#half the time I'm not sure who is referenced by 'she' but the fact that it could be either of them makes it even sweeter somehow

[jesncin]

Hi! Thanks for answering my other ask! I also haven't seen a lot of criticism for Lonely City aside from a few tumblr posts that saw the same issues with it that I did, so I made sure to read the comic again just to ensure that my criticism is accurate (that's why this reply took a few days). I'm sorry for how long this ask is, but I hope it makes sense 😅

Basically my main issue with it is the ableism present in the comic as well as certain racist or colorist writing choices. There are other issues regarding queer rep that don't fit into these categories, too, but those might be more of a personal interpretation so I'll summarize them at the end.

I'll try not to focus too much on complaints about characterisation in this ask, since that can be a matter of personal taste, unless the differences in characterisation play into the other problems I see in the comic. Also just in advance: this is my personal opinion, which may ofc be off, but that's why I wanted to ask for a second opinion in the first place.

These first two problems are unfortunately pretty common in DC comics in general, so it's not like Lonely City is unique in doing this, but since the comic spends a lot of time promoting itself as progressive they left a particular sour taste in my mouth. It felt disappointing to me to see a comic claim progressiveness and add OCs of color while still running into the same bigoted writing choices as other DC comics.

The first writing choice I has issues with in this regard is the depiction of Catwoman herself. Catwoman's mother Maria Kyle has been depicted as afro-cuban since the 90s, but despite that fact comics almost exclusively portray Selina as a pale blue eyed woman who gets treated as white by the narrative and other characters in the universe, completely ignoring her mother's race. Lonely City goes out of its way to show that Selina is half cuban - which is great! - however, since the artist still decided to draw her as a pale blue eyed woman and the comic doesn't make any reference to her mother being black whatsoever this just rubs me wrong. It's not like the author simply wasn't aware of Selina being canonically half afro-cuban, since her cuban heritage keeps getting referenced, so it can be assumed that the author must be aware of her mother being a black woman as well. To me this makes it stand out even more that she is drawn and treated as a white(-passing) cuban woman, instead of a black one. It's unclear if this was the author's decision or a requirement by DC editors (though Selina is drawn as black in Absolute Batman and iirc in one of DC's highschool AU comics so it doesn't seem to be a publisher mandate), but either way it means that despite being fully aware of Selina being half afro-cuban, the comic completely ignores her mother's (and by association Selina's) canonical blackness.

The second issue to me is the depiction of Waylon Jones/ Killer Croc. Waylon has been coded as a black man fairly often throughout his appearances in DC comics, with at least one comic directly drawing him with brown skin instead of the usual crocodile green and the new Absolute Batman directly depicting him as a black man without the crocodilian traits the character usually has. Now, presumably in part due to this DC has been changing their approach to the character from writing him as an animalistic cannibal monster to more sympathetic characterisations as a regular human man with a skin condition who got ostracized, treated as a monster or assumed to be a violent and aggressive perpetrator due to the way his skin looks even before having to get into crime because it was the only career path available to him (which ofc also plays into an interpretation of him as a poc or at least as an allegory for racism). All of this is presumably something the author of Lonely City would be aware of, so the choice to depict Waylon not as a regular human with a skin condition but as someone more visually animalistic (given that Waylon is drawn with a snout and animal eyes), as well as having other characters directly refer to him as an animal, insinuate that he would just urinate on the floor and generally writing him as 'unhygienic' (stating that he doesn't care to flush after defecating etc) feels ...not great. Of course it is debatable wether the author wants Waylon to be read as black in Lonely City (his outfit design does seem to potentially point to him being coded as an older black man though), but even if that isn't the case the writer still would likely be aware of the character being coded as black or as a racism allegory in other works, which makes the choice to depict him as gross and animalistic a problem.

Now these next two cases include one of the most glaring problems I saw with the comic's writing. The writing, at least to me, seems pretty ableist. Of course ableism in regards to mental health is a problem with DC and especially Batman comics in general, but before reading Lonely City for the first time I genuinely thought it wouldn't be an issue here, since the comic markets itself as progressive and even goes back to depicting Barbara Gordon as a wheelchair user, which current comics have unfortunately moved away from.

The ableism in Lonely City imo particularly shows in the writing of Riddler and TwoFace, so they're going to be the characters I'll talk about here. Their cases basically represent opposite problems with the way DC tends to portray mental illness: in Riddler's case Lonely City decides to completely erase his mental health problems, while in TwoFace's case they use his mental illness to portray him as more evil.

I'll talk about Riddler's portrayal first, since TwoFace's is the arguably more offensive one. The Riddler as a character has pretty consistently been portrayed as struggling with his mental health, mainly with ocd and some variant of bpd. He's also usually portrayed to have low empathy, either due to npd or general neurodivergence. These are core character traits that usually still persist even when the character gets 'reformed' in canon and aids the 'good guys' (like in his arc as a P.I. in comics in the late 2000s or in Batman Unburied/Secrets in the Dark), which, if handled well enough, helps balance out the portrayal of mental illness in the character's appearances by essentially stating that it's not his mental health issues that made him a villain and that they aren't an inherently bad or evil trait.

Now Lonely City essentially does the inverse of this: not only does the comic write its version of Riddler as a mentally stable, fairly well adjusted and empathetic man that seems to lack pretty much every single one of his usual mental health issues, they also ascribe his mental illness (as well as his usual flamboyance and queer-coding) to him having been a cocaine addict that has been 'cured' by the time the comic's plot takes place. There's no issue with giving the character an addiction ofc, if handled well enough, and Lonely City isn't the first comic doing that either; the problem, to me, lies in the comic specifically pointing out that Riddler's usual characterisation - and everything that comes with it regarding his mental health - was not something inherent to him as a person but instead was caused by drug abuse. By doing this, as well as by portraying him as well adjusted and neurotypical after his rehab, the comic essentially posits that the ocd/bpd/npd/general neurodivergence associated with his usual characterisation were 'weird' negative traits exclusively caused by him doing cocaine and that he needed to be 'cured' of them in order to be able to reform and become a better person. It essentially states that he used to be weird, ridiculous, villainous and "crazy" because of drugs, but now that he went to rehab and got "cured" he is normal, well adjusted and a good man that is fit to be a romantic option for Catwoman. And while the comic states that even as a villain he never seriously hurt anyone, it still makes the suggestion that he got cured of mental illness along with his drug problem, and that he had to be cured of both of it in order to reform.

Now, it could be argued that this negative portrayal of mental illness as something caused by addiction or something to be cured of wasn't the intention of the comic - and maybe it really wasn't - but that's where the second problem comes in: Throughout the entire comic there are only two direct portrayals of mental illness we get to see: the first is Riddler's short flashback to his "embarassing" pre-rehab self, the second, more direct, portrayal of mental illness is TwoFace. There are further mentions of characters with mental health problems, but those are only short and offhand, though not without their own problems, which I'll get to during this argument.

I've already discussed the problem I see with the way Riddler's mental health is handled, but the portrayal of TwoFace is ...worse, imo, to say the least. In Lonely City TwoFace is characterised as a far-right fascist politician, trying to force his bigoted and classist policies onto Gotham via police brutality and propaganda. He is also the only character in the entire comic that is consistently shown to struggle with his mental health: Every other character (including post-rehab Riddler) is shown to be well-adjusted and mentally healthy, their problems mainly stemming from grief or circumstance, not mental illness. Meanwhile only TwoFace exhibits behavior linked to his mental health on panel: in closeups he is shown to have ocd tics, like having to rhythmically tap on his desk when agitated or struggling with the thought of needing to use his coin, his behavior is often erratic, other characters treat him as off-kilter and ultimately when he is defeated it is said he will be interred at Arkham again. Arkham, specifically, where at the point of the story only the "truly evil" and mentally ill villains like Scarecrow are still being held, as the comic makes sure to point out. By doing this, by showing only TwoFace to struggle with his mental health, by mentioning that only the irredeemable villains are still at the mental health hospital, by showing all the reformed rogues to be mentally healthy and stable - the comic directly associates mental illness with being a bad person.

More than that, by not only making TwoFace a bigoted fascist but by specifically revealing that his bigotry and fascism was caused by his "evil alter" after all at the end, the comic directly links being far-right with being mentally ill. Seeing the comic handle things like that and especially the "evil alter" reveal at the end was a genuine shock and huge disappointment for me, especially after how much Lonely City seems to flaunt its supposed progressiveness throughout the story. Writing TwoFace as an evil racist bigot and Trump-allegory not (just) because he is a privileged white man in power, but specifically as someone that is a far-right populist because he is "crazy" and mentally ill is just so...hurtful. Add to this that throughout the story TwoFace's fascist policies are consistently portrayed as the actions of one single mentally ill "maniac" that others only go along with out of fear or sense of duty instead of being a systemic issue (the police commissioner keeps telling TwoFace off about his fascist policies, his financial backers stop supporting him once his right wing ideology becomes too overt, whenever TwoFace issues commands for police brutality police officers voice their concerns with those actions and only go along because they are scared of Harvey and then ultimately abandon him as well). And in the end, fascism in Lonely City is defeated not by thorough systemic reform but by simply throwing the Trump-analogue into a jail for mentally ill people "where he belongs". It's extremely frustrating to me, as you probably can tell, and it just feels so disappointing to see a comic presenting itself as progressive and anti-fascist while falling into the exact same ableist tropes as every single other comic that portrays mental illness as something evil that needs curing to even have a chance at becoming a good person, and fascism and bigotry as something caused by mental illness instead of a sytemic issue (and specifically having the police 'only following orders' while actually disagreeing with fascism, when far right ideologies infamously thrive in the police system irl).

Like I said at the beginning of my ask, there are other issues I have with the comic as well, but those might be more based on personal opinion, so I'll summarize them here: Another thing that irks me about the comic is that despite showing pride flags in the background multiple times the queer rep in it is, imo, flimsy at best. Harley and Ivy are mentioned to have been a couple, but Harley has been fridged before the events of the story while Ivy gets killed during it, making the comic essentially commit a double "bury your gays" with the only two explicitly queer characters in it. Yes there is the implication that Barbara Gordon might be in a queer relationship with her campaign manager, but as far as I could tell during my second read through it's never actually made explicit that they are a couple or that either of them are actually queer, it's only ever implied. And while Catwoman has been canonically bisexual for over two decades, there hasn't been a single mention of her queerness (that I noticed) throughout this entire comic either. Of course her ending up in a relationship with a man wouldn't erase her bisexuality (nor Riddler's for that matter, who had been confirmed as canonically bi prior to Lonely City's release), however since there aren't even any allusions to Catwoman being romantically interested in women whatsover in the entire comic (as far as I could tell, maybe I missed something if so feel free to correct me), personally speaking I can't really count this as bi representation, since for all it matters if a reader that isn't aware of Selina (and Eddie) being canonically bi in other comics reads Lonely City they would most likely read her and Riddler as a heterosexual couple (particularly since as previously mentioned the comic imo does erase Riddler's usual queercoding as well by ascribing his flamboyance to his cocaine addiction and by having the 'clean' version dress and behave in a very heteronormative way, for example by dressing mainly in beige and muted colors instead of his usual bright greens and pinks and by otherwise acting like the stereotypical "dad" character in a sitcom). Having Catwoman end up in a relationship with a man wouldn't be an issue otherwise, but in combination with other queer rep being either only alluded to (Barbara) or being killed off (Harley and Ivy) the fact that Selina's bisexuality is never even hinted at and her "happy end" in a comic that set out to write a story about Catwoman being her own character separate from her relationship with a man (Batman), that she so often gets defined by, being that Selina ends up in a by all accounts "heterosexual" relationship as the (step) mom of a teenager just leaves a bad taste, imo. It really wouldn't have been hard to make her (or Barbaras) queerness explicit, but the comic didn't do that.

Either way though, I'm sorry that this ask has gotten so incredibly long and seems so negative, but like I said I only saw a handful of people make the points I did here about Lonely City with everyone else treating it as perfectly progressive and it really made me doubt if my criticism and disappointment in the comic (I really wanted to like it!) has any ground at all. And since you seemed to have the same issue with the MAWS fandom and generally always have thoughtful commentary about representation I thought I might as well ask you for a second opinion.

Please don't stress about answering btw., and if you disagree with any (or all) of my points here I'd also love to hear why you think I'm wrong, after all that's why I'm sending this in the first place. Either way though, I hope you have a nice day and thanks again for letting me talk to you about this!

Hwoof! Okay this is a lot! I'm gonna put this under a read more so that it won't be a super long scroll. But my takeaway is that this kind of fixation on continuity and details is detrimental for engaging with larger themes and an elseworld interpretation of these characters. Media crit thoughts below! Spoilers for Catwoman: Lonely City.

I know it might seem redundant, but being aware of the premise and parameters for this story can help us better understand the decisions that went into it so:

Catwoman Lonely City is an Elseworlds miniseries (4 long issues) under Black Label; an imprint publisher of DC. It follows a much older Selina Kyle, recently released from jail following the death of Batman from a massacre orchestrated by the Joker (known as Fool's Night) 10 years ago. During the time she was in prison, Gotham had changed. Costumed heroism and villainy is heavily outlawed, resulting in what seems like a safer albeit less free Gotham under the rule of Mayor (reformed) Harvey Dent. Catwoman has one final score in mind; to break into the Batcave and find out what "Orpheus" is. The last message Batman gave her before he died.

The entirety of Lonely City is written, drawn, colored and even LETTERED by Cliff Chiang. Which is nuts.

This story is tightly written with an expansive cast system. The main themes are about grief and aging. There's so much emphasis placed on how a lot of these characters feel like they're past their prime. We see Selina struggle doing the acrobatics she was once used to. The theme of needing to "let go" of the past is paralleled with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice "Don't look back". Ultimately it asks what the point of all that costumed heroism was for and why it's worth chasing those glory days.

So keep all this in mind as I respond to each of the points you brought up!

Catwoman

So talking about a character's race like that of Selina's is tricky. I try to avoid using words like whitewashing in cases like this since she's not a character that started out that way like say- Sunspot from X Men. Instead when I'm criticizing things like Caped Crusader I'm looking at it from an angle of narrative opportunity. If Selina's going to be white again (and rich) what story does it tell? And my conclusion for Caped Crusader is that its commentary on classicism would've been stronger if Selina was portrayed like she was in Reeve's The Batman. To me, she doesn't offer much the way she was re-imagined in Caped Crusader.

I don't personally feel that's the case for Lonely City. Despite being an elseworld, Lonely City is very holistic in its application of Selina's history. The writer recognizes she's a white passing Hispanic woman in this story. In a flashback to her youth, Selina is portrayed as looking exactly like Julie Newmar (as opposed to Eartha Kitt) did as Catwoman in the 60's Batman show.

In terms of how her whiteness is integrated into her character, there's a flashback sequence that goes back to Selina's time in jail. She meets an Asian woman named Yoona who's dealing with racist harassment from the other inmates. Selina tries to train her to stand up for herself, but it backfires. Yoona's not as good at fighting, ultimately saying "guess we can't all be Catwoman". Selina tries to stand up to Yoona's bullies herself-but the big criminals of the place decide to fight back by killing Yoona and placing her corpse in Selina's cell. This causes Selina to close up, feeling guilt for putting someone vulnerable in danger.

Narratively we see this as one of Selina's arcs in this story. She can't break into the Batcave alone, so she recruits a handful of new friends and former rogues to help her. But the whole time she's worried she's putting them all in danger for her own goals. She's hesitant about training the Riddler's daughter Edie to help out on the heist, she later loses Killer Croc, and then Selina gets so paranoid she cuts Edie and the Riddler off the team. Part of Selina's growth in this story is to accept help and support. She can't do any of this alone.

The whole point is that the story ends with exactly what you're asking for in your criticism. Selina lets go of her past in some way and lets someone new take on the Catwoman mantle; Edie, The Riddler's afro latina daughter. It's a story about Selina letting go of her pride and guilt so that she can trust the newer generation to take the role. Yes things will be harder for this girl, but Selina's got to have hope; because some other girls can be Catwoman after all. Meta-textually this combines the differing histories of Catwoman into a conversation about legacy. Selina's whiteness plays a role in this elseworld story, so it justifies itself in my eyes instead of being an uncreative default.

Killer Croc Waylon Jones

I'm not an expert on Killer Croc history but from my brief brushes with him throughout being a Batman fan, I say there's 2 Waylons; 1. a guy with a skin condition 2. a guy who is a crocodile man. There's merits for either take, each with varying levels of sympathetic portrayals. He's also been white, coded as Black or straight up re-imagined as a Black man.

While I think there's a conversation to be had about dehumanization and treating a Black character as animalistic- I know at the end of the day the reason some writers pick the Crocodile variant of Waylon Jones is just because they want Batman to fight a gator guy. So he literally is just that, a gator. Not much malicious intent behind that, he's just an animorph gator. I think it's unfair to treat the "skin condition" variant of Killer Croc as the more progressive version of his character. Sometimes I'm playing Arkham Asylum and I wanna see a big croc instead of a guy with a skin condition running at me in the sewers. Either version is fine, I say with respect to furries and monster-boinkers.

At most, we see Waylon being a part of that arc where Selina's worried about putting vulnerable people in danger. Waylon dies in one of their heists and it causes Selina to close up again. I think it's fair that jokes made about him peeing on plants from Ivy/Eddie can be read in bad taste considering his history, but this take really is just the Animal Guy version of the character. I think going in too deep about the allegory of his marginalization would've lost the focus of this story in the short time frame that it had.

The Riddler Eddie Nygma

I think interpreting the way Eddie Nygma talks about his past and recovery as a broad "mental illness is evil" is reductive to the story. When he says "Hey, I was doing a lot of coke then." during his flirty catch-up date with Selina, I don't think he's saying "the substance abuse made me evil, Selina." The point of change/redemption for Eddie isn't necessarily "rehab". Eddie explicitly states that when his wife/partner Lorena died, it made him question what he was doing and put his life together. That included getting into recovery. He mentions he wasn't always there for his daughter Edie, but that he is now-he's no longer just thinking about himself. That's a conscious decision on his part.

I personally try not to get caught up in concepts like "the core of a character" because that can be subjective and people can choose to shift the pieces of a character and focus on something else. Reeves' Batman for example is a very untraditional Riddler take, he's a serial killer, and not a dapper guy at all. I'm more concerned with the concept of "through-lines" in characters, because it reveals what's resonant about them to be worth revisiting.

I get that Eddie's perceptive + genius mind and egomaniac tendencies is a huge part of his character. But I don't really know what (in your words) a "balanced out" take on Redeemed Riddler's mental health/neurodivergence in a story like this should look like. He joins Catwoman's heist team, he offers his expertise and says some quips. Is there something else he should be doing to demonstrate mental illness isn't evil or what? I know there's other redeemed Riddler takes where he still has his ego, but I don't think that fits for what story Lonely City wants to tell with him. He's narratively a humbled character in this. Lonely City wants to explore that kind of Riddler.

I'm gonna group your later queer criticisms here since I want to keep this categorized by character. But your argument about Riddler's queer coding erasure and acting like a heteronormative dad is missing the bigger cultural picture. The Gotham Rogues are heavily queer coded because- they're villains. It didn't start out as earnest representation because these were the un-questioned historical short-hands to how villains where characterized and designed. Sure as time goes on, some of that characterization will be reclaimed and canonized as queerness, but to read representation solely on historical coding is a misleading approach to analysis. Because it relies on signifiers over narrative.

Again, one of the main themes of Lonely City is about how these characters have aged passed their primes. They're tired and nostalgic for their colorful pasts, but are trying to move on in their own ways. The Riddler now looks unflamboyant and toned down to reinforce that theme. Eddie's tired now, he's wants to be a better dad, he has experienced the long prophesized twink death that comes for us all and has to embrace his new silver fox status. To hyper-focus on the details where he must perform a certain type of queerness is greatly limiting to queer representation.

John Constantine is one of DC's most prominent queer characters. He was coded and then canonized as queer early in his original Hellblazer run. In his backstory he used to be this over-the-top non-conforming punk young man, but then he was sent to a mental facility after accidentally banishing a little girl to Hell. He came out of that traumatizing experience looking,,, like how you describe Eddie Nygma looking like in Lonely City. Gone is John's colorful non-conformity, and all that's left if this beige coat wearing homeless guy. But that's the point and tragedy of his story. He's still queer even when he's not performing what people stereotypically associate as being visibly queer. So if you want to read Riddler as queer in Lonely City, nothing is really stopping you. I don't know how else to end this point other than saying there's nothing homophobic about mellowing out into your silver fox era.

Two Face Harvey Dent

To fully understand the portrayal of Two Face in Lonely City, we need to talk about what role he plays in the narrative. Because it's broader than you think.

Two Face exists as an allegory for Gotham itself in this story. After Batman died and costumed heroism/villainy is strictly outlawed, Gotham seems like a better, safer city. But in reality, it's a heavily policed city, where only the richest are doing better off. It's got the appearance of progress, but really it has same systemic problems still bubbling within. That's Harvey Dent's character in Lonely City. He promises people he's reformed, but really we just see his classic standard downfall happen again when challenged.

Much like with what I talked about queer coding villains, Two Face never started out as earnest representation of DID. The horror surrounding his premise is often really reliant on the vilification of DID. And once again, much like Waylon, sometimes we get sympathetic treatments of that part of him.

But I think the trouble with Two Face as DID rep is that as long as that "darkness bubbling within him" is represented through an alter, he's going to struggle with how his premise is tied to the vilification of DID. There are some takes of Harvey where this part of him is removed completely like in The Dark Knight, where his descent is a straightforward story about a good guy getting corrupted rather than an alter showing up. On one hand you can see that as erasure, and on another hand maybe it's refreshing to have a take that doesn't rely on an evil alter. Your mileage will vary. Tons of people with DID love Harvey, it's complicated!

Calling Harvey a Trump-like bigoted fascist is reductive of the narrative allegory he represents. I notice there's a tendency in media analysis to label any remotely bigoted or rich villain character as being a stand in for Trump or Elon Musk and that's a superficial reading. I've seen many fictionalized stand ins for Trump in media, and Lonely City's Harvey Dent doesn't feel specific enough to be a commentary on the guy.

Trump is a blatant bigot, spouting explicitly racist rhetoric and mocking disabled people. Harvey in Lonely City is performative about his justice. When talking about Barbara Gordon, he says "she's not the only one with a disability" as he touches his disfigured face. He's shown saving a brown boy from a fire. Things Donald Trump would never do. We don't see the usual fictional Trump-isms like allusions to building a wall or tweeting about celebrities.

