a daily basis. Yoshimi’s sick, cancer in her lymphatic system, and with her family out of the picture and her shitty boyfriend dumping her the second he found out, you and your friends are on overdrive trying to support her. Since you’re the only one who works in the field, a lot of the daily stuff is falling on you. You’ve been taking some shifts at the central clinic so you can check in on her while she’s there for treatments, and since the high school students are all studying for their medical assistant exams, you’ve been grabbing fill-in night shifts at your regular clinic at the same time. You’re getting four hours of sleep a night, if that.

You’re exhausted. So exhausted that, when the shadows in the corner of your vision turn out to be mist as you’re walking home from the park, you keep walking straight into Kurogiri’s warp gate without a second thought.

When you arrive in the bar, Kurogiri seems surprised to see you. “I thought you might run.”

“I’m too tired to run,” you say. “Does he need me?”

Kurogiri nods, as much as a person with mist for a head can nod. “Follow me.”

You balk when you realize where you’re headed. “He doesn’t want me in there.”

“He asked me to bring you there specifically,” Kurogiri says. “Don’t worry. He’s cleaned.”

“Oh.”

The door to Tenko’s room is open, but Kurogiri knocks anyway. “Shigaraki Tomura, the girl –”

“You’re here.” Tenko appears suddenly in the doorway, the hand clamped over his face. “That was fast. You didn’t run away?”

“What kind of sidekick runs when their boss calls?” You look Tenko over. “Kurogiri said you needed me. Are you hurt?”

“My shoulder’s a mess,” Tenko says, unconcerned. “I needed to talk to you. Come in.”

He takes a few steps back, leaving room for you to step through the door. The memory of how Tenko reacted last time is still fresh in your head, and based on Tenko’s expression, he can tell. “I cleaned it,” he says impatiently. “Come in.”

In spite of the fact that your best friends have usually been boys, you haven’t spent a lot of time in boys’ rooms. The ones you have been in aren’t exactly standard. Kazuo’s room looked like an interior design magazine spread even before his mind snapped, so minimalist it was hard to imagine anyone actually living there. Sho’s room looks more like a girl’s room than yours does. Tenko’s room back when you were kids just looked like a kid’s room. Like how you would have wanted your room to look if you weren’t already sharing it with two siblings.

Tenko’s room, compared to the last time you saw it, is no longer filthy. You can see the floor, at least, and some rearranging has occurred. The desk and monitor setup has been shifted unceremoniously into one corner of the room, and on the wall where it previously sat is a flatscreen TV. You can see that it’s hooked up to a router, as well as a cable or smart TV box, and there are a few consoles and controllers strewn around nearby. Across the room from the TV is a coffee table. And behind that, a bed.

You gesture at it. “Was this here before?”

Tenko doesn’t answer. “Kurogiri, go,” he orders, and you glance over your shoulder just in time to see Kurogiri vanish from the doorway. “Sit down.”

You sit down on one end of the bed and Tenko sits on the other. He slides a collection of games across the coffee table to you. “I like all of these. You can pick which one we play first.”

“I’m not good at games.”

“I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Tenko says. He pushes the games at you again. “Pick.”

You start sorting through the games, searching in vain for any title you know while you try to shift the subject back into reasonable territory. “You said something was wrong with your shoulder. Can I look at it?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You said it was a mess,” you point out. “Let me see.”

“Pick a game and then you can see it.”

You see exactly one title you know – Call of Duty. You hold it up and Tenko frowns. “We can play that one for a bit. In co-op mode. But after that –”

“Show me your arm.”

Tenko scowls, but he moves from the other end of the bed until he’s within reach. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, oversized to the point where you can draw the neckline aside and reveal the wound. It’s clear that the stitches have been disturbed. The wound site is red and angry-looking and you can see scratches around it. There should be a scab on the part that Tenko wouldn’t let you stitch, but it’s clearly been peeled away. It’s either infected already or about to be, and either way, the healing process is going slower than it should be. A surge of frustration sweeps over you.

You look up at Tenko and find him watching you, unrepentant. “What?”

“You were scratching this.”

“It itched,” Tenko says. He gives you a weird look. “You never said not to.”

“I didn’t think I had to say not to scratch your open wounds.” Your frustration seeps into your tone. “You should have sent Kurogiri to get me as soon as the swelling started.”

“I tried. You’re always busy.” Tenko’s voice takes on the quality of a sneer. “Kurogiri’s been watching you for three days. You’re at that other clinic with that girl all the time.”

He didn’t use to be like this. He didn’t use to be jealous. “She has cancer. She needs someone –”

“She has other friends and doctors and parents and some loser boyfriend somewhere,” Tenko says. You start to argue that Yoshimi doesn’t have a boyfriend, courtesy of said boyfriend being a loser, but Tenko cuts you off. “She has lots of people. I only have you.”

He has Kurogiri, his master, the doctor, the Nomu – or does he? Shigaraki Tomura has those people. Tenko only has you. You peel your eyes from the angry mess Tenko’s wound has become and look up at him. “If I had known you needed me, I’d have found a way to be here. You’re my best friend.”

“I know. I –” Tenko breaks off, frustrated. “I didn’t mess with it so you’d come back.”

“I didn’t think that,” you say. “I know you scratch sometimes. It seems like less than before.”

“Only when you’re here.” Tenko shifts in his seat. You’re about to tell him he shouldn’t worry about that when he speaks again. “I feel different when you’re here. Can you fix it?”

“I’ll need to take the stitches out and clean it before I bandage it up again, but yes.” You look around for the medical supplies and Tenko pries open a drawer full of them. “Then we can play the game.”

“I can’t believe you like Call of Duty.”

“It’s just the only one I recognize,” you admit, and Tenko laughs. You like hearing him laugh. “Get ready to lose all respect for me. You might want a better sidekick.”

“I don’t need a better sidekick,” Tenko says. “I’m good enough for both of us.”

Warmth floods through you, pooling in your cheeks and your chest and the pit of your stomach. He remembers. You pull on a pair of gloves and open the suture kit. The sooner you rebandage his wound, the sooner you can play a game with your best friend for the first time since you were kids.

But after you’ve taken out the stitches, as you’re bandaging his shoulder, you notice something. The other times you’ve seen Tenko and treated his wounds, he’s been wearing long sleeves, and when you’ve cut them to get a look at the injuries, you haven’t paid much attention to whatever else might be underneath them. Now, with his arms exposed by design, you can see things you didn’t before. Tenko’s always scratched. After fifteen years of scratching he’d naturally have scars. But when the two of you were kids, you never saw him scratch his forearms. And you’ve never seen scratches look so uniform, so evenly spaced. You’ve seen things that look like that before. They weren’t scratches.

You look up and find Tenko looking at you already. “Sensei had me do them. So I’d be stronger,” he says. Your heart seizes in your chest. “Not in a while, though. When I got strong enough he let me stop.”

“That’s messed up.” You’ve been careful not to speak against Tenko’s master, not when you know so little about him, but you can’t hold back this time. “Hurting yourself doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you hurt.”

“What would you know about it?”

“Lots. I see it every day.”

Tenko gives you a look that tells you just how little he thinks of whatever you’ve seen, and you lose patience. You let go of his arm and pull up the sleeve of your own short-sleeve shirt. “I don’t mean at work.”

Tenko’s jaw drops behind the hand. “Who made you do that?”

“Nobody made me. I did it myself, which makes me a lot dumber than you,” you say. Tenko’s lines are even. Yours are jagged, because you were angry or crying or hurrying to finish up before one of your siblings needed the bathroom or your mom came back to keep arguing with you. “Was your master trying to make you stronger? Or was he trying to teach you not to show when something hurts?”

Based on the way Tenko’s red eyes flash, you know you’ve hit the nail on the head. “What were you trying to do, then? When you were being dumber than me?”

You were being really dumb. So dumb that it’s embarrassing to talk about. “It’s a reset, biologically. Injuries force the body to release endorphins, which make you feel better for a little bit. There was a while where I had trouble controlling my temper. It helped me do that. Or at least not show it.”

