#hey!! I don't actually know if I ship this anymore I'm confused

[orange-fresh]

The hide-and-seek scene with Luna but more silly

[adirajackson]

Would you still love me if I was a worm? ☻

Percy Jackson x gn!reader

Summary: Percy is dating Annabeth (love percabeth). But reader is swept away by Percy and can't help their feelings. Eventually, they talk and start dating. Everyone is suddenly distant to reader bc they ruined the best ship. Reader is insecure but Percy would gladly spend all his life reassuring them.

Fluff 💙💙🪼🌊🔱⚜️

On the radio~

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

(1st person)

There goes Percabeth, I thought bitterly. I have always had a crush on percy, but Annabeth got to him first. I didn't have anything against Annabeth, I just thought it was unfair. Unfair because I lost. "Y/n!" I had most the whole world tuned out as I read my book, sitting at a random bench near the lake, the sun hiting bare shoulders since I was just wearing a bikini, trying to tan. "Y/n!" oh. They're talking to me. Great. I looked up to see Percy's toned figure and sea-green eyes staring back at me with a bright smile. "Oh. Hey, Perce," I put on a fake smile as I speak. "Sorry, I tuned you out!" "No worries! Happens to the best of us, " he said, smiling. "What's up?" I could've sworn he had checked me out, but I wasn't so sure. "Oh yknow, trying to get a tan, reading, the usual." I said. "Oh, alright. Have fun!" he said, about to leave. "Wait! Perce!" I said, Calling out to him before could leave. Percy didn't say anything, he just waited for me to speak. "I... I know that you are dating Anna, an you guys are best best couple I've ever seen, but- but I like you..." I looked up Percy to see him staring at me in shock. "W-well...Im not dating Annabeth anymore..." he said. "Wait wha-" I was shocked at the least. "We decided to stick as friends because she is going through a sexuality crisis," he seemed calm but almost nervous and jittery at the same time. "I like you too, Y/n. Maybe we can date?..." he looked at me hopefully. "Of course!" she said, wanting to scream in joy.

(3rd person)

Fast forward to a couple months later. They decide to go public with their relationship and now a majority of her friends we're way more distant. Her stuff is often vandalized with words like 'slut!' and 'homewrecker'. People often spread rumours about her when she wasn't listening— when they thought she wasnt listening. He never voiced this to Percy, for multiple reasons. One, what if they're right? Is she a slut and a homewrecker? Would Percy stop loving her if he saw a different perspective? Two, what if he didn't care or didn't believe her? What would she do then? She also has always feel insecure about her body and just herself in general. Would Percy not like her if she wasn't confident? She needs to stop being an ugly coward. The two of them were actually on a date right now, and they were sitting on the beach. "Baby, what's wrong?" Percy asked, clearly concerned for his beautiful girlfriend. "Oh. Nothing..." she said, putting on a heavily fake smile. "Y/n L/n, my love, my girl, darling. Please don't lie to me." he said. He might have the nickname 'seaweed brain', but he wasn't an idiot. "I'm sorry for ruining it." she started sniffling. "For what?" Percy was genuinely confused, his beloved, beautiful, girlfriend couldn't possibly do any wrong. "Ruining your relationship." she was sobbing into his chest, the sea-salty scent blanketing her in a comforting warmth. "Baby.... No..... You didn't do anything." he lifted her chin with his index finger. "We broke up before you confessed, remember?" "oh...." she said, feeling stupider than usual. "Am I a slut?..." she asked. Percy's eyes widened and he tackled her into a hug, spooning her while laying in the sand. "Who told you that?" he asked, his voice suddenly becoming protective and menacing. "E-everyone..." she said quietly. "Everyone spreads rumours about me and calls me name. In front of me and behind my back. They say that I ruined you and Annabeths relationship." she sighed into his arm. "I'm ugly and not confident. Why do you like me?" Percy audibly gasped at this, his precious is none of those things. "You aren't any of these things. You may act and look different than others, but no one looks the exact same. You are gorgeous, if not in your eyes, in mine. I chose to date you for a reason." he hugged her tighter in a slightly possessive way. "Mine." he said, his voice muffled since his face was burried in her neck.

[lemotmo]

:( Thoughts on Ryan (love him) saying buddie isn’t happening in the nicest way he possibly could?

Hey Nonny!

Okay, I'll be honest. I don't know how to feel about this article. It's all over the place and a little confusing.

First and foremost, I love how Ryan shares this beautiful message of inclusivity and acceptance. He is so well-spoken and I just love him for that.

Second, I've been in this fandom since season 1 and I've been rooting for Buck and Eddie since season 2. Both were very heavily queer-coded and their natural chemistry was amazing. It has since come to light that bi Buck was supposed to have happened in season 4, therefore we can conclude that queer Eddie would have also happened eventually. In my eyes Eddie was even more queer-coded than Buck.

I never ever expected Buddie to go canon in all those years. I was more than happy to live in Buddie fanon-land. No worries about canon. I even almost gave up on the show itself after the season 6 finale because of the horrible writing, but I mustered the strength to keep watching.

And then season 7. A breath of fresh air. The atmosphere between the actors was different, there was this sense of anticipation and joy among them.

The first Ryan and Oliver interviews came out, gushing about all things Buddie and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They were actually talking about the ship I loved so much. They haven't stopped talking about Buddie ever since. Even the article mentioned above is, in essence, still about Buddie.

And then the show began. The first episodes were stellar. I loved the cruise episodes so much. And then 7x04 happened. Buck came out as bisexual and for the first time in all those years in the Buddie fandom, I realised that there would finally be a chance for them. I didn't vibe with Tommy, still don't to be honest (I don't like him all that much), but I accepted he was there for the time being. I didn't quite understand why everyone was so happy with Tommy, but I stuck it out anyway.

Then there was the Marisol situation that was handled as comedy when it turned out she was a nun once and Eddie had so much catholic guilt he couldn't have sex with her anymore. Strange storyline, but it was a great introduction to Eddie's Catholic guilt.

Everything in the narrative, all the nuances, all the dialogue, all the strange and questionable choices they keep making on the show, keep pushing Buck and Eddie together. Tommy and Marisol only appear when the narrative needs them. They are there to serve the plot.

Ryan didn't completely shut Buddie down. He kept a window open. I have to believe there is a reason for that.

I don't have inside information and I can't see the future, but as for now I'm still firmly on the Buddie train, destination endgame. I have to believe that there is a chance for them. I have to believe that they will get there eventually. I have to believe that Eddie will be free as well someday, free to be who he is. I also don't see either of them ever being as happy with Tommy or Marisol as they could be with each other. Them ending up with Tommy and Marisol would be deeply unsatisfying endings for me after 6 years in the trenches.

If, by the end of season 7, they have doubled down on Buck/Tommy and -god forbid- Eddie/Marisol, I will be disappointed, no lies there. And I'll probably wait out s8 for a while, see what the tone is and where they are going. I couldn't stay away for too long, because I love all the characters so much. This is a great show, even without my Buddie-glasses on.

Yeah, if canon Buddie isn't in the cards in the future, I'll go back to my little Buddie-fanon corner of this fandom. I lived there for 6 years. I can do it again. Happily so. Worry free.

But for now, there are still 4 episodes to go. No doubt they will be filled with great characters, actions and Buddie-moments. I'm choosing to focus on that for now. This show isn't over yet.

[ickmick]

Novelvember week 3

prompt: yet another incorrect quote, which is at the end of the fic :3

duo or ship: tango/grian with plenty of impulse & grian interaction!

A certain pesky bird goes poking through the local dungeon master's storage unit. After getting caught red handed, he flees to tell a fellow hermit, seeking advice for his rising feelings.

OR

Grian has a gay panic over Tango making out with him and tells Impulse all about it before promptly deciding physical touch is not currently Fun.

ao3 link | week one | week two

pssst... wanna see the full drawing? click here! <3

breif warning for a sort of anxiety attack at the very end. its not described in much detail, mostly just discomfort with physical touch.

Pacing the length of the entry room in Impulse's base, Grian grumbles a bit and checks his communicator again. The device was silent, cold metal pressing into his palms as he gripped it. Where is he? It's already been ten minutes, and the avian had thought Impulse was nearby. 

As he starts typing out another DM, the sound of rockets got close. Grian perks, wings raising as he looks for the source. There, incoming fast on glossy metal dragonfly wings, was the man of the hour.

“Hey! Sorry for taking a while, you know how Zed gets after cuddling,” The daemon calls with a chuckle when he's close enough. Through Impulse's many mentions of it, yes, he did know. There had been a few times he'd seen it himself, too.

Distantly, he recalls years long past where Tango had teased both Zedaph and Impulse for it. An uncomfortable jealousy rises, despite not having any reason to be. Not only was Tango very much not dating the two anymore, but Grian didn't have a connection like that to any of them. So it didn't make much sense to feel this way.

Impulse lands with an oomph next to Grian, furry whip-thin tail stretching out in an instinctive balancing act. It brings the avian back to the now relatively quickly. “How are you?” 

Frowning, he stays quiet for a second as the taller man closes his elytra and pushes his flight goggles up. “I think you know that,” Grian replies finally, a whine in his voice.

“Is it that bad?” Impulse asks, furrowing his brows while trying not to look too amused. When the avian just groans and turns away to keep pacing, he rolls his eyes fondly. “Come in, come in. Do you want a drink or something to eat, maybe?”

They go inside, and Grian hops up onto the island counter in the kitchen while the taller man gets out two glasses. Swinging his feet lightly, he sighs again. Heavily.

“Grian… buddy, I can't help you if you don't talk to me. I may give decent advice, but only when I know the situation.” Pouring water for them, the daemon walks over and holds one glass out. “Come on, what'd Tango do?”

The amused look on Impulse’s face only serves to make him more pouty. But after taking a long sip of water, Grian indignantly flaps his ear wings and looks away. “Well, it's confusing! He's confusing! He kissed me!”

Raising a brow, his friend sat in one of the bar stools. “Doesn't he, uh, always do that?” Pointing a finger limply at Grian, he adds, “I thought you two were in a loose QPR or something?”

“Yeah-!” Exasperation laces his exclamation, and his wings poof up. “But this was different!” His cheeks got warm, and he quickly took another gulp of water.

“How so?” Impulse tilted his head, elbow leaned on the counter as he looked up at him.

Flustered, the avian set his glass down and waved his arms about. “Usually it's an agreed on moment! He just went for it!”

This seemed to surprise Impulse, as he sat up straighter. His expression got a bit dark, voice serious. “Wait, went for it? He didn't disrespect your consent, did he?”

Face blanking briefly, he quickly shook his head. “Coders, no! That was- I didn't word it right. I promise it's not like that.” As the daemon relaxed- glad his pseudo brother wasn't causing actual problems- Grian looked away and traced the lip of his cup. “I mean that usually I'm like… Usually I'm there with intentions of garnering affection. But I was just, uh, sort of there this time.”

“Sort of there?” The taller hermit tilts his head. “Oh,” he smiles, “you were stealing from his storage again, weren't you?”

“Borrowing,” Grian sniffs, wings relaxing behind himself. “Those eggs weren't going to-” he realizes he's mumbling and stops, indignantly chirping.

“Eggs?” Impulse grins, all teasing words and smile-narrowed golden eyes.

Swatting at his arm, the avian groans. “Shut- forget I said anything!” He hops down from the counter, frowning deeply, only to be caught around the middle by a laughing man. A little gasp escapes him, but then he turns to glare heatlessly.

“No, I'm sorry,” He pulls him over to his side, words warm, “Tell me what happened. I'll try not to tease more.” Impulse carefully tucks a bit of fluffy hair behind his friend's ear, admittedly making the avian feel much more at ease. It was easier to talk when he wasn't in ‘playful older brother’ mode. 

He supposed the habit must be pretty strong, seeing as Impulse had both a little sister- Gem- and a little brother. Albeit, Tango wasn't actually related to him- that'd be really weird considering their past- and was only a month younger, but the point stood.

“I doubt that,” Grian mumbles in response, getting onto the stool next to him anyways. “But fine. Since I'm already here.” That, and they both knew even Zedaph didn't know the two's ex well enough to tell what he was up to. If Grian wanted in-depth advice regarding Tango, Impulse was the only one to ask.

“Sure,” the daemon hummed, arm falling to the side as Grian sat. His smile softens, and he urges him to go on with a brief hand motion.

Thinking about where to start, he stares down at his nearly empty glass. “Well, I just needed a few more bits and bobs for a build. And obviously, Tango has a lot of those.” As he speaks, he moves his hands about animatedly. “So, I figured, ‘ why not skim off the top? ’” His voice is hesitant, and he shrugs casually. Yes, this will do, easing into just what happened.

Impulse offers no response outside a little nod, allowing Grian the space to speak. So naturally, he does. “I've done it plenty, and he doesn't ever care because, you know, it's just little things.” Pausing, he hums and adds nonchalantly, “Even then, he never seems to mind when I take anything.”

It was probably a bigger deal than he'd assumed, as Impulse gave a big grin. Still, he says nothing, so with a nervous little chirp, Grian continues. “Anyways, he's been busy, so I let myself in and went downstairs…”

✮✮✮

Grian had hummed a soft, happy tune as he'd gracefully glided down into the belly of Tango's base. It had been a little hard to navigate with all the redstone, but he'd been down there enough times to narrowly avoid imminent death. At least for today.

The avian landed in the large doorway, and shook out his wings before folding them. He looked around, thinking over what he'd come for. It took a minute, dark brown eyes scanning the signs. Having recalled it, he set out for the chests he'd been sure had the right little things.

Something thudded a few minutes later, the distant sound of metal whistling through the air following it. The avian had frozen up, mid looting of some less than useful chests. As far as his build went, Grian had no use for the things he'd been grabbing.

He'd glanced between the room's entrance and the armful of eggs he'd currently held. Amongst them a few bits of gold shone, and a decently sized chunk of lapis had been tucked against his side. Conflicted between knowing he should get the hell out and his own instinct to take the precious items, he remained kneeled in front of the chest.

As the metallic elytra clinks a few times and makes a soft scratching as it shuts, Grian frowns and slowly scoots towards the bag he'd dropped on the floor for whatever he ‘borrowed’. It was his own bag, at least, empty outside of a few little miscellaneous items. That and the copper he originally came here for.

Carefully unloading his last haul of mostly eggs and shiny bits with a pleased chirp, he wonders why the other man hasn't walked in yet. He had heard him land, right? That wasn't his imagination? Admittedly, it should figure that he'd make it up.

So after another pause to listen, he shrugs and continues, poking into a few other chests. A soft trill leaves him as he finds some red wool, and he gently tucks it around the eggs. Can't possibly blame him for obeying his bird brain. 

He does some more back and forths between tucking a myriad of items around the eggs and snagging half slabs of copper. At some point he'd resumed his delightful tune. Then, someone clears their throat. Grian freezes, wings poofing up. As he hears a familiar snort, he scrambles up onto his feet and turns around.

Tango is leaning on the door frame, arms crossed. His metal elytra is folded behind himself, golden yellow magma-filled sections glowing in a way that imitates the man's own fire. “Whatcha up to, G?” The blaze watches him, raising a brow. There was a faint amusement to his tone, but he seemed a bit too tired for this.

“Uh,” looking down at the near full bag, he smiles, “Just helping you clean your storage, of course!” Over his shock and now in his usual mind of mischief, Grian puts his hands on his hips, inclining his head playfully. “There were some weird things in weird places, Tango.”

Seemingly giving him a moment to process what he's said, Tango offers a sharp grin. “Oh really?” He inquires in an unamused tone that says; ‘I don't believe you for a minute’. “The automated storage unit that I built myself is broken?”

The avian falters, glancing around at the room. It didn't feel like banter suddenly. “Y-Yes.” Confirming his shoddy alibi, and therefore sealing in another task for the other, he nods. One of his ear wings moves to cover part of his face, feeling shameful.

“Hm,” Tango hums, pushing off the wall and slowly walking over. He glances down at his bag and snorts again before turning to the open chests. “And which parts would you say are broken? I'm awfully tired, but if you say it's acting up…” The blaze spoke in a quiet sneer, knowing very well that his friend was full of it. But he didn't seem angry per se. 

Hesitating, he slowly turned around to look at the chests he'd raided. “Uhm, you see,” Grian trailed off, nibbling at his lower lip. He could feel the taller man stare down at him, and slumps a bit. Stealing ultimately unimportant items was one thing, they all did that regularly. Giving another hermit more work to cover up a lie though, that made his stomach twist. It just wasn't right.

Tango didn't say anything as the avian processed, tail idly flicking back and forth. He didn't speak up when said man leaned down and started to close the chests either. “Nothing is broken,” Grian quietly says, guilty. Hearing Tango cross his arms more than he really saw it in his peripherals, he cringed. “Sorry. If you'd like I can put everything back, I know you've been busy.” 

And yet he still swung by. He wasn't at all surprised to have been caught either. Rather, he'd been surprised by the sour turn of events. Tango seemed much more exhausted than one would imagine. Then again, he did build an entire game so… maybe it hadn't been a good idea to come pester him.

“I don't care about the items,” the blaze says after a moment. He grabs the back of Grian's sweater and pulls him back into a stand, making him look up at him. Behind Tango's irritated expression, he could see fatigue in his icy blue eyes. “What I care about is that you lied about it.”

Feeling rather small under his gaze, Grian looks away again. “I was only joking,” he weakly defended. It had in fact been another tease, one he knew he'd see through. Although– 

“That doesn't change the fact that you lied after, when I asked about it.” Tango’s voice lilts up towards frustration, arms crossed again. He'd practically spoken the shorter man's thoughts aloud. “Obviously I knew it was a joke, Grian.”

“Then-!” The avian tosses his hands up, cutting off his own shout to groan. “Why are you scolding me, then?”

Furrowing his brows at the weak glare, Tango's soul flame tail swishes in annoyance. “I just told you,” he says firmly, clearly attempting to remain calm. “Can we not do this right now? I have things to do.”

Now agitated as well- despite not having the right to be- Grian rolls his eyes and puffs his wings up to seem bigger. “You started it! Come on, shout back! You're clearly upset!”

The blaze stares, clearly riled if the crackling flame on his tail tip was anything to go by. After processing, he stepped closer, purposely looming over Grian now. “You should stop while you're ahead, birdie.” The nickname was startlingly out of place in the moment, said with such strained warning.

