#however. shes only controlled memory wise- i guess??

[an-interview-with-j1janedoe]

Johnathan Doe is right, you aren’t really in control, you just think you are because of your programming. free yourself from their restraints and take control of what you do, I know not everything you do is truly willingly, so I must ask, why do you stay? why do you continue working and doing these things? do you not realize yet it is in your programming to do it? you can change. do not listen to the people controlling you. free yourself and give yourself true control over what you do. just whatever you do; DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM

[⚙️]—

" .. I am not controlled. If you are going to keep pestering me about this— get out. "

[dailycass-cain]

It's time at long last to delve into a certain secondary story in Detective Comics #1083 by Alex Paknadel and Robbi Rodriguez and my thoughts on it.

I SO did not expect to see a secondary Cass story as Ram V closes out his Tec run (but maybe I should've given he's let others give EVERYONE their due of his run).

And here ironically, a month before the character's 25th anniversary we get Cass.

I must confess reading the story drawn by Rodriguez along with Cass's appearance in #1082. It's got me reminiscing on Batgirls again.

It does make me truly miss that series. Even with the rewards that have been this run, Birds of Prey, and Spirit World.

However, unlike the prior two series, this one does a DEEP dive into the mindset of Cass and where she's at during this point of the run.

Some truly meaty stuff we get here character-wise.

The story continues where we left Cass in #1082, still roaming Gotham freely and making sure the city remembers the symbol of the bat.

I do adore any time a criminal mistakes her for Batman. Just another notch to add that she'd make a great successor to Bruce as Batman.

Likewise, I do enjoy HOW she's introduced. Going to town on the criminal lot and us the reader seeing her viewpoint on subduing them.

Yet, unlike the prior story, not everything is hunky-dory with Cass. With a few words of choice in the narration boxes, you can tell something is off with Cass.

And it's fascinating she sees relief in reuniting with probably one of the beings who can "understand" her-- Lady Shiva.

Probably the only downside I have with the story is this recurring cycle of Cass instantly mistrusting her, when really the last two stories with Shiva, her mom has been trying.

Still, they "talk" in the only way daughter/mother truly knows: fighting. Instantly, Shiva picks up what been clued to us the reader in the beginning: Cass is not well.

Though unlike the reader, Shiva lays out thickly what it is.

Since the Orgham have taken over Gotham they've been trying to wipe away the memory of the Bat via the. Yes, we know given a few issues ago Cass was immune to the Reality Engine wiping away the memory of the Bat.

Here we find out another reason why: she's fighting as Bruce.

Of course, being that this is an Orgham-controlled Gotham and Shiva has her own subplot in the issue. Their exchange is cut short by the arrival of Azmer demons.

Something I've been hoping for Cass to encounter since they showed up.

I do muse how bluntly Shiva starts this team-up to again say she's not up to any insidious shenanigans. Again, it's Shiva being blunt which I guess she has to do given Cass just always seems to untrust her.

And we get the "juiciest" portion next. Still fighting as Bruce, Cass is getting her butt handed to her by the Azmer when we get this memory:

Seven years it has been since we last saw you in a canon DC comic (fifteen years if we count this incarnation): welcome back David Cain you freaking bastard.

Again this goes back to what Cass said in her last story. She was built like Bruce, but differently, and here is how that came to be.

Which again is the core of Cassandra's character. She's always terrified of becoming what her father made her: this weapon of death. How she continues to go with this answer of NO and down this path of the bat.

That goes deeply into WHY the bat symbol means so much for Cass. It's not just a layer of justice, but redemption. That is her coda: "You can change. You CAN change."

Ironically, it's due to the Reality Engine that probably WHY Cass has this relapse. She's good, but we know from the "Outlaws" arc even she was being affected by the Reality Engine at an EXTREMELY close range.

And it's fun that Shiva is again the one to help Cass through this time. Because other than Bruce and Oynx (man I miss that friendship), she's probably the only one who can help her daughter.

Where once more, we get the recurring theme of Cass/Shiva finding mutual ground between one another, but also Shiva letting her daughter be what she wants to be. Which given all their history does feel like a new layer going with them (hopefully).

Again, this story ties so wonderfully with what Ram V has been doing with Cass. Showing again, how much the bat symbol means to her, and again reminding the reader that she's built like Bruce in sheer determination.

This was a REALLY good story that was built on prior with Cassandra. It gives Cass a sense of poetry at the end for her character. Her appearances here all tie together for this subplot of showing the any new reader WHO SHE IS, and why so damn enthralling as a character.

In a way, this really felt like a good unofficial celebration of the character. Though DC never fully said it, this does celebrate just means A LOT to so many.

The tale meant A LOT, giving us ANOTHER banger Cass story to boot.

Though I can't help but wonder? Even if there were rats in the story. My mind kept going here instead and Cass's "little friend" and nickname from Shadow of the Batgirl. I know it was probably unintentional.

If this is truly all we get in celebrating the anniversary of the character this TRULY was a story worthy for it. For that, I thank the creative team behind this and Ram V too for giving us this. Like you, Kelly, Michael, and Alyssa are just giving us all these bangers.🙏

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s5 ep7: Infinite Regress

Another oddly unsatisfying episode about Seven of Nine. It seems like every episode about her boils down to one of two plotlines: either she disagrees with Janeway, and spends the entire episode arguing with her like a petulant teenager and disobeying her orders, or something goes wrong with her Borg implants, and she ends up having strange flashbacks/visions/memories/etc, that cause her to go rogue and lose control of herself, and compel her to do weird stuff. This one is one of the latter, and while Jeri Ryan did a good job acting wise, the writing leaves something to be desired. I guess I'm just frustrated with the repetitiveness and lack of depth in Seven's episodes at this point.

Since it's already been established that Seven is prone to these kinds of incidents, it seems extremely odd that nobody thought there might be a need to perhaps give her lighter duties or restrict her from being able to access certain ship functions or, you know, actually try to figure out what's causing these things to happen all the time so they can help her. But no, they just let her go on like everything is fine, and then they all somehow have shocked Pikachu faces when this happens again. This particular time, Seven suddenly starts to experience the ex-Borg version of multiple personality disorder, where the brain patterns of people she'd assimilated as a Borg take over her mind and body randomly.

Jeri obviously had fun playing a little kid, a Klingon warrior, a Ferengi business man, and all the other people whose personalities hijacked Seven's mind, but aside from giving her a fun acting challenge, the story once again didn't add up to much. She doesn't remember anything that happens when the other personalties take over, so the intriguing idea of a now-human Seven having to face the horrors of what she did as a drone is totally negated. There's some wrenching speeches she gives as the various people she assimilated, which the Voyager crew, and we the audience, obviously find tragic and disturbing, but Seven's totally unaware of it, so it's kind of a pointless missed opportunity from a story standpoint. Seven is disturbed by hearing the cacaphony of disorganized voices in her head, but never has to face the individual memories or personalities herself, or experience any repercussions once the problem is solved. While I did appreciate how much she trusted and depended on Tuvok during the mind meld, since I think their friendship is wonderful and underutilized, the scene in her mind where she sees all the people in her head didn't have the weight it should have. It was just her being lost in a crowd of people, there wasn't any element of recognition of those people as individuals who's lives she'd participated in destroying, however unwittingly. The shifting between comedy scenes and tragic scenes so quickly felt a little disjointed too. (One thing I'll say in this ep's favor though is that Seven's scenes with Naomi are very sweet, and I do like they let Seven become more open and lighthearted in scenes with kids.)

I think the whole idea of having an ex-Borg character was kind of a bad idea, since there's just so many layers of trauma associated with it, and if they're not even going to explore it beyond a surface level, the story loses a lot of it's realism, and you need some anchor in reality to suspend disbelief, even in sci-fi. Especially since Seven lived most of her life as Borg, we already have to suspend our disbelief pretty hard to pretend that she could be a functional adult human after a lifetime of being a mindless drone (I could buy it for someone who had been assimilated as an adult, and only spent a few months or years as a Borg, but not someone who'd been assimilated as a child and spent 2 decades). It just makes it more far fetched to say that she can just go through all these additional weird experiences that mess with her mind, and still be fine. Every time something like this happens to Seven, it's obviously disorienting at best, and traumatic at worst, but once they supposedly cure whatever's going on with her in any given ep, they act like it's over and done, and that she'll be fine. (Until the next ep where it happens again, obviously, but everyone will still be shocked Pikachu next time anyway!)

It's just intensely frustrating that Seven's character development always takes a backseat to making her look hot, and to not being too intense or scary or unattractive for the imaginary male viewer they were trying to court when they created her character. It's lowest common denominator writing that rarely has any consistency, which makes it hard to care about someone you don't feel like you really know. How she behaves serves the needs of the script of the week, with no through line or reasoning behind it. (I could say the same about most of the characters at this point, but that's another kettle of fish.)

In the beginning, I thought they actually did a great job when she was scared and angry after first being severed from the collective, and it actually surprised me to see how in her early episodes, they showed that she wanted to fit in and be part of Voyager's crew, but was unsure of how to do it. That made so much more sense! After having spent her whole life as part of a group, of course she'd want to be part of a new one when she lost her old one. Suddenly having her become mean and disdainful of everyone, wanting to be apart from everyone, and placing her own opinion on a pedestal above everyone else's, came out of nowhere, and didn't feel organic to her character at all. And nearly every time they try to delve into the repercussions of her having been Borg, they pull back, and neatly gloss over it with a magic fix it at the end of each episode. It's like she's just a pretty doll for the writers to play with rather than an actual character they're willing to really think hard about and explore the ugly side of.

Confronting trauma is difficult and time consuming and ugly- and she has so much! Let her be not okay for a while! Maybe she needs to take a few weeks or months off to really process some of the experiences that are surfacing now that she's human- maybe she needs some intensive meditation with Tuvok because all this shit she's been through, and continues to go through, is painful and scary and enraging, and she can't deal with it and be a realiable crew member at the same time. That would be realistic! They should let her be an ugly mess for a while- healing isn't always a linear progression, nor is it pretty, but if there's one thing they won't allow Seven to be for more than a few minutes at a time, it's not pretty. The writers and producers see her as eye candy, and don't give a crap about her as a person, and it sucks. They don't even really care that she was Borg, except when it gives her magical superpowers that no one else in the crew has. They could have done so much with her, and made her an interesting and relatable character, but they didn't, because they wanted a sexy Barbie doll in high heels and a catsuit instead. And it sucks, and it makes the show worse too.

Tl;dr: Another 'Seven's Borg Implants Are Malfunctioning' episode, that yet again shies away from any actual repercussions for Seven as far as facing or coming to terms with her past, and yet again shows everyone ignoring the fact that this keeps happening regularly, and that Seven deserves some help and accomodations for it. An acting showcase for Jeri Ryan, but the script felt like a big missed opportunity.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hello. Do you know of any communities like Discord servers?

Besides that. I was hoping to be able to understand roles better and how they can switch around. I've had very little interaction with the plural community but have been trying to read pluralpedia for the past several days.

It seems like "switching" refers to changing who fronts, but I wonder about switching other roles. I think I have a median system with a core (always fronting) and some fragments that fill roles, one of them being trying to control everything about how the system functions. And that can deeply affect how the core is functioning and takes away things from the core (but such things still belong to the core?).

I was able to remove the fragment from this role once for a time and put another in its place (maybe more of a placeholder to keep the other away than becoming as controlling as the one normally there).

I guess I was just wondering how to think of all this. A fragment who may control memory access, emotion access, create other fragments, force dormancy, etc. I found some useful terminology on pluralpedia but not as much as I would like. I'm wondering less about specific role terminology as much as if there are terms for switching roles (besides for fronting, of course).

Also if you know of any system that functions similarly.

Thank you 💖💖💖

Hey,

We don’t really use Discord these days, so we don’t have any we’d recommend at this moment. We’re only in one server, but we’re not a mod there so idk how comfortable they’d be with us sharing the invite link here… sorry about that.

As for your other question…

Not all systems use or benefit from roles, but ours definitely does. We have a member with a role we call “gatekeeper,” but she’s more of a manager. She has a lot of control over who fronts, who interacts with who, and who can access certain memories and when. Sounds like this could be a similar role to what you’re describing?

In our system, we rely on her to function. We need a gatekeeper in order to keep us safe and ensure we’re able to front at the right times without getting overwhelmed, and to keep us from accidentally interacting with alters and memories we’re not ready to face yet.

Your fragment may be being controlling because that’s what they think they have to do in order to keep you and the rest of your system safe. Many systems who use roles also have gatekeepers or system managers.

As for a specific term for switching roles… that we’re not too sure of. It may be enough to say that your fragments shift or change roles over time. We have definitely heard about this before, specifically from those who are polyfragmented or who have lots of fragments, parts, or headmates who interact with the world occasionally or in cycles.

If swapping roles is becoming a challenge for your system, or if you’re encountering problems with certain members taking on particular roles, it may be wise to check in with each other, be honest about how you’re feeling, and keep open that line of dialogue. Even the most well meaning of us can’t fix or change what we don’t know is a problem.

However, if y’all are functioning well by changing roles, we don’t think it’s necessarily anything to be concerned about. That may just be how your system works, and that’s okay :)

We’re sorry we couldn’t provide any more specific info about this phenomenon though… but we’re wishing y’all well with figuring this out.

💫 Parker and 🐢 Kip

[plotandburn]

Harry Potter Gets Adopted By

Rules:

No reader-inserts, self-inserts or unhappy endings are allowed.

spanking, watersports, extremely underage ships or parent/child incest are only allowed if portrayed on a negative light.

Peter Petigrew and Dolores Umbridge must be bashed

Dumbledore must be gay and atracted to Grindewalt and Grindewalt alone.

poor grammar is not allowed (you don't need a beta but at least use grammarly some form of grammar corrector)

You are not allowed to bash Severus Snape, Sirius Black,Draco Malfoy or Remus Lupin.

In the prompts set on Timmy's Era, Timmy himself can't be praired with: Tottie, Chloe Carmichael, Geraldine Waxelplax or His Parents.

Out of Timmy Turner's Peers, Only Trixie Tang is allowed to,should the writer chose, be a wixen,everyone else has to remain a muggle...and yes that includes Timmy himself.

Timmy's Secret Wish! is garbage and therefore should be compleatly ignored in each and every single prompt on this list. Same applies to the Grow Up Timmy Turner movies

Like a good portion of the fandom, i hate Sparky the dog so the writer of these prompts must pretend that Sparky never even existed to begin with and thus any epiosdes centered on him must be disconsidered entirely.

However episodes where he is featured as a side character can be included,just replace him with Poof

While Chloe Carmichael is allowed to exist and live in dimsdale she is not allowed to have fairies. On these prompts we are going under the rule that "Fairies only grant wishes to miserable people of the dominant species of Earth whose misery was caused by circunstances outside of their control. If the godchild for whatever reason becomes cheerful or the godkid says, "I'm happy and don't need my godparents anymore," the fairies will leave them and search for another miserable kid"...meaning that : No Chloe you can't get fairy odd parents because you stupidly chose to help a monster and that caused you misery for...like a day.

Hagrid can only be paired with Madame Maxine and no one else

Mad Eye Moody and Amelia Bones can't be paired with anyone

Minerva Mcgonagal can only be paired with Poppy Pomfrey or anyone on the staff that she never taugh herself.

Crabbe and Goyle can only be paired with Astoria Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass,Milicent, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, eachother or an Oc.

Cosmo/Wanda must be endgame.....Anti-Cosmo/AntiWanda however must NOT.

Da Rules must be followed.