“A while,” Tenko repeats. “You should have had trouble the entire fucking time.”

“I did,” you admit after a second. “You used to tell me it wasn’t okay, what my family was like. It took a while to believe you.”

Half the reason you didn’t believe Tenko was because you knew his family was messed up, too. No matter what else your dad did, he didn’t scream at you or lock you outside without dinner. But as you got older, you realized why your parents didn’t do that: They needed you too much. They needed your help with the extra kids they shouldn’t have had, and the older you got, the more it started to infuriate you.

You saw evidence of it everywhere, in places it was and places it wasn’t. They didn’t wipe your memory because they cared that you were upset about your missing friend, they did it because they needed you to be quiet and helpful instead of sad. They didn’t let you choose your favorite snack or go to a birthday party once in a blue moon because it was the fair thing to do, they did it so you wouldn’t complain about all the times you weren’t allowed to. They promised they’d make it up to you every time they shorted you in favor of your siblings with quirks, hoping the apology would make you forget. By the time you were fourteen, you weren’t forgetting anymore.

Tenko’s watching you from behind the hand, but you don’t want to be watched right now. You focus on placing the bandage. Maybe if you do that, you can pretend this isn’t happening. “What happened?” Tenko asks. “With your family.”

“Nothing,” you say. Nothing like what happened to his. “They’re out there. They call me on my birthday. Every so often they ask me for money. Do you really want to talk about this?”

Tenko doesn’t follow up. On that, at least. Three of his fingers brush across your exposed upper arm and it takes every ounce of self-control you have not to jump out of your skin. “These are old, right?”

“Not as old as yours,” you say. “They aren’t recent, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I stopped, so you should, too.” Tenko’s palm covers your upper arm for a moment, then lifts away. “It wouldn’t kill you to control your temper less, anyway. When was the last time you got really mad?”

“Three days ago. Yoshimi’s boyfriend ditched her, so I called him and lit his ass up.”

“Sure you did. I bet you never raised your voice,” Tenko says. You look up, offended. “You probably sounded like some kind of evil shrink, telling him what a piece of shit he is and how you understand that he can’t help being an asshole but it would probably be best for everybody if he took a long walk off a short ledge –”

He’s mimicking the soft, semi-conciliatory tone you use when you’re trying to de-escalate a situation, looking at you from behind the hand with a smirk on his face. You’d get mad, except it’s a pretty accurate imitation, and you like the thought that he knows you well enough to pick on you like this. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting really mad. Really losing control. When’s the last time you did that?”

You can’t remember. You shrug helplessly. Tenko heaves an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a good thing we’re playing Call of Duty next. If getting your ass kicked in a video game can’t wind you up, nothing will.”

It’s been a while since you played an actual video game. You were bad at it then, and you’re really bad at it now. Tenko makes you play a round in single-player mode to see what you’re good at and where you’re weak, and he spends the entire time laughing so hard that you’re worried he’s going to dislocate a rib or fall off the couch. It takes you way too long to hide away from the enemies onscreen long enough to ask Tenko a question. “What’s so funny? I know I’m not doing it right –”

“You’re just –” Tenko wheezes, then makes an effort to get it together. “Up here in the corner of your display is the map. The dot is where you are. And then everything in front of you is your point of view. That’s why it’s called a first-person shooter.”

“I know,” you say. “The display –”

“You control that on this side of the controller. And that’s where your trigger is, too. The other side handles motion,” Tenko says. His shoulders are twitching, like they do when he’s trying to hold in his laughter. “I’ll watch the map for you. Just go where I tell you to go.”

“Okay.” You adjust your grip on the controller and prepare to be humiliated.

Tenko directs you to move straight forward, which you do. Then you make a left turn and jump up on a crate for a better firing angle, at which point someone shoots at you. “Shoot back,” Tenko orders. You press the trigger. “Nice work. Okay, now jump off the crate and –”

You jump off the crate as requested, but then you get your buttons jumbled, and instead of running in the direction Tenko told you to run, you find yourself bumping into the wall repeatedly with your viewpoint stuck directly upwards. “Tenko –”

Tenko is howling with laughter again. The hand dislodges and falls off his face, and you see his eyes crinkling at the corners, his smile just a little too big. Some girls in your class said his smile was creepy, but you always liked it. You liked that you always knew which of his smiles were faked and which weren’t. “I’m stuck,” you say, and he laughs even harder. “What did I do?”

“If you were doing what your character is doing right now, you’d be doing this.” Tenko mimics pointing a gun straight up at the sky, and suddenly you get why he’s laughing. “You’ve been running around like this –”

No wonder you keep running into walls. Now you’re laughing, too. “You weren’t kidding,” Tenko says, shaking his head. “You really are terrible at it.”

You set the controller aside and wipe your eyes. “You sure you don’t want a different sidekick?”

“I have the sidekick I want.” Tenko glances at you, almost shyly. “We’ll need allies, though. I want you to meet them.”

Your stomach lurches. “Do you have them already?”

“One of the brokers is bringing them. He finds them through the black market.” Tenko sets the controller back down in your hands, adjusting your fingers to the right buttons. Then he unpauses the game. “Once I have them all – go right. No, your other right. Once I have them all, I want you to meet them. I need them to work together, and to stay calm instead of fighting each other. You’re good at getting people to do that. Watch out, there are – nice work.”

He’s giving you a strange look. “What?” you ask. “I didn’t get killed yet.”

“You’re better at shooting people than running around. That’s weird.” Tenko’s expression stays odd for another moment; then he grins. “Works for me, though. As long as you don’t mess with your viewpoint too much, we can play together.”

“Works for me.” You’re still going to be pretty useless, but at least you can protect Tenko’s back. That’s more than you’d be able to do in a real fight. The thought kicks off a flood of anxiety, and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself speaking out loud. “Tenko –”

He pauses the game mid-switch to co-op mode. “Yeah?”

“I don’t know if I can help you the way you need me to,” you say. He gives you a skeptical look. “Medical stuff is one thing. I’m good at that. If your allies need help with that, I’ll help them, too. But the rest of it, I’m not – planning, getting people to follow you –”

“I can do that part. But villains fight all the time. Like kids do,” Tenko says. He smiles slightly. “If you can handle me, they’ll be easy for you.”

“But I know you,” you say. “It’s different.”

“So you’ll get to know them, too.” Tenko’s confident, just like you remember him being. Once he’s decided how something will be, it’s hard to shake him. “Come on. Let’s clear this level.”

It’s an easy level, or you think it’s supposed to be. You spend most of your time running backwards, keeping one eye on the map so you don’t lose track of Tenko and the other eye out for enemies of any kind. On reflection, you do think your accuracy with shooting is a little weird. Between this level and the next one, you rack up a decent number of kills. “You’re already getting better,” Tenko says, grinning. “I bet we can beat this thing if we keep playing.”

“I’d like that,” you say – but you’re still thinking about Tenko’s semi-crazy idea that you meet a bunch of villains for crowd control. “About the allies – you trust me, but they won’t have any reason to. I’m still a civilian.”

“You’ll need a disguise,” Tenko says, which wasn’t what you were hoping he’d say. “Something that hides your face. “If any of them have a problem with you, they can take it up with me.”

You don’t know what to say to that. The idea of Tenko getting into it with other villains over you makes you feel sick. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. I don’t want you to get hurt at all. You’re my best friend.”

“I’m not your boss,” Tenko says, which doesn’t make any sense. Your confusion must show on your face, because Tenko elaborates. “Earlier. You said sidekicks don’t run from their bosses, but I’m not your boss. I don’t want to be your boss. I want –”

He breaks off, clearly struggling with what to say. There’s a patchy flush coming up in his cheeks, and you see his hand rise, twitch toward his neck – then fall back. “I don’t want to be your boss,” he says again, looking everywhere but into your eyes. “I want – you should –”

“Shigaraki Tomura.” Kurogiri’s voice issues from behind you, and you and Tenko both jump. “Your master wishes to speak with you. You are overdue.”