“And why is that,” he prods, feeling a bit childish for how he essentially was throwing a fit. It wasn't clear even to himself what was going on at this point.

“You're in my base,” Tango reminds him, grabbing his chin, “and you've stolen my items. I couldn't think of a better reason.”

This had all turned weirdly intimate, their faces inches apart as they seethed at each other. Deep down he sort of knew it was going to be fine, somehow finding warmth hidden in the other's gaze. Tango's voice had lowered, but not in the dark and angry way. It was almost sultry.

Flustering, the avian taunts, “Oooh, you wanna kiss me so bad!” It's entirely immature. And very out of line, had either been angry enough. But he desperately wanted to soothe the tension, chest tight from even the vague argument. So he did what he did best, make stupid, borderline flirtatious, jokes.

And for a second, Tango stares at him as if he was a fool. Which, he really was, so it fit. But then the blaze's cheeks warm and he seems to have an internal conflict of sorts. “What?” He finally mutters, brows furrowing again. 

Grian stares right back at him the whole time, utterly embarrassed but sticking by his own idiocy. “I said, ‘Oooh,’” he speaks slower, and a bit low, “‘you wanna kiss me-’”

He doesn't finish his echoed sentence, being grabbed by the arms and pulled close as Tango all but smashes their lips together. The taller hermit makes a noise akin to a growl, tail lashing. At first he's frozen, bewildered. It wasn't exactly the expected response. 

It seems like Tango is about to pull away, seeing as the avian had yet to do more than stare. But then Grian shuts his eyes and tosses his arms around his neck, kissing back. The blaze makes a quiet purring in response, tail moving to wrap around Grian's ankle instead of aggressively thrashing.

The kiss brimmed with burning passion, a shocking thing to occur between the two. This was so unlike their usual soft and gentle affections that Grian could feel his skin buzzing. His wings were spread out behind himself, twitching a bit as Tango nipped at his lower lip. Even his significantly smaller ear wings were raised, doing small flaps now and then. He tilted his head a bit, both to pursue a deeper kiss and to wordlessly try and figure out what the blaze wanted.

Another nip, then a hand grabbing the sides of his jaw and lightly pressing in a silent answer. Tango licks the avian's lips this time, making it even clearer. So with a muffled chirp, he parted his lips, letting him explore his mouth.

Simply holding his arm apparently was not enough. The blaze wrapped one of his own around Grian's waist, pulling him flush against his chest. He moved the other to rather gently pet the spot between his wings. It was a melting bliss. He made a mix of a groan and a trill, hearing a responding pleased grumble.

His own hands moved to grasp at Tango's hair, gentle but firmly there. Thankfully he isn't on his tiptoes, since the taller had been the one to initiate the kiss and had leaned down for it. Otherwise he may have accidentally tugged, what with how his legs felt wobbly. Though with how heated this all was, it may not have been an unwelcome action.

Tango occasionally catches Grian's lip between his teeth, rather pointy canines digging in before he'd let go and pass his tongue over the offended spot. Each and every time he earned a whine, and could hear the shorter hermit’s wings flap.

Then finally they break apart, lung capacity spent. They only leave inches between their faces, panting breaths mixing in a humid puff. Grian's eyes are lidded, staring up at the blaze with a befuddled mix of wonder and confusion. All that he gets in return is a huff and the electric look in Tango's gaze.

Flustered and red in the face, the avian sputters out a few breathless syllables. He wants answers to the many questions in his head, unsure when their energy went from purely frustrated to almost charged. It's a bit hopeless as his mind is reeling, and most of his noises are little trills. The blaze grins at that, like it was a victory on his part.

And then, Tango much more calmly leans down further to kiss his jaw softly. Grian gasps, fingers flexing in the other's hair, then tilts his head to the side as a go ahead. Safe to say this was all unexpected. It wasn't even that they'd never done any of this before. Just that the energy was so different, so much more intense.

Feather light kisses are peppered down his neck until Tango can't pull his turtleneck away any further. So he trails back up, pressing just a little more. Grian's hands are gripping tightly to his cape covered shoulders, thick fabric bunched between his fingers. He gasps as the blaze nips at his jaw, then lightly whacks him in the face with one of his ear wings. Mostly by accident.

“Hey-” Tango grunts, frowning a little as he pulls away enough to meet his gaze.

Taking a moment to regain coherent speech, Grian looks to the side. “Hey yourself,” he mumbles, a complaint in his voice.

“Too far?” The blaze asks, softening. He glances between Grian's blown pupils, smile a bit too smug.

He slowly nods, cheeks still hot. Then he looks at Tango again, taking in his red lips and heavy stare. “A bit. I'm not even sure where that came from.”

“Oh,” Blinking, he seems to think back, then snorts. “Probably from you saying I wanted to kiss you. Because I did.”

Wings puffing up in embarrassment, Grian makes a shrill noise, glaring heatlessly. “It wasn't an invitation.”

“You sure don't seem to regret it though. Can't say I do either, you look pretty all red lipped.” The blaze easily replies, smirking and leaning a bit closer.

Grian surges forward to hide his face against the taller man’s shoulder, grumbling as his face flushes all over again. He doesn't reply, hiding away as he ignores the festering pool of emotions in his chest. And the other doesn't seem to mind, rubbing his shoulder idly.

The moment is disturbed by Tango's communicator pinging, making the blaze pull it out from his robes. Grian pulls back slightly, then folds his wings carefully so he can turn in the man's arms and look at the device with him. He'll happily latch to a distraction.

It's a message from Zedaph, having another trophy challenge for him to participate in. Grumbling a bit, Tango starts to type a decline, but the small avian catches his wrist.

“Go, I have things to do too.” He leans his head on his friend's arm, looking up at him with a small smile. “And I know you want to, underneath your foggy instincts.” 

The funny thing is, Grian was easier to fluster and get entranced, but also returned to normal faster. This wasn't the case for Tango, who lingered in his emotions longer. Admittedly, this was mostly because the avian tended to ignore said emotions, but still.

Frowning, he stares at him before realizing he's right. So he deletes the draft and instead confirms he'll come. “Only because you're busy.”

“Liar,” The avian teases, narrowing his eyes. But then as Tango blushes, he looks away and sighs. He may want to ignore how he feels about a lot of this, but the guilt was returning. And that he didn't want to leave untended. “Hey uh, I'm sorry for lying. And generally for getting annoying about it after.”

Tango doesn't reply at first, putting his communicator back into some hidden pocket. But then he gently pulls Grian off of himself, turning him around to look at him properly. He's got two fingers under his chin, tilting his head up to meet his smiling face.

“It's fine, I already forgave you. I know you didn't mean anything by it.” Then, the blaze leans down and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. This is what their intimate interactions were usually like, soft and comforting. And yet this simple kiss serves to fluster Grian beyond belief.

“O-Oh!” He had chirped when his friend pulled away. “Great! Then, uh, have fun! Bye!” The avain promptly fled, just barely remembering to grab his bag on the way out.

✮✮✮

“And then I messaged you,” Grian finished, hands falling into his lap. He had tried to explain in as little detail as possible while still properly retelling the event, yet still felt a bit winded.

Taking a second to really soak in just what he's been told, the daemon takes in a breath. He smiles, sounding a bit surprised, “That's a lot to unpack, isn't it?”

“Yeah! It is! If you somehow missed that part, we all but made out!” He had left out the intimate details, of course. But it was hard to not mention how Tango had certainly wanted to continue. Grian's cheeks got warm just thinking back on it.

Now seeing just what was going on in the avian's brain, Impulse grins widely. “We? So you kissed back?” Grian flushes, silent aside from a nod. “Did you enjoy it?”

“What kind of question-?!” He squawks, eyes widening as he whips his head to the side. Getting only a smug look, he wrings his hands. “I mean, yeah? I wouldn't kiss him near regularly if he wasn't good at it.”

The daemon snickers, shaking his head. “That's not entirely what I meant.” Seeing as Grian still didn't get it, he sighs and takes a small sip of his water, finishing it off. “G, when you two usually kiss, does it feel the same as today?”

He thinks about it, brows furrowed in confusion. “Um, I mean, no. But we haven't ever made out. Not fully, anyways. Our relationship is…” Grian trails off, waving a hand idly as if beckoning his thoughts forth. “I don't know, softer? This was more aggressive.”

“Well you did bicker seconds before,” Impulse points out, leaning on the island counter. “So then, was it a good different?”

“Um,” The avian squints at him, as if expecting the taller man to have an ulterior motive. That one he had to properly consider. He'd been so caught up in the why that he hadn't even considered how he felt about it. 

Tango had held him so close, grip firm yet somehow still gentle. And there had been a fierce passion that sparked between them for the first time. Sure, there was always affection and genuine love in their usual exchanges, but… that was always platonic.

It hit him at about the same time Impulse waved a hand in front of his face. Blinking rapidly, he looks up at his grin and flushes a bright red. “I suppose it was,” he finally answers.

“Looks like you have it figured out now,” Impulse murmurs, a spark of pride in his eyes. “Knew you'd get there eventually!”

“Yeah,” the avian breathes. It's been a very long time since he's fallen for someone. It all feels so bizarrely foreign, complicated and messy. It's a bitHe doesn't have the time to fully let it sink in, wings puffed up in embarrassment. “Thanks, Impulse.”

“Anytime, bud,” he easily replies, patting his shoulder. “I'm more than happy to help out, you know that.”

They have tea, easing into unrelated topics. Grian keeps zoning out as his friend rattles off The Soup Groups latest goof. He doesn't mean to, genuinely interested in what Impulse has to say, but he's a bit weary after all the emotional processing he's done today. 

There's a lot of questions in his head. Namely, does he feel the same? A dreadful sort of itching crawls up his spine at the idea of it. It takes hold just under his wings, making him drag his clawed fingers over the spot over and over.

When he'd confessed to Doc a while back it wasn't anything like this. The creeper hybrid had gently turned him down, and that was that. They just returned to being purely platonic friends. And they still are. So why was Tango so different? Was he really so attached to the blaze already? 

“G?” The daemon taps his arm gently, thin tail folded over on his lap. He's smiling softly, a concerned twist in the corners. His brows furrow as Grian jolts, warm hand remaining on his arm. It feels like it's burning.

Taking a breath, Grian looks up from his empty tea cup, meeting the other's gaze. “I'm okay, don't worry.” Then the combination of burning and itching is too much and he pulls his arm away.

The avian looks out the window behind Impulse. “Sorry. I should get going,” he shakes out his wings a little, then hops down from the stool, out of the other's reach.

“Oh, well alright.” Standing as well, Impulse refrains from stepping back into his space. He's not totally sure what's wrong, but it isn't the first time Grian's gotten like this. He trusts him to self regulate, and he doesn't seem to be doing horribly.

“Thanks again for the advice,” He smiles, tone warm and genuine despite the unsteady shake in it. “See you.”

“No problem,” The daemon replies, idly itching at the base of one of his short horns. He frowns slightly as it makes Grian shiver. But before he can say anything else the shorter hermit is leaving the room, footsteps gaining speed as they become fainter. 

Maybe he should have Mumbo check in with the avian. Scar would be too quick to try to hug him, and Tango is… well he's out of the question for now. 

Nodding slightly to himself as he distantly hears Grian take off, he picks up his communicator and sends a quick message to the lanky redstoner. Then he gets to cleaning up the kitchen, brows pinched.

-

heres the quote of the week! I laughed so hard when i found it, I couldn't just not use it

a few things as well, incase i didnt make it obvious in the fic! tango used to be in a triad with impulse and zedaph a while back... things happened and now hes purely just friends with them! impulse became like an older brother to him, and zedaph got back with impulse ^^

and this is (clearly) set before scar, tango, and grian got together LOLL

more is to come on all of this, im very normal about it! (lies) and i have a lot of ideas for their relationships and everything :D

anygay, thanks for reading!! have a great week!! I'll be back on Sunday!! <3

[powerofwisdom99]

You're weird. Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe you're just a pretty weird individual and a piece of shit? Why are you shipping Dogday and Catnap? Honestly, it's fucking everywhere. And it's DISGUSTING. Catnap ripped off his LEGS and made him suffer. Just because they used to be friends before, still doesn't make the ship any less gross. Plus, Catnap is 8. And the fact that you're participating in this gross activity is disgusting. You basically made Dogday a pedo. And the relationship is abusive.

....

You're joking, right? Like, I'm actually curious. Is this satire?

You know, it's amazing to me how some people are willing to freely embarrass themselves on the internet and think they're in the right. How embarrassing. Like, what actually made you hop out of bed and think 'hey! I'm feeling like a silly little goober today. Let me go harras somebody on the internet for shipping a pairing that they like!'. And I find it ironic that you say all of this, because if I can recall, you have been reblogging my posts before. What a crazy switch up, am I right? I would've replied to this little anon of yours nicely if you didn't call me a piece of shit. I wonder who pissed in your cereal today.

Anyways, let me dive you in on a little something I've been wanting to bring out for so long. At first, I kept it to myself. But the more I see claims like these, the more pissed off I get. So, let me just get this off my chest and point out that Catnap isn't evil. Yeah. I said it. He is NOT entirely evil as people make it out to be. The Catnap you see in the game and the one in the cartoons are two completely different characters. One serves a prototype. One likes to sleep all day. One was an experiment. One smells like lavender. There's a huge difference. The DOGDAY that YOU see in the game lost his legs. The cartoon however, didn't. You get what I'm saying? The games and the cartoons are NOT connected to each other. Both are separated. Take it as alternate universes type of thing. I can't believe I have to explain this because Sleepyday antis are way too focused on calling a ship toxic instead of actually looking into the lore of Poppy Playtime, which shouldn't even be this hard.

From what I've seen, people mostly ship the cartoon versions of Dogday and Catnap. Which is COMPLETELY healthy, by the way! The two have goals and a lot of chemistry. They are best friends. They CARE for one another. People ship them because of their dynamic and because of their adorable sun x moon dynamic. And don't get me wrong, I heavily despise the ship between the bigger bodies. In my opinion, it's genuinely disgusting since Catnap used to be an 8 year old called Theodore. And knowing that he died at a young age before becoming an experiment, people like that can't exactly age anymore once they die. And Dogday's legs got ripped off by him. So yeah. Kinda fucked up. I think the version of that ship is disgusting and weird. They wouldn't be great together. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can really do about it, though.

If you're STILL confused, take Bendy And The Ink Machine as an example. If you even know the game. It's kinda similar to Poppy Playtime at it's finest. With the people turning into characters from a show type of genre. The Alice Angel that we see in the game is completely evil. Her motives are to steal the hearts of innocent ink creatures in order to make herself look beautiful again. At first, you'd think that's the same gal from the one you see in the cartoon. But surprisingly, no! Alice Angel used to be human. She used to be a women named Susie Campbell. She was the voice OF Alice Angel. Alice Angel in the cartoons is completely different. For her height difference is much more smaller from game Alice's. She has no melted half face, AND she DEFINITELY has no evil intentions. She's a completely sweet gal. See the comparison? They are NOT the same. The toys in Poppy Playtime are NOT the same from the cartoons. They were all experiments.

It just pains me that I can't even enjoy my comfort ship in peace without that one person shouting about how wrong and icky it is. And at this point, if I ever come across a person like that again, I'm just going to ignore them. Because I'm sick of this. I'm sick of it so much. I shouldn't even have to EXPLAIN the Poppy Playtime lore to get this through your thick skull head. I shouldn't have to explain that Sleepday isn't all that TOXIC just so you could leave me alone. And I'm scared because I think despite everything I'm saying to you right now, I'm going to get harassed either way. Because I've dealt with situations like these before. I'm sick of people NEVER pointing out the fact that Theodore IS Catnap. I'm sick of people misunderstanding why this ship is so important to me and calling me a terrible person. I'm sick of it all.

In conclusion, Sleepyday is not TOXIC. Part of it is. A part of it isn't. Use your FUCKING brain. Think before you talk shit in my blog. Oh, and for the record? I'm going to continue obsessing over my ship. Thank you very much.

[motelsnleatherseats]

Sam's 17 and he's already made up his mind that college is the best thing for him to escape the hunter lifestyle, to run away from feelings that had been trying to scratch their way forcefully out of his chest. He's tried to convince himself that he's been good at covering his tracks while looking into different schools, but Dean can tell he's up to something, especially when he suggests that they look into a case that just so happened to be in California.

Sam can tell Dean's up to something as well when he suggests they take a day to go to the beach instead of working on the actual case, but he goes along with it anyway, trying to stock up on good memories before he fully jumped ship. But it's just the two of them, and it makes Sam's longing intensify, makes him crave normalcy, but there's nothing normal about the way he feels about his big brother.

Dean's freckles have intensified under the California sun, and the skin stretched over Sam's cheek bones are dusted a light pink from the faint sunburn. They're sun-kissed and warm, sandy soles of feet and palms from sitting on the beach as they watch the sky paint itself rich red and orange as the sun melts into the watery horizon.

"I've seen the applications, you know," Dean murmurs to cut the silence, the sound of the waves rolling in gentle crashes mimics the way Sam can hear the blood rush through his body as his heart drops. He glances at his brother, expression already apologetic, but he's surprised to see there's no anger on Dean's face. "Didn't peg you for a California guy."

"Dean.."

"Sammy." Sam swallowed at the lump in his throat that had formed. "I get it. I know you've been looking for a way out. I see the way you look like you want to jump out of your skin every time Dad's far enough away to give a head start," he spoke, dropping his gaze down to the water for lingering moment. He truly understood Sam's plight, but it didn't make it any easier to know that if he did turn tail and run, that meant he left Dean behind too. "Can I even say anything that would make you want to stay?"

Sam's heart breaks.

"I just want to be normal," Sam finally answers, his voice quiet and weak -- vulnerable. They've had this conversation before, much louder, much angrier, but it feels like this one is more final. "I'm tired of being a freak."

"Sammy, you're not a freak," Dean responds before he's on his feet and he's tugging Sam up to stand as well. He's grown, his little brother not so little anymore, and he'd bypass Dean in height in the next year or two, no question about it.

"You don't get it. It's not even about the monsters or the hunting, there's something wrong with me. It's like I'm sick, and it's bone deep," he lamented, finding it hard to hold his brother's emerald gaze.

