#followers: has anyone read killing stalking and is it any good?

[paradoxlemonade]

Ughhhh I need more media with absolutely fucked up relationships in canon but I'm having a hard time finding stuff that people agree is good and fanfic isn't cutting it anymore

Maybe I'm going about this wrong and instead of looking for stuff people say is good I should instead pick something wildly controversial to find quality.

[dr3c0mix]

All You Need

Yandere! Bodyguard x Gn Reader

CW: obsessive behavior, minor stalking

i changed his name, his old name was doo doo, it was but a trick of the light

IM CHANGING HIS NAME AGAI-

♠️ Never before would you have ever considered hiring a bodyguard, you could defend yourself on your own just fine, but with all your rival manufacturers trying to get you out of the competition with assassinations and attempted kidnappings, you had no choice.

♠️ Feelings were a very rare thing for Baron, and he was fine with it, after all, emotions weren't a very helpful thing to have when your job is to kill people. There was no room for soft, sappy things like that when you lived in his side of the city.

♠️ But his cold and empty demeanor was somehow broken through the moment he saw you.

♠️ The smile you had on your face pierced his heart like cupid's arrow, it was like love at first sight for him.

♠️ He was just getting some rest after a particularly stressful job at a nearby bar when he heard the sweetest laughter from across the room.

♠️ There you were, the most beautiful person he's ever laid eyes upon. You were sitting with some other people, talking and drinking together like all the other patrons, but you stood out to him like a precious gem amongst stone.

♠️ It seemed as if the world slowed down when your eyes briefly met his.

♠️ He would now frequent that bar, learning what you like to order, when you get there and who you'd be with.

♠️ He's never talked to you, or even interacted with you in any way, but the feelings he had for you couldn't be denied. You're just too adorable!!

♠️ Through his connections, he found out you were a big name in weapons design. Unique and beautifully deadly instruments of death were created by your hands. Is it weird he finds that hot?

♠️ He'd start off making anonymous orders for weapons to you, it was normal to get one that was unnamed, so you thought nothing of it.

♠️ When he got his order, an intricately designed dagger, he couldn't bring himself to use it on anyone. This is a gift from his kind and talented darling! He couldn't just stab it into someone's chest like any other knife!

♠️ Yes, he has a little shrine of you.

♠️ When he heard you were hiring for a bodyguard, he was ecstatic! Finally, he can be with you for real! He had to stop himself from giggling like a little girl in front of his colleagues.

♠️ He applied for the job and immediately was given instructions to your address, he read it over and over again until it was engraved into his mind.

♠️ "Tomorrow, 5pm. 93 Lebberside Ave. Door with the hummingbird symbol on it in the alley. Do not be late."

♠️ When he arrived at the location, his heart was pounding under his cold expression. He knocked on the door and heard a muffled crash from inside with a small "Shit!" before the sound of multiple clicks of locks followed.

♠️ You pulled the door open and looked up at the man with dark eyes.

♠️ "Are you the applicant?"

♠️ "Y-yes.." God he stuttered, he hoped you couldn't see his flushed face.

♠️ "Good, come in." You pulled him in and swiftly locked the door again.

♠️ He looks around and it looked like a normal home, albeit a little cluttered. Boxes of files and paper were almost everywhere with takeout boxes and noodle cups on every surface of the house. Looks like you've been piled with work for a long time, poor thing, you really need him to take care of you don't you?

♠️ He sits down on the couch across from the little bean bag you were sitting on while reading a file you grabbed from the coffee table, god you're adorable..

♠️ "So you're..?"

♠️ "Baron..Baron Valencia.."

♠️ "Baron..."

♠️ Oh god say his name again please plea-

♠️ "Hm..your file's pretty good..and you don't have any recent dealings with my competitors? Interesting, looks like you have a good eye for quality weaponry huh?" You smile at his file before looking at him with fox eyes. The things he'd let you do to him...

♠️ "I just took a liking to your model's, they're more convenient and useful than others.." He says with a straight face.

♠️ You chuckle and ask him a few more questions before eventually moving on to small talk, he relished in the time you two spent together laughing at past experiences and jokes, it was like he's known you forever, it took every muscle in his body just to stop himself from smiling too much.

♠️ Eventually, you got up and patted his lap, putting down the file. "Well, Mr. Valencia, you're hired!" You say with a smile, the same smile that melted his heart the first time he saw you.

♠️ "Really?! I-I mean- thank you..Boss.."

♠️ He regains his calm composure after letting his voice go a little too high for his liking, any embarrassment he would've had in that situation was replaced with a warm, tingly feeling as you placed a hand on his shoulder, giggling.

♠️ After that, he'd watch you like a hawk, always being by your side ready to protect you, even if you’re just at home. You never know when someone will try to hurt you!

♠️ He'd be looming over you, giving any poor soul trying to talk to you a death stare until you introduced them as friends of yours, he's a giant guard dog basically.

♠️ His stoic expression would persist even when you make small talk with him all the time so casually. It was like he wasn't even your bodyguard sometimes, just a friend you were hanging out with.

♠️ He wasn't all intimidating and cold, he was also very concerned for your health...all the time, and can you blame him? You've been living off of takeout and instant noodles for months!

♠️ "Boss, I think you should eat a proper dinner and not fastfood again, I'll cook for you."

♠️ "Your work can wait, Boss. I'm sure your client can wait another day, please, you look tired."

♠️ It's all part of being your bodyguard! He has to keep you safe and healthy! He'd be happy to move in so he can protect you 24/7 if you'd let him.

♠️ He'd offer to help you clean your living space a little too, since you're so busy and all with work, he might as well make life easier for you. You said yes to get him to stop pestering you about it and when you came back to the living room, all the clutter and empty food containers were gone..as well as a few of your clothes..I guess he put them away as well, how nice of him.

♠️ If you confront him about this, he'd deny it all flushed in between stutters.

♠️ "Well Baron, it sounds to me like you want to be my househusband more than a bodyguard with all your offers for looking after me and such."

♠️ "Wh- Me? N-no! I'd never! I-I mean unless you'd want that..Not that I'm saying I want to! But well uhm- I-if you uh..uhm..I'll leave you alone to work..."

♠️ On days off a.k.a. days you forced him to take a break from taking care of you to get a bit of breathing space for yourself, he'd stalk your social medias or flat out stalk you. A true bodyguard never stops protecting their boss! He just wants to watch over you!

♠️ On the rare occasions that you're too deep in work and not getting a blink of sleep, he'd use his strong arms to pull you into bed and force you to rest. It wasn't long before he heard you softly snoring in his arms, you were exhausted from long days of working and delivering orders and evading taxes and such, no wonder you went out like a light.

♠️ He looked down at you as he sighed lovingly, placing a kiss on your head, whispering a soft "Goodnight, cariño.." Before drifting off to sleep himself.

♠️ "..Goodnight Baron.."

♠️ "B-Boss! Y-you heard that?!"

[moondirti]

due to popular demand, a follow up to this featuring: 18+ content, gaz, ballerina!reader, internet stalking, men being gross, another a thinly veiled character study

Kyle is a good man.

Granted, his metric is not attuned to common standards for morality anymore, nor has it been that way since basic. He's sure that if he were to pick any sheltered samaritan off the street to read out his laundry list of transgressions, they'd balk at the fact that their taxes go to keeping him fed. They'd rather their image of the army stay unsullied and ideal. They'd rather keep him at arms length with a thank you for your service and not confront the blood caked beneath his fingernails.

But he can no longer be held to their degree. No longer exists within these spaces. No. Kyle – or Gaz, if one were to go off of what he's called most often nowadays – is a doorstop. A pestle. Something inconspicuous, obscure, that serves the sole function of making life easier for everyone but itself. And he assumes this role with a handful of others who have nothing else to live for, exiled to crowd the back of Foxhounds and kill at a moment's notice. Foul men. Friends.

If someone were to line up every operative on a special forces unit, or better yet collect the likes of the 141 and asses each for their moral standing, Gaz can rest knowing he'd come out on top. He's not yet as far gone as they are; can enjoy a night out or a pretty bird writhing underneath him without wanting to choke her out. Only devoted to his captain, or the others, to the extent that their professional relationship calls for (no matter how much it itches at him to watch Ghost take care of Soap, or to reject Price when he offers him a drink).

Sure, he laughs at their jokes. Might pitch in when they're swapping stories of their filthiest catch, Soap rattling on about the lass who'd stuffed her tongue up his arse, or encourage them to shoot on sight if they spot a potential threat, civilian or otherwise. Yet the difference is this: when he goes home, he can stuff that all away.

Knows not to let it infest the boundaries of the real world. Off deployment, his comrades play pretend at the noncombatant lifestyle, but the guise is ill-fitting. They're too big for their skin. They stretch and tear at the conventions holding them in place, like feral dogs made to heel. Kyle doesn't have to be tamed. He's still functional, familiar with the expectations held of him. Can submit to integrity more easily than most.

Kyle is a good man.

And that's what he tells himself as he returns home, train car completely void of anyone but himself. He's good for having given you up. He's good for not have followed you home. There'd been a brief lapse of judgement, but he's good for doing something about it before things passed the point of no return.

You've lived this far without his protection, he reasons. Yet it doesn't change the unreachable itch, closed away in a supposedly locked box. Gaz. Or, his captain's voice, cigar-smoked and advisory.

But why should you continue like that.

It's hard to fall asleep that night.

He's sick with worry wondering if you ever got home, bile broiling and distending up his throat at the thought of having abandoned you. It's pure concern that compels him to find your socials, really. Kyle is only searching for an update, or recent post, indicating that you're alive.

With nothing to go off of but a face, he searches for dance studios in both Acton Town, your area, and the Kensington, the area where you'd boarded the tube from. He makes a shortlist of the most reputable ones (your attire seemed to imply that you were a seasoned ballerina) and cross-checks them as hosts of upcoming recitals. Two renditions of Swan Lake and a production of Giselle turn up, each with their very own cast lists. Thus begins a tireless search of every name credited.

His heart almost leaps out of his nose when you eventually load into view, then plummets at how easy you'd been to find.

Your vulnerability only sets Kyle's conviction in stone. Bloody good thing he's got your best interests in mind.

Locked twitter, a LinkedIn, and a public Instagram page which sends his blood pressure skyrocketing after checking your follower count. Popular. And of course he can see why. Over a hundred posts chronicling bright smiles and flattering outfits. You mainly use the account to promote your practice, though; feed full of skimpy little outfits, leotards and exposed sternums and impossible poses.

Stop it. He's here for something specific.

Kyle sips in a deep breath, scrolls back to the top of your page, clicks on your most recent post. A casual video of your leg raised on a barre while your friend counts how high above your previous record you're able to stretch. Your skin is sweat-slicked. Your mouth is thrown open in a half-laugh, half-pant. He almost forgets why he clicked on it in the first place, before the timestamp catches his eye.

30 minutes ago.

So, you'd gotten home.

He can go to bed now.

Exit your account. Swipe up on Instagram to clear it from his running apps. If he's extra disciplined, he'd block you. Rob himself of the temptation to tug himself over the photo of you in the splits.

Kyle is a good man because he knows his limits.

(But Kyle now also knows the address of your studio. That, even if he blocks you, it'll take up space in his chest. A ticking-time bomb. A knowledge that'll haunt him whenever he's on the District, Circle, or Piccadilly lines, and the train announces Gloucester Road. A force, a stone in his throat, that'll grow so large it'll force him to stand up and disembark, to walk until he's standing right outside and wait on you to wrap up rehearsal.)

It occurs to him that the point of no return has long since passed.

inclusivity note: i felt the need to say that, while reader is a dancer, her profession is not meant to imply anything about her body type. flexibility and agility are not limited to thin builds, and while the ballet industry can be very toxic, i've seen my fair share of spaces where all figures are embraced and success is determined only by ability!

[ch3rry-wink]

Even in Death

Pairing: curse!Yūta x f!reader

Summary: Yūta has returned from the grave just for you.

CW: +18, murder, yandere Yūta, slight gore, obsession, blood, stalking, smut, co-dependency?

Author's note: I've read a lot of Yūta and I wanted to write something too

If you had known the implications of killing your boyfriend that night, you might have stayed still as he criticized you for that letter you wrote months before you became a couple, confessing your love to someone else. But no, in a fit of rage, you decided to thrust that kitchen knife into his chest and then dispose of his body by burying it in an empty lot.

The police had come a couple of times asking questions; you lied and made sure to lie convincingly. Getting rid of them was easy.

On the other hand, getting rid of the entity that resembled your boyfriend would be a greater challenge. Three days after the incident, a figure began following you, and people seemed oblivious to its presence. A week later, the entity took shape and appeared before you – a more lifeless version of your boyfriend.

He stayed with you, coiling around your body, sometimes feeling him groping you. When he wasn't on top of you, he lurked in corners, staring at you intently. Nights became sleepless, hearing the sound of his nails on any surface, pulling your blankets, and if he was in a good mood, he would cuddle with you.

Mornings were a hassle too; he found it amusing to make you struggle to find your things, causing you to be late.

Nowhere and with no one were you safe. This was confirmed during a night out with friends when the entity whispered a command in your ear, threatening harm if someone didn't remove their hand from you.

Terrified, you left the place, locked yourself in a bathroom, and his head appeared under the cubicle door in an unnatural position.

"Leave me alone!" you screamed. "No, you'll always be mine," the entity slid under and stood in front of you. "You'll never be with anyone else; I'll kill anyone who gets close to you."

"Yūta, I'm sorry."

"Save those crocodile tears," he approached your neck and kissed you from the collarbones to your ear. "You didn't look very sad when you left me in that field that night."

"Is that what you want, a confession? I'll do it if it means you'll leave me alone."

"And how does that benefit me? I want you to be mine like in the old times." The thought disgusted you.

You broke free from his grip and ran to the subway. He followed, sat next to you, and began touching you everywhere. The announcement for your stop came, and you walked through dark streets. Some guys approached, and unsurprisingly, Yūta intervened, blood and guts at your feet – he had always been protective.

Back home, you rushed to the small altar your parents had set up in honor of Yūta. Seeking comfort and wisdom in prayers, but Yūta was guiding the situation, hands on your breasts, lips kissing your neck.