“Shit,” Tenko mutters. His grip on the controller tightens, and you lift it out of his hands before all five fingers can touch it. “Where’s – I need –”

“Here.” You pick up the hand from the floor and pass it to him, feeling a chill go down your spine as you touch it. “Go talk to him. It’s okay.”

“I’m late. It isn’t.” Tenko settles the hand back over his face. His free hand rises again, clawing at the side of his neck, and something about the image, the situation, feels uncomfortably familiar to you. “I’ll send Kurogiri to get you again soon. For another date.”

“This was a date?”

“Of course it was.” Tenko gets up, heads for the door. “Remember. Find a disguise. I’ll see you soon.”

He’s gone, and a second later, so are you – Kurogiri drops you in an alley off the street you were walking on. He lingers for a moment, and the question explodes out of you. “It was a date?”

“I told him it’s not a date unless both people know it’s a date.” Kurogiri looks vaguely uncomfortable, and his voice is in the other register – the one that sounds more like an older brother than a servant. “Next time I’ll tell him I can’t find you.”

“Don’t do that,” you say at once. Even reeling like you are now, you’re sure that you want to see Tenko again. “Just – warn me, if you can. If it’s a date or something else.”

“I can do that.” Kurogiri vanishes, but his voice lingers for a moment more. “You protect him, too.”

What does that mean? Maybe it means that Kurogiri sees you like he sees himself – a protector of Shigaraki Tomura, although if there’s anyone you’re trying to protect, it’s Shimura Tenko, your best friend. Your best friend, who’s in a lot more trouble than you thought he was.

You’re standing in the middle of an alley. You need to get moving before someone peeks in here and starts asking questions. You slide your phone out of your pocket, raise it to your ear, and lower it as you step back out into the flow of traffic on the sidewalk, like you were taking a call that just ended. Your apartment’s not far away, so you’ll get there, and then you can think about all of this. The villains – the date – the scars on Tenko’s arm that look too much like yours – the scratching that didn’t start until after the hand covered his face. The hand he calls Father.

And that’s when you realize what it reminded you of, what happened when Kurogiri told Tenko his master was waiting for him. He was himself when you spoke to him, even after he put the hand back over his face – right down to how he reacted when his master called for him. Because his reaction looked the same as his reaction to his father calling for him when the two of you were kids.

You had a bad feeling about Tenko’s master, and now it’s worse. You have a bad feeling about what your involvement with Tenko means now, because he wants you to back him up when it comes to dealing with other villains, to take the de-escalation and conflict resolution skills you learned the hard way and put them to use keeping a band of villains together under Tenko’s control. You have a bad feeling because Tenko’s told you to find a disguise, to hide your identity like the villain you aren’t. You aren’t a villain. Are you?

Maybe you aren’t a villain – yet, a voice in your head whispers, you aren’t a villain yet – but there’s something wrong with you. There must be. Because knowing all that, knowing that you’re getting drawn further into Tenko’s plans, doesn’t do a thing to dampen your excitement at the thought that he wants to go on dates with you. That he likes you. That your best friend, who you always thought you’d have developed a crush on if the two of you had gotten to grow up together, might feel the same about you as you do about him.

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

ToA Theory 1 - Apollo's Waking Visions

First official theory post, here we go! :D

Alright. So. After rereading The Dark Prophecy, I started wondering about something. In TDP, Apollo experiences waking visions, where he conks out for a bit and has prophetic visions.

I found this interesting because, well...isn't Apollo supposed to be cut off from prophecy? With Python back in control of Delphi?

Because think about it. Python controls Delphi, the root of all earthly prophecy. This would include Dodona, Trophonius, Herophile, and Sibyl - sure, they aren't strictly connected to Delphi, but it's pretty heavily stated that Delphi just straight-up Makes The Future. It's prophecies are The Big Deal and you Should Listen.

Meanwhile the other Oracles seem more guiding and "beware!" instead of "this is how it's gonna be".

(sidenote: found out there are MORE oracles and I wanna know WHERE THEY ARE IN RRVERSE CANON because I want my boy Branchus okay??? Okay. Branchus's oracle was second only to Delphi let's give Apollo's first boyfriend the attention he deserves!)

So of course, like all great members of this fandom, I started thinking.

Let's do a little family history first. ;)

Buckle up. We go down a deep rabbit hole 😎

Apollo and Artemis are twins, born to Leto and Zeus. Zeus's parents are Kronos and Rhea. Leto's are Koios and Phoebe.

Rhea has connections to Dodona, as we learn in-series, but she doesn't really seem to be all that involved with prophecy.

Her siblings, meanwhile...ho ho ho, they are a WHOLE NOTHER STORY!

Let's start with Phoebe. Phoebe, like all first generation Titans, is the daughter of Gaea and Ouranos. She married her brother Koios. Her children consist of Asteria, Lelantos, and Leto. As well as Artemis and Apollo, her other two grandchildren are Hecate (Asteria) and Aura (Lelantos).

Her name means "bright" and is the root of Apollo's most famous epithet - Phoebus. She is often described as "golden-crowned" and is the Titan of bright intellect, the overseer of Earthly Prophecies, and is the second guardian of Delphi, after her sister Themis. She gifted Delphi to Apollo for his birthday after he defeated Python.

Classic grandmother move.

Anyway. There's a bit of Phoebe lore. Time for her elusive husband :3

Koios. His names means "question" or "questioning", probably because he's the Titan of inquiring intellect. He's also the overseer of Heavenly Prophecies, and has an oracle up in the North Pole guarded by an earth-dragon - you'd know this serpent by the name of Draco, the constellation btw. Additionally, Hyperborea (where Apollo goes in the winter times) is part of his domain.

eyes

Unfortunately, we have very little mythological lore on these two, and even less in the RRverse (I cling to that one (1) Koios scene) which sucks because I love them already BUT it does give me lots of legroom to mess around with canon >:)

Back to the theory now. As you may have guessed, I'll be taking us in a direction concerning Apollo's mysterious grandparents. But what does this have to do with Apollo's visions?

Well. Remember when I mentioned that Delphi is the root of all earthly prophecies?

...look at Phoebe's paragraphs. She's the overseer of Earthly Prophecies, right? So it makes sense she's been affected by Python's takeover too.

(if you've read my fics you'd know this already lmao)

Asteria, Apollo's aunt, is a little trickier. She, too, has a hand in divination, but mainly through the night/stars and dreams. <-will come back to that later.

Koios, again, is overseer of Heavenly Prophecies, and is heavily implied to be able to commune with Ouranos's spirit. This is, apparently, a Big Deal because nobody else is mentioned to be able to do this.

...Except...remember this throwaway line in The Hidden Oracle?

^Apollo can see Ouranos too.

Within this theory is a sub-theory, so to speak - that immortals with the gift of prophecy can see Ouranos, since they can see what cannot be seen. This would include Phoebe, Asteria, Koios, and Apollo.

And it'll make sense why they'd keep it to themselves. Kronos wouldn't have been happy to hear his dad was still around. Neither would Zeus, for that matter.

So here I was. Contemplating. Wrote a few fics based around this idea. And one in particular got me thinking (fic in question being When The Stars Align), and a little ways down the road I realized something.

If Phoebe, the overseer of Earthly Prophecies, would have been affected by Python's takeover...was Koios? Could he even be affected?

Because here's the deal: Koios is the overseer of Heavenly Prophecies. Prophecies from the Sky.

Phoebe's are of the Earth - the Earth that Python has taken control of. And Delphi is the root of Earthly Prophecies - not Heavenly.

That would be Koios's oracle, up in the North Pole with Draco.

...So that means Heavenly Prophecy must have still been in business during ToA.

But then comes the question: If it was still within the gods' control, why didn't they use it?

Well...Draco's there, for one. He's probably the Python-equivalent of the North, and clearly he's still there since no myth has spoken of his death (that I know of).

If you ask me, I just think the gods are too nervous/afraid to try Koios's oracle. They were too scared to face Python, after all, until Apollo arrived. I think they'd be scared of a serpent who comes and goes from the stars as he pleases.