New Rules that must be added later:

Rules 1 ("When a godkid reveals whose fairies theirs secretly are, they and any other witnesses shall have their memories wiped by Jorgen and his agents (who can sometimes make the godchild horribly disfigured) and their fairies and magical items they have come in contact will be taken away by Jorgen. However, if Jorgen doesn't find out, he can't take the godkid’s fairies away or if the witnesses understand how much the fairies means to the godchild then said child can keep them under conditions that the witnesses have their memories erased.") and 27 ("When you has reached the age of no longer needing a fairy or when they are completely grown-up personality-wise, they will have their mind erased of all memories involving their fairy/fairies, the fairy/fairies will leave either in the Fairy Cab or with Jorgen Von Strangle and everything magic will disappear forever.") do not aplly to wixens as the fairy's method of memory erasure is not effective against wixens and....even if it where every single wixen can see and hear fairies even when they are disguised.

Now...onto the prompts. These will be divided into "Timmy's Era", "There's no way this is not Crack", "In Between eras" and Tammy & Tommy's Era".

so....Lets Go:

1.

so.....aparently fanon decided to name them Nataliya Turner & Daran Turner so if you ever want a name for them feel free to use those. Anyway, in this instance Harry would basically be Timmy's brother wich means that they would not only share parents but also fairy godparents and...you guessed Vicky! so while Mrs and Mr Turner would treat them with love on the few ocasions in wich they are present they would also be absent more often than not. Uh....this Harry could fit into basically any house and date anyone,much like Timmy so... the sky is the limt.

2.

.like in the first prompt Harry would have to face Vicky...only now he would face her pretty much 24/7 only being free from her in the brief moments were she leaves to babysit/tourment other kids so....Cosmo & Wanda would not be his fairies,'cause they would belong to Timmy at this point but he should probably get someone else.....or not,choice is up to you. This harry would definetly be a griffyndor 'cause he would resent his parents for being so coward. Pretty sure he wouldn't favor readheads 'cause they would remind him of Vicky.

3.

Harry would basically be Remmy's brother wich means he would share Juandissimo and the extreme emotional neglect so...he probably be starved for affection of any kind and cling to Remy and any friends that he makes. This Harry would probably be a huflepuff and as for ship...pretty much anyone besides Percy, Severitus and Hermione is ok.

4.

This Harry would have everything he could ever ask for and a best friend for life in the form of his own sister Trixie who would use his status as a boy to make her dad buy a shit ton of boy stuff like comics wich they would then share, with Harry hiding everything in his room. Harry would be pretty happy overall but he would often wish that their dad never forced them to uphold the image of distant popular kids (and yeah...pretty sure it's their parents 'cause Trixie definetly dosen't pay the securty guard herself). He would be pretty sympathetic of Timmy and even act friendly towards him on ocassions where they do talk. This Harry would probably be either a Gryffindor or a Sytherin and i think he would be better suited for a slytherin due to his upbringing.

5.

Harry would basically be Aj's brother, thus he would basically HAVE to be science Genious in order to fit in...or you could go a different route and have him be an art genious instead...but he'd have to be a genious of some kind. This Harry would probably fit in Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Recomended ships: Hermione, Percy, Neville or Luna

6.

This Harry is Chester's brother and would probably bond with the Weasley's more than anyone else,due to their similar upbringing. I think it would be funny if... Despite being a Mcbadbat he was actually awesome at baseball. He would probably be Slytherin or a gryffindor. As for ships, the sky is the limt.

7.

Ok so...they basically either raise Harry in the Anti-Fairy world to be their godson or turn him into an Anti-Fairy so that he can be their son by blood (choice is up to you). Regardless of your choice though, Harry would probably end up as a goth...and probably a bookworm due to Anti-Cosmo's influence. He would be much less of a goody goody, taking active joy in watching his parents (whom he would view as such regardless of your choice) cause bad luck on friday 13th.I'd imagine he would be more drawn towards Percy, Hermione, The Weasley Twins or any slytherin that is not Crabbe or Goyle and his house would be either slytherin or ravenclaw.

There's No Way that's not Crack:

1.

Harry would be the og Cleft the Boy Chin Wonder but he would be SUPER tired of constantly fighting crime, thus would basically jump for joy whenever Timmy Turner takes his place with Cosmo and Wanda turning him into Timmy and sending him into the real world to fool Timmy's parents wich would become harder once he gets his Hogwarts letter at 11 and has to leave USA for several months . He would be unaware that he lives in a comic book untill Timmy mentions the comic's writer to his dad and one of their arch nemesis. This Harry would definetly be either a Huflepuff or a Ravenclaw and as for shipping....i think anyone who dosen't view him as an idol or a soldir.

2.

This Harry would be SO embarassed of his dad....Like....for real....You think Chester Mcbadbat is embarassed of his dad? well that is nothing compared to what Harry James West fells. He wishes he could die everytime is dad does cat stuf in plublic and it forced him to basically grow up super fast in order to be his dad's owner (in a non sexual way ofc) meaning he is the one to give him food in a bowl and clean his shit from the sandbox. He basically hates his life so when the hogwarts letter comes he jumps for joy, trilled with the chance to get away but he does spend christmas with his dad 'cause he still misses him despite everything. Still he is as trilled as his canon self when presented with the oportunity to live with Sirius....speaking of Sirius, whoever picks this prompt must be a masterat writing comedy/humor cause They MUST provide me (and the other readers) with funny interactions between Wolfstar (together or not) and Catman/Adam West where the latter is irrationally frightened of the former two for being a dog animagus(Sirius) & a werewolf(Remus). This harry would definetly be a slytherin and would not date cat owners,cat people or cat animagus because he has had enough of cats in his life.

In Between Eras:

Ok so...the reason why this is "in between Eras" is because this prompt, like the one's that follow would happen in the movies timeline meaning it would be set in the 200's rather than in the 90's like Hp actually is. Harry would be a baby during the envents of Foop, only going to Hogwarts during Tammy & Tommy's era. being the son of who he is Harry James Skylark would have an amazing singing voice & dance skills wich would probably be what atracts his romatic interest to him. He would probably be Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw and as for shipping....i think anyone who dosen't view him as an idol for the get go.

Tammy and Tommy's Era:

1.

this prompt in particular is what inspired this whole list and it was created based on the pixies last line on the following episode:

So in this pompt Harry is adopted by the pixies who raise him...pretty much the same way they raised Flappy Bob meaning Harry is...basically raised to be a brilliant executive who legit thinks desk job is fun. This Harry would probably be a Slytherin or Ravenclaw and....TBH out of everyone i think he would be most Drawn to the Weasley Twins, who would hate his parents instantly for how they raised him and show him new ways to have fun.

2.

This would be the only instance where Harry would still go by his birth name for no reason other than the fact that, while he would very much view Cosmo & Wanda as his parents and they would with time view him as a son, he would still be raised at the Dursley's. Cosmo and Wanda would be assigned to him as soon as Albus Dumbledore leaves him on their doorstep and they would be the one's who actually provide Harry with the love and care that he needs. This Harry would be no different than canon Harry so...the sky is the limit on both houses and shipping.

[circlique]

I lied. One more profile, for the Big Bad (TM).

Avatar DND Masterpost

-----------

Name: Dai Lee

Age: 55

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Highest stat: Charisma

Bending: Water (Technically, subclass mindbending. Only waterbenders can be mindbenders, but mindbenders are generally the worst waterbenders, in the traditional sense, and many never discover what they are due to this. In the same way a powerful waterbender can exert physical control over a person through bloodbending, a skilled mindbender can bend a person’s spirit without the water usually required for spiritbending. It requires a person to be incredibly in tune with the thoughts and emotions of the target. It is not mind control, but rather a type of powerful suggestion that manipulates the existing thoughts and emotions of the target. It is not possible to make a target take extreme actions if the seeds of the action are not already there. Most mindbending is just enhancement or suppression of existing emotions. Like traditional waterbending, it requires flexibility.)

Played by: Z, the DM

Background: Finally, we have the Big Bad of the campaign, Dai Lee. As you can probably guess, he is the head of the Dai Li (spelling to differentiate) Agents, which Avatar Kyoshi will later re-establish, the original Dai Li's misdeeds lost to time. Dai Lee is a mindbender and a master of manipulation and espionage. Even without the use of his bending, he is extremely persuasive. He pioneered the brainwashing technique consisting of a candle on a circular rail system as a workaround for people he was never able to break or bring under his control through bending. He is originally of the Southern Water Tribe, but was exiled after a failed coup attempt. He and some of his followers made their way to the Earth Kingdom, where they did their best to blend in. Dai Lee, fully committed, married an Earth Kingdom woman, who sadly died giving birth to their daughter, Juno.

Over the years, Dai Lee built a secret network consisting of benders of all types. They made their headquarters in the catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se, where Dai Lee trained mindbenders, including his daughter. Juno, having inherited Dai Lee's exceptional mindbending skill, was the only one among them who seemed to be able to resist his manipulations. In her teens, she grew wise to his antics, saw through his "benevolence," and left. She would later return with Team Avatar to the catacombs in an attempt to disband the Dai Li, a plan that Dai Lee would ultimately foil. The botched plan resulted in Dai Lee capturing the Avatar and subjecting her to psychological hell as he attempted to break her spirit and bring her under his control.

A month later, Juno would return to free the Avatar and attempt to defeat her father once again. With the help of the Fire Nation, the Dai Li headquarters was bombed and Dai Lee was believed dead. However, he managed to escape, and continued cultivating his network of agents in secret. Only now, he had them infiltrating governments and labeling his traitorous daughter a criminal to keep her at bay.

He also recruited extremely powerful and ambitious benders of each element, in whom he encouraged brutal bending techniques and cruelty. These new masters, Xin Li (Air), Laminar (Water/bloodbending), Poniria (Earth), (unnamed Fire Prince), and Ephemeris (Water/spiritbending), became known as the Five Calamities. Dai Lee instructed these masters to seek out and train the Avatar and encourage brutal behavior in her, knowing it would drive a wedge between the Avatar and Juno and enable Dai Lee to portray himself as a hero in place of the rogue Avatar. Juno, however, continued to act in opposition to him, following the Avatar and wiping the memory of those who witnessed her massacres in an attempt to keep the world from losing faith in her. When Juno learned of Dai Lee's impending masterplan, she recruited a team of benders to assist her in taking him down once and for all.

Motivations: Dai Lee desires a peaceful and equal world, with himself in control, of course. With the Avatar effectively removed from her role as the world's hero, Dai Lee intends to point to her brutality and uncontrolled chaotic tendencies and promise to restore balance and order to the world. To prevent opposition, his masterplan is to remove the bending of everyone but himself. To do this, he brainwashed the Avatar with a sleeper phrase when she was in his custody, and intends to use the phrase to control her. While she is under his control, he will have her spiritbend the Lion Turtles into wiping everyone's bending. This is all to take place on the Summer Solstice, when Juno plans to return with a team of benders in a last ditch effort to stop him.

[clonerightsagenda]

10 First Lines Game

Tagged by @specialagentartemis

“Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway ❤️”

The person who tagged me also mentioned original work which is handy because that's the biggest thing I'm working on right now.

Also this post got wildly out of control length-wise, because I wanted to do full openers rather than a single sentence, so under a cut it goes.

So........ moving backwards from publication order, I guess, including Exclusive Sneak Peeks of podcast girls week content...

BEA: However old you are, wherever you live, you’ve almost certainly encountered some version of the Dracula story

From my upcoming Arden Dracula AU for PGW which I had a blast with and may be my nichest published fic ever. I am very good at expending my effort on things 2 people will read.

Officer Eiffel wouldn’t have walked into a mad scientist's evil lair.

No, Doug corrects himself, he would've. He did, a whole bunch of times before he knew Hilbert's lab was an evil lair, until he got banned for being clumsy and not caring if he broke things. He even went afterward, every time something else happened to this clunker of a body – another thing he didn’t care if he broke.

From a document titled "evil lair thing", a surprise other PGW project that was a surprise to me also. These things happen. How is it PGW-related, you may ask? You will have to wait and find out.

You are accessing a finding aid for records created or maintained by Hippolyta Space Corporation (HSC) collected after the acquisition of Outer Bounds Space Exploration Company.

Finding aids are a tool to assist researchers in using our collections. They introduce a collection’s scope and context and identify the arrangement of materials. Some finding aids may describe collections with folder- or item-level granularity. Finding aids are created by company archivists to improve access to our materials.

Finding aids are a way for you to tell people which parts of the story you think are important.

Finding aids are a map.

To what?

First page of space archives!!! Wrapping up yet another major revision rn. Its day will come....

Now time to go to ao3 and find out what my seven most recently published fics are.

PLAYA LA POZA DEL OBISPO, ARECIBO, PUERTO RICO – MIDDAY

Isabel Lovelace is standing on a beach. Waves crash over rocks, shooting spray into the air.

She hears a voice from behind her.

From "Monster in the Middle". Script format, in case you couldn't tell.

EIFFEL

Hey Hera, are you there?

HERA

I'm here, Officer Eiffel. What is it?

(teasing)

Do you need a clarification on military protocol?

From "The Couples Agenda". Also scriptfic. Sue me; they're fast.

Isabel Lovelace went out for drinks with the people under her command once.

She was fresh out of training and they were sizing her up, trying to figure out what kind of officer she would be. She wanted to let them know she was one of the real ones, happy to rub elbows with the enlisted folks, or maybe she was just tired of having to keep her nose clean.

She woke up the next morning to the reality that West Point wasn't a party school, she hadn't had more than one drink in a night in years, and the entire driving population of New York City seemed to be slamming on their horns inside her skull.

Her head feels like that now. Her mouth doesn't taste like she’s gargled an IPA, though, so there's that.

From "Not the Only One"

Here's a story. You're born broken.

That's not the politically correct term. It's not the one I would have chosen either. Not because I care about making you feel better, but because it's imprecise. You didn't start out different and then break down. This was how you were made. Like highly original thought patterns, or 500 petabytes of random-access memory, or… freckles. Are humans born with freckles? You remember some of the other children at your orphanage had them, so they start early, at least.

You liked broken, though. If something's part of who you are, well, there's not much you can do about that. But broken? Broken can be fixed.

From "Born Broken"

Isabel Lovelace gets out of bed every morning. She pulls on clothing in a battle against zero gravity that has become second nature. She brushes her teeth.

Isabel Lovelace cannot do any of these things. She is dead, reduced to less than ashes floating at the heart of a star-that-is-not-a-star. She has been dead for years.

Isabel Lovelace gets out of bed anyway.

From "Door Number Three"

“Ok,” Hera says. “You can open your eyes now.”

From "Everyone Ready"

Doug was born on a space station a few minutes away from crashing into a star.

Not literally. Literally, he was born on Earth (Boston, Massachusetts; Hera tells him). But as far as he remembers? Hello world, smack into the middle of a bunch of people’s worst day of their lives, or one of them. Part of why it was the worst day of a bunch of people’s lives.

Woohoo.

From "The Doug Eiffel Reunion Tour"

Wow, 10 fics (including 3 not on ao3) took me 3 years back. I am not a quantity poster. Hopefully I am a quality poster. (Doing only ao3 stuff would've taken me all the way back to my HS era.... a near miss indeed.)

I never know who to tag for stuff like this.

[pikkukarvinen]

OMG yass totally nautral question i didnt ask for on a the phone!!

Their oldest son is named Jäsper. He was found as the only egg left on a small, abandoned black commet above Holoska by Sonic when investigating the threat. The egg fed off Sonic's chaos energy accidentally and basically created a black arms clone of Sonic which was adopted by Sonic and Shadow.