"Fine, we'll be together," he got excited, wanting to take everything right there. He was no longer bound to behave; it was just a hungry curse for you and resentment.

He lunged at you, you fell, and he held your hands over your head. Your eyes filled with tears. Despite the hatred, his love was greater, wanting you to desire him, enjoy him as when he was alive, not just a curse to annoy you.

So he was gentle, caressing your body adoring every part of it with small, slow kisses, gently removing your clothes.

You gasped when his fingers finally found their way to your panties and he moved them aside, made perfect circles over your clit and your hips lifted towards him as you felt his fingers enter, you missed this sensation, missed him - the version that was a sweet guy, not the jealous Yūta, and certainly not the cursed Yūta.

You ran your hands through his hair and pulled him in for a kiss, he followed your kiss and his fingers kept curling inside you at that sensitive spot that would bring you to the end, yet he stopped leaving you there halfway to orgasm.

"I want you to beg for me." He stood up, and you did the same; your body was tense, and you were angry.

"Please, Yūta," you used that little voice when you wanted to manipulate him into doing something; however, it didn't work, and you approached him, following the swirl button shape, and began unbuttoning one by one.

Curse Yūta was very thin, almost bony. You touched his collarbones and then descended to do the same with his ribs, while kissing his neck, your hands reached his pants, and you heard them fall.

He was holding back, playing hard to get, wanting to see how far you'd go to have him. Then, you knelt in front of him, ready to give him pleasure; he stopped you.

"Tell me what you want" he towered over you, looking down with his sad, lifeless eyes.

"I want you... Please don't leave, stay with me, I need you," you said between sobs.

"I wasn't planning on leaving, I'll always be with you," he reassured you. "I promised to always take care of you, but now I need to feel you," he said as you nodded in agreement."

You lay back on the floor, offered yourself to him by spreading your legs, removing your panties and running your fingers through your wet folds indicating you were ready just for him. He directed his cock towards your needy pussy, and began to move it over your folds teasing you and how needy you were. A growl came from his throat as he began to slide his length inch by inch inside you, he stood there not moving just waiting, feeling you throbbing around him. His thrusts were sudden and rough.

"Yūta!" you moaned as he pressed again and again on your g-spot. You squeezed his cock hard, he knew you were close by the way your pussy clenched and sucked on it.

His bony fingers moved to your clit and started rubbing it, your back arched and your pussy contracted on his cock. You felt his cock and balls spasming.

With a firm grip he held your hips and buried himself deeper into you, his fluids filling your pussy until they spilled out; It felt good, like in the old times when he was your boyfriend, because he still was; he was Yūta, a different version but the same Yūta.

Yūta collapsed next to you, you smiled at him your cheeks were flushed and on your eyelashes was still the wetness of some tears.

"I'm sorry" you put your hand on his chest and then moved to kiss him.

"It doesn't matter, we are together now and we will always be together..... You will always be mine."

"Always yours."

[1unpaid-intern]

Ok so I'm kinda new to tumblr, but I just can't get this fanfic idea out of my head. So since I'll probably never write this/ lose motivation half way through, I might as well share it.

Soooo I've come across a really good ghost/calamity xie lian AU fic (Dark Sword, White Flower by Luna04 on ao3 if anyone's interested) and I've come up with my own take on that premise, because it's just so intriguing.

(English is not my first language, so sorry for any mistakes)

Also spoilers for tgcf (obviously)!

Almost all fics I've read make it so Xie Lian dies in the coffin Lang Qianqiu put him in, but even though that'd be pretty cruel (and would therefore make sense in universe xD) I just don't buy it. Jun Wu specifically wanted to make life as painfull as possible for him both psycologically and physically. Xie Lian getting stabed through the heart for decades would be a dream come true, so he definetly wouldn't let him die. Because if you ask me, he definetly knew. As white no-face he was stalking XL constantly and you're telling me he just stopped after his second banishment? XL was still suffering, since his luck got sealed away, so you bet that he's been watching him day after day while eating popcorn and going like: serves you right little sh*t (because we all know he's petty like that).

Instead I'd have XL die trying to stop the human face disease from raining down on Yong'an. In the original Wu Ming sacrifices himself, but what if no-face stops him by scattering his soul. XL then makes the ultimate sacrifice and even though all those resentfull spirits should kill him no matter what, in order to make it a little bit more poetic let's say that right before he gets hit, XL ascends for the second time since he regained his morals and tries to make up for it. (In the process he also breaks his shakle. And I know that you're supposed to also be imortal as a god, but Shi Wudu got killed by having his head ripped off and I just have this head canon that XL would be fine after that because JW just won't let him die.)

Now the "problem" that arises with this premis instead of the coffin-death is that JW absolutly knows about XLs death. If he lets the rest of heaven know that, it'd eventually reach Hua Cheng. Aaand oh booooyyyy. If he found out that his god not only died, but none of the other gods, not even the emperor himself, prevented it by helping him, the temples of those 33 gods wouldn't be the only thing on fire. Because think about it, the reason HC keeps on living is XL, but if he thinks he's gone, then the only thing that'd keep him going is revenge. HCs end goal would then be to become strong enough to even kill JW.

But I can also see this playing out differently. We know JW wants XL to follow in his foot steps and become a calamity, therefore needing to become a ghost (as he says when they're both trapped in the Kiln). So he'd definetly consider the posibility of XL becoming a ghost. Considering the guy has a sword for everything (looking at you virginity detecting sword) I could imagine that he also has one that can tell if somebody's soul is still wandering around even though they're dead. Obviously JW would want to find him and turn him into a calamity. But if he a) tells the other gods that XL is a ghost then atleast Feng Xin and Mu Qing would also be looking for him or b) only tells them that he died then somebody might get the idea to use the aforementioned sword and leading us back to a). So the most logical thing would be for JW to just lie about XL getting banished a second time (similar to how it originally went down).

While I like both scenarios, I'm kinda leaning towards the second one with JW lying, because as soon as XL ascendes for the third time he's gonna be hella confused why nobody is freaking out about him showing up in heaven, followed up by him becoming suspicious of JW.

One thing I've been thinking about a lot was what's special about XL as a ghost king, what differentiates him from the others. HC got his red robs, silver jewelry, blood rain, wraith butterflies, E-Ming and power over luck. He Xuan has his black robes, great acting skills (seriously give this man an oscar), never ending hunger, skeletton fish and power over the seas. Qi Rong (while only having the title of a calamity and not actually being a ghost king) has his green robes, green fire locks and his habit of trying to imitate the other calamities (e.g. hanging corpses & eating people). Bai Wuxiang has his simple white burial robs, the iconic half-crying half-smiling mask, a spirit calling cloth flag, Fangxin aka Zhu Xin, manipulation and the power of the human face disease. Things I've seen a lot in other fics and that I completly agree on are: XL can turn his nails into long claws (similar to Lady Dimitrescu I'd imagine), he doesn't want to be found so he shape shifts a lot and he helps out the common people, especially children and mothers (since trying to help others and making up for his past mistakes is basically all that keeps him going). While these characteristics are great, they aren't enough to make him stand out yet. One idea I'm really proud of is to make XL a puppet master. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the only "ghost typs" we ever were introduced to were sentient weapons, possed objects, humanoid ghosts, ghost animals, water ghouls and puppet masters. And just imagine XL using threads and puppets to fight in addition to Ruoye. Like, imagine him fighting similar to Sasori from Naruto, the Spider Demons from Demon Slayer or ErrorSans from the Undertale AUs. I also think he should stick with the burial cloths he was wearing as white no-face (maybe with some blood on them to make it more creepy) but obviously adding his signitur bambu hat with some flowy long vails.

I wouldn't change to much about he whole XL posing as the Yong'an goushi backstory. I would only have it so Lang Qianqiu finds out that his goushi was actually a ghost king and XL fleeing so he isn't stuck in a coffin for decades. That way when LQQ finds out about XL being his goushi, it also serves as the big reveal.

I'm not so sure what to do with the Banyue kingdom backstory though. I would like for XL to take Ban Yue as his little adoptive daughter, but if he went back after the kingdom was destroyed, then woudn't he take care of Kemo and the other ghost soliders right there? That would lead to Little Pei never luring people in, therefore erasing the entire Banyue arc and I don't know how to feel about that. Yes, not much would change, were it to play out, but that's the first time XL meets the "earth" and wind master. Also JW led them to Banyue pass (and also to the ghost bride) in order to damage Pei Mings reputation, so he'd lose believers and therefore would be easier to beat later on and that's kinda important. Not to forget he used a puppet for that and with XL as a puppet master he'd definetly be able to get more info out of it, leading to raising his suspicions again.

Aaaaand that are all the ideas I have so far, also my fingers hurt from typing.

Maybe I'll continue this some day, since I probably won't stop obsessing over this AU any time soon. (Also if you know similar fics please let me know, I feel so starved rn)

[hiddenwashington]

the streets of washington dc are never truly calm, but the months since the last massacre have been fairly relaxed by this city’s standards. as winter turns to spring, and spring turns to summer, the cherry blossoms begin to fade, schools finish up for the year, and people spend more time lingering out in the streets, the heat and the longer daylight hours a good lure to go out more often. 

unfortunately, that lure will end up being the doom of some of the citizens of this city. once again, magic weaves through the people in the city, this time slipping into people’s heads and altering their minds without their notice. most of the time, they will remain as themselves, with nothing seeming off about them in the slightest. but at random times, with seemingly no trigger, a switch will flip, and they will turn into a killer, stalking their victims through the streets until they manage to catch them alone and finish them off.

as soon as the kill is done and they are far enough away to avoid suspicion, all thoughts of it are blocked out of their mind, so there is no way to tell who might be guilty, beyond any clues they themselves might leave in their magic induced haze. unlike most chaos in the city, this isn’t one night of horror, nor is it a few days of fighting for your life. the city is unchanged, bar the growing body count, and the police have no leads, no indication of why this is happening, or any idea of who might be next. as things progress, the stakes grow higher and higher as more victims are picked off, and it may be time to take matters into your own hands.

TLDR; we’re throwing a city-wide murder mystery!! the magic of the city, or maybe just the boredom that has taken over peoples minds has brought us a string of unsolved murders, ones that are attacking anyone and everyone with little rhyme or reason. it will be up to you, our investigators, our members, to solve these murders and stop the criminals before they can continue to take our loved ones from us!

OOC INFORMATION

hello -- welcome to the big reveal of the secret we have been working on for weeks now !! hidden's official 15th event !! we are so, so excited to bring you this event, which can involve both in-character speculation AND ooc teamwork! this is related to our not-at-all-suspicious poll a while back, so there are both MURDERERS and POTENTIAL VICTIMS among you members; you’ll just have to wait and see who will end up being who. please read on for all of the rules and information surrounding the event, and have fun! we have appreciated all of your love and support, and the excitement we've seen just from the poll alone, and we really hope that you all love this as much as we do!!

DATES :

june 10 - june 24 

this event will last two weeks both in and out of character!

IC INFORMATION :

there is a (secret) number of murderers hidden among you! (cue theme music) you may open your inbox one day to find an anonymous note from one of these secret murderers-- that one of your characters has now become a VICTIM of the magic killing spree plaguing the city. 

so your task (out of character!) is to work together with the other members to figure out who is committing these crimes. you are the investigators and detectives! luckily, a series of clues will point your way, some of them requiring you to complete puzzles, search pages on the main, or even other members’ blogs and intro posts… but teamwork and combined brainpower will be necessary to solve the mystery. 

all clues will be dropped by our mystery sideblog, @hwmystery -- so please FOLLOW that account so you can keep up-to-date about hints, clues, and investigations. this is also the sideblog where you will submit your guesses ooc! see below for guessing logistics.

please also be sure to turn on anon messaging, in your inbox! this is so if your characters get murdered, our murderers can remain anonymous. the exception is if you didn’t submit any potential victims to the poll. if that is the case, you do not need to turn on anon. 

we will also be opening an ooc discussion category on the discord (HWEVENT15) where you can theorize, throw out ideas, share your findings, seek out help for the puzzles, overall chat and react to the event unfolding without worry about what channel to put it in. if you think you figured something out, share it in the channel! we hope this will give you all a chance to get to know each other a little better and collaborate together. the admins are happy to keep adding channels / threads as needed! 

there is NO mandatory pause on non-event threads for the duration of this event; as in, you can continue with your current non-event threads while this is all occurring.

however, there WILL be an activity check pause-- as in, we will not be checking activity these two weeks, because we want you all to focus on having fun and trying to solve the clues! 

PLEASE NOTE -- just because activity will be paused from june 10th - june 24th, that does not mean that we wont still be checking activity in the coming week. that pause will only go into effect on the 10th, so PLEASE make sure you are still active throughout this week!!!

FOR MURDERERS :

if the main already contacted you via dm about one of your characters being a murderer-- shhhh, remember to keep it SECRET! your character cannot even THINK about their role (in plots, threads, etc). we cannot stress enough: nothing you post on the dash (plot calls, replies, etc) should give away your character’s ‘murderer’ status!!

if/when your character gets caught by our investigators (the other members), they will be briefly imprisoned until the magic murder compulsion has left the city. so try not to get caught! play innocent! throw suspicion on other characters in your threads or in the discord, feel free to lie! and have fun with it.

remember to see our (secret!) google doc we sent you if you need reminders about how to alert the victims of your “kills.” you can decide to space those out throughout the two-week event however you like. please don’t switch up your kills from who you already decided and marked on the spreadsheet. once you kill the victim anonymously, please also dm the main to let us know that the deed is done!

(if you happened to see on the spreadsheet that one of your other characters will be a victim… shhhhh. pretend you didn’t see it and don’t let anything slip until you get the murder anon in your inbox.)

once your character is caught by the members, we’ll let you know, and your character will no longer get to murder people, even if you had other victims you’d previously chosen (though you can still continue threads until the conclusion of the event). please do not kill anyone after you’ve been caught !!

as for solving the murders, you're welcome to participate, as you only know the identity of one killer! and of course, if you notice someone getting a little too close to that one killer, you are always welcome to come up with a different answer to the clue and sow a little discord amongst the sleuths!