Harvey's not evil because he's mentally ill, his alter isn't what motivates his actions. That reading ignores how Harvey genuinely believes what he's doing is good for Gotham. You say that the police in this story only go along with what they do because they're scared of Harvey, "and specifically having the police 'only following orders' while actually disagreeing with fascism, when far right ideologies infamously thrive in the police system irl" but that ignores scenes like this:

Where the police have no problem enacting prejudice and threatening violence without Harvey's supervision. When the police commissioner is frustrated with Harvey, it's not because he's some good guy being forced to be bad by the Mayor. Whenever something goes wrong, Harvey uses the commissioner as a scapegoat so that he can keep his own reputation intact. When the commissioner advises Harvey that it's bad to attack protesters, it's not because he disagrees with bigotry- it's because it looks bad on Harvey as a candidate. When one of the bat cops abandons Harvey in the climax (only to get shot by him), that's not him disavowing bigotry, it's him being fed up with being bossed around.

You say that "in the end, fascism in Lonely City is defeated not by thorough systemic reform but by simply throwing the Trump-analogue into a jail for mentally ill people "where he belongs". But that reading ignores scenes like this one:

Where after Barbara Gordon gets elected as Mayor, she's still criticized even after the protesters had her back earlier. Despite Barbara starting out the story begging Catwoman to leave vigilantism behind to become a respectable member of society, she ultimately learns that doing things from within the system isn't enough. That corruption still exists in Gotham and she's going to have to play dirty to fight it. That's an awareness of systemic problems, not a story where all the problems are solved when the antagonist gets punished.

Then there's your reading of mental illness in this story. Much like how your queer analysis relies on signifiers like performance of queerness in order to be read as queer at all, you do the same thing with mental illness. If you're willing to read Harvey tapping his fingers during his debate with Barbara as OCD tics, -even though it's a classic visual short hand for portraying nervousness or impatience- or his attachment to the coin as OCD -even though Harvey's obsession with duality and chance being a theme to his character- and confidently claim that "only Two Face exhibits behavior linked to his mental health" then you're willfully ignoring another strong candidate for a mental illness reading: Selina Kyle herself.

We see her taking meds after she's released from jail. We see her immediately remembering Bruce's death when meeting the Bat-police. We see her obsess over Bruce's final words to her, unable to let the past go. We see her struggling to open up and accept help after Yoona and Waylon die, she even acts out in paranoia. We see her thinking she's protecting others by pushing them away. We see her getting so focused on Bruce's final message for her, it seems like there's nothing else she has planned after the finding out what it is.

When asked about this, she continues to justify that she's protecting others "No one else is going to get hurt." She's self-destructive, not looking out for herself anymore. When she finally makes it to the batcave and watches it self destruct, she's willing to just sit there and go down with it. "Life after Batman is a dream, he said. I should have believed him. And life after Catwoman? Maybe I could've figured it out...with enough time."

I don't know about you, but that's not reflective of what you described "Every other character (including post-rehab Riddler) is shown to be well-adjusted and mentally healthy, their problems mainly stemming from grief or circumstance, not mental illness." Sometimes grief can result in self destructive mental illness, it's not any less because it's stemmed from a tragic circumstance. Our main hero character, is struggling with how her grief and love is consuming her. It may not look like classic vilification of mentally ill villains, but it's still explicitly there.

To bring this back to Harvey, no, I don't think the end is supposed to be some kind of twist that everything bad was his evil alter's doing. Harvey wasn't lying when he said he embraced his alter and made a compromise with him instead of running away from that part of himself. This is the classic Two Face descent, everything seems fine on the surface but then his inner darkness resurfaces. Harvey explicitly says "we had a deal, do things my way-" before being interrupted by his alter who says "-Fuck the deal, Harvey!" They both agreed to be doing things Harvey's way for a while, but his alter's tired of all the pushback and finally decides to take control in this moment.

There's a lot to critique at the core of Batman's mythos, the inherit copaganda in a rich man's goals to eliminate crime, the vilification of mental illness for its horror elements among many things. It would take a much bigger shake up of the status quo to see these things challenged outside of a "there's a lot we still gotta fix" ending. I think criticisms where people say "Batman beats up mentally ill poor people" is pretty disingenuous. It ignores that many of his rogues are well off and powerful, but it also infantilizes them as villains. Batman's rogues aren't clueless mentally ill people, they choose to do bad things. Some of them are mentally ill as they commit crimes, but they make a choice. Harvey Dent isn't bad because he's mentally ill, he's bad because of his flawed beliefs.

I don't think Harvey being sent away to Arkham in Lonely City is supposed to send the message that he'll only be good if he's a cured, neurotypical guy. We see how the jail system treated Selina during her 10 years behind bars, the whole system's broken and the comic is aware of that.

Queerness: Barbara Gordon, Harley Quinn + Poison Ivy and Catwoman (+ Riddler)

"Bury your gays" does not refer to when queer characters die, it is to talk about how they're treated as more disposable/expendable than their non-queer counterparts. A character being "fridged" is not about them dying, it's about how they're treated as disposable for the development of another character.

Harley Quinn is just as much a "fridged" character in Lonely City as Batman is. Both Selina and Pamela are grieving over the loss of their loved ones, but they react in opposite ways. Pamela's moved on to the point of leaving Gotham, while Selina's fixated on Bruce's final message to her. I don't know how we're supposed to have a story about grief without someone dying? So I don't really know what this kind of criticism is asking for.

Sure, Ivy dies in the story. But she goes out in a defiant stance against Harvey's vision for the city. She's comes full circle in recognizing that Gotham wasn't all awful; it nurtured her and taught her to accept herself. She dies because the story has stakes and consequences to its actions. Again, I don't think being queer means the characters should be invulnerable and immortal. Ivy has the same narrative weight to her death as Waylon did.

I agree that Barbara's queerness is subtle in Lonely City. But I don't think that's a bad thing. My impression is that she recognizes she's in a very dangerous position in Gotham, hence she keeps her relationship with her campaign manager Josie very private. But when you look into it, there's really no denying it or reading it any other way. In these finale panels, what business does Barbara have to be in Josie's son's room? Even more so, why is he named Wayne?

The comic even bothers making Selina pause upon hearing that name. Barbara named him after Bruce, so wait- how come she has a say in naming Josie's son? When Wayne tells Selina "Are you here for mama? She's in the back." Selina goes to the office to see only Barbara in there. Josie shows up in the room way later. Hence, Barbara is also Wayne's mom. If we genderbent Josie, the nature of their relationship wouldn't be up for debate.

I get that it would be cool to have a queer Barbara story, but this is a detail in Catwoman: Lonely City. It implies something interesting about Barbara still hiding a part of her identity even though she's not a costumed vigilante anymore, but that's it. Normally I'd like for these things to be expanded, but I'm aware this is Selina's story's first and foremost. And it's a miniseries. At most, this relationship is an interesting characterization detail.

Ignoring the fact that Selina's silver fox futch game is on fire in this series, I think the queer Catwoman criticism falls into the same problem with relying on queer signifiers and performance for representation. I get that an elseworld needs to re-establish its take on these characters since I don't know if they're queer in this iteration or not. But for a tight story like Lonely City, what exactly do I stand to gain from Catwoman turning to the camera and telling me she's bi again this time?

Lonely City is about Selina's grief over Batman turning into an obsession. When Bruce was alive, Selina would ask him if he ever considered retiring from his mission and settling down with her. Bruce would lead her on, saying that a life like that is just a dream for him "but when I do let myself dream Selina...in that life? I'm with you". So she clings on to that, hoping that the final message he left her, "Orpheus" could maybe be some kind of recognition of their love. But in the end, she discovers "Orpheus" is a lazarus pit meant to temporarily revive someone from dying. Bruce was asking Selina to revive him. "The cape came first [...] nothing else mattered, nobody else mattered...not even me."

Her relationship with Eddie is meant to show that a part of her does want to move on from Bruce and find love elsewhere. But she's caught between her self destructive quest and having to think about what life after Catwoman looks like. Ultimately she learns she can move on without sacrificing who she is as Catwoman by passing that mantle on to someone new. For a tightly written 4-issue miniseries, I don't see how having Selina hitting on a woman or saying she finds a woman hot, or Eddie doing that for men really adds anything to that story. Maybe if it was a longer series we could've gotten something about queer solidarity? But I'm content with Lonely City the way it is right now.

I've written in my comic essays before about how I don't want "show not tell" to dictate how queer characters have to have very specific relationships (bi person must always be with man and woman) or display specific attractions (bi woman must show interest in woman at some point) or express themselves in a specific way (queer man has to be flamboyant) to be considered queer. But I also don't want the verbal confirmation of queerness to be mandated in every story with queer characters. Taking either points to an extreme would result in really formulaic queer stories.

Maybe Selina and Eddie at the end of Lonely City are a bi couple who are happily mellowing out into their old age, judged by on-lookers as a straight couple because they're not performing bombastic queerness hard enough or something, I hear that's a very bi thing.

Also "Selina ends up in a by all accounts "heterosexual" relationship as the (step) mom of a teenager just leaves a bad taste, imo." Man, what you got against step moms? :((((((((( The teenager is robbing rich people too, it's not that domestic.

haha but I hope this doesn't come off as mean spirited in any way! I think Catwoman Lonely City is a rich text to discuss so I'm interested in people's interpretations of it.

When I talk about performatively progressive things like My Adventures with Superman, it's that media like that wants the clout of looking like it deals with serious topics (like Superman's immigrant allegory), but it'll be squeamish about tackling that in any serious manner. It's a show that has surface level diversity but is unwilling to discuss how that diversity informs its world. MAWS shows us an endearingly girlfailure Lois Lane who needs the help of men to get hired as a journalist because it believes that's far more relatable than being a jaded successful career woman. The show loves rebutting Superman discourse about red undies and being a nice guy who saves cats from trees, but it can never show us what its version of Superman's ideals are. It's a show that fails to say anything of substance.

Meanwhile Catwoman Lonely City is a story about loss and what a Gotham trying to move on from its costumed past looks like. It's wrapped up in issues of class disparity and racism, but in the end of the day it's a really personal story about grief and aging. Its characters' identities inform the way they navigate its political world. Lonely City takes advantage of the Batman mythos' history to tell its remixed story.

At times, that means working within its limitations. Two Face is a character that would require a really big re-imagining to separate his premise from the vilification of DID (which I was hoping Caped Crusader would do, but alas), and this elseworld version plays him pretty straight and standard to tell a story about repeating cycles and facades. It has the bad guy sent to Arkham, as is the usual for Batman stories.

My main concern when reading Lonely City was that the characters telling Selina to "let go" of her costumed vigilante past was going to lead to an ending where Selina has to settle down and be a respectable member of society. But that didn't happen! Barbara recognizes that working within the system isn't enough. Instead of Selina getting assimilated into the government like an honorary cop, she's still a vigilante robbing the rich.

Catwoman Lonely City ends with the recognition and hope that things could be better, that its problems don't end in the final page. And that's way more substance than anything MAWS could pretend to have.

[dom1re]

Hi! 💙 I partly know the answer to this question regarding Sunan’s hair colour, but other than that, are there any other characters (from books, films, etc) that were references for Sunan or influenced his traits, lore and/or design?

I don't think I referenced anything for Sunan specifically. The goal was to write someone who's nice and easygoing but sort of has a wall up coz he's scared of opening himself up.

In that regard, actually, Sunan reminds me of Allen Walker from D Gray Man. They're both in their teens but forced to grow up very fast; they are the keys to the war that's going on in their respective worlds, and carry this unreasonable burden to resolve conflicts and save lives. They also share a deep fear of being rejected by their loved ones due to their past. I remember being really fascinated by Allen as a teen myself so I might have drawn inspiration from him unconsciously.

(I didn't realize this but D Gray Man also takes place in 19th century... And Allen is presumably British)

But what I can say for sure is that the fic is loosely inspired by Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The book's about a 16 year old boy, Holden Caulfield, who's basically stuck between childhood and adulthood. He feels rejected by the society and neglected by adults around him; he refuses to grow up and become one of them. This is the interpretation i take with not just Sunan but Sebastian and Ominis as well. Those of u who read the fic might recall the rye field and the cliff scene. That's meant to be a nod to this book (though it's pretty vague). I'm planning to use this imagery throughout the fic. We'll see how many times I can squeeze it in

Oh I also wanna mention The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. This book is about a double agent who's half Vietnamese, half French. Some of its key themes are, surprise surprise, dealing with one's conflicting cultural/political identities; the idea of belonging to both and neither.

Now Sunan's also mixed (Chinese Thai / British), and spent time as both a Squib and a Wizard. He has to lie and pretend a lot for his goal (protecting the Repository), which he doesn't particularly feel loyal towards. I guess being a 1.5 gen immigrant I've always been drawn to these themes, so I'm trying to explore them in my writing. And that's how Sunan became a deeply troubled teen

(In fact Natty is a perfect character for this; she's an immigrant who had to move to a different society and adapt to new ways. It'd be fun to write a one shot about her... if I ever get time 🤪)

Alright I gotta stop myself 😂😂 sorry this is so long, you can tell how much I loved this ask 🫶 thank you for ur interest diana!! such good questions keep em coming coming

[greghatecrimes]

i have this vision of house carrying thirteen by her ankle into wilson's office and just holding her out to him as she's giggling because he wants wilson to watch her for a bit because he can't let her near one patient or something

wilson being unsure how exactly to grab her from that position

Have a very quickly written ficlet, anon!:

PPTH, circa 1993ish:

Wilson's in the middle of a meeting when the sound of laughter and familiar footsteps floats into his office from the hallway. He doesn't even bother trying to finish whatever sentence he'd been in the middle of; instead, he breaks off and lets loose a long sigh.

"...Is... everything alright?" The patient he'd been talking with asks, watching him with slightly widened eyes.

"I'm so sorry." He runs a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to put his head down on the patient files stacked in front of him. "You know, I just have this terrible headache. It comes and--"

The door to his office bursts open. In steps one Greg House, accompanied by the source of the childlike giggling that had been the harbinger of his arrival: his two and a half year old daughter, who's dangling from House's hand by one ankle. She sways back and forth in midair when House steps over the threshold and into the office, causing her face to flush red and her laughter to bubble up, crisp with joy.

"...Goes," Wilson sighs, and gets to his feet. "I'm so sorry. This will be just a minute."

"Hey, Wilson!" House greets, completely unperturbed by the fact that he's just walked into a private consult. "Take Thirteen for an hour, will you? I'm not supposed to have my hands full around my new patient."

"House," Wilson groans. "How many times do I have to tell you to just hire a babysitter–"

"Don't need one! Really, it's just an hour! Cuddy said they think the patient has TB or something else deliciously contagious. Can't let this germ magnet–" he shakes Thirteen for extra emphasis, and she laughs even harder. A fond smile pulls at his lips. "Anywhere near that."

"Oh, my," Wilson's patient says from between them, and Wilson's not sure if she's referencing the tuberculosis or the child dangling upside down, clearly delighted at being handled by her father like a sack of potatoes. "Is she alright?"

"My patient?" House asks. "Bleeding out of her eyeballs, last I heard, so I really need to-- oh, you meant the kid." House gives her another shake, and this time Thirteen laughs so hard that it borders on a shriek. "She's fine, she loves it. Begs me to throw her around all day long. She'd be crawling around on the ceiling if she could. Like a little spider-monkey, aren't you?" Thirteen grins, her smile flashing white like an upside-down crescent moon.

She's too damn cute, Wilson thinks. House is all too aware of this and wields it like a weapon. He lets out another long-suffering sigh.

"I'll take her," he relents, and steps out from behind his desk. "C'mere, Munchkin." He reaches for her, only to freeze when he realizes he's not quite sure how to grab her.

"Do you need–" his patient starts to ask.

"I'm fine, thank you," Wilson says loudly. He knows he's the less-experienced one out of the two of them when it comes to children. He doesn't need his own patients reminding him of that. "Here we go. Nice and easy." He decides to grab Thirteen by the waist. She's small enough that he manages to get her flipped right-side up without having to set her down on the floor or the desk first.

"Hi, Jimmy." Thirteen settles into the spot just above his hip easily, as she always does. Before he can stop her, one of her chubby little hands is reaching for one of the many pens he keeps in the chest pocket of his lab coat. Her fingers close around a bright yellow highlighter. "'Side-down? Again?" she asks.

He can't bring himself to say no. "When your dad gets back," he promises. He tucks a few flyaways behind her ear-- all that swinging around had really mussed up her ponytail. Hopefully she'll sit quietly long enough for him to fix it. "But right now Jimmy has to finish a meeting. So let's tell Dad bye-bye for now, okay?"

She waves at House with the fist that's gripping the highlighter. "Bye bye!"

"Be good for Wilson, you little gremlin," House playfully growls, narrowing his eyes at her. Thirteen laughs and hides her face against Wilson's shoulder for a moment. "I'll page ya when I'm on my way back up. Oh, and I'll order us takeout from that Chinese place for dinner tonight, sound good?" House is already halfway out the door before Wilson can form a response. "Thanks a million!" the cheerfully sarcastic tone floats back to them from the hallway. "Kisses! Mwah!"

Of course he doesn't bother to close the door on his way out.

"Um," the patient says, just as Wilson slides back into his seat. Thirteen has already managed to uncap the highlighter and is now reaching across his desk with sweeping arms, searching for something to 'color' on. He manages to feel around and find a blank notepad for her without pulling his attention from his patient. "I can always come back later, if now is a bad time–"

"No, no, not at all," Wilson assures her, and then sighs in exasperation. "I am so sorry. He seems to think I'm the on call nanny instead of a practicing oncologist."

His patient cracks a smile. "She's quite cute," she admits, after a moment of watching Thirteen. Wilson can't help the rush of pride he feels at that. "She's your colleague's?"

Wilson hesitates. "My..." In his moment of thought, Thirteen squirms in his lap and manages to twist herself around enough to swipe a streak of bright yellow across his face. Wilson closes his eyes. The taste of highlighter is bitter on his lips, but he can't help but smile. "My... partner's." he says softly.

When he opens his eyes again, Thirteen is grinning up at him, clearly pleased with her work of art. His patient is stifling laughter. "Did you want to...?" She mimes rubbing her face.

"...We'll be just fine." He tells her, settling further into his seat. "This one is an excellent listener. By all means, let's get back to where we left off."

[kimberbohwrites]

Alright, I'm officially launching this. It's been a long time coming on this one. Dusk & Honey: Chapter One Next Chapter> Word Count: 4,157 Rated: Overall fic rating is Explicit, this chapter is SFW READ ON AO3 (or continued below) Please don't forget to kudos/comment/like/reblog <3 >Halsin x Tav art by @ DARKURGETRASH on tumblr<

Summary: The story of my OC Tav, Luna and her experience during the timeline of the game, not modifying canon so much as adding more to the Halsin-romance path. Featuring: world-building, action, well-researched drow lore, hurt/comfort, slowburn Halsin romancing, and eventual smut. PLEASE MIND THE TAGS, we'll be exploring trauma in several areas including touching on some of the darker canon trauma faced by Halsin. Tags/Warnings: Eventual Smut, Enemies to Lovers, mildly they are gonna fight, Halsin Romance Route, Named Tav, Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Drow Culture , Half-Drow Tav, Anti-Drow Racism, Anti-Tiefling Racism, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Baldur's Gate 3, Cleric Tav, Implied/Referenced S*xual Assault, (meaning the eventual discussion of Halsin's time in the underdark), Pining

Chapter One

Luna had seen a lot in her life but the events of the last tenday had left her unsettled and she didn’t care much for the feeling. It was probably the fact that she’d experienced true terror before in her past and she wasn’t keen to relive it again so soon. She was relatively young for her kind, only 50 or so years old, as a half-drow that settled her in her final years as a young adult. Were she human she might be considered middle aged or even older by the archaic standards by which they viewed women.

I guess that was something the drow do have right, holding our older women in reverence.

She shook the thought away, she knew the cost of that reverence was absolute tyranny under Lolth. Pushing her long white hair out of her eyes she peered out from her bedroll at her strange new companions. Sleep wouldn’t come easy for her and so she silently stood and retreated from the circle of safety in which they slept each night. Their forms were still, save for Karlach who let out a snore and a grunt every so often.

A tiefling barbarian powered by infernal mechanics, an vampiric elf with tragedy in his eyes, a cursed human man with too much mystery to make him simply a harmless wizard, a fairytale prince with a dark past, an alien from a different plane whose hardened armor likely shielded more than just her body, and another half human stuck worshipping a terrible goddess for unclear reasons.

The half smile that crept across her face in the moonlight held warmth. She couldn’t help but already feel a certain attachment to them. Was it too soon to call them friends? How does one describe a group of perfect strangers who are about to risk their lives together?   They were on the eve of storming a massive goblin war encampment. Where hopefully they’d be able to retrieve a Druid who might be able to heal them of the mindflayer tadpoles they’d found themselves infected with at the start of their adventure.

Halsin, they’d called him.

The handsome older tiefling at the grove seemed certain that if anyone could set everything to rights, it would be him. Luna held no love for the Druids of the Emerald Grove for she had seen their cruelty firsthand. While her Goddess, Eilstraee called her to good, it had been all she could do not to rip out the Druid Kagha’s throat when she had discovered her holding a child under the threat of death by a venomous snake. She could have killed a little tiefling girl all over a statue.

As a Cleric, her reverence for her Goddess was absolute but she was certain that the Dark Maiden wouldn’t call on her followers to kill children for removing a statue. Luna wasn’t educated in the ways of Sylvanus but surely he wouldn’t have wanted blood spilled over his idol. With a deep huff, she cleared the memory of Kagha from her mind and gazed up at the moonlight.

Moonbathing was her favorite thing to do since she’d made it to the surface. There wasn’t a moon or a sun in Menzoberanzan — just the Narbondel and the fairie fire of various shades that lit the cavernous spaces and houses, some bioluminescent flora and fauna existed as well. Largely, there was darkness and the bleakness of the Underdark had weighed heavy on her. They’d said it was because she was a “filthy half-breed” and that was why she couldn’t abide the Underdark. But the joke had been on every person who’d pursued her as she’d fled Menzoberranzan. Every member of the party was a full drow, a whole hunting party meant to eliminate her before she could escape the Underdark. Her survival had been mere dumb luck, because as she’d finally made it to the surface they’d overtaken her to discover it was a midday on a brilliantly sunny summer morning. They’d been forced to turn back, some falling to the ground in pain and being left by the group to suffer.

Luna had continued into the sun, her eyes and skin burned against the foreign rays of the sun — but that pain had been all that stood between her and freedom.

That had been almost 30 years ago but the memory still felt like a fresh wound in her mind. She forced the sounds of screaming and the curses chanted on the wind from the Clerics of Lolth. Instead, she let the moonlight kiss her skin as she offered her arms and her troubles up to the visage of her Goddess in her lunar form. Swaying lightly in the breeze as she allowed her muscles to ease and willed the stress and unease away. She scanned the reaches of her mind, her memories for something sweeter to replace them.

Images of perfect ripe berries, sunflowers, the yellowed and worn pages of her favorite book, and silver swords ringing true all flashed across her mind. Her favorite things never failed to bring a smile to her face. But something else, just a flash of something new had been in the mix: kind eyes and the warm words of the very Druid they currently sought to rescue.