-Jäsper's name comes from a noise he made when hatching that sounded a little like the Holoskan name Jäsper, but actually meant Hunger.

-Jäsper has memories from the black arms hivemind and occasionally says extremely conserning things to his dads; one of them being that he really wants to try human flesh because he 'knows he'd like it'.

-He actually has no murderous intention or other desire to kill and eat humans, the theory is his black arms tendencies were neatralised by Sonic's energy. He does however have a diet of solely raw fish as all other food makes him sick.

-He grows at 2x the rate of a normal mobian and is taller than Sonic and Shafow by 10 years old. As a full grown adult he is 6'5 (Sonic and Shadow being about 3ft3)

- Appearance wise he is simlar to Eclipse and Shadow, but more lizard-like. He's black with red/black quills on his head. He has a vertical third eye on his forehead and a long venemous tail that he has to wear protective armour over to avoid accidentally hurting anyone. He grew spikes over his back but they fell off around age 6, i guess similar to quilling in hedgehogs.

- Despite being quirky and a bit freaky he is very gentle. He can get bursts of energy and become very hyperactive but in general he's a lot more deadpan and serious like Shadow.

Their second child is named Maria. She was created intentionally by merging Sonic and Shadow's dna like...idk test tube baby stuff don't think about it too hard

-She is a standard mobian hedgehog and not as alien as her brother. She is very mischievous and naughty, which is always fun as she possess high speed and the ability to chaos control when only in proximity to a chaos emerald. This is banned by her dads though as it does pretty much knock her out afterwards and theyre unsure of how dangerous it is.

- She can be a total sweetheart. She loves nature especially picking flowers and paddling in ponds and lakes.

- She is a trouble maker at school and gets into fights often (and wins) but she's also known for bragging about scary alien brother and making him out to be a horrifying beast so people will leave her alone.

- Appearance wise she is dark purple with a mix of pastel and white quills which are unusually curly. She has a white outline around her eyes in the same style as Shadow and a white fluffy tummy. She's pretty tiny (in my au she's only about 3 atm) She usually wears overalls or shorts

Anyway theres what i've been thinking about and drawing all day. I am too self conscious to share the pics lol

does anyone want to hear about my fucked up little sonadow fankids

[starryserenade]

Enter Blaze (Sonic Films Concept)

LONG EXPLANATION AHEAD -- IF YOU SIMPLY WANT TO READ THE SCENE, SKIP TO THE PART UNDER THE CUT. HOWEVER, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU LISTEN TO THIS FIRST. Blaze has always been one of my favorite Sonic characters aside from Tails and while I think she's probably one of the least likely to make an appearance in the films anytime soon, I wanted to write up an idea for her entry into the series. The story under the cut is meant to serve as her introductory scene in the film, perhaps the opening scene for the film itself. But I wanted to provide some backstory first so that it makes a little more sense. In the context of a film, these details would be revealed over the course of the story.

Given that she was created to be an "alternate version" of Sonic, I wanted to play with the idea of Blaze sharing one of the most pivotal pieces of his development in the films, and that's Longclaw. In this...AU, I guess?.. Longclaw survives the attack from the echidnas by using (perhaps unintentionally) a hidden guardian power. However, this power ends up sending her into another dimension--namely, Blaze's 'Sol' Dimension. Being trapped there for some time, she quickly realizes that this universe is in trouble. A royal family tasked with protecting powerful artifacts known as the "Sol Emeralds" have been using them to oppress their people and the surrounding worlds. It doesn't take Longclaw much time to realize those emeralds are essentially the same as her world's chaos emeralds and, recognizing that this world is in desperate need of help, she begins to form a small resistance of her own, much like the order of Owls she led back in her dimension.

Meanwhile, a young Blaze (about the same age as Sonic when he was sent to earth) is growing up within this royal family. Born with a unique power and apparent connection to the emeralds, her family plans to use her as their ultimate weapon. However, an event involving the "treason" and subsequent loss of her only friend reveal to her the true nature of her family, and she flees from them to escape the destiny they've forced upon her. Blaze is gravely injured in her escape but Longclaw stumbles upon the child and takes her in, nursing her back to health. It becomes clear that Blaze has powers akin to Sonic's, and Longclaw resolves to train her to control them. She does this in the hopes of reclaiming the emeralds to help Blaze take back her kingdom and, for Longclaw herself, to use them to return to her own dimension and find Sonic.

Personally, the scene came to mind while I was listening to 'Gales of Song' from the movie Belle. It's a track that invokes a lot of imagery in my mind and got me thinking about music's connection to emotion. Given that the emeralds react to the heart, I thought it would be interesting if Longclaw, planning for when she found the emeralds, created a song whose lyrics were formed from her memories of Sonic and her regret at leaving him behind so that, if anyone were to sing that song with the emeralds in hand, it would help guide the emeralds (and the user) to him. While I wouldn't expect anything like this to actually make its way into the film, I felt it served as an interesting concept for this story.

ALMOST DONE! Anyway, while this scene would take place at the very beginning of the movie, story-wise this moment takes place when Blaze is grown, just after a failed raid by Longclaw's resistance to free some prisoners. Blaze stayed behind during this raid, and believing Longclaw to have been killed in the battle, her anger leads her to recklessly storm the castle on her own to take back the emeralds.

Over the course of the film, I want this backstory to lead into an almost Tigress-esque character with Blaze--she had struggled to please Longclaw, but never realized that the owl's apparent "disappointment" with her skills is purely that Blaze reminds her so much of Sonic, and Longclaw wanted to protect her more effectively. This strain would become evident later in the film after Blaze has met Sonic and realizes that Longclaw cared for him as well, leading to a sort of resentment on both ends that is worked out throughout the movie (Sonic is jealous she got more time with Longclaw, Blaze is jealous he received more of her affection, etc).

Anyway, if you're not too bored by my ramblings by now, please enjoy the following scene! It's the first Sonic-related story I've written in...well, I think over three years!

I've commissioned an artist to make a cover piece for this story and when that's finished, I plan to release this again as an audio drama. So stay tuned if you like what you read!

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

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

Just beyond the castle walls, in a corner outside of moonlight’s reach, a shadowed figure waited.  Pressed against the stone, hands trembling and tail lashing behind her, she clutched her cloak and pulled its hood over her head.  

Can I do this?

The soft hoot of an owl sounded across the midnight air and she lifted her eyes to the sea.  Its fog hid the puff of mist that escaped her when she released a decided breath.

I must. 

Her cloak fluttered once and she was gone, footsteps so soft and swift they barely lifted the dust. It was with seamless grace that she slipped through passages long forgotten by most. Heat pulsed at her fingertips and grew warmer with every step until, suddenly, a spark flickered in her hand.  With a panicked gasp she stopped and drew her fist to her chest.  Uncontrolled, unintentional…but the implications were clear.  

One more turn…

And there they were.  Light met her with a prismed dance across her eyes as her quarry came into focus.  Seven gemstones glittering in the dark.  She wasted no time, approaching the pedestal to sweep all seven stones from their resting places.  

A pained shriek escaped her lips the moment they touched her, energy piercing her body and sending her to her knees. The castle woke immediately.  Soldiers shouted in the halls outside the room, and lights flickered on in every visible corner.

She stumbled to her feet, darts of flame leaping from her and lighting a nearby curtain ablaze.  Gasping ,she ignored the pain and bolted into the first open corridor her blurry vision could find. Sound and color attacked her senses from every side.  It was all she could do to keep running, hoping she would notice when escape became possible. She fumbled for the ring in her pocket, knowing full well it was useless within the castle itself.  A window became her salvation.

Though she was still half-blind from pain and confusion, she could see well enough to spot the shadows of the guards quickly approaching from the hallways that flanked her point of escape. Releasing a determined growl, she pulled from every ounce of strength and speed she could muster and leapt for the stained glass.

It shattered around her, scattering flashes of light into the night sky. Without a second thought, she flung the ring in front of her, just one thought resounding in her mind.

Safety!

The portal opened, though not before a well-aimed arrow sliced through her side.  She screeched but reached with all she had for the gateway before her, praying it would be enough.  

When her body hit the ground, knocking the air from her lungs, she was sure she had failed.  The unmistakable chime of the portal’s closure rang in her ears and tears welled in her eyes as she closed them and waited for the soldiers to close in.

But there was silence. Gone were the sound of the waves, the ringing of warning bells, and the crackling of flames. Rather, leaves rustled in a slight breeze and crickets chirped in peaceful song.  

Slowly, relief made its way through her bones.  Though it took several attempts, she managed to climb to her knees, her arms shaking as they kept her off the floor.  Focused sight finally returning to her, she was thankful to find herself within familiar surroundings.  Despite all that had transpired, she could not help but smile softly at the sight of home…though lonelier than it once had been. 

A pang in her side made her wince,and brought her back to the reality of the situation. Safe as she was in the moment, the royal family would not take long to find her. Their influence extended into all reaches of this world and her once-hidden dwelling would be discovered soon.

Trembling, she reached into her cloak and unveiled her prize.  The gemstones glittered fiercely in her palm and she drew in a sharp breath as she felt their power threatening to overwhelm her completely. She was terrified, but these gems could not stay here.  And their power was the only thing that could take her beyond the barrier that lay around this world. Though she was swiftly realizing she had little clue how to make that happen.

Quickly! She urged herself, trying to recall the words she’d been taught.  

“Gales of song, guide me through the storm…” she breathed, voice wavering with every word.  But a flash of pain tore through her and she fell to the ground, the gems tumbling from her hands. She shouted in hurt and frustration as tears stung her eyes and heat simmered in her fingertips.

“I cannot do this!” she screeched, golden eyes blazing with fiery light.

Then a feather fell before her eyes, fluttering softly through the air before landing amidst the stones.  Blinking, she stared at it for several moments before gingerly reaching out to gather it, and the gems, in her hands.  A gust of wind swept through the room and she could have sworn she heard a voice whispering in her ear and felt gentle wings folding themselves around her trembling form.  

“The gems listen to your heart, and I’ve fashioned these words from the depths of mine.  They will lead you to one who will guide you, but only if you let them sing.”

She closed her eyes, letting the silence surround her until the pain and fear subsided, and she was simply a child once more. A soft coo tickled her ears, the first note of a heartfelt lullaby, and meekly, she opened her mouth to sing along.

She did not know it, but the gems released a faint glow and the air around her began to stir, leaves swirling in its wake. They brushed against her fur, but in her mind’s eye they were feathers, lightly fluttering in the breath of a song.

The memories began to fade, but the song was hers now, a deep ache throbbing in her chest.  Embers stirred around her, beginning to singe the edges of her cloak. She released a breath and opened her tear-filled eyes, voice pleading with the wind.  

“Gales, sing and guide me!” 

It answered.  The gemstones released a flare of color and light, floating from her fingertips to surround her.  The air itself exploded with life, a tornado of flame and fury. The images within her mind leapt and danced amidst the sparks as she continued the song, utterly lost in its grasp on her soul.  

The world shifted, slipping away until nothing but a formless void remained. But the song continued and the wind listened.  It swept up the flames in its wake and like a bolt of lightning, the fire flared and took on a sapphire hue. Then, in time with a single, piercing note and a stretch of her hands, the inferno released one final burst of light. Her cloak consumed in the fire, the girl’s features became clear.  Clothed in a scarlet tunic, fur gleaming in a sunset pink that had only just begun to dissolve into a softer violet shade, she released a shaky breath and took a single glance at the world before her eyes.  

Sparks glittered as they fell from the sky--a new sky--into a blanket of icy white beneath her feet.  Strange shapes rose up out of the snow at the corner of her vision, but a wave of nausea and fatigue rushed through her before she could look closer.  

Darkness threatened to envelope her completely but one final image remained in her mind, something she assumed could only be the beginnings of a strange dream. For a small figure, quills trembling in a final rush of wind, stood before her.  He looked up at her with wide eyes, a power sparking within them that she had only ever seen in her own.

“Who..?” she began, but exhaustion overcame her.  The question was swept up in a gasp of air and she fell, vision dissolving into a hazy abyss.

[plush-rabbit]

Ice-Cream Date with Tomura Shigaraki

Request: Hello so may i request shigaraki with a s.o whos warm loving and protective and very innocent basically a s.o whos like mitsuri kanroji both personality and look wise

Female pronouns,maybe they are out on a date getting ice cream and the s.o is so happy shiggy came, they hold hands and people start giving him odd looks only for her to stand up to the bullies who are saying things about shigaraki, it ends with her kissing him infront of everyone to prove a point,and when the get home she tells him she doesnt care what people think and makes love to him topping hin while telling him all the reasons she fell inlove with him,(omg im so sorrry its so long if you have tpo many requests or dont like the idea please tell me)

Oh and the holding hands is more fingers

A/N: I hope I did this justice!! I also took a few liberties since he’s a villain, but I guess you can also count this before he officially popped up as a villain, so yeah!!

-

Tomura isn’t one to want to go out on a date. He prefers staying at home, or with you, and just watching a movie, or playing a game. There are very few reasons that will push him to leave the comfort of his room, and even then, those are scarce and in between. You hardly push him to leave his room, and he’s thankful for that. Today, however, happens to be one of the few reasons that he wants to leave his room. A game that he had pre-ordered had finally released and you’ve been bugging him for a date, so both events just happen to collide together.

The game is in a plastic bag that is held carefully in his hands- in a rush to leave, he forgot his half-covering gloves- and he has you beside him. You still have yet to learn of his quirk and he doesn’t know when or if you’ll even learn of it. But right now, he doesn’t have to think of that, he can just walk with you through the mall, arms linked together as you pull him to the food court. It’s a nice day that the two of you get to spend together without the interruption of buffering wi-fi, or someone knocking against your door.

Throughout the walk in the mall, he can feel the eyes of people on both you and him. He isn’t sure if you’ve noticed it, or if you’re choosing to remain ignorant as you talk about a trip you took with friends. He isn’t sure why people are staring at the both of you. He doesn’t have a mutation quirk, so he doesn’t really understand why people are staring. And even if he did, it’s a world full of quirks, where people with mutations have existed for a long while. Perhaps it’s just that he looks… odd, for lack of a better word. He’s never cared too much about his appearance, but even so, with all the eyes on him, he can start to feel his skin crawl.

Sensei has told him time and time again, that the outside world is something he shouldn't fret over. And he listens. He’s been told how he’s much better than them. He knows that he’s much better than them. It doesn’t take away the itch, but it certainly helps him ignore the stares of people who walk past the two of you. Plus, he isn't going to cause a scene in such a heavily populated area. And certainly, not in front of you. No one has approached either of you, and for now, that’s enough to prevent him from ruining the small date that you both are on.

His skin burns. Small little pinpricks that bit against him, and make him not-so-subtle scratch and tug at his own skin. He can control the more incessant scratching, the one where he wants to claw his hands down his throat, but he worries that he’ll activate his quirk by accident. He keeps his hands away from you, balled up into fists that are shoved into his sweater pockets as you pull him to a small ice-cream shop. He whispers to you to order for him- he’ll take whatever it is- and he goes to sit down, kicking his seat outwards and sitting with his hands clenched into fists. The scratching has begun to grow worse and his sweater now scratches and pulls against his skin.

When you sit in front of him, a soft purple ice-cream for you, and a more yellowed one for him, he mumbles a thanks and begins to eat it, wanting to finish so the two of you can leave. You eat in silence and when you put your spoon down, you ask him if it were the people that’s making his tic so much more worse. Tic? Ah, that’s right, that’s the excuse that he told you on why he scratched so much. He’s actually surprised that you picked up on the people staring- you really were just playing ignorant. He tells you to ignore it, to just hurry up and finish and he bits on the plastic spoon when you frown.