And as for why Apollo hasn't done anything about it...well, I think his fight with Python left him rather scarred, don't you think? He probably went "yeah grandma's oracle is enough" and the only time he ever got close to Koios's was during his time in Hyperborea.

So getting back to the main theory now. (So many rabbit holes to dive into with this post. The ADHD Urge is real)

Since Heavenly Prophecies is still active, but Earthly is in Python's control, I conclude Apollo's visions come from the Heavenly source.

Could they have come from the now-working Dodona? Maybe. But Dodona's all about those windchimes and trees. It doesn't have the Vibe, so to speak, for granting visions.

And remember. Trophonius, Herophile, and Sibyl aren't destroyed/freed yet. They have Zero connection to Apollo at this point because Python cut him off from them.

...but he didn't from the North. From Koios's divine power.

Because remember. Apollo is the god of prophecy.

Not of Earthly Prophecies, like Phoebe.

Not of Heavenly Prophecies, like Koios.

Not of nighttime divination and dreams like Asteria.

Of. Prophecy.

Prophecy as a whole. The entirety. The whole enchilada.

Every part of prophecy he's the god of, be it tarot cards to the Oracle of Delphi itself.

In my opinion, I think whatever Koios's Oracle is, it has just as must power as Delphi. The only problem was that...everybody just left it be. Nobody considered it because:

1) scary dragon

2) scary titan ruled the place

3) honestly at this point I think it's just straight-up forgotten about. Like Branchus's Oracle. I think at one point Apollo himself mentions there are other Oracles besides the ones in-series, but there's so many that his mortal brain cannot comprehend how many.

If the Grove of Dodona nearly faded into obscurity, then I think it's entirely possible Koios's Oracle was forgotten about (or so we think...I'm gonna be chewing on this for a while.)

Coming back round to TDP...I think this is a reasonable explanation about Apollo's visions. To summarize:

Apollo is cut off from Earthly Prophecy, his usual source of foresight that he gets from Phoebe

The unused, near-forgotten-about Heavenly Prophecy side of Apollo ignites to steer him on the right path

This is possible because Apollo is the god of prophecy itself, and not a single subset of prophecy, so he's not limited in the same way Phoebe is

Koios's Oracle is still out there and kicking and I will die on this hill

One problem. What about Asteria? She can interpret the future from the stars...aka the Sky. Like Koios. So couldn't she provide some insight to the future, since she, too, is connected to Heavenly Prophecy?

This is where things get a lil' tricky. And where I really slap on my tinfoil hat and start headcanoning my way through lmao

Basically, I think that since Asteria became the island of Delos (long story) a good chunk of her power is ingrained there. She's not as strong as she used to be, so her foresight isn't as strong.

This, in turn, I think could also serve as a reason why Koios's Oracle is "asleep" so to speak and nearly lost to memory in the RRverse - in fact, I think Asteria and Phoebe are the only ones who bother to remember its existence.

And Leto, of course. But I don't think she wants her son to know of another Oracle with a giant snake guarding it. She's had enough heart-attacks, thank you.

(Same with Lelantos, tbh.)

Canon is my sandbox and I am making some sweet sandcastles out of it XD

TL;DR

Apollo's visions in TDP stem from Koios's source of Heaven Prophecy because Phoebe's source of Earthly Prophecy (Delphi) has been taken over by Python. Koios's source firmly knocks on Apollo's mental doors and decides to kick back into gear to help its titular patron's grandson out. Because Apollo is the god of prophecy itself - every bit of it.

Extras:

I find it fascinating how magic and prophecy are both part of the same family tree (Hecate & Apollo).

and yes. You should expect a fic concerning Koios's Oracle at some point. but no promises on when :3

Thank you for coming to Insane Theory Time With Alder. I hope there will be more lmao

Websites you can look into:

Koios (Theoi)

Phoebe (Theoi)

Hyperborea (Theoi)

[nokonomi]

CreepyPasta OC. Yes guys I know I know I know I KNOW ANOTHER ONE WHY?!

So uh, meet Louise/Luise, and SHE IS NOT EMO GUYS TRUST ME! (She is emo lol)

Okay so Uhm she basically grew up in a part of a rich neighborhood honestly to say, spoiled kid, but she didn’t like the attention she was receiving. Her parents always abused her to be “pretty” her mother had said to her that “beauty matters, nothing else!”

I So she was basically ripped of her childhood and instead forced to be a child diva which she didn’t want to be. What did she want to be? All she wanted to be was a lawyer or medical surgeon. Her father passed away and it was just her and her mother, which her mother was very abusive and always despised her, shrugging off that her supposed “depressive state” is caused by her lack of confidence and beauty.

is beauty all that matters though? She doesn’t know. Know hated and bullied, she constantly roams through the hallways of her school, being shoved for who she is now. She had to take pills at the age of 13 for some disorders she had before (which I will name later) when her mother found out she had disorders, her mother basically said she was a nobody. Instead of listening to her, Luise fought back and tackled her mom, got spanked a few times, and showed her the pain she grew up with being pressured to be pretty. She doesn’t care about being pretty. All she wanted was to have loving parents who could eventually tell her that they loved her for who she is. But she never got that. Murdered her mom and escaped the house into the woods, leaving a trail of her mom’s blood. There she met the strange faceless figure of the man who had been haunting her. The Operator/The Slenderman.

“Louise. You do not have to live in constant pain of being pressured to be pretty. Come and live with us, and you shall be free.”

Louise was horrified, but had the horrible decision to either go back or stay with this monster. She obviously panicked and over thought, and ended up passing out. Slenderman took that as a yes and took her in to the mansion, where she met the rest of the residents. From 17 to 23 now. Been at the mansion for 5 years. Now a proxy that works for Slenderman.

now for some facts! who does she target? well she targets cruel and abusive parents who force their kids to be pretty. She calls it “freedom”

why did she do this? To escape the torture of being pressured and abused to be pretty. When she had pimples, her mom basically tried giving her surgery by her own hand. Which meant she gave her surgery without any doctors or anything. It didn’t disfigure her skin but it did leave a gash she hides on her left eye.

what’s one of her disorders? PTSD, and Dissociative Amnesia Disorder. She cannot remember her past anymore, but for some reason when someone calls her “pretty” it causes her to go into a panicked state. Maybe because of her ruined childhood, that is. So avoid calling her pretty. so she won’t suffer.

is she Emo? YES SHE IS EMO. well she’s planning on dying her to hair to a more 2000s style but I LITERALLY CANNOT FIND A HAIR COLOR TO GO WITH BLACK RAAA. BE FAIR GREEN OR PURPLE? what an Emo girl. so Kawaii.

who does she get along with most? Honestly she gets along with people who make sure to give her a safe distance. She doesn’t really talk to anybody except for Liam/Cody (X-Virus) She warms up to the guy. (HE’s MY FAVORITE) Cody and her talk about trauma they had, so they both traumadump onto each other. For right now she is not ready for a relationship until further notice, but she still has a little (BIG) crush on him. Toby? He’s fine. Jeff? she doesn’t like him. but she still talks to him. just doesn’t like his behavior or anything at all. hates whenever he tries to bring up “OMG YOU ARE SO PRETTY!”

sexuality? she’s dated a few girls and boys back to back in Highschool, maybe if they weren’t such bitches she wouldn’t have ended up like this in the first place. Considering dating Liam/Cody maybe? but her sexuality is bisexual/straight. she had a little crush on Nina but realized she was probably taken by Kate so yeah no.

Ooooo! she looks up to Liu as a father figure since he is much older than her. he’s like the father she’s never had before. begs for him to make her cereal in the morning but her lazy ass is too lazy.