The words were easy to know the source of, she had taken Halsin’s journal and his pipe from the Grove while Nettie hadn’t been looking. While she didn’t approve of stealing, she couldn’t help but want to know more about the Elf that everyone spoke so highly of on both sides of the simmering conflict. Besides, she had told herself repeatedly that she would return them to him as soon as she rescued him so it truly wasn’t stealing. Many of her nights were sleepless and reading over his notes and journal entries had been like getting to know the man a through one-sided correspondence. Luna couldn’t help but notice an obvious warmth in the tone of his words, even in something as clinical as his research notes.

The flowers were drawn so lovingly, as were the animals depicted in the quite talented sketches that accompanied many of the notes. She thought of the soft Druid that must have drawn them — probably meek and scared in the hands of their goblin captors. Her resolve strengthened.

The kind eyes took her a moment longer to connect, but after a moment a blush crept across her dusky, storm-blue skin. They were Zevlor’s eyes, of course, the kind and handsome older tiefling that had sent them in search of Halsin in the first place. Luna had always had a soft spot for people who care for those around them who are weaker. Zevlor’s dedication to his kin had been admirable.

She’d wished she hadn’t talked him out of laying out Aradin, that failed adventurer, but alas it has been the right thing to do. Violence was nessecary, yes, but only as a last resort when the time for words was passed. With the new lightness of spirit provided by her meditation came the clarity of the truth before her. It was very likely that unavoidable violence lay on the horizon for Luna. It wasn’t that she was afraid for herself, as a tempest Cleric, her ability to heal and destroy had already made her valuable for her camp-mates.

Luna recalled the stunned look on Gale of Waterdeep’s face when his thunderwave had missed during the battle at the front gate of the Druid Grove where they’d first happened upon Wyll, Zevlor, and Aradin. She had stepped up right after and with a deft hand, thunderwaved two goblins from the top of the outcropping on which they’d chosen to make their stand. The goblins had perished and her party had been able to fight its way to the small group in front of the gate to rescue them from the Worg and Bugbear which had surrounded them.

“What kind of Cleric are you exactly?”

Gale had done little to disguise the shock in his voice as he asked that question. It was colored with both amusement and surprise. Luna had smiled sweetly at the question and offered her answer. In truth she had barely avoided the wizard and her other companions. She was powerful but like the storms she wielded, her power was unruly and dangerous.

No, it wasn’t herself that she was afraid for.

Zevlor popped into her mind once more, triggered by the memory. His dusky crimson skin, the wrinkles and ridges that adorned his rugged face, and the nervous twitch of his tail as they’d spoken together in private in his cave. With a start, she shook his face loose of her mind and started back for the campfire. Sleep would be important to the success of tomorrow’s battle. She had already let Astarion feed on her, she couldn’t handle any distractions or weaknesses.

She climbed back into her thin bedroll, flat on her back to look at the stars as she let the sweet sounds of the evening carry her to sleep.

—*—*——*—*—

The battles had been trying, but they had lived to tell the tale — but only just. Sneaking in through a weak wall in the temple facade had proven a key strategy, she was grateful for Wyll and his ability to blast down the rubble. It had allowed them to bypass the leaders and goblins within as they’d made their way back to where Astarion had spotted a bear being tortured by the goblins.

It was very likely, this was their Druid but they had no way of knowing for sure.

Only Wyll and Karlach had supported her in her decision to free the bear without knowing fully. But her companions had followed her into battle nonetheless. The large brown cave bear had in fact, been the Druid Halsin and he’d noted her potential madness at freeing a bear with no questions asked.

The moment Luna had laid eyes on him out of wildshape form, something had caught in her chest. Something she’d never felt before. She’d seen many handsome men and women in her time, surely this wasn’t just about Halsin being easy on the eyes. He was an altogether unexpected thing, the soft and meek Druid she had been anticipating was instead an unusually large elf, built more like an orc than any elf she’d ever laid eyes upon. It was another thought for her to bury in her mind for another time. There was additional bloodshed ahead of them and it didn’t look like it was something they would return alive from.

When Halsin had offered to go with them to finish off the goblin leadership and the hundreds of goblins within the ruined temple of Selune, Luna had eagerly agreed. She found the presence of a large cave bear padding softly behind her, oddly soothing despite the way he seemed to unsettle everyone else in her party.

The full drow that had awaited them in an antechamber, Minthara had chilled Luna to the bone. There had been such hate in her eyes and it had forced bitter memories to the forefront of her mind. Like savage childhood beatings from Lolth’s favored that looked just like the cruel drow woman, who they’d come upon plotting the mass murder of the Druid grove with the eagerness of someone picking what to eat for dinner. Killing her had been easier than she would have liked to admit. 

Halsin and Karlach had lead the charge in, with Luna, Astarion, and Wyll on their heels. But Minthara’s focus had lasered in on Luna.

“Oh, whelps like you are quite rare for a reason, half-breed”

The Paladin’s words had settled on her like ice that threatened to paralyze her and she had felt the familiar panic rise in her chest one more. She was never going back, she’d sooner die. Minthara could tell she had hit a nerve and continued her line of verbal attacks, coupled with brutal physical blows to Karlach.

“Usually, someone would do you the kindness of putting an abomination like you out of your misery as a babe, how uncared for you were that they couldn’t have spared you the shame.”

When it happened, her heart had been beating so hard that it pounded in her ears like some artificer’s creation. Her blood ran cold and the rage she felt within had let loose to a blissful emptiness that overwhelmed Luna like the tide pulling her out. What had come next was a surprise to everyone but her, oh she knew what would happen and it had been too late to stop it.

Luna’s power had exploded it out in a violent storm surge of thunder and lightning, like a typhoon contained within a dropped flask — it engulfed everything around it. Wyll and Astarion were lucky enough to be standing far enough back to simply be knocked to the ground and hit with bits of debris from the blast. Minthara, Halsin, and Karlach couldn’t say the same.

The sound of Minthara’s scream growing quieter before fading away completely as she had plummeted to her death in the cavern below them was all Luna could hear as her eyes had tried to refocus from the blast. Tears had already brimmed in her eyes, if Karlach and Halsin had been standing in the wrong place — not even her healing magic could bring them back from that fall.

“Luna! For gods sake, help!” Came Wyll’s voice on the ledge of the pit. His arm had been latched to the unconscious form of Halsin, dangling in the cavern. He had been knocked out of wildshape and was elven again. Astarion was clinging to Wyll’s ankles and pulled back with all of his might to try to stop the warlock from sliding off the edge after the Druid.

She’d bit back the forming tears and dove down to the ledge and spread herself out flat, grabbing Halsin’s other arm. Still, the three of them weren’t enough to haul the Druid back to safety and she could feel them slipping after him.

“We need to let go damnit!” Astarion had hissed as he continued to hold Wyll’s legs.

Luna knew he had meant it to save their lives, but still she had held fast and pulled in an attempt to accomplish the impossible. She was unwilling to let Halsin die alone because of her foolish lack of control. She had been so ready to accept her death, she had just needed to get the other two to let go.

“Take Wyll!”

She’d shouted back at Astarion, hoping he’d choose to save the two of them as opposed to dying. The look of shock on his face had been new.

“No one is letting go, solider” Had come a groggy voice over their heads as Karlach had reached over the edge and grabbed Halsin by the back of his tunic. She had clearly been knocked unconscious by the blast and was bleeding from a large gash on her head. Her arrival was like a hero of old, auspiciously timed when all hope seemed to be lost. Tav wondered if Karlach had become used to having to save the day constantly as a result of her hard decade in Avernus.

Her fingers had still clung to the massive Druid’s arm, his skin slick from the battle but her grip felt more secure. Karlach had begun to slowly pull Halsin back up as the three of them scrambled to help. Incredibly, with her help it had been easy to move him.

Luna scrambled to her feet to make room for the massive Druid’s form and she’d encouraged Karlach to lay down as well.

“Please Karlach, i’m so sorry this is all my fault, let me heal you”

The guilt that threatened to paralyze her had risen like a tide from within. It’s all my fault. She had willed a steady breath into her lungs as Karlach settled before her. The moon controls the tides. She had repeated it to herself over and over. Before long her heart had begun to beat steadier and she had allowed herself to relax after a few moments.

Looking Karlach over had revealed some painful looking, but easily healed superficial wounds. Luna had quickly rummaged through her pouch to find the bottles she kept wrapped in grimy scraps of fabric so they didn’t break.

“Got a bottle of the strong stuff while you’re in there, solider?”

Karlach’s jokes had seemed quick but the wince she had made revealed that the humor was a simple front. Finally she had located the bottles she was looking for, glowing red and freshly brewed by her that morning. She’d always loved herbalism and luckily there were a lot of herbs and other reagents found on the road.

“Drink this, I promise you’ll feel good as new, friend.”

“Bottoms up, mate”

She’d then been able to turn her attention to the Druid, she had found him being tended to by the less capable hands of Wyll and Astarion. The latter being the real culprit. Wyll had removed his jacket and forced Astarion out of his to create a pillow under Halsin’s head. Halsin had appeared awake but only barely, his eyes looking up at the cavern ceiling above him without focus.

His eyes had seemed to try to find hers as soon as she had entered his field of vision when she leaned down to look him over.

“By… Sylvanus” He had murmured “My lady”

She’d found blood pooled on the ground under his head and more running slowly from one of his ears. It was then she bad been positive, her stomach sunk slightly at the truth, the bleeding in combination with the difficulty focusing had meant massive head trauma. Fatal, if unhealed.

“Shhhhh, it’s just a bump on the head, you’re going to be okay”

Wyll had glanced down at the blood pooled on the ground and then back to her, bristling at her obvious lie to the Druid. Sure, it had been much more than a bump on the head — But Luna planned to make good on her promise. There had been no need to panic the large elf. She liked Wyll, he was brave and had the makings of the kind of hero she’d always heard about in tales that had inspired her. But he was also young.

She had shot Wyll a firm look before turning her attention back to the Druid. Luna had then gently eased his head down flat on to the ground and removed the makeshift pillow from under him. She’d tossed them over toward Astarion who had immediately taken issue with the state of his jacket. He’d held the bloodstained garment aloft with a look of disdain.

“Would you look at the state of —“

 Luna had fixed Astarion with one of her harder looks and his sentence had trailed off. While Luna never liked to issue threats of violence unless absolutely necessary — she also wasn’t above letting someone know they were toying with the line, with a single glance. Growing up the way she had and being alone for so long, that look had been a life saving mechanism.

She’d turned her attention to her charge once more and had found him even more dazed than he had been only moments before, a smile had spread across his broad face as his eyes tried hard to focus on her. Something had stirred like a tickle in her chest at the sweet look on the dazed man’s face. What was wrong with her? He was dying for goddesses sake and she’d allowed a momentary distraction.

“It’s you” he’d murmured

“Shhhhh”

“Eilstraee, I saw you in a painting…” Halsin’s voice had trailed off.

Luna had fought back the blush she’d felt at such an obvious but flattering mistake. He was concussed and needed healing, he didn’t know what he was talking about. She’d hushed him gently again and closed her eyes. She had looked to the night sky within her and the beautiful pendant of the moon hanging on its canvas. A deep breath had centered her within her power as she summoned the strongest healing spell she had been capable of in that moment.

In hindsight it had probably wasteful to expend the most powerful healing spell she had on hand before they’d dealt with Dror Ragzlin. Still, it had worked out for the best, the hobgoblin had been no match for a full strength cave bear blessed with the might of her goddess. Of course he’d been helped by a freshly healed and mended Karlach, Wyll, Astarion, and herself.

They’d agreed there would have to be a discussion on what exactly happened when Minthara had pushed her too far. She’d begged for their patience and to respect her privacy. It was the same respect given to all of them. They had agreed with varying levels of ease — some outright vowing to pry it out of her. There was a lot she should have probably said to her new companions but she couldn’t begin to understand how to start. For now she was content in respecting their secrets and begging them to let her have hers.

They were grateful to reach camp and the rest of their traveling companions that night. Gale had prepared a stew of foraged roots and some fish he’d magicked out of the Chinothar. It bubbled on a smaller fire the wizard maintained just for his nightly prepared meals. Always ready for whenever his companions were ready to eat as he lounged in a chair nearby, reading a heavy tome.

Strangely, even now as they began their post-battle and evening rituals, her mind drifted back to sweet moment when Halsin had awoken freshly healed. She’d been holding one of his hands as the spell took hold. As he had come back to full consciousness, his thumb had begun to stroke her hand tenderly. Luna had tried not to think much of the action until the Druid had sheepishly cleared his throat and pulled his hand away from her grasp with an awkward chuckle.

But now, standing outside her tent, gathering her supplies for a bath her mind drifted back to the gentle touch of his large hand in hers. Why did she feel so strange after healing a man she’d just met? Sure, the elf was attractive but she was sure it wasn’t that. She’d taken people to bed before and none had caused such an unusual reaction. Logic clearly pointed to a romantic affliction. However drow were not known for being romantic and in that regard Luna was more drow than human.

Maybe I should just bed the giant elf and get him out of my system.

Her goddess embodied love of all types but romantic love had always seemed beyond her understanding. Eilstraee had been patient always in their meditations, but deep down she worried her goddess believed such a thing beyond her. Not that it matters and I’m missing much, she thought.   She enjoyed carnal relations and had never met anyone to change that to anything deeper. She shook these questions and frustrations from her mind as started off toward the river, sundries in hand.

By the roaring fire, several of her companions had already gathered around warm bowls of food, fresh from their baths. Tomorrow they were due back at the Grove, Halsin having already headed there right after the fall of Dror Ragzlin to set the escalating conflict to rights. She continued past her companions with a quiet smile, polite but quick enough to not invite company.

As she scrubbed the grime and blood of the day away her mind drifted to Minthara again. She’d been a Baenre. After so long free of that nightmare and yet the conflicts and horrors of her people had found her already. A Baenre. Minthara’s family had essentially ruled Menzoberranzan since not long after its founding. Of course Lolth’s will was the final word, but the Matron Mother of House Banere had only the Spider Queen herself above her in station.

Her heart began to race. Even a Half Drow like herself, kept out of sight as a servant and whipping post, knew about House Baenre. All Minthara had probably ever known was violence and at the end, she’d died a violent death. In her chest, her heart heaved at that thought. Her eyes brimmed with tears, she refused to allow to fall, she wouldn’t cry for that monster.

Am I any better than they are after this?

 As she lingered in the water the tears had fallen anyway, carving little rivers of their own in the blood and muck on her cheeks — the evidence of her guilt. She scrubbed harder at her face in the broken reflection on the surface of the water.

Scrub as hard as you want, the truth will always be there. You’re just. like. them.

[rouiyan]

𝘞𝘌’𝘙𝘌 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘚𝘛𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘌𝘙𝘚 ; 𝘛𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘌𝘙 [ 𝘭.𝘮𝘬 ]

⧏ RELEASED — READ FULL FIC HERE ⧐

marks manages to land himself in a forty-two hour drive across the country with his archaeology major ex-girlfriend in the passenger seat. but for the duration of the whole ride, the only thing he can think about is that one twitter meme that states that “a majority of archeologists are women due to their natural ability to dig up the past.”

✧ photographer!mark lee x (fem.) archaeology major!reader ✧ exes to lovers, road trip au, referenced college au ✧ fluff/angst, hurt/comfort

✧ full fic w/c : 25.2k ✧ teaser w/c : 828 ✧ teaser disclaimers : food tw, knife tw, profanity

author's note — uhh.. well this is kinda awkward. i know i haven't posted content in a long ass time... sadly, this is by no means an official return to writing, but instead a piece that i've written on and off for over two years! now that i've been given a window of unoccupied time to finish it to my liking, i hope you look forward to it! i've missed you all btw

「 DAY 00, 01:42 PM 」— CUPID DABBLES IN BURNT TOAST

"oh, come on. i thought you were nicer than that!"

it's at times like these where mark is led to think that haechan only considers him as his very best friend for three things. his toaster, his car, and then of course, how easy it is to torment him.

he’s experienced enough to know that the guilt he feels is really only a direct result of haechan's guilt-tripping antics. and so he responds sarcastically, "yeah, nice enough to save a girl from a week of being in close proximity to the person she hates most in the world."

the toaster dings and haechan catches the two pieces of toast in their flight. he sticks one in his mouth, breaking off a bite, whilst turning to toss the other onto his friend's plate. chewing roughly, he leans back onto the counter opposite of mark, watching in contempt as the latter spreads jam across the burnt slice of bread.

haechan points a finger and juts it in his direction, offhandedly commenting, "i'm starting to think that it's you who hates her," a fact that both friends know isn't true. and because of that, mark doesn't make a big deal of denying it. "i don't hate her. i'm just..." he trails off and haechan takes the opportunity to craftily stage his intervention.

"not trying to make her uncomfortable?"

"yeah, i guess."

"not wanting her to hate you more?"

"there's that too."

"not over her?"

"hey, not cool."

a passage of silence elapses as mark sets the butter knife aside in exchange for his orange juice. gulping it down, he gets through two thirds of the glass before haechan perks up again. "actually, i think she still has a thing for you."

mark sputters, barely swallowing his drink before it could hurl out his disbelieving mouth. trying to smooth over his show of defiance, mark recovers a nonchalant expression as he deadpans, "there's no way. you know better than i do that she fucking hates me."

haechan takes another bite, aware but indifferent at how the crumbs have been gathering at his feet. his eyes trail absentmindedly to the clock on the wall behind mark, but only briefly for the hands are far past where he'd expected them to be. shoving the last of the toast into his mouth, he rushes to gather his belongings whilst uttering to his bewildered company, "shit, i'm gonna be late. pack it up."

obediently downing the rest of his orange juice, mark grabs his half-eaten, jam-slathered, burnt-to-a-crisp toast in one hand as the other reaches for his car keys on the way out. the unbearably hot sun of an early summer afternoon only hurries mark further along to his car, his wishes that he had worn shorts instead of jeans already too late to come true. but once both car doors have been shut and seat belts have been strapped, haechan carries on with his agenda without missing a beat.

"just give her the ride, mark. she'll keep you company and, i don't know, make sure you're not falling asleep at the wheel. and plus, she said she'll split the toll and gas fees."

mark shoves the last bite of toast into his mouth, the charred-ness of it procuring a nice crunch. even after he swallows, it takes him a second to respond. and though his answer is still far from budging, it sounds more like a justification, as if he needs convincing of his own opinion. "tell her it's cheaper to just catch a flight. and faster too."

exasperated, haechan retorts under his breath, "that's the same thing i told you," to which mark gives a raised brow, not catching what he said. instead of repeating, haechan only says, "just take her. you guys need to make up anyways."

that renders mark quiet for the rest of the ride as he tosses the thought over in his head. it's a thought that he knows he's been pushing away for far too long, hoping one day it'll become redundant enough to simply forget about. unknowingly, mark begins to speed a little, his turns become a little tighter, and when the traffic light signals red, the nose of his car is pulled daringly close to the car in front.

mark parallel parks shoddily in front of the archeology department building four minutes earlier than google maps had estimated. his best friend looks over at him expectantly and that in itself is enough to squeeze the reluctant words right out of him. "fine, i'll think about it."

haechan's face lights with a satisfied glow as he swings his backpack over his shoulder, making his way out of the car as quickly as he can. and just before mark can think to wish him good luck on his last exam of the spring semester, haechan blurts out the one crucial detail he had neglected to bring up until now.

"thank god, because i already told her you said yes."

copyright © 2023 rouiyan all rights reserved.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

https://www.tumblr.com/blissfulphilospher/748378340909531136/so-i-dont-know-why-i-am-posting-this-but-i-had?source=share

It's funny when these people pretend to like book! Rhaenyra, and when they explain why they like her, they basically describe her in the same way that people who hate her do.

También es irónico cómo estas personas se llaman a sí mismas "equipo de mujeres malvadas" y luego lloran y vilipendian a Rhaenyra porque no quería estar en una fiesta de cumpleaños donde le iban a faltar el respeto, y luego dicen que estaba siendo mala con un niño, del que ni siquiera ha hecho una broma inofensiva. ¿Se supone que debo creer que te gustan personajes como Cersei cuando ni siquiera soportas a un adolescente con razones justificables para estar enojado?

Yeah I've got manyyyy issues with people like op. Like you said, the way they describe Rhaenyra is...telling. As is how they describe Alicent.

First of all: op claims that Alicent tried to "mend the relationship" between Rhaenyra and Aegon. That's just false. Alicent proposed Viserys marry Aegon to Rhaenyra, in an attempt to get Aegon closer to the throne. Which is partially why Viserys refused to approve the match.

Op is engaging in a lot of speculation, like the claim that "Daemon manipulated Rhaenyra" into hating her siblings. There's literally no evidence that Rhaenyra hates her siblings prior to Luke's murder. Is she close to them? Not her brothers, no, but she did have some kind of relationship with Helaena, as is implied by her calling her "my sweet sister, Helaena."

I'm not going to go into how op sees Daemon, but I will say, how they view him and Rhaenyra is basically just how Hess does. Rhaenyra isn't allowed to form her own opinions on her family, negative or otherwise, and Daemon is an evil monster.

I will agree with op that Rhaenyra isn't a good person, however, that's the only time. The things op accuses Rhaenyra of are...really not true other than the fact that she fed Vaemond to Syrax.

They accuse her of "offering her brothers for Laenor...she hosted a lavish feast in a starving city, she was a woman and let the men do the fighting."

Let's unpack that. The quote op is referring to concerning Laenor is:

"My half-brothers would be more to his taste," [Rhaenyra] told the king.

Fire & Blood: Heirs of the Dragon - A Question of Succession

This is taken out of context in the worst possible way by op. Rhaenyra is arguing with her father about marrying Laenor, trying to convince him not to force her to marry him. She's referencing the fact that Laenor is gay, she's in no way "offering" her brothers to him. This is an intentional choice to interpret Rhaenyra's choices as they're written in the worst possible light.

Op continues this with a very tired argument many Rhaenyra antis use: that Rhaenyra feasted in KL. The only evidence of this happening is from Septon Eustace. A man who wasn't even in KL, was noted by the writers of F&B to be unreliable due to his hatred of Rhaenyra, and who literally crowned Aegon. So, using critical thinking, we can infere that the idea that Rhaenyra feasted in KL is extremely unlikely.

As for the fighting, yes Rhaenyra didn't fight. That was due to the fact that she had no training and was recovering from a traumatic miscarriage. Normally I wouldn't point this out as an issue, but op groups it in with Rhaenyra's "flaws". Somehow, Rhaenyra not fighting in battles is a mark against her as a person. Again, intentionally a bad faith interpretation.

No, I agree with op that HOTD's changes to Rhaenyra are shitty, but the reasons are just very off. For example:

I agree with parts of this, but I do want to point out a few things. Such as, why are they calling out Arya fans? Like what does that have to do with anything? I'm sure it's because Arya is a non-conforming woman, which op isn't a fan of, considering their seeming obsession with femininity. It shows how op's personal biases are influencing their view of both the show and the book.