FOR CONCERNED CITIZENS (AKA POTENTIAL VICTIMS) :

if you haven’t heard from the main to accept a role as a murderer… none of your characters are the secret murderer! but if you submitted anyone on our secret poll as a possible victim, they might fall prey to the killers. again, please be sure to turn ON anon messaging in your inbox. 

IF you receive an anonymous message in your inbox stating that one of your characters has been taken out by the murderer, please post it to your blog, and dm it to the main. we’ll reblog the ask from there, so everyone can see who’s been murdered so far.

you are welcome to continue pre-event threads with that murdered character, but all murdered victims WILL stay deceased until the end of the two weeks, so you will not be able to start any new threads. 

you are also, of course, welcome to plot out who finds your muse after their death, so go crazy and have a blast with that!

we will then update killed characters’ memories accordingly, after the event (aka on june 24th after the end of the event, everyone murdered will either swap from aware to unaware, or unaware to aware, depending on what memory status they had before their death). you will not need to request this switch to the main; we will post them all at once from the main, and tag you in that post on the 24th.

if you didn’t submit anyone on the poll as a possible victim, none of your characters will get killed! but your muses can still participate by theorizing in-character, deciding to investigate on their own, staying inside for fear of being murdered themselves… however you think they would react to the chaos. and we would still encourage you to participate in the ooc investigations as well!

HOW TO GUESS THE MURDERERS :

we will pin this info at the top of the murder mystery sideblog, but if you think you’ve solved the clues and pinned down a murderer, you’ll want to send a message to the sideblog with this format: I believe that [CHARACTER NAME] killed [VICTIM(S) names].

we’ll post your guess with no commentary except to let you (and everyone else) know if you were correct or incorrect! if you’re incorrect… it’s back to the drawing board you go! 

you can only place a guess ONCE per calendar day, so make sure that you’ve followed the trail to the right suspect… ( we're keep track of guess frequency here if you want to follow along )

if you win by guessing correctly, you get accolades, a celebration, an imaginary commemorative medal from the president of dc, and a secret prize that will be revealed at the end :)

once someone’s caught, they’ll go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. if no one manages to catch a certain murderer for the duration of the game… they get away with it! yikes!! so please, for the sake of the citizens of dc, work hard to get this mystery solved! 

FINAL QUICK HOUSEKEEPING :

make sure you’ve followed the sideblog @ hwmystery to keep up with any latest news, victim announcements, and clues! 

the event doesn’t start until june 10th, but feel free to begin plotting now! if you’d like to post a plot call about what your characters are doing during all of this, how they feel about potential killers on the loose, how involved they’re getting with the investigations, or who they suspect once murders start occuring, go ahead! (secret murderers-- remember that the city’s magic prevents them from being consciously aware that they are a murderer! aka please do not hint at anything in your plot calls that could give it away!) 

if you plan to have a character with a major injury or non-mystery-murderer death (maybe defending themselves from a perfectly innocent party! maybe fighting with someone who your muse assumed was a suspect! maybe your character was taken down wrongly by another vigilante character!) be sure to run those major plots by the main beforehand, as always. 

this event does involve some level of murder (obviously), so please be sure to tag triggers appropriately. 

please also tag all event-related posts with hw15, hwevent15, hwmurdermystery, or some variation. 

as stated above, there is no event pause from june 10-24, so you’re welcome to continue your pre-event threads as well as starting new threads to discuss the ongoing events! if your character becomes a victim and they die, they WILL be dead until june 24th. but also as stated above, we won’t be checking activity on anyone until after the event, so that you can focus on having fun. 

that’s it! if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send us a message on the main or shoot any of us a dm! please LIKE this post when you’ve read over it entirely, and have fun plotting and theorizing!

[gralunaisland]

Gruvians saying juvia has had a "tremendous amount of growth since joining Fairy Tail" never fail to make me laugh. Happy had more character development than her. Also, they really should look up the definition of 'obsessive', because she literally embodies that word. Honestly there isn't much to her character, aside from lusting for Gray. I guess the main reason she's popular is because she's 'attractive'? I really don't see any other reason this kind of character would have such a massive fanbase.

Examples of juvia Lacking Character Growth, and Why People Might Like her

This is the oldest ask I have at the moment, so thank you very much for your patience, Anon, and I apologize that I haven't been able to answer this in a while!

I agree with you on all points! You made some great ones. I'll respond to each!

It's pretty hilarious that some Pro gr///vians truly believe that juvia is a much, if at all, better person now than who she was before. she seriously hasn't gotten any less obsessive over the years. If anything, I believe the more we see of her, the more she gets worse. Anyway, I could probably pick apart any instance of "character development" that a Pro might try to use as proof. Here's a couple:

juvia killing herself for Gray? Look no further than this post of mine where I explain this in more detail. she lacks utter agency and will to live outside of Gray, so her life is quite literally worthless to her if she doesn't have Gray, and therefore it's not her being selfless in taking her self-made-meaningless life when she didn't have a self in the first place.

juvia apologizing to Gray for killing the necromancer who controlled Gray's already dead dad? I've already picked apart how that was utter manipulation and disingenuousness on her part in many of my posts, so I'll summarize here:

First, juvia never actually apologizes (literally, go back and read the panels, she never ONCE said even something as simple as SORRY).

Second, juvia makes everything about herself by saying essentially "I don't deserve to love you anymore", as if this had ANYTHING to do with her "love" of Gray when in reality all it had to do with was her doing her FRICKING DUTY by KILLING THE ENEMY. What's more, she's sobbing in that scene not because of any sympathy for Gray losing his father again. she's literally only doing that because she feels she's somehow lost Gray's good graces, that by doing this she doesn't get to give her abusive love to Gray anymore, that she's somehow lost her nonexistent chance to be with him. This scene should not have been about her at all, and yet of course, she's only focusing on the one thing that is in her life, her obsession with Gray against his wishes.

Third, she also stalked him to Silver's grave. Gray didn't tell anyone about it, and yet of course she follows him without his permission or knowledge as per usual. To her, Gray has no right to privacy.

Fourth, her pseudo-apology (which again wasn't one) went right out the window (she literally starts blushing and stops crying and hugs him and says he's warm. Uh. Crocodile tears anyone? Clearly all she cares about is skin-ship with her Gray-sama. she didn't look the least bit concerned that he was crying) once Gray clasped her, breaking down into tears and apologizing to her. What did he do??? she's really broken him so badly that she manages to make her "uwu I'm so sad I don't get to uwu love you anymore" into the most heartbreaking heartfelt apology Gray's ever heard. That amount of emotional and psychological manipulation, even if not on purpose, is absolutely despicable. she's making him feel EVEN WORSE. Remember, Gray is at his father's grave, and she doesn't care. she invades his private time for grieving and centers everything on her abusive passion for him. And Gray is too screwed up to realize how awful of a human being she is for doing so. she's literally making her self-imposed guilt more important than his trauma and making it his problem. I cannot overstate how horrible that is. she doesn't feel bad for Gray grieving his dad or even crying right now in front of her whatsoever, because now that Gray's made it clear that he doesn't hold her accountable for killing the evil necromancer, she has no reason to feel sad anymore. she never once felt real guilt, she just mourned what she was losing. This is the same thing as a kid only apologizing to their mom for breaking a vase just so they can go to that birthday party they wanted to attend. her "apology" was a means to an end, and she absolutely obtained that end.

Fifth, and one of the most damning things against her in this scene, and that's saying a lot, juvia doesn't change her behavior at all after this pathetic excuse of an apology. Throughout the rest of the story, she continues her unwanted, extreme, intrusive behavior towards Gray. she doesn't change one darn thing about how she treats him. (And it continues all the way even through 100YQ [which of course I don't include in the FT canon, but Pros do, so I shall include it here], only from what I've seen, which thankfully isn't much, it may somehow be even worse). If she were really sorry, she would've decided to stop loving Gray regardless of if he forgave her. she didn't take any convincing that what she did was guiltless. I can't believe (but I can because it's juvia we're talking about here) that she wouldn't take any of the meager amount of time that she felt bad to self-reflect on how her actions have negatively affected Gray. Whom am I kidding, that would require character growth, and we all who aren't blind can tell that she's had absolutely none beyond leaving Phantom Lord, and even that was just because she had a crush on Gray, not because she wanted to apologize to FT or Lucy for all the egregious things she did to them.

If anyone has other instances they want me to break down, feel free to comment them or send me an ask! I don't want to make this impossibly long haha.

Anyway, onto your next point, Anon, as I sort of mentioned when linking my other post, I totally agree with you that "there isn't much to her character, aside from lusting for Gray". I would even go as far as to argue that there isn't anything to her character beyond her perverted tendencies towards him. Literally, if you strip Gray away from her theoretically, what is she? she has no hobbies, she basically has no friends whom she's gone out of her way to make and hang out with (because yes, Mashima made the stupid move of making all the girls in FT like her for literally zero reason because she's been hostile to most of them on the basis of Gray), she has no motivations or hopes and dreams. she is nothing without Gray. she is the definition of a "satellite character", a character written to only revolve around another one with no agency of their own. Don’t forget, she even began to adopt Gray’s habit (and perhaps trauma coping mechanism) of stripping. she lacks THAT much self that she begins to turn into the guy she likes. Wow. Disgusting.

Onto your last point, I think I'd agree with you, that a big reason why juvia is popular is just because people like how she looks. But she's the very typical slim-curvy woman with a huge chest and butt and giant eyes that Mashima loves to draw. There's nothing wrong with that body type, but it's not like she looks that different from anyone else in the show because of that, especially since she kept changing her looks to try to get Gray to like her and literally grew her hair out and stopped curling it to look more like Lucy, someone who is Gray's type canonically. she even starts to show more skin like the others, a far cry from the completely covered up Rain Woman. Perhaps they like her color scheme or her dead-fish eyes as well. I couldn't understand it myself, but to each their own really.

I personally thought that the biggest reason why people liked her was because they projected themselves onto her. juvia does what juvia wants, completely self-centered in every way, ignoring Gray's consent, and yet she still comes out on top, having secured poor Gray's affections by the time of 100YQ thanks to Mashima's poor writing. juvia acts however she wants towards other people, snarling and glaring and insulting other women in Gray's life to their faces just because of her inane jealousy, and yet she somehow ends up every single girl’s friend. juvia acts insane and delusional and has only eyes for one man, and yet she gets other people to hit on her all the time, most notably Lyon.

Who wouldn't want to act completely selfishly like juvia does and still gain everything you desire? Who wouldn't want to ignore everyone else's needs and wants and only care about yourself and still get all the attention and all the power and all the love and all the friends and all your dreams come true?

Sounds like such an easy, fun life, huh? But it's a totally self-absorbed and awful way to live, and it's exactly how juvia lives.

My guess is that people use her as a self-insert character and root for her in their own stead, but I think that's very subconscious, and most wouldn't admit to that. Otherwise, I would really love to see how people justify her behavior as laudable, but then again, I have seen those attempts, and none of them have made any real logical sense to me.

All in all, thank you so much for your patience and for sending this ask! I hope I answered it properly, and I appreciate you waiting so long!

[trulyrogers]

◐ 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨, 𝐘𝐨𝐮. ( 𝐈 {𝐏𝐓 𝐈𝐈})

synopsis. ─ 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮, a bookstore manager in New York, who meets Steve Rogers, an aspiring writer, with whom you become immediately infatuated. To feed your obsession, you soon turn to social media and technology to track his presence and eliminate any possible obstacles that stand in the way of your romance.

・❥・Pairing : Steve Rogers x Dark!Stalker! Reader

・⚠︎・Warnings : Reader is creepy, slight flirting, no use of Y/N, 6'8 Steve, Stalking, Manipulation, Not proofread lol, slight sexual thoughts if you squint

༊*·˚ W/C : 821 TBA!

A/N.─ Hey ya'll! Well because I'm lazy the first chapter isn't finished but here's a second snippet of what to expect. I think from now on, I'll do it daily to keep me motivated lol. I hope you enjoy it!

! italics are the reader's inner monologue :)

║▌║█║▌│║▌║▌█

ᖭི༏ᖫྀ By pressing the 'keep reading' button, you consent that you are over 18 and have read the warnings of this post.

"Aren’t essays usually in non-fiction?" He examines, craning his neck slightly to look down at you. Out of all the people you've known, you've never encountered someone as lofty as him. He was a gentle giant. Burly, yet kind. His muscles protruded in the cream sweater he wore, and you resisted looking at them. You swallowed heavily, although it wasn't perceptible to him. You dusted your hand over the brown apron you wore, wiping off a tad bit of sweat that rested on your palm. To say he made you nervous was an understatement. God, he was attractive.

"Usually. But the owner has his own way of doing things. Who’re you looking for?" You ask wryly as you gaze up at him with your doe-shaped eyes, before positioning the last book on the shelf.

"Hank Pym." He replies without hesitation. Your eyes want to narrow, but you don't, fearing you'll look foolish. After the snap, most of the world had become a sorrowful body of what it once was. Known for his slightly erratic personality and discoveries about time, Hank Pym was infamous for his rivalry with Tony Stark. His books and discoveries after the snap were gathered to help understand the snap and the type of anomaly it was. Despite this, the world remained the same. The former beauty has been reduced to a despondent shell.

"Good choice." You compliment him as you beckon him to follow you, and his laughter ricochets off the walls. His footsteps sound quietly against the carpet and his shadow towers over you, causing you to bite your lip. He was mouthwatering. Although you couldn't catch a glimpse of him, you felt strangely turned on by him. Who wouldn't be? There is no doubt that he was one of the most prominent individuals on Earth at the moment.

"I feel weirdly validated."

"Most of his old stuff went out of print years ago. But since Ransom started talking him up, we’ve been getting more requests. We keep him here-- " You arrive at an undersized shelf, and he inspects it for a moment before speaking.

"'Celebrity authors?' I thought Pym was pretty obscure."

You shrug at his response with a laugh, "He knew Tony Stark."

During his lifetime, Tony made significant contributions to scientific exploration and funding. Media outlets devoted articles, polls, and even news reports to the rivalry between him and Hank Pym, who were friends turned rivals. In the wake of the snap, Tony disappeared for such a long time that people thought he had been killed by Thanos. Until it was all over the news that he had come from a spaceship from the sky. It had been an odd world after Thanos.