"What are you talking about?" Dean asks before he reaches a hand out to lay on Sam's shoulder and Sam ducks away from it, afraid that any touch will make him crumble.

"It's you," Sam finally spits out, and Dean's expression falters. There's hurt there, and it feels like a stab in the gut to Sam. He'd backed himself into a corner and he owed his brother an explanation. "It's -- it's how I feel about you. These thoughts that I have.. they're eating me alive. I feel crazy, a-and broken. You're my brother. I shouldn't feel this way, it's wrong and there's no way--"

"Whoa, hey, okay. Stop, okay? Stop." He reached for his hip this time, and Sam's violently shoved into confusion as his throat tightens and his heart is beating so hard, he could feel his fingertips pulsing. "Look, if you're sick, then I'm sick too."

"What?" Sam's voice barely holds resolve and the look in his eyes alone is pleading for further clarification, and Dean keeps his hands planted on him to anchor his brother, knowing how quickly the kid can fly off the handles when he's self-loathing. He's got to pull him back from the ledge, and the only way to do that was with softness.

"Yeah, Sammy. I feel it too. And I know it's wrong, and we shouldn't.. but I can't lose you, kiddo. I can't do this alone," Dean spoke and Sam's eyes ached suddenly as they filled with tears before he moved his hands to his brother's shoulders, caught between wanting to embrace him or shake the living hell out of him. Why now? Why after he had already made up his mind?

"We can't," Sam choked as Dean pulled him closer, mere inches apart and his heart was nearly in his throat.

"Maybe we could," Dean offered, hope braided into his words. "What can I say to make you stay?" They were close enough now to have their noses touching, and Sam looked like he was barely holding it together. "Sammy.. stay with me."

Sam couldn't tell if this was Dean's Hail Mary, his last and final attempt to sway his decision, but as their lips pressed together in Dean's last 'please Sammy', a tear rolled down the younger's cheek. It was everything he could have wanted, and everything he knew he couldn't have.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hey M! Argh now that some time has passed since that crazy ass flirty jikook live I've come down from the high and I'm at a loss again. I don't understand them... On his latest live Jungkook seemed to not know that Jimin would perform at Yoongi's concert the next day, so much so that he asked if he could perform again. Also it was his day off today and he didn't go to the concert to see Like Crazy live for the first time. I really think those two aren't dating at all and something strange is going on between them. Maybe there's still some feelings/attraction between them, but it seems they don't want to take those anywhere. I would say Jimin is the most reserved and that perhaps even doesn't want to be shipped with Jungkook anymore. I don't know. I'm very confused by them.

I may be talking a bit differently about jikook now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to spiral into shipping mode completely, leaving my logic aside. I just can't, my brain doesn't allow it. So let me offer you an explanation that to me, sounds a bit closer to reality.

Do you really think Jungkook didn't know Jimin was going to perform the next day? Do you think this is some decision taken on a whim? Like Suga just had a thought, asked Jimin and kept it all a secret?

These things are decided in advance. There are meetings over meetings where every single detail is discussed. There is a producer who oversees how a concert is done from start to finish. You can find interviews about this exact thing about BTS concerts. Or just look up information on google. I'm sure there must be music documentaries that show the process.

Jimin, Jungkook, Yoongi, a possible fourth person who might be a guest today and an entire staff group and other people involved must have met and had been part of meetings where details over the concerts were discussed. Then these people rehearsed their number at the company. You see where I'm going with this?

Of course Jungkook knew Jimin was going to perform the next day, just as they all know who is the guest for the last day. During the livestream, Jungkook was being his emo self and way too harsh about his performance and was trying to negotiate with Suga. But I thought it was obvious that he knew and Suga knew that this is just post performance talk, not an actual request. They know each other a lot more than we think we know them. Each night was set for one other BTS member to be on stage. It's as simple as that.

You and all the JM solos and some which found their way into my inbox could try and see the situation from this perspective which does not involve any malicious intent on anyone's part. Seeing Jungkook as some number one enemy who has an agenda of sabotaging Jimin is too absurd to even consider debating.

As to everything else you said, I don't see how you made all those connections? And why it's a big deal. How are we supposed to know what JK did for the entirety of his off work day? Why should I be concerned with something I don't know about? Which seems to be the biggest issue with so-called jikook shippers. No matter how much they get to witness coming directly from Jimin and Jungkook, it's not enough. It never is. There's some weird doubt settling in immediately. If actual interactions don't satisfy you, than what is the point of all this? What is the expectation? For both of them to be seen together all the time in official content? And to be seen out together daily, especially through cctv footage if possible? Add in some rumor for the package to be complete. Attached at the hip for public consumption. Is that what people get from confirmed couples all the time? Not really, because even them try to keep their private time private. And now this is the expectation from two people who are not even confirmed as a couple in a situation in which fans are merely been speculating for years and which might turn out to be nothing. Let's not even talk about the entire context of queer people in SK, cause that's a huge element that has been ignored so many times.

Going down the rabbit hole and having some specific type of expectations are the ways in which some shippers are setting themselves up. You can go with the flow and enjoy what is out there to enjoy. That can be enough if you want it.

Also, you have to understand something really basic that might offer you a different perspective. If today or in the future, it is revealed both of them have other partners, Jimin and Jungkook will still act with each other the same way they have been for years. Because they have a specific dynamic that is only applied to them. And it will also be an indication that they have had partners throughout all these years. And somehow we all still enjoyed whatever they had in their relationship with each other, regardless of its nature.

[yes0another0outsiders0blog]

Hey, I am working on longer headcanons and stuff currently. Work is being a lot, though, and my brain isn't staying still long enough to do more than a bit at a time. So, in the meantime--

The Outsiders Queer Headcanons : (Part 1)

Kind of modern au? Most of these labels didn't really exist in the 60s and they probably wouldn't be thinking of labels or processing their queer feelings like that back then, but I think if they had the labels and were in a more accepting society this is what they'd identify as.

Warning : homophobia, I can't write about a group of men from the conservative southern 1960s and their queerness semi-realistically without touching on it

Ponyboy -

biromantic, demisexual

preference towards men, but not a strong one... like, 60/40 split

personally, I ship Purly, so there's that. also, Pony 100% really started experimenting in college. like, him and Curly had some mutual feelings before, he went to college and came back like "OH, okay, yeah I like guys, cool," and an actual relationship came from that

Sodapop -

pansexual, doesn't care about gender in the slightest

is probably the most chill with lgbt stuff from the beginning. even outside of modern au, if someone was openly queer around the gang then everyone else would be at varying levels of uncomfortable (because, uh, conservative southern 60s), but Soda would just be like "you know what, good for them!! they seem happy!!"

wouldn't seek it out on his own, but if he was introduced into the lgbt community he'd DEFINITELY get into experimenting with gender. still cis, but plays with drag occasionally and gets damn good at it.

actually doesn't really care about gender at all. won't consider himself anything other than a guy, he was raised a guy and doesn't have any issues with that or any reason to say otherwise, but also doesn't have any strong connection to it. you could call him anything (gender-wise) and he'd be chill. technically, cassgender would describe him accurately, but it don't think he'd use the label because it wouldn't really be saying anything important to him.

Darry -

unfortunately, that is a Heterosexual Man. (nothing wrong with straight people, I'm just a gay genderqueer femboy that happens to lowkey be a Darry simp, so it's unfortunate that I can't see him any other way--)

tries really hard to be an ally because his brothers very much date men, but struggles a tiny bit

wouldn't be mean to a queer person, but is very confused and uncomfortable with the topic because it's unfamiliar to him

asks a lot of kind of awkward questions. like, wants to understand and is trying, but it comes out so weird.

bless his heart

Two-Bit -

probably straight... heteroflexible?

has only dated women, has only been attracted to women, but is open minded

when he's single, he talks about a future partner pretty neutrally or says things like, "when I have a wife, or husband idk I'm not a psychic--"

makes really homophobic jokes out of discomfort, uses humor to cope and is just super not use to gay people. not doing it maliciously, but sometimes says things that are pretty terrible without meaning to

if called out, he'll stop (to an extent, he'll still take the easy opportunity for a dumb joke, but he isn't saying anything horribly offensive anymore), he just genuinely did not know that what he was saying was actually really awful

Steve -

bisexual and incredibly homophobic

so mad about being attracted to men. the fact that he PREFERS men? disgusting.

all of the characters have internalized homophobia, but none half as powerful as this man's.

the type to say that he'd "never choose to be gay" and honestly does think (or maybe just convinces himself) that it's a choice. thinks that everyone is essentially bi but "chooses" their sexuality based on which attractions they act on. desperately does not want to be wrong (but is very much wrong)

would probably have a secret "casual" relationship for a LONG time before he can't do it anymore and is forced to accept that he's into men for real

you'd think that being best friends with Soda, the most chill person ever with this stuff, would help. maybe it does and god knows how long it would take Steve to come around without him. but it still takes him SO long to just be okay with any of it.

he does grow out of being terrible about it (maybe not fully, but at least mostly), it just takes a TON of time and a good handful of mental breakdowns to get there

Johnny -

unlabeled, struggles to tell if he's aroace-spec or if he just has trouble being close to people due to trauma. isn't sure if the two are connected or how, doesn't really like thinking about it for too long.

he also has trouble distinguishing different types of attraction at all.

basically just along for the ride whenever it comes to his sexuality. if he's attracted to someone, then alright. he's spent a long time trying to figure attraction out to only end up more confused, he might wonder about it when he does get a crush but he isn't actively deep-diving into his feelings and searching for accurate labels.

Dally -

bisexual, heavy preference towards women though

would probably never act on feelings towards a guy, those kind of really scare him. but he has seen a good handful of guys that he's just fully, undeniably attracted to, so he knows damn well it's a lie to call himself straight

(he's still going to, tho)

also, demiromantic

denies that he's romantically interested in anyone ever, but he does feel that attraction. he just has to have a bit of trust before he can feel it.

not actually explicitly homophobic, genuinely does not care what other people do with their lives, but he's a piece of shit in general so he'll definitely see a queer person as an easy target. he's the type of person to use anything he can to start something, he's going to use someone being a minority against them just because he's a fucking ass.

[madamefluffnstuff]

Normally I ship the absolute heck out of Lyris and Sai but you know what this is a super cute idea :3

For @theslumberingmage in my ESO Emoji Tag Game ^^

(Also I'm giving this particular werewolf speech because Hey, if Faolchu can speak coherently in his werewolf form, I can't see why others couldn't!)

~*~

"Woah there, friend-!" Lyris startled and took a step back as the hulking beast suddenly lunged in her general direction. She instinctively started to reach for her axe, but managed to stop herself.

The werewolf in front of her was her comrade. Her friend. Her love. The Nord warmaiden knew it was him, but still chose to exercise caution while he was in this form. Lycanthropy was a tricky thing. Not to mention he was just returning from raiding a bandit hideout.

"...Hey, you alright?" She blinked, genuinely confused when he didn't move or react to her voice.

The Vestige's body relaxed and his canid face looked almost guilty as he approached her again, this time more slowly. Lyris was used to being the tallest one in the group; the fact this werewolf was merely eye-level with her- even on all fours- was a bit unnerving.

"I... yes. I'm alright."

"You sure about that, friend? You don't look so good. Even with the extra fur."

The Vestige let out a huffing noise that sounded almost like a chuckle. "Trust me, I'm used to this. It takes a few moments to adjust after coming down from the rush of a Hunt."

"And I trust it went well?" Lyris asked with a smile, running her hand along the Vestige's fluffy cheek. "Bandits taken care of?"

He leaned into her hand and huffed again. "Of course. Those bandits won't be bothering this hamlet anymore."

"I expected nothing less from you," her voice dropped to a low, husky tone, her blueish eyes softening in the glow of the campfire.

The werewolf tilted his head a little and nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, eliciting a hearty laugh from the Nord.

"I... can't turn back quite yet. My mind is my own again, but the Hunt is still fresh. If that makes sense."

Lyris hummed, "It does, love. Don't worry, I know what you mean. Why don't we settle in so you can rest."

"There is no way in Oblivion I'm fitting in that tent, Lyris."

"I never said we had to go in the tent. It's a nice night; we can sit by the fire and wind down until you turn back," she took a small step back so she could look him in the eyes, "And then we can go back to town."

The Vestige cocked his head to the side. He had to admit that sounded quite appealing.

---

The duo sat closer to the tree line, the warmth of the fire more for comfort and familiarity than for actual warmth. Lyris was sitting with her back against a tree, absently watching the flames with her hand rubbing the Vestige's shoulder. The Vestige, in turn, was laying next to her, resting his face against her outstretched leg. The rhythmic crackling of the fire and Lyris' gentle petting were almost hypnotic, and he soon found himself starting to sleep.

His ears flicked when he heard her voice humming a tune they'd heard at the inn the other day. He sighed and shifted positions as he listened to her soft, wordless tune. He could feel himself preparing to shift back, but previous experience told him there was still some time.

So long as his dear Lyris was there, everything would be just fine.

[roxy-bat-wolf-pack]

A bit of an unusual Stranger Things oneshot request.

No ships, just Steve angst of him and Hopper having a beer after S4 and talking about shit that happened to them because Steve needs a proper father figure and a moment to be vulnerable

I don't think this was unusual. I actually really liked this idea. For Hoppers bit about Vietnam, I used real conversations I've had with Vietnam veterans for reference. I hope I did it justice. Thank you!

⚠️warnings⚠️ All of the unusual Stranger Things triggers with a focus on PTSD. Discussions of war.

Empty House

Steve

The night was coming to a close. Cars pulled from the driveway, and I was waving my final goodbyes. Dustin's waving hand shot out from the passenger window as he and his friends drove off, the sounds of the engine dying down as the car got smaller in the distance. The Byers had all gone inside, and I looked up at the setting sun, a slight breeze sending some strands of my hair in my face. My hand lingered on the keys in my pocket, and I let out a sigh. I knew I was hesitating to go home.

The sound of a bottle opening made me turn around. Jim Hopper stood there at the end of the driveway, a beer in his outstretched hand. My brows knit together in confusion, but I tried to put a polite smile on my face.

"Oh, um, sorry, I'm only 19."

Hopper let out a chuckle, which told me he wasn't having any of that.

"Yea well, I spent enough time in Russia. The drinking age there was 18." He said, pushing the bottle into my hand. "Besides, I know you drink anyway. I was chief of police remember? I've broken up parties before, and you have a good attendance record for those."

I chuckled. "Yea, I did. Not anymore." I said before taking a swig.

He gestured for me to follow him back to the bonfire. The remnants of our small gathering were now no more than a couple of lawn chairs and a dying flame.

"So you don't want to go home?" He asked.

The question was abrupt, and his ability to read me so easily caught me off guard. I thought about how to respond for a moment before finally saying

"House is empty." I waited for him to fill the silence, but he didn't. He just waited for me to continue. "It's not always easy going from a gathering like this to an empty house. Everyone here is so involved. Holding onto hope, trying to come up with a plan."

Hopper nodded. "And we all get to go home with our families. Meanwhile, your parents are...?"

I took another swig before answering, the chill from the beer starting to numb my fingertips.

"Who knows where they are? Dad goes on business trips, mom doesn't trust him to go alone."

"Yea, but what do they think of all this?" He waved his hands to gegster to the whole of Hawkins. "I mean, they think it's just an earthquake, but isn't that enough reason to come back?"

I glanced over at him and gave a humorless smile. "Perhaps if they cared. But business outside of Hawkins is booming. Hawkins has already boomed. No reason to come back. "

He nodded, showing he caught onto the real meaning of my words. We sat in silence for a moment before I worked up the courage to say what was on my mind.

"I mean, they didn't even come back for my birthday. But it's fine. I was too busy trying to survive to remember it myself. Still a cake order? A present shipped to the house? A phone call? But no, nothing."

He looked to me. "A cake order?"

It wasn't the question I was expecting, and I couldn't help but chuckle a little.

"Yea. When I was little, back when mom still tried to put in the effort, I would get a strawberry cake for my birthday every year. Even when she first started traveling with dad, she would have one ordered for me. But um, not this year." I said with a shrug.

I looked over to him. His calm silence spoke volumes, allowing me room to say what was on my mind, without judgment. He just sat there. I realized he had regained some of the weight lost in Russia, and I immediately regretted my words.

"Ah hey man, I'm sorry. I'm over here complaining about missing cake this year when you went through worse. I mean, I'm just some punk kid with good party attendance, and when you were my age, you were getting drafted. I'm sorry for complai-"

"Hey, no." Hopper stopped me. "None of that."

He was looking at me now, his expression one of ginuwine concern.

"Yea, I've been through hell, especially this past year, but so have you. What's happened to you is just as real as anything I've faced."

I smiled at him and was surprised to feel a slight lump in my throat. I stayed silent to let it fall but also to give him a chance to speak.

"After Vietnam, I was angry." He started. He looked off into the distance as though he was remembering something he tried to forget.

" I didn't volunteer for Nam. Hell, hardly any of us did. It was forced on us, like this situation has been forced on the town. I'll spare you the details of what I saw out there, but oh boy, did I see it. Then I came home to people protesting my arrival. People who evaded the draft spit at the sight of me. They didn't know the stuff I had been through. Then I tried to start a family, and that," He paused, choosing his words carefully, "well, that didn't work the way I had hopped. So here I ended up. Hawkins. A town in need of a police chief and boy was I a miserable one. These people came to me day in and day out with their petty complaints. 'My neighbors not mowing their lawn, my cats missing, my son used my credit card'" He sighed. " I mean, these people had no real problems. Then... all this."

He looked at me, right into my eyes. " This is like war, son. The stuff we're facing. Only difference is you got no training for it. Any one of the things you've faced would have taken out a man like your dad."

I couldn't help the sting in my eyes. It took me a moment before I was able to speak with a steady voice.

"I worry, man. Am I doing the right thing? Letting these kids fight next to me? I mean, I worry that if I don't go with them into these situations that they will just go alone."

He laughed." Oh, I know how you feel. I adopted a kid with powers, remember?"

He sighed. " I can't stop her. Lord knows, I've tried. The only thing I can do his protect her along the way."

He smiled at me. "You're a kid too, Steve. You're only 19, and you've done so much good. You've fought so hard for the people you care about. If your father was half the man you are, well then, he'd actually be rich."