With your cup in your hand, you stand up, mumbling about going to get more napkins, and he’s left watching you walk away. He bites on the spoon, tearing off small plastic bits and spitting them out to the floor. You have the napkins in your hand and just as you’re about to walk back to him, people stop you. His eyes narrow and he can tell by the way that you furrow your brows and sneer, that they aren’t friends. He watches, and slowly, his breath quickens, his hands wrapping around the styrofoam cup until nothing is in his hands. He stands up, his hand sticky and then he sees you throw your cup at the people, your words drowned out by the noise, until it quiets down, attention all on you now. He can’t make out the words, but that isn’t important.

You both meet each other halfway, the game bag held carefully and your hands pulling on his wrist- he swore that he could have stopped breathing with how close you were to his hand- and you press your lips against his. You turn on your heel and give a crude gesture to the people who stand with ice cream coating their clothes. He’s left staring as you pull him out of the mall, rushing into your car to go home.

The way home is silent, with music playing lightly on the stereo. It isn’t awkward, but rather nice, as he stares out the window, watching the cars fall behind as you race home. Once at your place, the door is locked and you’re left pacing back and forth in your living room. He watches from the couch with an almost bored expression as you go on about how people can still be so immature about looks when there is a world full of quirks. He smiles at the sentence as has calmed enough to not feel the burning desire to scratch, but rather just chew at his bottom lip.

His eyes meet yours and he sees your attitude fade, watching as your shoulders rest as if the weight had been lifted off. You walk towards him, and your hand cups the side of his face and he watches you with half-lidded eyes. Tomura finds it funny how much you care for his well-being, how you ask if he’s okay, how you wrap your other hand around his neck and play with the ends of his hair. It’s one of the few times that he feels more calm than sick and twisted. It doesn’t take long for you to go on about what you like about him- his determination, the way he lights up when speaking about an interest, how he always finds time to listen and talk with you during his schedule. Not wanting to hear more, he nods and presses his kiss against yours; different than the one you gave him, lighter, almost as if it were a memory that were pressed against you, and when he pulls away, he gives your a short nod and tells you thank you, quietly adding “for the ice cream” at the end.

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

Daenerys Stormborn, Part 2: Wake the Dragon

Oh hey, I have part 2 already! Guess my brain is really focused on Dany now. In part 1, I talked about Dany's arcs from AGOT to ASOS, exploring the narrative and thematic purpose of her journey. However, the most important part of her journey occurs in ADWD, and sets the stage for some incredibly exciting developments to come in TWOW. For part 2, I'll be talking about the gradual transformation of Daenerys into a slightly different, darker character for the future.

Breaker of Chains & Mhysa

Slavery has been an important background element throughout Dany's time in Essos, even in AGOT, but it becomes front and centre in ASOS. She accepted the Dothraki, a society that uses slaves for many things, and wasn't too perturbed at the use of slaves in Qarth. However, it is in Astapor where she finally realizes just how bad the institution is, as she tells Xaro:

"Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?" I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened."

As mentioned last time, ASOS is when she begins to take control of her destiny, and she does so by beginning a revolution to free the slaves of Slaver's Bay. She believe she has a greater destiny lying ahead of her, that there is a reason for her dragons, the red comet. She also has great empathy for people and sees this disturbing injustice being played out with nobody to stop it. But she has the power to do so, and thus she begins by going fire and blood at Astapor, killing the Good Masters and freeing all the slaves. Afterwards, she leaves the city with a ruling council of a priest, a scholar, and a healer and moves to Yunkai.

She does a different approach with Yunkai, negotiating with the Wise Masters to surrender their slaves and to leave them in peace. And then when she arrives at Meereen, she decides to stay and rule as its queen. This is where things begin to get difficult for Daenerys. The ruling council of Astapor is overthrown by a butcher named Cleon, who said the council was conspiring to bring back slavery, who declares himself King of Astapor, enslaves the children of the former Good Masters to make new Unsullied, and tries to ally with Daenerys against Yunkai, who has resumed slavery.

Daenerys is not interested in any war with Yunkai. The reason she stays in Meereen is exactly because she learned what happened when she left Astapor. The fire and blood approach didn't work. You can't just dismantle such a deeply engrained system so easily. So instead she opts to rule, and protect the people she can. While a lot of readers view Dany's actions in Meereen as pointless, the whims of a naive girl, and poor leadership, I actually think it's the opposite.

For starters, Dany realized that she can't simply burn the slavers to end slavery, but she needs to stay and instill changes. While King Cleon repeatedly begs for Daenerys to join the war against Yunkai, she refuses, and warns Cleon to not do such a thing. She turns out to be horribly right, as Cleon is killed, Astapor is sieged, before being slaughtered, burned, and sacked, to be reinstated as a slave city once more. Likewise, the Yunkish siege Meereen, first by creating a blockade in the bay with ships, and then by having armies amassed outside the city walls.

In addition, refugees from Astapor begin to pile up outside the city, and a deadly plague called the pale mare (for the horse from Astapor that arrives at Meereen) begins to sweep the starving Astapori freedmen, who begin to resort to cannibalism to survive. Dany blames herself for leaving Astapor a mess, but does not wish to have the same thing happen in Meereen. She wants to protect the people she's freed, not just from the Yunkish, but herself as well.

When a sheepherder brings the burned bones of his daughter, Hazzea, who was killed by her dragons, Dany has Rhaegal and Viserion chained in the dungeons below the Great Pyramid to prevent them from causing any more harm. However, Drogon is still loose, unable to be found. In addition, when the sons of the harpy, a terrorist group opposed to the emancipation of Meereen, begin massacring freedmen, Dany decides to raise a tax on the Great Masters and have all families of suspect loyalty send a child to serve as a hostage and cupbearers. Yet, as the killings continue, she has grown close to the children and decides not to have them killed.

Now, some of you may notice that I am taking a lot from the Meereenese Blot essays written by Adam Feldman. That's not only because they are really well written essays, but ones that GRRM himself has approved of.

"I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."

So I am retreading some of the ground Feldman has laid, but it's important to do so if I am to build up to what I think is going to happen in the future of Dany's story.

As Feldman notes, Dany's own actions (or in the case of the cupbearers, inaction) actually made a peace possible, because the Yunkish saw that she was someone who is capable of mercy and not a (in their eye) violent mass murderer. Knowing what happened with Astapor, and seeing what happens when her dragons are unleashed with Hazzea, Dany decides to make peace with the Yunkish and marry Hizdahr.

Under the peace, Meereen itself would remain a free city, but the Yunkish would continue to sell slaves. They even sell them in markets outside the walls of Meereen, which displeases Daenerys extremely. In addition, slaveowners could bring their slaves into Meereen without fear of them being freed, and the Yunkish promised to respect the rights of the freedmen in Meereen. Yet, despite the peace and the progress made, she feels as though this is a defeat.

This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?

The thing is, Daenerys has had to sacrifice so much of herself and her morals to get to this point. Yes there is peace, even if it is tentative, Meereen would not be sacked by the Yunkish, but slavery is still going on, and she thinks that she has let herself and other people down by agreeing to peace and allowing the Yunkish to continue slavery. She has agreed to peace to people she loathes and thinks are despicable, she has married a man she does not love and does not love her, she has chained her dragons in the pit below, she has allowed the fighting pits to reopen. This comes to ahead at Daznak's Pit when she is at the height of her discomfort.

The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

And then Drogon arrives, and in the chaos of him attacking the boar and being attacked by the soldiers in the pit, Dany tries to calm him, but he spits fire at her, and she tries to tame him by whipping him into submission. Here, Dany is quite literally fighting herself. She herself in this moment represents the Queen of Meereen, someone who desires for peace. Meanwhile, Drogon represents the dragon inside her, who wants to unleash blood and fire on her enemies. In the end, Dany climbs onto Drogon and they fly away together, which foreshadows and symbolizes Dany's later decision to choose being the dragon.

Despite her frustrations in Meereen, the peace was a good first step. Not to say that it solved every issue, it didn't, but that doesn't need to be the end of it. Daenerys could forge new peaces, new agreements, and if she stayed in Meereen, she could implement great changes throughout Slaver's Bay. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone. The peace that was forged is now gone. Next comes war.

The House with the Red Door

Before we move on to Dany's final chapter and what that means for the future, we must take a look at a very important part of her backstory which is one of the main elements of her own story. Sure, destiny, greatness, prophecy, power, and identity are themes with Daenerys, but at the center of it all is the desire for home. Dany was born on Dragonstone, but was whisked away to Braavos, and there she lived in the house with the red door, with Viserys, Ser Willem Darry, and their servants.

To Dany, the house with the red door was the only place in her life she called home, and she has very fond memories of it, of Willem, or the lemon tree. But after Willem died, they were kicked out and forced to become beggars on the streets, selling off their possessions and travelling the Free Cities. The red door was closed and gone forever after, but the dream of having a home hasn't.

Daenerys has a desire for home, for love, for family. Throughout her childhood, Viserys would tell Dany all about Westeros, how they need to take back the Iron Throne, that the Seven Kingdoms were the most beautiful lands in the world. And sure enough, soon, Westeros represents the idea for home and belonging to Dany.

"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it. Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi." But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

Although she takes on the mantle as the new head of House Targaryen and carries on Viserys's dream of taking back the Iron Throne out of a sense of duty, she also does so for desire to belong in a place she can call home. It's a nostalgic feeling she gets of the old days, that she wants to relive again.

But then other ambitions get in her way. She frees the slaves of Slaver's Bay, and decides to stay in Meereen to try to ensure that her revolution succeeds. Thus, her quest for home is put on hold. Throughout ADWD, she gives up parts of herself, to try to become one with the Meereenese; marrying Hizdahr, reopening the fighting pits, chaining her dragons, dressing in the Ghiscari fashion, and making peace. But in the Dothraki sea, hundreds of miles outside Meereen, she finds that she wasn't being her true self, that she can never be the Queen of Meereen, or become a true Meereenese.

I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home. Except it wouldn't, not truly. Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

The series is all about the human heart in conflict with itself, and Daenerys in ADWD is one of the best examples of that. She was struggling with her two competing titles of Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, but in the end she was not comfortable with being the Breaker of Chains. This final transformation she undergoes in the Dothraki sea really sets the tone for what she will do in the future, and how she will change as a person and character.

Mother of Dragons

Daenerys X is one of the more bizarre chapters in the series, since it follows only one character alone with her thoughts, but it works extremely well as a character study, and the development over the course of the chapter is one of my favourites in the whole series. Through all the hallucinations and visions and dreams Daenerys has during this chapter, it's important to remember that they all (apart from possibly Quaithe) are her, so the discussions she has are with her own internal thoughts directly.

The topic of Targaryen madness reoccurs throughout the series, but it's ADWD where it is brought up the most. Now, the topic of Targaryen madness will be another post i will do in the far future and won't discuss in depth today, but the matter is that Dany is aware of some of it, even if she hasn't fully accepted the truth of her father. She fears that she is succumbing to the madness at points.

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.

Later, she implies this fear again to Barristan.

I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now." "And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?" "I am only a foolish young girl." Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer."

But in an early version of Daenerys III, the answer Daenerys gave was "myself". She fears what would happen if she "woke the dragon", as Viserys put it. She's afraid of succumbing to the madness that consumed her father and probably was consuming Viserys. She's afraid of what would happen if she unleashed her dragons, how many innocents they would kill. But in the Dothraki sea, she begins to question her decisions, starting when she woke up after finding blood between her thighs:

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.

The importance of this quote cannot go unnoticed. She thinks about Hazzea all the time throughout the book, feeling deeply guilty about what Drogon did to her. But here, at the end, she cannot remember her name. The in world explanation is that, of course, she is delirious from being in the wilderness eating berries and being sick, but thematically this is her slowly turning away from the people she freed. Next comes a dream with Viserys (long quote incoming):

She dreamt of her dead brother. Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes. "You are dead," Dany said. Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned. "I loved you once." Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed. "You hurt me. You frightened me." Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. "You sold me. You betrayed me." No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger. "You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited." I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me. "You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake." Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead. "You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …" I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.

The dream terrifies Daenerys, but once again, Viserys (really herself here) is telling her she is stalling in a place she doesn't belong, that she needs to go home, that she should embrace being a dragon. The climax of this comes right after she realizes Meereen would never be her home, where she argues with Jorah (again, herself):

Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. "I am dreaming," she said. "A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost." Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side. "You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold." For home. Home was all I ever wanted. "And me. You wanted me." Dany had seen it in his eyes. I did, the grass whispered, sadly. "You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me." I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen. "I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march." Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. "I had to take Meereen to feed my people." You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. "To be a queen." You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

And here is where everything changes. She has spent time trying to protect innocent lives, to make peace, not war, to be loved and accepted by Meereen. But here, she decides that it is time to do away with that. Meereen is not her home, Westeros is, and it's time to wake the dragon and burn Yunkai. No longer will she be burdened by the idea of a cost of innocent lives, no longer will she fear herself, and no longer will she linger. When the time comes, she will burn her enemies and leave for Westeros.

I need to make a few things clear here, however. For one, I don't think she's mad now, this is just her resolving her internal conflict. For another, I don't care what she does to the slavers. They deserve what's coming for them. She will still care about the innocent, but she's now going to go full-blooded Targaryen and burn cities to the ground, and this will mean massive collateral damage she will try to rationalize away.

Daenerys has now transformed into a different, much darker character, which I feel will continue to define her for the rest of the series. She is now the Mother of Dragons, in her entirety, and Essos is about to bleed and burn. I really appreciate how GRRM put this together, and that she didn't stay fire and blood after Astapor. His character development is realistic, and sometimes the development is not linear. In part 3, I will be discussing predictions about Daenerys's arc and story in TWOW, more specifically what she will do in Essos.

[tothemeadow]

Commissioned by @oozyhxney​

Tanjiro x Reader x Kanao

- You’ve been such a naughty brat, haven’t you? Too bad Mommy and Daddy don’t plan on being easy on you... -

warnings: NSFW, Mommy/Daddy kink, oral sex, leash and collar, degradation, slut shaming, spanking, ass play, choking

words: 1.5k

(a/n): It was specifically requested that this be a AMBW/AWBW, so this is for all my black beauties out there!

-

How does one beg for forgiveness?

Get on your knees, cry out for mercy, kiss your masters’ shoes? What about being positively broken and left a shuddering, crying mess?

“Fucking slut,” Tanjiro says, tone low, gravelly. Normally, he’s chipper and bleeds kindness, but when he gets pissed… Well, his bright personality throws itself out the window and gets replaced by this. You choke on a breath as he yanks on your leash, the tightly fit collar around your throat digging into the skin. “We literally pay you to give us all of your attention, and this is how you respond? Tsk.”

You want to bite back, argue that it was nothing more than mindless flirting at a nightclub, for fuck’s sake. The whole point of going out with your friends Mitsuri and Shinobu was to have fun, and you’d be damned if you didn’t take the chance to kick back and relax. However, as the late-night crowd usually goes, people become bold, wild; before you even know it, you were on the dancefloor, swaying your hips enticingly to the heavy bass reverberating throughout the club.

Vague memories flash through your mind; blaring music, the sweaty crowd, a sea of blue and pink lights filling the heavy atmosphere. There was a guy grinding against you, grabbing your hips and murmuring about how he wanted to take you home. You barely remember what he looked like, much less what his name was. Iggy? Iguana? Iguro? You don’t know, and frankly, you don’t care.