I'm right there with you anon on the their spiel about Aegon's birthday. Rhaenyra was being disrespected and undermined by everyone after the birth of her brother. Is it any wonder that she wasn't excited to go to an event where everyone was expecting her to be disinherited? Op literally was just saying how they loved Rhaenyra "hating" her siblings lmao.

Op also complains about the white hart incident, as well as Aegon's prophecy. This is very much a revealing complaint. They said they hate Rhaenyra being made into the "protagonist" of the show. This is interesting since Rhaenyra is the protagonist of the Dance in the book too. She's morally gray, but it's still a fact; the greens are the antagonists and the blacks are the protagonists. The white hart was confirmation of Rhaenyra being the true heir, something which is also true in the book. I don't understand how that fact being affirmed is wrong.

As for Aegon's prophecy, this is something almost every single Rhaenyra anti has complained about. This is something GRRM himself told the showrunners he wanted, which some people complain is a retcon. It's not, the books aren't done yet, this is GRRM giving us new information about his unfinished work. It also confirmed how off the rails D&D's ending is according to what GRRM has planned for the books.

Anyway, op also really hates daemyra, another thing that's very much book accurate. Op purposefully chooses to ignore any textual evidence that daemyra was more than a political alliance, but they have a history of picking and choosing canon.

I very much agree with you anon about how shallow op's love of Cersei seems to be. They strike me as the kind of person who refuses to see the grayness GRRM is known for. After all, they are frothing at the mouth at the idea of Rhaenyra being a complex character, so I somehow doubt that they can appreciate Cersei's complexity.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

UMMM UM I'M SORRY TO DO THIS BUT UHH

HOBIE x SPIRITUAL!OC

HOBIE X BLACK!OC THAT'S LIKE ERYKAH BADU

Do you see it do you see it

Like an incense-burning super-calm natured, grounded, centered black sista

They both have natural hair she compliments him on all the time. In fact, it was one of the first things she said to him - and it stuck with Hobie. Hardly anyone compliments his hair - that like that.

To others, his hair 'interesting' or at most 'stylish'. But he's never had someone call his hair beautiful, or healthy, or inspiring.

She's like 'brotha you need to put me onto what you're on' because seeing Hobie with hair so free and thriving in the world is something so rare and valuable

And her saying that sticks with him so much.

She talks JUST as cryptically as he does.

Most of the things she says are almost phrased like poems. Always dropping little nuggets of knowledge about spirit and racism and balance

Lots of time she'll make references to poems, of quote lines of books from black female writers like Maya Angelou.

She sees him after a long day, telling him 'Look at you, giving a caged bird a reason to sing'

Their conversations sound confusing as FUCK. Hobie and her are always talking in metaphors and making jokes referencing leftist thinkers

They're very into black love.

They bond over literature written by black anti-apartheid thinkers in South Africa, she teaches him how to celebrate Kwanzaa - after Hobie spent years ignoring the holidays (bad memories)

She probably plays the guitar or the bass, but her music is the opposite of his. Hers is the 'smoke sesh' type of slow lofi. Full of hypnotic soothing cards and whisper vocals. Just a politically charged, just as socially concious

She's a lot more spiritual than him, and it's something he has to get used to.

It takes him a bit.

She's ALWAYS burning incense. She'll tuck one behind her air and forget about it, she only wears Earth and jewel tones.

Her house is stacked high with nonfiction books, and she's the only one who can make his cup of tea better than he can - she even got him into green tea. Now he knows what oolong is. What the hell

Sure she makes him take off his boats EVERYTIME he comes over - and was horrified the first time he just walked up in her place with them on - he's still over there all the time.

It's one place he knows he can find calm, or feel safe.

To be honest, she's probably not into his music too much.

She's not into the big crowds and big speakers and drinking at the venues.

She loves hearing HIM play. She doesn't need the bright lights or vocalists or drummers or any of it at all-

Instead she'll just sit on the floor of his boathouse, barefoot and criss cross as she watches him strum away.

And she ADORES when he plays accoustic - something he'll do exclusively for her

The DYNAMIC THE DYNAMIC OKAY

She's not a Spider person. She's a helper in this world too, but she'd rather be a healer than a hero.

It's how she keeps her peace. She's a lot more quiet and soft-spoken than him, but not because she's shy. She's just chilling. Fully committed to never letting no one stress her over NOTHING

Half the time Hobie will be joking or messing or playfully teasing her and she'll be like 'Boy, stop stressing me out.'

And when he's pushed to the edge, full of anger and bitterness and resent at the world, at what they're forced to, by the responsibility he carriers - she's always there to rub circles into his shoulders, putting a record on the player as she fixes them some tea.

He doesn't believe in all that mystic shit, not that much.

The first time he went to her place he raised an eyebrow, asking about her supposed 'rock collection'.

'Those are crystals.'

She explains what they are, and why she keeps them. How she uses them in her spiritual work. He thinks it's a load of bullocks.

Does he actually think this hunk of clear rock is going to 'purify' anything in a world like theirs? NO.

He won't say it, but she can read his vibes like a book.

But she explains that - regardless of all that - most of her crystals were taken from the motherland. And that she's happy having them, it's a way to reclaim a bit of the land they all were taken from.

When he asks what the hell is motherland is she's like

'Africa, Hobie.'

They have some interesting conversations. They were the world VERY VERY differently, but they always see eye-to-eye eventually.

He may not believe in it, but he believes in her.

And when he's at the end of his rope, coming to get place beat to hell and back - and she puts on that incense, the sound of her music hypnotic and sedative - he can't help but feel like he's lost in that world with her.

Hobie believes in anarchy, in all things. He'd love to think that the universe has it all figured out, that everything is in perfect balance as is - but he's not buying it.

And yet sometimes she seems so sure, and so grounded, that he can't help but fall back on her. And she's okay with it, that's what she's there for.

She's happy to exist in silence with him, quietly teaching him the difference between Frankincense and Myrrh incense, the historical uses and how to tell the difference.

She gives him small gifts if things she's made - Florida Water (the spiritual cologne not literal Florida water 😭) for him to use as protection, a cowrie shell bracelet, herbal tea blends made by hand.

She sews up holes in his vest or suit, humming quietly as he lays on the floor, soul food cooking on the stove

DO YOU FEEL THE VIBES DO YOU DO YOU

He's fire and brimstone and loud guitar solos. She's wind and earth, and meditation sessions. She's not a pacifist and she doesn't judge

Despite being two very different people, who approach life in two very different ways, they still find themselves on the same path of wanting to help people

HOBIE AND A SPIRITUAL SISTA. HOBIE AND A BLACK!HIPPIE!READER. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.

LET HOBIE FIND PEACE

[stratossphere]

whiskey | v.v

you and ville have been drinking whiskey all night, and everyone knows that whiskey elicits honestly and talkativeness.

warnings: everyone is drunk, smut, oral (both receiving), fingering, light choking, unprotected sex, bam is painfully unobservant

word count: 6.3k

— —

Whiskey was a mistake. Every single time, without fail, it was a mistake.

"Y/n doesn't shut the fuck up when she drinks whiskey. Might be good for her."

Those words from Bam had been how you had ended up in the rare form you were in by this point, and although it was too late to be seriously worried about it, you still knew that you were going to regret the third of Mige’s Jameson that you had put away throughout the night.

Oh. And the fact that your whiskey talkativeness was rearing its head in the form of talking Ville's ear off on Mige's balcony. It's a good thing he was into existential bullshit.

"—so if that ever happens to me, I'll shoot myself." You were saying, referencing how Bam had stepped completely out of the apartment and downstairs to get into another massive argument with Jenn on the phone. "If someone is so obsessed with you that you can't even have an hour of time to yourself, then you're going to end up like Kurt Cobain did because of Courtney Love."

"I don't think that's why that happened." Ville's eyes narrowed in skepticism, but you were already moving onto the next topic in your head. You were sitting up in your chair, legs crossed and leaning slightly over Ville's armrest of his chair where he was lying down with his hands clasped over his chest. He'd already passed his wild, energy-crazed portion of your night of drinking, and was now in a lull as he listened and half-responded to your thoughtless babbling.

"Do you like Nirvana, by the way? I kind of hate them." It was something you kept to yourself, because Nirvana was apparently like some god-send from heaven above or something according to everyone else in the world, but Ville seemed like a good person to bring it up to. The both of you had similar taste in music, anyway.

"On a bad day when I'm feeling like a piece of shit, yes." He responded, tilting his head more in your direction where he had been subconsciously leaning away due to how close you were to his chair. You didn't blame him, but drunk you was way too fucked up to notice it anyway.

"Do you think Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain?" Bam said yes, you said no. It was often a topic of conversation once booze and music entered the same conversation, and it was also a question you brought up with new people to gauge their opinions as well. Ville paused for a second in thought.

"No. I'm sure she drove him to put the gun in his mouth, though." He concurred with your theory, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips when you gasped in agreement. "I've heard they were very sexually compatible but hated each other outside of it. A good blowjob can only distract you from insanity for so long."

How very crudely philosophical.

You laughed at that sentence for a good while before composing yourself enough to respond to his theory.

"You really think so?" You vastly disagreed with that theory, in all honesty. It seemed that way until you were actually in the situation, and if someone was crazy enough, nothing mattered. He hummed.

"Oh, I know so. I've had a lot of crazy girlfriends." He reminded you, referencing all of the horror stories he'd told you and Bam about girls cutting off his hair in his sleep, beating him up, and all sorts of other horrible shit. "You're telling me if someone gave you such good head that you could've considered yourself addicted, you wouldn't do a little overlooking of certain behaviors?"

"I'd have to see what 'good head' feels like. I've only gotten mediocre at best." See? Definitely a thing you wouldn't have said to someone I didn't know very well whilst sober. Especially not Ville, who you found yourself having a harder and harder time behaving yourself around everytime you saw him. He tutted.

"That's unfair. Everyone should get to experience good head in their life." There was a hint of suggestive nature in his tone, and you swallowed your moment of slight shock by dancing around his innuendo with innocence in your voice.

"What qualifies as a good blowjob to you?" Okay, so maybe you were setting yourself up for the chain of events that he was so clearly hinting at. His gaze hadn’t left yours this entire time, and he didn’t exactly seem shy on the conversation topic. But that was no one's business but his and your own.

"Well, as a rule of thumb, you should always lick before you suck." He began, holding out a finger to signal that was the first of several criteria. "Second, you should have pretty eyes. I like it when someone looks at me while they're sucking my cock."

You hoped he didn't notice the shift of your legs in your seat so that you could press your thighs together. What the fuck did he expect, saying things like that?

"What counts as pretty eyes?" You could've said his own, because goddamn were they hard to look away from, but you held your tongue in favor of chasing the bait he was so clearly putting out. He reached out then, taking your chin between his fingers and holding your gaze intensely.

"Your eyes are very beautiful." He said, his eyes flitting from yours down to your lips. You leaned a little further towards his chair, your hand now fully on his armrest with your fingers touching his arm as you held his gaze in a state of aroused intoxication. He never let go of your chin. "Do you know what I want?"

You nodded dumbly, voice coming out hoarse when you replied. "Yeah."

"Are you going to give it to me?"

You refrained from answering for fear you’d let something along the lines of I'll give you whatever the hell you want slip instead of just saying yes again. He took this as a sign, dipping his head and then touching his lips to yours for the first time. Your breath caught in your throat as his hand moved from your chin down to your own hand, which he took before moving to press your palm into the straining crotch of his jeans.

"Bam's going to be down there for a minute and everyone else is passed out." He reassured at your uneasy glance through the glass door that led into the kitchen of Mige's apartment. "You'll be fine."

You rubbed your palm against his hard-on, earning a low groan from deep in his chest as he kept his hand over yours the entire time. You then shifted to get his jeans undone, impatience taking over as you rushed to get him to where you wanted him.

Once you had gotten the button and zipper open, he helped to get his jeans down just enough to free his cock, which was already hard and leaking as it hit his stomach. He let out a small breath of relief at the ease of pressure, but it quickly shook and died in his mouth when you reached out and wrapped your hand around him.

As you began to stroke his cock slowly, using his precum to slick your hand, you slid off of your chair and down onto your knees, encouraging one of his hands into your hair. As he watched like a hawk, you replaced your hand with your tongue, running the tip along the vein that went up the underside of his cock and listening to the way he exhaled shakily.

"Fuck. Good girl." He groaned, hand tightening in your hair as you continued to lick across and around his tip, focusing on his slit and pulling a low-toned moan from his lips in the process. When you continued to only tongue at his tip, his grip on your hair pulled you back. "Don't play with it, sweetheart."

You allowed him to push your head back down, taking him into your mouth with your cheeks hollowed out as you sucked at every inch that pushed past your lips. With his words echoing in your head, your eyes then flitted up to his, holding his gaze where he was already looking down at you with a coy glimmer. He moaned again at the sight.

"You look so beautiful sucking cock." He breathed as he took his free hand and cupped your cheek, his voice almost unintelligible over the sounds of you choking as he continued to push your head down so that he was hitting the back of your throat.

You keened at the praise, leaning into his touch as much as you could with him still in your mouth. You wanted him to keep talking, because every word out of his mouth was so sinfully baritone, but you wanted to hear him moan more, so you continued to suck him down while you ran your tongue along the underside of his cock.

However, just as you were getting really into it, you were suddenly being pulled away by the hand in your hair, forcing you to pop off of his cock with your mouth still open as you tilted your head up in his direction with a whine of protest. His hand moved out of your hair and back to your chin before he ran his thumb over your lip to collect the spit that had been beginning to drip down your chin.

"Bam just came back inside." He looked completely unbothered by the situation, but you felt panic rising in your chest when Bam neared the glass door right behind you only a mere second after Ville had finished tucking himself back into his pants and pulling his shirt over the open zipper.

"Dude. Birth control makes Jenn a vicious bitch. I don't care if we have pregnancy scares at this point." He was complaining as soon as he had the door open, completely oblivious to the scene he had missed by less than a minute. You had quickly dropped down to sit on the ground with your back against your chair due to the fact that you didn't have enough time to climb back up, but he just looked towards you without a hint of recognition. "Aren't you on birth control? How come she's a fucking psycho and you're not?"

"Well, yeah, but it makes you like, super horny sometimes, so maybe she just misses your dick or something.” You supplied, silently praying your voice didn't sound as hoarse as it felt when you tried to speak in put-together sentences.

Your words were more for innuendo towards Ville than anything, but they still rang true.

"Whatever. I'm going to crash before this whiskey fucking knocks me out on my feet." He grumbled, shaking his head and turning back towards the door. "Have you two been up here the whole time?"

"Yes. You were right about her and the whiskey." Ville muttered, casting a side glance at you before snickering when you smacked his shoulder at his insult. Bam chuckled at that before motioning inside.

"Is it cool if I take the bed? Last stunt I did fucked up my back." In his early twenties and already complaining about his back. Although, the stunt he was referring to had looked pretty painful, but still. "One of you can have the other side whenever you come to bed."

"Have sweet dreams and don't let the bedbugs bite!" You sang as he finally pulled the door back open, earning a middle finger from him before he slammed the door behind him and disappeared back into the house.

That left you and Ville.

"Well? What now?" Ville looked down at you, releasing the hold he'd had on his shirt hem and leaning back slightly in his seat. You glanced down at his still-unzipped fly with a racing heart.

"Let me finish." You requested, getting back up onto your knees and then resting your chin on the chair's armrest just inches from his fingers. He chuckled, reaching out to brush stray strands of hair back that had fallen into your face.

"No."

"What? Why not?" You whined, your voice coming out muffled as he ran his thumb across your lips and pushed slightly. You were consciously aware that he was purposely spreading your spit all over your mouth, but you let him because you were afraid if he stopped touching you now that he wouldn't start again.

"Because I said so. Don't whine." He then motioned for you to get back into your chair, which you did with only a minor frown on your face before you were sitting with your legs crossed facing him, which was exactly how all of this had started in the first place.

"You know, you're a bossy fucker when you drink whiskey." You pointed out sourly, resting your elbow on the arm of your chair and then dropping your chin into your palm. He chuckled at that as he re-zipped his pants, sitting up once he was finished and turning to mimic your position with his elbow on his armrest.

"Do you want me to eat your pussy or not? Because that's why I stopped you." He said boldly, his words coming out so calm and collected that your soft gasp was audible over his voice. You just stared at him for a second, because Jesus Christ, before nodding slowly. His lips curled at your response (or lack thereof). "Take off your pants."

"But Bam—"

"—is probably passed out by now." He finished for you, urging you on with his eyes as you began to work at the button and zipper of your own jeans. "If he comes out and sees, then he sees. We'll survive."

You’d survive, sure, but you weren’t sure you were very keen on the idea of Bam seeing his best friend with his idol's head between her legs. That would make for one hell of a conversation.

As you finished getting your jeans (and underwear, seeing as you weren’t exactly feeling patient) off, Ville moved off of his chair and onto yours, sliding down onto his stomach and waiting until you had gotten your underwear off from around your ankle before his hands were on your hips and he was yanking you down further on the chair.

"Keep your mouth shut though, yeah? Don't want to goad him right back out here." He said as his lips ghosted at your inner thigh, eyes just visible enough in the low lighting of the night to see the cocky look that clouded them. God. If he wasn't so handsome...

"You're really playing it up here, Elvis." You said dryly as he pushed your legs open further, a soft grin on your face as you tried not to let on how eager you were on the inside. He quirked his eyebrows.

"We'll see about that."

The first touch of his tongue to your clit made electricity shoot throughout your entire body. You inhaled sharply, immediately arching into his touch to get more just as he dragged his tongue from your entrance all the way back up to your clit.

"Shit." You whined softly, your whiskey-heightened senses thrumming at the feeling of his hand kneading the skin of your thigh while the very tip of his tongue dragged over your clit in shapes that you couldn't make out.

As his hand began to wander up your stomach, massaging your skin gently and just feeling you in general, you grabbed his wrist and led it under your shirt, a whine escaping your lips when he took the hint and let his fingers find your nipple, rubbing over it before pinching softly.

His tongue continued to lap at your clit, going just slow enough to where you were rolling your hips in a silent plead for more but at the same time fast enough to where you were beginning to bite back on your snark towards him telling you to keep your mouth shut.

You couldn't help but grab a handful of his hair, pulling slightly as small gasps and moans began to fall from your lips faster than you could consciously hold them back. A flame suddenly ignited in his eyes, and he pulled back.

"Be gentle and sit still." He warned, still staring at you whilst he pulled his hand from your shirt and readjusted himself slightly. You let out a huff of protest at him stopping, only to be silenced when you watched him give you a challenging look before he spat on your pussy and then dove right back in with an open mouth.

Jesus fucking Christ, he was ruining you for everyone else. And he only made it worse when you suddenly felt him slip two fingers into you. You really couldn't stop the full-blown moan that came from deep in your throat as he began to curl his fingers inside of you.

"Oh. Fuck, keep doing that. Oh my—Ville." At that exact moment, you finally understood his theory about good head and how it could make you ignore red flags. There was a lot you would let him put you through if it meant that you could have this whenever you wanted it.

He hummed in response to your babbling, hand only tightening on your thigh as he began to suck harshly at your clit, the added stimulation from his mouth and his merciless fingers making your vision feel like it was going to static while you writhed against his touch. You knew he had said to hold still, but you couldn't physically control yourself by that point.

Booze made you sensitive. No matter what kind, it always did. So, despite your best intentions, you were nearing your climax within a few minutes of his mouth/fingers combination. Your fingers had worked their way back into his hair, and although they weren't pulling due to his previous warning, you were touching as much as you could, your fingertips brushing his cheek every-so-often

Ville seemed to be able to tell, and as he continued to suck your clit, his tongue resumed swirling in tandem, pulling sounds out of you that you hadn't even known you knew how to make as the heat between your thighs extended to pulse through every inch of your body. Your leg that was over his shoulder shook as you unconsciously pressed your heel into his shoulder blade, the fabric of his black t-shirt bunching up as a result and exposing the pale skin of his back. Fuck, he was beautiful. You would obviously never say that out loud to him, but Christ.

"Don't stop. M' gonna cum." You groaned, back arching off of the chair as the hand that wasn't in his hair gripped your armrest tight enough to make your knuckles go white. He seemed to press his fingers even deeper into you then, hitting that sweet spot inside you that sent a sharp, completely different level of pleasure through you. "Fuck! Too much!"

"Shh. You can take it." He encouraged, breaking away only for a second to speak before he began to suck open-mouthed kisses to your clit just above his fingers. Everything felt overwhelming, and you had to reach up and press your knuckles forcefully to your lips in a desperate attempt to muffle the noise coming from your mouth in a steady, loud stream. "Cum on my tongue for me, love."

You didn't need to be told twice.

Your leg was shaking harshly by that point, and it only got worse as you came, your fingers pulling at his hair as you lost all sense of control while your hips pushed up towards his mouth and fingers. If he wanted to be mad about having his hair pulled, he was going to wait until you were done with one of the strongest orgasms you’d ever had in your life.

His name was a hoarse cry on your lips as he continued to fuck you with his fingers through your climax, only stopping and pulling his mouth away when you were physically pushing his head away due to a looming swell of overstimulation.

"No more. No more." You said breathlessly, falling back in the chair with no energy left to hold yourself up as you gasped to bring some air into your lungs. You could hear him chuckling as he slowly pulled his fingers out of you, but you couldn't open your eyes to look at him, instead just letting your hand fall out of his hair to rest on your stomach.

"Fuck, you're loud." Ville teased, making my face burn in embarrassment as you finally reopened your eyes just in time to see him wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. You kicked him gently when he sat up, a frown on your face as he began to slip your underwear back on for me.

"Shut up." You grumbled. Despite your kicking him, Ville pushed your leg out of the way once he'd gotten your underwear back over your hips and leaned down over you, settling rested between your knees before he was kissing your pout away. You deepened the kiss, hand coming up to cup his cheek as his tongue slipped past your lips.

When you finally broke apart, Ville gently rolled you so that you were sharing the chair, you partially curled into his chest as he reached over to grab his cigarettes and lighter off of the floor.

"Now. Do you see why you might let a future partner cut off a few pieces of your hair from time to time?" Ville concluded his lesson to you full circle as he lit a cigarette, smiling in the face of your laughter as you let out a sigh of defeat.

"Okay, yeah. Maybe a little bit." You caved, the tinge of his cigarette smoke reaching your senses as he exhaled softly through his nose. You watched like a hawk as his free hand moved to your hip, his fingertips slipping under the fabric of your waistband to massage softly as he tsked. "Thank you for the display."

"Oh, anytime. I have a vast range of displays I'm willing to share." He teased, sucking his cigarette smoke from his mouth up into his nose before handing the cigarette over to you. "Your leg is shaking."

"Yeah, I fucking wonder why." You muttered, dropping your head against his shoulder as you took a drag off of his cigarette. "You know, you're beating a lot of stereotypes."