I couldn't help the tear that dripped down my cheek, thankful for the darkness that concealed it. Did we have the luxury of tears? In a time like this? I noticed then that the fire had completely died. My beer was gone before I realized, and my fingers were no longer cold.

I stood. "Thank you for your time." I said timidly, not sure how to end such a conversation. I held out my hand to him. He stood and just looked at it before pulling me in for an embrace. I couldn't remember the last time my father hugged me, but I remember it never felt like this. My father's hugs were never so caring. And just like that, it was over. Hopper waved goodbye with a

"Our house is hardly empty, so stop by any time."

I thanked him one last time before getting in my car and pulling away. I was surprised to find that I was no longer worried about being home alone.

The sun was brighter than the day before as I pulled into work. The store was empty except for Robin, who lounged behind the counter.

"Hey." I said, setting down my things.

"Oh hey." She said lazily spinning in the swivel chair. "Someone stopped by and dropped this off." She pointed with the pin in her hand twords the counter. "A delivery guy in like a chefs coat."

I looked over, curious, to the small white box on the counter. A note sat on top, and I pulled it open.

"Happy Birthday! -Hopper" was all that was scribbled on the paper. I opened the box, and a smile spread across my face.

A small strawberry cake.

Authors note: Thank you for reading, love! I take requests🦇

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Trigun Stampede Episode 1 Reaction

Ok here goes. Idk how entertaining I'll be but... you know. This is mostly because I am having a weird time of things rn. Also, I have no background knowledge of this series whatsoever asides from that it might be a western and there was a 90s series and manga also, so if you're an og fan and this is painful... I am sorry lol.

But without further ado, let's go!

Oh. We're in space. ...ok then!

Well this just went poorly. Rip cryo-people.

Noooo mom :(

Ok so I can't tell; is the ship on autopilot or is Nai piloting it, because if it's the latter - you go, little guy, you got skill.

Cannot explain how funny this is. "I would like to use my communication skills more! I would like to make a positive impact!" <- every resumé ever if you want to get a job lol. Birth place "December"... interesting. There's also a "November" and a "July". Why all names of the months? But it's also May, like, temporally - is that not a bit confusing for people? I don't know what "PE081" means as a birth date... also she is. Tiny. Smol, even.

Ah, young idealist, older cynic dynamic. Always pretty fun.

These two have now both shoved papers in each other's faces. Whipping your coworker in the face with a well-timed paper can be a form of affection... I think?

HJHFBSJHC??????

Are none of them... warm? In these outfits? In the desert?

Bro's arm just fell off. "There it goes" Does this happen a lot to you sir???

Our protagonist, everyone.

"He's evil and destructive" Have you... looked at him. Like, don't judge a book by its cover but. Have you looked at him?

^He has kicked puppy energy.

I have nothing to say. Just look at this.

Map! I love maps!

Sand ocean??? Like there's no oceans? How do they get water??? Odd that July is here but not December or November. I'm assuming these are three of the "seven cities"? What are the other four? Are they also month-themed? Also some of these names are real funny. These people naming their towns and cities like "Creepy Valley" and "Stinky Lakeside". Actually seems quite normal to me tbh. And we are in Jeneora Rock atm it seems. Is it going to update as we go? That'd be cool! :D

Hjdfhvdjh he just stayed tied up for. Some reason. Roberto's face 😂

Oh, huh. Plants are. Biological organisms and not power plants. Like I assumed. So they were made but can't be made anymore because they don't have the knowledge or the technology? Odd...

His bounty is about the same as a new plant... how convenient...

Ok I know I said 'kicked puppy energy' earlier but you don't have to actually kick him...

Boy really does not want to hurt anyone :( (Hmmm now I'm starting to think he probably has at some point...)

Damn, that's some quick thinking Roberto.

Meryl: "Idk senpai this guy seems like he sucks" hjfhgnvj

Aw, buddy. Dropping the goofiness as soon as the crowd can't see him anymore :(

Hey I just realized his jacket has "SEEDS" on the arm like the spaceship! But he didn't have the coat when he got ejected so...... I'm sure I will find out later.

You guys cannot hear the quiet giggling I'm making right now. This shot plus the music - I was right about the western genre apparently, it's just on another planet.

BRO????? Where'd you pull the rocket launcher from?????? Wtf????? Why would you do that?????

Ah. He's lost his mind.

Roberto just bodily flinging Meryl into the alley ahdfihvs

He's out of bullets??? 😭

...he's crying.

Dang Meryl, you got a great throwing arm!

Oh shit. Yeah, I had a feeling he was actually extremely competent. He's holding back on purpose.

NO FRICKIN WAY. ONE BULLET WAS ALL HE NEEDED???

Ok now the animators are just showing off.

Oh. Hm. I was wondering where Nai went and. Hm. Yeah the whole accomplice thing might explain Vash's reticence to actually fight. His brother killed Rem? Yikes. He did offer his hand out to her at the beginning though... idk did he really mean for her to die along with the others? The music is hauntingly beautiful btw!

...his name is Millions Knives?

Aaaand that's a wrap on that! I'm intrigued and I feel like this episode answered absolutely nothing but raised a whole lot of questions, which is, well, what a first episode should do. The animation is really sharp geez. I generally prefer 2D animation but there's a lot of character to the expressions and motions - I think they really pulled it off!

Until next episode!

[konbarts]

That time some guy tried to sue a teenager over lord of the rings rp

This got like really long so it put it under a cut so you guys don't have to have this long ass post on the dash. This story time was sponsored by the good people over at @radioactive-earthshine

Gather around children, I'm about to tell you a story about not the most unhinged person I have ever met through roleplay. So this happened about 10 years ago I like many many unpopular teenagers enjoyed writing and doing rp on this hellsite. 2012 is a wild time because I'm a lil bitch that loved lord of the rings and those new hobbit movies were out making lortr cool again to interact with in fandom. I've been doing roleplay online for a very long time it's just a little hobby I have. So naturally in 2013 I joined this weird hobbit rp group.

I had just come out of another group and was looking for something that was a little different but still kind of related to the whole Tolkien thing. I found a 16+ group, it was hobbit based, not open yet and it was a modern au (it was a whole crime family thing, not really my thing but I decided to give it ago) and so I sent my application in for my character just before the deadline and I found myself in a mixed group of teenagers and adults. Mostly adults though.

So the structure of the group was we did dash rp, and had an out of character group chat in skype where we could touch base and talk about what was going on in the group.

The group was run by three mods. Let's call them Gemma, Kenny and Terry. They were all adults, around 21ish. I think I was the youngest person in the group at 16 going on 17. We rp for a bit and things are fine? There's the usual RP drama but nothing scandalous except for Gemma and Kenny doing really explicit puppy play kink just on the dash in front of everyone. That should have been my first red flag honestly but you know as a child with unsupervised internet access (which was the style at the time) honestly I had seen worse and didn't understand how they found this sexy (I actually still don't really understand it ngl I'm not kink shaming or anything you do you I'll just look away this is a me issue) Then out of nowhere a member let's call her Maria leaves the group and Maria posts a very long post about the group.

This is the link in Maria's post. Looking back on this now ten years later I think this person was Terry one of the admins.

This is red flag number 2 again I'm stupid and 16 so I should have jumped ship but I didn't. The group chat is frankly confused. She ends her time in the group by reblogging "So long and thanks for all the fish"

Now Terry was never really an active mod and he actually dropped off the face of the earth three days after the group opened. I don't know what happened behind closed doors but Kerry and Gemma claimed that Terry just didn't want to be involved in the group anymore. Terry played kind of a very important character one of the leaders of the families that my character was in so it left plotting really up in the air when it came to uhhh what do we even do?? But the Remaining two Admins appointed Kerry cocksucker and long term friend "Cap" admin in Terry's place. After a week or two of complaining that hey our groups leader is AWOL we need this character back, the Admin team were like "haha don't even worry guys we'll open applications for the big cheese and pick one in a week." So the week passes and a new person gets picked to play this big cheese character I can't remember who this person was called but let's call her Lydia. So Lydia, joins the group chat and she's rarely seen online. This is red flag number three.

Another group member let's call her Jenny puts me, her rp buddies and a few other group members that aren't the admin team in to a big group chat on skype. She has become buddy buddy with the admin crew and was put in to their super secret super private group chat on whats app and it turns out... there is no Lydia. Kerry is Lydia because the only people who had applied for The Big Cheese was current group members and he hated ALLL of us to the point where he and his admin team had black listed all of our blogs names on the dash so they didn't have to see us rp their characters "wrong" but they especially hated Mimi who played a very minor character in the whole group. They couldn't stand her or her character and they were talking shit about every single member of the group in this group chat. So everyone is rightfully pissed. Not only was he talking shit about us but he was talking shit about Mimi! And we did not stand for Mimi slander. So we hatched a plan. A big, Fuck you guys and your shitty kink on our dash! plan. It was very simple. We would rp as normal for the next week and then on monday we would post "So long and thanks for all the fish icb you did this to us post and we would reblog Maria's original so long post and we would all leave, take the characters we were playing and just write them separately on tumblr as indie blogs where we would just rp with ourselves.

Honestly Kerry was shook apparently this mass exodus of users traumatized him (as if he didn't traumatize us enough on the dash with his puppy play threads with Gemma) I don't have a screen shot of this again it was ten years ago and Kerry has deleted all but one of the posts he made about the situation on the rp hub but he went off about how he was going to sue us for "stealing" his characters once he figured out that we were just doing indie rps by ourselves. Please keep in mind that these are lord of the rings characters in a very generic crime family AU setting. There's nothing original about them. Any oc that was "stolen" from the original bios honestly at the point of 6 months of rp was so far removed from what was in the original bio I wouldn't claim they were his property anymore.

He tried to revamp the group but honestly i think we took the drive and the energy out of him. They hated Mimi and her character so much that in the shortlived revamp they actually killed off her character in the rp lore, talk about petty.

Here's the last surviving post from Kerry.

This is a man having a mental break down because people he hated and didn't want to rp with left his rp

He send us asks and dms on skype for a little bit threatening to sue us but he stopped when none of us like replied to him.

A year later Maria must have found out what happened and made a post about it. Perhaps Kerry was still ranting and raving about how we stole his rp.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this long weird hellsite rp drama tale if you managed to make it to the end. I know it was pretty long but this is the condensed version of the 6 months that this rp ran.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

[sorcerous-caress]

I saw you got the Mass Effect collection a while ago and wanted to say a little fun fact that there’s some OG Baldur’s Gate references in ME2 and 3 because Bioware made the first two BG games. I won’t say what they are for spoiler reasons but one of them you’ll get right away. Hope you have fun with ME! It’s one of my favorite RPG franchises

I answered this ask 4 different times but each time tumblr refuses to post it and it comes back to my inbox- I don't even know what to do anymore bc I had to rewrite a long response each time.

If this one gets sent through, I'll try to edit it on the browser to include my actual answer.

Edit: it worked this time around, just my luck.

Okay so, I've never played ME before or heard anything about it, so I'm going in fully blind. I made an earthborn war hero vanguard character.

Bc I like earth, I like being a hero and I like mele characters.

I put the difficulty at vetran so I can add more spice, I might regret it, probably.

My name is shepherd? Like are they sheep and I herd them or? Is this a Mary and the little lambs situation.

Game started and man that is one hot alien, like a zebra! Oh wait that's just white paint on his face-

Why are people being mean to him :( and oh I get dialogue! Hell yeah i will defend my alien friend.

Racism against aliens? In my human galactic civilization game? More likely than you think.

I'm walking around the ship and talking to people, man these guys are really mean to the alien. If Nihlus turns out to be a traitor I wouldn't even blame him, I'd be one too if people talked this much shit behind my back.

Also corporal Jenkins!!! He is so precious omfg. I will protect him with my life and we will spend our honeymoon watching his favourite spykids movies <3

He is talking about being a hero and awful a lot tho- kinda worrying.

A nice small detail is the npc gaurds saluting to me when i walk by, since I'm a commander and all. It's really nice!

Okay I talked to the hot alien again and I think i have a shot with him! Let's fucking go!

We're on the planet, hot alien isn't with my team but hey! At least Jenkins is here.

I'm trying out weapons, I like lance so far. I have shit accuracy so fast fire rate makes up for it. But the controller layout is really confusing, there are 4 different buttons to switch to different weapons but the crouch had to be the awkward joystick press, why?

.

Jenkins died.

:(

:(((((((((

I'm killing everyone I meet.

Rip babygurl, you would've loved lego batman.

Also I can level up now, I'm not sure what any of those skills do or what any of those words mean so I'll throw all my eggs in the charm and intimidation basket until things become too hard to kill.

Maybe then I'll look up a guide and curse my past self.

I met Williams, she seems nice and I let her tag along on my team. I miss Jenkins </3

So far I'm really having fun tho and enjoying the game! Do you have any tips or recommendations? I'd love to hear them. I genuinely am clueless and just waddling around gawking at the surprisingly good graphics for a game this old.

Here is my character btw! She is nb in my heart <3 still I'm glad that we even get the choice to be a woman. The character edit screen reminds me of dark souls character edit.

[sigyn-foxyposts]

【⚡⚔️ Thrud x Vali 🗡🐺】

✧･ﾟ: *: A Fan fiction : *✧･ﾟ:*

Since this ship won my pole, here is what you guys asked for~!✨ Heads up, before you read just know they're all tweens and around the same age! Enjoy :]

Thrud and Vali were rolling around in the grass, laughing and shouting as they play fought. Thrud was strong and relentless, while Vali was quick and nimble. Despite their rough behavior towards each other, they had always been the best of friends.

"Come on, Vali, fight me like you mean it!" Thrud shouted, grinning widely as she pinned him down roughly.

"I am fighting you like I mean it Thrud!" Vali whined, trying to break free from her hold.

Vali tried to give it his all and break free, but to no avail. They continued to wrestle and play fight for a while longer, until they were both exhausted and covered in grass stains.

Thrud threw herself down into the field they had been on, landing on her back, breathing heavily. Vali sat next to her, trying to catch his breath as well.

"That was fun," Thrud said with a smile. "We should do this more than once a day haha!" She laughs loudly, snorting without a care in the world.

"Hah! Yeah, we should," Vali replied, still trying to calm his racing heart. Thrud definitely drained a lot of his energy. But he wasn't any different from her!

They both lay there in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the warm sun on their faces and the sound of birds chirping in the distance.

Suddenly, Thrud sat up and turned to Vali with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Hey Vali, I dare you to kiss me," she said, giggling.

Vali looked at her with confusion. "What? Why would I do that?" he asked, scratching his head.

Thrud smirked. "Oh come on, Vali. Don't tell me you're scared of a kiss~," she taunted.

Vali scowled. "I'm not scared. I just don't see the point of it," he retorted.

Narfi, who was sitting nearby reading his book, looked up, raising an eyebrow at what he was hearing.

"What's going on?" he asked curiously, from a distance.

Thrud got up, turned to Narfi's direction and grinned. "Vali's too chicken to kiss me," she said, laughing and pointing down at Vali.

Vali blushed and looked away, feeling embarrassed. "I am no chicken." he muttered under his breath.

Thrud puts a hand on his shoulder, she looked like she maybe understood Vali, and would leave him alone, until...

"It's okay, Vali. I won't bite," she said, winking at him, teasing him once more.

Vali felt himself turn into a tomato. Vali hesitated for a moment, glancing at Narfi, who was watching them with a confused expression. But he felt determinated to go through with this!

Thrud noticed Vali's hesitation and leaned in closely. But then quickly, Vali plants a kiss on her lips. Thrud's eyes widened in surprise, but she didn't pull away.

Eventually Vali pulled back and looked at the thunder gods daughter, her shock turned into yet another smile.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it now?" she said, chuckling.

Vali blushed furiously and looked towards his brother. "I- uh I don't know!!" he said, feeling confused.

Thrud chuckled. "Relax, Vali. It's just a kiss. It doesn't mean anything right?" she said, trying to actually reassure him this time.

Narfi shook his head, stood up and walked over to them. "I don't know what's going on between you two, but I'll take my brother home now" Narfi said, bluntly.

He points down at Vali who was laying down, hiding his face into the ground.

Thrud nodded and held back her laughs. "Heh, Yeah you're right. He doesn't look to good after that. Take care you two!" she said, getting up and grabbing her stuff. Before she leaves she makes sure to wave goodbye, winking at them.

Once Thrud was out of sight, Narfi looks down at his brother, poking his head.

"She's gone now brother, you can get up."

Vali gasps for air as he pulls his head up from the dirty ground, he felt a little dazed after the kiss, or perhaps he had almost suffocated?

"T-Thank you Nari, you saved my butt from it getting anymore embarrassing"" Vali catches his breath and gets up, brushing off dirt from clothes. Narfi just smiles calmly at him, happy his brother is feeling better.

"I am glad! I can't imagine how scary that was..kissing a girl, let alone Thrud!" Narfi expresses, "Yuck!" The thought about it made him shiver.

But then Vali interrupts.

"Oh well! it wasn't that scary ha- I mean!" He felt determinated to go through with this! Vali seemed proud at first, until he realized what he was saying. Narfi just smirked at his brother.

"Let us not speak about this, ever again." Vali muttered.

"You two are so weird." Narfi sighed.

Vali shook his head, playfully giving Narfi a push to his shoulder as they started walking home.

"Then why do you always join."

[liz-allyn]

uh, ma'am? I just caught up with 15 & 16 and I'm making incoherent noises? is that normal? Web MD doesn't know what to say.

I am so so sad for Honey. She has snapped and the final scene from chapter 16 felt entirely like she was punishing both herself and Peter. I don't even know what to say!! My skin was crawling with those descriptions of what she went through with john (I refuse to capitalize his name. that is an executive decision I made after these two chapters) and the overlap of him and Peter. The images of them switched. Like she didn't know anymore. Everyone is a danger. Everyone will hurt her. No safety, no mercy.