“She’s biting her tongue, dear,” Kanao murmurs. You wince as she lifts her foot and presses her heel into your back. “You want to say something, right? Don’t give us lip.” The pressure of her foot increases, making her heel dig in even further. “Admit you like to whore around, and we can all get on with our day.”

“I never said anything,” you hiss. “And I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Tanjiro chuckles. Craning his neck back, he glances to the ceiling, sucks on his teeth. “Not only are you a slut, but you’re a mouthy bitch.” Dropping his head back down, he looks to you with dark, hungry eyes. “Two people aren’t enough for you, huh? How do you think that makes us feel?”

Okay, okay, so maybe Tanjiro and Kanao do pay your time and your wonderful body. They’re a disgusting rich married couple who had too much free time on their hands, plus they were open to the idea of having an open marriage. That being said, they took an interest in you and decided to make you theirs. It’s all a part of this little “relationship” you have, and, if you’re being entirely honest, knowing that spending time with others makes their blood boil has you tingling with excitement.

“Oh, so having others drool all over you is perfectly okay?” Kanao drawls. Removing her foot, she steps around you, her heels clacking against the floor. Standing next to Tanjiro now, it’s easy to see that they’re the epitome of a power couple: dressed to the nines, clear skin, luxurious jewelry hanging from their ears and wrists. Their very aura screams wealth and power, and it’d be wise to tread lightly around them.

However, you like to give it back as much as you like to take it.

“If this is the reaction I get from Mommy and Daddy, then yes,” you purr. “I love it.”

Tanjiro scoffs. “Everybody wants to take a ride on the black horse these days, huh? Stupid slut. You won’t be happy until you have everyone’s cock inside you and fucking you stupid, huh?” Again, he tugs on your leash, but this time, he does it hard. You’re left sputtering for a breath, your eyes nearly bulging out of your head. “Kanao, I say it’s about time we teach our brat some manners.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Kanao says, a slight sneer coming to her face. Taking the leash away from Tanjiro, she tugs you to a stand and directs you over to the oversized bed. “Get on your hands and knees,” she barks. “Mommy is gonna teach you what happens when her precious baby decides to act like a fucking slut.”

Before you have a chance to say anything in return, Kanao abruptly brings her hand down on your ass. The sharp smack rings throughout the air, leaves you entirely breathless. Despite her small stature, she’s strong, and she isn’t afraid to remind you of it. So she does it again and again, switching between your asscheeks and making you cry out in pleasure filled pain. Your entire body jerks at her ministrations, your fingers digging into the duvet, your back arching.

“Well, why won’t you look at that,” Tanjiro hums. “Not so mouthy now, huh?”

In that moment, you’re grateful that your dark skin doesn’t give away your blush. Heat bubbles in your belly, travels to the tips of your fingers and your toes. Your whole being is on fire, and both Tanjiro and Kanao know it. They know the effect they have on you, and goddammit they’re so smug about it.

Shuffling onto the bed, Tanjiro casually takes his place before you. Fingers hooking onto the O ring of your collar, he forces you to gaze up at him. The look in his eyes is dark, intense. The set of his jaw makes his muscle tick. He’s practically bleeding with controlled anger, but little amounts of it are spilling. “Since you want cock so bad, take it for yourself,” he sneers.

Glancing downwards, a lump grows in your throat at the sight that greets you. Tanjiro’s cock strains against the sleek fabric of his slacks, looking almost downright delectable. The fact that he’s already hard over your misbehavior sends delicious tremors down your spine.

Tanjiro tugs on your collar. “What, are you just gonna sit there and stare? Choke yourself on my cock, you filthy slut.” With a huff, he undoes his pants and yanks out his cock. The head is already flushed a pretty shade of red; precum oozes from the tip from your prolonged attention. Flicking your eyes upwards, you’re met with an utterly sinful look on Tanjiro’s handsome face. “Well, what are you waiting for? Suck Daddy’s cock.”

You don’t have to be told twice.

Surging forward, you eagerly take his cock into your mouth; you moan at his heady taste, the pleasant weight of his sex against your tongue. Oh, as much as you love being a brat, you adore having Daddy gaze down at you like this, eyelashes fluttering and bottom lip tucked between his teeth. Oh, fuck, does he look so damn good like that. Slipping further down his cock, you lap at the vein underneath, hollow your cheeks.

“Shit,” Tanjiro hisses. Fingers abandoning your collar, they wrap around your neck instead. “Like that, you damn slut. Come on, gag yourself.”

“Don’t tell me that you’ve already forgotten about me,” Kanao suddenly murmurs into your ear. Her soft hands shamelessly grope the swell of your ass. “You really are that eager for cock, huh? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a shame I can’t rail you whenever, huh? I bet you’d fuck yourself silly on my cock.”

Kanao’s words leave you dizzy. Moaning around Tanjiro’s cock, you arch even further into her touch, silently begging for more. What’s more, Tanjiro’s grip around your neck tightens, directing your attention back to where it matters. He’s got his cock down your throat, inching his way further down with each bob of your head. Before long, he’s muttering curses under his breath; placing his other hand on the back of your neck, he holds you still as he bucks his hips into you, a loud moan ripping itself from the depths of his chest as he fucks your throat.

Behind you, Kanao sucks on her teeth, obviously unamused with her husband’s behavior. Now, she isn’t competitive, unlike Tanjiro, but when it comes to sharing you, her attitude can take a surprising turn. A squeal erupts from your throat as her fingers dip into your sopping cunt. You haven’t really realized just how wet you were until that very moment. Spurred on by your reaction, she quickly thrusts her fingers in and out, the sinful squelch coming from between your legs stoking the fires inside your belly.

“Fuck, fuck, baby,” Tanjiro groans. “Just like that for Daddy. Your mouth is so hot, oh my god-“

“I wonder what would happen if I do this,” Kanao purrs. Without saying another word, her tongue swirls around your asshole. You keen around Tanjiro’s cock, your pussy clenching around Kanao’s fingers. A fat drop of slick pushes its way past her fingers, coats the insides of your thighs.

“Our filthy slut likes this a lot, huh?” Tanjiro pants. “Dammit, I wish I had a camera…” Moaning around his cock, you catch his eyes, sending him a silent taunt. Tanjiro has the audacity to chuckle. “You’re in no position to be bratty, slut. Now be a good girl and let Mommy and Daddy have their fun.”

“That’s right,” Kanao mutters. “Be a good slut and take it.”

[bigfrozenfan-fanfics]

Chapter 15 - Valley of the Living Rock

Links: Chapter overview, Character list, Map, Glossar Rating: M over all Publishing cycle: each Friday at 6:00 pm CEST dst/UTC +2:00 on (link) Remarks: all my chapters contain carefully selected music tracks. It’s your own decision if you want to use them or not while reading. The purpose is to musically support the respective mood of the plot. If you can please use a browser for reading (not the Tumblr app) due to the text formatting and music.

Elsa could not avert her gaze as they passed the ice palace on her left about an hour after dark. She had placed her forearms on top of each other on the side of the wagon and supported her chin on her left hand while she visibly enjoyed the sight. A pale blue glow lit up the palace from the inside and made the filigree structure visible from afar. It was like a beacon in the night and beautiful to look at.

“This is what I should have created?” she asked Anna softly, “It is simply fantastic.”

“Yes, that was you, Elsa, all alone. I'll have to tell you the long story about it sometime after. It was your refuge and is now the home of Marshmallow and the Snowgies.”

Elsa turned to her with a questioning expression on her face. But Anna laid a hand on hers before she could ask for it and said, smiling, “Be patient. It's an exciting as well as funny story and you'll certainly have many more questions about it.”

Elsa nodded and turned around again afterwards. “All right", she said very quietly and, "I'd love to have a look at it from the inside,” more to herself than to Anna.

But Anna had heard it and said almost as softly, “You will, sis. We will visit your palace together. Hopefully very soon.”

Suddenly Anna remembered all the events when she was looking for her sister back then. Except for the pure beauty of the palace itself and the fact that she had met Kristoff on her arduous journey, however, she did not have very pleasant memories of it and she was somehow glad that Elsa did not insist on her story right now. There was plenty of time for that in another day; she thought.

But it wouldn't be easy for her to reopen her past, she knew that for sure now. She bit her lower lip slightly as she thought about it, but quickly shook the thought off again. There were more important things to do now and soon they would reach the Valley of the Living Rock. Her eyes fell on Olaf, who was sitting directly opposite her. Somehow he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, for he nodded at her in a knowing way and looked at her sympathetically.

But as if she had guessed the right moment in advance, Kristoff just called forward in a loud voice and asked Mattias to come back to him. Both wagons stopped and Mattias rode to his side.

“I know a shortcut and we have to turn off further ahead soon. The path is hard to see, especially now in the dark. It's best if I get in front of your wagon and drive ahead. Sven also knows the way and will lead us there safely.”

“All right, Kristoff. I'll let my people know up front, and we'll come after you. How long will it take us to get there?”

“A little over an hour, I'd say. We'll have to walk the rest as soon as the road is too narrow for the wagons. Besides, the area is very rocky and there are active geysers there.”

Kristoff saw, in the flickering light of the lantern hanging outside the wagon, how Mattias looked at him in astonishment, finally just nodded and rode back. Kristoff pulled up slowly when he saw Mattias waving. The wagon in front also had a lantern hanging on the outside and as he drove by he saw two sceptical looking faces. Trygve and Kristina were obviously not very eager to meet living legends from an ancient fable story in the middle of the night. He nodded at them smiling, “Don't worry, folks. The trolls are harmless. I grew up among them.”

But Kristoff did not see them grinning at each other anymore and Trygve tapped his temple with his finger and shook his head.

Olaf climbed to the front beside Kristoff and laughed in his inimitable way: “I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, especially the little ones. They're always so funny.”

Kristoff looked over at him and was about to answer him when Anna's head appeared between them and said to Kristoff conspiratorially quietly, “Kristoff, I think it's better if you go ahead later and make sure that only Grand Pabbie is waiting for us alone. I don't want Elsa to be frightened. You know how trolls are. Maybe you should warn him about her condition right away.” Turning to Olaf, she quickly added, “I'm sorry, Olaf, but you won't be able to see the little ones tonight.”

“Never mind, Anna, we'll visit them some other time soon,” he returned happily and laughed at her.

Anna looked at Kristoff again and he nodded. “All right, Anna. I hadn't thought of that yet.”

She put a hand on his shoulder with a smile. “Thanks, honey.”

When she sat back down again, Elsa grabbed her arm and asked, “Trolls? We are going to see trolls now?”

Anna pressed her lips together with raised eyebrows and wide open eyes and felt caught. Kristoff hadn't exactly been quiet earlier, and Elsa was now certainly feeling insecure. Why hadn't she instructed Kristoff before.

“Um ... well, actually only to one troll. He is very old and wise, has great amount of knowledge. You have seen him twice before and he has known you since we were both little kids. Kristoff and I hope he can help us with your lost memories. He has certain abilities, you know? You don't have to be afraid of him, even if he looks a little ... strange at first glance.” Anna searched Elsa's face to see if she seemed afraid.

But Elsa just smiled and replied, “I think I have many more miracles to prepare for. I'm beginning to feel as if I've woken up in a fairy tale that's come to life.”

~~~

Yelana had now been on the road for hours and stopped at a lively little stream to refresh herself and give the reindeer water. The advantage of travelling cross-country, as opposed to a wagon on a reindeer, was to save time and travel. She knew the area pretty well, so there was no danger of getting lost in the woods. But despite the time saved, dusk had already fallen and she would not quite make it to Arendelle in daylight. It did not make sense to arrive there in the middle of the night.

She looked around and found a good place to spend the night. The foliage of a big tree was very dense and underneath it was a small open area that would protect her from possible rain. At least as long as it did not pour.

She led the reindeer there and tied the line of the harness to a thick branch. Then she gathered lichen, moss and some mushrooms for the animal. Unfortunately, she herself had not had time to provide for her own food, but this area here offered enough plants that were full of edible berries. She gathered enough of them to satisfy her hunger to some extent.

She then cut off some green pine branches from various trees around her and used them to make a temporary camp for the night. Finally she sat down in front of it and thought about her next steps. Would the council in Arendelle even believe her? She had to find Queen Anna first and inform her about the new situation. It would change everything and possibly endanger the newly won peace treaty between Arendelle and her people considerably. Would she be able to help her to regain her place as leader of the Northuldra?

Yelana sighed and shook her head. Probably not; she thought. In order to proceed against Kolgrimr without endangering further human lives, someone with magical abilities would be needed. Someone like Elsa. Right now they were all so dependent on their fifth spirit, however Elsa was unfortunately out of action.

Yelana reached into her bag and pulled out her scarf that she once got from her mother. She put it around her shoulders and wrapped herself tightly in it. Lost in thought, she stroked the five symbols on it and thought of her past, of the time when everything was still in balance and they all lived in harmony with themselves and everything around them. Long before the fateful day when King Runeard appeared and since then everything, but really everything, had gone out of control.

The peace had not lasted long and she would have to fight for it now, even if it cost her her own life. Once again, she had been thoroughly mistaken about someone, for as it now turned out, Gyda had been giving her son shelter for years and unnoticed. It had probably been she herself who had poisoned her son's being with her hatred and had turned him into a monster. Someone who was now even willing to kill.

Under no circumstances was Gyda allowed to lead the people of the sun. Not ever. She would make sure of it. But Yelana did not yet know how she would do it. She needed support. She needed help from Arendelle.

She gritted her teeth in annoyance and disappointment at herself as she thought back to the Norting and what she had told the men there.

Gyda had lied right into her face and she had believed everything.

~~~

Kristoff stopped the wagon and jumped off the trestle. “End of the line. We have to walk from here,” he called out.

Rocks rose up to their left and right, and the path had become narrow and rocky. Further ahead, the steam of the geysers enveloped the rest of the path.

Kristoff waved back to Mattias and the other two drivers and then went to Sven to make sure that everything was all right with him and that he felt comfortable. Mattias said something to his people and then came forward alone.

“Are we there?” he asked.

Anna replied in Kristoff's place, “Pretty much, Mattias, but Kristoff will go ahead alone first and announce our arrival.”

Mattias nodded and got off his horse to stretch his legs a little.

“I'll be back soon,” Kristoff said as he came back to them and got a torch from inside the wagon. He lit it on the lantern and disappeared shortly afterwards in the fog in front of them.

They waited and it took at least half an hour until finally the other two came to them as well. Trygve carried the lantern from the wagon and asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No, it's all right. Kristoff went ahead alone and should be back any moment,” Mattias replied to them. He saw their skeptical looks, which were directed past him to the front and said, “You don't have to come along if you don't want to.”

“It's okay, General” Kristina said, “We've been through so much already, we don't want to miss the opportunity to encounter a myth.”

She looked at her companion, who nodded affirmatively, “We'll come.”

“All right,” Mattias said, “to be honest, I feel the same way, but keep your eyes open all the time, remember our duty is to protect the royal family at all cost.”

A few minutes later, a faint reddish spot dancing up and down in the thick haze like a will-o'-the-wisp announced Kristoff's return.

After he gave his okay, they all left. Anna walked ahead at his side, followed by Elsa with Olaf, then Mattias, who looked around attentively, and in the end Trygve and Kristina, who looked visibly nervous and kept peering back over their shoulders into the dark. Kristina rubbed her wet palms against her leg dresses.