Here you went again with whiskey talk.

"Oh, do share." He snorted, sounding very amused at your words. You shrugged, readjusting slightly so that one of your legs was resting over his knee and so that (more inconspicuously) he had more access to your skin.

"Rockstars are infamous for being all talk. Two pump chumps who only want head and won't give it." You said like it was obvious (because hello, it kind of was), throwing a hand in the air as you did so. You’d fucked with guys 'in a band' a couple times before, and not once had you been impressed. Well, not until now, that is. "Well, I guess I don’t know if you’re a two pump chump or not, but still.”

“You’re welcome to find out.” He said suggestively, stretching out further before pulling your leg higher up over his with his hand under the bend of your knee. Despite the fact that he had just finished eating you out, you felt your heart jolt at the minute contact.

“Bam could still be awake.” You pointed out, your voice barely above a whisper as you handed him his cigarette back with your eyes glued to his hand where he had moved it to rest on your thigh.

“I don’t give a shit. You’re too beautiful not to fuck.” His thumb was brushing back and forth on your inner thigh, and you tried to clear the buzzing feeling that wasn't from alcohol out of your head as you watched him move higher and higher.

Your voice was caught in your throat just as it had been ever since he'd first put his hands on you tonight. You tilted your head up to look at him fully, lips parted slightly as you inhaled his soft breath of Marlboro smoke. It only took your eyes meeting for him to lean down and close the gap between you, his lips meeting yours strongly enough to push your head back as his hand settled at your very inner thigh.

"Let's go in."

You and Ville were lip-locked the entire way into the apartment and through the kitchen to the living room, his hands all over you while you held onto your pants that had been discarded outside before you were collapsing down onto the couch together. Both bedroom doors were shut, and there wasn't sound coming from the other side of either of them, so you were assured that you were in the clear as you once again undid Ville's jeans from where you were sitting in his lap.

"You have to be quiet this time. Mige'll kill me if he finds out I was fucking on his new couch." He said against your lips, his voice trailing off into a groan when you pulled his cock out of the confines of his jeans. You gave him a look to show that you weren’t impressed with his implication that you didn't know how to shut up when you really needed to, starting to stroke his cock and watching the way his head fell back gently against the wall as he let out a heavy sigh.

"I could say the same to you. I'm the one on top." If looks could kill, he would've been dead with the way you glared at him when he started laughing.

"Just because you're on top doesn't mean you're doing the fucking." He warned firmly, a hand cementing itself around your wrist where you were still stroking his cock as if reminding you that his grip on you (both physically and metaphorically) still remained. "Don't get fucking cocky."

"Then fucking—" Just as you were about to get cocky, he suddenly reached out and wrapped a hand around your throat, squeezing just enough to where you didn't have enough air left to snap what you’d been about to say at him as he held your gaze steadily.

"Be quiet." He barely raised his voice at all, but for some reason you closed your mouth then (not that you really could've said anything with his hand on your throat), your eyes still flaming in his direction despite your silence. He then pulled you forward, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. "Good girl."

You refrained from giving any sign to how much those words affected you.

He continued to rest his hand at your throat (albeit a little looser now) as he reached down with his free hand to push your underwear to the side, his middle finger sliding through your pussy while he groaned at the sight.

"What, you like being shut up? Is that why you're so wet even though you have a fucking attitude?" He mocked, brushing your hand fully away from his cock before taking it in his own hand and then rubbing the head against your clit. You inhaled sharply, basically melting against his hand and lifting your hips slightly as you waited for him to make a move. When you didn't speak, he smirked. "Mm. That's what I thought."

When he finally pressed the tip of his cock into you, you let out a mixed sigh of relief and pleasure, immediately sinking down onto him until your ass was flush with his hips and he was fully seated inside of you. You both took a second, Ville's hand tightening just slightly on your throat as he let out a breath and closed his eyes.

As you slowly began to grind down on his cock, his hand tightened even more, and then he seemed to find himself; his free hand cementing itself on your hip as he encouraged your movement.

Your heart was racing. Despite the booze, which usually mellowed you out considerably, the threat of getting caught by one of the other people in the apartment loomed over your heads, and the lack of air supply to your head was starting to get to your senses.

Ville's face looked like something out of a Playgirl for goths. His eyeliner, which was heavily packed on from the promotional shoot he'd done with Bam earlier that day, had smeared all around his eyes, which were shut tight while his lips remained slightly parted in a silent moan. You wished you could’ve taken a picture. You certainly took a mental one that was going in the spank bank for later.

You continued to roll your hips forward, the tip of his cock hitting you in just the right way to where you were a little thankful that his hand was limiting how much noise you could really make. Usually you had a pretty easy time controlling your own voice, but there was just something about Ville. Actually several things about him, if you were being honest.

"Fuck, you take it so well. You're so fucking beautiful." Suddenly viridian eyes were back on yours, and you let out a breathless moan at his praise as his hand on your hip slid down to grip your ass.

With one hand resting on his chest, the other came up to circle around his wrist, holding on tightly as you felt him begin to thrust up to meet you. The living room was completely silent, so all that could be heard was both of your ragged breathing, and the sound of skin on skin as you jointly began to pick up your pace.

Suddenly, his hand dropped from your throat, and you let out a gasp of surprise as both of his hands gripped your hips, solidifying you in a tight hold as he began to piston his cock into you from underneath. The change of position and pace made your head spin, and you let out a breathy whine as you went unsteady when he was no longer there for support.

Seeing this, Ville encouraged you further forward until your chest was pressed into him, groaning when one of your arms circled around his neck while your fingers laced into his hair. You could smell a hint of his cologne due to how close you now were, and it made your head spin even more.

"Just like that. M' gonna cum." You moaned in his ear, feeling your hips starting to ache with how hard he was holding them and feeling another twinge of arousal at the thought of waking up with bruises the next morning.

"Don't. Not until I say." He was breathless, but his voice still held strength as he stared you down while he continued his bruising pace. You were still rolling your hips along with his thrusts, but you were losing more and more control by the minute, and by that point any of your movements were basically guided by his hands.

Holding back an orgasm while he continued to fuck you ruthlessly was easier said than done, and you moaned and gasped repeatedly as your head fell to his shoulder so that you could muffle your voice against his skin. His cock was hitting your sweet spot that his fingers had previously been at over and over again, and each push of his hips just made your throat feel more raw as your voice continued to rise in your throat and muffle against his shoulder.

"I'm not gonna—I can't—" You couldn't even form complete sentences as you tried to warn him that you were losing the last bit of control you still had, so overwhelmed with pleasure that you could barely move and control parts of your body. He shushed you softly.

"It's okay. Cum." He finally gave his permission, and with less than a few more thrusts you were cumming, your nails digging into both his chest and partially his scalp as you buried your face as deep in his neck as you could to muffle the long moan that welled up in your chest.

Seconds after you hit your climax he was following suit, his grip on your hips strengthening considerably as he let out a deep groan and spilled inside of you. Part of you was mentally slapping yourself for letting a guy you’d only met a couple of times cum in you, but you’d just discussed the fact that you were on birth control, and you were too fucked out to care, so you ignored the thought.

Ville's harsh thrusts faded into slow drags of his cock inside you before he finally slowed to a stop once your legs, which had already been shaking before, began to shake hard. You didn't take your head off of his shoulder quite yet, still trying to catch your breath that wouldn't seem to come to you while his hands slowly loosened their grip on you.

"Still alive?" He hummed, rousing you gently with a shake of his shoulder. You blew out a breath as you finally sat back up, running a hand through your hair where it had been falling in your face and shaking your head.

"Fucking christ." You muttered, feeling your body thrum all over again at the fucked-out, satiated smile on his face as he watched you slowly come fully back down to earth. "That was good."

"It was." He agreed, that same look on his face as he kissed you again, softer this time than he had been before. There was still a slight taste of yourself on his lips from earlier, and you couldn't help but grin into the kiss at the thought. As you broke apart, Ville's hand massaged your leg softly where you were still straddling him. "Are you going to end up sleeping with Bam Bam, then?"

You finally pulled off of him, making a slight face that mirrored his own as you sat back. You had a couple minutes before his cum started to seep back out of you, so for the time being yoy stayed where you were.

"Yeah. Someone's gotta keep him from puking all over Mige's guest bed." You snickered, knowing Bam was probably passed out with his shoes still on on top of the covers in the other room. "You can come too, if you don't want to sleep on this tiny ass couch."

Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

"Okay." In the midst of you mentally slapping myself for inviting Ville into your (and Bam's) bed, you barely heard him agree, but when it registered, you looked at him in surprise.

"Really?" You knew Bam and Ville got along pretty well, but you really didn't think it was that well. You guessed whiskey also made Ville make bad decisions he would regret in the morning. Bam would've been creaming his pants if he'd known that Ville Valo himself was getting ready to crawl into his bed.

"Why not. My head hangs off." He explained vaguely, motioning to the couch underneath you. You laughed a little bit at that but accepted that he was coming along, getting off of him and looking around until you found your pants where you had dropped them on the floor.

Ville went straight to the room that Bam was asleep in while you went into the bathroom, taking some time to get cleaned up and sober up a little bit before splashing some cold water on your face and returning to the hall that led to the guest room.

When you pushed the door open where it was cracked and stepped into the room, you were met with the sight of Ville pushing Bam out of the center of the bed with his foot whilst smoking a cigarette. You couldn't help but laugh, and he only looked over at you with mild irritation.

"He's not fucking moving." He complained, motioning towards a comatose Bam. You waved Ville off, shutting the door behind you before stepping around to the side of the bed and leaning down so that you were at Bam level. You then dug your elbow directly into his side, pushing forcefully at the same time.

"Move over, dickhead." You snapped, turning to grin in satisfaction at Ville when Bam let out a very drunken groan and rolled right over to the other side of the bed. You then laid down in bed in the middle, motioning Ville in after you. "He literally does not wake up unless you shoot him when he drinks whiskey."

Ville snorted at that before pulling off his shirt and dropping it to the floor after he had put his cigarette out, the room too dark to see where he'd left it before he was dropping down on the bed beside you.

As he got comfortable beside you in bed, you could feel your booze-coma starting to creep in, and you knew that no matter how close you were in bed together (which was very close, mind you), you were too tired to care. Your feet were touching Bam's, and you were shoved right up against Ville with your arms tangled together and his head against yours, but you were already having a hard time keeping your eyes open, so you just accepted your fate. You would worry about repercussions for your actions in the morning when your hangover set in.

You fell asleep with Ville's breath fanning softly against your cheek and Bam's ass pressed into your side, whiskey doing most of the work to make you comfortable as you silently hoped that Mige didn't decide to take any pictures should he come in the next morning.

[thebluestbluewords]

Teeth are overrated anyway

+

"Congrats." Mal says quietly. She does, in fact, know how to have some tact, sometimes. "Heard you made the team." 

Carlos rolls his head to the side so he can talk to something that's not the tightly curled space between his own knees. "I punched a kid so hard he threw up." he says softly. Like it's a confession. 

"And? I bet that fucker deserved it." 

"Not really."

In Mal’s expert opinion, they all deserve it. Every kid who shoulder checks them in the hall just because they're there, every girl who won't look at Evie while she crushes their test scores, everyone who comes to Mal when they want something and ices her out when they don't, they all deserve it. Every kid who's ever taken a sharpie to their doors to tell them how worthless they are, they deserve it tenfold, and if one of them took a punch to the gut while wearing practice armor, it's nothing compared to what Mal would do to them given half the chance. 

"I promise you, they really did," Mal says. "You punched one kid. I've punched how many now?" 

Carlos laughs. It's not funny.  "Fourteen." 

Right. Out of all the ways their families fucked them up, he got the obsessive kind of guilt tracking. Preventative evidence, because the adults who want them gone will totally listen to a timestamped, cross-referenced spreadsheet of all the times they've actually fucked up, instead of whatever imagined crimes they're actually going to get sent back over. The spreadsheet's very existence is incriminating, and it could be bad if it gets into the wrong hands, but anybody who's able to get into three layers of password-protected sub-folders deserves the hex they'll get for snooping, and will probably feel too guilty (hopefully) to use it properly against them anyway. It won’t matter. The adults who care about them won't be able to override the ones who fabricate crimes they didn't even do, and one spreadsheet, even with locked timestamps for every edit, won't do much against a royal word. 

Whatever. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms. 

"Fourteen," Mal echoes back. "That's a lot fucking more than one, and I'm still here." 

His head makes a solid noise against the wood. "You're different. People like you." 

Mal can't stop the scornful noise she makes at that one, but she can pick her next words wisely. 

Tread carefully, fearless leader. There's no coming back from this one. 

"I think," she says slowly, inching her way closer. "That you are severely overestimating how much people like me, fleabrain." 

Carlos makes a soft noise. He's listening, which is score one for Mal. 

"I'm not some perfect princess who never does anything wrong. Obviously." Fourteen classmates with black eyes and bloody noses. Fourteen people who won't speak ill of her crew again.  "I just keep trying, and I guess the Auradonians here are too stupid to realize that we're a bunch of lost causes. Their mistake, right?" 

"Right," Carlos whispers. "They're the ones who keep making mistakes." 

Hm. It's the right energy, but maybe not quite the right words.

"We deserve better than their scraps," Mal says, low and serious and warming to her cause now. "We deserve at least as much as they give their own stupid children, and if their noble-born brats can keep fucking up over and over, then we deserve at least as many chances as they get. We deserve our place here, and if they haven't kicked me out after punching fourteen people. they're sure as shit not going to kick you out over punching one." 

"Right." 

Mal can feel the heat of Carlos's body next to hers now, so close they could be touching. "Of course I'm right. And besides, why would they let you on the team if they're going to kick you off right after? It'd be a drain on their time and resources, and they're not gonna waste energy on us if they don't need to. You're stuck on that team whether you like it or not, dumbass." 

Carlos laughs. It's not exactly a happy sound, but it's closer than before. "I didn't want to join. I fuckin' hate organized sports." 

"Ah, like how I didn't want to join the equestrian club, and Evie dragged me to the meeting under false premises and wouldn't let me leave without petting a horse?" 

"Like that," he agrees, and finally tips his head onto Mal's shoulder. "I didn't want to do the second round of tryouts, but they're down a man since Aza broke his ankle, so Coach called everyone on the backup rotation in for a test scrimmage." 

"Let me guess, some shithead tried to pull shit because you're tiny, and you rage slammed him into the fuckin' dust?" 

Mal can feel the warm gust of his sigh on her neck this time, and it feels like what home must be for other people. "Yup. Pretty much." 

Weird. 

“I thought coach was all about controlling your power," Mal says, thinking out loud from a half-remembered conversation she’d had with Jay a few nights ago. “Guess he's some sort of filthy hypocrite who only means that for the big guys, huh." 

Carlos shakes his head. His hair is a soft, static-y mess that sticks to her cheek from the friction. She's going to be pulling handfuls out of her mouth later, but it's fine for now.  "Nah. He wants people who aren't afraid of full contact. Apparently he's playing some sort of psych-out game with one of the other teams, and he's pretty sure I'm unassuming enough that they'll never see it coming." 

"So he wants you to punch more people?" Mal asks incredulously. She may be bad at teams, and organized sports, and anything that involves running for more than a few minutes at a time, but a school-sanctioned chance to punch people might be worth making a stink about starting a girl's team over. "Sounds like a fuckin' sweet deal to me." 

“I—“ Carlos starts. 

Somebody pounds on the closet door, and his mouth snaps shut so fast Mal can hear the click. 

"Hey, if you two are done having a heart-to-heart in there, some of us wanna get to dinner on time!" Jay calls through the door. "Toss me out some shoes if you're skipping and I'll tell Verne you're both sick." 

Mal shoves open the door without waiting, and is rewarded with a satisfying 'oof' as the handle hits Jay in the stomach. "We were almost done, dumbass. You can't wait five minutes for us to strategize the best way for me to get in on this school-sanctioned hitting people shit?" 

Jay grins down at her, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Nope." he says brightly, popping the 'p'. "Dinner waits for no man, and I'm not missing out on bread just cause you two decided it was the right time to have a gossip sesh in my closet."

"Ow," Mal grumbles, unfolding herself from the floor. "Fuck you, who told you that gossip sesh was a word people actually use?" 

Jay steps back to let her out, still grinning infuriatingly. "Lonnie." 

Mal's going to sneak into that girl's room and dye all her clothes pink. 

No, she'd probably like that. Purple, then. An unflattering purple. One of those periwinkles that's so blue it doesn't deserve to share a name with the perfect purples that Mal herself wears. Perfect. 

"I'm going to make you both suffer," Mal informs him. "I'll dye all your clothes black." 

"Ooh, you think I'd look hot goth?" Jay shoots back, reaching past Mal to give Carlos a hand up. "Do your worst, killer. I already bribed your girlfriend. She said I'm her favorite model now." 

"You did not." 

"Did so." 

"Nobody bribed me with anything!" Evie calls from the boy's bathroom. "Jay's a better model than you because he knows how to hold still, M." 

"Nobody ever asks me to model," Carlos grumbles. Unlike Mal, he looks like he's comfortable standing upright, which is deeply unfair. "I'd be great at it." 

Evie sticks her head out of the bathroom. She's holding a hot curling wand to her hair, but her makeup is already on and impeccable for their teacher-student dinner tonight. "That's because you're already my favorite, baby. No matter how many people you've punched." 

Carlos flashes her a tiny, blink-and-you've-missed-it smile. It’s worth it. All the time in the world would be worth it to see that smile again. “Thanks, E." 

"Yeah, for nothing," Mal grumbles, twisting back and forth until her back pops. "What am I, moldy fish heads? I just spent half an hour twisted up in a closet, I want good girlfriend credit too." 

Evie laughs. "The fact that you call it girlfriend credit means you could never really stay in that closet, babe. You get all the girlfriend points." 

[mariana-oconnor]

The Copper Beeches pt 2

I observed that he sat frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it. "Data! data! data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay." And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever have accepted such a situation.

Holmes is worried. He really does seem to always worry about women in potentially abusive situations. This is also why the werid Enola Holmes law suit was weird, btw. The argument for that was that Holmes wasn't depicted as caring about women until the later works, which were not out of copyright, yet this was published in 1892. He's literally referencing a theoretical sister here in a way that clearly shows he would be a concerned brother.

"Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday to-morrow," it said. "Do come! I am at my wit's end. HUNTER.

I love the tone of this telegram. It's got that 'please' at the beginning, to be polite, but then at the end it's less 'I'm scared' and more exasperation.

"That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the morning."

Alas, the acetones will have to wait. Holmes is both willing to postpone his chemistry, but also concerned that he will need to be his best.

By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital.

Such a weird little historical note there. London's been the capital city of England since... Idk... around the Normal conquest in 1066? I don't know if there's an exact date. Most people these days wouldn't even know that Winchester used to be an important city, but Watson's just slipping that in there.

Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.

Another lovely description of the scenery and the weather. Everything's so nice. What a lovely day to prevent a crime. And Holmes taking time to look at the scenery.

"You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."

Holmes is super optimistic. This entire speech about the country is why Midsomer Murders exists. Lolol. Look at the idyllic countryside, just full of crime and violence.

"But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law."

I feel like that's a little rude of you. I'm pretty sure that even in the countryside people know that murder and theft are illegal.

"I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them."

I want to know what these seven explanations are. I really do.

"In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole, with no actual ill-treatment from Mr and Mrs Rucastle."

I feel like this is more luck than anything else. The man is very creepy. We have not yet met the wife, but if she is anything like her husbad described her, she too is very creepy.

"I have gathered that they have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother."

The fact that she's a stepmother doesn't fill me with confidence in this matter. Still not sure Alice isn't buried under the floorboards. Not to malign stepparents, but in stories like this, they're often the bad guys.

"Mrs Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as in feature. She impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse. She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately devoted both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want and forestalling it if possible."

This is the most insulting description of a person. She's just nothingness personified. Although this in itself is unsettling. The fact that her husband seems to have such a big personality and she just fades into the background and tries to pre-empt his needs. Eeeh... I'm getting weird vibes. Maybe she's just a naturally retiring and quiet person. But it feels more like a woman who is scared of upsetting her husband. We once again have only the husband's reported word that Alice left because of her.

And sometimes she's just found crying?

Yeeeah. I'm not into this. Nope. Not good.

More than once I have surprised her in tears. I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so utterly spoiled and so ill-natured a little creature. He is small for his age, with a head which is quite disproportionately large. His whole life appears to be spent in an alternation between savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking. Giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects.

Ah, our earlier suspicions about the child are accurate, it seems. This is a serial killer in the making. If this were a modern story he would have killed his older sister by pushing her down the stairs and his parents would be covering it up.

I don't know where the creepy servants come in. Maybe they just don't like the Rucastles because they're serial killers?

"'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue dress will become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely obliged.'"

Creeeeepy creepy creepy creepy. Just skin-crawlingly creepy. Don't comment on her appearance, dickhead. This is just a whole pile of weird.

"The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige"

I've looked up beige but I still don't really understand what this means, because yes it did used to refer to a fabric, but the fabric was specifically undyed wool. This fabric is definitely dyed, so... Is it a woollen dress?

"...then Mr Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary."

So he wants her to dress up pretty and listen to his stand-up routine?

"They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be impossible, but I soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my handkerchief."

I'm always so happy when the people who come to Holmes do their own detective work. Like Mr Melas in the last story, getting the information out of poor Paul under the villains' noses. Miss Hunter here is not just accepting what's going on, she's trying to actively decipher it. Alas, her subterfuge is discovered and she is turned into an active participant in whatever game the Rucastles are playing on the man in the street outside.

Interesting that Mrs Rucastle is the one who takes the initiative here. Clearly she's not as silent a partner in this as she appears.

"'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine, but really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do anything with him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then, so that he is always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose every night, and God help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs upon. For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life is worth.'"

Ah good. Animal cruelty and oblique threats to her life. That's what we like to see. 'We essentially starve our dog to make sure he's aggressive' is such a dick move. I can see where little Edward gets his animal cruelty from. A chip off the old block, that one.

This family is just so messed up.

Holmes has connections with loads of people, he must know someone who needs a governess and isn't a complete nightmare of a person.

"The very first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open. There was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never guess what it was. It was my coil of hair."

Yep, that's Alice's hair. I don't think I remember Alice being buried under the floorboards, but I honestly wouldn't put it past these people.

"There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked."

Oooooh. Alice is locked in the secret wing of the house. How very Bluebeard.

I once saw him carrying a large black linen bag with him through the door.

The mind does automatically go to 'body', doesn't it? I don't think it is a body, but that is what I thought immediately on reading this.

Violet Hunter does pretty much all the leg work in this story. She works out that there's someone behind her, she discovers the forbidden rooms, she sneaks into them. She gets so close to discovering the truth and then...

I turned and ran—ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, and straight into the arms of Mr Rucastle, who was waiting outside.

Well... this isn't going to end well.