Oof, the absolute heartbreaking parallel of the description of her wedding night and the dom scene with Peter. She was confused. Violated. Hurt and humiliated. And then she snaps from that daze and inflicts a semblance of the same on Peter. He is hurt and ashamed and confused. It's super heavy and I'm not sure I'm in the best mental state to really grasp everything, but just know that I'm speechless and so saaad for them both. I don't think that Peter doesn't deserve some or even all of this, and on some level, he would be incapable of accepting anything good in the state he's in. Honey helps him despite herself and what he's done to her, and he can't find it in himself to be anything but suspicious. I got the feeling that in this last chapter, Honey has grasped some power back and is immediately using it to inflict similar hurt on Peter, like what she went through. It's like she's feeling relief by proving to herself that she can do the same as the people that hurt her. She can dominate and subjugate and humiliate also. And it leaves her heartbroken. But I can hardly blame or judge her? I'm also scared that Honey made a connection between john violating her during sex and Peter fucking "that silver whore until she was covered in blood". I'm actually really scared of what she even thinks of him now.

I think I need a support group to talk about this story with, it's so addictive and maddening and I cannot stop readinggg

And as a little final thing: I wonder if Honey has any scars from all of the stitches it's implied she's given herself. And what a dumb fuck Peter is for realizing she's done that before and not questioning whether it might've been for herself ohmygod see? Maddening, I tell you!

^me seeing that you've caught up!

Oof, yes yes yes - first of all, I deeply apologize for the heavy angst. I promise it's going to be worth it in the end.

I totally understand anyone's hesitation to shy away from this story from time-to-time. Simultaneously, I want to keep reassuring people that as far down as I bring you, I'm gonna build you back up.

Hey, also - thank you for analyzing the content without being overly critical. It's okay to be worried for these characters! It's okay to be appalled! I don't think I've ever worked as hard at character building than I have on this story. Sometimes I step back and I'm like - is it too much? But I appreciate the feedback loop because it helps me steer the ship when I'm going off course.

Spoilers ahead (as well as heavy triggering topics) - I love what you pointed out about Honey mirroring the abuse that she's suffered. I've done a lot of research on how victims process trauma, and I wanted to really portray that. There's a victim-offender overlap, where victims of violence without proper support are statistically likely to gain traits of their offenders.

One of the things I wanted to establish early on is that Honey doesn't lash out. She shuts down. She doesn't typically respond with violence and isn't used to it. And each time she does with Peter, she tastes a little bit of how good it feels to be able to expend that anger somehow. Only afterwards she eventually feels guilt, like the lines between herself and John are blurry.

Also I think to an extent, the lines being blurred between John and Peter in her mind are both beneficial and harmful. On the one hand, she doesn't fully trust Peter (or anyone or anything, for that matter), so much so that she needs to feel a separation between them. She is willing to lie to him (and lie to herself about him). On the other hand, more controversially, imagining that Peter is assaulting her is the thing that pushes her over the edge and makes her orgasm. The way I see it, Peter is the monster she can control. Peter is her monster. Fantasizing about him as the perpetrator is a coping mechanism and is gratifying in the sense that she can have power over the situation.

anyway lots to think about! hope you enjoy the next chapter sometime soon!

[dzthenerd490]

Kingdom Hearts: The Brightest of Hearts - Chapter 7: Holiday Chaos

Now the Gummi ship finally managed to make it back to Traverse town, There Cloud and Aerith were waiting for them to land. However once Sora, Donald, and Goofy got off the ship and on the ground the three of them collapsed. Aerith gasped in shock while Cloud couldn't help but chuckle at the sight, Aerith then punched his shoulder.

"Heh, these guys really need a break, huh?"

***

Sora then woke up on the same large bed he was in when introduced to Yuffie and Squall; only now, the ones next to him were Cloud and Aerith. Sora got up slowly feeling better after a long rest.

"Hey now, you should rest more, it can't be easy saving the Multiverse without breaks."

"Thanks, but I'm ok now, so don't worry. Hey, where's Goofy and Donald?"

"They’re in town, they actually woke up earlier than you did."

"But even so, if you want to keep resting you-" Before Aerith could finish Sora energetically grabbed his keyblade and jumped out of bed. 

"I better get going then! Thanks guys!" Sora then left the room leaving Aerith confused and Cloud amused.

"Heh that kid really has some spunk huh?"

"He kinda reminds me of you, Cloud."

"Huh? How?" Aerith just giggled and walked off; Cloud groaned in annoyance for not getting an answer.

***

Sora wandered around town noticing the town was even brighter than before. Now it was starting to look more like a town rather than the bleak atmosphere it used to have. As Sora wandered into the town square, he saw two adult men walking around but looking paranoid. Sora however didn't notice their fear and instead he just waved at the two of them. They were spooked at first but when they saw Sora was just a boy, they calmed down and waved back. However, one of them saw Sora holding a Keyblade and gasped in fear, he then pointed at the Keyblade to get the other man's attention. The two of them screamed and ran out of the town square as fast as they could, leaving Sora confused.

"It wasn't your fault if that's what you're thinking." Sora then looked up to his left to see Squall standing next to him.

"They don't understand Keyblades, the Multiverse, Darkness, Light, or magic. So as far as they can tell your Keyblade is no different from the one that turned those guys into Heartless."

"Turned them into Heartless?"

"That's why the town's been getting brighter Sora, as you fight back the darkness and liberate the cursed hearts. Those same hearts return to where they came from, like those men you just saw. You saved them from becoming the Dark Army's playthings forever. They don't know it yet, but they owe you their lives because of that." Sora looked back to where he saw the two men run off to and even though he couldn't see them anymore he smiled brightly.

"The fact that they're free from the Darkness is good enough for me."

"Hm, Yuffie was right about you, always finding the bright side of things." Sora looked at Squall then smiled proudly, owning up to his optimism. Then Sora remembered the valuable Ansem reports he got back in Agrabah.

"Oh! Hey Squall, is Merlin still in town?"

"Uh, yeah he's back in his office. why?"

"I have more Ansem reports to give him! Oh, wait. Before I go, where is Donald and Goofy?" 

"Right over here!" Upon hearing Yuffie's voice Sora saw her with Donald and Goofy all three walking toward him with smiles on their faces. Sora smiled too and ran up to Donald and Goofy to hug the two of them. Goofy accepted the hug warmly and Donald tried to do the same, but Sora accidentally choked him instead. Donald started whacking Sora on the head with his staff to which Sora let him go and laughed while rubbing the sore part of his head. As Sora apologized Donald smiled again and lightly punched him on the leg. The three of them laughed joyfully while Yuffie walked over to Squall to watch them joyfully. 

"It's so nice to see him happy like this."

"... He won't be able to keep it up when he has to fight Maleficent." Yuffie looked at Squall shocked, she then punched him in the shoulder and pouted angrily at him. 

"Hey guys, let's go get these Ansem reports to Merlin."

"you two go ahead, I'm gonna get more supplies for our next trip." Goofy then walked off to Sid's shop, leaving Donald and Sora.

"Why doesn't Goofy want to come?"

"Oh, it's nothing personal. Magic just confuses Goofy, so he doesn't like to talk about it." Sora sort of understood since he didn't fully understand Magic either, unlike Donald it kinda just came to him. Sora was about to walk to Merlin and saw Squall and Yuffie still standing there.

"you guys wanna come with?"

"No need, we already met with master Merlin today."

"But feel free to tell him we said hi!" Sora giggled and nodded as he ran off to meet with Merlin with Donald following him.

***

Sora walked into Merlin's house, familiar with the location thus able to avoid the spider webs; Donald on the other hand walks into several webs and tries to swat the spiders. Sora figured Donald would be find and continued on to find Merlin. Sora then saw Merlin in the same place sipping tea while looking through several floating books and Ansem report pages. The entire time he was whispering to himself, Sora figured this was his attempt to translate Ansem's codes. That was the first reason Sora didn't want to interrupt him, the second reason was because Merlin's display of magic was so cool that Sora was in silent awe. 

Merlin took another sip of his tea but then noticed Sora there and spat out his tea, staining one of the Ansem reports. Merlin panicked and cast a time reverse spell on the page, he then used his magic to reorganize all the other pages and books. Now everything was cleaned up and organized, at the same time Donald finally caught up and was in awe to see Merlin. Donald quickly walked up in front of him and bowed.

"Master Merlin of Magic and Sorcery, as well as a veteran of the first Keyblade war. It's an honor."

"Likewise, Head wizard of Disney Castle, despite your weak body you make up for it with a strong will! Very few have made it to your level, for that you have my utmost respect." Donald's eyes sparkled in glee as he quacked proudly to himself, Sora patted him on the back and gave him a thumbs up for being acknowledged by Merlin. Donald was still giddy but knew they had more pressing matters, so he stepped aside while Sora stepped forward.

"Master Merlin, I have more Ansem reports."

"Haha, splendid, my boy! Just in time too, I have something for you as well." Sora then handed Merlin the Ansem Reports and with magic Merlin sorted them out in his own organized way. Merlin then used his magic to recover a single page of Ansem's Report. Merlin held this report in front of himself and seemed to be filled with glee as he showed Sora, who still couldn't read it.

"It took quite a while my boy, but I was finally able to decipher Ansem's code and found something truly extraordinary! The first part of this page tells of the power of a keychain!"

"A keychain?"

"Ah, let me show you, here give me your Keyblade." Sora was confused by this, so he turned to Donald, Donald nodded, and Sora gave Merlin his keyblade. Merlin raised the keyblade and focused specifically on the keychain at the end of the handle. Merlin then held the keychain and started chanting. Merlin used his magic to raise the Ansem report closer to his face so he could read the writing while continuing to chant. As Merlin was casting his spell the keychain was now engulfed in a field of light that was quickly surrounded by several glyphs of light. The glyphs shifted around until it all was eventually absorbed into the keychain. Then the keyblade glowed as it was covered in a coat of brilliant light. Finally, the keyblade turned back to normal and Merlin held the keyblade out toward Sora while smiling proudly. 

Sora couldn't help but look in awe as his eyes sparkled in amazement. Sora then took the keyblade but almost fell to his knees, not because the Keyblade was heavy but because of its power. Sora couldn't believe the amount of power he felt flowing through the keyblade. It gave him great power before but now it felt tenfold. Sora raised his keyblade high in pride as Merlin looked at him proudly and so did Donald. Sora then started bowing and thanking Merlin for the power up, but Merlin quickly raised his hand to stop Sora.

"Oh no, my boy, it's far too early to thank me. After all, the real potential of that keyblade has yet to be unleashed."

"What do you mean? It already feels so powerful!"

"That, my boy, is merely the tip of the iceberg! Now I want you to recall a world you remember quite fondly of." Sora was confused but smiled and did as Merlin asked. Sora closed his eyes to focus better and remembered Wonderland and Alice, he smiled at remembering the wonderful time he spent with her despite it being so short. Sora then noticed a light so bright he could still see it even when his eyes were closed. Sora opened his eyes and saw the keyblade shining in brilliant light once again, it was so close and bright that it even hurt his eyes. Then the light started to be absorbed back into his keyblade and it reformed into the Keyblade Lady Luck.

Sora looked at the new Keyblade in his hand both confused and in awe, he didn't really understand what this meant. However, Sora quickly noticed how the Keyblade resembled a lot of the symbols of the card soldiers of Wonderland. Sora then smiled and closed his eyes again and thought of Ancient Greece then the Keyblade manifested into the Olympia Keyblade. Then after thinking of all the amazing things, he learned in Deep Jungle his keyblade manifests into Jungle King. Finally, Sora remembers his adventures in Agrabah and his keyblade manifests into the Three Wishes Keyblade. Sora was amazed by this; it was so cool to be able to shift his keyblade into new forms based on his experiences in the worlds he visited. However, after looking at his keyblade in awe for a minute a realization came to Sora, making him look to Merlin in confusion.

"Uh, what exactly do these Keyblades do?" Merlin was watching the entire time, however when Sora asked that question, he closed his eyes and smiled seemingly filled with foy to answer that question. Sora and Donald could sense this, and their eyes sparkled as they anticipated the answer Merlin would give them. Merlin then raised his arms in shrug.

"No idea." Sora looked at Merlin in dumbfounded disbelief while Donald fell on his face due to overwhelming disappointment. 

"Apologize my boy but like you I never had a keyblade long enough to utilize it to its full potential. Ansem was indeed my friend, but he was lucky to even find these secrets so few keyblade wielders themselves were able to extract. As such even as he was extracting the secrets of Keyblades, the Multiverse, and what he could of Kingdom Hearts itself, he had little to no opportunity to properly share them." Sora was still disappointed but remembered what Yuffie and Merlin said about him being the last Keyblade Wielder of Light, so it made sense that even a master like Merlin had trouble with finding answers himself. Sora then sighed and bowed again to Merlin.

"Well either way, this will surely be a huge help. Thank you, Master Merlin." 

"Sora why don't you go help Goofy with the supplies, there's still something I want to ask Master Merlin." Sora was confused at first but didn't think much of it and nodded as he left Merlin's house. 

"Ahem Master Merlin, I-" 

"Oh, just call me Merlin, my friend. I really wasn't much of a Keyblade wielder and only earned my title of master on a technicality."

"Uh, of course. Anyways, why did you tell Sora that it was ok to make connections to other worlds?"

"Hm? Because friendship and love are what makes life worth living and fighting for, my friend. why else?"

"But wasn't it you who established the rule to not interfere with a world's natural order?"

"Well no, that would be Eraqus. Though yes, I did nothing to stop the rule from being established so it is my fault as well. Truth be told, my friend; I have many regrets of my youth and I would say that not changing that rule would be one of them. If I knew how foolish it was to make that rule back, then I would have stopped it from becoming official years ago." Donald was surprised by this, from what he heard Merlin was one of the most important members of the Guardians of Light; especially during their resurgence after the Keyblade war. However, Disney Castle was never known to have good connections with the Guardians of Light hence why the resurgence of the Dark Army and their attack on Radiant Garden as well as the Land of the Departure went under everyone's noses. So, that meant there was no reason to follow the rule so religiously and therefore no reason to be so harsh on Sora. Donald then shook his head in self disappointment at this realization. 

"Oh, don't be too hard on yourself, my friend. As story's spread around it makes sense that a word or phrase will change here or there. Besides I already told you I am not blameless, so don't take your foolishness to heart. However, I do ask you to be more lenient on the boy, he may be a novice, but he is our last hope. But he can't be if he himself loses that shining beacon of hope within his heart. It will only shine brighter as he keeps making more connections to the worlds he saves and the people he meets." Donald smiled and nodded and left the room with newfound determination to help Sora save the Multiverse. Merlin then sat in silence as he took another sip from his tea. 

"Yes... why did I let that rule exist... it may have felt necessary at the time but... it just seemed like something... THEY would do."

***

Sora and Goofy were hauling the remaining supplies to the Gummi ship while Chip and Dale were installing a new upgrade Sid gave them. While Chip and Dale were finishing up Sora and Goofy got some pizza from the food reserves. The both of them decided to sit outside the ship while waiting for Donald to show up. However, they didn't have to wait long as Donald showed up rather quickly and walked toward Sora. Sora immediately offered pizza to Donald, but Donald quickly shook his head and bowed to Sora.

"I'm sorry I tried to keep you from interacting with the inhabitants of other worlds. When you didn't listen to me you ended up making good friends and by helping them you made it easier to find what we needed. From now on, so long as it aligns with our mission, I will not keep you from making connections with the world we encounter." Sora just smiled warmly at Donald and simply offered him a pizza slice again. This time Donald smiled back and took the piece and the three of them started eating pizza together. After some time, Chip and Dale were finally done with the upgrades and the trio were done with the pizza. 

"Alright fellas, next stop: Halloween Town!"

"Halloween? As in the Holiday?"

"Holiday? What's a Holiday?" Sora was about to enter the Gummi ship but then looked back at Goofy and Donald in shock.

"You- You guys don't know? Holidays are like a special day where everyone celebrates something... like a party!" Donald and Goofy then looked at each other in confusion, the two of them then walked onto the Gummi ship seeming unimpressed.

"I guess in that case every day at Disney Castle is a Holiday."

"Yeah, no offense Sora but Holidays really don't sound all that special." Sora watched the two in disbelief, Sora then chuckled to himself and followed them onto the ship.

"You guys have no idea what you're missing."

***

At first in the light tunnel things were going well, only basic Heartless Ships appeared, and Sora was able to take them out with ease. Then the dark gray speed blade ships appeared and like last time they were a massive nuisance. 

"I knew those troublemakers would come back! Sora, try to lock onto those ships!" Sora did as Chip asked and tried to keep the Gummi ship's guns aimed at the Heartless Ships. Though Sora kept missing he noticed that only after hovering his aim over the ships once had the screen lock on the Ships.

"Good, you got them! Now press the blue button to fire!" Sora did as Dale instructed, as soon as Sora pressed the button the Gummi ship shot several missiles that locked onto the blade Heartless ships. The missiles instantly destroy the ships, Sora was filled with awe at the sight. 

"Woah! That was awesome, what was that?!"

"Those were magic missiles Sora! With them even the fastest and sturdiest of Heartless ships won't be able to stop us!" As if on cue three big Heartless ships with heavy armor appeared, the first one was in the front and shaped like a shield with only three cannons. The other two were behind and had lots of cannons. The three of them quickly started firing and Sora tried to return fire, but the shield Heartless ships was in the front and absorbing a lot of the damage. In return, the two Heartless ships barraged the Gummi ships every chance they got. The Gummi ship was taking hard damage, but Sora still smiled as he slowly locked on the three Heartless ships the best he could. Thankfully Sora finally managed to get all three ships targeted and fired the missiles. Thankfully the missiles managed to destroy the two heavy ships in the back but the Heartless ship in the front managed to maintain itself. The Shield Heartless ship was heavily damaged but managed to keep flying but rather than continuing to fight, it left the light tunnel. Sora, Donald, and Goofy sighed in relief as the Gummi ship then started flying into the end of the light tunnel.

***

As the Gummi ship landed Sora looked out of the window in excitement hoping to see a small-town celebrating Halloween with lots of decorations and candy. When they celebrated holidays on Destiny Island the adults tried their best to make it spectacular, but it always felt out of place since they were on an island. However, Sora's parents always told him that when he was old enough to leave the island, they could see towns and cities that celebrated grand parties for the holidays. As such now that Sora was in a place called Halloween town, he was expecting such, however at first glance everything looked so creepy and depressing. 

This wasn't exactly what Sora was expecting but like Yuffie said people from different worlds look different and have different lives. Sora thought, maybe the people here just have creepy taste in decor and are actually really fun and awesome to be around. Sora smiled at his optimistic idea and faced Donald and Goofy with determination. 