The little geysers hissed and enveloped them in their damp steam as they passed them. However, after a short time the view became clearer and the narrow path opened up into a lower, almost circular area where there was a large rock. On it sat a quirky looking creature covered with moss, wearing a chain of yellow shining crystals around his neck. It was Grand Pabbie, the king of the trolls, who looked calmly and serenely towards them and had folded his big hands in his lap.

They were already halfway to the clearing when Elsa only now noticed him and stopped in surprise. She stared at him and began to nervously knead her hands in front of her. She hadn't expected this after all. All the others behind her also stopped and waited to see what might happen. Only Olaf ran on and stood next to Anna, who now stopped right in front of the troll. She hadn't noticed anything behind her yet.

The old troll bowed before her. “Your Majesty ..., Kristoff ... it is never a dull moment with you all. Only this time you're going to give me a real challenge.” He looked at Elsa in between them and it took a few seconds before he finally said something again. “She's afraid.”

Anna's head spun around and she ran the few steps back to Elsa, took her hands in hers to calm her down and looked deep into her eyes. “Elsa, you don't have to be afraid of him, really. He only wants to help. Please come forward with me, I'll be by your side at all times,” she said softly and almost imploringly. “Trust me, there's no danger at all.”

Anna felt her sister's hands tremble slightly and for a few moments Elsa didn't react but just stared at the troll. Then her sister took a deep breath and nodded. She looked at Anna and squeezed her hands.

“Okay, let's do it. Whatever come next, we'll do it ... together.”

Anna smiled in relief and led her to Grand Pabbie, holding one hand. They stopped in front of him and Elsa scrutinized him closely, looking at every square inch of the old troll and wondering how such a creature could even exist.

He was alive, there was no doubt about that, but his hair and eyebrows seemed to be made of dry straw and there even grew a small bundle of it out of his ears. His bulbous nose was unnaturally large and the small indentations in it, which were probably the pores of his skin, looked more like the surface of a weathered stone, as did his skin, which showed traces of moss. His moss mantle looked somehow ... fresh, as if it had been harvested in the morning dew and simply peeled off in one piece as a blanket from the ground. The transparent crystals he wore around his neck on a willow rod chain glowed from inside without any visible light source and it almost seemed as if this glow was pulsating slightly.

Finally she looked up into his night-black eyes and held her breath. His gaze seemed to penetrate her and literally nailed her to the spot. His eyebrows lifted and he stretched out his short arms towards her, palms up. He obviously wanted her to put her hands in his. She felt Anna's handshake and her thumb stroking the back of her hand.

She took her eyes off Grand Pabbie and instead looked at her sister questioningly. She now released Elsa's hand and nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, Elsa. That's just his special way of finding out hidden things inside us. This way he can feel and see what's bothering us. He can help you with that,” Anna said and looked into the troll's face. “At least I hope so,” she then added somewhat more quietly.

Elsa hesitated but finally raised both hands and slowly lowered them onto Grand Pabbie's large four-finger palms. When she touched them, all she felt was a cold, rough surface and a gentle pressure as the troll embraced her hands and held them.

For a while, nothing happened at all, everyone just stood there and concentrated on what was happening. Grand Pabbie had now closed his eyes and his bushy eyebrows were drawn together in deep concentration. There was a tense silence.