"Ransom wants anyone in here that’s even tangentially famous. Thinks it sells more books." You beam and nod your head to the manager watching you both, feigning to be on his phone, and the man you are talking to laughs.

"That’s sad. People buying books because of what’s popular and not because they want to be moved or changed in some way." A frown materializes on his face. Throughout his childhood, his mother prompted him to read, and even as she slipped away peacefully on her deathbed, he read a book to her.

"It’s an epidemic. See that guy --" He whispers to you, continuing, and leaning closer. "I saw him on the way in. Grabbed Dan Brown’s latest on his way in. Now he’ll walk around for another five, ten minutes to try and find something legitimate to buy with it."

His scent is like that of a forest on a warm spring day. It's a musky scent you want to bask in forever. As he becomes more friendly with you, your face ruptures into a smile. Maybe you could become closer to him. Perhaps friends, or even more.

"Like the cereal guys buy when they’re really there for condoms. Only makes it more conspicuous. Like, own your shit. If Dan Brown’s your kink, be out about it." You answer quietly, so only he can hear, and his cheeks begin to redden a bit as he chuckles, trying to regulate his volume level.

"He’s shame-buying Dan Brown."

"At the end of the day, people can be so disappointing, can't they?" You sigh in faux dissatisfaction.

"Sometimes they surprise you." He quips at you; looking down at you with a small grin. A moment passes as you both hold your gaze. Those brilliant blue eyes, you could lose yourself in them for hours. The air around you both suddenly becomes heavier, and you swallow. God, he's so close to you right now. It is as if his shadow engulfs you so perfectly that you can't help but want to get up on your tiptoes and kiss him. Tenser, but quickly, you break eye contact, reminding yourself of patience, and you clear your throat.

"Hank Pym, it's the top shelf."

[stormandash]

Michal Toyen, the Dominant of Fenrir

Before you go any further, a few things to note:

This character has been created do to an ongoing storyline happening on @phoenixfiiire and @dragonliiight. No one is expected to interact with this OC. The main reason I am actually creating a bio and placing him here is just to be able to organize my thoughts about him.

The second thing to note is that he is a terrible, awful, horrible person and he does awful, horrible, terrible things.

Because of this, most interacts involving Michal are going to be placed under a readmore. There is reason for this.

This being said - Michal is a villain through and through, one very easy to hate, and he is a villain that continues to persist after the events of the game. I'm not against writing with other people. But because of the nature of this character, I am not comfortable just tossing him at random people without being sure you are aware of and are okay with him.

Trigger warnings for: murder, stalking, obsessive behavior, borderline nonconsensual desires, torture, flagrant abuse of power

For years there have been rumor of a bandit in the deserts of Dhalmekia, one who was only ever known as the Lone Wolf. No one ever saw him to be able to report on what he looked like; anyone who did ended up dead.

His calling card was a missive sent to the town, generally to whoever had the most money or power, several days before he intended to strike. Tragedy could be avoided if ample goods and gil were delivered where he specified. Please took this as a challenge to try to ambush him; most who tried found themselves killed as the sand beneath their feet turned to something close to water, sucking them below its surface and suffocating them.

If that happened, more often than not the children of the village would be found dead over the course of the next week. The message was clear; if you do not follow his guidelines, you and everyone you care about will be made to suffer.

Unnatural sandstorms often tended to accompany wherever the Lone Wolf went.

When Ultima was defeated, the Lone Wolf vanished. He was presumed dead, though there was never any proof. And in his place, a wealthy and magnanimous man by the name of Michal Toyen rose to power. Due to Sleipnir's actions and the fall of Kupka, there was a power vacuum left in Dhalmekia, one that Michal easily slipped into. He had the wealth to help rebuild the cities damaged by the feuds of the Dominants, and the generosity to give it away seemingly freely to help any in need.

It's a sham, of course.

Michal had always known himself to have a strong connection to earth magic, something that far surpassed what other simple bearers could do. Bending the earth and the sand to his will always felt like child's play. And with Ultima's defeat, the reason why awoken inside of him. He was the Dominant of the previously-sleeping Eikon Fenrir, the Wolf of Earth and Winds.

His desires and goals have not changed, though his target had become someone far... grander. Before, as just the Lone Wolf, Michal could only watch on from a distance as the Dominants raged against one another. Stories of Bahamut, the shining light of Sanbreque, fascinated him. That was a power he wanted, but a simple bandit in the desert could never stand up against the might of the Dragoon Prince.

But he was so much more than that now.

As Sanbreque continues to struggle to rebuild and deal with the tensions left over from the damage caused by Emperor Sylvestre's decision to overtake both Rosaria and the Crystalline Dominion, Dhalmekia has stepped forward to offer aid and treaties to help ease the pain of this transition. All of this in order to help him get closer to his ultimate goal: Claiming Dion Lesage.

FC is Fugo Togo because I found icons for him and he's pretty and that's the point, this bastard looks pretty but is awful. Height: 6'3" Age: He looks younger but probably close to his 40s

If, for some reason, you have read over this and still go 'no I want to interact':

any type of shipping almost across the board won't happen as this man is (at the moment) obsessed with One Man only. that being said, it's probably not going to end well for Dion if Michal actually got what he wanted.... in the 'you're boring now so I'll slit your throat while fucking you' type of way. which uh that being said is probably something he's done before to other people too.

So uh I don't know how to end this I guess like/interact/whatever if this awful awful man intrigues you? He's literally the worst and I cannot wait for him to die.

[dairy-farmer]

I like the couple of Clark/tim. Because i feel Clark protec to tim of everything. I have idea of AU where tim see Clark as weapon dangerous and honestly this version of Clark is more dark. So Clark likes tim to think that because he is really the only person who sees reality, no only the good child. Tim tells him "everyone would try and kill you and you’d win". So Clark only becomes more attracted and obsessed with Tim and starts to stalk him and become possessive.

OOOOO darker tone AUs are so interesting to me and the idea of a clark that managed to fool everyone into thinking he's this kindhearted wholesome man that only wants to do good. he's fooled everyone, civilians, the league, batman-

it's not that clark is a bad person or anything like that, he does try to do good things but he has bad thoughts more often than not. wonders if he wanted to DO something horrible, how much would he be able to do before someone stopped him. could anyone stop him?

he knows people don't trust him, don't fully like him. people like batman and lex luthor who don't fully trust him because of something they fear but at the end of the day they both hold a reasonable assumption about clark: that he's a good person who would never purposefully harm others.

and they're right. clark will likely never purposefully harm others...but part of him wants to. just to see. just to know what it would feel like, if he'd feel anything at all. clark wonders if he's a psychopath sometimes. he's not a psychologist and he doesn't quite have the brain for it anyway but he knows he's abnormal. well...more abnormal aside from the alien stuff.

he doesn't FEEL things like people seem to and he used to think it was because he was kryptonian but kara never never had that problem. neither did conner or johnathon. it was only clark it seemed.

only clark had to pretend like he knew what pure happiness or excitement, fear, love, or rage felt like.

as a child, clark just mimicked all the other babies and their milestones. if they fell at the playground and cried like they'd been shot- clark did too, even though it didn't hurt. if a teenage boy got dumped and went home to his bedroom to cry- so did clark, even though the tears meant nothing to him.

it wasn't that clark never felt things EVER. he still did. when he got genuinely scared his did startle, he got surprised if someone snuck up on him, he felt irritated if someone badgered him. but those weren't...REAL emotions. they were more like...microemotions. you felt them for a split second and then they faded away. but intense emotions, emotions that filled you to the brim with something.

clark didn't feel that.

he married lois by saying that he loved her even though he didn't quite know what that was. they got along fine but clark wouldn't say he felt any stronger for her than he did a stranger.

sex wasn't that intense, mind breaking feeling that everyone said it was. it was...gross. uncomfortable, sweaty, and damp. his body reacted in a way he wasn't comfortable with and that clark didn't like. maybe that was why he and lois only ever had jonathon.

clark doesn't feel outrage, not like how otehr heroes do. he follows their lead on things. if they're upset about something then so is he.

but its never genuine and sometimes clark gets bored. bored of pretending and he wonders, get serious about what would happen if one day he just...stopped.

he knows people wouldn't like him as much. as a kid he'd hardly had any friends because the other neighborhood children were unnerved by him. it was only after he started faking it that they had an interest in him.

clark had already dedicated so many years to this ruse. this facade.

his life was comfortable. he was admired (and that a very goo thing apaprently). people spoke to him.

based on books clark has read, tv shows, and other people. clark had the makings of a perfect like.

a fulfilling career. a loving wife and son. a car. a house. friends.

those made a happy person. some people spent their whole lives chasing what clark had.

clark was bored most days. bored out of his goddamn mind and he was almost coming to terms with the fact that maybe that's how he's just going to have to live.

until tim.

until he met his eyes with tim and saw him looking back at him.

eyes that pierced into his very being and clark felt like a curled up beast hidden behind foilage freezing at the realization that he'd just been spotted by a little bunny.

tim saw him. tim knew that clark knew he saw him.

lex luthor and bruce both are the only ones to ever come close to seeing him, the real him. but they are never able to quiet get it.

but tim is. in the span of a few seconds he sees clark and clark is...fascinated.

tim tenses at his approach, eyes wary but trying to act normal with all the people around them. even in a room filled to capacity it's like they're alone. they're having a silent conversation, a silent interaction that no one else can see and clark is...excited at the prospect.

clark listens to tim. memorizes the steady thump and beat of his heart. he sits in his living room and listens to tim a thousand miles away. he uses his supervision to watch tim from miles away. stands and fights closer to him on the rare instances that tim leaves gotham.

tim sees him. he sees him and clark has never been more excited. he's never felt this elated about something.

he asks bruce about his children, a safe topic. but he pays special attnetion to any mention of tim.

tim notices. he notes clark's increased presence in the manor because clark is visiting more.

it excites clark that tim isn't afraid of him. they both know that clark could do...something.

tim tells him as much. he tells clark when they're alone that clark could do anything to anyone and get away with it. they whole world could band together to try and kill him and they'd lose.

tim is a smart kid. so if he says that it must be true.

clark's curiosity about what would happen is he shed that mask slowly dissipates, replaced by a hunger and interest in seeing tim. hearing tim. knowing about him.

clark's not quite sure what he wants from tim but he knows he wants to look at him and listen to him.

he says the most interesting things behave in the most fascinating way. and clark. wants. more.

the day that tim turns 18 is the day that clark quietly pulls lois aside and asks for a divorce.

it's shocking news to the very small circle of people in clark's life.

he knows they're upset and confused. some even angry and clark understands why. he's not behaving in that manner they know him to. the fake one.

but with tim right there, clark doesn't want to keep doing it. clark is constantly walking around with a facade except for the few rare moments he shares with tim.

if tim is his, if clark invades his life and settles in like a comfortable parasite, then he could be more...himself. more of that genuine part of him- the part that only tim ever sees.

clark is prepared for the backlash. if reaction to his sudden divorce was bad, the way people act when they find out clark is pursuing tim is even worse.

people are baffled, confused more than they're angry or disgusted though that sets in later. clark and tim rarely interact, they're hardly had a one on one moment and now clark is leaving his wife for tim?

its a confusing swirl of reactions followed by some quietly proposing the possibility that you never really know someone.

and that's true.

but in clark's case, no one ever really knew him.

until tim.

[atamascolily]

Star Wars: Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp (Legends)

Did anyone read this? I'm guessing not, as it is a oneshot novel published in 2010 featuring side characters in the "Legacy" era, right before Legends got rebooted by Disney, featuring time travel and an unexpected, albeit tenuous, Mara connection.

Admittedly, I mostly skimmed this, but the plot followed Kyle Katarn's student Jaden Korr, who is suffering from PTSD and gets a vision of various ghosts (including Mara!!!) telling him "it all begins in a black hole on Fhost". This turns out to be the name of a bar (heh), where Jaden meets a crew of salvagers who take him out to the site of his vision, where they encounter a Jedi from 4500 years in the past and a secret Sith dreadnaught carrying macguffin ore that amplifies dark side powers, all of which got shipped through time through a bad hyperspace jump.

Just in case you thought I was making this up, here is an actual quote:

Khedryn licked his lips. “Just so I know what to tell him: you’re saying I have an old Imperial distress call coming from a moon no one’s charted before, a five-thousand-year-old Jedi aboard my ship, and a five-thousand-year-old Sith dreadnought with some evil ore aboard flying through my sky?”

Oh,yeah, and Jaden's being stalked by an Anzat assassin in the employ of (wait for it) Darth Krayt, because the Anzat are vampires who feed off life energy ("soup") and eating Jedi gets this one high. The Sith want the macguffin ore, because Sith gonna Sith. The past Sith and past Jedi duke it out, and destroy each other, as you’d expect.

Meanwhile, Jade and co. all go down to the nearby planet, which has a secret abandoned lab full of secrets--the Empire under Thrawn was making Jedi-Sith genetic recombinants, which of course ended badly for them.

“I suspect they recombined the DNA of Jedi with the DNA of Sith.”

Khedryn’s lazy eye floated in its socket, fixing on nothing, as if it did not want to see. “Why would they do that? Being a Jedi or a Sith is a choice, isn’t it? It’s not biology.”

Jaden shook his head. “We didn’t know all there is to know about how biology meshes with Force use. Perhaps they sought to create some kind of breakthrough Force-user, one unbound by the limitations of light and dark.”

“How is that possible? Light and dark sides are exclusive, aren’t they?”

Jaden turned off the computer and Dr. Gray disappeared. “The line between light and dark is not as clear as many think.”

Even if the explanation is total bullshit, the laboratory exploration is genuinely creepy, A++. The clones are worshipping the cloning tank, which they call "Mother" and fill it full of bodies. The only one we see is a clone of Kam Solusar, but the implication is there was at least one Mara clone at some point who might still be alive. Jaden kills the "Kamclone," but is distracted by the Anzat assassin, and then the rest of the clones get away, leaving the three survivors to band togther to track them down. And I guess no one thinks to tell Luke or any of the other Jedi anything??