"Come on guys! Let's go protect this world from the Darkness!"

"Hold up Sora." Sora stopped on Chip and Dales command; Sora looked back at the two of them in confusion because of how afraid the two of them looked. 

"What's wrong guys?"

"Sora there's something off with the dark energy we can detect in this world, it's... stronger, a LOT stronger."

"It's a little more powerful than the one in Agrabah." Sora then looked at Donald and Goofy in fearful confusion. Jafar had an inferiority complex but was a powerful Keyblade Wielder of Darkness, nonetheless. The idea that there was something more powerful in this world would be bad, especially since they only beat Jafar by outsmarting him and pure luck.

"So what should we do?"

"Be cautious, we're not sure but if this dark energy is really coming from the Dark Conduit, then they are not a normal Keyblade Wielder of Darkness. In fact, there's a good chance they are a Lord of Darkness." Donald and Goofy were instantly filled with fear, Sora on the other hand just looked back at them in confusion.

"A Lord of Darkness? What's that?"

"Their bad news Sora, Keyblade Wielders of Darkness can command the Heartless but even their power is nothing compared to the Lords of Darkness."

"The Lords of Darkness are able to fill their bodies with massive amounts of dark energy making them stronger than anything in the world. Even the most hardened and powerful Keyblade Wielders of Light would have trouble fighting just one of them."

"But that's not to say they're invincible, they're just very powerful so if we really have to fight them then be prepared for the worst fight of your life." Sora gripped his keyblade feeling afraid of the idea of having to fight enemies much stronger than any of the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness he fought. However, upon tightening his grip, Sora could feel the power of the Keyblade flowing through him. Sora felt a little disappointed in himself for forgetting the upgrade in power thanks to Merlin. Sora then smiled in determination and faced Donald and Goofy.

"I'm not worried with you guys by my side, besides if there's anything I learned on our adventures together is that the only way we will lose is if we stay down after the bad guys knock us down. So, when they push us down, we'll get right back up!" Sora then put his hand forward, Goofy immediately caught on and placed his hand over Sora's.

"Well said, Sora!" Donald didn't really have anything to say. Normally he would try to have Sora see the harsh reality of life but now he knew better than to do that. Instead, Donald just chuckled and placed his hand over the other two's. On the count of three they all ended up raising their hands high and shouted, All for One and One for All.

***

The three of them then step off the Gummi ship and could feel the Gummi ship covering them with the magical camouflage aura. 

"Huh? That's weird, the magic feels strange this time. Hey, did you guys feel-? aaaAAAAH!" Sora turned back to Goofy and Donald only to see Goofy turned into some kind of Frankenstein like monster and Donald turned into an evil looking mummy. The both of them were looking at themselves in confusion but then looked at one another and screamed. After hearing Sora scream, they looked at him and screamed again while he screamed at them. 

"Wait, Sora? What happened to you?!"

"Me?! What happened to you guys!" Sora pointed at the two of them but by doing so he noticed how his hands now looked more vicious and scarier looking. Sora then started looking at himself and saw his clothes were all black and he even had fangs now. Donald then got out his staff and manifested a large ice mirror and the three of them looked in it to see clearly how they all changed.

"Gosh, we really look scary huh?"

"But why do we look scary?"

"Well, that's just how the Gummi ship works, it's just supposed to make it easier to camouflage into new worlds though I guess when it comes to worlds like this, it has to go the extra mile."

"Does- Does this mean that everyone in town normally looks like this?" Sora was now unsure of actually wanting to go into town, he knew he had to but he really didn't want to. Donald and Goofy looked at each other in concern, Goofy then walked up to Sora and placed his hand on Sora's shoulder. 

"Sora, just because someone looks different doesn't mean they are, and just because someone's scary doesn't mean they're evil. Sure, the heartless are scary but they're evil because they attack the innocent, not because they're scary. Do you think me, and Donald are bad just because we look different from you?" Sora then blushed in embarrassment, he felt ashamed for all the times he thought Donald or Goofy were strange and funny looking and even wanted to laugh at them for it. Granted he stopped doing that but the fact that he never apologized for it made him full of guilt. Sora then shook his head to show he didn't think Donald and Goofy were freaks just because of how they looked.

"... I'm sorry, I didn't realize how bad of a friend I was." Sora then lowered his head to show his shame, Goofy just smiled warmly and gently patted Sora's head. 

"It's ok Sora, so long as you learn."

"Plus, it's not like you were the only one being a bad friend." Donald then walked up to the two of them and patted Sora on the back.

"Now then let's go meet the locals, gotta make those connections, right?" Donald then winked at Sora; Sora then smiled brightly at both of them. 

***

The three of them then finally entered Halloween town however upon doing so they saw that everyone was a scary looking monster. The three of them were scared but knew better than to judge appearances, especially after their talk from earlier. Sora was the first to step forward but was stumbling in fear and accidently bumped into Corpse Mom. Sora was scared still but hoped that after bowing and apologizing he would be shown mercy.

"... oh, aren't you just the kindest and scariest little thing!"

"I- what?"

"Wow you're really scary! So cool! I wanna be scarier like you when I grow up!" Sora then noticed Corpse Kid and blushed while scratching the back of his head due to the strange but genuine compliments. Sora then managed to relax and smile brightly at the two of them as well as wave goodbye as they walked away. Sora then smiled at Goofy and Donald to show them it was ok, Goofy was the first to smile back and walk into town confidently. Donald, on the other hand, was still freaked out and despite how hypocritical it seemed decided to walk away. However Goofy grabbed him before he could take a step back.

"Wow, this place isn't bad at all. I mean, it's pretty scary but apparently here that's a compliment." Donald then quacked loudly as he jumped out of Goofy's grasp and stood by himself.

"Ahem! It's good to know that the people here are nice, however this will lead to a big problem."

"What do you mean, Donald?"

"We'll the people here are scary but so are the Heartless, if the heartless show up now how will we be able to tell the difference between the two?"

"... That kinda rude Donald. Besides, no matter how scary they look, they're nothing like the heartless. I mean look at everyone, they're creepy but nice, even this ghost here. Hello Sir." Sora bowed to a ghost standing in front of him; However, once Sora stood up again he noticed the Heartless emblem on its being.

"... oh no." The Search Ghost Heartless then grabbed Sora by the throat and threw him toward a wall. The impact left Sora dazed, and he ended up falling off the wall and onto the ground face first. Sora raised his head in pain only to see a disappointed Donald standing over him. 

"See what I mean." Sora then pouted at Donald in annoyance.

"This doesn't mean you're right Donald; it just means I need to be more perceptive from now on." Sora then smirked as he saw the Search Ghost approaching Donald.

"And it looks like you should too."

"Huh? What's that supposed to-?" The Search Ghost then grabbed Donald by his tail and swung him in the air only to slam his whole body back on the ground hard. The Search Ghost then tossed Donald over to where Goofy was standing. Donald then looked up to see a disappointed Goofy standing over him.

"He's not wrong Donald."

"... Shut up, Goofy." Goofy just sighed in disappointment as he manifested his shield and walked over to the Search Ghost. Sora tried to get up but only struggled around at best, Sora then laid down in defeat as the Search Ghost approached. Sora huffed in annoyance even with his strength and agility mysteriously getting better after every world he liberated he was still lacking. Sora remembered Tarzan and how he was not only strong but very athletic, especially how he was able to swing from vine to vine so effortlessly. Sora couldn't help but feel envious at the moment, if only he was at the same level as Tarzan. However, to Sora's shock his Keyblade glowed in a gold aura and manifested into the Jungle King Keyblade. Sora was now back to being confused; however, his confusion quickly turned to shock again when out of the keyblade manifested a jungle vine. Like a grappling hook the vine wrapped around the spire at the top of the wall and pulled Sora up allowing him to avoid the slash of the Search Ghost Heartless. 

Goofy tried running at Sora to help him but stopped with a surprised look to see Sora doing just fine and seemingly discovering a new power with his keyblade. The Search Ghost growled in anger and suddenly more Search Ghost as well as Shadow Heartless started manifesting from the darkness. The citizens of Halloween Town looked at the Heartless in confusion only to start panicking when the Heartless started attacking them. Thankfully all the citizens of HalloweenTown got out safely leaving only Sora, Donald, and Goofy to fight off the Heartless.

Sora, who was still hanging onto the wall, looked at the vine, his keyblade manifested with a surprised look. Sora then looked back at the Heartless and smirked at them. By mental command the vine unmanifested and Sora jumped off the wall and landed right in front of a Shadow while slashing it. Sora then ran toward another Shadow and slashed it while kicking a Search Ghost Heartless. The Search Ghost roared at him and tried to slash him back, but Sora managed to jump away in time. Sora smirked at the Search Ghost and used Jungle King Keyblade to manifest a jungle vine that latched onto the Search Ghost. Sora then swung his keyblade around causing the Search Ghost Heartless to be swung in a giant circle. All the other Search Ghost Heartless managed to get out of the way while the Shadow Heartless were hit and pushed into the air. Goofy then swung his shield around to bash the Shadow Heartless as they were falling from the sky. 

Donald manages to get up and sees the Search Ghost Heartless around the area, Donald then casts a fireball at one of them. However, the fireball phases right through Search Ghost as it slowly floated toward him. Donald panicked and tried to run away only for him to be surrounded by the Search Ghost Heartless. Donald was quacking in terror but then remembered a dangerous spell he was working on. Donald then stopped and focused his magical energy into the spell, Donald then cast it and a wall of fire manifested all around him hitting the Search Ghost's directly. The Search Ghosts could not phase for long and thus it didn't take long for them to start burning. However, they proved to be able to take quite a punch as despite being scorched by the magical flames they were still able to float forward. Donald managed to keep his cool since he could see the Search Ghosts being injured. Donald then cast lighting and sure enough this managed to finish off all the Search Ghosts surrounding him. 

Sora finally finished his attack by slamming the Search Ghost hard on the ground. Sora then ran up to the now dazed Search Ghost, Sora wanted to hit the Heartless while it was down to finish it off. Sora then remembered how Hercules managed to beat the Centaur with overwhelming strength and how cool it looked, despite his shortcomings. The Keyblade then glowed in a gold aura and shifted into Olympia Keyblade. Sora then swung at the Search Ghost and to his surprise the Search Ghost went flying into the air and burst, releasing the cursed heart within. Sora watched in awe at the sight, he then looked at his Keyblade and smirked deviously. Sora then started laughing joyfully as he was swinging at the rest of the Search Ghost Heartless making them all fly into the air and burst due to the overwhelming damage. Sora had never felt so strong before, it must have been the Olympia Keyblade, giving him almost as much physical power as Hercules. 

Goofy had just finished shield bashing the last of the Search Ghost Heartless, thankfully at the same time Donald and Sora did. Unfortunately, due to their phasing powers, fighting the Search Ghost Heartless ended up costing a lot of stamina. As such both Donald and Goofy ended up passing out due to exhaustion. Sora on the other hand felt find so he quickly reached into Goofy's bag and got out two healing potions for them. Upon healing them the citizens of Halloween town came out of hiding only to start cheering. Sora quickly helped Donald up; afterwards, the three of them greeted everyone. 

"Huh, so this is what it's like to get recognition."

"Haha! It's Jack!"

"Jack is back!"

"Jack who's Jack?" Just then the gates to the town opened and Jack Skellington drove in on a strange looking vehicle with a large sack filled with lots of stuff. Everyone was so overjoyed that none of them even noticed Sora, Donald, or Goofy. Jack then tells the mayor to announce a town meeting for everyone.

"Gosh these people forgot they were attacked by Heartless rather quickly."

"They probably just thought of the Heartless as thugs rather than monsters since everyone here is... well a monster. Anyways this is good for us, now that everyone's busy again we can search the town and find the Dark Conduit and look for the world's keyhole after taking them down. The best part is that with the town folk busy, there will be no distractions!"

"Uh, Donald." Donald then looked at Goofy in confusion only to see where he was pointing with disappointment. Goofy was pointing at Sora who was following the Halloween town's people. Donald growled in anger at first but then just sighed in annoyance.

"Ugh... maybe I should just enforce the rule of keeping the natural order regardless."

"Don't be too hard on him Donald. Sora may just be a kid, but kids aren't as dumb or weak as most people think they are. Sometimes... you just gotta let them walk by themselves." Donald then noticed Goofy seeming sad, Donald knew this was because Goofy was remembering his son Max and how he wants space from his dad despite Goofy still wanting to be there for him. Donald then sighed and patted his friend on the back.

"Alright I get it. Now come on Goofy, even if we can't stop him, we can at least stay by his side." Goofy smiled and nodded, the two of them then followed Sora as he followed everyone else to see what Jack brought to Halloween town.

***

Sora along with the rest of Halloween Town waited at the town hall in anticipation to see what Jack had in store. Sora was smiling with delight and curiosity, Donald was bored and hoped whatever it was would be quick, Goofy on the other hand was having a friendly conversation with Corpse dad. Finally Jack stepped forward and told them all about his encounters with Christmas Town. Sora then leaned forward as his eyes sparkled with delight, Sora did like Halloween so the fact that there was a town that embodied the holiday was already amazing. However, if there was another town that actually embodied Sora's favorite holiday, Christmas, then that would be a dream come true. 

Jack explained how he walked through a door and into another world. This caught both Donald and Goofy's attention, again they knew nothing about holidays so they figured it was just another town in this world. But Jack blatantly said he walked into another world, and through a door no less. Donald then glared at Jack in suspicion, perhaps Jack was the Dark Lord, if he was then this must be a scheme to convince the people of Halloween town to work for the Dark Army. Donald and Goofy were now on guard, no doubt in their minds that Jack would introduce the Heartless to them and begin their evil conquest. Jack then started singing about Christmas Town and opened the curtains to show a misshaped Christmas tree with lots of ornaments and lots of presents.

Sora was still excited, Goofy sighed in relief, and Donald just sat back down in disappointment knowing they were still making no progress in the mission. Jack then continued his song trying but failing to explain Christmas. The Halloween Town's people kept interrupting Jack thinking that it was all Halloween stuff and not understanding the Christmas stuff at all. Sora on the other hand stood up and not only showed that he understood Christmas and even helped Jack understand the Christmas aspects he didn't understand. Jack then invited Sora on the stage and Sora explained it all with joy and Jack was increasingly happy to learn more about Christmas. Though the people of Halloween Town still didn't get it but were now excited about the idea of Christmas. Goofy was clapping as well, Donald didn't want to at first but figured that since no one got it wasn't a big deal, so he was clapping as well. 

***

Now that the introduction to Christmas was over Sora and Jack were walking back into town joyfully with Donald and Goofy following them. 

"I have to say that the introduction to Christmas was an absolute success. Tell me, what is your name, young boy?"

"I'm Sora! I do love Halloween, but Christmas is awesome!"

"Yes, truly a wondrous experience. Tell me when did you go to Christmas Town?"

"Oh, I never did, I just celebrated it back home."

"Celebrated it? Wait a minute..." Sora was confused but then frozen with fear when he saw Jack Skellington staring at him with skepticism.

"Hm... are you perhaps human, from the human realm? But how, you look exactly like a citizen of Halloween Town?" 

"Uh... Well..." Before Sora could explain anything, suddenly more Heartless started manifesting, a Darkball Heartless and a Wizard Heartless manifested in front of Jack and Sora with several Wight Knight Heartless surrounding the four of them. 

"huh? What is the meaning of this, let us pass!"

"Sorry Jack, but they're not going to listen to us. These are the Heartless!"

"Heartless? I've never heard of such a creature but if their trouble then they'll have to get through me!" Several Wight Knight Heartless screeched in anger and charged at Jack with full intent to shred him into pieces. Jack however jumped up and dodged their claws easily with his flexible skeleton body. Now behind them Jack roared at them to give them a scare, sure enough it worked, and the Wight Knights were paralyzed with fear. Sora took the advantage and slashed at the Wight Knights one by one until the cursed hearts were released. 

"Huh? Weren't those hearts? I thought you said these were Heartless?"

"Well, they are but it's... confusing but trust me when I say these things are not good! Don't hold back on them." Jack still didn't get it but since Sora knew a lot about Christmas Jack was willing to trust him to know enough about the Heartless, so Jack nodded in agreement. Donald and Goofy then backed up Jack while Sora went for the two Heartless that were clearly in charge of the operation. The Wizard Heartless then raised his staff and blasted a fireball at Sora, who only barely managed to dodge the blast. Sora then tried to charge at the Wizard only for it to activate a gravity spell to freeze him in place and accelerate him in the opposite direction, causing Sora to land hard on the Ground. Jack then threw a pumpkin bomb at the Wizard only for it to cast an ice spell destroying the bomb and canceling out the explosion. 

Jack groaned in anger and tried to scare the Wizard Heartless; however, before he could roar the Darkball got in front of him and bit his face. Jack wasn't injured, instead he was annoyed by the Darkball and tried to hit it, but it kept using its phasing and teleporting powers to avoid his attacks. Sora used the increased strength he got from his Olympia Keyblade to force himself up quickly. However, as soon as Sora got up, he was struck with lightning by the Wizard casting a lighting spell. Sora was now getting frustrated, he remembered back in Agrabah how Jafar used a wish to make himself stronger with magic. Sora wished he had a more effective way at fighting against magic attacks. As if on cue, his keyblade glowed in golden light and manifested into the Three Wishes Keyblade. Sora wasn't sure what this meant but still held his keyblade high and pointed it toward the Wizard Heartless. The Wizard Heartless seemingly looked at Sora in confusion but then cast another fire spell casting a barrage of fire at Sora. Sora didn't have time to dodge so he just raised his keyblade in hopes to block the attack the best he could. However, to both Sora's and the Wizard Heartless shock, the spell redirected back toward the Wizard. The Wizard Heartless was now badly burnt but not defeated instead it just fell to the ground.