"'My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'—you cannot think how caressing and soothing his manner was—'and what has frightened you, my dear young lady?' "But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was keenly on my guard against him."

Glad to see that she's finally seeing through him and has the sense not to tell him what she saw. Although she probably shouldn't have left the door open.

"'Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again'—here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon—'I'll throw you to the mastiff.'"

Ah, there it is, a direct threat to her life. His illusions of civility are peeled back and he's no longer just creepy, but actively horrible.

I do like Violet Hunter, she's such an active participant in events. She doesn't just present a puzzle and then let Holmes tell her what's up, she sniffs around and tries to work out what's going on. And what's going on is a whole lot of bad news.

I'm not sure why Alice is locked in the forbidden wing of the house, but that really doesn't matter. I didn't think she was in Philadelphia. It might be a story a little similar to Miss Sutherland's. She has an inheritance and if she marries, her father and stepmother will no longer have access to it, so locked in her rooms she must be and a doppelganger brought out to pretend that Alice is still happy and healthy.

A whole house full of horrible people. And that poor dog.

I wonder what happened to Alice's mother.

[tsutsumi-kurose]

WRT how Tsukasa perceives himself (as 'Tsukasa' or the well god) , he introduces himself to Nene in V5 as Tsukasa (Amane's younger brother)... Refers to memories of watching frankenstein as a child in V7 during Hell of Mirrors, and recently has referenced watching Amane attempt to fix the clock during middle school, and talks about having learned Over the Rainbow from his school play. Seems to me like Tsukasa identifies as... Tsukasa? And regularly refers to his past and memories w/o dissonance?

yeah i do love that he is very confident, definitive, and excited about being tsukasa!! and i think the end of the red house arc suggests he has always been tsukasa the whole time, just maybe... tsukasa plus a little more haha, just a little god tagging along!! and ig we can't know at this point what the current situation is there, so i wonder what tsukasa only ever introducing himself as tsukasa indicates about that situation, if anything??

but i agree!! i think it’s really telling that he’s so openly like “hi hello I’m tsukasa” haha, especially in contrast to hanako being so closed lipped about his real name and his past, only referring as tsukasa as his little brother and not naming him for the longest time!

another little interesting thing is that tsukasa doesn't actually introduce himself by name until hanako has said his name out loud… which i'm sure is largely for the narrative/emotional value of the reveal--much more moving if it comes from hanako! but also a fun little detail!

the first time he tells someone who he is, he tells kou that he's a supernatural who grants wishes, so he seems comfortable with the being a supernatural thing, but it's also interesting that he says "i'm a supernatural, i grant wishes for the dead" and not "i'm tsukasa, a supernatural who grants wishes of the dead" etc but then he really excitedly tells nene "i'm tsukasa! i'm amane's twin brother!" like, the tones sound so different to me? the description of himself as a supernatural then saying he grants wishes sounds much more like a description of his job than who he is lol. he's just telling kou his linkedin summary. he's giving him his resume handing him a business card etc meanwhile w nene he smiles so big and gives his name as soon as she refers to him (this of course also relates to the contexts though--kou being w mitsuba, a client you could say, vs nene going on for half an hour about hanako/amane, so, understandable that he would give the answers he does in those contexts)

(also quick side thought... very cute and silly that tsukasa's like, "we're twins!! equals!!" meanwhile hanako's like, "sigh…my younger brother…. so much younger than me... the little baby i murdered…" lol even just that detail i think says a lot about tsukasa's perception of himself and his relation to hanako/amane, what he sees as significant, etc)

i'm really curious about the fact that, while he says he's amane's brother and a supernatural, he never calls himself a yorishiro or refers to the god in any direct way, even after the reveals to the audience, which is really interesting!! but could also mean a lot of different things… maybe he just doesn't want hanako to know that nene knows about the yorishiro thing? maybe he doesn't want nene to know about the god who's potentially just chilling in his chest? or, maybe he doesn't think of those things as himself but rather conditions, things around him, that happened to him?? idk!! we haven't heard any thoughts from him about either of those aspects of his (after)life, so i'm excited to see if he ever comments on either of them!! i'm very curious about what his feelings are about the stuff he doesn’t mention about himself when introducing himself and why it doesn't come up

i mean its gotta come up eventually lol, both things, but i wonder what sort of feelings he has about them… if any?

honestly i do think it would be really funny if the god was still in his chest but tsukasa was just like "i am tsukasa and that's some guy that lives here who i chat with sometimes" and is just super casual about it like "why would i mention them when introducing myself?? they're not me??" and if anyone asks about it it's just sorta like:

lmaooo. but it's also possible there's a different sort of relationship between them, control- and power-wise?? or even just consciousness-wise? idk rn i'm definitely team tsukasa is all there but the god is also there in some sense, the extent of which i can't parse yet… but i agree with you!! i very much think tsukasa is tsukasa and he certainly seems to feel that most strongly, and seems, from what we've seen so far, that it's the only thing he identifies with!! which again i find so interesting considering the characters and audience are so interested in all the ways he is… not not tsukasa, but maybe what he is in addition to being tsukasa? what being tsukasa means? and if he is just like "i'm just tsukasa amane's twin brother who happens to be a supernatural" or in the latest chapter just as "tsukasa" and isn't like, giving himself the title of yorishiro and isn't bringing up the god explicitly in any of his introductions, then does he just view those things as… separate from himself? or more like, fun facts that aren't relevant in introductions lmao… truly i could spiral for hours about this and ultimately i probably won't know until it gets addressed in canon lmao but hey it's fun to spiral about!

[girlwiththepapatattoo]

The Unlikely Similarities Between Kittens and Vampires, Chapter 13

Warnings: Cazador as a warning, implied/referenced torture, teasing amongst friends, implied sex

Summary: Astarion opens up.

Notes: Yes, every time Astarion says Cazador's name it has to be italicized. You can hear the italics in Neil Newbon's performance, so in it goes lmao

I'm really happy with how this came out, honestly. It may be the last chapter until next week, as I'm gonna be on vacation for the weekend.

Enjoy everyone! <3

Read on ao3 here!

Previous Chapter | First Chapter

The hag has been dealt with, and they make it out of the swamp and back to the still-empty blighted village. The sun is setting as they trudge wearily in, and Sable makes a beeline for that same blacksmith’s forge they’d stayed in almost a week ago. 

How much things change in a week, she thinks wearily as she sets down her gear. She hears another thud of a backpack next to hers, and then lithe, leather-clad arms wind around her middle. A cool cheek presses to the top of her head. She lets her eyes flutter shut, leaning back on her vampire lover, who bears her weight without a single complaint. 

Which is unlike him, really. 

In fact, the man’s been treating her almost like spun glass for the last twenty four hours, and she’s not sure if she likes it or not. Oh, to everyone else he’s the same, snarky and witty and sarcastic. But to her? He’s gentle, hopping up whenever she needs something to grab it for her so she doesn’t have to move, helping her over difficult terrain, trying to cheer her up as best he can. It’s…sweet. 

And weird.

“Astarion,” she murmurs. “Are you going to tell me why you’ve been acting so odd today?” 

“Odd? I don’t know what you mean, darling,” he replies softly. 

“Yes you do,” she says tiredly. “You’ve been…very kind to me.” 

“My kindness is odd? What a rude thing to say! I didn’t know you had it in you, I’m almost impressed,” he replies, and though his voice is filled with his usual flippancy, there’s an undercurrent to it that sounds…uncertain. As if he’s now second-guessing everything he’s been doing the past day and a half.

She huffs, turning in his arms and pressing her forehead to his armored shoulder. “That isn’t what I meant. Thank you for taking care of me, I really do appreciate it.” 

“Well, you’re welcome. Count yourself lucky: not just anyone gets this special treatment.” He nuzzles gently into the top of her head. “Now, let's get you out of this armor. Karlach and Lae’zel should be back soon with the water. Gods I can’t wait to get somewhere with a proper tub again…” 

She smiles as his words, content to listen to him ramble on about special soaps and hair oils as his deft fingers undo the laces on her leathers. She knows he’s nervous about something; she’s noticed in the past few weeks that he gets particularly talkative when he has something to say but doesn’t really want to say it. 

“...and those suds smelled divine, kitten, and I’m not exaggerating! You’ll never want to smell like anything else again, I promise you,” he says. She’s down to her small-clothes now, and he’s pulling one of his (now three) shirts around her, to preserve her modesty when the water gets delivered. “I cannot wait to get you back to Baldur’s Gate, and have this whole debacle over with. I’m going to make sure that you’re pampered and purring, my darling lover.” 

“That sounds wonderful. Not sure I’d want anyone except you touching me…like that, but I wouldn’t say no to a private pampering. And only if I get to return the favor,” she murmurs. 

“Oh, well, yes, of course you’ll return the favor,” he replies as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Though, I may let a manicurist tend to my nails, darling. No offense, but I’ve seen how you bite your own, and I like mine much more well kept, thank you.” 

In spite of how she’s been feeling the past couple days, she starts to giggle, a sound that’s like music to his ears. “That’s not fair. I’ve done countless manicures.” 

He blinks. “Wait, really?” 

“Of course. You think nobles want their pets’ claws ripping up their floors? I’m amazing at clipping a dog’s nails. I can get it done in less than thirty seconds.” 

He gives her a flat, unimpressed look, but behind his eyes swims relief. “An impressive feat, to be sure,” he drawls, giving a playful tug to the tip of one of her ears. “But I’ll stick with the professionals.” 

There comes a sudden kick to the door. “Open up,” Lae’zel calls in her normal growl. 

“Ah, coming!” Astarion says, quickly moving to the door and opening it. He doesn’t have the chance to say anything before two buckets of water are shoved into his hands, spilling some over his boots, and the githyanki is moving back up the stairs almost before the delivery is finished. “Hmph. Be that way.” He sets one bucket down to close the door, then carries them both over. “Right! Off with the rest, my sweet.” 

Blushing very faintly, still unused to casual intimacy with anyone else, she strips off his shirt and her undergarments. “I can wash on my own, Astarion, you don’t have to-”

“I know I don’t have to,” he interrupts, though his voice is soft. “But I want to.” He strips off his own clothes, the light of the lit forge behind them casting his skin into gentle reds and oranges. He has her sit down on a nearby crate and transfers handfuls of water to wet her hair. Her eyes close as he begins to work a bar of soap through her locks. “...I…have some things to explain to you,” he says softly. “After what you did for me yesterday…well, you’re owed some answers.” 

“Look, I’ve told you before, you don’t owe me-”

“You murdered a man for me,” he says sharply, and her mouth snaps shut. “Not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood. You went against your natural instincts to protect me. I would think nothing of murdering someone like that, but not you. Yes, Sable, I owe you answers.” 

She’s not sure what to say to that. She can’t really say that he’s wrong…she just doesn’t want him to feel obligated. But he has that particular look in his eyes, the one where she knows he’ll dig in his heels. So she softens and nods to him. “All right then. Tell me whatever you want to.” 

He nods, and he’s quiet for a long moment as he gathers his words. When he does start speaking, his voice is soft, full of barely contained emotions. 

“As I’ve told you once before, I’m only a vampire spawn. Two hundred or so years ago, when I was alive, I was a magistrate in Baldur’s Gate. One night, as I was leaving a party, I was ambushed by a group of Gur, who beat me to death’s door.” Her face twists with sympathy, but he shakes his head at her. “Don’t give me that look,” he says softly, “I got better. Anyway, as I lay bleeding out, I was…rescued. By a man named Cazador Szarr. He’s a true vampire, you see, and he offered me the gift of immortality!” 

His voice takes on a mockingly grand tone, before turning bitter. “And I, at the time, thought I was saved, that this would be better than death. But all his promises were lies. He was never going to let me be a true vampire like himself. He was going to keep me as his slave for all of time.” 

“As his…slave?” she whispers.

“A vampire spawn cannot disobey the orders of their master,” he replies, all but growling. “They are compelled to do whatever they say. So I suppose I was less than a slave.” Though his voice is angry and bitter, his hands stay gentle as they work against her scalp. “I was fed rats and flies, not allowed to drink the blood of actual people. We couldn’t hurt him, but he could hurt us, and hurt us he did. Sometimes he’d order us to torture each other…and sometimes he did it himself.” 

His hands pull away, and he steps in front of her. Her eyes immediately land on his back. This is the first time that she’s seen it, and she wishes with all her heart that she could take the moment to appreciate how absolutely beautiful it is, all long, lean muscle, the graceful curve of his spine… 

But instead, her eyes are drawn to the raised scarring, jutting out of his skin in a large circle. It’s…words, she realizes, some sort of odd script she doesn’t recognize. “Oh, gods, Astarion, what did he do to you?” she whispers, aghast. 

“Cazador fancied himself a poet,” he all but spits. “Over the course of a night he composed and carved this into my flesh.” There’s a pause, and his shoulders drop, slumping as he remembers. “He made a lot of revisions as he went,” he says softly, and he just sounds…tired.  

When he turns back around, she’s staring up at him, her eyes glassy, her hands pressed to her mouth. He gives a soft sigh and kneels before her, taking her hands gently into his own. His expression is open, vulnerable, the man naked in more ways than one. “Don’t cry for me,” he murmurs, gently brushing at her cheek. “I’m not telling you this to get your sympathy, nice as it is. I’m telling you this to explain what you’ve done for me. That man, that…Gur. I know he was sent by Cazador. Sent to bring me back into the fold, as it were. You saved me from being taken back there, and…that is a debt I can never repay.” 

She shakes her head rapidly, bringing his hands up to kiss his knuckles, uncaring that they’re still a little soapy. “Astarion, you owe me nothing, I swear.” 

“Agree to disagree, darling,” he murmurs with a faint smile. “You are too sweet by far, and I don’t deserve you.” 

Sable’s jaw nearly drops open. That’s the first disparaging comment he’s made about himself. “Don’t say that,” she whispers past the lump in her throat. “If anyone deserves some kindness, it’s you.”

“You do remember when I told you that even before Cazador I wasn’t a good man, right?” he says wryly, but there’s already gratitude swimming in his eyes. 

“Doesn’t matter. No one deserves two centuries of torture. Gods, you…I…” She gently cups her hands around his jaw, and he can feel her shaking just a little. A wet little laugh splutters from her throat. “I have to admit, I do feel better about killing him now.” 

He laughs in spite of himself, and he leans forward, gathering her into his arms and pulling her down into his lap. He curls himself around her, burying his face into her neck, losing himself in her heat, in her scent. “Glad to hear it, kitten.” 

///////////////////////////////////////////////

Sable’s not sure how long they stayed wrapped around each other. They don’t speak, the vampire taking comfort in his lover, and his lover radiating warmth and care for him. But eventually they part, finishing up their wash and dressing. The quiet is comfortable, with gentle touches and soft smiles, and when they leave the basement of the forge to go get dinner, Sable is in noticeably better spirits. 

“Ah, the difference a good tumble makes, eh?” Karlach chuckles, giving Sable a friendly grin. 

Sable’s face heats as Gale pours a hearty stew into her wooden bowl. “Oh, no, we-it wasn’t like that.” 

“That blush speaks of a different story,” Wyll teases gently. 

“She blushes if Astarion so much as looks at her,” Gale replies, handing Halsin his own bowl. 

“Oh, come on,” Sable mutters, rubbing her free hand down her face. 

“We already know you’re bedding each other,” Shadowheart says with a pointed look. “No point in denying it.” 

“Ladies, gentlemen, and Gale.” Astarion manages to sound both exasperated and magnanimous at the same time. Gale’s eyebrow twitches. “If anything like that had happened between my darling lover and I down in that cellar mere moments ago, you would most certainly know it, because I would have had to carry her back up here.” 

Cheers and jeers meet his words. Sable turns red all the way to the tips of her pointed ears, but when Astarion gifts her with a playful wink she can’t stop the incredibly fond smile from pulling at her lips. 

Laughter, mostly-friendly banter, and gentle sparks from the campfire all drift through the night air together, and for the first time since this whole tadpole debacle began…Sable feels just a little like she belongs. 

[nonhumanhottie]

Tales of the empire reaction

I'm gonna be so real I really don't care much for Morgan. Her being a nightsister was very random and I don't find her that interesting lol

Why are cartoons so visually dark you have the ability to make them viewable give me light

Aw am I supposed to feel sorry for Morgan?

Hey is that Pellaeon??

Oh it is!!

Okay they were much better at doing angry crowd shouts 15 years ago lol

Oh I do not like how Thrawn looks in this he looks like a sim

Here comes the organ music at least there's that

Okay but she's not really a witch anymore right how can she be faster than blaster fire?

Is it just me or at the grunting and panting sound effects just way too much? Like they're just awful and distracting to listen to

Oh hey Bo

This overall feels like supplementary backstory to a character who wasn't fleshed out in other media tbb

Like i can definitely feel the backstepping they were doing to make this work

Sorry for being a little hater but it wasn't my fave

On to the second half

God palpatine really had everyone believing he was attacked and that swinging hard to fascim was a normal response he is the girlboss of all time

Inquisitor Island

The grand inquisitor is acting so... normal lmao

Yesss pit the children against each other

We are going a mile a minute!! These alledged tales aren't designed for 15 minute episodes lmao

Now is Vader gonna recognise Barriss? Does he hate her?

Oh Barriss I think you've chosen the wrong job path babes

Barriss girlie what have you gotten yourself into?

Oh a non binary jedi?? Werk

That was a quick turn around lol

Bare hands in those weather??

Shes old now wait where are we in the timeline why are we jumping so far forward??

At least Barriss recognises she made some Choices and that the Jedi would ultimately good

Okay I love the change from holding back makes you predicable to anger makes you predicable

I'm gonna say it. I don't think lightsabers are good light sources. Have you ever tried to find something in a coloured light?

Oh it's giving the ending of the shining in the hedge maze hahaha

This felt kiiiinda lazy lol. Sure, it's gorgeous, but imo the hyper-realistic backgrounds and textures don't suit the more blocky style. Also aesthetics alone don't really work in a format like this

I feel like I'm being harsh but I didn't really feel like anything stuck out to me in a good way, other than I guess Barriss reenforcing that the Jedi way is about light an forgiveness, but the pacing and timeline is whack lmao

I get this isn't designed to be a standalone piece of media but the Vader thing is especially annoying to me because it doesn't add anything to this. I think the Grand Inquistor referencing him would have been enough

In fact if I was to rewatch Tales of the Jedi, I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did the first time. I don't think this a good format for these stories

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Well then… :)

Re: In My Life - I think it makes a lot of sense that the song is a parent talking to a child - recounting their memories and also “when I think of love as something new” (could be referencing parental love?). But while I think it’s possible that John would write a song for a child despite being a distant parent, I am also not sure if that reading of this particular song is not too gracious (as in I’m not sure John would put parental love above love for his soulmate coded companion - in reference to “in my life I love you more” [than anybody else]). But songwriting does not have to be that literal, I guess.

The songs I did not know about are:

- Remember (listening to it, I don’t feel strongly about it either way - it’s about some sort of a disillusionment and betrayal, interesting Guy Fawkes reference - could be about The Beatles given the context, ig).

- Who Can See It (yeah, no objection)

- I was aware of No Words and Denny Laine credit and... what an interesting coincidence, huh. 🤨

- Crippled Inside (hmmm, a good one. Just by looking at it - I think the first verse applies to Paul better than John, the second one has an interesting reference to Instant Karma, verse 3 seems generalized - but yeah, if it’s in some way about Paul or John, it’s pretty heavy)

- Some People Never Know I knew about, but I always felt like John might be only referenced (he’s “some people” lol, maybe “only fools” if we are willing to open our minds), but otherwise it’s addressed to Linda.

- Another Day how???

Could you tell me more about Day Tripper? Or post a link if you talked about it before? I can kind of see where your interpretation is coming from but I want to know!

Oh I hear you re: In My Life and John's take on the "levels" of love. I do think the song is interesting because, while it's placing the person on a pedestal it's specifcally not outright dismissing the past. And yeah, reading the song from the perspective of a parent does generate my probably favourite reading of "When I think of love as something new". I'll say, I think he may have only adopted that soulmate attitude after meeting Yoko. Like, clearly Yoko shifted how he approached relationships, so it's possible he had a less all-or-nothing attitude before he realized that was an option. I'd even say the way he described meeting Yoko as "teaching him" that someone could be everything to him would even indicate that.

WELCOME TO THE NO WORDS CIRCLE! lol

Nice catch with the Instant Karma! parallel. That's another song I forgot to mention actually. I feel I'd place it in the "I like to think it's about Paul but I'm not sure" category.

No yeah, that's what I meant with Some People Never Know. If John is anyone he's the person who "never knows" (which, if it IS about John is actually kind of harsh lol… though also apt for Mister Divorce Prediction)

Huh, did I mention Another Day?? (outside talking about the line in (Just Like) Starting Over?)

Re: Day Tripper

the source for the highlighted quote is David Sheff's book (so the full Playboy interview).

Basically, given the period when this song was written, I don't see how the fact Paul had recently outright refused to drop acid with him wouldn't be at the forefront of his mind when writing a song about this concept. Paul would have epitomized the subject matter at the time of writing. I sort of think of it as Paul up until now having been fine trying out drugs with John (prellies, weed) but suddenly backing out. That's how I read the "one way ticket" lines and "she took me half the way there".

Also, and I have no clue how much they discussed what this song was about, but the way they trade off the vocals is delicious lmao.

[disorganizedkitten]

We'll Take Our World By Storm Chapter 4

Harry Potter | 2021 | 8,106 | Ao3 | Previous | Masterlist | Next

 I sincerely hope you’re happy now, because I’m going to take you North and back to the Department of Mysteries. I quite like it there, see, and the adults do matter in this story, so they have to get some screen time else I leave you terribly confused.

 So. Adrian Dunbar, Itzcalli Medina, and Isaac Devon spend three hours performing autopsies using both muggle and magical means, cross referencing with historic records and old case files, before Adrian and Itzcalli’s friend from the Veil pops her head in the room and glares at Isaac.

 He glares back. You’d never guess she terrifies him.

 “Calli.”

 “Hey Lyn,” Itzcalli says, looking up. She has ash smeared over one eyebrow and a spot of blood on her hair ribbon, but has otherwise managed to make it through without making a mess of herself. Her robes are a different story, but that can’t really be seen around their enchantments and color. Who knew grey hid stains so well? “Time to go?”

 “Yeah,” Lyn replies. “I figured we’d be late if I didn’t give you time to clean up.”

 Itzcalli snorts, but doesn’t deny it. Her response is the opposite. “Yeah, thanks.” Adrian looks at her sharply. Itzcalli catches the look and shrugs. She and Lyn have been friends since they were eleven, and they broke into two of the most secret rooms in Hogwarts together. If Itzcalli trusts anyone, it’s Lyn. There’s also the fact that Lyn has done many things throughout her life, and visit the faerie realm isn’t one of them, so though she has that mindset, she has nothing to back it up.

 “Shift isn’t over yet,” Isaac growls.