Anyway, this is okay, I guess, but it's hard to get into it because there's such a tenuous connection to the characters I actually care about, AND it's a weird little oneshot that doesn't really make an impact in larger plot. The time travel and the clone plots are two separate storylines that feel like they have very little to do with each other and the former was just there to pad out the story, especially since it doesn’t have any real effect on Jaden’s character or his quest. I was not expecting the tenuous Mara connection, though. I'm also amused that apparently hyperspace time travel was actually canon and not just a thing that fanfic writers made up.

I'm not really sure what the point of this was, but to be fair, Legends was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel--to be brutally honest, it was due for a reboot anyway. The real problem I have with it wasn't the reboot per se, so much as one that got rid of most of the genuinely good bits of the EU in exchange for its own brand of WTF--but that's a rant for another day.

Here are some more passages that struck me:

The deep snow clutched at their feet, as if trying to slow their advance and give them time to reconsider. Jaden looked up, eyed the slate of the sky, imagined not snow falling but reified evil.

Um...dramatic, much?

Jaden knew that at some top-secret Thrawn-era facilities the participating scientists would be forced to endure surgical alterations of their facial structure while on assignment, changing back to themselves only after their work was completed. None would be able to recognize another afterward. He wondered if that had happened in the facility, and if so, why.

The Empire is a piece of shit, full stop. 

Also, fuck this ageism so hard:

“It means he has an intuitive connection to the Force,” Jaden said. “Were he younger, it would mean he was trainable. But given your age, Marr, even with your mathematical gifts, training is probably out of the question.”

But by the end of the book, Jaden agrees to train him anyway, so I guess that was character development for him? IDK. I still hate it, though.

Also, every time someone says "Grand Master Skywalker," I want to down two shots of vodka, because WTF, Luke. Seriously.

[blonde-n-dirty]

Why delete social media I’m sure people still want to keep up with you and make sure your okay

Because I’m growing up. I’m almost 30, this little social media game feels childish.

Social media has ruined my life in every aspect of the phrase. My attention span is shit, my parasocial relationships are better than real life ones, I have the hardest time thinking of words & having real convos without a panic attack, most importantly I’m terrified to leave my home. I need to learn to re-live in the real world that actually matters. None of this online crap matters & it just causes emotions nobody needs. I was bullied yesterday by a HUGE creator along with all of her following because SHE read my comment wrong, not a single one of those ppl would’ve said that shit to my face. It’s just not real & not worth caring about likes, if I took a pic for my feed if I went anywhere, if I look photo ready every time I get to leave the house in case something happens for social media. It’s just a waste of time to me. I have a whole dream life I imagine for my little family, & phones have no place in my little house on the prairie dreams lol

And honestly there’s nobody who needs to keep up with me. I have shown such obvious signs I’m gunna kill myself any day now since I was 16, & if I did it tomorrow, anybody who’s ever been my friend will say they didn’t see it coming🙄 nobody truly knows me & never has, just a facade I got really good at perfecting. There may be ppl who wanna stalk me, but if they’re not in my life personally then they don’t need to know how I’m doing. It’s fine, they’ll survive. Anyone who’s close with me the day I move can have my new number, other than that, nah I don’t wanna be found.

I just need a fresh start. This house, this town, this state has SO SO SO MUCH trauma attached to it, you’d cry if I wrote a book. That trauma has created me, but it’s trauma I wanna leave behind because it doesn’t matter anymore. I have created the most loving little family- my husband & I have never fought in 4 years, we literally move w love in every way, & I wanna focus on only the good that I, myself, have created for ME. My entire life has been lived for my family or friends, every move I’ve made has been for someone else & I’m done. It’s time to make me happy & find who I am without worrying if anyone else is happy about it. I wish that for everyone. Life is about more than this tiny screen.

[mrssoapmactavish]

hey jealousy

content warning: mature themes (it's cod, i'm not sure what else you'd expect at this point), mature language, brooding and emotionally sheltered ghost, really shitty british/scottish/aussie slang, ghost is kind of a... typical relationship believer, use of the word femme but in a demeaning and not sexy way. might continue this in a second part, but ghost and flukey do not get together in the end.

synopsis: ghost hears about flukey's partner. he's not as unbothered as the rest of the force about it, though. very loosely based off of the song 'boyfriend' by lou bega.

can be read as a continuation of "penny for your thoughts", or read as a standalone piece.

lost where i was going after basically falling into a work-related writer's block.

flukey is an oc.

that last mission was, well, a fluke, in lack of a better term. sure, their resident female sergeant was nearly killed on the roof of a thirty story skyscraper in a village of turkish insurgents trying to overthrow the current president, erdoğan, to start a "new, glorious era" for the country.

at least, that's in the opinion of the victim herself, who's currently limping from the on-base infirmary towards the barracks to start piling her things into a bag.

medical leave, she thinks to herself. a blessin', if there was actually a promise she'd be brought back.

price– ever the worried father figure for his rag-tag family of highly trained soldiers– had essentially demanded that she be sent home with time to heal, especially since he didn't want to have another family he had to travel to and deliver the terrible, terrible news with a folded uniform, dog tags, and a duffel bag of personal belongings.

soap and gaz had both been, quite honestly, jealous at first of the idea of a break. sure, the idea of a short leave was preferential to medical leave, especially considering the potential of no longer being needed by the 141.

ghost, however, had been the most shaken up about the whole ordeal, even if he was doing a damn good job of hiding it. he'd almost lost one of his most... 'unique' sergeants just because she decided to charge into and clear a building by herself.

hyper-indenpendence never did anyone any good, ghost reminds himself, completely missing the irony in that thought process.

she's actually been avoiding said superior like the plague; not out of fear of a lecture or being in trouble. nothing of the sort! in fact, rather, she's been trying to avoid a worried stare from the lieutenant that's nothing short of unnerving before she's simply told to 'be more careful'. plus, well, the man has a tendency to stalk around when one of his sergeants is hurt.

she can still remember soap's bitching about how ghost would, quite literally, follow him around everywhere on base after he was shot by graves in las almas. it was all "ah need space, lt" this, and "steamin jesus, am just takin' a piss!" that.

nothin' i would be wanting, she reminds herself as she continues to quietly creep her way towards the barracks. can barely handle him when he's not trying to keep me safe, can't imagine how fuckin' creepy it'd be when he's just.. watching over you, like a circling vulture.

this all grants her one big gift when she accomplishes her stealthy trek across the base; silence to pack her things. flukey's not one who tends to be excited for the prospect of leave, home is such a foreign concept when you've been on the field and travelling the world to save it so often. not to mentiion the change in routine takes nearly the entire leave to get used to.

not to mention to anyone but herself, either, but she can't quite sleep without her fellow soldiers around. even if she tends to bitch and moan about price's god awful dad snores, the sound of soap sleepwalking towards the mess hall each night with gaz in tow trying to lure him back to bed... it's familiar. brings her this faux semblance of normalcy, peace.

as she breaches the threshold of the public space into her private little sanctuary of the women's barracks, a deep sigh leaves her lips, the sound making her sound much more like a grizzled war vet than a relatively fresh recruit to a team of hyper-elite specialists.

just as she makes her way to her bunk, plopping her ass down to let out a sigh of relief and release– a metaphorical weight off her shoulders– three sets of footsteps are making their way towards the main door of the barracks, which causes her to sigh.

based off of the barely there sound from one, it's most definitely ghost as one part of this trio, then based off of the bounding thumps of nothing but unbridled confidence, soap is there too. by process of elimination, that leaves only the stupidest rookie alive, or gaz.

"flukey? y'in there, lass?" the familiar scottish drawl comes through the door, followed by a soft knock and a hushed utterance of something about privacy and assumptions from a much less accented voice. gaz it is.

"the fuck else w'd i be, dickwit? got a bum leg only good 'nough to shove up yer mum's arse," she barks back, this being enough of a response for the doorknob to twist, a soft pressure to be applied, before all three men pile inside.

soap's seeming much better than he had been when the squad had left him and gaz on base during the mission a few hours prior, gaz seeming rather sheepish about the intrusion of her space but also quite fascinated to note the differences between male and female accommodations, but ghost...

well, what else would he be, if he weren't staring?

"y'seem in a bonnie mood, i take it," the scot continues to taunt, not necessarily understanding the absolute grizzly bear that he's poking. not even poking, really; trying to shove a scope up the bears ass, dry, no prep. the other two men seem to gauge this, however, based on the fact that gaz gives him a light shove.

"figure 't this rate, i'd be better off workin' asses to elbows, pickin' up bullets from the battlefields," flukey responds with a grumble, anxiously rubbing her hand over the sore, bandaged wound on her thigh, with a bit too much pressure. "but i'll quit raggin' when my squeeze's here to take me 'ome."

now this catches the attention of each of the three men, to varying degrees; soap's got the look of a schoolboy who just found out his closest mate has a crush on the teacher, gaz seems far more like a cousin finding out his favorite uncle's lifestory, and ghost seems as observant yet fauxly unamused as always.

"you never mentioned anyone back home before," gaz prods, though he's got the bare minimum of respect to get her military-grade duffel bag handed over to her so she can lazily pack. "nothing special?"

"bet 'e's a real lady-killer if he got a catch like ye, hen," johnny immediately cuts in, cheesing like a finance major right before a bubble burst, and just like that flukey wishes she had just bitten her cheek and never acknowledged the men in the first place.

oh, how a bullet passin' through the temple would be absolute fucking heaven, she muses, instead i luck out, stuck with three kazoos.

"he's fine," she responds, voice too curt for what she had meant. "'m not tellin' ye much more than that, quit yer naggin, ya jag."

this is, quite simply, not enough to whet the appetites of the curious men. this is obvious when gaz looks at her with wide, hopeful eyes and a soft smile, as soap goes through the room and gets into all of her belongings, and ghost merely looms at the door, arms crossed yet his watchful eyes continue to stare.

with a sigh, she sets her head in her hands, refusing to look the men in the eyes. "he's nice. name's santino, met 'im stationed for training in italy."

and then, the questions fly. what's he look like, what does she mean by "nice", why wouldn't she just pay attention to the lessons.. and it's all too much for someone who simply wants to rest.

"christ, if i show you doofuses a picture, will you bugger off?" the redhead groans out, the two young, eager men nodding their heads quite easily as they approach quickly to get a glimpse of their fellow sergeant's personal life.

ghost, meanwhile, sticks close to the doorframe, leaned against it like some sort of shitty, inconveniently placed statue, blocking the door for anyone trying to enter or exit, yet he uses his slight height advantage over the other two men to glance over their shoulders, eyes narrowed to catch a glimpse of the man flukey's apparently dating.

she produces a small, folded polaroid from the pocket of her vest, taking the chance to remove the obstructive gear to take a natural, freeing breath, then handing it over to gaz to let the two men fight over who gets the first peek.

ultimately, the lieutenant silently decides it's his turn to finally engage in the conversation, stepping forward and snatching the picture from garrick's fingers, making soap huff a complaint while kyle himself is just surprised and a bit startled by his superior's silent movement.

the picture isn't much to gawk or gape at, ghost reckons. a shittily taken picture in some cheap aussie dive bar, lights low with bright grins on both faces. flukey's got her hair free– ghost had no idea she had curls, though the complaints over the low buns all the time suddenly made sense– in some shoddy, cheap dress that's mostly hidden because of the crossed-arm stature of photo, with slightly smeared lip gloss, soft eyes turned that feral red from the bright flash of the camera.

and just like that, he's realized he hasn't even glanced over at the man in the picture that was the reason he had been so impulsively eager to snatch the photograph from kyle's hand.

he's.. quite plain, if you ask simon. think of any generic italian man, and there he is. dark hair in a slightly overgrown quiff, eyes so dark they're nearly black, skin that oh so common cappuccino tone, a build so unremarkable you'd confuse him for a cardboard cut-out.

"e's too twink-ish," ghost grumbles out, handing the photo back to gaz who finally gets the chance to look at the picture, then having it immediately snatched again by johnny. "didn't take you as a beta-man type of woman."

something about this– something that, to any rational and properly socialized person, makes sense– aggravates flukey. what, exactly, remains a mystery. maybe it was how he assumed something of her.

both soap and gaz, though, seem to recognize the faux pas, and while they both seem worried for the well-being of their lieutenant after such a crass remark, johnny's muttering something to garrick that seems to have his attention instead.

"get stuffed, lieutenant," she barks, taking the picture back from the other two men and folding it back up. "never asked for your opinion on the blokes i fuck. not very like you to arse around either, so fuck off, y'old bag."

ghost, not quite understanding what would cause such a sudden outburst, furrows his brows under his mask and is prepared to shout back about insubordination and mention the absolute gall of this woman trying to shout at her superior. the nerve of this tiny little thing, the one he saved from certain doom, bleeding out in the middle of some warzone in turkey–

"ghost, mate, a word? let's give fluke some space," gaz speaks up, gently setting his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder, turning his attention away from the offended woman who would, quite honestly, fight him tooth and nail for her boyfriend's honor.

the lieutenant himself isn't quite sure of the idea of letting her get away with such an offence, but as soap is also elbowing him out of the room, he reasons it's for the best, and follows the two men out, brows still furrowed and stare as hard as ever.

after the door is closed, gaz is ready to lay into the man, even if he's built like a brickwall-sized fridge, solid muscle and nothing but technical expertise. he can't help it, he's used to his two little sisters always needing him to step between them to solve their conflicts.

gaz, always the mediator, no matter what situation he's in, where he is in the world, and whoever he's around.

"the fuck's with you, sir?" he asks simon, his face scrunched into a grimace. "you can't just go and disrespect your sergeant's partner like that, it's blatant disrespect, even if you're used to being mean," he reasons. and while ghost seems even offended that kyle would even dare to open his mouth, soap is nodding along, so he keeps his thoughts to himself.

"aye, lt, the fuck's in yer heid, y'eejit?" the scot asks, tone a bit more gruff than expected, but ghost is just left standing there, processing his own train of thoughts that brought him to this point.

"...never thought she'd be the dating type," ghost mumbles aloud, not really answering either man's question directly, but answering it in such a way that both of his sergeants are looking at him with this... side-eye glance at each other. sharing a wordless secret.

"and why's that?" gaz interjects before soap can try and brush it off there. ghost recognizes that look in the demolitionists' eyes, and it makes him feel a bit of gratitude, even for the thought of the attempt.