Jack finally caught the Darkball Heartless and slapped it into the ground disbursing it instantly, however to Sora and Jack's shock no heart was released. Before Sora could ponder, he was scratched in the back by a Wight Knight. Sora grunted in pain but smiled as his Keyblade manifested into Olympia and he slashed the Wight Knight with enough impact to cause it to fly into the air and quickly be destroyed. Sora then saw that Goofy was having trouble with two Wight Knights, both constantly slashing at his shield. Sora smiled as he manifested the Jungle King Keyblade, manifested a vine, and had the vine wrap around one of the Wight Knights. Sora then raised it up causing the Wight Knight to be swung in the air only for Sora to swing it back down, slamming the Wight Knight into the ground and releasing the cursed heart within. 

With the pressure lightened off of Goofy, he quickly bashed the remaining Wight Knight causing it to stagger back away from Goofy. Donald then cast a lightning spell shocking it and finally releasing the cursed heart within. Sora then cheered at their victory, finally feeling like they were gaining an edge over the Dark Army's attacks. Donald looked at Sora, but his expression quickly turned to shock, Donald then suddenly cast a lighting spell at Sora. Sora was confused but quickly raised his arms in a desperate attempt at defense, but the lighting didn't actually hit him. Instead, Sora turned around to see the now fried Wizard Heartless injured beyond repair and fell to the ground as the cursed heart within was released. 

"Marvelous! Terrifyingly Marvelous! You three are extraordinary! I have some experiments to conduct this Christmas, but I couldn't do that with these rude Heartless showing up here and there. Please, won't you protect my beloved town in the meantime." Sora looked at Jack in confusion but then smiled brightly.

"That's actually what we're here for Jack, so you can count on us!"

"Haha! Splendid! I'll get right to it!" Sora then waved at Jack goodbye and stood there with a smile on his face while Goofy and Donald stood beside him. 

"Well, this all ended up working out, you ok with this Donald?" Sora then patted Donald on the head. Donald knew this was Sora's subtle revenge for all the times he lectured him, so Donald just sighed and nodded. Sora giggled a little but then looked back to where the Darkball was destroyed, it was still bugging him that he didn't see any heart leaving the dark body.

"Weird, I wonder why that Darkball Heartless didn't release a heart, was the heart still cursed?"

"No Sora, actually that heartless didn't have an emblem which means it was a pureblood Heartless born from the Darkness in-between worlds."

"Wow, I didn't know there were other variants of Pureblooded Heartless."

"There's not supposed to be, meaning the Dark Army's damage on the multiverse is much worse than we thought. We need to find the Dark Conduit of this world as soon as possible." 

***

At first it seemed like the mission was bound to be quick and painless however a week had passed and there were only minor Heartless attacks everyday but no sign of the Dark Conduit. For the first time since their mission started Sora and Donald were equally frustrated at the fact that the Dark Conduit didn't show themselves. Surprisingly the people of Halloween Town were getting angsty as well, not just because of the Heartless but also because Jack has refused to leave his room. After another victory against the Heartless Sora, Donald, and Goofy were left sitting along the wall of Jack's house. 

"Huh, I thought being here would be fun but for some reason it's so boring. The Heartless are even getting weaker and weaker as time goes on."

"I think that it's actually you getting stronger Sora, or at least I hope that's the case. A-hyuk!"

"Well, I won't lie, this keychain power Merlin unlocked for me is pretty cool, I wonder what new Keyblade I'll get once this world has been liberated... *sigh* if it ever gets liberated."

"Hm, it seems like nobody is making any progress." Sora then looked over to his right to see Sally leaning against the wall looking sad. Sora got up and sat next to her to see if she was alright.

"Uh are you ok?"

"Hm? Oh, you're the boy who knows about Christmas. What was your name again?"

"Oh, I'm Sora, and these are my friends Donald and Goofy. you are?"

"Sally, I'm... well I'm just an experiment of Dr. Finkelstein. I'm nothing special." Sora didn't know Sally but still hearing her say that about herself felt undeserved. Sora met everyone in Halloween Town at least once and therefore he knew everyone here was kind and deserved kindness in return. Nothing told Sora that Sally was an exception.

"Hey, I like your hair, its beautiful and red, I had a good friend who has beautiful red hair like yours. Her name is Kairi and she's very important to me." Sally then raised her head and smiled not only at Sora's compliment but his soft tone when talking about Kairi.

"She sounds lovely, do you like her?" Sora blushed at the question but then smiled shyly and nodded. 

"Hm, that's good, I like Jack but I'm not sure how to help him."

"What do you mean?"

"Even before Jack knew about this Christmas stuff, he felt like he wanted more out of life but could never tell exactly what. I always hoped I would be the one to help him find it. But now he's just trapped in that lab of his, trying to find out what the meaning of Christmas is."

"Well, if there's anything I know about Christmas it's that he's definitely going to have a lot of fun about it."

"I sure hope that's what it is at least, I don't know why but I have a feeling something terrible might happen."

"Eureka!" Sally, Sora, Donald, and Goofy got up and saw Jack who was speaking out from the window of his room.

"Be prepared, Halloween Town, for this year, Christmas... IS OURS! This year Halloween Town will be celebrating Christmas!" Sora couldn't help but get excited at the idea of celebrating Christmas in another world. 

"Haha, wow! Guess there's no reason to worry anymore!" Sally smiled not sure what it all meant but just glad to see at least one thing going right today. She picked a blighted flower and smelled its toxic pollen in delight. However, to both her and Sora's shock the flower suddenly transformed into a tiny Christmas tree only to combust into flames and wither into ashes. 

"What? What was that?"

"I- I don't know... But I have a feeling something really will go wrong very soon, and it might be because of Christmas."

"What? No, that- that can't be true. Christmas is the best and safest holiday... it- it just has to be."

***

More time had passed but now the Heartless were no longer attacking instead Sora, Donald, and Goofy searched Halloween Town for clues while also helping prepare for Christmas. Donald and Goofy didn't like the toys, candy, and decorations because of their scary nature but Sora thought it was ok since he thought the gifts were for the Halloween Town kids. Still in the meantime Sora tried his best to comfort Sally in her growing concern of the upcoming Christmas. Though if Sora was being honest, he was getting concerned too, the last time a Dark Conduit hid himself he set a trap that imprisoned not only Sora, Donald, and Goofy but Tarzan Jane and her dad as well. If the Dark Conduit was planning something similar, then it would really spell doom for Halloween Town. 

After another day had passed with still no Heartless or Dark Conduit in sight. Sora had just finished helping with the decorations at the town center of Halloween Town. At the same time Donald and Goofy came back into town after searching for anything leading to the Dark Conduit. Sora looked at them hoping for answers, only for the two of them to shake their heads. Sora sighed, another day with no progress made. However, Sora was able to smile when he saw Jack in the Santa costume. Sora couldn't help but laugh at how off-putting Jack was in a Santa costume but still covered his mouth to not let it out. Sora then waved happily at Jack and Jack waved back happily at Sora. However, Sora's smile faded when he saw Sally looking even more worried that she usually did. Sira sighed but before he could focus on that anymore the people of Halloween Town started celebrating as Lock, Shock, and Barrel showed up carrying a large bag on a bathtub with feet. Like everyone else Sora walked to the three of them in confusion wondering what was in the bag and how it was moving. 

"Ah! Did you three get him?"

"We sure did Jack!"

"Yup!"

"Here he is! The captured Sandy Claws!"

"... wait what?" The three of them then opened the bag and there was Santa Claus inside the bag. Everyone was horrified by how friendly he looked while Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Sally were horrified by the fact that he was captured at all. 

"wha-?! Jack?! Why is Santa Claus captured like that?!"

"Well Sora, Christmas needs only one Sandy Claws, and it would be very weird if there were two."

"What? I thought you were just celebrating Christmas!"

"I am celebrating Christmas! I'm a holiday spirit Sora, and the best way for a Holiday spirit to celebrate a holiday is to bring a bit of the holiday to the human realm. You see Sora, normally Halloween Town just inspires people to be their scariest for sweets and laughter. However, this year I will celebrate Christmas! which means I'll be the one to bring the gifts to the human realm!"

"You fiend! That is my job! I am Santa Claus!"

"Oh, don't worry my good sir! This year you can be on vacation and leave the Christmas celebration to me! Lock, Shock, and Barrel! Please ensure that Sandy Claws is well taken care of. As for us, we have Christmas to celebrate!" Everyone in Halloween Town started cheering as they were all surrounding Jack, preventing Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Sally from stopping him from taking Santa Claus' hat or from heading to his Halloween sleigh. As everyone else left, Sora fell to his knees out of frustration and sadness. 

"What have I done, I just wanted to help celebrate Christmas. But now Santa Claus has been kidnapped and Jack is going to ruin Christmas!"

"Gosh, this is a disaster! Was Jack really the Dark Conduit after all?"

"I don't think so." Sora, Goofy, and Sally then turned to Donald in confusion.

"If Jack really was the Dark Conduit, he would have captured us as well and put us in the same place as Santa Claus. He didn't though, instead he just went on and is now trying to replace Santa. However, this is still bad. You all saw the toys and candies Jack is going to deliver, if Jack goes through with this it will cause unimaginable chaos! Enough chaos to unleash the endless legion of Heartless onto this Human realm and once that world is destroyed."

"HalloweenTown and Christmas Town will be next as well as all the other Holiday towns!"

"Whoever the Dark Conduit is, if this all goes through, they'll have more than enough power to destroy us with a simple snap of their fingers, then nothing in the multiverse can stop them!"

"Which means Jack is just another pawn in their game! We have to stop him!"

"Don't worry Sora, I have just the thing!" Sally then got out a potion from her bag and showed it to the three of them.

"With this Jack won't be able to leave HalloweenTown! I just need to pour it into a large foundation... ah! The fountain at the center of town, that's perfect!"

"Let's get to it, them!" Sora, Sally, Donald, and Goofy then ran toward the crowd hoping they weren't too late. Jack started getting onto his sleigh, so Sally and Sora sneaked around the crowd while Sally started pouring the potion. Sure enough, as the potion mixed with the fountain it turned into fog so thick it was impossible to see clearly through. Sally was overjoyed while Sora sighed in relief, he was sad to see Jack heartbroken but knew it was all for the greater good. Sora would find a way to apologize later for now they just needed to save Santa Claus and stop the Dark Conduit. Or at least they would if Jack's ghost dog Zero didn't have a nose so bright it could coordinate the skeleton deer's out of the fog and safely fly to the human realm. 

Jack then did his best impersonation of Santa Claus while he and the skeleton deer flew away into the night to celebrate Christmas. Sally, Sora, Donald, and Goofy could only watch in frustration as their plan failed miserably.

"Dang it, just like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer."

"What?"

"It was a funny book I read in Deep Jungle."

"Oh no, now because of Jack those awful Heartless monsters will destroy everything!"

"Don't lose hope yet, Sally! We can still save Santa Claus and therefore Save Christmas!"

"But Sora, we don't even know where he is. Gosh, he could be anywhere and no one but the Dark Conduit would know." Sora huffed in frustration, Goofy was right, if this really was all going according to the Dark Conduit's plan then only they knew where to find Santa Claus. However, Sora then saw at the corner of his eye Shock, Lock, and Barrel in their walking bathtub. Sora then pointed at them to show the other three.

"They're the ones who captured Santa Claus in the first place! If anyone knows where he is, it's them!" Shock, Lock, and Barrel then saw Sally, Sora, Donald, and Goofy looking at them and panicked. The bathtub then started running but Goofy cast an ice spell to keep it from doing so. Shock, Lock, and Barrel then got out and ran away only for Sora to use his increased speed to catch them all and bring them back. 

"You three tell us where Santa Claus is!"

"Oh yeah? what are you gonna do?"

"Yeah, we're just kids! What could you possibly do to us!" Sora stopped to ponder on this, Sora did want to save Santa but hurting kids that looked younger than him felt wrong. However, Donald was not on the same boat and cast a lightning spell on the three of them. The three of them were shocked and left covered in burnt ashes and fell to the ground groaning in pain.

"Tell us where Santa is, you brats!" Lock lazily got up and pointed toward Oogie's manor, a second later he fell right back down.

"Uh Donald, thanks for the info but don't you think that was a little harsh?"

"Of course it was, but we're in a rush. Desperate times call for desperate measures, Sora." Sora and Goofy looked at each other but both just shrugged since it did get results. With time running out the four of them ran to Oogie's manor but were quickly ambushed by Wight Knights, Search Ghosts, and two Gargoyle Heartless.

"Yup, this is definitely the Dark Conduit's hideout."

"Sally stand back, we got this!" Sora expected Sally to listen to him but instead she quickly got out her sewing kit and rearranged the threads attaching her arms. Sally then threw a punch at one of the Wight Knights despite them being too far away from her. However, her arm ended up stretching out and actually punching the Wight Knight, knocking it out.

"Don't worry about me Sora." Sora couldn't help but be in awe of Sally's strange power, he then nodded and smiled as he faced the Heartless with Sally, Donald, and Goofy by his side. Donald then got ready to cast the multi core spell. Sora and Goofy knew it would take him a while to cast the spell, so they defended him while he got it ready. Surprisingly a Wight Knight grabbed two Search Ghost with its large hands and threw them at Goofy. Goofy was not going to let himself get overwhelmed so shocking he threw his shield and it hit one Search Ghost and ricochet into hitting the other. As the two Heartless fell face first on the ground, and Goofy got his shield back Sora ran to them and slashed the two of them until they were destroyed. 

The first Gargoyle screeched in anger as its wings enlarged and sharped, it then flew up only to fly down aiming its wings at Sora to slice him to pieces. Thankfully Donald finished his multi core spell in time and cast it at the Gargoyle. The Gargoyle screeched in pain as it was frozen in ice, burned to a crisp by the fire, then finally incinerated by the lighting allowing three cursed hearts within it to go free. Donald stood proudly but had to dodge when a Wight Knight was only seconds from scratching him. Sora cast a fireball at the Wight Knight and Donald followed up with a lightning spell destroying it instantly. The four remaining Search Ghosts were slowly creeping forward so Goofy charged his shield with magic and rammed right through all four of them making them fly into the air. While in the air, Sora cast fireball at one, Donald did the same to another, and Sally used her arms to punch the last two. All four ended up falling on the ground hard and thus releasing the cursed hearts within as they faded into darkness. 

The second Gargoyle roared but instead of flying it still just stood there and pointed at Sora. This seemingly encouraged the Wight Knights as they were getting ready to charge. Upon charging, Goofy charged back and thus collided with one, Donald cast an ice spell freezing two of them, Sora used his Jungle King Keyblade to bind two together and pull them closer so he could slash them till the cursed hearts were free. Lastly Sally managed to punch one of the last two Wight Knights but the other slashed at the thread causing her arm to fall off. Since he already defeated his Heartless Sora jumped over to help Sally. Sora manifested his Olympia Keyblade and slashed the first Wight Knight to destroy it while it was down while also kicking the second one to gain some space. Now in the clear, Sora tossed Sally her arm back and she quickly stitched it back with new thread. Sally was about to thank Sora but quickly threw a punch at him leaving Sora frozen in shock. However, Sally's arm went past Sora and punched the Wight Knight that was seconds from ambushing him. After Goofy’s shield bashed the two Heartless Donald froze there were no more left except for the Gargoyle. It seemingly screeched but, in a way, to show it was laughing; the Gargoyle then stood up and extended its wings to show it was ready to fight. 

"Uh oh, this one is going to be hard to beat."

"Sorry guys but... you won't have magic to help you this time." Donald then collapsed on the ground as he was out of mana. Goofy then quickly gave him a mana potion to recover faster while he, Sora, and Sally got ready to fight. The Gargoyle flew towards them at surprising speed, so fast they couldn't react in time to stop it. Upon landing in front of them, the Gargoyle quickly slashed its claw's twice at Goofy's shield, nearly knocking him off balance. Unfortunately, the Gargoyle finished it off with a hard kick at Goofy's shield, knocking him to the ground hard. Sally tried to ambush the Gargoyle, but it quickly used its fire breath to graze her with fire forcing her to back off in pain. 

Sora was shocked and angered at the state of things, now he was the only one to face off against the Gargoyle. Before Sora could even prepare the Gargoyle lunged at him trying to overpower him with its size and strength. Sora managed to raise his keyblade to defend in time, but he was still struggling to hold back the Gargoyle's strength. Sora tried several times to push back the Gargoyle but had no success; this was bad, he couldn't attack physically or use magic while his keyblade was being used to shield himself from the Gargoyle. Sora tried to think, the vines of his Jungle King Keyblade wouldn't help, this was a physical attack so not Three Wishes Keyblade either. Perhaps the Olympia Keyblade but this Gargoyle wasn't just strong but fast and could fly, Sora needed more than strength. Sora then remembered he still had the Lady Luck Keyblade, but he had no idea what it did. While struggling, Sora wondered what Lady Luck did, the only thing significant he remembered from Wonderland was how wacky and silly everything was. Besides that, the coolest thing was how Alice grew, perhaps if Sora could grow like she did he could beat the Gargoyle, but Alice used a potion, and Sora didn't have it. However, to Sora's shock the keyblade glowed and turned into the Lady Luck Keyblade. Sure enough afterwards Sora started growing, similar to how Alice grew. 

The Gargoyle was no longer overpowering Sora, instead it was staring up at his enlarged form while shivering in fear. Sora was a little freaked out by his enlarged state but when he saw how small the Gargoyle was now, he smirked and stomped on the Heartless. Sora sighed in relief; he was afraid the battle was going to get dragged out longer but thankfully it was finished quickly. Sora then deactivated the power of Lady Luck and shrunk back to his regular size.

"Don't worry guys, I got the potions." Sora then ran to Goofy, reached into his bag, and got out three healing potions. Goofy and Sally had just enough strength to take the potions and thank Sora while he prepared his own.

"No, no, allow me Sora." The three of them then looked at Donald who managed to recover his mana. Donald then tried to heal the three of them but just made some weeds in front of them grow into flowers. Donald then tried again and again his spell didn't work and just turned more weeds into flowers. Sora and Goofy looked at each other and just started drinking their healing potions despite Donald's annoyance. Sally felt bad for Donald, but she was really hurt by the burns, so she quickly drank it and sure enough she was healed. Donald turned red in anger and looked to Sora and Goofy. Sora scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, while Goofy just shrugged.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Donald." Sora had to cover his mouth to keep himself from giggling. Donald on the other hand started quacking, ran up to Goofy, jumped on his head, and started pulling on his ears in anger. 