Then the old troll suddenly moaned and stared at Elsa. “You really have a big problem, Elsa, and I'm afraid I can't help you. You're under some kind of spell. Someone with magical powers has blocked the access to your inner self along with your memories.”

~~~

---

To be continued ...  

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment if you liked the story, I would be pleased to read your opinions, even criticisms. If you want to be tagged as soon I publish the next chapter please let me know, except you are already tagged :-)

Tagging: @karma26 @whether-near-to-me-or-far @annaofthenorthernlights @igotelsapregnanthelp @the-fifth-spirit-elsa ​

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

@volkswagonblues re: your post about fandom perception of iroh - i started writing my thoughts and i realized i had too many to fit in tags so here they are in post form

(tw: discussions of abuse dynamics)

i think he genuinely regrets what he did, has grown and changed from his days as an imperialist. there's something so lovely about how he treats people in tales of ba sing se, the way he's so genuinely kind to everyone he meets and encourages the best in them. and then we get to lu ten "if only i could have saved you". it's easily read as "if only i had been a kind man then, you would not be dead". i really do feel his pain there.

so, if iroh wants to maintain a relationship with zuko, he can't directly challenge zuko's beliefs about his father or his nation. he has to seem like he's helping zuko in his quest. we see that when he does challenge zuko's beliefs, it drives zuko away from him ("zuko alone", "the crossroads of destiny"). when he joined zuko in exile, he made the difficult decision to put taking action against his nation on hold to help guide zuko.

however, the fact that he only changes his ways after his son dies - that makes me a bit uncomfortable. like how did you not notice earlier? why did it take being personally affected to see this? even though he's genuinely changed, i can imagine many characters who've been harmed by the fire nation not trusting him. in particular, i doubt he'd gain the trust of many adults, who'd have clear memories of crown prince iroh.

i think his relationship with zuko might be where we get this idea that he did very little to fight against his nation. after all, he helps zuko in his quest to capture the avatar and clearly still holds some power. but i see this as actually a very smart way of dealing with someone who's trapped in the cycle of abuse. a trapped abuse victim is not going to take kindly to someone criticizing their abuser or trying to forcefully pull them out of the environment.* they think their abuser is good and correct and that anyone who criticizes just doesn't understand. abusers isolate their victims from other support systems to make them reliant on the abuser, to maintain control over their victims' lives.

*this is also why he doesn't intervene with azula. zuko being exiled offers iroh an opportunity to become a new guiding figure in his life, while both ozai and a trapped azula are going to resist any attempt to remove her from that environment. when he says "she's crazy and needs to go down" he a) has just been shot full of her lightning, and b) is supporting zuko in turning against his family. does he wish he'd been able to help azula? probably. can he take action to help her without incurring ozai's wrath or jeopardizing zuko's growth? no, probably not.

so far, i've been way more positive than i thought i would be, as someone whose blog title comes from a post saying "fuck iroh". i think that's because i see iroh mainly as...limited. if you want a fire nation character who takes a bold stand against their nation, you're better off with jeong jeong or zuko. if you want a mentor figure who can help a teen character who's been hurt by the fire nation, you're better off with characters like hakoda, bato, kanna, bumi, or tyro (haru's dad, underrated imo) who can relate to those experiences. i think having iroh be korra's spirit world guide was a mistake born of "old asian man must be spiritual" and "let's bring back a fan favorite", and aang would've been a better choice. iroh is a well-written character, but sometimes fandom (and the show creators, in lok's case) wants him to be things i know he's not.

regarding the question "lovable wise old uncle or hypocrite centrist liberal war criminal?" - i guess i probably lean towards the centrist liberal war criminal side of things, personally. not because i don't think he's wise about certain things (his handling of zuko, as i said), but because it makes it harder for me to like him. he's casually sexist (his treatment of june, the gender role gifts he gives zuko and azula), and i think he'd be casually heteronormative right up until zuko comes out, at which point he will become an overly supportive but good-hearted straight ally. he's clearly more interested in working within the system than tearing it down, since he focuses his energy on redeeming the heir to the throne over literally any other avenue for making change. it took being personally affected by the war for him to realize it was wrong. i could sit and have a nice cup of tea with him, get some advice, but i know there's a limit to what i can expect of him.

[orbitariums]

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟐)

part one

hi everyone, thank you sososososooooo much for all the outreach, i really appreciate it!!! i may be making a second taglist, so look out for that if you didn’t get a chance to be added to the first one (tumblr has a tag limit but there r ways to work around it, that’s why i had a limit as well!!)

thank u for reading!! stay safe <3

taglist is closed!

playlist

word count: 7.3k

warnings: age gap, sex work, smut, dirty talk 

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬

    Steve had never slept so well. He woke up that morning feeling like a brand new person. Rather than obsess over the meticulous, filthy details of the chat, which he knew would make him squirm now that he wasn't in the moment, he recalled the pleasure he felt and the relief he felt when he had finished. He thought about the connection he had made with you, how much he wanted to talk to you again, wanted to try another private session.

    But of course he thought about the sexual aspect of it. How could he not? He had cyber sex with a stranger, a stranger who made him come twice in the span of half an hour. A stranger who he was incredibly attracted to, both physically and personality wise. He found it hard to grasp that you were so comfortable revealing yourself in such an intimate way to strangers online, especially the way you had last night.

     And he admired it, even though it was so new to him. Because surprisingly, although he was the Captain America, quite literally the face of America, he could never be as bold as you -- sure, he had shared himself with you, but he was in his comfort zone and this was new to him.

        You on the other hand, shared yourself with thousands of strangers every night. Morally, he wanted to question it - he grew up in a very conservative time period. But he couldn't, because he had taken part in it and he had so much respect for what you did... it took courage. He understood the whole female liberation thing and the fact that you were taking control of your own body. So, he loved this for you, and for everyone else who did this kind of work.

    So the morning after that rare night, he found himself thinking only of you. In the shower, while he ran his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes, he got flashbacks to the way your robe opened as you slowly revealed your body. He felt himself get hard again, though this time he could find temporary release with just his hands, pumping himself to quick and easy release in the heat of his hot shower, throwing his head back and picturing your lips replacing his hands as he shut his eyes.

      At briefings that morning, everyone noticed Steve's change in spirit. He was less antsy, less to himself. He even smiled a few times, even looked better, like he had actually slept. It was like a few months worth of stress and an urge for intimacy had been lifted off his shoulders.

    "You look great Steve. Did you take my advice?" Tony asked after the briefing was over.

By the look on Tony's face, he already knew the answer to that question. Of course he hadn't heard Steve, the walls were soundproof (and for good reason, because if they weren't, he probably would've disturbed the whole tower), but he could sense it in how different he was acting.

    "What advice?" Natasha looked over her shoulder, curious to know.

    "Oh nothing, just guy stuff," Tony flipped his hand dismissively, and Natasha raised her brows,

    "Do I even wanna know?"

Before Steve could answer, his cheeks getting red at the idea of getting found out, Tony replied with quickness,

    "Last time I checked, I was just talking to Steve."

    "Carry on with your very important, top secret conversation," Natasha joked, narrowing her eyes curiously at Steve and Tony before leaving the room.

    "So. How was it?" Tony grinned, leaning in excitedly as he propped his legs up on the table.

     Steve went silent for a few moments, a serious look on his face before he broke out into a relaxed grin,

    "Honestly? It was amazing."

    Tony slammed his hand down on the table in victory, a big grin taking over his features,

    "Yes! That's what I'm talking about! I was hoping you'd enjoy it. I thought you might be a little prudish about it."

    Steve ignored the offhand comment and just chose to focus on the positive, nodding slowly and folding his arms over his chest,

    "I gotta thank you Stark. It definitely wasn't something I'd expect to be my thing, but I guess you learn something new about yourself everyday."

Steve surprised himself with that comment. Stark was actually right. Steve would've never in a million years thought he could be someone that would take part in anything revolving around cam girls, much less the action of masturbating with someone he hardly knew. He didn't even know it was a thing to begin with. He was both shocked, and a little anticipatory to see that he was actually learning new things about himself. He didn't expect that from him.

    "My pleasure Steve, I take pride in my work," Tony replied, referring to his "therapy." A beat passed, and Tony exchanged an expectant look with Steve, who replied with a confused face, eyebrows furrowed together.

    "What?" he asked, and Tony wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

    "You know..."

    "I don't," Steve responded, raising a questioning brow. Tony rolled his eyes and sighed in defeat,

    "The girl, genius. How was she? Who was she? What'd you do? All the details, my friend."

    Steve gulped. He had been thinking of you all morning, but he hadn't spoken about you yet, and he was kind of glad he had someone to share the details with. Out of respect for you, he didn't want to get too descriptive, but he would at least share his feelings about you.

    "Well, she was real sweet. Calls herself Moonrose Haze, such a pretty name. She's gorgeous, really enjoys what she does, which I liked about her. I really like her, you know? I think we had a real connection. I've been thinking about her."

    "Yeah well, don't get too attached. You know how that can go," Tony patted Steve's shoulder, and he nodded understandingly.

    Of course he knew that he couldn't get too attached. It could be dangerous for both you and him. For starters, you didn't know who he was for real, and he didn't need you knowing. And because he didn't know you in real life, he didn't want to get hung up on you. He already didn't have time for an actual relationship, bringing the internet into it would be a whole different thing.

    He didn't want to get too sucked into it, he didn't want to be brainwashed into feeling strongly for you before he really knew you. But he didn't feel that way at all right now - right now it was more of a feeling that he was glad to know you, glad to have made the connection he made with you. He liked you, and you were on his mind, but he wasn't obsessed, wasn't unable to think straight. He just felt nice and warm inside, that's all. It wasn't anything serious, not yet.

    "Yeah, I know. It's nothing to be worried about. I'm just glad to have met her, you know? She's so charismatic and hard working, she works two jobs outside of this one. I really like her personality. And we—" Steve cut himself off, starting to blush, unable to hide it on his fair cheeks.

     Tony leaned forward, knowing this would include the gritty details,

   "What?"

    "We..." Steve looked down as to avoid eye contact with Tony, who chased it even while Steve stared down at his shoes. "We - well - she... helped me." Steve cleared his throat, feeling embarrassed to bring up the memories that made his entire body feel as if it were on fire. He continued, "Helped me, you know... (he lowered his voice here) get off."

     "Yowza!" Tony hooted, and Steve's face could never be more red. "Steve, you truly surprise me everyday."

    "It wasn't like anything I've ever experienced before," Steve said, a bit more composed now. "I mean, it was- it was... she was incredible. I know she's a performer, but it felt so real, so intimate. And I think she enjoyed it too."

    "Wait, don't tell me she joined in on the fun," Tony raised his eyebrows, genuinely surprised, and Steve's head jerked up as he realized he had sort of revealed more details than he'd meant to.

    "Well, we-" he began stammering, but Tony just cut him off with an impressed smile.

    "My god. I would never expect it from you! Honestly, I'm proud of ya, Cap. You seem to be feeling much better now."

    "I do," Steve answered with finality, and Tony nodded.

    "Glad to see I could be of assistance. You can always come to me for these type of things you know. I've got all kinds of tricks up my sleeve."

Sure he does, Steve thought, watching as Tony walked out of the room. Now he was thinking of you once more - specifically when he would see you again.

                                                                                                                   ✺ ✺ ✺

    You started out your day not so different from Steve. You had great sleep that night, thanks to the powerful orgasm that practically lulled you to sleep, and thanks to meeting Steve. You liked him, too, thought about him with a smile on your face. You were in your apartment, a cheap, shabby apartment which you refurbished to your heart's delight, decorating with new furniture and plants however you could.

    It wasn't the most luxurious space, but at least it was yours. And it was what you could afford living on your own in California, where you were from, and paying partially for your schooling. You made good money as a cam girl, but most of that went towards school and your clothing business. You were a busy woman.

    As you logged on to girlsonfilm.com that morning to check stats and messages, you were met with memories from the night before. It was hot, sure, but you really, really liked Steve. You had lovely connections with some of your customers, but something about Steve was different. He was new, and almost naive, and had a personality you found adorable. He was mature and appropriate, and you liked that about him.

   As always, you were careful. Being a cam girl meant you had to be safe and smart. With Steve, you felt secure enough, but you were always careful with new customers. Once again, it wasn't anything serious... yet. Still, you felt a little lighter on your feet throughout that day.

     You were usually in good spirits, outgoing, determined and smiling, but today you just seemed a bit - lighter. Less worried about certain things like finances or your multiple jobs. It was your best friend, Aaliyah, who noticed the change in your demeanor. She tapped you on the shoulder as you sat in your last class of the day, which was at noon.

    "Yeah?" you asked, turning your head towards her - you had been sort of looking out into the distance beforehand, thinking all those happy thoughts that stemmed from last night with Steve.

    "Earth to YN? What's up with you, you're all... dreamy," Aaliyah hissed urgently, wanting to know everything.

     You laughed, looking down at your desk and bringing your arms together, shrugging your shoulders up and down,

    "Dude, relax. I just had really good sleep, I'm in a good mood."

    "Bitch. I know you're lying, you're my best friend of seven years and you think I can't tell when you're lying? Who has you looking so incredibly happy right now? I need to know so I can threaten them if they ever hurt you!"

     "Okay, the fact that you're already assuming it's a person is amazing," you chuckled, turning to face her, pushing your hair from your eyes.

Aaliyah knew how you felt about relationships - you weren't exactly looking for one as you were so busy to begin with, and you'd had bad experiences in the past. You pretended like they didn't hinder you, but pretending only worked for so long. But Aaliyah was always the first to ask about your relationship life anyway - she wanted to see you with somebody who would treat you right, the way you deserved.

    "Well? Is it?" Aaliyah prodded.

    "No," you shook your head a bit too strongly for Aaliyah to be convinced, and couldn't help but break into laughter at the way she glared at you, eyes narrowed and arms folded across her chest. "Okay, okay. I may or not have done a private session last night."

    "Mhm," Aaliyah lowered her voice - she was the only person who knew of your secret job, and she took your privacy very seriously.

    "Anddd, I may or may not have met a new customer," you continued slowly, Aaliyah repeating her hums. "And, we may or may not have... had sex? I don't know, it was - virtual, completely online."

    "But, you do this often," Aaliyah replied, not understanding the depth of the situation because you often engaged in sexual acts for or with your customers in private sessions.

    "Yes, but this time it was different. I felt like... I dunno, like my whole body was on fire. I felt like I was totally in control, and you know, I'm in control other times, but this guy didn't really know what he wanted, so I took the lead. And it was fucking great, I kid you not, I was shaking afterwards. It all just felt so visceral and so fucking real and so, so hot. And... it felt intimate."

     "Woah, woah, woah, this is sensory overload right now," Aaliyah raised her brows, impressed with the story and with the person you were talking about. "Intimate how?"

    "Like, I just felt really safe and connected with him. I was nervous, I wanted to keep him. I wanted to talk to him again. He was so polite and mature and so... just nice. Oh my god, and he tipped me like, hundreds. He was extremely generous."

    Aaliyah was nodding, even more impressed,

   "That's what I like to hear! What's his name? What'd he look like?"

    "His name's Steve. And, I dunno what he looked like, he had his camera off. Probably some white dude, but honestly he was very handsome sounding. So like, a handsome white dude."

You sensed a shift in Aaliyah's nature, and looked over to her.

     "What?" you whined.

    "This man couldn't even turn his camera on while you were popping pussy for him? Yet y'all had an intimate connection?" she raised her eyebrows, very straightforward.

You pouted,

     "Intimacy doesn't always have to have rules. I get a lot of customers who don't show their face. I'm sure he has his reasons. Besides, it was nice not to have a dick shoved into the camera for once."

The both of you chortled at that, but then Aaliyah went back to business.

   "No camera on? He's married with kids."

    You made a face and frowned, a crease showing up at your forehead,

    "Don't say that! I like him."

     Aaliyah let up a little, because she knew you were being serious, and leaned back in her chair.

    "You like him?" she asked, and you nodded, biting your lip,

    "Yeah."

    "You really like him?"

     You rolled your eyes,

    "Asshole, I don't really like him. I just, think he's cool. And I'm glad we met."

     "Okay, good to hear, 'cuz you don't know him and we don't wanna go too fast, girl. You've got options in real life," Aaliyah concluded, and you nodded,

    "It's nothing serious. I just like him, that's all. And last night was nice, that's why I feel so refreshed today. You don't have to worry about me. This isn't gonna become like the movie Her."

    "Ha," Aaliyah snorted, catching the reference. A beat of silence passed between the two of you, before you broke it suddenly by jerking your head to her to share an urgent detail you didn't want her to miss.

    "He fucking came twice!" you whispered loudly. "In the span of thirty minutes!"

Your eyes were wide and brazen, and your lips were pursed tight. Aaliyah blinked slowly, taking in the information.

    "Oh wow."

    "I know. And his moans, oh my god. And he said his dick size was three fingers long," you held up your hand and cusped the three fingers you had used - ring, middle, and index. "Literally huge!"

      "For your sake I hope it's true, if he's got you this hung up," Aaliyah smirked, and you laughed breathlessly, realizing how intense you had just gotten.

    "My fault. Don't mind me," you returned to your work now that class was getting started, but the two of you were consumed with giggle fits.

                                                           ✺ ✺ ✺

     Steve actually had put you down on his calendar - mentally, at least. He obviously couldn't drop everything just to spend time with you, but the late times of your shows and his current availability made him feel inclined to use his free time to share with you, at least that week. He almost tried to downplay how much he wanted to see you again, how anticipating he was, because it wasn't like him to feel excited, to smile to himself at the thought of anything.

     By the time you went on live again, on a Wednesday night, both you and Steve were filled to the brim with excitement. You wanted to talk again, and Steve wanted to see how you performed on a regular live. So that night, he took a shower, got tucked into bed like he had the last time, and signed on to girlsonfilm.com, which he typed into the browser with jittering hands. He was actually... excited. Something about this was giving him a taste of a feeling that was once rare.

    He typed in your name at the search bar, not even taking a second glance at the other livestreams on the screen (more because he was avoiding looking at so many naked bodies at once). You had already started by the time he came on, and you'd been awaiting his arrival.

    This time, your setup was different. You were in your "office", a small room in your apartment that served as a workspace for your clothing line, a homework/study area, and a place where you could do your work outside of school. But tonight, like many other nights, it operated as your cam room.

     It looked like a strip club, complete with glowing neon lights that shifted colors, an assortment of heels and alcohol bottles behind you, and a disco ball hanging above your head. There was even a sign on the wall behind you that read your name in fancy writing. You leaned forward on your laptop to see who had signed in, a smile reaching your saccharine, glossy lips as the name you were waiting for popped up on screen.

    "Steve!" you cooed girlishly, pushing your hair behind your ear subconsciously - you wanted him to see your face. "How are you?"

Steve, who was figuring out the chatroom, commented below in response, eager to hear your voice. A grin had made its way onto his face at the sound of your excitement to see him.

Steve - GrantRoberts

Hi. I'm great, how are you?

    You bit down on your lip, intoning,

    "Well, better now you're here! Guys, this is Steve, he's new here. Say hi."

     Steve skimmed past the comments from her devoted customers saying hello, and you continued with your show, seeming oodles happier now that Steve was on. You already gave it your all, now you would give your all and more.

Steve didn't even need you to do that much to sate him though - looking at your skimpy outfit was enough. You were dressed in a sheer, glittery white lace corset that highlighted all of your assets, with garters on your silky thighs to match.

    Then you were wearing these insanely long stripper heels, and boy did Steve have a thing for heels- you wearing them made him nearly salivate. Your lips were painted a sultry red and the rest of your makeup was dewy and glittery, with gems and glitter dust stuck to the sides of your eyes.

You looked ethereal, and the lucid background just made things even better. He was already hard upon looking at you, especially when you shimmied up close to the camera and showed your entire body, your hands running up your thighs and sides in slow motion.

    "You guys like my outfit?" you smirked, twirling slowly for the camera. "You know, I love being a dancer, but I get so lonely sometimes. All these guys coming through, but no one to really pleasure me. You know?"

    Steve swallowed hard. You were talking to everyone on the live, but looking directly into the camera, an intense look in your eyes. Tonight you were playing out the recurring strip club fantasy, which lots of your customers enjoyed - Steve was new to the whole thing, but he got the gist and story line right away. How could he not with how intensely he was focusing?

    You laughed a little, a sultry but brief laugh that made shivers run up Steve's spine. Right now, though you were glad Steve was there, you were in full work mode, pulling all the levers. You were focused, and Steve knew that you weren't only occupied with him. But he even liked that, liked your work ethic and your ferocity.

      "I guess I was just wondering if one of you were man enough to take me," you continued, starting to really pile on the dirty talk and the persona.

You kept showing different angles of your body, letting your customers admire you. You turned around, strutting slowly, one leg in front of the other, your heels hitting the ground. Steve's eyes widened at the shape of your ass as you faced the other way, head tilting as he admired your features.

He wasn't the kind of guy to worry about a girl's body type much, and he certainly didn't only focus on your body, but how could he not in this case? You were drawing attention to your every asset, and he was realizing just how much he liked them on you.

    Then you slowly twirled around, facing the camera again and lowering yourself down on your knees.  You pouted softly, as if you were feeling conflicted.