 The girls send him matching unimpressed looks. Adrian’s impressed by their sudden synchronization.

 Isaac rolls his eyes, but grudgingly allows it. “You’re dismissed too, Dunbar. I want you both back here at one-thirty.”

 Adrian doesn’t protest because it’s nearly an hour break, even taking out half an hour for travel, but he wants to just based on Isaac’s tone. Isaac may be good at his job - a whiz at chemical residues and potions, with steady hands and no squeamishness to be found - but Adrian grudgingly understands why Itzcalli and Lyn don’t like him.

 “Wanna walk with us?” Itzcalli offers before Adrian can shoot off a response.

 Adrian sends her a smile. “I’d love to.”

 They go back through the Death Chamber as Isaac vanishes into the Time Room. This time through, Adrian notices that the stone stadium isn’t as bare as he thought. “Is it safe to leave your research out like this?” he asks, stepping onto a bench to avoid a runic circle drawn in a mixture of dark red blood and glowing blue ink. Inside the circle is… something. It’s either a family tree or a map. Probably.

 Lyn shrugs, the motion hidden by her pulling the grey robe over her head. “I've been here for five years, and I'm the only one willing to spend extended amounts of time near the veil anymore." Her head comes back up, and her hair is even more of a mess. It writhes for a moment, before settling into staticy curls."Plus I've cursed most of the area. The last person who tried to steal my work is still a slug."

 “How long ago was that?” Adrian asks.

 Lyn hums, some high-pitched noise that manages to convey confusion without looking at him, as she’s dropping her robe on another bench. “I’m not sure? Before Pandora died, but not by much. Most of the curses were after Pan, cause no one was brave enough to try to kill me before that, but they did try to steal our work. So… a year and a half, give or take?” Lyn grimaces in Adrian’s general direction as she opens the door to the entryway. “Pan was my mentor, by the way.”

 Adrian follows her out of the Death Chamber, breathing deeply as the air is light again. “And it’s legal to leave them a slug that long?”

 Calli snorts. “Who’s gonna stop her? As far as most people are concerned, he probably did an experiment wrong and died in the middle. After all-” she opens another door, and steps out of the DoM for the first time in seven hours. She should sleep more. “-what happens in the Department of Mysteries stays in the Department of Mysteries.”

 “That doesn’t tell me if it’s legal,” Adrian says drily, following her out.

 Lyn stops just inside the door. “Yes, because we’re working on a counterspell and can’t turn him back until we make it. If we already had one we would need to turn him back within a month.”

 “Interesting.”

 Lyn steps over the threshold. “Yep. What about you? Any crazy things happening in the Muggle Departments?”

 “Generally, yeah.” Adrian admits. “But what was with the bodies older than all of us in there? Do they just- not get studied?”

 Itzcalli gasps, eyes glittering with excitement. “Oh my gosh! Say something specific!”

 “The spell we found dates back to the days of the Dark Lady Embla, who would steal biological components from her victims to commit identity, line, and general theft, along with trying to clone them after being inspired by the work of her cousin, Mary Shelley Nee Peverell?”

 Itzcalli’s eyes blew wide, and she cackled gleefully. “Whoa! You can talk about it!”

 “That is such a security breach,” Lyn says, wryly amused. She hits the button to call the lift.

 Adrian grins teasingly at her, leaning against the lift doors. “Imagine, having to keep classified information secret through self control.”

 “Such a challenge,” Lyn agrees delightedly, stepping back. “However do you do it?”

 He flicks his ponytail. “You know what they say- some people are just… magic.” They all break out laughing as the door opens, Adrian’s wonderful delivery overshadowed as he tips over and falls into the lift.

 Lyn offers a hand to help him up, still stifling laughter. “You okay?”

 Adrian grins, taking it. “I’ve taken worse tumbles down the stairs at home.” The group steps into the elevator. “So, you mentioned a mentor,” he points at Lyn, and then points to Calli instead. “Did you have a mentor?”

 “Yeah,” Itzcalli agrees. “Haven Rosier. He was head of my department for five years, two of which I was there for. He retired before my third year.”

 “Cool.”

 “Do muggles get cool mentors in their careers too?” Lyn asks.

 Adrian raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never been?” Black Family Eyes aside, she doesn't have the vibe of a pureblood, especially not the kind who treats everything nonmagical like the plague.

 “Not really. The muggle side of my family was dead before I was born, and Calli and I started here pretty much right out of school. There was no time." Lyn shrugs.

 "We don't even have a nonmagical liaison," Calli complains. "I sneak out and get supplies anyways, but keeping track of scientific developments is a chore.” She’s considering going to university, but seven years of magical-only schooling plus six just in the Department of Mysteries means she’s rather behind on most everything that would be on the college board test. Of course, once she starts studying again it won’t be so scary, but that’ll take a bit.

 “We do move rather fast.”

 Calli snorts. “Yeah, well, someone has to. You never answered, who was your mentor?”

 “I got to work with Kayla Mallard, during the last year of college, but I haven’t seen her since. She’s one of the best morticians in the world, it was wonderful.”

 “Mine was a blessing,” Lyn says with feeling. The lift door opens again and a redhead walks in. “Pandora Lovegood. She practically adopted me, probably saved my life. I started right out of Hogwarts, threw myself into work and forgot to go home a lot.”

 “Forgot. You just didn’t want to listen to Isiah talk.” Calli snorts, finger-quotes visible from her place leaning against the lift wall. There’s so much there to unpack, but we should have time later. “Hello, Weasley.”

 “Hello, Medina,” The newcomer says. "And who is this?"

 "Dunbar, Weasley, Weasley, Dunbar."

 “Yeah yeah,” Lyn rolls her eyes. “Morning, Weasley. Anyway, Pan guilted me into going home by staying until I left, taught me how to cook, and generally showed me what was what in the Department.”

 Adrian waved at Weasley, but kept talking to Lyn. “She sounds like my wife,” he said, amused. “A bit manipulative, but generally uses it to help our kids.”

 Lyn grins. “Yeah, they’d’ve gotten along.” Her eyes cut to something behind Adrian and she relaxes a bit more. “A lot, I’d say.”

 “Maybe in the next life,” Adrian offers.

 Lyn turns, her smile soft and knowing. “Yeah, probably.” She glances behind him again, to where Pandora is hanging out. Lyn is one of the few blessed to see… not the other side, per se, but the dead. Eventually she’ll learn how to show others, but that’s a little ways out.

 “Make sure he catches my full name,” Pandora says. She’s perched on the inner railing of the lift, and unlike ghosts (who also exist; has it been mentioned Death is really not all that much of an issue here? Well, I suppose it is, but not to anyone who matters) Pandora is not washed out into monochrome blue or white. No, her skin is the pale white over pink that comes from a caucasian without enough sunlight, her eyes are wide, blue, and uncommonly sharp, and her hair is a dirty blonde in some places and sun bleached in others. She stopped going outside as her end drew near.

 Lyn acknowledges her with a flicker of her eyes. “I still check in on her daughter sometimes.”

 “Is she Hogwarts age, yet?”

 “Not until next year,” Lyn says. “She’s a lot like her mum though, so I’m sure she’ll take them by storm.”

 “Little Luna Lovegood?” Weasley asks.

 “Yeah,” Lyn says, seeing her chance. “We’re talking about her mum, Pandora Peverell.”

 Adrian glances at her sharply, eyes wide. “Peverell?” He blinks, segwaying into another topic quickly. “Like the writer?”

 Pandora grins and winks. “And the Dark Lady. And- honestly, there’s been a lot of them,” Lyn agrees. “Generally end up doing something cool.”

 “Why did she keep her maiden name?”

 “It’s an inheritance thing,” Lyn shrugs. “Some families have magical gifts and only give their names to those who carry them. It’s a leftover from us nearly going extinct a couple centuries back; if two heirs marry and have seven kids, the children get the name of whichever parent’s gifts they carry.”

 “And if they don’t carry any?”

 Lyn shrugs. “I think back then they could pick, but nowadays so few families even have gifts, that they just keep whatever name they’d have without considering it.”

 “Interesting.” Adrian hums.

 “That’s all pureblood propaganda,” Weasley says huffily. “They use it as an excuse to marry off their kids to other purebloods. Look at the Gaunts! That family was so obsessed with keeping their talents of Parselspeak and seeing the dead that they inter-married cousins, and then siblings. The line died out a bit before I was born.”

 Lyn rolls her eyes. Behind them, Pandora does too.

 “If someone resurfaced from a squib line and had either of those talents, they could claim the name,” Itzcalli says, drawing the topic sideways a bit.

 “Oh? How do they prove it?”

 “Rituals,” Weasley says, looking sharply at the girls. “Which are illegal, may I remind you.”

 “Illegal outside of a controlled setting,” Lyn replies, not quite as sharp but close. “Which is generally either Gringotts or us.”

 “Lyn could claim the Black name, if she went through initiations and petitioned the Lord of the House.”

 “And that’s different ‘cause the house is alive?” The lift hits the Atrium.

 “Yes,” Calli answers Adrian. “Although it might be more complicated because the Lord of the House is in Azkaban. Uh, wizard prison.”

 “It’s a bad tradition,” Weasley says, shaking his head as the doors begin to open. “Be glad you don’t carry that name, Unspeakable.”

 Lyn rolls her eyes. Adrian feels offended as well. “I find the Black family to be rather good company,” he says cooly.

 “And your mum’s a Black, same as mine,” Lyn mutters as he walks away, glaring.

 “Sorry,” Calli says awkwardly. “Didn’t mean to get political.”

 Adrian shrugs, “It happens sometimes. We can talk more later?”

 “Sure.”

 Lyn hums amusedly. “I’m not claiming any magical bloodlines, but I do know a lot on the topic if you want to stop by after hours.”

 “I’d love that,” Adrian says honestly. “See you guys later.”

 “Bye,” Calli waves, pulling Lyn towards the floos. “I swear on your brother’s grave, if you stay any later than dinnertime I am going to riot.”

 “I’m not that bad,” Lyn whines, letting herself be dragged around.

 “Delphi Tamlyn,” Itzcalli drawls. “We both know you are.”

  Lyn sticks out her tongue.

 “How long are you here for?” Harry asks when he realizes the time. He needs to be getting home soon, but the idea of leaving Connor alone rankles.

 Connor turns, sand in his black hair and sticking to his clothes. He gets the feeling that this isn’t a question he wants to answer. “I- don’t know.” He can’t leave without Lily, and he doesn’t know how much longer she’s going to spend fighting Petunia.

 Harry makes a face. “I need to get Ian home,” he says softly.

 “Oh,” Connor says, getting what he means with a sharp ache.

 “Will you be okay?” Harry is concerned and he sounds it, reluctant to leave even as he murmurs to Ian to go find his shoes.

 “Yes,” Connor lies. This is more than he expected, and it hurts, this idea that it’ll end and tomorrow he could wake up to it having been a dream. “Mum has locator spells on everything.” Surprisingly, that’s something that makes Harry light up.

 “Lily came with you?” he asks with a lopsided little grin.

 “Yeah,” Connor agrees, brain happily catching on part of that sentence instead of the possibility of this not being real. Of course Harry knows their mother’s name, but it makes Connor’s stomach do something funny when he hears Harry call her by it. As a kid, that’s one of the oddest things a fellow child can do.

 “Oh.” Harry bends down when Ian returns, helping the kid put his shoes on. “..tell her hi, for me?” he asks, looking up at Connor unsurely.

 Connor nods quickly. “Absolutely. And-” he blinks, the thought returning again, despite hating it. He’s touched Harry a few times, and his skin wasn’t very warm. “You’re not dead, right?”

 “I’m not a ghost,” Harry says, as reassuring as he can be. Ian’s shoes are properly on, so he stands up again, holding Ian’s hand.

 Connor smiles. “Okay. Thank you.” For hanging out, for being alive, for being healthy. For talking with Connor. For coming over when he was crying.

 “Can I write you?” Harry asks, quick and impulsive. He needs to go home, Ian needs food and a nap but Harry doesn’t want to leave Connor, especially not when it’ll be a month until they see each other again. If it were just him, he’d text the adults and stay later, but Ian’s already worn himself out and Harry feels bad.

 Connor blinks at him. “Sure- yes! I’d love that,” He grins, a little sheepish but Harry thinks it mostly looks pleased.

 Harry smiles back. “And… I’ll see you at Hogwarts?”

 “Yes,” Connor agrees. “Absolutely. And maybe earlier? I could see about setting up a playdate?”

 “That would be great,” Harry says fervently.

 Harry still hasn’t left. “You need to go,” Connor reminds him.

 “I know,” Harry says. Ian whines, and Harry looks from one brother to the other. “Right.” He bends down and scoops Ian up, settling the toddler on his hip. “Er- happy early birthday?”

 “Yeah, thanks.” Connor nods. It hits him a second later- “You too! Happy eleventh!”

 Harry laughs, waving as he walks backwards. “Thank you.” He turns around, still laughing into Ian’s neck.

 The boys return home to domestic chaos. The living room is peaceful, Adrian and Caspian debating something to do with clothes around a game of inanimate chess; Adrian hugs Harry and transfers Ian into his own arms at the same time. After knocking into Cas affectionately, Harry moves down the short hallway into the kitchen and living room - that’s where the chaos is.

 Fay has tomato goop in her hair near her ear, today’s no-longer-curled bangs pinned up, and an orange-stained cutting board on the nearest counter, herbs piled overtop the tomato remains.

 Vivian and Regulus are at the bar counter, flour smattered up their three forearms and Vivian leading the process of kneading bread dough.

 “What’re you making?” Harry asks, ducking through to get to the pantry. Technically the cupboard under the stairs is also a pantry, but there are snacks in the one on the wall furthest inside the kitchen, and Harry avoids the cupboard whenever he can. He grabs a packet of fruit snacks and another of crackers.

 “Tomato soup and cheese rolls,” Vivian says. “How was the park?”

 “It was good,” Harry says, not wrong but purposefully not clear either. Vivian catches him on his way out of the kitchen, dragging him into a hug that rubs flour on his clothes. She’d been sad, if understanding, when he ducked out earlier. He leans in.

 “Bug him to pieces, Burbujita,” she hums into his hair.

 “I know,” Harry murmurs back. Vivian lets him go. “Do you want any help?” He asks, ducking out to give Ian a packet of crackers.

 Since you’ve obviously missed a little bit, let me give you a brief catchup. This morning Regulus returned, and Harry took Ian to the park because this poor child has too large a heart and a bit more imposter syndrome than he should; he left Cas and Fay with time and most of their parents to work through some stuff. That was… hours ago?

 I’m not paid to count seconds, moving on.

 “Wanna run the blender with me?” Fay asks brightly. “Mama and Dad are on roll duty.”

 “Sure,” He agrees.

 “So, anything interesting happen at the park?”

 Harry studiously did not look up, instead focusing on pushing the right buttons on the blender. “There were a few things. Met someone new. Who was the villain?”

 “They reaired Night Of The Boogey Biker,” Fay said. She leaned into his shoulder, watching the veggies splatter. “So it was Red Herring. You okay?”

 “Yeah. Just stuff for later.”

 Fay hums. “Mkay.”

 At the counter behind them, Regulus and Vivian have moved on to shaping the rolls. “This is violence against breadkind,” Regulus says, voice raising with mock-offense.

 “The yeast shall die,” is Vivian’s succinct response, ripping the raw rolls open with vigor.

 Regulus laughs at her, murmuring something about ‘should we have not put it in, then?’ as he balls up grated cheese against the counter. He’s not wearing his prosthetic, since he’s home and it’s been a week of wearing it near-nonstop.

 Fay waits until they’re eating, Vivian on Ian duty, to question Harry again. If it’s something for the whole family, he’ll answer now, and if not, it alerts her parents and ensures that someone will talk to Harry. “Anything fun happen at the park?”

 Harry looks up and scans the table. “Something interesting did.”

 Caspian and Regulus narrow in on him in moments. He hides his jump in nervousness by changing his focus to his bowl.

 “Interesting how?”

 “Connor and Lily Potter are in the area.”

 Fay’s spoon hits the side of her bowl.

 “Huh,” Regulus says, as if he didn’t notice half of his family jumping. “Do you know why?”

 Harry rolls the words around his mouth for a moment. “Apparently to pick me up.”

 That gets more reactions. Harry half-expects Cas to discorporate, but the older boy is having  a better day than that. Regulus goes blank in a way that still terrifies Harry for reasons he knows don’t apply. Fay goes still in a way she likes to pretend isn’t natural. Adrian raises his eyebrows, looking over the rest of the family.

 Vivian groans.  “That’s illegal,” she says petulantly.

 Adrian snorts. “Did you run into them?” he asks, trying to make it clear he’s laughing at his wife and not his kid.

 “Yeah,” Harry says, peeking up through his glasses.

 Regulus finishes processing and comes back into action with a blink. “Thanks for letting us know, Harry. Did they try to remove you forcefully?”

 “No. I didn’t see Lily this time either.” He looks back at his plate. “Connor was nice though.”

 “Okay. What are you thinking?”

 Harry shrugs. “I don’t think you need to do anything, it was just weird. Nice, but weird. Petunia told them I was dead.”

 Everyone but Ian flinches. Ian is playing with his soup and the ruins of a roll.

 “We might have to deal with that,” Regulus says. “I’ll keep an eye out. Did I miss anything else?”

 “Harry’s reading ninth-grade books again,” Cas reports like a tattletale.

  Harry rolls his eyes, and the entire group takes the subject change with ease. “They’re not hard. Just grab a dictionary and a blanket.”

 Regulus grins. “So I need a copy and we can start bookclub up again?”

 “Yes!”

 “What book did you find?”

 “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harry says proudly. “I’m at chapter seven.”

 I’m sure you can guess most of what else happens. Adrian goes back to the Department Of Mysteries, Vivian chews on paperwork, Regulus spends the day with his kids.

 On the other side, however?

 Well, Lily Potter is having a spectacularly bad day. By now she’s finished with Petunia and is instead in the park where Connor was supposed to be, which is conspicuously free of children. She pulls her wand out, trying not to let herself catastrophize. It’s harder than she would like. “Guide me hatchling,” she snarls in parseltongue. You’ll notice later, once you’re seeing more magic in action, that spells are often cast in Latin or derivatives thereof. This isn’t a requirement, so you’ll find clever and desperate wixen often use their own; we’ll leave it at that so we don’t get knee-deep in magical theory again. There’ll be time later.

 A light glows at the top of her wand, not quite as big as her fingertip, and breaks off to float west. Lily sheaths her wand and follows it. The artificial will-o-wisp keeps pace with her instead of the other way around.

 She’s shaking. It’s been too long. She should’ve taken Connor home and come back to Privet Drive, not sent him outside. Muggle area or not, she had no proof this neighborhood was safe. And after that horrifying conversation, Lily needs her son to be safe. One of them, please.

 She already made the mistake of thinking this town was safe for her child once, she can’t believe she did so again. Who’s to say this isn’t another conspiracy?

 The wisp leads her to Wisteria Way, and much like Harry and Fay yesterday, Lily crosses down the middle. Unlike those two, she doesn’t walk straight to Number Ten. Her chest twinges as she passes it, but she doesn’t stop to think about what that means.

 Two turns further into Magnolia Crescent, Lily finally finds a park. Connor’s there, racing another kid up and down the stairs and slides. Another is swinging, and two more are throwing sand at each other. Something in Lily’s chest unblocks, and she sits down on the edge of the sandpit and watches quietly.

 She has to think. Petunia said- well, Petunia said a lot of things, most of which were about as useful as a fly’s thigh. Gosh, Lily is such an idiot. She and James talked about it, discussed it for weeks, but the facts were that Harry’s magical core was damaged, and if a Fideleus Charm - and a Secret Keeper who wasn’t even in the country - wasn’t enough to keep them safe, how could she ensure Harry wouldn’t get injured again? Worse? What if the next time he doesn’t wake up?

 She puts her head on her knees and breathes.

 He woke up.

 Petunia said some wizard came and took him years ago. Years ago. Lily has been at Petunia’s house to check on a boy who wasn’t there. Lily has stood in that house, believing Harry was upstairs asleep, and he wasn’t even in the house.

 Checking Hadrian’s core had been a rare occurrence on its own, since the spell was new and classified. It still is, taught only to Unspeakables and select wixen in the medical field. Charlus had suggested it, and confirmed that both boys’ cores were damaged. They said Connor looked to be recovering, but Harry’s was… Lily hadn’t used the spell herself, but Charlus looked horrified.

 Honestly, if that spell weren’t restricted it would either end with a lot of children being safely rehomed, or a jump in infantcide statistics. Humankind, you know?

 There’s a reason for the section of magical laws concerning manslaughter in search of accidental magic. It turns out babies enjoy being in the air. And often don’t realize they won’t be caught until too late, magic or not.

 Maybe they should’ve kept Harry anyway. So many things during and after the attack were unprecedented, she must’ve missed something.

 A lot of things, considering the many times she’d visited her sister. 

 “Mum?”

 Lily looks up. “Hey, Connor. How are you?”

 “I’m okay,” Connor says, leaning over the playground railing. “How was the talk?”

 “Terrible.”

 “Um,” Connor says, tapping his fingers against each other. “Harry’s not dead, by the way.”

 Lily laughs desperately. Of course, he knew too. “Yeah, I know. What tipped you off?”

 “Well he lives here,” says a new, caustic voice. A blonde girl leans over the rail beside Connor. “That’s generally an indication of not being dead.”

 “Freya,” Connor hisses, eyes wide. “Be nice.”

 “He lives here?” Lily’s voice is faint, but her mind is too far away to care. Petunia had said- but Lily hadn’t- how did- Huh.

 “He also says hello.”

 Oh. Oh. Lily would like to get off this emotional rollercoaster right now. “He knows me?”

 “I didn’t ask how.”

 Freya sucks on her lips, suddenly feeling much more awkward. This is absolutely the sort of thing that happens with the Dunbar-Black house, and the reason she learned to excuse herself from uncomfortable situations. Mr. Black sat down and taught her when she was eight. Nineteen-Eighty-Seven was a bad year.

 She stands up, stepping back to let the others talk. Well, it’s time to think very, very loudly.

 “You met him?”

 “Yeah. He looked… pretty good.”

 “What was he like?”

 “A kid,” Connor says softly. “He’s nice. Smart.”

 Lily covers her mouth, starting to cry. She doesn’t know what Harry knows about her, (if he’s basing it off Petunia’s information, it can’t be anything good) but he’s okay. She has an eyewitness account at last. Two, apparently.

 He knows about her.

 Lily hopes he doesn’t hate her, but if he does she can’t blame him.

 She’s been in that house. And she missed him.

 How did she miss him?

 “When are we going home?” Connor asks, the exhaustion appearing again. The best thing about kids is how easily distractable they are. Freya showed up not long after Harry left, trailing three siblings, and pulled Connor away from dark thoughts. Now that Lily’s back and Freya has let them talk, all the dark thoughts are returning and Connor really, really wants a nap.