[where-are-the-spooky-gays-2]

Hiiii remember that ghosts au? It has six pages in my notebook now, and I have rather neat, small handwriting

Minorly Triggering Content Ahead Since Everyone is Dead ✨✨✨

SO FAR, SUBJECT TO CHANGE:

Logan — died in the industrial revolution but before the overhaul of the sanitisation and cleanliness factor. He got ill, got an infection or something. Doctors tried to treat it but their methods were unclean because of the era it was in and he ended up dying due to illness. He can cause machines to stop working (inspired by his original death, which was falling into a machine at a factory and being killed by it)

Janus — died in the 1920s. He was a businessman who was mafia adjacent and he was poisoned by someone who worked for him. He respects it, killing the head of a business (him) from the inside but he's pressed. He was in the middle of his career. Excuse you. He was going to be great. His power is disguising himself as other people, canon inspired. No other ghost can do this like the other sides can in canon.

Remus — died in the late thirties and he was a serial killer. I needed a reason for him to be weird as fuck, to be so real with you. He's like "oh I forgive myself" but everyone else is like. brother. my brother in Christ. no. Nobody knows how he died (except Logan and Janus, but they won't talk about it) but he tells a different story every time Thomas asks. His power is the canon "drown everyone out and listen only to me" thing.

Roman — died in the 1940s, a few years after his brother. He was an actor, a really fucking good one who was getting to the height of his fame!, but then a prop on stage malfunctioned :) either a gun going off or a sword stabbing when it shouldn't have. The last thing he ever saw were the red curtains above him as he died on stage. It was horrifying for everyone involved. He's now a superstition in theaters about checking your props more than once. His power is the ability to mimic sounds, songs, voices, whatever. He's very annoying with it.

Patton — died in the 1980s. He was a dad :) and he had a very normal death. Everyone else died tragically but he just had a heart attack. He was in his forties or so, just a dad, just a dude, and he had a heart attack due to an unknown heart condition. He misses his kids kind of a lot but oh well. He's able to cause those intense nostalgic feelings (inspired by the Moving On episodes) and because of that, he can bring up memories people forgot about.

Virgil — died in the late 2000s. He was murdered in a home invasion protecting his family. He was only a young man living with his parents and siblings but it was a whole event. Because of this, he's up often at night watching over the manor so nobody tries to break in. His power is the canon voice thing he does, where it echoes and deepens. It also gets louder. In his mind, if he shouted louder, shouted for his parents just a bit louder, he would still be alive and his family wouldn't be traumatized.

Roman makes fun of how Logan died by an infection, Logan reminds him of how he died. Roman gets mad. The ghosts are fighting again.

Patton's power works on ghosts, Remus' doesn't. Remus is pressed, but everyone else is thankful.

Janus will sometimes pretend to be another ghost to fool Thomas. That's how they meet actually. Thomas gets good at picking them apart.

Okay I have more but this is so long already so :3 have a good one

— 👑

Aye hell yeah that's fucking awesome and holy fucking shit I L O V E L O V E L O V E E V E R Y T H I N G about this it's S O fucking good!!! I absolutely A D O R E the canon inspired powers they're fucking cool as hell and the eras and deaths are fucking D E L I C I O U S they fit S O damn well and I'm already O B S E S S E D with this AU <3!!!

[carryingthebannershitposts]

Some Newsies Headcanons

Jack:

This man 100% pretends to be all brave an tough and then proceeds to cry himself to sleep

Probably afraid of thunderstorms but hides it

Had a horse phase when he was younger (So did Race but not as bad)

Sometimes forgets words for things and decides to make them up (couldn't remember the word for cigar so he yelled at Racetrack not to let Les use his "fire leaf stick")

Still has nightmares about the refuge

That Santa Fe pamphlet is more important to him than most of the people he knows (with the exception of Davey, Les, Crutchie, and Race)

Has threatened to use a lasso to tie Racetrack to the wall at least once, and no, it didn't work

David:

Talks to himself when he's doing things

Can see right through Jack's bullshit/knows when he's pretending to be okay vs when he actually is

Cannot dance but tries

Fidgets with literally anything he can get his hands on

A modern David would cry after watching Dear Evan Hansen

Genuinely doesn't know how to smoke and legit inhaled the smoke and started dying the first time Jack offered a cigar to him

Dresses very formally literally no matter where he's going

Talks about Jack to Sarah because he is very gay and doesn't want advice from his parents

Sometimes questions his gender identity but always forces himself not to think about it because of what his family might think

Crutchie:

I will die on the hill that Crutchie is probably an age regressor, but keeps it a secret because this is Newsies and nobody tells anyone anything

Will beat you with his crutch if you insult his friends

Will apologize after hitting someone in a fight

Claims to hate being carried but does kinda like it

Will go to work even if he's dying of an unknown deadly sickness because he feels bad about others helping him

Race:

This is pretty much canon at this point I believe but Race is transmasc

Spot is the only one allowed to call him "Racer", he will protest if anyone else calls him that

Always has a cigar purely for the sake of having something in his mouth, not because he smokes it

Got his harmonica taken away by Jack after playing it nonstop at all hours of the night

Spot has offered to let him live in Brooklyn and he just kinda said no because he's fine making the walk every day

Acts like an idiot but is actually really smart

Probably hates basically everything about himself but acts like he's the best to hide it because this is Newsies and nobody tells anyone anything

Seriously all of these characters just need to sit down and have a heart to heart

"I can't wait for anything! The doctors call it ADHD- I call it RDHD, because my name is Racetrack!" (Bonus points if yall get that reference)

A modern Racetrack would show Spot that one song from Raggedy Ann, "It's hard to be king when you're short" and get yelled at

Spot:

Gets teased constantly for being short

Constantly looks like he wants to unalive the next person he sees

Steals Racetrack's hat to annoy him

Racetrack compared him to one of those small yappy dogs once and Spot now thinks about it constantly

Aggressively kind to the people he cares about ("DRINK WATER AND GET SOME FUCKING SLEEP, I FUCKING LOVE YOU")

Refuses to explain why he ran away from his family

Despises his real name because "it sounds like an old man name"

Anyways that's all :)

[ewwww-what]

I wanna hear about nara I wanna hear everything you have to say abt nara

I am so extremely excited that you asked because I really do have plenty to say about (universally loved and cherished character that everyone remembers and cares about) Princess Nara.

Let it be known that I am truly at my weakest and most vulnerable when talking about princess Naradriel of Dimension Twenty fame. Take my words with a grain of salt as I may be consistently lying right to your face and not saying anything the way I want to!

I truly deeply love thinking of the JY events through Nara’s perspective. Like, her (very rich, very pretentious, very absent) family is worried about a new organization for a different interpretation of the godess they worship, so they send Nara in to keep an eye on Tracker since they’re the same age and they think she’ll relate to her better. They end up really hitting it off, Nara convinces her parents to fund Wolfsong Revival, and in turn learns things about her religion that she hadn’t known before, truly she is the most aware of her faith that she has ever been thanks to her girlfriend and her followers. Except Tracker won’t really call Nara her girlfriend outright? And also she hasn’t ever really announced their partnership despite having an active social media presence (Tracker eventually does post about her, with permission from her ex, and the conflict is half-resolved from then on.)

Then Nara meets Kristen, and promptly realizes that she is a perfect mirror of her very existence. Nara is the spitting image of her girlfriend’s ex, Kristen totally knows it too. the only real difference between the two of them is that Nara has the funds to make a project the size of Wolfsong possible and Kristen doesn’t, neither of them feel good about this situation at all.

I’m thinking about her constantly, she is in a relationship where the love literally wasn’t meant for her, that’s so sad?? Waiter, more fantasy teenagers in messy relationships please!!

——

Kristen Applebees foil intermission

Honestly I think Kristen Applebees might have more foils in junior year than anyone else throughout the entire show and I do truly enjoy that very much.

There’s the very obvious and intended Buddy dawn, who was created to be her foil and also an antagonist in her story. He reminds her very much of her younger and more sheltered self, as well as the person she might have become if she hadn’t died in the cafeteria that day.

Nara is kind of a funny contrast to him, because Kristen’s dislike for Buddy is very much representative of the parts of her past that she isn’t proud of, and he is significantly easier for her to criticize because she’s already come to terms with those things within herself. Nara, however, is everything that Kristen doesn’t like about herself currently.