"..s'pposed she was more of a traditional type, not much of a femme-chaser." the lieutenant mutters, then shaking his head at the two of them. "i'm off. she can talk to me when she's ready." then, without another word, he leaves the two sergeants standing alone outside flukey's door.

"he needs–" "tae get laid? aye, nailed it righ' on the head, gaz."

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

Higurashi When They Cry - Arc 1 Chapter 11

...

...O...

...One Piece...

Keiichi is going to school extremely early because he doesn’t like Mion and Rena anymore. No one’s awake, so he’s saying to himself, “Ah... this is just like on The Truman Show when the show’s production staff gets something wrong...”

A driver suddenly zooms towards Keiichi in their car and he has to do a dodge move to survive, so NOW he’s saying to himself “Ah... at some point, a driver started stalking me with the intent to kill...” No, IDIOT, it’s just way too early in the morning!

Wait holy fuck Keiichi like actually thinks it’s Truman Show like for real for real. Like “Oh, the only reason Every Single Person In This Town Is Acting Normal is because I live here so The Entire Town Is Pretending To Be Normal” is the actual thought process causing him to act normal like a fucking game of normalcy chicken.

I don’t think that’s quite it. I think I would have heard about it if Higurashi was Truman Show. From what I hear, lategame Higurashi is a battle between good and evil. There’s a huge swath of things that could mean, but I feel like “good” has to be a category that encompasses a larger amount of entities than just Keiichi for it to work.

Oh he. He wants to change his clothes. So no one knows a car almost hit him and his clothes got dirty. Keiichi is normaling so hard. “If I refuse to leave behind ANY evidence that anyone was trying to kill me, people won’t try to kill me!”

Wait is that the entire “trick” behind Higurashi. Is that why the goings-on in Hinamizawa are so inexplicable? Because we’re saddled with Keiichi as our POV character? Hmm... I guess that explains him, kinda. If he’s a writing trick, I guess maybe he almost makes sense.

Anyway the main focus of this scene isn’t that he wants to change his clothes, it’s that he wants to carry a baseball bat around everywhere and “be the baseball bat guy” so he can hurt people at a moment’s notice.

Okay I’m kind of cheating here because I’ve already read this part of Higurashi before, but... “Ugh, this baseball bat is in a fucking MOLD locker. I see there’s a baseball uniform in here and have now come to the conclusion that this locker’s owner will at some point ask for me to return their baseball bat.” Like hello???

Phew, the Toddlers got to see Keiichi’s dirty clothes. A basic level of not being a weird liar was forced upon him. Also Toddler 02 told Keiichi that she likes how he now has a baseball bat, but wouldn’t like it if he got rid of it. I know Toddler 02 is weirder than she appears, so maybe that’s something that can be read into. This arc is mostly about how Rena is weirder than she appears, with a vague hint of “Mion is the sinister commander with Rena at her side” for added flavor, but there’ll probably be an arc later about how Toddler 02 is weirder than she appears. I know there’ll be even more characters introduced in the arcs I haven’t read, but there’s still a part of me that’s saying “Hmm... so... four main girls, four question arcs, four answer arcs, and the first question arc is obsessed with one of the girls, huh.”

“Normalcy. Normalcy. I am doing a perfect job at feigning normalcy. THIS IS HOW I SURVIVE”

And I already knew quite well that there were demons dwelling in my xavier renegade angel!

Keiichi is being followed.

It’s Rena. She says wants to hang out with him and have a nice time, but he’s not a fan of that at all, because she’s evil. Keiichi, you fool! Don’t you know it’s your dad?! Your dad, I tell you!

Ah... to freak Keiichi out when she thinks he’s a liar, Rena has to speak out loud, but to freak Rena out when he thinks she’s a liar, Keiichi just needs to think she’s a liar. This is because underage anime girls have the ability to read blue text, as I’ve already discussed many times before.

CURSES MY CLEVER NORMALCY RUSE DIDN’T FREAKING WORK WONDER WHY IT DIDN’T

THAT’S RIGHT!!! NOT ATTACKING SOMEONE!!! THE ULTIMATE MARK OF EVIL!!!

Oh! I remember this line! This is the line that I put in a little time capsule for my friends. But the joke’s on me, because I just checked, and it turns out I did that thirteen months ago. So this line ended up being a time capsule for ME. After reading Higurashi Arc 1 for the first time, I spent 13 months not reading Arc 2. ...If there were ever a clearer indication that starting this blog was a good idea on my part... no there wasn’t

I’ve been playing up my convictions in my “Keiichi’s dad is the mastermind behind everything” theory a bit for laughs, but at this point I would say I’m genuinely trying to read this story from a “given that none of the five lead characters are evil AND there isn’t a curse, what is the true cause behind every incident within the story” perspective. Ooishi being evil would be a boring answer. Not bad writing or anything, I would just get bored. I’m also 90% sure this story has at least one supernatural element, so maybe I shouldn’t even be assuming crazy magic ISN’T going on.

Rena you Rena-Point-accumulating motherfucker. There’s something I’m accumulating too, and unlike you, its accumulation won’t lead to my death or arrest. I’m not Jason Statham. I’m an audience member. I, the audience member, need to accumulate as much information as possible, so that I can know what the plot is of Higurashi.

I’m starting to realize that my thesis that all of this is happening despite none of these people being evil necessitates the assumption that not only is my assessment of Keiichi as a shithead correct, but other people are also shitheads. Well, that’s in line with the characterizations of these fools. Except Mion. And Toddler 02. Hmm... the exact people Ooishi likes least... maybe Ooishi truly fucking is the problem.

yeah that’s her entire character

Hmm... yeah... that situation. Yes. Uh huh. Correct.

Yeah I refuse to budge here. Higurashi isn’t actually in the horror genre it’s just about a guy who gets scared

Also murder but that just means it’s in like, the murder mystery genre

Why do I sound like I’m talking about Umineko. These are supposed to be separate works loosely tied together by a “series” whose entries are linked by similar themes, right? Not like... SO similar. Right

Given what I remember Ciconia’s Steam description being, if every When They Cry is that similar to each other, Ciconia must be doing something really wack, narratively. If it were, I feel like I’d see more people talking about Ciconia?

Hang on is Higurashi a story about kids with mental health issues. Like yeah it IS but like. Rena has the “AGH THERE’S RENA AND SOMEONE ELSE IN RENA’S BODY IT’S SO SCARY” (<--direct keiichi quote unaltered) thing going on, which I hesitate to speculate is DID with so little context, but like... Keiichi. Does Keiichi have like. A paranoia one going on. Y’know like. A mental disorder. That causes paranoia.

Battler kind of like. Wasn’t a character who had Umineko’s most serious themes tied to himself. Like Battler could have been anyone and all the worst crap in Umineko would still have been bad crap.

Maybe that’s throwing off my expectations and I should actually be trying to think a lot more about what’s going on with Keiichi. I mean not that Battler didn’t have STUFF going ON with him that needed to be THOUGHT ABOUT.

Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm! HMM!!!

Anyway Keiichi destroys his house

...

Okay if this story IS about kids with mental illness, why Hinamizawa? Even if I assume Keiichi is mentally ill it doesn’t explain the mountain of events he wasn’t present for, nor does it explain the fact that he (”of all people” is what I would add to his pronoun if him being mentally ill was a 100% known quantity) ended up being the new guy in a town with such a storied history.

So why.

Why why why.

this is a fucking sad section of narration if i assume keiichi IS mentally ill

like the poor kid, within that hypothetical, really has no idea how to correctly parse the situation he’s been placed in

...

fucking oh

now that i’ve had my “aha” moment this reads exactly as stupidly as every other time keiichi has ever said “NO Keiichi, DON’T consider an alternate possibility, don’t you DARE do it”

what a stupid kid

I’m also starting to parse Keiichi’s new catchphrase, “It would actually be a good thing if I was crazy,” as a narrative misdirect. Obviously people who read stories know that good things don’t happen in stories. Not before the protagonist has undertaken great efforts to overcome the bad thing, or in the case of genres like tragedy and sometimes horror (...Higurashi...), not even then. Keiichi’s also spent this whole arc either goofing off or asking himself “Are my friends bad, or is an even zanier bad scenario true?” and is only just now asking about a third thing. People who read stories also know that well-written mysteries don’t wait a long time to introduce the “correct culprit”. There’s a lot of things about the way Higurashi is written that are starting to feel like they’re meant to lull you into the assumption that Keiichi isn’t mentally ill, which is only making it feel more likely that he is.

Still wondering what else is going on here.

Oh, right. I forgot Keiichi told a story about instant noodles in this chapter. But he totally does! What a nice story about instant noodles. I won’t recount it here. Read Higurashi yourself, quit mooching off me.

Assumption Making Guy Who Makes Lots And Lots Of Assumptions All The Time

i’m going to slam my head into the wall. then my head will get punctured and i’ll die because keiichi threw a needle at the wall earlier

STOP COMING OFF AS SUPERIOR TO ME KEIICHI!!! MY JOKE WASN’T MEANT TO COME ACROSS AS SUICIDAL IT WAS JUST CONCEPTUAL ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE FACT THAT I WANT TO SLAM MY HEAD INTO A WALL AND THE FACT THAT KEIICHI FOUND A NEEDLE (DID HE?) AND THREW MOCHI AT A WALL (HE DEFINITELY DID) IN THAT ONE PRIOR SCENE

Bro bro bro bro bro. Spoilers for the future but like. Later on there’s going to be a scene where he can’t find it. Bro bro bro bro bro.

homestuck

also one piece

holy fuck keiichi is constantly talking about “hmm THIS doesn’t seem normal and THIS doesn’t seem normal” but people’s conceptualizations of normal are based on their lived experience and he’s super young so he doesn’t have much lived experience

I don’t think I’ve ever empathized with him this strongly before. Or even an empathized with him an iota. Weird how falling for the narration leads to not empathizing with him even though the narration is from his perspective.

Actually, more than that, falling for the narration leads to not empathizing, period. I’ve READ Umineko I KNOW Umineko’s core thesis statement how did Higurashi get me to fall for its “don’t empathize with the characters” trick I should have been thinking about the story this way 13 months ago when I read it the FIRST time!!

Normal Normal I Am So Good At Pretending To Be Normal Look At Me I’m Keiichi See How Normal I Am? Acting Normal Makes Me Not Be Murdered

Earlier in this post I made a “yeah that’s rena’s entire character” joke. Is it too early for me to start making “yeah that’s keiichi’s entire character” jokes when he says things like this?

Ooishi calls Keiichi on the phone.

If you assume all implications that Rena and Mion are bad people can be explained away by Keiichi being mentally ill, the biggest question becomes how that one side story from Side Story Land factors into everything. Similarly, the assumption that Ooishi is bad runs into its biggest obstacles within Side Story Land. The fact that this scene now has Ooishi in it made me think of that.

Oh hang on what about the one where Keiichi’s dad told Keiichi that Rena was in his room for an hour. Keiichi isn’t SO mentally ill that he’d concoct a false memory of Rena’s complete absence, right??? And Keiichi’s dad isn’t Ooishi, so the assumption that Ooishi is bad doesn’t explain that one either, despite my earlier running joke that Keiichi’s dad is evil.

Hmm... yeah, there’s still lots to think about here, even assuming I’m correct. Which IS an assumption because I still don’t know yet.

...

Okay no, maybe Ooishi just Simply Isn’t the bad guy here. He also sent Keiichi spiraling into a paranoid inner monologue and then got confused by Keiichi’s subsequent behavior. If Ooishi was part of some grand conspiracy to make a specific town have lots of mental illness in it, he wouldn’t be so confused... right? Maybe he is just a guy.

Ah, and here it is. The scene I mentioned earlier where Keiichi couldn’t find the needle. This is so fucking sad dude.

...Did... Did the car “not exist” too...? Did Keiichi did a cool spin move and get his clothes dirty for no reason?

Literally every single moment is making me say “oh”. This is exactly how it feels to read early Umineko after knowing what’s going on in Umineko, which really makes me feel correct.

Putting aside the fact that there’s obviously many layers to Keiichi’s four friends that have yet to be revealed... the fact that upon making this one assumption, the resultant conclusion in the case of every single action his friends have taken that he’s viewed as proof that they’re evil is that they did those things because they care about him... man... that’s sad.

It’s sad that they care about him, since they should find someone better to care about, AY-OOOOO!!!

I’ve seen the Deranged Mion Gif though. Or at least I think it’s Mion. So at some point later on I guess Mion or someone who resembles her is gonna act pretty deranged. At least in the anime.

fuck you fuck you fuck you but also damn guess it’s not your fault huh?

^Again, I’ve said those exact words to every single Umineko character, so again, I should have seen this coming.

...Is this it. Is this the battle between good and evil I’ve seen people say Higurashi is. Keiichi’s desire to get along with his friends vs. Keiichi’s tendency to assume the worst of his friends. How deeply have I cracked the code just now.

holy hell

Rena: “I brought you food” Keiichi: I love food... wait SHE KNOWS I DON’T HAVE FOOD THAT MEANS SHE’S EVIL Keiichi: “I have food already” Rena: “That’s fine, please eat this anyway” Keiichi: NO SHE’S EVIL

If I’m right, how the fuck does this story work as an anime, the narration is where it takes place

Hmm... wondering if Rena has some sort of deep-seated trauma related to... hmm... being lied to is definitely one... maybe also being touched?

Hmm... the zombie tag scene... she never actually got tagged, did she. She “betrayed Keiichi” to avoid getting tagged, and then said that whole “Keiichi surely wouldn’t do something bad like tickling me, right Keiichi?” spiel at the last moment to yet again not get tagged. Has there ever been a scene where someone physically touched her and she didn’t react badly?

Toddler 02 often touches people with her whole head-patting gimmick... has Rena been touched by Toddler 02? I’m not sure she ever has...

Man this sucks man.

okay hang on how much text does this text log record? can i scroll back up to the instant noodle story keiichi told ages ago

No I can’t. So I can’t check for if there were any details which indicated this shopping trip happened all the way back before Keiichi moved to Hinamizawa. But if it didn’t happen that long ago, it’s been firmly established that the people in Hinamizawa know each other extremely well because it’s a small town. Obviously some of them are in grocery stores sometimes.

rena pls

just tell him,

Oh she was actually present during the events of the instant noodle story. The explanation is even more mundane than I expected. Keiichi is very freaked out by that.