 Lily wipes her eyes. “As soon as you’re done here, sweetheart.”

 Connor turns to Freya. “It was nice meeting you.”

 “You too,” Freya says with a smile. She offers her hand to shake, and Connor accepts it. “She is actually your guardian, right?”

 “Yeah, why wouldn’t she be?”

 “We’ve had… incidents. Never hurts to check.”

 “If she were untrustworthy, what would you do?”

 “I’d get one of my siblings to get my dad and then we’d take you home and call the police.”

 Connor pauses. That sounds practiced; a lot like the abduction and raid drills he’d grown up using. “Smart. She’s my mum though, so I’m fine.”

 “Alright,” Freya shrugs. “Be safe. If you ever visit again, we have a kiddie pool.”

 Connor snorts. “Thanks. See you later.” He takes a slide to the ground, and walks over to his mum. It’s been long enough he’s gotten most of the sand out of his clothes, but not all. It’s still itchy. “I’m ready.”

 Lily takes his hand and stands up. “Alright. C’mon, the apparition point is this way.”

 “Mum,” Connor begins, brow furrowing. “We’re in a muggle neighborhood. Why is there an apparition point?”

 Lily opens her mouth as they leave the park grounds. She closes it. “I… don’t know. I guess I’ve always just gone to the spot I know best. I guess I’ll apparate us once we’re in the clear.” She laughs again, but this time it’s genuine. Of course there wouldn’t be an actual apparition point in a muggle town.

 Well, as far as she knows, anyway.

 They turn onto a road with no one visible, and Lily apparates before checking any closer.

 It’s been a long day, Readers, and we still have hours to go.

 They reappear in the middle of the kitchen, breakfast still half-eaten on the table. “What time is it?” Lily asks, looking around the empty room. She waves her hand, casting a wandless and wordless time charm. One o’clock in the afternoon.

 Lily rubs a hand over her face and sighs. “What do you want for lunch, sweetheart?”

 “Caprese?”

 “And chicken, sure,” Lily hums. Thankfully, it’s easy to make. Lily ties her hair up while she cooks, letting Connor run up to his room.

 The first thing he does is, adorably enough, find his library card. Then he anxiously packs a bag full of mostly sealed ink bottles, an old roll of parchment, and partially crumpled quills. Quills, because Connor lives in a magical household and pens are rarely used. Then he lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling.

 Archimedes, another owl whom you have not met yet, (I sincerely hope you’re good with names, because otherwise this may turn into a headache), lands on his chest. There’s no law specifically against the harming of owls, but there should be. Emotional Support Animals are incredibly important.

 Archimedes coos.

 “Hi Archimedes,” Connor says, staring at his ceiling. He reaches up to pet him, enjoying the feel of feathers. Archimedes is new, they brought him home yesterday alongside Connor’s school supplies. Archimedes hops a little bit, before sitting down on Connor’s chest like a roosting mother. Connor keeps petting him, gnawing on chaotic thoughts.

 He’s really happy his parents agreed to get him an owl. Walnut is his father’s owl, and spends a lot of time roosting around James Potter. Archimedes is still getting used to his new owlet, but he’s noticed Connor’s unusually high heartbeat.

 In humans, that either means something very good, or very bad.

 Archimedes stays there until Lily calls Connor down for food, when he hops onto Connor’s shoulder. Con swings his bag onto his shoulder and hops down the stairs, getting a wing in the eye for his troubles. Archimedes is not ready for an owlet. He’s going to take care of this one anyway.

 Lily ignores the owl on Connor’s shoulder as she hands him a plate. “I need to check with Mrs. Weasley about you coming over, will you be okay?”

 “Yeah, of course.”

 Connor is a much better liar than an eleven-year-old should be. Ugh, he needs a hug. The good news is, he’s on his way to get one.

 “Okay. Weasleys?”

 “Yeah.”

 Another time, Connor may push to be left home alone. He’s eleven, not a baby! But right now he wants comfort, and it’s not like Lily would agree anyway. Connor can’t fight, and he’s a person of interest to a lot of unsavory characters.

 Have I mentioned that yet? …oh, I don’t think I have. Whoops. Connor’s famous, by the way; he survived an assassination attempt when he was one, and now a decent amount of people want to finish the job.

 Are you beginning to see why James and Lily thought leaving Harry with Petunia was a good idea?

 Once they’re done eating, Lily sits down and sticks her head in the kitchen fireplace. Her fireplace is also a floo fireplace, so this isn’t something unsafe. She activates it with floo powder, a secondary compound that activates the enchantments on domestic floos. It would be rather annoying if every wizarding household had to invest in two fireplaces - one for proper fires, and one for transportation.

 The connection lets her poke her head out of the other side, into a warmly colored kitchen. Welcome to the Burrow, readers. You’ll become familiar with the place quickly.

 The downside of Floo calls (aside from how uncomfortable it is to kneel with your head in a magic fire) is that they rarely come with ringtones. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for a redheaded child to run through the kitchen. He stops a little past the door, and comes back. “Hi Mrs. Potter!” He calls brightly.

 Lily forces a smile. “Hello George.”

 “I’m Fred,” he says, sending her a very serious pout. In the two years since you saw him last, he’s gotten a buzzcut and a load of new bracelets, courtesy of his friends.

 That’s enough to make her laugh; it is such a relief to be doing something other than panic. “No you’re not,” she says, shaking her head as she looks up at the thirteen-year old. “Fred never wears the green bracelet.”

 George grins, crouching in front of the floo. “Sharp as ever, Mrs. Potter. How can I help you?”

 “I need to go into the Ministry for a while, would your mother mind watching Connor?”

 “Mum! Can Connor come over?”

 Lily can’t hear the response, but George keeps grinning so she knows it’s good. “She says yes.” He looks a little closer, brow furrowing. “Is everything okay?”

 “It will be,” Lily says. “I’ll send him through.”

 Normally, George would go back to what he was doing, maybe shout at Ron that Connor would be here soon, but there’s a prickling in his gut that says this isn’t something he can brush off. George taps his bracelet, wishing his brother was down here. They work better as a team, and this seems like the sort of thing they’ll need all hands on deck for.

 The floo flares, a green fire shooting up from nothing. George prepares himself to ignore his instincts and just chivvy the younger boy to Ron.

 Connor comes through looking like he’s had a meltdown and a half.

 Yeah, no.

 “What happened?” George asks, moving closer.

 “Is it really that obvious?” Connor asks mulishly, holding his bag close to his chest. “You’re the fourth person to ask me that.”

 George raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, apparently. Hot cocoa?”

 Connor takes a breath, ready to say no, but that sounds wonderful, actually. “Can you make enough for Ron too?”

 “Yeah.” George heads to the stove, letting Connor sit at the kitchen table. He’s not allowed to use magic over the summers, (unsupervised, but neither of his parents want to supervise) so it takes the usual amount of time. Which is to say, a while. “Can I run something up to Fred?”

 “I don’t need babysitting.”

 George rolls his eyes with the patience that grows from having two younger siblings. “I know.” He vanishes upstairs, worried.

 Connor sits there, tapping on the table. He likes the Weasleys' house - it’s bright, mostly gold and red, with fifty percent of the place warmly patchworked. There’s always something to look at, something to think about. Connor takes the distraction, watching the enchanted Kitchen Clock. Instead of telling time, it has a hand for each member of this family branch, and a circle of statuses. Fredric, George, Ronald, Ginevra, and Molly are all at Home, William, Charles, and Aurthur are at Work. Other places include School, Mortal Peril, Prison, Lost, Hospital, Travelling, and Friend’s. Connor likes the clock. Growing up, he and Ron would spend hours making up adventures for the other members of his family.

 Charlie’s hand flicks to Mortal Peril. Connor’s mood drops again.

 Would having a clock like this helped Harry? Mortal Peril came before death.

 Ugh.

 Connor needs to stop thinking about this. He lays his head on the table, wishing he could regulate his thoughts.

 Something in the room flutters. Connor assumes it’s George back to mess with the Hot Cocoa, so he doesn’t move. His chest feels watery, like pneumonia and sadness.

 “Hey Connor.”

 He shrieks, sitting up so sharply he nearly falls off the chair.

 Ah, it’s finally time to introduce you to another of my beloved cast. Meet Ginevra Weasley, Readers, a nine-year-old menace who brings me great joy.

 [She’s the type I’d proudly adopt.]

 I can’t believe I’m agreeing with you, Timothy.

 [Aw, I guess great minds really do think alike.]

 Moving on. Ginny has armpit-length red hair, not quite as many freckles as Susan Bones, and brown eyes that match the broomsticks she loves to ride. She enjoys sneaking up on people and trying to steal… whatever she can get her hands on, really. Sometimes she manages to get Connor’s glasses, occasionally she manages a bracelet from her brothers, or a book, sometimes Percy’s pens, and, naturally, wands.

 She holds Connor’s wand out to him. “It looks awesome,” she says with a touch of envy. “What’s the specs?”

 “Do you even know what that word means?”

 “Nope but it’s said when they wanna know what something is made of, so I figure I’m using it right,” she collapses into the chair beside Connor. “Why do you look like Achilles got hit by a flying carpet?”

 Connor snorts. “I love your metaphors.”

 “I get bored a lot,” Ginny says. “I cannot wait to go to Hogwarts next year. Think you and Ron can smuggle me spells?”

 “Haven’t you had every one of your brothers smuggle you spells?”

 “DADA teacher changes every year. That means new spells.”

 “You are so lucky that you’re the youngest.”

 Ginny grins, ducking her head a little as Connor finally takes the wand.

 Connor sticks it in his hair for lack of having a better place to put it. “Your brothers are good brothers, right?”

 Ginny squints at him. “Now you’re acting suspicious. Is your mom pregnant?” That startles a laugh out of Connor. Ginny grins back proudly. “But seriously, having a sorting crisis?”

 “I wasn’t until you said something!” Connor shrieks. He takes a breath, and shakes his head. “Anyway. Um. How have things been on your end?”

 “Fred and George have been blowing things up and trying to convince mum to adopt their friends, Percy’s plotting to be Prefect this year, and Mum’s still on withdrawl without Charlie. Really though, what’s going on?”

 “I think Mum’s trying to overthrow the government. Or kill her sister. Or possibly kidnap someone? Can you kidnap your own kid?”

 Ginny blinks once. Twice. “We’re going upstairs.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him up. Connor lets her drag him out of the kitchen and up the Burrow’s rickety staircase, where they pass George.

 “What’re you doing?”

 “Emotional support!” Ginny calls back. She stops at the seventh landing. “Ron!”

 A head with red hair appears at the top of the staircase. “Ginny?” Ronald Weasley’s room is at the top of the Weasley’s tower-like house, just under the haunted attic. “What’s up?”

 “Your friend’s having a crisis.” Ginny says. It’s her room too, actually.

 Ron crawls down his ladder, twisting. “Connor?” Connor groans and moves to flop on his friend. Ron holds him up easily. “Are your parents okay?”

 Connor hums a yes.

 George hits the landing next, followed by Fred. “Can we help?”

 Connor groans. “Do you want to spend two hours watching me have a heart attack?”

 Ron pats his head. “C’mon. I got him.”

 “I’ll bring up your cocoa,” George says, chivving the other kids back downstairs.

 “Thanks,” Ron says. Connor straightens up to climb the ladder, and Ron follows him. “So, what’s the deal?”

 Connor faceplants on Ron’s bed and doesn’t move. Ron goes back to the maze he’s building for Percy’s pet rat, Scabbers. The rat is old and missing a toe, but he’s sprightly and keeps getting lost at Hogwarts. So far he’s always come back, but Percy wants a better solution than switching between a pocket charmed to not let Scabbers out and a rat cage the size of a cat carrier. Ron heard him bemoan it at the start of the summer and has been trying to find a solution. This maze is going to be two levels, and about the length of Percy’s school trunk. Ron’s a little less than a quarter way done with building it.

 The boys don’t talk for a little while, sitting and listening to the rhythmic tapping of Connor’s legs as he kicks the bright orange bedspread. Ron’s side of the room is covered in as much Quidditch memorabilia as he could get his hands on, specifically for a team known as the Chudley Cannons, whose colors are red and an orange more violent than the Weasley’s carrot top heads. Ginny’s is more varied, but still has a majority of green and gold, for the Holyhead Harpies. It’s an… interesting dichotomy.

 Eventually, Connor rolls over and stares at the enchanted posters on the ceiling. The poster shows the team playing an actual game, so Connor watches it until he settles.

 That’s when Ron finally puts the glue (muggle glue, brought home by his father who adores muggle technology) and wood scraps down. "Alright," he announces, flopping down beside Connor on his bed. "You're being way too quiet.” He crosses his legs and leans over Connor’s head. “Spill."

 Connor looks at him, and ridiculously feels like crying. He's already cried so much today.

 "Wait, don't cry!" Ron says, sounding panicked, which is how Connor knows he still has tears left. "Breathe?" Ron is not the best at this. He's eleven, since his birthday was in March. Adults can be terrible at comforting people, so of course children will have their moments too. "What happened?" Ron leans back and watches one of his own posters.

 "Did you know I have a little brother?"

 Ron sort of... stops. "Since when?" He’s trying to remember, because that seems like something he’d be told, but he doesn’t remember anything recently, and he’d have met them by now if they aren’t a newborn. Right?

 The comment spurs Connor into laughter, which is enough, Ron thinks. Laughter's supposed to be healing. He's heard that from his big brothers, of which he has five. "Forever, I guess."

 Ron sighs and lays down too. "You are terrible at explaining."

 Connor snorts. That's their running joke- they're not sure what it is, whether curse side effects or just bad blood, but Connor has trouble with focusing and letters move for Ron. It's really mental disorders, but despite the changes in the wizarding world, they're still very behind on Mental Health, and as such no one has recognized it yet. "He's my twin," Connor says. "He's my twin and I met him for the first time today and he's great, but he's so different. I don't know anything about him! And I want to!" Connor throws his hands out. "I want to, so badly. I want to know him as well as Fred knows George."

 Ron watches as Connor's words go soft and wistful. "Yeah?"

 "Yeah."

"So, when am I meeting him?"

 Connor laughs again, short and loud, and rolls over to hug Ron. "As soon as possible, obviously."

 "Good," Ron says lightly, patting Connor’s head. "Because someone has to warn him about Ginny. Does he know much about the Chudley Cannons?"

 Connor slowly pulls away to give Ron a look that's not quite guilty. "I forgot to talk about Quidditch."

 "Connor!" Ron shrieks with a laugh. "The betrayal- what if he doesn't? Oh the tragedy!"

 "How much time have you spent with the twins?" Connor asks then, laughing. Ron's amped up the drama to three.

 "Plenty," Ron says. "We finally went to Diagon last week, actually, and met up with those friends of theirs." He leans in, as if sharing a secret. "Lestrange is nice!"

 Connor hums. "Haven't they been saying that?"

 "Well yeah." Ron rolls his eyes. "But it's different to see her in person. No wonder Mum makes her a sweater."

 Connor grins. "Of course she does. Your mum would add in a thousand bedrooms and raise every kid out there if given the chance."

 Ron laughs. "She'd try," it's a little bitter, but not too bad. His brothers were there too, whenever she wasn’t. And then he looks at Connor and puts on his game face. "Brother. Details. C'mon Connor I'm dying here!"

 "Okay, okay," Connor waves away Ron's focus. "Brother. His name is Hadrian. They call him Harry. He wants to write, and he looks like me."

 "That's it?" Ron asks.

 "He's a parselmouth too?" Connor offers nervously. His shoulders slump. "We really didn't have that much time to talk. I mean we did, but we weren't exchanging life stories." He looks over at Ron, brown on blue, and feels the joy slip away like rainwater. "I don't know anything, Ron. And what I do know is bad. He was nice enough to talk to today, but what if I mess up and he hates me?"

 "He's your brother," Ron says mock sagely. "Even after Charlie and Percy had that big fight, they still worked together to make sure us younger kids were safe and warm."

 "But you guys were raised together! We weren't. What if it's too different? What if he thinks magic is dumb? Or maybe he'll be a muggle-baiter! Or if he's- I don't know! What if he's hurt? What if he's missing limbs?"

 "Did he look like he was missing limbs?" Ron asks bemusedly.

 "No," Connor admits. "And he didn't limp or anything while we were playing tag, so I guess there's a point there." He's still not reassured though. "What if he doesn't know enough about the magical world and he falls into a trap set by a Death Eater? What if someone tries to attack him to get to me?"

 "That won't happen." Ron waves his hand dismissively. "Probably. Besides, actual muggleborns do it all the time, and they catch up easily enough. He'll be fine."

 "What if-"

 Ron sighs and shuts Connor up by laying on top of him. It's a tried and true technique. "Am I this bad about Ginny?"

 "You're worse," Connor says lightly. Ron laughs.

 Someone knocks on the trapdoor. Connor and Ron both look over. “You know,” Connor says suddenly, not even moving. “Harry and I had a talk about nicknames, and he offered Con as one.”

 “Yeah?”

 “It rhymes with Ron.”

 Ron laughed. “Hope he doesn’t mind being triplets then. Come in!”

 Fred pops his head through the trapdoor, wearing a blue sweater with only one sleeve properly on. The rest is bunched around his neck. “We have hot cocoa and optional emotional support.”

 Connor waves, but doesn’t push Ron off. He likes the weight.

 Ron waves in the familiar configuration. Bill - William Weasley - taught it to them the first time the younger kids were caught in a Death Eater attack. He learned it from Dorcas Meadows during the height of the First Blood War, and the Weasleys never gave it up. “Welcome to my office, I’d offer you chocolate frogs but I think the gnomes stole them,” he says magnanimously.

 George bows. “Ah, yes, why thank you for your time, Mr. Weasley. Do remind me, are you a famous teacher, auror, or Quidditch player?”

 “Obviously he tames Hippogriffs,” Ginny snarks, taking over Ron’s desk chair. “Look at those muscles.”

 “I don’t know,” Fred says. “He kinda looks like a human wrangler to me.”

 “Excuse you, I am obviously a statue brought to life,” Connor says, pointing at Fred. “You’re in the presence of the greatest museum curator in seven centuries.”

 “Ah.”

 Ron laughs, rolling off Connor and sitting up. Connor follows suit, missing the weight. “Oh, no autographs today I’m afraid, the mummies stole all my pens.”

[kazoosandfannypacks]

"It Now Belongs To You" by kazoosandfannypacks

Chapter 8/10: The Game's Not Over 'til the Queens Go Wild Pairing: CaptainSwan Rating: T Word Count: (753/10.6K) Summary: When Emma and Killian receive a pair of magic beans as a wedding gift, they take a voyage on the Jolly Roger for their honeymoon- but a wrench is thrown into their romantic getaway when they run into a notorious pirate who's staked a claim on the Jolly Roger. Chapter Summary: The tail end of the fateful dice game. Tags: post-canon, canon compliant, fluff, no smut, suggestive themes, alcohol, gambling, self indulgent fluff with a sprinkling of angst Author's notes: If you know what game this chapter title is referencing, please know that I love you and would love to play a round with you if we lived closer! Taglist: @zahara @kmomof4 @jonesfandomfanatic @booksteaandtoomuchtv @jrob64 @tiganasummertree @anmylica @teamhook @undercaffinatednightmare @gingerchangeling @lonelyspectator @caught-in-the-filter @ultraluckycatnd @cs-rylie [if you'd like to be added to or removed from this list, hmu in my dms or askbox!]

Also on Ao3!

 Blackbeard laughed- Hook's sudden wave of confidence in his lady love had faltered back down- and if there's one thing Blackbeard loved more than a broken foe, it was taking a foe who was already broken and breaking them even further.

 "It's funny." Blackbeard said. "When I found out you were back in town, that the dastardly Captain Hook had returned, I thought myself fortunate to take my ship back. And now I've taken The Jolly Roger, and a magic bean. And, in just a few moments, I'll be wenchin' his wife- and not even a week after their wedding!" 

 His crewmates cheered and laughed.

 "Oh, you know what they say, mate." Black Beard said. "A legend is only half as strong as the legend who defames him. Why, to bring such shame to the legendary Captain Hook…"

 "I'm pretty sure no one actually says that, mate." Hook snipped.

 "Give 'em about seven minutes." Blackbeard said.

 "The game's not over yet." The blonde narrowed her eyes. "Your call, captain."

 He had a one and a six. If he called one of them, and she had another, she could up the anté, then he'd be left the liar. But, if he called a number he didn't have and she did, she'd assume hers the second, up the anté, and he'd call her bluff. 

 "One five."

 She studied his face for a moment, then smiled at him.

 "Liar."

 She revealed a four, and the men fell silent, knowing their captain had been bested in this round. That in itself stung enough, especially after his preemptive victory speech, but her victory taunt rubbed salt in the wound.

 She picked up one of his dice in each hand, setting one on the other side of the table. "One less die for you, m'dear," she mocked, then held up the other die. "And look at that! One die away from this being the day you almost bested Captain Killian Jones."

 Killian had to admit, watching his wife gloat at Black Beard like that was endearing- but she was in no less dangerous a predicament then before- in fact, this time almost moreso, as she had the first bluff of two dice- meaning he'd give her nothing for her superpower to work off of.

 "There's still one round left, Jones." Black Beard said. "And I don't intend to lose this one."

 "Neither do I." Emma said.

 The dice clinked in the otherwise empty cups almost too loudly, almost too long, and were slammed onto the table at just the right offset times to be maddening. He couldn't help but look at the die Emma had in her tankard- and though he couldn't see the top face, he saw a two and a six on the sides, meaning the top number must be either a three or a four.

 Emma didn't have a lot of options here. If she said one of her own number and Black Beard had it, she'd lose, but if she said two of her number and he didn't have it, she'd still lose. And if she called a number that she didn't have, well- let's just say they didn't need to chance the fates.

 "One one." Emma said.

 "What the blazes is she doing?" Killian thought. The odds of her guessing Black Beard's top number was not a risk worth taking.

 Blackbeard smiled and laughed, and Killian clenched his fist, restraining himself for as long as he could, but knowing that if push came to shove, he wasn't just gonna stand by and let blackbeard take- or even just borrow- his wife.

 "Two ones!" Blackbeard said, and Killian looked at the table, confused. Emma had, apparently, chosen the one number Blackbeard did have, and he assumed that perhaps she had guessed it so confidently because it was hers.

 A familiar smile crept across Emma's face.

 "Liar." Emma said, revealing her four as he unveiled his one.

 "Impossible!" Blackbeard said.

 "And yet, it happened anyways, so I suppose you'll be losing this." She snatched his die off the table before he could take another look at it. "Oh, and these as well." She took the bean, the sliver of the mast, and the rigging piece as well and placed them into a pouch on her belt.

 "But how?" Blackbeard asked.

 "Guess someone here's the bigger legend." Emma said, and she stood up, Killian following suit. "And the infamous Black Beard just lost his ship to some wench."

 Emma left without another word, Killian following close behind.