A big thing that Kristen is grappling with in this season is her impulsiveness and the way it effects the people around her, and this dialogue specifically is what sparked her realization that her and Nara aren’t dissimilar people. Kristen and Nara’s shared spontaneity isn’t necessarily a conscious choice for either of them, but it is something that they both find frustrating about themself.

I wrote a whole paragraph here but it deleted itself, I’m not rewriting it all. it was just about how for certain people executive disfunction make it difficult to prioritize important tasks, and it can feel frustrating and unfair when things fall through even though other people might find it easy to maintain in a way you don’t. That’s what these two have going on, they both have ADHD (canonically /srs).

I think it’s also important for Kristen at that point in time to have met someone who’s experiencing similar things to her. Especially during a point in her life where everything feels really uncertain, and nobody seems to be really understanding her exact experience, she meets someone who feels the same way she does and is able to lend her sympathy about it. Very nice, very good :)

——

??? I’m just talking about whatever now

I feel itchy every time I have to think about the way Nara is treated like she’s not smart!! Partially because it’s clear that this is a young girl who has been very sheltered all her life, and is finally branching out and attempting to be a better person and educate herself for the benefit of the people around her. She made a very open and self-aware observation about the corrupt system that her family helps uphold, and expressed distaste and willingness to change, which was kind of met with skepticism and weird comments about her intelligence. I like her, whatever. I’m killing everyone!!!

Is she ignorant? Yes, absolutely. Disgustingly rich? Of course. But a reoccurring theme in the few scenes we get to see her in is that she wants to be better and more involved in the lives of other people (close enough, welcome back season one Kristen Applebees and season two Fabian Seacaster)

(That’s not to say that you can’t dislike her for these traits, just me complaining about how she was treated narratively once she served her purpose in the story. girl is bad forever and cannot possibly become a better person. Unfortunate reoccurring theme (I love this show, take all of this with a grain of sugar.))

I don’t have anything huge to say about it, I’m sure someone else could make a better and more concise explanation for what I’m trying to get across. Give me 5 hours to write another essay.

-

Also!! Nara has a lisp, I think? It could have been an aspect of her accent that I misinterpreted, but you will not catch me ignoring even the slightest possibility that a character could have a speech impairment that isn’t taken as a joke. This is not important to literally anything I have said this whole time, I just want it out in the world that I’ve collected another character into my (very small) pile of favs who have lisps.

——

JY finale

I didn’t particularly love the JY finale, I feel like it didn’t give closure to a lot of the events of the season that should’ve probably gotten closure. That being said, for a character who played such a small role in the show I don’t think Nara needed much more than what she got. I do enjoy that it can be interpreted as Nara wanting more from tracker than she’s willing to give in their relationship, or that her parents weren’t happy with the actual religious advancements of moonsong, maybe both.

I hear sometimes that Nara was in on the plan to take down moonsong, and that’s the reason that Tracker’s funding was removed, and I don’t disagree that that could’ve been the intention behind the finale but it’s also not my favorite idea. I personally don’t understand how Nara would benefit from advocating for the oracle to get paid a living wage, or begging her dad to fund the operation to revive a primal interpretation of her goddess just to have that taken away. (Political advantage and surveillance, I guess? Two things that high schoolers notoriously love and care about willingly participating in /sar)

You cant have full episodes to tie up the loose ends of minor characters and I do understand that, and I certainly don’t mean for it to seem like I’m upset that she and tracker broke up or even that she probably won’t show up again. I just like her :)

Also here’s Aelwyn and Adaine talking about maybe possibly killing Nara as a little treat to themselves, I was rewatching the episode and I like this part

That’s it I’m done now :)

[nickyrothfan]

What if everyone got super powers?(part 2)

Nicky didn’t know how he got himself involved in this.

First, Trinity persuaded him to help her with the investigation, then Delroy beats him up, and they just leave him behind (seriously, who does that? He expected better… from her.). Next, they gather with the club, and it turns out everyone, except him, has some stones with possibly unlimited power, and they… absorbed them? Even Delroy had one!

Nicky quickly left the club room, his thoughts focused on something else. He didn’t want to get involved in this mess; he tried to… but it seemed like nobody needed him, otherwise they wouldn’t have just thrown him away like that.

It was time to become ordinary.

At the same time:

“Alright… then we’ll meet there in the evening,” Trinity said to the others, and everyone nodded.

“Great. Then, I’ll head home for a bit to drop my things off.”

“This was amazing!”

Now, Enzo and Maritza’s feelings:

Today was great! First, Maritza’s leg healed quickly, so she was already walking without a cast.

Enzo finally started saying more than two words around Bales.

And they got stones that gave them energy.

Maritza felt like she could run for an hour without stopping. She also noticed her strength had increased, the ball that broke the window was proof of that.

Enzo also felt different, more confident. He felt a bit bad that Nicky didn’t get the same, but his thoughts on his own joy quickly replaced that.

Their mood soured quickly… Squirrels attacked their parents!

And that damn Officer Cornwell fined them for feeding them.

Also, Maritza found a golden coin from her father, the same as Trinity’s, only bent.

They didn’t know why this was happening, but they were going to tell Trinity about it tonight.

Ivan Torre:

Ivan was quite excited, his thoughts were full of positivity.

Why not? He, the nerd, now had power! Power that he could use to help his friends and stop Crowface.

He immediately went back to his invention, though he slightly miscalculated the power, and literally flattened it to the ground…

“Well, there are the downsides of big power…” he scratched his head.

Other than that… nothing special happened today, except the strange behavior of Principal Abanante around him. It was as if she was expecting something.

Maybe he should tell someone about it?

Delroy:

Yeah, it’s been a weird month, actually, a few of them.

First, I learned about tunnels under the school.

Then our favorite school oddball – Nicky Roth – disappears for a month! Seriously, even Finch, of all people, started to worry about him, though she only told me about it… Did she get interested in him?

Then he came back… changed. New eyes, new attitude, his old arrogance replaced by gloom and aggression, he became… more sensitive, much easier to piss off.

I just woke up yesterday and saw this white stone, I thought my aunt bought it for me, so I picked it up… and then the flash was all that happened.

I remembered that I needed to help the “girl” of that sick guy last night, so I had to go. I wonder, if Finch really is interested in him, will there be a fight? Although Trinity quickly dropped him after beating him up and ran after Crowface.

I found new strength in myself… something amazing, I only lightly pushed Roth, but he flew back like I’d never been able to do before.

And then I found out that everyone in the inventor’s club, except Nicky, had these stones. Are we like… chosen?

After school and the gathering, I got a call from my aunt, my dog “Dog” ran away, I went to look for her, but I only found… her corpse.

I know for sure that taxidermist guy is shady. His face and smile literally scream “I am pure evil incarnate.”

If anyone is Crowface, it’s him.

Finch:

I woke up yesterday pretty calm. My life was good. Popular in school, everyone loves me, I’m the principal’s favorite, and she lets me get away with a lot.

But… still… why did I care so much about Nicky’s absence for a month?

Of course, he was my golden ticket, but…

When he came back, well, how can I put it… if he had said it, it would have sounded like: “Aliens sucked the youth out of me.” What a weirdo.

But at the same time… I don’t know, I don’t feel like making fun of him anymore, maybe a simple conversation will sort this out.

Though who am I kidding, he’s still a goldmine.

In the evening, at the amusement park:

Enzo nervously paced back and forth, where was Trinity?

“Man, can we meet at the mall or something?” Delroy was losing his patience, why did it have to be the amusement park?

“Too many strangers,” came a voice from the bushes, Ivan got scared and hid behind Delroy, making him angry, and Delroy faked a punch, so Ivan stepped back, raising his hands.

“At least here, there will be only one… Crowface,” she emerged from the bushes.

“Are you alright? We were worried that—” Enzo was interrupted.

“You were worried, Romeo,” Maritza teased her brother.

“Did you guys bring Nicky?” Trinity didn’t notice him there.

“Oh, thanks for not worrying about us. We were attacked all day, thanks for not asking,” Maritza snapped.

“What happened?”