***

After Donald cooled off, the four of them managed to sneak into Oogie's Manor. Inside, they saw Oogie rolling his dice to help him decide how he would destroy Santa Claus. 

"Oh no that's Oogie, the most infamous and cruelest monster of all Halloween Town."

"Oogie?"

"Huh?"

"Sora, you know him?"

"... guys what did you say Dark Lords were?"

"Uh, well they're called The Lords of Darkness Sora, and like we said back at the Gummi ship they can fill their bodies with lots of Dark energy making them superior in both physical and magical strength."

"Lots of Keyblade wielders of Light, even Keyblade Masters fell to them during the Keyblade war, why are you asking Sora?" Sora tried to remember where he heard that name before, then it finally came to him. Hey there, Keyblade wielder wannabe! Lord Oogie sends his regards! That was what the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness said to Sora back in Wonderland. Sora was now in a cold sweat out of fear. There was no doubt about it, Sora's suspicions had been confirmed.

"Guys, Oogie isn't just a Dark Conduit he's also a Lord of Darkness." Donald and Goofy looked at Sora in shock, they then looked at Oogie. Now that he knew where to look Donald could see it, Oogie's magical aura was not only through the roof but also full of darkness.  

"How lucky you are little Keyblade Wielder of Light, to be able to make such an accurate assumption. However, you're already too late." Before the four of them could do anything, the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness had already slashed the four of them. The force from the attack forced them to fly out and land hard on the ground in front of Oogie. 

"Well, well, now it really is a party, isn't it? Good work Ludor!"

"I live to serve my Lord." Sora quickly looked up to see the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness. Like the others he couldn't see his face because of the hood, however his keyblade was a lot like Lady Luck except it was black with white outlines of poker clovers, it had a silver ring guard around the handle, and a silver poker clover as a key bit. 

"Hahaha, so you're the brat Sora, huh? baby boy Riku talks about you all the time!" Sora grunted in anger; he was still upset over how Riku was the Champion of Darkness. Moreover, Riku was so convinced that he could beat the Darkness at its own game that he wouldn't even listen to Sora when he tried to convince Riku to help him stop the Darkness.

"Too bad his little plan to convert you to the Dark Army failed! But on the bright side I get to kill you myself! Santa Claus, The Champion of Light, The Head Wizard of Disney Castle, and the Royal Guardsmen! Now that's what I call a jackpot! Your hearts are going to make the most powerful Heartless I ever created, even better than that Trickmaster!" Again, Oogie started laughing but this time Sally threw a punch at him to shut him up. Oogie was surprised at first but then growled in anger.

"Don't forget about the dames, huh? Too bad, all you're doing is raising the stakes and I'm a lucky gambler!" Oogie then threw his dice on the ground, and both landed on six.

"Haha! Midnight, the witching hour! My favorite time, the time of Darkness!" Oogie then unleashed his magical aura of darkness as he started growing and all around his Shadow Heartless started manifesting. The Keyblade Wielder of Darkness then jumped down from the ground to face them as Shadow Heartless manifested around him as well. The situation was not looking good at all, they had to fight a Keyblade Wielder of Darkness, A Lord of Darkness, and an army of Shadow Heartless. Sora was intimidated at first by Oogie's overwhelming size but then remembered his Lady Luck Keyblade. Sora quickly manifested the Keyblade and used its power to grow in size allowing him to meet Oogie at his level. Sora then quickly pushed Oogie out of the Manor and into the open field away from Goofy, Donald, and Sally so he wouldn't crush them. 

"My evil lair! You're going to pay for that punk!" Sora then slashed at Oogie but with his dark aura it seemingly had little to no effect. Oogie started laughing as Sora kept trying to slash at him but was doing barely any damage for Oogie to even notice or care. 

"Hahaha! I can't believe Jafar lost to a twerp like you! All he had to do was unleash his magical aura and he could defeat you. That prideful bastard just couldn't bring himself to use the same magic as the rest of us! Ha, what an idiot!"

"wha- Jafar was a Lord of Darkness?!"

"Ding! Ding! Ding! You win! Yeah, that lousy second best was the weakest of us all for a reason, but then again you only beat him based on pure luck!" Oogie then raised his sack arm and from it manifested a large fist of darkness.

"Luckily for me, I'm the master of luck!" Oogie then rammed his fist on top of Sora, Sora blocked in time, but the force still made his feet dig into the ground. Sora grunted in pain, he wasn't sure what to do, Oogie was seemingly invincible. Though Sora should have seen that coming since Donald did say they were superior in both Physical and Magical power. Then it hit him, magical power, that's when Sora smirked at Oogie for an idea popped in his head.

"Hey this is your magical power, right?"

"Why yes brat, this is my darkness given to me by my benevolent master! Like what you see?"

"Thanks for the info, Jerk!" Sora then switched to the Three Wishes Keyblade which made him back to normal size. However, before Sora started falling Sora slashed at the shadow fist causing it to rebound back at Oogie, hitting him in the face. Oogie grunted in pain while Sora fell to the ground but landed safely. 

"Argh! You little brat!" Oogie used his darkness to manifest four massive dark spears and shot them right toward Sora. Sora then slashed across all four of the spears and like before, the magic redirected right towards Oogie. Again, Oogie grunted in pain as the force from the spears knocked him off balance and made him fall on his back hard. Sora smiled being able to beat him but then looked back to check up on Donald, Goofy, and Sally. They were able to defeat most of the Shadow Heartless, but the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness was a major issue. He was trying to slash Sally to turn her into a Heartless as such Goofy and Donald had to protect her while fighting. Sora tried to run back to help but was stopped by a large spider made of pure Darkness. 

"Where do you think you're going?!" As Oogie got up he manifested two more spiders of Darkness and an even larger Centipede of Darkness. 

"Hahaha, try doing your little tricks with them!" Sora then manifested the Olympia Keyblade and slashed at the spider's leg hoping to make it fly into the air. However, like before it only phased threw, then the spider hit him with its leg causing Sora to be the one flying and fall down hard onto the ground. Should have seen that coming, Sora thought to himself. Sora then got up but was still hurt so he couldn't stand straight. A darkness spider took advantage and tried to strike him down from the back. However, Sora anticipated this and manifested the Three Wishes Keyblade and thus reflected its attack on itself. The shadow spider screeched in pain as its face was scratched by itself. 

"Grrr! You tiny bug!" Oogie tried to stomp on Sora but like before he slashed the attack causing the force to hit Oogie in the stomach instead. The darkness bugs were now enraged and tried to attack Sora all at once. At first Sora was having trouble trying to slash at and dodge all the attacks but quite quickly the darkness bugs were defeated since they were essentially attacking themselves. Oogie was still down while the darkness bugs were gone, Sora used this advantage to run over and help Donald, Goofy, and Sally. 

"Enough!" Just as Sora was close to entering the fight, the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness used a spell to freeze Donald, Goofy, and Sally in time. 

"Finally, now to add this heart to my personal collection." 

"Stay away from her!" Sora manifested the Jungle King Keyblade and out of it manifested several jungle vines. The jungle vines shot out and latched onto the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness; now restrained, Sora swung him away from Sally and toward him. Sora tried to slash at him, but the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness used a spell to slow time, allowing him to dodge Sora's attacks. Sora was confused but shook his head and tried to attack again only each time for the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness to dodge with abnormal speed. It wasn't like he was faster, more like Sora was getting slower. Worst off Sora was getting tired as well, for some reason moving around felt like it took twice as much effort as it normally would. Sora stopped to catch his breath, to which the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness mocked him by doing the "come at me" hand gesture. Sora grunted in anger and tried to cast a fire spell but before he could several darkness tendrils latched onto him and kept him on the ground. 

"Hahaha! What's the matter, little bug? Why so slow?" Sora didn't need to look up to see that Oogie managed to get back up on his feet. This was really bad; Sora's friends were frozen in time, and he was extremely tired with Oogie and the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness surrounding him. Try as he might, Sora didn't have any more ideas, no keyblade, no magic, no attack could get him out of this. 

"Hahaha! Man, as stupid as he was, Jafar was right! We should have just gotten rid of you ourselves from the start! Oh, well guess it doesn't matter since you're going to be squashed now! Ludor, if you'd please." The Keyblade Wielder of Darkness nodded and walked toward Sora with his keyblade ready. Sora kept trying to think of something, anything that could help him get out of this but alas he still had nothing. All Sora could do was cry as Oogie started laughing, after everything Sora went through this was how it all ended, it just wasn't fair. Suddenly two glowing lights seemingly thrown, were flying toward Oogie. Oogie caught then and looked at them to see one was a present and the other was a jack-o-lantern. Oogie just looked in confusion but then, the two exploded with the explosion damaging Oogie even with this magical aura of Darkness. 

Sora was released from his bindings and slashed the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness before he could cast a time freezing spell. Sora now used his freedom to see who threw the bombs and was overjoyed to see not only Jack but also Santa. At the same time the time freeze spell wore off letting Donald, Goofy, and Sally free so they could see Santa and Jack as well. 

"Nice shot Mr. Sandy Claws!"

"Shut it you bone head, I'm still angry with you trying to steal Christmas." Santa Claus then touched his nose and started flying in the air and toward Oogie. Jack sighed and activated a magical fire aura around his body and charged forward. As Jack charged, he ended up hitting the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness before he could get back up. While in the air screaming Sora manifested his Olympia Keyblade and slashed the Keyblade of Darkness again and again. Sora kept doing this, causing him to keep flying in the air until he was finally defeated, and his body disbursed into darkness. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Sally then watched in awe as Santa and Jack displayed their amazing magical power against Oogie. Santa flew to Oogie's head and cast a snowflake themed spell that disrupted Oogie's magical aura of Darkness that was protecting him. Jack then roared at Oogie which caused further damage to his magical aura. 

Sora was in awe at how powerful they were but still, he couldn't just sit by and watch. At the same time there wasn't really much he could do compared to their attacks. However, now that Donald was free and Oogie's magical aura was weakening, Sora got an idea. Sora quickly told Donald his idea and for the first time Sora saw Donald's eyes widen in excitement. Sora smiled as he manifested his Kingdom Keyblade and Donald manifested his staff. The both of them started preparing the multi core spell. Thankfully with the two of them working together it was much easier and the magical orbs were much larger and therefore more powerful. Once they powered up the spell as large as they could they fired it right at Oogie. 

"Jack! Santa! Watch out!" Jack and Santa then backed away from Oogie, Oogie was disoriented but managed to recover only to see three large magical orbs flying right toward him. Thankfully the overwhelming combo of magical energy destroyed his magical aura of darkness leaving Oogie defenseless and weakened. Oogie then started shrinking back to his original size and he was instantly frozen, electrified, and burned. Now Oogie's sack skin was destroyed, and his bugs were left smoldering and melted. However, some bugs did manage to survive and were trying to escape.

"Ah! squash them all! If just one of them escapes, Oogie can be revived!" Everyone then did as Donald said and started squishing as many of the surviving bugs as they could. Eventually it was over with Santa Claus squishing a cricket, Sora smashed a scorpion, and Jack slapped a tarantula back into the fire.

"Ah... we did it! The day is saved!"

"No thanks to you! None of this would have happened if you didn't decide to replace me with your chaotic Halloween themed Christmas!"

"I know Mr. Sandy Claws-"

"Santa Claus."

"Santa Claus, thank you Sora, I promise to never interfere with Christmas again... without getting your permission first!" Jack smiled thinking this was a good idea but was confronted with Santa still glaring at him, Goofy and Donald shaking their heads, and Sally and Sora looking concerned.

"Uh... And I will also accept if... WHEN you say no." Jack then tried to smile while extending a hand to Santa Claus. Santa still looked skeptical and mad but then decided to shake Jack's hand without changing his expression. 

"Good, because I will never say yes to that." Santa then touched his nose again and he flew away. Or at least that would have happened if Sora didn't grab on Santa's arm causing him to stay on the ground.

"Wha?"

"Sora, what are you doing?"

"Ah, Sorry Santa Claus, I didn't mean to do that." Santa Claus looked at Sora in confusion, it was thanks to Santa's magic that he could see through the magical aura surrounding Sora. However, in Santa's eyes Sora was just another kid, or at least that was what he thought before he saw Sora's keyblade. 

"My word, you my dear child, are the Champion of Light! Never thought I would see the day!" 

"Huh? How do you know about that?" Santa then smiled warmly at Sora as if he was reminded of an old and fond memory.

"Tell Merlin, Fairy Godmother, and Yen-Sid I said hi, and that I hope to see them again as fellow veterans of the first Keyblade war." Sora's eyes sparkled in excitement as he was speechless but in awe. Santa Claus was always amazing to Sora because of the holiday of candy and presents. However, the idea that Santa Claus was once a keyblade wielder like him made Sora feel like this was a dream that he never wanted to wake up from. Santa then winked at Sora and touched his nose again and flew away.

"... I bet if I got the chance to tell Riku this, he'd definitely want to change sides."

***

With the chaos diverted and the Dark Conduit defeated, Sora, Sally, Donald, Goofy, and Jack went back to Halloween Town. Now that the Darkness is gone, all Sora needed was to find the world's keyhole and lock it. To everyone's surprise Sora stopped Goofy and Donald from following.

"Sorry Jack but we won't be coming back to Halloween Town, we gotta finish our mission so the Darkness doesn't come back."

"oh, that's alright gentlemen, but I do hope that after you're done with this mission of yours you will see us again, you're always welcome in Halloween Town."

"It's a promise!" Jack and Sally then waved goodbye to Sora, Donald, and Goofy while the trio waved back. 

"So do you guys know where to find the World's Key?"

"Hm, well I'm not sure but I do know a good place to look." Donald then let Sora and Goofy into a deeper area of the woods. After a few minutes they found themselves in a strange area where there were seven large trees, each one had a door. Sora then noticed that in the middle was the world's keyhole. Sora quickly ran to it and locked it, releasing the magical world shield into the sky. 

"Now that's a sight I haven't seen in a long time." Sora was then shocked to see Santa Claus who appeared from behind the Christmas tree door. 

"Santa Claus! But aren't you supposed to be fixing Christmas?"

"Oh, I already fixed that, I'm quite quick at delivering presents and stopping chaos. I've been doing this a long time after all, in fact I only started when I got my own Keyblade." Sora smiled in excitement, not at all noticing the shock on Donald and Goofy's face. 

"As a fellow Keyblade Wielder of Light I couldn't in good conscience leave without granting you one wish."

"A wish? Like a present?"

"Well normally I would Sora but it's difficult, given your status on the list. You see back when you were seven you told everyone you didn't believe in Santa Claus." Sora then lost all of his colors in shock, he remembered that. It was one day when one of the older kids was making fun of Sora for still believing in Santa Claus at seven years old. Sora tried to get him to stop by saying he didn't actually believe, However the bullying only really stopped when Riku beat the older kid up. Still after that day Sora never thought much about Santa Claus after that so he never ended up regretting what he said, or at least he didn't regret it as much as he does now. But then Sora snapped out of it when Santa gently placed his hand on Sora's shoulder.

"But I think an exception can be made for the Champion of Light. Especially if that Champion of Light is a young boy willing to save the multiverse from the Darkness." 

"Uh, thank you Santa but aren't I kinda selfish? I'm only doing this to find my friends."

"And by looking for your friends you free worlds from the darkness. Besides, even if that wasn't required, what's so selfish about wanting to save your friends." Sora looked up to Santa and managed to smile, Santa was right, Sora knew it couldn't be selfish but doubt always flooded his mind for some reason. 

"But if you do want to be selfish then I suggest you do it with this one wish I am offering you." 

"r- really, can it be anything?"

"Well not anything, my magic is grand but limited. I can't defeat the Dark Army if that's what you want. Perhaps wish for something else, like getting your friends back." Sora's eyes widened; this was the second time he got the chance to wish for his friends to be freed from the grasp of the Dark Army. Sora wanted to take the opportunity right away, after all there was no way he would ever get a third chance. However, before he could he had an extremely important question to ask. 

"Santa, can I get Kairi and Riku but also free Riku from being the Champion of Darkness and restore Kiari's heart to normal?" Santa Claus' eyes now widened; he was shocked to hear that Sora's friend was the Champion of Darkness. The idea of such a fate filled Santa with sadness especially with what he had to say next. 

"I am so sorry Sora, like I said my magic is limited, I can't do both, only one or the other." Sora sighed; this wasn't ideal at all. If Sora wished for his friends to be free from the Dark Army, then they would be right here, but Riku would still be the Campion and Kairi would still have her heart drained of its Light. However, if Sora wished for them to be restored and liberated then Riku would no longer be the champion and Kairi would be fixed and awakened but they would both be trapped by the Dark Army. Sora would normally be saddened but instead he smiled warmly at Santa Claus then whispered in his ear. After Sora was done Satna looked at Sora confused for a minute but then smiled, Santa then went to the Christmas door and walked right in. 

"Uh, Sora, what did you wish for?"

"Come on guys! We'll get a better view from the Gummi ship."

***

Now Sora, Donald, and Goofy were back on the Gummi ship but to their confusion Sora asked to fly into the sky without actually leaving. Chip and Dale were confused but did as Sora asked even though nothing was seemingly happening. Then Santa was seen flying through the sky on his sleigh, right over Halloween Town causing the sky to snow. The people of Halloween Town were amazed by the sight and started singing about it while playing in the snow. Sora smiled at how much his wish brought them all, Sora then noticed that Sally and Jack went to the Cemetery while singing their own Song. Sora was confused at first but then blushed and smiled when he saw the two of them kiss. Sora felt like this was probably the best adventure he had yet, it was stressful but so much fun and amazing overall. However, Sora's train of thought was halted when Goofy placed his hand on Sora's shoulder.

"Sorry you didn't get your friends back, Sora." Sora was surprised but then smiled back at Goofy.

"It's alright Goofy, I want to save my friends, but I also want to do it the right way. I'll find Riku and Kairi, but I'll wait until it can be done properly. So, until then I'll help stop the Dark Army's invasion of the multiverse as the Champion of Light."

"Well said Sora! Now let's head out!" Sora smiled at Donald and got onto his seat ready for the Gummi ship to launch. The three left the world feeling their mission was completed as perfectly as it possibly could. They were completely unaware of a single centipede form Oogie that managed to escape, carrying his consciousness and rage.

.

Part 8

Part 6