Even once Keiichi starts physically injuring people, it’s still always “Their reaction was completely normal... how horrific... how beastly... WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!!!!” with him.

this is fucking awful with the voice acting

Haha! Funny narrative bookends with Keiichi’s “Why wouldn’t the other person just forgive her already?” rant at the very beginning of the story.

wait

wait wait wait

When Umineko starts aggressively enforcing Knox’s Decalogue, including Knox’s Seventh, “It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit,” is that self-deprecation from Ryukishi? Keiichi is like, a horror movie villain, from a horror movie that demonizes mental illness, right?

hang on hang on hang on

Is utilizing lots of narration to make scenes longer being employed as a narrative technique here?!

Well, if so, that’s no excuse for Umineko’s pacing, so, there’s that

i’m going to die. i’ve progressed from banging my head on walls to dying. this time the implications are intentional (<--DISCLAIMER: NOT SERIOUS)

i’m going to drown. i’m going to do what sonic the hedgehog does: drown

The cuteness contest where the reward was apples... Toddler 02 won by looking at the apple. She didn’t touch Rena. The cuteness contest on the day of the festival... Toddler 02 obtained second place by falling over. She didn’t touch Rena.

Not related to the current scene, my mind just wandered because I don’t like what’s going on.

Uggggh every single line of dialog feels like 5% more distress. That’s time passing. Also, Keiichi has now downgraded from “Ooishi is my only ally” to “this baseball bat is my only ally”.

I’m so...

Inconsolable.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DON’T TRANSITION FROM DIALOG INTO NARRATION SUMMARIZING A LONG STORY TOLD BY OOISHI THAT’S SO MUCH TIME PASSING

i’m going to cry blood

Keiichi, you have failed at pretending to be normal. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU

I can’t believe, earlier in this post, I said that “this story is literally just about Keiichi getting scared” was something that somehow meant “this story isn’t horror”. I hate this so fucking bad.

fuck offffffffffffffff

Meanwhile, in Side Story Land...

Oh, DID is getting explained, and the thing about DID where it’s a reaction to trauma is getting explained SO HARD. Hmm... yeah okay.

*laugh track but with golf sound effects added for some reason*

Also, the instant noodle story. Keiichi’s parents aren’t voice acted in this for some reason.

gonna die. gonna get killed and die resultantly

It’s so fucking obvious??? Presuming I’m right

...

Hmm, yeah, well I think certain minor details of my theorizations have been off-base, but I think a lot of the evidence for that is in Chapter 12, and I think this post is long.

I have an idea for a joke. I’ll say the set-up now, and the punchline later. Actually, technically I’ve already said most of the set-up. It’s a very multifaceted joke. Here’s the rest of the set-up:

I really wanna finish the Onikakushi arc on this blog real bad... so I can finally open the 2nd arc that’s been sitting in my Steam library all this time and see what happens in it... perceiving the story through this lens has made me so much more invested...

[addrianastarflower]

Why can't this be a normal field trip? (With the LOV? No way!) by AddrianaStarflower

Actual fic is posted underneath the break, but I'd appreciate you looking at it on ao3 because it will read a little better :D

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

Gen

Fandom:

僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Relationships:

Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku

Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku

Dabi | Todoroki Touya & Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko

Characters:

Midoriya Izuku

Bakugou Katsuki

Dabi | Todoroki Touya

Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Could Technically be Canon Tho

Fluff and Angst

Angst and Hurt/Comfort

Whump

Whumptober

Whumptober 2022

Holding eachother for dear life

Camping

With a Villainous Twist

Midoriya Izuku Has One for All Quirk

minor manga spoilers

Soft Bakugou Katsuki

Bakugou Katsuki is a Good Friend

Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings

Midoriya Izuku is Bad at Feelings

Midoriya Izuku is So Done

Izuku: Why can't this be a normal field trip?

1-A: With the LOV? No way!

no.2

nowhere to run

cornered

Gamer Tomura shigaraki

Midoriya Izuku Whump

Language: English

Sitting together in the tree where they were perched, Izuku watched as Kacchan slept peacefully. He couldn’t sleep here, the forest was a far too open place. They were too vulnerable. They were in a tree for goodness sake! What would happen if they fell?

They were tied in, but still!

Slowly though, Izuku relaxed. Nothing had happened thus far and Kacchan would be upset if he was too tired to hike around in the morning. Sure, years of getting only a little sleep left him up at weird hours, but he still did sleep and hiking all day was due to make anyone tired.

Hours later, he woke up to a rustling beneath him.

The sun had not yet graced the horizon but the sky was beginning to lighten.

He glanced around rapidly. Where was that sound coming from?

He looked beneath him for the source of the sound.

Shoot.

Dabi and Shigaraki walked beneath him, arguing.

This couldn’t be happening.

It was supposed to be a normal field trip. They were supposed to hike, camp, and scavenge for a few days and then go home.

It should have been fine.

So why was Shigaraki of all people out here in the middle of nowhere? Were they purposefully trying to stalk him to get him killed?

It certainly seemed like it with the number of villain attacks he got into.

 “I’m telling you, Gigantomachia will never follow you. He only cares for your sensei.”

This was bad. Like really bad.

They weren’t strong enough to fight, even with their quirks. Blackwhip wasn’t stable at the best of times and it was messing with the rest of One for All. Not to mention whatever Float was doing.

“Sensei said he’d follow me. He has to, Sensei doesn’t lie.”

Dabi sighed, “Your sensei isn’t infallible, Shiggy. He’s in prison right now, for goodness sake.”

Shiggy huffed. “Let’s just set up camp here and drop it? Okay?”

Izuku could see Dabi roll his eyes from his perch. “Sure. Good place as any.”

They sat down and began to set up camp at the base of Izuku and Kacchan’s tree.

This was extra bad. 

They weren’t just passing through, they were sticking around..

Izuku gently placed a hand on Kacchan's mouth. If they heard his snoring they’d both be done for.

Izuku held his breath, hopefully they wouldn’t hear him.

Kacchan startled awake, his eyes wide and ready to scream at Izuku.

Izuku widened his eyes equally and held his other hand to his lips in a shushing motion and pointed beneath them.

Kacchan signed to Izuku, “ When’d they show up? ”

“ Just now, they were arguing and woke me up. They’re setting up camp, I don’t think we can get down.”

Quietly, under his breath, Kacchan swore.

Izuku could agree with the sentiment but tensed, hoping that the villains beneath them wouldn’t hear.

What was Kacchan thinking! Saying anything was such a bad idea when they were right beneath, it seemed like he was just trying to get them killed.

They even couldn’t use their quirks because of the suppression quirks that Aizawa-Sensei put on them. So they couldn’t speed through the forest and now they couldn’t get out of the tree. Without the cuffs, Izuku might have even just been able to fly them out but it was futile.

Slowly, Izuku crawled forward in the tree nook to hug Kacchan. He needed some support right now. 

It was risky to move, he knew, but he couldn’t hold it in himself to care.

Kacchan opened his arms to let Izuku in and they sat side by side.

Very quietly, Izuku whispered to Kacchan to get his attention, “Kat.”

They would have to wait it out, but who knew how long the wait would be.

Kacchan turned to face him, rustling some of the leaves near his head in the process.

Shigaraki looked up. “What was that?”

Dabi shrugged, “Probably just a bird. We are in the wilderness, after all. It’s like you’ve never touched grass before, you weeb.”

Izuku just pulled Kacchan closer and signed, “ Sorry. Just wanted to get your attention. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have picked the forest. ”

Kacchan huffed softly, “ Someone else would have picked the forest if you didn’t, idiot. Better us than Tapeface and Acid. ”

Izuku gave a chuckle under his breath, “ True .”

Luckily, Dabi and Shigaraki seemed intent to only stay the night and move on.

That at least, was a blessing. They didn’t have to get down before they left.

Thus, the night was quiet.

[raebaekaedae]

Volume One, Episode Five: “Lupophobia”

Series: SCWR Rating: PG-13 (Some Foul Language, Violence against Fantasy Monsters, Violence, Excessive Violence Mentioned, Death Mentioned, Prominent Themes, Themes of PTSD) Summary: (4,165 words) “Hadrian and the rest of his classmates are spending the day on the island of Patch. Professor Heather has tasked them with a challenge; kill as many grimm as possible! The top five students will be receiving extra credit on their final exams, making for a competitive game. All’s going well until Hads comes across a pair of Beowolves... the grimm that nearly killed him.”

Read on Wattpad

It was a great day for an outdoor class. In preparation for the Vytal Festival and as a reward for class-wide top grades, Mrs. Heather created a full day's activity for extra credit towards their final exams later in the year. The students were competing against one another to see who could kill the most grimm before dark. Everyone was stationed around the small island of Patch, free to roam as far as they wanted so long as they didn't leave the island.

A fun competition to bolster solo skills. Hadrian was having the time of his life. He skated down trails and jumped over obstacles as he searched for grimm. Team Security had decided to split up and try for their own personal scores instead of working together. Many of the other students had followed the same principle, but some had decided to team up.

As the husky faunus came to a stop at the crest of a stout hill, he decided to check the points. He pulled out his scroll and glanced down at his score.

RAVN: 27 points CADE: 27 points GENE: 26 points HDRN: 24 points BURR: 23 points RYDR: 23 points RBYN: 21 points RPRT: 20 points LMBT: 19 points QROW: 11 points

Hadrian saw his placement but was more concerned with Qrow's. He knew that the gothic teen was a master with his scythe and could definitely handle himself on the battlefield, so why was his score nearly ten points below the ninth place student? He frowned, but he decided to shoot Qrow a message.

HDRN: You good bro?

It wasn't long before his best friend replied.

QROW: Dude, I can't find any grimm anywhere D:

Haddy chuckled as he flicked over to the map that Mrs. Heather had provided to track students. Everyone was generally spread out but concentrated on the western side of the island. Everyone except Qrow, who was considerably further south than anyone else. The faunus smiled.

HDRN: Try going northwest towards the coast, you should pass over a creek. That's where Monroe and your sister are. They seem to have plenty of grimm over there. XD

QROW: UGHHHHHH

QROW: okie dokie. Thx ;)

With a smile, the husky faunus pocketed his scroll and went back out on the hunt. With his elevated position, he surveyed the area. Most of his vision was obstructed by trees, but he could see a small meadow a short ways away from him that had two, inky black creatures moving through it. He smiled as he set his sights on his new targets.

He activated his semblance and skated down the hill towards the meadow. The faunus laughed as he hit a slope and flew through the air, only to land atop a pile of fallen leaves. Their crisp colors danced down around him as he continued speeding along. He could already see the clearing up ahead.

However, he stopped in his tracks when his eyes ran across the grimm he'd seen from afar. His breath caught in his chest as his arms trembled and his tail curled between his legs. A few feet away, a pair of Beowolves stalked through the woods, waiting for their next meal to stumble into their path. Haddy quickly felt his knees giving way as he started to breathe quickly and shallowly. Flashes of memories tore through his mind as he took a half step back.

His foot hit a short stump, breaking him from his fear-filled trance. He shook his head and took a few deep breaths. He was over this. If he ever wanted to be a Huntsman, he would need to be able to face the monstrous grimm that had nearly killed him once before. They were extremely common in Vale, after all.

Hadrian armed himself with Sleigh as he kneeled down behind a fallen log and watched the wolves circle the clearing twice. His hands adjusted and readjusted themselves along the grips of his climbing picks as a single bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. He bounced on the balls of his feet, hoping that would be enough to push himself out to face the grimm. With one last deep breath, Hadrian steeled himself and charged his aura in preparation for his attack.

Suddenly, he hurled himself over the log, yelling out a wary warcry as he did. Both of the wolves' heads whipped around to him as he activated his semblance and cleared the distance between them in the blink of an eye. With a resounding shout, Hadrian pushed himself up off the ground and caught the grimm's necks in his picks as he shot into the air. They were nearly hung as they were choked into the air and flung back down by the Huntsman-in-training.

Hadrian took the advantage he had from the breath being knocked from the grimm's chests to bring his picks down into the ribs of the beasts, causing two pained cries to echo through the forest. However, they weren't dead yet as both of the grimm swung at Hadrian. He was able to avoid one of the claws that tried to tear his arm in two, but he yelped as the other Beowolf sunk its teeth into his shin. His aura was only barely able to withstand. The day of fighting had worn him out. He needed to end this fast.

Once more, he activated his semblance and took off with the wolves in tow. He fired repeatedly into their chests as he dragged them through the clearing towards a sizable boulder. As he sped up, the Beowolves were subjected to road rash and blisters, almost torn apart by the sheer force of Haddy's desperate attempts to kill them. Finally, when he'd gotten within range of the boulder, he strained his arms up and flung the wolves into it; crushing them instantly as they crumbled back down to the grass and started to dissipate.

Hadrian was left shaken, but unharmed as his chest rapidly rose and fell, trying to catch his ragged breath. After a moment, and only when the Beowolves had fully turned to dust, did he crack an unsteady smile. He fell to his knees as he howled out a victory cry, shouting to the heavens that he'd overcome his fear. He stayed there for a few minutes, just to calm his nerves back into place before he slowly stood up.

His courageous victory was short-lived as the sound of a lumbering approach crunched through the fallen leaves of Patch's woods. He turned towards the sound, raising his picks into a defensive stance. Some of the younger and flimsier tree canopies shook as the beast came closer and closer. Given the sheer size, it was probably an Ursa or maybe even a small Ursa Major. Quickly, Hadrian checked his scroll to observe his aura level; twenty-two, incredibly low but not too close to breaking. If he wanted to take this grimm down, he would need to avoid getting hit at all.

With a cocky smile, he hunkered down into a stable stance and waited as the monstrous beast took thundering step after thundering step toward him. He watched as the grimm came closer but stopped just before entering the meadow. Its red eyes burned into him from the shadows. Hadrian was half-tempted to just rush the beast, but something caught him. A twinge of fear deep in his chest, desperately yanking him down. He tried to brush the feeling off, but that was when he recognized those eyes.