After a while of story-telling (no, seriously, nothing changed, except Ivan mentioned that Abanante was acting weird).

“So… who’s Crowface?” Enzo asked.

“Maybe it’s Abanante, she was acting weird,” Ivan suggested.

“And she hasn’t left me alone since I got here,” Trinity backed him up.

“It’s probably Officer Cornwell, he took Peterson’s bag of coins,” Enzo remembered that cop.

“No, dude, it’s definitely that Commander guy who loves stuffing dog corpses,” Delroy shook his whole body, trying to spook them.

“So… Crowface could be anyone in the town? Great job, team,” Maritza said sarcastically, not getting any closer.

“This is just a problem. We just need to investigate more,” Ivan wasn’t ready to give up that easily.

“Wait. There’s someone who’s familiar with these coins. Knows the club well, and is familiar with Peterson’s obsession,” the leader’s words made everyone glance at each other, realizing who she meant.

Now, at the Roths’ house:

“Are you serious?” Nicky’s voice was strange, tired, but there was anger in it.

“Nobody is accusing you of anything… I’m just saying…”

“I mean… you’re acting very suspicious now/ You were like Sherlock Holmes in Raven Brooks,” Ivan’s words made everyone look at him.

“You’ve been acting… completely different… from before. We’re worried,” Trinity continued her rant.

“Come on Nicky, you’re hiding something from us?” Enzo wanted answers.

“Yeah, like why nothing happened to you when this happened to all of us?” Maritza interrupted her brother.

“Nothing happened to me?” The guy sighed, his fingers gripped the wooden window frame. His breath was uneven, his voice full of anger. Nothing happened? He went through hell!

“She didn’t mean it like that,” Trinity quickly waved her hands to calm the tension.

“Crowface is hunting us, and somehow these coins are a part of it. The coins from the amusement park. Did you hear anything when you were… well, you know, Peterson’s guest?” she took out a coin and showed it to him.

“Guest? I need to go…” he turned around and was about to leave, not wanting to see them anymore.

“If you can’t help, we’ll have to go to the source!”

“Source?” Delroy didn’t understand.

“After what he did to me?!” Nicky slammed his hands on the window sill.

“Are you nuts?! He’s a monster!” Nicky’s shouting drew attention from the neighbors.

"If you have any better ideas, I’m all here. But Mr. Peterson’s coins? Mr. Peterson’s map? Maybe he was looking for Crowface too?!"-the girl screamed back.

“YOU WILL ALL DIE! If you don’t stop now, Peterson or Crowface, or whatever this damn town was built on, will come for you!” the lights in the houses started turning on, silhouettes of people watching everything that was happening.

“Your families! Everything you care about!” He raised his hands and slammed the window down, breaking the glass, and scaring everyone.

"You are gonna die! All of you! There’s no hiding, none of you are safe! No one is safe, no one!"-he grabbed chair and throw it on the street, even breaking more grass.

Finch, seeing this scene, took a photo of the guy and left, smirking.

At that moment, Nicky’s parents came and took him away.

…

Well, from here, everything proceeds like in the episode.

Yes, I know the chapter seems… weak, because the events practically didn’t change, except that Merto dropped out of the suspect list.

However, even with the powers, this episode is literally about nothing, even in the future, none of the super abilities that the characters will gain will be able to stop what they don’t know, so the Bales household is going to blow up anyway.

And about Finch, I’m not sure what to do with her yet.

And now about the stones…

I think everyone understands they’re like the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, right?

Well… there will definitely be more than just them (time stones, Chaos Rings, World Rings, Master Emerald, Phantom Ruby, Sol Emeralds, and more in the story, possibly even more).

And truth be told… the cult will also have powers, because otherwise, the kids would wipe the floor with them.

And as for Nicky… I think everyone is wondering what will happen to him… Anyway, Dark…(maybe).

Hope this helps! Let me know if you’d like to adjust anything.

[coraniaid]

Kendra shows up for the first time in What's My Line? and delivers several speeches about her past and her training to (maybe!) one day become a Slayer that boil down to:

"I don't really remember my parents except as pictures I've been shown, but I do know [somehow?] that they took slaying really seriously and they sent me to be trained as a Potential Slayer when I was very young. I know that if you want to be a good Slayer it's important not to be distracted by things like boys or friends or school or family, and I really want to be a good Slayer. And I know that a Slayer has to work in secret, and she musn't tell anybody else about vampires or being a Slayer (but again, my parents -- yeah, the ones I'm not allowed to talk to -- they really knew I was a Potential Slayer and they definitely approved of me being raised by my Watcher and never seeing them again ... No, I don't know their last names). You shouldn't feel sorry for me, though: I definitely don't feel sad or angry about this at all. My Watcher -- he's pretty much the only person I'm allowed to talk to, I guess -- he says that emotions are a weakness. I am a good Slayer. I definitely don't feel sad at all."

If you take Kendra seriously as a character for even a second, I'm not sure how you can hear all that and not think that something suspicious is going on. I'm not saying the Council had Kendra abducted or had her parents killed -- it doesn't seem quite their style -- but ... if her parents or her extended family (her "people", as the show puts it) know about Slaying and take it very seriously, why would the Council want them to send their daughter somewhere away from them where she isn't allowed to talk to anybody apart from her Watcher about being a Slayer? Was she going to be "distracted" by being brought up by people who were definitely 100% in favour of her being a Slayer? What real evidence does Kendra have that her Watcher can be trusted about anything he tells her about her parents? Why does this sound like the internal monologue of a character in the first third of a horror novel who doesn't quite yet realize they've been raised by a cult?

And so, you might think, this is where Kendra's arc is going to go. Next season is, after all, all about Buffy losing confidence in her own Watcher and the system of Watchers in general. Maybe Kendra will start to suspect she's been lied to. Maybe she'll try to track down her parents. Maybe they've been looking for her all this time; maybe they died in an accident and the Council decided it would be simpler to train Kendra as a Slayer if she didn't have anything else in her life to "distract" her. Maybe this is another Ampata situation, and Kendra's family really did give her up, and when she has some space away from her Watcher to think about it she realizes she's pretty angry about that. Maybe she'll go through the Cruciamentum, and lose her powers for a bit, and ask herself what would have happened to her if she'd waited and trained and gotten older and never been Called as a Slayer at all.

But instead the show means all this to be taken entirely at face value. Everything Kendra says is just supposed to stand in contrast with Buffy's own experience of becoming a Slayer, even though you can't really just reverse "Buffy's parents don't know anything about Slaying" and "Buffy lives with her Mom and has to try to hide her patrolling activites from her" and "Buffy never knew anything about the supernatural or vampire slayers until she was told she was one" and "Buffy still tries to go to school and socialize and date and have as much of a normal life as she can" and "Buffy isn't always perfect at keeping her Slaying secret from the people in her life" and hope to create anything coherent.

The next time we see or hear about Kendra it's literally just for about fifteen minutes so she can be killed off and written out of the show forever. And then pretty much nobody ever talks about her again (except for a brief mention the episode after she dies and a final fleeting reference early the next season. And then in Season 7 we meet Kennedy, the only other Potential with any real screen time who the Council seem to have trained from a young age, who definitely does remember her family and tells Willow about growing up as a relatively normal (if slightly spoiled) child and doesn't seem to have gone through anything like this.

[staceymcgillicuddy]

Prompt #9 please!