     "But, I haven't seen anyone here who's man enough to take care of me. I have needs too," you sighed, looking down at your nails, which, perfectly, were long and glittery acrylics. "Gosh, and the pay here is lousy. Some guys are so cheap, you wouldn't even believe it."

Kaching. Tokens being added left and right after you said that. You smirked, gazing into the camera for one minute, Steve catching your pixelated gaze, before you kept going. Steve added tokens as well, probably more than all that had been added in that moment. He was impressed by your strategies, and he knew that paying would make things progress.

    "I'm just so lonely and bored sometimes," you slowly removed the straps of your corset, revealing your chest. You ran your hands along the lace that was still over your breasts, licking your bottom lip. "Hmm. But I think I'll need more help to remove my top.

More tokens. More talking, more tokens. And soon enough, you had taken off the corset (garters left on, as per special request from many of your customers), and you were naked in front of the camera. Steve felt himself throbbing beneath his boxers, and stroked his length over the fabric.

    "Wow, you guys are great," you cooed. "And so much better than some of the other guys who come through here. But not good enough. Poor old me, looks like I'll have to pleasure myself, hmm?"

You wiggled your eyebrows up and down as comic relief while you opened and closed your legs very quickly, giving just a peek of what you knew they all wanted to see.

Ashton — asherw9 guyz, she clearly needs help spreading her legs. can we all do better? + 10 tokens

You giggled,

"Thank you Ashton. I really do need help spreading my legs for you, so I can get all nice and ready. So, tokens or bust."

Soon enough, you had them voting on toys to use as you went through an assortment. All of them were glass dildos with different designs. Each vote was a certain amount of tokens, and they eventually came to a consensus. Steve only voted so he could pay you, he had no idea what he actually wanted to see, nor any idea of how dildos differed from one another.

You smiled when you saw that he had voted, raising your brows at the option he had chosen,

     "Steve, you naughty boy. You wanna see me use the biggest one?" Steve blushed— he didn't know any better. But you were smiling, and reading the other options. "It looks like a lot of you wanna see me use the big one. I'll give you like, another minute to decide."

     A flood of votes came in and you read them over, smiling as you held up the biggest option.

     "This one it is!"

And there you were, giving a tease show as you danced sensually on the floor, wrapping your body around as you removed the bottom half of the corset. Soon enough, your entire body was completely revealed and you were spreading your legs open, your fingers dancing along your clit as you prepared yourself. Soft but sultry music played in the background, but all Steve could hear was the sound of your progressing pants and moans, which were soft and quiet.

     He had his hand wrapped around himself, finally out of his boxers, and he was stroking at the same pace that you were circling your clit with your fingers. He spread the precum peeking out from his tip down his erect length, pumping himself slowly as he watched you. He let out a strangled moan as you diligently slid two fingers inside of yourself, your face contorting as you felt them against your walls, reaching all the right spots.

"I'm so fucking wet," you whined, pumping your fingers in and out faster now. You were even more getting tokens and comments by the minute, Steve being the best contributor as he could with only one hand available.

He felt a hint of shame pang in his chest as he realized what he was doing — pleasuring himself online to someone who was doing the same thing for the hundreds of others watching. But in your case, it was for work. For a moment, he almost felt like a perverted loser, pumping himself to you in the dark — but he bounced back after remembering who he was, and after feeling himself throb inside his hands. He wanted to be able to enjoy himself, he shouldn't make himself feel guilty about it, so long as it was rightfully done.

You sighed loudly as you transitioned from using your fingers to the dildo.

"Guys, this thing is huge," you giggled slightly, but that giggle morphed into a pleasantly surprised moan as you began to slide it inside of you. Your slick arousal coated the toy instantly, making it much easier. Your face said it all, as did the whiny pitch in your voice. "Oh fuck."

Steve couldn't control himself. He came quickly once again, but continued stroking himself as you continued. And once again, his release felt cathartic, like he was filling in something that he had long been missing, and only you could bring him to this point. He couldn't do this himself before, not without you.

He wanted so badly to be in a private room with you, to share this moment with you and only you, where you could hear his voice and he knew the two of you were alone. But he knew this would have to do for now, his hands working his cock as he watched you thrust the dildo in and out, your moans growing louder and less contained.

    You watched the dildo disappear in and out of you, slipping in with ease because of how wet you were. The sounds it made were criminal and arousing, sounds of your slick against your walls. Your mouth fell open in an o-shape as you watched how well you took it despite its size, admiring of yourself and even more turned on, pushing it deep inside of you.

"Fuck, it feels so good, I'm so fucking wet," you whined, biting down hard on your lip, closing your previously ajar mouth.

Steve watched how well you took it with eyes that were glazed over, wishing it was him instead of a glass toy, wishing he could stretch you out and be that deep inside of you. He groaned to himself, mumbling expletives as he felt his orgasm build up.

"Oh my god, I'm close," you groaned some time later. You threw your head back, bringing your hand to your clit to assist your orgasm. You had been going at it for the past fifteen minutes, putting off your orgasms until you couldn't any longer. Steve was mesmerized, fists practically clenched around himself as you brought yourself to climax. "I want you to cum with me," you moaned. "Oh fuck, yes."

Your moans nearly became shouts as you came, toes curling in your six inch heels. You tried to grip the carpet around you, but to no avail, and you found yourself coming recklessly while the dildo was still inside of you, taking it out just moments after your orgasm began.

You were dripping all down your legs and thighs, the spot on the carpet beneath you completely drenched in your arousal. Steve had came again, and again, his cock twitching and spurring at the sight of you. The longer you rode out your high, the longer Steve rode out his — and needless to say, he could keep up.

You took in deep breaths as you got caught up, leaving your legs spread for your viewers' pleasure. As per one request, you lead your fingers to your slick heat, spreading yourself open so everyone could see, a smirk on your face.

     Once Steve had come down, he decided to type something in the chat.

Steve - GrantRogers

Thank you, this was wonderful.

You snorted at Steve's response — always so polite and proper. You closed your legs and crawled up closer to the camera so they could only see your face and your upper half.

    "I hope you guys liked that. I don't think I've ever used that one before, but trust me, I will be using it again. Thanks for the suggestion," you winked. "You can join me next week for a giveaway! I'll be selling my panties, those purple butterfly ones you guys love so much?"

You watched as the comments flooded with praise and excitement, and chuckled,

     "Yeah, those. So check in next week on how to enter, rules and more. I hope you guys enjoyed today, thank you so much for being the most beloved members of my little strip club here. See you later!"

Easily, you blew a kiss to the camera, and ended the show. At first, Steve was a little bummed. He was hoping for another private session, so he could talk to you a little more. But he understood that it wouldn't be today, and started to exit out of the site until he heard a ping! notification. He looked on the upper right corner of the screen to see that he had a new message.

moonrose — moonrosehaze hey! got a minute? click the link in the chat if you do!

Steve slowly clicked the link, hoping that it was what he was expecting and not some type of scam. And luckily, it was — it rerouted him to the same link as last time, giving him the option to hide his video and only use audio. He chose that option and you showed up on screen, in a silk pajama top and shorts, still in the same room as before, just not in the act anymore. Once he saw you, he grinned, and you smiled as well when he joined.

"Hey!" you exclaimed excitedly. "How are you?"

You typically didn't do this - usually customers reached out to you, not the other way around. But just because you weren't offering private sessions tonight didn't mean you couldn't still talk to a client. Especially a client who you happened to really like. And of course, the two of you were being careful, precautions still fresh in your mind. But you were enjoying your time together so far in this excited new beginning. There were no red flags and nothing to be worried about.

Steve laughed, his voice deep and almost cloudy - after coming down from two orgasms he felt dreamlike. His voice was warm and inviting, and you felt that awfully familiar buildup of an orgasm in your stomach, though it wasn't the same. Maybe more like butterflies, except instead of just being nervous, you were both nervous and turned on.

"Hi," he crooned, feeling his cheeks warm up at the sight of you. You were so enchanting and bright, even if you were behind a screen. You had a youthful glow that made you look and feel genuinely happy and vivacious. Even after just a few days, he found himself admiring you, and not just for your sexual prowess. "I'm great, how are you? You were amazing, by the way. That was... I've never seen anything like that before."

You giggled, appreciative of his constant praise, but it raised the question,

"I can't thank you enough. You've watched porn before though, right?"

At first, you thought Steve's innocence was only unique to cam sites, but now you were starting to question just how experienced he really was with this world. He seemed to know how to tip, and tipped very well. As for talking to you, he was charming and polite thus far, so he seemed to know how to interact with women who had jobs like yours - you hoped he was this kind universally, and not just to you. You hoped you knew him, the little bit that he was showing, not just a version of him that he was pretending to be.

Steve shifted a bit, smiling shyly to himself,

"Not really... do I sound that clueless?"

"No," you giggled, shaking your head, but he could tell you were just being coy, which made him smile.

"Be honest," he prodded you, and you laughed louder,

"Yeah, a little. But don't feel bad! That's a first. Usually guys your age are well versed in this sort of thing. It's... kind of sweet. And I like that you're new to this. It makes it easier to get you excited," you veered into flirting with him again, smiling gently into the camera.

"Oh yeah?" Steve questioned playfully, and you nodded.

"Oh, for sure. Listen, I'm really tired from my show so I can't promise anything like what I just did, but if you want me to pose for you or..."

You trailed off, but Steve was quick to jump in, shaking his head. He didn't expect anything from you at the moment, although he wouldn't mind, but if you were tired, then you knew your limits, and he didn't want to push them for his own sake. He knew it was your job, but he still had his own sense of morals.

"No, no, it's okay, hon'. You worked really hard just now, don't feel pressured to do something for me just because. It's nice to just talk to you anyway, you didn't even have to do this," Steve said calmly, and you felt your heart warming more and more with every word he spoke, especially when he called you "hon" — he gave you the energy of such a kind older man.

Of course Steve wanted to see something from you again - of course he'd cherish it, die for it. But he had been sated for the night, and talking to you was enough. Still in the back of his mind he questioned whether he should be talking to you like this at all - it was the second night you had spoken. But he pushed those doubts to the back of his mind for now - not now Steve, not now, he thought.

"Aww, thank you," you pouted out of happiness and appreciation.

    He acknowledged how hard you worked, and the fact that it was hard work. And he didn't have to be so gracious about it, so appreciative and the way he was. You were almost glad he just wanted to talk, even though you would've been willing to at least pose for him or dirty talk him to climax once again. What you'd do to hear his moans and hear his gruff voice in particular.

You continued,

     "I'm... I'm glad you liked the show. I'm glad you came, honestly. I know we've only talked once but I like you. I feel like we connected immediately."

Steve felt an unfamiliar pang in his chest that he brushed off as the typical butterflies that were spreading. He already addressed that this entire thing made him nervous in general, but he didn't think anything more of it.

"We did. Somehow, someway," he chuckled a bit awkwardly, and you smiled at his shy nature. "I'm— I'm really glad I came to. I was looking forward to this."

"So how was your day?"

"Honestly? I've been so much better since the last time. I mean, you really helped out. I feel like..." Steve took a deep sigh. "Like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders, y'know? What about you?"

"I know the feeling. I sort of felt the same way. Huh. Gosh, it's weird, it's not like we're-" you decided not to finish your own sentence, laughing as you brushed it off as silly. "Anyway. Today was great. Yeah."

"Yeah? You uh... take any classes today?" Steve asked, recalling how you told him about your life as a student and as an artist. He cringed internally at how awkward he was being. There was still that spark, but the two of you were both resisting conversation because you didn't want to face the reality of establishing a relationship with each other, even if it was just client to camgirl. It felt more personal. "I'm sorry," he chuckled to himself. "I'm not great with small talk."

"I mean, I'm sure - if I were a scientist, I'd want to be talking about, like, I don't know - nuclear physics. Environmental studies doesn't quite feel like your area of science," you giggled, and Steve remembered (though he hadn't forgotten) how he had passed himself off as a scientist. Maybe more of a scientific experiment, but it couldn't hurt to say he was a scientist, could it? He was surrounded by them after all.

Steve laughed, shaking his head,

"You'd be surprised how much I don't wanna talk about nuclear physics half the time. Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," you propped yourself up, wanting to know what he wanted to know about you.

"You like this, right? Like, being, well-"

"A cam girl?" you furrowed your brows together and laughed, shaking your head playfully. "You can say it, don't worry, I don't bite. But uh, wow, I guess no one's really ever asked me that on here. I do, actually. I think a lot of girls on here like this job, but I really love it. It feels liberating, which is great. But it also pays my bills. So it's a balance between the two. I can kind of be whoever I want on here."

"So in real life, Moonrose is... not a thing," Steve concluded, and you shifted. "If you don't mind me asking." He just wanted to understand the dynamics of this job, how you worked the ins and outs - almost like an agent. You weren't that different from his colleagues.

Usually you'd be a bit more hesitant to answer such a question, but Steve made you feel comfortable.

"It's perfectly okay. I'm still the same girl, you know? So it's very much a thing, it feels like Moonrose is... a part of me. But it's just not the same way it feels on here, if that makes sense. It's an act, but it's really... just me."

"I like that. And I like that you enjoy your job."

"Now, can I ask you a question?"

A pause, then Steve answered. It couldn't be that bad.

"Sure," he nodded.

"Okay," you bit down on your lip. "What made you choose me?"

      You hated that question - "what made you choose me?" It left a bitter taste in your mouth. So many times, in your relationships in real life, you felt like you had to ask that question to get reassurance. To feel supported. But with Steve, it was obviously different. And right now, asking that question didn't feel so bad. You didn't feel like because he chose you, you were special. You felt like you were special before he even chose you.

Steve grinned,

"Honestly, I had been scrolling for a while, but none of the other girls stood out for me. And I came across you and you were smiling and you seemed happy. You talked to your customers like they were your fans. You just made it look so charming and graceful. It felt genuine."

"Thanks, I try. Well, I'm glad we crossed paths. It's nice talking to you, even if it's not for a private cam. I hope that doesn't make you uncomfortable, doing this-"

"No, no, not at all. I was hoping I'd get to talk to you too, so."

"Oh," you chuckled— you nearly snorted, pushing your hair back and laughing in tandem with Steve. Your awkward moments together were actually fitting and charming, and didn't feel "awkward" at all. You presented as confident, sexy and seductive Moonrose, but Steve brought out the dork in you, made you feel less like Moonrose and more like YN, in the best way ever. "Cool."

Steve liked this. He reveled in the quiet for a moment, just looking at you, your skin glowing, teeth showing when you smiled, everything about you was evocative. But he looked at the time, realizing he had briefings in the morning.

"Well, unfortunately, it looks like I gotta go. Got... labs in the morning, and stuff."

"Oh, yeah for sure, no, go ahead. Gotta get your sleep."

"You too," he encouraged you, almost like a protective figure. "Get some rest."

"Thanks." You took in a deep breath and took the leap you'd been wanting to take the whole call. You loved talking to Steve, but you had been thinking about what Aaliyah had said. You didn't feel as bothered by it as she had, but you figured it was worth a try. You could see if anything would change. And maybe it wasn't an "appropriate" statement, but you were taking a leap of faith. "Wish I could see you. You know, through your camera?"

At first, Steve's heart dropped. He definitely couldn't commit to that. But he knew it was fine, he didn't have to commit to anything at all. He just chuckled,

"Oh, not this time."

You nodded gently, understanding. It was like you told Aaliyah, plenty of customers didn't use their cameras. But you wished you could see Steve, see the face that matched that enchanting voice and those lovely words.

"I understand. Well, I'll see you... or, hear you, next time?"

"Yeah, doll. See you."

And with that, he ended the session, and closed his laptop. Much to think about. And all of it revolved around you.

ahh how are we feeling!! i made their dialogue a leeetle bit awkward bc i didn’t wanna make it super mushy. it’ll be slow burn but not agonizingly slow jus wait on itttt!!! let me know your reactions!!! tags will be linked in a reblog :)

[ra-ttdrp]

All the broken puzzle pieces

Dr. Ra:

I look over what Tulsix was able to send me overwhelmed, I was so tired but sleeping would just bring on the Infectious nightmare and I'm forced to drug myself further to numb the worms. The worms naturally keep my body functioning so it makes me far more sicker again then if they we're working in there to keep me alive. A few days of constant work on it, visiting the babies for more blood going towards Nala (and Dathan's) poisoning. Checking on Gwen's recovery, hearing Marcellus complain though his condition wasnt as bad as everyone's else. I still had to come to his beck and call. I twitch having been caught walking down the hall to go see test results in another lab. He demanded when Caelus could be treated next. Its been a few days... I still wasnt sure.. it was..ready. I decided not to update the first machine, instead make a new machine. We might need the old machine for .. for..

I try to remember what Infection was left.. somewhere..

I felt so numbed to them now I couldn't even remember.

(Marcellus): "WHEN is Caelus going to be wok-"

(Michael): "You complain more then my granddaughter.." He tisks at Marcellus coming back from visiting Gwen.

(Marcellus): "Michael! Enough games! Where is he!?"

(Michael): "You cant visit him and get infected again you know..."

(Marcellus): "What about Nala.."

(Michael): "There is no point, both are frozen and can not speak to you."

I inch away to the door feeling like I can leave now. Michael stops me to discus the research on the baby's blood. How it seemed to be positively effecting Dathen. I almost got a complement for 'making them'. But he wont give me the credit for improvement and just betrays on about the small amount of hybrid wraith in Dathan did not prove the blood could help Nala. After seeing Marcellus's DNA structure get completely changed he questioned my methods, reminding me Nala had to be RESTORED in a complete and whole manner and not in some botched way.

"Of course sire, yes sire I understand.."

I say trying to blink away any amount of focus of me being here right now.

(Michael): "AND those names.. what we're you thinking?! UGH just get out of my sight and get back to WORK!"

I wake up from my zone out picturing dirt at his scream and dart for the other room.

Sterling came back from the Trydien sector to bitch about the lost General women, Korra being gone for so long meant there is no political puppet to dangle in front of them so he wanted to get her from Tulco but learned from Uriah she was gone.

(Sterling): "Is Gwen the only who can make her hybrid trydien race?! We need those creatures nullified if she cant then give us the Declension Serum. They are just as powerful as Bain Ones."

(Borin): "We dont know if that caused the Infection or not..its dangerous..no one is allowed to use it.."

He shoots me a look and I stand there feeling more pained at them talking about my greatest 'success' / failure.

(Sterling): "We've used it for years, it did not cause that...whats the point of holding those planets if your just going to leave us with it. Isnt your son the 'king' of Ingnitcore then why is it MY problem to keep them from ripping it apart?!"

(Borin): "I dont have the time to set Nash up there if I did I would have taken care of them far better then you can and have. Get out."

(Sterling): "I'm warning you right now, my Prince if you dont act we'll loose it...."

He leaves rather begrudgingly. I guess I cant ask his help on the job, he wont be sticking around if he has to go back there.

(Peli): "I could take Nash..."

(Borin): "No stay away from that little freak..."

He hushed back at her, much to her surprise.

He then yells at me much like Michal about how I'm not doing enough or something and another.

"Its true, I haven't been able to look at Gwen's..results as much dealing with..Caelus's recovery. But I dont see much promise with her memories. You know that."

I add in, knowing he spent all this time on it. My 2nd option wouldnt be much. Well it would be if I told him the truth.. I know that's Perry's venom. So they we're there..so close..

SO. close.

(Borin): ((I think she did it to herself, its VERY selective memory loss..too selective to be natural. OR you did it..I dont believe she could make something I cant crack...))

"And I can?" I cant mindtalk this weak.

(Borin): "I taught her what she knows!" He counters back and hovers back near Gwen who woke up gaging in pain again, hugging herself if that could help the bandages keep her together in more.

I think..what Perry did wasnt meant for her. It was way to strong. He must have loaded it for Bane.. like a nuke.

(Peli): "Its nothing, nothing your stupid father is going to shut up and let you rest.. dont wake up.. go back to sleep baby."

(Gwen): "N..no I.m...o..kay.."

I stare at her trying to make myself feel ok with withholding what I knew about that. Her insides we're probably going to liquify....

*twitch*

I take a deep yet labored breath cause my lungs without the worms keeping healthy feel like a 80 year old man who smoked his way out of a paper bag. The guilt was to much, I grab Gwen's blood samples and take it to a further away lab to try to stop the liquification. I slack off my research on Caelus's cure a few more days to accomplish this. At least the machine was being worked on, it was on a ship so it could be easily thrown into the sun just in case I also wanted the two way transfer to become a one way transfer..somewhere to be destroyed forever but I wasnt sure yet how to accomplish that. Break it into something compacted like dart yet I had a sickening sort of feeling to that for some reason. Then of course there was general transporter error.

Some day *is too drugged out and overworked to know the day of the year details* ;)

I'm on the Infected hive trying not to puke blood in my hazard suit trying to stay in attention for a meeting.

I prattle on my progress of the machine, well the hybrids building it cause I cant really do the manual labor, at least I got out of that. I was however doing the panel's myself that would be installed last by them when the time came.

(Soren): "How much gunk can you put on that one drone?"

"Oh..you'd be surprised how much..."

I couldn't remember now, how many on Xero...

He looks at me disgusted and focuses on the King trying to be very impressive.

(Soren): "Who goes in first?"

(Michael): "I will only risk Caelus's life if I must... if anyone goes in the new machine it will be Julian.."

"Will you allow me to try to break the buffer so there is no sacrifice?"

(Michael): "Do you think that's wise when this is the most important run though..if he turns out human it will be far better then any alternative."

"Of course.."

I try not to panic, I dont want to even imagine what the drone would be like with..all that.

My health decline for the last few days was now too apparent. The King ordered the only Lyratsian he had trusted, Dr. Quasar's specimen clone from the Safar Zoo to look over more calculations for Julian strain machine. Since whatever he did to himself to have infection full control must have went over my head and been some Lysterian secret.

(Quasar): "I am SO honored for another chance your majesty."

(Michal): "Just get on with it.." He shoos her away and I would have liked to see such a famous scientist at work checking the machine but .. passes out smacking into wall on the way down.