They were bloodthirsty... salivating... soulless... They were--

An Alpha Beowolf slowly stepped into the meadow, crushing shrubs and wildlife beneath its massive paws like fresh, crisp snow. In an instant, Hadrian's tail shot so far between his legs that it rested against his stomach as his shoulders slumped so hard he could have pulled a muscle. He took several steps back. He shook uncontrollably as his hands trembled and a cold sweat broke out across his entire body. His picks hit the ground before he even had time to register that he was frozen in fear.

Unseen lightning crashed above them as snow and hail pelted them from every direction, and the screaming wind threatened to throw them to the icy ground... no, that... that wasn't right.

It wasn't the wind that was screaming.

The darkness enveloped them as it tore into their auras and clawed at their souls. Suddenly, Haddy was thrown so hard into the cavernous wall that a few of his ribs shattered along with his aura. His vision darkened as the wind's howls were suddenly filled again with the blood-curdling screams of his friends. His family.

He could only weakly push himself up on his elbows as he groggily tried to look around. All he could see were the looming shadows of monsters around him, each waiting for their turn to gnaw into him like a piece of meat. One stood taller than the others, its crimson eyes burrowing into his skin. The bodies of his teammates had fallen still under the grasp of the wolves. He could only watch in horror as Leon hung limply from the beast's maw by his neck. The screams had faded away and were replaced by the hungry growls and snarls of the icy Beowolves that encircled them.

He trembled then as well. He could only try to weakly back away as the Alpha slowly stomped towards him, dropping Leon to the ground with a wet thud. Hadrian's eyes went wide as it raised up one of its razor-like claws and brought it down across his face just as another flash of lightning crashed behind it. His screams echoed through the cavern as the memory and his vision went black.

Close by, Monroe stalked a Boarbatusk from a distance. She waited until it trotted up to a small ditch, and started to slide down into the muddy basin before she sped up to strike. She pulled her fishing rod, ready to skewer the grimm in one swing, but was only met with the resounding echo of a metallic collision. Instead of the black skin of the beast, her rod rested atop the black sheen of a sword. She followed the blade back to its owner; Raven Branwen.

She seemed just as surprised as Monroe, as the pair both stared at one another for just a beat too long. Suddenly, the Boarbatusk squealed and spun into a charge to try to escape. The girls both scrambled to counter-attack, but were thrown off by the other's actions. They stumbled and fell into the mud beneath them.

Before they could fall over one another to steal the grimm once more, the loud bang of a shotgun crashed through the beast's unarmored side. It fell and started to melt away as Qrow stepped out of the brush, Harbinger smoking as he sheathed it behind his back.

"And that's number twelve, girls," He grinned, extending his hands down to the fallen students.

They both begrudgingly accepted and pulled themselves out of the muddy ditch. Monroe went to work trying to wipe the grime from her pants as Raven huffed, "You've only gotten twelve?"

Qrow quickly rubbed the back of his neck and half-heartedly corrected, "My twelfth Boarbatusk, I mean!" When the girls only stared at him with disapproving looks, he asked, "Uh, how many have you guys gotten?"

"Twenty-seven," Monroe and Raven said in unison, both instantly turned to the other to stare daggers into her.

They stayed there for a moment, just glaring at each other, before Raven relented and turned on her heel to traverse further into the woods. Qrow started to follow her when Monroe caught his arm. He looked back to her with a raised brow as she let her arm drop.

"You haven't talked to Hadrian Snow recently, have you?" she asked, "He didn't reply to check-in a few minutes ago."

He shifted his weight as he fully turned to face her and replied, "I talked to him maybe a half-hour ago. He pointed me in your direction."

When Monroe only frowned and crossed her arms, the gothic teen asked, "You think something's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," she answered honestly, "It just worries me because he's always so... punctual."

Qrow nodded in agreement as he offered, "Why don't we check his aura levels? If they're low, we'll go check on him. You have access to that, right? Since you're on his team."

This time, Monroe nodded as she pulled out her scroll. The black-haired teen stepped closer as she opened up Team Security's personal chat. There were mindless conversations, and plenty of emojis from Robyn, but he didn't get a good look as she swiped to aura levels. Hers was full, of course, and both Ryder's and Robyn's were high; however, Haddy's was not. They both were taken aback as his level read as seventeen out of one-hundred.

They watched in disbelief as the gauge suddenly dropped to twelve, where he would have been disqualified in a tournament. The pair didn't hesitate or even look to one another as they both took off in the same direction. Qrow pulled up his map and started to navigate them towards Hadrian's location, as Monroe switched back to his contact and tried calling him. When she got no answer, they sped up.

When the pair burst into the clearing, they were stopped in their tracks. Haddy was thrown, tumbling and crashing through the dirt as his aura cracked and sputtered, finally breaking into thousands of tiny pieces as he skidded on his side. He weakly pushed himself onto his back and started to pitifully crawl away from the looming Alpha that stalked toward him. As the grimm broke into a sprint towards Hadrian, both Monroe and Qrow followed suit.

"Haddy!" The gothic teen yelled as he whipped his sword around.

In an instant, Hadrian's head shot towards them and they were nearly stopped by the sheer terror in his eyes. He was trembling, but he froze when he saw them.

"N-OoO!" He screamed in horror, his voice breaking out of desperation. The sheer volume seemed to shake the tall grass and trees as he pleaded with them, almost knocking his friends off their feet from the power behind it. The blonde heard the speakers in her new earbuds crackle.

Qrow and Monroe both skidded to halt as tears rolled down Haddy's cheeks. It was clear that he wasn't as scared for himself as he was for them. For a brief moment, the pair were compelled to listen and stood in the same frozen fear that gripped their friend.

However, that moment didn't last as the Alpha snarled and continued its charge. Suddenly, it grabbed onto Haddy's shoulder, lifting him clear off the ground as it tore into his skin. He let out a yelping shout as the grimm continued its sprint towards the same boulder that the faunus had used to kill its brethren. It slammed him into the stone, causing him to scream out in pain as a nasty snap tore through his body. Broken from their trance, Monroe and Qrow rushed towards them, firing into the beast's back in a desperate attempt to get it to drop Hadrian.

Nothing seemed to phase the Alpha as they could only watch in horror as Hadrian's head fell limp once he was slammed into the boulder again. As the grimm pulled back its other arm to tear into the unconscious faunus's chest, Monroe armed Lacu Montano and flung her line towards the Alpha's wrist in an attempt to prevent it from skewering her teammate. The steel line whipped around the grimm's wrist and secured itself with its hook. Monroe skidded to a halt as she turned and used her shoulder for leverage to pull the beast back, digging her feet into the ground.

Qrow was almost there. He sprinted towards Haddy as he brought Harbinger up to swing down into the lanky appendage pinning his friend to the rock. He just needed a few more seconds. However, when the beast opened its maw, dripping with saliva, he realized he wasn't going to make it. The Alpha lunged at Haddy's neck, yanking Monroe down with it.

The dark-haired teen could only shout, "NO!"

Three, rapid gunshots tore through the meadow as the Alpha's head exploded and splattered Hadrian with black goo. Suddenly, the grimm began to disperse and Haddy was falling. Qrow used his momentum to stumble forward, dropping his sword, as he caught the faunus in his arms and quickly turned so that his back would slam into the boulder instead of Hadrian. The gothic teen's breath shot out of his lungs as he tumbled into the rock and fell onto his butt. Instantly, he looked down at Hadrian and watched as his chest rose and fell.

"He's alive!" Qrow called to Monroe, who was picking herself up off the ground. He watched as her shoulders slumped and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She started to jog over to them as another voice rang out, "Students..."

They turned to see Professor Heather lowering her automatic rifle as she stepped into the small meadow. She continued, "The next time you think a classmate is in danger, please, call a teacher before going off on a two-man rescue effort."

As both Monroe and the Professor approached, Hadrian uncomfortably shifted in Qrow's arms. The blonde dropped to her knees beside them as Mrs. Heather kneeled down.

The teacher examined Hadrian for a moment, before turning to Qrow and saying, "Mr. Branwen, please take Mr. Snow back to the shuttle. Have Mr. Turner examine him, and if he deems his condition critical enough, leave for Beacon without us."

The gothic teen hastily nodded and got to his feet. He quickly started off towards the airbus. The Professor then turned to Monroe and ordered, "Gather Mr. Branwen's and Mr. Snow's weapons and make sure they get there in one piece. I will gather your remaining classmates."

"Yes ma'am," the blonde replied.

Monroe scooped up Harbinger and clipped it to her belt. She searched briefly before she dashed across the meadow and gathered up Sleigh. In one, swift movement, she assembled it into its rifle form-- just as she'd seen Hadrian do dozens of times-- and slung its strap over her shoulder. Monroe took one last look around, making sure she didn't miss anything before she hustled after Qrow.

The black mass that was once the Alpha was slowly turning to dust as Mrs. Heather huffed out a sigh and took out her scroll.

HTHR: Snow shows extreme fear towards Beowolves, especially Alphas. That may be information to keep in mind.

With that message sent, she turned and started her hike back towards the shuttle and other students.

A few hours later, Hadrian felt himself slowly coming back to consciousness. He groggily opened his eyes, vision blurred by such a long sleep. His eyes fluttered as they adjusted to the dim light. His shoulder was throbbing and sore. He looked down to see his entire arm wrapped up in bandages and resting in a sling. His body was numb and achy.

He shifted, pushing himself up into a sitting position with his good arm. He was laying in Ryder's bed. The scaled faunus was slumped against the wall, gently napping with his arms crossed. Robyn was laid out across his legs, also sleeping. However, Monroe was sitting at the end of the bed in a chair of her own, watching him. He straightened when she sighed and brought her arms up across her chest.

"How are you feeling?" she asked in a whisper.

In all honesty, he felt like crap. "I'm okay now..." he quietly lied.

Monroe rolled her eyes and sighed, "You know, there's no use in lying to me. I can hear your heart rate increase when you try."

He pulled the blankets up closer to himself defensively as he breathlessly whispered, "Oh." After a moment, he looked away from her and quietly asked, "Does that mean that you--"

"--Know you lied about what happened to you and your team?" she finished in a hush, "Yeah..."

They were silent for a long time, before Haddy tried to defend himself, "Look, I'm sorry, I just--"

"It's okay," Monroe cut in quietly, raising a hand to stop him, "It was obviously a very traumatic event. You don't have to tell us everything after just meeting us; you're entitled to wait until you're ready..."

He still couldn't meet her gaze, but whispered, "Do... do they know?"

Robyn and Ryder still weren't roused by the conversation as Monroe quietly replied, "I didn't tell them."

Haddy took a shaky breath before saying, "Thank you."

They were quiet for a moment longer, before the red-haired menace shifted and yawned. She stretched and blinked the sleep out of her eyes before her gaze came to rest on Hadrian. Her entire face lit up as she scampered over the bed and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tightly. It took everything in him to not yelp as she pressed into his injured arm.

"Haddy!" Robyn nearly shouted, startling Ryder from his nap, "You're awake!"

The husky faunus wrapped his good arm around her back, hugging her close. After a brief moment, she whipped around to Monroe and sassed, "You said you'd wake us when he woke up!"

"He just did," the blonde replied.

As Robyn pulled away, having realized the pain she was inflicting on her injured leader, Ryder leaned forward and put a strong hand on Hadrian's healthy shoulder, "Man, you scar'd tha shit outta us..."

"Sorry, guys..." he apologized, rubbing the back of his head, and finding a considerable knot hidden in his hair.

"Don't say sorry!" Robyn exclaimed, "You could have died!"

"What happ'n'd?" The scaled faunus asked.

Haddy took a deep breath, memories slowly coming back to him. He paused to collect his thoughts before he reluctantly explained, "I had a flashback... I... I lied... to you guys..."

When no one said anything, he continued, "I... my team... they... they're hurting... because of me. That last mission... it wasn't as cut and dry as I said...

"We were the only faunus in our year at the Academy... Atlas's attempt to show diversity. We weren't the most popular people because of that, but we never let it bother us. When we were asked to deliver that cure to Mantle, we couldn't refuse. Especially since..." he paused, before admitting quietly, "Especially since Leon and I were from Mantle... not Atlas...

"I was cocky. We were top of our grade; worked better as a team than anyone else... I memorized the route we were going to take and neglected to make sure that I packed the map. By the time we realized, we were already halfway to our outpost. I decided that we didn't have time to turn back, and that we'd press on... and just to push it in the face of everyone; we were going to finish the relay instead of stopping at the outpost... Take the cure to Mantle ourselves. We'd done the trip a dozen times during training, so... we knew we could make it...

"And then... I... I got turned around... I must have taken a wrong turn because we ended up in a box canyon with no way out except the way we'd come. That was when the Beowolves trapped us. We fought so hard to keep those supplies safe, but it didn't matter. That... that Alpha tore them apart. I was only able to save one vial... but then it turned its eyes on us...

"I... Ollie... Ollie was the first to go down. It ripped into her back with its claws and... and she fell. Tadashi stood over her, trying to protect her while Leon and I fought off the Beowolves encircling us, but... he couldn't... hold off the Alpha and... and he fell next. I ordered Leon to break past the line of grimm, but that damned Alpha chased him down and... and... he... was next...

"It saved me for last... I couldn't protect them. I'd led them into that canyon and I couldn't... I blacked out and it was hours before anyone found us. The pack left us, thinking that they'd killed us. I failed Mantle, and I failed... I failed them..."

Tears he didn't realize were forming rolled down his scarred cheeks as he finished. He was shaking out of guilt and regret and emotions he hadn't opened up to anyone other than himself. It was all his fault. When Monroe reached forward and took his clenched hands in hers, he jumped. For the first time since he'd started his retelling, he looked up to his new team. They weren't exactly smiling, but the looks in their eyes were something that he hadn't seen in months.

Understanding and acceptance. He could see it in them. They knew how he felt, and they didn't blame him. He saw his old teammates in their eyes, and he broke down. For the first time in a long time, he bawled and cried as his friends rushed forward and wrapped him in the warmth of a hug that he didn't know until that moment that he needed. He whined and sobbed as he embraced them.