Oh, Nonnie, this is my last prompt in the inbox and it got me all in my emotions as well! Love an established relationship feelings-fest! (Prompt is "Listen to me.")

~~~~~~~

“Chrissy?” 

Eddie taps on the door of their overpriced hotel room and waits. He has a key, but he wants to respect her need to take a moment. After all, it isn’t every day that your wife flees her little brother’s rehearsal dinner in tears after telling her own sainted mother to “just shut up, okay?” 

Not that Laura Cunningham’s much of a saint. Still, Eddie’s treading carefully because this is the first significant time they’ve spent with the Cunninghams since the Christmas disaster of ’91, and there’s nothing that can send Chrissy spiraling back into the abyss of her childhood faster than a scathing comment from her mother. 

“Hey, Bets,” he says, trying again with a nickname that he only pulls out when the stakes are high. He can’t remember how it started—Christine Elizabeth shortened to Lizzie, Beth, Betty, Bets, maybe—but after eleven years together, eight of them married, and a hundred pet names split between them, what does remembering matter?

Pressing his ear to the door, he waits until he hears a sob before deciding that she’s had warning enough and uses his key.

The room smells like Chrissy’s perfume with an undercurrent of faux-floral toilet scrub. It’s not a place they could ever have afforded alone, which is part of the problem. As parents of the groom (and at said groom’s request), Phillip and Laura are paying for their attendance, which has set Chrissy on a self-destructive path where she has to battle a tornado of tolerance and an earthquake of obligation and yes, sure, Eddie’d suggested they just get a room at the Motel 8 and save themselves the hassle, but she’d wanted to do it for her brother. For Charlie. For his bride-to-be, Addie, who’s actually a cool girl. They’ve been to stay with Chrissy and Eddie in Chicago twice now, and Eddie digs her taste in music more than he’ll ever admit. 

(Addie also said she dug Eddie’s band-on-the-side, which is all he needs to love someone forever.) 

“Eddie,” comes a plaintive wail from the bed.

Chrissy’s curled on her side with a pillow hugged to her abdomen, still wearing the blue floral dress she’d sported to dinner. It has ridden up her thighs considerably, and Eddie must have grown as a person because he only thinks about that for maybe .02 seconds as he crawls onto the bed behind her and wraps an arm around her waist to pull her against his chest. 

“She had it coming,” he says into her artfully coiffed hair, which rests shellacked and sticky against his lips. “Baby. She did.” 

“Is Ch-Ch-Addie mad?” 

“Nobody’s mad except your mother.” In fact—and he won’t tell her this now—Addie’d been hiding a giggle behind a napkin. Eddie knows for a fact that she feels about Laura much the same as he does. Only, you know, she can’t say that to Chrissy because while Chrissy’s allowed to hate her mother, nobody else can say a word, and God, yeah, families are complicated. Eddie’s grateful that he only has to worry about Wayne, and Wayne never gives them any trouble. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she says around another miserable little sniffle. 

“Eh.” He shrugs and kisses the spot where her shoulder meets her neck. “She was picking at you, and you snapped. It happens.” 

“But I wasn’t going to do it this time! I was… I worked on all those coping m-mechanisms!” That brings a fresh volley of tears. “Sandra’s going to be so disappointed.” 

“What, like you’re gonna get a bad grade in therapy?” 

“Yes!” She trills the word out on a wail.

Eddie loves her so much, but she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, and while he never minds comforting this particular damsel in distress, he’s also not gonna let her beat herself up when Laura’s the one who threw the first punch. 

“Alright, buddy, c’mon.” He pulls away enough to coax her onto her back, where she stares up at him from puffy, red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy complexion. “Hey.” 

“Hi,” she says. 

There’s snot beneath her nose, so he grabs a Kleenex from the box on the nightstand and holds it to her face. “Blow.”

She blows—honks if he’s honest—and he chucks the tissue onto the table before focusing on her. 

“Okay, counselor, facts of the case. Did your mother kick the evening off by telling you your dress was too tight?” 

Chrissy frowns. “It is, and—”

“Bzzt!” Eddie digs his fingers into her side, which has the intended effect of shocking her into a squeal. “Irrelevant. Conjecture. Also, bullshit. You look hot. So, true or false, counselor? Did she do that?” 

Chrissy nods, mute, pressing her lips into a thin line. But, hey. Not crying, so that’s something. 

“And did she, or did she not, tell everyone at the table that they’re paying for us to be here?” 

Another nod. 

“After which—and correct me if I’m wrong here—she put her hand over your plate so the waiter couldn’t give you any of the lobster risotto.” 

Chrissy’s mouth twists into what might be termed a smile, and she shrugs. 

“So then I switched plates with you, and she gave me that look she always gives me.” 

“What look?” 

“The look where I’m a pile of actual dogshit she’s just stepped in.” 

“Oh.” Chrissy’s smile widens, and she shrugs. “Right. That look.” 

“All of that to say, by the time she gave her little speech about grandchildren and welcoming a daughter into the family… I dunno, Bets, it felt like justifiable homicide to me.” 

“But I did it in front of everyone…” 

“Yeah, well, so did she.” 

“But—“ 

“No buts. Listen to me. Your mother’s never going to change, but you change every day. That’s why you’ve got me, and Sandra, and all our friends who actually like you instead of the stupid little dress-up doll your mother spent eighteen years trying to turn you into.” 

This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. Chrissy already knows how he feels. However, if the message takes a million times to sink in, Eddie’s willing to keep talking. 

Chrissy blinks, sniffs, and rubs her eyes. “Okay,” she says because she’s not so good at acknowledging the truth of the matter. “I should call Charlie’s room. Apologize to him and Addie and—”

“Or,” Eddie says, cutting her off before she can work herself into another lather. “We could call up room service and charge two fucking massive slices of chocolate cake to your parents.” 

“Eddie…” 

“Best part is, they’re both for you.” 

"Eddie."

"I'll have a bite. And you can call your brother, too."

~~~~~~

All the prompts I've answered!

[verybigdinosour]

Seems I forgot to add more background info about Mich, woops.

Anyway, here's a story about how he became wanted.

Space Riders OC post here

Part two here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mich was sitting there, in his ship at the cockpit watching as the other ships leave and enter the space port next to a planet it was stationed at.

It was dangerous where he's at but the thought of being spotted by a space patrol never came to his mind, he knew he was safe by hiding his ship in the planet's rings. Although dangerous it was the perfect spot to not be spotted.

As Mich sits there he couldn't help but remember the day he became a wanted critter.

Six Years Ago

Mich was or used to be a weapon specialist, his job was to test weapons to see if they function properly with no problems before they were sent off to the critters who bought them.

Mich was a workaholic often staying late, forgetting to eat, doesn't get a good rest, Mich was hyper focused on his job than anything. Some of the coworkers at the factory would believe he was a robot in secret because of how he works.

Mich didn't have anything else to do, he didn't have a family to visit or to talk to, he was an orphan. Apparently after he was born he was left at the doors of an orphanage 'so they've said' and grew up there. He never knew who his parents were, throughout his childhood he never really made any friends he was focused on school and history, agriculture, and manufacturing reading. The friends he did make were a group of critters that called themselves 'The Wild Bunch', Mich would chuckle every time he would think about it, Mich would never forget the memories he made with them forever. But things had to come to an end when the critters were adopted, all except for him. It was common for Mich to not be adopted and soon he would come to accept the fact that nobody wanted him, which would eat at him for the time to come. After coming of age he worked at a weapons factory as a helper, then worked his way to a weapon specialist. He was always fascinated by the weapons that were made, which would turn him into a gun nut/weapons expert.

It was another late day at the factory, Mich was finishing up checking on an order for a critter, after he was done he then went looking for his boss to tell him that the order was ready to be transported. Mich was walking to his boss's office and before he could open the door he could hear the sound of critters talking, he decided to listen in on their conversation, he could make out the sound of his boss and another critter that sounded familiar.

Boss: "I assure you that the critter who is checking up on your order is one of my best weapons specialists."

Mystery critter: "But does he know who the order belongs to? And are you sure he won't found out?"

Boss: "If it comes to it I will personally deal with it myself. And you make sure the money gets into my account, [Name of a wanted critter]."

Mich's heart sank, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, he couldn't believe that his boss was selling weapons to wanted critters. He didn't know what to think, but his mind would come back into reality after hearing the door to his boss's office open. Mich after seeing that the door was open, noticed that his paw was on the open button. After seeing it Mich begins to run quickly and quietly 'to not let them hear where he was going' to his office, as he was running he couldn't help but wonder {how many orders he was checking was from wanted critters}, in the future he would find out that half of the orders he was checking were for wanted critters.

End of Part 1.